Follow Me on my journey to save the Earth in a world where I decided to crossbreed my plotbunnies to build a messed up setting.
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For a Better Future (Multicross SI)
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Prologue and Chapter One
Red_Knight25
Unofficial Edgelord Advocate
AN: Welcome One and All, to the first thread I've dared post online! I'll Admit I'm not wholly satisfied with my work thus far, so CC is very much welcome!
Inspired in part by Advice and Trust, Eva Chronicles, Multiverse Madness, and Super Robot Wars Ø, among other things.
Series I plan to involve so far: Evangelion, XCOM, FTL, Code Geass, Into the Breach, Mass Effect, Gundam, Darling in the Franxx, and Destiny.
Without further delay! Lets Begin:
I woke up with a splitting headache. Not exactly an uncommon state, considering my vices, but something felt different. It felt like it deserved more gravitas than a mere (hah!) hangover. I'd never gotten to the point of forgetting the night before, making myself embarrassingly sick, yes, but memory loss? It was something new to me. Almost like my head was… Full.
Why did I have such trouble remembering… Anything now that I think about it. Why do the memories I do hold make such little sense? Why did I find myself sleeping on the floor? Did I roll out of bed and land on my stomach? How didn't that wake me up earlier? And Why, For the love of mercy, did I do so in my clothes?
I groan a little as I push myself towards a crouching position. And freeze. I recognize that voice. It's somewhat prominent in my memories, but it both is and is not MY voice. I open my eyes to reveal a set of chrome sunglasses on the ground and the reflection I see within it both answers some questions while raising others.
My hair, while once similar in color, had never coped with being quite this long. My eyes were now an unambiguous shade of green, and the face they lay upon had the sort of generic handsomeness commonly associated with a particular style of artwork. Before today, I'd only seen this face on screens. (And in the mirror.) But even that paled in comparison to what I saw behind me.
Black and red metal of mysterious alloy, with a scant few purple and yellow detailing. A towering humanoid form the size of a small building, maybe a little under twenty meters in total height. (And won't that be a fun thing to get used to, thinking in a different measurement system?) With a hole roughly twice the size of the thing's own fist in its center torso, and its wings missing entirely.
A fighting robot blighted by the ambitions of a coward unwilling to risk the consequences of his actions. And its pilot, equally damned by the same. In a better life both had been saved by a pair of friends in spite of every disadvantage. We seemed to not share that same luck.
Our names? Exia Dark Matter, and Tatsuya Yuuki, respectively. Guess I've been Isekai'd away from Gundam Valhalla. I spend longer than I care to admit quietly freaking out over the memories presently ravaging my consciousness.
"Focus," I growl in a quiet tone, and god getting used to that new voice (My own!) will be difficult. "Panic later, you've survived worse." Technically I wasn't even lying to myself.
I now drag my attention to Exia's surroundings, the bland off-white metal of the cavernous room we find ourselves in, and the veritable mountain of scrap materials my once proud war machine was strewn carelessly upon.
In spite of it all, I can't help but feel an urge to sweep my hair out of my face as a manic grin stretches across Yuuki's (my) face. "I think I can work with this." I mutter to noone in particular as I realize that my altered memories includes the skills that resulted in my Exia's prior form, the (more elegantly named, in my opinion.) Amazing Exia.
Probably means I'm on a spaceship, Considering that we'd been left for dead in what amounts to hard vacuum. Either a salvage barge or someone too desperate to have a better organization system in place. Oh there's some of my perfectionistic urges, would have wanted to lose out on those.
I just have to make sure that this ship isn't hostile. The Exia is too heavily damaged at the moment to be of much use. Tends to be the result when you get finishing-moved in the chest by a peer opponent. And I'll be damned if I tried to fix a mecha on a glorified salvage heap.
"Yeah, I can definitely work with this," I stand fully to my feet, idly dusting off my coat with one hand as I set my shades on my face with the other. "It would be a Disservice to my Title of Meijin if I didn't."
Further explorations of the room over the course of the next few minutes revealed that it was something of a combination machine shop and raw material storage. The machines would theoretically be able to produce nearly any item the crew would need for repairs and or upgrades thanks to one of the more prominent plot devices in fiction.
Nanofabricators Son! They create in response to physical need!
In more serious terms, the fabricators repurpose existing materials into shapes that fit existing designs, such as additional conduits for improved performance or power capacity. Which sadly means I can't use it to replace Exia's central GN particle condenser, as it's definitely not a standard design. I think I can make the tools to make the tools however, it'll just be painfully time consuming. Frustrating, but not that much of a problem given how much raw material I have access to.
What does bother me however, is that none of the salvage matches with known design philosophies in any Gundam faction I can think of. (God, thinking of Zeon and its successors as political factions and states rather than gaggles of fictional lunatics hurts in an inexplicable way.) Which is a capital letter PROBLEM, because it implies I'm not in the Earth Sphere.
The only aliens we were aware of lived in Sol's gas giants and gave people weird hallucinations when they tried to communicate in a non lethal way. And I really hope I'm not dealing with aliens because I CAN'T presently deal with my problems by slashing them with a giant robot's sword.
I'm hoping that I can stall a mental breakdown by staying productive, but I don't think it's working! I need to stay focused on good ideas, that's how I get out of this. Right cool dude, just stay focused. Breathe in, breathe out: Few more times for good measure. Breathe. If I can manage to not let it sink in until I'm sure that I'm safe, that'll be just fucking great.
Taking a closer look at the manufacturing terminal allows me to determine just what kind of vessel this is. It claims to be an Osprey class heavy cruiser of the Federation. Suddenly my altered mind provided the details.
FTL: Faster than Light. A video game that was something of a cult classic much beloved by one of my lives, yet unheard of by the other. To give an irreverent summary of the basic plot;
After winning one war too many against the local proud warrior species aliens, the Federation's Humanity first demographic orchestrated a civil war that basically eviscerates the known galaxy. Especially thanks to their capture of a series of brand new automated shipyards that give them functionally limitless cruiser killing hulls.
With the Federation unable to enforce galactic law, piracy and raids from hostile alien forces is on the rise. The Rebellion is winning with little resistance, and gearing up for its next implied goal of "War Crime ALL THE ALIENS!"
However our player, finds themself in the role of a Federation captain who discovers the greatest weakness of the Rebel Fleet, the Flagship. (Which is implied to either contain some very skilled admirals or coordination focussed AI.) Using one of three variants on twelve ship classes, you have to journey to the Federation's last stand overcoming or escaping every threat along the way. While preparing to be voluntold by the ranking Federation Admiral to be the one to kill said Flagship.
A Federation cruiser, possibly an 'A' type if I'm not completely mistaken, starts out rather poorly equipped in game. Or more cynically, the damn thing is barely space worthy. Anemic shields, life support, and engines. The two best things about it are that its hull is more durable than almost any of the ships you're expected to fight in game, with the main exception being the Rebel Flagship itself, and the artillery beam.
A marvel of engineering just looking at the schematics. It takes an energy weapon far beyond its expected limitations. Imagine a spinally mounted buster rifle on a warship almost half the size of a conventional battleship, capable of piercing any conventional defense. But what really makes the artillery beam such a game changer is that it's practically an Anti-Ship Battery that cannot miss, does not spend ammunition to calibrate its targeting computer, and relies solely upon the amount of power placed into it by the crew.
Compared to the old mass driver based ASB, the artillery beam is both easier to manufacture, less expensive, and reliant on understood technology that basically even the most podunk excuse for shipyards in the backwaters of society can manufacture. And the ability to almost cripple a warship within twenty seconds of charge and aiming time (at the maximum expected upgrade,) is considered a godsend in an era of fast paced ship to ship dogfights.
Accepting that the beam was somewhat scorned by the player community for being slow, expensive to upgrade, and randomized is still rather hard to swallow. Partially because every firing of the beam brings to mind images of warships cut in half with a single shot, and furthermore due to the beam being limited only in time operational in the amount of damage it can do.
As I imagine the ways I could upgrade the artillery beam with Gundam tech, a part of my mind protests at how unneeded it is to increase the amount of devastation war can already bring. The rest of my mind counters with, 'Haha Wave Motion Gun go BRRRR.' Just imagining the words, "Superheavy Spinal Artillery Beam Cannon, FIRE!" sends both a chill down my spine and manic grin to my face.
Gundam is Freedom after all! Wait no, don't start on a speech in the middle of an empty room, stay focused!
There's one more console that I haven't looked at yet, let's just do that. A few experimental taps on its touch screen reveal that it's meant as some sort of remote internal sensor readout. I tap on one of the rooms that show the most life signs and get a confirmation window.
Access surveillance camera for main barracks? I tap the yes prompt, and promptly jerk back with a distinctly uncool scream.
Webbing, weirdly metallic looking webbing criss-crossing the room. Nestled within oh so carefully are uncountable spiders. Not just any standard issue size of coins spiders. Or more objectively terrifying but still somewhat harmless dinner plate sized spiders. Massive spiders each about half a bed in size.
Giant Alien Spiders. More of them than I care to count. And they look to be stirring because, of fucking course, my voice echoed throughout the whole ship when I voiced my borderline phobic reaction to Spiders the size of FUCKING MOTORCYCLES.
Yeah no, fuck this. I rush back to the machine shop area to try and fabricate some weapons because I'm not interested in becoming spider food. I'm pretty sure I also saw a couple human scale cocoons through an open door to another room. But I'm not taking that sort of chance.
"Oh thank God…" I mutter as I look over the infantry options on the thankfully rather intuitive fabrication console. One laser assault rifle, please! As the thing begins its work, I belatedly realize that there's little to no way I was dropped into the same setting. Unless I'm forgetting a version or AU of Gundam where personal energy weapons were a proven thing. Or where Mobile suits are discarded entirely in the interest of 'fighters' operated by a crew of three or more people like in FTL. Funny the sort of things one thinks of when you've lost your train of thought.
I'd handled personal firearms before in one life. Once at a cousin's bachelor party on a rural farm, and a trip to a gun range with a parent, a sister, and an uncle. On said trip I learned to my frustration that my accuracy sucks with pistols. We couldn't tell if I'd managed to land a single hit. But with two hands, like with the weapon that was taking shape before my eyes quickly, (but maybe not fast enough, FOCUS MAN.) I'd managed some of the best accuracy of the day.
Yuuki was more used to operating mecha scale ranged weapons, but I'm hoping some of the skills can be considered cross training. His understanding was more along the lines of, "Here's your personal defense weapon and sidearm, pray you never find yourself needing them." Well I need those skills now and I can't help but feel as though I've neglected them.
I'm jumping at every sound now, convinced that a Spider will jump me while my back is turned any second now. I've only just cheated death, I'm not interested in dying ever again. But finally, finally the rifle is finished rapid fabrication and why doesn't it come with batteries charged God Why.
I can hear some sort of terrible skittering now, I leave the rifle where it lay, and seemingly on instinct, pull out a particularly sharp looking piece of scrap metal in my gloved hands.
'At least with the Meijin outfit I'll make a fabulous corpse,' I think to myself as something, presumably a spider starts-
Clawing at the sealed blast door between me and it? I look at the nearest vent shaft, where I had presumed the thing would emerge from, and realize that the damn things are too small for Spiders the size of horses to fit through. I sigh in some measure of relief as I drop my glorified shiv. Furthermore I spy a nearby wall socket that looks sized just so for personal battery charging, and click click yes I would like to risk shortening battery lifespan for a shorter charge please and thank you.
It takes much longer than I'm comfortable admitting, but by the time some of the Spider's forelimbs are poking through a gap between the door and the wall, my laser rifle is showing a full one Hundred shots on its convenient little display.
I swallow as I try not to let the thing see me showing fear. I'm not sure what I'll do If I survive this, but maybe I can make a better life than either my prior(?) ones had experienced.
No more time left for doubt, I can see the Spider's not fangs glistening as presumably venom glands prepare to excrete. I click off the gun's safety with one thumb. The thing's limbs tense as it prepares to jump towards me. My rifle hums as though it was eager to be used for a cause other than human on human violence.
Here goes nothing. I pull the trigger.
*BYOWM!*
*SCREEE!*
The spider lands a scant meter of so away from me, its eyes noticeably missing. It blindly scrambles about, whether to fight or to flee I won't know.
*BYOWM!BYOWM!BYOWM!*
I keep planting bolts of searing violet into its massive carapace. Until at last the thing stops twitching. I glance back at the door over the smoldering ruin, and what little confidence this life's first success may have granted me is dashed by what I see.
Two more spiders, slightly smaller than the first but still far closer to human size than I was comfortable with, were using their better's sacrifice to try and web the doorway open. If I allow that, I will almost surely drown in horrible beasts.
They're in my rifle's sights in heartbeats, and shots are sent towards their legs in another instant. One skitters backward into the ship at large, while the other charges me. One moment too many wasted, the Spider is upon me.
My gun slides away from me as I'm tackled to the ground. My hands were too occupied preventing the beast from driving its mouthparts into my soft flesh. The spider's legs were a cage of dark chitin, depriving me of options to escape this grapple.
I needed to think fast, alien or not a spider's musculature is similar to hydraulics. Like how that one friendly neighborhood superhero with his inhuman strength, eventually it will overpower me regardless of how superior I believe myself to be.
With movements guided by desperation, I grip a forelimb with my right hand. My left was still concerned with those not-teeth. I drag my left leg chestward, and give the damned thing my best kick. With an unsettling crack the spider sailed ever so slightly backward, short one limb.
I scrambled vaguely in the direction of my gun, thanking my luck as the spider landed on its back, releasing the spiderleg I'd somehow pulled off. I grasped my rifle as the Spider tried with its own haste to try and right itself. No time for hesitation, brief aim, one last shot, and the unfortunate things movements ceased. 'I must have hit something vital early this time.'
I note with grim satisfaction that my intervention had indeed prevented the spiders from jamming the door open. I realize there are a few rips in my clothing that weren't there before. A cursory inspection implies that I received a few cuts and scrapes from the Spiders legs during the grapple. Because why wouldn't a Giant Alien Spider have sharp and/or serrated edges to its carapace? Almost like fighting a bioweapon instead of a natural creature.
For a brief moment, I feel as though I'd gotten off the hook easily. Then I remember that I've no clue how many spiders there still are aboard this structure. I hear that skittering again, echoing through the life support ventilation. It's louder this time, more cacophonic. That third spider signaled a larger group somehow, it's the best explanation my stricken mind can concoct.
I'd gotten lucky earlier, God it hurt to admit, but I'd been lucky. I'm not sure how many I can handle at once, the two earlier almost maimed me, I can't survive a war of attrition. I'm trying to avert my panic, trying to breathe deeper, telling myself to focus, but it's not working! Normally when I was in a large engagement the others in the team were involved, able to watch my back, cover me when I had an issue. But right now I didn't even have a-
The EXIA! I whirled about seeing for the first time a detail I wish I had noted earlier. Her cockpit was open! I may not be able to power my precious war machine on without leaking exotic particles everywhere, if Exia turns on at all. But would there be a safer place to hide than inside a combat rated chamber reliant on camera's to see externally at all?
With haste that sent my muscles and injuries aflame in agony and exertion alike, I clambered through the familiar yet unfamiliar steps into my mecha, sealing the cockpit with a control sequence I know by heart is meant to work even on emergency power. For a few heart pounding moments, I think Exia won't save me in time for the Spiders to reenter the cargo bay.
And then just like that it was over. My life is secured for the time being. I can almost already hear the pulse raising noises of the spiders screeching and skittering. Scattering about the sanctuary as they search for their prey. I take a few moments to breathe, desperately hoping beyond hope the things don't realize just where I've hidden.
With my life in my machine's hands, I start absentmindedly rifling for emergency compartments, looking for a first aid kit in particular. Thankfully I find exactly that. "Small mercies," I sigh. A little ointment and bandages go a long way. I briefly consider using a space painkiller, but I want to conserve my actual meds for a 'this redefines the meaning of pain,' type of moment.
Looking over my actions, my current options, and what I might have been able to do if I hadn't woken the damn Spiders, all I can think to do is mutter:
"God Damn but I want a drink right now."
Okay, I think this run is salvageable, I've got more than enough scrap for cloaking or one of the OP systems, AND to replenish my crew. I just need to get to an actual store.
This event can't kill my last crew right?
*Click*
Well Fuck.
Inspired in part by Advice and Trust, Eva Chronicles, Multiverse Madness, and Super Robot Wars Ø, among other things.
Series I plan to involve so far: Evangelion, XCOM, FTL, Code Geass, Into the Breach, Mass Effect, Gundam, Darling in the Franxx, and Destiny.
Without further delay! Lets Begin:
The First Day of the Rest of My Life
Prologue
Every End a Beginning
Prologue
Every End a Beginning
I woke up with a splitting headache. Not exactly an uncommon state, considering my vices, but something felt different. It felt like it deserved more gravitas than a mere (hah!) hangover. I'd never gotten to the point of forgetting the night before, making myself embarrassingly sick, yes, but memory loss? It was something new to me. Almost like my head was… Full.
Why did I have such trouble remembering… Anything now that I think about it. Why do the memories I do hold make such little sense? Why did I find myself sleeping on the floor? Did I roll out of bed and land on my stomach? How didn't that wake me up earlier? And Why, For the love of mercy, did I do so in my clothes?
I groan a little as I push myself towards a crouching position. And freeze. I recognize that voice. It's somewhat prominent in my memories, but it both is and is not MY voice. I open my eyes to reveal a set of chrome sunglasses on the ground and the reflection I see within it both answers some questions while raising others.
My hair, while once similar in color, had never coped with being quite this long. My eyes were now an unambiguous shade of green, and the face they lay upon had the sort of generic handsomeness commonly associated with a particular style of artwork. Before today, I'd only seen this face on screens. (And in the mirror.) But even that paled in comparison to what I saw behind me.
Black and red metal of mysterious alloy, with a scant few purple and yellow detailing. A towering humanoid form the size of a small building, maybe a little under twenty meters in total height. (And won't that be a fun thing to get used to, thinking in a different measurement system?) With a hole roughly twice the size of the thing's own fist in its center torso, and its wings missing entirely.
A fighting robot blighted by the ambitions of a coward unwilling to risk the consequences of his actions. And its pilot, equally damned by the same. In a better life both had been saved by a pair of friends in spite of every disadvantage. We seemed to not share that same luck.
Our names? Exia Dark Matter, and Tatsuya Yuuki, respectively. Guess I've been Isekai'd away from Gundam Valhalla. I spend longer than I care to admit quietly freaking out over the memories presently ravaging my consciousness.
"Focus," I growl in a quiet tone, and god getting used to that new voice (My own!) will be difficult. "Panic later, you've survived worse." Technically I wasn't even lying to myself.
I now drag my attention to Exia's surroundings, the bland off-white metal of the cavernous room we find ourselves in, and the veritable mountain of scrap materials my once proud war machine was strewn carelessly upon.
In spite of it all, I can't help but feel an urge to sweep my hair out of my face as a manic grin stretches across Yuuki's (my) face. "I think I can work with this." I mutter to noone in particular as I realize that my altered memories includes the skills that resulted in my Exia's prior form, the (more elegantly named, in my opinion.) Amazing Exia.
Probably means I'm on a spaceship, Considering that we'd been left for dead in what amounts to hard vacuum. Either a salvage barge or someone too desperate to have a better organization system in place. Oh there's some of my perfectionistic urges, would have wanted to lose out on those.
I just have to make sure that this ship isn't hostile. The Exia is too heavily damaged at the moment to be of much use. Tends to be the result when you get finishing-moved in the chest by a peer opponent. And I'll be damned if I tried to fix a mecha on a glorified salvage heap.
"Yeah, I can definitely work with this," I stand fully to my feet, idly dusting off my coat with one hand as I set my shades on my face with the other. "It would be a Disservice to my Title of Meijin if I didn't."
Chapter One
That Which is No Joke
That Which is No Joke
Further explorations of the room over the course of the next few minutes revealed that it was something of a combination machine shop and raw material storage. The machines would theoretically be able to produce nearly any item the crew would need for repairs and or upgrades thanks to one of the more prominent plot devices in fiction.
Nanofabricators Son! They create in response to physical need!
In more serious terms, the fabricators repurpose existing materials into shapes that fit existing designs, such as additional conduits for improved performance or power capacity. Which sadly means I can't use it to replace Exia's central GN particle condenser, as it's definitely not a standard design. I think I can make the tools to make the tools however, it'll just be painfully time consuming. Frustrating, but not that much of a problem given how much raw material I have access to.
What does bother me however, is that none of the salvage matches with known design philosophies in any Gundam faction I can think of. (God, thinking of Zeon and its successors as political factions and states rather than gaggles of fictional lunatics hurts in an inexplicable way.) Which is a capital letter PROBLEM, because it implies I'm not in the Earth Sphere.
The only aliens we were aware of lived in Sol's gas giants and gave people weird hallucinations when they tried to communicate in a non lethal way. And I really hope I'm not dealing with aliens because I CAN'T presently deal with my problems by slashing them with a giant robot's sword.
I'm hoping that I can stall a mental breakdown by staying productive, but I don't think it's working! I need to stay focused on good ideas, that's how I get out of this. Right cool dude, just stay focused. Breathe in, breathe out: Few more times for good measure. Breathe. If I can manage to not let it sink in until I'm sure that I'm safe, that'll be just fucking great.
Taking a closer look at the manufacturing terminal allows me to determine just what kind of vessel this is. It claims to be an Osprey class heavy cruiser of the Federation. Suddenly my altered mind provided the details.
FTL: Faster than Light. A video game that was something of a cult classic much beloved by one of my lives, yet unheard of by the other. To give an irreverent summary of the basic plot;
After winning one war too many against the local proud warrior species aliens, the Federation's Humanity first demographic orchestrated a civil war that basically eviscerates the known galaxy. Especially thanks to their capture of a series of brand new automated shipyards that give them functionally limitless cruiser killing hulls.
With the Federation unable to enforce galactic law, piracy and raids from hostile alien forces is on the rise. The Rebellion is winning with little resistance, and gearing up for its next implied goal of "War Crime ALL THE ALIENS!"
However our player, finds themself in the role of a Federation captain who discovers the greatest weakness of the Rebel Fleet, the Flagship. (Which is implied to either contain some very skilled admirals or coordination focussed AI.) Using one of three variants on twelve ship classes, you have to journey to the Federation's last stand overcoming or escaping every threat along the way. While preparing to be voluntold by the ranking Federation Admiral to be the one to kill said Flagship.
A Federation cruiser, possibly an 'A' type if I'm not completely mistaken, starts out rather poorly equipped in game. Or more cynically, the damn thing is barely space worthy. Anemic shields, life support, and engines. The two best things about it are that its hull is more durable than almost any of the ships you're expected to fight in game, with the main exception being the Rebel Flagship itself, and the artillery beam.
A marvel of engineering just looking at the schematics. It takes an energy weapon far beyond its expected limitations. Imagine a spinally mounted buster rifle on a warship almost half the size of a conventional battleship, capable of piercing any conventional defense. But what really makes the artillery beam such a game changer is that it's practically an Anti-Ship Battery that cannot miss, does not spend ammunition to calibrate its targeting computer, and relies solely upon the amount of power placed into it by the crew.
Compared to the old mass driver based ASB, the artillery beam is both easier to manufacture, less expensive, and reliant on understood technology that basically even the most podunk excuse for shipyards in the backwaters of society can manufacture. And the ability to almost cripple a warship within twenty seconds of charge and aiming time (at the maximum expected upgrade,) is considered a godsend in an era of fast paced ship to ship dogfights.
Accepting that the beam was somewhat scorned by the player community for being slow, expensive to upgrade, and randomized is still rather hard to swallow. Partially because every firing of the beam brings to mind images of warships cut in half with a single shot, and furthermore due to the beam being limited only in time operational in the amount of damage it can do.
As I imagine the ways I could upgrade the artillery beam with Gundam tech, a part of my mind protests at how unneeded it is to increase the amount of devastation war can already bring. The rest of my mind counters with, 'Haha Wave Motion Gun go BRRRR.' Just imagining the words, "Superheavy Spinal Artillery Beam Cannon, FIRE!" sends both a chill down my spine and manic grin to my face.
Gundam is Freedom after all! Wait no, don't start on a speech in the middle of an empty room, stay focused!
There's one more console that I haven't looked at yet, let's just do that. A few experimental taps on its touch screen reveal that it's meant as some sort of remote internal sensor readout. I tap on one of the rooms that show the most life signs and get a confirmation window.
Access surveillance camera for main barracks? I tap the yes prompt, and promptly jerk back with a distinctly uncool scream.
Webbing, weirdly metallic looking webbing criss-crossing the room. Nestled within oh so carefully are uncountable spiders. Not just any standard issue size of coins spiders. Or more objectively terrifying but still somewhat harmless dinner plate sized spiders. Massive spiders each about half a bed in size.
Giant Alien Spiders. More of them than I care to count. And they look to be stirring because, of fucking course, my voice echoed throughout the whole ship when I voiced my borderline phobic reaction to Spiders the size of FUCKING MOTORCYCLES.
Yeah no, fuck this. I rush back to the machine shop area to try and fabricate some weapons because I'm not interested in becoming spider food. I'm pretty sure I also saw a couple human scale cocoons through an open door to another room. But I'm not taking that sort of chance.
"Oh thank God…" I mutter as I look over the infantry options on the thankfully rather intuitive fabrication console. One laser assault rifle, please! As the thing begins its work, I belatedly realize that there's little to no way I was dropped into the same setting. Unless I'm forgetting a version or AU of Gundam where personal energy weapons were a proven thing. Or where Mobile suits are discarded entirely in the interest of 'fighters' operated by a crew of three or more people like in FTL. Funny the sort of things one thinks of when you've lost your train of thought.
I'd handled personal firearms before in one life. Once at a cousin's bachelor party on a rural farm, and a trip to a gun range with a parent, a sister, and an uncle. On said trip I learned to my frustration that my accuracy sucks with pistols. We couldn't tell if I'd managed to land a single hit. But with two hands, like with the weapon that was taking shape before my eyes quickly, (but maybe not fast enough, FOCUS MAN.) I'd managed some of the best accuracy of the day.
Yuuki was more used to operating mecha scale ranged weapons, but I'm hoping some of the skills can be considered cross training. His understanding was more along the lines of, "Here's your personal defense weapon and sidearm, pray you never find yourself needing them." Well I need those skills now and I can't help but feel as though I've neglected them.
I'm jumping at every sound now, convinced that a Spider will jump me while my back is turned any second now. I've only just cheated death, I'm not interested in dying ever again. But finally, finally the rifle is finished rapid fabrication and why doesn't it come with batteries charged God Why.
I can hear some sort of terrible skittering now, I leave the rifle where it lay, and seemingly on instinct, pull out a particularly sharp looking piece of scrap metal in my gloved hands.
'At least with the Meijin outfit I'll make a fabulous corpse,' I think to myself as something, presumably a spider starts-
Clawing at the sealed blast door between me and it? I look at the nearest vent shaft, where I had presumed the thing would emerge from, and realize that the damn things are too small for Spiders the size of horses to fit through. I sigh in some measure of relief as I drop my glorified shiv. Furthermore I spy a nearby wall socket that looks sized just so for personal battery charging, and click click yes I would like to risk shortening battery lifespan for a shorter charge please and thank you.
It takes much longer than I'm comfortable admitting, but by the time some of the Spider's forelimbs are poking through a gap between the door and the wall, my laser rifle is showing a full one Hundred shots on its convenient little display.
I swallow as I try not to let the thing see me showing fear. I'm not sure what I'll do If I survive this, but maybe I can make a better life than either my prior(?) ones had experienced.
No more time left for doubt, I can see the Spider's not fangs glistening as presumably venom glands prepare to excrete. I click off the gun's safety with one thumb. The thing's limbs tense as it prepares to jump towards me. My rifle hums as though it was eager to be used for a cause other than human on human violence.
Here goes nothing. I pull the trigger.
*BYOWM!*
*SCREEE!*
The spider lands a scant meter of so away from me, its eyes noticeably missing. It blindly scrambles about, whether to fight or to flee I won't know.
*BYOWM!BYOWM!BYOWM!*
I keep planting bolts of searing violet into its massive carapace. Until at last the thing stops twitching. I glance back at the door over the smoldering ruin, and what little confidence this life's first success may have granted me is dashed by what I see.
Two more spiders, slightly smaller than the first but still far closer to human size than I was comfortable with, were using their better's sacrifice to try and web the doorway open. If I allow that, I will almost surely drown in horrible beasts.
They're in my rifle's sights in heartbeats, and shots are sent towards their legs in another instant. One skitters backward into the ship at large, while the other charges me. One moment too many wasted, the Spider is upon me.
My gun slides away from me as I'm tackled to the ground. My hands were too occupied preventing the beast from driving its mouthparts into my soft flesh. The spider's legs were a cage of dark chitin, depriving me of options to escape this grapple.
I needed to think fast, alien or not a spider's musculature is similar to hydraulics. Like how that one friendly neighborhood superhero with his inhuman strength, eventually it will overpower me regardless of how superior I believe myself to be.
With movements guided by desperation, I grip a forelimb with my right hand. My left was still concerned with those not-teeth. I drag my left leg chestward, and give the damned thing my best kick. With an unsettling crack the spider sailed ever so slightly backward, short one limb.
I scrambled vaguely in the direction of my gun, thanking my luck as the spider landed on its back, releasing the spiderleg I'd somehow pulled off. I grasped my rifle as the Spider tried with its own haste to try and right itself. No time for hesitation, brief aim, one last shot, and the unfortunate things movements ceased. 'I must have hit something vital early this time.'
I note with grim satisfaction that my intervention had indeed prevented the spiders from jamming the door open. I realize there are a few rips in my clothing that weren't there before. A cursory inspection implies that I received a few cuts and scrapes from the Spiders legs during the grapple. Because why wouldn't a Giant Alien Spider have sharp and/or serrated edges to its carapace? Almost like fighting a bioweapon instead of a natural creature.
For a brief moment, I feel as though I'd gotten off the hook easily. Then I remember that I've no clue how many spiders there still are aboard this structure. I hear that skittering again, echoing through the life support ventilation. It's louder this time, more cacophonic. That third spider signaled a larger group somehow, it's the best explanation my stricken mind can concoct.
I'd gotten lucky earlier, God it hurt to admit, but I'd been lucky. I'm not sure how many I can handle at once, the two earlier almost maimed me, I can't survive a war of attrition. I'm trying to avert my panic, trying to breathe deeper, telling myself to focus, but it's not working! Normally when I was in a large engagement the others in the team were involved, able to watch my back, cover me when I had an issue. But right now I didn't even have a-
The EXIA! I whirled about seeing for the first time a detail I wish I had noted earlier. Her cockpit was open! I may not be able to power my precious war machine on without leaking exotic particles everywhere, if Exia turns on at all. But would there be a safer place to hide than inside a combat rated chamber reliant on camera's to see externally at all?
With haste that sent my muscles and injuries aflame in agony and exertion alike, I clambered through the familiar yet unfamiliar steps into my mecha, sealing the cockpit with a control sequence I know by heart is meant to work even on emergency power. For a few heart pounding moments, I think Exia won't save me in time for the Spiders to reenter the cargo bay.
And then just like that it was over. My life is secured for the time being. I can almost already hear the pulse raising noises of the spiders screeching and skittering. Scattering about the sanctuary as they search for their prey. I take a few moments to breathe, desperately hoping beyond hope the things don't realize just where I've hidden.
With my life in my machine's hands, I start absentmindedly rifling for emergency compartments, looking for a first aid kit in particular. Thankfully I find exactly that. "Small mercies," I sigh. A little ointment and bandages go a long way. I briefly consider using a space painkiller, but I want to conserve my actual meds for a 'this redefines the meaning of pain,' type of moment.
Looking over my actions, my current options, and what I might have been able to do if I hadn't woken the damn Spiders, all I can think to do is mutter:
"God Damn but I want a drink right now."
Omake:
How the Fed A Ended Up So Screwed
How the Fed A Ended Up So Screwed
Okay, I think this run is salvageable, I've got more than enough scrap for cloaking or one of the OP systems, AND to replenish my crew. I just need to get to an actual store.
This event can't kill my last crew right?
*Click*
Well Fuck.
Chapter Two, One Rifle and A Dream
Red_Knight25
Unofficial Edgelord Advocate
AN: This chapter brought to you by copious doses of time off and the XCOM 2 Soundtrack.
Once I could manage to stop feeling sorry for myself, I started trying to plan. Or at least, as much as I could plan while I could still hear skittering all over Exia's hull! It wasn't much, so far everything is reliant on getting out of Exia's cockpit without drowning in space arachnids.
I'm incredible at this, really I know. Wow, I feel light headed all of a sudden- CRAP.
I desperately paw through my first aid kit for something, anything really, dying of blood loss and or minor spider venom isn't my cup of liquor. I notice a syringe looking object helpfully labeled, "Anti blood loss," in kanji. 'Into the arm you goooo…' I mentally sing-song as I grimace.
Okay, okay that helped a little. But now I should try the "Poison Heal" just to be sure.
Imma stick the other arm this time! Pinch squeeze and slowwwwwly owww, why does it feel like burning? I'm reminded just why shots suck so much, ow. Aaaand Don't Forget to bandage those needlesticks, don't forget basic first aid taught in like any school.
I'm sure I've done basically everything I can do at this point to survive. (More points on those spiders being a bioweapon, why would they be able to poison me without a bite?) All I can do is wait for the not-bugs to call off the search. If I squint hard enough, the Spiders crawling around almost sound like rain.
Promising myself to clean Exia Dark Matter after I get rid of the spiders, (If I even make it that far, quiet down insecurity!) I try to settle in for some sleep.
'What am I going to do for food?' Yet another question I can't easily answer, trying to keep me tossing and turning and awake in my time of need.
'I'll never really see my family again, will I?'
Guess I'm crying myself to sleep after all, huh? It may seem overdone but… Just because an injury is understood, doesn't diminish the pain. 'You'd think if my life was to become one of the most overdone varieties of fanfic I'd at least get some wish fulfillment out of the bargain?'
'Roughly fused with some unfortunate soul who died in a terrible accident. Both of us, given a second chance at life with one of the more powerful mechs I've ever operated, and I'm complaining about it not being good enough.' I'm not sure I even get foreknowledge out of the bargain, which is both a blessing and a curse; considering the kind of threats one might want an Exia to fight.
With jittering thoughts on why I might be here and what my next move should be I close my eyes, roll to one side for what may be the last time, and pray I'll live to see another day.
The Earth. Home. A happy, if imperfect, place.
Two Spears pierce its flesh, the Wounds flowing into the oceans.
It is aware of the consequences of cruelty.
A dagger lands somewhere between the spears, a Colorful Poison slowly drifting away from it.
What problems do exist can even be dealt with if people can bring themselves to remain kind and clever.
They turn against each other, dividing in ways new and unforeseen in their foolishness.
None can say the cradle of humanity is perfect. But it is ours, and we will find a way to keep it that way.
But it need not be this way.
We can achieve further greatness, I'm sure of it.
For you are my gift to them, their salvation, my counterattack.
If all else fails, I have a few ideas on ways to get there.
Prepare for the worst, and you'll win the day. And when the time comes, perhaps we all will be ready.
I wake up feeling unusually refreshed, if a little stiff from sleeping in a chair. To my exceeding joy, I don't hear any skittering. Doing my best to ignore the ache of hunger in my abs, I slowly open Exia's cockpit.
The spider's certainly turned the place upside down, A not insignificant amount of scrap has been pulled from the pile, turning the cargo hold into a veritable maze. Worse, I can't see an easy way to reach the ground from here now. Oh wait, rappelling kit in the glovebox.
Getting my rifle and self down to the ground safely still turned into quite the production, swaying about to and fro with no footholds not unlike a windblown spider. I stifle a chuckle as I glance at my sleeve and the lean arm it contained, 'Anime Boy fit indeed.'
Inspecting Exia's current position reveals that it is leaning atop a few larger pieces of ship debris. Mostly rebel cruiser killers and pirates, in this case. There's also several weirdly metallic cobwebs holding the mess in place.
Guess the Spiders didn't want anything too huge falling on them while they searched for me. Thank goodness for more small mercies.
I slink carefully through the maze of scrap metals, making as little noise as I can manage. My efforts to navigate the mess are slightly inhibited by my mind trying to tell me what FTL vessels each piece came from. 'Auto scout, zoltan pirate fighter, auto assault, rebel fighter, slug pirate fighter, rockmen pirate scout, federation pirate bomber, mantis light cruiser, slug pirate assault, whoever lost this ship to Giant Alien Spiders must really be kicking themselves.'
Even assuming just twenty five units of scrap per ship fought, that amounts to what two hundred fifty, three hundred resources total, counting the rebel elite and rigger Exia's perched on? In game that's enough for some serious upgrades, cloaking device, hacking drone launcher, mind control field, additional weapons, improved shields, a combination of any of the previous.
I'd need to take a serious look to see what the previous owners actually did with this ship, in order to understand what I need to do with it. Because there's no way I'm just fixing up Exia and flying the coop. For one thing Exia can't break the lightspeed barrier, for another I don't know where in the cosmos I even am. Furthermore, the very idea of abandoning this salvage haul hurts my inner craftsmen.
Yes, I'm aware that mostly just makes dealing with the spiders more difficult. But killing the cruiser would leave me with too few options to be reasonable. If the Giant Alien Spiders space station is also here with us, I may be more amenable to introducing that to Exia's swords.
Finally finding a path out from the strewn salvage, I pad my way towards the consoles. Navigating the touch screen on manufacturing to produce the best possible infantry armor this time, as well as one other surprise. I need to increase my survivability in case my idea goes poorly. For posterity's sake I keep my glasses on and wear my coat over the generic gray plates.
I also manufacture a bandolier loaded with nine extra batteries for my laser rifle, and a basic combat knife I can attach to the rifle as a bayonet. Taking the time to let the batteries charge, I walk over to the internal sensor display. Doing my level best to memorize the layout while ignoring the signs of spider activity.
I grimace at the sight of an armory used as a larder by the spiders, human sized cocoons lining many a surface. I focus my resolve to get out of this alive and take as many of the things down as I can before I leave. I spot my chosen objectives, noting to my frustration that they are on the opposite side of the ship compared to the cargo bay elevator. There's quite an uncomfortable amount of ship between me and them.
Notably, the barracks used by the spiders as a large common area is between me and my goals. I'm about to call it a wash, when I notice, there's more than one passage from the cargo deck to the main floor. This stairwell is much smaller, meant more for emergency maintenance and repair than anything else, but here's the important part: It gives me access to the half of the ship I want.
At this point only a third of the rifle batteries are charged. I've got some time to burn, and I want a better melee weapon than a mundane bayonet. A wonderful, awful idea springs to mind.
It takes me until most of the rifle batteries are charged, but I figured out how to code my idea into the console. While the machine works away, I work on an adapter to charge it. One last 3D printing, and some desperate prayer later, I power my work on for the first time.
The broadsword's edge gain's the telltale glowwing sheen of GN particles at work. I stab it at a plate of scrap metal, and it passes clean through with a muffled shunk.
I've made an infantry scale GN Sword. I'm confident it should cut just as well as the full sized thing. I've got a manic grin as I consider the implications of revolutionizing personal combat. 'Let's see some glorified beasties beat me in melee now.'
Everything's charged, my sword has a full GN condenser, I've added some magnetic holster scabbard things to my bandolier to hold my sword and rifle, and I've got a route planned to start dealing with these spiders. I just need to get past a comparative handful of the things rather than the vast majority. Thankfully the soles of my new combat gear make even less noise than my other shoes.
Let's stealth assassin genre this shit.
