Later than I would have liked, but I whipped this out in the one weekend (technically it was a Thursday and Friday, but I guess that's a weekend for me now) I've had off in the last three months, so even though its been a while since the last chapter, it probably won't be of the best quality. Forewarning, this chapter has no cuts, and I go into a lot of detail of every battle the group has in this chapter. Let me know if you guys want me to cut more detail or keep it in. I feel like this chapter started to ramble way too much, but it just kept flowing and before I knew it I had 8500 words and I had to work in the morning.
With an ear shattering boom the white armored geth shock trooper found itself missing the large majority of its internal components. Emile racked the slide on his M45, ejecting the red hot thermal clip, and sighted down one of the standard grey geth platforms, shredding this one as well. The smaller, human sized synthetics stood no chance against the obscenely powerful mass accelerator.
The Spartan's keen eyes picked up sand grain sized projectiles ricocheting and stopping dead against another geth's kinetic barriers. It was just beyond the effective range of his shotgun, and while two shots would certainly destroy it, Noble Four had a better idea. A few blinks and the geth's outline turned blue in his HUD.
"Acknowledged!" Lieutenant Alenko barked from the rear line where he could more effectively use his biotics and tech attacks to manipulate the battlefield. There was no such trickery this time, however, as the sentinel's MA5 barked twice, the first bullet overloading the robot's kinetic barriers, and the second tearing right through its flashlight face.
It would seem the standard Alliance fair of M8 Avengers were struggling to keep up with the advanced barrier technology of the mechanized invaders. Fortunately the human squad managed to retain a significant advantage in the form of the three Drop Troopers' MA5 Heavy Coilguns. The oversized slugs seemed to tear right through the barriers of the smaller ones and quickly overwhelm the shields on the larger black "destroyer" platforms. Only the massive red "juggernauts" and gigantic white "primes" seemed resistant to the powerful coilgun. It was good those platforms seemed to be rare among the geth forces.
A shock trooper leading a trio of regular geth soldiers launched an ambush from the left side of the Alliance squad's path. It had been a pretty good one, as the platforms had managed the perfect stillness only accessible to robots and had fooled even the advanced sensors within MJOLNIR, but they couldn't fool Noble Four's instincts. Even as the first synthetic opened fire, the green highlighted machines' barriers flickered and died as Corporals Jenkins and Vega ripped into them with their own MA5's.
More platforms appeared, the geth must have deployed at company strength throughout the digsite, as already the Alliance squad had torn through a dozen machines already, and Emile was already bringing his shotgun up and gearing up to charge the group of synthetics when he heard the barking of orders from behind in a fashion that only a true NCO could manage, and concentrated Avenger fire rippled across the barriers of each synthetic, weakening them enough for a three round burst of mass accelerators cut down each robot.
The Spartan was impressed. Not only had Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams managed to keep her under equipped and under manned squad alive through the initial attack, but now had them not just tagging along, but actually keeping pace with three Drop Troopers and a Spartan. As Emile jogged past the geth she had cut down, he noted the placement of the shots and noted that she was a damn good shot. Each three round burst started just above the chest plate on the geth, the second shot landing in the unarmored front of the neck, and the third punching through the flashlight head.
"Sir, the hole they dug up the beacon in is just up ahead," the gunnery chief in question informed him.
Emile just nodded before switching his comm to a command channel, "Shepard, what's your status?"
"Digsite is still hot, enemy movement looks to be converging on a structure about fifty meters ahead of you."
"Local intel says that's the beacon's location."
"Commander, you cannot allow the geth to assume custody of the beacon," Nihlus Kryik, Council Spectre and speaker of the obvious chimed in.
Emile just grunted in response, annoyed at being told the obvious. The large granite slabs of previously buried prothean architecture came into view around a bend, presumably the structure Shepard was talking about, "Target in sight."
Noble Four brought up team comms, forcibly shunting all of the marines' earpieces onto his and the Drop Troopers' frequency, "Alenko, take Vega and Jenkins and secure the perimeter. Williams, you're with me, everyone else, I want overlapping fields of fire on all the entrances to the structure."
The Drop Troopers snapped to their tasks immediately, Chief Williams switched to her sidearm, the M15 folding up on her back, but the marines looked between him and their NCO for several seconds before Ashley seemed to notice.
"Move it!"
The three surviving marines immediately snapped into action upon the brunettes sharp tone and Emile chuckled silently within the privacy of his own skull faced helmet. She was a good shot, she knew how to use her troops in battle, and she commanded the respect of her squad. What was a fine soldier like Williams doing on a garrison posting? Considering the geth attack, maybe it was divine providence.
The gunnery chief formed up on the Spartan's hip, where Noble Four paused for the barest of seconds to allow the marine to properly stack up and surged into the small openings between the granite walls.
There wasn't a whole lot to the structure. It appeared the granite slabs just provided sectional walls to surround a hole in the dirt, presumably where the beacon should have been. Should being the operative word, for instead of a prothean beacon waiting for pickup, there were more than a dozen black and blue cybernetic human shaped zombies.
"Contact!"
BOOM!
Two of them were literally torn in half by the M45 Sledgehammer before the rest were on top of the super soldier and the marine.
