A/N: I do not own the following skit. All rights go to Comedy Central and the Key and Peele show.
3-4-2184 1234 hours (Citadel standard time)
SSV Normandy
Corvette
In the Normandy's recreational room, Ramirez was sitting in a couch with Legion and Donnelly at his sides. They were watching a comedy show called 'Key and Peele', the show was about two comedians that did various comedy skits . Right now they were watching a skit where Key and Peele were dressed up as African soldiers. The title was called 'How to kill an African warlord.'
On screen it showed Key dressed as an African warlord commander by the name Ahbib Bujula in a small room sitting near a desk. He was wearing a stereotypical African khaki military uniform with a red beret and black glasses in his eyes.
Suddenly the door opened to reveal Peele, a soldier by the name Jango, wearing a white t-shirt with a teenage mutant ninja turtle logo on the front. He had a scarf, green pants, and a red beret also. In a fake African accent, he said "Commander Bujula our forces have been devastated," Pointing his finger in the Northern direction he warned, "The enemy is at the edge of the village. There are not many of us left. Should we surrender?" he asked.
Commander Bujula stood and stared at Jango. "You may surrender Jango," Taking off his glasses, he continued "But I'm afraid that is a luxury I cannot afford. You have no idea what they do to warlords. If they capture me, they will torture me for weeks and that is no way to go. I want you, my most trusted soldier over the age of eight, to take my life. That is my final order." He finished, giving Jango one final salute.
Jango returned the salute. Taking out his knife on his back pocket, Jango stabbed the commander four times.
"AAHHH! OW OW OW!" Commander Bujula screamed in agony as he grabbed a hold of Jango's knife. "S-stop stop! What the hell are you doing!? AHHHA!" he demanded as he sat back down in immense agony.
"I was trying to kill you sir." Jango replied.
"Not with this," Bujula said pointing to the knife. "There is a gun in the drawer." he said showing Jango where it was with his finger.
"Oh. So sorry." Jango apologized as he turned around to search for the gun in the drawer behind him.
"You missed. You missed every vital organ Jango."
Finding the gun, Jango turned back around. "I found it."
Commander Bujula held up his right hand. "Alright. Now kill me Jango, hurry please!"
Jango aimed the gun at his commander and fired.
"AAAAHHHHH!" Bujula screamed as the bullet entered his knee. "Not in the knee!"
"I thought you might want an open casket." Jango defended.
"You are an idiot. Ah!"
"Don't say that, I did try my best." Jango murmured gloomily as he was insulted by his commander.
"Shoot me in the head! You imbecile!" Bujula ordered in anger.
Jagno nodded. Once again aiming the gun at his commander, this time in the head, Jango gave his last words to his commander. "Goodbye commander. You sorry ass piece of shit." Jango said as he pulled the trigger, however he was met with a click.
Both men, opened their eyes as the bullet failed to go off. "Did you just insult me as you were about to fire?" Bujula asked, insulted.
In an awkward moment, Jango tried to defend himself. "Oh. Well, you had insulted me earlier, I th-thought you would be dead."
By the face on the commander face, he was clearly not pleased. "So sorry." Jango once again apologized. He then started to hit Bujula in the face with the pistol.
"AHAHAHA! OW OW OW! S-stop stop it what the hell are you doing!?"
"The gun is empty. Would you like me to stab you again?" Jango asked, unsheathing his knife again.
With his hands raised, Bujula protested the action. "NO NO NO! Please! Jango there are bullets! They are over there." He said indicating to the same drawer as earlier.
"Okay." Jango began looking for more bullets for the gun.
"Jango, please hurry I'm in so much agony!" the commander whined.
Jango raised a large pot and threw it at the commander. "AAHHHA!" The commander screamed, the hit had taken the beret off his head. "What in the blazes man!?"
"I thought I could kill you very quickly by hitting you with that big cooking pot."
"Can you p-please get it over with." Bujula complained as he was still breathing.
"I did not find the bullets."
"WHAT!?" the commander asked in a hoarse and fearful tone.
"But even better, boiling hot water." he said holding up a pitcher of hot water.
"What are you going to do with that?" the commander was frightful at this point.
As if to answer his question, Jango poured he hot water on Commander Bujula's lap right on his pelvis. As sizzling sound filled the air as boiling hot water made contact with skin.
"AHHA! The commander motioned for Jango to get out of the way as he limped out of the room with his hands raised in the air. "I surrender! I am commander Ahbib Bujula!"
