Hello and welcome to the next part of the Flaggorn Legacy. Thank you to everyone (all 5 of you) for adding your suggestions they have been counted. Let's get it on! But Please remember I do not own any of the intellectual property owned by Bioware or the Mass Effect writers, I'm merely someone inspired by them.
-- Urgent distress message--
-- Importance level 9 --
-- N7 Mission Request --
-- Unidentified creature attack civilians on the planet Prentive in Turian Space--
-- Operatives deployed >> Turian sentinel [[confirmed]] Human Adept [[confirmed]] Krogan Vanguard [[confirmed]] --
-- Reaper threat in area at time of message >> N/A --
-- Other details >> Army of Green terrorists assisting the creature - Unlikely Cerberus --
-- Day's until deployment >> immediate --
-- Reward >> thirty thousand credits --
-- Mission status >> Failed --
-- Survivors >> All MIA --
-- Survivors >> All MIA --
-- New Mission Priority >> Retake Earth --
Sometimes completing the mission is sometimes a second priority, sometimes to fail is to succeed and sometimes to succeed is to fail. This became abundantly clear to Viki as ceiling was still collapsing all around her. The ash and debris began to fall all around the prison complex as both mercenaries and prisoners ran for their lives in blind panic. Occasionally the crescendo of explosions and screams was pierced by the mighty roar of the Scylla and sound of nuclear weapons in the distance. As a single tear ran down her face at the prospect that her life was nearing an end, she remembered what her team mate, her lover had told her only moments ago.....
46 hours earlier -- High Security Prison Planet Prentive - Jyi System
The squad had been sitting in the UT-47 Kodiak for a few hours now. They had met up on an Alliance dreadnought and given time to catch up. Flaggorn who had been on mission only days before hand had been catching up with his trustworthy comrades. Viki had started calling the Turian Sentinel "Vulture" due to her being unable to pronounce the name and Flaggorn had started calling him it as well. The name was given for a number of reasons. One being that, Turians somewhat look like birds on earth and that this particular Turian looked a lot like a vulture. Another reason being how the Sentinel would behave in a battle situation against superior numbers; if given the time, he would slowly work away at the enemy force and then when they were weary from a number of engagements he'd pick them off. Much like a scavenger bird.
Vulture liked his new nick name and embraced it, he even started signing off messages with it as his alias. However when ever he would say the word he'd put emphasis on the wrong parts. Making the word sound more like Val-Ture than Vul-Ture. He liked the number of pet names Viki had been giving him since they'd been together and this one was rather more... clean... than some of the others she called him.
As well as taking the time to socialise, the Krogan had also informed the pair on his previous dealing with the Emerald Scylla. He took the time to describe their mega-structure underground and their almost endless number that he had seen walking within... while also mentioning how easily he managed to defeat them single handedly. He also cared to mention that in the time he took looking around the base before arriving on the dreadnought he had not found the prised weapon the Drell had demonstrated to him the last time they met. To say this made to couple even more nervous about what they were about to face on Prentive would be a slight understatement. They were, after all, quite nervous already about fighting a huge monster, now it was being probably protected by a formidable legion of Green Mercenaries who may or may not have experimental weaponry? It was grim news indeed.
However all of this was dwarfed by the shadow that loomed over them all. The alliance, Shepard and the army assembled by them both was getting ready to retake Earth from the Reapers. Not only this but the N7 initiative would be the vanguard of the invasion force. Meaning that most of them would be drafted up for a suicide mission very, very shortly. Flaggorn had just finished his final vendetta and was just getting ready to relax for a while, but instead his vacation was to be snatched away from him by a mission he was unlikely to return from. Viki and Vulture had in-turn wanted to just relax for a while. They were even planning to pull out of the N7 initiative all together in order to go about living together away from all the conflict as soon as possible. However every time they thought about it they knew that there wasn't going to be a safe haven for them until the Reapers were annihilated... They were just scared of what that would cost.
Nevertheless, these doom filled thoughts would have to wait. For now they had a job to do. To stop a mercenary army from destroying the most high security prison in Citadel Space. Prentive, as it was called, was the Turian equivalent to Australia's founding on Earth. A place to put the worst criminals in the galaxy in order keep them away from the populous of other planets. Prentive was an arid desert with occasional pockets of lakes which spanned for miles. It rarely rained during its 200 day cycle around it's pair of suns which orbited each other but when it did rain, it would rain for weeks, only over the lakes. This meant that the only real inhabitable locations on the planet were around these lakes. As a result the Turian government built giant military installations around these lakes in order to take out anyone wanting to free inmates from the prisons. In order to make escape as physically impossible as possible many precautions were put in place. Firstly, the prisons were all ether underwater or underground access to the surface was possible via going through the military bases. Secondly the entire planet was covered in a large shield barrier which was only lowered for Turian military vessels, all supplies were taken to a space station and sent down via convoy of large ships. Thirdly, all inmates were equipped with a tacking beacon, if any of these beacons detected that the inmate they were attached to was even a centimetre above sea level, without being disable by a warden, it would let off a toxin into the inmates body that would react with the brain stem. It would send off singles similar to that which an Ant Queen experiences when its looking to build a nest. The inmate will immediately experience an involuntary impulse to attempt to ether head underground or dig underground. These effects can last for many weeks earning intimates who attempt to escape receiving the nickname "Antmates" Thought despite all these procedures, nothing could have prepared it for the mercenary assault and the giant creature they brought with them.
