Mass Effect: Corporate Warfare RP Thread

Bridge of the Normandy-Class PMC Frigate Loki, Tasale System, bound towards Illium.

Loki quietly drifted her way through the Tasale system, en route to Illium. She was synchronised in time to Cipritine, Palaven's capital to accommodate the mostly turian crew of the vessel, and right now, it matched night-time - about four hours longer than the standard Earth day many humans would be used to. The lights on the ship were dimmed and the ship was somewhat emptier than it would seem in the 'daytime'. Loki was at peace for the time being.

Lyran Oraka was her name, commander of Lancer Solutions' elite Harrier squad, and not a position she had earned lightly, having served her course with the turian military, as a Havoc squad commander. Now she'd left them and joined Lancer, mostly for the money, she found herself in one of the most esteemed positions in the company in half of the time she had expected. She stood aboard Loki's bridge alongside the ship's Captain, one Richard Key. The human spoke first.

"She's a beautiful ship. It's a shame we haven't had a chance to see if those stealth systems are as much good as the Alliance specification."

"With all due respect, Captain, I'm more concerned about our current objective. What is our ETA to Illium?" Lyren was not one to beat around the bush, she had something to do and a team to brief.

"When I asked Lucas, we were approximately one hour from docking at Nos Astra spaceport, about two minutes ago. You should probably brief your team."

Lyren gave a small nod. "That was my plan, Captain." She gave her captain a salute and turned to leave. On her way, she activated her omni-tool, making an announcement amongst all of the Harrier members. "Harriers, get to the armory and grab your gear. We're briefing in five minutes."

She had heard a lot about the new Harrier Squad, and she felt no small degree of pride to be leading them. She'd already learnt their dossiers to heart and although they were all great operatives on their own merit, they seemed... dysfunctional. She doubted they would work in a cohesive unit. That's why she had requested a simpler run for the first time out, to test whether this squad would really cut it.

She waited in the armory for Harrier to assemble, going over the plan one last time in her mind as she did.

"Hmm?"

Venalia looked up from he sword as the announcement went out, then back down and continued her work.

The blade had to be perfect.

Running her omni-tool over it, she waited momentarily as it analysed the results of her handiwork.

Green. The blade was good to go.

Collapsing it like a telescope (a very lethal telescope), she flipped it in her hand and affixed it to the magnetized back of her armor, where some might put a shotgun.

"Alright..." she stated, standing and pulling her rifles from their rack and placing them on either side of her back.

She checked over her shoulder, giving a photo of her father in his environment suit one last glance. "Keelah se'lai..." she whispered emphatically, before heading out.

Five minutes was enough time to do a lot of things. It was enough time to read a news article. It was enough time to...

Well. Zann was never one for thinking up meaningless hypothetical scenarios. He liked to consider himself a man of action. And right now, the name of the game was procrastination. He still had five minutes. Time to look over his gun, his armor, his knife...

For now, he went over to the mirror and started practicing his acting.

"Hello. I am friendly innocent civilian. Please turn around so I can stick knife in back."

He chuckled. Ninety percent of being a good operative was in being a convincing actor. But that didn't mean he had to get rid of his sense of humor.

Ah, well. Now he was just putting things off. He grabbed his stuff and headed down towards the Armory.

Bogex was at the workbench, tinkering with a capacitor array on his armor, and talking out loud to himself. "Brown, Black, Red, - GRAH DAMN!" the electric charge arced into his finger and sent a shock, and the krogan instinctively kicking a the nearby support beam in anger. He sometimes wished he knew how to speak English like his circuits instructor, because memorizing the color code was so much easier for the humans in the class than it was for Bo, whose auto-translator meant the mnemonic that everyone else used to memorize it was reduced to gibberish in his language about cheap human intoxicants that didn't help with the colors. He tried again. "Black, Brown, Red-"

He lost his train of thought as the announcement came over the loudspeaker. Deciding that it would be a nice distraction from his simple maintenance check, he forgot all about the colors as he stood up and headed out of the room. A krogan was always ready for battle, so he didn't have to waste much time collecting his things.

Ignoring the awkward clanging sound he made as he stepped into the armory, he saw that the two quarians had already arrived.

"Hello," he said very quickly to them, lifting his right hand up to shoulder height and then brought it back down - his bumbling version of the 'wave' that he had picked up from the batarians. Or the turians? Could have been humans, it had been a while.

