Ethereal Effect. Chapter 30. (Patreon)

Tifron

For me, there had simply never been another path. Krogan had only two legal choices left now: live on Tuchanka or on a few other planets that belonged to us, content with the lowest positions, or go to war against the rachni. There, everything was brutally simple: either you completely cleared the world assigned to you, or you never left it again.

Krogan only arrived on rachni-captured planets. The ships did not belong to us, the routes were plotted by soft-skins, and they were the ones who decided when a particular unit had completed its task. You could destroy every hive on a continent, survive dozens of battles, and still wait for transport for months because someone at headquarters had decided another front was more important.

Even when a ship finally arrived, it did not always take everyone. The wounded, the guilty, and those whose contracts had suddenly turned out to be worded a little differently could be left behind. A krogan had enough strength to take a city, but not enough power to demand a place aboard a transport.

I chose to forge my own fate. After all, what could soft-skins do to a krogan in space?

As it turned out, quite a lot.

On a planet's surface, I could tear a salarian apart with my bare hands, cave in a batarian's chest, and keep fighting after a wound that would have killed almost any other creature. But in open space, none of that mattered. When a military cruiser ordered you to stop for inspection, you had only two choices: obey, or turn into a cloud of glowing wreckage a few seconds later.

The military did not need to defeat a krogan personally. They did not even need to come close. They simply aimed shipboard guns and fired on the transport and its crew, showing neither respect nor fear for our nature.

I understood that truth quickly enough to stay alive.

At first, I worked as a smuggler. The work was profitable, required no special education, and allowed a krogan to feel almost free. The captain gave the order, we defended the ship, and after the run we received a share large enough for weapons, food, and several weeks of idleness.

Of course, sometimes questions arose. For example, why the containers were not to be opened even if the cooling system was damaged. Or why a ship with civilian papers had hidden guns, reinforced armor, and an engine capable of briefly producing the output of a military corvette.

A smart mercenary did not ask such questions. A very smart one still asked them of himself and prepared an escape route in advance.

The next run was supposed to end on the capital world of one of the old batarian clusters. Our flimsy transport could barely withstand its own mass, yet the owner somehow managed to pack the holds so tightly that the mechanics left only narrow passages to the reactor and life-support system. Even part of the living quarters had been turned into storage.

Only a madman would haul that much illegal cargo into one of the Hegemony's most heavily guarded worlds.

I did not wait for them to take us. At the first transit station, four other krogan and I gathered our things, took our weapons, and left the ship. The captain tried to threaten us, but quickly remembered that he had locked himself in a cramped room with five heavily armed krogan whom he still owed payment for the previous two runs.

We took the money due to us and boarded the first ship heading away from that sector.

A few days later, the transport was stopped by a batarian patrol. Another week after that, it turned out the captain had been cooperating with the authorities for a long time and occasionally handed over his own clients in exchange for the right to keep operating. This time, something went wrong, and the ship and its cargo were confiscated.

Maybe we were supposed to be named as the owners of the goods. Maybe the captain was counting on five krogan resisting and dying along with all the evidence. I never learned the truth.

After that came endless wandering from one planet to another, from major space stations to barely completed transshipment points. You would think any "honest entrepreneur" would welcome five krogan with experience in boarding operations and fighting inside ships. Such a valuable asset should have been fed well, armed well, and kept away from unnecessary clashes with the law.

A new employer could have found worthy jobs, negotiated with officials, and pulled us out of prison if an operation still ended badly. Our part would have been to guard his property, escort cargo, and explain to uncooperative clients why debts were better paid on time. In theory, such an arrangement suited everyone.

There was only one obstacle.

Krogan do not obey the weak.

It was not only a matter of personal strength. We did not demand that a commander be able to defeat each of us barehanded. It was enough for the creature to be rich, strong-willed, and dangerous enough, someone who had climbed from the very bottom and forced those around him to respect his decisions.

Such creatures existed, but they usually fell into two categories.

The first were still too poor. They could be clever, determined, and full of grand designs, yet have no money even to maintain one krogan. Perhaps in a few decades one of them would rise high enough, but we were not going to wait.

The second already owned ships, warehouses, people, and officials. However, every one of them had long been integrated into the existing criminal system. Behind any successful batarian intermediary stood a House, an influential family, or a patron who, in the end, considered everything created by a subordinate to be his own property.

