Outside Context Solution part 3
PRIVATE SPACE STATION, L4 point of Oma Ker, Nura System, 2519 CSD
In the privacy of his extremely secure quarters Din Olar opened his eyes. Recovering from his latest round of surgeries and treatments designed to improve his body, biotics and extend his life had been an ordeal for the impatient Volus, but he was appreciative of the strength and power the mostly legal treatments allowed him.
As he emerged from his bed, he called out to his com system, his voice unnaturally deep even without his encounter suit.
"Sof! Prepare the reports on our operations and the status of my forces, I want an up-to-the second update in the outer offices in five minutes!" He snarled at his assistant through the com.
"I will be there sir, with the information required" came the calm, if weary, voice of Sof Te, the Volus who had the "interesting" job of being Din Olar's Personal Assistant.
Thinking dark thoughts, Din Olar stepped into what he thought of as his Armor Room, it was here that the encounter suits that he used were stored and maintained. Every Volus personalized their encounter suits, thinking of them as a second home. Din Olar considered his suits to be another weapon in his arsenal of vengeance.
"Computer. Activate and equip suit seven" Olar growled as he stepped onto his automated suit platform.
With smooth efficiency the automated systems around him began putting the encounter suit on his body, securing, testing and activating each piece as it locked into place. All Volus encounter suits are, by necessity well armored, but Din Olar's suits were beyond that. Without appearing to be much more than well constructed and maintained suits, they were more akin to a suit of powered armor than simple hardsuits.
As the integrated systems of his suit came online, his HUD displayed the status of the kinetic barrier system, integrated omni-tool and weaponry, suit-wide biotic amp, sensors. Din Olar felt more like himself once his armor against the universe was on his body, simple skin never seemed enough to contain his rage.
Waiting in Din Olar's office, the surprisingly slender Sof Te considered again whether or not he'd attempt to resign. There's only a small chance Olar would kill me, or completely lose the plot of his businesses if I did so. The doctor says the weight loss, ulcers and chronic chest pains are all caused by work induced stress...No, Olar would kill me for "betraying the cause".
Sof Te sighed to himself and finished organizing the reports for the day. As he finished up his work, the automated systems in his encounter suit dispensed medications and anesthetics to compensate for his various stress induced illnesses, adding a few stimulants as well to keep him in peak performance.
If Din Olar's encounter suit was powered armor, Sof Te's was a dedicated and specialized life support unit.
After a few short moments, Din Olar came stomping into the office with each footfall impacting the floor as if punishing it for the temerity of being underfoot. As Olar entered, holo-screens activated around his desk displaying status reports and updates that Olar felt were important, forwarded by the VI's that managed things for him under Sof's supervision.
Taking his place in the midst of all of this, Din Olar began working, his hands flew over his haptic interfaces, sending instructions, authorizing transactions, demanding reports, composing responses. Without looking away from his work, he snapped at his erstwhile assistant.
"Well? Was the final shakedown of the Exile a success?" Olar demanded.
The Exile was a testament to rage and excess, built along similar lines to a Turian Dreadnought, it was double the width, allowing it to have two main cannons. Additionally, all of it's formidable broadside armament was specifically designed for and provided with the best possible sensors to allow planetary bombardment.
Technically, it took up two "slots" of dreadnought allowed to the Vol Protectorate under the Treaty of Fairaxen, no one had yet complained though.
"Yes sir. The crew reported in during the night, fully successful. No problems to report." Sof Te informed his employer.
"About damned time!" growled Din Olar, the Exile was behind schedule due to some technical difficulties in making the starship conform to Olar's fantasies of revenge, and he had become very disgruntled.
"Sales of this model and the designs to the Turians will allow us to cut ten months off of the timetable for your militarization program. The Turians are very interested in replacing some of their older dreadnoughts with the new design" Sof continued, outwardly unfazed by Olar's outburst. His suit injected sedatives into his system and dumped a soothing elixir directly into his stomach to allow him to maintain that facade.
