All the usual disclaimers apply.
2176 CE, Elysium
The pirates were disorganized rabble. The comms unit she'd lifted must belong to the Batarian regulars who made up the core of their effective fighters. Unfortunately, their very discipline meant that they weren't going to be packing up slaves and running off while there were still Human soldiers active. She left the captured comms unit with the troops defending the civilians and moved through the city like a ghost.
Well, she was moving through like a ghost until a drunken pirate fell out a third story window and landed a foot in front of her. After that she realized that silence was probably unnecessary, even counterproductive. Instead she rubbed some of the blood and dirt over her chest plate, covering up the N6 decal and obscuring the Alliance markings, the inverted V standing above the tiny model of the Earth was easy enough to cover. These days it was the IFF* which told soldiers who was on their side, not uniforms.
*Identifier Friend/Foe, unique scrambled passive identifiers which tell soldiers who's on their side and prevent friendly fire. When hacked, for no system is perfectly secure, they have led to one-sided victories, but their absence leads to heavy friendly fire casualties, so most militaries still use them, at least when engaged in official operations.
But the IFF would be of no use in this consortium of criminals, if they even had such a system, so all it would take is confidence and she could walk right through. Probably. In any event, she was almost right, she could walk right through with no more harassment than an armored and heavily armed woman could expect from a group of equally armored and armed criminals. It never actually descended to the point where she had to fire her pistol, but she had to knock down two different idiots. She chose to knock down an additional three Batarians because she wanted to.
The spaceport was packed, two gutted bulk transports had been used to drop the majority of the invaders towered over the other vessels. One stood empty, waiting for the survivors of the raiders, while the other was being packed with slaves and loot. The other half dozen ships were lightly armed pirate craft, which had come down intending to act as air support, but after the air-defense batteries gutted one of them and another had been brought down by a volley of missile fire from the militia*, they'd chosen to land at the unprotected port and loose their crew upon the city. A pirate captain could always find more recruits to replace those crewmembers they lost, but without their ship, they wouldn't make it off the planet to fence their loot and slaves.
*Which had used up their stock of Human-portable heavy weapons, but the raiders didn't know that.
The orbital strikes after chasing off the Navy had taken out police stations, barracks and armories, leaving the planet's defenses crippled and its protection in the hands of the handful of survivors. There was no way to stop eight ships on her own, but if she could cripple the bulk transports, then they'd have a hard time getting any number of slaves off the planet. Smashing up engineering would probably do it. A ship was a delicate thing and the engineers who signed on with pirates were unlikely to be much good and the Batarians wouldn't dare use their own ships or crews for this operation.
Using some of their own troops was as far as the Hegemony would go. Troops could always be disowned as deserters, or rebels, or simply off-duty Batarians with an eye on the main chance, but ships would raise serious questions and the Batarian navy didn't have crew to spare, the army could always fill the ranks of their regulars by drafting the lower castes, or press-ganging their way through a slum, but crew needed more education and were always in short supply given the limitations on education of the lower castes and the ban on education on slaves.
The line of captives was long enough and the pile of loot was large enough that she had time to cripple the empty vessel first. There was a guard out front, but the Salarian on guard duty was clearly there because he was the new guy and he was currently engaged in a pointless argument with a Batarian (who'd clearly been part of a group which had looted a bar) over whether the Batarian had a bunk on the transport ship behind the Salarian.
"My gearsss all ontha ship. I can't catch anything 'thout my gear!" It was pretty impressive that Shepard's translator didn't have any serious problem with the slurred speech of the extremely drunk Batarian.
"You're wearing your gear! And you couldn't catch an eye infection!"*
*This is a rather severe insult to a Batarian, as it is viewed as suggesting that they are like the inferior (in their view) dual eyed species who make up the majority of the galaxy's population.
"Whaddya say froggie?"
"I said—CRUNCH" The Salarian's response was cut off by the Batarian's fist. Drunk or not, he was an experienced fighter. And therefore he didn't hesitate to put the boot in on his downed opponent, leaving the Salarian curled around the big Batarian's boot. Shepard kicked the Batarian behind the knee, knocking him to his knees and then slammed the big slaver's head against the ship's hull until he stopped screaming and struggling.
