Lions in Blue and Silver

The story of a lot of bravado, and why IFF is retarded for security

Ahern watched the slender man in the expensive suit gesture to the tables in front of him, folding his arms as he listened.

"This is what we have available to you. Everything here is pretty much straight out of R&D, but it has been tested in fights and won't fail. The importance of this mission is paramount, and every piece of gear here could mean the difference between life or death. If there's questions, I will be happy to answer them." The voice echoed around the room and Ahern merely fixed his gaze in front of him, looking over the metal tables in the large, otherwise empty room.

The mission they'd been assigned was probably the most important one in all of human history. Ahern had run his own rough numbers in his head after meeting with the High Lords. If Arcturus fell, it would not take long for the turians to overrun the Sol System. Even if they didn't destroy everything like they did in Shiva, and even given the defenses that had been built up in Sol and the Solguard, it didn't look good. There were dozens of ships in drydock in orbit and none of them were ready to go – and less than thirty ships of the line remained to hold off the invaders.

Given that as a backdrop, 'important mission' was an understatement. And despite the fact that it was a suicide run for sure, he could not complain about the effort the Alliance and the Lords of Sol put into it. Preparations for the launch into turian-controlled space were moving at a frantic pace, and the team was being outfitted with the best gear humanity could provide.

He smiled as he walked along the edges of the tables, thinking about the past two days. After meeting with the High Lords, they'd each been given aides, sat through a series of initial planning sessions, and been put up in a stupendously expensive hotel. Intel officers gave them detailed briefings on every bit of information they knew about the turians, including the names of the now-dead shuttle crew, best guesses as to security protocols, and even advice on likely locations to place bombs.

Knights from House Manswell itself arrived later in the day, and swore upon their lives to protect their families and ensure their prosperity if they were to die on this mission. A lawyer sat down with each of them to work out their wills, and, in the slight chance they came back, the Admiralty promised them promotions and rewards of all kind. BuPers had said if they could pull this off they'd be able to write their own ticket to whatever commands they wanted.

They'd been kitted with what gear and supplies could help, as it was available. All of it looked high-end and expensive, and most of it was things he'd never seen before.

Each of them had been given the best real-time translation devices possible, along with a lexicon of what they'd worked out of the turian language, packed onto thin mini-slates similar to their usual tablets, but more durable and with only solid-state components. The slates contained what sketchy recon they'd been able to do, and provided Ahern with the name of his target, 'Dalthos Fortress.' AIS maps and predictions, survival tips, and a host of other materials were on the slates as well.

The shuttle they were using had overlays of English on all the console surfaces and Chu had spent most of the day making sure he could fly it well. The shuttle had been lined with spall netting all along the inside and the cockpit reinforced with additional internal armor to keep them alive a bit longer if they were found out, and life-support equipment had been installed alongside it.

Ahern and Kyle had overseen loading the bomb on board, which made him sweat just to think about – almost half a kilogram of triple-magnetically contained antimatter, along with three and a half kilos of charged eezo. When that went up, something huge was going to turn into vapor. It could be hot-linked to detonate on crashing the shuttle or blown manually. There were also two small 'backpack' nuclear devices that could be hand carried for additional destruction.

Ending the day with a dinner meal prepared by Maxwell's own cooks and getting a full ten hours of sleep, they'd been awoken to be custom fitted for armor. Each of them was wearing composite armor of recent design. There was a carbon-fiber under-suit with a network of sensors and a fibrous mesh spall overlay, all sealed by a thin, rubber-backed, plastic liner.

Over this was a harness carrying overlapping hexagonal impact plates about a half centimeter thick, all linked together with fine carbon nanowire to act as secondary kinetic shock absorbers and trauma plates.

Atop this entire construction, they were wearing segmented hard-suits, one-centimeter mass effect-compressed laser-welded alloy, with the joints protected by the new 'armaplast' flexible material. The most powerful kinetic barrier generators the SA could devise were mounted on the small of their back, below the armored life-support backpack.

Fitting the armor had taken half the day, the other half was getting used to the weight and motion. The suit had limited hydraulic augmentation, as well as articulate support harnesses for heavy weapons. The suits were carefully tailored and adjusted a dozen times before the armorers were happy, and the night had been taken up by another lavish dinner, this one going alongside an impromptu course on what they could figure out about turian defense response plans.

Now, all that was left was weapon selection, gear loadout, and final briefing.

"The turians use, as you know, an exotic kind of particle-explosive weaponry. Their armor is geared to protect against this. Your armor is specifically designed along similar lines, so it should be more resistant to their weapons. On the other hand, it's not good against a sharp armor-piercing attack. As such, we've modified all your ammo blocks to incorporate armor-piercing features and electromagnetic charges, this may help in breaking past that armor. Keep in mind if you have to appropriate turian weapons they won't do as much damage, in our estimation."

