Introduction: This is a collaborative story with Zach to showcase a slightly AU Mass Effect world in which the colonies banded together to form an organized militia force, the United Colonies Armed Forces (UCAF) to confront regional threats. They are organized along space, air, and land forces and are not bound to the Alliance although most of their personnel are former Alliance.
United Colonies Armed Forces
Eden Prime – Time Stamp 0511:48 Local
We knew this was coming. We tried to tell them. We tried to warn the damn politicians, but they wouldn't listen. It was always about the next election for them. More committees, more bureaucracy, more forms to fill out with nothing actually done. That's why I resigned. That's why I'm here now.
The shields on the Skyhawk-Class Assault Transport crackled again, peppered by long-range fire from the unidentified attackers. A salvo of ANVIL-II air to surface missiles launched from underwing pods in retaliation, hot orange rocket streaks pluming behind them as they flew into a mass of enemy troops.
"What's the intel?" Colonel Edward Forest asked through the mike. "Who are these assholes?"
"We got nothing, sir!" the pilot said as she banked the transport hard to starboard, throwing the troops against a bulkhead. "They're synthetics, that about all I got."
Forrest steadied himself back into a crouch near the egress hatch, gripping a strap on the bulkhead with a gauntleted fist. "It was just a matter of time before something bigger than pirates hit us."
"Roger that, sir. We tried to tell them."
He grimaced, his lips forming a sardonic smile between dark stubble on his face. "You got that right, Captain. Anything from the Alliance force near the dig site? We're going to need to link up and fight together if we want to survive this thing."
The pilot looked back, a look of mock perplexity on her brow under a colorful crash helmet. "I thought you didn't like the Alliance?"
"I reserve that opinion for Parliament and the politicians. The troops … I respect the troops," Forrest said as he looked down at his Omni-tool and punched in a code. An image of a woman appeared, auburn hair framing a smiling face with sparkling eyes. "Besides, I think we're going to need all the help we can get today. We may be the UCAF, but we're not invincible." He quickly switched the image to that of the tactical situation on the ground, which looked like absolute chaos, red triangles overwhelming blue circles on the display. "Sam, I need you to put us down, right here!" he shouted over the roar of exploding shells and the whine of the maneuvering thrusters.
"Roger that, Colonel. It'll be a hot drop. Thirty seconds!"
The transport dipped into a rapid descent, forcing Forrest's stomach nearly up into his throat. That was a sensation he never quite got use to. He swallowed down the taste of bile and turned to the platoon in the aft compartment. "Thirty seconds, people! Get the Scorpion ready for drop," he said, pointing to the main battle tank on a pallet. The cabin went dark except for flashing red lights overhead, casting a hellish glow on the troops. Forrest slapped the shoulder plate of his XO's armor. "You ready, Mickey?"
Gunnery Sergeant Michael "Mickey" Crespo grinned beneath the clear faceplate of his crimson and black helmet, the stubble of a beard outlining his face. "Born ready sir. We're fighting for our homes unlike the Alliance. We're United Colonial Armed Forces!" he shouted, holding up his assault rifle to the squad to whip them up.
"UCAF!" the team sang out with élan.
"Ten seconds!" Sam bellowed out from the cockpit.
Forrest stood up, his black and gray UCAF armor just reflecting the now steady red overhead lights. "Stand up! Door open!" he shouted, bringing the squad to its feet. The shuttle hatch opened with a hiss followed by the howl of wind. The light shifted green a moment later and Forrest looked back at his team, fixing them with a steely gaze. "Stay on my ass and follow me!" he yelled over the gale in the cabin as he grabbed the sides of the door and flung himself into the sky.
The fall was exhilarating, the feeling of weightlessness and wind, peppered by exploding flak shells nearby. Forrest spun a dial on his onmi-tool. "Switch to active jamming," he told the team. The tool began shooting random radio-frequency signals in every direction. The enemy would know that the UCAF was coming, but not where they were. "I see the landing zone! Come twenty degrees left," he said into his boom mike.
"My God, sir, what is that?" PFC Richard "Rookie" Johnson called out, a screech in his voice.
Forrest scanned the ground near the LZ and it immediately became obvious what Rookie was talking about. A giant gray object stood, dug into the ground, some demented cross between a monstrous insect and the hand of God. His breath nearly left him for a moment as it shot a red beam from a demonic eye and a building vanished beneath its gaze. Even from this distance, he sized it up at nearly two kilometers in length. For a moment, the sight gave him pause. How can we survive something like that?
He thought of her . . . the shape of her face, the smell of her hair, the feel of her skin. He thought of their children, Henry and Anne . . . their squealing laughter, a game of tag. He thought about aborting the landing, but he dug his fingers into his armored thigh and gritted his teeth. "Nevermind that, Rookie, we go where we're called. The colonists need us," he said, his voice just cracking. He tucked his arms behind him and angled his body down to pick up speed. "Prepare to deploy chutes . . . Now!"
Less than a hundred meters from the ground, chutes billowed from their backpacks and instantly became the color of the gray sky to camouflage their approach. Forrest saw colonists running from some robotic enemy as tracers and explosions lit up the ground and sky.
"We're coming in hot. Pick your targets and fire on my command. They like surprises, let's give them one."
The colonel unslung his rifle and thumbed the switch to activate his optics. A red dot appeared on his sight along with glowing objects that were the enemy. He picked one out that looked like a leader and put the dot on the back of its head. "My God, I think these are the geth." At 20 meters he gave the command. There was no escape for these metal bastards. "Fire!"
