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[Terca]

Eteon nodded, Jess' reason was sound, even if it was a rationale for doing something someone might find a bit... Insane? Well, she is over the top all on her own. If she can handle it, she can handle it. She shrugged to herself and accepted the situation for what it was: Less than ideal, but they could live with it.

 

"Deidrus ordered a couple of our men to come with Saboteur-format Omni-tools. I think he would be willing to offer their support to you if you're going into the 'hornet's nest' so to speak. You will probably still need fire team support while you are in there, assuming they still need a crew along with a boarding party..." A buzzing on her Omni-tool let her know time was up. "Think about it, we need to get into position alright?"

 

She turned to the Turians behind her and motioned for them to spread out near the cryo pods to make it look like they were lounging around and waiting impatiently as opposed to waiting for an enemy. They immediately moved, splitting up slightly into nascent groups as they made their way into the far side of the spaceport.

 

Ah shite... A signal. "The signal will either be the first shot or a Collector dropping dead. Even if you don't see it Deidrus will, and you will know that things have begun."

[Cainhurst Crow]

"what?" Vayne asked blankly at the mention of a ball gown dress. He looked at jess with a raised brow and blank look, now uncertain of how good this team would be from his previous assessment.

 

'She seems....random.' he thought to himself before he heard the report. Something was coming their way, and it was tiem to get this show rolling. "Best of luck to all of you." Vayne said as he moved into position, going back a ways behind some high stacked crates, seeing as those would help cover him, and took his position, drawing his chakram launcher and getting ready. He pressed his back into the creates and waited for the go signal to go, jess's words still in his mind.

 

'I wonder what is the go signal anyway? I'll know when the shooting starts I guess, still....' He thought as he took one last look to the ones impersonating the blue suns, 'Good luck, all of you. Ancestors be in your favor...'

[Kel Riever]

Morgan had taken the opportunity to dislodge himself from Stone when Eteon had introduced herself.  "Morgan," was his simple reply to her.  

 

The rest of the winding conversation from Captain Stone left some interesting events open to the imagination.  When she alerted them to the presence of an incoming intruder, however, Morgan was all business.

 

"A gunshot will be the perfect go signal.  I don't think anyone here is going to fire by accident."

[Terca]

Eteon looked to Vayne and shook her head. "The less spoken about it the better at the end of the day." It was the first time int he entire conversation she had a tone which could have been defined as being 'serious'. And she was. She was not interested in wearing any article of clothing which had the Adjective 'poofy' associated with it. Especially since there was no translation for it and the omni-tool system simply said it was like a 'gas bag' from Eden Prime. She was not interested at all in sharing a resmeblance with anything called a 'gas bag'.

 

When she was done speaking she motioned for the group of faux-Suns to follow. "C'mon, no time to chat left." With that she started walking briskly towards the stasis pods, face blank with the focus it was taking for her to get herself into her 'zone'.

[Redbelle]

Anika felt a laugh work it's way up which she cut off mid chuckle. "No accidents? You've never worked with Jess...... Though I think sometimes she builds accident's into all her plans". Anika felt eye's fall on her. "I'm sure she won't fire first though...... Probably".

[Cainhurst Crow]

The collector vessel was one of the strangest anyone there would have laid eyes on. Appearing to be a strange rocky formation with an engine attached to the back, it approached the station silently, as if it were any other rocky asteroid that inhabited the galaxy. It was the size of a frigate, and it glided effortlessly towards the docking bay of the mine as it passed through the field, docking parallel as it came in close enough that it was mere inches past the protective mass effect field. A docking platform and walkway for the mine came online, almost as if it were turned on by itself, and glided to the ship, locking with a part of the rocky formation that must have served as the massive vessels port-side doors.

