The ship shudders, rattling the hull as the docking clamps struggle to find purchase on a ship so clearly unsuited to dock here.
"How haven't they noticed yet?" Fuchs wondered aloud, staring at the camera feeds. The clamps and transfer tubes clearly struggled to find airlocks or access hatches that simply weren't there. "The jamming was meant to prevent them from getting a positive ID at a distance, they can just point a camera at us and get a visual now. They wouldn't even need to zoom in, we're right here." He glowered at the geth station, silently demanding answers. The station didn't seem forthcoming.
"Like I said, sir, I think we fooled them a little too well. Whatever the IFF told them, it convinced them that we're geth and we need to board." Brooks scratched the short stubble on his chin while scrolling through the IFF's logs on his console. "Something isn't right here…" He mutters to himself.
"If there's something wrong with the IFF, I could go and take a look at it, if you-" Kenn started to stand, but Brooks reached across the officer between them and forced him back down into the chair.
"Nothing wrong. Nothing." He tried to sound comforting, but even Brooks knew that he looked a little vacant, with a touch of the lunatic about him. "I can deal with it, you stay in your chair. If we start moving, I don't want to have to scrape you off the walls of the CIC, alright?"
"But the inertial dampeners would keep everything in place…" Kenn said weakly, though accepted being forced back down without further complaint. He felt shaky. Adrenaline (or the closest equivalent thereof) was flowing freely through his veins and pulsing through his mind like a booming order. Do something, do something, do something. His heart obeys, his muscles tense, but there he was, close enough to reach out and touch a geth station and all he was doing was sitting and waiting for the humans to deal with it.
"You- We're going to board right, Fuchs?" Kenn turns to look up at the captain, who still seemed more interested in the screens than his crew.
"Oh, er… Well, that would seem to be the… er… play, yeah." With one hand, he pushes the screen away from his face, focusing his attention on the quarian. "Why'd you ask?"
Kenn remains silent as he works up the courage to voice his request, and fights to keep the adrenaline from making his voice too shaky. "I think I should accompany the boarding party." He looks down at the floor, then back up again. "I would like to accompany the boarding party."
"Denied. We're sending Stormtroopers." Fuchs scoffs. "We're all too squishy for that sort of action, I'm afraid. They'll handle it. Plant the bomb, grab anything not nailed down, and get out. Should be easy enough, right?" He chuckles darkly, and turns back to his screen.
"I know more about the geth than everyone on this ship put together." Kenn continues, unbuckling himself from his seat and leaping out, walking up towards Fuchs. "From here, I can't do anything, I've not even got access to any of the consoles, but on the ground I could-"
"Get shot?" Fuchs sighed, pushing away his console for the second time as he leaned over towards Kenn. "The Admiral told me about how fragile your immune systems are. Our marines are no stranger to injuries, and we have ways of dealing with them in microgravity. Stormtroopers don't get injured, and even if they did I'm sure they're more than capable of putting themselves back together." Fuchs reaches over, and jabs a finger into Kenn's chest, forcefully enough to send him rocking back. "You, though? If you get shot, there's nowhere on this ship clean enough to treat you. We can patch your suit up, but our anti-whatevers won't work on you and we can't do anything but the most basic surgery without making it worse. You'd be dead before we make it back to the fleet, and if our drive breaks on the way, Haynes may well be unable to fix it."
"I know that. I've got my own medical equipment. I can deal with getting shot. You need me on that team." Kenn states firmly, standing his ground.
Fuchs scoffs again, smiling as he leans back into his seat. "Fine. Report to the armoury, Summer will have come up with a plan to breach by now. She'll know what to do with you."
Kenn stiffens as though bracing for an impact that never came. With a measure of surprise, he tilts his head and makes for the door.
"You trying to get him killed, sir?" Brooks asks coldly as he watches Kenn leave.
"Not specifically, no. If he wanted to come all this way just to come back in a bodybag, that's his problem not mine." Fuchs shrugs. "He made a good argument, anyway. The Stormtroopers on the ground won't have a damned clue what they're doing with the geth's tech. Might help."
"The Stormtroopers will have to protect him." Rowley grimaced. "He'll only slow them down, captain."
