"This is Citadel News, Khalisah al-Jilani. We're here today to discuss the... questionable events surrounding the Union vessel SSV Amazon. With us is the esteemed Spectre and Admiral: Roderick Faust. Admiral Faust. Thank you for joining us." spoke the news reporter as she sat down at a chair opposite the lanky, smoking figure of Admiral Faust. "Not at all, not at all." he spoke calmly, before gesturing for al-Jilani to ask her first question. "So, Admiral. Would you say that the soldiers aboard the Amazon were merely pawns in the Dark Moons' game up until the very final victory?"
"No, no! Far from it my dear." spoke Faust as he leaned back in his chair puffing on his pipe. "What's been said so far couldn't be further from the truth of what really happened. I should know. I was there." he said with a bristly chuckle, to which al-Jilani replied with a coy brow peaked. "Why don't you tell us what really happened, then?" Faust raised an eyebrow and smiled again. "Certainly my dear. It all started with the escape from Purgatory..."
"Velorix Arkasus is a prisoner in Purgatory. The Amazon has been banded a treason ship and is to be brought to the Council. Duncan McFarrell has been made a Spectre and is acting on his own agenda while the Galaxy is dustracted by the search for the Amazon. Owyn Skipper has all but disappeared off the face of the Galaxy. What's going to happen? Will we be able to save the Galaxy once and for all? What song will we sing next!? Hop aboard, newbie. Let's rock."
Chapter I
Everyone's Favourite Turian
Our story begins in 2188 with Velorix Arkasus successfully escaping from Purgatory on a stolen shuttle, assissted by Admiral Faust turning a blind eye and giving the Amazon crew a chance. Back on the Amazon, the crew decided to head to Omega in the search for their former Captain: Owyn Skipper. Tensions flared as Jask accused Nali of bad leadership, and the two got into a scrap before being pulled apart by Krogan and Veronica and calmed down.
The team arrived on Omega, where they found themselves being forced to get an audience with Aria by ridding Omega of Dark Moon influence once more. There, a video of Duncan penalising Victor Kreen for letting Owyn escape from Tuchanka roundabout a year and a half ago was found. The team then returned to Afterlife, seeking an audience with Aria. Aria then told the crew thatt Owyn spent his days in Lower Afterlife, drinking himself to death.
Chapter II
Second Piece Of The Puzzle
The crew were shocked to indeed find Owyn not only drunk and smoking, but apprehensive and jumpy enough to pull a gun on Nali out of surprise. The former Spectre then ran off into the slums of Lower Omega, and even after Nali's frequent attempts at coercing him remained as stubborn as ever, choosing to return to his run-down shack in deep Omega that he now called home. A minor fight with three muggers halted Owyn (and Nali, who was following him anyway) in his tracks, but he soon continued and found himself in his house.
After many attempts by the other crew members, Velorix finally managed to convince Owyn to return to service as the Amazon crew's irreplaceable Captain. Unfortunately, enraged at this fact and viewing Owyn as a 'weak' and 'unfit' leader, Krogan returned to his old stomping grounds: An arena on Omega called Valhalla. Upon Owyn and the crew's arrival to this arena, Krogan challenged owyn openly to a CQC fight, which Owyn immediately accepted.
The battle was bloody, and brutal and brought out more cheers and gambles than probably any other anyone else would see. But in the end, Owyn would by glorious K.O. Owyn had the crew return to the ship where he could be properly treated for his wounds, after which he gave an angry speech about how they were going to track down Duncan and obliterate him for what he's done. With Owyn now once again recognised as the Amazon's leader, they set off for Illium in the hopes that Nali's illustrious sister Lyrana would be able to help them out.
Chapter III
We Weren't Expecting That!
Upon arriving on Illium via shuttle from the Amazon, the team were immediately led to Lyrana's tower by a contact of hers. Upon arrival, the team was met by Dark Moon troopers. Upon defeating this small team Owyn found a datapad, illustrating that Clara was heading up Lyrana's tower and towards Nali's sisters Lyrana and the infant Eralynn because Lyrana held some sensitive Dark Moon intelligence. The team split into two: With Otium and Jask heading up the vent system to find Lyrana and Eralynn with the rest plowing their way up the more direct way and straight through the Moons.
Nali lost her temper at the worry of her sisters Eralynn and Lyrana being in danger with the infamous Clara in the building, and while jumping out to save her Owyn was shot in the shoulder. Velorix quickly ran to his rescue, applying the medigel and shooting his attacker through the chest. Owyn then proceeded to yell at Nali and Krogan for falling out of line. The team then continued their march; meanwhile Otium and Jask found Lyrana and Eralynn hiding away in Lyrana's office.
