Nihlus was pleased that he had decided to go ahead alone for multiple reasons. For starters, the sheer number of people Shepard brought along with him would've been too many to not get caught in the midst of so many Geth. He admired the N7's combat skills but, he knew Jack wasn't good at a traditional stealth operation. Torfan ended with Shepard dropping a Mako on the objective from orbit after all. He would be sure to teach the Commander a few things before their next mission, if they made it through this one that is. This wasn't the first time a more experienced SPECTRE trained a nominee so Jack shouldn't have any shame in it. Secondly, Nihlus staying alone for this part of the mission would give him the opportunity to find out who was behind the attack without being questioned about his personal reaction. Deep down in his heart Nihlus knew who he would find, he just didn't want to admit it in front of others. Getting emotional in the middle of a shootout wasn't exactly a good example to set for a future protege.
Regardless of his own struggles with his denial, the Turian pushed forward to get deeper into the city. From the way the Geth were walking through the streets, he could only assume they were searching for anyone lucky enough to survive to kill them before their escape. They must not be aware an Alliance team was in the area and looking to remove any trace of the attack. In the inevitable scenario an Alliance squad discovered the ruins of Eden Prime after they departed, the Batarians would be implicated. Geth working on their own couldn't possibly have the mental capacity to cover their tracks like this if the Quarians estimation of them could be believed. So, as he ducked beneath the window of an apartment building, Nihlus could only guess someone else was behind the invasion. This was the third Geth patrol that marched past him making it very clear he was getting closer to the beacon. Unfortunately, since the 6'0" synthetic Geth couldn't speak in a recognizable language he had no idea if they had the beacon themselves. While he had his own private suspicions, Nihlus told himself that he had to be wrong, his ex wouldn't go this low for a grudge.
Seeing an opening in the Geth's patrol, Nihlus slipped in-between two alley ways always trying to get closer to the center of the city. Saren had taught him to always keep moving even when you feel surrounded. Despite the man's utter lunacy as of late, he still had pearls of wisdom to share every now and then. After finding the next street through the maze of alleys, his gut twisted in horror spotting Geth dragon's teeth for the first time. All along the sidewalks on either side of the road, Humans were skewered to tall spike devices that drained the host of any nutritional substance they had and used it for food. Some of the more outlandish rumors stated that once a host was completely drained, they were reanimated with electrical impulses becoming mindless killers for the Geth. While Nihlus never really believed that part of the story, he did make sure to run down the long street as fast as he could not wanting to tempt fate.
Nihlus slid to a stop before rounding the next corner having heard voices approaching him. The more mechanical of the two spoke first, "This wasn't the plan, we were to destroy the beacon to stop the Old Ones."
He frowned in a state of total confusion, was that really a Geth speaking basic? Many scientists for the past three hundred years had dreamed of the chance to talk to the Geth in earnest. If galactic society as a whole could understand why the Geth turned against their creators, they could come up with a solution to the Geth-Quarian conflict permanently. According to the Quarians, it was impossible for the Geth to communicate with anyone due to their programming involving the Consensus. Yet here Nihlus was listening to a singular Geth unit discuss the beacon with someone he couldn't quite see. The only conclusion he could draw from this revelation was that the Quarians had been lying to get better help from the Council, or the Geth had evolved beyond what the Quarians believed them to be capable of. In either case it was just another headache the Citadel was going to have to sort through after this battle. His immediate priority though was figuring out the other participant in this discussion.
He stood very still when he heard the other voice reply with clear disdain for the topic, "Plans change, this beacon could help us stop the Old Ones and help your people gain acceptance. Why do you continue to question my motives? When have I ever betrayed our mission?"
Nihlus thought his heart couldn't shatter again after being punched in the face for daring to point out it was time for Saren to move on. They had been through so much together that he genuinely believed Saren would never lash out at him the way he had with everyone else in his life. For spirits sake he had changed Garrus' diapers when Saren was too tired to do it and Castis wasn't around. He thought that would've earned him the right to shake Saren a little. The attack on Eden Prime though was beyond his imagination to contemplate seriously, even after receiving some evidence to the contrary a few weeks ago. It was one thing to listen to Saren rant and rave about Humans in the privacy of their own home. It was quite another to organize a Geth army in order to kill as many Humans as you can. No matter how much this was going to destroy him and Garrus, Saren was going to have to face justice for this.
The Geth spoke again and Nihlus could guess it was alarmed, "Never, but this unit is detecting your anger, corruption by the Old Ones is a slow process, if we could just look you over."
An immediate yell from Saren cut the Geth off, "NO! I will not stand for you continuously testing me for something I know I am free of. If you cannot trust that I'm not doing what is best for all of us, you should've stayed behind. Now-" A large explosion rang out some distance behind them.
