War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man.
-Napoleon Hill
Sovereign, The Far Rim - Saren Arterius
January 9th, 2176
Saren stalked by one of the many drones that served on board Sovereign. He tried to ignore them, but a few of them sent a chill down his spine. Turians were always metallic, that was a given. But these turians... They looked like the spirits of the damned. All spikes, exoskeleton stripped away to lay bare circuits and rotting flesh. The lesser servants called them Mauraders. Saren just called them his foot soldiers. They were the ones that resisted too harshly, whose minds had to be blanked to hope to control them. So the Vanguard... Improved them.
Saren touched his own metallic arm, a grim reminder of the dangerous path he walked. The Vanguard, who had declared itself to be Sovereign, had improved him. And he was improved in many ways. The arm granted him control over dark energy, far stronger than normal biotics would be. It was stronger and more durable than his organic parts, and Saren had used it to his advantage several times. But it also showed Sovereign's power. Its ability to totally destroy Saren if it so chose. And so, Saren would make himself useful. He would serve Sovereign, and in doing so preserve the turians from the worst of the Cycle's ravages. They would be given Ascension, their great reward. And Saren would be their leader.
Now Saren made his way to the shrine at the belly of Sovereign, and knelt to receive his instructions.
"I am here, Sovereign."
IT IS TIME. YOUR PAWNS HAVE DONE WELL, HERALD. SOW THE SEEDS. SOON, WE SHALL REAP A MIGHTY HARVEST OF THIS GALAXY.
"Yes, Sovereign. All of the plans? The bomb?"
YES. THE KROGAN ARE NOT WORTHY. THEY ARE CHAFF, TO BE THRESHED AWAY BY THE SUPERIOR RACES. LEAVE THE MAJORITY OF HUMANITY INTACT. THEY HAVE PROVEN THEMSELVES WORTHY. YOUR PEOPLE AND THE ASARI ALSO MUST WEATHER THIS STORM. BUT ALL MUST BE WEAKENED. MY MASTER'S HOME MUST BE UNCOVERED. THE SCIONS OF THE HARVEST MUST RETURN TO THEIR FIELDS.
"Yes, at once." Saren stood, and made his way out of the shrine with a wicked grin. Finally, after all these years, the League would pay for their treachery. The idiot asari and salarians would suffer for their ignorance. And those in the Hierarchy who had denied Saren his just rewards would be punished.
It was Harvest time.
The Kelphic Valley, Tuchanka - Urdnot Wrex
February 18th, 2176
"So what the hell are they? And what are they doing here?" Wrex demanded, glaring into his command console.
"Turians sir. They're in the uniform of the Blackguards. We caught scouts skulking around our fields. We tracked them down, they're excavating something in the ruins. Why we don't know, nor do we know what they are after."
Wrex snorted, drawing his shotgun. "Doesn't matter what they're after. They're not going to get it. Rouse my guards. I'm going to deal with this personally."
"At once Overlord!"
"And alert the League, and have our ambassadors on the Citadel make it clear this is completely unacceptable. Tuchanka is no longer within the Citadel's jurisdiction. This is grounds for war!"
Another functionary ran off with the message, and Wrex nodded in satisfaction. No longer were the krogan a weak people who could be bullied by other races at will. They were strong, and they had strong friends. He didn't know what sort of crap the turians thought they could get away with, but this certainly wasn't going to fly.
After a few minutes, Wrex's personal assault shuttle arrived loaded with Clan Urdnot warriors. New Gretchaw was on the other side of Tuchanka, but Wrex had come to the Kelphic Valley to check on the latest harvest. As he flew over the fields, Wrex smiled in satisfaction. It was green now, and fields and pastures full of hardy crops and herd beasts had replaced the barren dust and rubble. There were still large areas that had to be cleared away, but pockets of green showed from them as well. In time, Tuchanka would repair itself. The once ruined planet would be restored to what it had been in the days of legend, before the Long Dark the krogan had imposed with their nuclear fire.
Wrex didn't wait for his shuttle to touch down, instead leaping off when it was still 10 meters in the air. His warrior followed with shouts of pleasure. Good. He still had it. The Overlord might be an old krogan, but that didn't mean he was useless in battle. He stalked over to one of the ground commanders. "Well?"
