AN/: Hi everyone! Back with Chapter 2 and the escalation of open hostilities. Enjoy.

Chapter 2: Contact!

For those who wish to understand war, one must understand the constant shifting between two types of power.

Perceived power and actual power.

Strife and conflict often is based upon the discrepancies between the perceived and actual levels of power of a certain party. And in order to rectify the differences, war springs out of the ground as the natural machination to tip the scales in the direction of the actual reality of power.

In truth, this observation is not a new one. But, to understand the Reaper War in particular, one must familiarize themselves with these constant changes between perceived and actual power, between the galaxy's races, and to some extent, the Reapers themselves.

Prior to 2186 and full contact with the Reapers, the gap between the actual and perceived powers of the Reapers was enormous. Save for a select few, the vast majority believed Sovereign's threat and Saren's actions were a statistical outlier. Information was spread that Sovereign itself was a Geth creation, not a Reaper in and of itself. When all that happened, I was unsure of what to think.

Based on the little knowledge I had of the Geth, even I knew deep down that Sovereign was different. Something was constantly bugging me about it, and when more and more of Commander Shepard's exploits came to light following Saren's, and later, the Collectors' defeats, the threat seemed more and more dangerous to some. I had a nagging feeling that someday the reckoning would come, and the actual power of the Reapers would rip things harshly back to where they "needed" to be.

Besides concerned individuals however, the Turian Hierarchy downplayed the Reapers significantly. We were officially ordered not to speak of the topic on-duty. And naturally, as always with gag orders, it meant we all increasingly talked about the subject behind closed doors. Blackwatch itself was not immune to the topic, as rumors spread that Saren Arterius himself had been a part of the unit, despite the claim being totally false (since the timeline of his service record did not allow him to have served in the regiment before joining the Council Spectres at such a young age). Even in our small unit, worries about the Reapers spread like wildfire. We all were concerned about what we were going to do to prepare. And more often than not, due to the restrictions, we could do very, very little.

And again, looking to the balance of perceived and actual power provides more answers as to why the collective controlling elements of the Galaxy's races acted in this manner.

For the most part, the perceived and actual powers of the Galaxy's main races were both fairly well aligned. Especially for the Turians. The Turians were widely considered the strongest and most dangerous military force in the galaxy. And for good reason. The display on Taetrus had thrown fresh eyes on our capabilities in combat against people who even understood our tactics and ways, and we still annihilated those who openly resisted to almost the last man. The Asari, Salarians, Krogans, and even Humans were all flexing their muscles throughout galactic space along with the Turians.

The egos were inflating.

And as a result, their perceived powers dwarfed and diminished any possible challenge by a conventional, domestic force. But, as we survivors know, the Reapers were no conventional force.

If you are reading this and have no understanding of how the Reapers fought, let me explain briefly then, how they did.

The Reapers did not fuck around.

They did not delay. They did not debate strategy. They did not hesitate. They engaged in combat with massive amounts of forces and combat power, utilized for a singular motive.

Conquest at any cost.

Anything and everyone were utilized and harvested to fulfill that goal. Nothing was safe.

Of course, this meant that the Reapers' actual power was immense. There were no shackles on their behaviors, no allies to sate, no global press to appease, no laws to follow. They simply broke the door down and then dropped fission bombs down your throat without pause. They did this to everyone, knocking planets down one by one until entire systems vanished, tumbling down together into heaps of rubble.

Even in the beginning, the galaxy's races thought conventional tactics could defeat this threat. Surely, the technological innovations and shiny weapons could go through the Reapers without having a second thought about it.

Unfortunately, such thoughts led to the deaths of untold millions, and possibly even billions. The arrogance that was pervasive in the early stages of the war was frankly astounding.

And Taetrus…suffered the brunt of the wake-up call.

When we saw the sky start to burn in all the wrong places around sunrise, let's just say any hopes of not facing contact quickly perished along with the unfortunate ones blindsided in the dark expanse of space above Taetrus.

"You seeing what I'm seeing, Caen?" Lucus' voice crackled over the comms in my ear.

"Yeah."

"Is that the tenth fleet?"

"It was."

