Chapter XIV: Escaping Omega

Citadel Calendar 2685/UNSC Military calendar 2560

Region: Terminus Systems, Sahrabarik System

Omega, Asteroid Station

Felix-B313

"You're telling me!" Sheppard responded. "Dominic's heading out!"

"By the goddess," one of the Asari voiced. "I didn't know humans could get that big."

What followed for three seconds of them firing bullets that bounced off his armor before he heard Dominic to his right, unloading his shotgun and charging past him. For a second the field that immobilized him went away and the same shockwave that had hit the professor hit him in that same moment. It sent him backward. He spared a second to think it was clever not to allow him the time to react. He was quickly up on his feet to see that Dominic had tackled one of the Asari and had torn one of their heads off with the shotgun. Felix's MA5D fired two bursts at one of the hostile's shield. It turned her attention to him long enough for Dominic to punch the one he tackled face in. His gauntlet was covered in her purple blood.

"Commander's fighting two off inside," he said as he got up and fired several shotgun rounds at closest hostile. He then smacked her in the head and the shield that seemed to hug her frame fell for his next shot tore through her thin armor and chest.

"Take her," Felix ordered. He rushed for the professor who had started to sit up but looked dizzy from that hit he'd taken. "You okay?"

"I am fine." He fired a blast of fire from his Omni-tool at the last hostile. In the seconds of combat, she had moved outside the storage unit firing her submachinegun at Dominic. The blast staggered her and Dominic's shotgun finished her.

"Commander Shepard?" Felix immediately called.

She came out of the building just then. "I'm good. Everyone okay?"

"Confirmed," the professor answered as he got up. He walked up to the closest body. "Armor type and skills confirm. These are Asari commandos, Shepard."

"Do you mean like officially commandos?" Felix inquired. As the Asari government working against them?

"Hmm. Not officially commando uniforms. It might not mean much. Unofficial black ops unit maybe? Possibly not operating on the behest of the Republics at all," Professor Solus theorized. "Too little information to confirm either way."

"Either way, we gotta find that beacon. Nothing inside?"

"No," Shepard confirmed. She activated her comms. "EDI, are there any ships docked nearby?" She waited. EDI responded that there was a single ship, a frigate. R26. "Only one. Send the coordinates. We're heading there. Move out."

As they were set to move out Leonidas spoke over her comms. "Commander, we have hostiles at the docking bay. Asari."

"We just run into some of them. Can you hold?"

"Absolutely. We got a good position."

"Copy. The dealer's dead and we're heading for what is probably their ship," she informed him.

They ran through down the corridor and turned right in a junction. At the next junction twenty meters away several commandos opened fire from behind the cover of the corners. As he stood behind the cover of the corner himself he lobbed down a frag grenade.

"They knew we were coming," he told Shepard.

"Definitely. Waited to ambush us." He fired a biotic shockwave down the corridor at their foes and Professor Solus fired another incinerate blast from his Omni-tool. "Still, they must have expected us to come later."

"Agreed. Six soldiers were a small team to ambush and eliminate us. If they knew we were coming they must have known who we were." He fired a burst down the dimly lit corridor. "We don't have time to get held up."

Shepard flashed him a smirk and said. "I'll open a hole. When I do you all follow, okay?"

"On your mark."

Then she surrounded herself in biotic energy for a second and the next she charged across the corridor and impacted one of the commandos and sent her falling down with a thud. There were two commandos on both sides of the junction. Her biotic shields took a pounding for a moment before she pulled the one close to her towards her and slammed her into the ground. Covering fire from Solus kept the other two in place for the seconds necessary for Dominic and Felix to rush through the corridor and open fire mercilessly at close range.

"These guys were probably sent to shore up the ambush," Shepard theorized.

"That was really impressive, commander," Dominic told her and Felix agreed. "Brilliant work."

"Thanks. Let's keep moving. There's only a matter of time before Kig-yar patrols realize there's a fight going."

As they ran Felix said, "This'll be a lot more difficult with hundreds of jackals shooting at us."

"Nah, that's what I call fun," Dominic japed.

"Is this what Spartans do for fun?" She inquired humorously.

"No, sir," Dominic responded. "This is regular work. For fun, we go on suicide missions."

"Most interesting," the professor chimed in. "So do Shepard."

"Council send you on a lot of those, commander?"

"Only when the galaxy's at stake." Felix couldn't tell if that was a joke or a fact. He made a mental note to inquire more about her previous mission. Assuming it wasn't all classified of course. It wasn't like he could sit down and talk about his own team's missions so why should she be able to.

