The Executor of the Heavens: Beginning with the Watch Dogs

The long corridor has no end in sight. It is wide enough for two small tractors to drive side by side, and there is even space on both sides for three people to walk side by side. There are also light blue indicator lights half-buried in the milky white bulkheads.

All this made the entire corridor seem very spacious, so spacious that Shepard even felt goose bumps, because now there were only seven people walking in such a wide corridor - she could even hear the sound of footsteps.

…but it seems that I can only hear my own footsteps.

"Today, this corridor was cleared to welcome us?" Miranda finally asked the question Shepard wanted to ask, "Why is there no one here?"

But Ashley's answer was even more surprising: "Except for certain times, basically no one passes through this aisle."

Ashley looked at Shepard and said, "It's not like you can't see that we are short of people."

"If there's a shortage of people, won't you arrange patrols?" This time it was Miranda who asked the question.

"Where there are people, there will be patrols to conduct regular inspections." Ashley didn't think about Miranda's answer, but looked directly at Shepard, "For places like where there are no life signals, we rely on VI monitoring, heat and motion signal detection, and even drones to prevent anything amiss."

"We really shouldn't have been dispatched with so few people." Miranda continued to comment, "Otherwise, if they were infiltrated, we wouldn't even know what happened."

At this Ashley paused and glared at Miranda, "I'm sorry, but we've experienced one-on-one confrontations with three or four Collector's cruisers, but now, they are all miniatures of our trophy room."

"That's good!" Shepard immediately interrupted the further conflict. "So, three or four colonists have been rescued, which is a great thing."

But now it was Ashley's turn to feel embarrassed: "Only one or two colonies were saved, Shepard, remember? We dealt with two Collector Cruisers together..."

"Yes, I remember now," Shepard realized it belatedly, but was still very happy. "This proves that our efforts are effective. From now on, the Collectors should be more cautious."

However, Shepard looked at the empty corridors around him and couldn't help but show a trace of worry: "Although we have been able to escape danger several times, there are not enough people to form a patrol team. Doesn't Yuan want to improve this situation?"

"In fact, it's already improving." Ashley sighed. "In just a few months, the number of sailors has dropped from more than 10,000 to less than 30,000. Such a rapid expansion is the process of solving the problem."

Shepard's eyes rolled and he immediately figured out the key point: "Did the Navy send some new recruits to the Restoration for training?"

Now is not a period of expansion, and the Star Alliance's military strength in various locations is fixed. It is impossible to draw elite troops to fill the number of crew members of the Restoration - even the quotas for two-year and one-year soldiers are basically fixed.

The only ones who could be mobilized were the new recruits who were still in training.

"Fortunately, the Reconqueror is big enough to accommodate people for training," Shepard appreciated the proposal, but also had doubts, "But the Reconqueror has to be on the front line, and we can't rely on them when a big battle occurs."

"So the main force of this operation will be Yuan and twenty Space Marines, plus you." Ashley half complained and half explained with a sour tone, "and our main force will strictly guard the Restoration and wait for possible ambush."

"Ah... so," Shepard was a little stumped, but also a little bit unbelievable, "You trust the Space Marines so much? And there are only two teams, aren't you afraid of suffering heavy losses and getting trapped?"

"Don't you know that Space Marines are very famous in the mercenary world?" Ashley was a little surprised. "I heard that Midnight and World Devouring each have only 10 companies, and Midnight and World Devouring each have arranged a company to be stationed on the Reconquista. But such a small organization has already occupied 40% of the security market in the Interstellar System - the three major mercenary groups are now even willing to follow these two groups to get benefits - because Space Marines are so good at fighting, a company can intervene in a large-scale planetary battle."

"I've heard of that." Shepard could not deny the power of the Space Marines. This new type of enhanced human soldier immediately attracted the attention of military experts from all sides after its birth.

In the current military war, fleet confrontation is the top priority, so the appearance of the Hōfu broke the ship treaty that had been commonplace for many years.

