Turok

Chapter 8

By BigToFu

Turok

The office I sat in was located at the very top of the space station with an utterly breathtaking view. The reason for this was the space station was positioned perfectly between two planets looking over a star located in the center of the system. So in any direction you looked, you saw the beauty of the world, the oceans, the forests, the deserts, and the stars. All a feast for the eyes even if you couldn't survive seconds on those planets due to the gas permeating the atmosphere.

After I had given an epic beat down to the Turian whose name I never learned, I had him direct us to his office: well, after Alita had her fun beating up a Krogan and Cayde drank half the damn bar. I left Cayde down there to clean up the mess while I had the swindler show me his secret elevator which we took to his office. The more I saw, the angrier I got, but I had to keep it all in check. There was no way I could get what I wanted if the Turian's brains painted the walls purple and blue with his blood.

One of the first things I noticed about the office other than the incredible view was the custom desk made of wood: actual wood from Earth. I had thought that the pin he wore on his chest was all, but I was clearly wrong in that regard. The moment I saw the desk, I turned and backhanded the Turian. I wasn't a pimp, but from the way blood flew, I was certain that I had at least smacked the taste out of his mouth.

This mother fucker had the audacity, the sheer fucking balls, to have exported wood, Earth wood, to the far reaches of the Terminus systems. Yet, he had used slave labor, enforced by shady contracts, all because he happened to own a space station. Sitting down at his desk, I decided I would have to get to see where the paper trail led.

Nothing of what I found was any good, nor did it give me warm and fuzzy feelings. One thing was certain though, this station would have to be brought under my control.

With a frown on my face as I worked my way through the information, I made a hand signal to Alita. With a smile on her face, Alita pressed the button on the switch in her hand. One of the EVE bots we had with us turned and shot the Turian with a shock phaser. The voltage had been lowered so that it didn't knock him out with stun but it also wasn't so weak that it felt like a tickle. The shock round was properly calibrated so you felt as if you had accidentally jammed a finger into an open outlet. You got a nice rush of adrenaline in your system with a spike of pain to go with it.

The Turian shook in his mass-effect containment field like was hooked up to a live power feed in the electric chair.

The bastard had fleeced so many of my people I wanted to put a bullet in him, but I wouldn't. I would use this, I had to. Only a fool would give up such a chance. Leaning back in the Turian's custom recliner, I rolled the wooden pendant along my fingers. The smooth wood flowed across my hand before I turned my attention toward my current prisoner. It was still hard to believe that this was 100% authentic Cherry stained, Waterfall Bubinga; which was easily one hundred thousand per foot on the market and this man had used the cast-offs from his desk and made a pendant.

This Turian was really living an opulent lifestyle. I took in his flinch as I raised a hand as if I was to give another signal. Then snorted as I raised a booted foot and placed it on top of the desk. The same desk is worth well more than a few tens of million in credits. My finger came down and pressed one of the hidden buttons within the desk. Soft blue lines ran around the room as holograms illuminated the space in the middle. Damn, this Turian really sprang for the good stuff. The computer terminal projected its hologram outwards in color allowing me to share my screen with the room.

Could hardly believe that this asshole had the audacity to keep an excel sheet color coded with not only his contacts but also who was sold where, why, and how. The list was so long I could hardly believe that he hadn't been caught till now; but honestly, I could. This was the ass end of space out in the Terminus. Then you can also add in the fact that he wasn't a very big name in the game like the Shadow Broker or the bitches on that Asari trade world Icarus 4.

"Fifty-two Quarians sold to the Batarians, sixty-three Asari sold into slavery to the Batarians, twenty Salarians have also been sold to the Batarians and by your hand's… Seventy-eight of your own people were sold into slavery to the Batarians!" I yelled, a hand slamming down on the desk from the disgust I felt inside. "Honestly, I can't figure out what's worse, the fact that you sell people into slavery to keep the pirates from hitting this station or that you have used and abused your position as station owner to take advantage of those who have placed their lives in your hands." Pulling my feet off the table I leaned forward. "You owe my people a debt of blood that is not easily paid." The smile on my face was nasty as I raised my hands.

*Clap*clap*

"I plan to take it out of your hide anyway."

