Very sorry about how late this is, but I have a good excuse… I had (still technically have) cancer. Of the butt, embarrassingly enough. It was caught extremely early, and the treatment was so short and simple that I didn't even have to miss work, but my headspace wasn't in the right place to write, so I'm sorry about that.

On a side note, I used that time to accidentally get into Warhammer 40k, does anyone have any good recommendations for books featuring Imperial Knights? So far they are my favorite faction.

Emile watched the giant tuning fork in space get closer and closer to the front viewport. Its reflection grew in his scarred visor until its broken visage took up nearly the entire surface when it suddenly lashed out, throwing blue lightning out into the void and splashing across the bow of the SSV Normandy SR1.

The superhuman's hypersensitive senses detected the mild shift of momentum as the stealth ship's own mass effect fields were taken over by the Relay and they entered a massless corridor that stretched for hundreds of lightyears. The anti-proton thrusters provided enough thrust to nearly instantaneously launch them the entire distance to the Utopia system in the Exodus Cluster.

"Relay transition complete, confirming coordinates," the pilot, Flight Lieutenant Jeff 'Joker' Moreau, made his report from the center seat in the cockpit, "Calculated drift at just under fifteen hundred clicks."

The Spartan narrowed his eyes, fifteen hundred kilometers was a pretty small target when the shot was a couple hundred lightyears long, but compared to the newest generation of slip space drive, one of which was mounted three decks below his feet, it was intolerable. The tricky nature of the quantum tunneling through the higher dimensions made the drive frighteningly complex, but with schematics taken from the CCS battlecruiser's slipspace drive, and DOT's help refining the Alliance's ability to attenuate their mass effect fields within the quantum tunnel, the technology had become incredibly reliable, and incredibly precise, with the Normandy able to transition out of slipspace onto a target the size of a cruiser.

"Fifteen hundred is good, your captain will be pleased," but they couldn't really use the slipspace drive much in Council Space, and certainly not with Council SPECTREs aboard.

Nihlus Kryik turned and left the cockpit, doing his level best not to shy away from the seven foot tall killing machine, but Emile could see the slight shuffle in his feet to avoid getting even one inch closer to the 'Demon of Torfan' from the corner of his eye, and could hear the mild uptick in heart rate of the turian as he caught sight of the skull scarred helmet shining in all the lights and controls of the bridge. Noble Four watched the alien retreat down the elongated CIC on his motion tracker, never once moving his head during the entire exchange until he saw Jane Shepard watching him from the co-pilot seat.

At the subtle shift of his head to indicate he was now looking at her, the redhead smirked, "You make a great impression on our guest."

Emile responded with a subtle shift of his right shoulder, the tip of the kukri waving less than a centimeter from the motion. Most people wouldn't have caught the motion, or assumed it to be on purpose, but Jane wasn't up for N7 before her injury for no reason, and her jade green eyes caught the motion easily.

"Just don't blow him away like you did those poor batarians."

"Don't engage him!" Joker whispered as quietly as he could to himself. It wasn't anywhere near quiet enough to escape the notice of the superhuman standing right behind him, "Oh please just go away…"

With Emile's helmet now focused down on pilot, the Normandy's XO also looked over to Joker and caught him whispering to himself.

"You know he can hear you right?"

Joker looked over to the freckled commander, then over his shoulder to the armored one before looking back to Shepard and asking, "Can you hear me?"

Jane shook her head with a laugh, "No, I have to read your lips, but Emile can literally hear your heart beating."

"Ninety seven a minute," he finally spoke up, his voice his usual reserved tone, "In case you were wondering."

Emile slapped a gauntleted hand on the back of the pilot's chair, bouncing Joker in the seat with the force, "Good jump though, let the captain know when we're getting close to Eden Prime."

"Sir, yes sir, Commander Demon, sir!"

Shepard laughed again, "He prefers Commander Merciless, Consumer of Souls. You might want to remember that Flight Lieutenant."

As the Spartan followed the turian SPECTRE's path he could hear the pilot snark back, "I'll call him whatever he wants, as long as he doesn't drink my blood and perform evil sacraments with my bones. I don't know how you can stand that guy."

"Emile? You haven't known him for very long, but don't worry about him," Jane assured Joker, "Truthfully, he's a big old cuddly sweetheart."