There's a single spider skittering around the entrance to the maintenance shaft, I rush towards it drawing my sword and clicking it on. The beast whirls on me at the noise, but doesn't get the chance to do anything as I sink the GN blade into its carapace. I smile beneath my new helmet as the thing collapses to the ground in two parts.
I make it to my first destination without further incident, instinct and converted experience allowing me to slip by three more spiders unnoticed. The touch screen in this room is just as intuitive here as the ones for the machine shop and internal sensors. I power off the O2 circulator and generator, sealing the vents while I'm at it.
I slip into the next hall, knowing I'm on a timer now-
*SCREE!*
I whirl on the spider behind me and draw my rifle, 'Figures things were going too well.' I plant three bolts into the spider as it charges me, then stab it with the bayonet. I hear the skittering of a larger group of spiders on the way. I hurry my way towards my other objective, replacing my rifle with my sword all the while.
There's two spiders between me and the doorway, both screech as they hustle towards me. I sever the foreleg on one's left side, as the other leaps towards my face. Instinct honed by my operation of Exia guides my movements, I pivot backward slightly and raise my sword.
*Shunk!* The leaping spider impales itself on my sword, but the one I maimed earlier tackles me prone. It rears upward to sink its mouthparts into my flesh, and they bounce off my new armor. It moves to try again on my less protected neck, but finds itself choking on the muzzle and bayonet of my rifle instead.
One last trigger pull, and I'm home free. I grab my sword from the other spider's still cooling corpse, and hustle into the door control center.
Once again grateful for the intuitiveness of the ship's touch screens, I seal the doors to the cargo hold, life support, and door control. Then I open all the other internal doors and airlocks, and turn to the internal sensor display and start cycling through rooms.
I watch with an unpleasant satisfaction as the things flee somewhat futilely from the onrushing vacuum. More and more of them sucked into the uncaring void. For my own safety's sake, I equip the emergency rebreather I deliberately didn't mention making earlier.
I frown as I see a larger group of spiders fleeing into a room beyond one of the airlocks. Guess the infested space station is still attached to the cruiser. Without being able to tell how many not-bugs are in the thing, I need to make an effort to prevent their escape. One more button press and the swarm's escape is prevented.
I watch as emergency lighting activates to show the lack of breathable atmosphere. I watch as I seal the airlocks to prevent all the ship's content from being lost to the void. I watch as the diminished crowd of spiders slowly suffocate in a metallic tomb. 'This is so fucked up,' I lambast myself as I try to convince myself it was the best option.
Finally the last of the oversized arachnids ceases its movements. I wait a long moment more to make sure it isn't playing dead. I shudder as I remind myself of the probable fate they had in store for me. I've only one thing left to say to myself.
"Now what?"
Chapter Two
One Rifle and a Dream
One Rifle and a Dream
Once I could manage to stop feeling sorry for myself, I started trying to plan. Or at least, as much as I could plan while I could still hear skittering all over Exia's hull! It wasn't much, so far everything is reliant on getting out of Exia's cockpit without drowning in space arachnids.
I'm incredible at this, really I know. Wow, I feel light headed all of a sudden- CRAP.
I desperately paw through my first aid kit for something, anything really, dying of blood loss and or minor spider venom isn't my cup of liquor. I notice a syringe looking object helpfully labeled, "Anti blood loss," in kanji. 'Into the arm you goooo…' I mentally sing-song as I grimace.
Okay, okay that helped a little. But now I should try the "Poison Heal" just to be sure.
Imma stick the other arm this time! Pinch squeeze and slowwwwwly owww, why does it feel like burning? I'm reminded just why shots suck so much, ow. Aaaand Don't Forget to bandage those needlesticks, don't forget basic first aid taught in like any school.
I'm sure I've done basically everything I can do at this point to survive. (More points on those spiders being a bioweapon, why would they be able to poison me without a bite?) All I can do is wait for the not-bugs to call off the search. If I squint hard enough, the Spiders crawling around almost sound like rain.
Promising myself to clean Exia Dark Matter after I get rid of the spiders, (If I even make it that far, quiet down insecurity!) I try to settle in for some sleep.
'What am I going to do for food?' Yet another question I can't easily answer, trying to keep me tossing and turning and awake in my time of need.
'I'll never really see my family again, will I?'
Guess I'm crying myself to sleep after all, huh? It may seem overdone but… Just because an injury is understood, doesn't diminish the pain. 'You'd think if my life was to become one of the most overdone varieties of fanfic I'd at least get some wish fulfillment out of the bargain?'
'Roughly fused with some unfortunate soul who died in a terrible accident. Both of us, given a second chance at life with one of the more powerful mechs I've ever operated, and I'm complaining about it not being good enough.' I'm not sure I even get foreknowledge out of the bargain, which is both a blessing and a curse; considering the kind of threats one might want an Exia to fight.
With jittering thoughts on why I might be here and what my next move should be I close my eyes, roll to one side for what may be the last time, and pray I'll live to see another day.
The Earth. Home. A happy, if imperfect, place.
Two Spears pierce its flesh, the Wounds flowing into the oceans.
It is aware of the consequences of cruelty.
A dagger lands somewhere between the spears, a Colorful Poison slowly drifting away from it.
What problems do exist can even be dealt with if people can bring themselves to remain kind and clever.
They turn against each other, dividing in ways new and unforeseen in their foolishness.
None can say the cradle of humanity is perfect. But it is ours, and we will find a way to keep it that way.
But it need not be this way.
We can achieve further greatness, I'm sure of it.
For you are my gift to them, their salvation, my counterattack.
If all else fails, I have a few ideas on ways to get there.
Prepare for the worst, and you'll win the day. And when the time comes, perhaps we all will be ready.
I wake up feeling unusually refreshed, if a little stiff from sleeping in a chair. To my exceeding joy, I don't hear any skittering. Doing my best to ignore the ache of hunger in my abs, I slowly open Exia's cockpit.
The spider's certainly turned the place upside down, A not insignificant amount of scrap has been pulled from the pile, turning the cargo hold into a veritable maze. Worse, I can't see an easy way to reach the ground from here now. Oh wait, rappelling kit in the glovebox.
Getting my rifle and self down to the ground safely still turned into quite the production, swaying about to and fro with no footholds not unlike a windblown spider. I stifle a chuckle as I glance at my sleeve and the lean arm it contained, 'Anime Boy fit indeed.'
Inspecting Exia's current position reveals that it is leaning atop a few larger pieces of ship debris. Mostly rebel cruiser killers and pirates, in this case. There's also several weirdly metallic cobwebs holding the mess in place.
Guess the Spiders didn't want anything too huge falling on them while they searched for me. Thank goodness for more small mercies.
I slink carefully through the maze of scrap metals, making as little noise as I can manage. My efforts to navigate the mess are slightly inhibited by my mind trying to tell me what FTL vessels each piece came from. 'Auto scout, zoltan pirate fighter, auto assault, rebel fighter, slug pirate fighter, rockmen pirate scout, federation pirate bomber, mantis light cruiser, slug pirate assault, whoever lost this ship to Giant Alien Spiders must really be kicking themselves.'
Even assuming just twenty five units of scrap per ship fought, that amounts to what two hundred fifty, three hundred resources total, counting the rebel elite and rigger Exia's perched on? In game that's enough for some serious upgrades, cloaking device, hacking drone launcher, mind control field, additional weapons, improved shields, a combination of any of the previous.
I'd need to take a serious look to see what the previous owners actually did with this ship, in order to understand what I need to do with it. Because there's no way I'm just fixing up Exia and flying the coop. For one thing Exia can't break the lightspeed barrier, for another I don't know where in the cosmos I even am. Furthermore, the very idea of abandoning this salvage haul hurts my inner craftsmen.
Yes, I'm aware that mostly just makes dealing with the spiders more difficult. But killing the cruiser would leave me with too few options to be reasonable. If the Giant Alien Spiders space station is also here with us, I may be more amenable to introducing that to Exia's swords.
Finally finding a path out from the strewn salvage, I pad my way towards the consoles. Navigating the touch screen on manufacturing to produce the best possible infantry armor this time, as well as one other surprise. I need to increase my survivability in case my idea goes poorly. For posterity's sake I keep my glasses on and wear my coat over the generic gray plates.
I also manufacture a bandolier loaded with nine extra batteries for my laser rifle, and a basic combat knife I can attach to the rifle as a bayonet. Taking the time to let the batteries charge, I walk over to the internal sensor display. Doing my level best to memorize the layout while ignoring the signs of spider activity.
I grimace at the sight of an armory used as a larder by the spiders, human sized cocoons lining many a surface. I focus my resolve to get out of this alive and take as many of the things down as I can before I leave. I spot my chosen objectives, noting to my frustration that they are on the opposite side of the ship compared to the cargo bay elevator. There's quite an uncomfortable amount of ship between me and them.
Notably, the barracks used by the spiders as a large common area is between me and my goals. I'm about to call it a wash, when I notice, there's more than one passage from the cargo deck to the main floor. This stairwell is much smaller, meant more for emergency maintenance and repair than anything else, but here's the important part: It gives me access to the half of the ship I want.
At this point only a third of the rifle batteries are charged. I've got some time to burn, and I want a better melee weapon than a mundane bayonet. A wonderful, awful idea springs to mind.
It takes me until most of the rifle batteries are charged, but I figured out how to code my idea into the console. While the machine works away, I work on an adapter to charge it. One last 3D printing, and some desperate prayer later, I power my work on for the first time.
The broadsword's edge gain's the telltale glowwing sheen of GN particles at work. I stab it at a plate of scrap metal, and it passes clean through with a muffled shunk.
I've made an infantry scale GN Sword. I'm confident it should cut just as well as the full sized thing. I've got a manic grin as I consider the implications of revolutionizing personal combat. 'Let's see some glorified beasties beat me in melee now.'
Everything's charged, my sword has a full GN condenser, I've added some magnetic holster scabbard things to my bandolier to hold my sword and rifle, and I've got a route planned to start dealing with these spiders. I just need to get past a comparative handful of the things rather than the vast majority. Thankfully the soles of my new combat gear make even less noise than my other shoes.
Let's stealth assassin genre this shit.
There's a single spider skittering around the entrance to the maintenance shaft, I rush towards it drawing my sword and clicking it on. The beast whirls on me at the noise, but doesn't get the chance to do anything as I sink the GN blade into its carapace. I smile beneath my new helmet as the thing collapses to the ground in two parts.
I make it to my first destination without further incident, instinct and converted experience allowing me to slip by three more spiders unnoticed. The touch screen in this room is just as intuitive here as the ones for the machine shop and internal sensors. I power off the O2 circulator and generator, sealing the vents while I'm at it.
I slip into the next hall, knowing I'm on a timer now-
*SCREE!*
I whirl on the spider behind me and draw my rifle, 'Figures things were going too well.' I plant three bolts into the spider as it charges me, then stab it with the bayonet. I hear the skittering of a larger group of spiders on the way. I hurry my way towards my other objective, replacing my rifle with my sword all the while.
There's two spiders between me and the doorway, both screech as they hustle towards me. I sever the foreleg on one's left side, as the other leaps towards my face. Instinct honed by my operation of Exia guides my movements, I pivot backward slightly and raise my sword.
*Shunk!* The leaping spider impales itself on my sword, but the one I maimed earlier tackles me prone. It rears upward to sink its mouthparts into my flesh, and they bounce off my new armor. It moves to try again on my less protected neck, but finds itself choking on the muzzle and bayonet of my rifle instead.
One last trigger pull, and I'm home free. I grab my sword from the other spider's still cooling corpse, and hustle into the door control center.
Once again grateful for the intuitiveness of the ship's touch screens, I seal the doors to the cargo hold, life support, and door control. Then I open all the other internal doors and airlocks, and turn to the internal sensor display and start cycling through rooms.
I watch with an unpleasant satisfaction as the things flee somewhat futilely from the onrushing vacuum. More and more of them sucked into the uncaring void. For my own safety's sake, I equip the emergency rebreather I deliberately didn't mention making earlier.
I frown as I see a larger group of spiders fleeing into a room beyond one of the airlocks. Guess the infested space station is still attached to the cruiser. Without being able to tell how many not-bugs are in the thing, I need to make an effort to prevent their escape. One more button press and the swarm's escape is prevented.
I watch as emergency lighting activates to show the lack of breathable atmosphere. I watch as I seal the airlocks to prevent all the ship's content from being lost to the void. I watch as the diminished crowd of spiders slowly suffocate in a metallic tomb. 'This is so fucked up,' I lambast myself as I try to convince myself it was the best option.
Finally the last of the oversized arachnids ceases its movements. I wait a long moment more to make sure it isn't playing dead. I shudder as I remind myself of the probable fate they had in store for me. I've only one thing left to say to myself.
"Now what?"
Chapter Three, Birth of the Shining Blade
Red_Knight25
Unofficial Edgelord Advocate
Chapter Three
Birth of the Shining Blade
Birth of the Shining Blade
After setting the doors back to automatic opening and reengaging the O2, I made a short trek to the med bay. It was like a refreshing shower, cleansing you of the dirt and grime of exertion while also quite literally healing you! Automatic medicinal nanomachine dispersal is amazing!
I'm not going to keep making the joke, it'll get stale eventually.
Anyways, the med bay quickly resolves the cuts and scrapes I bandaged earlier. As well as a few bruises I hadn't even noticed beneath my freshly battle tested armor. Suppose I did have a hard landing when I got knocked over. Checking the display reveals that my prior lightheadedness and lethargy was more likely due to stress, lack of food and drink, and a minor case of acute fatigue. And blood loss, can't forget the blood loss. Turns out the spiders have an anticoagulant in limb based secondary toxin glands.
The more I learn about these stupid things, the more they look like a bioweapon than anything else. I don't even want to imagine a planet where life forms like those are normal.
As for resolving my foodstuff issues, there should be a mess hall or hydroponics bay somewhere aboard. Not interested in trying to 3D print rations or eating vacuum sealed giant alien spiders.
I've got a few ideas for how to deal with the infested station without destroying it, but those are presently reliant on factors outside my control. They can also wait until after I eat something.
Desperate measures for Interesting situations.
Thankfully, the mess hall kitchenette hybrid did contain viable food after however long. I suppose it was incompatible with the spider's biology? Or they just don't care to eat things they don't kill on their own?
Unfortunately, edible does not mean pleasant. In fact I've had microwave dinners that had better flavor. Bad food is a problem for later however, I've got bigger issues to handle.
I trek towards the main sensor hub, double checking every deceased lifeform I encounter. It wouldn't do for a spider to revive while I had my back turned.
I power on the external sensors to witness static, receiving several unexpected messages:
It is time.
*Error: Sensor tampering detected. Error: Sensor Input not Found. Error: Navigation Beacons Not Found*
A Gift for you.
*Reclassifying Sensor Suite: Extreme Range Sensors.*
The interference clears up and my jaw drops. An impossibly perfect white sphere, that the back of my mind claims is eerily familiar. I want to call it "The Traveler."
Remember that there remains a line you should not cross, in your endeavors to come.
The Traveler releases a strange and faint pulse of Light and a window opens on the display.
Witness but two of the threats you must aid in confronting.
The Earth's oceans are Red. This too feels painfully familiar, but I can't grasp the concept in my mind why. I simply Know that it is Wrong.
I hope you can forgive me for failing to save your mind in order to spare your Souls.
I'm panicking at the implications when the Traveler pulses again and another window opens, showing a mix of late world war two and cold war era tech facing off against, of all possible things, early model mobile suits with wheels? So familiar but so far away, I can't remember what those suits are supposed to be called. I can't even recognize the models but I can guess at their design strengths and weaknesses.
Please do not squander the resources at your disposal.
Yet another pulse of Light, yet another window, one showing my cruiser from the exterior, docked by the weapon control's local airlock to a large space station, with a bizarre background? The window zooms out impossibly, revealing the vaguely hollow asteroid built around both vessels' shields. And yet I get the inexplicable feeling that The Traveler is holding back.
My friends, when you Need me I will Find You.
The Traveler blurs into motion, the unmistakable gleam of some type of lightspeed or above rate all around. I collapse into a chair as the traveler's window is replaced by a countdown and a galaxy map.
Estimated time to human extinction; fifteen years and counting. Estimated travel time from current location to Earth without beacons; eight years at current burden.
I use the sensor array to check up on the spiders. They seem to be settling in for the long haul, some specimens weaving a complicated looking web around and through the door's to their chosen place of respite.
With the grim specter of doom above my head, my priorities have been changed significantly. I rush down to the machine shop, feeling no urge to retain subtlety. I spend at least eighty units of scrap to produce the tools I have in mind.
Simply put, I'm taking the Celestial Being route.
Normally in the FTL game, cloning and medical bays are mutually exclusive. The most obvious reason is that having both systems would make it nearly impossible to lose crewmembers. For another is that you only have so much room aboard the ship for major systems. The in-universe reason likely has something to do with Federation law, as there's at least one event wherein you lose a crewmember but can't legally clone them because they're still alive.
Hence my crazy, possibly immoral, and almost certainly stupid idea. I'm going to use whatever DNA I can extract from the spiders' cocoon larder, use samples of my own genetics to repair the damage, and try to mass produce some artificial humans.
If I'm quite lucky and I can crack whatever part of the FTL style cloning that allows clones to inherit most, but not all, of their original's skills, I can go full Celestial Being, and technically never lose a single Innovade.
I'm expecting most of my early experiments to go horribly wrong however, but so long as I figure this out within the next few years I'll be able to kick the spiders out of the station half of this technological windfall and still have preptime left over to prepare for the extinction event The Traveler predicts.
Now what my hypothetical secret organization for saving the world needs is a name. I want something that implies heroism regardless of the enemy I may face. Celestial Being is a little vague, if nostalgic. I might reserve it for a shipyard or rechristen my base of operations as such.
My mind's eye reminds me of The Traveler, and their status as likely being responsible for my second chance at life. The way They Glew reminds me of the Light radiated by my infantry GN sword.
The Shining Blade. That's what I'll call us. The noble blades from the dark, riding our fantastic war machines to stem the Earth's wounds and save Humanity from itself and any other threat it might face.
But before I can found a paramilitary organization, I've got DNA samples to hopefully retrieve.
My first effort to cut down a spider cocoon ended in humiliating failure, as my bayonet failed entirely to cut the webbing. My second try with the GN sword cut the cocoon in half entirely thanks to my accidentally turning on the cutting field.
"So that's the kind of day today is going to be."
Hm. When I'd designed my personal GN sword I put a switch in the hilt to make it easier to activate even if you had to do so mid swing. Also, I can't remove the GN condenser without depleting both the sword and the condenser's particle reserves entirely. Something to consider during my flight Earth-ward if I decide to make infantry or more likely commando innovades.
Another thing I need to decide on is making myself a genuine private army, or just a gaggle of Gundams and their support staff. There are benefits and downsides to either, and why am I still asking myself this? Unless you want to try and decommission the Innovades you're about to make to fight a mysterious alien menace.
Okay so full on increasingly large military is the way to go here, no slavery or executions here. I will risk my life, sanity, and honor for humanity's sake but my soul is where I draw the line.
Focus. DNA samples. Contemplate ideas for armor, vehicle, and warship designs later. You've got literal years to figure out the difficult questions. Focus for now on the ones you can solve.
I managed to acquire a few skin and hair samples from the assorted cocoons without further incident. I also found a cocoon that had instead been used as an egg sack rather than prey storage. Taking my samples to the room I've hijacked for my Innovade tanks, I ask myself once again, "Is this really the best solution I can come up with?"
I hyperventilate a little as I consider what just happened. The Traveler. Some sort of hypothetical super lifeform with power beyond the accepted understanding of physics. And they took the time to help me in some complicated, nigh incomprehensible way. But the best way I can think of to proceed is to just casually create clones of myself and seven dead strangers. Or well cross-breeds, children at best- Not the POINT.
Morality. Pure intentions alone do not preclude this being a bad idea. What do I want these clones to do? To be kind to others? To fight the enemies of humanity so natural humans don't have to? Yeah no. My creations will be fully fertile, capable of living fully human lives, and I will give them as much free will as I am able. If they become corrupt and betray me, that's on the way I raised them and the circumstances I placed them in.
My Innovades will hold their destiny in their own hands. They will be able to define themselves. If some of them choose to become as Ribbons and try to conquer the world for personal gain, the consequences will lie on their heads.
I look over the resources I've gathered for this endeavor. I've managed to manufacture all the parts in house, I've got a limited medical nanomachine generator in the next room, I've got just about everything I need, I just need to actually do it.
Make it sound so easy, why don't I? I just need to combine the gene's I have access to in a stable way. Maybe if I liberally exploit the med bay, I can speed up the process of determining DNA viability?
I procrastinate a little further on the effort with the excuse of checking up on the spiders. My heart leaps into my throat as I see what the not bugs are suddenly getting up to. They're assembling some sort of web based pulley system intended to open the airlock into the cruiser without exposing any spiders to vacuum.
I make All haste to the door controls in order to deprive them of the opportunity to enter my domain. I realize at this point I've been trapped again. Somehow when I wasn't looking they connected to the other airlock on the cruiser's bow. I now can't vent the atmo on this deck without starting on my side of the ship.
Whatever. I'll take the hit. I just have to make sure the air beyond the med bay doesn't recirculate. Argh, they've thought of that too, once they open the airlock on their side the air will even out over time thanks to the station's own life support. I should be able to buy myself some time by sealing the blast doors such that they'll need to keep repeating that web pulley setup.
If I can finish enough Innovades and combat gear, I might be able to pull this off. I always did like a challenge. And I can't stand saying that I didn't give it my all.
But first I've got Nanomachines to Jailbreak, son. Ah Dammit, I promised myself I'd cut those jokes out.
My initial experiment with the med-nano almost cloned several Giant Alien Spiders, but Thankfully I managed to shut that down in a final enough manner. Personal GN Sword is there no problem I can't deal with thanks to you?
At least I can prove that the machine shop wasn't full of bogus schematics as far as the clone bay is concerned, and can now move on to the hard part.
A Helping Hand.
I wasn't expecting it all to just work. It was all so easy. Maybe that's why the idea felt so sleazy? That I was taking the easy way out?
The modified clone tanks managed to produce self-sustaining nanomachine colonies without much delay. Even with the alterations I was making to the nanomachines' code itself, it all was just so intuitive. It's hard to believe, I've managed to make a ship with both a healing bay and a clone bay.
I've even managed to puzzle out the tricks the clone bay relies upon to maintain continuity of consciousness between bodies. To try and limit the technobabble, it uses regular cellular level brain scans to know what 'shape' your memories need to take in order to stick. That some of the skills are lost anyways is more of a mix of game balance and the trauma of having died in the first place.
Another thing I forgot to mention about the models of clone bay used in FTL. They work exceedingly fast. As in, at the level I've constructed them at, under ten seconds per clone. I may have gone a little overboard in the number of units I've built.
My first dozen Innovades look at me expectantly as their siblings rapidly grow in the tubes behind them. "Is this how parent's feel, when they look upon their children the first time, I wonder?"
"You can save us the speech, Old man," a red haired one pipes up, "I know I've got enough of your memories to know how screwed I'd be if I tried to go it alone."
"Maybe be a little more respectful to the mad genius who built us from his own blood and a box of scraps?" A blond woman retorts.
"Easy kiddo's," I interrupt before an argument can start, "We've got too much to do to spend time fighting each other." That gets them all looking at me more seriously, even the ones freshest out the tanks in the back. "What say we get down to the fun part yeah?" Those spiders won't know what hit them.
"The Shining Blade is Born!" I roar.
"For a Better Future!" My Innovades reply in a surprisingly large crowd sort of way. I didn't decide on how many Innovades I was going to make in that first series did I? I think I've set the tanks to create one of each template four times for starters. Wait, that'd be slightly under four hundred per tank. Oh dear I've definitely gone overboard.
Well at least the Spider's will probably run out of bodies first. This should be fun.
Negaverse Gendo-quest Omake
Red_Knight25
Unofficial Edgelord Advocate
Negaverse Gendo-Quest Omake
Excerpt From SEELE Galactic Rumor Mill:
The Traveler
A Gift for You- While the ways you can aid the innocents of the galaxy are limited with them so far from your form, you still hold the ability to grant the Light's aid to a hero.
DC- 25
Roll D100- *Autosuccess- Herald of the Light used*
The slightest echo of your Light slips past the Reapers' galactic cordon, seeking the nearest hero worthy of your assistance.
The armored but still recognizable human before you looked upon you with awe as you regaled him with knowledge and subtle inspiration.
You see the signs of his virtue and determination to succeed even though he tries to hide them behind masks of stoicism and material alike.
And in time, you will give his humanity the Light's boons on the whole.
Just as soon as you work up the courage to physically run the Reapers' blockade.
Reward- Meijin Kawaguchi learns of the Impact Wars and the Senario's Deadline.
Meijin Kawaguchi gains Favors from the Light- enjoys vastly reduced action DC's for the next three turns.
Meijin Kawaguchi trait modified- Passionate Determination now grants three rerolls per turn, in addition to its statistical increases.
Meijin Kawaguchi-
Invent Innovades- It may be one of the most immoral things you've ever considered, but one man cannot save the world. Or destroy an army of Giant Alien Spiders easily. You should have enough genetic samples to get a decent start, thanks to the spiders not completely mummifying their victims. Either way, you've got nanomachines to jailbreak.
DC-70 Altered by Favors from the Light-30
Roll D100 – roll19 Passionate Determination reroll 79+17=96 Crit reroll 71
You weren't expecting it to be so easy. Aside from that one issue you nipped in the bud, anyways. Once you provided the equipment with the completed samples it just started to churn them out in seconds. You've forgotten just how overpowered the FTL clone bay is. Each tank makes a full grown Innovade in mere seconds. You very much went overboard with this.
Now to put them to use. And you've got such a ready made target just next door!
Reward- The Celestial Being gains 1,536 Innovades of various models.
Twelve Innovade production lines created.
Many Giant alien Spiders about to get dead.
Excerpt From SEELE Galactic Rumor Mill:
The Traveler
A Gift for You- While the ways you can aid the innocents of the galaxy are limited with them so far from your form, you still hold the ability to grant the Light's aid to a hero.
DC- 25
Roll D100- *Autosuccess- Herald of the Light used*
The slightest echo of your Light slips past the Reapers' galactic cordon, seeking the nearest hero worthy of your assistance.
The armored but still recognizable human before you looked upon you with awe as you regaled him with knowledge and subtle inspiration.
You see the signs of his virtue and determination to succeed even though he tries to hide them behind masks of stoicism and material alike.
And in time, you will give his humanity the Light's boons on the whole.
Just as soon as you work up the courage to physically run the Reapers' blockade.
Reward- Meijin Kawaguchi learns of the Impact Wars and the Senario's Deadline.
Meijin Kawaguchi gains Favors from the Light- enjoys vastly reduced action DC's for the next three turns.
Meijin Kawaguchi trait modified- Passionate Determination now grants three rerolls per turn, in addition to its statistical increases.
Meijin Kawaguchi-
Invent Innovades- It may be one of the most immoral things you've ever considered, but one man cannot save the world. Or destroy an army of Giant Alien Spiders easily. You should have enough genetic samples to get a decent start, thanks to the spiders not completely mummifying their victims. Either way, you've got nanomachines to jailbreak.
DC-
Roll D100 – roll
You weren't expecting it to be so easy. Aside from that one issue you nipped in the bud, anyways. Once you provided the equipment with the completed samples it just started to churn them out in seconds. You've forgotten just how overpowered the FTL clone bay is. Each tank makes a full grown Innovade in mere seconds. You very much went overboard with this.
Now to put them to use. And you've got such a ready made target just next door!
Reward- The Celestial Being gains 1,536 Innovades of various models.
Twelve Innovade production lines created.
Many Giant alien Spiders about to get dead.
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TrueGuardian32
Unfinished Writer
- Location
- Arkansas
For the HOR- COUGH COUGH- A BETTER FUTURE!
Red_Knight25
Unofficial Edgelord Advocate
If only I could both like and funny.
I've started work on the next chapter, but I'm running short on time off. I'll try to give another chapter or snippet by Saturday.
In the meantime, does anyone have any questions, comments, or criticism they would like me to try and answer or provide?
I've started work on the next chapter, but I'm running short on time off. I'll try to give another chapter or snippet by Saturday.
In the meantime, does anyone have any questions, comments, or criticism they would like me to try and answer or provide?
I like the premise but how did the ftl ship get to the evangelion universe to begin with?
Red_Knight25
Unofficial Edgelord Advocate
It was an unexpected consequence of the measures SEELE took to provoke Second Impact.
Edit: I'll make sure to mention that in an upcoming update.
There are a few easter eggs hidden in chapter two and three.
After that, the Traveler found the ship and revived Yuuki without making him a Gaurdian.
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Interlude Chapter: Tales of a Wounded Earth
Red_Knight25
Unofficial Edgelord Advocate
AN: I managed to deliver early! The plot bunnies are frolicking, and my muse responded much more readily than I was expecting a few days ago.
Now without any further delay, please enjoy my work!
The Emperor was frustrated. Such a Rare feeling for Charles Vi Brittania, that it felt like a borderline comedic understatement. The current war was proving to be far more chaotic and destructive than was planned.
Mostly due to an exiled pretender to his throne making plays at starting a Britannian civil war. Frederick La Britannia IV, Charles thought with frustration and disgust. A has been offshoot of failure and disrespect, desperately flailing at relevance. Unfortunately he managed to gain enough support from area's four through ten to make a play on the southern continent.
Alone Frederick's uprising of minor nobles and disenfranchised peasants wouldn't be much of an issue, If the Soviets and Chinese hadn't also been making a play for area two. Britannia had the military to spare however, and Charles was privately thankful that his most martially inclined children were cutting their teeth on Britannia's enemies rather than her own countrymen.
Unlike poor Schneizel, who's talents had demanded he be placed in influence of the measures to counteract the La Brtitannian advance. The experience in bettering his lessers would be good for him, however horrific it may be. Charles just needed to buy time for his brother to work out the issues with SEELE, whose efforts to predict the future had apparently been drastically overestimated.
At least those pompous old fools had held up their end of the bargain thus prior, the Antarctic Thought Elevator was, as promised, unharmed by their 'Second Impact.' The major wars between the african warlords, the middle eastern warlords, and the Europia United was going almost exactly as planned thankfully. The seemingly complete loss of the oceanic fishing trade was borderline irreconcilable, however.
Whatever other plans SEELE may have that were compatible with his Ragnarok, V.V. needed to impress upon their chances of survival if they dared to cheat them. The plan was progressing at an acceptable rate, but the chances of failure only seemed to increase. Yet his Britannia would endure, he would ensure it.
"Crown Prince" William Arthur La Britannia II growled as the damned Knightmare Frame filled another of his tanks with holes. William had been against this whole comedy of errors, but his Father had been insistent that the massive explosion that had stained the oceans red would have done near irreparable damage to Charles' navy. In fairness, he had been correct, they had yet to be contested by sea.
On the other hand, none of the hand-me-down weapons purchased from the EU and Chinese had an answer to the war machine that was quickly defining itself as the uncrowned king of urban warfare. The only real answer to the knightmare frame any of the Royal Pacific Dominion's commanders had was almost too risky to deploy at all.
"Have at You, Miserable Fiend!" Almost, but the risk thus far seemed worth the reward. With a mighty thrust that battered its way past a feeble parry, the enemy Knightmare collapsed beneath its new opponent's lance.
"Excellent work Caroline," William stated over the channel to the Knight Gundam, "We'll meet up with you and Nils once we've secured the governor's mansion and surrender."
"Ryo-Cough- Undertood, My sweetheart and I will ensure the remaining Knightmares cause as little issue as feasible."
'That's all I can really ask of you,' William thought as one of their unexpected assets sped off into the distance. 'Now if only we could actually replicate that or the Sengoku Astray, we wouldn't have to rely on Imperial war prizes just to keep up.' If William had his way, the multiracial couple would be working on establishing their own research and industrialization of the Dominion's heartlands in Australia.
But then they would be trying to operate the Gundam's with inexperienced pilots. It was a recipe for disaster either way, especially since it was mostly blind luck that Caroline executively decided to ally with them to begin with. Apparently Nil's had been melancholily musing that the Holy Empire might try and separate them, and Caroline had dropped the metaphorical boot.
William hadn't wanted this war, but it was the one he had. He'd have rather industrialized to the point of being able to manufacture all their own war material, rather than purchasing whatever castoffs the Europia United and Communists could offer. He'd rather be able to make war his own way, rather than adapt to battle on the Empire's terms.
But the time had been right, Britannia would almost never be weaker. And as the old adage went, a reasonable plan executed violently now, rather than waiting for Britannia to recover. The exile born Noble could adapt.
He had little other choice.
The cannon that was being used as a replacement for the buster rifle let out another roar, another salvaged Nazi war machine died. Ricardo Felini growled as he glanced at his ammo count. Italy couldn't crack the particle theory fast enough. At this rate his partner would be returning to a more ramshackle state far faster than he cared to admit.
What the African warlords lacked in technology, they made up for in ingenuity, ruthlessness, and sheer manpower. The EU would be able to break them eventually, but it would be costly, and they would not be able to provide the Israeli nearly as much support as he would like.
Ricardo missed the simpler days, when the battles were more for sport than true conquests. He missed the enthusiastic kiddos he had been mentoring in the ways of fighting with true skill. He missed the other veterans, who had almost certainly been scattered to the ends of the world if they had survived whatever the hell had happened at all.
At least Mihoshi was here as well, and was safe aiding the team with reverse engineering her Gerbera Tetra and or designing a proper EU original 'Knightmare Frame.' Felini took his wins where he could get them.
And if he was careful, he could even prevent Italy from becoming a French puppet state.
But first he had to rid the world of the Third Riech holdouts who had been supplying these slavers. He'd win this and come back alive for her sake.
Gendo Ikari wanted to crawl into a bottle and drown. Nowhere had it been mentioned that Yui's life would be the price for the scenario to continue. He understood why the old men may have wanted her to suffer such a dreadful fate. He hated them for it, but Kami did he understand. As long as he had Unit One, he had hope. He could bring her back, NERV had the technology.
If all else failed, he could adapt his role to his own ends. Who knew what price Emperor Vi Britannia would pay to pull one over on the council? Thanks to the Old Men, He even had almost everything he needed to pull such a stunt off.
He had time to establish a solid plan anyways, and sending Shinji to Ashford was an excellent way to give him the life he deserved without risking his own worst habits harming his son. SEELE had even been so kind as to lobby for the Empire to establish a method for individuals not born in Britannia to obtain a higher status.
If he played his cards right, his love would be considered a true Britannian, to his honorary Britannian. The Empire might even deal with the Old Men for him, considering how disastrous the Impact Wars were becoming. If he didn't involve himself, the Empire was just as likely to turn on him as they were The Old Men.
He imagined the looks on the member's of SEELE'S faces once they learned he had sold them out to Charles, and hid a vicious grin behind his hands.
The council was in uproar. Kihl Lorenz tuned out most of the prattle, it was figments of old arguments rearing their ugly heads. He'd let his lessers get the vitriol out of their systems while he contemplated his next move.
'Emperor Vi Britannia is unlikely to take the damage to his ability to operate covertly lying down,' Lorenz considered. 'And Gendo has always been more loyal to Yui than to the council as a whole. At least Ikari knows better than to betray Us, Charles would sooner execute him for daring to intrude on his royal presence than allow a traitor from SEELE asylum.'
Kihl Lorenz thoughts turned to the Secret Scrolls and the translations thereof. 'How many of our current problems can be traced to Rokobungi and his wretched sabotage, I wonder?' He contemplated the disaster at Antarctica, 'How many souls escaped the Room of Guf while ADAM had it open?' The plan had been for Katsuragi to finish the First Angel before it began making any major changes to the world, but apparently his efforts had at first caused the giant to lose control, exposing the world to countless unforeseen consequences.
The Room of Guf had apparently been accidentally connected to many other worlds, and an unknown quantity of objects and souls from said worlds had been scattered throughout the universe. It was an inconvenience that they would have great difficulty predicting the results of.
They wouldn't have needed to resort to such lows as aiding Britannia if some fool in the distant past hadn't sealed themself in the Chamber in an effort to make exploiting metaphysical biology impossible. Whomever did so had been able to effectively lock the door from the inside, thus necessitating the usage of both the Lance and the Spear to force the lock without breaking the door entirely.
Thus far most of the new elements were individuals with knightmare scale machines that were within the expected bounds of technological evolution in line with the Scenario's Deadline. The exceptions were mostly dead objects cast into the ether beyond the Earth sphere. If the scrolls hadn't mentioned the odds of a great enemy to the Scenario emerging from beyond the stars, Kihl would consider it a nonissue.
Unlike Rokobungi and his damned Geass. His ability to compel others into considering him somebody else's problem had caused SEELE no end of pain. So for the moment it benefited the Scenario to cooperate with Britannia and the Order. SEELE would have the last laugh, as it were. Once the Geass Order had dealt with WILLE for the last time, then they could finally remove the threat they posed from the equation.
Kihl Lorenz decided that now that the rest of the council had settled down, it was time to speak. "While the loss of overall control is frustrating to bear," he began, "Ultimately the efforts of a few unusual individuals will have little bearing against our efforts. They flail against the inevitable success of the Scenario, not knowing that their every move is within our expectations."
The Commander waited patiently as its Battleship and accompanying fleet progressed ever onwards toward the target. If the detected disturbance was of true concern, the Elders would have informed it after it sent them a report. The Elder's left their respite on fewer occasions now than it could ever remember. This did not matter for The Elder's were the most perfect beings it had ever known. The commander would do its Elders bidding, ignoring all the tiny voices that begged and quivered and had no true value.
It was pointless to disobey, for disobedience meant only suffering.
The Eldest Elder noted with frustration that its time was running out. The horrible truth they had not wanted to consider, was at last coming to pass.
The illness had progressed too far. Even their Gift was failing them now. While the Power that remained would be sufficient to survive in the short term, The Elder's could no longer conceal themselves from the Living Metal. They and Theirs would not be able to evade the Great Enemy's extinction cycle any longer.
They needed to act with haste. To Succeed where all else had failed. The Project MUST BE COMPLETED, whatever the cost.
In the depths of a young volcanic island, something stirred. With a bizarre fleshy pop, a countless larva burst forth from the luminous liquid. In the distance, a towering scarlet beetle watched with an unknowable emotion as the larva wriggled towards the warmth of the flames it left in its wake.
An orange and violet creature vaguely resembling a jellyfish watched as the leader and its minions expanded the hive. They all knew one thing. To grow, to consume, to destroy. The Tyrant psion carefully placed an uncatalysed egg into the spawning pool. It mattered not what they did, only that they survived and that all competition did not.
And to do that, the Vek would need to fight its way to the top of the food chain.
There was something of an awkward silence as the Meijin looked like he wanted to strike a pose, interrupted by the cheerful tone of the Innovade cylinders releasing another group. As though spurred on by this their creator facepalmed. "Okay, in hindsight yeah that battlecry doesn't work. I was going for something inspiring and hopeful, but as is I'm not sure it works."
'Heh,' the sardonic redhead thought, 'for all that he is a Mad Genius, He still has more flaws than he cares to admit.' He ignored the Meijin muttering about workshopping a superior battlecry on a later date, and simply admired the female Innovades. 'Shame the nanomachines also make clothes, I want to know how functional we turned out to be.'
"Right, Okay! This room is getting a little too crowded," the oldest human in the room interrupted his train of thought before it could go further into the gutter, "So here's what I would like to happen, while I make a ton of weapons and armor for those of us who want to fight the Spiders," A large group of Innovades shuddered at the thought of the creepy things they had inherited memories of. "I want a few people to start working on reverse engineering the ships weapons, shields, you get the picture. If at least two of you could also check out the sensors and let us know if the Spiders make any progress on breaking into the ship that would be fabulous."
