Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect or the various X-COM games. They belong to their respective copyright owners. This story is not written for profit. I make no money from it. It is not for sale or rent.

Chapter 3: Retaliation

=SF=

Part 4: This ain't Tortuga!

15:21, 31 August 2176

Strike One

Wraith Alpha One

Ophelia System

Exodus Cluster

"We're two mikes out. No sign of detection yet." The pilot's modulated voice sounded through the troop compartment of the stealth transport.

"You know the plan. We breach, secure any surviving prisoners and sit tight while the specialists conduct field interrogations. Strike two will widen the beachhead and made the scum concentrate on them. Any questions?"

"How can I get out of this outfit?" Thorne asked, while somehow managing to look innocent despite the heavy armor he was wearing.

"If you insist I can boot you out of this bird and let you find your own way home." I smirked.

"Nah. And miss the comfy ride in the old girl!" He shook his head. "Not to mention the splendid naval food."

"I'll give your compliments to the cook when we're back. He hasn't succeeded in poisoning us yet and that's always good in my book."

"Not for a lack of trying..." Someone muttered.

"You've obviously haven't been stuck for months with couple of decades old MREs… Lucky bastards."

"I heard that they weren't half bad in you time."

"The Russian ones were." I deadpanned. Those two months sucked. They made a few folks wonder how a baked mutton would taste…

"We're on final approach!" The pilot announced.

"Lock and load. We're going in." I ordered. "Keep the safeties on until land."

The Wraith shook as its weapons spoke, carving a path through rock and steel straight to the dock of the pirate base. Then it redlined its engines and slammed into the breach, shacking us in our harnesses. The sound of scraping metal rang through the troop compartment, making us cringe.

Then we were hurled sideways as the transport came to an abrupt stop.

"Go, Go, GO!" I shouted, while releasing my shock harness. The two SHIVs closest to forward ramp roared to life. They sent a pair of smoke canisters out the moment it started lowering. At the same time, I could hear the hsss-craack sound of the laser guns built in the front of the Wraith, which were giving us some much needed covering fire. It was soon joined by the distinctive retorts of plasma weaponry and the odd crack of ME guns. The MEC assigned to Strike One moved out next. His multiple independently targeted weapons were scanning for any pirate unfortunate enough to be still waiting for us.

Quin's fire-team was out next. They dashed out, using the smoke and heavy units as cover. Then it was my turn. I followed suit, with the second squad of Strike One hot on my heels.

When I stepped into the pirate base moments later, the docks were already secure. The few outlaws who were present either died after the sudden breach and decompression, were obliterated by the guns of our transports or ended as a target practice for the SHIVs.

Score one goes to surprise and overwhelming firepower.

"Bring me anyone who's still alive. Quin, secure the perimeter." I ordered, before allowing myself to look around. The dock was built into a massive cavern excavated into the asteroid. It was reinforced with a lot of metal and it had slips for at least four frigates to land inside.

If this was a small time pirate operation, I this future was much more messed up than I was led to believe. Unless this had been an abandoned facility found and appropriated by the pirates, the sheer resources needed to construct it spoke volumes for their capabilities and financing, even if the place looked rather run down and ill maintained.

There was actually a frigate parked in the middle slip, which accounted for the most shots by the Wraiths. I could clearly see where it's hull had been surgically sliced by laser blast, making sure that it won't be leaving any time soon. Further, it's GARDIAN clusters appeared to be shot to pieces, which was only prudent.

I didn't relish being caught on the open by that kind of firepower. It could very well be rather final.

The SHIV's of Strike Two choose that moment to appear from the other side of the Frigate, followed by the other MEC, though the rest of the unit was conspicuously missing.

"Securing the Frigate. Interrogate any prisoners and start clearing up the facility." Anderson pinged me with new orders.

It wast time to have a little chat with our reluctant hosts.

"We have a live one over here!" Our MEC, Sanders, sent from near what appeared to be a control tower. The place looked rather shot up from here and I could see a dissipating cloud of smoke coming out of its windows.

"Splendid. I'm on my way." I spoke in my comm and jogged that way. "Quin, take the MEC and one SHIV, and start securing the base. We'll follow ASAP."

So far so good. I hoped that I would finish the interrogation before the next shoe dropped.

We were X-COM. No operation that started that smoothly ever ended that way too.