Jango still standing in the room, yelled after the commander. "Commander don't go! They'll torture you!" Jango yelled, clearly not knowing the torture he himself gave the commander while he was trying to kill him.
The screen turned to roll the credits as the skit was over. Ramirez and Donnelly sat in their chairs, laughing at the show.
Legion just sat there in silence. "Ramirez-Commander, I do not understand the purpose of this vid." he said in his robotic voice.
"Well, don't you see? It was funny, cause it was a parody."
"Do organics always laugh at tragedies that occur in their history?" Legion asked, trying to understand organic comedy.
Ramirez tried to stop laughing. "Well…uh I guess. When you say it like that it kind of sounds wrong."
"Ah, don't let the walking terminator get you down. That was comedy, pain in simple." Donnelly argued as he changed the channel.
He came upon a news channel. Ramirez caught the reporter saying, "This just in a human colony hi-" before Donnelly changed the channel again.
"Change it back, change it back!" Ramirez urged Donnelly, who did as he was told and pressed the record button.
The screen turned back to Asari Galactic News or AGN for short. "We go to our field reporter, Magemen Geran, for more details. The screen switched to a male, Salarian in the middle of a warzone.
"Thank you Elera. As you can see behind me, the Batarians have hit Rover, an Alliance colony. Possible the first in many assaults to come. We have confirmation now, that the enemy combatants are indeed Hegemony military forces, not pirates or slavers as previously thought." He stumbled as an explosion when off, a dozen meters from his position. In the background the chatter of soldiers and commands were heard as Alliance soldiers fought with Hegemony forces.
The Salarian dusted himself off and continued, "The attack was unanticipated, however both sides have sustain casualties." In the background, Alliance tanks and gunships advanced, alongside infantry. One of the infantry soldiers, a private by the look of his insignia on his right shoulder, waved at the camera before he was dragged off by one of his friends.
"The Alliance has retaliated with a massive counter attack and are in the process of evicting Hegemony forces from the colony. Alliance reinforcements are said to arrive within three hours, however at this moment it has not been confirmed. A short while ago, the Alliance navy was able to achieve orbital supremacy after a mysterious withdrawal from the Hegemony fleet and it seems the remaining Hegemony forces on the ground are now trapped. It is not known what the Alliance plans to do with them if they choose to surrender. This is Magemen Geran signing off." The screen then turned to the Asari anchorwoman as she delivered news and updates.
"Legion try to alert the crew on the Normandy, while I go get Shepard. Things have just gotten interesting." Ramirez said as he walked out of the rec-room.
Cerberus Headquarters
Undisclosed location
25 minutes later
The monitor flickered, and a dark haired, middle aged man in full Cerberus officer's uniform appeared in front of the Illusive man. "This is Lieutenant Colonel Adrie Anton, awaiting your orders, sir." The man said, giving a salute.
"Have you assaulted the moon yet?" He asked.
"Yes, we have sir. Our distraction should allow the Spec-ops team to arrive undetected. There have been reports that an high ranking Hegemony general is on site and is coordinating the defense." The officer replied.
"Is that so?" The Illusive man was interested by the turn of events. He now had an opportunity to possible interrogate a Hegemony military officer.
'The secrets he can have on their defenses.' The Illusive man imaged in his head the possibilities this could mean.
He turned his attention to the Lt. Colonel and said "Continue as instructed."
"Yes, sir." Anton said as he gave a salute. An instant later his image disappeared from the holo-projector and instead switched to a different link, this one to the Normandy.
Shepard's image appeared on screen. "Shepard, I'm sure you've seen the news lately?" The Illusive man rhetorically asked.
"Yeah, the Batarians have hit an Alliance colony. Does this change our original mission?" Shepard asked.
"No, of course not. However, the objective of said mission has. A Cerberus fleet has hit the moon and are causing a distraction to allow you to remain undetected and capture a Batarian general on site. Try assist them any way you can, and take over the factory if possible, however the Batarian general is high priority. I want to make sure I'm clear on this, Shepard."
"You're crystal, just give me the coordinates on the general's location and consider it done."
"I'll consider it done after you've captured the general, not before." The Illusive man, shot back.
Shepard kept his emotions under control and gave a nod. Once he got the coordinates, he disconnected.
The Illusive man again switched the channel, this time to the Council chambers. Unbeknownst to the Council, he managed to bug each councilor's office and this allowed him to learn a great many things about each one.
