Archive: Council Meeting 2/1/2339
Subject: Batarian Hegemony accusations of Systems Alliance aggression in Attican Traverse
Excerpt: 2412.33 to 2415.12 Hours
Excerpt begins:
Batarian High Ambassador Gorval Balton: This is an insult and a crime against sapience! I can't believe you're even debating whether this is an act of war! I demand intervention and sanctions against the Systems Alliance!
Systems Alliance Ambassador Donnel Udina: I resent these accusations. (pause while adjusting eyepatch) They are patently untrue.
Councilor Tevos: Please explain, Ambassador. We have seen the recordings from the batarian colony worlds. The violence against batarian colonists is undeniable.
Ambassador Udina: The "colonies" in question are unclaimed worlds open to development for any species, not just human and batarian. We are not responsible for the actions of a minority of our species that refuse to acknowledge the Alliance's authority. And most of the attacks have been against mercenary enclaves, pirate bases, or Hegemony military outposts, not civilian centers.
Ambassador Balton: Lies! We have proof that these so-called "bandits" are operating out of Alliance facilities-
Ambassador Udina: Low income housing facilities built to help with rehabilitation. (pause as prosthetic hand taps on lectern) You are all aware of how the Alliance struggles to maintain control over our species' genetic predispositions toward violence, and how our rampant physical mutations correlate with psychopathic tendencies. Many of the unfortunate inhabitants of these ramshackle colonies are those who suffered the worst genetic damage. They require extensive treatment to be reintegrated into society, and we cannot do that on our core worlds-
Ambassador Balton: Rehabilitation? Is that what you call it when you dump thousands of these genetic mutants on a planet and stand aside as they cut a swathe through batarian outposts?
Ambassador Udina: -and many citizens of the Alliance are already reconsidering their opinions about their mutant relatives, so our plan is already showing some signs of success.
Ambassador Balton: This is a declaration of war, Councilors! If these attacks on Hegemony interests do not-
Ambassador Udina: So you admit culpability in the pirate raids on human space, then?
Ambassador Balton: What?
Ambassador Udina: Because of the eleven systems you have cited as being the sites of this "unprovoked aggression", four are known batarian pirate havens, and two more are confirmed sites of slave trading. These "bandit" raids on these worlds have exclusively targeted the bases of these criminal scum; the only reason we allowed them to continue at all instead of intervening directly was because no one particularly cared for the criminals in question. I was, honestly, surprised that you lumped these worlds in with the rest.
Councilor Velarn: Curious. (beeping from fingers manipulating haptic interface) Yes, our own records from the STG recon into the Terminus supports this. Six of the eleven worlds where these attacks were reported were exclusively criminal havens. Ambassador, what made you believe that we would confuse these for actual colony worlds? While human insanity is quite well-documented, I would expect more thorough fact-checking from your own-
Ambassador Balton: (incoherent shout) (impact from lectern being ripped out of its stand and hurled across the room)
End of Record
Chapter Two: Rules of Engagement
Roland spread his squad out on the landing overlooking the western entrance. A service road meandered up the side of the hill, and the main wall of the Hyperion facility blocked off view from the service road into the rest of the base. Anyone entering would not be able to see the gunships hovering on the other side of the complex, though they could easily hear the engines and spot the rising smoke.
He could still hear gunfire back inside the compound, and several hollow explosions sounded over the course of a few seconds. There was a tremendous crash and detonation on the far end of the base.
"Man, they're fighting back hard over there," Jenkins murmured.
"That doesn't sound like Hyperion," Williams commented. "There shouldn't be any Hyperion troops outside, not with the gunships overhead."
Roland nodded and keyed his ECHO. He switched frequencies, hearing reports from other platoon commanders as they swept the interior. He frowned, trying to remember which unit was securing the eastern end-
"-tearing us apart!" someone suddenly screamed, and Roland flinched at the volume. "Half the squad is down! She fucking blew up a gunship! We need backAAAAAAUGH!"
A roaring howl filled the speaker, and Roland could hear another echoing explosion. He switched frequencies to another squad in the same platoon.
"Repeat, Second Squad is down!" the squad leader was calling.
"How many hostiles?" Called the platoon commander. "Who are they? Hyperion? Alliance?"
"Sir, it's-" A paused, gunfire sounding over the ECHO, and more screams. "Sir, it's just one person!"
"Confirm that!"
"Confirm it, sir," another voice called. "One woman. It's -" Another explosion. "Shit! Sir, it's a fucking Siren!"
"Repeat that! Did you say the contact is a Siren?"
"A Siren, sir! She's-" the call was cut off by another scream. "Oh, God! Everything is on fire! Especially the parts that can't burn! AUUUUUUGH!"
"Run or burn, bitch!" a woman's voice shouted distantly over the ECHO, before it cut out.
"Well, that's some bad news," Roland muttered, switching channels.
"Sarge?" asked Williams.
"We're not the only ones smashing and grabbing," he said, and was surprised at how calm he sounded despite the extremely bad news. His heart pounded in his chest as he spoke. "There's a Siren attacking the base too."
He changed to Higgins' channel in the shocked silence that followed, and signaled the platoon leader.
"Sir, this is Roland. We've reports of a Siren inside the perimeter. How copy?"
"Yeah, I heard," Higgins replied a second later. A rattle of gunfire sounded on his end. "We've got it under control."
Something exploded in the general direction of the Siren, and Roland heard another gunship spin out of control and crash with a resounding explosion.
"Sounds like it," he replied, deadpan.
"We can do without your sarcasm, Sergeant," Higgins barked. "Company is moving troops to intercept. Just cover your sector. You see anyone not wearing a Lance uniform, you shoot. Understood?"
"Yes sir," Roland replied. Higgins closed his end, and Roland exhaled. He looked over their positions over the gate, noting their formation was Lance-standard: two teams with interlocking fields of fire, Defenders up front, support guns and Engineers in the back, a rifleman on security on either flank. Their position was secure.
But the unease in his stomach refused to abate. The Siren was ugly news indeed, but far from surprising. He'd been expecting trouble; Dahl and Torgue-Urdnot also had facilities on the planet, with commandos ready to deploy, not to mention whoever had the stones to attack an Alliance core world. There was only one reason to risk an attack on Eden Prime, and that reason was sitting deep in this base's labs. And once again, Atlas was putting the hunger for profit over, well, everything else.
Shouldn't be surprised that we attacked now, he thought. Human nature. The moment the cops are distracted, we start breaking into each other's houses to loot their stuff.
But questioning Atlas' motives had ended with him wearing a Sergeant's rank pins, instead of a Lieutenant's. He'd joined the Lance to protect people, but he spent more time on missions like this - pointless raids on other corporations, or enforcing the company's will on civilian taxpayers - than protecting those people.
