Mass Effect: Coalition -- { Started, Closed }

[socialtangent]

Kel sighed. "Word sure does travel fast on Omega," he mumbled, activating his omni-tool and pressing a series of buttons on the orange hologram. "I'm assuming you won't mind if I read the report". A stream of opaque characters rose from the device and solidified into what looked like a holographic document of sorts. "Hmm. Interesting..." he mused as he scrolled though the information in front of him.

"So, it looks like the information you have is accurate, for the most part". Kel pressed another button and collapsed the document back into his omni-tool. "Although this report implies that I killed all thirty or so men all on my own. That wasn't necessarily the case. First of all, that number is an exaggeration. By my count, there were no more than twenty men. Second of all, I did not directly kill that many people. In preparation for the attack I knew was coming, I rigged my apartment with traps. Mostly proximity mines, but I managed to put together a functioning turret out of the remaining material I had. I'll spare you the finer details, but everything took about a day or two to get together and install".

"Of course you know what happened then the attack eventually came. All of the mercs dead or otherwise incapacitated. My devices performed exactly as I'd hoped. It took them all of those twenty casualties to realize that storming my apartment was probably a bad idea. When they retreated, that was my opportunity to flee. And of course, that's where I received your correspondence, and here I am now".

 

[CounterAttack]

"The mercs around these parts are vindictive bastards. I would be surprised if you didn't get attacked less than three times if you stayed here for another week," Recarius commented, somewhat off-handedly. He surmised that Kel wouldn't want to hang around to let that happen: such a defense as the one he had initially used couldn't hold off numerous waves of mercenaries, even if he scrounged weapons and clips from the dead each time.

"I think it makes sense to say that your best ticket out of here is in my hands. I'll give you a quick rundown on why I contacted you, though, so you aren't out of the loop," the turian continued. "The Council is... losing Spectres. They keep showing up dead in various systems, even in places where human colonies are abundant and out here in the Terminus. If they aren't dead, they're reported missing in action.

"The Council wants me and two other Spectres to investigate, and they want us to survive. A team or squad of assistants is the best way to go about ensuring my survival, I think... though that's not to say that you'll be meat shields for me, far from it. The people I chose, yourself included, were picked for either their skills or their ability to shoot. In your case, it's more of the former.

"Everyone on the team will take part in mission-related discussions and accompany me in my investigations. Any of you could easily see or do things I cannot. You're a skilled technician, Kel: I need people like you to help me. We'll find whoever is killing the Spectres and show them just who they're dealing with. What do you say?"

While Recarius knew he didn't really have to sell the idea of being on the team to Kel - the Spectre was an easy way out of Omega, and Kel could just as easily have asked him to do the small favour of getting him off the station and dropping him off somewhere else - he did so anyway. It was becoming somewhat routine, given that he had done it plenty of times earlier that day. Thankfully this time was most likely going to be the last: the requirement of being able to hold a good conversation was one of the few things Recarius disliked about being a Spectre. He was much happier with a gun in his hands than words rolling off his mandibles.

 

[socialtangent]

"Huh".

Kel's monosyllablic response betrayed his intrigue. The idea of having access to the resources and privileges of a Spectre was a fantastic one, he had to admit Although the investigation had a chance of being very dangerous, it really wouldn't be much different than if he decided to stay here on Omega. Either way, someone would be trying to kill him. Besides, joining Recarius would give Kel more opportunities to complete his Pilgrimage than he could ever have on his own. Hey, it worked for Tali'Zorah. Should work fine for me.

"Recarius, I accept," he said.

 

[CounterAttack]

"Excellent. You'll be a valued member of this team," Recarius replied, giving Kel a brief handshake before the two stood. And besides, if I help out both Kel and Jira, it might earn me a few extra points with the Migrant Fleet if we ever cross paths. "With that, we're all done here. I'll just get the others and we'll head out to the Steadfast, my ship."