"...which is why you always make sure of your target." Unlike the other trainees she saw Hinomoto Kei paid careful attention to the drill instructor, knowing this was important. "Now that you know why the Turians made us pay in the First..." Lieutenant Gordon paused as he received a message on his omni tool. "Hinomoto. You have a voice com marked priority." Kei stood to attention upon being called. "Something about your parents."

"Sir?" she asked. Gordon shrugged apologetically.

"That's all I have." He indicated the door that led outside the lecture theater. "There's a terminal you can take it on just outside. I expect you back here in five."

"Yes sir." As she left she noticed the look on his face when he began quizzing the rest of her squad about the First Contact War. Everyone knew Kei was adopted and though he hid it she thought Gordon looked...concerned wasn't the right word. Apprehensive about what this might be about? She wasn't able to tell. Stepping outside she focused her gaze on the terminal, wondering herself what this was about. Kei keyed in the reply confirmation and before she could ask what this was about a voice came through.

"Hinomoto Kei?" The voice sounded synthasized, she couldn't even tell if it was male or female.

"You got my name right," she said, playing along. Even she called herself Kei Hinomoto rather than the other way around, having grown used to it. "So that's bought you thirty seconds."

"I know about what happened to your real mother and father," she was told. "About the circumstances behind you being brought up in Berkinstein."

"Who is this?" Kei demanded, growing angry, but also feeling the need to know what this was all about.

"What's important is that you know the truth about what happened on Illium, and the grudge that left you orphaned."

"How the hell do you know all this?" For a moment Kei thought maybe her temper had caused the caller to disconnect, then the strange synthetic voice returned.

"You only gave me thirty seconds," the caller replied. "It would take hours to explain it all." Kei was about to order the details be sent to her Codex when it said, "I will contact you again."

As a mechanic Kei knew a thing or two about shuttles. She also knew a thing or two about Lancer Solutions and the elite Harrier Squads. So when she noticed them making a move that was something she thought was worth pursuing. She knew a shuttle would not have the range to follow them, but it was entirely possible to track from the Mass Effect gate they used where they were going.

"Illium?" She knew the place, and she didn't like it too much. On the one hand Kei knew she wasn't the most level headed of people, though she thought she had improved considerably. On the other hand Kei had wondered about what was so special about the famed squad, every time she tried to look into it she came up against a dead end.

You've hacked yourself this far already, her mind told her. Why push your luck further? The question was what was the alternative? Go back to the Alliance? Omega?

"No thank you very much." The Harrier squad might not like it much but this was her opportunity to see them in action. And if it came to that she was still technically Alliance, even if she hadn't returned since the business she'd done back on Illium. Their destination was what decided it for her. If they got pissed she had Alliance credentials, and it would give her the chance to resolve unfinished business. Lucky for her there was a frigate she sweet talked into taking her along, with any luck they would reach their destination right behind the Harriers.

The announcement on the loudspeaker roused Cross from his sleep.

"Stupid, good-for-nothing turians and their stupid 28 hour days," he grumbled to himself. He quickly scarfed down a breakfast bar (blueberry again), and started to suit up.

When his armor and weapons were in place, he checked the clock.

Two minutes elapsed. He chuckled. Back in the Marines, he'd have gotten chewed out for going thirty seconds over the optimal time, and then he'd make a rude comment about how he couldn't concentrate over the noisy bastard yelling the entire time, and then he'd get a demerit, and then the guy would call him by his first name. Then he'd scream obscenities back and ordered to PT until he'd puked up at least four square meals.

Cross frowned at the memory. He tried to shift his thoughts over to something less painful. He pulled out if his belt a folded picture, on it was an older human male holding hands with an asari. He turned it over, written on the back were the words make us proud in bold black ink. He'd make them proud all right. He'd return home loaded with money and swag, and show them he wasn't a failure, that he wasn't a mistake.

Then his cybernetic eye fell out.

Looks like he was going to be later after all.

Matthias looked up from his work at the sound of the announcement. 5 minutes...that was plenty of time to get his pistol put back together. So far he hadn't had much progress on integrating the amplifier into the pistol. There needed to be good amount of calibration between the circuits in the his armor, omni-tool, and the pistol, and getting it just right was a tricky project. Still, now was not the best time to work on that, seeing as he'd likely need it in working condition fairly soon.

His armor was in working condition, that was not an issue. Having no real adjustments to make to it at the time, he'd just kept it in as close to perfect condition as he could, replacing a few parts that were getting stressed, but nothing major. Although he might give re-calibrating the jets another shot sometime after this...they still could be aligned more. But this was not the time.

