AEGIS MANTLE

Benezia wasn't all that happy about bringing her daughter aboard the Excom vessel. She had been the obvious choice for the Asari emissary, and although she had left her younger daughter in the capable hands of a couple of her acolytes the Matriarchy had unsubtly hinted they would 'appreciate' it if Liara, at least, accompanied her, along with a retinue of her most capable bodyguards and an Asari Spectre, Tela Vasir. Vasir in particular was less than pleased, due in no small part to the fact that she had been informed quite firmly that her jurisdiction did not extend to the XCS Aegis Mantle, and that even a Spectre such as her would be wise not to try anything untoward given that kinetic or biotic barriers didn't register plasma, being designed to block solid projectiles and not ionised gases travelling at a significant fraction of lightspeed. Thinking about it, Benezia couldn't recall a point when she couldn't see at least three plasma weapons very carefully not pointed at the Council delegation.

At the moment she was sitting in a very grand looking dining room, watching as an Excom soldier served up what she guessed was their cuisine. The first thing she noticed was that every Excom at the table was eating something different, the diversity quite remarkable. Directly opposite her was an Excom with short silver-white head fur that extended over its (she hadn't quite got the hang of their genders) chin and a large scar across one side of its face, apparently having had all its limbs replaced with prosthetics at some point. It was eating what looked like long white strings with chunks of a pale coloured meat and various roots and other plant material, deftly manipulating two wooden rods between the fingers of a mechanical hand to transport the meal into its mouth. Beside him, a tailed Excom with short black hair was eating a slab of dark coloured meat and some pale yellowish things that looked like deep fried sections of a tuber of some sort, using a knife that wouldn't look out of place in the belt of a Drell assassin and a strange four pronged metal object to cut sections of meat off, impale them together with some of the tuber sections, dip both in a deep crimson sauce and place them in its mouth. On the other side a suitless Quarian male was eating something that looked and smelled like it should be in the fuel canister of a flamethrower, and tasted like it too given the beads of sweat on the brow of the individual and the copious amounts of water that was being consumed between mouthfuls of fluffy white bread dipped in the thin red liquid.

She looked back down at the extensive menu that had been provided to her. The Excoms had been thoughtful enough to transfer the menus into Thessian High Tongue for them, the overly formal cadence of the ritualised language combining with the alien nouns to render it just as incomprehensible as if it had been written in the alien tongue.

"Need some help?"

She glanced over, smiling gratefully at the Excom offering to help. The soldier, the same sniper who had been at the initial contact, looked over the menu. Benezia usually got a slight itch when she was around Excoms, like some primal part of her brain wanted her to get away. For this particular soldier, Shepard if she remembered correctly, the opposite were true. If anything she found the sniper's presence soothing.

"What would you recommend?"

The Excom looked over the menu briefly, then looked at her. Benezia felt a slight throb in her temples, then Shepard replied.

"Do you want something close to home or are you feeling adventurous?"

"Hmm. I'd quite like to try something new."

"You seem the elegant and refined type. If you want something new, how about a hamburger?"

"Ham-bah-gah?"

Shepard shrugged, inwardly smirking at the Asari's mangling of the word.

"That."

When Benezia saw one of the Excoms, this one with mechanical limbs and a false eye, demonstrating the use of a hamburger, eight hundred years of high society screamed at her not to do it.

"A hamburger sounds wonderful."

What had she gotten herself into?

###

AEGIS MANTLE

"So basically we have eight main training paths, ten if you count the MECs."

Nihlus Kryik, the Spectre assigned to guard the Turian delegation, nodded interestedly. He hadn't really expected such an in-depth explanation of the Excom military but the individual he asked, one Major Alenko, was happy to oblige.

"Each soldier has a class, either Assault, Support, Heavy, Sniper or MEC, and a specialisation, either Leftside or Rightside. Leftside soldiers make up the bulk of our units, they do the grunt work, and Rightside specialised soldiers tend to have more utility and support oriented capabilities."

"Why left and right?"

Alenko chuckled.

"When the training regimes were first planned they were written side by side on all the paperwork, hence Leftside and Rightside. Myself, I'm a Leftside Support, we're pretty much the force's medics. I'm also a natural psi, although usually I'm behind the frontmen so I mostly just reinforce someone else's psionic techniques or do psi shields."

Nihlus nodded, pretending to understand the terminology.

"I see."

Clearly Alenko wasn't fooled. Then again, he was starting to suspect that holding a verbal conversation was more of a courtesy and that if the soldier so desired he could read the Spectre's mind and shove the information directly into his head.

"In combat we ramp up the psionic connection between our soldiers to the point where our identities start to merge slightly. In that state we can pool our will to supercharge our psi attacks, or I can focus my will to create a selective physical barrier around one of my team, somewhat like your Eezo based KBs except it blocks directed light or electromagnetic plasma weapons as well."

Nihlus glanced over to his Salarian counterpart, Jondum Bau, who was listening in while trying to look like he wasn't, then back to Alenko.

"I'm interested in these Ethereal controlled species."

"Ok. Well, you've already seen the Sectoids and the Adraa. There's also the Tarch, the Chryssalids, the Floaters which as we understand it were actually a subspecies of Adraa, the Ethereals and then the various Cyberform constructs."

"Which one was the greatest threat?"

Alenko had to think about it for a moment.

"The Mutons. That's the term we use for Adraa affiliated with the Ethereals. They had been optimised for frontline combat by centuries of selective breeding and genetic manipulation. Every Muton inherits all the knowledge of its parents, meaning that they can literally pop out of the womb and field strip a plasma rifle in ten seconds flat. I have some recordings of them in combat, if you'd like to see."

Nihlus nodded, Jondum abandoning all pretence of not listening and Tela swiftly approaching as Alenko pressed a button and the large screen at the end of the room activated.

"This footage is from approximately midway through the war, when we were still using carapace armour and laser weapons. We didn't have any psionics at this point. The view is from Colonel Shepard's helmet cam."

By that point the entire table had stopped and were watching the screen as all the soldiers present took a trip down memory lane.

###

OUTSKIRTS OF JOHANNESBERG, MAY 24th 2015

"Alright listen up, hotshots."

Captain Marzia 'Mincemeat' Cantado stood at the front of the Skyranger's passenger compartment, one hand gripping the rail overhead and the other loosely curled around the handle on top of her heavy laser. Lieutenant Jane 'Lola' Shepard glanced down at her own weapon, a laser sniper pried from the dead hands of an EXALT operative. She preferred her own weapon, a Shen-Vahlen Mk. I DLSR affectionately nicknamed Death Ray, but clubbing a Sectoid Commander to death with it the previous mission had thrown the scope out of alignment and necessitated the use of the sleek black replacement despite the common superstition that EXALT weapons were unlucky.

"South African infantry elements have reported sporadic contact with unknown hostiles on the outskirts of Johannesberg and called us in to take them out. The nationals have set up a cordon around the area and are going to push in with armoured columns. We're going to drop outside a small warehouse suspected to be the X-ray command post in the area and clear it out. Remember, we get in, we kill the X-rays, we bag the Spaco and we leave before the nationals show up to try and steal our loot."

Shepard nodded. Spaco, a contraction of the phrase 'Space Cocaine', was one of the many nicknames for what was officially named Meld. Personally she preferred calling it Mudge, a neologised form of MUJ which stood for Magic Upgrade Juice, or occasionally nerd-nip thanks to how much time the nerds spent eulogising about it. The captain wasn't done.

"Based on the reports from the nationals, we can expect Mutons and Pixeldicks. Remember, eyes open, cover your sectors and for fucks sake don't let them rape you."

That one drew a few chuckles. Pixeldick was one of the many crude nicknames for Seekers, most derived from a comment Sergeant Massani had made about how they looked like they belonged in a Japanese porno. This had, of course, led to the strangulation attack being known as raping and to the respirator implants referred to as iron panties. Nobody ever accused XCOM operatives of having a refined sense of humour.

"Ok, here we go. Dropping."

The rear door of the Skyranger hinged open, ropes dropping from the ceiling and getting kicked out of the hatch by Sergeant Alenko, the closest to the edge.

"Go Go Go!"

The team as one dashed up to the ropes and grabbed them, sliding down and drawing their weapons as they landed. The one exception was Sergeant Ludmilla 'Freya' Chepurnova in her silver-blue Lynchpin-pattern MEC-2 Sentinel, who simply jumped out of the plane like the vessel was fifteen centimetres above the ground, not fifteen metres, hefting her colossal railgun and pulsing the electric igniter on her flamethrower in anticipation of the coming fight.

"Alright. Big Sky, bounce me air surveillance."

The Skyranger pilot immediately responded, a basic aerial plot appearing on the HUDs of the XCOM soldiers. The glass and LED visors of the beginning of the conflict had been replaced by a sleek looking holographic interface based on the alien entertainment projector recovered from the subterranean base they had cleared out last month. At the moment the visors were displaying, as well as the map, a biometric read on all squad members and individual weapon and armour statuses.

"Alright then. Castle, Freya with me. Tardy, Mash shadow us. Lola on overwatch. Let's move."

Mincemeat led the way towards the warehouse, followed by the shotgun toting Sergeant Janice 'Castle' Farren and Freya in her colossal MEC suit. About fifteen metres behind were Alenko, nicknamed Mash, and the squad's tactical support soldier, Lieutenant Saif 'Tardy' Khan, with Shepard herself watching over the unit through the scope of her laser sniper. Being at the back of the group, she saw what happened perfectly.

Three enormous creatures burst out of hiding, roaring as they charged the front group. They almost looked like bigger Mutons, but armed not with a plasma rifle but with a strange three pronged wrist blade. Reacting as quick as she could, Shepard lined up a shot and fired, aiming for the knee of one of the creatures. In her haste the beam was high, spearing the charging bastard in the groin. She reflexively flinched at its roar of pain, then swore as the charge redirected towards her, suddenly much faster than she would like. The other two continued on undeterred by the laser strike on their comrade, charging straight for the foremost member of the squad, Castle. The sergeant turned to face the closest one, raising an arm reflexively to ward off the attack. Moments later she yelped in agony as said arm was gripped in a meaty fist and yanked downwards, sprawling her on the ground and shattering the limb just in time for the second attacker to come up from behind and skewer her on its blades. Castle was dead.

Of greater concern to Shepard was the third berserk Muton barrelling towards her. She drew her pistol, sending a fusillade of laser fire towards it that only seemed to piss it off, then dove to the side at the last minute. The creature smashed straight through the crate she had been in cover behind, then abruptly redirected its momentum, continuing to pursue her with single minded intensity. Despite being a long range sniper, she was no slouch in close quarters thanks to her father's insistence she be able to handle herself in a fight from a young age. She even did stints as a Krav Maga instructor between missions back at the Hive. All of that was useless against a creature that probably weighed about half a ton and could bench a Hummer, encased in thick slabs of alien alloy armour.

A laser struck the Berserker on the side of the head, making it halt its movement and turn on the spot, then leap into a charge at the source of the beam, Alenko. Shepard took aim, scoring a line across its back with a laser pistol. The creature turned back to her with a furious roar. She hit her comm.

"Mash, tennis."

Alenko got the message, firing a laser and carving a gouge in the Berserker's side as she sprinted back to where she had dropped her rifle. She snapped the scope up, taking the opportunity to aim this time, and blew the damnable creature's brains out its face. The gargantuan monster continued two or three steps before it remembered to die, then collapsed, shaking the ground with its falling.

"I need support!"

Her head whipped around, seeing Tardy back-pedalling as both Berserkers charged towards him. Mincemeat responded quickly, shouting orders even as her heavy laser unleashed a sizzling fusillade of cherry red beams.

"Split them up, keep them changing target."

The team didn't bother responding, instead carrying out the instructions. Shepard waited until one was charging at Mincemeat, chunks of flesh dropping off it where they were cleaved off by high energy light, and then took aim and drilled a neatly cauterised hole into the back of its leg where the thigh met the calf. The Mutons may be alien killing machines genetically engineered to slaughter humans and encased in the strongest material known to man, but they were still limited by their need for functioning knees. The creature's momentum carried it forward, sliding across the ground towards where Mincemeat and Freya were firing from. The creature's thrashing from its single functioning limb, so mangled nobody could say if it was an arm or a leg, was swiftly halted by almost two tonnes of mass bearing down through a single mechanical foot.

The last Berserker was back to charging at Tardy, its flesh scored and pitted with laser strikes and most of its armour resembling Swiss cheese but unlike the other two the damage was mostly superficial. The former Indian Army soldier was blazing away with his laser rifle, clearly in the grip of an irrational panic and deaf to the repeated cries for him to hold fire. The only thing his poorly aimed barrage and shrill shouts were achieving was to further piss off the angry alien bearing down on him. The thing struck with the force of an express train, knocking the unfortunate Tardy off his feet and slamming him into a crate. The Berserker's arm came back up and forward, impaling him through the chest and tearing his abdomen open, allowing his guts to spill out through the enormous rents in his armour. With a collective scream of fury the squad unleashed hell on the Berserker. By the time they stopped firing the body was almost completely vaporised. Mincemeat looked down at the two corpses of her soldiers.

"Dammit. Lock and load everyone, they probably have friends somewh ..."

Her sentence was truncated by streams of plasma as the rest of the Mutons stepped out of their hiding places. Caught unprepared, the squad had to dive for cover, the exception being Freya who merely started calmly and methodically returning fire, her MEC's distortion field providing a measure of defence against the barrage. Shepard glanced at her HUD - Mincemeat had taken a hit but was still functional and Freya was slowly logging superficial damage. Thus far, her and Alenko were the only ones unharmed. Shepard hollered into her comm as she tried to minimise her profile.

"I count five!"

Alenko hastily seconded her, then revised his count down by one as Freya landed a hit that blew one of their attackers's insides out its back. Moments later the suppressive fire on her position slackened as one of the Mutons needed to reload, allowing her to lean out of cover and take a shot.

Her laser beam cut through the side of the Muton's neck, scooping a gouge of flesh out and cauterising the wound even as it was inflicted. The bastard fell back behind cover, clutching at its neck. It wasn't dead but it was out of the fight. Shepard tagged her comm.

"Mincemeat needs a medic! Mash, make the dash on my mark. Freya, take out the one on your two."

Moments later two acknowledgements came through, one in a husky Canadian voice, the other a short phrase in Russian affected by the eerie monotone all MEC pilots spoke with. Barely a second afterwards Freya matched action to words, throwing herself into motion and trusting her distortion field to protect her. Within a heartbeat she had closed to the required range and raised her left arm.

A steady stream of fire spewed from the nozzle of her flamethrower, sweeping in a steady arc across the positions of two of the Muton attackers. The first fell back, roaring in agony as the flames charred armour and flesh alike. The second one tried to dive out of the arc of the fire, coming down hard and out of cover, allowing Shepard to blow a hole through its head.

"Mash, now!"

Alenko took off, the two remaining Mutons unable to target him thanks to Freya's railgun fire, and quickly reached the downed captain.

"She'll live but she's out of the game for now."

Clicking her comm to indicate she understood, Shepard frowned slightly. She was in command, half her squad out of play. She had been in worse situations before, like that clusterfuck in Munich or the first time her woefully underprepared team met a Cyberdisc.

"Alright. Mash, remember your rocket training?"

"Been a while, but yes I do."

"Grab Mincemeat's tube and blow those fuckers up. Freya finish up the one on the left, I've got the right. Let's go."

A rocket streaked out from where Alenko was in cover, blowing up a crate and knocking two Mutons on their asses. One was promptly eviscerated by a railgun shell while the other fell to a sniper bolt.

"Report."

"All hostiles disabled. One Muton still alive."

Shepard nodded, then marched over to Castle's body, plucking the mercifully intact Arc Thrower off her hip and shaking some of the viscera off it with a frustrated mutter. The Muton looked up at her as she rounded the crate it was leaning against, hate burning in its eyes. It tried to raise its plasma rifle but she kicked it out of the thing's hands, then used the creature's knee to rest the hand she was holding the Arc Thrower in.

"Congratulations, you pissed me off. The mad doc's welcome to you."

She wasn't sure if she imagined the flash of fear in its eyes the moment before she pressed the trigger. She liked to think she didn't.

Leaving the unconscious Muton behind her, she gave out a couple of last minute orders.

"Freya, drag that Muton's sorry ass over to Mincemeat then keep an eye on them. Mash, you're with me, we're going mudge-hunting. Any tips?"

Freya was the only member of the squad with meld-based modifications and thus the only one with the uncanny sixth sense that allowed squads to home in on the Meld canisters. She growled a short phrase in Russian, Shepard mentally translating it into a bearing.

"Let's go."

She turned around to head in the direction indicated, just in time for something to slug her in the gut. She doubled over, then was roughly shoved to the floor as a steel tentacled monstrosity appeared above her. One of its five tendrils wrapped around her ankles, trapping her feet together, while another pulled her wrists together behind her back for a third to wrap round her waist, pinning her arms behind her. The fourth wrapped around the top of her head, shoving it backwards and exposing the vulnerable flesh of her throat while the fifth and largest began to constrict around her neck.

Her oxygen flow abruptly cut off by the Seeker, she attempted to wriggle out of the grip its mechanical appendages held her in to no avail. The robot was programmed with the optimum method for immobilising her while it crushed the life from her. She cursed herself for not bringing a respirator implant even as black spots started to swim before her eyes and her thoughts became fuzzy, her limbs refusing to obey her even as she fought to get free.

Abruptly the air flowed back into her lungs and she gasped, immediately crawling to lean against the nearest crate as she revelled in the simple joy of oxygen. At length she registered Alenko kneeling beside her, one hand already on his medikit. She waved him away, wincing as she rubbed at her neck. She was going to have some epic bruises there later.

"I'm good Mash. Save it for someone who actually needs the help."

Alenko nodded and put the medikit back on his hip, hauling her to her feet.

"The good news is Freya got the other pixeldick, so we should be clear. Oh, and I found the mudge."

She nodded, wincing.

"Good job. Call for extraction, I've had enough of South Africa to last a lifetime."

###

AEGIS MANTLE

Garrus cracked an eye open and immediately squeezed it shut again, groaning. Everything was far too bright. He was dimly aware of a voice to his left.

"Don't wanna."

His mumbled reply replaced the inaudible words with feminine chuckles, then something hard poked him in the neck.

"Go way."

"Wake up, dummy."

He shook his head slightly, then turned over onto his side.

"You asked for it."

Then suddenly there was something touching his upper arm. It was okay for the first ten or so minutes, then it started to itch. Another ten minutes after that and it was unbearable. With an enraged roar he shoved away the thing on his arm, frantically scratching at the skin where it had been touching. In a chair on the other side of the room Solana glanced up at him.

"About time you woke up."

He looked at her curiously. She was wearing attire very unlike her usual elegant blue dresses or suits, instead a formless grey jumpsuit that lacked sleeves and showed the strange hexagonal plates integrated into the carapace on her upper arms.

"Sol, what are you wearing?"

She glanced down at herself, then at him.

"Same as you, dummy."

Looking down, he noticed that he too was wearing the same grey jumpsuit. Then he looked up again.

"Oh yeah."

He looked at his sister again, suddenly noticing that she looked different. Or on second thoughts perhaps he was seeing her different. After all, Shepard had convinced him to 'guinea-pig' the Turian form of the Excom visual enhancement package, whatever that meant. He could easily see every wrinkle in her jumpsuit and every imperfection in her plates, even tell at a glance that the lines of her clan paint were ever so slightly wider on the right side of her face than the left. All the colours in the room seemed brighter as well, every one of his memories seeming muted and dull compared to the riot of colour he was experiencing. If the Excoms saw like this that would explain why their colour schemes were so minimal. Sol looked at him curiously.

"How are the new eyes?"

Garrus tapped his temple, the Turian equivalent of a shrug.

"Everything's so much more colourful now. It's making my brain ache slightly. How's ma?"

Sol's face lit up like a drive core during relay transit.

"She's better! The sickness has totally gone!"

He jumped up, a broad grin spreading across his features. Solana responded by recoiling slightly.

"Why are you angry?"

"Huh!"

"You're baring your teeth."

Garrus realised he was, in fact, in the middle of a Turian threat display, his mandibles wide and his teeth on display. He closed his mouth with an audible click.

"I'm not sure. For some reason it feels like the right thing to do when I'm happy."

Sol rubbed her neck.

"You're weird."

"Yep, it runs in the family."

###

XCOM Research Report: 31st May 2017

Chief Researcher: Dr. Lieza Vahlen

Team Leaders: Dr. Simon Westwood, Dr. Samuel Osengi

TOP SECRET: ANY UNAUTHORISED PERSONNEL READING BEYOND THIS POINT SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE PUNITIVE ACTION

THIS DOCUMENT IS RF TAGGED ALL MOVEMENTS ARE BEING TRACKED

Genetic modification, project codename: Paradigm

The first Turian genetic modifications were carried out by the research team and proved to be a resounding success. The metallic nature of Turian tissue proved to be more compatible with Meld than what the team was used to, enabling us to easily and seamlessly introduce the genetic modifications into their physiology.

The main individual, Subject Tu-0001, was an older female suffering from a degenerative genetic condition that caused muscle wasting, eventually leading to death without intervention. The regenerative tissue implants in the leg bones proved to be effective at reversing the effects of the degeneration, taking little over three hours to totally reverse the effects of the disease. Likewise the Meld synthesiser organs supplying the regenerative tissue proved to be easily inserted into the back of the subject's ribcage. Individuals Tu-0003 and Tu-0004, an older male and younger female respectively, were also modified in this fashion. Individual Tu-0002, a younger male, gained these genetic modifications and after persuasion from Colonel Shepard allowed us to test the implantation of our optic package as well, which was once again a complete success, proving the versatility of our genetic modification project.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING SECTION OF THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED LEVEL 4. THE SECURITY OF THIS INFORMATION MUST BE PROTECTED AT ALL COSTS.

Weapon prototype, project classification: Turnabout

Using DNA samples taken from subjects Tu-0001 through 0004, the research team were able to complete the initial prototype of the proposed TiF-P biological weapon of mass destruction. The pathogen used as the baseline was a specifically engineered dextro amino strain of Ebola modified to target Turian physiology. The pathogen was combined with a sample of rhinovirus engineered for maximum communicability and anthrax bacterial genes for lasting contamination. Our prototype has a seventy hour incubation period before individuals become symptomatic, allowing plenty of time for the weapon to spread, and then clone tissue tests show the infection is fatal within an hour of first symptoms in ninety nine per cent of infections. Doubtless this weapon requires further modification and refinement before it can enter the testing phase, but is nevertheless a solid step toward a valid and deniable first strike capability against the Citadel Council.