Chapter 15
"Everyone suit up," Staff Lieutenant Thomas 'Top' Corteau ordered his men. "It looks like we brought down a number of systems, including their comms. Expect that the life support is down as well. Be sure to prep your magne-boots. We're no longer detecting a mass effect distortion field, so gravity will likely be absent."
The Lieutenant was the commanding officer on this mission in absence of his normal superiors. He was not the captain of the Accretion – the hunter-seeker ship that had just disabled the Kellius – but he was left in charge when the captain and the commander left for a different mission at The Illusive Man's request.
He was a well toned man of as much African-American descent as the generalized modern gene pool would allow. He, like many other Cerberus operatives, started out in the Alliance many years ago and dropped out to join the human-centric group. He wasn't a very tolerant man, and aliens was one of the many things he didn't tolerate. Cerberus worked to secure human dominance in the galaxy, and that lined up with his galactic wishes. He was an accomplished soldier and showed promise as a leader. Cerberus recruited him because of this. They needed soldiers, and leaders to give those soldier direction.
Today was a special day. The Accretion had been picked out from the few hunter-seeker ships in Cerberus' arsenal to perform a single ship strike and retrieve operation. This mission, unlike most others, was generated and sent to the Accretion by one of The Illusive Man's personal assistants. That was as good as getting orders directly from the big boss himself in Thomas' eyes, and he was not about to disappoint.
The mission was labeled as 'simple, but imperative'. He was to take the Accretion out to the Dholen system in the Far Rim, search a few grids for a disabled human frigate, board with a team, eliminate a few hostiles and have that team bring the ship back to a Cerberus facility that would be outlined to him once the frigate was under control. The hostiles were listed as seven quarian marines, a human and a salarian. He wasn't worried about it at all. He'd never met a quarian, marine or not, that he couldn't deal with on his own. As the mission progressed, he received updates that the ship was no longer disabled and that the Dholen mass relay was its destination. The mission parameters changed, as well – it was no longer a simple pick up. If he couldn't reign the ship in, he was ordered to destroy it outright to prevent it from falling into 'malcontented hands'. Bringing it in was still a top priority, but it was no longer the only option. He made the executive decision to wait at the relay, assault the frigate when it came within a viable sensor range and determine whether or not he had to destroy it there. After finding out that they had disabled their prey, it was time to board.
Thomas was now just beginning to debrief his men about the situation. They were on a need to know basis, and now they needed to know. He had seven soldiers – five men and two women – under his command, not including the various vital crew members of the Accretion. There were ten crew members that were staying behind on this mission since they weren't outfitted for a hostile situation at this time. They were also the failsafe. If something went horribly wrong during a boarding mission, he would radio back to the crew of the Accretion and get them to dislodge and fire upon the now disabled ship.
"What are the mission details, Top?" Corporal Rogers, or 'Ice', asked the Lieutenant.
"I was getting to that, Ice," Thomas replied. "Mission reports state some nine hostiles or so aboard that ship. All we know is that there are at least seven quarians, all of them calling themselves 'marines'." His men laughed. "There's also a human and a salarian. Our orders are to shoot on sight, except in the case of the human. Bring him to me if you find him. They probably know by now that we intend to board, so expect an ambush. Second Lieutenant Hughes will be in command of the Accretion in my absence, and will be our primary contact back to the ship. Understood?"
"Sir yes sir!" was the resounding response.
"Once we get inside and confirm that our exit is secure, we will break into two groups. Needle, Pressure and Wraith are with me, and we'll move directly to the lower decks and search up from there. Ice, you will lead Tungsten, Light and Trigger. You will remain to keep the exit secure until we've confirmed that we've searched the lowest deck. Make a sweep of the top deck and then return to keeping the exit secure. Understood, corporal?"
"Sir yes sir," Ice replied.
"Keep in constant radio contact over secure channel gamma. If the situation takes a bad turn, notify the rest and pull out. I'd rather lose the ship we're supposed to pick up than lose the team."
There was a slight jolt that caused the ship to shutter. Following that, a female voice came over the room's sound emitters.
"We've attached and are ready to board, sir. Waiting on your go to open the airlock."
Thomas put on his breather helmet and his team did the same. He pulled a Rosenkov assault rifle from its clipped position on his back and it expanded from its collapsed form in his hands. Again, his team did likewise with various Rosenkov weapons and they gathered around the boarding airlock. This airlock was different from a normal one. It was on the tail end of the opposite side of the ship from the normal one and contained tools to force open a victim ship's outer doors and airlock.
"Open the airlock, we're going in."
There was a short but loud hiss and the door out of the small prep room opened up to a short hallway that connected their ship with the door of the ship they had to take. Using the tools in the hallway that extended from the Accretion, Thomas and his team overrode the electronic commands that normally kept the outer door shut unless it docked. The door slid upward and the team gained entrance to the decontamination portion of the airlock. Lights were out and they quickly noticed that the d-con process did not begin. Without a moment of unprofessional hesitation, they started working on getting the main airlock door to the ship open.
This door could not be simply pulled open by hand. Since there seemed to be no power to the door, it had to be forced open by a powerful prying device that resided in the hallway. It took only a few minutes to get the door to suddenly separate, and the team was already in cover on either side as they expected to be shot at as they came through the door. Strangely, no fire came. Instead, a thin, but heavy wall of fog rolled down into the airlock.
