Chapter 3
Location: Milky Way, Exodus Cluster, Utopia System –
Eden Prime – 2 miles outside of the Main Colony
Rhia mused as she watched the Normandy rise into the atmosphere "You know, if he's going to call you Shepard, we are going to have to find a way to differentiate each other. I'd prefer to not get yelled at for you did wrong."
"What I did wrong? Who's idea was it to 'borrow' that shuttle?"
"I have no idea what you are talking about. " She lied.
The small team laughed at the banter from the two officers, cutting the tension for a moment before John became serious again. "Move up, advance by twos. Major, after you."
It took them nearly fifteen minutes of prowling through the underbrush toward the colony before they located signs of conflict, despite the clipped transmission from Nihlus stating there were hostiles everywhere. The spectre didn't give any more information than that, and she quivered with the need to be in motion. Abstractly, she knew part of it was being a biotic. She naturally had a higher metabolism, and she knew that it certainly wasn't helping her nerves. Not knowing what was going on making her fidgety. Finding it was almost worse though.
Jenkins whispered in horror. "God, what happened here?"
She leaned out from behind the tree, getting a good look at the fallen marines. This was probably part of the group that had managed to get the distress signal off, though she didn't see anyone from the feed, or any communication gear. She held her rifle ready sighting down it, noting John and Kaidan had taken up positions on her left, both of their respective rifles ready as well.
Ten Systems Alliance marines lay on the field in front of her, unmoving. Considering the the amount of blood she could see from here, almost certainly none alive. And not a single sign of who had killed them. She panned around, scanning the opposing tree line, but could see nothing that gave a hint of danger.
John's hand wave got her attention. He pointed first at Jenkins, and then her, waving them forward. She nodded, and looked over to Jenkins to make sure he had gotten the same signal. Jenkins was already stepping out of cover before she started to move, his rifle raised. She stood from her crouch to follow when a whining shriek cut the air, echoing through the clearing, even as her HUD suddenly registered movement coming straight at them. She froze mid step, totally exposed from cover. Jenkins was worse, several steps from where he had started. She felt her heart rate spike from "tense" to "overdrive" in less than a second as she tried to back pedal.
"Jenkins, get down!" She shouted. He turned toward her, his eyes widening, in what seemed like exaggerated slowness, even as the small attack drones cleared the trees on the other side in blur of motion, spinning to stop. And then they opened fire.
I am not going to make it. Was the only thought that came through her head, just before she felt something slam into her shields, driving her from her feet and into a roll that left her on her back. She gritted her teeth, yanked her rifle up and hammered down on the trigger, her weapon spraying as she tracked one of the drones from her position on the ground. It exploded in a satisfying shriek of metal. Another spun in the air, its gun turret tracking to her position to eliminate the threat that had just taken out its companion.
The resounding crack from John's rifle cut through the chattering fire from the drones, followed by a second explosion of metal and shrapnel in the air. The last drone buzzed back several meters, its cannon chewing suppressing fire all over John's sniper position. She got a glimpse of him as one of the shots clipped his shields and he hunkered down more behind the log he had selected as cover. She rolled over to behind the tree she had started behind, trying to figure out where everyone else was, her HUD flickering angrily.
The burring sound of another assault rifle echoed in quiet mockery of the drone's clearly larger weapon, and the last drone spun out of control to crash into a tree, courtesy of Alekno's marksmanship.
Where was Jenkins? He should be right here, he should….
Cold seeped over her as she looked out over the field. The marines of Eden Prime had been joined by a new member to their fallen ranks, and welcomed him with open arms.
She slowly stepped out from behind the tree, again, and made her way to where he had fallen. The drones had done their work well. No amount of Medi-gel would have helped him from those injuries, a half dozen shots that crossed his torso in an almost perfect pair of parallel lines. She heard the other two behind her after a moment, Kaidan kneeling next to her.
"Ripped right through his shields. He never had a chance…" she murmured.
John touched her shoulder. "We'll see he receives a proper service when the mission is done. But we need to go, we can't stay here." Rhia nodded, though her heart wasn't in it. She had seen plenty of people die on her side. She had killed more. She didn't have to like it.
