January 9, 2158
Human colony: Shanxi
Shanxi-Theta system
McCarthy had little doubt that the alien autopsy would bring about some of the greatest important scientific discoveries of the war's aftermath. Certainly, an encounter with intelligent alien life other than the Scrin was a monumental occasion, but having a specimen for study was another matter altogether. Even if humans and aliens hit it off from the start of negotiations, McCarthy doubted that the aliens would be eager to turn over test subjects. They could acquire them on their own, sure, but that raised all manner of potential problems, ranging from ethical to political, the latter being of greater importance at this stage.
As a result, McCarthy couldn't have been happier when Dante authorized her to conduct the autopsy of the body the commando had brought back. It was under observation, of course, but McCarthy was more than willing to make that sort of sacrifice for the sake of such an opportunity.
There were no official recording devices in the room save for one being held by a Marine corpsman, and McCarthy was scanned extensively for any sort of hidden monitoring device, but again, that was to be expected. Dante never actually said it, but McCarthy could tell that he was only doing those things for appearances. He clearly trusted McCarthy; whether for the expertise she offered, the aid she had given, or some other factor, she wasn't really sure, but she had no intention of looking a gift horse in the mouth.
That being said…none of the scans had detected her ocular implant. The entire autopsy (and all the discoveries that came from it) was for her to view at any time she chose. She'd already transmitted a copy to Mal, who was still trying to clean up Jax's mess. Fortunately, that failure ought to cover itself up, at least if GDI acted as McCarthy predicted they would.
Speaking of Mal… McCarthy thought to herself, opening a communication channel. She'd not heard from him in over a day; strange for someone as normally talkative as Mal. Then again, he was probably up to his neck in work, like her. Turian channels had been going crazy ever since a ZOCOM company began tearing through supply depots and transport hubs around the city. It was an assault from a direction that the turians hadn't expected, and it left them reeling.
Hey, Mal. How's everything? she typed. A few seconds went by with no reply. She checked her watch to confirm the late hour. There was no way that Mal was anywhere but in front of his computer screen at this time of night.
Quiet tonight, aren't you? she sent over. This time, she smiled as a tiny indicator showed that Mal was typing a reply. The smile dropped from her face when the confusing message came through.
reunm
I…didn't catch that. One more time?
rrun
What's up, Mal? If it was anyone else, I'd guess that you were drunk.
erun nowa
A strange chill ran down McCarthy's spine. If there was any message to pull from the recurring, error-riddled letters, it was 'run.' But what was the matter? Nothing much had changed in the past few days. McCarthy secretly hoped that Mal had finally started drinking, but it didn't offset the sense of unease that was building in her gut.
What's wrong? Are you alright, Mal?
too lawte fort nme
rrun hes comming forr y
foryou
Suddenly, McCarthy's apartment felt far too quiet, far too dark. Mal was trying to warn her about something or someone, and for all his lack of professionalism, Mal would never fake something of such dire importance. Her hand reached under the desk, fingers curling around the handgun clinging to the underside.
"Lights up," she said aloud, standing slowly from her chair and placing her second hand on the pistol's grip. The lights, however, did not respond to her command.
"Lights, up," she pronounced more clearly, extending the pistol as her eyes adjusted between the computer screen and the almost total darkness of the apartment. The lights remained unlit.
"I prefer it dark."
A few moments more, and McCarthy's eyes would have been adequately adjusted to the darkness, but those were several moments she was not spared. She shifted the pistol in the direction of the voice, but she knew in the back of her mind that it was far too close to her already for it to matter.
In a blur of motion further obscured by darkness, the handgun was ripped from her grasp, breaking her index finger under the trigger guard in the process. The pain didn't have time to set in before a blow connected with her stomach, driving the wind from her chest and dropping her back into her chair. The muzzle of her own pistol pressed against her forehead even as she struggled to regain her breath, and she finally saw the face of her attacker.
"We're long overdue for a talk, doctor," Specialist Locke's voice came filtered through his helmet as he knelt to eye level, "And I've a few questions I think you can answer.
Commander Ulthwe Saim found himself in a medical facility for the second time in less than a day. This time, instead of the modular walls of a field hospital, he sat in the sterile, overwhelmingly chrome medbay of the Justice Eternal. The cruiser was one of several in the turian fleet that orbited Shanxi, and served as the command vessel for the offworld portion of the occupying force. The middle-weight vessels served as the muscle of the fleet, while corvettes filled out their numbers. The operation was not deemed important enough to warrant a dreadnought, nor would such a vessel be terribly appropriate: they were designed for fleet engagements, and by and large, the Hierarchy fleet had steamrolled their human counterparts.
In the medbay, sitting opposite Saim was a turian wearing plain but nonetheless formal clothes. His brown carapace lacked any particular luster, and his face had none of the usual clan or planetary markings that were commonplace in the Hierarchy. No badge or indicator of rank was visible anywhere on his clothes, either. His presence aboard the Justice Eternal without either (or escorting guards) was testament enough to his high status, and being devoid of any military markings meant he was from a powerful group indeed.
For a few, long seconds, he and Saim said nothing to one another. The air almost crackled audibly between their mutual stares, and the unknown turian chose to break the silence with a phrase that, though initially out of context, told Saim that this man had the answers he was looking for.
"It's a virus."
"What is?"
"You know what I'm talking about," the turian replied, his voice strange in how unremarkable Saim found it, "Your subordinate already told you everything he knew, and he only knew what we told him."
"So I've just got a virus?" Saim snorted, "Sounds too simple. I'm betting this is when you say bu-"
"But," the turian did not disappoint, giving a smile that reflected neither mirth nor annoyance, "It's no mere pathogen. I'd not be here if it was, in two capacities: I'd not be in the same room, dressed as I am, with a man bearing an alien virus, and similarly, I'd not be here for something so mundane as that."
"Then what is it?" Saim folded his arms, "Because I'd like to know now rather than later if it's the sort of thing I'll be killed and dissected over."
"Hardly," the turian laughed, then shifting back into business tones with alarming abruptness, "You're a smart man. Dangerous, too. Not keeping you informed would be a poor decision, and trying to kill you would be an even worse choice." He raised his arm, omni-tool lighting up, and input several commands. One of the projectors in the room came to life, and the turian gestured towards it.
"Take a look. This is why you're lucky, and why we think we can work with you," he said, enhancing the quality of the hazy image until it came into focus, "Your comrade was not so fortunate, in either regard."
Saim already knew not to physically react if he didn't plan to reflect it in his words, but he couldn't help his eyes from widening at the projection. It was Karra, or at least it bore a resemblance to her. She was motionless, and most of her armor cut away. Saim knew it had been 'cut' because some of the armor did remain, across her right flank and chest. Her carapace had grown up around it, blurring the line between her body and her gear.
Worse, as the image quality grew further, and zoomed closer, Saim saw tendrils of gunmetal tracing up and down her side, reaching as far as her neck and thigh. The commander let out an involuntary shudder. Was this what he had contracted? And if so, how long did he have?