"Don't argue with drunks, newb," it took the Salarian a long minute before he took the hand she offered and was pulled effortlessly to his feet. His body armor had absorbed most of the damage, though the blow had clearly rattled his head, even through his helmet. "You aren't going to win and even if you did, it's hardly anything to brag about." The pirate opened his mouth, but Shepard cut him off before he could ask who she was. "Grab a leg, unblooded* and let's get the trash out of the airlock."
*Unblooded is a Turian insult, adopted by many of the pirates of the Terminus. It is a dismissive term used by the experienced soldiers to refer to new recruits. It does not, in fact refer solely to those who have not been in combat, but rather to those who are unblooded in combat with that particular unit. Usage is, however, as slipshod as with any other insult.
With Shepard leading the way, they made it twenty feet into the ship, with the Batarian's head bouncing along the deck, before the Salarian realized he should ask why they were dragging the Batarian into the their ship instead of just out of the way. "Come on, unblooded, and leave him here for the civies to play with?"
The Salarian looked at her dubiously.
Shepard's laughter was a cold, cruel thing. "Kidding, kid. When he wakes up, he can pay for passage, or he can be sold for passage. I know some folks that'll pay for a big Batarian like him. More than enough to make it worth finding a corner to shove him in. Besides, don't you want to see his face when he realizes he drank away his shot at looting a planet?"
The Salarian's laughter was a pale reflection of Shepard's.
"In fact," she dropped the pirate's leg, "want to even the score?" a waved hand at the Batarian's bleeding face made it clear what she was suggesting.
The Salarian looked at his balled fist, then shrugged. The body-armor's gauntlet would somewhat make up for their relative sizes and his general physical weakness. Shepard let him get in two good hits before she pulled the pistol from the small of his back, checked his turn at the feel of the weapon coming off his armor with a hand on the shoulder and shot him in the temple as he tried to turn to face her.
A quick slice of her blade across the Batarian's throat and both pirates were dead. She held onto the Salarian's pistol and closed the airlock before moving towards the engineering section. A total of two pirates got in her way, but Shepard had learned a long time ago that for some reason people expected you to announce that you were planning to attack them, so she just walked up to them, chatting, and then shot them each in the head when she got close enough. There were no engineers on duty which made the process of trashing the engineering deck quite easy.
Six minutes in and out. She would have been proud, if the enemy hadn't been pathetic. The next one was going to be the hard one. It was all made much worse as she walked out of the ship, shutting the airlock behind her, and three clicks came in over the comms. Her troops had engaged the enemy. Without her. For a moment she was torn between continuing on and turning back. But one thing N training had taught her was that it was better to make a decision than to dither, and she'd already made this one.
There were nine guards with the prisoners who were shuffling onto the other transport. She might be able to take them, but not without massive casualties among the unarmored and unshielded civilians. So instead, she walked around the transport, avoiding the guards on duty on the other pirate ships, who were focused on watching each other to prevent any old scores from being settled in the confusion of the raid. The second airlock she located was locked, as was the main cargo hatch. Shepard was no engineer or infiltrator, or even a sentinel. Her technical ability consisted of being able to access the extranet. Usually.
But she was N trained, which included training on starship assault. And the other access point on most ships was the life pod. If you could get there. Shepard was a vanguard. One charge later and she was balanced on the hull by a spherical bulge containing the escape pod. A warp against the center of the low grade armor plate weakened it enough for her to pry it open. She didn't have to break into the life-pod because it had been launched some time ago and not replaced. Some part of her hoped the crew had gotten away before the ship fell into pirate hands, but somehow she doubted it.