 

There was a silence that filled the air as the only sound was the hissing of air from the docking platform and corridor synchronizing pressures and decontaminating the area, and after a minute or so, out came the collecotrs. There were 50 in number, all marching within a row of three out from their vessel in synchronized unison. Most appeared to be a brownish bronze color, covered in thick looking plating and with exposed areas of muscle and tissue at the joints. Their 4 pale white eyes stared out blankly, giving them an overall insect like appearance, and each one held a strange looking firearm in their arms, looking as insect like as the rest of their bodies. At the head of the pack marched 8 collectors standing out from the rest, paler and taller then their fellow collectors, these ones bore greyish green plating, red tissues underneath, 6 pale eyes, and two large horn like growths from their heads, apparently leading the others as they marched out into the docking bay to stand in front of the false blue suns.

 

And then, when the last of the soldiers filed out, came the most dangerous looking creatures of all. They were black, metallic in appearance, and appeared almost crustacean like as they glided behind the others, 4 blue eyes shining brightly attached to a massive head, almost appearing to have a sharp beaked mouth of some kind with something glowing within it just barely able to be seen. Their "lower jaw" ended with sharp looking insect-like limbs that clutched what appeared to be a massive storage create. They floated above the others, and slowly brought down their cargo to the front of the collector group, where they had stooped and formed almost a standing line of collectors in front of the suns, forming neat and orderly rows as they stood motionless. With a silent thump, the two preterions glided towards the back of the group, as one of the paler collectors stepped forwards towards the others. It walked until it stood in front of the creates, going completely still as if waiting for something to happen.

 

Then suddenly and without warning, it spasamed, head looking upwards, arms thrown out from its sides, convulsing this way and that as a yellow glow began to accumulate around it. Cracks appeared all over the insectoid, head jerking this way and that before it seemed completely overtaken, and its pale eyes igniting into a fiery yellow that shined brightly before it slumped forward, still on its feet, with its head looking down and the yellow glowing cracks covering its body. It looked up once more, and as it did so, a booming and etherial voice sounded from this.

 

"We have assumed direct control...." It said, as it examined the group of blue clad mercenaries before it, a strange and dangerous air about it, "Organics...we have arrived." as it spoke, its arms motioning towards the creates, moving them to show the two they had brought, "We offer you a sample of our technology, as we had said. Now present us with our samples. Show us the manifest, and we shall allow you to take your prize..."

 

THe voice was the same one from the audio recording, and it spoke loud enough so that all in the hanger would hear it. The collectors were still in their group, still stnading still as they waited for the suns to complete their end of the bargin.  Still and silent as the dead.

[Terca]

Eteon watched with a real expression of disgust on her face as the insectoid aliens filed out of their bizarre ship and came to a halt not too far from her and the rest of the 'Blue Suns'. The Praetorians, the crab-like beasts that had floated over looked nothing short of monstrous, their strength obvious but the source for it obscured.

 

I really f*cking hope that Androkan is watching this. She thought to herself grimly. She took a step forward and not breaking her half-disgust looked the Collector General up and down before letting nodding her head back towards the Cryo tubes back in the stacks a bit. "We have the humans, they're in the pods back there and in the requested... Condition." She was going out on a limb but it was worth putting a little more fake detail than necessary. She began thinking on the spot as to how best they could deal with this many Collectors...

 

Once Jess handed a Data slate with the information on it to the Collector Eteon started to wonder, albeit belatedly, whether or not the Suns themselves had done everything correctly...

 

********

 

"All units, I count fifty-eight 'collector' units and two of the 'Praetorians'. Anyone have a different number?" Deidrus asked quietly over the comms to his Armigers though it was also patched into Vayne and the Asari Omni-tools. Soft whispers of affimation with the odd comment about the different Silver unit came through. "Aria, Naleena, Fifty-eight confirmed Collector units, eight of them are silver in coloration. Two Praetorian units."

 

He scanned over the field with the Black Widow's scope as he tried to think of how best to approach the situation. All of the collectors were lined up perfectly for first shots but only eighteen marksman rifle shots could be fired off at once, at which point they would scatter... The heads were large enough that the shots would be laughably easy but he was fairly certain the collectors would immediately scatter at the first round being fired... If they switched to overload chaining they could probably incapacitate a good half but they would lose the first-shot opportunity and have to rely on those right in the line of fire.

