Interesting Times - Chapter 48

October 27th, 2173

04:26 

Illium, Tesale-System

Nos Astra

Operations Chief Lukas Pirot

Three minutes. It took only three minutes for Nesta and the heavy mech to reduce Lukas and his team to nothing more than barely living sacks of flesh. 

Lukas held back an agonizing scream of pain as he dragged himself over the ground toward one of the crates carelessly thrown around the hall by Nesta's biotic powers. His broken leg sent waves of pain through his body with every little jolt. 

The only positive Lukas could think of was that somehow his team, down to the last member, was still alive. Hurt beyond hurt, but alive. 

It was a miracle on par with resurrecting the dead, or perhaps it was a chance with a probability lower than that human history would repeat the same as it happened if everything got returned to the beginning of time itself. 

Somehow, a wry smile appeared on Lukas' face. "Damn," he muttered to himself, "the pain is making me philosophical." The thought if his thoughts really were philosophical appeared in his mind, making him chuckle. 

"Oh, did the pain turn you mad? That would be one explanation for your chuckling in this situation," said a voice coming from behind him. The clicking of her heels sounded unusually loud in his ears, even above the cackling of the fires burning through the hall. "Then again, I know everything about how pain can turn a brain into mush. My mistress is a master at this. She can bring you right to the edge and back as often as she wants to. And when she does it enough, you crave that feeling like nothing else I've ever encountered in the galaxy. I had almost forgotten how good she is at that, but thanks to your boss, she returned and showed me the pleasure of pain once again!" Iyara Nesta was positively swooning at the end, yet even if he couldn't see her, Lukas definitely could hear an undercurrent of fear and apprehension in her voice. Quiet, almost nonexistent, but there nonetheless. 

With clenched teeth, Lukas tried to turn onto his back to look at the Asari that slowly started to get closer again, her steps slow and measured like a predator stalking its prey. He could feel how every single nerve, bone, and cell of his body protested, and he knew that the only reason it didn't fall apart was the liberal use of all his Medi-gel supplies. All over his body, the bones that had been on the verge of breaking decided as one to show him the middle finger, and with a crack that sounded like a tree in the process of falling during a storm, they broke. 

His helmet, even if it hadn't been cracked open like an egg, would have done nothing to muffle the scream that literally tore out of his mouth. 

"Oh my," tittered Nesta, a hand before her mouth as if to hide the smile that threatened to split her face in two, "that sounded like it hurt." 

The first thing Lukas saw after the pain receded enough to focus on anything else was the amusement and madness dancing behind Nesta's eyes. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he lamented that it wasn't anything else. Perhaps he should have stayed on his stomach, less painful, too. 

"Now, now, don't look so disappointed," Nesta frowned playfully, "Don't worry, I will turn the few minutes that we still have together into something that you take with you into whatever afterlife you humans believe in." 

Lukas' head, the only thing he could move without feeling enough pain to paralyze him, slowly turned toward the right, where he assumed one or two of his comrades lay. Perhaps his head was worse off than he thought, as Lukas could barely make out their forms. Yet, even with his blurry vision, he could see two shapes, and the display of his helmet, covering only his left eye, showed him that the two were still alive, even if their life signs were steadily turning toward nonexistent. 

Maybe, just maybe, if Nesta took her time with him, the reinforcements could arrive in time to kill her and the mech and save his comrades. 

And if he got her talking, perhaps Lukas' own life could be saved, too. 

Trying wouldn't make this worse anyway. 

Before he could say anything, another scream left his mouth when Nesta stepped onto his broken leg, grinding her heel as deep as she could. 

"Where are you looking?!" she shouted, her biotics flaring up around her. "I am the main attraction here! Don't you dare ignore me!" 

"Fuck you!" Lukas gasped, spit trickling down the side of his mouth. 

"How ordinary," scolded Nesta, her demeanor turned calm as if her previous outburst never happened. "If you have to insult or curse me, do something uncommon. Anything else is boring." She stepped off his leg and skipped around his body, crouching down next to his head. With gentle hands, she grabbed it and turned it so that Lukas could look her in the eyes. "I think this helmet is a little in the way. Let me help you lose it." 

Her thumbs went through the opening of the helmet to get a better grip, and with a minor strength adjustment with her biotics, Nesta ripped the helmet in two and off Lukas' head. 

