Beyond the Horizon

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 1



“What kind of haul did we get, captain?” Kagrom Bek'cah asked as their frigate pulled away from Korlus. “I noticed we picked up a Krogan and some other valuable slaves and was wondering what kinda prices we were trying to fetch for ‘em?”


“I reckon the Krogan will fetch a higher price than usual because it’s a female,” the captain stroked his chin. “I’ve also got people bidding on the Asari that we got paid as tribute, she’s a slightly unusual color so we should get a good price for her as well.”


“What were you planning on doing with the suit rats we captured?” Kagrom asked. “They look to be on the older side than the ones we normally grab.”


“We’re going to put them to work,” the captain chuckled. “There’s a lot to fix on our fair ship, and no one better to do it. And we both know that the Migrant Fleet will pay us a fair amount of creds to return them.”


“You gotten to see any of those new humans starting to spread all over the place?” Kagrom asked.”Because I’ve not seen anything besides what was on the extranet, I’ve been looking for a new species to add to my collection anyway”


“Only glimpses when I’ve dropped by Omega for some shore leave,” the captain replied. “Besides, the Asari can live longer and are much more productive anyway.”


“Bah,” Kagrom replied. “I’ve had enough of Asari, I want to see something truly exotic.”


“Captain, Lieutenant, you might want to look at the sensors,” the sensors officer reported.


“Why look what we have here,” the captain grinned. “I believe we’ve found your exotic creatures Kagrom. They’re just sitting dead in the void aside from that small corvette that just detached. Why don’t we show them how much the toll is around these parts?”


“That’s a fairly big fleet for a bunch of primitives though, captain,” Kagrom said as he looked at the readings. “But I’m not seeing any eezo coming off of them, just some strange radiation.”


“Who cares?” The captain chuckled. “We’re about to be filthy rich if we manage to bring a new species onto the market. We might even be able to retire after a haul like this.”


“Alright,” Kagrom sighed. “You heard the captain, let’s go intercept that corvette. Take it nice and easy though, we don’t want to blow the ship apart by accident by using our spinal gun.”


“Moving to intercept, captain,” the navigation officer replied as her hands danced across the controls. “We’ll be on them in a few minutes and then we’ll be ready to do some boarding actions.”


—

–


Mavrak shook her head as the drugs began to wear off in her system. It seemed her captors had underestimated her body’s ability to process and fight off the chemicals they were using to keep her from breaking out of the cell she had been locked into.


Keeping quiet for now, she let various pirates pass by as she pretended to still be drugged out of her mind, and once her vision had cleared up she began to take small peeks at her surroundings.


“I do not believe that I’ll be breaking free of this on my own,” the female Krogan muttered to herself as she tried to snap the cuffs that had been placed on her. “You, whatever your species is, come and help me break us free.”


“I can’t do that,” the much smaller and suited creature replied as it wrung its hands together. “They’ve got bombs on our suits and if we move too far then they detonate.”


“Do you not have redundant organs with which to take the blow?” Mavrak asked as she cocked her head to the side. “What manner of creature are you?”


“I’m Seetor'Shaama vas Xuwa,” the male creature answered. “And this is Sura'Gaalas vas Vakor, we are some of the Quarians that were sent to Korlus for salvage negotiations before we were turned into a tribute to stave off the pirates.”


“I have heard of you Quarians,” Mavrak said as she eyed the two suited aliens before her. “I hear you are a hardy species, capable of doing almost anything.”


Then the pirate frigate shook as it took what seemed to be weapons fire and the lights began to flicker.


“Aha!” Mavrak cheered. “Now is our chance to make our escape!”


“No, we’re not going to be able to break through these bars, and our collars are still active,” Sura said as she looked at the collar on her partner Seetor. “It would take me longer than the time I believe that we have to deactivate these collars. And that is with my usual tools.”



–

–

“Open fire with the Guardian systems,” the captain ordered his weapons officer. “We should be close enough for them to cause damage to the corvette without destroying it.”


“Captain, we’re taking return fire, mostly small missiles, and slow kinetic weaponry, but our Guardian systems are being taxed by the missiles and cannot fire offensively.”


“Get around them then,” Kagrom said to the navigations officer. “They probably don’t have weapons mounted on the rear arcs.”



“Moving around to take out their engines, aye sir,” the navigations officer replied. “You should have some fairly clear shots in a second or two.”


The frigate deftly maneuvered around the slower corvette. Moving around to the rear arc where they assumed that no weapons would be placed.


“What did they just hit us with?” The captain asked as the ship's power began to flicker and the kinetic barriers began to flicker and die out.


“It looks a whole lot like an overload sir,” the ground crew commander spoke up. “Those things tend to do this kind of damage to our armor systems. It’s only temporary though, so I wouldn’t be too worried.”


“They keep hitting us with whatever that is!” the systems engineer yelled. “Our barriers are completely overloaded and so is our Guardian system.”


“Sir, we just lost power temporarily to our drives, we’re dead in the void until we get it back up and running.”


“Sir, the enemy corvette just moved closer, and they’re opening some sort of hatch underneath.”


“Looks like we need to get ready to repel boarders,” Kagrom said as he sealed his hardsuit. “Let’s greet our new friends shall we?”


–

–


“Alright people, we have no clue who or what might be on that ship,” Paige said to her marines as the Sting that they were on began to move close enough for them to attempt boarding actions. “They might be aliens for all we know. Only shoot what shoots at you first, then we get our tech specialists to take a look at everything. And remember, we need intel, so if you can take someone prisoner then you do so.”


“You heard the lady,” the fireteam leaders began to go through and ensure that all bases were covered. “Remember that we’re not invincible, take cover when you can get it and you better remember to keep your tethers on until you can attach to the enemy ship.”


“Let’s introduce these kind folks to how Marines do things!” Paige said over the open channel once all of the proper checks had been done.


“Oorah!” The Marines responded with an eagerness that belied their professionalism.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Beyond the Horizon Chapter 2



“This looks like the airlock, Colonel,” the fireteam leader reported. “I don’t want to force it and potentially depressurize the whole ship.”



“Looks like they’ve got some sort of auto system here,” the tech specialist said as he looked at the panel on the outside of the airlock. “I can’t really read any of the writing on here, sarge,” he said. “But it looks like the surface of our slates. And it also doesn’t seem to be locked down very tight.”


The outer door to the airlock slid open and the three fireteams of marines crowded into the tiny airlock.


“Anyone else feel really massive right now?” One of the marines asked as he stood next to his brothers-in-arms. “Or is it just me?”


“They might be a short group of aliens,” one marine offered.


“I’m betting they’re a hairy all-male species,” one of the ladies said. “They reproduce by finding females of other species and having their way with them.”


“This isn’t one of your fantasy novels, Julia!” Sergeant Fredericks yelled. “Get your mind out of the gutter and get set for this airlock to open.”


“Sarge, shouldn’t the inner airlock have opened by now?” A marine in the corner asked Sergeant Fredericks. “I’m fairly certain it’s pressurized.”


“Did they lock the inner doors?” Fredericks asked her tech specialist.


“I’m a tech specialist ma’am, not a linguistics expert,” the marine replied. “Your guess is as good as mine.”


“Get ready to blow these doors open,” Fredericks ordered. “We’re not waiting any longer.”


The doors finally began to open with a hiss as she threatened to blow them up.


Rushing through the doors as soon as they were fully opened, the Marines found themselves slightly trapped by the enclosed space. “Who ordered the Sardines?” One Marine chuckled at the back of the pack.


“Alright, this is fucking stupid,” Fredericks finally snapped. “We split up into groups of three, we all move through the ship and report captures, MIAs, or KIAs as we move. Copy?”


“Oorah!” The marines responded as they began to disperse through the ship.


“I’m just saying, a furry alien would be kinda hot,” Julia said to her two teammates as they began to clear out their area of the ship.


“Julia, you’re a perve, no one listens to you when you get like this,” Mathias rolled his eyes underneath his Mithril before seeing some movement. “Movement ahead,”


“Copy that,” Julia’s voice turned to iced steel. “I’ve got them in my sights. Taking point.” The marine raised her laser rifle to her shoulder and moved forward until she saw a set of cages and a dozen people locked into cages.


“Colonel, Fireteam Corporal Julia Winchester here, we’ve got either slavers or pirates here,” the woman reported. “Please advise further.”


“Wait one,” a voice replied. “Get them out of the cages and run them back towards the airlock,” Colonel Paige’s voice came through the comms. “We’re bringing a small craft over now, ETA is one-five mikes.”


“Copy that Colonel,” Julia replied as she began to cut the cages open with her vibroknife.


“I don’t know if you can understand us,” Mathias, the calmest and most comforting one said calmly through his Mithril’s external speakers. “But I’m going to talk you through the process anyway. Please follow Corporal Winchester, she’ll make sure you get out of here, and we’ll make sure that all of your needs are met until you can be reunited with your people.”


One of the shorter ones in a suit held up their hands and gestured to the collars that they wore while shaking their heads.


“Fucking hell!” Mathias yelled on the open comms as he looked at what were clearly small-shaped charges. “They’ve got explosive collars on, we cannot, I repeat cannot bring them off of the ship or they may detonate.”


“Remain where you are,” Sergeant Fredericks said as they moved the captives all into one cage and surrounded it while facing outwards. “We’ll come to free them after we’ve taken care of the rest of the bastards on this ship.”


“Godspeed Sarge,” Julia said. “Make sure to kill all of those bastards for me.”


“Wilco, Fredericks out,” the sergeant replied.


“Alright, we hold here until we get some bomb techs here to get these collars off of the slaves,” Mathias ordered his two teammates.


–

–


“Alright, let’s go meet these boarders,” Kagrom said to the team that he was leading. “They don’t seem to have kinetic barriers so we should be able to punch through their armor with ease.”


“Shouldering his Batarian Arms Terminator, Kagrom moved in the middle of the pack of other pirates, the mixed species crew in the positions where they would be the most useful. With the Turians at the front of the formation, the Baratians taking up the middle, and the Asari covering the rear and setting up with their biotics.


“That’s a really big alien,” The Turian at the front said as he looked at the trio of armored figures in front of him and began to spray his rifle at the figures. The trio just looked down at the tiny grains of sand-like metal pinging off of the armor before looking up at the Turian and the others and rushing forward.


“I need you to stop these guys!” Kagrom told the twins in the back of the formation. “Our rifles aren’t getting through.”


“Working on it,” the twin Asari said in sync. “But they’re heavier than they look.” Two of the armored figures found themselves floating up to the ceiling before they reoriented themselves and pushed off towards the pirates now “below them, raising their arms and tackling the two Turians to the ground where they pinned them and locked their hands behind their backs with restraints before turning to Kagrom and his other Batarian partner.


“I surrender!” Kagrom tossed his rifle to the ground and held his hands up in the universal sign of surrender. “Don’t kill me!”


The two soldiers just cuffed him and tossed him to the side of the corridor after taking the rifles and shattering them. Proceeding to do the same thing to the twin Asari before moving on down the path to the bridge.


“What the hell are those things?” One of the twins asked as she rubbed at her wrists where the restraints were tearing into her hardsuit. “They were heavy, it took everything I had to lift the two of them up like that.”


“I think we’re going to find out soon enough,” Kagrom sighed as he watched his retirement plans go up in smoke.








“You’re sure that they’re pirates?” I asked Paige. “Because I don’t want us getting into any sort of interstellar incident.”


“Absolutely sure,” Paige replied from the Sting II that was in station keeping right beside the now captured enemy vessel. “They were running a fairly professional operation, but they were definitely pirates. We’re working on getting some sort of translation program working with some of the slaves we’ve rescued, but it’ll take a little while.”


“Keep me posted,” I replied as I looked at the tired face of my Marine commander. “Get some rest too. We’re about to start heading in towards the planet, our Jumpships are going to see about hiding over towards an asteroid on the far side of the elliptical and we’ll go grab them if things go wrong.”


“Copy that Mark, keep me posted.”


“It’s so strange to see everyone younger again,” Natasha said from where she was looking at herself in the mirror. “All of my scars are still there, but I feel like my body has been rewound to back when I was in my twenties.”


“Same,” I replied. “My knee problem went away and Melissa also seems to have de-aged.”


“We’ll have to see if there are any sort of negative effects,” Natasha said. “We cannot accept this if it is only going to kill us faster.”


“We’ll have to see what exactly is going on when we can have Dr. Hale check all of us out,” I replied. “But for now we have to figure out where we are, and what we’re going to do from here.”

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 3


“I knew that I should have downloaded the latest translation protocols before we left the fleet,” Seetor complained to his fellow Quarian. “Right now our rescuers are better off speaking to the pirates then they are to us.”


“The translation may be weeks unless we can get one of the pirate’s Omnitools,” Sura agreed with him. “Maybe we can see if we can get access to the prisoners.”


“And how do you plan on asking for us to get that kind of access?” Seetor asked. “Our rescuers have not so much as removed their helmets or shown us anything other than the basics of their external physiology.”


“By walking over to where the pirates are being held and talking to one of the pirates,” Sura told her partner. “Pirates might not have the greatest quality omnitools, but they always have the latest in translation software.”


“I shall come with you,” Mavrak spoke up as she looked at the smaller aliens. “You might need some sort of assistance to make the scum comply with your demands.”


“Works for me,” Seetor shrugged. “I’ll keep working on the translation program just in case that doesn’t work.”


–

–


“Hey Julia,” Mathias called out to his teammates. “Looks like your guess was wrong. We got strange blue alien women instead of big hairy male ones. “


“Shut up Mat,” Julia replied with a scoff. “At least I dare to dream about what might be.”


“No, you just read smutty novels and claim that they’re literature,” the third teammate said as he high-fived Mathias. “That doesn’t help your case at all.”


“Is it wrong for me to have fantasies?” Julia asked, feeling slightly offended.


“No, we just don’t need to hear about them,” Mathias replied. “I’ve got plenty of fodder for fantasy, but you don’t hear me talking about it.”


“Hey, the big alien and one of the small suited ones are coming over here,” their third teammate warned the two bickering friends.


“Why would they be coming over to the cells where the pirates are held?” Mathias asked.


“Hey you!” Mavrak glared at one of the Batarians that dared to meet her gaze as she escorted Sura over to where the pirates were kept.


“We need access to your translation programs,” Sura told the pirates. “If you cooperate then we will do our best to keep you alive.”


“I’ll do it,” one of the Asari twins spoke up. “This is just something my sister and I were doing for our Maiden phase after all.”