Despite being rested, well-fed, and alert, Roland was dead tired.
"Sir," Ashley called, breaking him out of his moping. Roland shook his head and jogged over to the Corporal. The Lanceman was peering down the slope of the road through her rifle's scope, and he raised his own, following her movement.
"Dammit," he hissed.
Maybe two hundred meters down, a gray camouflage-painted, six-wheeled vehicle shaped like an upside-down spade with a low, long-barreled gun turret had come to a halt. Soldiers dismounted from hatches in the sides, wearing dark blue and black hardsuits. They unfolded rifles - Hahne-Kedar standard, collapsible mass accelerator variants. They all had SDU packs on their backs, likely holding their digistruct gear and ammo.
He recognized the weapons, armor, and camo scheme, and the sight made him curse immediately.
"I've got a shot on the vehicle," Gunnar said. He'd set his rifle aside, and had produced a heavy rocket launcher from his storage deck unit. It was an older Torgue-Urdnot model, jet black, rectangular, ugly and unsubtle. He peered down the scope, ready to fire. "One word and that Mako is scrap."
"Hold your fire," Roland ordered, shaking his head.
Dammit, not now.
The squad of Systems Alliance Marines spread out and advanced up the slope, unaware of the Lancemen watching them from above. They took cover along the road, scanning the entrance, and one of them pressed a hand to the side of his helmet, speaking into his own ECHO communicator.
"They're reconnoitering," Ashley murmured. "Probably trying to see if the beacon is secure. If they figure out that the Lance is here, attacking this place-"
"Yeah, I know," Roland said, thinking furiously. They all knew that the fines the Alliance would level on a corp attacking another on a core world were horribly heavy. Higgins had given him orders to shoot on sight, and if they could kill these soldiers now, that might slow down the Alliance response long enough to let the Lance withdraw unseen in the chaos of the larger attack.
But that would require him to open fire on Alliance Marines.
Ice churned in his gut. He had his orders, but dammit . . . .
The complex had once been the height of Hyperion ascetic corporate chic fashion. Shiny reflective glass, white and gold painted walls, minimalist furniture, neat and orderly rows of offices arranged with laser precision. Lilith Shepard, free spirit that she was, found the whole thing vaguely offensive, at least before the shooting started. The blood and black scorch marks and trails of burnt paint from lightning discharges improved the décor, in her estimation.
She charged from room to room, the Maliwan submachinegun in her hands chattering out a constant stream of red tracers, the air shimmering from the heat ripping out from the weapon's bullets. Each round fired sent the tiniest jolt through her that had nothing to do with recoil, and the bullets gleamed brighter and burned hotter as they tore into the Lance troopers down the hall, melting armor and setting them ablaze. She didn't know precisely why Sirens had that effect on the elemental machinery in the weapon, but she could feel the black-box tech reacting to her and the dark energy rushing through her body.
And Lilith didn't need to know how it worked in order to use it to deadly effect.
A lance soldier flailed about a few meters away, his clothing ablaze. She ran past him as he screaming, firing a short burst into the mercenary's head to put him out of his misery. She swept her weapon up as she sidestepped into another office door, firing another burst at two more Lance troops advancing down the hallway, their weapons roaring in the confined space. Despite the way she was tearing through them, and their screams of terror and agony as she burned them down, they kept on coming with that legendary tenacity. Near-misses tore chunks of gold-and-white masonry out of the walls, while closer rounds impacted her shields. She slid into cover as the magazine ran empty.
Lilith grabbed the spinning, disc-shaped magazine off the side of the weapon. Maliwan guns were odd: sleek and elegant designs with a chrome finish and gleaming lights and those weird spinning disc magazines that looked more like OSDs than actual ammunition containers. The lights dimmed as she removed the disc and slid another into the slot on the side of the weapon. She spun it around to cycle the next round in, and it lit back up.
The Lance advanced, firing their weapons, shouting to one another over the roar of their weapons. She counted at least four guns now, all of them putting suppressing fire into the doorframe, the masonry shattering under the barrage.
Lilith grinned and stepped out of reality with a hollow roar of energy and cascading electricity. She stepped out of the doorway and dashed forward in a movement that wasn't precisely running; her boots did not push off the ground, and bullets fired by the Lancemen passed right through her. She moved with darting speed, her legs pumping more out of automatic, thoughtless muscle memory than any need. She rushed down the hallway, energy sweeping through her in a torrent on brilliant power, and as she passed between the Lance soldiers, lightning cascaded over them. Blue-white arcs sliced along their armor, sending those men twitching and screaming in surprise. Their shields flared and burst as the lightning burned out or overloaded the projectors mounted into their armor.
The glorious howl of her power intensified, beating against her, threatening to overwhelm her, and she ducked into a doorway behind the Lancemen. One mercenary was crouching in the room, in the middle of changing his rifle's magazine when he found himself caught in a burst of electrical fury. She reached out and touched him, hand stopping against the solid matter of his helmet, and pumped the current of dark energy through her fingertips into his head.
The burst of raw power knocked his head backward, and the hollow explosion of lightning and swirling purple-tinged force hurled him across the office to crash into the far wall. He flopped to the floor, smoke rising from his body and a deep dent in the wall. Lilith whirled, submachinegun rising to her shoulder, and stepped out of the doorway. The Lance were spinning around, reacting to the explosion behind them with the efficiency of discipline augmented by sheer, heart-pounding terror.
That adrenaline-fueled speed wasn't enough. Not against a Siren less than a couple of meters behind them, eyes shining gold behind her helmet's visor, and grinning at the euphoric tingle of power. Lilith hosed them at point-blank range, incendiary rounds sweeping over the Lance and searing through flesh and armor. They didn't have time to scream.
I'm really damned good at this, she thought with a smile, and that was chased by a bit of shame. Her mother wouldn't approve of that kind of thought - not while cutting down sapients, mercenary or otherwise. Of course, Hannah Shepard had never approved of mercenary work or adventuring, but it wasn't like Lilith had many career choices open to her after she set half a cruiser on fire-
Rounds deflected off her shields from behind, breaking her out of that thought, and Lilith ducked back behind cover as the Lancemen advanced. She whirled on the new shooters, counting three more Lance troops, one with a heavy metal shield and two with rifles. She squeezed off return fire at the Lance Defender, but most of the burst deflected off the shield, careening wildly around the corridor. The other two Lancemen fired staggered bursts at the Siren as they backed down the hallway toward the far end.
Lilith dropped back into cover, her shield beeping in warning, and narrowed her eyes. She realized what was happening and swapped disc magazines quickly.
The Lance were not stupid, corporate idiocy commanding them aside. They knew they couldn't beat a Siren head-to-head. They were retreating to the door to seal it off.