To such creatures, we remained expendable tools. As long as krogan brought profit, they were fed well and given ammunition on time. But the moment a serious enough problem arose, the boss immediately sent us to die in order to preserve his own connections, cargo, and ships.

So we took only short jobs. We guarded meetings, escorted smugglers, collected debts, and pulled especially valuable clients out of trouble. Once we were paid, we vanished before the employer began treating temporary cooperation as a right to dispose of our lives.

I had enough sense not to confuse bravery with stupidity. That was why we outlived more than a dozen employers and several serious fights. True, after some operations we had to find a ship in a hurry and flee from outraged "honest entrepreneurs" who, for some reason, considered our unwillingness to die a breach of contract.

Most of those entrepreneurs were batarians. There was nothing surprising about that: we worked mostly in Hegemony territory, and the four-eyed ones had been especially active in expanding their holdings over the last few decades.

They hoped to catch up with the asari and salarians by the end of the rachni war while developing four new clusters at once. Batarian Houses poured huge sums into colonies, built stations, resettled millions of sapients, and divided worlds that had not yet even been properly surveyed.

As if the big two were going to calmly watch the Hegemony turn into an equal rival.

Their political dreams interested me little. The more the batarians built, the more work appeared for creatures like us. Every new system needed ships, guards, workers, weapons, and intermediaries willing to solve problems without asking unnecessary questions.

Unsurprisingly, the new territories were flooded with hordes of sapients eager to profit from the almost endless stream of resources. Some flew in to mine ore, others to sell equipment to the miners, and still others to protect the first from the second. Creditors, merchants, owners of cheap transports, swindlers, runaway slaves, and those intending to seize someone else's success before the authorities noticed it all followed behind.

The Garak Cluster developed especially quickly. It had been discovered a little over a century ago, but the Hegemony had already declared it its property. Most systems still existed only on maps, yet new colonists and machinery passed through the cluster every day.

The capital system became Girran, located at the cluster relay. Every ship arriving from the old territories of the Hegemony appeared there first, passed inspection, and only then moved on. The largest carriers often did not leave the system at all, unloading at orbital terminals and transferring goods to local companies.

The planet Girra had no major deposits of element zero. It did, however, have a mild climate, a rich biosphere, fertile land, and enough minerals to eventually build a full industry. In a century, the world's population had exceeded fifty million and continued to grow with every arriving convoy.

Dozens of stations, warehouses, repair docks, and cargo terminals hung above the planet. On the surface, cities, processing complexes, shipyards, farms, and factories producing everything needed by young colonies were under construction. Hundreds of thousands of ships passed through the system every year, and even the local customs service had long since stopped pretending it could inspect every one of them.

For criminals, it was almost an ideal world.

It was already rich enough to yield enormous profit, but still too young to be finally divided. On old batarian planets, every port, warehouse, and underground market belonged to a particular family or House. There, even the smallest thief knew whom he paid a share to and who would answer for him before the others.

On Girra, everything changed too quickly. Every year new terminals, districts, and trading companies appeared. Yesterday's loader could suddenly become the owner of a warehouse, while a successful broker could vanish with other people's money after one failed run.

Local gangs already controlled individual ports, markets, and repair shops, but no single criminal structure existed yet. Too much new wealth appeared every year, and no one had had time to subordinate the entire flow.

We arrived on Girra almost by accident. The captain of a small transport agreed to take five krogan in exchange for guarding the ship during stops, and we did not care where we were going as long as the destination was far enough from our previous employer.

As soon as we came out of the relay, it became clear that the rumors about Girran had not been exaggerated. Space around the control station was filled with ships of every size, from small couriers to heavy freighters carrying entire industrial complexes. Military patrols tried to direct the traffic, while controllers constantly argued with captains who refused to wait their turn.

Our transport headed toward one of the older orbital stations. The captain put us ashore immediately after unloading and demanded that we leave the ship, as if he feared five krogan would decide to keep that trough for themselves. We did not bother to convince him otherwise.

That was how the longest stage of my wandering began.

The first creature to offer us real work on Girra turned out to be the captain of an old regional freighter. He did not promise wealth, did not call himself master of half the system, and admitted at once that he could not support five krogan permanently. But he named an exact sum, transferred half in advance, and did not demand proof of loyalty through the murder of some random debtor.

His name was Harek Dorn. The ship belonged to him only conditionally: about two thirds of its value was still listed with a volus bank, and another part with the repair company that had once replaced the reactor and agreed to wait for payment. Harek himself liked to say that the real owner of the ship was whoever managed to seize it last after the next missed payment.