At that, Emile nearly turned around to go make sure Shepard never spoke such slander again, but decided his languid pace down the long neck of the CIC was more important. Some slacking sensor officers perked up as he passed them, and the gunners actually focused on their displays, bringing up their targeting algorithms just to look busy so the scary super soldier in power armor didn't bust their ass.

"Really? The Spartan of Elysium, the Demon of Torfan, the Hero of the Blitz is what you would call a sweetheart?"

This Joker kid had at least some brains.

"The turians have taken to calling him the Wrathful Spirit of the Blitz," Normandy's executive officer said, "I like that one better."

Damn that is a good name.

"Yeah, even the turians know better than to call that monster of a dude a 'sweetheart,'" Joker retorted, "The guy's probably a robot anyway. I mean what's up with his last name? A239? What, was he raised as a science experiment?"

No, Jorge and the rest of the II's were raised as an experiment. Emile and the III's were raised as the final factory product, thank you very much.

"No idea, but I can tell you he's not a robot. You haven't seen him out of armor because you only arrived on the Normandy recently and he was out with Lieutenant Alenko and Corporals Vega and Jenkins taking down pirate outpost, but trust me, he's flesh and blood."

"I remember him coming back covered in flesh and blood!"

Emile had just made it to the holographic display of the Normandy. Readouts on the various systems spun along the display, and unless you were an AI, VI, or were only watching one readout at a time, you'd never be able to take in the information. Unless you were given a healthy dose of colloidal neural disunification solution when you were fourteen, like Spartan III's had, then a single pass of the eyes was all it took to take in all the information displayed. The thruster output, the reactor status, the magnetic coil alignment on the railguns, shield strength, life support air quality, and ten other systems all deemed necessary for anyone working on the bridge to need to know at a moments notice.

Shepard and Joker continued their conversation, far out of earshot for anyone not wearing a highly advanced helmet with state of the art omnidirectional microphones and ears sensitive enough to rival a dogs.

"Some of that blood was Jenkins's blood," the Spartan could see her raise her hand to forestall the pilot's counter in his mind's eye, "because Jenkins took a hit to the leg from a sniper when his shields were down. It was light enough that the Corporal could have walked if he needed to, but the commander picked him up and carried him to the evac point. I heard from Jenkins that Emile was crying and telling him it was going to be alright."

At that, Emile DID stop, and slowly turned his helmet back towards the cockpit in shock. Where in the hell had she heard something as absurd as that? It couldn't have been Corporal Jenkins saying it, Dick knew better than to make up something like that about him.

But as soon as his own emerald eyes, covered as they were by his skull faced visor, made contact with Shepard's jade ones, he knew he'd been had by the redheaded commander, "Just seeing if you were still listening, Commander. We all still believe you're a badass"

Joker, shock and fear all over his face as he realized he'd been used as a means to poke fun at the super soldier, turned back to his cockpit and spoke lowly enough the Spartan almost didn't hear him.

"A big cuddly badass, apparently."

Sufficiently emasculated by his peer officer, the Spartan turned around and walked around the holographic display of the Normandy and past the Captain's ready room, and made his way to the right side of the elevator towards the entrance to the fleet command center, and the familiar armored figure standing guard at the door.

"Commander, sir," Corporal James Vega snapped a salute, allowing his MA5 to hang from his sling on his chest with his off hand holding it close to his armor plated chest.

Emile cocked his head at the trooper, the unasked question being conveyed easily through the silence of his response.

Vega shrugged as he returned his weapon hand back to the grip on his rifle, "We rushed out of drydock so fast, we didn't have time to bring the full platoon of marines onboard, so El Tee ordered me and Jenkins to guard the bridge and fleet command center."

The soulless eyes of the skull carved helmet tilted again, this time to regard the silver visored, black helmet hanging from the trooper's hip.

"Alliance regs says shipboard security isn't required to wear helmets at all times."

Now the screaming façade turned to look at the just barely visible glass canopy in the cockpit.

"That's why it's attached to my hip, sir."

"Carry on, Corporal," Emile finally spoke up, giving a slight nod to the trooper who smiled and tilted his own head in response.

With only the swooshing of the door to announce him, the Spartan stepped through into the security checkpoint monitored by Corporal Richard Jenkins and stopped immediately as his eyes came to rest on the black armored trooper, or more specifically, his rifle and its current set up.

"Dick, what the hell?"

"I told him it was a bad idea," Vega said from behind the seven foot tall death machine.

The big eared trooper, who was still wearing his helmet, at least, raised his off hand defensively, "Hey! I didn't have time to set up another MA5 for shipboard combat, and I'm most comfortable with this rifle!"

