Day 13: ...And Into the Fire

Day 13

    

     Omega: home to the galaxy’s most infamous criminals and mercenaries… and Lúthien. Once we arrived in the Sahrabarik System, we quickly became aware through some quick scanning of the presence of several Ascension-class dreadnaughts in deep orbit around the star, which is never a good sign. Even worse, the scans revealed several Sovereign-class Reapers in the asteroid belt. I can’t imagine what would bring them to Omega, but I’m guessing that the Asari dreadnaughts probably have something to do with it.

     As we approached Omega, we were contacted and told about the state of affairs on Omega. The station had been hit with a fatal plague affecting all species currently living on Omega except for Asari, and a group of Asari commandos had invaded and taken over and stopped all mining on the asteroid. This just keep going from bad to worse don’t they? There has to be something fundamentally wrong with this galaxy… We suited up, docked and were quickly escorted to Afterlife, Aria’s headquarters.

     Once there, Aria debriefed us herself on the situation and what she needed us to do. She asked for our help instead of calling in actual doctors and researchers (as I’m sure she could have en force being the ‘Queen of Omega’ and all) was due to the fact that the Asari team that had invaded the asteroid and lodged their ship deep into the rock and was rigged to explode at any moment Asari High Command saw fit. So she had us brought in to use the medical ‘expertise’ of Lt. Cornelius Joe. Of all the people in the galaxy, she could think of only Joe to save her rock! Lúthien must not be doing a very good job of reporting the state of this crew to Aria, or their both insane which I guess you would have to be to have run Omega for centuries. But, she does have a good point, that given his knowledge he should be able to use all the equipment here to synthesize a cure… I hope. Aria also told us the hidden agenda of the Asari in creating the plagues: they created each plague as they came in contact with a new species to ascertain Asari dominance in the galaxy. She also explained a bit of what happened to the Shepard: apparently he is in control of the Reapers, by somehow becoming their ‘conscience,’ through the use of the Crucible. She explained that the Asari were a little… pissed off, that the Shepard had effectively become the most powerful force in the galaxy and that he was human, not Asari and that they are planning on somehow replacing him.

How they thought this up is beyond me. I guess the Reapers have become too meddlesome for their politics. I don’t know. It seems pretty dim witted to me. I mean, he Reapers have been destroying galactic life for eons, they almost succeeded a few years ago, what makes them think that they can just waltz in and rebuild the crucible and reprogram the Reapers to do their bidding. This is just going to cause another Reaper war in which we will probably lose. What a stupid idea.

Anyway, Aria wanted us to route the Asari commandos in charge of stopping the mining operations, and Joe to begin curing the various plagues on Omega. Aliya was ordered to stay behind with the LT to help him stay focused. The rest of us went to a fortress the KQO found in the station’s systems.

Once there we rebooted the turrets and set everything up to funnel the commandos in to our line of fire. We signalled KQO to start bringing the 200+ commandos in waves toward the fortress while hiding the existence of the turrets. It quickly turned into a blood bath, as the Asari came through the corridor into the line of fire of our rocket-firing turrets.

KQO then proposed a plan to cause the Asari to retreat and clear off of the station. While poking around the enemy systems she was able to find the command codes, and with our help, she composed an order from ‘high command’ to evacuate the station the Reapers were coming. Thankfully they fell for it, and they eventually all cleared off the station. And were subsequently blown out of the sky judging by the explosion we heard a while after they left, poor bastards.

While we were engaged with the commandos Joe was able to synthesize a cure for all the races, with some motivation and help from Aliya, but the LT being who he is decided to run the cure out himself while screaming at Aliya, which resulted in him getting shot in the leg by some commando who had missed their ship spying on Joe’s progress. Aliya made quick work of the Asari while Joe went sprinting away blood just gushing away to distribute the cure. I took a sample of the Turian cure to send to the Hierarchy with a little explanation of what it is and why it was necessary; just in case.

Aria then thanked us for saving her station and we all went for some well-deserved rest and relaxation while Lúthien had a little chat with her mother.

Day 12: Out of the Frying Pan...

Day 12

     That was unexpected. Our plans actually worked out favourably. We assigned a squad of marines along with the LT to a shuttle to “help” our doppelgängers when they arrived at the Phoenix, as well as set up a defensive perimeter of turrets from the ship, while the rest of us hid in the cargo bay to lure in and take out the enemy quad.