"Trooper Karra's state is a result of two factors, as far as we can tell," the nameless turian said, unphased by the image but taking no pleasure in Saim's discomfort, "Most obvious was her injuries. She suffered severe lacerations…" he paused, shrugging, "…well, beneath those armor sections. There used to be breaches in the armor, but they've since regenerated."
"Repaired," Saim corrected automatically.
"No. Regenerated," the turian replied, "I'll get to that later. But the other factor was something she lacked that you had." He twisted a hand over his omni-tool, sweeping the image of Karra aside and revealing a new one. Saim instinctively tensed at the sight of it.
It was the powered armor he'd seen at the field hospital. Part of the helmet was missing and there was a hole in the torso plating, but it was unmistakable. The sleek yet looming design, the (now unloaded) rocket racks on the shoulders…the only thing missing was the weapon. The image spun in mid-air, various statistics appearing around it and highlighting certain parts.
"A familiar face, I see," the turian noticed Saim's reaction seemingly without looking, "As I understand it, you barely made it offworld thanks to a handful of them. They had various infantry and light vehicle support, of course, but they were the ones to make the most impact."
Saim dimly felt himself slip back into the chaotic sprint to the dropship. One of them had crashed from the sky, knocking both him and Axe aside as if they were an afterthought. When it turned its weapon towards them, Saim had remembered the effect it had on the two turians in the field hospital corridor: eyes burst, ears leaking blood, undoubtedly organs turned to slurry.
But a stray shot had saved their lives. It was most likely intended to target one of the human vehicles, but Saim was thankful it had missed. It had ripped the armored human in half just as the trigger was squeezed, spraying that terrible sonic blast over their heads. It had only clipped them, but it took its toll nonetheless: Axe lost an eye, and passed out as soon as they reached the relatively safety of the dropship.
Saim had come out of in intact, as far as he could tell, but when the edge of the blast grazed him, it felt as if every fiber of his being was screaming, then falling deathly silent. It was a chilling sensation, and even though Saim was sure he was fully operational, it felt as if a part of him was dead, yet somehow still functioned properly.
"We were able to recover one of the armor suits, but not one of the weapons," the turian continued to speak, bringing Saim back to the present, "A shame, but we think one exposure was enough."
"Enough for what?" Saim asked, trying without success to put together the pieces that had been laid out.
"It has quite a few signs of being Prothean technology, but additional signs of…tampering," the turian said carefully, "The virus, that is. Not the suit. That's almost entirely human-made, with the same mass effect upgrades in virtually all their tech."
"It's a Prothean bioweapon? That doesn't seem-"
"-right?" the turian finished, shaking his head, "No, it doesn't. And it isn't. We've never seen anything like it before now, but it's no mere plague. As near as we can tell, it's some sort of techno-organic virus, effectively nanites that self-replicate and destroy redundant cells in their host."
"What you saw with Trooper Karra was the early portion of an advanced stage, if that makes sense," he continued, "The virus reacts visibly with material it comes into contact with, provided it's deemed useful. Trooper Karra had no weapons with her, but by the time we began taking off her armor for treatment, her body had already begun…merging with it."
"Vashedan," Saim cursed under his breath. Out of one life-or-death situation, and right into another, and this was one that he couldn't simply fight against.
"Relax, commander," the turian said, his unnerving voice sounding that much more unnerving when it tried to sound reassuring, "You're in no danger. Quite the opposite, actually. We can't say with absolute certainty yet, but it seems whatever tampering was done to the original virus left it vulnerable. The 'exposure' I mentioned was the sonic blast that clipped you. Though it didn't connect fully and cause noticable damage to you, it effectively 'killed' the nanites inside you."
"Then where does that leave me?" Saim demanded, temper rising, "Every question I've asked so far only got me more questions that need answering. I want to know, straight-out, where I stand in all this."
"Alright," the turian shrugged, "In layman's terms, the virus works in stages. One of the a earliest stages allows its host to operate weapons and equipment with far more efficiency than normally possible. Making it an extension of yourself, you might say, via an organic interface unnoticeable to the host. You were in that phase when the virus was effectively 'killed,' but it was built to last. It can't reproduce any further, so you're in no danger of ending up like Trooper Karra, but the state it leaves you in makes you very valuable to an upcoming boom in research and development."
"While we're being totally honest with each other, this war will have far greater repercussions than just another colony under the Hierarchy banner," the turian continued, "As young as they are, humans have quite a bit of useful technology to offer, and we've already acquired a nice cache of it. You're going to be offered a chance to help build and, soon enough, operate the weapons that will fight and win wars for decades to come. And your training, coupled with those nanites, mean that you'll be better suited for it than anyone else."
"What about my squad?" Saim asked after a moment, "What will become of them?"
"Trooper Telgore will come along with you, I imagine. He's in surgery at the moment, getting his eye replaced. He's quite eager to get back on the battlefield," the turian replied, "Trooper Karra will remain in stasis and under observation until we can halt and reverse her infection."
"So that's it?"
"What is?"
"All I have to do is say 'yes' to you, and everything will work out in our favor?" Saim asked, an edge to his voice, "It's that simple?"
"No," the turian answered, deactivating his omni-tool, "You'll meet someone else. Maybe it'll be in a few hours, maybe a few days. I suspect that he'll be a good deal more 'official' looking than I am. All you have to do is say 'yes' to his offer, and then yes, it's just as simple as you say."
"I don't understand," Saim said, suddenly feeling lost, "What about the offer you just made me?"
"I didn't make any offer. I said you're going to be given an offer," the turian replied simply, "And when it's made, I'm confident that it will be more or less exactly what I've told you. Differently worded, of course, but we can't predict everything."
"That's something else," Saim's mind churned, "You keep saying 'we,' but I must have missed who that referred to."
"You didn't miss anything," the turian said with another of his replicated smiles, "In fact, you missed nothing at all, because I'm from no organization, and am, myself, nobody." Things clicked into place, and Saim sighed.
"Let me guess: this talk never happened either?"
"You're smart, commander. I suspect you'll climb quite a bit higher than 'commander,' too, provided you don't get yourself sectioned with stories of a conversation that was not recorded with a man who eludes description on a ship where he could not possibly have been," the turian stepped back, and the door slid open for him.
"I suggest you take the offer when it comes," he said, still smiling, "I wasn't lying: you'll get far if you play your cards right. And the men at the top discovered long ago that there are some things in this universe that nobody could possibly do, but still need to get done."
"So they made a few 'nobodies' to do them?" Saim smiled wryly.
"Sharp as a tack," he laughed, backing out through the opened door, "You'll be right at home at the top."
The door slid shut. Saim glanced up at the camera in the corner of the room. He didn't even bother to check if it was offline. But then again, 'offline' was just another kind of alert that told observers that something was happening they weren't intended to see. Saim guessed that it was being fed a loop, or some other form of false footage.