Their foe made it quite easy to determine where their docking bay was by the fact that a dozen of them stood outside it with a device. It had a cylindrical shape and was 153cm tall and thirty centimeters wide. It was black as onyx and glowed with a dim crimson light. The four of them jumped behind cover as the commandos – a mere ten meters away – with only waist-high metal barriers for cover in the corridor.

"Get it on board, and kill them!" One of them yelled at the orders. He saw one of the Xenos grab the beacon with her biotics and carry it inside.

Shepard threw up a biotic barrier to defend them from the incoming barrage. Two grenades bounced off it and the explosion left them unharmed. As she kept it up she turned to Felix.

"I'm gonna give them everything I have so when the barrier goes down you don't hold back."

He nodded.

When she dropped the barrier she uses her biotics to charge the short distance between them and hit one of them hard. It caused a moment of confusion in their ranks and her biotic shockwave sent three of them staggering into the wall and as she took several close quarters hits against her own barrier she unfolded a shotgun from her back and unloaded it right into the commando she'd charged. With a short cry, she fell backward from the blast that sprayed purple blood on the cold metal floor. Solus fired a strange blast from his Omni-tool that immediately seemed to freeze one of them for several seconds. He switched to his submachinegun as the two Spartans got up and fired bursts into the chaos. One of the commandos, however, gestured with her hands and a sphere of biotic energy grabbed Dominic and took him to hover helplessly in the air. The man cursed loudly. His shotgun hovered just out of reach from his hand. He did manage to draw his magnum and fired the entire clip into the offending commando. Felix shifted his aim to squeeze the trigger to fire a burst and charge her. She could not react before he took her down and cracked her skull between the floor and his hands. A biotic shockwave took him off his feet and five of the commandos retreated into the docking bay at their leader's command.

"The hostiles are dealt with," Leonidas reported over the comms. "But we just fought a patrol of Kig-yar. All three terminated but they have been alerted to our presence."

"Copy," the commander groaned in response.

He noticed that she had also been hit by the blast and was getting back on her feet. Solus was moving up to them and Dominic moved after the commandos. He fired a shotgun blast through the open doorway and dodged an incinerate blast.

"Dominic, get ready. I'm going to grab one," Shepard said. Then by use of her biotics, she pulled one of the commandos out into the corridor and Dominic grabbed her and slammed her hard against the wall. He shoved his shotgun up against her chin and squeezed the trigger, splattering her blood and brains against the wall. Again the commander impressed him with her biotics.

Dominic ran through the doorway. "Airlock's closing! The bastards are leaving!"

Despite his best effort they could do nothing but watch the ship detach the beacon painfully out of reach. There was no need for an order, for they hurried back to the Normandy was quick as they could.

"Get ready to leave the moment we're on board, Joker," Shepard told the pilot over her comms. "They got the beacon. Track that frigate."

As they reached the Normandy Team Two fell back with them and detached and allowed their stealth system to get them out of there. The pilot warned that fighters had just been launched from one of the Assault Carriers. Seraphs. He and Shepard went up to the cockpit immediately upon arriving on board.

"Where is that ship, Joker?" Shepard asked quickly.

"Heading to the relay at full speed, commander. They're too far ahead to catch them before they jump."

"Damn it," she cursed.

The Normandy sped towards the relay with six squadrons of Seraphs in hot pursuit. Felix sighed, accepting that they had lost the beacon.

"Any idea who those commandos were, sir?"

"None. I've pissed off a lot of people in the last few years so the list of people that want me dead isn't exactly large, but I don't know of any well organized Asari that has commandos to send after me. Not to mention know where we're going and what we're getting." She paused and gently held the back of the pilot seat. "Either way we should catch up with them soon again. They're probably taking the same route we are to the next beacon."

"Are you sure about that?"

"If they want to get their first, yes." She sighed and clenched her right fist. "I gotta contact Anderson and your admiral. Tell them we failed and that we got someone else then friendly to contend fight."

"Don't worry, commander. You'll get the others and then you'll find their blue asses and kick 'em," the pilot declared with certainly. "Kicking ass is what you do and with the Spartans you're unstoppable."

Later EDI asked him over the internal speakers to meet the commander in the CIC. He arrived to meet both the commander and Lieutenant Commander Williams.

"Did the councilor and admiral have information for us?" He assumed. She must have gotten off with them just now.

