Hey everybody! Hope everybody is enjoying the holidays, anyhow big round of thanks to everyone who has been reading. After much debating on my part, I decided to follow through on my idea of writing another chapter. Well I won't keep you waiting any longer, enjoy!

Chapter Seven

The last of the batarian troopers fell face forward as one of the marines slammed the butt of his rifle into his back. The batarian was quickly restrained and placed inside of a deserted prefab with one of Hannah's guard detail keeping a close eye on their prisoner. Despite their own general dislike of batarians, Hannah wasn't going to have any of her marines become a self appointed executioner.

She had briefly interrogated the captured trooper and gained nothing from it. Most batarians would usually say the usual anti-human propaganda or something of the like, but this one did not even say a word and only glared at her. Deciding that she wasn't going to get anything out of their prisoner right now, she was going to have the batarian taken in so that the Alliance could question him.

She exited the building and surveyed the carnage. Gunfire had pockmarked every single one of the prefabs, the marines had dragged the all of the dead troopers over to the side and blood began to pool around the ghastly pile. Every now and then she could hear sporadic gunfire as the two other squads secured the district's perimeter.

Tanner quickly joined the captain as she saw her walk out of the building. This was supposed to be a simple investigation, but it turned out to be more of an ambush. Hannah had her own suspicions of why the brass would send their battle group on something so trivial. But she had her orders, and she would focus on them and let the brass and the spooks take care of the details.

"How's your men doing?" Hannah said as she watched some of the few men with her gather around the building they were using as a temporary headquarters.

"Well enough. Only wounded we have are the two from X-Ray. Charleston got shot in the leg but hes doing fine. Watson took a shot to the chest, barely hit his heart. We filled him up with some medi-gel but if we don't get him some medical attention, he might bleed out." Tanner spoke quietly, her face grim.

Hannah nodded. She knew what it was like when someone under your command was injured. You start to feel guilty, and blame yourself even though you knew there wasn't anything you could do about it. But she had learn to put the mission first before she dealt with those feelings.

"Status on the enemy?"

"They retreated about two miles from here. We got all of the civilians in one of the emergency bunkers, so they should be safe for now. X-Ray and Lima are doing rotating sweeps to make sure those blinks don't get in here."

Hannah was about to speak again when her comm attracted her attention. It was from her ship. She quickly opened up the channel and responded.

"Richmond? Is that you?"

"Captain! It's good to hear your voice again!" Richmond exclaimed.

"Whats the picture look like up there?"

"It's bad ma'am. The Paris is disabled and the Berlin took a few hits herself but their holding together. Rest of the battle group took a few minor hits but we've pulled through. We're picking up some of the escape pods from the Paris. So far everybody is accounted for."

Hannah let out a sigh of relief. When she had contacted the Orizaba, she had learned about the batarian cruisers in orbit.

"Did you send another marine detachment yet? I have some wounded down here, and we need to remove the rest of the batarians from the colony before we leave to make the jump back to Arcturus."

"Not yet ma'am, but I've got them scrambling to head down there. But your son is on his way right now."

"What do you mean?" Hannah asked in confusion as she heard Richmond's response.

"The Normandy apparently caught our distress signal and helped us engage the cruisers. If it wasn't for your son, I'm sure we would have lost many good men and women. He's heading down there with his ground team and he should be arriving soon."

The comm channel suddenly broke into static as Hannah was about to ask how her son had even known they were here. She pressed the transmitter button several times and swore silently to herself as she only received more static.

"Tanner! What happened to our communications?" Hannah asked as she watched her lieutenant fiddling with the radio.

"I don't know ma'am. Blinks must have a jammer somewhere near us. I can't raise any of the other squads!" Tanner replied as she threw her radio aside in frustration and ordered two of her men to find the other squads and tell them to regroup.


Meanwhile, Shepard was standing in the cramped compartment of the shuttle as they rocketed towards the last known location of his mother's landing party. The whole team sat silently as each of them pondered what was going to happen. It wasn't long before Shepard heard EDI's voice.

"Shepard. I have detected three jamming beacons surrounding the district that the captain is in. Sending you the coordinates now. Be advised you will be unable to open a comm link while in the radius of those beacons.

"Thanks for the update EDI"

Shepard thought about what course of action he ought to take. The best course would be to split the ground team in to four different groups.

Turning back to his team he cleared his throat, "Alright, you've heard what's going on down there. We're going to head down there and see why the batarians have taken a sudden interest in invading a colony."

"We will split up. The batarians apparently have several jammers to prevent anyone from finding out what's exactly going on down there. We are going to hit all three of those jammers. Most likely there is going to be resistance at each one. We also need to find out if the marines sent down there are still alive, so we will have to find them as well."

