Patreon LogoYour support makes Blue Moon possible (Patreon)

Tip of the Iceberg: A Mass Effect RP [TBM and Lord DreamCrusher]

Sera chuckled slightly. "A Spectre who's not a great shot? I'll believe it when I see it." With that, Sera parted ways with the duo, heading towards the factory and cloaking once she got within the visual range of anyone at the base. "Nothing so far, but that's just on the outside. Security might be tighter inside, I'll have to see. Wait..." She paused, moving closer to confirm what she thought she saw. "A pair of snipers on the roof. Shouldn't be a problem, though. They have a pretty bad security gap on the east side where their patrol doesn't seem to cover. Heading inside now." With that, Sera quickly made her way to the blind spot she had noticed, hacking through the locked door with ease and getting inside before decloaking to conserve power.

"I'm fine. I'm not going to fall." Velira's voice was less than concerned. If anything, she sounded irritated about Kar bringing up any doubts in her capabilities as she began to climb up the mesa. It didn't take too long for her to make it to the top, without a slip, although she seemed surprisingly out of breath for a relatively simple climb. At the top, she took out the Phaeston she had borrowed from the armory on the ship. "I'll make sure no one sneaks up on us, you make sure that Sera didn't miss any external patrols. Sound reasonable?"
 
Kar didn't really care if she took offense to his question, she proved her point and his at the same time by managing to get up safely but being visibly winded from the effort. For his part the climb was not even remotely a challenge, despite his bulky frame his muscle was more than enough to haul himself up the rock without need for any sort of technique. Velira's thoughts mirrored his own however as she drew her rifle which was very much not suited for this kind of range.

"Sounds good to me." Was all he replied as he drew his kishock and dropped to his stomach to crawl over towards the edge and present as low a profile as possible. For his frame that was easier said than done and if someone happened to look his way he'd stick out like a sore thumb, those snipers on the roof for example, but hopefully they weren't paranoid enough to be scanning the environment that completely. Peering through the scope revealed a pretty good vantage of the facility and nothing appeared out of the ordinary for the moment, what Sera had said checked out, but such things could change.

--

Inside the building Sera would be presented with a much different look to the factory they hit last. The somewhat tall and skinny design of the structure to minimize the foundation size left it a multi-story structure but overall likely covered around the same floor area as a common home. The ground level that she entered was still arranged and furnished like a frontier laboratory, lots of small tables mixed with various analytical machines primarily used for minerals and sediment. It looked like a prospecting base, like nothing had changed since Belia Industries took it over from the previous owners, but everything was in decent shape and fairly clean. There were no gobs of dust to suggest the place was shut down and a few of the terminals were active and perhaps currently processing data of some sort.

The general floorplan was rather clustered however with many small rooms with sturdy frames and doorways to seperate them; likely in case of seismic activity to try and minimize the chance of the whole building collapsing rather than a few rooms. Sera would have to move carefully in here lest she bump into someone around a corner or the like as, while no one was in the room she currently stood in, she could hear some idle chatter and sounds of movement to know she wasn't alone. Anything that Belia Industries would be worried about though would probably be on second or third floors since a basement was all but impossible with the planetary conditions.
 
Sera made her way slowly through the building, keeping an eye out for any guards inside. Everything looked normal, but that wasn't a surprise. The last factory had looked unused until someone looked deeper. This one looked like your standard prospecting base. That probably wouldn't hold up when she started looking deeper, and that was exactly what Sera intended to do.

Staying in the shadows long enough to avoid detection, Sera cloaked again before heading up to the second level. With the narrow passageways, she had to be very careful to avoid any potential patrols or guards. She wouldn't be able to squeeze past anyone without colliding with them, after all, and that would give away her position.

There were several close calls, but she soon found herself in a server room, having hacked through the locked door with only a little trouble. She sealed the door behind her to be safe, and then began looking through the servers for any information. While it was compiling, she took the opportunity to download updated schematics on the building, as well as the latest security reports. As she read them, she grew a bit nervous. Trying to keep it out of her voice, she radioed Kar, keeping her voice low and quiet to avoid being overheard by any passing guards. The quality was not the best, given the interference from the shifting topography, but it would still make it through well enough to be understood.

"I'm in the server room, downloading whatever information I can get to my omnitool. But...well...I have some updated schematics and security information. Guards are not the only concern with this place. I don't know how they did this without being noticed, but a shipment of old geth parts that were meant for Rannoch to be either destroyed or used under strict supervision as per the law got diverted. To here. By my guess, there could be at least ten rebuilt geth patrolling this building."

