Chapter One: A Prime Target

My name is Roland Morgan, and that day I hadn't started out with the foggiest notion that I would spend a good portion of the day fighting for survival or any of the day hunched behind some crates with scraps of tech I'd managed to scrape up from a nearby depot and bodies of the geth drones. The geth themselves were too complex to scavenge quickly, but their hovering drones were crude things with just targeting and firing systems, hover jets, and the standard networking. The fragility of the things also meant the geth didn't normally bother with much of the safeguards I'd run into trying to loot the other troops. The simple fact of the matter was I hadn't bothered to grab any omni-gel or tech grenades from my office, so I was stuck with just weapons. Life was so peaceful in general on Eden Prime that I hadn't thought I'd need anything advanced. I was lucky I'd even decided to pick up my sniper rifle.

First thing first, I turned down the power on the small cutting laser I'd found in the tool building. It was useless as a weapon; normally only used for opening things when speed was more important than leaving the thing intact. I could use it for other things though. I'd already taken out a couple of geth squads after ambushing them with falling debris, and I was about to follow it up by turning the laser into a melter and shaping another tool into something more deadly. The straight end of a crowbar was soon a crude blade that would be good enough to slice circuits. I made sure to leave enough grip to maintain use of the hooked end. The irony of using the cutter to make its less damaging counterpart into a lethal weapon was lost on me in the moment, but would dawn on me in a quiet moment later.

Next up, I used it to cut the useless bits of the drones away from the parts I could use for making the tech I lacked. Next was turing the power of the laser down even further and fiddling with it a bit to focus the beam so I could use it for soldering wires. The sound of the geth's mechanical chirping, the flicker of their headlights on nearby metal, and the clanking of their robotic feet on the metal flooring nearby all told me there were hostiles coming near. I'd made the right choice in stashing the scraps quickly. I'd lost some salvage earlier by making the mistake of not staying mobile and not knowing about the geth's collective consciousness, so I wasn't going to make it again.

I silently picked up my new blade and waited. I lurked in my hiding place until I could count their number. Three foot soldiers with assault rifles. Standard fare that worked to my favor. Most geth didn't seem that good at close range fighting, and their weapon made it worse. Regardless of what a rookie soldier might say a veteran knows the truth. A rifle limits your close range options so much that if you are against a seasoned hand-to-hand specialist you are better off dropping your gun. Rifles are worse than useless that close. Not that it would end up mattering in the battle at hand.

I waited for the right moment, then rushed the few steps between me and the nearest geth, sundering the wire at the base of its skull that I'd found out earlier was a kill point. Shields don't stop anything going at less than sonic speed, and while the wire wasn't cut clean through, it didn't need to be. Just a break in the circuit would take such a thing out. Thing is, the shields of geth run on a different circuit, so they were still up even though the geth was paralyzed. It helped a lot when I used the body as a shield, grabbed the thing's rifle in one hand, and used the weapon to take out the furthest of the three from me. The third one rolled to cover, but that was dealt with by throwing the corpse shield over the cover and into the thing when it popped up to shoot. Such a move pinned it long enough for me to run up and shoot it in the head.

Killing the small squad wasn't good enough though. They had a hive mind. Every single geth on the planet had discovered me when they did. I had to move. The shields in my vasic armor weren't strong enough for sustained firefights, so I couldn't afford to risk direct confrontation. Running along, I glanced up at the huge bug-like ship towering over the colony. That thing... whatever it was, was clearly out of our leagues. It took only a moment of thought to reach that conclusion. It being a ship aside, it was clearly not of geth make. It didn't match up with the aesthetics of their tech and machines are nothing if not consistent with everything they assemble. No machine would make their ships look that different from their other stuff. Whoever owned that ship was no geth, but advanced enough to get control of them.

Thinking back on how mundane the start of the day had been and how I'd thought I would be spending the evening I had to wonder... Where the hell was the Normandy?

A few hours earlier...