"Well, I guess that means my nights are booked for the foreseeable future," Lucus groaned as he hopped down off the machine gun nest on our building overlooking the front gate and the main approach to the Had. Vellia and Pago were on the largest building opposite of us on the other side of the main approach to the base, with a few of the other members of the ground crew.

The Mantis gunship had been active and mobile for several hours at this point. The gunship pilot barely said anything besides his mandatory comms check every five minutes. Everyone's anxieties were rising with the tenth fleet burning over our heads.

"Sorry about that, Lucus," I said back to the sniper as he loaded his Punisher rifle with a thermal clip, "I could call the mysterious space horde and tell them to stop for a little bit."

"Have you been talking to the Colonel again?"

"Fuck no," I responded tersely. We both chuckled for a moment after turning off our comms. But my laughter quickly dropped away. "We're probably going to fucking die here, Lucus."

"Well, it's not that bad of a shit-hole I guess," Lucus shrugged, "It could always be worse, you know. We could have been up there in the ships of the Tenth fleet and gotten vaporized. At least we may have the possibility of having a say about how we go down."

"Who knew that would be a luxury, eh?"

"The Spirits like fucking with things in that way, I guess," Lucus muttered, as he readjusted one of his chest bandolier rigs, "Every time this shit happens, I wonder why I volunteered for this job."

"We fight for those who cannot fight, so that tomorrow we all may have a chance at victory," both of us rattled off unemotionally. It was the slogan of the Blackwatch, drilled into all of us from the moment the selection process and special forces training began. We were the expendable maniac soldiers who would throw themselves into unbelievable chaos to keep our way of life alive.

Or at least in theory.

After a few moments of awkward silence, we both turned our radios back on, and the whole thing was filled with chatter. But a line came through the comms that sent everyone into total silence.

"Vallum has enemy contact," Colonel Prosco's voice cut through the air.

Well, that's something.

"Son of a bitch," Pago swore, "They're already there?!"

"What sort of enemy strength are they reporting?" I asked calmly, trying to push away the ominous dread that was falling over us.

"Exact numbers are unknown at this time, but estimates put them near five fleet strength at minimum," Prosco replied nonchalantly, "Ground forces seem to be relatively conventional, but ships have descended to the surface and are providing fire support that is overwhelmingly effective. Taetrus' Primarch is KIA. Chain of command is disintegrating fast."

"And what about the other cities?"

"Spaedar has only reported light contact, sacrificial scouts to probe their defenses most likely. We haven't picked up anything in this area yet. From what we've heard from the other side of the planet, a lot of our forces are in retreat."

"Fuuuuuuuck," Lucus groaned.

Prosco didn't even act like he had heard Lucus, "We've started base destruction protocol and sent out a distress signal to Palaven. It's been received, but we have no idea on how long a response will take to arrive. Most likely course of action is hold station for an extraction and hope whatever comes can get us back out of the system."

As much as I wanted to scream at the futility at the plan, I couldn't. We had to keep our heads on straight and hope a better option revealed itself.

"Feral lead copies all, Colonel. Feral team will hold and defend the FOB for as long as it takes."

"Roger, I'll keep you posted with updates on the ground situation. Hopefully we'll hear more details from Palaven soon. Over and out."

Everyone was silent for a few minutes as we mentally prepared ourselves for prolonged combat. No soldier really goes about it in the same way as the next. Lucus would always take a nap before any fight. Pago would read messages from home. Vellia would meditate.

As for myself, I would pipe music into my helmet from my omni-tool that I had downloaded from the extranet. It would be absolute garbage popular music, but it was enough to distract me and let me have a few moments to get my head clear. I'd also pace around like a maniac, which of course would typically annoy Lucus and prevent him from napping on occasion. But this time, Lucus was out cold in seconds.

"Is Lucus already asleep?" Vellia asked, and I looked over to her across the way while I paced around the rooftop of my building. She hadn't moved an inch from her meditative state, her head bowed down to the ground as she sat utterly motionless.

"Yeah, he's already pretty much comatose."

"Figures. That must be a record for him."

We ended up having about another hour or so of downtime.

"I'm just a teenage dirtbag, baby like you…" my music faded away as I began to hear the faint popping of explosions in the far distance.

All of us on the rooftops snapped away from our inner voids as soon as we heard it.

