A/N: Will keep author notes short or non-existent from now on. Nothing to say, just read story. Talk like Salarians. Make it faster. Need to clarify some things, trivial:
1: Unsigned reviews do not affect me, signed reviews will get answers as soon as possible. Respect people who don't hide, can't be bothered to sign reviews, can't be bothered to do research, opinion useless. Have suggestions relevant to making story interesting, will listen. Think force projection off, will listen if shown references. Burden of proof on you, not me.
2: Adam Sinclair referencing to himself as Shock-trooper and past as a sniper, nudge at class system overhaul from mass effect to mass effect 3, does not fit any player classes, halfway between Soldier and Infiltrator (Like Operative, in Mass Effect)
3: Fall has great significance in English language, beginning of cold season where many lives are lost or suspended, cause of seasonal depression, also refers to waterfall, landmarks that have been there for centuries, eroding the earth tirelessly and shaping the world little by little, used as short for downfall, destruction, usually self-inflicted or result of carelessness, conclusion always unavoidable, biblical interpretation also possible, Adam and Eve cast out of Eden referred to as Fall of Man. Finally, gravitational physic phenomenon of being drawn to a celestial body's gravitational wheel, falling.
Best you could come up with is "Typo, you meant Fail!"?
Forgive me if I Fail to take offense.
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09
"WAAAAAAAAG! *Boom*" The green guy's brain splatters on the floor, courtesy of Charon's shotgun, going off somewhere behind and to my right.
First loading the Cryo-rounds protocol in my gun, I quickly take aim at the four additional foes down the hall and spray bullets all over the tight hallway, effectively freezing them all on the spot to be shattered by a well-placed frag grenade.
Easy, but these things have no armor to speak of and carry massive knives around, so let's not get soft. Savages with knives don't take over warships this size, they must be cheap muscle for the real threat.
Fortunately, my tech armor provides good protection against virtually everything, not like my hardened tissue-paper armor or shiny shields that lets knives and debris through. The tech armor works on the same basis as the omni-blade; a thin layer of hyper-dense carbon held in place by mass effect fields in my suit. When something impacts the armor, the energy is transmitted straight to the emitters, which will explosively overload if the strain is too great, killing anything without kinetic barriers in a ten meters radius.
Anyway, we progress through the door on the right and are faced with a massive, triple locked bulkhead, like the one we faced coming in, except this one had one of its locks blasted, turning it into another wall.
"Warning: This bulkhead will require time to cut through, please cover me."
I always feel strange when Geth use 'I' or 'Me', every mission briefing I ever had said they were gestalt entities, but Shepard helped them achieve sentience, so they are now self-aware gestalt entities and this shit blows my mind; I'll just go back to that corridor and cover the left side, where we came from.
The Revenant's worn grip feels good in my hand. Eight years I've had this gun by my side and it has never left me hanging, I never knew any living being this reliable. From Earth to Tuchanka, that weapon has been my only friend, even as my whole team, or even platoon died around me, the Rev kept firing, kept killing tirelessly and on command, never hesitating, never questioning and never stopping to take a break.
I'm not stupid, I realize my original training as a sniper influences that way of thinking as much as the gun's reliability does; I was supposed to go alone on high-risk missions, counting only on myself and my gear. The attitude stuck and even now, as a squad heavy weapon specialist, I find myself constantly sent on errands that require a lone soldier with high survivability, as a runner, decoy, bait or just to hold a hallway until the others cut through a door. I never really fight alone, I'd be dead otherwise, but I rarely fight alongside others, even when I'm not on special assignment, I try to keep a good distance from the rest of the team, to avoid being caught in an explosion when they step on a mine, being spotted when they fail to lay low or just get hit by the same burst that kills them.
The door closes behind me and I am alone in the bullet-riddled corridor, Rev aimed downrange.
Soon enough, some kind of two meters tall frog-monkey hybrid with a flamethrower comes through the opposite door, seventy meters further. I see movement in the darkness behind it, but can't make out any actual shape before the bulkhead seals back.
Only one and it still didn't see me, my black armor apparently blending well with the scorch marks.
Is that thing chewing on a cigar?
Doesn't matter, two squeezes of the trigger and it is pushed backward against the bulkhead. The thing's scrap metal armor plates still protect it from the freezing effect of the cryo rounds, somehow, so I switch to incendiary and open up again, holding the trigger a little longer this time.
Ten rounds slam in a tight cluster on the thing's chest and melt the steel plates to an orange jelly.
Green guy pushes himself forward and roars in defiance. I squeeze five more shots before having to pause and adjust my aim. I then shoot shot round after round into the thing's face, eating away at it and burning off flesh until the eight bullets, which rips right through the thing's skull.
It collapse halfway down the hallway, gurgling one last war cry before dying.
"Sinner," Vakarian speaks in my headset, "talk to me."
The Rev remains at the ready as I answer, "All clear, one Tango down, Sinner out."
