The story of Odysseus (war hero/ engineer) Shepard
Odysseus "Demo" Shepard walked the corridors of the Normandy towards the cockpit, the crew swerved out of his way many still uncomfortable about meeting their xo's eyes or rather his mask as he wore smooth mask that the only markings were the purple tracings in geometric patterns and the seam the ran the edge where face mask joined balaclava and where the upper and lower half of the mask joined. He wore a suit similar to the n7 demolisher engineer with his mask traded for a helmet version similar to the n7 shadow infiltrator.
He entered the cockpit in time to hear Nhilus the council specter who was aboard making a comment before leaving, Joker the pilot started a small rant about how jumping across the galaxy and hit a target the size of a pin was better than good and Odysseus agreed having finished second in flight school just behind joker and just ahead of his twin sister he knew how hard a target like the one they were aiming for was.
"Cheer up joker at least I am proud of you, and look at it this way you don't keep bumping into the guy every time you go to turn around." Odysseus said in a sarcastically cheerful voice that on the lower side of mid-range with the built in speakers of his mask causing a small buzz to his voice. After Anderson called him to the comm room he squeezed joker's shoulder in comfort showing his faith in the pilot before turning and leaving.
"Does he ever take that mask off?" asked Kaidan who was sitting to Joker's right in the co-pilots chair in an annoyed voice.
"Yeah not often, mainly it's just to switch to his helmet for ground missions but other than that at meal times he takes the lower half off to eat." Joker said in a slightly defensive voice as Odysseus and his sister Eris were his best friends since they met at flight school when it was them against the rest of the school, who ganged up on the cripple and the freaks.
Joker with his brittle bones had a hard time in school but still kicked everyone else's asses even the so called freaks the Shepard twins who both were born with strange biotic talents and later given grayboxes which were now illegal brain tech that gave you a serious memory and processing boost at the cost of never being able to remove it or change it without massive risk of brain damage. The twins had befriend Joker day one and never treated him like he was made of glass or mocked him for his disease and he in turn never mocked they for their implants or the fact that the pulse of eezo that gave them their unique talents also gave them glowing purple eyes and blindly bright white hair. They kept in touch after flight school when the twins moved straight to n-school where they set serval new records. They now even after winning the star of terra on Elysium still did black ops wet-work, they never talked about what they did but Joker pieced together they were in the assassin's program for Eris and the thief's program for Odysseus.
Odysseus walked through the CIC deck his mask framed by a hood that while deep did nothing to limit his vision because of the many micro cameras embedded in the hood mask and many other places on his suit along with mics and other sensor equipment, combined it made it very hard to sneak up on him as he could see 360 in a broad range of spectrums and chem sensors that were nearly as sharp as a blood hood with powerful mics allowed him to watch everything at once do to his graybox giving him mental strength to do it. He also had a habit of just tuning everything out and reading a book on the screen of his mask with no one the wiser about it.
Nearing the comm room he saw Dr. Karin Chakwas talking with a young solider named Jenkins, while stopping to talk with him Jenkins mentioned the event on Elysium known as the blitz and how Shepard proved himself and the Jenkins was hoping to do the same, faster than anyone could blink a slap rang out on the deck many looked to the source seeing a stunned Jenkins head snapped to the side from the force of the blow Odysseus delivered.
"Soldier listen and listen good what happened that day was an ancestors damned nightmare and until you have stood on a mountain of corpses both civilian, enemy and guard along with friend do not speak of that event in my presence and pray you never gain that right, also what we do is not for glory or to make our mark on history we fight to protect those who cannot protect themselves regardless of who they are or where they come from." Odysseus's voice taking a hard edge he then turned and stalked off trying to shake the faces of the men women and child who died that day from his head.