Ashley's sidearm popped in answer to the cyber zombies' moaning, but the sand grain sized projectiles simply slipped right through the necrotized flesh without causing any bleeding or significant tearing, requiring several shots before the first husk finally collapsed. Her M6 snapped up to the second husk and greeted the marine with a loud beeping and a jet of steam.
"Crap, I've got to…"
The husk charging at her simply lost its head.
The gunnery chief watched the blue head fly up into the air as the cybernetic body fell to the ground, a spray of black 'blood' connecting the two pieces to the instrument of their undoing. Emile flipped the wickedly curved knife around and buried the tip into chest of another zombie. With a quick wrench of his shoulder, the Spartan split the husk's body from sternum to pelvis with a quick stroke, spilling odd looking shapes that looked half organ, half machinery. With the long barreled shotgun all but useless in the tight spaces, Noble Four's other hand let the weapon hang from its straps to his chest while grabbing the reassuring weight of the krogan hammer at the small of his back, bringing the tremendous weight of the blunt weapon around to obliterate the skull of another zombie.
Behind the super soldier, Williams was not gawking, in fact, she didn't even seem that surprised to see the massive armored titan dual wielding a kukri knife in his right hand and a massive alien hammer in his left. The marine, perhaps working on muscle memory alone, ejected the spent heat sink and slapped in a new one, using the space afforded her by the commander to take an extra second on a pair of husks approaching from the far side of the structure. With a quick pair of shots, she clearly was an expert in recoil management to absorb the heavy kick of the Carnifex, both cyber zombies found themselves missing their faces.
Working in sync, the pair quickly reduced the remaining husks to inanimate piles of flesh and cybernetics. The ancient krogan hammer, too heavy for most humans to carry, let alone wield, easily pulverized the blue bodies where the wicked edge of the kukri was easily able to cut through flesh, cybernetics, and bone alike when wielded by Emile's monstrous strength. And while the Spartan could have torn his way through all of the cyber zombies on his own, his job was made much easier by the accurate and precise fire from Williams keeping his flanks clean and clear of any enemies.
"Commander, do you copy? What's your sitrep?" Shepard's voice sounded in Noble Four's helmet as the last husk fell to the ground, its chest caved in by a backhanded hammer blow.
Emile decided to open up his conversation to Williams so she could directly answer the question that he knew was coming, "Clear."
When Nihlus answered, the Spartan noticed the marine twitch at the alien voice, "And the beacon?"
"Missing," he replied, cocking his skulled visage at the gunnery chief, hoping she'd get the prompt, but she remained silent.
"Was it moved, or taken by the geth?" Shepard asked, cutting the turian spectre off before he could overreact.
"Unknown," again, Emile tilted his artfully decorated visor at the gunnery chief in hopes that she would realize that if she had any information to put forward, now would be the time. Again, she remained silent, choosing instead to sweep the now empty space with her Carnifex.
"But if it was taken, it wasn't taken here, there's nowhere they could have landed a transport big enough for a package that large," he continued after a beat.
"Where could they land one?"
This time, and finally, Williams chose to answer, though she did so under her breath, and apparently was just thinking aloud, "Warehouse has a tram to the space port."
"What was that, Williams?"
The woman flushed and stumbled as she turned back to the Spartan, perhaps thinking she had spoken a little too loudly when in fact it was simply Emile's super human hearing that picked up her murmuring, "Uh, nothing, sir!"
"It weren't nothing, Williams," Noble Four spoke lowly, "You said something about a warehouse and a tram."
The marine swallowed before speaking up, "There's a warehouse, supplies the whole dig site, its over the hill past the prefab shelters. Its got enough space for something big enough for a ship to carry off with the beacon, and if it was the archeologists who moved it, then the warehouse has a tram connecting to the space port, where the Alliance would have sent a ship to pick it up at."
"How far are the shelters?"
Ashley shrugged, "Right up the hill, maybe fifty meters."
Emile opened the comm line up to Lieutenant Alenko, "Report."
"Jenkins has eyes on some prefab structures at the top of the hill, forty five meters northwest. Counting two squads of geth, led by a destroyer, and… stakes? With people on them."
Stakes? Jenkins was unprofessional and liked to play around when off the clock, but once the bullets started flying, Dick was as dependable a soldier as it was possible to be. If he said there were stakes, there were stakes.
"That's our next target, keep Dick on station, get yourself and Jim back here," the Spartan turned to Williams, "Get Dog Squad ready to move. Shepard, do what you can to get eyes on the space port."
"I'll make a pass on my way down, seems like Nihlus wants to join in on the fun."
Emile scowled at the thought of the turian spectre trying to look over his shoulder and second guess every move he made in an active warzone, "Is the air space clean enough for the pelican to make a run?"
"There's only a dozen strike craft left in theatre, and three geth ships, aside from that massive thing sitting in between three major hab towers. Captain Anderson is maneuvering on one of the frigates and is going to draw the other two off. Should clear the skies enough for a quick insertion."
"ETA on insertion?"
A timer appeared on his HUD, thirty minutes.
"Nihlus is jumping out of the back of the pelican when that timer hits zeroes."
"Copy that," the Spartan replied as he exited the prothean structure to find Alenko, Vega, and Dog Squad all laid out in order, "Thirty minutes."
