AUTHOR'S FOREWORD:
This part of the story is getting pretty long in the draft, so I've decided to publish this first part early. Think of it as New Year's present.
We've reached 200 followers, so another bonus chapter will be put up after the end of the Feros arc. Absolutely delighted.
Enjoy!
Chapter Eleven: The First Waves
Liara watched as Ashley pulled a double-barreled cannon up on a rope, Kaidan lightening the load with his biotics as he stood below in the rubble. Before that, it had been a mount of some sort, a set of barrier generators, and what looked conspicuously like huge boxes of ammunition. The two soldiers had taken the news that hundreds or possibly thousands of synthetic monsters created from the corpses of their fellow humans with something akin to excitement.
The panic gripping Liara's heart had not subsided. As Ashley had retrieved the collection of machinery she called "Ma Deuce" from the Normandy and Kaidan had gone about organising the colonists for the defence, the archaeologist's previous feeling of uselessness had intensified greatly. Seemingly every person was moving to prevent disaster, sure what to do and how they could help. Everyone except Liara. The darkness of the night did not disrupt the impression of activity that had continued since, as people came and went carrying out their duties with lights attached to their helmets or weapons.
The governor of the colony, Fai Dan, had been present when Liara had delivered the news from Shepard. She had expected a great deal more nervousness from the civilian, but he had reacted with almost the same reserve as the military had. As the news spread, everyone had acted with the utmost efficiency towards preparing for the slaughter to come, even though it was their neighbours and relatives coming to kill them.
Stunned, Liara was forced to accept this strange state of affairs. She had discovered why so many others were terrified of the humans. Their determination seemed boundless. But the monstrosities created by the geth were coming. She was glad the colonists were so willing to take charge of their lives, and had decided to do whatever she could when the time came.
As this promise came to Liara's mind, Ashley hauled her weapon up onto the tower at last, and waved her thanks to Kaidan.
"I could have done it without you, but you made it easier, Lieutenant!" she shouted down, a smile on her face.
"I don't doubt it, Chief," replied Kaidan, his tone inferring the opposite.
"Hey, we Sirona girls are tough," joked Ashley, hands on her hips.
"No argument here," replied Kaidan, a grin on his face. As the two parted to continue their duties, Liara's feeling that humans were brave or insane grew stronger. The Lieutenant acknowledged her with a small nod as he passed, which she returned with one of her own.
"The humans are crazy, aren't they?" said a voice from behind.
Liara turned, and found Tali standing behind her, engrossed with her omnitool. As the quarian worked her fingers over the interface rapidly, the asari simply smiled to herself.
"They certainly are eccentric," she said, "But I cannot help but feel endeared towards them. They try so hard."
Tali inclined her head now, still working. Liara watched the quarian, wondering what she was doing.
"Shepard told me that they would not stop until Rannoch was free," said Tali, "I didn't believe the Alliance was strong enough, not without my own people's assistance. But now, I don't know. There are genocidal monsters coming to kill all of these people, but they are not afraid. Maybe they are strong enough."
Liara looked up towards Shepard's position on the tower, hoping to get a glance of the commander before the fighting started. There was nothing but starry sky. She returned her attention to the quarian.
"I believe them," she said, "They can do it. They will do it. Shepard will keep her word."
Tali stopped her work and looked up.
"Keelah, I hope you are right," said Tali, as she tapped her omnitool once more.
"There we go," she added cheerily, "Communications restored, for now."
Liara smiled. Tali was quite determined herself, she thought. The Normandy's whole ground-team began sounding off, confirming the young quarian's handiwork had paid off.
Garrus watched Ashley as she set up the heavy machineguns on their mount, checking their mechanisms. The weapons looked archaic, like something he had seen in a period film about the Palaven Unification wars. Two black metal barrels protuded from cases containing the recoil-reloading systems. Belts of chemical-propellant rounds draped out of the sides from huge boxes. The thing wasn't entirely an antique however, as the heat sinking system and barrier plates demonstrated, not to mention the ammunition mini-facturer with its tub of omnigel beside it.