Recarius quickly crossed to the lounge, opening the door and stepping through. "Listen up, everyone, we're all finished here. Time to head out. Jira, can you grab our gear while I show the others to the ship?"

Jira nodded, getting up from her seat and taking two large cases from a storage cupboard. She would pack the electronics into one case and the remainder of the alcohol into the other.

"All right then. Come on, everyone. Got a bit to do before we head out into the galaxy," the turian continued with a chuckle. As he threw open the door to the apartment and stepped outside, he picked up voices in the distance, too faint to discern the origin... then shots began to spark off the walls. Assault rifle fire, from a distance; they were too inaccurate to be used at such ranges. Suddenly wary, the Spectre drew a quick conclusion: he had taken too long to do the interviews and Omega's residents had capitalised on this. Perhaps they were here to kill him off in the same way many other Spectres had fallen.

Recarius ducked back inside the apartment, drawing his Incisor sniper rifle as he did so. "Heads up! We have company!" he called out to the lounge, taking a quick look outside with the gun's magnification scope before retreating for the second time. Figures in blue and white armour seemed to be advancing down the hallway, leapfrogging one another to provide constant cover fire. Recarius mentally cursed, having not planned to be attacked so soon.

"Blue Suns. They're closing on us. I can't tell how many there are, but these guys are well-organised," he added, urgency in his voice. There wasn't much cover to be had in an apartment block: problematic.

 

[blaze96]

"Getting to hunt down a spectre killer and getting to bring justice to these mercs. Today is certainly an interesting day." Salyna said as she pulled out her submachine gun and programmed in her preferred choice of cryo ammo for the gun. She used her biotic abilities to augment her speed, charging down the hall to the next available source of cover.

She quickly went back to the wall next to a door the mercs would inevitably have to filter through if they wanted to charge. She popped out from behind cover long enough to through a shockwave down the hallway and squeeze of a few rounds before going back behind her cover. None of the enemies were dead yet but a few were knocked down and one was slowing due to the cryo ammo.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

"Blue Suns? I'm not familiar with them. They new, or just a local problem?" He reached into his raggedy coat and withdrew a pack of cigarettes, selecting one and sliding it into his mouth. He dug out a match and lit it.

"I didn't bring a gun, so I guess I'll provide suppressing fire. Any of you got grenades?" Jonah glanced between them. "Of course not. Nobody likes grenades anymore."

He raised his hands, gathering all the numerous bottles, glasses, and other assorted loose objects in the apartment into a pile, then rushing into the corridor, lifting them behind him and throwing them in a torrent down the corridor at the Blue Suns. With a yell they took cover, one taking an unfortunate strike to the eye from the mouth of a mostly empty bottle of vodka. The merc - Turian, Jonah though - went down screaming.

"Huh. I meant to do that. Honest." He pressed against the far wall, pressing into the recess of the door opposite and held his hands out again, gathering up the glass shards. Most hardsuits could take a torrent of glass shards without a problem, but there was always luck. And there was always instinct. When you saw a storm of razor-sharp glass coming your way, you moved, hardened suit or no.

 

[Lost In The Void]

Brand laughed as the Suns were announced, "Well I have a score to settle, this should be fun," he finished the bottle he was carrying and stood up, his stance not betraying the amount of alcohol in his system.

He picked up his shotgun, slowly sighting it down and walked towards the gunfire. A few stray rounds bounced off his biotic barriers and he slid into a small piece of broken cover. After he reset his barriers he stood up and began to start running towards a group of three mercs laying down cover fire on the rest of the group. He Charged them, his biotics reaching pinnacle before plowing into the nearest merc and Brand could feel the shields drop. His shotgun appeared to rise on its own and fired a slug into one of their shoulders, blasting a solid chunk of flesh out of the Turian.

The second merc, standing up, holding his side, unholstered his pistol and fired twice into Brand's flank, the biotics holding up one, the other burrowing deep into the flesh. Roaring a battle cry that would chill to the bone, Brand used his gun as a club and smashed it into the attacker's face, dropped the shotgun and broke the human's neck with a twist as if removing the lid off a protein can.