Like hell, she thought. The power surging through her was intense; it had been only seconds since her last Phasewalk, and she couldn't hold it for long. Lilith grit her teeth and stepped out of reality, the doorway deforming under the blast, and bolted down the corridor. The enemy scrambled backward; they were learning fast. Lilith charged straight at the Defender, the glorious energy sending spikes of pain through her as she charged him. She closed in less than a couple of seconds, the pain intensifying, and released the energy into the Lance soldier's shield. He was hurled away by the explosion, and Lilith charged through the corona of lightning, her submachinegun blazing, figuratively and literally.
The last two Lancemen turned and fled, not even bothering with covering fire. Bright red lines sliced down the hallway from Lilith's Maliwan, deflecting off the blue body-sheaths of their shields. At least one got through, and the Lance trooper's legs erupted into flames, but both men managed to leap through the doorway. Lilith cursed and started after them, but she got only a couple of steps before the non-flaming soldier hit the console by the door.
Heavy security doors slammed shut and sealed with a cheery beep, barely audible over the burning man's screams, and Lilith dug in her heels. She muttered a few choice words under her breath as a perky, recorded voice announced, "Security doors sealed. All hostile intruders should shoot themselves in the head or other appropriate organ now, to save everyone the trouble."
Lilith brought up the facility map on her HUD, looking for an alternate route. She was relying on speed and shock right now, and knew that every second she gave the Lance to react to her presence, the harder it was going to get. Not to the point where it would be impossible of course; she was confident that she could kick the Crimson Lance's collective asses, but it would be easier if she had momentum on her side. There had to be a way around this barrier.
There was, if the schematic was right. She backtracked down the bullet-riddled hallway, hopping over the charred corpses of the Lancemen who had stood in her way, and found a side corridor that ran to a maintenance section. She descended a flight of stairs into a more dimly-lit section of the building, the gold-and-white Hyperion color scheme giving way to utilitarian gray, and at the bottom of the steps she found a maintenance garage.
She slowed as she reached the doorway, sweeping the gray, concrete room, and grimaced. The Lance had already been here, and while there were no human bodies, corpses still littered the room. Boxy shapes were scattered across the garage floor, in pools of oil and smashed components. Their frames would have come up to her waist if they were standing up on the single wheels at the base of each machine. A single circular mechanical camera was mounted on the front of each of the bullet-riddled machines, and narrow, spindly arms protruded from their sides. A few hovercraft and maintenance vehicles sat on one side of the high-ceilinged room, mostly disassembled and ignored.
Lilith recognized the robots' model: Hyperion CL4P-TP general service robots. Commonly called "Claptraps." They were fairly advanced and intelligent, and were used for all manner of support jobs, which made them as useful as human workers - and a lot more expendable. The Lancemen hadn't shown them any mercy, gunning down the robots and moving on. It was SOP on operations like this, she had learned; general purpose bots were just as potentially dangerous as humans depending on their systems access.
That, and CL4P-TPs had a default programming that made them annoying as hell.
Lilith moved through the room quickly, spotting no signs of movement. The garage connected to another section of the complex which doubled around to the lab sector, where they were keeping the Eridian artifact, If she moved quickly - and if they hadn't sealed that door too - she could catch them. But she suspected that whoever was in command had enough active braincells to lock down all the doors leading to the labs. Still, there had to be some way to access the labs, through maintenance passages. Worst came to worst, she could just tear down the doors with a few Phaseblasts, though she was loathe to do that-
Something clattered against the floor from the direction of the disassembled vehicles: a sharp ringing of metal on concrete. Lilith whipped around, Maliwan rising to her shoulder, and prepared to Phasewalk.
There was movement behind the vehicle, and a boxy shaped leaned around the side of the car, a single, green-glowing optic peeking at her and then jerking back behind cover.
"Oh God!" a high-pitched mechanical voice squealed. "Please don't shoot! Please don't shoot! I'll wipe my memory and shut down and walk your dog and whatever else you want just don't shoot!"
Lilith exhaled, relaxing, and lowered her weapon.
"I'm not going to shoot you," she muttered.
"Really?" the Claptrap asked. The mechanical voice sounded surprised. It poked its eye and upper body around the vehicle. "You don't want to shoot me?"
Lilith shook her head. Shooting Claptraps wasn't uncommon; their frames were tough enough to take the occasional shot from a pistol, and as annoying as the things could be, it wasn't surprising that one would be confused at someone not wanting to abuse it.
"You might want to clear out of here, though," she added as she moved across the room. "I left a path of charred jackasses that way. If you want to make a run for it, get moving."
She reached the far side of the room, and stopped, looking back at the boxy machine as it slowly rolled out of cover and peered around the room. The Claptrap's eye lingered on the scattered remnants of its fellows. Now that she had a better look at it, she could see the Claptrap had the same coloration as the rest of the units, a faded yellow paintjob with some white stripes.
She shook her head at the pitiful sight, and moved through the door. The next couple of hallways were empty, save a couple of wrecked Claptraps. The minimap guided her into another large room, this one a small warehouse holding mining equipment. Hyperion resistance had intensified here: two dead Lancemen lay at the entryway, and the remains of several Hyperion combat loaders lay scattered about, the skeletal robots blasted into pieces. One lay intact; its gold-and black-painted body was riddled with bullets, and it was vaguely humanoid, but instead of a head it had a cyclops camera-eye mounted in the center of its chest, like the Claptraps. Its assault rifle was still held in in its spindly fingers.
A faint screeching howl of something descending at high speed sounded outside, followed by a dull whump from outside the building. Lilith jerked her weapon up out of reflex, cursing at the familiar sound. It was an orbital drop; she'd heard it often enough on the border worlds when Hyperion dropped loaders and other mechs from overhead. But there was something off about this impact. It was lighter and faster, as if they were dropping something smaller than a loader. And a moment later, twenty more impacts sounded, a rumbling barrage of shuddering crashes coming from multiple directions around the building.
As the noise filled her ears, Lilith remembered another detail: Corporations weren't permitted any orbital deployment equipment on Alliance core worlds. Whoever was dropping this wasn't Hyperion, and that only left two possibilities: the Alliance itself, or the unknowns in orbit.
Lilith cursed viciously and ran to the door leading out of the warehouse. She found a corridor beyond and charged down it at full speed, following her minimap and watching for hostiles. The map led her down another branching corridor, and she spun around the corner, her weapon ready in case the Lance were waiting.
She dug her heels into the floor, frustration filling her as she saw the Lance had done one better: a heavy blast door had sealed over the door at the end of the hallway.
