The dojo was enormous, Tali quickly learned. From the hangar, the vast semicircular room where the infiltration shuttles docked, extended a long corridor that led to a grand entrance hall with a two tiered balcony over the ground floor, the calming blue ambiance, glass guardrails and white trees concealing a strong defensive position from which a defending force could cut down any attackers. On the opposite side of the grand hall was a corridor that led to a cross intersection, each junction branching off into a long corridor. The left led off to the research wing, containing something called the Oracle, a biolab, a chemical lab and an energy lab as well as the medical centre. The right split off to a number of generators that provided power for the whole complex and a communications room. Straight on led into another cavernous hall, slightly smaller but equally impressive, and through that hall another long corridor that led to a cross intersection. To the left and right each branched off to another enormous hall, through which were T-sections leading off to two barrack rooms, and straight on led to a double cross intersection off which branched two sparring rings, a firing range and an obstacle course and straight down the middle was the smallest hall yet, used as an armoury by the resident Tenno with a generator on the other end.
Of the entirety of the dojo only one of the barrack rooms, its adjacent hall, the training rooms and the armoury were used with any real frequency, making Tali wonder what the point of it all was. Infuriatingly, the language barrier meant that she couldn't possibly ask.
At that precise moment she was sitting in the armoury with James, being taught how to disassemble a Gremlin. The Gremlin was one of what the Tenno referred to as 'boltkaan', weapons that fired long bolts of metal that were capable of pinning enemies to walls. The boltkaan were definitely short range weapons - their projectiles were slower travelling than other weapons, meaning their accuracy dropped off at long range, but in the close confines of a spacecraft they were brutally effective. The Gremlins were one of the few weapons she was comfortable dual wielding - the weapon was a close range blitzer where weight of fire trumped precision. She hummed to herself as she deftly reassembled the weapon, racking in a magazine and presenting it to James for inspection. The older Tenno nodded approvingly and handed her a Latron, a more challenging proposition but one she tackled with gusto, shucking off the rifle's casing with considerable skill to access the weapon's innards.
Ellen watched her from the doorway for a moment before frowning and heading towards the communication room to talk to the Lotus.
###
Garrus Vakarian checked over his weaponry for the final time, briefly musing on how frustrated the Corpus must be with the Council. He knew he would be mad if someone was mass producing knockoffs of Turian equipment that were far superior to the original. The inclusion of mass effect fields in the Turian version of the Dera plasma rifle increased the projectile speed by a factor of four while reducing the scatter to almost negligible levels. In fact, he had often come across Corpus using the Saeston instead of the Dera.
His weapons ready, he checked over his squadmate, Nyreen Kandros. She was a Turian biotic, her Cabal unit assigned to the Proud Shield and seconded to Garrus's Marine unit. He had ruffled quite a few mandibles when instead of keeping the Cabal unit separate from the rest of the marines he had split them up and assigned a biotic to each squad, his logic being that it was preferable to have robust and versatile units than a number of different squad configurations each of which served a different role. If anyone else had tried it they would have been overruled and ordered to do things the Turian way but a combination of Garrus's natural leadership and Victus's support had allowed the new deployments to stick. Several other dreadnought marine commanders had switched over to what was now known as the Vakarian deployment.
The Proud Shield fired her magnetic clamps, latching onto the disabled Corpus destroyer and pulling it close to the dreadnought's belly as a boarding tube extended, rotary drill head boring through the outer hull and creating a passage from the six hundred metre destroyer to the enormous dreadnought hovering above it like a bird of prey with a small rodent in its grasp. As the hatch in the boarding tube opened, Garrus's powerful hearing was able to pick out the sound of Corpus defenders in the room they had breached, which appeared to be the cargo bay.
"Gravity slam."
The technician by the controls for the boarding tube hit the button with savage enthusiasm, making the entire ship vibrate as the Proud Shield's artificial gravity extended and overwhelmed that of the Corpus destroyer. Inside the target vessel floors suddenly became ceilings, drawing a torrent of Corpus foul language as MOA and crewmen slammed headfirst into what was previously the ceiling, swiftly followed by their equipment.
"Breaching charges."
Someone handed Garrus a detonator as a thoroughly nasty surprise was dropped down the hole. The breaching charge, aka the Slice'n'Dicer, was an oversized grenade that detonated into a sunburst of razor sharp flechettes guaranteed to reduce any Corpus in the room to puddles of blood. Garrus watched the charge as it fell, waiting until it hit the floor before ducking well out of the way and thumbing the detonator. He was rewarded with a fine selection of screams and a number of flechettes embedding themselves in the armoured backstop above the entrance to the boarding tube created specifically to catch any errant blades.
