The Reaper’s Legion

Chapter 135

The Ogre’s trundled up ramps into the bellies of modified destroyers. The vessels were clearly of naval origin, but it was also clear that they’d been heavily customized. Broad, hefting turrets and weapon emplacements of ambiguous purpose protruded from the deck of the destroyer. What little visibility I was offered of anything on deck was centered around a broad tower, the command structure of the ship.

I was no expert on naval vessels, I couldn’t be sure exactly what was different or not. The turrets were a dead giveaway, but beyond that? I couldn’t be certain what else I was looking at.

We followed closely behind Adira’s crawler, until the crew began to flag us down with large glowing sticks. It became clear that we were being guided to empty slots, and were expected to fit in snugly, the many bays bearing hardpoints for maintenance and to be locked in place in the event of rough weather.

‘Or a heavy impact by a Leviathan,’ I mused, driving the Ogre into position beside the crawler, each subsequent Ogre being guided in much the same way.

We were split between three of the destroyers. In spite of the many modifications, these ships weren’t necessarily meant to host a massive number of vehicles.

“Alright, team,” I said as we rolled to a stop, “lets stretch our legs.”

“Ah, finally!” Daniel groaned, the much larger modified mobile command vessel he was sidling into two slots. “I was starting to cramp up. Didn’t think it’s take us that long to get here.”

“Same,” Alex stood upright, ready to leave the Ogre already, “I’m ready to eat, too.”

As we moved out, Fran reminded everyone not to move off too far until we knew what our accommodations would be. It was likely - and reasonable - that we would be bunking in our Ogre’s for the time being. Ordinarily, I’d like to set up something of a base of operations, but in this case we’d be sharing what Adira could provide, rather than building something of our own.

Somehow, I don’t think that the city would find it reasonable for us to set up a fortress on their beach.

While walking the short distance between the vehicles, I took note of the surroundings. Against the far wall I could see racks on racks of equipment, forming a giant ring around the walls. Likewise, our vehicles took the central space in the bay, but we were far from the only cargo. Mechs of several makes and designs lay secured against metal support frames alongside vessels that appeared to be designed to help augment their abilities.

We’d likely want to take a look at the equipment they used before our voyage officially began. Luckily, it appeared that the bay was designed for a number of different mechs, bearing a number of empty support frames that were widely adjustable. The only mech we might have an issue with would be The Dauntless, but we could use the modified command rig for that.

Likewise, it appeared that they didn’t have only one point of berth from the ship. There were five, two per side and a smaller port at the rear of the ship. There were a pair of elevators to get to the upper decks, as well as what I presumed would be stairs past the doors on the far wall. Mech’s would find access to be tight, but luckily one of the elevators was large enough to be capable of moving heavy machinery in stride.

I’d have guessed that they wanted to have as much flexibility as possible, given the nature of biotics.

Adira and her team disembarked from the crawler as eagerly as mine had. They shortly caught sight of me, and I only just realized that I’d only slightly dressed down from the mesh armor I’d been wearing.

Derrick had clearly kept in mind my dislike of business attire when he’d given me the thing. I expected that each of the diplomats was clad in some version of it, something that I found gave me considerable peace of mind. There were multiple layers to the armor, but only the one closest to the skin really mattered. The vest portion was semi-breathable and more comfortable, but I’d abandoned the sleeves and jacket, finding them stuffy and slightly too constraining for my tastes.

To my surprise, the group around Adira didn’t seem to find my appearance alarming. Instead, I saw the older woman of the group murmur something, to Adira. The three chuckled, and given the eyeroll Adira gave them, I could only imagine it was a joke at her expense.

They approached, and the same old woman spoke up, “Don’t wait for us now, we’re just gonna visit with our new friends and get ‘em acclimatized.”

I frowned, turning a questioning gaze to the woman before returning my gaze back to Adira, a strained smile on her face, “The windbag over there is Nana Pain.”

“Ah, the ventures of youth!” She cried exaggeratedly, grinning mercilessly at the leader of their group, “Show the nice young man around! Ya got time!”

“Jesus Nana,” I heard one of the others shake their heads, “you have no chill, you know that?”

“Pfft,” she blew a raspberry at him and moved to the Ogre, “I’m as cool as a cucumber, young man.”