"Dammit," she hissed. There was a control panel next to the door, and she jammed the glowing green "OPEN" button in vain hope that the Lance who had locked this door were particular idiots. They weren't.
"Okay, Plan B," she said, and prepared to rip the door down with phenomenal cosmic power.
"So, uh, need help with that?" asked a high-pitched mechanical voice. She glanced back over her shoulder and found the Claptrap from before leaning around the corner.
"Yeah," Lilith admitted, releasing the power she was touching. "The Lance locked the door down."
"Ha!" the Claptrap said, rolling around the corner, arms raised in triumph. "I was made to open doors! Especially Hyperion doors! I am the master of unlocking doors! This door is my bi-"
"Yeah, can you get it open for me?" Lilith asked. The Claptrap stopped in front of the panel, and the thin little arms began tapping away at the controls under the primary open-close button.
"If I can help someone get payback on those jerkbags for killing my fellows, I'm happy to!" it said with the same cheery voice. Lilith thought it was trying to sound vindictive.
"I'd do it myself if I could," it added, tapping away more furiously. "I wouldn't mind paying back those fascist armored jerkbags for murdering my entire lot number-" Its volume rose and it smacked the controls more furiously, "-and teabagging their corpses, and set every one of their robot-killing fleshy asses on fire, and then leak excess motor oil on the ashes, and then laugh at my obvious mechanical superiority-"
The door shot up without warning, and the Claptrap jumped up and down for a moment. Lilith raised an eyebrow, wondering how it was able to do that with only one wheel,
"And OPEN, bitch!" it shouted.
The Claptrap then went still and turned toward Lilith, who was staring at the robot. A spindly arm moved around, mechanical fingers making a fist just below the eye, and very deliberate mechanical cough sounded.
"But I'm not programmed to use weapons," it added.
"I don't need another gun hand," Lilith assured it. Or a possibly psychotic murder machine. "Just stay behind me in case they lock another door in our way." She started into the room beyond, sweeping for hostiles. It was clear, and as the Claptrap rolled after her, she paused. "But stay back. You don't want to get caught in the blast."
"Blast?" the Claptrap asked, puttering behind her into the lobby.
A trio of Crimson Lance charged into the lobby from the far door, rifles and submachineguns raised. They shouted in alarm as she spotted her, and Lilith grinned, touching that endless well of energy, her eyes shining gold and shields flaring as the first rounds slammed into it.
"The blast from my pure awesome," she said, and Phasewalked into the enemy in a torrent of lightning and fury.
Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko crouched among the boulders and rock walls outside the sheer, corporate chic doom fortress that was the Hyperion mining facility. His skin tingled; the electrical charge from his biotics pulsing over the element zero nodes embedded in his nervous system. The smoke rising above the building and distant rumbling engines of aircraft told him that all was definitely not well, and the periodic explosions and gunfire inside the compound punctuated that certainty.
"No, sir," Kaidan muttered into his ECHO. On his helmet's display, the face of Captain David Anderson scowled. "I haven't confirmed who is attacking the site. Could be the hostiles in orbit, but I haven't made visual contact."
"Understood, Lieutenant," the Captain replied. He was relatively safely removed from the combat on the ground, in orbit aboard the SSV London. The cruiser had originally come to the system to carrying a team to "convince" Hyperion that it would be a good idea to turn the artifact over to the Alliance and the Citadel, but the alien fleet that had suddenly attacked had ruined that plan in a torrent of mass accelerator fire. The Alliance fleet was regrouping after the initial beating they'd taken from the invaders, and the London had joined them after deploying Kaidan and his squad to the surface to reach the Hyperion base.
Someone had beaten them there, though who was unclear. Scattered reports indicated that the invaders had been dropping troops onto the planet, but this didn't seem like them. This looked disturbingly like a corporate raid.
Yeah, human nature. The moment the guards are looking the wrong way, the asylum starts ripping itself apart.
"No response from the Hyperion personnel inside," Kaidan continued. "I can attempt an entry. We can scale those walls or try to force open the gates with explosives."
"Just get inside and recover that device, Lieutenant," Anderson ordered.
"Yes sir," Kaidan replied, and waved his team forward. "First fire team advance. Second fire team, cover."
He started forward, moving from boulder to boulder up the road. The first fire team reached cover about fifty meters from the gate, taking position and scanning for threats, while the second team started up the road toward them.
His ECHO chirped, and static buzzed over the video feed that would show whoever was speaking.
"Attention, Alliance Marines," barked a strong, authoritative male voice. "Be advised: You are entering a secure zone. Unauthorized personnel will be repelled."
The second fire team went to cover immediately, and the Marines began scanning even more intently for enemy shooters. Kaidan keyed his ECHO, and the biotic tingle in his skin intensified.
"This is Lieutenant Alenko, Alliance Marines, SSV London detachment," he demanded. "Identify yourself."
"Not that stupid, Lieutenant," the voice replied. "Please remain outside the perimeter of the facility. Approaching any closer will provoke a response."
"LT, got some movement," one of the Marines whispered. "Over the gate. That tower. See it?"
Kaidan followed the laser marker from the Marine's rifle, and spotted the tower in question, about seventy-five meters away and poking over the top of the wall. There was vague movement, but when he zoomed in, he couldn't make out anything specific. The shooters were well hidden.
"You're obviously not Hyperion security," Kaidan called over the ECHO. "In case you didn't notice, there's a fleet in orbit and an alien army attacking the planet. We're all theoretically on the same side. Stand down and let us enter the facility, or the situation will get more complicated than either of us would like. What do you say?"
"I say we blast 'em to shit, like we were ordered, Sarge," Gunnar hissed, still sighting the rocket launcher. "I got four rounds in the magazine. I can take out most of 'em before they know what hit 'em and then we can pick off the rest."
Roland didn't reply. He grit his teeth for a moment, brows bunching in concentration behind his mask, and shook his head.
"Lieutenant," he replied into his ECHO, "I don't think either of us want this to escalate." He paused, and decided to cut the crap. "If you advance, we will be forced to fire on you."
"You and I don't want that," Alenko replied. "But if you open fire on Alliance Marines, you and whoever you work for will be charged under the-"
"Lieutenant," Roland cut him off, "Do you seriously think whoever I work for gives a damn about Alliance law at this point?"
"This is bullshit," Gunnar snarled. "We have our orders. I bet if this was Torfan, we wouldn't be-"
"Corporal, you will be quiet, keep that weapon sighted, and keep that finger off the trigger, or I will shoot you myself," Roland snapped. Gunnar went silent at the threat, and Roland sighed in relief; sometimes, the Lance's harsh discipline enforcement was a boon.
"Sounds like you're having trouble keeping your people under control," Alenko commented over the ECHO.
