Chapter 5
Night was fading on Taetrus as morning crept over the skyline. The Constant Lightning Offensive had been successful in quelling the majority of the Separatist ground forces and over the night, air squadrons vied to control the skies. Air dominance seemed assured as one cruiser was to continue its orbital strike pattern when a veteran fighter unit requested a hold on the strike to deal with an unknown bogey in their airspace. The cruiser acknowledged the request and powered down their main weapon, scanning the skies below in search of the unidentified object.
The focused squad dove through the smoke filled sky, advancing towards the blip on their scanners. All they knew was that it was moving slow, had four life signatures and did not register on any known IFF records. From the scans, they were not even sure it was an aircraft and so they plunged into the battle space to investigate.
As the smoke began to clear the squad remained in formation as they started to peer below and saw what looked like a translucent green orb flying towards them. A notice pinged on the squad leader's HUD, but he declined it and ordered his team to open fire upon the orb, believing it to be a weapon or experimental craft.
Closer to the orb now, as it dodged and weaved through the incoming fire, one of the pilots managed to see that it had three unidentified individuals inside of it being led by another outside the sphere. The pilots all tried to focus on the interior of the sphere and noticed at least one of them was wearing a Taetrian pilot uniform. Immediately marking the three in the sphere as POW, they now focused all their weaponry on the one controlling the orb.
The brightly dressed turian they chased seemed adept at maneuvering around them and blocking their fire with walls formed from light. The fighters could not tell if the constructs were biotic or technological in nature, but kept up their assault regardless.
Finally the orb that was trailing behind the unknown person seemed to morph into a turian designed shuttle and was rocketed high above the skyline and into orbit. The squad leader ordered two of its fighters to follow the shuttle as the others fixated upon the hovering lone turian holding his arms up.
The turian was talking into its hand, but none of the fighters had tuned into the message's frequency. They could see the green and black dressed turian sigh to himself as he appeared to come up with an idea. He then pointed his fist towards the squad leader and a green aura stretched out from him and stopped right in front of the fighter's canopy. The aura then began to form into words that hung in the air for the leader to read:
'I am not your enemy, identity; Colonel Raynor, Kale. Taetrian Air Battalion'
The words flashed green across the squad leader's canopy as he hesitated to check the identification. He ordered his team to hold fire as he punched the name into his console. A few seconds later the name was confirmed as MIA during the initial raid of the wetlands. The squad leader immediately directed the file to the others in the team as they all disengaged their weapon systems and opened the comm channel that had been pending the entire time.
"Sir, Colonel Raynor, is that really you?" stammered the squad leader.
"Sure is," the floating turian said into his hand, "You guys get that shuttle I sent up?"
"Yessir, it was loaded into the cruiser overhead. Sir, how are you flying right now?" asked one of the other pilots, watching Raynor begin to ascend into space.
"I'll explain later"
Kale hovered into the hangar bay along with the air squadron who had been hunting him minutes earlier. He saw that his makeshift shuttle had been drawn into the hangar bay and the prisoners had been escorted off, prompting Kale to dissolve the shuttle. The engineers who were looking over the emerald shuttle became confused as the shuttle withered away and then disappeared completely. Now the entire hangar looked to Kale as he still hovered a few feet off the ground, emitting a green glow all around.
To his left a turian commando squad moved in with rifles pointed upwards at him. Kale instinctively put his hands up as a bright green shield formed in front of him. The shield was shaped in an ancient design, with the same Lantern insignia on its front that Kale had on his chest. The action only flustered the commandos further as they barked orders for him to descend to the floor to be apprehended.
With everyone yelling, the pilots that were in the air squadron were just getting out of their vehicles as they ran over to Kale's position, standing between their rifles and his shield. "This is not an enemy, this is Colonel Raynor of Taetrus!" yelled out the squad leader.
"Tell him to lower his shields and come quietly with us for questioning!" ordered the turian commander. The pilot exhaled as he looked behind him and saw Kale lowering to the ground, keeping his hands up. The green aura around him diminished along with his shield as his boots touched the grated floor.
"I'll go willingly" Kale settled as he put his own wrists together and had a pair of emerald shackles appear over them. Smiling to himself, Kale raised his 'restrained' hands up and began to walk towards the commander. The other soldiers put a hand on his shoulders as they led him from the hangar. Escorted into the long halls of the cruiser, he was led into an interrogation room and forced into one of the two chairs.
