Bab 13: The Justicar
"Why are we the only ones doing this mission?" Jack asked me as we set foot in the space port Samara had come to in her investigation.
"Money." I told her plain and simple, "By doing this alone we get a much bigger cut of the milestone money and all the loot and salvage, plus it gives Space Momma time to personally oversee the planning for our invasion of the Dantius Towers tonight."
We marched our way over to Detective Anaya, the purple skinned asari in charge of this rapidly deteriorating situation. She figuratively clashed heads with the squat and scummy volus smuggler Pitne Four and looked ready to blow her top.
"And who the hell are you two?" She growled at us in frustration, "Bounty hunters, pirates, rando psychos?"
"Yes." I answered, "Add problem solvers to the list and you got yourself a winning description."
"I've got massive hostile merc presence and a justicar my superiors have ordered me to detain. I need more trouble like I need a new smile carved across my neck."
"You're taking fire from every direction if you stick your head up right now." I told the beleaguered detective, "But we have solutions. I am Chief Gatatog Grunt, and this is my girl, Jack. We are here to recruit the justicar for a mission that her code won't let her ignore. If the mercs between her and us decide to get antsy, they won't be a threat to you anymore either."
The detective palmed her face and shook her head.
"I can't believe I am considering this, but I need help that I am not getting anywhere else." she admitted reluctantly, "Okay, I'll get you approved to go behind the police lines and follow after the justicar. Just get her out of my district as soon as possible."
As Jack and I made our way over to the active murder scene slash insurgent hotbed, she spoke up.
"So this Samara chick has everyone scared and just charged into Eclipse territory alone. Sounds pretty hardcore."
"Justicar's are real hardcore." I agreed with her, "In asari space they are undisputed as judge, jury, and executioner for anyone. They all live by a code that paints everything as either black or white, and they must destroy the black or die trying."
"Why the hell are we picking her up then?" Jack shouted, "The whole damn ship is black as sin."
"Justicar's can suspend their observance of the code to take on missions like ours." I explained, "That is what we are going to ask of her, and if she doesn't like it and gets hostile we'll kill her and scoot before the cops show up."
"This sounds like a shit show." She stated as we crossed the police line.
I activated my armor abilities, sparking up with Foucault current before taking on the orange glow of my holographic armor. My shotgun projected the red image indicating my inferno ammo mutation.
I tapped my backside and said, "On my ass and keep your head on a swivel. I sweep right, you sweep left."
Jack fell in line as we entered the back alleys owned by the local Eclipse mercs. We tagged some salvage for pick up and netted a sweet 3000 credits before forwarding a message about stolen goods to a Mr. Thrax who shot me over an additional 1500 creds with his thanks.
We heard the Eclipse mercs before we saw them as they jogged down the alley with some mechs to go fight the raging justicar that descended on their naughty heads. A quick overload on the mechs and a shockwave attack from Jack put them all on their asses and made them easy pickings for our shotguns.
We crossed another line of police holotape signaling the end of Anaya's crime scene and saw an Eclipse Sister get flung across the room and land hard on her back.
Samara came into view as she used her biotics to float down from an elevated platform like a graceful blue skinned ghost, "I need the name of the ship."
"Go to hell!" The merc shouted before Samara used her heel to snap the woman's neck while commending her to their goddess.
"Damn." I grunted, "She is almost as hot as you babe."
"That was pretty sweet." Jack nodded her head.
"My name is Samara, a servant of the justicar code." the woman stated as she sauntered over with the sway of a seductress, "My quarrel is with these Eclipse Sisters, but I see two well armed people before me. Are we friends or foes?"
God I love her voice.
"I'm Jack," Jack answered, "And this is my guy, Chief Gatatog Grunt. We tracked you down to join us on mission that Grunt says your code won't be able to ignore."
"Is that so?" Samara intoned not an ounce of doubt, "You honor me, but I have an important investigation of my own to conduct here."
"An investigation we will support you on." I told her, "The mission is one with great odds of us not returning from, so we will help you with what you need to ensure you do not have anything outstanding weighing you down when we make the final charge."