Roland grit his teeth again and ignored the jab. His mind worked furiously, trying to find a solution that wouldn't end in bloodshed. If the Marines advanced, his men would have to fire on them. Unless Roland ordered them to stand down, which would mean summary execution for disobeying orders, assuming they weren't arrested by the Alliance. Not to mention that even speaking to these Marines was a breach of his orders to shoot on sight.
But as the seconds passed, he became more and more certain that if the Marines pressed forward, he would not order his Lance squad to fire. But if Gunnar or another loose or jumpy Lanceman hit the trigger, he wouldn't be able to stop the bloodbath that would ensue. And if any of the Marines got off a message that they were being fired on, the Alliance would send a lot more firepower their way, and they wouldn't stop to talk politely.
"More movement," Williams reported, and Roland peered through his scope, heart jumping through his throat. He saw the Marines rising, hand signals going back and forth, and-
They pulled back. One by one, the Alliance troops moved back down the road, running from cover to cover in a classical ordered withdrawal.
"I can hit 'em, Sarge," Gunnar hissed. "They're moving in the open. The LT gave us orders, and-"
"Hold fire," Roland snapped, and exhaled in relief. He silently thanked this Lieutenant Alenko for having one hell of a level head, or at least being very cautious. He must have realized how little either of them wanted to fight and made a snap call to disengage. That realization sent another spike of anger through him.
The Alliance at least gives a platoon leader the option to make that kind of call. The Lance doesn't.
"They're gonna report this," Gunnar hissed. "And the Alliance will send more men in, and they'll-"
Williams grabbed Gunnar by an armored shoulder and shoved him back.
"You will stow that crap now, Private," she snapped. "Sarge will give you your opinion when he wants it. Now get your rifle and cover your sector."
He glared back at the Corporal through the gleaming eyes of his facemask, but finally turned away. The rocket launcher glowed a bright blue-white for moment as the SDU broke it down and digitally stored it, and he drew the rifle strapped to his back.
"Thank you, Corporal," Roland said as Williams turned back to him. She nodded.
Any further conversation was cut off when they heard the sharp, cutting screech of something shooting down at high speed through the atmosphere. Weapons rose, hunting through the sky above them, and a couple of shouts of "Hyperion drop!" were audible of the roar and scream. The tower shuddered as something punched through the roof overhead, masonry and metal crashing down to the floor further back inside the building.
The the screech-crash sounded again. And again. And three more times.
"Second team, cover the gate. Do not fire unless fired upon!" Roland shouted, and waved the rest of his squad after him as he hurried toward the doors leading inside the building. "First team with me-"
The doors exploded open with a deafening, hollow blast of some kind of breaching charge, and Roland skidded to a halt. He grabbed his Scorpio turret and was hurling it out even as the debris from the door whipped past, clipping off Jenkins' shield and sending Williams stumbling from a hit to the chest.
Over the crash of debris and shouts of his squad, Roland heard a harsh warbling sound, almost like a distorted, static-filled burst of Claptrap dubstep music. A group of lean, almost serpentine figures stepped through the smoke and dust from the explosion, their movements too fluid and precise for organic life. Single blue-white lights were mounted in their serpentine heads, and their long, spindly arms held assault rifles composed of curving, elegant components. Their bodies were lean and narrow, built of a mixture of dull gray-blue metal and exposed black cabling.
Roland's eyes widened, but his training did not give a fuck if he was looking at monsters straight out of the schlockiest of Citadel adventure vids and Migrant Fleet war dramas. He crouched behind his turret's shields, rifle shouldered, and sighted the lead synthetic.
"Geth!" he shouted in warning, but his call was drowned out by the roar of his rifle and the Scorpio's gun. The world around him erupted into hurricane of noise as Lance weapons unleashed the savage, harsh howl of human engineered weaponry, and the strange, hollow thoopthoopthoop of the geth weapons joined in.
Well, at least who was attacking them now. But what the hell were geth doing beyond the Veil, half a galaxy away on an Alliance world?
Lilith scowled again, tapping her foot as the Claptrap worked furiously to open the door before them. She hadn't seen any Crimson Lance since the group she'd killed after enlisting the robot's aid. She had, however, encountered several security doors, and every door required the robot to take several minutes to bypass.
"Total lack of standardization!" the Claptrap muttered as he jabbed the controls.
"There's no master control code or anything you can use?" Lilith asked.
"You think someone as control-crazy as Handsome Jack would allow peons like us to have access to useful stuff like that?" the robot replied, and began smacking the control console in frustration. "Typical paranoid security contractor work! Every door on this grid has a different security protocol, so I have to work to unlock them individually. I guess it works for keeping out intruders and hobos and insurance salesman and small children, but-"
"Claptrap," Lilith said.
"-maker of oil, Hyperion hates insurance, and company rates are horrible considering how often the workforce gets mangled, and its even worse for us robots-"
"Claptrap," Lilith repeated, annoyed.
"-docking us pay for repairing damage when all our pay is theoretical, and no matter how much I insist that dirty data uploads are not legal tender, it's all they give us, and they even dock that-"
"Claptrap!" Lilith shouted.
"-I don't mind multiple terabytes of three-dimension vids of hard, aggressive spark plug installations in chrome-"
Lilith shot him in the back, and he jerked in surprise.
"Claptrap," she repeated, and pointed. "Door's open."
The robot looked to her, then to the door that had he had opened well before he started his rant, and he turned back to her.
"Oh." He stood for a moment, cyclops eye glancing about the hallway. "Well. Let's go that way!"
Lilith shook her head and stepped past him, moving up the hallway beyond. She rounded and corner, and spat out another curse.
"Ooooh! Another locked door!" Claptrap crowed, and scooted past her. He started tapping away at the console.
"If I didn't know any better," the cheerfully spastic robot said, "I'd say they were deliberately trying to slow you down for some dramatic fight scene later on! But that would be silly!"
Roland emptied his rifle's magazine into the geth charging through the door, and was rewarded by the sight of its shield collapsing with a sound akin to breaking glass. Another burst, this from the Scorpio's gun, tore through the synthetic's torso, and the geth jerked from the impact. White chemicals splattered from the rent cabling and torso plates, but it did not seem to care that it was getting shot to pieces. It brought its weapon up and continued firing, the blue bolts from its weapons cracking against his shield and the Scorpio's barriers. Roland slammed a fresh magazine into his rifle, sighted the synthetic again, and put two more quick bursts into it, blowing gaping holes in the geth's body. The light in its single eye dimmed, and with a sudden squeal of static, it toppled to the floor.
The other geth pressed forward, firing with relentless focus, ignoring their companions as the Lance cut them down one by one. Their shields were powerful; it took upwards of a full magazine to drop one, but the Lancemen had ammunition to spare and definite fire superiority. The geth's emotionless aggression and potent shields weren't enough to save them from the Lance's overwhelming firepower. They were blasted to pieces one by one.
