My blood streaks down my left arms as the pain begins to set in while I remain focused on my opponent. Guardians, they call themselves. The Great Machine's last gift to this race before it fell silent. My race was never given such a gift. Our god abandoned us when we needed it the most and instead found another race to grant its blessings unto. But why had the Great Machine remained at humanity's side when Darkness came? Why had it not granted my own race this gift? I have pondered these questions, and more, for a great deal of my life but soon I will no longer have to.
Those chosen by the Great Machine's Light and resurrected by its spawn are not particularly hard to kill. A single shot to the head with a wire rifle will kill them, even if they're a Titan. The trouble is that they don't stay dead. The trick to killing one of them is to destroy their Ghosts for it is only through these small machines do they get their powers and their ability to scorn death.
Over my life, I have seen my Archon and Kell personally deliver final deaths unto many Guardians. I, myself, have done so with multiple - for which I was granted the title of Baron. Such a task is not difficult. When a Guardian falls in battle, their Ghost will naturally attempt to bring them back to life. This process usually requires said Ghost to levitate closely over the Guardian's corpse, presenting the prime opportunity.
This Guardian's Ghost did not follow the aforementioned convention. Multiple times, this Guardian had been felled but not once had I even caught sight of his Ghost. The Guardian would die, his body would evaporate, and he would return from somewhere out of sight. Such behaviour presented me no opportunity to deliver this Guardian his final death and now I stand in my command room with the bodies of my loyal men littered around - those too coward having already fled.
What can I do? How am I supposed to kill this creature if my only means of doing so is simply not present?
I do not, this is the truth. I will battle this creature and I will die.
2176 CE
Jason jolted upright and frantically scanned his surrounding.
Building roof, city, flying craft.
Jason saw his helmet and quickly placed it back atop his head as the rest of his mind returned to him.
How long were we gone? He thought as he regained the rest of his mind.
6 hours. Templar answered.
He closed his eyes and exhaled a long sigh before opening them again. What were these episodes? Was the same force responsible for bringing him into this universe also responsible for these dreams? Perhaps this was the dream. Maybe none of this is even real. Familiar thoughts raced through his mind but these questions would receive no answer - something Jason was all too familiar with.
He turned towards the stairway access and began making his way down into the building.
Jason and his squad walked off the shuttle, moving towards brigade command, their armour and weapons painted in a woodland camouflage reflecting their area of operation. Reflect might not be the best word, though, as their equipment was also treated with agents to reduce or eliminate reflectiveness. For Wrex and Jason, this also meant deactivating the glows on their visors. This was a war, being harder to spot would always be advantageous and all around, there wasn't much yellow to be found.
The squad had been shipped to the AAF's eastern front and its efforts to link up with the city of Nysenii, an effort that had been brought to a crawl at the feet of the Psilos mountain range. Attached to one of Eclipse's combat brigade teams, their basic maneuver unit, they would assist in breaking the stalemate.
Jason had insisted on keeping his waistcloth, to the amusement of the rest of his squadmates. It might be a liability in a hand-to-hand fight but no one had been able to capitalise on it before so there was no need to change things. He took in the sight of brigade headquarters with all the personnel and equipment moving around. They had brought plenty of equipment themselves on the shuttle they came in, now being handled by logistics personnel. They were only going to brigade command for a chat so they left their weapons behind which, along with everything else, would be moved to their accommodation area.
They arrived at the brigade commander's tent and were greeted by an Asari standing beside a large screen as well as a holoprojector - both off.
"Fireteam Razor, welcome to the front." She greeted them as they walked in. "How was your flight?"
"Can't complain, we weren't shot down." Zaeed answered.
"Good to hear." The Asari responded. "I'm colonel Rya, brigade commander."
"So, here's the situation." The colonel began as she turned on the holoprojector which began displaying a 3D map of the local area, showing the brigade and its battalions as well as friendly brigades that were close enough and finally the mountain range itself sprinkled with hostile markers - an indication of past encounters with the enemy as well as intelligence reports as to where the enemy may be.
