An Anthem x Mass Effect Story

I do not own Anthem or Mass Effect, both are owned by BioWare. The only things I claim in this fanfic are my OCs. This is my first fanfic so any and all criticism will be greatly appreciated. Once again, another warning about some graphic scenes in this.

Extermination Duty

Admiral Justinias was angry, looking over the reports of the failed attack. Over 6000 soliders, sent to their deaths by an incompetent General, against basic primitives wielding chemical propelled firearms that somehow IGNORE kinetic barriers. As he was walking to his office on the ship, he went past the medical bay, only to freeze when he saw the incompetent General himself, Desolas, being wheeled alongside his brother, both missing an arm each. He grabbed a soldier, and immediately demanded to know what happened.

When he got his answer, he was astounded that something so like a Prothean relic would do this, before getting a horrifying feeling, so he rushed back to the bridge. When he got there, he went to the soldier maintaining the scanners over the planet, who quickly saluted him when he approached, "Admiral Justinias, sir! Is there something you wanted to see?" he asked his superior.

Justinias nodded curtly, "Did you get a reading of the relic that wounded General Desolas?" he asked the crewmate. When the man nodded, he spoke again, "Do a scan of the entire world for any matching signatures, even passive ones. When the soldier did what he was told, Justinias' horrible feeling skyrocketed. Across the entire world were thousands of signatures, all similar to the small artifact. Then he saw something even worse; right where the enemy's city was, there was a massive signature, passive and not fully activated like the podium was, but it was there nonetheless.

Justinias immediately started coming up with plans. The enemy must under no circumstances get ahold of this power, and seeing as how one of these objects was already used on his men, intentional or no, he could easily find a way to classify that as breaking the the Citadel Conventions, meaning he could now do as he pleased, and release the "special munitions" tucked in the belly of the ship.

He turned to the officer again, "Good job soldier, now, return to your post." He ordered, the soldier doing as he said as he took his spot on the bridge and started speaking, "Men, we face an unknown enemy, in a hostile world comparable to a Rachni world, who have slaughtered our own en masse. Now, recently a new weapon was used, a weapon that could cause unfathomable damage to not only our people, but our very worlds, and the enemy is sitting on a version of it, larger than anything we've seen yet. That is why, I must authorize the use of tier 3 and tier 2 WMDs." he said, doing his best to not sound excited or eager.

There were gasps around the bridge; tier 3 weapons of mass destruction counted any large energy-burst weapons, including thermonuclear warheads and antimatter, while tier 2 counted any uncontrolled, self-replicating weaponry such as nanomachines, or biological weapons. Justinias continued, "On my order, we will start with the virus bombs, followed 3 hours later by a mix of low-yield nuclear bombs, and thermonuclear cobalt bombs." Many of the soldiers looked like they wanted to protest, but their belief in the hierarchy and its ways prevented them from speaking against a superior.

Justinias meanwhile, was going over what he would present to the hierarchy later, when he was too report. While they would not like the destruction of a garden world, even a piece of it, the value gained by studying and taking the relics would outweigh the loss of such a dangerous, nearly inhospitable planet. As for the primitives, it wouldn't matter what they thought, as they would most likely become a client race of the hierarchy when this was over. He started leaving the bridge, awaiting the moment the planet was evacuated of hierarchy soldiers, grinning at the thought of the rewards he would receive when this was over.

X

General Williams was walking to the prison, outside of his javelin as he was going to oversee the interrogations from behind a one way pane of glass. They had managed to capture 40 of these "turians" as their wrist devices had called them, and a few corvus agents had managed to also take 3 "asari" and 6 "salarians" as well. With said wrist device, which the aliens called an omni tool, they had been able to make a sort of basic translation device that would be installed into headsets, or be programmed into the Javelins.

