Chapter 1- Training Days Part 1

Petra Nebula- Elysium- Corporal David Powell-1500 Hours

It was a warm summer's days on Elysium as I sat down to catch my breath after a gruelling 10 hour training and combat session. I knew that I didn't have that long to rest as soon I would have to get up and start training again for another ten hours. To be honest, I was surprised that I even got this far into the N program; the reason being is that I was such a low rank compared to my fellow trainees. I was only a corporal while nearly everybody else was NCO's.

I took a quick pause to catch my breath and take a look at the beautiful natural landscape that presented itself before me, I had grown up in London on Earth so I wasn't really used to seeing so much open land and nature, to be honest the most I'd seen was a field near the building where I lived. Still I guess considering I'll be travelling with crew and fellow soldiers in the Alliance Military, I'd see much more beauty and wonder with my Best Friend, Gunnery Chief Rick Shepard.

And Speak of the devil, my friend and fellow soldier appeared out of the forest and set himself behind me and took out his drink and took a massive gulp of it and sighed in relief.

"Can't believe that they command have made us stay out here so long to see whether or not those slaver ships would show up, the only threat we saw was a bird with 2 heads" Rick said as he sloped against the tree behind us.

"Well, I guess at least it wasn't hostile" I chuckled as he sat beside me.

" Well at least you're having a good time, because I'm feeling like shit at the minute, I haven't seen home for months, I've been having trouble sleeping and to top it all off I really wanted to get some action out of all this." Rick growled as he started punching the ground.

"Rick mate, just calm down. It's going to be alright, I know it's been a frustrating couple of months with the amount of work and not seeing our families but I mean, we're both doing something that we're great at, you are the best out of all of us, come on mate you're already a Gunnery Chief and you are only 23 that's got to stand for something." I said to my friend as I patted him on the back.

"Yeah yeah, ok thanks for that Chippy, I shouldn't let myself get stressed like that." Rick smiled.

Petra Nebula- Elysium- Gunnery Chief Rick Shepard- 1530 Hours

All of a sudden there was a beeping on mine and David's radio as another soldier was screaming over the gunfire on the other end, " Someone, anyone please respond, this is Service Chief Brian Homel, my team and I are pinned by gunfire at a nearby settlement by slavers... assisting immediate reinforcement, we can't hold them back much longer... Oh Shit they got Sid and Mac..." All of a sudden the radio went dead and all we heard was static.

"All right Delta team; we've finally got some slavers to fight three clicks North-west of here. We have to protect the civilians at any cost, look for any survivors from Echo team while we're there, remember leave no man behind!" I shouted at the troops as we all got up and started to get ready to move out.

About one click short of the settlement we decided that we send a small team of troops to secure the civilians while the rest of us drew the slavers attention. Me, David and Corporal Jamie Lockwood were chosen to rescue the civilians while the rest attacked and drew the attention of the slavers.

David managed to spot a hole in a building that we managed to clamber through, getting covered in dust in the process though. As we sneaked through the building, we heard the gunfire from outside and the some screams from soldiers in pain, we needed to get the civilians safe soon otherwise they'll get taken like the others.

We hurried on through the building and into the next where we spotted a scout team of slavers, I recognised what they were immediately. "Batarians" I mumbled as we silently hurried through the building. However, Jamie accidently kicked a pen and it rolled out from the desk, alerting the Batarian slaver party of presence.

"God damn it Jamie!" I whispered to him as we heard the Batarians call in more soldiers for backup.

David lifted the soldiers into the air with singularity as me and Jamie fired away with our guns, Jamie was using a standard M-8 Avenger, while I was using a M-23 Katana to blast those 3 eyed bastards to kingdom come.

As more soldiers bellowed in we realised we were going to be outnumbered so we decided to hurry upstairs, though as we were running for the stairs Jamie got blasted in the leg, causing him to topple over in pain as he screamed in agony.

He clambered onto the first step as me and David started to help him up.

"No" He yelled at us, "You guys go on ahead, you two have got to save the civilians, I'll try and slow the Batarians down!"

David Patted him on his back, smiled at him and said "Jamie we won't forget you and we'll make sure to give those bastards what they've got coming." We then turned and sprinted up the stairs as we heard Jamie's Avenger propelling slug after slug at the Batarians trying to buy us time, though as we got to the 5th floor we heard the gunfire stop and the Batarians charging up the stairs after us. We picked up the pace as we soon came to the roof of the building only to find it was a dead end.

"Shit" I said as we realised we were trapped while watching our fellow soldiers being bombarded with bullets in the streets below.

A group of about six slavers soon made its way up to the roof and angrily roared at us "If you agree to come with us peacefully, we will not open fire".

Dave and I looked at each other, I looked in my clip to see that I only had 2 slugs left and Dave was looking tired from using his biotics. We smiled and shouted at them "Over our dead bodies you scumbags." Dave then sent two of the slavers flying of the building with his biotics and I managed to take two out with my slugs.

The last two Batarians didn't even look fazed and opened fire at us just as we leapt behind cover, we looked at each other nodded our heads and charged at the slavers tackling them off the building and sent hurtling into the street below...