Author's Note: So I'm planning on Taking November off from my current stories to give Na No Wri Mo via Fanfic, Which I will be posting on FanFiction. Everyone remember to check out the new story Please! Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 63: The Punitive Fleet
15M 10D 08H Until the Colossus Fires
Alpha awoke with a jolt, a wild manic look in her eyes as her mind began to stabilise. Well that's what she gets for taking a giant sword to a big gun fight, that was a learning experience. Slapping her hand to the ground the entire clear cell jolted and shifted, looking down through the steel glass she saw a pit full of exotic gas, held back only by a Mass Effect Field pushing it all away, and she could tell it wouldn't protect her. Instead Alpha rolled onto her back, her mind still reeling from the mental battle with Shepard. So they'd rather kill her than let her escape? Alpha looked at her palm, at a button/pressure point in her hand. After Eva was killed Henry decided that her and the other Synthorgs trump card, the Heart Core, needed a more effective way of activating other than CPR, so by pressing down on this pressure point with only her middle and ring finger, Alpha unleashed hell.
"Hahahahaha...!" As Alpha started laughing full of malice, bolts of bluish lightning coursed through every fibre of her being while a Mass Effect field covered her entire being. "HAHAHAHAHA!"
Alpha slammed the back of her fist into the floor and her cell completely gave way into the Mass Effect Field. The Repulsor shot the cell deep into the pressure of the gas giant, the cell shattered under the pressure it was under but Alpha's body was already coursing with power. Gas was drawn in, ignited and exploded under the effect of the Mass Effect field and the intense pressure of the gas giant, and normally that would've broken it, instead though the field was being drawn up by a unlimited supply of energy. So another explosion occurred. And then another. And another after that. Like that a continuous cycle of explosions echoed, more and more gas was pulled in and trapped inside. It should have killed her, Alpha's body should've been put under such a huge amount of super heated plasma that she should been incinerated and then crushed together into a single point, beyond any point of salvage. And yet she wasn't, because Alpha wasn't just an organic being, trapped inside of her was something made out of thought and energy, and now she was swimming in it. Energy gave way to thought, gave way to shape. A monster made out of monsters remembered the forms of all the things used to create her, used to trap her, used to teach her. A small human was never a suitable form for her, for she was always meant to be a dragon! Like the egg giving way to the chick the miniature sun that had formed inside of the eye of the Gas Giant burst open and peeled away, a massive figure uncoiled from within and roared.
Biotic barriers were breaking down as fast as they were being put up, shattered under the influence of the exotic plasma that they were containing, perhaps if that was it the serpent made out of explosions and artificial gravity might not be long for this world. Instead the familiar blue lightning of an Unbidden Warlock was mixing with the biotic field, but it wasn't drawing in energy from outside or other living beings but was instead coming directly from the head of the serpent. The Biotic barriers were gradually being replaced, resembling those of a Dragon's scales but composed of electric blue crystal. Familiar Electric blue crystal in fact. The Prethoryn swarmed at the new creature, so much of it reminding them of the Unbidden ships whose material they found so tasty, and so naturally they went on the offensive, rushing at the crude approximation of a dragon and taking a bite out of it. The Explosion ripped the jaws off of the first Prethoryn to bite down. Two more died to explosive volley's that were fired out of the mouth of the dragon, the remainder were wiped out from the creature flying through their bodies leaving behind molten gaping wounds in the process.
15M 09D 22H Until the Colossus Fires
The Turian's worked fast, within minutes of the research station's evacuation and the appearance of the 'Synthorg Dragon' a crisis centre had been assembled together on Palaven's moon. Footage was being played as the mixed Turian/Shadow Broker/Union task force watched on looking at the extent of the latest monster to appear in the galaxy, what made this one particularly pressing was the sheer amount of damage that it was doing to the logistics train. This creature appeared in the same area where a research station containing newly developed samples to ensure the Turian Hierarchy's continued ability to fight and operate had been developed, not to mention the Primarch, and they weren't going to lose a second one in less than a month, but that left the issue of figuring out exactly what it was so that they could kill it.
"For one thing can we even consider this creature an enemy?" One Turian general was looking at a holo-map depicting the trail of the creature in question, going deeper into the Terminus sector while it hunted prethoryn. "It's doing our job for us!"
"Predators target the biggest and most nutritious prey first." An agent of the Shadow Broker, a Asari woman, stated without preamble. "Currently the strongest source of psychic energy is the Gestalt." With a snap of her fingers the Asari had two people bring in a piece of material on a stretcher, one that made several mechanical grinding noises as the glass-like material was raised into the air. "The More that it eats the stronger that it will get."
