The first shots of the battle rang out in Shepard's sector as she led the platoon. Her Mattock barked, rounds ripping through the air and nailing the advancing units of Blue Suns infantry. "God dammit, they took our coms offline!" Complained one of the Blue Suns as he took cover, loading a fresh heat sink into his rifle. He poked out and Jesse, to Shepard's surprise, domed the man with two direct blaster pistol shots. The two holes bored into his helmet replaced the shining eyes of the Mercenary-worn armor's helmet as the corpse collapsed.
Shepard gave Jesse a nod as they advanced, Garrus noting, "I had him," with got a snort out of the clone. The group pushed forward and spread out into the cover provided by the field of trash around them. The Clone Troopers fanned out, forming a perimeter ahead of the command squad while the outpost ahead fired at them. Garrus scoped in one of the gunners and nailed him in the head with his Widow, taking the man's face clean off, then said, "Four more!"
Ahsoka stepped forward, dodging past their rifle shots due to her enhanced reflexes. Her hand shot out, then curled back and one of the men flew toward her. With a swift swipe upward from her lightsaber, she separated his head from his body, then took cover as more rounds from the enemy's kinetic rifles rang out. She used her index and middle to point out to two clones, then brought the fingers together and pointed left. Flanking maneuver.
They nodded, while Ahsoka gave a signal to the others to provide covering fire. Jesse was first to stand up and open up with his blasters toward a hostile Merc on the high ground. Blaster bolts dug holes into rusting metal and even cut through at points where the metal was either thinner or structurally weaker. The Jester SL pushed forward to his General, while Shepard, Miranda and Garrus followed closely behind.
Miranda lifted a biotic barrier between them, making it one-way, before Shepard quipped, "Never thought I'd see energy weapons in action! Your shots are ignoring our freaking barriers!"
Jesse spoke, "You called'em kinetic barriers, didn't you, commander?" as he ducked behind cover and let his blasters cool. Shepard nodded, to which the man replied, "They probably can't handle the heat of a direct blaster bolt strike!" then he poked out again, firing the pistols and telling her, "These damn things are like focused plasma torches in a shot!"
"Or worse!" Ahsoka added, then poked her head out. She ducked as a round from one of the rifles skimmed her cheek. She murmured, "Ugh, if there's one thing I hate about slugthrowers, it's that we can't deflect them. We really should start investing in personal kinetic shielding ourselves if we're gonna be fighting here," only to peer out from behind cover. She gently moved her hand in a round motion, then curled her fingers into a fist, quickly pulling it back.
The shooter slipped back, his shots suddenly going wide. Garrus domed him with a sniper rifle round clean through the forehead, while the last two Mercenaries were suddenly and rapidly gunned down by the clones Ahsoka had sent on a flank. Miranda lowered the barrier and breathed a sigh, then said, "Not bad, Lieutenant," as she looked at Jesse. The man nodded in thanks, then the group pushed forward, taking up a forward chevron formation, Jester Squad's heavy gunner in the lead with his Z6 Rotary.
Shepard approached the corpse of a dead man as they entered a 'valley' between two semi-dismantled vessels. She plucked up the man's helmet and listened in, hearing nothing but static, overarching and repeating calls and whatever other jamming Helo was employing. She mumbled, "Should've started investing in Electronic Warfare earlier on," before tossing the helmet aside and rejoining the formation. She said to the group, "Seems like captain Agathar's doing his job alright. Confusion across the net."
The commander of the Garrison present seemed to be getting all the more pissed at them. The swearing made it even more obvious, Shepard thought as she decided to mentally tune out the words coming out of her mouth over the loudspeakers. Ahsoka, however, said, "She really hates us now that we've managed to scramble her brains hard enough... Let's see how bad the other outposts get."
"How's she even talking if we're jamming coms?" The Clone in the lead of the formation, the gunner simply named Bold, "Hell, you'd think the kriffin' bitch would shut her mouth..." which got a few laughs out of the boys as they pushed through the place, riflemen sweeping even the metallic ridges above with their blasters. Garrus himself looked at Shepard as she kept her Mattock pointed up.
He asked her, "You alright, Shepard?"