A quick march put the prefab shelters at the top of the hill in sight, as well as dozens of spikes sticking straight up into the air, with half of them occupied by people in various states of cybernetic conversion impaled through the chest.
"What the fuck…" one of the marines, Private Smith, whispered as everyone took cover and observed the shelter.
As he spoke, one of the stakes, for they were much like the stakes of old Earth history, the kind Vlad Dracula would impale his enemies upon, retracted, lowering a blue body down to the base where a visible electrical arc struck the corpse, reanimating the limbs. Within moments, another blue shambler stumbled off into the crowd of geth and other husks already milling about in the yard.
There was a scream from one of the prefabs, drawing the Spartan's gaze as a geth shock trooper drug a human woman in a standard Alliance issue science officer's uniform from the shelter and began moving her towards the stake that had just disgorged its victim.
Having seen enough, Emile blinked a series of commands, lighting the black armored destroyer in red for Corporal Jenkins' anti tank rocket, setting all four of the shock troopers in blue and pasting them to Lieutenant Alenko and Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams' responsibility. The remaining twelve geth and six currently active husks were all green, open game.
The geth nearly had the woman to the stake when everyone finally sent a confirmation.
"Execute."
There was loud, high pitched scream again, though this one didn't come from the throat of a human. A 105 millimeter Disruptor Anti Tank rocket raced out of its tube, its tiny mass effect core nullifying the weight of the missile and giving it tremendous speed. The oscillating mass effect fields at the tip ripped right through the geth destroyer's shields and the plastic explosives behind splattered all over the armored form of the huge robot, giving the light speed reactions of the geth programs inside the synthetic just enough time to realize what was about to happen before it detonated, turning the machine to flying pieces of scrap metal.
The instant the largest threat on the field exploded, bullets and mass accelerators filled the air, and Noble Four was surging forward. The marines, as he had predicted, were starting with the geth and husks furthest away from the woman who was currently being held by the shoulders by a shock trooper, which meant that none of their gunfire was in his direction as he burst ahead and hit the ranks of synthetics.
There was a lone trooper between the Spartan and his goal and it was promptly trampled by more than a thousand pounds of MJOLNIR, super soldier, and fury. It was ultimately rendered non functional by Emile's size seventeen boot crushing its chest armor and destroying the central processor located within.
The shock trooper, not realizing the value of its hostage, or perhaps incapable of understanding that humans might value each other's lives, pushed the woman to the ground and was reaching up over its shoulder to grab its strange shotgun.
Too late, the Merciless Wrath of Noble grabbed the white armored robot by its singular optic and slammed it against the nearest stake, shattering the glass, sparking electronics, and crushing the armor. With no optics, the synthetic stumbled back and struggled to place itself, needing precious fractions of a second to orient itself by pinging the other geth units nearby. Precious fractions it didn't have considering its opponent was superhumanly fast. The machine slumped after Emile's fist ripped through its light abdominal armor and tore out its main power conduit.
As soon as the white robot hit the ground, the Spartan pushed the woman over, rolling her under a currently occupied stake as his other hand pulled at the well worn handle of the ancient krogan hammer.
Even as the first husk to rush him was annihilated under the heavy stone and steel, the super soldier's enhanced awareness and perception of time noticed a shock trooper's flashlight head being torn apart by a thirty caliber bullet on one side of the battlefield, and a second shock trooper sparking on its way to the ground with three neat holes torn through its chest on the other.
While the husks continued to charge him mindlessly, the geth near him wisely chose to stay out of hammer range, and Emile found his shields rapidly depleting. With speed that made the motion seem a blur, Noble Four withdrew his modified M5 Phalanx and held the trigger down. Rapid, high caliber mass accelerator slugs pounded on the trooper's shields and overwhelmed them in a matter of seconds before tearing right through its armor and shredding its electronics. A flick of his thumb ejected the spent thermal clip and spring pressure on the slide pushed the next thermal clip right into place, and Emile flicked the sights over to another geth trooper.
As the second geth fell from the super soldier's fully automatic Phalanx, and another husk was pulverized under the hammer, a third geth unexpectedly exploded in a shower of sparks and white hydraulic fluid. Behind the crumpling synthetic was Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, Corporal James Vega hot on her heels.
The marine and the drop trooper slid into place next to Emile, surrounding the stake protecting the archeologist, Williams stripping shields with her battle rifle and Jim finishing them off with a slug from his Crusader shotgun.
When the geth tried to close a ring around the intruding trio, mass accelerator fire from a trio of M8 Avengers swarmed them, all three marines focusing on a single synthetic, overwhelming its barriers and destroying it in a moment. In just a few minutes, all of the machines were reduced to sparking, leaking scrap metal, and the final husk was hoisted up by the Spartan and had its neck snapped with a twist of his wrist.
A quick look at the timer on his HUD told him the entire engagement had taken them five minutes, and they still had twenty minutes to clear out an LZ for Shepard. The commander gave Jim a look.
"Who came up with idea to follow me in?"
The broad shouldered drop trooper shrugged, "Gunny barked an order at me. Felt I should follow it, she does out rank me."
Upon being singled out, Gunnery Chief Williams shrank slightly, and nearly started stammering again, "Sorry, sir, I was out of line…"
"It was a good idea, Williams," Emile cut her off, "More than a bit risky, considering I would have been fine, but it was good instincts, and I like the initiative."