He transported equipment between Girra and the young colonies of the cluster. On one run it was generators, on another drilling rigs, prefabricated housing modules, or parts for purification complexes. Sometimes among the perfectly legal cargo there were containers whose contents the captain preferred not to include in the general declaration, but such trifles did not bother him at all.

He assigned us to guard the ship during stops. In space, five krogan were of little use against an armed vessel, but in ports, our mere presence sharply reduced the number of people willing to count containers without the owner's permission. After the very first run, Harek offered us the next one.

For several months we flew with him. On one mining colony, the local administrator refused to pay for the delivered parts, citing incorrect markings. I suggested breaking down his office door and explaining the terms of the deal personally, but the captain ordered the containers returned to the ship and sent a message to the owner of the only company supplying the colony with life-support filters.

Three hours later, the administrator found the money.

Gradually, through the captain, we met mechanics, warehouse owners, and several cargo brokers. They began inviting us on separate jobs during stops: escort an appraiser, recover equipment from a bankrupt firm, or stand nearby during negotiations. Real firefights were rare, and the pay was enough that for the first time in a long while we stopped thinking about the next ship we would have to use to flee the system.

It was Harek who first brought us to the Meridian.

The station was neither the largest nor the newest in Girra's orbit. It was smaller than the state cargo complexes, could not receive the heaviest transports, and was located farther from the convenient corridors down to the surface. But its docks were always crowded with independent captains, old ships, and crews made up of several species at once.

"We sell cargo here," the captain announced after docking.

"Why not at a station closer to the planet?" I asked.

"Because there they'll take almost a third from me."

"In taxes?"

Harek laughed.

"Taxes are separate. Customs are separate. Docking, storage, and the broker's fee are separate too. The thirty percent is for making sure that after the sale three more groups don't come to me and demand their share."

On the Meridian, a different rule applied. An independent captain paid one tenth of the proceeds, after which the cargo was recognized as being under the protection of the local broker. The buyer was checked, the transfer went through one of the volus banks, and any dispute was resolved before the parties had time to gather armed relatives.

"Only ten percent?" I asked again.

"Only," Harek confirmed. "And no one demands a second payment on the way out."

"Then why doesn't everyone trade here?"

"Because the other station masters don't like having clients taken from them. And because no one understands how Erynia has enough money to maintain security, compensate broken deals, and pay the right officials."

I had already heard the name. On Girra, it was what they called the asari who never showed her face and vouched for outsiders. Some considered her the representative of an unknown republic, others a runaway mercenary, while still others claimed a synthetic hid beneath the armor.

Harek's cargo sold in two days. One tenth of the sum really did go to a company tied to the station, after which the captain received confirmation that the deal was complete and that no one else had any claims against him or the ship. On the third morning, a representative of the security service offered us work.

They did not send us to patrol the station's streets. For that, they had ordinary guards, cameras, and turrets capable of dealing with drunken loaders. Five krogan were used where the presence of regular security was no longer enough.

Our first assignment was to repossess an old tug from a captain who had not paid on his loan for almost a year. We went aboard with a volus appraiser, listened to a long speech about the injustice of the banking system, and silently waited until the crew left the ship. No one had to be beaten.

The second time, we escorted repair crews to a warehouse where a stolen reactor module was being hidden. The owners of the premises brought twenty armed mercenaries, but after our appearance they suddenly decided that the equipment had indeed ended up there by mistake. The third operation ended even faster: one broker only had to see us through a camera to return someone else's advance.

The assignments were simple, they paid on time, and damaged equipment was compensated separately. After half a year, we had practically stopped looking for work on our own. Harek still hired us for runs from time to time, but most of our time went to jobs for the Meridian security service.

I still had not seen Erynia herself.

Her orders came through managers, lawyers, and heads of security. Sometimes a short message with a modified voice would appear, after which a dispute that had dragged on for weeks was unexpectedly resolved within hours. It seemed as if the asari was everywhere at once, yet never where people looked for her.

I saw her for the first time on the day we were issued salarian assault rigs.

Erynia

Wars rarely began with gunfire. This war, too, began with an offer for me to earn one hundred million credits for only two days of work.

The client's representative appeared over a secure channel and reported that a large transport would deliver a significant shipment to the Meridian. The ship was to dock, transfer the containers to warehouses rented in advance, and immediately leave the system.

