Between Relays
Somewhere in the Eagle Nebula
To say that the trip so far was awkward would have been a severe understatement in Aela's opinion. Talia had so far managed to, to everyone's but her own embarrassment, proposition Perkins in increasingly varied and elaborate ways, often involving something rather… graphic, and always while near at least one other member of the crew. Aela even started to suspect that Perkins' Bretonnian unflappability was starting to crack in face of such an assault. Even now, as they flew through a rather poorly patrolled section of space, Talia kept up her advances, though Aela admitted that she had picked a good background try and win him over. The vista was beautiful.
"So flyboy, I've seen you handle that ship of yours," Talia purred.
"Oh?" Perkins replied, actually lifting his head up from his new omni-tool. He had lately turned to exploring it and its functions in an attempt to distract himself from Talia.
"Where'd you see it?"
"Someone leaked some footage from that first contact skirmish with the Mollies in the Tau 30 system," she replied as she slid up beside him. "That took some daring on your part. Especially since I'm assuming you were the daring pilot attracting fire from all those Mollies."
"Just doing my duty."
"And just like that you reminded me of a couple of Turians I used to know."
"Had a responsibility to my men and the Kingdom. Couldn't let them down, especially in a situation like that. Could have led to war, and that is the absolute last thing anyone wanted."
"Definitely feeling your inner Turian there."
"Seeing as I've never really gotten to know one, no comment." Perkins replied as he gently slid away from Talia.
Talia looked like she was going to give chase until Korvan spoke
"Captain," he said, his tone professional. "I'm reading a ship, a frigate from the signature, heading straight for us."
"Out here? In the middle of nowhere?" Talia asked. "Hail them. Could be a lone patrol for all we know."
"I'm heading to the Crusader. Just in case" Perkins said, suddenly all alert.
"Lia, I want all power to barriers, just in case. With the load we're carrying, I don't think we can outrun them," Talia ordered, her voice surprisingly calm and professional. The change in attitude was so sudden, Aela was almost sure Talia had some sort of emotional whiplash at the change.
"Yes, Captain." Lia responded as she typed furiously into her console.
"Korvan, keep hailing them. I want to know who the hell they are."
"Yes Ma'am." Korvan replied, his eyes never leaving his console.
"Flyboy," Talia said into her omnitool. "Moment you see those cargo bay doors open, I want you to show off those fancy human piloting skills I saw on the extranet. If these are pirates, I want you to teach them a little lesson."
"Aye, Captain." Perkins replied, a hint of the officer he was coming back.
Aela meanwhile could only stand toward the back of the bridge and out of the way, watching helplessly as the frigate approached. Well, if they were pirates, boy did they have a surprise for them.
Being part of the Blood Pack meant a few things in Tusk's eye. As a Battlemaster for the Pack for a few decades, he liked to think that he had gained (and lost) a few things. For one thing, he learned that while the Pack ran lots of jobs that no one else would touch, their sort of reputation led to dry spells between "protection" contracts as well. Luckily, the Pack was very flexible in their payment plans and saw "encouraging new investors" as a legitimate form of earning bonuses.
Hence why Tusk was manning his frigate through poorly patrolled space in the search for freighters carrying precious cargo. There just aren't enough contracts worthy of a Battlemaster to go around for everyone, despite how few Battlemasters there were. Hence him and his group of vorcha on the prowl.
Tusk, though, had a good feeling about today. He could feel it in his bones that today would be a day to remember.
"Boss," hissed one of his vorcha. "Found ship."
"Well?" he growled. "What kind of ship?"
"Freighter. Carry much cargoes." the vorcha hissed a little fearfully.
"Good!" roared Tusk. "And so early in the day too! Bring us up alongside them. Don't answer any hails until we're right alongside them. No way can they escape a volley before they start up their FTL."
"Yes boss."
Tusk leaned back on his massive chair, feeling the chair creak against his armored bulk. This was the easy part, come in, board the poor bastards, take the cargo and then figure out if the crew is worth ransoming or not. It was a simple life, but a good one.
Very quickly, his expertly beaten vorcha crew brought the ship along the freighter's side in a perfect position to prevent the ship from fleeing. Close enough to hit, but distant enough to have been innocent until this moment.
"Receive their hail now." Tusk ordered.
"I'm pretty sure at this point that this isn't a social call," said a distinctly asari voice.
