Chapter 6: Search & Rescue

"Corporal? Commander?" Fredricks' voice was high and frantic through her comm, following another crack from his sniper rifle echoing through the valley. The combination penetrated Ella Shepard's daze and reminded her she wasn't supposed to be taking a nap on the cold hard dirt. With a groan, she staggered to her feet and looked right into the disgusting grey face of another zombie thing. Swinging hard, she clocked it across the jaw with the butt of her shotgun, enjoying the crack and thud as it went down at her feet. Giving it a kick, she felt another explosion behind her. Luckily, it came along with a loud shot from the hillside, rather than more lightning across her brain.

"Thank you, Fredricks," Shepard wheezed out as she turned and shot at the next lurching body. A jolt down her spine caused her to wince in pain, but it was worth it to feel the hum of her amp resyncing with her nervous system. Lift. Shoot. Throw. Shoot. Repeat. Mostly ignore the buzz of Tremaine's voice on the static-filled comm until she wasn't about to get mauled by impossible monsters. She stumbled to a halt as one last crack from the hillside knocked down the final husk. Wavering for a moment on her feet, Shepard waited for her brain to calm back down to the speed of coherent thought. Geth? McKean down? Fuck. And Foraker.

"Private, warn the other teams about the fucking exploding zombie nightmare things. I'm going to check on the corporal. Stay up there, just in case they're booby-trapped when they're dead. Again."

"Aye, ma'am." The marine's voice was subdued, the whisper followed by a slight click as he switched his comm unit over to match Foraker's security protocol.

Shepard's HUD had shorted out during the electrical attack. It's not supposed to do that. Foraker could've rebooted it. Still can reboot it? Shepard was desperately hoping the red lines in the corner that ought to signal her squads' condition were as inaccurate for Foraker as they were for Fredricks, but the tech had been much closer to the explosion.

Shepard found it hard not to shudder as she got close enough to the engineer's still form for a closer look. Not only was her armor scorched from the initial overload, there were nasty dents at the joints and across the visor, as if the things had kept hitting her after she was down. Knowing it was probably useless, Shepard unhooked Foraker's glove to check for life-signs. Nothing. Fuck.

Closing her eyes on a sigh as she suppressed the distressingly familiar rage at dead marines, Shepard pulled off Foraker's boot and grabbed her secondary dog-tag. The seam at the top of her armor looked black with electrical damage, and it probably wasn't worth trying to fight the connections. Getting the boot back on again was a challenge, but it didn't seem right leaving the marine with her toes dangling next to bits of dead zombie-husks.

Geth. Husks. Protheans. Plus two dead marines, so far. Fucking hell. Turning towards the farthest hill, Shepard trudged out of the valley, Fredricks converging onto her path from his own route across the hilltops. Nothing for it but to keep going, and try to stop getting my people killed. Again.

Fredricks fell in close once he caught up, practically treading on Ella's heels, his head swiveling at the slightest whisper on the breeze or shift in the light, too fast to actually get a good look at anything. Crap, need to calm the poor kid down. I'm out of practice being the nice one. Ever since Torfan I've been the one to scare the kiddies while the juniors play nice. No one else here, though.

"Thank you, Fredricks," Shepard stated quietly as they walked. "You saved my ass back there. I'm impressed you kept your head. We don't really get trained to deal with, well, fucking-blue-grey-zombie-things."

The private let out a sigh, almost managing a chuckle at her bemused tone as she failed to figure out what to call the husks. "Thank you, ma'am. Or, uh, you're welcome?" She could feel him still fidgeting behind her, but she kept her gaze outwards, attempting to make sure nothing else was sneaking up on them across the still smoldering fields, giving him space to figure out what it was he needed to ask.

"I just wish, that ... I tried to keep them back, but Foraker... "

"You did what you could, Private. She was too close to the electrical discharge." Shepard stopped, and turned around to face him directly. "It's not your fault she died, and don't let anyone, even yourself, try to convince you otherwise." She held his gaze until he nodded, slightly, attempting to agree with her, before turning back to her slow stalk forward. She allowed herself a slight smile of relief when she heard him fall back in line, smooth and quiet again, his fidgets gone. For now, at least. Thank you Major, stole that look from you.