After its departure, the goods were to be moved down to Girra's surface in small batches. The client provided his own carriers, buyers, and documents. From me, he required only warehouses, security, and a guarantee that the station services would not ask unnecessary questions.

He never once named the contents of the containers. But there was no need.

Stolen ship components were usually handed over to the buyer immediately. Weapons also were rarely left sitting in a warehouse longer than necessary: too expensive, too visible, and too easy to trace by individual models. Here, however, the cargo was to be divided into hundreds of small lots and gradually dissolved among the millions of ordinary shipments that left orbit for the surface every day.

That was how drug traffickers worked.

Girra had plenty of small distributors. In almost every port, one could find someone selling illegal stimulants, painkiller blends, or substances whose names changed faster than the authorities could add them to prohibition lists. But interstellar shipment of batches worth billions was handled by only a few truly major organizations.

It was not enough to acquire an old transport and hide containers among legal cargo. One needed producers, warehouses, ships, legitimate companies, buyers in several systems, and a distribution network capable of absorbing a huge batch without collapsing the market through a sudden price drop. One needed officials willing not to notice certain runs, and armed groups capable of silencing those who saw too much.

The main resource of such organizations was not even the goods themselves. Production could be restored, a ship replaced, and dead performers hired anew. The real value lay in routes, arrangements, and market access created over decades.

That was why there were so few major players.

Each controlled its own producers, carriers, and distributors. Each considered certain stations, systems, and even individual officials to be part of its property. An attempt to enter such a market without permission was perceived not as competition, but as a declaration of war.

If an outsider could be bought, he was offered a share. If he refused, he was ruined, framed before the authorities, or destroyed together with everyone who had begun working for him. The loss of a ship and several hundred mercenaries was considered an acceptable price for preserving a market capable of bringing in billions for decades.

The Meridian had remained outside their influence for too long.

Independent captains, small trading companies, and representatives of species without their own connections on Girra passed through the station. For ten percent of the proceeds, they received buyers, protection for the deal, and a guarantee that several more local groups would not come to them after payment.

For an ordinary captain, it was profitable. For old criminal structures, it was dangerous.

Every new carrier who came to the Meridian ceased depending on their intermediaries. Every cargo sold through the station meant a lost share, and every outsider who received my guarantee became part of a network they did not control.

Sooner or later, someone had to try to change that.

One hundred million was too generous a payment for such simple work. Even accounting for risk and the value of the cargo, an intermediary was not given that kind of sum merely for providing a warehouse and a few signatures.

"I accept the terms," I answered.

The representative tried to hide his satisfaction, but a slight delay in his breathing still made it into the recording. He was probably already imagining the cargo leaving the ship and a report on the largest smuggling operation being delivered to the Girra authorities.

By then, the transport would be gone to another system. The warehouses would contain containers rented through my intermediaries, my signatures under the guarantee, and a transfer of one hundred million to an affiliated company's account. The government would have the opportunity to accuse the station security service of organizing a criminal network, freeze operations, and demand that the foreign owners replace the management.

The goods themselves were of almost no interest to them.

The real target was the Meridian.

The station had been created as a free transit port. Formally, it was under Hegemony sovereignty, but it was run by a foreign consortium under a long-term concession. Several volus banks financed the construction, an asari transport and industrial corporation provided part of the cargo contracts, and a salarian clan supplied equipment for the docks and repair lines.

Transit goods were not subject to the full planetary duty as long as they remained inside the station or were sent farther into the cluster. The difference amounted to only a few percent, but with the total volume of trade, those percentages turned into billions of credits.

For most captains, the Meridian was merely one of dozens of orbital stations. Not the largest, not the newest, and not the best located. But for foreign companies, it was one of the few places where they could enter the market of a young cluster without surrendering control over the entire deal to a batarian intermediary.

The batarian aristocracy did not like that.

It liked even less that asari, salarian, volus, and quarian companies entered Girra through the Meridian. But open pressure risked conflict with powerful corporations and banks, so the authorities limited themselves to inspections, petty bans, and constant demands for new payments.

I paid.

At times, it seemed to me that creating a criminal network consisted mostly of transferring money to creatures that would still want to destroy me at the first opportunity. But bribes bought time, and time was exactly what I needed.

The first years were harder than any battle with the rachni.