"I sense the truth in what you say, and it humbles me. I track an incredibly dangerous fugitive." Samara spoke, "I had cornered her here, but the Eclipse Sister's smuggled her off world. I need the name of the ship she left on before the trail goes cold."
"Then let's get moving." I told her as I used my omni tool to scan a pass card off the Eclipse leader Samara killed.
A little backtracking and a formerly locked door got us into the real hideout, a warehouse and office building they used for their smuggling operations. With Samara on our side we went from too much for the gang to handle to way too much for them to handle, and we fought through the next batch of mercs with contemptuous ease. We entered a room of the main hall and found Elnora, the murderous asari, fake surrendering to us. She sold her spiel till I interrupted and let her know that I know how Eclipse mercs get their colors before blowing her away. We picked up a nice new shotgun and the Biotic Hyper Amp research the mercs had picked up. Potentially crippling stuff for a roughly 20 percent boost to biotic power, but survival is a game of inches.
We went up the stairs and encountered heavy resistance in the form of an entrenched enemy with lots of cover between us. Lots of blue blurred by me as Jack and Samara dueled the enemy biotics and I kept up the temperature with superheated shotgun blasts. In the end we outclassed them in both power and precision and I got to loot the room for another 9000 credits.
Up another floor and through the doorway and found us in the docking bay of this hideout. I launched a potshot incinerate at the hovering gunship which immediately withdrew and the mercs came at us with more biotic warriors and combat mechs. The Eclipse vanguards knew better than to try slamming into me with their biotic charge ability after the first got introduced head to head with Mjolnir and promptly exploded in a shockwave of electrified innards.
Good times.
We picked up some refined platinum and an audio journal where Elnora admits to slaying the Volus merchant in Anaya's investigation.
The gunship came back around briefly in the next docking bay, but a quick application of M-920 Cain ended it rightly.
I do appreciate the bullshit carrying around my BFG saves me from. I'd make these things standard issue for the Gatatogs if I could trust them not to shoot each other and themselves with it. No point fantasizing about that impossibility.
We picked up evidence against the surviving volus merchant, Pitne Four, and 6000 more credits in the next room. After that we got the real treat of encountering one of the smuggler's kidnapped employee's high as a kite on toxic red sand and believing himself to be a biotic god. A quick pimp slap and a mutter, 'puny god.' saw us free of the round distraction and onwards to the leader of this band of cutthroats, the luscious Captain Wasea.
"Everything has gone to hell since we smuggled that filthy creature off world the powerful asari complained loudly to us as she put down her datapad and drink, "Now I have to deal with a justicar and you people."
"You could also surrender and give us what we want!" I told her.
"I'd rather mash your heads into a pulpy mess!" She screamed as she used her biotic power to fling a canister of red sand at us.
I dodged and called dibs as I charged her while drawing my crackling hammer. Wasea tried to fling me away, but the blue field of her power washed ineffectually over my shield and she ate an explosive golf swing to the chest that threw her into a shipping container. I leapt after her and smashed down another exploding swing that she managed to roll away from before getting rocketed off by the blast. We played a demented game of whack a mole until her body couldn't take any more punishment and the asari warrior came face to boot with her fate. I yoinked her M-300 Claymore shotgun for Jack, it was already modified for recoil dampening and ultralight construction, I wouldn't have to spend much to give it the ol' Grunt Special and give my baby a proper boomstick.
Jack wrangled us some more credits while I hacked Wasea's omni-tool for the same. We came away with an extra 55,000 credits for my effort and once finished I saw Samara put down the datapad that contained the information she needed.
"She left two days ago aboard the AML Demeter." She told us. "You have helped me continue my hunt and proven yourselves worthy comrades." She began to glow and kneeled, "Before we go, I must swear myself to you, so that I do not have to choose between your orders and the code."
"By the code I will serve you, Chief Gatatog Grunt." She vowed.
"Your choices are my choices."
"Your morals are my morals."
"Your wishes are my code."
With a blue flare around her body, the oath finished and Samara stood.
"Well isn't that something." Jack mused.