For a few minutes, he thought about the nameless turian, and what had defined him. Perhaps it was easiest to say that his lack of definition defined him. He had no clan markings, a carapace colored an unspectacular shade of brown, and a voice that Saim wouldn't have been surprised to know had been surgically altered to make it match his appearance: ordinary. He was an afterthought, just a man in the background, always forced to the back of the mind simply because the mind refused to classify him as noteworthy. He was, in essence-
Saim grinned, shaking his head.
Nobody. He was, in essence, nobody.
General Artanis had a near infinite capacity for frustration, but for the first time in the conflict, he was genuinely enraged. He had been making slow but sure progress towards the defeat of the human forces, and even gained the aid of an asari commando team to put into the effort. Two more human bastions fell in their capitol alone, and precious few remained.
"Then tell me why they haven't been dealt with!" he barked at one of the two holographic figures on the table before him. His target, a turian soldier wearing a senior officer's markings, winced slightly before replying. The general's anger was a cowing sight, even through indirect communication.
"Most of our forces are stuck in the latest push. We can break the human strongholds, but if we pull too many troops away, it could turn into a counter-offensive," the officer answered, already dreading the reply-to-be. Thankfully for him, Artanis turned his attention to the other figure.
"And you! Your entire presence is intended to prevent my men from becoming so entangled like this. What's stopping you from doing that?" he demanded.
"We've lost five of our number while doing just that, general. It is unreasonable to expect us to work at full capacity at barely more than half strength." Aleena Corpatis replied coldly, unphased by the general's anger.
"Then what use are you?" Artanis spat. The questioned proved rhetorical as he punctuated the sentence by closing the line between him and the asari commando. Her hologram vanished, and he looked back at the turian officer.
"Relay the coordinates of the government center to me," he snapped. The officer complied, and Artanis scanned them a moment to ensure that they were in order before continuing.
"Pull your soldiers back from that position, minimum of one block. Understand?" The officer opened his mouth as if to protest, but quickly thought better of it.
"Yessir!"
His hologram, too, vanished, leaving Artanis alone in the room. Away from prying eyes, he calmed to an extent. It would be a huge step, one that could either make or break this conflict. The human fleets were all but annihilated, but their ground forces were making the turian troops pay in blood for each building taken.
Not only that, but for several days, an entirely unforeseen offensive had been launched against their supply lines. Fast-moving human troops, unlike the ponderous tanks and heavy soldiers the turians had grown used to, were hammering at the vital supply stations outside the city. And, as the recently-vanished officer had stated correctly, the turian forces were effectively locked in a fresh push against the human defenses.
Thousands of turians had died already. In this push alone, it would not have shocked him if hundreds more were to join them. The humans had practically every advantage a defender could hope for, but all Artanis could do to keep them from regrouping and refortifying was keep them on the defensive.
No more. No more putting alien lives at higher value than those of his own species. No more blood staining his hands when he could end this war with a single blow that would not cost him so much as a single trooper.
The humans had hidden inside their population centers as a shield, but General Torq Artanis would make them regret that decision.
"Orders are incoming, fleet master."
Fleet Master Entra Shadoon was already listening to the general's transmission. It had been rerouted directly to the fleet master's earpiece; the transmission had close to the highest tier of clearance, after all.
For the rest of the bridge crew, the stoic fleet master sat in silence, listening to the orders buzzing in his ear. The grave expression that forever masked his face somehow managed to deepen, and he nodded.
"It will be done."
He closed the line, extending his hands over his command console like a concert pianist. His fingers drummed out a rapid series of commands as he spoke them aloud, ensuring that if they did not reach their recipients one way, they would reach them another.
"Generators: reroute power to port batteries and targeting matrices."
"Yes, fleet master."
"Port batteries: prepare to receive firing coordinates. Standby."
"Coordinates received, fleet master."
"Ensure that they are followed to the tenth decimal. The surrounding area has enemy noncombatants and friendly forces. Stray fire will not be tolerated." It was no idle threat, and the quick response from the gunners ensured that the fleet master knew that they were aware of that.
"Port batteries ready, fleet master," came the next confirmation.
"Standby. Forming firing solution," the fleet master's fingers continued to fly across the hard-light interface. If there was something worth doing, it was worth doing right, and if you wanted something done right, you did it yourself. The fleet master took both these lessons to heart as he programmed the firing solution personally. The ship's natural drift had to be accounted for, as well as weather conditions, planetary rotations, and all manner of other factors that could affect shot trajectory. It was not a single blast, after all; it was a sequence, and each had to hit within a hair's breadth of the first.
"Transfer fire control to my console," Entra ordered. The gunners complied. Another bit of philosophy the fleet master lived by: the chain of command was meant to be heaviest at the top. He knew this would not be the first volley, not by a long shot. Artanis would not order a warning shot, nor would the Hierarchy as a whole. 'Shows of force' were for bullies, not warriors.
In his younger years, Entra would have thought the firing command would have been some sort of big red button, or something else befitting of the action's gravity. But those were his younger days. He had long since acknowledged that war was not a dramatic affair. It was a duty like any other.
And with a single, final keystroke, he carried out that duty.
The latest push was the worst yet. If Captain Dmitri Volkov had to guess, it appeared that the turians were sending an entire planet's worth of soldiers at them. He chuckled humorlessly to himself. A planet versus the population of the city hall garrison? He'd take those odds.
By request of various junior officers, he'd stopped manning the walls alongside the rank-and-file troops. He'd only taken the request into consideration after a sniper's bullet had broken his helmet in half, miraculously only grazing his skull. It wasn't so much out of fear for his own life so much as fear of what would happen if he were to die. He was easily the highest-ranking officer present, and not every junior officer was as miraculously capable as Acting Captain Phillip Dante.
Though the tank was out of sight, Volkov could hear the twin cannons of the Vindicator thunder in steady sequence. The Mammoth tank had so many kill marks on its interior that it practically repainted the walls. If this went on, the crew joked that they'd need to move onto the exterior hull.
If this goes on, they might be right, he thought. Even from his position well behind the firing line, Volkov saw a turian tank go up in blue and orange flames. Another kill mark for the Vindicator.
"Auto turrets six through nine are down," one of the junior officers called from his improvised radio-computer rig, "Jesus, six fired 'til it melted its barrel."
"Redirect a mortar team to the field of fire they left open," Volkov ordered, "Don't fire until I give the order." The officer followed the command, but Volkov was already lost in thought.
In Volkov's mind, he was racing from his body onto the front lawn, past the GDI firing line, past the first street, and into the boots of a turian trooper. It was pure speculation, of course: Volkov could no more project his consciousness than he could turn lead into gold, but he knew that despite their alien nature, these xeno were soldiers, and he could think like soldiers.
