Lost Soul

SGT Anthony Mercer groaned as he came to in the cockpit of the USM Cossack, he'd stolen the corvette with the help of a fellow survivor, Ellie Langford, in exchange for an IFF for an armed gunship.
The two had made it to the Slipways before the hoard caught up; luckily the automated defences had held them off long enough to get away. The gunship had left after the corvette had cleared the slipway, the corvette had made ready to shock out to Exodus Station, the fleet base for the Second Fleet, but the Titan Station director had other ideas.

Hans Tiedemann had fired a low yield nuke, the launcher being the last surviving external defence thanks to the Cossack's prow guns, the missile had impacted as the ship shocked away disrupting the jump. The Corvette had come out at Exodus station's co-ordinates but the station, and the fleet it served, was not there.

Instead there was a small farming colony with a small spaceport, and several small ships that appeared to be an invasion force. A few shots had been fired as the larger warship passed but nothing had pierced the Gravity shields. Unfortunately Mercer hadn't had time to adjust the ship's course and had crashed into the colony, just outside the spaceport. Mercer had passed out before impact due to the overload of information sent through his RIG, which wasn't designed or gauged to run a ship with.

He slowly reached up and put a hand to the cerebral implant on his RIG, he jerked it back instantly; even through the vacuum rated suit he could feel it was hot. He blinked twice to clear his vision, noting his shattered faceplate, 'I need to replace that' he thought numbly as he struggled to get up.

He stumbled as loose debris shifted under his weight, holding his rifle and shattered helmet he made his way to the corridor out of the main bridge and headed for the nearest quartermaster kiosk (like the store on the USM Valor in DS 1), he put on his damaged helmet, making a mental note to never try head butting mutated corpses again, and entered the kiosk after requesting a replacement helmet and presenting the required credits. Instead of the single piece faceplate he was originally issued a collapsible segmented helmet that provided better physical protection but reduced visibility slightly.

As he inspected the new helmet, a warning lit up on his RIG; one of the exterior hatches was being hacked, the VI was keeping them out but it was a matter of time before they tried just cutting or blasting the door open.
He checked his leg holster for his plasma pistol to find it there before checking his equipment buffer; this was a type of digital storage system that turned items or weapons into digital code and stored them electronically and 'downloaded' the equipment to materialise it in the RIG users hands when necessary.
He had his pulse rifle, seeker sniper rifle, a C-99 super collider contact beam and a 211-v Plasma cutter and a large ammunition supply for all five weapons.

He made his way to the gangway the hatch led into, bringing up an image of the invaders on an external camera as he did; there were several beings that looked synthetic in nature, one turned to the camera and showed a large camera lens lit by a flashlight in place of a face, they had two toed feet, backward curved shin and two fingered hands.
The was also another being standing much further back just watching, it looked like it's skin was made of armoured plates, with long thin spines on its head like an avian crest, two fingered hands as well but these seemed type by claws and mandibles that flanked the jaw.

The former were clustered around the airlock and one seemed to be trying to hack the door mechanism but wasn't having much success.

Mercer reached the gangway and deployed a pair of gravity shield barricades from the walls halfway along the gangway; he drew his pulse rifle and crouched behind one of the barricades to wait. He watched the security feeds as he waited, noting the synthetics switched from hacking to preparing explosives when the second being became inpatient. He closed the security feeds and disconnected his RIG from the ships systems before readying himself for the blast.

He ducked down as the blast fragmented the door and waited until he heard footsteps on the deck plating before spinning around.

There were four grey man-sized platforms holding a strange curved, rifle he presumed, entering the hull. He stood up and aimed his pulse rifle.

The geth appeared to be surprised by the appearance of a defender and seemed to make a double take at the holographic targeting reticule projected by the rifle, and were unprepared for the stream of hypersonic ammunition fired at them, completely over loading their kinetic barriers and virtually liquefying any of the soft synthetic tissue that was exposed.

The first two were standing in line with each other and were cut down together as the pulse rounds punched through the first and into the second.

The third stood to one side and was able to raise its weapon and fire three shots at the defender before it was cut down.

The fourth fired from the hip as it tried to retreat but was knocked forward by reinforcements entering the hull and destroyed by a dozen pulse rounds tearing into the CPU in its chest.

There were a dozen reinforcements of the same type of platform and a white variation that put up hexagonal energy shields to protect them as they returned fire.

Mercer swore, hoping the shields weren't too effective he loaded a fresh clip and fired again as the synthetics huddled behind the barriers, turning their heads to each other and making an electronic stuttering sound.