Without being held up, the back of his head painfully hit the ground, and without the helmet, there was nothing to give him even the slightest bit of protection. Lukas could already feel how parts of it turned slightly wet, and there was no doubt in his mind that he now had a new open wound that would also need to be provided for. 

"That's better. Now I can see your whole face without anything getting in the way!" Nesta said with a pleased expression. 

"Why?" 

"Mhm? Did you say something?" 

"Why do you want to see my face?" Lukas whispered, having almost no energy to talk and doing his best to form even a few simple words. 

"Silly question. It is so that I can see the expression you are going to make when I start to break the little that is left of your body!" 

Perhaps it was the lack of energy, or perhaps he was already in shock, but Nesta's statement didn't send a shiver down his back or call up a feeling of dread inside him as one would expect in such a situation. 

"You weren't like this before," Lukas continued, trying to keep the conversation going. The longer he got her to talk before she started to torture him, the better. Any second more could decide if he was going to live or not. "The reports didn't say anything about that." 

"Well, it seems your reports didn't cover anything, or," Nesta stood up, walking around a bit, "perhaps it was the reunion with my mistress that did it to me. After all, she was the one who brought these new biotic enhancers. She said it was her own concoction. And I have to say, the power is worth it!" 

As if to demonstrate her power, she lifted one of the bigger crates around the hall, which had to weigh anything between 500kg and a ton, with her biotic powers without any visible exertion, and threw it across the hall where it opened a hole in the wall. 

"See! See! That's the power my mistress gave me. She said something about side effects, but what do I care?!" Nestat started to laugh, and Lukas could say with absolute certainty that one of the side effects had to be losing one's mind. Nothing else could explain the deranged look the Asari had on her face. 

Yet, Lukas didn't dare to even show his thoughts on his face, he wouldn't be able to keep the disgust of it, and anything he did could turn her attention back to him, better to let her get it out without interruption. It was to his advantage anyway. Every second she spent laughing about a joke only she understood was better than her making her promise of making him scream, and it couldn't take long anymore before the cavalry appeared. 

Eventually, Nesta stopped laughing and turned back to Lukas. In the blink of an eye, she shortened the distance between them and crouched once again next to him to look him in the eyes, but this time, Lukas could see something else behind the madness dancing in hers. Perhaps it was his addled mind, but Lukas would swear he saw something akin to a cry for help hidden in them, the desire for everything to end. 

"What are Eclipse's plans? Why are you doing this?" 

Lukas didn't know where the question came from or why he asked them. No enemy, even to gloat to a dying foe, would ever reveal their plans lightly if they were in their right mind. Yet, Nesta didn't appear to have full control over her mental faculties if the sudden changes in her mood were any indicator. 

"Do you really think I would spot Eclipse's plans for the future so easily?" asked Nesta in return, a chuckle escaping her. "You must think me a simpleton, don't you?" It wasn't like Lukas was disappointed that it didn't work. The chances that she would reveal anything, even just the slightest morsel of information, was next to nothing. No, even if she had revealed anything, the chances of his survival were low anyway, and any information he obtained would be lost with his death, anyway. Despite this, getting her to talk, distracting her from her objective, and keeping her here was Lukas' true goal. 

"But as your life is only measured in minutes, and because I want to see the look of despair on your face when I tell you what is going to happen to the company you decided to serve with your whole being. It's going to be wonderful, and the only thing I regret is not being able to see the look on your boss' face when it happens. Thanks to that asshole, I'm on thin ice with the rest of Eclipse's commanders, and I think payback is a wonderful thing." 

It seemed like the gods of luck and chance were smiling upon Lukas today. Maybe it was just Nesta's desire to see him suffer, and Lukas considered psychological torture the worse option between it and its physical counterpart, but he would endure it with a smile on his face as long as he could if it raised his chances of survival. 

"First, we will do it again," Nesta began slowly, whispering like she was sharing a secret just between the two of them. "We get some of your simple employees and create a scene right out of a horror hollo-vid. Again and again, until all your little drones flee from Illium like they should have done in the first place. Then we will slowly, ever so slowly, hunt down everyone who stayed." Apprehension welled up inside Lukas alongside disgust. Targeting their civilians to break Ad Astra's spirit was a deplorable tactic but one that would be effective nonetheless. Yet, Eclipse didn't think far enough. 