In Volkov's mind, the turrets had gone down ten seconds ago. The soldier waited ten more seconds, keeping his gun trained on the position they had occupied. No human infantry moved to reinforce. Another five seconds, and he raised a hand, ordering a scout forward. The scout moved swiftly between rubble, parked cars, and other improvised cover, gazing through the scope of his sniper rifle.
In Volkov's mind, he knew that the search would turn up nothing and no one. There were no soldiers there, save for the automatons that were now destroyed or otherwise disabled. It was, for all intents, clear.
In Volkov's mind, the scout gave a signal of 'all clear.' Three turians moved forward, rifles still held at the ready in case there were enemies lying in wait for a target more enticing than a single scout. They ducked behind new cover, waiting for any incurred fire. None came.
In Volkov's mind, the turian squad leader ordered the soldiers forward, double time. They had some open ground to cross, but the turrets were down, and thus there was a gap in the human's kill zone.
Volkov opened his eyes. He didn't claim to know for sure what the turians in that location were doing, but his guess was better than most.
"Open fire," he ordered, voice reaching the mortar team directly. Immediately, the triple thump-whoosh of the three weapons going off came through his headset, and an instant later, the street was awash with flames, shrapnel, and death.
"Send a squad to reinforce that position," Volkov said after the second volley, "And let me know if we caught any birds with that blindfire."
"Yessir, mo-gah!" the technician abruptly whipped his headset off. Volkov did the same a heartbeat before a shrill, static shriek came through the microspeakers and subsided as quickly as it had come. The radio rig exploded with activity.
"Jesus, my ears!"
"Fucking hell! What was that?"
"-still ringing. Shit!"
"Focus, people!" Volkov barked, re-attaching his headset, "We've been fighting birds nonstop, and you're gonna let a little feedback get to you?"
"Sir, no, sir!" a collection of voices chorused, some still wincing from the noise, and the moment passed, leaving Volkov annoyed, but no worse for wear.
"Captain, front gate reports that the enemy…rear gate, too," despite his still-ringing ears, the junior officer's face split into an unbelieving grin, "All sides, sir! Same thing!"
"Same thing what, soldier?"
"They're falling back! It's a full retreat!"
Volkov stood silent a moment, then laughed. It was a small chuckle that built into a full-bellied guffaw, and he could dimly hear the jubilant shouts and relieved sighs of other soldiers through his headset.
"Alright, people, damn fine work, but no time to party," Volkov couldn't fight back a grin himself, but dispensed the necessary orders nonetheless, "I need damage and casualty reports ASAP. The birds are giving us a breather, and we're gonna make sure we're ready when they come back."
"Lieutenant, raise Captain Dante," Volkov gestured to the junior officer, "Let's see if I can't get an APC over with some of those supplies he's been hurting' for."
"Yessir," the officer nodded, still smiling, "There's a bit of atmospheric distortion, though. It could take a few minutes to reach h-"
The first impact was felt throughout the city, sending ripples through still water and rattling windows. The half-dozen that followed amplified the effect to the point that it felt as if the ground below the city was rebelling against the concrete laid over it. By the third impact, the job was done, but the remainder ensured that there could be no doubts.
The Vindicator was far enough from the first impact that only its shields broke. The second impact, however, landed close enough to the tank that the Mammoth was effectively disassembled and scattered across a three-block radius.
The mayor of Talruum, hearing news of the turian retreat over the general frequency, was on his way through the halls of city hall to congratulate Captain Volkov. Under the first impact, the roof above him vanished, and he would have appeared to observers to crumble to ash mid-stride. His bodyguards were unaware that anything was happening to their principal as they, too, were consumed.
Had the strike been composed of lesser ordinance, the mortar team would have perished when the impacts set off their spare munition. However, it was not the case. Caught on the roof of city hall, the mortar team vanished along with their weapons, the latter reduced to atoms before they even had the chance to detonate.
Soldiers around the defensive perimeter had only just begun to realize that the attackers were falling back. Cheers were called across the firing line, and the weary soldiers felt the relief that an end to seven days of non-stop combat brought. In a twisted sort of mercy, when the impacts erased them, they did so before they could realize how short-lived their victory was.
Dmitri Volkov, callsign 'Executive,' captain of the 82nd Marines, and senior officer in the defense of Talruum, simply vanished. With a smile of blessed ignorance to the apocalypse raining down on him, Volkov vanished from Talruum and from the constraints of mortality.
The fire and thunder woke the leader, reminding him of a world outside his lair. The world collapsed around him, killing various thralls, but entombing the rest along with the leader. And as he remembered the outside world, his hatred flared, like an ember being stoked back to a blaze.
Slowly but deliberately, the leader ripped his way through his rubble prison, crushing concrete and granite into powder in his grip. The stronger thralls followed him as surely as the rising sun, digging themselves up, up towards the fire, up towards the thunder. Above them, the pounding like wardrums of gods ceased, replaced eventually by the faint, constant vibration of mortals scurrying about.
The leader remembered mortals, in two forms. The first, he hated for his former kinship with them, and thus for the imperfection that he had needed the cold presence to correct.
The second, though, were the monsters, the monsters that had driven him and his thralls into the sewers. Not content with that, they pursued him even then, diving into his lair and forcing him into chemical-induced madness.
The leader's mind twitched, half-remembering…something. What he had been, perhaps? Before the cold presence, before the madness…before the monsters, even? The twitch suddenly became painful, as if even the almost-memory was agony to even contemplate.
Instead of remembering further, the leader howled, redoubling his war against the rock and rubble. His cry was echoed by his thralls, but their voices were pale shadows of the leader's own. His howl spoke of hatred that burned brighter than any sun, forged in the darkness of the sewers and tempered in a cocktail of combat drugs.
January 10, 2158
Human colony: Shanxi
Shanxi-Theta system
"This is General James Williams, broadcasting on open channels to all GDI personnel. I've received word of the loss of Captain Dmitri Volkov and his garrison in the planetary capitol. For many of you, this will not come as news, but what I'm about to tell you likely will be."
Acting Captain Dante sat next to the radio, one hand resting on top of the device's casing. Most of Frank Company's commanders already were in the field, still awaiting Dante's orders, but the signal reached them, too, and they knew full well what the transmission would be. It was a long time coming, and the hours after Volkov's death had felt like days as they waited.
"I'm issuing an order for all planetside GDI soldiers, formal and otherwise, currently in conflict with the so-called 'Turian Hierarchy' to stand down. All units still in combat after twenty-four hours will be considered rogue."
Throughout Frank Company's garage, and indeed across Talruum and Shanxi, in whatever strongholds still held by GDI forces, the order was met with a crushing silence. It was the sort of silence that could drive men mad and made them crave something, anything, to break it. But the radio continued, and the soldiers listened further. A voice came through Dante's headset, though it was not that of General Williams.
