2. Subitus
Ashley Williams flipped a card onto the table and smirked as Yvetz swore. "Thank you for the credits, Private."
The surly weapons specialist muttered under his breath and chucked his cards at her. She picked them up one by one, making a face at the grease marks from his fingers. "Wash your hands every now and then, Yvetz. Grease monkey isn't meant to be taken literally."
"Says the girl whose shotgun is cleaner than her fingernails."
She flipped him the bird, determined not to look at her hands. "You need a girl with dirt under her nails."
"Is that an offer?"
For just a moment she imagined the oily-haired, middle-aged, thick-fingered Yvetz without a shirt on and resisted the urge to laugh. "If you mean an offer to introduce your balls to my foot, sure."
That got a chortle from Bourdelle, a barrel-chested black Frenchman sitting to Ashley's left. Though Bourdelle looked like he should be off in some pit wrangling varren with his bare hands, he somehow managed to embody the collective disdain of his home country, and since his posting on Eden Prime had directed every ounce of it at Yvetz. Ashley had once asked him if he pissed wine and shat cheese, and he'd taken it as a compliment.
She split the deck and fanned the worn edges with her thumbs. As she dealt the next hand, McIllheney, the fourth marine at the table, snatched each of his cards like they wanted to bite him. He'd lost every hand, and it hadn't improved the dour mood he'd walked in with.
The four of them were killing time before the start of second shift. It was Ashley's first week off third shift, and it still felt weird to make rounds in daylight. The lounge was a totally different place with sun streaming through the broad paned windows. It made her realize how filthy the floors were.
"You ever get that Titan's targeting matrix sorted out?" McIllheney asked as he scrutinized his hand. McIllheney was a sniper, and the new Titan rifles they'd gotten a few days ago were faulty. He was getting itchy.
"It was a problem with the hardsuit sync," she mused, eyes flicking over to Yvetz to look for his tell. "Bhatia flashed the COS and is re-programming them all. Assuming Grease Monkey over there gets them all field tested you should have it in a few days."
Yvetz shot her a dark look.
Sonsini, the operations chief in charge of their platoon, stuck his head in the room. Sonsini was an ok guy. He was pushing forty but still bound and determined to earn an officer's commission. Like Ashley, he wanted berth on a starship so bad he could taste it, but kept getting shafted groundside to twiddle his thumbs and bark at marines who rarely ever got to do more than a few controlled drills. But he kept at it, and his last name wasn't Williams. That was good news for him, all the more depressing for her. If Sonsini was trying this hard and couldn't get it done, she didn't have a chance in hell.
It was normal to see Sonsini all business, but there was something else in his face that made Ashley sit up before he even spoke. "On your feet, marines," he ordered. "Comm systems just went down. We're on patrol."
The four of them abandoned the cards on the table and headed to their weapons lockers without asking questions. A post on Eden Prime was little more than babysitting colonists, but they were still well-trained Alliance marines. Within minutes she'd pulled on the boots of her armor, a medium weight Phoenix hardsuit, and slid a Lancer loaded with a fresh ammo block into the holster on her back. Sirta Foundation had just approved the paperwork for the Phoenix and she hadn't had much chance to test it. She swiftly knotted her dark hair into a bun and pulled her helmet on, grinning as she synced the weapons suite to the arsenal riding on her back. This thing could kick the ass of her old Mantis suit.
"Sit rep?" she asked.
"Unknown," Sonsini replied. "Comm systems just went dead. Muneio ordered the 212 out to patrol the area and stay on high alert."
"Is it just Arcadia?" Arcadia was an agricultural settlement south of Constant no one had heard of until a soil reclamation team had stumbled upon a prothean beacon two weeks ago. Next thing Ashley knew a ship had shown up to drop off a bunch of scientists that had been swarming the area ever since. Most of her unit had been diverted to keeping a close eye on it. A glance at her HUD chronometer told her Hudson's platoon was on duty right now.
Sonsini shook his head. "Planet wide."
Now she understood the look on his face. Local comm failure was usually just a mechanical issue. A planet wide communication blackout meant an attack. Her gut twisted, though she couldn't tell if it was from fear or exhilaration.
Sonsini had found a working radio and was talking to Lieutenant Muneio, commander of the unit, as the second platoon assembled. First platoon was out with the beacon, third platoon was getting roused from their bunks and assembling in front of the barracks.
A boom of unnatural thunder took them all by surprise. Ashley craned her neck towards the sky, wondering if the atmospheric circulators had gone haywire along with the comms. Angry whorls of black cloud had formed in the direction of Constant, almost like the funnel of a tornado.
Ashley frowned. Using the sensor suite in her hardsuit she scoped in on the disturbance. There was something in it.
"What the fuck," she murmured aloud.
An oblong ship descended through the turbid clouds. It was massive, shaped of all things like a cuttlefish, with a broad spine and hooked appendages near the bow that grasped for purchase as it sank almost gracefully towards the ground like a spider on a thread of silk.
