Six months ago, Edward had been living a normal life. He'd been on the Factory, running one of those plants that changed the star stuff they gathered into other things for the big machines. Six months ago, Edward and his brother, Alphonse, had had a fight, a shouting match in regards to he directions their lives were taking, Ed wanting to see the world beyond the bulkheads, and Al, safe in the armor of the Factory, wanting to never leave the place.
Now here Ed was, master of his own little world, transforming this place into a living thing. Around him grew row after row of foodstuffs, from wheat and corn, to chile and a dozen other things in smaller bunches. His first crop looked good, and would be ready for harvest in only a few more months. He'd even send Al some, just to prove that he'd done something, that he'd created life out of the dry dirt. Sighing, he turned around and started into his home.
Then he heard it. At first it was the raw crackling sound of something on fire, but far distant, then the whoosh of something moving quite fast. Reaching down to his side, he pressed a few buttons on his omnitool, and then held it up at the sky, while looking at the display. The thing showed several images that he zoomed in on, finding that something was falling out of the sky, and fast. Oddly, he'd heard nothing about any asteroids, and that made him wonder about the things as they came down hard about five miles away from his home.
"Well, might as well see what's out there," he said, closing the viewer on his tool, and then marching out towards the spot where the things would have fallen. Luckily, at his size, it took him less than ten minutes to make it to the spot, and what he saw there made him nervous. The things that had fallen from the sky weren't random bits of rock, but closed metal hulls. Metal hulls that had opened up on the side, and something must have come out of them.
"Blade!" he cried out, clapping his hands together in front of him, and then whipping his right arm with the omnitool out to the side. It crackled with lightning as a small blade formed on the end of the tool, about ten feet long, and half that wide. The edge was a molecule thick, and shone in the low light of the suns as they set on the northern horizon.
"Alright, whoever you are, come out now, or I start trashing your ride!" he threatened, holding his arm close to the ship beside him, his eyes darting around the area, looking in the ankle high grass around him, wondering where the first attack would come from.
He didn't have to wonder long, as suddenly a few armored forms poured from between the blades of grass, no larger than they were. In the hands of these things were guns, rifles of some kind, and they fired, the small bits of metal burying themselves in Ed's flesh, tearing holes in his favorite red jacket, but otherwise leaving him only pissed off, as he swiped his blade blindly at them. The shape thing crackled as it struck grass, but the figures rolled or ducked away from the swing, keeping themselves far back from it as they vanished into the grass again.
"Gah! I see small people!" shouted Ed, wishing he'd called this in, as his left leg felt like it was made of lead thanks to all the small pieces of metal in it. Still, he was a Terran, and they were extremely hard to take down, as he quickly started beating a retreat, slapping his hands together again, causing the blade to retract as he snapped his fingers together, causing a spark to fly from his hand into the grass, which, thanks to the recently hot days, instantly took to flame.
"This is Edward Elric, to anyone listening. We've got raiders! I don't know who they-!" the voice was cut off as someone new stepped out of the grass in front of Ed, this figure, small as the others, but wielding some new type of weapon. It looked at first like some kind of bazooka, but then it fired with a dull thump of air, and the thing it shot out was like a spear, one that slammed home into Ed's right shoulder, causing him to fall backwards from the force of the impact.
His hand went to the thing a second later, fumbling to pull the projectile from where it had bit into his flesh, only to then scream out in pain, as the one who'd fired the thing pushed a button on the device, and suddenly arcs of lightning played over his body from the harpoon like thing. His muscles twitched, and it felt like his world was on fire, as behind him flames were quickly doused by a few mass effect fields the ship had made. Soon, the lightning had crisscrossed Ed's prone form, and then he saw only darkness.
OoOoO
"Alright, get the stasis generators and load him up," shouted the armored figure with the strange gun. Several of the other figures looked to him, then at each other, before one of their number nodded. The one wielding the odd weapon would have complained about this lack of respect for him, but knew the figures, stockier than his own lithe form, were not really his troops. Still, they at least did their jobs well and quick, the massive figure soon having several things jammed into his skin, that then hummed with the power of eezo, covering him in a stasis field, and making him light enough that they could carry.
