Chapter 3
The private's grumbling carried on through the whole way to the dark corridors of the metro, making Pacis wonder once again about the way humans trained their soldiers. He has seen many great examples, like Admirals Anderson and Hackett, who (as much as he hated to admit it) could easily match the finest turian commanders. And yet, the undisciplined bunch that Roberts represented kept humanity from receiving the same respect that the turians demanded.
Almost three years ago, thousands of humans sacrificed their lives in the Battle of the Citadel, just to save Destiny's Ascension. This decision, made by Commander Shepard, finally allowed the rest of the galaxy to see humans as something more than just an arrogant rash race. While Pacis personally didn't agree with the grant of a seat in the Council, he could see why it happened nevertheless. Shepard has proved to be arguably one of the best Spectres in a matter of a few months, casting her race in a very good light. The turian didn't understand why she was never properly introduced into the Spectre cycle, perhaps it was because of the fact that she always seemed to be on some mission of great importance.
"Shut it Roberts, you have no right to complain when it's your fault that we landed with this job." The corporal finally snapped at the soldier, obviously fed up with his childish skulking.
They already made it through the booths into the actual metro, which finally helped Pacis remember its functionality. Their job itself wasn't too hard; the three simply needed to scout the immediate area for possible living quarters and light the place up with some sticky lights that the LC found in the emergency compartment of the room. The dullness of the job didn't really bother Pacis, but it was obvious that the humans were less patient.
Corporal Xavier slightly turned to him as they continued walking down the hall, addressing him for the first time since their brief introduction upstairs. "We don't see many turians around here, much less Spectres." She stated with the unspoken question, both of them ignoring Roberts' muttered "With good reason."
Pacis couldn't see anything wrong with answering that question.
"I was sent to help with the communication between Earth and Palaven, since it was inevitable that one of the two was going to be attacked by the Reapers." Truthful but vague.
"But all communications are down, how can you really help with that?" The corporal asked in confusion, reminding Pacis of his QEC, he needed to try to contact someone once they returned to Bernard.
Before the turian can answer, Roberts shouted a warning, causing both of his companions to turn around in practiced ease with their weapons drawn. The source of alert was a few feet away from them. It seemed to be a human, but the Spectre couldn't really grasp his features because of the shadows that hid his face. It was a male, with dark dirty hair, but it was his posture that caught Pacis' attention; his unnaturally thin shoulders were drawn inwards, giving him a very hunched stance.
Even if the man looked hostile, they couldn't exactly point weapons at civilians. Pacis was just about to order the two to lower their weapons when more figures appeared behind the man. There must've been at least another two dozens of strangely hunched people slowly trudged to join their seeming leader.
Xavier decided to try and take the friendly soldier approach.
"Hey, are you guys alright? I know that you must be scared with the war going on up there, but you have to stay calm. If you come with us, we can get you to a safe place, where the machines can't get you." She said gently, slightly stepping forward. It was a risky move, they were horribly outnumbered and their best bet was to fall back to a better position.
However, the group forming in front of them didn't seem to even notice the corporal's words, muttering quietly between themselves.
Pacis' turian hearing allowed him to hear some snippets.
"Brought to us... That monster... They cannot be let out... We shall dine tonight..."
That was enough for him. Shooting a warning shot at the ceiling, the Spectre barked at Xavier. "Get back, Corporal. They're not in the right state of mind."
As to prove him right, the humans started hissing at him, not the slightest scared by the gunshot. Some of them carried blunt objects that could pass for rough clubs, while others barred their rotten teeth at the trio. A movement caught his eye, betraying the presence of three more savages trying to sneak behind of them.
The female soldier carefully got back, realizing the extent of their trouble. The savages snarled at her for her efforts. Xavier spoke lowly to them, hesitation clear in her voice.
"Any suggestions? I don't think that we can walk away from this one."
Instead of answering her vocally, the Spectre let his actions speak for him. With deadly precision, he took out three of the savages with his Carnifex while an Overload sent from his Omni-tool caused the three behind of them to collapse with wails.
The remaining hostiles charged at them with angry growls, catching the two soldiers off guard, who needed a few moments to start shooting. Pacis was able to shoot a couple of more shots before he was violently tackled by the leader of the pack. A struggle ensued between the two, where the human tried to pry off his armour to claw and bite him. Overcoming his initial surprise, the turian slammed his talon against the human's face, causing him to flinch back in pain. However, before the Spectre could reach his fallen pistol, his opponent was already back at his face, trying to inflict pain on him. Frustrated, Pacis slammed his leg against the man's knee, resulting in a loud crack that caused him to falter before landing another strike to the human's face that sealed the deal.
Getting up just in time, Pacis shot the last human that attempted to attack Xavier from behind as she sent a final burst of fire into the darkness.
Instead of the silent nod of appreciation that he expected, the Corporal marched up to him with an angry spring in her step. If he saw her face, Pacis was sure that it would've been full of unreasonable rage.
"What was that? They didn't even attack us! You can't just go around shooting civilians!" She demanded loudly, closing the distance between them despite being almost two feet shorter than him. Her assault rifle was still in her hands, which convinced him to be careful with his words.
"They outnumbered us Corporal, it was a matter of attack or be attacked. Considering our position, we needed that advantage." The Spectre said slowly, knowing that despite the fact that he easily outranked her, dismissing her anger wasn't going to accomplish anything. He could see that she understood; the human wasn't blind enough, but she was inexperienced in the harshness of war. "You can't deny that they weren't at the right state of mind, and if we left them here, we wouldn't be able to provide a safe place for refugees. " The turian continued quietly, but with a growing tone of authority.
