Coruscant, Collor Officer candidate School. February 4th, 2335
"Good morning officers of the Imperial army, today's briefing will encompass the enemies with which we face war multiple fonts. It is paramount, to both you, and your command that you are able to currently identify the forces you face in the field today. Please direct your attention to the screens around you for your first introduction."
Around the assembled two hundred officers, the first image of a purple-skinned four jawed alien appeared in grey colored armor. The picture had been taken mid-fight, the alien in question firing a round from its weapon toward a group of Auxilia who had all been taken out by this single creature.
"Before you is an Uish warrior, an alien race located to the galactic south, three years ago in their hay day they controlled close to a hundred worlds before they came into contact with the Empire. Now, three years later and after having brashly declared war on what they deemed, a lesser species, they have fallen back to less than twelve worlds. Untold billions of their kind have died under the withering of orbital bombardment, ground invasion by the legions, and the unlimited numbers of Auxilia we have thrown at them. Their days of power are gone, their fleets almost non-existent, they now rely on time and space to continue their meager existence. HIGHCOM has put their people on the back burner for now, sending few troops to harass what is left of their people so as to keep them on their toes."
The image of the Uish warrior disappeared, in its place a black colored body of a machine standing on top of a deserted Imperial walker replaced it. At its feet, the officers could make out the uniform of an Auxlila, rushed beneath the clawed toes of the machine.
"On to more pressing threats, this is a T45 main ground unit. Humanoid in shape it is an artificial intelligence gone haywire that is now determined to eliminate all organic existence. Their numbers are endless in scope, their fleets so large and massive they are known to sometimes challenge even the Imperial navy. The T45s are a race that came onto the galactic scene two years ago. The ISB believes they were the creation of an unknown Xenos empire before they rebelled against their creators and killed them off, to the man. We have no recorded interaction with any alien within the sector they have come from.
The models of these machines differ as well, from light armor to the heaviest of siege weaponry, they are able to bring a variety of units to the field to counter any Imperial assault. Take note officers, many of you will be deployed against the T45s as your units are assembled and sent off. These battles are no small feat either, millions have already perished as they have held back the robotic tide. Entire worlds, Imperial worlds, have burned under the fires of these detestable machines. I will be expected of you to turn the tide alongside the legions, for every Imperial servant must ensure the safety of our people in these trying times.
The T45s now as you can see on this galactic map, occupy half of the former Uish worlds. These worlds, once home to billions were conquered and their populations destroyed. The war we fought with the Uish was easy for this reason, they were not expanding, they were running, running from this machine intelligence hell-bent on their destruction. The T45s stand as the second-largest threat to the Empire's southern interest. Dozens of fleets and hundreds of armies have been sent already, you will be joining them soon. Just to give you an idea of what this war will be like, here is a video sent to us from the five hundred and eighty-eighth Vakan Infantry Regiment."
The presenter clicked play on the helmet cam footage. The first scene was of the wearer putting on his Kevlar helmet before taking a wide pan view of the area around him. They were in a trench, dozens of other soldiers looking over the edge of it toward a battlefield of mud, wrecked vehicles, and barbed wire which stretched to the edge of the frame. An officer was going down the line, his eyes focused on his Omni tool as the shifting map of unit markers denoted the oncoming foe.
"Soldiers of Vakan! Today we show these detestable Xenos what it truly means to be a warrior! Today, we show them-"
His words were cut off as a blade was driven through his back, through the armor plates he wore on either side of his body, and out the front. The wicked curved blade dripped blood as the body rose as the attacker lifted the officer bodily into the air before throwing the corpse to the side of the trench. The soldiers stared, unbelieving what they had just witnessed before the attacker's active camouflage burned out and just what it became clear.
"Contact! In the trenches, in the trenches!"
Where one came into view, two-three more appeared out of thin air. The soldiers opened fire with everything they had, E-11s, grenades, squad automatic weapons, all of it focused on the decloaking attackers as they whipped blades into the defending Imperial soldiers. The helmet cam owner was busy laying into a bot by himself, his rounds melting the abomination before his eyes as its form shuddered under his withering fire. After twenty rounds it finally ceased any movement and just as it died another took its place. The last image transmitted was of two blades being rammed into the soldier's chest, before he was pulled upward and face to face with his attacker. It was an ugly thing, the T45 melee model, a face of metal vaguely in the shape of its long-dead creatures, its single optical lens was the color of blood as it killed the cameraman. The feed ended there as the presenter switched away from the video.
