1. Knee Jerk Reactions (1/2)

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glitters in the dark

chapter 1(?)

"i think we've lost them, sir," came the low, subservient voice of pesk's sensor tech. it might have given him a slight sadistic thrill to hear it. however, given their circumstances, it only grated his already frayed nerves.

"you better be right about that, you guttersucker, or i'll take another eye from you," pesk snarled. the sensor tech said nothing but lowered his head. the

ight red patch over one of his superior eyes was visible from his angle. lashing out at the bastard did nothing to make him feel better. he slammed a fist against the arm of his seat. then twice more when he realized it felt good to hit something.

"can someone explain to me what those two-eyed bootlickers were doing so far from their usual route?!" he shouted across the

idge. no one spoke, likely because they were all as confused as he was. it didn't make sense. the turians never patrolled that deep in the attican traverse. it was too close to the terminus; too far from support. but for one reason or another he had been jumped by a hierarchy patrol. a task force of the most advanced warships in the galaxy against three obsolete junker ships? they were outmatched from the start.

one of his ships was destroyed outright in the initial salvo, the other had been disabled and taken by a boarding party. his ship had just managed to escape, but not without taking a beating. two of his three batteries were offline. an entire section opened to the vacuum. over a dozen of the pirates on his ship were dead. engine two was sputtering. his quarian slave had said it was a miracle they were even moving. it had taken nearly everything he had to not open a hole in its faceplate. now they were in the ass end of unexplored space after a few random jumps to try and escape the damn fascists.

few pirates became successful enough to have multiple ships under their command. pesk had stole and cheated and killed at every turn to get even the small band he commanded. now it was gone. it was all gone!

the grizzled pirate veteran gritted his teeth and smothered a scream of rage until it came out as a low growl. "what's our fuel at?"

another pirate spoke up, "we're at 34 percent. it's a little tight, but the astronav system says we can just make it back to jaris for resupply."

jaris. a pirate haven. it was probably their best bet for recovering from this massive clusterfuck. their only bet, apparently. however he had made a lot of enemies there, as was common when one had ambitions in free space. the only thing that had kept them at bay before was his sizable force of pirates. they would pounce on him the very moment they saw the sad state he was now in.

he needed to come back with something. anything to even the odds.

"sir, i'm getting a signal two light seconds out."

a lead weight formed in pesk's stomach. "turians?!"

"n-no, sir. it's in the opposite direction. and it doesn't have the usual hierarchy iff."

he tried not to let the relief show too visibly. "then who the hell is it?"

"i...i don't know, sir. it doesn't match anything in our database. it doesn't even have an unregistered tag."

"no tag? what kind of pre-council scrapheap are they fly-," he cut himself off. they were far off the beaten path, even for free space. what would anyone be doing this far out? referring to grossly obsolete tech as 'pre-council' was a popular turn of phrase, but pesk suddenly had an inkling it may be more than just a metaphor in this case.

the pieces slowly clicking together in pesk's mind. unknown ships deep in the ass end of nowhere without so much as a blank tag? there was no possible way he could be so lucky. but if it was true...if he had truly found some uncontacted primitives?

credit signs began to flash in his mind's eye. a new ship. a better one. no, his own small fleet! new crew members, kitted out with the best gear credits could buy! no, what was he even thinking? he could leave piracy behind! a villa for himself on erszbat! beautiful asari maidens to cater to his every desire! he would be placed in the higher castes and have every guttersucker who dared tilt their head right grovelling at his feet! it was all possible if he

ought a

and new race to the hegemony slave economy.

pesk was on his feet before he even fully realized it.

"tell everyone who can hold a gun to gear up. close in on that signal."

zayzlim was a simple unggoy. after the war had ended, he returned to balaho along with many of his

ethren to try and restore their ravaged homeworld. being in the covenant had shown him how much a people could achieve. even the humans, the primitives that they were, had amazing cities that zayzlim always admired before they razed them to the ground. he wanted the same thing for balaho. the unggoy had gone through much suffering. now it was time to rebuild.

now here he was, mining asteroids for raw material that his world now lacked. the green excavation beam cut through ores and the retrieval claw

ought the chunks into cargo hold. it was a simple existence but it was one that he cherished.

distressed grunting caught zayzlim's attention. the sensor officer was getting agitated.

"bad signal!" he squeaked. "bad signal! very close!"

zayzlim turned off the beam and waddled over to the holoscreen. an unknown signal was lit

ightly, and it was definitely very close. unknown was bad. unknown was never good for the unggoy. what concerned him was how it came so close. nothing could have come this close without warning. it was as though it had appeared out of nowhere, and it was coming closer.

his hackles rose. his instincts, instincts that he thought he had left back in the schism, rose to the forefront. they were telling him this was very, very bad. they were saying that he needed to fight.

"maybe kig-yar," he said. "kig-yar always steal from ships. kig-yar no like unggoy. maybe they come to steal from us."

he was a simple unggoy. he knew there wasn't enough time to reorient the ship to aim the excavator at them. and if they hadn't shot at them, that meant they wanted something from them. others always wanted something from the unggoy. he only wished to rebuild his home. however the galaxy was a bad and scary place. so zayzlim waddled over to the weapons rack and picked up the same type of plasma pistol he had used for years. the low whine as it activated was a simple comfort. the echoing whines of his

others' pistols was an even greater one.

they seamlessly formed into squads and took up defensive positions. there was no confusion and only some minor fearful chuffing. centuries of war had been

ed into their bones. the galaxy had turned the unggoy into warriors.

and zayzlim was a simple unggoy. he would fight, and then he would return to mining.

the primitive ship hadn't reacted to their approach. likely they were in awe of the aliens hovering beside them. probably throwing bones and sticks on the ground to decide how to greet the divine visitors. gharek allowed himself a quiet chuckle that was swallowed by the roaring of the thermal cutter. their faces when they realized the aliens were there to enslave them would be hilarious. if they had emotive faces at least. regardless he would be recording the boarding. some people paid a pretty penny for combat vids. a combat vid featuring first contact would be paying for his khar'shan ale for a good while.

"three minutes to

each!" their 'engineer' called out. in reality he was just the only guy who knew how operate the thermal cutter without burning his own face off. the heavy piece of equipment could carve out an airlock door in two minutes, easy. which was why he didn't understand why they had been standing there for five minutes now.

"what the hell's taking so long?!" gharek shouted over the noise.

"this armor is denser than a krogan's skull! i've gotta go slow or the cutter won't penetrate through!"

gharek just grunted to himself. denser armor was something defense contractors might be interested in. he had no clue how to market that kinda stuff so hopefully pesk would catch on.

"alright, here we go!"