AN: This part was betaed by ProdigiousThunder on the space battles forums. Thank you very much!
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
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Part 7: We're X-COM… What did you expect?!
One might think that all the niffy tech we've had since the dawn of the twenty second century would have changed the face of ground warfare.
In a sense, it did. Today we field trans-human super soldiers – clad in power armor, carrying plasma, laser and rail-guns – they are chock full with implants and genetically improved far above the human base form… AI controlled drones and even "magic powers" are part of our arsenal.
Despite all that, it came back to troops in the ground when you want something retrieved or secured.
Many experts believed that expendable drones and AIs would change the face of warfare… They were correct too – for a time. There was such a period back in the eighties of the past century. Soon enough other advancements in technology ensured that any drones which could be actually useful on a modern battlefield simply couldn't be used in sufficient numbers to do the job by themselves…
It came back to price – a properly trained and equipped alliance soldier is very expensive, true. However, unless commanded by an AI, such a trooper could reasonably expect to destroy enough drones before going down to break even in monetary terms… Sometimes even win from material POV – and that was before we dumped hundreds of billions in anti-drone and SHIV research – something that the Citadel races had been busy with for a long, long time too.
Then there's the Third Geneva convention, which among other notable things was the first official document ratified by the Alliance designating AIs as full blown citizens and naturally laying rest to any ideas of building an "expendable" force controlled by our synthetic children. While AIs support and are indeed a part of our armed forces, they simply couldn't be placed into drone bodies and sent into combat by themselves to preserve human lives. Not any longer. Couple that with all the ways to disrupt communication channels and that put to rest the idea of using remotely controlled drones.
That left VI's and simple automated systems – which while undoubtedly useful, simply can't replace soldiers on the modern battlefield. There're various weapon systems that excel at disabling drones and other automated systems, while at best moderately compromising a human soldier's capabilities. Today's troopers are strong enough to operate even with a power armor dead around them - something that allows them do deal with any similarly affected automated system before it could recover from the effect.
Another reason for keeping flesh and blood soldiers were psionics – well the increasing number of psionic people among our population. The Gift is a game-changer on many levels. After all, while Psionics are most effective against biological sapient beings, there are a lot of "tricks" that are hard to counter by anything but another Psionic – a fact that by itself levels the playing field between flesh and blood soldiers and a purely synthetic force…
An extract from "Warfare in the twenty second century"
Alliance Military Press
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15:43, 31 August 2176
Flotsdam Pirate base
Ophelia System
Exodus Cluster
"Sarge, there's something in the walls scrambling the scanner!" Kelly grumbled.
I fired up the muti-purpose scanner built in my armor and waved my left hand over the closest exposed piece of rock. "Eezo and a lot of heavy element traces." I muttered to myself. Before being turned into base, this asteroid was probably a mine. That had the obvious benefit of already existing tunnels to put stuff in as well as the bonus of messing up with scanners. No wonder that someone decided to built a base in here. In fact, I doubted that this was originally a pirate hideout – it was probably a former military facility that had been abandoned some time in the distant past. After all, until we appeared on the galactic scene, this region of space hadn't been of much interest.
That explained why the passives on our way in were less helpful than expected too.
"We'll do it the old fashioned way. Look out for traps and ambushes. Kelly continue on point. Beta formation."
The trooper shrugged and moved slowly down the corridor, following the drone's path. His motion translated into a subtle movement of his arms – the armor he wore wasn't built to express body language after all, even if it was surprisingly agile despite its bulk.
Quin followed a few meters behind the point man, with the next trooper being an equal distance back. In theory that should allow most of us to survive if anyone got cute with explosive traps.
I trailed behind them, concentrated and accessed my Gift. While I had mostly recovered after Elysium, I wasn't still at one hundred percent as far as Psionics went. The quick interrogation didn't do me any favors either – I should have been able to keep my Gift up during this whole operation without straining myself. Instead I was already moderately mentally exhausted. While the armor boosted my power significantly, it didn't help as much endurance wise. Not after I came close to fucking up my brain with that rift stunt.
The good news was that I could feel four alien minds nearby. Even pinpoint their general direction.