But the things that come in second place are a bit more complicated. Generally speaking, there are two types: super weapons with strategic effects and the latest individual army forces.

The former is used to amplify excess damage in war - for example, the Overlord hybrid artillery launched by the Turians, who are good at making weapons, 11 months after the Battle of the Citadel, triggered a craze for gun replacement as soon as it was launched.

And the Space Marines are the latest headline of the current Army's individual strength.

Before this, the mutant soldier technology promoted by Xie Yuan was also well-known - using clones as templates to mass-produce professional soldiers who were innately implanted with functional military knowledge.

The soldiers produced through this type of technical process look different from normal humans on Earth, but they have the advantages of low manufacturing costs, short manufacturing cycles, customizable products, and guaranteed loyalty to the boss through the input of genetic information.

Once it was launched, it was basically sold out in the lawless area like the Jieshen Galaxy, because even if both sides are mutant soldiers, they will not hesitate to fight against each other because of the loyalty marked in their genes.

However, there are two minuses for the promotion of mutant manufacturing technology: First, no matter how different these mutants are from humans, they are still human, and may not be liked by alien employers such as Turians, Salarians or Asari. So they are still trying to improve the technology of mutant clone soldiers for other races, but the progress is not too smooth - after all, this requires a lot of human experiments, who will take the initiative to provide biological data?
Second, the Star Alliance military does not like mutant technology. It is far from the time when native humans are tired of joining the army. The Star Alliance military is very afraid of K/B organizations like Cerberus obtaining this kind of rapid military technology, and has been keeping a close eye on the release of such products.

And now a new type of enhanced human technology has emerged. Although it was not released by Xie Yuan, it is also closely related to him: the Space Marine Astartes manufacturing technology.

The characteristic of Space Marines is the mass-produced super soldiers. These enhanced humans are a combination of germ cells and viral protein machines - in general terms, the gene seeds can develop into various organs after complex genetic engineering. By implanting these organs, a normal human can be directly transformed into a superhuman Astartes.

Based on the summary of information on Space Marines' actions that have been witnessed on the market, we have come to some conclusions about Space Marines:

First of all, Space Marines are extremely powerful, basically comparable to the Krogan, and they can use high-powered weapons with recoil far exceeding that of normal human Starfleet soldiers.

Secondly, their reaction ability is also very good, and their mobility is extremely strong. Even after wearing heavy armor, a team of only 10 people can intervene in a large-scale battle involving tens of thousands of people, and can complete the decapitation mission and leave safely when the enemy's firepower covers them.

Finally, it was discovered that Space Marines could survive in extremely harsh environments, eating poisonous food and surviving in a radiation environment with almost no air; they could stay awake for long periods of time and were not affected by zero gravity; even if they were injured in battle, their wounds would stop bleeding in a very short time and they would quickly recover their combat capabilities...

If there were another hundred thousand of these Space Marines, they might be able to replace 30% of the existing elite N series of the Star Alliance Marines - coincidentally, the name Space Marine just represents the Space Marines.

Of course, this kind of elite enhanced human soldier is not without problems - the production cost is too high. Even with the full support of the Star Alliance military and the Pan-Asia branch, it can only complete the number of two regiment-level establishments - the bulk of the cost is on maintenance costs.

There is another strange thing. The Space Marines don't seem to have biological mutants. If mutants are needed to intervene, they will need to be recruited from the Qingyang Mercenary Group - it seems that the parent company only has this function.

But no matter what, the emergence of Space Marines Astartes completely crushed the cost-effectiveness of humans, Turians, Batarian mercenary elites and Krogan battle masters. Only Asari Commandos, Salarian Agents and Engineers, and Quarian Engineers have a higher cost-effectiveness than Space Marines.

Fortunately for the above-mentioned types of mercenary elites and Krogan battle masters, the number of Space Marines is too small. Although a large number of people can bring in a lot of business, compared with the market share of the entire high-end mercenary market, there is still a lot of room for improvement.