While most of the captured turians were low ranking soldiers, 2 were officers, and one was what they had figured out to be a colonel. They had also managed to save the colonel's omnitool, and translate the commands coming from the main ships up in orbit. When he finally arrived at the cell for the Colonel, he took a seat behind the glass as three of his sentinels walked in, two in their javelins, and the interrogator himself outside of it, but carrying a large caliber sidearm on their hip.

As the questions started, the answers were quickly translated so that everyone behind the glass could also hear, as the soldier rattled off their name, rank, and service number. When asked why they attacked, the soldier said that they were breaking Citadel laws with both their tampering of a Mass Relay, and using AI, causing confusion among everyone present, as AI was thought to be impossible with current technology.

"What do you mean? Our civilization hasn't even come close to AI, and why is it illegal?" the interrogator questioned, causing the Colonel to be confused now, and with some irritation in his tone he said to them, "They're illegal because they're beings of complete logic with no morals that will always find themselves superior in the end and turn on their creators. As for your denial of possessing them, why did our system pick up heuristic code in the message that you were sending to us? From what we scanned, the code seemed to be somewhat self-aware, and of incredible adaptability and learning, more so than any virtual intelligence could have, not to mention the incredible accuracy of your rounds when you fired back at us as even your first shot had been a perfect, fatal hit." He said, somewhat smug, thinking he had figured them out.

Then, the interrogator realized what happened in an instant, "We don't use virtual programs for either targeting or our communications." He said, much to even further confusion for the officer, but before he could respond the interrogator continued, "We use cyphers; people with incredible mental acuity, telepathy, and sensitivity to the Anthem of Creation for all calculations and communications." It was discovered very early on after they had just left Coda that no matter how much cheaper it would be to simply replace all targeting and communications with code, it would barely get even 5% of the performance a cypher could do in half the time with an amp chair, so while it was still being worked on, the highest that 5% had ever been raised too was 13%.

At first, the officer didn't believe them, telling that he had never heard of the Anthem, and that telepathy was impossible, until the cypher across the glass introduced themself in his head, in a language he didn't even understand. His initial reaction was one of complete surprise, before the horrifying realization that his people, who uphold the law to the highest degree, effectively broke one of the most important first contact rules to ever be in place.

Before anything else was said, the colonel's omni tool activated, and through it a slightly garbled, staticy speech that the translators couldn't pick up on. When he heard it, the colonel's mandibles went tight to his face, and his eyes were wide open with fear. There was a brief pause as the message ended, before the colonel started talking again, pleading, begging to evacuate. When asked why he explained, "That insane idiot commanding the fleet is going to enact Rachni protocol! It's and initial virus bombing, made to kill any life in an area, following by a cleaning nuclear strike, which he more than likely will target right at your city!" The officer said, terrified.

To say the room was surprised was an understatement, but as soon as the shock had worn off, everyone started moving, evacuating, with ships in hangars firing up, ready to take everyone, from civilians to equipment out of there. When the engineers, cyphers, arcanists, and finally the civilians were all in, next came the prisoners, as the sentinels refused to go until everyone else made it, which naturally sparked the pride of more than a few freelancers who suddenly proclaimed the same, not that they would have gone in front of any groups anyway. The prisoners were confused, even fighting a bit, until the same Colonel spoke up of what they're crazy admiral was planning to do, and suddenly a growing riot quickly turned into organized lines, discipline winning over fear in the martial race.

Finally, as the freelancers and sentinels were halfway evacuated, the bombs start. Massive shells fell from low orbit, only for the sides to burst open and deploy hundreds of cannisters outside almost every direction of the city, and massive clouds of green gas started drifting around, with one huge one coming right at the city, decaying everything in its way. Nothing was safe as plants quickly lost all leaves and signs off life, some even rotting away, while animals fell over, dead and dying in droves, with every species from brutes to ursix, to even the skorpions. The only thing left capable of living in that cloud the small, random elementals wandering the world.