The final Blue Sun, to his credit, remained brave until Brand broke his rifle with a loud crack. The Turian stumbled back and fell over as the angry and bleeding Krogan stood over his. Brand stepped on the Turian's stomach and put his ton of weight into the step, snapping the spine of the merc and elicited a scream from the poor Turian. Leaving the cripped merc, Brand walked towards his shotgun and leveled it to the merc's head, "You lose," and he pulled the trigger.

 

[CounterAttack]

By the time Recarius's team had begun to advance out into the hallway to eliminate the Blue Suns, the mercenaries had formed into a solid defense. When Brand charged in after Selyna's biotic shockwave, killing three of their number, the Suns regrouped accordingly under the baleful eye of their commander.

"You will stand your ground! Target the krogan before he rips you all apart!" the batarian leader bellowed to his cohorts as he rolled out of his cover and fired off a burst from his rifle, aiming for Brand. His personal shields held up the few shots that were aimed in his direction. The majority of the troops acted accordingly, opening fire from behind door frames and prefabricated barricades they had brought in.

While the Blue Suns were occupied with trying to bring down the intimidating krogan in their front ranks, Recarius slipped out of the doorway and moved up to join Selyna and Jonah, his Incisor in his hands. Another quick look through the sniper's scope properly revealed that some of the mercs were bringing heavy weapons to bear: they carried missile launchers, commonly seen among this particular group.

"Time to give these bastards a taste of how we do it in the Spectres," the turian declared, setting his gun aside to hit a couple of buttons on his active omni-tool. Within seconds a small grey orb dropped into his right hand; a flashbang grenade. Recarius deactivated the omni-tool, thumbed the activation switch on the grenade and stepped out of cover to hurl it at the bearers of the heavy weapons.

"Cover your eyes, Brand!" he yelled to the krogan as the grenade soared past him, impacting exactly where he had aimed. The chest of the closest Blue Suns member.

He ducked back into his cover half a second later and re-armed himself, pausing for the second it took for the grenade to go off. Sure enough, when Recarius held up the rifle, many of the mercs were getting to their feet or recovering from the effects of the flashbang. He dropped two of them with a single pull of the trigger: the Incisor always fired three rounds, each catapulted down the barrel within nanoseconds of the slug before it. The head of the first in line exploded after the second round punched through, leaving the third clear to do the same to the merc behind him.

The small group - maybe three of them - armed with missile launchers suffered the most powerful effects the grenade could produce. They didn't get up as quickly as the others had, incapacitated by the proximity of the blast. Recarius began to line up a shot to remove them from the equation, ready to react when they showed themselves.

[hr]

While Recarius and the others held off the merc assault, Jira was frantically packing up in case they had to move quickly. The others could handle the Blue Suns while she packed up, she reasoned. She deactivated the security cameras and soundproofing with a wave of her omni-tool, taking each of the cameras down and haphazardly forcing them into the cases. The cables were the next to go, rolled up and thrown in without a second thought. Jira paid no heed to the randomness of the packing: time was short and putting things away properly could wait.

The main power supply the two had brought with them, about the size of a small crate, had been placed on a small hovering platform, designed to carry large objects when pushed by hand. Jira closed up the little covers over the box's plugholes and began to run around collecting the soundproofing generators, which had collapsed in on themselves after deactivation. She had to be ready to go as soon as Recarius told her so.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Pop their heads like a bunch of grapes.

"Don't mind if I do." Jonah grinned evilly and twisted out of cover. One of the missile troops was regaining his feet, only to be drilled down by a shot from Recarius. A second managed to scramble up and get to cover.

"No escape." He held out his hand, a wave of biotic energy denting the wall he was behind. As he lurched forward, Jonah grabbed him by the head and began to squeeze. The Batarian screamed as his helmet began to crush around his head until finally his skull gave way and fluid began dripping out the visor. He gestured again and the rocket launcher came sliding across the deck to them.