Entering the comm room he found Nhilus already there they chatted for a few moment while he keep his answers diplomatic as what Nhilus did not know was that Shepard was aware as to why Nhilus was on abroad, he knew about the specter nomination and about the Prothean artifact they were heading to pick it up he knew about this from the hacking he had done. Anderson came in and brought Odysseus up to speed officially though he had no don't that Shepard knew all about it through methods he would not want to know about. his mother and father before the man had passed away were old friends, but even with that and being his commanding officer he knew very little about the commander's record as most of his missions were still highly classified that he did not even have access to. Just as Anderson finished bringing them all up to sped Joker broke in with a distress call from the planet below.
At the end of the call he turned to Odysseus "Grab Alenko and Jenkins and suit up your going down there ASAP!" Anderson snapped.
With the ground team and Nhilus kitted out and given the final orders the dropped Nhilus off then the ground team at the second location signaling Jenkins to take point they went off, Jenkins was kitted out in standard full soldier's kit with heavy armor and full weapons kit while the lieutenant Alenko was wearing light armor and kitted out with only a heavy pistol as a sentinel that was all he need with his tech and biotic powers. Odysseus was not your standard n7 engineer and it showed in his kit, high grade light armor with tactic cloak emitters built in along with the N7shadow style sensor helm for armor his weapons were even odder for an engineer as he carried a high powered sniper rifle over his left shoulder and a shot gun at the base of his spine.
As they moved forward he called a halt with his comm but Jenkins ignored the order and advanced out in the open thinking about grabbing the advance cover to impress his commander, that hope was short lived as the reason Odysseus called a halt was he had picked up a strange reading on his sensors and those reading turned out to be a trio floating geth drones that made quick work of the soldier.
"Alenko overload right, then fire center!" Shepard barked out as he slammed his own overload into the left most drone bringing it down with a quick burst from his rifle and swung the barrel around to fire a shot to drop the shields on the center one while Alenko took it out. They advanced on Jenkins but even before they reached him the commander's sensors told him the man was dead.
"Strip his tags and mark his location for pick up after then grab his thermal clips and his shield batteries" Odysseus said in a neutral tone before moving off to scan the drones and call Nhilus, "Nhilus we have Geth here if the scans I am reading are right also we lost Jenkins the toasters tore clean through his shields watch yourself something is really wrong here." "Roger I will meet you at the beacon site."
As Alenko stripped Jenkins he could not help but think that the commander seem to be very cold as soon as he had kitted up. He had heard the rumors about just what kind of field work the commander usually did and he was starting to believe the man really was involved with the 'black as tar' black ops. That made him feel safer and more concerned at the same time. As he finished the commander came and gave him an update. They moved out heading toward the beacon site.
Ashley had been running when she barely made it to cover as her shields dropped, the geth began moving and her pistol out of charges and she had no spares left, she pulled the only weapon with charge left her assault rifle and prepared to take as many of the oversized toaster bastards with her as possible. Just as the first geth started to round the boulder she was using as cover it exploded in a shower of sparks as a disruptor round smashed into it.
turning she saw a soldier advancing towards her cover to cover firing a heavy pistol while a second soldier sat on top of the valley edge on a boulder spread eagle firing a large sniper rifle. Then a geth that was in cover from all three soldiers suddenly had its optics explode from a sniper shot that was not made by the sniper on the boulder.
When all the geth finally fell the first sniper moved to join the other two soldiers, Ashely was amazed when the soldiers revealed themselves to be the legendary commander Odysseus Shepard and a human biotic lieutenant named Kaidan Alenko, "Sir where is the other sniper?" Ashely asked
"Right here!" a smooth as glass voice sound from right in front of Ashely, there was a shimmer of a tactic cloak turning off and then standing before Ashley was a 5' 5" masked n7 shadow armor wearing elf of a women.
"I thought you were going to stay cloaked the entire time sis." Odysseus said in a bored voice. Both Ashley and Alenko stared in awe at the pair that looked alike in their armor and build expect for gender along with the fact that Odysseus was 6' 3" and his sister was only 5'5" they had the same slight wiry build.
"Come on then we have work to do you can tell me why you're here later." Odysseus said before turning to the others.