"Sorry, sir, but how could you know you were going to be fine? How was your move not way more risky?"
"Trust me, Gunny," Jim interjected, "I've seen him kill a pair of krogan with his bare hands. Commander wasn't gonna be done in by some zombies and a bunch of mechs."
Ashley looked like she wanted to express further skepticism, but noticed the woman underneath the strange tripod stake, "Doctor Warren! Are you hurt?"
The now named Doctor Warren stared out from under her makeshift shelter where Emile had unceremoniously shoved her at the beginning of the firefight. Her eyes were wide, and unfocused, tear tracks ran down her cheeks, "They would grab us, one at a time. I didn't know what they were doing with the people they took… Oh, God…"
"Are you injured, Doctor?" Corporal Vega tried, kneeling down and trying to take a closer look.
"It's just me and Manuel left… They started with the marines, taking a big group of them right away," Noble Four gestured to Kaiden and Dick and pointed to the shelter the geth had drug the doctor from, "then they just started taking us one by one. Why would they do this?"
Across the camp, Alenko waved his omnitool at the shut door of the prefab and as soon as the door whooshed open, Jenkins ducked inside, rifle up and sweeping the interior. It didn't take but a few seconds before he was pulling a very slight, balding man. The man was ranting and raving, and was describing some sort of apocalyptic scenario when there was loud, reverberating, brassy horn that shook the soldiers and the two survivors to the bone. All eyes snapped to the horizon, where the colossal two kilometer tall squid ship flexed its tentacle/legs and rose up into the air.
"The vanguard of our destruction," the man, presumably Manuel, spoke with a shudder.
While that was perhaps a little dramatic, it did mean that the Normandy had likely made its move, and with just a little over twenty minutes on his mission timer and an enemy force of unknown strength to clear out of an LZ, they were burning up time they didn't have.
"Williams," Emile ordered sharply, "Privates Smith, Mayweather, and Bhatia will take custody of Doctors Warren and Manuel. They will hold in reserve and provide security for the non combatants."
The skull clad visor turned to Corporals Vega and Jenkins, "Jim, Dick, secure our six, I'm guessing these spikes aren't done yet."
The Spartan started down the hill towards the marker that was pinned as the warehouse, "Chief, LT, we've got work to do."
The trio set off, Noble Four setting the pace at a brisk walk for him, a heavy jog for his more human compatriots.
"How are you doing on thermal clips, Chief?" Lieutenant Alenko asked, his voice steady even after the past hour of constant fighting and running. His counterpart in Gunnery Chief Williams was also steady, though perhaps a little more flushed than the drop trooper.
"I have a couple left, I can usually squeeze seven bursts out of my M15 before having to swap."
The sentinel snatched a pouch off of his belt, "Here, four more, I haven't been using my Hurricane much."
"You have enough ammo for your rifle?"
"I've got two magazines left, three shots to kill the small ones, ten to twelve on the bigger ones, thirty two shots a magazine…" Kaiden shrugged while reshouldering his MA5, "besides, I prefer using my biotics and tech to do the real damage. The gun just finishes them off."
At the mention of his potent biotics, the side effects came to Emile's mind and he turned his head slightly as he continued to set the pace, "Migraines?"
Alenko shook his head, "Negative, Commander. I've been relying on my omnitool mostly."
He was about to ask Kaiden his opinion on the effectiveness of tech attacks on AI when the warehouse came into view, as did the platoon of geth troops and the closest thing to heavy armor the Spartan had seen from the synthetics so far. It stood on four legs, looking like some sort of squat, heavily armored giraffe, and in place of a head, there was a single optic, a high caliber barrel, and six low caliber barrels arranged in a circle.
Time froze and the geth reacting to the Alliance soldier's presence slowed to a crawl. The armature turned its weapon aperture towards the trio at a pace that seemed glacial. Behind him, Kaidan and Ashley seemed to have become rooted to the spot, unable to move through whatever snare had entrapped them, meaning their lives were Emile's to save.
With a quick and powerful push, Noble Four sent the lieutenant flying towards cover where he would likely land safely on his back. While the black and blue armored sentinel was suspended in midair, lazily drifting towards safety, the super soldier wrapped his titanium plated arms around the gunnery chief, twisting his body to cover the smaller woman with his broad, armored and shielded back and dove for cover in the opposite direction.
Before the pair made it behind the burnt out wreckage of a shuttle, the ultra heavy geth unit opened fire, hundreds of mass accelerator rounds flying from its face every second, tearing through the ground, kicking up clouds of dirt and dust, and ripping right through MJOLNIR's shields and pinging off of the thick armor. Three things had saved the pair's lives, the Spartan's near supernatural reaction times due to an overdose of adrenaline, the small caliber and power of the mass accelerator, and the inherent inaccuracy of the weapon being brought to bear, as the near thousand rounds that were fired, only a dozen actually found their mark.
Williams was still trying to find her bearings when Noble Four had dumped her on the ground and was pulling a pair of fragmentation grenades from his bandolier and tossed them over the wreck. He wasn't particularly hopeful they'd do anything to the massive robot, but they'd slow down the platoon approaching their position. The magnetic connections on the straps holding his M45 to his chest detached automatically as Emile threw the massive shotgun over his shoulder and onto the magnetic strip on his back and pulled the MA5 which had suffered only a few small scratches from the armature but was otherwise still functional.