Vega snorted as he kept his eyes on the bridge, but turned his head and retorted, "Yeah, but a forty millimeter grenade launcher?"

Jenkins slapped the tube on the bottom of his coilgun and opened up the breach, showing that it was empty, "It's not loaded!"

"You've got six HE rounds on you right now," the other Corporal argued back.

"Seven, but that's not the point," the man under fire responded quickly, "the point is, that I am proficient with this weapon in its current set up, and I know this firearm well enough to not accidentally space the entire CIC."

No, just on purpose. Emile stepped through the threshold and listened to the door swoosh shut behind him and simply stared at the high explosive loving corporal. Jenkins, probably smiling underneath the silver visor of his black helmet, stepped forward and presented his omnitool. A few flicks of his fingers over the controls and an orange light shot out from the holographic tool and swept over the Spartan.

"Commander can you please deactivate your shields?" the trooper asked as his omnitool blinked red at him, "I'm not allowed to let you through unless I can confirm that you are authorized for those weapons, but I can't confirm that if I can't scan you, and I can't scan you, unless you drop your shields."

At the slight tilting of the helmet, Jenkins shrugged, "I'm not saying I could possibly stop you; I'm just saying you wouldn't have my permission. And we all know how much MY permission matters."

Rolling his eyes at the protocol, the Spartan dropped his energy shields, and watched the orange beam waft over him once again. This time, instead of flashing red, the omnitool on Richard's left hand pulsed white and the display on the desk at the guard station turned on and some familiar hardware began to appear on the screen.

"One M45 'Sledgehammer'" Jenkins looked at the skulled helmet, then back to the display, "Approved. One MA5 Heavy Coilgun. Approved. Six fragmentation grenades, and you were giving me trouble for my forty millimeter."

A gauntleted hand reached up and an armored finger tapped at the silver leaf on his chest, causing the corporal to wave a hand at him, "Officer's privilege, I get it. Approved. Two concussive stun grenades. Approved. Two… White phosphorous?"

Emile shrugged at Jenkins incredulous look. The trooper slowly reached up and pressed the button activating the kinetic barrier acting as cover for the guard in case of a firefight. The super soldier was skeptical that it would do anything if the white phosphorous grenades on his chest bandolier went off, but the corporal would take every bit of help he could get.

"Somehow you are approved for that. One knife, twelve inches. Approved."

Huh, the scan didn't catch the other three knives then.

"And one… heavily, heavily, heavily modified Phalanx side arm. Approved. You are good to move through, Commander," Jenkins opened the door leading into the conference room, "Nihlus is waiting for you, I believe."

The turian was, in fact, waiting for him in the meeting room. The SPECTRE was standing next to the window looking out into space. His gaze focusing on the system's gas giant in the distance, barely more than big multicolored star from this range, but maybe bird eyes could see more than even Emile's surgically enhanced vision.

"Commander," the dextro alien greeted without turning around. Emile was well versed in psychology, it was the reason for his helmet looking the way it was, the reason he used such an overpowered and absurd shotgun, the reason he sought out the most intense close quarters fighting. He always sought to intimidate and strike fear into his enemies. But he wasn't just well versed in violent intimidation, he knew many techniques to control conversations and to put others at a disadvantage in their verbal engagements. He utilized this knowledge when breaking in new marines and troopers all the time, ask Vega or Jenkins.

It was why he was completely unaffected by the turian SPECTRE's attempts to effect some sort of control over him. The Spartan was completely aware that he terrified the alien, and that Nihlus knew he knew, and was trying to regain some sort of respect. It was a foolish thing to do.

Emile didn't respect the turian any less for being afraid of him. The super soldier was fear incarnate to those who did not know him, he worked very hard to make it that way, to keep it that way. Besides, the alien's fears were entirely reasonable and logical. Noble Four absolutely would eviscerate the bird like alien if he put even one talon out of line, SPECTRE status be damned.

Nihlus turned to regard the Spartan and very subtly attempted to control a shudder upon seeing himself reflected in the skull faced visor, "Tell me about this world we are visiting, Eden Prime?"

Noble Four simply tilted his visor towards the view screen at the end of the meeting room where images of the picturesque and idyllic colony world flashed by, accompanied by the scrolling information on the colony's infrastructure, population, economy, ecology, even projections for future development and growth. The turian was trying to get the Spartan to follow his lead, but Emile wasn't interested in being led by the nose. He preferred it when people were straight to the point.