While it was true that if Eclipse was successful in getting them off Illium, there would be nothing Ad Astra could do to them without turning the Matriarchs of Illium against them, there would be nowhere to hide for Eclipse in the rest of the galaxy. The only places they would be safe from Ad Astra's retaliation would be inside the territory of the other Council species and deep inside the Terminus systems, far away from any place where they could become powerful again after Oscar Denebren was finished dismantling their organization. 

"Haha," Lukas couldn't help himself letting out a small laugh at the thought, no matter that it hurt to do so. 

"I know, I know, it's going to be a grand amusement," replied Nesta, lost in her mind and thinking wrongly that he found amusement in Eclipse's plans. 

"That's not it," he rasped, his dry throat making it harder to talk with every passing second, yet he continued talking anyway. "It's just that you think that going so far for a single planet, no matter how important Illium is for the galactic economy and how influential your employer, the Arbiter, is, that it is worth making Oscar Denebren and the whole of Ad Astra your enemy. Either you overestimate your reach, your power, and everything else you believe to possess, or you are underestimating to what lengths my boss will go to avenge the damages you're doing to him and his company." 

"Oh, I don't think so," countered Nesta, her voice dripping condescension. "Eclipse existed for centuries. We're the greatest mercenary organization in the galaxy, and not even the Blood Pack, as much as they would like to call themselves it, are our equals. So what could a tiny human company do? You're not even half a century old."

"You think age is something important to humans? That just because we're a younger species we can't compete or even stand up against those that want to suppress us just because they have more experience? Don't make me laugh, we adapt to new circumstances fast enough to crush any opposition. Thanks to your deal with the Arbiter, you have entered a hell of your own making."

"Don't you think I know that?!" Nesta screamed, and for a moment, Lukas could see how some sort of clarity returned to her eyes, which burned with the fire of hate. "Thanks to that bitch, my previous commander returned and took everything away from me! Everything I worked so hard for since I joined Eclipse a century ago! Just because she promised me that it would be an easy job and that Ad Astra would fold easily! And now, there's a war going on. A war I'm made responsible for even if nobody calls it one openly yet. But when I'm done with you and your companions and your whole bloody company, I will take on that bitch and make her wish that she had never been born. Always trying to appear like an Asari barely out of her maiden years, but in reality, she is almost old enough to count as a matriarch. Isn't that hilarious? How vain can you get? Own your age, bitch!" 

Lukas could only watch as Nesta once again ranted like a madwoman, but this time, he tried to concentrate as much as he could on every single word she screamed out into the world. He dearly hoped that one of his teammates was still conscious and listened to this as well, as he still didn't know if he would survive long enough to report everything he heard. 

A small movement in the corner of his eyes got him to refocus for a moment before a smile appeared on his face as he recognized what was going on. He suppressed it before Nesta turned her focus back to him and could ask about it. 

"And that guy that follows her like a lost varren puppy! Doesn't he have any pride the rest of his species boasts about at every opportunity? As if he will be anything more than a toy she uses until she's bored with it and throws it away. As if she will ever help him get big in the weapon industry, and..." 

Nesta got interrupted during her rant as the hulking mech that stood still in the middle of the hall suddenly moved, and an electronic voice echoed out of its speakers: "Incoming shuttles detected! Affiliation: Ad Astra. Conclusion: Hostiles are incoming. Time until arrival: Four minutes! Recommendation: Retreat due to enemy numbers exceeding safety levels." 

Lukas wondered if Nesta would even contemplate retreat. Her violent mood didn't lead him to believe that she would act rationally at all and stand her ground even if she would be overwhelmed by Lukas' reinforcements. Furthermore, she had no idea about their combat potential. The mech had only detected the number of Ad Astra shuttles but not what they were carrying. They could bring in two mechs themselves, and those would probably be able to turn Eclipse's mech into scrap each without much problem. 

Yet, Nesta surprised him.

Her shoulders slumped, and she turned a disappointed look toward him. "Well, it seems like our time together did come to a rather abrupt end. I enjoyed it, and thank you for listening to my rant. It was good to get everything off my chest for once without worrying about anything getting back to my boss. The only thing I can do now," Nesta walked closer to him, holding up her right hand, which started to glow with biotic power. With every step, the glow intensified until it became hard to look at. "is to quickly finish you off. You heard some things I can let people know about, especially our enemies, and I can't let you repeat them when your friends arrive here. Don't worry, your team will follow you soon into whatever afterlife you believe in." 

Despite the immediate threat of demise, Lukas couldn't stop himself from smiling slightly and letting out a quiet giggle. Perhaps his head injury and the blood he was still losing did affect him more than before. 