This time the Meijin did strike a pose, "And if someone can tell the newborns about things, that would also be great. Now let's do this thing!" He was left a little disoriented as the majority of the crowd, Meijin included, filed out of the room.
He recovered from his daze to see a blond template 11 Innovade recovering from a similar daze. She shook her head a little before she looked at him with a narrow gaze, "I saw the way you were looking at me earlier."
"What can I say, I'm curious how the boss's biology skill measures up to his speech writing."
"If you two aren't going to help with the finished Innovades," A template 13 with bright green hair interrupts, "Could you take it to another room?" Suddenly the redhead had an Idea.
"Actually, I remember the boss deciding on letting us name ourselves!" He already had an idea in mind, "I think I'll call myself Mikhail the Toxic!"
The template thirteen facepalmed while a nearby template four deadpanned, "You've already got the attitude down, but I don't want to deal with your middle name being The. Too many misunderstandings."
"Just Mikhail Toxic then, I'm not compromising on anything else." He looked at the template eleven who looked thoughtful, "Why don't we help the others choose their names, then?"
"I think I'll call myself, Carine Path." The newly named Carine nodded with finality. "And you two," She addressed the other innovades not currently brewing in the clone tank, "Do you have any idea on what your name should be?"
The template four had been silent for a moment, she looked at Mikhail with a smirk and said, "Nice to meet you, I'm Revise Desire."
The Verdette Innovade looked thoughtful for a moment, looking at his reflection in the innovade production units' transparent material. "Ribbons," He decides, "Ribbons feels like a nice name."
AN: And scene. As always questions and comments are very much welcome!
Now without any further delay, please enjoy my work!
Interlude:
Tales of a Wounded Earth
Part One:
All Hail Britannia
Tales of a Wounded Earth
Part One:
All Hail Britannia
The Emperor was frustrated. Such a Rare feeling for Charles Vi Brittania, that it felt like a borderline comedic understatement. The current war was proving to be far more chaotic and destructive than was planned.
Mostly due to an exiled pretender to his throne making plays at starting a Britannian civil war. Frederick La Britannia IV, Charles thought with frustration and disgust. A has been offshoot of failure and disrespect, desperately flailing at relevance. Unfortunately he managed to gain enough support from area's four through ten to make a play on the southern continent.
Alone Frederick's uprising of minor nobles and disenfranchised peasants wouldn't be much of an issue, If the Soviets and Chinese hadn't also been making a play for area two. Britannia had the military to spare however, and Charles was privately thankful that his most martially inclined children were cutting their teeth on Britannia's enemies rather than her own countrymen.
Unlike poor Schneizel, who's talents had demanded he be placed in influence of the measures to counteract the La Brtitannian advance. The experience in bettering his lessers would be good for him, however horrific it may be. Charles just needed to buy time for his brother to work out the issues with SEELE, whose efforts to predict the future had apparently been drastically overestimated.
At least those pompous old fools had held up their end of the bargain thus prior, the Antarctic Thought Elevator was, as promised, unharmed by their 'Second Impact.' The major wars between the african warlords, the middle eastern warlords, and the Europia United was going almost exactly as planned thankfully. The seemingly complete loss of the oceanic fishing trade was borderline irreconcilable, however.
Whatever other plans SEELE may have that were compatible with his Ragnarok, V.V. needed to impress upon their chances of survival if they dared to cheat them. The plan was progressing at an acceptable rate, but the chances of failure only seemed to increase. Yet his Britannia would endure, he would ensure it.
"Crown Prince" William Arthur La Britannia II growled as the damned Knightmare Frame filled another of his tanks with holes. William had been against this whole comedy of errors, but his Father had been insistent that the massive explosion that had stained the oceans red would have done near irreparable damage to Charles' navy. In fairness, he had been correct, they had yet to be contested by sea.
On the other hand, none of the hand-me-down weapons purchased from the EU and Chinese had an answer to the war machine that was quickly defining itself as the uncrowned king of urban warfare. The only real answer to the knightmare frame any of the Royal Pacific Dominion's commanders had was almost too risky to deploy at all.
"Have at You, Miserable Fiend!" Almost, but the risk thus far seemed worth the reward. With a mighty thrust that battered its way past a feeble parry, the enemy Knightmare collapsed beneath its new opponent's lance.
"Excellent work Caroline," William stated over the channel to the Knight Gundam, "We'll meet up with you and Nils once we've secured the governor's mansion and surrender."
"Ryo-Cough- Undertood, My sweetheart and I will ensure the remaining Knightmares cause as little issue as feasible."
'That's all I can really ask of you,' William thought as one of their unexpected assets sped off into the distance. 'Now if only we could actually replicate that or the Sengoku Astray, we wouldn't have to rely on Imperial war prizes just to keep up.' If William had his way, the multiracial couple would be working on establishing their own research and industrialization of the Dominion's heartlands in Australia.
But then they would be trying to operate the Gundam's with inexperienced pilots. It was a recipe for disaster either way, especially since it was mostly blind luck that Caroline executively decided to ally with them to begin with. Apparently Nil's had been melancholily musing that the Holy Empire might try and separate them, and Caroline had dropped the metaphorical boot.
William hadn't wanted this war, but it was the one he had. He'd have rather industrialized to the point of being able to manufacture all their own war material, rather than purchasing whatever castoffs the Europia United and Communists could offer. He'd rather be able to make war his own way, rather than adapt to battle on the Empire's terms.
But the time had been right, Britannia would almost never be weaker. And as the old adage went, a reasonable plan executed violently now, rather than waiting for Britannia to recover. The exile born Noble could adapt.
He had little other choice.
The cannon that was being used as a replacement for the buster rifle let out another roar, another salvaged Nazi war machine died. Ricardo Felini growled as he glanced at his ammo count. Italy couldn't crack the particle theory fast enough. At this rate his partner would be returning to a more ramshackle state far faster than he cared to admit.
What the African warlords lacked in technology, they made up for in ingenuity, ruthlessness, and sheer manpower. The EU would be able to break them eventually, but it would be costly, and they would not be able to provide the Israeli nearly as much support as he would like.
Ricardo missed the simpler days, when the battles were more for sport than true conquests. He missed the enthusiastic kiddos he had been mentoring in the ways of fighting with true skill. He missed the other veterans, who had almost certainly been scattered to the ends of the world if they had survived whatever the hell had happened at all.
At least Mihoshi was here as well, and was safe aiding the team with reverse engineering her Gerbera Tetra and or designing a proper EU original 'Knightmare Frame.' Felini took his wins where he could get them.
And if he was careful, he could even prevent Italy from becoming a French puppet state.
But first he had to rid the world of the Third Riech holdouts who had been supplying these slavers. He'd win this and come back alive for her sake.
Gendo Ikari wanted to crawl into a bottle and drown. Nowhere had it been mentioned that Yui's life would be the price for the scenario to continue. He understood why the old men may have wanted her to suffer such a dreadful fate. He hated them for it, but Kami did he understand. As long as he had Unit One, he had hope. He could bring her back, NERV had the technology.
If all else failed, he could adapt his role to his own ends. Who knew what price Emperor Vi Britannia would pay to pull one over on the council? Thanks to the Old Men, He even had almost everything he needed to pull such a stunt off.
He had time to establish a solid plan anyways, and sending Shinji to Ashford was an excellent way to give him the life he deserved without risking his own worst habits harming his son. SEELE had even been so kind as to lobby for the Empire to establish a method for individuals not born in Britannia to obtain a higher status.
If he played his cards right, his love would be considered a true Britannian, to his honorary Britannian. The Empire might even deal with the Old Men for him, considering how disastrous the Impact Wars were becoming. If he didn't involve himself, the Empire was just as likely to turn on him as they were The Old Men.
He imagined the looks on the member's of SEELE'S faces once they learned he had sold them out to Charles, and hid a vicious grin behind his hands.
Part Two
Senario Speed Chess
Senario Speed Chess
The council was in uproar. Kihl Lorenz tuned out most of the prattle, it was figments of old arguments rearing their ugly heads. He'd let his lessers get the vitriol out of their systems while he contemplated his next move.
'Emperor Vi Britannia is unlikely to take the damage to his ability to operate covertly lying down,' Lorenz considered. 'And Gendo has always been more loyal to Yui than to the council as a whole. At least Ikari knows better than to betray Us, Charles would sooner execute him for daring to intrude on his royal presence than allow a traitor from SEELE asylum.'
Kihl Lorenz thoughts turned to the Secret Scrolls and the translations thereof. 'How many of our current problems can be traced to Rokobungi and his wretched sabotage, I wonder?' He contemplated the disaster at Antarctica, 'How many souls escaped the Room of Guf while ADAM had it open?' The plan had been for Katsuragi to finish the First Angel before it began making any major changes to the world, but apparently his efforts had at first caused the giant to lose control, exposing the world to countless unforeseen consequences.
The Room of Guf had apparently been accidentally connected to many other worlds, and an unknown quantity of objects and souls from said worlds had been scattered throughout the universe. It was an inconvenience that they would have great difficulty predicting the results of.
They wouldn't have needed to resort to such lows as aiding Britannia if some fool in the distant past hadn't sealed themself in the Chamber in an effort to make exploiting metaphysical biology impossible. Whomever did so had been able to effectively lock the door from the inside, thus necessitating the usage of both the Lance and the Spear to force the lock without breaking the door entirely.
Thus far most of the new elements were individuals with knightmare scale machines that were within the expected bounds of technological evolution in line with the Scenario's Deadline. The exceptions were mostly dead objects cast into the ether beyond the Earth sphere. If the scrolls hadn't mentioned the odds of a great enemy to the Scenario emerging from beyond the stars, Kihl would consider it a nonissue.
Unlike Rokobungi and his damned Geass. His ability to compel others into considering him somebody else's problem had caused SEELE no end of pain. So for the moment it benefited the Scenario to cooperate with Britannia and the Order. SEELE would have the last laugh, as it were. Once the Geass Order had dealt with WILLE for the last time, then they could finally remove the threat they posed from the equation.
Kihl Lorenz decided that now that the rest of the council had settled down, it was time to speak. "While the loss of overall control is frustrating to bear," he began, "Ultimately the efforts of a few unusual individuals will have little bearing against our efforts. They flail against the inevitable success of the Scenario, not knowing that their every move is within our expectations."
The Commander waited patiently as its Battleship and accompanying fleet progressed ever onwards toward the target. If the detected disturbance was of true concern, the Elders would have informed it after it sent them a report. The Elder's left their respite on fewer occasions now than it could ever remember. This did not matter for The Elder's were the most perfect beings it had ever known. The commander would do its Elders bidding, ignoring all the tiny voices that begged and quivered and had no true value.
It was pointless to disobey, for disobedience meant only suffering.
The Eldest Elder noted with frustration that its time was running out. The horrible truth they had not wanted to consider, was at last coming to pass.
The illness had progressed too far. Even their Gift was failing them now. While the Power that remained would be sufficient to survive in the short term, The Elder's could no longer conceal themselves from the Living Metal. They and Theirs would not be able to evade the Great Enemy's extinction cycle any longer.
They needed to act with haste. To Succeed where all else had failed. The Project MUST BE COMPLETED, whatever the cost.
In the depths of a young volcanic island, something stirred. With a bizarre fleshy pop, a countless larva burst forth from the luminous liquid. In the distance, a towering scarlet beetle watched with an unknowable emotion as the larva wriggled towards the warmth of the flames it left in its wake.
An orange and violet creature vaguely resembling a jellyfish watched as the leader and its minions expanded the hive. They all knew one thing. To grow, to consume, to destroy. The Tyrant psion carefully placed an uncatalysed egg into the spawning pool. It mattered not what they did, only that they survived and that all competition did not.
And to do that, the Vek would need to fight its way to the top of the food chain.
Part Three:
Meanwhile on the Celestial Being
Meanwhile on the Celestial Being
There was something of an awkward silence as the Meijin looked like he wanted to strike a pose, interrupted by the cheerful tone of the Innovade cylinders releasing another group. As though spurred on by this their creator facepalmed. "Okay, in hindsight yeah that battlecry doesn't work. I was going for something inspiring and hopeful, but as is I'm not sure it works."
'Heh,' the sardonic redhead thought, 'for all that he is a Mad Genius, He still has more flaws than he cares to admit.' He ignored the Meijin muttering about workshopping a superior battlecry on a later date, and simply admired the female Innovades. 'Shame the nanomachines also make clothes, I want to know how functional we turned out to be.'
"Right, Okay! This room is getting a little too crowded," the oldest human in the room interrupted his train of thought before it could go further into the gutter, "So here's what I would like to happen, while I make a ton of weapons and armor for those of us who want to fight the Spiders," A large group of Innovades shuddered at the thought of the creepy things they had inherited memories of. "I want a few people to start working on reverse engineering the ships weapons, shields, you get the picture. If at least two of you could also check out the sensors and let us know if the Spiders make any progress on breaking into the ship that would be fabulous."
This time the Meijin did strike a pose, "And if someone can tell the newborns about things, that would also be great. Now let's do this thing!" He was left a little disoriented as the majority of the crowd, Meijin included, filed out of the room.
He recovered from his daze to see a blond template 11 Innovade recovering from a similar daze. She shook her head a little before she looked at him with a narrow gaze, "I saw the way you were looking at me earlier."
"What can I say, I'm curious how the boss's biology skill measures up to his speech writing."
"If you two aren't going to help with the finished Innovades," A template 13 with bright green hair interrupts, "Could you take it to another room?" Suddenly the redhead had an Idea.
"Actually, I remember the boss deciding on letting us name ourselves!" He already had an idea in mind, "I think I'll call myself Mikhail the Toxic!"
The template thirteen facepalmed while a nearby template four deadpanned, "You've already got the attitude down, but I don't want to deal with your middle name being The. Too many misunderstandings."
"Just Mikhail Toxic then, I'm not compromising on anything else." He looked at the template eleven who looked thoughtful, "Why don't we help the others choose their names, then?"
"I think I'll call myself, Carine Path." The newly named Carine nodded with finality. "And you two," She addressed the other innovades not currently brewing in the clone tank, "Do you have any idea on what your name should be?"
The template four had been silent for a moment, she looked at Mikhail with a smirk and said, "Nice to meet you, I'm Revise Desire."
The Verdette Innovade looked thoughtful for a moment, looking at his reflection in the innovade production units' transparent material. "Ribbons," He decides, "Ribbons feels like a nice name."
AN: And scene. As always questions and comments are very much welcome!
- Location
- California
Wonder if it was an Innovade who's locked the door on SEELE?
Chapter Four, Cleaning out the Cobwebs
Red_Knight25
Unofficial Edgelord Advocate
Chapter Four:
Cleaning out the Cobwebs
Cleaning out the Cobwebs
I woke up in a bed I had claimed for myself feeling a familiar mix of untired and unwilling to move. Not helped by the familiar ache of a hangover. One of the Innovades had apparently found a still on the Spider's half of the Celestial Being, and the products thereof had been graciously accepted as part of the victory party.
Finishing off the damned things was actually somewhat anticlimactic. The spiders kept trying to charge us, we kept burning holes in them with our laser rifles. Eventually and all too quickly, we'd just run out of spiders. Full stop. No triple extra large final boss spider queen, no swarms of freshly hatched spiders trying to strip flesh from bone in terrifyingly quick fashion, nothing of the sort. Just our growing numbers and technological advantage against the primal fury of a horde of cornered predators.
'It was surreal,' I mused silently, 'going from desperately fighting for my life to dispensing with the threat with all the cold professionalism of a trained killer.' I wiggle a little from my weirdly uncomfortable position, and stop when I feel a hand carding through my hair… From the area of a weight pinning down my arm… My eyes snap open.
'I didn't… Did I?' A brief check indicates that the both of us seem to be wearing sleepwear, and I mentally huff a sigh of relief. That's a line that I very much don't want to cross with one of my creations. I look my bed guest over in a desperate attempt to jog my foggy memory.
My, for lack of a better term, partner in this bedroom admittedly looked amazing. I can certainly imagine worse situations to wake up snuggled into. She had long dark green hair and an expression of contentment that warmed my heart. She also looked familiar in a similar way to the various things The Traveler had shown me. I also couldn't match her perfectly to any of the Innovade templates I'd made, so unless I've done something incredibly stupid on a drunken whim, I could viably discredit her for being one of my creations.
While idly toying with a lock of her hair, her slumbering face took on a slightly more confident grin that sent a memory back to me in a rush:
I was easily halfway through my third glass of what tasted like the homemade equivalent of cheap whiskey from a plastic bottle on the bottom shelf of the store. The incongruity of using the nicest glass we could produce for something so sad simply made the experience more enjoyable, if in a weird and terrible sort of way. I was also making an effort to teach several Innovades of the finer points of alcohol. "Okay okay okay, the trick to enjoying this stuff in the long term is a little thing called maintain."
"Maintaining what," Revise Desire (I knew letting them name themselves was both a bad and the best idea.) asked, "Blood alcohol content?"
"Actually yes!" I managed to avoid slurring. "You use the first drink as a way to reach your desired level of inebriation," Mikhail was either enjoying the conversation more than expected or gathering ammo for future embarrassment, judging by the hilarious grin Mr. Toxic was sporting. "Then for the rest of the night you slow down your consumption considerably."
"With the obvious result of prolonging your enjoyment without going too far." Ribbons (Why did that name ring a bell?) concluded. I wasn't sure if he approved, but he had a glass of this swill in hand also, so who knew? "In honesty, I think I would rather partake in something somewhat better tasting."
"As would most of us I'm sure," I agreed with a totally sage look on my face. Or at least solemn, I think I managed a solemn look. "Alas, we work with the alcohol we have, rather than the liquor we want."
"Meijin! Meijin!" A raven haired Innovade barged into the conversation, "We picked up a damaged mobile suit on the sensors!" A look of desperate fear in her eyes, "Sir, It's radiating the same energy Antarctica is!"
I chug down the last bit of my drink. (When did it go from half full to single swallow?) "How Far away is it from us!" I rise from my seat with remarkable grace.
"Three Kilometers and closing at a rate of uncomfortably fast."
"Right, the salvage shuttles should be fast enough to latch onto the suit and slow it down." I glance at Mikhail, Revise, Carine, and Ribbons as we speed toward the elevator. "If they find anyone within the suit, bring it into the cargo hold as soon as possible."
"And the pilot?" Carine asks, face reddened by her own inebriation.
"If they're alive we bring them to the Medical Bay, if not we give them last honors and try to add their gene patterns to Innovade production."
The woman groaned as her body protested everything that had happened to it recently. Which, considering the miserable state her mobile weapon had been in, could only be a lot. Whatever drive it had used to defy gravity was clearly totaled, with no clue of how it had operated to be found. Its various calibers of autocannon were completely exhausted of ammunition at best and fused by heat into inoperable ruin at worst. The bladed pile bunkers were jammed into an extended position, making it technically functional as a melee weapon, but its efficiency would no doubt be worse.
We had to move our mystery pilot carefully in case her condition worsened. The damage had to be mostly internal, considering her flattering black dress was near completely undamaged. She had long green hair, and a remarkably healthy figure and complexion considering she seemed to be dying for no readily identifiable reason. Thankfully the Med bay doesn't care about visual diagnosis.
We looked at the predicted life expectancy bar on the med bay display as the nanomachines went to work. "I think she'll make it," Carine Path stated as the bar climbed from an expected lifespan of minutes to hours to years. The group lets out a collective sigh of relief. I don't think anyone particularly wanted to have to hold a funeral right after our victory party.
"Head back to the party folks," I mention to the Innovades, "I'll keep an eye on her."
Ouka Nagisa woke to the familiar hushed tones of a med bay. That she woke at all was not something she expected in the slightest after her sacrificial rush on Aquilla. The unfamiliar off white metal of the room, and the unfamiliar uniforms of the other occupants, implied that she wasn't somehow rescued by her unofficial little siblings and placed in the care of their physicians.
Ouka looked to her right and saw him. With his non-uniformed appearance he was almost certainly a commander of some sort. He was holding a pair of chrome shades in one hand and a tablet computer in the other, looking over something unknown with a green gaze that looked rather kind. An open black coat revealed a more conventional white uniform with a black ascot. Then his gaze turned to her, and he smiled as he set his glasses down on a nearby table. 'He has a nice smile,' She thought as he approached her.
"Hello there," He said calmly, his gentle voice sounding rather pleasant. "It's clear that you've been through quite the ordeal."
"My name is Ouka Nagisa, and you've no idea just how surprised I am to be alive." She rose from her medical berth with a surprising degree of non-pain. She stumbled slightly, only for his hand to catch her before she could fall.
"Yuuki Tatsuya," He responds with a challenging look, "Try me."
Self proclaimed Chief Medical Innovade Sora Dove watched as Ouka and the Meijin started comparing the trials that had led them to this moment. They had matching confident smirks as they traded war stories as a way of learning more about each other. The Meijin was also leading her in the vague direction of the victory party.
Sora looked at the med bay's report on Nagisa's condition. Apparently she had been infected by some form of hostile nanotech? The only reason the med bay had been able to fight them off was because it was drawing upon the seemingly limitless power of the vessel's reactor. She'd have to remind herself to ask whomever had placed themselves in charge of reverse engineering just how that worked. If nothing else indefinite energy would be of massive use to the Shining Blade in the future.
For now, Sora resolved herself to figuring out why the med bay wasn't treating the increasingly large amount of alcohol poisoning the Innovades were experiencing. Maybe the hangover was considered punishment enough by the ship's designers?
Right, that's how it happened. After I led Ouka to the victory party our conversation had continued in the vein of learning more about each other. And her confidence, my god. She amazed me in so many ways. The alcohol probably helped. And yet, I don't regret spending the night in the same bed as her. It's not like anything untoward actually happened. It might be because she's still here with me.
I decided to snuggle back into Ouka and hope for the best. It's not like I can do anything else before she wakes.
Ouka Nagisa, on her end, was in the stage of her hangover where one desperately regrets drinking in the first place and falsely promises oneself never again. At least not with low quality homebrew swill. She heard a contented sigh and felt a hand on the small of her back. Ouka remembered dragging Yuuki to a random bedroom before changing out of her dress and into some convenient sleepwear provided by the Clones.
She recalled the image Yuuki had shown her of the Earth, with oceans of blood instead of water, when she had asked him what his long term plans were. And he'd explained his intentions to either save human kind, or use his clone tech to rebuild it the hard way. She had promised to lend his Shining Blade her skills as a pilot. He had asked her to help keep him honest, to be willing to stop him if he went too far in the name of salvation. She'd called him needlessly insecure and insisted he wouldn't need much help staying moral. She agreed to help him anyway, but that's besides the point.
Ouka was privately grateful that they hadn't taken advantage of each other in each other's innebration. She contemplated the bone deep ache in her skull, and wondered what her plan was. Would she stay in bed with her potential boyfriend until she felt better? They had to get started on the whole 'build an army to save the world,' thing sooner rather than later.
"My head isn't going to feel better if we stay in bed all day huh?" She began.
"Mmhm." Yuuki sleepily muttered.
"Let's at least get something to eat before we check in on the clone brigade." She started to stretch her way to wakefulness.
"Mmkay."
Revise Desire looked over the report from the engineer brigade, one hand rubbing at her temple in a futile effort to ease the headache. She wasn't particularly sure if it was from the alcohol or the sheer bullshit that was this reactor. It could indeed maintain its power output effectively indefinitely. But it could only produce enough power to break the lightspeed barrier with the addition of external fuel. That was mostly just because physics as it was commonly understood, hated when things with mass tried to travel faster than fucking light.
Thus far, the fuel cells were part of the ship they didn't have a clue how to produce. They presumably had enough of the things to make several jumps to shorten the trip to valuable resources they could use to expand the organization on their way to the Earth, but Revise was quickly finding that she hated making assumptions. She turned at the sound of her door opening to see the Boss and his new Girlfriend entering the room.
"If this is about the reactor I'mma tell you two here and now I'd rather just use a GN Drive. Now That we know how it works, its exotic effects, and how to mass produce. This ship's Vaguely Defined Fusion Reactor is crazy, and we haven't cracked the damn thing's exact construction."
"No," The Meijin responds, "I was thinking about brainstorming some unit designs for our forces." Now that had her attention.
"We talking combined arms, mobile weapons, or warships here?"
"Yes."
The three of us debated the merits and flaws of various unit ideas, equipment loadouts, and design philosophes in general. Ouka had convinced me of the virtues of the flying naval ship variety of vessel, and I'd convinced her of the same in regards to vehicles that aren't mecha. Revise on her part was an excellent sounding board, doing preliminary math checks and providing unexpected points of view for the sake of argument.
My favorite success thus far is on the Elite Infantry gear actually. We've agreed to explore the options of personal GN tech in the form of an easily customizable set of armor with several built in GN condensers and potentially other assorted gadgets the user may find useful. As far as aesthetics go, I was aiming to make it look like a futuristic knight. The end result pre customization ended up looking oddly familiar.
We also designed a hovertank, a small patrol warship, and our answer to Space Battleship Yamato. We were making progress, if not inconsiderable but still good solid progress. Where we stalled out was on producing anything larger than the hovertank. Basically, our fabricators can't produce anything larger than the unit itself, anything else we'd have to assemble by hand. Doable, but not great for the poor souls working on the thing.
For now, our solution is to expand the station end of the Celestial being until we have room to build and or assemble a larger scale fabricator. If nothing else we can make ourselves a damn fine ground force before we invest in building a shipyard the hard way. The other great thing that came from the endeavor was that our FTL drive could drag the station half of the Celestial Being with us, but it would cost additional fuel.
The very suggestion made poor Revise look like she wanted to hit me, but she mentioned that she was hoping the rest of the R&D crew would crack the mysteries of the fuel cell soon enough. In the meantime, she kicked us out of her office so that she could work on reverse engineering the pegasus missile launcher.
"That was productive, but time consuming." Ouka noted. "Maybe we should organize a more formal meeting with the 'I'm in charge of this because I said so,' variety of Innovade."
"Questions for later. For now let's talk to Mikhail, He'll want to know that the martially inclined Innovades are getting new stuff."
"You're making us what?" Mikhail Toxic himself poked his head out of the cafeteria.
"Okay I'll admit it," Mikhail stated, "Personal armor that can deploy deflector shields on top of being stupidly durable and protective is very sweet. It's definitely better than the stuff you made us earlier and the normal suits I was looking at. I approve. We'll need a space helo or something to get those troops to the fight though." He looked at the tank design next:
"I'm not sure why you gave it a second turret for the AI weapon, And the pintle mount on top of the turret. Have the AI laser mounted coaxially to the main gun, simplify the overall design and make it need one less crew." Finally he turned to a rough sketch of a hypothetically superior rifle design I'd forgotten about.
"This gun looks pretty sweet, I also like the footnote here. Synth wood furniture, Very classy. What, you gonna make Revise look into making a laser shotgun next?" That last part actually sounded like a good idea.
"Eh, I do want to do a few things myself." I retort, "Besides, Revise is busy destressing by looking into shield piercing missile launchers that shoot twice the ammo you put in."
"God damn I love my life."
"Sir, Sir!" Another Innovade interrupts, "We've found Aliens on the Extreme range Scanners!"
The small crowd looks over the sensor display. Some ugly creatures with sickly green skin and four eyes stand menacingly over a group of thin digitigrade legged aliens clad in skintight normal suits with mostly opaque full face visors. Notably, one of the four eyes is placing large collars of unknown design around the poor souls necks. Unknown design, but not purpose.
"Slavers," Ribbons spits in disgust.
"These bastards are operating from a station without a fleet," Revise notes with forced stoicism. "I can have a flight of those Mass Production GN units Ribbons and I were talking about last night in the time it takes for Navigation to plot a FTL course."
"Make it so," I begin and turn towards Ouka, "Can you do some talent scouting among the others for people who can survive their first engagement?" Ouka nodded and left the Room with Revise and Ribbons. "Mikhail, If you could get as many of those improved armor sets together, while I work on that dropship transport you mentioned."
"And the Exia?" Mikhail challenges.
"If I can find the time, maybe. Otherwise I'll be joining the ground pounders in the ground battle."
"Don't like that name, if we're going to be the Shining Blade's elite, we'll need a better title than that."
"Killjoy," Carine mutters, "You ruined the mood. We were having a serious moment about messed up aliens enslaving innocents who aren't even their own species."
Mikhail looks inspired, 'Oh don't tell me,' he lets out a familiar grin. 'Oh he is!'
"Killjoy huh," Mikhail's grin only gets bigger as Carine facepalms. "How about we make that the title of our elite troops?"
"We'll certainly be killing our enemies' joy." Outwardly I'm trying to remain stoic, internally I'm trying to contain my glee at the memory of another life that's just surfaced. "I'll accept it until somebody comes up with something everyone likes better. Carine, get a handle on navigation, see if our helmsman can outdo Revise's estimate. For now however, let's do the galaxy a favor, and kill us some slavers."
"Can we steal their station once we're finished?"
"Just get moving, Killjoy Toxic."
- Location
- California
Well damn, Ouka moves fast. In less than 24 hours of being rescued, she got some action. I figured she chill from the prospect of dying in space. Maybe have a sandwich in the meantime.
Also, we got Mass Effect Aliens which means Relay system. Now, the negaverse update implies Reapers are very aware and very active. It's probably not a good idea using the Relay system, but it could led back to Earth in the Sol System. No need to get lost, just find the 314-Relay, and muddle home.
Also, we got Mass Effect Aliens which means Relay system. Now, the negaverse update implies Reapers are very aware and very active. It's probably not a good idea using the Relay system, but it could led back to Earth in the Sol System. No need to get lost, just find the 314-Relay, and muddle home.
Red_Knight25
Unofficial Edgelord Advocate
The crappy whiskey might have helped more than either of them care to admit.
While Harbinger will probably never admit it, the Reapers have shall we say, much B̴̛͉̱͒̌͊̊̀́̊̍͊̇̐̀͝͝͠i̷̝͕̇͂̄͜͠g̸̢͍͚̼̅̿̎͝g̶̢̧͇̘͖̟̗̺͓͐̅̈̂̋̈́͋̌̀͒̽̑͝͝ê̵̡̧̜̩r̵̦̱̿̒̑̎̈̓͑̽̕ ̶̡̢̧̛̪̼̙̝̝̭͓̠͐͗͊̓̄̓̓́̆́̄P̵̹̻͖̻̖̲̻̫͖̠͐̈́͒̓̽̀̐͑͂́̂͘̚͘̕͝͝ṟ̴̡̨̠̝͚̲̭̲͔̹̱͈͇̩̫̳̎̊̐̊͌͑̐̕o̸͍͕̣̬̱͐̐̎̂͗̅̃́̓͋̍͂̄͝͝ḃ̷̨̦̠̂̔́́̑̾̎͝l̵̘͍̭͚̹̫̪͖͙͕͕̲̺̒̈́̉͋́̂͒̅̀̍͝͝ę̶̛̜̉̐́̈́̐́̑̿̾̀̓͝m̷̞͇͇̪͕͈̲̎̇̒̈́͋́̈́s̶̪̰̟̘̺̥̋̂̐ ̴͎͇̽A̶̡̢̨͉͍̞̘̪͎̺̺͕̜̫͉̍̃͌́͋̑ţ̶̨͚̝͉̜̼̻̻͉͎̯͇̬̭͗̏͑͋̚͝͝ ̷͍̙̅̓̀̏͠ͅt̵̨̡̧̛̛͎͇̞͚͉͉̥̖̞͔̭͑̀͂́̀̓̍̚h̷̙̩̪͖̗̮̅̑͋̈͋̄̍̎̈̌̇̾͋̍̈͝͠ĕ̸̢̡̯̼͔̖̫̲̬̎̊̽̉̾̑͌̕͠ͅ ̸̨̳̞̞̩̺̙̼͓͓̟͙̘̆̈́͋̈́̽̀̔͛̀̈́͋͘M̵̖͈̞̳̔̾̀͒ơ̵̡̥̳̫͖̙͎̬̿̈́̌ͅm̴̡̛̯͓̻̞̤͙̲͗́̐̋͂̒͗̾̈́͝ę̴̢̗͔̭̏̈́́̓̂̈́͘͜͝͝n̸̢̧͇̮͚̝̲̻̞͍͈̱̥̖͔̑͛̍̔͂͂͆̉̉̕ͅt̴̢̡̨͔̝̗͇̭͕̣̪̠̣͙̳͒̔̈͆̍̒͒͒̈́̄͘̚͠͝
While Harbinger will probably never admit it, the Reapers have shall we say, much B̴̛͉̱͒̌͊̊̀́̊̍͊̇̐̀͝͝͠i̷̝͕̇͂̄͜͠g̸̢͍͚̼̅̿̎͝g̶̢̧͇̘͖̟̗̺͓͐̅̈̂̋̈́͋̌̀͒̽̑͝͝ê̵̡̧̜̩r̵̦̱̿̒̑̎̈̓͑̽̕ ̶̡̢̧̛̪̼̙̝̝̭͓̠͐͗͊̓̄̓̓́̆́̄P̵̹̻͖̻̖̲̻̫͖̠͐̈́͒̓̽̀̐͑͂́̂͘̚͘̕͝͝ṟ̴̡̨̠̝͚̲̭̲͔̹̱͈͇̩̫̳̎̊̐̊͌͑̐̕o̸͍͕̣̬̱͐̐̎̂͗̅̃́̓͋̍͂̄͝͝ḃ̷̨̦̠̂̔́́̑̾̎͝l̵̘͍̭͚̹̫̪͖͙͕͕̲̺̒̈́̉͋́̂͒̅̀̍͝͝ę̶̛̜̉̐́̈́̐́̑̿̾̀̓͝m̷̞͇͇̪͕͈̲̎̇̒̈́͋́̈́s̶̪̰̟̘̺̥̋̂̐ ̴͎͇̽A̶̡̢̨͉͍̞̘̪͎̺̺͕̜̫͉̍̃͌́͋̑ţ̶̨͚̝͉̜̼̻̻͉͎̯͇̬̭͗̏͑͋̚͝͝ ̷͍̙̅̓̀̏͠ͅt̵̨̡̧̛̛͎͇̞͚͉͉̥̖̞͔̭͑̀͂́̀̓̍̚h̷̙̩̪͖̗̮̅̑͋̈͋̄̍̎̈̌̇̾͋̍̈͝͠ĕ̸̢̡̯̼͔̖̫̲̬̎̊̽̉̾̑͌̕͠ͅ ̸̨̳̞̞̩̺̙̼͓͓̟͙̘̆̈́͋̈́̽̀̔͛̀̈́͋͘M̵̖͈̞̳̔̾̀͒ơ̵̡̥̳̫͖̙͎̬̿̈́̌ͅm̴̡̛̯͓̻̞̤͙̲͗́̐̋͂̒͗̾̈́͝ę̴̢̗͔̭̏̈́́̓̂̈́͘͜͝͝n̸̢̧͇̮͚̝̲̻̞͍͈̱̥̖͔̑͛̍̔͂͂͆̉̉̕ͅt̴̢̡̨͔̝̗͇̭͕̣̪̠̣͙̳͒̔̈͆̍̒͒͒̈́̄͘̚͠͝
The Darkness says, "YOUR'RE DOING IT W̶̼͉̿̎͘R̸̢̨̟͉̜̼̝̩̰͓͐͂͐͒̽̓͋̾ͅO̸͉̬̫̻̞̥̾̓͌͗͛̚N̸̠̣̘̞̳͎̻͎̈́͌͂̏̏̓̍͠G̴̡͙̦̞̥̻̼͇̝͍̲̯̣͛̉̈̄̽͛̈́̿̒̒͌͘!"
Chapter Five: Teething Issues
Red_Knight25
Unofficial Edgelord Advocate
AN: This update brought to you in part by this ace combat playlist: LINK
As I go through the rote motions of firing up the design console and putting together that promised dropship, I think about what happened last night. I wasn't expecting to go that hard on the whiskey, and everything after Ouka woke up was very much a spur of the moment decision. And then I went ever harder on that pathetic moonshine while I was comparing life stories with her.
I certainly wasn't complaining about the results, even if I'm still not sure when we stopped comparing psychological scars and started flirting. I remember the way she smirked at me that night, and in the present shudder slightly as an electric thrill courses through me. In all due seriousness, once these slavers were dealt with I intend to have a serious conversation about our relationship. Preferably without any alcohol loosening our restraint.
It was going to be awkward. Emotionally complex. May well ruin my chances of continuing the relationship with Ouka. I still think it needs to be done, I've gained enough confidence, resolve, and passion from my situation that doing any less would feel god-awful. She deserves the best from me, and I'd accept the worst from her. But I wanted more time to hope for the best and prepare for that worst.
Insult me all you want Toxic, you're unlikely to say anything I haven't already considered myself.
Now, I need to focus on this space dropship. I don't want to just make a flying box with wings and or engines. I want it to be modestly aerodynamic for in atmosphere operations. I've already got troop considerations in mind, I'd rather not pack them in like with passenger planes but confort can be sidelined. If I make it large enough it could even airlift in a tank. Now how to add enough thrust capacity to make it fast- Just use a GN Tau Drive, refueling is an acceptable problem to have. I don't think I have the time to figure out the actual perpetual motion machine that is the GN Solar Drive.
Revise Desire was sweating bullets as she worked her own design console furiously. She and Ribbons had been spitballing last night. Any serious decisions as to the shape of their standard mobile suit hadn't come from the ether. They had been more stating their opinions and contemplating options rather than actually coming up with anything concrete. Drunkenly, by the way.
Ribbons had apparently mastered the boss's concept of maintain through sheer disgust, while she on the other hand had grown increasingly handsy with the poor awkward soul as the night went on. Then Revise experienced regurgitating everything she had ever eaten in her bathroom. She struggled to imagine a more enjoyable evening. At least without involving her reproductive system.
Anyways, the part of that discussion Revise had remembered most was their agreement in utilizing the overall worse but less expensive version of the GN Drive, as well as setting it up with a miniaturized variation of the Cruiser's Vaguely Defined Fusion Reactor to eliminate the need for periodic refueling. They hadn't quite figured out the Fusion Reactor to that point yet, and likely wouldn't for at least longer than the trip to the slavers. Revise wasn't worried about that however, she was planning on using a more basic high capacity battery to keep their MP GN units running until that was figured out.
No, it was the rest of the features Revise was struggling on. The Meijin and Ouka had debated at length the merits of purpose built machines compared to more general purpose units. While they arguably had a purpose built main battle tank in what they'd designed previously, What they needed right now was something that could fly. As well as beat the shit out of whatever vehicles and anti armor weapons those slavers possessed.
Suddenly Ribbons entered the room, "Please tell me you aren't building what I think you're building."
"Ribbons, my guy, my androgenous fellow, my fellow human, all I can remember about that conversation worth mentioning is the reactor drive combo system." Should she give it wings? They might help with heat sinking, or just make the unit a larger target.
"Oh. I was worried you were talking about those piloted suicide bombers I have nightmares about." The Fuck! That was a Terrible Idea in so many ways Revise Struggled to articulate her response.
"The Fuck Ribbons!?! What kind of Hack do you think I am? We don't have the resources for that kind of shit. Also Moral Issues." She wished she had more time to study any of this shit, if she screwed up here more than just the Shining Blade would pay the price.
"And that would be terrible." What they really needed right now was something that could close the gap in their options, Revise was having trouble thinking with Ribbons interrupting her plane of thought.