Shimmering motes of lights sparkled to the side as the teleportation played up the effects. On my desk, the space I had designated for teleportation, a syringe appeared. Inside of the syringe, gray liquid shimmered in the light. I stood with fluid and graceful movements before approaching the Turian floating inside of the mass effect field.

No words needed to be shared as Alita sprang into action, she grabbed the Turians arm and twisted, the inner elbow showing. With a clear and easy target, I jabbed him with the needle and pressed down on the plunger and watched as the liquid entered his body.

For half a beat nothing happened, then it was like roiling waves across his body as the nanites went to work. His carapace bubbled and flexed in spots as he shook from the pain. With my fingers tapping on my chin, I just watched his struggle.

"What did you do to me?" The Turian asked as he snatched at his elbow like a crackhead.

My smile was cruel and dark, "Nano augmentation didn't want to test it on my people." I said with a shrug and a sadistic smile on my face, then shrugged. "I have no prisoners to try it on, but don't worry." I said with a light smack on his bloodied cheek, "You're going to be alive for every bit of it, trapped in your head of course. It would be a shame if you were to give the game away when the slavers return. Plus, your accounts can go to a far better place than to pad your pockets."

"NO! NO!" The Turians screamed his rage and he lunged for my throat, only to stop inches from me. Another small chuckle escaped me as he finally pushed through the mass effect field in a failed attempt at killing me.

Alita cocked her head to the side and poked the Turian, "What's it gonna do?"

"Well, for one it's going to put a neurological transceiver in his head, and once we upgrade the station's radio to our own set of subspace communication nodes," I chuckled as I went back to the computer. "We'll have a minion accessible from anywhere in the known universe."

Alita spun on the spot, "Can I name our first minion Bob?"

Looking up from the screen, I shook my head, "No, he already has a name, shit," I then snapped my fingers at the Turian. "What's your name anyway?"

"Nuvus Albamus" He replied his voice a little flat.

Blinking, I looked down at my omni-tool and checked the programming to see exactly how much enforcement was currently in place. I was fine with one hundred percent loyalty but the personality was smothered by eighty percent and I found that to be a bit of an issue. I needed this Turian to be under control but flexible enough to be himself and perform the duties of his station with his personality intact. There was no point in giving the game away when I had a lot of beasts to hunt.

With my finger swiping from right to left, I allowed Nuvus more freedom to be himself as I thought about what would come next. I would need to gather my people, then check in with my Guardians to see how their own missions have progressed so far. Then I would need to follow up on my plans to bring the flotilla on board. From what the tracking was showing, they had almost arrived at the location I had designated for my upcoming visit. Like the rest of the Galaxy, the Admirals of the flotilla would have absolutely no idea. For now, I still had a few days of waiting.

Ring!

Ring!

With a raised brow, I checked my omni-tool and noticed the caller ID had Mara's face, name and current location. Thumbing the green talk button, I raised a brow as the video call feature activated. From what I could tell, a battle was happening in her sector of space. Mara and those she was with weren't in any battles at the moment, but from the readout. Underneath was, though, and it looked like he might be able to stem the tide, damn pirates. Now that I was thinking about it, I just might have to bring the hammer down on all of the rogue forces within the Terminus systems.

"Yes Mara, do you need backup?" I asked, leaning forward a little in my seat. Inside of my neural network though, I was already going through the necessary preparations of my ship and hyper slip space drives.

"No," Mara replied with a shake of the head. "I have another more pressing concern, I found a Krogan protecting our people. We ran him through medical care as a courtesy to see what Rit'suko thought about the genophage and well….."

Mara trailed off and I could see the grimace on her face. With my authentications, I bypassed the call and went directly to New Rannoch's medical servers to look over the results that Ret'suki found. It was like a lump of coal dropped into the pit of my stomach as I read over everything.

"Where is this Krogan, is he still with you?" I asked, my commanding tone front and center.

Mara looked to the side and then looked back at me, "Yeah, Rit'suko wants me to bring him back to New Rannoch."

"No," I replied hard, a hand slashing through the air. "Only Quarians will be stepping on our new home world, no other species are allowed." I finished my reply, then brought up another information panel and checked the information. "I'm sending you coordinates to a place that I'm building to be a trading hub, called Yorktown. I'll meet you there after I pick up Rit'suko"

Mara looked to the side and I could see an explosion off in the distance behind her, "Alright, we'll meet you there."