With a few wordless hand gestures, Thomas ordered a few of them to enter all at once and cover the two main directions in the hallway. Again seeing that the area was clear, the rest of the team filed inside and occupied the dark briefing room. Lights were flickering all over the place, haptic screens were on the fritz and the place was filled with malfunctioning life support air. Tungsten, one of the two females on the squad, moved into the bridge and attempted to access some of the terminals.
"Nothing. Terminals are all down. Looks like we did a bit more damage to the ship than we thought."
Ice laughed. "The Illusive Man's gonna be pissed."
"Our mission was to bring it it, not make it pretty," Thomas said.
"Room is secure, Top," Ice reported. "Arti-grav is completely down, as you expected."
"Noted. According to the layout we received, there should be a stairwell right outside these doors that go to the second and third deck. My team, let's move out. Straight to third deck. Let's clear these roaches out from the bottom up."
"Yes sir!"
While Ice's team bunkered down, Thomas ad his crew activated the flashlights on their guns and moved out into the hallway with caution. He expected to find shots coming from behind every door, and that showed in his use of walls and cover on either side of said doors. The visual noise from the flickering of the ship's lights and the flashlight beams in the eerie fog made concentrating on finding quarian or salarian figures difficult, so extra caution was taken. Once down on the cargo deck, they fanned out to sweep the entire area. As they searched, Thomas could hear crew comments over his comms.
"Look at all this crap. These guys are loaded enough to make a minor deep-space trip," Needle, the second female soldier, commented.
"Lots of human-based materials," Wraith analyzed. "Looks like these crates came from the Citadel. What was going on here?"
"Not all of these crates are from the Citadel," Pressure, the deepest toned man on the squad said. "There's a lot of quarian writing on some of these. Guess they came packed to go too."
"Enough chatter," Thomas ordered. "Focus on the search. They could be waiting anywhere for us."
With that, the team was silenced. Soon after, a complete sweep of the cargo room had been completed, and there was naught a single other living being down there. They regrouped near the stairs and prepared to move up.
"Ice, the cargo deck sweep is complete. No signs of life. Go ahead and begin your rounds," Thomas directed.
"Yes sir."
"Let's move up. Needle, take point."
"Yes sir!"
Once on the second deck, the team slowly progressed down the hallway. They stopped to check the crew quarters as continued by prying the door open, but again, they were disappointed when there was nobody there to greet them.
"Okay, Needle, next room," Thomas said.
Needle nodded and cautiously started down the hall from the crew quarters. She was hesitant about continuing. Between the fog, the sporadic lights and the lack of crew, she began to wonder if something else had happened to them. The tight hallway wasn't helping. Coupled with the other factors, it was beginning to feel a bit claustrophobic. She hated tight spaces with such low visibility. If there was any one thing that gave her goosebumps, it was this. Thomas picked up on her hesitation and pushed her along.
"Some time today, private."
"Sorry sir. It's just that this place is creeping me out a little, sir."
Thomas knew that Needle was one of the newest members of the squad, so he let it slide this time in the interest of completing the mission quickly. He'd have to deal with her inability once the mission was completed. He sighed and nudged Pressure.
"Pressure. Take point."
"Yes sir," he rumbled.
They didn't go far. They stopped at the VI core room and pried the door open to look for the usual hostiles. Again, the room was empty. On the figurative bright side, a new opportunity had presented itself.
"Wraith. Link in to the VI. Get the locations of any organics on board."
"Yes sir."
Wraith was the tech in their immediate squad. He activated his omni-tool and started working to access the VI. After about a minute of work, he deactivated his omni-tool and shook his head.
"No go, sir. I can't get into the VI at all. It seems to be running loopback connections on all ports. I can't even get a reboot command in. I could issue a hard reboot, but it will take several minutes to come back online."
Thomas cursed his luck. "This mission just keeps going downhill. Let's move out. We'll continue our-"
He was interrupted by the sudden gasp from Needle.
"Lieutenant!" she shouted. "I just saw a salarian in the hallway! He looked in here, saw us, freaked out and ran left!"
"Wraith, pursuit! We'll watch your back here in the hallway."
"Yes sir!" Wraith acknowledged before breaking off in a full sprint. He must have caught a glimpse of the salarian going down the stairs since he reported his new direction.
"He's heading into the cargo bay. On his six."
The rest of the team remained in the hallway to watch both directions for additional activity. After a few slightly tense and silent moments, they spotted Wraith coming up the stairs to regroup.
"Got away through a door in the back of the cargo bay I didn't even see before. Probably busted the panel, too. I couldn't hack it open. Bet they're barricading themselves in there."
"Wait, the door had power?" Thomas asked curiously.
Wraith merely shrugged. "According to the layout, the only place he could have gone was into the engineering room's lower deck."
"We'll head there," Thomas ordered. "Stay tight and keep an eye out for incoming fire. Ice, report."
"Top deck is clear, Top. Tungsten's still trying to get some terminals to work. She's been able to self-power one of the system terminals near the airlock, but it's not connecting to the ship's internal network. I'll keep you updated. Also, I'd like to point out that for a ship that took enough hits to down systems, I'm not seeing much for damage."
"Likewise," Thomas replied with suspicion. "Something's not right here, keep your guard up. We think we've found where they're holding out. We may need backup in a few moments if things get nasty."
"Acknowledged."
When the team reached the massive engineering room door, they all had to work together to pry it open. After that, there was a second layer that probably normally opened automatically that had to be pried as well. They only pulled it apart half-way so they could use part of the door for cover from the enemy fire they fully expected to encounter in the engineering room. Curiously, there was none. What they found was a room with no lights whatsoever, and a fog so thick it nearly rendered projected lights useless.