     Our doppelgangers are good, but not quite up to snuff. Their Commander detected the turrets and was able to organize his team to avoid the brunt of the damage that would have been inflicted, but what they clearly didn’t expect was a full on assault by a skycar, and their own skycar nonetheless! Apparently the LT got it into his tiny brain to steal their skycar and fly it straight into the enemy squad as they were entering the cargo bay, which, of course, triggered all the turrets to fire at the enemy signature and made quick work of the non-military-grade skycar. Luckily the LT was able to jump out without injury and send a fiery cascade of metal into the enemy squad and the cargo bay where the rest of us were waiting for the command to open fire. I have no idea how the LT comes up with these things, or how he justifies them as the right course of action. Thankfully he provided enough of a shock factor to allow us to open fire and begin the neutralizing of our infamous counterparts.

     The enemies were quickly, if not cleanly, neutralized: Aliya took out the enemy Quarian with a quick shot to the hip, the Krogan was knocked down and saved by both Aliya and Nienna, the latter decided to take on the man impersonating the LT, with a sword. I didn’t know she even had a sword, let alone able to use one, which in hindsight she couldn’t really use it and Lúthien had to step in and destroy three of the enemies with her biotics; it was rather impressive. The fight itself was rather unimpressive. You would think the Council would be able to find some soldiers of at least equal if not superior fighting ability to have us replaced. I mean, I am Major Corinthus, the Saviour of Aephus, and Hero of Jaeto. I’m a damned good soldier and all they could find to impersonate me was a nobody from the Turian military? I should be offended.

     Anyway, after the fight we brought the survivors in for questioning. Lúthien, Aliya and myself interrogated the “Quarian” imposter. It turns out she wasn’t even a Quarian! Aliya was livid. We had to tell her to stay in the corner behind me during the interrogation to avoid any… sudden bouts of neural shock. Lúthien pulled out all the edge her beauty and experience gave her to have the human, how do the humans say it, eating out of the palm of her hand? She was incredibly forthcoming (with mostly useless information) and would have done anything the Asari asked of her. All we could really get from her was that the squad was put together in secret by some highly classified individuals, only the commander knew whom, to destroy any and all efforts that the Alliance had in place to do exactly what we were doing: finding what was up with all the recent Reaper activity.

     When we arrived at the CIC, Nienna and the Commander were discussing the need to leave Eden Prime immediately, and Lúthien received a message that we were needed urgently in Omega. 

Day 10: 101 Ways to Cook Salarian

Day 10

    

     The Quarian knows how to take a person down I’ll give her that. Damn, I don’t think I ever want to be on the receiving end of a neural shock. She isn’t the brightest though when it comes to handling bodies. When by the time I reached her and the Asari they were both tugging on the unconscious Salarian trying to bring him back to the bar; Lúthien pulling on his horns, and the Quarian pulling on an obviously broken arm (you could see the arm stretching). So I quickly took over and heaved the Salarian onto my back and carried him back to the rest of the squad.

     As we returned to the ship, an official-looking skycar pulls up and drops the Commander off, with K8 following quickly behind. Once aboard, we parted to interrogate our prisoners: the Quarian, Krogan, and the LT to interrogate the doctor we apprehended last week, Lúthien and I to interrogate the Salarian with the broken arms. Lúthien and I decided to play the whole “good cop/bad cop” routine. I walk in with some painkillers and water, and explain to him the only way to get these was to answer my questions or he would have to meet the other not-so-nice interrogator, and at this point we could hear a rather distressed and desperate scream from the other interrogation room, which was rather handy. He quickly conceded in giving me all the information that he could. Lúthien then comes in, saunters over to him, places her hands lightly on his shoulders and repeats the questions, and lightly brushing the fractures in his arm to assure the veracity of his information. Once we concluded that we couldn’t get any more info out of him I pushed the pill and water closer to him and we left the room. As the door shut we heard a thud and a yelp of pain, I sent in a serviceman in to help the poor bastard out.

     In the hallway we met up with the rest of the crew as the Quarian raced by us crying. I guess the other interview didn’t go so well, looking at the Krogan I think I saw a piece of skin in between his teeth, no wonder the Quarian ran off, she wouldn’t be able to stomach a Krogan feeding, few people in this galaxy can! It turns out that the doctor has a secret data cache in his apartment that needs to be taken care of, as well as our doppelgangers. The Commander decided to inform President Tali’Zorah of our situation and to ask for help in either of our plights.

     Before leaving the planet, we had out ship upgraded and ID changed to the Phoenix, a fitting symbol if you ask me. Our stay on Rannoch has been anything but boring, it’ll be interesting to see what the future will bring.