Still operating at a speed that made everything else look as though it were happening underwater, the Spartan lined up the holographic sight with the gap in the wreck he was taking cover behind and thumbed the fire selector.
The super soldier was already shifting position even as the bullets he had just fired were ripping through an advancing geth trooper, and lined his sights up on another pair of troopers. The coilgun bucked as it thundered out a stream of steel core, brass coated projectiles, their comparatively large mass in comparison to the standard mass accelerator round giving them significantly more inertia, overstressing the barriers of the synthetics and popping them like bubbles. The steel core completely penetrated the robots, falling out the other side coated in white hydraulic fluid, while the brass coating and lead filling peeled off, filling the delicate electronics with shrapnel.
Still, the geth seemed to be wading through waist deep water to Emile's hyper acute sense of time. Three more fell before he had slid behind a thick metal clad crate to swap magazines. The dirt still hung in the air, marking his path not from his footfalls, but from the armature continuing to target the skull clad soldier with its six barreled mass accelerator.
Another trooper fell back, its armor tore apart from the Spartan's concentrated fire. He was untouchable as he was, unnatural levels of adrenaline surging through his blood, his already enhanced reflexes boosted even further by MJOLNIR. In the few seconds since he, Alenko, and Williams had engaged the geth, he had already eliminated an entire squad of geth troopers, cutting the strength of the platoon by a third, and the only platform that had even had the opportunity to shoot back was the massive armature in the center of the warehouse's staging yard.
Time was slowly coming back around to resuming its standard pace, the adrenaline in Emile's system was coming down from the initial burst, but the geth still looked as though their joints were rusted and sluggish, the Spartan was literally running circles around them, as he was now behind the platoon's position, emptying the last of his magazine into a shock trooper and dropping it where it stood.
However, just because he experienced time at a rate far beyond that of any other of the organic races of the galaxy, did not mean he thought faster than AI, and with the massive armature serving as a central processing hub for over a thousand geth programs, the synthetics were finally able to respond.
Concentrated pulse rifle fire erupted directly in the path of the super soldier, cutting him off and catching him emerging from cover. A burst from the armature stripped him of his shields and ricocheted a few rounds off his armor plating before he could get back into cover behind a shelled out crane, where he was immediately ambushed by a quartet of troopers who had been following his rampage around the geth.
His reactions were still enhanced, even beyond his normally near instantaneous reflexes, and he put the barrel of his MA5 in line with the leader of the troopers and was about to pull the trigger when he noticed the ammo counter on the barrel shroud showing double zeroes. Still he was fast enough to drop the weapon and reach for his sidearm, but he knew that while he might be fast enough to target all four of them, neither his sidearm, nor his shotgun would be quick enough to deal with the synthetics before their weapons started to penetrate his armor. He'd still win, but not without losing some blood.
That was when his enhanced eyes spotted a knobby sphere land behind the troopers. His mind made the connection just in time to hit the ground when the frag grenade went off.
Shrapnel rebounded off of kinetic barriers and popped them like bubbles. The pieces that did not strike the robots sailed harmlessly over the Spartan's head. The full auto Phalanx snapped up and four bursts of gun fire rendered the troopers non functional.
"Good timing, Williams."
The female marine appeared, stepping over the dead geth and turning to cover her six, "When you took off, I tried to follow but you were way too fast. I guess its just a good thing the geth basically forgot me and the Lieutenant existed."
That reminded him, "Alenko, what's your status?"
"Christ, Commander, first you throw me around, then you go and do that blurring thing that you do, and then Chief Williams runs after you!"
So, he was fine, "Do you have eyes on any geth near you?"
"I can see all the geth, they've got thirteen troopers left, and that big tank thing. They're moving to flush you out, looks like."
A look at the timer, and they only had five minutes left before Shepard was pulling up, and while the DT-77 had enough firepower to wipe the soldiers out, he didn't want to take any chances on the barrier strength of the armature. They'd have to take it out.
"I need to get on that thing," Emile said, watching a pair of red dots on his motion tracker move closer before tossing a frag in between them without even having to peak out from behind his cover.
"You fucking wha-" Chief Williams started before she noticed what she was about to say and switched gears, "Uh, sir? What do you mean?"
"Barriers don't stop hammers."
The Spartan slapped the MA5 on his back, pulling the M45 back into his hands. He checked his motion tracker, and gestured to Williams, pulling her closer to his edge and with a couple of blinks, placed a green arrow behind a still intact skid loader, and a blue arrow behind a stack of crates. His left hand came up the barrel of his shotgun and cranked on the choke, widening the opening on the horizontal plane as much as it would go.
"Ready?" Emile grunted.
The female marine peaked around the cover at the towering armature and dozen geth soldiers, "Uh, sure. Why not… sir."
She couldn't see it, but the interdimensional soldier was smirking behind his helmet, "Go."
Both Williams and Alenko broke from their cover, firing from the hip at the geth at the same time Emile leaned out and fired his shotgun as quickly as he could rack the slide. The wide spread hamstrung the killing power of the mass accelerator, but it also struck multiple platforms at the same time. With half a dozen shots fired in just a few seconds, the pellets had stripped multiple platforms of their shields and forced them into cover, while splitting the armatures attention from him to the other two humans who were also cutting down geth.
