NOVEL WEB Turok 5
Turok
Chapter 5
By: BigToFu
Asari Councilor Member Tevos Araeus' Office
Watching the video procured from her pet Spectre, Tevos could only drum her finger as the clip progressed. Like her fellow Councilors, Tevos had heard about the purple-skinned man calling himself a Quarian. Like her fellows, she had made checks and called in demands, not favors. Those were far beneath one that held her station. With a few key presses, Tevos had the video playing from the start once more. After watching it a few more times, Tevos paused the section where the ship that Turok was using took to space and went into FTL. It was clear that from what she was reading, the Salarian had no clue how this Turok was able to escape.
From the readings and the data she was able to get her hands on, the ship left absolutely no eezo trail behind for tracking or particular scanning. Followed by that were the time stamps along with galactic charts on Turok's sightings. It was clear that this person, whoever he was, had very advanced technology. And as much as it pained her to admit it, his ships were far more advanced than the Asari's. It was clear that Tevos would either need to nip this problem right now or get it under her control. Tevos double-checked the security of her office before placing the call.
With the hologram projectors around her room active, Tevos leaned back in her seat as the call connected and she waited for the other to speak first. The silence continued for some time, then the call went dead as a message pinged on her personal Omni-tool.
-Aria plays no games.
With a frustrated grumble, Tevos input a few keys to make sure the connection was secure before placing a call once more. The call rang twice before it was picked up, "Speak," Stated the person on the other end of the line, her voice commanding.
Tevos' hands gripped the table and she had to take a deep long powerful breath. With a slow exhale, she spoke, "I'm calling because you possibly have very important information for me."
"Hmm, and how would I know what information is important to you, many things travel through these parts after all." The cold and controlled voice answered from the other end of the line.
With gritted teeth, Tevos forced herself to calm down, released the hold on her desk, and straightened herself within the chair. "Aria, I'm calling on behalf of the Asari Matriarchs Council."
*Snort* "We both know you don't give a kal'tu's behind about what they have to say." Aria returned, "No, tell me why you really called, or I'll just hang up once more."
"Why must you be so frustrating?" Tevos snapped at her counterpart on the other end of the line.
"It is only frustrating for you because I do not beg, scrape and grovel at your feet like the rest of those sycophants," Aria sniped back across the call. "Now why have you called?"
Glaring at the open call, Tevos slid her hand across the desk and sent the image she had over, "I need information on this person, and with your current standing in that society, you would have heard the most about it."
"And what is your stake in all of this?" Aria replied even as the caller portal binged that she received the images.
"I have no stake other than making sure that the Asari stay on top of whatever this is." Tevos replied smoothly.
"Of course, then you wouldn't mind paying twice the normal fee then since it's to better the Asari as a whole," Aria replied easily, her voice laced with cold indifference.
"Then yes, it will be paid," Tevos replied with a glare at the hologram hovering over her desk.
Aria was silent for a moment, then answered with something Tevos was not expecting, "Ohh, then if it was so easy, you wouldn't mind paying triple."
She gripped the table again to hold herself back from screaming across the call, then an idea popped inside of her head, "I'll pay triple if what you send me is the only copy and it travels to no other hands."
"Hmm, that is an agreeable arrangement," Aria replied nice and slowly.
Tevos grounded her teeth because she knew that Aria wasn't going to delete the other copies. Tevos knew that this was only lip service, but she would cross that bridge when it arrived.
Her hand idly tapped on the desk, then she made a flicking motion to send a picture of the purple man to Aria, "So, is there anything actionable on this Turok that you can provide me?"
"Quarian, fixed immune system somehow, little over six feet, two hundred fifty pounds easy, ambidextrous, very advanced stealth technology with unknown FTL capabilities," Aria fired off rapidly, then her desk pinged as she sent a file. "Carries both a personal device along with an omni-tool, so far none of my data slicers were able to break his encryption while he was here, absolutely hates the batarians. Notable folded staff and bow as weaponry, very advanced, don't dismiss, also carries a plasma-based secondary weapon."
As Aria finished speaking Tevos opened the file sent to her and her brows pinched as she read over the data.
Her hand flew over the keys as she parceled the data and compartmentalized parts to copy. "Were you able to get any trackers placed on his ship?"
"Now, that was not part of the agreement, you would have to pay extra for that type of information." Aria returned coolly.
