Shuttle on the way to Shanxi.
Shepard woke up and stretched. He had the pilot to wake him an hour before the shuttle dropped out of FTL. There was still plenty of time to finish final preparations. He had learned a long time ago to get the sleep he could before entering combat. The first thing he did was go to the tiny restroom the shuttle had. Since they had to be in FTL for about a day a shuttle with a restroom was given to them.
Coming out he started to check his equipment. Weapons, grenades, explosives, parachute, knife, water, and food in the form of high calorie bars. He was happy that technology has progressed enough to make ammo a nonissue, he had enough stuff to carry. The others Anderson, Alekseenko, Hao were doing the same. Anand was flying but Hao would take over for the last thirty minutes to let Anand get ready.
While Shepard was double checking his rifle, Alekseenko turned and said, "Can I ask you a personal question Shepard?"
Shepard was fairly certain he knew what the question was going to be, Alekseenko held off asking personal questions at lunch and most people ask that question as soon as possible. "Yes, but I reserve the right not to answer." Some questions he preferred to leave unanswered, and some others deserved to be left unanswered.
"How old are you really?"
That it was, the most common question he was asked. "If I knew for certain I would tell you, my parents didn't exactly have a calendar. My best guess is that I was born sometime around the winter solstice at 1010 AD, give or take a couple years."
Alekseenko whistled softly then he got a puzzled look on his face. "Wait the solstice? isn't that around Christmas?"
"It wasn't the Christmas to my parents, they were pagan."
"Pagan!?" exclaimed Alekseenko looking as if his jaw spontaneously dislocated. The he regained his composure "So there is no way your name is John Shepard."
"John Shepard is my name; I do not answer to others. The person the original name denoted has been gone for a millennium. No, I will not tell you what it was." Shepard spoke softly but emphasized the last sentence. He liked the kid, but only close friends got to hear that story. It was one of the many Shepard was not proud of.
Wisely letting the matter drop Alekseenko shifted topis. "So where were you born?"
"Again, can't give you an exact answer but to the best of my reckoning somewhere near the Volga river east of Tver."
That answer clearly surprised Alekseenko almost as much as the fact that Shepard's parents were pagan if his face was anything to go by. "If that is true how did you get the name John Shepard?"
"That's a thousand-year story, and if we win this war, I may just tell it to you." As he said this Shepard noticed Hao was listening intently to the conversation and had a puzzled look on his face. "Something on your mind Hao?"
Hao seemed to consider a bit; Shepard understood why. Talking to someone as old as he was a bit like walking in a minefield. Say the wrong thing and you might get an earful about an old man's old grudges. Eventually Hao said "Please don't take this the wrong way I am genuinely curious. But why are you here? You are a very rich man, why not do anything else?"
It was a perfectly reasonable question, the answer to which left most people unsatisfied. "I needed a change of pace. I spent well over a century amassing an ever-increasing amount of wealth and eventually I got tired of that. So, I hired a CEO to run the company for me and retired. I nearly went crazy and eventually I decided to unretire. I didn't want to go back into business and no other career really appealed to me, so I went to do the thing I am best at."
Hao seemed perplexed by that answer. "You wouldn't catch me joining if I had your money. Did you ever think about going into politics? A lot of those at your age do that. Isn't the current prime minister of the alliance also really old?"
"I did but I don't want to enter that nest of vipers unless I have to. Many of the problems I see in this world are not ones best solved by politics. Also, Humanity is doing very well in general terms, at least it was until this war."
The mention of the war put a damper on the conversation, and they prepared in silence. Eventually Anand came out of the cockpit and Hao went to replace him. Hao was the best pilot they had. It was imperative for him to be at the controls when the dropped out of FTL. Alekseenko had kindly double-checked Anand's equipment and Anand simply had to put everything on, the rest were already ready.
They all did their own thing until it was nearly time to drop Shepard himself spent the time playing chess against the computer in his hardsuit. However, he stopped that as soon as Anderson spoke. "We are nearly there, get ready for rapid deceleration, strap yourselves in."
Everyone sat down and strapped themselves to the seat, Shepard crossed himself and, not long after, they could hear Hao's voice. "Dropping out of FTL in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1." They left a sudden lurch and then a truly staggering amount of g's as the shuttle decelerated as fast as the human body could handle. The shuttle had motion dampeners but that was not even close to enough to hold off this sudden a change in acceleration.