The Geth's words confirmed what Nihlus was thinking, "The Humans have breached the outer perimeter and are attacking our units."
Saren growled at the thought a mere Human could've gotten this far, "You deal with them, make sure they don't reach the cargo transport. I'll secure the beacon and bring it back to the base of the ship once you're done meet me at the dock."
Nihlus watched the Geth leave without shooting it knowing Jack could handle a few more units. He rationalized his decision by telling himself that springing from the shadows now would alienate any chance they had of finding the beacon. Plus, the Human had taken down a Thresher Maw at the start of his career, a few Geth would only slow him down. That added time might allow Nihlus to talk his former mentor and lover down from this ledge. No amount of pain any Human caused him could justify the bloodshed Nihlus was seeing. Saren had betrayed his oath as a SPECTRE without a care in the galaxy for the consequences. Nihlus needed to know why the love of his life would go against everything he believed in. He followed Saren quietly seeing this whole mission far more personally now.
_o0o0o0o_
Jack did his best to put the past behind him knowing he couldn't change anything despite memories of that time bubbling to the surface. Eden Prime was shaping up a lot like his mission to Torfan, a good start only for everything to go downhill fast. How many names was he going to have to add to the list of people he was responsible for getting killed? Looking through the scope of Richard's old assault rifle, Jack saw dozens of individual Geth units marching through the streets of the colony. Each Geth could fight well enough on their own, but given their hivemind like artificial intelligence, packs of them were far more dangerous. What worried him the most was the fact that he didn't see Nihlus or the beacon as far as the scope could see. If the SPECTRE had somehow been caught, then any chance of actually completing the mission successfully was growing bleak. He had no idea how they were going to get down to the colony without being seen, let alone exploring it without a guide like Richard.
He could hear Kaidan beside him shifting his weight anxious about just standing in the open, "See anything friendly down there Commander?"
Jack pulled the weapon away from his eye, "No just a bunch of hostiles, no sign of Nihlus or the beacon."
"Should we call the Normandy? I know a few more soldiers we could bring in to build a second squad." Kaidan asked not so subtly pondering whether they could do this on their own.
He would be lying if he didn't have that question himself however, he just motioned towards the sky all around them, "We have no idea where the Geth assault ship is located. I won't jeopardize the Normandy until we have the package in hand."
Kaidan bit his lower lip deciding not to push the matter further, "Fair enough, any idea where we should start looking? Without Jenkins it could take us hours we don't have to find the beacon."
Jack responded as fast as possible knowing his confidence would be important to improve Kaidan's moral, "If I were them, I'd move it to the docks so later, I could research it in peace off planet."
Kaidan looked down at the colony itself swallowing any fear he had, "Makes sense but I don't see any docks or cargo transportation down there."
The N7 pointed to the main road, "If you look carefully, you can see hover tracks down the center of each street. I think if we just follow that road we'll eventually find where they have the transport hub."
Kaidan wasn't sure each colony worked the same way out here but, having been in more fighting during the Blitz, Jack would know better than him. In response the Lieutenant nodded, "Sounds reasonable, I'll follow your lead Shepard."
The two Human soldiers slid down the hill in front of them to reach the beginning of the main road to the actual colony. Jack could see his future cover at the bottom of the hill yet he may have been sliding towards it a little too quickly. On the way down, they were forced to kick up rocks so that they could slow their descent, creating a god-awful amount of noise. It was just their luck that a Geth heard the loud scrambling sound and started shooting at them while they moved to cover. Jack pinned himself against the back of a landed hover craft while Kaidan hid behind an industrial fuel tanker ship. Jack quickly got a few shots off around the corner and thankfully managed to hit the Geth in its single, blue, glowing, optical sensor. Since the Geth used the sensor as its eyes and brain, it was a logical place to aim for. Even though the Geth went down without having enough time to reload, five more Geth took defensive positions where it died.
Jack barely dodged a series of shots while turning to Kaidan, "We're gonna need a distraction to get in there or we'll be out here for hours."
Kaidan agreed popping a few shots off of his own before pointing to the fuel tanker, "Help me with moving this and we'll make quite the entrance."
At first, Jack wanted to protest thinking they already had enough attention but, the entire Geth army would know they were here no matter what they did given the fact each Geth could communicate with the whole army through electrical signals. Without saying another word, Jack focused all his biotic energy, with Kaidan's help, on moving the fuel pod off the ship and onto the street just behind the incoming Geth troops. The movement wasn't easy seeing as neither of them were Asari Justicars but, neither of their implants short circuited so that was a good sign. Before the Geth could fully comprehend what they were doing, Jack and Kaidan used combined weapons fire on the pod until it exploded. The actual explosion was a lot larger than Jack had anticipated thus it would do the trick. The blast eliminated all the Geth in the immediate area with the unfortunate side effect of also giving the other Geth deeper in the city something to look for. Jack didn't waste any time looking around the bodies deciding to sprint down the road to make sure they got far enough away not to get caught.