"The Unbidden are as delicate as glass." One of the Turian's stated letting out a laugh. "What's so wrong about letting one of them get stronger?"
"I'm afraid that it's not that simple." Three mercenaries poured into the room, each of them carrying a different weapon. "Our agents on Omega have been sifting through the Zro Samples they've been collecting, and combining that with existing Union data on the material. One of the things that makes Zro so delicate is the same thing that makes it so plentiful, its atomic bonds are only barely being held together, if we go back to the infamous baseball stadium metaphor then Zro electrons and protons are entire cities apart. This is different, a sample from inside of a Wizard." The First of the Mercenaries, a Vorcha with a heavy plasma flamer, stepped forward and loosed his payload all over the sample in question, when the flames died down the sample was perfectly intact, even the smoke on it went away after only a little while. "We believe, similar to a 'Matter Compressor' used in the manufacturing of Silaris Ship armour, the addition of Mass Effect fields is gradually closing this gap." A second Mercenary, a Krogan with a huge Gatling styled gun, stepped forward next, unleashing a concentrated fire of warped bullets directly into the material in question, and watching as they bounced off the material harmlessly being deflected into the wall behind the sample, tearing out chunks of concrete with every hit before the mercenary finally stopped. "The More energy this creature has the denser it's going to become as it not only crushes together more of the material it's body is made up of but also has the energy to do so." The Final of the Mercenaries stepped forward, human, with a missile launcher, who fired the projectile into the crystal and blew it away, sending it flying away without a scratch and embedding it a inch into concrete. "Have I made my point yet gentlemen?"
"Yes. I'll instruct my men to put down any Wizards they encounter on sight." The Turian general stated letting out a sigh. "More to the point though: now that we established that we need to kill this thing as fast as possible the next question becomes how?"
"There is much about its internal anatomy we don't know." The Asari brought up a hologram of a familiar young lady, red eyes and white skin with several tendrils ending in mechanical grasper claws laid out Da Vinci style on her cell floor. This made it relatively easy to super impose a biometric scan of Alpha's body over her image as the Representative brought up several key points of interest, particularly the heart. "This is the Dragon's starting point, a highly advance Syntho-organic organism combining together the Union's dragoon project with the Thorian's Spores, the Reapers technology and one of the Unbidden in the same ritual the Lich uses to bind their souls to flesh. Of particular note is this Tertiary heart." The organ in question was presented as a close up, even though the only thing it presented was a lot of question marks indicating how they think it functions. "We know that exotic particles cause the breakdown of the laws of physics. The Reapers took advantage of this, developed the technology to trap the Exotic particles in a way to limit their spread and create a source of infinite energy from the blatantly distorted physics, and we're still not sure how they're doing it." A pause as the group settled into thought about what was happening. "We do however believe that gives us a weak point to aim at." The Hologram went back to the dragon. "The farther away from the head the longer it appears to take for new scales to form."
"Meaning that whatever technology that is left over from this 'synthorg' is lodged inside of the head of the serpent." The Turian's didn't look quite so pleased by the development. "So the best that our intelligence gathering forces can do is say 'Aim for the head' is that's what's going on here?" The Asari nodded her head in the positive, aware of the less than substantial nature of her reports.
"In other news." Admiral Shepard had taken on the position of representative for the Union's forces. "A punitive force is on its way from the Union." They met the punitive fleet once before, when they were getting ready to destroy the Collector's base. "With the newest creation of the Scientific fleet." May Dragon's have mercy on their souls.
15M 06D 16H Until the Colossus Fires
Admiral 'Speedjunkie13 The Mad' asked his scientific team what is a gun? Some answered 'it is part of a larger mechanism that is designed to kill' others answered 'it is a tool to defend yourself from aggressors.' Speedjunkie13 saw something different though, it is 'a system for delivering it's payload over a distance to accurately hit the target.' And so Speedjunkie13 created a missile, as both projectile and gun in one.
"Admiral, we're in position to fire the Spear." One of the admiral's navigational officers reported. The Admiral waved two of his tendrils in front of him to view the void of space in front of him, in the distance the target was within viewing range.
"Prepare to disengage the Spear on my mark."
The Ship was easily two Kilometers long and shaped like a cylinder, its width an eighth of it's length. Mechanical clicks echoed from within the bridge as the entire section reserved exclusively for the weapon's captain, pilots and other officers disengaged and floated off to the side.
"Rev the Engine!"