If the ship followed the usual pattern than the life-pod would open up on the bridge, on the theory that that was where the crew would be in a crisis. Maybe the flight deck would be as empty on this ship as engineering had been on the other ship, but she doubted it since this ship was clearly being loaded to leave. Speed was the order of the day. Since installation and maintenance crews had to get in, the hatch could be opened from the outside as well. A touch to the button, an actual button, the ship was too old for holographic controls, and the hatch slid open with a shriek of unoiled and unmaintained metal. The half dozen crew members preparing the ship for takeoff all turned to stare at the absurdly loud opening. Their shock gave her a momentary advantage and the fact that they weren't wearing armor and were barely armed gave her a permanent advantage.
The only risk was that they might warn the guards outside. A charge to the one nearest the comms console ended that threat as the explosion of her charge sent everyone else on the bridge to the ground. Shepard dispatched the pirates with a series of head shots, and one particularly brutal stomp, crushing a human's skull. Shepard reviewed the internal security cameras, which were quite nice (internal security being a high priority for a slave transport ship). The prisoners were still being loaded in. They wouldn't all fit, not with room for the loot and the other raiders. Two slavers were inside the ship, shoving their captives into cells improvised out of cargo containers. They weren't armed. Weapons might have been taken from them and used on them, while their armor made it far harder for them to be mobbed to death by the unarmed.
Shepard waited, sealing the way she'd come in and watching her people suffer as she waited for her moment to come. Two clicks came over her comms system and more captives were forced into cargo pods, some weeping, some silently despairing, and many clutching their family as they tried to pretend they'd be able to keep them from being ripped away by their new masters. The loading slowed to a trickle and the guards outside began to get more selective, separating the young and the healthy, the valuable, from the others. One old woman got abusive when a young man who looked like her grandson was pulled away and got a burst from a pirate's assault rifle for her trouble. The pirate wasn't a good shot, or was quite sadistic as it ripped her lower body apart, but left her alive and screaming, until one of the other slavers got annoyed and put another burst through her, silencing her. One of the other prisoners wrapped a hand around the young man's mouth, keeping him from drawing any further attention.
Finally the ship was almost full. Even as she left the flight deck she heard another set of two clicks. The soldiers had been forced back again. A parallel corridor let her slip past the pirates inside the ship and none of the guards paid her any mind as she walked out. If she was inside the ship, then clearly she was permitted to be there. They were concerned about the prisoners and the perimeter. Shepard sauntered over to the young man coring a group of fit young people who hadn't been brought aboard the transport because the slavers were good at picking out who might be trouble. Some of the young people had Systems Alliance tattoos, or visible combat scars, or gang tattoos, or just that special look that announces someone is a dangerous person. The pirates no doubt intended to sell their prisoners to their less successful fellow kidnappers, for less than they'd get at a real slave market, but it was better than nothing, as they'd run out of room.
Her voice was a whisper. "When it starts, get everyone into the ship and take those two pirates apart."
Her estimation of the man was right. He didn't ask what would be starting, or who she was, he just became slightly more alert and nodded almost imperceptibly. Shepard had evaluated the guards while waiting. Four Batarians in standard gear, spread out and bullying the captives. Standard soldiers. Not a large threat to her, but their assault rifles would let them massacre the prisoners if they weren't stopped fast; a Salarian engineer and a Turian (probably an infiltration expert from her movements and the sniper rifle held easily in taloned hands) were talking to one side with an Asari maiden, obviously some sort of biotic, but from the way she was staring at everything around them, she was young and inexperienced; far more worrisome was the older Asari, maybe a matron, maybe still a maiden, but only just, who carried the shotgun preferred by vanguards and who made all the other pirates nervous. She would obviously be a problem. Then there was a Human male standing on his own, fiddling with a portable communications array. She couldn't get a good read on him, might just be another soldier, but where the others were nervous about the Asari, they were almost in awe of the human. Worrisome.
The Asari both had their helmets off, the one to draw lustful eyes, the other to let everyone know they should look away and shudder at her passage. Neither was wearing the medium armor Shepard preferred, opting for speed over protection. She walked right up to the vanguard, lean and dangerous, hands resting casually on her weapons, spoke a few words of greeting then with neither warning nor provocation, pulled the pistol she'd taken from the Salarian out, slammed it into the soft armor over her belly and pulled the trigger until the weapon overheated.
