Chapter 5: A New Test

Jason begins his work for Terra Infractus

            I was sitting in the cockpit of the Gravelines dressed in civilian clothing with Daniel at the helm, no crew but him appeared to be present, which was puzzling, but the size of the ship was the true mystery, there seemed to be space for no more than 5 people inside yet the ship appeared much larger from the exterior, some other technology was clearly at work.

            “So Captain…” I began speaking, hoping to gain some more information on this group as well as the mission ahead

            “Please, Jason, just call me Daniel, I was never one for formalities, besides, we are above rank and file now” He spoke with a light heartedness I hadn’t seen before among anyone in the military, yet there was still a seriousness that laid just beneath his intense brown eyes, something he seemed to hide.

            “What do you mean above rank and file? We are still in the Alliance right?” I was still piecing together what this group was

            “You see, we don’t operate within traditional Alliance boundaries, we go wherever we are needed and accomplish what we must, mostly in the Terminus Systems, we are the elite of humanity, doing what we must, it’s not always easy, but we do what most can’t or won’t.” He gave the speech with passion yet as if he had spoken the words a hundred times before.

            “So if anyone asks we are just regular civilians?”

            “Sort of….Its a bit more complicated than that but you have the gist of it, but we have access to the best humanity can get. Which reminds me, open up that footlocker over there” he pointed to a small white ceramic box built into the wall. “It has some stuff you will need”

            “Wait so you already had my arrival planned?” I slowly walked to the small cubby that was there and slowly slid it open.

            “We have had our eyes on you for a long time. We even knew you were going on that ship, when you came back I was sent to check on you, these changes present a lot of unknowns but I think things will still work out” A second passed “Like what you find in there?”

            I had been too distracted by his words to notice the two small objects inside the container; one appeared to be a small device that was similar in appearance to an Omni-tool holographic display, just a small projector accompanied by a lock-in for armor suits. The other object appeared to be a pistol in its collapsed state

            “What are these things Daniel? One’s a pistol, I get that but the other thing? I don’t quite understand.” I picked up the small device and felt a small jolt in my hands, my eyes darkened slightly but no other odd reactions, I tossed it once more in my hand yet the reaction didn’t persist.

            “That, my friend, is how we get you back into society without sending an entire system into panic. Its an advanced cloaking technology but slightly modified; you see, when a normal cloak system kicks in it simply blends you into your environment, this one has been changed to project an image of you, perfect in everyway, and react to your movements, it can pass a perfect ghost of you, and with your skin underneath, DNA scanners will be none the wiser.”

            “You are absolutely sure this will work?” I was skeptic about the whole thing, it seemed too easy to simply activate a device and act as if nothing has happened. “Besides, my DNA is linked to a military operative, that won’t exactly help.”

            “Actually when you joined the N7 special tasks group your DNA profile was sealed off and changed, everywhere you go you will be read as the same person, but your military history is completely gone. Go ahead, try it on, and see what happens.” He seemed eager to see me test this little device. So with deliberate slowness I attached it to my arm where my body’s built in armor showed through, and activated it. A shimmer ran across my body, moving from my arm up, into my chest then downward to my legs. A fleshy skin tone began appearing, running along the same path the shimmering had appeared, consuming my entire body. As the last shimmer faded, my body was left appearing as though I was simply dressed in civilian clothes, no metal, no cybernetics, and no glow, nothing out of the ordinary that had appeared from the ship.

            “This….this is….” I was completely speechless from the transformation. “I can’t believe this really worked!”

            “It won’t change how your skin feels, but it will at least make things easier for you” He turned back from his position at the helm and looked at me, an honest smile upon his face. “I’m glad you like it though”.

            “So how about we get to the briefing, how far out are we, what are we doing, etcetera?” I suddenly felt a hopefulness and eagerness for the mission, whatever it was.

            “Here, all intel is on this datapad, we are after a man, Batarian by the name of Jalta, he is the head of a small gang by the name of the Red Bloods based in Omega, they have been causing issues for the Alliance for a while, hitting supply ships on the border of the Terminus, hassling military convoys, but it all reached a peak a few weeks ago when they hit a large cruise ship. They killed everyone aboard and destroyed anything that wasn’t valuable. It was not a pleasant scene.” He handed me a small datapad, it’s orange holographic display lit up and showed a wide variety of information, suits used by the gang, equipment used, list of known ships, it was all quite thorough.

            “So what’s the plan? Go in and take him out?”

            “That’s all up to you Kael, I am simply going to observe your approach, see how you react to situations; though if you get into a tough spot I will still help you out of course.”

            I thought for certain he was joking but his face was stern as ever, he really intended for me to assassinate a target on a densely populated station and get out alive, clearly this group didn’t have a high success rate for new recruits.

