2-24-2157 0665 hours (Alliance standard time)
Nevada
United States
Undisclosed Location
Right after he awoke in the cold, stinking cell, Turik' Han found himself being worked over by professionals. Not that this was a good thing, or a bad one, it existed independently as fact.
A sheet of icy cold water slammed into his face – ripping him back to cruel consciousness. The rigid liquid poured down his naked chest and pooled around his bare feet. Shivering violently, his breath billowing clouds of freezing mist, he grunted at the stout slap to the face that followed; droplets of water from his hair sprayed the wall. Metal cuffs bit into his wrists behind him.
Even in the weary state he was in, Han could remember everything that had happened since his capture over the blasted human colony. After the massive ariel counter-attack had obliterated his force he had been captured by the same force, albeit different unit, he attempted to wipe out on the bridge.
The steel bars caged him in like an ordinary slave, the stone scratched and scrawled with years of graffiti in multiple languages that were not his own. The high arched ceiling served to amplify the noise below, stains streaking the walls in mute testimony to his lack of importance. A chair placed in the middle was where he now sat. Nearby, he could glimpse tables for various tools and other implements.
Other chairs nearby were placed for the audience. The dank smell he could scent was a mixture of corroded steel, damp stone, and fear. The latter smelt strong, like old blood and pain.
The men holding him were JSF – that much he knew. The few words from the alien language he managed to pick up told him as much. This wasn't an interrogation so much as running commentary of how they didn't appreciate his role in the raid against their colony. This room was just the setting for their particular brand of revenge.
With alarming frequency, he would be dragged out and tossed onto the stone floor, in an exhausted, quivering heap. They asked him a few questions in his own language, barely seeming to know what they said. Some of their questions were printed on pieces of fibrous material, and one man had them on a silk fabric. Of course, he wouldn't reveal what little he understood of the human's language. However, extracting information appeared to be their goal.
The cycle repeated constantly. Anytime he tried to sleep, the humans would play intolerable noises or alarms to interrupt his rest. Only two meals a day was given to him, enough for living, but not enough to fill him. It was almost done as a half-hearted afterthought or sideshow for the main event.
To his surprise, his captors didn't take the process as far as actual physical torture; even the most inexperienced interrogator under his own command would have begun knives treatment by now. These humans though, acted like well-fed varren, toying with him but not breaking him. They would let him recover just enough for further questioning before making him sink beneath the weight of his own exhaustion. In Han's more lucid moments he wondered what the humans had in store – and it unnerved him.
Keeping time by tracking the guard's shifts worked for an interval; he hadn't seen daylight since the raid. At first, he had hungrily devoured every detail; who worked, when they worked, to whom they spoke. He paid particularly close attention to their weapons, equipment, and rank symbols, theorizing that any escape attempt needed such information. Every sight, sound, and smell were catalogued. However, the forced sleep deprivation and the constant changes soon put an end to that.
Whoever these humans were, they were efficient in keeping information well hidden – frustratingly well hidden.
Seated in the noisome darkness left few tasks for Han's mind. To counter this danger, he recited passages from the Pillars. Every third koan he reached back into his memories, recalling his selection and training in the Hegemony, when the class had been visited by former POWs who'd shared their stories. But for all the he did to prevent it, the thin ice of hope protecting his sanity was beginning to fracture; cracks spreading, allowing dark fantasies of despair and death to bleed to the surface.
Soon the days and weeks began to blend. Being kept in isolation for long periods of time nearly drove him mad, but luckily the Pillars kept him occupied. Daily, even hourly, he prayed for strength to be able to survive the next day.
Just then the steel cage opened, the creaking noise told him as good as an alarm. He looked up, seeing yet another interrogator, who did not appear to be any hurry to talk to his captive.
'Why would they? They have me right where they want me. I am not going anywhere, no matter how much I desire.'
"General Turik' Han, commanding officer of the 23rd Infantry, 5th Order of the Hegemony Armed Forces." The official clicked over an electronic device held in one hand, considering its secrets. Its hidden depths were not the greatest surprise, however. "Your unit fought at Shanxi, attempting to gain control of a vital set of bridges before human reinforcements arrived and repelled the attack. Not exactly something to put that on an military resume now, is it?"
The question came at him in near perfect batarian, exquisitely accented. It amazed him at how fast the humans were gaining information, especially since he'd gathered so little in return.
"I know very well you can understand me. If you cooperate, we will make this very easy on you."
Han couldn't stop himself from laughing. How naive did this human think he was? His laugh ended in a cough, tugging on the restraints holding him captive. His growl held teeth in it. "You have another thing coming if you think I would help you human."
The official returned the favor, albeit not as bluntly. "All we need is information and your cooperation. As of now you have nothing left to lose. We could kill you right now and no one will even notice you are gone. Hell, I highly doubt your own government is aware of your capture."
Han merely grunted in response. The human had a point, but there was no need to give it the satisfaction of confirmation.
"Fortunately for you we are not interested in the Hegemony directly." The official tapped the electronic pad, giving him time to think.
That caught Han by surprise. 'After everything that happened, they don't desire revenge? No; a lie. No sentient being would be so altruistic. Or pragmatic.'
As if reading his mind, the interrogator continued. "Difficult to believe, but true. Our intelligence agencies have concluded that the Hegemony is not partaking in the selling or buying human slaves directly, but rather handing those responsibilities off to slavers." The interrogator took a moment to stare him directly in the eye, emphasizing his next statement. "The same slavers indirectly responsible for your capture. So, tell me General Han, what can you tell me about a place called Torfan?"
Finally, the pieces clicked into place, it all made sense now; the humans wanted their people. What better way to hurt the fools than by taking the very reason they existed? A sinister smile appeared on Han's face, worthy of a feeding Kaelen Bone-striker. "Just about everything you need to know."
"Then it seems we can help each other out."
"It appears so." In his mind, Han thought of only one simple thing: Vengeance. 'Finally, I will repay them in the only currency they know: blood.'
Sidobia
Bostra
Spaceport
The dead lay throughout the cabin. Their bodies stank in the still air, despite their metallic composition. Four men, two women, all turian. A flight attendant, air marshal, and one civilian who had looked like he might start trouble were on one side of the room, while a turian diplomat had been caught in the crossfire. A pity; he could've been extorted as a hostage. Another female turian had been shot for screaming, her screeching threatening to shatter the glass windows.