"Targets are in sight, captain. Your orders?" Gunnery Sergeant Rios asked. Dante hesitated. This was a new kind of uncertainty. He'd been dealing with the fog of war until now, coping with dwindling supplies and manpower, and it had felt as if any opportunity to escape would have been welcome. But now that it was presenting itself, he was genuinely unsure if that was what he wanted. Ending their fight was one thing, but ending it like this was another altogether.
This operation would likely have been one of Frank Company's last, even without the general's announcement. But the men and women of the improvised company needed it. After what had happened to Volkov's garrison, they couldn't simply stop fighting. Not like this. Never like this.
Dante sighed. That was answer enough for him.
"Proceed, gunnery sergeant," he ordered. Then he turned the volume back up on the general frequency, and listened as the general's message continued.
"This decision did not come easily to me. The Initiative has been under siege before, and each time, we have triumphed. Our fathers held off the Brotherhood long enough to ensure our survival as a species, and their fathers before them repelled the Scrin."
Specialist Locke has paused his work, turning up one of the knobs on the computer console to increase the volume of the broadcast. His helmet rested a short distance away, the built-in camera serving as a silent witness to what was taking place.
"Hm. A pity," he said, "But no matter. We've plenty of time." Alongside his helmet, he'd laid out an array of tools, some improvised, others from his regular gear, ranging from zip-cuffs to coagulant injectors, and he had been making liberal use of all of them for the better part of the past few hours.
"Where did we leave off?" he asked rhetorically, turning back to McCarthy, "Your friend didn't give me much to work with, and I thought I'd pushed too hard and broken his mind. I suppose I underestimated him, if he was well enough to free himself and warn you. His wounds ought to finish him, but I'll confirm it after we finish."
With zip-strips binding her arms and legs to her chair, and the injuries she'd sustained, McCarthy was in no position to stop him. The commando was more thorough than any automated scanner the GDI had ever built, and infinitely more brutal. One of his first actions of the interrogation was to remove her ocular implant and, therefore, her left eye.
"I know that you've been testing something in the city," Locke leaned down, putting himself at eye level with the bound doctor, "And I've more than enough evidence to warrant an immediate execution. No one would blink if I were to end you right now and leave." As he spoke, his combat knife appeared in his hand, its edge already red with McCarthy's blood. She knew it was no idle threat, but also knew that a swift execution was probably the best outcome she could hope for at this stage.
"Of course, all the information I want is probably on your computer, but that's likely out of the question with your kind. Your kind usually have all kinds of safeguards against unauthorized entry. So instead, I'll simply ask my questions politely, and if you don't choose to reply, I'll cut something off. You've still got eight-" His hand moved in a blur, and McCarthy gasped as the blade cut her, so sharp that she barely felt it.
"I stand corrected. Seven fingers," Locke smiled, but it was the smile one would expect from a monster who had only heard of the concept of smiling from one of his victims, "And after that, I'll get creative. And by the end, all you'll have left are the answers I want, and a voice with which to tell me them."
McCarthy mumbled something, muffled by her unwilling tongue, pain, and exhaustion. Locke used the flat of his knife to tilt her chin up, forcing her to look at his grotesque, half-scarred face.
"You'll have to speak up."
"Sewers…in the sewers…" she breathed, struggling to keep her throat from moving into the blade's edge.
"What's in the sewers?"
"The first...first of His new Marked."
The questioning went no further, because no sooner had McCarthy choked out the last word, a shaped charge reduced a nearby wall to dust and debris. Locke was hurled across the room by the blast, but McCarthy was almost miraculously untouched by it. Instinct had tightened his fingers around his combat knife, ensuring that it was still in his left hand even as he struck the wall, and his free hand was drawing his GD-70 'Nighthawk' pistol from the holster on his right hip.
Twin silhouettes darted through the hole even before Locke had struck the wall. That description was remarkably accurate: they seemed quite literally to be nothing but empty outlines, only just visible because of their movement, and even then easily written off as a trick of the eye.
At first, they both raced toward McCarthy, who had barely the time or awareness to fully acknowledge the explosion. But only one stopped at the doctor's seat. The other continued, not breaking stride, in a straight line toward Locke, an instant before the Commando's boots had even hit the floor.
Even for a Commando of Locke's caliber, it was impossible to fully read the movements being placed in front of him. But his sight was sharp and his reactions quick enough to raise his knife in self-defense as his right hand was halfway to fully withdrawing his holstered pistol. The silhouette before him blurred with motion.
Locke was not used to being surprised. His knife had been stamped from an alloy that could have balanced a Mammoth on its tip provided the ground beneath it could hold. It had been issued to him as part of his initial kit upon completing his Commando training, and though all GDI gear was built tough, it was the only original component from that kit.
And yet, as the Commando's blade met the partially-seen blow, it was sheared in two, from eight inches to four, and the blow it was intended to block was not even slowed. Thus, Locke was at a loss for the second time in the occupation of Shanxi, and as the silhouette's blade continued its path towards the Commando's head, it would not be a stretch to say that this second time would also be the last of Locke's military career.
"Know this: our surrender is not a gesture of cowardice. I have no doubt that each man and woman under my command would have remained on the battlefield until their last breath. But we do not fight on a battlefield: we fight from apartments and offices, in cities across this planet. We fight in homes, with far too many of those who live there still inside."
In an apartment across the street, a little girl named Alice listened to the words of General James Williams. It reached beyond GDI military frequencies and onto civilian channels, and with good reason. It was a message for everyone, not just soldiers. Alice might not have fully understood what the significance of the words were, but children were exceptionally good at reading the tone of a person's voice, and Williams' tone was familiar.
On the bed, her mother was sleeping. She'd been sleeping for almost three days now. Alice knew Williams' tone because she had already heard it from her mother. She'd told Alice that everything would be alright, that her father would be back when the fighting was over. It was the tone of someone trying to be reassuring while wishing that they could believe their own kind words.
Alice didn't like to sleep. Her mother hadn't been able to sleep for some time, and only slept now because of all the pills she had taken. Alice could fall asleep easily, but her mind would not let her rest. She remembered the nice soldier, the one who had been in their old apartment a few weeks ago. It had been astonishing how quickly he had changed: one moment, he was at the window, firing his rifle at the bad men on the street, and in a flash and a bang, he was across the room, but only half of him. Only his top half made it across the room.
At first, Alice had cried, like any child would have. She cried until she had no more tears to shed, and then gave dry sobs, like a man vomiting with nothing left in his stomach. The sadness was still there, but her body couldn't keep up. And every time she slept, she still saw the nice soldier, but only his top half.
He had looked so sad before Alice and her mother fled the apartment, and Alice still saw that look when she dreamed of him. After a time of tearless crying, her sadness depleted itself, too. Colors faded, and the world seemed a lot less difficult a place to cope with. It made things…easier.
Her mother hadn't liked this. Alice didn't understand that, either. When Alice finally felt no further need to be comforted, her mother only became more desperate. It peaked three days ago when she told her how much she loved her, told Alice to take some of the pills, and then for her to fall asleep, too. After her mother had gone to sleep, Alice simply left the pills in the bottle. After all, she didn't much like to sleep.