As the pair slid into cover, Emile barked over the comms as he ducked back behind the crane, "Keep up the pressure."
The cacophony of gunfire told him that the order may have been unnecessary, and based on the armature's continued bursts of mass accelerator fire, the geth heavy armor had taken its attention off of him, no doubt hoping to kill the two Alliance soldiers and allowing it and its remaining troopers to focus him down. Too late it would learn that one should never take their attention off of a Spartan.
Noble Four burst out from the other side of the shelled out crane, already at an impressive speed of forty six miles an hour. The geth noticed him as soon as he was out of cover, but they had already made the mistake of not looking in his direction, as they turned too slow, and Emile slammed into the rear left leg of the armature with his shoulder, dislodging the appendage from the ground and sending the tank analogue stumbling.
Taking advantage of the off balance machine, the Spartan leapt upon its back, pulled the ancient krogan hammer and gripped it with both hands, aiming a mighty blow at the back of the armature's head. The seventy five pounds of stone and metal slammed into the composite armor plating the back of the machines head and crumpled the material found there. The armor plating ripped free from its bracket and saved the electronics and machinery underneath from the fury of hammer Dick jokingly called "Grond".
The now removed armor plating also allowed the armature to perform a maneuver that only an owl could match, as the head swiveled one hundred and eighty degrees to point both of its devastating weapons right at the Spartan.
Emile fell to the side of the armature as a deadly stream of sand sized particles ripped through the air where he had just been. An iron grip and powerful thighs kept him off the ground as he clung to the side armor of the heavy armor platform, but the geth weren't content with him staying there, as a trooper pulled away from firing back at the Alliance soldiers to try and get him off the armature.
His shields dropping quickly, Noble Four dropped the rest of the way to the ground and rolled underneath the armature and within the envelope of its kinetic barriers. Lying on his back, the Spartan noticed there was a seam between two armor plates running along its belly. Gripping Grond with both hands, Emile thrust it upwards into the right most plate as hard as he could, denting the armor, and distorting the seam just enough for his plan to work.
He dropped the hammer with both hands and gripped the edge of the armor plate with his right hand as his left hand slipped the twelve inch kukri from its sheath. With a grunt, the Spartan ripped the plate off half of its mount, giving him enough space to spot a thick rubber hose that looked important and slip his razor sharp knife in to slice it open and spray white hydraulic fluid all over the machine's guts.
Apparently the hydraulic line was quite important, as both of the legs on the left side of the armature went limp and the mechanical beast fell to one side. Emile had to quickly roll to his left to avoid being crushed, and sprang to his feet, pulling his hammer off the ground with him and leapt up into the air, gripping Grond with both hands, and brought the ancient club down onto another seam in the armor plating with tremendous force, splitting the armature's body wide open.
Inside there was a large, sleek cube being fed a tremendous amount of power and hooked up to every system in the machine. With contempt, Emile reached in with a single hand and pulled the central processor from the body of the mechanical beast and crushed it in a shower of sparks.
Interestingly, the remaining eight geth froze at the destruction of the large platform, simply standing still and twitching slightly at the loss of the great machine. The Spartan noted it, but ultimately wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, as he pulled his sidearm and put a few platforms down with a couple of bursts as Ashley and Kaidan did the same.
Emile chose to offer the soldiers a simple nod in appreciation at their tremendous efforts. Kaidan was a Drop Trooper, and therefore one of the best front line soldiers in the Alliance, and Ashley was, by station if not by actual ability, just your average marine. Taking on an entire platoon along with heavy armor and surviving was nothing short of a miracle.
Of course, to him it was just Tuesday.
The sound of turbine engines had the surgically enhanced super human glance at the timer on his HUD. Tee plus forty seven seconds.
"You're late."
"I was making a pass, seeing if you needed air support. Nice armor kill, by the way. A little dramatic for my tastes."
"Since you're up there, got anything for us?"
The DT-77 banked around, and while no human could have seen it, Emile was able to make out the advanced sensor module mounted just above the chin turret swivel to observe his position.
"I've got no movement in the immediate vicinity, but there is one thermal signature inside the structure."
The commander jerked his thumb to the warehouse and both Kaidan and Ashley snapped to it. Williams folded the Vindicator and slapped it on her back, preferring her Carnifex for close quarters scenarios. Alenko also preferred his M57 Hurricane and stood off center on the entrance to the structure, the gunnery chief stacking up to the side. With a nod between the pair, the lieutenant glowed blue and ripped the door off its hinges with his biotics.
The sentinel wasn't finished yet, however, as he thrust his glowing hand forward again, this time at Williams as she found herself glowing blue with an extra layer of barriers between her and any danger inside. It was something the biotic had been working on, but this was the first time he had done it in the field.
The roar of turbine engines sounded louder than ever and drew the Spartan's attention back to the pelican as it lowered to the ground. The tripod landing gear lowered as the large landing craft settled into the only space in the field of debris allowing for its not inconsiderable footprint.
"Dick, Jim, you boys done up there?"
"Some of the spikes are still up, but we've got pictures of everything," Vega answered, "Jenkins is setting the demo charges and we're gonna blow the place."