Wait. Aircraft. Fighter Planes. Revise Desire had a flash of inspiration from a memory that was not her own. Joints with a range of movement beyond human baseline. Armor schema hallow in strategic places. Hardpoints for mounting additional weapons. The transformation didn't even need to be extremely complex so long as it worked. Aesthetics could be a problem for another day. And why was Ribbons still here?
"Go bother someone else, I need to math this brainwave out."
"What do you Mean, the Hydroponics Bay is FAILING!" Sora Dove screamed borderline incoherently. Her day only seemed to get worse, first she had to deal with basically every Innovade complaining about the after effects of alcohol poisoning colloquially known as a hangover, but now she had to deal with this shit too?!? Was there not anyone more directly qualified than the Doctor in charge?
"The System claimed to have never been designed to service so many people at once, Hell, It keeps recommending we get rid of all but eight people. We might well be lucky we still have foodstuff reserves at all."
"How is a Fucking Heavy Cruiser roughly four hundred meters long supposed to operate on single digit crew!"
"Your guess is as good as mine?" The as of yet unintroduced Innovade managed to not stutter.
"Why are you even bringing this to me? I'm a Doctor not a farmer or a crisis manager." Somehow she was sure Doctors were supposed to have people to deal with this type of thing for them.
"All the other In Charge People are busy with the Alien Slaver thing!" Sora hadn't even had any alcohol last night but yet she still had a godawful headache. Time for some primal therapy.
"AAAAARRRRRGH!"
Ribbons Almark found Ouka Nagisa speaking with several Innovades. "How many pilot candidates have you found Ma'am?" He decided to default to respect as Nagisa may well have power over him thanks to her connection to The Meijin.
"I'm confident that the vast majority have what it takes to live up to Yuuki's expectations." Ouka said warmly. "My main doubt is that we'll have sufficient chassis for them to operate."
"I'm rather certain that Revise just got over whatever hang-ups were left in her design theory." Ribbons said, confident that his fellow Innovade would live up to her own words. 'Especially seeing as she just kicked me out of her lab.' Ribbons had a strange degree of, he wasn't certain what emotion he was experiencing, other than he did not particularly like it and wanted the sensation to end.
"You may as well ask your question, most of the other Innovades seem to be interested to some degree." Ribbons was taken for a loop at the interruption to his thoughts. At least the unwanted emotion had gone away.
"I'm sorry? I don't understand the topic we've changed to."
"In spite of the nonstandard way it began," Ouka stated, "I have every intention of pursuing a genuinely fulfilling relationship with the Meijin for both myself and him." Oh right, She'd dragged his commander off last night and everyone seemed to be assuming they would need to be on the lookout for surprises nine months down the line. Ribbons, was for his part, glad he had decided to work on establishing the military command aspect of the Shining Blade. He could practically feel Sora Dove screaming in frustration at the very concept of pregnancy scares.
Wait no, that was just Sora Dove screaming at something frustrating in general. Moving on, "It's not my place to judge his or your actions. I don't envy the probable chance of many awkward conversations in the future however."
"Commitment is an important component of any relationship," Ouka nodded, "I don't plan on giving up on Yuuki. Now, do you care to aid me in assessing our potential pilots?"
"Gladly Ma'am."
I wiped the sweat off my brow, the final weld set in place. For design inspiration for this work I'd removed the blades from a helicopter gunship and upscaled the result by at least an order or two of magnitude. I'd also made the wings larger and gave it a few more powerful weapon hardpoints for whenever we finished reverse engineering the FTL Missiles. The result somehow still looked less original than I wanted. I'd also had an idea for a more generically helicopter shaped dropship for covert uses later.
But for now! I've managed to make three of the things, which will have to be enough because between the tanks, these Multirole Assault Transports, the Killjoy customizable armor, and whatever insanity Revise came up with for our mobile suits, we're burning through our scrap reverses something fierce. It doesn't look like I'll have the time to finish poor Exia Dark Matter's repairs. I can at least program in the needed tools before I make myself some personal GN armor.
And maybe upgrade my sword. I have an idea that's almost as awful as trying to make personal GN weapons in the first place. Possibly still a better Idea than mass producing human beings. The jury's still out on if I'm a horrible person or not. I very much intend to prove myself benign via my actions rather than my words however.
Hmmm, How should I customize my GN armor? Also I don't want to forget that laser shotgun idea. I can work on that while my armor prints.
Myself, the pilots, and the ranking Innovades sans Carine Path and Sora Dove stand within the extra large airlock cum improvised hanger bay where Revise's work of the past eight plus hours have been stored. Mikhail tilts his head one way then another. And then he opens his mouth. "They're fighter jets. How are they supposed to work out of atmo?"
"Heh heh! That's what you think! Ribbons, if you would do the honors?" Revise counters. The verdette Innovade for his part simply shrugs and climbs into the cockpit. "Now Ribbons, there'll be a switch that's not present in a more conventional cockpit, use that if you please."
We watch as the generic jet-like starfighter suddenly levitates upwards and changes. Oh my God Revise did it the utter beautiful madwoman. "For one thing, these babies are running on GN drives like those neato MAT's and the Tanks the bossman came up with. Now take another look, Toxic!" Revise had a manic grin on her face as Mikhail's jaw dropped. The now Mobile suit form device landed gracefully on its feet thanks to Ribbons' piloting.
"We can give them a pithy propaganda name later, for now I'm calling them the V-GN-X. I gave them some beam vulcans in the arms that can also function as beam sabers, just not both at the same time. The beam sabers can also eject from their ports in order to be held in a more conventional fashion, but you can't shoot things with them in that mode. The V-GN-X also comes with a heavier beam rifle for taking potshots at larger enemies and stuff it isn't close enough to sword."
Revise has managed to crack Variable Fighters. I'm so Proud. And they even look like they belong on the ship classes we came up with! Oh I can see the results once we figure out the missiles now! "Excellent work Revise!" I take a quick count of the fighters in the glorified airlock, "You've managed thirty fighters while I could only manage three each of tanks and MATs!"
"Eh I wanted to save some scrap for later," Revise brushes off the complement, "Also as a vaguely sibling type figure I can get away with being harsher on the less outstanding with a more clear conscience."
"What's the issue, Aegis?"
"I figured out how the ship's shield generator worked." Denial Aegis began.
"That's great, now we can build our own!"
"I did it destructively, and now it's on fire."
"YOU BUFFOON, GO PUSH BUTTONS!" Revise revised as she rushed off to help firefight.
"Yup everything went excellently with the engineering crew please don't stare too closely at the shield control room." Revise concluded.
"Well," I begin while looking at my newest armor's time display, "If my math is right, our helm should be getting us underway right about-"
Shara'Vel vas Laara knew her life was over the moment the Batarians boarded the ship she had lived in for the majority of her life. The Laara had attempted to respond to a distress signal that had been in reality a trap orchestrated by slavers. They'd disabled the Laara's engines beyond reasonable repair within their first few salvos. These Damned Bosh'tets who were making a military sponsored raid on innocent peoples and escaping proper justice by claiming "Plausible Deniability."
Shara knew that every Quarian unfortunate enough to have been captured alive would be worked in illness ridden camps, unlikely to ever know life without the damned bomb collar for the rest of their miserable days. And when their numbers had dropped low enough, the Batarians would go on another raid, the Citadel would be stymied by "plausible deniability" and yet more innocents would suffer a cruel fate at the hands of these xenophobic, self aggrandizing, hateful, BOSH'TETS.
And all Shara could do was wait for it to be her turn to be collared. There was nowhere to run on this damned station, only more processing plants, hangar bays, and barely livable storage for when the station was between mining areas. And even if she and any others tried to escape, they likely wouldn't get far before being shot again, in a possibly more lethal manner this time.
Shara hated everything about the Batarian Hegemony. She hated that the Citadel allowed them to be in violation of "galactic law," just because they had the galaxy's largest military. She hated how the Citadel had abandoned her entire species because of their government's greatest mistake. She hated the Laara's captain for failing to inform the admiralty of their deviation from scheduled course. And most of all, Shara hated herself for being too pregnant to do anything about the problems she faced.
All she could bring herself to hope for at the moment, was that her child would be too weak to be forced to grow up in this hell. Let Shara perish before her baby could be born. Or let her child die too young to know how much they could have had. That they should have deserved. Shara had once dreamt of a better future, now all she could imagine was a painless death.
There was a strange white flash from a nearby window. Several slavers glanced at it, delaying the inevitable for another few moments. One Batarian looks out the window and speaks up. "What kind of half blind idiot straps a drive core to an asteroid? You'd get the same result for cheaper with just some basic engines and time."
"You are one fucked up bastard, You know that Balak?" A lighter skinned slaver replies.
"Also," The Batarain holding the collars barely looks up from his work. "Asteroid warfare is about the one law the Citadel actually cares to enforce with force. You'd be up to your upper eyelids in covert killers for the rest of your days, and the Hegemony would laugh at you for failing to get away with your stupidity."
"Yeah, yeah we've been over this shit." Balak grumbled, "The Citadel's only a joke until it isn't, and whoever is left holding the bag is screwed faster than a deadbeat surrounded by an Asari gang." Quaint.
There was a strange flash from one of the asteroid's craters. Balak must have noticed it out the corner of one eye, as he took another look. "Damnation! The Accursed thing is hollow! There are fighters headed right for us!"
"What the hell, Balak?" A batarian who had yet to speak up protested as he went towards the window, "You do not joke about this- CRAP! He's not joking! Sound the Alarm! Move the Cargo into secure storage!"
"Haven't even processed half of them yet!"
"You wanna pay the price for losing our haul while the fleet is out on "Patrol?" That's on you. Me, I'm gonna do my job while the emergency is fresh!"
Shara'Vel held her breath. Using a random space rock as camouflage? Madness, Stupidity more likely to get you shot down by point defence than within striking range of an enemy fleet. But it wasn't a fleet, it was a slave processing and asteriod mining station. She couldn't think of any navy in the galaxy that would consider such a tactic seriously. But for the first time since the Bosh'Tets barged into her bedroom with their shotguns and harpoon launchers, she began to doubt that her fate was sealed.
Ouka Nagisa paced in unspoken frustration. The transports had left while she was in line for the V-GN-X's and they had run out of the personal troopers long before she had realized she wouldn't be able to assist in the battle. Maybe if she hadn't been daydreaming about how she might ask Revise to customize one for her own use She would have noticed and would be doing something more useful at the moment. Suddenly there was a hand on her wrist.
"Okay Bosslady, I've got an idea for you!" Revise Desire dragged her from the cargo airlock to the bay itself, and pointed at Yuuki's Exia. "I'm still vague on what tech is supposed to go into the wing assembly, but Bossman finished coding in the equipment we need to get it running without them." Revise looked her in the eye, "Please Supervise the staff to get this thing in position at the airlock while I get the parts set up to finish what the Meijin started."
Ouka remained unwilling to stand idly by while her comrades fought for their lives, there was only one way she could answer.
Ribbons Almark bit back a swear as the station's point defense lasers lashed over his shields. The individual hits weren't massive but they would almost certainly add up slowly over time. Unfortunately the higher quality autocannons only seemed to care about their deflectors and had already done visible damage to the left wing of his V-Jinx. That or Revise had used weaker armor than she had promised.
Ribbons preferred to lean towards the alien guns being overpowered however. He pulled up behind one of the slaver fighters and unleashed a brief burst from his beam vulcans. The blasts went clean through the thin blue barrier between them and the thing's hull, and the craft went up in a flash of detonating fuel. Ribbons took the briefest moment to survey the chaotic vista of autocannon fire, missiles, and flaring GN particles for his next target. Thus far his HUD claimed that none of the Shining Blade's units had been destroyed, but they remained outnumbered by the alien fighters by an uncertain degree.
He also couldn't tell if the transports had landed, joined the fight, or if they were trying to approach the station unnoticed as was per the original plan. He wasn't certain if the tanks hovering on the surface of the Celestial Being's asteroid and providing fire support was a good or bad sign.
Ribbons found himself placing his faith in the work of his fellow man, and directed himself towards his next chosen target.' At least this was the part of the plan least likely to go poorly,' he thought as he shifted to mobile suit mode and slashed a pursuing alien craft in half with his beam saber. Overall, Ribbons was confident that he had this part of the operation well in hand.
I growled as I fired my new laser scattergun at the alien marine leaning out of cover to fire on the troops. The resulting cone of fiery radiance left the damned four eyes collapsing to the ground with a pained gurgle. While we hadn't been able to land undetected, the assault transport had been able to prevent another flight of alien fighter craft from disembarking from the station. We were using the resulting wreckage as cover while the transport left to either aid in the dogfight, acquire another group of friendly combatants, or both if such a miracle happened.
For now, my team of mixed Killjoys and adhoc troopers would be storming the station for a data storage or command center in order to acquire enough data to actually talk to the Aliens we were freeing. It was planned that Mikhail's team would move towards securing the innocents in order to prevent the slavers from taking hostages. Our third team leader was to my surprise, Carine Path. I was kicking myself for not paying close enough attention to her chosen goals and interests. She and hers would be sweeping as much resistance from the slavers as possible in the hopes of preventing them from organizing a better response than they were currently facing.
I grunt as my GN shield fails to completely stop the latest barrage of damned flechettes from the aliens mass driver rifles and nearly knocks me off my feet from an impact with my right shoulder. I didn't think there were any severe injuries thus far, but I couldn't be sure. Another alien gunman fell to the ground with a neat hole burned in its faceplate, and I smirked. Their armor was clearly meant to defend against kinetic weapons primarily.
The biggest problem is that unlike the Spiders, these jackasses could shoot back. But that was both manageable and expected.
Tela Vasir had been tracking this slave ring for the past ten weeks. She had almost gotten enough information to prove definitively to the Council that they were Hegemony military acting under orders, rather than renegades willing to risk starting a war to fill their credit accounts. She had been infiltrating the station to steal the destination of their cargo from their files. Then some mystery aliens on an asteroid showed up and started handing the station's fighter escort their collective asses. And left the Asari Specter with more questions than answers.
At least she could take her frustrations out on the slavers. A quick and easy biotic charge and shockwave combo to scatter the guards rushing towards the nearest alien boarding party, Followed up with several simple shotgun blasts to mop up the survivors. She took a brief moment to survey the familiar rugged models of the guard's weapons and bit back a curse for her armor recorder's benefit. "The batarians are breaking out the flechette battle rifles and the harpoon snipers, these aliens really have the bastards spooked." She scooped up a new looking battle rifle with an unfamiliar integral bayonet, for posterity's sake and because she was a Specter and could legally do such things.
She took a moment more to regain her composure before continuing, "Unknowns have Asari like bipedal physique, are armed primarily with direct energy weapons of unknown functionality, and have displayed two types of combat hardsuit. One much more generic and common and the other noticeably customized in color scheme if not if functionality. Assumed elite variant with noticeably higher performance all around." Tela needed to complete her objective without any conflict with the unknowns.
She decided she wouldn't engage the newcomers. If they wanted a violent first contact with the most vicious bastards this side of the galactic core, let them. If they wanted the slaves to themselves, fuck 'em. If they wanted to release the Quarians back to the migrant fleet, more power to them. She just wouldn't lose any sleep over their lives and those of the Batarians they ended.
This was not how she had expected her first mission as a Specter to go. But she wouldn't have made it this far in life if she couldn't roll with a few punches.
Carine Path hissed in frustration as she dove back into cover for the third time this minute. The Four Eyed Motherfucker had to have been ridiculously skilled to be able to keep her entire team suppressed with his squad automatic weapon. That or she had taken casualties without noticing. Like all these aliens preferred lethal weapons, this model also seemed to be firing barbed spikes but unlike the lighter weapons this one seemed able to fire nigh-on indefinitely without reload or cooldown, or however the crap the alien guns worked.
Furthermore the machine gunner's squadmates were holding their fire in order to take potshots at the Innovades whenever they tried to silence the suppressing fire. They had already taken a few too many close calls with those damned harpoon guns, and were not particularly eager to try their luck that their armor would hold out to a direct hit.
Carine was cursing herself for assuming she could get away with only two batteries for her rifle, and was down to her laser pistol and GN sword. While the pistol had greater total ammo capacity, the refire rate had turned out to be atrocious due to cooling requirements. And her sword relied on the same power supply as her shield generator and targeting system.
Her moment of indecision was interrupted by the sight of a small glowing disc landing behind the cover nearly half her non Killjoys were sheltering behind. Time seemed to slow down as the machine gun fire cut out. "Grenade!" Carine's warning was too slow. She could see the explosion blooming as the pressure wave scattered her boys and girls, exposing them to the no doubt ruthless slavers. But what upset her the most was the laughing.
"Hak Hak Hak!" The aliens were laughing as they took aim at her troops. It was at this point that Carine decided to risk it all to win this engagement. She engaged the enhanced jump suite she had installed beneath her cape, and leapt for distance. She didn't care as the bastards began focusing fire on her shield. She didn't care that her shield deactivated to conserve particles and the flechettes began landing on her armor. She didn't care that this was the exact sort of situation she had initially wanted to avoid.
What she did care about was the look on that unhelmeted motherfucking machine gunner's ugly four eyed face as his laughter died as her sword gleamed with a light of justice and revenge. As her blade carved that once smug expression in half, and she planted a shot from her pistol into the left eyes of the nearest rifleman. She very much did care about the fucking spike that was subsequently embedded into her right side and knocking her flat on her ass.
"Ikrath! Sarvan!" One of the harpoon gun wielding aliens howled as it desperately tried to refire his visibly overheating marksman rifle, an unknowable expression beneath its helmet. Then another of its compatriots fell to the renewed fire of Carine's squadmates, and the sniper allowed itself to be dragged away down a different corridor by two of its compatriots.
Carine looked at her HUD as the medic assigned to the squad rushed towards her. "Gut-shot," She grit out to Bring Revival coldly, "Worst pain I've ever experienced, but I'll live."
"Unless you let those barbs continue to deal more damage. Just take the damn med-nano and brace." At least her display showed that her generic squad members were shaken up but alive. They would all probably need a visit to Sora Dove's medbay after this however.
One of her Killjoys glanced at her as she stood up then handed her a rifle battery. "Next time grab more spare than just the one Ma'am."
"How was I supposed to know the rifle wouldn't accept the pistol battery?" Carine grumbled as she holstered her sword and pistol and rearmed her rifle.
"The pistols are half the size, and the battery is built in." Atten Prepare replied, "I know the batteries are one hundred rounds each, but those rounds go by quickly when you full-auto it."
"Something to remember for later operations." Carine advanced, glancing at her much reduced GN particle gauge. The Killjoy gear's strained endurance in extended combat was also something to mention in the pre after party command staff meeting. It wasn't like they could just bring a GN drive with them on incursions like this right? Either way that room had been too well protected to not be worth mentioning on the coms.
"Lead Killjoy Path to Command staff, we've defeated the defenses of an unusually fortified room. Investigating now. Status updates all?"
"Lead Killjoy Toxic: Slave pen located, breaching defenses as we speak."
"Flight Commander Almark:" Ribbons started with a note of annoyance in his voice. "Three units forced to withdraw due to critical damage. As long as we can keep hostiles from focusing fire, damage should be within acceptable limits."
"Sensors here, the aliens seem to have run out of pilots. We are detecting no more fighter launches, repeat, you're on the home stretch flyboys. The Aliens will run out of units first. Be advised, extreme range sensors are picking up some worrying movements from outside the system from vessels that seem to match hostiles' design philosophy."
"Meijin here! We're facing greater than expected resistance. I think we may have found those pilots!" I dogged another stabbing motion from a bayonet and blasted the offender with my scatter laser. At this distance the squinting bastard found himself with a fist sized hole in his torso, and was blown backwards into the floor in wide eyed shock.
"No joy," Carine stated over coms, "This is just an armory. It's where they're keeping their nonlethal gear." I allow my now empty shotgun to hang by its sling as I slash another alien with my modified GN Sword.
The Prominence Blade severs the alien's wrist, scores a glowing line across his chest, and sets the newly disabled form aflame. As it drops to try and quench the flames, a boot to the back of the head silences its cries for aid. "Continue as planned, Carine. If you can find the Alien command center before I do, you have permission to hijack my role in the plan." I replace my laser scattergun's battery, and cock the mechanism to re-engage the main heat sink. "For now, I've cleanup to do on this end."
And I've just the idea to deal with the overwhelming majority of these squinting scumbags. Though it will take most of my remaining GN reserves. Vocal Passcode time! Without the comms on so I don't screw over the others by mistake. "Burn on, Burn on, Burn on, Infantry TRANS AM!" Leaping and soaring with my back and leg mounted jump jets performing at over three times baseline capacity, I'm among the beleaguered defenders. Aiming and firing within heartbeats one handed as quickly as the scattergun can refire. My other hand generates an extra strength GN shield to avoid damage from the alien's retaliation.
A lifetime and yet all too soon later, my scattergun reads empty as I approach a firing line of harpoon snipers. That was the greatest downside of my laser scattergun design thus far. In order to ensure the damage per shot remained acceptable even with spread, I had to put more power into the output than a more coherent beam or bolt would require. Layman's terms the laser scattergun used its ammo over four times as fast as the rifle would, but could potentially hit multiple targets with a single blast. But that's why I still had the sword.
My form was a blur as I switched weapons once again. I raced between clusters of enemies striking them with the Prominence Blade as necessary. Diagonal slash, cleave through two enemies. Let them burn, move on to the next target. Aliens aiming at my afterimage, irrelevant. Don't think. Just KILL. Overhead slash, cut that one in twain. My team is supporting me, only one real threat left between me and the command center.
A burley looking jackass flinging grenades with wild abandon to try and hit me. Use the force of the explosion behind me for additional momentum. Two slashes, cross style. Left slash, right slash, leap backwards and use the jets to dive kick!
The quarian woman had been in doubt that they would be allowed to be enslaved. But she hadn't been hopeful for her future until their captors had started vanishing. "Where's Margehk? He's supposed to be covering that entrance."
"Do you think he went off to fight the intruders?"
"Do we stick together for safety?" Another batarian asked.
"You idiot, most of this cargo is uncollared," Shara hated being thought of as cargo. It really proved nearly every stereotype she had ever heard about Hegemony Slavery. "If we give them an out, it'll be on our heads to pay the loss." It was not a wonder the batarians acted as such Bosh'tets on the whole considering how repressive their state seemed to be. "Search pattern, find the intruder or where Margehk wandered off to. Be sure to raise your voice as soon as you see even a foot out of place."
Then she saw it. A roughly Asari shaped figure wearing a dark bodysuit beneath chrome armor plating decorated with painted flames. A dark red cape concealed the figures back. A sword on one hip and a rifle hanging on a sling by the other. The knife it held in one hand glowed for some inexplicable reason. A single finger out of five hovered near the bottom of its helmet's "T" visor, where she thought the figure's lips would have been. Then it and four others similar to it sprang from the shadows at the edge of the room and plunged their knives into batarian throats. Their hands covered their victims mouths so that they couldn't scream.
Then the one with false flames on its visage picked up a batarian harpoon rifle, and planted a shot into the back of the slaver that had taken charge in the earlier conversation. Suddenly just like that, the last seven guards had been dealt with. A further ten mysterious figures emerge from the shadows, their gear noticeably more generic compared to the mysterious knights that had come to the Quarians' rescue. They each walked towards the nearest collared quarian! And began working to disarm and remove the bomb collars. Some with noticeably more success than others.
The flame painted one said something in a language that was not in her helmet's translator, and removed His own helmet after stowing his knife in a sheath. Shara did not recognize the species of the alien before her, but she knew a male face when she saw one, alien or not. He had a messy mane of hair an almost more vivid red than that of the flames painted on his armor. Pale skin and an interesting look on both his face and eyes. He glanced at the slain batarians with a smile of grim satisfaction. And beckoned the crowd of seemingly former slaves to rise with an empty hand.
Shara'Vel vas Laara knew what it was to hope once more. One of her deepest desires had become to tell her Children of the moment all their lives had been saved by the charity of those who seemed to have no reason to help. She found herself determined to see that future some day. She rose with a bow and said to the aliens something that was echoed by nearly the entire crowd of Quarians.
"Keelah Se'lai."
Specter Tela Vasir was struggling. The Commander of this slave ring was apparently a tech expert on top of being one of the five most powerful biotic batarians this side of the Terminus Systems. Tela had spent most of the fight dodging overload and sabotage grenades on top of the biotic powers and ordinary grenades she had been expecting to face. At least the azure was an even worse shot than she had anticipated. Tela hadn't even been touched by a single flechette in the entire fight.
Her shotgun pinged that it had completed its cooling sequence, her barrier was reading at full power, and the pig had finally run out of slurs and propaganda to spout like a broken water line. Things were looking up for this mission.
Then an alien shout of fury resounded throughout the station, two glowing lines appeared on the sealed blast door, and an armored figure glowing bright red with a flaming sword burst through with one foot still on the bleeding mess that had once been the station's XO's face. Said XO was also visibly missing his arms, legs, and most of his torso. The alien left a bloody skid mark on the ground as it and its victim landed from the dropkick. With an elaborate and unnecessary flourish the alien whisked the flames wreathing its sword out, its armor ceasing to glow afterwards.
Not much seemed to change. The armor was still red, the bodysuit and cape still black, but some red-violet detailing on the armor became visible without the overpowering crimson shine. The Alien didn't bother to sheath its sword, choosing instead to take a defensive posture against both Tela and the Batarian commander, whilst it drew a pistol from its right hip. The impassive T visor of its helmet revealed no emotion as it rotated slightly between both her and her opponent, measuring them up to try and decide who was the greater threat.
Then there was a familiar flash through the exterior window from the edge of the system. The Hegemony "Anti-Piracy" flotilla had returned to its home base to exact a bloody revenge on these invaders.
AN: Cliffhanger! Hanging from a Cliiiiiiff!
But seriously this chapter was beginning to get away from me, and this was a better stopping point than others. Many thanks for reading, and please wait warmly for the next update!
Chapter Five
Teething Issues
Teething Issues
As I go through the rote motions of firing up the design console and putting together that promised dropship, I think about what happened last night. I wasn't expecting to go that hard on the whiskey, and everything after Ouka woke up was very much a spur of the moment decision. And then I went ever harder on that pathetic moonshine while I was comparing life stories with her.
I certainly wasn't complaining about the results, even if I'm still not sure when we stopped comparing psychological scars and started flirting. I remember the way she smirked at me that night, and in the present shudder slightly as an electric thrill courses through me. In all due seriousness, once these slavers were dealt with I intend to have a serious conversation about our relationship. Preferably without any alcohol loosening our restraint.
It was going to be awkward. Emotionally complex. May well ruin my chances of continuing the relationship with Ouka. I still think it needs to be done, I've gained enough confidence, resolve, and passion from my situation that doing any less would feel god-awful. She deserves the best from me, and I'd accept the worst from her. But I wanted more time to hope for the best and prepare for that worst.
Insult me all you want Toxic, you're unlikely to say anything I haven't already considered myself.
Now, I need to focus on this space dropship. I don't want to just make a flying box with wings and or engines. I want it to be modestly aerodynamic for in atmosphere operations. I've already got troop considerations in mind, I'd rather not pack them in like with passenger planes but confort can be sidelined. If I make it large enough it could even airlift in a tank. Now how to add enough thrust capacity to make it fast- Just use a GN Tau Drive, refueling is an acceptable problem to have. I don't think I have the time to figure out the actual perpetual motion machine that is the GN Solar Drive.
Revise Desire was sweating bullets as she worked her own design console furiously. She and Ribbons had been spitballing last night. Any serious decisions as to the shape of their standard mobile suit hadn't come from the ether. They had been more stating their opinions and contemplating options rather than actually coming up with anything concrete. Drunkenly, by the way.
Ribbons had apparently mastered the boss's concept of maintain through sheer disgust, while she on the other hand had grown increasingly handsy with the poor awkward soul as the night went on. Then Revise experienced regurgitating everything she had ever eaten in her bathroom. She struggled to imagine a more enjoyable evening. At least without involving her reproductive system.
Anyways, the part of that discussion Revise had remembered most was their agreement in utilizing the overall worse but less expensive version of the GN Drive, as well as setting it up with a miniaturized variation of the Cruiser's Vaguely Defined Fusion Reactor to eliminate the need for periodic refueling. They hadn't quite figured out the Fusion Reactor to that point yet, and likely wouldn't for at least longer than the trip to the slavers. Revise wasn't worried about that however, she was planning on using a more basic high capacity battery to keep their MP GN units running until that was figured out.
No, it was the rest of the features Revise was struggling on. The Meijin and Ouka had debated at length the merits of purpose built machines compared to more general purpose units. While they arguably had a purpose built main battle tank in what they'd designed previously, What they needed right now was something that could fly. As well as beat the shit out of whatever vehicles and anti armor weapons those slavers possessed.
Suddenly Ribbons entered the room, "Please tell me you aren't building what I think you're building."
"Ribbons, my guy, my androgenous fellow, my fellow human, all I can remember about that conversation worth mentioning is the reactor drive combo system." Should she give it wings? They might help with heat sinking, or just make the unit a larger target.
"Oh. I was worried you were talking about those piloted suicide bombers I have nightmares about." The Fuck! That was a Terrible Idea in so many ways Revise Struggled to articulate her response.
"The Fuck Ribbons!?! What kind of Hack do you think I am? We don't have the resources for that kind of shit. Also Moral Issues." She wished she had more time to study any of this shit, if she screwed up here more than just the Shining Blade would pay the price.
"And that would be terrible." What they really needed right now was something that could close the gap in their options, Revise was having trouble thinking with Ribbons interrupting her plane of thought.
Wait. Aircraft. Fighter Planes. Revise Desire had a flash of inspiration from a memory that was not her own. Joints with a range of movement beyond human baseline. Armor schema hallow in strategic places. Hardpoints for mounting additional weapons. The transformation didn't even need to be extremely complex so long as it worked. Aesthetics could be a problem for another day. And why was Ribbons still here?
"Go bother someone else, I need to math this brainwave out."
"What do you Mean, the Hydroponics Bay is FAILING!" Sora Dove screamed borderline incoherently. Her day only seemed to get worse, first she had to deal with basically every Innovade complaining about the after effects of alcohol poisoning colloquially known as a hangover, but now she had to deal with this shit too?!? Was there not anyone more directly qualified than the Doctor in charge?
"The System claimed to have never been designed to service so many people at once, Hell, It keeps recommending we get rid of all but eight people. We might well be lucky we still have foodstuff reserves at all."
"How is a Fucking Heavy Cruiser roughly four hundred meters long supposed to operate on single digit crew!"
"Your guess is as good as mine?" The as of yet unintroduced Innovade managed to not stutter.
"Why are you even bringing this to me? I'm a Doctor not a farmer or a crisis manager." Somehow she was sure Doctors were supposed to have people to deal with this type of thing for them.
"All the other In Charge People are busy with the Alien Slaver thing!" Sora hadn't even had any alcohol last night but yet she still had a godawful headache. Time for some primal therapy.
"AAAAARRRRRGH!"
Ribbons Almark found Ouka Nagisa speaking with several Innovades. "How many pilot candidates have you found Ma'am?" He decided to default to respect as Nagisa may well have power over him thanks to her connection to The Meijin.
"I'm confident that the vast majority have what it takes to live up to Yuuki's expectations." Ouka said warmly. "My main doubt is that we'll have sufficient chassis for them to operate."
"I'm rather certain that Revise just got over whatever hang-ups were left in her design theory." Ribbons said, confident that his fellow Innovade would live up to her own words. 'Especially seeing as she just kicked me out of her lab.' Ribbons had a strange degree of, he wasn't certain what emotion he was experiencing, other than he did not particularly like it and wanted the sensation to end.
"You may as well ask your question, most of the other Innovades seem to be interested to some degree." Ribbons was taken for a loop at the interruption to his thoughts. At least the unwanted emotion had gone away.
"I'm sorry? I don't understand the topic we've changed to."
"In spite of the nonstandard way it began," Ouka stated, "I have every intention of pursuing a genuinely fulfilling relationship with the Meijin for both myself and him." Oh right, She'd dragged his commander off last night and everyone seemed to be assuming they would need to be on the lookout for surprises nine months down the line. Ribbons, was for his part, glad he had decided to work on establishing the military command aspect of the Shining Blade. He could practically feel Sora Dove screaming in frustration at the very concept of pregnancy scares.
Wait no, that was just Sora Dove screaming at something frustrating in general. Moving on, "It's not my place to judge his or your actions. I don't envy the probable chance of many awkward conversations in the future however."
"Commitment is an important component of any relationship," Ouka nodded, "I don't plan on giving up on Yuuki. Now, do you care to aid me in assessing our potential pilots?"
"Gladly Ma'am."
I wiped the sweat off my brow, the final weld set in place. For design inspiration for this work I'd removed the blades from a helicopter gunship and upscaled the result by at least an order or two of magnitude. I'd also made the wings larger and gave it a few more powerful weapon hardpoints for whenever we finished reverse engineering the FTL Missiles. The result somehow still looked less original than I wanted. I'd also had an idea for a more generically helicopter shaped dropship for covert uses later.
But for now! I've managed to make three of the things, which will have to be enough because between the tanks, these Multirole Assault Transports, the Killjoy customizable armor, and whatever insanity Revise came up with for our mobile suits, we're burning through our scrap reverses something fierce. It doesn't look like I'll have the time to finish poor Exia Dark Matter's repairs. I can at least program in the needed tools before I make myself some personal GN armor.
And maybe upgrade my sword. I have an idea that's almost as awful as trying to make personal GN weapons in the first place. Possibly still a better Idea than mass producing human beings. The jury's still out on if I'm a horrible person or not. I very much intend to prove myself benign via my actions rather than my words however.
Hmmm, How should I customize my GN armor? Also I don't want to forget that laser shotgun idea. I can work on that while my armor prints.
Myself, the pilots, and the ranking Innovades sans Carine Path and Sora Dove stand within the extra large airlock cum improvised hanger bay where Revise's work of the past eight plus hours have been stored. Mikhail tilts his head one way then another. And then he opens his mouth. "They're fighter jets. How are they supposed to work out of atmo?"
"Heh heh! That's what you think! Ribbons, if you would do the honors?" Revise counters. The verdette Innovade for his part simply shrugs and climbs into the cockpit. "Now Ribbons, there'll be a switch that's not present in a more conventional cockpit, use that if you please."
We watch as the generic jet-like starfighter suddenly levitates upwards and changes. Oh my God Revise did it the utter beautiful madwoman. "For one thing, these babies are running on GN drives like those neato MAT's and the Tanks the bossman came up with. Now take another look, Toxic!" Revise had a manic grin on her face as Mikhail's jaw dropped. The now Mobile suit form device landed gracefully on its feet thanks to Ribbons' piloting.
"We can give them a pithy propaganda name later, for now I'm calling them the V-GN-X. I gave them some beam vulcans in the arms that can also function as beam sabers, just not both at the same time. The beam sabers can also eject from their ports in order to be held in a more conventional fashion, but you can't shoot things with them in that mode. The V-GN-X also comes with a heavier beam rifle for taking potshots at larger enemies and stuff it isn't close enough to sword."
Revise has managed to crack Variable Fighters. I'm so Proud. And they even look like they belong on the ship classes we came up with! Oh I can see the results once we figure out the missiles now! "Excellent work Revise!" I take a quick count of the fighters in the glorified airlock, "You've managed thirty fighters while I could only manage three each of tanks and MATs!"
"Eh I wanted to save some scrap for later," Revise brushes off the complement, "Also as a vaguely sibling type figure I can get away with being harsher on the less outstanding with a more clear conscience."
"What's the issue, Aegis?"
"I figured out how the ship's shield generator worked." Denial Aegis began.
"That's great, now we can build our own!"
"I did it destructively, and now it's on fire."
"YOU BUFFOON, GO PUSH BUTTONS!" Revise revised as she rushed off to help firefight.
"Yup everything went excellently with the engineering crew please don't stare too closely at the shield control room." Revise concluded.
"Well," I begin while looking at my newest armor's time display, "If my math is right, our helm should be getting us underway right about-"
Shara'Vel vas Laara knew her life was over the moment the Batarians boarded the ship she had lived in for the majority of her life. The Laara had attempted to respond to a distress signal that had been in reality a trap orchestrated by slavers. They'd disabled the Laara's engines beyond reasonable repair within their first few salvos. These Damned Bosh'tets who were making a military sponsored raid on innocent peoples and escaping proper justice by claiming "Plausible Deniability."
Shara knew that every Quarian unfortunate enough to have been captured alive would be worked in illness ridden camps, unlikely to ever know life without the damned bomb collar for the rest of their miserable days. And when their numbers had dropped low enough, the Batarians would go on another raid, the Citadel would be stymied by "plausible deniability" and yet more innocents would suffer a cruel fate at the hands of these xenophobic, self aggrandizing, hateful, BOSH'TETS.
And all Shara could do was wait for it to be her turn to be collared. There was nowhere to run on this damned station, only more processing plants, hangar bays, and barely livable storage for when the station was between mining areas. And even if she and any others tried to escape, they likely wouldn't get far before being shot again, in a possibly more lethal manner this time.
Shara hated everything about the Batarian Hegemony. She hated that the Citadel allowed them to be in violation of "galactic law," just because they had the galaxy's largest military. She hated how the Citadel had abandoned her entire species because of their government's greatest mistake. She hated the Laara's captain for failing to inform the admiralty of their deviation from scheduled course. And most of all, Shara hated herself for being too pregnant to do anything about the problems she faced.
All she could bring herself to hope for at the moment, was that her child would be too weak to be forced to grow up in this hell. Let Shara perish before her baby could be born. Or let her child die too young to know how much they could have had. That they should have deserved. Shara had once dreamt of a better future, now all she could imagine was a painless death.
There was a strange white flash from a nearby window. Several slavers glanced at it, delaying the inevitable for another few moments. One Batarian looks out the window and speaks up. "What kind of half blind idiot straps a drive core to an asteroid? You'd get the same result for cheaper with just some basic engines and time."
"You are one fucked up bastard, You know that Balak?" A lighter skinned slaver replies.
"Also," The Batarain holding the collars barely looks up from his work. "Asteroid warfare is about the one law the Citadel actually cares to enforce with force. You'd be up to your upper eyelids in covert killers for the rest of your days, and the Hegemony would laugh at you for failing to get away with your stupidity."
"Yeah, yeah we've been over this shit." Balak grumbled, "The Citadel's only a joke until it isn't, and whoever is left holding the bag is screwed faster than a deadbeat surrounded by an Asari gang." Quaint.
There was a strange flash from one of the asteroid's craters. Balak must have noticed it out the corner of one eye, as he took another look. "Damnation! The Accursed thing is hollow! There are fighters headed right for us!"
"What the hell, Balak?" A batarian who had yet to speak up protested as he went towards the window, "You do not joke about this- CRAP! He's not joking! Sound the Alarm! Move the Cargo into secure storage!"
"Haven't even processed half of them yet!"
"You wanna pay the price for losing our haul while the fleet is out on "Patrol?" That's on you. Me, I'm gonna do my job while the emergency is fresh!"
Shara'Vel held her breath. Using a random space rock as camouflage? Madness, Stupidity more likely to get you shot down by point defence than within striking range of an enemy fleet. But it wasn't a fleet, it was a slave processing and asteriod mining station. She couldn't think of any navy in the galaxy that would consider such a tactic seriously. But for the first time since the Bosh'Tets barged into her bedroom with their shotguns and harpoon launchers, she began to doubt that her fate was sealed.
Ouka Nagisa paced in unspoken frustration. The transports had left while she was in line for the V-GN-X's and they had run out of the personal troopers long before she had realized she wouldn't be able to assist in the battle. Maybe if she hadn't been daydreaming about how she might ask Revise to customize one for her own use She would have noticed and would be doing something more useful at the moment. Suddenly there was a hand on her wrist.
