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Beta(s) :
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Requested by :
Espacole
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Commander Shepard raised her rifle as the ten Husks surged up the stairs leading to the apartment whose landing she was using for a vantage point. Relatively low caliber as her Viper's rounds were, they still made short work of the thin blue tragedies. One round carved through the lead Husk's collar bone and into the head of the third. As both fell, she turned a hair's breadth and leaned down, putting a round up that decapitated a Husk as it leapt onto the guard rails of the stairs. A third round ripped through another Husk, and then two of its brethren. She rose as they fell, holding her spent rifle in one hand and drawing her Carnifex with the other. Its heavy rounds ripped apart the suffering creatures and as they fell, she reloaded her rifle with a sigh.
"Just like old times…"
The sound of wings drove her back into the relative safety of her prefabricated cover as particle beams raked over it and the building behind her. The low-grade metal melted in almost elegant, long lines that traced over the surface of the building. Super-heated metal melted and dripped onto her armored shoulder and she hissed, shuffling to the side and drawing her Carnifex again, watching the lines as they went.
When she saw an opening, she surged to her feet, punching heavy rounds into two of the four Collectors on the opposite roof before the other two brought their beams to bear on her. She grit her teeth as her shields rapidly crackled and fell, but before they could carve off a slice of well done Shepard, her Carnifex barked twice more, sending heavy rounds through the two drones' heads.
As they fell, she heard the sound of automatic fire crack through the air and her brows furrowed. Garrus had a Mattock...
As more Collectors came down on her, she grabbed the edge of her balcony and vaulted over it, dropping the fifteen or so feet and grunting a muted thanks to her cybernetics. Looking up at the swarming aliens, she smiled and keyed her Omni-Tool to set off the charges she'd left behind. As fire, heat and shrapnel ripped them apart, she turned to jog off after her team, and the out of place rifle fire.
Another quartet of Collectors landed between her and where she was going, and she brought her Carnifex up as she slid into cover. It barked twice, ripping the head of the closest drone apart in a spray of chiton and gore. Her shoulder slammed into the building foundation as particle beams carved over her head. Sucking in a breath, she rose and stepped to the side, then let herself fall, Carnifex snapping up and spitting powerful rounds as she fell and a Collector joined her on the ground.
She hit the ground and rolled back and away from her cover, raising the weapon as the last two leapt into the air, aiming to cut her down from above. At the apex of their climb, she put a pair of rounds through each of their wings, and they fell flailing and chittering their panic. Reloading, she stood and shook the mud off as she made her way around and towards where her team had gone. Four more Collectors landed on the high wall a few yards away from her, but they were cut down easily enough by the line of automatic fire.
And a shield that cracked into one's throat, sending it choking over the wall as the shield curved back to where it had come from.
A burst of automatic fire cracked against her kinetic barrier as she rounded the corner and, surprised, she pivoted on a heel to get back around the corner and into cover. She heard a voice familiar enough it hurt swear loudly and call out, "God damn it, call out before you round a corner into a combat zone!"
Cautiously, fighting down the choke in her voice, Shepard called out, "Ash?"
"No fucking- Commander?" The woman called back, and this time, Ashley didn't shoot at her when she stepped around the corner. The woman flicked a look up and down Shepard and then shook her head. "What the hell- No, of course you're here, since you're apparently not actually dead."
"That's…" Shepard paused as she walked up, and then said simply, "Complicated."
"I bet." Ashley grunted, eyes furrowing and lips pursing in agitation. Turning, she jerked her head towards the door and said, "Come on, get in, before more of those bastards get here. Now those Husks are gone, should be a good bunker spot..."
Like they'd been cued by her words, another half dozen Collector drones suddenly made an appearance, sweeping in from over the roof of the large building Ashley had suggested they shelter in. Her Carnifex brought down two, and Ashley's Avenger cut down two more. But as another unit of them joined the first, and particle lances began carving down, into their barriers and the dirt around them, the both of them ducked down and sprinted for the massive, armored safehouse door.