Not all fatalities had been enemy, however: there was one martyr. Unlike the six dead nonbelievers, Viter Simsis' body had not been dumped across the seats. No, his brothers had laid him gently on his back, arms draped across his chest. A clean starched napkin from a first-class dining cart lay over his face, the two running ends of his red headband just visible. Viter had been the leader of the six-strong cell of the Facinus fighters. He and his men had boarded this exo-jet two days earlier dressed like business men returning from a telemarketing conference in Bostra. Viter had gone to the rear galley shortly after takeoff, while the rest of the passengers sat strapped into their seats, compliant like chained varren.
He'd found the case left for him by a brother whom worked in food industry at the Bostra International Spaceport; from it Tipus quietly passed out Tempest submachine guns. He'd donned the light ballistic vest left in the bag and slipped the hand-grenade into his pocket, before the seven Facinus operatives rushed up the aisles and took over the freighter.
Twenty-five seconds after gaining control of the vessel, Viter fell to the aisle floor, killed by a pistol shot to the back of the head from the turian air marshal. The marshal was himself killed by Tempest fire in the next moment, which put Serpius in charge of an operation that had still not recovered from the death of its leader.
But Serpius was not Viter. He was scared, uncertain, and tired. His nostrils were filled with the hot sick scent of rotten dextro food, overflowing toilets, and the bodies putrefying up in first class. The ballistic armor he wore dug into his skin and weighed him down as he ran the length of the vessel shouting orders.
In the past fifty-five hours he'd forced the exo-jet to fly from Bostra to Baevia, Macion, Icia, and then back to Bostra. Serpius had been afraid to keep the exo-jet in one place for too long while he waited for his demands to be met. In the meantime, the Hierarchy had stalled resulting in his men first threatening and then killing passengers and crew. He wished Viter were here to tell him what to do, how to keep order among the other five men in the cell.
But Viter was dead in first class and the others looked to Serpius for direction while they bickered among themselves and beat on passengers in frustration.
'What do I do? This is taking too long!'
The turian's exhausted and stressed mind focused quickly. 'Too long.' Yes! Too long they had been on the ground here in Bostra. He felt the government's delays had been trickery, that he'd been played for a fool.
'Too long.'
Serpius stood, stormed into the cockpit, found the flight crew sleeping in their seats, and he screamed at them. "We are leaving Bostra! We are flying somewhere else."
"Where?" The pilot asked wearily.
Serpius thought a moment. He needed a safe place. Someplace where the exo-jet could remain for enough hours for him to get some rest. "Dexilea!"
"Dexilea," The pilot said it as a groan. A statement of frustration.
"Yes!" Serpius screamed to the pilots. The vehemence in his voice had spurred them to quick action before; he hoped it would continue to do so.
The pilot shrugged. "When?"
"Now! Take off!"
"Listen, you don't understand. We have to go through a preflight checklist and pull our maps for the route we-"
"Either take off now or I kill a passenger!" Serpius turned to yell into the cabin.
The pilot rubbed his eyes and reached for his case containing maps and charts. "Okay! Okay!" Just give me five minutes to-"
"One minute!" Serpius yelled, certain of the deceit from the turian. "In one minute we are moving to the spaceport or I kill one passenger for every minute!"
"Three minutes! You've got to give us at least-"
"Two minutes, no more!"
"I need three!"
"Fine you can have three, but I get to kill a passenger." Serpius turned back to the cabin. "Dorish! Bring me the first child you see!"
"All right! All right! Calm down. Spirits you are impatient. We're moving in two!" Shouted the pilot, before tuning out the terrorist and focusing on his exo-jet.
Sidobia
Bostra
Spaceport
The hazy night sky was cool three thousand feet above and aft of the exo-jet, but newly appointed Spectre Saren Arterius blinked, annoyed at the moisture condensing his goggles. Rivulets of the stuff ran down the back of his black, Predator armor as he hung under the taut canopy of his square parachute. He was a Spectre, which meant Armax Arnsenal had designed a custom-specialty for nothing more than a promise to seriously consider endorsement. At the moment, it was perfect for observing the area below, dangling from the atmospheric-drag contraption.
It was his first time leading a team of Spectres into battle. He'd been assessed as ready by both his superiors and his peers, and he felt ready, but still … he was still turian. Still flesh and bone. And this maneuver wasn't without its own risks.
Two more canopies drifted down through the darkness near him. The three chutes were stacked at distance – teammates Vasir and Maerun were strapped together in a tandem rig below and fifty feet ahead of Saren, and Dozz was positioned slightly above and fifty feet behind.
All four Spectres floated with the wind, always angling toward their drop zone, a few hundred feet aft of the hijacked Palatine flight.
Vasir's voice came from her position up front, hanging in front of Maerun. "Saren, it seems that the exo-jet is getting ready to depart. There's no auxiliary power attached, and aft stairs are up too."
"I guess they aren't going to wait around for us to sneak inside," Maerun mumbled into his mic. The big turian always interjected humor when no one was in the mood.
And Saren was not in the mood. "Damn."
Next Dozz came over the radio: "Back to me a bit boss," and Saren immediately realized he had drifted a little too close to the Spectres below him. Calmly he adjusted his toggles to remedy the error.
The plan had been to land and then link up with other Hierarchy forces on the ground and then decide how to proceed. They'd set their drop zone as a spot on the tarmac behind the hijacked exo-jet, out of sight from the terminal. Intelligence on site had discovered holo-vid cameras positioned all over the terminal, and no one in the Citadel wanted the cameras to get a shot of a commando team dropping from the sky at 0330 hours.
As he hung twenty-five hundred feet above the ground, Saren eyed the exo-jet, keeping it between his stack and the cameras.
He hoped like hell he and his comrades would get a crack at taking the jet down before this was all over. He reasoned that, if the exo-jet stayed put in Bostra for just a few hours more, there was a decent chance they would get the order from the Citadel Council to hit the target.
But as he was thinking this, below his armored boots red and green indicator lights began blinking on the wingtips of the exo-jet. Almost instantly the two helium-3 engines on the exo-jet began to roar. Seconds later the nose of the craft turned slightly to the left, centering on the long runaway that ran off to the west.
The exo-jet began to move forward as the engines pitched higher.
