Aggressor: Rise of Man

Chapter 2

The Dig Site

"The events of Manchester over 200 years ago were ones to learn from. In our hubris, we thought we had. We were so careful. Unfortunately, history is unmoved by how careful you are. How will it remember us?" - Doctor Moira Vahlen

The first and only warning Shepard got was a flash of red and a blur of blue. He didn't even have time to cry out in alarm as the thing from inside the transport collided with him, driving him down to the ground and pinning his arm under his side. Lieutenant Montoya whirled around, training her weapon on the tangle of limbs and almost inhuman howling.

"Hold your fire!" She cried, raising an open hand. Her arrayed Black Ops soldiers had spun in place at the yell, Shepard realized only now that it had been his own, and now stopped in place. Shepard breathed heavily, dust filling his lungs as his face was pushed to the gravel by whatever had jumped him. He was frozen, unable to speak, unable to do more than stare pleadingly into Montoya's face. The Sentinel looked impassively back, her face a blank mask. "Let the man go and identify yourself!" she barked. The pressure on Shepard's side lessened slightly, but did not let go.

"You're not one of them?" his attacker managed, their own breath ragged and their voice hoarse. "You need to get out of here! They're still out there!" The hand that had gripped Shepard by the shoulder let go and he surged forward, wriggling out from under his attacker. He looked back and saw a ghost. His attacker was a man, likely from the colony judging by the blue overalls he wore, the uniform of workers from the Eldfell-Ashland corporation. In his still upraised hand, he held a long handled red pipe wrench. His face was pale behind a rough scrub of beard and his eyes appeared sunken in their widened shock. The man fell to his knees and the wrench hit the ground as Shepard slithered away from him. "Please, take me with you." the man muttered.

"Who did this?" Montoya asked sternly. She walked up behind Shepard and offered him a hand to haul him to his feet. Her eyes stayed locked on the civilian's though, suspicion creasing her features. "Wait, you're one of the boys from the refinery, part of the crowd our boys went to send packing." Her hands went to her weapon again. "Did you do this? Are you one of those radicals? Answer me!" Montoya closed the distance between herself and the unfortunate refinery worker in a pair of strides and grabbed him by the collar. She lifted him up of the ground with a clean, smooth jerk and slammed him against the surviving transport door. The wrench fell from his grip.

"No, we didn't do this!" he cried. He paled further, realizing his own admission. "The ones who attacked, they came out of the trees. They were aliens, I swear." The man's words were choked off as Montoya's enhanced strength pressed him into the unyielding metal of the door. He spluttered there, his fingers flailing impotently against the strain-soldier's grip.

"Lieutenant!" Shepard called, the hint of panic in his words, "you're going to kill him!" The worker's eyes were starting to bug out of his pale face, his lips taking on a slight blue tinge. The officer's head snapped around to lock eyes on Shepard's, sending him stumbling back. The characteristic golden shine had almost completely overtaken not just the pupil, but the surrounding whites as well. Still, she shook her head and released her grip on the man's neck. The unfortunate refinery worker fell to his knees and gasped for air heavily. She followed him down, squatting almost eye to eye, showing sharp teeth.

"If you and your agitators didn't do this to my men, then who did? Answer very carefully, the alien you saw, describe it to me."

The workman brought his gagging and spluttering under control and looked up with eyes wide and pointed towards the woods. "Over there, your goon squad managed to bring one of them down. The body should still be there."

"One of them?" Montoya asked, "Out of how many?" She stood and jerked her head in the direction the man had pointed. Two black suited troopers peeled off and moved towards the woods.

"Two. There were two of them," the man replied, rubbing the deep bruises already appearing at his throat.

"Bullshit," one of the Black Ops soldiers hissed, "No way two aliens take out a whole squad by themselves. He stopped as Montoya held up a hand.