“What do you think they’re talking about?” Mathias asked Julia as they watched the small suited alien talk with one of the blue women and make some sort of tri-vid thing appear on her wrist.


“I have no idea,” Julia said as she watched the interaction with interest. “Maybe the little one is threatening the blue one.”


“Well, whatever it is they’re talking about it looks like they’re done now,” Mathias replied as the aliens stopped talking to eachother.


The little suited one then did something with the orange hologram and tried speaking in her strange language again before what sounded like a mechanical or machine translated version of English was emitted from the strange device.


“Can you ***derstand me now?” The mechanical voice seemed to echo through the cramped space.


“Better than we could before,” Mathias said as he knelt closer to the device, not knowing if he needed to be closer for it to work. “Are you able to understand me?”


“Understand you yes I am better,” the choppy voice replied. “The program becomes longer to better use of.”


“Great, now we have to talk and listen to choppy and backwards English until this gets figured out,” Julia complained. “I’m taking a nap, have fun talking with a translation program.”


“New translation programs suck,” Sura said to Mavrak on the side as they kept talking to the armored alien and trying to get everything translated properly. “It takes time for the built in VI to sort the language and find the proper words to use. And don’t get me started on putting the words in the right order.”


“How long will we be talking to them like they are children?” Mavrak asked.


“As long as it takes,” a female voice spoke up while Mavrak and Sura turned to look at the teal colored Asari as she walked up to them. “Translation when it comes to a new species is difficult at best, and near impossible at worst. “That is part of the reason why Asari are chosen to be the diplomats. We can do a surface meld, learn the language, and begin programming the translators.”


“Bah,” Mavrak scoffed. “Why would I need to learn a language when I already speak the most universal of them.”


“And what might that be?” Sura asked cautiously.


“Violence is the universal language, and everyone speaks it,” Mavrak said proudly. “Watch as I speak it with these aliens here.”


Mavrak went up and stood right in front of one of the armored aliens and went to punch one of them when they grabbed her arm and swung her around so that she was pressed to the ground with her hand in her back.


“See, they speak my language!”


“They might lock you up in the cell with the pirates because of that,” Sura said as she crossed her arms and shook her head at the Krogan female.


“Not try to that again,” Sura’s Omnitool said. “Disable will I.”


“I would not try that again young one,” the Asari told the Krogan. “These people seem very inclined to do violence, and do not appear as peaceful as many of the species that we have met in the galaxy.”


“I am Krogan,” Mavrak said as she stood up. “I do not listen to what soft squishy Asari have to say.”


“No, but they might want you to,” the teal colored Asari pointed at the armored figures that were now pointing weapons at Mavrak. “And I am not certain that you would win in combat.”


“Fine. I shall do as you say for now,” Mavrak replied. “But I shall have my own way in the future.”


“I am Amyxla Ditrili,” the Asari introduced herself. “I am a Matron and was negotiating for the release of some of my siblings from one of the Barons when I was taken and gifted to the pirates as a tribute.”


“I am Sura'Gaalas vas Vakor,” the Quarian replied. “We were negotiating for the salvage rights of several Quarian wrecks on Korlus when we were captured by bandits and sold to the pirates.”


“Then we should probably band together until this is over,” Amyxla told the Quarian. “I am uncertain what manner of species this is. While their ship appeared primitive, their armor is far superior to any I have seen in my lifetime.”


“And they have to be self contained too!” Sura said with excitement. “They don’t seem to be uncomfortable after having spent a day in the armor, and in fact seem to be communicating with each other as well via some sort of comms system. I wonder what made them develop this kind of armor or if this is their highest class of it?!” The Quarian began to speak rapidly as she gushed over the alien’s armor systems. “It’s heavy too, I heard the Asari twins saying that they could barely pick up the two of them with their biotics. And it doesn’t look like the aliens are adjusted to artificial gravity yet. Note that they keep engaging and disengaging magnetic boots of some kind every time they move. As if they’re used to using the magnetic locks to keep themselves anchored. And they’ve got tether loops too! We haven’t used those in generations! Since before we left Rannoch and became the Migrant fleet!”


“They certainly do appear physically impressive in the armor,” Amyxla cut the Quarian off mid-rant. “I wonder what they would look like without it on.”

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 4

“They got the translation software up and running properly,” Paige relayed the information. “They’ve got some sort of device called an Omnitool that works as a multipurpose computer similar to our slates. I’m sending one over that’s programmed to translate for you before you see what’s happening on the planet.”

“Copy that,” I replied to the transmission. “What’s the ETA?”

“Should be a couple of hours,” Paige replied. “We got lucky when the pirate ship got in close instead of keeping us at a distance.”

“We’ll take our time getting to the planet,” I said as I looked at the intel that had been relayed to me. “I don’t think we’ll much like what we’ll find down there if the information that you just gave me is correct.”

“Yessir, those ‘barons’ seem to be just like the pirate lords,” Paige spat. “If I weren’t babysitting the VIPs I’d ask to go down and clear them out with you.”

“We’re not taking any mechs down,” I said as I closed the file I had been reading on my slate. “It doesn’t seem like they have anything similar to it at all so we’ll stick to conventional warfare for now.”

“Keeping the aces up our sleeves?” Paige asked.

“That, and some of our mech pilots need some extra practice at being infantry again.”

“They complained about not getting to use their mechs didn’t they?” Paige asked.

“Yep,” I replied, popping the “p” sound. “Natasha is putting them through their paces right now, and we’ll be dropping them with the ODSTs should it come to it.”

“Did you get the chance to read the Codex thing that I sent over?” Paige changed the subject. “Because if the page on this system is correct than the planet down there has salvage options aplenty. And they’ve somehow cracked artificial gravity, that’s something that would help us out tremendously. Especially the spacers that we’ve got.”

“I’m going to have Dr. Rogers, and her team looking into everything once we have the chance to settle in,” I replied. “And once we get a feel for the planet we’ll decide if we can fix some of the apparent damage.”

“Alright, Mark,” Paige responded. “Have a nice trip, the planet’s still a couple of days away from the jump point.”

“I’m gonna spend it getting used to being young again,” I replied. “Myself and all of the older members of the Ducal Guard are having to adjust our fighting styles back to what they were when we were younger, and that sort of thing takes time.”

“Agreed,” Paige replied. “The old longevity treatments were helping, but my back doesn’t ache anymore, and that ACL that never quite healed properly is back to its old self as well.”

“All the things we got used to are different,” I replied. “It’s like anyone that was over forty got an age reversal treatment. You should see Winson and Hazen right now, it’s like they’ve been given an entirely new lease on life being in their twenties again.”

“I’m sure that they’re dominating in the ring right now along with Natasha,” Paige replied with a smile. “I’ll let you get back to it, sir. I’ve got a big lizard that keeps trying to pick fights with my Marines to talk to. Paige, out.”

The video call ended and I stood up to stretch. Before strapping myself back down and getting to work on a basic plan to deal with the world that we were about to be heading to. This ‘Korlus’ world needed a massive correction, and we would be the ones delivering it.






“When I said that I wanted to go on a life-changing adventure I didn’t really mean this,” Melissa pouted at me as her twenty year old self glared at me instead of her previous forty-year old self.

“If you thought that I expected this then you’re barking up the wrong tree Mel,” I replied. “And call me Mark, we’re functionally the same age right now and you’re a genius anyway.”

“Alright, I’m done complaining now,” Melissa said after composing herself again. “What did you need help with again?”

“We’re about twelve hours away from making orbit around the world called Korlus,” I replied as I sent over the documents to her slate. “I’ve made an analysis, but I want your input on the plan of action that I was thinking of taking.”

“Jesus Christ!” Melissa said as she read rapidly over the data we had compiled via the use of the Omnitool and the Codex that Paige had sent over. “First off, Aliens look really weird, this one has four eyes, that one is a blue woman, those lizard things.”

“Back on track, Mel,” I tapped Melissa on the shoulder. “I need your help on figuring out how to fix our problems first, and then on how to handle getting our people acclimated to aliens.”

“Well, it seems that the population is just shy of four million,” Melissa repeated what the report said and then glanced over to the defense section. “You want to drop some ODSTs and tanks on the orbital guns and then start cleaning up areas and terraforming don’t you?”

“We have Oppies,” I replied with a shrug. “If we can start making the place habitable then we can really start fixing things up down there. And all of the salvage can help us with the raw materials we’d need to get a colony fully functional. Not to mention that this “eezo” can probably be found on some of those downed ships, and we should be able to use it to adapt our current ships to use Artificial gravity among other things.”

“Well, it looks like just over half of the population is slaves, a quarter of them are those lizard creatures in scattered settlements around the planet, and then the rest of them are the wealthy people or the slave owners.”

“You’re better at predicting how this kind of thing will blow up,” I told Melissa bluntly. “What are the odds that we can actually make significant changes down there, or are we better off taking the pirate ship we just captured and finding somewhere else to put down roots?”

“This thing is going to go up like a powder keg, Mark,” Melissa replied as she raised a blond eyebrow. “I think that we should only maintain a military presence down there until we’ve managed to get rid of all of the elements that would try to get us off the planet. Split our people up, have our scientists probe the data we’ve got for a potentially livable planet or system within jump range but off of the beaten path and have our colonists settle there. Use the scrapheap as our “public” base of operations while hiding our colonists on another world.”

“Alright then,” I sighed. “I’ll have Kerlin Ward take over the leadership of the Colonists under the supervision of Dr.Rogers. I’ll need your help to get the political analysis on all of this right and to make sure we don’t run over the wrong set of toes.”

“Just make sure that the slave owners and the barons die,” Melissa looked me in the eye. “I’ll make sure that this doesn’t blow up in our faces on the political side.”

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 5


“This is Duke Hull of Kentares IV,” I said over the comms channels that we had figured out were being used by the aliens. “You will surrender your planet and all of the orbital guns to us. If you cooperate we will see to it that you are treated well provided that you have committed no crimes against sentient rights.”


“And why would we do that?” A bunch of strange sounds were translated by the Omnitool that I was currently using. “You are a primitive species. Not even worthy of being made slaves.”


“Do we know where that specific transmission came from?” I asked the comms officer.


“Yes sir,” the comms officer replied. “It’s in the orbital bombardment arc of the Redemption.”


“Warning shot with a Naval PPC, and then send in the drop troopers,” I ordered. “I want that baron to be silent within the hour.”


“Wilco sir,” the comms officer replied. “Colonel Carter is reporting force readiness and is preparing to drop.”


“Can you get me a direct line to her?”


“Aye sir,” the comms officer handed me an earpiece. “She should be able to hear you now.”


“Hey, Carter,” I said into the earpiece. “I don’t just want those guns ours, I want you to put on a show while you do it. I want to make us seem so scarily competent that they surrender rather than us having to deal with every single obstinate one of these pests.”


“How flashy do you want it, sir?” I could hear the grin in Carter’s voice.


“That’s up to you, Colonel,” I replied. “I just want them to know that they picked the wrong people to try and antagonize.”


“You heard the Duke!” I heard her yell over the earpiece at her unit. “I want us to crash their party so hard they wish they had invited us in the first place!”


“Yes Ma’am!” the Marksman replied. “We’re ready for the orbital drop now.”


“Then full send, let’s prepare to drop!”



“Have fun, Colonel,” I said with a chuckle. “Just try not to have too much fun.”


“No can do sir,” She laughed. “You just let us off of the leash and now you get to deal with the consequences.”


“Hey Jewel!” I yelled at the Admiral. “Is it too late for me to join the ground teams?”


“Yes!” She yelled back. “Just because you look young again doesn’t make you any less of a VIP!”


“But I thought I was going to be able to kick ass and take names again!” I yelled back with laughter in my voice.


“Nope, get in line for the trip down,” she snarked at me. “The rest of the unit gets to hot drop while you get to ride down in style sipping champagne and eating cheese the whole way down.”


“Bullshit,” I laughed. “We both know that the Sting isn’t made for comfort. It’s a damn fine gunship though.”


“Maybe you’ll get some action on the next site,” Jewel replied. “But for now you’re stuck up here with us spacers.”







“Now matter how many times I do this it never gets any less fun!” Carter yelled to her tank’s crew.


“You say that every time we drop from orbit!” One of her tank drivers yelled back. “I’m halfway convinced that you’re just an adrenaline junkie.”


“You might have hit the nail on the head with that one,” Carter shrugged. “Where exactly are you dropping us by the way?”


“You said you wanted to crash their party right?” The pilot grinned. “So I put us exactly where we needed to be in order to crash it.”


“What do you mean?” Carter asked as she tried to figure out where they were dropping.


“You’ll find out when we get there, Colonel,” the driver laughed. “Just trust me and enjoy the ride!”


–

–


“Yeehaw!” the tank driver yelled as the Von Luckner crashed through the ceiling of the baron’s gun complex right into the middle of the literal party that he had been putting on, crushing the food tables and sending rubble flying everywhere. “I told you we’d crash the party properly.”


“I don’t think Duke Hull meat it quite so literally,” Carter laughed. “But you do get points for the maximum effort.”


“Well, don’t just thank me,” the driver said as the infantry and more tanks started falling down from orbit around their position to surround the guns. “It takes some serious coordination to crash a party this well.”


“Fine, I’ll give you all a bonus once the paycheck hits,” Carter sighed before looking at the cameras linked to the outside of the tank.


“This is Colonel Carter of the Marksman,” she said through the rough translation program that she had available. “Surrender. You will comply or will kill you, burn the body and feed you to whatever passes for carrion on this world.” She nodded at the tank gunner and he moved the machine guns to point at the nearest armed personnel while the main gun pointed at what looked like the baron in charge of this cluster of guns. “He looks like an old style lyran general threw up on his outfit.”


“Looks like he pissed himself,” another crew member said. “There’s a wet spot in those pants and I don’t think white is supposed to stain right there from spilling whatever it is they drink here.”







“I take it things are going well?” Melissa asked me as we sat and looked at the reports that Carter and the Ducal Guard had submitted.


“Yes actually,” I replied as I glanced over the report that Nat had sent me. “We’ve got over half of the baron’s in line, and we’re going to start working on the rest tomorrow.”


“Seems like this set was more focused on extorting people for salvage rights and less on the slavery bit,” Melissa said as she looked at the records. “What’s the plan for them? I know we’re killing the slavers though.”


“We’re going to be putting them into work crews as we install the extra terraforming devices we brought with us,” I replied. “They’ll be paid whatever passes for a fair wage and will be assigned living quarters as we go along. I want them to directly see that they could have improved this mess all along.”


