Halo Valley of shadows Chapter 3 Hail of fire
New Australia, Normandy crash site
2551, April 25th
When Shepard and her team made it back to the ship the airlock timely opened and Liara came out with steady steps. She was dressed in all black, instead of her white science uniform. Behind her came EDIs robot form, wielding an N7 Hurricane submachinegun.
Syae, Mordin, Tali and Javik was also present, along with three crewmembers armed with M-7 Lancers.
"Shepard," she heard Garrus over the comms. "They're heading for the field, avoiding our little runway."
"Got it, now get back here," she told him.
"On it."
"Alright," she raised her voice. "Tali and Mordin and you-" she nodded to the three crewmembers. "-stay here and hold that airlock. Don't let anything get through."
Mordin nodded affirming. Tali was less liking of the idea. It seemed Shepard was keeping her on the sidelines because of her formerly ruptured suit and risk of infection since. But she didn't argue. This wasn't the time to disagree with the commander.
"Everyone else, with me," Shepard decided.
They hurried towards the field, across Normandy-which was half buried in the ground and across the runway stretch they had made upon impact. Garrus wasn't far behind them. By the time they reached the edge of the large grass field, the first ship had started unloading people through a retracting bulkhead and a ramp that stretched out slightly.
They didn't recognize any of them. The first to appear was small aliens with a large tank on their back and a breathing mask covering their faces. They were armed with pistol sized weaponry. There were a few avian, with a long beak and thin arms and legs. They held rifles in their taloned grips. Two aliens were giant in extent. Krogan sized basically. They appeared saurian with thick dark mandibles and blue armor.
"Who, the, hell," Zaeed voiced what everyone thought.
Shepard considered her next actions. They certainly didn't look to friendly, but again, neither did most of the people she traveled with.
"I'll say hello," she decided.
Garrus looked at her with concern.
"I'm not loving that idea, Shepard," he admitted.
"Agreed," Grunt said. "Let's just shoot them dead."
Wrex just shrugged.
"I don't mind."
Shepard frown and stepped forward.
"They could be friendly. Saw a ship crash and went to check it out."
She walked out through the brush, reaching up to remove her black Terminus helmet.
"Maybe their friendly," she mused. A part of her was saying: 'No'. Her instincts was telling her this was a horrible idea.
One of the gassuckers noticed her and pointed and started yelling and jumping. It caught the rests attention. A third saurian jumped off the dropship, along with half a dozen gassuckers.
She was curious about what the little ones was breathing. Clearly they couldn't breathe the regular air the rest of them did. With twenty aliens gathers now, with more departing, they all aimed at her. Shepard stopped and raised her hands.
"Don't shoot!" She called.
In the forest, her comrades was lining up to start blasting away at the aliens. Wrex was bring out the missile launcher and aiming it right inside the ships open hatch.
The aliens seemed to hold off.
"We're friendly, crashed," Shepard said. She stopped ten meters from the forest line.
She removed her helmet, showing that she was human. Her braided ponytail was grabbed slightly by the wind.
"Kill the human!" One of the saurian screamed aloud. "Kill it!"
"Guess there not friendly then, huh," Shepard mumbled to herself.
She made a beeline towards the forest again. Her instincts was completely right, like always.
They started blasting at her, but thankfully her crewmates fired back. Wrex fired a missile right inside the dropship and took it out. It was torn in two and crumbled towards the ground. It squashed a few of those gassuckers when it hit.
Zaeed and Garrus both put a sniper round through the skull of an alien each. Two saurian fell dead to the ground.
As she ran, she put her helmet back on. She felt several impacts against her shields. Her armor took a beating from what apparently was plasma. At least they held until she threw herself into the forest.
Syae unloaded her Striker assault rifle into a saurian soldier, but he had activated personal shields that took the brunt of the impact. The gassuckers and avians began charging. Since they had no cover on the field, it was apparently their best strategy. A saurian drew and activated an energy sword as he charged forward. He ignored the gassuckers and avians and ran passed them all.
Zaeed fired a round that hit the Saurians shields. He raised an eyebrow to this. He had seen the bolts smack into Shepard and her shields hadn't held long. They were down by the time she got back.
"Cheaters," he commented dryly.
Three other dropships began unloading troops. The others had to wait for their turn as the field didn't fit all at once.
"Fire a missile at one of those," Shepard told Wrex.
He nodded in response. He took aim and fired away a missile right into a second. It was rocked with explosions and fell to the ground, killing everyone inside.
"You're crazy, you know that?" Garrus told Shepard as he fired off a round into the tank of a gassucker.
It exploded and killed the tiny alien.