"Thermals, sir?" Pressure asked.
"Thermals will work for the human and salarian, but they won't see quarians due to their suits," Wraith informed.
"They have to be in here somewhere," Needle said, looking off towards the unpowered engineering elevator on their right.
"Why aren't they firing?" Pressure wondered aloud, hoping that one of those lying in wait somewhere would take a pot shot and expose their position.
"Squad, recon and force. We know at least one is in here. If found, don't wait for the others. Fire at will."
"Yes sir."
Thomas knew that the moment they were fired upon, the enemy would be exposed. He also knew their kinetic barriers could withstand several shots from the no doubt outdated weapons that the quarians had. As the others began to explore the pitch black engine room, Thomas moved off to the left to check out the elevator. Needle appeared to be looking downward over the edge to determine how far a jump it was and if her magne-boots would work from there. After determining that the elevator was offline, he heard Needle jump down to the lower deck. Just then, there was a sound that came from the direction of the drive core. All flashlight beams focused on the disabled core, and with all that illumination on a single spot, he noticed the white edge of the salarian's suit hiding behind a large piece of the eezo drive core. He was about to call out to the salarian when he noticed something.
There were only two other flashlight beams in the room other than his. Instantly he was distracted by the missing teammate and he went to investigate while the other two continued to focus on the salarian hiding in the drive core's works while trying to get a shot in. Thomas noticed that Needle's flashlight beam was the one missing, and he walked over to where she was investigating the edge of the upper floor. He looked down as she did and he saw a large number of small red beads floating away from under his position.
"Needle? Report in!"
As he leaned over more to get a better view, he saw what had happened to his subordinate. She was hanging upside down under the floor he was standing on, her magne-boots still holding her feet to the grated metal. She did not have her shotgun in her hands and red beads continued to generate from the small space between her chest armor and her breather helmet and slowly push away from the body. Bad, bad news.
Just as he realized what was going on, the room dimmed a little more. Another flashlight beam had disappeared.
"Pressure?" Wraith called out. Despite the situation, he continued to focus his beam on the only enemy they knew the location of. It clearly wasn't the salarian, but if he lost sight of him, he might make a move on them as well.
Thomas started looking around the room with his flashlight and activated his thermal vision to see who it was as he trekked by Wraith to get to Pressure's last known coordinates. To his dismay, the only thermal signatures in the room were his, Wraith's and a sliver of the salarian's hiding in the angle-mounted drive core. It must have been a quarian. But a quarian with a silenced weapon? Impossible. Mass effect based weapons were difficult enough as it was to suppress, such a modification would be prohibitively expensive for a vagrant alien. There was no way it was a quarian.
When Thomas found Pressure, he was greeted by a similar grim scene. The difference was that Pressure was lying face first against the rail that ran the edge of the upper floor. A bubble of red was growing along the corner of the rail and the floor as the red beads spewed forth from a thin hole bored into the forehead of Pressure's helmet. It then dawned on him. Whoever, whatever was attacking them, it wasn't using a gun. Even a silenced one did a different style of damage. This bore the evidence of a slash or stab with a sharp object. All their armor, all their kinetic shielding, all their rifle training did nothing to protect them from such sudden and precise melee attacks.
He turned around to give retreat orders to Wraith only to find his last remaining subordinate thrashing and convulsing wildly on the floor with his hands at his neck and more red dots and lines flying about the gravityless room. Thomas only momentarily spotted a dark figure shut off Wraith's assault rifle flashlight before it jumped off towards the ceiling, utilizing the lack of gravity as a mode of locomotion. Within seconds, Wraith's thrashing ceased and the room was silent again.
At least, it would be silent if Thomas didn't yell out, take aim and start firing in the general direction that the dark figure traveled in. His flashlight proved to be more of a drawback than a help as it obscured any distant views of the room and prevented visual tracking of the hunter. Thomas wasn't stupid, however. He knew how to track targets without line of sight, and he shot at the most logical land points that the figure might have used. Only a mere few seconds after he started shooting, Ice came in over the comms.
"I hear gunfire. Are you mopping up down there?"
"Ice, pull out. Pull out, now," Thomas replied with as much controlled urgency as he could communicate. "This isn't an ambush, it's an effing hunt. Needle, Pressure and Wraith are already KIA. Get back to the Accretion before something else happens. Radio them to fire on the ship once I'm clear."
"I- Yes sir," Ice replied with genuine worry in his voice.
Thomas kept shooting in random spots, hoping to score a hit. Any hit. As he did, he backed out of the engineering room as quickly as he could, making certain that nothing got behind him on his way out. Soon enough, he was on his way back to the briefing room that he knew was secure, for the moment. Unfortunately, he was stopped in the middle of the still flickering and foggy hallway by the sight of at least three quarians taking aim on him from the stairs. One more appeared on each of his sides from the observation lounges, and he now had five guns targeting him, two of which were point blank. There was the ambush he had been expecting earlier. If he had his squad, he might have been able to get out of this alive.
He didn't even have the chance to take aim with his gun. He heard a modulated voice from behind him say something he didn't quite hear. He had to see what so efficiently ghosted three of his soldiers, even if turning to look risked him getting shot point blank.
