I stood amidst a compact room, replete with four separate consoles set into the corners of the compartment. Each one was fairly general in purpose, able to access our mobile bases security suite, database management, and more complex tasks involving the general fabricator in the back of the vehicle that took up two thirds of the full mass of the behemoth. The cockpit at the front of the vehicle was raised, a viewing platform more than anything else. The vehicle was more than capable of driving itself, requiring minimal supervision, of which the driver insisted that there be maximum amounts of, citing that he’d seen his fair share of computer bugs during testing.
This was the newest toy from the R&D department, capable of establishing long range communications that didn’t rely on the Obelisks just in case. We weren’t aware of what the limits of the Obelisk-enabled communication network was, but we had run into cases where we were too far away from one to be connected to the network any longer.
And, given under the best circumstances we would have to drive for two hours to get to Damond, it was reasonable to suspect that we would leave the range of our Obelisk.
On that note, however, the journey was not going well. The Emet, our command vessel for this operation, was the best equipped for rough terrain, but even we were having problems. I ascended the ladder, moving through the broad lower floor to the second, squat floor.
Alice and Richard were currently playing cards, slapping them down at high speed before one would smack a hand atop the pile, claiming it for their own. Something about higher value cards, or when they were the same as the last card. I didn’t check the rules, and I was too wound up to sit down for long.
“Sup,” Richard looked up, pausing their game, grinning. He was on a stark losing streak, but was getting better every time, and Alice desperately fought to make sure that she would maintain dominance.
“Anything new?” Alice leaned back, flexing her fingers to stretch them.
I shook my head, power armor currently shelved in the back compartment downstairs, “Nothing yet. We’ve been dealing with wolves, but nothing out of the ordinary. We’ve let a few of the more mobile groups out.”
“With a Legion group, too, right?” Richard asked, “Some of the groups out there are pretty good, actually. I talked with some a bit, seem alright. What about the the trailing group?”
I frowned at that, crossing my arms as I leaned against the wall, “They’re still around. Having a hard time keeping up with us since they seem to have expected a bunch of mountain roads to not be washed out. But, they have the bare minimum in off roading gear.”
“We clear the way, they take the easy path that wouldn’t be there without us,” Richard clucked his tongue and chuckled, “What else is new, though?”
I shook my head, “As far as I’m concerned, if they didn’t register with us, they’re on their own.”
Alice looked troubled at that, “Well, it’s not like we’d just abandon someone if they needed it.”
There were a few long seconds where I considered that. I wasn’t sure if this was a good sign, but I’d actually intended to do just that. This wasn’t Gilramore, if we started breaking off from our task, we might end stretching ourselves too thin. That was the other point as to the registration. I wanted one Legion team for every two teams.
We had a total of twenty-five Legion teams, five of which were dedicated solely to being my personal task force, namely the top five teams. The rest were the high ranking teams of the Legion, and thanks to our growth in general we still had a considerable reserve force back home.
The danger was too high here to take anyone who wasn’t already tested, again and again, until they could handle the worst that a biotic could throw at them.
“Matthew?” Alice frowned, “We aren’t planning on just leaving someone to die just because they didn’t sign the dotted line, right?”
I huffed, “I guess not. But I’m not going into a hive for them, either. If they get in over their heads, it’s their own fault.”
She looked unhappy with that, “But that’s the point of all this? To make sure that if someone bites off more than they can chew, we can step in and stabilize the situation?”
“For the people that actually want to help, yes.” I shook my head, “But I’m not risking any of my people over some jackass who didn’t want to recognize the Legion and at the same time have the gall to ride our coattails.”
“We shouldn’t let people die though,” She grumbled.
Flabbergasted, I said, “It’s not like I’m going to just ignore them if they need help and we’re in a position to give it, okay? As much as I’d like to day that I can rely on people doing the best thing, that’s no longer true when politics get involved.”
“What do you mean?” She gave me an inquisitive glance.
“There’s a good chance that what’s left of the Hunter’s Order is back there,” I said, “Given that their previous leader is with us, I’d say that makes that the more radical wing of the organization. I don’t want to give them the impression that they can keep doing things however they like without any repercussions. That said, the entire point of the Legion is to kill biotics, not to save people,” I then added quickly as Alice’s expression screwed into one of frustration, “But, we’re not going to leave people to die, either.”