"Okay Bosslady, I've got an idea for you!" Revise Desire dragged her from the cargo airlock to the bay itself, and pointed at Yuuki's Exia. "I'm still vague on what tech is supposed to go into the wing assembly, but Bossman finished coding in the equipment we need to get it running without them." Revise looked her in the eye, "Please Supervise the staff to get this thing in position at the airlock while I get the parts set up to finish what the Meijin started."
Ouka remained unwilling to stand idly by while her comrades fought for their lives, there was only one way she could answer.
Ribbons Almark bit back a swear as the station's point defense lasers lashed over his shields. The individual hits weren't massive but they would almost certainly add up slowly over time. Unfortunately the higher quality autocannons only seemed to care about their deflectors and had already done visible damage to the left wing of his V-Jinx. That or Revise had used weaker armor than she had promised.
Ribbons preferred to lean towards the alien guns being overpowered however. He pulled up behind one of the slaver fighters and unleashed a brief burst from his beam vulcans. The blasts went clean through the thin blue barrier between them and the thing's hull, and the craft went up in a flash of detonating fuel. Ribbons took the briefest moment to survey the chaotic vista of autocannon fire, missiles, and flaring GN particles for his next target. Thus far his HUD claimed that none of the Shining Blade's units had been destroyed, but they remained outnumbered by the alien fighters by an uncertain degree.
He also couldn't tell if the transports had landed, joined the fight, or if they were trying to approach the station unnoticed as was per the original plan. He wasn't certain if the tanks hovering on the surface of the Celestial Being's asteroid and providing fire support was a good or bad sign.
Ribbons found himself placing his faith in the work of his fellow man, and directed himself towards his next chosen target.' At least this was the part of the plan least likely to go poorly,' he thought as he shifted to mobile suit mode and slashed a pursuing alien craft in half with his beam saber. Overall, Ribbons was confident that he had this part of the operation well in hand.
I growled as I fired my new laser scattergun at the alien marine leaning out of cover to fire on the troops. The resulting cone of fiery radiance left the damned four eyes collapsing to the ground with a pained gurgle. While we hadn't been able to land undetected, the assault transport had been able to prevent another flight of alien fighter craft from disembarking from the station. We were using the resulting wreckage as cover while the transport left to either aid in the dogfight, acquire another group of friendly combatants, or both if such a miracle happened.
For now, my team of mixed Killjoys and adhoc troopers would be storming the station for a data storage or command center in order to acquire enough data to actually talk to the Aliens we were freeing. It was planned that Mikhail's team would move towards securing the innocents in order to prevent the slavers from taking hostages. Our third team leader was to my surprise, Carine Path. I was kicking myself for not paying close enough attention to her chosen goals and interests. She and hers would be sweeping as much resistance from the slavers as possible in the hopes of preventing them from organizing a better response than they were currently facing.
I grunt as my GN shield fails to completely stop the latest barrage of damned flechettes from the aliens mass driver rifles and nearly knocks me off my feet from an impact with my right shoulder. I didn't think there were any severe injuries thus far, but I couldn't be sure. Another alien gunman fell to the ground with a neat hole burned in its faceplate, and I smirked. Their armor was clearly meant to defend against kinetic weapons primarily.
The biggest problem is that unlike the Spiders, these jackasses could shoot back. But that was both manageable and expected.
Tela Vasir had been tracking this slave ring for the past ten weeks. She had almost gotten enough information to prove definitively to the Council that they were Hegemony military acting under orders, rather than renegades willing to risk starting a war to fill their credit accounts. She had been infiltrating the station to steal the destination of their cargo from their files. Then some mystery aliens on an asteroid showed up and started handing the station's fighter escort their collective asses. And left the Asari Specter with more questions than answers.
At least she could take her frustrations out on the slavers. A quick and easy biotic charge and shockwave combo to scatter the guards rushing towards the nearest alien boarding party, Followed up with several simple shotgun blasts to mop up the survivors. She took a brief moment to survey the familiar rugged models of the guard's weapons and bit back a curse for her armor recorder's benefit. "The batarians are breaking out the flechette battle rifles and the harpoon snipers, these aliens really have the bastards spooked." She scooped up a new looking battle rifle with an unfamiliar integral bayonet, for posterity's sake and because she was a Specter and could legally do such things.
She took a moment more to regain her composure before continuing, "Unknowns have Asari like bipedal physique, are armed primarily with direct energy weapons of unknown functionality, and have displayed two types of combat hardsuit. One much more generic and common and the other noticeably customized in color scheme if not if functionality. Assumed elite variant with noticeably higher performance all around." Tela needed to complete her objective without any conflict with the unknowns.
She decided she wouldn't engage the newcomers. If they wanted a violent first contact with the most vicious bastards this side of the galactic core, let them. If they wanted the slaves to themselves, fuck 'em. If they wanted to release the Quarians back to the migrant fleet, more power to them. She just wouldn't lose any sleep over their lives and those of the Batarians they ended.
This was not how she had expected her first mission as a Specter to go. But she wouldn't have made it this far in life if she couldn't roll with a few punches.
Carine Path hissed in frustration as she dove back into cover for the third time this minute. The Four Eyed Motherfucker had to have been ridiculously skilled to be able to keep her entire team suppressed with his squad automatic weapon. That or she had taken casualties without noticing. Like all these aliens preferred lethal weapons, this model also seemed to be firing barbed spikes but unlike the lighter weapons this one seemed able to fire nigh-on indefinitely without reload or cooldown, or however the crap the alien guns worked.
Furthermore the machine gunner's squadmates were holding their fire in order to take potshots at the Innovades whenever they tried to silence the suppressing fire. They had already taken a few too many close calls with those damned harpoon guns, and were not particularly eager to try their luck that their armor would hold out to a direct hit.
Carine was cursing herself for assuming she could get away with only two batteries for her rifle, and was down to her laser pistol and GN sword. While the pistol had greater total ammo capacity, the refire rate had turned out to be atrocious due to cooling requirements. And her sword relied on the same power supply as her shield generator and targeting system.
Her moment of indecision was interrupted by the sight of a small glowing disc landing behind the cover nearly half her non Killjoys were sheltering behind. Time seemed to slow down as the machine gun fire cut out. "Grenade!" Carine's warning was too slow. She could see the explosion blooming as the pressure wave scattered her boys and girls, exposing them to the no doubt ruthless slavers. But what upset her the most was the laughing.
"Hak Hak Hak!" The aliens were laughing as they took aim at her troops. It was at this point that Carine decided to risk it all to win this engagement. She engaged the enhanced jump suite she had installed beneath her cape, and leapt for distance. She didn't care as the bastards began focusing fire on her shield. She didn't care that her shield deactivated to conserve particles and the flechettes began landing on her armor. She didn't care that this was the exact sort of situation she had initially wanted to avoid.
What she did care about was the look on that unhelmeted motherfucking machine gunner's ugly four eyed face as his laughter died as her sword gleamed with a light of justice and revenge. As her blade carved that once smug expression in half, and she planted a shot from her pistol into the left eyes of the nearest rifleman. She very much did care about the fucking spike that was subsequently embedded into her right side and knocking her flat on her ass.
"Ikrath! Sarvan!" One of the harpoon gun wielding aliens howled as it desperately tried to refire his visibly overheating marksman rifle, an unknowable expression beneath its helmet. Then another of its compatriots fell to the renewed fire of Carine's squadmates, and the sniper allowed itself to be dragged away down a different corridor by two of its compatriots.
Carine looked at her HUD as the medic assigned to the squad rushed towards her. "Gut-shot," She grit out to Bring Revival coldly, "Worst pain I've ever experienced, but I'll live."
"Unless you let those barbs continue to deal more damage. Just take the damn med-nano and brace." At least her display showed that her generic squad members were shaken up but alive. They would all probably need a visit to Sora Dove's medbay after this however.
One of her Killjoys glanced at her as she stood up then handed her a rifle battery. "Next time grab more spare than just the one Ma'am."
"How was I supposed to know the rifle wouldn't accept the pistol battery?" Carine grumbled as she holstered her sword and pistol and rearmed her rifle.
"The pistols are half the size, and the battery is built in." Atten Prepare replied, "I know the batteries are one hundred rounds each, but those rounds go by quickly when you full-auto it."
"Something to remember for later operations." Carine advanced, glancing at her much reduced GN particle gauge. The Killjoy gear's strained endurance in extended combat was also something to mention in the pre after party command staff meeting. It wasn't like they could just bring a GN drive with them on incursions like this right? Either way that room had been too well protected to not be worth mentioning on the coms.
"Lead Killjoy Path to Command staff, we've defeated the defenses of an unusually fortified room. Investigating now. Status updates all?"
"Lead Killjoy Toxic: Slave pen located, breaching defenses as we speak."
"Flight Commander Almark:" Ribbons started with a note of annoyance in his voice. "Three units forced to withdraw due to critical damage. As long as we can keep hostiles from focusing fire, damage should be within acceptable limits."
"Sensors here, the aliens seem to have run out of pilots. We are detecting no more fighter launches, repeat, you're on the home stretch flyboys. The Aliens will run out of units first. Be advised, extreme range sensors are picking up some worrying movements from outside the system from vessels that seem to match hostiles' design philosophy."
"Meijin here! We're facing greater than expected resistance. I think we may have found those pilots!" I dogged another stabbing motion from a bayonet and blasted the offender with my scatter laser. At this distance the squinting bastard found himself with a fist sized hole in his torso, and was blown backwards into the floor in wide eyed shock.
"No joy," Carine stated over coms, "This is just an armory. It's where they're keeping their nonlethal gear." I allow my now empty shotgun to hang by its sling as I slash another alien with my modified GN Sword.
The Prominence Blade severs the alien's wrist, scores a glowing line across his chest, and sets the newly disabled form aflame. As it drops to try and quench the flames, a boot to the back of the head silences its cries for aid. "Continue as planned, Carine. If you can find the Alien command center before I do, you have permission to hijack my role in the plan." I replace my laser scattergun's battery, and cock the mechanism to re-engage the main heat sink. "For now, I've cleanup to do on this end."
And I've just the idea to deal with the overwhelming majority of these squinting scumbags. Though it will take most of my remaining GN reserves. Vocal Passcode time! Without the comms on so I don't screw over the others by mistake. "Burn on, Burn on, Burn on, Infantry TRANS AM!" Leaping and soaring with my back and leg mounted jump jets performing at over three times baseline capacity, I'm among the beleaguered defenders. Aiming and firing within heartbeats one handed as quickly as the scattergun can refire. My other hand generates an extra strength GN shield to avoid damage from the alien's retaliation.
A lifetime and yet all too soon later, my scattergun reads empty as I approach a firing line of harpoon snipers. That was the greatest downside of my laser scattergun design thus far. In order to ensure the damage per shot remained acceptable even with spread, I had to put more power into the output than a more coherent beam or bolt would require. Layman's terms the laser scattergun used its ammo over four times as fast as the rifle would, but could potentially hit multiple targets with a single blast. But that's why I still had the sword.
My form was a blur as I switched weapons once again. I raced between clusters of enemies striking them with the Prominence Blade as necessary. Diagonal slash, cleave through two enemies. Let them burn, move on to the next target. Aliens aiming at my afterimage, irrelevant. Don't think. Just KILL. Overhead slash, cut that one in twain. My team is supporting me, only one real threat left between me and the command center.
A burley looking jackass flinging grenades with wild abandon to try and hit me. Use the force of the explosion behind me for additional momentum. Two slashes, cross style. Left slash, right slash, leap backwards and use the jets to dive kick!
The quarian woman had been in doubt that they would be allowed to be enslaved. But she hadn't been hopeful for her future until their captors had started vanishing. "Where's Margehk? He's supposed to be covering that entrance."
"Do you think he went off to fight the intruders?"
"Do we stick together for safety?" Another batarian asked.
"You idiot, most of this cargo is uncollared," Shara hated being thought of as cargo. It really proved nearly every stereotype she had ever heard about Hegemony Slavery. "If we give them an out, it'll be on our heads to pay the loss." It was not a wonder the batarians acted as such Bosh'tets on the whole considering how repressive their state seemed to be. "Search pattern, find the intruder or where Margehk wandered off to. Be sure to raise your voice as soon as you see even a foot out of place."
Then she saw it. A roughly Asari shaped figure wearing a dark bodysuit beneath chrome armor plating decorated with painted flames. A dark red cape concealed the figures back. A sword on one hip and a rifle hanging on a sling by the other. The knife it held in one hand glowed for some inexplicable reason. A single finger out of five hovered near the bottom of its helmet's "T" visor, where she thought the figure's lips would have been. Then it and four others similar to it sprang from the shadows at the edge of the room and plunged their knives into batarian throats. Their hands covered their victims mouths so that they couldn't scream.
Then the one with false flames on its visage picked up a batarian harpoon rifle, and planted a shot into the back of the slaver that had taken charge in the earlier conversation. Suddenly just like that, the last seven guards had been dealt with. A further ten mysterious figures emerge from the shadows, their gear noticeably more generic compared to the mysterious knights that had come to the Quarians' rescue. They each walked towards the nearest collared quarian! And began working to disarm and remove the bomb collars. Some with noticeably more success than others.
The flame painted one said something in a language that was not in her helmet's translator, and removed His own helmet after stowing his knife in a sheath. Shara did not recognize the species of the alien before her, but she knew a male face when she saw one, alien or not. He had a messy mane of hair an almost more vivid red than that of the flames painted on his armor. Pale skin and an interesting look on both his face and eyes. He glanced at the slain batarians with a smile of grim satisfaction. And beckoned the crowd of seemingly former slaves to rise with an empty hand.
Shara'Vel vas Laara knew what it was to hope once more. One of her deepest desires had become to tell her Children of the moment all their lives had been saved by the charity of those who seemed to have no reason to help. She found herself determined to see that future some day. She rose with a bow and said to the aliens something that was echoed by nearly the entire crowd of Quarians.
"Keelah Se'lai."
Specter Tela Vasir was struggling. The Commander of this slave ring was apparently a tech expert on top of being one of the five most powerful biotic batarians this side of the Terminus Systems. Tela had spent most of the fight dodging overload and sabotage grenades on top of the biotic powers and ordinary grenades she had been expecting to face. At least the azure was an even worse shot than she had anticipated. Tela hadn't even been touched by a single flechette in the entire fight.
Her shotgun pinged that it had completed its cooling sequence, her barrier was reading at full power, and the pig had finally run out of slurs and propaganda to spout like a broken water line. Things were looking up for this mission.
Then an alien shout of fury resounded throughout the station, two glowing lines appeared on the sealed blast door, and an armored figure glowing bright red with a flaming sword burst through with one foot still on the bleeding mess that had once been the station's XO's face. Said XO was also visibly missing his arms, legs, and most of his torso. The alien left a bloody skid mark on the ground as it and its victim landed from the dropkick. With an elaborate and unnecessary flourish the alien whisked the flames wreathing its sword out, its armor ceasing to glow afterwards.
Not much seemed to change. The armor was still red, the bodysuit and cape still black, but some red-violet detailing on the armor became visible without the overpowering crimson shine. The Alien didn't bother to sheath its sword, choosing instead to take a defensive posture against both Tela and the Batarian commander, whilst it drew a pistol from its right hip. The impassive T visor of its helmet revealed no emotion as it rotated slightly between both her and her opponent, measuring them up to try and decide who was the greater threat.
Then there was a familiar flash through the exterior window from the edge of the system. The Hegemony "Anti-Piracy" flotilla had returned to its home base to exact a bloody revenge on these invaders.
AN: Cliffhanger! Hanging from a Cliiiiiiff!
But seriously this chapter was beginning to get away from me, and this was a better stopping point than others. Many thanks for reading, and please wait warmly for the next update!
- Location
- California
Ribbons out here working as the straight-man. Also, looks like ME aliens have never met humans before, so future interactions with the main branch of humanity would be...strange. Finally, I almost want the Reapers to triumph over the SPOILER Enemy. SPOILER is the type of person that would make Sovereign go:" Yo, chill. We don't do that here. "
Chapter Six: Enemy Activity
Red_Knight25
Unofficial Edgelord Advocate
Chapter Six:
Enemy Activity
Enemy Activity
Ribbons stared at the assortment of alien vessels that had joined the fray and hissed. "Enemy has received reinforcements! All units hold the line as best as possible!" He pulled his V-Jinx into a desperate maneuver to avoid a salvo of warheads from one of the smallest and most plentiful ship-types.
"But How!" The sensor operator proclaimed, "They were light minutes away seconds ago!" Ribbons decided he wasn't going to dignify that particular bit of stupidity with a response, instead focussing on firing on the offending missile battery with his beam vulcans. His V-Jinx flew past a rather satisfying explosion as the turret's next salvo detonated in its magazine.
Revise however seemed to have no issue lambasting the crewman anyways, "Are you honestly so dense that you believe we have a monopoly on equipment that can break the lightspeed barrier?" Ribbons switched from fighter to mech mode once again in order to try his luck on the alien vessels with his heavy beam rifle. "I just need Exia's passcode and we can get Boss Lady into the fight."
"Code's Nine Five One Four! Prepare to deploy the Cruiser!" The Meijin lets out sounding rather stressed. Ribbons lets out a small growl as his target dodges most of his beam salvo with near comparable grace to the alien fighters. "Remind me to designate a proper second in command next time! For now act on your own initiative, I'm a little too bust to provide- CRAP!" Thankfully the few beam rifle shots that did hit seemed to cripple the entire… Ribbons was just going to think of it as a corvette.
"Okay, once Nagisa's in the air I can help with bringing the damaged V-GN-X's back into fighting shape, hang in there mech jockeys." Ribbons located his next target, one of the mid-size of the three non-small-craft classes the aliens were toting. For some reason he clicked his tongue in annoyance.
"I can see why Mikhail didn't want our Elite Infantry to be called Ground Pounders." Ribbons then noticed the amount of Alien sensor contacts was increasing at an uncomfortable rate. "Oh don't tell me… Damn, the mid-sized and up slaver vessels all have hangar bays." And then Ribbons was up to his tailfins in alien fighter craft, and had bigger things to worry about.
'The worst part about the Batarians getting reinforcements,' Tela Vasir considered, 'is that it gave this Bastard a second wind for insults.' She avoided another biotic pulse aimed towards sending her into Red Armor's sword, and retaliated by shooting at him with one of his own people's rifles. The flechettes pounded merrily upon the Lead Slaver who's name she was deliberately forgetting and his once again freshly reapplied barrier. Red Armor let out what was almost certainly a swear as it was violently thrown back into the mass negation field it had only just escaped.
This time however, Red Armor was able to maintain its aim on Random Batarian Commander number 4,812. A purple bolt of deadly energy raced towards the slaver who ducked back into cover like it was a lover's embrace. A fair enough decision, because what those energy guns lacked in kinetics they made up for in burn. It also gave her time to close the distance.
"Finally! Choke on this info Asari Bitch," The slaver began. "I've been stalling so the rest of my troops can bring the new combat drones online. I hope you like eating rounds the way you do Citadel Propaganda, because they're going to RUIN YOU!" Yeah, there were her barriers flickering under the attentions of a small flock of reprogrammed quarian auto-turrets. And now she had to deal with this shit. She charged into another set of cover and started working the Goddess Cursed things over with her repurposed rifle.
Red Armor said something in its mystery language, and sailed out of the lift field on a pulse of weird glowing sparkles. Said armor's glowing bits were noticeably less bright than when the encounter began. It painted an unpleasant picture. The unknown elites were all fighting against time as well as batarians.
And this one's time was almost up. Then Red Armor blasted several drone-turrets out of the sky with some sort of laser shotgun. Laser Shotgun. It was ridiculous and improbable and Goddess did Tela want one. If the opportunity appeared… Well the aliens could always make another right?
Ouka felt that it was painfully obvious that the Shining Blade was losing. The V-Jinx flight was pinned in a dogfight they couldn't win. She'd seen wins acquired with worse odds, but her friends had used heavily personalized and or custom units almost exclusively in those fights. She hated to consider it, but it seemed their quest to save humanity would be doomed before it could truly begin if something drastic wasn't done.
That was where she came in. Yuuki wouldn't like the course she had chosen, but she could deal with that once they'd won. "For Victory I Burn! Embody System: Engage Level Four!" At the sound of the Vocal Passcode she hadn't been meant to overhear, Yuuki's glasses, which he had never recollected, lit up orange around the edges, an interesting extra display appeared in her field of view. The sensation reminded her of the GEIM system, for all that it felt like her entire body had been set alight with pain and rage.
Objective one, murder that fucking capital ship leading the alien fleet. She had just the idea. "Beam rifle, maximum intensity." The arm mounted weapon unleashed a particularly powerful beam at one of the mid-sized vessels. It had been preoccupied with avoiding another of Ribbon's attack runs and rolled right into the attack's path. Predictably, the vessel exploded spectacularly.
There was a brief lull in the battle, as though the aliens couldn't believe what had just happened. All at once, what looked like two thirds the enemy's remaining fighter complement and half the remaining corvettes began to reorient on her. "That's right, get desperate." Ouka whispered as she ignored the comms chatter from her compatriots. They were mostly expressing shock and alarm at her actions after all. "Focus on me, you bastards. Give the others the time they need." Exia responded to her deft touch with a familiar casual grace, avoiding countless enemy attacks and giving her the chance she desired. "You're all too sloppy to so much as lay a finger on me."
Commodore Isana Keshik desperately suppressed to urge to gnaw at a finger as the Elite flying mech that had emerged from that fucking asteroid began dodging out of the way of nearly half her flotilla's efforts to fry it with practiced fucking ease. She needed to keep the enemy ace's occupied so that they couldn't kill her destroyers in one or two clean hits. Keshik's procurement flotilla had been optimized for carrying capacity and winning small engagements quickly. It was the only reason they still had fighter superiority considering how ridiculous these aliens' energy weapons and shields were.
But now her Cruiser was beginning to overheat as the sinks struggled to maintain the suppressing fire meant to prevent the aliens' bullshit Mech Fighter Hybrids from retreating to their asteroid for resupply and repair. Keshik needed to do something foolish, and draw the enemy's tender mercies to her cruiser long enough for her escorts and fighters to thin this herd.
"Spinal weapon! Fire on the aliens' asteroid!" She was certain that such would force the aliens to drag their sorry asses away from the fight, or risk losing their precious secret base of operations. 'I'll put back in your place, you idiotic savages.' She let out a grin as the high velocity slug tore its way through the hollow space rock. Her grin grew wider as the three fighters the glorified biotic technician had reported retreating earlier re-emerged from hiding. Then she froze and her fingers restarted the approach towards her mouth at the sight.
A significant amount of the asteroid's rear had shattered away, and slowly reversing away from what looked suspiciously like a space station encased in debris, was a vessel of unknown design. The Ship's VI classified it as being cruiser scale and tonnage. It was made of some unknown off white metal and had vivid orange detailing. It also had a flickering shield of noticeably different color to the ones utilized by the alien fighter mechs.
"Is no one gonna mention that it kinda looks like-" An unnamed rating began.
"FIRE EVERYTHING! KILL THAT THING BEFORE IT FINISHES ORIENTING!"
I'm sure Chairman Mashita has quite the punchable expression on his face but all I can look at is the altered visor approaching my face.
"Once you put on this mask, You will be reborn as a demon who thinks of nothing but victory."
Everything I am. Everything I want to be. Everything I dreamed of accomplishing.
"You Will Be Reborn as a DEMON that Thinks of NOTHING But Victory!"
Washed away by this bastard wearing a kind man's face.
You're distracting yourself.
I'd wanted to uninstall that damned thing-
MIND ON THE PRESENT YUUKI. The Lead Slaver launches another rapidly fabricated grenade while I was distracted by the flashback Ouka activating the Embody System on herself had caused me. Unfortunately I'm unable to escape the area of effect this time, and my hud lights up with a brief and terrifying *System Overload* alert before going dark entirely. I barely have time to try and sprint away from the triumphantly crooning four eyes before another grenade explodes at my feet, sending me tumbling to the ground in a heap.
Damnit, and the other Killjoys in my team were busy preventing more slavers, combat drones, and some weird amphibian hounds they had released onto this level recently from intervening in the fight with their assumed boss. I clamber to my feet slowly and feel a strange pressure on my neck. On both sides of my neck. There's a hot voice by my head, crooning something unintelligible. At least I know where the prick is.
This is one of the reasons I'm glad I designed the GN Sword with two edges. With a slight spin, I detach the Prominence blade from its holster, and relieve the Lead Slaver of a leg and an arm. There's a sickening sensation in my throat as the alien falls screaming and aflame.
He got me in the neck with a bayonet. My windpipe is presently filling with my own blood.
Oh.
All I can think to do is clutch at my neck. I can't even compel my voice into action thanks to the damage to my respiratory system.
The alien woman who had been somewhat helpful in the fight kneels beside me. her helmet retracts into her armor's collar. Her skin is blue and her eyes are solid black.
I suppose as far as last sights go, It could have been worse. I wish I could have had that talk with Ouka. Huh, even after everything the person I lie the most to is myself. She'd never forgive me if I died here.
An alien hand ghosts over my temple, black is filling my vision. For some reason, I can understand what the… Asari before me is saying.
"Embrace Eternity." I'd Never Forgive Myself If I Died Here. Then Don't My Friend.
"What's it all matter to you now anyways? You'll outlive all these weaklings Bitch." The Batarian that had just proven that you can miss a sneak attack growled out over the smoldering remains of his severed limbs. "The Council doesn't get its excuse to censure us, We don't get our pretense for a war of self defense, The Quarians are going to die out miserably eventually anyways! All because some bleeding hearted random unknowns decided to do what their moral code claims to be-" One shotgun blast cuts the Bastard off before he can finish his last act of annoyance.
Putting the Lead Slaver out of his misery after he lost his Omnitool hand was the easy part.
Comforting a dying alien that could have been a comrade in a better life was more difficult but not unreasonable. Red Armor was so desperately trying to stem the flow of blood that he failed to notice Tela removing his helmet. Looking into those panicking green eyes was disconcerting. Hell the alien looked so much like a non blue Asari that it was very much tripping her up.
Convincing herself that Melding with him in his last moments, however. It was an abuse of her power most certainly. It was heinously immoral. It was the single best opportunity she had to learn about these… humans that didn't involve 'first contact protocols' and translating a myriad of languages without an example of what each word means in what circumstances. It was easily the most difficult decision she had ever made.
She'd only spent the time to gain his name, first language, and a few other details. Some unknown calamity had stained their homeworld's oceans the color of their blood. And that he'd been looking forward to reuniting with a woman of his species. So barely enough to communicate and understand their motivations.
They'd have to cross half the galaxy to even stand a chance of saving their people. It was a beautiful, tragic, and likely futile dream. But Goddess if it had been Thessia's waters stained the tone of her blood, she didn't think anything would have stopped her from doing everything in her power to save it. And yet they risked it all for total strangers. Tela Vasir watched as more lifeblood slipped away from the hand desperately but weakly gripping the vicious wound. She knew what she had to do.
"Oi, can your guy get a medic over here?" Basically all of them rushed to their probable leader's aid, and one wearing what she assumed was the symbol of a medic hissed in frustration. She turned to her as she opened her toolkit, apparently deciding she didn't care about how Tela knew Japanese.
"Can you keep the slavers off my back? This is gonna be a tricky one."
"At this point? I'd conquer their capital to build the empire that houses the machine that kicks their asses." Blurring into motion with a biotic charge, she mused that she could at least unleash her frustrations on the batarians once more. She supposed that was the strangest thing about alien life. For all that it was different, it was still the same.
"Helena Panacea here, the Meijin is stable. Repeat, The Meijin is stable." Ouka Nagisa felt like she could breathe again. "He didn't take anything our emergency med-nano couldn't handle, we just assumed-"
"That Meijin Kawaguchi was too skilled to fail." Ouka interrupted with a degree of relief in her voice that was almost imperceptible. There may have been some bitterness as well, but who was she to talk about taking crazy risks when her plan was almost ready.
The Slaver fleet, now labeled as belonging to something called the Batarian Hegemony, was desperately trying to suppress her, Ribbons, and the Cruiser at once. They'd divided themselves into several smaller groups. The four surviving corv-Frigates- had were split between herself and Ribbons, with their small-craft wings desperately trying to keep up with the two aces. The sole surviving destroyer was playing at long range harrassment while staying in the cruiser's point defence envelope.
On the Shining Blade's part, Ouka and Ribbons each had four V-Jinx's escorting them. The remaining twenty one V-Jinx's were providing cover for both halves of the Celestial Being as its cruiser half painstakingly eviscerated the Batarian flagship one salvo of burst lasers at a time.
But it was time to finish this. She had one more vocal passcode Yuuki had mentioned that fateful night over drinks and flirtations. "Burn Brighter Still Exia! TRANS AM!" She could all but literally feel Exia's performance increase by leaps and bounds. She blitzed forth, the blade of her beam saber gleaming with violet wrath. She flew forth, her blade carving a jagged gash first in one frigate, the other soon following. The armed shuttles and fighters were barely worth mentioning, each that managed to draw her attention was easily counterattacked into oblivion.
A barrage of beam rounds from her rifle slams into the Battarian cruiser each shot causing a disproportionately large explosion. The stricken vessel's point defense guns make a laughable effort at harming her, her escorts left far behind to clean up the remaining fighters. The cruiser made one last effort to disable her, its spinal cannon firing a comparatively small slug at tremendous speed. Ouka grinned at the foolish display. One does not simply fire a main battery round at a unit like the Exia.
The Embody system had enhanced her reflexes to the point that it even seemed possible at all. Trans Am had given EXIA the performance to accomplish her goal without further damage. Rather than flare her shield at all, She simply cut the mass driver round in half with a single swing of her beam saber. The semi molten remnants of the round were left spiraling uselessly into the void behind her as she finished her approach on the Battarian cruiser.
Ouka's blade pierced the cruiser's port side near the spinal weapon's muzzle break. Flying forth with remarkable speed, she dragged the cut down nearly the entirety of the ship's hull. Stopping uncomfortably close to an engine plume, she turned and watched as corpses streamed out from the breach she had produced. Then she flew downwards and cut a matching scar into the underside of the ship's starboard axis. Ouka circled around once again and ended her disabling of the vessel with a vicious kick to an area that looked like it contained the ship's command bridge. Exia's sole shattered the transparent material of choice and sent an assortment of important looking batarians sailing away into the uncaring void.
It takes Ouka another salvo of beam rifle rounds and a hit from the Celestial Being's artillery beam for the cruiser's guns to at last fall silent. She turns towards the rest of the Hegemony vessels to find Ribbons mopping up the last few fighters with dismissive slashes from his beam sabers. She keyed in the sequence she believed was supposed to deactivate both Trans Am and Embody and refocused on her coms at the startlingly soothing sensation of her nerves desynchronizing from her equipment.
"Sensors here, there is basically no activity remaining in the Hegemony fleet. Okay there's fifty life signs, but they're all in escape pods and shuttles that have disengaged from the encounter. Why would they have those shuttles in hangar bays when they can run their own FTL Drives?"
"Fuel efficiency," Revise Desire grumbled in a defeated tone. Seemed even she had grown tired of arguing against the foolishness on display. "It costs less overall to have big ships making a few jumps than the same tonnage in small craft making the same distance however many times."
"How's our cruiser holding up?" Ouka joined the conversation as she glided towards the station on low GN particles. If nothing else she could grab a Batarian weapon and join the fray.
"Main computer estimates our general hull integrity at Sixty-Four percent," Revise paused and audibly took a deep breath. "We've got minor hull breaches from every occasion those mass drivers got past our shields, and one major hull breach at the armory from where that spinal cannon pierced the shield entirely. We could have had it worse, if the slavers hadn't been focused on keeping you and the V-GN-X's from decimating them early and focused everything on us we probably wouldn't be having this conversation."
"Toxic here," Mikhail interjected, "Now that we've finally got that translation running from the Old Man's team, we've been able to get some of the technically minded captives to work on setting up comms with their people's government. All they want in return is for us to stick around long enough to make sure the Hegemony Slavers don't come back and recollect them."
"Medical here," Sora Dove began. "We took some severe casualties in that display. Over three hundred of us are now on our second life," Ouka shuddered at the idea as she pulled Exia in for a landing. "There's almost another five hundred with varying degrees of injury treatable by the med bay, but the room is so damn small that we have to keep rotating our patients just to make sure nobodies' condition worsens. We're seeing slow improvement but don't ask me to release any of these souls into duty for quite a while yet." Ouka had Exia kneel so that she could gain easier access to the ground.
She spied a Batarian corpse reasonably nearby as she powered down Exia and set the passcode locks. There was still work to be done. And she wasn't certain she could bring herself to accept any surrender from these aliens even if they were willing to offer it.
I'd never forgive myself if I died here, I know I don't have to. My life can go on.
I groaned as consciousness returned to me in slow, painful waves. I opened my eyes to the sight of my medic's helmet. "Holy Crap that was close," is all I can bring myself to say.
"Welcome back to the land of the living, sir. You missed Ouka finishing off most of the enemy fleet with her Trans Am. From the sounds of it, you've also missed the others finishing off the last Batarians. Also the Relief force from the captives government should be arriving within the next few days."
"You know what, I'll take it. I'm not interested in moving on or replacing the current setup." Besides, I'd like some quiet time to make more decisions. Jumping from crises to crises may make for entertaining war stories, but I like to fit in a time skip or two so that we could get some slice of life action in relative peace. I've already got an idea on how to make use of this station and the reinforcement fleet, hopefully without any further moral dilemmas.
"You're looking pretty good for a guy who got his throat slashed." A vaguely familiar voice speaks up. I turn and see the Asari from earlier with a strange look on her face. I let out a rueful chuckle.
"Medicinal Nanomachines," I suppress the urge to continue the meme. "They do a body good." The Asari- Tela Vasir, my mind provides- recovers from however unexpected my answer had been surprisingly fast.
"So how are you planning to save your home world and its oceans of blood?" How in the crap… For some reason I knew exactly how she both knew about that and how to speak our Language.
"Now that would be telling, Don't tell me you think I'm completely stupid? I've no clue what your intentions are. At least I can be reasonably certain that the enslaved peoples' government will be happy to have their citizens back unharmed." Thankfully she didn't seem to know everything I knew. Must not have been willing to risk learning what nearly dying felt like.
"Eh, fair enough." The alien woman wearing a concerningly skintight set of armor shrugged. "I was only here to prove that this station was full of slavers before I got here, emphasis mine. I just want confirmation that you and yours aren't going to collar these Quarians for yourselves and I'll see myself out."
"You might as well stay for the victory party, I'm sure the others are already organizing something interesting for once the repairs are finished."
"Someone mentioned something about having found what looks like an extremely well stocked bar earlier in what we're assuming is the officer's lounge." My medic, by the name of Helena Panacea if I remember correctly, pipes up. "Some of the other medics are doing tests to make sure it's safe to drink."
"Right, for the moment, I need to move on." Vasir noticeably does not move from my path as I slip on my helmet.
"How much for the Laser shotgun you were using earlier?" I roll my eyes as I undo the latch holding the weapons sling to my armor.
"I'll call in a favor next time we meet." I let out as I toss the gun in the direction of the secret agent lady. To her credit, she catches the shotgun with little more than a difficult to read expression. I think it was the Asari equivalent of a raised brow. "Don't mistake me, I have quite a few secrets you didn't manage to acquire with that mind trick of yours." I walk towards the waypoint listed in my display as, 'Command staff meeting, we're waiting on you Boss!'
"I'll see you around, Tatsuya." Vasir says in an unreadable tone of voice.
"Good luck to you as well, Vasir." I see Ouka's display note on the map just outside the door to the room the Command Innovades had claimed for the meeting. I'm still not sure what I should say to Her. Wing it and hope for the best is starting to feel like the wrong idea.
Commodore Isana Keshik's eyes were watering and her jaw noticeably hurt from where she had been gnawing on the fingertips of her hardsuit. Rushing to one of the 'cargo' shuttles as soon as she realized that Elite wasn't going to be contained for much longer had easily been the best choice she had made in that engagement. Not that it was saying much.
They had unwittingly played to the strengths of a small elite force and practically left her units to be slaughtered indiscriminately. She felt that she had the unknown's measure now, and was confident that with her advice a second flotilla could devastate the aliens without much further fuss.
She wasn't going to be able to get that from the Hegemony however. Forget being demoted by ranks, she'd be lucky for her bloodline to remain in the same caste for generations if Command learned of this clusterfuck. Hence she was flying towards the nearest terminus outpost. Keshik had the cash reserves to buy the services of an Omega pirate fleet powerful enough to level these upstarts and make a profit in slave labor in relatively short order.
Her parents and children would just need to deal with losing their upward caste subscriptions, tightener budgets, and slower extranet speeds for the next year and a half. It sucked, but it would take that long to keep her obligations to the people who wanted to purchase her slave labor and slave gathered resources payed in full. They'd bought the insurance and held up their end of the bargain by making sure the Quarian ships were in position and unable to escape their efforts. Also you needed to have long term financial stability for over a year to even qualify for the 'raise your family's caste' subscription.
Commodore Keshik breathed deeply, wiped the tears from her eyes, and Swore Revenge for her Husband's almost certain death on the station. For her family's sake, she could do no less. Hegemony forever.
- Location
- California
Hmm, there's some spicy escalation in the works. Also, I can appreciate how you wrote Tela. I don't like the mind meld, but the way it's all laid it means more plot points can be built.
Chapter Seven: It Needs to Be Said
Red_Knight25
Unofficial Edgelord Advocate
AN: First off, sorry for the delay on this update. I was enduring Writer's Block for most of last week, but I think I'll be able to update again sometime soon. Thanks for reading, and Without any further delay:
As I make the trek towards the probable location of the meeting, and therefore Ouka, I can't help but realize that I've fallen into a familiar trap. I'm trying to plan out my conversation with her, and I simply cannot predict her responses. So I'm roughly back to square one, wing it and hope for the best.
Somewhere in my heart of hearts I know I'm overcomplicating this endeavor, I'm just trying to talk to the girl I want to be the boyfriend of. It shouldn't have to be so tense. But my mind, my treasonous, too smart for my own good mind, can't help but to remind me of all the bad ways this talk could go.
I procrastinate a little by looking over my armor and gear. Unsurprisingly I'm at approximately two percent power, with all enhanced performance sections of the gear effectively offline. I somewhat lost track of time considering ways to improve or supplement the armor's power limitations, when I pass by the officer's lounge and hear one of the medics shouting.
"That confirms it! The Booze is good to go!" I startle slightly at the cheer that results from the declaration, and my mouth waters at the thought. 'Would just one glass really hurt that much?' A small part of me questions. I shake my head at the thought, 'I made a promise to myself.'
'Besides,' I tell off that part of my mind, 'I'm still working.' I continue on my way, thoughts of sharing drinks with my girlfriend warring with my sense of professionalism and pride all along the way.
The first thing Ouka noticed about Yuuki when he appeared in the hallway was that he was still wearing his helmet and armor. Then she saw the massive rip in the neck of his bodysuit, revealing pale skin beneath it. As relieved as she felt that Yuuki was alive, there remained words that needed to be said. "Ouka," He began as he took off his helmet, allowing her to see his tired face and a heart wrenchingly sad version of his smile. "Can we have a serious talk?"
A vague tension fills the hall between them as he slows his pace towards her. Ouka takes the initiative and strides within arms reach.
"What were you thinking?" Ouka successfully fails to scream as she grabs Yuuki by the cape, and hauls him closer. "At least when I pulled my crazy risk I was able to keep my backup close enough to make a difference."