"Well, when will he be returning to your station?" Tevos grounded out with narrowed eyes.
Aria snorted on the other end of the call, "That is unknown at this time."
"That does not help me Aria, this so-called Quarian is somewhere out in space with unknown technology," Tevos replied swiftly, her voice rising slightly.
"That is not my problem. Now, is there anything else?" Aria returned with cold calmness to her voice.
"No that will-" Tevos never got to finish what she was saying as the line was cut and her communication suite returned to its secured display. With a growl of frustration, Tevos brought her fist down onto her table with a crash, then swiped it to the skid knocking over a good portion of her paperwork along with a few minor things.
That Aria and her prissy little throne always knew how to get underneath Tevos' skin and twist the neural whip of irritation. With her anger very much vented, Tevos turned her attention towards getting someone to go after this Turok. She would not be able to use her normal channels since the Salarian in her employ would just turn whatever was recovered over to the STG. No, what she needed was someone loyal to their people because that's exactly the point she needed to twist to have them turn over the technology into her hands.
A name and face flashed through her mind's eye and yes, that would do. With a motion of her hands, Tevos brought up her contacts list. Reflecting in her eyes was the name Tela Vasir, a mid to high-level Spectre that had done a lot of work for her before but also had a good track record of hunting down those who were hard to find.
Yes, Tevos would contact this Tela and impress upon her the importance of one's responsibilities towards her species.
[ Jane Shepard N7 ]
The beating of her heart sang within Jane's ears as adrenaline pumped gloriously through her veins. Her tongue flicked out and tasted the little salt that came from her sweat from all of her intense combat action. A grunt escaped her lips following the shoulder check of a slaver. He flew back half a step, but she was faster than his draw. The sweet business pushed into his abdominal plating, the heat from the barrel a bright orange-red against the blues and off-whites of his armor.
Then she applied the five pounds of pressure with her index finger onto the trigger. The gatling gun platform wasted no time, tungsten rounds, 7x62 slugs all freshly fabricated, shot forward like the sound of angry bees and a chainsaw. One round cracked the kinetic shields, then two rounds broke his armor plating, and the following fifteen cut that slaving asshole in half. Blood, bone, and entrails flew everywhere, Jane dropped body after body.
She still couldn't believe he was using a bow as Turok skidded on the floor around her to cover the backside, an arrow was already drawn and ready for release. Then she watched as it not only pierced through a Batarian, but also curved around and stabbed into someone hiding behind a stack of crates. Okay, maybe she would ask to try it later the only thing missing was the, *boom* explosion. A round ricocheted off a nearby wall and pulled Jane from her musings as she lined up a shot and took it. The weapon Turok had given her kicked far less than it should as it took a chunk out of the batarian bastard.
Standing behind the cover, Jane gave her shields a few seconds to recharge before popping back out and releasing a series of hellfire mini rockets from the over-shoulder rocket launcher mounted to her armor. With a chuckle that matched the bass rumble of her rockets exploding, Jane gave Turok a signal before pulling a smart grenade from a compartment on her belt and throwing it with an underhand twist. The slavers that were coming out of cover scrambled back allowing Jane to fire down the line, not even the space-grade metals were able to provide cover from her Sweet Business.
None stood in their way as she led the charge into the depths of the Batarian's little slaver base.
[ Turok ]
Perched on the open hat of my Titan, I watched in silence as the System Alliance troops moved out the bodies of the fools that chose to stay behind instead of teleporting out when Alita had made her rescue. After Jane turned the place into a slaughterhouse with me watching her back, we came to only five of the slaves still alive from the number Alita had alerted me to. I should feel sorry for them, but I just couldn't bring myself to feel that way. They were given a chance and they didn't take it, so it sucks to be them. Looking away from where the few slaves were being taken care of, I waved at the approaching party and hopped down from my perch as Jane and her commanding officers pulled up.
With the eezo holding my weight, I landed lightly on my toes and shook hands with all the big wigs.
"I heard you had an infiltrator recover people from the pens." The gruff no-nonsense Commander of one of the ships up above asked me with hard eyes.
Looking him over and dismissing the fact that he didn't even introduce himself, I gave a nod, "Yeah, got them stored in a DHS at the moment."
The Commander's face twisted a little in confusion before it smoothed over real swiftly, "A DH what now?"