"Any of you know how to use that?"

 

[blaze96]

Salyna popped out of cover and created a heavy singularity, it immediately sucked a few guards inside of it. She knew they would be no more, crushed in the gravity of it. A few more began to start orbiting the singularity. She focused all her energy on a guard with a rocket launcher further back. She immediately began to warp space around her, putting heavy power and speed into charging into him. She was close enough to Brand that she wasn't completely surrounded. She immediately witched to her shotgun and put a round into the mercenary plastered to the wall.

"Hopefully you don't mind a bit of company." She said to the Krogan.

 

[socialtangent]

Kel pulled out his heavy pistol, firing shots in the general direction of the Blue Sun mercs as he took cover behind a nearby wall. "Can't catch a break, can't I?" he mumbled under his breath while activating his omni-tool strapped to his left arm. Quickly, he peeked out of cover and pointed the device towards a close-knit formation of three mercs. Almost instantly their armor began to radiate blue sparks, which indicated that their kinetic barriers had overloaded and failed. The disruption gave Kel enough time to fire several shots in their direction. Without their barriers to stop the rounds from hitting their mark, the three mercs collapsed to the ground as their armor was riddled with holes.

With a smooth and rehearsed motion he replaced the depleted thermal clip of his pistol with a fresh one. I really wish I brought more of these, he thought bitterly.

 

[tsatoma]

'Seriously? Why couldn't this be easy?' Mya asked herself once Recarius explained what was happening. A number of the group rushed out to battle the Blue Suns; with a certain Krogan being one of the most excited and one of the first ones out the apartment door. Mya stayed behind and finished up the remaining alcohol in her second bottle before standing up and stretching. She noticed Jira working quickly to get everything packed up as soon as possible, and for a brief second she contemplated helping her.

The thought was pushed aside however by the acknowledgement that she would just get in the way of Jira's packing. Instead Mya pulled out her trusty M-8 Assault Rifle from her belongings and walked out the front door, eying the Blue Suns' barricaded position intently. She slowly backed away from where the fighting was, determined to follow out her own plan.

Getting lost earlier may have seemed like a bad thing on a place like Omega, but Mya had learned the basic layout of the apartment blocks. 'And I definitely plan on using it.' She found the small hallway in between the apartment she was just in and the one next door. They were a bit narrower than she had remembered, but it was an easy enough fit for anything smaller than a Krogan. Carefully making her way to the end of the hallway she checked to make sure her gun was in working order, not wanting it to be nonfunctional when she attacked the Blue Suns.

She found herself behind the row of apartments once she was out of the hallway, and quickly headed north to where the Blue Suns were attacking from. The sounds of gun fire and orders could be heard on her right side, and when she passed another one of the hallways she saw the bullets soaring between the two groups.

'Almost there,' she thought, immediately holding her M-8 in the correct position she had learned about so many years ago. Mya certainly felt as nervous as she had back at the beginning of her military career, but she knew full well that the feeling would pass. 'It always does,' she told herself as she carefully passed the hallway where the Blue Suns were. There was a moment where she thought about just attacking them from the side, but the thought was pushed back as Mya continued to the next small hallway.

The M-8 was held up when she walked down the hall, steady in her hands as she leaned up against the corner of the hall and peaked around. The Blue Suns were directly in front of her now, all of them with their backs turned as they focused on the group Mya had just joined. There was no thought of turning to leave now; she had accepted the offer and she was going to do what she needed to do. Mya carefully aimed from behind the corner and fired away at the mercenaries, those caught off guard immediately falling to the hail of bullets.

 

[CounterAttack]

Three fell to Mya's surprise assault from behind the Blue Suns' entrenched position, and the less disciplined soldiers among them panicked, afraid that they were outnumbered on multiple sides. Four of them began to blindly fire in the direction from which they thought Mya had shot their comrades. One of the two commanders present - a human - ran over and began to regroup them.