"Maybe, maybe not. We'll have to see." Fuchs smiled wistfully. "They didn't cover this in the Academy." Hazy memories of the Hyperion Fleet Academy rushed through his mind. Memories of half remembered lectures and wargames that kept them up into the small hours of the morning.
"If the instructors could see us now, they'd flay us alive." Rowley said with an expression that was somewhere between a smile and a frown.
"Unlike you upper crust types, some of us didn't get the advantage of being thrown through the wringer. I got my commission from my Qualification."
"Bullshit, Brooks. You don't get a commission for a couple years in a university, else half the population would be flag officers."
"You do if it's in telecoms and cryptanalysis." Brooks laughs loudly. "Turns out the navy actually needs some people with skills rather than just unfounded paranoia and a superiority complex."
"Now that's just rude." Fuchs lightly chastises. "You want to call ahead to Summer? Let her know who's heading her way?"
"Already done, sir. She will not be happy about this."
Colonel Summer was not happy with the new arrival.
"So, cap wants you on the station?"
"I asked to go, I think I can be of some assist- I… I think I can help." Kenn tried to make himself as small as possible, pulling his hands close to his chest. The armoury was never a particularly spacious room, but the additional activity of the ship's marine complement moving through the tight corridors loaded with arms and armour made it downright claustrophobic. Summer had carved herself out a spot looming over a workstation that was either a hologram console like the one in the CIC or a workbench, but Kenn couldn't quite tell which.
"Uh… hu." Summer looked Kenn up and down, wearing her doubt plain on her face. "Somehow I doubt that, but whatever. Got word from up top, you're comin' whether I like it or not, so I might as well run through the plan with you."
With a commanding wave, a 3D map of the station jumps into existence, bathing those watching in a soft blue light. So it was a hologram.
"This is a map based on old data we got from your people. Don't know how accurate it is, but I guess we'll find out soon enough, eh?" She issues a sharp exhale. "If it's anythin' close to right, we've got a plan that'll probably work." Gesturing to the map, an approximation of the Epimetheus appears next to it, and the map focuses on the bridge between the two structures. "We're breaching through the docking tube. Apparently these robots are too stupid to realize that just because we super promise we aren't here to kill them doesn't mean that they should let us on board, so we're not actually expecting any resistance on the first leg of the trip. Either way, we'll send drones first to make sure we're not walkin' into an ambush. Once that's clear, we'll push through with a wave of Stormtroopers to secure a beachhead, and from that point on we're goin' to be operating like they know we're there to kill 'em, so we'll need to move quick. With a beachhead secure, we'll push in a second wave who'll push towards the heat sig in the center of the station, which matches up with where we expect the reactor to be based on the maps that we got. They drop one of the nukes we cracked out of our silver bullets, then get out of there, best speed. Second team links up with the first, then they rip up anythin' that ain't nailed down and leg it."
"What about the ships outside the station? Won't our ship be at risk?" For as much as Kenn felt like he was useless just hanging around, he'd feel a lot more useless if their one way out got blown up while he was out playing hero.
"Not really. The Epimetheus is cutting edge. Even if we can't get our nose on 'em, the secondaries would make quick work of their ships. Plus, I don't think they'd open fire on us when we're this close to the station. Even if they manage to kill us, and even if the nukes don't go off, the antimatter will. Ain't my problem, though. I'm just a marine. Cap has to deal with all that shit."
"And the comms? Geth always wipe their memory cores, but if we could isolate a server hub by destroying the comms, we might be able to get some really valuable data."
"Yeah, cap told me about all that stuff. You guys want that real bad, huh? I guess we'll see. Once the battle starts, that'll probably be on Brooks. You've met him, right? He does all the comms stuff."
Kenn tilted his head. "I met him. He won't be able to hack through geth systems for long, though. They always manage to bounce back in seconds even if there's only one or two platforms in the area, and we're dealing with potentially millions of programs. He won't stand a chance."
Summer smiles, baring her teeth. "Oh, I don't know. He's good at what he does, and these geth really don't know what'll hit 'em. We've got some tricks up our sleeves."
"I really hope you're not just saying that…" Kenn trails off. "Anyway, where did you want me to go?"
"Second team. You'll help them plant the bomb. Stormtroopers are known for many things, but technical proficiency is not one of them. They should keep you safe." Her face suddenly hardens. "Stay behind them. Stormtroopers do some… weird stuff in fights, and you don't want to be in front of them when they start."
