Chapter Twenty-Nine: Omega Pt. III
This would be their test
To claim their owed stewardship
Of green life's Mantle
Bridge of the CAS-Class Assault Carrier Shadow of Intent
Omega
One of R'tas 'Vadum's secure comm channels clicked, and as he glanced down to the tacpad on his wrist he saw that it was the fleet-wide command channel. This channel was reserved for him, the Shipmasters of the other five Sangheili warships around the Shadow of Intent, and the upper level of Sangheili ground commanders. After a brief pause, the clear and deep voice of their leader, Arbiter Thel Vadum', came over the line.
"The word is given. Take the station."
The line clicked off concisely, and Vadum' didn't waste a second. He tapped to the channel between his shipmasters and broadcast, "All ships, turn to port and prepare to initiate fire-plan Beta. Launch torpedoes on my order."
His bridge crew was already working, fingers tapping at holographic consoles, relaying the necessary series of commands to turn the Assault Carrier ninety degrees to the left. Initially, R'tas' battle group had been oriented with their bows facing towards Omega, with the Cerberus vessels several thousand kilometers off their port side. R'tas had agreed with Thel's idea that their ships shouldn't be pointed directly at the Cerberus ships, so as to not draw any avoidable only concession they had to make was that their energy projectors would not be positioned for immediate fire once the order to engage was given.
However, the battlegroup's plasma torpedoes were not so limited in their firing arcs, and could be launched radically off-angle from their target, curving up to one-hundred and eighty degrees to home in on the enemy.
"Fire," R'tas ordered across his fleet command channel, just a second after the maneuvering thrusters started rotating the Shadow of Intent through the vacuum. Lateral plasma lines, having been hot the entire time the Sangheili force had been in-system, vented their charges of superheated, magnetically contained plasma. Twenty-six plasma torpedoes shot out from the Sangheili vessels, eight from the Shadow of Intent, four from each of the four CCS-Battlecruisers, and two from the Super-Cruiser Jubilance.
The Cerberus vessels reacted rather quickly to the sudden hostile fire coming from their supposed 'allies', R'tas thought. There had been fifty Cerberus warships, seven that must have joined between Noveria and Omega, that had jumped into the Omega system and participated in the assault against Aria's band of mercenary and pirate defenders. After the last mass accelerator rounds had been fired, twelve of the Cerberus ships had been destroyed, all either Frigates or Cruisers. R'tas probably could have played a role in preventing some of the Cerberus ship losses, but the uncharacteristically low volume of fire the Sanghelli ships contributed in combating the Omega defense fleet was quite intentional. Preserving Cerberus lives was most definitely not one of the objectives given to him by the Arbiter.
Unfortunately, the Cerberus vessels beat his own ships in the turning battle, not unexpected, given their smaller, more compact ships being quicker to maneuver, and they were definitely within mass accelerator range. Before the Shadow of Intent could directly face the group of Cerberus ships three mass accelerator rounds had impacted on the energy shields covering its large, bulbous bow. R'tas, whose gaze shifted to the status symbols of the Intent's various system, gave a quiet snort when he saw that the shield percentage had only briefly flickered to ninety-five percent, then began to crawl back up to one-hundred percent.
A bridge officer called out that the Assault Carrier had reached the designated position and orientation. Weapons confirmed that Energy Projectors One and Two were spooled up and ready to fire, locked onto their respective targets. Thel reviewed the targeting data one last time, and finding that it was satisfactory said, "E-1, fire."
Even within the combat bridge, buried in the center of the bulbous bow of the Assault Carrier, behind dozens of meters of decks, bulkheads, and armor plating, R'tas could still feel the flooring beneath him shudder as the powerful weapon discharged. The thin beam of intense energy lanced through the darkness of space, bright white light illuminating the nearby pits and surfaces of Omega.
The energy projector from the Shadow of Intent was accompanied by five more from the rest of the Sangheili vessels, and in an instant six of the heavier Cerberus vessels were taken out of the fight for good. On the tactical display the Cerberus ships were labelled using their own weight designation, not the Sangheili versions, so R'tas could see that their new enemy's only Dreadnought, two Cruisers, and three Frigates were all sliced into pieces or cored right through their centers, the resulting primary and secondary explosions ripping the fragments apart.
"E-2, fire," R'tas commanded.
The deck shook again, and the second of the Intent's two energy projectors fired. This time only an energy lance from the Super-Cruiser Jubilance accompanied the second from the Intent, as the Jubilance had five energy projectors mounted along its bow, whereas the CCS-Battlecruisers only possessed the one, which now had to take some time to recharge. Two more Cruisers were sliced into pieces by the energy beams, while the last of the Cerberus ships were still getting off their first volley of mass accelerator fire, all of which was harmlessly absorbed by the Sangheili energy shields.
Jubilance fired its third energy projector, then its fourth, and its fifth, eliminating the remaining two Cruisers and knifing into a small Frigate whose frantic evasive maneuvers didn't save it from the Super-Cruisers top-of-the-line targeting systems and who couldn't outrun the speed of light.