Her rigid stance remained for a few seconds before finally slacking. He couldn't see her eyes, but he was sure that they had a defeated look in them.
"Fine, but we'll take it up with Bernard. Though he's probably going to back you up, being a special operative and all that." Xavier said bitterly, with an extra bite when she pronounced the Specialist's name.
For once, Roberts didn't have anything to offer, silently helping them to gather up the corpses of the savages. Once they properly cleaned up, Xavier announced that they were almost done with the scouting, Bernard didn't want to have them exploring too far inside. All in all, they determined that the outer area of the tunnels and metro alone could house a few hundreds of people, without taking supplies in account. The two soldiers seemed heartened by the first good news of the day, but Pacis was still feeling dubious. Their situation was grim, they were stranded out behind with no conventional way to contact their allies. But once again, the thought of the QEC registered into his mind. It was just in time, as they were heading back to the rest of the group. Xavier said that Bernard radioed to her, confirming that short-range radio connections still functioned with mild difficulties.
They were greeted with nozzles of assault rifles, but that quickly passed once they identified themselves. Bernard informed them that while they were gone, he and the other two privates fended off a few more attacks by the Reapers, but it didn't seem as if their little hideout was deemed as threatening. For now, they didn't need to worry about large scale attacks.
While Xavier (with Roberts' frequent comments) informed the Specialist of their success, Pacis fiddled with his Omni-tool. It wasn't designed to comply with the unique properties of the QEC, which meant the turian had to spend a certain period of time just configuring it to work properly.
After a few frustrating minutes, the communicator came to life with an unnecessary beep which caught the attention of the others. However, they refrained from commenting, which the Spectre truly appreciated. The QEC provided a minimized map of Earth, with all the online communicators on the planet. Another list on the side provided all of the communicators that he already contacted before, which was a rather short one. Like he expected, there weren't many other communicators on Earth, most of them flicking on and off on various parts of the planet, where most of the fighting must've been happening at the moment. The one connection he had to Palaven was oddly offline, which turned on a few alarm bells in his head. Was it because of the unimaginable amount of energy discharge on Earth?
He didn't have much time to ponder about it, since an icon of a communicator suddenly appeared on the outskirts of the city. Without a second thought, Pacis pressed on it in an attempt to hail it.
The Omni-tool illuminated the area close to it, drawing the complete attention of the rest of the soldiers. They waited in silence as the image shifted around statically, not settling into focus.
At long last, the form of a human man clad in an Alliance officer suit came in view, though it was still hazy from the poor connection.
"Who is this?" He demanded before his eyes settled on the turian. "Spectre Pacis! It was reported that you were KIA, I'm glad to see that they were wrong. What is your location? Have you made it out of Vancouver yet?" The man asked him after recovering from his surprise.
It took Pacis a moment to place the face with a name: Admiral Anderson was one of the few human officials who actually took the Reaper threat seriously before their arrival. He has heard a lot about him; the Admiral was almost as notorious as Commander Shepard herself.
The turian stretched his mandibles in a grin before replying. "I'm afraid not, Admiral. I'm still at the downtown of the city, I've had the fortune of meeting N Specialist Bernard and his squad at the Central Metro." Bernard stepped beside Pacis, snapping a crisp salute towards the Admiral.
Anderson looked surprised again.
"Specialist, I thought that you were trampled by that Reaper a few hours ago. I have no idea how you ended up there, but I won't question it. This is the first good news that I've heard in a while now." He said while taking his cap off, trying to brush the dust off of it. It was the first time Pacis noticed how bleak he looked, with a grimy and bloody uniform. Perhaps it was because all of them looked like that.
"No sir, we are still alive and kicking. This is great, we've been waiting for orders for a while now." Bernard replied with an unhealthy amount of excitement.
Anderson hummed inaudibly while looking at the duo.
"We don't have enough men in the city right now to make any conventional plans, but there's no point in withdrawing you from such a valuable position while the Reapers ignore you. Trouble is, Spectre Pacis is the only one with a working communicator as far as I know. We lost contact with a lot of squads in the city, so you can scout out and attempt to find them. You can use the metro as a main camp for the refugees, but stay out of the notice of the Reapers. A help from the inside is going to be invaluable when we take Vancouver back." Pacis didn't miss the hesitation in the Admiral's tone while saying "when", but he knew better than to mention it. Was there really a point in this? Was that what he was signed up for when coming to Earth?
He didn't have much of a choice in the matter, the Reapers would rip him to shreds before he'd make it out of the city.
The Specialist and the Admiral exchanged some information back and forth for a few moments. Most of the big cities have already fallen, but the humans were still fighting and losing ground. Anderson was responsible for the forces in the West Canadian vicinity, and he was having more luck than the others, which wasn't really good news.
"Keep me posted." Anderson parted with a command, aimed at Pacis more than Bernard, which the turian couldn't really understand. He wasn't an employee of the Alliance, just an independent aide sent from the Spectres.
It was clear that the soldiers felt better after seeing the Admiral, which was good, since Xavier forgot to tell Bernard about Pacis' part in the downstairs battle.
"You heard the Admiral, we'll get rest tonight and start scouting out for allies tomorrow in the early morning." Bernard dismissed them before going to his own cot.
The Spectre found an empty cot, far enough from the humans, only to realize that it could barely fit his frame. Settling uncomfortably into it, another problem sparked in his head before he fell asleep. Where was he supposed to get dextro amino food on Earth?