“That’ll have to wait until we get our own colonists put down somewhere safe,” Melissa said as she handed me another set of data points.


“Yeah,” I agreed. “Dr. Roger’s scientists think that there’s a decently habitable world within a one jump radius of us. They’re sending out the Secrecy and Snake to get a picture of their two most likely picks.”


“We’ll have to call all of the senior level people in for a meeting to decide on the right system if it comes down to two choices,” Melissa said as she drained a bulb of water. “The Colonists will want to feel like they’re a part of the decision making process and that’ll help out with all of the scattered emotions they’ll be feeling from being cooped up in the dropships in a strange place.”


“I know,” I replied. “But they’ll have to wait at least a week while the two spy ships make their inspection and return trip.”


“Let’s hope that there’s good options out there,” Melissa said after a moment of thought. “A resource rich planet would help us get started on building up some good defenses.”


“I was thinking about taking a page from Taurus’ playbook,” I said. “We’ve got the spare dropships once the colonists are offloaded, so why not drag asteroids into orbit and fit them with defenses. The two Elephants are perfect for it given that they’re tugs, and we can make some pretty large scale lasers and other arms using the machine shops on the Argo.”


“Something to plan for later,” Melissa said as she unstrapped herself from the table and began to float up. “Get some rest, Mark. You look like you haven’t slept in a couple of days.”


“I guess I am falling back into old habits,” I muttered to myself as I continued looking over the massive amount of data that I still had to go over. “Why’d Mary have to retire right when I need her most?”

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 6

“Hey Nat,” I spoke to my wife on a direct channel to the Maxim that she was currently riding in. “Are the Krogan and Vorcha listening to you?”

“I’ve had to beat it into a few skulls,” Nat replied. “But so far it’s been fairly successful. Once I explain that we’re going to leave them alone for the most part as long as they don’t take slaves or do other things that would cause us to go after them they’re content for the most part.”

“That’s good to hear,” I said with a smile. “Melissa and Carter are pacifying the rest of the baron’s now, and I’ve got Dr. Rogers and some of her team going over the pirate frigate with a fine toothed comb.”

“Good, I would love to be able to have artificial gravity on a dropship, it would enable more training and other things to be done while we are in transit,” Natasha replied. “I think the Sting would be more effective as well if they were able to ignore the G-Forces.”

“Agreed,” I replied. “We’re temporarily recruiting some of the slaves that the Pirates had on board to assist with the very basics of everything, that should hopefully give us a head start on figuring that out.”

“We’re coming up on the next settlement now,” Natasha said. “I’ll let you know how everything goes.”





“I’m grateful that we got the translation program running,” Seetor said to his fellow liberated slaves. “But we’ve spent so much time explaining how various systems work that you’d think we were dealing with a bunch of primitives.”

“We most likely are,” Amyxla stated. “They appear advanced in many ways, but the lack of Element Zero in their technology means that they simply adapted to a different way of life. I am quite certain that they may consider us barbaric in some ways as well.”

“Sura,” one of the strange sounds was translated. “Can you show me what this is specifically and how it works?”

“Of course,” the female Quarian stood up. “I can show you how the artificial gravity generators work.”

–
–

“Why does it do that though?” Dr. Adam Kelley asked the suited alien now identified as a Quarian. “I know that it does produce artificial gravity, but why, and more importantly how does it do it?”

“It reacts with the electric charge and manipulates the mass of objects,” the Quarian repeated the same thing that they had been stuck on for the last hour or so. “Why does it matter how it does it?”

“Because if we know why it produces that reaction, then we might be able to replicate the effects of it without needing this rare “element zero” which isn’t even a real element according to the very definition. And if we know how it produces the reaction then we can try to figure out ways to implement it into new ways of using our current technology.”

“I’ve never asked why or how,” the Quarian admitted. “I just needed to know the specifications of specific cores and if they would be compatible with certain ships. I’m not really sure if there are any current scientists apart from maybe the Salarians and Asari who would be doing that kind of research. There certainly aren’t any in the fleet that are dedicated to that kind of idea or problem solving. We’re too busy trying to survive.”

“If you’re not asking questions about the things you’re using then you’re no longer adapting,” Adam said after a moment of silence. “If you not only want your fleet to survive then you need to start asking the right questions. Being good with the tech that you have is all well and good, but it’s not enough to just be good. Knowing the right questions is the start of science and discovery, and also the nature of invention.”

“Okay,” Sura agreed. “Let me help you take it apart and we’ll try to figure out why and how artificial gravity works. Then we can do small pieces of the Eezo core until we’ve got a baseline.”

“Now you’re starting to think like a scientist and an engineer,” the human scientists patted the Quarian on the shoulder.

–
–

“I would like to speak to your leader,” Amyxla said to the ranking officer on the ship that they were still detained on. “I was in the middle of negotiating for the release of some of my sisters and would like to return to that if at all possible.”

“I’ll relay the message up the chain,” the armored alien folded its arms. “But I wouldn’t expect a response anytime soon.”

“And why is that?” Amyxla tried altering her body language to be more appealing to the alien but for some reason her senses kept on failing her. “Is there something going on that I should be aware of?”

“No, there isn’t,” the alien replied. “And whatever you’re trying to do you should stop it, it just makes you look as awkward as the lizard.”

“Just take off the helmet. Are we not allowed to see what our rescuers look like?” Amyxla tried once more.

“We have no idea how our immune systems will react to you,” the alien replied. “Until that is done under controlled circumstances you will not see a single one of us without a fully secured suit on.”

“I can make it worth your while,” Amyxla decided to try and seduce the alien. “I have many years of experience as a lover.”

“No means no,” the alien turned and placed her hand on her hip where some sort of massive sidearm was located. “Keep fucking around and you’ll find out just how seriously we take that around these parts.”





“You said the Blue alien tried to seduce you?” I asked Paige as she commed me to relay the question that the alien had asked.

“Yes, I think us not being in an unsealed environment is doing something to her physiology when she tries to speak with us,” Paige replied. “The Quarians and the Krogan almost seem to defer to her, and the pirates seem to find her extremely attractive for some reason.”

“And your marines?” I asked. “Are they affected?”

“Negative,” Paige shook her head. “A few think she’s as attractive as any woman with a ‘massive’ rack like that, but that’s been the extent of it. The small group of biologists we have observing them say that her body language changes depending on which alien she is addressing at that precise moment, almost altering the perception of any of them to think more highly of her while they are in her presence.”

“Can they identify whatever it is?” I asked. “Are there pheromones or something in the air?”

“Nothing they can identify, but they say that the rest of the aliens appear safe, and the younger looking of the blue aliens are safer to be around because it seems that they haven’t developed the ability sufficiently for it to be as much of a threat, but any of the older blue aliens should be treated as a possible mind control scenario until further notice.”

“Thanks for the update, Paige,” I replied. “Tell this Amyxla that once things settle down on Korlus she’s free to go. And you can tell the other aliens that as well.”

“I think we’ll have one of the Quarians stay behind,” Paige laughed. “She seems quite taken in by Dr. Kelley and his questions about how their technology works.”

“Good, we’ll need people who are familiar with how things work,” I said. “I’m tucking in for the night, Dr. Hale is fussing at me for overworking myself as it is.”

“Sleep well, sir, we’ll hold down the fort while you get some rest.”

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 7

“Finally some decent sleep,” I muttered as I woke up after having slept for around twelve hours or so and fumbled myself out of the floating hammock trying to reach the slate that was ringing because my alarm was going off, or someone was trying to reach me.

Seeing that it was my alarm, I was tempted to turn it off and roll over to get back to sleep but I knew that there was still work to be done and so I got dressed and made my way out of the quarters that I had been assigned while on the Manassas.

“Melissa, Victoria,” I greeted them both as I entered the mess hall for a cup of coffee. “I take it we haven’t had any issues while I was asleep?”

The two women just exchanged glances before sighing.

“There were… complications while you were out,” Melissa finally said after she had drained her cup of coffee.

“Alright, good news and bad news, lay it out,” I said as I strapped myself in across from the two of them.

“We had two more ships jump into the system,” Jewel said as she flipped open to the relevant report on her slate and sent it over to mine for me to peruse while they gave me a verbal debriefing. “One of which was a slave barge, and the other was the escort for said barge.”

“We managed to lure the escort into an area where we had the Redemption hiding and took them by surprise with some NPPCs before boarding with a group of Marines,” Melissa chimed in. “According to the way that they measure ships here it looks to be a cruiser, but it’s badly maintained and would need a serious overhaul before we would put it into any serious use.”

“How did they miss the Redemption when they could clearly see our Sting and jumpships from before?” I asked while eating my breakfast and drinking my coffee.

“It’s a known fact that K-F drives emit certain kinds of radiation that is easily detectable right before and immediately after a jump,” Jewel stated. “Apparently our ships are nigh invisible to their own unless we’re right on top of them if we haven’t jumped in a while.”

“That’s something we should keep track of though,” I said after thinking about it for a minute. “While it helps us out if we create a bunch of monitor class vessels it doesn’t help us out in the long term if we’re easily seen on sensors when we first jump into a system.”

“Once we figure out how to replicate some of their technology we can look into tactics and the strategic implications,” Jewel replied.

“As it is, I’m going to be joining the R&D teams once I’m done helping you iron out the plan for Korlus,” Melissa said. “I think Carter is done with all but one of the Barons, and the last word from the Ducal Guard was that there were only a couple of remote Krogan settlements holding out.”

“Alright,” I said as I stretched some of the remaining exhaustion away. “Let’s go finish up the plans for Korlus and our hidden colony,” I said to Melissa who was acting as my Aid-de-Camp or assistant for most of this kind of planning. “Then we need to establish when we’re going to unveil mechs, I’m leaning towards saving them for a significant strategic advantage, but I’m not exactly sure when that would be.”

“Industrialmechs should be fine,” Melissa said as we began to leave the mess hall. “Just strap some machine guns on them and make sure they look a bit ramshackle and they’ll think it’s just another ‘primitive’ design that we seem to be using. I’ve got Dr. Roger’s teams that are aboard the Argo working on some modifications to our Lumberjack’s aws. Given the amount of metal salvage down there, I’m sure that we’ll need all of the industrialmechs we can get working on hauling salvage.”

“That might work,” I replied as we entered the room that I was using as an office. “But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”





“This is great fun!” Natasha said as she and Nadia Winson entered yet another version of a Circle of Equals with one of the Krogan settlements that were on Korlus.

“You have challenged my brother and I for the right to rule over the settlement,” a rough series of sounds came through before it was translated. “We shall see if you are capable of standing before two true Krogan!”

The two Krogan hefted their melee weapons and glared at the two Mithril clad Ex-Clanners before throwing their weapons to the side and charging forward to fight in hand to hand.

“Which one do you want?” Natasha asked the de-aged Ghost Bear Khan as she ducked out of the way of a fist. “Because I’m good with fighting either of them.”

“I will take the bigger one,” Winson rolled her eyes at Natasha’s contractions. “But next time I believe we should challenge them to a game of either football or rugby, I believe that the rest of the Guard are feeling left out.”

“Sounds good to me,” Natasha said as she threw the slightly smaller Krogan over her shoulder with a roll of her hips and a shift in momentum. “Just remember to not break this one as badly as you did the last one.”

“I am young again,” Winson said as she broke the big Krogan’s knee with a well placed kick and flipped over the large lizard. “I am simply enjoying the fruit of my youth once again.” Winson then spun the Krogan around and knocked him unconscious with a precise knee strike. “If any of these brutes fought smarter I would have taken them in as a bondsman.” Winson muttered as she walked away from the Circle of Equals. “They would have made great warriors if they used their minds as well as they used their strength.”

“Agreed,” Natasha said as she finished toying with the slightly smaller Krogan before forcing him to yield. “One begins to wonder if they’ve lost faith in their own ability to adapt to things.”

“Hopefully we can begin to fix that,” Winson looked over the second to last settlement. “For the settlements here seem to be places where their hope comes to die. And I would like to see if I can bring back their warrior’s spirit and the pride of victory back to this species.”

“I’ll bring it up at the next meeting,” Natasha said to the Ducal Guard member. “I’m sure that if you can properly justify it that Mark will allow you to at least try.”

“I shall have to consult the proper data on this species,” Nadia Winson replied. “But I believe that it may be worthwhile to at least try.”

Author's Note: Couldn't sleep... So you lot get another chapter.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 8

“I am pleased that you chose to accompany me,” Amyxla told Seetor as she and the male Quarian boarded the shuttle headed for Korlus.”Our hosts were beginning to unnerve me.”

“They’re scary,” Seetor agreed. “I don’t know why Sura is so fascinated with how they’ve developed.”

“They did seem to be asking a lot of questions,” Amyxla said to the male. “Is there any way that I could learn some of those questions?” the Mataron asked as she tried to make herself appealing to the suited Quarian. “Over dinner somewhere perhaps?”


“Sssure,” Seetor stammered as he blushed at the very attractive Asari, seeming to throw herself at him. “I just have to make my report to the Fleet before I attend to personal business.”

“Come to dinner with me first,” Amyxla said with a seductive smile. “I’ll make it very worth your while.”

“I guess the report can wait for a few more hours,” Seetor said as he followed the Asari Matron to one of the few high end places on Korlus. “I’m not sure I can afford to eat here though.”

“This place is owned by a friend,” Amyxla smiled. “And they’re very good at catering to specific needs. I’ve arranged a clean room in the back for when we have finished our meal.”

–
–

“There’s definitely something up with those blue women,” Mathias said as he watched the Asari lead the shorter Quarian around by the nose. “She has a great rack, but there’s no way that I’d be trying to stick my dick in something like that.”

“Did you notice that Sura seemed to open up to us more once we began separating her from the other two?” Julia asked with an icy tone to her voice. “The Asari doesn’t even seem to be aware that she’s doing it unless it’s not working. It’s as if it’s on a subconscious level.”

“Look, she just altered her body language to start talking to that,” Mathias trailed off as he tried to figure out what the alien was called. “Turian, that’s it, notice that she stopped emphasizing her bust and hips to the Quarian and started showing off more of the top of her head to the Turian.”

“It’s not pheromones, and it doesn't seem to be anything that she’s doing on purpose,” the third member of their little trio of Marines said. “I’m not even sure how the Quarians were affected considering that they spend their lives in their own self-contained suits.”

