Maelstrom: Vengeance
Jan 13, 2014 14:05:16 GMT -6
Shala'Bekk vas Neema, grandest, and 1 more like this
Post by Maelstrom on Jan 13, 2014 14:05:16 GMT -6
He sat breathless at the controls. His heartbeat was still pounding in his ears. The screams of six teammates, killed in cold blood still echoed in his ears. Six people who thought he was on their side. Would be covering their back. He closed his eyes tight against the memories.
They were Cerberus, he reminded himself, instantly eradicating all trace of remorse. Not one of them deserved a single moment of grief on his part. Not after what the organization they had sworn to serve did to him.
There was a chill to the air which seemed somehow to fit the gunmetal grey of the cockpit, as well as his current mood. The only light in the ship came from the control panel in front of him and a strip of faint emergency lights which ran the perimeter of the inner hull. Doubtless, the other lights were dimmed in order to draw less attention to their ship. The dark suited him fine for now.
He was not well-trained as a pilot, but he knew enough to start up the engines and get the ship into orbit. The VI did not stop him- yet another member of Cerberus which unwisely placed its trust in him. It even helped compensate for his limited piloting skills by offering to automatically plot a course for the relay when he looked up its location in the navigational program. He let it do its work.
How long do I have before that bastard gets his hands on those vids and figures out what I'm doing? Maelstrom thought with sudden alarm.
A blue holographic sphere with an eye-like section shaded lighter rose between the pilot and copilot seat. Below it was a cylindrical body of sorts, narrowed about halfway between the emitter and sphere. It seemed as though it was looking at him.
A decidedly feminine voice asked, "Operative, your piloting skills are listed as insufficient for more than emergency use. May I assist you in plotting a course through the relays to the nearest Cerberus base?"
His heart sank to the pit of his stomach. Rallying himself, he considered the situation. "I have reason to believe Alliance intelligence operatives have compromised Cerberus interests in this region. My orders are to proceed to the station known as Omega. Can you program a course through the relays to take me to that destination?"
"Certainly," the VI replied. "Course plotted. Should I take the controls?"
"Yes, please," he replied. "I have reason to believe a hostile program has infiltrated Cerberus systems. I have been ordered to disable all means of long range communications and tracking until my superior contacts me aboard Omega confirms system integrity restored," he said, hoping the gamble would pay off.
He would need a mercenary name, if he was going to follow through with his plans. Once he took Cerberus down, he did not want his real name to be tainted by the actions he would have to take to accomplish that goal. Remembering his promise to the leader of Cerberus, he decided. I'm Maelstrom.
"Error. Likelihood of scenario is less than point zero zero one percent. Requires level six authorization. You possesses level two authorization only. This vessel will shut down and await retrieval by a Cerberus vessel unless level six authorization is provided," the VI insisted.
He was fortunate. It was a level six code required. One of the doctors at the facility they kept him in was an addict who regularly had to provide computer record overrides to keep his theft from the station's limited supplies secret. Pain meds. Pain meds that were supposed to go to me.
"Per Doctor Frost's orders, authorization: Cerberus one zero whiskey alpha one one zero," he recalled from memory. The doctor had not realized Maelstrom was even lucid, writhing about in pain as he had been at the time, but he underestimated his subject. From the moment he heard it, Maelstrom knew the code would be his salvation. He recited it silently ten times a day.
"Authorization accepted. Do you require deactivation or physical destruction?" the VI asked.
"Physical destruction," Maelstrom decided, not wanting to risk a backup program being loaded.
"Acknowledged. System overload in progress." A shrill sound built up for about five seconds before he heard several small electrical discharges. "Overload complete."
He breathed a sigh of relief. It was more than he could contain. Without meaning to, he burst into laughter. I'm free. I'm finally free.
Maelstrom rose from his seat. The cockpit was the same as a Kodiak's, save the VI's holographic projector and the gunnery controls at both the pilot and copilot's station, to handle the craft's forward-mounted antipersonnel guns. Their firing arc was relatively limited, but it could be a lifesaver in a tight situation.