There was a noise from outside, the familiar sound of a muffled explosion. Alice did not care to investigate it. Instead, she sat down in front of the vidscreen, and listened to General James Williams.
"For their sake, we cannot continue this fight. The invaders have made it clear that they have no more reservations regarding their orbital weapons. Each of us volunteered for war, but we have no right to force into it those who did not."
"Forgive me for speaking so long, but I'll repeat the order one more time: all GDI forces are to cease hostilities against the invading forces within twenty-four hours of this announcement. Any who do not comply will be considered rogue units and treated accordingly."
General Artanis let his omnitool translate the human's speech in real-time, and thus heard it as millions of others did. His gamble had worked: by crushing the single greatest fortress in their possession with so little effort, he'd broken the humans' will to fight.
Of course, it had been a gamble. The humans had a disproportionately large number of soldiers for their population size, and thus left Artanis to conclude that they were a heavily militarized culture. Unfortunately for them, they'd put most of that culture into ground warfare, and not into space. As much as they had struggled against the human infantry and tanks, their fleets had been destroyed almost as an afterthought. The only noteworthy damage had been inflicted by their orbital defense cannons, but those had long-since been reduced to scrap.
But the gamble itself had been, in large part, due to the similarities Artanis saw between his actions and (though he loathed to admit it) the actions of the krogan during the Krogan Rebellions. The krogan had destroyed entire turian colonies by redirecting asteroids to them, causing deaths of untold millions by those means alone. But this gesture, meant to cow the turians into surrender, had only strengthened their will to defeat the krogans.
Artanis took little pride in the orbital strike. It had been necessary, and it had worked, and in those, he was satisfied. But to cause the deaths of hundreds with a single order, carried out in mere moments? There was no pride to be had there. And it was this point that Artanis believed firmly placed the Hierarchy apart from the krogans. While they took a malevolent glee in war, the Hierarchy waged war because it was necessary. War was never for its own sake.
And the moment that we start to believe otherwise, Artanis thought, Is the moment we are no better than the krogan were.
He turned his attention back to the broadcast.
"I'm sorry. But I will not let this world be set ablaze for a cause we cannot win. Not yet. The Second is coming, and the Initiative will see that your sacrifices were not in vain."
Artanis gave a faint snort. The political equivalent of whispering sweet nothings. Or perhaps the human general genuinely believed that help was on the way, and were blissfully unaware that the turians had all but annihilated what fleets they had outside the planet's orbit before they had even arrived.
Still…Artanis saw no harm in the message. A race that believed help was on the way was a race willing to wait for that help. They wouldn't try to rebel, or even rebuild their military, simply because they thought their rescuers were already on their way. Hostage takers followed a similar mentality: telling the hostages that the money was on the way (regardless of whether it was true) ensured compliant hostages.
Artanis' mood darkened somewhat. Was that what they were doing? Taking an entire race, having only just discovered mass effect technology and climbed into the stars, and subjugating them? It was one thing to assimilate rebellious planets and factions within the Hierarchy, but it was quite another to discover a new race and plant the Hierarchy banner on their homeworld.
The general brushed the thoughts aside. That sort of thing was for politicians or the Council to decide. He was a soldier. He'd been given a war, and if this broadcast was any indicator, he'd just won it.
"Good night, and may God watch over you all."
"The captain gave the go-ahead," Gunnery Sergeant Rios tightened his grip on his Werewolf, "All units, sound off."
From his elevated position, he could see the site that had once been city hall. It was a humbling sight: such a mighty fortification reduced to nothing, and with enemy losses for it. But Rios was about to see the latter changed. Frank Company's numbers were bolstered, and in the nick of time. The turians were moving on the demolished sight to confirm its destruction, as well as to claim it as a morale-booster. Dante had anticipated this move, and he decided that they would not allow it.
Of course, that had been before the announcement, but Dante's decision to continue only strengthened his soldiers' resolve.
"Running cold, but we're good to go," Sergeant Findlay replied. His helmet comm was practically the only thing in his powered armor that was still online. The same went for the fifteen Zone troopers left in Frank Company, clustered behind him in crouched concealment. Zone armor put off a rather powerful heat signature, and Dante had made it clear that this was to be a perfect ambush, or it would be a perfect slaughter against Frank Company.
"Same goes for us," Specialist Reese added, practically in pitch-darkness inside the shell of his Wolverine. Frank Company's other remaining Wolverine was piloted by Eliza Schultz, who was in a similar state. The only light came from the dull, throbbing blink of the activation switches. Normally, Wolverines were brought online before their shell even closed on the pilot, but these were not normal circumstances.
"Checked up and good to go," Staff Sergeant Maria Pelayo said, double-checking that her soldiers were ready as well. She was the newest and likely final addition to Frank Company's numbers, but she couldn't have come at a better time, and her assistance was invaluable. All the troopers under her command were hit-and-run veterans by this point, and their composition was honed to serve this exact purpose. They were as eager as Frank Company to strike a final blow against the occupiers before their twenty four hour window closed.
Their raids had been successful beyond measure, but they couldn't sustain them for much longer. Sooner or later, the turians would catch up with them, and they wouldn't be able to stand and fight without making it a final stand. This way was better: one more raid, reinforced by the guerillas of Frank Company.
"Good," Rios replied, "Wait for my signal." Under his direct command was Frank Company's Marine strength, subdivided by squad and spread out, but totaling close to fifty men. Only a skeleton crew had been left behind in the garage base of operations. Dante was going all-in.
They hid in the rubble, in surrounding buildings, anywhere they could. What could not naturally hide was buried under a thin layer of broken concrete, netting, and junked cars. They hid well, for that had been what they had spent too much of this fight doing: hiding in their holes, waiting for the turians to try and dig them out. But the turian column was approaching, and the GDI planned to do their work for them.
Among the turian column was the newly promoted Sub-Commander Moraxus Telgore. He had what looked to be one lens taken from a pair of sunglasses stuck over his left eye, but it was merely the quick-replacement job that the surgeons had done to give him sight in both eyes. When all this was done, he could get a more subtle prosthetic, but this served its purpose well enough, and it let him take part in the final operation of the turian police action.
It was slowly coming into view. It had once been a fortress that had held off hundreds, if not thousands of infantry and dozens of vehicles, but now, it was nothing. Its destruction was the deathblow to the human resistance, and Axe was thankful for it. The sewers beneath that fortification had cost him nearly half his squadmates, and left only him, Commander Saim, and Karra alive. He suppressed a shiver at the thought of Karra. She was in stasis, certainly, but she was in bad shape. He counted himself lucky to have escaped the clash beneath the streets with his life, but considered himself blessed to have avoided her fate: alive, but unable to live.