Nihlus simply shifted uncomfortably for a second before clearing his throat and continuing with what almost seemed to be rehearsed remarks, "Eden Prime has become something of a beacon for your people, hasn't it? A way for humanity to prove its place amongst the stars? But how secure is it, really?"

The super soldier simply glared at the alien for a few hard seconds, causing a slight tremor to appear in the dark plated turian's mandibles before slowly reaching down and resting a hand on his sidearm.

"You got something to say?" Emile said lowly, speaking for just the third time since coming up to the bridge.

Nihlus cleared his throat, his species multi tonal subvocals, inaudible to most species but not to Emile, made the action sound more like a computer error than a nervous bird man buying time, "Humanity is advancing quite quickly, some would say too quickly. Despite your species' fast pace, your place in this galaxy is still somewhat fragile."

"Only as fragile as the people who defend it."

Both Spectre and Spartan looked over to the door to find the source of the latest comment, finding the freckled face of Shepard limping in alongside Captain Anderson. Emile side eyed the turian through his visor, giving no outward sign that he was doing it, to see if the alien dared comment on the irony of the crippled woman making that statement. Only a shallow fool would look upon the lively Commander and only notice the busted leg.

"By the way," Jane continued as the Spectre, wisely, chose to keep any comments to himself, "Who let Jenkins bring a grenade launcher onto the command deck?"

Anderson cut off any further investigation into that particular mystery, "We can discuss proper gear for guard duty another time, right now, we need to discuss proper gear for a different deployment."

Nihlus, apparently emboldened by the appearance of the Captain, reasonably assured that the super soldier wouldn't eviscerate him in front of his superior officer, pitched in, "This is no shakedown run we're on."

Noble Four caught Jane's eyeroll out of the corner of his eye and tilted his helmet ever so subtly, which the Normandy's Executive Officer also caught. The redhead pointed a finger at him and gestured between herself and the Spartan, "We're shocked."

Captain Anderson just smiled and shook his head as he stepped up to the conference table and brought up the holo display, this time bringing up an archeological dig site on Eden Prime, "A few days ago Alliance archeologists uncovered a functional Prothean beacon on Eden Prime."

Emile shifted and watched as Shepard's jade green eyes flashed over to him before gaining a look of understanding, "So that explains why this is all being kept on the down low…"

The Spartan subtly tilted his chin to the resident Spectre before tilting his head ever so slightly to the side, another movement that Jane caught and interpreted for the class, "… but it doesn't explain why Nihlus is here."

"Prothean technology belongs to the whole galaxy," the turian started explaining his presence, "All Citadel members are required to share any finds with the Council."

"Then why isn't an asari diplomat here? Or an STG scientist? Why a turian Spectre?"

"Nihlus has another objective here," Captain Anderson admitted, "He's here to observe Commander A239…"

Jane leaned back, looking over at Emile who, despite not turning his helmet to look at her, made eye contact through his visor and blew out a breath, "Turning our resident super soldier into a Spectre, huh?"

The dark skinned man nodded and looked over to the armored behemoth who was smothering his half of the conference room, "Commander, I'm sure I don't have to tell you what an opportunity this is for the Alliance."

Shepard scoffed, "He's well aware, he's just not happy about being picked for what we all know is a political position."

"This is more than political, Spectres are the best of the best of their respective species, and are expected to perform incredibly dangerous missions," Nihlus seemed offended by the implication that his position was political.

"We all know that humanity's first Spectre is less about their combat performance and more about making inroads towards a Council position, and if we're being honest," Shepard began her retort before gesturing to Emile, "Emile can handle the 'dangerous mission' part."

"He can handle gunfire and open warfare, that is clear," the turian agreed, "But can he handle more subtle missions? Can he accomplish reconnaissance, can he assassinate a target without anyone ever knowing he was there, his combat effectiveness is not what I am here to evaluate, I'm here to evaluate his…"

"… Political saavy?"

The Spectre looked like he wanted to argue when their conversation was interrupted.

"Captain," Joker's voice rang out over the comm, "Incoming message from Eden Prime!"

…

"Get down!" Ashley yelled as she shoved Private Bhatia to the ground, narrowly avoiding the condensed ball of flechettes herself.

The ball of carnage exploded against the wall behind them, flinging its deadly cargo into the surrounding space. Fortunately for both the gunnery chief and the now prone private, most of them buried themselves in the wall and the ground, and the few that struck the pair were easily defeated by their kinetic barriers.