The first SOS reports gave clues to how the attack took place. The arrived via a captured Turian War vessel called "The Stygian" a ship that was often used to ferry resources to and from the planet, however was sent to Millian in order to "pick up new recruits" instead an elite force of Emerald solderers overwhelmed and captured the ship. They then replaced the majority of the ships cargo hold with a enormous water tank holding a single Scylla which was then dropped into one of the planets oceans. By the time the Turian military knew what was going on it was too late. Hundreds died in the first hour as the aquatic beast ripped through at a section of the prison that went under water which flooded the majority of the lower levels. Prisoners couldn't escape during the panic due to their tracking beacons, all those who tried anyway were immediately overridden with the Antmate impulse. It wasn't totally sure what the Mercenaries were there for, but one thing was clear: they weren't there to liberate a prisoner. That would require not killing all the inmates one by one execution style as they passed through the different prisons. They weren't there to capture any of the military bases as most of them had been destroyed by the second day. It was now 4 days in, and their intentions weren't the slightest bit clearer at all.
"Thirteen minutes till landing, best suit up!" came the pilots voice whistling through their omni-tools.
"Plenty of time, meat bag! Relax a little, I wanna try and enjoy this shitty little shuttle ride before I get riddled with weapons fire" Flaggorn laughed in response as he loaded spare thermal clips into a compartment on the side of Sar't'too.
"Just wanted to let you know, sir!"
"CALL ME SIR ONE MORE TIME! I'm not some fancy assed Turian sitting on a throne. I'm a Krogan!"
"Ah! Yes, yes... Sorry Si- I mean ... I mean uh, I mean...."
"HA! Relax Pyjak! Was only pulling you're leg! I get bored on these shuttle journeys. Call me what ever you want, as long as it ain't some soppy little pet name like these too little "darlings" call each other" Flaggorn then proceeded to state a mere small collection of these names whilst putting on his most adorable voice. This was received by everyone with much laughter, even by the pilot who hadn't yet realised that someone was shooting at him.
"INCOMING FIRE, Brace for-" He was quickly cut off as a bullet flew directly through the front of the shuttle and into his head. with no pilot of the controls the shuttle was spinning out of control and accelerating towards the ground.
"No time to wait" Viki nervously whobled to her team "we need to evacuate this shuttle!"
"Bit difficult, meat bag!.. We've only just breached the stratosphere... it's quite a way down!"
"It's ether that or we die... I vote to fall" She slammed open the shuttle door and leaped out! The Turian gasped out crying her name at the very shock of what she done. After mere seconds he followed diving out of the falling shuttle.
Flaggorn was left alone in the shuttle, in free fall, the sound of the air rushing in being the only possible sound in the shuttle. He was a little bit fed up of falling down all the time. He calmly swaggered over to the open door, activated his biotic-amp and jumped out. He quickly picked up speed as he fell and was able to get a good view of the planet from a birds eye position. At this point he was quite the way up, he could see the horizon bend with an endless desert. Every building within eye shot was ether on fire of a mass of rubble, apart from one building. It was tall tower like building, unlike the block like buildings around it. It was also a different colour. Where all the other buildings were industrial grey and quite new, this building was a chalk white and had clearly been there for some time. Flaggorn guessed that it must have been a Prothean ruin but there were no reports of one being on the planet.
He could spend as much time as he wanted in the sky sight seeing but he knew that eventually he would meet the ground unless he some how found a way to land softly. Unlike in the factory where he could just charge around and not worry about hitting the ground, he knew due to gravity and the shear speed in which he was descending that this tactic will only excel at making him a very squashed Krogan. He instead dived to gather his squad mates who were also falling. With the Turian under one arm and Viki under the other he hatched his plan.
"Viki, when I say 'GO' you fire the biggest singularity you've every created right at the ground. Vulture; When I say 'NOW' I want you to throw a grenade set to 10 seconds at the ground. I'll then charge... Got it?" The two looked at each other bewildered, this didn't sound like a plan to survive but rather a fancy way to kill themselves in the coolest way possible. They both knew however that falling in style was Flaggorn speciality. They merely nodded... and waited.
Time liturarlly files when you're falling through the air and about a minute passed before Flaggorn was ready to hatch his plan. No one was shooting at them any more, probably because no one expected them to survive this fall but they weren't going down today, so to speak. Flaggorn began to shout his orders "Ready?...Now...GO!" The singularity hit the ground as instructed catching the grenade a mere second before it hit the ground. It then exploded furiously with a large shock wave, a shock wave that the three had just managed to catch. this slowed down their descend just enough to be caught in the singularity. They hovered around for a moment and then hit the ground, a lot softly than they would have.
As they looked around inspecting their conditions and pulling them selves up their minds only pointed towards a question... Why on earth was that white tower they saw as they were falling... now glowing green?!
--To be continued--
Thank you so much for reading, if you have a positive or negative response please leave them in the comments below or on the Facebook comments section below this post. Be sure to keep your eyes open for the next part.
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