"Good! We'll see if we can get some of those older dreadnoughts to bulk up our own forces until we can deploy a fully modernized fleet." Olar rumbled, content with dreams of destruction.
Focusing fully on Sof Te, for the first time since entering the office, Olar continued.
"What about the reaction force? Is it ready now that the Exile is online?" Din Olar asked eagerly "We need to be ready to strike as soon as the opportunity presents itself!"
---
The two of them continued their business for several hours, Olar kept alert and moving through the constant anger flooding his artificially fortified body. Sof being sustained by a witch's brew of chemicals pumped into his system by his encounter suit.
Then, it happened. An all points alert from the Asari colony of Lusia that it was under heavy attack and the defending forces were strained to the breaking point.
Sof struggled to keep up as Din Olar charged toward his shuttle, literally knocking anyone in his way to the side.
"We must get to the Exile immediately, we can have the reaction force there within the hour! It's been too long since I was responsible for spilling any of that toxic blue blood Sof!" Din was practically screaming as he went "I can practically taste it!"
Mere moments later the Volus Rapid Reaction force was screaming out of the system at full thrust, ignoring the costs of fuel and a few safety concerns as the ships, led by the newly commissioned VPWS Exile, charged wildly toward the Mass Relay and glory.
UNKNOWN PLANET, Unknown System, Unknown Cluster 2519 CSD
It had seemed to be a pretty straightforward recon and research operation at first glance. The planet was fairly habitable, no intelligent life or giant monsters, not even a Thresher Maw. The presence of a number ancient, wrecked starships on the surface with possibly salvageable tech or information made it worth looking into.
After the shuttles had landed is when things got exciting. A new, utterly bizarre starship lurched drunkenly out of FTL almost too close to the planet, disgorged a dropship and started shooting.
Thus far, the crew of the Silent Step had been too busy fighting to worry too much about translating the language of the new aliens, it all seemed like it was probably swearing and threats anyway.
Meanwhile, on the surface, the commander of the expedition was having trouble of his own.
Dr' Solus and Operative Razzik were taking cover behind what used to be a piece of ship's hull as the unknown aliens poured withering streams of gunfire at them.
"Smell that?" Dr. Solus asked.
"What?" Razzik replied while taking a few shots out of cover and directing the rest of the team to get to better firing positions.
"Chemical propellant!" the Doctor replied. "Their weapons are not mass accelerators. Need bulkier ammunition."
While speaking, Dr. Solus was programming his omnitool to flash fabricate an old favorite of his; a Neural Shock mine, which could stun even a Krogan at close range, and due to a bit of customizing had a much broader area of effect than most such things.
"Will need to reload soon" Dr. Solus grinned "Then we strike!"
Razzik grinned back at his commander and moments later, there was a slight pause in the gunfire.
Moving as the well-drilled unit that they were, the team immediately went on the offensive. Dr. Solus released the shock mine and then opened up with a sub-machinegun, Razzik and the rest of the team followed, using their weapons with deadly accuracy.
It was over quickly.
"Hmmm." Lorn Solus noted to himself as they moved past the dead aliens toward their goal "Some resemblance to Vorcha, superficial only, seem not too familiar with own tech. Likely an interesting story there. No time now."
While his commander was inspecting the dead hostiles, Operative Razzik got in touch with the Silent Step to see what the status of the fight in space was.
"Darum, can you report?" Razzik transmitted, not overly worried.
"Yes, the hostile craft was well armored, but unshielded and not very maneuverable" came Operative Darum's reply over the com "We've put a few holes in it and managed to damage it's engines. It's venting atmosphere and it looks like the remaining crew have holed up in the ship's cargo hold"
"Hold for now." Dr. Solus broke in "Keep hostile covered. Will deal with it when we get back. Good work."
"Thank you, sir!" Operative Darum replied "We'll keep the hostile covered and hold position 'til you return"
Dr. Solus shared a rueful look with Razzik over the enthusiasm of the slightly younger Operative.