“Dr. Hale and her staff are going to be going over the couple of dead ones that we got from the Cruiser,” Colonel Paige said as she descended the ramp. “Just keep your helmets on people, we’re doing our best to seem like we’re something similar to the Volus that we’ve been told about. If we can convince the aliens that we only live in our suits then we’ll have created another level of mystique in which to shroud ourselves in.”

“Are those the orders from the Powers that Be?” Mathias asked his CO.

“Affirmative,” Paige replied. “We’re going full send on the cloak and dagger for this op.”

“Wilco,” Julia replied, her jokes having stopped once she had started actually working. “Can I speak to you in private, Colonel?”

“Of course, Corporal,” Paige replied. “But can it wait until we’re back up in the void? I’m not comfortable in an unsecured area like this.”

“Aye ma’am,” Julia responded. “Korlus isn’t safe until we’ve gotten everything figured out here.”

–
–

“What did you want to speak to me about, Julia?” Paige asked once they were aboard the pirate frigate that she was temporarily in command of.

“I would like to request a transfer for more field intelligence training,” Julia told her CO. “I know that Duke Hull brought intel people and I would like to train with them. This new world/universe, whatever you want to call it, has a lot more ship on ship combat and I have a feeling that I’m going to be needed to assist with intel work while I’m a part of your marines ma’am.”

“I’ll sign the authorization,” Paige said as she looked at her marine. “But Dunham’s going to put you through your paces so don’t expect it to be easy,” Paige looked her marine in the eye. “And leave the perverted bullshit here, Dunham doesn’t put up with that kind of shit.”

“Aye ma’am,” Julia said as she stood up to leave the office. “Thank you for the opportunity.”

“Just don’t leave your teammates in the dark,” Paige told her subordinate. “Mathias is smart, he’ll catch on if you don’t tell them and you won’t live it down afterwards.”





“You’ve got control over all of the guns now?” I asked Carter over the comms.

“Yes sir, we own the skies now, and we can start moving to remove the rest of the slaver and murder bands whenever you’re ready to begin.”

“Now that we own the skies I want to have Stings start dropping infantry on top of them followed by providing CAS. I want the slavers dead before the end of the week.”



“What if they surrender?” Carter asked. “What do you want us to do with them then?”

“If they surrender before getting ripped apart then we’ll start putting them to work just like we are with the Barons,” I replied. “I’ll let you get back to it, Carter. Hull out.”

“Alright, now to get back to what to do with the captured ships,” Melissa looked at me. “The slave Barge we emptied out and paid for the slaves to be sent back to wherever they came from with the loot we took from the cruiser.”

“I want to use it as a supplemental grav-deck for now,” I replied. “We’re going to have to clean it up first, but it’ll give our people the chance to relax in 1g for a bit longer.”

“Have Dr. Kelley and the Quarian got any new information for me?” I asked. “I seem to have misplaced a file that I was looking over the other day.”

“You mean this file?” Melissa sent it over to my slate.

“Yep,” I replied as I opened the encrypted data. “This could be the solution to helping us rapidly terraform and make Korlus a decent front.”

“I agree with you,” Melissa sighed. “But we don’t know how large the technology scales, and we don’t know how it works yet.”

“In this case I’m perfectly willing to utilize it first, and figure out how and why it works while we’re using it.”

“If it can be scaled up to the level that you want to then we’ll make massive progress in a very short amount of time,” Melissa said as she looked over the data again. “But we’ve got to plan for the eventuality that it won’t work.”

“In which case we’ve already worked out the backup plans,” I replied to her. “Now we just have to see how things play out.”

“How are you so confident that your plans will work?” Melissa asked in frustration.

“I’m not,” I replied with a shrug and a smile. “But there’s only so much that I can actually accomplish before there’s nothing left for me to do but hope that everything works out. And if I appear confident that it will work, then the rest of the people who follow me will believe the same thing.”

“I guess,” Melissa agreed. “It just always seemed like you and Mom knew exactly how things were going to happen and moved in response.”

“If I knew everything that could have happened then Sapphire would be with us on this trip too,” I reminded Melissa. “But she’s not with us anymore so clearly I’m not as perfect as it seems.”

“I guess it’s just hard to reconcile the hero-worship that I had of you and mom and the reality of it all,” Melissa sighed. “You never stop learning this kind of thing. Do you, Uncle Mark?”

“Nope,” I replied with a shake of my head. “The day that you stop learning is the day that you die. And I thought I told you to call me Mark.”

“Slip of the tongue,” Melissa smiled sheepishly. “You made me feel like I was twelve all over again.”

“It’s a parenting thing,” I said with a smile. “One day you’ll understand.”

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 9


“What do you think they’re building?” Seetor asked Amyxla as they looked towards the area just outside of the dome complex that had been sectioned off.


“I have no idea,” Amyxla replied as she stood up. “But I have found my sisters and they are refusing to leave this goddess forsaken planet. But I have other obligations and so must be on my way. I experienced a pleasant time with you Seetor'Shaama vas Xuwa. Should the stars align I hope that our paths will cross again.” The Asari Matron walked towards the shuttle that would be taking her on a path back through Omega and back into Council held space.


“What a woman,” Seetor muttered to himself as he began walking towards the quarters that he had rented for himself and Sura prior to the whole captured slave ordeal. “Well, I think it’s time to head back to the fleet. Someone else can negotiate with these barbarians, but it won’t be me.”


–

–


“You intend on returning to the fleet?” Admiral Rael’Zorah asked.


“Yes, I believe that someone else would be better suited to negotiating for salvage with the new government that Korlus has,” Seetor replied. “I was captured to be sold as a slave here and feel that my place is in the fleet.”


“We understand,” Rael exchanged glances with the rest of the Admiralty board. “Is Sura to be remaining behind then?”


“She is enamored with the new species, and is planning on assisting them with understanding modern tech,” Seetor stated. “I believe that she would be a poor choice for negotiating in the future.”


“We shall confer and attempt to locate someone who would be capable of negotiating for more salvage. As it is, our current stores of spares are going to be lacking in the near future and we may have to rely on Sura to negotiate with these primitives.”


“It is not my place to make that sort of decision,” Seetor responded. “I would rather get back to my ship, the Xuwa and take my place as an engineer once again.”


“We’re sending a shuttle to pick up the salvage that you had previously negotiated for,” Zorah replied. “It will have your replacement on it and you can use it to return to the fleet.”







“This is interesting,” Dr. Hale said as she examined the body of one of the Asari they had taken from the cruiser. “If it were not for the fact that I know that this is an alien then I would have thought this was a human with a genetic mutation.”


“What do you mean Doctor?” One of her students and aids asked her.


“On a physical examination the body appears extremely close to a human’s physiologically,” Hale replied. “There are two breasts, they are not only shaped similarly to other mammals, but are nearly identical in appearance to human’s, they have a vaginal cavity that looks remarkably like a humans, and they even possess many of the nerve endings there that a human female would possess. It’s when you begin to look underneath the surface that things become unusual.”


“Unusual how?” A nurse asked.


“Well, the genetic code has an eighty percent match for the human genome, and the brains are similar as well. But it’s clear that they possess abilities and strange growths that we do not,” Hale indicated the growths in the brain that they had not identified yet. “I believe that this one,” She tapped the location of one of the growths. “Is the one responsible for those strange powers they possess, these ‘biotics’ as they are called. I have not identified what the latter one is for, but it is clearly larger in the older Asari than it is in the younger.”


“I see what you mean,” the other experienced doctor said as he peered at the picture of the two side by side. “What seems miniscule might have a greater impact on their abilities once they have achieved maturity.”


“These two are samples of what is called the ‘Maiden’ stage of their lives,” Hale replied. “We have yet to examine a Matron or a Matriarch, but once we are able to I believe we shall be able to identify some more differences.”


“Until then, we are to remain on the mind control protocols,” the other doctor replied. “No one is to be outside of a suit of Mithril until we are able to figure out what is causing the attraction in other species.”


“Agreed,” Hale replied. “While we might be safe around the younger members of the species it is better to be safe than to be compromised in this case.”


“In other words,” A voice came through the comms systems. “Keep your hands and body to yourself when around the Aliens. If you are compromised we will have to quarantine you until we can be absolutely sure that you are safe to be around.”








“When will the Omni forges be finished?” I asked Dr. Rogers.


“We’ve made solid progress due to the help that Sura has provided,” Rogers replied. “We got lucky in that the technology does scale up to the size we needed. Although Sura is convinced that it shouldn’t have worked because ‘no one has tried before’.”


“It seems like they’re stuck in a rut technologically,” I replied. “We can’t afford to fall into the same trap though.”


“We’ve made significant inroads towards artificial gravity though,” Rogers said after going through her reports. “Dr. Kelley reports that he believes that we should have fully working artificial gravity generators in six months, and the first prototypes will be in three months or so.”


“And the inertial dampers?” I asked. “That should follow the artificial gravity, correct?”


“Yes, and we think that we’ll be able to miniaturize it enough to put it on our ASF, thus increasing their capacity for movement far beyond what they’re capable of currently.”


What about mating these eezo cores to our ships?” I asked.


“We don’t think it’s a good idea currently,” Rogers shook her head. “We’ve got enough on our plate right now and we don’t know how one of said cores will react with a K-F drive.”


“Alright,” I nodded my head. “I need you to figure out who is going with the colonists to settle on Veil.”


“We’re going to be rotating through,” Rogers stated. “We’ve got enough of us that the break will be welcomed by most of us. We’re only going to have a few permanent members who remain behind in this system. Just like the rest of your troops I believe.”


“I’m going to be staying here with the Manassas, some members of the Ducal Guard, and the Marksman,” I replied. “Until we’ve fully established this as our facade then we’re going to have to maintain a solid presence here.”


“You planning on letting Winson try her plan?” Rogers asked.


“Yes,” I replied. “If it works then we’ll conduct them into the policing and militia forces down on Korlus, and it’ll help us free up some of our own troops.”


“And this Genophage?” Rogers asked. “What are your plans on that?”


“I want to see if we can fix the mentality and culture of the ones down on Korlus first,” I replied. “And if we can’t fix the Genophage by then I may introduce Iron Wombs technology to them, but we’ll have to see if Winson’s plan works first.”

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 10

"So, you developed fusion reactors that do not rely on Helium-3?" Sura asked. "What do you use instead?"

"We managed to crack Protium reactors nearly a thousand years ago and haven't looked back since," Dr. Kelley replied as they worked on the installation of the 400 rated fusion engine that would be the power source for the omniforge that they had just finished the construction on. "We even use it in our tanks among other things if we can afford it."

"I believe our vehicles run off of a similar principle," Sura stated. "But ours use the lower mass to try and boost speed and the power generated to power kinetic barriers over whatever armor the tank or vehicle possesses. Are your fusion powered ground vehicles faster?"

"It depends on the tank oddly enough," Dr. Kelley laughed. "We have some that are lightning fast, and some that are much slower," He checked the readings on the fusion engine as they slowly powered it on in stages and monitored the power requirements. "We have fusion engines that are rated for a multitude of things, similar to the way that you described different eezo cores. And they produce different speeds or velocities depending on the vehicle that they are installed in."

"Do any of your work VIs possess such a fusion engine?" Sura asked as she pointed at the modified Lumberjack in the distance as it cut apart a starship and assisted a Jabberwocky in loading it up onto a flatbed for hauling.

"Actually, those are driven by pilots," Dr. Kelley stated as he brought the 400 engine fully online. "And it depends on the manufacturer and what level of technology the world they would be selling it to might possess. For instance, the mech over there with the excellent hands and other things for dragging salvage is called a Jabberwocky, it possesses a fusion engine, and is more valuable than the one next to it that is cutting the starship apart. That Lumberjack is run by an internal combustion engine that is much simpler to work on and can be maintained by a planet that might have regressed technologically."

"Interesting," Sura said in response. "Is all of your technology constructed with this in mind?"

"It depends on the budget for the most part," Dr. Kelley replied. "A poorer world may only be able to afford an ICE engine, whereas a richer world might go with something that is powered by a FE. Or the reverse may be true for any number of reasons. The mechs that you see being used now have been in operation for centuries and have been used by generations of people."

"Similarly to our ships," Sura realized. "Only you do the same thing with equipment that we do with ships."

"Ours is more of a design choice though," Dr. Kelley replied. "We chose to build things to last so that they may be of continued use to the future generations. I'm afraid that your Migrant Fleet isn't left with that option."

"Sadly, yes," Sura replied. "Many of our ships are falling apart and have been in service for centuries past when they should have been scuttled. A place where we could get a complete overhaul would be a miracle but I'm not certain that it will happen at all."

"Korlus is open to business from everyone," Dr. Kelley said with a grin. "While official alliances may be out of the cards, I do not believe that any yards we have in the future would deny business from a fleet that needed a good overhaul."

"I swear you're worse than the Volus sometimes," Sura elbowed the man in his armored ribs and winced. "All of you are looking at how best to profit from all of this."

"Science is driven by two things, my dear apprentice," Dr. Kelley laughed. "War, and business, and when one falls behind, the other one takes up the slack. If you want your discoveries to be funded by someone with fat checkbooks then you'll find a way to profit out of it." Dr. Kelley then turned and walked out of the omniforge's central room and began to run it through the first test cycle. "Remember that, and you'll be set in funds for the rest of your life."


"I'm seeing some quality issues with the first batches," Sura reported, changing the subject as she looked over the report with her omnitool.

"Well within the predicted margins," Kelley replied. "This is the first test anyway, and we can further refine it as necessary.



“How is everything going on Veil?” I asked Melissa over the HPG. “I know that Ward is a good leader, but I was worried some of his Clan tendencies would manifest while he was in charge.”

“We’re solid here,” Melissa replied. “It’s a bit warmer than I’d like, but I’m from Tharkad so I’m not sure I get to complain.”

“Any natural resource deposits found yet?” I asked. “Anything that would allow us to be able to manufacture more of our gear would be nice.”

“The asteroid belt has some nice looking rocks from the few spacers that we’ve got with us, they’re using the Elephants to push them up into orbit so we can mine them easier. “We haven’t had time to survey the rest of the planet yet though, so I can’t give a full report yet.”

“That's fine, just send a report if you do happen to find anything,” I replied. “Have a good night Melissa, Hull out.”

“Things are going too well,” I muttered to myself as I glanced down at my slate. “We’re about to get hammered by something, I just know it.”

I began looking through my files to see if there were any local governments that we had pissed off aside from the ones on Korlus.