Udina was doing back-room deals to gain support for the Alliance. Secretly, or so Udina thought, he leveraged some of his rivals for the position of the human councilor and black-mailed them to support his candidacy or risk exposure of fraud, corruption, and affairs. He was also selling private contracts to the Blue suns, possibly to switch their loyalties.
Valern was secretly, with the Salarian Union and STG, trying to create their own AIs. Preliminary tests were a success and their new line of 'advanced emotion responsive VIs' were scheduled to be installed on their dreadnoughts. Speaking of which, they've managed to acquire the specs on the Normandy stealth systems and were able reverse engineer a better stealth system They were able to mask the heat emissions from an actual dreadnought and were in the process of attempting to render it invisible. Of course these stealth dreadnoughts would cost almost twice as much as a regular dreadnought. The property theft, didn't bother the Illusive man much as his organization was in the process of 'downloading' the blue-prints on these stealth ships. An eye for an eye, it seemed.
Tevos, ironically, was having an affair with the pirate queen, Aria T'loak. This information was invaluable as it gained the Illusive man leverage on the Asari councilor if he was to ever need it. Tevos also managed to secretly transfer some credits towards Omega, in exchange for assurances that no Asari planet would be targeted by the Hegemony.
Din Korlack was financing a new defense system created by the turians and were in the process of constructing three dreadnoughts. The first was to be named Kwunu. There were reports of Volus companies trying to sneak their way into the biotic implant sector, but were being blocked by Tevos, unknown to the other councilors. However, Din Korlack was financing projects where they would buy Asari made biotic implants, send them to a Salarian company named Serush Industries to study and would then sell it to the Raloi military.
Sparatus didn't have too much dirt on him. Other than his government had secretly sold the prototype Thanix cannon, while they kept the fully developed or Thanix Mk. II cannon to themselves. Unlike the prototype, the was able to fire three slugs during every shot, not just one. He was also planning to assault the Terminus Systems, and claim to support the Alliance as they removed pirate bases that have been a thorn on their side for a long time and take over nearby dextro-amino worlds. The Hierarchy actually had five more dreadnoughts then they let claimed, they were secretly built on Menae. Unlike the other councilors, Sparatus can claim that his government had just constructed all of these assets. Unfortunately for the Illusive man, Sparatus never gave a date on when each asset was constructed nor how long each had been in service.
The Illusive man stumbled in the middle of a meeting, which isn't hard since the bugs are self-recording.
Udina: "We need to attack the Hegemony now! We cannot afford any more council worlds be attacked!" he demanded.
Valern: "You mean human worlds, councilor. No other race's colonies have been attacked, making this an Alliance manner." Valern retorted.
Udina: "You'll watch as my race strugg-"
Valern: "I will, councilor. The truth is, the Salarian Union hasn't replaced all of its vessels it lost during the counterattack on Eden Prime. If you cannot even defend your own colonies, frankly I wonder why your even on the council-"
Tevos: "Valern that is enough! Despite the situation we find ourselves in, Valern is right. Since the Hegemony has only attacked the Alliance, we can only offer minimal support. I will discuss with the Matriarchs on Thessia, but chances are good that we can offer the sixth fleet as support. We will also send deploy Spectres to disrupt their manufacturing capabilities."
Udina: "Thank you, councilor. I personally will not forget this."
Sparatus: "I'll be blunt councilors, the Hierarchy is very keen on attacking the Hegemony and the various private groups that they've funded. Now we officially cannot lend you any of our fleets as our people come first, however we can take pressure off of you by attacking their funded pirate bases."
Udina: "I will humbly accept what I can take."
Korlack: "The Volus protectorate…is willing to loan…the Alliance credits for the…war effort in exchange…for the colony of Patavig."
Udina: "Consider it done. Now onto more pressing concerns. The Alliance has obtain evidence that the Collectors assisted the Batarians on the attack on Rover."
Sparatus:"What!? Why would the Collectors aid the Batarians of all people."
Udina: I thought the same, and so I brought this to the attention of the Prothean liaison to the council, Sulun Ader."
Ader: "This may not give you comfort, but that is not my job. These collectors that you mention, are Protheans that have been corrupted by the Reapers."
Tevos: "By the goddess!"
Valern: "Excuse me, but I must bring this up to the STG. If worst comes to pass I won't have my people suffer."