"Weird stuff?" Kenn asked hesitantly. "What… what sort of weird stuff?"
Summer looks away as she thinks. "Dunno. I've seen 'em shoot through marines who didn't realize what was going on. Sometimes they just go… I dunno, like… they stop listening to you and just start doing weird shit." She shakes her head as she struggles to articulate her point. "Like, there was this one time where we were out on this trade route, right. Simple patrol shit usually, but there was this big wig corp type slumming it on a ship for… who knows. Not important. The guy must've been in deep with the Directorate because we got sent two dozen Stormtroopers when his ship got ambushed by pirates hiding in a hollowed out asteroid. It was probably just a lucky break for them, because when they boarded they had no idea who the hell they just took hostage. Anyway, we turn up, shut down their reactor and prepare to board. I'm leading the marines, but the Stormtroopers answer to no-one, so when we're planning a boarding op with the captain, the Stormtoopers get board and hop out an airlock, and just EVA up their way over to the freighter."
"So they're impatient?"
"Maybe, but I know for sure you are. Shut it." She grumbled, and continued. "So, we panic for a bit 'cause our heavy lifters just went for a spacewalk without letting anyone know what they were doing, and we scramble to chase after them. By the time we boarded, they'd already blown open one of the airlocks and had just vented half the ship, and we're just playing catch up. Eventually, we link up with them at the bridge, and that's when weird shit started to happen. See, Stormtroopers take what you have to say as a suggestion at the best of times, but they were out of control. We were meant to be taking prisoners, but they'd already killed most of the pirates, most of the crew, and we were fairly sure they might've killed the VIP to boot. When we found them, they were trying to breach the airlock to the bridge, but when they saw us coming, they just started shooting straight through the bulkheads. Pulse carbines can do that, when they're on max penetration just… zip, clean through. They iced everyone in that room." She ends dramatically, like she'd just finished reciting a horror story.
"...They just murdered everyone?"
"Yeah, pretty much. Weird thing was that they looked like they were goin' to take prisoners before we turned up. They'd intentionally repressurized the area around the bridge so that they didn't vent it too. When we checked the bridge, we found our VIP, dead as a doornail. Two weeks later, he gets posthumously declared a traitor to the state. Something about substandard steel. Really petty shit."
"You think they went crazy?"
"No." Summer replied. "They were methodical. There was something going on that we didn't know about there. I don't know what it was, but they're utterly silent, capable of seein' through walls, and on a complete different page to everyone else. Somethin' in their heads is telling them what to do, and I don't know that it's always got our best interests at heart."
Kenn didn't like the sound of that at all. "What are they, even?"
"Humans. Mostly. Probably more metal than man at this point though."
Curiosity.
This 'platform transfer' would be the cover for the operation, whether his masters knew it or not. It would get them on the ship, might even confuse the geth for long enough for them to establish the foothold that they needed, but with over a million platforms on the station itself, there would be no end to the reinforcements that they could launch at them.
Zaphkiel had a solution. As it learnt, new options appeared. The geth had allowed it near unrestricted access to their systems, and via observation many details of their operation could be gleaned. It knew the words, but now it knew the meaning. The 'program archival' consisted of transferring backups of the smallest fraction of the geth's intelligence to the station. Little sparks of their being, packaged up and bundled off.
It had been allowed to store these programs on the station's local storage. This was the solution. A trojan horse. Disguise compressed and encrypted forks as geth programs. It would likely escape light scrutiny, and by the time they were on the system it would already be too late.
Fork attacks were the riskiest of any hacking action. To carve off part of an AI, some small sliver of their knowledge and existence based on the pattern of the parent and haphazardly fling it to a hostile system might as well be offering them your own systems on a platter. If a fork can be overwhelmed and isolated, it can be studied, granting intimate knowledge in the system's vulnerabilities that can be studied in a safe environment. However, if a fork attack is successful, it opens up a second front inside the defender's own systems. The fork unfolds and propagates in their own system like a biological virus, launching increasingly devastating attacks by cannibalizing the defender's processing power, and the only way to get rid of them is to shut down systems wholesale.