Her smile faded with a sigh, and she wrenched her attention away from her former CO and back to the present. And the husks seem to have broken my brain too. Don't normally have this much trouble staying focused. Stay alive. Find Prothean thing. Look for survivors. Survivors would be nice. Improve our whole day.


Meghan Shepard had no choice but to leave Sergeant McKean's body where it was. She and Tremaine didn't have the ability to carry him anywhere, so she made sure to grab his dog-tags, just in case they had trouble coming back for him. The young private was jumpy now, and wasn't spouting off any of the smart-assed comments he'd been making before they were jumped by the geth. Not that she'd been paying attention to his comments specifically, she'd been too busy laughing internally at Alexis.

The private switched the sniper rifle for his assault rifle since they were a man down and walked behind Shepard, keeping his eyes on their six as much as possible. They crept along at a snail's pace, rounding a small hill. The sound of rapid weapons' fire, however, made Shepard break out into a crouching run, Tremaine on her heels. She motioned for the younger man to take cover behind a rocky outcrop up ahead and she sprinted forward to get into range. Trusting the sniper to get into position quickly, Shepard rounded the large boulder to find the female marine she remembered seeing from the distress call come running up the path, two drones hot on her tail. One got a hit on her shields and the woman drew her weapon as she went down and fired at the drones, killing them. She scrambled to her feet, her posture showing she was horrified at what she saw as she turned to run.

The commander followed the other woman's gaze and saw two geth lowering a colonist onto an odd tripod. As she watched, a large spike shot up through the man's chest raising him into the air and blue electrical sparks arced through his body. Shepard froze in horror for a moment and the geth had time to shoot, flaring her shields, before she managed to fire back and dive for cover. Tremaine unerringly took one's head off with his sniper rifle and the unknown female marine took out the other. Shepard stood up at Tremaine's, "Negative hostiles, Commander."

An alto voice behind her spoke up, "Thanks for your help, Commander. I didn't think I was going to make it." The commander turned from looking for Tremaine and the marine continued, "Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212. You the one in charge here, ma'am?"

Shepard glanced over the chief, looking for any obvious injuries, "Commander Meghan Shepard. Corporal Scotty Tremaine. Are you wounded, Williams?"

The woman shrugged, "A few scrapes and burns. Nothing serious. The others weren't so lucky." She hung her head, her voice becoming horrified.

"Tell me what happened, Chief," Shepard prompted, trying to keep her voice gentle, knowing the pain the other woman was in.

"Oh, man... we were patrolling the perimeter when the attack hit." She walked a few steps and pointed in the direction Shepard and Tremaine had just come from. "We tried to get off a distress call, but they cut off our communications. I've been fighting for my life ever since."

"We received the distress call, what there was of it," Shepard told her.

"I'm glad to hear that, ma'am. Our commsman died to get that sent out," William's brown eyes tightened in anger.

Shepard nodded in sympathy and gestured to Tremaine to scout the immediate area then asked, "Where's the rest of your squad?"

Williams' brow knotted in sorrow, "We tried to double back to the beacon. But we walked into an ambush." She took a deep breath and her voice was angrier than it had yet been, "Those flashlight heads wiped out my whole unit!"

Akuze. The pain, the fear, the blood, the darkness, the screaming. Shepard told her, "It wasn't your fault, Williams. There was nothing you could have done to save them."

The marine's voice indicated she wasn't convinced, though her face was professionally blank, "Yes, ma'am." She swallowed visibly and continued, "We held on long as we could, until the machines overwhelmed us."

Shepard frowned, she hated being right sometimes. "The geth haven't been seen outside the Veil in over 200 years. Why are they here now?"

The chief shrugged, "The only thing Eden Prime has that would interest them is the beacon. The dig site is just over that rise. It might still be there."

Nodding, the commander said, "We could use your help, Williams. Give you a chance to get even." The one thing Shepard never had the chance to do was avenge her unit. She'd give the gunnery chief that opportunity now.