"Overlord, the enemy is just up the dies of that rise. They're digging something up. It's turian in make, of all things. And it's old. Been here since the Rebellions at least by the layers of rubble and dirt on top of it," the commander explained.
"What's it do?" Wrex demanded.
The commander shrugged. "Dunno. But I figure if the metalheads want it, we should go take it from them."
"Damn right. Prepare the men! I want these turian bastards off my planet."
It didn't take long to rally the few score krogan warriors, and with a mighty roar, Wrex led them in a charge up the hill. Their enemies popped out from behind cover and opened fire, emitting strange metallic tones Wrex had never heard before. Their weapons were odd too, not the standard turian design. More powerful by the look of it; a some of Wrex's warriors fell. But the few turians couldn't hope to stand up to a krogan charge.
Wrex barreled up to the first turian and blasted it with his shotgun to drain it's barriers, then kept right on going and savaged it with his claws. He kicked at his fallen foe to make sure it was dead, then paused. He'd blown away the turian's armor, and the fluid leaking out wasn't the blue of turian blood. It was... Darker. Oily somehow. Now wasn't the time to contemplate that though.
He continued on, seizing turian position after position, easily overwhelming the handful troops they had present. It was odd, actually. Normally turians would fall back and regroup if pressed. They didn't break or retreat, but they did consolidate their lines and fight smart. These turians fought like idiots. They allowed themselves to be surrounded and overwhelmed, standing their ground and fighting until they were killed. None of them even tried to surrender. That was very odd. Even turian discipline could be shaken when it was obvious they were going to die.
Wrex knelt next to one of the bodies and pried off a helmet. What he saw shook him. It looked like a turian alright, but something was off. The eyes had been replaced by sensors and cameras. The head spikes were all wrong, and the metal skin looked brittle and diseased. Underneath lay a rotting flesh interwoven with circuitry.
"What the hell is this guy?" Wrex rumbled. He pointed at one of his warriors. "They're up to something. Try to take a couple alive for interrogation. And let's get to this dig site. I'm starting to feel real uncomfortable with whatever these idiots are doing." As Wrex turned away, the body melted into a pile of goo, unnoticed by the krogan.
Wrex hurried to the top of the hill, then froze as he crested it. Only part of the structure was visible, but Wrex recognized it. "Ancients, it's a bomb! Get down there and disable it! If that goes off, it will destroy the entire valley. That would-"
A timer counted down its final second, and the world turned to ash. The bomb that the turians had planted some 1200 years ago was not operating at peak efficiency when it blew, the years having somewhat dampened its effect. If it had been operating at its maximum, the very crust of Tuchanka would have been cracked, and the world would have entered a second nuclear winter. As it was, the explosion was observable from high orbit, a blinding flash of light that was clearly visible to the naked eye for five light seconds. Urdnot Wrex did not die alone. The entire Kelphic Valley, over 1,200km in length, was vaporized. The fallout would once again poison Tuchanka, and total deaths from the bomb would surmount 2,000,000.
The war it ignited would claim far more.
Illyria, Elysium - John Shepard
February 18th, 2176
John had to admit, Elysium was certainly living up to its name. The mountainous world had plenty of picturesque valleys and summits, offering some of the best hiking in the galaxy. The planet's low gravity and the relatively high oxygen content in its atmosphere helped you feel good all day. Right now John was enjoying doing just that. He was on a hunting trip for the local wildlife, a mountain goat-like creature known as a sherpa. He was cheating though, just a bit. Johnny believed in using every advantage he could over his enemy, even if it was as dumb and defenseless as a sherpa. So instead of a hunting rifle, he was packing a Rapier V and a N7 Eagle X with a biotic amp. Not exactly hunting weapons, but they worked.
"See, being in the outdoors isn't so bad, is it Shepard?" Alexandra Harrington asked, grinning at John.
He shook his head ruefully and smiled. "Yeah, guess you're right Harrington. Though I think you're enjoying this just a bit too much."
Harrington laughed. "What can I say? I'm a local girl! Still, even for a void-sucker like you, this has to be a nice way to spend your leave."
"Better than the bar crawl the others are in the middle of, I'm sure," John agreed. "And it was nice of your folks to put us up for our leave. Not a bad way to spend two weeks I suppose. Still..."
