Author's Note: Second day into the Fiona Blackout, the wind has died down and most of the Town's power is supposed to be back on. I might have work tomorrow. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 8: Union Space
Shepard often slipped into her armour, sleek and stylish thing both it and her was she could get in and out of it in seconds, even when you take into account the fact that it literally bolts into the sub dermal implants underneath her skin. Wrex on the other hand was stuck playing the Diva and had to stand dramatically on a platform while the armour was assembled around him. A dark red and black with his family crest painted on the chest, Wrex didn't know what the little slugs painted this armour to look like but he would be damned if they decided what it'd look like on top of building it. Wrex had a look around as he walked about in his new armour. He explicitly wanted it so that he didn't need a large crew to put the damned thing on and off every time he needed to go to the bathroom. The slugs had taken that request in an odd direction and had facilities built into automatically take care of his hygienic needs, which he was almost certain was not what he meant. Whatever, he'll just get some bits welded on later and call it his throne. For now there were other things that needed to be dealt with. Wrex looked to the so-called squad mates for this operation, Shepard and her fellow dragoon's, two groups of human mercenaries, a Lithoid cartel, a Tebrid tankish unit and a single Lich.
"Mercenaries?" Wrex asked as he looked at the creatures that were getting ready for battle.
"Merchant's. Some sell medicine, others sell food, construction, and of course death." The Lithoid Trade Union would never do something as boorish as create a 'private security company' and why would you?
Would you buy your food from the same company that mines for resources? Would you buy medicine from the same company that makes the bullets and guns? Of course you wouldn't. So in the spirit of Capitalism, in the absence of dedicated dispensers of death company's was created: Blue Suns, Cat-6, Cold Stone, and others.
Tebrid's controlled several drones at once as others were loaded into small tanks with the 'Silver Wraith's' logo painted on the side.
The Suit Zombie of 'Death Inc.' were preparing their necromantic rituals and the Krogan had to look away uneasy, damn void callers sent a chill down his spine.
Wrex looked at the Human, Draconic, Flerkin, and Chozo mercenaries, a step down from the dragon scale armour used in his and Shepard's armour but that was to be expected, you don't arm elite soldiers with the same stuff you give the rank and file, at least not if it's cheap to produce.
Cold Stone looked the most interesting to Wrex, consisting entirely of Lithoids. Wrex never fought a rock before, actually he never fought a lot of things on this ship before but the rocks looked the most interesting. Near as he could tell they came in three different varieties and had unique contraptions built around them to act as weapons and armour. In the case of the floating crystals there was a round metal sphere, they already floated so it didn't seem like adding the sphere did too much. Various port-like things surrounded the sphere, based on what they looked like they may have been part of some kind of omni-directional laser system. Float over the battlefield and rain death, Wrex was envious. The second reminded him of some Elcor he saw on the battle field, four legs, covered in body armour, and chain guns mounted directly on the back and armed with lances with spouts built in connecting to a tank. Comparing those to the taller than a Krogan giants of stone and metal with twin grenade launchers and overly long maces actually looked kind of boring.
The birds called themselves 'Green Ash' apparently in reference to the radioactive ashes of their home-world.
Wrex saw other cartels over the place on the ship, other cases he saw freelance mercenaries like himself.
"The Preythoryn are supposed to be flying critters. Why are they hiring ground troops?" Wrex asked looking suspicious.
"The Prethoryn Queens." Shepard replied shrugging her shoulders. "One was killed already when they tried to invade the Draconian's space." A pause. "Thuban ate her." Shepard explained simply. Wrex liked this Thuban. "All of the bugs went crazy without anything to control them, the big lizard had to go lick her wounds for a little while once they stopped caring about making planet fall."
"Sounds like some of the Rachni battles." Nothing drives the bugs crazy faster than their mother's biting the dust. Kind of why SOP back in the day was to make sure you got all the kids first and then the mother, or get as many of the kids as possible, kill the Rachni Queen, and then kill anything that pops it's head out to protest. That might not be a option with these things though, for one thing they can fly, and not only that but fly in space too, when the Rachni start to go crazy and chase the warriors to the surface you could just bomb them from orbit, sure their numbers would be overwhelming but so would the fire power, but if they can get up there... "What are you gonna do with it?" Wrex asked looking at Shepard curiously.