When he looked down the blinking hallway at the black space through the engineering door, he saw what looked like a quarian disfigured from the knees down barreling down at him via gravityless flight. He had enough time to shout "No! Wait!" before a sharp knife forced its way through the thin armor at his neck and tore deeply into his flesh. He could feel his blood seeping out into the environment, his heart now working against him as it pumped his very life into the air. He saw his own red beads scattering away from his neck before his eyes rolled back from the pain, and though he went to scream in agony, he couldn't. Any attempt to make vocal noise just resulted in hushed gurgles and air lost from his lungs that could not return. He slammed into the floor as his magne-boots acted as a pivot point for the velocity of the thing that just flew into him. He gripped his neck in feeble attempts to stop the blood and the pain. His vision tunneled rapidly until he was eternally silenced under the gaze of several unsympathetic quarians.
Ice tried to radio back to the Accretion once more.
"Accretion, come in! This is Corporal Rogers! Accretion!"
"Forget it, Ice. Our comms are being jammed," Tungsten informed. "For all they know, we're still working the mission over here."
Light and Trigger both were watching the open doors at the back of the briefing room, using the big briefing table as cover. Tungsten and Ice were pacing back and forth in the neck of the ship, desperately trying to figure out how to salvage the situation. Things went from going smoothly, to suspicious, to bad in a heartbeat. The airlock doors had shut on their own, as well. All their prying tools were on the other side of those doors.
Just then, they all heard their Lieutenant yell somewhere a deck down. It wasn't over the comms, it was an echo. After what the Lieutenant just told them over the comms, that quite simply made the hair on the back of all their necks stand on end.
"Top's still alive. We should try and provide backup," Ice suggested.
"You heard what Top said," Tungsten all too calmly explained. "They weren't ambushing our sweep team, they were hunting them. We didn't even hear any gunfire until after Pressure, Wraith and Needle were down. We're not dealing with quarian marines. Someone gave us bad intel." For all her calmness, Tungsten could do nothing to mask the nervousness in her voice.
"The Illusive Man doesn't give bad intel, Tungsten," Ice reassured. "Something changed. Something was miscalculated. I don't know. Look, I know our orders were to exfil, but we can't even do that. We might as well get the Lieutenant and find another way off the ship."
"Maybe it's the stress talking, but I don't see anything else we can do right now. I can't access any of the terminals and we can't get back to the Accretion. You're in charge now, Corporal. Make the call."
"I never wanted to be in charge. Augh." Ice shook his head and placed a hand on his forehead in thought. "Alright. Light, Trigger, Tungsten, we're going to attempt- we're going to retrieve Top and find another way off the ship. We don't know what we are really facing, so stay alert." Ice was doing his best to sound confident, but he got the feeling that the others weren't hearing it. Tungsten was a better leader than he, but he outranked her. By one rank.
Unfortunately, before they could even group up to move out, two flying and glowing orbs flew into the room from opposite doors and started harassing Light and Trigger with divebomb maneuvers and small shots that got absorbed by their kinetic barriers.
"Combat drones!" Tungsten shouted as she picked her assault rifle up from the nearest terminal and began to take aim at the drones. The problem was, they were too close to her squadmates to make any real shots, so she ran down towards Light and Trigger to help them fight them off.
Ice pulled out his shotgun, but hesitated to join the fray. Suddenly a third combat drone entered the room and flew right for the three of his clustered squadmates. The two harassing combat drones flew off, and before the soldiers could react to the third drone, it released a massive burst of electricity that arced between all three of them. The combat drone fell to the ground in burnt pieces, but each of the victims were left twitching on the ground. They didn't appear to be dead, but at the very least, they couldn't move.
"Son of a-" Ice shouted as he rushed to his squadmate's sides, keeping a close watch on the doors. Unfortunately, watching two doors at the same time wasn't simple, and he could only aim at one at a time. He grabbed a grenade from his belt and he held it high, ready to throw it at the door on his right with intent to flush out whoever sent the drones in. He hesitated again, which proved to be his ultimate downfall. The sound of a sniper rifle was heard and the armed grenade in Ice's wound-up hand exploded on the spot as a shot pierced through it and the hand clutching it.
Ice was a goner. His shields couldn't withstand a grenade blast in his very own hand, and he fell to the side from the force of the explosion in a state comparable to hamburger. Light, Trigger and Tungsten, while still on the ground and now with broken kinetic barriers from the grenade blast, were still alive. A team of eight quarians and a salarian filed into the room and observed the aftermath. One quarians was different, though. He wore human-style hardsuit boots on top of his environmental suit. A trophy, maybe? He was also in the pocket covered plain dark steel color of an undecorated quarian environmental suit, unlike the others. He wielded a pistol in one hand and a strange black knife in the other. She had to guess that was the one that hunted the sweep team down without making so much as a single shot.
Light and Trigger were promptly executed by two of the quarians. Tungsten was left stiff as a pole in a contorted position on the floor, staring up at the gathering aliens. One particular quarian, the one who had a sniper rifle in her hands and a blade sheathed on her calf, stood over Tungsten and just stared down at her. Tungsten, however, was not beaten just yet. She managed to gain control of her right arm and hand enough to pull out her pistol and aim it point blank at the smug quarian's helmet covered face. She cracked a drooling smile, and just as she went to pull the trigger. . .