Shepard prayed silently, expecting to be blown out of the sky at any second. This drop was the most dangerous part of the mission. If they succeeded in getting in undetected then the mission turned into just another infiltration and sabotage mission. It was high risk but not suicide. At least until the time for extraction came.
Eventually the G's passed and the shuttle door opened, everyone got up and flung themselves out of the shuttle. As soon as the last person was safely away the shuttle sped up in the opposite direction, piloted by a VI. Shepard kept an eye on it and as soon as it was almost out of his sight, he saw a tiny pop of orange and purple color. Orange for flames and purple for the exploding eezo core. Now he had to hope the alien's sensors couldn't pick up something as small as a human falling through atmo.
Shepard enjoyed the fall while he could. He turned around to gaze at the night sky and just smiled at the absurdity of it all. When he was born the people living in the Americas may as well have been living on another planet. Now here he was literally on another planet going to shoot aliens. The very concept of an alien didn't occur to him until well past the halfway point of his life. What made it all the more comical, to him to him at least, is that for several on the squad this seemed all perfectly normal. They grew up knowing there was life out there somewhere.
He turned over and made sure he was going toward the correct point. The nav computer in the hard suit made the drop much easier, they all knew where had to go and how to get there. He opened his parachute at the last possible second. He thought about using his new abilities to ease the landing but decided against that. He didn't trust them and being honest he was terrified of them. He knew they had something to do with element zero in the nervous system.
That fact did not fill him with confidence and unfortunately since biotics was still a new science little info was available on the subject. Worse still attempts made at harnessing these powers effectively were often less than ideal. Shepard was not going to let somebody poke around his nervous system 'for science'. Humans still didn't know why some developed these abilities in old age while others didn't or what made some people stronger in this discipline. His approach was to let the science catch up and then try to use them for effect. He deemed doing so beforehand to risky.
After landing he immediately packed up his parachute and made his way to the rendezvous point. Silently he made his way through the trees, keeping his eyes and ears open for any sign of aliens. More specifically aliens that carried guns not the non-sentient kind that made up nearly the entire ecosystem of this planet. He had to admit that if he didn't know he was on another planet he would be hard pressed to figure it out. The woods looked and sounded like many other woods on earth. While an expert taxonomist might be able to spot all the multitude of differences, to Shepard's eyes the trees looked like many he had seen on earth.
He was the first to make it to the rendezvous point, climbed up a tree and waited for the others to make their way. Radio silence was a must for they did not dare risk it. So, he just waited for a short while until he heard the sound of footsteps. Peering through the darkness using his helmets night vision mode he could just make out a silhouette. He was certain it was a human as he had seen picture of the aliens. This beings' legs were not bent backwards like theirs. Still that did not confirm it was one of those he waited for.
He played a preprogrammed sound from the voice module in his helmet three times. A short sound that blended in with the other sounds of the woods, a trill of a specific bird native to this planet. He saw the figure stiffen and then heard the reply, three identical sounds. The figure started moving quicker but still cautiously and eventually made it close to the tree Shepard was in. By the markings on the hardsuit he could tell it was Anderson.
Shepard shook a branch to catch Anderson's attention. The other looked up nodded and then quickly found a tree of his own. They remained quiet not daring to speak with radios or voice modules. Eventually the process repeated itself three more times, Anand, then Hao and finally Alekseenko. Afterward they all got out of their respective hiding places and made there way as a group toward the objective.
It was a long march but nothing particularly hard for any of them. They all passed N School and a midnight march through some woods was not even close to the most difficult things they did in that school. As for Shepard, he once tried to estimate the amount of walking he did throughout his life and decided to stop counting once he passed the circumference of the earth. Eventually they reached the base not long before the diversionary attacks were about to commence. They had a short time to reconnoiter the area and form a plan of attack.
In this endeavor they were aided by an oversight of the alliance which the aliens did not fix. The tree line was a scant 10 meters from the base's edge. Shepard scoffed internally, any duke, baron, lord, knight or peasant farmer in medieval times understood that if you wanted to defend a position it's a good idea to clear the land around it. Trees provide cover for advancing forces protecting them from arrows, bullets and among other things detection, which was important in this case.