"We have a lot of telepath's that can look into it to find out what it knows. Bring them under control if possible, or learn the most effective way of killing them if necessary." If Wrex had a hive of Rachni under his control he would probably have them fly their ships into the sun, or steam them for dinner. Boiled Rachni was a delicacy back in the day.
"How do we capture a Queen?" Wrex asked and noticed that the various other groups were paying attention now.
"Good enough time as any for the briefing I suppose." Shepard stated while the Mercenary captains all moved in closer to listen in. A pair of Custodians brought over a large pedestal like machine which Shepard then activated. "Tyrador Twelve. Lovely planet, very good amusement parks from what I hear." The image that the pedestal spat out was of a planet that had been completely dyed a greyish purple, swath's of green sack like boils the size of mountains dotted the planet, the oceans had long since dried up and the cities melted away underneath a tide of pus. Great flocks of manta ray-like creatures flew through the sky circling around great fat grub-like abominations. "As you can see, since the Prethoryn have moved in the facilities have gone way down hill." All joking gone from the room Shepard grabbed the hologram and zeroed in on one section in particular. "These fat sacks here are how they grow their ship-form monsters that take all the other monsters and cart them around the galaxy." Shepard stated indicating one of the bigger bulges. "This we call Mt. Zitmore." Wrex sincerely doubted that but loathed to argue with Shepard's sense of humour during a mission briefing. If nothing else it looked appropriate. "The psionics think that they're concentrating a huge mass of psi-energy here to birth a new Queen. We're gonna go down there and grab it, and while we're at it we're gonna lance this boil, just cause we're gonna be in the neighbourhood any way and it'll be a huge pain in the arse if we leave it alone for the bugs to claim." The Various Mercenaries shrugged their shoulders in acknowledgement. "Now than I know that there isn't much of a chain in command here among you lot, but luckily what we lack in troop discipline can be more or less made up for by taking your paychecks and waving them over a open flame. Comprende?" The Mercenaries nodded their heads in the affirmative. "Cold Stone is going up front." One of the Grenade wielding giants of stone and metal pumped his arms in triumph. "I want you guys and your big fat arses in between the acid spitting bugs and our guys, and more importantly I want none of the rest of you getting caught up when the grenades go off."
"While that may be a problem in some cases, my men aren't Tebrid Junkies charging to the front shouting Leeroy Jenkins Girl!" Zaeed Masrani, leader of Blue Suns and probably the highest ranking mercenary of the lot by virtue of reputation and results.
Reportedly Zaeed was left for dead by a former business partner Vido Santiago on an Infested world, something about Vido accepting a job that was dangerously close to terrorism. Zaeed probably had no right to complain, considering that his 'calm and measured response' had him hijack a ship and crash it into the base where Vido had been living as soon as Zaeed was off world again. Zaeed's totally-not-racist and entirely-not-directed-at-anyone example led to several of the Silver Wraith Tebrids to look up from their tablets and glare and chitter at Zaeed without their universal translators providing a clear explanation to their opinions.
"Both of you save it." Shepard snapped before directing her attention back to Zaeed. "Your men a decent shot?"
"Pft." Zaeed snorted as if the question had been an insult to his face. "Finest in the galaxy, girl."
"I would hope so. Because you and your men are going to have to aim around these walking stone walls here." Shepard indicated the members of Cold Stone.
"Easy." Zaeed seemed to regard the walking statues as if they were barely there. "Four of five are snipers and one of five are flamers. The first shoot em down and the rest torch em when they get too close with hot Rare Gas." The first wasn't a concern presuming that they aimed properly, and the Lithoids are fireproof even when they aren't covered in two inches of durasteel. "What about them?" Zaeed indicated the corpse in a hard suit and the Molluscoid creatures he had insulted earlier.
"I am one of the finest medics in the galaxy." The Necrotic creature gestured as mechanical spider like limbs unfolded from his back. "Living or dead I assure you your men will keep pulling the trigger on your weapons. Can you say the same?"