A shot from off to the side boomed around the briefing room and the pistol in Tungsten's hand shattered, along with several of her fingers. She tried to scream in pain, but she only managed a set of grunts as the muscles around her lungs continued to spasm from the electric shock. The plain quarian with the human boots lowered his aim and stepped over to the sniper quarian. He offered her the pistol he shot her with and she gave it a brief stare before accepting it. She brought the pistol down only inches away from Tungsten's face, aimed directly at her forehead. This close, Tungsten could easily recognize the pistol. It looked like a modified Kassa Fabrication pistol, and a new one at that. The last thing Tungsten would experience was the sound of the quarian's voice as she spoke.
"Keelah se'lai."
Another loud bang rang in Tungsten's ears for only a moment, and the world around her fell away faster than a blink of the eye.
"Nicely done, team," captain Kortel congratulated. "We have only one thing left to do. Tosh?"
"Unlocking the airlock now, ma'am," Tosh informed with a nod. He brought up his omni-tool and tapped on it a few times. Down the hall, they could hear the airlock doors opening.
"Aww, geez," Kevin complained as he noticed the half-destroyed briefing table. "I was hoping that wouldn't happen."
"We tried, Folner," Tosh assured. "I even used my shock drone in place of my explosive one."
"There's just no fixing this. . . So how does it work from here?" Kevin asked as the entire team moved towards the neck of the ship.
"We infiltrate their ship through their own boarding airlock," Siri stated. "We'll probably have to deal with additional threats inside. My guess is that they will not be as heavily armed."
Bela, Kar and Riik were distributing the high end guns that they had collected from the soldiers. Rosenkov weapons outclassed most of theirs by a great deal, and this was a welcome upgrade. Kevin accepted one of the assault rifles from Bela and collapsed it before clipping it onto his back. Riik, Tyr and Siri took up new assault rifles, Kar and Bela took shotguns, Tosh got a new SMG and Arla replaced her aging pistol. With the old weapons set down on the jagged, burned edge of the briefing table, the team gathered both in and just outside the airlock.
"We will need to move in quickly," Siri explained. "It is likely they won't be expecting us, but it will only be moments before they attempt to take counter-measures."
"I believe I might be able to help with that, captain," Tosh jumped in. "My programs have successfully cracked their firewalls. They weren't the same as the Kellius' new ones, but heuristics started picking up on a few calculated differences and adjusted accordingly. I planted a rootkit within their VI and should remain undetectable at least for a few hours. With my knowledge of the VI here and the ways Terra can use tunnels and ports to control ship functions, I have been able to gain limited access to the functions of their ship as well. At your command, I can disable thrusters, their drive core, weapons, and a few other systems I haven't had the chance to identify."
The team was silent after that dump of information, and they simply stared at Tosh. After a short while, Siri spoke up.
"Well done, Rolush. We'll activate that once we're inside. We don't want to give them too much of a heads up."
Tosh nodded and readied his SMG.
"Votis, Merni and Garloh will be on point for this assault. The rest of us will follow closely behind. If you hear gunfire, move up to assist. Rolush, I'll trust you to keep the exit secure. I need you away from the front to keep an eye on ship functions. Everyone clear?"
"Yes ma'am!" Everyone responded.
"Move up!" Siri shouted over their comms. Their conversations from here on out would be comms only to prevent anyone from hearing them as they moved into the enemy ship.
Riik, Bela and Tyr simultaneously moved through the enemy's airlock and right into the first well lit and empty room.
"Clear," Tyr stated. "One exit."
As the rest of the team moved in, the three on point moved up to the only door out of the room and took up cover on either side of the door. Tosh casually grabbed a seat off to the side and started working on his omni-tool again. The three up front activated the door panel, but the door didn't open.
"Rolush, this door won't open," Bela informed.
"I see it. Looks like a standard protocol for when the boarding airlock is engaged. You should be able to open it now."
The team tried their hand at activating the door panel again and this time it opened. Beyond the door was a nearly straight and long hallway with an elevator to the upper decks immediately off to the left. It appeared as though the hallway ran along the side of the ship, as the doors were all along the left side of the hall. The design of the ship's interior was rather conservative and plain. It looked as though that whoever designed it went out of their way to hide any wires, pipes or tubes that might normally run along corners or a room or hall. The plus side to this was that it made each area more or less visually noiseless. It would be easy to find and track targets in such a clean cut environment.
"Deck by deck sweep," the captain ordered. "Stay together and check your corners."
The three in front moved into the hallway and the rest followed suit. They quickly noticed that on this end of the hall, the only way to the upper decks other than the tight maintenance tunnels was the elevator. They knew this was both a good and bad thing. Good in that once they cleared the deck, there wouldn't be any other direction that the enemy could really attack them from. Bad in that they had to concentrate their position while attacking higher decks, and that was never a good thing.
"I've suppressed intruder alarms, captain," Tosh radioed. "They still don't know we're here, so I haven't tinkered with their systems yet. Their VI is currently tracking ten active profiles aboard the ship, but it'll take me a few more minutes to figure out where they all are. Rolush out."
Siri nodded to the others and they continued their sweep of the deck. Engineering was across the hall towards the aft from the centered elevator, and there were about five rooms or so to check out on this deck. Their first stop, though, would be engineering. Siri and Tyr were fairly certain that they'd find personnel there. They activated the panel on the large door and everyone aimed their guns into the room in preparation for whatever hostilities they found staring back at them.