Ahern looked at the young man giving the briefing, a guy named John Oracal who was some kind of big shot weapons expert and designer working for the Ashlands. Despite his young age and gawky features, the kid definitely knew his shit in terms of weapons specs and design. He interrupted with a grunt. "We have any idea what these guys will be packing?"

Oracal shrugged, turning to the AIS agent next to him. The agent was rangy and thin, with intense black eyes dominating his otherwise plain, dark features. "In theory, yes. From what I've been told, this Dalthos is a supply and comms depot. Turians like fighting and, from what we've seen, have a curious sense of honor. What they don't like is guarding supposedly safe supply depots. We don't expect any elites or power-armored suits ready to go when you strike, but they have entire storehouses of it there, so keep that in mind. Dalthos is also where they keep their wounded, and others who need time off or leave – elites recovering from battle could be on-site."

He paused. "The intel also suggests turian families are present at the base. At the current state of humanity's situation, collateral damage isn't something we are worried about."

Saracino snorted. "Were we ever?" He continued to examine the sniper rifle in front of him. "I mean, c'mon. They've orbitally bombarded a dozen planets, fuck these guys."

Ahern sighed, turning back to the weapons guy. "Good enough. You said this stuff's been battle-tested, but how? I need to be sure this shit isn't gonna go down on us like a Lancer in a hot combat zone, and you'll pardon me if I'm skeptical when I've had 'battle-tested' gear fail before on me."

Oracal's thin features twisted into a deep frown. "All of my weapons are very much in advance of any… conventional weapons systems. These designs were used in the defense at Koral IV, where they were far more effective than Lancers and Cannonade battle rifles. We've torn these particular weapons down and rebuilt them and fired a thousand cycles with each."

Kyle nodded, picking up the biggest of the rifles. "And what do you call these two?"

The young man gestured. "The bigger gun is the 'HAMMER' – rapid-fire heavy machine rifle, circulation liquid-cooled, eight hundred rounds per minute. Dart-sabots for the most part, but every twenty rounds are a pair of fragmenting rounds. Drop-weight kickstand bipod, holographic overlay sight, laser designator, and fully adjustable harness attachment."

Oracal smiled. "The other one is a very early prototype, codenamed 'SABER.' Integral designated marksman rifle, under-barrel re-configurable grenade launcher, tear away stock and adjustable holographic sights. Rated for underwater and deep space. Two thousand rounds per ammo block. Full-auto, semi-auto, single shot, and, if you need it, deployed flash suppressor."

Rachel whistled. "Not bad. I see you've got belts already made up with gear, what's with the grenades here?"

The thin man folded his arms behind his back. "The two pouches on the front have electronic scrambler tools to – we hope – bypass any doors. The canteen is filled with an energy drink. As for the grenades, they're typed by color. The green ones are standard high-explosive. The two silver ones are fragmentation. The purple ones are nerve gas – harmless to us, lethal to turians. The blues are EMP discharge, and the orange and black one is… special."

Saracino snorted. "It's fat enough. Bomb?"

Oracal smiled. "Mass effect contained dioxygen difluoride. Very nasty. Very explosive. Very poisonous. Very, very corrosive… bad all around, really."

Saracino took a step back. "Yeah, Chu can load that shit on his drones, I think. I'm not wearing anything like that in close proximity to my dick."

"Rachel's the only one who gives a shit about that, moron." Ahern picked up one of the SABER rifles, and liked the heft of it immediately. "Is it a delicate, finicky piece of shit like the Lancer? Or can I hit someone with it in CQB?"

Oracal smiled and tapped the under-barrel attachment. "Stud on the right side unfolds and locks a carbon-steel twenty-five-centimeter bayonet. And the stock is heavy steel and shock-isolated, bang away."

Ahern nodded, and turned to face Rachel. "So, we're set. Rach, ideas on the loadout?"

She shrugged. "We can't afford dragging along a lot of heavy weapons. We'll need to move fast. But we do need at least one, in case some fucking hero gets into a SKYTALON to ruin our day. The sniper for Mike, obviously. Kyle's the biggest, give him the big HAMMER gun, you and me with these SABERs, and Chu with the light marksman rifle. Two belts of grenades each." She turned to the weapons designer. "Explosives?"

He gestured. "The underside of your survival packs has a dozen flat-pak sheets of high discharge explosives. Electrical detonation, stick one of the red prods in the side of your pack into it and you have fifteen seconds to get out of the way."