"Understood commander. Who will be in each team?" Miranda asked.

"Tali, Legion, your with me. Garrus take Kasumi and Samara to the second beacon. Jacob, take Jack and Thane and hit the last one. Miranda I want you to take the others and find the captain and her men. As soon as those beacons are down we will link up and wait for the Orizaba to send in a ground force to mop up."

Everybody nodded and knew what to do. Hopefully if they moved quickly, they could catch the batarians by surprise and disable the beacons in short order. The shuttle changed course and quickly touched down just outside of the district behind what seemed to be a warehouse. As soon as everyone piled out, the shuttle lifted off and made its way back to the Normandy.

The team quickly dispersed among the buildings as they proceeded cautiously towards their objectives. Shepard quickly led the way around the outskirts of the district with Tali and Legion following. It wasn't long before the trio arrived at a ridge overlooking a small depression. Shepard quickly pulled out his Incisor and zoomed in on their target. There were at least fifteen troopers keeping watch over the beacon, and to make things worse there was YMIR mech right in the center.

He motioned for Legion to come closer.

"Legion, I need you to hack that mech. We can't risk a firefight that will draw attention to us."

"We will rewrite the mech in order to incapacitate the enemy."

"Good. Me and Tali are going to get closer to the beacon. Once you hack that mech starting taking out as many of the troopers you can."

"Affirmative." Legion announced.

Several minutes later Tali and Shepard were laying flat several feet away from where the ground began to descend. Without their comms, all of this would depend on their timing. Tali had pulled out her shotgun and was watching the mech intently. As soon as that mech began to fire on the guards, the two of them would make their move.

She watched as Shepard pull out his Revenant and fiddled with the side of the gun until a small indicator flashed to warp ammo. Personally she thought that it was such an unwieldy weapon, but she had seen Shepard obliterate entire groups of enemies with it. Factor in his own reflexes and the warp, it was like watching a lightning storm that struck with deadly accuracy .

Suddenly the mech was turning, several of the batarians turned around in surprised as they saw it open fire on them. The sharp crack of Legion's Widow was unmistakable as it sheared a helmet in two. Shepard was already up and running towards the beacon, hailing a unrelenting barrage on the remaining troopers. Tali quickly followed suit, occasionally snapping her Eviscerator up and pumping a round into one of the troopers she ran past.

By the time they were twenty feet away from the beacon, only three troopers remained. They had taken cover behind several crates and were poping up now and then shooting at their rogue mech. Tali quickly tapped her omnitool and sent Chiktikka after the troopers. Before they knew what had happened, the drone was already in their midst and exploded, sending them sprawling to the ground.

Shepard quickly dispatched them with a few well placed shots, and motioned for Tali to head towards the beacon as he kept watch. As she worked on shutting the beacon off, Legion had left the ridge and made it's way towards them. Shepard ripped the power cell out of the mech and tossed it aside so that the mech wouldn't be a problem to them. He quickly policed the bodies and dragged them behind a truck.

"It's done! Beacon is offline!" Tali shouted as the beacon powered down.

"Good. That's one down. Let's hope the others finish quickly. We'll head back to the district and see if they need any help."

Turning away for a moment Shepard tried to contact the others. He mostly received static but heard snatches of the other teams progress. Not knowing if they would hear him he tried anyway.

"This is Shepard. Beacon one is down. We are headed back to the district."


"One less to worry about." Garrus whispered to himself as another trooper fell. The first shot had struck him in the chest causing the trooper's shield to fail before another round put him down.

Samara had quickly subdued several of the troopers simultaneously. Garrus had watched as she drained the life force out of them before they grew limp and died. Kasumi had cloaked before Garrus could have told her to get the beacon. There were several times when he had one of the guards in his scope before they were just knocked to the ground almost as if they were hit by a krogan. As soon as he confirmed the beacon was disabled he heard a garbled transmission.

"... .. Shepard. Beacon ... .. down. .. ... …... back .. ... district."

Waving to the others, they quickly regrouped and headed to the district. It wouldn't be long until Jacob's group took out the last one, and that would mean the batarians would figure out something was wrong.


Hannah watched as the other marines arrived. They had all taken various positions surrounding the prefab with their prisoner inside. Several of the marines had climbed up top and were scanning the area with their rifles. Tanner had sent several of her men to place a few traps around the perimeter. There was no telling what the batarians were up to.

"Ma'am. We've got movement. Looks like a krogan, a really big one too." One of the snipers notified Hannah.

"Don't fire unless they do." Hannah instructed. While she didn't know if there were any krogans with the batarians, she wasn't going to take a chance.