The turian knew the weapon by reputation. At the Battle of Xi'an Valley, human forces under a Colonel Ryan cut down several dozen turians with similar ones. Before the turian armour arrived and overwhelmed the defenders, slaughtering them to a man. Mr. Browning had gained a reputation, centuries after his death amongst creatures he never knew existed.
Garrus had to ask.
"Is it true that humans have been using that weapon since before you achieved spaceflight?" said the turian to Ashley, as she set the barrier plates in place. The human looked over at him, and grinned.
"Decades before," Ashley said proudly, "Don't change what isn't broken, right?"
Garrus hummed his agreement, picking up his rifle and cradling it as he walked over to inspect it.
"Bet it isn't so great against barriers," he said, running his thumb over the ammunition belt nearest to him.
"You'd be surprised," Ashley continued, "With ammunition modifications now, you can punch through. The aim of the game is to cause damage past the barriers."
Garrus grimaced. He remembered some of images shown of injuries caused by the bullets of the weapon on Shanxi. Barriers were less common in those days, and the wounds caused were horrific to say the least. Armour seemed to be far less effective as well, being bludgeoned to pieces by repeated hits instead of simply penetrated as a mass-accelerator with armour-piercing mods might do.
"They're coming," declared Shepard from the other side of the tower, "Eighteen hundred metres and closing, get ready!"
"Good luck," said Garrus to the Chief. She looked a little bewildered at the platitude, to his amusement.
"Thanks," she said, before cocking the handles of her emplacement weapons.
Garrus smirked that he had made Ashley uncomfortable for a moment, watching her aim towards the enemy. He sat down in his firing point, taking his rifle from his arms and resting it on a bipod. Looking down the sights, he saw that the Commander was indeed correct. The enemy was approaching.
Hundreds of husks jostled each other for space on the skybridge as they advanced in a great swarm. Amongst them, small squads of geth herded the throng forwards. Behind them, geth armatures plodded, moving slower than the main force but more steady. Garrus felt a pang of fear. They had nothing but civilians and dodgy corporate security to back them up against an army of synthetics. Long odds indeed.
"Enemy at one-five-nought-nought marker," Shepard said in military monotone, "Chief, fire at will."
Ashley triggered her weapon, and the two mouths of it chattered, twelve point seven millimetre rounds buzzing towards at the enemy. Garrus watched the rounds fly into the husks through his scope. The result was grizzly, the rounds tearing entire chunks of flesh and sections of metallic implants out with each hit. Yet still they came, picking up their pace. It wasn't going to be enough.
Kaidan followed Tali and Liara into the elevator to the skybridge level, along with the last batch of civilians with enough experience and training in weapons to get the job done. Yet only the aliens seemed nervous. The colonists had a strange atmosphere of concentration about them, like they were thinking deeply about something else other than the fight ahead.
The lieutenant found this state of affairs extremely odd, but put it down to ignorance. None of them, as far as he knew, had ever seen a husk up close, and they had held off the geth very well before.
Shepard had sent Kaidan to command the defence of the main door. As he walked out to the garage area, all eyes turned to him. He had about two hundred semi-competent colonists, a dozen corpers and a broken down walker in addition to the Normandy's new crewmates who had joined him. Against thousands of the enemy and who knew how many mechs.
He stepped forward.
"We have hard fighting ahead, and I need you all to follow my orders immediately after I give them."
No reaction. They were as ready as they were going to be. The Lieutenant began the preparations.
On the raised pathway that ran along the right side of the space, he had the militia set up the metal defences that the colonists had in abundance. Kaidan put those he had the least confidence in behind them. Wrex was put there also, to maintain order and make sure the enemy would not breach the line. Perpendicular to this defence at the back of the room, directly in front of the walker, another line of defences was manned by the corporate security troops and the small number of Alliance veterans. The killbox had been created. When the enemy came through, and Kaidan had no doubt they would make it that far at the very least, they would be hit from the front and side.