"Get back up and return fire!" the larger woman ordered the smaller one as she hauled Nirali to her feet and shoved her back to the cover she had been trying to get behind. The shell shocked marine managed to pull the trigger on her Avenger, though anything standing next to the geth were in significantly more danger than the geth themselves.

Geth! Here! On boring ass, shitty deployment, Eden Prime!

"Oh be careful what you wish for, Williams," Ashley whispered to herself as she slid into cover next to a pair of PFC's, "Who here has anymore grenades?"

One of the, Private First Class Mayweather, tossed her an HE grenade that Williams had to snatch out of the air without losing her shit and pummeling the idiotic marine into the ground.

"First of all, don't fucking throw grenades if you aren't trying to blow something up," the gunnery chief spoke through ground teeth, doing her best to ignore the phasic rounds pelting her cover, "You weren't trying to blow me up, were you, Private?"

The PFC, a little shell shocked himself, though not nearly to the extent as Bhatia was, simply shook his head in response. Ashley nodded back as she continued, "Well thank God for that. Secondly, when I ask if you have grenades, I'm asking not because I want them, I'm asking because I need you to throw them at something."

After letting loose a long burst from his Avenger, the soldier ducked back down and ejected the heat sink from his rifle, and nodded at her again.

"Great, now lay down covering fire on the two gray geth on the left, and I'm going to toss this grenade you threw at me at the red geth with the flamethrower on the right, understood?"

This time both PFC's nodded and Ashley shouted at them to go, ripping the pin from the cylindrical canister. Once above the cement block was going to go into a retaining wall in the archeological dig, Williams spotted the red geth, a larger robot than the other gray and white ones with external fuel canisters for its lit flamethrower. Why robots would expose fuel canisters when they could hold them under their armor, or why they required a hand held device to dispense the lit fuel when they could just have an arm that has a flamethrower nozzle on it, she had no idea, but she did know that if it got close enough to Dog Squad to unleash its literal firepower, then she wouldn't be able to theorize on why robots insisted on imitating organics.

A quick flick of her wrist sent the grenade rolling down the gravel slope towards the synthetic trooper. Keeping an eye on the progress of the grenade, she snapped her Vindicator up and sent a three round burst into a white armored geth trooper that had decided to press up the middle. Her shots combined with the fire from other squad members cut the synthetic trooper down.

BANG!

The HE grenade detonated with devastating effect. Unlike fragmentation grenades, HE, or high explosive, grenades did not rely on shrapnel to deal its damage, instead creating a massive pressure wave that broke and cracked open heavy armor, but had a very short range. But Ashley's throw had been true, and the grenade had rent the legs off the body and breached the fuel tanks, leading to a large fire encompassing the synthetic and blocking the path from geth reinforcements.

Another burst from her Vindicator knocked the barriers from a gray geth which was promptly dispatched by a chattering stream of Avenger fire from Private Nirali. Ashely switched focus onto another gray trooper, three bursts putting the synthetic down in a burst of white fluid. Phasic rounds raked her barriers, forcing her back into cover where she swapped her thermal clips real quick, and looked back to where she left Bhatia, only to find her still out of cover, trying to empty her entire thermal clip, apparently, as phasic rounds finally punched their way through her barrier and thumped her chest plate, knocking the small woman right onto the ground.

"Private Bhatia," Chief Williams called out, "Status?"

The dark skinned woman was obviously in pain, but even from here Ashley could see that there was no blood, so the phasic rounds from the geth's strange rifles obviously hadn't penetrated. After rolling over onto her stomach, Nirali sent a thumbs up to Williams through the pain and began moving to stand back up.

Sighing in relief, as Dog Squad really couldn't afford to lose anyone else, the gunnery chief leaned out of cover and sent another burst from her battle rifle into a white armored geth that had had its barriers stripped by the only surviving corporal of Dog Squad.

It had been several hours since the absolutely massive squid had descended from the sky and began raining robots all over Eden Prime. The garrison's commander had ordered them to hold the southeastern quadrant of the dig site. It was the last order they had received before that two kilometer tall ship had lashed out at something with some sort of beam. Ashley had since been operating under the assumption that command and control had been destroyed, and that they were operating on their own. She had just managed to get a distress signal sent through their squad's comms specialist into the local planetary network before he had been taken out by a geth sniper. She had no way of knowing whether or not the distress call had made it into the relay network or if it was stuck playing on a loop in system, but there was also nothing she could do about it.