Stealing a small ship was comparatively simple. Finding a captain who could be forced to change course was not much of a problem either. The real difficulties began after the ship ended up in your hands.

A vessel without an owner's history, maintenance records, insurance, and a valid registration code turned into an expensive pile of metal. It could not legally dock at a major station, refuel, be sold, or pass through a relay without leaving dozens of traces behind. Even breaking it down for parts required buyers willing not to ask questions about the origin of the reactor, the engine, or the mass effect core.

I had no documents.

The identity of Kelara Veyn did not exist in any archive of Citadel space. I could not show my face, provide a genetic sample, or pass an ordinary medical check. Any attempt to create a full biography ran into the simplest question: where and when had an asari been born who existed on no asari planet?

I had to wear a combat suit constantly. It hid my skin, facial features, ear shape, and any biological traces that might fall into the hands of foreign intelligence services. I even ate only in the sealed compartment of my own ship, after which the entire contents of the cleaning system were destroyed.

The first ship legally belonged to a shell company. Its former captain remained listed as commander and signed documents, fully aware that trying to contact the authorities would end worse for him than cooperation. Later came volus accounts, asari intermediaries, and batarian nominal owners, but in the first few years the entire structure could have collapsed after a single thorough inspection.

The hardest part was convincing the asari corporation.

Even under heavy armor, my figure remained recognizable enough, and my gait and movements matched what others were used to seeing in asari. That, together with a demonstration of biotic ability, was enough for most sapients. The corporation's representative also did not doubt that I belonged to her species.

Something else worried her.

Throughout all the negotiations, I never once removed my helmet, refused medical scanning, and did not allow even the simplest genetic sample to be taken. To a random intermediary, such secrecy might have seemed a quirk. To a corporation preparing to invest hundreds of millions of credits in a project, it became an unacceptable risk.

I had to create a story.

According to the new version, many years earlier I had been aboard a ship during a mass effect core accident. The explosion destroyed most of the crew and left me with severe burns, damaged organs, and a disfigured face. The armor supported the prosthetics, protected reconstructed tissues, and allowed me to hide consequences I did not wish to show anyone.

The story explained the constant suit, the altered voice, and my refusal to undergo medical procedures. It was also unpleasant enough that a well-bred asari would not demand to see my face out of mere curiosity.

I even removed a glove, showing a terrible burn on my hand that I had spent a very long time imitating with special means. It impressed the young asari.

For Aellarin, I was prepared to do many things.

Now everything built over decades was being threatened by a single shipment.

I could not refuse the offer. The enemy would find another intermediary, bribe a warehouse employee, or secretly place the containers on the station. Then I would lose the ability to choose the time and place of the clash.

Agreement, however, gave me almost everything I needed: the date of arrival, the ship, the berth number, and the list of rented warehouses. They themselves intended to enter my territory, hand me their cargo, and for some time believe that everything was going according to their plan.

All that remained was to determine how large a force they would bring with the transport.

A ship carrying goods worth several billion could not arrive without protection. One successful seizure of such a vessel could pay for decades of preparation, even if the ship itself then had to be stripped for parts and sold across separate systems. True piracy was rare, but the rarity of attacks did not make ships any less valuable.

Most star systems were controlled by states, and ship movement was tracked by stations, relay posts, and military patrols. An attempt to seize a ship in old, settled space almost inevitably ended in a manhunt that could spread across half the galaxy.

In young territories, there were more opportunities.

The systems did not yet have a dense surveillance network, local authorities depended on private companies, and hundreds of new ships appeared every month. But even here, a major raid required enormous risk, a large team, and confidence that the captured ship could be at least partially legalized.

Therefore, the enemy expected resistance.

And prepared for it.

I did not inform Girra's official government. It dutifully accepted my payments, but at the first opportunity would have happily used the scandal to seize the station. I did not know which officials had already been bought by the client or who exactly was supposed to lead the future inspection.

Instead, I turned to the owners of the Meridian.

The volus banks were not interested in justice. They were interested in loan payments and the safety of property. The asari corporation feared losing access to the cluster's market. The salarian clan had already invested too much into repair facilities to allow the batarians to confiscate them under the pretext of contraband.

I presented each of them with only the part of the information that concerned their own interests. To the volus, I showed the threat to assets; to the asari, the possibility of losing a trade channel; to the salarians, the prospect of losing production and equipment. No one received the full picture.

Two days later, I received temporary authority to conduct an internal security operation.

Another day later, the recruitment of fighters began.