"We need to get past the mountain range but our SEAD operations have had remarkably little effect on enemy defences, pretty fucking thick defences, on the mountains thanks to their CIWS."
Close-in weapon systems. Shoot down a missile or an aircraft by throwing exploding bullets at it. Not ideal when you can eliminate the threat through missiles that operate way beyond visual range - the biggest weakness of any CIWS. They were the last line of defence against airborne threats but with the technology of mass effect in reducing the weight of an object and accelerating it at ludicrous speeds, they were better than ever. Because its projectiles were basically hitscan, shooting down threats with a CIWS was trivial. The issue, though, came with the heat. Shooting down threats was trivial but mass accelerators produced a lot of heat and needed to be cooled. If there are too many incoming threats, it's not going to be able to keep itself cool enough to be able to shoot all of them down.
"The whole mountain range is basically crawling with CIWS and they're pretty good at shooting and scooting as well - we can't effectively target them with our artillery."
CIWS could shoot down missiles and aircraft but mass accelerator artillery shells, not so much - even though artillery rounds were some of the slowest mass accelerated projectiles fielded in the 22nd century. It's not enough for an artillery cannon to shoot a piece of metal, that piece of metal also has to explode and spew out fragmentation otherwise all you have is a really high calibre standard mass accelerator and when you did that you basically had a ground-based orbital defence cannon. So a balance had to be found, being able to send a large enough payload at a far enough range that could be accommodated by a cannon frame that would be able to be towed or self-propelled. The end product was a payload capability not unlike the 155mm howitzers from Jason's own time, only with a far increased range and muzzle velocity. A standard gun had somewhere around 80km of effective range with missiles being preferred for anything exceeding that, ignoring air and void assets.
"The enemy's artillery?" Prarcan's deep Batarian voice asked.
"They got their teeth kicked in, they didn't have any self-propelleds and our gunners were just better." The colonel answered with a grin. "They still have a few pieces they're hanging onto up there but they're very much relying on reinforcements to come save their day."
"So, our mission's CIWS hunting then?" Zaeed asked.
"Pretty much." The colonel answered. "You and a bunch of other squads, most of them Eclipse, will jump in after the mother of all barrages and direct our artillery to their air defence sites. At the same time, our ground forces will begin advancing on their front lines. As enemy air defence sites go down, we'll be able to hit their defences from the air much better which will hopefully water down their defences enough for our ground forces to break through."
"Sounds like a plan." Zaeed spoke, satisfied.
"Any questions pertaining to the mission or otherwise, see my command staff - you guys are stepping off tomorrow right before midnight.
There are three branches that make up the UAC's armed forces. They are the UAC Army Corps, the UAC Marine Corps, and the UAC Navy. The navy and its attached marines are a tested force, though not in conventional warfare. Responsible for anti-piracy operations in a system inside the Terminus, it was not too common to have a shortage of work. They were no Turians but they knew what they were doing. The army, however, was a different story. Responsible for simply keeping the peace, they were ill-equipped and ill-trained to fight a conventional war of the 22nd century, the last part being very important.
A UAC soldier's kit was modest. At the most basic, they were dressed in fatigues and boots. They had no void responsibilities, they didn't need a sealed suit. Their uniform and boots offered comfort, breathability, and good protection from the elements, providing a good working dress. For protection, they were equipped with an armoured vest and an open-faced helmet. The vest protected the torso but maintained mobility for its user. The helmet protected the head but maintained good visibility and hearability, having in-built audio systems to relay communications as well as battlefield noises - a feature present in all combat helmets. The helmet also came with goggles that offered eye protection with integrated night vision and thermals fed from the helmet.
Finally, there was the rifle. A stock standard mass accelerator assault rifle, nothing special but also perfectly adequate. There was extra equipment according to the needs of the soldier and their mission but medi-gel and fragmentation grenades were quite common, along with entrenching tools and such.