If he was to guess this oversight was not made by the troops but by an engineer who was fully concerned with orbital combat. Yes, it's true that once control of the orbit is lost a true ground war was impossible, and only guerilla tactics worked since orbital bombardments were so effective. However, it was still true that to truly control a piece of territory once must have boots on the ground. Neglecting ground defenses is ridiculous especially on a base that has a direct impact on the orbital war.
Luckily the aliens weren't to keen on fixing the alliance's mistakes. They had not cleared the trees and in fact the hadn't even rebuilt the fence that they destroyed while taking over the base. That was a fortuitous fact since dealing with a fence was going to be a hard especially if they got spotted. Luckily, they could stroll right in. Also destroyed vehicles and other debris littered the land around the base providing cover for the advance.
These were either complacent, lazy, or incompetent. They should have cleared the field to open all the sight lines but the didn't. By all reports they weren't lazy, as they put in prodigious efforts into hunting down resistance members. They weren't incompetent as the previous battles proved. That left complacency, they think they won.
Shepard climbed into one of the taller trees and used the zoom in function of his helmet to scout the base. He absolutely loved the fact that a helmet had as many functions as a whole backpack worth of gear did long ago. It was a small base with only turrets and one small building visible. The building was on the far side of the base from them, and it had the only entrance to the main part of the base. Tunnels connecting the turrets and the building. The control center was underground and so was the power station. This was done to harden the base to survive orbital strikes.
The base was a hard target that would be costly to deal with from orbit. Probably why the aliens took it via ground assault. Maybe if the designer had considered that a ground assault was possible and consulted with an expert on the subject it would have been harder for the aliens. Looking at the base and surroundings he could not spot many soldiers present. The only two he saw were presumably lookouts on the top of the small building. Yep the aliens were definitely complacent.
They weren't wearing helmets and Shepard got a good look at them. They had some weird colors of their face which might be natural or warpaint. They looked like they had some sort of exoskeleton or something similar and had a weird mandible on either side of the face. Shepard wondered why they weren't wearing helmets. Maybe the weird spikes on the back of the head made it awkward to put on and take off but whatever the reason, not having your helmet on in a warzone while on duty was a stupid thing to do.
There was of course no way to know exactly how many aliens were underground. They guessed around 20 simply based off the number of humans the base could hold. Unfortunately, they had to go underground since the turrets were made tough enough to survive orbital strikes, they could not just place charges on the turrets and destroy them that way. They had to enter the power station and destroy the delicate components there.
Shepard payed close attention to the area around the base as well. First to see if any reinforcements were close by. He could not see any. He also noticed a few buildings a bit to the side of the base that looked empty. If they could get there the attack would be easier. That was assuming they had to frontal assault the base. After the diversionary attacks begin the aliens might be expecting an attack and if that happens, they will expect it to come from the trees. 10 meters may not seem like much but with trained troops shooting at you and only 5 people in the attack those were long odds of success. The buildings were also closer to the building with the entrance they had to reach.
Climbing down Shepard made his way back to his teammates. They had to develop a plan before the resistance began diversionary attacks. They all saw the same thing and Shepard proposed his idea of making there way towards the empty buildings. "If we make it there, we can start our approach from a point the don't expect." He whispered quietly just enough for the others to hear him.
Anand disagreed. "If being the operative word, if they see us then we'll be in trouble."
"We will have to cross over eventually, better to do part of it now when they are not on alert, which they will be once the attacks start. The approach from those building is also much more direct and easier." Shepard countered.
"However, if they see us, we will be in effect a diversionary attack for the resistance rather than the other way around." Anand defended his position.
"If they spot us, we go all in, shotguns, gas grenades, flashbangs. If we do it right, they won't have time to mobilize. We will do the same if they spot us after the diversions begin."
Shepard looked towards Anderson and Anand followed his lead. Both knew this was his decision and arguing about it was unproductive. He pondered the question for a bit and said "I'm with Shepard, Yes, Shepard's plan is risky, but the entire operation is risky, and we knew that going in. If we are in the building it means a shorter easier distance to the control center." Anderson paused evidently pondering something and then continued.