She enumerated, "Backed up by a platoon of special forces, a supersoldier and an electronic warfare bird, with a gunship on tap..." then smirked, "Never been better, Garrus. It feels like I'm back with the Alliance Military..." and the two smiled at each-other. Looking over to Miranda, she said, "And we got one hell of a biotic with us. Nice work with that barrier."
"Thanks, Commander," She replied, scanning the areas around with her own SMG. She mumbled, "Feel a little under-armored for this, though," as they walked past another corpse. This one wasn't made by them, though, so she paused and knelt to check it. Shepard whistled and signaled a hold, the platoon now forming a perimeter around her and Miranda. She gave a gentle preliminary check to the human corpse, blanked and said, "This man's got broken bones. Like something rammed into him."
"Something?" Jesse asked as he held his blaster pistols close, "The hell could break a man like that?"
"Okeer's a Krogan," Shepard spoke as she knelt beside the corpse and took his helmet off. She saw the fractured jaw hanging slack, the caved-in skull and missing teeth and the swollen eye, then said, "Might be trying to cure the Genophage here through some workaround..." and stood up, "Seen it with Saren two years back. Krogans are aggressive, big lizard-like sons-of-bitches. One of my best friends is a Krogan."
"I sort of miss Wrex," Garrus joked, "Especially in situations like these. He'd be laughing his tail off at this whole mess."
Ahsoka asked, "What's the Genophage? Some sort of disease if the Krogan are working to cure it?" and she stared Shepard and Garrus in their eyes. The two exchanged quick glances, then Shepard laughed awkwardly. A crash, steel hitting the muddy, dirty floor, echoed and all the dozen or so guns immediately pointed at the new target. Blood foaming at the corners of his mouth, a pallid Blue Suns soldier stepped out of cover.
He stared up at them and said, "Oh, fu-..." before starting to violently cough. He collapsed onto the floor, leaning against one of the walls and holding onto the wound he had on his hip. Shepard showed everyone to settle down, then stepped forward, kneeling beside the man and stowing her rifle. He looked up at her and said, "Go on... Put me outta my misery. Can't be any worse than if Jedore finds out about the Krogans roaming this mess..."
"I ain't here to kill you," She replied, then looked back as the others set up another defensive perimeter. She said to him, "I just wanna talk. Get some info on where to find Okeer and about what the hell happened here."
"Okeer happened," Coughed the man, staring at her, "Long story, Blue Suns secret."
Shepard rolled her eyes and lifted up a canister marked 'MEDI-GEL' in big, bold letters. She told him, "I wanna give this to you. Make it worth my while by spilling corporate secrets and I'll even pretend you weren't here in the first place. You can get off this rock if you find a ship, too," then she dangled it over his head and snatched it back as he tried to grab it. She said, "Just tell me the info."
The soldier sighed, swore under his breath and started, "Okeer... He's a millennia old soldier. Bet you read that on his file if you're here to grab him," to which he got a nod from both Miranda and Shepard. He continued, glad to be right on that end, "He obviously wants to cure the Genophage and has the brains to do so. Smartest lizard I've seen out of the lot of'em... Thing is, he thinks he can cure it by cloning. Has some Darwinistic tendencies..."
"Cloning Krogan," Jesse spoke, kneeling in front of the man, too. He mumbled a sarcastic, "Fun."
"And illegal," Shepard murmured, then said, "He's cloning Krogan and probably making them aggressive as all hell, going by what you and your mangled buddy back there look like," and she tilted her head toward the corpse only a hundred meters away from them. The man swallowed, coughed blood and spat it to the side, then nodded. Shepard sighed deeply, adding, "And let me guess. Your bosses wanted them as shock troops, but, in the usual mad scientist fashion, the Krogans escaped. Started killing your people. We're gonna probably run into'em farther ahead."
"Yeah..." He nodded. Shepard looked back at everyone, with Ahsoka giving a nod of approval while the others simply held point. She shrugged, leaned forward and utilized the Canister, spraying it into his injuries and letting it flow into his body. He breathed a deep sigh of relief at that, rubbing his face, then offered, "Thanks. Didn't actually expect you to keep your word," as Shepard helped him to his feet.