Almost anticlimactically, the slower-moving plasma torpedoes fell upon the remainders of the Cerberus fleet. If R'tas was a more arrogant commander he likely would have turned his attention elsewhere. This wasn't a proper battle, it was more akin to a massacre. The Cerberus ships didn't stand a chance against his own; the offensive and defensive capabilities of his own warships far outclassed theirs. There was no challenge, no strategy, no need to exercise the problem-solving aspects of the mind and draw from years of battle experience to be found here, only the necessity of issuing and clarifying basic orders. Even the UNSC had done better against them in the early parts of the war when the shock value of the Covenant warships had been at its maximum, something that did not go unnoticed by most of his bridge crew who shared knowing looks with each other.
Twenty-four of the twenty-six plasma torpedoes hit their targets, a rather impressive accuracy percentage given the relative maneuverability of the smaller Cerberus ships. R'tas reasoned that their unfamiliarity with the tracking nature of the plasma torpedoes, as well as the element of surprise of taking fire from their supposed allies, even though that trust was minimal at best, contributed to the deadliness of their first torpedo volley.
R'tas watched as the plasma projectiles splashed over the kinetic barriers of the enemy ships, the barriers disrupting the magnetic bottle of the torpedo upon impact. Unfortunately, the barriers were easily close enough to the ship's hull that the suddenly released and slow-moving plasma expanded right through the barriers and turned the adjacent hull areas into molten slag. The torpedoes' superheated and condensed plasma, capable of burning through meters of superdense UNSC armor, expanded into a veritable cloud around the targeted ships, who relied primarily upon barriers for protection. Even the dispersed plasma was more than sufficient to boil through hull plate, destroying barrier projectors and allowing the follow-up torpedoes to smash unhindered past the molten outer hull and through multiple decks, flash-burning any crew members alive and combusting critical ship components.
The remaining three Cerberus ships, turned and tried to disengage, aligning for FTL towards the Mass Relay that served as their only means of escape. Unfortunately, the ships had been expecting to attack targets at sublight, most of their available energy directed to weapons, barriers and sublight engines. It took time to bring their mass effect cores up to full readiness so they could jump to FTL speeds. Time they didn't have before the Sangheili battlegroup's energy projectors were charged again, and a volley of six lances of pure white energy erased the three frantically maneuvering frigates from existence.
After a quick sensor sweep of the area and confirmation that all Cerberus warships had indeed been destroyed, R'tas clicked on the command channel. "This is 'Vadum. All Cerberus warships destroyed."
From the consoles underneath his raised command platform, he heard FlightOps barking orders, having been organizing the launch of the battlegroup's fighter compliment immediately following the first volley of energy projectors, but also launching and coordinating the escorts of the hundreds and hundreds of troop and vehicle transports that were now streaming towards Omega.
He watched the two separate waves race away on their designated paths, one group set to intercept and destroy any Cerberus fighters that had survived the destruction of their main fleet, the other group dead-set on their Omega landing zones.
R'tas had to stop himself from sighing. He wished he could be on one of those Phantoms or Spirits racing towards combat on that unholy station, leading a unit of Special Operations Sangheili and wreaking havoc amongst his enemy. However, his place was here, on this command platform, and he had accomplished his task of destroying the Cerberus ships remarkably well, even it it hadn't been the most adrenaline-inducing naval battle in his military career. He was sure that more of those would be soon to come.
"The order is given. Take the station."
"All troops, engage." With the command uttered, Ultra Rael 'Harum raised his Plasma Repeater and fired a four-round burst into the head of the Cerberus Centurion that was standing a few feet in front of him.
The first two magnetically-contained bolts of superheated plasma splashed against his barriers, the heat easily scoring and shorting out the shield projectors in his armor, allowing the second two shots to turn his head into a horrid mix of skull and melted armor plating. 'Harum shifted targets to an armored Assault Trooper a couple of feet to the left of the Centurion who was just starting to react to the whine of the Sangheili plasma weapons. Unshielded, the plasma from his weapon didn't have any resistance to worry about as it melted its way through the armor plating designed to deal with projectiles, exploding the soft internal organs and tissue protected within to deadly effect.
The next Assault Trooper fared no better, except he managed to spin around and raise his rifle about halfway before his upper chest and neck exploded as well. 'Harum heard additional plasma whines near to him and, upon looking around, saw that his two personal Sangheili guards had just finished dispatching the unarmored Cerberus command staff that had populated the chairs and manned the consoles in the deployed Command and Control Center.
'Harum and his two guards then hosed the consoles with short bursts of weapons fire, rendering them useless piles of molten circuitry. Shame, 'Harum thought briefly. The Cerberus command post had been rather efficient, from what he had observed as their former 'allies' had combated Omega's resident pirate, mercenary, and criminal defenders. But now, with the death of all of the officers that had coordinated the Cerberus troops, there was no need for their command center.
"Harum looked to his two guards, who both nodded at him, ready to follow him out of the door of the prefabricated command center and into the large hangar that had been the main gathering point for both 'Harum's battalion, augmented by both Rangers and SpecOps Sangheili, and the Cerberus ground forces.