"Quiet! Do you hear that?" she cocked her head. Around her, the men of their squad quieted and looked at the sky. Shepard joined them, pulling the headphones for his radio set from his head. He could hear nothing but the sound of wind in the trees and the sound of the trooper's boots as they moved towards the hidden alien body. Then the wind shifted and he could hear it, the distant sound of civil defense sirens. "Shepard, raise the base. Report this attack and the presence of more aliens," she eyed Balak suspiciously, "and find out what..."

She wasn't able to finish her thought. Another, much closer noise drew everyone's eyes back towards their transport, a blood curdling scream from the driver, Bahtia. The scream cut off abruptly.

"Bahtia, report!" Montoya yelled. Only silence answered. "Damn, still jammed."

Shepard looked down at his comms. panel. It still read a clean connection to the transport. "Negative, Lieutenant. Our connection is still live."

"Damn it, Bahtia, report! Rawlings! Take your fire team back up the hill and find out just what the hell is going on."

Four soldiers leapt into action, advancing with weapons at the ready. They never reached the personnel carrier. As they reached the rough halfway point, all hell broke loose. The transport rocked madly an abrupt splash of arterial gore splattered the windshield. The Black Ops soldiers around Shepard swore loudly and brought their carbines up and ready to fire.

Shepard plastered himself to the side of the destroyed Alvis alongside the refinery worker, their previous opposition forgotten as the other transport rocked again. A figure, fully armored but unmistakably female, burst out of the roof of the cab in an aurora of blue-purple light. Whatever it was, it was fast, vaulting up and over Rawling's stunned fireteam. The troopers around him opened up as one, filling the air with blue-white bolts of Razor plasma. Shepard caught a flash of yellow before it landed amongst the soldiers. A curved blade erupted from a soldier's armored chest. She flopped bonelessly to the ground with a gurgling cry. A warbling weapon discharge and another member of the squad went down with a burst of flechettes to the back. Montoya reacted first, whirling around and opening fire on the yellow-clad figure. Her plasma rounds deflected off the swirling nimbus that surrounded it and clawed long, charred furrows in the ground.

"It's got barriers!" Montoya yelled, "Someone get a tag on this thing!" She reached for the black box on her shoulder and it lit up, projecting its orange-red force screen ahead of her just in time to deflect another spray of white-hot needles. The figure howled in response; its voice inhuman. It whirled, catching another trooper across the chest with a vicious heel kick and sending his weapon shooting wide. Shepard had to throw himself to the ground to avoid the arc of Razor bullets. The gravel bit into his cheek.

The air filled with the needle-sharp sound of the Black Ops' Razor fire, mixed with the warbling whoop of their assailant's. Something landed heavily in front of Shepard and something hot splattered his face.

All around him, the soldier's yelled. Shepard's heart thundered and his breathing raced. It was if the world around him was losing its color, turning a foggy grey. His eyes fell on something metal that glinted on the ground in front of him. A fallen soldier's Razor, lying in the mud just on the other side of a leg that bent at an unnatural angle. He reached out for it, but the weapon eluded him, its shoulder strap seemingly just beyond the reach of his fingers.

He looked up. The yellow clad figure struck a blow against one of the SRPA operative's force screen and forced him to the ground before springing like a pouncing cat against another. Shepard looked back at the carbine and struggled to pull himself closer, but his boots scrabbled against the loose gravel of the road. He dug in, dragging himself forward.

A running soldier caught the strap with his boot, jerking it even further from his reach. Shepard swore and redoubled his efforts. Somewhere off to his left, there was a sound like the winding of a massive spring and a hollow clank. The alien shrieked.

Shepard swarmed forwards, the iron-tasting mud splattering his face, his lips. With a final lunge, his hand wrapped around the carbine's grip. He clutched the weapon to his shoulder and forced himself up to one knee, swinging the heavy radio set out of the way.

The clearing before the gate house was still. Scattered about, the soldiers of the SRPA stood or knelt. Three of them would never move again. In the center of the carnage, lay the unmoving figure in yellow. Lieutenant Montoya was still standing, the barrel of her weapon leveled on the apparent corpse. Spectre Balak was right behind her, his alien weapon still steaming. Shepard got unsteadily to his feet, holding the carbine in front of his like a totem.