She pat him down and said, "That's something that's never gonna be drilled outta me. Get moving if you wanna get off this rock," to which the man nodded, hobbling away. The Commander let out a deep breath, then radioed, "This is Team 1 to Team 2, beware of possible contact with Krogan berserkers. Bastards are trying to cure the Genophage by cloning more Krogan, probably for their shock troops. Load armor piercing rounds."
Fred replied rather monotonely, "We copy you, commander. Hostiles already encountered in our sector. We're facing delays, but will hopefully be able to get some time back in a few. Team 2, out," all while gunfire filtered through the com. The link went quiet, to which Shepard chuckled. She motioned for the team to keep moving forward and drew her Mattock again.
"My boys cheered him on over the com just a sec ago," Jesse joked as he scanned the area ahead. Stairwells, a straight ascent and a lot of enemy outposts currently in disarray. The distant gunfire filled their ears and the roars of Krogans filtered through it, muffling the screams of the people they were catching out in the open while they were trying to re-establish coms. The pistoleer Clone said, "Even Fives. Seems like he knows how to knock heads together."
"If you'd read his file," Shepard joked as she lead the group forward, pushing past a corner and sniping a Merc whose shields were down, his brain-pan suddenly painting the entire rusted wall behind him a brighter shade of red. The Clones pushed deeper into what seemed to be a listening post or shanty town as more and more of Jedore's boasting echoed over the com. Jesse looked to Shepard and Ahsoka for approval, nodded and shot the PA system, causing sparks to fly and scaring the half of a platoon currently spread out across this place.
The Clones, Shepard and Miranda pushed forward, while Ahsoka guided Garrus's sniper shots and held her Lightsabers close in case anyone was gonna swing their way. She mumbled, "Y'know, I'm less and less fond of facing people throwing slugs my way instead of plasma or blaster bolts," before utilizing the Force to disarm an enemy soldier, literally twisting his arms, breaking them and forcing him to drop his gun.
Garrus domed another and said, "You're quite rough with that magic of yours..."
"The Force ain't simple magic. And I got taught by the best in the Knights of the Republic," She replied, taking cover as a round zipped right between the two 'horns' on the top of her lekku. She murmured, "Not like it's gonna be of any help, dodging these shots..." then paused as a lilac glow appeared in the corner of her vision. She blanked, right beside Garrus who wore what could only be described as a smile.
The two watched the Commander power on her Biotics. A purple aura surrounded the form and armor of the woman in charge of the Normandy and her ground teams. It wasn't long after that that dust kicked up around her. A flurry of lilac light flowed like a trail toward one of the enemy soldiers and the Commander reappeared, draped in that power as a kinetic shockwave sent the man's body flying into a wall, snapping his spine.
Enemy hound-shaped mechs, two-eyed warmachines of both bipedal and quadrupedal form, charged out of the darkness. The Clones all laughed at this, with Jesse calling out, "Seems like we can't get away from it anywhere! LET'S SCRAP SOME CLANKERS, BOYS!" before opening up with his blasters. The platoon formed a firing line and gunned down the advancing YMIR-class mechs and their supporting elements, plugging the larger cannon-armed units full of blaster holes.
Ahsoka looked to Garrus as the man sniped away at the enemy Drones, then smirked. Letting the Force flow into her body, her mind and, specifically, her feet, Ahsoka stood. Moments later, to Garrus, it seemed like an orange, blue and white blur had just skipped past him, glowing emerald blades moving like a wall of plasma and light. Moments later, Ahsoka reappeared next to the Commander, slicing in half a massive mech that had aimed its rocket launchers at her. She spun about, threw her lightsaber at a platoon of smaller humanoids armed with rifles, then caught the spinning sword mid-flight.
She looked to Shepard and said, "Nice moves, Commander!"
Shepard whistled and replied, "Not bad yourself, General!" before the pair took cover as another platoon of Blue Suns charged them. Shepard checked her watch and said, "Gotta keep moving if we're hoping to make the RV with Fred's team..." before she watched a Clone long-arm a grenade of some kind. The explosion that followed was so powerful and deafening it made Shepard's chest shake.