"We'll cross one at a time, as one crosses the others keep their sniper's sights on the lookouts. Two on each, any sign they spotted anyone we shoot and go in guns blazing. Anand, Alekseenko keep an eye on the one with the red face. Me and Hao take the one with the blue face. As each person crosses, he takes the overwatch duty of the next runner. Order of runners will be Shepard, Alekseenko, Anand, Me, Hao. Understood?"
They all nodded and got into position. Shepard picked out the best path to take, he waited until the Aliens were facing another way and carefully left the safety of the trees and moved towards one of the wrecked vehicles present. Sneaking was never one of Shepard's weaknesses, but it wasn't one of his strengths either. He was good, some might even say very good, but that was simply because he had so much practice. His large size always hampered any attempts to sneak around.
Shepard's height and powerful musculature were always useful in the years of sword, shield, mace, pike, polearm, and even bow. A war bow with a hundred-pound draw weight or more was not a weapon for the weak. However, in the days of guns it was somewhat of a drawback, it presented a large target, and it didn't exactly help him shoot better. Making his way behind the wreck he made sure the Aliens were looking away again and continued toward a barricade.
He continued this stop and start action until he had made it to the building. He carefully assessed it and made sure it was empty of both people and traps. After the careful inspection he made his way inside and was greeted with a familiar sight of a building where serious fighting has taken place. Bullet holes, upturned furniture, even the marks of a grenade blast were present. He set up behind an upturned table a couple of paces behind the window facing the alien lookouts. This provided the best possible concealment while also providing a rifle rest and line of sight. He aimed his crosshairs at the head of the alien with the red markings and waited for Alekseenko.
Eventually he arrived, then slowly carefully turn by turn Anand, Anderson, and Hao did as well. So far, the mission was going well, but it was still far from completed. They sat there and waited for the resistance to mount their attacks. Finally, the hour had come, and they could hear distant gunshots. They had 30 minutes before the fleet jumped into orbit. They waited to see if any more aliens show. Only two did and they joined the already present lookouts. Clearly the aliens weren't too worried about the sudden attacks. Proving Shepard's observation about how complacent the aliens were.
Anderson broke the silence. "The plan is that we take out the sentries. Make a mad dash to the building. If the alarm is raised go in fast, if not try to be stealthy. We make our way to the power room and place the charges. If we get to that point, then the primary objective of disabling the guns is essentially complete." They all nodded, disabling the guns was the main objective, using them to open fire on the enemy was secondary to ensuring they don't fire at our ships.
Anderson continued "Hao and Alekseenko will stay behind to ensure that the charges will go off no matter what." They all knew what that meant doing in the worst-case scenario, and all had volunteered to do it back at Arcturus when planning the operation. Eventually they settled the matter by drawing straws. "The rest will go to the control room, if we take that then Anand locks himself in there and shoots at any and all alien ships in orbit. Me and Shepard will go try to clear the rest of the base. As soon as we open fire on the sentries, radio silence is lifted. No voice modules only radio. Everyone got it?"
They all nodded; they all knew the general plan that was made back at Arcturus. It was always a good idea to go over it in case last minute adjustments had been made. "Good. No need for silencers on the snipers, the base is so far underground they can't hear any gunfire. Shepard to take the left one, then Alekseenko, Hao, and Anand takes the one on the right."
They all pulled out their rifles and aimed. Shepard kept a bead on the one on the left. The rifles they were equipped with were the best the alliance had to offer. At this short a range the rifle should be able to punch through the shield and kill the alien behind it. This was especially true since the aliens still weren't wearing helmets.
"on three … One, two Three!" They all shot at ounce and the aliens fell over, a few seconds passed and when the aliens showed no sign of movement, they all got up, holstered their snipers, jumped out the window, and ran like mad toward the building. They ran through one of the conveniently placed holes in the fence and jumped any debris that stood in their way. They made it to the building and by this time they all had unholstered their shotguns. After seeing that the elevator car that went to the lower levels was still up at the surface, Shepard let out a small sigh of relief. That meant the aliens didn't immediately call it down to send reinforcements up.
On the radio he heard Anderson speak. "We take the emergency staircase, if us taking out those sentries didn't raise alarms, we don't want the aliens wondering why the elevator was suddenly being used." Shepard opened the door to the stairwell and slowly walked down. Keeping his eyes and more importantly ears open for anyone coming up. They reached the bottom and formed up in front of the door. At Andersons signal Shepard opened the door and they were greeted by nothing.
