Chapter 15
Immediately after, the station erupted into action. Alarms went off advising the populace to shelter in place, which thankfully was not needed that had already been handled. All escape pods went into emergency readiness, their boosters warming up and fuel being topped off, bulkheads between sections came crashing down and the shields which were already up had been reinforced.
Shepard grabbed a console to steady herself as the station rocked again, evidently the Batarians were wearing down the kinetic barriers in preparation for a forced boarding. This suited Shepard just fine, alliance marines were damn good at what they did. She switched between monitor displays checking the feeds from all of the civilian areas, especially the radio center with all of the children. That would be their fallback point, the marines would defend the children to the last if needed.
Comm chatter suggested that while at high alert the station's military staff were calm and prepared for what was about to happen. Shepard imagined that after they repel these would-be invaders, a permanent escort would be posted at the station to fight off any future attempts. The station rocked again, and this time the lights dimmed slightly as the shield capacitors were overloaded and shut down. This was it, next they'd either move in for the kill, or if the Quarians were to be believed, and she was inclined to believe them, they'd attempt to board and take the station.
Up in control, Admirals Anderson and Raan were at their stations issuing orders and coordinating a response. According to Raan, Batarians were more concerned with profit than anything else, so they wouldn't waste ammunition or potential slaves by rushing in with lethal force. Also, they'd attempt to preserve as much of the station as possible so that they could sell it or salvage it for valuable resources. Anderson and Raan were going to use this to their advantage, instead of making a huge stand they'd resort to hit and run tactics from the beginning, drawing them deeper into the station, forcing them into a situation where rash action would risk the integrity of the station and all of the people aboard. All the while, reinforcements from the other sections would pour in behind the Batarians and cut them off from reinforcements and resupply.
The well-constructed docking hatches put up a hell of a fight but at the end of the day could not hold up against Batarian plasma torches. With a loud thud, the docking hatch closest to Shepard's civilian sector fell to the ground and a Batarian scout named Taag cautiously poked his head out of the docking ring. While expecting to see a resistance force, he was surprised to see nobody. He chortled to himself thinking that perhaps this invasion would be easier than they had expected. He signaled back to the squad behind him and stepped out into the docking area, along with with his seven cohorts. Within seconds they had been vivisected by automated laser defenses, their screams silenced as several dozen kilowatts of focused light cauterized their throats while separating their heads from the rest of them.
Across the station four other squads were cut down in similar fashion before the Batarians realized their miscalculation and started sending their raiders out with reflective body shields. These didn't last long against the defenses but they didn't have to, as the raiders were able to quickly vault over the still smoking bodies of their crew mates and across the docking area where they began feverishly attacking the defense grid, both physically and through hacking.
While he could do nothing against the physical attacks, Rothschild was infinitely amused at the Batarian's almost childish attempts at bypassing station security. At one point one of the raiders thought he'd found a backdoor in through the human firewall, and attempted to inject a simple virus to overload the firewall defenses. This triggered a hidden defense Rothschild had set up years ago to defend against such an attempt, unfortunately his sense of humor back then was as silly and stupid as it is now, and instead of the firewalls falling and allowing access to the defense matrix, holographic projectors hidden inside the console produced an image of a tall red-headed Englishman in a trench coat that began dancing badly while strange music began playing over the area's loudspeakers.
"We're no stranger to love. You know the rules and so do I" The projection sang. Then the console shot out a pair of electrodes striking the hacking Batarian and electrocuting him to death. Back in squad HQ Shepard rolled her eyes. Tali had no idea what's going on. Shepard explained,
"Rothschild has come out to play." She said. This was explanation enough for Tali. She was aware the at the AI had developed a strange sense of humor from all the humans he'd interacted with over the years. Her thought process was interrupted by a loud boom followed by the music ceasing. It appeared as though the Batarians had given up on hacking and were employing the direct approach. Shepard and Tali readied their weapons, Shepard had already removed the envirosuit helmet and peeled off the throat gasket, and was now wearing body armor over it, Tali's suit had been modified to allow for the attachment of armor plates and an improved kinetic shield along with it. Shepard ordered her squad to fall back to their position, they were going to prepare to ambush their invaders.
Moments later, Shepard, Tali and Private Baxter were crouched behind low wall in an open area leading to the docking bay. They heard a bunch of Batarians grunting incoherently in their language, Shepard looked inquisitively at Tali who then punched some commands into her omnitool, this in turn dropped an update package into the squad's translators and suddenly the voices started making sense.
"I have no idea who built this thing but we lost some good men back there. I'm going to find the commander of this heap and skin them alive." A Batarian walking behind the leader said.
"You'll do no such thing, we're going to harvest everyone here, these creatures better make good slaves, now that we have to make up for our losses." The leader barked, grumbling. As they got closer, tali looked at Shepard, and held a fist above her face, opening and closing it again twice. Shepard and Baxter nodded, ducking their heads down as tali lobbed a flash-bang over over the short wall. It went off, disorienting all but two of the Batarians who seemed to have decent heads on their shoulders, at least until Jiminez, the scout's sniper up on a rooftop behind them decided to relieve them of them. Two loud cracks issued and the two standing Batarians collapsed to their knees almost simultaneously, their ruined heads erupting into twin geysers of blood and gore.