While continuing to hold the line defending the dig site had seemed pointless as communications have been lost with every other squad from the platoon, it was also the best way to keep her squad alive, as they currently had cover, were sitting on top of a thermal clip cache, and the geth were only coming from one direction. Attempting to move is what had resulted in their casualties, with the comms specialist being taken down by a sniper as he attempted to move to higher ground for a better signal, the dead corporal and three marines being ambushed when they attempted to recon the other squad's defensive positions on Ashley's orders.

Staying put, praying for reinforcements, that was Dog Squad's best hope.

"Chief, behind us!"

Oh, fuck off.

Ducking back down into cover, Ashley looked at what Private Bhatia was pointing at and immediately snapped her Vindicator up to open up on the towering black armored geth platform that was flanked by a pair of gray troopers and some other blue figures that they hadn't seen until now, though they didn't look like geth.

"Flowers, Bhatia, cover fire on our six, Mayweather, Smith, push forward, we need a path out of here, now!"

Corporal Flowers and Private Bhatia opened up with their Avengers, raking the second group of synthetics with mass accelerator rounds. The blue figures, which were uncomfortably human looking didn't appear to have barriers, though they clearly weren't terribly bothered by the bullets passing through them broke into a sprint at the sound of the two soldier's rifles. Deciding that continuing to pour rifle fire into the much heavier barriers of the massive black synthetic was about as useful as attacking a krogan with a squirt gun, Ashley shifted fire to the blue humanoids, doming one with a three round burst, pulping its head and dropping it like a sack of potatoes.

"Headshots on the blue ones!"

"Easier said than done, Chief," Corporal Flowers growled as he burst fire his Avenger, managing to take one down, but failing to do more than riddle another as its odd movement made it almost impossible to track.

Bhatia managed to bring one down through sheer attrition, her Avenger having simply ripped enough of the body apart to drop it. Another burst from the gunnery chief's battle rifle dropped another blue humanoid, and Corporal Flowers managed to kill another one with his omni-blade.

"Chief, front side!"

Seriously?

A look over her shoulder showed another wave of geth, this time fronted by an absolutely gargantuan white platform, more than twice the height of the smaller gray and white troopers, carrying a six barreled gatling gun that was ready to start spooling up.

Looking back, the black geth had apparently entered the effective range of its primary weapon, a heavy machine gun that it promptly opened up on Corporal Flowers with, overwhelming his barriers and punching clean through his armor plating.

Private First Classes Mayweather and Smith fell back into cover next to Williams as thousands of phasic rounds began raking the ground and cover near them. Under such withering firepower, even the meter thick concrete block wasn't going to last very long, assuming the large black armored synthetic didn't kill them first as it brought its machinegun to bear on the gunnery chief and the two PFC's.

"Stay down," a calm, cool, and collected voice sounded over the comm.

Suddenly, a roar that had until now been masked by gunfire, rattled Ashley's vision of the world as a barely visible vessel shot by overhead, contrails extending from its belly down into four black pods descending upon the battlefield like avenging angels.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!

The three pods that landed behind Dog Squad's cover, between them and the flanking geth and their blue zombies, smashed down with a shower of gravel and dust. The cloud of detritus covering the explosive bolts throwing the drop pod's doors open, revealing the black armored soldiers within.

The one closest to Ashley and the two privates opened up and deposited a Drop Trooper with one of the new MA5 Heavy Coilguns. The soldier, a broad man that Ashley's eyepiece immediately identified as Corporal Vega, opened up on the two gray geth, the 7.62 millimeter projectiles easily overwhelming their barriers and tearing apart the armor and innards of the synthetic trooper.

Another pod revealed a trooper with a blue stripe running down his chest plate, denoting him as a Lieutenant. Lieutenant Alenko flashed orange from his omnitool, which resulted in the black geth's shields immediately sparking and dying out, and then wreathed himself in blue as he plucked several of the blue creatures off the ground and up into the air where he picked them apart at his leisure.

The third pod Ashley couldn't see, but she could see the forty millimeter HE grenade strike the now defenseless black geth, resulting in its immediate and wholesale destruction. Judging by the sound of a third MA5 opening up, this trooper was adding in his firepower in taking care of the blue zombies.

It was at this point that the gunnery chief remembered that there had been four drop pods, and there was a suspicious lack of minigun fire from that side. Peeking over the concrete barrier, Ashley nearly gasped at what she saw.