It’s not that no one has challenged the Astartes, but the final result is always that the Astartes return to the shuttle with a lot of spoils, while only a pile of skinned mercenary corpses are left at the scene...sometimes even skinned corpses...or body fragments are left.

With such a strong deterrent force, naturally no mercenary group dares to seize the business of the two major war groups. However, there have been cases of Space Marine bodies going missing - reverse research has always been the idea of ​​all major forces regarding this type of technology.

Perhaps one day, human Space Marines who are superior to the Astartes, or Space Marines of other races, will appear.

But now, they are this version of the aces. After getting the approximate scope of this mission, Shepard didn't talk too much, but talked with Ashley about the recent operations of the Reclaimer.

If Shepard was not an active ghost, Ashley would have to keep Xie Yuan's actions as a ghost completely secret, but after all, Shepard is also a ghost.

Moreover, these operations were summarized in the parliament, so they were not considered particularly confidential missions - after all, they were all rescue + one-on-one combat with the Collector Cruiser.

Shepard listened very carefully to Ashley's limited account of the recent mission, but she mainly focused on the combat experience of the Collector warship - how to confront, counter-infiltrate, board, and seize control.

The several battles between the Restoration and the Collector's warships seemed mediocre, but the Collector's tactics were indeed very tricky.

Electronic warfare was already being carried out at the dreadnought's combat distance. When it was at the cruiser's combat distance, the relatively flexible Collector Cruiser would change lanes multiple times to avoid the destructive firepower of the Restoration, while aiming its main axial guns at the structural weaknesses of the Restoration as much as possible.

Basically, it is difficult for the Collector Cruiser to avoid the destructive firepower of the Restoration, but the difficulty is that the Restoration cannot directly destroy a Collector Cruiser - because within the cruiser's combat range, you cannot use radar scanning to know whether there are any life signals of the colonial refugees who are under control.

So at this time, we need to get closer and reach the combat range of the destroyer or frigate, so that we can learn the internal situation of the Collector warship through detailed radar scanning.

In theory, a huge super-dreadnought like the HMS Rebirth should be equipped with an entire fleet: there should be a cruiser on the top, bottom, left and right sides as much as possible, an aircraft carrier and a large number of transport ships at the rear, and a large number of frigates and destroyers on the outermost and front sides as scouts and wolf packs cruising around the entire fleet.

But just like why the Turian Ghost Agent Saren did not try to configure an entire fleet after obtaining the Overlord-class Reaper battleship, the human Ghost Agent Xie Yuan was not qualified to obtain such a large supporting fleet.

Because when you have such a fleet, there is a question that you have to ask: Whose surname does such a huge fleet belong to?

Let’s not even talk about whose surname to take, because there is also the question of who will provide so many ships?
Even if the Turians supported Saren, they would not send so many ships and then assign these ships to the Citadel Combined Fleet - the Citadel Council can become bigger, but not too big, especially when it will affect the survival of a council race.

The same logic applies to Xie Yuan.

So Saren's Overlord Reaper battleship had to personally take action to squeeze the ship into Eden Prime - but wasn't this also because there was only this one ship and there was really no other ship available?
The same goes for Xie Yuan's Restoration. In order to obtain more details about the Collector's battleship, Xie Yuan must move the ship closer to the Collector's battleship.

This just happens to trigger one of the Collector warship's countermeasures: swarm infiltration.

The so-called swarm infiltration is that the Collector warship releases a large number of drones and shuttles, using drones to withstand the attack of the close defense system to prompt the Collector infiltration troops to enter the outer bulkhead of the enemy ship, and then make holes in the bulkhead and rush in.

