Mass Effect

The mission

The Light was weak in the room. Not because it was broken, but because his head ached in the brighter one. The soldier shook his head, tired of this war, this seemingly endless struggle with the enemy. This war lasted for 15 months now, making him forget a little about the military rules. That and the fact the Alliance was on to him for treason. They already believed him. He was right about the inevitable invasion, but he still had to answer before the court for his crimes. He was charged for the alliance with the pro-humanity group, Cerberus, causing multiple politically threatening situations on Ilium, Watson and the Citadel and the Bahak System Incident. He was acknowledged as a fugitive more than the hero. But he couldn't worry about that right now. He had a mission now. His ship was about to reach its destiny. He needed to get prepared.

The soldier moved his long haired from his eyes as he took his seat. His seat was next to some robotic machinery, perhaps medical drone of sorts. Once he took his seat, he activated it. After it was activated, it opened a container, unleashing a huge cloud of steam. The machine's arm reached down into it and in a matter of seconds pulled out a bionic arm. The prosthetic limb was colored black with the red stripe between white ones running down to the hand. The machine pressed it against where the right arm would be and began the operation.

A number of tentacle-like arms reached down to the man, with an objective to attach the synthetic limb to the human and make it operational. The number of bolts made it painful a bit, even though it's been nine months now since had the prosthetic. The sensors and a few wires plugged to the muscles or the nervous system, as if drilling into his body, were later being covered by the protective plates. A small, blue, glowing orb, surrounded by, what appeared to be black smoke orbiting it, was placed inside the upper arm. After that, the soldier could feel the fingers twitch. In just a few seconds, he raised his right arm and made a few exercises, just to see if everything was in order. Once he made sure of it he walked over to the locker, to put on his armor. It was a heavy, black armor, with a high number of scratches, burns, bullet damage and cracks. It had a 'N7' mark on it. It missed most parts for the right arm and had a turtle neck collar.

The elevator door opened, revealing the full armored man in a helmet, who made his way to the weapon locker. On his way, he passed some members of his crew, including those who would go with him on this mission.

The first was a young krogan- a reptilian, turtle-crocodile-like race with incredible regenerative abilities, known for their extremely aggressive nature. This once, in particular, was still young, as his head scales were still forming. He was grey-and-orange colored with blue eyes, wearing a silver armor. Grunt, as that was his name, was checking his weapon, a claymore shotgun, fixing the trigger, when he raised his head to look at his leader. The two exchanged the look and nodded. They would watch each others' back.

The next person the soldier past was a blue skinned woman, who, despite looking like in her mid thirties, was actually more then 900 years old. Instead of hair, she had tentacle-like features on her head, blue eyes and was dressed in a red cat suit-like armor. The asari justicar was meditating, knowing full well that if she lost control on this mission, she would compromise it.

The third person was quarian girl. Like all of her people, she was dressed in a full-body suit, protecting her from the environment which was now mostly hostile to the quarians' weaken immune system. Weaken by the fact that for the past 300 hundred years this race lived wandering the galaxy in their fleet after their exile from their home world by their very own creation-the geth- a virtual intelligence accidently turned into artificial. Her mask made it impossible to see what her face looked like, while her purple and dark blue suit revealed some circuitry and tubes, no doubt pumping some anti-biotic through out her body, filtering air she breathed in and protecting her from overheating.

The soldier looked at the monitor, on which a younger looking asari appeared. She looked up at him, nodded and showed the crew some blueprints. The human turned to face the team and gave them the signal.

"All right, people! Let's do this!"

He took his cover. Just in time to avoid the incoming blast. That was insane. He could barely return fire under these circumstances. The enemy's fire was just too intense. He kept hearing the bullets hitting, some almost hitting him because of the ricochet. He tried to look from the cover, but that almost ended up with hitting him in the eye.

Fortunately, he wasn't alone. A missile hit the enemy line, forcing the enemy troops to hold their fire for a moment. A brown-scaled krogan with a red skull plate in his head, holding a grenade launcher, came into few. He aimed again and fired, hitting more targets. The enemies pulled themselves together and fired again. The troops were trying to force the krogan to pull back, sending the grey zombie-like creature with multiple cybernetic implants- the husks- into action.