"Well done, asari." Tusk drawled out, in a low rumble "You know the drill. Cut your engines and hand over your goods." A rumbling chuckle jumped out of his throat. "Or don't. I know which one I'd like to happen."
"Look, I know how this goes. I think it's best that we cut to the chase. I can jettison my cargo and you leathery lizard can go pick it up. It's a load of eezo straight from Thessia, meant for Ilium, but I'll dump it and save us all a lot of time."
"Uhuh. You go do that, and then we'll go and board you as well. Make sure you aren't hiding anything."
"You touch us, you mess with Eclipse, then," the voice shouted.
"Nice try, but a real Eclipse sister wouldn't have given up the cargo so soon unless you were hiding something valuable. Either way, I'm still going to board you."
"Fuck you too."
"I'm still going to board you, asari. I'll be seeing you in a while. Or not, either way, I'm getting a little bit of that eezo you say you have there."
"Fine, I'll jettison them anyway. Opening cargo bay doors now. Hope you like the gift, you bastard."
"Your cooperation is appreciated." Tusk noted. While the little act of defiance could do nothing more than hinder them, it was probably a sign that these weren't worth ransoming. Probably best to leave them be after grabbing the cargo. "And for that, I'll probably let you live so long as you continue to cooperate."
"Hope you like the gift," the asari repeated, sounding a little too happy.
And like that, Tusk knew something was wrong.
"Boss! Something coming out of ship!"
"What?"
"Shuttle!" pointed out the vorcha. Tusk could make out something vaguely shuttle sized, though definitely a weird shape, coming out of the ship.
"Then blast it and the freighter," Tusk roared as he slammed his fist onto his armrest. It was obvious they were trying to make a run for it with something more valuable than a whole load of eezo. "Aim for the engines!"
The vorcha quickly responded, launching a round of cannon fire at the freighter's engines, though their barriers saved them from any real damage. Strangely enough though, the shuttle wasn't running away from them, it was closing in, and fast.
"They're on a suicide run." Tusk realized. "I want all GARDIAN batteries on the shuttle. Don't let it hit us!"
While vocha weren't well known or being particularly intelligent, these vorcha had literally been beaten and shaped into competent crewmen. They knew enough to save up the GARDIAN fire until the shuttle was close enough. Several tense seconds passed as the shuttle drew closer and closer to Tusk's ship until it finally crossed the invisible line. The very moment it came within range, the shuttle was hit by the full compliment of his ship's lasers.
Whoever was piloting it was good. The pyjack never went for the direct approach, instead somehow always twisting and turning the shuttle in ways he admittedly hadn't seen before in his centuries old life. It took a while for the batteries to get a good lock on the ship, and Tusk could've sworn that one battery that fired only got a glancing shot at the shuttle. It was fighting the inevitable though, as it drove on closer and closer towards the ship. With every kilometre it crossed, it only made the job easier and easier for the GARDIAN's VI, until it finally landed a few direct hits.
Which was why Tusk was very surprised to see the shuttle barrelling down on them alive and kicking.
"What?" he roared, jumping to his feet and startling the vorcha around him. His eyes were wide, glued to the sensor display showing the impossible did indeed happen. A shuttle of all things survived what some corvettes couldn't.
"Thanks for the suntan," replied an alien language. "I hope you'll enjoy the one I'm about to give you."
The shuttle flashed, and the bridge erupted in chaos. Warning klaxons rang like there was no tomorrow, as the engine readout on Tusk's display flashed red. His mind raced, trying to understand why his barriers failed even as the shuttle flashed again and again, adding yet more alarms and explosions to the cacophony around him.
It hit him after a moments' realization. A brief sobering moment that he knew would change things significantly. The shuttle had to have energy weapons, some kind of super-GARDIAN on a ship that was nowhere near big enough to be able to power that little monster.
"Lost engines!' hissed one of his vorcha. "Core weakening!"
"He's good," Tusk growled out. Just because he had good toys didn't mean he was dependent on them. Fucker was smart to start by crippling him. But he was Krogan, and he always had more fight to give.
"Use the thrusters to align the main canon on him." he roared as he punched one vorcha in frustration. "Let's see those fancy shields of his block that."
At a frustratingly slow pace, the frigate vectored upward, bringing the canon into a position that, while not perfect, would maybe hit something important on the shuttle.