"Easy on the thermal dets!" Jesse ordered as they pushed forward, taking a knee. He told the Commander, "Pitcher's trigger-happy with them. Has one hell of an arm for throwing them, too," then he ducked as a bullet rang off his helmet. He mumbled, "Slugthrowers with lower power my rear, I felt that one rattling my teeth..." which caused Shepard to look up.
She radioed, "Garrus, sniper, top of that gantry! Sniper!" before hearing a distant shot ring out. Atop a gantry that was holding a decommissioned reactor, the Blue Suns shooter up above now painted the wall and fell over the railing, a sickening, but distant crunch causing the fighting to pause for a moment. It wasn't long after that the first of the hostile Berserkers made its appearance.
The Cloned Krogan were another variation of the same crime to Shepard. Monsters made to be used as weapons and presumably discarded later. Clad in blood-red armor, armed with shotguns and fury boiling in their veins because of whatever modifications Okeer made to them, a trio of Berserkers charged into the line of fire. The Z6-carrying heavy Clone suddenly found himself slammed into and thrown against a wall, alive, but injured.
Ahsoka narrowly managed to acrobatics her way away from the one charging her, then sliced another's left arm off only to get pinned against the wall by it. It roared in rage, the helmet on its face emitting steam from the filters on its sides. She grit her teeth, put her palm against the helmet and, pouring Force Power into it, squeezed until she started seeing the helmet crack.
When it shattered, she saw the Krogan's lizardlike face, the heavy armor plate adorning the top of its hunch and head and the fury burning in those eyes. Without hesitation, she put the tip of her blade clean between its eyes, twisted and pulled out, leaving a neat little plasma-drilled superheated hole right into its brain. As it registered it was dead, she kicked off of it and sliced another's legs off.
A volley of blaster bolts gunned down the third, finishing off what they'd started. The Z6 gunner huffed and spoke, "Take that, you kriffing son of a bantha..." before groaning, "Ugh, my chest... They hit hard, the bastards..."
Garrus walked up to him and stuck him with a canister of Medi-Gel, telling him, "You can whine, you can move, Trooper," then offering him his hand. The gunner nodded in thanks to Garrus, then hefted his weapon as Jesse, Shepard and Ahsoka rallied them to move forward and make the RV point at the base of the ship. More Mechs, rogue Krogan and enemy troops waited.
With Frederic and Fives, the situation was proving just as tenuous. The Spartan slid underneath a charging Berserker, stopped himself and jumped to his feet, before clambering onto the back carapace of the Berserker and putting the edge of his blade through a small seam between the helmet and armor. Below said seam, he cut into cartilage and then into bone, severing the roaring lizard's spine.
He jumped off of the creature and landed in a combat roll, drawing his rifle off his back and firing two shots. One killed the target's kinetic barriers, the other took his helmet off. Following up, he switched his DMR to full auto and let loose with suppressing fire while Fives and the other clones pushed up, blaster bolts flying in reply to the Mercenaries' rifles.
Fives said, "Y'know, this isn't how I thought I was gonna spend my RnR!" jokingly. He poked out and fired a full burst from his blaster rifle, then ducked as a round struck close enough to his visor to crack it. He swore, "Kriff, that got my visor..." before he knelt behind cover. Fred gave him an 'okay' sign, meaning he was covering, to which the man took his helmet off and looked it over. He let the self-repair systems engage(Something he'd really only seen on Commando helmets before), then slid the helmet back on.
Standing up, he pushed up to Fred, next to an overturned starfighter. He fired his blaster at the same time, watching as his boys took cover to let their weapons cool, or outright returned fire. Enemy mechs, rogue psychotic lizards and platoons of mercenaries. He mumbled, "I swear I've been in a similar situation with Rex and General Skywalker before this..."
Fred stepped ahead of the line of fire, taking several shots into his golden-glowing shields to protect a clone trooper. He spoke to Fives, "Behind me. Blast the bastards," before he primed a grenade and long-armed it toward the enemy. Fives didn't have to be told twice, taking cover behind the walking, seven-foot-tall tank and firing his blaster at enemy positions on the tops of rusting containers and ramshackle shacks turned into defensible positions.