Of course there was a bad news too. I touched the closest alien and tried pushing only to find myself slamming headfirst into a mental fortress. The mind shields of whoever I struck, a woman I think, shook under my onslaught, but bounced me in a quite unpleasant way.
That was something that we don't advertise – the Ethereals and even some Sectoid Commanders, didn't appear to suffer a backslash if they failed to breach into a normal person's mind… We humans, often weren't so fortunate - especially when we weren't at our best.
I stumbled as my mind bounced off of hers and my perception fully returned back to my body without a warning – and eerie and uncomfortable experience, that brought a rather nasty headache as a free gift.
"Sarge, are you all right?" Quin asked.
"Backlash. Four unknowns – one with strong mind." I hissed and shook my head, which made it worse.
"That could have gone better..." Maia muttered. I glanced up on my HUD. Sure enough, the medic was behind me and was probably checking my vitals. She didn't elaborate so my brain wasn't going to start leaking through my ears or something.
There were a few… "accidents" during psi training back in the no so bright past, not to mention the various interesting stories I was told during the advanced courses I had to take after my NCO training.
Kelly was almost at the T-shaped intersection at the end of the corridor, the drone had went first – seeking any threats, detecting none – and the trooper swung left. Quin moved after him, covering the right path. We piled in behind them and went down each way. We didn't need to leave a guard at this intersection – it was in plain view of our MEC who couldn't follow us in there.
I followed Kelly, while Quin was leading the other squad. When we neared the first obstacle – a sealed door, I grit my teeth and touched my Gift, sending my mind searching for enemies.
Sure enough – I could feel them.
"Contacts. Three unknowns, twelve o'clock. Watch your fire. Our prize is likely among them and there may be slaves in there too."
I didn't risk another direct mind intrusion this time. Instead, I concentrated and modeled in my head the sense of fear, of sheer terror. I could actually feel a shiver going up my spine as I infused my psionics with raw, unthinking panic and unleashed it into the general direction of the unknowns. While this was a far less potent mind attack than a direct or more targeted one, it didn't take as much out of me.
It was too bad that we had only a handful of average Psionics in the platoon beside me, and most of the rest were storming that frigate back at the docks. Otherwise I would have had a lot more tricks to play without being the one to play interrogator. As it was – we were doing things by the book.
Kelly blasted the door apart from a safeish distance – a prudent decision. His shots triggered a directional mine. The explosive was unlikely to hurt him, but it might have crippled his armor and given him a concussion if it blew up in his face. Instead, it simply showered him with shrapnel – hot and sharp enough to shred someone in a hardsuit, but woefully inadequate against Vahlenite power armor.
The scout drone wasn't so lucky. While it survived, it was struck by pieces of red-hot metal that damaged its propulsion unit. It started smoking and unsteadily landed on the ground. The small machine whined piteously, then promptly slagged itself to avoid capture – making painfully obviously that the IFF sensors were damaged too.
Kelly went through the smoking hole where the door used to be and swept left. I was next, sidestepping to the right and seeking targets. Maia and Allister entered behind me, moving in a hurry to clear the bottleneck.
To my surprise, there was a distinct lack of further resistance at the choke point.
I would have placed more explosives and auto-turrets if I had them – covered them with troops too. On the other hand, we did surprise the bastards and they apparently didn't really expect anyone unfriendly paying them a visit. Otherwise we would have had a much nastier time reaching this point.
It was just now that it registered where exactly we ended up in – a storage area, which was mostly filled up by standard Citadel type transport containers. In most places they were stacked up to the ceiling, which left just a few ways we could proceed from here. I could also feel the alien minds approaching.
It was a great place for ambush. It would take just one of those containers being chock full with explosives to ruin our day. If it was done properly, we were unlikely to detect it before the damn thing went off too – not unless we waited for half an hour for sapper drones to carefully scan everything in here.
Obviously that wasn't an option. First, the unknowns were approaching. Second, waiting would have given them time to set up additional traps if there wasn't one already waiting for us… if they had the resources in this part of the base anyway.