Immediately they proceeded down the hallway and took the first door on the left. This was the power room and even if it wasn't marked, they could have found the room with their eyes closed as they had the base layout memorized.
Shepard guarded the door while the others worked setting up the charges on the generators and power conduits. When those exploded there would be no quick way to fix the issue and the turrets would be silenced. Shepard let out a small sigh again, at the very least the primary goal was finished. When they were finished Anand and Anderson joined Shepard and they left the room, took a right and went further down the hallway. A short while later they reached a T intersection, with a door right in front of them. Shepard knew the left and right hallways led to the turrets while the door was the control room. The left hallway also led to the small dormitory the base's occupants lived in.
Checking the corners, they piled up in front of the door. Shepard could hear someone talking on the other side. On Anderson's signal Shepard opened the door. Before them were two aliens one of which was talking to the screen, they turned, and the weird mandibles flared out in what Shepard assumed was surprise. Instantly their hands reached for their weapons, but they weren't fast enough. Shepard, Anand, and Anderson tore through them with several shotgun blasts.
When the shooting stopped Shepard could hear a screen talking. Presumably the alien was in contact with someone. Anand stepped up tossed the alien out of the chair, sat down and immediately terminated the call. Anderson and Shepard immediately turned and ran towards the dormitory. With shots fired the aliens were bound to be alerted. If they acted fast enough, they might still catch those is the dorms unprepared.
The base was not particularly large and was built for 20 people to occupy it. A small team of engineers to keep the place running and a squad of marines to protect them. They had killed 6 aliens so far. Assuming the aliens didn't cram this place full like a can of sardines, which seemed likely, considering how far the reached without alerting guards, Shepard guessed there were about 14 aliens left.
As they ran, they saw an alien emerge from the door the led to the common area of the dorms. He (or she or it, Shepard had no way of knowing) raised the rifle he held at his side as soon as he saw them but again it was to late. Shepard's shot downed the shields and Anderson finished him off. As they made there way to the door Shepard grabbed a gas grenade and chucked it in. Anderson followed it with a flashbang and frag grenade. Running in they saw four blinded and coughing aliens, writhing on the ground. Shepard and Anderson quickly dispatched them, 9 left.
They moved forward and saw the door leading to the shared sleeping area. As soon as they opened the door a hail of bullets met them. All the bullets missed however because, the duo was on either side of the door and not in the way. Shepard tossed another gas grenade and he heard what he assumed was cursing followed by loud coughs. Just as Anderson threw a flashbang an alien appeared from the door further down the hall and let loose a spray of bullets.
Shepard and Anderson shot back, and the two on one advantage came out on top as the alien jumped back into the room. Shepard's shields however were largely drained. Shepard tossed a gas grenade down the hall mainly to obscure vision from the room the alien still lurked in. Then they entered the room they just flashbanged. The aliens were still disoriented and choking. They didn't have enough time to put on their helmets, which would have protected them from both gas and flashbangs. The duo made relatively short work of the four in there, 5 left.
The duo switched to rifles and aimed down the hall where the alien still lurked. After about a minute the duo saw a sign of movement in the gas and opened fire. An alien went down with and audible thump. They ran through the gas and Shepard almost crashed into another alien on the other side. Shepard gave the alien a hard shoved with the rifle knocking him of balance. Then he let out a burst from the rifle and the alien was dead before he hit the ground, 3 left.
At this point Shepard hear loud booms which were presumably the turrets shooting at the alien ships. He wondered how long it will take for the aliens to bomb this base into nonfunction. He guessed that they would survive the bombardment as the base was essentially a bomb shelter, but the turrets would be destroyed. Then they had to hold off assaults until evac arrived.
They checked the room at the end, but it was empty. The dorms were cleared and the last thing they had to check were the tunnels that led to the turrets. Going backward they passed the control room and went down the tunnels. They went through the tunnels but found nothing. Apparently, the aliens understaffed the facility. Shepard was thankful for that, always better to fight 17 enemies instead of 20.
Anderson brought his fingers to the side of his helmet evidently about to speak but Anand beat him to it. "Brace yourselves the aliens are firing!" A few seconds later they felt the ground quiver from the blasts.
After it stopped Anderson replied, "Shepard and I will keep an eye on the entrance, keep firing as long as possible."