Emile nodded to himself as he watched the ramp lower and the black armored Nihlus step out, weapons in hand.
"When you're done setting the charges, grab the marines and the civvies and bring them down here. We'll evacuate everyone after the SPECTRE and I figure out what we do from here."
"Glad you're keeping me in the loop, Commander," the turian spoke as he approached the Spartan, though choosing to keep his distance greater than Emile's reach with Grond.
Noble Four snorted under his skulled visor, "Glad you could finally join us."
"Well, call me old fashioned, but I prefer conventional means of orbital insertion. Less turbulence."
"We can get you a vomit bag."
Emile's motion tracker started pinging friendly contacts from two directions. One was Jim and Dick along with the marines and the civilians coming from the hill, and the other one was Williams and Kaidan with a yellow contact coming out from the warehouse structure.
Tilting his helmet to look at the larger group over Nihlus's shoulder, the Spartan called out, "I didn't hear the demo charges go off."
Dick held his hand out, a thin detonator in hand with the lid popped open and clicked the bright red button. A muted thud sent tremors through the ground and the steep hill side, even as far away from the detonation as it was, crumbled and slid down to the base.
"Didn't want to bury ourselves under a landslide."
That's why Dick was the anti armor/demolition guy. Emile would have just blown it up as soon as he was at minimum safe distance without any consideration for what the explosion would have done to the land around it.
Nihlus regarded the marines and the civilians with a critical eye, and cocked his head curiously when Dr. Manuel broke down upon sighting the turian, decrying him as the herald of the galaxy's doom. The small man had clearly lost it, but his ramblings had, and still do, strike a chord within the Spartan, and it appeared the SPECTRE thought them more than just inane ramblings as well.
"Has he been like that the whole time?" the turian asked Dick when the trooper turned back from directing the marines to guide the civilians up into the pelican.
The black visor glinted as the anti armor soldier nodded, "Pretty much, he was even rambling about a lone turian being responsible for all this. Don't think he was talking about you though. Kept saying he was pale, and half machine himself."
The dark plated avian alien waggled his mandibles in contemplation… or whatever that look was called, Emile couldn't be sure. He didn't really read the expressions on turian faces so much as he carved them from their skulls.
"Did he see this turian in person?"
"Claims to have," Dick shrugged, "Who the hell knows, though. Guy's lost his mind."
"People lose their minds for a reason," Emile interjected, "Who knows what he saw for real, but he saw something important."
Nihlus was still staring after the man as he was ushered into the bay of the dropship, "A pale turian…"
The skulled visage tilted in a fashion that one who was familiar with its look might describe as looking askance.
"Remind you of someone?"
"My mentor," the turian said slowly, "Saren Arterius, Captain Anderson could tell you about him… He has an… unusual complexion for a turian."
Dick shook his head, "I grew up here, there ain't no aliens interested in Eden Prime. My sister called me to tell me there was a quarian in the same hab tower as my family. She found out because it made the evening news. A single quarian is enough to make the evening news here. Why would some hotshot SPECTRE want with Eden Prime?"
"A prothean beacon would attract some attention."
Emile turned away, a troubling thought itching at the back of his mind, and focused on the lieutenant and gunnery chief approaching with the female marine holding a man in a work uniform under the shoulder.
At first glance, the Spartan was confident they might get some coherent answers from the man. He wasn't shivering, he wasn't staring off into space, and he wasn't ranting like a madman. The worker was on the smaller side, about as tall as Williams was in her armor, and definitely not as built as the marine. His uniform was clean, except for dust on his rear end and the back of the legs. The upper half of the jump suit was rumpled, recently stretched and patted down, but creases still showed crisscrossing the front. Bags under his eyes, not from lack of sleep, but from an excess of it, a difference so slight only Emile's enhanced eyes could have caught it.
"Sleep well?"
Instantly the man was caught off guard, and would have been on the defensive if it wasn't for the fact he now found himself face to face with a seven foot tall armored titan staring down at him from behind a screaming skull. It seemed to be the first time the man really realized what was going on, and who he was talking to as he stammered a great deal before he finally managed to squeak out a meagre, "What?"
"I assume you were sleeping before the attack, and not during."
The worker gaped at the Spartan for a few seconds before looking at Alenko, then over to Williams, before going back to Emile, "I'm not sure…"
"You did wake up when the screaming started, right?"
He just blinked a few times before sagging, still being held up straight by Chief Williams' iron grip, "… It was the first explosion, actually. The screaming started afterwards."
Emile leaned forward a little, putting his frightening visage right up into the small man's grill, "Well, then you might not be completely useless."
He leaned back until he was standing straight and gestured for Nihlus to ask the man any questions he wanted. Emile would interject as needed.
"Do you know where the prothean beacon is located?" the turian started off, cutting right to the chase.
"The what?"
"It would have been a large package, coming from the digsite. Would have been under a lot of security," Chief Williams explained.
"Y-yeah, yeah. There was something, probably five meters tall, three deep, two wide. We weren't allowed anywhere near it without supervision from some Alliance soldiers. We couldn't even wear our omnitools near the thing. Made working the power loader a bitch."
Nihlus and Emile shared a look, "Was it shipped out before the attack?"