She still looked irate, but she finally said, “I guess that’s fine, then.”
I looked to Richard, helplessly, who gave me a consoling look before turning his attention to distracting Alice. With that in mind, I descended the ladder and made my way to the front of the Emet. an actual staircase led upwards into the cockpit, and of the three seats there, only the furthest back was available. The driver on the left glanced over his shoulder at me, nodding in greeting. On the right, Terry didn’t even need to look, waving at me from over his shoulder as he read through some materials.
“Just a heads up, but Daniel said that he’s alright with Team 3 being an officially mandated team.” He uttered, scribbling some notes down in a notebook. “And Team 4 is pretty close too.”
“You’re noting it for the review later, right?” I sat down, the heavy metal appearance of the cockpit matching the bare steel of the rest of the vehicle.
He gestured to the notebook, “Yeah. Team 8’s not looking good at all though, they’re chatty-cathy’s and lone-wolves.”
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“Which Legion drew them?” I frowned, bringing up the display.
Just before I found it, Terry grimaced, “Last Call. Strauss is a good pick of character, so I believe him, but their bar might be a touch high.”
“Mm,” I sorted the data before reaching out with my digital arms, tapping into the camera feeds they bore. “I’ll check it out to be sure.”
“The consoles passwords are in the last message I sent you,” Terry grunted as he got back to sorting. I smirked, knowing that I didn’t need to use them for this, but also at the password they’d given me. ‘L33T-R34P3R’ which, while amusing, was very odd to have.
I looked through the combined feeds of Last call and Team 8. Technically, Team 9 was also there, but that team was much more organized, even with so little inspection.
‘Huh, so Team 9 is that last group,’ I looked at a bunch of them, the last large group that I’d spoken too and who had finally clued me in on the slanderous rumors that had been getting spread about the Legion and this expedition.
Team 8 were a collection that I hadn’t seen previously. But already I could see the problem with the group. If anything, Jeremy Strauss had been rather forgiving in his assessment of them. Their size was abnormal, a group of ten, and everything from their group movement to their equipment was horribly disorganized.
“Damnit, Team 8, this is the last time I’m going to tell you to watch your line of fucking fire!” I heard Yomar’s characteristic shout, the big man, now wearing a power armor, spoke. There was an active and live line of red across the edge of his suit, heated from the last shell that had scraped by his torso.
“Shit, sorry!” I heard one of them call, “Oh, fuck! It’s not dead!” I panned my vision back to the individual in question, his camera feed registering the snarling wolf that was indeed still alive. But, missing three legs, it was hardly an active threat.
I felt my eyelid twitch as he unloaded an entire clip into the wolf.
“Keep your team position in mind at all times, this isn’t bootcamp!” I heard Jeremy bark, keeping Team 9 back behind them for this particular engagement. There’d only been a few dozen of the wolves, something that ten people should have dispatched within seconds.
Instead, I watched as six people fired, and four people tried to ‘reposition’ further from them. The firing squad was zealously applying the concept of spray and pray, dumping hundreds of rounds on a downhill slope with minimal tree coverage.
“Short controlled bursts, aim with your arms, not your hands. Your goddamn gun should be an extension of your will, not an afterthought!” I heard Strauss snarl, watching and six wolves closed the ten meter gap.
From their snipers viewpoint, Allendra, I could virtually feel the depression that rolled off of her.
“How can they be so bad?” She muttered to Strauss, “Why did they even come? Did they think this was a training camp?”
“I don’t know but - ah slag it,” he spat, seeing the six wolves close the five meter gap with Team 8 still not dispatching them, nor did their ‘repositioning’ group ever stop repositioning.
He pulled the six-shot pistol from his side, an electric whirr resounding for a split second before he aimed. At his waist, he fanned the hammer, blasting out six shots in rapid succession.
The shots hit center of mass and then exploded, splattering silvery over the area. In a flat second he had the pistol up, dumped the ammo, and then speed-loaded another six shells in what I could only describe as graceful. If I wasn’t mistaken, I’d say he had to have cybernetic augmentations to do that. But, something told me that wasn’t fully the case. The man was wearing a mesh suit and bore several devices, pieces of equipment for any task that he could reasonably expect to come across. Further back behind him was a bike, one that looked remarkably similar in style to the Reaper vehicles I’d had access too.