"Remember, if you lead me down a dishonorable path, I will have to kill you at the end of it." Samara told us matter-of-factly.
"Our ship is crewed by some of the roughest and toughest people in the galaxy, and funded by the most blackhearted organization since the batarian hegemony, but the mission is more righteous than any cause you can find." I assured her, "Our enemies have begun a covert war against humanity and it is the follow up act to the attack on the Citadel. If we succeed, we save the galaxy. We fail and doom all our civilizations to the harvest."
"Then I have chosen the right man to follow." the justicar stated.
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
JManM
JManM Illium combat mission 1 is done. Show up Friday to catch the Dantius Towers assult.
Bab 14: The Two Towers
Beta Team was quiet as we waited in the back of the rental truck approaching the Dantius towers. We would arrive on the ground floor of the tower under construction and provide a distraction while Alpha Team would slip past the mercenary and mech defense force searching for Thane Krios. The plan didn't last a minute as we arrived to find Nasanna's mechanized guards gunning down her salarian civilian night workers in a last minute attempt to remove any doubt that the asari business tycoon deserved the street justice Thane intended to dispense on her blue ass.
The worst part was that the woman expected to get away with this massacre. She'd been conditioned by a lack of consequences for her actions for so long that she saw no problem in slaughtering her employees.
Dying at Thane's professional hands was too good for this bitch. She deserved to be thrown to a pack of hungry varren, but a ride on the Grunt Express straight to hell would have to do.
Alpha Team had come out of hiding and we found Shepard doing some emergency field patchwork on an injured salarian. Fortunately there was a poorly defended terminal nearby with access to 4800 credits for me to distract myself with while the salarian described the situation for the teams. Basic rundown, dozens of mercs he'd seen personally and their robo allies. We'd have to get to the second floor of the building to access the service elevator that would get us up to the bridge that spanned the two towers and led to the penthouse from which Nasanna ran her evil empire.
We advanced around the U shaped first floor of the tower and hit stiff opposition, and a team of three would have had a fair bit of trouble handling the constant flanking maneuvers by the mercs as their robo forces advance in suicidal charges, but we were a collection of eleven of the galaxy's greatest warriors and smothered any type of strength the well varied and planned defenders could muster.
The next level fed us the enemies in four ten man teams that we disassembled with great prejudice. I managed to snag another terminal housing 4200 credits and a mint M-97 Viper marksman rifle. The Viper kicked the Mantis's dusty ass when it came to long range engagements due to the prevalence of shielding and barriers preventing single shot kills. With a base 12 shot capacity and a fire rate of 240 RPM the Viper's significantly weaker per shot output outperformed other weapons in its class by the virtues of pure quantity. More shots down range faster is better at both killing enemies and keeping them from rushing you, not that they'd ever be stupid enough to rush me without the guidance of poor programming.
We had another encounter with a pair of salarian workers who Thane had saved from the mercs and the Commander sent Jacob back to escort them to safety. The guy just didn't stack up with the rest of us. He had a lot of experience, and was a well rounded combatant, but he was the weakest biotic on the team, the weakest technician on the team, and his weapons expertise didn't stack up against the gunslingers on the team. He was Miranda's sidekick and his face when Shepard sent him back proved he knew it too.
Not that Miranda ranked very highly on my estimation of our companions. Despite our similar origin stories, I'd rip through Miranda with my arms tied behind my back. Of course I could do the same to everyone on Alpha Team besides the Commander and maybe Jacob, but I don't think Miranda could actually take anyone on Beta Team in a fight except Tali, and the quarian wasn't a trained fighter.
Mordin and Katsumi brought the least firepower to the team, but I'd put my money on them beating Miranda in a fight. Mordin was just too quick in mind and body to not be absolutely dangerous to someone as unarmored as the superhuman Cerberus agent, and Katsumi is damn clutch with her flanks and ambushes.
Samara, Jack, Garrus, and Zaeed were all deadly and damn tough. I'd favor me in a fight against them because no one can stand and bang with me, but I wouldn't be surprised if any of them managed an upset.