The Clones advancing with him fired DC-15 and DC-15a blasters at the enemy, with the Carbine troops pushing up behind Fred and using him like a living tank:For cover. Rounds sparked off of his shield while he shot at the enemy, suppressing the hostile troopers and cutting down another Krogan that charged him. Fives domed another man on a rooftop, patted Fred on the shoulder and got zapped by the shield, shaking his hand after the zap coursed through his glove. It was minor and he could still aim.
Fred stopped, then took off in a blindingly fast sprint toward a Krogan that was charging them, slamming into it like a sledgehammer hitting a reinforced concrete wall, an unstoppable force meeting a momentarily immovable object. The two pushed against each-other like two young men roughhousing, though, in this case, Fred felt the weight and strength behind the Krogan soldier's muscles and body. It growled at him, hissing steam from its mask still, then headbutted Fred off of it and drew its shotgun.
Two shots nailed Fred center-mass, one managing to damage, the other to almost completely drain his shields. Fred was quick, however, much quicker than the enemy. He ducked under the third shot and charged, sweeping the legs out from under the Krogan before turning it onto its belly, putting his hands together and pummeling the monster's back until the armor and following that, its spine cracked and broke. A single hit and he'd just broken an enemy's back.
Fives pushed up beside him and cut down two men with his blaster, then said, "Nearly got two on your back, sir," with a bit of smugness in his voice. He then chopped an open left palm open to a target position at nine o'clock and another at one o'clock, his troopers immediately responding and taking positions and exchanging fire with retreating Blue Suns as Fred recovered his shields.
Distant gunfire grew closer, followed by the thunder of footsteps, as they approached the meeting point and the ship that was now being used as a research base. Shepard greeted the Lieutenant with a smirk, "Just in time, eh?" to which Fred nodded. She looked back at Miranda and said, "Let's get ready to call the Gunship. We'll need to haul ass outta here fast after we get Okeer."
"I'll call it," Jesse replied, "Lead the way, Commander, El-Tee..."
The pair nodded, then kicked the door in as soon as everyone had stacked up. The Troopers, Spartan and crew of the Normandy kicked the metaphorical door, pushing into the rusting hallways of the vessel and engaging the enemy they caught in their sights. Blue Suns troops died, firing their weapons at the Commander and her crew or trying to run away.
Shepard pied a door, but ducked into cover as shots rang out. Ahsoka was quick, grabbing a thermal det from one of her boys, priming it and throwing it within the confines of the room before taking cover. The blast shook the room and the hull of the ship groaned, but they'd cleared themselves a path, past corpses and the screeching steel, past dying hostiles and Mercs fighting Berserkers.
Right into the open heart of the vessel. Bringing up the rear, Fred decided to provide security with Jesse and Fives, noting, "Bastards barely knew we were coming..."
"Remind me to buy Helo and his co-pilot a drink," Fives quipped as he turned to watch Shepard interrogating a blue-skinned 'Asari' scientist clad in a white suit with a red stripe across the chest area. He watched Garrus join them, too, his own burst-firing rifle drawn and at the ready, before he asked him, "How's it looking in there? We know where Okeer and the Merc boss are?"
"Girl's someone we found on Virmire, back when we were fighting another fairly familiar big bad," Garrus quipped as he shouldered his rifle, "She helped with researching the Genophage, to try and cure it. We stopped that and damn near got ourselves shot by our Krogan buddy," which garnered snorts out of the pair of clones and a hum out of Fred, who kept his eyes down-range.
Jesse quipped, "You guys sound like you had your kriffin' fill of big, galaxy-saving adventures."
Garrus contained his laughter to a mere short chuckle, then replied, "Can't exactly say 'no' when your old boss comes back from the dead and asks you to go on another one, or ten," which caused Fives to burst into a short laugh, too. He told them, "You two ain't anything to scoff at. Clones or not, I'll be damned if General Tano wasn't right about you boys."
"You're a good shot, Garrus. And the fact Fives didn't complain about Fred," Jesse shot back, garnering a short snort out of the Spartan. He continued, "Maybe this posting won't be so bad if the locals are nice."