Saren groaned in frustration. "You've got to be kidding."
"Damn, the bitch is rolling." Vasir shouted into her radio.
"Repositioning on the tarmac or heading to the space-lane?" Dozz asked from the back. He could not see past Saren's chute. "Bet they're flying out of here. They've been doing a lot of erratic shit like that."
"Suggestions?" Saren asked quickly into his mic. He knew to get the input of his subordinates at a critical moment like this.
"There isn't much sense in linking up with officials if the hijacked exo-jet isn't gonna hang around," Maerun said.
And then Dozz chimed in, "Saren, you have Execute Authority. Why don't we hit it?"
It was true; Saren had authorization from the Council, the head of the Spectres. This allowed Saren, as the military commander at the scene, the flexibility to call for a hasty in-extremis takedown of the exo-jet if he saw the opportunity to do so or if he felt the necessity to try, like if the terrorists, or "crows" in Spectre parlance, started shooting hostages before the official approval for the Spectre's mission came from the Council.
Still, Saren wasn't sure what Dozz was getting at. He keyed his mic. "Hit it? While it's moving?"
"We can land on the roof and head for the cockpit. I've got the harpoon. If we go in single file we can breach the escape hatch. If we increase our descent speed we can be inside before they go throttle-up."
"Have any of you guys done that before?" Saren asked incredulously.
"Not on a moving exo-jet, and only in training back at Palaven," Maerun answered. But he seemed to agree with his fellow teammate's assessment. "We aren't going to get another chance at this. If the exo-jet isn't there, then the holo-projector crews might see us, and if they film us dropping on the tarmac that will get back to the crows in the exo-jet. Might just piss them off enough to kill some more passengers."
"Now or never," Dozz said. "What's the call, Saren?"
Now Vasir chimed in. Though she was the oldest of the team and perhaps the most fit overall. "No sweat, we've got this." She sounded confident and eager.
Saren's operational brain trust had spoken and their vote was unanimous. Still, this was his first hit since entering the unit just two months prior, and the Council had made it crystal clear to Saren that he needed to change his ways. There was no room in the Spectres for wild antics that had gotten him in hot water in the past, and the Council had reminded Saren numerous times that he was on incredibly thin ice. Nevertheless, Saren and his boys had been the alert squadron readily available when this hostage crisis unfolded, so Saren and his team had been called to action.
'Make your decision, Saren!' He thought to himself in a silent shout.
Three seconds later he pressed the push to talk button on his chest rig again, "Let's hit it."
'The Council is going to have my ass for this,' he thought, but right now he had much bigger fish to fry. Metaphorically speaking, of course. Oceans on Palaven were few and clustered together.
Adeilia
Bostra
FOB Tukon
In the Joint Operations Center, the chow hall, the gym, and the holo-vid tent stood empty. Right now everyone with access was stacked at the back of JOC watching the shocking footage displayed on a single large holo screen at the front of the room. A Hasta drone's night vision camera caught the huge commercial exo-jet moving slowly through the darkness toward the space-lane, and its satellite uplink broadcast the ghostly images to their screen.
Saren and his team were not in the picture, they were still high in the air on their descent, and their drop zone was out of the camera's current field of view.
The Hierarchy forces at the airfield in Bostra were on the other end of a Thur sat phone; their running commentary piped through the speakers of the JOC. The Hierarchy's main liaison officer stood near Colonel Talia Cangatus, holding a phone to her ear and passing on additional information to the Council.
The tension in the air infected everyone. All were frozen in amazement at the huge holo-screen monitor, referred to in the JOC as 'Kill Vid.'
Men and women stood in rapt attention as the hijacked exo-jet rolled steadily down the taxiway, clearly advancing for takeoff on Space-lane 30. A few seconds later the Hasta downlink went fuzzy. The 'eye' in the sky had blinked. It was a mechanical glitch seemingly reserved for the Hasta brand, occurring at exactly those moments when clear observation was most desperately needed.
The Kill Vid feed came back up a moment later, just as the silhouetted figures of four operatives under three parachutes passed between the exo-jet and the camera's lens. Black figures flying through the air flared on the mini-screen, the heat off their bodies trapped in the chutes above them, creating a faint umbrella shape.
"Spirits. There they are!" Exclaimed the operations sergeant major, breaking the silence that had fallen over the JOC. They should have been landing far back on the tarmac, but it looked as if the Spectre team were making for the space-lane itself. "What the hell are they doing?"
The three chutes sailed purposefully toward the exo-jet on the ground, which meant only one thing to Colonel Cangatus. The men were not continuing on to the drop zone on the now-empty tarmac.
No. It looked like …
Cangatus cocked her head slightly. "Saren is attacking." She said it in a clipped voice that indicated to everyone in the room that she was furious.
No one in the JOC was new to special operations, but many still gasped. Assaulting an exo-jet as it sat at the end of the space-lane, seconds from take off?
Colonel Cangatus sat back in her chair. She was pissed, but she was not surprised. Saren fucking Arterius, her man on the scene, had been a pseudo-insubordinate troop commander before he'd been inducted into the Spectres two months ago. Now that he was the operational commander of the mission, there was little reason to expect anything but pseudo-insubordination now, even with all of her 'personal counseling' of how she wanted the operation to go.
She stared silently at the downlink screen. Cangatus would have stopped Saren if she had any control over the situation. But the Spectres audacious and daring actions effectively neutered any long-arm leadership or micromanagement since JOC was 220 miles away from the action.
Colonel Cangatus cleared her throat and in a confident and booming voice said, "All right, we have seemed to have a common operation with Spectres on target. Push the QRF to the airspace and air-loiter twenty minutes out, spin up the extraction fixed-wing exo-jet ASAP, and get me the general on the red line."
Immediately several of the staff in the JOC went from statues to blurs of activity – the Quick Reaction Force gunships were ordered into the theater, the extraction exo-jet were ordered ready and secure coms. with the general were established.
Cangatus' confident orders, turned to just the right authoritative tenor by decades of command sounded confident and certain, but that was just for public consumption. Silently to herself the colonel breathed softly, "Spirits, Arteruis, you'd better not fuck this up."