Anand's reply came quickly "Roger that, those bastards will have to do better than that." Shepard and Anderson made their way to the elevator and stairwell and kept an eye on them. Shepard did not expect anyone, since you don't bomb an area while sending in ground troops, but he still was alert for any intrusions. Complacency was deadly as they had just proven. A much more violent shaking occurred as more rounds hit the outside of the base.
The bombardment didn't worry Shepard as he had been in many. The bunker would hold or not. He could not do anything about it. He checked the clock it was 0520, ten minutes before the alliance ships jump in. The next few minutes passed with ever more violent bombardments. Anand kept them appraised on the state of the turrets. First and foremost, the shields were downed. Then the turrets went one by one until 0528 when the last turret was neutralized.
As soon as he heard that Anderson said "Anand to me, Hao and Alekseenko set the charges on a timer and come here. We might have a chance to make it out of here before the aliens can move troops in. As soon as the stop the bombardment we make a run for the tree line. Since the aliens had to hold their troops back during the bombardment, we should have enough time to make it into the woods."
Hao responded, "It's risky if they come upon us as we're running, we will get shot in the back."
Anderson said "Yes but waiting here is almost guaranteed death, the aliens will want to ensure this place is shut down for good and will send a large force to make sure it's decommissioned. I don't feel like fighting off hordes of aliens for as long as the space battle takes. We did everything we could. Hell, the mission went better than anyone could have expected. There is no point to stay at this base."
"What about pickup?" was Hao's response.
"Pickup can go to the secondary objective and help at the prison camp. If we make it to the trees, we should be able to survive. Better they help with the fight then risk their necks saving those that can save themselves."
Shepard agreed with Anderson's assessment. The turrets were gone, hell the charges were now redundant. If the turrets were still working, they would be obliged to stay. But with them destroyed there was no reason to stay at the base. The fact that it happened right before 0530 was fortuitous. They were almost certain the bombardment would break off then. They should have a few minutes before alien troops arrived in force.
By 0530 the others had joined them, and the bombardment abruptly ceased. They all knew why; the aliens should have much more to worry about now. The made a dash up the stairs since the elevator was destroyed during the barrage. They had to rig a grenade to blow open the door at the top as it was stuck. Running through the ruins and craters reminded Shepard of the world wars. Luckily, they managed to make it to the trees without being shot at.
They didn't stop running when the entered the trees but kept going forward. They were also always on guard for possible signs of pursuit. Eventually they slowed down but kept moving forward. As they moved forward the hoped to hear news about the battle currently happening far above them. Silently Shepard prayed for the battle to go well.
"Hey Anand, did we manage to destroy any ships?" Alekseenko asked.
"Yeah we downed a couple of frigates and got a couple good shots on a cruiser."
Those words raised the spirits of the exhausted marines.
Author's notes: This chapter was a bit longer than my usual fare; I hope you enjoy. This is probably going to be one of if not the longest author's notes I put in, but I feel I owe some explanation. Before that I would like to encourage you to follow or leave a review if you enjoy, it helps motivate me to continue writing. Reviews also have the added benefit of helping me improve.
Some people are probably wondering: Hey why is Shepard a biotic. For a human to be a biotic they have to be exposed to eezo in utero; this Shepard is to old. To this I have a short answer and a long answer. Short answer is that humanity in this story is a race of semi-natural biotics for the same reason that the asari are a race of natural biotics. The protheans did it. A longer answer of why I think this makes sense in the context of the story and what I mean by semi-natural is below.
The asari are natural biotics because of the protheans. This was confirmed in ME3 (if you don't know look up "Mass Effect 3- Javik Reveals Asari Past!" on YouTube and watch the first result). I quote "That 'gift' involved years of genetic research." This invites the question: why where the protheans evolving the asari into natural biotics? Well the same reason they got involved with all the ME species to some extent: to better their empire. I think they did it because a species that lives a thousand years and are natural biotics is a good resource.
Now it stands to ask why the asari? I think it has to do with long lifespans not the fact that thessia is eezo rich. I think of it this way, eezo can be supplied and the protheans never intended for the asari to live solely on Thessia. They would have colonies and those colonists would have to have eezo supplied to develop biotics. Eezo would have to be supplied artificially no matter what so the idea that the protheans did it simply because the asari live on eezo rich world it doesn't make sense to me. I think it has more to do with the long lifespans because it is logical. A long lifespan gives asari plenty of time to fully utilize the biotics. This also explains why the protheans got so invested i.e. teaching astronomy, agriculture, mathematics and all the rest. A race that lives a thousand years would be a very good resource for just about anything you need them to do.