The door at my back opens to let Charon and two Krogan through. No orders were issued that I know of, they just decided to come and rack up some kills.
One of the Krogan holds a Graal Spike thrower and the other a Striker assault rifle. Anything that comes in here better be wearing some tough shit armor; with my Rev laying down suppressive fire, Charon's shotgun filling the air with serrated tungsten spikes, the Graal doing the same with flechettes and the Striker tossing high-explosive rounds downrange.
Charon slaps my shoulder pad and I nod, grateful for his presence despite him being a googly eyed alien.
"How we doing on explosives?" One of the Krogan speaks, staring straight at me. Guess I'm supposed to be the demolition specialist here.
"Six DX charges, a dozen inferno grenades and…" A double check of my assault webbing and pouches confirms it, "That's it."
His massive head turns down the hallway for a second, then back to where I'm kneeling. "We'll cover you, move up and set up the charges along the walls." He thrust his Graal on my chest and draws a very old and worn Mattock.
The shotgun makes me feel somewhat better about going over there, but if you remember what I said earlier, anyone caught in these guys' line of fire better have some serious armor if they don't want to get torn to shred. I'm in their line of fire and as good as my armor is, it's not really the toughest there is…
I magnetize the first charge to the wall on the right and take a dozen steps before kneeling and planting another on the floor, right next to the dead alien. Another dozen steps and I slap a charge on the left wall and so on, rotating between walls, floor and ceiling clockwise until I'm just two meters from the bulkhead and almost standing on the first alien we shot.
It's odd, the thing barely bled at all and its guts, spread all over the floor, are covered with green powdery rot, same color as their skin. It's as if these things were actually the frames for some sort of fungus or something.
An Omni-tool scan reveals it is both animal and vegetal. The animal side is dead, but the plant still gives of biosigns. It's alive.
"Bullshit!" That came out on itself, a little louder than necessary, but we've been shooting like crazy ever since we got here, if anything was to be tipped off on our presence, the gunfire would have drawn it before my outburst did.
Let's head back to the others nonetheless.
You know Murphy's law? Says anything that can go wrong will do so in the worst possible manner. Just as I face my team, the doors spread on either side of the corridor hiss open and massive green fuckers with steel plates and handmade ballistic weapons pour in, immediately coming under fire from the Krogans and Batarian, but still coming nonetheless.
If I shoot from where I am now, I risk friendly fire and if I stay here, I risk being overrun faster than a lone Salarian on Tuchanka, so I backtrack to the bulkhead just as the Asari tells us to fall back and seal the hatch. I step through the door just as they do so on the other end of the hallway.
Triple lock door, need to bust one of the locks to seal the thing. No more explosives, can't shoot it and can't hack it. My omni-blade does the trick, however, and I step back just as something massive shakes the whole room.
This thing won't keep them out for long and I can't detonate the charges without weakening the door in the process, so let's just be someplace else when they get through.
The room is empty, despite what I thought earlier, filled with circular water tanks. No fishes in sight, probably water reserves.
Well, what now? I can't exactly go shooting my way through these walking tanks and my sneaking skills are rusty. First order of business, I suppose, is shutting off my tech armor; glowing orange plates tend to attract attention.
I'm used to being on my own, but this is different, I'm cut off, nowhere to fall back if things get bad and no one to patch me up if I get hit.
Carole used to love these operations, testing yourself against challenges that would stop a whole platoon, thinking outside the box and staying alive.
Carole was torn to shreds by husks.
"Vakarian," I speak in my headset while carefully stepping between the tanks, "Sinner, how copy?"
There are dozens of tanks, spread in four rows. Something green reflects in the water, two tanks ahead and I kneel behind the closest glass pillar.
No answer. A glance at my HUD warns me there is no signal whatsoever. Either they were all killed, the walls are very thick or someone's jamming me.
The Frog-monkey step into my line of sight, dragging its massive feet as it walks in my general direction. Didn't notice me, probably heading for the door, but it will pass me by in just a few steps.
I could shoot it, its face is unarmoured and its armour is scrap anyway, but that would make noise and if Carole taught me one useful tip, it's that when you don't want to get shot at, you should not shoot others. I think she meant it as a joke, but it has merit; if you don't want to be stuck in a firefight with a better armored and armed opponent, don't shoot it and manipulate the variables to fight on your own term.
I modulate my omni-blade into a long, thin spike, as smooth and pointy as I can manage with so little time.
With the new parameters entered, my omni-tool switches off just as the large beast steps past the tank. It must have noticed the glow or spotted something, because it stops and looks down to where I was just a second ago.
I finish sneaking around the tank and leap on the thing's hunched back to dive my new blade deep in the back of its skull.
Strong, resilient and impressive as they are, reflexes are obviously not a part of their skill set, as the target barely has time to realize I'm clinging to its back before having a translucent orange spike poking from its face.
Holding on to its armor's collar, I ride the thing on its way down and stab again, at the base of the neck, to be safe.
Well, let's move before that door opens.