He stepped in the pooled blood of the dead pilot as he made his way back to the main compartment. It was slightly larger than a Kodiak's, enough to fit a dozen men. The benches and harnesses were to the fore and aft of the compartment, and numerous rails hung from the ceiling, to aid the passengers in moving about during a rough descent. Two heavy turrets with target auto-assist were mounted to the ceiling of the craft.
A small hallway continued back to the aft-most room. To port was a lavatory. To starboard was weapons storage- a basic armory- all but emptied by his team for the mission he had ended. I should have grabbed their gear.
The furthest room back contained six sleep pods, three of the four walls mounting two each. Beside every sleep pod was a small trunk. None of the squad kept anything in them. This mission was supposed
to be a short one.
The holographic representation of the VI popped up, projected to appear as rising from the floor, but actually created by an emitter in the ceiling. "ETA to mass relay, five minutes. ETA to Omega, thirty-eight hours."
Thirty-eight hours, he mused. Enough time to come up with some sort of plan.
The quarian seemed to be enjoying his separation from the fleet. There was a sizable apartment in the back of his business, with a pantry overflowing with food. His suit was dark red and purple, outfitted with purely-decorative gold trim. He had uncommon wealth for a quarian.
He came highly recommended by Aria T'Loak, who took an immediate interest in a shuttle with Cerberus markings landing at "her" station. She seemed to have no love for the organization and assured him that no one who did business with his particular tech regretted doing so. At the moment, Maelstrom was trying to figure out if she over-estimated this quarian or if he was just trying to drive up his price.
If I hadn't gotten that Ceberus logo scoured off my armor and hull and gotten them painted black, he'd make his price ten times as much, Maelstrom mused.
"Yes. I'm asking for a you to download all files from this ships' library into removable non-networked storage, then wipe every program in its databanks and reload them with clean versions. Get the IFF working as an isolated system I can flip on and off at will. Then I'm asking you to repair the damage to this ships' communications array and remove the fried tracking devices," Maelstrom sighed.
"This is not a simple job. Have you looked at these computers? You have redundant backups and numerous security measures which will trigger a variety of unpleasant consequences if anything like that is attempted," he sighed.
"The VI is deactivated," Maelstrom said, trying to point out that he knew at least the basics and keep the price in his range.
"Yeah, the avatar. I'm talking about numerous simplistic VI's whose sole purpose is detect and react to exactly the kind of tampering you're talking about," he argued.
"Can you do it, or do I have to tell Aria that she was wrong about you?" Maelstrom threatened.
"I can do it, but it won't be cheap," the quarian said.
"You can have one of the ceiling-mounted turrets and it's auto-assist as payment, as well as any small arms in the aft. I keep the grenades."
"Forget small arms. For this, both of the turrets. And their auto-assist," the quarian argued. Exactly the price Maelstrom was angling for.
One other thing bothered him about the ship, though. "For both turrets, I want those sleep pods out of the back. Put a mid-sized bed back in there. And I don't want any holes in the wall or floor. Those are going to be my quarters, where I live."
"I keep the pods," the quarian said.
"Agreed, but you get me a VI that can autopilot this ship until I find someone who can reprogram my current one," Maelstom said.
"I'll do you one better," the quarian said. "You're a merc, am I right? I know a guy who works for the Blue Suns. Genius when it comes to VI's. You can probably work something out with them for trade.
Probably work."
"And why do I need you for this?"
"Because I can set up the contact. Otherwise, you'll have to work for them months just to talk with someone who will listen to the idea," the quarian said.
"Agreed, but there's one other item I'll need from you," Maelstrom said, having exactly the thing in mind.
"You're serious about this?" the batarian man in blue and white asked in awe. "You do realize exactly what you're talking about here?"
"Aria told me you've been running into more and more trouble lately with Cerberus," Maelstrom said.
He did not like being in the run-down Blue Suns base, but he was going to have to grow accustomed to being in such places if he was going to achieve his goals. What he found as irritating was that the batarian contact he was dealing with did not even find it necessary to keep his weapons on his person. They were well out-of-reach. He felt secure enough in the number of men and weapons surrounding him that it was not even worrisome. And he was not wrong.