Seven hundred mercenaries represented more than thirty units. Batarians, salarians, and even asari agreed to work side by side only thanks to extremely high pay. Half did not trust the other half, but everyone trusted money transferred in advance. I even hired krogan, who were extremely rare in this region of space.

The station's regular guards were not suitable for the coming operation. Some of them might already have been bought, others had been trained to pacify drunken loaders and arrest thieves, not to storm fortified ships. I needed fighters ready to continue the assault after the first serious losses.

For the five krogan, the salarian clan found five heavy rigs created for clearing deep rachni hives. Multilayered armor protected against acid, collapses, and prolonged fire, while power drives allowed them to carry weapons that an ordinary infantryman would have had to mount on a tripod.

Those suits would not withstand a shipboard shot.

But standard station anti-boarding turrets could not quickly inflict serious damage on them. For a creature capable of continuing to fight after damage to two internal organs, that was almost equivalent to invulnerability.

I had been watching Tifron for several months. He was not the strongest creature I had encountered, nor did he possess any outstanding education. But he knew how to keep four similar fighters at his side, distinguished profitable risk from senseless death, and did not allow his subordinates to start fights merely for pleasure.

In this operation, he was to either prove his value or die with the others.

I invited ten real police officers separately.

I did not tell their captain everything. I only informed him that a large smuggling operation was expected on the station and that his presence would be needed for the official registration of the arrest. After brief negotiations, he agreed to arrive with a squad when he received the signal.

He believed he would be observing a search.

I did not disappoint him in advance.

Tifron

The salarian KR-17 "Deepwalker" suit weighs almost as much as a small ground vehicle.

It fits me surprisingly well. The drives repeat every movement, armor plates cover the chest, back, and joints, and the internal interface displays dozens of indicators, half of which I do not understand.

There are five of us. A heavy missile launcher is mounted on each fighter's back, large-caliber rifles sit on our arms, and a reinforced barrier trembles over the armor. The cost of a single set exceeds everything we have earned over the last several years.

No one issues equipment like this for simple warehouse security.

Erynia appears before the start of the operation. Completely enclosed dark armor makes it impossible to tell even the direction of her gaze, but all the commanders fall silent at once. Over the decades, I have heard her voice hundreds of times, but for the first time I see the mistress close enough.

"The ship is entering the system," she reports. "The main group will arrive in forty minutes. No one acts before unloading begins."

A quiet rumble passes through the hall.

There are seven hundred of us, not counting permanent security. The numerical advantage is probably on our side, but the enemy has likely placed people inside the Meridian in advance and surely knows the layout of the cargo sectors no worse than we do.

"Objective?" I ask.

"Seize the transport and the two escort ships. Command staff are needed alive. Do not damage the reactor, warehouses, or life-support systems."

"And everyone else?"

The smooth helmet turns toward me.

"Try to spare those who surrender."

That is not an answer forbidding killing.

At last, the large transport enters the cargo ring. Through the cameras I see an elongated hull covered with additional armor plates. According to the documents, the vessel is an ordinary industrial carrier, but even its external configuration says otherwise.

Two small escort ships take up neighboring berths.

Unloading begins an hour later. The containers pass under the control of the warehouse service, and the client's representative sends a message demanding confirmation that the first part of the contract has been fulfilled. Erynia signs the document.

A few seconds later, the bulkheads of the cargo sector close.

"Begin," her voice sounds in the channel.

We move first.

The first enemy positions are in the technical passage. Machine guns are mounted behind overturned cargo platforms, and shooters appear on the upper galleries. Fire greets us the moment the door opens.

The barrier flashes before my eyes. The charge indicator starts falling, but the armor holds the hits, and the power drives keep pushing me forward. Behind us, fighters in ordinary suits take cover, using us as moving shields.

I raise the rifle and fire at the gun position.

One of my comrades knocks out a gallery support with a heavy charge. The structure tilts, the enemy retreats, and our units occupy the passage. Everything happens almost too easily.

The next sector greets us with sealed doors and reassigned turrets. The automatic weapons open fire, but they are not powerful enough for the Deepwalkers. We approach almost point-blank and destroy the armored housings.

Behind us remain dozens of damaged machines and several wounded fighters.

I begin to think Erynia overestimated the enemy.

Then the gates of the main hangar open.

Inside stand three ships. The large transport occupies the central part of the sector, while the two escort vessels sit at the side berths. Hundreds of mercenaries hide among containers and loading mechanisms.