I could only helplessly shake my head as Daniel greeted them, boisterously, turning my attention once more to Adira.

“You get along well,” I nodded, “I think.”

She sighed, “She means well but-” she froze mid sentence, thinking better of following whatever line of thought she had, “-anyways, I guess it’d be good to show you the command tower, right?”

Just as eager for the change in topic, I nodded to her, following beside her towards the elevator, “Seems you’ve got a pretty wide variety of mechs here.”

“Nothing particularly standardized, but we try to make sure that everyone has what they need. Mostly, that’s in the form of these big bastards-” she gestured to some of the larger models of the mechs, almost equal in size with The Dauntless, “-they’re our frontliners against the Leviathan biotics.”

She then guided my attention to the many empty bays, “you’re free to use any of them as needed. We’ll be in port until morning light, that should give you time to order any parts you might need from the Obelisk.” After a few seconds she sighed, “It’ll definitely be pricey, but better that than be ill fitted for sea-borne combat.”

I nodded at that, “We’ll have to borrow your expertise on that.”

“Of course,” she grinned, “if there’s anything we know, it’s fighting in the water.”

We reached the broad, caged platform that was the elevator, the attending mechanic nodding to us as he hit the switch after calling for others nearby to clear. Given the railing and safety bars all around the platform, it was a formality, but the smooth pneumatics quickly projected us upwards.

“So, five destroyers?” I looked to Adira, nodding in confirmation, “How did you get your hands on five destroyers?”

She grinned, “Well, there used to be a naval yard near here. Truth be told, these were to be scuttled until we got our han-”

A siren interrupted her, the woman’s relaxed expression replaced by a razor sharp awareness. The elevator arrived at the upper deck, resting flush there as she faced towards the command tower.

“Follow me! That’s the battlestations call,” she shouted over the din, not waiting to see if I was behind her.

She was fast, but my body allowed me to keep pace easily. At the same time, I issued orders to the Legion to be ready, but on standby.

I didn’t bother asking what was going on, clearly we were moving towards the command tower to find out. That, or she was simultaneously receiving information over her comms.

Moments later, she confirmed my suspicion, “Looks like we’ve got a decent Leviathan in the bay.”

“Anyone engaged with it yet?” I asked as she yanked open the heavy metal door.

“Yeah, Scylla Brigade has them,” she took the metal stairs three at a time, “they were just coming back in from deployment, but they should be fine.”

I held off on asking if our assistance would be needed for the time being. The Legion wasn’t purpose-built for sea-battle, and unless the Leviathan in question approached the coast, we had no method to reach them.

Originally, we’d have secured a beachhead and used some of the specialized Ogre’s that we had to create simple vessels to cross the water.

But, this would be valuable information to see how viable our plan would have been in the first place.

She tore open another door, a room full of people at consoles, including a sharply dressed man at a command chair of sorts turned to the source. They rapidly turned away, save for a momentary distracted look at me.

They were professionals, though, and had a job to do. I could respect their attention.

“What class are we looking at?” Adira called to the older man at the helm, “Gen? Numbers?”

“Just a Class 2, Gen 1, looks like. Only the one,” the man sharply rattled off the information, “barely anything to be worried about on its own, but the damned thing is already in the bay.”

“It must have slipped through the sensor net,” Adira’s expression soured, “that means there’s a hole.”

“Or it’s Gen 2 and has a method of moving through,” I noted, looking out over the system screens, resisting the urge to directly interface with them to find out more information.

“And you are?” The older fellow asked, curious but stern voiced.

“He’s the Legion leader, Matthew Reaper” Adira answered quickly before turning her attention to me. I could easily tell that she was acutely focused, and her attention seemed to settle on me with a certain weight. “What do you mean by having a method through?”

I met her gaze heavily, “We’ve run into Gen 2’s and other oddities capable of deceiving general sensors. It’s why we run with several overlapping types.”

The Captain frowned, “We run a few types… but not everywhere.” He met my curious gaze and quickly explained, “Lots of area to cover in the water. Quantity over quality.”

“This is Captain Duke Reigner, my second,” Adira quickly interjected, “now, bring the beastie on screen, I want to see it.”

“Aye,” Duke answered, “front and center, if you please.”