The three Sangheili rushed out, weapons raised and looking for targets. Their preparedness turned out to be unnecessary, though. 'Harum's battalion had fallen upon the unwary Cerberus forces like bolts of lightning once the kill order was given. The Sangheili Ultra ran out of the former command center into a scene filled with the dead or falling bodies of Cerberus soldiers, scored and marred by plasma or Carbine projectiles. Floating troopers, suspended in the air by the Asari biotics who had been integrated into his battalion, started to fall back down, lifeless corpses impacting the ground with armored thuds. What light vehicles had been brought from their ships were now burning husks, courtesy of numerous Fuel Rod projectiles and Type-52 Guided Plasma Munitions. The company from the Fixed Weapons and Fortifications battalion that had attached to his own had turned their Shade turrets and Mounted Heavy Plasma Repeaters on Cerberus as well. The air smelled of ozone from plasma discharge and burnt metal and flesh, smells so typical to 'Harum that he didn't even need to think in order for his mind to filter them out.
Speed was of the essence now, a large part of their element of surprise having been expended with the sudden slaughter of the Cerberus hangar defenders. They had been outnumbered two to one by his battalion, though, as most of the Cerberus forces had dispersed throughout Omega to combat the station's defense forces during the initial assault.
'Harum lowered his Plasma Repeater, holding the front grip in his left hand while his right dialed in BattleNet comm channels on his left wrist TacPad. "Companies Bravo, Charlie, and Delta, proceed to your objectives via your designated causeways. Company commanders now have prerogative to proceed as they see fit. Alpha Company, clean-up duty in the hangar."
Alpha Company was 'Harum's personal command within the battalion, and while his guards started to follow his orders and firing into any Cerberus body that seemed to twitch, he made sure his orders had translated into the battalion BattleNet interface. Meanwhile, the other three companies regrouped and rushed off to their assigned objectives. As 'Harum found another body to shoot who he thought had twitched, his mind went over the first part of the Sangheili plan to assault the station. Using the station plans acquired from the Cerberus Dreadnought, thanks to their Huragok, 'Harum had marked the three main paths that lead from the main Omega hangar throughout the rest of Sanghelli attack plan designated them as Causeways 1, 2, and 3.
The company of Sangheili Rangers had split up between Causeways 1 and 2, getting into position to secure key intersections and pathways right when the betrayal order was given by the Arbiter. The company of Special Operations Sangheili, also attached to 'Harum's battalion, had done the same for Causeway 3. Now, the three companies that he had sent down their respective Causeways were tasked to reinforce those advanced units and make sure that they held the critical positions, allowing the soon-arriving main Sangheili Assault force to move efficiently throughout the station. Bravo, Charlie, and Delta were each accompanied by four Mgalekgolo from the Heavily Armored Infantry platoon that had gone down with them to give them some extra punch. His own Alpha Company, now greatly augmented by the remaining eight Mgalekgolo pairs, would serve as a quick reaction force to the units holding said Causeways.
Only a minute after the Arbiter's orders had came down, a flight of twelve dropships came screaming into the hangar, the wide energy barrier separating the inside of the hangar from hard vacuum more than large enough to accommodate them. This group, ten Phantoms and two Spirits carrying a Wraith Tank in their electromagnetic suspension fields, took a few seconds to orient themselves in formation, then all shot off at once above Causeway 2. One of the main roads branching off of that particular Causeway led to the Afterlife Club, whose central location and status of significance as the place of 'rule' for the station meant that the Arbiter wanted to set up his own command center there. So, those first wave of assault Sangheili went straight to his position.
Now the main Sangheili assault force would be streaming in he would be relegated to monitoring the progress of his soldiers through comms channel, awaiting a call for reinforcements.
"Zaeed, if you miss - "
"I won't miss."
Zaeed sighed, shifting a bit in his chair. He and Jack were currently in a second-floor bedroom of a larger residence in an abandoned building. The room itself wasn't noteworthy, other than the small, dusty bed, a couple of chairs, an end table, and peeling walls. However the musty space did have one thing going for it - an unobstructed view to another abandoned residence building about a hundred meters down the street, one door in particular…
He took the eye off of the scope of the M-92 Mantis mounted on its bipod on top of a small table he was sitting behind, this time absolutely sure that the range and angle was correct for the area he was looking to target. Since there had been a sudden decrease in ground and air vehicle traffic, once Cerberus had attacked, there was no sightline obstruction or anything like that to worry about. Omega had nothing to simulate any type of wind, only the stale air wafting from its life-support systems.
Zaeed thought back to all of the torture and killing it had taken to extract the location of Aria's primary safehouse, and how lucky the timing of the Cerberus attack on the station was. Aria had been forced out of her fortress, and now had a heavy chance of coming here, where Zaeed and Jack were conveniently located. It certainly wasn't easy, getting into this non-descript bedroom without leaving any warning signs for Aria's bodyguards, as he and Jack had had to blitz through a number of both Cerberus and Omega station natives alike, leaving nothing but dead and mangled bodies in their paths.