"Open fire," he ordered the moment the shuttle entered practically point blank range, confident in the end of his little problem. He was likely only going to get one shot on the ship, but that would be enough to take the fucker down, leaving him open to the GARDIAN batteries.
He felt the main gun shudder through the ship as a single slug was accelerated to a fraction of lightspeed. He fully expected his problems to be gone soon enough, and he would go and educate the asari on the proper behaviour of any pirate victim.
His sensors told him it was a grazing shot, which should have been enough to destroy any ship of that size, yet somehow, the damn thing was still there. However it did look a lot worse for wear, and the GARDIAN batteries were now visibly doing some damage.
"That stung." said the alien voice again. "I was just going to leave you defanged, but this calls for putting a rabid dog down."
The shuttle then unleashed a new flurry of beams, after somehow reviving its shields in an amazingly short time, raking the frigate from bow to stern. Tusk could quickly see damage reports form all over the ship, and he could feel the explosions rocking about it as well.
Though it hurt his pride immensely, Tusk knew when it was time to leave. He quickly made his way to his personal escape pod and strapped himself in, not caring about the vorcha still on-board. They were all replaceable, and he had more important things on his mind. Revenge, for starters.
He soon felt the pod rocket itself outside the ship, leaving him a lot of time to plan things out in his head. The bitch said Ilium, and that would be a start. He began thinking of the many myriad ways he would be 'teaching' the bitch who did this to him. Tusk would get his revenge, by Aralakh, and if he could get his hands on that ship as well… that would be a very lucrative form of compensation.
Aela could only let out a sigh of relief as she saw Perkins very carefully land in the freighter's cargo bay once more. It took him a while, but he had also managed to ferry the crates into the freighter slowly through his use of his ship's tractor beam (which in itself was another rather spiffy piece of tech Aela knew many would like to understand better)
She actually felt a little guilty for a while, wishing for pirates to break up the incessant flirting of Talia with Perkins, but quickly dashed that irrational thought away. its not like that kind of thinking brought the pirates on them. That was merely coincidence and bad luck running at the same time.
"Anything on our sensors, Korvan?" Talia asked curtly, sitting by her captain's console and reading her outputs as best she could.
Though refreshingly enough, it looked like the pirate encounter brought out the professional side of Talia. For the past few hours, she had done nothing but keep a constant vigil over her board, constantly on alert for anything that even looked remotely unusual, as the ship stayed near the local asteroid field for cover.
"Captain," Korvan said as he looked up from his console. "I'm picking up something unusual coming from the nearby asteroid field."
"Any ideas, people?" Talia asked around. "I'm taking a look at it and I've seen nothing like it before."
"I've no clue, Captain," Lia replied with a sigh. "Nothing like an engine signature, or anything remotely looking like it came from something artificial."
"It's dangerous, then?" Talia asked the crew.
"I don't think so," Korvan said a he looked up from the console. "While it looks like it's emitting a large amount of energy, it's very far away. I'm willing to attribute it to some sort of unusual natural phenomena."
"I've got an idea." Perkins said suddenly as he walked forward to Korvan's console. "May I take a look see?"
"And how qualified are you to understand my readings, Perkins?"
"I've been reading up on your equivalents to my instruments. I'm reasonably sure that I can get a general idea of what it is if I take a look at what exactly it is you ladies and gent are looking at." he replied, his seemingly permanent smirk plastered in front of Korvan's face.
Aela noticed Korvan's eyes go small a bit, and he took a moment to look Perkins in the eye before he moved aside and let him take a look at a simple nod of his head. Perkins merely smiled at the batarian before he went to work scanning through the readings on display on Korvan's screen.
"That's… interesting." Perkins said bringing his head up from the console after a while. "I'm almost certain that there is a Jump Hole in the middle of that asteroid field."
"A what?" Talia asked, still no visible trace of her normally sultry tone, on her.
"It's the natural equivalent of a Jump Gate, what we humans use to go between our systems." Perkins explained. "I'm almost positive that it's a Jump Hole, and if you're interested I think it's phase-aligned too."
"Please translate for us clearly ignorant aliens." Aela responded. While she'd heard of Jump Holes, phase-aligned was something new.
"Basically it means it's safe to use. More or less."
"That's encouraging us to use it, how again?" Lia asked now. Aela could've sworn she some sort of eyebrow move behind her faceplate, as if in annoyance.