            “Alright Daniel, how long until we dock?”

            “We are just about there, go ahead and look out the window and see for yourself” He seemed to know it was my first time ever going into the terminus systems, the region ungoverned by the Citadel Council. I looked out the nearby window into the space beyond, empty blackness dotted with small white lights and space-borne rocks floating by. Looking further ahead revealed a large asteroid, similar in appearance to the others in the area except for the red glow it gave off, as we approached it the lights began to take shape, showing that the lights were actually given off by small antennae that extended from the primary part of the asteroid, which appeared to be half of a sphere, from that sphere metal spires jutted downward into a dense cluster that formed the large city. We sped into the towers, which appeared larger and larger as we approached, dwarfing our own ship; then slowed into a docking platform which extended from a busy plaza, lit by neon advertisements and signs that were used in profusion on the planet.

             Daniel lifted himself from the pilot’s seat and grabbed some equipment from a locker adjacent to the one in which my gear had been stored, and then proceeded to walk with me towards the docking hatch.

            “Kael I know this is your first time out here so let me give you some advice, there is no law on Omega, and anything is legal so long as you don’t piss off someone with power. In this sector no one has that much power but an Asari by the name of Aria, who has a powerful presence on the entire station, so take what steps you must but completely avoid anything against her, alright? Use whatever intel was on that datapad and do what’s necessary. Good luck.” With that, he began fading into the background, becoming completely invisible from even a trained eye, the only way I knew he was still there was a slight padded sound of his feet against the metal floors.

            I walked out of the hatch that led to the city beyond with my cloaking technology active and the pistol and datapad tucked into my clothes. I could feel Daniel’s presence beside me as I continued onto the border of the plaza. People were moving, advertisements blared in the background, and a steady thump thump thump of club music lay underneath it all. The lights and sounds were intoxicating to me; even in all my travels I had never seen a city, let alone planet, so active, so alive as Omega. I made my way through the busy square, past merchants from various planets and species hawking their wares and down-trodden beggars down on their luck, until I came across a place of relative quiet that I could formulate a plan.

            I sat down across from two vendors, one Elcor, one of the giant emotionless folk of Dekuuna who did not seem to be getting much business, and the other was a Hanar, one of the excessively polite jelly-fish like denizens of Kahje who seemed to be having similar misfortune. I looked down at the datapad and began thinking of possible solutions on how to track down and eliminate Jalta. My thoughts began adopting a more strategic stance, I quickly realized that to make this assassination effective I would have to eliminate the entire group, otherwise another member would simply take leadership, another thought I had was that to track down this group would be difficult, they were too small to be well known and any who were aware of them would not speak about them so openly, so locating them would require either encountering a member, or finding out a known associate

            “Hmm….” I spoke aloud, reading through more of the datapad when I came across some information that would give me precisely what I needed. Under a list of areas that Jalta and his gang had been seen there were a surprising number of appearances at a bar called Charon’s Ferry, mostly seen with the service women. Jalta himself had been seen mostly with a human female, but no name was available on this mystery woman, only a physical description. Armed with the knowledge of where I might be able to find my quarry, or failing that, discovering their location, I simply followed signs through busy streets towards Charon’s Ferry, taking care not to be bumped into the entire way.

            I began my approach on the bar. I had seen it a while away but had been observing it in case there was any security, which led to me discovering that there was no guards of any sort on the exterior. I walked slowly into the long hallway, circular and filled with neon light from the signs built into the walls. Once I exited the hall two guards closed in on me.

            “You packing any heat human?” one of the krogan guards spoke with his guttural voice. His reptilian skin was heavily scarred, something that indicated he was a very successful fighter which was a mark of pride for krogan.  His thick skull plate had several tally marks etched into it, something many did to mark their kills in unarmed combat, which matched his muscular arms and body which were intentionally made visible.

            “Of course not, only an idiot would bring a gun with two heavily armed krogan guards here.” I hoped to charm him into not checking and finding my pistol, or even worse, my false skin.

            It must have worked; a small smile graced his warlike face. “Smart human, go on in, and enjoy yourself. But do something stupid and you get to see how I got these scars.” He and his companion walked back to their shadowy corner near the door.

            I walked around the club looking for the one who matched the physical description, all the while the music boomed in my ears, the heat of closely packed bodies surrounded me, my eyes subjected to the bright flashes from the lights shining from above. The club was packed with all species, Asari, their blue skinned graceful forms were an eye catcher on the dance floor, their tentacle hair gleaming under the strobe lights, Turians, their hard plated skin and long slender arms reflected some of the light, making them also noticeable, however humans seemed to be in the minority, as I only saw a few on the dance floor. I saw a human bartender and went to sit down, and hopefully find this woman.