“Shit,” I said to myself as I facepalmed. “That Baron was linked to a Turian Arms dealer. We may have a shitstorm coming down on us because we just killed his main middleman.”

“There might be some retaliation from this “Shadow Broker” as well,” Natasha said as she walked into our quarters. “We have killed every single one of their agents since they tried approaching some of our people.”

“We’ll eventually lose someone to them,” I replied. “Most of our people are trustworthy, but there are well over twelve thousand of us, someone will betray us eventually, it’s only a matter of time.”

“Then we continue to plug leaks here for now,” Natasha said with a shrug. “Now stop worrying and come to bed, you’ve been working for too long today.”

–
–

Natasha and I woke up to sirens going off and flashing lights in our quarters.

“All hands report to your battle stations, this is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill.”

Author's note: Went back and revised the discussion between Sura and Dr. Kelley. It should work quite a bit better now.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 11

"Where do you need me?" I asked Admiral Victoria Jewel as soon as I reached the bridge.

"On standby," she replied as she glanced at me. "The Redemption and Defender were sent to defend Veil so it's up to us to take out the two cruisers that just jumped in."

I looked at the tactical map and saw that the two Cruisers were flanked by a trio of frigates.

"Just how invisible are we to them?" I asked as I looked at the frigates and the cruisers. "You said that you managed to test it?"

"Unless someone is looking out of a viewport we might as well not exist unless we just jumped into the system," she replied. "What do you have in mind?"

"Have our escorts swing around to target the frigates, overload their kinetic barriers and Guardian system with LRMs and autocannon before shutting them down with our PPCs. Cut off their communications and let the cruisers wonder what happened to their escorts as we vent the ships."

"Ma'am! Cruisers are launching shuttles, and they're headed right for Korlus!" The sensor officer reported.

"Carter will have to deal with them," Jewel replied. "We've got bigger issues right now."

–
–

"Alright people," Paige told the temporary crew of the cruiser that they had captured previously. "We've got five more enemy ships to take on and we were chosen to play bait. So we're going to lead the cruisers on a merry chase while the rest of our marines and sailors try to disable or take over the frigates while we keep those cruisers busy."

"How do they expect us to take on two cruisers ma'am?" Mathias asked. "We're still rookies at flying this kinda boat."

"We don't know the full limits of this technology yet," Paige's eyes sparkled with mirth. "So we're going to do things that we might have considered impossible and do our best to do what Marines do in the process," Paige began to look at her marines that were in various stations on the alien ship's bridge. "Make sure that you're vacuum sealed, because we're more than likely going to break this ship apart while we take on the other two."





"Where is the female?!" A massive Krogan charged the fireteam of heavily armed and armored troops as they held off the Vorcha that he had brought with him. "We have come to take the fertile one back to Tuchanka where she belongs!"

He was answered by an anti-material round entering his skull and exiting out of the other end leaving a blood trail. "Don't trash talk when in combat," a man muttered as he peered through his riflescope. "Ringleader's down, the cannon fodder should be easier to deal with now, boss."

"Glad to hear it!" the sound of gunfire echoed in the background of her reply. "Still kinda busy on our end, but only a handful of shuttles made it down."

"Boss, the big one down here was screaming something about them trying to reclaim a female and take her back to their homeworld. But my translation systems could have been off too."

"I'll have our intel people go over it when we're done here," the sniper's CO responded. "We're going to try and take some prisoners and try narco-interrogation on them after we've taken them all down."

"Copy that, my position should be clear, I don't think anyone saw the shot," the sniper replied. "I can remain on overwatch for the fireteams over here, or me and my spotter can transition to cover you."

"Stay where you are, we've got things handled here."

"Roger that, settling in."
–
–

"We are losing the ground fight!" Garm threw his fellow Krogan into the bulkhead of the cruiser that he commanded for this battle. "Follow that ship! I want the enemy broken and laying at my feet!" the Blood Pack Commander ordered his two ships as they continued to follow the lone pirate cruiser.

"Garm, our frigate escorts stopped responding, and they're drifting in space as if they just lost power!"

"That does not concern me," Garm shook his head. "I believe our prize is on that cruiser, and so we shall get close and board it. Fire our guns and disable that ship!"

The cruiser shook slightly as a round left the spinal gun. The round left the chamber at a fraction of the speed or light and barely kissed the pirate cruiser as it began a slingshot run around the gas giant. "First round missed, reacquiring target for when it swings back around."

With assistance from the built in VI the paired Blood Pack cruisers fired one after the other, impacting on the enemy vessel and causing the kinetic barriers to activate and then die as they were overwhelmed by the destruction visited on the small area of the ship.

"Enemy ship is drifting," one of the Krogan manning a bridge position reported.

"Bring us alongside," Garm ordered. "We're going to board this ship and take back the fertile one!"

—
—

"It was a good run, people," Paige commended her bridge crew. "What systems are still intact?"

"Spinal gun is still charged," the marine manning the weapons console reported. "But the capacitors are losing charge at a rate of two percent per five minutes."

"Are we facing the enemy?" Paige asked with a savage grin concealed by her helmet.

"Aye ma'am, and one of them will be passing across our line of sight, or close enough to it by the time they reach knife fighting range."

"Do we have any thrusters working?" Paige asked.

"Yes ma'am, our port thrusters are still functional, but it's only the directional ones that work."

"Good," Paige stated. "When they get close we'll hit the one ship with a point blank round and prepare to repel boarders. If they wanted us dead they'd have already opened fire."



Author’s Note: a bit short, but the cliffhanger just felt right. Even if it is a bit mean.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 12

“Once that door opens I want them dead and gone,” Paige ordered her marines. “Mathias, how are things looking on your end?”

“We’re about to move into the cruiser on our end,” Mathias reported with a chuckle evident in his voice. “We’ve got a flamer set up and I’m just waiting for them to try boarding.”

“Copy that,” Paige responded. “We’re set for when they board, and the Manassas and her escorts are about to use their PPCs to shut down their power, and they’re sending over some more of my Marines to make some new entry holes if we need the reinforcements.”

“Copy that ma’am,” Mathias replied. “I’ll handle this side.”

“Oorah marine!” Paige said as she shouldered her infantry scale gauss rifle.

–
–

The airlock in front of Mathias opened and a trio of Vorcha bolted through the door before being cut down by the two fireteams that were holding the choke point the few rounds that connected bouncing off the Mithril clad Marines as they prepared for counter-boarding actions.

“Flamer is ready for action,” Mathias said as he stood up with the 150 kg flamer on his back.

“Set,” a trio of Marines stacked up on the airlock doors and unleashed a hellish crossfire into the Krogan and Vorcha that were still trying to breach and get into the Marine’s own ship.

“Moving,” Mathias stepped forward and out of cover as one Krogan tanked a rifle round and began charging the marine. A stream of fire then left the flamer and the Krogan screamed as he dropped to the ground and tried to roll and put it out. The airlock then took on a hellish glow as Mathias and his two fireteams began moving past the flaming corpses and pushed into the enemy cruiser. “I want Fireteam Charlie to head to the engine room and keep it secure,” Mathias ordered as he stripped the flamer off of his back now that it was out of fuel. “I’ll take fireteam Bravo and take the bridge.”

–
–

“I should have taken the flamer,” Paige muttered to herself as she hosed down a Krogan with her rifle and watched as some of the holes began sealing up before she blew his brains out. “We need to start moving up,” Paige told her two fireteams.

“You will not stand in my way!” a much larger Krogan than the other ones they had been killing burst through and threw two of Paige’s Marines into the bulkhead before turning and facing the Marine CO. “Where is the female?!” the Krogan roared as he charged Paige, taking rounds from her rifle without flinching. Trusting his enhanced regeneration to keep him alive while he tried to kill the foes standing before him.

“What do they feed you?” Paige asked as she slapped a new magazine into her rifle and continued firing, her rifle kicking back into her shoulder as she backpedaled before ducking out of the way as the Krogan tried to lunge and tackle her.

Spinning around, Paige threw her shoulder into the back of the massive Krogan before shooting out his kneecaps at the same time, temporarily crippling him before kicking him into the bulkhead and watching as he turned around while trying to stand, only to be faced by the barrel of Paige’s rifle pointed at his head.

“Regenerate this,” Paige muttered as she fired her entire magazine into the massive Krogan’s head before turning and looking at her two fireteams who were finishing off the rest of the enemy boarders. “We secure?”

“Aye ma’am,” one of the two marines that the large Krogan had thrown into the bulkhead replied. “I’m gonna have to stay here though, I think I’ve got a concussion.”

“Doc!” Paige called for their corpsman. “Pick two people to stay and cover you while you treat these two,” she indicated the two that had been physically thrown into the bulkheads. “The rest of us are pushing through and taking the enemy ship.”

–
–

Mathias turned and drilled a Vorcha in the chest with a burst from his rifle as his fireteam turned and shredded the rest of the Vorcha’s teammates.

“This is Manassas actual, we have boarding craft inbound with reinforcements,” came over the encrypted comms channels that they were on. “Signal with your beacons and we’ll direct them your way.”

“This is Colonel Paige,” came the Colonel’s response. “I’ve got two wounded, and a bunch of pissed off Krogan and Vorcha trying to prevent us from taking this ship,” a burst of gunfire was heard over the comms. “We’ve secured engineering, but we don’t have the personnel to take the bridge from here.”

“Copy that Colonel,” the voice of Major Jenkins responded. “We’re bringing the heat in.”

“We’ve got our engineering area locked down,” Mathias reported to his XO and CO. “We’re pushing the bridge now. I think this was a secondary ship because we’re not encountering the same level of resistance that the Colonel is.”

“We’re diverting a couple of fireteams to you anyway,” Major Jenkins responded. “The frigates were fairly easy to take over and we’d rather not take any major losses.”

“Copy that sir,” Mathias replied. “I’m sending a pair of my people to the secondary airlock with a beacon while we move to take the bridge.”

Mathias turned and gestured to two of his fireteam members and sent them down the hallway to the secondary airlock.

“Watch your corners,” Mathias muttered to himself and his teammates as he took the remaining three members of his fireteam and began scanning for hostiles on his way to the bridge. “The power is starting to come back on and while the Krogan might charge us, the Vorcha are more likely to be hiding in the corner for an ambush.”

“Wilco,” came the reply as they moved at a decent pace to the locked bridge door. “Chris, get up here and breach this door,” Mathias ordered. “Then prep flashbangs.”

The named breacher came and planted his shaped charges at the weak points on the door and stood clear with a detonator in his hand. “Fire in the hole!” Chris yelled as he detonated the charges while Mathias and the other three marines tossed flashbangs into the room before moving in and killing the Vorcha and Krogan will they were still blind and deaf.

“Clear!” Mathias said as he checked his sector and turned to watch the bridge door as the rest of his team declared the space clear as well.

“Alright people, I want those bodies policed and then let’s get the power back on. Our reinforcements can take care of mopping up what’s left of the enemy here.”

–
–

“Fuck!” Paige yelled as she dropped back behind one of the barricades that they had taken from the enemy. “They’re using grenades to try and breach into engineering now that we own it!”

Shrapnel pinged off of her armor as the grenade exploded, the armor of one of the dead Krogan and Vorcha bodies turning into ceramic shards as the grenades kept coming in.

“Colonel,” Major Jenkin’s voice said calmly over the comms “You might want to take cover.”

“Get ready!”Paige ordered the two fireteams with her. “And watch your fire! We got blue incoming!”

The sound of handheld gauss weaponry instead of the propellant based weapons began to echo in the corridor outside of the engineering hallway as the enemies that had pinned Paige and her fireteams began to turn so they could engage the reinforcements that had just arrived.

“Alright, let’s push!” Paige ordered as she led her teams into the corridor, the remaining crew members of the Blood Pack cruiser fighting ferociously as they went down, but eventually falling to the volume of fire that the armored marines brought to bear.

“I had a fireteam secure the bridge while we came to bail you out,” Jenkins reported to his CO. “Intel from the few captured on the ground by Carter puts the leader of this op on the cruiser that you picked to board.”

“It was probably that big motherfucker who refused to go down until I emptied my mag into his head,” Paige said as she took a moment to breathe. “Let’s get this finished.”

“Aye ma’am,” Jenkins responded. “Cleanup should be all that’s left.”

“And we have two new cruisers and some frigates that are in,” Paige trailed off as she looked at the damage left behind. “Somewhat better shape then the one we took from the pirates.”

“We’ll have the engineers and people on the Argo take a look at it,” Jenkins said with a chuckle. “I’m sure we’ll have them up and running fairly soon.”

“The big problem is going to be crewing everything,” Paige muttered to her XO as she made her way to the bridge. “We’re going to have to get the pet projects finished down there on Korlus and start recruitment soon. Otherwise we’re going to be stuck without a full defense force up here.”

“That’s a problem for Hull to figure out, Ma’am,” Jenkins told his CO as she sat in the captain’s chair. “We just have to get it moving to where we can work on it.”

“I need a vacation,” Paige said as she unsealed her helmet and took in the smell of violence that littered the cruiser. “This entire ordeal has been a pain in the ass.”

“I’ll hold down the fort if you put in for one, ma’am,” Jenkins replied. “We all know how to do our jobs.”

“You’re marines,” Paige gave her XO a Look™. “If I leave you alone for more than five minutes you’re going to try and either eat it or blow it up.”

“I haven’t blown anything up in a while,” one marine within earshot protested. “It’s been at least five years.”

Then one of the panels on the bridge started smoking as a marine was using it before sparking and dying.

“Oops,” the Marine said sheepishly as he looked anywhere but his CO. “Turns out they had a lot of porn on this terminal, and not all of it was of aliens either.”

“Like they’d have porn made off of a human,” one marine scoffed at his teammate.

“I swear!” The marine replied. “She was hot too! Her legs went on for days and her rack wasn’t bad either.”

“Heads out of the gutter,” Paige slapped her marines on the back of their helmeted heads. “We’ve still got work to do.”

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 13

"So, care to tell me why we're stripping the Mass Effect core out of this cruiser?" Sura asked as she helped Dr. Kelley go through the proper removal procedures.

"We're going to be transitioning this drive and the kinetic barriers over to one of the smaller escort craft that we have for experimental purposes," Dr. Kelley replied as he looked at what Sura was doing.

"Why would you do that?" Sura looked at the human scientist as she stopped the work she was doing. "This is a core that's already tuned to this cruiser," she looked around at the damage that had been done to the pirate ship in the battle with the Blood Pack. "It would only take some minor work and you would have the cruiser functioning again."