Zaeed pressed a button on his helmet and with a hiss it unfolded to reveal a face half melted with acid, a single cybernetic eye peaking out of hardened flesh and exposed bone. The disfigured mercenary walked up to the undead monster and glared at him right in the eyes.
"Ask me again if I leave people behind to face those shrieking fuck-nuts alone. I dare you!" Silence was the response the mercenary's response. Zaeed reattached his helmet and walked back over to stand with his men and the Cat-6 Goons.
"Silver Wraith are bringing up the rear with vehicular support." Shepard stated and the Tebrids only seemed to look up in acknowledgement to what Shepard was saying. "As soon as we punch a hole into that giant overgrown zit the 'Shrieking Fucknuts' will be on us like stink on a Gigan's back and I want as many area of effect attacks covering the rear as we can get." Shredding with lasers, blowing up with missiles, puncturing with rail guns, cutting with high frequency blades. The Tebrids war-machines were as numerous in design as the mad designers who built and pilot them, and they've been designed to rack up a body count as high and as fast as possible. The starfish like aliens chirped in excitement.
"The 'stink' will be on us as soon as we breach the atmosphere. How are we getting down?" To Zaeed's question the hologram changed over to show several egg like contraptions.
"We call them psi-attractors, when Thuban killed the Prethoryn Queen she released a sort of psionic screech, or a psychic 'kill everything around me right now' signal if you will. Our ships will circle around Tyrador and activate these devices to draw all of the bugs away from our location. We drop down as close as possible and make our way by foot and track until we've reached the side of the zit at which point in time we make our way into the hive." The Hologram deactivated as it disappeared. "We aren't going heavy on the planning other than 'grab the Nascent Queen' and 'bugger off by any means necessary.' We basically have no idea what the inside of the caverns look like and only know anything about the critters within by dissecting and fighting them in space." Wrex read those reports, the take away he got was: 'aim for the wings and let gravity do it's job' and 'watch out for the acid spit.' "Now are there any more questions that we need to address?" Some Mercenaries nervously raised their hands. "Good. We're almost there, so climb into your drop pods and let's head out."
Cramped things a drop pod, by design. Two lengths of shock absorbing cables connected directly to the armour, filled with a type of insulating shock absorbing foam once the individual/s they are meant to drop are secure, all wrapped in a hardened shell. The only consolation was that he wouldn't be inside for long. Suddenly Wrex felt Gravity's tug as he and his fellow mercs were dropped from the sky, for a few solid moments the G forces threatened to bang his head against the top of the pod before he suddenly crashed into the ground. Moments later the pod beeped, and the outer layers of the egg like pod were burst off and the foam dissolved.
"Mass Effect field would've been great about five minutes ago." Complaining about that Wrex climbed out of the crater that his pod left behind and looked around the landscape at the various other craters formed by the other drop pods.
The ground was bizarrely fleshy, everything was covered in some kind of grey goo, and it smoked as it tried to eat through his boots. All the more reason to climb back up to surface level and get out of this blasted hole in the ground. The group began building a beach head outside of Mount Zitmore using the parts that came with the drop pods, good ole Terran standardised parts, the same tube that feeds water into their washing machines can also be used to feed coolant into a nuclear reactor. While base building was on the way the Custodian fly drones were scanning the area, and found the hole that the manta ray like monstrosities were flying out of, presumably leading to a direct line to where the birthing chamber where the growing queen could be found. The Mercenaries and super soldiers formed up and moved out, climbing into heavy personnel carriers. The contraption in question lifted itself into the air on a pair of tri-bladed propellers until they were clear of all obstacles to the target, at which point in time the blades folded down and four rocket boosters extended from the back of the contraption which proceeded to shoot the group forwards. From here they managed to arrive in no time at all to the desired opening.
"Psi-attractor's getting eaten boss." One of the Tebrid's chirped while looking at one of the screens inside of their tank-like suit. "Form up." The first of the groups to drop down the hole was the Lithoids, and once the all clear was given the middle and then the rear groups followed them down. "Watch out for that first step it's a doozey." The hole which served as the entry point was made for flying creatures, consequentially they could consider themselves lucky that the hole's interior was a slide instead of just a straight drop. "Dragoon to Silver Wraith's you are not clear to drop, plant yourselves on that hole and form a choke point."