As Zaeed went back to looking through the scope of his sniper rifle, mounted on the end table on a bipod while he sat in a chair, Jack swallowed her last energy bar and washed it down with the electrolyte beverage from her canteen. Hopefully, everything would go well from here. Aria would appear, scurrying into hiding, Zaeed would explode her skull with a warp-enhanced sniper round, specially provided by Jack, to punch through Aria's personal biotic barriers, and then the two would haul ass to their personal ship and get as far away from the shithole that was Omega as fast as they could. As easy as any other job he had ever done, especially at this range.
"Movement," Jack alerted. She was peering out the only window of the room, which was open but covered with a light netting that Zaeed had pinned up, obscuring them from anyone trying to look in, but which allowed them to look out with hardly any trouble. "I see four figures, about two hundred meters down the street."
"Cerberus?" Zaeed asked.
"No, armor's different. One's a Krogan, actually, has to be," Jack observed.
"Aria," Zaeed muttered happily. He clicked the safety off of his Mantis and returned his sight to the scope. He had a clear field of fire on the door to Aria's 'unknown' safehouse and some portion of the approach to it. Headshot on a moving target at about one hundred meters… Cakewalk.
Jack removed herself from the window so as to not take any chances of inhibiting Zaeed's sightlines and sat herself on the small bed within the room. "I swear to God, you old man, if you miss..."
"I won't fuckin' miss," he growled back, exasperated. Zaeed could tell his biotic companion was a little more wound up than usual. The strain of recent combat, adrenaline surges, and the mounting suspense of their next potential kill were all contributing to the young woman's nervousness.
Zaeed was as cool as always, the uncanny calm that always came to him behind the trigger of a rifle setting in for the upteenth time today. Movement came into view of his scope. There were four figures, like Jack had said. One was obviously Krogan, his massive bulk gave that away instantly, one was a Batarian, and one was a Turian. The last figure of the four was an Asari, who was a very particular shade of purple…
The longtime mercenary centered his sights on the head of Aria T'Loak, grateful that her three bodyguards were busy looking for any signs of trouble and not getting in the way of his shot. Aria's group was obviously headed towards the door of the safe house that would get them out of the unsecure streets, but if Zaeed had anything to say about it, she would never make it there.
He steadily exhaled all of the oxygen out of his lungs and stilled his breathing, so as to eliminate any potential sway in his weapon. Centering the crosshair right on Aria's temple a hundred meters away, then shifting it to the right just a hair, in order to compensate for the Queen of Omega's thankfully steady movement. His finger moved to the trigger and started squeezing ever so gently…
The building shook just as Zaeed's finger exerted the specific amount of pressure needed to act on the trigger, Making his shot miss Aria's head by just a couple of inches to the a 'guddam' was about to leave Zaeed'smouth, he suddenly found himself being propelled through the window of the second story bedroom and fell twenty meters down to the road below. The impact wasn't as… crunching, as he would have expected, and as he swiveled his head around in a frantic attempt to determine what the hell had happened, he saw Jack a couple of feet away from him in a kneeling stance, hands extended and swirling with blue biotic energy. Zaeed now noticed that same blue aura was surrounding his body as well, and surmised that the biotic woman must have cut his fall.
The mercenary got quickly back up to his feet, eyes drawn towards the second floor window he had been just ejected from. What he saw, however, was something straight out of a nightmare.
The 'thing' was over eight feet tall, bipedal, with deathly grey-blue skin lined with black, almost wire-like, lines. An open abdomen exposed organ-like objects which were connected to the rest of the body and its 'mouth' by tubing caked with viscous blue-black liquid. The head, more a long, thin metal plate with two pulsing blue eyes embedded into it, protected a pulsating purple-blue sac that made up the thing's cranium and ran about halfway down its back. There seemed to be some kind of underslung cannon on its right arm, attached through the flesh and oozing piping, which was pulsating with the same purple-blue energy that its head-sac was.
"What in the fuck is that?" Zaeed asked in disgust, thankful that he'd retained a grip on his sniper rifle during his recent fall.
"Looks angry," Jack quipped, palms again surrounded by biotic energy.
What it really was was an Adjutant, the end result of the research conducted at the Noveria base where Cerberus scientists combined their effort in reverse engineering Reaper tech with the fascinating substance they had discovered in the ancient ruins they had found. Those ruins had been Precursor, and that fascinating substance had been ancient Flood spores, not that the Cerberus scientists had known that.
As a result, just one mishandling of the spores by an unwary scientist had resulted in a cascading infection of the entire facility, which thankfully had been sealed off before it could spread across the planet. Before the break of containment however, Cerberus scientists had managed to combine the worst of the two horrendous pieces of biological weaponry, with the Reaper tech enhancing the durability and offensive capability of the host while the Flood spores granted it their horrifying powers of rapid productivity. The original test hosts, all captured Asari, had granted the grotesque monsters biotic powers, a major plus for the Cerberus scientists. The Illusive Man had originally intended for the Adjutants to be deployed on Omega in the case of a Cerberus military loss during their takeover, although he assumed such an event would be at the hands of Aria's forces, not the unexpected Sangheili.