Inside, the colonial safehouse was a moderately large room with a power generator in one room, a compartment in one corner that would have a few floors of cots and hygiene zones, and a wall split between a work area and piles of crates full of supplies. It had two heavy, armored doors, each set at opposite ends of the safehouse, nestled against the corner on the longer walls of the rectangular building. At the center of the end opposite from her, beside the living quarters, was a small medical area with a cot and a Medi-Gel storage unit, as well as a scanning unit.
Which was where she found Nikos, helping Garrus through some sort of breathing exercise that she explained for her as she and Ashley came to them, "It helps calm nerves and focus on injuries to, uh," she flicked a look at Ashley and then shrugged and turned back to Shepard, "aid the healing process."
"Ah." So it was Aura nonsense, then. Nodding, she asked Ashley, "Can they get in here?"
"Husks came out of here…"
"Because they stunned a man trying to get in, and that kept the door open and let the Husks get in." Ashley explained, pursing her lips and nodding at the quarters in the corner. "I put him in there to rest. Coming out of stun… Well, it kind of sucks."
"Experience?"
"Mhm." Ashley nodded, still staring at her with narrow eyes. Waving a hand at her armor, which was a heavy model that Shepard very much didn't recognize. "My armor has a few injectable antidotes the Alliance got their hands on that were supposed to keep me from freezing up if the rumors were true."
"Supposed to…"
"Didn't. At least not at first, but… Well, eventually it got around to working, I guess. I don't know the tech, though, so..." Ashley shrugged noncommittally, turning and pacing towards the opposite door.
"Are you alright…?"
"I'm fine." Garrus grunted shortly, rolling his off shoulder and massaging his singed face with a growl. "Special stuff is doin' its work."
"I saw the blood, Vakarian." Shepard murmured, low enough she was sure Ash wouldn't hear. "It was a good amount. Are you sure you're alright?
"Yeah, I'm sure. If I didn't have my Aura, then maybe…" Garrus sighed, shaking his head, "Go catch up with Ash, see about mending some bridges there."
"We should not tarry, however good it might be to reconnect." Pyrrha added, watching the Turian warily and not turning to look at her. "This place may well hold, but if too many of those things show…"
"We won't be able to break through." She nodded, raising her voice. "Ten minutes and we need to move, before we're surrounded. Or lose the colonists entirely. Clear?"
"Mhm."
"Yeah, Shepard."
She didn't hear an answer from Ashley, but then, she couldn't demand one either. Shepard wasn't an Alliance soldier anymore, even if she had been made a Spectre again. And even if she was, the other woman was clearing here on her own mission. With her own operative goals and chain of command too, obviously. And that armor was impressive, and probably prototype in every sense.
Special operations, she wondered as she made her way over to join the woman.
"Ashley-" Like lightning, Ashley pivoted on a heel, fist snapping out in a vicious hook that threw her sprawling onto the steps that led up to the armored door. The punch hurt more for snapping her head around and the way she'd landed, and she tried not to snarl as she pushed herself up on her hands. "What the hell was that?"
"What you get for ghosting me, and everyone, for two years!" Ashley snapped, offering her a hand up as Shepard straightened. She took it and Ashley yanked her up with a grunt. "And for putting on so much weight, but looking perfect… Damn it."
"I didn't ghost you." And, after a second to think and consider what to tell her, Shepard sighed and said, choking a bit as she went on, "I was dead, Ash. I-I was… When the Normandy went down, I- Fuck, so it's hard to say, Ash."
"You… You got spaced." Ashley filled in, watching her with narrow, suspicious but worried eyes. "Saw it from my pod. So you actually…"
"Yeah." Shepard nodded, taking a seat on the steps and sighing tiredly, staring at her knees. "Cerberus… Well, I don't really know what they did, but they got whatever was left of me together and stitched me back together with some kind of technical bullshit I'm terrified to even ask about."
"I can probably imagine. Or, well, I can't really." Ashley sighed, "But, Cerberus…"
"The only reason I didn't walk away as soon as I could walk at all is because they offered me every resource they had to put an end to the colonial abductions. I can promise you that much, after what they did to Kahoku all on its own." Shepard assured her, shaking her helmed head wearily, "And given what we're up against…"
"Still." Ashley grunted, shaking her head and chewing a lip. "I mean, at least they're working for Humanity on this…"
"And only Humanity…"
"And?" She shrugged, "They're Humans. They should be looking out for Humanity first."
