AN: I live! The first half of this chapter was written sometime around April last year. Then I got stuck. Every time I sat down in front of it, nothing wanted to be put to digital paper. Which demotivated me. Which made it even worse. Rinse, repeat, writer's block...
Then I had to learn for a big exam and moved again, and bla, bla, bla... Also I'm a lazy person and can't stick with doing something if I'm not motivated which was probably the main problem.

But now I found time and inspiration to finally write this stupid chapter down.

I want to thank those who reviewed this story even though it was quite justifiable to believe it to be dead. They are a like a kick to get my ass up and write some more.


Chapter 9

Streaks of fire crossed the sky of Karshan.

Falling stars of dazzling white cut through the atmosphere, followed by tremors running through the ground, terrifying the residents, regardless of caste. Although cowering in the comfort of a personal shelter was more comfortable and reassuring by far than doing so in a simple house.

After the literal rain of death from above had stopped, red and angry bolts followed. Where the former orbital attack had seemed like precise cuts of ethereal colorlessness in the otherwise brownish sky of Karshan, the follow up incursions of Batarian airspace were big and slow enough for the projectiles themselves to be visible rather than the trail they left behind. Visible long before their impact, structures the size of a skyscraper descended almost vertically towards their destination before scorching the immediate surroundings of their landing zone with the exhaust of their enormous landing thrusters.

Their gigantic dimension caused the ground to shake for miles around their point of impact, despite their reverse thrust glassing the ground beneath them. Ramrod straight pillars, still protruding several hundred meters after being rammed into the ground, loomed over the patches of nature and Batarian ruins where they landed.

Landfall had been made on Karshan.


The situation in space was very different but sudden and devastating for the Batarian side nonetheless.

Ten cruisers along with two dozen frigates and a lone dreadnought stood between the Batarian homeworld of Karshan and the system's Relay, deployed in a loose defensive formation around it. Against groups of pirates this was more than enough of a deterrent and bigger fleets wouldn't be able to sneak this deep into Batarian territory without being detected and thus intercepted with their full military might. All in all, a very normal approach to defense of your homeworld in peace times among citadel races, being both effective and cost efficient since sneaking any amount of ships worth mentioning to a system without using the Relays was both extremely time consuming and an absolute logistic nightmare. So it was very reasonable to focus on defending the Relay.

What this arrangement was fairly bad at was reacting to sizable threats that didn't originate from the Relay.

Threats like an enormous ship suddenly appearing far behind their defensive line, separating the them from the planet they are supposed to protect.

Before the First Hegemonic Defense Fleet could react to the new threat and get into combat distance, the enormous unknown space vessel had already opened fire on Karshan and delivered its payload, making the crews' blood run cold. Further shots destroyed just about every satellite that could be used for direct communication and normal communication suffered heavy jamming.

To make matters even worse, the enemy ship didn't engage them and stayed close enough to their homeworld that careless fire would hit the planet, causing apocalyptic harm in case of a dreadnought's mass accelerator while a cruiser's would "only" deal catastrophic damage.

So, forced to choose between fighting with a disadvantage and not fighting at all, the Batarian ships made to circle around the gray dreadnought hovering over their planet, shooting only very low powered rounds at it while they could hit Karshan by accident.

Their opponent, not bound by the same restriction, used its tactical advantage to its fullest, peppering every ship with a literal rain of bullets. If it had been the standard, in the broadest sense of the word standard, ammunition of galactic warfare, metal slugs accelerated to a fraction of the speed of light with the help of mass effect fields, the ships would no doubt have fallen, but what hit the Batarian vessels were fairly slow projectiles, having slightly less than one percent of the speed of light. Their kinetic barriers were more than enough to serve as umbrellas although it forced them to run at nearly full power without pause by value of the sheer volume of fire as their enemy obviously valued quantity over quality. Still, they would hold out against an attack like this for at least one standard day before their shield generators would burn out and the defensive barrier would falter. More than enough time to trash a ship that apparently didn't have the necessary firepower to do any damage.

The counterattack of the First Hegemonic Defense Fleet against the unknown ship that had attacked Karshan commenced as soon as the planet was outside the line of fire with more Batarian ships firing at the intruder by the minute.