Chu nodded. "Medical supplies?"

The designer glanced at the SA soldier next to him wearing the uniform of a lieutenant. "Each pack has a standard first aid kit. Splint kit is on Chu and Florez. There's blood-stop rolled bandages in the packs and on the pouches on your right legs. That's about the best we can do."

Ahern nodded. "Is this place we're hitting pressurized?"

The Lieutenant shrugged, his vaguely Euro-Chinese features giving him a pained look as he spread his hands. "We don't know, Commodore. There's suit-breach slap patches in the pouch on your left calf. Other than that, we're flying blind here."

Chu nodded. "And our life-support?"

"You've got four hours in the suits, sixty days in the shuttle. We put in the best recyclers we could, and the ones on the shuttle can be carried, although that loads you down even more. Five ration packs are in your supply packs, and there's two months' worth on the shuttle. Water should be ninety-eight percent recycled. As a reminder, water is fine on a turian planet, but their food will give you nausea and possible shock. Don't eat it."

Kyle glanced around and nodded. "In that case, all that's left is for us to get briefed."

They picked up their gear and checked harnesses and straps, Ahern and Chu helping Kyle slot the HAMMER into the suit's harness arm, then they clanked down a short, carpeted hallway to a broad, low hangar set into the rock of the cliff side they had been brought to.

The turian shuttle was more angular and sharp-featured than an Alliance one, with a darker color scheme and a low, raking profile that just looked vicious. General von Grath was there, talking with a pair of techs in white jumpsuits. Behind him in a wheelchair was Michael Shepard, frowning as he ticked items off an old-fashioned paper checklist, a pair of cellphones on the small table in his lap.

The General turned as they entered, and smiled thinly. "I see you're all suited and ready to go. The techs just finished the final flight checks, and the few surviving fragments of 3rd Fleet are falling back in shreds, but they gave you your opening."

The General glanced at Shepard, who gave a grim nod. "Flight plan's loaded in the navcomp – we had to tear theirs out as it was codelocked. They use a simple two-signal encoded IFF that we've cracked and installed, and the flight should route you through the Secundus and Pyrus secondary relays. Once through Pyrus, it's a short FTL hop to Sinear."

He glanced across the team's faces and then fixed his gaze on Ahern. "It's going to take about a day for you to get to the Sinear System. That means you've only got, at best, a ten-hour window. That's to get in-atmosphere and do the job. If somehow you can find a way out, it's going to be dicey getting clear of Pyrus – especially if they know something's going on."

The General spoke. "Your priorities are as follows. Above all else, you must take out their main communications hub. It's not heavily shielded and is almost directly adjacent to the main shuttle landing area. Assuming you get on the ground, the landing area itself is tucked away between several warehouses."

Von Grath pulled out a tablet from his pocket and flicked it on, and a second later a rough green-lit outline of the base appeared on it. "The comm uplinks are in a cluster, next to them is what we think is either eezo storage or He-3. The bomb is powerful enough that even from the shuttlepad, blowing it would take out all the comm-links and the fuel tanks."

He clicked off. "There's a secondary landing area to the south, with additional shuttles. Maybe you can find a way to get out on one of those – the overlay for the cockpit controls is just a sheet of plastic, take it with you if you can."

He folded his arms. "There's at least two cruisers on high orbit patrol, and the drydocks have a dreadnought, two more heavy-cruisers, and a large number of cargo ships – supply carriers. The space station they're on is simply too heavy to crack, but if you can find a way to damage it, the ships, or even the cargo haulers, that is a big plus. The good thing is our single scout probe didn't see any indication of ground-to-space defenses, defense satellites, or anything like that."

The General met each of their gazes. "I won't lie. The chances of survival from this mess are, I'm afraid, exceedingly low. I argued strenuously to use some other method – hypno-controlled criminals or something. But the analysts all agree that without our best, the chances of this even working at all go from very slim to none."

Ahern nodded slowly. "And you're sure this will slow them enough for us to recover?"

Von Grath gave an uneasy shrug. "We're gambling, but it's the only chance we have. If you can take out their main comm-link it will take at least a full week, maybe two, to even get it back up and running. Additional damage will only amplify that. A week isn't much, but those scouts looking for the routes further into our space will pull back, and we can mine the approaches to slow them. Also, a week is if they realize the issue – we're going to let them 'intercept' a communication that indicates we've found out how to block their relay link and hacked their comm network."

He sighed. "If they buy it, they may not send replacements at all."

Kyle's eyes narrowed. "But there's still a chance that they'll go for broke, right?"