"That one makes me feel old" Dr. Solus told his friend "Were we ever that young?"
"You are old" grinned Razzik "Me? I'm still in my prime!"
They both turned their attention to the ancient, half buried starship that was partially jutting out of the base of the long dormant volcano they were at.
"In that case young one. You take point" Dr. Solus grinned back, gesturing the team forward "Let's see what ancient secrets we can find here."
LUSIA, Tomaros System, 2519 CSD
The situation on Lusia looked grim to Commander Dahlia Dantius of the Lusia Defense Forces, there had been what was thought to be a false alarm for a portal emergence a month ago as no Outsider had appeared and so they had relaxed, now another emergence event was detected and suddenly two Outsiders were attacking and one of them had a sensor scattering carapace.
Bastard must have been lying in wait at the bottom of the ocean all this time, thought Dahlia. Now the two monsters were laying waste to the defenses around the city of Monoi, the capital of Lusia colony, and it appeared that nothing was going to be able to stop them this time.
Not that our successes have been that wonderful Dahlia considered, remembering the aftermath of every attack since the fateful day that she had joined Lusia's defense against it's first Outsider attack and somehow ended up a hero.
Every "victory" makes the last one just that much harder to clean up, even without this shit we're losing the colony by inches.
The massive EMP attack unleashed by the new arrival had crippled the Lusia Defense Forces and Dahlia was scrambling to get them in order and some of their equipment back on line.
"Excuses aren't going to keep those Outsiders from killing us all! We need that power grid back up!" Dahlia yelled into one of the few working coms.
Just then she saw the stealthed, spiny Outsider release a stream of glowing liquid at some of the few remaining functional aircraft that were attempting to draw the beasts off in a delaying action.
"Oh come on!" Dahlia lamented "Stealth and acid? That's not fair!"
I shoulda become a fucking pirate she thought to herself, almost seriously.
Meanwhile in high orbit of the planet, more than a dozen ships of the Volus Rapid Reaction Force, led by the dreadnought Exile snapped out of FTL and immediately started dropping shuttles and larger dropships to the surface.
The first clue the defenders of Monoi had that help had arrived is when three orbitally fired mass accelerator rounds slammed into the recent arrival, a massive, simian beast who had been the one to release a powerful EMP pulse into the city, crippling it's defenses.
The Outsider was staggered, but not down.
Dahlia Dantius, no longer lamenting her life choices as she focused on survival, felt a flare of hope as she saw this. Being in charge of the defense of this colony had matured her beyond her two centuries of life and seeing that help had arrived for the people she was responsible for allowed her to rally her forces.
"Get to those turrets! We need them active now! Those things must be kept away from the shelters!" she shouted to her troops, seeing that the power grid was coming back online, getting them back on the task of getting the mass accelerator and GARDIAN turrets back online.
Looking up, she saw eight Volus fighter-bombers vectoring in and assaulting the creatures, obviously having trouble targeting the slender, black one that was covered in a spiny carapace.
Getting her com unit back in hand, she transmitted to them "The black one is stealthed against sensors somehow, focus fire on the bigger one, it's got EMP!" she informed them.
"Acknowledged" the voice of a Volus pilot came back "Where does it emit EMP from?"
"The back! There's an organ of some kind, shielded by armored plates" Dahlia replied, having to shout over the roars of the Outsiders, aircraft, bombs exploding, and dropships landing.
What emerged from the dropships brought fresh hope to the defenders as sixteen Legatus-class tanks were disgorged from the sixteen dropships, each adding it's more than formidable firepower to the defenders volleys.
The Legatus tank was currently the greatest land based weapon in Citadel space against the Outsiders. Designed by the Turian Heirarchy specifically for the task each was twenty meters tall at the top of it's main turret and nearly a hundred meters long. More of a land battleship than a tank, they required special dropships to be deployed planetside.