"Everyone is. They're like the Shadow Broker. All the gangs have to do business with them so they don't get left behind, but they never hesitate to come around and shoot us in the back when it's in their interests," the batarian growled. Maelstrom did not know the man's name, but he was high in the Suns' ranks. High enough to speak for the organization and make deals for them.
"And this is your chance to show them it's a two-way street," Maelstrom said.
The batarian gave him a puzzled expression.
"To show them that if that's how they want to treat you, you can return the favor. That they aren't nearly as impervious as they think they are. That their secrecy isn't absolute," Maelstrom clarified.
The batarian chuckled. "That would be nice, for a change." Growing suddenly skeptical, though, he said, "But where's the profit?"
"Aside from the other gangs here knowing that it was the Blue Suns who first had the guts to seriously stand up for themselves to Cerberus?" Maelstrom asked, leaving both the offer and the subtle hint that if it were not them, he would make the offer to someone else linger for a moment. "Aside from that, you get to raid their base. You see the schematics there. It's got an arsenal that would make most military vessels jealous. Who knows what kind of weapons you could walk away with. Maybe even the base's surface-to-air defenses. And those are just the bonuses. The real prize is the database. You know how rare information on Cerberus is. Imagine when the Shadow Broker would pay you for that."
The batarian rubbed his chin in deep thought. "What's your price, human?"
Maelstrom grinned. He had him. "Simple. I'm told you have a tech that can reprogram my VI. Something of a genius with them. I want it rebuilt from the ground up, but loyal only to me. All secret protocols erased. All access codes transferred to me. Everything."
"And you actually trust us to do all that with your VI?" the batarian asked.
"Why not? Any weakness you program in is a weakness Cerberus can exploit too, and I'm someone you want to keep alive," Maelstrom said.
"And why is that?"
With a smile, Maelstrom said, "Because, I'm your magic key to revenge on Cerberus whenever they piss you off."
The batarian let out a belly laugh that would have made a krogan jealous. "You've got yourself a deal. One perfectly loyal and perfectly secure ex-Cerberus VI in exchange for you leading a strike on a Cerberus base and my people getting all the spoils."
Maelstrom only smiled.
The raid had gone better than he could have imagined. The whole base taken down in less than a half hour and only five of the twenty-four Blue Suns had died. Even his contact agreed that they could not have hoped for better. Maelstrom did not know how the payout was for the Suns. The data and spoils were theirs, and they did not feel like sharing any specifics on either. Based on the wide grins all of them were wearing on the ride back and his contact's offer to do business again whenever Maelstrom felt like it, he guessed they got everything and more that he advertised.
Now, Maelstrom was inspecting his payment. He spent hours giving the salarian programmer, probably one of the only salarians in the whole mercenary outfit, his exacting requirements for what his VI be capable of. The salarian did not seem pleased in the least to have such a hefty job put on his shoulders, but he did the work without complaint.
Ready to see how things fared, he stepped up from the docking bay and into the main compartment of his shuttle, the salarian programmer and two turian Suns guards accompanying him. Before doing anything else, he set his two duffle bags containing the bare essentials down on the floor.
"Hello, Emily," he said to the VI. "How are you today?"
A blue hologram appeared in the center of the room. It took the form of an attractive young human woman in her mid-twenties. He thought the salarian did an especially good job with her hair, shoulder length and wavy. With the same feminine voice, she replied, "I'm doing well today. Please, identify yourself."
Maelstrom fixed the salarian with an intense gaze.
"It couldn't be helped," the salarian said. "When I did the reconstruction, I had to remove all data files." Clearing his throat, he said, "Emily, this is Maelstrom. Transfer all control to him. Authorization: Suns omega two one."
A smile came to the hologram's face, as the VI turned its attention to Maelstrom. "I am at your command, Maelstrom. Awaiting input of command codes."
Producing a small data disk from his armor, he said, "That can wait, Emily."
"What is that?" the salarian asked nervously.
Maelstrom made his way straight to the cockpit and inserted the disk in the appropriate terminal. "Emily, run program."
"Understood," she replied. Her image flickered several times in quick succession.
"What are you doing?" the salarian asked again, increasingly uneasily. "What's on that disk?"