A stream of rounds, rockets, and grenades descended upon the geth platoon and they were torn into metal fragments and wires in seconds. One turned to look up into the sky and Forrest put the red dot right on its face. With the press of the trigger glass and metal shattered and the geth staggered back, the lights on its face going dark. As it fell dead he released hold of his rifle, letting it dangle on its harness and he yanked hard on the cords of his chute to soften his landing. His feet touched down and he rolled to the side just as he had done a thousand other drops.
"All units, all units check in!"
"Delta Squad, all present and accounted for," Mickey called out over the radio.
"Bravo Squad, all present and accounted for. We're two klicks east of you, sir," Staff Sergeant Alan Write called out.
"Charlie Squad, we took two KIA's on landing. The LZ is secure though," said Lieutenant Orlando Ybarra. "We're enroute to join up with you, sir."
"Alpha Squad, we're down one man wounded," said Captain Gabrielle D'Hubert. "The medic's working on him now. We'll be at the rally point in five mikes."
That was actually better than he expected. All of the training, all of the equipment, and all of the begging, borrowing, and stealing to form the UCAF, the United Colonies Armed Forces . . . it might really pay off. His darkest thoughts had told him that he'd lose half his force just on the drop, but it was not so. Forrest dared not hold his breath though as this thing was just getting started. He took a quick scan of the surrounding terrain, trying to get a read on the situation. With the exception of the fire, smoke, and corpses, this was ground that he knew. This was ground that he had lived and worked on. "Mickey, get the Deltas up on that ridgeline. Cover the movements of the other squads and gather intel. I need to know what's going on," he said amid the distant roar of explosions and the crackle and pop of anti-aircraft artillery trying to bring down that giant monstrosity.
"You got it, colonel." Mickey turned to the team and pumped his hand towards a nearby hill. "You heard the man! Get a move on."
Forrest took a knee and activated his datalink module that would show him all of the signals coming in from the battlefield. Targeting scanners appeared all over the display, showing him the type and power of enemy ladar out there. It also gave him a reasonable fix on where they were. "Mickey, you've got large ground forces two klicks to the east of you, moving in. Scouting drones are screening their advance. These are definitely geth. Stay sharp."
"Copy that, sir. I've got eyes on a platoon of Alliance marines . . . what the . . .? What are they doing?"
"Mickey, what's going on? The geth appear to be converging."
"The marines are sitting out in the open, sir. They're sitting ducks. The commander . . . he's running around in his underwear, screaming."
"Okay, Mick, beat feet over there. These guys are screwed if they don't get some backup."
"Roger that. And to think that the Alliance wanted to force us to fall under their command. That would have been us down there, colonel."
"I know, Mick, I know. You better double time it. Geth scanners are switching to active targeting." Forrest knew deep down that they weren't going to make it in time. The Deltas were still five minutes out and this thing was going to be over in two minutes. There was a time when the Alliance angered him. He'd been a lieutenant commander with them, a candidate for N training at the Villa. But he saw what they were becoming lately: an organization run by auditors and inspectors, afraid of their own shadow, so he left and formed his own unit out on the frontier. Still, the long arm of the Alliance reached out to him and he fought like an angry mule to keep the UCAF out from under Alliance command. He even threatened to disband the UCAF rather than have his troops fall under the bureaucrats and sycophants in Alliance Colonial Command where you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a bad leader.
"Sir!" Micky called over the radio, "the geth are hitting the marines in force. We're still too far away! The marines don't even have their weapons loaded and their commander is curled up in a ball!"
Forrest shook his head. This had to Major Kendall. The man couldn't lead his marines to breakfast. He heard a deep rumble behind him and he looked back over his shoulder to see the Scorpion lumbering along. "Get that tank moving! Get in the fight!"
The Scorpion tank rumbled along towards the battlefield, its 120mm smoothbore main gun sticking out like a poisoned stinger. The UCAF designed this beast to be faster than the Alliance's M29 Grizzly, but more stable than the Mako. It had been sprayed down with an adaptive camouflage scheme, making it nearly invisible at distance.
Forrest sprinted after the tank and grabbed a hand hold, swinging himself up on the back deck. He hunkered down behind the turret and peeked up over it. He saw smoke and tracer rounds coming from the valley ahead. It had to be the trapped marines. "Mickey, lay down some covering fire. Give those marines some breathing room. I'm coming in on the tank. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, get around to the other side. Stop any geth reinforcements from coming in."
The first report of the cannon nearly stunned him as an armor-piercing sabot shell flew from the barrel. A loud boom and a ring of smoke knocked Forrest back on his haunches as the tank rolled on, wheels and treads squeaking over of the landscape. He looked over the top with his optics and zoomed in, seeing a large geth crawler in flames. "Good effect! Good effect on target," he told the Scorpion crew. "Flank left. I see enemy ground troops at your Eleven O'Clock. Fire HE and press forward."
The cannon roared again and a high explosive shell rocketed into the midst of a geth platoon. It detonated above ground, throwing shrapnel into their ranks, scattering the troops like toy soldiers hit by a child. Metal and wire tumbled through the air only to be enveloped by blast and fire. "Good shot! Press forward and kill the stragglers!" The engine of the Scorpion howled as the tank picked up speed, its machine guns barking and spitting hot tracer rounds. Forrest leaned over the turret and let loose a barrage of fire, adding to the chaos.
Initially stunned, the geth began to retaliate and rounds pinged off of the tank's armor, forcing Forrest to duck back down. He could feel the geth near now and he hurled a couple of grenades to the side, wincing as they detonated. A moment later he heard the grinding of wheel and tread over synthetic bodies as the tank ran down a pack of geth trying to form up. He glanced backward as the tank sped up and he could see flattened metal and sparks where geth use to be.
Invade my planet. Attack my people. This is your fate.