Harrington frowned. "Still no word?"
"No. Not to me anyway. She's sent out a few general letters to everyone, but she's not talked to me directly since she sent Keenah home."
"And Jak? I didn't hear about the breakup."
That actually got John to grin, though it was a tad forced. "Are you kidding? She offered to be a surrogate mother if we wanted human children, provided she got to keep half of them."
"Oh really? And have you discussed this with Tali?"
"Ha! No, that's not why she's decided not to talk with me. Hell Harrington, I think we'd need to go on more than a week's worth of dates before we started talking about kids."
Harrington grinned. "Oh really, what about-" He face suddenly went grim and she motioned for John to take cover as she dived underneath her rock.
John didn't hesitate. When someone like 1st Lieutenant Alexandra Webber Harrington told you to go to cover, you damn well went to cover. He came out of his roll into the thick, leathery leaves of the ophelia bush with his pistol at the ready, looking for hostiles. He found some. Ships, dozens of them, were descending on Illyria.
"Shit, batarians," John growled, recognizing the profiles instantly. They had gunships with them as well, and they were keeping close formation on the troop transports.
"Slavers?" Harrington asked, then shook her head and answered her own question. "No, too organized, to disciplined. And those markings... Those are Hegemony warships."
"No guesses as to why they're here," John growled. "Come on."
They weren't far out of town, and the two N Soldiers raced down the slope in a fair imitation of a sherpa, leaping from cover to cover. They hadn't gone more than 100 meters when a fireball erupted from the southwest corner of Illyria.
"There goes the garrison," Harrington stated, her voice flat and deadly.
"I'm sure some of them got out. There must have been some warning," John encouraged. He wasn't sure though. Their emergency comm units were not squawking, and he'd clicked it experimentally to see if it was receiving. All he got was static. Jammed then.
They made their way back to down in less than five minutes, even though it was nearly two kilometers. Running downhill in the light gravity and high oxygen content was a piece of cake for the two soldiers, and they ran into the settlement, taking cover behind a building.
"What's the plan?" Harrington asked grimly, raising her N7 Hurricane to her shoulder. She too didn't believe in giving sherpa's a fair chance, though she was probably carrying that in case they had run into one of the arktos megalos. The big predators resembled enormous feathered grizzly bears, though their dark green plumage made them look like a strange parrot until they unsheathed their massive talons.
"Get the civilians into the mountains. They all know them pretty well, and it's not hard to survive a summer night here in the foothills. Don't let them stop for valuables. Just get everyone out of town ASAP. On my six. We'll head for your parent's place first."
Harrington nodded gratefully, and she followed John deeper into the town. They came across several civilians and directed them out of town, but a few refused to go, mostly the armed ones.
"Hey, you're Stephanie's kid aren't you?" one of the civilians asked. "What the hell's going on?"
"The batarians are invading. Probably here for slaves. They can't hope to hold against the navy. You need to get out of town, now," John ordered.
The older man shook his head. "No, I've got a gun, and my wife and kids went shopping at the city center today. I'm not leaving them."
"You know how to use that, sir?" Harrington demanded.
"I've killed plenty of arktos with it, if that's what you're asking. Would mind killing a few slaver bosh'tets with it either."
"Right. Keep up with us. We can't protect you, but if you stick with us you might live," John ordered. "Move out."
They ran across their first batarian patrol not long after. There were six of them, and both groups stumbled into each other. John and Harrington recovered first, just like they were trained to. They started off with a singularity laid down by Alex and a shockwave from John, blowing the batarians off their feet. Then both biotics activated their barriers and charged, putting rounds into all the batarians until they stopped moving.
"Christ, I knew you were marines, but what the hell was that?" the civilian gasped.
"Biotics. Come on," Harrington ordered.
They met two more civilians, these two blessedly krogan who carried their large hunting rifles like sentients who knew what they were about. They were both armored as well, and while the suits were old and outdated, they offered better protection then the light jacket John was wearing.
"Fall in," John ordered, not even pausing to find out the krogan's story. "We're going to try and get to the city center and hit them where it counts."
"At once, warleader," the krogan saluted, and fell in behind the old human.
They were making their way across a relatively exposed plaza when a gunship roared overhead, and John dove for the meager cover offered by stone wall and raised his barrier. "Aim for the engines!"