"We're stripping this cruiser for what few parts it has in commonality with the Blood pack Cruisers that we have taken possession of," Dr. Kelley replied as he turned to supervise some engineers in the removal of a panel. "We've currently got a bunch of Marines out in the void pulling the kinetic barrier emitters for further experimentation."

"It's a waste of a perfectly good ship!" Sura nearly yelled at the scientist before catching herself. "The Migrant Fleet would be willing to pay for this ship, and you wouldn't even have to fix it! We'd do that by ourselves."

"I will bring that up to Dr. Rogers," Kelley said as he pulled back for a minute. "But I doubt that it would be effective. We have the cargo space in one of our escorts to mount this and we need to test things, we need to see what happens when one of our reactors is powering the eezo core and the barriers. If they are stronger then that is something we need to know now, if they are weaker than we need to know soon. The universe is fraught with danger, and we must be able to confront it."

"Then why not break down one of the frigates?" Sura asked. "Would that not be just as effective and less likely to harm your own escort?"

"Potentially," Dr. Kelley agreed. "But we are experimenting with the larger core because we suspect that if we can tune it properly to one of our Stings that it will become a viable threat to any enemy vessels that we might face."

"Give me some time to think about this," Sura said as she stopped working on the core entirely. I do not see the point in doing this. You are wasting a ship that could be used for something else."

–
–

"She's making valid arguments against us stripping the cruiser," Dr. Kelley told Dr. Rogers over the long range comms. "But I don't think she's seen the extent of the damage that the cruiser had while the pirates were using it, or how damaged it was during the battle."

"Then show her," Dr. Rogers said after a couple of minutes delay. "Given her assistance so far Duke Hull is inclined to start bringing her into the fold. Start with the small things, and we'll start showing her the important bits when we trade out for R&R with the scientists on Veil."

"I'll do my best, Dr. Rogers," Kelley replied. "There's a lot to unpack though."

"Just keep at it," Rogers replied. "I've roped the Duke into helping out with the computers on the Blood Pack cruiser that Paige's Marines nearly deep fried while Rook is working on the other."






"The damage sustained to the outside of the cruiser and the thrusters isn't something that we can repair without the right knowledge and a dry dock," Kelley explained as he steered the small craft around the pirate cruiser. "We don't have the capability as of yet to build or repair that sort of damage."

"I did not realize the damage was so great," Sura said as she looked at the cruiser. "Even the Fleet would have had to skuttle this ship."

"It was a pirate ship," Dr. Kelley stated. "It was not in the best of condition to begin with, and it's not as useful to us whole as it is separated into pieces for further study and experimentation. We also have to consider the repairs of the other two cruisers and of the frigates that we have captured. By stripping this cruiser of useful parts we'll be able to affect repairs and work on testing the combining of your tech and ours."

"I want to trade," Sura said as she looked at the damaged cruiser. "If I help you get this working on your escort then I want one of those protium reactors to send back to the Fleet," She looked at the doctor that was wearing powered armor. "I don't want to know how to build them from scratch, I just want one for our engineers to be able to examine."

"I'll arrange for you to have a meeting with Duke Hull," Dr. Kelley said as he began piloting the small craft back towards the small hanger of the damaged cruiser. "That kind of decision is not up to me."






"Just so we're clear," I glared at Dr. Rogers as she smirked at me. "I haven't done any work with computers in about fifteen years."

"Just see if there's any more usable data on the terminal, please," Dr. Rogers told me as I began navigating through the somewhat familiar OS of the terminal. "You know that Rook and the rest of our specialists are busy going over the terminal that Paige's Marine fried for that data he claimed had a human on it."

"Fine," I said as I began clearing out some of the junk that I found on the terminal. "But I don't enjoy doing this kind of work anymore."

"Duke Hull," came over my comms system. "This is Dr. Kelley, I have a Quarian here who needs to meet with you."

"Send her over to the bridge of this cruiser," I replied. "I'm gonna be here awhile."

—
—

"Dammit!" I swore as I accidentally canceled the download that I had been conducting. "It's like Microsoft and Apple had a baby and it said 'fuck the user'," I muttered as I restarted the process.

"Maybe I can be of assistance?" A female voice asked from the entrance of the bridge.

I glanced over and saw the red-suited Quarian standing there.

"Nah," I waved her help off. "I'll have to work with these systems sooner or later so I might as well figure it out myself," I finished the download before turning to get a proper look at the alien woman.

She was a minimalist. That's what her suit said. With the only piece of decoration on the rust-red suit being a hood that resembled a kekkiyeh stitched with silver thread to supplement the red and black pattern on the keffiyeh.

"I'm Mark," I held out my hand for her to shake. "You looking for someone in particular or do you just enjoy helping us out?"


"I'm Sura'Gaalas Vas Vakor and I was told that a Duke Hull was present," the Quarian replied, her voice coming through a touch delayed through my translator. "I wish to negotiate with him but I can't seem to locate him."

"I'll help you try to find him," I said with a smile hidden by my helmet. "But while we look, could you tell me a bit about yourself and the negotiations you want to try?" I asked. "I could help you get your arguments figured out and maybe help with some counterpoints to any issue the Duke might have."

"That would be nice," the Quarian sighed. "I've never had to be the lead on a negotiation before and I'm worried I'll do it wrong," she wrung her hands before shifting her keffiyeh to hide the lower part of her tinted visor. "I don't even know what he looks like or which of the suits he'll be wearing."

"I think you'll be fine, Sura," I replied as we left the bridge and that bastard of an operating system behind. "In fact, let's take our time. I think the Duke will be back on the bridge by the time we make it back here."

—
—
"Where's Mark?" Dr. Rogers asked as she entered the bridge and saw a slate resting on one of the terminals. "That son of a bitch," she muttered. "How'd he manage to get out of this?" She asked before opening a direct comms channel to the Manassas. "Victoria, Natasha, I'm afraid Mark somehow skipped out of his forced break. And I have no idea where he is."

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 14


“Where do you want these ma’am?” A Batarian asked Nadia Winson as he carried a stack of crates into the room.


“Just in the corner over there,” Nadia told the alien. “The payment for the deliveries should be deposited soon.”


“As long as I get my credits I’m good ma’am,” the Batarian replied. “What do you need with a bunch of textbooks though? If you don’t mind me asking, that is.”


“A good warrior needs three things,” Nadia Winson said as she began to open the crates and pull out actual paper books written in the Krogan language. “A strong mind is the first foundation that must be laid. For if a warrior is unable to think and know when and how to fight then they have already lost,” Winson began to pile up the books at each desk while further explaining things to the Batarian who stood there in awe of the de-aged Ghost Bear Khan. “The second thing that is needed is a strong body, for if you are not able to physically keep up with the demands of this life then you are a liability.”


“And what is the third thing that is needed?” The Batarian asked as he leaned forward to take in Nadia’s words.


“They need a purpose,” Nadia said as she began to walk towards the prefab’s door. “For without one a warrior is as the grains of sand scattered on the wind,” Nadia opened the door and watched as the multiple large groups of Krogan played Rugby out in the open space that had only a week ago been a wrecked starship. “And I intend to give them the means to find that purpose.”


The Batarian just stood there for a couple of minutes, gaping at the charismatic words of the woman who had once been a member of Clan Wolf and then rose to be a Khan of another Clan entirely. “Is your group hiring by any chance?” The alien asked as he looked out at the Krogan who weren’t trying to kill each other but were instead engaged in a game that actually looked organized. “Anyone that can do something like this,” he gestured towards the games being played. “I want in, and I know a lot of other people who are just as sick of the status quo as I am.”


“I am Nadia Winson of Duke Hull’s personal guard,” Nadia Winson introduced herself. “We are going to be forming a local militia, and are going to be in need of good officers,” she looked at the lithe form of the alien. “Prove yourself, and you will end up in a place to change things for the better.”


“Expect me to sign up as soon as you begin,” the Batarian replied as he began to leave the massive facility.






“What did the Duke say?” Dr. Kelley asked as his Quarian friend entered the room that held the eezo core.


“I think that we settled on something decent,” Sura said as she sat down on the lone stool in the core. “But I have to confirm things with the Admiralty Board before it can be approved.”


“Well, in the meantime would you like to help me with this?” Dr. Kelley asked. “I think my calculations are right, but I’d rather be certain that they’re right then make a mistake that costs lives.”


“Sure,” Sura said as she walked over to look at the slate that Dr. Kelley passed her. “I’ll have to translate it first though.”


“Take your time,” Dr. Kelley smiled underneath his Mithril. “I’m in no rush to blow anything up. “


–

–


“I think it should work,” Sura said as Dr. Kelley and a group of engineers shut down the eezo core and began to float up as the artificial gravity shut down. “This part is easy though, it’s the installation and tuning to a new ship’s mass that’s the hard part.”


“Mass calculations are probably one of our specialties,” Dr. Rogers said in response. “But we’re going to be handling everything with care anyway.”







“You do not wish to learn?” Nadia Winson asked a Krogan that stood up from the desk and challenged the teacher that had been assigned to the Krogan.


“No, this schooling is useless. I shall never need any of this math that you are teaching me!” the Krogan stated firmly, staring into Nadia’s helmet.


“Follow me,” Nadia instructed the Krogan that was raging against the order that they were trying to impose on them. “All of you,” She gestured to the rest of the class.


“This is why math is important,” Nadia pulled the sheet off of an artillery gun. “I know how to use this to hit a target that is over fifteen kilometers away when I am given the correct coordinates,” Nadia looked at the class of adult Krogan. “While modern strategy makes use of frigates for long range support, there is nothing that beats artillery as the king of the battlefield.”


“Technology will fail you,” Nadia told the group of Krogan. “Your minds and bodies will only fail you once you reach old age.” She stared at the Krogan that challenged her and got up in his face. “You are the weak link if you refuse to adapt your mind to the situation. A Krogan’s body can regenerate and adapt from many things, but your mind is your greatest weapon.”


“Prove it then,” the Krogan responded. “I challenge you to single combat, should you win then it will prove that your way is better,” He scoffed. “But if the mind is truly greater, then shed your armor. We do this the old way, with no advantages other than those granted to us by our native skin.”


“I accept your challenge,” Nadia Winson looked at the Krogan. “We will have a circle of equals tomorrow at dawn. Bring two witnesses, there will be no recordings other than honor for this.”


“Those terms are acceptable to me,” the Krogan looked at the slightly shorter woman. “Should you win, I will pledge myself to you and join your Krantt”


“Bargained well and done,” Nadia responded as she clasped forearms with the Krogan. “On the morrow we shall test your mettle and see if it is to be found lacking.”

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 15

"We should be ready to power this on in an hour or so," Sura told Dr. Kelley. "I'm going to triple check the mass calculations."

"Once this is installed and powered on, we're going to be running it through a barrage of tests," Kelley told the Quarian. "You might not want to be here if something goes wrong. We're even stripping the crew complement down to just the pilots and a couple of engineers for these tests."

"I'm confident in our work," Sura told the scientist. "I believe that this will be successful."

"It's your decision," Dr. Kelley shrugged. "If this works though, we'll have improved the capabilities of our ships exponentially."

"I just hope that the controls for the core are as effective as we hope they are," Sura replied. "It's going to need to be done manually until we can set up the proper automated systems for it."

"That's for the future," Dr. Kelley said as he continued checking the math. "This is just the first of many tests, and as we refine things we should be able to begin getting things set up for future implementation as a whole."

"I suppose that's fair," Sura said as she gave the eezo core a systems check.

"We'll start running the tests in an hour," Kelley said. "If you're going to back out Sura, then now would be the time."






"You appear less threatening this way," Jordak Bragus said as he looked the smaller female up and down. "You look like an Asari, I hope that you're harder than you look, I would hate to squish you."

Nadia Winson just looked at the Krogan as he stood across the Circle of Equals from her.

"Are you here to fight?" Nadia asked. "Or do you plan on boring me to death."

"I was taking your measure," Jordak replied as he peeled his armor off, revealing the undersuit that he wore underneath. "And I find you lacking."

"Talk is cheap," Nadia replied. "You requested this Circle of Equals. Now you may fight me, or you may leave."

"Should either of you leave the Circle of Equals at any time they will forfeit and be unable to challenge again," Duke Hull spoke up from his position. "We have clearly marked the boundaries for this Trial of Refusal, and we have warriors on standby to force compliance if need be."

"I am not one to typically succumb to the blood rage," Jordak replied as he handed his discarded armor off to one of the Krogan witnesses. "But I understand the precautions nonetheless."

Natasha then stepped forward and recited the ritual words that would begin this Trial.

After Natasha had walked to the outskirts of the several meter wide circle both Nadia and Jordak started circling the each other, looking for a sign of weakness.

Jordak moved forward first, throwing his body at Winson in a tackle reminiscent of a rugby or American Football move. But Nadia darted out of reach of it all except for his claws. Which carved deep gashes into Nadia's thigh as the clothing tore.

Meanwhile, Nadia moved away from the reach of the Krogan at first before darting within his reach, using her elbows and knees to great effect as she drove the hardened points of her body into the Krogan's own. Throwing him back a bit before he regained his focus from the shock of being on the defensive.

"Ragh!" Jordak roared as he bodily picked up Nadia and slammed her into the ground as hard as he could. But Jordak lost his grip on on her as she slipped from his grasp and dropped down, using the leverage from her body to kick the Krogan in the back of his knee, driving him forward with his own weight to the edge of the boundaries where she then drove an elbow into his crest as she jumped up onto Jordak’s back.

Reaching back and trying to tear Nadia off of his back Jordan tore more skin off of the Khan as he finally found purchase on her shoulder. Digging his hand in, he rolled his hips and tried to throw her off of him, but instead only gave her more purchase to move up and wrap her legs around the Krogan's neck and begin tightening down.

Jordak continued to try and grab Nadia, but she refused to release her hold in spite of the blood loss from the relatively deep gashes that were sunk into her legs, arms, and her torso.

Jordak, realizing that he wasn't going to be able to break the Khan's hold began to stumble towards the boundary line, intending to throw her out of the ring and thus make her forfeit.

Nadia, realizing Jordak's plan, began to tense her body up in preparation to spring off of the Krogan, and once he was close enough she stopped choking the alien out and shoved her feet against his shoulders, forcing her compacted body to spring up by using Jordak's body as a springboard, the force of her weight driving him over the boundary line and allowing her to just barely land within.

"That was well fought," Jordak said once he had refilled his lungs. "You have a quad on you. It's not many that are willing to face off against one of my kind."