"ADVANCE!" the leader shouted as the Batarians shook their heads to clear the cobwebs and advanced on Shepard, Tali and Baxter. Shepard opened up with her assault rifle, while issuing orders to the rest of her squad while Baxter hoisted up the black metal monstrosity he lovingly referred to as "Lucy" it was the modern equivalent of an M134 mini gun, that he had strapped to his body with a length of utility chain. Baxter was quite likely the only human on the station capable of wielding such a monster, mostly due to his genetic augmentation, which had unexpectedly increased his strength by a much higher factor than expected. The remainder of the Batarian squad was rendered into a puddle of bloody chunks within seconds.
Shepard, called the all clear and looked around to make sure their opponents were all down. Satisfied, she gathered the squad and ordered a retreat to a rally point further back. Their goal was to lead the Raiders away from the Civilian sections. The strategy was working flawlessly, as the more ground they "gave up" the farther away they found themselves. Unfortunately for the marines, Batarian ships appear to resemble clown cars as there were far more pouring into the station than they anticipated.
So far none of Shepard's squad had been killed, but there were a few injuries adding up including a bullet in Baxter's bicep that he didn't even know was there until Tali started patching him up. Meanwhile behind them they left a path of Batarian bodies marinating in their own blood, and the psychological effect of that was catching up. Though the soldiers themselves were not slaves, Batarian training generally relies on firearms and piloting training and little else, so it wasn't long before discipline began to break down.
When they made it to a currently inactive transport station, Rothschild decided to start up round two projecting several Rick Astleys all dancing around to what was rapidly becoming the Batarians' least favorite song as automated laser turrets began blasting through their flimsy defenses. Once again the reflective shields came out and the lasers were soon dealt with by rocket fire, but not before Shepard tossed a fragmentation grenade that stopped them in their tracks. She ordered another retreat, Jiminez firing his sniper rifle again from high cover in rapid succession beheading multiple Batarians.
As he collapsed the bipod of his rifle and prepared to climb down, a Batarian he hadn't seen fired a rocket that converted the upper half of his body into a fine red mist.
"JIMINEZ!" Baxter screamed.
"Stow it Baxter fight now mourn later." Shepard ordered. Baxter nodded and they continued their retreat. Unbeknownst to Shepard's squad or to the Batarians, Rothschild had witnessed the death of the young sniper, and had now decided that it was time for the proverbial gloves to come off.
The squad hunkered down near a supply depot about a hundred meters away from the transport station where Jiminez had met his end. Things were getting desperate now, Baxter's arm wouldn't stop bleeding, Tali had a small rupture in the abdomen of her suit that was quickly sealed but would result in an infection very quickly and Shepard was covered in shrapnel wounds and burns. Her armor was holding up but the joints were only protected by the flimsy now tattered envirosuit. Medigel unfortunately was running low, Shepard had given her supply to Tali to try and fight off the inevitable infection that was on the horizon.
Batarians began pouring into the area and were once again assaulted by automatic laser defenses, this time without the customary song and dance routine, which confused Shepard, Rothschild rarely missed the chance at overdoing an annoying joke. Her confusion was short lived, however as a construction mech stomped into the room and began barreling towards the surprised Batarians.
"These Humans and Quarians are wretched meat bags, but they're my wretched meat bags! DIE YOU FOUR-EYED FUCKS!" the mech bellowed as it began mercilessly stomping on and punching the Batarians to death. Shepard would be concerned at the AI's merciless frenzy if it weren't for the fact that she was already on her feet firing at the same group af slaver assholes that just murdered her friend.
"FLASH BANG" Tali bellowed launching another into the crowd sowing even more confusion amongst the dying aliens.
"ENOUGH! WE SURRENDER!" a Batarian, seemingly the last ranking commander in the group yelled. Rothschild halted his arm which had been in motion to punch his ugly alien face into paste when he stopped at the last moment. The lights on the construction mech glowed an ominous red as loudspeakers affixed to the side of it began bellowing "WEAPONS ON THE GROUND! NOW!"
The remaining soldiers complied, throwing their weapons to the ground, immediately after Rothschild's mech marched over and stomped them into twisted wreckage producing a spectacular light show as their power cores exploded. Shepard, Tali and Baxter emerged along with the rest of the squad and began binding their arms behind their backs. Shepard went to report the situation to control when she noticed her PDA which had been stored in a compartment over her chest behind her armor, was completely shattered and covered in blood. She dropped the PDA, looked down at her armor and noticed an alarming amount of blood leaking out through a blackened hole right over her left lung.
"Shit." Shepard said, immediately after coughing up frothy pink blood and collapsing.
"Shepard!" Tali yelled, and ran over to catch her friend right before she hit the ground.