With that, I deactivated the call and breathed, once twice, three times as I tried to force down the rising anger.

None of that helped as I stood from my seat barely able to hold onto my anger, those fucking Salarians. Fuck waiting on the flotilla I would need to go there now and check the medical archives. I needed to know when our immune systems started to fail and see if they had any medical records on file. Sterile environment or not, there had to be a trigger recorded somewhere in our history showing when our immune systems failed. There will also be information on when it reached a point that the issue would pass on from parent to child and so on.

The fact that 5% of the markers matched the Krogan genophage wasn't concrete evidence, but it was a damn big red flag. Knowing that alone had me change plans, rethink my approach to a lot of things, and had me even want to break out planet-cracking technology. I could easily create something that could and would reduce a planet to its cosmic dust particles, but I wouldn't. I wasn't an asshole willing to condemn innocents to death, but I did have another idea on the matter about the proper punishment for the frogs if this did turn out to be one of their damn biological bombs.

They liked to prove their intellectual superiority so much, then I will give them the greatest gift one could ask for. It shouldn't be that hard to create a species-specific virus that could overclock the brain without any safeties in place to keep things cool. Yeah, a brain booster would be exactly the thing a Salarian would try and make inside some dark secret lab to help advance their species. Too bad the brain could only really function within a few degrees of body temperature. Just two degrees too hot or cold could lead to very severe neurological damage, everyone knew this. Too bad the virus would get out and contaminate so many hatcheries. I heard that it doesn't even show up in the carrier, such a shame, death by explosive intellectual growth.

Then I stopped and really thought about it. I could just take genetic samples from the Quarians in my party and check them against the ones Mara picked up. Check them against the others that my Guardians pick up and then check them against more Krogan genetic samples. If it quacks like a duck it will walk like a duck and unholy hellfire will rain down on those fucking Salarian duck walking bastards.

I was breathing hard again and I needed to stop that, with a plan in mind. I turned and pinned Nuvus the Turian with a look. "You'll be left alive and in charge of the Station for now, Alita will be here to give you commands along with handling the heavies." I stated with a flat gaze that spoke of death if he was ever able to get out of my control. "Work out the schedule of the next pirate visit for when you need to pay tribute and get me the information asap."

Then I took the elevator down as Alita turned to look at the Turian with a sweet smile on her face. Before the elevator reached the bottom, I had my omni-tool opened and was working on an enzyme chain that could influence a person's cerebral fluid. I never realized how long I stood there and leaned up against a wall as I worked away at the viral project on my omni-tool.

"Hey, Commander, you alright?" A voice floated into my ear as someone shook my shoulder. My head snapped upwards to stare hard at whoever that was and I had to tamp down on my anger as Cayde took two steps back. He did a dramatic shudder, "Why the long face, I don't see any Vulpimanchers around chasing after us?"

I snorted at that with a chuckle, because not even I saw the Ben10 alien being in this reality or the fact that they were completely feral. Plus they were also complete assholes and very much meat eaters. "No, but I just got incredibly bad news and we need to hit the road, asap."

Cayde blinked at me again, "You might not have noticed, but not everyone's ready to leave pookie and the hen house."

Stepping out of the elevator at a fast walk, I made a direct line towards the ship bay. A hand reached out and stopped me cold in my tracks.

"Would you stop for a second and talk to me?" Cayde pressed his hand firmly set on my shoulder. Looking at him, I set my jaw in a firm line and sent over the information that I had. Cayde stopped cold as his eyes flickered across the screen of his personal omni-tool. "No… this isn't… no…"

Letting him have the moment, I just stood there and waited for it all to sink in for Cayde. Then with a grunt, I turned and continued on my path. "I will be sending a transport ship to pick up whoever can't make it on the Melano in the next twenty minutes."

With those words, I continued on my way as Cayde nearly broke down behind me, there was no point in turning around from the sounds of the massive bang. Even though I had my moment where I wanted to bury a fist into the wall, but I couldn't vent my anger right now. I had things to do right now and maybe a little bit of vengeance to plan because fuck them frogs if this turned out to be true. The number of my people dead, the threats of being removed from your suit. The fact we were forced to live in those things for our entire lives. The hard fact that we were tactical creatures like humans but were forced to live a life of near total isolation.