"That's fucking close," Pago said as I could see him shoulder his Revenant and load it quickly, "We're gonna have contact soon."

"Lucus!" I shouted as I headed up to the mounted machine gun on our building.

"What do you need, boss?" he answered back without hesitation.

"Can you identify which direction that is?"

"On it, give me two minutes!"

"This is Feral lead to all units on station at the Had, proceed to combat stations, I repeat, all units proceed to combat stations, over and out."

Prosco responded to my message with another "Acknowledged" text response.

"It's the settlement," Lucus interjected, "I can't see any enemy air cover right now. Looks like it's just ground forces."

"Roger, looks like we don't have long. Delta 7, this is Feral lead, do you read?"

"Affirmative, Feral lead, this is Delta 7, go ahead, over," the Mantis gunship pilot punctually replied.

"Giving you a heads up, we have possible enemy ground forces at the settlement twenty klicks from our position, can you go out and give us an idea on how close they are from our position, over?"

"Roger, what's our rules of engagement, over?"

"Do not fire unless in danger. But I won't stop you if you deem it necessary. I can't guarantee we can pick you up if you go down that far out, so keep that in mind Delta 7. Beyond that, it's pretty much your discretion on the ROE, over."

"Roger, Feral lead, we're oscar-mike, out."

The Mantis broke off from its circling pattern at our 10 o'clock high and accelerated off towards the settlement at the Halen River in the Diluvian Wildlands.

"Looks like they're orbital dropping more units to their position, Caen," Lucus said as he turned his head back towards me, "Probably at least a couple hundred down there, probably more."

And the corroborating report was radioed in by the gunship crew not minutes later.

"Feral, this is Delta 7, we're over the settlement on the Halen River. The whole place is burned out; we've taken some ground fire but nothing very dangerous as of yet. A lot of the ground forces that attacked the village have taken off running in your direction. We attacked one of the orbital drop sites just to scatter them. Whatever these things are, they sure are fucking ugly, over."

"Roger Delta 7, nice work, you can head back this way, try and loop around from another direction so they don't just follow you straight back, over," I replied as I leaned forward up against the mounted machine gun.

"Wilco, Delta 7, out."

"Great. Just great." Lucus' mumble had snuck on to my comms.

"What's great?" I asked back.

"Wha…oh, I just realized something."

"And what's that?"

"We don't have a combat medic."

Fuck.

"Well, we're all trained right? So don't sweat it," I added, trying to spin things at least in some positive direction.

"Yeah, well I sure hope Pago is not the one sealing up a sucking chest wound on me, I saw him during the medical test. Might as well have been butchering a Varren for a fucking steak. Just keep him away from me if I buy it, alright?"

I shook my head, "Roger that."

"Thanks, at least that's a bright spot of news for me….and don't tell him I said that."

"I won't."

After my short conversation with Lucus, everything was silent. The comms, the world around us, and everyone on base. It was almost as if Taetrus had ceased functioning entirely. Everything now waited on the arrival of the enemy.

Lucus had ghosted off to his sniper's perch on the building directly adjacent to my machine gun position at my 9 o'clock. He didn't like sitting next to the firing of heavier mounted weapons for sustained periods. Fucked with his head too much for his liking. Well, and there was the whole thing of the mounted guns being big, flashing, bright targets for the enemy to shoot at.

A fair concern.

"Possible contact, 1 o'clock from my position at five hundred meters, I've got brush moving, the thermal scope corroborates," Pago reported as I wheeled the turret with a loud 'ka-chunk' as it locked into position on the general area of the enemy sighting.

"Alright everyone, thermal check your weapons," I ordered.

I pulled out my Phaeston and checked the thermal clip, finding a fully-charged one in the weapon. I followed with a check of my Carnifex pistol, which I kept on a holster on my right hip.

"Feral 1-2 is Green," Lucus called.

"Feral 2-1 is Green," Pago radioed.

"Feral 2-2 is Green," Vellia responded, "Let's get this shit over with."

"Vell," I called back, "Take the right side of the zone of contact when they show up, don't waste our rounds shooting the same targets. We need to be as effective as possible."

"Wilco."

"Alright, stay frosty everyone."