A massive human, for what else could it have been, in the most advanced armor she had ever seen was single handedly taking on the giant white platform and its escort… and winning.

The giant brought its minigun down to try and smash the armored human, but its blow was simply deflected by the butt of his long shotgun which he then turned on a smaller white geth, blasting it apart with a single shot. The man, identified as Lieutenant Commander A239, ducked under another blow by the huge robot, and blew a hole through another synthetic trooper.

Seeing another few coming to try and outflank the commander, Ashley finally snapped out of her stupor and brought up her Vindicator and cut two of them down with a quartet of three round bursts.

The giant geth brought the minigun around again, but now having covering fire from Ashley, the commander pulled a massive hammer from the small of his back and met the six barreled weapon and quite simply rendered the advanced phasic weapon defunct, as the heavy hammerhead ripped four of the barrels from their housing and bending the other two beyond repair.

Discarding the ruined weapon, the massive synthetic reared back with its three fingered hands into steely fists but was brought low as the hammer came back around and destroyed the knee joint of its right leg. The robotic giant stumbled to its knees, even now still towering over the abnormally large commander.

A239 didn't seem disturbed by this, however, as he simply pulled a grey and red cylinder from his chest bandolier, popped the pin, and jammed it into the joint between the neck and chest plates before walking away, casually annihilating another geth trooper with his overpowered shotgun as he did so.

Behind the intimidating armored form of the commander, the grenade detonated in a blinding flash of foul fire, the synthetic's normally armored electronics melting within seconds of being set ablaze by the incendiary substance that had come forth from the explosive.

It was here that Ashley realized that the gunfire had died down as all of the geth and their uncomfortably human cannon fodder were all laying on the ground, either leaking white fluids or melting away in a vicious fire.

"Man," one of the troopers, this one identified as Corporal Jenkins, "Is white phosphorous still a war crime if it's robots?"

…

The entire compound was dark. STG command had cut the power to the installation, which would hopefully keep the strike team's target locked down while they hunted it down, but it also put their mission on a timetable. This compound housed more than just one dangerous alien entity, there were several yahg, a dozen subspecies of varren, and a few krogan females being tested for genophage adaptations. Any one of them escaping containment would be disastrous and result in the termination of valuable experiments. All that data, flushed right out into the swamp.

Sergeant P'lok slotted the thermal clip into the heat sink of his SMG, his rifle already primed and ready across his lap. The cream skinned salarian placed his rapid fire sidearm on his waist where it folded up and stood up, holding his rifle across his chest as the rest of the squad in the shuttle bay stood up with him. The shuttle vibrated ever so slightly as the craft came to a stop and the light inside the troop bay turned from purple to blue, coinciding with the bay door lowering, revealing the darkened compound beyond, or at least the section their squad was responsible for sweeping.

The ten amphibians hit the concrete in good order, guns sweeping the drop zone while Sergeant P'lok waved the dropship off at the same time as he keyed his comm system, "Squad 3, insertion complete, beginning sweep."

"Copy that, Squad 3, report any active engagements, otherwise keep radio silence."

"Understood, Command, beginning sweep."

Like a well lubricated mechanical device, the ten STG operatives moved into the compound. There was the electronic whine of the nine other salarians activating their ultra-violet/infrared night vision lenses in their helmets and the sergeant followed suit as the moons and stars of Sur'Kesh's night sky would not shine inside the compound. By emitting ultra-violet light, the infrared sensors of the lenses would be able to pick up every surface the light touched as the higher energy light waves reflected back at lower energy, lower wavelength infrared, while also allowing them to see any thermal sources as though they were bright beacons. The intel that they had been given said their target was both endothermic and blind to ultraviolet and infrared light, so they should see it long before it saw them.

"Sergeant, bodies."

True to the operative's words, there were in fact bodies. Six of them, however, only four belonged to the former staff of this compound, the other two were large, reptilian, and quadrupedal.

"Command, be advised, varren have broken containment."

"Copy that, Squad 3, be advised, Squad 2 is reporting krogan enclosures are empty, repeat, krogan females are on the loose."

"Orders?"

"Clean sweep, your primary objective is still to eliminate the target, repeat, it's too dangerous to be kept alive, all other subjects are replaceable."

"Survivors?"

"In the unlikely event you encounter surviving STG scientists, get them to the extraction zone, the data they can provide may prove invaluable."

"Understood."