I looked at them, then my mind caught up with the situation of these all being military types so it was better to speak English instead of techno-babble. "Huh, you know what, instead of explaining all of the intricacies of teleportation and what makes it possible, how about I just show you." Then I made a hand motion for them to follow me over to a wide-open area.
In that same wide-open area, Eve, one of my bots, was setting up perimeter stakes that would kill all transmissions in and out of the little area.
"Alright, this seems good," I stated as I came to a stop, then turned toward the group, "Are your medics ready for this influx?"
The Commander that was clearly in charge of the group made a hand motion while he spoke into his communications unit. Then he made a dismissing motion, Jane gave me a nod of the head as she and the Major at her shoulders walked away with the motions from the Commander. With a twenty by twenty size area set, I made the call and then tried not to laugh at the Commander as Alita ported down in a shimmer of blue and he jumped at the sight.
"I got your DHS Guardian," Alita stated with a smirk on her lips.
Rolling my eyes at her antics, I accepted the DHS from her hands then ignored her as Alita jumped onto the shoulder of my Ion and just laid there like a cat sunning herself. With the DHS set up on its stand, I started by letting the medics know that no one can exit the primer in case the slave bomb implants were triggered.
Then when I was told that they were ready, I made my entry then hit the switch, and released all of the humans stored within the crystalized hardware. The medics instantly rushed into the dead zone as the humans rematerialized from their energized and stored state of being.
"Well, damn, I'll be," The Commander muttered at my side, not saying anything. I just gave the DHS a four-degree turn and released the Turians, Salarians, the few Krogans, and then my people the Quarians. More Eve-bots teleported down and things were going great until it wasn't. A situation happened that spiked my anger to levels I didn't even know I could reach.
One of the Turian slaves pushed a Quarian straight out of the line they were in for medical checks from the Eve-bot. "Your place is back of the line, suit rat."
The Quarian went sprawling onto the floor, his friends shied away from the sudden flex of violence. And as the Quarian picked himself up off the floor, something dark reared its head from deep inside my chest. The Turian that pushed him down never saw me coming before I stepped in front of him and punched him right in the jaw. There was a sickening crack as the mandible on his face broke along with his jaw plate.
Ripping my helm off so all could see my face, skin color, and the pure anger in my eyes, I kicked the Turian hard in the ribs, another crack ringing out for all to hear, "You will watch how you treat and speak to my people."
The anger, the rage, the pure vitriol, it was so all-consuming it took a lot of willpower not to pull heat and execute the Turian on the spot.
"You were all slaves before your worthless lives were saved," I snarled at him and the three Turians that stepped towards me in a show of comradery. I raised a hand, my fist closed in a universal hold motion and Ion stomped right behind me the massive rifle in the Titian's hands churning with a deep thrum.
Pacing back and forth, the burn in my chest just would not go away, "I saved your worthless lives, a fucking Quarian, a suit rat." I spat at their feet, my rant raising as I paced back and forth, the anger radiating off me in waves. "There was no fucking guarantee that any of you would have survived the siege of this bunker if I had not sent someone down to get you out. And this is how you repay my generosity, by abusing my people?"
No one said anything, so silent all you could hear was the thrum of Ion's weapons and fusion reactor.
"IS IT?" I asked with a snarl on my lips, the only thing missing was foam at the corners of my lips. No one had any answer for me, so fuck them. With Ion backing me, the Turians were all placed at the back of the fucking line and my people got their slave explosives removed next.
I was in such a mood that I set up the removal of the isolation stakes when the last Krogan was seen. If the Turians died then they died and that would not be on my head.
"Are, you… are you really Quarian?"
Turning to see who was asking me such a question, my anger evaporated as I noticed the lone Quarian standing a little ways from me. His body posture was stooped and defeated, that soured my mood even more.
"Yeah... yeah, I am," I replied with a nod as I walked over to the group of clearly downtrodden and beaten people. My back was straight, my gait was solid and I walked over and mingled amongst my people. "My name is Turok, son of Brat'ak."
Hushed whispers rang out around the little group, one of them raised a hand and then pulled it back as if I was going to scold them. Instead of waiting, I grabbed the hand and brought it to my face. The chick, because those hips don't lie, hesitated before her hand went to my hair, then smushed my cheeks.
"How…. When… where?" The lady that was inspecting mumbled and I could see the tears coming down her face even through the visor.