=SF=

Jogen Kloss, "formerly" from the Batarian Intervention Unit, was in his so called office, in the depths of the Flotsdam station. His four tired eyes were glaring at the softly glowing terminal, which was providing the only light in the room. It illuminated a crystal glass filled to the brim with brown, bubbling liquid.

The Blitz had gone to shit, with all but a handful of ships dying to either the defense squadron or reinforcements, which had turned before it could be overwhelmed. Ten of the biggest pirate outfits in Batarian space and Terminus systems had signed up for the raid, drawn in by promises of advanced technology, slaves and an opportunity to put the newcomers in their place.

Instead, Kloss and his colleagues had to explain this debacle not only to their superiors, something that was always hazardous for one's health, but to what remained of the pirate syndicates that took part in that ill fated adventure.

Jogen grunted a curse and reached for the glass of iced ale waiting next to the terminal and downed half of it in a single swing. The bitter taste suited his mood just fine. He felt like strangled the idiots back home who had thought up this whole fiasco and ordered him and a few of his buddies to facilitate the damn mess, even if he had agreed at the time.

There were more than a hundred ships in the armada! Even most Turian colonies would have buckled under such assault and the defense grid at Elysium had been sabotaged to boot! Dealing with the defense squadron should have been a simple affair, overwhelm them from long range, swoop in, took everyone and everything not nailed to the ground and FTL out, before heavy reinforcements could arrive.

Instead of reporting the expected glorious though probably somewhat bloodier than expected victory, Kloss was left with piecing a picture of what had actually happened from the conflicting reports of the few survivors that made it out before the Earther's in the nearby fleet node came in to mop up what the supposedly outgunned and doomed defense squadron had left of the assaulting armada.

To him at least, it was clear that the Humans had somewhat better tech than anyone suspected. However, thanks to the pounding any survivors had taken, he lacked the hard facts on what exactly had happened on Elysium, leaving him with assembling a report that was more fiction than anything else.

He didn't have anything juicy for his Salarian contacts either, which didn't bode too well for his retirement fund… something he might need to use soon.

Jogen glared at the open text document on his terminal. It was high on speculation and very low on facts. So much for his lucrative job as a commander of an out of the way base. And to think that the benefits were so nice – a lot of money he could take a percentage of, a pick of some delectable Asari slaves and all the good booze he could afford.

Up until now, Kloss had to admit that this had been the sweetest posting ever. He hadn't have to risk his life in two years! Not at all like his escapades as an SI operative back home.

Jogen was busy lamenting the cruel fate, that seemed determined to fuck up his sweet gig, when the whole station shook, spilling the rest of his ale all over the desk and almost shoving him out of his comfortable chair. A moment later, he was bathed in the glow of the emergency lights and nearly deafened by the blare of alarms.

"I'm going to kill those idiots!" Kloss hissed, believing that the dock hands servicing the only ship currently residing in Flotsdam had fucked up spectacularly.

It wouldn't be the first time either.

Jogen surged to his feet and headed for the door, when the station shook again and made him lose his footing, throwing him over an open container chock full with choice drinks.

Kloss roared in fury after he felt a lot of expensive booze crunching under his weight.

Someone was going to die for this!

Slowly!

=SF=

Part 5: Mindgames

15:33, 31 August 2176

Strike One

Flotsdam Pirate base

Ophelia System

Exodus Cluster

"Pick him up and patch that sump. We can't have him leaking to death until I'm done with him."

"On it, sir!" Maia – Strike One's medic sprinted towards the captive – a Turian who was missing his right leg from just above the knee. I could see a few smoking pieces of debris sticking out from his green hardsuit.

It was a good thing that all Alliance medics carried a bit of dextro-meds to patch up prisoners in need of interrogation. Naturally, the official reason was humanitarian purposes. Let me tell you, we in X-COM found that rather amusing. Besides, the ploy did buy is a bit of good will with the Council and the alien public or so they told me during the NCO course which did include a short class in galactic politics.

I walked to the unlucky bastard and looked him over. He was Barefaced. It meant that the pirate didn't have markings designating his colony of origin – you didn't get much lower on the Turian's totem pole.

Allister picked up the captive like he weighed nothing, making him scream in the process. Maia slapped a med-pack to the Turian's neck and bandaged the stump of his leg so he wouldn't bleed out.