What they found were two men dressed in typical serviceman's gear, working on some terminals near the far less flashy eezo drive core. They both glanced back at the ones who entered half-heartedly, expecting it to be one of their superiors. They each made a second take at the same time, noticing both the number of people in the doorway as well as the fact that none of them were human. Even more importantly, they were all very well armed. They either didn't think to hard about their odds or they were compelled not to surrender by some sense of duty since they both pulled out pistols from doors under their terminals and tried to take aim at the interlopers. It was a bad decision, and both men fell to the ground in pools of blood following a quick round of shots from two quarians and a salarian.
Kevin and the others knew that there was no way to mask the sound of gunshots echoing throughout the ship. The remaining crew certainly knew that they were aboard now. The team quickly filed out of engineering and started down the hall, checking each room for hostiles. After finding each room empty all the way to the fore of the ship, they began backtracking towards the elevator they saw earlier.
"Rolush, I need those locations," Siri said with a hint of urgency.
"Just got them for you. There are only eight now, since I assume those shots earlier were the two you encountered in engineering. The remaining eight all seem to be concentrated in a forward room on the top deck. Probably the bridge. They seem to have noticed the missing engineers, judging by the activity in the VI. Be careful on your way up. I'd also like to note as well that I've cut off their engines and drive core."
As Tosh explained the situation, Ralik, Kevin and Tyr started gathering thick and slightly tall objects into the elevator and lined them up along the door to be used as cover just in case there was a welcoming party.
"Noted. Alright team, inside the elevator. Let's make this quick so we can get home," Siri ordered.
The elevator was easily big enough for all of them to fit inside. After each person hopped over the makeshift cover, they called the lift to the top deck and waited. They all made ready to do battle with a squad of eight servicemen, but when the doors opened, they were once again disappointed. There was nobody there but the wall on the other side of the walkway that spread left and right around the elevator. They could hear lots of yelling, though. Particularly one woman who seemed to be in charge.
"Yes, all of it! Make sure all the data is gone! We don't want them backtracing anything, do you understand me? Fry it all!"
They all looked at each other for a moment before hopping out of the elevator and into the hall. As they thought, the hall wrapped around the elevator on both sides where it then came together and ran down the center of the ship. They broke into two groups – one that went left and one that went right. When they stopped at where the hallway came back together, they spotted two servicemen running down the hallway armed with pistols. They didn't notice the aliens at the end of the hallway, but were focused entirely on a certain room, which they quickly entered. The team of invaders collected and started down the hallway the moment the door to that room shut. Not more than a few seconds later, Tosh came over the comms again.
"Captain, I'm seeing a massive purge of data from the memory banks, both volatile and non-volatile. I can keep them from disabling the VI and my connection, but I can't stop them from purging the data from here."
"That's fine, Rolush. We're not here to steal their dirty secrets," Siri said. "Just make sure they don't do anything stupid, such as activate a self-destruct sequence."
"Understood, ma'am."
The moment that the team stepped up to the door where the two men ran into, they activated the door panel and Bela, Riik and Tyr walked inside. As the door shut behind them, the rest of the team could hear the short and decisive firefight unfold inside what they figured was the VI Core room. Merely seconds later, the three returned to the group and they set up to face anyone that approached from the room at the front. That short burst of fire was sure to attract the others. Sure enough, the lone door at the end of the hall opened up to reveal the final six crew members aiming down the hall at the group of quarians with pistols in hand. The most decorated among them, probably the same woman that was shouting earlier, had an assault rifle in her hands.
Both sides opened fire immediately. The biggest difference between the two sides in this bout was that the quarian team, with the exception of Kevin, all had kinetic barriers. The servicemen at the other end of the hall had no protection whatsoever. Both sides took fire, but the quarian team took no physical damage thanks to their shields. The Cerberus servicemen on the far side of the hall were not so fortunate. They were all quickly gunned down in a large spray of blood, and not one of them survived the initial onslaught – even the ones who were half behind the walls for cover.
The quarians, Kevin and Ralik let loose a quick cheer. The ship was theirs.
In the following minutes, the team spread out around the ship to make sure there were no stragglers that were not pointed out by the VI. Satisfied that all threats had been eliminated, the entire team regrouped back on the Kellius to further discuss their next course of action. Now that the ordeal was over, the Kellius was no longer in its falsified downed state.
"So what are we doing with the Cerberus ship, captain?" Bela asked.
"I say we bomb it. Gather what we can and take it out right away and prevent further issue," Riik stated.
"I say that Cerberus has just made a generous donation to the Migrant Fleet," Kevin noted.
"Votis?" Siri asked, waiting for his rebuttal.
"Horrible idea. Who knows what sort of tracking and listening bugs Cerberus has planted on that vessel. If we take it to the Migrant Fleet. . ."
"Then what?" Kevin asked confidently. "We've taken out all the bugs on the Kellius, who is to say we couldn't do that to their ship as well? Besides, The Illusive Man already knows where the flotilla is. He was listening in on that conversation, remember?"
Siri looked back towards Riik for his next counter.
"I still say it's a bad idea to bring a Cerberus vessel to the flotilla."
"I'm sure there are plenty of able techs at the Migrant Fleet who can handle whatever surprises Cerberus left that we miss. At the very least, it makes for a very nice trophy ship."
Once more Siri waited for Riik's final word, but none came. He simply sighed and lifted his shoulders.
"I have to say, I agree with Folner," Kar added. "The Migrant Fleet is always in need of new ships, and this one carries a lot of fresh tech."
"It is settled, then," Siri stated. "We'll do a quick sweep of the ship for bugs like we did before and clean the VI of any potential controls we don't want. After this is done, I'll assign a team to pilot the ship back to the Migrant Fleet. Understood?"