"This is one of many, gentlemen, our war is hard but the Empire shall prevail."
He flipped to the next slide with a symbol many in the room knew to appear with several snorts, grunts, and calls of anger.
"As I can see, many of you are already aware of this enemy. Though long defeated in the last war, the citadel councils flight into the unknown only allowed their kind to gather, prepare, and act in a new role they were unaccustomed to. The army of freedom, the moniker for those forces still loyal to the citadel council has been tick in the back of the Empire since the end of the last war. No doubt, their resources are endless with the amount of equipment and munitions held over from that time, it is the people, the manpower which keeps them alive. Those still willing to fight and die for a government long gone, it is their numbers we must defeat in this new war.
ISB intel assets put them at twenty million across the entire milky way galaxy, with at least a thousand ships of varying classes acting as their de facto navy. Planets are few and far between, with the AOF not staying too long for fear of an Imperial battlegroup being not far away. In the last three years, we as a whole have found three of these planets, backwaters all it did not take long for them to fall to guns of the navy and those legions tasked with finding them. But we cannot act with indifference toward their powers, for they are still a threat to be categorized and defeated before they can become something more. In the last three years, the AOF has been responsible for one point three million Imperial casualties, too including seven-star destroyers and thirteen troop transports. They are not a threat to be looked over, they are still deadly and dangerous on the battlefields of today. Rumor has it that one of their heroes, Commander john Shepard, Alliance navy has resurfaced but we have no evidence at this time.
Moving on, we come back to our own galaxy where a new, organic threat has come onto the horizon and has just been dealt with, peacefully. The Mind, a hive-minded race of Arachnids, they stand at eight feet tall with four legs and two very largemouths. Although be aware their forms can change based on the threats and environment they are in. This race of intelligent bugs were discovered after contact was lost with the planet known as Tix Prime, an industrial world to the galactic northeast. Within the span of a single week, this mind was able to completely eradicate all organic life and quite literally eat it. Thirteen billion people died there before an Imperial fleet was sent to deal with these invaders.
Two months of heavy combat on both the surface and in space followed before the organic ships of the mind retreated back to the dark reaches of the northeastern disc. The Empire was then contacted by this mind for a negotiation, and a peace was settled. But we all know peace does not and will never last, so we prepare, armies and troops have already been sent with more on the way, all in preparation for when the mind determines the time is right."
"Captain!?"
"Yes!"
"How many ships and troops were lost retaking the planet?"
"Let me see."
The presenter went off into his Omni tool for a moment, careful to not allow his facial movements to give away what he had found.
"So, five million auxilia and fifty thousand legionaries were lost retaking the world. Twelve ships of the Imperial navy, all victory class star destroyers were also lost, bring the grand total to five point one million."
You could hear a pin drop, one planet, and that many resources. Anymore and entire sector fleet would have been sent, truly this mind was dangerous.
"Alright, onto what were all here for, what we're all afraid of, and why we fight to keep back the darkness."
The holo projectors switched from the arachnids of the mind to something gut-wrenching, something so vile many of the officers assembled had to look away from something so despicable.
"Here we see the most dangerous we have ever faced, for it is the most dangerous thing in the galaxy in unparalleled savagery, ourselves. For the workings of the Shroud, of the hellscape which had burned a hundred worlds does not care for race, creed, or religion, it only cares for willing bodies that are able to fulfill its goals of destruction. In no other time in our history, not even the machine uprising of two hundred years ago, did we face an enemy so capable. For the soldiers of the shroud are us, former Imperials turned traitors who know our tactics, use our weapons, and fight so fanatically they are suicidal."
The picture presented on the screen was a former Imperial soldier, his gear and weapons defiled by the signs and signals the followers of the shroud carried everywhere he was smiling into the camera with delight. This would not have been bad, not more so than any other picture of a soldier of the shroud, if he hadn't been holding up the head of a clone trooper right over its former beheaded body.
"The ISB does not know how many nations have fallen to the sway of the shroud, they only know it is more than fifteen. Fifteen different races, once self-directed, have fallen to this hell dimension of demons and monsters and we, as the protectors of this empire, will not follow in their footsteps. What you see before is a traitor of the highest order, a being to be shot and thrown away, nothing more.
Not the machines of the T45s, not the sputters of the Uish, and most certainly not the misdirected ire of a lost government, no, the most dangerous thing in the two galaxies are those that can turn our own against us. Those of you who are to be sent to the front where the keepers of the shroud are currency being fought, I thank you, for you are the frontline with which those dark beings are held back. This concludes this briefing on the threats to the Empire, may you spread our grasp to the stars.