After about half a minute we got a clear view of what later became officially dubbed in identification manuals as a "Cannibal". A twisted brown and red bipedal mass of flesh with bright blue fluorescent "eyes" and a gaping mouth. There must have been at least fifty of those things coming out of the brush towards the base.

"All Feral units, you are clear to engage as you see fit. Conserve your ammo and waste 'em," I growled as I cleared the bolt on my machine gun.

"You know Caen, I've been waiting all day for you to say that," Lucus chirped happily.

POW!

Lucus' Punisher discharged the first round of our war on Taetrus, and the round the rifle sent down range had good effect, quickly sending one of the ugly bastards down into the ground. It took maybe half a second for the Reaper forces to get their act together and start shooting back.

Vellia and I took this as our cue to open up with our machine guns, with Pago joining in the monstrous hail of fire with his Revenant. At this sort of range, I barely had to adjust the machine gun's targeting reticle to move between targets. Our tracers methodically snaked between the targets down range, scattering the numerous enemies back behind cover in the jungle away from the clearing that was the direct approach to the base. Despite their cover, we continued firing at the foreign blobs, using the penetrating power of our machine guns to shoot through the trees and into our targets. All the while, Lucus was methodically picking off any of the stupid ones that poked any body part out from behind their hiding places.

CHA-CHUNK!

A one-hundred round thermal clip for my turret was already expended, and another was loaded within fractions of a second. Time flies when you're burning ammo.

Only a few more seconds of sustained fire down into the kill-zone was required to disperse the first wave. The sounds of gunshots faded away as my machine gun's barrel hissed from the heat of combat.

"Guess we're in the war now, Captain," Vellia chuckled as I heard the signature sound effect of a machine gun loading a new thermal clip.

"Yeah, it seems we are. And with not too bad of a start. Did we get most of them, Lucus?"

"Affirmative, boss. I'd bet we hit at minimum ninety percent of them. Lots of bodies down there at the end of the clearing."

"What the fuck even are those things?" Vellia asked with a sigh, "Are those Reaper forces?"

"Only thing powerful enough to knock off Batarian space and turn around to invade our space in such a short window of time," I answered back. "Long Eye, Long Eye, this is Feral actual, over."

"Feral actual, this is Long Eye, send it, over."

"Have made contact with enemy ground forces, and have successfully turned back first attack. Will remain in position for expected counter-attacks in greater numbers, how copy?"

"Long Eye copies all, keep it up. We have news from Palaven, the combined fleets are going to attempt to break through the opposing forces through the mass relay at approximately 1700 local time. We have been advised to link up with their forces once they successfully break through the enemy blockade, over."

"Roger that. Have the enemies been ID'ed, over?"

"…."

"Sir?"

"Affirmative. It's the Reapers."

"Roger that, we'll stay in our defensive position, over and out."

Our fears had been confirmed and across the galaxy the Turian Hierarchy was taking a bite from the shit sandwich of ignoring the Reaper threat. Now, the Reapers were kicking their asses awake. Everyone seemed muted at that revelation.

Except Lucus.

"Uh, Caen?" Lucus called out from his sniper perch, "Isn't there a really big if in that whole plan? If the fleets can't break through the Reapers, we aren't getting out of the system. If they wiped out Batarian space, what makes them think we won't fall in a few hours and that the Reaper ships won't just stomp their precious fleets?"

"We all know that, Lucus. Right now, we just have to hope their plan works."

"Even if…"

"EVEN IF!" I shouted back, "Fucking watch your sector and quit worrying about things that are out of your control!"

"Alright, geez…" Lucus trailed off as he went back to watching the kill-zone through his scope.

As much as I loved Lucus like a brother, he sometimes just pissed me off with that motor-mouth of his. He had earned his fair share of trouble for his inability to keep it shut when necessary. Back during the War on Taetrus, Lucus and I had earned a two-day leave pass to Vallum to get some R&R before the final push in the Diluvian Wildlands. We happened to end up in a fairly nice bar, as one does, and of course, we ended up with a bunch of other military personnel talking shit about everything. Lucus naturally, as he does, went into this massive rant criticizing military doctrine in the war and how "fucking stupid these pencil-pushing assholes are that they can't seem to recognize the difference between moving figures on a map and actually moving through terrain facing enemy fire". Of course, due to our luck the Primarch of Taetrus was there.