Harrigton's Hurricane burped, and a stream of biotic infused rounds slammed into the gunship's barriers, rapidly draining them. The pilot swiveled, then opened up with his chain gun, aiming for the two krogan who made the biggest targets. The krogan shot back, their big guns punching holes in the gunship's armor. They split up, but the gunship tracked down first one then the other, ripping them to shreds with its big cannon. John hit the ship with a warp, and nodded in grim satisfaction when Harrington used her own biotics to detonate it. The gunship's port engine exploded, and it spiraled out of control to crash in a distant fireball.
John grabbed the quivering civilian man who'd nearly dropped his gun in shock when the ship appeared and hoisted him to his feet. "Come on! We have to keep moving or we'll get pinned down here!"
The old man nodded and scrambled after John. They had just made it to the relative safety of the cafe on the far side of the plaza when a batarian squad opened fire behind them. The civilian died almost instantly, and John and Harrington spun, returning fire as they continued to fall back. They didn't accomplish much aside from getting the batarians to put their heads down, but they managed to get to cover safely.
"We deal with these jokers or keep moving?" Harrington panted.
Grimly, John jerked his head toward the city center. "Keep moving. We have to break the back of these freaks."
The streets were empty except for the bodies, almost all of them Leaguers. A few batarians lay here and there where a krogan had made a last stand, but human and quarian civilians didn't have the penchant for going armed that krogan did. The bodies that hit John the hardest were those of the children. They seemed to be everywhere, little limp forms clutching guardians or lying dejectedly alone. Evidently, these slavers had come to kill, not to capture.
"We've need end this now!" Harrington spat, running beside John.
He nodded. "I hear weapons fire ahead. Sounds like they're assaulting the city center. If we can hit them from behind and take out their flanks, we may just give the defenders the break they need."
They encountered one or two survivors, and John urged them to get out of town if they could. Most complied, but three more krogan, two quarians and half a dozen humans who'd had been holed up in a small arms store decided to follow John and Harrington. They also ran across another batarian squad, but with the reinforcements they were easy enough to put down. Two of the humans were retired navy, and while John would have preferred marines, at least navy pukes new which end of a mass accelerator to point down range.
When they made it to the city center, John resisted to urge charge out guns blazing. The batarians had a line of civilians, mostly children, in front of them while they poured fire into the Illyria administration building. Every time someone in the building tried to open fire on them, the batarians executed one of the prisoners.
"Shit, what do we do?" one of the civilians wailed. They were all looking at John, expecting him to lead them to victory. Somehow.
"Lieutenant Harrington, take Melliard, Tikkias, Weyloc and Kim. Hit them from the south flank. See that heavy weapons cache they've laid down? Seize it and use it to blow up some of their transports. The rest of you are with me. We're going straight in to rescue those prisoners. Questions?" John paused and looked each civilians in the eye. "Good, move out people. We start in two minutes."
It was pure torture to hold his fire and get his ragtag militia to do the same, but John managed. They waited exactly 120 seconds, then John stood up and roared, "REMEMBER THE BELARI!"
He used his biotics to teleport to where the batarians were, moving at speeds too fast for an organic eye to track. His charge killed two batarians outright, sending them flying with the force of his impact. To his right, John unleashed a massive shockwave, sending half a dozen more batarians into the air. He spun left and pumped shotgun rounds into the batarians he found there as bullets scattered off his barrier. As his enemies closed in, John collapsed his barrier to kill three more, then charged away to another knot of batarians.
Everything was focused on survival, on killing the next enemy before they could kill John. He had to blank out what was happening to the civilians following him. They were getting cut to pieces, but they were drawing enough fire that John was managing to stay alive, somehow. He saw a squad of batarians open fire on their living shields, and with a roar of anger he charged again into their midst. His biotics were rapidly losing their potency as he tired. John bashed one's skull in with the butt of his shotgun, then blew holes in two batarians chests'. The last three he took care of by detonating his barrier again.