It wasn't long until she saw the krogan for herself. Saying that he was big was a real understatement. He seemed to be roughly a fifth larger than that of an average krogan. The armor that he wore only made him look more intimidating with his dual visors. In a way he looked almost like a mechanized version of a krogan. She noted that the unknown krogan was not alone. There were three others following it, each one moving professionally from cover to cover.

They stopped about forty feet away from the marines. None of the marines moved, but they didn't let their sights leave the new arrivals. They saw someone wave from behind a crate.

"Are you captain Shepard?" A proper feminine voice shouted. The voice had belonged to the female wearing black armor.

"Identify yourselves!" Hannah shouted back.

"Miranda Lawson, executive officer of the Normandy."

Hannah gave Tanner a quick nod who in turn signaled for the other marines to let the four approach.

Hannah quickly scanned the small group. There was the large krogan, the woman who claimed to be apart of the Normandy, another human who looked like he should have been in the VAO, and a scarred salarian.

"Pleasure to meet you captain. I wish that we could have met under more pleasant circumstances." Miranda smiled as she extended her hand, her glowing visor dissappearing as she took in the state of the marines.

"The pleasure is mine. I was told that my son came down here with his ground team. I'm assuming that you are with them." Hannah replied as she shook Miranda's hand.

"Yes. Shepard had split the team into four and the others went out to disable the jammers. They should be close to finishing by now. I had just received a partial message from him."

Everybody jumped when they heard Grunt roar as he charged into an alleyway. Hannah had no idea what the krogan was up to.

"Zaeed follow Grunt before he does something we might regret, Mordin see to the wounded." Miranda ordered.

Zaeed quickly took off after Grunt with a few colorful choice words while Mordin rushed to where the marines had taken their wounded.

"Is he going to be alright following your krogan alone?" Hannah asked in worried tone.

"He will be fine. In the mean time we are going to hold our positions until the rest of the team gets here."


The empty buildings were unnerving. It reminded Shepard of the last time he was on this colony. The people here had it hard enough with their colony efforts, let alone having collectors drop in on them and abducting them and now this. He shook his head as he took cover and leaned his head out to see if the coast was clear.

Tali and Legion silently moved ahead of him as he covered them. Legion had taken point moving silently from cover to cover. Tali followed after Legion while keeping an eye on the side alleys they passed. Shepard couldn't help but admire Tali's movement. The new suit looked amazing on her. She reminded him of a weapon. Sleek and deadly. He quickly pushed the thought to the back of his mind. There would be plenty of time for that later.

The trio steadily made their way to the center of the district. It seemed the most logical place to start looking. As he moved ahead of the others he heard several footsteps around the corner. He raised his hand in the air and signaled for the others to wait. He slowly crept closer to the source of the noise with his gun at the ready.

He counted to three before quickly bursting from his cover and to his surprise he found himself pointing his gun at Garrus. Shepard relaxed his grip and lowered his weapon.

"Why can't we ever go anywhere nice Shepard? Last time we were here I was being shot at." Garrus laughed as he relaxed as well.

"Well kinda hard not to point a gun at something like that when I see your face flying out at me from the shadows." Shepard grinned at his friend.

Growing serious again Shepard asked, "Did you hear from Jacob's team yet?"

"No, but I'm sure they're almost finished by now."

"Let's move out then." Shepard said as he motioned for Legion to move ahead. Garrus took his team a different route to the center of the district to minimize the chances of being seen.

It was only a few minutes after linking up with Garrus that Shepard heard his comm.

"Commander. This is Jacob, we've got the beacon. We're headed back right now. Orders?"

"Any trouble?"

"Nothing we couldn't handle."

"Meet us in the center. We're gonna regroup and wait for the Orizaba's reinforcements. As soon as they arrive, we'll call the shuttle for a pick up."

"Copy that commander."

Shepard sped up a bit. With the jammers down they could communicate again, but that would mean that any of the batarians left would know that the beacons were down.


A trooper was thrown face first to the ground as Zaeed and Grunt returned. Having lost his weapons, he scrambled away from Grunt until he was up against a wall. Grunt kept his Claymore trained on the trooper as Zaeed ambled over to Miranda.

"We caught this bastard trying to leave the district. Probably was going to report back to the son of a bitch running the show," Zaeed nodded towards the frightened trooper before continuing, "Didn't take much for him to start talking though, apparently they were getting ready to make another push back in to the district."

"Good work. The comms are back up, so the other teams must be coming back soon."

"What about the bloody reinforcements?"

"We'll have to hold out for another forty minutes before we head back to the ship."