She couldn't help herself from feeling concerned. She was confident that, if it was just a matter of spotting the geth first, she'd be able to disable any mechanical parts with her hacking skills, and that should stand her in good stead against an actual artificial opponent. But if it came to a straight-up fight...well, she'd struggled against an assassin, and he had been organic, flesh and blood. A stab to the gut would have probably been enough to disable him if it had gotten through his armor. A geth would need to be fully destroyed before the same could be said, and it would be trying to kill her the whole time, with or without a weapon. For that reason, she kept herself on guard, hoping there wasn't a geth already in the room with her.
 
Over the crackling connection Kar, and presumably Velira, could make out most of what Sera was saying in regards to the rebuilt geth units. What didn't make sense to him is how that would benefit anyone. If the units were incomplete, damaged, or inactive before someone put them back together then wouldn't the units just start killing everyone like they did leading up to the Reaper War? Of course he didn't really know much about the geth other than the fact that the shared Rannoch with the quarians and coexisted now as an intelligent, individualistic species but it was somewhat commonly known that rogue geth were, or could be, dangerous. Even if Belia only managed to fill their systems with low grade VI the actual bodies themselves were top of the line and highly advanced. Old suits of geth-made Krogan armor were collector pieces from the Reaper War and still were leagues ahead of all other modern armor in terms of capability.

"I want you..." Was all he was able to say before static cut his words off from Sera's side of things, though his tone had certainly been concerned. Unbeknownst to the quarian her intrusion into the database had been detected and tripped a silent alarm that automatically activated an interference field for communication, something that blended well with the issues happening on Rayingri already to seem natural, and called for someone, or something, to investigate. Security wouldn't fully mobilize for every little thing within the building in case of a false alarm but one of the workers surely would respond and, even within the sealed room, she'd hear approaching footsteps moving with purpose towards the door.

--

From Kar's perspective the intereference had kicked up and Sera wasn't able to respond. This shouldn't have happened on short range coms but it did. It wasn't a cause for alarm but the timing was suspect and he said as much to Velira behind him. "I don't know if she heard me tell her to get out of there but there's no connection right now. I know what room she's in, it's near the center of the third floor and I can see this side of the surrounding rooms but not into... Shit, we got movement her way. This is about to turn into a mess real quick and I'm not even down there to enjoy it. Forget about watching my back, try to get down about halfway to the facility and find some cover to give overwatch. If she clears the building she will need you to provide covering fire so she doesn't get shot in the open."

He trained his scope on the worker, a human in a simple lab uniform, moving to check the server room. Kar couldn't see a gun but he didn't have the greatest angle and either way things would be bad if she were found out. Exhaling in frustration he resolved to hold himself back from firing unless he saw them reach for a sidearm but his mind was already thinking that she might be captured here or killed.
 
Sera heard the approaching footsteps, and reacted quickly. Moving to the side of the door, Sera did the opposite of what could be expected, unlocking the door to allow the human to enter the room. Once she did, however, she cloaked. Best case scenario, the worker would open the door, manually scan the room, see nothing, and write it off as a false alarm.

This was not a best case scenario, however. While the human did open the door and manually scan the room, he didn't seem fully satisfied, stepping inside for a closer look. Luckily for her, Sera had been prepared for that particular scenario as well. Raising her omnitool, she sent a surge of energy through it, pressing it against the human's back as she did so to shock him unconscious...and hopefully nothing more, as she dragged him out of view of the door. Things were starting to get a little shaky, and she realized how fortunate she was that she was able to subdue the worker without tripping any further alarms. With that realization, she waited for the energy surge to subside, then cloaked again and made her way quickly the same way she had gone out the first time.

Getting out, however, proved much more difficult than getting in had been. Velira did as Kar had requested, quickly scaling down the mesa to get into position, but Sera's concern about the geth proved to be prophetic, as three separate geth exited the facility and began patrolling. While Velira was able to take one geth down with several bursts from her rifle, Sera's cloaking failed to disguise her from the scans of the other two geth, who quickly began to give chase and catch up to her. As one of the geth grabbed her by the throat, she decloaked, stabbing her omniblade into the chassis of the geth and cutting a wide gash in it as it began to lift her off the ground, causing it to drop her and fall to the ground. However, that still left her with one unarmed but still dangerous geth to deal with, and the snipers proved to be more adept than the guards at the previous facility, one of them firing rounds from a Striker at Velira to force her to find cover rather than take out the geth, while the other sniper fired at Kar to do the same.
 
As soon as gunshots started to ring out Kar reinforced his armor with the bright, holographic plating. He didn't much care about being spotted, he knew he was fairly visible regardless and having the added protection would allow him to effectively remain still and tank a few incoming shots. That's exactly what happened as the snipers started to engage, first pinning down Velira at her lower vantage before the other snapped a round off at the krogan on the mesa. The first incoming shot glanced off his shields as an indirect hit thankfully, though he felt the impact from the hasty attack, and with so many things happening at once Kar had to prioritize something lest he accomplish nothing instead.