"Basics ain't so bad, eh?" Joked Fives. A whistle echoed and the group turned to face the women and the rest of the clones. Shepard waved them forward and the trio of leaders nodded Shepard went in first with Miranda and Ahsoka, the girls preparing to meet Okeer farther ahead. Indeed, after another series of short firefights, the group saw him. Sat in the control room above a cryogenics lab and with a fairly vile scowl on his millennia old face, Okeer turned to face the arriving crew. There was a tank next to him... With a Krogan inside.
"It's about time you arrived," The alien spoke, "The batteries on these tanks will not wait while you play with these idiotic mercs."
Ahsoka murmured, "Ain't he already a ray of sunshine," as she crossed her arms and approached the window, peering down at the dozens of tanks of Krogan built for Jedore's supposed military force. She listened to Okeer monologue. Whatever 'Darwinism' was, Ahsoka soon understood it as a sort of 'survival of the fittest, the best and brightest'. She didn't approve it, so working with Okeer was bound to be one hell of a fun ride. The Krogan in the tank was pure, huh?
"... It is a matter of my legacy," Voiced Okeer.
Jedore spoke over the com, furious, "I realized it was you who released the Berserkers, Okeer. Hell of a mistake after we gave you all you wanted," then she growled, "We're coming for you and your buddies. They won't find you or your little toy soldier in the cryo-tank in this mess, especially when I'm done burying you," and the PA system shut off. Okeer sighed.
"Seems we may have to accelerate our plans," The Krogan spoke, "Go. Hold her off while I prepare myself and my creation for extraction."
Ahsoka quipped, "Oh, Extraction won't be a problem," as she watched Jedore, clad in blue armor with what looked to be extra external holographic layers hovering around her, enter the room down below with a rocket launcher. She spoke over com, "Reaper Four, you're up. Time to shoot Jedore off her high horse, boys," only for Okeer to blank. He listened in the distance.
The hum of antigravity engines filled their ears, followed by the thunderclap of missiles exploding the rooftop. Through the breach, the Republic gunship descended, greeting the Mercenaries down below with accurate anti-infantry laser fire and causing Jedore to take cover as her men were being gunned down. She poked out and aimed her launcher, then swore something at them and fired.
The gunship shifted left, letting the missile hit the ceiling instead of them, then aimed at her. Both cannons soon barked in unison. A full burst of energy caught the woman, tearing her to shreds down below, to which Shepard whistled in surprise. Garrus got a slight shiver up his spine, while the Clones gave thumbs up and cheers. Miranda, seemingly impressed, nodded her approval, then looked to Okeer.
"That was easy..." Garrus quipped, staring at the corpses, then at the Krogan in the cryogenic tank.
Aboard the Galactica
Beta Viperidae system
Star Road Terminus Station
While the outer structure of the facility was still being built, Doctor Halsey had been authorized by both the UNSC and the Colonial Government and Military to come aboard and learn more of the 'Cylon Threat'. Marching through the strangely angular corridors of the Galactica under the escort of the Chief and a platoon of Marines from the UNSC's own Corps, the Doctor and Commander Adama both moved to meet the local Infiltrator.
Sharon. The fact that she had a name was a bitter pill to swallow. Halsey had expected a number out of what was supposed to be an automaton army that had wiped out all but fifty thousand humans in the Twelve Colonies' Galaxy. Part of her had felt a similar degree of rage toward the Cylons when she'd heard that as she felt when the Covenant had started burning their worlds.
But then she heard Sharon had a lover, friends, what she believe to be a family. It was both interesting and terrifying to think about, considering what she used to think of living, thinking machines like them. She wondered for a moment just how alike a human and a Cylon Infiltrator were, to the point she figured she could go to the named doctor Gaius Baltar, the lead researcher of the Colonials.
As she was led to the cell by Adama, he told her, "Be extremely careful. If there's anything these infiltrators are good at, it's lying."
"Only fitting, I suppose," Halsey sighed, then nodded for Adama to open the door. The Commander did as asked, hitting the door open mechanism and allowing Halsey to walk inside. It was at that moment she saw Sharon Valerii, the disgraced Lieutenant and Cylon Spy. A beautiful young woman who stared at Halsey as if she was suddenly face-to-face with the boogeyman... Understandably, Halsey thought to herself.
She greeted, "Hello, Miss Valerii... We have much to talk about."