After around five minutes of running around Geth rushing towards the explosion, Jack and Kaidan slowed to a stop from the shock of what they saw straight down the street. Along the sidewalks there were two lines of dead civilians hanging in the air from large cylindrical spikes. Each spike only held one Human but, the amount of blood dripping down each spike made it clear that none of the people had any chance of being alive. He had no idea if the Geth had placed them here just to intimidate people or they had a perverse satisfaction out of setting up a horror scene. What scared Jack the most was the fact that he had no idea what these things were or what they were used for. Maybe Kal just wouldn't want to bring up something so disturbing when they discussed the Geth though Jack believed it was more likely that Kal had never encountered the torture device. Either way, there was nothing they could do for these people now so he started walking again assuming Kaidan would follow him.
However, when he looked back, he saw Kaidan was standing near one of the spikes and scanning it with his omni tool, "Come on Lieutenant, we can't help them now, we just have to find the beacon."
Kaidan sighed before turning to look at Jack with his eyes widening, "Shepard look out!" The man shouted while running towards him.
Guessing more Geth were behind him, Jack raised a biotic shield around his body practically creating a blue bubble of energy. When he twisted around to see what he was dealing with, Jack realized the warning hadn't come a moment too soon. A Geth patrol of around ten units had found them shooting at them on sight. What he found interesting was the fact that the lead Geth was clearly giving out orders to each unit. He could swear he could hear it speaking in basic even though he knew that wasn't possible. After Kaidan started giving substantial cover fire, Jack felt safe enough to lower his biotic shield to dash to the nearest cover which was behind one of the buildings. Now that they were trapped in a linear corridor firefight his mind inevitably wandered back to the Batarian ambush on Mindoir. He had to take a deep breath to prevent himself from freezing in shock when Kaidan needed him.
Kaidan's voice came in through his helmets short range comm system since they were across the street from each other, "I think one of us needs to flank them from behind or we'll be here too long."
The suggestion, no matter how well-meaning took him back to those ice caves. Mandaria had been split off from him and Kal leading to colossal failure after failure. He remembered having hope that he and Kal would be saved in the beginning. As the hours passed with no help to be found, the cold had become their only friend. His teeth grinding together in a fools attempt to keep warm all the while telling Kal that they would be ok despite the constantly lowering temperatures. When Kal demanded Jack wear his suit, he knew that it was likely both of them were going to die alone in that cave system. Little did he know that was only the beginning of his suffering a good seven months ago. All because he thought it was a good idea to split up in order to complete the mission.
"No! we need to just hold them off here and hope they make a mistake." He shouted after snapping back to the reality that was Eden Prime.
The two of them took every opening they could firing at Geth who were running across the street for better cover and to get closer to them. This tactic was working to slowly thin out their numbers yet Jack couldn't help but notice that the leader was getting smarter towards them as well. Anytime he tried to peek around the corner to shoot he was met with a hail of return gun fire forcing him to duck behind cover again. When Kaidan tried to do the same thing a moment later, the bullet clipped his shoulder guard sending him back to cover as well. Even from this side of the street Jack could see it had been a lucky hit that got past the armor and into Kaidan's shoulder. Jack squeezed his eyes shut with the realization that his trip down memory lane was the reason Kaidan got hurt. As more and more time went on he began to understand that six months wasn't enough time to process the Blitz. When this was over Jack was determined to get a desk job somewhere safe.
Kaidan was on the comm again groaning in pain, "Son of a bitch, I didn't think they could learn military tactics that fast."
Jack started just firing blindly around the corner to give him time to think, "Neither did I, can you tell me how bad it is Alenko? Do you think you can still fight?"
He gave a harsh laugh declaring, "Nothing medi gel won't fix, I'd feel a lot better if we actually had a plan to get out of this though sir."
To their shock and dismay, a third and more mechanical voice came booming towards them from up the street, "Organics, we are here to help you, please cease resisting us and allow this unit to take you to our leader. The Old Ones can be stopped if we work together."
Jack looked at Kaidan and even though they were both wearing helmets he knew they had the same feeling, total confusion. Did the Geth really believe that attacking the colony was somehow helping them? Even though it was crazy it confirmed for Jack that the Geth weren't working alone and had standing orders to do this. While it was risky, maybe allowing it to lead them to their leader could ultimately bring them closer to the beacon. However, before he could tell Kaidan his plan, he could hear more assault rifle fire coming from another direction. Upon looking around the corner, Jack saw Ashley ambushing the Geth from the other end of the street. He had no idea how she got back here so quickly though he decided it would be best not to complain. His N7 instincts told him he had to take immediate action to push their new advantage so, he drew his M83 Claymore shotgun to close the distance with the Geth leader.