His focus first was on the sniper pinning down Velira. Kar charged the coils of his rifle and located the sniper resting their barrel on the low wall on the roof before he released the shot. The weapon kicked into his shoulder as the harpoon launched free but Kar could barely feel it honestly. While he was busy swapping out the thermal sink and loading a new harpoon his shot traveled and arced through the air, dropping with gravity before slamming home into the sniper's torso with a sickening spray of blood and the shattering of bones. This would all go missed in the chaos were it not for the fact that the now lifeless body fell off the building and smacked into the ground just outside the door where Sera was exiting; meaning she couldn't miss the large metal harpoon sticking out nor the gaping wound that was leaking crimson everywhere.

As a consequence of his decision, effective as it might be, the other sniper slammed a round into him much more directly this time. His shields popped and it sunk into his armor, halting most of the incoming force but still puncturing into his flesh around his left shoulder painfully. He couldn't focus on that though, he could keep going surely and he needed to do his part. He focused next on a patrolling guard that had taken up position to fire on Velira, knowing that the turian couldn't do much to help while they were still active and that Sera would have to effectively run through that field of fire to escape. Even with the pain this was an easy shot to make as the individual, a woman by the looks of it through his scope, was holding her ground and trusting her allies to take advantage of the situation; a good tactic in most cases. He didn't watch this shot either as he focused on reloading but the scream of agony as the harpoon embedded itself into her stomach and pinned her to the ground certainly gave the other guards pause from the sheer brutality; breaking will could be more effective than breaking bodies after all.

With Velira freed up for the moment to start covering Sera as a few more guards showed up to engage, Kar was hit again by the remaining sniper and this time the round sunk into the lower part of his throat, bypassing his armor entirely. It rocked him to say the least as the pain seared through his insides like fire. He could immediately tell it was a serious injury as he lay there stunned for a few moments but his rage built and instinct kicked in as he pain, and his mind, slipped away. Despite not being able to truly think or consider things beyond the moment at this point as a blood rage overtook him, Kar still had the fleeting understanding that he needed to protect Sera.

One last time he pulled the trigger to charge the coils of his rifle again and pulled his scope over towards where he could now see Sera running from the facility. With the travel time of the harpoon projectile and the fact that they were in motion his was going to strain his accuracy as he needed to estimate where he needed to lead in order to hit the pursuing geth unit. The scary part was the angle he had to utilize, meaning that if he led too much then Sera would be in his line of fire. Conventional guns had complicated sensors to help determine these things but the Kishock, or really any Batarian weapon, not only didn't come with such things but were entirely incompatible with any other scope systems that might offer such things. Under normal circumstances he'd think twice about taking this shot but here? Now? He released without fear, the electrically charged harpoon sailing down and somehow managing to nail the geth straight through the head as it closed in on the fleeing quarian. The electrical pulse it released a second after fried the whole unit instantly.

Kar, on the other hand, wasn't moving from his perch even if the others might have a relatively clear run to the shuttle at this point. Lost in his blood rage he was intent to kill that fucking bastard that dared to shoot him, as well as anything and everything else with a gun that was in or around that facility while he bled heavily from his neck wound and pushed himself to his limits.
 
Last edited:
Sera heard the gunshots firing off around her, but she was more focused on just getting out than anything. It was a very messy situation, and things had in fact started to go wrong. Luckily not until after she had at least managed to gather data. Not that it would do her any good if she didn't get out of there alive, and that was getting a bit less likely with every guard that appeared, even with Kar's covering fire taking out the geth and snipers. She didn't see the rounds that hit him from where she was, but instead focused on sprinting towards the cover near the mesa.

For her own part, Velira aimed her Phaeston at the pursuing guards, firing several round bursts carefully. She'd been in plenty of combat situations, and knew that keeping a cool head would be to her benefit. Let the krogan blood rage all he wanted, she'd be better off with deep breathing. Even as a round bounced off her shielding, she used her biotics to reinforce them, continuing to fire. After six bursts of 3 rounds each, she reloaded, satisfied with having at least wounded three pursuing guards with those six bursts. She'd never been the most accurate, specializing more in close combat with her biotics, but she was holding her own, at least for the time being. Standing once the snipers were taken out, she quickly ran after Sera, firing at the pursuing guards with several bursts. Over the radio, she shouted to try to get some sense into the blood raging krogan.

"Kar, we really should get back to the shuttle! Won't do us any good to stay here and fight, and I don't think you can take down the entire facility on your own! Get over your injury, get to the ship to get it treated, and let's go!"

