The five ran outside to find the campsite in chaos. Salarians and turians ran everywhere, firing wildly at figures that were charging through the flames. Explosions from barrels of volatile compounds sent more gouts of fire into the air and soldiers ran screaming, several flailing their arms wildly as they caught fire and burned to death.
Jacob drew his pistol and fired a few shots at one of the attackers. The rounds glanced off of its shield and the thing turned towards them, revealing a blue, unblinking eye.
"Geth!" Nihlus shouted as the bright red synthetic turned in their direction and shot a rocket off at them. They dove for cover and the rocket flew by, slamming into the ground and sending a fountain of dirt into the air. Jacob picked up an assault rifle from a fallen turian and sprayed the rocket trooper with it. The heavier rounds pierced the geth's shields and sent sparks flying from its metal body as slugs impacted.
Pulse rifle blasts and mass accelerator slugs were flying every which way. More and more Citadel forces were being cut down, though they were now managing to coordinate their efforts. Jacob turned around a corner while trying to find cover only to come face to face with a pure white geth shock trooper. The geth backhanded him across the face and Jacob was amazed that his collarbone didn't shatter. Nevertheless, the blow sent him spiraling through the air to land in a stack of crates. Shaking his head to clear it, he saw the shock trooper standing over him, its pulse rifle leveled at his head. It then jerked and fell over, the light in its head going out. Jacob stared at the shell for a moment before looking up.
Garrus stood there, an assault rifle in one hand. The other was stretching towards him.
Jacob grabbed the hand and got up, and they both ran to find cover behind crates with the other Citadel forces. The battle was clearly defined now, the geth lining up on one side of the clearing. The whining of dropships filled the air and more and more geth marched inexhaustibly through the flames.
Jacob downed a regular, grey trooper with a sustained burst from his assault rifle when one of the surviving members of the Citadel forces pointed. An especially large shape was marching from the flames. The shape had four legs and an elongated head coupled with a shining blue eye in the shape of a semicircle.
"Armature!" someone shouted. As the Armature's main gun began to glow blue, the Citadel forces scattered. Jacob dove forward as the blue pulse hit the ground, sending a blue cloud of plasma arcing all over for a short distance.
"Use your omni-tools!" Amariad shouted. "Take out its weaponry!"
As many of the Citadel fighters took out their omni-tools, mass slugs from the Armature tore through the air, cutting down a salarian who was trying to get to another piece of cover. Garrus stepped out from behind the stack of crates they were standing behind and implemented a sabotaging program. The weapons on the Armature suddenly sparked and flashed, melting into useless lumps of metal. Jacob took this opportunity to run forward and throw a grenade at the Armature. The grenade hit the thing's eye dead center and Jacob detonated it. The Armature staggered, shook, and then toppled over.
And finally, all was quiet. Nihlus, his uniform scorched and torn in several places, looked around at the campsite.
The Ionia had been destroyed in the opening seconds of the attack. It was now one big fireball. The Citadel forces had also lost their two rovers, which were twisted hunks of flaming metal and rubber. Several dozen salarians and turians were dead, their corpses mingling with dead geth all over the campsite. Breathing heavily, Jacob looked around for Arkan and Menal. Both were on the opposite side of the line of remaining Citadel soldiers, alive and well.
As the survivors set to cleaning up the mess left by the battle, an engine became audible and a rover pulled into the canyon. Saren got out of it, looking around in shock. He stared at Nihlus. "What happened here?"
"We were attacked." Amariad said. "The geth somehow knew we were here."
He had no sooner finished this sentence than a loud, almost ear-shattering boom rolled across the desert and into the gully.
"Send a drone up there!" a soldier shouted. A recon drone from the Attican Sun was dispatched to look around. It didn't have to look long. A huge mushroom cloud, clearly visible even from that distance, was rising from where the city used to be.
"Oh my God…" Jacob whispered.
"This has gone beyond what we can do alone," Nihlus said. "Now, we need a fleet."
They posed that very request to the Council the next morning.
"Absolutely not!" the turian Councilor said. "We cannot risk provoking a war with the Terminus Systems!"
"But millions of people will die!" Jacob cried. "The geth that attacked the camp last night destroyed the closest city almost immediately after! We sent recon drones and search parties out there. Nobody survived! They could do that to the entire planet! The entire star cluster! Would you have their blood on your hands?"
That shut the turian Councilor up. The asari took over. "You have a valid point, Lieutenant. But as you know, we cannot open negotiations with the governments of the Terminus Systems. They have severed all diplomatic ties. We can do nothing."
"I think the sight of a Citadel fleet defending a planet from attack would be just cause not to start a war, Councilor." said Nihlus.
"Be that as it may, Nihlus," the salarian said, "We must still discuss this. What do you plan to do now?"
"We don't know for sure," Saren said. "But we've transferred all of the surviving Ionia crew members to the Attican Sun, because that attack hit us just as hard as it hit them. We're also going to move to a new location. If the geth can find us here, then they will come back, and try to finish the job."
The councilors looked at each other. The asari looked at Nihlus, Jacob, and Saren. "You make valid points, but we are still not sold that sending a fleet, even a small one into the Terminus Systems, is a good idea. We will debate the matter and get back to you later."
The Council faded and Jacob growled. "The geth will be all over this world and us by the time they reach a decision! We've got to act now!"
"We can't, Jacob." Nihlus said. "The Council's word is law. If they don't want to send a fleet into the Traverse, then they won't."
"He's right, Lieutenant." Saren said, nodding. "There's nothing we can do until the Council reaches a decision."
"We could search the cluster," Jacob suggested. "One ship doesn't attract much attention, so we should be able to scout around and see if there are any geth cruisers around."
The two Spectres looked at each other for a moment. Nihlus turned to Jacob. "We'll think about that. Get some rest, Lieutenant. We've all had a hard night."
Armatures aren't that hard to take down in the game, to be honest...anyways, three chapters in one day. Haven't done that in a while. R and R!
