Summary: Where we get our first taste of just how dangerous Sae Shepard is...and what Sirens can do.

Chapter 3: 2370CE – Violent Vacations

Sae idly bit off another chunk of local steak from its skewer, even as she gazed out over the half-completed starport with its equally half-completed defenses. The steak wasn't bad, despite her not having a clue what animal it came from, but any serious thoughts on the quality of the food were pretty far to the back of her mind. When Lt. Commander Sae Shepard had, quite unexpectedly, had leave time she hadn't asked for granted, she'd been suspicious. When an unsubtle email from her Captain had followed up less than five minutes later, mentioning how he'd heard a few of the Sirens from her graduating form were having a get together on some small, private farming colony called Mindoir, her suspicion had hardened into something nastier. She'd taken the hint, packed what gear she could get away with on 'leave,' and taken the first shuttle to the sleepy farming colony.

She'd arrived to the three other Sirens she'd expected from her form, and two more besides, who had each transferred to R&D less than a year earlier. Both of the extras were combat veterans and both were suspiciously there 'investigating an anomaly.' She'd also found, to her annoyance, that the reason for the Alliance Intelligence Services's roundabout-yet-obvious machinations was pretty bloody obvious. Mindoir was one of the dozen new colonies that had sprung up in the Attican Traverse. And its defenses were shit. There was nothing bigger than a frigate wolf pack and a few corvettes in orbit and the ground-side defenses were less than half finished.

She knew how that state of affairs had come to be, of course. After joining the Citadel, the Systems Alliance had no longer been able to prevent private enterprises from starting up their own colonies. And, in a typical display of reckless human nature, a dozen groups had rushed out into the Traverse to do just that. Despite the pre-contact military buildup and considerable industrial might of Humanity, there was simply no way for the Fleet to cover all of those new colonies. Nor were the private enterprises willing to foot the bill for the rapid buildup of ground defenses, demanding that the overstrained army corps of engineers do their job of protecting them.

Which meant that none of them had the fleet presence they should. And, like Mindoir, most of them had only half-completed ground defense systems. Even half-completed, the frigate wolfpack and ground defenses should see off any casual raiders. But, given the presence of no less than six Sirens ostensibly here for 'other' reasons, Shepard felt it was rather obvious that AIS thought something bigger was going to go down.

It was just as she finished off her afternoon snack that she was proven right. Between one moment and the next an Air Raid Siren started blasting out from the port, even as the few completed anti-air turrets hummed to life and began splitting coherent light and flak at two dozen mixed-type assault shuttles that were howling down toward the under-defended spaceport. Grimly, one of the tattoos hidden by her light ballistics jacket flared to life.

"Phase Shift."

The familiar feel of Mira's mind merging with hers quelled any uncertainty. In Phase-Reality she saw three more beacons light up right after her as all four of them reached out to the four completed air defense guns. Abruptly, the local controllers found their systems wrenched out of the own fire control net…and then Shepard was seeing the world from the gun's sensors, the half of her that was Mira already dialing the gun's targeting in on the lead shuttle even as Shepard mentally pulled the trigger. Over the next thirty-seven seconds, the suddenly AI-backed AA guns swatted eleven transports out of the sky, adding to the three the locals had gotten first. And then, as the remaining ten shuttles fell below the targeting envelop for the AA guns, all four were abruptly released back into the fire-control net.

Shepard stood, desyncing from Mira as she released Phase Shift. The AI immediately set about activating the military-grade Eridium Shield hidden under Sae's jacket, simultaneously projecting landing points for each of the shuttles onto Sae's cybernetic HUD. Trusting her AI to finish the boot-up sequence, Sae channeled power to a different tattoo, drew the heavy N7 Eagle plasma pistol from her hip, and mentally targeted the nearest shuttle landing point.

"Phase Walk"

Siren teleportation didn't work quite the way the masses thought it did. Instead of true instantaneous movement, it pushed a Siren out-of-phase with Spacetime. Physical obstacles failed to matter unless you wanted them too and distances were warped. Pushing off from her starting place, she sort of pulled on Space, her momentum and experience allowing her to cover the 300 meters between her and the landing point in a few bare eyeblinks. Just as the assault shuttle's ramp lowered and a motely mix of Batarian and Turian pirates charged out, Shepard phased back into existence right in the middle of them, deliberately carrying a shockwave of pure energy with her as she exited phase-space. A burst of pure energy, more powerful than nearly any Biotic shockwave in existence, burst in a five-meter sphere around her.

That blast of raw energy was far more than just kinetic. A dozen mixed energies burst away from her, shredding the entire group of twenty she'd landed in the middle of. Most were turned to paste. A few unlucky bastards at the edge of the field were 'merely' ripped in half, dying rapidly from shock and blood loss. Two shots flashed out an instant later from her Eagle, coring right through the stupefied faces of the next two Batarians, both standing at the top of the ramp. Then her other hand came forward, launching the plasma grenade she'd 'borrowed' from the local armory straight into the shuttle's troop compartment.

Feet finally touching the ground as she absorbed her momentum from her early jump, she grunted and activated another tattoo, augmenting her physical strength as her powerful legs compressed into a squat on landing…then pushed hard to reverse her direction. She sprang away from the shuttle, clearing the blast radius even as the shortened fused on the plasma grenade triggered. She fell into a backward roll as the wave of heat vented out from the open ramp, and grinned in vicious satisfaction as she took in the completely-slagged shuttle. Nothing inside was likely to have survived that, not even the pilots. Whipping her head to the left, she used the heartbeats it took for her tattoos to bleed off enough energy to target another shuttle. Flinty eyes focused on the group of Batarians charging from it, toward the Starport. Mira fed her a targeting estimate for the middle of their charge…

"Phase Walk."

Shepard felt her tattoos burning her skin as she pushed their limits, already knowing she wouldn't be able to do this again a third time for several minutes. But right now, that didn't matter. She had pirates to kill…and there were five other Sirens doing the same thing right now, anyway. If they had their way, not a single one of these slaver scum would even reach the port…

And Sirens usually got things their way.

... ...

Alliance News Network:

"Local agents from Mindoir today report that a major slaver raid was stopped cold when it attempted to hit the small farming colony. The majority of the attacking forces were tied up in space or eliminated by the system's incomplete air defenses. Those that got through were unlucky enough to run headfirst into several Sirens who were meeting up for a class reunion during leave. Civilian casualties were under twenty, mostly caused by panicking groups. Sadly, several of the defending Fleet Frigates were badly damaged, resulting in several dozen wounded Alliance personnel and fifteen deaths. With this escalation of pirate activity, various colonial enterprises have been advised to work faster to bring their defenses up to standard compliance. Not every colony can get so lucky if it faces the same sort of concentrated assault."