Usually Shepard would have gone for a quicker, cleaner kill, but it was the best she could manage with her left hand and almost no attention. Her own pistol in her right hand and her focus was on the more difficult shot at the group across the way. At that distance and under the time crunch she was under and with them beginning to react, she couldn't manage the headshot she'd hoped for and the high explosive round slammed into the scrambling maiden's chest. The explosive shock pulped the Asari inside her armor, despite her shields, and the fireball and concussive force sent the Turian and the Salarian to the ground, wounded or dead she couldn't tell, though the smart money was on the former.
That left five. Shepard sprinted away from the prisoners, not charging to conceal her capabilities from the pirate scum. Bullets began to impact her shields before she made it to the piece of cover she'd picked out, a stolen aircar packed with loot. A burst from a Batarian assault rifle shattered the marble head of an ugly statue sticking out of the car's sunroof like the universe's ugliest bridesmaid out on the hen night from hell. Her shields whined, but held until she was under cover, but with both her pistols overheated and no grenades, her position was bad.
The Batarians weren't soldiers, but they were obviously experienced fighters and used to working together. All four had opened up on her instantly, covering each other as they moved into cover. They'd focused on her rather than the civilians, but half a dozen of the unarmored Humans were thrashing on the ground in their own blood, just in the wrong place to catch a bullet meant for her.
Shepard could only keep her helmeted head out of cover for a second, but it was enough to see what they were planning and to see that the Human had vanished. So, four soldiers and an infiltrator. What a wonderful situation. On the other hand, the civilians were clearing out fast. At least those who were still alive.
In just a moment one of the Batarians would start moving up while the other covered him, until they'd flanked her. They wouldn't wait for her weapons to dump their excess heat, and the moment she moved to try to hit them with any biotics, they'd duck down into cover.
It was time to get creative. She popped up and flicked a warp towards the nearest Batarian. He ducked back the moment he saw the glow of blue, though his fellows kept firing. Shields almost drained, Shepard stayed out of cover long enough to see the warp impact the concrete brace the pirate was hiding behind. The timing would be tight, but her shields managed to recharge half-way before she had to pop out of cover and toss a throw at the cover.
The resulting explosion as the two biotic forces interacted shattered the concrete, tossing the pirate to the ground and spattering the surrounding area with shrapnel. One of the other raiders shrieked and raced towards the injured Batarian, one of the others popped out of cover, stared for a moment, and rushed towards Shepard. The final Batarian kept his head and advanced to cover his injured comrade. From the screaming fury of the erstwhile medic, she gathered they were all brothers. Her weapons finally were ready to fire again as the charging Batarian rounded the edge of her cover. She went around the other side and fired the high explosive round into the group clustered around the wounded man. In fact, she fired on the wounded man whose shields were still down. The round exploded against his armor, adding shrapnel to the fireball and shockwave the round produced. Three of the four were down, probably dead, but definitely not shooting at her.
Shepard started to turn back to the one pursuing her, only to be tackled from behind. Shoved face-first into the concrete of the landing pad, with almost a hundred kilos of Batarian and Batarian equipment on top of her, she was in real trouble, not even considering the Human who was somewhere around. She'd lost track of him, as he hadn't shot at her, which probably meant he was cloaked and sneaking around somewhere. A vicious elbow strike towards the Batarian's unarmored head was tugged short by her armor and evaded by the man who slammed her helmeted head against the concrete. He was all fury and fists, but it's hard to kill someone in modern body-armor with your bare hands.
The weight lifted off her back and a powerful kick to her head left her seeing stars. Shepard rolled over from the force of it, hand scrabbling for a weapon, any weapon as her eyes slowly focused on the assault rifle the Batarian was lifting to aim at her. Terror and hate burned away the fog of fear and pain in her brain. She kicked out hard against the pirate's knee, bringing him down atop her which sucked, but it brought the rifle within reach and she grabbed its barrel with her left hand holding its muzzle away from her. The slaver pulled the trigger a moment too late, the rounds impacted concrete right next to her head, sending chips and ricochets everywhere, but they lacked the force to penetrate her helmet, but sooner or later a chip would find its way through the weaker, flexible material protecting her neck.
