Chapter 10: Distress Call

1400 Hours

February 16th, 2183

I found Pressly having a beer in the mess when I was coming back to my quarters. "Hey, Commander. Beer?" I shrugged. "Why not?" He grabbed a beer from the fridge and gave it to me. I opened the bottle and took a sip. Tasted pretty bad, but who cares. Closest thing I can get to a quality beer here, anyway. Pressly took a swig of his beer.

"If anyone has to take over for Captain Anderson, I'm glad it's you." He took another drink and looked around. "I'm not so sure about having non-humans on our ship, though. I mean, this is a top secret project, and we're letting non-military on like it's nothing. You sure you're going about this the right way?" I took a drink. "Hey, we're all on the same team, Pressly. They're pretty talented, too. You should see them in action." He looked surprised. "With all due respect, sir, that's what they said about Nihlus, and look how that turned out." I raised my eyebrow. "Speak freely, Pressly. I want to know if you have a problem with non-humans." Pressly set down his beer and crossed his arms. "It's not that, Commander. Humanity has always handled its own problems. Saren attacked one of our colonies, so we should be the ones to stop him. We don't need their help." I took a drink from my beer. "Some people think asking for help is a sign of weakness. That's just being stupid and stubborn. No matter how strong you are, allies can make you stronger." Pressly shrugged. "Eh... I guess so. Maybe I'm just stuck in the old ways of thinking. Don't worry, Commander. This won't be a problem."

I set down my beer. "So, what do you-" I was interrupted by Joker calling down over the comms. "Commander, I just picked up an automated distress call from a team of marines on the surface of Edolus, a planet near Dr. T'Soni's dig site. Adjust course?" I nodded Pressly towards the elevator, and he left. "Yes, Joker. How much time until we get there?" "We'll be there ETA two hours." I thought for a moment. "Let Garrus and Tali know that I want them ready by then." "Aye-aye, Commander." Joker cut off the comms. Oh boy. More marines in distress? Come on. And if this is anything like Akuze, that's just dandy.

An hour later...

The Mako dropped as rough as usual on the surface of the desert planet. I immediately began driving towards the last known location of the marines. "Alright, guys. If there's any threat, you're free to fire." Garrus nodded. "Got it, Shepard." He climbed into the turret, and began scanning the surrounding area. The further we got towards the distress beacon, the more ominous the place began to become. There was too little movement, even though we were right near a sandstorm and there were small asteroids falling from the sky.

We eventually came to the location, and found a horrifying sight. Bodies everywhere. The tank they had was heavilly damaged and battered. Blood running all over. I stopped the Mako and opened the door. "Garrus, you come with me. Tali, stay here and keep watch." Garrus and I stepped out into the heat of the desert planet.

With guns drawn we approached the scene of what seemed like a bloody battle. The tank had burned out, clearly no survivors. There were bodies littered all around, some mutilated beyond belief. I knelt down besides the body of one who'd had the lower half of his body ripped off while Garrus inspected the other bodies. I removed his helmet, and was about to grab the dogtags when he opened his eyes. He let out a blood curdling scream and I jumped back. He turned his head to look at me. There were blood and tears coming from his eyes. He let out a cry. "KILL ME!" I could only help but stare in horror at him. Garrus ran over and stared at him, too. "PLEASE! FUCKING KILL ME!" He screamed again. I nodded towards the Mako. "Garrus, you might want to leave." Garrus took a moment. "Yes, sir." He ran back into the Mako, and shut the door.

The marine kept screaming. "KILL ME!" He crawled over to my boot, and grabbed it. "PLEASE!" I drew my pistol. I could feel tears gathering in my eyes. I remembered everything that happened on Akuze. I held it to the marine's head, and he stopped screaming. "It's ok, soldier. It'll be all over soon. Shhh..." The marine coughed up blood, and kept crying. "Shhhhh..." I hesitated from pulling the trigger. I can't do this. This hurts. Before I could do it, the marine grabbed my gun with all his strength, and held it to his head. "KILL ME!" I looked away, and pulled the trigger. I felt him release my gun, and collapse to the ground. I collapsed on the ground beside him and began crying. I remember Akuze. I heard the voices. They were calling me again, to join them, to join this soldier in death. I spent a few minutes crying before I rolled over and ripped the dog tags off of the marine's body. I held them in front of my face. They read, "Corporal Joseph Nieumann, 302nd Infantry". I picked myself up off the ground, and began walking back to the Mako. That was when I heard the comms open. It was Garrus talking, and he sounded panicked. "Commander, there's a contact on our radar, but we can't locate it. Get back here as soon as possible." I picked up the pace, and climbed back into the Mako. I sat myself in the driver's seat, and looked up at Garrus in the turret. "See anything, Garrus?" He moved the turret around a bit. "No, but we have an odd radar contact. I don't see it anywhere..." I began looking out the windows. Then, I began feeling something. Something that shouldn't be here. Something that I felt years ago. I felt the ground rumble with the force of thresher maws.

I began driving as fast as I could away from the area. I'm not letting this happen again. I'm not dying today. I could still hear the voices in the back of my head, telling me to drive back. And you know what? I did. I have to avenge these guys. I made a sharp u-turn, and began speeding back. "Commander, what are you doing?! We'll be killed by those things!" I didn't respond. I don't have to. All I have to do is put these things down. I saw a maw pop up out of the ground near us, and began circling around it. Garrus was emptying round after round into the thing, but it just wouldn't collapse. I opened comms with the Normandy. "This is Shepard! We need immediate air support, we've got maws everywhere!" A maw popped up right next to us. "Aye-aye, Commander. ETA one minute." "You better hurry, Joker. I'm not letting these things take me this time." A maw popped up right in front of us, forcing me to swerve around it. Garrus leaned down to talk to me. "Gun's overheating, Commander, we've gotta get out of here!" I looked back at him. "Yeah. Normandy's gonna blow this place to Hell." I heard a Maw pop up right next to us. Garrus unloaded more rounds into it, and I heard him run out of ammo. But, thank God, the Maw fell, sending tons of sand into the air. Fuck yeah. That was for Akuze. I heard the roar of the Normandy from the sky, even from in here. We were already far enough away. "Bombs away." We watched from a hill as that area was scorched with fire and explosions. There was no way the maws could've survived that.

0330 Hours

February 18th, 2183

The Citadel

I was sitting on a bench on the Presidium having a smoke when a C-Sec officer came over to me. "Hey, no smoking on the Presidium." I looked up at him. I didn't even have to say anything for him to recognize me. "Oh, you're that human Spectre! I'm sorry." He backed off, and got back to his post nearby. Well, I guess that's pro of being a Spectre: not being disturbed. I threw the cigarette onto the ground, stomped it out, and layed my head back.

I'm supposed to be meeting Admiral Kahoku here in a bit. It's going to be hard telling him about what happened to his men. Being attacked by thesher maws is no way to go out. It wasn't supposed to be the way Chicken, Crazy Ivan, Tombstone, and Lucifer went out, and I'm not dying the same way. I'm not joining them yet.

I heard someone sit down on the bench next to me. "You're Commander Shepard, I presume." I looked over at the man. It was Admiral Kahoku. "Yes, sir." Kahoku sighed and looked around. "Commander, Captian Anderson told me that you know what happened to my men. Is that so?" I thought for a moment and nodded. "Yes, sir." I grabbed Corporal Nieumann's dogtags from my pocket and offered them to Kahoku. "They were decimated by a thresher maw attack." Kahoku inspected the dogtags, and I could see tears already coming out of his eyes. "They were baited by an Alliance distress beacon. They were led right next to a maw nest." There was a moment of silence. "Commander, thank you. I'll do everything in my power to avenge their deaths. We'll find who did this to them." He got up from the bench. "If you'll excuse me, I have some digging around to do." He left, and I relaxed on the bench. You're right, Admiral. We'll find them, and make them suffer.