"Scan complete. Six back-door access points detected. Fifteen monitoring programs detected. Seventeen automatic priority system override programs detected. Purging... Purging... Purging... System clean."
"All of them?" the salarian stammered. "How did it find all of them?"
Maelstrom drew the submachine gun from his hip and took aim at the salarian. The turian guards raised their weapons, but their anxiety was evident. Their friends had doubtlessly already spread stories of how brutally effective Maelstrom had been at the Cerberus base.
"P...please. I was given orders," the salarian pleaded.
"I understand. That's why I'm letting you leave alive. In return, all three of you are going to keep quiet about what just happened," Maelstrom said. Turning his full attention to the salarian as he and the two turians backed out of the shuttle, he added, "Next time, consider who you're dealing with."
"How?" the salarian asked, his mouth hanging open in awe.
"I had a contact who rewrote a one of Ceberus's electronic security programs," Maelstrom said, thankful again for the quarian, who referred him to a third specialist, who traded his time for a mere two pistols and an assault rifle. "It detected your little presents quite expertly, I think."
The three aliens were outside of his ship now.
"Tell the Suns that next time, we deal for credits. Emily, close all hatches and fire up the engines," Maelstrom ordered.
The ship did as requested, lurching up three feet in seconds and slamming the hatch in the face of the Suns. "Destination?"
"Cross reference navigational database with planetary data charts. Take me to the nearest planet outside this system with no indigenous intelligent life and a planet-wide population of less than ten thousand."
"Cross-referencing... Destination found. ETA, thirty-six hours," the VI replied.
"Excelent. While we're en-route, Emily, we're going to work on personalizing your systems some more," Maelstrom said, unable to restrain a grin, as he headed to the cockpit and took a seat.
The holographic image of the VI popped up above the emitter, just its bust to keep the image to scale. "I look forward to that, Maelstrom."
"First thing," he said, "we're renaming this shuttle. From now on, we'll call her the Vengeance."
"Understood, Maelstrom. This ship is now known as the Vengeance."
"Next thing," he said, growing a little nostalgic, "When there's no one else in the ship, don't call me that."
"What name should I address you with?" the VI asked.
"When it's just us, my real name..."
They were Cerberus, he reminded himself, instantly eradicating all trace of remorse. Not one of them deserved a single moment of grief on his part. Not after what the organization they had sworn to serve did to him.
There was a chill to the air which seemed somehow to fit the gunmetal grey of the cockpit, as well as his current mood. The only light in the ship came from the control panel in front of him and a strip of faint emergency lights which ran the perimeter of the inner hull. Doubtless, the other lights were dimmed in order to draw less attention to their ship. The dark suited him fine for now.
He was not well-trained as a pilot, but he knew enough to start up the engines and get the ship into orbit. The VI did not stop him- yet another member of Cerberus which unwisely placed its trust in him. It even helped compensate for his limited piloting skills by offering to automatically plot a course for the relay when he looked up its location in the navigational program. He let it do its work.
How long do I have before that bastard gets his hands on those vids and figures out what I'm doing? Maelstrom thought with sudden alarm.
A blue holographic sphere with an eye-like section shaded lighter rose between the pilot and copilot seat. Below it was a cylindrical body of sorts, narrowed about halfway between the emitter and sphere. It seemed as though it was looking at him.
A decidedly feminine voice asked, "Operative, your piloting skills are listed as insufficient for more than emergency use. May I assist you in plotting a course through the relays to the nearest Cerberus base?"
His heart sank to the pit of his stomach. Rallying himself, he considered the situation. "I have reason to believe Alliance intelligence operatives have compromised Cerberus interests in this region. My orders are to proceed to the station known as Omega. Can you program a course through the relays to take me to that destination?"
"Certainly," the VI replied. "Course plotted. Should I take the controls?"
"Yes, please," he replied. "I have reason to believe a hostile program has infiltrated Cerberus systems. I have been ordered to disable all means of long range communications and tracking until my superior contacts me aboard Omega confirms system integrity restored," he said, hoping the gamble would pay off.
He would need a mercenary name, if he was going to follow through with his plans. Once he took Cerberus down, he did not want his real name to be tainted by the actions he would have to take to accomplish that goal. Remembering his promise to the leader of Cerberus, he decided. I'm Maelstrom.