The edges of my vision were turning red and I had to stop and take a few deep breaths before I went over the edge. So many men, women, and children are condemned to a fate near worse than death. My entire species halted and set onto a course leading to extinction if I hadn't come along. Game or not, there was no way the Quarians could survive the Reaper war. I doubt the Reapers had a ship for every man woman or child, I can't put it past the possibility that they had an invasion force capable of taking on the entire Citadel force.

Breathing out, I righted myself and continued on my path through the space station. My retaliation had to be swift, brutal and to the point without it being discovered that the Quarians did it. Then I had to take in the fact the Salarians had near close to ten planets colonized and they were also brutal fuckers. I can't put it past them to euthanize an entire planet in hopes of preventing the release of my retaliation. I would need to write in a few important key triggers so there would be no hope of stopping its spread. The Salarians were brutal enough to only let a certain number of their eggs be fertilized so I wouldn't put it past them to write off a planet or two. They never spared our young so genetic anomalies would and could strike at all ages and at any time. Maybe link it to an important protein that the Salarians produce and have the anomaly trigger like cancer. Then within seventy-two hours, they die from neural overload like an AI from Halo going through rampancy.

The Salarians would find the intelligence boost too important to lose even if the person suffering would die from their brain overclocking to extreme levels. Hmm, maybe throw in something that fucks with their reproductive system as well. Might as well throw in some Krogan payback, yeah let's add that in. Yeah, I'll even split the difference and tie it into the intelligence level of the Salarians. Let the morons breed more while the intellectually superior ones all die from neural overload.

Ignoring the security force I walked right through the airlock and onto my ship as everything spun up with my arrival.

There was a shimmer as Ent flew out of my chest and turned a sad eye on me. "Guardian…"

"Stop," I said while I walked into the cockpit. "There will be no excuses, no platitudes and no telling me to forgive and move on because the survival of the whole is better than what has been done."

"Of course Guardian," Ent replied before floating over and landing in his little cradle. There was no point in looking up as I went through my pre-flight checks. Getting out of my seat, I allowed the engines to warm up as I left out the cargo bay and started a visual inspection. There were a few unsavory types when I arrived with my fast walk, but they didn't blip much on my radar. That still didn't stop them from placing any type of tracking device on my ship though and with me being Quarian. I couldn't just have an EvE bot go out and chuck the hull of my ship.

While I was checking the underside of the starboard wing thruster joint, a gaggle of Quarians came running into the ship area, panic in their actions. Standing on the underside of my ship's wing, eezo gravity boots active, I brought up my omni-tool and activated the shields over the rear of my cargo bay so they couldn't run into the rest of my ship. Ignoring the sounds of those gathering, I went about checking the portside, the bow of my ship, and then checked the stern before I jumped down with a grunt.

Not giving the mass of bodies any attention, I walked over to a panel and pressed my hand flush against it, and waited for the shimmer to end. With a turn, I grabbed the storage device and filled it with the three trackers I had found. There was no point in checking who the trackers were from since I was going to send them all off on the same chase. With a code input into my omni-tool, I gave the top one more torque-filled twist until the green locking lines matched. I then took the standing fan-sized monstrosity down to the armory and loaded it into one of the available torpedo tubes, then left it on the autoloader before going back to the cargo bay.

While standing on the other side of the forcefield, I raised a brow at Cayde, "They seem to be traveling a little light."

Cayde then gave me a smug Tony Stark smirk, "Well, since we were in such a rush, I just put it all in the storage pocket of the utility belt."

With a sigh and shake of my head, I held a hand out and waited until he figured out I wanted the utility belt.

"Ohh, ohh, okay, give me a second," Cayde replied as he fumbled with the utility belt. I left him to bumble around as I took in the faces standing on the other side of the shields and did a quick count. The number that I came away with did not fill me with happiness.

There were thousands of xeno's that lived and worked on that space station, so why the fuck was I barely looking at ninety faces. Their body posture screamed scared but there was no mistake about the hope in their eyes. Cayde deposited the utility belt in my hand with a minor thanks. I walked to one of the outlets in the wall and placed it down. There was a series of beeps, and a couple of flashing lights before a massive red showed.

With a sigh and shake of my head, I flicked a finger across the screen and looked at the tracking devices. With a grunt and shake of my head, I turned and closed off the cargo bay.