The monster jumped down then and, although Zaeed did not see its pipe-mouth move, the thing still roared with a bass sound that shook the mercenary's teeth. It's arm-cannon lit up and fired a blue projectile of energy at the two, travelling fast, but not nearly as fast as a conventional rifle projectile. Jack swung her left arm sharply as the monster's projectile was about to reach them and the teardrop of energy was diverted to their right and into the ground where it started to eat through the metal road.
"It's biotic! Shoot the fucker!" Jack shouted, hitting the Adjutant with a Warp. The disrupting biotic projectile from the woman splashed over the center-mass region of the Adjutant, chewing into the thing's biotic barrier. Zaeed raised his rifle, not bothering to look through the scope since the thing was only about ten meters away, and fired a powerful warp-enhanced round right into the Adjutant's face. The enemy's barriers, already weakened by Jack's Warp, could not stand up to the directed penetrative force of the warp round from Zaeed's Mantis, and what resulted was a shot that entered just above one of the things eyes and created a baseball-sized exit hole in head-sac.
The Adjutant staggered back, but the two didn't relent. Jack detonated her Warp with a biotic throw, the explosion depleting the rest of the monster's biotic barriers and shearing off its cannon arm and most of its right side. Zaeed racked the bolt of the Mantis and fired again, this time center mass. This round wreaked havoc in the exposed organs cavity of the Adjutant, sending spurts of black blood and tissue spraying. Zaeed chambered another round and fired once more, this shot taking a large chunk out of the Adjutant's lower head, nearly severing it from the rest of its body.
Jack capitalized on this shot, arcing a vicious throw into its head that contained so much force it finished the job that Zaeed's Mantis had started, decapitating it. Still holding his Mantis by the forestock in his left hand, Zaeed reached to his back with his right hand and grasped the grip of Jesse, pulling it over his shoulder and free from his magplates. He pushed the stock into his shoulder and hosed the staggering form of the Adjutant until the barrel started smoking and the creature fell to the floor with a heavy thud, remaining still.
Another roar assaulted Zaeed's ears, then another, then still another. He and Jack swiveled around towards the source of the noise and saw three more Adjutants attacking Aria's small band. Zaeed immediately noticed that the Turian and Batarian were lying dead on the road, the mutilation of the corpses visible even from several dozen meters away. Two of the Adjutants were hammering Aria and her surviving Krogan bodyguard with biotic attacks, which the Asari was skillfully yet desperately countering and deflecting, while the last one starting running with surprising speed at the Krogan.
The Krogan let out a battle cry of his own and charged to meet the oncoming opponent. What he saw, Zaeed would never forget. The Krogan and the Adjutant clashed with arms outstretched, the momentum of both halting as they collided in an impressive display of force and power. The Krogan and the Adjutant grasped each other's arms in almost a wrestling-like stance, the Krogan widening his stance to give him more power from his base. The fight ended there however, as the Adjutant, limbs strength-enhanced far above the norm via Reaper tech, flexed its distorted muscles and crushed the Krogan's forearms beneath its grip. The Krogan roared in pain, but the Adjutant wasn't done there. Now grasping Krogan bone, the monster jerked its own arms backwards, ripping both of the Krogan's limbs completely from their shoulder sockets.
The sound of the tearing of flesh, muscles, tendons, and ligaments, the cracking of bones, and the liquid spurting of blood was terrible Now incapacitated, the Adjutant slammed its arm-cannon right into the armored chest of the Krogan, firing a blast of biotic energy that warped through the armor plating and into the skin beneath it. The Adjutant withdrew its cannon arm back, cocked it back, then plunged it into the weakened hole it had just made, embedding the cannon several inches into the Krogan's thoracic cavity. The cannon fired again, this time the blast of biotic energy imploding the Krogan from the inside-out into a shower of bloody bits.
Aria T'Loak, now bereft of any protection, turned her attention to the much closer Adjutant who had just so brutally killed her last remaining bodyguard. She hurled a Warp into the face of the creature, not a few meters away, which started eating away at its biotic barrier. When her Warp detonated in a storm of mass effect energy which staggered the Adjutant back and tore off a large portion of its left arm, the Asari swiveled her head in Jack and Zaeed's direction.
Jack, who had actually predicted what biotic technique Aria was going to sling, had arced a perfectly accurate Throw into the left flank of the Adjutant from their position several dozen yards away. "I'm not letting these Reaper fucks steal our kill."
"Guddam right," Zaeed growled, his Mantis already braced in his arms and aimed at the Adjutant. Jack had called these things Reapers. They had to be, Zaeed thought, they looked too similar to the different Reaper husks he had seen on the extranet recently. Either way, he put a warp round right into the head-sac of the wounded Adjutant, sending it crashing to its knees. He racked the bolt of the weapon and fired into the head-sac again, the two rounds having shredded it to pieces. Now, with space to maneuver having been created by the fall of the closest Adjutant, Aria turned and ran in the only direction of relative safety that she saw - towards Zaeed and Jack.
Zaeed ejected the spent thermal clip from his Mantis and slid a new one home. He had had only one thermal clip's worth of warp rounds, and he didn't know if the standard round from the sniper rifle would be as effective against these new foes as the biotically-enhanced one, but he was sure as hell going to find out very quickly.