One after the other the Geth started falling like they were made of paper as he made his way towards the talking Geth. It was too busy trying to pin Ashley down so Jack was able to get behind it to pull the trigger. The bang left a large hole carved through the center of the Geth from the blast of the shotgun sending it falling to the ground in front of a spike. The rest of the Geth were either killed by the combined fire of Ashley and Kaidan, or retreated into the alley ways all around them presumably in order to regroup for another engagement later. Although its speech patterns had been distorted, Jack could hear the main Geth repeating, "Old Ones" in a constant cycle. He was too busy looking around for more targets to see that the Geth had tapped a button on the bottom of the nearest spike before laying completely still.
Kaidan approached from behind him sounding cheery, "Hey Williams, glad to see you could finally rejoin us."
Jack was relieved she was alive to save their asses yet he still had a problem with her leaving the squad because she felt like it. From what he gathered on Alliance databases, Ashley fought enough Batarians during the Blitz to know her recklessness was wrong. At best, she had been overwhelmed by the loss of Jenkins and snapped. It wasn't as though he had never acted irrationally while worrying about someone elses well being. Still, she went against his orders in the middle of a battle no less and so she needed to be repremanded severely. However, her appearance made him decide to wait until after they were safe on the Normandy to do it. She was covered in corn with a bruise prominently displayed against her cheek. The three of them took a moment to catch their breath after experiencing the harshest fighting since the Blitz.
Ashley was about to comment when her rifle pointed above Jack's head with lightning speed, "Oh my God, Commander, those people are still alive."
He didn't have to look back to hear the many groans that were making the street sound like a grotesque choir. That was followed by the sickening sound of the spikes themselves grinding towards the ground. Jack turned around in terror to see about one hundred colonists waking up, but they weren't themselves. Their faces were gaunt, hollowed around the cheeks as well as their eyes. Their skin appeared almost translucent revealing their bone structure underneath. The muscles were all but gone replaced with intricate wiring connected to other obviously mechanical devices that allowed these things to move around effectively. Finally, his gaze had been drawn towards razor-sharp nails made of metal. A horror vid couldn't cook up a sight so disgusting even if they tried.
Knowing they were going to attack, Jack started shooting at the one closest to him before yelling, "RUN!"
The other two didn't have to be told twice immediately starting to haul ass down the main road. After he took a few more shots, Jack followed his own advice knowing they couldn't fight them all off, even with Ashley's help. The creatures behind shambled forward with unnatural speed. Even though he was a healthy adult, these zombies were able to keep up with him disturbingly efficiently. Jack could tell the horde of them were right behind him without looking back, luckily, they were just out of reach of his grasp. He used all the ammo left in Richard's gun to give him some more distance but, if they didn't find somewhere to hide soon all three of them would soon be food for whatever the colonists were now. Thankfully, up ahead Jack could see a cargo ship on a powered track that had a sign indicating it was headed towards the docks.
Jack didn't have to tell the others to go for it as they knew the situation. They had all watched enough vids to know not to test what would happen if they were bit by the thing. A moment after Ashley and Kaidan leapt onto the side of a train car the whole thing started moving forward. It was going quite slow at first yet, he knew that if he missed that ship he would be doomed forever. He heard the two on the ship yelling at him to, "Come on!" but, he didn't have the breath to tell them that he was indeed running as fast as he could. Just when he thought it was too late, Jack jumped forward while Ashley grabbed him pulling him closer to her on the ship's side. It was clear from the way she was looking up at him that she believed there was some romantic tension between them. How could he break it to her that even if he wasn't gay he wouldn't be interested in her? Something else to add to the list of awkward topics he and her were going to have to discuss.
She smirked with a little nervous laugh, "Haha... you scared us there for a minute Commander."
Kaidan spoke looking forward further down the train, "I see the beacon sir, look."
Jack's gaze turned from the horde they were leaving behind, past Ashley, to look where Kaidan was pointing with his good arm. Several cargo cars ahead of them he saw a metal slab with glowing green light all over it as well as two figures standing near it. Though he had never seen any of the Prothean artifacts on Mars, it was such an otherworldly device that he couldn't possibly argue with Kaidan. He could only hope one of the figures was Nihlus securing the device. Regardless, one way or another this mission was finally getting to be over in the next few minutes. Then he could go to bed, write an apology to Jenkins family, before resigning from the Alliance. His fighting days were behind him no matter how good he was at it.
He took a deep calming breath while grabbing his gun, "Alright, no time to rest now, we need to get to that thing before this ship stops."