"Roger Roger." A synthesised voice responded. Outside the Tebrid's anchored themselves to the inside of the hole and aimed themselves at it's opening preparing to shoot at whatever comes into the hole.
"Are you sure you want them to stay out of here?" Wrex asked recalling the videos of the Prethoryn's in action.
"Do you want those reckless slugs firing their missiles down here?" Shepard asked by way of reply. The tunnels were too narrow and their level of stability was not known, Cold Stone's grenades were already a huge risk. "That said we shouldn't assume that the Prethoryn's can't get behind us." The bugs made these tunnels, they should know them better than them, not to mention the possibility of spontaneously punching a hole somewhere behind us. "Does anyone mind taking up the rear?"
"Never mind that." The ground was rumbling as the Cold Stone captain charged his lasers. "The Enemy is coming at us from the front." At once dozens of Prethoryn manta rays were shrieking down the tunnels towards them. "Open fire." The floating balls moved forward and let the enemy swarm them before opening fire puncturing holes into their wings before making them hit the ground, sadly they didn't fall a great enough distance to deal any additional damage to them.
"Last warning you rocks!" Zaeed shouted as he got ready to unleash some violence. "Retreat or you'll be caught up on that side of the barrier!" As the Prethoryn built up Cold Stone recalled their forces. Several Dragonoids worked together to erect a psionic barrier, around the flame and plasma throwers of the various mercenaries. "Light em up!"
The weapons released streams of white hot flame directly onto the defenceless monsters. The biggest threat with using fire in an enclosed space like this was oxygen, fire and plasma burns through oxygen, but it's also important to living beings to survive as well, even if there is a opening through which fresh air can come through the risk of suffocation is real. The Prethoryn have the advantage here, they have big huge lung capacity necessary to travel through the void of space. That said the hot plasma is able to burn through the carapaces of the Prethoryn and reach the oxygen rich blood and lungs resulting in little bursts of fire. Other Prethoryn were able to narrowly escape the flame by using their dead siblings as shields, others were deliberately acting as sacrifices to protect their siblings from the fire.
"Nice comradery they've got going." Zaeed even admitted that he admired the way that the Prethoryn are willing to sacrifice themselves to save each other, and he hates them. One could argue that was because it made it easier on him when they opted to commit suicide.
"Allow me." The Lich on the other hand didn't admire the feeling of comradery one bit. Instead he released a pulse of green necrotic energies into the enemy forces and suddenly the dead Prethoryn all got back up and mauled their still living siblings. "Commander, I believe I've found a suitable Rear guard for our expeditionary force."
"Of course you did." Once the Prethoryn were all 'recruited' the expedition started moving forward walking past any Prethoryn undead that was still able to move which instead started to follow them. Cat-6 goons broke every few minutes to plant a explosive charge along the walls of the caves, a departing gift for the Prethoryn.
"Boss." A high pitch synthesised voice echoed out of Shepard's communicator, the Tebrid's. "The Prethoryn have come back! We're all racking up highscores but we're wondering how long this is going on for."
"Are you getting overwhelmed?" Shepard asked concerned.
"Are you kidding? We're having a Blast!" The tunnels shook with a dull boom. "Literally!"
"Don't collapse the entrance we need that. If you start getting overwhelmed call a sky strike." Shepard stated bluntly.
"Oh power up strike!" The synthesised voice cheered as Shepard let out a sigh.
"Pick up the pace. Those Junkies are going to collapse the tunnels on us at any moment now." Shepard stated letting out a sigh. They were getting closer to the birthing chamber for the Queen, though sadly part of their issue was that they had no idea what she looked like, they did know that they were getting a massive headache, well some of them were anyway. "I guess this is how the Prethoryn felt when we dropped the attractor on them." Shepard stated feeling a mind numbing headache. None of the Lithoids were affected, nor were most of the mercenaries including Wrex.
"The bugs are attacking you through their mind fuckery?" Zaeed asked looking at Shepard suspiciously.
"Well that's something of a flaw that's going to have to be addressed in time." Shepard replied bluntly.
"Are we retreating for now?" Zaeed asked Shepard suspiciously.