Omega, February 4th, 2335. 334th Adri Auxilia.
Leave had of course been canceled following the attack on afterlife. In little under an hour following the attack, every soldier on the station had been recalled to marshaling points, put in gear, and told to prepare for a fight. Garrus had been lost in thought for the past day now, lost in seeing his once best friend and brother point a weapon at his head and prepare to fire. He just couldn't deal with it, after having heard Ash tell him how she had shot him in the head, to see him again was, he was speechless. How much anger, and hatred he had shown him, how much poison laced every word he spoke, how could the man he had come to call friend have turned into that. How could he, the one who had hunted Saren to the ends of the galaxy ordered that massacre!
He was hyperventilating again, so many friends, so many comrades, had been killed by Shepards men. Clones, nonhumans, all of them he had serviced with for years, gone due to the acts of someone he had thought he had known. All of them just gone, he had cried the night after, grieving for the people he had fought and bled with through so many battles, only to be killed at a nightclub on leave.
The ramifications of the attack had been felt across the entire station, where peace and prosperity had become the norm for the past three years, it had all been shattered last night. One hundred and three Imperial soldiers form two units, all dead. It was enough for the local administration to commence martial law, the police were now in the streets in force, alien sectors and Hab block were on lockdown, and the army had been called in. So now Garrus, his platoon and his entire legion now surrounded a HAb block designated by the local authors as having possibly harbored some of the local resistance.
They were to go door to door, room to room, and find anything and anyone who could be linked to either the rebels or the AOF. Ashley's regiment was one block over, doing the exact same thing to the same type of people. This hab block was mostly miners, hard-working people who just wanted to do their job and not be bothered by the Imperial authorities. But among them were the bad apples, the rebels who made it clear they wanted a war and they wanted it here. People would die today, civilians would die today, and it was all thanks to them. Thousands of soldiers surrounded the block with dozens of armored vehicles patrolling around the encircled peoples. Tracked vehicles shook the ground itself as they patrolled the outskirts of the Hab block, dutifully reminding ghettos inside just what the Empire was willing to do to secure peace. The call would be soon, the operation would begin and people would die, thanks to Shepard.
"All three thirty-fourth assets, commence raid, say again commence raid. Platoon leads radio in if enemy assets are discovered, over."
So this was it.
"You heard him! First squad up!"
His platoon was already in position, breaching gear ready first squad hit the first floor hard and fast. All along the building platoons reenacted the same maneuvers, bursting through the door to peoples home, zip-tying them and then throwing them to the floor and then rummaging through every belonging they had. It was embarrassing to Garrus, to be seen doing such a thing, thankfully his helmet polarized, thankfully they couldn't see his face. He knew he could not, would not match their stares of hate.
He was walking down the central hallway, his squads breaching the rooms on either side of him as they began the grueling task of hitting every home on the way. There were screams as people who had never seen a soldier before locked eyes with the barrel of a gun, others who spewed words of hate for the invaders, calling them every name in the world as they were thrown to the ground. All of them non humans, all of them poor, angry miners who just wanted to be left alone.
Garrus entered behind the third squad as they breached another room, the occupants, two Asari, had been standing behind the door waiting when the soldiers entered.
"Get the fuck down, I said get the fuck down!"
Two stunned to move the Asari were thrown to the ground before a Batarian applied the zip cuffs to their hands. They cried out as he pulled them tight, to be sure they didn't not escape as the troops went about rummaging through the small apartment. Both of the Asari were crying as their livelihood was thrown onto the floor in front of them, from the back there was a shout as somebody discovered something.
"Get the fuck out here, I said get the fuck out here now!"
A wheezing type of breathing was heard before a muffled scream and a flying Volus was suddenly thrown from a back room. The small ball-like creature impacted just beside the two Asari and through its respirator came muffled shouts.
"You can't WHEEZE be doing this WHEEZE where Imperial citizens!"
Garrus had never liked the Volus, not even during his CSEC days, but seeing this one have its home torn apart before him was terrible to say the least.
"Sir, stay down as ordered. There have been rebels reported in this sector and we are searching for any link to them, remain calm and stay down. Squad leader report!"
The Turian Sergeant came out of the backroom.
"Nothing found sir, were good to move on."
"Alright cut these three, we're moving out."
As the Turian sergeant went to cut the bindings an explosion sounded off from down the hall and squad twos NCO came screaming over the net.
