The skies of Ersbat burned with fire. Explosions cut through the night. It was as if the very firmament cracked when another section of the shipyards first broke into pieces, then disappeared in nuclear fire. Streams of electromagnetic radiation bombarded the atmosphere, causing an aurora borealis that unfurled like a bloody grin. It was as if the demons of hell themselves had decided to witness the ongoing battle, attracted by fear and despair.
Landing shuttles and pods poured onto the surface of the industrial world like an iron rain, landing directly in the raging fires, spewing infernal horror from their wombs. The hum of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of drones made it impossible to hide even behind concrete walls.
The ether choked on static. Only occasionally did the announcer's voice break through, monotonously repeating:
"...The Hegemony, without declaring war, attacked a peaceful research expedition..." – a nuclear storm momentarily drowned out the message, which sounded from all speakers, headphones, and loudspeakers. "...Slavery, according to our laws, under Article... is punishable by death!"
Another artillery shell from the punisher silenced the alert system's speaker forever, extinguishing it along with the light. Static reigned again in the communication systems, drowning out the death cries of pain and horror.
The factory building collapsed in a cloud of dust, depriving the defenders of any visibility. The ground sagged beneath their positions. The concrete covering opened like a bottomless maw, and gray shadows poured out of it. Mad laughter drowned out the artillery barrage.
A young Batarian only miraculously managed to block with the butt of his rifle the blow of a humming, three-edged bayonet that almost disemboweled him. The bloody lenses of his gas mask, glowing with the all-consuming glare of rage, did not hide the rodent's muzzle, which again swung its death weapon, pushing the youth.
The blade slid along the spacesuit, plunging into the strongest alloy as if a hot knife into butter, but did not reach the body. The skaven roared, urging himself to correct the mistake, flicking his tail like a whip, shattering the triplex of the spacesuit. The glass cracked. Shards dug into his face, tearing the skin. Blood flooded his eyes.
Whining loudly with their motors, a dozen small drones lifted the mercenary Krogan into the air to throw him at the assault rats bristling with bayonets. Thanks to his resilience, the mercenary was still alive when he was skinned and disemboweled in an instant, drenching the surroundings with blood and entrails.
A quiet explosion from another small machine tore apart a guard-overseer who had stuck out too far from cover. Wounded, screaming, he crawled, dragging the remains of his intestines, not comprehending from the pain.
The assault rat lunged at its opponent again. Even though the Union soldier was half the size of the Batarian, these were not its problems.
The skaven's lunge was stopped by a shot. Particles accelerated by mass effect pierced his body through and through. Blood and hydraulic fluid spurted.
The rat swung its bayonet, trying to reach its killer, but another shot blew the soldier's head off.
By intuition, the young man fired again, hitting and wounding another skaven before receiving a blow to the stomach from a small, furious fist. It was as if a pneumatic hammer had turned his dignity into a pancake. Another grey warrior jumped onto the batarian's back, knocking him to the ground.
The guard screamed—only to choke on his own blood a moment later. Teeth, no less durable than steel, tore his larynx from his throat with a sickening crunch of flesh and a crackle of rending armor.
Assault rats rushed at the next opponent, trampling the half-dead.
Artillery was in action. The flames of explosions, muffled by the night and a veil of dust, provided the skaven with enough light. The grey avalanche surged forward, taking on the role of harbingers for the cybernetic troops.
Behind them, walking tanks moved at a leisurely pace, supporting the advance of an indomitable force with small-caliber lasers and Gauss cannons. Swarms of drones completed the rout. Nimble machines exploded, maiming and turning flesh into a bloody mist...
Mercenaries and security forces retreated further and further. They would have surrendered long ago, begging for mercy, but no one intended to take them prisoner. For the soldiers of the USSR, they were all accomplices of beasts who reveled in the suffering of sentient life. Therefore, the Grey Host, like gears, ground down the enemy, sometimes not in a literal sense.
The Red Army soldiers of the Defense Aspect did not lag behind in righteous proletarian fury. The howls of the wolf-hednars eager for battle, along with the whistle of shells flying through the air and explosions, made blood freeze in the veins. The bark of their laser rifles and the hiss of plasma weapon cooling systems became the accompaniment to the symphony of war.
Sharks and doloks seemed to remember their aquatic origins. Their predatory silhouettes swam in the dust and smoke, bringing death in many guises from the most unexpected directions.
If the intelligent sharks staged a driven hunt for the batarians, driving them into pockets of resistance, for the amusement of skaven or wolf-hednars, herding the slave owners' defenders with teeth or flamethrowers, then the orcas found a worthy target in the form of krogan mercenaries...
The Voivode froze. His hands clenched the haft of his hammer until they cracked.