"At least as far back that I can think clearly again." Shepard stated as she took out her rail gun and loaded a special bullet. "First thing's first though, lets do a little advance scouting while we're here." The gun fired with enough force to penetrate three tunnels and stick to the side of a slimy chamber. "Let's move." Once they had back tracked enough that the overwhelming headache wasn't beating on their skulls anymore Shepard took out a tablet and revealed a file recording footage inside of the Prethoryn chamber.
"What was that?" Wrex asked looking at Shepard suspiciously.
"Camera bullet." Shepard stated bluntly.
"It can transmit to you through all this rock?" Wrex was only getting more confused by the moment.
"Quantum entanglement. Expensive as hell if I can I would like to get it back but..." The video footage showed an image of a giant single yellow eye wrapped in maroon red skin suspended to the chamber via lengthy maroon strands. Then the camera was destroyed. "That might not be possible."
"That thing there the Queen?" Wrex asked looking at the eye suspiciously.
"I can't think of a practical purpose it can serve in space. Unless it's not finished growing yet." The ground started to shake. "Lieutenant." Shepard spoke into the communicator again. "I gave the Silver Wraith permission to authorise a space strike, have they made use of their authority yet?"
"No commander." The Lieutenant replied and after a pause followed up. "We're picking up seismic activity in that region, the shriekers are up to something."
"It's grown enough that they're getting ready to leave." Shepard stated as she closed the tablet.
"Or they're getting ready to leave because we're here." Wrex countered and Shepard tilted her head in conceit. "Everyone who didn't get a headache before will have to go out and find a way of disconnecting that thing from the rest of the cave. The rest of us will focus on killing as many Prethoryn as possible." Wrex nodded his head. Killing monsters was something he was familiar with. After Wrex and the other non-psionics began making their way back to the nest the sound of shrieking Prethoryn's echoed down the tunnel.
"We need to get this thing disconnected from the rest of the cavern." Zaeed stated as he started barking orders. "Grenadiers I want that, that, and that tunnel collapsed." Zaeed barked indicating all of the other entrances leading out of the chamber, bar one. With the exits sealed Zaeed only had one exit they had to worry about. "Lasers I want a kill box on the tunnel we came out of, shoot anything that moves out of it." The Floating spheres took positions along the edge of the tunnels. "Unicorns get ready to burn that thing free and get it ready for transport." The Gaul didn't seem to take the insult very well but they nonetheless began setting up a anti-gravity chamber to catch the nascent Queen while the others got to work burning it free. "The rest of you punks I want in cover all over this god forsaken hole." Everyone finished moving into position. The Queen Screamed as it was being burned away from the hole while Wrex got into position in front of the hole. "Oi I told you to get into cover!" Zaeed snapped as Wrex prepared to go on the offensive.
"I am the cover!" The first of the shrieking monsters emerged from the tunnel, and Wrex responded by dropping a singularity on their punk arses. The Confused Prethoryn wrapped around the ball of artificial gravity blocking the rest of the Prethoryn from coming inside. Wrex followed up the attack by grabbing an exotic gas flamer and lighting the ball of artificial gravity and alien monsters on fire letting out rapid fire detonations like a lit fire cracker in the process. The ensuing combination of fire and acid was wrapped around the singularity and the Prethoryn kept flying into it letting off more fire crackers in the process and causing the ball to be filled with more and more acid.
"How long is that going to last?" Zaeed asked mildly impressed.
"This long." Wrex wound up his arm and concentrated a Mass Effect field in his fist, in the moment that the Singularity collapsed Wrex unleashed his biotic push. Propelled by the push the acid and fire shot up through the hole the Prethoryn's were trying to get to them through splashing them with their own acid and lighting them on fire, the sound of shrieking filling the tunnel. "Little trick from the Rachni wars." Wrex stated rolling his shoulder. "Now get that thing cut down and bagged, I only got two more of that combo left in me and those bugs aren't going to fall for it for ever." With that said, everyone immediately started picking up the pace.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: Light sabres.
Guest: Cool.
Clown2107: All the tech on the Refugee world's is at least two generations behind and used, so it can be bought at a steep discount. Not to mention that the Salarian's still have to get it back across the border.
Gianfranco Cembran: Both of these things are true.