"Yeah, sent it to the space port on the cargo tram. I went to catch some shut eye behind the shelves right after. Only got about thirty winks before the explosions started."
Kaidan shook his head in disgust and Williams sneered at the man, "And the geth didn't notice you because you were passed out behind some crates. Lucky you."
"Geth?" the little man asked, looking at Alenko, "Is that what the robot things we walked past were? I didn't see any of them in there. There was the alien though. He went around and shot everyone he saw. I thought he had me for a few seconds, but he left without checking my hiding spot."
Emile felt that disturbing thought reenter his head as he looked at Nihlus, finding the dark plated turian looking back at him, what could have been concern on his white painted face. The super human turned back to the man, "The alien didn't happen to look like this one, did he?"
The man took a long look at the SPECTRE before shaking his head, "Eh, no. Wait!" he nodded, "Maybe, yeah. Turian, right? Yeah this guy was a turian, but pale white. Like he hadn't seen a lot of sun."
The Spartan looked to the drop trooper, "I don't suppose there were any news reports on a turian SPECTRE running around?"
The black helmet of the trooper shook slowly and looked to the turian SPECTRE who WASN'T currently under suspicion for bringing an entire battalion of geth down onto the surface of a human colony. Both he and Emile stared down the dark plated avian, the super soldier making a simple gesture with his hand for Ashley to take the warehouse worker to the pelican. They had everything they needed from him.
"We need to get to the space port before… the enemy does," Nihlus said, hesitant to outright say what everyone was beginning to suspect.
Unfortunately, suspicions were all they were at the moment. Two eye witnesses, one of which was currently less than stable, saying that there was a pale turian working with the geth was not enough to pin this on anyone, much less a widely respected SPECTRE. And it was not helpful. The mission was still to find the prothean beacon, and they had a new lead on it.
"Agreed," Emile opened group comms to everyone equipped with one, "Shepard, what's the situation with the Normandy?"
"Got an info packet from a drone in system a minute ago," Jane replied from the bay as she limped down the ramp. The flight suit gave her a little more support in her leg from the compression, but Emile knew it also aggravated the soreness around the wounds the thresher maw had given her.
"The Normandy is currently playing cat and mouse with a geth cruiser and a pair of frigates, so flying back home is out of the question for now, but that's not why I left the cockpit."
The skulled visor tilted in a gesture Shepard was familiar enough to interpret as, "go on."
"The triple stack of hab towers where that dreadnought was grounded are currently under siege. Numbers are spotty, but I'd guess its about half company strength."
"How are fifty geth sieging three hab towers that are each over a kilometer tall and home to a hundred thousand people each?" Alenko pondered from his seat atop the wrecked armature, helmet off as he sipped at an electrolyte pack.
Dick, being the resident, supplied the answer, "My family lives in that block, only one is a hab tower. One is an agriculture tower, they grow crops on the upper levels, animals on the mid-levels, fungi like mushrooms and stuff on the lower ones. The third one is a manufacturing complex. They make all sorts of new tech over there. Sterile field generators, reactor housings, and some sort of crystal, I don't know what it does."
Emile knew what it was and was quietly shocked that a facility responsible for manufacturing slip space attenuation crystals didn't at least have a fleet presence in orbit ready to defend such a massive military investment. The reactor housings were a big deal, as they were a part of the newer pinch fusion reactors, but that wasn't a completely new and completely classified technology that no one outside of the recon fleets and high command knew about.
He looked Dick over, familiar enough with the man to notice his tension even through the heavy EOD variant of Drop Trooper armor he was wearing. Jenkins had been through a number of combat scenarios as a drop trooper, and had been a pivotal part of Emile's last stand on Elysium. He didn't show worry very easily anymore, but there were still signs. If the commander ordered the corporal to carry on with the mission, ignoring the distress call sent by his family's home, then he would. Dick was reliable like that. But he was also Emile's friend, as much as Emile could have friends, anyway.
"LT, take Dick, Jim, and Dog Squad and relieve the siege. Jay, if you don't mind?"
The redhead nodded, before smiling in the way that the super human had come to realize she was about to tease him, "Sure thing, Em."
Oh he would have words with her about the proper respect due a commanding officer, but that would have to wait for later.
"Williams, you, me and Nihlus head for the space port and secure the beacon if possible…"
"And destroy it if necessary," Nihlus finished for him, "A good plan. Better no one have it, than the geth."
Emile grabbed a box of thermal clips from the back of the pelican as well as replacement magazines for his MA5 and a few extra grenades for his bandoliers. The DT-77 roared to life and the ramp lifted up as the transport/gunship hybrid took off for the hab towers. Quickly, he and Williams refilled on thermal clips from the box.
Now reloaded and with a clear direction, the Spartan set off towards the cargo tram, "Let's go."
Remember to review and let me know what you think about the flow of this chapter, if it dragged on too long and was too micro focused, or if you guys liked it. I'm not sure if chapters like this will ever become the norm, but whenever I have all of the main characters in one place, fighting in one group, I'll just pick a POV and stick with it.
No Voro this chapter, I'm not sure how I'm going to get him off Sur'kesh or if I'm just going to skip it and get him into the galaxy at large. I threw him back into the story on a whim, the way I write all of my stories, and I have an idea of what I want from him, but I'm don't have a plan to get him there yet.