"Rebels in room one oh one, four contacts, engaging!"
Gunfire ripped through the Hab floor as garrus filed out of the room and into the hallway. Just two apartments over, three Auxilia were firing into a door frame into an unseen enemy. Yellow tracers returned from inside as an Auxilia tossed a frag grenade in, the soldier took cover out of the doorframe just as the whump of the charge went off, silencing the return fire.
"Breach!"
Three went with weapons already firing, Garrus wasn't far behind bursting through the door frame weapon already drawn. His first sight was of a Turian, female, choking on dust she was picking herself up from behind a couch when she looked toward the door in terror. Her eyes locked with his and then looked to the floor, their a Asari made shotgun was just within reach. Three bodies were already on the floor, half a squad KIA while the three who had already burst in were to his right and left fighting two other Turians in hand to hand combat. She lunged and he fired, the red bolt from his E-11 impacted her shoulder, throwing her body away front he weapon she screamed as he rammed the butt of his E-11 into her face.
"You traitor, may the spirits shame you!"
He didn't let her speak anymore, ramming his buttstock into her face again and again he smashed until nothing but blood and gore remained. With one last yell of anger, hate, and the memories of Shepard still in his mind, he caved in her skull with one last plunge of his weapon. Rising from his crouch, he noted the amount of Turian blood now coating his armor, and how it was dripping off his frame. He looked over his weapon to see that a new dent had embedded itself within its stock, great. Looking around is when he stopped, everyone in the room, his squad, the new rebel prisoners, all of them were staring at what he, a Turian, had just done.
"What the fuck are all of you looking at, call in to control and report the prisoners, we have sectors to clear, move out!"
That broke off any questioning of his acts, only rogers and compliance. Two Turians prisoners were escorted out with vacant looks in their eyes as they looked to their now dead friend, Garrus met each of them, his faceplate shielding himself from the two terrorists in his eyes.
"Control this is Metal six, two POW's inbound to holding cell.."
Shepard.
Looking out the view screen of the ship as it took off from the docks he sighed deeply as another fireball went off somewhere in the alien district. He was the reason for this, all of it, and he just fucking watched. He had ordered the massacre, he had attacked his former best friend, he had been the one to not say anything when that terrorist jack said she had a bomb. It was all his fault and he just sat here, and watched. Three LAATs were orbiting overhead, lines of green fire leapt out once in a while, probably cutting some would-be rebel in half. He'd seen the convoys disembark from the assault ship at the docks, the long lines of track vehicles carrying legions worth of troops toward the only place they could let out their anger, the alien district. Funny enough they had used auxilia, aliens themselves, to beat down the aliens. Crazy, that was the word for it, ever since he had first talked to Anderson all that time ago about Adri Prime going silent the entire galaxy had gone fucking crazy.
"Shepard, there you are."
Miranda, great. The AOF intel officer approached beside him and watched as another fireball blew up in a different area of the HAB blocks this time.
"Jack is carrying out her side of the deal I see."
Jack, the terrorist, yeah.
"So this is what you wanted then, Omega to burn, you knew this was going to happen, you knew the Empire would clamp down."
"Yes, and it would be a symbol of defiance across the entire galaxy. A symbol that some still fought back, resisted the Empire as they pushed others into submission. What you see before is being recorded and sent to every extranet server in the galaxy. The council knows what they're doing Shepard, don't question them."
That rubbed him the wrong way.
"And why the hell not, where is the council anyway, what haven't I met them yet?"
"All in due time Shepard, all in due time, for now we're leaving Omega due to well, you."
"Me?"
"Confronting your former teammates has created quite the show on the extranet, one billion hits and counting already."
She showed him her omni tool, the vid had been taken from the second story of the afterlife nightclub. There he was, rushing to meet his once friends in the middle of a massacre, men and women fell left and right, unarmed, as they were gunned down by his men. It zoomed in as he confronted both Garrus and Ashley, their faces taking up the screen as they realized just who it was. The vid captured every emotion across both theirs and his face, the spittle which flew from his mouth, the pure anger cast over his face. All of it, recorded for his viewing pleasure.
"How, who the hell recorded that!"
"Don't know, but their camera skills are impeccable."
Shepard was too angry to note her smile and took to watching as yet another group of LAAT's joined the others.
"Now what the hell…"
His words ended as the doors opened on either side of the craft and began dropping canisters in the center of the district. White and yellow smoke drifted off of them as they fell from the skies and landed among the alien district, Shepard had an idea, a terrible idea, but an idea of just what it was.