And within a few moments of his outburst, Lucus found himself face-to-face with the Primarch, who was none too happy with his criticisms. Fortunately for all of us, the Primarch recognized we were all relatively hammered and out of it, so he let Lucus off with a warning, but forced us all to go home for the night. Lucus beamed about the whole thing afterwards and wore the staredown like a badge of honor. Lucus maintained that he won the "staring contest" with the Primarch and that's why he let Lucus off, but I hardly believed a lot of the shit that came out of his mouth.

That whole night I remember being terrified that the situation was going to get reported and I was ultimately going to end up facing the ramifications of letting my squad-mate run his big mouth off in front of the Primarch. But nothing ever came of it.

But even after it all, I couldn't stay mad at him for very long. After the Primarch incident, he saved my ass from a flanking Facinus fighter that had ambushed me from a rooftop in one of the villages by pushing me out of the way and then dropping the offender with a single shot to the head.

That level of ability made it easier to put up with the bullshit in between.

"I'm picking up movement again," Lucus radioed, "five hundred meters…shit. They're spreading out big-time now, covering a lot of the ground outside the kill-zone. This is not good."

"I'm left of twelve, Vell, you stay right! Pago, you keep up the fire where we can't!" I ordered as I swiveled my gun back towards the left side of the kill-zone, "You're free to engage as soon as you have a visual!"

"Roger!" both Vellia and Pago responded as we readied ourselves for another round of fighting.

Here we go again.

This time the enemy attack was much more coordinated. Instead of running at the first salvo of our defensive fire, the walking monsters accepted losses and kept working their way up across the kill zone towards the Had. And to make things worse, their counter-fire was fairly accurate.

Rounds were streaking over my head and occasionally one would strike the protective shield of my mounted gun as I kept laying suppressive fire on the enemy targets, constantly loading fresh hundred round thermal clips. Now the enemy had real strength. I kept rotating the machine gun constantly, letting off ten round bursts towards clusters of enemies, mowing the blobs down into the dirt and sending others diving for cover, and often into our land mines.

With one group that I opened fire on towards my 10 o'clock in the kill zone, one of the monsters deflected a round down into the ground, directly onto a land mine, setting off the explosive and sending up a towering fireball that left a smoldering crater in the place of several enemies. I quickly acquired a new group of targets and kept up my fire, as Lucus' precise sniper fire continued to methodically drop enemies all across the kill zone approximately one per second.

Even though we seemed to be holding out decently, I figured some extra firepower would help make things a little more . . . unfair.

"Delta 7, Delta 7, this is Feral actual, over."

"This is Delta 7, send it Feral."

"I'm requesting immediate fire support on the approach to the base, on a hundred plus foot mobiles, danger close, over."

"Roger, we are inbound for fire support, danger close, ETA two (Earth) minutes, watch your heads, out."

I turned my attention back to laying down fire on the kill zone, back to the seemingly mind-numbing task of disintegrating walking hunks of ugly flesh with a heavy machine gun. After what only felt like a few seconds, my omni-tool started flashing rapidly.

Gunship is almost here.

"Cover, cover, danger close fire mission is inbound!" I radioed as I crouched behind my machine gun and poked my helmeted head around the gun shield to get a peek at the destruction.

"Guns, guns, guns," Delta 7's gunner exclaimed calmly.

The Mantis gunship came screaming down from the sky from our 2 o'clock, and already we could all hear the characteristic "BRRRRRRRT" of the main guns firing, which disintegrated whole groups of the Cannibals within fractions of a second. Delta 7 continued its attack run by firing a high-explosive missile back towards the edge of the clearing in the jungle, creating a massive explosion, and sending more than a few bodies tumbling out into a motionless heap in the kill zone.

"Hell yeah, fuck them up!" Pago exclaimed over the comms, with a shake of his fist.

A sigh which sounded like it belonged to Vellia snuck onto the radio, and I glanced over to her position, where she seemed disinterested in the whole thing. She barely whispered out over the comms, "I swear, he's still a twelve-year-old child."

"This is Delta 7, first fire mission is complete. I'm going to circle around and finish off the stragglers, over."

"Roger Delta 7," I responded, "Keep up the good work."

"We'll certainly try, Feral," the Mantis pilot chuckled back.