 

The Praetorian units posed their own issue... They were obviously heavily armored, almost like a tank that could fly. Their arms and beak only made them more of a disturbing opponent... For now, Eteon would need to keep her cool and see if she could somehow eke out a more decisive situation that they could take a hold on. He was skeptical though... It would be messy after the first moments no matter what.

 

"We're looking at a perfect first-shot opportunity right now, possibly eighteen instant takedowns if the collector units do not have kinetic barriers. If they do we could focus-fire them to suppress but right now their numbers are making this first step awkward... And Aria, have any idea about the unit which has turned golden?" Shot in the dark because it looked unique in a way, and that voice was commanding, and she would have probably mentioned such a thing earlier if she'd come in contact with it in the past.

[Redbelle]

Jess handed Eteon a data slate and looked the collector up and down. "Well now, you a real looker if you don't me saying....... luv". She said, adding the last part with a little more effort than usual. "Look, about the pods. I know you higher up types like to make your deals in the board rooms. But us ground grunts who do the work need a little more in the way of resource and open access if you expect top credit service".

 

"Some of your pods broke down and we had no idea how to repair them. Or even open them up! We pulled them down to our tech storage area but the gooey fillings inside went bad. That's a number of our goods that we spent precious time and effort getting our hands on down the pan because of the tech you supplied"!

 

"Now, I'm not saying anyone is at fault here. These partnerships always have a kink or two at the base level that needs to be worked out. But if you want to do more repeat business and expect a better quality of service, we need those specs so we don't end up with puddles in the pods instead of people. After all. New colonies are still out there ripe for plucking".

 

"So how about providing us with the specs of those pods luv"? And make it easier for us to get the people inside them out, she thought to herself

[Kel Riever]

Only the Collector with ghostly golden light emanating from within responded.  The light seemed to flare then ebb, and it addressed Jess in its other-worldly voice. “You are not the one we spoke to.  This was not the agreement.  You have failed.”

 

Before Jess could respond, the Collector who was clearly leader of the group motioned to the three visible humans with a sweep of its arm.  “These three will come to negotiate aboard our vessel .The leader’s eyes glowed fiercly again as it stared back into Jess’ eyes.  “You will come now!”

 

A dozen Collectors moved in to surround Jess, Anika and Morgan, and cut them off from the turians. 

[Redbelle]

"Love to luv". Jess grinned before anyone could do anything else. "As long as you pay we're happy to oblige". She looked over at Anika and Morgan. "Unless you two think taking that offer would send the wrong signal"?

[Kel Riever]

Morgan whispered to Stone. "There's no way that ship isn't a death trap.  If you follow along, you are going to get all three of us killed."

[Redbelle]

Jess whispered back. "We want on that ship. Why not be invited? Rather that than they lock it down". Out loud she snapped. "Course I have it"! She snatched the slate off Eteon and thrust it towards the golden Collector. "We encrypted it though. Doesn't pay to have all this data where just anyone can sneak a peak and throw the op down the toilet. And I'd be happy to give you the key...... And continue negotiations on your ship". She said folding her arms across her chest smugly. "After you give us the tech specs on those pods. We need them to resolve the issues we're having seperating them from the support systems we plumbed in to save the cargo...... The sooner you give us that the sooner you can have them back".

[Kel Riever]

Collectors closely surrounded Jess, Anika and Morgan while the leader stepped backwards. The three humans were pressed in, making shots from snipers impossible without risking injury to a friendly. One of the Collectors behind Morgan shoved him forward towards the ship.

 

"Deliver the pods, they are ours. You have received your instructions, now come." The leader turned to head back to the ship while the Collectors surrounding the humans began corraling them. Meanwhile, other Collectors and the two monstrous creatures moved to seize the pods on the dock.

[Terca]

Grabbing all the humans at once after saying 'you have failed'. Eteon put a look of disappointment on her face that was less than genuine hoping to imitate the expression of someone who thought something was unfortunate but didn't care much beyond that. They are not going to make it out of that ship unscathed...