"Well it's mostly safe, because the trip in the ship should be safe, if a bit rough. The unsafe bit would be where you land. Which admittedly could be in the middle of a dangerous patch of oxygen or methane or radiation, but still. That jump hole could be leading anywhere in the galaxy and we'd be there in seconds. I mean, theoretically, Jump Holes don't have the range limits that Jump Gates have. All I have to do is get on my ship, do a quick jump, see if I can figure out what system I'm in then jump back and hand over my readings."
"So that thing could get us straight to Ilium if we went through it properly?" Korvan asked, a hint of his bluntness breaking.
"Not properly, if we're lucky. In theory yes. it could lead us to Ilium. It could also lead us straight back to the Citadel, the Sirius sector, or even Earth. Hence why it's important that I check where it'll lead."
It took a moment before Talia replied. "Do it. It might cut on time and maybe prevent any more interesting visits from pirates."
"Aye captain," Perkins said with a smart salute before he left or his ship. Strange, he's never done that before. Maybe it was a response to Talia's professionalism?
It was a tense half hour while waiting for Perkins' report on the Jump Hole. Everyone was on the alert for any signs of further pirate activity. Korvan's eyes never left his console, Lia was prepping the engines and making sure the core was still stable, and Talia was hardwired into the sensor bank console, keeping an eye out for… well anything really.
Aela honestly felt useless amidst all this action. She wasn't qualified for any of the instruments. Really, the best thing she could do was be ready in case there was an actual boarding, but that wasn't happening anytime soon from the looks of things.
"I've got an incoming transmission, it's Perkins." Korvan suddenly said.
"Put him on speakers."
"Perkins' here, I've finished my readings, and I've confirmed the Jump Hole's phase aligned. Bad news is, I'm not sure where exactly the jump hole leads. My readings when I arrived shows that while it was a relatively safe area, I have no idea where it is."
"Do you have the coordinates though?" Korvan asked.
"Yeah, I'm uploading them to you now, Navigator. Any clue as to where they lead?"
"Checking database… and it looks like that leads straight to the Mesana system… That's where the Elcor homeworld is located…"
"By the Goddess… that's… thousands of lightyears away." Aela exclaimed.
"I guess you weren't kidding huh?" Talia chuckled. "What would normally take a week, you did in half an hour. While it's amazing, I think we lingered here too long. Get back here so we can make for the Relay at best speed.."
"Roger that. RTB, ETA 5 minutes."
Aela was still processing that… these natural phenomena were around all this time.
"Guess those old spacer tales have something true to them after all." Talia said after a while. "Ships there one moment, find a weird energy signature, then poof, no more ship. Never seen again."
They must have entered a… non-phase-aligned Jump Hole then." Korvan replied. "From what Perkins described, going through a Jump Hole is a rough experience to begin with under proper circumstances. Under the wrong ones…"
"It's fatal." Lia finished solemnly. "I can see why Perkins' people don't make regular use of them."
"Usable only under the right circumstances, and located in often dangerous locations to begin with. No wonder they went with making Jump Gates." Aela mused out loud.
"I think that's enough theorizing for now." Talia interrupted. "Let's focus on the job, then we can talk once we're in safer space."
Aela just nodded and let them get back to work while she made way to her quarters to jot down her thoughts in peace.
This is the Colony News Network, here with the latest in news.
SYNTHPASTE RELEASING NEW LINE OF ASARI FLAVORS,
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK SYSTEM - SynthPaste representatives have recently met with various Asari representatives to begin operations on some of their newer agricultural colonies such as Tania. SynthPate executives expect to be releasing a new line of flavors centered on Thessian cuisine within the following business quarter. This marks the first major corporation to be making inroads into Citadel space, though other corporations such as DSE are already hunting for contracts with other Citadel species.
NEW EMBASSIES ON THE CITADEL
THE CITADEL, WIDOW SYSTEM - Today marks an important day in human history, as Liberty, Rhineland, and Bretonnia have now opened up their embassies on the Citadel. This was marked by an elaborate party, with representatives from the three nations, and other Citadel dignitaries were out in full force. It was also during the party that the new ambassadors for each nation were announced, with Edward Finnigan, representing Liberty, Lord Edmund Cunningham for Bretonnia, and Wilhelm von Clausewitz, for Rhineland. Ambassador Finnigan stated that "We shall be working together to advance the interests of the common man and woman, and we hope to help ease us into peaceful coexistence with our new Citadel friends".