"Pointmen down."
The six pointmen of his breaching unit crouched either side of the tube, quickly checking over their enormous tri-barrelled plasma shotguns before dropping down. The shock absorbers built into their armoured legs absorbed the impact of their landing as they activated their Omnishields on instinct.
"Room clear, Commander."
With a hand signal, high tensile ropes were dropped down the tube and the boarding unit quickly abseiled down, separating into squads.
"Squad Tobestik, engineering. Squad Bartus, labs. Squad Vakarian on me, we'll take the bridge."
Nodding their understanding the three squads split off, moving to take the different sections of the ship as behind them two more squads abseiled down and set about securing the breach area. Usually five squads was more than enough to take a Corpus destroyer.
Garrus led his squad of eight through the ship, pausing every so often to take out small squads of MOA. Each squad consisted of two pointmen, two heavy gunners armed with the Kyston, the Turian made version of the Supra, a biotic specialist, an engineer, a medic and a sniper. Securing the bridge was surprisingly easy, the only resistance of note being a Shockwave MOA that didn't have time for a single stomp before the pointmen had reduced it to scrap.
"Squad Vakarian, bridge secure."
There was a brief pause.
"Squad Bartus, labs secure. No hostages to recover."
"Squad Tobestik, stand by."
Garrus became increasingly anxious as two minutes passed with no report.
"Squad Tobestik, engineering secure. One minor wound."
"Copy."
He switched channel on his comm.
"Command, critical locations secured."
"Copy that, Marine. Move to sweep ship."
"Affirmative."
He switched channels once more.
"Squads Arran, Tamilus, Korolan and Decukhai full sweep. I don't want a single Corpus left alive on this ship when we're done."
He turned his attention back to the three members of the bridge crew that had surrendered when his team had cut down the rest, the rank pips showing them to be two ensigns and the ship's captain. One of the ensigns was quietly weeping, the other one staring defiantly as the captain looked around seemingly in disbelief.
Garrus raised his pistol. He hated doing this, executing prisoners but each and every one of them was a war criminal. He took aim at the weeping ensign, the tears streaming down his face briefly making Garrus pause, consider sparing them. Then he remembered his squad liberating a Corpus civilian internment camp on Illium. The squalor, the disease, the rings where they would strip prisoners of all species and gender naked, torture and rape them then force them to perform unspeakable acts of violence on one another for entertainment.
He pulled the trigger three times.
###
"Lotus."
Ellen looked up at the hologram nervously. When the Lotus made an unscheduled call it was rarely a good thing.
"Tenno Shepard. Is the alien combat ready?"
She bristled at the way the Lotus referred to Tali but said nothing about it.
"Yes, I would say Tali is combat ready. She is familiar with a wide range of firearms and understands basic hand signals and commands."
She didn't add in her concerns for the girl's fragile mental state. The Lotus wasn't interested in that.
"We would like your clan to undertake an extermination on a derelict Grineer galleon we believe to have been taken over by the Infested. The operation won't present much challenge but will be a good way to field test the alien."
"Yes, Lotus. I'll prepare my team immediately."
"Dismissed, Tenno Shepard."
The hologram faded and Ellen frowned behind her helmet as she turned and made her way through the dojo. Briefing the squad through pantomime would be interesting, at least.
###
As Tali ran her fingers over the variety of weapons available to her in the dojo's armoury she briefly wondered if Ellen realised exactly how goofy she looked trying to mime a mission briefing. She had got the gist of it - they were going to fly to a ship and kill everything on board. Simple enough.
Kaidan was being left behind for the mission, something the Volt warframe didn't seem too happy about but accepted. The other four of them were selecting their chosen engines of destruction. Tali picked up the Sobek shotgun she had more or less claimed as her own, checking over the variety of modifications she had crammed into it even as she eyed the pistols, eventually picking out a pair of Gremlins and slinging them on her thighs. For her melee weapon she picked out an Etha, the long two handed blade so sharp it could cleave clean through the solid armour plate of a MOA hull without even slowing down. Looking over to her left, she noticed all three of the others had picked the Kunai throwing knives as their secondary weapon. Not pausing to wonder at the strange choices, she headed toward the shuttles.