Tevos: "For now this meeting is adjourned. I must consult with the Matriarchs on Thessia. No doubt this will cause some concern on our colonies near the Terminus systems."
Sparatus: "As I with the Primarchs on Palaven."
The Illusive man disconnected from the bug, satisfied with the assistance that the Alliance was receiving, even if it was only token forces. He then received a call. He pressed commands on his chair and the image of Marva Kolen, the female ambassador of the Raloin government.
"Who are you and what do you want?" Marva said, bluntly.
"It's best of my identity remains a secret. And what I want is fairly simple, Raloin military support." The Illusive man said.
Marva narrowed her eyes and asked, "If you are requesting military support for the Alliance in the war, I have to ask what's in it for my race?"
"Prestige. A tale of legends. A newly discovered race defeats a galactic superpower in what can be called a miracle." He said.
"If you think that will get my government to lend you our ships and weapons, then you are delusional." She said with her arms crossed.
"Well then, what is it that your government require?" he asked.
"Ships, weapons, colonies, and economic deals." She stated her demands with an air of authority and the Illusive man was somewhat impressed by her display.
"You have my word that you gain those assets." The Illusive man with a slight smile.
"Haha," She chuckled, causing the Illusive man to raise his eyebrows in surprise.
"I don't see what can cause any sense of humor."
"If you think I will ever take the word of a shady human over the QEC, then you are delusional. When my demands are met and officially granted to my race by your government, not your councilor, then the Raloi will provide the support you require. Have a good day." Marva then cut the connection.
The Illusive man sat there smiling, instead of being angry or offended, he was rather pleased with the performance the Raloin ambassador. Only a few ever talked back to the Illusive man, usually because they were always negotiating from a weaken position or at the end of a gun.
High Borsan
Batarian outpost
Sector E - Security wing
Hegemony troops were currently patrolling the compound. A few of the Hegemony's data analysts were also trying to upgrade the outpost's cyber security. These 'analysts' were simply Eclipse mercenaries hired for their expertise in electronics.
"Will you hurry up." A batarian said to a male salarian merc, who was trying to install updates.
"This computer system is very different than the ones almost everyone else uses. This software is extremely old, I didn't think that it existed anymore. Trying to find a compatible security system without doing a major overhaul or replacement was rather difficult and trying to install it, even more so." he replied. He stands as he types in the commands for the software. The console shot of sparks, much to the dismay and annoyance to the mercenaries.
"This is a pointless," An asari said. "Let's try-"
She wasn't able to finish as a Japanese Katana blade lung through her neck. This shocked the group as the asari fell to the ground. They were unable to react fast enough as another mercenary finds himself flying to a wall with a deep stab on his torso.
The others opened fire at the general direction where their squad member flew from and it hit Kai Leng's shields, however his cloaked armor prevented him from being seen.
Kai Leng quickly engaged the mercenaries in CQC with astonishing speed that could only be matched by a drell. Kai Leng started slashing the mercenaries and batarian soldiers to bits
He slashed one of the batarian solider diagonally across the torso, while kicking a gun off the hands of another batarian. He delivered a strong strike to the batarian's neck instantly breaking it. He then used the batarian's body as a human shield as rounds were pounded onto the corpse. He quickly finishes off two more mercenaries and sprints towards one of the last two remaining enemies in the area.
He goes for a downward strike with his sword, however instinctively the merc raises his assautl rife in an attempt to block the sword. To his shock, the sword merely slices through his rifle before impacting the top of his head, killing him instantly.
He then jumps towards the salarian engineer who attempts to flee, only to have his back exposed. Kai Leng runs after him, easily closing the distance between them. The salarian turns around and tries to raise his pistol, but Kai Leng chops off the salarian's hand
"AHHH!" he screams, holding his severed hand. He looks up only to be meet with a steel sword and then….darkness.
As the lifeless body fell to the ground, Kai Leng headed towards another section of the outpost.
Sector B - Barracks
An Eclipse group was engaging a group of Cerberus Knights, elite soldiers used for high risk operations. The group consisted of three men and one women, and was lead by Tex. Flint was the team's marksmen and scout, Emile was the big hitter of the squad, and Kollier was the infiltrator and hacker. Essentially they were Cerberus's special forces. The knights were taking cover behind combat barriers and walls.
The two groups are exchanging shots with each other as the mass effect projectiles, rail gun rounds impacted the opposite group. Emile quickly took cover after he threw a sticky grenade at the mercenaries, which happened to stick onto the face of a human.