Charge in? Go carefully? Wait for sapper support? Wait for another Psionic and try taking them out that way? Either of those choices could be the right one or perhaps none of them. It's easy to say what should be done in any given situation in hindsight. Actually making the decision with limited intelligence and seconds to choose a course of action?
Suddenly I had a lot of appreciation for what all NCOs and officers had to do on a daily basis. If I fucked up the people I was responsible for could get killed… and the same was true even if I did everything right.
I actually froze for a moment.
Then I felt the unknowns coming closer.
"Contacts approaching." I added aloud. Huh. The motion tracker in my armor wasn't detecting them, even if they were in range.
"Kelly, Allister – left flank. Maia, watch my six." I ordered and moved in – my indecision forgotten.
I was carefully looking over the containers – searching for any sign of trap. In the same time I was keeping in touch with my Gift and tracking the minds of the approaching aliens. At least the complete darkness in the small compartment was utterly irrelevant. It has been a long time since it could inconvenience anyone. Unfortunately the latter included the pirates. Even third rate civilian equipment nowadays had decent night-vision capabilities. Even they were good enough for anything short of passive countermeasures or exotic environments.
The contacts split – two moving left and the last one was heading straight at me. I made a sign for Maia to stop and whispered in my comm.
"Kelly – two contacts are heading for you. About ten meters to the right."
In the next moment I pulled and EMP grenade from my rig and threw it at one of the containers at the far end of the makeshift passage I was walking through. It bounced off the composite alloy and promptly blew up once it was around the corner. A wave of blue and white energy washed over the crates. I was already sprinting and idly noted that the containers were obviously full – otherwise, the blast wave would have thrown them all around – making our lives harder. I bit off a curse – that was something I should have thought about earlier.
Then I was around the corner and saw the alien whose mind I felt. He was a Turian, who was sprawled over a low stack of containers. His rifle was laying on the ground a couple of meters away from him, which was fortunate.
Command did want prisoners after all.
I wasted no time and snapped my left hand forward. The omni-tool built in the armor acted as programmed and sent an overload at the dazed Turian - that would take care for any tech toys he might have on him for even longer, perhaps fry them altogether. I never slowed down and was upon him a moment later and slammed the butt of my weapon in his helmet hard enough to give him a concussion.
At the same time I could hear the chatter of ME weapons, followed by a deafening crash.
"Maia, doze him!" I ordered and continued sprinting.
I heard a loud shot – some kind of shotgun or sniper.
"MAN DOWN!" Allister shouted over the platoon comm. A moment later, my HUD helpfully informed me that Kelly's suit was off the net and his vitals were critical.
I threw cation to the wind and accessed my Gift to the fullest. The familiar human minds of Allister and Maia were calming beacons to my altered perceptions. I idly noted the barest flicker from the Turian behind me – the man was in no condition to be a threat.
"Maia check Kelly! I'll deal with them!" I growled in my comm.
There were two other aliens nearby. One was familiar – the female who easily threw off my earlier attack.
The other was afraid, resigned and pissed off at the same time.
Kelly was gone – I could feel no trace of his cheerful mind.
That enraged me all right. It was only thanks to my training that I kept my head in the game. Kelly wore an assault armor. Anything, anyone who could take him out in a handful of seconds wasn't to be underestimated.
I pulled a barrier of raw psionic energy around me and jumped over a low row of crates.
Allister was shooting – I could hear the distinct snap-hiss of his SMG. His fire was returned in kind by the loud booms of shotguns.
The nearest of the two remaining hostile was nearby. I could sense his mind clearly… It wasn't the female. I smiled viciously and imagined shattering his mind. I concentrated into forcing my vision upon reality itself. My Gift responded like and eager puppy. Tendrils of purple energy surrounded me, fed by my mind and the amplifiers built in my armor. The balefire ran over my figure, down my right arm and concentrated around my hand. I turned left and made a throwing motion.
The power to force my will upon the universe made manifest – that was my reward for the hell I was subjected during the war… and it didn't disappoint. I could see the eldritch bolt slamming into a Batarian wearing a black armor. The man staggered and screamed as my psionic attack started flaying his mind.