When the last geth hit the floor and the last shell casing rolled away, Roland checked his squad. No injuries, though several had lost their shields.
"Keep moving!" Roland shouted, recovering his Scorpio turret, and he moved toward the blasted door. He reached the door, pressing against the wall, and could hear the rest of the team running up behind him. He drew a grenade from his belt and threw it into the room beyond, and charged in when he heard the crack of its detonation.
The Lance stormed into the chamber beyond, weapons high. Dust and smoke from the explosions and the geth's orbital drop filled the chamber - what might have been a lounge or break room for the base's guards. Dark shapes with single glowing lights darted and slid around the room, and blue bolts strobed back and forth, answered by the sharp howl of Lance weaponry.
Roland sidestepped as he fired, weapon beating on his shoulder and heart pounding. He sighted a geth silhouette and poured rounds into it. The synthetic's shields collapsed almost instantly thanks to the grenade, and it toppled backward with another of those static-filled death cries. He whipped his weapon around, sighting another geth, but it went down to another Lanceman's fire before he could squeeze the trigger.
The battle lasted only a few moments, before silence finally reigned. Geth bodies littered the smoky room, and a quick check of his squad showed that no one was injured. He blinked in surprise at that. The geth were the boogeymen of the Terminus and the borderlands, but these had gone down easily enough. Were these really the hyperadvanced legions of the evil synthetic armies that the Migrant Fleet was warning of?
More screeching howls of descending enemy drop-troops erupted around them, and on Roland's display, he spotted the markers of hostiles appearing all around and well within the compound. The ECHO channels lit up with warnings from Lance troops about the attackers.
"All units, fall back into primary structure!" Higgins suddenly shouted over the company ECHO. "Repeat, withdraw into the primary structure! We've got more hostiles inside the perimeter!"
"Squad, you heard the LT!" Roland shouted, starting across the room, the Lance troops following him. "Both teams, on me! Move, move!"
Gunfire and explosions erupted around the compound, strobing blue lights of geth gunfire rippling from building to building. More flaming streaks speared down from the sky, their howls announcing yet more geth, and his HUD showed the numbers of the enemy expanding rapidly: first a dozen, then two, then fifty. Then more.
Roland understood now, and that understanding sent an icy chill through his gut. The geth's individual infantry were weaker, unit for unit, than Lance troops, but that didn't matter. They were machines. They had the numbers to spare.
"WUB-WUB-WUBWUBWUB. UN. LOCK DOOR!"
Lilith removed her helmet. It was a necessary risk, as she needed to pinch the bridge of her nose. She could fight the Crimson Lance. She could fight Hyperion. She could deal with invading homicidal alien armies. She was prepared for that, and the Eridian device was worth the risk.
"WUB-WUB-WUBWUBWUB. UP. LOAD CODE! WUB-WUB!"
But she was questioning whether it was worth putting with Claptrap's attempts at dubstep as he worked on the ninth sealed door in their path.
"WUB-WUB-WUBWUB WUB-WUB! DROP!"
Redeployment orders were flashing across the ECHO at a furious pace. Every one of those orders came from Higgins, which was worrying Roland. He flicked through the company network between contacts with small groups of geth troops, and found that some pretty serious holes had been shot up in the command structure. Most of the company's officers were dead, and half the company's enlisted were down.
His ECHO lit up as the squad descended a flight of stairs into the lower levels of the building. Roland braced himself for another transmission from Higgins, only to see General Knoxx's face pop up in the corner of his HUD. The general didn't speak for a moment, and finally let out a lengthy sigh.
"Okay, Crimson Lance, D Company, this is General Knoxx again," he started. "Listen up. Good news and bad news. Good news is, we know who's attacking the planet. The geth. Of all things, frickin' geth."
Knoxx grunted, and shook his head. The cigar clenched between his teeth waggled a bit as he chewed it.
"And that's the good news. Bad news is, they've zeroed in on the Eridian device you've been sent to recover. Right now we've got multiple division-strength enemy forces inbound, including heavy armor. Lance units are being reprioritized to extract the artifact. All other objectives are flushed. Stop screwing around, and grab the fucking thingabob.
"Also, the board is worried about us being connected to this attack, considering how unexpectedly bloody it's turning out. Per their orders, we're initiating Cleanup Protocol Lambda-Seven. Keep your distance from any Lance personnel who have expired or forgot to hook up their suits' health monitors. 'Cause, you know, they'll be exploding.
"General Knoxx, out."
Roland glanced back at the rest of the squad, and saw Williams shaking her head. They were both familiar with Cleanup Protocol Lambda-Seven. It was used not just to hide Lance presence by incinerating their corpses, it was also used to make sure that Lance troops who were taken prisoner or who missed extraction wouldn't talk to anyone.
"Great, now they're going to overload our power cores when we become inconvenient," she muttered.
"Long as we secure the objective, we should be okay, right?" Jenkins asked, and Reiss nodded.
"We should, if we can keep ahead of that whole damned geth division," he added.
"Okay, enough jawing," Roland cut in. "Move out, or we get left behind."
They reached the bottom of the stairs, and Roland followed the directions on his HUD toward their next marker. The corridor led to an intersection where heavy fighting had raged, and the squad stepped around the blasted remains of geth and a couple of the spindly Hyperion loaders. Roland paused by a dead Hyperion soldier's bullet-riddled corpse and frowned. He saw no signs of Lance presence in this area, beyond his own squad, which bothered him more than a little. If the Lance hadn't taken this section of the lab, why were they being directed through it?
Roland kept checking the rest of the squad, particularly Gunnar, and was relieved to see that Corporal Williams was doing the same. His HUD flashed again, and the objective marker shifted to the main room on this floor, marked as a laboratory. Roland slowed, uncertain as to why his ECHO device was marking this area as their keyed Higgins' channel.
"Sir, this is Roland," he called. "Confirm objective."
"Objective confirmed," Higgins shouted back immediately. Gunfire sounded distantly over his end of the line, both human and geth. "High value information is stored in that lab. I need it secured, all data mined and uploaded, and all enemy personnel terminated."
"General Knoxx said-"
"The General is not here, Sergeant," Higgins replied. "I have a clearer understanding of our objectives. Now do your fucking job!"
Roland grit his teeth and nodded.
"Yes sir," he replied, and cut the line. Roland crouched at the intersection, heart pounding as he made sense of what this all meant. There was really only one possibility, so he switched to William's frequency.
"Sarge?"
"Trap," he said.
"Understood." She paused for a moment. "You got a plan?"
