By human standards Enigma was quite a large colony. But it was not only inhabited by humans but also by turians and asari. It was started as a government project to prove that different species could work and live together. It was a huge success. Enigma was now the colony with the fastest growth and the best infrastructure. It was built along the coast. Skyscrapers dominated the skyline, while the mansions of Enigma's elite dotted the seafront. In times of peace it had been full of life. Ships both military and commercial came and went. Thousands of people went about their business in the busy streets of downtown. Now they were all gone.
Athena looked out onto the bay. From the ridge, that separated the large houses of the rich from the rest of the city, she could see the destruction the Reapers had left behind. The last few hours had been chaos. Aside from herself there had only been a handful of trained soldiers, that she could find, plus a few police and security officers to help the civilians escape from the attack of the Reapers. She had been visiting her mother, asari stepmother and stepsister when the attack began. Immediately she had rushed to the heart of the attack, hoping her family would be able to escape without her help. She had to stay behind, to make sure as many people left as possible.
She looked up into the sky. Just moments before there had been hundreds of shuttles and space crafts of all sizes leaving orbit. Only a few still remained in the docks and garages but none for her. She had decided what she had to do: To stay behind and kill as many of those monsters as humanly possible. "So much for shore leave", she sighed and turned to walk back to the city. There she would find the remnants of the attackers. Danger had never really scared Athena off, rather it would pull her in. The idea that no one else but her could manage it had always lured her into doing reckless, careless and sometimes stupid things. What she was about to do was the stupidest thing she had ever done.
Athena pulled her last energy bar out of her pocket. Her biotics had to be at maximum. As she walked towards the large steel and concrete buildings she checked her ammo. She was running low but it didn't matter. She intended to rip the invaders apart with her mass effect fields, to let out all her anger on them. Next she looked over her armor. It was scratched and scraped in many places. The dark blue colour gone to reveal the silver sheen of the metal beneath. But it was holding together and she knew her barrier would be more important anyway. Carefully picking her way around the rubble and dead bodies, she scanned the area. In the distance she could hear a faint beeping noise, maybe a distress signal. She had never considered that someone might have managed to turn on the beacon. But she tried not to think about it. Hoping to be rescued might hold her back.
Suddenly, she saw something move off to the left. At least a hundred of the Reapers mutations were coming towards her. She dashed to cover, loaded her shotgun and heavy pistol and took a deep breath. A biotic charge catapulted her forward. Bullets were flying around her head. She opened fire. Her biotics and aimed shotgun blasts killed dozens of them but there were too many. She was surrounded, closed in. She charged up her barrier. Her next move would leave her vulnerable but it might just give her enough time to find cover to reload. A blue aura of dark energy was spreading over her entire body. Then she slammed her fist to the ground. A shock wave erupted flinging husks into the air and knocking down anything larger. Right in that moment, when her barrier was gone, a bullet hit her directly above her hip on the left side and went straight through. She scrambled for cover trying to stop the bleeding but she had used up all her medigel on injured civilians. She gritted her teeth and looked up into the sky. There on the horizon was a small spot that was getting larger. The closer it got the more it started to look like a shuttle. Could it really be? Had someone heard the distress signal? She could see it more clearly now. It was a blue Alliance shuttle. Her vision was getting blurry, she was losing too much blood. She tried to stop the flow but it just ran through her fingers. The shuttle was landing. A woman and two men in heavy armor stepped out and instantly opened fire on the reaper forces. She just managed to hear the woman say, "Vega get her into the shuttle!", and then she passed out.