“Team 8, what in the unholy hell did I just witness?” Strauss kept his voice as level as he could, “Have any of you hunted biotics at all before this?”
“I-Yes! Of course we have!” The team leader had the temerity to appear outraged at the suggestion, “We’ve been hunting wolves for weeks around Gilramore. This was just a lot of them.”
Another palpable wave of depression rolled out from Allendra, “Seriously?”
Jeremy glanced at her for a split-second, a knowing look that you forged over a considerable amount of time. “That was less than a small group. Wolf hordes easily reach a hundred or more. Have you ever even seen one?”
The teams began to come together, “No, well, not in person.”
“Have you all drilled tactics?” Strauss’ exhibited amazing self control, “For example, overlapping fields of fire? Or fire control in general?”
“I have no idea what those are.” I heard someone say in the group, snickering coming from them.
“This is not a game,” Yomar walked up, glaring at them darkly, “If I was a regular person, you would have torn out half of my ribcage. What would you have done then? Chuckled it off and said ‘whoops, I missed’?”
“Yomar, stand down,” Jeremy sighed, “I’ll take care of this.”
Team 8 had tensed, and I realized why. Yomar looked down and took a deep breath as he realized that long, glowing cherry-red talons and blades were sliding out of his power armor’s gauntlets. They shot back into their sleeves as he stepped back and away.
“Sorry, my bad.” He stopped next to Jeremy as he went, back facing the team, “I just can’t imagine these guys being allowed here. Matt sure as hell won’t let them join after this crap.”
“I know, Yom. I know. But he gave us a job to do here, and I ain’t gonna give up ‘til he says we can.” Jeremy whispered back.
“Even if I hope he cuts that rope fast,” Allendra added, “Before I shoot one of them.”
I chuckled in spite of myself, but also felt incredibly bad for them. In the very near future I’d have to go through each of the groups much more closely to find out which one was actually allowed to stay or not.
“For now, we’re gonna go back to the Convoy, this hunt is called off.” Jeremy called out to the group as a whole, “Well rotate with the next group.”
“But we’ve barely been out here for thirty minutes!” I heard one of them complain, while also noting that Team 9 looked almost relieved. They were probably none too thrilled having these people as a co-team in the first place.
“Not negotiable,” his tone similar to if he was disciplining a petulant child.
“Hey, wait, look, there’s another!” One of the men to the back of the group shouted, bringing up his rifle and quickly rattling off an entire clip. I frowned, turning my viewpoint to his. There didn’t seem to be anything there.
Jeremy Strauss seemed to think so as well, and with a supremely unimpressed tone said, “If you want to shoot at squirrels, do it on your time.”
“No, I swear there was one there! It was a ball lookin’ thing!” He shouted.
I froze upon hearing that, instantly panning back his camera, looking through recorded footage.
The moment he’d seen it, to his credit, he’d snapped the gun up and fired, perhaps landing the first solid array of bullets he’d gotten all day.
And, to my growing horror, I’d realized he’d indeed found a ‘ball lookin’ thing’ with several eye-stalks glaring at them.
“Strauss! Fall back right now! Fire and retreat formation!” I shot upwards, shouting and startling everyone in the Emet. “Gen 2 sited and fired upon by Team 8, Spindlie!”
“Fuck me,” I heard him snarl, “Form up! You heard him!”
A moment later, I heard the sharp suction of air and a high pitch screech as a spiked ball seemingly many times larger than it had been before shot upwards through the air. I also watched as its body contorted, several of the spikes actually organizing and compacting on the opposite side of its now heavily damaged body. A tar-glack puss oozed and hardened over its wounds, and as it shrank in mid-air, I realized that it was turning itself into a claymore.
By squeezing all of the densest parts to the other side, it was making the front weaker, concentrating the force for a long-distance shot. And, by looking at the positioning of the other spikes, it was plainly obvious that it was quite a bit more than capable of aiming.
As my feet pounded steel, my back slamming into the power armor cradle, I could only urge the machines to move faster.
“Fu-Hit the deck!” Straus shouted, throwing out a pair of triangular bits of metal that rapidly expanded, forming barriers.
Hopefully they would be enough.