"I am not sure what a 'quad' is," Nadia replied. "But it sounds uncomfortable."

Jordak just roared with laughter as he considered the bloody form of the woman in front of him.

"I am willing to follow your ways," Jordak said as he met Nadia's eyes. "And I will assist in ensuring that the rest of the Krogan submit to your ways as well. We Krogan respect strength and a good fight, as long as we are provided with those things then we shall follow your ways."

—
—

"You're crazy," I shook my head at Nadia as Natasha and I began to treat some of her wounds. "But I think you've just secured the loyalty of this generation of Krogan."

"I have learned a great many things over my long life," Nadia smirked up at me and Natasha. "Jordak did not care if he won this fight, and he will not be the first challenger that I have to face in this Circle. But this is the birthplace of something new, and I will see it through."

"Just try not to overdo it," I said as I helped the Khan up onto her feat. "I need you in one piece, especially with Hazen out of commission for the next six months to a year."

"I do not believe I will conduct any more trials out of my armor," Nadia winced as she stood up to her full height. "This was my first challenge in years beyond the sparring mat, and I find myself lacking in my old skills."

"I'm certain that Mathis and many of us on the Ducal Guard will be willing to assist with that," Natasha said with a smile. "You only have to ask. But first I believe that you need to see Dr. Hale. While some scars may heal, you do not desire to have any that would impair your abilities."

"Aff," Nadia replied. "I believe will need assistance getting onboard the Argo for said attention though."






"Power flow seems stable," Dr. Kelley stated as he looked at the readings. "Engaging artificial gravity, now."

Entering the commands, there was a minor hum from the eezo core as a few unsecured tools fell to the floor and the hum stopped as a solid 1g of gravity manifested itself across the interior of the Sting they were using as a testbed.

"Gravity test is good," Sura said as she reviewed everything on her Omnitool. "Mass calculations were good and it looks like we should be ready to start with the rest of the tests."

"Next is the inertial dampeners," Dr. Kelley grinned underneath his helmet. "If this works then we'll be able to do things we only dreamed of in our fiction."

"Then let's get to it," Sura replied with a grin, Dr. Kelley's joy being infectious. "There's still work to be done after all."

"Yes indeed," the scientist replied. "If we can get this part done then we can move on to the truly exciting part. Testing whether we can perform the same level of FTL that your ships are capable of, or if we will need to modify or redesign our own ships in order to obtain that functionality."

"I'm not educated enough on your ships drives to assist with that yet," Sura replied. "But I'm willing to learn."

"I already have the approval," Dr. Kelley replied. "Now, onto further testing."

 

[MarkWarrior]

Council Interlude

“Hmm,” Sparatus hummed to himself in his private office on the Citadel as he went over various intelligence reports on the humans and the Terminus Systems. “Interesting, but not worth our full attention yet,” He muttered as he looked at the current “common knowledge” that they received in their intelligence briefings.


“Avina, can you connect me with Councilor’s Tevos, and Vedol?” The Turian Councilor asked as he drank his typical morning beverage.

“Affirmative,” the VI’s avatar responded. “Connecting you now.”

“Sparatus,” Tevos’ voice came over Sparatus’ terminal. “What is it?”

“Have you had the chance to go over the recent reports from the Terminus yet?” The Turian Councilor asked as he continued to read said reports.

“No, I have not had the chance to do so as of yet,” Tevos replied. “Is there something important in them?”

“Potential new species in the Terminus,” Spartacus summarized for her as Vedol connected to the group call. “They seem to have taken over the cesspool that is Korlus.”

“Yes, they seem to be establishing themselves fairly well according to all reports,” Vedol agreed as he caught up to the conversation. “All intelligence from STG agents in place nearby suggest that they are a species that requires their suits in order to live.”

“Agreed,” Sparatus replied. “The reports from some Turian agents that we had embedded in a couple of pirate groups suggest that they are a species with primitive technology for the most part. I do not believe that they are a threat to the Council as of yet and that our priority should still be focusing on the Humans.”

“Give me a moment to read the reports,” Tevos said. “We can reconvene in person to discuss this in say, an hour?”

“That is acceptable,” Sparatus replied. “Shall we make use of that cafe?”

“Incognito again?” Vedol asked.

“It’s important that we are not always in the Council chambers,” Sparatus replied. “And this gives us the opportunity to shed the roles, if at least for a small period of time.”

–
–

“How do people not recognize us?” Vedol asked. “I do not understand how this seems to work every time we attempt it.”

“We are known for specific appearances in specific places,” Sparatus explained to the Salarian. “I know that your background was in science, but I was a part of the Turian Intelligence Corps before I was appointed to this position.”

“This is effective because we are not wearing our usual garments, and our face paint has been changed on the part of myself and Sparatus,” Tevos said as she sipped at her tea. “And no one would expect us to be out in the open like this, so it works because it is unexpected. Now, I believe we were discussing the possible new species in the Terminus.”

“Yes,” Sparatus said as he began to eat the breakfast that he had been served. “I believe that we should keep an eye on this species but not interfere. We have enough on our hands with the Humans at this point.”

“I wish to send a Spectre to keep an eye on them,” Tevos said after a moment. “They could become useful in balancing out the Terminus if used correctly.”

“Agreed,” Vedol said as he slurped at his own beverage. “We have seen evidence that they do not like pirates or slavery. They could be useful in drawing attention away from our species' borders.”

“But who to send?” Sparatus asked. “This would end up being a long-term assignment at worst, and could be a permanent one at best.”

“Most of our Salarian Spectres are training their replacements,” Tevos said as she consulted her omnitool. “That leaves us with a Turian or an Asari.”

“Most of which are busy in their own assigned sectors,” Sparatus pointed out, reminding the other two of the standard operating procedures of the Spectres. “There are only a handful of Spectres not in play currently.”

“Vasir is currently not assigned to any sectors,” Vedol spoke up. “There are also a couple of Turians that are not currently assigned to any one area.”

“They’re blunt instruments,” Sparatus shook his head. “Saren is good, but I don’t think he’ll perform well under this kind of operation. And the rest of our Turians are going to be busy running around trying to put out fires.”

“There are never enough Spectres to go around,” Tevos sighed. “While they are always our most capable agents, they are also limited by their numbers. I believe that Vasir will be best for this. She has the expertise in diplomacy and in infiltration after all, both of which may be needed.”

“Her record speaks for itself,” Sparatus agreed.

“I approve,” Vedol said bluntly. “We can give her the mission once we are back in the council chambers proper.”

“I will have some of our specialists give her a debrief on how to deal with potential primitive species,” Tevos said as the trio of Councilors rose to leave the cafe. “Matrons sometimes need to be reminded that just because they do not possess our technology does not mean that they are lesser.”

“I will ensure that the appropriate reports get filed in the right place,” Sparatus shifted the conversation slightly after they left the table and turned the jamming devices off. “Spirits knows that the boss would kill me if I filed something incorrectly.”

“Don’t forget that we need to get the project accomplished in a timely manner as well,” Vedol picked up on the speech pattern. “Sooner is preferable when it comes to this sort of work.”

“I’ll be contacting the specialists after our break is over,” Tevos smiled. “This should not take long to put together after all.”

“We are all agreed then?” Sparatus asked.

“Yes,/We are.” Vedol and Tevos replied.

“Then I’ll see you in the office,” Sparatus said as he walked off in a circular route to one of the hidden entrances to the Council tower.

“Yes, see you there,” Vedol said as he took another route.

“Back to work then,” Tevos sighed tiredly as she looked at the Citadel. “Looks like I’ve got some people to get into contact with.” She opened her omnitool and send a bunch of messages. “Who to use?” She muttered to herself as she considered a list of Matriarchs and older Matrons before her.

“Ahh,” She smile to herself as she selected one name in particular. “This is a perfect way to get you away from the truth and puts you away from causing any trouble that might get you killed. I would hate for people to investigate your death after all." Tevos hummed to herself as she began to plan.


Author's note: Took a break yesterday, sorry if y'all were expecting an update.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 16 (Natasha’s bad idea Part 1)


“Everything seems to be going well,” I said to Dr. Rogers as we drove around the omniforges and the ships that were being broken apart and recycled at a much faster pace than before we arrived.


“It does seem that way,” Rogers agreed. “We have noticed some flaws that need to be corrected in forges one and two though. But we’d have to take them offline in order to fix them.”


“We’re only building prefabs and more dome structures with them right now,” I said as I watched the Industrialmechs feeding massive sections of the ships into the forges. “I’d rather have everything working at full efficiency than something go wrong due to a flaw. “


“I’ll have a team start working on it,” Dr. Rogers said as we neared the end of the drive. “I wish you weren’t making us rotate back to Veil every couple of weeks though. You’re killing our efficiency.”


“You and I both know that efficiency is only going to be down in the short term,” I argued with my lead scientist and engineer. “I’m not letting your teams burn themselves out on this, I don’t care if they were magically made younger with the rest of us.”


“You could at least let me keep the team leads over here for longer periods of time,” Rogers argued as I pulled the SUV up to the armored prefab that was being used as the main residence for the Marksman and Ducal Guard for now.


“No,” I told the scientist. “I understand that you’re all excited, but we can’t really afford to lose any of you due to a lack of rest,” I sighed. “I’m willing to keep Dr. Kelley and his team for somewhat longer lengths of time because they’re the ones who are the most experienced in working with the new tech right now. But that’s the only concession I’ll make.”


“I’ll take what I can get,” Dr. Rogers replied as we stepped out of the car, flanked by Mathis and one of Natasha’s Marauders.”


“Good, because this wasn’t a negotiation,” I said as we cycled through the airlocks and entered the prefab before taking off our helmets. “Adamina, we don’t have the manpower to do what you want to do yet, and we have no way of getting back home if our Hyperspace specialists are correct. While our colony on the Veil is starting to get things set up to be a hundred thousand strong in the next forty years, we’re not going to be anywhere near ready to have 24/7 research being done until we can get some of the aliens here vetted and trustworthy.” I held up my hand to stall her retort. “I know that you’re eager to push the boundaries of science and see what we can do with all of this new technology at our disposal, but we’ve got to prioritize for now. Give me three years of you doing the research that I ask for and I’ll cut your leash off after that.”


The engineer just furrowed her brow in thought as we continued walking towards my office.


“I can do that,” Dr. Rogers said after a minute or so. “But only if you promise to cut your own workload as well.”


“I’m fine,” I responded immediately as I went on the defensive. “I can handle the workload I’ve got just fine.”


“No, you can’t,” Mathis spoke up as he entered my office behind us. “You’re starting to fall back into bad habits and need to fix them before you end up causing yourself issues again. “


“I’ll take a break after the salvage negotiations with the Migrant Fleet are over and done with,” I said after looking at the amount of paperwork that I still had to finish before I could turn in and sleep.


“Mark,” Natasha appeared as if summoned by my workaholic tendencies starting to resurface. “You’re not allowed to work for the next three days. I’m taking you on an adventure!”


I felt my eyes widen involuntarily as I recalled what happened on our last “adventure”.


“Help me,” I mouthed at Mathis as my wife dragged me away to start prepping for whatever it was that she had planned.


“That’s a negative,” Mathis shook his head at me and smirked. “Go have fun testing out the new capabilities of the Sting. Melissa can cover for us while we’re gone.”






Omega


“This is a bad idea,” I told Natasha as she led me to the biggest club in the area.


“Of course it is!” She laughed. “That’s why we’re doing it. Besides, we need to start setting everything up if we want to get some reputable mercs hired.”


“Yeah, but we didn’t have to come here to do it,” I argued as we made our way to the Elcor Bouncer that was in front of the club known as Afterlife.


“Stern Greeting: Newcomers, you are expected.” The Elcor allowed us to bypass the queue.


“Why are you letting them in man!” A Batarian yelled at the Elcor bouncer as he pulled the Asari that he was with closer to his side.


“Strong Warning: Do not attempt to bypass the line again,” the Elcor turned towards the Batarian. “Aria has given them permission to enter.”


“No, fuck you, they probably just paid you extra to be let in early!” The Batarian drew a knife and tried to stab the Elcor with it before he was surrounded by a biotic field.


“Joyful remark: You have just made my day, I do not normally get to do this,” The Elcor flexed his biotics and threw the Batarian clear across the street and into a garbage bin. “Next!”


–

–


“Why did we come here again?” I asked as we were surrounded by flashing lights and something that could not really be called music.


“Because Aria is the one to talk to if we really want to get a Mercenary Review Board up and running,” Natasha chided me. “You know that.”


“This could have waited though,” I argued over the noise.


“Better to get it done now, and establish a good relationship with this woman,” Natasha replied as we approached the stairs leading to where Aria T’Loak was seated.


“No weapons,” A Batarian said as he stepped forward. “I’m going to have to take those from you,” He gestured towards the gear that we both had on us.


“Over my dead body,” I replied as I shifted and got in a position to draw my sidearm. “Weapons are a part of my religion.”


“That can be arranged,” The Batarian’s Turian partner said as he stepped forward and tried to take Natasha’s weapons from her only to end up with a broken arm and his face firmly planted in the ground of the club.


“Or, alternatively, you just step aside,” I said as I held the Batarian at gunpoint with his own gun that I had stolen while he was distracted. “By the way, I don’t recommend a subcompact like this for the kind of work you’re doing. Full size is better for the accuracy,” I threw his handgun to the ground and stomped it into little shards minus the ammo block. “I’d recommend something hardier too. If you can’t beat something to death with it and still have it function then it’s not worth having.”


“Just send them up,” a female voice said as I continued lecturing the Batarian and Turian on their weapon choices. “It’s clear that you would be dead if they wanted you to be.”


“You heard Aria,” the Turian mumbled from where he was still being ground into the dirt beneath Natasha. “You can let me up now.”


“Actually, I didn’t hear anything involving you two,” Natasha said with a smirk underneath her Mithril. “I want you to beg me to let you up.”


“Please, let me get up,” the Turian winced as his face plates were dug into the ground even harder. “I have a family.”


“Fine,” Natasha said as she finally let the Turian up. “Mathis, I want you to continue their education. They are severely lacking in capabilities.”


“Yes ma’am,” the giant of a man replied as he faced the two aliens. “Where to begin though.” He mused out loud as he stood at the bottom of the stairs while Natasha and I began to walk up.


–

–


“You really know how to put on a show,” One of the trio of Asari in the VIP area laughed. “Aria, you should get better help around here, Aria.”