Before that could happen, she pulled her knife loose (awkward with him mostly on top of her, but he was focused on the rifle) and stabbed for the hip joint, hoping to sever one of the arteries there. Stabbing blind, she hit the armor plate, skidding along it, drawing the Batarian's attention. One of his hands left the rifle and caught her knife-hand, his superior strength slowly forcing it back, but he couldn't force the blade from her hand. They stayed there for a long moment neither able to gain an advantage until the gun shrieked and hissed as it overheated and the Batarian released it to grab her knife-hand with both of his.
As he tried to pry the knife from her hand, Shepard awkwardly lifted the rifle towards his face. The white hot muzzle accidentally dragged across her helmet, melting the outer layer of the armor before it reached the Batarian's hands, which had instinctively interposed themselves between his naked face and the glowing metal. Shepard's now free knife hand plunged into the Batarian's knee joint, provoking a scream. The Batarian pushed down hard on the assault rifle, forcing the still-glowing muzzle of the rifle towards Shepard's helmet with insane strength. She writhed aside, dodging the rifle, swirling the knife around inside the Batarian's leg, searching for an artery. Before their struggle could end, the Batarian suddenly went still as he took a strike to the back of his head from what appeared to be the arm of the hideous statue. Driven by a massively muscled human, the marble arm broke the Batarian's skull easily.
"Thanks," she took the hand the civilian offered as he pulled her to her feet. It took an effort to suppress the tremors in her hands which overuse of her biotics and stress had brought on. But she couldn't show weakness in front of a hardcase like this one. The civilian was one of those she'd saved, who she recognized only by his absurd musculature. Several others from the group of troublemakers were still outside the ship. The man with Systems Alliance tattoo was keeping watch towards the gate while a pair of Humans who looked enough alike to be siblings, but hopefully weren't, were finishing off the wounded pirates with a cheerful sadism that was a bit worrisome. The wounded captives were either dead, or disappeared, which Shepard didn't notice, distracted by ripping her blade from the Batarian's leg, cleaning the bloody blade and sheathing it.
"Who are you?" the Human asked, staring at the carnage that surrounded her. His accent suggested he'd grown up on the colony, though he was too old to actually be a native.
"Lieutenant Shepard. Get everyone back on the ship and find me a pilot. We need to leave."
"We'll never make it off the planet, I heard them talking, most of their fleet is still in orbit."
Shepard grinned, "Why would we leave? I've still got three days of shore leave here, but I'm not spending it at the port, no, no, no, I'll spend it downtown, like any other soldier on leave. So, go find me someone to chauffeur me there."
The muscle-bound brute smiled back at her, her grin must have been audible in her voice as her helmet shielded her from view. "It's where all the good parties are."
"Feel free to help yourselves to any party favors you see lying around," Shepard added as the others began to gather around her. She caught a few confused glances from the folks who'd missed the first part of the conversation. "Grab all the guns and get on the ship."
All of those singled out as troublemakers had already grabbed their preferred weapon off a corpse, but that still left a good number of unclaimed weapons on the ground. The Batarians especially had carried a full loadout, prioritizing versatility over weight. Remembering the massive frame of the Batarian as he tried to beat her to death, Shepard couldn't say that was the wrong call for them.
She was keeping a sharp eye out for the Human who'd been part of the guard force, or the shimmer of a tactical cloak, but didn't spot anything. While her new comrades gathered the weapons, she considered what that could mean. The Human could have fled, or he could be trying to turn this around on her. The hulking transport had thousands of captives packed into cargo pods which should have been filled with fresh crops intended for the wealthy on Earth or the Citadel. If he took out the engines, then they'd be trapped within the vessel which should have been their ticket to freedom.
"Back inside. Now. You," a finger pointed at the over-muscled man, "find me a pilot. You," she pointed at the man with the System's Alliance tattoo, "take them," her hand swept over a giggling blood-spattered pair of Humans carrying a dozen guns between them, "and secure the bridge. Arm a couple of folks who know what they're doing and set them to watch the entrances. Lock 'em down as best you can," now she was moving as she spoke.