I charged him. I pulled the psionic shield closer and enveloped my right arm with more of my Gift's power. Before the Batarian, who I suspected was Kloss, could do anything but keen in distress, I slammed a right hook in his chin. I put all my fury, the power of my enhanced body and amplified them with psionics. The metal of his helmet crumpled under my fist. I could actually feel his jaw shattering just a moment before his head snapped back. Only the helmet locking in place prevented his neck from breaking, though I was sure that I gave him a concussion to remember me by.
With another target put down, I sprinted to the last nearby alien presence. The female was almost upon Allister.
The darkness was lit up by a blue lighting. Her mental signature was simply gone for a moment then my man was flying away. I could hear and feel an nearby explosion.
Fuck. A biotic. Powerful one too – I doubted that even the mean looking shotgun the Batarian I knocked out had could have taken out Kelly.
I had no doubt that she would be finishing Allister if I gave her the chance so I grit my teeth, disregarded anything resembling common sense and pushed at her mind as hard as I could.
The woman stumbled under my attack – I could feel her mental defenses cracking. For a split second our minds touched.
I could feel a torrent of conflicting emotions, then they were all drowned into a strange mixture of rage and glee. I could feel mind – it was disciplined… despite the madness gripping her. It was powerful and experienced.
As I was right now, she would have crushed me if she possessed the Gift. I could feel something that was familiar to it in her, yet very, very different. Then I was thrown out of her head by a vicious spike of fury. It made my headache spike so much, that my med-suite acted on its own and sent more stimulants and painkillers in my veins.
A moment later I felt a surge of energy racing through my body and suddenly my head was clearer.
That was a good thing – the woman, an Asari – appeared around a tall row of containers. She had a wide smile plastered on her face and madness in her eyes. The moment she saw me, the pirate was engulfed in a halo of dark energy.
Thanks to my implants and genetic modifications I was even faster. My hands moved in a trained response and my weapon was trailed on her figure. In the same motion I released the safety and pressed the trigger. A bolt of sickly-green plasma flew at the woman just as she bionically charged me. She simply plowed through the shot and it barely slowed her down. Then she slammed into the psionic barrier I had kept around me. The instant that my shot bought me, allowed me to put more power in my defenses.
The impact produced a blinding, multicolored flash. It felt like an angry berserker tackling me, even if I somehow remained on my feet.
Then the Asari shot me in the chest with a carnage round that immediately overheated her shogun.
This time I was thrown off my feet. My already strained shields shattered under the impact. The HUD lit up with warnings which were redundant. I could feel my chest plate denting. I couldn't miss the blunt force impact cracking my reinforced ribs either. I knew that I'd suffered internal injuries too, though the painkillers and stimulants in my system didn't allow me to feel them properly – a small blessing. They prevented me from going into shock too, though that might have been the gene mods.
More meds flooded my system – enough to awake a dead soldier and make them a mean fighting machine… at least for a time. However, that wasn't good enough to make me move before the Asari. My connection with my gift had been thrown away too and I wasted a precious moment in reestablishing it – just in time to feel myself getting weightless and lifting up.
I didn't need to read the Asari's mind to know what was going to follow – she was surely preparing another biotic attack – one which was going to cause a dark matter explosion and fuck me up something fierce.
I grit my teeth and pulled as much psionic power as I could handle and materialized a barrier between us.
It was just in time too – a moment later something slammed in the purple wall of energy and exploded. At the same time gravity decided that it had enough of this biotic shit and reestablished its hold upon me. I felt myself failing and slammed face first in the metal floor.
That did me no favors and my ribs screamed in protest. My concentration went out again too.
The good news was that a psionic barrier like mine didn't dissipate the moment you stopped feeding it power. That took a few seconds – a fact that the Asari found the hard way when she tried to charge me again and slammed into the wall of psionic power. The barrier did shatter under her onslaught, yet it stopped the woman in her tracks.
It also bought me enough time to find my feet and envelop myself with psionic power. While my rifle was nowhere to be seen, her shotgun was still overheated from the overpowered round she shot me with.
We stared at each other for a moment. She was loving this – I could see it in her eyes.