I sighed, looking up for the datapad in my hands and away from the police report displayed on it. The new targets of my gaze were a stern female soldier, one of the men in her squad, and a local worker that had been in my office more often than more than once in the past. While the colony on Eden Prime was a quiet place most of the time, its place on the edge of the Terminus Systems made it draw more bad blood than the typical Earth colony. Unsavory types drifted in to find a hiding place from the sins of their pasts or honest work, often both. Until recently it had not been a problem really, we had them well under control, but with Alliance Military's arrival the Terminus outcasts were on edge. I only had the details of the Alliance mission because I was head of the usual security force for the place and the brass had the sense to cooperate with local law enforcement rather than shove it aside.

I shifted my attention specifically to the dock worker, a shifty fellow named Tyson Moore that I'd managed to link to previous gang activities on Omega. He was a former Blue Sun mercenary, but not one of the combat-geared ones. He had killed a few people back then, but his job had mostly been smuggling. I only let the man roam free because he was predictable and easy to regulate. Making the local thugs get behind him and think he was good at what he did, while actually being in complete control of his actions, was far preferable to a better criminal moving in. That, and Tyson wasn't the type to inspire complete loyalty. Too shifty. It was easy to set things up so that his gang would implode if I wanted to.

The circumstances of his most recent visit could throw a wrench in things though. He'd grown a little big for his britches after making shady connections with an Alliance soldier that used to be in a gang. That problem aside, it had given Tyson the guts to act like the Alliance couldn't touch him.

"First of all. Tyson, you can't go around picking fights with soldiers and expect them to not fight back... and win."

The man, of course, had the predictable reaction to my comment and spouted the typical thug smack talk not worth remembering.

I ignored it, turned to the gunnery chief, and motioned at her subordinate, "Chief Williams, I trust you've reprimanded the private on proper conduct and he won't be swinging first in the future?"

The woman nodded, respecting my authority even though she technically had more than me, "My CO handled it far better than I could have, Chief. Commander Wilks wants him in the brig overnight as a lesson."

"I would have put him in there either way." I looked back to Tyson, "Hope you like his company. I'm putting you in the very next cell; and if you don't play nice you'll be in there a lot longer than Private Walker."

"You can't do this to me. Do you realize who I am?"

I gestured to my computer, "I wonder. Should I look around on the network for crimes done in other sectors?" The man tensed, "If you're a big shot there's probably a lot of people that could tell me a lot about you. I bet you've got old friends back home that miss you."

"I'll play ball."

I smiled, "That's good of you. Now I'll let the four officers that brought you in help you settle in while I get the paperwork out of the way." One motion called the officers forward, "Gentlemen."

A few button presses filed the police report along with the resulting punishment before the two were even out of the room and I looked up to see Chief Williams' neutral expression. It was still obvious despite the professional demeanor that she wasn't satisfied, "Good. That's that. I'm surprised you can't hit Moore with a stiffer penalty though. Word has it he's got a rap sheet and is head of a gang."

I delayed my reply long enough for Tyson to be out of the room and thus out of earshot, "I can. I just don't. He's more of an asset than a liability. As long as the local punks think he's a good leader and hot stuff while he actually isn't, someone less predictable won't take over."

The soldier was understandably surprised, "You mean you're letting him do what he wants because he's easy to deal with?"

"Exactly." I explained, "It's a principal applied in a few small to medium colonies. I believe it's called 'escalation control' or something like that. If you fight crime too hard, crime gets harder to fight. It's better to control the battle. It's not practical for larger populations though."

Williams studied me carefully, "Talking to you right now, I get the feeling the rumor is true."

I casually went back to some paperwork, but continued talking, "The one about me being former N7? That's not true. If you mean the less common one about me being plain ex-military, that's only partly true."

"That's the one, but what do you mean 'partly true'?"

"I was only briefly in the Intelligence Department, barely more than a recruit. After leaving I worked with C-Sec for a while as a detective."

"How'd you end up on a backwater colony like Eden Prime?"

I smirked, "Let's just say I pissed off my boss."

"Ah. I get the feeling there's a story there."

"Yeah, there is; but hey, at least I used dextro-friendly pudding."

She raised an eyebrow at that, "Pudding?"

"Long story." I paused, "Wait... not really. Medium length actually."