            “Hey what can get you? It’s good to see another human around” the man spoke with a slight accent, possibly Italian, how accents had persisted in an age where people from many nationalities resided in a single area with almost no difference in speech was something no one knew.

            “I need some info actually, I heard that theres a girl here who’s to die for and I wanted to see if my friend was bullshitting me or not” I played the part of a simple civilian, which was difficult considering it had been years since my last shore leave.

            “Well describe her for me, I know almost everyone who goes here!” He seemed like he genuinely wanted to help, or maybe it was just him enjoying seeing a human

            I began reciting the physical profile I had “Medium length black hair, brown eyes, on the small side...” The man interrupted me before I got any further

            “Oh you must mean Delilah! Yeah she’s around here, not many people are interested in humans on this part of the station so she is usually free. Let me get her.” He walked behind the bar and into an unknown area, I could just barely make out him saying a few words, then he walked back out with a woman in tow. She was clad in a skin tight outfit that barely held back anything, a typical stripper outfit, but she was a very striking figure; she walked towards me and beckoned me to walk with her.

            “So babe, what do you want? I haven’t got all day and you interrupted my break so either you better be a hell of a good tipper or this better be pretty damn important.” She was clearly not one for small talk or dancing around an issue.

            “I need some information, you know a batarian named Jalta?”

            “Yeah I know him, a bit more than I’d like, but if this is for some smear campaign you can forget about it, I don’t give out info that can ruin clients.”

            “I don’t want info to ruin him, I just want to know where I can find him and his gang, and I want to join up.” I was hoping she wouldn’t see through the ruse I was weaving“

            “Look, whoever you are, I know that’s a lie, I haven’t made my living this way and survived without knowing how to read people. I can tell you have something else planned for him, and I want none of it.” She stated her opinion flatly and in such a way that left little room to argue.

            “Delilah, I know that Jalta is not a nice guy, he’s controlling, he hates humans, its why he hits you so often when he hires you, I know he pays you to keep quiet about it so that he can keep it going.” Her jaw dropped completely stunned. “I want to take care of him, make it so he and his gang never bother anyone else ever again, don’t you want that? To not deal with the pain again?” I hoped she would reconsider her stance in the wake of this little speech I had made on the spot when I considered his psychological profile.

            “You’re….You’re right, I don’t want to have to deal with his s**t again, I want him gone… He and his gang are on the upper level, in the VIP area…I’ll give you access to it” She handed me a small card which would allow me access. “And when you take him down, when he is on his last breath…tell him I hope he rots in hell.” With that she walked off, back behind the bar and into the room beyond it.

            I began walking towards the door that led to the VIP room, card in hand, and I slipped it into the receptacle, with a sound barely audible above the music, it opened and I proceeded into a small elevator that revealed itself. As soon as I entered the door shut and I began moving upwards at least two stories. The door slid open and revealed a sparsely populated level, only about a dozen people were in the room, about 5 of whom I assumed were guards because the rest were members of the gang I had been sent to hunt down.

            Without a single doubt or fear in my mind I walked up to the one who seemed to be the leader, he wore the heaviest armor and carried himself with the greatest level of confidence, he matched the physical description of Jalta, the four eyes that every batarian had, whitish-grey skin, a scar just between the two sets of eyes, and another on the chin.

            “Jalta?” I spoke, nerves at the breaking point, mind completely clear and empty except for one goal.

            “Who are you? What do you want?” he spoke with obvious agitation at being approached

            “Delilah says goodbye” before he could react or utter another word I pulled the pistol from underneath my clothes with lightning speed and shoved it to his throat, the gun had just barely de-collapsed itself when I pulled the trigger; the shot was too close for his shields to block, and right as the bullet collided with flesh,  spraying scarlet blood all across the room, I felt another shock run up my arm, similar to the one that had occurred when I held the camouflage device, but the surge was much more powerful, leaving a tingling sensation along my entire body.

            Before any of the other members could react I moved the body of the dead pirate in front of me, between me and the guards, and I fired it without hesitation into the nearest enemy who appeared to be wearing light armor and would be the easiest to take out. As soon as I felt the kick of the shot run up my arm, the target’s head split open like an over-ripe melon, ruining the furniture he was sitting on. I then adjusted my aim for the next enemy adjacent to him, a turian, and pulled the trigger twice to account for his heavier armor; the first shot tore through his shields but nothing more, but the second shot tore through the armor and flesh below, penetrating the heart and killing the alien almost instantly.