Nihlus's voice cut in on the comm. +I've got some burned out buildings here. A lot of bodies. I'm gona check it out. I'll catch up with you at the dig site.+
She didn't look back, but John's voice clicked onto the comm's. "Confirmed. " After a pause he added more quietly. "Jenkins is KIA." The Spectre's voice lost a bit of the harshness of his warbling tones. +I'm sorry to hear that Commander. We will mourn his loss when we are able.+
John heard him click his comm's in acknowledgment as he stepped up with her and they continued forward to where more enemies surely waited. They slipped forward in a roughly even line. A second group of marines, this time with civilians as well. All of them had been gunned down, and there was still no sign of the enemy that had killed them, not even drone remnants. It was a chilling tableau.
"John, whoever these are, tell me we are going to get them." She whispered quietly to him as she looked down at the body of a boy who couldn't have been older than fourteen.
"We will. It may not be today, but we will."
She didn't respond, but the tell-tale flicker of her biotics betrayed her anger as she clenched her fist
They crested the next hill, getting close to the dig site, or at least she hoped so. The whole area in front of them seemed to have been excavated, looking like part of a massive archeological dig like those they used to do back on earth. She started forward, standing to move down the hill, when Kaidan's hand caught her elbow pulling her back down into cover. She didn't see what he had, but she didn't fight him as he yanked her down next to him. John dropped to a prone position, aimed down the trench, responding to whatever Kaidan had seen. After a second he looked over at Kaidan, question in his eyes, clearly not spotting whatever danger was out there. Rhia turned over, twisting to look out as Kaidan peaked over the small rock outcropping.
"Sorry sir, ma'am. I swear I thought I saw another of those drones."
"Rather be in cover and not need it, than the other way around." Came John's reply, as he lowered the rifle and moved to stand.
"Stay down." Hissed Rhia as movement flickered in the trees. John dropped back prone. "I saw it too just now, there." She pointed as she spoke.
There it was. The soft whine of the drones shrieking engines, not running at full power. They were under the canopy, she realized, they couldn't do a full out burn cause of the trees, which meant…..
A woman in a white and red combat hard suit stumbled out of the trees on the far side of the ravine, letting momentum carry her faster down the incline, and away from the drones. She almost made it a rock outcropping jutting out of the middle of the ravine when the one of the drones shots clipped her, sending her staggering off balance to the ground. She turned as she fell, skidding across the ground. To her credit, even as the impact rattled her she managed to get one hand onto her side arm and yanked the large pistol free. The unknown marine shouted as she fired, in defiance or fear or both, and her first two shots went wide, but her next four crunched into first one drone, then the other, sending them screeching to crash in a shower of sparks as they shot past her. The mystery marine didn't waste time, but scrambled to her knees and ducking behind the rock outcropping as five humanoid figures came out of the trees she had run from.
Rhia stared. She had never seen anything like them. They were synthetics, she could tell that, but they didn't move like standard mechs. Every step was fluid, almost graceful. Three fingered hands gripped rifles, as their round single glowing optic "eye" panned around, seeking their quarry. All of them were taller than her by a good 6 to 8 inches, she guessed, but from this distance it was hard to tell. The synthetics stepped down, spreading out in a straight line and began pacing forward across he bowl of the ravine..
She was itching to get into range to use her biotics. That was where she excelled, but her range was limited, always had been. She could slam enemies with enough force to break bones, but she couldn't manage it at the ranges they were at now.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw John started counting down from five with one hand and she lined up a shot. As he let his last finger drop, she fired.
The burring of her Avenger-Assault Rifle was almost completely lost in the rapport from the sniper rifle. The sniper round punched clear through the optic photoreceptor on the center most synthetic, sending it down in a discordant warbling screech that was probably what passed for language to these things, white fluid spraying in a parody of blood.
Her own burst was not as efficient, but no less effective. A half dozen rounds struck it, overloading the shields, and she punched a trio of neat holes through the torso. It staggered, damaged, and one of it's arms dropped lifelessly to it's side. Kaidan's burst struck his target, but the synthetics shields held, the assault rifle rounds glancing off it harmlessly.
The return barrage from the synthetics was a tumultuous barrage of mass accelerated rounds that chewed the stone around them. The Synthetics advanced over the open ground, their fire synchronized so it was a constant stream of fire on their position in a way that only machines could coordinate. But machines didn't have instinct that might have saved them from enemy they didn't see. They were focused on ground team from the Normandy, so when they passed the rock the marine had hid herself behind they were completely unprepared for the hail of assault rifle fire. Both the one that Rhia had hit, and the next one in line went down in a hail of mass-accelerated bullets. The Synthetics barrage faltered, trying to evaluate which targets required immediate removal, and as one, the trio from the Normandy rose and retaliated, sending the last two down in further sprays of milky-white synthetic gore.