"Huh, would you look at that," Cayde muttered while looking over the screen but I ignored him as I activated the cargo bay scanners.

As the scanners ran across all of the Quarians in the cargo bay, the ones with any type of tracker were surrounded by a glowing red force field they had no way of escaping. They panicked but honestly, at this point, I was out of fucks to give. Didn't help that Ent alerted me to mass effect field hyperspace dispersions at the edge of the system. The scanners had picked up three ships, Blue Suns mercs and they had arrived from three different vectors, for now, they were in communications which I had Ent monitoring while I dealt with this mess.

Fifteen people had tracking out of the ninety but only five actually had subdermal tracking chips. That made me wonder because of how important the suits were to a non healed Quarians life. That would have to wait for later though because I had already wasted an hour dealing with all this shit and getting them settled.

Before I knew it, I was rushing to the cab and strapping myself in as Ent came back with word that the ships were on the move. The reason for his worry was that they were all frigate-class ships with engines far faster than they should be. The moment we cleared the Station's docking clamps, I hit it with twenty percent speed and fired off the torpedo container with all the trackers. The torpedo would perform a few jumps before self-destructing and leaving the trail cold for those after the trackers.

While that was on its path, I set my Melano on an entirely different course and away from the Blue Sun's ships. If they were going to the space station, then they could and I wasn't going to stop them because I had more than enough things on my plate to hold my attention.

Murphy clearly had different things planned for me today because those ships made a hard G turn for intercept. Well, they were about to behold my fields and find that it is barren of fucks because II have none to give.

With a snort, I pulled on the yoke and had my weapons set to ready without fully entering battle mode. While we were on the fast approach, I kept my speed down and something struck me to look into so with a thought, I activated the bio-scanners on the ships and raised a brow at the numbers I was seeing.

The three ships all had a little over a hundred crew members running from Turian, Human, and Salarian with a few Krogans tossed into the mix. That was all fine and dandy, but I was only interested in the Salarians so the rest could go and kick rocks.

*Crackle of Static*

*Crackle of Static*

"Come about three four four, and you just might get out of this alive suit rat." A Turian spoke as the communications suite activated on the general channel.

I couldn't help rolling my eyes of course its another fucking Turian. With a grunt, I put on ten percent more speed and opened the channel, "Do I look like a suit rat to you?" I questioned over the open line, the video communication portion flaring to life.

The Captain of the ship laughed in my face and another section opened up as a Batarian appeared on screen.

"Doesn't matter, I'm all for bringing you in cold." The Batarian spoke with a sneer on his face.

The screen flickered once more, this time a Salarian was on, his mouth moving rapidly. He wasn't on the open channel though, this one was a little smarter than the other two as he spoke over their private communications. Too bad it wasn't going to save him out here from me.

"Ship speed has increased by ten percent, still unable to locate eezo emissions. Odd turning profile, I suggest we open fire on the bridge and take the rest of the ship." The Salarian stated quickly and to the point. He even provided projections, course plots, and intercept points, the little froggy piece of shit had it all.

As the distance between us rapidly shrunk, a thousand and ten different ways flashed through my mind on how to dismantle these bastards. Yet, I couldn't take them all out because I would need the Salarian bodies that they had gladly provided for me. I like to live by waste not, want not as I shifted everything into combat mode. Three Mass Effect interdiction spikes shot out the back of my ship, their boosters activated, and they all flew off towards different parts of the system well out of range of the battle to come.

It wasn't the Salarian that was first to react, no, that was the Batarian which I wouldn't have found strange if I didn't know how cowardly they were. He never even consulted the others, I picked up the spike of power and then his weapons opened up. There was no need to reroute power as I pulled back hard on the yoke, gave it a complicated motion as I took us in an upside-down roll-over twist. The tractor beams flared to life catching the mass effect fired rounds. I saw the exact moment they all realized they fucked up, but they weren't getting out of this. The Batarian was the first to scatter out of the formation and he was also the first one to die.

Shifting us to the upper Y-Z axis, I came down on him like I was an Orca smashing into a Seal out in the ocean. Bright white life washed over the ship as my teleporter breached the hull and pulled out the Salarians. My left hand flew across the weapons control as I overcharged the rounds fired on me trapped inside of the tractor beam. The rounds were fired back with triple the force and while the ship was disabled due to its engines blowing up, I dropped a magnetic mine out the rear hatch as I flew by. A yellow light flashed out the corner of my eye and I pulled us into a turn and glared at the ship bearing down on me, the Turian. Checking my radar, I found the Salarians were heading for the edge of the system at their fastest speeds.