"Error. Likelihood of scenario is less than point zero zero one percent. Requires level six authorization. You possesses level two authorization only. This vessel will shut down and await retrieval by a Cerberus vessel unless level six authorization is provided," the VI insisted.
He was fortunate. It was a level six code required. One of the doctors at the facility they kept him in was an addict who regularly had to provide computer record overrides to keep his theft from the station's limited supplies secret. Pain meds. Pain meds that were supposed to go to me.
"Per Doctor Frost's orders, authorization: Cerberus one zero whiskey alpha one one zero," he recalled from memory. The doctor had not realized Maelstrom was even lucid, writhing about in pain as he had been at the time, but he underestimated his subject. From the moment he heard it, Maelstrom knew the code would be his salvation. He recited it silently ten times a day.
"Authorization accepted. Do you require deactivation or physical destruction?" the VI asked.
"Physical destruction," Maelstrom decided, not wanting to risk a backup program being loaded.
"Acknowledged. System overload in progress." A shrill sound built up for about five seconds before he heard several small electrical discharges. "Overload complete."
He breathed a sigh of relief. It was more than he could contain. Without meaning to, he burst into laughter. I'm free. I'm finally free.
Maelstrom rose from his seat. The cockpit was the same as a Kodiak's, save the VI's holographic projector and the gunnery controls at both the pilot and copilot's station, to handle the craft's forward-mounted antipersonnel guns. Their firing arc was relatively limited, but it could be a lifesaver in a tight situation.
He stepped in the pooled blood of the dead pilot as he made his way back to the main compartment. It was slightly larger than a Kodiak's, enough to fit a dozen men. The benches and harnesses were to the fore and aft of the compartment, and numerous rails hung from the ceiling, to aid the passengers in moving about during a rough descent. Two heavy turrets with target auto-assist were mounted to the ceiling of the craft.
A small hallway continued back to the aft-most room. To port was a lavatory. To starboard was weapons storage- a basic armory- all but emptied by his team for the mission he had ended. I should have grabbed their gear.
The furthest room back contained six sleep pods, three of the four walls mounting two each. Beside every sleep pod was a small trunk. None of the squad kept anything in them. This mission was supposed
to be a short one.
The holographic representation of the VI popped up, projected to appear as rising from the floor, but actually created by an emitter in the ceiling. "ETA to mass relay, five minutes. ETA to Omega, thirty-eight hours."
Thirty-eight hours, he mused. Enough time to come up with some sort of plan.
#########
"Do you have any idea what you're asking?" the quarian mechanic asked with exasperation. He had chosen not to return to the Migrant Fleet after his pilgrimage, deciding he could better help the fleet by staying on Omega and earning credits to send home. To aid in that, he built himself a rather well-supplied garage. By the looks of it, the place was meant to help criminals keep their stolen vehicles.The quarian seemed to be enjoying his separation from the fleet. There was a sizable apartment in the back of his business, with a pantry overflowing with food. His suit was dark red and purple, outfitted with purely-decorative gold trim. He had uncommon wealth for a quarian.
He came highly recommended by Aria T'Loak, who took an immediate interest in a shuttle with Cerberus markings landing at "her" station. She seemed to have no love for the organization and assured him that no one who did business with his particular tech regretted doing so. At the moment, Maelstrom was trying to figure out if she over-estimated this quarian or if he was just trying to drive up his price.
If I hadn't gotten that Ceberus logo scoured off my armor and hull and gotten them painted black, he'd make his price ten times as much, Maelstrom mused.
"Yes. I'm asking for a you to download all files from this ships' library into removable non-networked storage, then wipe every program in its databanks and reload them with clean versions. Get the IFF working as an isolated system I can flip on and off at will. Then I'm asking you to repair the damage to this ships' communications array and remove the fried tracking devices," Maelstrom sighed.
"This is not a simple job. Have you looked at these computers? You have redundant backups and numerous security measures which will trigger a variety of unpleasant consequences if anything like that is attempted," he sighed.
"The VI is deactivated," Maelstrom said, trying to point out that he knew at least the basics and keep the price in his range.