The most important thing, though, was their kinetic barrier. Sure, it might only be able to take a couple of hits from standard small arms slugs but that's a couple of slugs not hitting the soldier. It also means whole-body protection against fragmentation, one of the most dangerous things on a battlefield. On top of the vest and helmet that can already defeat slugs and fragmentation, as well as the rest of their equipment, the average grunt of the UAC Army Corps had a superior fighting kit to even the most elite special forces operators from Jason's time.
Even with all that, this was considered sub-standard.
The jumpmaster triple-checked everything and everyone, except for the Asari and the Krogan. More than a century into the future and they were still using parachutes. Jet-chutes, using mass effect fields with a thruster pack, can deliver a combatant to the ground very quickly. The issue was, it was easily detected once the thrusters fired. You didn't need such technology if you were biotically gifted like Wrex and Thanes. They could just use their powers to do the same thing that chutes do without the heat of thrusters. For the plebians like Jason who did not have the means or the willingness to make use of fantastical powers, they had to settle for parachutes.
"Approaching drop point." The jumpmaster announced over the radio. "60 seconds."
Jason wasn't too much into reading people's emotions but he could tell his peers were excited, he was too.
"Ready to have some fun?" Zaeed asked.
"Just remember to open your chute, old man." Prarcan replied. "Wouldn't want to lose our squad lead because of his dementia."
"Shut your trap." Zaeed grumbled. "Remember what I said, get some good footage and Eclipse will pay us extra."
"I just turn on my camera and everything I do is good footage." Thanes bragged from the back.
"10 seconds!" The jumpmaster's announcement broke the chatter as every member of fireteam Razor went into war mode.
The next 9 seconds were painfully slow. All looked to the red light, waiting for it to turn green. Eventually, it did, and 6 mercenaries jumped out.
To be honest to himself, Jason had never actually done a parachute jump. He never wore a green or tan beret.
As the team was descending towards their drop zone, Jason could see fireworks popping off in the distance, of rockets meeting rockets and rockets meeting slugs as well as shells meeting dirt. It was a large battlespace, however, and they were reasonably removed from where the munitions were falling. He could see the team's target highlighted on his HUD occasionally fire off short bursts of rounds to incoming missiles. He could also see his squadmates highlighted, keeping close to them but not too close as for the chute deployment to become a proximity hazard. The drop zone approached and when they reached just before 200 metres from the ground, they opened their parachutes and activated their biotics.
"Boots on ground." Zaeed spoke quietly into their radio. "Form up, get ready to move."
"Honey, what ice cream do you want?" A mother asked.
"Ummm, I think I want the chocolate chip one." A child answered.
"Yeah, so a small vanilla ice cream for me and a large chocolate chip for her." A mother ordered.
"Mommy, look! She has the same hair as you!" A child spoke out excitedly.
Her mother turned to where her child was pointing to see a group of people walking out of the cafe, a woman with red hair just like hers was at their head. Their pace was quick and their expressions were a stern seriousness. If she had to guess, from how they dressed and the myriad of other observations one could pick up, they were servicemen on shore leave that had been cancelled for some such reason. She couldn't blame them, she'd be mad too if what little free time she would have was unexpectedly taken from her, though she supposed that's why she never joined the navy as her dad had encouraged.
"Don't point at people, sweetie, it's rude." A mother scolded.
The restaurant staff served the mother and her child their orders, prompting thanks and a retreat to one of the tables. The child was only halfway done eating her ice cream when her mother went onto her omni-tool, an action shared by every other adult patron in the restaurant. Even the entertainment display interrupted its broadcasting to display the same message given to everyone that had an omni-tool.
Three warning beeps sounded before the voice of a man spoke accompanied by text in multiple languages.
"Honey, we need to go."
Approaching their target from a point of vantage, they could just about see everything the site had to offer. RADAR dishes, SAM trucks, and CIWS turrets, as well as the personnel to staff and protect said equipment. Coloured night vision was a hell of a thing, it was as if it were simply daytime.