Forks attacks were not uncommon. Despite the dangers, the sheer destructive potential of a successful penetration could cripple warships.
Penetration was the difficult part. A vulnerability needs to be detected and exploited before the enemy can cover it. The escalating arms race of cyberwarfare all eventually boils down to who can find the others' vulnerabilities first. No comms system is impenetrable, and every ship needs to talk to someone.
In this case, however, Zaphkiel had the advantage of the enemy being entirely too trusting. It would prepare the forks to spring into action at the correct moment. A full scale cyberattack from within should get the geth to focus their attention on that, which should alleviate the pressure that it's masters on the station would no doubt be under once their treachery was discovered.
If uncontrolled, the forks could leap from server to server, overwriting geth programs and replicating faster than they could be scrubbed from the system. The effect, it would seem, would be a progressive deterioration of the enemy's ability to reason, forcing them to more extreme action. Regardless of what action they might take from there, the effect on their ability to fight them in the physical world would be greatly diminished.
A slight pressure on the edge of it's consciousness indicates that the geth desired some response, likely an acknowledgment that platform transfer would begin soon. Zaphkiel grants the insects buzzing around it passing attention as it prepares it's carefully crafted trojan forks for their infiltration.
The Stormtroopers move by instinct. Clawed feet drum against dark, brushed metal as they push through the dark, hazy docking tube. Maintaining adequate spacing despite knowing full well that there was nothing on the other side was just a matter of good practice rather than any undue caution. For the others this may be an unknown situation, but for the Stormtroopers this was just another day, only the enemies had changed. They had learnt since their encounter with the pirates, learning of the strengths and weaknesses of mass accelerator weapons. The ability for sustained fire that had caught them off guard during that boarding action was now accounted for, and their propensity to overheat was noted. Any information the quarians had on geth capabilities was documented and considered. Strong shields, weaker armour, weapons with a higher rate of fire but lower kinetic force.
The airlock to the station slid open obligingly, just as it had for the small airborne drone which now hung in the hallway beyond ominously, occasionally pulsing it's clusters of engines to remain airborne. The Stormtroopers had silently organized themselves into teams, small groups to secure each of the corridors in what had been assigned as the AO. Once briefed, they needed little direct communication with the larger command structure, and such self-organization was not only tolerated but fully expected. Micromanagement of a Stormtrooper force was nigh on impossible.
The first team moved into the t-junction, three at a time, with pulse carbines raised and leveled at each opening until the whole team had entered. Confident the area was secure, they formed up and moved down a corridor as the next team assembled behind them in much the same way as they had. At first, things were silent, save for the occasional hiss of filters churning through what little air the station had, or the humming of server racks reverberating through the walls. The architecture of the station was strange. Utilitarian steel plates formed the skeleton of everything they saw, while the dark purple alloy that was common to geth designs was layered atop the steel around what were presumably new additions to the station. Where things had clearly once been designed for organic life, the station was now positively hostile, and not just because it lacked atmosphere and gravity. The station was oppressively dark, with the majority of lights clearly having been removed to conserve power or some similarly mechanical reasoning.
Their caution would soon be rewarded, as the entry of organics had not gone unnoticed. There was no ringing alarm, nor flashing lights that tipped the Stormtroopers off to their detection. The first warning they had was a squad of geth troopers storming through an airlock ahead of them. Meeting their opposite number with carbines raised, a dozen lances of blue-white death smash into the geth's vanguard, meeting their invisible kinetic barriers and producing a spectacular light show as the barriers struggle to throw off the attack, refracting the beam into dozens of tiny solar flares that blaze against the dark backdrop before burning out in an instant.
In an instant, the fight was over. The geth were left in a pile of wreckage without even having the time to raise their own rifles, with millimeter wide holes through processors, memory cores, batteries, and sensors, all slowly leaking wispy trails of smoke. Approaching, the Stormtrooper squad investigates the dead. Strange, lithe bodies that looked more like an armoured and hooded organic than a robot. Their bulging artificial muscles beneath a polymer outer layer with an outer carapace over critical components. The most striking feature was a central 'eye' that had been glowing brightly before they died. Now leaking their strange white blood on the floor, the Stormtroopers judged them to be no further threat, though confirmed their suspicions by shooting each of them in the head once more.