William's pretty features twisted in determination, "Aye, aye, ma'am. It's time for payback."

A buzz of static signaled the comm attempting to transmit another message, and Shepard held up a hand to signal Williams and Tremaine to wait while she tried to decipher the message through the interference. "Bravo, here. Beware spikes ..." Shepard's eyes flashed upward to the dead body she'd seen impaled on her approach as the message broke up. "Do not let them close" crackle, buzz, " ... electrical attack. Repeat. Beware - bodies. Subjects turn hostile and swarm," a long buzz of interference, "highly dangerous," a final sharp burst of static, which faded quickly. A quiet hum made it clear the private was still on the line, though he didn't seem to be talking for a moment. "For - down. Repeat. Foraker ..."

The three of them stood silently, Tremaine and Shepard considering their fallen crewmates, Williams presumably thinking of her own unit as they stood staring up at the body hanging limply from the spire in front of them. "Impaling victims instead of shooting them. There must be some reason behind it." Williams' sad voice came from behind Shepard.

"You're seriously looking for reason from these machines?" Tremaine demanded, peering behind them through the scope on his rifle.

The commander put one hand on her hip, still staring upward, "Classic psychological warfare. They're using terror as a weapon." She glanced behind her at the private, "Even machines can figure out we feel fear and can be driven by it."

Their comms came to life, again, static interrupting the transmission, Alenko's voice audible despite the terrible interference. "This is Alph-! Jenkins - down. Repeat. - is down. We are - with the mis - objective. Alenko -."

Shepard closed her eyes, that was three marines dead. Were they going to get picked off one by one? Blood, screaming, gun fire, explosions in the dark, surrounded... She shook her head to clear it. This was not the time to reminisce. "Williams, where did you say that dig site was?" She asked.

The chief cleared her throat. "The beacon's at the far end of this trench." Shepard gestured for her to lead them.

They approached the dig site, the circular ruins crawling with geth, their flashlight heads shining in the late afternoon sunlight. Tremaine's sniper rifle cracked with a echoing report and one of them went down, spraying the stones behind it with some sort of white fluid. Meghan and Williams had their weapons out and were firing before the shot finished echoing and another geth joined its fellow in a spray of white. The rest fell quickly enough, splattering the smooth stones with their pale, mechanical liquid.

They approached and Williams made a frustrated noise behind her helmet's face plate, "This is the dig site! The beacon was right here! It must've been moved."

"By who? Our side? Or the geth?" Tremaine asked.

Williams shrugged, "Hard to say. Maybe we'll know more after we check out the research camp."

Shepard looked around at the destruction the geth and their brief firefight had caused, "You think anyone got out of here alive?"

Williams looked past the other woman to the path leading up the hill, "If they were lucky. Maybe hiding up in the camp? It's just on the top of this ridge, up the ramps."

Nihlus' voice crackled on through the comms, "Change of plans, Commanders. There's a small spaceport up ahead. I want to check it out. I'll wait for you there."

Shepard turned to her squadmates, "Sounds likely that either the colonists or the geth would have taken the beacon to the spaceport. I'll let Alpha and Bravo know to check the camp and then head for the spaceport. Which way, Williams?"


"This is Alpha squad. Jenkins is down. Repeat. Jenkins is down. We are continuing with the mission objective. Alenko out."

Alexis Shepard kept watch, waiting as the Lieutenant radioed the other teams. McKean. Jenkins. Foraker. Three dead marines, one lone survivor, and no fucking trace of the beacon. This was turning out to be one hell of a recovery mission. This was more of a clusterfuck than the Blitz had been, and there had been almost nothing for her to work with during that ambush. But then, batarians and mercenary scum had been easier to predict than synthetics, which only seemed to heighten her paranoia.

Needing to focus on the present, she shoved the awkward reminiscing of Elyisum to the back of her mind. Based on what little intel they had on Eden Prime, they probably should be heading for the spaceport. It was where the scientists were supposed to prep the beacon for transit, before everything had gone wrong. Maybe they'd gotten that far before the attack.

"What do you think is going on, Lieutenant?" Alexis asked, hoping for a fresh perspective from her own dark thoughts.