Taking a moment to catch his breath, John dived behind cover and lifted his canteen to his lips, chugging his high calorie energy drink. He was going to need the fuel if this fight lasted as long as he thought it would. Once he felt his biotics recharge, John reactivated his barrier and drew his pistol. Another gunship was coming in, and John fired at it as his hands glowed, feeding a taste of biotic power into the rounds as they left his pistol. They scattered off the gunship's shields, rapidly draining them. The gunship opened fire on John's position and he hit the dirt as the rounds chewed up the stone wall he was behind. Suddenly, the gunships weapon's fell silent as a bright orange fireball filled the sky. John glanced towards the heavy weapons cache and was relieved to see Harrington hefting a smoking rocket launcher as she ordered her troops forward.
Taking a deep breath John charged again, right into another squad of batarians that were trying to flank his friend. He took down two more batarians as rounds scattered off his barrier, but was driven back by the intensity of the batarians' fire.
"Shepard! Hold on!" Harrington shouted over the mayhem. Her Hurricane barked, and the batarians' fire slackened. Then, John heard a cry of pain; he jumped out from behind the pillar in time to see Alexandra Harrington take two rounds square in the shoulder. She wailed in agony, her entire joint disintegrating into a pulpy mess. Letting out a cry of fury, John loosed another shockwave into the batarians. He rushed to his friend's side, grabbing for the first aid kit.
"You're going to be alright Alex, just relax," John panted as he desperately applied medigel to the gushing wound. Unlike in the vids, John knew that shoulder wounds were serious. A human shoulder contained three bones and three joints with ten major muscles. Rebuilding a shoulder was a long, painful process, and not a wound someone could recover from quickly.
Instead of responding, Alex foamed at the mouth, her eyes rolling back in her head as she began to violently shake. John's blood ran cold; they were using toxic rounds. Illegal in both Citadel and League space, toxic rounds delivered a dozen strains of lethal viruses that quickly burned through the immune system of anyone hit by them. League marines had bio-antidote packages to help deal with the dangers, but obviously Alex's had been overwhelmed.
John stood as his friend's shudders abruptly abated. He brushed a quivering hand across her eyes, tears leaking down his face as his body shook with rage. The world turned red. He forgot about saving the civilians. He forgot about fighting for the colony. Alexandra Harrington had been one of his nearest and dearest friends. She had died saving his life. The only way for a debt like that to be repaid was for the entire world to drown in blood.
John threw himself at the batarians time after time, ripping them apart with his biotics or blasting them to bloody bits. He was a maelstrom of destruction, never resting, always moving forward. He didn't know how long his rage lasted, or how many batarians he killed. The answer was not long enough, and never enough. All he knew was that eventually he sank to his knees, exhausted. The courtyard was empty except for the dead. Piles of batarians were everywhere, but so were the bodies of humans, krogan, and quarians. He didn't see any other living being, and his weapon finally lowered to his side as he quivered with exhaustion.
Hearing rapid foot falls, John rose to his feet, slowly turning and pointing his pistol at the source of the sound.
"Holy shit, someone's alive! I need a medic here right now!"
The pistol fell out of John's hands as he sank back to his knees.
"Who the hell are you? What happened to all these batarians?"
"First Lieutenant John Vanderloo Shepard, service number N-5923-AC-2826," he gasped. "Do I stand relieved?"
"The cavalry has arrived Lieutenant. You can relax now. Those murdering four eyed bosh'tet's are all dead."
"By Kalros, did he kill all of these himself?"
"Looks like it. Shit! He's blacking out! Catch him! Catch-"
Darkness closed in as the pain and exhaustion finally dragged John down.
Independent League Senate - Admiral Vexxu'Hackett
February 19th, 2176
Vexxu's eyes were dry, her voice steady as she gripped the lectern's sides. "Ladies and gentlemen of Parliament. Yesterday the League came under unprovoked and unwarned assault by the Citadel's forces. A dozen of our colonies were hit in a massive assault by Hegemony forces, while the turian Hierarchy carried out a despicable and cowardly act by bombing the civilian countryside of Tuchanka. Overlord Urdnot Wrex is dead, as are countless thousands of his people, and across the colonies, the death toll is projected to rise into the millions."
"This, is a direct and deliberate attempt to destroy the Independent League. I am here to ask you for a formal declaration of war, but in truth, no declaration is needed. The other side has attacked without warning, and their declaration was the destruction of the Kelphic Valley and the slaughter of innocents on a dozen worlds. Even now, our fleets have mobilized and are retaliating. We are now at war. May the Ancestors watch over us all."