The big blue plain (THESSIA, NARTIN, TEMPLARS)

That made things a little more complicated. It could be done, but Everett would have to hope that the truck wouldn't be intercepted on the way to his position. Still, it was worth the risk. He couldn't leave Vohk for dead.

"Right...I can do that. Hold your position and wait for further orders." With that, Everett activated his omni-tool and went to work at gaining remote control of the truck. That was the easy part. The hard part was getting the damn thing over to him without it getting blown up.

The trucks remote systems flare up, lupines truck starts to roll towards Everett.

The Asari commandos reach vohks truck, breaching it from behind, clearing it and securing the unconscious vohkaidin. He is alive and breathing but bleeding from his ears.

They pick up his radio, patching in on the squad networks audio to listen in.

"Linking up their signal to our comms now, no broadcasting on their channel."

The ship eezo core seems to be secure for the time being, no contamination can be detected. The ship seem to posess an abnormally large drive core and an extensive hull heatsink capability. Perhaps explaining why no sensors managed to pick it up as it went down. As for why it crashed in the first place, there are no definite clues that can be detected. It will probably require a more extensive examination.

On the trip back, Helena was to focused on tending to the wounded quarians. Everything else was simply dismissed as chatter over the coms.

At least until her husbands com line went dark. Then for a long moment, Helena's whole world went away.

"...elena. Helena?Muck!"

Her green eyes blinked back into focus, as Frosty, her pilot shook her back to the awareness.

"You're in command. What do you want us to do?"

Things crystallized a bit, as a pure, icy fury, comparable to the wrath of a Nartin blizzard, began to make dominate her being.

"We're going to give them some air support."

Frosty blinked, and shook his head.

"We don't have any weapons on the kodiak. How are we supposed to help?"

Helena barely heard as she brushed by him, beelining to the nearest weapons depot. She punched in her access code, and picked up the largest weapon inside.

"By improvising."

She said, hefting the grenade launcher, and two bandoliers of stun grenades onto her form. They'd hurt her husband, to the point that she didn't know if he was going to live. He'd done nothing hostile short of ordering them to surrender.

As she got back into the kodiak, the vessel begininng its ascent, a more rational Helena would have questioned the wisdom of this course of action. But right now, all Helena could see was her husband alone on the bloody snow.

Her voice was brittle as she reopened the com.

"TERF Command, this is Helena Knox. Unidentified asari raiders are attacking the crash site with heavy ordinance, and my husband has been fired upon, with his current state unknown beyond living. I need to know how long before reinforcements can get here"

Cobalt, this is command, 1 hour at the least. We're sorry, but we got another 2 raids in progress as we speak, we're scrambling a QRF but it's gonna take time. Your orders remain the same, untill Vohkaidins Knox status can be verified, further engagements are a no-go unless you're fired upon again. How copy cobalt?

"...I copy."

Helena agreed, quietly seething. They'd fired upon her husband unprovoked, and now this? Waiting until they shot another one of her teamates before being allowed to take action. Bullshit. Utter bullshit.


For a long moment, she seriously considered countermanding that order, and giving permission for the squadmates to shoot to kill. Oh, and she wanted to. But, slowly, the rage was beaten back by some measure of logic. Vohk was still alive, and at their mercy. If they could find another way of dealing with them, they had to take it.

It was what Vohk would have wanted.

"...Frosty, take us higher, into the clouds. I don't want them to see us coming."

She ordered, her dry lips chapping in the cold air.

Gestran got out of the truck, got down on all four, and started to crawl towards cover behind a small hill nearby the crash. visual cover was the thing here, whoever the assailants were, they had firepower to cut through any physical protection available here. Better not to be seen at all.

Popping up between a small dump in the hill to minimize his silhouette, he brings out his binoculars, trying to get an eye on vohks truck..

"Observation; got optics on three figures by vohks truck, one of them seem incapacitated.... Yeah thats vohk. Two asari. Repeat, Vohkaidin knox are being held by two Asari by the shot out truck, commando leathers if I'm not mistaken. No signs of the rifle that disabled the vehicle..."

He sweeps the area for for further sings of movement suddenly spotting Trixina.

"Got a third Asari on the move towards the truck, 200 meters to the south of the vehicle, Confirmed visual on heavy weapons."

Gallik followed Gestran out of the truck, dropping into a crouch and surveying the scene through the scope of the Mantis. "Confirmed, Gestran." The frog took a look at the truck, noting the direction it was heading when it was disabled, and raised the scope of his rifle to search the hills where the shot could have come from.

Neil was on Gestran's six, and was mimicking what he was doing.

"The hell are asari commandos shooting at us for? Did they mistake us for pirates or smugglers or something?"

Without removing his eye from the scope of his sniper rifle or halting his search for the potential sniper, Gallik replied to Neil's comment. "Doubtful they are official in any way. Locals, organized for self-interest more likely. Probably fall somewhere in between raiders and smugglers themselves."

He grunted.

"Having to wait till fired on to eliminate the threat is foolish. Should be taking them out before they know we're here." Then a thought. "Gestran. You have more experience with these weapons than I do. The commando leathers they're wearing. Will the Microwave emitters work through light armor like that?"