Kale looked around the room, never thinking he would be in one himself. Not long after being sat down, a high ranking General strode through the sliding door. He sat down opposite to Kale and had a datapad in his hand. He read over the data and then looked up; noticing the odd uniform Kale wore.
"Colonel," the turian started in an awkward tone, "you were reported as MIA during the first raid of the Diluvian Wetlands. Can you explain your whereabouts since then?"
Curious, Kale looked at the turian in front of him and then leaned against the metal table between them, "I'm not on trial here, am I Sir?"
"Not yet. Though we are happy to see you alive and bringing three other captured with you; when you appear in the sky wearing a new uniform and using unknown energies, it warrants an investigation."
Kale nodded, he couldn't argue with that. "To be honest Sir, I'm not really sure what it is" Kale started as he looked down at the ring on his hand. "From what I can tell, it's some kind of tool from an ancient species that allows me to do…well…anything."
"Anything? Would you be willing to let the Hierarchy examine it?" asked the General. At first Kale wanted to say no, but then he reminisced that his responsibility as a turian is always to the betterment of the people. If this ring could help them, it was his duty to give it up.
"I suppose" Kale said as he looked down, reaching for the ring with his other hand. He tugged at the ring, but it would not budge. He put more muscle behind it, but it did not move.
"Area not safe for user, cannot allow ring removal"
Kale stopping pulling on the ring and looked back at the General, "Well you heard it" he shrugged.
"Heard what?" asked the General with a confused look on his face. Kale then frowned as he looked down at the ring.
"Can only I hear it" Kale wondered as he moved the ring in the artificial light. He then glanced back to the General, "It won't let me take it off, Sir." The General furrowed his brow at the news and made a note on his data pad.
"Son, you have to know how this looks; you come back with an unknown weapon, from an unknown origin, which you claim has bonded itself to you. My hands are tied. We are already en route back to Palaven, Hierarchy Command wants to investigate this" the General somberly said as the closed his data pad and stood up. "Please don't fight them" he said as he turned and left out the door as the commando squad stormed in, weapons ready.
Realizing now why the ring had said the area was not safe, Kale jumped from his seat and pinned himself against the back wall. The commandos yelled for him to remove the ring from his hand or they would open fire. Not wanting to hurt the soldiers for just doing their duty, Kale raised his fist towards the soldiers and quickly thought of releasing a riot spray, designed for immobilizing combatants.
Making his thought a reality, the ring dispensed a green mist all through the small room, causing the commandos to cough and shield their uncovered eyes. The protective aura once again shined over him as he maneuvered out of the room and into the hallway. In the corridor, he glanced at the door console and directed the ring at it, overriding the controls and closing the door.
He turned, not knowing what to do next and saw halfway down the hall the General stood holding his hand to comm. Kale backtracked and ran to other way as he thought about leaving the ship and then escaping, but there was nowhere to go. He was now a fugitive of his own people; he could not return home or go to Palaven to contest his status. He started to run down the corridor, all turian cruisers were designed the same way, so he roughly knew where he was heading.
As Kale ran he knew he needed to get out of the uniform he wore, otherwise he clearly stood out. He then watched as the green uniform he wore started to fade back into his original pilot clothes. He stopped mid-run as he rounded a corner and saw he now wore his old clothes. He noticed the ring was missing, but as he ran his other hand over the finger, he noticed it was still there only unseen.
Kale traced over the invisible ring and figured it was hiding itself by bending the light around it, rendering it undetectable to the eye. Impressed, Kale moved swiftly through the corridor and once again found his way to the main hangar. Moving slowly as to not be seen, he grabbed a flight helmet off the rack and concealed his face with it.
Overhead an alarm chimed, warning the ship there was an intruder attempting escape. Groups of turians ran by him, weapons ready and so Kale grabbed a rifle off the rack as well and joined formation, jogging with the soldiers.
About an hour went by and after searching the enter cruiser; the General announced that the Colonel must have escaped into the space. He commanded that the cruiser make a complete stop and begin their search of the surrounding area. They had already traveled through the relay on the outskirts of Taetrus' system and were on their way to another relay, to connect to Palaven. The system they stopped in was minimally operated by the turians and so the General did not want to stay there long.