Sidobia
Bostra
Spaceport
Even though they had not expected to drop right into combat, the four Spectres were geared up for battle, even six hundred feet above the exo-jet. As this was an in-extremis operation, they only had time to bring in the best gear they could amass on the fly. All four Spectres wore standard Ablative helmets of their respective species with infrared strobes activated and binging on top. Under the helmet, all wore dark brown Peltor ear protection and radio headsets. The team would be going in light protection-wise; three wore just light armor, which would stop a frontal pistol or rifle rounds in case their kinetic barriers fell. Only Saren chose to wear an entire combat hard suit, years in the turian military having made a habit of constantly wearing one.
Each Spectre carried weapons that suited their preference. Saren and Maerun each carried a Phaeston assault rifle, the workhorse of the turian military, and Phentis pistols attached to their chests. In the tight aisles of the commercial exo-jet, the chest holsters allowed for faster draw of the heavy pistols than a hip holster. Dozz carried a Scorpion pistol and Bane submachine gun, as usual packing light like most salarians. Vasir chose to carry a Disciple shotgun and Bishop submachine gun for close quarters. Extra heat sinks were secured in their chest magnetic locks, which also held their MBITR MX radios in nylon side pouches. The radios were wired to their Peltor headsets so that they could communicate during the assault.
All four Spectres were dressed in black armor with the Spectre insignia, subdued in gray and black in color, on the left shoulder. They had exited the HS-3 Stormer (S) transport shuttle at twenty thousand feet wearing oxygen masks with a hose attached to a bailout bottle inside a pouch on the right hip. Once they had descended below ten thousand meters they disconnected their masks and let them hang on the side.
All wore thermal under suits and black balaclavas under their helmets to maintain body heat during the descent. Strapped to their hands were digital altimeters. Each Spectre also carried a pair of nine flash bang grenades and a personal first aid pouch with one-hand tourniquet rigs.
At four hundred feet meters the target Maerun, with Vasir riding in the front of his rig, maneuvered to line up his approach angle to the rear of the exo-jet, which was now turning towards the clear space-lane, an indication the enemy had not run preflight preparations. All Saren and Dozz had to do was follow the red and green signatures of their teammates armor lights while maintaining a safe distance. Saren, the least experienced jumper of the bunch, struggled to keep in formation with the other two chutes.
"Our spot is the long axis of the fuselage. We'll harpoon the escape hatch above the cockpit, depressurize the exo-jet, and enter. We are going to have to this fast and dirty before they take off. Once inside, haul ass and make friends in the rear. Remember they are a hundred forty souls on board, plus at least six rebels," Saren said.
"One four zero civilians, six enemy, understood," Said Dozz. "Explosives not ideal in this scenario. Must recalculate and adjust for variables. Find proper explosives with low blast radius."
"One-forty poor souls. Six targets. Got it," replied Vasir, cutting through Dozz's muttering.
"One-four-zero live. Six die. Then breakfast. Roger," Maerun said, interjecting his nonchalance into the tension.
"Boss, I have the harpoon," Dozz reminded his team leader. "Would have preferred something with a much bigger bang, but the right tools must be selected for the right job. Unless -"
"Pull around to my left and take the shot," Saren replied before Dozz had a chance to continue his train of thought.
"Roger that." Dozz said, and seconds later he glided past his team-leader, and then past the tandem team in front. He corrected back to the right and moved to the head of the line. Now it was Dozz's job to lead the others. He had red and green lights on his armor as well, and the Spectres behind him kept their eyes locked firmly on those lights as they neared the target.
Saren struggled to keep his place in the stack as they neared the landing, but he managed to touch down on the slick exo-jet roof just a few steps behind the others. He, Maerun, and Dozz pulled their harness release pins and the three parachutes floated off the right side of the exo-jet, just clearing the thruster's edge before catching the engine's backwash and twisting into the darkness.
All four Spectres were prone on top of the exo-jet now, and they fought to stay atop the slick and sloping surface, knowing they needed to get off the roof and inside the exo-jet before the pilot applied takeoff thrust and jetted down the space-lane. Dozz and Saren hugged the skin of the exo-jet, something akin to balancing on a giant ball, while Maerun, still attached and lying on top of Vasir, pulled the tandem chute's quick release to disconnect himself from his mate.
Inside the cockpit, the two-man turian flight crew had no idea that four Spectre operatives were crawling toward the cockpit along the exo-jet's fuselage. Both the pilot and copilot sat strapped to their seats with their headsets on, and they concentrated on the rushed take-off sequence, manipulating the appropriate controls.
The leader of the terrorists, the jittery Facinus with the combat vest, who called himself Jelloc, leaned into the cockpit. "One minute we are in the air or the boy dies!"
The copilot held out a placating hand to the armed gunman, then turned to the captain. "We ready to go?"
"I have no idea," the pilot replied as he turned to the space-lane in front of him. "But we're outta here before they shoot that kid."
He reached for the throttle, and the copilot did the same.
The four Spectres moved forward in single file on top of the exo-jet. Only two handholds jutted from the exo-jet's surface, and with a single gloved hand each, Maerun and Saren tested every bit of tensile strength of an antenna blade the shape of a shark's fin while Vasir held on to a strange looking nozzle protruding up about thirteen centi-meters and set back two meters from the escape hatch. The other hand was locked in a death grip around Dozz's right ankle.
Dozz, at the head of the line, could feel the vicelike grip around his ankle as one of his mates held on tight. He assumed the others were doing the same to the men in front of them.
Without warning, the heavy whine of the engines behind him grew to a roar, pushing the exo-jet forward with a jolt that made all four Spectres press their armored hands tight against the roof for purchase.
"She is taking off!" Dozz tried to yell above the engine noise, but none of his teammate's heard. At first the four Spectres struggled to stay glued to the exo-jet body as the jet's thrust increased and it rolled forward into the darkness down the space-lane. But quickly they began crawling forward again, as fast as they could on the slick surface.
Because the exo-jet had been refueled earlier at the terrorists' demands, Saren and his men knew the take-off speed for the exo-jet would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 290 km/h. It was already at tenth of that and Saren couldn't key his radio mic for fear of falling off the exo-jet. He yelled to Dozz in front of the short line of operators. "Breach it!"
Now the entire team's survival depended on Dozz. He had less than forty seconds to get the job done, or they would find themselves flying on the outside of the exo-jet until they were whipped off to their deaths by the incredible wind.