A three round burst was enough to overload and drop either shield.

The two white synthetics that had placed the shields turned to Mercer as he fired, then looked down at the now failed shields, they then looked back to each other and then Mercer as if to say, 'Oh Crap!'

Mercer grinned behind his visor as the synthetics went to fall back but were stopped by a ten foot grey synthetic with yellow markings. He fired a grenade from his rifle's launcher and destroyed seven, dismembered two and sent two more into a bulkhead. The larger synthetic stooped to enter the hall and advanced but was met and cut down by a shot from Mercer's seeker rifle through its flashlight, followed by its two surviving compatriots.

Mercer waited for more to come but none did, he peeked over his cover as he reloaded and found the hall empty except for synthetic dead.

Suspicious and unwilling to reconnect his RIG as it was still hot, he slowly got up from behind his barrier and walked forward to the hatch. He took cover against the frame and leaned out.

There was a second avian being with darker plates and white face paint, talking to the first who put his hand reassuringly one the second's shoulder before stepping behind him. The second said something Mercer couldn't understand and looked between the corvette and what looked like a mag-lev line 200 yards in front of the corvette.

The first said something and drew a large pistol, aiming at the second's head.

Mercer made a decision that would forever change his life; he raised his rifle, aimed and fired at the first alien.

Nihlus was looking between the crashed alien ship and the train line to the spaceport when two shots rang out, followed by a bullet tearing into his shoulder. He twisted as he fell, he saw his mentor Saren's pistol shattered on the ground, Saren clutching his remaining organic hand which was now missing an index finger and he saw the look of anger and hatred twisting Saren's face just before a third shot rang out and sent Saren diving for cover.

Two more shots were fired as Saren ran for the train platform; somehow dodging the high powered rounds that Nihlus believed would punch straight through a fully armoured Krogan, before jumping onto one of the two cargo mag-lev trains.

Nihlus looked back as heavy boots impacted the metal close to him, there was a figure in a green and white suit with blue armour plating and wearing a strange helmet that had two glowing slits on its face, the figure raised a large rifle and fired twice more but Saren's train departed with one shot going wide and the other impacting a crate.

Nihlus heard the figure swear loudly in English it reloaded its rifle and turned to head back to the ship but noticed him on the ground.

"Are you alright? How bad is it?" the figure, clearly human, asked.
"It's not too serious, some medi-gel should take care of it," Nihlus replied knowing he'd been hit worse before.
The figure shook his head, "I'm sorry, I don't understand you,"
Nihlus frowned; everyone had a basic translator on their omni-tools, so unless this man didn't have one he should understand. He activated his omni-tool, which made the man jump away and raise his rifle, and set the translator to broadcast his voice in English.
"I said the wound isn't too serious and a dose of medi-gel should be sufficient until I can return to the Normandy," Nihlus repeated, relaxing slightly as the figure lowered his rifle.
"The bio-gel I have is meant for humans, I don't know of its safe to use on you," the figure replied as a small canister seemed to materialise from nowhere into his left hand, which he'd taken off his rifle.
Nihlus frowned again, this human had clearly never met an alien before which was hard to imagine given the Alliance's recent history but his confusion, lack of omni-tool, apparent unfamiliarity with the more prominent council species and lack of translator pointed to the possibility of this human having grown up outside council or even known human space.
"If it's designed for humans it will do little for me our species have very different biology's, your caution is prudent. However I have a pack of a universal medi-gel that can used for several species on me, I just can't apply it," Nihlus said, pulling out the small pack and holding it out to the human. He stood up and presented the wound to the human as the human took the pack and inspected it, the canister he held disappearing like it appeared. He flinched as the human clumsily applied the gel but it worked adequately.
"Thank you, Nihlus Kyrik council Spectre," he said, introducing himself as he turned to face the human.
"SGT Anthony Mercer, Titan Station Security and acting Captain of the USM Cossack," the human replied, his helmet folding away into an armoured collar to show a human male with dark red hair, so dark to be almost dark brown, a handsome face and sapphire blue eyes.

Nihlus was about to speak when a shout caught his attention and made Mercer raise and aim his rifle.

"Nihlus"

There stood the human soldier he'd been sent to evaluate Commander John Shephard, his lieutenant Kaidan Alenko and a third female soldier instead of Jenkins.

The three of them were aiming at SGT Mercer and Mercer was aiming squarely between Shephard's eyes.

One false move…