Smiling at her, I placed a hand around her shoulder and directed them all toward a section of the enclosure since I didn't want what I had to say to get out. "Come on, I'll explain some of it over here."
{ 6 Hours Later }
With all of my people taken care of, it was time to roll because I know the STG already knew that I was here on location, which meant I couldn't hang around here any longer. Kinda sucks but now was not the right time to face the STG in open combat. So far, there were fifteen in total that would be going back with me. Standing with me in the outlined little circle, they were getting a little antsy, but I had a surprise for them along with the cure that would be coming their way soon.
"So… we just wait right here?" Faali asked, her posture filled with nervous energy.
Smiling at her, I gave a nod of the head, "Just keep that transponder active and you won't be left behind."
As a few of them shared a look, I had to ignore them as my ship up above pinged me of its arrival. A mental command activated the transponder in Ion and he vanished in sparkling motes of blue light. I then turned towards Jane and gave her a jaunty two-finger salute. She gave me a smile which I returned before also vanishing in my own energized flash of light.
When the light cleared, we were in the cargo bay of the Milano, standing at the far end of the cargo bay was Sheena with a smile split across her face.
"Guardian, you're back, and you brought friends," Sheena asked/stated with a raised brow, but I just gave a shrug in return as I walked towards the bay doors.
I made a wave of my hand, "Faali, and friends this is Sheena, Alita and this is my ship the Milano." I replied out loud to everyone as I fast walked, my voice projecting through the speakers of the ship.
"Where are you going?" Rammo called out while the rest of them fast-walked behind me.
Instead of replying, I brought up my omni-tool and transferred what I was receiving on my coms to the shipwide speaker.
"This is Dawn of the System Alliance, you are in unauthorized space, pirate. Please state your purpose of being here Salarian Vessel."
It was so lucky that the System Alliance was able to pick up such a stealth craft. It was so totally not my doing to somehow hit their vessel with a refractor RFID torpedo or keep it steady to make sure that all ships were on every sensor all across the system, courtesy of the torpedo. Nope, my ship was not able to stealthily drop such a thing, it would be absolutely unbecoming of a Quarian.
No one said anything as I got in my captain's chair, well except for one person.
"Welcome back Guardian, what grand shootout do you plan to get us into today?" Ent called out from his cradle. "I took the liberty of following along on your little excursion down on that moon."
"Geth!" Some Quarians screamed and cowered down with swift motions annoying me to the fullest.
I rolled my eyes, "For the love of all that is Rannoch, the voices are not Geth, none of you have ever seen or met a Geth other than holovids, so give it a break already." Ignoring them, my hands ran over the controls as I brought my weapons online. "Ent get me jump coordinates out of here at the edge of system space."
"On it, Guardian, sector G72 is currently open and along the route of that ship," Ent replied swiftly.
"Yeah, that can work," I replied then shot a look over my shoulder, "Sheena, get them strapped in, this is about to get rough!"
Sheena looked at me with wide eyes then gave me a quick nod, "On it."
That was all I needed as I brought us around, then put the pedal to the metal, it was time to blow this popsicle stand. Flicking the coms, I spoke up, "Don't worry about the party poopers Dawn, they are here for me, but won't be much longer."
"Milano, thanks but they aren't registering as pirate ships," Dawn replied back over the coms.
I snorted, "Ohh, they're pirate ships alright, just not the kinds you're used to. No worries, I'll handle it, plus we were never here after all." I called back, then shut down the coms and ignored whatever he was going to say in reply. Since they decided that they wanted to hunt me down like some animal, I was going to play nice with them, very nice.
Since I wasn't a full asshole, I prepped a dummy round in the chamber and then swung the Milano around in a spiral as the torpedo was released in their general direction. The torpedo was wide because I wanted to see their reaction and I got exactly that. The torpedo went live painting everything within a hundred thousand miles as the seeker activated. The edge of the sensor cone rolled over the Salarian ship and they panicked.
They rabbited as the torpedo cone lit their ass up like the fourth of July. The Salarians bolted towards the Z-axis trying to escape in the opposite direction of the torpedo and pulled us right towards them because all I had to do was barrel roll over and hit the boosters. The stars shifted as we rolled, and I noticed the flashing lights on the radar as the Salarian tracking on them went towards the meteor fields, shit.