"Not my finest moment," Yuuki flinches. "I may still be too used to flying solo." Ouka simply glared in response as he sighed. "I wasn't expecting the slavers to be able to keep my team from intervening for the entire encounter either."
"How close were you to bleeding out because of it?" Ouka was struggling to contain her tears at this point. "Are you that confident in your cloning tech that your self preservation is suspect."
"No!" Yuuki started with a sorrowful expression of his own. "Dying is the last thing I want to experience. I was worried about you!" At her surprise at the thought he continued. "You broadcast the Embody passcode on the command channel. All I could think about was how terrible it felt to experience, the very Idea that your first choice was to subject yourself to that agony." She stared at the haunted expression he toted. "We haven't even figured out what sort of side effects that thing even has, Ouka. For just the briefest moment, I was terrified that you'd lose yourself to the idea of 'Victory is At Any Costs,' when there were still options you and the others hadn't explored."
Ouka's expression softened, "And at this level of combat, a moment's hesitation is all it really takes." She drew her gaze towards the single tear that had thus far escaped his eyes. Ouka took a deep breath and steadied her resolve as she raised a single hand.
Ouka suppressed the part of her that wanted to slap some sense into him with a bitter vengeance, and simply wiped away his tear.
"Okay you beautiful sweetheart," Ouka states with a stern tone, "I'm of two minds about that thought process. I'm glad that you were thinking about me and my wellbeing, but on the other hand I'm both upset that you let it negatively affect your fight and at the idea that you don't trust me to handle myself in combat." As Yuuki opened his mouth she continued her warpath, "You're better than this Yuuki, I may be willing to accept that you screwed up but please, Keep it together!"
"I'm having trouble with that. I'll do my best, but I won't lie to you." Yuuki leaned back a little but placed a hand on her left shoulder.
"Make sure you do, I'm not ready to see if a certain paradox applies to you- or myself for that matter." Ouka sighed, "Thinking about it, you probably wanted to talk about our relationship rather than how you almost died." She watched as Yuuki returned from his lean.
"You deserve so much better than this," Yuuki argues, "To have to keep fighting even after everything you've been through already. I want to give you some measure of the happiness that was denied to you." He places a hand on her hip. "The sort of happiness I felt when I realized I had a second chance."
"How about you demonstrate one of the ways you want to achieve that?" Ouka drew the misty eyed Meijin closer.
"As you wish," Their lips met at last.
They briefly parted, "You taste like blood."
Yuuki shrugged with a cheeky grin, "I had better things to do than wash the taste away."
"Like making sure I'm just as serious about this as you are?" He answered her with a deeper kiss.
Nothing more was said at the moment.
Mikhail Toxic rolled his eyes and sauntered back into the room they had subborned for their briefing. "Yeah the bosses are busy with each other, and are probably going to stay that way until at least they remember how much of a pain the armor is to take off."
"Anyone else wondering about how weird that whole situation is?" Sienna Unseen, extreme range sensor operator, opined.
"Even with the skills and experiences lended by our donors alive and deceased," Ribbons began, "We're comparatively absurdly young. Our standards for weirdness and normalcy are still in question."
"And some of you question why I call Him the Old Man." Mikhail grinned as the couple in question entered the room, holding hands. Ouka looked annoyed and the Meijin's hair was messier than a moment prior.
"Right, let's get the formalities out of the way," Ouka interrupted as the Meijin forced his hair into a semblance of order with an idle hand. "Revise, how long to deal with the hull integrity?"
"All hull breaches have been sealed, but we've only repaired the hull to sixty-seven percent." Revise dutifully exposed. "I'm confident that we can repair the thing by at least fifteen more percent by the time the Quarian G-folks show up. We can do it faster, but it'll start cutting into our resources to make the equipment."
"That with all hands on deck or just the ones already subordinate to you Revise?" Yuuki looks like he's trying to focus on more than one train of thought at a time.
"It's with the schedule we were working on while we waited for the two of you sir," Carine pipes up as she hands Ouka and Yuuki tablets with the document open. "The current policy will give our engineering staff enough time to work on research and development while rotating who's actually aiding in maintenance and repair. Also relaxation time."
"I also happen to have an idea of what to do with the station and the debris we've created with this fight." Mikhail tuned out the conversation the bossman was beginning with Revise, most of the briefing was going to be about things he either wasn't terribly concerned about or already knew. And instead turned his thoughts towards the liberated slaves.
The Quarians weren't even able to safely eat the same food as the slavers that had accosted them, let alone the frankly ridiculous degree of immunodeficiency his medic had reported. Most of the poor souls would have been lucky to last a year under those conditions. It was wasteful, stupid, careless, and he couldn't get over how shocked they had seemed that anyone cared.
It pissed him off. Mikhail wanted to find the galactic community he had overheard a few of them mentioning had abandoned them to the worst the galaxy could offer, and teach them a thing or twelve about basic fucking morality. He found himself seething that kicking the homeworld's problems to death would have to take priority for the foreseeable future meant that he couldn't make the assholes of the universe answer for their crimes.
He jumped slightly at a familiar hand on his shoulder. Carine Path aimed a sad smile at him and said, "It sucks, but we have our entire lives ahead of us to make our existence a better place." Was he so transparent, or did he happen to be thinking out loud like the Meijin sometimes did?
"Tch," He found himself grinning in spite of himself. "I suppose we do." He found himself snickering as Revise head desked and Yuuki released Ouka's hand to rub at his temples. Mikhail supposed that at least he could get his kicks in wherever he could.
"Mikhail, I get that we were talking about things you already know," Ouka began with a stern expression. "But if you could maybe not get too lost in thought to tell when we're trying to talk to you? That'd be great." Well that's fair enough.
"Okay okay yeah, you probably wanna hear about the Quarians right? The biggest thing is how ridiculously weak their immune systems are. As in, if one of them so much as opens their helmet in untreated air? Instant sick day, as far as the medic who was with my team was concerned." He took in the looks on his bosses' faces, "According to the Quarians willing to talk about it, they got kicked off their planets by an AI uprising and have been living in sterilized environments ever since."
Sora Dove frowned. "They must not start off with the best immune systems either, if sheer lack of exposure to pathogens results in that kind of frail constitution. Which medic was with you again, Toxic?" Aw crap now he wished he had remembered to memorize the guy's name.
"It was something they told me themselves actually." Sora doesn't look particularly reassured. "Look it's in the report I've already filed, almost eight hundred sad aliens in varying states of poor health, that we are going to struggle to prevent any casualties long enough for their people to arrive. You want more details, read it and weep, because the thought of recounting the Quarian condition overly much makes me both want to drink myself half to death and go on a killing spree in enemy territory."
"They'll get what's coming to them eventually," Ribbons notes reassuringly, "I'm sure it'll be satisfying when it finally happens."
Aside from the minor off topic issue at my idea for the liberated station, and Mikhail absentmindedly daydreaming about killing more slavers while I was trying to ask him about the amount and condition of the Quarians, the briefing went fairly well. We made solid progress on ideas to supplement the killjoy armor, safely gather more resources for our purposes, and make plans on what to do with said resources for the next few days.
For example, we've put out a request for volunteers to skip several meals a day so as to reconfigure our hydroponics capacity to produce foodstuffs the Quarians can safely eat. We would definitely need to break into the resource windfalls that were the hostile wreckage in order to make ends meet for a while, however. So the command staff agreed to make this victory party a particularly memorable one.
With all that out of the way, it was time for rest and relaxation. "Okay Ribbons, I believe we've got everything we need to make ourselves a reasonable approximation of one of my favorite cocktails. Not only that but I believe this one may be more your style. Somebody grab a few stemmed glasses while I mix." Playing ametur mixologist may not have been the best use of my time, but hey it's a party. "Now, since I'm trying to make enough for a small group I'm multiplying the measurements noticeably." I start adding ingredients into the large vessel I've conscripted into being my shaker.
"If my math is correct," Revise notes as she returns with the glasses, "The recipe is one quarter measure sweet, one quarter measure sour, and a full measure of the dry? There's one substance you haven't even opened yet."
"Much obliged Revise," I state as I shake the concoction with ice. "That's because an important element of the last ingredient would be lost if it was included in the shaking. Also, while my thought process is still on making these, the exact ratio of sweet and sour can be varied due to individual preferences."
"I was of the opinion that most drinks would require more components as well." Ribbons opins with a thoughtful frown, "Unless we're trying to emphasize the complexity of the ingredients with minimal fuss?"
"Exactly so," I agree as I divide the mixture between Ribbons', Revise, Ouka's, and my own glass last. "And we finish with the final ingredient," I tell off Revise as she reaches for her designated glass. "Now be careful with this one," I state as I begin finishing the drinks with the supposed Thessian vintage wine, "legend tells it was named after a popular artillery weapon due to the impact it has." The color was a little off, but time and taste should tell.
"Sounds like my kind of drink," Tela Vasir interrupts as she sasheys into the conversation and places an empty glass of her own on the counter. "You people know how to hold a party, if it wasn't for the heavy conversation topics and the pure alcohol I'd say the quarians would feel left out." I roll my eyes as I pass her the unclaimed glass and use the empty for myself.
"Not sure if it comes recommended, but my medical staff assures me it won't give anyone an allergic reaction at least." I go through the motions of mixing another drink as my subordinates and girlfriend let out appreciative noises at their first taste.
Vasir gives me a look, "Not to dampen the mood or anything, but there is a chance that more hegemony troops get here before the migrant fleet does. And in greater numbers besides."
"I'm not terribly worried, If you were in any way honest about travel times we shouldn't have to deal with hostile reinforcements again any time soon." I feel a vicious grin take over my face as I raise my newly filled glass. "But we've got a few ideas for our own escalation just in case." I shake my head a little as I step out from behind the bar and take my place besides Ouka. "But for now, it's time to relax. Plotting and putting schemes into motion can wait at least a while more can't it?"
"I'd say we've earned ourselves a brief calm before the journey continues," Ouka nods with a flush as she leans into me. "Thank you for making the drinks Yuuki, I'd say they're going to be quite popular."
"Work hard, play hard," Vasir agrees, "I'll drink to that."
The Quarian Migrant Fleet was hard pressed at the best of times to protect the entirety of its over fifty thousand vessel bulk. While arming even civilian ships helped frighten away all but the most desperate scum of the stars, circumstances like these were proof enough of the flaws in the admiralty's defense strategy. Not that they had many appealing options to begin with.
The sight that greeted the low ranking admiral of the escorting Heavy Fleet elements when they arrived in the system that held the wayward crew of the Laara was rather unexpected and perhaps more than a little intimidating, even with the reports of unknown aliens having intervened on their behalf.
For one thing, there was the station clearly built into and extending out from a hollowed out asteroid. With a set of military grade engines visible by their plumes on the far side of the large construct. Then there was what they had done to the Batarian station. They had clearly installed several armatures that extended into the nearby asteroid field and were presently carving materials from them with high grade mining lasers. Raw resources that were then carried into the station via said arms into some of the excess hangar bays.
But that wasn't what concerned Minor Admiral Naala'Yoras the most. A second array of skeletal arms extended from the top of the repurposed station, taking parts from their own nearby orifices and working them into unfamiliar designs connected to the station via its large craft docking array. Unfamiliar designs but not function. Several vessels that looked to Naala's eyes all the galaxy like someone had mounted fusion torches rather than rudders and propellers to the rear of naval vessels.
But Naala struggled to draw her eyes away from the largest vessels the station was presently working on.
The cruiser nearly complete before them had twelve cannons mounted in a linear fashion across four turrets. It was patiently awaiting completion so as to join its sister ship of the same design hovering protectively in front of the assembly, angled in a way so as to point all twelve cannons at one target. A third vessel of the same class was presently in a noticeably skeletal state bereft most of an outer hull.
These mysterious 'Humans,' as the transmission had called them, had repurposed a slave processing plant into a shipyard. There was no sign of the 'pirate' flotilla that had been plaguing this branch of the migrant fleet, presumably they had been the first to be salvaged and reborn as alien craft. She glanced at the growing flock of frigates and destroyers that she had failed to notice earlier and realized that they already had more vessels total than the Hegemony slaver flotilla had.
It had only been four Citadel standard days since they had received their distress call. One day they had spent repairing the Laara to operability in order to house the kidnapped populace. The other three had been spent in transit between their prior location and what was approximately the middle of Nowhere Attican Traverse.
Then the Admiral saw one other thing that made her choke on her words for one more moment. An obvious drive of some sort worked into the alien shipyard. They weren't simply transforming a random station into a capital grade shipyard, they were making a mobile shipyard capable of moving with the alien vessels. It was something Naala wasn't sure anyone sane would have considered.
Then she steeled herself and took charge once more, "Hail the shipyard with the agreed signal, we're uncomfortably close to both the terminus systems and Geth Territory. Move it people, I want this fleet back in support range from the rest of the fleet as soon as possible." She watched as the second alien cruiser undocked from its berth for the first time and oriented her guns on a specific coordinate. "What are they aiming at?" Minor Admiral Naala muttered. "If they wanted to fire on us."
At this the transmission from the aliens broke through, "Repeat, Quarian vessels please respond, we are detecting a large fleet of unknown craft on long range sensors arriving in the sector via mass relay! They have support from crafts of Batarian design! Please Respond!" Oh Crap.
"This is Minor Admiral Naala to all vessels! Civilian craft take shelter behind allied crafts" Her bridge staff whirled into action as she gave out orders. "Patrol vessels, you're on escort duty. Please focus on any hostile craft that gets past us and our newfound allies. Heavy Fleet elements form up for a brawl!" Hopefully the scum would back down once they saw the reinforcements her craft posed as well as the unexpected windfall of human vessels.
"Admiral, our shipyard cannot presently leave this location while it has vessels under construction." The human rating she had contacted explained. "Furthermore, one of our capital ships is on a shakedown cruise and will be unable to provide assistance until it can finish preparing its drive." They had another of those vessels? How quickly were they manufacturing these things?
She shook her head, trying to refocus on the coming conflict. She wasn't certain if accurate sensor traces over a distance of lightyears was possible, but it paid to prepare for the worst. She was confident the pirates would be warded away easily enough.
It was a bad idea to bet lives on your enemy making a mistake however.
Hegemony Commodore Isana Keshik was positively giddy at her luck. She had been able to pull rank on the glorified rating that had been put in charge of a new class of Hegemony 'pocket dreadnought' and its escorts on her way back from the terminus shipyard she had purchased her new flotilla from. The benefits of being a member of a higher class. Technically speaking her new flagship was a cruiser at the largest acceptable limit for the classification that had been built around a particularly overpowered spinal gun optimized for firing armor piercing shaped rounds.
Sure it wouldn't have the firing rate of a turian standard dreadnought, but all tests so far had concluded it would be able to overmatch that dreadnought's armor from any angle. Considering that the usual Hegemony standard cruiser's main gun had been able to overmatch the entirety of the aliens' shield generator on their cruiser, she was confident that this vessel could kill its counterpart in one clean hit.
Not only that but she had a few extra vessels from the ones she had purchased thanks to a business partner who wanted to protect her investment. Never let it be said that criminals don't play a part in the galactic economy. Of course, going back on your word to the Shadow Broker tended to be even more fatal than losing your subscription back in the hegemony's space.
Isana Keshik loved dealing with Citadel hypocrisy, furthermore. The could hem and haw all they wanted about the 'Morally Incorrect' nature of slavery and the Batarian caste system, they stil bought goods made from resources gathered by slaves and crafted by bottom caste swine all the same. They could dream of influencing the Hegemony politically all they wanted, but that propaganda shit cut both ways. For every Asari who tried to do away with slavery the 'nice way,' there was another whose income was just as reliant on slave labor as the Hegemony's.
It was a sort of 'corruption' that was inherent in the system. But most of the Citadel's denizens were unwilling to admit to such truths in the name of 'enlightenment' and 'galactic peace.' But the only way that would become a problem would be if certain people decided to take the law into their own hands and actually make the Hegemony compliant with the Citadel's 'standards.'
Like the aliens that had done their best to interrupt the flow of Batarian money and goods just this last few days.
For the moment, she had sent a few pirate escorts ahead to verify the status on the station's end of the relay. While keeping the station about a day's FTL away from the relay was somewhat problematic logistics wise, the Biotic her husband had been XO for had claimed that security through obscurity was the optimum way to prevent reprisal from their choice of targets. In a more ideal situation the station would have had plenty of time to evacuate its staff and cargo safely and progress on the journey back to unambiguous Hegemony territory.
And now that that overconfident high caste fool had been proven wrong in decidedly fatal fashion. But she had more than two brain-cells to rub together and would be able to salvage this catastrophe in relatively simple fashion. And as long as she got her money's worth out of these mercs she had gotten to staff her fleet, she could care less if a few bit it in the doing.
Oh yeah, it's all coming up Isana Keshik. This time she was ready. Even if they had managed to get some of the few capital ships in the Quarian Navy to aid them she had enough weapons to spare. All she was waiting on was the feed from her scouts to tell her what to expect on the other side of the jump.
They'd never know what hit them.
Chapter Seven
It Needs To Be Said
It Needs To Be Said
As I make the trek towards the probable location of the meeting, and therefore Ouka, I can't help but realize that I've fallen into a familiar trap. I'm trying to plan out my conversation with her, and I simply cannot predict her responses. So I'm roughly back to square one, wing it and hope for the best.
Somewhere in my heart of hearts I know I'm overcomplicating this endeavor, I'm just trying to talk to the girl I want to be the boyfriend of. It shouldn't have to be so tense. But my mind, my treasonous, too smart for my own good mind, can't help but to remind me of all the bad ways this talk could go.
I procrastinate a little by looking over my armor and gear. Unsurprisingly I'm at approximately two percent power, with all enhanced performance sections of the gear effectively offline. I somewhat lost track of time considering ways to improve or supplement the armor's power limitations, when I pass by the officer's lounge and hear one of the medics shouting.
"That confirms it! The Booze is good to go!" I startle slightly at the cheer that results from the declaration, and my mouth waters at the thought. 'Would just one glass really hurt that much?' A small part of me questions. I shake my head at the thought, 'I made a promise to myself.'
'Besides,' I tell off that part of my mind, 'I'm still working.' I continue on my way, thoughts of sharing drinks with my girlfriend warring with my sense of professionalism and pride all along the way.
The first thing Ouka noticed about Yuuki when he appeared in the hallway was that he was still wearing his helmet and armor. Then she saw the massive rip in the neck of his bodysuit, revealing pale skin beneath it. As relieved as she felt that Yuuki was alive, there remained words that needed to be said. "Ouka," He began as he took off his helmet, allowing her to see his tired face and a heart wrenchingly sad version of his smile. "Can we have a serious talk?"
A vague tension fills the hall between them as he slows his pace towards her. Ouka takes the initiative and strides within arms reach.
"What were you thinking?" Ouka successfully fails to scream as she grabs Yuuki by the cape, and hauls him closer. "At least when I pulled my crazy risk I was able to keep my backup close enough to make a difference."
"Not my finest moment," Yuuki flinches. "I may still be too used to flying solo." Ouka simply glared in response as he sighed. "I wasn't expecting the slavers to be able to keep my team from intervening for the entire encounter either."
"How close were you to bleeding out because of it?" Ouka was struggling to contain her tears at this point. "Are you that confident in your cloning tech that your self preservation is suspect."
"No!" Yuuki started with a sorrowful expression of his own. "Dying is the last thing I want to experience. I was worried about you!" At her surprise at the thought he continued. "You broadcast the Embody passcode on the command channel. All I could think about was how terrible it felt to experience, the very Idea that your first choice was to subject yourself to that agony." She stared at the haunted expression he toted. "We haven't even figured out what sort of side effects that thing even has, Ouka. For just the briefest moment, I was terrified that you'd lose yourself to the idea of 'Victory is At Any Costs,' when there were still options you and the others hadn't explored."
Ouka's expression softened, "And at this level of combat, a moment's hesitation is all it really takes." She drew her gaze towards the single tear that had thus far escaped his eyes. Ouka took a deep breath and steadied her resolve as she raised a single hand.
Ouka suppressed the part of her that wanted to slap some sense into him with a bitter vengeance, and simply wiped away his tear.
"Okay you beautiful sweetheart," Ouka states with a stern tone, "I'm of two minds about that thought process. I'm glad that you were thinking about me and my wellbeing, but on the other hand I'm both upset that you let it negatively affect your fight and at the idea that you don't trust me to handle myself in combat." As Yuuki opened his mouth she continued her warpath, "You're better than this Yuuki, I may be willing to accept that you screwed up but please, Keep it together!"
"I'm having trouble with that. I'll do my best, but I won't lie to you." Yuuki leaned back a little but placed a hand on her left shoulder.
"Make sure you do, I'm not ready to see if a certain paradox applies to you- or myself for that matter." Ouka sighed, "Thinking about it, you probably wanted to talk about our relationship rather than how you almost died." She watched as Yuuki returned from his lean.
"You deserve so much better than this," Yuuki argues, "To have to keep fighting even after everything you've been through already. I want to give you some measure of the happiness that was denied to you." He places a hand on her hip. "The sort of happiness I felt when I realized I had a second chance."
"How about you demonstrate one of the ways you want to achieve that?" Ouka drew the misty eyed Meijin closer.
"As you wish," Their lips met at last.
They briefly parted, "You taste like blood."
Yuuki shrugged with a cheeky grin, "I had better things to do than wash the taste away."
"Like making sure I'm just as serious about this as you are?" He answered her with a deeper kiss.
Nothing more was said at the moment.
Mikhail Toxic rolled his eyes and sauntered back into the room they had subborned for their briefing. "Yeah the bosses are busy with each other, and are probably going to stay that way until at least they remember how much of a pain the armor is to take off."
"Anyone else wondering about how weird that whole situation is?" Sienna Unseen, extreme range sensor operator, opined.
"Even with the skills and experiences lended by our donors alive and deceased," Ribbons began, "We're comparatively absurdly young. Our standards for weirdness and normalcy are still in question."
"And some of you question why I call Him the Old Man." Mikhail grinned as the couple in question entered the room, holding hands. Ouka looked annoyed and the Meijin's hair was messier than a moment prior.
"Right, let's get the formalities out of the way," Ouka interrupted as the Meijin forced his hair into a semblance of order with an idle hand. "Revise, how long to deal with the hull integrity?"
"All hull breaches have been sealed, but we've only repaired the hull to sixty-seven percent." Revise dutifully exposed. "I'm confident that we can repair the thing by at least fifteen more percent by the time the Quarian G-folks show up. We can do it faster, but it'll start cutting into our resources to make the equipment."
"That with all hands on deck or just the ones already subordinate to you Revise?" Yuuki looks like he's trying to focus on more than one train of thought at a time.
"It's with the schedule we were working on while we waited for the two of you sir," Carine pipes up as she hands Ouka and Yuuki tablets with the document open. "The current policy will give our engineering staff enough time to work on research and development while rotating who's actually aiding in maintenance and repair. Also relaxation time."
"I also happen to have an idea of what to do with the station and the debris we've created with this fight." Mikhail tuned out the conversation the bossman was beginning with Revise, most of the briefing was going to be about things he either wasn't terribly concerned about or already knew. And instead turned his thoughts towards the liberated slaves.
The Quarians weren't even able to safely eat the same food as the slavers that had accosted them, let alone the frankly ridiculous degree of immunodeficiency his medic had reported. Most of the poor souls would have been lucky to last a year under those conditions. It was wasteful, stupid, careless, and he couldn't get over how shocked they had seemed that anyone cared.
It pissed him off. Mikhail wanted to find the galactic community he had overheard a few of them mentioning had abandoned them to the worst the galaxy could offer, and teach them a thing or twelve about basic fucking morality. He found himself seething that kicking the homeworld's problems to death would have to take priority for the foreseeable future meant that he couldn't make the assholes of the universe answer for their crimes.
He jumped slightly at a familiar hand on his shoulder. Carine Path aimed a sad smile at him and said, "It sucks, but we have our entire lives ahead of us to make our existence a better place." Was he so transparent, or did he happen to be thinking out loud like the Meijin sometimes did?
"Tch," He found himself grinning in spite of himself. "I suppose we do." He found himself snickering as Revise head desked and Yuuki released Ouka's hand to rub at his temples. Mikhail supposed that at least he could get his kicks in wherever he could.
"Mikhail, I get that we were talking about things you already know," Ouka began with a stern expression. "But if you could maybe not get too lost in thought to tell when we're trying to talk to you? That'd be great." Well that's fair enough.
"Okay okay yeah, you probably wanna hear about the Quarians right? The biggest thing is how ridiculously weak their immune systems are. As in, if one of them so much as opens their helmet in untreated air? Instant sick day, as far as the medic who was with my team was concerned." He took in the looks on his bosses' faces, "According to the Quarians willing to talk about it, they got kicked off their planets by an AI uprising and have been living in sterilized environments ever since."
Sora Dove frowned. "They must not start off with the best immune systems either, if sheer lack of exposure to pathogens results in that kind of frail constitution. Which medic was with you again, Toxic?" Aw crap now he wished he had remembered to memorize the guy's name.
"It was something they told me themselves actually." Sora doesn't look particularly reassured. "Look it's in the report I've already filed, almost eight hundred sad aliens in varying states of poor health, that we are going to struggle to prevent any casualties long enough for their people to arrive. You want more details, read it and weep, because the thought of recounting the Quarian condition overly much makes me both want to drink myself half to death and go on a killing spree in enemy territory."
"They'll get what's coming to them eventually," Ribbons notes reassuringly, "I'm sure it'll be satisfying when it finally happens."
Aside from the minor off topic issue at my idea for the liberated station, and Mikhail absentmindedly daydreaming about killing more slavers while I was trying to ask him about the amount and condition of the Quarians, the briefing went fairly well. We made solid progress on ideas to supplement the killjoy armor, safely gather more resources for our purposes, and make plans on what to do with said resources for the next few days.
For example, we've put out a request for volunteers to skip several meals a day so as to reconfigure our hydroponics capacity to produce foodstuffs the Quarians can safely eat. We would definitely need to break into the resource windfalls that were the hostile wreckage in order to make ends meet for a while, however. So the command staff agreed to make this victory party a particularly memorable one.
With all that out of the way, it was time for rest and relaxation. "Okay Ribbons, I believe we've got everything we need to make ourselves a reasonable approximation of one of my favorite cocktails. Not only that but I believe this one may be more your style. Somebody grab a few stemmed glasses while I mix." Playing ametur mixologist may not have been the best use of my time, but hey it's a party. "Now, since I'm trying to make enough for a small group I'm multiplying the measurements noticeably." I start adding ingredients into the large vessel I've conscripted into being my shaker.
"If my math is correct," Revise notes as she returns with the glasses, "The recipe is one quarter measure sweet, one quarter measure sour, and a full measure of the dry? There's one substance you haven't even opened yet."
"Much obliged Revise," I state as I shake the concoction with ice. "That's because an important element of the last ingredient would be lost if it was included in the shaking. Also, while my thought process is still on making these, the exact ratio of sweet and sour can be varied due to individual preferences."
"I was of the opinion that most drinks would require more components as well." Ribbons opins with a thoughtful frown, "Unless we're trying to emphasize the complexity of the ingredients with minimal fuss?"
"Exactly so," I agree as I divide the mixture between Ribbons', Revise, Ouka's, and my own glass last. "And we finish with the final ingredient," I tell off Revise as she reaches for her designated glass. "Now be careful with this one," I state as I begin finishing the drinks with the supposed Thessian vintage wine, "legend tells it was named after a popular artillery weapon due to the impact it has." The color was a little off, but time and taste should tell.
"Sounds like my kind of drink," Tela Vasir interrupts as she sasheys into the conversation and places an empty glass of her own on the counter. "You people know how to hold a party, if it wasn't for the heavy conversation topics and the pure alcohol I'd say the quarians would feel left out." I roll my eyes as I pass her the unclaimed glass and use the empty for myself.
"Not sure if it comes recommended, but my medical staff assures me it won't give anyone an allergic reaction at least." I go through the motions of mixing another drink as my subordinates and girlfriend let out appreciative noises at their first taste.
Vasir gives me a look, "Not to dampen the mood or anything, but there is a chance that more hegemony troops get here before the migrant fleet does. And in greater numbers besides."
"I'm not terribly worried, If you were in any way honest about travel times we shouldn't have to deal with hostile reinforcements again any time soon." I feel a vicious grin take over my face as I raise my newly filled glass. "But we've got a few ideas for our own escalation just in case." I shake my head a little as I step out from behind the bar and take my place besides Ouka. "But for now, it's time to relax. Plotting and putting schemes into motion can wait at least a while more can't it?"
"I'd say we've earned ourselves a brief calm before the journey continues," Ouka nods with a flush as she leans into me. "Thank you for making the drinks Yuuki, I'd say they're going to be quite popular."
"Work hard, play hard," Vasir agrees, "I'll drink to that."
The Quarian Migrant Fleet was hard pressed at the best of times to protect the entirety of its over fifty thousand vessel bulk. While arming even civilian ships helped frighten away all but the most desperate scum of the stars, circumstances like these were proof enough of the flaws in the admiralty's defense strategy. Not that they had many appealing options to begin with.
The sight that greeted the low ranking admiral of the escorting Heavy Fleet elements when they arrived in the system that held the wayward crew of the Laara was rather unexpected and perhaps more than a little intimidating, even with the reports of unknown aliens having intervened on their behalf.
For one thing, there was the station clearly built into and extending out from a hollowed out asteroid. With a set of military grade engines visible by their plumes on the far side of the large construct. Then there was what they had done to the Batarian station. They had clearly installed several armatures that extended into the nearby asteroid field and were presently carving materials from them with high grade mining lasers. Raw resources that were then carried into the station via said arms into some of the excess hangar bays.
But that wasn't what concerned Minor Admiral Naala'Yoras the most. A second array of skeletal arms extended from the top of the repurposed station, taking parts from their own nearby orifices and working them into unfamiliar designs connected to the station via its large craft docking array. Unfamiliar designs but not function. Several vessels that looked to Naala's eyes all the galaxy like someone had mounted fusion torches rather than rudders and propellers to the rear of naval vessels.
But Naala struggled to draw her eyes away from the largest vessels the station was presently working on.
The cruiser nearly complete before them had twelve cannons mounted in a linear fashion across four turrets. It was patiently awaiting completion so as to join its sister ship of the same design hovering protectively in front of the assembly, angled in a way so as to point all twelve cannons at one target. A third vessel of the same class was presently in a noticeably skeletal state bereft most of an outer hull.
These mysterious 'Humans,' as the transmission had called them, had repurposed a slave processing plant into a shipyard. There was no sign of the 'pirate' flotilla that had been plaguing this branch of the migrant fleet, presumably they had been the first to be salvaged and reborn as alien craft. She glanced at the growing flock of frigates and destroyers that she had failed to notice earlier and realized that they already had more vessels total than the Hegemony slaver flotilla had.
It had only been four Citadel standard days since they had received their distress call. One day they had spent repairing the Laara to operability in order to house the kidnapped populace. The other three had been spent in transit between their prior location and what was approximately the middle of Nowhere Attican Traverse.
Then the Admiral saw one other thing that made her choke on her words for one more moment. An obvious drive of some sort worked into the alien shipyard. They weren't simply transforming a random station into a capital grade shipyard, they were making a mobile shipyard capable of moving with the alien vessels. It was something Naala wasn't sure anyone sane would have considered.
Then she steeled herself and took charge once more, "Hail the shipyard with the agreed signal, we're uncomfortably close to both the terminus systems and Geth Territory. Move it people, I want this fleet back in support range from the rest of the fleet as soon as possible." She watched as the second alien cruiser undocked from its berth for the first time and oriented her guns on a specific coordinate. "What are they aiming at?" Minor Admiral Naala muttered. "If they wanted to fire on us."
At this the transmission from the aliens broke through, "Repeat, Quarian vessels please respond, we are detecting a large fleet of unknown craft on long range sensors arriving in the sector via mass relay! They have support from crafts of Batarian design! Please Respond!" Oh Crap.
"This is Minor Admiral Naala to all vessels! Civilian craft take shelter behind allied crafts" Her bridge staff whirled into action as she gave out orders. "Patrol vessels, you're on escort duty. Please focus on any hostile craft that gets past us and our newfound allies. Heavy Fleet elements form up for a brawl!" Hopefully the scum would back down once they saw the reinforcements her craft posed as well as the unexpected windfall of human vessels.
"Admiral, our shipyard cannot presently leave this location while it has vessels under construction." The human rating she had contacted explained. "Furthermore, one of our capital ships is on a shakedown cruise and will be unable to provide assistance until it can finish preparing its drive." They had another of those vessels? How quickly were they manufacturing these things?
She shook her head, trying to refocus on the coming conflict. She wasn't certain if accurate sensor traces over a distance of lightyears was possible, but it paid to prepare for the worst. She was confident the pirates would be warded away easily enough.
It was a bad idea to bet lives on your enemy making a mistake however.
Hegemony Commodore Isana Keshik was positively giddy at her luck. She had been able to pull rank on the glorified rating that had been put in charge of a new class of Hegemony 'pocket dreadnought' and its escorts on her way back from the terminus shipyard she had purchased her new flotilla from. The benefits of being a member of a higher class. Technically speaking her new flagship was a cruiser at the largest acceptable limit for the classification that had been built around a particularly overpowered spinal gun optimized for firing armor piercing shaped rounds.
Sure it wouldn't have the firing rate of a turian standard dreadnought, but all tests so far had concluded it would be able to overmatch that dreadnought's armor from any angle. Considering that the usual Hegemony standard cruiser's main gun had been able to overmatch the entirety of the aliens' shield generator on their cruiser, she was confident that this vessel could kill its counterpart in one clean hit.
Not only that but she had a few extra vessels from the ones she had purchased thanks to a business partner who wanted to protect her investment. Never let it be said that criminals don't play a part in the galactic economy. Of course, going back on your word to the Shadow Broker tended to be even more fatal than losing your subscription back in the hegemony's space.
Isana Keshik loved dealing with Citadel hypocrisy, furthermore. The could hem and haw all they wanted about the 'Morally Incorrect' nature of slavery and the Batarian caste system, they stil bought goods made from resources gathered by slaves and crafted by bottom caste swine all the same. They could dream of influencing the Hegemony politically all they wanted, but that propaganda shit cut both ways. For every Asari who tried to do away with slavery the 'nice way,' there was another whose income was just as reliant on slave labor as the Hegemony's.
It was a sort of 'corruption' that was inherent in the system. But most of the Citadel's denizens were unwilling to admit to such truths in the name of 'enlightenment' and 'galactic peace.' But the only way that would become a problem would be if certain people decided to take the law into their own hands and actually make the Hegemony compliant with the Citadel's 'standards.'
Like the aliens that had done their best to interrupt the flow of Batarian money and goods just this last few days.
For the moment, she had sent a few pirate escorts ahead to verify the status on the station's end of the relay. While keeping the station about a day's FTL away from the relay was somewhat problematic logistics wise, the Biotic her husband had been XO for had claimed that security through obscurity was the optimum way to prevent reprisal from their choice of targets. In a more ideal situation the station would have had plenty of time to evacuate its staff and cargo safely and progress on the journey back to unambiguous Hegemony territory.
And now that that overconfident high caste fool had been proven wrong in decidedly fatal fashion. But she had more than two brain-cells to rub together and would be able to salvage this catastrophe in relatively simple fashion. And as long as she got her money's worth out of these mercs she had gotten to staff her fleet, she could care less if a few bit it in the doing.
Oh yeah, it's all coming up Isana Keshik. This time she was ready. Even if they had managed to get some of the few capital ships in the Quarian Navy to aid them she had enough weapons to spare. All she was waiting on was the feed from her scouts to tell her what to expect on the other side of the jump.
They'd never know what hit them.
Extranet Historian Omake
Red_Knight25
Unofficial Edgelord Advocate
AN: I wanted to post this sooner, but it took longer to write than I expected. But here's some exposition on how the Impact Wars are going! If I messed with the timelines correctly things should really start going down at roughly the same time, for that true Super Robot Wars style cluster.
Anyways, please enjoy my work!
So part of the thing you need to understand about the Straya Brittanians is that Frederick La Brittania The Fourth actually did have a legitimate claim to the Empire's throne. Both in the fact that he shared his grandparents with Emperor Zi Brittania, and in the survival of the fittest philosophy due to the whole, conquered an entire continent by the skill of his arms and the cunning of his mind, thing.
Admittedly he was fighting mostly suicidal Third Reich holdouts and the single most moral communist regime the world had ever known but we don't talk about that. Or about how Australia is the smallest recognized continent on the planet. Some people think ol' Fred was just the last ruler standing once that nonsense was finished, but there is some evidence that suggests that he was in fact that good.
See his surprisingly good track record vs Schneizel, in that the Aussie's didn't instantly lose the war when Schneizel took command. Also the fact that Frederick survived the civil war in all but name that led to the old jackass Charles taking power in the first place.
So we've got a successful second cousin(?) and his oldest son, William Arthur, as the most well known actors on the Royal Pacific Dominion (More often just known as Australia Brittania) side. With some logistical and economic support from the Holy Empire's largest enemies China and the EU, they were going to try their hand at building an independent society that probably would have been used as a buffer state against Brittania.
If Second Impact had never happened anyways. I could probably go on for another few hundred words about Second Impact, the weirdness thereof, and its consequences for humanity at large. What matters in this context is that it was seen as an improbably large explosion that either destroyed, disabled, or forced into drydock basically three quarters of the Brittanian oceanic naval power in the year 2000 ATB.
With the oceans no longer dominated by what was at the time the largest country on the planet, basically everyone smelled opportunity. I'll talk about EU murdering Nazi holdouts and tribal warlords packing Sakuradite doped munitions in Africa some other time. Same with Brittania counter-invading the Soviets and getting reacquainted with the reason why the Britts usually like to wait until they have an unambiguous tech advantage.
Don't get me wrong, those pre production Glasgows really proved their worth in every theater they were deployed (Mostly South Brittania), but it was clear they needed several more years development time to iron out the kinks. Long story short some units just fell apart when they were forced to actually use their legs instead of their landspinners. Or move in an unexpected way in general.
There are some accounts from soldiers on both sides that mention how hilarious they found it when the killing machine that had been kicking their asses just collapsed into piles of parts thanks to some shoddy weld or few bolts not being tightened properly.
Moving on, Britannia in September of 2000 ATB was at its weakest and the only reason they weren't fighting everyone was because the Nazi's already kicked them out of their African Colonies back when they kicked everyone else's teeth in on that continent. And the EU wasn't interested in letting the Britts have those back any time soon, God save the Emperor.
While the communists attacked Brittania in the north, King Frederick sent Prince William Arthur to lead an invasion of the southern continent claimed by Brittania. While the Straya Britts had some civilian infrastructure at the beginning of the Impact Wars, they were really reliant on the one thing Brittanian Royalty usually always had to fall back on.
Sheer Bloody Dosh Baby! A reliable source claims that he had a Geass called 'The Seal of Chance,' which probably also helped.
To this day it's unknown the amount of resources Frederick spent to finance his makeshift military. Aside from the assorted surplus gear he somehow managed to buy at a premium, the Aussie's also bought the services of Zilkstahn for the sake of troop training and the occasional elite strike force.
As for where Good King Rick was getting his manpower, he took the opposite approach to his relative the Emperor. He promised the populace that he would abolish the area system, make noble titles accessible to non Brittanian bloodlines, and reinstate hereditary knighthoods as the default, among other nice things like urban revival and not raising taxes in his lifetime for example.
And King Frederick Made. The Change. Happen.