The man didn't salute, but spoke with a soft Japanese accent that matched his features, "Yes, sir."
"And what'll you be doing while we're doing that?" asked one of the pair staggering under weaponry.
"Checking engineering, to make sure they don't do to us what I did to that," she waved at the other transport just before moving inside. Looking back was a mistake, as she tripped over the corpses of the guards inside. They'd been ripped apart by the mob of furious people, though the armor had prevented it from being too literal, only one of them had actually lost an arm, but both of them had makeshift weapons sticking out of every joint and soft part of their armor, from the bruises and broken bones she saw on the prisoners around, they hadn't gone easily, but they'd definitely gone.
It was in climbing back to her feet that she saw where the wounded prisoners had gone. They'd been dragged inside and were being treated by someone in scrubs. Well, if pushing really hard, wrapping bleeding holes in cloth, crying and swearing could be counted as treatment. But he didn't have the equipment to do any better. There were three of them still alive and whimpering, two elderly men and an equally elderly woman. They'd been gagged to keep their desperate pained cries from panicking the captives who were trapped with nowhere to go and nothing to do except panic.
Shepard moved so fast she didn't even remember rising and sliding between the doctor and the wounded. The medigel dispenser in her glove activated as she pressed it against the bleeding wound. The clear salve spread over the wounds, sliding through their perforated body, stopping the bleeding as the anesthetic in the medigel stopped the pain. Shepard treated the second and third civilian before the doctor had recovered enough to speak. "Oh, thank goodness, someone who knows what they're doing. I'm just an orderly!"
Shepard ratcheted her expectations down several notches and her respect for the man up several notches. "Don't let them move, and they'll still be alive when we get out of here." Probably.
It wasn't until she'd started moving away that she recognized that her new comrades were staring at her. "You've got jobs to do!" They scurried away, handing out guns like candy, though they were received with far greater enthusiasm by the terrified civilians.
Two doses of medigel left. That was it. Not good, but this hadn't been a campaign with many wounds, the dead might be stacked in the street like cordwood, but the slavers hadn't left many wounded behind. Her feet took her towards engineering, eyes watching the corners automatically as the pistols found their way into her hands.
Despite all of her concerns, the room was empty. She relaxed, just in time to hear two clicks again and tension flowed back through her, hands tightening on the base of her guns. A deep breath and she forced herself to relax enough to let her weapons reattach to her armor. A dozen men and women came in, even as she was searching the place for any sign of explosives.
They were engineers. Not starship engineers, but they could read a console. They'd been sent by one of her people. After a moment's thought, she nodded and retreated to the bridge. A woman was sitting at the flight controls, "You found me a pilot, excellent," Shepard said, taking the captain's seat to buy herself a minute to rest.
"Shuttle pilot!" the woman snapped irritably.
"Better'n I could do," Shepard countered.
The pilot shrugged. "Fine. Where am I taking this behemoth?"
"Bring up a map, will you?" Shepard asked the over-muscled man.
His omni-tool (well, the one he was wearing, its blood-spattered nature and his former status as a prisoner suggested it wasn't his) brought up a map of the city. It had all been built in a hub pattern around the massive first colony ship, and the open square surrounding it, with five streets leading into it. Two were mainly massive train routes and after bringing the civilians into the square, they'd shut down the trains at the intersection, blocking those roads quite effectively. One led exactly away from where the pirates had landed, and no one but a couple of stragglers had come up that way and they'd been picked off by a few hunters keeping watch. One of the other two roads had been blocked when Captain Gupta had the SSV Tsushima down across it rather than try to escape out of the gravity well in the face of a massive pirate force. Her surviving crew still held that road.
Commander McCauley had set up his barricade across the last road and that road was still being held by the last of the actual soldiers. "Here," Shepard tapped a point about two hundred meters further out from the square than where the soldiers should be. Her finger went right through the hologram of course, but it was clear where she was pointing. "Bring us down here."