"We're fighting a machine race most marines doubt the existence of, ma'am. I feel a little out of my depth and a lot pissed off." He crouched behind a rocky outcrop and looked over at his CO. "I mean, I've always held back, just a little, with my biotics. But seeing these colonists..."

Alexis spared a thought for Ella and how this must be affecting her. "It's never easy seeing dead civilians."

She watched him check the readouts on his pistol as he asked, "What about you, ma'am? What do you think about all this?"

The commander didn't reply right away, she wanted to choose her words carefully. "I think that this mission was fubarred when we hit the ground. No intel. Ambushes. Fucked up comms.." She sighed a bit and looked back out to the horizon, seeing a cliff face rising in the distance. "But..." I've dealt with worse, she thought to herself.

"But, what, ma'am?" Alenko asked.

She blinked, realizing that she had trailed off earlier. "But, we'll figure a way out of this yet. Just as soon we can figure out where the hell they've moved the beacon to. Any ideas?"

"Charlie did mention a spaceport, as did Nihlus, Commander. I couldn't tell you where that is, however."

"There's a ridge up ahead." She indicated to the ridge on the horizon. "We'll head up that way and see if we can't get a visual on the port."

"I might be able to get us a clearer comm signal from up there as well."

She nodded slightly. "Good a place as any to start. Besides, Charlie also mentioned a camp up somewhere in the hills. There could be some clues if it's up there. Let's get moving," she stated as she shifted her assault rifle in her arms. "Keep a sharp eye for any more of those drones, and with luck, we'll get the drop on anything else nasty waiting for us."


The train to the spaceport ended up being back down the way they'd come and back around another hill. Meghan Shepard was getting tired of walking. She was glad she had on comfortable boots, at least she wouldn't get blisters. McKean's never getting blisters again, the morbid, self-flagellating thought surfaced before she could strangle it and she stumbled.

"You all right, ma'am?" Tremaine's voice was tentative.

"Yes, Private, I'm fine."

"If you say so, ma'am."

Shepard shook her head ruefully. The private had no business being so observant, but it fit his sniper skills well, she suspected. She continued climbing the hill, squinting into the smoke filled air. Visibility was horrible. She held her shotgun at the ready, though, and Williams and Tremaine did the same with their weapons. Cresting the hill, the commander froze, staring at the charred and smoking vista before her.

The spaceport was several miles away, too far to walk, but still intact. The swath of destruction around it, however, was thorough and far reaching. In the middle of the scorched wasteland squatted the massive dreadnought. Its surface drank what light there was around it as if refusing to reflect it back. The dim sickly bluish running lights gave off a weak glow the ships' hull absorbed as if hungry for light. The smoky red haze that seemed to pass for the air of the settlement seemed thicker and more dense around the claw-like landing legs of the vast ship. From Meghan's vantage point, it seemed as if the light-eating hull was wreathed in the flame-colored smoke. Ant-like figures of geth of varying sizes moved quickly and purposefully around the base, some forming up into rows of metal soldiers, others dragging a few human forms behind them, probably to turn them into those things that killed Foraker.

"What the hell is that?" Tremaine demanded.

"We saw it land," Williams said, her voice plainly anguished. "It landed just after the geth. Just before my unit - I don't know what it is, except big."

Shepard ground her teeth, "Whatever it is, let's see if it can die like everything else." Williams gave her a tight-lipped smile and nod, Tremaine just stared at her for a moment like she was insane, shrugged slightly and resettled his gun, prepared to move forward on her signal. The commander started forward and heard the other two fall in behind her.

They crept down the other side of the hill on a narrow foot-path single file. Shepard felt her gaze drawn continuously to the ship squatting on the burnt field. Why would the geth, if they could build a ship like that, care two rats' asses about a Prothean beacon? How would the technology even help a mechanical race? Mired in her thoughts, trying to find logic in the pattern of events she'd learned since touching down, Shepard was relieved to finally catch sight of the train station that would take them to the space port.