Then, just as the cloud reached the city wall, the ships started talking off, taking everyone with them, but flying low and even through the clouds to stay hidden from the ships in orbit's scanners, trying to get as far away from the city as possible. Just as the clouds had engulfed the city, they stilled, the wind stopped for just a moment, as if the world was deciding where to send this ultimate force of death.

It never got the chance. The thirty minutes were up, and just as humanity was out of the blast radius, the bombs started. First was the thermonuclear cobalt bombs, incinerating the flammable clouds almost instantly as the shields, left on to try and decrease the damage, collapsed instantly under the assault. The dust hadn't even cleared when the second volley of low yield fission bombs started, radiation scanners everywhere going off the charts as a once great city was left a smoking, melted, cratered wreck, but looking at all the people saved, General Williams, the sentinel commander in charge of the colony, couldn't help but sigh in relief at all the faces that stared back at him, that could have gone a lot worse.

X

Justinias couldn't help but feel proud of himself, seeing the wreckage of the accursed city. Once he found the primitive's next planet and showed the destruction that the hierarchy could, no, WOULD enact if they didn't surrender, would surely scare them into submission. His thoughts were broken as an officer on the bridge spoke up, "Admiral, we're getting activity on the scanners, three cruiser sized ships, with a noticeable lack of any weapons are currently fleeing the planet. We think it might be any evacuees of the city." The officer looked slightly conflicted telling the Admiral this, not sure if she should have just ignored it, and given these poor people a chance to run.

Justinias was in a shock for a moment that anyone survived, before grinning, "Well, seems as if these primitives are difficult to kill. Good, that means this client might actually be useful to help out in patrols." He said in his usual, arrogant way, and not so subtly glanced at the occasional volus walking around. It was well known that the shorter species was not one for any real combat, instead preferring to rely on the Turians for that, while they handled the Turian's and their own economies to turn them both into superpowers.

He spoke up again, "Capture the ships, they'll be useful for negotiations later. Target their engines and-" he's suddenly cut off by alarms blaring from the sensors, "Sir! We're getting activity from the ring structure on the opposite end of the system from the Mass Relay, we think the alien fleet is arriving." Justinias just looked annoyed, "And? Powerful weapons or not, they couldn't have been able to build much with such a hostile world, afterall if they were willing to settle this one, imagine their home! Not to mention they don't even have Mass Effect, the most powerful and advanced tech in the galaxy." He reasoned, fully confident in his fleet's capabilities. Since a few of their ships had been destroyed, he had brought the full patrol fleet through, including his dreadnought.

Then, 5 minutes later, the officer spoke up again, "Readings from the scanners are coming through sir, we're getting contacts ranging from large frigates to cruiser size, still coming through though." If the officer was nervous, no one noticed or commented on it. Justinias meanwhile was already thinking of tactics, as so far it seems like the primitives had only deployed a small scouting force so far, but were obviously gearing up to deploy a fleet, and he was about to speak up before the officer beat him to it, "Sir! We have multiple, much bigger signatures this time, putting it at one 3 km ship, followed by 2 half that size!"

That got Justinias' attention. By now the enemy fleet came through in full, with just a few short of 500 ships he still had more than double of them, but the three dreadnoughts to his one, 2 km dreadnought worried him a little but he pressed on. "What are the scans telling us about those dreadnoughts?" He asked the officer.

"Sir, our scans are picking up the two smaller ships both have 1 km long spinal cannons, and the last one-." The officer started, before cutting off, making a sound of confusion, making Justinias turn to her, "Well? Spit it out officer." he commanded, making her start up again. "Our scans indicate that the biggest ship in the back has the least guns, and no spinal cannon. Instead, I'm detecting a large amount of fighter craft." She reported.

Fighter craft? I knew they were primitive, but this is pure idiocy, thought Justinias as he had to hold in a chuckle, settling for a smirk as much of the crew was wary of that ship, not sharing their captain's confidence. "Ignore it for now then, it's most likely they were going to use that for all their ground forces." Justinias said dismissively, and with no other option, the crew listened, "Now, start getting firing solutions on each ship for when we get in range, and if you can get the dreadnought, even better."

