ONE
The ship of Cerberus operatives had arrived in the Vular star system an uninhabited system four light years from the Harsa system in which Kar'shan was located. Kai leng sent out a hail to locate Opeative Mara Mott which was answered quickly a small vid screen to the right of the flight controls showed Mara a Caucasian woman with no striking features she also had the tell tale signs of being implanted her appearance was pale almost anemic "About time you guys reached I was getting bored, let me dock so we can get this over with" Mara was in a UT-47 Kodiak drop shuttle a human made craft that would give away their cover she was orbiting a small asteroid in the system. Kai leng brought up the Cargo ship to Mara's drop shuttle allowing her to dock the craft. Mara disembarked having already put on her assumed disguise of the stolen identity of the Batarian business woman Cree'Halant "Our meeting is in an hour according to the readings from the Object Rho device and our own estimates we only have around six hours before the reaper front hits Karshan they have been stopping to harvest Batarian colony worlds and destroying comm relays along the way " said Mara
Kai Leng activated the ship's Faster Than Light drive and with ten minutes they were in the Harsa system exiting FTL speeds behind the moon of Torfan Kai leng could see a blockade Batarian warships around Khar'shan it had been eight years since the Batarian Blitz the last time Kai Leng and Cory Kim were present in the system and his last mission as an Alliance marine "Brings you back doesn't it ?" said Cory "Yeah..." said Kai in response as he commenced landing procedures heading for the Thondu military spaceport located in an arid dessert with bright red rock formations on the outskirts of the City of Thondu which population stood at fourteen million the spaceport was beside the Bria research facility and the crafts flight plans had already been on the planets logs for that time period.
The ship's communication terminal started flashing on approach, Kai Leng answered knowing a complex virtual intelligence would be replacing his face using motion tracking and composting with that of a Batarian male in real time "You're a bit early. The meeting is not for another half hour, our scans show four occupants on board including the pilot all who wish to entering the facility will be subjected to search" said the military official "That's Ok, we'll wait" said Kai leng impressed at the A.I that had hacked their active scan systems fooling the official to the true number of occupants "Docking authorization granted, Miss Cree and her associates can wait in the reception area of the facility, transportation is in route" said the official. The military space port facility had six small fighters and a single frigate docked, Kai leng could notice no obvious upgrades to the crafts since the Batarian defeat in the Blitz letting him on to speculate that the Batarian military industrial complex had been worse than they let on.
Mara disembarked the ship flanked by Cory and the other phantom operative all in compelling disguises. a small Batarian made transport best described as Jeep drove up to the craft driven by a Batarian male in military gear with the insignia of a private and with the words Batarian External Forces written on the door of the vehicle in the local Batarian script.
"Good morning miss Cree"said the young male
His Batarian speech automatically translated by Omni tool, stepping out of the vehicle he approached Mara who held out her hands as he began the pat down of the trio the private looked slightly nervous as he inspected such a powerful woman. Finishing his inspection he said "All Clear" Cory smiled knowing that each of the suits had been equipped with kinetic barriers and that their Omni tools had material to make mono molecular blades if anything went wrong. letting the ladies enter the vehicle driving over to the Bria facility.
The private maneuvered the vehicle carrying the trio into the research facility's main parking lot the facility was small no more than fifty thousand square feet it was painted in a light brown hue with the words BRIA RESEARCH FACILITY printed on the side in Batarian script ,the building itself resembled the pre engineered buildings used in many human military bases ,a few soldiers patrolled the perimeter and two were posted at sentry towers in the front . The trio exited the vehicle, greeted by a young Batarian woman in uniform, the insignia on her arm showed her to be a private. "Good morning Miss Cree, you and your associates can wait in the lobby the researchers will be with you momentarily " said the woman "Can we see the facility while we wait instead" said Mara "... I'm not sure, I'll have to check with my superior" said the woman bringing up her Omni tool she dialed her commanding officer "Miss Cree and her associates would like a short tour of the facility while they wait... Ok... Alright... If you will follow me" said the woman as she led them to an elevator to the left of the reception punching in her code and holding her id card to a scanner for authentication. A beep sounded and the elevator opened letting the group board then descended to the storage area for the Leviathans of Dis. The elevator doors opened revealing a massive under ground facility. The group emerged onto a cat walk, The trio was awestruck at the sight before them not one but two Reapers a gargantuan one that filled most of the facility's under ground space that fit the look of Sovereign the Reaper that had attacked the citadel a few years prior and a second one one tenth the size of the other the lay in the Gargantuan underground facility Mara could see bare rock faces re enforced by a lattice work of steel and a fleet of workers inside doing everything from cutting small pieces with massive powerful plasma cutters off the hull of each star ship for study to taking readings form each star ship.