As Aria got closer to the pair Zaeed could see through his scope that the remaining two Adjutants, instead of chasing after the three of them, quickly ran over to the corpses of Aria's former Turian, and Krogan bodyguards, kneeling over them. Zaeed fired a round at one of the Adjutants, and although the round did not penetrate the thing's biotic barriers, it did make it flinch a little. Not taking his eyes off the scope, Zaeed chambered another round, seeing that from the Adjutant's 'mouths' spewed some kind of sickly blue-green liquid that splashed all over the prone forms of the dead bodyguards. As Zaeed fired again to the same effect Aria finally arrived next to them.
"Twenty-five million to not try and kill me, plus my word that I'll leave you alone from now on," Aria said, turning to face in the direction of the Adjutants and getting back into a battle stance.
Zaeed and Jack shared a quick look, both thinking the same thing. Whether they despised her or not, twenty-five million was not a small sum, and both knew that Aria could easily provide it. Jack gave Zaeed a slight nod, and the mercenary spoke.
"Deal. What's the plan?"
"I don't know yet," the recently deposed Queen of Omega admitted, "First, kill those assholes over there?"
"Sounds good," Zaeed grunted in agreement. One of the two Adjutants stopped kneeling over the body of the dead Krogan, raising its arm cannon and firing a powerful Shockwave that rippled across the road towards the trio.
Aria put up a biotic barrier wall a couple of feet in front of them which Jack reinforced, absorbing the Shockwave with little trouble. As Aria dropped her barrier Jack sent a Warp into the chest of the now approaching Adjutant which was almost immediately detonated by a follow-up Throw from their new Asari ally. As the Adjutant reeled from the damage wrought by the explosion, the biotic duo wasted no time, Jack hurling the creature up into the air with a Pull while Aria arced another Throw to intercept it. Zaeed tracked the Adjutant through his Mantis scope as it was propelled upwards by Jack's negative mass effect field, firing a round that took advantage of the monster's depleted biotic barriers and cored through its head-sac.
Suspended in the air as it was the Adjutant started spinning from the force of the sniper shot, yet Aria's Throw still hit the biotically-charged thing head-on. Now unprotected by barriers the interaction between the massively positive mass effect field of the Throw and the massively negative mass effect field of the Pull caused an explosion that ripped the body of the helpless Adjutant to pieces.
With another of the foes down, the three looked for another target, only to be surprised to see four approaching Adjutants, instead of just one. Zaeed was the first to notice that the bodies of Aria's bodyguards were no longer corpses; instead running alongside the original remaining Adjutant of the four that had attacked them. Zaeed noticed that the three new Adjutants looked very different from the remaining original one, looking much more like their host races. However, the leaking piping, elongated, thin face plates, head-sacs, and even arm cannons were all present., Zaeed was both amazed and horrified at such a transformation, let alone that it occurred so quickly, and wondered just what the fuck they were dealing with.
He, Jack, and Aria got ready to try and face down the four approaching Adjutants, but out of nowhere, a hail of blue-purple orbs slammed into the creatures like a tidal wave. The Adjutants melted, literally, under the intense amount of fire, and Zaeed started to swing his head around, trying to identify the source of their unexpected rescue.
The answer was ten jet-black armored figures about fifty meters down the street, still pouring blue fire into the Adjutants, who had quickly fallen as their biotic barriers were overwhelmed and their flesh was melted. The black-armored mystery figures didn't stop firing at the prone forms for another three seconds or so, reducing the Adjutants to nothing more than ash and pieces of metal-turned skeleton, the road beneath them bubbling due to heat.
The ten figures started running towards the trio, quite quickly Zaeed would have added, and the mercenary had to check himself from raising his weapon in their direction. After all, they had just annihilated the enemies that the three had been fighting. Zaeed looked at Jack and discreetly held up a hand, hold. Aria saw the gesture as well, and she, as well as Jack, nodded slightly in agreement.
The black-armored figures surrounded the three in a wide circle, six of them looking outwards with unfamiliar weapons raised, four of them looking in towards Zaeed, Jack, and Aria. The Mercenary took note of their backwards legs, long necks, and elongated, helmeted heads. Definitely not human. One of them stepped forwards, weapon falling down to a resting position. He looked directly at Aria and said in a deep, baritone voice, in English, "Are you the one they call Aria T'Loak?"
The Asari narrowed her eyes a little, but replied, "Yes, that's me."
"Our leader required your presence at your club, Afterlife. You will come with us. No harm will befall you." The figure's face was completely hidden behind his helmet and non-transparent visor. "Are these two with you?"
He pointed to Jack and Zaeed, who shared another quick look. Aria answered for them. "Yes, they're with me."
"They will come too. Follow us, and stay close. We are seeing more of those things across the station," the figure, obviously the leader of the ten-man band, said.
