Disclaimer: I own nothing to do with Mass Effect. It all belongs to Biowere, for better or worse.
Before the battle on Vermire
The lights were dim in the crew mess hall when Shepard, Garrus and Kaiden burst in. All three men were filthy, bloodied and exhausted from an excruciatingly tedious battle with some Geth outposts. The crew leapt out of the way of the officers when they stormed through the mess hall. Even Joker was smart enough to stop his usual banter and let the three pass. Ignoring the glare from Doctor Chakwas, Shepard headed to his cabin to retrieve his personal stash of whiskey. Kaiden revealed a surprising amount of beer bottles from behind the damn flickering screen he was constantly around. Garrus meanwhile, motioned to everyone currently staring at the three to leave the area or lose their manhood's. The Doctor could not be shaken as easily and Garrus grunted in irritation and pain as she began treating his wounds.
Shepard and Kaiden reappeared to rescue him, telling the annoyed doctor to give them an hour before being thrown several packs of medigel to apply to themselves "so you won't lose your drinking arms," from the muttering doctor as she stormed off back to the med bay. The three soldiers went back to the hangar, applying the medigel during the long elevator ride.
"Damn, that mission was a bastard and a half," Shepard gasped out after slugging a shot of Hungarian Whiskey down his gullet. "Be fair Commander, the Geth had a hard time of it too," Kaiden said with a straight face. They both burst out laughing whilst Garrus bristled. The mission had been a disaster. The Geth had clocked them before they had landed and disabled the Mako with several EMP strikes and a hacking mod before pinning down the helpless Garrus stuck in the turret whilst Kaiden and Shepard desperately tried to erect barriers to stop the rockets from raining down on them. Garrus eventual gave up on trying to escape the turret and started lobbing the live rounds from the heavy gun into the Geth positions, which Shepard then Overloaded to cause massive casualties.
"Well, you two would have been screwed if I hadn't gotten those rounds out," Garrus pointed out, taking a stiff jot of Turian Sherry, which was three times stronger than human vodka. "And remember that cliff?" Both humans winced as they thought back.
The Geth had fought them as they worked up hill to get to their assigned scouting position. Garrus had moved on ahead and climbed a rocky plinth to get a better sniper position. It made all the difference and Kaiden and Shepard quickly got to the top of the cliff, right into the waiting group of Primes, Juggernauts and Colossus'. Both the humans screamed obscenities as they dove for cover. The heat of the Geth fire was melting their armour off in sheets before Garrus appeared out of nowhere, vaulting over one of the Primes and launching himself at a Colossus. Shepard quickly took down its shields but could do no more to help his friend. Garrus clung onto the neck of the robot tank and worked his way onto its back. The Geth units were confused and didn't seem to be able to fire so close to one of their own. All of them were turned towards the Turian however, so Shepard took the opportunity to scope out the base. "Joker, the Geth have only one defence cannon up. Fire at will!" he ordered into his helmet. The scream of the Normandy's engines suddenly tore at the cliff before the ship pulled out of its dive and blew the base to hell.
Shepard turned back towards the battle at hand. With the hubs destroyed, the Geth should be operating with less efficiency and intelligence, but the Prime was figuring out how to shoot Garrus and had landed several shots on the Turian. Shepard blasted the chest unit of the oversized Geth and was covered in the white goo that the Geth were seemingly full of. The prime turned around and clamped down on the Commander's shoulder, tearing through armour and flesh as Shepard was flung screaming into Kaiden who was rushing to help. The Prime had over exerted itself in its decaying condition and collapsed on the ground. Garrus shot the visual arrays off of the two remaining tanks and overloaded his own Colossus, which collapsed beneath him. Kaiden and Shepard destroyed the remaining two by flipping them over before blasting at the weaker exposed plates.
"Damn Garrus, how did you even know that jumping on the tank would work?" Kaiden asked in an awed tone. "Well, to be honest I thought we were screwed. I just wanted to go out riding a Geth Colossus…" Garrus said before descending into drunken chuckles. "We definitely need to work on Geth tactics," Shepard said, "Can't have our contribution to the field manual be: Jump on the Geth and pray they don't figure out how to shoot you." All three chuckled before Kaiden began coughing. "Alright guys, let's go get patched up. After all, we have five bases to go," Shepard rose, leaving the other two groaning and limped towards the infernally slow elevator.
Author's notes
This is my first Mass Effect Fanfic and a one shot. Please review and thank you for reading.