As the enemy fleet started moving to meet the Turians, the comm officer spoke up, "Sir, we're getting a transmission from the enemy fleet, should we accept it?" Justinias thought for a moment, before shrugging, "Sure, might as well at least try to prevent some bloodshed." He said as the face of one of these 'Humans' showed on screen. Justinias could assume this human was an older member of his species obviously, with hair starting to go gray and scowl lines on his face.

Then, the human started talking, "Unknown alien fleet, you are invading Codan Alliance and have destroyed a colony with WMDs, surrender immediately or face destruction." Justinias gaped for a moment, breath caught on words that would never come as he felt rage build up inside him before he spoke, "You stupid primitive, do you not see the fleet you face? We are the Turian Hierarchy, and we do not surrender! I was going to offer you primitives a chance to surrender, but I think I'll just take the survivors to stand trial before the citadel for destroying our ships." Justinias turned off the communication after that, "Officers, get me firing solutions on those ships, and I want the guns firing as soon as we're in range." He demanded as everyone scrambled to comply, meanwhile in the medbay, General Desolas just woke up.

X

With a groan, the first thing he tries to do is sit up, but when that proves too much of a challenge he just opens his eyes, before immediately trying to shield them. Right as he tried is when he noticed something was wrong, as he can't feel his right arm, before it all comes rushing back. With a deep breath, he closed his eyes, mentally preparing himself, before slowly looking. Thankfully, it wasn't a mess, but seeing that you're missing your dominant arm is still quite a shock.

For a moment he just stared, before a doctor eventually rushed over, seeing him awake. "General, good to see you awake. I'm sorry for the loss of your arm but the damage was too severe to save it, like your brother's." The doctor said quickly, cutting straight to the point as he had known Desolas would prefer it that way. At the mention of his brother, the General looked over, and saw that he was still unconscious, and missing his left, before turning back to the doctor, "And the human that saved us?"

At the question, the doctor's face fell, his mandibles drooping to denote sadness, "Died on the operating table, I'm afraid. The damage was too severe, as if all the layers of his body simultaneously melted and then flash cooled." The doctor had a look in his eyes that told Desolas the sight must have been incredibly unpleasant, "We think we were able to get some form of identification, though." The Doctor said and pulled out what looked like two tabs of metal, handing them to Desolas. On it were strange symbols that the translator visor he had nearby tried to turn into Turian script, though there were two words he still didn't recognize, which he figured must have been the name.

He sighs as he puts the tags on the table next to him, before turning back to the doctor, "Is there any officer that can tell me what happened planetside? Are we still fighting?" He asked, but surprisingly, the doctor shook his head, "No, all officers are currently preparing for a fight, apparently the Human's fleet arrived. As for what happened planetside, well, I may be a good Turian, but even I have to question Admiral Justinias' actions." The doctor said with more than a little bitterness when referring to his superior. "What do you mean? What did he do?" Questioned Desolas, as he started getting a sinking feeling in his gut.

One again, the faraway, guilty look appeared in the doctor's eyes as he seemed to recall it, "I was watching from a window when it happened, so I didn't see what happened on the ground, but apparently Admiral Justinias referred to an anti-Rachni protocol, and virus bombed the planet, before cleansing the area with low-yield fission and salted nuclear ordanance.

Desolas wanted to scream in rage as he just stared blankly, before starting to plan. Justinias obviously had to be brought before the hierarchy for war crimes, but considering the circumstances, more than a few officers might be on his side. He had no idea how many that might be, so he had to be careful, otherwise his actions could be seen as mutiny, and end up with him in trial for treason. Desolas then started talking, "I see, are we on his ship? Or am I on one of the cruisers?" he asked, and the doctor reported that he was on the dreadnought with the Admiral, making Desolas internally smile as he already started getting ideas.