"Hard to kill bitch, ain't she," Montoya spat. Her force screen flickered out. "God damn it. Took out Murphy and Huang like it was nothing." She reached the alien and flipped it over to reveal the ruined chest armor. It was cracked by almost a dozen weltering plasma impacts and the its stomach was pierced through by a solid metal rod, like an old-time harpoon. On its head was a bulbous, opaque helmet cowl with wide wings that swept out to either side. All in that lurid, blood-spattered yellow. Montoya bent and reached for the helmet, yanking the faceplate away. "Shit."

"What the hell is it, LT?" one of the troopers asked. Balak was the first to answer.

"It's an Asari," he said, for the first time losing the smug affectation. Replacing it was a look of four-eyed concern, "a Reaver."

"What the hell's a Reaver?" Shepard asked. From the way the Black Ops soldiers reacted, it was nothing good. Montoya answered him.

"Asari pirates," she spat, "they attack colonies out in the Traverse. Don't leave a lot of survivors. And they're biotic, so they don't need a weapon to tear you apart. They've never struck this far into our territory before. They prefer to nibble around the edges." Shepard moved forward and caught a flash of a disturbingly human looking face, its skin a mottled blue-yellow. It stared unblinkingly with dark, black eyes.

"The Hegemony has had trouble with these things in the past as well, though they rarely descend upon our worlds any more. To call them pirates would be an insult to any privateer worth his vacu-seals, they delight only in cruel destruction. They attack without warning and they don't even take... merchandise. If they're here, it is because something drew them here." He eyed the darkening skies dubiously. "And where there are two, there are more coming. These ones look like scouts."

"Then we definitely need to call this in," Montoya snapped, "Shepard, raise command. You," she rounded on the refinery worker, "It's your lucky day. Don't let me catch you sniffing around our fences again, or rapacious alien pirates will be the least of your worries."

Shepard nodded dully, the adrenaline of the alien attack giving way to nervous shakes. He took a deep breath and steadied himself as he dialed in a connection back to base, attempting to tunnel his way through the howling of the jamming field. Whatever was throwing off their comms, it wasn't being powered by their two attackers and it was hellishly strong. And getting stronger. And then the howling wasn't just on the radio. The air shook around him, blurring his vision as something massive descended from the black clouds. Shepard stared at it, uncomprehending as it hovered impossibly in the air. It was huge, dwarfing anything the Navy could put in the air, dwarfing even the Dreadnaughts of the Council races, and those wouldn't have dreamed of descending into an atmosphere. It was constructed of a matte black metal and its form spoke of something ancient, cephalopodic, like something that might have crawled out of the deepest, darkest oceans. Soundless red lightning flashed between the four, claw like fingers that created a pointed crown above its body. It wasn't alone in the skies. Curved, elegant shaped ships descended upon New Eden. Their hollow, tubular bodies were ringed by a cross of four, forward sloping arms.

"Shepard? Come in, Shepard!" His radio earpiece squawked. He'd been able to make a connection.

"Colonel!" he gasped. Montoya Clapped him on the shoulder and grabbed the officer's field receiver from its socket on his back.

"Montoya here, Colonel. We are under attack. Confirmed contact with Asari pirates."

"No shit, Montoya," the Colonel shot back, "Ground to space radar just lit up like a Christmas tree. I've got bogies descending around the base, the city, the digsite. What's the status of the gate squad?" Up the hill, the base's air raid sirens groaned to life, joining the mournful wail of the alarms from the city. Air defense batteries opened up, stitching the sky with plasma tracers.

"All dead, sir, plus three down from my squad," Montoya reported. "Do you want us to return to base?"

"Aww, Hell," Colonel Thomas swore, "That's a negative on the recall. Take your squad and move to reinforce the troops at Dig Site Alpha, Priority Black. I repeat, Priority Black."

"I acknowledge, Priority Black," Montoya repeated, her previously unflappable demeanor shaken. Air cover?"