Would the protheans do something like giving natural biotics to the salarians? No, they only live to 40 years (with the super advanced medical tech of mass effect) they wouldn't get nearly as much use out of them. Salarians don't have the extra time to study biotics. They have to be essentially laser focused in one field to make a real difference. They are a race of monomaniacs. If you still think that the protheans gave the asari natural biotics because they live on an eezo rich world, I'll compromise.
In this story the protheans found the asari who had limited biotics. Then thought to themselves hey it would be cool for our species to be natural biotics. After all, if the protheans were going to make any species natural biotics their own would be the first. However, they didn't want to toy with the entire race's genetics, so they wanted a proof of concept. Thus, they decided that in addition to the standard uplift; they were going to make the asari natural biotics. If it succeeds, they have a race that lives a thousand years with natural biotics. If they fail well at least they got a nice planet out of it. They would also know if they succeeded because thessia has natural Eezo reserves and they wouldn't need to import eezo to confirm it. Well it succeeded and so the protheans then make their own species natural biotics (this explains why all collectors have dormant biotic abilities). However, then they discover humanity which in this story is even longer lived. Humans are also stronger and tougher than asari and make better front-line troops. It only makes sense the protheans would want to make them even better for their own uses. So, they genetically engineered humans into natural biotics as well.
Now as to how it works and why I said humans were semi-natural biotics. So, I view biotics in natural biotics like asari (and humans in this case) like a muscle. You got the eezo node (the muscle) and neurons to activate it. You also have to train to get stronger since it's stated not all asari choose to practice and thus some don't have biotics. Finally, the max strength is implied to grow overtime since in Samaras dossier its stated "Biotics strength near that of an asari matriarch." This implies that asari never loose the ability to incorporate new eezo, but also the maximum size of the nodules keeps growing, albeit slowly, as asari age.
Because of this a natural biotic could live most of their life without biotics and when exposed to eezo get some small ability since they finally got the necessary ingredients. If they choose to train that ability would get a lot better. Also, if they were old their maximum eezo nodule size would be very large, and they would make fast progress. Still hard training would be necessary to get those effects, but it should be possible.
No as to why humans are semi-natural biotics. Because they kind of devolved. In the asari biotic ability would be selected for by natural selection. Strong biotics more likely to survive and have more children. Therefore, if a mutation occurs that destroys biotics abilities it would be weeded out. However, on earth with no eezo, natural selection couldn't select for strong biotics because no one was a biotic. So, if a mutation occurs that harms biotic potential there was no natural mechanism to weed it out. The protheans didn't care because they planned on uplifting humanity. This would give them eezo and thus biotics, making biotic ability fall under the purview of natural selection before any real mutation could occur. Then the reapers came and killed them all so that didn't work out.
So, because of this some humans lack the ability to incorporate eezo naturally and thus have to be exposed in utero like other species. Others can't learn to control quickly. Others have eezo nodules that never stop growing and act like cancer. Some have all the perks. That's what I mean by semi-natural biotics.
Finally, I want to address one last topic. In the ME wiki it says "…nor do they need to undergo special training to acquire conscious neural control; their reproductive physiology grants them this ability from birth." I think this is trash lore (ME's lore is usually very good). Mainly because you don't need to be able to mind fuck like asari to have natural conscious neural control. Humans have that right now. Me raising an arm is me exercising natural conscious neural control. I consciously decide to send a signal to my arm. This is opposed to the heart beating where I don't consciously decide to send a signal to my heart.
I doubt the asari have such a level of conscious neural control that they could stop their hearts beating if they wanted to. Imagine how annoying it is to remember having to breath, now imagine having to remember to keep your heart beating. If someone is a natural biotic them learning biotics should be as natural as learning to walk. You got muscles (eezo nodes) and you got neurons going to them. It's natural to have conscious control of muscles and if you are a natural biotic it would be natural to consciously control the messages you send towards the eezo nodes.
Whew that was long. If you disagree with my reasoning please leave me a review, I want to hear your reasons.