Once the Collectors' infiltration troops have gained a foothold, the fun will begin - the biochemical swarm, which is the Collectors' tried-and-tested foreplay every time they kidnap colonists. They use electromagnetic pulses and micro-electric shocks to cause the victim to enter a state of zombie state. The swarm will then directly bind the entire victim with a holographic biochemical membrane, and the Collectors can then pack people up and take them away one by one.

"How do you fight against the Collector's swarm?" Shepard was really interested now, and Old Modin was staring at Ashley with his big, embarrassed eyes.

Xie Yuan has no special means to deal with biological swarms. During their several rescue operations, the large force was "wrapped" in a supernatural protective shield and then fired at the collectors.

Fortunately, the holographic biochemical membrane has a certain degree of energy resistance, otherwise accidental injuries would be very terrifying.

But now it’s a fleet close combat, how to defend?

But Ashley's answer was also quite simple: "We have our geographical advantage. It seems that any passage on the Restoration can be transformed into a simple high-intensity arc trap area."

"Hmm...interesting." Mordin touched his mouth with his slender fingers. "Use the arc area to shock the bee colony and cause it to shut down. But you probably won't be able to use drones or any hacking methods."

"So only guns, grenades and superpowers can be effective." Ashley did not deny Modin's speculation.

"It's going to be a tough battle." Shepard said seriously.

"But we finally defeated them." Ashley still looked a little lonely, but she still showed a proud smile.

"Good job!" Shepard affirmed, but was not stingy with his help. "Professor Modin has done some research on bee colonies. I think I can take the initiative to share it. What do you think, Professor?"

"Not a problem." Old Modin didn't care.

"Thank you." Ashley thanked him sincerely, and Shepard waved his hand to indicate that it was okay.

The group walked along like this and finally arrived at the door of the conference room. The automatic door sensed the person coming in, scanned him and opened directly.

As soon as the door opened, I saw Xie Yuan, wearing a Marine Corps training uniform, sitting at the head seat at the conference table, while Kaiden, Nirus, Pallas and Vasseur were sitting on one side. I guess the other side was their seat.

"Shepard, it's been a while." Xie Yuan stood up, walked over and stretched out his hand to Shepard, "How have you been lately?"

"Very good, and I'm glad to see that you're okay." Shepard also happily held Xie Yuan's hand, subconsciously exerting force, "It's such a coincidence that we can work together again."

But Xie Yuan didn't care about it, because he couldn't use force, otherwise Shepard's hand would be useless for a while: "You should probably blame the Illusive Man. He must have done something to piss off the Shadow Broker, so he set a trap and lured us here."

Miranda was upset when she heard that: "We are working diligently to stop the Collector. When will we have the time to provoke him?! I think the Shadow Broker must be blaming you for something else. You have fallen into the trap!"

"Whether it's a conspiracy or not, the wreckage of the Reaper battleship should belong to the Citadel Council," said Nilus, the Second Lord, "So in this matter, you only have the obligation to assist, otherwise you should leave as soon as possible."

"We need the IFF device from the abandoned battleship," Shepard reiterated righteously, "In order to enter the Omega 4 Relay Station and find out what's going on, this is a necessary access device."

"Is this all you need?" Xie Yuan asked emphatically.

"Commander..." Nirus immediately looked at Xie Yuan and emphasized his tone.
"If we just need the IFF device, we can contact the four councillors directly about this thing and come to a consensus." Xie Yuan looked at his crew chief and said soothingly, "The collectors must be cleared out. There is no such thing as a thief who steals for a thousand days."

"But..." Xie Yuan then looked at Shepard, especially Miranda, "Other than that, basically everything on this ship should be handled as official business, is that ok?"

"No problem." Shepard immediately stopped Miranda who wanted to speak and agreed.

"Okay." Seeing Shepard's decisive agreement, Xie Yuan also made the decision readily.

Then he stood up and lit up the holographic projection of the Reaper's remains in the middle of the table, and then looked at everyone: "Before coming, I believe Ashley also told you the information of the personnel we can dispatch this time. Now let's plan the route." (End of this chapter)