As she shouted her suggestion verging on an order, several rounds from the pursuing guards glanced off her shields, until one didn't. Grunting, she felt the pain flare as a lucky Talon round landed in her thigh. She stumbled slightly, her leg nearly buckling before the adrenaline kicked in to keep her rushing towards the shuttle, even as she felt the blood running down her leg inside the armor. "OK, now we're both injured..." she muttered to herself, firing at the guard and emptying half a clip into his chest. Over the radio, she shouted again for Kar. "Back to the shuttle! We'll both need time to recover now, and I think you'll need more time than I do, and that's if you don't get yourself injured even more!"

With that, Sera and Velira managed to get back to the shuttle, waiting for Kar to join them.
 
A krogan blood rage was, unfortunately, not so easy to quell. Velira's words over the coms just faded into nothing as his mind allowed him to focus on nothing except violence and survival. The sounds of his rifle charging and firing remained steady as he rose to his feet and all but dared the rest of the guards to attack him all at once. This change in position ultimately helped protect him more since it covered up the exposed tissue of his neck but incoming rounds still peppered his thick armor and tore small holes into his flesh beneath. Those shots were minor and he'd heal from those given a day but the wound in his throat, well, even if he couldn't feel it the blood loss was taking its toll.

The krogan was doing a damn good job holding off the guards, and even managed to take out the remaining sniper and complete his revenge, but his muscles were slowing and his focus was slipping. The rate that he could reload his kishock and fire was slipping, he very much indeed couldn't take on the whole facility as injured as he was and it would be clear to the two women that he was nearing the point of a last stand. They had no way of realizing it wasn't intentional, that his rage blocked out the higher functions of his mind to prevent his collapse from pain, but thankfully the shuttle had a stronger communications suite than their individual suits and the crackling, static-filled voice of Calius came through to their ears. "Can you... readings are... needs help..." A moment or two passed before the connection strengthened enough to get a proper statement out. "Take off now! You have to pick up the captain, his life signs are critical!"
 
Velira quickly got behind the helm of the shuttle, taking off quickly and flying to the top of the mesa where Kar was continuing to lay down cover fire and take out the guards. It was clear that even with the shuttle behind him waiting to pick him up that his blood rage was still in full effect, and he would not be getting onto the shuttle unless someone made him do so.

Sera was the one who made the move to do just that. It seemed logical to Sera to do so instead of Velira, even with the quarian technically being weaker. Velira's thigh would make it harder to support the krogan without taking further damage and increasing her recovery time, and someone needed to pilot the shuttle as well without any further delay. Quickly, Sera grabbed the krogan by the arm, pulling him towards the shuttle with all of her might. At full strength, she knew that she wouldn't have anywhere close to success forcing him onto the shuttle, but she could see how serious his throat injury was, and knew he was weakening quite a bit. She hoped it wouldn't take much more effort to get the krogan onto the shuttle and back to the ship to be treated by the medic. In the meantime, she attempted to lay him out on the floor of the shuttle, pressing down on his injury to stem the bloodflow as Velira piloted the shuttle back to the waiting ship as fast as she safely could.
 
By the time Sera reached Kar he was so weak that he could barely hold onto his rifle, let alone actually reload or fire it. Thankfully his feet still held him up for the most part and her grip on his arm allowed her to sort of drag him back to the shuttle as he stumbled and struggled to remain conscious. The front half of his armor was slick with both his yellowish-orange neuroconductive fluid and the red of his lifeblood as it gushed from his neck in thick spurts. The krogan tripped over the lip of the shuttle and fell hard onto the floor with a resounding thud but this left Velira free to seal the cabin and take off, the small arms fire from below not enough to remotely threaten the shuttle's plating. With Sera trying to apply pressure to his wound Kar's eyes would flutter as he groaned weakly before he slipped into unconsciousness.

Thankfully Calius was not a fool and had alerted the doctor regarding Kar's condition, though truthfully she had been idly monitoring both his and Velira's condition on her own anyway. As soon as the shuttle was back in the Pa'vex, and the cargo hold was sealed tight, the doctor was there with a few other crew members to help with the task of carrying their bulky captain up to the medical bay. Obviously Velira's leg wound necessitated treatment too, though for the moment the doctor would apply a quick patch of medi-gel to her with the knowledge that would hold in the meantime while she focused on Kar. "Get in the elevator, follow us up." The doctor commanded to Velira amidst the chaos. She knew how tough krogans were and she was not about to let her captain die, not on her watch.
 
Sera kept up the pressure the entire flight back to the ship, even after Kar passed out. Once the shuttle returned to the ship and the crew took Kar to the medical bay, Sera followed to keep an eye on the situation more than anything, knowing that she wouldn't be much help supporting him and would just get in the way if she were to try to assist, and his condition was serious enough that she didn't want to risk any delay getting him medical attention.