"Controlled fire, you idiots! Get a support team down here! It'll just be a couple of them, we'll flush them out!" he bellowed into his helmet mic. A couple of mercs armed with flamethrowers ran up and took cover, one on each side of the hallway. When the word was given, they would spring out simultaneously and bathe the area in punishing flames.

[hr]

The Blue Suns that were still standing were getting slaughtered by Brand and Selyna as the two of them used their shotguns to lethal effect. Recarius put down two more of them with a second squeeze of the trigger, before collapsing the weapon and moving up to take the ground that the Suns had lost.

Drawing the M-12 Locust Submachine Gun at his hip, he held back momentarily. The speed at which the fighting took place at this distance - considerably shorter by comparison to the position he had taken earlier - didn't present many opportunities for clean, precise shooting. Perhaps his work could best be done in the thick of the fighting.

Activating his omni-tool for the second time, the Spectre hit a few keys and waited a second. The air seemed to shimmer around him before it stabilised again: his omni-tool had created a small energy field that refracted the light around him in complex patterns, essentially rendering him near-invisible to the naked eye. Recarius knew he didn't have much time before the stealth system dissipated, and therefore used it in the same way he had many times before: he slipped past Brand and Selyna as they fought, and moved deeper into the Blue Suns' position.

There seemed to be less of the Suns focusing their attention on the angry krogan in front of them: some were shooting behind them for some reason. Regardless, Recarius took the distraction in both hands, and broke the necks of two humans before ducking into cover just as his omni-tool bleeped at him and the 'cloak' winked out of existence. Confused, another three of the mercs paused long enough for Recarius to mow them down in a burst of SMG fire.

"Evidently you fuckers can't be trusted to get a simple job done! I'll deal with the Spectre myself!" the batarian commander yelled at his dying minions. A machine-pistol in each hand and shields at full power, he rushed the position Recarius had taken, laying down a torrent of cover fire before he tossed the guns aside and engaged Recarius in brutal melee combat. The merc was either fearless or stupid: not many people challenged a seven-foot-tall turian to a fistfight.

"Bring the rest of them down before they swarm us!" Recarius yelled to the others, having dropped his Locust to free his hands for the brawl. The commander was good: clearly he had a significant amount of close-combat training. But the Spectre didn't get to where he was for no reason, and his blocks and counter-blows held the batarian at bay... for the moment.

About a dozen Blue Suns remained standing to oppose the Spectre's team, all up.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

"Hey! Fucker!" Jonah raised his hand and gestured like he was punching. The Batarian smacked into the wall with a loud thud, letting Recarius get a good hit in that looked like it hurt. He would have liked to put his full force to bear on the Batarian, but Recarius was right, they had other problems. He turned and faced the corridor. He held out his hand and grasped, a Human sliding out of his cover screaming, only to be abruptly silenced as he intercepted fire from another Blue Sun. Jonah grinned, then flung the corpse into one of his partners, sending both sprawling to the station deck.

"I intend on filing a protest with the managers of this station! This treatment is outrageous! For shame!" Jonah's voice took on a thick southern accent. "N-now I'd like to introduce you to a friend of mine." He grabbed the rocket launcher up from the floor. He wasn't quite sure how to use it, but it seemed pretty simple. Point and shoot. "This is mah friend Hahvey." He squeezed the trigger, sending a rocket down the corridor that smashed into a wall behind the mercenaries. The blast of light and fire knocked several to the deck, and the shrapnel no doubt wounded or killed at least a few.

"I'd say he's bigger and grander than anything ya've shot at me."

 

[Lost In The Void]

Brand felt the orange fluid leaking from his skin. While his barriers were strong, they couldn't stand up forever against the barrage of fire against him. Because of this, a few stray rounds had peppered his skin causing wounds that burned a little. It seemed all but one had gone through and through; those ones didn't hurt as much, the pain was quick after all. However, the added pain from the sunken wound was enough to keep him awake.