The turian column was composed of two reinforced companies with vehicle and air support, many of its troopers having been among those who had laid siege to the government center. This was a definitive victory for troop morale, if one had been truly needed. Not only was the bastion leveled, but its ground was being seized in the name of the Hierarchy. It would silence whatever human soldiers or militia who had any thoughts of continuing the fight during or beyond the twenty-four hours their general had set for a full surrender.
It was in full view now. The power of an orbital strike was unquestionable; nothing remained but rubble where once had stood a mighty fortress.
"Sub-commander, are you well?" Axe blinked with his remaining eye, turning to his subordinate who had asked.
"Fine. Just a few things on my mind," he brushed the concern off, "Plenty of time to think now, eh? Finally getting off this backwater."
"Of course, sub-commander," the trooper nodded, shoulders visibly relaxing as the calm, talkative Axe returned, "A few days of disarming, and we'll be-"
There was shouting from further down the column, shouting that didn't come over the radio. They were practically on top of the strike zone now. Axe imagined that a few rookie soldiers had stumbled across a carbonized skeleton or something. He amended that thought almost as soon as it came: there were hardly any rookie soldiers in the column. Nearly all had seen their fair share of action, and even those who were in support roles had likely been ravaged by the lightning-fast strikes of a human raiding party that had been targeting supply hubs.
"Commander Kusovai to all units. Approach with caution. Forward sensors indicate thermal abnormalities. Keep sharp."
As if the universe wanted to reinforce the commander's statement, further down the column, a trooper carrier exploded in a tower of blue and orange flame.
And then, all hell broke loose.
Reese and Schultz had timed their startup sequences in perfect synch with the first attack. Their Wolverines were finishing coming online just as a Marine's MOD-3 anti-tank launcher devoured a medium tank. They rose to their full height, just over twelve feet, and made themselves known. They crashed through storefronts, having broken inside through adjoining alleyways to conceal their point of entry. The effect was tremendous: two hulking war machines bursting from buildings they could not have possibly gotten inside.
Across Reese's front, repainted periodically over the course of countless repairs and refits, was stenciled a message in jagged capitals: 'This machine kills birds.' And below it, a combination of the late William Thatch's art prowess and the translation software imparted by Dr. McCarthy had added the same message a second time, but in the turian tongue.
And as Reese and Schultz lumbered into battle, bearing the green-skull of Frank Company, their allies joined in.
Rios tossed the spent MOD-3 back into the waiting arms of its Marine owner, unslinging his Werewolf and leaning from cover. Many of his Marines didn't have lines of fire yet, and were moving to try and gain them, but it didn't much matter. The Wolverines had just joined the fray, and Rios and his Marines opened fire.
The gunnery sergeant's eyes had become sunken over the past two weeks. He remained just as silently imposing as he had ever been, but he had the air of a man who was simply going through the motions as he had in life. There had been no fire, no zeal. But now, his eyes were alight, and through them, he could see nothing but targets on the street below. Ironically, it was General Williams' message that revived him. It took only the order to lay down arms to remember a Greek phrase from an otherwise long-forgotten history class: Molon Iabe.
Rios didn't intend to force his men to keep fighting after the twenty-four hours had elapsed. He would have failed as a commander to impress such an order. But he wouldn't stop. If they wanted him to lay down his weapon...
Molon Iabe. Come and take it.
Despite their inferior numbers, volumes of heavier shots streaked from the Zone troopers, Findlay the first among them. Sheets of armor-piercing automatic fire, the crack of railgun slugs, and distinctive glow of ion beams. They had taken a massive risk in placing themselves so close to the turians, but it ensured that every round fired hit something, and similarly took away the turians' ability to call down orbital support without immolating their own men.
Both up and down the column, Findlay saw similar chaos being wrought. Rios and his Marines, Reese and Schultz in their mechs, but the newest additions to Frank Company...they were a sight, and Findlay redoubled his efforts, eager not to be outmatched by his distaff counterparts.
"Close quarters! Keep 'em at arm's length!" Staff Sergeant Pelayo shouted, igniting her jumpjets as soon as her suit finished its activation sequence. A dozen similarly-suited troopers followed her, and their weapons devastated the turian troops before the power armored soldiers even landed.
Pelayo and her comrades had no way of knowing, but among the turians, their reputation was the rough equivalent of the asari commandos' reputation among humans. They were dubbed the Morkant, in the turian tongue, translating simply to 'Death song.' And as veterans of the ZOCOM 23rd's Zone Raider detachment, they were well deserving of the nickname.
Their sonic blasters howled, killing any turians caught under the blast radius and maiming those who were partially struck. Their landing among the disoriented turian troopers did not decrease their ruthless efficiency. Some continued to fire their sonic weapons, but others were close enough to make use of their augmented strength to break soldiers with their hands and rifle butts.
Even with the reduced armor from the basic Zone trooper design, the Raiders were able to shrug off the sparse incoming as if it were an afterthought. None had even lost their kinetic barriers yet. Air-to-air rockets streaked from the racks mounted on their shoulders, serving as improvised but effective dumb-fire rockets against light vehicles.
"C'mon, c'mon!" PFC Sarah Walters pulled back a priming bolt, shooting a glance at her partner, "You done?"
"Hang on..." PFC Daniel Swaim hissed back, focusing intently on the final task before him for a moment longer before giving a slap to the device's casing, "Alright, open up!"
From the fourth floor balcony of a remarkably-intact building (considering its proximity to ground zero), Walters and Swaim had a clear line of fire along most of the turian convoy. Of course, their weapon had a limited range of effectiveness, and they had to delay actually setting up the weapon completely beforehand to avoid giving away the GDI ambush prematurely. But anchoring clamps snapped shut on the balcony wall, and internal servos whined as Walters swiveled the weapon towards their targets and pulled both triggers.
The Werewolf weapon system was a brilliant innovation, but aside from the larger variants carried by Zone troopers, there were a few roles that they could not adequately fulfill for all their versatility. One of those roles was filled by the M5 HMG, which combined the ability to penetrate light vehicles with the awe-inspiring power to effectively dismember infantry. The M5 required two soldiers to be fully effective, as many of its predecessors had, but a high rate of fire and shots with the kinetic transfer of a .50 cased round made it a worthwhile expenditure. Among soldiers, it was generally referred to as the 'Grinder.' Few other nicknames were fully appropriate given its effect on infantry.
The Grinder thundered, managing to join the GDI fusillade only a few seconds after the volley began. The kinetic barrier of an APC strained and cracked under the barrage, and the Grinder's wrath tore fist-sized holes in the roof of the vehicle. Walters sustained the stream a few seconds before turning it to a fresh target. She knew from experience how much fire it took to kill a vehicle of that size, and she'd added a few more shots for good measure.
A group of turian infantry became its new targets. The Wolverines had entered the fight, and the Grinder joined them in tearing footsoldiers apart. Often, it seemed that the high-caliber shots simply disintegrated an arm or leg, rather than simply tearing it off. It didn't much matter to Walters. Kills were kills, and she and Swaim both knew that their role could quickly become unnecessary when the ambush inevitably turned to chaos.