The older man shook his head. "We don't think so. Turian doctrine when cut off from command instruction is to hold position. While very aggressive, they're also very conservative – and I don't think they realize how close to the edge we are. Given how we've bloodied them, they are going to be cautious."

Saracino adjusted his rifle strap. "I guess that's it, then. We're as prepared as we're gonna get, and like you said we don't have a big window to hit this place."

The personnel on the ground watched solemnly as the five of them entered the circular hatch of the turian shuttle, Ahern bringing up the rear. He paused at the doorway, glancing around the alien lines of the vessel, then turned to hit the helpfully labeled (with a sticky note) hatch control. The doorway spiraled in, sealing them inside with a heavy thunk.

Saracino sat down limply on one of the long benches along one wall. "So, this is how we go out. In a gigantic ball of fire, fighting off a gajillion bad guys. I'm not sure if I'm surprised I didn't die sooner or in shock that this is a one-way trip."

Rachel sat down next to him, taking his hand, and Chu merely shook his head. Kyle gave a look to Ahern, and Ahern saw something in that gaze he didn't like.

"…Fuck that shit. Listen up. We haven't rolled as a unit in a while, but Team Smashfucker was the all-time undefeated champion of fucking the enemy up. That has not fucking changed. I don't know what happens when we get to this system, if these assholes figure it out or not. But we go in looking to do as much damage as possible and get out alive. Each of you is the best at what you do, and I am fucking Tradius Ahern."

He held out his fist. "Beer and steak at Long Tim's when we get back."

He stood there for a second, then Kyle fist bumped him. Then Chu, and Rachel, and Saracino.

"Chu, get us in the air and on course. Kyle, monitor this fuck-ass alien power system and make sure it doesn't shit itself. Rachel, we're gonna brainstorm approaches while asshole here plays devil's advocate. By the time we get to Sinear, I want us to have at least two working plans."

Kyle nodded, and gestured to the bomb. "Should I link it to the shuttle like they said?"

Ahern nodded. "And, Chu… see if you can find an autopilot on this thing. I got an idea."

O-LiBaS-O

The trip to the Sinear star system was one of heavy tedium. As predicted, it had taken most of a day to get there. They'd hitched their shuttle to a fast light-frigate for most of the trip, and proceeded with the shuttle's systems once they got to the mass relays.

Three times they passed small squadrons of angular turian ships, including a battlecruiser twice as long as the Alliance flagship. Chu nervously watched his course while Kyle manned the comm system, transmitting standard messages and the IFF. Not a single turian showed any interest in them at all.

Ahern shook his head in disgust as they sailed past. "Sloppy and not paying attention gets you killed every time."

Saracino was fiddling with the sights on his rifle and snorted. "Trad, in this instance, it's helping us. Given the alternative is becoming one with the cosmos as an expanding cloud of gas and shrapnel, let's let them keep doing things sloppy."

The man's smile faded. "After all, they'll be paying attention when we get done, won't they?"

They cycled sleep watches – Rachel piloting while Chu took some down time – and emerged into the Sinear System an hour ahead of schedule. The comm board immediately lit up and Kyle pressed buttons, turning on the translator and the auto-response software.

"Incoming shuttle, Dalthos Command, transmit auth code."

Kyle swallowed as he typed the keys and hit send, and a second later the computer-generated translation replied. "Code clear. Land at main station. Debrief with supply cadre circle at [untranslatable time measure]. Dalthos out."

Rachel arched her eyebrow. "That was… easy."

Kyle exhaled. "From what I've read and seen, turians prize combat, or anything that wins them glory and honor. A well defended supply base on a world humans never paid attention to when they think they have us pinned is not a glorious posting… and they're arrogant as well, no doubt they could not imagine us doing this. As it's not honorable, they may not even realize what is happening."

Ahern shrugged. "Good. Chu, take us in, standard speed. Once we're in orbit, bring us down to the primary landing pad. Kyle, get that bomb ready. Chu figured out how to rig this thing for autopilot."

Kyle frowned. "And that means…?"

Ahern smiled. "When we blow this thing there is going to be chaos. No one will actually think enemies snuck on the planet. I'm hoping they'll think it's some kind of accident. There's gonna be a lot of people moving around. If we can get into another shuttle and get airborne, we'll be secure enough to figure out if we can hit another location or try and do something to the ships. Either way, it's better than just blowing ourselves up with the bomb."

Saracino sighed and racked his rifle. "I can't think of anything funny to say to that."

Chu grunted. "Miracles never cease. A good omen, I think. Taking us in."

A/N: The initial approach to Dalthos. Soon, the mess begins.

John Oracal is the guy who eventually worked with Shepard to create the ODIN.