Kale had continued to hide in plain sight as he moved from squad to squad, finally ending up in one of the barracks. Hearing the command to search the area, Kale took the opportunity and followed the pilots back to the hangar bay and suited himself up. He climbed into an extra fighter and followed suit with the other squadron leaders as they rose off the grated floor and hovered out the bay barrier.
Once again in a fighter, Kale swooped in formation with the others, planning his next move. One of the scout ships then sounded over the open comm, "Sir, we have confirmation of a bogey on our side of the relay. Unknown if friend or foe, but from the size of it, I don't think it is the Colonel." All of the fighters remained stationary, waiting for orders from the General.
"Can you get a visual?" asked the General over the comm. Everyone waited for an answer as they hovered in space.
"By the Spirits…" whispered the scout.
"Indoctrinated presence confirmed" the ring acknowledged as Kale looked at it with a knot forming in his stomach.
"Sir it, it looks like a Collector vessel!" hesitated the scout on the other end. Every turian in the fighters and aboard the cruiser held their breath. Everyone knew about the Collectors, until recently they were regarded as a myth, but then Shepard of the Alliance exposed and destroyed their base on the other side of the Omega Relay. The galaxy had thought that was the end of the Collectors, but if another vessel existed, no one knew for sure.
Now the General pulled up visuals from the fleeing scout ships and saw it with his own eyes. It was an enormous ship, made to look like a metallic hive. Forgetting about the rogue turian for now, the General ordered all fighters to return to the ship and prepare to flee the system.
As soon as the order was given, the Collector vessel let loose a swarm of round metal orbs with bright red centers. The oculus devices moved through space and began to intercept the scattered fighters, firing beams of powerful energy. The fighters performed defensive maneuvers as the General opened fire with the main cruiser cannon upon the incoming Collector vessel.
"Crap" thought Kale as he maneuvered with the rest of the squad, avoiding the streams of fiery energy from the oculus drones. He swiftly dodged the streaks as he flew closer to the cruiser and even through the best of his ability; he managed to have three of the oculus trailing behind him and once again was engulfed in debris as his fighter was torn apart.
The space attack would have meant instant death, but Kale opened his eyes to see a familiar green aura encased around him. "Two crashes in two days….maybe I'm not a good pilot" Kale pondered as he tumbled through the fire and metal around him. He could see his pilot uniform had once again been replaced with the green and black suit. He surprised himself as he was able to take a deep breath while stabilizing himself in the zero-G and looking at the warzone around him.
The Collector vessel closed in on the cruiser with a glowing energy weapon charging at its bow. The oculus drones swarmed around each turian fighter, picking them apart. Kale then noticed the three drones that had shot him down still chased after the squad he was following and jetted after them. He held his ringed hand out in front of him as he cut through space leaving a trail of green energy behind.
He swerved to keep up with the oculus drones that were directly behind the fighter team firing energy beams towards them. The first thing he thought of as he neared the two closest drones was seeing two silver fish swimming through a stream and so a giant net ejected from his ring, draping around the two orbs.
Slowing himself, he tightened his net and began to swing them around, finally letting them loose in the opposite direction. The drones crashed into each other as they were let go and sailed away into the darkness of space. Kale then turned and saw that the third oculus had veered from the fighter and now focused on him.
The orb flew directly at him and began to charge its primary weapon at its center. Kale furrowed his brow and faced the oncoming oculus, ring extended towards it. The drone let loose its red stream of energy as Kale focused his thoughts in creating a similar beam. A column of concentrated emerald power streaked from his ring and collided with the drone's red beam as gold sparks exploded outwards.
Kale concentrated as he pushed the beam further as the oculus drone drew closer, putting more force into its blast. Green bolts danced along his arm as he focused his energy overcoming the drone and as the orb got more near to the meeting point of the two energy beams, it started to slow down. Seeing his opportunity, Kale struggled as he put everything he had into the beam as it swelled and overpowered the orb. The green energy struck the center of the oculus, tearing it apart and causing an eruption of metal remains.
Proud of himself, Kale breathed hard into the green aura that provided fresh air for him and felt like something was wrong. He looked over his shoulder and saw the Collector vessel firing a massive streak of golden energy towards the cruiser. Fighters still scurried around the main cruiser as drones chased after them. Kale took a deep breath and shot forward toward the cruiser, not fully knowing what his plan was.