'A vehicle to move at ninety nine percent of real space time is a huge waste of time, energy and material resources' they said, 'you can cover hundreds of times that distance with warp and jump technology for a fraction of the energy required' as if they didn't know what his name was. Pfft. Amateurs, anything will move as fast as you want it to so long as you can shove enough anti-matter and exotic gas through a matter compressor. 'You're not going to build a missile over 70% Neutron matter, it's too expensive and it'll take up too much time to move' They said! Pfft. He just used Neu Eezo instead, the rocks were throwing it out anyway, and anything is durable enough when it's denser than the core of a star. 'The Thanix cannon is the singularly most powerful projectile weapon known' the Council boasted. Pfft. They are wrong!
'The Spear,' for that is what it was truly meant to be, piercing through even the toughest of enemy fleet formations and breaking them over the knee. The engines were the fletching, pushing the spear forward and keeping it straight, the shaft was a giant mass of Neu Eezo, it's sheer weight allowing it to build momentum in the void of space while thousands of intricate circuits and machines maximised the potential behind the material but the Spear Head? The Spear head is the cup of shaped Neu Eezo at the front of the Spear, carefully arranged artificial gravity and shield generators helping to generate 'Normalised space' in front of the spear. Between the shape of the 'Spear' and it's incredible durability from the neutron matter and field generators any material caught in the path of the Spear would instantly atomize anything that got caught in it's path, such as the massive amount of debris still lying around from the Reaper's invasion, converting it into a giant mass of plasma and radiation in the process, but it was one of the least deadly phenomena that would be going on at the time.
The Sheer strain on space/time of going at 99% the Speed of Light for that long would crumple space in front of the Spear folding it like a accordion before the Spear abruptly stops, the countless machines manipulating mass and momentum only had a limited supply of fuel to work with after all and without them it will have neither the mass needed to maintain it's momentum or the energy to push it forward, not with a giant unstable mass of energy and rippled space in front of it to push it back, or tear it to pieces. The preparations were set, the timing was perfect, sensors said that the beast was within range of their forces, what the scientific fleet's experimental weapon didn't completely erase from existence the punitive fleet would clean up.
"Ready Plasma Converter!" The back of the ship glowed under the combine light of Anti-matter and Exotic gas. "Activate fields!" The Entire ship glowed a dark purple that made the surrounding debris shift. "Lock on Target!" The Sensors tracked the speed and positioning of the Dragon, even if they were almost going as fast as the speed of light it was important to aim the damned thing. "FIRE!" The Spear disappeared, even across the void of space the crew could still feel the shock-wave of take off rip throughout the entire fleet of ships. If you had blinked then you would've missed the Spear tearing through the debris field. The Dragon literally didn't know what hit it when space time snapped shut on it like a bear trap with nuclear warheads for teeth. "And that's how you kill monsters!" The Admiral shouted waving his tendrils in the air like he just don't care.
Off to the side one of the men at the consoles sighed and opened up a file on his tablet marked 'examples of hideous overkill by the Science fleet' and added another file compiling all the information on 'the Spear.'
"Alright folks lets get to work on another masterpiece!" Suddenly the entire ship shook. Wasn't that alarming in the grand scheme of things, space was readjusting after getting folded after-all.
"Sir the anti-Warp countermeasures have just been triggered!"
Anyone who ever wondered if the Tebrid's have teeth or not got their answer in the form of twenty two sharp points united in a Mot eating grin. Being a small ship didn't mean that they didn't have security personnel onboard, and they were already moving to get picked up, so naturally they moved to figure out what had just climbed on board their ship. Speedjunkie13 had his own personal mini-tank ready and his memories backed up, he is officially ready to rekt and get rekt. They didn't get the usual scene of carnage from someone telefragging their way onto a ship, they have a tendency of meeting a force field guts first, that isn't to suggest the intruder necessarily made their way on board in one piece either. Right now their body was laid out prone and motionless on the ground, bright red skin indicating the brush with the force field that had otherwise stripped them naked. They weren't moving either, seemingly not breathing, if Speed Junkie was to guess while the force field may have not had the expected reaction of spreading their remains all over this corridor of the ship they did succeed in taking them out.
"Telepathic probing engaged." They were after all scientists, they wouldn't do something as boorish as 'checking for a pulse' with a double tap but rather if they had a intact but deceased specimen of unknown origin they'd try to study it. The easiest way to make sure if something was still alive, or at minimum was conscious, was to check to see if it still had any thoughts in it's head with a telepathic sweep, after that you move on to securing the target. "Target's alive, get ready with the darts and the stre-" The group's resident telepath was rather rudely interrupted by one of the tendrils sticking two claws directly into each of their eye sockets.