"Anderson is checking with the Tevos and the Special Tasks Group what they know of those Asari. Admiral Sevchenko was going to check with ONI if they'd seen anyone else snooping around about our friendly neighborhood arms dealer," she told him.

"What's the Special Tasks Group? I don't know of it." Probably for good reasons if it was Alliance's version of ONI.

"Oh, sorry. Forgot. The STG is the Special Forces and Intelligence Service of the Salarians." Ah, the Salarians version of ONI. Not the Alliance's. "Handles everything from intelligence gathering to assassinations and other dangerous missions."

If ONI had seen run into someone else's spooks, like the Republics or another organization they should have informed them. Or that's what he thought at least and he was under no illusion that ONI wouldn't keep certain details for themselves if it served them. The question was if they gained anything on this.

Shepard continued, "What Anderson did have is info on the Batarian, Bharek Dhof'forok."

"Why didn't we have it before?" He asked the obvious question.

"I'd first say that this was newly gained Intel, but we're dealing with the STG so it's more likely a failure in communication."

"It happens," he remarked. Though with ONI it was usually intentional. He could understand occasional problems like that when you had several governments working together. "Is there any animosity between Salarians and Humans?"

Williams couldn't hold back a surprised snicker. "What? No. No."

Shepard bobbed her head in agreement with her and said, "Dhor'forok used to be an officer in the Hegemony's army. Decently high up rank. He resigned last year over differences with how the Hegemony's actions against us Humans."

Williams arched an eyebrow. "Are you serious? Well, I guess there had to be one Batarian with a heart."

Felix noted that Shepard gave her an unexpected sympathetic look. "Sorry Ash, but he swung the other way."

Williams blinked, "Eh, what?"

"According to the STG Intel he felt that the Hegemony has been going too easy on Humanity," he explained matter of fact.

He didn't know enough about Human-Batarian relations to weigh in on that, but he did know the Batarians were slavers and being neighbors they probably took Human slaves whenever they could.

"Are you kidding me?" She exclaimed. "Funding terrorist attacks and trying to wipe out entire colonies full of people is 'going easy on us'?"

Shepard just nodded.

Citadel Calendar 2685/UNSC Military calendar 2560

Region: United Earth Government Space, Planet Earth

UNSC Infinity, Infinity-class Supercarrier

Terrence Hood

He sipped from his cup of coffee as he gazed at the hologram in front of his desk. Albrecht Stahl's hologram sat behind a desk of his own.

"While hardly a surprising development it's rather interesting and opens a few opportunities for us," the young man said as someone poured him a glass of wine. He had a discomforting smirk on his face.

"Troubles more like it," Hood disagreed. "A stronger Coalition of Eayn is a problem. For us, our CIG allies and Citadel Space."

"With an aging perspective perhaps, but you got to see it from a different light." Stahl sipped from the wine glass and leaned back in his swivel chair. "You are right that we can't accept the Coalition gaining strength. Right now it's not in our interest to see them disrupt and harm Council Space. Intel shows they recently raided Yanme'e outposts and attacked an Unggoy Commercial convoy in Mgalekgolo space. They're getting bolder now with Omega in their grip. It's a threat to the Council of immense proportions."

"If they turn Terminus into their own playground it is a threat to all of us." They couldn't threaten them or the CIS or the Mgalekgolo back home. Their best of the last few years had been raids – and those had grown fewer and fewer after the Sangheili and Jiralhanae launched punitive expeditions in retaliation. Now they were getting bolder. "Do we know if the CIG plans a response to the raid?" That information would eventually come down the official diplomatic channels.

"We haven't heard anything. Yet." He paused and leaned forward. "Terrence, does the president have a plan of action concerning Omega?"

"Not yet," Hood answered sincerely. He drank from his cup. "I…am forming one with General Strauss and Senior Commander Helbrecht. I intend to present it to the president at the end of the week."

Stahl tapped his fingertips together. His expression appeared genuine but Hood had trouble discerning how genuine he really was. "I think we both expect the Council to ask us for help when the Kig-yar start raiding their territories."

"And by that point, they'll have firmly established themselves in Terminus," said Hood in agreement. "It will cost a lot of lives then. Unnecessarily so." He, Strauss, and Helbrecht had leaned toward that a more immediate response would cost far less human lives.

"Well. I've taken the time already to transfer further resources to keep eyes on the station and the connected Mass Relays," the director informed him. Hood gave a small nod in response. "Well, with that I must be on my way. I have a meeting with one of my junior directors."

"Hmm. Good day, Albrecht," Hood said before Stahl's hologram disappeared.