This one was smarter than the first but not by much as he fired his main cannons, a torpedo shell, and then a delayed shell hoping to catch me with false security. I paid none of it any attention as I flared the shields while upping the mass effect corona projection, his attack bounced off my ship without nary a scratch. I took us on a roll over the torpedoes to make it clear to him that I was shitting on his attempt to blow me out of the sky.

My ship shuddered as we caught the Turians ship in our tractor wake, but I paid it no mind as I teleported the Salarians out and into stasis pods. With a hand on the thruster controls, I gave the boosters more power as I tore his fucking ship into multiple pieces and dragged it all behind me. Sound couldn't travel in space but if it could there would be a ginormous cacophony of destruction playing out behind my ship as I made a hard burn towards the systems edge because of course the mercenaries wouldn't actually work as a team to take me down. There was a ping on the sensors and I checked it only to find the video feed of a Turian standing on the outside of his ships hull, rocket launcher in hand.

With a snort, he was informed even as I wiggled the aft end of the ship, the sheer heat of the engines melting through his space suit like super heated steel through butter. Turning my attention back to the Salarians trying to run, I found that we were only a single light minute out as Cayde came running onto my bridge.

"Turok, what in all that is holy of the home world is going on?" Cayde asked calmly while trying to hide that little wiggle in his voice.

With a snort, I did a head motion towards the view port even as my hands went over the controls making sure things were prepped and ready for activation. "Blue Sun's thought that they could cash in on my bounty only to discover we are harder to hunt than a Krolathean whale shark."

Cayde went silent even as he slid into his seat and strapped himself in. "That's not an image I want to picture in my mind Turok, those things are nightmare fuel."

With a chuckle and flick of the controls, the interdiction field flared to full power and spiking the Salarians ship to a full stop. I didn't need to open a video feed to know what a full stop would do to the ship's inertia. Pushing down on the flight stick, I took us under them, hit my pedals, twisted with a clockwise twist then pulled back hard. This sent us shooting upwards in a corkscrew maneuver.

The Salarians ship was easy pickings but I never had to fire a round into them as I pulled the mass of the other ship behind me and let it do the hard work. THe Salarian ship broke like I took a planet cracker to it. Something inside of the ship went super critical as it erupted into a massive explosion, the image on the rear aft cameras picking it all up along with my sensors, but I didn't allow them the last second escape into the little shuttle.

It took another two light seconds before I broke out of my own interdiction field beyond the edge of the system and hit the activation on my own hyper slipspace drives.

Cayde shuddered within his seat as he watched the wreckage behind the ship disintegrate as it crossed the threshold of the higher dimensional planes. There was no mistaking the white knuckle grip that Cayde had on his seat as the ship shuddered a little before I released the tractor beams from the broken ships. There were about fifty Salarians inside of the stasis pods, I didn't need anymore, that would make me seem greedy.

The request had come through over the QCN- quantity communications network, so we were on the path back towards New Rannoch to pick up the Doctor and drop off these Quarians. Once I was happy with the auto-pilot, I stood up from my Captains chair. "Alright Cayde, let's go meet our new brothers and sisters, New Rannoch isn't going to populate itself."

He stood with a stretch, "How about we pull up a chair in that mess hall and just grab a drink."

I paused and turned to look at him, "Are you being sarcastic right now?"

He sighed, pouted and then gave me puppy dog eyes, even had his bottom lip quiver and everything. With a sigh of my own, my Enzo nodes within the suit activated as I picked Cayde up like a scraggly puppy and carried him behind me. Might as well give the people a puppy to play with and distract them from my actions of taking genetic samples.

Yorktown was ready, the Reapers would destroy the Citadel and I would swoop in with a location for intergalactic cooperation. The reapers would do all the hard work for me and I would reap the benefits, full pun intended. I couldn't help the mental image that came to mind when I tell those Asari bitches to kick rocks, their shoes ain't even that fly.

It was time for the Quarians to be the leaders of the Galaxy again.

Author's Note: It's going down!