Lastly, Tali was assigned to repairing the old Riesig walker. Its powercore was intact and its components were functional, but no power was getting through to make the thing work. If the quarian could get it moving and killing, they had a shot at survival.
"Five-Nought-Nought marker, garage company standby," said Shepard's voice in Kaidan's ear, as the booming of fire from Ashley and Garrus leaked into the transmission.
"DEFENCE TEAMS, STAND TO!" Kaidan roared at the top of his voice. The Alliance veterans advanced a pace towards their barricade, the sound cacophonous as they stepped in unison. The former soldiers raised their weapons to aim at the gate, as the other civilians took up their positions in a far less coordinated manner. The Lieutenant walked down the line, inspecting the latter. Finding nothing out of order, he made his way to Wrex and Liara.
"Dr. T'soni, Wrex, if the enemy gets inside the gate, we'll need to slow them down with biotics," he said, "This needs to be a turkey shoot as much as possible."
The two aliens looked at him funny, and he realised his mistake. Neither of them had either seen a turkey before in their lives, more likely than not.
"It's an Earth thing," he explained, "We need to gather and kill the husks as quickly as possible before our defences are overwhelmed."
"This isn't my rite, you know?" growled Wrex, "I know what I'm doing. we'll get it done."
"I will also do my best to insure the geth do not overwhelm the colonists," Liara added, with a look that Kaidan interpreted to be sadness. Nodding in return, the lieutenant pat the asari on the shoulder and gave Wrex an amused thumbs up, before moving to his own position at the corner of the defences.
"Three-Nought-Nought marker, defence team engage," said Shepard softly.
Kaidan tapped his omnitool, and the gates began to roll up. The darkness beyond was strobed with tracers from above, as Shepard and the others reaped their terrible crop, but no targets could be seen yet. The lieutenant gave the command for the floodlights to be kindled.
A great wave of light swung across the skybridge, illuminating the husks. A great moan went up from the enemy, followed by screeching as they charged forward like demons. The closer they came, the more details Kaidan could pick out in the gloom of the night. He wished he couldn't almost immediately.
"First team, fire," he said calmly. The defence team stationed facing the gateway began to shoot, maintaining good fire discipline and picking their shots. Kaidan brought a pair of binoculars to his eyes, and watched the shots burst in the husks. The veterans were doing a bit better than the corpers, but neither were killing enough husks to stop the advance. The great tide of implanted flesh rolled forwards.
"Tali, we're going to need that walker," he said quietly into his comms.
"It's not ready, I need more time," she responded, "Sorry."
"It's alright," Kaidan replied, taking hold of his own rifle now, "Just work as fast as you can."
The husks were no longer shoulder to shoulder in density, but they had not slowed.
"First team, independent fire at will!" Kaidan shouted, and began shooting himself. The line erupted with automatic fire. That this would normally be entirely improper would have bothered the lieutenant, but the husks were closing at such a pace that it was getting unlikely that anyone would miss.
The lieutenant brought his own weapon to bear, as the slugs ripped the enemy line apart. More and more of the husks fell, some continuing to crawl as their legs were shot from under them, but still more of them simply collapsing like puppets with their strings cut. The advance stopped.
The husks reacted immediately, ducking and diving in a random pattern and hugging the edges of the skybridge where the raised section provided plenty of cover. To add more misery, as the horde parted, Kaidan saw a far more potent threat come into view. The geth squads were advancing in good order behind the meatshield of the dead colonists' reanimated bodies, their own metal shells finally coming into the glow of the spotlights. Continuous fire from Shepard's position above rained down, but it did not bother them.
"Tali!" shouted Kaidan as he shoved a fresh thermal clip into his weapon, "We really don't have anymore time!"
"Just one more minute!" she replied.