"Not yet," he said. "I don't know Higgins' plan yet. But that lab is where he's going to spring it. Keep an eye open and be ready."
Lilith stepped around the corner, weapon shouldered. The barrel flicked back and forth as she swept the corridor beyond. Her ECHO mapper told her that there were no more of those damned doors in her path, so now her only concern was-
"ONWARD, FOR VENGEANCE!"
-was that boxy moron as he puttered past her on one wheel down the corridor.
Well, maybe he'll draw some fire, she thought, and followed after the Claptrap as he charged blindly on. She couldn't fault him for his erratic courage.
She froze when the echo of a dull detonation sounded down the hallway, and the Claptrap slowed to a halt.
"That sounded an awful lot like a breaching charge blasting apart a door-" the robot mused, "-followed by a squad of amoral mercenaries storming a lab-" A storm of gunfire sounded from down the passage. "-and murdering everyone inside in a hail of bullets! You want to go kick their asses together?"
She glanced at him, raising an eyebrow, and the Claptrap raised its upper arms in a gesture that conveyed the concept of a shrug despite his lack of shoulders.
"Well, I can watch you kick their asses," he admitted, and she nodded.
"Stay behind me," she said, sliding past him. The gunfire ahead cut off, and as she moved closer, Lilith could hear raised voices.
The lab door blew apart, hurling debris into the chamber beyond, and Jenkins led the way. Bullets deflected off his shield as he stormed through the smoke, his pistol barking, and Roland charged in behind him. His rifle roared out two long, bloody bursts as he spotted movement and muzzle flashes through the dust and smoke and strobing emergency lighting. A Hyperion soldier went down in his sights, blood and armor pieces flying.
The rest of the squad poured in after him, weapons roarings, and in a few seconds the lab went still. The gunfire died away a moment later, and the Lance squad moved across the white-painted room/ Broken glass from lab equipment and scattered papers lay everywhere. Blood splatters marked where Hyperion troops had fallen.
And not just Hyperion soldiers, Roland realized. Several of the bodies were wearing lab coats, pistols or submachineguns lying beside them.
"The scientists were shooting back?" one of the Lance troopers asked.
"Not like it matters," Gunnar grunted in response. The Lance troops began checking the computer terminals around the once-clean room, plugging their ECHO systems into them and downloading data.
Roland glanced around, wary and uncertain. Where was the trap? Was in the data files? Were Gunnar and Higgins going to trap them there trying to download the lab data until it was too late? He glanced to Williams, and was about to speak up when he caught more movement, and he spun, raising his weapon.
"Don't shoot!" a man cried, holding up empty hands. Roland's finger twitched toward the trigger, but he held his fire when he saw the scientist was unarmed.
"Hold fire!" Roland shouted, but Gunnar was already bringing his weapon up toward the Hyperion scientist. A burst of gunfire echoed around the lab, but the shots went wide as Williams slapped Gunner's weapon aside.
"He said hold fire, dammit!" she barked. Gunnar whirled, and even with his face hidden behind his helmet, the anger in his posture was evident.
"Eat hanar and choke," he snapped. "We have-"
"Unarmed civilians, Private," Roland barked with his best "shut-up-new-meat" voice. He gestured to where the Hyperion scientist was crouched, still holding up his hands. Several other men and women, all of them unarmed and wearing white lab coats, were huddled at the far end of the room.
"Like that friggin' matters, Sarge," Gunnar snapped, turning toward Roland. "We have orders, just like at Torfan. Explicit orders to take down anyone in this room. Anyone."
"And I'm countermanding those orders," Roland replied. "We are not shooting civilians. Get that through your skull, Private."
Roland's ECHO beeped, and a brief burst of static washed through his earpiece. He recognized that, and a chill ran down his spine as he realized it was an indicator of a company-wide override code being piped into his system. And then he understood precisely what the trap was.
"Sergeant Roland," Higgins' voice sounded. "Please don't tell me you're seriously considering disobeying a direct order."
"Lieutenant," Roland said, and he silently cursed. "There are noncombatants-"
"Kill them, Sergeant," Higgins said. There was a conversational lightness to his tone, as if he were ordering a steak and beer.
"Sir-"
"Take your gun," Higgins ordered, "Put it to those civilians' heads, and blow their brains out. Now." He paused. "Or face immediate execution for disobeying a superior."
Roland grit his teeth. He had expected something more subtle, not such a blunt and obvious trap. But the Lance had killed noncombatants before. He should have seen this coming.
"You want me dead that badly?" Roland muttered.
"I want you to recognize the realities of your employment with the Crimson Lance, Sergeant.," Higgins replied. "We can't have liabilities like you running around, getting in the way of proper procedure and operations. 'War crimes' this, and 'morality' that, and 'mass executions' and whatever. Cuts into the proper profit margin out on the borderlands."
Higgins paused, muttering something on the other end to someone.
"I'm surprised really, Roland," he added. "You were such a good little attack dog at Torfan, but things changed over the years since then, didn't they?" He shook his head. "Anyway, Roland, make your call. We've got fifteen minutes until extraction, which would give you just enough time to download that data and shoot those civilians and then hustle on down here. So, accept your place in the Lance, or get your brains blown out."
"You son-of-a-bitch," he growled. "You can't make me kill civilians! I've got an entire squad backing me-"
Gunnar brought his rifle up and pointed it at Roland's head. In the same moment, Williams snapped her weapon up at Gunnaer, only to have another Lanceman put a gun against her head. Jenkins brought his pistol up, only to be covered by two more mercenaries. Reiss was raising his weapon, but stopped as the last two Lancemen trained their guns on him.
"-up."
"I'm sorry, what was that Roland?" Higgins said, his voice painfully cheerful. "I couldn't hear you over all the guns being pointed at you. But I'm not going to waste anymore time. Got this priceless Eridian artifact to secure and pack up. Make your choice, Sergeant. Toodles!"
Roland glared at Gunnar as the line went dead.Curse you, and your inevitable betrayal, he thought, and the Lanceman shrugged.
"Sorry, Sarge," he said, and then shook his head. "Wait, no, I'm not. Not sorry to put a holier-than-thou hypocritical prick like you in his place." He chuckled. "Been waiting for months for this chance. Kept telling Higgins I was just going to frag your bunk, but he was all "Noooooo, I've got a plan to deal with Roland, blah-blah-blah.' And I was all "Just shoot the skaglick in the head, or he'll do something stupid like report to the Alliance about all those mass graves and crap,' but then he was 'No, no, we have to do this the right way, give Roland a chance to come back to the Lance properly,' and all that crap."
Gunnar paused, and glanced around the lab, which had gone totally silent during his rant. He finally cleared his throat.