He finished putting his pistol back together, made sure it worked (a small shield-producing device sufficed as a target), and stretched as he headed down toward the armory. It'd feel good to be back in the field again, and to meet the rest of the team. He'd chatted with a few in passing, but hadn't really had a chance to get to know any of them well. Hopefully this would go smoothly....oh, what was he kidding? This was going to be very, very interesting.

Illium...

"You fucking kiding—whatever." Kevin Keillor dragged himself up and off his workbench, a muscular and masculine Asari resplendent in janky-ass used leather jackets, loose chest bindings, and half-on pants. He quickly Biotic'd his pants together, biotic'd his bandages on, and biotic'd his jacket shut. Then, he picked up his his hand cannon and headed to the armory for his shotgun.

Glue hummed quietly to himself as he went through the motions of his work-out, the krogan once again feeling that he needed to be as fit and ready for the moment they were called out. He closed his eyes as he finished, visualizing the faces of every mark and body he had left behind him, a reminder of where he had been and that each and everyone of them could have, and would be at some point, him if he was not at his peak.

The moment he heard the message over the intercom, he was up out of the crouch and out the door, his hand grabbing and slotting his rifle as he walked past. It was a short walk to the armory, having thankfully gotten a room rather close by. He nodded as he entered the room, greeting the assemble team quickly before leaning against a post, and waiting.

The turian looked up from the table of weapons and the tac terminal. Her own weapons lay on the table in front of her, by far being the most heavily armed, bringing a M-76 Revenant, M-5 Phalanx and M-11 Wraith, as well as her old Havoc armor, complete with jets.

Lyren didn't say anything, instead gesturing with her hand as she counted off each of the new team. She still had a hard time getting it through her head though. An odd bunch didn't even start to describe her team - she had to contend with male asari, a midget krogan, a quarian ninja, a human with a suit of armor that he could be strictly speaking be called the pilot of and a krogan ninja.

"Good. You're all here. Nice to see that you haven't got scared and run off before even your first assignment." She quickly rapped a few keys on the terminal next to the armory desk - which brought up a holographic display of the Azure hotel, albeit one that was less explicit about what most of the rooms contained. She had made up a preliminary plan, and began to describe it, manipulating the hotel holo as she needed. "Right, for those of you who haven't ever been here, this is Azure. Mission's to take out a human Eclipse leader, a Carla Maine - she's up in the penthouse to stay and by the time we get there, her and her mercs should be the only guys there. If we're really lucky, she'll evacuate with the rest of the civilians and we can quietly take her out before this becomes a problem, but I don't think that's going to happen."

Lyren zoomed in on the top few floors of the hotel - highlighting two very heavy doors on the elevators that reached the top floor. "Apparently there was some other mercenary company that had a hand in building this place and the penthouse can turn into a fortress at a moment's notice. If we try and go straight for it -" The holographic doors slammed over the elevator entrances "-we'll just get locked out. We can't snipe her out from outside either, the windows are equipped with starship-grade kinetic barriers. Of course, there's a security room - "

The hologram zoomed to a room about midway up the hotel. It had a similar heavy door to the penthouse " - which is also heavily guarded, but the builders dropped the ball here and it's given us an opening to get in. There's no cameras on the outside, so Fireteam Shadow - that's Breneal, Dinna and... Bogex - you're going to need to download a program from this terminal. It'll let you record a voice and then replicate it over your own so you can get access to the security room and break the lockdown. You don't get spotted, and you replicate one of their voices so they let you in. Once you've done that, then Fireteam Flare - me, Keillor, Cross, Caldon and Hulud - are going to walk in the front door and start shooting Eclipse. During this diversion, Shadow needs to make their way up to the penthouse to deal with the target. Deridise and Kei, you're coming in with Flare, we need some engineers to get the elevators moving - they're on a second security circuit, like a redundant backup to keep guys like us out, but once they're going, take the elevators up and link with Shadow."

"Last thing about this mission, we've got a bit of an extra parameter. When I spoke to the client, she said - and I quote - 'I want every azurelicking Eclipse varrenfucker in that building dead.' Then she handed us some extra credits for that to happen. So collateral - only against Eclipse personell - is sanctioned for this mission only."

"Shoot anything yellow, eh? This is my kind of mission!"

Cross's face became more thoughtful, "Who's the client anyway?"