"So you keep saying," Shepard replied.
Shepard placed three rounds from her N7 Valkyrie into an avian soldier's throat. They went clean through and into the one behind. She fired another round at a gassuckers head. She continued dropping them one by one.
Together with a combined blast from Zaeed and Syae she took out the last saurians shield. Zaeed put a bullet through his skull. The last saurian from the first ship anyway.
"Switching to some heavier stuff," Syae said, taking cover behind a tree as super-heated plasma came her way. She switched out her assault rifle for her Geth Spitfire. "Now we're talking. Show mama how it's done."
She left cover and unloaded the Spitfire into everything that moved in her sight. It quickly spewed enough fire to take down an orange armored saurians shields and kill him. Turning it on a poor gassucker, he was killed instantly. She mowed down trio of birds next. With that she cleared out the first drop. But there were fifty or so other aliens swarming towards them. Three new ships was preparing to unload their troops.
Shepard locked eyes on a ship that flew in an unwelcome direction. The crash zone. Damn it, she thought. It was gonna drop in the runway from the crash.
"Mordin, you got incoming!" She warned.
"Understood, Shepard," Mordin's hyperactive voice replied. "We're ready."
Wrex switched from the missile launcher to his Claymore shotgun. Using carnage he shredded a birdbrain. Ripping him completely apart. He squeezed the trigger of his shotgun, blasting a gassucker who was getting a bit to close.
Syae raised her Spitfire and fired straight into an open dropship, slaughtering the majority of its occupants. Bodies fell off and to the ground. She ducked and returned to cover when she had to reload.
"Cover me, EDI," she told the AI beside her.
"Affirmative," EDI replied. She fired her submachinegun at a trio of birdlike aliens that closed in with a plasma pistol and an energy shield each.
Syae shifted around the tree to avoid getting blasted.
"They are attempting to flank us," EDI informed.
Shepard threw a glance in their direction of the battlefield.
"Grunt! Relocate to Syae and EDIs position!" She ordered.
"Fine!" Grunt said.
He ran from their end towards the AI and Aey'Syyon female.
"I. Am. Krogan!" He screamed as he fired his Claymore without stopping.
Two birds staggered back and the third joined them to avoid breaking the shield formation. They kept blasting at the charging Krogan's shields. The shields couldn't stand up again the plasma. Grunts armor was burned as the shields partially stopped the bolts and radiation might be an issue, although the Krogan couldn't be bothered by those tiny facts.
Syae rolled her eyes and looked to EDI.
"Cover him!"
She left cover and spewed one of the three with a hail of fire. He lost his ground and dropped the shield. He was dead in seconds.
Grunt blasted into the shields at close range and then grabbed one of their arms-in which he held the plasma pistol-and pulled at him. The alien panicked and lost his shield. Grunt then fired his shotgun into his head. Blasting it off.
The second was easier picking for Grunt. With fire from EDI, he had to half turn and opened himself up to Grunt. It was over with one blast from Grunt's Claymore. When he turned he spotted a saurian in blue armor about to slam himself into him. He grinned and charged. The two giants smacked into each other violently, but neither lost his footing. The saurian punched at Grunt's chest, with little success. Grunt in return head-butted him. He fell backwards and was finished off with the Claymore.
Four gassuckers fled from Grunt in panic when he killed their superior. Grunt took down three of them with a single blast. He decided to let the fourth run and fired at a bird alien. He ignored the plasma striking his armor, as his shields collapsed. He wasn't bothered by it at all.
"For god sake," Shepard sighed when she saw Grunt standing in between them and the swarming aliens. "Grunt, fallback. Now," she ordered him over the comm.
Grunt sighed and jogged back to Syae and EDI.
"Don't say a thing," he snapped at Syae.
She shrugged innocently and opened up with the Geth Spitfire again.
Back at the crash site Mordin was administrating medical aid with his Omni-tool to an injured crewmen. She groaned and grunted in pain after being hit in the leg by a bolt of plasma. A male crewmen laid dead in the airlock, while Tali and the third crewman defended the entrance.
Tali ducked for cover to reload her submachinegun. The crewman held his position and killed a gassucker that wielded a strange gun that fired crystal needles.
"Done," Mordin said. He got up and gestured to the third crewman to help her away from the line of fire.
He then assumed a position beside Tali. He used cryo blast to freeze a saurian alien in red armor with a blue plasma rifle. He then proceeded with incinerate to set a bird alien ablaze. He screamed in pain and horror before falling over dead.
"Try not to get hit!" He told Tali.
"Sheesh, I hadn't thought of that," she replied sarcastically.