"Yeah, the avatar. I'm talking about numerous simplistic VI's whose sole purpose is detect and react to exactly the kind of tampering you're talking about," he argued.
"Can you do it, or do I have to tell Aria that she was wrong about you?" Maelstrom threatened.
"I can do it, but it won't be cheap," the quarian said.
"You can have one of the ceiling-mounted turrets and it's auto-assist as payment, as well as any small arms in the aft. I keep the grenades."
"Forget small arms. For this, both of the turrets. And their auto-assist," the quarian argued. Exactly the price Maelstrom was angling for.
One other thing bothered him about the ship, though. "For both turrets, I want those sleep pods out of the back. Put a mid-sized bed back in there. And I don't want any holes in the wall or floor. Those are going to be my quarters, where I live."
"I keep the pods," the quarian said.
"Agreed, but you get me a VI that can autopilot this ship until I find someone who can reprogram my current one," Maelstom said.
"I'll do you one better," the quarian said. "You're a merc, am I right? I know a guy who works for the Blue Suns. Genius when it comes to VI's. You can probably work something out with them for trade.
Probably work."
"And why do I need you for this?"
"Because I can set up the contact. Otherwise, you'll have to work for them months just to talk with someone who will listen to the idea," the quarian said.
"Agreed, but there's one other item I'll need from you," Maelstrom said, having exactly the thing in mind.
#########
"You're serious about this?" the batarian man in blue and white asked in awe. "You do realize exactly what you're talking about here?"
"Aria told me you've been running into more and more trouble lately with Cerberus," Maelstrom said.
He did not like being in the run-down Blue Suns base, but he was going to have to grow accustomed to being in such places if he was going to achieve his goals. What he found as irritating was that the batarian contact he was dealing with did not even find it necessary to keep his weapons on his person. They were well out-of-reach. He felt secure enough in the number of men and weapons surrounding him that it was not even worrisome. And he was not wrong.
"Everyone is. They're like the Shadow Broker. All the gangs have to do business with them so they don't get left behind, but they never hesitate to come around and shoot us in the back when it's in their interests," the batarian growled. Maelstrom did not know the man's name, but he was high in the Suns' ranks. High enough to speak for the organization and make deals for them.
"And this is your chance to show them it's a two-way street," Maelstrom said.
The batarian gave him a puzzled expression.
"To show them that if that's how they want to treat you, you can return the favor. That they aren't nearly as impervious as they think they are. That their secrecy isn't absolute," Maelstrom clarified.
The batarian chuckled. "That would be nice, for a change." Growing suddenly skeptical, though, he said, "But where's the profit?"
"Aside from the other gangs here knowing that it was the Blue Suns who first had the guts to seriously stand up for themselves to Cerberus?" Maelstrom asked, leaving both the offer and the subtle hint that if it were not them, he would make the offer to someone else linger for a moment. "Aside from that, you get to raid their base. You see the schematics there. It's got an arsenal that would make most military vessels jealous. Who knows what kind of weapons you could walk away with. Maybe even the base's surface-to-air defenses. And those are just the bonuses. The real prize is the database. You know how rare information on Cerberus is. Imagine when the Shadow Broker would pay you for that."
The batarian rubbed his chin in deep thought. "What's your price, human?"
Maelstrom grinned. He had him. "Simple. I'm told you have a tech that can reprogram my VI. Something of a genius with them. I want it rebuilt from the ground up, but loyal only to me. All secret protocols erased. All access codes transferred to me. Everything."
"And you actually trust us to do all that with your VI?" the batarian asked.
"Why not? Any weakness you program in is a weakness Cerberus can exploit too, and I'm someone you want to keep alive," Maelstrom said.
"And why is that?"
With a smile, Maelstrom said, "Because, I'm your magic key to revenge on Cerberus whenever they piss you off."
The batarian let out a belly laugh that would have made a krogan jealous. "You've got yourself a deal. One perfectly loyal and perfectly secure ex-Cerberus VI in exchange for you leading a strike on a Cerberus base and my people getting all the spoils."
Maelstrom only smiled.
