Mercenary Siege
Chapter 2: Mercenary Siege
"I thought you were supposed to be some kind of newborn Krogan super soldier, not some kind of slick lizard businessman." Zaeed laughed as he and I made our way back to the front of Afterlife to rejoin Shepard after her meeting with Aria T'loak, the Asari mob boss in charge of the ancient asteroid mining station Omega.
Shepard recruited this wandering warrior for hire just outside the airlock. Well, I say Shepard recruited him, but the Illusive Man did all the real work to make it happen, or his agents. We just needed to agree to run a mission for him and say welcome aboard to the grizzled middle aged man who looked like a piece of chewed up jerky someone stuffed into a suit of armor and handed a rifle to. Another wonderous example of the 'man to pissed off to die' trope. I loved him already.
"I was a businessman in a past life." I chuckled back to the grizzly murder hobo.
"Huh," he grunted, the act a combination effort of his mouth, neck, and chest, "never thought Krogan believed in reincarnation."
"I am fifty percent sure they don't." I added as we finally closed the distance between us and Shepard.
Our glorious leader leaned on a metal railing looking out over a unique cityscape. Omega is a densely packed space station built on one of the oldest known and formerly richest element zero asteroids. While there is no up and down in space, the station is built under the asteroid, the foundations of the buildings oriented towards the top of the structures, with the artificial gravity pointing everything down, away from the massive space rock. Millions of people live on this brown hazy station, and good people would rather be just about anywhere else. It's a land of bandits, pirates, gangsters, smugglers, whores, thieves, and less professional scumbags too. Can't fire a gun into a crowd without hitting an asshole.
It's like Shepard took me to an indoor playcenter.
"Mordin can wait." Miranda stated as the de facto spokeswoman for the jump suited Cerberus duo, "The plague has either killed him, or it hasn't. There isn't much we can do to change things either way. The window on Archangel gets smaller with each passing minute."
"Agreed." Shepard nodded, her arms crossed over her chest as she kept her head on a swivel, good instincts on the woman.
She nodded to the pair of us incoming, "Come on, we are infiltrating the mercs going after Archangel. Transport to the mission site is nearby."
Nearby meant about fifty yards away where a gaggle of blue armored Batarians waited at a shuttle station where a series of boxy transports sent on everyone recruited by the local chapters of the three major merc bands in the Terminus system for their big mission to take down a walking talking bad guy shooting Boondock Saints reference.
Krogan look like really mean bipedal turtles, Batarians look someone stuffed four marbles for eyes into a turd and added some needle like fangs for a mouth, on an otherwise human frame. They are also the Slytherins of space. Racist, vile, and utterly unredeemed throughout the trilogy. And since the games are now real life, that means that the Batarians have never done a good thing anywhere in recorded history. At least that I'm aware of.
Images of a Krogan gouging out a Batarian's eyes to get him to talk intruded into my thoughts, a remembrance of Okeer's in vitro education. The turd men hold their eyes sacred, having four making them the superior race, entitling them to enslave all the other two eyed species. Start gauging and they fold like the backstabbing cowards they are. When one of them looked at me wrong I swung my helmet clad head at his and cracked his visor, crumpling the man beneath.
"You want some?" One of his pals shouted while they all drew on us.
"Always!" I bellowed and the three conscious batarians realized they were about to fight a Krogan in close quarters with what appeared to be bargain bin rifles.
"Save that for Archangel." he relented, his posture slumping in defeat.
"What an asshole." he muttered as I stepped onto the shuttle, "Wasn't me!" he shrieked when I took a step back.
"Come on now." Zaeed pulled me back, "If he shits himself any more it'll rupture his suit, then it's all our problem."
I pulled the shuttle door down behind me and found Shepard mean mugging me.
"What?" I rolled my neck, feeling out the hard graphite colored plates that provided additional protection to my already thick and powerful hide.
"Show some professionalism. We're here for a job." Shepard chided me.
"No, it's not him that's the problem, it's you three." Zaeed interjected authoritatively , "Young Krogan mercs are always hot heads spoiling for a fight. If he's docile, it'll make everyone else think something's up." then he pointed at Miranda Lawson and Jacob Taylor, "You two walking around in corpo grade gimp suits screams suspect in a place like this, and you." he shifted his attention to the Commander, "You're lucky your paint scheme became an instant classic among posers and tryhards after that bit of action at the Citadel, otherwise walking around with a fucking N7 logo on your chest would tip off the Salarians at least and likely the Batarians too considering their hate boner for the Alliance. Next time use some of that budget for this operation to put together some disguises."