The eyes of the ancient krogan gazed at the armored monster that, a second earlier, had dealt with two of his fighters. One he had incinerated with a plasma shot, leaving only smoldering stumps of legs in heavy armor, burning with green fire, from the formidable warrior. The other, with a blow from a pood-weight fist, he had driven his head, along with his brain, into his chest. And now, tilting his head to the side, he watched the Voivode.
No one dared to make the first move. The flashes of artillery fire and the reflections of shots illuminated their tense figures. Thus, they paid homage to each other.
The krogan raised his hammer with both hands. Blood of the Red Army soldiers slowly dripped from its working part, mixing with dust and ash. He had managed to shed the blood of such unusual opponents, who had descended upon this world, coming like ghosts—unexpectedly and suddenly—in their desire for vengeance. Now, the ancient warrior faced a new challenge.
Making a clicking sound, the dolok rushed into attack. A steel fist met the hammer, creating a roar like an explosion. The ancient krogan felt his arm muscles ache from the enemy's power transmitted through the weapon.
A blow. The Voivode's weapon reached the head of the intelligent orca. The force of the collision was such that the helmet was torn from the USSR soldier.
The dolok jumped back, using his tail, laughing, feeling the metallic taste of his own blood in his mouth. He could have incinerated the Voivode three times over, but he decided to honor the warrior with a hand-to-hand fight.
Again, the two predators clashed, exchanging blows. Two furies clashed in battle, trying to surpass each other. It was a magnificent fight, but it ended with only one blow. The Voivode did not manage to block his opponent's tail, which tripped him.
A mighty hand grabbed his hammer, preventing him from completing the blow, and tore it from the veteran's fingers.
The dolok, relishing the weight of the enemy's hammer, put all the fury of the USSR into the blow. The krogan's skull cracked like an overripe pomegranate.
A new volley of siege guns thundered, as if paying tribute to a worthy enemy. The intelligent orca slung the trophy weapon over his shoulder and headed for the next skirmish, for the battle for vengeance had not even begun to subside...
Human Red Army soldiers methodically cleared one pocket of resistance after another. Their fury was cold, but no less burning and frightening to the enemy for that. United into a single network and capable of fighting on the ground, the soldiers, having absorbed the experience of a thousand battles, swept everything in their path.
Like a single organism, they complemented their comrades, sharing their experience. Each became an element of the war machine, bringing their efficiency to perfection. The Motherland redirected data streams, optimizing the battle itself, helping the soldiers perform at one hundred percent.
Robots marched forward, knowing no fear or pity for themselves. Their bodies were a shield for the living. Again and again, swarms of drones descended, bringing fire with them. Through their sensors, artillerymen saw where to direct retribution. Their steel bodies took the enemy's first shots.
Shadows flew out of the smoke. A shot—and the commander falls. A swipe of claws—someone's life is cut short. Felinids hunted mercilessly, playing with the enemy as their wild ancestors play with mice. They scurried through ruins and rubble, leaving only corpses behind them.
In the very epicenter of the battle, the fighters of "Argentum" carried out their vengeance. The elite of CERBERUS unleashed the full might of Soviet polymer on the slave owners, maniacs, and rapists. There was no escape from the transparent, gelatinous substance. Duels of biotics and operatives caused devastation that almost reached orbital bombardment. The power of the zero element and Soviet genius created a new chord in the symphony of destruction.
Only half an hour had passed since the landing, but the battle, in its bloodiness and fury, had already surpassed many battles known to the Hegemony and the Citadel space...
"When will you die already!" the thought beat in Ferrion's head as his three-fingered hands pulled with all their might on the chain that had caught the overseer's throat in a noose. The rusty links securely fixed the puny batarian, pressing him against the bars of the cage, allowing the captured legionary to brace his feet against the bars of his cell. This helped increase the pressure on his tormentor's thin neck, but the small sadist refused to die, clinging to his life, gasping and bulging his eyes for a good ten minutes, it seemed to the turian.
Malnutrition and limited movement were already taking their toll. The legionary's muscles tingled unpleasantly, and his limbs began to tremble noticeably from the effort, but he stubbornly pressed on, knowing that if he let go, he would immediately get a bullet between the eyes.
Other prisoners watched his efforts in their own ways. Some simply stared, catching every gasp of the overseer, others gave him only a fleeting glance, while a third group—not the most numerous—tried to make noise to attract other slave drivers, fearing for their own skins.
"Help!" shouted the salarian, rattling his shackles against the bars. Panic was clearly visible on his face. "They're killing us!"
Some asari, who were fed slightly better so as not to spoil their appearance, echoed him. Others simply remained silent, saving their meager strength.
"Try harder, you freaks! No one will hear us anyway!" the legionary thought tiredly but maliciously, feeling himself becoming more and more exhausted.
The futility of the cries could be understood by looking at the ceiling lamp swinging on a thin wire, which jumped from particularly close explosions. The slave basements were already located deep, which constantly brought cold and dampness, draining the turian's strength, so it was difficult for the overseers to hear the noise from below. To prevent an attempted rebellion, they simply kept everyone on a meager diet, giving them just enough food so that the prisoners could work or not die before the sales.