"You're insane," the pilot's voice was flat.
"It'll block the main remaining passage."
"Like a fucking baseball in a bottle."
"Isn't the saying 'like a cork in a bottle'?" the woman of the bloody-handed pair asked.
"No! Because a cork fits in a fucking bottle!"
"We'll fill the road," Shepard pointed out.
"And then some! We'll be scraping through the buildings."
"The ship's tough enough to survive that," the over-muscled man said.
"Get everyone strapped down as far inside as they can fit. We're taking off in five minutes." Shepard ordered.
The pilot stared at them all, then began to mutter what Shepard was absolutely certain were Russian curses, though they were too quiet for her translator to pick up. But since she turned back to the flight controls and began running pre-flight checks, Shepard didn't bother trying to squelch her. The others scattered about the ship, warning everyone to strap in and she took the opportunity to rest, popping the locks on her helmet and pulling it off to examine the burn mark melting the side of the armor. The whole thing was weakened, but it was better than nothing.
It was oddly comforting to wrap the thick straps of the harness around herself. When that was complete, she'd done everything she could. Their survival was in the hands of the pilot now. There was nothing more she needed to do, no more decisions to make, no more lives depending on her choices. She could just be another grunt waiting to hit the dirt. Food would have been better, but this was enough. Shepard would be ready for the next battle, she was sure of it.
2176 CE, Captured Pirate Frigate Lotek, Batalla System
Nihlus had the good sense to listen to his doctor and rest while the ship made its trip to the main pirate base. The medigel helped, but being shot was still no joke. Not that the joke the doctor had told while repairing the damage, some nonsensical, lengthy bit about three Hanar, a Drell and an Asari was worth the title.
2176 CE Hyetiana
Justicar Samara did not dance aside. She was too old for dancing. Instead, she simply wasn't there when the strike swept through the spot she'd been standing. The maiden tried to turn the failed strike into a backhand, but Samara caught the maiden's wrist and crushed it with a single biotic squeeze. The woman collapsed, clutching her injured arm and Samara kept walking.
"ATTACK! FOR YOUR GODDESS!" her target bellowed.
The throng of maidens looked nervously between Samara and her target, trying to decide who they were more afraid of. Samara advanced and their eyes flicked to the whimpering Asari behind her and they gave way. The justicar examined her target carefully. The maiden's figure was starting to thicken slightly, she was on the verge of the transition to the matron stage of her life.
A tall and impressive woman, her markings were in a dark purple that was almost black, which matched a gown that fell in loose ripples to the dirt of the ground. Samara could see how these back-world Asari could believe her an Ardat-Yakshi, but she felt none of the presence, none of the power, which those Ardat-Yakshi who succumbed to their hunger possessed. The lives and hopes stolen from their victims made them seem almost denser than those who surrounded them, like all things, all people should roll towards them, as if they distorted the very fabric of reality to pull you closer, like a star, or black hole. There was none of that here, just an impressive looking woman, which was why the maidens gave way. Well, that and the fact that Samara was a justicar and they feared to stand in her path.
The woman didn't fall back, but instead brought both hands around, swirling in sharp, precise patterns and blue barriers snapped into place against her skin. Samara didn't bother with that, her barriers appeared as she walked forward with the same calm, even pace she always used. A half dozen steps out she stopped, surrounded by the target's followers. "How did you do it?"
"Do what?" a blue hand ran over her markings and lips, down to an impressive chest, perhaps attempting to distract Samara with sensuality, perhaps attempting to entice her followers, but neither would work, not with the justicar matriarch there. "I've done so very many things," she purred.
"Indeed. You have murdered and stolen many times over."
"Oh, you have no idea," she swayed forward, menacing, trying to drive Samara back, make her give ground, show her to be weak. She did not move.