 

The decision would need to be made swiftly now. The Collectors were moving to the pods now and would soon be broken out of their lines making the opening shot harder to take. With the humans being moved into the ship though... Firing right now... That could put them in the direct line of crossfire. But if they fired on the first set the Collectors might scatter first giving Jess a chance to dash into the ship before they could be recaptured...

 

Her eyes darted to the glowing collector who appeared to be leading and grit her jaw a moment. Someone would need to take that shot and who knew what kind of barriers it might have.

[Redbelle]

Jess sighed. Then in a voice imitating the Collecors. "You are breaking the deal. Your pods are defective. You will lose out on more humans later by ignoring us now. We can isolate the disruption. Comply. Resist this directive and you risk deficiencies in your collection's. Now. And in the future". She paused. "Tell me I'm dealing with a flesh and blood brain there luv. It's not hard to see that your collection's going to suffer if you don't address your shoddy equipment".

 

She took in the sight of the collector's around them. Felt the weight of one of her grenades on it's strap. It would be so easy......

[Kel Riever]

The Leader stopped and turned to stare at Jess with its glowing eyes.  This time, it didn’t respond in a language anyone could understand, but made several low thrumming and clicking sounds.

 

“I don’t think it believes you,” Morgan warned.

[Redbelle]

Jess narrowed her eyes and snorted. "Boring conversation anyways". She said and brought up her Omni-tool. Hitting the 'accept command' button she'd prepared for the load lifters.

[Terca]

Eteon made the call, she raised her omni-tool and spoke into it calmly. "Mark, King-Slay" She raised her Carnifex at the same time as she summoned a defense drone and fired at a Collector just about to break ranks.

 

The next instant was rather confusing.

 

The Armigers, who had been a hair's width off depressing the triggers on their rifles since the insectoids had started to break ranks, fired in unison, their individual shots coming into explosive contact with the skulls of those not surrounding the humans below. Those eighteen Collectors stumbled to the ground right in front of their comrades behind them immediately jarring up their pattern. The shining collector that had been marked by Eteon not only suffered Cranial trauma, but had its head completely removed by the immense force of the Black Widow round cleanly destroying the head. In total, 19 Collectors had been shot in the head, one of them obviously Fatally. Without knowing whether it was the Kinetic impact or actual death which had killed the other Eighteen collectors the Armigers were forced to reacquire their marks.

 

Five heavy load lifters off to the sides roared in unison as their engines came alive and thrust themselves forwards on mag-lev coils. Their load wheels barely touching the floor as they skimmed across the floor towards the cluster of people.

 

While it happened, Jess had pulled a grenade out and tossed it into the air. "Flash"! She yelled and grabbed Anika and Morgan pulling them close to her just in time. The first heavy lifter came forward and impacted the surviving collector who had shoved Morgan. It's five tonnage hitting it square and sending it flying a short ways across the bay. The other's nearby were either dead from sniper fire or backing up. One was slow and another lifter clipped him, spinning around like a mad ballerina as his weapon went off spraying the barriar's of his comrades before he fell.

 

All that happened in the blink of an eye as the flash grenade went off. Jess's visor immediately darkened. Having exchanged the broken blue one for her own yellow and black helm, the onboard imaging scanner took quick reading's and fed them to her eye as the world became a wire model representation in the dark of her blackened out helmet.

 

The lifter's, true to her programming, assembled in a tight circle aorund her and with Anika and Morgan in hand, she charged forward, through the line of collectors that remained before her.

[Kel Riever]

A shriek went up from one of the monstrous creatures, and it reared up with its pincers.  Several of the Collector troopers began to react, and when they did, it was fast.  Those who could, and who had avoided the glare of the flash, took to the air and spread out. 

 

Morgan had heard Stone’s warning in time to raise his arm in front of his eyes, but enough light from the flash grenade had gotten in to partially obscure his vision.  He activated his tech armor and leveled his rifle while following Captain Stone forward.

 

Even as his charging steps brought him closer to the Collector ship, Morgan wondered what part of sending three people to take a frigate made sense...