And the Public loved him for it. Nobles, Commoners, and Numbers from all the Pacific Island Areas flocked to join the RPD in droves. Those nobles who wanted to resist the changes found out rather quickly that the Royal Pacific Dominon's nationally assembly was more a cadre of Advisors than the Holy Brittanian Empire's House of Parliament.
So basically all they could do was beg his majesty to reconsider his life choices. Spoiler alert, he didn't. Not even when he was slaked to be executed in front of Ol' Charlie at the end of the impact wars.
Hell his last words were a spiteful take against everything publicly known about the Brittanian monarch set to end him.
"For All you once claimed to hate the cycle the world runs on, you certainly seem adept at perpetuating lies and hatred."
But I'm getting ahead of myself, we need to talk about how the war actually went, not how it ended. So if you believe the propaganda, the RPD basically bled itself and the areas that allied to it dry against walls of prototype mass production knightmares, leaving its advance exposed to Prince Schniezel's counterattack.
Yeah that's more like how Brittania wished it went. More like the Straya Britts beat them senseless for the majority of the conflict, then the pro-Empire resistance forces started listening to Schneizel and forced the Dominion to slow the hell down. Part of that was due to Prince Willaim Arthur being a very adaptable commander who was able to keep the Holy Empire from exploiting its advantages while he defeated them in detail.
He'd also gotten two elite units out of the chaos of second impact. Caroline and Nils Yajima, the industrialist and mad scientist power couple that propped up the Aussie economy and kicked copious amounts of ass with their ridiculously advanced experimental knightmares. Okay technically they called their units Gundams, but I'm trying to simplify nomenclature over here.
Anyways with those two beating Brittanian knights with pre production knightmares at their own game, the Straya Brittanians were able to run rampant across most of South America. Bringing their reforms and kicking out troublesome nobles as they went.
While many sworn knights did stay loyal to their nobles, the exact number of knights who went resistance fighter vs swore to aid the Pacific Dominion in exchange for their own legacies remains uncounted to this day.
Anyways, these good times couldn't last forever. The surplus gear Freddy had acquired and the Empire armories they had stolen from would run dry eventually and Brittania still had a comparative industrial advantage. And while Frederick and William were very good at both grand strategy and battlefield tactics, they sadly weren't 'beat Schneizel once he bothers to put actual effort in,' good.
Some historians still say the battle of Panama was more a trap Schneizel had been planning from the start of the conflict, but there's evidence that says it was just the first opportunity he had to break William Arthur's momentum. Furthermore, Princess Cornelia and her knights had just gotten back from beating the soviets into collapsing and splitting their nation between the Communist and Democratic lines.
Empress Marianne also decided to take the field in order to make certain she hadn't fallen out of practice.
While it remains uncertain if the Ganymede or Glasgow Cornelia Custom should have been a match for the Sengoku Astray or the Knight Gundam if they had been at their best, the pilots in this regard were just as much a deciding factor. Besides, Schneizel's memoirs claim that he spent most of the campaign trying to cause as much damage as possible to the RPD's knightmares captured or experimental.
Anyways, December 2000 ATB, the battle of Panama was about as unmitigated a disaster as it gets for the Straya Britts. Caroline Yajima got absolutely bodied by Empress Marianne and Cornelia Li Brittania. Her husband got his Astray totaled beyond practical repair to get Caroline out alive. And some jackass stepped on William Arthur's Type 59 tank and he was never seen again.
From there on out Frederick pulled a fighting retreat, leading the royal family and their supporters by the nose as his civilian populace abandoned the continent for the brighter pastures of Australia….
I guess it's still better than being executed for treason… Somehow.
Anyways, he ended up leading the remnants of his forces in a daring last stand as the last of his noncombatants escaped by sea. He challenged Marianne Vi Brittania to settle his troops' surrender in honorable combat.
And that's about when Schneizel totaled Frederick's stolen knightmare with an artillery strike, much to his stepmother's consternation.
I read once that she refused to let Him play Lelouch in chess for a whole year as 'punishment.'
The rest is fairly cut and dry. Frederick's only daughter Princess Solana sued for peace in exchange for the Island territories remaining hers, and in return she would allow the Empire to do as they pleased with her father and any other captives. The Empire had to deal with the fact that they'd been humiliated by a comparative nobody, and lost like sixty percent or more of the total population of their second continent either to the fighting or to the mass exodus after Panama.
And rushed development to complete or refine the Glasgow before their rivals could devise their own rival knightmares to compete with their plans for world domination. But that's shit for another time, I'm not getting into the invasion of Japan and the creation of Tokyo Three right now.
The Royal Pacific Dominion under Queen Solana La Brittania would remain a bastion against tyranny and any one world power gaining control of the world well into the Existential Wars.
Anyways, please enjoy my work!
Extranet Historian Omake
Brittanian Impact War
As explained Irreverently by An Extranet Historian
Brittanian Impact War
As explained Irreverently by An Extranet Historian
2174 Citadel Time
So part of the thing you need to understand about the Straya Brittanians is that Frederick La Brittania The Fourth actually did have a legitimate claim to the Empire's throne. Both in the fact that he shared his grandparents with Emperor Zi Brittania, and in the survival of the fittest philosophy due to the whole, conquered an entire continent by the skill of his arms and the cunning of his mind, thing.
Admittedly he was fighting mostly suicidal Third Reich holdouts and the single most moral communist regime the world had ever known but we don't talk about that. Or about how Australia is the smallest recognized continent on the planet. Some people think ol' Fred was just the last ruler standing once that nonsense was finished, but there is some evidence that suggests that he was in fact that good.
See his surprisingly good track record vs Schneizel, in that the Aussie's didn't instantly lose the war when Schneizel took command. Also the fact that Frederick survived the civil war in all but name that led to the old jackass Charles taking power in the first place.
So we've got a successful second cousin(?) and his oldest son, William Arthur, as the most well known actors on the Royal Pacific Dominion (More often just known as Australia Brittania) side. With some logistical and economic support from the Holy Empire's largest enemies China and the EU, they were going to try their hand at building an independent society that probably would have been used as a buffer state against Brittania.
If Second Impact had never happened anyways. I could probably go on for another few hundred words about Second Impact, the weirdness thereof, and its consequences for humanity at large. What matters in this context is that it was seen as an improbably large explosion that either destroyed, disabled, or forced into drydock basically three quarters of the Brittanian oceanic naval power in the year 2000 ATB.
With the oceans no longer dominated by what was at the time the largest country on the planet, basically everyone smelled opportunity. I'll talk about EU murdering Nazi holdouts and tribal warlords packing Sakuradite doped munitions in Africa some other time. Same with Brittania counter-invading the Soviets and getting reacquainted with the reason why the Britts usually like to wait until they have an unambiguous tech advantage.
Don't get me wrong, those pre production Glasgows really proved their worth in every theater they were deployed (Mostly South Brittania), but it was clear they needed several more years development time to iron out the kinks. Long story short some units just fell apart when they were forced to actually use their legs instead of their landspinners. Or move in an unexpected way in general.
There are some accounts from soldiers on both sides that mention how hilarious they found it when the killing machine that had been kicking their asses just collapsed into piles of parts thanks to some shoddy weld or few bolts not being tightened properly.
Moving on, Britannia in September of 2000 ATB was at its weakest and the only reason they weren't fighting everyone was because the Nazi's already kicked them out of their African Colonies back when they kicked everyone else's teeth in on that continent. And the EU wasn't interested in letting the Britts have those back any time soon, God save the Emperor.
While the communists attacked Brittania in the north, King Frederick sent Prince William Arthur to lead an invasion of the southern continent claimed by Brittania. While the Straya Britts had some civilian infrastructure at the beginning of the Impact Wars, they were really reliant on the one thing Brittanian Royalty usually always had to fall back on.
Sheer Bloody Dosh Baby! A reliable source claims that he had a Geass called 'The Seal of Chance,' which probably also helped.
To this day it's unknown the amount of resources Frederick spent to finance his makeshift military. Aside from the assorted surplus gear he somehow managed to buy at a premium, the Aussie's also bought the services of Zilkstahn for the sake of troop training and the occasional elite strike force.
As for where Good King Rick was getting his manpower, he took the opposite approach to his relative the Emperor. He promised the populace that he would abolish the area system, make noble titles accessible to non Brittanian bloodlines, and reinstate hereditary knighthoods as the default, among other nice things like urban revival and not raising taxes in his lifetime for example.
And King Frederick Made. The Change. Happen.
And the Public loved him for it. Nobles, Commoners, and Numbers from all the Pacific Island Areas flocked to join the RPD in droves. Those nobles who wanted to resist the changes found out rather quickly that the Royal Pacific Dominon's nationally assembly was more a cadre of Advisors than the Holy Brittanian Empire's House of Parliament.
So basically all they could do was beg his majesty to reconsider his life choices. Spoiler alert, he didn't. Not even when he was slaked to be executed in front of Ol' Charlie at the end of the impact wars.
Hell his last words were a spiteful take against everything publicly known about the Brittanian monarch set to end him.
"For All you once claimed to hate the cycle the world runs on, you certainly seem adept at perpetuating lies and hatred."
But I'm getting ahead of myself, we need to talk about how the war actually went, not how it ended. So if you believe the propaganda, the RPD basically bled itself and the areas that allied to it dry against walls of prototype mass production knightmares, leaving its advance exposed to Prince Schniezel's counterattack.
Yeah that's more like how Brittania wished it went. More like the Straya Britts beat them senseless for the majority of the conflict, then the pro-Empire resistance forces started listening to Schneizel and forced the Dominion to slow the hell down. Part of that was due to Prince Willaim Arthur being a very adaptable commander who was able to keep the Holy Empire from exploiting its advantages while he defeated them in detail.
He'd also gotten two elite units out of the chaos of second impact. Caroline and Nils Yajima, the industrialist and mad scientist power couple that propped up the Aussie economy and kicked copious amounts of ass with their ridiculously advanced experimental knightmares. Okay technically they called their units Gundams, but I'm trying to simplify nomenclature over here.
Anyways with those two beating Brittanian knights with pre production knightmares at their own game, the Straya Brittanians were able to run rampant across most of South America. Bringing their reforms and kicking out troublesome nobles as they went.
While many sworn knights did stay loyal to their nobles, the exact number of knights who went resistance fighter vs swore to aid the Pacific Dominion in exchange for their own legacies remains uncounted to this day.
Anyways, these good times couldn't last forever. The surplus gear Freddy had acquired and the Empire armories they had stolen from would run dry eventually and Brittania still had a comparative industrial advantage. And while Frederick and William were very good at both grand strategy and battlefield tactics, they sadly weren't 'beat Schneizel once he bothers to put actual effort in,' good.
Some historians still say the battle of Panama was more a trap Schneizel had been planning from the start of the conflict, but there's evidence that says it was just the first opportunity he had to break William Arthur's momentum. Furthermore, Princess Cornelia and her knights had just gotten back from beating the soviets into collapsing and splitting their nation between the Communist and Democratic lines.
Empress Marianne also decided to take the field in order to make certain she hadn't fallen out of practice.
While it remains uncertain if the Ganymede or Glasgow Cornelia Custom should have been a match for the Sengoku Astray or the Knight Gundam if they had been at their best, the pilots in this regard were just as much a deciding factor. Besides, Schneizel's memoirs claim that he spent most of the campaign trying to cause as much damage as possible to the RPD's knightmares captured or experimental.
Anyways, December 2000 ATB, the battle of Panama was about as unmitigated a disaster as it gets for the Straya Britts. Caroline Yajima got absolutely bodied by Empress Marianne and Cornelia Li Brittania. Her husband got his Astray totaled beyond practical repair to get Caroline out alive. And some jackass stepped on William Arthur's Type 59 tank and he was never seen again.
From there on out Frederick pulled a fighting retreat, leading the royal family and their supporters by the nose as his civilian populace abandoned the continent for the brighter pastures of Australia….
I guess it's still better than being executed for treason… Somehow.
Anyways, he ended up leading the remnants of his forces in a daring last stand as the last of his noncombatants escaped by sea. He challenged Marianne Vi Brittania to settle his troops' surrender in honorable combat.
And that's about when Schneizel totaled Frederick's stolen knightmare with an artillery strike, much to his stepmother's consternation.
I read once that she refused to let Him play Lelouch in chess for a whole year as 'punishment.'
The rest is fairly cut and dry. Frederick's only daughter Princess Solana sued for peace in exchange for the Island territories remaining hers, and in return she would allow the Empire to do as they pleased with her father and any other captives. The Empire had to deal with the fact that they'd been humiliated by a comparative nobody, and lost like sixty percent or more of the total population of their second continent either to the fighting or to the mass exodus after Panama.
And rushed development to complete or refine the Glasgow before their rivals could devise their own rival knightmares to compete with their plans for world domination. But that's shit for another time, I'm not getting into the invasion of Japan and the creation of Tokyo Three right now.
The Royal Pacific Dominion under Queen Solana La Brittania would remain a bastion against tyranny and any one world power gaining control of the world well into the Existential Wars.
- Location
- California
Ugh, get bent Marianne.
Despite my disgust and consternation, this was a solid enough chapter.
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Red_Knight25
Unofficial Edgelord Advocate
That was actually one of Frederick's last hurrahs, along with messing with Charles' head while he was on death row.
He ran the number's with his Geass, and liked the odds better that way. The thing is, he could only use it for as long as he could hold his breath. And never could control the actions of others only predict what they might do in response to him. So he did everything he could think of to load the dice in favor of the events he wanted.
Chapter Eight: One Vessel and A Dream
Red_Knight25
Unofficial Edgelord Advocate
AN: Not wholly satisfied with this, but the delay on this update is getting ridiculous when I promised myself I'd try to update more than once a week. Once again Thank you for your time and please enjoy!
I wipe some of the grime from my face as I turn to Revise, "I thought I mentioned that if we were going to use the reactor drive system for our ships, we'd need a larger GN condenser to achieve a jump? We shouldn't be running on emergency power after just one jump." At least the fires from arriving slightly too close to a star had been put out relatively quickly. It's just that the repairs were turning out to be more time consuming than I had expected.
"I screwed up the math, okay? The main reactor is putting out less energy than I was expecting…" Revise muttered despondently as she closed the cover on the maintenance panel. With the conduit repaired the lights turn back to full as the power is restored to this section of the vessel. "I'm not sure the reaction is even self sustaining at the moment…" Eh something had to go wrong at some point, I'm simply glad nothing exploded irreparably.
"We've got the room to fix that in refit later, for now we've got a rendezvous to make." With that we head our separate ways, Revise towards the engine array section of the engineering department and myself towards the war room. Taking the Command staff to partake in the ship's shakedown cruise may not have been my best plan, but it should give the Innovades that appointed themselves authority figures the chance to gain some vital experience in how to run things when we're not around.
I storm into the war room and or secondary command bridge to the typical cacophony of yet more trouble brewing. "Sitrep!" I bellow to disrupt the disorder and force the technical youths to calm slightly.
"We've got a mixed force of Batarians and possibly pirates in the Relay sector on long range scanners." Sienna Unseen begins. "They were headed for the Foundry and the Celestial Being, but they've redirected for us after what looked to be scouts got wrecked and or chased off by the combined efforts of our fleet and the Quarian militia vessels."
"Our V-Jinx flight is presently understrength for Meister Customization." Denial Aegis said, reminding me that Ribbons had decided on what he wanted our elite Mobile Weapon pilots to be called. "And as Sienna kept mentioning earlier, the Batarians brought a much larger amount of metal to grind through this time."
I stared at the display looking at the enemy force… A total of five cruisers, fifteen destroyers, and twenty-two frigates, the vast majority of which were an eclectic hodgepodge of mismatched designs that I assumed were the pirate contributions. The combined efforts of his Shining Blade's and their allies' forces had already reduced two pirate frigates into debris fields that would almost certainly be used to aid in the growth of my fleet. "So how did they know where to find us… We selected a random destination for our shakedown jump…" I mutter.
"Well it doesn't help that the primary sensor array only just regained power thanks to the repair efforts." Aegis pipes up while glaring at Sienna, "We've also been running off of comms delays from the stations because of the difference between our ship's sensor suite and the literally Galactic range of our home's Extreme Range Sensors." I think I feel a headache coming on…
"Play nice with each other," I mutter as I make my way for the elevator to the primary bridge.
"Sir we've got two sensor contacts outside the effective range of our main battery! They look to be more pirate frigates!" That explains it. Well we weren't jumping out of the system any time soon, might as well get ready for the big fight.
"Isolated Target! Yes-Yes!" The Vorcha that had somehow been placed in charge of that group of scouts insisted. Commodore Keshik wasn't certain just how that had happened, but considering how the other groups of scouts either hadn't found anything or died without getting a transmission out there weren't other options.
Whittling the unknowns down ship by ship would be an amazing way to win this conflict, but there's no way the rest of the fleet wouldn't respond at some point. But! And here was the important part, the Migrant Fleet elements would have no reason to stay and involve themselves further once they loaded the slaves for liberation.
While even the Quarian Heavy Fleet vessels stood little chance against her pocket dreadnought, in her opinion, Isana was still loath to place her fleet in a situation beneficial for her enemies. And numerical parity, while they had already beaten her while outnumbered? Yeah no, she was taking no chances. Overwhelming force was the only option in this regard.
Her fleet exited FTL just outside the optimum range for her new flagship's spinal cannon. Commodore Keshik felt a feral grin take over as she gripped one hand to prevent her nervous habit from acting up. She exhaled slightly and turned to address her crew and subordinate captains.
"Aim for that superstructure first, cripple their command deck."
"Why not go for the underbelly?" One of the pirates commanding a destroyer asked. "There aren't any turrets there."
"FOOLISH-FOOL!" The vorcha scout commander interrupted arrogantly, "Look at turret design! Excellent gun elevation and depression, Yes-Yes! They point guns at us while we approach. Get shot anyways, Not-Not ideal" Huh, maybe she should have taken a closer look at that one's resume. Eh, he hadn't asked for a bigger ship, and she probably would have refused to give him one before seeing his credentials in action.
As the somewhat small alien cruiser oriented to point all four turrets at one target, Commodore Keshik found herself more worried than she cared to display in front of her employees. She thought, 'It would be wonderful if I had my husband's confidence right about now…'
I arrive on the bridge to the unpleasant sight of my enemies leaving FTL at extreme range. They were ever so slightly out of range. I notice that my ship's helm is unoccupied and let out a glower. "What happened?"
The Innovade working on console repairs jumped ever so slightly and turned to me, "Simon hit his head and was behaving strangely so Will took him down to medical, I was expecting her back before you got here sir…"
I feel a memory from another life slip through as I settle into the piloting station. "Well then, suppose it's time for me to take charge and show you how it's done." The ship stirs to life under my deft touch, main drive and maneuvering thrusters flaring ever so slightly to hide the flow of GN particles.
"We're being hailed by the Celestial Being. Bringing it on screen now."
"Meijin," The innovade I'd placed in charge of operations while I would be gone reported, "The Quarians will be completing civilian evacuation shortly, do you want me to ask them for assistance against the slavers and their allies?"
"We've no right to ask them to aid us in this way, We'll simply have to survive as best we can. As soon as acceptable I would like it if you can bring most of our fleet to aid us. I'd rather rack up yard time from the design flaws we've witnessed so far than bring undo harm to our few allies in this area." I consider the utterly crazy thing I'm about to try, and cannot quite suppress a feral grin as I sweep my bangs out of my field of view.
"Understood…" Ruby Haze mutters, "I'll put your decision through immediately. Haze out." The transmission cuts out as I take a stabilizing breath. Time to focus.
"Sound combat alert! Shunt power from nonessential systems towards the shields, engines and weapons!" I order as I pirouette the ship to avoid showing a flat broadside, ignoring as the lights dimmed back into emergency lighting mode all the while. That my choice of angle also pointed me towards the hostile fleet was an unfortunate necessity due to range concerns. "We'll just need to buy a little time, then your sisters can join the fray, Yamato." I mutter as I prepare the much larger than the original class battleship for a baptism of fire.
The stage was set, against a much larger force of alien vessels in a fight for our lives and future. I waited patiently as I observed the enemy vessels approaching me nose on. Just waiting for the other to make the first move. Then the enemy vessel we had given the reporting name 'Super Cruiser' at the rear of the enemy fleet opened up with its spinal cannon. Our shields flared bright blue as the massive arrowlike shell cut cleanly through them, sailed ever so slightly past its intended target, and bathed the ship in a rain of fragments as it exploded mere meters away from the hull.
"Indirect hit! Shields at twenty percent and rising, minor damage to exterior superstructure!" There's no way we can take a direct hit from that and still win, my best chance is to avoid those shots at every opportunity. We'd only survived thanks to the shield slowing the round just enough for our ship to fly out of its intended arc.
"Main Battery, Initialize General Bombardment!" Let's see how our new megaparticle burst cannons measure up. "Status of spinal weapon?" I glance at the violet bolts emanating from the Yamato's turrets in groups of three per cannon. At least that hybrid system seemed to be working as intended.
"Capacitors charging, firing solution calculating, estimated time to weapon preparation thirty seconds." A few sensor blips vanish beneath the manipulations of our guns, but fewer did so than I had expected. "Sir, we seem to be having trouble penetrating the enemy shields!"
I engage a vicious turn to throw off that battleship in all but name's targeting, it's shot spiraling into a distant debris field. "Okay, we're doing it the long way. Main battery, concentrate firepower on one target at a time!" I pivot the ship once again angling towards the enemy fleet. The spinal gun should be charged any second now…
Isana Keshik growled as the alien ship adjusted its course again ever so slightly, causing the shot her gunners had been trying to lead to miss by a fraction of a meter. Those turrets had also changed their priorities to focus on overwhelming her ships in spite of the adjustments to their barriers she had come up with.
She was actually rather proud of that idea, using closer to opaque shields to diffuse more of the power from those energy weapons. The aliens hadn't even launched their mech/fighters possibly in deference to the current range of the engagement.
Either way they would soon be in range of the other cruisers' spinal weapons, then it would be much more difficult for the damned thing to avoid getting bracketed by her heavy weapons.
"Ma'am," One of her ratings announced, "There's a weapon's port opening on the bow of the enemy ship!" Another spinal beam weapon? While the one wielded by their prior cruiser had done far more internal damage than the comparatively shallow cuts inflicted by the flier ace, Isana estimated that it wouldn't amount to much in the grand scheme of her ship.
"We're being hailed by the Alien Craft?!" Oh? Have the aliens realized just how much trouble they are in, and are trying to surrender? Eh it would be worthwhile to have a clue who to prioritize disposing off to leave the rest more docile. Keshik made a hand signal to put the transmission on screen.
"Having Technical difficulties, are you half-blind?" She sneered at the pale black clad alien wearing a reflective visor over its eyes as he sat behind a helm looking console. The alien bridge staff looked to all be some degree of wounded, bruises and bandages seemed to be in vogue for their fashion. "The name's Commodore Isana Keshik, hiring agent of these fine privateers, and leader of the fleet you and yours had so cruelly attacked without warning."
"Tch," The alien hissed, "And I'm sure that if you and yours had stumbled across me and mine, you'd have done your loyal best to add us to your complement of slaves." Isana Keshik hid her surprise at the alien language actually being translated and focused on the words being said. That might have been true, but she was dubious considering how well they had done in that first fight. "No Keshik, I, The Meijin Kawaguchi, have contacted you on this occasion to negotiate your surrender." Isana suppressed the urge to run for the nearest escape pod, and merely scoffed.
"If you think to intimidate me, when I clearly hold the advantage, you are wrong. Indeed, I should be the one demanding surrender." Their technology would make an excellent addition to the slave income as far as raising her bloodline's status would go. "While it's a little personal, it's also bad for business to let our investments be stolen away without recompense."
"So I'm the disadvantaged one hmm? We shall see. All weapons, you may fire when ready." A barrage of some variety of capital missiles came from the lower half of the cruiser's bow, angling towards the nearest destroyer. The turrets aimed at her cruisers with a ratio of two turrets per cruiser.
But all Isana could focus on was the massive violet beam headed straight for her that was somehow wider than the ship firing it. By all rights it should have been used as a scythe to carve its brutal way through her fleet. Yet instead it was focused almost entirely on her flagship. She realized she didn't have the time to escape this time.
"The Broker will take this out on the kids won't he…" She muttered just before the cold inferno took her.
The vorcha pirate captain hit the throttle and burned away from the engagement at the best possible speed. "Not paid enough for this shit…" It was a testament to his current desperation that he was neglecting his self appointed verbal tic. He watched as the single cruiser devastated the heaviest vessels of Keshik's fleet while seemingly casually dodging most of the retaliation, and tanking the rest on its shield.
Those laser guns weren't as much of a threat with the modified barriers, right up until they failed anyways. Their missiles were fast but not quite numerous to get past most guardian laser networks, but they exploded with noticeable force. And there were the mech/fighter hybrids capable of ruining an entire ship's life if they were allowed free reign. Just the standard model at the moment, no sign of the elite unit that killed a cruiser by overclocking itself.
That the spinal gun got a kill every time it fired would likely be implied, but that it did so in a fraction of a minute was the only surprise in that regard.
Then a pair of near identical alien warships to the first emerged in combat range from FTL with a flotilla of Quarian Heavy Fleet elements escorting them. And the space battle was quickly growing even more one sided with every blue colored explosion from the mixed pirate and Batarian fleet.
There wasn't much interesting to say about the fight after that. It was simply more of the same he had already seen. Long range energy weapons capable of ruining the day of an unprepared individual. Spinal weapons capable of turning a single vessel into a potential fleet killer. And mechanized fighter craft squeezed into whatever spare room there is for them which could accomplish similar feats of ribald violence on a smaller and arguably more practical scale.
The Shadow Broker would want to know about this shit. Usually the Batarians didn't have much trouble keeping reprisal away from their slave raids. And when they did it almost never went this badly. So he'd have to keep following the unknowns to whatever destination they had in mind. Fuck his life.
But for now, this no name pirate scum had to survive. At least he had an idea for how to do so stealthily.
I glanced at Ruby Haze over the screen, "I thought I told you not to involve the Quarians? Not that I'm complaining about the results, Admiral." Honestly, I think I could have pulled it off with just the Yamato, Musashi, and Shinano, and a few escorts. But there was no need to guild that lily.
Not to mention the unneeded potential damage all of my vessels could have taken.
"I would like to assure you Meijin," Admiral Naala insisted, "This was very much my decision. My vessels were fully prepared for a big fight, lowering the alarm at that point and leaving would have played merry hell with my people's morale." The Quarian's somewhat exaggerated gestures made her mood easier to read. She seemed rather pleased as she continued, "Less pirates overall can only be a benefit for all of us in the long term. This group represents a not unreasonable amount of power in one fleet."
"Quite the overall loss of resources, especially since I'm uncertain that there's much shipbuilding in what's nominally 'pirate' territory." I nod to the Admiral.
"Try little to none at all!" Admiral Naala states boisterously, "Most terminus factions can't stand their rivals pulling one over on them and as such try to sabotage the efforts of whomever wants to produce something of real value. Only those with the most to lose stand much chance of ruling this sector." Her body language suddenly turns melancholy, "We're closer to our Old Territory than we are the center of Civilization as the rest of the galaxy knows it…"
"Regardless of your opinion of how it happened," I say, desperate for a safe way to segway from the obviously difficult topic, "We cannot change the consequences of your predecessors' actions, only find a way to improve your people's situation in the here and now." An idea pops into my head, "I'm willing to offer you the services of my mobile shipyard if you aid me and mine on our own journey to return to our homeworld." I imagine most of their ships desperately need yardtime, or at least some level of refit.
Admiral Naala nods as she presumably looks towards a galaxy map, "It's well on the way to our rendezvous point, I believe we can escort you safely to at least relay three-fourteen. It looks to be about the only relay that really leads into your arm of the galaxy. Not that the network really matters for an FTL drive reliant mostly on power and coordinates."
"Instantaneous travel is instantaneous travel," I argue, "I don't think I can afford to not rely on something so obviously useful, or ask you to wait for the delay between my ships entering and exiting FTL basically motionless."
"I appreciate the sentiment, you wouldn't believe just how frustrating it is to deal with the subtle racism of the Citadel species."
"It's not worthwhile to blame the craftsmen for how their creations are wielded," I shrug off the implication. "Nor is it practical to blame the war criminals' descendants generations removed for the actions of a life they never led. I think we can all agree that the circumstances behind your people's exile were a mistake, but I don't believe you should allow it to define your lives in the here and now. The Quarians still have the potential to be one of the great races of the galaxy, you need only find the opportunity to reach out and take that greatness for yourselves!"
"A-a fi-fine sentiment," Admiral Naala begins haltingly, "I'm not sure it'll get past the conservatives on the Admiralty Board." She hesitates for a moment, "Perhaps if I could negotiate for your medical tech, it seems to be leaps and bounds ahead of ours. And it would serve greatly in reenabling my people to colonize worlds once more without our immunodeficiency holding us back."
"I'll have to ask for a larger percentage of the battlefield salvage in that case, so as to manufacture the equipment for your perusal."
"I can't recall the last time anyone offered us salvage rights in return for our military aid," I overheard one of the ratings on Naala's ship mutter incredulously. And I feel a smile pulling at my lips as I chuckle.
"I have no desire to claim territory at this time, the only limits on my growth are the resources available to me, and my main goal is to guarantee the survival of my kind. One could safely insinuate that I emphasize with the status of the Quarian People: And wish to do for them what I would hope others would consider doing for myself."
"There are those who would call that attitude naïve," Tela Vasir interrupts as she sashays onto my bridge. I don't think I even want to know just how she got aboard, considering the last I'd seen of her she was entering the confines of her covert ops shuttle, ready to leave as soon as she had confirmation of the migrant fleet. "But I think I might like your ideals better. Won't be easy to maintain, in light of the many, and I do mean many, people you'll encounter who believe otherwise."
"It hurts to admit, but the Asari is right, most of the galaxy seems to believe in looking out for yourself first, last, and only." Naala clenches a single fist, "It by no means makes that line of thinking correct, only the overwhelming norm." She bows ever so slightly, "But I can promise you, Meijin. I will do everything in my power to repay you for your kindness. After all, it's what I would want if I were in your position. Keelah Se'lai."
I glance at Vasir then back at the screen Admiral Naala is on and all I say is, "I think I can make it work."
Chapter Eight
One Vessel and A Dream
One Vessel and A Dream
I wipe some of the grime from my face as I turn to Revise, "I thought I mentioned that if we were going to use the reactor drive system for our ships, we'd need a larger GN condenser to achieve a jump? We shouldn't be running on emergency power after just one jump." At least the fires from arriving slightly too close to a star had been put out relatively quickly. It's just that the repairs were turning out to be more time consuming than I had expected.
"I screwed up the math, okay? The main reactor is putting out less energy than I was expecting…" Revise muttered despondently as she closed the cover on the maintenance panel. With the conduit repaired the lights turn back to full as the power is restored to this section of the vessel. "I'm not sure the reaction is even self sustaining at the moment…" Eh something had to go wrong at some point, I'm simply glad nothing exploded irreparably.
"We've got the room to fix that in refit later, for now we've got a rendezvous to make." With that we head our separate ways, Revise towards the engine array section of the engineering department and myself towards the war room. Taking the Command staff to partake in the ship's shakedown cruise may not have been my best plan, but it should give the Innovades that appointed themselves authority figures the chance to gain some vital experience in how to run things when we're not around.
I storm into the war room and or secondary command bridge to the typical cacophony of yet more trouble brewing. "Sitrep!" I bellow to disrupt the disorder and force the technical youths to calm slightly.
"We've got a mixed force of Batarians and possibly pirates in the Relay sector on long range scanners." Sienna Unseen begins. "They were headed for the Foundry and the Celestial Being, but they've redirected for us after what looked to be scouts got wrecked and or chased off by the combined efforts of our fleet and the Quarian militia vessels."
"Our V-Jinx flight is presently understrength for Meister Customization." Denial Aegis said, reminding me that Ribbons had decided on what he wanted our elite Mobile Weapon pilots to be called. "And as Sienna kept mentioning earlier, the Batarians brought a much larger amount of metal to grind through this time."
I stared at the display looking at the enemy force… A total of five cruisers, fifteen destroyers, and twenty-two frigates, the vast majority of which were an eclectic hodgepodge of mismatched designs that I assumed were the pirate contributions. The combined efforts of his Shining Blade's and their allies' forces had already reduced two pirate frigates into debris fields that would almost certainly be used to aid in the growth of my fleet. "So how did they know where to find us… We selected a random destination for our shakedown jump…" I mutter.
"Well it doesn't help that the primary sensor array only just regained power thanks to the repair efforts." Aegis pipes up while glaring at Sienna, "We've also been running off of comms delays from the stations because of the difference between our ship's sensor suite and the literally Galactic range of our home's Extreme Range Sensors." I think I feel a headache coming on…
"Play nice with each other," I mutter as I make my way for the elevator to the primary bridge.
"Sir we've got two sensor contacts outside the effective range of our main battery! They look to be more pirate frigates!" That explains it. Well we weren't jumping out of the system any time soon, might as well get ready for the big fight.
"Isolated Target! Yes-Yes!" The Vorcha that had somehow been placed in charge of that group of scouts insisted. Commodore Keshik wasn't certain just how that had happened, but considering how the other groups of scouts either hadn't found anything or died without getting a transmission out there weren't other options.
Whittling the unknowns down ship by ship would be an amazing way to win this conflict, but there's no way the rest of the fleet wouldn't respond at some point. But! And here was the important part, the Migrant Fleet elements would have no reason to stay and involve themselves further once they loaded the slaves for liberation.
While even the Quarian Heavy Fleet vessels stood little chance against her pocket dreadnought, in her opinion, Isana was still loath to place her fleet in a situation beneficial for her enemies. And numerical parity, while they had already beaten her while outnumbered? Yeah no, she was taking no chances. Overwhelming force was the only option in this regard.
Her fleet exited FTL just outside the optimum range for her new flagship's spinal cannon. Commodore Keshik felt a feral grin take over as she gripped one hand to prevent her nervous habit from acting up. She exhaled slightly and turned to address her crew and subordinate captains.
"Aim for that superstructure first, cripple their command deck."
"Why not go for the underbelly?" One of the pirates commanding a destroyer asked. "There aren't any turrets there."
"FOOLISH-FOOL!" The vorcha scout commander interrupted arrogantly, "Look at turret design! Excellent gun elevation and depression, Yes-Yes! They point guns at us while we approach. Get shot anyways, Not-Not ideal" Huh, maybe she should have taken a closer look at that one's resume. Eh, he hadn't asked for a bigger ship, and she probably would have refused to give him one before seeing his credentials in action.
As the somewhat small alien cruiser oriented to point all four turrets at one target, Commodore Keshik found herself more worried than she cared to display in front of her employees. She thought, 'It would be wonderful if I had my husband's confidence right about now…'
I arrive on the bridge to the unpleasant sight of my enemies leaving FTL at extreme range. They were ever so slightly out of range. I notice that my ship's helm is unoccupied and let out a glower. "What happened?"
The Innovade working on console repairs jumped ever so slightly and turned to me, "Simon hit his head and was behaving strangely so Will took him down to medical, I was expecting her back before you got here sir…"
I feel a memory from another life slip through as I settle into the piloting station. "Well then, suppose it's time for me to take charge and show you how it's done." The ship stirs to life under my deft touch, main drive and maneuvering thrusters flaring ever so slightly to hide the flow of GN particles.
"We're being hailed by the Celestial Being. Bringing it on screen now."
"Meijin," The innovade I'd placed in charge of operations while I would be gone reported, "The Quarians will be completing civilian evacuation shortly, do you want me to ask them for assistance against the slavers and their allies?"
"We've no right to ask them to aid us in this way, We'll simply have to survive as best we can. As soon as acceptable I would like it if you can bring most of our fleet to aid us. I'd rather rack up yard time from the design flaws we've witnessed so far than bring undo harm to our few allies in this area." I consider the utterly crazy thing I'm about to try, and cannot quite suppress a feral grin as I sweep my bangs out of my field of view.
"Understood…" Ruby Haze mutters, "I'll put your decision through immediately. Haze out." The transmission cuts out as I take a stabilizing breath. Time to focus.
"Sound combat alert! Shunt power from nonessential systems towards the shields, engines and weapons!" I order as I pirouette the ship to avoid showing a flat broadside, ignoring as the lights dimmed back into emergency lighting mode all the while. That my choice of angle also pointed me towards the hostile fleet was an unfortunate necessity due to range concerns. "We'll just need to buy a little time, then your sisters can join the fray, Yamato." I mutter as I prepare the much larger than the original class battleship for a baptism of fire.
The stage was set, against a much larger force of alien vessels in a fight for our lives and future. I waited patiently as I observed the enemy vessels approaching me nose on. Just waiting for the other to make the first move. Then the enemy vessel we had given the reporting name 'Super Cruiser' at the rear of the enemy fleet opened up with its spinal cannon. Our shields flared bright blue as the massive arrowlike shell cut cleanly through them, sailed ever so slightly past its intended target, and bathed the ship in a rain of fragments as it exploded mere meters away from the hull.
"Indirect hit! Shields at twenty percent and rising, minor damage to exterior superstructure!" There's no way we can take a direct hit from that and still win, my best chance is to avoid those shots at every opportunity. We'd only survived thanks to the shield slowing the round just enough for our ship to fly out of its intended arc.
"Main Battery, Initialize General Bombardment!" Let's see how our new megaparticle burst cannons measure up. "Status of spinal weapon?" I glance at the violet bolts emanating from the Yamato's turrets in groups of three per cannon. At least that hybrid system seemed to be working as intended.
"Capacitors charging, firing solution calculating, estimated time to weapon preparation thirty seconds." A few sensor blips vanish beneath the manipulations of our guns, but fewer did so than I had expected. "Sir, we seem to be having trouble penetrating the enemy shields!"
I engage a vicious turn to throw off that battleship in all but name's targeting, it's shot spiraling into a distant debris field. "Okay, we're doing it the long way. Main battery, concentrate firepower on one target at a time!" I pivot the ship once again angling towards the enemy fleet. The spinal gun should be charged any second now…
Isana Keshik growled as the alien ship adjusted its course again ever so slightly, causing the shot her gunners had been trying to lead to miss by a fraction of a meter. Those turrets had also changed their priorities to focus on overwhelming her ships in spite of the adjustments to their barriers she had come up with.
She was actually rather proud of that idea, using closer to opaque shields to diffuse more of the power from those energy weapons. The aliens hadn't even launched their mech/fighters possibly in deference to the current range of the engagement.
Either way they would soon be in range of the other cruisers' spinal weapons, then it would be much more difficult for the damned thing to avoid getting bracketed by her heavy weapons.
"Ma'am," One of her ratings announced, "There's a weapon's port opening on the bow of the enemy ship!" Another spinal beam weapon? While the one wielded by their prior cruiser had done far more internal damage than the comparatively shallow cuts inflicted by the flier ace, Isana estimated that it wouldn't amount to much in the grand scheme of her ship.
"We're being hailed by the Alien Craft?!" Oh? Have the aliens realized just how much trouble they are in, and are trying to surrender? Eh it would be worthwhile to have a clue who to prioritize disposing off to leave the rest more docile. Keshik made a hand signal to put the transmission on screen.
"Having Technical difficulties, are you half-blind?" She sneered at the pale black clad alien wearing a reflective visor over its eyes as he sat behind a helm looking console. The alien bridge staff looked to all be some degree of wounded, bruises and bandages seemed to be in vogue for their fashion. "The name's Commodore Isana Keshik, hiring agent of these fine privateers, and leader of the fleet you and yours had so cruelly attacked without warning."