"Minimal, the bastards caught our flyers on the grou..." The call fuzzed out, a second layer of jamming descending around them so strong Shepard could swear he could feel it in his teeth. Montoya slammed the receiver back home.

"You didn't hear that," she growled in Shepard's face. She turned back to her men and motioned for him to follow. "Listen up, people," she called, raising her voice to reach above the sirens, "new marching orders from the top. We're taking a trip to the next valley and giving the X-Rays over there a hand. Amato, you've got Murphy's fireteam. Find us some transport, it's a long way for a hike. Spectre, if you'd like to return to the base, I can send a short escort."

The Spectre shook his head, and if the troopers were shocked to be ordered away from the base in the middle of an attack, they masked it well. They shook into ordered rows again, three of them peeling off. The civilian, on the other hand, had recovered from his rough handling at Montoya's hand. In fact, he was shaking with rage, his face almost as red as his pipe wrench.

"What do you mean, the next valley over?" he spat, spittle flying from his lips, "Can't you hear? The city is under attack, right now. There are unarmed men. Families. Children, down there. You can't just leave them to die!" He rounded on Shepard. "You, you're in the Navy! Isn't it your job to defend us? Are you just going to let these black baggers abandon us?"

Shepard's stomach flip-flopped, the guilt threatening to strangle him. He had trouble meeting the man in the eyes, but he remembered the urgency of the Colonel's coded orders. "I'm sorry."

The man shook his head in disgust and left Shepard standing there, stooping only to scoop the Asari's strange weapon from her already stiffening dead fingers. No one made to stop him. He disappeared out of sight as a crunching of gravel signaled the arrival of a large, yellow construction vehicle. Shepard piled into the back of it behind the remaining Black Ops soldiers with his new carbine clutched close to his chest.

The truck jounced as it rumbled over what could only very charitably be called a dirt track. The climb out of the Garden Valley was uncontested by the Asari caravels that howled through the air. The soldiers around Shepard stood vigilant, eyes pressed to loopholes they had cut in the high walled truck bed. Shepard worked at his comm gear, trying fruitlessly to try and reestablish a connection with the base. He looked back over his shoulder. Back down in the valley, Research Base Garden burned, its landing field hidden behind a thick pall of smoke. Still, tracers leapt from the air defense batteries, joined occasionally by the heavier fire of the base's anti-ship railguns. As Shepard watched, another of the Asari's star shaped shuttle weight craft swooped over the base. Fresh fires vomited upwards from twin explosions. The truck shook again.

"That's the last checkpoint," One of the soldiers murmured, "abandoned, like the others. X-Ray must have pulled all their spooks back to their little science project."

Shepard turned to face the impassive bubble helmet of the speaker. "Science project? I thought they were digging for minerals. Mining for eezo or something."

"Yeah, well SRPA doesn't pull our X-Ray Squads for eezo prospecting," the soldier replied. "If they were mining out there, it'd be us pulling watchdog duty. They've found something down there. Something a lot more dangerous than eezo. Mark my words." the soldier looked back to his loophole.

"Dangerous? Like what?" Shepard asked, curiosity overwhelming dread.

"You'll see," the soldier chuckled darkly. The truck juddered on, the dirt path becoming open wilderness. They were going downhill again. Shepard moved amongst the troopers, trying to get closer to the front. Ther transport turned a corner around a rugged promontory of rock and suddenly his view was clear all the way to the dig site below. Shepard swore viciously.

The truck was running along the top of a steep sided gorge, the valley below laid out before him. The dig site was a ragged hole in the New Eden soil but it was what it had unearthed that turned Shepard's guts to water. There wasn't a human alive that couldn't recognize the multi-layered metal anthill that lay below. Iron grey lobes leaned inwards, like the petals of a flower not quite ready to bloom. In their center, the spiked peak of the unextended spire lay couched, ready to spring forth upon activation. The whole structure had a hunched, malignant look. Metal glittered at its base in a mechanical spiderweb and thick black conduits peaked just above the level of the excavation. A Chimeran hub tower. Shepard swallowed against a suddenly dry throat. The structure slept, for now, dormant, but if it awoke it could spell the end of the entire colony. And the SRPA had been digging it up. It had doomed them. One of the Asari's star shaped corvettes hovered above the metal point of the spire, two of the larger manta ray frigates flanked it to either side. Even from this distance, Shepard could see the broken bodies, clad in black, scattered about the excavation.