"WE FOUND THEM ON A PLANET CALLED DIS IN THE JAHTAR SYSTEM TWENTY ONE YEARS AGO" said the woman shouting over the noise of the facility
" INCREASED RESEARCH BEGAN AFTER THE ATTACK ON THE CITADEL WE HAVE ALMOST FULL SCHEMATICS OF THE CONSTRUCTION AND FUNCTION OF EACH SHIP WTIH SOURCE CODE FOR ALL THE SYSTEMS UPSTARIS" said the woman
Cory could feel the sensation of being watched rise exponentially as she was flooded with feelings of increased fear and paranoia she nudged her teammate "You hear that ?" she whispered "Yeah it feels like they are watching us " Cory wondered how the workers had not been indoctrinated, a Reaper ability allowing them to take control of organic species to use as their servants, knowing that Cerberus had taken every precaution to remove Reaper control signals from all their implants for that very reason. Cory could see the two teams working on each Reaper star ship both had massive holes in the hulls from massive damage suffered eons before. Looking inside she could see a large blue sphere glowing in the larger star ship she guessed that it was the drive core the smaller ship had visible gray sphere she guessed that was probably damaged during whatever war that destroyed the ships.
"YOU CANNOT GO ANY FURTHER WITHOUT PROPER PROCTIVE GEAR" shouted the woman as her Omni tool flashed she gave it a single tap to answer it she nodded at who ever called her then addressed the trio "THE RESEARCH TEAM WILL SEE YOU NOW" the trio turned back into the elevator glad to leave the area.
Back on the main floor Cory's team was greeted by a Batarian male in a light brown jacket "Good morning miss Cree I am Dorvan Halesh we have the schematics for the mass accelerated weapon systems we have developed, I'm glad to finally meet you miss Cree, if you will follow me you can meet the scientific and engineering teams " Dorvan walked over to a door on the left of the building while the female Batarian who had been their guide so far went back to sit behind the small receptionist desk, Dorvan approached the door pressing his had to a bio-metric scanner to reveal a large room of with around fifty different workers each at their own terminal some had what appeared to be source code written in a Batarian programming language unknown to Cory, some had three dimensional representations of weapons or parts of the Reaper star ships she recognized from had seen below.
"My office is upstairs to the back we keep the massive data center on this floor it contains zettabytes of data on what we have found so far" Dorvan said as he began leading the team to the back of the lab with Mara in front who had started waving to the awestruck workers looking at her from their terminals while the trio followed the Researcher to his personal office. The room had a single computer terminal with a large rack server beside it "This terminal has my personal research and the weapon ..." Mara had created a mono molecular blade using her Omni tool and thrust it into the researcher's neck cutting him off mid sentence left him choking on blood as he fell to the ground. she then placed the blade on a magnetic holster on her hip and connected her Omni tool to the terminal starting the copy of all his local files. Cory tapped her arm bring up her omni tool also and started a script to wireless connect the Batarian network to the ship to the ship they had arrived in. Cerberus custom storage devices made from Reaper technology could easily hold all the information housed in the massive computer at the facility network at a fraction of the space she then made a vid call to Kai Leng on the ship "You getting this Kai ?" she said "Yeah this looks impressive, the freaks were good for something after all " said Kai
Kai leng was looking at the files as they came in they contained schematics for two separate reapers, the entire galaxy including the renowned Salarian special tasks groups thought there had been only one Leviathan of Dis when in fact there had been two. That moment the ships AI sounded "Reaper signatures in orbit !" Kai leng then heard a deafening sound in the distance similar to a sea ship's fog horn. He could see a large flying creature unknown to him dropping off what appeared to be husks and a modified Batarians with a large arm cannon held in place by a human fused to it's arm the unholy abomination repulsed Kai leng who opened a vid call to Cory.
"You ,Mara and Kimone get out of there now our friends have arrived sooner than planned we are securing the port for your extraction" said Kai leng in a serious tone.
"In route now then" Replied Cory
"Ladies and Gentlemen clear out the base purge all hostiles and secure a perimeter for the infiltration team we have to cover their extraction " said Kai leng
The team responded and began the operation the two nemesis snipers lead the team, they exited the spacecraft and quickly fired on the Batarian snipers at the two sentry towers on the space port. The snipers then split off, running toward the towers they activated their tactical cloaks making them invisible on the battlefield. Upon arrival they took over the elevated positions from the fallen Batarian snipers. The Centurions followed, each with their own teams of five troopers each in tow spreading out over the small spaceport they threw smoke grenades creating cover firing their M-95 mattlock semi automatic assault rifles while the troopers started firing their M-25 hornet sub machine guns in staccato at the Batarian military personnel who had responded to the hostiles and any husks and modified Batarians in their way.