The team nearly caught up with Clara as she ventured up the tower, and Nali rushed ahead once again leaving Owyn and the team to deal with a group of krogan. Nali and Clara had a quick fight before Clara escaped into a shuttle out the window with Lyrana and Eralynn in hand. After making quick work of the krogan, Owyn and the team entered the room where Owyn confidently signalled Taelon to arrive with the shuttle. Owyn took the driver's seat as the rest of the team sat down. The chase was on.
Ducking and weaving through the streets of Illium (and making one very dangerous maneouver up and upside down over a skyscraper), Velorix soon shot a round from his Widow through the Dark Moon shuttle, bringing it to an early land. Unfortunately the shuttle managed tor each it's destination on a skyscraper occupied by the Moons. Their constant fire forced Owyn to land the shuttle on the roof of the skyscraper, away from their targets. After a short think, Owyn told Taelon to fly the shuttle around until signalled. The team was then split into three and they all set off down three separate ventilation shafts to try and locate Lyrana, Eralynn and hopefully eliminate Clara.
Team One: Owyn and Jask slid down their vent and came under attack by a bunch of Dark Moons. Mid-battle, Owyn's medigel wore off, forcing him to stop using his right hand and therefore all his firearms. Owyn resorted to charging the Mech with his knife recklessly before getting swatted to the side, leaving Jask on his own to fend with a YMIR Mech. When it came to the point of seeming hopeless for poor Jask, the YMIR Mech and all accompanying Dark Moon mercenaries were flawlessly taken down by the coming of the Galaxy's most famous mercenary since Zaeed Massani: the volus Dar Vidnu. Soon after this they were joined by a quarian: Aryn'Fei nar Moreh. With their new team together, they advanced through the skyscraper and after taking down a squad of mercs together they then waited for the elevator to take them to their next destination. Team One arrived at a storage room, where they found a large number of hostages and a caged Eralynn. After releasing the hostages and Eralynn, the younger asari was sent back to the shuttle with Aryn and Owyn and Jask proceeded to answer a distress call in the penthouse of the skyscraper.
Team Two: Velorix and Krogan emerged from their vents to find a room filled with a few Dark Moons, after disposing of them in their own, unique ways. The two went on to try and complete their mission of finding any of the three targets only to find themselves being stalked by a mysterious girl named Aimée who was requesting to speak to the Captain. After a brief confrontation Velorix agreed to allow the girl to tag along. It wasn't long before they found Nali's elder sister Lyrana held by the Dark Moons. After a long and brutal fight, wherein Aimée distinguished her skills greatly, Velorix spoke with Lyrana, revealing a terrible plot.
Team Three: Nali, Veronica and Otium slid through the vents to find themselves in a break room, host to several members of the building's staff being held captive. After some reluctance, they went up the shaft to await rescue while Nali, Otium, and Veronica advanced into the halls and quickly dispatched a group of Dark Moon guards. Soon after, a fight ensues with Dark Moon Super Soldier Clara. A fight ensued, during which they were joined by the enigmatic drell: 'Ghost' as he called himself. After a fight that could have gone both ways, Clara was defeated and killed. Nali's team was the second to recieve the distress call and make their way to the penthouse.
Up in the penthouse, Nali's team arrived to find Skipper's team happily drinking away. Ghost made himself known to Skipper, who soon demanded that he know the drell's real name. The drell complied, and was from then on known as Myrrias Khar. And then the crew returned to drink. Before long, however, the power in the entire building Velorix sent in a message via omnitool to Owyn revealing what Lyrana knew; of a terrorist attack on Illium. Particularly the skyscraper that currently housed the Amazon team. While the Amazon Team's arrival wasn't anticipated, the distress signal in the penthouse was one meant to distract the team and catch them in the explosion that would bring down the skyscraper. Leaning of this, Owyn and Velorix's teams ran towards the 264th floor, where the shuttle would be waiting at the landing pad.
The teams both reached the floor without a problem, and met up while running the long stretch to the shuttle. Unfortunately, the building exploded from under their very feet and a large chunk fell off of the building, the Amazon team riding it down the side. As luck would have it another, angled piece of debris stopped their fall and slowed them, giving them the time to leap from this falling slab and onto a nearby stable building. Looking back, the team saw the skyscraper begin to fall down towards the, threatening their lives once more. The team ran, to where wasn't known right now. Just ran.
Thankfully Taelon then pulled up in the shuttle, and the team all leapt into it one by one. Unfortunately Aimée, who was injured from her fights before, didn't make the jump entirely and only managed to grab the edge of the shuttle's door. Aryn tried to help Aimée up but instead found herself knocked off by a piece of debris hitting the shuttle, falling to her death. In a fit of adrenaline Owyn managed to hoist Aimée up before taking over driving the shuttle so that Taelon could tend to the human's wounds. The team then returned to the Amazon.