His thought process was interrupted however, by some of the lights flickering, before shutting off, quickly turning to low-power red ones. The doctor spoke up this time, "Spirits, I thought these people were supposed to be primitive, so why is the Admiral pulling power away to the shields?" He asked and walked off, Desolas not speaking up as he remembered the sheer power of these people on the ground, and had to suppress a shudder as to what kind of damage they could do in space. He only hoped to survive long enough to bring that barefaced Admiral to justice.

X

"Sir, enemy shields are strengthening, I think they have an idea of what we can do." Reported one of the cyphers in the bride. Admiral Steven Hackett was an imposing man, going into his 30's, his hair had started going gray near the roots, and the lines of constant stress from paperwork and patrols were starting to show, almost complimenting the long scar that ran from just next to his eye to his upper lip on the right side of his face. He immediately started giving out orders, telling people to charge the guns and load all torpedo tubes, meanwhile his own ship was gearing up to support, fighters and bombers being manned and ready to deploy at a moment's notice. "As soon as the tubes are loaded up, I want all ships to fire, followed by launching all fighter craft."

As soon as the order had been given, it became a waiting game. When it was finally broken, all torpedoes were launched, meanwhile the front of his own ship opened up, fighters streaming out at high speeds, followed by packs of bombers, and he sighed. For all his life, his species was fighting just to stay alive on the planets they colonize, with space being one of their only safe havens, and now it seems even that's no longer an option. He only hoped this new war would end soon.

X

Hjalkar smiled as he climbed into his fighter, the HUD of his javelin changing to match those of the fighter as all of his systems were linked up, meanwhile his copilot and cipher, Freydis, was hooking herself into the specialized "Amplifier Shell", hidden near the center of the Indigo fighter, named after the bird on Coda, near its power supply, effectively doubling the layers of armor around both her and it. As he saw the distant lights of the thrusters of cataclysm torpedoes fly, he couldn't help but get excited like this, heading right into the frey, en masse with his brothers and sisters to protect humanity, just as Magna Stral wanted. Before long, after his javelin was hooked in, he felt his fighter start to move, and before he knew it he was flung into the void.

His orders were to protect the Wyvern bombers, so he didn't rush forward like so many of his fellow pilots did, along with the various Vespid drones there to support and help take fire. He watched as they streak across space, their own bright thrusters joining the light show of the torpedoes. While he couldn't see from here, he knows the torpedoes will do all sorts of nasty stuff to the enemy ships, not counting the smaller missiles he has on his ship, before his cypher starts relaying comms.

"Spear squadron is saying they have their own shields, so set your torpedoes' triggers accordingly." She said, the message being relayed to the entirety of Hammer squadron. Surprisingly, the flight over to the enemy ships was smooth sailing, but when they got there, they saw what could only be a slaughter. Turian fighters left and right were outgunned, outmanned, and outmaneuvered everywhere, and now that the bombers and their squadrons were here, it only got worse as bombers went for the support ships, destroyed frigates by the fives and tens as more and more miniature cataclysms were unleashed.

He soon had his work cut out for him as three Turian fighters, shaped almost like a bird of prey, swooped in to attack. He quickly maneuvered to face them and start unleashing railgun rounds, scoring several hits and scratches, but their vehicle shields were much stronger than their troop ones. After eventually popping one of the shields though, he noticed their armor was next to none compared to his, causing him to grin as one well placed shot went straight through the cockpit, leaving him to dodge the scrapped wreckage. Getting cocky, he opened up his comms, "I thought these guys were like birds? Shouldn't they know how to fly?" He yelled, getting several laughs.

The bombers finally made it to their targets 10 minutes later, and the explosions of pure Anthem energy were turning the battlefield into a rainbow of death as parts of ships were just incinerated, flashfrozen and shattered, ripped to pieces, eaten through, or even disintegrated from blasts of pure electricity. The remains of some ships were flung so hard from the blasts of elemental power, they even impaled other ships, and one lucky shard, larger than the bomber, slammed into the dreadnought's main gun, not destroying the ship, but shredding the barrel so bad it can't fire.