"Maybe you could tell me later. I get off duty in a few hours and for a colony in the middle of nowhere the bar is pretty well stocked."

I glanced at her. Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams was probably pretty good looking, but was a tom-boy to the core that paid no mind to her appearance. She was one of many women in the military making damn sure the men in her squad not only took her seriously, but didn't get any unwelcome ideas. I didn't bother to take in her mundane appearance much, since neither of us were interested in romantic endeavors. Her invite was very clearly just for friendly drinks.

"Sounds good. Been a while sense I stepped out." I offered a handshake, "We haven't officially met, the name's Roland Morgan."

"Ashley Williams." she grabbed my hand in a lightly armored grip and shook it, "Mind if I just call you Chief? Being in the military gives out weird habits."

"Fine by me." I replied, then turned back to my work, "If you'll excuse me I have to coordinate the shift in security caused by your people moving to secure the dig site for the Normandy pick-up."

She nodded, "Yeah, my squad's running point on that. Sorry for the trouble."

"No problem. We were doing the job just fine by ourselves before you moved in, so slipping back into it is easy."

"I'll leave you to it." she bid farewell and I returned the sentiment with a cursory nod.

Left to my own devices, I sync the computer to my omni-tool and got ready to do the rounds. The process started with sending the new duty rosters out to the officers on duty and off, and then running checks to make sure my link to the server and communications wasn't going to crap out on me. Next, of course, was checking my gear and suiting up. Policing the 'backwater colony' didn't usually entail a lot of combat, but strapping on a suit of light armor with a shield generator was just common sense. The same principal applied to the standard issue pistol I did the next system check on and strapped to my belt. Mind you it was C-Sec standard issue and not Alliance, a hold-over from my days on the Citadel. I actually preferred the higher stopping power despite the slower rate of fire. In police work, putting the target down right away was preferable to putting tons of holes in it.

As I was clipping my gun to its place on my belt, the other weapon from my C-Sec days caught my eye. A standard-issue Mantis sniper rifle, highly tuned and tweaked by my former partner. I hadn't fired it in a while, not since getting stationed on Eden Prime. After all, C-Sec might need snipers to defuse nasty situations sometimes, but such a thing never happened at my new post. However, given the fact there was going to be a ship coming in and picking up something important from the dig site, I figured it would be prudent to have it on hand and not need it rather than need it and not have it. Not like it took up a lot of space. Even though it was nearly five feet long, the rifle collapsed to a size that could be carried on your belt if you didn't mind the weight of it or the issues with drawing it from there.

But I digress. Gearing up didn't take that long even with my casual pace, so I was out of the door pretty quickly. I passed by a few officers coming in to start their shifts and greeted them, but didn't stop to talk.

I was only a handful of streets through my patrol when I noticed something weird. A lack of the normal sounds the communications systems in my armor and omni-tool made even with the channel not open wide. I opened it and there was a bizarre feedback, not static... more like a transmission... like something in the back of my head whispering at the rest of it. The noise felt sort of welcoming in a completely terrifying kind of way.

I shut the channel completely of course, but for some reason it didn't help much. My instincts pulled my attention down the street more so than my actual, distracted senses in time to see a scout drone that wasn't Alliance make. I was head consultant for security in the colony and had been the full head of it before then. If that drone was ours, I would have seen it. Something in the way it moved in reaction to spotting me provided even more evidence, as did the whir of its weapon systems priming.

I know you're probably doubting me on that. Most people tell me that automated weapon systems don't make noise when they get ready to fire, but I could always hear it. That talent saved my hide right then. I darted to the side and let loose three bullets from my pistol in the same fluid motion as drawing it. Two more hit and ended the thing before I reached cover. The memory of my instructor from the academy echoed in my head, driving back the weird signal.

"Don't use your gun unless you've got no other choice but to kill something with it. If you have to kill something, put it down hard and fast. It's not being heartless, it's being more merciful than the scum that's trying to leave you to a slow death."