The colonial marine slumped in place, resting her gun on her knees as Rhia and the other two rose, and moved down to her. She eyed them tiredly as they moved over the rough ground to her. "Thanks for your help, sir. I didn't think I was going to make." She didn't stand, but she looked up at him and gave them a salute as John knelt down on one knee next to her. "Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212. You the one in charge here, sir?"
John nodded. "Are you wounded, Williams?"
She shook her head. "A few scraps and burns. Nothing serious, just really tired. The…others weren't so lucky."
"What's the status here?"
She closed her eyes as she talked, leaning her head back against the stone. "We were patrolling the perimeter when the attack hit. We tried to get off a distress call, but they jammed our communications somehow. I've been fighting for my life ever since."
"What happened to the rest of your squad?"
Ashley didn't answer for a second and Rhia started to wonder if she was going to. "I think I'm the only one left. We tried to double back to the beacon, but we walked right into an ambush. I know the Lieutenant went down. Me and two others managed to get out of the kill zone, and they sent drones after us. Martin and Adams didn't make it more than 30 meters into the trees before the drones caught them. "
"Do you know what these are? Who we are up against?" He looked away to eye one of the down synthetics.
"I….I think they are Geth, sir."
Rhia felt her eyebrows rise, even as Kaidan exclaimed. "The Geth haven't been seen outside the Veil in nearly two hundred years. Why are they here now?"
Ashley just shrugged. "Guess is as good as mine, by if I had to pick, my money would be the beacon. We were here to secure it till someone could arrive to spirit it away. I assume it's safe to say that is what you are here for. "
John nodded. "Correct, Chief. Do you know where the beacon is?"
"Last I saw it, it was still in the dig site." She pointed back down the trench, where the ravine started to turn. "Straight over that rise, it's not far."
"If you are still able Chief, I want you to show us."
She nodded, and pushed herself up to at standing position. "Aye aye sir. It's time for some payback."
They slowly moved up the ravine, moving from cover to cover. Rhia looked over at Ashley and Kaidan before asking "Someone want to give me a rundown on the Geth? I'm pretty much coming up blank on the memory front, other than Synthetic boogey man."
Ashley chimed in quietly as she stepped around a larger chunk of debris. "Only things I remember are from my history classes back in high school. They're synthetics. Non-organic life forms, with limited AI programing. They were created by the Quarians a few centuries ago, as a source of cheap labor, but ended up turning on them and drove the Quarians into exile. After that, they disappeared behind the Perseus Veil, and no one has heard from them since. Ship's going into the veil tend to not come out."
Rhia nodded as Ashely jogged her memory. The Geth were the galactic cautionary tale of messing around with A.I.'s. Artificial Intelligences, while incredibly powerful and useful if they could be controlled, tended to come to conclusions that were often not in the best interests of their organic creators. While Virtual Intelligence's were commonly used, they were specifically shackled with both hardware and software blocks to prevent them from evolving past their original programming and uses. A V.I. could run thousands of calculations in the space of time that human would take to do one, meaning they were invaluable, especially in things like space travel and FTL jumps, but precautions were taken to prevent the kind of catastrophe the Quarian race had undergone.
They rounded the last bend, and brought Rhia's introspection to a halt, as they walked into a scene that would leave her with nightmares for weeks. A pair of Geth troopers held a colonist, a man looking to be in his 40's or 50's on top of a cylindrical device. One reached down and punched a control on the side, and even as the man weakly looked up and saw them, a flicker of hope ran across his face. The device beneath him whirred and a metal telescoping spike ramming through his chest like he was part a macabre bug collection.