All commercial exo-jets were equipped with an emergency hatch above the cockpit. Formally referenced in the technical maintenance manuals as the Crew Compartment Overhead Hatch, the little door in the roof provides an emergency egress pathway for the exo-jet's crew. It is not considered an entrance point and was never intended to provide access to anyone on the outside.
But the Spectres did not care with the exo-jet designer's intentions were. Their intentions were what mattered now.
As the jet reached twenty percent ground speed, Dozz leaned on his left side and reached into his chest rig to draw the harpoon device. He pulled it free, pressed the activation button with his right thumb, and lined it up sixty meters away at the center mass of the escape hatch. Given the distance, he couldn't miss.
Developed by a shrewd Salarian combat-engineer, the harpoon was a simple carbon dioxide cartridge and a hollow tube the size of a large salarian eye that provided an efficient, if short-range, method to depressurize an exo-jet before an explosive breach through the doors. Its presence was crucial, in the event that the hijackers had booby trapped the exo-jet's doors before the assault force arrived.
This time, though, the assault force consisted of just four operatives and there would be no explosive breaching of the side doors. Moreover, as cunning and conniving as the Spectre operators were, no had had ever envisioned harpooning the escape hatch during takeoff.
Exo-jets, as a general rule, do not take off after an assault has begun. As the ground speed of the exo-jet passed fifty percent of the needed velocity, Dozz pulled the trigger and the harpoon pierced the shiny metal, immediately initiating a slow depressurization of the cabin below. Dozz then tossed the firing mechanism over the edge of the speeding jet to get it out of the way.
With his left hand on the throttle, the copilot heard a loud noise through the muffling capacitors of his headset, and saw the sharp black edge of a large dart protruding through the middle of the escape hatch, above and centered just behind the command chairs. "What the …"
The lead terrorist burst back into the cockpit, snapping him out of his momentary paralysis.
Behind the menacing Tempest submachine gun, the turian's dark skin tone stood in contrast to his loose white shirt buttoned over his body armor.
"V-one," the pilot announced calmly. Procedure dictated verbal notification at each stage, especially when takeoff velocity had been achieved. The pilot ignored everything around him and concentrated on the space-lane ahead; at V-one, even engine failure would fail to deter takeoff.
"What was that noise?" Serpius asked.
The copilot did not answer. Another thud on the roof diverted the terrorist's eyes up to the escape hatch.
On the roof of the speeding jet, Dozz's job was only half finished. He needed to get the hatch open. With the exo-nautic vehicle now at a ground speed of ninety percent, he frantically dug into his chest rig and pulled out a six-inch explosive charge from a pouch. He peeled away the thin film covering the sticky tape with his teeth, and he slapped it on the hatch-locking mechanism. Quickly he turned his head away and detonated the charge.
The explosion punctured the escape hatch and filled the cockpit with a misty gray haze. Serpius had been staring at the hatch, so he was temporarily blinded by the flash. He screamed and raised his weapon with one hand and fired blindly into the cockpit while rubbing his eyes with the other hand. One of his rounds found a home in the left shoulder of the pilot, spinning him in his seat, but remained upright in his safety harness.
Serpius raised his Tempest toward the roof now and let loose another burst. The rounds ripped through the padded insulation and punctured the thin metal skin of the exo-jet. Unsure of what was coming next and opting for the protection of his comrades, the Facinus turned and fled the cockpit.
Dozz felt a sting on his left hand as he gripped the hatch edge and pulled himself forward. An incredible burning on the secondary finger that felt as if the hatch had been slammed shut on it. But he remained in control of his entire team's destiny, so he ignored the pain and struggled against the wind resistance and the forward thrust of the exo-jet as he felt the jet's nose attitude increase.
Without taking time to look inside, he reached through the opening and tossed a nine-banger behind the crew seats. Almost instantly a succession of incredibly bright, deafening explosions rocked the cockpit. A smaller device would give only a half-dozen explosions, but the nonlethal flash grenade bordered on being a fragmentation grenade with its blast concussive blast radius .
Disorienting the flight crew during takeoff was an unfortunate, but necessary component of breaching a cockpit held by terrorists. Dozz just had to hope like hell the men flying the exo-jet could overcome the effects of the blast and get the jet in the air without veering off to the left or right or running out of the space-lane.
Dozz pulled himself face-first into the small hole right behind the last of the explosions, completely unaware that a sand-grain caliber round from the terrorist's gun had severed his secondary finger.
He tumbled six feet to the floor, landing half on the copilot and half on the main console. It hurt like hell, but he was relieved to be inside.
The wounded and disoriented pilot had handed off responsibilities to his copilot; somehow the copilot managed to remain composed. He kept the exo-jet straight on the space-lane, even though the flash-bang had all but blinded him. He had to get the exo-jet airborne; there was no way he could back off the throttle and reject the takeoff at this point, there was not enough space-lane to prevent the fuel-laden exo-jet from exploding in a fireball at the far edge of the grounds. He guided his huge exo-jet into the air with steady talons that belied the chaos going on around him.
Scrambling to follow Dozz into the exo-jet, Vasir slid in headfirst with the same bit of pathetic acrobatics as her teammate.
Maerun tumbled in behind them while Vasir and Dozz didn't wait around for introductions. The two Spectres gained their footing and exited the crew compartment door, weapons out in front of them. The steep angle of the takeoff roll required them to move through the cabin as if they were running down a hill. Maerun stayed where he was and reached up to help Saren into the exo-jet.
The exo-jet's rear supports left the space-lane, letting it rise at a ten-degree pitch and over two hundred kilometers an hour. Saren held on to the edge of the hatch for dear life, now pulling himself forward with all of his might against the roaring air current. The action of entering the cockpit had the unfortunate side effect of allowing the jagged exo-jet skin to catch the cord running between his Peltor ear protection to the radio, yanking the ear protection as well as his helmet into the howling gale. So Saren found himself without any type of cranial protection.
Saren landed to the rear of the center console next to Maerun, vaulted to his feet, and then leaned back down between the flight crew. He yelled to be heard over the roar of wind and engine noise from the hatch above. "Lock the door behind us! Fly a space-lane heading! No banking! Level off as fast as you can!"
Even though the nine-banger's effects had made hearing the black-clad commando nearby nearly impossible, the turian flight crew got the idea.