"Imal, call it in." Zaeed ordered.
The Salarian nodded and began establishing a link into long-range communications so as to contact their brigade's artillery.
"Boomstick, this is Razor. Need an adjust fire. Sending codes."
There was a moment of silence as the artillery's HQ received their transmission and authentication codes.
"Razor, this is Boomstick. Who needs it?"
"Enemy AA site and the shits protecting it, out in the open on target coords. High explosive, give them some shrapnel."
"Got it. Relaying your target coords for confirmation."
"Target coords are confirmed. You're good to go."
"Roger. 1 round, high explosive, on target coords, time on target... 32 seconds."
More time passed as the seconds ticked away. That was until a banshee came wailing from the skies and crashed right on top of their target.
"Hell yeah." Thanes punched a fist into the air.
"Good hit, Boomstick. Fire for effect."
"Affirm. Firing for effect. 18 rounds, high explosive, on target coords, time on target... 44 seconds. Make sure to take a picture, yeah?"
"Sure thing, Boomstick. I'm out."
Again, they waited. This time, it was 18 explosions that wreaked havoc on the unfortunate souls that manned the site. The big equipment had kinetic barriers, of course, but against sustained bombardment, they faltered and failed. Secondary explosions joined the symphony of flying metal bits and pieces. The UAC troopers that had staffed the equipment or were close enough to round impacts didn't get much use out of their own kinetic barriers. The others who were in defensive positions or took only a few bits of shrapnel maintained their continued existence but that time would not last long. As the impacts of rounds and the laughter of mercenaries subsided, battle would be continued by fireteam Razor as they descended upon the weakened foe.
Prarcan was the first to engage with his sniper rifle. Finding a trooper that seemed to hold some rank, the Batarian fired an explosive slug that tore past the man's barrier and dug right into his temple, eviscerating the man's head. This was followed closely by gunfire from the advancing mercenaries, working together to bound forward while maintaining a continuous stream of slugs. The enemy returned fire, of course, but that didn't do them too much good. Any trooper sticking his head out for more than a second or two would quickly be met with either a hail of slugs to his barriers or a single one tearing past it. In both cases, the result was not dissimilar.
Jason paused behind a tree and began firing at two troopers hiding behind trees of their own. By this point, though, they were close enough for biotics to come into play. Thanes, close by to Jason, lifted the troopers from their cover and were cut down by the human's machine gun. Zaeed, from a bit further back, made use of a grenade launcher. Pinging his target to his teammates so as to avoid them getting in the way, he launched an impact grenade that landed near the feet of more troopers hiding behind cover, killing one and grievously wounding the others.
Wrex used his biotics to charge into a trooper that was getting into a firing position, the impact from the Krogan breaking every bone in the man's body and sending him flying back like a meat sack. His nearby squadmate had only a moment of shock before the Krogan turned his shotgun upon him and blasted the man, the Claymore's proximity pretty much turning the man into red mist. For this, however, two other UAC troopers were nearly able to get the drop on Wrex, their guns squarely aimed at the Krogan.
Before they could get their shots off, however, their shields were broken by a discharge of Imal's omni-tool before both men shared a slug flying through their skull courtesy of Prarcan's rifle.
"Holy shit, Prarcan just got two guys in one shot!" Imal shouted enthusiastically as he moved with Wrex to continue clearing the site of hostiles.
"Oh yeah, I know I'm good." The Batarian boasted.
Jason found a group of troopers trying to flee. They were able to achieve a pretty respectable distance from the site but Jason's explosive slugs laid to rest any dream of escape for them. He squeezed the trigger and held it, not caring for the missed shots. The fleeing troopers were mowed down but at the cost of an overheated machine gun. As Jason initiated the venting sequence, he shifted his attention to the trooper that was sprinting at him with a knife.