Each Legatus was formidably armed with the main turret taken up by two massive mass accelerator cannons and two multiple missile vertical launch systems.
The "lower levels" of the Legatus had a dozen rapid-fire mass accelerator turrets and six miniature GARDIAN laser turrets.
Combined with thick armor and the best kinetic barriers available, they were almost enough to turn the tide.
The more simian, and less stealthed of the two Outsiders staggered under the bombardment it received from the newly arrived tank's missiles and the bombs from the ever-growing force of fighter-bombers in the sky, it's EMP organ rupturing under the onslaught.
The slender, black Outsider roared in rage as some of the tanks managed to hit it directly with their powerful mass accelerators via visual targeting, causing a few glowing blue cracks to appear in it's carapace. It responded with a spray of the unnaturally powerful acid in it's mouth, melting straight through the armor of two of the tanks from half a kilometer away and damaging the rest of the formation to a lesser extent.
As that was happening however, a new volley of cruiser scale mass accelerator rounds impacted the bulkier beast, which combined with renewed fire from the city's turrets, finally brought it down in a spray of toxic blood.
The Legatus tank with extra communications gear, the command tank, had damaged treads and was retreating slowly, it broadcast to the defenders of Monoi in a raspy, harsh voice "We have a solution to this thing, all defenders pull back now!"
The top of the Legatus' main turret opened up and a single Volus in a well made encounter suit clambered out carrying a large laser targeter.
Securing himself to his position with his biotics, Din Olar snarled at the oncoming Outsider.
"Exile, target is stealthed, I am lasing the target for a full power shot!" Olar shouted over the com as he raised the targeter and "painted" the Outsider with the targeting laser.
"Acknowledged Din Olar, we have the targeting solution, shot inbound" came the reply from the Exile.
In a display of raw power that all present would remember for the rest of their lives, a shot from the dreadnought Exile came down upon the Outsider, having been transformed into plasma by friction against the atmosphere, it delivered incredible amounts of heat and kinetic energy to the beast, shattering and flash frying it. Pieces of the monster rained down, still smoking for kilometers around.
Not having budged from his position on top of the tank, Din Olar ordered the vehicle toward the city, while Sof Te still secure in his seat inside, was already in communication with the local commander about cleanup.
Killing that beast felt good. I'll need to get my hand in like this more often Din Olar thought to himself.
Later on, while Din Olar was negotiating with the leaders of Lusia over the purchase of a number of Legatus tanks. Sof Te was enjoying being outside, watching the fumes rise from the dead Outsiders in the distance as relief workers descended on the corpses to dispose of them.
All the rage in Olar's artificial heart will not be enough to stem this tide forever, he thought to himself with relative calm thanks to the medications being delivered to him by his suit. Something needs to change.
For all of his rage and vengefulness, Din Olar did not get to be head of the Unified Banks without having a great deal of business savvy and the ability to negotiate.
Dahlia Dantius was appreciating this first hand as she watched the mad Volus negotiate a deal with the leaders of Lusia for additional supplies, weapons and tanks to help defend the colony.
Truthfully, he isn't squeezing as hard as he could she noticed perhaps his rhetoric about wanting these things dead is more than a clever sales pitch.
She herself was still occasionally surprised to find herself where she was, just a decade ago she had mustered out of the Asari Navy, having had to deal with rumors and whispering behind her back the entire time due to her family's dark reputation, she had been considering using her hard won skills to go into business for herself as a merc and a pirate.
And everything everyone had assumed would have become true, and worse she thought ruefully.
Then Lusia had fallen under attack and that first Outsider, through design or happenstance, had smashed the headquarters of the Lusian Defense Forces on it's way in.
She had been able to, through sheer force of personality and willingness to do so, take command of the scattered and confused forces and drive the beast back. Eventually ending it with a missile barrage from a hastily reprogrammed anti-air platform.
After that she was a hero to the colony and her course was clear.