Chapter IV
A Battle of the Gods
While exploring the remainders of Antirumgon for anything that could clear the Amazon's good name, the still skeptical Admiral Faust came under attempted assault by the infamous super soldier Lerax. After foiling his initial attack, Admiral Faust and Lerax engaged in a terrific fight of Biotics and Close-Quarters Combat. After a long and painful fight for both involved, a floored and almost paralysed Faust managed to pull all of his strength together and burn Lerax's eye out with his cigarette, causing Lerax to retreat in pain while Faust fell unconscious.
Wounded but later conscious, Faust managed to haul himself back to The Lionheart. What happened after that is unknown.
Chapter V
Flaring Tempers
Back on the Amazon, everyone was relieved to have gotten back to the ship in one piece (those who had made it back in one piece). Unfortunately some casualties were taken which included Dar Vidnu, and the team’s would-be new quarian member Aryn. The loss of the two along with the act of narrowly escaping death themselves left many of the crew on edge after the whole ordeal.
Jask in particular hadn’t taken the events very well, believing that the newcomers weren’t to be trusted, as well dealing with the stress of everything else had to put up with. Eventually Nali and himself got into a fight, to which Owyn was quickly notified and rushed in to put an end to it, interrupting his interview with Aimée, their new Shadow Broker agent.
After sending Jask to the brig to be questioned by Velorix, and questioning Nali himself, Owyn took a walk down to the ship’s engines for some alone-time to try and process everything that they had been though. He didn’t have time to however, as he was soon attacked by an asari assassin named Nymera Talis that had stowed away in the Amazon’s shuttle as the crew was escaping the collapsing building on Illium. She was quickly knocked out by the Captain and taken to the med bay, where she was escorted to the brig by Otium to be questioned later.
After that Owyn concluded the interview with Aimée, where they learned of a party being hosted by Duncan that they would have to infiltrate to gather more information about his plans. Then he began his interview with their other new crew member, Myrrias the drell. That interview didn't take long and within the hour Owyn had persuaded their prisoner asari Nymera to help them infiltrate Duncan's party. Owyn explained the plan to the team in the conference room. They'd split off into four teams: Party Team would be Otium and Veronica posing as an element zero mining tycoon and his wife to cause a security blackout with an EMP device then to monitor the party itself, while Teams A, B and C would be breaking onto the cruiser and searching for Duncan's secret cargo.
Chapter VI
Breaking And Entering
The morning before the party Owyn took Team B to the loading bay for Duncan's cruiser: The Venice where they stowed away into three crates and were loaded onto The Venice and told to wait for the blackout. It would only be a few hours.
Party Team - Otium and Veronica: Veronica and Otium successfully infiltrated the party, setting off the EMP Device without a hitch. After this, veronica and Otium kept the team updated on the Council and other big names at the party; specifically Duncan leaving the room.
Team A - Owyn and Velorix: Owyn and Velorix entered into the Upper Decks of The Venice and successfully took out the two security officers, opening the team to roam the halls freely. Owyn and Velorix soon split up, only to find themselves captured. Velorix having been snuck up on and Owyn getting into a fight with a krogan and being unable to defend himself effectively after the fatigue of his victory. They now stand captured at gunpoint before the entire party of The Venice, Council, Duncan and every other important figure there included.
Team B - Nali, Myrrias and Nymera: After waiting for several hours in the crate, Team B finally made it to the Venice's cargo hold. With a quick kill of a guard from their fake Dark Moons' guard, the three piled out to take a few real Moons out, hide the bodies, and begin rifling through crates in hopes of finding something that even a Spectre would have to smuggle. Much to their luck, Nali wrenched a particular crate open to find it home to a geth unit who promptly activated itself. With a scan of the team, it revealed itself to be non-hostile for the moment and alerted Nali that they were needed on the party deck. Before any interrogation could be made, the Geth tapped into the security systems and revealed to Nali Owyn and Velorix's situation on the deck, and the team rushed to help.
Team C - Aimée and Jask: Aimée and Jask infiltrated the Engine Deck successfully, disabling a huge number of LOKI and YMIR Mechs before noticing a number of men discussing reinforcements being sent to the upper levels. It would turn out that these men captured and detained Owyn and Velorix. They too made their way to the party deck, where they learned of Owyn and Velorix's plight.
Team Re-United: Otium soon raised a ruccus, firing some shots off and causing a distraction long enough for the mysterious quarian: Karii'Lianah vas Idenna, who released them from their cuffs giving Owyn the opportunity to punch Duncan in the face and hold him at gun=and=knifepoint, ordering the team to gather with their weapons at the ready. When they had, Owyn backed them behind a door and threw Duncan to the ground, shooting him in the foot before having Karii lock the door behind them and ordering them to run. The team successfully made it to the cargo hold and after a quick battle with some of the disguised Dark Moons, made off with a cargo shuttle truck and got back to the Amazon. There, Karii and Nymera were properly inducted into the crew and the fight against Duncan and the Dark Moons. Their victory was short however, as soon Owyn recieved a tipoff from the Shadow Broker once again that an important agent of his; Vikenti Piersche, had been captured by the Moons and was being interrogated on Erinle, a salarian colony in the Osun system. Celebrating as they went, the Amazon soared for Erinle on the way to its next mission.