"Noted." Shepard acknowledged, but with her face coved by her full helmet and her voice modulated slightly, it was hard to tell if she actually cared. Could be she wanted things to go wrong so we can have a nice gunfight on our hands. My kind of woman.
The three of them did stick out on Omega like some glow in the dark CIA personnel. I'd done some light renovation work on my armor using equipment available in the Normandy's armory, and the additional wires, projectors, and power sources gave my suit a more slapdash feel that made me fit in on this wild west space station. Scrappers, choppers, and junkers abound on Omega.
"Perhaps I've grown too fond of my body glove." Miranda tolerated Zaeed's dressing down with barely more than a twitch of her perfect face, "Fortunately, we'll move on from Omega soon."
Not too soon I hope. I've got deals waiting in the wings.
"Not if you get ventilated because you two can't help yourselves from slinking around a battlefield in lingerie." Zaeed said his piece then took a drink out of a hip flask, "Hope you two have enough biotics to spare keeping up strong enough barriers to still be useful."
"I do." Miranda, smirked then looked pointedly at Jacob.
The black man just shook his head at her dig, "Lift is peek biotics."
"Keep telling yourself that, Jacob." Miranda smiled then quieted down as the shuttle reached it's destination.
I led us off the transport where we instantly ran into a Batarian in a Blue Suns uniform working as a greeter. The turds took over the Blue Suns years ago, and while humans still operate in the outfit, the majority of the muscle comes from the Hegemony. Cheaper than humans, and naturally lacking in qualms.
"Oh sweet." He said, revealing those needle-like teeth the Batarians share with the Vorcha, "You guys don't look like Archangel is going to tear you apart like tissue paper, and you brought your own Krogan."
"Just point us to where we are going." the Commander ordered him.
"Sergeant Cathka is in charge of the freelancers. Report to him." the Batarian dismissed us and went back to standing around as the most rear echelon man on this mission.
I'd still probably kill him at some point in the near future.
As we made our way through the mercenary encampment EDI, the Normandy's shackled AI, informed us over our coms of the heavy opposition we will be facing and recommended doing everything we can to sabotage the enemy before we start shooting everyone. Fortunately, Commander Shepard is some kind of unholy hybrid of the soldier and infiltrator classes, fully kitted out with the gear and special abilities of both.
As we moved through the encamped mercenaries sieging an apartment building across a bridge, the Commander used my bulk to hide activating her Tactical Cloak invisibility, an expensive use of metamaterial apparel that bends light around the user to the point of near perfect concealment. Along with sound dampening gear, the Commander became a ghost stealing materials, credits, and hacking a heavy YMIR mech, turning off it's IFF system for a full rampage on activation. I admired the massive white plated machine. I too seek to carry heavy machine guns and fire off rockets like this glorious weapon of war.
Despite her rogue commando thing going on, when talking to Cathka, the Blue Suns officer in charge of all us independent mercs, Shepard didn't take the Renegade interrupt to stop him while he worked on repairing a gunship. The batarian gave us our brief, then ordered us in when the last group running at the apartment building across an open bridge got gunned down. He turned his back on us to resume his work, and Shepard didn't go for the kill.
Like a good neighbor I lumbered over and offered him a kind word, "You're working too hard. Take a break."
Then rammed a flash forged red hot silicon carbide blade into his brain stem. Cathka died instantly.
"Sorry, Space Momma." I apologized to Shepard for stealing her shine, "A little backstabbing now, for less hassle later."
"I didn't know they still made omni-blades." she commented, "And I thought you would be eager for a big fight against these guys."
"If people get their heads out of their asses they'll make a comeback soon. The omni blade is great." I laughed as we walked away from my first ever murder, "As for dealing with them like this, I'm being respectful. Doing everything I can to destroy them means they're a worthy foe. Just blindly running at them would be fun, but this is fun too."
Alien biology for the win, I didn't have any kind of repulsive reaction to the matter. In fact, I felt kinda warm and energized. Like I'd taken a nice deep breath after drinking a cup of black tea.
"Alright folks," Shepard addressed our five man fire team as we approached the last barrier between us and the killzone bridge covered in dumbass mercs who signed on and once here could either charge into gunfire from a lone gunman vigilante, or take fire from the hundreds of members sporting the red, yellow, and blue of the big three mercenary gangs, "Weapons hot."