Just then a modified Batarian then ran over to a fallen husk and started to devour the body while growing red armor plates began to from on its body, as it was done the creature stood up bring it's arm cannon to bear on a trooper who had his back turned "Watch out" a fellow trooper shouted as the modified Batarian's head exploded the two troopers looked over at the Nemesis sniper who had just saved their lives as she gave a playful salute. The outside of the facility was now cleared dead Batarian military personnel lay on the ground with dead modified Batarians and husks strewn about, a team of five troopers and a Centurion then entered the flight control building to make a sweep quickly gunning down the few non combat personnel inside "Watch out that flying creature is coming around again" one of the nemesis snipers shouted over their radio as she and the other nemesis started firing at the creature that was now landing in front to the flight control building.
The Troopers and Centurion that were outside ran for cover behind one of the four fighters docked in the spaceport while the team inside the control building ducked for cover behind a low wall having returned to the front of the building after clearing it. They quickly broke the large glass windows that covered the front of the building with the stocks of their weapons then opened fire on the creature, an abomination, looking like a large flying insect with a worm like head it had guns mounted on it's head. The creature fired shots in bursts of three at one of the fighters setting it on fire. All operatives then began to open fire on the creature with sustained fire however it seemed not to be taking much damage as it fired another trio of shots at the second fighter on the base erupting it into flames and sending the troopers and the centurion that were using the craft as cover running for cover behind another fighter getting a reprieve after it set the second fighter on fire.
The centurion broke from cover to throw two grenades at the creature who that second fired another set of shots at the Centurion this time his kinetic barriers were barely enough to save his life he ducked back behind cover and lobbed more two grenades at the creature the Centurion inside the building then threw two grenades at the creature the grenades both blew up one set after the other the creature then exploded in a blinding white light sending blood and guts raining over the port the creature was no match for the combined Cerberus force.
Kai leng exited the cargo ship to look at the carnage Batarian military officers ,husks and modified Batarians lay on the ground
"Get a sample of each of those things in a stasis pods and load it on the ship we have to study it and get a sample of the flying creature we need as much information as possible" said Kai leng
pointing to a modified Batarian human abomination. He then used his omni tool to construct two small video drones using all the omni-gel he had on his person the drones would have a range of six miles before de materializing after they ran out of energy, he then activated a script to execute on the drones that used the planet's global positioning system to guide the drones around the nearby city of Thondu.
Kai Leng tapped the omni tool on his arm to activate the video screen to view the live feed from one drone. What Kai Leng saw was terrifying not because of the freaks being slaughtered but for the realization that in a few months Earth and other human colonies would share the same fate, six Reaper Star ships sized like the one at the battle of the citadel were decimating what appeared to be the industrial zone of Thondu , brown and dark red shaded factories and processing plants that produced everything from food to clothing were being leveled by large laser blasts from the towering machines the city had massive fires burning all over surprising to Kai Leng the machines seemed to have ability to walk and the Batarian military so far had suspiciously not even mounted any sort organized response to the threat .
Switching to the second drone Kai Leng could see a similar situation unfolding ten smaller sized Reaper star ships were firing on the Thondu international space and air port a large civilian facility that housed both planetary and interplanetary travel options some were destroying space shuttles or aircraft trying to leave the port possibly filled with civilians it only took a single shot from the smaller reapers to destroy each ship that had been trying to leave. The other star ships were systematically destroying the port.
The attack was overwhelming the Reapers had used space and land superiority to establish strong positions then cut off transport and manufacturing capabilities so that any offensive would be challenging to mount all the captured video had been recorded to Kai leng's omni tool storage.
Cory Kim's omni tool flashed from an incoming call she tapped it once seeing Kai leng on the device screen.
"You ,Mara and Kimone get out of there now our friends have arrived sooner than planned we are securing the port for your extraction" said Kai leng in a serious tone.
"In route now then" Replied Cory
Mara Mott had just finished copying all the contents of Dorvan's computer terminal to her omni-tool. Cory then used her omni tool to reduce the computer to omni gel base components of plastic, graphene and silicon circuitry she then used her omni tool to construct a long range router to handle the transfer of files from the base as they left. Mara opened the lab door and the trio started to make their way down the stairs.