Chapter VII
"Bite Me, a*****e"
The team landed on Erinle by shuttle, splitting up slightly to begin their own trek through the jungle and towards their target. Their search didn’t last long however, as they soon came in contact with three LOKI mechs that were patrolling the area. Luckily, the team wasn’t spotted and were able to take out the mechs without detection; and from there, they continued on.
Soon after they arrived at a building: the one they knew to be housing their captured target, and after Velorix took out the lone human guard standing watch, they ascended the ladder and came to a stop at a locked door. Though with some help from Karii, their new quarian engineer, the door was opened in no time. The team entered the building only to find that it was empty, so they split up again to search the place for any information in the form of a terminal, or datapad. Jask located one, which was soon after hacked by Aimée, and found to be schematics of the building, allowing the crew to get a better idea of where they were going.
They headed into the mines, and were soon confronted with numerable LOKI, FENRIS and YMIR mechs. Though with a quick hack again from Karii, the YMIR gunned down all its allies and the crew were off again. The crew had to give up their silent advance as they came in contact with a large squad of Dark Moons, which were handily defeated. The crew was then able to determine the status of the human male named Vikenti, their target. Alive, though being interrogated. Violently. This knowledge sent the crew full force towards where Velorix had deduced the target to be, though they soon came to more resistance in the shape of a huge number of geth troopers, ranging in rank from regular soldiers to a single Colossus.
After a nice flurry of attacks, a few combined powers, and a lot of spent clips, the geth forces were dispatched, and the fire team advanced to where Vikenti was being held. He and Skipper acted quickly to deal with his two interrogators, one of whom was a krogan and was thrown over Vikenti's shoulder, allowing for the human to reveal he had cybernetic implants. A short introduction was presented, and they soon decided to get themselves out of the mining facility; however, once they left the interrogation room, they found themselves face-to-face with a large troop of Dark Moons in disguise, led by one Matriarch Asta T'Roa, a powerful asari politician who had thrown her lot in to support the Spectre savior Duncan McFarrell.
Fortunately, before the order to fire could be uttered, a SWARM team burst through the roof and rappelled into the room, firing a spray of bullets that would wipe out most of the Moons, though a few of them did manage to escort the Matriarch out of there. With the Dark Moons either dead or gone and the crew lifted out of the mine, the crew learned that the few members who'd saved them were not acting for SWARM but for Staff Sergeant Tom Freedom, a well-known figure in the Union, and none other than Yolan Terris, Commander and XO of the Lionheart who'd been undercover as a former Dark Moons merc for the past few years.
Chapter VIII
Laying The Foundations
Once the team got back to the Amazon, they were dismissed to down-time while Skipper and Terris caught up on information.
Freedom made his way to the shooting range with Otium on his heel to keep a lid on the human, though he was eager to learn of his history. Aimée had a quick chat before she and Jask made their way to the mess hall, and there was a brief conversation between Karii and Nali; however, when Terris revealed news of some sort of machine Duncan was using to control the geth and that they may have had information on why he was so concerned with the particular unit they plucked from the Venice, he and Skipper pulled the quarian away to help with data extraction.
The geth unit, to be referred to simply as "Geth," told them of information Duncan didn't want it to share. The Spectre traitor had cut it off from the geth mainframe and, in doing so, wiped several of its memory banks. The information was there, but Geth could not access it. Thus, Karii was ordered to get to it while Skipper dealt with a situation on the CIC: the Amazon had caught an escape pod who hosted a rather battered and bruised batarian. The batarian was promptly taken to medical, and Skipper--in need of some down-time--wound up in the mess hall with several of the others, and a game of Kings began.
The next morning, the tired captain met with Velorix in the shooting range for a bit of a needed chat before the human made his way back up to the med bay. Having treated the batarian, Taelon shared his concerns with Skipper: the batarian must have received his injuries from none other than Kreen's salarian super soldier. Breakfast and conversations around the ship were cut short as the team gathered in the armory for a quick briefing, and they were soon on their way to Tuchanka, from where the batarian's escape pod had been ejected.
Chapter IX
A Horrifying Truth
The team all piled into the MAKO along with their new Batarian guest and dropped onto Tuchanka's surface. It was a bumpy ride, no thanks to Skipper's reckless driving, and got even more treacherous when the Dark Moons facility came into sight and the massive cannon on top began to fire upon them. Thankfully Owyn managed to swerve out of the way as it blasted at them, and quick-thinking coupled with Velorix on the MAKO's gun took it down just as everyone arrived at the base entrance. All was dark and suspiciously quiet when the shore party entered, much to everyone's discomfort, then all of the sudden the door burst open to reveal a group of Varren and Krogan, extensively modified with cybernetics of unknown origin. After an intense firefight and occasional bouts of close-quarters struggles the team finished off all bit one of the enemies, a Varren whick Taelon wanted to take back to the Amazon for research purposes. Skipper declined, saying they could take samples and possibly collect a specimen on the way out, but for now it was deeper in the facility they went.