The various security team members didn't even have time to act before the claws swept through all of their necks. Speedjunkie's armour was made out of tougher stuff and so naturally he was about to get several shots off as the woman in white slowly rose up. Between the exploding rounds the woman was completely nude, most likely any clothing that she had been wearing was one of the casualties of her rampage. Pictures had been taken inbetween his firing into her body with missiles, Speedjunkie noted a mostly human form, white hair and skin, red eyes, scales, semi-mechanical tendrils all checked out from the reports the Shadow broker had given. The antler like horns composed of Unbidden-esque crystal sticking out of her head on the other hand were new, as were the clawed hands resembling similar crystals. Speedjunkie also had the reports from her capture to work from as well, when missiles failed him he moved on to exotic gas, hoping to shatter the biotic barrier that she already had up over her form. The plasma thrower's contents spread out and swirled as they were spat forth, as if water being pored into a glass bowl, a telekinetic barrier, one that was then warped as it's contents was squeezed into a golf ball size and then slammed into the admiral letting out a shattering Kaboom that tore apart his suit and left behind his charred flesh underneath. He was really glad he thought to back himself up.
15M 04D 07H Until the Colossus Fires
Shanxi was one of the newer human colonies, work had only recently been completed on the first section of the planetary ring, but it was enough that people were coming up, and that of course meant a local office for the planetary police force. Now mind you Mau was a humble Flerkin, glorified secretary he might be but he had his own sense of duty that he needed to tend to, which in this case involved setting up his work station for the immediate future.
"Excuse me sir." And dealing with the people who came to complain. The Union was shoving all of its resources for the immediate future into getting their super weapon ready to fire, so construction for the planetary ring was on hold. If he was lucky, the number of people yelling at him would be limited to the single digits today.
"How can I help you sir?" Mau looked at the man standing across his desk from him, a middle aged human male, white skin, what did they call that in training again? Caucasian?
"I have come to surrender myself into your custody." Admittedly that surprised Mau a little bit, everyone fantasizes about a wanted criminal waltzing into their precinct and turning themselves in of their own accord, it's another thing entirely when they actually do it. "I assume that I have to sign something?"
"Yes hang on." Mau went through his desk as he brought out a tablet while he waved over a couple of his colleagues who were waiting by the doors of the station who in turn walked up to the person in question in preparation to take him into custody. "Please sign on the dotted line." Officer Mau put a tablet and Stylus onto the desk between him and his incidental collar. "So what is it if you don't mind me asking. You were that drunk driver we caught wind of?"
Various recent unsolved crimes went through his head that occurred in the past week, it wasn't unusual for some people to feel remorse for their actions and eventually turn themselves in, he expected much the same was happening here.
"No no nothing like that I'm afraid." The man stated as he finished on the paper work, as it was. Well he had to write down what crime he was confessing to anyway, so really trying to figure it out in advance was kind of pointless.
"Alright then." Officer Mau took the tablet in hand as he looked at what was written out, eyes slowly going wide as he read. "You are confessing to... 'Multiple counts of Terrorism,' 'Multiple counts of theft of intellectual property,' 'Multiple counts of Child Endangerment,' 'Multiple Counts of handling Forbidden Technology,' 'Multiple Counts of Organ Trafficking,' 'Multiple counts of Experiment on Sapient organisms...'" It's hard for a creature covered in hair to go pale, but officer Mau was doing a admirable job, worst yet was when he saw the name at the bottom of the confession. "'Henry Lawson.'"
In every investigative agency in Union space there is a wall, a collection of portraits saying 'keep an eye out for these people' the worst of the worst, and Henry Lawson was on each and every one of them, wanted by every constituent member of the Stellar Union. And he just waltzed into the precinct and turned himself in.
"We..." Officer Mau had to gulp at that, even as his colleagues pulled out weapons aimed at the back of Lawson's head and started to restrain him with cuffs. "We'll need to check your bio-metrics in order to make sure, along with some other samples."
"Understandable. You'll also have to make some calls as well I take it?" Lawson was turned around and led away by the officers. "I imagine that there are quite a few people who are eager to meet with me are there not?"
It wasn't a pleasant feeling, realising that you've been used as a glorified telephone. Mau wasn't looking forward to this call that he was going to have to make, calls really, which would result in him getting several more calls from high ranking people yelling at him, followed up by various news and media groups calling to yell at him. But sadly that was currently his lot in life.
Author's Note:
RonaldM40196867: There will be a lot of Zombies this month.
Halo: Good to see you again.
Gianfranco Cembran: Glad you liked it!