"Stop the truck, pull us away from the ridge!" Montoya ordered, "everybody out!"

The soldiers jostled to jump from the bed of the civilian truck and swarmed towards the ridge, dropping prone at the very lip. Montoya and Balak followed, crawling up to the edge of the gorge. Balak was the first to speak. "It would appear your SRPA has some explaining to do. This excavation was not on the facility manifest you logged with the council. And I don't recall seeing it as I made my descent. You hid it from the air?"

Montoya replied through gritted teeth. "It wasn't logged because the excavation is not complete. We wanted to make sure we knew what we had before you demanded we pull up the stakes on the colony and bombard it from orbit." She pulled a set of magnifiers from a belt pouch.

"I should think you of all people should be able to recognize exactly what you've found here," Balak replied darkly. He lined up the scope of his own rifle on the dig site. "What it's... contents might be. Although it looks like you've already started packing that up too. I'm sure the council will be very interested to hear about this." He fiddled with the scope.

"Perhaps we can save the results of our inspection until after we're under attack," Montoya bit back. She swore, loudly. "Shit, that's not an Asari."

Shepard scrabbled for his own magnifiers and pushed himself to the lip of the ridge. He zoomed in on the hub tower pit. Up close, the carnage overmatched the slaughter in front of the research station gate. The SRPA X-Ray operatives had been torn apart, many of them literally. Shepard felt his gorge rise as he swept the dig site until he caught a glimpse of a figure walking towards a yawning opening at the base of the tower. Shepard's had to clamp down his hands until the knuckles went white to stop them from shaking with rage. A Turian. His scales and ridges were coal black, his armor bulky, its plates a mix of ebony and crimson. One arm had been replaced by a heavy cybernetic prosthesis. Four Asari Reavers flanked him, their bulbous helmets flicking back and forth with clear agitation. As Shepard watched, something emerged from the darkness beneath the tower. The boxy cab of a heavy cargo hauler edged into the artificial gloom, followed closely by an overloaded trailer. The trailer carried a massive and overbuilt tank, the kind that might have been used to haul rocket fuel on far off Earth. The tank itself was banded with thick ribs of arcane mechanisms whose purpose eluded the stunned radioman. The Turian walked up to the trailer and placed his hand against the side of the tank, bowing his head as if in benediction.

"I don't believe this," Balak spat, recognition crawling across his face, "Nihlus."

"What's a Nihlus?" One of the troops asked.

"Nihlus Kryik, my opposite number amongst the Turians. He's got a chip on his shoulder the size of a dreadnaught over the Batarians beating his people to getting their first Spectre. Had to fight him tooth and nail to get this inspection detail. I guess now we know why." Balak moved away from the edge. "If Nihlus Kryik is here, if he's working with the Asari, he could only have come here for one reason. To get what was in that tower. Now, are you going to tell me what that is."

Montoya looked conflicted; her face was drawn. Hesitantly, she started, "I..." She was cut off by a sky-splitting screech overhead. Shepard looked up in time to see one of the Asari frigates on close approach. Something flashed across the sky. As it connected with the howling starcraft, Shepard recognized it as a round from the Research Station's big anti-shipping railguns. It struck the Asari craft with the brightness of a new sun. It punched straight through the flickering kinetic barriers that hugged the pearlescent ship's skin and burrowed up through its guts, exploding out through its roof. Smoke poured from the pierced hull, blue-white eezo flames licking up in hungry gouts. The ship began to list, rapidly dropping down towards the ground. Towards them. "Get off the ridge!" Montoya yelled. Shepard jumped up and sprinted away from the lip of the gorge. The black-suited troopers followed, scrambling to get out from under the falling frigate. It came down behind them with an almighty crash and the world came up to meet him.