A moment later, one of the others answered, much less serious than their companions, “Aaaand, action!”

The screen to the front flickered from a map to an underwater view, from what I imagined to be a buoy.

At first I didn’t notice any kind of creature; viewing something underwater was very different from what I’d become used to.

Then the image shifted.

For a moment I wondered if the camera was moving, but then I realized that the entire image was moving, and quickly. As the Leviathan passed in front of the camera, a bulky form that looked soft and malleable, I couldn’t help but blink at the dark blue hulk, four trailing arms behind a boxy main body. Between the larger arms, hundreds, thousands of smaller tentacles trailed, many of which appeared to be dragging smaller creatures, each appearing to be a biotic.

“Great, another jellyfish type.” Adira muttered with annoyance, “That’s gonna take a while to melt.”

The camera view shifted to a further buoy, one closer to a cluster of ships. I presumed them to be the Scylla Brigade, and watched as the four vessels turned their broadsides towards the water.

Utterly unperturbed, the thirty meter in diameter jellyfish pulsed onwards, dragging hundred meter long tentacles behind it. I wondered what the damage it could cause was, given that it was seaborne, but I presumed that there were reasons to keep them at range.

A moment later, I could hear the biting retort of several guns, booming noise that I could hear even from the command tower here. Outside the window, I could see farther out into the bay, and guessed that the jellyfish was a thousand meters from the vessels.

The shells they fired hit the water and shredded on impact, sending rapidly slowing fragments of metal everywhere. I frowned at the sight, knowing that projectiles simply didn’t do well under the water.

“Well, that’s all she wrote,” Adira shrugged as the jellyfish plunged headfirst into the metal.

I was confused, until I realized that there were far too many shining chunks in the water, and they hadn’t scattered as much as I thought. With rapt attention, I noticed that the twenty-odd shells that had been sent into the ocean bore several smaller orbs, each one clustered tightly together.

All at once, those orbs flashed and flared out widely, superheating the water and reflecting off of the many shining fragments - mirror like in appearance, I belatedly noticed - and then exploded.

The camera jostled wildly as the impact wave hit it, and outside the window I watched as a massive plume of water and silvery muck flew high into the air. That was a marvelous show, a purpose built weapon against that particular biotic type, I suspected. The cores must have exploded, and sent bright, searing hot light across the small mirrors. Said mirrors must have been at least moderately explosive, too, because the ensuing combination of superheated water and explosions would have shredded anything in the water.

“Scylla Brigade are specialists in soft-bodied extermination,” Adira grinned at the sight of my excited expression, “they pioneered killing these things. Now we all keep a few shells on hand, just in case.”

In spite of myself, I turned toward her hungrily, “Everything. I want to know everything about killing these things.”

“Oh, boy, another Adira,” the man below at the consoles laughed.

Adira shot him a scathing glare as he turned his attention back to the console, jokingly whistling aloud.

“Mr. Fischer, I’m so glad you volunteered for the night shift,” the Captain spoke aloud, “see to it that you give an incident report for this as well.”

“Ah, bu-” he turned, the man, I noted, had broad, curly hair and a short t-shirt, his attire and attitude all but cheering at his leisure-mindedness.

He thought better of any kind of complaint as he saw the flinty gaze of Captain Reigner. “Aye, Captain, it’ll be my pleasure, Captain,” a chagrined expression on his face.

“Very good,” he then turned an appraising eye back towards me and Adira. “Commander, I can let you know if anything comes up if you’d like?”

I almost saw the flicker of a grin on his face, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Thank you, Captain,” Adira said, “I’ll be in the mess if you need me.”

He nodded as she stepped away from the command seat, her expression loosening immensely, “Hungry?”

I paused and realized that I hadn’t eaten at all today. “I could eat,” I nodded, noting the fact that more of her crew followed us with their gazes as we left, not a few of which whispered conspiratorially to each other.

‘Geez, you’d think we couldn’t be friendly with someone without being attracted to them,’ I mentally sighed.

All such thoughts vanished as she touched on what she knew about biotics, all of which was news to me, based on the sea-borne types. Minutes later we received our food, and lightly picked at it, engrossed in our conversation, and speculation, of biotics and how they operated.