"Whatever the case, right now, we need to worry about that ship." Shepard sighed, more than merely unwilling to dig up that issue right now. Or ever, if she had the option. "And I'm guessing your comms aren't doing any better in this soup than mine are."
"No, but I do have an idea." Ashley answered, pointing over the Commander's head, at the armored bulkhead. "Through there, after a bit, is where I had the crews emplace the controls for the colony's defense battery. The targeting matrix is down, so can't automate it, but… Well, you should be able to eye-ball it."
"I get to eye-ball the shots on a defensive battery probably a mile away. Wonderful…" Still, it would work, and if nothing else opening fire that way could get Joker's attention. Or EDI's at least, and either way, it would probably bring their reinforcements in. Thinking on that front, she asked, "Any clue what's causing the comm problems?"
"None." She shrugged, "But it covers just about the whole colony. Managed to get a positive buoy ping about an hour ago, though…"
"How far out?"
"Half an hour, if I run." Ashley shrugged, "And if I'm not stopping to get shot at every fifteen steps. Why…?"
"I have a plan."
"Oh, shit…"
"It doesn't involve a nuke."
"Well, I like it a bit more now." Ashley sighed tiredly, weakly. With the same kind of pain that line of thought brought her, too. A pain that Shepard shuffled away, like a useless card in a game of poker with stakes so high they could run orbital strikes. Quietly, Ashley asked, "Well, what is it then?"
"Well…"
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"Once Ash gets outside the blocking zone, she'll raise the Normandy on my comm-piece." Shepard explained quietly, "Once she does, the Normandy will come in for a weapons run and drop the Kodiak and the reinforcement team. They land, Specialist EDI links into the gun's control from the ship, and the defensive gun beats the Collector ship until it leaves or can't leave."
"And if the second option comes through?"
"We withdraw, and the Alliance comes in, with too much damn proof not to." Shepard answered simply, "A handful of ships, and a few platoons, and we'll have Horizon well in hand and then some."
"And the first…?"
"Nikos…"
"There has to be half a colony on that ship, Commander." Pyrrha said, feeling the coldness of what she already knew creeping in as Shepard met her eyes. "Are we meant to… To merely leave them to their fates?"
"Half a colony is better than no one, Nikos." Shepard countered easily, like she'd already had the answer ready. Which, knowing her, she probably had. When Pyrrha's frown deepened, she went on, "It makes me… I hate it too, Nikos, but sometimes, you have to understand when you can't do anything."
"But, can't we…?"
"We can't." It was Garrus that stepped in to mediate, shaking his fringed head and sighing a rattling, Turian sigh. "Even if we… If we got the Alliance here, stormed the ship, there's every chance that they'd kill the colonists rather than let us get them back. And that's if the cannons don't destroy the ship, don't fail to ground it. If the Collectors don't destroy it all of their own accord."
"I… See…"
"We do what we can, Nikos." The Commander grunted, turning and clapping her on the arm. When Pyrrha met her eyes, she nodded and added, "But we should always want to push for more. More lives saved, more enemies… Not. Keep that thinking, but understand that right now, we have to save who we can."
"And not die." Garrus added with a wry chuckle, "That would be pretty nice, too."
"Very well." She sighed, rolling her shoulder to prepare herself for returning to the fight. "I'm going to assume we're distracting the Collectors, then. Hm?"
"We are." Shepard nodded, slipping past them and drawing her Viper in one smooth, elegant movement. "Eyes forward, Nikos. And shield up."
"Aye, Commander."
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Darkness watched the three of them shoot out the massive door to the safehouse almost before it had opened, the three of them raising weapons to cut down the dozen waiting, hapless drones. More surged over the roof from the other side only to be cut down in the same way, and it took everything in him not to reach out and rip their lives straight out of their disgusting bodies. But he didn't need to, their weapons were more than sufficient to send them, reeling and spasming and bleeding, to their worthless ends.
Still, he knew their plan couldn't possibly succeed.
Surely not.
