Author's Note: Here ya go guys, second chapter for the week. Fun combat in this one. Hope you enjoy!

As always, R&R please!

...

As the shuttle settles to a landing, Shepard waves the others out first, "Return to the Normandy. We'll radio for a pick up when we're ready." She steps out as the hatch slides shut behind her.

Coming up to the others she scans their immediate area, glad it's clear. Eerily so as there are no sights or sounds of the colonists. "The collectors are already here. C'mon let's move." She takes point, Jack and Kasumi flanking behind her, Garrus bringing up the rear, his sniper at the ready.

"It's entirely too quiet." Jack comments as they round a corner into an empty courtyard.

" If I had to guess, they've begun their harvest." Shepard mutters, scowling.

As the swarms come over the buildings ahead, and comes towards them, they all drop to defensive positions. The swarm seems to completely ignore them, not even venturing close.

"Maybe the vaccine acts like anti pheromones?" Jack jokes lightly as the swarm fades and passes them.

"However it's working, I"m glad it is." Shepard draws up her omnitool as a soft beep comes from it, "I've got a signal not far from here. Someone has an omnitool or a radio active. Let's go."

They track the signal through the deserted colony to a set of blast doors. "Keep an eye out, I'm going to hack these open." She kneels down to bring her eyes level with the door lock holo interface.

"Right Commander." Garrus replies as the others take up guard, he stays by her side, keeping an eye out. "It's too quiet. Where are the Collectors?"

"I don't know, but it puts me on edge." Kasumi comments looking around warily.

"I'm sure we'll find them soon enough." Shepard stands up as the doors beep and the HI blinks green, the doors parting open. The four of them step in before Shepard closes the doors behind them.

After a minute of silence from the empty appearing room Shepard steps into the middle of the room, looking towards a freight container in the corner, hearing a small scraping sound "You might as well come out, I know you're there."

A man in mechanic suit slowly comes out from behind the container, his hands up and shaking. "Who are you?" He asks them, "I thought the whole colony was gone. I don't recognize you."

"We're here to help." Shepard steps forward, "I'm Commander Shepard, this is my squad. Do you know what happened here?"

"This ship, it came out of nowhere, never seen anything like it…" He lowers his hands as he pauses, his eyes going wide at the memory before looking her over closely, "Ain't you another one of them Alliance types? Some hero or some such? Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

"I got better." Shepard says dryly, "What did you mean, 'another Alliance'? Is there someone already here?"

"Yeah sure. Hell of a lot of good he did. Damn guns they installed didn't even work." He throws up his hand in frustration, "It's your fault that they came here in the first place. We didn't have any trouble before you Alliance lot stepped in to 'protect' us."

Shepard bites the inside of her lip to stop a sharp retort to this man, reminding herself she needs the information he has. "Where did this other Alliance officer go? Who is he?"

"He went to the spaceport, to fix the guns. Little late now that those monsters are here, if ya ask me. He was some commander or something, Alenko was his name. I hope he got snatched, useless piece of shit."

Shepard steps forward, grabbing the man by a fistful of his shirt and backing him against the wall, "Kaiden Alenko is his name, and he's a hero, you're the worthless piece of shit." She drops him and turns away to leave, the others falling in behind her.

The man starts to object until Jack turns around and flares her biotics to scare him, she's happy to see him cringe back, scared shitless.

Shepard seals the blast doors behind her, let him figure his own way out. "Alright, c'mon. It's personal now, Kaiden is out here somewhere, we need to find him, the colonists, and stop the collectors."

"Best bet is to find and start at the spaceport." Jack indicates one of the gun towers in the distance, "I'd say that's our direction."

"Alright, let's start there. Maybe we'll get lucky." Shepard unships her pistol and holds it ready as they turn and continue past the bunker.

They come across a courtyard when Shepard's omnitool beeps, it's motion tracker picking up targets.

"We've got incoming." Shepard warns her squad, signalling them to find cover as she dives behind a low wall to her right.

A strange buzzing sound signals the arrival of their collector friends. Shepard looks in awe as they fly down from the rooftops around them, their wings buzzing. She had no idea they had wings, let alone could fly. This suddenly made their job a whole lot harder.

As the collectors take up position and look around Shepard lets loose with one of her drones followed by an incinerate to one of the collectors nearest her. it lights up in flames, letting loose a strange warbling, chirping sound. As it dances around she puts it down with three shots from her pistol before ducking into cover as four more open fire on her.

She sees Garrus and Jack lean over their covers, Jack launching biotics left and right. Garrus' sniper snaps off shot after shot, knocking down the collectors.

Shepard pops over cover again, letting loose with another incinerate and following up with her pistol, accounting for two more collectors, leaving three standing. Jack has two others floating across the sky, encased in biotic fields. They crash together, lighting up in a small sonic explosion.

Shepard's drone accounts for one of the three standing before the drone gets blasted apart. Shepard retaliates by using one of her overloads and pistol to bring the second down that destroyed the drone.

The third one gets set upon by Kasumi, her cloak allowing her to get in close to slit its throat. She dusts her hands off as she steps past the collector body, Shepard and the others coming towards her.

"That was fun." She comments, smiling wryly.

"I'm seriously gonna have to learn that trick." Shepard whistles softly coming abreast with Kasumi. She kicks the collector body, dislodging a strange rifle that topples across the ground slightly.

Garrus stoops and picks it up, "This looks like it could be useful."

Shepard takes it from him, hefting the heavy rifle in her hands. Looking it over, trying to discern the trigger mechanism, she slides her hand into a channel hollowed out in the underside of the rifle. She feels a slight blister in the strange skin of the rifle.

Suspecting it to be the trigger, she aims the rifle back the way they came and presses the button. The rifle jerks slightly in her grip as a bright gout of plasma shoots out creating a laser beam that leaves a melted trail in the steel wall.

"Whoa!" Shepard releases the trigger, taking a step back, the after image from the bright beam burned into her eyes. It triggers the memory of the much larger beam that cut through the Normandy. She shakes her head to clear the images.

"Holy hell Shepard." It's Jack's turn to whistle in approval. "That's a nice bit of firepower."

"Let's hope it's not needed." Shepard responds, attaching it to her pack. "Mordin will need to take a look at it."

"Oh, he'll have a good time with that." Kasumi gives a light laugh as Shepard signals them to move out.

"It'll be our little present for him." Shepard smiles slightly as they continue through the complex of the colony.