Saren brought his Phaeston up as he raced out of the cockpit doorway behind Maerun. The pilot, though injured with a small ragged hole in his shoulder, unbuckled his harness and forced the door shut into locked positioned. He then did his best to jam the escape hatch above back into place before reaching for the first aid kit.
The four Spectres had studied the exo-jet in great detail en route to the scene, memorizing every inch and feature. This wide body had two aisles in first class with a single row of large seats running down the center. The rows then continued past the forward galley, all the way back through the first coach cabin, to a central exit alley with lavatories. The two aisles then continued on through the rear coach cabin to the galley and lavs at the rear of the exo-jet.
Vasir and Dozz raced down the right aisle of first class, clearing it as they ran forward. Saren and Maerun followed just behind and on the left. The four Spectres passed the several dead bodies stowed in first class, then rushed through the forward lavatories and galley, charging down the steep aisles on both sides of coach.
By the time Saren made it into the coach cabin, terror had struck the passengers like a tidal wave. Wild animal-like screams and shrieks pierced his ears. The Spectres knew all about panic and what to expect from innocent civilians on board a hijacked exo-jet. The civilians, though terrorized and frantic, retained enough survival instincts to keep their heads down during the interdiction. Saren and his team knew that anyone brave enough to look up over the seat, for the first couple of seconds anyway, was very likely one of the bad guys. Identifying them proved to be easier given that the hijackers were entirely a different species than the turian civilians.
All four Spectres promoted the natural tendency of the innocents to stay out of the line of fire with angry shouts: "Get down! Get down! Get down!"
Maerun sprinted down the left aisle in the forward coach cabin. He noticed a dark brown hand with a black Tempest submachine gun just above a headrest and took aim. He raised his Phaeston rifle to eye level, placed the red dot of his optics an inch above the headrest, slipped his finger onto the taut trigger, and dropped the hammer twice on two subsonic sand-grain rounds.
It was all muscle memory and he completed the action in under two seconds. Both hot tungsten rounds tore through the headrest just low of his aiming point, and entered the armed turian's chest. The submachine gun fell to the cabin floor next to another body.
"One crow down," Maerun said into his mic. The Spectres kept moving.
Dozz had unquestionably, the worst job of the team. He was the runner. Armed only with a pistol in his right hand and a second pistol strapped to his chest, he raced down the right aisle, scanning intently, trying to separate normal sights from threat indicators. But his job as the runner was not to engage all the hijackers himself. No, his rush aft was designed to draw out the enemy. The three Spectres behind him knew to scan ahead to ID terrorists gunning for Dozz, the man spearing heading their assault.
By now Dozz knew he'd lost a finger to enemy fire. His bloody left hand stung even through the painkilling effects adrenaline gave, but the appendage continued to function, so he ignored the pain and continued.
Suddenly his forward momentum stopped as he ran smack-dab into a punishing burst of mass effect rounds. He hadn't even seen the shooter.
The bullets slammed squarely into the center of his chest plate armor. The impact stood him straight up, locking his knees momentarily before his instincts forced him to the deck.
The shooter then stood up, clearly thinking he would get a better angle on the Salarian commando. Vasir, in overwatch of Dozz's movement, placed her submachine gun sights above the terrorist's red headband and squeezed off two rapid rounds. Both found their mark, blowing blood, brains, and bone straight up and onto the overhead compartment. The enemy dropped back into his seat like a bag of wet cement as those around him screamed.
"Two down," Vasir announced.
Dozz regained his footing and continued down the aisle with his handgun. He moved so fast he almost missed one of the terrorists sitting on his right, but the Facinus made it easy as he identified himself.
"Kill these Spectres!" he screamed, rising with a Tempest in his right hand and a young female passenger held close to him with his left. Dozz spun toward the noise and squeezed a mass accelerator round almost instantly. The turian's head snapped back, the Tempest falling and the woman wrestled out of the dead terrorist's death grip and into the arms of her husband in the next seat over.
"Three crows down." Dozz kept moving.
Just then, on the left side of the exo-jet, a dark-skinned Facinus stood quickly in a window seat, shouting something incomprehensible. Both of his hands were thrust into the air as he stood and tried to get out into the aisle, shoving past those in the seats next to him. Saren's Phentis lined up on the man's forehead, and Saren's finger took up the slack of the pistol's trigger safety as he prepared to shoot the Facinus dead. He loose three rapid rounds of hot tungsten.
Unfortunately, the round penetrated through the Facinus and hit a turian behind him. The turian's hands were empty. He was a 'squirter,' a civilian panicked by the assault and trying to make a hopeless run for it.
Saren reached across the two passengers and shoved a panicked passenger back into his seat. "Get down!"
Maerun, moving down the left aisle facing aft, was a few yards ahead of Saren. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a Facinus lean out from the center exit aisle of the exo-jet with a weapon in his hand. Saren was dealing with the panicked passenger, and Dozz and Vasir could not see the Facinus from their position on the right side.
The terrorist ducked quickly back into the galley before Maerun could fire. He shouted into his mic as he kept his eyes focused on the corner. "Crow in the center galley!" He continued moving aft, hunting for terrorists indicators.
Without his Peltors, Saren didn't hear the call on the net, but did not matter. He'd caught a fleeting glimpse of the Facinus as he ducked around the corner. When Maerun was held up for a moment with another squirter in the center cabin, Saren leapfrogged his mate and made it to the galley, his eyes locked on the folding metal door of the lav. The terrorist would be inside; there was no indication that he'd retreated into the rear coach cabin.
Saren did not hesitate. He sidestepped left into the galley area to clear the rest of the space, and here he inadvertently stomped down on a male steward's left penny loafer. Saren looked at the young man cowering in a ball on the floor of the galley and made brief eye contact.
The kid smelled like he had soiled his pants and his body shook uncontrollably. Saren reached down with his non-firing hand grabbed and grabbed the collar of the kid's blazer. On the other side of the steward was the door to the lavatory concealing the Facinus terrorist.
"Need your space," Saren said. "Move toward the cockpit." But the young man remained still. Saren growled once and yanked the kid by his collar, lifting him up, trying to force the steward out of his way. Patience was a virtue, but not in this situation.
"Don't move me!" The kid finally shouted in a panicked falsetto.
Saren shouted, "Get your ass out of the– " Dragging the kid all the way to his feet, Saren finally saw it. A shine and movement of a wire attached to a drawer in the side of the cupboard. It was a presence that did not belong. The wire ended in a noose around the steward's neck and was clearly visible now, though Saren had not checked for it an instant earlier.
