All the Stars

by BlueWay

When the Long Night of Solace is evaporated over Reach via the weaponized usage of a Slipspace Drive, it ferries with it in its swallowed sections the Covenant Empire and, more horrifyingly, the desperate measures that the UNSC used to fight them. When they are found in a universe on the precipice of their own history, the meaning of the term "Mass Effect" will change forever.

11. 1-4: Damascus

A/N: Few interesting reviews last cycle, let's get to it, shall we?

Kelial said:

Just how in the hell did they remove the MJOLNIR armor? Every set has needed specialized tools and a damn pit crew to take off and you make it sound like they came off like pajamas.

In the novels it is generally explained that, at least with this generation of MJOLNIR, certain Spartans can apply and take apart their armor on their own. For the purposes of this story I'll assume Kurt-051 taught Spartan B-312 those skills out of her being special. I'll highlight more of this as I go on, more specifically on how her adherence in wearing armor makes her less of a human and more of a machine, but again, I'll explore it down the road when we have downtime on the Normandy.

Artyom-Dreizehn said:

Hope the Normandy comes more as a readily available Fire Support as It did in some of the few fics where Shepard had abuse the usage of it by bombing hard targets, taking out Giant Worms with some specific vibration bombs and so on and not follow the ground out only boots in the ground. You already did great with adding more fireteams in the Ground contingent of Normandy, hope for more people to join.

In this chapter especially I'm gonna start easing you readers into a Shepard who adheres to a little more bite, at least in regards to military procedure. She's more tactical, more inline to how we understand special forces. She's the bridge between the hyper tactical Mai and JD to the rest of the Normandy crew I plan. And as for why I do this, well, it's not as much as to "fix" the story or any elements of, but rather as a way to expand the Normandy in a way, including adding a little more wiggle room to Shepard's abilities realistically as a skipper of a military ship with independent deployment capabilities.

On the Quarian/Covenant issue:

Immune systems wise, yes I know what's up. Raan won't get entirely off, but she won't die, just give it time trust me. If exposure to the Elites doesn't outright kill them and instead bring them more inline to Quarian w/ Quarian interactions without the suit, I think my point is demonstrated clear enough.

On focus on the Covenant in the Story:

Generally I can say "just trust me" as much as I want, but it's clear that this touches upon another thing all together. In my foreword I made comment on how I was often displeased with crossover stories where singular characters were brought over instead of the universe itself, and this is my way of rectifying that: by having a parallel story with the Covenant that eventually folds into the main one with Mai, JD, and Shepard. In fact I'm sure some of you can call this with the interactions between Mordin and Usze. They're gonna be around. It is in my interest to write the Covenant in this story as I have and I don't think I'll change that, because it's an integral part of this story.

My Comments today:

So here we have the first mission of Mass Effect 1 play out. You'll see me adjust lines and what not to either skip over sections that are really, well, playing into the "videogame" part of the story. Also you'll get your first few divergence from canon. Nothing too major and heavy yet, but the butterfly effect is a bitch.

I hope you read this story with the assumption you've played and are aware of these games lore and stories, however I write assuming minimal knowledge of both. I'm generally going to find a balance between writing out these missions and then Normandy social time so JD and Mai can be awkward together in that way you guys love for some reason. This is also an experiment in trying to fold or mesh them two into the story of Mass Effect without outright emphasizing them over Shepard and the OG crew. Bear with me this'll get rolling in more my fashion of writing when we get past the Citadel and go save blueberry butt.

Also one last thing before I let loose: I am bringing the ME canon together in a way, as in, things such as omni-blades or certain weapons mentioned, I'll make them present here. You may have noticed this in how I've brought characters from ME3 (Kai Leng), ME2 (Raan and Mordin), and even Andromeda into the fold earlier to be involved. So be aware of it and don't necessarily call it anachronism. In fact last chapter I started it off with a story from Tali that was covered in the comics and, of course, the ever present presence of Alec Ryder. Be on the look out for Andromeda related elements!

---

Section 1-4

Damascus

---

It was in the back of her head and she had sworn it wouldn't let it distract her. She had operated with spooks before on missions, knowing of their objectives and objectives that they wouldn't tell her. Even as an N7, even as an operator herself, she was still a Marine Rifleman, a Marine Officer, first. It kept her grounded to the salt of the earth. She didn't deal in espionage, in top secret missions or operations that never existed.

She served on the battlefield, shoulder to shoulder with men and women who came and saw to save lives, not exert political discourse, domination, or policy onto the Galaxy.

So everything stewed in the back of her mind as she took point with her fireteam on the ground of Eden Prime. There was a now, a mission, an objective, and a probably enemy out in the distance based on the debris, the clouds of smoke, and the gunfire in the distance. But there was also a before, an after, and questions that pertained to them.

She tried not to wonder who Chief Gul and Chief Durante were, she tried not to worry impressing Nihlus, she tried not to worry about what information was held from her and what it meant to be recovering Prothean artifacts.

She tried not to worry, but could do nothing as she felt a hard pat on her shoulder.

It was Chief Gul, towering over her, her rifle in the crook of her shoulder and aimed out. She didn't even look at Shepard as she moved past. Shepard understood what was happening however: Officers shouldn't take point, and so Chief Gul did. Shepard relented with a silent curse, but understood.

It hadn't been that that had gotten her to think however as Gul took point.

What got her to think was how rigidly Gul had been when a creature had rose out of the ground, sacs on its form, floating up. Out of the corner of her eye he had seen Gul and Durante snap at them with their firearms. It was an aiming snap that was too quick, too vicious, to be normal.

"What the hell are those?" Kaiden was unfamiliar with the creatures, unaffected by how Gul and Durante drew bead on them, Durante taking a knee and Gul going rigid.

Around them, in the red sky, ash and sparks falling from the clouds, had been the colonial towers. Prefabricated skyscrapers meant to house early populations of settlers. Much like the Phoenix-Class ships as Gul and Durante understood, these had been the building blocks of a colony.

"Gas bags." Jenkins had hardly been bothered. "Don't worry, they're harmless?"

Durante had leveled his SMG down, but Gul remained, rigidly aiming at them, she on point, leading. She looked back at Jenkins, her helmet's profile shown to him by the side. She said nothing, but asked still.

"They're fungoids, use gas from lakes and swamps to avoid predators. They feel like their in danger, obviously." He went on, Gul unmoving for a few moments before nodding to herself. Yes, they were only harmless.

"Gul, on you." Shepard had reminded her. "We have bigger fish to fry."

There was a small stream before them, yards away from their designated landing point, the gas bags having arisen from them. For those without filters however they knew it hadn't been the stream a putrid smell had come from. Durante had looked left, eyes keen, and on an outcropping of rocks-

He snapped once with his fingers, signaling for Shepard and Gul, pointing toward what he saw:

At first it would've been easy to mistake for a fallen tree, small as it was, darkened and blackened like firewood.

Shepard signaled to Durante and the rest of the men, pointing toward it and to push toward, rifles up and ready. There was no need however as they finally identified what those black shapes were.

"Oh god, what happened here?" Jenkins was right to disparage. The dead were before him: human bodies run thin and ragged like jerky, roasted alive.

The rest of the fireteam rose up to see. "What do we have here?" Shepard asked strongly, looking out down the path they were on.

Durante knelt down. Three bodies, most likely human. His gloved hands reached down, touching the corpse. Grisly as it was it revealed information. Recent kills. Weapons fires denting the bodies upon impact, as to what kind of immolation occurred he couldn't tell, clothes baked on like scales.

"Energy burns. Recent. Last ten minutes." He blurted out.

"Shot?" Shepard asked. Durante shook his head affirmative.

"Likely. From above. Impact wounds torso up, suggest downward fire."

Gul had scanned the skies up, she hadn't suspected such a thing, but she made a note of it.

Jenkins knelt down besides Durante, and shock trooper could only give his silent condolences. He knew what the man was saying in his twisted face: these were his people, his neighbors, whoever they were, burnt to a crisp. No one deserved to die like this.

"Permission to scout ahead?" Gul had blurted out suddenly, shouldering her rifle more tightly, looking down the path that took them on the side of a cliff: that's the only way they could go.

"Negative." Shepard had affirmed, looking up to the sky. "It's what Nihlus is for."

She saw Gul slightly turn her helmet clad head at her. "He's not on our path of ingress."

True, Shepard relented. But still. "Keep together. I'd rather be ambushed like this than one alone."

The rock outcropings provided ample cover as they kept up the five meter spread, scanning their sectors as they walked forward. Even with shields Mai walked as if she had none. It was how she was trained. The shields were last resort.

At least Gul had asked Shepard if she could take point. She could take the surprises, but her feet were not the lightest. It was Corporal Jenkins had had pep in his step, wanting to go fast. This was his home after all. He needed to go, and so he stepped forward perhaps, maybe, a little too far.

She saw it before anyone. She saw the twitch, the shift of color, heard the hum of some sort of repulsors peek through the trees and vector toward them. Spartan Time. Lives lived in seconds as she had snapped faster than anyone there. She had reacted faster than Jenkins especially, the man out in the open without cover to his name, to his life. She saw to rectify it as Jenkins felt a ton throw itself on him.

"Contact!" Kaiden yelled out, and first contact was had.

Two weeks. That's how long it took for Durante and Gul to find themselves in a middle of conflict again as Shepard hoarsely echoed Kaiden, their rifles tucked into shoulders and opening up toward the flying machines that had come.

These drones had opened fired peppering toward Jenkins, only to find him blocked by a glittering, human shaped object that had lain over him. The Kinetic Barrier had kicked in first, laying over her energy shields as she simply taken in the damage, sponging it up as she felt the tell-tale feel of enemy fire bounce off her.

It felt like bullets, as far as she could tell. She'd been shot before and it felt distinctly like the firearms of the Insurrection.

All it really meant to her was that she could survive this if she had thrown Jenkins beneath her, behind, and brought her rifle to bear.

That was up until she heard the return fire of a team she was not used to having come behind her as she laid over Jenkins like a bunker.

Gul had lain over Jenkins, Durante bolting forward with his SMG, slamming into an outcropped rock, only to bring his hand against his, thumb out, resting the bore of his SMG on it.

Fire, it erupted from him, shots into the sky and finding their mark in metal, the crunch and crash of those hostiles flying into the ground near moments after one another in rapid succession. Shepard had pushed up as the third drone hit ground, Durante shrinking back into cover as his cooling systems smoked, the weapon falling onto his chest to be hung from his sling. Only then did out come his pistol.

It was a learning process. One that both he and Gul had to learn in a non-combat environment that was the Buffalo shooting range as offered to the Marines stationed there. Ammo and a combat rhythm not based on mags and limited ammo capacity, but rather thermal overheating. Gul had been better at it. Her ops behind enemy lines with the Covenant had necessitated her using weapons that were similar to the galactic standard here: overheating Plasma Rifles, Pistols, and of the like. Durante had a larger curve however, so used to an SMG, sixty rounds at a time, a rapid-fire nail gun under any other pretense. He knew the motions to reload it, knew that it took less than two seconds to do so after so many times doing it. Here he was forced to wait if he had just held down the trigger like he was used to, pistol out, cursing himself in not remembering as his hand ghosted the motions to go for magazines that were not there. Muscle memory, something his Commander noticed as she joined him in cover, put in the back of her mind for now.

Shepard slapped his back once, the man nodding without looking at her as he poked out and aimed said pistol, she moved around him, rifle up and out as she approached the downed attackers, smoking in the ground.

Kaiden's assault rifle opened up behind them, seeing three more drones approach as Shepard moved in on the downed ones.

She emptied a burst into their bodies, silencing them forever as she moved offside into a depression, wet with water runoff, a knee taken as she opened fire back up at the contacts.

"Jesus Christ you're heavy!" Jenkins had yelled up at the woman shielding him. She made no response but a grunt, coming up and out, rifle ready as she ran up with Shepard. There was nothing to be found however as her commander find her targets, in one burst, one swipe, three of them shot down, rolling down that incline to just before them.

One of them had ended up beneath Gul's boot. The crack of it alerted Shepard, turning back only to see her stamp one drone out. Durante had bolted forward as well, aiming his pistol down, putting two shots into another wreck as the rest of her men secured the perimeter cover found, waiting for more.

None came.

"Everybody up?!" She yelled out, lowering her aim with her rifle and peering back and around.

"Up!"

"Up!"

Durante turned around, covering their six. "Up!"

Gul didn't need to say anything as she had ran over to the downed drones, stomping on each again. Her strength with her boots was nothing but impressive, based on how buried each was after she was done with it.

"Jenkins!" Shepard cried out, looking at the man. He was spooked, alerted, turned toward Shepard. "What the hell was that?!"

"I'm sor-" He tried to spit out before Shepard stepped toward him, but closing the distance with speech.

"If Chief Gul hadn't been on you would've been dead!" He had nothing to say back to Shepard, her voice fiery, she was right. She knew how men like him died on the field. So all he could do there was focus on her, his strained breaths settling as Shepard did as well. Gul and Durante had pointed up with their weapons, aiming at where those drones came from, unwavering.

"It- It won't happen again ma'am."

"I don't need no lone wolf stuff." Over Shepard's shoulder Kaiden had seen Gul twitch, barely perceptible, but he only knew it had happened because it caught Durante's attention. Had it been something Shepard had said? "Don't worry about what you can do alone." Shepard continued, but softening. "I just care about you not dying alone."

Her words were like stones thrown at a glass house: the outcome clear. She would not let men die underneath her, no matter what they could do.

Jenkins sunk in, looking up at the sky, the war to come. He was worth more alive than dead and he knew it. "Okay-" he started. "Okay!"

Shepard nodded, turning around to Gul and Durante. "Good save, Chief Gul. Take point."

"How far?" Gul said in her husky voice. It was cold. Shepard tilted her head as Gul, unmoving spoken again. "How far you letting me go Commander?"

"Scout ahead. Keep us in visual."

She nodded, and before anyone could protest, before Durante could even acknowledge Shepard and the rest of the fireteam was behind him, she had taken off.

"Fast." He heard over his shoulder, Kaiden was falling in line with him. "You two know each other, right? She usually like this?"

He shrugged, silent. He couldn't answer.

Three gunshots rung out in the direction of Gul, the team looking to her, waiting for her to report. The sound of metal falling, crunching into the ground followed, a drone having rolled into view in front of Gul and back down the hill.

Yanme'e. These things reminded Gul of the Yanme'e. She never needed more than one shot for them, and she didn't need more than one shot now for these drones. Obviously recon in nature, fast and flying, not meant for duking it out. Yet it still begged the question who was doing the recon?

The two Chiefs however, they would not ask out of fear of tripping the line. That perhaps these were common occurrences out on the battlefields they did not know. That this was normal.

"Not the time or place, Kaiden." Shepard had pushed forward after a few moments, letting Gul. peer over the hill, looking back, signaling all clear before hopping over. They rushed up fast creating a firing line. Five-meter spread in the rather cramped path through trees ahead of them. They had no real direction but to move forward.

"I've got some burned out buildings here, Shepard. A lot of bodies." The flange rang in all of their heads. It was Nihlus again, off somewhere near, ahead of them. It was an inspired idea: letting aliens on the same comms. To Gul and Durante at least it made them uncomfortable. "I'm going to check it out. I'll try to catch up with you at the dig site."

Shepard touched her head piece once, clicking an affirmative with just that noise. "Take a knee." She said once, all of her men freezing amongst said trees they were moving forward into, scanning. "Jenkins." She called out.

"Yes ma'am."

"Anything you know about this area?"

He shook his head. "Usually didn't come out this far from the main colony. This plateau was just a good place for inbound and outbound ships to cycle through."

She paused for a moment, considering, looking to the sky and trying to hear the battle around them on that planet. "The Geth definitely have to be here for the dig site then." If it was important to her, then it could be important to them.

Geth. A name to the enemy. She finally said it aloud.

"Haven't been seen outside the Perseus Veil in over two centuries, Commander." Gul ground out, unturning on her knee, looking through her weapon's optic forward. That was a fact they all knew. Of all the aliens in that galaxy, the hostility that they put forward, from the Turians to the Krogans and the Batarians, they were inherently political, or otherwise able to be rationally understood by mankind.

Only the Geth were incomprehensible.

But knowing incomprehensibilities was a matter of knowing combat, and Shepard knew combat and all of its surreal forms. She knew what was incomprehensible and how it needed to be addressed and right now her two Chiefs were incomprehensible to her. Why were they with her?

Had the Alliance known the Geth were coming? Had these two been the response to that?

The need-to-know basis was something that cut both ways for Shepard. She needed to know.

"You're Navy Black Ops. Is that fact completely true, Chief Gul? Chief Durante? This the first time we've engaged the Geth?"

---

Shepard asked questions, that much Mai and JD were aware of now. Naturally she would. Shepard was their XO, their field officer, and entrusted with their lives as much as they two would be entrusted with the operational capacity and survival of tactical planning and execution. Had they been in her place, they would've had the same skepticism, but alas they both knew what Shepard had been looking into and thinking of in regards to them:

Alliance Brass had sent them to fight the Geth because the only people who would in the Alliance would do so clandestinely, as the Geth were never officially reported outside of their space.

Though they were in the same boat. The mystery that surrounded them both had been something else.

"My first time engaging Geth, ma'am." Mai ground out. "Mostly Turian mercs on my kill-list."

JD looked back at his commander, nodding in affirmation.

"I saw your armor take it well enough." Shepard prodded on, pointing toward Jenkins and Kaiden, hand signaling them to push forward. "Any tactical notes?"

She was obviously referring to Mai, and indeed, she did have some observations. "Three of them, almost broke through the outer layer, but only that was at risk."

"Energy shields?"

"Negative ma'am, Kinetic deals with it first."

She seemed impressed. "Okay then." Shepard nodded to herself. "Stay on point Chief Gul. Durante you're on me."

JD nodded, peeling back and behind Shepard as the other two Marines moved forward with Mai. The trio up front didn't make it far before they all took a knee again, the gunfire of Drones eeking toward them as they saw fit to take up firing positions. It was the sound that distracted them from the distant site of what looked like… lances? Poles?

They took position over a depression, honing in their sights as a flash of white and pink was in the distance, running toward them, danger on her heels. She rounded the corner of a rock as she fully came into view for the troopers, two drones having been firing at her in the same swift movement of a chase.

Two shots rang out from Mai again, fast hard, her target acquisition immaculate. Two drones had gone down as fast as it happened, the lone trooper ducking at the sound of gunfire going over head from in front of her. She stumbled, finding safety behind another rock cover, looking clearly at who had assisted her up the depression:

Kaiden flashed hand signals, and the female soldier below them had sent it back, breathing heavy, adrenaline popping through her veins. She bent over at her knees as Shepard and JD rejoined the group, just in time to see something beyond them:

It was the Geth first that drew their eye, bipedal machines of grey and tubes, one monocular like eye coming from a stalk that stood in as their head. As big as a Turian, they all observed. It was easy because they had another human right next to the pair of Geth to compare to. It hadn't been for their benefit however, not as the Geth dragged the man over machinery flaying him out, the man barely recognizing what was being done before a sight all witness to were better off not seeing took place:

Impaled, thrown up high, as if crucified by a skewer.

Jenkins nearly puked in his helmet as Shepard ground through her teeth in anger.

"Engage. Two foot mobiles." Cold words put out from Shepard as she had unhooked her Sniper Rifle from her back, activating it as she shouldered.

She had gotten the first shot off amazingly, even as Mai sent one down wind. Both struck the glowing eyes of those Geth bipeds before they even comprehended what was happening.

"Target down."

The female soldier below them had regained her breath and bearings, shoulder her rifle up and out, toward the enemy, but none were left standing. She held it down however, her support hand going up and signaling for the rest to join her.

"Gul, Alenko, move up to those spikes get that guy down, now!" Shepard ordered with a yell. "Durante, Jenkins on me."

They all moved down the hill toward the female soldier, the monster of a woman and Kaiden moving past, gun up in case of more hostiles, the remaining three rendezvousing with that one soldier.

Distinctly, Shepard recognized her. From a few frames of the original distress message she had seen her. The soldier looked back at her, and immediately recognized who had come to help her. Between the N7 on her chest plate and the fact her face was clearly seen behind her helmet, Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams knew that Commander Shepard had come to relieve her. "Thanks for your help Commander," she was still panting, but regaining composure. "I didn't think I was going to make it."

Shepard shook her head as they approached her, a slight smile put on. "Nonsense, doubt you needed my help to smoke these guys."

Banter. This kind of banter. It helped, kept people grounded. All Williams could do was shrug and give out as much of a laugh as she could. As a Marine this was how she was supposed to speak, and Shepard knew what she was doing: resetting her to a right state of mind.

"Sound off." Shepard asked.

Williams stood rigid. "Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212. You the one in charge here, ma'am?"

Shepard nodded. In charge, she thought briskly, sarcastically. She was never in charge. It was either the battle itself or nature that was in charge, she was just appointed by her military, by command and hierarches, to deal with it. But yes, simply, she was in charge. She nodded to the Marine.

"What's your status Williams?"

Williams looked herself over, a hand passing over her body quick and fast, checking. "Scrapes and burns, ma'am. Nothing serious… the others weren't so lucky." The Marine looked back, only to catch Mai use her boot to break the bottom of the spire in a crash, Kaiden shocked that she had the strength to do it. The spire came tumbling down, the human on it as well, but nothing could be done, even as Mai caught it and let it down gently, the man was dead. "Oh man… We were patrolling the perimeter when the attack hit."

"Where at?" Shepard asked pointedly.

Williams pointed vaguely out toward the stations further down the path. "We tried to get off a distress call, but they cut off comms. I've been fighting for our life ever since."

Shepard felt sorry for her, she did, and yet was glad that Williams was strong enough to do so. To fight for ones life it had… changed a person, molded them, gave them new perspective on what really was a priority in how to live. Even breathing became secondary to making sure the enemy stopped breathing, Shepard mused once during a veterans Q&A on Earth a few shore leaves ago that she was invited to. She didn't say it out of want of not freaking out the audience.

"You alone?" Shepard asked, carefully.

A pang of hurt crossed over Williams face.

A pang of hurt then crossed over JD's in realization. He knew it well.

"We tried to double back but-"

"I'm sorry." JD said, quietly, like a whisper, almost to himself, but they all heard it and it was enough. Williams gulped air, nodding to herself, damning herself.

"I tried but- I think I'm the only one left."

Shepard reached out, a hand on her shoulder, trying to squeeze through the protective material of her armor. "Not your fault. Not your sin, Williams. You couldn't have done anything to save them."

"Ma'am-" It was a protest, but Shepard wouldn't let it happen.

"Everything is 20/20 in hindsight." She cut her off. During a date, what felt like years ago, Shepard had remarked her partner at the time say something to the effect she would've made a good mother with how she spoke her words. It wasn't even the content of her words, but rather how she said it: like a breath, trying to make people desperately understand that she understood. Shrewdly, she shook it off. She would never be a mother with how her life was going, but it was true.

"Yes ma'am." Williams took in. "We held our positions as best we could, but the Geth, they drove us out."

Jenkins seemed distant, his head out of the game, despite his earlier insistence that he was to get it together. But no one could blame him. This was his home being attacked, staring up and out to the sky.

JD on the other hand was more lucid. "200 years and now… why here?"

"They must have come for the beacon." Williams answered.

It was on all of their minds.

Mai and Kaiden had looked down upon the man they had freed. This sort of death, now matter how soon it was, it looked unnatural. From the hole in his chest white liquid came, as if being pumped into him like embalming fluid. The Marine had knelt down, his gloved hands passing over the man's pained eyes.

"Any idea?" Kaiden asked the Spartan above him. She shook her head. This was as new to him as it was to her, and that meant something.

"I assume you were out here on security for the Beacon?" Shepard had hit her hard with her mission objectives. Williams could only, after a moment to figure out that Shepard had been privy to it obviously, affirm with a nod.

"We've been on station for a few nights now. Thought it was going to be routine, but when the Geth hit us, they hit us hard."

Shepard nodded in return, it was time to get moving. "Walk and talk Williams, you're with us now. Oorah?"

"Oorah."

She gave out a breath, sucking it back in to freshen herself up, to steel for the battle ahead. The three man group became four, walking toward Mai and Kaiden as they stood over the body.

"By any chance you see a Turian Spectre around here?" Shepard spoke over her shoulder.

"Negative ma'am." She answered back. "There aren't any on Eden Prime. None that I've ever met, and I don't think I'd be able to tell if one was a Spectre."

Fair enough, Shepard thought, Kaiden and Mai reflexively falling back in as they approached. If Nihlus was still going dark she would respect it. "What have you got here?"

Kaiden had reported as Mai looked onward, just around the landscape had been some sort… stone structure. It stared back at her like the ancients, reminding her of the places in her galaxy which were often wrought with the most religiously crazed members of the Covenant. It had been artificial at least, not a natural formation: two towers standing above what seemed like a pit.

Kaiden had been more focused on the body as he started to analyze. "Durante, take a look?" JD nodded at Kaiden's order, kneeling down by the body as he used his omni-tool to try and diagnose something. "We've got some sort of fluid that these towers injected into the bodies. Almost like they're being embalmed or something."

Williams looked with Mai toward the towers before looking at the spikes that held some other bodies similarly. "Impaling victims instead of just shooting them… there must be some reason behind it."

"Fear?" JD spoke in one word. The man was dead, that much he could tell, but his composition was, by the second, becoming more and more… non-organic, as far as he could read. He didn't trust he had read the omni-tool right, but he wouldn't air his doubts, stepping up, not another detail he could concretely name.

Artificial Intelligence. That was the phrase on Shepard's mind as she looked to the other spires holding bodies high. "You think an AI would logically use fear as an aspect of warfare? You think an AI understands fear?"

Mai held her thoughts on that word however as the squad considered Shepard's question. She hadn't been afraid in a long time. To be afraid, to be in fear, that was not how a Spartan was. This display hadn't done anything to her but cause her disgust.

"It's classic psychological warfare. They're using terror as a weapon." Kaiden sneered.

Shepard looked toward the towers, the distinct sound of robotica in the distance. "I'll show them warfare." She rose her hand, five fingers flat before pointing toward the structs of stone and metal. All moving forward, but not before JD had been able to go shoulder to shoulder with Mai.

"Your motion sensor catch anything?" He asked her, tapping the side of his helmet, quietly.

"Only us and them, and you're the only one that's green still." She said almost as hushed.

"The Geth have some inherent device against motion tracking then?"

"Ours are tuned toward our usual hostiles and humans. Might be the issue." She spoke aloud their secrets, but it was hidden in plain sight.

The six-man group pushed forward, Shepard on point as more and more of the area was revealed. It hadn't been a human build, that much Shepard could tell as she took a knee behind some rocks, catching the silhouette of a Geth infantry. She reached to her back, exchanging her rifle for a sniper, activating it and laying it against the rock in a knee, steadying. Several contacts had appeared on the site. "Mark targets wait for my shot."

In cover, out of sight, it gave the team ample time to line up their shots on the handful of Geth in the area. Like clockwork:

"Mark."

"Target marked."

"Marked."

Shepard pulled the trigger and every single Geth fell to the stone floor. Mai pushing forward immediately on the off chance there had been an unseen enemy, going on the offensive, but finding nothing as she cleared the corners. The Commander was pleased with herself, reracking the thermal chamber to cool the weapon.

This ground team fought well enough, but then again the enemy wasn't exactly the hardest prey. She made notes on their movement, on how they acted and reacted. There were sparse notes on the engagement with the Geth in Systems Alliance combat doctrine, but, vaguely, she remembered that the Geth were subject to a hive mind: that was where their true intelligence lay, not in the unit per unit functionality.

"Clear!" It was the loudest Mai's voice had gotten that day as she took a knee and saw a path out, scanning it as the team reconvened behind her. This was indeed a pit, but something was missing in the disk like arrangement: something in the center, human survey lights all trained on it.

It was a fact that Williams had noted immediately, eyes wide behind her helmet. "This is the dig site. The beacon was right here."

Kaiden looked around. There weren't exactly any clues that would help them, so he played it by ear. "By who? Our side or the Geth?"

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

Without Anderson there, Shepard had her priorities. Or, at least, an emphasis on what she really wanted to do, burning at her. "Think anyone got out of here alive?"

Jenkins had been quick to hope. "God, please."

JD had taken a knee with Mai out of habit. Looking to the ground. Foot prints. Human boots at least, taking off in that direction. Based on their dispersion it was a run, and there were several pairs, going toward the ridge.

"Looks like it." He said, turning around and drawing the groups attention to what he had observed.

"Sharp eye." Shepard commented. JD had given a bare shrug as she tapped his shoulder, making him take point. He would've lead the way but a few clicks in their radio comms had stopped them.

"Change of plans, Shepard." It was Nihlus, Shepard tuning in urgently. "There's a small spaceport up ahead. I want to check it out. I'll wait for you there."

She clicked her radio several times, affirming she heard it, and with that they were off.

---

Husks.

Those were the words that came to all of their minds as they found those spires, human beings on them and let down automatically. When they came down, they found footing. They were alive, but not the same.

Flesh that had been dead, eyes that stared at them like a machine. They looked human, and yet were very much not so as the growl emanated from their throats like beasts.

"Oh God! They're still alive?!"

"What did the Geth do to them?!"

Shepard on point had raised her gun at them, not sure what to expect from them. She didn't want to shoot. Not when they had been man.

That's when they had rushed at them.

A shot rang out from her gun toward the first one in the lot, taking a piece of its chest out. Save for the momentary loss of momentum nothing changed as the husks continued to run at them.

Mai knew what that hesitation was in Shepard as they all backpedaled, unsure of what to do. She stepped forward though, gun down, hands up, only to truly sprint and catch one flailing towards her.

JD's SMG did well enough, chewing up flesh as they all saw Mai took the initiative and show nothing but action against a threat. He held down the trigger at a man-shaped target, and for once, thought nothing of it as that very target disintegrated before him as the fireteam cut them down out of mercy.

Undead. That was the word that came to her mind as this body with holes tried to scrape at her, her grip around its throat with one hand as she knew what she needed to do. If gunfire wouldn't do it without overkill, she would do it with two things she trusted: her hands.

She could've counted the amount of times she had ripped a man's head from his neck on one hand, but it was something she knew how to do after a sickening snap emanated from the beast's neck. It had been Mai breaking it and its spine, loosing it up as she dug her fingers into the wilting flesh, hooked up, and tore her hand one way as the other went in the opposite direction with the body.

Ripped and torn. Even then it was cleaner then what had happened to the rest of those husks of men, peppered with bullet holes and sickly green fluid sprawled from them. The same fluid they observed minutes earlier. Her hands were coated, but she made no note of it, wiping it on her armor as she pushed forward with her rifle into the camp.

The head had been cast asides by her, disintegrating into the dirt, leaving her squad wondering if they truly did just witness what they did.

"Extreme prejudice?" Shepard had lowly commented, slowing her stride next to Mai. The Spartan gave no answer back as they pushed into the camp, prefabs of shelters and labs around.

Jenkins seemed just fine with it as he rose his gun again at one of the husks, the team reacquiring it as a target.

One of the husks had been writhing on the floor, approached by all of them. Not dead yet, not having disintegrated into goop. Mai had been quick to approach it, her boot on its chest as she reached down to grab both of its arms in her own.

Down with her boot, up with her arms, and more than bone came out with the sockets as Kaiden nearly gagged in his helmet. It was no matter that the husk had screamed like a man as it had literally been torn limb from limb unceremoniously by a titan of a woman.

Every movement of hers was one with purpose, all meant for peak efficiency meant to harm and to kill. JD could only process it because he had seen that same lethal mannerism in the Elites as they picked off his fellow Marines and ODSTs. Cruelty was something that the Spartans had to emulate, to become, in order to fend off the Covenant.

Distantly Shepard had to wonder what it would've looked like if she had just done this with something more alive than what they had just taken down.

The husk quit moving, mercifully, as its arms were dropped to the floor and Mai, unbothered pushed on.

The camp had been burning, metal paneling everywhere obviously from explosives. A battle had been fought here.

Williams pointed out a trailer. "That door. Security lock seems active."

Shepard formed a fist, tapping the front of her helmet before pointing her rifle at the door. JD knew the signage. In the flaps of the window: the shapes of other humans. He still stacked up however. Kaiden and Williams on his ass as Shepard fiddled with the digital lock. When it opened, they went in guns, up, out of formality, not malice. Two humans on their point as they breached.

Male and female, one with short cut hair and the other aged enough to where he was losing it. Both in the garb of scientists. JD pushed past them, scanning the room before pushing back and looking out the door.

Shepard holstered her rifle entirely. There was no need here.

"Humans! Thank the Maker!" The woman said, a distinct accent on her as a man stumbled out from the shade, shaky in voice and gait.

"Hurry! Close the door! Before they come back!" Shepard had looked to JD as he took a knee in the door way, shaking her head.

"Don't worry," She rose her hand relievingly at the man. "We'll protect you."

Her voice dropped low, caring. How she could do that JD wouldn't know. It was hard to switch back and forth between combat and the dialect of a regular conversation. Wires in the brain, after enough time out in the front, tended to be twisted. A benefit, perhaps, to him not speaking much at all. It lowered any complications.

"Thank you. I think we'll be okay now." The woman greeted them. "It looks like everyone's gone."

Williams recognized her. "You're Dr. Warren, the one in charge of the excavation. Do you know what happened to the beacon?"

She had an answer. "It was moved to the space port this morning. Manuel and I stayed behind to help pack up."

Mai had stood in that camp, rifling through debris, crates and of such. Working behind enemy lines tended to make her like that: combing through what she could find useful. Before that however… Trash cans held more than their fair share in secrets and sustenance. Lessons learned when living underneath half a credit a day.

JD tipped his head at her.

She shook her head back in response. Nothing useful.

"When the attack came, the Marines held them off long enough for us to hide. They gave their lives to save us."

Williams' eyes had sunken in deeper, the guilt of being a survivor filling her. Shepard had knowingly given her shoulder a squeeze before she turned back to Dr. Warren.

"No one is saved. The age of humanity is ended. Soon, only ruin and corpses will remain." Manuel's voice was creaky, burdened by an unknowable something. He was speaking like a Prophet and JD knew the talk of doom well. When the Covenant came they took the sanity of those who knew the end of the human race was on the way. He might've been the same if he hadn't picked up a gun and tried to do something about it. When the drafts were called perhaps, maybe that was why there were minimal rebellions against it.

This was not his galaxy however, their war. "What's up with you, man?" JD spoke about Manuel.

"Manuel has a brilliant mind…" She seemed uneasy to speak about him, but Manuel had hardly noticed. "But he's always been a bit unstable. Genius and madness are two sides of the same coin."

"Is it madness to see the future? To see destruction rushing toward us? To understand there is no escape? No hope! No, I'm not-" He was interrupted.

"Stay with us buddy." Jenkins returned to his light voice, the one from before he found out his homeworld was burning, for the sake of this man's mania. "Just been a bad day."

Manuel, his eyes went dark before becoming complacent. "Yes…Yes. Yes indeed."

Shepard had nodded in concert. It'd been a bad day indeed. One she'd lived before as she peered back over her shoulder. Nihlus was at this space port as well, and to be frank she didn't need to hear anymore of Manuel's talk.

"Any details you can give us about the Beacon? I don't need to know what it is, just physical attributes, anything I should be wary about it?"

Warren had been quick to answer. "It's about the size of one of those horrible spires out there. It's movable at least, made of some sort of metallic alloy. We could only identify it as similar in composition to the Relays and the Citadel."

It was an interesting fact. If it had been in any other situation Shepard would've been mystified, but it wasn't the time to get hung up. "Can you hunker in place?"

The two seemed uneasy with the idea. "I'd rather not get left behind here, not if more show up." Warren's worry was understandable.

"We'll clear the spaceport and signal for you two to come up to the Spaceport. Keep tuned to this comm channel." She had sent the frequency over her omni-tool to them before turning to Williams, half way out the shack. It was the best they were going to get. "Williams, Jenkins, take point, get us there."

"Aye ma'am. You two stay safe." Jenkins left off, gun up, moving forward. "It's not that far, let's go!"

It was a small hill away, but it seemed so distant as they came over it.

Their radios cackled. "Hitman 1-Acutal," Shepard immediately took a knee and the squad froze in place as she awaited. It was comms from Nihlus. "This is Nihlus, be advised civi- Saren what the hell?!"

A gun shot. The sound of fighting, punches and jabs, metal clanging. More gun shots. It was clearly heard over the net as a wet slam was heard over it. An small pop of an explosion was unkind to all of their ears as it was filled from the radio.

"Sounds like Nihlus needs help!" Jenkins had put a name to their unease as they listened. They were about to break out sprinting toward the space port, but a monster in the sky had appeared first, staying their feet, sucking their breath out of them.

Leviathan, clad in black, the fires of Hell surrounding it as lightning more vibrant than any red seen in that universe surrounded it. Its natural lines betrayed its machine like nature, the intimidation it gave, so large, and yet so far away from them. For JD and Mai, they had mistaken it for a Covenant ship, but this was anything but. Not as the air rumbled around them like the belly of the beast, all coming from the ship. It rose up into the sky and Shepard fumbled for her helmet, cursing to herself.

"God damn jamming! My recorder is down!" She screamed out, looking right into that leviathan, imprinting its image into her memory.

The rest of the squad did the same, trying desperately to record something of it. Williams had seen that beast before, how its tentacles erupted with flame and fire, destroying the defenses of the colony. Those same images before the jamming started had been seen by Shepard, and now with her own eyes had verified the threat.

The Geth had come with it, and now they were leaving, the form basking a shadow over the spaceport, over them, before disappearing into those blood red clouds.

It would've left silently like a ghost, but it had left enough destruction today that what came next split the heavens. Charging, like a motor, the sound that came next was like a speaker destroying itself, vibrating, making their very bones shake as they all beat back the want to clamp their hands over their ears and block it out.

It was only after that Leviathan disappeared they only now noticed that a thick black smoke had come from the Spaceport: the cause, a massive fire.

"Contact!" Jenkins yelled out, more husks running at them, seemingly having smelled their fear.

It was a lot to take in, naturally, between the initiation of another unceremonious cut down of these husks of men, the space port burning, and that Geth ship rising above the land out into space.

JD peppered a Husk from the hip, popping the gun into his shoulder only when they got close enough for Mai to deal with them, her hand reaching out only to crush them where they stood in a grisly display, crumpling them like paper.

"Hey! Hey!" Distantly the heard a voice, down toward the spaceport, the squad taking a dash toward them. When they arrived at the spaceport finally they found a trio of farmers, desperately wielding fire extinguishers against the flame. "Help us put this out! There are grenades here that will go off if we don't do something about it."

"Go!" Shepard ordered, her team finding fire extinguishers themselves and applying to the flame.

It took them several minutes, all of them, but the fire was never meant to last. It had a fuel source that burnt itself raw, leaving nothing behind but scorched metal and- Shepard approached the hot center of the fire, pistol in one hand and a fire extinguisher in another.

"Damn." Was all she could say. It was something in the shape of a Turian.

More screams. It was from one of those farmers that had asked for their help. "Powell's dead!" Burnt to a crisp. Just as they could recognize their presumed friend, Shepard could recognize the burnt corpse of a Turian Spectre. Nihlus.

"What the hell happened here?" Kaiden said aloud.

Shepard had, wisely, spun her index finger in the air like a circle. "JD, check this out." The rest of the squad had secured a perimeter, ash and soot on their boots as the residual heat singed them.

It was almost as if Nihlus had been half way Glassed. His form was still there, his body, face up, his exposed flesh all scar and burns. He didn't know what a Turian looked like when injured, but he figured that this was an extra ordinary scenario. Definitely, he concluded, taking a knee as Shepard stood over him.

Her luck, she imagined. Her first mission in her Spectre evaluations and her evaluator came up dead. What could she have done different? That was what she thought about as JD ventured and touched the charred armor. Across the blackened armor he ran his gloved finger. A stain of grey came off. Curious. He had felt under his body, feeling the bubbling flesh, drawing away to only as well find that same grey smearing. He had been hardly a combat medic, but he knew the tools of the trade as he looked up at Shepard, something to report.

Even across universes medical advances were the same. "I recognize this," he rattled off, kneeling down to the broken glass jars nearby. "Silve nitrate, or at least based off of. It's a caustic. Burns off growths and crystallized wounding."

Shepard wondered. "Crystallized wounding? What does that?"

JD would've said Needlers, but he shook his head. "Mineral-based experiments. Mostly conjecture, seen it used on lab rats."

To be fair ONI did test Needler samples on lab rats. It answered Shepard's question at least

"What happened here?"

It was never an accident. That much his father taught him as he mentally made a crime scene of the place. If there was an after to this battle, this place would be a point of interest, smashed crates around and nearby, the spread of the fire seemingly very liquid like in its dispersion.

Metal shrapnel here or there, a bullet hole not from them in a wall.

"Oh my god! He was shot!" The farmers had made a note of the human body nearby. Peering over her zoomed with his helmet, seeing an entry wound nearly sheer off the man's head, hung by a thread.

"A fight." Was all the answer he gave to Shepard.

Shepard kneeled down now to Nihlus, his head in her hands, her thumb tracing a bullet wound over his forehead. His eyes had been burnt shut. Gruesome as it was, she'd seen worse. Now it only meant she might've pulled something from him, diagnostics or readings or anything recording his last moments. Her omni-tool was pulled out, scanning the Turian.

What she found had been more surprising than the state they found him in.

"He's alive."

She said it so pointedly, so understatedly, that JD almost panicked, the man getting his pack off. Shepard had moved on in a few steps before recoiling back, the entire team with bewilderment on their faces as they turned to look at her. "What?" Shepard tilted her head through her helmet in disbelief.

JD passed his omni-tool over Nihlus's head again. "Brain activity is consistent with what I assume to be a coma. He ain't brain-dead."

Shepard couldn't believe it, taking a knee against the burned Turian, his body nothing but ash in the shape of an individual. She hadn't dared touch any of it, but JD seemed to have it well in hand as he let his omni-tool find a vein and injected a solution meant to keep his blood pressure up. If there was anywhere he would be leaking from they would've been closed off by the burns. "Hang in there Nihlus."

"We need to get him into a sterile environment, fast. Advise we break radio blackout and call for MEDEVAC." JD had taken a smaller flashlight from his pack, looking over the Turian's face. His eyes had been burnt shut. Who knew if he had been cognitive behind it, but he was alive.

Shepard had nodded in agreement. It was a fast message however. "Normandy Actual, this is Hitman 1-Actual pinging coordinates for hot MEDEVAC. Prepare Infirmary for conversion into a Burn Ward for Turians. Out."

She sent it out, closing the comms fast. That was all she could afford to send out.

"Mission still on, Commander?" Mai always talked with her back turned to the team, front pressed out toward a danger unknown, rifle ready.

Shepard had gritted her teeth. Even if he was a Turian he was a Spectre, and even if they had hardly known each other for an hour before hand, she was responsible for him now. No man ever got left behind, but the Geth were after something that would've meant the entire Galaxy apparently. She looked over her men and made a choice, pointing to Jenkins.

"Can't leave him here alone." Shepard stated once, looking to Jenkins and the other militiamen and civilians that started up to move in. "Jenkins, can you set up security on this site, start rallying survivors here? Normandy is inbound and you're gonna handle evac."

The man, after a moment of looking down at that unfortunate dock worker had nodded. "I'll see to it."

"Good." She nodded back. "Everyone else on me. We need to link up with Hitman 2 Section."

Before they had all moved on however Jenkins grabbed his Commander's shoulder, fire burning in his eyes and on his mouth: "Make them pay, Shepard."

This was his home. He deserved nothing less. "Hell or highwater." She answered back.

In the distance more tracers went up into the sky. War had come to Heaven it'd seem.

---

Marine Raider Regiment, Third Detachment. Callsign: Hitman.

Twenty men, as assigned to the Normandy, having replaced most of its normal Marine detachment on short notice.

The Marine Raiders had a long history, beckoning back to the American Marines during the Second World War, raiding Japanese islands while America was still reeling from the attack on Pearl Harbor, attacking while America as a whole could not.

Much of the lineage of the Systems Alliance military force came from the old United States military doctrine, so it was no wonder that the Marine Raiders that came to the Normandy were… different.

Anderson had argued against Ryder personally sending his own detachment of Marines, his personal fireteam no less, to the Normandy in support of Shepard, but he had his reasonings. Security. It was to keep the Spartan in line if worse came to worse. Prime Minister Shastri had agreed. He had bet that at least Hitman could handle it. But there was more to it: Shepard needed men able to operate under her, to keep up with her, to lead and to command if push came to shove and she needed to wage her own war.

Hitman was his gift to her.

She was once a student of his, and just by that alone, he owed her.

The cannon of the Mako opened up into an occupied building in the middle of the Eden Prime colony. Prefabrications of smaller buildings had surrounded the towering arcologies that housed most of the planet's populations, so urban combat had been something bred and on fire in that most recent hour.

They rose up into the sky like towers of Babel, gunfire erupting down from them and up as attack craft were shot down around them and slammed wherever they fell, plumes of smoke rising from the agrarian fields.

Sergeant Emerson had looked blanked faced at the debris that had come of it, the Mako loading another round as his men created a perimeter in the vicinity from cover. They had been moving down the streets slowly, in one unit, clearing it out of lack of other direction until then.

"You guys the Calvary?" A police officer had linked up with them, civilians and anyone with a gun naturally gravitating toward them. Blue and whites had denoted his status as the authorities, obviously in over his head with a combat situation.

The sergeant shook his head. "Marines."

To the police man it had been the same thing, but he was glad that they were there regardless. "What's your plan here?" He asked.

"Well what's the situation with the colony units?"

The sergeant racked his head, white knuckled, pistol in hand. He was scarred. Then again who wouldn't be? Emerson rationalized as he waited patiently.

The Mako fired off again, a prefab building crumbling as Hitman opened fire into the rubble. The sparks and bits of Geth had been seen in the smoke, denoting a kill.

"We catch these guys alone, we can take 'em. When they're in a group though that's when shit gets dicey man. I'm only a beat cop, I don't know jack about warfare tactics."

Emerson couldn't fault the man as a ricochet bounced off the Mako.

The Mako was in the middle of the street, civilians using its form as cover to escape into buildings that had been secure. Still it drew fire as Hitman around them opened fire back, more and more Geth taking notice.

"What's the status on the colonial militia?"

"Scattered and or still deploying." An explosion had rocked the street, Emerson and Hitman unphased as debris peppered them all, the police officer shielding his head from the dust. "We can't exactly get an organized resistance up without comms!"

In between the towers had been the developments, the agricultural fields and the settlements built for ease of use for the farmers. That's where they were now, and they had been rife with Geth.

They were sent here to deal with it. "Bannon! Harris! Doc! With me! Rest of you form fireteams and go hunter-killer!" Emerson screamed out. The rest of Hitman knew the play then. Door kicking and heart breaking as the group of Marines all formed into their own teams and split off to raise hell. "That should give you some wiggle room. My men will lighten the pressure."

Harris, a larger man, twice Emerson's size it seemed, had rounded the corner of the Mako to join his sergeant, Bannon, the South African woman with fire on her face bringing following with the bald man known as Doc. Harris wielded a Typhoon LMG in his shoulder, burning through the thermal clipped belt he had until, unsurprisingly, fire coming their way ceased.

"They seem as soft as Turians, Kay." The autogunner commented meekly, taking a knee and keeping his sector covered. Emerson knew what he meant, they fell like any other soft-target as far as he could tell.

"Then we play it as usual then. Force 'em out, and that means getting comms back up?" Emerson affirmed, looking to the police officer who agreed.

"I can lead you there, long as we pick up more militia and other cops with me." The policeman nodded, white knuckled with his pistol. "Man, I moved to Eden Prime to get away from this type of stuff!"

Bannon looked distantly out to the sky, barely regarding the civilians who huddled in cover with them before being directed off to different cover. She was a veteran of many colony liberations. The Skyllian Blitz had defined her enough that she felt no danger even as gunfire flew over her head. She felt it in her feet, in her sixth sense, that something was up. In the red clouds, intangibly, was something just beyond her vision.

"You good, Bannon?"

"Aye." She answered, gripping her rifle and reorienting herself. "Where the comm utilities?"

"That way." The police man pointed out. "Toward the loading docks."

Emerson sucked in his breath as he brought up his omni-tool, finding a path.

"We get to the main sensor comm relay, I should be able to boost it through to the Normandy and out into the comm buoys up-top." Loke had looked over her omni-pad, unbothered by the specks of sparks and gunfire come their way. "I know the Boss's fleet is one relay jump away."

The "Boss". That was what they called their CO, their actual CO that is. Alec Ryder exhumed command and so they still referred to him as such, even when underneath another. They didn't mind rolling with Shepard. She was Ryder's finest protégé, but they knew they came here for Chief Gul and Chief Durante. The danger that emanated from them was perhaps more than the Geth here.

"We'll task on it. We're crossing the street in just-" Emerson was about to give orders, to cross the street and lay down suppressive fire for some rapid movement, but he was interrupted. Interrupted by the sound of gospel as the squad looked, and behold, a pale man in robes:

The sign of a cross, of a holy man, arms outstretched and taking steps toward the incoming fire. He took nothing, walking down that street, arms wide open and seemingly accepting of his fate. One of Hitman had reached out to try and take him back, but he was held back, there nothing they could do to save a man out of his mind, damnation before him. He was in rapture, a priest accepting of his fate that came in the form of a leviathan. The words that flowed from his mouth had been that of the Book, a touch to Earth's past that there was, even now in that galaxy, something even greater than that.

"When the Lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, "Come." I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him!"

Perhaps, if they were truly lucid, Hitman as a whole behind their cover might've thought about why the priest was untouched as he walked toward the Geth positions. This surrealism however, it took them as the man screamed to the heavens above, louder than any battle could've been.

And he screamed, and he screamed, and he screamed to the gods that would listen:

"BEHOLD! Damascus will cease to be a city and will become a heap of ruins! The cities of Aroer are deserted! They will be for flocks, which will lie down! None will make us afraid!"

An explosion had kicked up right in front of the preacher, metal and steel kicked up with dirt and sparks. When the smoke cleared the man was nowhere to be found, Bannon tapping Emerson's shoulder with a hard hit, the man getting the message.

He signaled.

Bannon dashed across the street, gunfire following her across as Emerson and Harris peaked out of cover, gunning down those that were distracted by her.

---

Fighting in a fireteam, it was… trying, for Mai. To say the least. With that many people fighting she felt vulnerable. As in, if she did what she usually did she felt like she would get shot in the back. With Noble, it was different. They were Spartans, they were disciplined better, knew how to take shots that would at the very least not be detrimental to her. With Shepard and her Marines, even with JD, she did not feel that confidence as that long walkway became a firing range, both ways.

At the end of that path was the cargo shuttle that would ferry them toward the main colony, but in the way were contacts. That was what had been told to them by the farmers before they were corralled away into safety by Jenkins.

It was times like this that JD had wished that he had a SAW gunner on his team, or, at the very least, someone with the MA5B and its sixty rounds worth of hurt.

He felt his kinetic barrier get hit and his heart had almost stopped. He had never been allowed this kind of flexibility in combat: to know that he could take a hit or two. But then again slices of metal had been scarier than plasma bolts in his opinion. At least he could take a plasma pistol hit and get out of it alive. With what was basically metal shards thrown at him, he had been a little more antsy as he saw the bubble around him refresh.

The Geth, Husks, and drones they fought were standard affairs. Nothing they hadn't, in some other variation, fought before. He didn't want to admit it but the Covenant had been harder, even as he was pinned behind a metal divider with Williams and Shepard.

Kaiden and Mai had been caught forward, Mai's shields recharging after pushing ahead and bearing the brunt of the initial fire from the Geth fireteam, among them: a monster.

Nearly two times the size of a regular Geth, and a missile launcher lugged by it, it shook all of them straight taking cover. Their rigidness belied a uncanny valley to them, even as they kept the Marines in cover.

"Hey follow up on my target!" Shepard screamed into JD and William's ears. She dropped her gun however. The ODST had been confused but when he peered out it was understood. Shepard's hands glowed blue as she honed in on one Geth, close enough to reach out to, she doing the gesture, only for that unit to be pulled toward them and float in mid-air.

It floated past Kaiden and Mai, but they paid no mind, making sure no other Geth pushed up in response, blinding firing down the way.

The floating Geth was filled with led as JD used its floating corpse as cover, pushing up again as the giant Geth trooper put it in its head to charge, fast.

"Incoming!" Williams screamed out, alerting Mai. The Spartan peered out for a moment, only to see what had been rushing toward her. Spartan time kicked in.

She would've spit in her helmet as she made her decision. Gone in a flash from Kaiden's side, he had reached to grab her back down out of pure concern but was too late. None was needed however as MJOLNIR kicked in, her feet throwing her toward a behemoth in a run.

"What the hell is she-?!"

Shepard had almost punched through JD's shoulder with how hard she had directed him to fall in line with him, pushing past. JD would've done so anyway. At this point he knew what a Spartan could do and Mai excelled in it, not as the giant threw one arm down in a swing, hitting the metal below with a crater. Mai was quick though, enough to sidestep, her gun dropped to be held by a sling, knives out, one for each hand. One had found the elbow joint of the thrown down arm, she bending, twisting, jumping with it as a pivot as she hooked her other arm around the slightly bent giant's neck.

Lifting herself up she had come up onto its neck, the remaining knife jagged down into synthetic tendons, deep and hard as the giant seemed to stiffen, up, Mai's free hand which hadn't been twisting the knife digging beneath the hood of the giant's head above its eye and tearing up.

If this had been a human she would've been tearing its scalp off.

It ripped like one, she knew that, as she did the deed and rode the giant down, only to flip around with her rifle up not a second later. There was nothing to fear however, not as JD and Shepard gunned down the remaining Geth troopers.

Every time they killed a Geth trooper the surviving would flinch, as if disrupted, on pause, adjusting. It gave Shepard ample time to approach one stuck out of cover, and pump its chest full of lead. She rolled her feet smoothly toward it, punting the machine with the barrel of her rifle before snapping around and lighting up a Geth in cover.

Mai caught a hint of JD glancing at her before he continued to look forward, onward, toward the shuttle platform that would take them to the main colony. She barely noticed the synthetic fluid on her hand as she wiped her knives on her armor, only to holster them again.

Two Marines behind her had been left agape. "Jesus Christ."

Williams took the name of the Lord in vain, having seen the work of something beyond a soldier in action. It was that of a Spartan.

Kaiden was more the skeptical, but he knew, in some ways, what he had been dealing with with Mai and JD.

"You do this shit on the regular, Chief Gul?" Shepard asked.

"On occasion." She answered plainly.

The commander didn't quite believe her, not as she hand signaled for them to rally behind her, the cargo tram before them after all the Geth had been dealt with. Tracer fire intensified into the sky before them, the main colony ahead of them as they stepped onto the tram. It would be a long ride, but it would've gotten them there.

She didn't quite believe her now especially as the tram moved forward, taking a look at her current fireteam and finding only Mai unbothered, barely a breath spent.

The two women found each other's gazes, but said nothing of it. There was nothing to discuss when they were on the same side. Mai saw Shepard as a competent team lead and Shepard very much enjoyed someone who could stab a machine to death on hand.

JD had motioned to Williams, bent over her knees, her helmet off as she allowed herself a breath of unfiltered air. "You said you had injuries?" He asked simply. This was the only downtime they were going to get as they approached the sounds of battle smoothly.

She shook him off. "Nothing I can't take."

"Williams." Shepard sterned. Mention it now, or it would kill you later. That was the implication.

Still Williams kept it up. "I'm fine, seriously. Took a glancing blow but I put some medigel on it when I could."

JD had to only trust her words with a nod, taking his own helmet off himself, hair blowing in the wind. "Heh." Williams had looked at his face. "I was beginning to wonder if you were a bot." His face contorted shrewdly before shaking it, helmet back on almost as fast as it was off. "Is she though?"

Mai didn't respond, standing like a statue and looking toward their destination, rifle in hand. She'd heard this before.

"Okay then…" Williams backed off, looking to Shepard instead. "I didn't know you were in the area. Usually you have a big enough media presence."

Shepard leaned against the railing, her moment of reprieve taken as her helmet was off, her hair in a bun barely held in the wind. "I don't encourage it, you know. The limelight's not that welcoming, especially when you're posted on a stealth warship."

"Ah. You skipper?"

Kaiden answered for her. "Negative. Just commander of the Marine regiment. Name's Alenko by the way, Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko."

They were both exhausted, adrenaline momentarily drained out of them as they shook hands weakly. "Wish it was under better circumstances… You guys Marines too?" She gestured to Mai and JD, their kits so obviously different from their own.

"Navy." Mai spoke. "SOF."

"Ah. Spooks. Great. Just what we needed today." There was a twinge of hostility that came from the Marine.

"They're not that spooky, Williams." Shepard said lightly, almost in jest. "You guys really not part of the Program?" She gestured vaguely over the N7 over her breastplate.

"Not predisposed to discuss this, Commander." Her monotone voice was barely filtered by her helmet, sending chills down the spines of them all. The brevity of her language didn't help avoid the theory that she was, indeed, a machine.

Gratingly, but like a knee jerk reaction, JD had breathed out. "Lighten up, Mai."

Only they did she turn her helmet slightly toward him. "…Is this the time to lighten up?"

JD knew it was a literal question. To the rest it was sarcastic. The answer was the same however. It hadn't been. She would've rather kept her mind on the battle on how the Geth fought. Even then though, it tried her. This enemy, it all spoke to the tell-tale sign that they had been autonomous in a way. Not exactly hard to kill, but hard to read. No fear in their forms that she could've used.

"I'm glad you're here," It was hard to hear over the maglev hum, but it was heard. "All of you."

It was Shepard, reapplying her helmet. "Shit is so fucked, ma'am." An explosion ripped through the clouds in the distance. Williams language was down to Earth, fully appreciative of what had happened to them all.

"It was worse over Elysium." Shepard reminisced. She remembered the low just so she knew what it had been. This wasn't it, as much of a tragedy as it was: this colony being attacked was just another day at the office. There was way to react at least. During Elysium everything they did was all on auto-pilot, like a body shutting down organs to keep the brain alive. "Slaver ships blotted out the damn sky."

"Some shakedown run, eh?" Kaiden tried to lighten the mood. It was a hoke in two parts. One that Mai and JD would understand, and one the rest did.

"Could be worse." JD said to himself. "Could be worse."

In all of their research he and Mai could not find a time and place where the Council or the Alliance had straight up destroyed a world as they knew it. That kind of cruelty did not exist here, so yes, things could've been worse.

"What's our next move then, Commander Shepard?" Williams asked, needed a bearing, an objective. She didn't need to cool down now, not when there was a fight left to throw herself into. She had men to avenge, her helmet back on. "We move into the colony and help the defenses clear out?"

Shepard so much wanted to say yes, but she couldn't. "I have another fireteam tasked with saving the colony. We're going to link up with them as soon as we secure the Beacon and exfiltrate."

Williams seemed flabbergasted. "What's so special about it then? Huh? Doesn't this colony take precedence?"

Tactical objectives, resources, pure preservation. These were reasons why JD had to leave people behind to die in the Covenant war. He understood William's distress. He really did. But orders were orders, for the greater good. Anderson had called it, and so he knew best.

Shepard seemed sad, bitter, but she gave her answer. "I don't know, Williams. It's just my orders. And if its Prothean it might actually mean more than this world."

Moments passed, Williams understood, but she felt something that she needed to say, to keep herself sane.

"It's cold of you to say ma'am."

Cold. Mai felt cold at that moment. A long time ago she stopped questioning orders given to her and their tactical relevance to the survival of humanity. All she knew was that she did her orders well, and as long as there had been someone to order her, to keep her busy, she was unbothered by what those orders really meant.

She had killed for so much, and for so little, and didn't even care why. That was the reality of her existence, and it felt cold. Now it was put into words, and she so desperately wanted their transportation to hurry up.

"I wish it ain't so." Shepard agreed. "I wish it was different."

---

Saren Arterius fumbled by the loading dock of the main colony. Reports were that his forces were being pushed back at his transportation out of system was holding station, waiting for him. There was no time to waste. He hadn't cared however. Now down an arm, bleeding, hurt, stumbling toward a white Geth unit. "Set the charges! Blow this colony to oblivion! Leave no trace that we were here!" He screamed at it. It offered no response but the unit understood, scampering away as he stumbled toward the entire reason why he had come here:

The Beacon.

He shoved his stump of an arm into his stomach, trying to stifle the bleeding, before that marker of Prothean architecture and will.

"Show me!" He screamed at it. "Show me my path! Show me what I have to do!"

The Beacon emanated with this sickly green aura, almost like a mist, and as he screamed at it, the aura froze cold, surrounding him, taking him, holding him up and showing him what he wanted to see.

---

When they arrived, they arrived ready.

Kaiden was ready enough to go to the cylindrical case that had been beeping and look at it once. "Demolition charges! Geth must've planted them! I've got four wired on this network!"

"What happens if they blow?!" Shepard hadn't been given a breath to fully orient herself as Kaiden went to the wiring.

"This place will go up. We're right next to a geothermal deposit." Ashley answered urgently.

With one sweep Mai and JD found where they were: just another loading dock, this one attached to the colony. The sounds of warfare hadn't sounded that close since their time on Reach, but they were ready for it, scanning the walkways. "Permission to split off and cover more ground?"

The proposition by Mai had been well intentioned enough as Shepard looked at her wearily. "Take JD."

"On the move!" Mai had taken off, JD following behind her diligently. Only moments after they had gone out of sight the gunfire had started and the metal bodies, distantly, started dropping to the floor.

"SOF huh?" Williams had reiterated what they were, impressed almost as Kaiden disabled the bomb.

"That's what they tell me." Shepard followed up, looking to her omni for other paths of ingress that had led to the remaining bombs as tracked. Kaiden held his words. He knew better, but as far as he could tell those two had been brought in line.

There might've been a discussion about their nature, even in the middle of the Siege. The Geth had found them first in a squadron of more drones however, coming from where they came: back down the track.

"Get to cover!" Her voice cracked as she placed herself in front of the bomb. Better to hit her than hit the bomb she decided, laying her Avenger rifle on the railing of the station pointing out.

Williams and Kaiden had been caught out of cover, leaving her the only one to deal with the near dozen large formation.

She sucked in her breath as the pressure in her hands built up.

There were many biotics in that Galaxy, she among them, but even then it had been hard to describe the exact feeling that was elicited using, effectively, biotic abilities. She could hardly tell people what it felt to wield black holes in her hand, and, by some mystic property, aim with her eyes and throw them toward any targets. Weaponized biotic abilities hadn't been her forte, but she found a place for them when multiple targets were concerned.

She held one hand out, palm flat, before a great fire erupted from her hand, three drones quickly approaching crumpling and falling to the ground as that hand returned to her rifle's grip.

The drones opened fire at her, and she fired back, hardly a flinch. She shot, one trigger pull at a time, her aim refined by the need to be quick, and to kill faster. Misses she couldn't afford in her life. With every twitch, every gradual adjustment of her arm, a drone had gone down.

She couldn't down them all however.

The final surviving drone had crashed into her like a car, at her head, claws and drills emanating from its belly, aimed at drilling into her head. Her left hand had gone right onto said drill, threatening to put a hole into her visor, the heat of the metal spinning stopped by her armor's gloves. The amount of torque behind it burned her palm but it kept her un-lobotomized, her teeth grit as her right hand found the pistol at her hip, shoved almost to eye level at her.

A great flash of white was had, but the drone was off her, a hole in its body and now at the floor as she backed off, only to open fire into it again, making sure.

When she looked up she had only seen Williams and Kaiden pointing their guns at her. A moment and then she understood: they were going to take the shot at the drone at her head but didn't.

Probably good for her health.

She noticed the chips in her visor, her helmet now unusable, throwing it off.

"We good?!" She rasped in a yell.

"Affirmative Commander." Kaiden answered.

"Let's move then!"

---

Testing her enemy. It was almost scientific: how Mai had let the Geth hit her with energy pulses and mass effect based weaponry just to see how her shields handled it. It was an odd thing to see to JD, to see her shields flicker before she got back into cover, eventually becoming comfortable enough to simply walk out, take what fire she could, and lay it down. All eyes were on her, which gave him ample time to open up behind her with his SMG.

The rattle of his gun sent a Geth over the railing of the balcony they were on, he having just defused a bomb with Alenko's protocols. He used her for cover, falling into her form as she measured herself steadily, letting her shields recharge between periods of walking fire. Every time she stepped out at least two metal bodies had hit the ground. She was death incarnate on a casual level, uncaring of the incoming fire to a point that it allowed her flexibility to put time on target.

She was both the shield and the sword, her DMR burning a hole through any resistance as the Geth did nothing but push forward into her: a grinder of gunfire.

"Just disabled a bomb, Commander. We're approaching the geothermal stations." He spoke for Mai as she breathlessly drilled five rounds into a Geth trooper, her hand going back, almost protectively, to JD as she had moved them both into cover.

She waved one finger at him before pointing it toward the cover he had been blocked the view of. One contact. He could deal, popping out, trigger depressed as his SMG peppered the cover, and then the torso of that artificial being.

"Copy all. Converging on your position. Be advised one bomb left active."

"Hard copy. Out."

The Geth had dropped to the floor as Mai reappeared in front of him, finding stairs down and to the left, out of the loading station.

Their objective stared at them in the face as Mai had balled her fist, taking a knee, minimizing her form in the stairs. JD got the message as he froze and looked at the platform they had come upon: an object that screamed of the ruins they found earlier had been before them.

"Eyes on objective."

"Copy all. We're moving due west onto the platform. Check fire."

Over the radio they could hear Shepard's team move in, finding the last bomb and disarming it as they put down hostiles, but there had been a pause, and then an almost painful uptick in static.

"All militia forces this net! Comms have been reestablished! All units say status!"

"Sounds like local forces are getting in gear." JD commented, still basically hiding behind Mai's armored form.

"Bout time." It was an unkind comment, but JD knew the snark. Local militias, heroic as they were, often got in the way. He peered out in the distance down the platform, spotting the rest of his team pushing fast and forward. Any Geth left on that platform had immediately oriented toward them, the firefight starting and starting hard. Mai wrapped one arm around the front of her rifle, cradling it, creating a perch as, at once, she opened fire from behind.

Getting shot in the back was the same, in both organic and artificial terms, the white fluid that had erupted from gunshot Geth painting the floor.

JD had put a fist to Mai's thigh, tapping it, gun up and moving on his own down to apply more direct pressure.

"Check fire." Mai had spared a breath to speak. "Chief Durante's moving toward you."

Shepard had pushed forward poking around the corner only to dodge a bullet from a Geth shotgunner, the spherical rounds from the plasma shotgun it wielded giving her milliseconds to push out of dodge as she heard another biotic wrap reality: Kaiden found said Geth, lifting up above the crate cover only to be lit up from below by Shepard.

The Geth were unprepared for JD to push on them, but their numbers were thinning, not enough to cover all sectors.

One was able to turn on him however out of cover, but JD had been faster on the trigger, the momentum of his shots pushing the Geth up against the cargo crate it was using as cover, only for it to jerk to the right: It had been Shepard pushing rounds into its sides as Williams and Kaiden pushed up. The heat they all felt was obvious: red magma emanating from a geothermal plant's field, the platform overlooking it.

"Clear!?"

"Clear!"

"We good!"

The team reconvened again, four bombs down, the city secured for the moment. Their objective right before them in all of its arcane glory.

"This it?" Shepard tipped her head at the object. Williams affirmed, but skeptical.

"Yeah… wasn't like this when they dug it up though."

"Long as we can move it," Shepard told herself, hand to ear and initiating comms. "Normandy. Hitman 1-Actual. Package is secure, say status."

A few moments passed as the message went out, further human comm chatter from organizing defense units reassuringly joining.

Kaiden and Williams approached the active beacon, ancient electronics lighting it up, humming. It gave JD and Mai private time, JD throwing his index finger up and flicking. The Spartan had given something of a smirk behind her visor. He really was going to try out Spartan Signs.

"Ever see anything like this? Back home?" JD asked, motioning toward it.

"This is amazing! Actual working Prothean technology. Unbelievable."

Mai had looked to the beacon, considering her words carefully, as if there had been an ONI agent around the corner. It was easy to send a dead woman walking on classified ops, her guarantee of secrecy was the fact that she was to die soon. As Spartan B312 that was her fate, thrown to ops that let her grace the secrets of the Galaxy.

"Yeah." Was what she said. JD waited for a follow up, but nothing came. He rolled his head from side to side. Fair enough was written in his shoulders.

Curiosity killed the cat however. Just as much as it had been about to kill the two Marines who leaned in forward to the beacon as Shepard waited on comms from the Normandy.

"Normandy here." It was Joker. "Read you clear. Seems like the other Marines were able to lift the comm blackout. We're gonna push toward the colony now, give us a landing zone when you can."

"Roger, Normandy. Standing by."

Shepard's thoughts were filled with what she assumed was the free time she had on the ground. Perhaps she could've linked up with the rest of her Marines and the local defense and secure the area, or perhaps push back out to the outskirts to go hunt down the Geth. They were wiped away however when she saw her two Marines step forward toward the Beacon and it, like a tripwire, sprung in a green display that, to anyone, looked like it was dragging them in.

Without a word she had dashed toward the two at a diagonal, tackling them out of the way as the same force that had taken them took her instead.

Before JD could even turn his head to see what was wrong Mai had burst out in a sprint, emulating Shepard as the woman's feet left the ground and two Marines had been on the ground. Latching onto her arm, Mai planted her two feet.

A tug of war, and Shepard had been the rope.

Magnetics boots had activated and Mai had, stubborn as a stone, stood her ground as Shepard was lifted up, off her feet.

The Spartan wouldn't let go however.

It was the paneling below her that gave out first as JD, and the rest of them for that matter, saw a Spartan get lifted airborne.

"JD!" Mai screamed her name as Shepard levitated, as if an offering, toward the beacon.

His hands went to his belt and the paracord immediately, the best idea he had as simple as it came. He threw one end of the cord at her and she had caught it, now strung between Shepard and JD's rope. Wrapping it around his fist and arm there was only one thing he could do with all his might.

He pulled against fate and destiny itself.

---

What she saw had been horrible. She saw the destruction of a million cultures, of flesh pulled apart in the name of metal toward an abstract question that could not be answered unless a billion billion souls were sacrificed.

Harvesting.

Reaping.

A hundred thousand wars played by her mind and the bodies that had counted up had become realized by her: on every planet, in every system, of every star, the planets themselves were built on the bones and the ashes of an uncountable dead.

This was an ancient prophecy that was supposed to play out, and it was a prophecy that she could not comprehend. Not then. Not now.

But there was something else. There was another horrible image given to her, caught between two beacons of information that held secrets of lives not her own.

It was the other vision that she could process make whole, as, in reality, her head was thrown back as she went spread eagle against the sky, an armored woman trying to pry her away as her equally mysterious shock trooper fought against forces unknown.

Her mind was more accommodating of this vision:

It was human at least, blinking herself to consciousness in a place not known to her.

It was dark. It was night. It was muggy and it smelled.

New York? Los Angeles?

No, she opened her eyes, seeing nothing but a dark alleyway and backstreet left decrepit by industrialization.

Something, in the back of her mind, told her it was not a city she knew. That this wasn't a planet or colony she knew.

It was an unfamiliar city. One unlike she had ever seen save for the dystopian imaginations of a future that had come to life. The streets dark and dirty, the buildings above used and used for every purpose imaginable as cars, actual cars, drove past. Was she in the past? She thought it so.

Her boots, she thought she was wearing boots, were wet, the sewer system having risen up due to pressure.

Why did she know that the local workers union that dealt with utilities were on strike? Why did she know that those workers were mostly Hindu and were at odds at the Jewish government in that municipality?

She was given information and it hurt her head so, wobbling, finding the side of a building in that street and feeling cold steel instead of the familiar glass of Alliance colonies.

A headache came over her. Still contesting with the vision prior to this one: of the Leviathans come from beyond the stars.

She saw two figures in the dark of the night, barely lit by the neon of the lights. It was raining, further misting their forms as they, slowly approached. A woman, and… a smaller figure. A child?

She reached out to them. "Hey! Miss! Ma'am! Can you help-"

Her voice made no sound as if she lost it, she struggled to call out, but nothing came. As she clawed at her own throat, trying to get something as simple as air out.

Nothing.

The pair didn't notice her, even as she approached creakily, their details more apparent.

The woman, she seemed familiar, her head hung low. Her face had been bony, malnutrition having written her nearly dead. Shepard didn't know if she could bear to look at the child, but she did. It was the same story. These two had been in poverty, rags covering them.

She didn't need there help, they needed hers. There were just halfway down the block when again she tried to call out to them, but her voice was drowned out by the rushing sound of a van to her side, pulled up fast and hot next to them.

What she saw next she didn't think happened anymore. Sickly and frail the woman could do nothing as black cloaked men stepped out of the side door of the van, pushing her away and separating her from the child.

The woman's eyes went wide, the whitest thing in that dark place as she screamed and finally spoke, her daughter too weak to do anything but be scooped up by one man and brought into the van.

She spoke Arabic. "Don't take her, please, she's my daughter, take me instead!"

Shepard stood witness to this. That's all she could do as her blood froze cold and realized she was witness to a kidnapping in process. A nightmare underway as one of the men in black drew a syringe and, without hesitation, jabbed it into the woman's neck as she was thrown into the alley, the crash of a dumpster heard.

The child disappeared into the van, and in less than fifteen seconds that would've been it.

That's when the men in black looked at Shepard, pointed to her, and wanted her gone for being witness.

When they broke out running toward her, arms out, all she could do was run away. Run away into the sprawl of New Jerusalem.