"Get it off, Get if off!" the Eclipse merc screams as he tries to separate the grenade from his face. The grenade was a regular fragmentation grenade coated with extremely tar that can only be stored or used with specialized gauntlets and equipment.
The explosion tears the human's body apart as well as killing the nearby mercs. Flint then fires a few rail gun rounds towards a batarian soldier and kills her with incredible skill.
Kollier, using a high-tech bow, aims an explosive arrow at a pair of salarian Eclipse members. The slow kinetic energy of the arrow allows it to bypass kinetic barriers and stick right onto the armor. One of the salarians is able to dive out of the explosion radius, before the arrow kills the other merc.
Emile and Tex were firing their weapons at the asari vanguards. Two of them were hit in the torso and the third was hit in the forearms. With numbers on their side, Tex orders them to suppress them. Firing their weapons, the group of knights were steadily advancing, however an asari vanguard threw a warp attack at Emile and hit him in the torso. The armor took most of hit, but at the same time a human eclipse sniper took the opportunity and shot Emile in the chest.
An arrow from Kollier soon made its way to the sniper's eye, killing him.
"Emile is down! Emile is down! Covering fire!" Tex ordered, firing at the enemy group.
The remaining Eclipse members were quickly dispatched as Kollier attempted to apply medi-gel to Emile's wound, but he had already lost too much blood. "Hey, Tex come h-here." Emile said, blood dripping from his mouth.
Tex kneeled near his friend. "Yeah?"
Pointing to his bag of explosive and charges, he said "I have about seven minutes. I-I c-can cove y-your escape."
Tex understood that he couldn't change his friend's mind and the whole base was probably alert by now and a large numbers of enemies were probable on their way. Tex nodded and gave an order to fall back to their ship.
Emile started to input the codes for the explosives; he was able to hear the faint noise of boots hitting the floor and knew the batarian SIUs were on their way. Just about as he was ready to press it, a large number of batarians entered the room and aimed their rifles at him.
Emile smiling said "Hey four eyes," holding up the detonator, he continued "I'll see you in hell." He pressed the detonator and the room was consumed by the blast.
Section D - Sever Room
Kai Leng was engaging a group of batarian SIUs. After he got the information that he needed, six angry SIU armed soldiers arrived and were blocking the door. Kai Leng was able kill two with his hand blaster, but was forced to take cover when the rest fired upon him, draining his shields. They were about to gain the advantage, however an unknown explosion allowed Kai Leng to maneuver and recharge his shields.
Using his augmented agility, Kai swung his blade and decapitated a batarian. He then surged forward and stabbed another in the torso. He notices an batarian glowing with biotic energy who then quickly sends a warp towards him. Kai quickly jumps away, the attack missing his head by mere centimeters. He closes in on the batarian and quickly slices him across the abdomen. Using his hand blaster, he killed another batarian that was ready to fire on him. The last one tried to flee, but Kai Leng is able to slice him across both legs severing them.
"AHHH!" The Batarian tried to crawl away, but his suffering was ended when Kai Leng stabbed him in the neck. A pool of yellow blood stained the area
With the his mission completed, Kai Leng starts sprinting back towards his ship. While running he receives a call. He looks to see that it is the Illusive man. He brings up the comm and presses it. "Kai Leng, I trust your mission has been successful." said the Illusive man
"Of course." He replied.
"Good. Head back to the station."
Kai Leng said nothing, but he didn't have to tell the Illusive man that he understood his orders. He disconnected the comm.
Reaching his ship, he notices only three Cerberus knights are on the ship. Looking around he asks "Where is Emile?"
"Emile….Emile didn't make it. He covered our escape." Tex informed.
Kai Leng was not pleased. "Unfortunate, however we have new orders."
"What kind?" Tex asks.
"We are going back to the station." Kai Leng replied.
The Cerberus knights eyed each other as Kai Leng made his way to the cockpit. "Any reason why?" Tex asked.
"No. For what it's worth I'm sure Emile is satisfied that he killed so many Batarians."
"That he is." Tex said staring out of one of the windows. The ship made its way towards a Cerberus task force of eight corvettes and docked with one of them. Together they went to FTL and headed back to the Cerberus station.
A/N: And that is folks. Please leave a review stating if you are pleased with the pace of the story or if you wish to have me slow down a bit