Hello readers! Sorry for the wait, but I haven't been thinking about this story for a while. Damn, this is getting ridiculous. How long before I last update? A month? More? I can't keep up with this...
But then again, I told you not to except much from me in the last chapter.
I mostly blame it on school. There's a lot to do now that the vacation is dawning. And I mean a LOT. Three essays plus a french test. And before that I was away on my easter vacation.
Anyway, the good news are that I finally managed to fix my goddamn computer! Took some time, but it was worth it! Anyway, now that our little issue has been fixed, storywriting should speed up a bit.
I see that reviewer Jacob has a lot of interesting questions, so I'm going to answer them.
1. Will Jun and Emile keep their guns but with different bullets?
Yes. As a matter of fact, Emile's shotgun will already be rebuilt if you keep reading. It's got the power of at least a Claymore now. :)
2. Will there be any pairings like Emile and Jack or Jun or Tali?
I'll say it right away; no. I'm not a good romance writer: I'll leave that to my more competent colleagues.
3. Is Jorge or Master Chief going to be in this story?
No. This story's main focus is Emile, and it might get very confusing by adding more characters.
4. Are Jun and Emile going to get extra shields (adding Mass Effect shields and Halo shields)?
Nah, that would be a bit overkill. Besides, they are already good enough.
4. Is Noble Six ever going to get into the Mass Effect universe?
He's not going to enter it, but he will be involved somehow.
5. Will EDI and Dot meet, I'm sure one of them would surely notice each other since Dot can talk to Jun in the Mass Effect universe and Noble six.
Yes, it is only a matter of time. Expect some controversy.
P.S: My computer only has an old Nvidia Geforce 5700 GT something graphics card, and I want at least a Geforce 8800 to run Empire: Total War smoothly. Does anyone know where I can buy a cheap one?
DISCLAIMER: Flying pink elephants. 'Nuff said.
As the shuttle raced through the atmosphere down to Haestrom's surface, Emile had to squint even when he had both his helmet and the polarized glass of the shuttle window to protect his eyes from the sun. Emile knew that it was way too strong for it to be acting normally, but right now, he was more concerned with the consequences it could have on the mission. True enough, EDI's robotic voice chimed through the shuttle's speakers.
"Shepard, our data indicates that Tali is somewhere in these ruins. There is considerable geth activity, and an enviromental hazard. Solar output has overwhelmed Haestrom's protective magnetosphere. Exposure to direct sunlight will damage your shields."
"So we'll have to stay in the shade then," Shepard deduced.
"Correct."
Wouldn't be a Noble mission if it were easy.
The shuttle slowed down before landing and the door opened. Shepard, Emile and Thane stepped out onto the surface. The team then advanced towards their objective.
While Emile wasn't any art connoisseur (Explosions don't count Emile, he had often heard Carter say), he had to admit these buildings were fairly old, maybe 500 years at least. What were they called, those who built this? Quarians? He had only time to skim through the codex, so he knew little about them except their war with the Geth and the Migrant Fleet.
Still, what he found the most difficult to grasp was the fact that the Humanity who existed around here was completely deviating from his own. Their history, to begin with, was entirely different. Instead of achieving spaceflight on their own, the discovered the Charon Relay orbiting Pluto, and met the Turians in some brief fight before brokering a truce, unlike the bloody war against the unrelenting Covenant.
Of, course, Emile found this all very hard to swallow. He had stared at those files in complete disbelief, unable to wrap his head around the fact that he had somehow "died" and landed straight into another reality. He first dismissed the theory as some kind of pre-death dream; actually it flew right out of the window as soon as bullets had been flying around his head. Besides, this was all too well thought out to be in his imagination. He was a Spartan, not one of those obscure writers publishing crazy stories on the internet.
Then, this... "Systems Alliance" seemed to be this world's UNSC, but more focused on diplomatic affairs rather than peacekeeping or war. That's what he liked with the military life in the United Nations Space Command. Be debriefed, kill the enemy, execute the mission. Most people in the Alliance, he guessed, were paper pushers.
And then there was the issue with Cerberus, who Shepard seemed to be working under right now. Most denizens of the galaxy branded them as xenophobic terrorists. Not that it mattered to Emile; Cerberus was, in some few aspects, actually a carbon copy of ONI, so he knew they knew what it would take to finish the mission successfully. What did disturb him though was the sheer amount of fuck-ups their experiments had turned out to be: something about "Rachni", and a "Thorian" who had gone haywire or something. And then there was Shepard himself; stopped a galactic threat before he was killed and unbelievably brought back from the dead to fight another one. Reviving and waking him up after two years? Cerberus really could cut corners.
He decided not to ponder on it any further though. There was a mission to complete.
Emile followed Shepard and Thane as they cut through a walkway leading down to a gate. As soon as they stepped into the blinding sunlight, the shield integrity alarms beeped through Emile's helmet while he followed their slow decline on the HUD.
"Sun's messing up my shields," he muttered.
"Me too," Thane answered.
"Let's hurry up," Shepard ordered.
The team soon got out of the deadly sun's rays and entered some kind of bunker. A suited humanoid with a polarized visor was slumped in the corner in a pool of blood, while several robot parts laid scorched around on the ground. A small radio was clutched tightly in the suit owner's hands, looping a single broadcast.
"...Emergency log entry. The Geth are here. I've stayed behind to buy the others time. If you hear this, find Tali'Zorah. She and the data is all that counts now. Keelah Se'lai..."
Emile saw Shepard frown slightly, but the commander remained silent. He proceeded to open the gate.
As soon as they entered the next area, they were greeted by a hail of shots.
"Get to cover!" Yelled Shepard.
Instantly, Emile's training kicked in. He rushed towards a stack of pipes alongside Shepard. A Geth trooper spun out of cover and opened fire; Emile grabbed a medium-sized metal beam from the ground, about as long as his arm, and hurled it towards the unlucky Geth. It impacted the neck area, knocking it from it's feet and putting a sizeable dent onto it's shell. It never had time to recover though, as the Spartan aimed his shotgun and fired...
"You sure about this Emile?" Jacob frowned. "The way I modified it like you wanted, it would break a normal human's arm."
Emile shrugged. "Good I'm not a normal human then."
...The shots hit at point blank range and mowed the Geth into papier maché, sending the remains careeing through the air and landing far away. By this time, both Emile and Shepard had managed to rush into cover. While the commander openly stared incredulously at Emile for his little trick, the Spartan could only smile behind his helmet. I think I like this gun.
The commander and Noble Four both sprang into action, Shepard peppering a careless Geth platform with his Avenger, and Emile sending another one flying by a buckshot. A third one moved into the field, but was quickly neutralized by Thane, who had stayed further back to provide sniper support.
A larger white Geth advanced onto them, shotgun in hand. Emile brought his Omni-tool to bear, activating the Overload program and aiming at the Hunter. It began to convulse violently, blue sparks emanating all over it's body, before being brough down by a sniper shot, courtesy of Thane.
Several more mobile platforms stormed the area. Shepard rushed from his current position and to a nearby stone block, spaying down two troopers before diving into cover and reloading. Emile moved to the opposite side of the combat area, intending on flanking the Geth force. He destroyed a Geth trooper with a shotgun shot, before bull-rushing right into another one, bowling it over and then trashing it with another shell. He hurried over behind a large stone pillar, swapping thermal clips before peeking out again.
Suddently, he heard Shepard shout "Emile! Watch out!"
True enough, he noticed a faint shimmer moving onto him. Emile had fough way too many Spec-Ops Elites to be fooled by it. Active Camouflage.
He brought his shotgun onto it and fired, downing the cloak and revealing another Geth Hunter. The lumbering machine intended on smashing Emile with it's gun, but the Spartan easily grabbed the weapon. The Geth then proceeded to push all of it's weight upon him, hoping to make him fall, but Emile anticipated the move and sidestepped, letting it fall onto the ground instead while drawing out his kukri knife. As soon as the Geth Hunter had hit the dirt, he plunged the knife into the machine's optics, sending several sparks flying. Emile drew out the knife and crushed the head with the butt of his shotgun several times before grabbing the platform and, with all strength he could muster, hurled it away a small distance right at a number of Geth troopers, bowling them over and sending them all to a fiery ending when the Hunter destabilized and exploded.
After the dust had settled and the sound of battle had dissipated, Shepard's voice sounded through the intercom. "Report."
"Thane here. I'm good to go."
Emile lifted his hand to the radio. "Same here."
"Alright. Regroup."
The team assembled in the middle of the battlefield. Emile could tell all of their looks were focused on him. Thane chuckled a bit.
"Well Emile," Shepard began, a small smile upon his mouth, "that was pretty crazy work."
The Spartan shrugged. "It's what I do."
The push through Geth-controlled areas was relatively quick after the initial battle; it was mostly skirmishes against maybe three to eight Geth platforms. This was of course a matter of concern to Shepard. There was too few of them. Either the Geth were planning something, or they had engaged the quarians somewhere in the ruins.
True enough, he and his team stumbled upon some Geth firing away at some unseen target, with quarian bodies at their feet. Those synthetics soon shared the organics' predicament.
As soon as Shepard was about to order his team to advance, a voice cracked from a radio on one of the bodies.
"This is squadron leader Kal' Reegar to all survivors. Come in, over." Carefully, he picked up the radio from the dead quarian.
"This is commander Shepard from the Normandy, over."
"Shepard? The one Tali served with? What are you doing out here in Geth controlled space?"
"I'm here to help. We can talk about details later."
"Patch yourself through channel 617 Theta. We're on a stealth mission. High risk. We found what we were after but the Geth found us. Can't evacuate, can't transmit data through the solar radiation." The sound of a rocket launcher firing resonated through the intercom, along with the sharp crack of a sniper rifle.
"how are you holding up? Is Tali with you?
"We're a dozen people left. Mostly marines, with the science team left. I left Tali into the security bunker with some of my best men."
"We'll get to you."
"Roger tha... Damn! Geth dropship incoming!"
Shepard hurried over and saw several quarian marines holding out in front of the door before they were killed by energy blasts from the dropship, who quickly fled the scene. As if a final insult, a huge stone pillar fell over and blocked the door.
"Damn it!" Reegar exclamated. "There are some demolition charges nearby! Fetch them and blow a hole through that rock!"
The commander turned around to his squad and motioned them to follow.
"Damn it Tali! There's too many Geth! We can't reach you!"
"Try to hold on until Shepard arrives here!"
Kal' Reegar ducked again behind his cover alongside Jun while a few shots pinged of his cover, barely missing his face. "Damn it!"
All hell had broken loose earlier today. The Geth had initiated a surprise attack, taking Reegar's squad by surprise. In all the chaos, he and Jun had become separated from the rest of the quarians when a dropship had maneuvrated above the center of the courtyard and dropped of an entire platoon of Geth onto his squad.
"Enemy dropship incoming!" He heard Jun shout.
The flying machine sweeped over them, carrying something under it. It dropped it's cargo near the sealed bunker before leaving. Jun could not see proprely what it was until a large head jutted out behind the stone cover, before eventually revealing the rest of it's four-legged body.
"Shit!" He heard Reegar shout. "Colossus! Get to cover!"
A cannon of some sorts charged up before firing a blue orb at their position, shaking the entire ledge on impact.
Thank god for this cover, Jun muttered.
The colossus fired again, but this time at the control room above them, showering them with dirt.
"Ah, come on!"
He stood up again, firing at a Geth trooper and pulverizing it with a single shot before diving into cover again and reloading. He sighed when he realized he only had two magazines left. Reegar tapped him on the shoulder.
"We've got reinforcements!"
Jun's head shot up at the sight. Three people were approaching. One was definitively human, with grey armor and a single red stripe running down his right arm. Jun discerened the words N7 onto his chestplate.
The second one was humanoid by all rights, but with green scales instead of skin and very large eyes, almost like a reptile.
And the third one... He dropped his jaw when he recognized the huge skull scratched on the helmet, the huge knife onto his shoulder and that familliar shotgun. The Spartan stopped as soon as he saw his fellow Noble.
"Jun? What the fuck are you doing here!"
Yes, it was definitlvely him.
There you go! One extra long chapter (by my standards) for you to read! Hope you enjoyed it.
And yes, I'm sorry again.