Another two drones came around the same corner and opened fire. I cursed not bringing supplies for tech grenades, but made due with what I had. I put all thought aside from the fight aside and went into a kind of zone, popping out in a lull in the oncoming fire and sent an pinpoint burst of fire straight into one drone and then the other, my marksmanship training paying dividends towards the temporary victory. Even a grunt would know it wasn't the end, even before the descent of a giant insectoid ship that nearly grasped the space port in its insidious legs. Even before a squad of machine-men approached from another route, probably from an alternate drop point.

"That ain't the Normandy... and those aren't marines." I stated the obvious to nobody in particular.

I knew I had to protect the colony, and that I should hit that enemy squad. I also knew my chances. There were seven of them. The most I could hope to bring down before they got to me was two or three, and then they had far too much firepower for me to handle alone. I had to get to the others, maybe get to an Alliance squad and coordinate with them. The problem was in the setting. I, and by extension that enemy squad, was in a residential area. While I pondered my course of action they had already started towards one of the houses.

I had a job to do. Part one was using the link I had to the security tower to remotely lock the doors on the street. Which got off to a great start when I tried and found the strange signal was jamming that too. There wasn't going to be an easy solution. I would have to get stupid. Part one of that was kneeling down and aiming carefully for the glowing head of one of the invaders, the one opening that door. That one went a lot better, and my success drew the attention of the other six that didn't like the part right after where their squadmate's head exploded. Grabbing the drones for salvage, I didn't take a second shot, instead ducking into a nearby alley between buildings and fleeing from the resulting pursuit. I switched to my pistol for quicker fire and started out on my own little guerrilla war.

End of flashback

There was little time to keep reflecting on the day, the geth were everywhere and there was a security tower to unjam. If I could get it operational then locking the invaders out of the houses and other buildings was the first but least game-changing part of it. The security tower was also an alternate communications hub, with it back online we could call for help. Of course it wasn't going to be a simple matter of walking up to it and pressing some buttons. Like I said, the geth were everywhere. I'd have to either take the time to find help or get creative and that wasn't a hard choice. Time wasn't the most abundant resource on hand.

The next step upon reaching a secure position again was rewiring my basic omni-tool. It was just standard issue fair, barely capable of anything. I had to overclock it, tweak some things, remove factory locks that I still don't think make any sense. I had to take a 'middle of nowhere security force' model to the caliber held by the police force of the Citadel itself. I needed the full suite of elite policing tools at the minimum to get this thing done. A test of turning the scrap parts into omni-gel confirmed the modifications were a success, at least to a small degree. Running the familiar coding that commanded the tool to make Sabotage and Overload charges proved the rest worked. As long as I could salvage some more or made every one count, I had enough to attempt a sneak attack.

A ray of hope came over a static-riddled line, "This is Commander Jason Wilks of the Alliance. Is there anyone out there? Hello?"

I linked to the transmission and replied, "You should maintain radio silence as much as possible, Commander, the geth have control of our communications network. I'm trying to fix that problem."

"Explains why we can't raise the Normandy. What's your rank soldier?"

"I'm not military, Commander. This is Chief Roland Morgan of Alliance Colonial Security."

The sound of gunfire and grenades nearly drowned his next words out, "Good man either way. There's so many dead right now I'm not about to turn aside help. I'm sorry to say my unit can't assist, we're too far away and we have our own priorities."

"I know. You should get going. I've got this." Of course he was talking about the dig site without giving that info over a compromised channel. I wasn't at all surprised. After all, what else would the geth want on Eden Prime aside from whatever the scientists had dug up?

"Get communications back up and we'll call the Normandy for support. If you fail, we're all pretty much dead. It's all you, Chief Morgan."

"Aye, sir. I'll maintain radio silence until transmission is clear and safe."

"Good luck and god's speed."

"Same to you, Commander." I cut the line and pulled up a local map on my omni-tool, planning my approach carefully.

At the time, I had no idea it would be the last time I talked to Wilks. Nor did I realize the extent of what was to come. The invasion of Eden Prime was only the beginning, and the infiltration of my my own precinct was only the next of many fights I would have with the geth. Worse was the fact that far more dangerous enemies lay in my future.

Next Chapter: Changing the Game