 

Day 6: Know your limit, stay within it.

Day 6

    

     Well this is just great! All our carefully laid plans gone to waste all because of a stupid Krogan and the Commander’s inability to avoid a firefight! Doesn’t he know that there is a time and place for fighting and that sometimes you need to just play it cool and complete a mission without violence? If he had just waited for us to get there and just let us in all of this would have been avoided! But, I can’t actually say any of that to, or about my Commanding officer, I’ve worked too hard to be court-marshalled, especially by the Alliance.

So let me explain a bit further. While we were out, after relaying our message and getting the holos up they decided to open the cargo bay while we were still 5 minutes out! Who in their right mind would open a door, on Sur’Kesh with a paranoid Krogan and a bunch of Salarians who were ordered to pick up the cargo, so naturally as they go to board the ship and collect the cargo the Krogan goes ballistic a drops one of them right then and there! Which of course leads to an all out firefight on the cargo bay door as they rush to close it and trap the Salarians in. The LT, for all his skills and agility, decides it’s a good idea to get K8 to toss him into the fray! That man would build a house in an Invictus jungle if anyone would.  One minute you think he’s great, then the next you wonder how he survived zero-G training. Anyway, the battle raged on, with the obvious outcome of our victory. I guess the repercussions won’t be disastrous; only three Salarian mercs dead, and we got the doctor out hopefully unnoticed.

      The Asari and I pulled into the cargo bay full of carnage and unconscious Salarians. Nienna quickly, before adding the contents of her stomach to the carnage, ran to change into something more decent. Meanwhile, K8, obviously unused to skycars opened the trunk (which lies beneath the car) causing the good doctor to slam onto the blood-slick floor. With him yelling and generally fussing about his situation K8 gave him an ultimatum: shut up and answer our questions, or get shoved back into the trunk. He quickly shut up and was not very forthcoming with his answers. Braxis, our ever-so-polite Krogan brute, made some off-hand comment about the taste and quality of Salarian livers which very quickly rendered Dr. Re’lis unconscious. We really need to keep him away from our prisoners… We did learn, however, that most of his research was on his ship, and Aliya, in all her tech wisdom, stripped his omnitool and located this ship. And that is our next destination.

P.s- it isn’t wise to gamble against Aria T’Loak’s daughter, especially for a skycar. Let’s just say it wasn’t my best game of Skyllian Five…

Day 4: Batarian Slavers

Day 4

We arrived in the Pranas system after many hours of training. I hadn’t realized the extent of skills this team had. This is good. We might actually have a chance completing this mission. The Asari, although, might complicate things if they keep using stims. I don’t know if I can handle all their giggling and giddiness. It’s unbecoming of soldiers, especially of their rank and prestige. I guess just because they have a thousand-year lifespan doesn’t excuse the younger ones from behaving like, well, young girls.

In any case, getting to the Pranas system was the easy part. The Ocular Surveillance Systems of the Salarians, thankfully, don’t extend much farther than their moon from Sur’Kesh, allowing us to slip into the system undetected. Landing on the planet, however, is going to be the trickier part. A quick scan of the system revealed a few merc ships that we might be able to… expropriate and smuggle ourselves onto the planet. A closer scanning of one revealed a few interesting things: 1. It was a Batarian vessel, and 2. There were sixty Quarian life signatures aboard. Needless to say Aliya was the first, and strangely vehement, to suggest that that was the ship to board. I’ve never seen her so violent, I think it was wise that the Commander shoes to take that ship.

Aboard the ship we split up, the Quarian, Krogan, an Asari and the LT went down to the cargo hold, while the other Asari, the Geth, the Commander and myself went to the cockpit to deal with the Batarians there. Opening the door K8 was blasted back, it’s a good thing it is made of metal or it’d be toast! It then grabbed the unfortunate Batarian and threw him back. Nienna then took one out with a biotic lash, leaving the last two to be easily picked off by the Commander.

The other group had no problems taking down their targets. It appears that the Quarian signatures we picked up are in stasis pods, and they have been in stasis for 177 years! After interrogating one of the Batarians, and learning very little aside from the fact that the Salarian doctor we are after hired them, we opened the Quarian Captain’s pod. It is an understatement to say that he was severely shocked and disoriented. Having never come into contact with the human race and not knowing about the Shepard’s resolution between the Geth and the Quarians I guess can take a while to get used to.

All we have to do now is to smuggle ourselves onto Sur’Kesh. This should be fun.