That plan may have worked, if it wasn't for a drell assassin. A humanoid lizard-like alien jumped down on the mindless creatures, cutting them down with his knives. His black coat, flying around due to his agile moves, made him appear like an untouchable ghost. When a bigger-sized husk, that seemed to have a cannon for an arm, scion, came into few, the green alien pulled out a pistol and shot the creature, without even looking at it. He jumped out of the husk crowd and continued to shoot them.

The soldier finally came out of cover and helped his comrades shoot down the enemy forces. The hulking husks and hostile geth finally were falling. Then something caught his attention. A strange sound. As he looked in front of himself, a part of the construction under a huge element zero core went out. It changed into, what appeared to be, a massive mech with dark blue/purple armor, four arms and six mechanical tentacles. As its head came into few, there were four yellow eyes glowing, staring at the soldier. After a while, all enemy troops seemed to have a headache, and once they raised their heads, revealing their eyes glowing…

"Assuming mass control." The huge mech said. All troops aimed at the team and fired. While the human and the assassin managed to take cover, the krogan got hit. But he would not fall. He aimed one more time and fired as the enemy troops continued their salve. The final grenade hit the target, as the scarred dinosaur alien fell to the ground. His two comrades run over to him, wanting to help him. The human sprayed him with some medi-gel, the special cell regenerative liquid, hoping that with his accelerated healing, he would survive. But he was forced to stop as there was an explosion near them. The mech was walking towards them, firing lasers from its tentacles and the picked up assault rifles. It was going to kill them. No one dares to challenge their kind and get away with it.

The assassin and the soldier were seemingly pinned down, until they saw a blue glow running on the floor towards the mech, followed by an orange orb. As they touched its leg, the electric charge from beneath the floor electrocuted the machine, immobilizing it. The two turned to find the quarian and the justicar entering the room. As they could cheer the moment, they had too little time. The solder pulled out the most powerful weapon he took with him- the M 920 Cain, a small nuclear launcher. He aimed at the core, having his team cover him. As the mech has regained its mobility, the nuke launcher fired. The human dropped the launcher and the whole team ran for it, as the missile hit the target. The explosion was so powerful the shockwave destroyed the mech, leaving nothing but pieces.

The team continued their escape, hoping to make it before the chain reaction could put them in any serious danger. They could already see the inside of the vessel short circuiting. As they took their turn right, they saw their exit. It was a small breach in the armor. They were almost their, when the red, glowing husk entered their way. They stopped, knowing this one was too close to destroy. It ran towards them, having the objective to kill them. They wanted to run out, but the door shut. They were trapped.

Then the husk found itself inside a big, dark blue sphere, moving much, much slower then originally. After a few seconds, the sphere collapsed into its centre, leaving nothing but a small flame from the explosion there would be otherwise from the husk's self-detonation. The team looked closer, to find not only their ship waiting, but also a mysterious crew member waiting for them at their way out. The four wasted no time and jumped into their vessel, which quickly made its way away from the big-squid-like space ship that was exploding. As it finally exploded, the small ship was at the save distance.

Inside the ship, the soldier walk over to the pilot. A bearded man with a goofy smile, wearing a baseball hat. He turned to his comrade.

"We did it, Shepard!" he said cheerfully, "One down!"

Shepard took off his helmet, revealing his face. His hair were longer, covering his neck from the back and the upper half of his face. His face clearly hasn't been shaved in a long run and was also covered with three scars. And his right eye was substituted with a glowing blue optic. The Commander looked down at his friend.

"Yes, Joker. One down." He said. Then he looked forward, letting the pilot know to look and see what's in front of them. "But there's still thousands of Reapers to go and little time!" as he finished, his biotic eye changed its glow from blue to red. "Prepare for battle!" he ordered.

Sure enough, before them was a whole fleet of the their enemies- the Reapers, the enormous, ship sized artificial intelligence race, which was responsible for the extinction of every civilization to come every 50 000 years. The Normandy, Shepard's ship, was small and stood alone, while there was the army, destroying everything in the galaxy, easily taking down any planetary defense in small groups. This war was still far from over.

And the biggest question was- how to stop them?

End

A.N. / Hope you liked it.