“You both know that good help is hard to find, Aethyta,” Aria retorted. “Stop laughing at me Sederis, you know that the guards down there are for show.”


“So, introductions,” one of the Asari said as she swirled a dangerous-looking drink in her glass. “I’m Aethyta, that’s Aria T’Loak, and the young one over there is Jona Sederis,” She drained the last of her glass before slamming it down on the table in front of her. “We’re the ones that didn't quite fit the mold of the normal Asari society.”


“I’m Duke Mark Hull,” I replied. “And this is my wife Natasha. We’re the ones that just took over the Imir system and are looking to get the salvage negotiations back on track.”


“That, and some other things,” Natasha spoke up. “Where we come from Mercenaries are a common facet of life. But they’re regulated by what is called the Mercenary review board. The review board has things like lawyers and helps make sure that neither the client nor the merc unit gets fucked over by the wrong kind of contract.”


“That’s something we can discuss in further detail later,” Aria spoke up, interrupting Natasha. “I had contracts with Korlus, and I believe that Sederis did as well.”


“Given the new efficiency standards I think it’s best that we look at renegotiating those contracts,” I replied. “Especially seeing as you don’t have to pick and choose which baron to negotiate with anymore.”


“I’m not willing to negotiate with someone who keeps their face covered,” Jona replied. “Take those off and let us see what you really are.”


“I don’t recommend you do that sir, ma’am,” Mathis told us both on our internal comms. “We haven’t been able to test the disruptor against Matriarchs yet.”


“Copy that Mathis, I'm not planning on it. But if something seems off Mathis, I expect you to shoot first and ask questions later,” I told my bodyguard and friend. “And I think that these three might just cancel each other out.”


“Stay safe,” Mathis replied. “I’ve got the Sting on standby now if we need a quick evac.”

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 17 (Natasha’s Bad Idea Part 2)


“This work enough for you?” I asked as I depolarized a section of my visor, revealing part of my eyes and cheekbones before immediately concealing them behind the shield again. “Because this is the most you’re getting.”


“Ha!” Aethyta laughed as she poured herself another drink. “I like these guys!”


“Stick around a while,” I snarked back. “I’ve got party tricks too.”


“Can we focus on the matter at hand,” Aria said bluntly as she took control of the conversation. “Some of my operations rely on the salvage that I purchase from Korlus, and I would like to ensure that I have a trade contract written up and signed before the day is out.”



“What parts specifically are you looking for?” I asked. “Because we’re currently moving at a much more rapid pace than the barons did.”


“Let me look over the data,” Aria said as she flipped open her omnitool. “Can you send the file over?”


“Neg,” I shook my head as I pulled a slate out from a pouch. “You’ll have to use this. I had some translators go through everything the old contract had, and had them write up a new one.”


“Hmm,” Aria accepted the small tablet-looking device cautiously before noting that it was indeed translated and had an easy-to-use interface. “I see you changed the wording on parts of the contract in subsections two and five.”


“Let’s not play games,” I stated. “The baron who agreed to this contract was an idiot. Subsections two and five would have basically made him turn over everything he owned to you if he forfeited or screwed up in those areas. I don’t play those games. We’ll be on time with our deliveries, even if pirates try to do something.”


“How can I trust you on this?” Aria asked. “You are newcomers here and have yet to prove yourselves.”


“Pirates will never be a problem in our territory,” Natasha spoke up bluntly. “And neither will slavers. They are both Hostis Humanis Generis and will be dealt with accordingly. If you had your hands in the slaving business then we would not be having this discussion. You would simply be dead at my feet.”


“Are you threatening me? Aria asked as she finally stood up from her reclined position.


“I only have one rule,” Natasha said. “Don’t fuck with me, or you’ll find out exactly what I mean.”


I just stood there and let Natasha handle it. Despite her hotheadedness, she had a genuine feel for how to deal with these kinds of situations and so I just stood to the side with Aethyta and Jona and watched the two women clash.


“That one’s got fire in her,” Aethyta laughed as she elbowed the side of my Mithril. “You looking to teach an old woman a thing or two about the universe that she didn’t know before?”


“Sure,” I smiled as Natasha continued to verbally spar with Aria. “We’ve got the room on the Serenity for you.”


“Do you always stir up such trouble?” Jona asked. “Or is this something that is new?”


“I don’t go looking for trouble,” I started and then cut myself off. “Most of the time. Sometimes trouble is exactly what is needed to stir things up and make the galaxy a better place.”


–

–


“You are welcome back here,” Aria told Natasha and I after we had finally finished the meeting. “But if you come back bring something strong to drink. I’ll need it for the headache that she brings with her,” Aria indicated to both Aethyta and Natasha with one hand while speaking to me.


“No promises,” I replied. “I haven’t had time to get a proper distillery set up yet.”


“I’m an Asari,” Aria replied. “I can afford to wait.”


–

–


“Now that is an interesting ship,” Aethyta remarked as she looked at the Serenity, the Sting class gunship that was being used as a testbed for how effective the mating of our technology would be with the technology-based off on Element Zero.


“I like it,” I smiled underneath my armor. “This one has been in service for over three hundred years,” I patted the side of it. “I bought her and hired her crew of ex-smugglers around fifty years ago. The crew has since retired, but we kept some of the internal modifications that they made before doing a complete refit of the ship.”


“She looks like she’s done a lot in her years,” Aethyta said as she touched the side of the gunship before walking around and looking at the weapons emplacements that were plainly visible. “How much to buy one of these?” She asked as her eyes widened at the sheer amount of guns that were on the Serenity.


“There are some things to work out before we start production on new versions,” I told the Matriarch. “But once those kinks are worked out we can discuss things further.”


“Don’t trust me enough to give anything away huh?” Aethyta asked. “That’s alright, I wouldn’t trust another Matriarch either.” She spat on the ground. “As far as I’m concerned, most of the other girls my age are too set in their own ways, expecting the galaxy to bend to our will because we are the ‘elder’ species.”


“Such is life,” I shrugged. “Age does not have a monopoly on wisdom or experience,” I walked onto the ship and called out for the crew. “Hey, Mal! We’re ready to leave when you are.”


“Roger that,” the other man said as he tuned into the comms system that we used. “Wash, get clearance to leave, we’re heading back to Imir.”


“Sir, are we sure we should be trusting these aliens?” the leader of the Marines assigned to the Serenity asked.


“Just keep your eyes peeled Jayne,” I replied. “Innocent until proven guilty remember?”


“Unless they’re pirate scum,” Senior Chief Kaylee cheerfully said over the comms. “Then we just space ‘em.”



“Easy on the bloodlust Senior Chief,” I told the mechanic. “We’ll work on the pirate problem as we get to them, gotta secure the home system first.”


“You gonna let me in on your little private chats?” Aethyta asked as I showed her where to stash her gear.


“Neg,” I shook my head. “Once you earn your own set of Mithril maybe, but we don’t trust you enough for that yet.”


“There are ways,” Natasha said as she showed me a Bondcord. “But it is not an easy process.”


“Natasha, no, you don’t need more Marauders,” I told my wife.


“Hazen is on leave for another year though,” Natasha laughed at me. “I have need of a replacement. And this one shall suffice.”


“This isn’t like you adopting a Clanner into our home Natasha, this is a potential enemy agent that we have no information about.”


“Trust me,” Natasha said seriously. “I have a good feeling about this one.”


“You try to get her to sleep with me and you’re on the couch for a month,” I threatened. “I’m not going through that again.”


“Bargained well, and done,” Natasha said as she pulled the Matriarch to the side and began to explain the Bondcord and the history associated with it as well as what each of the three cords meant.”



“Why does this kind of shit always happen to me?” I asked as I buried my face in my hands.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Aria frowned as she watched the feed of the Serenity leaving. The ship was almost Krogan in its aesthetics, but the last data burst from Aethyta had been even more confusing. The ship was supposedly hundreds of years old. Even the Quarians didn't maintain ships for that long unless they had no other choice. The Serenity was not some ramshackle hunk of junk held together with wire, adhesive polymer strips and prayers to the Goddess. It was a functional gunship that had seen recent battle.

More interesting was that Duke Hull had claimed to own it for fifty of those years.

She'd sensed no overt deception during their negotiations. Covert, yes, but only an idiot would be that open when speaking with a Matriarch like her.

The eyes she had glimpsed through the visor of Hull's armor were young and vital. If they were Asari, that would have been understandable. But that skin tone, and the fact that he was MALE...

There was another new species that looked similar. The Turians had had a brief conflict with them six years prior. Those "Humans" were expanding through the Attican Traverse though, on the other side of Council Space from Imir. Parallel evolution perhaps? Some long lost offshoot that the Protheans had chosen to relocate? That wouldn't account for Hull's apparent age though, humans only lived for about a century.

If the historical data on them was correct, Humans hadn't even developed powered flightthree hundred years ago.

Too many incongruities. Aria could only hope Aethyta didn't take after her father and do something that would get herself killed.

 

[MarkWarrior]

Chapter 18


“This is suspicious,” I said as we looked at the derelict civilian freighter that had a distress call emanating from it.


“It’s likely a trap set up by pirates,” Aethyta agreed.


“Ignoring a distress call sets a bad precedent though,” I replied. “We’ll scope the place out cautiously and with our kinetic barriers up the entire time.”


“I hope all of that armor isn’t for show,” Aethyta looked at all the crew and Ducal Guard outfitted in their Mithril. “Because I might need some cover to duck behind in a fight.”


“Trust me,” Mathis chuckled as he looked down at the shorter woman. “None of this is for show,” He patted his chest plate.


“We’re around six hours out from the distress call,” Wash informed us via the intercom. “I’ll stop us about thirty minutes out so that we can properly analyze the situation.”


“You heard the man,” Mathis told the Ducal Guard members. “Start getting your gear set up now. Grab extra medical gear though, this may be a relief mission as much as it is combat oriented.”


–

–


“Fuck you!” Tela Vasir yelled at the slaver who slung her naked body up against the cage with the rest of the slaves who had been taken, bodily fluids dripping from her body as she shakily got back up to her feet.


“Are you okay?” a Batarian woman asked as she helped the Asari Matron stand back up to her feet. “They had you in there for hours.”


“I’ll be fine once these bastards are dead,” Tela snarled, baring her teeth.


“Here,” the woman said as she handed the Spectre a blanket to wrap around herself. “We managed to save this when we were put into the cages. You look like you might need it more than we do.”


“Thank you,” Tela said to the Batarian as she did her best to wipe some of the fluids off before wrapping her naked body in the blanket as she shivered from the cold of the air surrounding their cage. “They fitted me with some sort of explosive or electric collar, I can’t tell which at the moment.”


“I’m not surprised,” the lone Turian in the group spoke up. “I’m surprised they didn’t just space you after the amount of damage you caused to their ship and crew.”


“I probably net a more valuable price for someone to break me in,” Tela said with a sigh. “Our only hope is that someone picked up our distress beacon and actually responds.”


“Out here in the Terminus systems?” The Turian scoffed. “Never going to happen. You might as well give up now because you’re going to be spending the rest of your long life as some teenager’s slave.”


“You must have been some sort of high-tier operator before you became a merc,” the young Salarian mercenary who had been captured early on stammered out. “Were you a Huntress or something before becoming a merc?”


“Or something,” Tela replied as she eased herself to the ground with a small groan of pain. “I’m going to pass out now. Wake me up if something interesting happens.”







“How are we supposed to crew our second frigate?!” The captain of the slavers roared as he looked at the derelict ship that had once been a part of his three-ship fleet. “As it is, we barely have enough of us to keep our barge running.”


“That Bitch killed over half of us,” The XO agreed as he stroked the fresh cut on the side of his face that he had received from the Asari Mercenary. “Why isn’t she dead yet? Our men and women have already had their fun after all.”


“Someone that dangerous is trained by one of those important Matriarchs,” The captain explained. “And we all know what kind of price someone that’s even slightly important will fetch.”


“She killed my brother,” the Krogan continued to stroke the cut that was even now scarring over. “You better pray that the money is good, because if it isn’t,” the Krogan trailed off as he began to sharpen a knife.

–

–


“Did they see us?” I asked as we shifted ever closer to the civilian ship and the pirates surrounding it.


“Negative boss,” Wash said as he and his copilot Zoey continued to edge in. “Looks like they bit off more than they expected.”


“That Frigate is drifting,” I agreed as I did some quick math in my head. “They must have had to abandon it for some reason.”


“These pirates are more daring than most,” Aethyta said as she looked out the cockpit’s viewport. “Aria doesn’t like people to mess with her trade routes and normally keeps them clear so that she can maximize her profits.”


“Hey Mathis,” I said as I zoomed in on the symbol painted onto the side of the second frigate and the barge. “That symbol looks familiar.


“It’s identical to the one that we found on the first frigate,” Mathis said. “Odds are that this group belongs to the same band.”


“Then we might as well finish the job,” I said before turning and leaving the cockpit. “Warrant Officer Wash, get us close enough that we can use the bomb bays. We’ve got some pirates to kill.”


–

–


“We surrender!” Two Batarians yelled as they watched even more of the armored figures continue killing their shipmates. “We surrender!”


Throwing down their weapons and holding out their hands to show that they weren’t holding any, the Batarians stepped out of cover, expecting these people to act like one of the council species or associates before being headcapped by a handheld gauss rifle round.


“Scum,” Natasha snarled as she walked past the two bodies of the surrendering pirates that she had killed.


“Why not capture them for their intelligence value?” Aethyta asked as she trailed behind Natasha and the fireteam that she was with.


“We’ll rip what we need from their computers,” Natasha stated. “Pirates have no rights, and slavers have even less.”


“Hostis Humani Generis,” Mackenzie agreed as she moved forward through the corridor.


“You keep using that term, but my translator isn’t telling me what it means,” Aethyta said. “Would someone care to fill me in?”


“It loosely translates to ‘enemy of everyone,’” Natasha said while being slightly evasive. “It originated from when we were a one-planet species and had to deal with pirates who did not belong to any specific nation. No one person or nation had jurisdiction, and so it was declared that they were the enemies of everyone, against civilization almost, and to allow ship captains to do what was necessary insofar as the punishment of piracy.”


“Or, as Duke Hull likes to put it,” Jane Thastus spoke up. “Rapists, raiders, and slavers die.”


–

–


“Mathis, you might want to get some medics to my location,” I said into my comms channel. “I’m gonna need some EOD techs too, we’ve got wounded civvies with some collars on their necks.”