"Good. Was afraid we were going to walk away from a perfectly good fight." Zaeed grinned as he wandered off.

"Miranda. This is Garrus. We see you from our position, coming to you now."

Miranda quickly signaled for the others to lower their weapons as Garrus's team arrived. Jacob's group arrived just after that. The only team they were waiting for was Shepard's.

Miranda was just about to contact Shepard when Jacob caught her attention. He quietly indicated for her to look where he was pointing. Although somewhat obscure through several windows, she saw a squad of troopers.


It took Shepard's team ten minutes to get back to the others. They had run into several squads of batarians along the way and had eliminated each one before continuing. As soon as he arrived he was already assigning positions to his team. He saw his mother briefly but didn't say anything. There would be time later, assuming that Richmond stayed true to his word and reinforcements arrived on time.

Not one moment after he had taken up his own position near the front he heard the shouts of the batarians. They came from all sides in waves, constantly battering at their positions with desperate strength. Although he had estimated the batarians were near platoon strength, it felt more like an entire company had been dropped on them.

The sound of snipers crackled every few seconds as their owners found targets. Loose dirt showered them every now and then when a grenade detonated nearby, and the constant chatter of automatics kept them company. While the enemy remained fresh with more troops, the combined force of Shepard's team and the marine force of the Orizaba had to fall back closer to the plaza.

Shepard was the last to fall back, he watched as several troopers vault over the cover he was just using. Other troopers began to climb over the defenses around them as they slowly advanced. With a quick flourish, he pressed down on the detonator that Tanner had given him. The marines had buried several explosives around the perimeter in case they got overrun. As he ran back to the next available cover, he felt the ripple of the detonations and the sound of screaming.

As soon as he cleared the area, he saw that several other marines had been injured during the fight. They were carried back closer to the center where the shuttles would touch down. Although injured, some of the marines took up positions as best as they could from the center.

Each minute had gone by excruciatingly slow as Shepard fell into a trance: aim, shoot, reload, rinse and repeat. Eventually he was down to a few clips, he began firing in shorter bursts. Several of the others shouted that they were out and were resorting to other means to keep the enemy at bay. Several marines who ran out of clips began using their weapons as clubs or engaged in hand to hand with any batarians who came close.

Similarly when the rest of the team started to run out of ammo they resorted to tech, biotics, and physical means to hold back the tide. He was vaguely aware of Jack knocking aside dozens of troopers with a shockwave. Jacob had lifted several troopers into the air while Miranda took the chance to slam them down with such force that it sounded like he had heard the bones break. Zaeed had burned a group of troopers to a crisp when he chucked his inferno grenade close to thirty feet away.

Just as he loaded his last clip he saw the shuttles. Normally he wasn't really a religious person but the seven shuttles racing towards them was the most beautiful thing he saw at that moment. The shuttles, including their own, landed with a thud and he saw marines emerge. The timely arrival of their reinforcements quickly turned the tide of the battle. As they fanned out and pursued the fleeing troopers, some of the marines began pulling the wounded into the waiting shuttles.

Shepard shouted for his team to board the shuttle, as he watched the last of the original marine ground team and his mother board the final shuttle. Everyone ran to the shuttle and began using what was left of their ammo to cover the rest. Tali had just reached the pad when she saw a flash. The flash turned out to be a rocket streaking towards her. Panicking, she had just froze. Before she could react, Shepard shoved her aside and into the shuttle. The rocket impacted Shepard's already weakened shields and tossed him several feet away from the shuttle.

"NO!" Tali cried out in anguish, as she saw Shepard hit the ground.

She ran towards him as fast as she could. She didn't care if she had gotten hurt in the process. In her mind she kept telling herself that everything would be okay but as she got closer to Shepard she only felt dread clutching at her.

"COVER US!" Garrus shouted as he ran to his friend.

Together Garrus and Tali carried Shepard back to the shuttle. Tali felt tears rolling down her face. Her mind began to rebel at the idea of losing Shepard. She didn't want to relive those dark days after Shepard had died, not again.

As soon as they secured the commander as best they could, the shuttle took off. Miranda quickly called the Normandy to prep the medbay, as most of the team stood in shock. Garrus tried to stop the bleeding with medi-gel but Shepard was losing a lot of blood and had fallen unconscious. Tali shook uncontrollably as she cried. She looked at her hands, they were covered in blood and she felt a red haze take hold of her. She began screaming. Kasumi, Garrus, and Grunt strained to keep her from hurting herself as the shuttle left the colony.

Well there you have it. Hope you enjoyed reading this as I have enjoyed coming up with it. I'll see you all in the next one! Until then happy holidays!