Our commanders give the order to advance.

We manage less than twenty meters.

An armored hatch opens on the transport's side.

I see the barrel move and understand what is happening an instant before the first shot. The mount is too large for an anti-infantry system and too small for an ordinary ship gun. The enemy has installed a heavy anti-boarding turret directly inside the cargo deck.

It opens fire.

The barrier of the front line vanishes as if it had never existed. People fall, containers tear free of their fastenings, and the interface begins extinguishing squad markers one after another. In a few seconds, fifty-three icons disappear.

At first, I decide the enemy has jammed the comms.

Then I notice that the other channels are working properly.

"Take cover!" someone shouts.

There is almost no cover from a weapon like that. Each shot pierces containers and light bulkheads straight through. The advance stops, and the enemy begins pressing from the flanks.

Erynia appears on the upper walkway.

A blue field flares around her armor. It strengthens quickly, making the air tremble, though the hangar has almost no air capable of carrying the sound. Even through the suit, I feel the pressure.

She extends her hand.

The turret's body distorts. Slowly at first, as if the metal is being heated in an invisible furnace, then faster and faster. Mounts spread apart, armor dents deeply, and the barrel shifts to the side.

The mount tries to turn toward Erynia.

A second wave of deformation passes through its base. The turret tears free of its seat and falls onto the deck, still firing into the ceiling.

"Krogan, forward," Erynia orders.

We step out of cover.

Two other mounts open on the escort ships. Now we are ready. Five krogan raise their missile systems simultaneously, guidance locks onto targets, and the hangar fills with launch trails.

The first turret disappears behind a flash. The second survives the hit, but its barrier drops, and the next volley tears apart its mountings. The fire stops.

The assault continues.

The losses are already too high, but no one is going to retreat. The operation was paid in advance, and the cargo-sector doors are sealed from both sides. For most of the mercenaries, the only way out now lies through the enemy ships.

We reach the central transport.

The outer airlock is locked, so technicians plant charges on the service entrance. For several minutes we cover them under fire, after which part of the armor blows inward. The opening is wide enough for an ordinary fighter, but too narrow for our suits.

I grab the edges and force them apart with the power drives.

The metal slowly yields.

They are waiting for us inside.

The first corridor has been turned into a fortified position. Heavy machine guns are mounted behind a bulkhead, mines are scattered across the floor, and the side doors open as soon as we appear. The enemy attacks from three directions.

My barrier falls.

The armor takes the burst, the interface reports damage to the outer plates, but I keep moving. The other krogan enter behind me, filling the entire passage. Erynia's assault groups advance behind us.

The ship is too expensive to destroy with its defenders.

Every bulkhead requires a separate assault. The enemy blocks corridors, kills the lighting, and several times changes the direction of artificial gravity. In one compartment they try to trap us, but the Deepwalker lets us smash through a technical wall and emerge into the neighboring passage.

Reports of a counterattack on the station come over the general channel. Mercenaries placed in advance among loaders and guards have struck our units from the rear. Some warehouses are lost, one command post is silent, and fighting is already underway in several residential sectors.

Erynia does not retreat.

She personally enters the ship through a second airlock. A small security group moves around her, but the asari does most of the work herself. Biotic waves scatter fortifications, deform weapons, and pin opponents to walls while our fighters pass farther.

I had not even thought asari were capable of such things.

After destroying the turret, her movements became slower, but she continues to fight. Several times, the biotic field around the armor almost vanishes, then appears again. Erynia spends her own strength as if she does not expect to survive the operation.

Halfway to the bridge, we are informed that one of the small escort ships has been captured. The second is trying to undock despite the locked clamps. Its engines begin tearing the berth apart, but the station systems manage to cut power.

Three bulkheads remain before the bridge.

The first opens after hacking. The second has to be destroyed. Behind the third, the defenders offer negotiations.

"They want to leave the system on one of the small ships," the comm operator reports. "In exchange, they'll surrender the transport and the cargo."

"Refuse," Erynia answers.

For several seconds, the channel is silent.

"Then the captain threatens to overload the reactor."

"He cannot do that. The ship does not belong to him."

Erynia approaches the sealed door and places her palm on the metal.

Some strange biotic attack blows the door inward.

From the other side come shouts and the crash of falling weapons. The door opens, and we enter the bridge. Most of the defenders lie on the floor, held down by invisible pressure.