Instead Samara spoke, "I do, actually. You are Pilta T'nar," she stepped forward and Pilta did step back, shocked. "Daughter of the privileged T'nar family of Thessia. You threw away every advantage an Asari could have in order to kill and con your way across a dozen worlds, while your family has covered up your crimes. It was believed that this," a strong hand waved over the throng that surrounded her, "was another con, until the body was found. Then word was sent to the justicars, that an Ardat-Yakshi had killed someone. The evidence was quite clear. But," Samara stepped forward again, "you are not an Ardat-Yakshi. So, I my question is clarified, how did you kill her?"
Pilta stomped a foot like a child, but her voice remained under her control, menacing and seductive in equal measure. "I am Ardat-Yakshi, I am the Goddess's dark reflection, the demon of the night winds, to know my touch is to know the little death which encompasses all eternity!"
"I believed that you were Ardat-Yakshi, before I met you, but I have met them, hunted them and sent them to the Goddess. You are not Ardat-Yakshi. I will inform the justicars who are questioning your family of that fact," Pilta blanched, skin lightening in terror. "It will not change their punishment, but they will go to the Goddess for the right reasons, rather than the wrong ones."
Pilta screamed and attacked, graceful and fast. Her file didn't indicate commando training, but she'd clearly undergone it at some point. Samara recognized the pattern of attacks as belonging to the Keltia School, which prioritized aggressive attacks, intended to cripple an enemy before they could respond. The strikes hit only air, not even coming close to landing a blow. Observing her opponent closely, Samara tried to figure out a way to deal with Pilta and still get the answers she needed. But the woman wouldn't stop attacking and the Code offered only one response to such an assault.
Samara ducked under a blow to slip behind the criminal and a biotic blow launched the woman into the air. Pilta hit the ground a half-dozen yards away, face down, nose breaking on the ground despite the barriers which kept the justicar's blow from breaking her spine. As Samara approached, her target's hand vanished into the folds of her dress. When Samara was standing right next to her, she rolled over, just in time to catch a boot pressed against her throat.
Pilta's hand rose, encased in some sort of metal glove, a filigreed outline of clawed fingers, a demon's hand. It tried to claw at Samara, but the justicar's boot slid off her throat and kicked out quite precisely, hitting the woman's elbow. The blow wasn't strong enough to break the joint, but it bought her a moment. She knelt, her other knee coming down on the Asari's throat, crushing it as her hands caught the joint, slamming the gauntleted hand down. "Find peace in the embrace of the Goddess," Samara said, holding the pressure in place until Pilta died under the eyes of her followers, none of whom dared interfere with the justicar's execution of the woman they'd believed was a goddess.
Samara waited until the woman was dead, it took longer than people thought to suffocate, even with a crushed throat. With that done, she stripped the glove off the woman's hand. "Do any of you know anything about this?"
She was met with a mute chorus of shaking heads. A quick search of the body, then the woman's house revealed nothing helpful. One of the villagers gave her a lift to the nearest transit center, their terror making the trip more exciting than it needed to be, it still passed in silence.
Samara turned the glove over and over in her hands, examining it in detail. She was certain it was what had permitted that woman to kill in the same manner as an Ardat-Yakshi. While hiding some martial training was feasible, it seemed unlikely a criminal whose crimes were all focused on short-term gain would have the knowledge or ability to create such a device. Someone else had made it. Someone else who was accidentally muddying the waters of her pursuit. It was the corpses which gave her the leads she needed when her target disappeared. She couldn't have other people killing in that fashion, which meant she had a new target, for now. This dealer in deadly technologies would be found and handled in accordance with the code.
That meant she needed help. She suppressed a sigh as she examined the destination of the ships departing Hyetania. Any of them would take her to their destination, but she needed a place with a tech expert and a forensic accountant, both of whom would assist a justicar. For no cost. Difficult. Her eye caught a name, Chalkhos, in the Terminus systems. A mostly Asari world, but in the Terminus, it would have need of a justicar and she might gain the assistance of skilled people there and it was most likely this technology had come from the Terminus systems, rather than the more law abiding Citadel space. Yes, it was as good a starting place as she was likely to get.
Reviews and comments always welcome. Let me know if you spot any errors, canonical or grammatical and I'll fix 'em. Thanks for reading.