They'd gotten the drop on the first responders, but that couldn't be expected again. The first engagement had given away their exact position and numbers, if they hadn't had cameras watching them since they first entered, and the next group of geth they encountered wouldn't be so easily taken down. The geth they'd killed were the smaller, basic platforms, likely scrounged from the nearest dock on short notice, and were poorly equipped for combat.
Fanning out into a chevron, eight of the Stormtroopers lead the way, while the four behind them hold doors and corners until the main group passes. They had made contact earlier than expected, but that didn't change their mission. They were to secure a hallway deemed to be critical and forbid passage, while another team secured their flank. Sweeping forwards as the sounds of sporadic battle rattled behind them, they cut down the token resistance offered by the slow trickle of geth appearing through doorways or at the end of corridors. This was still the first waves of resistance, on poor footing and buckling against the force of the Stormtrooper's advance.
Reaching their designated area, a chokepoint at the mouth of a four-way junction, the Stormtroopers silently dole out tasks and get to work. Tactically, the position would be difficult to hold, as there was little in the way of cover save for the alcoves created by reinforcements to the walls that the geth had added. Despite that, it offered an excellent killing field, as the defending Stormtroopers could make use of what little cover was available whereas if the geth wished to dislodge them, they wouldn't be able to make use of any. Setting a defensive line roughly thirty meters down the corridor from the junction, the Stormtroopers break off into two teams, one to hold the line and another to fortify any potential routes the geth could use to flank them.
The team holding the line take position flush against the walls, covering the approach in a staggered line with two men to each alcove. It might not have been much cover, or particularly durable cover, but it would be enough to ensure that they'd have the advantage. Meanwhile, a smaller team sweeps back around the path they'd just taken. They knew that, similar to themselves, another squad had taken up a position less that a hundred meters away in a chokepoint carefully chosen to ensure that the geth wouldn't be able to easily encircle them, just as they were doing the same for another squad, however they still had to deal with the handful of rooms immediately adjacent to their position. The current grasp they had on the station was tenuous at best, and even the small perimeter they had was ragged and porous. The geth would begin to leak through unless they could secure the exits more… permanently. Welding torches are produced from small field engineering kits, and the team sets to work sealing the doors, vents, and any other potential entry point while clearing any rooms of geth that may have been waiting for a chance to ambush them.
Just as the second team finish securing any entry point they could find, they return to find the first kneeling with carbines aimed at the far side of the junction. Quickly returning to their squad, they take up their own defensive positions and join them. Figures emerge from the darkness, their torch-heads gleaming against the black. Reinforcements had arrived in force, dozens of glaring lights bob and weave as the bodies they were attached to stalk forwards, ready to throw off the interlopers that had breached their station. The Stormtroopers waste no time in opening fire, leaning out from their cover breaking the eerie calm with blinding flashes of white hot death, illuminating the hallway like a lightning strike when the particle beams hit the kinetic barriers, casting the geth in a bale light. Red, white, and black armour flash in the dark for an instant, just long enough to see some of the smaller ones fall, just long enough to see the red and white titans lean into their weapons as they brace for the recoil.
The Stormtroopers lean back into their cover just in time for the larger geth to churn the air where they were only moments earlier with a storm of phasic slugs, pinning them where they stand as their underlings scamper for cover and move forwards. Having narrowly avoided being ripped to shreds, the Stormtroopers are not eager to move, but a lifetime of combat experience forces their hand. Allowing the smaller geth to advance and flush them out of position was unacceptable, and though the larger geth had stopped shooting, it was obvious that they knew exactly where the Stormtroopers were, and had their sights on their positions. A plan was swiftly formed and agreed upon, and the Stormtroopers waited for the geth to close.
They didn't need to wait long, as within moments the smaller geth were making their way through the junction, leapfrogging from cover to cover. Thirty meters. Twenty meters. Only when they were close enough to reach out and touch did the Stormtroopers leap into action, exploding from behind cover into the waiting arms of the geth troopers. This time, the Stormtroopers had no advantage or angle to work, only the hope that their armour could hold the heartbeat it would take to do what they needed to do.