The team soon came across the back of the facility, filled with more containment tanks. It was here that they ran into a terrible, terrible enemy: One of the Super Soldiers allied with the Dark Moons: The salarian from Kreen's ship that had attacked Kaon, the batarian that now allied with the Amazon. A lengthy fight ensued and during a botched tactic, Nali ended up being used as a living shield by the salarian. Skipper ordered to cease fire, but Kaon didn't listen. In a revenge-fuelled rage he fired off a concussive round, missing the salarian but hitting Nali and giving her a concussion. The salarian threw Nali to the side and tried to escape and recharge his barriers, but was then shot and killed by the Amazon team. Owyn, furious with Kaon and knowing that he couldn't let him go after that, shot the batarian in the head for endangering his team-mate. The Amazon team then returned to their vessel.
It was now that the team got their results back from Karii and the geth. A video was given to the Amazon team depicting Duncan showing rage at the Amazon team escaping Illium's skyscraper and assaulting Lerax before shooting the informant that had told him about the Amazon's survival and ominously implying that everything was going to come crashing down. The word "Precursor" was also mentioned in the video. Upon investigating the geth, Owyn discovered that Precursor was what the geth call an "Old Machine", or better known as the terrifying bringer of destruction that the late Commander Shepard openly campaigned against: A Reaper.
Upon briefing the team and Admiral Faust of the involvement of the Reapers, Admiral Faust promises to look into it and gives the team information on the Super Soldiers, something on an Asteroid orbiting the salarian colony of Nasum. This information was relayed to the Admiral from a quarian named Ai'Xing located on the Asteroid who was subsequently captured and imprisoned by an N7 Marine: Major Bambi Ayers and her team of N7s along with Lerax who stood on the Asteroid awaiting the Amazon to catch them in a deadly trap...
Chapter X
It All Hits Home
The Amazon team arrived and disembarked at Asteroid G62 where they then found themselves driving the Mako to the designated facility encoded in Ai'Xing's message. The team entered the facility, finding it filled with biological tanks containing countless numbers of every race. Upon inspection of a datapad left behind by one Chief Bio-Engineer Jones, the Amazon team discover that they were standing in one of likely many Super Soldier breeding facilities, and that the Super Soldiers are actually foraged corpses of any promising alien race fixed up and made more powerful by Reaper Tech, taking all free will from them and turning them into mindless husks that follow their orders without question. Before long, the Amazon team were caught at gunpoint by Major Ayers and her team of N7s, with the majority of the team locked away while Skipper was taken to be further interrogated by Bambi and two of her men.
Bambi wished to know how Velorix had escaped Purgatory, how Owyn had evaded capture for a year, how Owyn did all the things he'd been wrongly accused of, and after a long and rather ineffective beating from one of her men, he finally gave them Duncan's name. Before the major could be completely convinced, however, she received word of activity in another, previously-unknown facility. Leaving a few men to guard the prisoner, Bambi and the rest of her team went to investigate.
Meanwhile, the rest of the team sat, behind bars, with their informant Ai, devising a cunning escape plan involving a disgruntled vorcha and a well-placed headbutt. Once freed, leaving behind an unconscious guard, the team made their way through the facility, found their weapons, and quickly dispatched the two soldiers watching Skipper.
The Amazon crew caught up with Major Ayers and the rest of her men outside the other complex where they learned of a departing shuttle, likely holding the escaping Lerax, while the asteroid was set on a collision course towards Nasurn. Agreeing to a temporary alliance, Bambi permitted for the crew to do their job. Inside, they came into contact with Sampson, the station's VI, and Jones, the head of the G62 project who also happened to have been indoctrinated. Owyn managed to talk him down into a moment of clarity where he divulged the cancellation code. Unfortunately, he fell back into indoctrination before he could give the last digit, and the captain was forced to shoot him down when he lunged at the soldier. Then, with a lifetime of luck, the captain put in the code and managed to guess the final digit just in time to reroute the asteroid back onto its original track.
To break their reverie of survival, however, they were then met with a new hologram: Precursor. A brief exchange of words revealed the Reapers' desire to harvest organic life, thought it failed to give anymore details as to why. It did, however, share that their time was at an end before the hologram shut down. With nothing left to do on the asteroid, Ai was ordered to extract Sampson onto her omni-tool, and they returned to their ships, the crew to the Amazon and Major Ayers and her men to theirs to make their way to the Citadel where they would be heard by the Council.