Shepard, Zaeed, and I pulled out our Avenger assault rifles and Jacob and Miranda pulled out their little sub machine guns. I tooled up with an incendiary ammo mutation command using my omnitool and the rifle's receiver like the Commander and Jacob, while Zaeed applied a shield and tech cracking disruptor ammo. With a grin no one saw under my helmet I activated my holographic tech armor. An orange glow of protective hard light coated me, with major plates wrapping around my limbs and torso. The current setup of my Tech Armor system can stall out 40 percent of incoming damage stretching out the efficacy of my shields, armor, and my ridiculous krogan biology, making me a two legged tank. I took the lead and slapped my ass twice to signal them to follow behind me, then que'd up Paranoid by Black Sabbath on my headset, my head banging on rhythm and my foot tapping.
We jumped the barricade that barely protected the merc side from Garrus's sniper fire and opened up on the exposed backs of our 'allies' as we crossed the walkway to the building hosting the turian's final stand. I ran at the mercs while firing and lit up my omni blade, stabbing a lanky human in lightweight gear in the chest before throwing his impaled body at a trio of his fellows. I kept up the momentum arriving soon after he did to stomp them to death while firing on another gaggle of shocked and awed mercs.
I ran at the next group who tried to focus their fire on me to take me down, but they failed, and I barreled into one too slow and stupid to dive out of the way, throwing him off the bridge and out into the abyss. My rifle hot, I ejected the thermal clip, caught it, then stuffed it in the mouth of a screaming merc trying to beat me to death with his overheated rifle. My uppercut punched his burning mouth closed and the violently released heat lit his head on fire briefly from the inside. I turned to keep the momentum going, but there wasn't anyone left alive on the bridge for us to slaughter.
"Hmmm… good times." I nodded at the sight of our work.
The Commander took point on entering the apartment, the vigilante Archangel providing no resistance to us. In the building, and up to the next level we found our man across the landing, looking out over the balcony with his long Mantis rifle in hands. A Turian - a lanky avian-like species, but substitute feathers for soft semi metallic carapace - in head to toe blue and black armor with a heavy duty oval armored collar in the typical style for the species. Good protection for the neck and head from small arms and explosives, but an absolute liability in close combat. Images of Krogans using the collars for easy grappling leverage filled my mind, with many gruesome outcomes.
"Shepard?" He greeted with his flanged voice, making me wonder how anyone can recognize her under the full helmet she wears.
Archangel took off his back swept blue helmet, revealing the very familiar face of Garrus Vakarian, my near constant companion across my many playthroughs of the trilogy. Shepard immediately gravitated towards her rebel c-sec buddy, and the pair caught up while Zaeed and I took up positions on the windows and switched to our own Mantis sniper rifles with the red and blue holographs indicating our selected ammo mutation.
"Been a long time since I've seen a Krogan move that well," the grizzled merc commented as we maintained overwatch, "and that bit with the thermal. I'll keep that one in mind for someone special."
"Most of that was just imprinted training," I admitted, I knew how to both fight and use guns, but nothing like what I pulled off back there, that came from Okeer and Rana, "but that last bit came straight from the hearts."
Movement down range, incoming hostiles in yellow and white painted armor coming in behind a wave of white plated mechs. The Loki model, built by the Earth based company Hahne-Kedar, shuffling humanoid robots armed with low powered submachine guns, but capable of keeping the pea shooters on target even at long ranges making them far more deadly than in the hands of organic users.
It says alot about the price of life in the future that the big mercenary gangs sent in freelancers to soak up fire before the zombie like robots that are pretty much only good for advancing under fire while returning fire without regard for survival. A genuinely good tactic so long as someone smart used the pressure to set up a flanking maneuver, but the location of Garrus's final stand on Omega prevented it. The isolated tower had precious few entry points, and only one the vigilante Turian couldn't block off. They needed to keep up the pressure on the bridge to keep him from further trapping the only other viable entrance they needed to demo their way through.
"We've got Eclipse coming up." Garrus commented and Shepard looked down the scope of her own rifle as the mechs started to drop on the walkway. She took a shot that slammed right into the red ringed cameras in the unit's head, bursting it in a shower of sparks and parts. I don't know what design genius at Hahne-Kedar set things up so that head shots can trigger the unit's self destruct protocol, but he deserves a raise. The unit fell backwards stiffly and exploded to double the satisfaction at the very least.
The rest of us joined the Commander in sending down precision shots on the oncoming mechs, and I felt godlike as I operated the long weapon. I was a good shot in my human life, but natural limitations in the form of shaky hands and poor eyesight kept me from enjoying the activity as much as my friends did, but Grunt has the hands of a three fingered surgeon and the reflexes of a spider. I easily headhunted all the mechs and the mercs coming in behind them with the single shot rifle. Zaeed, Garrus, and Shepard showed similar or even greater precision than myself and the balcony became a platform of raining death.