I would've probably been a shitty pirate anyway she thought to herself as she got up to add her own voice to the ongoing negotiations.
UNKNOWN PLANET, Unknown System, Unknown Cluster 2519 CSD
The interior of the ancient starship was bizarre by any standard, the passages within were both starkly utilitarian and strangely narrow in places, before making a leap of architecture and changing to being baroque and vast. There was no indication what the race making it had been thinking, design-wise.
One thing had become very clear to the STG team exploring it, however.
Whatever race created the ship, had designed their security system to last.
Operative Rezzik, veteran of dozens of high risk, black bag operations, suppressed the urge to scream like a small child as he drove for cover behind what may have been a sculpture of a few hundred legs protruding from the bulkead of the corridor, pulses of extremely hot matter flying overhead.
Upon coming to a stop, he noticed his commander, Dr. Lorn Solus, studying his omnitool intently as the entire team sought cover from the withering hail of fire from the automated turrets that had suddenly sprouted from the walls and ceiling surrounding a door they had been cutting through.
"Interesting. Very interesting" Dr. Solus commented, studying the readout on his omnitool.
"What? That this ancient wreck is trying to kill us?" shot back Rezzik, familiar enough with his old friend to ignore protocol at times like this.
"No! Well, that too. Very sturdy design." Dr. Solus replied, seemingly unfazed by the hellish wash of heat in the corridor "Weapons are using electromagnetically contained plasma as projectile. Potential for use as anti-Outsider weapon high. We need samples."
"Samples?" Rezzik returned incredulously "They're trying to kill us, how are we going to get samples?"
Dr. Solus didn't reply, but he looked up from his omnitool and gave Ressik that look. The one that seemed to ask the recipient how many times they'd recently taken blows to the head.
Rezzik, used to this sort of thing by now, just waited.
Sighing, Dr. Solus explained. "Weapons still functional, but old. Not hardened any longer. Scans prove it. EMP will disable."
Putting action to his words, Dr. Lorn Solus triggered his omnitool, which proceeded to flash-fabricate some simple EMP grenades used primarily against synthetics of lower quality. He then rolled these grenades up the corridor, before triggering them remotely.
There was a flash of static discharge and the weapons fire ceased. Dr. Solus and Rezzik got to their feet along with the team.
"Injuries?" Dr. Solus inquired of his group, receiving an all clear, he continued "Good. Let's proceed. First take down turrets, then finish with the door."
Putting action to his words, Dr. Solus led the way down the corridor.
Some time later, the team was back aboard the Silent Step and heading away from the system at FTL speeds and Dr. Solus and Rezzik were consulting in the labs.
"Plasma weapon a good find, transmitting it back to Citadel will benefit efforts against Outsiders" Dr. Solus began.
"Yes," Rezzik agreed, looking at one of the lab's screens "But the data from that computer is so encrypted that we don't dare send it directly into another system, we may have to wait until we return to properly decrypt it."
"Hmmm, yes" Dr. Solus hummed, while looking over the displays from their portable data storage "No way of knowing what will happen in larger system, may contain adaptive malware as was found in ruined ship on Eingana many years ago. Best not take chances."
Finishing their work and sending it to be dispatched via QEC. The Doctor and his second in command then turned to a representation of the galaxy.
Looking it over, Rezzik pointed to one of the Mass Relays they had discovered, but not yet used.
"This Relay, shows signs of leading to areas of the galaxy that, while they are yet unexplored will increase out chances of finding something from more recent eras that may be of help." He paused for a breath "We have seen indications that the Protheans had developed their mass effect and energy manipulation technologies far beyond what we have, or even what we've yet found. That will surely be the key to taking these Outsiders on and possibly even penetrating their portals."
"Hmmm..." Dr. Solus started while contemplating the galaxy "Agreed. Best chance of success."
Shortly thereafter the Silent Step entered an unmarked, unnumbered Mass Relay and continued on it's long journey.