As Saren pushed the steward out of the galley, the kid's movement pulled the wire, which opened the drawer, which then fell to the floor. From the plastic drawer a small cylinder rolled across the galley.
This, Saren recognized instantly. "Grenade!" He screamed at the top of his lungs.
The steward was clear; he had stumbled into the forward coach cabin and slammed straight into Maerun, knocking the turian Spectre back onto a passenger in his seat.
Saren heard the lavatory door open. His senses in overdrive, he whipped his head a few degrees to the right before picking up the blur of a weapon's muzzle. Saren was going to take a hit from the grenade on the floor behind him; there was no way to avoid that. In that flash of an instant he told himself he would 'eat' the grenade if he had to, but he was damn well not going to let some asshole Facinus terrorist shithead shoot him..
Saren opened his mouth to absorb the overpressure of the impending explosion, and he dropped to a prone position to get below the bulk of the grenade's shrapnel. While doing this, he opened fire on the lavatory door, blasting four mass accelerator rounds chest-high as he hit the deck, hoping like hell that most of the blast would go over him.
Between gunshots he heard shouts from both Vasir and Dozz, plaintive cries for a passenger to "get the fuck down!"
An old woman appeared suddenly in the galley from the rear cabin; her hand was over her mouth and she was vomiting, desperately trying to make it to the bathroom to avoid embarrassment. Instead, she stumbled around the corner, saw Saren on the floor facing her and firing into the lavatory.
She did not see the grenade on the floor behind him, but it would not have mattered if she had. Saren started to shout to her, but was enveloped by white light and violet noise and indescribable pain.
Rotas
Oma Ker
Helium–3 Refinery
They moved swiftly, silently, with purpose, under a crystalline, star filled night in Oma Ker. They were turians, or rather true turians in their eyes, though one could hardly know from their speech, which was surprisingly an ancient dialect of turian. The four Facinus fighters had just completed a complex task in the vehicle bay, the placement of dozens of charges with many more on various valves. Maxilus Albinian was their leader, though he was not in front. Ras held that honor, the massive former Hierarchy soldier who had already killed six false turians this cold night – three with a pistol hidden under his armor and three with his hands alone. No one had heard him. A Helium–3 refinery was a noisy place. The bodies were left in the shadows, and three Facinus entered Maxilus' civilian model Maceo transport for the next part of the task. The refinery's central control was a modern, well-fortified three-story building placed in the center of the complex with dozens of well-armed guards. Hardware stretched in all direction for at least five kilometers. Communication towers, storage tanks, catalytic chambers, and above all the thousands of kilometers of large-diameter pipes which made Rotas one of the system's largest refining complexes. The sky was lit at uneven intervals by the colony's moon, and the air was foul with the stink of Helium refining components.
They approached the steel-walled, windowless building in Maxilus' transport, pulling into the engineer's reserved vehicle slot. His comrades crouched in the rear, remaining hidden.
Inside the glass door, Maxilus greeted the security guard, who conducted the routine security check, his hand for Maxilus' security pad. The need for security here was quite real, but since the last incident dated back over fifty years, no one expected another one to occur with the new safety and security measures. Despite that the guard, like all turians, was rigid and alert. Maxilus pretended to fumbled handing over his pad, and the guard lurched down to retrieve it. He never came back up. Maxilus' pistol was the last thing the turian felt, a cold circle at the base of his skull, and he died without knowing why – or even how. Maxilus went behind the guard's desk to get the weapon the guard had been only too happy to display for the engineers he protected. He lifted the body and moved it awkwardly to leave it slumped at the desk – then waved his comrades into the building. Ras and Moha raced to the door.
"It is time." Maxilus handed the Phaeston rifle and heat sinks to his taller friend. Ras hefted the weapon briefly, checking to see that a heat sink was inserted and clicked the safety off. Then he slung the heat sink belt over his shoulder and snapped the omni-blade back into place before speaking for the first time in the night.
"Freedom awaits."
Maxilus composed himself, inspecting his armor to ensure it was free of any flaw that might expose himself to enemy fire before leading his comrades up the six flights of stairs.
Ordinary procedure dictated that to enter the master control room, one first had to pass a series of security checks before entering. It was no issue to bypass them given Maxilus' security clearance. The dense steel doors slid open to allow him access. Entering, Maxilus saw the room was occupied.
"You're not on duty tonight, Maxilus," The engineer on duty said.
"I decided to run a routine diagnostic," Maxilus replied. "Can't be too careful with such machinery."
The engineer grunted in agreement. "True enough, Maxilus." The engineer seemed unaware of the danger present. His arrogance only serving to justify Maxilus of his new allegiance.
The doors slid open once again. The engineer hadn't been able to see Ras and Moha before and scarcely had time now. Three mass accelerator rounds from the Phaeston exploded into his chest.
The master control room contained a crew of twenty turians, each specialized for a task to properly run the facility. The high walls were crosshatched with pipeline schematics, dotted with hundreds of lights to indicate which control valve was doing what. That was only the main display. Individual segments of the system were broken off onto separate status boards, mainly controlled by computer but constantly monitored by half the duty engineers. The staff could not fail to note the sound of the three shots. But none were armed.
Much of the security force had been designed with an external threat in mind, not an internal one and therefore much of the security force was placed outside and within the facility with only a token force in the control room. They were the first to be targeted, eliminating the largest source of threat.
With elegance befitting the best training the Facinus could offer, Ras and Moha began to work their way across the room, using their Phaeston expertly and firing only a single round into each engineer. A few tried to escape, but the majority showed their fanaticism to their false government by trying to rush the intruders in an attempt to defend the facility. It seemed the defenders showed some modicum of success as two turians bravely got on their command links to summon a fast-response team of Hierarchy security troops.
If nothing else, Maxilus had to respect the dedication the false turians held to their duties. 'If only they could see the truth,' he thought.
It was not long before the security troops arrived, the narrow corridors serving to funnel them into the hasty defenses the Facinus had prepared. Ras shot one of enemy turians from his position, but the other ducked around the line of command consoles to evade the gunfire and bolted to the side, where a series of data storage hubs could serve as cover.