Okay… fuck that, a mental command had the torpedos that were loaded hot swapped for seekers. The Salarians went left, and we went right. I pulled the controls up hard as a mean bastard of a meteor came at us filling the cockpit window.
"OHH KEELAH! OHH KEELAH! OHH KEELAH! OHH KEELAH!"
Multiple Quarians screamed out behind me as I pulled us into a tight twist over the meteor. Even in my gloves, I could tell that the tips of my fingers were sweaty and I thanked the heavens for climate control and moisture-wicking clothes. As I took us up and over, I fired off two seekers, then twisted us around and down while catching the tail end of the Salarian ship going out of sight. With narrowed eyes, I followed after them, then a flash caught my eye and I pulled hard on the yoke, janking us away from whatever that was before it detonated.
*BOOM!*
The ass end of the Milano shook and the shields flared to life cutting down to 96%, but we were doing a lot better than that meteor. That asteroid was blown to bits and was the proverbial humpty dumpty.
BEEPEEEEP!
The RFID lit up on the radar as the seekers that I launched took off towards the Salarian ship. The same ship was still painted red but I could read that the half-life on those tags wasn't going to last much longer. That was both good and bad for me, but I had already put sharks in the water and they were hard on the Salarian's ass.
Dodging around another meteor, my hands flew across the controls activating over shields. The radar showed the torpedoes crowding onto the Salarian ships forcing them towards the other side of the meteor. The torpedo that was painting them red flared to life with a tractor emission locking their engines in place.
My grin was savage as I pushed forward on the throttle, the capacitors overcharged my shields allowing the blue of the kinetic deflectors to show. The green of the energy shields also mixed with everything, then with a bright flash release of energy. I rammed through the heart of the meteor in front of me instead of going around. All I could hear behind me were screams, wails, and all kinds of prayers. With a flick of a key, the built-up energy exploded outwards shattering the meteor in a cataclysmic explosion.
The communications unit flared to life as the encryption on the Salarian STG vessels was hacked and I activated it with a mental nudge, "SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKA!"
Then slammed my hand down on the hyperdrive activation button. The radar flared red as the FTL line went through the STG ship, but a mental command overrode those safeties. The video feed activated just as my FTL engines flared to life, a corridor of exotic energy extending outwards before the Milano. I would spread a copy of the surprised Salarian faces as long as there wasn't a corrupted copy. The gobsmacked surprised look was just too priceless.
The FTL engines finished spooling up, and we blitzed them with a fifteen-lightyear micro-jump.
[ Salarian STG Agent]
All around Ninok, the ship shook as they fled from their pursuers. They had of course arrived before the humans from the System Alliance after one of their operatives had picked up on their movements. They were sent out here to observe, but that all went wrong when that ship showed up.
Somehow his team had missed whatever that thing was destroying their radar cross section and giving away Ninok's ship location. Turns out, that ship they were hunting from the other side of the galaxy was here and they were not able to get a call out. Something was not only blocking their communications but also forcing them on the radar for all to see. It was beyond maddening and Ninok did not like it one bit. The Captain had made the command decision to evacuate since the communications relay was down. The best thing that they could do now was to get back with the data collected and try again another day.
Now for some reason, Ninok felt that he was a puca being chased down by the dreaded Peryton. It was maddening and it didn't help that another explosion was going off at a distance as the radar screamed with its alerts for all to hear. Turning to the side, he watched as the pilot took them over and around a meteor while also releasing a mine to slow the snarling peryton on their tail.
*BEEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPP!*
*BOOM!*
Ninok was thrown from his chair, the safety belt failing to keep him and a few others on the bridge contained as the ship rocked from an explosion. Pulling himself up and holding onto the side of his chair, Ninok couldn't stop the smile that graced his lips as he stared out the window and witnessed open space.
Then it was all ripped from his hand as the meteor exploded to their starboard side. Static flared to life across all of the communications channels, the holograms shifting to activate their video call features.
"SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKA!"
Then the ship shook and everyone was on the ground as something ripped their momentum from them, and engines screamed. Alerts blared all over the ship as pipes tore, and fires sprang to life.
"NO!"
Everything went blue, a blue he recognized with all his heart, a flash of 'OH' was all he could afford before everything consumed him. Death arrived so fast that not even his pain receptors could fire the signals to his brain.
Author's Note's ::::::: Hope you guys enjoy the chapter, leave me a comment down below.
Authors Notes - Removes the - for the internet links
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