"Tch," The alien hissed, "And I'm sure that if you and yours had stumbled across me and mine, you'd have done your loyal best to add us to your complement of slaves." Isana Keshik hid her surprise at the alien language actually being translated and focused on the words being said. That might have been true, but she was dubious considering how well they had done in that first fight. "No Keshik, I, The Meijin Kawaguchi, have contacted you on this occasion to negotiate your surrender." Isana suppressed the urge to run for the nearest escape pod, and merely scoffed.
"If you think to intimidate me, when I clearly hold the advantage, you are wrong. Indeed, I should be the one demanding surrender." Their technology would make an excellent addition to the slave income as far as raising her bloodline's status would go. "While it's a little personal, it's also bad for business to let our investments be stolen away without recompense."
"So I'm the disadvantaged one hmm? We shall see. All weapons, you may fire when ready." A barrage of some variety of capital missiles came from the lower half of the cruiser's bow, angling towards the nearest destroyer. The turrets aimed at her cruisers with a ratio of two turrets per cruiser.
But all Isana could focus on was the massive violet beam headed straight for her that was somehow wider than the ship firing it. By all rights it should have been used as a scythe to carve its brutal way through her fleet. Yet instead it was focused almost entirely on her flagship. She realized she didn't have the time to escape this time.
"The Broker will take this out on the kids won't he…" She muttered just before the cold inferno took her.
The vorcha pirate captain hit the throttle and burned away from the engagement at the best possible speed. "Not paid enough for this shit…" It was a testament to his current desperation that he was neglecting his self appointed verbal tic. He watched as the single cruiser devastated the heaviest vessels of Keshik's fleet while seemingly casually dodging most of the retaliation, and tanking the rest on its shield.
Those laser guns weren't as much of a threat with the modified barriers, right up until they failed anyways. Their missiles were fast but not quite numerous to get past most guardian laser networks, but they exploded with noticeable force. And there were the mech/fighter hybrids capable of ruining an entire ship's life if they were allowed free reign. Just the standard model at the moment, no sign of the elite unit that killed a cruiser by overclocking itself.
That the spinal gun got a kill every time it fired would likely be implied, but that it did so in a fraction of a minute was the only surprise in that regard.
Then a pair of near identical alien warships to the first emerged in combat range from FTL with a flotilla of Quarian Heavy Fleet elements escorting them. And the space battle was quickly growing even more one sided with every blue colored explosion from the mixed pirate and Batarian fleet.
There wasn't much interesting to say about the fight after that. It was simply more of the same he had already seen. Long range energy weapons capable of ruining the day of an unprepared individual. Spinal weapons capable of turning a single vessel into a potential fleet killer. And mechanized fighter craft squeezed into whatever spare room there is for them which could accomplish similar feats of ribald violence on a smaller and arguably more practical scale.
The Shadow Broker would want to know about this shit. Usually the Batarians didn't have much trouble keeping reprisal away from their slave raids. And when they did it almost never went this badly. So he'd have to keep following the unknowns to whatever destination they had in mind. Fuck his life.
But for now, this no name pirate scum had to survive. At least he had an idea for how to do so stealthily.
I glanced at Ruby Haze over the screen, "I thought I told you not to involve the Quarians? Not that I'm complaining about the results, Admiral." Honestly, I think I could have pulled it off with just the Yamato, Musashi, and Shinano, and a few escorts. But there was no need to guild that lily.
Not to mention the unneeded potential damage all of my vessels could have taken.
"I would like to assure you Meijin," Admiral Naala insisted, "This was very much my decision. My vessels were fully prepared for a big fight, lowering the alarm at that point and leaving would have played merry hell with my people's morale." The Quarian's somewhat exaggerated gestures made her mood easier to read. She seemed rather pleased as she continued, "Less pirates overall can only be a benefit for all of us in the long term. This group represents a not unreasonable amount of power in one fleet."
"Quite the overall loss of resources, especially since I'm uncertain that there's much shipbuilding in what's nominally 'pirate' territory." I nod to the Admiral.
"Try little to none at all!" Admiral Naala states boisterously, "Most terminus factions can't stand their rivals pulling one over on them and as such try to sabotage the efforts of whomever wants to produce something of real value. Only those with the most to lose stand much chance of ruling this sector." Her body language suddenly turns melancholy, "We're closer to our Old Territory than we are the center of Civilization as the rest of the galaxy knows it…"
"Regardless of your opinion of how it happened," I say, desperate for a safe way to segway from the obviously difficult topic, "We cannot change the consequences of your predecessors' actions, only find a way to improve your people's situation in the here and now." An idea pops into my head, "I'm willing to offer you the services of my mobile shipyard if you aid me and mine on our own journey to return to our homeworld." I imagine most of their ships desperately need yardtime, or at least some level of refit.
Admiral Naala nods as she presumably looks towards a galaxy map, "It's well on the way to our rendezvous point, I believe we can escort you safely to at least relay three-fourteen. It looks to be about the only relay that really leads into your arm of the galaxy. Not that the network really matters for an FTL drive reliant mostly on power and coordinates."
"Instantaneous travel is instantaneous travel," I argue, "I don't think I can afford to not rely on something so obviously useful, or ask you to wait for the delay between my ships entering and exiting FTL basically motionless."
"I appreciate the sentiment, you wouldn't believe just how frustrating it is to deal with the subtle racism of the Citadel species."
"It's not worthwhile to blame the craftsmen for how their creations are wielded," I shrug off the implication. "Nor is it practical to blame the war criminals' descendants generations removed for the actions of a life they never led. I think we can all agree that the circumstances behind your people's exile were a mistake, but I don't believe you should allow it to define your lives in the here and now. The Quarians still have the potential to be one of the great races of the galaxy, you need only find the opportunity to reach out and take that greatness for yourselves!"
"A-a fi-fine sentiment," Admiral Naala begins haltingly, "I'm not sure it'll get past the conservatives on the Admiralty Board." She hesitates for a moment, "Perhaps if I could negotiate for your medical tech, it seems to be leaps and bounds ahead of ours. And it would serve greatly in reenabling my people to colonize worlds once more without our immunodeficiency holding us back."
"I'll have to ask for a larger percentage of the battlefield salvage in that case, so as to manufacture the equipment for your perusal."
"I can't recall the last time anyone offered us salvage rights in return for our military aid," I overheard one of the ratings on Naala's ship mutter incredulously. And I feel a smile pulling at my lips as I chuckle.
"I have no desire to claim territory at this time, the only limits on my growth are the resources available to me, and my main goal is to guarantee the survival of my kind. One could safely insinuate that I emphasize with the status of the Quarian People: And wish to do for them what I would hope others would consider doing for myself."
"There are those who would call that attitude naïve," Tela Vasir interrupts as she sashays onto my bridge. I don't think I even want to know just how she got aboard, considering the last I'd seen of her she was entering the confines of her covert ops shuttle, ready to leave as soon as she had confirmation of the migrant fleet. "But I think I might like your ideals better. Won't be easy to maintain, in light of the many, and I do mean many, people you'll encounter who believe otherwise."
"It hurts to admit, but the Asari is right, most of the galaxy seems to believe in looking out for yourself first, last, and only." Naala clenches a single fist, "It by no means makes that line of thinking correct, only the overwhelming norm." She bows ever so slightly, "But I can promise you, Meijin. I will do everything in my power to repay you for your kindness. After all, it's what I would want if I were in your position. Keelah Se'lai."
I glance at Vasir then back at the screen Admiral Naala is on and all I say is, "I think I can make it work."
Chapter Nine: Additional Complications
Red_Knight25
Unofficial Edgelord Advocate
Sorry for the massive delay on this chapter. At first it was work being unusually draining, and than this last week I tested positive for Covid. Thankfully I feel less like a wrung out washcloth now, so hopefully with this out of the way I can get back to updating more regularly.
As always, thank you for your time!
"In all due seriousness," I continue before the silence can become too awkward, "I greatly appreciate everything you've done for us thus far. Keelah Se'lai."
"Decent recovery," Someone from off screen snarks. I roll my eyes in response, although I doubt anyone can see them through my reclaimed visor.
"Regardless, there's still a few things I'd like to do before we get underway. For one thing, that flagship of theirs survived surprisingly intact after taking a hit from our improved artillery beam…" I stand from the piloting console and address the bridge Innovades, "I'll leave the rest to you."
"Careful tough guy," Vasir interjects, "Any Slavers left on that derelict will fight even harder for being cornered. The ones you fought earlier on the station technically had an out, dumbasses didn't take it, but they could have escaped to enslave another day." At my questioning glance the Asari shrugged, "I do have to report to my bosses sometime and the Quarians do still have access to Citadel comms. If they don't reassign me to something ridiculous it'll still probably take slightly too long to actually help you out with the remaining Batarians."
"I can hardly do much worse than suffering a near death experience against only the group's commanding officer, now can I?" I wave off her concerns as I exit the bridge and begin my trek towards the shuttle bay. I run a hand through my hair in exasperation.
That was entirely too close. I'd need to remember to adjust the shield's to only activate to defend against attacks that are guaranteed to hit otherwise. The shield flaring to protect against near misses had resulted in a considerable drain that had left the Yamato vulnerable on several occasions. I was also feeling increasingly exhausted from the way I had sent my hands dancing across the ship's controls, desperately working throttles and verniers to keep our course rapid whilst dodging the Batarians counterattacks.
Firing the artillery beam on that, what was it the Admiral called it again, 'pocket dreadnought?' had been a desperate move intended to remove the biggest threat to our survival in the quickest possible way. Something unintended must have occurred with the megaparticle segment of the hybrid system, because not only had the cannon's first target not been totally destroyed, rather it was merely wrecked beyond any reasonable hope of repair, but Revise had mentioned over the comms that it looked like a significant portion of the mechanism would need refit and repair from partially melting.
Status of the main battery was thankfully within expectations, again I'm grateful that at least one of the hybrid systems was working exactly as intended the first time. I find myself resisting the urge to slump to the floor and scream a little.
I may have years to figure this out, but there's still too little time to waste. I don't want to show weakness to my nominal allies. It's not that I don't trust Vasir, but I definitely don't trust her bosses not to screw me over. If they happen to do so with Vasir, I'm about as fucked as they are assholes.
With vague visions of ruthless political schemers willing to violate any moral high ground they claim to possess dancing through my head, I continue on my way towards boarding the newly derelict warship.
Tela Vasir turned her gaze towards the Quarian Lesser Admiral on the screen as the door shut behind Tatsuya. Without so much as a glance at the remaining Innovades staffing the bridge she walked up to the display Admiral Naala was on. "How about we call it favors for favors then?" One alien woman said to another. "You help me get into contact with the Council without having to run clear back to Citadel space-"
"And I'll have both the gratitude," Naala'Yoras interrupted, "And a favor owed from a Specter." While the Quarian had been relatively easy to read while she had been talking with the Meijin, now she wasn't giving anything away. It just went to show that the Migrant Fleet did still hold hard feelings over their treatment by the Citadel races. Tela hardly thought it was fair, none of them had been born at the time of the Geth rebellion. Hell, what happened to the Quarians was easily half the reason the Council is so cautious about AI research.
That and the Matriarchs don't like competition for long term scheming.
"Relax, I have no intention of interfering in Fleet operations, or in covertly acquiring information pertinent to said operations. All I want out of this interaction is to share information on the Humans-" She coughed a little as one of the bridge staff looked incredulous at her, "with my superiors. Though I might stop at the med bay first to make sure I'm the picture of perfect health."
"Make sure you do," The Admiral made a signal in Citadel sign language indicating that she understood, "Until our new friend follows through on his promise to provide us with that medical technology for our own use, it won't do if anyone gets careless at the final hour." Tela was just glad she didn't have to disable any of these cute little clones just for the chance to communicate clearly with the Quarian.
It would have made her next talk with the Human Leaders rather awkward.
Ouka met me halfway on the trek to the shuttle hangar, I gave her a warm smile as I continued towards my destination. "How are you holding up, Sweetheart?"
"I'm a little frustrated that I didn't provide much help during that last battle." Ouka began as she matched pace with me. "Next time my Stella Phantom will be ready to make an appearance." I grinned at the idea of unleashing Her newly customized and named unit on our enemies. "So what are your plans after these shenanigans Yuuki, fall into a routine of designing new units, perfecting them after a major battle, repeat ad-infinitum until the Earth is saved?"
"No thank you." I counter with a shudder, "The past few days have mostly been following through on the plans we made earlier. I'd rather days like the last several be the exception, rather than the rule." My thoughts turn over in my head a little before I continue, "I actually rather like the schedule our subordinates came up with. I intend to try and balance business and pleasure, do something nice for you, things like that."
"I suppose those are decent ideas." Ouka allowed with a smirk, "I don't suppose you'll tell me just what sort of nice things you intend to do for me?" I found myself struggling to ignore the feeling of being in danger.
"And spoil the surprise?" It didn't help that I haven't really had time to make any of those gift ideas, what with all the stress of our current situation.
"You absolute tease," with an eye roll.
"And shameless about it, yes." I notice that we're almost to the shuttle bay, and its attendant armory. "Shall we?"
"Unfortunately, my equipment is in the womans' half of the armory." She sasheys her way to the aforementioned room, my eyes drawn towards the extra sway she puts in her hips. "You'll just have to wait for that dear." Somehow, I don't feel any less like the luckiest man alive.
The captain groaned in pain as he dragged himself and what was left of his superior to the escape pod. His world was blind agony, as he tried to stare past the debris piercing his hardsuit's visor. He didn't think his eyes were wounded, thank the ancestors, but he was still moving mostly blind compared to the life he was used to leading.
No thanks to this frustrating bitch of a high caste officer and her suicidal rush back into the fire that had already burnt her. Had she been so desperate for her revenge and the security of her income, that she failed to consider this 'Meijin Kawaguchi' escalating further for the sake of his own survival?
He didn't have an acceptable answer to that question, as the commodore who had pulled rank and taken his precious, powerful, and expensive prototype on a failed slaver's joyride was presently a broken shell of her old self. Automatic sealing would prevent her newly severed limbs and severe burns from being lethal at the moment. Permanently crippling, at least without access to cybernetics, yes.
The casualties of this loss and the apparent loss of her husband to her previous encounter with the aliens would mean that her life was effectively ruined anyways. Considering that the Shadow Broker had apparently also helped fund this cluster, the captain doubted that anyone would really protest if he just handed the bungler over to the debt collectors when they came.
He placed his burden in the escape pod and stretched slightly, arching his back to relieve some of the tension. There was an unsettling noise that sounded not the least like a laugh and a stump limb banging into a control. He looked back down in dismay. He imagined that if she could, the commodore would be flipping him off.
"Suck it you low caste buffoon." The captain was quivering with rage as well as pain as the bulkhead sealed and the pod jettisoned. He tried to console himself with the knowledge that the Broker was more liable to take a pound of flesh from the cripple, but found himself unable to do much more than scream his frustration.
"YOU ARROGANT BITCH!" Isana tuned out her former subordinante's angry screaming, as her escape pod flew quickly away from the wreck of her beautiful flagship. Instead she focused on more important things.
Like how her everything hurt. Or how she had no idea what she was going to do next. The galaxy was not kind to the infrim, and unless she could acquire herself some practical prosthetics, she was now part of that most undesirable minority.
For now she could only wait for someone to grab her escape craft. Or she'd die horribly of her injuries in a cold unforgiving tomb. Either way it was out of her-
-Lack of hands…. Nothing else for it. This Sucks.
I found myself admiring Ouka as she struts out from the changing room in her new armor. She had gone with the more form fitting variant, left the primary color chrome, and painted on some interesting black details. She completed her ensemble with a rust red half cape and a laser rifle carried easily in one hand. Her hair was presently up in what looked like an easily removable bun. From the way she was looking at me with her helmet on her hips with her other hand, I was not hiding my appreciation all that well.
For some reason, I can tell that she doesn't mind overly much. There's a brief spike of pain in my temples and Ouka's expression turns into one of concern rather than content pride.
"You sure you're up to this Yuuki? You've done more on less sleep than most of the others at this point."
"I'm su-" A yawn forces its way past my stubborn pride and bravado, "Confident, at least. I'd like to argue that it'll take more than one all nighter to beat me." I stretch a little and pull away from the wall I'd been leaning on. "Now before we leave let's make sure I've not forgotten anything." I deploy a little holographic checklist from one of the captured and reprogrammed omnitools. It had supposedly been a nice Armali Council model for engineer work before being violently repurposed by slavers.
"Well for one the Killjoy squad is already waiting on us in the hangar." Aight, check. Thank you Ouka.
"None of the chosen gear is down for last minute upgrades, maintenance, or repair. Check." I start strolling my way towards the hangar. "Command of the Yamato in our absence is already determined, Check."
"Breathe Yuuki," Ouka interjects, "For what may be the only time in our lives, the Target isn't going anywhere. I'm honestly surprised you haven't delegated the task entirely, the Assault Transports could have gone and returned by now."
My mind goes blank for a few seconds. "Okay yeah, maybe the fatigue is adding up…" I rub a palm against my face to try and relieve the exasperation.
"Tell you what, Yuuki," Ouka attaches her rifle to its holster in order to put her hand on mine, "After we've dealt with the last of those scumbag slavers, and make sure Vasir isn't spying on us for that weird and definitely not shadowy Council of hers, I'll puzzle out something nice to do for you." Her hand grips mine a little tighter, "How's that sound?"
"Lovely," I smile at Ouka, allowing some of my tiredness to show. "It's a date."
"I swear," The salarian councilor grimaced, "The more I hear about this 'Meijin Kawaguchi,' the more he sounds like an equivalent to one of those more intellectual Krogan warlords. Okeer, for instance."
The Turian councilor on his part looked about ready to rip out part of his own crest. "And you are actually considering allowing them to reach a garden world and propagate with their technological edge?!"
"Their various officers are close enough to my level that I'm leery of trying to take them all on at once." Tela was quickly growing to hate this part of being a Specter. For one thing she had to try and give a 'rational' argument towards the decisions she had made without letting her real reasons for making that choice be seen. "And given the efficacy of their cloning equipment and how it's kept under security tight enough that I cannot disable it unnoticed, that is what it would likely come down to." Somehow she doubted that the council would be overly moved by citing moral objections towards participating in genocide.
"This information is more pertinent than forcing a predisposed ally into becoming a threat towards galactic stability, yes," Councilor Tevos agreed with a pressing glance at her compatriots. Tela wasn't certain how her fellow Asari managed to deal with such annoyance all her life. "Are you certain they are actually from that particular arm of the galaxy?"
"Locations on their navigation logs match up with a trajectory implied by an outrageously large explosion, yes. I'm assuming the cross galactic distances have something to do with their unknown method of faster than light travel." Left unsaid was the method she had used to gain access to said records and logs, politely asking out of curiosity. That it also allowed her to properly reply to the Council's questions was simply the icing on the cake.
"And with access to Mass Relays drastically reducing travel times they'll be able to return to their section of the galaxy, repopulate using that ridiculous cloning equipment, and all too quickly become a species we cannot simply ignore." The Salarian councilor concluded. "I'm sorely tempted to order you to do whatever it takes to prevent the humans from becoming a threat."
The councilors glance at each other. Councilor Tevos begins, "Instead, we want for you to continue gathering as much information on them as you can. Every sample of their technology, scraps of their culture, whatever you deem necessary to make sure that they will join as a member species in time. Is that clear Specter Vasir?"
"Understood." She had truly been hoping to be reassigned for her next mission. Illium would be lovely by the time she arrived.
"Excellent, now, we have other matters to discuss." The transmission ended, Tela let out the sigh that had been threatening to escape the entire conversation. And she turned towards the corner around which Admiral Naala was waiting.
"So that's the Council minus a few filters," Naala began, "Specter service as glamorous as the holo's claim?"
"Please," Tela rolled her eyes, "I'm not some blushing maiden in her first commando leathers. I'm well aware that the Council's dirty work isn't something most care to see."
"So how do you plan on following those orders?"
"Well for now I'm enjoying the legendary hospitality of the migrant fleet," Tela grinned at the idea that just entered her mind. "Wouldn't it be just terrible if I inadvertently made a faux pas that would leave you no choice but to confine me to a specific area for an undisclosed amount of time?"
"I assure you, Specter Vasir," Admiral Naala demurely hid a laugh behind one hand. "We'd just have to find a way to accommodate you in such a dreadful circumstance."
"My hunch-idea was right, yes-yes." A certain Vorcha pirate captain muttered to himself as he waited in the safety of a nearby frigid rock's upper atmosphere. "No one expects to have their own tricks used against them!" Using the kinetic barriers to capture small asteroids and hold them around the ship had admittedly been more difficult than he cared to admit. And the generators would need repair up the wazoo, but the transmission he had just eavesdropped on between the council and their Specter on location made it so very much worthwhile.
A veritable cornucopia of information that the Broker would love to ensure did not remain solely in the Council's hands. The technology is a sideshow, the Asari will gladly fund research into answers and equivalents now that some random newcomer with a fancy title has unequivocally proven that they cannot hold the title of most advanced as they are. There were doubtlessly mechanisms in place for the broker to perform the needed industrial espionage to ensure any new tech ends up in the proper hands.
For now, he would bide his time. He could likely only escape once the hostile fleet left the vicinity. "Now, which little escape-flight pod have you hidden-snuck in?" At least he could amuse himself by looking for that not clever enough Commodore among the life pods. For the moment, he would only do so visually. Maybe if he felt like he could get away with it he'd fire up the actual scanners.
"Well this is proving to be disappointingly uneventful." Atten Prepare comments. "I figured that since they can helmet up with the push of a button more would have survived depressurization."
"The rounds from our beam weapons travel stupidly fast," I expost, "Those who made it out alive from the blast probably already abandoned ship." I glance at the unremarkable gray halls of the Batarian warship. Very utilitarian. I can hardly wait to repurpose these materials, especially all that Element Zero, into something without the stain of slavery on its honor.
Not that I've particularly used much Mass Effect based tech thus far, but I'd have to be a fool to not consider the applications. We're building up a little nest egg of the stuff for all sorts of experiments. Biotic Innovades, railguns that won't break within a handful of shots, maybe even that crazy idea I read about once wherein the gun fires solid rounds and energy blasts simultaneously.
But that was an issue for later. Right now, we're to clear out the remaining slavers.
"There's gotta be another pod, there's gotta be another pod!" Well that's convenient. I stare at the unfortunate Batarian with a piece of debris in his visor as he raced blindly through the empty halls. I pounce on the poor soul, and place the barrel of my gun beneath his chin.
"Sorry but you're out of time. Say goodnight gracie."
"How'd you guess my-" The conical blast cuts off the doomed soul's last words.
"I've been meaning to ask, Boss," Another Killjoy pipes up. "How did you make the laser shotgun anyways? One of my bunkmates is convinced you just wired several smaller emitters together."
"While A solution, that's decidedly less elegant than the one I chose. While normally messing with the focusing mechanism like I did would only result in turning the rifle into a bizarrely shaped flashlight, I managed to rig the power conduits in such a way as to keep the amount of energy spent by the mechanism at the same lethal extent."
"Thanks for settling that bet, Sir!"
"Let's move on, shall we," Ouka interjects. "Even piecemeal like this, there's still a chance that some of these slavers will still cause us a problem. THERE!" Again as if on cue, another batarian stumbles upon our boarding party. This one doesn't even get the chance to open his mouth before Ouka plants several rounds into his torso.
"We keep making noise like this," Killjoy medic Bring Revival snarks, "They'll definitely keep finding us." At this I nod and switch out my shotgun for the sword. Some of the others grab their own GN Swords or knives. Ouka on her part simply primes a mechanism on her right gauntlet. If memory serves she had selected a katar like blade on a pile bunker style reusable payload.
This should be fairly cut and dry.
As always, thank you for your time!
Chapter Nine
Additional Complications
Additional Complications
"In all due seriousness," I continue before the silence can become too awkward, "I greatly appreciate everything you've done for us thus far. Keelah Se'lai."
"Decent recovery," Someone from off screen snarks. I roll my eyes in response, although I doubt anyone can see them through my reclaimed visor.
"Regardless, there's still a few things I'd like to do before we get underway. For one thing, that flagship of theirs survived surprisingly intact after taking a hit from our improved artillery beam…" I stand from the piloting console and address the bridge Innovades, "I'll leave the rest to you."
"Careful tough guy," Vasir interjects, "Any Slavers left on that derelict will fight even harder for being cornered. The ones you fought earlier on the station technically had an out, dumbasses didn't take it, but they could have escaped to enslave another day." At my questioning glance the Asari shrugged, "I do have to report to my bosses sometime and the Quarians do still have access to Citadel comms. If they don't reassign me to something ridiculous it'll still probably take slightly too long to actually help you out with the remaining Batarians."
"I can hardly do much worse than suffering a near death experience against only the group's commanding officer, now can I?" I wave off her concerns as I exit the bridge and begin my trek towards the shuttle bay. I run a hand through my hair in exasperation.
That was entirely too close. I'd need to remember to adjust the shield's to only activate to defend against attacks that are guaranteed to hit otherwise. The shield flaring to protect against near misses had resulted in a considerable drain that had left the Yamato vulnerable on several occasions. I was also feeling increasingly exhausted from the way I had sent my hands dancing across the ship's controls, desperately working throttles and verniers to keep our course rapid whilst dodging the Batarians counterattacks.
Firing the artillery beam on that, what was it the Admiral called it again, 'pocket dreadnought?' had been a desperate move intended to remove the biggest threat to our survival in the quickest possible way. Something unintended must have occurred with the megaparticle segment of the hybrid system, because not only had the cannon's first target not been totally destroyed, rather it was merely wrecked beyond any reasonable hope of repair, but Revise had mentioned over the comms that it looked like a significant portion of the mechanism would need refit and repair from partially melting.
Status of the main battery was thankfully within expectations, again I'm grateful that at least one of the hybrid systems was working exactly as intended the first time. I find myself resisting the urge to slump to the floor and scream a little.
I may have years to figure this out, but there's still too little time to waste. I don't want to show weakness to my nominal allies. It's not that I don't trust Vasir, but I definitely don't trust her bosses not to screw me over. If they happen to do so with Vasir, I'm about as fucked as they are assholes.
With vague visions of ruthless political schemers willing to violate any moral high ground they claim to possess dancing through my head, I continue on my way towards boarding the newly derelict warship.
Tela Vasir turned her gaze towards the Quarian Lesser Admiral on the screen as the door shut behind Tatsuya. Without so much as a glance at the remaining Innovades staffing the bridge she walked up to the display Admiral Naala was on. "How about we call it favors for favors then?" One alien woman said to another. "You help me get into contact with the Council without having to run clear back to Citadel space-"
"And I'll have both the gratitude," Naala'Yoras interrupted, "And a favor owed from a Specter." While the Quarian had been relatively easy to read while she had been talking with the Meijin, now she wasn't giving anything away. It just went to show that the Migrant Fleet did still hold hard feelings over their treatment by the Citadel races. Tela hardly thought it was fair, none of them had been born at the time of the Geth rebellion. Hell, what happened to the Quarians was easily half the reason the Council is so cautious about AI research.
That and the Matriarchs don't like competition for long term scheming.
"Relax, I have no intention of interfering in Fleet operations, or in covertly acquiring information pertinent to said operations. All I want out of this interaction is to share information on the Humans-" She coughed a little as one of the bridge staff looked incredulous at her, "with my superiors. Though I might stop at the med bay first to make sure I'm the picture of perfect health."
"Make sure you do," The Admiral made a signal in Citadel sign language indicating that she understood, "Until our new friend follows through on his promise to provide us with that medical technology for our own use, it won't do if anyone gets careless at the final hour." Tela was just glad she didn't have to disable any of these cute little clones just for the chance to communicate clearly with the Quarian.
It would have made her next talk with the Human Leaders rather awkward.
Ouka met me halfway on the trek to the shuttle hangar, I gave her a warm smile as I continued towards my destination. "How are you holding up, Sweetheart?"
"I'm a little frustrated that I didn't provide much help during that last battle." Ouka began as she matched pace with me. "Next time my Stella Phantom will be ready to make an appearance." I grinned at the idea of unleashing Her newly customized and named unit on our enemies. "So what are your plans after these shenanigans Yuuki, fall into a routine of designing new units, perfecting them after a major battle, repeat ad-infinitum until the Earth is saved?"
"No thank you." I counter with a shudder, "The past few days have mostly been following through on the plans we made earlier. I'd rather days like the last several be the exception, rather than the rule." My thoughts turn over in my head a little before I continue, "I actually rather like the schedule our subordinates came up with. I intend to try and balance business and pleasure, do something nice for you, things like that."
"I suppose those are decent ideas." Ouka allowed with a smirk, "I don't suppose you'll tell me just what sort of nice things you intend to do for me?" I found myself struggling to ignore the feeling of being in danger.
"And spoil the surprise?" It didn't help that I haven't really had time to make any of those gift ideas, what with all the stress of our current situation.
"You absolute tease," with an eye roll.
"And shameless about it, yes." I notice that we're almost to the shuttle bay, and its attendant armory. "Shall we?"
"Unfortunately, my equipment is in the womans' half of the armory." She sasheys her way to the aforementioned room, my eyes drawn towards the extra sway she puts in her hips. "You'll just have to wait for that dear." Somehow, I don't feel any less like the luckiest man alive.
The captain groaned in pain as he dragged himself and what was left of his superior to the escape pod. His world was blind agony, as he tried to stare past the debris piercing his hardsuit's visor. He didn't think his eyes were wounded, thank the ancestors, but he was still moving mostly blind compared to the life he was used to leading.
No thanks to this frustrating bitch of a high caste officer and her suicidal rush back into the fire that had already burnt her. Had she been so desperate for her revenge and the security of her income, that she failed to consider this 'Meijin Kawaguchi' escalating further for the sake of his own survival?
He didn't have an acceptable answer to that question, as the commodore who had pulled rank and taken his precious, powerful, and expensive prototype on a failed slaver's joyride was presently a broken shell of her old self. Automatic sealing would prevent her newly severed limbs and severe burns from being lethal at the moment. Permanently crippling, at least without access to cybernetics, yes.
The casualties of this loss and the apparent loss of her husband to her previous encounter with the aliens would mean that her life was effectively ruined anyways. Considering that the Shadow Broker had apparently also helped fund this cluster, the captain doubted that anyone would really protest if he just handed the bungler over to the debt collectors when they came.
He placed his burden in the escape pod and stretched slightly, arching his back to relieve some of the tension. There was an unsettling noise that sounded not the least like a laugh and a stump limb banging into a control. He looked back down in dismay. He imagined that if she could, the commodore would be flipping him off.
"Suck it you low caste buffoon." The captain was quivering with rage as well as pain as the bulkhead sealed and the pod jettisoned. He tried to console himself with the knowledge that the Broker was more liable to take a pound of flesh from the cripple, but found himself unable to do much more than scream his frustration.
"YOU ARROGANT BITCH!" Isana tuned out her former subordinante's angry screaming, as her escape pod flew quickly away from the wreck of her beautiful flagship. Instead she focused on more important things.
Like how her everything hurt. Or how she had no idea what she was going to do next. The galaxy was not kind to the infrim, and unless she could acquire herself some practical prosthetics, she was now part of that most undesirable minority.
For now she could only wait for someone to grab her escape craft. Or she'd die horribly of her injuries in a cold unforgiving tomb. Either way it was out of her-
-Lack of hands…. Nothing else for it. This Sucks.
I found myself admiring Ouka as she struts out from the changing room in her new armor. She had gone with the more form fitting variant, left the primary color chrome, and painted on some interesting black details. She completed her ensemble with a rust red half cape and a laser rifle carried easily in one hand. Her hair was presently up in what looked like an easily removable bun. From the way she was looking at me with her helmet on her hips with her other hand, I was not hiding my appreciation all that well.
For some reason, I can tell that she doesn't mind overly much. There's a brief spike of pain in my temples and Ouka's expression turns into one of concern rather than content pride.
"You sure you're up to this Yuuki? You've done more on less sleep than most of the others at this point."
"I'm su-" A yawn forces its way past my stubborn pride and bravado, "Confident, at least. I'd like to argue that it'll take more than one all nighter to beat me." I stretch a little and pull away from the wall I'd been leaning on. "Now before we leave let's make sure I've not forgotten anything." I deploy a little holographic checklist from one of the captured and reprogrammed omnitools. It had supposedly been a nice Armali Council model for engineer work before being violently repurposed by slavers.
"Well for one the Killjoy squad is already waiting on us in the hangar." Aight, check. Thank you Ouka.
"None of the chosen gear is down for last minute upgrades, maintenance, or repair. Check." I start strolling my way towards the hangar. "Command of the Yamato in our absence is already determined, Check."
"Breathe Yuuki," Ouka interjects, "For what may be the only time in our lives, the Target isn't going anywhere. I'm honestly surprised you haven't delegated the task entirely, the Assault Transports could have gone and returned by now."
My mind goes blank for a few seconds. "Okay yeah, maybe the fatigue is adding up…" I rub a palm against my face to try and relieve the exasperation.
"Tell you what, Yuuki," Ouka attaches her rifle to its holster in order to put her hand on mine, "After we've dealt with the last of those scumbag slavers, and make sure Vasir isn't spying on us for that weird and definitely not shadowy Council of hers, I'll puzzle out something nice to do for you." Her hand grips mine a little tighter, "How's that sound?"
"Lovely," I smile at Ouka, allowing some of my tiredness to show. "It's a date."
"I swear," The salarian councilor grimaced, "The more I hear about this 'Meijin Kawaguchi,' the more he sounds like an equivalent to one of those more intellectual Krogan warlords. Okeer, for instance."
The Turian councilor on his part looked about ready to rip out part of his own crest. "And you are actually considering allowing them to reach a garden world and propagate with their technological edge?!"
"Their various officers are close enough to my level that I'm leery of trying to take them all on at once." Tela was quickly growing to hate this part of being a Specter. For one thing she had to try and give a 'rational' argument towards the decisions she had made without letting her real reasons for making that choice be seen. "And given the efficacy of their cloning equipment and how it's kept under security tight enough that I cannot disable it unnoticed, that is what it would likely come down to." Somehow she doubted that the council would be overly moved by citing moral objections towards participating in genocide.
"This information is more pertinent than forcing a predisposed ally into becoming a threat towards galactic stability, yes," Councilor Tevos agreed with a pressing glance at her compatriots. Tela wasn't certain how her fellow Asari managed to deal with such annoyance all her life. "Are you certain they are actually from that particular arm of the galaxy?"
"Locations on their navigation logs match up with a trajectory implied by an outrageously large explosion, yes. I'm assuming the cross galactic distances have something to do with their unknown method of faster than light travel." Left unsaid was the method she had used to gain access to said records and logs, politely asking out of curiosity. That it also allowed her to properly reply to the Council's questions was simply the icing on the cake.
"And with access to Mass Relays drastically reducing travel times they'll be able to return to their section of the galaxy, repopulate using that ridiculous cloning equipment, and all too quickly become a species we cannot simply ignore." The Salarian councilor concluded. "I'm sorely tempted to order you to do whatever it takes to prevent the humans from becoming a threat."
The councilors glance at each other. Councilor Tevos begins, "Instead, we want for you to continue gathering as much information on them as you can. Every sample of their technology, scraps of their culture, whatever you deem necessary to make sure that they will join as a member species in time. Is that clear Specter Vasir?"
"Understood." She had truly been hoping to be reassigned for her next mission. Illium would be lovely by the time she arrived.
"Excellent, now, we have other matters to discuss." The transmission ended, Tela let out the sigh that had been threatening to escape the entire conversation. And she turned towards the corner around which Admiral Naala was waiting.
"So that's the Council minus a few filters," Naala began, "Specter service as glamorous as the holo's claim?"
"Please," Tela rolled her eyes, "I'm not some blushing maiden in her first commando leathers. I'm well aware that the Council's dirty work isn't something most care to see."
"So how do you plan on following those orders?"
"Well for now I'm enjoying the legendary hospitality of the migrant fleet," Tela grinned at the idea that just entered her mind. "Wouldn't it be just terrible if I inadvertently made a faux pas that would leave you no choice but to confine me to a specific area for an undisclosed amount of time?"
"I assure you, Specter Vasir," Admiral Naala demurely hid a laugh behind one hand. "We'd just have to find a way to accommodate you in such a dreadful circumstance."
"My hunch-idea was right, yes-yes." A certain Vorcha pirate captain muttered to himself as he waited in the safety of a nearby frigid rock's upper atmosphere. "No one expects to have their own tricks used against them!" Using the kinetic barriers to capture small asteroids and hold them around the ship had admittedly been more difficult than he cared to admit. And the generators would need repair up the wazoo, but the transmission he had just eavesdropped on between the council and their Specter on location made it so very much worthwhile.
A veritable cornucopia of information that the Broker would love to ensure did not remain solely in the Council's hands. The technology is a sideshow, the Asari will gladly fund research into answers and equivalents now that some random newcomer with a fancy title has unequivocally proven that they cannot hold the title of most advanced as they are. There were doubtlessly mechanisms in place for the broker to perform the needed industrial espionage to ensure any new tech ends up in the proper hands.
For now, he would bide his time. He could likely only escape once the hostile fleet left the vicinity. "Now, which little escape-flight pod have you hidden-snuck in?" At least he could amuse himself by looking for that not clever enough Commodore among the life pods. For the moment, he would only do so visually. Maybe if he felt like he could get away with it he'd fire up the actual scanners.
"Well this is proving to be disappointingly uneventful." Atten Prepare comments. "I figured that since they can helmet up with the push of a button more would have survived depressurization."
"The rounds from our beam weapons travel stupidly fast," I expost, "Those who made it out alive from the blast probably already abandoned ship." I glance at the unremarkable gray halls of the Batarian warship. Very utilitarian. I can hardly wait to repurpose these materials, especially all that Element Zero, into something without the stain of slavery on its honor.
Not that I've particularly used much Mass Effect based tech thus far, but I'd have to be a fool to not consider the applications. We're building up a little nest egg of the stuff for all sorts of experiments. Biotic Innovades, railguns that won't break within a handful of shots, maybe even that crazy idea I read about once wherein the gun fires solid rounds and energy blasts simultaneously.
But that was an issue for later. Right now, we're to clear out the remaining slavers.
"There's gotta be another pod, there's gotta be another pod!" Well that's convenient. I stare at the unfortunate Batarian with a piece of debris in his visor as he raced blindly through the empty halls. I pounce on the poor soul, and place the barrel of my gun beneath his chin.
"Sorry but you're out of time. Say goodnight gracie."
"How'd you guess my-" The conical blast cuts off the doomed soul's last words.
"I've been meaning to ask, Boss," Another Killjoy pipes up. "How did you make the laser shotgun anyways? One of my bunkmates is convinced you just wired several smaller emitters together."
"While A solution, that's decidedly less elegant than the one I chose. While normally messing with the focusing mechanism like I did would only result in turning the rifle into a bizarrely shaped flashlight, I managed to rig the power conduits in such a way as to keep the amount of energy spent by the mechanism at the same lethal extent."
"Thanks for settling that bet, Sir!"
"Let's move on, shall we," Ouka interjects. "Even piecemeal like this, there's still a chance that some of these slavers will still cause us a problem. THERE!" Again as if on cue, another batarian stumbles upon our boarding party. This one doesn't even get the chance to open his mouth before Ouka plants several rounds into his torso.
"We keep making noise like this," Killjoy medic Bring Revival snarks, "They'll definitely keep finding us." At this I nod and switch out my shotgun for the sword. Some of the others grab their own GN Swords or knives. Ouka on her part simply primes a mechanism on her right gauntlet. If memory serves she had selected a katar like blade on a pile bunker style reusable payload.
This should be fairly cut and dry.