"Just a little longer. Hold on, legionary, the Hierarchy will remember..." Ferrion tried to encourage himself, his own eyes beginning to darken, and his pulse long since beating in his ears, drowning out all other sounds.
"Just a little longer..." but his eyelids were already heavy as lead, and his ears pulsed as if someone were beating a alarm bell directly in his skull. The fingers were about to let go of the chain links. Even the image of the centurion who had surrendered their patrol frigate did not help to ignite his rage and add strength to his hands...
A shot rang out! The legionary was splashed with something hot and sticky. The chain went limp, no longer feeling the resistance of the hated throat, causing the weakened prisoner to hang on it, clinging to the bars with trembling hands, not letting himself fall completely.
The salarian's piercing shriek tore through the dungeon like lightning in pitch darkness. "Spirits... it's like they're raping him again with a red-hot poker..." the exhausted legionary winced, finally slumping onto the burning-cold concrete floor. His hoarse breathing tore from his chest like a cornered warren, trying to tear his lungs in an attempt to swallow more air.
He didn't hear the cell door open, but he felt someone trying to turn him onto his back. With the last of his strength, he tried to lash out with the chain, which his spasming right hand still held tightly.
The tearing links jingled mournfully, and a stern voice with a slight accent demanded:
"Don't move!"
Ferrion, naturally, did not obey, but they pressed on his sternum, pinning his arms.
"Don't move," the voice repeated, and the legionary laughed wildly, feeling the laughter tear his inflamed throat.
The speaker just grunted. Suddenly, something metallic touched the legionary's throat. A prick. A short hiss. A heartbeat. Another...
His vision cleared. An unfamiliar humanoid, clad in an unknown model of a military spacesuit, well-fitted to his figure, leaned over the turian. The legionary's emaciated face was reflected in the mirrored visor, but the turian felt a gaze sliding over him.
A warm wave washed over his muscles, relaxing them. "If only I could eat something, it would be even better..." the legionary thought, but he assumed a sitting position, making sure the stranger wasn't going to bother him.
"Stimulant. Vitamins," the humanoid clicked his fingers on the injector, removing it, as it seemed to the former prisoner, somewhere into a hip pocket. He attributed a small flash to his vision not yet fully recovered.
"Speak plainly. I know the language. No practice," the unknown warned.
"Thank you. What next?" after a moment's thought, Ferrion asked, realizing that if they had wanted to shoot him, they wouldn't have wasted medication on him.
"Liberate. We don't like slaves," the humanoid replied, demonstratively clenching his five-fingered hand.
"Who are you?" the turian asked, looking at his hand, estimating and realizing that this was clearly not an asari.
"Human. Not from the Citadel. These attacked..." he gestured towards the body, decapitated by a shot, a pistol still hanging from its belt. "Came for revenge. We don't like slavery. USSR."
"He said that strange, last word as if it should explain something," a malicious thought flashed through the turian's mind, which was surprisingly accurate, but he didn't know it.
It was no secret to the human where his interlocutor's gaze had slid. Tilting his head, he asked him with a peculiar intonation:
"Can you shoot?"
"What?!" Ferrion was surprised, not understanding the question at first. Just like that?!
"Can you shoot?" the human repeated patiently.
The legionary nodded, adding, "Military."
"Good," the head in the mirrored helmet nodded, extending a hand towards the weapon. A moment—and the pistol was in his hand.
"Biotics?! No blue glow, no distortion of the air! Maybe something else?" the turian thought, analyzing. The human twirled the weapon, clicked, gripped it by the barrel, and handed it to the legionary by the handle, saying:
"Cover my back. Call me Plutonium. Listen," his savior told him.
"Ferrion," the legionary gave his name, taking the pistol and trying not to make any sudden movements, checking it. The pistol felt unnaturally cold in his sweaty palm. His fingers remembered the weapon, but his strength had not yet returned. "Aren't you afraid?"
"Warrior," Plutonium pointed at him. "Honor."
This was a more than exhaustive answer. The turian perfectly understood what the human had said. Plutonium extended his hand, helping him to his feet. Ferrion swayed slightly, but he held on. Listening to himself and deeming his condition satisfactory, he said:
"Ready."
"Let's go. Follow me," his new acquaintance said, flowing out of the cell so smoothly that the legionary didn't notice the start of his movement.
"He'll be scarier than the asari shock troops!" the turian concluded respectfully, leaving the cell.
"Others?" he asked, nodding at the now silent prisoners.
"Sit. Others will take them. It's dangerous with us," Plutonium replied. "You'll see, don't be afraid."
"As if anything could scare me now?" Ferrion thought grumpily, confident that he had seen everything in this galaxy. How wrong he was...