It was too big to even be entering the atmosphere. According to her suit it measured a staggering two kilometers long, easily longer than any dreadnaught in the Alliance fleet, and probably any other fleet for that matter. Its effortless descent should have been impossible – unless the ship had no plans to leave again. A chill ran down her back.
The wind, still just a few moments ago, began to whip and wail. From the cancerous clouds came several flashes of movement followed by the throb of engines powering through atmosphere. Fighters? They sounded too big for that. But whatever they were, they were gunning south.
Sonsini, who had stopped for a moment to gape with the rest of them, began shouting into his radio and pressing it closer to his ear in an effort to hear.
Ashley squinted to make out the incoming vessels. They were large, almost the size of frigates, shaped like wingless insects with beady heads and short, flexible claws hanging from their elongated abdomens. The design was unlike that of the dreadnaught ship, but strangely reminiscent of it. The sheer strangeness of it was almost enough to overcome fear. What the hell? Known ship designs began running through her head. Turian, salarian, batarian, even asari... only quarian bore even the slightest resemblance, and that was to the smaller ships, not the brute now looming over Constant.
"Form up!" Sonsini bellowed. "We move out towards the beacon dig site!"
"Beacon?" Ashley said, unable to shut her mouth in time. "What about the colony!"
The dreadnaught opened fire.
They could hear it all the way in Arcadia, a high powered whine accompanied by a ray of red energy that flicked almost casually outward from one of the bow arms. Still scoped, Ashley watched in horror as the upper portion of Prosperity Tower in the center of Constant was shorn completely away.
"Move it!" Sonsini bellowed.
The dig site was six kilometers from the barracks across undeveloped swampland near a dry riverbed, and they were forced to go on foot. Between the influx of scientists and the platoon already there on patrol, no vehicles remained in the vicinity. Second platoon of the 212 went south at the kind of pace usually reserved for disciplinary drills. The makeshift road they had made to allow easier access to the site was little more than an uneven dirt path.
They had not even closed half of the distance when one of the insect ships blasted over their heads, clearly heading to the same destination. Ashley watched it break with surprising agility, vertical thrusters firing a quick orange burst to allow it to descend.
Dropship. They were about to see their attackers face to face. Good, she thought, gripping her gun tighter. Sonsini came to the same conclusion and brought them to a halt, sending Ashley, McIllheney and Private Dakin to form a right flank where they could follow a ridge overlooking the site. Yvetz, Oriaki and Geddelstein were sent to the higher elevation on their left. Sonsini, Bourdelle and the remaining four members of the platoon braced for a frontal assault. At least they had terrain to their advantage; the site sat down in a shallow valley that would give them the high ground.
Dakin and McIllheney followed her lead. They jogged in silence over the soggy soil, the only sound they made coming from the subtle creak of their armor joints. The ridge was narrow and their going slower than she anticipated, but the way was clear.
The dreadnaught kept firing. Ashley isolated the audio feed inside her helmet and deactivated it, unable to think about the chaos unfolding in Constant. Instead she called up the thirty six transponder signals in her HUD that represented the 212 and tagged the members of her platoon.
"You seen anything like that ship before?" Dakin whispered.
"Quiet, marine," she hissed back, partially out of fear they would give away their position and partially because she was afraid of the answer. No. I've never seen it before. And humanity does not have a great track record with first contact, especially when a Williams is involved.
They made it another kilometer before she thought something was wrong. Her HUD remained empty of any possible hostiles, but suddenly Bordelle's marker registered a hardsuit breach.
"The hell," she breathed, wondering if there was some quirk in the Phoenix's software. But Dakin and McIllheney stopped short. They'd seen it too. Before she could query the sensor configurations, Bourdelle's hardsuit signature dropped off the grid entirely. She gestured madly for McIllheney and Dakin to move. The 212 was under attack from something that didn't register on their sensors.
"Hostiles!"
Sonsini's voice erupted over the comm in her helmet. The feed exploded with chatter, the entire unit reporting some variation of the same. Her HUD reported sustained weapon fire at the dig coordinates. Ashley spurred the other two men on as six other hardsuit signatures winked out. What the hell is happening? Finally they crossed a tree line and the site came into view down and to their right. McIllheney swore. It was swarming with hostiles all right, but Ashley immediately noted they weren't human. They weren't even organic.
Her marines were being mowed down by bipedal machines. Not mechs – their fluid, deft movements were far too sophisticated for that. These things were tall and sleek, with none of the fumbling awkwardness of a security mech. Their bodies were covered with segmented cowling connected by intricate, flexible tubing. A bright, blue light gleamed from the center of their faces like a flashlight. All of them carried pulse rifles that sprayed an oscillating whine of bullets. As was rapidly becoming painfully clear, they had the reflexes of an organic and the accuracy of a VI. Except Ashley was convinced they were not VIs.
It took her a moment to notice a series of tall metal spikes had been set up around the perimeter of the dig site. After a closer look she saw people on them, impaled right through the chest. Bile rose in the back of her throat.
"Chief!" McIllheney yelled and pointed at something making its way up the ridge.
"Bordelle?" Ashley said in surprise, then gasped.
It wasn't Bordelle anymore.