Mass accelerators spat blue slugs of metal at relativistic velocities without need for very detailed aiming due to the size of their target and total lack of evasive measures. The shots didn't hit their intended marks though as they were deflected before reaching the gray behemoth's surface, an iridescent light appearing whenever they were about to make contact. Depending on where the Batarian fire hit, the projectiles were either reflected back completely or seemingly slipped along the edges of their enemy, with some of the latter shots hitting the planet they were supposed to protect, luckily only hitting one of Karshan's oceans.

Cautioned but not deterred, the cruisers focused their firepower away from Karshan, keeping up the pressure, while waiting for the Pride of Karshan, their only dreadnought in system, to finish relocating, hopefully breaking the surprisingly robust barrier of their foe.


A blonde man in impeccable blue robes banished the last bit of inertia dampening fluid from his proud and traditional clothing with a flick of his hand. In front of him the foot soldiers his pillar had been assigned were being cleaned from the same irritating green slush this operation forced upon them, leaving behind only their steel gray armor with glowing red eyes.

He was sure that he alone would have been sufficient for this mission, but considering his integral part in calibrating the pillars and the valor of the "ungifted" men and women before him, he would hand over the honor of being the vanguard and first line of defense to them. As a proud magus of the ancient and noble house Archibald he was sufficiently capable of appreciating the dedication and willingness to sacrifice that donning that type of armor meant. Walking with death was now a privilege and curse that no longer was uniquely theirs.

"Pillar 02, has succeeded in its descent. The location will be secured by teams A2 to E2, awaiting confirmation for starting the calibration." Wilhelm Archibald El-Melloi reported via what appeared to be an antiquated pocketwatch. Though he was not one to deny the efficiency of modern appliances, he found that they distinctly lacked in terms of appearance and overall elegance.

"Affirmative, Lord Archibald, descent of 02 confirmed. Please commence attunement to local leylines. Upon completion await orders for synchronization." a firm female voice answered.

"Understood."

Readjusting his white gloves, the blonde man turned to the 50 soldiers that would be his "subordinates" for this mission. Not that he would order them around much. He slowly let his gaze wander, taking in the steely determination he believed to see through the helmets before addressing them with an emotionless voice.

"There is no change in the mission plan. Secure the area around the Pillar in a radius of 2 kilometers. Don't even let them do so much as put a scratch on it..."

He was not a man of great motivational speeches, but a modicum of respect and his duty would not allow him to cut it down completely.

"... and return upon success of the mission."

"Sir, yes, Sir!" they chorused back before getting their respective weapons and filing out towards the exits in an orderly fashion.

After all soldiers had left the room, Wilhelm spun around and left via a ladder leading upwards towards a storage area. Built into the room itself was a big container clustered with runes, glyphs, paper tags and many more different fixtures designed to make the container capable of holding its payload.

Each Pillar had several such rooms and their contents would be released during the course of the operation. But the Archibald had gained permission to release one such container ahead of time and make use of its content to use at his discretion.

With nary but a small movement of his hand, the glowing runes turned dark and a cacophony of ghostly wails rose in volume before the blonde asserted his will over the leftover thoughts he and his department as well as their predecessors had collected. Invisible to the naked eye, pale, vaguely humanoid specters diffused from their prison and passed through the walls.

Actively using them while concentrating on a delicate task such as tuning the Pillar would strain him and put the success of the mission at risk, but imbuing them with the most simple directive of searching and following anything that moves was easy. They wouldn't have the necessary energy to affect the material world without him feeding them Prana, but they would do a good job at serving as scouts if needed. Not to mention that they would turn into a sword as soon as time would allow him.

The preparation for his defense completed, Wilhelm Archibald El-Melloi descended the ladder again, going down deeper, beyond the original level from which he ascended, into the room that pierced the physical location of the knot of leylines the Pillar had landed upon. Branches of what appeared to be withered wood sprouting from the metal walls combined into a spiraling cone that met its counterpart reaching upwards from the floor shortly above waist height.