"I am serious," Mordin reiterated. "Kinetic barriers not good against plasma. Radiation possible issue also!"
"Oh. Well crap."
He reloaded the submachinegun.
"Cover me!" He told Tali.
She used energy drain to drain a saurians shields and boost her own. She managed to hit a bird alien in the head with four rounds. He was about to throw a grenade and instead dropped it and killed three gassuckers in proximity to it.
"Fallback to the door!" Mordin shouted.
Tali didn't mind and withdrew with Mordin covering her. At least from here, the enemy had to channel through the airlock.
Two gassuckers tried getting through while firing blindly. A few rounds took care of them.
A saurian charged into the confined space. Mordin and Tali both emptied their clips into his shields, without dropping them. He fired off two plasma blasts into her shields. He used the plasma rifle to hit Mordin across the face. He smacked into metal debris and pain shot through his back.
Tali had to think fast as the alien turned to her. She ran backwards and released Chiktikka. Hopefully the drone could draw their attention long enough. Her first idea was a grenade, but that would hit Mordin too. She couldn't ran for it, then they'd kill Mordin.
The saurian alien flared his mandibles at the drone and fired with his plasma rifle. He roared menacingly. Chiktikka didn't last long. She fired her submachinegun into his shields and they finally flickered off. But her clip ran out and she needed a new thermal clip. Two bird aliens was coming through the airlock.
She ducked behind a broken terminal when the saurian fired his plasma rifle at her. From behind, Mordin incinerated both bird aliens, making the larger turn to him. Tali then got up and spewed round after round into his back. He shrieked and fell to his knees. Mordin placed a Carnifex heavy pistol in between his mandibles and squeezed the trigger.
With the large aliens brains splattered, the oncoming gassuckers turned about and scrambled back the way they came.
"Run! Leader dead! Run away!"
Tali rushed over and helped the Salarian up.
"Are you okay?" She asked worriedly.
"Will be fine. Administer Medi-gel!"
She saw a saurian pick off the fleeing gassuckers.
Mordin quickly used his Omni-tool and fixed his light wounds up. Tali assumed the position beside the inner airlock door. Tali worried about the others. If they had one ship, then they fought the other nine. They could really use a Krogan right about now.
For a moment Mordin wondered how these aliens had developed perfect plasma weaponry. And without any Council race apparently knowing about it or them. He could ponder this for hours but he didn't have time right now.
The hostiles kept blasting through the airlock, but they didn't try to charge inside again. Not yet anyway.
"Shepard!" Mordin said. "Need backup quickly!"
"Hang on, Mordin!" Shepard replied. "We're on our way back. Just hang in there a bit longer."
"Trying!"
He injured a bird alien by hitting him in the arm.
Backup arrived in the form of five armed crewmembers. Two of them were already injured from the crash. Mordin pointed to them.
"Defensive position there!"
He gestured for them to defend the corridor leading from the airlock and cockpit to the CIC. They were quick to assume defensive positions. Now if they broke through again, they'd have a backup position to hammer them with fire from.
Using her Omni-tool Tali sabotaged the weapons of several gassuckers. The throw them away and ran for it. A larger alien shot them dead. They didn't tolerate retreat in the face of the enemy.
The saurian roared and Mordin and Tali looked at each other. The both nodded. Mordin was the first to move, with Tali right behind him. They joined the five crewmen in cover behind debris and terminals.
Said and done, the saurian charged inside, but was met by seven people firing at only him. His shields quickly failed and he was killed quickly as bullet after bullet slammed into him.
A grenade was thrown inside.
"Take cover!" Tali warned.
It went off but luckily no one was injured. It wrecked part of the corridor but wounded nobody.
A bird alien took cover behind the airlock door and fired inside.
"Shepard," Tali hissed in her comm. "We're in trouble here."
"We're trying, Tali," Shepard answered. "They're trying to cut us off from Normandy."
They heard a mass of footsteps and movements outside in the airlock.
"We don't have much time. We're kinda outgunned here!" She exclaimed, almost desperately.
She then heard what sounded like shotguns outside.
"I AM KROGAN!"
"I sent Wrex and Grunt ahead," Shepard continued. "They should be there-"
"Just heard them. Thanks, Shepard," Tali interrupted. "Be careful."
"You to."
Mordin tried using incinerate to get the aliens hiding behind the corner. He missed but managed to scare them enough to get out of the airlock. They probably didn't want to get trapped between the advancing Krogan and defenders inside.
Suddenly-to everyone's relief-Wrex bobbed his head in.
"You guys okay?" He asked.
"Been better," Mordin said honestly.