The world came back in fuzzy glimpses, flashes between long, heavy blinks. Stone, small metal debris falling down like rain, the crushed body of the construction truck upended and driven nose down in the dirt.

*blink*

Muffled yelling, a ringing in the ears. Something was burning on the near horizon. A Black Ops trooper howled in the upturned earth; his abdomen split by a whirling chunk of hull plating. He gave one last animalistic utterance and then lay still.

*blink*

Ash fell like soft blue-grey snow. The air burned his lungs. He struggled to his feet, unsteady, wobbling with the effort. His harsh, ragged breaths were loud in his ears. The world slid to the side and his shoulder hit the ground.

*blink*

Three swooping craft lifted over the lip of the gorge and arrowed towards the sky. Balak stood, dark blood weltering up from wounds on his head. His rifle was pointed at the crashed Asari craft and he was shouting something. Black Ops soldiers rushed forward to take up positions in the furrows torn in the ground by the impact. Shepard stumbled forward, on his feet again. The world lost some of its otherworldly floatiness. A hand was on his shoulder. Someone was shouting.

"God damn it, Shepard, get yourself into cover!" Montoya yelled, shoving him forward. Shepard ran, aiming for the nearest crater in the earth. His Razor rattled against his chest rig. "Eyes up people! That ship might have some very angry survivors!"

As if summoned by her warning, three shapes burst from the hollowed corpse of the corvette. The sinuous Asari struck like lightning, two of them landing amongst the arrayed humans with ululating war calls and flashing blades. The third was slower, perhaps due to the injury, perhaps merely due to the shock of the crash. She coiled to leap after her sisters. Intersecting lines of Razor fire ripped through her biotic barriers to flair against the yellow plates of her breast plate. Her two fellow pirates took their revenge in blood. The taller of the two struck out at the nearest soldier, a curved blade in each hand. The left-hand strike skittered off a half-formed force screen, but it was a feint. The Asari's right hand flickered out, burying a short knife in the trooper's ribs. The man cried about and fell backwards. Shepard raised his carbine and jerked the trigger hard. The Razor blazed with blue light as it slung its plasma rounds downrange. His shot went wide, disappearing into the air over the attacker's shoulder.

The Asari smiled wickedly and advanced on Shepard, her blades flashing in front of her. Shepard backpedaled, pulling the trigger again. The short burst of fire deflected off the alien's barriers and the Razor flashed warning lights. Magazine empty. He did not have another. He turned to run and collided with Balak. The alien bellowed and gripped him by the shirt, pivoting to throw Shepard behind himself. His rifle came up and the winding sound came again. With a clank, it discharged another red-hot harpoon. The Asari stumbled backwards; the rod lodged in her upper thigh. She howled and threw out her palm. Shepard felt something grip him like a hook in the navel and yank him backward. He and Balak fell flat on their backs and the enemy leapt after them, apparently able to ignore the spike protruding from her leg.

She was caught in mid-air by a veritable shower of bright blue bolts. The burning flechettes chewed their way through her armor and she seemed to stutter in midair. The Asari's body fell heavily to the ground as buoying biotics flickered out. Shepard rolled over and threw his head back, following the path of the attack. Four more Black Ops soldiers ran towards them, firing as they came. Two carried the same carbines as Montoya's squad, one a long rifle. The fourth was a truly massive soldier. He carried a boxy, octagonal heavy weapon slung low at his hip. It's cluster of barrels steamed in the late morning air. The barrels spun within their heavy cowling as the big trooper unleased another torrent of fire into the fallen Asari. "Friendlies!" the rifleman called out, almost an afterthought.