For her part, Velira limped after the crew onto the elevator as instructed. The medigel stopped the bleeding, which was the most important part, and it was holding together the femur that had been cracked by the round, but she was still in a fair bit of pain. Not that she was worried about that, with how serious the captain's injuries were. Sera and Velira both got on the elevator as it quickly went to the main level, with the crew quickly taking Kar to the medical bay and laying him on a bed in order to allow the doctor to work on healing him. As they waited, Sera and Velira both sat on other beds nearby, watching for Kar to be stabilized, at the very least.
 
The doctor had her work cut out for her in trying to stabilize Kar but she was up to the task. With the understanding that his body could knit itself back together from most things she focused on trying to stop the bleeding but, rather than cauterization or anything else that might actively hamper his recovery she simply had to utilize operational tools to get inside and force the damage internal tissue to press together. A part of her mind equated it to antique figurines where one had to glue or seal separate parts tightly, though it was far different on a living being. Aside from that she had to deal with his armor being in the way as well though it was designed to cooperate with her medical tools and devices, meaning she could remove it piece by piece where necessary and cut through the undersuit elsewhere to create larger gaps to work with.

It took time, it took frustration and some choice words under her breath that Sera and Velira would hear, but she would eventually manage well enough to consider the man stable. That didn't mean he couldn't use some more work to help his recovery but she could sigh with the understanding that he would survive something that she couldn't imagine anyone else being able to. At this point she would move over to Velira to take care of her properly as well after washing off the fluids from the captain first obviously. Out loud, to both of the women in the bay, she would reassure them of his condition. "He is stable but won't be waking up for a while. I need to monitor his regeneration to make sure nothing heals incorrectly and he needs some blood and fluid transfusion to bring him back to consciousness. He took a hit to the throat from a high powered rifle and it carved out a deep cavity in his torso. He should be dead... if he wasn't a krogan. Even still, he was close. You did good to help slow his bleeding Sera."

By comparison Velira's wound was a simple matter, though still painful to treat. Sealing cracked bone like she had in her leg would take a few minutes of having the wound opened but she was careful to minimize discomfort and get it over with as fast as she reasonably could. When the tissue of the turian's leg was at last sealed up everything should feel much better if not completely back to normal. It would be back to Kar for the doctor at this point, though she'd offer a few parting words to the others before effectively shooing them out. "I don't know when he will be back on his feet, I've never had to treat an injury this serious on him before. I'll let you two know when I have a better estimate. For now you should probably talk to Calius and figure out some place for us to go. Staying here seems like a bad decision in my professional opinion."
 
Sera nodded once in acknowledgement of the doctor's words, but didn't say anything, merely absorbing what the doctor had to say about the condition of Kar. It was Velira who had something to say. "I trust you'll be able to bring him around. He's quite tough, even by krogan standards. I just wish we had been able to get him to you a fair bit sooner, but that's a blood rage for you. I doubt either of us, or even both combined, could have gotten him under control before he was close to bleeding out."

Velira stood with a soft groan as she was treated, nodding her thanks to the doctor as they both made their way out of the room. As they did so, Sera followed the doctor's suggestion and went to the cockpit to discuss their options with the pilot. "We need to get out of here as fast as possible, before they start sending people after us. Where is the nearest safe planet, and how fast can you get us there?" While Sera didn't say so out loud, she was quite concerned about the possibility that they would be forcibly boarded while their captain, and the strongest member of the crew, was incapacitated. They needed more time to let him heal, and a safe planet would be a good start to find him the relatively sedate conditions that would allow him the quickest recovery possible.
 
Calius looked at the maps and shook his head slightly at the question. "There isn't really anywhere safe closer than Earth. By the time we got there the captain will probably be up and moving around again." A bit optimistic but he was clearly glad to hear that Kar was stable and going to pull through. Then again Calius was a generally happy person by default. "Feros is right next door if we needed supplies or such but they are still a small frontier colony, not a place to truly consider safe haven."

He paused to look at the charts again and sighed. "We are effectively just as close to Earth right now as we are to Omega. I know the captain talked favorably about his standing there but I'm not sure if I'd call that place safe either. Still would take about the same amount of time anyway so doesn't solve that problem. Were there any other leads you came up with? We could start heading towards one if so. Try to stay close to our objectives while staying in stealth as much as possible." With the odd way this ship had been restructured from military to spectre-run the chain of command was a bit fuzzy to say the least. Kar hadn't technically named a second in command so between Calius, the armorer, and the doctor they all more or less had the same standing as specialists right now; Arguably Sera and Velira did too now that they were part of the crew. Any true decision would need to be somewhat democratic at this point but that just meant three votes so to speak.
 