Chapter XI
Give Me Back My Rank!
Greeted at the docks by Admiral Hackett (who had relinquished the Council seat to Udina) and led to the Presidium by Major Ayers and a guard of C-Sec officers, the Amazon team faced the Council for the beginning of their trial.
After pleading not guilty, they were presented with the video file found in the geth they'd taken from the Venice, proving that, not only where they not the ones behind the Illium attack, but that it was a failed plot of Duncan's to frame and end them that'd killed the hundreds that day. Unfortunately, while it was enough to clear the Illium charges, there was still the issue of whether not not former Spectre Owyn Skipper was the Dark Moons mastermind. The trial continued.
The Council was then presented with a testimony from Major Bambi Ayers concerning the events on asteroid G62, claiming that Duncan had sent her and her men to apprehend the team of fugitives on a rock that was (unbeknownst to the N7 team) going to have been propelled into the nearby Nasurn. Even coupled with Sampson, whose integrity had been checked, it was hardly enough to sway the Council, though Councilor Valern was holding back the magnitude of his appreciation for their actions.
A recording Karii had taken, though, seemed to take the Council off guard, though: the conversation between the team and the holographic Reaper. In full denial, Councilor Sparatus declined everything, but even his protests were silenced when Faust entered the trial with Commander Yolan Terris and Staff Sergeant Tom Freedom in tow, claiming what he'd just found of his Spectre "colleague." Duncan had fled, leaving his computers quite empty. He then called them out on their refusal to look bad in having risen McFarrell to Spectre when it was the Amazon's help they needed.
This revelation came with the departure of many of the Amazon's crew for various reasons including Krogan, Shan'Toren, Myrrias, Aimée, Vikenti, Nymera,Taelon and Velorix. Reasons varying from wanting to settle down for their twilight years to personal Union business. The Amazon team took some heavy blows with this loss, but it truly opened up the team to reach their full, unhinged potential.
Finally, after a year of running, the Amazon crew was free of all charges, and Owyn's Spectre status had been returned to him. They were soon faced with their next mission: much needed down time.
Chapter XII
Back To Business
The end of the team's two-day visit to the Citadel was marked with a public send-off where Faust gave them their first mission upon returning to the galaxy as Union operatives: in spite of the place having been cleaned out before, there had been Dark Moon activity in what was once Saren's labs on Virmire, and they needed to investigate and clear the compound. So, they were off, and upon boarding the ship, their navigator Staff Commander Frederick Caesar introduced Captain Skipper and the newly-appointed XO Lieutenant-Commander T'Roa to the new members to the crew: their pilot and co-pilot Flight-Lieutenant Thomas Ganning and Flight-Corporal Sagran Irin, the mess sergeant Private Ivan Aleksandrov, and the scientist and doctor they met on the Citadel, Salarian First Fleet Sergeant Na'al Verdan and Turian Blackwatch Lieutenant-Commander Korvis Paldoren.
As soon as they were dropped onto Virmire, the squad found themselves against a group of Dark Moons; however, while they were defeating them, the team noticed the mercs seemed to have been running rather than charging, though nothing was made of it. Once they'd been dealt with, they got inside to see the very end of a scuffle between Lerax and a Justicar named Orina Xantos who agreed to assist the crew when the turian escaped. Karii was able to open the door through which Lerax had fled thanks to the power of her new omni-tool, but when they were in, they soon realized it was another trap. They were quickly met and overwhelmed with a horde of what they recognized as Husks, humans repurposed for Reaper schemes, and as the last of them fell, a familiar voice ordered they were to be captured alive.
Only slightly worse for wear (as opposed to dead), the Amazon crew woke up in a makeshift cell, though escape was rather simple and kind of gruesome thanks to Skipper's ruthless ingenuity. The group quickly gathered their confiscated weapons and gear, which were conveniently kept nearby, and ran through the winding halls of the facility before finally finding themselves in one particular room with red doors. A small group of Dark Moons had been waiting for them along with one Duncan McFarrell who was only a grotesque shell of the man he once was, filled with Reaper tech.
In a conversation with Skipper, the former human revealed his plans. If they could make such potent fighters like the notorious Lerax to the Reaper cause from old corpses, he was determined to make unstoppable Super Soldiers from the prime warriors on the Amazon. Opposed to this plan for obvious reasons, they quickly defeated the Dark Moons who were unable to incapacitate the crew according to Duncan's orders. Unfortunately, another challenger entered the field: the yet-again reanimated and augmented corpse of Mungo (or Krux as Duncan had called him), the terrifying Super Soldier that the Amazon team had already defeated on both Earth and on Kreen's carrier.
The fight with Mungo took off to a bad start, the combined forces of the Amazon's mighty team doing very little to hinder the beast of a krogan, and their forces were only divided when the dreaded turian Lerax showed up and ruined the equation. The team was divided and all seemed completely lost when Lerax physically tore Korvis: the team's field medic's head from his neck and tossed it to the side. Owyn and Lerax began to take one another on, the Spectre's rage at the loss of his companion fuelling him as best it could while the rest of the team finally began to turn the tables on Mungo thanks to the joining of the boisterous and oh-so-rugged Sergeant Tom Freedom's incredible entrance. On Mungo's side, victory seemed imminent. However against Lerax... things weren't so good.
Lerax had gained possession of Owyn's knife and had the Spectre on the run. After a small scuffle, Owyn noticed Duncan taking aim at the team from above with a sniper rifle. Disarming Lerax of his Carnifex given the opportunity, Owyn took aim and shot Duncan through the upper right of his chest. Not fatal immediately, but enough to get him off the team's backs. Duncan gave the order to retreat but Lerax wasn't done yet. Pinning Owyn to the floor, Lerax cut Owyn's right hand clean from his wrist but was taken forcefully back to Duncan by Mungo before the human could be finished off. Owyn was forced to cauterise his wound using the searing heat of his omni-blade, and as the team began to lick their wounds Lerax took Duncan's sniper rifle and fired down on the team. There were no casualties save for one: Karii, who had been frozen in fear from witnessing Korvis' head be torn from his body. Shot in the chest, the quarian's life was barely saved by Tom Freedom administering medigel as she fell unconscious. Owyn called for pickup.
From the clouds suddenly came a Reaper, the gargantuan and fearsome Precursor. It warned the team that they wouldn't pursue as Duncan and his two soldiers boarded it and as the Amazon came into distance for pickup, the Reaper fired on the ship. However the Amazon's skilled duo of pilots managed to avoid the lasers and get the entire team back on-board, narrowly escaping into the Hades Nexus cluster. The team was safely aboard the ship, all were seen to by the on-deck medical officer: Shass Olkah, including Karii's surgery. She and Owyn now lay in the medical bay awaiting Karii's recovery and Owyn's new prosthetic, as well as the arrival of their new field medic: a human biotic named Maxine Bradley.
Chapter XIII
The Illusive Man
Once the crew had eaten and recovered from their various injuries it was time for them to receive some new orders. They were all herded into an UT-47A Kodiak Drop Shuttle on their way to a place called Aite and their drop off point was to be a Cerberus Facility. John Ackerty had greeted the crew instead of Admiral Faust as he had some important business on Thessia to deal with. Ackerty informed the crew that there was an insider from Cerberus who had defected, and was now willing to help out the Alliance in something that the brass were calling Operation: Pheonix. The Amazon crews objective was to meet up with the operative inside the facility, his coordinates would be sent to the crew once they had landed. The moment they crew set foot on the roof of the facility they were greeted by a small force of Cerberus Troopers including three combat engineers and their formidable turrets. After a short skirmish involving barriers, a bubble and some excellent hacking, the welcoming comitee was defeated and the crew were free to press onwards.
Before any sort of progress could be made Cerberus dropped an Atlas mech right on the crews heads and due to the lack of cover on the roof, destroying the Atlas wasn't an option as the explosion would most likely severely injure, or even kill one or more of the crew. So the crew began to distract the Atlas in any way they could while Karii began hacking the only way off of the roof. In their zeal however, the crew briefly forgot Skipper's original order and actually started to try and destory the Atlas instead of distracting, but the situation was brought under control by a stern order from Skipper. Karii eventually managed to get throught the doors security and the way was now open! Unfortunately not everything went as well as it should have done and Otium took several bullets to the shoulder and on top of that, an unknown assailant had engaged the Atlas and managed to destroy it with a rocket before fleeing from the Amazon Crew. The crew were now in hot pursuit of this mysterious attacker and eventually they reached a very long corridor with plenty of windows. But before the crew could figure out who he was or what he was doing he quickly incapcitated them with a Shockwave and some other unusual biotic whip attack.
Before the crew could recover the culprit had flown off using a stolen jetpack, it didn't stop Tom Freedom though who leapt after him with his own jetpack. Now all the crew could do at the moment was take care of the injured and press onwards. After a brief period and treading lightly the crew found themselves in a large loading dock that was absolutely packed to the brim with crates of all sizes, this was to be their hub for a while. Karii was ordered to go and grab as many schematics as she could, while Na'al was incharge of locking as many doors as he could. Everyone else was merely ordered to stand down and thus they did until a rather spectacular entrance by one Sergeant Tom Freedom, who had managed to catch the escaping Cerberus operative and crash through the window resounding a very patriotic rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner. After being held at gunpoint for a few moments the operative revealed himself as Pheonix, the target defecting operative of the mission, otherwise known by his real name Musashi Miyamoto. After giving himself a rather good first impression with the women (and Ivan) Musashi revealed further that he didn't know The Illusive Man's exact location, but he did know where he might be if he was still present. Karii had managed to grab hold of the schematics for the area so Mushi was able to point out The Illusive Man's potential location on the map: The highest tower with the best view.
So, the crew saddled up and got moving. The crew were then met with two elevators that were most certainly too big to carry the entire crew at once, so they would have to break off into two teams. Skipper was in charge of Team A, while Tom Freedom was in charge of Team B. Team A consisted of Skipper, Mushi, Ivan, Orina, Jask and Karii. Team B consisted of Tom Freedom, Veronica, Nali, Maxine, Na'al and Otium. The elevator trip went smoothly until both of them stopped abruptly and the power shut down. Team A was greeted by a Mysterious Looking Ninja, who Mushi quickly identifed as Kai Leng, Leng revealed that he was the reason for the elevators stopping and that him and some goons would be coming to finish off the crew. The teams had no other option but to exit the elevators via their maintinence hatches and climb the ladders leading up to the top floor.
The crew began their climb unhindered until the elevator they had just exited, started to pick up speed and threatened to crush the crew against the ceiling. Thankfully, Team A made it to the top first and quickly assisted Team B who had fallen behind slightly. Once all of the crew were safe and sound they proceded onwards torwards The Illusive Man's office. Once they arrived they found the office to be empty, until three Phantoms emerged from the shadows. A brief fight started with Veronica being incapacitated by one of them but it ultimately ended with The Amazon crew being victorious. While Veronica was being treated by Maxine, Skipper was greeted by the holographic form of The Illusive Man and after they had a brief conversation Kai Leng had revealed himself. Karii, who had wandered off from the group and Leng had taken advantage of her vulnerability and taken her hostage. Skipper quickly intervened and engaged in a short hand-to-hand brawl with Leng, he put up a good fight but was unfortunately stabbed by Leng who beat a hasty retreat. Skipper had blacked out from the pain and Nali called The Amazon for pick up.
Chapter XIV
It Ain't All Bad
Veronica and Skipper both awoke in The Huerta Memorial Hospital and their injuries had been treated. Veronica had woken up before Skippper and had a small conversation with Nali who had stayed with her until she woke, she eventually left to go and visit Skipper once he awoke. After a small conversation and their most passionate kiss yet, Owyn and Nali both admitted their consensual love for one another and it seemed that a relationship more than sex was in the making. Meanwhile Veronica was talking with some of the other crew members she and Orina got a little bit aggressive with eachother, but they were broken up by the timely intervention of Faust! Faust was here to inform Skipper that they had a new crew member joining the team. His name was Jal'Hak Bakeera and he was to be the teams new mechanic.
Once Jal had been introduced to Skipper and Nali by Faust, the good Captain ordered him to report to the Amazon so the Navigator, Ceaser could deal with him. Orina also departed from the hospital and decided she would sit and talk to Na'al and also Jal, who was disregarding Skipper's order in search of food. He was short on funds though so the burger he was craving remained out of his reach. That is until Orina graciously offered Jal some credits for a meal. Once Jal had returned with a burger and a drink, he introduced himself to Orina and Na'al. While that was happening Maxine entered Veronica's ward to check up on her and Otium, who still had an injured shoulder. After some brief flirting (which Otium politely objected to) the doctor left after getting the all clear from Veronica. Meanwhile, Nali was dismissed by Skipper so she could go and get ready for the date they'd be having later, then a nervous and upset looking Karii had gone to visit the still recovering Skipper, the poor girl was quite upset about Skipper's stabbing, she felt like it was her fault. Skipper was quick to reassure her though, and after a short talk Karii was feeling inspired to become the best she could be!
After come interactions with Orina, Nali and Na'al, Jal wanted to enter Veronica's ward and meet the rest of the team. Despite Nali's reluctance, she escorted him there and let him inside. He was met with hostility from both Veronica and Jask and quickly shooed out by Nali. A Turian named Zaternius Lucanas showed and wanted to meet Captain Skipper, Faust had sent another one to join the crew/ Since Skipper was still busy dealing with an upset Karii he had to go and see Veronica and company. Like jal before him, his introduction was nearly as bad. Zaternius went so far as to pull a gun on poor Jask. The tension was disarmed by an angry Veronica and Otium who were growing tired of all the abuse Jask was recieving. Zaternius was quick to apologise, but Veronica wasn't buying it, while Otium and Jask seemed more agreeable.
To make matters even more interesting, a third person wanted to visit Skipper and this time it was none other than Major Bambi Ayers herself. She hadn't been seen in a good while ao her return was quite unexpected. After a brief reintroduction and explaination as to what the crew was doing right now Skipper hoisted himself out of bed and walked into the waiting room. From there he addressed the entire crew with an inspiring speech that amounted to every single Moon dying and Duncan's plot stopped!
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