Maxilus saw it was the security chief of this section of the plant. Maxilus could remember every time this creature had patronized him with pity and false consolation. Maxilus didn't hesitate in his conviction, raising his pistol and firing an entire clip into the soldier
"Maxilus!" The turian screamed in anger. The turian's shields and armor had already suffered extended damage and it was only a matter of the croup de 'grace as Maxilus shot her in the mouth.
Moha was already enacting the next phase of the operation, working in the back of the room, he switched the room systems-control mode from computer-automatic to emergency-manual and bypassing all of the automated safety systems.
As a methodical turian, Maxilus had planned and memorized every detail of his task over a period of months. The alarms across the refinery has already been raised, indicating the other groups of Facinus saboteurs were either conducting their part of the operation or already had. The sudden eruption of the vehicle bay removed any doubts Maxilus had. He looked around at the status displays to orient himself, he paused.
From his back pocket, Maxilus took his most treasured personal possession, a holo-pad of his family. His great-grandfather had been killed during the futile rebellions against Palaven, his father shamed by helpless subservience to the state; Maxilus had at first accepted the turian Hierarchy, believing in their just cause until he realized it was only a delusion. They offered nothing, but empty promises and subservience in exchange for nothing in return. He smiled, certain that it was the final sign in a plan being executed by hands greater than his. Serene and confident, he began to fulfill his destiny.
First the hydrogen. He closed sixteen control valves – the nearest of them three kilometers away – and opened ten, which rerouted eighty million liters of hydrogen to gush out from a bank of truck-loading valves. The hydrogen liquid did not ignite at once. The three had left no pyrotechnic devices to explode the first of many disasters for that task was assign to a more dedicated group. And so, the Facinus group responsible for that task succeeded. A small truck driving through the loading yard took a turn too fast, skidded on the splashing fuel, and slid broad-side into a utility pole. It took only one spark … and already more fuel was spilling out into the train yards.
With the master pipeline switches, Maxilus had a special plan. He rapidly typed into the main computer, thankful that Ras was so skillful as to not have damaged anything important. The main pipeline from the nearby production field was two meters across, with many branch lines running to all of the production wells. The hydrogen traveling in those pipes had its own mass and its own momentum supplied by pumping stations in the fields. Maxilus' commands rapidly opened and closed valves.
The pipeline ruptured in a dozen places, and the computer commands left the pumps on. Escaping liquid flowed across the production field, where only one more spark was needed to spread an inferno before the dark night, and another break occurred where the hydrogen and helium pipelines crossed together over a nearby river.
"Enemy reinforcements are here!" Ras shouted a moment before the second wave of team of Hierarchy security guards stormed through the corridor with mobile shield generators and turrets. A short burst from Ras' Phaeston killed the first two, and the rest of the squad stopped cold behind an active shield panel as their young sergeant wondered what the hell they had walked into.
Already, automatic safety alarms and warnings were erupting around him in the control room. The master status board showed four growing blazing storms whose borders were defined by blinking red lights. Maxilus walked to the master computer and fired point blank range. Moha was busily slashing out every comm link in the room with his omni-tool, it caused only superficial damage which could easily be repaired, but it only compounded the existing damage. The whole building shook with the explosion of a hydrogen storage tank two kilometers away.
The crashing sound of a hand grenade announced another move by the Hierarchy troops. Ras returned fire, and the screams of worried turians nearly equaled the earsplitting fire-alarm klaxons. Moha rushed to join Ras in holding off the enemy as Maxilus hurried over to the corner. The floor there was slick with blood. He located the power generator and fired his pistol. It was now impossible to stop the damage caused without power to supply the terminals, however Maxilus no doubt imagined the Hierarchy had a method to circumvent this issue.
He was done. Maxilus saw that his massive friend had been mortally hit in the chest by grenade fragments. He was wobbling, struggling to stay erect at the door, guarding his comrades to the last. Moha had clearly taken a round to the jaw, the excessive bleeding only marginally stopping with the applied bio-gel.
Clutching the pad with his family on it, Maxilus called out defiantly to the security troops, who spoke not a word to the saboteur. "For too long, we have endured the injustice of being held captives of a corrupt government. The Hierarchy says they'll protect us, yet we are held back on a leash by the Council. The same Council who continues accept the barbaric batarians. How can we show loyalty to a government who refuses to enact justice to savage slavers and let them run rampant across the Terminus?"
The turian sergeant leaped around the lower landing and his first burst tore the rifle from Ras bloodless hands. Two hand grenades arched through the air as the sergeant disappeared back around the corner.
There was no place – and no reason – to run. Moha and Maxilus stood immobile in the doorway, firing their weapons as the grenades bounced and skittered across the tiled floor. Around them the whole world seemed to be catching fire, and because of them the whole colony really would.
"For Freedom!" The surviving duo, with nothing to lose, charged directly towards the guards.
A/N: All right I am back! Now this doesn't come without its bad news. I know I usually leave these notes at the end of the chapter, however the reason for this is rather important. Typically I finish an arch prior to uploading the first chapter so I can follow up with regular weekly or biweekly updates, however this time it is different. With finishing up my degree in Civil Engineering, having an internal hemorrhage that took me out for two months, and going for a long time without updates, I decided to upload this chapter and instead do the usual route that other authors take in that they update rather infrequently chapter by chapter. Note that this does not mean that the quality of the fic will go down only that it will be updated infrequently. I hope you guys enjoy this nice 10k worded chapter because I have no idea when the next one is coming.
Also this chapter is made with the idea that ME races still use exo-jets for in-colony commercial flights as only the Asari have managed to have sky-cars be standard for their citizens. As such if any of you guys out there have knowledge claiming otherwise, you will need to have some suspension of belief.
Trivia:
1. This is the first chapter that I forgot to add trivia to, due to my excitement of finishing and publishing this chapter.
2. This is the first chapter I've completed since being out of the hospital.
3. This is the first chapter to be published prior to having the arch already finished as explained in the A/N notes.
4. Saren's POV was inspired by a real-life event where French Special Forces had to land on a moving jet in mid-air and retake it from terrorists.
5. General Han featured in the beginning was the same one whose force was destroyed in Guardians of Freedom and is referenced in being captured in High Speed, Low Drag.
6. Oma Ker is an actual canon turian colony that has vital infrastructure that is captured by Reaper forces and is referenced in ME3.