"All this work, for one prisoner. You're sure that gun of yours won't take down some more of them?" asked one of the armored figures of the gunman, and the gunman just shook his head.
"We only have a few minutes until they figure out a way to cut through our jamming signal. This was a clean catch, so we take this one, and then get out. Don't worry, break him, and he'll be worth a hundred of your usual stock," said the figure as he walked alongside the others, soon loading the huge body atop their shuttle. Minutes later, they launched off into the sky, the prisoner firmly encased in a field that would keep him helpless, until they reached their destination.
OoOoO
Light seconds out from the planet, hung one large shape surrounded by half a dozen smaller ones, shapes that had been drifting for almost a week to get where they were. To the distant sensors on the planet, they were just hunks of metal, nothing more than asteroids that had come close to the world, but would pass by. Even when a small bit had detached from them, breaking away in a natural arcing way, no eye had turned to look at them closely, letting them drift, silent and cold, through the stars.
Now though, that same shape was growing warmer. The colony below, Amestris, was woken by the sounds of blaring alarms in many homes. Some people grabbed guns, others herded families off towards shelters, and the local militia donned their armors, rushing towards their ships that sat in the center of town. The colony was small, less than two thousand people, and so they had no large ships here, no grand flagships or command cruisers, or even a basic scout frigate. Instead the ships the four climbed into were simple veritechs, painted black as night.
"Long range comms are dead, at the moment. We're trying our best to get them back up, but the tech guy says it'll be at least a few minutes. That means you're the only hope we have of stopping these guys. We think they got Edward Elric from the northern area, so please be careful," said a voice in all their ears as the colony administrator quickly briefed the pilots.
"Acknowledged command. Razgriz squadron, ready for launch. Pre-flight checks all green here in Blaze. Chopper, Grimm, Edge, what do you say?" came a male voice over the comms, as the hum of thrusters spinning to power began to fill the clearing with the machines.
"Chopper here, nothing but green on my board," said another male voice.
"Grimm, fields of green as far as the eye can see," came another male, this one younger.
"I'm green here too, lead," said the final voice, a female, and Blaze nodded, as he began to punch up several images on his monitor. The shuttle they'd detected launching was already halfway to the enemy ship. Control said there was likely a prisoner aboard, that meant live capture.
"Okay, Edge, you're on rescue duty. That Elric boy is probably inside that shuttle. Make sure he makes it back alive. Chopper, Grimm, we've got the big ships. Take prisoners if possible, otherwise, blow them into dust," ordered Blaze, and he heard the acknowledgments from his squad, with Edge sounding a bit less enthused than the other two. She wasn't a winger, but Edge didn't like killing if it could be avoided, one of the reasons he'd given her the rescue part of the operation.
"Okay, Razgriz launching!" shouted Blaze, and then as one, in a diamond formation, the four jets took off into the heavens, their engines blazing blue behind them. Within seconds, they breached the atmosphere, and their radars came fully online. Time to intercepts were displayed in the seconds, giving them about a minute to prepare for the battle ahead. The ships they were targeting seemed to be silent, hanging there on the screens, but all four pilots knew they would be scrambling to prepare for an attack.
"Edge, breaking right," said Edge, before her jet on the right side of the formation took a sharp turn, aiming straight for the shuttle, which tried its best to accelerate a bit more, but it wasn't designed for speed like a veritech, and as Edge got closer, her machine did a flip in space. During the odd looking maneuver the veritech seemed to fold itself. First inward, as the nose went down to form another part of the body of the craft, then outward, as limbs, long arms and legs came out of the thing.
"Enemy shuttle, I'm going to say this only once, you will stop, or I'll shoot you," she said over an open channel as she sailed towards the thing, edging her way in front, and aiming her gun pod right at the fleeing vessel. No response came, instead the thing tried to turn away, but she was faster, and with a blast from behind, she got in its way, her hand catching on the shuttles front, nearly crushing the thing, before her gun swung around, and laid into the shuttle's engines with a sustained burst of fire.