In a rare stroke of luck she hadn't seen since their landing on this blasted colony, the geth seemed to have left this station alone. They were able to board the train without being attacked. The flat platform was open and exposed. Shepard ordered her team to keep down and stay as covered as possible under the circumstances. Who knew what they'd find at the port?


"Fucking hell, Fredricks, I could kiss you." Ella Shepard grinned at the young blond, trying not to chuckle as the kid flushed.

"Um, thank you?"

Shepard gave him a friendly smack on the shoulder as she glanced over the very dead husks they'd managed to mow down before the things got close enough to explode on them again. They'd even finally seen a couple geth foot-soldiers of some sort, which were also now dead. Deactivated? Bits of mechanical shit and white goo? Much better than blue glowy bodies and green gunk. She scowled half-heartedly, too happy they'd both escaped injury to be actively annoyed at the mess. Those husk things are really fucking gross.

Shepard absentmindedly patted her new pistol as she surveyed the path ahead of them. The giant sea-monster of a ship was behind the spaceport, clearly visible against the devastation it had caused. That was several miles away, though. Their current concern was the transport station ahead, and drawing any remaining geth away from the survivors behind them. Shepard glanced back at the hut, locked up tight yet again. She was glad someone had survived, but couldn't suppress the smolder of anger in her gut that the survivors were smugglers, stealing from the marines they were lucky enough to have on hand to protect their sorry asses. Lucky bastards. Got the fucking cavalry right on planet, making sure they won't all get totally wiped out, and are they grateful? Hell no. Having learned nothing from Mindoir or the Blitz about how nice it is to have some soldiers around, they decide to make a couple bucks off their weapons. Should've gone with my first instinct and shot the smug jack-ass when he didn't tell me everything right off the bat.

She sighed slightly, and waved the private in behind her as she started down the hill. Ah well, got a nice gun out of the jerks. Kills things pretty well. Slowing down as they worked their way up the stairs to the station, Shepard stopped completely at the sight of a body sprawled across the platform. A turian body.

"Isn't that the Spectre?" Fredricks whispered as he peered around her. "Nihlus? What happened?"

How the fuck should I know? She glanced around the platform, curious at the total lack of geth or husks in the vicinity. Spectre shouldn't have been easy to take down, but there aren't even any extra bullet holes in the crates behind him ...

A sudden noise had her training her pistol at said crates, Fredricks falling into position beside her.

"Don't shoot!" A human head slowly raised itself into view, hands held high above him. "I'm one of you!"

Fucking lucky you're not one of us with a hole in your head, sneaking up on armed marines in a combat zone, Shepard snapped her pistol back onto her weapon harness with a mental snarl.

Though the conversation quickly went even further downhill after that lovely introduction, discovering that the dock-worker was the smuggler's contact and only alive because he was a malingering bastard. Yet another fucking moron I'm not supposed to shoot. Hope the damn grenade mod is worth the aggravation.

They did learn the beacon had been separated into pieces for shipment, as it had started glowing slightly green that morning, prior to the attack, and the scientists had been a bit worried about what it might do in transit.

And that Nihlus had been shot in the back by another turian, someone named Saren, who had headed off on the train after the beacon pieces. What the fuck is going on today? Two turians, one killing the other on a human colony overrun by damned synthetic monsters riding around in a giant space lobster, everyone apparently after practically mythical ancient alien tech? I'm in some ridiculous action-comedy vid. With extra explodey-bits. She scowled down at her boots, green husk gunk drying in splatters across her toes. And I was so happy to be on a proper ship, doing something more interesting than mopping up pirate leftovers. Shows how damned stupid I am.

"Bravo here." Shepard clicked on her comm as they headed across the station to the train. "Nihlus is down. Beware rogue turian on site, pursuing the beacon. Must locate three separate crates; mission target was disassembled for transport. Continuing to spaceport." She repeated herself twice, hoping the interference wouldn't fuck with the message too much.

"Let's go see if we can steal a train, shall we private?" Shepard glanced back at Fredricks as they approached the last set of stairs.

"Aye aye ma'am." Fredricks cracked a slight smile. "Always wanted to be a conductor. Can I drive?"