"Alright now that my lovely twin is here this is how we are going to play this Williams you are coming with us and you take point we will be looting bodies for batteries and thermal clips on route so grab what you can and mark the body locations both geth and human, Alenko my sister is now my second for this run what she says goes any questions… no good let's move!" Odysseus barked before his sister vanished under her cloak again and Williams moved forward.
Kaidan was not happy about being field demoted, he knew it made sense as when they were paired together the Shepard twins where a force of nature but he hated the fact that he was now just a grunt with a gunnery chief on point. Ashely was ecstatic as not only was she getting revenge for her troops but she was fighting beside the Shepard twins who were famous for holding out during the blitz against impossible odds for days until the blockade could be broken. Though they looked very little like the stories describe them, she never thought Eris would be so short or that both of them would have a wiry build she supposed that it made sense give what she heard their roles really were.
They reached the beacon sight after a small amount of fighting where Williams drew there fire while Alenko cover her with tech and biotics and the twins used their sniper rifles to take out the ones in cover or flanking the soldiers. They found a small group of scientists who were scared but safe for now, they left them there after sending the location data to the Normandy for later recovery.
Odysseus called Nhilus "Nhilus its Odysseus we are at the site we picked up a gunnery chief survivor and oddly enough found my twin sister here she is now fighting as my second in command, what is your sitrep?"
"Commander it's good to hear you found you sister she was to join use for the same reason as you soon as her current mission finished. I am heading to the tram station I saw the geth heading that way so meet me there." the specter responded.
"Alright on our way, watch your back something is wrong beyond the geth being here, I can't say why but I know for a fact the geth would not be here without a very good reason." Demo stated,The reason he knew this was on one highly classified mission he was sent to rannock the quarrian home world now under geth control where he made peaceful contact with the geth and learned that they just wanted to build their future and desired to be left alone.
As them approached the tram station they saw a giant ship as large as a dreadnought take off and leave the planet. "Look at the size of that ship how could it land let alone take off without breaking apart?" Ashley asked in horror.
"I do not know that would take both massively powerful mass effect fields and perfect calculations to do that." Kaidan responded, Odysseus and Eris stayed silent they both knew that the appearance of a ship like that meant only one thing their job just got a lot more dangerous.
"Come on I have a bad feeling I have been trying to raise Nhilus but there is nothing at all." Eris said in her smooth and cold voice, Odysseus nodded and signaled Ashely to move forward.
After clearing the tram station they found a smuggler. "What the fuck just happened to that turian?" Odysseus demanded of the smuggler.
the smuggler spilled everything he knew and even handed over his smuggled goods without being asked as the two plain soldiers were scary but the two wiry masked ones were down right brown your pants terrifying as they looked and sounded almost like mechs with not flesh or signs of breathing it was only the fact that their voices were cold and full of deadly malice spoke to them not being machine, human? That was up for debate.
"Wow commander that voice of yours scary." Williams said with a small hint of fear, "Relax chief I was raised to be void of all emotions in the battle field." Odysseus said in a much warmer voice that had a pleasant Irish bur.
"Yeah we were taught to be free of emotions and only be guided by our code of honour, the mission specs and cold hard logic." Eris chimed in her voice with the same pleasing bur.
They moved on to clear the tram which was going fine until they ran into a geth prime. "Chief get to cover and draw its fire Alenko hit it with a throw, Eris when its off balance hit it with a singularity go!" they moved with the chief diving into a half cover on the tram then began peppering the geth with her assault rifle when its attention turned to the chief.
Alenko slapped it hard with a throw and before it could recover it found itself floating in a singularity fields only to be dropped hard by the force of an arc grenade. "Good job troops lets go find out what they are fighting so hard to protect." Odysseus order even as Eris was already moving to the controls.
As they neared the tram both of the twin's heads snapped up seeming to focus on a single point. "Get ready there are live bombs that we will need to take down, You two draw the geth's attention from cover while Eris and I cloak and take out the bombs." Odysseus commanded Eris nodded before chiming in "We should go dark now."