"Nice to see that you're as happy as I am about this," said Nesta, but Lukas replied almost immediately: "It's funny that you think that my friends aren't here already." 

"What?" The look on her face was a mix of disbelief and surprise. "My mech would have noti..." She didn't finish her next words as suddenly a glob of blood forced itself out of her mouth, staining the front of her armor in it. The culprit was a broken short sword that penetrated her lungs and came out from the front. A shimmer behind her revealed Shez, her face bloody and bruised, her armor broken in places, and Lukas was surprised as he saw the extent of her injuries that she even managed to move in the first place. 

"And that's that, bitch," growled Sehz ferally. The look in her eyes made her look like a wild animal. She pulled on her sword while pushing Nesta with her shoulder as she didn't have the strength anymore to do it by herself. It got free with a wet splat, and Nesta, an expression of disbelief etched on her face for the rest of eternity, fell to the ground right next to me in a heap. 

The relief I felt at her demise was short-lived, as it didn't take long until the mech reminded us of his presence. 

"Attack on commander detected. Demise confirmed. Commencing anhiliation protocol." 

The mech lifted its arms, the Gatling gun on its right starting to spin slowly and becoming faster while the left loaded another rocket in its chamber. 

But, it wouldn't be able to do anything with its preparations as, suddenly, a dozen shimmers appeared all through the hall. The visible disengaging of the cloaking devices of two Hunter-Teams made Lukas' heart jump in joy. Just like the single command of "Fire," said in a deadpan voice without any tone infliction. 

And with the command came a great number of mini rockets that fired at the hulking mech that had been frozen by the sudden appearance of a dozen new signals, confusing its sensors. Probably before it could compute the new inputs, the rockets hammered into the mech, creating an explosion that caused Shez, who was already standing on shaky legs, to topple over, falling to Lukas' side, the side free of Neta's corpse. 

The hulking mech didn't fare any better than anything Lukas' team had encountered and battled before Nesta's arrival. In truth, it fared even worse, as the explosions atomized much of the mech so that there wasn't even much scrap flying around from its destruction. 

It didn't take long until two people rushed over to Lukas' and Shez's sides, sliding on their knees and activating their Omni-tools. 

"Status critical but not in danger of death. Broken leg, broken ribs, fractured head, concussion, and dangerous blood loss. How does yours look?" asked the soldier kneeling at my side, having given a kick to Nesta's body to make room for her. 

"Around the same for her. It's a wonder she managed even to move. The others are also in the process of being stabilized until the evac arrives. They're bringing a shuttle with proper field medics. They should be able to hold them together until they arrive back at the base." 

"My team is alive?" Lukas managed to say, suddenly feeling very tired. Probably the absence of any tension being the culprit, he reasoned as best as he could. 

"Don't speak," scolded the soldier next to him. "Save your energy. But yes, it's a miracle, but your team is alive to the last person. Going against that crazy Asari and her monster of a mech after fighting against all those," the soldier waved her free arm over the hall where dozens of destroyed mechs and dead Eclipse soldiers were lying around," and with only five people. It's no wonder that your team was sent in the first place. If everything had happened going to plan, we would have probably only arrived for the clean-up without anything to do." 

"Get them out of the warehouse," ordered another soldier, the markings on his Ad Astra armor identifying him as a captain. "The evac transports are arriving in a minute or two, and I want them ready for transportation ASAP!" 

"Yes, Sir!" replied the two combat medics and proceeded to throw two slabs of metal on the ground. The slabs started to expand until they became proper stretchers. The two medics helped Shez and Lukas onto them, and with a command through their Omni-tools, the stretchers started to slowly, as to not exaggerate their injuries, lifting into the air until they hovered around the elbow height of an average human. Another command and the stretchers started to move, once again slowly, forward toward the torn open doors of the warehouse. 

Lukas didn't know when they made it out, as he felt like they just started to move when, in the next moment, he was already outside looking at the underside of a descending shuttle. It occurred to him that he was momentarily blacking out, as the next thing he noticed was that his injuries were seen to by another soldier with the markings of a field medic instead of a combat medic and that he was already inside the shuttle. 

He felt how his thoughts slipped out of his grasp, going from I have to tell them what I learned to I hope my team is alright before resigning himself to giving up the fight against sleep. The last thought that went through his head was I hope I'm gonna wake up.