"Someone wanting to do the galaxy a service," Kei thought was a good answer. As far as Eclipse went that was understandable. She knew they went by the old 'blood in, blood out' idea where new members killed for their uniform, from her experience they were worse than the Blue Suns. Lyren's contract couldn't be blamed for wanting every one of them dead, even though it was something the Alliance probably wouldn't have done.

Emphasis on probably, Kei knew. Well, she had been there. She knew what it was like to want someone dead, and felt the need to speak for them all.

"That we can do ma'am." She studied the elevators the Turian had said to work on, on site they will be easy, and provided opportunity for further mischief. Lock down one with the Eclipse in it, they'll be neutralized, pick them up later. Hack into their comms, maybe pretend to be one of them, feed them disinformation. It would all be a matter of time, effort and skill. Things she had a feeling would be lacking once they were on the ground, well certainly not the effort part, Kei knew if she couldn't figure out the Azure hotel's computer system she'd keep at it until she did.

Matthias studied the floor plan, thinking ahead. For him at least, it was a smash-and-kill job. Bust down the front door, kill anything that shoots at them, leave nothing behind. Nice and simple, just like he enjoyed things. Still, no reason to be reckless.

"Do we know exactly what Eclipse troops are stationed there? The typical grunts are a given, but what about Sisterhood members, those supposed ex-STG operatives, or people like them?"

Knowledge was power, as the saying went.

Hulud grunted, rubbing his head as the parameters for the mission were set. Go in, kill things long enough to get the other team, and the engineers, to where they need to be. The only thing that irked him was the 'Eclipse Only Collateral'...how many non-mercenary personnel would be in the hotel by the time they got there.

It wasn't bothering him enough to say something, the minute krogan having had to be...'delicate' before, though never to the point of avoiding collateral...He was told to atleast leave some of the area...not turned into rubble

Cross looked over at Kei, "I want to know, in case this mission goes south. This thing goes pear shaped, the client is going to throw us under the bus. If they try and fuck us over, I want to be ready to counter-fuck them."

Don't spare your comments on my account, Kei thought, tell us how you really feel. Cross wasn't using language Kei hadn't before, but his words still came as quite a shock. The thing was, he had a point. She didn't give the client another thought, they're Lancer Solutions, who would be dumb enough to try and double cross them? Though, Saren didn't just give up when Shepard came after him. From how strongly Cross seem to feel about it he had trust issues. If they screw us over, Kei didn't say, we will find them. Instead she nodded in agreement, keeping her focus on Lyren, thinking showing discipline around the Turian commander was the best call.

Venalia nodded. "Point us at them, give us a push."

She left out her father's and stay the hell out of our way, figuring it might not make the best impression.

"But Shadow," she mentioned, addressing the members of her fireteam, "We're all tech, remember. So we've got no biotic support if we run into Eclipse vanguards. If we need to fight one, we'll just have to slit their throat before they know we're there."

edited 3rd Apr '13 6:48:12 AM by Dragon573

Zann chuckled at that. Now, there was something he knew how to do.

"I don't think we're going to have any problems there," he said. "We could always just find another way around them. Go through a window, maybe an airvent somewhere, something like that. Let Flare deal with them."

"I... I... I don't think I can fit in an air vent," Bo said with a frown. "If we have to deal with a a biotic, I'll just charge 'em and you can stick that knife of yours in their back when they're not looking."

"Who needs a knife?" Venalia asked, tilting her head to the side quizically and bringing her sword out into plain view.

"Who needs a sword?" replied Zann as he unsheathed his knife. "They're not exactly covert. Too flashy for my tastes. I mean, if you want to show off to the Eclipse mercs while we're busy slaughtering 'em, then go ahead. I'll just be busy slitting throats in the meantime."

"You quarians and your pointy metal sticks," Bo said. "Knives are good for staying quiet, but you'll never know what it's like caving in a batarian's skull with your bare hands if you rely on them too much. Though, since we're looking at an Eclipse team, I guess you'll have to settle for a salarian."

"Put that butter-knife away. Better yet, leave it here and get a real weapon. You're more likely to rupture your own suit with it than make a meaningful contribution to combat." Venalia waved her free hand dismissively.

edited 3rd Apr '13 6:31:31 PM by Dragon573

Matthias sighed at the team already bickering. Hopefully they'd be able to put this aside for the mission...

"Ladies, we have plenty of time to measure them later. For now, can we focus on the task at hand?"

"But we are discussing the task at hand. We're discussing how knives are much more suitable for a stealth mission than swords."