A heartbeat later we both flared with power – she was engulfed by a halo of dark energy, while I was surrounded by the purple shell of my Gift. I wanted her gone – shredded to bits – and used that to shape my attack. A sphere appeared in my right hand. It was a rippling whirlwind of raw power, ready to dig into my target.
The Asari had a similar idea – a warp field surrounded her right hand.
We threw our attacks in the same time. I pulled the excess energy surrounding me into a shield and didn't try to dodge – there simply wasn't enough space between the containers around me to do so.
The same was true for the woman too, though she used her biotics to pull a metal crate between herself and my attack.
The warp slammed into my barrier and actually ate through it within a breath, before it slammed into my left shoulder. There it twisted the armor, but the Vahlenite alloy held.
The Asari wasn't so fortunate. I was guiding my attack too… and it could have fucked up a SHIV if it hit one. The sphere of psionic energy simply shredded the container the enemy was using as a shield and continued without slowing down. A biotic barrier started forming around the woman, but it simply wasn't enough – the spinning sphere of altered reality ground through the dark matter, shattered her kinetic barriers and slammed into her commando leathers, which proved no protection. My attack proceeded to cave in her chest, before dissipating and taking most of her lungs with it.
A confused expression appeared on her face. I could see surprise in her eyes, before they rolled back and she fell on he floor.
I let a sigh of relief.
That was close. Too damn close. And Kelly… I sighed. Fuck it all!
I took a deep breath, which goddamn hurt and used my Gift to scan the immediate area. Even if there was someone ready to further fuck up my day, I couldn't sense them. The two men I knocked down barely registered – they were out for good. At least Allister's mind was here, if dim and Maia was next to him so he was in a good hands.
I looked around and saw my rifle – fortunately it looked all right, which was good considering all the shit that was thrown around. I picked it up and headed towards my people. As I passed by her I considered shooting her to vent my anger, pain and frustration, though the little bit of common sense and the pain in my chest stopped me from fucking up any further. So I simply glared at the dead woman and walked past her.
Kelly was nearby. He was literally embedded into a wall of twisted containers. He was mostly intact, though his armor was dented and twisted in places. However his helmet… It was a ruin. If I had to make an educated guess, the Asari had hit him with two attacks, producing a dark matter explosion. That had shattered his shields and slammed him into the containers hard enough to crumple a lot of them and embed him into them. After that she had used a few warps on his helmet.
I suppressed the need to go back and shoot her in the face and followed my HUD to Maia and Allister. He was sitting on the ground, propped on the wall next to the blasted door and the doc was going over him with her scanners.
"Is he all right?" I asked.
"Nothing that we can't fix in a few days. Kelly's..." Maia trailed off.
"I saw. When you're sure Allister's stable go stabilize the Batarian. I'm pretty sure he's our target."
"I'll make sure he makes it to interrogation."
"Make it so." I triggered the command frequency. "Strike Actual, Strike One. Primary secured, wounded. One prisoner. Strike four KIA, two wounded. Over."
"Good. We're almost done here too." I could hear shots over Anderson's reply. "Hold on a moment." He added and cut off the connection.
I called up my status on the HUD. Most of my ribs were cracked, my breastbone was outright broken, there was some internal bleeding though it was already clothing thanks to one of my gene mods and whatever the med-suite was pumping in my veins. I was probably one big bruise too, though I was barely feeling most of that.
Good painkillers. I needed to buy a drink for whoever thought of building in such a nice med-suite in the current generation of armors.
Make that a whole case of the good stuff.
"Maia, once the primary is secured, I'll need your attention too."
She was silent for a moment. "Sarge sit your ass down. I'll be there in a moment." Maia growled. "Strike Actual, Strike Three. One is going down due to wounds. We'll need a hand over here." The Doc snapped over the command frequency.
"That's unnecessary." I mumbled. Huh. Why did I see everything in a red sheen?
I blinked and frowned. I was laying on my back and Maia was… I was sure she was glaring at me even if I was unable to see her eyes through her helmet.
She said something I couldn't understand and I felt a prick in the side of my neck.
I felt sleepy and closed my eyes for a moment.