[Redbelle]

......It made perfect sense, in a roundabout sort of way, Jess knew. Ships had guns.They intended to win the fight now escalating around them in the bay. That meant the Collectors would have to make a choice. Retreat and lose everything. Or retreat and burn all evidence they were ever there. Jess knew the moment they talked about getting into a scrap that the one's with the most to lose would have no issue with carrying out a scorched earth policy on the station. Ships were weapons. And in this battle, the collector's had the biggest gun of them all.

 

Morgan was running behind her as Anika brought up the rear. Her own helmet having saved her from the flash. The loadlifter's, centred on her Omni-tool, provided the cover they needed as they barreled through the collector lines. Some dove out the way while other's seemed to sprout wings from their backs and flew up and away. Something ahead of them splatted on the lead lifter and then they ran over something slick on the bay floor.

 

Then they were past and Jess hit the second command on her tool. The lead and two forerunnering lifter's parted and fell back providing more cover on their rear as Jess pulled Bernard from his hard point. The hatch for the ship was ahead and Jess saw something move at the end of the docking corridor. She raised her gun and fired and the figure fell away as Jess pulled back the slide of Bernard, ejecting the slagged thermal clip while reaching for another.

 

This was the life.

[Terca]

As the Collectors split up and began to fly things got a bit tense on the ground and on the tiers. Large shipping containers provided cover for people on the ground but as the mark was not easily predicted aside form the gunshot some people found themselves awkwardly split up and forced to take on a Collector themselves. With the initial slowing-down of the Collectors the numbers were slanted in the favor of the insectioids... Until they took to the air.

 

It turned into a Skeet shoot when it became apparent that the Collectors, while having vertical abilities, were not altogether graceful in the air. They needed to get above the line of the debris first, then use their wings for the lateral leaps. This two-step process did not take a long time to be determined and soon enough the Collectors were being pushed from the sky with continued suppressive bursts.

 

From high above Deidrus was trying to deal the largest amount of damage that he could for the limited thermal capacity of the sniper rifle. When the round came into contact with the skulls of the unfortunate Collectors the effect was massive and instant but the large weight of the weapon made re-targeting awkward from his perspective. For now, however, the idea was to keep the Collectors pinned and barring that, deal as much damage as possible. A couple of Collectors fell to the fire before they started to catch onto where the suppression was coming from. Fortunately they were forced among the derbris of the docks making it impossible for them to fire on one another.

[Redbelle]

Anika kept pace, skipping backwards along with the other's suppressing the Collector's that tried to fly over the lifters. She saw she needn't bother. The other's in the bay were tearing them up. The collector's effectively caught between two parties. Granted, she, Jess and Morgan weren't attacking, but the seconds the Collector's had spent figuring that out was costing them. With their attention split the fire power facing their own fire teams was significantly reduced allowing their own side to rip apart their number's.

 

Turning, she doubled the pace to draw upto Jess just as she fired into the docking tunnel. Anika immediately brought her own rifle up and scanned ahead but saw nothing as Jess slapped a fresh thermal clip into her Executioner as Morgan kept up with them

 

Together they plunged down the tunnel and into the bowels of the collector ship.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Naleena threw a dark channel attack at the praetorian in the rear. She knew that thing would be trouble and wanted to get it's shields going down. She and Aria then leaped from cover back to back and began unloading with their claymores on the Collectors. Periodically Aria would biotic lash a group that Naleena had prepared with a warp. 

 

The two ducked behind cover of the next row of crates to reload. Naleena refreshed her dark channel on the Praetorian. It had begun to spread to others. She smiled at Aria. Aria hit it with a Reave. Collectors had taken notice of them. Naleena switched to her dual Carnifexes.

 

"What are you doing?" Aria asked.

 

"Faster rate of fire, and more manueverable," Naleena said, "Do you see that Collector over there? With the energy weapon?"

 

"Yes."

 

"I want it. Cover me." Naleena said, and she cloaked. (Renegade +5)

 

"******!" Aria fired and put up her barrier now that the Collectors focused on her. "Androkan, I can use some suppressing fire in my direction."