A mental command that was read by my armor was enough to bring the psi-amplifiers built in it to full power. I stared at the Turian and concentrated – becoming one with my power. My perception expanded and I could feel every mind around me.

I could feel the Turian. He was in pain. Scared.

I smiled at him and brushed the surface of his mind, making him recoil in shock. Fear turned into terror. I could sense his thoughts. He was starting to believe all the terror stories that were told about humanity in general and X-COM in particular.

I felt his natural, almost non-existent mental shields and pushed. They simply shattered. His willpower was insufficient to even slow me down. Just like that I was in.

His thought patterns were strange – alien as one might expect, yet the way his thoughts were shaped, his personality… They weren't too different from that of a human. That itself was strange. I remembered touching the means of the Ethereal's slaves. Of Ethereals themselves – all of them had much less common with us than this pirate, whose mind I was busy ravaging.

That was a thought for another time.

I pushed further, slashing through the Turian's personality and went straight to his memories, making him remember what I needed.

I was bombarded with myriad of pictures and used his mind – Gerd Valdonis was his name – to make sense of it. There were a lot of Batarians here, a handful of Turian outlaws and a few Salarian engineers who were doing their best to keep the place running.

I pushed harder. I needed numbers, equipment, the face and location of whoever was in charge.

Gerd started convulsing as the pressure on his brain increased, but that didn't slow me down. I didn't have time to be careful or precise, instead I was brute-forcing the information out of his mind.

I saw the image of an armory flash through our linked minds and brought it back. A lot of rifles and shotguns, a few grenade launchers an a pair of missile launchers. I could see various grenades and breaching charges – all that a prospective pirate would need, if they had to fight their way through a ship whose crew decided to resist.

I pushed again, going deeper. Valdonis started moaning and trashing under my ministration, but I didn't care. He was one of the bastards facilitating an attempt to enslave humans.

Here. A grumpy looking Batarian in a pristine black hardsuit. I frowned. That one didn't look like a space pirate. His bearing was different. Gerd had recognized it – no matter where he was from, the Turian had been through some extensive basic training before leaving.

I didn't care to dig that deep. It was irrelevant right now.

I concentrated on the Batarian. He was a trained soldier – on the face of it, that wasn't surprised. A lot of former Batarian military types turned to piracy and other fun activities after discharging. It was a well known fact through out the galaxy. That also made it harder to pin attacks on the Hegemony. After all, every major species, even ours, had their rotten apples.

That's why we needed some hard evidence. Enough to at least convince our own Parliament that the Hegemony was behind Elysium.

I dig deeper, searching for additional information. A name – Jogen Kloss. That was our quarry.

Next I saw the face of an Asari. She didn't appear to be a maiden, though she looked young. If she was a matron, she would have been running this place, unless she was a guest waiting for something.

No. Second in command. I pushed again, slamming more and more power in Gerd's mind. Elin. Only name. Powerful biotic, preferring shotguns, loving to get close and personal.

She might be a trouble too.

I went deeper. I needed numbers.

Valdonis' mind started fracturing and I used even more power, trying to get as much information as I could before he became useless.

Faces started flashing before my eyes. His Turian buddies. A few Batarians he liked. That irritating Salarian armsmaster.

Something broke. The pictures became twisted, disjointed. Gerd's mind simply blinked out and I was left trying to process raw alien data.

That bloody hurt. I hissed in pain and pulled back.

"It's done." I groaned.

Allister nodded and looked at the captive, who was limp in his hands.

"He's gone."

The trooper shrugged and let the brain-dead Turian fall into a boneless heap.

"Put him out of his misery." I muttered and concentrated on sending the image of the pirate's commander and his XO to every X-COM operative on site.

"I want them alive for interrogation. Missing limbs are of no consequence. There should be about thirty or so pirates on site." I grunted. Mindraping the only enemy survivor on the docks was exhausting and made my head pound. At least that was promptly fixed by my armor injecting me with a mild stimulant-painkiller cocktail. "The Asari is a powerful biotic. Approach with caution. The pirate leader has military training. Don't underestimate the bastards."

I sighed in relief as the meds started working.

"Allison – leave a SHIV here with Thorne. I wast this part of the dock secured until the frigate is cleared. Then get new orders from the LT. The rest form on me. We're going hunting."