"Heavy mech incoming!" Garrus shouted as he continued firing.
"I think that problem will take care of itself." Shepard replied, smugness so potent that not even her voice modulation could hide it.
The massive YMIR unit dropped down onto the bridge and unfolded its frame, coming online weapons hot, which it immediately turned on the nearest available target. With the YMIR providing a big water stop with high caliber machine gun fire tearing people apart and rockets causing bodies to burst, the rush of mercs coming over the bridge ended until the big robot accumulated too much damage to continue functioning and detonated in one final suicide attack. I didn't let it die in vein, putting a high speed slug between the eyes of a red skinned Salarian - amphibious aliens akin to the popularized 'little green men' of the twentieth century with a pair of soft skin covered horns on their heads - With his death, Eclipse quit the field, pulling back with what little numbers they had left deep into the encampment.
"That's Eclipse down." Garrus commented during the lull in combat following their pitiful retreat, "We got that scumbag Jaroth in that attack, but I don't like our odds of fighting our way out of here with both the Blood Pack and the Blue Suns still out there."
"We could make it with ease." I comment, completely sure we could scythe through the two hundred plus mercs on the other side.
"Maybe," Garrus acknowledged with his gaze scanning the other side of the bridge, "But we shouldn't risk it just yet. We'd just be turning the situation around on ourselves, letting them gun us down as we run across rather than the other way around."
The sound of a demolition explosion below us revealed the threat of the Blood Pack, who cleared out the blocked access route to us on the other side of the building while the Eclipse mercs got wiped out. I wonder how that negotiation went down, because the Eclipse is by far the more tech savvy and tactically slick of the two organizations, and the Blood Pack operates largely on the quasi-enslavement of the low IQ hyper aggressive Vorcha species - imagine a bipedal cross between a piranha and and a cancerous scrotum and you are most of the way to how ugly the nasty bottom feeders are - using cannon fodder charges as their MO.
"Damn it!" Garrus cursed as Vorcha started jumping over the barricade on the other side of the bridge, the Blood Pack pressing on both sides, "Shepard, take your team down to the basement and seal the blast doors, we can't have them hitting us from both ends with impunity."
"Grunt and Zaeed will stay here with you." Shepard decided in an instant.
While I would be an excellent choice for the close confines of the building's sub level, the show I put on with the sniper rifle must have been the deciding factor. Plus, Miranda and Jacob barely contributed during that shooting clinic, the Commander obviously needed to throw them a bone or they'd feel as useless as they are.
"Thanks." Garrus grinned and resumed firing at the merc forces trying to charge down the walkway to pincer us.
Vorcha don't wear much in the way of armor, or clothing, just letting their nasty spiky testicle bodies ruin everyone's viewing experience. Despite that, they aren't as dumb as the robots, capable of annoyingly effective cover use, and any time they suffered any damage not immediately lethal, they simply dove for cover and popped back up a minute later fully healed. Even better than ever, as the nasty looking species beneficially mutates on the fly to adapt to environmental challenges, individuals capable of surviving pretty much any conditions even marginally capable of supporting life. They have a strong M streak, latching on to those who beat them, because the beatings make them stronger and tougher. Freaks, the whole lot of them.
For all the utility of their regeneration and adaptation, blowing their heads off works like it does with pretty much everything else, and with Zaeed Massani, Garrus Vakarian, and yours truly, we kept hollowing out those domes for them in an almost rhythmic staccato of high powered mass acceleration. The blue trails of the slugs evaporating at such high velocity and the scent of activated Eezo pleased the senses, and we were a case of beers each from feeling like a day at the range with the boys rather than a bloody battle.
We kept up the turkey shoot until Garm, leader of the Blood Pack on Omega, came through the second story wall like an explosive kool aid man in his massive red armor with his krant, three of his ride or die Krogan warriors.
Zaeed and Garrus began laying down fire down the walkway between us and them with assault rifles, the four Krogan advancing without much care, firing off their shotguns to keep up some pressure. I walked through the doorway, standing between the Krogan and their target.
"You picked the wrong side." Garm, the old and massive warlord sporting the iconic 'smoke stacks' style armor of his rank, his red shelled head on full display with no helmet, unlike his krant, a blue rippling of biotic power flaring up every time a bullet tried to connect with him.
I flared up both my omnitools, red hot blades forming on each of my fists.
"Dibs!" I shouted and charged.
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