The trooper attempted to tackle Jason to the ground but the mercenary's feet remained perfectly planted on the ground. The man's surprise allowed Jason to grab the knife from the man's hand and drive it into his stomach, returning a gasp. Jason then grabbed the man by the sides of his helmet with both hands and began pushing inwards, soliciting creaks and cracks from the metal and screams from its occupant. The helmet gave out and Jason's palms were able to be joined as the man's head popped like a melon, covering Jason's hands and helmet in blood. Jason released his grip and allowed the body to fall to the ground as he detached the machine gun mag-locked to his breastplate.
"One hell of a headache, huh?" Thanes joked.
"Alright, is that all of 'em?" Zaeed asked over comms.
"Drone's not picking up anything else." Imal answered.
"Alright, people, let's pack it up. The other fireteams are reporting mission success, the cavalry is about to come soon. We're gonna get outta here and link up with 'em."
"Mommy, why are we in here? Why is everyone so scared?" A child asked.
"There are bad men coming, sweetheart. They want to hurt us so we're staying here while the soldiers protect us." A mother answered.
The mother stroked her daughter's hair, attempting to calm her child. All around her, other people were doing similar acts of affection with their loved ones. In their bunker, they shared the same fear as well as the same hope of themselves and their loved ones living to see tomorrow. The mother prayed the marines were able to defend them, she prayed that her daughter would not have to grow up a slave. She had only heard stories, from the extranet and from her late husband. She prayed that her daughter would not have her brain hijacked and made to serve those disgusting pigs.
An explosion from above drew the attention of all of the bunker's occupants, most of them hoping that it was one of those bastard Batarians that had been on the receiving end.
Jason watched the signal from the mechs draw closer and closer until he could make them out with the naked eye. Correcting thrusters fired before their main thrusters joined in as they landed on the dirt with a solid boom, kicking up dirt and spewing out a smokescreen that both served to obfuscate it from any potential enemy targetting systems as well as to put out any fires that were started by its thrusters as it landed.
Shortly after landing, the pilot of the mech began moving it forward as the mech's legs established a jog, joined closely by its partner mech. Slow was not the word to describe them. With the modern anti-armour weapon systems that exist in the current day and age, being slow was good as being dead. They had barriers, of course, but being able to avoid danger altogether was much more preferable than trying to power through it.
There were no windows for the pilots to see through, windows were a structural weakness. These machines relied solely on cameras and sensors. Bipedal and possessing two arms, its right arm was configured as an autocannon purposed with meeting enemy armour. The left arm was configured as a regular arm with an attached hand for utility and an underslung machine gun for meeting enemy infantry. On the mech's back was a point defence accelerator commonly found on main battle tanks as well as a missile pod containing anti-air missiles.
In the terrain of a mountain, the bipedal mech was much more adept than the MBT at warfighting.
After the mechs came the jet-chute paratroopers. Their chutes contained just about enough fuel and eezo to land them safely before they discarded their packs that were too heavy to carry for the rest of the mission. They began moving up in the wake of the mechs and Razor would find themselves linking up with a platoon at the head of the advance.
They were assaulting an energy stronghold at the top of the mountain. Bombardment of both shells and rockets had much reduced the enemy's defences but they were still capable of putting up a fight. As they were moving up the maintain, they were met by the enemy's fury. Autocannon and machine gun emplacements screamed their retort even in the face of continued bombardment by Eclipse. They were still over a kilometre out but the speed at which slugs travel makes such an engagement very much practical.
Eclipse would have the advantage in optics, though. Your gun might be able to shoot out to over a kilometre fine but you're not going to be hitting very accurately without an optic that can also zoom out to get you a clear picture of your target. Wanting to maintain their momentum but seeking to avoid casualties that were too costly, Eclipse forces advanced at a moderate pace. Their mechs and AT personnel went to work on neutralizing the enemy's worst guns as they advanced closer and closer.
An Eclipse mech further to the left of Jason took 3 direct hits from an autocannon, the first two breaking its barriers and the third scorching a good bit of armour from its frame. Before the autocannon could finish it off, though, its partner mech stepped in front, tanking the shots and answering with its own, destroying the assailant. As they neared the edge of danger close, Eclipse's bombardment subsided.