"Yes ma'am," the quarians sounded.
The Accretion, as they came to find out the name of the ship was, was a bit larger than the Kellius. Despite this, it took the team less time to clear the whole vessel of bugs. There were less than half the number listening bugs throughout the ship, and killing the tracking bug software went just as quickly as it did on the Kellius. There was no TERA system on the ship, and most of the commands to control the ship's systems were rooted directly into the VI. 'Almost in plain sight' according to Tosh. While the VI on the Accretion could not take over control of all the systems like the Terra-VI combination on the Kellius, it still had the ability to shut certain things down if needed. That's how Tosh explained as why he was still able to shut down certain systems.
Having taken care of the housecleaning on the Accretion, the team reassembled in the bridge of their new ship.
"Rolush, Votis, Garloh and Welkas – you will be the team in charge of bringing the Accretion to the Migrant Fleet. After we hit the last relay before the flotilla, give us about a five minute delay before following us to the fleet so that we have time to alert them of the situation with the Cerberus hunter-seeker. Clear?"
"Yes ma'am," came the emotionally mixed reply. Tyr and Kar were on the lighter side, Tosh was relatively neutral, and Riik wasn't so thrilled.
"The rest of us, back to the Kellius so we can finally go home."
"Yes ma'am!" the rest excitedly responded. The quarians were all eager to get home after all this.
Back on the Kellius, those that had returned gathered as much usable equipment from all of the fallen Cerberus soldiers as they could before jettisoning them out the airlock. This granted Kevin a shield module for his suit, and he no longer felt quite as exposed to fire as before. Additionally, they gathered a few explosive grenades and Kevin found a few EMP grenades on one of the suited corpses. Thermal clips were collected and other typical soldier equipment was piled on a corner of the breifing room table.
Ralik and Kevin once again reset the course back to the Raheel-Layya system. Once the ship accelerated away towards the Dholen relay, Kevin and the remaining three quarians gathered in the newly battle-scarred briefing room. They still had some time to chat before they reached the Migrant Fleet as the Kellius skipped through the galaxy via primary and secondary relays like an experienced woodsman hopping across memorized stones in a creek.
"Well done back there, Kevin," Siri stated as she walked over to him to help him sort out the various pieces of equipment they had collected.
"Hmm?" Kevin replied, distracted with sorting.
"I have to admit, while I figured you would not be easy to sway, I could not deny the strategical advantage you would have held over us should you have turned. I wasn't so sure you were on our side. Not until I saw the way you killed that Cerberus operative in the hallway."
"Are you saying that I've gained enough points now?" Kevin asked with a hidden smirk.
"Perhaps," was the captain's simple reply.
"I suppose that's better than where I was several hours ago," Kevin commented.
"Indeed." There was a brief moment of silence in the room as the small klinks of shifting equipment overpowered the general hum of the ship.
"You know," Bela started. "It's weird. Seeing you in a quarian suit. If I didn't see your legs, I'd never know you weren't quarian until I got close enough to see that your eyes didn't shine."
"Merni, stop," the captain hushed.
"What? I'm just telling it like it is. It's better than trying to act like that's not the case."
"It's alright, Siri. I don't mind," Kevin stated. "A straight up answer is refreshing after all the blurred truth I've had to wade through in the past."
"Speaking of truths, I do believe I promised to explain what we were doing before we left for the Migrant Fleet," Siri said.
"Now this I have to hear," Kevin said, no longer sorting gear.
"In truth, we were on a mission given to us directly from the Admiralty Board. The Admiralty Board is a-"
"You don't have to waste an explanation on me, captain," Kevin interjected. "I know what the Admiralty Board is."
Siri had to pause for a moment. How could a human know what the Admiralty Board was if he'd never been to the fleet? Perhaps someone else explained it to him? Regardless, she continued.
"Anyways, the request – while from the Admiralty Board on a whole – was asked of us specifically by Admiral Han'Gerrel vas Neema. It was about some leaked information that Tosh'Rolush had intercepted a while ago while he was aboard the Neema. Listen closely, because what I'm about to tell you is regarded as highly classified information, and only a few outside the high military powers of the council races know about it. Apparently the geth had managed to activate a relay that was long removed from the star charts on the premise that it was dead."
Kevin grew a sharp smile under that helmet of his and he nodded his head. "The Melkanis relay. Yes, I'm familiar with that as well."
"What- how do you know of it? Unless. . ." Siri paused and simply stared at Kevin. "You continue to impress me, Folner. Your knowledge of the relay is something else. How did you know about it? Did you scour our data?"
"Hardly. While I could have asked Ralik to mine your data, I didn't. You see, that's why we were heading out here as well. We intercepted data from a military leak before the server was shut down. Wait, don't tell me you guys were the only other connection that Tarsil detected?"
"Small galaxy," Bela said with a chuckle.
"So you were heading to the same relay as us?" Siri asked. "May I ask why?"
"Nothing short of reconnaissance, research and discovery," Ralik piped in from the bridge. "Since we're laying everything down on the table, I suppose I'll add to the pile. We aimed to gather as much information about what was on the other side of the relay as we could, return and reap the benefits of supplying data that no one had to the various curious and immensely well compensated factions."
"What about you guys?" Kevin asked.