The captain stands near the reactor panel.

She raises a hand, and the captain is thrown away from the panel. I intercept him before he can rise.

"Alive," Erynia reminds me.

That requires a certain effort.

Twenty minutes later, the transport passes under our control. Another hour later, the fighting on the second escort ship ends. On the station, resistance continues until the end of the shift.

Of the seven hundred mercenaries gathered by Erynia, only about two hundred are still capable of holding weapons on their own by the end of the operation. The rest are dead, wounded, or cut off in captured sectors. Of more than five hundred enemy fighters, about fifty stop resisting, mostly those who can no longer continue fighting.

The ten police officers arrive when the last shots have long since gone quiet.

Their captain steps out of the shuttle in a clean uniform and spends several seconds staring at the ruined cargo sector. Behind him stand nine fighters who clearly do not understand why they have been summoned to a battlefield after the end of the battle.

Erynia meets them beside the captured transport.

"Captain," she says. "During the operation you led, a large shipment of prohibited substances was discovered. The crew offered armed resistance."

Fragment from the Girra News Network

TEN PORT POLICE OFFICERS SEIZE SMUGGLING TRANSPORT

Today, the security service of Girra's orbital ports announced the completion of the largest operation against drug traffickers in the history of the Garak Cluster.

A unit of ten police officers under Captain Arvek Roll discovered a large shipment of prohibited substances at the Meridian transport complex. The crew of the cargo ship and the mercenaries accompanying it offered resistance, but thanks to Captain Roll's decisive actions, the criminals were detained.

According to preliminary estimates, the value of the seized cargo exceeds one billion credits. The exact sum is not being disclosed in the interests of the investigation.

For the courage he displayed, Arvek Roll has been appointed commissioner of the Girra Orbital Ports Security Directorate. Government representatives separately thanked the foreign owners of the Meridian complex for their cooperation with law enforcement.

Comments

[Guest_4471]: Ten police officers captured a large transport, two escort ships, and several hundred armed mercenaries. I hope they at least got overtime pay.

[Port_Mechanic_882]: The other fighters just held the commissioner's tools and tried not to interfere with his heroic deed.

[Loyal_To_The_Hegemony_14]: The official statement says nothing about several hundred fighters. Stop spreading unverified rumors.

[Sector12_Docker]: Of course it doesn't. My brother works on the Meridian. Three cargo sectors are closed, one berth burned out, and medical shuttles flew in formation all night. I guess ten police officers scratched the walls a little.

[Loyal_To_The_Hegemony_14]: The damage could have resulted from the criminals' resistance.

[Old_Captain_206]: I once saw Commissioner Roll. Back then he couldn't make two drunk loaders clear an airlock. Apparently he has grown considerably since then.

[Independent_Carrier_61]: Do not belittle his accomplishments. This time he had nine more police officers with him.

[Depth_Miner_9]: So only fifty armed criminals per officer. A routine document check.

[Repairman_3308]: Good thing the transport surrendered voluntarily. Otherwise the commissioner would have had to tear off its shipboard turrets personally.

[Orbital_Loader_55]: Someone really did tear off the turrets. They're still pulling one out of the hangar ceiling.

[Loyal_To_The_Hegemony_14]: Your information has been forwarded to the security service for verification.

[Orbital_Loader_55]: Thank you. Ask them to check at the same time why the police suddenly had seven hundred friends that day.

[Deleted_User_773]: They say five krogan in salarian deep-hive suits were in the first line. Everyone else moved behind them.

[Clan_Patriot_88]: Krogan are incapable of conducting a complex operation without the leadership of a batarian officer.

[Pier4_Technician]: Naturally. The commissioner directed them from a safe distance of about three cargo sectors.

[Taxpayer_102]: The promotion by two ranks is especially impressive. Apparently they gave him one for each captured ship.

[Volus_Account_19]: And nothing for the transport? Unfair. It was worth more than both escort ships combined.

[Guest_9001]: The most important thing is that they seized cargo worth "more than a billion." A very precise estimate. Somewhere between one and five, judging by how quickly the report was closed.

[Loyal_To_The_Hegemony_14]: Part of the information is classified in the interests of the investigation.

[Guest_9001]: Especially the part that says who actually conducted the operation.

[Tifron_5]: Good commissioner. During the entire assault, he never once came under fire. Not everyone can command an offensive so competently from a shuttle that had not yet arrived.