Sera sighed slightly at the news. "Getting out of the system is priority. Safe haven would have been nice, but it seems that we'll have to take a shot in the dark. Before this mission, I had found a few potential planets, but for various reasons, Kar felt our best lead was on Eletania. Has the metals for the alloy, has enough settlements that could be converted to labs, good cover for a medical company to plausibly set up base. It isn't completely solid, and I still have to run research to determine if Belia Industries has a presence and where, but for now, it will suffice to get us out of here."

Velira stayed quiet for the most part, but spoke up. "If the Spectre felt that was our most promising lead, we should trust in that, I feel. There's not much option otherwise."

With that said, Sera left the cockpit and headed to the command center, sitting in an available chair to run through the data she had obtained on Rayingri. She expected it to take a while to sort through all of the data, but she was looking for one thing in particular, and it didn't take long for her to find it. "Looks like Belia Industries found an abandoned settlement on Eletania, set up shop there. I'll send you the coordinates," she told Calius. "Unless, of course, you can think of another place to go."

With that, she resumed scanning through the data and sorting it automatically before she leaned back in the seat to relax, suddenly feeling weary after the adrenaline of the previous mission wore off.
 
"Well that is also right next door, though different cluster than Feros. Should get there within the cycle with how close we already are to the relay." He paused to consider everything but ultimately figured this decision made some sense, at least for now anyway. "I'll get us moving. I don't think the others will have any problem with this but, if they do, then we won't have wasted any travel time. We need to go through Attican Beta to get anywhere else regardless."

They'd quickly find there were no objections to the destination. It wasn't far but most of the crew trusted the stealth capabilities of the vessel to protect them for near anything. In the past it had taken Reaper technology to be able to detect a ship that was masking emissions after all. Once the Pa'vex was in the correct system Calius had them hang back and stay out of the way of where other ships might want to travel. With the IES could only absorb the heat from the ship for a couple of hours of active use, the system could stay active for a week or two if the ship was running on low power with non-vital features shut down.

It wouldn't be until the next cycle before Kar was reportedly awake, though still weak enough that he couldn't really get out of the bed to move around. The doctor informed Sera and Velira that he could talk and hold a conversation though if they wanted to visit him. Her current estimate before he was mobile was simply another day, though how long until he could actually return to active duty was more difficult to say; not to mention she expected he would try to undercut whatever she said out of stubborness so giving an estimate on that would be to his detriment in her opinion.
 
Sera spent that cycle analyzing what data she had recovered from Rayingri carefully, separating it into different categories. By the time Kar was awake, she had some information to give to him to prove that the trip was far from wasted. With that, she made her way to the medical bay with Velira, who had since recovered completely from her own relatively minor injury, in order to debrief Kar.

"Glad to see you are on the mend. Got a little dicey back there," Velira started, acknowledging the gun fight while downplaying how close they had come to suffering a catastrophic loss due to the rounds Kar took.

Sera picked up from there. "It wasn't in vain, fortunately. I managed to get quite a bit of data from their servers, and I have a slightly better idea of what we are up against, and a more than slightly better idea of what their plan for the bomb components are. According to shipping manifests that I found, they are looking at scheduled shipments to the Citadel, and communication logs show that they are bribing several members of C-Sec to look the other way for specific packages. Based on that, and what the components were modified to do, I think it's safe to say they are planning to bomb somewhere on the Citadel, although where and why is still a mystery to me. I know the Council probably can't act on this still, because the Citadel is a big place, but at least we have something to go off of."

"The other major bit of information I found involves hiring practices. The head of security at their sister location on Ilium is a krogan named Ganar Xilar. I have a feeling you'll be familiar with that name, although the krogan herself might or might not be familiar to you. In any case, she's considered to be quite a tough boss, and the reason her hiring is odd to me is because she was actually let go from her previous post after...well, let's just say one of her fellow security guards decided to disparage her past as a Blood Pack member and insinuate she never really left. They lost two security guards that day, but the other one has not been found yet. At least, not completely. In any case, she doesn't seem to be the most stable when questioned, so having her as the head of security suggests a lot about what she expects from her underlings."
 
Last edited:
Kar was still weak but glad to have some people to talk to. He hated to admit it to himself but this was the most serious injury he had ever sustained and the lingering scar in his neck that outlined the impact site was somewhat nasty, though impressive and appealing by krogan standards considering he had survived. While the worst of the damage was fixed by his regeneration and the doctor's skilled assistance his voice was still a bit weak and it was hard for him to talk; not that that stopped him from doing so anyway. "Someone had to... take the hits so you two... wouldn't." He chuckled slightly and smirked with his response to Velira though he wasn't aware that she had been shot in the leg. Though, by comparison, he'd consider that a minor wound.