"Our mission had several objectives. One was to learn about these unfamiliar geth ship profiles, and gather data on how they evolved from other more well known models. Another was to investigate the relay, use it and note any geth involvement on the far side. A side mission to these was to destroy as many geth as we conceivably could with whatever resources we had. The last part of the mission was to search for habitable planets on the far side of the relay. Since no one had ever been there before, our chances of finding a planet that we could live on near the relay was greater there than anywhere else in the galaxy. Surely, each of the admirals had their hand in this mission design. Tosh'Rolush was transferred to being under my command since our ship was the most capable and ready for a deep space trip. We shaved our crew down from four hundred plus, gained a few extra marines and were on our way."
"That's kind of funny. We were both heading to the same place," Bela noted.
"That's why I said it wasn't very far off the beaten path when we heard your distress call," Kevin stated.
"And it's still a moot point in my book," Siri chuckled.
Kevin in turned shook his head with a chuckle. She was stubborn, alright. He noticed Arla staring at him from across the table, but she wasn't saying anything.
"Arla, don't you have anything to say? You're awfully quiet over there," Kevin called her out.
"Not really," she said.
"If this is about 'the usual' problem, then tell me. I'd rather know than just get- I'd rather just know."
"It's not. We resolved that already. Don't worry about it."
Kevin raised a brow at her strange behavior. Similarly, Siri was weirded out as well.
"Tavval, are you feeling alright? Did you take any fire and forget to clamp down the wound?"
"No ma'am. I mean, yes ma'am, I'm fine."
Siri looked at Bela and Bela at her. Bela shrugged in response and Siri went back to looking at Arla. "We'll talk about it once we're on the Neema."
"Yes ma'am."
"Kevin, we've cleared the last relay," Ralik called from the bridge. "We'll be there in a few minutes."
"Already, huh? Alright," Kevin said
"I should get to the bridge," Siri mentioned. "I will need to talk to the Migrant Fleet Marines before they open fire on our ship."
With that, everyone, not just Siri, moved into the bridge to look out the viewports. The dual suns Raheel and Layya emitted a similar bright white light that flooded the whole system. In the vast distance ahead, they could see the sparkle of reflecting sunlight from the massive fleet of ships absorbing solar rays for power. Within a couple minutes that fleet grew drastically in size, with almost all the ships completely dwarfing the Kellius. Soon enough, a message with a quarian accent came over the comms.
"You are approaching a no fly zone. Please identify yourself and your purpose. You have one minute to respond or our defenses will be forced to fire upon you."
"This is Captain Siri'Kortel vas Del'Forverna nar Neema. We request permission to dock with the Neema."
"Your ship is unknown. Please verify."
"Though I left to search the stars for what I hold dear, I return to what I've held dear all along."
"Acknowledged and permission granted. Welcome home, Siri'Kortel. We are sorry for the loss of your ship. We will inform the Neema of your arrival. You are cleared to approach docking rig three."
"Thank you. We will need a cleaning crew and a security detail. This ship is not clean. Additionally, there is another ship following in my wake flagged as a Cerberus hunter-seeker. Do not fire upon that ship. My chief Tyr'Garloh has commandeered it and is bringing it in to be integrated into the flotilla. He will give verification once you contact him."
"Understood. We will notify the marines who make contact. Migrant Fleet out."
"How did they know that your ship was destroyed?" Kevin asked Siri.
"The prefix 'Del' before a ship name means that the ship you are officially known under has been stolen, destroyed or otherwise not under your control anymore and you have yet to be transferred," the captain explained.
Kevin simply nodded.
"If I may ask, would you mind remaining docked with the Neema for a while?" Siri asked with a tilt of her head. "I'm sure the admiral will want to speak with our saviors."
Kevin looked to Ralik, who shrugged.
"Sure, we can do that. Is this going to take a while?"
"After we leave the Kellius, probably a few hours. We will have to give our full report as a team to the admiral in order for him to have any reason to come see you. You'll need to stay on the Kellius however."
"That's fine. I don't know if I could set foot on the Migrant Fleet anyways. I'd feel all. . . Awkward. Especially looking the way I do."
The ship weaved through the somewhat dense collection of various vessels towards one particularly large ship. It was one of the few massive ships, and it consisted of a large, slowly spinning ring at the front with a long trail of crates and storage containers. That must have been the Neema. Kevin guessed correctly, as the Kellius – who was now being guided by a set of smaller fighters – approached a docking rig along its port side just behind the huge ring. A couple of docking magnets latched onto the ship to keep it in place and a boarding hall extended from the Neema. The Kellius shook slightly as the docking process completed, and the three quarians standing in the bridge gathered in front of the airlock. The airlock opened and two pairs of quarian marines with assault rifles stepped into the airlock and stood against the left and right walls.
"Sit tight, Folner. We'll hopefully be back in a few hours," Siri said before being escorted out of the Kellius with her two subordinates by her fellow Migrant Fleet Marines. The airlock closed behind them and the room fell relatively silent again.
"Hopefully?" Kevin wondered aloud. He knew she wouldn't respond, but he wasn't a fan of the word 'hopefully'. That generally meant that someone didn't quite know what was going to happen. He sighed and looked to Ralik.
"I guess we just wait," Ralik said.
"Oh, don't worry. There's plenty to do," Kevin smugly mentioned. "Like cleaning up all the blood stains in the briefing room and in engineering."
"I was afraid you'd mention that," Ralik admitted.
"Come on, it's not set into carpet or anything. There's cleaning supplies in the large closet next to the life support hardware."
"Don't remind me," Ralik said as he hesitantly got up from his seat to begin the not so interesting task of cleaning up blood with Kevin.