 

Naleena ran across the floor behind the assassin, grabbed it and snapped it's neck. She took the particle beam weapon, and rolled over to the other side of the container. Aria started getting swarmed, and Naleena shot three Collectors with her pistols and rolled across the floor back to Aria. One of the Collectors hit Naleena in her thigh just as she made it back to Aria.

 

"****!"

 

"Serves you right for leaving me!"

 

"I got it," Naleena said.

 

The praetorian was taking notice and moving in their direction. 

 

"Let's take that b*tch down." Aria said. "Flares on my mark. 3..., 2..., 1.... Now!" The dual biotic flares detonated on the praetorian. It was severely weakened. "Now finish it off. Krath, use the grenade launcher on that praetorian! Now!"

 

Krath fired and scored a direct hit, and nearly had it down. Naleena aimed the Collector particle beam weapon at the praetorian and fired. The creature shook and collapsed. 

 

Naleena shot some Medi-gel into her wound to stop the bleeding. It hurt like hell, but she couldn't let it stop her. No more speed maneuvers, but they scored a heavy weapon.

[Kel Riever]

Morgan’s vision began returning and the rush of adrenaline began to flow through him.  Outside, he saw Collectors starting to deploy strange, amber energy fields, with a hexagonal pattern traced across their surface.  Others began to fire, sending out steady streams of energy at the turians. 

 

The run inside the ship was brief, but frenetic.  Morgan covered Stone and Anika’s rear.  Once they entered the dim interior of the ship, Morgan used the brightness enhancer on the rudimentary Blue Suns helmet.  The Collector ship seemed mostly a brownish, organic sprawl, with odd tunnels, pillars, chitinous floor plates and low walls.  As his eyes adjusted, and the enhancer cut back, he noticed orange-yellow light emanated from large, oval shaped objects or down from long, curving corridors to provide ample illumination.  The occasional pile of debris littered the place, but despite these, there was an alien logic to the layout; it felt like it was meant to lure them somewhere.

 

Leveling his Kovalyov assault rifle, Morgan swept side to side and low.  Anika covered high while Stone kept moving forward.  “There have to be more,” Morgan cautioned.

[Redbelle]

Jess was looking at the walls. "Gotta assume they left people aboard to manage the ship". She agreed. "We need to find the nerve centre. Or better yet, the power core. Kill either and the ships dead".

 

Running a hand over the walls she felt the surface textures. "Rock and...... wax"? She said, surprised. "It's like a bee colony. They fnd a home then use waxy seals to adapt it to their needs is my guess". She activated her Omni-tool's light and shone it into the waxy layer, then brought out a knife that the blue suns merc had strapped to the forearm and started sawing into the surprisingly hard surface.

 

Ignoring the looks from Morgan and Anika she cut through and put the blade aside. Reaching in, she pulled out a long fibrous cable that oozed a sticky substance that dripped onto the floor as she scanned it with her tool.

 

"Power". Jess crowed in triumph. "We follow these, we might find the power plant...... or a C&C centre. Something's gotta draw this juice. This is just a small feed though. It must come out of a junction. Find that and we find the cables that go to the main plant".

 

"Can we go"? Anika asked.

 

Jess looked up and down the corridor and pointed. "That way".

 

"Is that a guess"?

 

"Yes". Jess said as she started walking, her weapon up. "Like I said..... It's difficult to navigate a ship like this when you don't know the first thing about the people that built it...... Call it an educated guess but if the Collies obey standard ship design the bridge'll be at the front and the power at the back where the engine's are. We want the heart. That's the power plant. Kill that and the C&C, or brain, is usless. So back we go". She shrugged. "I don't have to say that if we start hitting alot of resistance we'll be closing in on something they don't want us near. That means we're on the right track".

 

As if on cue a collector spun around a corner ahead and fired. Jess and Morgan dove to the ground as weapon's fire stiched the hard waxy floor. Anika meanwhile took aim and hammered the Collector with weapon's fire. Morgan;s rifle joined it and when Jess leveled her pistol and pulled the trigger a hole opened up where it's chest used to be and it toppled to the ground. Jess slapped a fresh clip home. "Huh.... I guess we go that way". She said, gesturing where the collector had come from".