With that both of the pair vanished in a sparking shimmer. The pair of soldiers could only stare before shaking themselves and readying themselves for the fight, they were starting to believe the rumours that the pair was not human as who could have the skill they had and how cold their body language was in the field. Rumors also said that no one beside the doctor had ever seen their faces and lived to tell about so no one knew what they looked like.
When they arrived the geth opened fire on the pair of soldiers while the twins had already ran off the tram in silence each taking a bomb near them leaving the geth to the soldiers. When all four bombs had been shut down they turned their attention to the geth, Odysseus dropped to a knee and uncloaked bringing up his right hand Omni-tool as he wore two so he could store all the combat tech he used an Omni-bow sprung into existence glowing a faint red as he fired explosive bolts into the geth's back where the power core lining was weakest.
His bow and bombs/grenades where for mid-range or delay use he never ran out as he carried a custom Omni-gel converter that broke down enemy armor/weapons or mechs into gel to be made into his explosives. While Eris took out her SMG and opened fire on the geth's back as well, Eris was kitted out just as odd as her brother with two different sniper rifles one modified viper for normal use along with a black widow anit-material rifle for heavy enemies or cover, and an SMG that was silenced as all her and her brothers were.
When the last geth fell to an explosive bolt in its optics they advanced to the next area with the twins cloaked once more as they moved to provide cover sniper fire. When they were both spread eagle spread out to provide max cover with their modified vipers locked and loaded they signaled the soldier and biotic forward with a promote to their helmets. Ashely charged forward in a rush before diving for the most advanced cover with Alenko bring up the rear for support, Ashely used her assault rifle and changed thermals in a natural battle rhythm learned from many hours training with Alenko who was now moving slower as the use of his biotics was starting to bring out a infamous l2 biotic migraine.
At one point in the fight as Ashely was changing cover for a better position with Alenko covering her, a geth sighted and locked on to her opening fire, Alenko went to throw it but collapsed in a heap with pain as his biotics crashed leaving Ashely without cover fire as the twins were busy keeping the geth from flanking them. She cried out as her shields dropped and she felt a round tear through her lower torso, her cry came just as the twins finished off the flanking geth and opened fire on the geth now surrounding the downed lieutenant and soldier who was barely dodging the fire of the oncoming geth.
Odysseus and Eris were chanting their sniper motto in their heads as they fired into the geth's optics with disruptor rounds, 'slow is smooth and smooth is fast.' By the time the last walking toaster exploded from an arc grenade jump shock from the engineer Williams was on the ground with more bullet wounds, thank fully none of the rounds were stuck in her and none of them were serious it was just the pain from the wounds that had caused the chief to fall when the last geth was down. She had not been able to move far only able to move enough to prevent a worse wound or the geth would have had a clear shot at the lieutenant.
After patching the chief up with medigel Eris moved off to examine the Prothean artifact, while Odysseus advanced on the lieutenant who was struggling to his feet.
"What the hell were you thinking putting you squad mates in danger like that?" Odysseus growled as he grabbed Alenko the collar of his hard-suit and hauled him bodily off the ground, the cybernetics in his hands nearly crushing the armored collar.
"I thought I could make it if I pushed myself a bit." Alenko whimpered as his head swam with pain from the migraine he had.
"You never push yourself like that unless there is no other choice while in the field, you always keep some in reserve for back up and you NEVER and I mean NEVER risk the lives of your squad mates like that for no good reason!" Odysseus snarled and dropped the biotic and stalked away in disgust.
The battle field was never a place to pull stunts like that unless there was no choice. Eris neared the machine as she got closer the machine suddenly snagged her in a grav field and pulled her in, Odysseus saw her get snagged and ran to help but when he grabbed her he found himself hauled into the arm as well. The machine pushed a fractured set of memories into their mind but the machine old and damaged was unable to bear passing the message to two beings at once and exploded hurling the pair back and knocking them out cold.