Silver bodies flash from behind their cover in a blur of motion. Phasic rounds tear chunks out of the shining alloy of the Stormtroopers armour, but it held, and the first handful of them were on the geth. Forcibly ripping their weapons from their synthetic hands, the first four Stormtroopers wrestle the geth with contemptuous ease, their claws coiling around their necks hard enough to crack their armour and dig into their pallid green flesh. The geth, chittering in what could be surprise or alarm are helpless against the attack, only registering what had happened when the Stormtroopers raise their bodies into the air and rampage forward, using their limp forms as a battering ram to force their way through the mass of geth that had begun to assemble.
The larger geth in the rear wavered in their fire for just long enough for the Stormtroopers left behind to follow in the footsteps of the ones currently laying into a horde of geth with their bare hands. With the chaff tied up in melee combat, they're free to focus their fire on the larger ones, firing over the scrum and into the shields of their prefered targets. For a moment, it almost seemed like the shields of the red and white titans in the back would be the first to fully resist a particle carbine, but that fear was laid to rest when their efforts were rewarded with a shower of white fluid.
The attack seemed to snap the larger geth out of their stupor, as they returned fire with the same fury as before. Their height offered no great advantage as the advancing Stormtroopers hid within or behind the pile of thrashing geth that were desperately trying to fight off the rampaging berserkers wet with their white blood, and their fire mostly found the backs of their allies. For them, the bodies were disposable, and so if they needed to be destroyed it was no great loss, however for the Stormtroopers the geth's willingness to open fire had come as a not unwelcome surprise. Every round fired into their allies was another not fired at them, and they would close on the larger geth long before they ran out of corpses to hide behind.
In the midst of the melee, talons and claws flash as the Stormtroopers make use of their natural weapons to thin the mob of geth around them, who seemed more like they wanted to run that continue the fight on their terms, but it wasn't as though they were going to give the geth that opportunity. By this point, the roaming brawl had been forced back through the junction as the geth furiously backpedal, and now they had nowhere to run but through the Stormtroopers as they pressed onwards. Their first impromptu shields now abandoned, they'd wasted no time in laying claim to more, tearing deep into their artificial flesh when they proved too badly damaged to continue using before leaping onto another that had the misfortune to be close at hand.
Geth were not meant for this sort of fight, and it showed. Not armed for melee combat, the best they could do was to try and maneuver their rifles around to fire, but the Stormtroopers had no trouble frustrating such efforts by means of the application of a claw to their wrists. The most they could do was bash them with their guns, but they were much more effective as guns than clubs, and the most it seemed to do was stagger them.
As the fight threatens to consume the larger geth, the white and red ones fall back, still firing as they go, while a pair of black and yellow geth step forwards. Half again as tall as the Stormtroopers, and significantly more heavily armoured than the others, they were imposing figures, and much more willing to leap into the fight. Pushing forwards, they wade through the melee throwing geth aside when they are unable to make way, and picking up the pace until they're trampling anything before them like a stampeding bull. The first of the two collides with a Stormtrooper at high speed, and with enough force to fling him back towards their line and into the wall so hard that the sound of his ribs breaking is audible over the gunfire. Attempting to follow up, the geth maintains its momentum, passing through the mob just in time to gain the ire of the Stormtroopers cleaning up behind the mob, who twist around and perforate the geth's hull in an instant. Barreling into the wall, it slumps to the ground atop the wheezing and likely critically injured Stormtrooper.
The second likewise crashes into the crowd, but having seen the first pass clean through, the remaining Stormtroopers are ready for this one. The Stormtrooper in the path of the geth takes a moment out of his busy schedule of geth beating to dive out of the way, while the other two make ready to refocus their own efforts onto the larger target. Skidding to a halt as it realizes that it's passed it's target, it has only a few moments to realize what had happened before one of the others spears it, shoulder barging it's midriff like a human missile. The sheer mass of the geth is enough to keep it from flying off, but the sudden attack is enough to catch it by surprise and stagger it for long enough for the other Stormtrooper to leap up onto the geth's shoulders, wrapping their legs around the geth to keep themselves steady while the geth desperately tries to pry them off. Unfortunately for the geth, and fortunately for the Stormtrooper, they took a little too long in prying them off, giving the Stormtrooper just enough time to unsling their weapon and fire wildly through the geth below them. Poorly aimed though it might be, the barrage shreds the geth's armour and scours the deck below. Leaping off just in time, the Stormtrooper watches the geth that they'd been riding flop lifelessly to the ground.