"Yeah, It would probably have an effect but I dunno how much really. Its an area effect microwave emitter designed to scatter crowds over a large area. Gives you the sensation of having your skin pressed against a red hot surface without any actual physical effect, works through normal clothing just fine. Its range is about 400 meters so we'd have to drive towards them. Not sure I'd fancy that with that thing that took out vohks truck out there. According to that fucked up ROE though, its one of the few weapons we may use before they fire upon us. I swear, if we get back in one piece I'm gonna beat the first S2 officer I see to a pulp."

Trixina reached the truck, immediatly training her launcher on the crash. No visible contacts, yet she knew they were there, they still didn't know that they could hear their every word through Vohks radio.

"take over for a sec will ya?"

Trix traded places with the squadmate that was watching over Vohk, she fashioned a makeshift binding from the trucks seatcovers, hogtying him tightly. She then gets out her medkit, bringing out a syrette of stims designed for waking up unconscious people. Right now they needed him awake, his entire body would probably hurt like hell, but hey, life's no fun without a bit of pain in any case.

"Sorry hun, this might sting a little."

She jams the syrette into his shoulder and then readies her omnitool for voice to text translation while holding his head. If he couldn't hear, he was going to have to read.

"Yeah....not sure if driving a truck towards them is such a great idea. We might as well start honking the horn and try to run them over like how a southern UNAS hillbilly runs over a deer with his aircar."

Neil paused for a second.

"Well, unless we can have them distracted first. Have their eyes busy on something else while the truck is driving towards them."

Helena listened to Gestran's transmission, eyes closed, frowning heavily.

So they have him. Which means any rescue will have to...

Helena paused mid thought, remembering that Vohk's radio had cut off. If he was still intact...

"Patrol One, this is Cobalt. If they have Vohk, then they might have his radio. Switch to the secondary channel."

She did so herself, looked over to Frosty.

"Scan the area. Maybe we'll have a better chance locating any other raiders than the others can by sight."

Leaving the pilot to do as ordered, she opened another line with TERF Command.

"TERF Command, this is Cobalt. We've identified Vohkaidin Knox, unconscious, but alive, and confined by the asari raiders. Requesting permission to engage for the purpose of rescue."

Awakening was sudden and brutal.

"Raaaaaagh! Fuck!"


The wet sensation in his ears was insignificant to the pain that tore through his synapses. For a moment, everything was white before clarity returned, the grey white snow contrasting with the blue...

He blinked rapidly, vision slowly clearing, before he could finally see who he was looking at. He could hear well enough, though the sensation of air being expelled out his ears was foreign and unpleasant. And he'd recognized his captors voice.

"You."

He snarled, black eyes narrowing at the hazy asari outline.

"Roger cobalt. Stand by."

There is a short pause of about a minute.

"Cobalt, this is Vice admiral Sandhov Mortensen, commander of the SSV Picasso and head of TERF command. As of this moment I'm making the retrival of Vohkaidin Knox ALIVE our current highest tactical priority, losing a base CO is not acceptable. We're giving you the full use of your arsenal as well as permission to use all means at your disposal, INCLUDING that ship and anything on it as bargaining chips. Just bring our boy home, is that clear?"

Trixina was not in a mood to deal with theatrics from the human, as she spoke, the text appeared on her omnitool in large clearly visible letters.

"Imma ask again, and I won't take no for a no this time around."

She presses a carnifex handgun to his face.

"Order your men to let us by this instant and I'll let ya go, or I'll blow yer brains out, It's that simple."

The barrel is now pressed so hard against vohks forehead, it's threatning to break skin.

"I've been listnin' to yer pals through the radio, ther's a lady out there that sounds particulerly tense . Now I ain't making no assumptions or nothin' but I got folks that I needs to take care of as well and I'd rather see we both went home in one piece today! DO YA GET IT YA FUCKIN' BASTARD!?"

Her voice slowly gets more and more trembling untill she screams out the last part, the tone of the words doesn't reach vohk but her desperate facial expression is telling enough.

Having switched to the secondary line, Gallik looked around at his companions.

"Going to advance to the hills over there, get a better view, possibly find our sniper."

He looked down, activating his OT and nodded to the Templars as his cloak activated, fading from view. He advanced at a cautious pace towards the higher ground, activating the thermal vision on his mask to get the jump on his sniper opponent.

It worked; the truck was moving, and somehow, it wasn't being targeted. Everett began to climb out of the ravine, hoping to rendezvous with it before it got noticed. Miraculously, it was sitting there intact once he finally reached its position at the edge. It seemed that the asari were focused solely on Vohk's truck, allowing Lupin's vehicle to slip out of view. This was one hell of a lucky break.

"Truck's here, I'm suiting up," Everett reported tersely as he opened the trunk and unlocked the armor and weapons cases. Training kicked in as the human slipped into his suit at an impressive speed. The chance of Vohk being executed increased with every passing second. After retrieving his equipment, the human raced to find concealment right below the top of a low hill. With a few taps on his omnitool, the armor tint changed from onyx to silver, allowing him to blend in with the snow more easily. Peeking over the top of the hill, Harrier rifle in hand, he spotted Vohk being cornered by Trixina and one of her goons. Everett cursed under his breath. There wasn't much he could do from here.

"Knox, I have a visual on you and the hostiles," The N7 whispered on a private channel, "But I can't get a shot..." He then switched the comm channel to contact the other members of his team.

"Does anyone have a good shot on the hostiles? They've got Knox cornered. We need them taken out now."