A short run and a hop in a strange-looking flying transport vessel that Zaeed thought resembled some kind of beetle, but what their protectees dubbed a 'Phantom', and the three were walking into the front door of Afterlife. Zaeed's military-trained eye saw many, many more of these soldiers entrenched around the outside of Afterlife, in good cover, with good sightlines, and with fixed weaponry. Certainly they weren't amateurs, even though the experienced mercenary had no idea who or what these soldiers were. He had never seen the likes of them before, nor knew the capabilities of their weapons. That gave the veteran mercenary pause and, in a silent nod to Jack, he could see the psychotic Biotic shared his concerns. He did see some that didn't have enclosed helmets however, but the strange, scaly-smooth skin and four-mandibled face just made him more confused.
Aria didn't have time to survey the damage that had been done to her club, closely flanked by the black-armored soldiers as she was. "Who are you?" she asked, head swiveling to catch as much of what was happening in the club, her club, as she could.
"We are known as Sangheili," one of the soldiers responded, not offering any more explanation than that.
To Zaeed, whose view was less obstructed by the not inconsiderable mass of the 'Sangheili', it was clear that Aria's Afterlife had been repossessed. He himself had participated in setting up dozens of command and control centers throughout his career, so it didn't take much to figure out that was what these Sangheili were doing here. Why had they brought them here? What were they going to do?
They were lead to the back of the club and up the stairs leading to the second floor, towards Aria's personal loft-like area. Waiting there was another Sangheili in that same jet-black armor, enclosed helmet blocking any view of his face. He seemed to be alone, and as Aria, Zaeed, and Jack were gently propelled in front of him by their Sangheili escorts, four of them stayed behind, two taking position at either exit towards the loft, effectively blocking them in. Zaeed's right hand flexed, aware of the powerful Paladin pistol on the magplate on his right hip. At least they didn't try and take our weapons, Zaeed thought, interpreting that gesture as a sign that they 'probably' wouldn't try to kill them.
"Aria T'Loak," said the lone Sangheili in yet another deep, base voice. Zaeed had a brief thought that his voice seemed somehow familiar. Who was that who had become the Human Councilor for a short time after the Geth Attack on the Citadel? Anderson-something? Yeah, this guy sounded like him.
"Your man said that you wanted to see me," the Asari said, wary.
"Indeed. My name is Thel 'Vadam. I have a proposition for you."
"I'm listening."
"I have something that you desire," he said. "My forces are close to expelling the last of the Cerberus presence from the station, and their fleet has already been destroyed. However, you have something that I desire as well." He gestured his elongated, helmeted head towards the exposed door of a wall safe next to the self-serve bar of the loft.
"What I ask for is simple. Unlock the safe, give me the artifact inside, and I will relinquish control of Omega back to you," the Sangheili, Thel 'Vadam, said.
"How do you know what's inside that safe?" Aria shot defensively.
"Not important. Do you agree to the terms I have offered? What is inside the safe, for the station," 'Vadam pressed.
Aria looked to Zaeed and Jack, as if they could possibly offer any insight or advice into this current situation. Zaeed figured she was messing with the idea internally for a few seconds before she said, "Fine. I'll open it. But you have to give me your word that you'll give me back control of my station."
Thel 'Vadam nodded at her. "You have my word."
Aria nodded back at him, although she was not at all satisfied at the verbal agreement they had just established. She wished she had more leverage to use, more things to offer or demand, but in a sudden and also frightening realization, she knew that she now had about as much power and influence as her two new companions Jack and Zaeed. In other words, next to none. Nonetheless she walked over to the exposed safe without further pause, She put her hand against the thin sheet of flowing biotic energy sealing off the safe, flexing her fingers in a specific manner to deactivate it. She then went through deactivating the rest of the security systems, including an iris and handprint scanner, passcode input pad, and circular combination lock. The safe popped open and Aria reached in, Zaeed unable to see what was inside due to his positioning in the room.
Aria turned and held out what looked to be a non-descript, thin grey cylinder, which the Sangheili took in his right hand and secured in an armored patch on his belt. Then, in a motion so fast that even Zaeed's combat-honed eyes almost missed it, the Sangheili grasped some handle-like object and thrust it towards Aria's midsection. A double-pronged blade of crackling electric blue sprang forth from the handle and into the Asari's gut, the Sangheili then running quickly forward and pinning both Aria and the blade into the wall behind them.
Aria's left hand glowed blue as she instinctively summoned a biotic attack, but Jack acted just as instinctively, locking the fist in a small stasis bubble to prevent it from casting anything. The four Sangheili that had been blocking the entrance raised their weapons in Jack and Zaeed's direction, and the former erected a cylindrical barrier around them while the latter snapped his Paladin off of his hip and brought it to bear against the nearest black-armored Sangheili.
"Hold!" shouted Thel, who had quickly looked over to Jack and seemed to realize what she had done.
The four Sangheili guards immediately lowered the weapons, although Zaeed wasn't as quick to follow, keeping his heavy pistol at the half-ready.
"We had a deal - you gave me your word," Zaeed heard Aria hiss, in obvious pain from the sword stuck in her stomach. The mercenary turned, seeing Thel the Sangheili's left hand enclosed around Aria's right, likely having crushed it in order to render it biotically useless, like he would have tried to do.
"I lied," he said simply, with just a tiny hint of what - amusement?