The only member of the team that I'd give the edge to over me is Commander Shepard herself. The woman is a freak athlete. Strong and fast like no one's business with lightning reflexes, and that is before you factor in her training as both an infiltrator and soldier. Her stealth skills almost match up to Kasumi Goto, a master thief, and even if she doesn't wreck someone right at the start of the fight she is still a master combatant who can fade in and out of sight every handful of seconds.
Fighting the Commander is my definition of a nightmare.
The opening of the service elevator brought me out of my musing and a krogan Bloodpack bounty hunter charged out with two female Eclipse sentinels. I snatched up one by the ankles and smacked the krogan with her. In response he grabbed the other and we started smashing each other in a demented pillow fight. Surprisingly the team didn't gun him down and when we both stopped laughing and swinging our broken beat sticks he slapped me on the shoulder.
"That was damn fun!" He declared, "Let's go get some fucking tacos!"
I dropped the shattered corpse of the Eclipse sentinel and laughed.
"I am pretty fucking hungry!"
"Babe," Jack interrupted, "money."
"Ah shit." I grumbled, "I gotta kill your boss and find some drell, but then TACOS!"
"Nakmor Draug," the bounty hunter introduced himself, "I'll see you down there after you finish the bitch."
"Chief Gatatog Grunt." I told him while shaking his armored hand.
Draug walked away and Shepard commanded me, Samara, Zaeed, and Tali to come with her in the service elevator while Garrus would keep the leftover team moving up each floor looking for survivors.
"I am pretty sure Draug and Grunt just performed the krogan Rite of Besties." Zaeed smirked as we went up the tower in a steel box.
"It was an incredible and disturbing display of raw strength and lack of regard for sentient life." nodded Samara in some kind of agreement with the grizzled hired gun.
When we hit our stop we saw a distracted merc on a call. The fact that an armored 250 kilo krogan snuck up on him meant he deserved me shoving him through the window and to his descending death.
"There is no way this glass is up to code." I speculated, "Just another crime that lies on Dantius's head."
"I'm sure it is up there with assassinating her sister and murdering her workforce in her books." Tali commented as we moved down the hall and I picked up the datapad containing the Kirosa family genetic records. The next room offered another firefight and after that Shepard picked up another mint Viper rifle and we emerged at the last completed floor of this tower.
The violence kicked off immediately with a flanking force from the left that ended up eating a full clip from my Claymore before I engaged with my bayonet for the quick finish. Next up was a pair of goons standing next to a fuel container that I overloaded to explode, killing them in a fiery blast. Their buddies all died popping out of cover one by one as we advanced. Their leader, an asari Eclipse commando, tried to fall back but proved I ran faster angry than she ran scared. I knocked her down and fired off a pair of shotgun blasts in her back, cutting her in half. I tossed her shotgun to Zaeed who reloaded it then grinned.
"Nice." he chuckled darkly.
What was nice was the 12000 credits I found on a dead mercs PDA.
Up next came the battle of the bridge, a long ranged slog against an entrenched and heavily armed force. Fortunately, we brought three of the team's sharpshooters and slowly but surely we popped heads from one side of the bridge to the other.
On the other side Nasanna tried to flood us with her remaining elite forces and they met a furious exploding electric hammer retort. The disoriented and shaking mercs were almost all ended with that one strike, but another asari commando had put up a strong biotic barrier to save herself. It failed to stop me from sweeping her off her feet then playing whack-a-mole with her till she popped. I tossed her shotgun to the Commander and we blew the door to Dantius's penthouse.
We didn't stop to chat with the scum of the earth business woman and instead pumped her remaining trio of guards with high speed buckshot. Thane dropped from the ceiling during the brief firefight and performed a rather intimate execution on his pro bono target.
"You got this, Space Momma." I nodded to my leader, "I am off to go get some fucking tacos."
I called up Jack on our comms.
"Babe." I greeted, "Tacos."
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA
JManM
JManM
Writing this chapter was fun once my allergies cleared up. Grunt should be having fucking tacos with Draug and Jack friday evening.
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