            At this point the other enemies had adjusted, gathered their weapons and began firing, their assault rifles made quick work of Jalta’s shields and began penetrating his corpse but not a single shot made its way to me. Before that could change I threw the body with my full strength towards the bulk of the enemy. The flying mutilated carcass knocked over three of the remaining four men. Only a krogan was left standing, I swiftly noticed that his armor was too thick for my pistol to penetrate without specialized ammunition, which left me only one other option. I charged ahead, sprinting faster than I ever had before, the krogan lifted his shotgun and fired a blast in my direction but I dropped to the ground as he did. I launched myself back into a standing position as I cleared his bulk, I pulled my arm back to launch a punch but felt a strange energy come over me, a strange surge of pure power ran through my veins and extended to the tips of my fingers, a power that demanded release. I shoved my arm with all my might towards the looming Krogan right as he began to turn towards me, a blue glow overtook my entire body and a blue luminescent mass took place on the end of my arm. The ball of blue made contact with the krogan with an explosive effect, it launched him forward several hundred feet with immense speed lifted him into the air, sending him flying into a wall hard enough to break his entire body through the thick steel and into the city beyond. I knew without a doubt that the biotics had struck again and they were increasing in strength.

            I moved to the three men on the ground, two of whom were knocked out by the force of the body striking them, but the other rose to his feet and brought his fists to bear, the gun he had was at his feet, crushed by the corpse that had been thrown. He was a batarian of average build and height, but he must have been determined to go down with a fight. I brought my own hands to my chest in a standard fighting position. He moved in for a grapple and as I moved to intercept and counter it, he brought out a knife, one that seemed unusual in appearance but I knew that it was indeed a knife. He attempted to slice at my arms and I jumped back, out of the way of the sharpened blade. He made another rush forward with it and this time I jumped back farther, about 5 feet, bringing my gun to bear in that time, and fired into him; the bullet found buried itself in his throat, through both flesh and through the spine. His body dropped with a dull thud.

            I once more approached the two unconscious men and with a single move of my foot each, broke their necks. I looked up from the gruesome scene and saw the five people I had assumed were guards standing in shock; they showed no sign of pursuing me. I slowly looked down upon the batarian that had the knife and saw that the blade was no longer there, simply a hilt. I picked it up and once more felt the strange electric surge in my system. Pressing a button on the hilt made the blade shift into existence, I pressed the button a few more times and saw that the blade was actually being constructed and deconstructed at each press. Noting the interesting find, I shoved packed it into my clothes and discharged my pistol’s built up heat with its thermal clip, and grabbed an additional one from the fallen enemy. I quickly moved to the elevator, the guards still completely dumbstruck, and moved it down to the ground floor.

            As soon as I touched to the bottom floor I began walking quickly, hoping to get back to the ship as soon as possible, and avoid any more conflict. I hurriedly retraced my steps back to the docking platform without incident, but as soon as I got inside the ship, Daniel reappeared next to me

            “Well you have an interesting way of approaching things Kael.”

            “It worked didn’t it? Besides….My body is still changing somehow, I am still getting stronger…I don’t quite know what to think of it…” I was thinking back to the biotic display and my speed, how they had increased exponentially.

            “You accomplished the goal and you did it pretty well. I think you are well suited for more missions, but I noticed you picked up the knife from the batarian. Let me see it”I didn’t bother asking how he saw that before just handing it to him, he examined it for a moment then swore“how the hell he got a hold of this thing?!”

            “What do you mean?” I hadn’t thought it was worthy of this much note

            “Its an Alliance prototype knife, its something we had been working on for a while; a modification on the blades made by omni-tools in close quarters combat, it has just reached in-the-field tests… How did they get this thing…” he seemed completely lost in thought about the unassuming knife in his hands.

            “Maybe it’s because of the ships they raided?” I was hoping to find an answer to it now.

            “None of the ships in the area they raided had it. Odd… I need to report this to command. Feel free to rest up, it’s been a long day” He was halfway to the comm. Room before I suddenly realized just how exhausted I was. It had taken me several hours to locate the club and I knew that biotics tended to have problems keeping their energy up after a particularly strong display. I staggered to the crew quarters and found a bed. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

Reviews

[Fictari]

Very interesting chapter with great strength in character work and action in particular.And even better was that you created a mystery at the end which I genuinely am curious about. However, the one problem which needs to be adressed is punctuation. Where you put commas there oftentimes should be periods, thus new sentences. Take the first paragraph:
"I was sitting in the cockpit of the Gravelines dressed in civilian clothing with Daniel at the helm, no crew but him appeared to be present, which was puzzling, but the size of the ship was the true mystery. There seemed to be space for no more than 5 people inside yet the ship appeared much larger from the exterior, some other technology was clearly at work."
Here is a fixed punctuation version:
"I was sitting in the cockpit of the Gravelines dressed in civilian clothing with Daniel at the helm. No crew but him appeared to be present, which was puzzling, but the size of the ship was the true mysterhere seemed to be space for no more than 5 people inside yet the ship appeared much larger from the exterior. Some other technology was clearly at work."
Other than that this was a really great chapter.