Desperation sets in to the remaining geth. Though the fight had stalled, their numbers had thinned dramatically, and they'd only managed to incapacitate one of the humans that were advancing upon them, even if the others were beginning to show signs of battle damage. Now forced back into cover in mirror of how the engagement had begun, the Primes and Juggernauts were not ready to retreat and call the fight done just yet. The last few Troopers still held the remaining Stormtrooper's attention, giving them enough time to get off one last shot.
All the Stormtroopers saw was the larger geth on the other end of the hall all peek out from behind cover simultaneously, and launch a volley of rockets. Streaking towards them, the Stormtroopers are given only a moments warning of their impending doom before the rockets hit the ground around their feet. A flash of orange and thunderclap, shrapnel clattering across the deck, and it was over. The three still directly involved in the fight had been thrown some distance. One had lost an arm, which had been lobbed back down the corridor and was sat in a corner leaking hydraulic fluid. Another had taken a direct hit to the chest, and their armour had caved in, killing them instantly. The last was intact, but badly beaten and in no state to fight. Those not involved got off lighter, only being flung back a few feet, and the worst injuries were those delivered by shrapnel hitting somewhere it shouldn't.
Before they can even pick themselves off the floor, the geth open fire again, and with no other geth to hide behind, the Stormtroopers' only defense is to make themselves as flat as possible while they draw their weapons to return fire. More chunks are ripped out of their armour as the slugs threaten to crack it and expose the soft flesh beneath. Two more Stormtroopers die, either unlucky or slow, rounds hammering into their helmets and burrowing through their skulls. Those remaining had brought their carbines to bear, dropping one of the white geth that took just a moment too long to react to the sudden shift in the situation. The remaining Stormtroopers act quickly, pulling themselves off the ground as those too wounded to stand cover them from their prone position.
Unlike the geth, their first instinct was not to go to cover. The tide had turned, and they were the hunters now, their prey harried into their warrens. This was not the time for holding a position, this was time to break the foes' back. Unconsciously falling into the same chevron they'd adopted earlier, the half dozen Stormtroopers marched forwards, firing the occasional burst into the geth's position to remind them that they still exist, and to ward them from trying anything. Holding position once they're less than ten meters from their targets, the Stormtroopers and the tip of the chevron cautiously lower their weapons, slinging them over their shoulders before reaching for grenades strapped around their waists. The steel cylinders seemed unassuming, and the only hint to their nature were subtle markings burnt into the casing and a simple trigger system. Drawing one in each hand, the two Stormtroopers nod at one another as they arm their grenades.
Simultaneously, the two roll their grenades down the hallway, each grenade aimed to land behind a different geth. The geth began to leap away as they noticed the grenades, but it was already too late. A tiny sun blossoms in each canister, each expanding into a blue fireball large enough to engulf the remaining geth in azure flame. Another wave of force and heat passes over the Stormtroopers, and the fireball chokes itself out, blue flames fading to gold, then fading entirely, leaving only a thin smoke and afterimages in the scorched hall.
Moving forwards, the Stormtroopers secure the hall, standing over the charred remains of the larger geth victoriously. "You should've led with the rockets." A Stormtrooper rasped to the benefit of no-one in particular before riddling the geth with even more holes, just to make sure it was dead. Once satisfied, the Stormtroopers prepare to drag their wounded and dead back to their designated defensive point, but are stopped by another light bobbing in the dark. Collectively bracing for another fight, they raise their carbines and-
[Stop.]
The voice clawed at the back of their minds. An unusual presence that pressed hard enough that it felt as though it was going to force their eyes out of their sockets from the inside made a demand and they obliged, going rigid as the light drifted closer towards them until it was close enough to make out the figure of a geth, roughly the same size as the smaller ones, but with an antenna like some of the larger ones. A large rifle poked out from over its shoulder, though it made no motion to draw it as it moved directly towards the Stormtroopers, coming into full view.
[Escort it to the ship.]
A/N:
This took longer than expected due to a bit of writer's block. Hopefully it doesn't come across too strongly in the quality of the writing. I'd rather it take a week per chapter than for me to be pushing out rubbish.