Since she had to strip his armor off of him the krogan was effectively in a medical gown and nothing else. It covered him up well enough, though the shape of his manhood and quad refused to be so easily hidden as the outlines were clearly defined beneath the soft garb. Looking at his arms would reveal the faintest hints of some of the impacts he had taken during his blood rage but, as the doctor stated, every shot he received was all but completely healed up; an impressive healing rate for a krogan indeed.

"Council needs to... know about that." Trying to bomb something, or someone, on the Citadel was a bold move indeed but explained why the company was so insistent on making progress with undetectable alloys. Bribing officials was more commonplace than C-Sec would ever want to admit but Belia wouldn't need to if they could just walk an explosive through the security scanners. Unfortunately only his credentials could make the QEC terminal in his quarters functional to contact the Council directly and a more conventional communication could be intercepted through the com buoys and thus was an unacceptable risk with such sensitive information.

For now he continued to listen in regards to the details of the krogan that Sera had uncovered, the one just called 'boss' as far as Velira had been aware previously. "Sounds like... my kind of... lady, heh." He was partially joking since he did prefer people to have a bit more sense in their heads beyond just mindless violence but being insulted and turning to violence was only natural for his kind and not something he saw as an outright bad thing; Even if he understood more how the other races preferred less aggressive solutions to problems. "But no... I don't know her. Females off of... Tuchanka are rare. I figured... Yulaz was the only... one in the Pack. That and... we krogan are... seperated out to command... the vorcha."
 
Sera wasn't too surprised that their new krogan opponent wasn't known to Kar. It had been a long shot, that just because two krogan were in the same gang that they'd have interacted. Still, she'd needed to try. As it was, all they had was the information she had found for now, which wasn't a lot to go off of. It was still better than nothing, but much like the information Sera had gathered on the bombing plans, it was still a bit too vague to take any real action on.

"We'll let the Council know as soon as we can, but you need to recover first. Even if we try to rush to tell the Council about it, the threat is a little too nebulous for any action beyond just being on alert. And being on alert isn't enough when we already know the bombs are harder to detect than normal. You should focus on recovery. And actual recovery, not just forcing yourself to feel better."

As Sera spoke, she let her eyes wander down the krogan's body. It felt a bit odd, seeing a krogan in such a state, out of even casual wear, but that just made certain...parts of him stand out a bit more. "Now, no need to talk any more. All of us are safe, recovered or recovering, and I got a decent amount of data out of the factory. It seems that our efforts were, at the very least, not in vain. Hopefully, however, the next mission goes a bit smoother. Between you and Velira, it's my turn to take a bullet next, and I don't really think that is something that I want to do," she commented, trying to keep the mood light.
 
He lifted his right arm and waved off her concern, or tried to anyway but the action only reinforced his current state for how weak the motion was. "I'll be... up in a day. At least enough to... talk to the... council." Even he wasn't stubborn enough to think he'd be able to return to combat so quickly but the fact that he was talking at all could easily mean that his recovery could sneak up on them all.

In any case Sera's light joke made Kar shake his head slightly with a small grunt, not happy with the idea of her getting shot like it was some kind of initiation rite. The quarian might want him to stop talking but he wasn't going to, at least not until there was no one around to listen to him. "You can... pay me back." He teased, perhaps making it seem like he was heading somewhere else with this line of thinking but ultimately his follow up was rather tame. "Sneak me a... drink. Doc won't let me... have one."

When Velira and Sera did manage to pull away to let Kar rest they'd both get stopped by Calius in the mess hall. He was all business but not intense or anything. "Hey, I need to get the after action report sent to the council since the captain can't do it himself. I wanted to get both your opinions though. I can't wrap my head around how he managed to get shot so cleanly. Velira, you said there were two snipers on the rooftop and Sera, you said there were three repurposed geth platforms? Kar had his harpoon rifle though, by just the raw data I don't see how he couldn't have taken out both snipers before they could drop his shields. His previous combat data suggests this engagement was well within his capability to perform safely."
 
Sera chuckled slightly. "Not sure I could really sneak anything in with this outfit. Doesn't exactly leave a lot to the imagination, even if it does have pockets." With that, both Velira and Sera left the room, only to run into Calius in the mess hall.

Sera was the first to respond to his question and request. "There were three that made it out of the building, maybe more inside. As for what happened, I couldn't tell you. I was too busy trying not to get shot and keeping the data safe to really make any strategic notes."

Velira followed up with her own thoughts. "There were only two snipers, but they were well-coordinated. One had me pinned down, while the other had Kar pinned down as the geth focused on Sera. If I had to make a guess, he let himself stay pinned down longer in order to take out the geth that had Sera in immediate danger, then the sniper that had me pinned down, under the assumption that he could take more hits if necessary. That's complete speculation on my part, however."
 