"Shuttle neutralized, sir," came the declaration to the squad, and Blaze acknowledged as he and the remaining two wheeled around on the enemy. Remaining in jet form, the veriteches flew between them, all three seemingly sprouting dozens of missiles as they passed, a swarm of the things slamming home against the enemy targets. Unfortunately for four of the ships, they hadn't been able to raise barriers in time, and so the missiles struck with full force, tearing through their hulls with explosions, spill the air and crew from within into space.
The remaining three ships, the large cruiser and two of the frigates, were spared the fate of their fellows, the blossoms of light and heat only causing their barriers to strain against them, as the heat was absorbed and sent to heat sinks, and the force was dispersed through whole of the shield. Then, as one, they started off. Their drives were faster than the enemies, and had they been wanting, they could have just bailed, making for the local relay, but they didn't bother. Even if they had, the Terrans response would have been to have larger ships than just the fighters waiting for them there.
Instead, the three ships spun around in space, taking huge arcs as the arrow shaped ships brought their main guns to bare on the squadron. Each pilot reacted instantly, knowing their place. Grimm and Chopper both peeled off, the same as Edge had done, taking one of the frigates with them, leaving Blaze to deal with the largest ship himself. The frigates were in the same class as the veritechs, but used their speed well, blasting out shots that the veritech pilots dodged just barely.
"These guys are kinda testy," commented Chopper as he juked to the left just as another volley grazed the bottom of his jet. As the frigate passed by though, he pulled a lever in his cockpit, causing arms and legs unfolded from his unit. Using the superior aim assist of his guardian form, he shot at the fleeing engine lights of the enemy, while dozens of missiles seemed to appear from no where, a swarm of them chasing straight after the enemy, and even more swung in from every other angle.
The veritech was the old design, a simple protoculture engine, using thrusters that basically pumped the energy out behind to make thrust. The missiles it fired now, on the other hand, were some of the latest designs. Protoculture, it was discovered, allowed one to pump far more energy into eezo than anything the Council had, allowing the mass effect field to grow denser, which allowed not only great speed, but also the ability to make the projectile significantly more massive just as it hit, all at the cost of a few milligrams of the valuable element.
These projectiles homed in the frigate, forcing it to dodge hard right, only to find its route boxed in by even more of the missiles, which slammed home against the enemy vessel. Unlike previous generations, these weapons were just battering rams, engines slapped onto solid heads with no explosives at all. Normally, it would have made the kinetic barrier the perfect defense, but the force of the impacts quickly overwhelmed the ship, slamming home and then tearing through the enemy's hull, ripping out their target, the engines, and leaving the frigate tumbling in space.
"Chopper, kill confirmed," said the pilot into his mic, pressing a few buttons to begin the retrieval process. The missiles that either had missed, or had veered away once the enemy was struck turned and made a beeline for the veritech, assembling in a small mass in front of it, whichh Chopper fired a beacon at, so the missiles could be retrieved later, while turning his eyes to his fellows.
Grimm, trying to get around behind the enemy so he could lock onto the engines, found that the enemy he was facing was far more skilled, juking around him easily, and firing off several shots that he was only just able to avoid. Still, he wasn't completely helpless, he fired several shots from his gunpod, impacting the barrier as the ship passed him, only to have the shots be absorbed by the enemy's defenses, before it sped off at an angle that prevented him from locking.
Blaze, meanwhile, was trying to pin the larger ship in, using his ability to quickly change between modes to lay down suppressing fire while in battloid against the ship from an angle where none of the guns could fire at him, then quickly turning to fighter and speeding away just as the far more ponderous ship got a bead on him. This must have really frustrated the commander of the cruiser, as the frigate that Grimm was fighting peeled off suddenly, and then made a straight shot for Blaze.
"Captain, you've got incoming!" shouted Grimm as his target sailed away, firing a few futile shots as the fleeing vessel, and finally getting the lock he needed on the engines, and shifting to guardian mode to fire the new missiles, only to suddenly have every collision warning alarm in his cockpit go off at once. The cruiser, unnoticed by Blaze, had taken an angle that aimed the guns on the ships bow straight at Grimm's position, and just as he transformed from the quick fighter, into the slower guardian, the larger ship let loose with it's main cannons.