"Is this really all they have?" Lucus asked, and I could almost see his brain twisting inside his head as he looked back towards me from his perch, "If we can just sit here and waste these guys, why the hell is half the planet in retreat right now?"

A deafening roar filled the air, and we all frantically searched for the source, and the thing itself seemed to be a literal answering of Lucus' question.

A massive winged creature which looked to be of some similar origin to the Cannibals we had been wasting flew over us, knocking up a big cloud of dust. The monster landed in the middle of the clearing, and we didn't hesitate in returning fire. My mind eventually pieced together that this…thing was a re-engineered version of the Harvester creatures on Tarith, the "worm-necks" that were rightly feared by many who had to operate anywhere near their territory.

And this fucking abomination had mounted cannons.

"By the fucking Spirits," Lucus growled, as he crawled back from his position towards the rear of his building's roof, "Why do they have a goddamn sense of humor?"

The Harvester now turned its attention to Vellia's position, hammering her mounted gun with fire as she desperately tried to keep up her gun's fire.

"I'm fucking close to getting wasted here, guys!" the Cabal yelled as she desperately loaded another thermal clip into her machine gun.

"This is Delta 7, we are engaging."

"Thank the fucking Spirits for that!" Pago yelled.

But our relief was fairly short lived.

No sooner had the gunship bared down on the Harvester, when the winged monstrosity reared up and clasped onto the gunship with its legs and mouth, and threw the Mantis down into the ground like it was a child's toy.

"Well, we're fucked," Lucus remarked coldly, his confidence from before totally absent from his voice.

"Shut up and fire back! Vellia, do you have the Cobra launchers?!" I screamed out.

"Affirmative!"

"Then fucking use them!"

"Wilco!"

"Lucus take the machine gun!"

"Wait, what?" the sniper asked confused, "Are you doing what I think you are?"

"You better fucking believe it," I replied as I took out my Phaeston, "Cover my ass!"

"Damn it, Caen!"

I took off sprinting and leaped off the front of my building, over the walls and barricade into the kill-zone. As soon as I landed, with my jump packs dampening my fall, an explosion rocked the head of the Harvester, presumably from the launch of one of Vellia's Cobra missiles. I glared down towards the downed Mantis.

Now or never…

"Delta 7, this is Feral actual, I'm inbound to help you get out of there, hold on guys, over."

I took off sprinting down the approach to the base, concentrating on every step so that I didn't fall over. Tracer rounds and rocket fire kept impacting into the Harvester, staggering it back a few precious steps away from the downed gunship. I didn't dare fire at the Harvester out of fear of attracting its wrath at such a close range. After a few more seconds of running and fire from my team, the Harvester reared again and let out an ear-shattering roar, and then, inexplicably, the creature exploded in a bright blue flash, almost directly in front of me.

The shockwave and concussion of the blast, sent me flying onto my back into the ground with a pretty hard force. Luckily, it didn't do much beyond wind me a little bit.

"Caen! You alright down there?" a muffled voice called out.

"Yeah, yeah," I coughed as I slowly pushed myself up, and checked my Phaeston to see if it was still operational, "I'm going to get those guys out of there."

"Roger, we have you covered."

I took my time walking over to the Mantis, after confirming my rifle was working. I raised it up to my shoulder as I scanned the tree line towards the edge of the kill zone, and quickly I picked up several targets.

"Contact front, more of the smaller ugly fuckers," I called as I reached the gunship and put myself in cover behind the fuselage of the downed gunship, "I'm probably going to need the help of one of you guys down here, over."

"I'm inbound," Vellia answered instantly.

I rotated out of cover and shouldered my Phaeston. I let my eyes naturally take me towards the flashes of the enemies' weapons, and let the subconscious part of my brain take over. All the years of training and combat made this process automatic. Short, but effective, burst fire on each flash I saw, and I kept moving between targets, one-by-one. A burst, then another, and then one more until the flash stopped. Then to the next target. My shoulder buffered the automatic fire from the Phaeston with ease.

I was one with my rifle. Then Vellia showed up.

"At your six," Vellia said as I heard a dull 'THUD' on the fuselage of the Mantis behind me, "Ready for tasking."

"Check the cockpit and see who's alive, and if we can get them out of there."