"Son of bitch!" Snarled John as he yanked his rifle up and dropped to one knee, lining up a shot. Rhia didn't wait for him to fire. She was finally close enough to do what she was really She charged, feet pound her forward as she hauled back like she was going to punch the air, flares of tell-tale blue and black energy sparking around her. With a thrust of her hand, she sent the biotic energy out of her in a rush, a wave that slammed into one of the Geth, hammering it back against the rock face with a an audible "whump". Its strange optic eye flickered and died as it slid to the ground, and the milky white and grey fluid streaked the wall behind it. The sniper rifle boomed again, but apparently John had either changed targets at the last second or his slide to a shooting position had been enough to throw him off. The round just grazed the second Geth, only managing to overload its kinetic barriers, and causing it to stagger. It tried to bring it's rifle to up, but she extended her hand again, energy flaring around the geth as it was yanked weightlessly through the air for a moment. She repeated her first gesture savagely, and another biotic kick spiked it down to crash against the unyielding stone with a screeching cry.
"Alenko, get him down, now!" Snapped John as he pounded past Rhia, cracking open one of the containers on this belt to reveal a portable patch of Medi-gel. Kaidan punched something in on his OMNI-Tool, keying commands into the holographic controls at his wrist, and he punched something on the spire. It dropped, flopping the limp form of the man the Geth had impaled. John stopped, his hand on the medi-gel packet and very slowly put it back, instead reaching up to close the stranger's eyes.
"What the hell? Why would they impale victims instead of shooting them?" demanded Ashely aloud.
John stood and Kaidan closed his OMNI-tool. "Classic psychological warfare. They are using terror as a weapon."
Rhia stiffened, her back going rigid. John's voice was flat. Cold. The lack of emotion set her teeth on edge. Ashley shivered too, though Rhia wasn't sure from her friends tone or the cold murder. "They want us to suffer. Jesus." The Eden Prime marine looked around. "Sir, this is the dig sit. The beacon was right here." She pointed at a small recessed area. "It must have been moved."
"Our side? Or the geth?" Kaidan asked.
"Hard to say. Maybe we'll know more after we check out the research camp?" Williams pointed at a ramp that led up and out of excavation pit.
"Commander...where is Nihlus? I thought he was going to meet us here?" Rhia wondered aloud. She scanned the excavation, but the turian was nowhere in sight.
"He was. " John click his comm, sending a pair of popping noises through the channel, but there was no reply. His frown deepened "Let's move up to the camp, see if we can find the beacon."
He stowed the rifle, the weapon compacting on his back and unlimbered the shotgun as they moved up the small narrow trail to the top. As they took the spiraling path, Rhia looked up at where the research camp should be. Smoke curled up away from it, shrouding most of the sky, but for a second she caught a glimpse of the macabre metal spikes at the top. She didnt say anything, just touched John's shoulder to get his attention. The spikes jutted up like metallic teeth, the bodies of colonists impaled on them. She looked away quickly. They had clearly been up there for far longer, and looked like they had been tortured, their bodies twisted and blackened. She heard her friend growl and from behind her, she heard Chief Williams cough in disgust.
"Keep moving. We have a job to do, and we can't help them now." Was all John said though, and they slipped up over the edge of the dig site and into the research camp.
The camp had been destroyed. Of what looked to have been eight buildings, only two were still standing. Equipment was scattered and broken all over the ground, and the spike like teeth suspended bodies in the air like grisly scarecrows, and no sign of any geth. The bodies of a few colonists lay on the ground, mostly under bits of broken machines and fallen crates.
"Fan out, see what you can find."
She kept her rifle up, stepping to the left around a pair of crates.
"Did anyone else hear that?"
She tensed at Ashley's voice as the others all gave negative answers.
"I heard something behind...Oh god, I think I found a survivor." She saw the marine hop of over another box and kneel and she stepped back around the way she came to help, as she heard what sounded like a low moan from behind her. She stopped, bringing her rifle up reflexively as she spun in place. No geth. The only thing that could have made that sound was...she looked down at a crate, the boots of a colonist sticking out from under it. "Shit, I think I have one too." She dropped her rifle and grabbed the crate, trying to push it off the poor soul under it.
A disfigured arm twitched under the debris. It looked like it had been burned black, some kind of incendiary weapon maybe. She growled and heaved, lifting the crate off the civilian and set it to one side. The figure on the ground moaned again, that low hollow sound of pain resonating in it's chest. She started to call for help from the others as she turned back to see how bad the injuries were. And then the colonist pounced onto her in a full-body tackle that bore them both down, and raked at her with long clawed hands.
Author Note: Enjoy!
Thermal Clips: One of those little things that as a game change was fine, but as an ingame explanation made no sense, so we just are going to run with the plan they have always been thermal clips.