Shots as massive as the veritech itself screamed through space at a fraction of C. Grimm, looking at the radar and every instrument found no way to dodge the incoming fire in time, as numerous tiny projectiles were mixed in, and his guardian mode would take just that one too many seconds to transform to dodge. Making a decision in that instant, he pulled the lever below his seat, and got the pop in his ears as the cabin depressurized and his armor automatically sealed, before the cockpit burst all around him.
Outside, it looked like the shots worked perfectly, as the first mass arrived just a few meters off target, taking the guardian below and to the left of the cockpit. However, lacking barriers, and only having armor to really help defend itself, the veritech was torn through like paper, the mass of metal smashing through and tearing off an arm and leg, the gunpod itself smashed under the onslaught. The next shot was perfectly on target though, and it impacted the nose of the ship, which crumpled as the unit gave in to the force of the shot, the protoculture engine breaching and then exploding in an expanding blue ball of light consuming everything around the destroyed ship.
"Grimm!" shouted Chopper, Edge, and Blaze as they watched his veritech explode.
"I'm okay guys, I'm accelerating away, but I'm gonna need a ride when my thrusters give out," came the reply quickly, obviously trying to assuage their worry as they finally caught sight of the shape making its way away from the place where the veritech had been. As they breathed a sigh of relief, the enemy frigate came towards Blaze, probably expecting an easy kill as it fired only a few shots at the seemingly motionless battloid. Of course, as the shots came in range, that battloid took aim with its gunpod and popped off one shot for every bit of metal coming it, the gunpods fire, small chunks of protoculture, hitting every single projectile straight on.
The one piloting the frigate was so surprised by the accuracy and reaction speed of his opponent, that he only just started to veer off when he grew closer to the veritech, and by then it was too late, as Blaze reached out a hand and grabbed the ship as it passed by. The frigate demonstrated at least some skill, as it began to instantly spin, while it's weapons charged for another attack, but the veritech countered with a few shots directly down the barrel of its main guns, causing the weapon to explode violently, and then did the same to one of its thrusters, causing the ship to go into a wild roll.
Using the momentum of the roll, the battloid launched itself back towards the cruiser, popping off another set of shots as it sailed away, each one somehow finding its mark in the remaining thrusters of the enemy vessel, which continued to spin, but now had no way to flee from the battle. The cruiser, for its part, was just starting to pull away from the battle, about to try a run for the relay, when the battloid slammed hard against the hull, the hands pulling it around so that when it stopped, the head of the veritech was looking right into the enemy's bridge.
"This is Blaze of the Terran Federation. Your ships are dead in the water, you crews are captured. You can surrender now, and save us all a lot of trouble, or we'll have to get nasty," said the leader of the Razgriz on an open channel, and the bridge crew, batarians, turned towards their captain, who growled furiously at the enemy, wondering just what black magic allowed the Terrans to preform feats like this.
"We proud warriors of the Hegemony will never surrender to the lik-," the captain's reply was cut off as the battloid in front of him shifted, and suddenly, instead of staring at the head of the unit, he was staring at the gunpod, which was pushed against the barrier of the ship, slipping into the field, and pressing the barrel of the weapon right against the glass of the enemy ship.
"You only get one offer of surrender," was all Blaze said, and as the captain tried to say something back, the gun fired, the shots tearing their way through the glass, melting it, and vaporizing the pilot in his seat, while blowing the rest of the bridge crew out into space. The veritech, avoiding the writhing bodies of the bridge crew, instead moved back towards the rear of the ship, and a second later, the engines of the once mighty warship were so much slag.
"Colony Command, this is Blaze. Mission successful. We've captured seven vessels and one transport shuttle. The crew appears to be batarian," reported the squad leader over the comms.
"Confirmed Blaze. The second you took out that big cruiser, we got our long range comms back too. We've already called for some backup. Just hang tight, and they should be arriving...now," the moment the administrator said that, a blinding flash of light filled the views of the pilots, and suddenly the space around their colony was awash in warships, a dozen veriteches swarming over each of the enemy vessels, even as Chopper retrieved Grimm. For now, the fight was over.