The Asari Biotic came to offer cover fire. Seemed ironic, especially how fast her race had condemned his own after the Rebellions. Give them guns to fight their wars; then destroy them like feral varren when they were done with them, "I'm surprised you didn't just sit back and watch like the Asari love to do," he grunted, lifting his own shotgun and firing over a makeshift cover he had laid up against.

He fired a few more times and heard the satisfying sounds of screams as apparently a few of his slugs had found a target. He raised his head and a short burst of rifles sent him sprawling back into cover, "Besides aren't you happy I've thrown myself into danger; one less animal to put down? You stink like a Council Asari; I prefer the help of those from around these parts."

He removed a pistol from his belt and rose to fire a few more rounds at the bunkered in mercs, a few rounds glancing off the shields of their attackers.

 

[blaze96]

"Well unfortunately you happen to be stuck with me for the moment. Once this is over you may do as you wish, but for now lets put aside cultural hates and focus on the mercs. As for sitting back, not every Asari sits back and watches, I'm a former commando, I can hold my own in a fight. Not to mention many of the first spectres were Asari and Salarian. Though I will say that it is odd that if you hate Asari so much you would work for a Turian." Salyna replied before throwing a soldier back before switching to her submachine gun and spraying cryo ammo down the halls in controlled bursts. A few men dropped but many more were slowed if not stopped by the ammo.

"Besides, I was born long after the rebellions, and hold no ill will towards the Krogan. Nor do my people, many Asari have Krogan parents."

 

[Sehnsucht Engel]

Morroth hadn't been surprised when they had been attacked. It just felt like another part of Omega. He had drawn his gun from its holster, but remained inside the appartment. The others seemed like competent warriors. He had fired a couple of shots, when he saw the opportunity to kill and brought down at least two of the mercs. He would have prefered being able to use his training better and perform some stealth kills. Heh, he could probably have taken them all on that way, but now they were under attack, which didn't give much of opportunity for that kind of skills. He relied on the spectre and his new team to take care of it.

 

[Lost In The Void]

"Hah but by the way you say that, doesn't sound like you do; my daughter does, but I know she's been raised right," he laughed and carefully placed a round into the nearest merc's head, "And don't worry, I hate all others equally, but money is money."

His ears caught onto the mention of Spectres as the Asari mentioned that they were some of the first, "If that is supposed to impress me it doesn't; not all Spectres are competent, not only that but my race isn't part of the Citadel, why would I care for the history of its bumbling warriors?"

Brand charged a merc and was surprised at the Turian's reflexes, as the merc fired a slug into his side before the charge disarmed him. He broke the mercs neck and moved back from the line of fire, his hand covering the orange mess spurting from his side.

 

[blaze96]

"I don't hate Krogan. I can understand the position, were the roles reversed I can imagine holding quite a strong hatred of the species that did it. As for my mentioning the spectres, it wasn't meant to impress. Merely to make a point, not all Asari are weak diplomats. We can be capable warriors, some of the best in council space. That was all I meant by it, nothing more." Selyna responded plainly as she fired off a round killing another merc. A few mercs opened fire, ripping through her shields and landing a few shots through the armor. She quickly responded by throwing a singularity and sucking the mercs into it. Soon enough all fire stopped as the rest of the group and herself finished off the mercs.

 

[PrinceOfShapeir]

Once the last of the mercenaries were dead, Jonah wasted no time in rifling through their pockets, throwing everything onto the deck beside the bodies with the exception of currency, which he pocketed.

"So bawss, there a reason y' gots these...these...God DAMMIT." He reached around his neck and fiddled with his amp for a moment, the thick Brooklyn-esque accent dissipating. "Is there a reason that our meeting got crashed by these clowns? It was nice to stretch my legs, but I sure do hate surprises."

He looked uneasy for a moment. "Say...I know this might sound wrong, but, uh, how do we know you're actually a Spectre and not some nut?" The irony of the suggestion wasn't lost on Jonah.