"On it."

My eyes were still on the enemies. One of the Cannibals came out from the clearing and charged towards me, directly at my twelve. I took a few steps out to the right, forcing him to turn his fire, and in its moment of adjustment, I let out a long two second burst right at the bastard's head, turning it into a pile of goo and sending its body quickly down to the ground. I reached into my belt and grabbed a grenade and with a yell of "Frag out!", I lobbed the metal ball down towards the flashes in the tree line.

I hurried back behind the cover of the downed gunship when I felt the blast of the grenade going off.

"How are the crew, Vellia? Talk to me!"

"Not great, but alive," Vellia replied, "They both need a CASEVAC."

"And there's probably no way we can give them one now, but I'll ring 'em up."

"This sucks, Caen."

"Yeah…I know. Long Eye, Long Eye, this is Feral actual, over."

"This is Long Eye, go ahead, over."

"Delta 7 has been brought down in the kill zone, the pilot and co-pilot are alive, but in need of immediate medical attention. Requesting immediate CASEVAC at our position, over."

"Negative Feral, we can not get you a CASEVAC shuttle. We have been unable to raise any forces planet-side, out."

"Roger. Pago!"

"Sir!"

"Get some of the ground crew and see if you can get the shuttle and land out here so we can move these two guys out of here, I'm not leaving them in the kill zone, over."

"Roger that, I'll get some guys together, out."

"Lucus, stay frosty on the machine gun, alright?"

"Yeah, roger that," Lucus replied, sounding slightly defeated that he had ended up with the boring job.

I looked back to the tree-line and noticed that the enemy threat had been eliminated for the time being.

"Captain," Vellia said as she tapped me on my shoulder, "Permission to go hunting. I'll make sure the area around the kill zone is clear. I'll keep you updated on what I see."

Hunting, or "offensive recon", was Vellia's specialty and given the opportunity, it was nearly impossible to not let her loose.

"Alright, but be careful. We have no backup."

"And no CASEVACs either," Vellia chuckled as she disappeared in a flash, her biotic abilities now unleashed.

With Vellia gone, I jogged over to the cockpit of the Mantis to find the pilot and co-pilot relatively stabilized. The pilot seemed to be the better off one of the two, while the co-pilot had suffered the brunt of the impact, and badly wounded legs.

"You guys alright in there?"

"Yeah," the pilot coughed, "Your team-mate took care of us. First time I can remember that a LT has taken care of a flight sergeant."

"Well, we're not quite the usual ground pounders, I'm afraid."

"No kidding," the co-pilot grimaced as he tried to move his bad left leg, "You guys took down that fucked up flying demon thing like it was nothing after it swatted us down like a tiny bug."

"Just trying to get you guys home."

"Heh, after all this, that'd sure be nice."

I nodded as the air began to swirl at the approach of a landing Kodiak shuttle, "Well, hang on just a few more moments and we'll have you out of there."

Pago hurried over with one of the ground crew once the shuttle had touched down and lifted out the pilot, draping the wounded Turian's arms around their shoulders and carrying him into the Kodiak. Another one of the ground crew came out of the shuttle to help me in getting the co-pilot out, which we tried to do as gingerly as possible, as his left leg was pretty bruised and bloody. Draping one of his arms around my shoulder, the ground crew member and I briskly carried the co-pilot into the shuttle and within about thirty seconds we had both of Delta 7's crew down on stretchers.

"Looks like we're going to have a change in plans, eh Caen?" Pago called as the shuttle dusted off from the kill-zone.

"More like a total rewrite."

"Feral actual, this is Feral 2-2."

Vell.

"Go ahead 2-2."

"I'm not finding anything else out here. We must have eliminated the whole main force that was sent this way from the Halen River, over."

"Roger, go ahead and RTB, 2-2. We need to figure out a better plan to get everybody off planet, especially our casualties, do you copy?"

"2-2 copies, loud and clear. I'm on my way, over and out."

Hell of a way to start a war.

AN/: So there we have it. Next time, things are going to get a lot more chaotic and confused for Caen and the gang. Anyways, please do not hesitate to let me know what you guys think of the story so far. I'd really appreciate your guys' opinions rather than assuming what you think.

Esquire 6.