After the fighter aspect of the battle was over, they had crippled and killed at least 200 vessels, mostly frigates with about 10 or 20 of those cruisers or destroyers. They had also knocked out the main gun of the big ship, along with a lot of the forward guns, and probably a few defense lasers. As everyone was heading back to the ships, there was talk over the comms, shouts of encouragement to their main ships as finally, their dreadnoughts were in range.

X

Lieutenant Admiral Tullso Vibitas was, to be perfectly honest, scared. The initial fighter attack alone almost killed all of theirs, not to mention over 30% of the frigates and 5% of the cruisers had been destroyed or crippled and their main gun knocked out before they even got into a real fight. On top of all that, Admiral Justinias had been knocked out when the shard hit the ship, so when he saw the enemy ships get in range, he had to strain so his voice wouldn't as he ordered all guns still alive to fire on them. He guessed the enemy didn't have as much range as them, as the ships kept coming forward. That hope was shot pretty soon, just like the cruiser right next to him as it took one of the enemy's dreadnought rounds to the nose, with the round punching out of the back and through 2 more frigates behind.

That was all before the light show started on the enemy ships. Despite scoring a few kills themselves, the enemy's shields held up fairly well, when suddenly the two enemy dreadnought's guns started turning a myriad of lights. When the next shots from those guns happened, he found the same, strange effects the torpedoes caused suddenly being shot at his ships at high speeds. The effects were instantaneous as ships started to die even faster, many of the effects being unblockable by their own shields, like the rounds themselves.

With their fleet numbers cut in half by this point, he knew what he had to do, so he raised his voice as loud as he can make it, turned on the fleet wide communications, and did his best to sound steady, "This is the Lieutenant Admiral. As the highest person in the chain of command right now, we need to retreat and head back to the relay." Before turning off the comm, brokering no argument. Not that anyone would have made one anyway. The humans were ripping them to pieces as all ships started to retreat, but the humans chased all the way to the relay, so from the start, 1000 went to 500, and 500 went to 250 as they finally escaped.

When they were finally back in the Serpent Nebula, Admiral Justinias had awoken, and raged at the Lieutenant Admiral for running away, before seeing the shape his fleet was in. When the Citadel finally came into sight and the Destiny Ascension contacted them, they told their story. They were then told to get a shuttle full of all surviving high ranking personnel, and to come aboard the citadel. Doing as he was told, Justinias gathered the other people needed. When they arrived however, he was surprised to have c-sec pointing guns at him, and was about to question it when suddenly he has his head hit the ground, and a knee on his lower back.

Desolas spoke up, "Admiral Justinias, you are under arrest for crimes against the Citadel Conventions, the Turian Hierarchy's codes and policies, and for Crimes against Sapience!"

Author's Note: For those of you thinking I gave Justinias too much firepower, or weapons that he should not have, bare in mind that the council had largely forbidden exploring mass relays because of encountering super dangerous species outside of the known territory, so if they were preparing to not have another Rachni war, but to still explore the unknown, it would stand to reason that the council would outfit an exploratory/research/military group with weapons capable of waging total war on and winning against a Rachni-like species. Also bare in mind that the Rachni were so vicious and tough that the council needed to uplift a species that was arguably just as vicious and tough if not more so than the Rachni, but they only needed to do that so there were planets LEFT after the war, when it would have been cheaper just to nuke and biohazard bomb them. Now, the council is in territory that is NOT THEIRS, therefore they have NO obligation to fully maintain and preserve it. It would be like how the council treated infected Rachni worlds; they were too toxic to support life that wasn't Rachni, therefore they were less valuable compared to the lives of their men so in the end they just left them uninhabitable, yet still mineable worlds.