Then in another thing that Zaeed would never forget, the Sangheili took his blade and swung it straight vertically, eviscerating Aria into two halves above the waist. He saw no blood but immediately recognized the scent of burnt flesh, and as the blue blade exited from the top of Aria's skull the dead Asari slumped to one side, the two halves of her upper torso and head making a sickening sound as they clapped together upon hitting the ground.
Thel 'Vadam turned towards Jack and Zaeed with his blade still active, the two still protected behind Jack's small barrier. "You said you were with her, yet you stopped her from using her biotics against me. Why?"
"She said that we were with her," Jack explained, "We were actually trying to kill the bitch before those Reaper freakshows attacked us."
"It did not seem like you were trying to kill her when you walked in here," Thel said.
Zaeed answered this one. "Well, she offered us a shitton of money to try and help her, and we were fighting the same guddamn things anyways. Not that we're going to be able to collect now anyways, so thanks for that."
The Sangheili snorted at the mercenary, glancing at the very dead Asari a couple of feet away. "I apologize for depriving you of your substantial sum. Perhaps I can subsidize your loss by offering not to kill you."
"And why should we believe anything you say? Worked out spectacularly for Aria," Jack shot.
"I could have had you killed a dozen times by now, were I so inclined. But my men said they watched you fight the Parasite, and quite effectively at that."
"The 'Parasite'?" Zaeed said, confused.
"Those monsters that you faced, you called them Reapers, girl," said Thel.
"Jack," she said annoyed, not wanting this alien, not wanting to be dismissed so lightly. "I called them Reapers cause that's as sure as hell what they look like. I've seen and killed plenty before these."
"Indeed," said the Sangheili. He looked at Jack and Zaeed, who were looking back at him in kind behind the presumed safety of the biotic's barrier. He knew from his own experience with biotics that the weapons of him and his guards would be able breach it in just a couple of seconds. His blue energy sword snapped off with a hiss, and he put the handle back to his hip, Zaeed seeing a similar handle on the opposite hip. "Would you like to kill more?"
Citadel
The lab coat fit just as it should have. Miranda took the identification badge that would get her through the security checkpoint from the table and clipped it onto her breast, her outfit now complete. She looked to the queen-sized bed in the room where the real Doctor James now lay dead, a round from her silenced pistol through her temple, killing the woman as she slept.
Miranda looked at the dead woman for a few more seconds, noting just how good a job Cerberus' plastic surgeons had done in altering her appearance to assume Dr. James' physical identity. She checked the time on a clock on a bed table, 10:45 PM, just enough time to get to Huerta Memorial in order for 'Dr. James' to start her night shift. She slipped her pistol, a compact weapon with an internal silencer, into one of her lab coat pockets and put a datapad she found in the other in order to even out the slight bulge.
It was a quick ride to Huerta Memorial in an aircar piloted by another Cerberus agent, and Miranda headed into the lobby of the hospital after having her badge scanned and approved by the two security guards at the door. There was a desk guard inside the lobby sitting and reading a holopaper who waved to her, and she waved back before taking out her holopad and faking looking busy. She saw some civilians, a few nurses, and one other doctor, but apparently acting like she was entrenched in her datapad worked, as nobody tried to talk to her. She found an empty elevator and stepped in, pressing the door close button quickly.
She took the elevator up to the fourth floor and made her way to Room 3-B without being accosted by anyone, not even any nurses. Miranda palmed the green door open symbol and took in the scene of the small room as it slid open. There was a male Drell lying in bed, palms peacefully clasped. A myriad different tubes and lines were attached to his body from various machines around the bed.
As the Drell lifted his head and opened his eyes at the sound of the opening door Miranda withdrew the silenced pistol from her coat pocket and levelled it at Krios' head in one quick, smooth motion. She saw his eyes go wide with the realization of danger, and if Miranda had shown just a sliver of hesitation he likely would have had enough time to get up a biotic barrier. Given his weakened, diseased state, and his lack of manueverability in the tight confines of the hospital bed, Miranda knew that this time, the master assassin wouldn't be fast enough.
Miranda didn't show any hesitation. She pulled the trigger and the weapon coughed, the round entering just above and the the left of Krios' right eye and splattering brain matter out of the exit wound on the back onto the wall of the hospital room. As the dead Drell slumped sideways she fired two more rounds into his chest to ensure he wouldn't wake up.
Certain that her target was now dead, Miranda replaced the discreet pistol back in her coat pocket and walked back to the door. She opened it, looked both ways down the hallway, founding no one, then exited the room and headed back for the elevator. Once she had arrived back on the first floor, she started through the lobby again, pace normal in order not to arouse undue suspicion. The same desk guard who had greeted her earlier looked up from his holopaper and raised an eyebrow at her.
"Forgot something in my aircar," Miranda explained, looking at the guard and giving a slightly embarrassed smile to sell the lie.
The guard just nodded in disinterested understanding, taking his eyes off of the leaving woman and back to his news. After he had already heard the door close he realized something. Didn't Doctor James take the magrail to the hospital?
Special thanks to my betas JonHarper and Bearmauls