#########
The raid had gone better than he could have imagined. The whole base taken down in less than a half hour and only five of the twenty-four Blue Suns had died. Even his contact agreed that they could not have hoped for better. Maelstrom did not know how the payout was for the Suns. The data and spoils were theirs, and they did not feel like sharing any specifics on either. Based on the wide grins all of them were wearing on the ride back and his contact's offer to do business again whenever Maelstrom felt like it, he guessed they got everything and more that he advertised.
Now, Maelstrom was inspecting his payment. He spent hours giving the salarian programmer, probably one of the only salarians in the whole mercenary outfit, his exacting requirements for what his VI be capable of. The salarian did not seem pleased in the least to have such a hefty job put on his shoulders, but he did the work without complaint.
Ready to see how things fared, he stepped up from the docking bay and into the main compartment of his shuttle, the salarian programmer and two turian Suns guards accompanying him. Before doing anything else, he set his two duffle bags containing the bare essentials down on the floor.
"Hello, Emily," he said to the VI. "How are you today?"
A blue hologram appeared in the center of the room. It took the form of an attractive young human woman in her mid-twenties. He thought the salarian did an especially good job with her hair, shoulder length and wavy. With the same feminine voice, she replied, "I'm doing well today. Please, identify yourself."
Maelstrom fixed the salarian with an intense gaze.
"It couldn't be helped," the salarian said. "When I did the reconstruction, I had to remove all data files." Clearing his throat, he said, "Emily, this is Maelstrom. Transfer all control to him. Authorization: Suns omega two one."
A smile came to the hologram's face, as the VI turned its attention to Maelstrom. "I am at your command, Maelstrom. Awaiting input of command codes."
Producing a small data disk from his armor, he said, "That can wait, Emily."
"What is that?" the salarian asked nervously.
Maelstrom made his way straight to the cockpit and inserted the disk in the appropriate terminal. "Emily, run program."
"Understood," she replied. Her image flickered several times in quick succession.
"What are you doing?" the salarian asked again, increasingly uneasily. "What's on that disk?"
"Scan complete. Six back-door access points detected. Fifteen monitoring programs detected. Seventeen automatic priority system override programs detected. Purging... Purging... Purging... System clean."
"All of them?" the salarian stammered. "How did it find all of them?"
Maelstrom drew the submachine gun from his hip and took aim at the salarian. The turian guards raised their weapons, but their anxiety was evident. Their friends had doubtlessly already spread stories of how brutally effective Maelstrom had been at the Cerberus base.
"P...please. I was given orders," the salarian pleaded.
"I understand. That's why I'm letting you leave alive. In return, all three of you are going to keep quiet about what just happened," Maelstrom said. Turning his full attention to the salarian as he and the two turians backed out of the shuttle, he added, "Next time, consider who you're dealing with."
"How?" the salarian asked, his mouth hanging open in awe.
"I had a contact who rewrote a one of Ceberus's electronic security programs," Maelstrom said, thankful again for the quarian, who referred him to a third specialist, who traded his time for a mere two pistols and an assault rifle. "It detected your little presents quite expertly, I think."
The three aliens were outside of his ship now.
"Tell the Suns that next time, we deal for credits. Emily, close all hatches and fire up the engines," Maelstrom ordered.
The ship did as requested, lurching up three feet in seconds and slamming the hatch in the face of the Suns. "Destination?"
"Cross reference navigational database with planetary data charts. Take me to the nearest planet outside this system with no indigenous intelligent life and a planet-wide population of less than ten thousand."
"Cross-referencing... Destination found. ETA, thirty-six hours," the VI replied.
"Excelent. While we're en-route, Emily, we're going to work on personalizing your systems some more," Maelstrom said, unable to restrain a grin, as he headed to the cockpit and took a seat.
The holographic image of the VI popped up above the emitter, just its bust to keep the image to scale. "I look forward to that, Maelstrom."
"First thing," he said, "we're renaming this shuttle. From now on, we'll call her the Vengeance."
"Understood, Maelstrom. This ship is now known as the Vengeance."
"Next thing," he said, growing a little nostalgic, "When there's no one else in the ship, don't call me that."
"What name should I address you with?" the VI asked.
"When it's just us, my real name..."