A single programmer got up as they entered the lab "The Reapers will bring us all to ascension they are the salvation of the Batarians and the whole galaxy, but you humans resist" he said as he brought a small Batarian made pistol to bear on the group some his colleagues followed opening fire on the trio others tried to rush them with bare hands. "Looks like our cover is blown" said Cory her kinetic shield under pressure from the incoming gunfire she and the others immediately activated their tactical cloaks ducking out of the volley of gunfire shots using her acrobatic skill Cory began to somersault over to the programmer who had stood up invisible to him she used her blade to instantly cut off his foot he cried in pain as he fell she decapitated him she and again repeated the process on a nearby Batarian, her teammates had been doing the same slowly working through the crowd of about twenty crazed Batarians their tactical cloaks had thirty seconds remaining until it wound dissipate making them once again visible that was enough time for recharging their low kinetic barriers which would operational as soon the tactical cloaks went offline. Some Batarian fired wild shots as their colleges were being de limbed and decapitated hoping to hit one of the ladies who were long gone by the time the had aimed, they only succeeded in killing or wounding nearby Batarians. Kimone had positioned herself between six Batarians who had made a small circle hoping to cover each others backs she then made a twisting motion using her feet to spin her body letting her blade touch the necks of all in the circle they fell one by one choking on their blood, that moment the tactical cloaks dissipated the remaining Batarians stood at six. Mara quickly closed the distance between two standing in close proximity she cut the legs from one as he tried to fire at her then slashed the neck of the other, a young female , as she became visible again Cory decapitated a young engineer, somersaulting over to the next target she cut off his arm making him fall to the floor she was not worried about killing any more as any not dead would soon bleed out. Mara ran her blade across the stomach of a nearby Batarian letting guts spill to the ground she the thrust her blade into head the last remaining unarmed hostile.
The room was covered in splotches of red blood and dead or dying Batarians
"WE HAVE TO MOVE BEFORE THE WORKERS DECIDE TO JOIN US !" said Cory running to the exit door as they arrived at the lobby the elevator the to Leviathan work facility opened filled with batarians, some armored the trio decided not to engage them not with the time or numbers they had they bolted for the front door Kimone fired a Phasic disruptor, a powerful biotic move that utilizes the dark energy in her biotic barrier at the locking mechanism as the trio exited, disabling it as the pursuing Batarians piled up behind the locked door they piled into an empty jeep Mara hacked the starter mechanism user her Omni tool and gunned the engines while Cory and Kimone Fired their Phasic disruptors at the two snipers in the sentry towers killing them instantly the Jeep sped away from the facility, that moment a small destroyer landed at the base.
"Jesus Christ" shouted Kimone
With a single shot it ripped apart the facility another shot came from the machine tearing a crater in the ground with this motion the smaller Reaper star ship thought to be damaged beyond function ascended from the ashes of what was previously the Bria Research facility.
"Why they allowed the Batarians to study it, if it was working all along, they probably destroyed it so that no one could recreate the research ?" said a confused Mara looking back as the two craft flew away. Luckily no more Reaper forces engaged them on the way back to the space port and within three minutes they arrived leaving the jeep, they entered they cargo ship that had been in wait the operatives who had been securing the perimeter then followed "Looks like you had your own party," said Cory in relation to the telltale signs of the earlier battle "Yup we had our fun" said Kai Leng "was the transfer complete?, the facility was destroyed as we left" "yes" replied kai leng as he started the ship sending it straight for orbit as the ship exited Khar'shan's atmosphere he could see the entire fleet of Batarian dreadnoughts and frigates from earlier on fire and billowing atmosphere into the cold vacuum of space. A large group of reapers lay in orbit Kai leng headed for the Harsa relay three or four varying Reapers ships were entering the system from the relay each second , Kai leng heart was beating loudly a feeling of fear he had not felt in a long time had engulfed him now within range of the relay he activated the ships FTL drive which reacted to the mass relay sending it light years away to the exodus cluster The Realization hit Kai leng who had now realized that the Reapers were now a few Mass Relays away from Earth his species home world.
Kai leng opened a comm channel the face of the Illusive man appeared on the ship's display "Mission success sir no casualties we gathered immense amounts of information on the enemy but they had surprised us by showing up early it gave us a chance to test the Reaper IFF system on something other than the Omega 4 relay" said Kai Leng "Excellent job Kai Leng and excellent job team your work today will ensure the survival of our species, the base has moved I'm sending the new coordinates" said the Illusive man varied thank yous sounded around the ship as the console flashed confirming the message revived then the display screen went dark as the Illusive man ended the connection.