"They wouldn't seep that low, they just sent in the fucking army."
"Were getting traffic from the Imperial net, confirmed usage of Gas by the army, all units are holding in their respective sectors. They're going to use the gas to drive the rebels out."
"What kind of gas.."
"I think you know Shepard."
One act, and the entire place went up in flames of war. An act he had committed, to start the fires of revolution and this is what it earned, civilians choking on their own fluids, children dying to choking agents.
"Were leaving Omega, orders from AOF high command are to meet with the third fleet and prepare for our next mission."
"Fleet?"
"Yes, the remnants of the former Citadel navies, the third is known for housing the last Asari dreadnoughts. Good commanders all around, they have fought a delaying action with the empire for years now and gotten quite a few kills under their belts. Nothing larger than a star destroyer, they've been responsible for killing over thirty imperial vessels. We will be rendezvousing with them in the chalka sector before we move on to an outlying star, where we have been sent to meet with a people not seen since before the war."
Unseen since before the war?
"Who would that be?"
Miranda pulled up a picture on her onmi tool and showed Shepard some type of four-eyed bug thing with brown skin.
"What the hell is that?"
"A collector."
Ashley.
She hasn't stopped crying her eyes out, not since she had first seen the LAATs fly overhead and drop their deadly cargo, and not since she saw the first victim of those weapons. Her regiment had been sent in twenty minutes after the gas in full protective gear, mask, suits, gloves, everything to protect them from whatever the hell it was the army had just dropped. Her company had been the most forward element as they breached the former rebel lines, where just twenty minutes ago they had been under heavy fire from all manner of weapons, now there was nothing but silence. The silence of the dead, their bodies laid over their weapons, bunkers, and fighting positions.
She;d been speaking to her battalion commander, his voice informing her of her new orders when her foot smashed something beneath her boots. She slipped on something liquid and fell, her hands catching her as she fell face-first into a corpse. It was Asari, or a former Asari now judging by the lesions and boils which covered its skin from head to toe. Its head popped had been peeled back like the skin of a grape, exploring the skull underneath its head poured out a fine yellow liquid which was busy dissolving the skin and bone right before her eyes.
Of course, she screamed, pulling herself up as quickly as possible. She began sliding any and all contamination she could off herself as she saw the forer Asari turn to paste. Her troops had asked if she was ok and of course she responded with yes, but deep down, in her thoughts, she was fucking terrified. Not even the Geth, the reapers, or anyone else she had ever fought or seen had used chemical weapons which literally ate living tissue. This was disgusting, evil incarnate, and here she was to clean up what was left of this mess.
"All Sierra elements, report any living over, command wants POWs for interrogation over."
POWs, in this, please. Everyone was dead, no survivors, and this entire block would forever carry the stink of the dead. So, silently beneath her mask, Ash cried, she cried for the reason this had all begun, why the revolution had been sparked, she cried for Shepard. She still couldn't get over his return, how real he looked, how he was him. Her former commanding officer, in the flesh, had returned and he had tried to kill her. No doubt she had it coming, considering she had shot him in the face but it had been survival, him or her, and she was not willing to die. Three years of thinking he had been dead, only for him to return.
"COC, possible POWs in section three alpha, requesting command presence."
That was her que.
"Rog COC on the way, TOT two minutes."
First platoon had found something and if it needed her their then it was something important. Making her way through blocks of dead, bunkers, and decaying corpses, she ascended two stairways before coming to the center of the entire Hab block. Here was where the ISB had concluded the center of defiance would be, where enemy leadership would have resided. The amount of dead fighters climbed with every step, the equipment becoming more professional, the armor getting more and more expensive as she came closer to the rebel command center.
In the center of the hall was a massive pile of sandbags surrounding the center of the hab. Around it were at least a hundred bodies in various states of decay, with every race possibly represented among the dead save for Quarians and Volus. Her men, Imperial soldiers in full protective gear, were busy surrounding a blue bubble of all things with weapons drawn. There she could hear her LT yelling orders to someone who was not responding. She was making her way through the ring of soldiers as she began to hear his voice.
"Now listen here you bald fuck, drop the shield or were just going to let you choke to death like the rest of your kind, you fucking hear me!"
Passing through into the center, she took in the scene before her with a razed brow. It was a massive mass effect field created by a powerful biotic directly in the center of it all. She was bald, wearing almost nothing, and sporting a face of pain as she continued to hold the shield around them. Beside her were two dozen civilians and other military personnel. Rebels then, all of them around and armed they had their weapons raised on the Imperials who surrounded their protective shield.