"Back on your feet, Navy!" one of Montoya's lot called as he advanced past Shepard. Rawlings by the voice, he recalled. Shepard stumbled to his feet to see the last standing Asari lift one of the men struggling into the air. This one was shorter than the others and moved with less of their sinuous grace. Her bulbous helmet had a high rill of ornamental spikes around it, her armor was painted in a diamond, harlequin pattern of black and white, a blaze of ichorous yellow ran from throat to waist. She held the soldier wriggling there, a shield between her and the squad. Montoya stood across from her behind a flickering force screen. Her carbine was gone, replaced in her grip by her broad sided Deadhand autopistol.

"Seven to one, you blue bitch!" the Lieutenant spat, "Give it up and you might just live to spend your Retirement in a prison cell."

"A foolish threat, spoken by one too young to understand," the Asari replied, cocking her head, "We do not trade one cell for another. There will be no Long Sleep for us. We have found the Caller."

"Uh huh?" Montoya said, stalking closer to the enemy. The Asari side stepped, keeping the struggling Black Ops trooper between them. "You looking for God, I can send you to Him express. Your old bones too tired, Grandma, maybe put my man down."

"Insolent child!" the Asari hissed. With a sudden motion, she snapped the man's neck. With a whirl, she tossed him bodily at the Lieutenant, who coolly dodged. Her pistol came up with a single fluid motion.

"You want to play kid games, red rover, here's one of ours. Tag!" Her weapon coughed once. The Asari jerked as something fat and red blossomed across her stomach. "Light her up!"

The squad fired as one. The Asari moved fast, trying to dodge, but the bullets curved in midair, tracking her motion. She was picked apart until she collapsed in gory ruin on the battlefield. Montoya strode up to the body and kicked her over. The Asari still grew breath, hissing something only Montoya could hear. The Lieutenant paled and pointed her pistol at the alien's head, pulling the trigger until nothing was left.

INTEL

Alvis-IMC HU/P 'Samson'

Originally designed by a partnership of the Alvis Car and Engineering Company and Interstellar Manufacturing Corporation in 2176, the Samson is the general-purpose utility and troop transport vehicle for the SRPA and EDE Army forces. With its four-door cab and open bed, The Samson has the capacity to transport a full squad, its command element, and its associated drones over a wide variety of terrain types. The Samson's six-wheel drive train is powered by a Chimeran-derived plasma power plant driving individually articulated motors to a top speed of 75 MPH. The Samson's lightly armored skin is rated for small arms fire, including Citadel mass accelerator up to assault rifle caliber. The truck's bed includes a mounting post for crew served heavy weapons and a charging rack for SRPA energy weaponry.

In the field, the Alvis-IMC Samson is unpopular with active-duty troops. Combat trooper superstition regarding the breaking of the so –called 'big cat' naming scheme for military ground vehicles, a streak only broken by the Samson's distance relative, the FV603 Saracen, combined with the unfortunate events surrounding the collapse of a military parking garage containing the first 100 production models have left a reputation of bad luck around the Samson. This has led to Army users in the field referring to it simply as 'the Alvis,' or 'Big Bad Sam." Despite this, the Samson has served well in colonial theatres for the last 5 years and promises to remain a mainstay of Earth Defense Executive forces.

Author's Note:

I'd like to thank everyone who read, followed, and reviewed this new project. The response was incredibly heartening and really made all the mad brainstorming that ended up being distilled into this project seem worth it. Hopefully it will continue to stand up to your initial expectations.

OMAC001: Rare indeed, I believe that this is only the 5th ME/Resistance crossover in all of . As you can see above, I do intend to include Codex/Intel entries with each chapter. I'll be sticking to my own additions to the two universes for the most part, but if any reviewers have requests for specific entries, they are welcome to either drop a review or PM

Aquaticmammals: Thank you for the kind words. It really is an overlooked series and I for one am glad to see I wasn't the only one to want to see it under a new light.

Sorlian: It really is an interesting and wicked little universe to play in. Not quite the Halo Killer it was advertised as, but quite refreshing for the time. Exactly what effect the Virus has had on the galaxy at large will be unveiled in good time, but be prepared for it to be more far reaching than it first appears.