Author's Note,
What is this? An update? Bet none of you were expecting this :P
Once again, all feedback welcome. Especially that which points out problems, can only make the story better!
Chapter Thirteen: The fate of Horizon
The console was ruined, that much was obvious. Sparks flew from the blackened mess.
Shepard would remember the sound of those scrying beams later. The sound of air being split and torn as the collector beams scoured through the air.
The entire strike force was caught off guard and in the open. The lucky few dived for cover as soon as the warning was shouted. Most weren't so lucky.
Every beam found their mark, the pin point accuracy of these things confirmed once again. Three men and several mechs went down as each beam scoured metal or flesh. Shepard remembered the confusion and panic as several troopers crumpled to the ground.
She threw herself against one of the many crates dotting the plaza. The husks continued their incessant horrific moaning.
"This is Shepard. The tower control console's ruined. Team standby!"
"That isn't good Shepard!" Garrus responded, she saw the hammerhead in the distance. It was immediately backing up from the fight. Good, she thought. Keep the wounded away!
Shepard looked over her cover, the collectors were on the warehouse roof. They stalked over the courtyard, predatory eyes scryed the ground below. She loosed off a shot at one of them. It was pinning down a group of the security troopers sheltering behind a cargo vehicle. She didn't do any damage, but its attention shifted to her. The screech of her cover being tortured was its response.
She looked back at the wider arena around her. The control console was destroyed. Collectors were hammering their position
They needed a new plan!
"Collins!" she radioed.
Static filled her ear for long seconds then, "Yes? Sorry commander. They came out of nowhere."
"Collins? You alright?"
"Coping. We need some help with these bigger ones though."
"Never mind that. Is there another place we can access the towers?"
A series of explosions echoed to Shepard's right. She risked a peek to see the line of devastation where one of the larger husks have fired its gun-arm.
"The main turret control centre. It's the main control station for the colony."
"Where is it?"
"In the North east. Another two maybe three kilometers. Out near the outskirts."
"Seems like our only option at this point. Can you highlight it on the map?"
"On it Shepard."
She waited, moments later a ping sounded on her omnitool. A new marker appeared over her holographic map. She keyed in several commands and send it to everyone in the party.
"This is Shepard! We're moving to this position! We need to withdraw from this courtyard."
"Understood Commander." it was Jacob, "but the collectors have a couple of security units and me pinned. If we make a break for it, we'll be cut down."
Another voice cut in on the comm. It was angry, "Shepard, the fuckers have me trapped under this fucking truck!" the rage was evident in Jack's voice. "Can't move for shit."
Shepard grunted. The cover in the plaza was sparse. There was no chance they'd clear the area in one piece.
She saw another trooper die. Sliced in two by a beam. The poor woman continued to scream for several moments before her voice giving out.
They'd have to fight their way out of this.
She brought her hand back up to her comm "Alright, new plan. Jack, Jacob. I need that roofline covered in a biotic storm. Blind them. When that happens, I want everyone to find better cover. If you're already in decent cover, I want you to lay down supporting fire."
Their confirmations returned moments later.
"Jack, Jacob? You ready?"
"As we'll ever be commander." Jacob replied.
"Do it!"
Jacob glowed with energy. He saw over in the distance Jack was doing to same. She started yelling. An indeterminate, wordless cry. He felt his own power rising and rising. His teeth itched as the static ionized the air.
He dashed out of cover and threw his fist towards the collector position. The roof was consumed in a swirling ball of incandescent blue energy.
Jacob was already running, away from the low stack of metal cables that he'd been hiding behind. The others ran with him. His arm ached as he ran. Every footstep sending fresh jolts of pain through it. He held it close and gritted through the pain. He was heading to a series of parked vehicles to his right. Their high cabins offering more protection. He could see two security troopers already taking cover behind it.
He reached it, slamming his back against the wall of it. Above them the storm were dissipating. The collector fire returning.
She saw the beams return. The storm had blinded them for a moment, but they hadn't relinquished their position.
She needed them off that roof! "Glaedara. Get your sniper to target the collectors on the roofline. They don't have cover. We need them to land."
"Understood, Shepard." came the reply. A second later, a piercing beam of white light decapitated a collector on the roofline. Its wings flickered erratically and it tumbled forward off the building.
Even as it continued to fall, the other collectors reacted. Shepard's heart leapt as she saw them dive off the roof and land on the ground beneath. They wasted no time in landing, their chitinous feet barely hitting the ground before unloading more fire into Shepard's team. They skittered to the side, each covering each other.
There! She saw another glowing one. It stood in the open, defiant. It was like the other they'd dispatched a while back, were they their leaders? she wondered.
She gripped her rifle and looked round, trying to get a picture of the battlefield. The smoking ruin of the control console stood in the centre of the square. She was propped up against a series of crates nearby. To the east she saw a dozen or so of the security team, holding off the oncoming waves of husks as best they could. The two krogan were with them, pumping rounds into the encroaching, moaning masses.
To the south were the collectors. Their new landed positions robbing them of their height advantage, but providing them with ample cover. They took advantage of their positions to terrifying effect. When she risked a glance, their clicking forms darted from one piece of cover to the next. They continued their relentless bombardment of her position. The very air smelled as if it was burning.
They grouped behind the road barriers, the stopped vehicles and the sprawled cargo that littered the road in front of the building.
She heard the massive thump of the hammerhead's cannon. She turned, the wounded! They'd be pummeled by the force of the cannon!
It had shifted position, now near the courtyard entrance. The wounded weren't on it anymore. Those that could walk were helping the others get away from it. They struggled towards the cover around the tank. Some clutching weapons, some grunting under the effort.
She felt, rather than heard, the hammerhead rounds zip overhead. They impacted the collectors with a terrific force. It got lucky, punching into the centre of one of them. Its body flew back under the impact. It was testament to the durability of these things that it didn't disintegrate under the blast.
Dust and wreckage was thrown in the air. Visibility dimmed as clouds of rubble and dust spread over the enemy position, concrete torn up by the cannon of the hammerhead.
Eisenmus saw the volley from the hammerhead, it kicked up a cloud of dust in front of the collector position, blinding both parties.
He began moving. Each step of his heavy treads clanged on the ground beneath him. His armour whined and groaned in protest as he closed the distance with the collectors. His bolt pistol aimed before him.
He was halfway there, he saw one emerge from the smoke.
He fired. The shell impacted. Shielding flickered from the impact. He fired again. Chitin sprayed everywhere. It stumbled. Despite incapacitated, it drew its weapon. He lunged to the left. The beam tore through his previous position. It was slower, he thought, it must be damaged.
He closed the distance with a couple more steps and impaled it with his blade. The collector screeched in agony for a moment before being cast aside. It was dead, he had to move on.
He was on their flank now. he'd taken out the flank collector. There was still dust around him. It was dissipating, it wouldn't be here for much longer.
The other collectors saw him. They shifted positions.
He raised his bolt pistol. . .
The dust was now everywhere. Shepard skidded behind the ruin of the control console. It was still smouldering.
She risked a peek. Searching. The fight was in full swing around her.
Something flickered in the air, blocked the light for a second.
She looked up, and that saved her life.
On impulse she dived. The collector's dive missed her my inches. Its impact crumbled the remains of the control console. In haste, she retrieved the collector weapon on her back. It came at her, glowing golden cracks and lines glowering at her.
Like the one she saw earlier, the one with glowing lines infusing its body. It stood before her, its stance arrogant and sure. Its wings twitched as they settled themselves. Limbs moving with unnatural joints.
She fired. She hit it in the shoulder. Its shields failed assuredly. The beam bit into the carapace beneath. The creature halted in its tracks. The force of the impact bringing it to a standstill. Its feet dug into the concrete beneath. Molten drops of liquefied chitin dripped down its side.
"IF I MUST TEAR YOU APART SHEPARD, I WILL"
It didn't fall. It still stared at her. If it felt pain, it showed no sign. It stood defiant at her. Its glowing eyes fixated on her. She fired again with the beam, but it had predicted it and flew to one side, sidestepping the deadly ray.
She brought the weapon round, too late. It lunged at her. Its claws flared with dark purple auras. Almost biotic in nature.
Shepard dodged its first blow, but not the second. She took a blow to the shoulder and she went down. The force was tremendous. Her shoulder ached through the layers and layers of armour she wore.
Without thinking, her pistol was in her hand. From her position on the ground she fired into the thing. It paid very little heed, bits of chitin flew off in directions. Sparks of golden light sprayed where her bullets found their mark beneath the surface. .
"UNKNOWING. BLIND. REACHING IN THE DARK. YOU DO NOT YET KNOW YOUR PLACE."
Its wings buzzed. It flew up off the ground towards her. She saw its clawed feet descend to the ground. It would crush her.
She grunted and rolled to the right. She felt its impact beside her.
Her roll had bought her time, a second at most. Her pistol was spent, useless. She'd dropped it before she'd rolled. Her shotgun was in her hand now.
For half a second their eyes met. She looked in the four spite filled glowing orbs embedded into the front of its oversized head.
She fired.
The two figures were only feet apart. It had no shields to hide behind. The force of the shotgun blast at that close range blew the collector from its feet by momentum alone. Great chunks of carapace were shorn off. Foul coloured ichor sprayed onto the ground. Incredibly, it didn't die. Its wings buzzed, trying to right itself.
She didn't let it. She fired again blasting its skull. One of its eyes went out, but still it didn't die. It was almost on her. Wings buzzing for propulsion.
It's arm became a blur, coming down to strike her. Shepard brought up her weapon to block,
A glimmer of silver in her vision.
A dull 'thud' impacted her weapon. Shepard saw the severed arm of the collector. Her weapon and armour were now covered in its foul fluids.
She looked up at the creature. It stood over her, its arm ending in a stump in at the shoulder. It looked at it. The creatures showed no emotion. Their faces fixed into black masked of solid chitin. but Shepard thought if it knew surprise, it was showing it now.
It looked down at its ruined arm. It made a clicking noise Shepard couldn't understand, like crickets through a radio. Then it looked at the new arrival.
Glaedara stood beside it. She looked almost unrecognisable. Her clothing was caked in dust. Specks of blood, both husk-blue and collector black were scattered everywhere, like a haphazard painter.
The collector viewed her. Wings twitching. It made no move to attack. To Shepard, on the ground, it looked like it was observing her.
"ELDAR. ARROGANT. UNDESERVING. COMPATIBILITY CONFIRMED."
Her spear stopped in its path. Around her were the sounds of battle. Explosions and gunfire rippled off into the distance. The screams of the dying found their way to her ears. Moans of the undead monsters filled the air.
None of that mattered to Glaedara. Because this thing, this thing that radiated the smell of the warp, knew what she was.
"You know what I am? she asked. Her voice taking an echo from her helmet speaker.
"SIMPLE MINDS OF BLOOD AND FLESH. MADE BY THOSE WHO BROUGHT TURMOIL TO THE UNIVERSE. THE ELDAR, ASCENDED. WITH ASCENSION CAME PEACE.
"What do you mean?"
"INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING. YOUR PRESENCE; MEANINGLESS"
the collector twitched, the violent wounds taking effect on the stability of the creature. Glaedara pressed her blade against the creature's neck.
"Tell me what you know!" she commanded.
"WE WILL CONTINUE. RELEASING CONTROL"
The light in the collector's eyes dimmed to nothing. The inner glow that had infused the collector died out. Glowing wounds became ugly gashes in the side of its carapace.
It dropped. Its mutilated body lying still on the ground.
Shepard and the eldar looked at each other, the sounds of battle still taking place around them.
"What the hell was that?" Shepard asked.
The comm in Collin's ear beeped to life.
"Collins? How are you holding?" it was the commander.
Collins looked at his unit around him. Every one of them was ragged from the assaults. Several were yelling at the things as they fired assault rifle rounds into them. Many of the husk things went down . There were piles of them, several deep around the openings of the buildings and windows.
"We're holding but I don't know how much longer." Several of his troopers had been killed, torn apart by the weight of numbers or blasted from their positions by the large lumbering monsters.
"Collins, we're dealing with the collectors. Make ready your men. We'll be making a break for the control centre. We're going to leave what's left of the mechs to cover our retreat."
"Acknowledged commander." he replied. "Just tell us when to go."
"You do Horizon proud Collins, Shepard out."
She radioed this to each member of her team, making sure they understood their precise role in this. They'd only get one chance. Once they deployed the mechs as a screen, there'd be no going back.
The husks had been thinned out on the northern side. She saw their chance! She wasn't about to let this go to waste.
"Shepard to all units. We've got a way out. Everyone fall back to the northern side. The mechs will cover us!" she switched to private channel.
"Kasumi, get those mechs engaging!"
"On it Shepard."
Shepard turned to Jacob beside her. "Come on! Let's get out of here."
"Aye commander!" he replied. a smile across his face.
"Garrus," she commed, "Cover us! Throw something at them."
"I was just thinking the same thing, Shepard." he said. From her cover she heard the massive thump of the cannon firing. The remaining collectors disappeared behind a veil of dust .
She grabbed Jacob. "Come on, let's move!"
The pair of them sprinted. Away from the collectors. Shells from the hammerhead zoomed overhead, the pressure of their passing kicking up dust from the ground.
Others were doing the same. Security forces were firing their last volley into the enemy before legging it toward the hammerhead.
Some unfortunates got caught in the fire that blasted their way. One of the large cannon husks fired at those trying to escape. It caught two more personnel in the cannon's cone of fire. Their bodies flew threw the air before impacting on the ground.
Like salmon against the current. The remaining mechs advanced the opposite way. Their emotionless forms levelling their weapons at the enemy as their organic comrades fled the field. The retreating forces gave them plenty of leeway. The mechs thanked them by laying down volley after volley of fire in to the enemy positions. Not accurate enough to cause significant damage, but sufficient volume to prevent the collectors from harassing the retreating units.
It wouldn't stop the collectors, Shepard knew this. But it would buy them time to get to the command centre.
Her and Jacob just passed a YMIR, eardrums whining in protest at the pressure differential as it unleashed an arm mounted missile into the enemy. They put its bulk between them and the enemy.
She heard the missile's explosion behind her. She turned her head as she ran. A plume of blackened smoke was drifting into the sky. Near the summit, collector zipped out of the dark cloud, seemingly undamaged.
The hammerhead was in front of her. "Garrus move out! We're leaving!"
"Leaving? Already? Come on, I just found somewhere to park. . ."
"Garrus. Move it!"
"On it Shepard."
The high pitch of the tank's engines increased. The vehicle hovered in the air, a few feet off the ground. It pitched down and reversed, gracefully. An actor making a bow before departing the stage.
It wouldn't have surprised Shepard if he was doing that on purpose.
Jacob was ahead of her, caught up with the rest of the group. They last stragglers stood by the edge of the plaza, peppering shots as best they could at the enemy much further back.
"Move! Get moving!" she yelled. They hesitated, before registering her orders and retreating back. She was amongst them, hauling them to their feet and yelling them to continue. More than one looked back at her with uncomprehending eyes, stripped of rational decision making by the chaos that had just consumed their lives.
These poor souls needed more percussive persuasion, but soon all of them were moving. She saw Grunt and Okeer, their eyes resting longingly on the battle they were leaving.
She ran over to them," Grunt, Okeer, you're with me. We form the rearguard. No collector gets through us to the others."
"Clear Shepard." Grunt grinned and pumped his oversized shotgun with enthusiasm.
An explosion sounded from the plaza. Another mech had just been destroyed. A big one by the sound of it. Soot and smoke was now trailing from a blackened, broken carcass.
A quick survey told her what she feared. The mechs were getting slaughtered. They had to move!
"Come on" she barked to the two krogan warriors towering above her. "Keep up!" The trio followed the rest of their party north, away from the plaza. Leaving the mechs to their doom. . .
The column of combatants advanced through the streets as fast as they dared. Knowing they had little time to make the journey. The odd husk group was encountered, but Shepard had given orders. Stop for nothing. These isolated husks were blasted into oblivion by those more desperate and afraid of what was behind them, than what may lie ahead.
Eleiyra leapt onto another rooftop. Her cloak active again.
She'd learnt not to underestimate these new creatures. Their senses were sharper than most things she'd encountered.
She landed silently and crouched next to the roofline. The column of friendly combatants streamed below her. Like ants scurrying over the detritus of the ground, they ambled over the debris in the street.
Behind them came the collectors. They zipped from building to building in sharp turns and quick changes in flight.
Like she'd learnt not to underestimate them, and they'd learnt not to underestimate her. Those that flew above the building line, bereft of ample cover, quickly found themselves target for her longrifle.
She snapped off a shot at a collector diving toward the ground. As her finger tightened on the trigger, the collector jerked to one side, performing a strange mid air roll. Her shot pierced the air where it had been, and she cursed beneath her helmet.
Cloak active. Relocate. Re-aim. This was her role in this dance. As she sprinted over the top of the building, angry noises and blasts erupted from her original position. They sought to eliminate her, but like them, she moved at random.
The turret control complex was ahead of them, though without the map marker telling them so they could've easily missed it. A non de-script building, it looked like a thick, stocky store set in the middle of a wide courtyard. The only indication of any unusual involvement was an alliance shuttle stationed outside.
The team spilled into the building. Inside there was evidence of the collector swarms. people lay on the floor in poses of struggle, at their desks and standing, running to escape.
The remaining security personnel filed in. They were in a sorry state. Nearly all were wounded, some badly. Mordin had exited the hammerhead and was going around, doing what he could with their sole surviving medic.
Shepard searched around, trying to find Collins. She found him talking to two of the junior officers.
"Collins? Where to now?"
"I've only been here once before but I'll show you."
He led Shepard through the building, through the admin section. Here and there were more and more bodies, frozen where they stood.
They arrived at a heavy looking door. Collins stopped.
"This is as far as I went. The others went through. It looked like a lift on the inside I remember. Pretty big too"
Shepard nodded, understanding, "So its underneath us." she looked down at the small screen by the numpad on the door. She keyed in her spectre codes. It opened for her.
"Small mercies. . ." she breathed. She activated her comm. "This is Shepard. Form a defensible position around the building. There's an underground section. I'm going to check it out."
She entered the lift with Collins. It was wide, most likely doubling as a cargo lift. The doors closed silently.
She looked at the floor numbers. There were many below ground level. She pressed the bottom most floor, the deepest must the most important, right?
The lift glided down, bereft of accompanying music. It stopped its motion as the lights indicated their floor.
-7
The doors opened. The duo stepped out. A dull lit room. Wide and heavily built. Thick columns of concrete were evenly spaced across the space. Terminals and workstations were scattered against the walls. Down the centre of the room, the only source of illumination, three large holo tables. The orange hue of data on their screens diffusing across the room, casting thick shadows in the corners of the space.
Shepard drew her pistol.
There was a figure.
Its back was turned to them. It was hunched over the far table, silhouetted in meek orange.
"Hey!" Shepard called out. Pistol aimed at the figure's back. "Who's there?"
At the noise, the figure snapped round. It lunged against the table in front of it, dropping from view. Shepard did the same, as did Collins.
"Who the hell are you?!" Shepard heard a voice call out.
She recognised that voice!
"Ashley?. . ." she called, half involuntarily.
There was a silence. The silence thought.
"How the hell do you know my name?!"
"Ashley, it's me. Shepard! We're here to stop these collectors!"
Another pause. "Bullshit! I'll ask again, who the hell are you?!"
Shepard risked a peek over her table. The dark infused surroundings told her nothing.
She looked beside her. Collins was next to her, his expression one of confusion..
"We've got no time for this!" Shepard called out. "Look, I'll come out slowly. Take a good look." She clipped her pistol back to its holster at her waist and slowly stood up over the barrier.
Darkness surrounded her. The tables remained the only source of light in the room. She chanced a glance around her to try and find anything. Nothing, only the smothering darkness around. She saw no sight of the marine.
"You see?" she called out to the blackness. Her front was illuminated by the holo tables, displaying a diffuse, orange figure to the unknown room beyond the blackness.
There was nothing. Silence. The moments stretched on.
"The other!" the room accused back. "There were two of you! Don't lie to me" I saw!"
"Ok, ok" Shepard replied and looked back down to Collins. Her look commanded him to stand alongside her. He obliged the unspoken command, holstering his pistol before slowly standing beside the commander.
"Who're you?"
"Lieutenant Collins, ma'am!" His voice gaining purchase in the gloom. "Discovery security force,"
The darkness remained impassive. The blackness stared back at them for several more long seconds.
Then a figure stepped out of the darkness, pistol remained pointed at them. The angry orange light and seeping darkness cast a visage on the woman worthy of any hellscape. Gaunt and tired eyes looked at the two new arrivals.
"Shepard. . .by God it is you, I saw you were back but. . .Shepard you died."
Shepard nodded. "Its true, I died. We'll catch up later, all that matters now is that I'm here and that we save the colony up there." she pointed. "What're doing down here ash? How'd you evade the seeker swarms?"
The alliance marine shrugged. Her pistol went back to its holster. "Got lucky. Was doing tests on the tower targeting systems down here when they hit. Did you get my message? Are any others coming?"
Shepard heard the weariness in her former crewman's voice. She shook her head. "Your message is being scrambled. We got an advance warning. Ash, we need the defence towers online, what have you got for me?"
Ashley's face grimaced. The low light deepened the lines across the marine's features. "Fuck all." the targeting system's completely shot to shit. Been acting up for days now. Haven't slept for two days trying to get it back online."
"That was before you had help" Shepard said. She activated the comm. "This is Shepard, I want anyone with any tech. . ." she trailed off as Ashley shook her head.
"Whole bunker's shielded. Nothing gets through that doesn't go through the main system. Here, I'll give you the channels." her fingers flashed across her omnitool and a series of channels flashed up on Shepard's omni-screen.
"Get those to your people. We'll be able to keep in touch with the bunker's main comm system."
"Thanks, ash. Any chance of getting the lights back on?"
"Entire place is on emergency power. Saving power for the turret capacitor. . .only I haven't been able to use the fucking thing 'cause the turrets won't shoot straight!"
"Noted. I'll head back up to the surface and get anyone who knows anything about tech down here to help you out. We need these turrets online now!"
"Couldn't agree more." her face softened, "Shepard. . Its. . its good to see you."
Shepard smiled. "You too Ash."
In the outer areas of the complex the troops were busy organizing themselves into an effective defence.
The wounded were being offloaded from the hammerhead and brought inside. A couple of the security guards had broken into the emergency medical supplies and pillaged the contents. Those unable to walk were being moved back to the more secured sections of the building. The others set to work barricading the entrances and windows.
From her perch on the new building Eleiyra had a commanding view of the surrounding area. In front of the building the courtyard stretched out for several dozen metres. The rough paved area dominated the surface before dividing up into the streets and routes of the colony proper. The buildings around the courtyard where slightly lower than the one she was perched on, giving her a commanding view of all the streets entering the courtyard.
She looked out over the rooftops. . .nothing. The collector's had learnt that to rise above the cover meant death. Only the faint swarm of the small bugs swarmed here and there. Faint, dark clouds sifting through the ghost town of the colony.
Noises filtered up from below. The humm of the monkeigh vehicle, the yells of their wounded, the shouts their leaders made to their subordinates.
The buildings muffled them. Thankfully so. The sounds reverberated and were kept contained in the courtyard. She wasn't wearing her helmet anymore. Despite being hunted by unknown aliens, she relished the feeling of being outside. If had been almost an age since she had felt like this. Her senses could smell the soot coming up from below, the smells of battle were prevalent here. . .but then, those smells tended to follow her wherever she went.
A glimmer!
Her sharp eyes picked something moving to her right. Far in the distance. A flash of something. She focussed on the area. Medium distance. Street running parallel to those entering the courtyard.
The haze of tiny bugs was thicker there. They fluttered and zipped around like insects in a forest.
They were much thicker over there, something's up!
Farseer? she thought
"Yes, Eleiyra?" the farseer replied within her head.
"I see a concentration of the aliens. . the small bugs. They look like they're gathering. I can't know for certain, but they may be about to attack."
"Understood Eleiyra"
The ranger felt the farseer cut the mental link, her presence withdrawing from her mind. She unslung her rifle. Zoomed in on the area and watched.
Glaedara hesitantly tapped the thing around her ear. It felt bulky and uncomfortable. The noise it made was hazy and broken - chops of sound missing from the messages it relayed, but it was the only way these people had of contacting each other.
"Commander Shepard?"
"Yes, Glaedara?"
"Eleiyra warns that the enemy may attack soon. She's noticed a concentration to the south."
"Ok, thanks for the heads up Glaedara. I'll get us ready!"
The crack of the eldar ranger's longrifle was the first warning the defenders had. The ranger had picked out one of the lone shambling husks as it shuffled its way into the courtyard.
One or two collectors were visible for brief seconds, before disappearing off into the neighbouring buildings or side streets. They'd learned not to hang around in an open space with the eldar ranger on overwatch.
The word spread among the defenders. The enemy had arrived. The surviving team members scrambled to the southern end of the building, where they'd been sighted. They took up post at windows. Those more suited to close quarters remained outside, standing behind the sea of parked vehicles. Here, they were better able to respond to and prevent incursions into the already stretched defender forces.
Rifles were loaded and levelled. The shambling host continued forward. A slow carpet of horrible blue and grey. The grotesque monstrosities of the larger ones shambled about here and there among the others.
Of the collectors there was no further sign.
The hammerhead's turret rotated. Set its sights square into the encroaching mass.
For long moments there was a tense silence, broken only by the groans and moans of the husks as they shambled forward.
"Let them have it Garrus." Shepard commed to the turian sitting in the tank. Deep within the vehicle the turian smiled and thumbed the fire control.
The hammerhead spewed a series explosive rounds right into the heart of the husk forces.
Then everything happened at once.
The bodies of those closest were flung into the air. Those around them began to sprint at the compound instead of walking.
The defenders responded by pouring fire into the horde. The range was still very far, their fire did nothing substantial.
Zooming skywards, emerging from within the horde itself, collectors flew. Each laying down fire onto the revealed positions of the defenders. They fired, moved, and ducked back into the encroaching mass of bodies. Using the husks as a shield. Hitting them was impossible, their speed was too fast for anyone to follow at this range
The husks closed the distance. Their aggression growing. The defenders responded, their fire having greater effect as the distances became smaller and smaller. Dozens of the enemy went down to rifle fire, their bodies trampled by those behind.
They neared those in front of the compound, those that could take the most punishment, Shepard, The krogan, the farseer, the inquisitor. They were greeted with short range volleys of death from shotguns, bolt rounds, and short range heavy pistols.
As the husks closed the final distance on the group, the fight began in earnest.
A deep screech. Like a skipping hard drive or electric interference. It rang across the courtyard. The defenders looked up, at least those not locked in a struggle for their lives.
A monstrous, four legged spider stood in the middle of the courtyard. Its sharp and jagged body mirrored the head and legs of the collectors themselves. Pale blue mechanical eyes shone from its main section, almost resembling a collector head. Its movements twitchy and fast.
Well over three metres tall it towered over everything else. Another screech. this one full of anger. The lower section of its head lowered in a foul mocking of a jaw. Within it, lay rows upon rows of skulls. Husk infused skulls with baleful blue eyes, like their master's, shone out from the mouth of the thing.
Its legs twitched as it gained purchase on the ground. Shepard saw it from her position near the complex. Whatever the hell that thing was, she thought, it couldn't be good for them.
"Garrus? Shoot that thing now!" she managed before another husk bounded for her.
"Way ahead of you, Shepard." the hammerhead's gun was already turning round to aim at it.
The tank was peppered with scorch marks and deep gouges where the collector weapons had taken their toll on the armour. One of the engines was cycling out of sync. The whole vehicle hung slightly to one side as it hovered through the air.
None of that mattered, the main gun was still operational.
It fired. A high yield round into the new target. Shepard felt the force of the firing even from where she was. Dust was kicked up around the tank as the projectile screamed through the air.
It impacted the target. Shepard watched with dismay as that damnable violet purple shielding flashed around the monstrosity. A blast erupted where the projectile disintegrated on the target's shield. The target itself recoiled under the kinetic impact. Pushed back under the weight of the impact, otherwise, the round caused no damage.
It turned to the tank with angry eyes.
"Crap." Shepard heard through the comm as Garrus scrambled to get another firing solution on the thing.
It had learned. It was moving. Even without the wings of its smaller cousins, it could fly. It ascended off the pavement in an eerie fashion. No noise of motors or grav generators. It flew listlessly in the air, like some nightmarish jellyfish.
It rose and rose, leaving the turret's cone of fire entirely. The hammerhead firing in anger into the air as it passed the vertical threshold.
A shadow passed over the tank as the thing fell back to the ground. Horrible metal scraping sounded where its claws found purchase on the hover vehicle. The motors of the tank grunted and struggled beneath the weight. The leaning edge scraped across the ground as the grav engines screamed under the pressure.
"I've got a passenger Shepard!" she heard Garrus call out from her ear as the large monstrosity clutched onto the tank. The vehicle shifted and swerved under it, trying to dislodge its unwanted guest. No luck, the collector construct stabbed one of its claws into the ground, anchoring both it and the vehicle. The engines squealed in protest trying to escape. Parts of the hull began to buckle under the crushing grip.
Lightning quick, the collector thing lifted up one of its claws and stabbed into the tank. The claw buckled and bent metal, piercing into the hull. A shriek of tortured steel rang out as it twisted its claw free, trying for another strike at its prey."
"That's it! Time to go!" Garrus commed in
"Affirmative. Vehicle integrity compromised." Mordin replied. Shepard saw the emergency hatches on the vehicle pop and the pair of them spilled out into the street. Like rats from a sinking ship they leapt out the vehicle, putting its mass between themselves and the collector monster.
Even from where she was she could see they were trapped. Their ad hoc escape had bought them a little time, but as soon as the thing saw that they'd left the vehicle, it would be on them. There was no chance they'd be able to outrun it.
"Got a plan Shepard?" Garrus asked. The desecration of the vehicle continued. Large sections of hull were peeled off like paper. Sections of the interior were exposed as the armour was stripped from it.
She formed an idea, she quickly grabbed the collector beam weapon from her back. It felt strange, made of the same stuff the collectors were made of and not fitted to her hand.
"Garrus? On my mark, make a run for it! I have a plan"
"If you say so, Shepard. Just say when!"
She kept the monstrosity in her sight as much as she could as she edged along the building line. The collector fire was still striking their position and she was forced to keep her head down. She passed a couple more dead security forces. Their still bodies still sizzling under the heat of the enemy weapons.
She reached a position as close as she could get. From where she crouched, the hammerhead was still much further out from the building. Garrus and Mordin were doing their best not to be noticed.
"Go Now!" she ordered.
Immediately, she saw the two figures in the distance come sprinting towards the building and the rest of the team. She stood over her cover. She aimed at one of the exposed engine sections. . .
Garrus was in the way! She couldn't get a clear shot!
A couple of long seconds drew by as she attempted to get a clear shot. The large collector thing noticed them. Its large head turned to the fleeing figures. She keyed in her comm to tell Garrus to move.
A collector beam. She didn't see where from. It emerged from the smoke and dust of the battlefield into the fight.
It clipped Garrus in the back. Shepard watched as the turian's shields flickered and died. Sparks flew from his armour where the beam impacted. The force of it knocked him over. He fell flat on the ground. Mordin continued on, unaware of him going down.
"Garrus!" she cried out.
"Arh. . dammit!" she heard over the comm. Her heart resumed beating, not dead yet!
With no time to waste, she fired her weapon. She had a clear shot. The hammerhead looked like a desecrated carcass, body ripped open and innards spilled out on the ground.
The collector weapon kicked hard, but she fought it. A continuous beam scoured the little armour the hammerhead had left. She struggled to bring the aim round, just a foot more to the left. . . .
The hammerhead's engine compartment exploded. Stripped of armour and incised with a continuous beam of death, the highly strung capacitors detonated in a spectacular fashion.
The shock wave rippled out from the site. Mordin was thrown to the ground by the shockwave and Shepard was blown from her cover. An immense fireball of fearsome heat consumed the hammerhead and collector creature. It screeched as its wounded prey hurt it in a spiteful act of martyrdom. A thick cloud of angry, blackened smoke rose from the wreck. The pattering rain-sound of falling pieces of tiny debris sounded across the field.
She brought herself to her feet and looked out onto the scene. Mordin was bringing himself to his feet, half running half crouching back to her position. She looked for Garrus, she saw no sign. The thick smoke had spread. Visibility was low.
Mordin arrived next to her.
"Unorthodox plan. Cannot deny effectiveness." he grinned.
"Do you see Garrus?" she asked, still scanning the ground before them.
The salarian's grin faded. "Garrus. Was hit. Heard him on comm. Turned round. Explosion. Knocked from feet, visibility was poor. Hoped he made it back."
"He was knocked to the ground behind you. He's still out there."
"Garrus you there?" she asked into the comm."
Static. . .then, "Yeah, still here. Can't see for a damn. Wounded in the back, don't know how bad. Bleeding though."
"Hold on Garrus!" she replied, "We'll get you out of there!" The billowing black clouds now obscured the rest of the field. The wind had whipped them across the courtyard.
"Don't be stupid, Shepard. Stay there!" his protesting groans made their way through the comm.
"You don't know me very well do you?" she glanced to the salarian. "Mordin, with me!"
"Of course, Shepard."
The pair vaulted over the font cover and paced out in the opaque thick smoke. Visibility was limited to only a few feet, the thick black clouds of the smoke billowed around them. Occasionally she saw one of the collector seeker swarm drones fly past them. Unaware of their presence.
She scanned every shape in the clouds, putting one foot in front of another. Her omnitool registered Garrus' signature ahead of them. They kept moving in the same direction. The concrete beneath them scraping as they moved over it.
Garrus' ping was ever and ever closer. They moved with caution, careful of any. . .
KHBOOM!
A shot! It was near. It sounded like Garrus' rifle.
"Garrus? you read me?" she commed. Caution was thrown to the wind as she started running. She could hear the boots of Mordin next to her keeping pace. If they'd got to him before they did . . .
They found the turian, and almost tripped over him. They skidded to a halt in front of the turian. He'd quickly swung his rifle round to the new arrivals, but then lowered it as he recognised them.
"Why is it any time I meet you I end up getting shot?" he asked her. He tried to grin but collapsed into a coughing fit.
Only now did Shepard see the blue speckles of blood dotting the ground around him.
"Where are you hit?" she asked.
"Mid back, don't know where. Think it clipped me. Hurts like hell though."
Shepard kneeled in and applied a liberal dose of medi gel to him. She crouched next and put an arm around him.
"Come on, can you walk?"
"I can try!" He grunted in effort as he was hauled to his feet by the commander. Off in the distance, invisible to them, gunfire continued to rage. The fight continued around them.
Collins fired out the window. The husks were on them. Dozens lay dead out in the vehicle area. Mown down as they traversed the plaza, but down by the defenders.
They didn't care. They came on, mouths howling in indeterminate rage and agony.
He thought he sighted a couple of collectors behind them. He didn't have time to think, the husk in front of him clawed and reached for him. He brought his foot up and crushed the fragile hand again the window sill. The screech become louder and more desperate. In the borrowed time he brought up his rifle. The creature was blasted from the window. Blood and gore splayed across the surroundings beyond. A new layer on the growing film of gore surrounding the complex.
He spied another, further off. He took aim. He thought he heard someone yell beside him.
Something barrelled into him from the side. his fire sprayed wild, up the walls and ceiling. Detritus and dust fell from the rogue impacts. Knocked from his feet, he landed hard. He scrambled round. Grasping for his gun.
The turian, Garrus, lay sprawled next to him, he looked in very bad shape. The collector was perched in the window.
A massive percussive blast made his ears ring. Along with a yell from Garrus. The turian had fired his weapon, his high powered long range rifle, point blank into the collector perched over them.
The round struck the thing's shields with catastrophic force. The force that could remove a head from its shoulders half a mile away.
Its shields flickered, maybe going out.
Collins wasn't thinking. Collins was firing, he didn't know if his thermal clip was almost near replacing. He wasn't aware of the wordless yell coming from his mouth. He only saw the impacts his rounds were making on the collector. Flecks and chips were chipped off the exterior.
His gun ran empty.
The collector turned to him. Its wings unused to so confined a space. They buzzed and twitched, knocking off the surrounding walls. The beats making a noise like an automatic rifle.
It levelled its aim. Collins stared at it, disbelievingly. He watched with heightened awareness as his doom arced achingly slow towards him.
It almost got there.
From nowhere, a mass was above it. A hand clasped the weapon and ripped it away with such force as to pull the collector attached to it.
A screech sounded from it as it went sprawling. It quickly recovered, its wings beating off the walls.
A fist, a heavily armoured fist connected with the side of the collector's head. It crumpled, wings twitching momentarily from misfiring synapses. Collins forgotten, the collector jerked round to see its new assailant.
It received a shotgun blast to its head. Point blank, from Grunt's weapon. Shields gone, the rounds penetrated into the space that must have served as its head.
It collapsed. Blackened liquid oozing out of the little penetrative holes that the powerful weapon inflicted. The krogan reloaded his weapon.
Grunt looked down at Garrus and Collins, "Typical. Krogan saves the day again."
The turian grunted as he protested against his injuries, "Day's not nearly saved yet. You're job's half finished."
"Hmph." was all the reply before the giant started blasting again. A couple of husks further in the distance went down, innards shredded.
From somewhere nearby Collins thought he could hear the commander's voice.
"Damn it Garrus! I just saved your ass! No more stupid stunts!"
Collins saw the commander appear beside the half standing turian. He seemed to have trouble standing. Shepard put her arm around him and hoisted him up to a standing position.
"Come on!" she demanded, "Let's get you somewhere defensive. No more sidetracks."
She noticed the deceased collector, its vital fluids pooling on the floor. With her free foot, she kicked the weapon over to Collins, still half lying on the floor. The alien weapon scraped across the floor. It impacted his leg. He stared at it, half dazed, looking at the weapon that had so nearly ended him.
"Spread the word!" Shepard's voice said, Collins was still looking at the weapon. "You find any collector weapons, use them! Kicks through their shields like a boot up the backside."
The lieutenant turned back up to the commander. She held a collector beam weapon in one hand, a limping turian in the other.
"You hear that Collins?" she yelled. Nearby, a rattle of rifle fire stammered.
"Y-Yes commander." he managed. Concentrating to bring his thoughts back to the present.
"Good!" she replied and turned to leave, turian in tow.
The noise of the wider world returned, along with it the screaming and yelling. His rifle was in his hand. Still sitting, with absent calm and a blank look he replaced the thermal clip. The screaming continued around him.
Collin's grasped a nearby wall for support. he hauled himself up. Pain shot up his leg. He tried to put weight on it. . .failed.
He didn't curse. he didn't call for a medic. He didn't yell for help. He secured his weapon in its holster on his back and scooped up the collector one from the ground, in case he needed it. Somebody was yelling next to him, he didn't quite hear them.
He remembered their medic centre was further back into the building. His mind told him he was hurt. He concentrated, tried to think.
Yes, he thought, at last coming to a conclusion. He saw the blood on his uniform. He was hurt, he decided he should get to the med centre. Yes, he repeated to himself. That's what he needed to do.
Ashley felt a vibration through the walls of the bunker. She knew what it was. She was listening in on the radio traffic of Shepard's forces up above.
The hammerhead was gone. Torn to shreds apparently. She had no idea what could've torn apart a vehicle but it didn't sound too good. Shepard's team was taking a beating above. She glanced at her rifle, never far from her side, but resisted. Her place was down here, trying to get these turrets to work. The incessant comm chatter continued in her ear.
She set back to her task in the dim light, she went through another section of program. There was little she wouldn't have given just to be able to manually turn the towers around and fire at the ship. But everything was linked to the main system.
Her weary, sleep deprived eyes scanned the code on the holo-screen. The orange tinted numbers began to blur. She refocused.
The others were helping her, to various degrees. The thief, Kasumi. The krogan scientist. . .a Krogan scientist! She wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't seen it.
The salarian Mordin had just arrived from the lift, a coating of fine grey soot covered his body-suit.
The last though. . .
She had no idea what to make of him. Shepard had said he may be useful, so she'd gladly accepted his help, but she'd never seen anything like him. He was horrific to look at! A gross monster of cybernetic modification and augmentation. She understood the recent advances in cyber-augmentation for injured soldiers, paralysed limbs restored or the rarer mechanical limb.
He was nothing like any of that.
The husk was blasted back off its feet. It crumpled in a pile on the ground.
Grunt chuckled. He shot again into another. Its legs crumpled beneath it. Its face still groaning as it fell forwards onto the ground.
He finished it with another blast. The body nearly disintegrating under the force.
He breathed in, the soot and smoke of the tank wreckage perpetrated the field. There was gunfire all around him. Someone was screaming. The collector beams scraped through the air towards their positions.
Grunt felt at home.
This was what he was meant to do. To fight and win! This is what the words had taught him to do, but he had never fought before, not like this, and he had never felt the rush it gave him.
He liked it.
A hard screech sounded to his right. A chatter of mechanical noise.
Grunt saw it. The big one. The one that looked like a long legged insect. It drifted out of the smoke. Casually floating over the battlefield. Grunt had seen it in action. The thing had ripped open a tank as if it was nothing.
He'd seen Shepard detonate a tank underneath it! That had pleased him. He was warming to this Shepard woman.
Grunt respected that. Deep within him something stirred. A need.
This was a powerful enemy, much more powerful than these things he fought now.
Driven by the impulse of his instinctual code he tucked away his shotgun and pulled out the grenade launcher strapped across his back. He'd been very pleased when Shepard had allowed him this little thing from the armoury.
He levelled the thing and fired. A deep percussive blast blew out from the weapon. The projectile arced towards the thing and impacted on the side. A satisfying detonation! He then grunted in disgust as the thing's shields stopped the impact in its tracks. The shield light flaring out from around the impact area.
The creature swivelled round as it found its attacker. Piercing mechanical eyes viewed Grunt.
"Heh heh heh" Grunt chuckled as he lobbed grenade after grenade into the thing. Each grenade blew open across the thing's shields, with little effect.
The last grenade flew from the launcher. The thing was now advancing for him.
Then it halted. The krogan stood, confused as this thing stared him down for a half a second.
Its eyes started to glow. Somewhere, deep within Grunt's subconscious alarm bells rang. They drove him to leap to one side.
His subconscious saved his life as thick blue spears of energy erupted from the eyes of the creature, incinerating his last position. Grunt smelled the stench of burning concrete.
He was up. Shotgun already blasting into the thing. It turned. A slow, deliberate move. He was getting more and more pissed off at this thing's arrogance. Still, it would make it all the better for when he eventually killed it.
He jumped again, a tall order for something of his weight, as its eyes glowed once more. Once again, those beams of death tore through where he was standing on half a second ago. Pebbles and chunks of blasted stone peppered his armour.
He blasted it again,
Another shot came from elsewhere, one of the newer humans, he recognised the man's bright laser round. It peppered the side of the thing. The impacts scorched the side of the creature. While they did no lasting damage, they marked the creature.
Hmph. Which is more than these puny weapons did, Grunt thought.
The massive creature forgot about the krogan, judging him as a minor threat as it moved to face the small creature that scorched its surface.
The krogan saw the creature turn, as it did, another figure charged from the mist and soot. The other human. The one in the massive armour, he charged from the creature's rear side
He sprinted out of the smoke and dust like a colossus. His armoured feet slammed into the ground with each step.
His sword was held by his side. It crackled blue.
With the thing distracted, he managed to bring his weapon down on one of the creature's limbs. There was a blinding flash and sound like the crack of thunder as the weapon connected.
It completely sheared the leg in two!
The creature cried out in rage, jerked round to see this newcomer. Impossibly fast for something that size.
It flailed with its remaining limbs at the man, but the human was quick! Despite this, his armour slowed him down. Each dodge and roll ponderous and drawn out.
Another swipe! another gouge. This time in the carapace of the thing. A deep gorge appeared along its under section. The imprisoned heads beneath screamed out in a terrible unicry at the injury.
That was it! Grunt snorted. HE wasn't about to let this human take his prize! He lunged over his cover and began running towards the fight.
He was almost there when the collector creation attacked again. It swiped with terrible speed. Its sharp claws chipping deep gouges from the ground as they landed.
The man blocked the swipes with his weapon, even getting a couple in himself.
Then the eyes glowed again. Grunt knew what was coming next.
It fired at the human. The human's reflexes were good, but they weren't that good. The quad lance of blue death glanced one of the deep shoulder guards he wore. The force of the impact alone sent him sprawling. Knocked back through the air.
He landed with a great thud. Grunt felt the ground impact despite the fight raging around him. He didn't see the damage.
The human's weapon lay where he'd been hit.
Grunt changed direction. Lunged between the creation and the downed human. The human was shifting. Not dead yet. Took a hit from this thing and still going. Grunt respected that.
Grunt scraped the last few feet along the ground. He reached out. Grabbed the handle of the human's weapon. It was still on, the lightning still arced around the blade.
He grinned. He rolled sideways, towards the collector monstrosity. He felt the impact of an explosion nearby. It had tried to kill him again.
It failed.
He was near! He was within reach.
He roared as he leapt at the thing. One arm outstretched.
"You're mine!"
He grasped onto one of its limbs and pulled. He couldn't shift it all but he forced one of its blade limbs forward. It was all he needed.
He sliced with the human weapon. The metal cleaved straight through the thing. He felt only the slightest resistance as the metal blade passed through the impregnable hide of this thing.
The creature shrieked again. Grunt laughed, still holding the disconnected limb.
He threw it at the creature. It clanged off the head-section harmlessly.
Another side swipe. Grunt deflected it with a decisive punch of his own.
Ha! he snorted. This thing's never fought a krogan before!
Against all sensible notions, he barrelled into the thing. Slamming against its carapace.
Its head twisted and squirmed. He was underneath it! It couldn't target him with its eye beams here. He clasped onto its underside, onto one of the ridges. He was hit hard by the remaining limbs. Pain shot through him as they pummelled his sides.
"Now I've got you!" he yelled as he drove the human sword straight up through the thing's underbelly. It screamed in response. He pushed it deeper, all the way to the hilt. He heard things break and crack as the steel ruined the interior of the thing.
Suddenly, both he and the thing crashed to the ground. Must've knocked out the thing keeping it in the air, he thought.
It continued to thrash, so he stabbed it again. And again. And again.
It stopped thrashing.
Pain tore through his entire body as Grunt stood up. Victorious over his kill. Mechanical detritus littered the entire area around their struggle.
He became once again aware of the wider fight. Details in the distance. Gunfire. Shouts and yells.
The human in the armour looking at him.
Grunt raised up to full height and stepped away from the carcass. The crunch of mechanical ruins beneath him. He looked at the human, still staring. Most of the man's shoulder guard was a blacked mess. Parts looked like melted wax where his armour had melted and resolidified.
That stare. Grunt stared back. Nobody had stared at him like that before. But then he hadn't been around that long.
The intensity. The aggression. What flesh grunt could see of the old human looked as frail as a salarian infant.
The krogan grunted, satisfied with this man's drive. "Nice sword." he grunted and handed the weapon back to the man.
The human took it quickly. His face a scowl, "My thanks." he slurred through gritted teeth and turned to rejoin the fight.
"No!" the massive Krogan scientist snarled across the darkened room. "The locks must be bypassed! Brute force will take too long!"
""Running analysis program alongside. Will compare efficiency of program and re-adjust. Adapt. Narrow search. Cut down time." Mordin's fingers moved like lightning across the console surfaces. Keys lighting up in quick succession as his commands scrolled across the screen. His eyes flowed through the data, soaking it in with practised ease.
"Got our scanners back up!" a cry went up from the other end of the room. Kasumi vaulted over a console and ran to the centre. Immediately began working on one of the centre holo tables.
"Just need to enter friendlies. . . enemies. . .and . . .done!"
The thief looked up as the holo table came to life before her. A three dimensional topographical map of the building and surrounding area filled the table. The terrain and buildings hatched in orange. Little triangles of blue and red danced over the surface.
"Fuck!" Ashley called after looking at the map. "Look how many there are. .."
"Expletives inefficient use of time. Towers priority. Ground team will provide cover. Time running out. Resume work!"
The collectors had made it inside the building!
Eisenmus fired a volley with his bolter. The spent shells flew from the weapon and clanked off the wall. Scorch marks seared the walls. Dust was everywhere. Flecks of plaster-wall and rockcrete saturated the air.
A deathly beam tore next to him. A trooper was hit in the leg. The beam went straight through. The man collapsed. Screaming and clutching his ruined limb.
The fighting had continued in the courtyard for several minutes after the destruction of the hammerhead. But as the collectors brought up more and more reinforcements, the defenders had been forced to fall back within the building.
The inquisitor stepped forward. The xenos had swarmed into the lobby and auditorium. The fight had retreated deeper into the building. Into the small rooms and maze like corridors of the complex.
The collectors had initially paid dearly for their advance. The narrow corridors depriving them of their flight and funnelling them into tighter and tighter spaces, where the concentrated fire from the ragged and increasingly desperate defenders tore into them. Most of those that remained carried the xenos' own weapons now. Looted from those few they managed to dispatch. They made good use of them, keeping the collectors off balance.
And Eisenmus took advantage of this off balance. His sword was already dripping from the innards of one of them that tried to force its way past him. His armoured bulk blocked the way, the fire from his bolter prevented them from settling in one place for too long. His team was holding this corridor.
He thought he spied movement through the mist of dust and debris. He added his own fire to the cascade of blinding beam lines around him.
"Shepard? Is your area secure?" he commed.
Gunfire echoed in his ear. A massive explosion sounded close by, followed a second later through his ear.
"We're holding. Just. Down another man. We wer- . . . another series of gunfire. . .-ading back to the offices surrounding the elevator. More defensible. I advise you to do the same."
The inquisitor nodded, then remembered she wasn't here. "Acknowledged Shepard." his eyes scanned the corridor beyond. "Status of the tower team?"
"Making progress. Nothing more. Not sure of a time frame. Move your position further in. Don't get caught out in the open."
"Acknowledged Shepard" moving now.
The comm link to the commander severed. He turned to the men around behind him. "Fall back further down the corridors. There is an elevator lobby deeper in the building. Those corridors are more defensible."
"Yes sir!" came the curt reply of one of the natives. His eyes were wide and white. The rest of his face coated in dust. He relayed the order to the others and they began to move back. The ones near the front covering the retreat. Eisenmus stayed near the front, providing his bulk to those behind.
His lips moved unconsciously in prayer. Frustration grew inside him. The enemy forces remained numerous. They had been successful in funnelling the enemy, but they were giving ground.
Each step back was a step deeper into the building. The team below continued to work, though there was no sign if they were any closer to success.
The enemy wasn't letting up.
Husks continued to shamble down the corridors. The inquisitor mowed them down with his blade. His bolter rounds were low, and needed to conserve them.
Their circle shrank.
They fell in pieces around him. Those that reached him clawed and scratched at his armour, to no effect. Their twisted forms piled the corridors, leaving a trail of destruction as they retreated deeper and deeper into the building.
He and his party, in all likelihood, will die here.
Hope of success was growing increasingly faint. More and more enemy forces streamed over the corpses of their fellows. The men around him screamed, yelled, cursed and swore as they took down enemy after enemy, but they were few now. Their screams isolated and their fire disjointed from each other.
This is a last stand, he concluded with grim realization. We're probably going to die here.
He wasn't afraid. Fear wasn't quite the right word, he'd known for over a century he would die in a situation like this, in service to his institution. Quiet, peaceful deaths for inquisitors were few and far between.
Trepidation. That was closer. Trepidation. Worry. Worry that he and his party will die here. After surviving the daemon on Agrippus. After escaping off the planet they were stranded on. After finally feeling like they were getting started on finding out what was going on and why they were here. . .
To die here. . .it wasn't right. . .
He was mouthing words to the Emperor even as he thought this. His frustration grew. Why? Why on such a small planet? Assaulted by xeno he had no knowledge of? Helping a woman who worked with aliens?
He thought back. To his own time. Of his work unfinished. He remembered his projects, cases. Things he had been investigating. . .each of them so much more important than this outpost of a planet.
He found himself firing back into the mass of aliens. Chewing through his rapidly depleting ammo. His face a snarl. Why? Why here? Why after everything they'd done? Why, in the defence of a nation that colluded with xenos?!
He realised he was yelling. His voice being absorbed by the turmoil around him.
"Got it!" The salarian cried out in the dark space. "Try the upload!"
Ashley hurried over to her primary console and entered in the correct sequence to begin the upload of their newer, modified targeting code to the towers. The little completion bar seemed to migrate tortoise-like across the screen. It finally finished. The code began installing.
She realised she'd been holding her breath since the start of the upload.
The confirmation window appeared onscreen. Her eyes fearfully scanned the contents.
It informed her all the turret systems were now operational. The faulty code was replaced with newer, working commands.
"That did it!" she exclaimed. "Yeah! Targeting systems online! We need power! Hakkon, activate the turrets!" she looked over to the magos.
"The spirits are willing. Transferring now." Hakkon responded. His will was sent along the wireless bridge he had established with the spirits of the bunker.
He transmitted the approval ties and unleashed the spirits of the turrets into the collector ship. They screamed with zeal at being unleashed finally and let out of their cold metal cages.
He muttered the blessings to the spirits as he went. Speed was of the essence, so in order to deliver the proper sanctimonies in time he activated a secondary speaker to work in tandem with his primary speaker, each uttering separate binaric passages of worship to the machine god.
Swirls of binary prayer and benedictions to the Omnissiah surrounded the magos as he interfaced with the foreign spirits of the turrets. They were not those blessed of the omnissiah, but in killing the xeno ship they were doing his holy work.
He saw beyond the narrow view of human vision. Through the floor he saw bright rivers of electricity, the light of the Omnissiah flowing into the tower capacitors.
The towers he had learned, were able to draw power directly from the colony's main power grid. Failing that, they had smaller back up generators buried deep within the earth. They weren't as powerful, but they could keep the towers powered despite the colony being compromised.
The colony had been swarmed many hours ago. In that time, any activity had ceased as the populace was frozen where they stood.
All activity had stopped, and one by one the many automated spirits of the colony, from motion sensing lights to production lines had shut themselves off one by one, waiting for human confirmation and input into their thought processes.
The mechanical body of the colony had put itself to sleep, awaiting its next orders from its human operators.
The orders never came.
Instead the machines and processes sat idle, dull dimly flashing screens displayed confirmation signs and option menus.
All this time, the generators continued to perform as they were tasked. Filling up the colony's capacitors and power storage, unaware of the turmoil taking place on the surface above them.
Hakkon could see them, even from this distance. The intense EM field swirling like stellar corona. Lines of magnetic force twisted through the air. He found the centre and made an estimate of the power required. He felt the spirits within him cry in worship of the power.
He'd sought out the capacitor guardian-spirits and requested that they release some of their holy power. They were only too happy to oblige, he felt their trepidation at the inexorable build up of raw power and what that would mean for them.
The turret spirits cried his name as he dispensed an entire colony's worth of power onto them. He felt their rage, their anger, their fury. They activated, brought their co-horts online. Ran their modified targeting programs.
They found their target.
They yearned, pleaded with him to be loosed. To be unleashed upon this thing that was not transmitting the proper IFF signals.
The team gave them their wish. They targeted the xenos ship.
The complex shook. The sounds of the turrets above reverberated through the structure. The guns above were las weapons, and thus used no projectile. But the crack of trillions of molecules being torn open produced a sound equal to howitzers.
He felt it even in here. The ionization of the air as the towers saturated the surrounding air with energy. An invisible cloud of static hung around him. His minor circuits and systems tingled at its touch.
Task completed, he withdrew himself from the systems of the machine, executing a disengage call as he left.
"Shepard. This is Hakkon. The Turrets are online. Praise the Omnissiah."
Outside, tortured air molecules screamed as the monstrous power of the guardian turrets split them in two.
Originally, the turrets were to act as a air defence grid. Locking on to ships many, sometimes up to a hundred kilometres away.
But a laser that's fired for any distance, especially through an atmosphere, suffers from power dissipation. The power and strength of the weapon being absorbed by the molecules it travels through.
Sometimes, when a laser eventually impacts its target, its strength is a mere fraction of what it was when it started.
Not here.
The towers rotated and locked onto the collector vessel hanging right over their heads. The furthest tower was only two kilometres away from its target. Point blank range.
Bolstered by the colony's overloaded power grid the towers unloaded volley after volley of undissipated, unrestrained fire into the vessel. Any single hit from the towers at this range with this much power would have blown clean through a standard cruiser.
With durability mirroring the collectors on the ground, the collector vessel weathered the storm. Blackened calluses were burned into the side which would have spelled instant doom for any other vessel. The exposed metal fared worse, areas melting and running under the immense heat. Areas of brightly glowing molten metal, some the size of buildings, dripped down the side of the vessel.
Despite the relentless bombardment. The vessel slowly deployed its engines. A massive blast of displaced air was blown over the colony. Vehicles tipped, collector pods were thrown about and those still out in the open were blown off their feet.
It started its ponderous rise into the sky. The mind failed to grasp how something that big could manage to fly. It defied the mind and continued skyward. Great ugly jets of propellant flaring behind it.
The towers continued its arc into the sky. They kept firing into the vessel, the angle of attack becoming steeper and steeper as it rose into the heavens. Almost vertical, impacting the vessel in the underside.
Suddenly an explosion tore through its engine section. It set off several smaller ones until the rear section of the vessel was consumed in fire. A lucky hit, perhaps? Or maybe the the blasts had finally taken their toll.
The jets of propellant stopped.
It hung in the air, motionless, before the inevitable pull of gravity grappled it back towards the planet.
It began to fall.
Around her, people were cheering. Some wept, others laughed. The ear-splitting din of the nearby turrets tore through the air, but it was a sound all present were welcome to hear.
Soon after the turrets had come back online, the remaining collectors had left. Abruptly cut off their attack and retreated. NO doubt back to their ship, but Shepard wasn't about to complain.
Amidst the celebration, her earpiece chirped.
"Shepard?! Shepard do you read me?!" it was Ashley.
With a massive grin on her face Shepard keyed the comm, "What is it Ash, you cut it close but you. . ."
"SHEPARD! Listen to me! Get everyone down here NOW! The thing. . the ship, its coming back down!"
Her smile disappeared, "What?!"
"We hit a vital system? Malfunction? don't care. Shepard, get down here NOW!"
With dread seeping into her system, she leapt back on the comm, "Everyone! This is Shepard. Everyone get to the lift NOW. The collector vessel's coming back down! Its about to crash. We don't have much time! MOVE!""
The cheers and laughs disappeared instantly, giving rise to outright panic. Her team ran towards the lift.
Fires across its hull trailed lines of smoke through the sky. Spits of engine flare erupted from its ruined tail section as it fell through the air, back towards the colony. From the ground, it still looked the size of a bird, slowly descending through the air like a feather.
She stood beside the doors, waving people in. The lift was big and could accommodate a large group.
Still. . . with Grunt and Eisenmus. . she was fearful.
One after one they arrived, sprinting to the doors. The eldar, the imperials, grunt, garrus, mordin jack, jacob, the Horizon security. . . One by one they they arrived, all bearing wounds. There was an odd charge in the air. A tension grew with each moment.
Collins ran round the lobby door. He drew level with her before entering.
"Go! I'm the last!"
She nodded and threw herself into the press of bodies stuffed into the small space. She slammed the descend button with the back of her fist.
It grew larger and larger. It hadn't managed to begin its orbital turn before losing power. It was coming down right where it had taken off. The towers continued their willful attack, uncomprehending of the vessel's strange change in direction.
The lift descended towards the lower level. The little counter at the top counting up through the negative numbers.
The doors opened, revealing the control centre beyond.
The lift arrived. They spewed out into the control centre. The lift doors shut behind them.
Silence.
Silence reigned in the bunker, before the world convulsed in tortured pain as the great collector ship collided with the planet.