Kaidan's heartbeat rose, frustrated beyond all discipline's ability to halt it, as the first geth began to open fire. The veterans kept firing, the geth still not close enough to get off truly accurate shots, but it didn't matter. The lieutenant's jaw dropped as the corpers, the glorified security guards, ducked down behind the barricade and ceased firing.
"Are you mad! Keep firing!" he ordered, grabbing the nearest one and dragging her physically to her feet. The guards did as they were told almost immediately, to Kaidan's great relief, but it was too late.
The husks, taking advantage of the drop in bullets flying their way, surged forward once again. They came on at a faster rate than before, as they used cover to avoid the renewed fire and the geth supported them.
"Wrex!" said Kaidan
"Alright you pyjaks, get ready, they're coming!" roared the Krogan, brandishing his shotgun over his head and hitting his chest with his free arm. The civilians, unable to see exactly what was coming to kill them, bristled and coaxed as many sounds out of their weapons as they could.
The husks tore into the building with their mouths wide and throats moaning, flooding into the low floor of the garage's main area. Above, the militia along the walkway held their fire as they were instructed, letting the enemy run the full length of the room.
"Now, blast them to pieces!" cried Wrex. His shotgun boomed, the signal to attack. The civilians began firing now as well. The husks were caught in a crossfire, their attention firmly fixed on the barricades in front of them as their heads and bodies were ruptured by shots from the side.
Kaidan stopped firing and watched the scene. The civilians were still missing even at point blank range, but their nerve held. They were hitting enough of the husks to stop the creatures, and the bodies began to pile up. With relief, he added his own shots to the fray.
The thinned out front of the husks had now all died, and a glut of them entered, swinging around the edge of the gateway and scrambling towards the less experienced militia.
Liara immediately acted, and caught them with a bubble of dark energy that suspended them in the air. Wrex and a brace of accompanying civilians fired into the tangle of floating husks, before the krogan let loose a bolt of energy himself, detonating the singularity. The corpses slammed into their walking fellows as light flared from the biotic effect. The next wave came on.
"Ready!" said Tali, exhaustion edging into her tone.
The walker powered up with a hum. Its barriers flashed on, strobing around the body and legs of the armour. The gatling cannons began spooling up. Kaidan could help but smile. The weapons fired, streaming shells into the husks, bursting them like kids' water balloons. The militia, the veterans, even Wrex stopped firing, and watched as the husks were torn to shreds.
When the walker started thudding forwards, a cheer went up.
"Forward!" ordered Kaidan, "Outer positions, now!"
The colonists followed Tali in the walker, squashing the corpses of husks and powering forwards. Picking their way through the scene as quickly as they could, the civilians moved with a purpose, some dragging the barricades with them.
Kaidan came up beside the walker as it stopped. Missiles boomed from the mounts on either side of the sensor array of the armoured beast, and swung towards the nearest geth destroyer, rippling into it until it fell apart. The lieutenant nodded his approval of Tali taking no chances, opting for overkill. The geth took a lot of putting down. Even now, the squads of geth were attached like metallic leeches to whatever cover they could grab.
The colonial veterans were forming up ranks behind the newly repositioned barriers, guiding the amateurs to the most protected positions. The horde of husks didn't seem so endless now to Kaidan, as Chief Williams' fire added to that of his own team's shots, cutting a scythe through the enemy ranks. Yet still they approached.
"Starting to run low on clips, lieutenant," said the leader of the corpers, flicking a heated one out of her gun. Kaidan looked down his sights, and saw that the next group of husks was still out of best effective range, particularly for the civilians. And there were still the geth walkers to contend with. Only one option for it.
"No choice... Cease fire!" he said, "Let them get closer."
"Just how I like it!" declared Wrex, eliciting a cheer of agreement from the nearest civvies.
Kaidan didn't want to comment on the krogan's enthusiasm. The closer the enemy got, the more likely the civilians would panic. He hoped it wouldn't come to that, as his gut tightened at the thought of having to retreat as the geth pursued them.