There wasn't too much thinking Jason had to do on his part. Fire, advance, fire, advance. He saw a rocket coming towards him before it landed near two Eclipse mercenaries. He saw a leg come off before their bodies landed on the ground. Their systems automatically pinged for a medic as Jason stepped in front of them to establish suppressing fire alongside Zaeed and other Eclipse.
"Miller, give me an airburst on those dickheads!" Zaeed shouted.
Jason put his machine gun down and deployed his rocket launcher.
"600 metres!" Zaeed shouted.
"600!" Jason confirmed. "Backblast?"
"Clear!" Zaeed shouted.
Jason's rocket flew forward for 600 metres before detonating above the ground above the heads of a group of enemies behind cover, taking them out.
"Good shit, keep moving!" Zaeed ordered.
Shepard looked around her, at the destruction that had befallen Elysium. They were able to get the civilians into the safety of the bunker, thankfully. At least, most of them. Strewn around her were marines killed in the effort to protect the bunker, each of them giving their life so that the men, women, and children down inside the bunker would be safe. She lost two of her own squad with another losing a leg but was otherwise stable. The enemy had been defeated. They had been routed and the Navy was now chasing them down. She looked at the men and women still standing. Exhaustion filled their eyes, she was sure if she had looked in a mirror it would have been a very similar story.
Their victory, at least for her, rang hollow. Why did this need to happen? She knew why. Why didn't we just increase security along the verge? She knew why. But she was a soldier and she had orders and she was disgusted at herself for it.
She heard the sound of an incoming shuttle and her HUD displayed Alliance IFF. When the shuttle came into view she saw the familiar paintwork of Alliance blue. Relief washed over them all as the shuttle approached and settled down a bit in front of them. When the doors opened, Shepard saw men in powered armour step out, painted in the dark grey standard of Alliance SOF. These guys SABRE, too? Shepard wondered. Would have been nice to have had those suits for the defence, though.
"Alright, kids, gather 'round." Zaeed spoke. "We did some good work today. Good footage, too. Eclipse will be giving us that bonus."
Small celebrations and smirks made their way throughout the group.
"Now for the important part." Zaeed continued as anticipation increased amongst them. "How many people did we kill? So... I went through all our footage and came up with a scoreboard, you can check it yourselves if you think I'm shitting you but you'd be wasting your time."
"Alright, in 6th place with 7 frags is... Imal. Sorry buddy, calling in the artillery doesn't count."
A small chuckle made its way around the group.
"5th place with 8 frags is... me."
A small laughter now made its way around the group.
"Getting too slow, old man?" Wrex joked.
"Shut up. Okay, 4th place with 11 frags is... you, Wrex." Zaeed continued.
"Hey, now. What happened to Krogan being super dangerous?" Thanes laughed with the biggest smirk on her face. Wrex just grumbled.
"In 3rd place with 12 guys dropped we have... Thanes."
The Asari groaned.
"You guys are tryhards." Thanes complained towards Jason and Prarcan.
"Aw, don't hate us because we're better than you." The Batarian taunted.
"Yeah, whatever, I got my money on Miller. You better not shit the can, human." Thanes jabbed a finger at Jason.
"Okay, well, I'll just say who got 1st place. So, in first place, we have... with 23 frags... Prarcan! Jason, you got 18"
Thanes groaned loudly as the Batarian laughed and turned towards Jason.
"Better like next time, man." Prarcan held out his hand.
"To the victor goes the spoils." Jason shook it firmly.
"Good going, Jason. You just lost me 1000 creds." The Asari complained.
"Ah, there was just too many of you guys stealing my skills is all." Jason defended himself. "Give me a target-rich environment and I'll stack bodies higher than a dreadnaught."
"Alright." Zaeed continued. "All in all, we dropped 79 guys, so pretty good. But remember, we might have killed 79 today, but we can always kill more."