Calius nodded at the additional information from the two, speculation or otherwise, and made a few notes on his datapad while offering a small hum. "I see, yes that could explain it. Speculation of course, like you said, but I'm sure the council will want to have some idea of what happened in the meantime. Truthfully they are likely going to be upset about this battle so I'm hoping to appease them a touch with my report. Can't say if the captain will anger them further when he gets around to speaking with them but that's his business, not mine. In any case, I think this should be sufficient for now. Thank you."

The turian would take his leave to finish up the report, possibly embellishing a touch to make the situation sound more heroic or such but certainly not one to outright lie. Meanwhile things on the ship would stay fairly quiet for the time being. Later on in the day sensors would detect a few ships coming and going from Eletania at long range. They appeared to be simple civilian vessels but was impossible to say with how far away the Pa'vex was from the travel lanes for their own safety. Could be agents of Belia Industries moving to start covering their tracks, could be entirely unrelated.

There was one thing that was for certain though, next cycle would see Kar up and moving again despite the protests of the doctor. He was still moving slowly and far from full strength but he at least managed to get up to his room to relax in more comfortable conditions. As much as he might like to just laze around to some extent he was trying to build up the energy to stand long enough to contact the Council and do his best to explain the mess to them directly if he could, though he wasn't certain he'd be able to manage that today.
 
While waiting for the right time to make the next move, both Sera and Velira worked on different aspects to prepare. The turian did what turians usually did between missions: training, mostly with firearms in the armory, using targets to practice on. She'd never say anything out loud, and would deny it if asked, but she felt responsible for Kar's injury. If her speculation was correct, and he had gotten grievously injured because he was covering her ass when she got herself pinned down...well, she just needed to train to make sure she could get herself out of trouble next time, without needing his back up.

Sera, on the other hand, was continuing to compile the data she had recovered. She had given what seemed like the pertinent information to Kar earlier, but there was still more data to go through, and she knew that even if the individual data didn't tell her much, she could easily make more conclusions simply through logical leaps between seemingly unrelated bits of data. Towards that end, she continued going through the data, even as she had a program continuing to break down the makeup of the alloys to determine likely points of origin.

After a few hours of data compiling, Sera felt she was close to something big, an indication of what the motivation was for the planned bombing, which would help narrow down a specific target beyond just "somewhere on the Citadel". She just needed a bit more data. Hopefully, Eletania would not be a dead end. And equally hopefully, the mission wouldn't go as catastrophically wrong as the last one had.

After some thought, Sera made her way to Kar's room, using the door panel to signal her arrival. If the krogan were in the middle of something, she didn't want to interrupt him by simply walking in, after all. Let him let her in at his own leisure, or not at all, for that matter. He was the one recovering.
 
When Kar heard the chime from the door he was most certainly not in the middle of anything. He'd willed himself to his room but had mostly just been sitting in one of the chairs by the table and casually sipping some peruvian whiskey. He was, perhaps, a little bit tipsy but that was better than staring at the wall sober in his opinion. Reaching over to the table at his left, he tugged on an omni-glove and used that to remotely open the door so he didn't have to get up. He knew it wasn't the doctor, she'd just barge in with her credentials whenever she felt it was appropriate, so he figured it was either Velira or Sera. Seeing Sera step inside was thus not a shock.

The krogan raised the bottle in a small toast of sorts upon seeing the quarian. "You missed your chance to square up." He chuckled slightly in reference to his words the previous day. "Guess you still owe me one for the time being." Tipsy as he was, he remained in control and was not overdoing it to the point of actually getting wasted. He could hold his liquor well considering his size and bulk so it did take him a lot to even get to this state but it would look worse than it actually was in regards to empty bottles on the table. "I've got some Turian Brandy around here somewhere if you'd like to join in."
 
Sera looked around the room. She wasn't judging the fact that he was drinking. Being that they were between missions, it's not like what he did in his leisure time was any of her concern. There seemed to be a fair few empty bottles, but judging from his body language and speech, he was still in control of himself.

"I appreciate the offer, but I think I'll stay sober. At least for now." Walking in, she gazed out the window onto the command deck, standing with her back to him as she tried to gather her thoughts to put into words.

"I've been going through more of the data that I recovered. I still have some missing pieces, and I hope to recover them at the next place, but what I do have suggests a motivation for the bombings. It seems there is some grumbling about what should be ancient history after the Reaper Wars. Specifically, this Xilar has been known to have quite the dim view of turians and salarians, and resents the fact that the krogan in general have accepted their place in the galaxy without fighting for control or say on the Council. Some of her private logs to subordinates, and one or two people on her level in the organization that I can't identify yet, have expressed her urge to 'divide and conquer through terror'. Given that, I suspect that whatever the bombing target is, it is something to do with the turians, and also something that would cause significant unrest. I just can't quite figure out what, hence my need for the missing pieces where we're eventually going."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom