Rapture Rampage

2177

Arcturus Station

Briefing Room

3 weeks after the Akuze  Incident

Alex Mercer had finished retelling the events of Akuze to Admiral Hackett five minutes ago, and the room had been dead silent ever since. Cole was about to ask if the admiral was still with them when the old man finally sighed and said, "Forgive my silence, but I'm trying to figure out the safest way to tell you to drop your Cerberus investigation entirely. I figure you'll like the direct approach." 

"What?" Alex's tone just cooled the room twenty degrees. Hackett got up and began to pace around the table. 

It's delicate Mercer. We greatly appreciate what you've done, and this is invaluable evidence, but there are two problems with your proposed solution."

Alex crossed his arms, "I can't wait to hear this."

Hackett shook his head, wishing he had a very large case of vodka, "First, it should come a no surprise that hardly anyone among the race likes you. At all. With that in mind you should know that the Council recently sent word that we're to keep a constant eye on you, and if you should leave Alliance space, it can only be to fight in the pirate retaliation campaign. Secondly, Hackett leveled Alex with a look that was actually fierce enough to make the viral sociopath hold his tongue. Satisfied Alex wouldn't interrupt, he continued, "Cerberus is a rogue pro-human terrorist organization that even I can't get two paragraphs of decent intel on. you found out about them by killing and eating on of their operatives. If we let you continue as you are, the galaxy will think that we're taking down one monster by unleashing one that's far worse. It would be the Rachni Wars and Krogan Rebellions all over again. Surely you've read enough history to know how that turned out. I'm sorry boys, but the fact remains. You're civilian assets that I can use with certain restrictions, and those restrictions are coming down from politicians that hate anything that might upset their precious status quo."

While Alex took all of this in, something occurred to Cole. "What about Corporal Toombs, sir? I'm not a soldier, but last I checked, you guys had a really big 'no man left behind' policy about this sort of thing."

Hackett let out a humorless chuckle, "If I didn't know you were one of the most dangerous SOBs in the galaxy, I'd have your ass spaced for even thinking I'd abandon one of our own. I may not be able to send you to look for Toombs, but I can - and will - become the largest headache the Council has ever known until he is finally found and brought back here to Arcturus. And if the Corporal dies because of political bullshit," Hackett's expression could have shattered a mass relay. "Then I will raise enough hell that the next three generations of asari will know that a human soldier could have been saved, but he died, alone and afraid, because my best assets were grounded by them."

Alex snorted, "So Toombs is our leverage into the big leagues? That's kinda harsh."

Hackett met Alex's gaze unflinchingly. "If you have a better idea that won't demonize humanity, I'd love to hear it. Otherwise, why don't we get you on the next ship to batarian space?"

Cole and Alex sighed in defeat, knowing this was the best that would  come from it. As much as hijacking a small ship and kill the Council would please them, it would be tough to explain to Unique Shepard that they had murdered the three most important diplomats in the galaxy for being assholes. Uniques were not meant to give any information on future events, but Shepard had begged them to do one thing :

Please, don't let the Council die.

Deciding that Cerberus would be another battle for another day, Alex turned back to Hackett, "Whose ass are we kicking, sir?"

Hackett visibly relaxed, obviously glad that the two powerhouses had let the matter drop for the time being. "Let's just head back to the Boston for now. The "Rapture Raptor" will have a location for us by the time we're in the Terminus systems."

When the agin admiral saw them both visibly slouch at the mention of his most successful N7 graduate, Hackett once again found himself in dire need of that vodka. 

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Viper Nebula 

Bahak System

Urmola Space Station

1 month after the Akuze Incident

Staff Lieutenant Jack Ryan had used his teleport plasmid to get onto the base, only to immediately go invisible as two hostiles approached the room. He was under orders from Captain Anderson to stay silent while retrieving the shipping data from the station's logs. Of course, he was also given permission to kill anyone in his way. The Alliance had not been happy when Cole exposed them for backing the Skyllian Blitz, so dead Batarians were always popular with the boys back at Arcturus station. Still, it was better to hold off on tearing the four-eye bastards a new one until he was closer to his objective. Ryan grinned wickedly as he equipped his custom spider-splicer hook. That just meant he had to kill the quietly for now.  

Before the batarians knew what was going on, the first one's neck was severed, and the second one had enough time to reach for his pistol in shock before a nine-inch, pressure-forged, platinum hook was buried into his skull. Ryan rematerialized over the two corpses, moved them out of sight, and proceeded down the hall. 

Rather than skulk through the shadows, Ryan leapt onto the ceiling, and latched in with his hooks. With great dexterity, the Splicer King crawled while hanging upside-down. It was rare that people would look up, since common sense dictated that his current actions were just not possible. And Ryan was milking that assumption for all its worth. This was the kind of work he was made for, after all.

At the moment, Ryan had settled for crawling along the ceiling for two reasons: It was better than risking a teleportation, which made a lot of noise and caused brief tunnel vision when he made his re-entry. Also, his cloaking took a lot of careful concentration since that talent was based on gene tonics rather than plasmids. He could only squeeze out two or three strikes of any kind before he was forced to drop the invisibility. And it wasn't something he could use again right away; his higher-end abilities had a "cooldown" time on them, similar to biotics, only they needed a cooldown for everything. Finally, Ryan wasn't like Alex or Cole. They could take serious punishment with no real worries, and heal right up afterwards. The Chief even had his MJONLNIR Mk. VI armor to keep him alive. Ryan couldn't even use regular Alliance armor because it would hinder his combat style.

Between his plasmids and his special brand of mobility, Ryan required an exposed left hand and lots of flexibility, so he had to dress in a loose-fitting shirt, coat, and pants (an outfit more often worn by the drell than the humans). This meant that he had to rely on one of those shield harnesses commonly used in the Terminus Systems. Luckily the outfit didn't harm his performance in hazardous environments, since his gene tonics could keep him healthy and alive. Even if he ended up in deep space, he could freeze the exposed parts of his own body, then teleport to safety. For his head, he sported a collapsible full-face helmet that he had "acquired" from an arrogant biotic named Kai Leng during training. He never met the guy personally, but the rumors were bad enough to let Ryan know he needed a reality check. Besides, Ryan absolutely refused to rely on those stupid breather masks that did nothing to protect the wearer's eyes and skull from the extremes of space.

All in all, Ryan was faster, stronger, and certainly more durable than the average Alliance marine, but he had some limits. He wasn't a walking WMD like Cole or Alex. He was a commando, meant for striking with surgical precision. Of course, one doesn't come out of Rapture without knowing the secret to winning a battle of attrition : fight dirty. Cole liked to annoyingly remark that, since Unique Ryan was born in 1956, and then Jack Ryan the Supernova was created in the 1970s, something about mankind's penchant for trench warfare apparently had sunk in.

Ryan chuckled darkly at that last thought. He wasn't a part of mankind. He wasn't even human. He was the bastard child of a city. One time, a Supernova called Deadpool, only in it for the money, was stupid enough to ask, "After the Little Sisters, Big Daddies, and Big Sisters, would that make Ryan a Big Twin, or a Little Bastard?" The resulting showdown ended with Ryan on suspension and Deadpool recovering form a cracked sternum and an incinerated tongue. Unfortunately, Ryan knew that the Merc with a Mouth wasn't totally wrong in his statement...

More footsteps, accompanied by gruff voices reminded Ryan that a hostile space station wasn't the best place to angst. Retracting one hook, he released a scout plasmid, preparing to quickly kill his next batch of victims. He had heard about Mindoir, and if there was one thing he had kept about the real Jack's persona, it was a burning desire to protect orphans at any cost.

He couldn't do anything for the sons and daughters of Mindoir now, but he could make these four-eyed freaks pay in blood.

With the scout, he counted three batarians, all carrying shotguns and wearing heavy armor with serious upgrades. These guys were obviously veterans. It was an unfortunate sign that Ryan was closing in on his goal. Dispelling the hazy projection the plasmid was showing him, he switched to the aquatic version of cyclone trap, the geyser trap, rigged the floor with it, and waited.

Soon enough, the unaware triggered the trap, and a torrent of water erupted from the ground, sending all three batarians sprawling across the floor. Unlike the cyclone trap, this plasmid caused little noise, so it attracted less attention. with his enemies on the floor, Ryan struck. He let go of the ceiling, elbow-dropping the first one, caving in his chest. The second one didn't have time to scream before he frozen solid by Ryan's winter blast. Moving quickly, Ryan kicked the batarian icicle in the head, shattering it on impact. By then, the third target had risen to his knees, and he had just taken aim when his shotgun was ripped from his hands by an invisible force, and floated towards the "human" attacker. Not gibing up the advantage, Ryan surged at the batarian, looped his arms around the alien's neck, and snapped it with practiced ease.

Ryan's journey through the station was largely uneventful after that. He maybe killed another six or seven batarians total after the first five. As he was walking away from the last of his kills, one of their helmet's comm. lines went off, "Echo Six, you're the fourth team to go completely silent. Echo Six, respond. Echo Six? Come on Gren, answer me! Shit, we've got a breach! Somebody's killin' our boys!"

"Well, silence just went to hell," Ryan murmured to nobody in particular. He donned his helmet and teleported as far into the station as his schematics went. 

Upon re-entry, Ryan wasn't greeted by dozens of angry batarians, but by two scared human girls. They looked at him and immediately cowered in the cornered in the corner of  what he realized was a holding cell. Noticing that they were roughly the age of all the Little Sisters found in Rapture, Ryan became absolutely furious. He didn't know what purpose the Batarians had for them, but he knew it involved slavery, and that was enough to send him into fits of unstoppable rage. Of course, he needed to bottle up his anger until these girls were in less danger. Handing them a backup comm. link, Ryan retracted his helmet for familiarity and got to one knee saying, "Take this, and if any of the aliens come into this room, just hold it your mouth, and say, 'would you kindly save us?' and I'll come and protect you. Then, I'll get you both out of here, I promise."

After seeing them hesitantly nod, Ryan re-activated the helmet, closed his eyes, and concentrated. He was very close to his objective, and if his plan worked, he was going to be done very quickly. Activation his priority comm. line, he whispered, "SSV Boston, this is Raptor. They know I'm here, but I'll have that data soon. I'll also be returning with two POWs, so be ready at the extraction point in eight minutes, over." 

Not waiting for an affirmative, Ryan moved forward, planning reach his target, the room with the shipping manifest, and soak it in batarian blood. Without a second thought, he teleported straight for the station mainframe, consequences be damned. Nobody ever attacked children if he was in a position to stop it. His appearance startled the four batarians in the room, but they died soon after Ryan sank a throwing knife into each one's skull. Then he turned to the data console and sighed. 

Once he began the auto-hack, the entire stations would be coming for him. Even with all of his anti-security gene tonics, this would still take five minutes. He hated playing zone defense, but he couldn't deny that he was damn good at it. Draw a line in the sand, and kill anything that tries to cross that line. Shaking his head, Ryan got to work setting up the room. 

He rigged the place with over two dozen cyclone traps, each one enhanced with either incinerate, winter blast, or electro bolt. Then, he placed up decoys that would draw hostiles away from him and straight at the traps. Finally, he drew his Devlon Firestorm V shotgun. He smiled. Devlon equipment may not have been the best, bit it did the job well enough, and he liked the manufacturing company for sentimental reasons. With  six minutes until the Boston would reach the extraction point, the Splicer King activated the auto hack, remotely routed the incoming data straight to an OSD, turned invisible, and waited for the fireworks. 

After thirty seconds, the alarms had pissed Ryan off enough that he was on the verge of de-clocking just to toss a security command plasmid and shut it up. Before he could make a decision, his scout plasmid witnessed at least forty heavily-armed batarians running straight to the mainframe. As he expected, the mistook his decoys for the station's actual infiltrators. They rushed his convincing fakes without hesitation, and the result was devastating. 

Unforgiving tornadoes of fire, ice, and lightning ripped into the oncoming forces. Twenty died instantly, and another five were out of commission with heavy injuries. Ryan waited two minutes while the batarians tried to figure out what the hell just happened before mentally triggering the remaining traps, all of which he had place along the back wall, facing the door. When activated, they unleashed their electric payload directly at the door-turned-chokepoint. The sheets of lightning killed six more and stunned the rest. Now out of tricks, Ryan fired his shotgun, shredding the nearest batarian. His invisibility dropped just has he pulled the trigger on another one, killing him too. He got off three more shots, each scoring another kill, before the last four survivors were able to counterattack. It didn't do them any good, as his kinetic barriers held out long enough for him to fire a sonic boom plasmid, which sent three of them flying into the far wall, and sent the fourth straight out the open door. When the three that hit the wall didn't get up, he turned to look for the fourth. He had three minutes left. 

Ryan looked out of the room and immediately wished he hadn't. The bastard had a Kishock Harpoon Gun! Barely reacting quickly enough, he raised his plasmid hand and used telekinesis to stop that mass-accelerated spear less than a centimeter from his eye. "You make a good point," Ryan said mockingly, "See for yourself."

He spun the harpoon around in midair and returned it to sender, nailing the four-eyed asshole's head to the floor. He now had two minutes left, and the auto-hack was finished and he had the data he needed, one planet's name in particular standing out. Collecting the OSD, Ryan's blood froze, then immediately boiled, when his comm. crackled to life with the words, "Would you kindly save us?" 

Overcome with rage, Ryan's teleport left a small singularity in its wake. He re-entered realspace directly in front of the batarian captain that was standing over the two girls. With one minute to go, Ryan backhanded the slaver flith across the room, breaking armor and bone with the strength of the blow. With no time for games, he raised his left hand, totally encased in red fire, and snapped his fingers. The batarian's entire body was cooked inside his armor, burning him and suffocating him at equal speeds. 

Extinguishing the flames on his fingers, Ryan turned to the quivering girls, and held out his hands. "You need to hold onto me, and whatever happens, don't let go." Hesitantly, they grabbed onto their rescuer. "Hold on tight!" Ryan ordered. 

The Splicer King took a deep, calming breath. This was his greatest, and most dangerous, technique. Ryan knew that since Houdini Splicers and Big Sisters didn't leave their clothes behind when they teleported, then it should be possible to bring anything else along the same way. It had taken months of practice on the wastes of Retronuke Earth, but he could now teleport anything he wanted to bring with him, as long as was in contact with it. It didn't work on big things like vehicles, and when teleporting other people, he was limited to two or three, but it was a serious improvement, and he was quick to teach fellow Supernova Eleanor Lamb how to do it too. No time left, he put all of his focus into the position of the Boston, and teleported.    

When Hackett realized that seeing Lieutenant Ryan appear out of thin air no longer surprised him, the admiral began to question his own mental health. Saving that thought for another day, he ordered the servicemen behind him to take the rescused girls to safety. Over on his left, Cole and Alex were watching Ryan expectantly, so Hackett got down to brass tack. "Where do I order the Fifth Fleet, Staff Lieutenant?"

Ryan look at his Supernova associates - associates that he wished he could call friends - then turned his gaze to the aging admiral. Standing up straight, the Rapture Raptor saluted and said: 

"Torfan, sir"

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That's it. That's all for now. I don't know when I'll post again. Since this chapter was about Jack Ryan I'll say this: "Would you kindly leave a review? And here's a small taste of what's coming up next time:

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"Staff Lieutenant Ryan," Ryan turned to see Major Kyle "With all due respect, there's not a damn chance we're gonna make it into that central bunker! If we try to charge them, the casualty rate will be off the charts. Where are the non-military assets?"

Ryan knew that he was referring to Cole and Alex. Ryan knew exactly where they were and it was all his idea in the first place. Nobody else knew, but that was because Ryan needed the drama. It was also because they didn't know that this was actually the central bunker until five minutes ago. Either way, it was time to hit the pirates with something nobody in galactic history had ever seen. Activating his omni-tool, Ryan calmly said, "SSV Boston, drop him. 

The Alliance vessel thundered into the atmosphere, totally unafraid of the GARDIAN defenses that Cortana was currently keeping offline. Nobody knew what to think as the cruiser opened its hanger bay, and instead of deploying a Mako or a gunship, a tiny, human-shaped figure fell out, followed by another one. As the Boston returned to orbit, the first figure began to fall even faster, gathering more and more electricity from the atmosphere as it fell. The second one even out into a glide, still at least twenty kilometers up.

"Lieutenant, what are they doing?" the major screamed, having never seen such display of insanity.

Ryan grinned with a mania that would have impressed Alex himself. "Council says that we can't use nukes! So we're dropping those two on the bastards instead!"