It counted on so many moving parts, all pinned onto one woman and a hundred and one 'ifs'.
If the soldier could get back out of the settlement through the Husks and Drones still hounding her even now.
If she could somehow connect to his vassals' ship, through the fog of the Collectors' jamming and the sheer distance.
And then, if the ground team could even survive through all of that, and then could secure the battery's controls until the reinforcements landed. Even assuming the weapon would work was a leap in logic that pained him to the extreme. Enough that his beast snarled feral beside him, great paws working and churning at the stone beside his throat.
"Be still, Cerberus." He snapped, looking at the great, armored Beowolf with a frown. Turning back to the portal, he growled, "It's not your time yet."
"Assuming there will be one."
"Brother…" He growled, letting his eyes close as the window into his sibling's world split open beside him. "Here to confess to your little game?"
"What game would that be, Brother?"
"The creature knows what makes my followers so unique, Brother." Darkness snapped, eyes flaring open as he turned to scowl at his ancient sibling. "How could it possibly have learned such things?"
"It knows where she comes from?"
"No." Darkness answered, eyes narrowing at the question. "He knows what she is capable of. Aura, Semblance, the like…"
"I assure you, beloved brother, that I did not tell that creature any such thing." Light assured him with a firm shake of his horned head, "I would never impart such knowledge on mere mortals."
"You imparted a Relic of Knowledge on them…"
"Touche." Light sighed, conceding the point but, of course, not the argument to hand. Never the argument. That just couldn't be… "But this is different. Not our own wayward children, in desperate need of some form of guidance. These are another's, though to be fair, no less in need of guidance…"
"Because our guidance has ever been to the betterment of those under us, hm?"
"If not us, then who?"
"No one." And perhaps that was how it should be, he didn't add. Instead, he asked, "And what proof have you that you didn't do what I believe you did?"
"I can't prove a negative, Brother." Light answered quietly, "I only wished to speak with you. To… Mend bridges, so to speak. We've had many arguments of late."
"We have." Because Light caused them, and insisted on them, he also didn't add. Instead he waved his dear deific brother off with a callous hand and a flippant shrug. "Leave it, and me, be, Brother. And all will be well."
"I see…" Light hummed, "I have to ask about the Grimm."
"Do you?"
"Yes."
"I don't think you do…"
"I disagree." Light pressed, "Cerberus, was it?"
"A guardian." He lied smoothly, having drawn the name from the Human realms for just such a risk. "You needn't worry."
"But-"
"And if you want things to be better between us," he cut in meaningfully, "you won't press me."
"Very well, Brother." Light sighed, his window shrinking as he withdrew. "Just… Please, do not make any mistakes you may regret."
"Oh, Brother…" He laughed when the window had closed entirely, "I don't intend to allow any mistakes I will regret. Of that you may be sure…"
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Jahoan :
If you give Reapers Aura, you're gonna have a bad time.
Shadowy Myths :
Ah, but gods always have the best of intentions. Right?
Blaiseing Fire :
It's more like… Both. Each for different reasons.
G119 :
I used to run Vorcha I think Sentinel? Maye soldier. I used the Viper sniper rifle as a solo weapon and spammed my flamethrower to set up tech combos with my team, and used the rifle to pick off low-tier swarm enemies to keep my Rage up and thus my regen running. Used to shock people, how many kills I'd get.
Knightwolf :
Because anything Light did just in canon was a wise decision? Lol.
Foxcomm :
I had an idea I put in on how Ash evaded the Collector Seekers. But honestly, the game doesn't explain how she's moving around at the end of Horizon either.
Also, how Harbinger knows is kinda spoilery…
Screaming Stuka :
If I hadn't already planned all this, I… Probably would have done that, yeah.
CMDR Kai :
They less 'dodge bullets' and more 'guess where the shots will land'. Characters get shot all the time. It's a mix of luck, volume of fire, and enemy skill. As for why she lost… Well, frankly, I think any Krogan is a physical match even for stronger Hunters out there. And I think Biotics, and limiting things to a Krogan's specialty - melee - makes it even more even.
She could win, and has won, against a Krogan Biotic. Sometimes, though, you just don't.