"So, you gonna shoot those civilians or not?" he asked. "I mean, I know you can. How many did you kill on Torfan to get the job done? But I can totally understand if you don't want to. And if you don't, I'd be all for it. I mean, I really want to shoot you in the face, Sarge. So just go ahead and not kill those civilians. Be noble and all that crap. For the greater good, Sarge, and the greater 'Gunnar gets to shoot you in the face' too."
Roland looked to Williams, standing tense, ready to fire. She gave a very slight nod as his helmet turned toward her. Reiss crouched, rifle held tight, waiting for the moment to move. Jenkins stood, shaking just slightly, but kept his weapon trained on the Lanceman holding a gun to Williams's helmet.
He then looked over his shoulder at the huddling group of scientists. One of them was weeping, and the man who had raised his hands crouched between the Lancemen and the others.
"Gunnar," Roland said, turning back toward the treacherous Private. "I think I might oblige you."
He grasped his Scorpio turret, and Gunnar tensed in gleeful anticipation.
Then a hollow roar sounded outside the room. Gun barrels dipped slightly in confusion.
And Roland's Scorpio slapped Gunnar in the faceplate during the momentary distraction.
The Sergeant hurled himself forward, bringing his rifle up right as the storm of gunfire erupted on all sides. Roland caught flashes of movement and snapshots of violence as he leapt toward Gunnar: Reiss, firing his weapon point-blank into a Lancemen as he shoulder-checked another. Williams, dropping to her knees and firing her weapon into Gunnar's flank, the rounds shattering against his shields. Jenkins jamming his pistol into the back of the man covering Williams and firing. The two Lancemen covering Jenkins pouring bullets into him, punching through his kinetic barriers and heavy shield and armor, but he stood tall and unflinching as he gunned down the man threatening Williams.
Roland fired into Gunnar's chest and head as he dove toward the Private, and saw the man's shields collapse a heartbeat before they impacted with a mighty crash of ceramic armor. They rolled across the floor, dropping their rifles, punching and shouting and kicking, and Gunnar managed to kick Roland in the sternum with one heavy boot and shove him off. The Sergeant fell off of Gunnar, who started to draw his pistol, up until Williams drilled six rounds through his helmet and blasted it to a splattered mess.
Roland snatched up his weapon and spun to his feet, bringing the rifle up. He caught a glimpse of Reiss beating one of the Lancemen senseless with his rifle butt, while the other lay in a bloody heap. Jenkins collapsed to the floor beside Roland, blood pouring from a dozen holes in his chestplate. The two mercenaries who killed him leveled their guns at Roland as he stood and opened fire. His shields flared and drained as a dozen rounds hit him in the span of a second.
Then the two Lancemen were covered in a river of cascading lightning, and before they could do anything more than arch in agony and start screaming, an explosion of lightning and force erupted behind them. An armored figure burst from a gap in space-time, and the blast sent both Lancemen and their respective body parts flying away in a shower of cooked meat and metal.
The lab was silent, save for the crunching of Reiss finishing off the Lance trooper he was fighting. Roland looked up at the armored figure. He didn't need to ask who she was; between the contours of the black hardsuit she wore and the golden eyes gleaming behind the nearly opaque visor, he knew that she was the same Siren who had torn his fellow Lancemen apart.
Excellent. I wonder what else can go wrong today.
Above Eden Prime, the battle had halted, at least temporarily, The battered remnants of the Alliance fleet had retreated to the far side of the planet, and the geth armada was content to leave them be. As they counted their dead, patched up their wounded hulls, vented built-up heat, and prepared for the next round of battle, the geth took up positions over the major cities of the planet, where fighting still raged on the ground.
The human fleet kept an eye on the enemy fleet with drones and satellite feed despite being blocked from direct line of sight by the curvature of the planet. It was through these eyes that they caught the sudden burst of high-frequency radiation that heralded another ship's transition into the system. For a moment, the Alliance commanders thought that a new geth fleet had arrived, based on the mass and the amount of radiation the arrival gave off, but the shape resolved itself into nothing they had seen before.
Visual scanning showed a massive shape, several kilometers longer than even the largest Torgue-Urdnot dreadnought to date. It was crafted of a dark, black-purple metal,with blood-red lightning running up and down the vessel's length, and a quartet of massive, metallic tentacle-like appendages extending from its bow, stretching toward the planet as though it wished to crush Eden Prime in its and thermal sensors picked up a tremendous array of emissions from the ship, indicating power output beyond anything remotely possible by the Alliance, Citadel, or any corporation. Element zero scanners picked up a tremendously powerful mass effect drive deep within the ship.
But the most striking aspect of the massive ship were the crimson lines running down the port side of the vessel. They described complex designs with sharp angles, circular shapes, and wavy script. Some of the lines were hair-thin, barely visible even with precision thermal imaging, while others were a dozen meters across.
The crimson designs on the ship's flank lit up, shifting from deep crimson to bright red then searing gold.
Reality twisted and broke around the ship, a torrent of heat and lightning and radiation rolling off its hull as it stepped out of this dimension, and Phasewalked toward the planet's surface.
Codex - Technology - Digistruct Technology
Digistruct technology allows for the quick and efficient storage of items on one's person by breaking the object down to a "digital" level and storing it in a specially-designed "storage deck unit". Based on reverse-engineered Eridian technology, digistruct devices collapse the object in question into an extremely small space, and will reassemble the object at the user's command, allowing for the storage of large amounts of ammunition, multiple weapons or pieces of personal equipment, and so on.
Digistruct technology is energy-intensive, with the object being collapsed demanding more energy as its mass increases. A device used to contain small arms is portable by a humanoid, while a device large enough to assemble or store a vehicle is the size of a small house. Storing aircraft, spacecraft, or entire buildings is extremely energy intensive and rarely worth the expense. Additionally, devices using element zero cannot be stored in digistruct devices; all attempts to collapse devices with element zero have resulted in violent detonations and/or fire. For this reason, firearms and other personal equipment are separated into "eezo" or "digistruct" classifications.
Digistruct technology is commonplace among primary militaries, corporate mercenary forces, and the wealthier civilian portions of Alliance, Citadel, and Terminus space. Digistruct is more sporadic among border worlds and colony worlds, and while digistruct's inability to contain element zero-based technology limits its utility, its primarily use for more "rugged" and "primitive" technologies makes it very useful in the borderlands.
Author's Notes: This chapter took me a while because I kept having trouble writing Claptrap properly. I think I eventually managed to get a handle on his annoying-yet-amusingly-annoying nature.
Also, yes. Reaper Sirens. Or Reaper...somethings. Heh. Heh-heh-heh. But not as terrifying as Donnel Udina, DIRECTOR OF FUTURE S.H.I.E.L.D.
Until next chapter . . . .