Finding the exact locations the rooms like this one had to be placed had been the main goal of the prior reconnaissance as the correct placement of these giant ritualistic tools was necessary to invoke and sustain the thaumaturgy they were intended for.

Coming to a stop beside the center of the room, the magus closed his eyes, stretched his right hand toward the free space between the wooden stalagmite and stalactite, and closed his eyes.

"Expergiscimini."

As he spoke those words a small glowing dot appeared in the gap.


In front of a giant metal pillar, lodged into what was once a recreational facility for high-ranking officials, was a solitary figure. Using the remains of the surrounding buildings as cover, the first Batarian unit to reach this point of incursion of Hegemony soil sneaked towards their unidentified enemy. Exchanging short orders via Omnitool, the 21st regiment's 3rd platoon closed in on the single person standing atop the burnt earth around the pillar. As soon as he could get a better video feed of their opposition, a Batarian scout relayed it to his commanding officer while the other soldiers laid in wait for further orders.

The feed showed a being with the same body structure as an Asari, exchanging the blue skin tone against a very light one. It's height was only barely greater than that of a Volus. On the top of its head, as well as above its eyes, some kind of white fur grew. It didn't wear any visible weaponry or armor, its outfit consisting of loose fitting black cloth.

Unsure why there only was a single enemy the commanding officer dispatched a small team of half a dozen man to deal with the unarmed alien, expecting it to be a trap. If the trap could be sprung without losing a significant amount of soldiers, sacrificing a few would most probably allow them to seize victory.

As the small group sneaked closer to their target, sprinting from cover to cover, the alien simply stood there, its arms held before its body the hands were hidden from view in the respective sleeve of the opposite arm. Seeing that it showed no sign of having noticed them, the foot-soldiers reached the last point with usable cover. Coordinating their attack plan via Omnitool, each member of the group took a position from where they could fire while staying covered.

Not one of them was particularly happy about their situation. But as members of the lowest caste, they knew that before they reached a certain status in the military or even ascended to a higher caste, they would be used as meat shields if push comes to shove. To ascend in life you had to risk it.

Counting down from three, the fireteam popped from their cover, training their rifles on the alien.

A cacophony of gunshots rung out as blue lines crossed through the air.

The sudden change in view alerted the captain leading the group that their ambush didn't work as expected. Where before he had an unobstructed view of their target now black shoes and billowing cloth blocked they view along the length of his weapon. Moving his four-eyed gaze upwards, the Batarian could only make out the alien standing on his gun's barrel when his head had already left the rest of his body behind.

In the space of the next seven seconds, the Batarian scouts were treated to what they could only describe as slaughter. Their enemy was calmly walked through the hail of mass accelerator rounds, seemingly unaffected even though there was no signature blue glow of a mass effect barrier. Around the alien, good Batarian men suffered gruesome deaths without visible cause. Despite the sturdiness of their body armor, which should have prevented such things, many died from limbs that suddenly tore off or big holes opening up in their chest.

The scouts could only watch in silence and hold their breath as the alien stopped in front on the last living Batarian, who was stuck in the position of holding his weapon. Said assault rifle had mysteriously left his hands by this point and was nowhere to be seen.

The pinkish skinned and furred Asari had then grabbed the outstretched hands of his opponent and stayed in this position for almost a minute. After it let go of the Batarian's hands, the soldier collapsed like a puppet whose strings were cut.

Standing still for a moment, the alien then turned around, its gaze sweeping over the area where the scouts had hidden themselves. At some kind of invisible signal it vanished.

Less than a minute later, over one hundred Batarian corpses lay motionless on the ground in pools of their own blood.


These four eyed travesties displayed a fatal lack in both elegance and martial prowess, Hon Li Feng decided after he had decimated their vanguard. Their reactions were too slow, the dependence on a weapon too crippling, and their abysmal charisma made them force their soldiers to offer up their lives instead of them being willing to do so for their sworn liege. And fearful warriors will never throw themselves against impossible odds and win.

And what reason should this Li Feng, living god of the martial realm, have to face unworthy vermin with the honors given to even his weakest challenger. None, Li Feng decided. They were struck down not by technique but by pure power as was fitting. Everything else would have been an insult to the arts.

The first few of these creatures had fulfilled a purpose in allowing Li Feng to examine how their bodies worked, especially the last one. This Li Feng had used the creature's own bodily tension to squash its organs one by one until its breath stopped. It was very insightful on where their physical limits were.

And Li Feng was disappointed. They might have been a match for normal humans but were utterly insignificant in front of Hon Li Feng's martial prowess. It only deepened Li Feng's distaste for these beings. A race of savages, ascended only through scavenging from past glories. And they had dared to destroy ancient places of immeasurable value.

But Li Feng was a bighearted and magnanimous man. Instead of eradicating them to the last four-eyed abomination that tainted the ocean of stars, this Li Feng would be content with slaughtering any that came close to the device behind him.


"Puahhh!"

"Is it really necessary for you to drown yourself in Sake every time?"

"Ahh~. You know I need to do this just in case I want the old man to take over. When I did it once without being even slightly buzzed he almost nagged my ear of afterwards."

"But do you have to be so... vulgar about it? And I don't believe you don't enjoy it for even a second."

"Well, there is a certain code of conduct you have to honor if you want to call yourself Japanese swordsman. And chugging down large gulps straight from the bottles in plain sight is one of them."

"Steeling one's mind and adhering to a strict code of conduct is also a key feature found in many samurai. Why not learn from them instead?

And if you continue being so cheeky, you will get slapped."

"Oh, right. You and what army?"

"Who said anything about me doing any slapping. Word of your behavior might just reach the ears of Obaba-sama and Koyuki."

"Urgh- Y-You wouldn't do that right, Sakuya?

Sakuya?

Sakuya-san?

Sakuya-sama?

Please have mercy on me Sakuyaaa~!"

"Haaa... If you could only get your act together for more than 5 minutes at a time you would be a lot more useful, Nobuhiro. And it seems we just got company."

"Ahh. I can see them too now. They are all crawling around between the rubble like cockroaches.

Hmm...

Well, this should do it."

"What are you..."

"EIIIYAAAAA!"

"...doing?

...Seriously? Did you really have to cut through all the buildings behind them too?"

"Oh, leave me be. You know the only one who can use Murakumo with precision is the old man, give me a break."

"If any debris from the collapsing buildings hits me I'm telling Obaba-sama that you need to improve your accuracy."

"NO! Anything but that Sakuya! I don't want to go back to that hell!"

"Then you should think things through a bit more before you do them."


"D2-Hub to all 02 squads. Enemy force detected at position of 1500m north of D2-5. Target group will be designated as T-01. Estimated number of targets: 40 infantry armed with rifle-class weaponry, 2 armored vehicles with unknown armaments, armor penetrating weaponry plausible. No long range support has been sighted.

D2-5 along with squad A2 will proceed to lure T-01 into point 09 and neutralize the enemy. D2-2 will handle the long range support. E2-2 is in charge of the location."

The transmission of the message which was carried out in the usual monotone voice of their hub was accompanied by a video feed from Jason Black, better known to the other squads as D2-5. Before this mission none of the squads had known each other, but the common cause as well as their military training had allowed them to work together like a well oiled machine. Each squad knew their strengths and responsibilities and acted accordingly. The squads A through C served as the muscle for this operation, fielding 40 of their 50 men. Squad D was responsible for support and reconnaissance while squad E was tasked with preparing ambushes and traps.

And so far everything had went well. The reaction time of their enemy was sufficiently slow for squad E to secure advantageous positions along all major routes a sizable enemy force could take towards their destination. Even if they were outnumbered, those spots would more than make up the difference.

The assistance squad D received from their assigned tuner, Lord El-Melloi, made their job horrendously easy as they had a couple dozen pairs of invisible and intangible eyes in the air. One of them had joked that it was only fair, since their enemies also had an extra pair of eyes. Thanks to being connected via the hub, said member of D squad could feel the other members roll their eyes.

By the time the Batarian contingent had closed the distance to 200m, the ten members of squad A had moved to support the lone Jason Black, cowering behind a vehicle with shattered windows. His trembling threatened to give away his position while his grip threatened to crush his beloved sniper rifl-

"Adrian, for fucks sake! Stop narrating this and do your job or, so help me god, I will punch you in the fucking face!"

He shouted angrily at nobody in particular.

"That's it, Hubert, cut my link to Adrian. Reestablish it when he stops being a retard."

You can't silence me this eas-

"Done."

"Thank you Hubert. I got to concentrate here." the soldier said, crouching behind an upturned car of some sort as he waited for A squads leader to signal the start of the assault. The Batarian soldiers by now had gotten to barely 100m. Jason hoped that they would start soon. He wasn't very keen on having to outrun those armored vehicles.

A notification over the inter-squad communication later and he synchronously popped out of his cover alongside the members of squad A. They had all marked their targets from his video feed beforehand to avoid confusion and wasted ammunition. Even though they'd only use the cheap normal bullets, they were on enemy territory without hopes of getting resupplied if they should run out. Efficiency was the name of the game. Having more things that could splatter the other side was always nice when things went down the drain.

Their rain of gunfire pelted the Batarian contingent with the heavy duty tungsten bullets. Blue lights flared to life as the projectiles were stopped by mass effect fields. And while the shields held off the bullets without a problems, preventing any from penetrating, the considerable punch behind them staggered the hit Batarians, making a few of them lose their next step and fall flat on their faces.

A scant second later, the return fire turned the car Jason had hid behind into Swiss cheese.

With a muttered "Fuck!" the recon soldier rolled behind a pillar of the adjacent building. A sniper rifle really wasn't made for being used under concentrated enemy fire.

Thankfully, Alexej Saizew, the leader of squad A ordered their retreat. Jason took that as a clue to roll from pillar to pillar and then sprinting from cover to cover while taking a quick shot or two from time to time. He took specific care to keep ahead of squad A on the whole trip to point 09. They had better defenses and the better guns for the job so they should take care of the hassle.

"Looks like everything's running smoothly." Adrian's needlessly upbeat voice chimed in over the comm. "You really excel at running away, dontcha?"

"We've pulled them here so stop blabbering shit and do your job!" the annoyed sniper barked back from his cover behind some kind of electronic billboard that had probably been cracked by their landing.

"Not yet. Just a little more."

"Then they better hurry up!" he mentally shouted before he peeked around the billboard for another mostly ineffective shot. The enemy contingent had obediently followed them all the way here like a lapdog. And now they had reached the prepared ambush point: A spot between to wide high rise buildings on a street just big enough for the enemy group to fit in comfortably.

"Now." the now professionally cold voice of Adrian rang through the comm.

A figure hidden on a rooftop half a kilometer away breathed out and squeezed the trigger. Two gunshots later, milky white walls of light sprung up connecting the buildings on each side of the street, effectively trapping the Batarian soldiers.

The trapped aliens immediately changed their formation into a circular one more suited for defense. Clearly, they must have been trained quite thoroughly to quickly assess a change in the situation and react appropriately. But only noticing the trap after it was already too late rendered all that skill moot.

An eery voice coming from E2-2 preceded their doom.

"And God said, the heavens shall fall upon your head and you life is forfeit for you are unrighteous."

Then the building to Jason's right was riddled by explosions and the top half started to collapse towards the other building. He could see what he thought to be disbelief and resignation in some of the aliens eyes as they looked at their impending death while others tried to claw through the white wall. But it held and even their vehicles ramming it didn't make it budge the slightest bit.

A thundering noise accompanied the building's demolition and a plume of dust rose into the air, funneled by the opposite building as well as the barriers on both sides.

"Ahh, gravity, thou art a harsh mistress." Adrian joked from his perch.

"Hmm. Didn't know we had religious guys among us." Jason noted while he stood up from behind the billboard.

"He isn't. I had a nice chat with the well endowed lady in squad earlier. He just likes to ham it up when he has the chance to. Apparently. But I like his style, so I think it's okay."

Jason could only shake his head at his fellow teammate. He might be quick to curse and might be a tad too temperamental for recon and sniping, but he still regularly wondered how someone like Adrian hadn't been thrown out of the military already. But then Jason remembered that whereas he excelled at getting away unscathed from almost any situation, Adrian Banks was one of the best snipers and, despite his lax attitude most of the time, got the job done.

"Neutralization of T-01 confirmed, slaved specters report no survivors. Squad A2 is to return to their standby point. All other units are to return to their previous tasks." Hubert's emotionless voice announced. "Good work."

"Did he just praise us?" Adrian asked incredulously.

"I'm sure you've seen stranger things by now."

"But it's Hubert! He's full on ice, like a robot. He doesn't do praise! Right? Right? Hey, lis-

… did Hubert just completely mute me?"


In space, the Batarian dreadnought Karshan's Pride had finished relocating to a position where its main battery wouldn't hit the Batarian homeworld. The smaller vessels of the Hegemonic Defense Fleet had surrounded the enemy super-dreadnought and kept pouring slug after slug onto the gunmetal gray vessel.

The crews only began noticing that something wasn't right after the first of them collapsed. Soon, Batarians on every ship began to faint and a faint red tint began to creep into the vision of those still conscious. With every minute more of them lost their strength and fell to the ground. To the horror of those still aware, their fallen brethren began to melt away inside their suits without any discernible cause. Checking the environmental systems for any aggressive chemicals or biological weapons returned nothing.

The rain of mass accelerated fire stopped as the First Hegemonic Defense Fleet turned into an Armada of ghost ships.


Reacting to a small noise, Pranne Drocmarok looked up just in time to feel something rush past him. When he tried to turn around and look what it was, he noticed that he couldn't move his face even a centimeter. This perspective on the other hand allowed him to see the black figures appearing on the surrounding rooftops. As one they began to chant something ominous sounding in a strange language.

"We who are agents of god yet defy his teachings are the necessary evil. We are sheep wearing the coat of wolves, staining us with the lifeblood of his creations. Our deeds shall not be forgiven, our sins not excused for they pave the correct path. We are the ones removing that which does belong yet doesn't. His will is our will for we his agents on earth. And in his name we will act to remove the evil. Amen."

Like vultures, the black clothed aliens dropped down from the buildings, ignoring the impact of the dozen story drops as if they were nothing. Unable to turn around his head, move his legs, or even just pull the trigger on his gun, Pranne could only watch in terror as the enemies closed in, each of them carrying a metal blade in their hands. They slaughtered his entire unit by simply walking up to them and stabbing them, their shields not triggering at such low speeds and their armor completely inadequate for stopping a sword being rammed into their necks. Even as people he could call friends were skewered, the Batarian soldier could do absolutely nothing. Nothing but waiting in fear for his turn while looking into the lifeless eyes of his comrades who were still stuck in their positions even after their death.


Their descent had been an absolute disaster.

A sizable anti-air turret in their path had survived and scored an incredibly lucky hit which not only made them miss their target area by a couple of kilometers but also killed more than half of the men and women. To make matters even worse, their tuner was among them, so their mission was almost doomed to fail. It wouldn't be fatal to the operation as a whole, but as many of the pillars as possible should be activated correctly.

Sadly, what remained of the squads assigned to pillar 13 had little choice in continuing their mission as the return shuttle of their pillar would certainly be shot down by the same anti-air gun that got them into this bind.

And any pipe dream of a rescue force for them was crushed by the sighting of a sizable enemy force marching in on their position. Somewhere around a thousand one of the two remaining recon soldiers had reported.

They had less than 30 people remaining. The two combat squads B13 and C13 with almost full numbers as well as the remnants of their recon team D13. Not the best odds as most present noted with a grim face. Everyone was aware that the mission had turned into a one way ticket, but then, that had been a possibility they were aware of.

The only thing they had to decide now was how they wanted to go down.

The three soldiers with the most consistent output in their artificially created circuits volunteered to held the hub of the recon team in attuning the pillar to make up for any issue due to the missed landing spot.

The two scouts would only be marginally helpful without their hub and took to the highest buildings in the surroundings with their sniper rifles and most of the remaining supplies.

The remaining squads B and C took the remaining time to build a roadblock and erect a defensible position.

Then they waited for the enemy.


"They should come into my line of fire soon, how's it look on your side?" Sasha Gillett asked her fellow sniper.

"Nothing yet. What ammo have you loaded?" he returned in a detached voice.

"The ones that make a nice boom. You?" Sasha answered in a similarly apathetic voice. Both had lost friends today and most probably wouldn't get out of this alive either. But determined apathy suited them better than the hotheaded temperament most of the people in the assault squads had.

"I nicked the implosion ammo. Thought we should use up the fancy stuff so they don't get their grabby appendages on it."

"Hmm. Good choice, I think."

A moment of silence reigned between the two as they scanned the area from their perches atop ruined skyscrapers. The silence of an abandoned and somewhat ruined city didn't offer anything to take their mind of the coming events. But it didn't need to either, as the Batarian regiment came into view in the distance.

"Well then, let's take a look how much time we can buy. I hope they like red light, green light."


Without forewarning, the front of the Batarian regiment was raked by explosions, killing dozens before ebbing down. In reaction, the soldiers sought behind building and their armored vehicles.

Several of said vehicles though were engulfed in black spheres which then contracted, leaving only a crater and separated limbs behind. Terrified by the attacks, most Batarians rushed into the cover of buildings in hope of escaping the strange enemy fire.

Some brave Batarian soldiers were pushed from their cover by their fellows after the bombardment had stopped, only for them to drop like flies, obviously hit by a sniper, despite their mass effect shields flaring to life.

Expecting an attack by the main enemy force in their compromised position, the Batarian commander Krenne Crap'dalor ordered a defensive formation and hunkered down while periodically sending out someone to test whether the enemy snipers, it couldn't be more than handful of them judging by their rate of fire, had run out of concentration or ammo yet.


"Three hours, I'm getting close to my limit here Zack. I can already feel my control slipping. Without Helmut supporting me 5km range is to much for me to predict the wind. I can feel the circuits I have right now beginning to break down."

"No problem Sasha, I'm mostly out of useful ammo by now anyway. Let's wait till they get closer and use the rest to take out priority targets."


After noticing the discontinuation of sniper fire, the Batarian forces cautiously regrouped and proceeded towards their destination cautiously, scanning the road in front of them as well as the roads crossing their path for signs of tempering or an ambush.

Meanwhile, Squad B and C had moved some abandoned cars and debris to the intersection of streets just beyond the crater caused by the pillar's impact.

"They'll be here soon." said the leader of squad B who had assumed the overall leadership. "Our two guys up on the roofs bought us enough time to fortify this place, but the tuning is only about halfway finished. Which means we will need to stop them here for as long as we can.

Use of burn-out is permitted. I'll leave the timing of it to each one of you. Use it well."

The somber atmosphere held up for a moment before everyone go into their position and waited for the enemy.

Said enemy slowed their advance when they took notice of their roadblock and several small groups broke off into the side streets, probably to bypass and surround them. But their main force along with their remaining vehicles kept getting closer while warily eying their surroundings.

Sadly for the human soldiers, everything they had in terms of mines, explosives or other material that could have been used to lay traps had been lost alongside E squad, so they'd have to take the Batarian regiment head on.

But before they had closed in enough on the roadblock, gunfire could be heard from the adjacent streets where members of squad B were fending off the enemy groups that had split off from the main force.


The bark of bullets was answered by the sound of mass accelerator fire as three humans staved off 50 Batarians. Where tiny grains close to the speed of light seemed to glide around their targets, sophisticated bullets containing a bit magecraft circumvented the angrily flaring shields of blue light, striking trough armor designed absorb the projectiles of mass accelerator fire with ease and wounding their wearer.

What should have been an overwhelming victory for the numerically superior Karshan military was stopped in its tracks. Unable to rely on their shields to protect them, the Batarian soldiers needed to hide behind more substantial cover. Their shots were barely aimed since popping their heads out for too long would earn them a bullet between their eyes.

They had reached a stalemate with neither side doing any real harm to the other, only exchanging shots that hit nothing, but that was fine for the Batarian forces. Time would only turn the situation in their favor. Their opponents used some kind of gun which relied on macroscopic ammunition while they had good Batarian weapons using the time proven ammo-blocks which basically made the cool-down period of your gun the only limiting factor. And in a fight where one side had limited ammunition while to other didn't, the outcome was already decided.


In the meanwhile, the main force of the Batarian regiment and the entrenched human soldiers had started fighting in earnest, gunfire drowning out all other noises as people on both sides died. For every human that was blown from his cover by fire from the armored vehicles, a dozen Batarian soldiers lay dead on the grown. A horrendous prize to pay, but the thoroughly conditioned soldiers of the Hegemony threw them against their enemy in earnest, their superior numbers basically guaranteeing them an eventual victory before long.

That outlook changed when some of the alien invaders who had been hit by weaponry meant to penetrate heavy armor stood back up despite missing limbs or parts of their torso. Like a more horrifying version of a Krogan, these aliens gave up on their guns and charged, unmindful of them missing parts of their anatomy. They bulldozed through the Batarian lines, flinging away any who stood in their way like ragdolls, aiming for the armored vehicles. In a feat of incomprehensible strength some of them flipped armored cars weighing tens of tons over while others ripped open their exterior with nothing but their hands to wreak havoc inside.

These juggernauts shrugged of anything they were hit with, even if they received what should be instantly fatal, gaping wounds, and would certainly have won this battle for their side. If they didn't simply begin to spontaneously self-immolate after less than 5 minutes.

Still, the damage they dealt was tremendous. Especially the loss of almost all their APCs was felt as they seemed to be the only thing capable of dealing significant damage to their enemies. By now, the Batarians focused their fire on those monsters when one of them came charging into their midst which showed a modicum effect as, as invincible as they might have seemed to be, apparently the aliens were still susceptible to getting their head blow off.

Wearing the remaining invaders down took a great deal of time until they ran out of ammunition and then charged as one. This final assault had cost over a hundred Batarian soldiers their lives leaving the regiment with barely 300 men and a single APC.

But they had won.

Closing in on the enemy landing craft, the Hegemony forces reached the crater it had caused.


"How's it going Helmut? Need any help?" Sasha asked the albino man standing in the middle of the ritual chamber, three lifeless bodies laying on the ground around him.

"Almost finished. Help would be appreciated." the man replied in a monotone voice even though his eyes were bloodshot, veins were popping out angrily on every part of visible skin, and a trickle of blood ran down from his nose.

"Good. We're the only ones left by now and neither Zack nor I have any ammo left which makes us useless without you. The two other hubs just went outside to make their last stand."

"Well, at least we'll have good company till the end." the male sniper said while shrugging before moving his dead comrades away, sitting down in their place, and removing his helmet. "We're in your hands."


Aboard the Argonaut confirmatory signal from all pillars filed in one after the other with everyone on the bridge waiting for the last pillar with bated breaths.

"Sir," the communication officer started "we have received the go from pillar 13."

"Good, relay the order for all units to retreat and send the activation signal." the admiral commanded while focusing on a screen displaying the planet beneath them.

19 shuttles left Karshan in short order and returned to the behemoth in its orbit, before said ship vanished into distortion in space.


Ghastly wails that made the blood of every Batarian on Karshan run cold echoed around the globe and the earth trembled for a few moments as the seals in all pillars were lifted. The remnants of the innumerable humans that had died a century ago and couldn't find any rest flooded out of their temporary containers. The network of pillars stabbed into spiritually potent places around Karshan linked with each other to complete a bounded field spanning the whole planet. They started extracting power from the leylines and indiscriminately distributing it to all spiritual entities in reach, enabling the normally intangible specters and leftover thoughts to affect the physical world.

When this plan had been proposed, many had voiced their appreciation of leaving the retaliation to be executed personally by those who had suffered.

After all, it is a dish best served cold, with a side of irony.


AN: Should I make a chapter or section similar to a codex explaining some of the technology for those interested? I don't really like stuffing the story itself with technobabble as it tends to break the immersion and can be boring to those not interested.

Next chapter will probably be about the aftermath and the reactions of different factions.