"Did you not hear me rebel, I said-"
"That's enough lieutenant"
The lieutenant reared back toward the speaker and upon seeing her dual captains bars nodded before falling back. This was to be her show, the ISB wanted prisoners and she would send them. She counted the human controlling the shield, eight batarians, four Asari, seven Turians, three Volus, and a Quarian hiding behind a Krogan in the center. All of them looked scared out of their minds and all of them pointed all manner of weapons at her.
"I am Captain Ashley Williams, Nine seventy-fifth Coruscant Regiment, who is in command here?"
The rebels all looked out for each other, before all looking toward the human woman holding the shield together. Through gritted teeth, the woman spoke as blood slowly began to slide out of her nose.
"I AM!"
Internally Ashley activated her omni tool and began recording live for the ISB nerds who were no doubt zeroing in on her location.
"Good then, as an officer I request your surrender so no one else has to die today."
She laughed, she laughed as if it was a joke before redoubling her efforts in holding the shield.
"You Imperials think you've won, taken our homes from us! Well, FUCK YOU!"
The shield exploded outwards in a flash of biotic power, sweeping the Imperials away as it expanded outwards and covered the entire room. With a sound of hissing, it burned away the corruption that the chemical weapons were as it finished itself on the doors and walls of the commons. Ashley was thrown bodily more than ten feet, coming to a stop atop a corpse of decay as she recovered as quickly as she could. Already the rebels were firing, and the biotic was making short work of her men.
"Fuck you! I'm the psychotic biotic for a reason bitch!"
With one hand she gripped the throat of an Imperial soldier, with the other she sent a throw at a fireteam.
"Freedom! Death to the Empire!"
She said as she pulled a knife and shoved it between the plate of the soldier's armor, and the soft flesh underneath. He cried out, his respirator adding a sharpness to his screams as she disemboweled the man before throwing him away like a plaything. Ash decided at that second, as she watched the soldier's body smack into the ground and spill his intestines onto the floor, that she was going to personally kill this bitch.
"Men, kill them all!"
She screamed into the net as she opened fire on full auto into the remnants of the once boastful rebellion. With only meters separating the two sides it was not going to take long, this would be a short, bloody fight, between a platoon of the Imperial army and the last holdouts of a so-called rebellion. Red laser fire was traded with all manner of colored tracers, fist, knives, and buttstocks were traded as the two sides met up close. The Krogan bull-rushed an entire squad, smashing them to bits as his plates were scorched, killing the last as he finally fell, his body smoking as it hit the ground.
An Asari was blown limb from limb as multiple blasts hit her torso, a Batarian went down with a single shot to his four-eyed face, two turians died holding each other, and in it all the bitch still lived. She was in the center of it all, watching as her men dwindled before her eyes in seconds, yes, Ash was going to get her chance. Putting her crosshairs on the bald bitches head, she watched as those mascara covered eyes suddenly turned to her and zeroed in full of hatred.
"Your mine whore!"
Ash had just pulled the trigger, sending two shots at the biotic when suddenly she was gone, and in the next second right in front of her. A biotic charge, Ash should have seen it coming, the terrorist was right in her face pushing her barrel away in a second. Ash dropped the E-11, going for her fist as the baldy went for a slash with a crude shiv. The blade slashed across Ash's forearm, drawing blood from her right arm, Ash recoiled with the left and sending a blinding punch across the woman's jaw. With a snap, the rebels head snapped to the side in pain, as she began rippling with biotic power. Ash had to act fast, or she was going to die to this bitch. So with all her weight behind her feet, she tackled the biotic human.
The tendrils of power stopped, their heat covered flames ceasing as the biotic was thrown into the ground. Using her helmet, she began to slam her NVG mount into the rebels face, each smack earning a scream of pain as her face went from a dirt-covered grime to a bloody mess with each successive schwack. After the fourth hit Ash stopped, the rebel's face was like hamburger, dent visible from where the metal mount had made their impact. The jaws, cheekbones, and none were all visibly broken, and the rebel was crying through blackened eyes, she would not be getting back up.
Pushing herself off the ground, using the body of the rebel as a support, she rose to find her men having already dealt with the rest. Two Turians, an Asari, and a single Quarian sat quivering in fear as the Imperial soldiers cuffed their hands and prepared them for the ISB. She counted eight green camouflage Imperials among the dead, too goddamn many.