"Hold!" Swaim shouted, Walters cutting off the stream of fire just as he did, "New pack going in." One natural disadvantage of the Grinder was how quickly it could burn through ammunition cells, though in this case 'burning' was used literally. It was common practice to periodically pull them from the weapon and replace them, allowing the newly-removed cell to cool while the Grinder used the fresh one.
"Make it quick," Walters said, somewhat unnecessarily. She trusted Swaim's abilities already, but she also saw that her prediction was coming true more quickly than she thought, and a melee was no target for a heavy machinegun. Not only that, but combat was throwing up a heavy dust and debris cloud, making firing the weapon into the street all the more dangerous.
Many GDI soldiers broke from cover or jumped from the high ground, placing themselves on the same level as their turian targets. The turians had numbers and their soldiers were well-trained, but the ambush was devastating, and they could not bring their heavier weapons to bear against either variety of powered armor in the chaos. Within seconds, the ambush was becoming a brutal melee, as bayonets were drawn, stimpacks shot into veins, and every ounce of pent-up anger the humans felt against the invaders was unleashed.
Axe ducked under a bayonet thrust, smashing an armored elbow against the human footsoldier's faceplate hard enough to crack it. As the man stumbled back, Axe brought his assault rifle to bear, spraying a prolonged burst that put the soldier down for good.
As far as he could tell, the column was in the worst-case scenario for any ambush: badly bloodied in the initial volley, many of their superior capabilties neutralized, and now in danger of an outright rout in light of the enemy charge. But the Hierarchy military was not famed for its technology alone. Battlefield courage ensured that every soldier stood their ground, fighting back in the face of any odds.
And they still had advantages over the humans. Numbers, for one, and air support. Axe suspected that the turian gunships would be tearing through any ambushers who hadn't decided to plunge headlong into the turian ranks, and those who had would eventually fall when the turians rallied.
Axe glanced skyward, and what he saw could not have been further from his hopeful ideal. Mangled and wreathed in flames, a friendly gunship streaked across the sky, vanishing as it passed beyond the line of sight permitted by the buildings. A second gunship was firing its mass accelerator cannons, but not at any ground targets as Axe had thought. As if the universe was trying its hardest to demoralize Axe, the gunship was suddenly struck by a pair of air-to-air missiles, showering the ground troops in debris.
One had been sighted nearly a month ago, but Axe couldn't tell if this was the same vehicle. A human gunship, borne aloft by two howling turbofans, continued to spew ordinance from its stubby 'wings,' cutting through the comparatively light turian counterparts effortlessly. It may as well have been a tank fighting against recon craft. Designated air combat crafts were the normal turian countermeasure, but they were grounded a fair distance away, and by the time they could get airborne, the damage would already have been done.
A shockwave from behind him nearly threw Axe off his feet, but ironically proved lifesaving. An ion beam sliced through the air where he'd stood a moment before. It was a mixed blessing, as his life had only been prolonged because the closest troop carrier had just gone up in flames, perforated by a heavy support gun somewhere above street level. A cloud of dust had risen, made all the worse by the copious supply of the stuff that urban combat inevitably generated, undoubtedly worsened by the human gunship's turbofans. Vision was becoming an issue, but Axe could still see well enough to fight, and his HUD automatically highlighted friendly soldiers and, when possible, enemies.
Axe cursed when a hulking red outline blinked into his field of vision, swinging a thick arm that caused a friendly green outline to wink out. Two more appeared, further away, but one of the power-armored humans was problem enough for Axe. He squeezed the trigger, pouring automatic fire against the red outline as it turned toward him. The orange glow of kinetic barriers lit up the dust cloud, and Axe wisely dove to one side as the human retaliated with a significantly greater amount of firepower.
Surprisingly, the armor afforded troops a surprising amount of speed, and the power-armored hulk closed the gap between himself and Axe with a few quick strides. Axe had barely recovered from his life-saving dodge when he had to deflect a crushing swing from his foe, dashing his rifle from his grip. Almost out of reflex, Axe's left hand clenched, bringing his omni-tool online and producing a short, curved blade of orange light at its head. Axe had no idea whether the new weapon would work, but knew that the consequences for it failing would be his own swift and painful demise.
He slashed upward, catching the human's own rifle. Remarkably, in a spray of sparks, the human stumbled back, sparing a glance at his boxy weapon through his faceless, reflective visor. A moment's glance was enough to confirm that the deep trench carved along the side was enough to render it useless as anything but a club. Axe was breathless, and silently vowed to thank the 'Nobody' who had given him the omni-tool upgrade.
Sergeant Sean Findlay was thrown off by the unexpected move, but recovered swiftly. The alien's weapon had disabled his Werewolf, leaving him without his primary weapon. He smiled grimly behind his visor. The turian was good. It was almost poetic that chance would leave them fighting on these terms. His left hand drew his combat knife, following the trend of Zone gear in that it was essentially an enlarged variant of the standard Marine Ka-Bar. He flipped the blade into an inverted grip, and met the turian's previous motion by balling his right gauntlet into a fist. A spade-shaped blade shot from above the wrist, short by Zone trooper standards, but practically the size of an unarmored hand. The integrated punch-dagger was usually reserved for emergencies, but Findlay felt it strangely appropriate.
As if in response, the turian's free hand drew a curved knife from his waist, matching Findlay blade-for-blade. They were smaller, to be certain, but the omni-tool's light blade had proven itself highly effective, and Findlay wasn't going to chance that his armor would offer total protection from it after the mess it had made of his Werewolf.
If Findlay had more of a flair for the dramatic, he would have raised his visor, both showing his opponent his face and offering an obvious weak point to level the odds further. But this was no scripted drama, and their drawing of blades had taken but a few instants. A brutal melee raged around them, and neither was willing to sacrifice an instant for posturing when there were comrades in arms in need of aid. And without so much as a gesture of acknowledgement, the two attacked, both aiming to kill with the first blow and return to battle.
And as they fought, the ground trembled, an almost mockingly minor indicator of what was to come.
Light exploded into the leader's improvised tunnel. He had broken the surface, rubble streaming from his hulking form like water from the back of a surfacing Old One. He stood in the center of a scorched landscape, but outside, all around, was a civilization that he once knew, and his warped mind could recognize. And at the edge of it, a battle raged, between his hated kin and the equally hated monsters.
The recognition stabbed into him like a white-hot knife, and the leader roared. The avatar of Obliteration thundered forward, towards the fray, and his thralls surfaced and joined him.
And that's chapter seven. R&R, anon accepted. Couple of new-ish characters were brought in, but eight's more-or-less the last chapter, so that doesn't matter too much at this point. Special thanks go to Maka556 for his input, which helped me add a good deal to this chapter, and even special-er thanks to battybiologist for proofreading the chapter.