Another STG operative waved for his attention, "Sergeant, footprints, not matching anything in the database."

P'lok moved over, the grainy green night vision draining the color from the blood outlining the prints. Without a sample it would be difficult to tell if the blood was from the salarian scientists or the varren, but whomever the blood belonged to, the outline of a two toed print was clear on the sterile white floor.

"Hoofprint, not foot print," another operative, a veteran with more years cleaning up containment breaches than even the Sergeant, "About the size of a yahg's."

"But yahg are digitigrade therapods, three toes and a centered pad, this is just a cloven hoof."

"Think it could be our target?"

"Possible," the Sergeant conceded, "Fireteam One will advance further into the complex, Fireteam Two, you're with me, lets follow this trail."

Five salarians split off and further penetrated the compound while four fell in line behind P'lok as he tracked the bloody prints.

"Hatchlings could follow this trail," an operative said as they followed very clear and well defined hoof prints.

"Target unaccustomed to stealth operations?" another operative posited.

"Possible," P'lok answered as he put the skids to the conversation, "blood on tracks still wet, may be approaching target, save hypothesizing for after mission."

Sure enough, as the fireteam came upon an outbuilding used for isolated testing for non-mission critical, the sound of something large rooting around inside could be heard by the sergeant.

Holding up a three fingered fist, the operative brought the team to a halt and with a series of gestures, directed two operatives to the lab's other entrance, had another two operatives back off and find positions from which to lay down covering fire, lest the target escape, and brought the last soldier with him as he approached the main entrance.

The lab was dark, as the entire compound was, but unlike everywhere else, the interior did not benefit from the stars and moonlight of Sur'kesh's night sky. As a result, the entire place was shrouded in shadows, even through the grainy green of the STG Operatives' night vision. At the entrance, the sound of lab equipment being pushed around was much louder, indicating that whatever the target was looking for, it had not found it.

Carefully peaking around the corner and sticking his head through the threshold of the open doorway, the sergeant found the target. It was huge, though the shadows made acquiring a definitive size nearly impossible, but it did roughly fit the target parameters. Taller than a krogan, at least as wide, with long arms and long legs with digitigrade feet.

"Sergeant," the pair at the other door whispered over the comm, "We've got another blood trail over here, much larger, no prints…"

"Affirmative," P'lok whispered back, "I've got eyes on the target, I'm going to engage, continue covering the back entrance."

After receiving the affirmatives from the pair of operatives, the sergeant lifted his Mattock and lined up the infrared laser on the shadowed outline of the target, its back was still turned to him, and it was still moving back and forth across the countertop, having already knocked aside much of the equipment atop it. A second of though flitted through the salarian's mind, wondering exactly what the target was trying to do, or what it was looking for, but at the end of the day, this was the target, he was here to kill the target, not investigating its motives.

A trio of shots barked through the lab, superheated air flashing from the end of the barrel and briefly illuminating the target, too quick for his nightvision to compensate for the sergeant to actually be able to see anything, but as the third flash died down and he prepared to take cover, he did notice that the target was completely unmoved by the three hyper sonic sand grain sized bullets ripping through its body. There was no ripple to indicate barriers, and no splashes of blood to indicate fresh wounds on an unshielded target.

Looking back to his own partner, P'lok jerked his head and moved further into the lab, allowing his back up to sidle up and bring his own Mattock to bear on the target.

"Fire."

Both STG operatives riddled the target with bullets, the target jerking slightly this time as the bullets passed through it, but again there was no rippling from an active barrier, nor sprouts of blood from the wounds their rifles were undoubtedly making. Regardless, the size of the target was enough to keep P'lok and his subordinate to keep hammering away on their triggers, giving themselves their best chance of having killed the target before investigating it.

As their rifles steamed and blared thermal warnings at them, the two salarians stood down and regarded their still standing, and still moving target, "Lights!"

The sergeant shut off his nightvision just as he activated his omnitool's ambient light, illuminating the interior of the lab with a harsh orange glow, bringing to light mostly intact laboratory. All along the walls and at the other workstations, equipment was by in large untouched, excepting the workstation directly in front of the target, or what the fireteam had thought was the target.

"It's a yahg…" the operative who had also unloaded his rifle into the corpse that remained propped up in front of the trashed workstation spoke aloud in confusion, "I thought our target was of unknown species?"

Sergeant P'lok looked down at the corpse's hands, which were tied to mixing stations that were turned on, giving the corpse the appearance of rummaging through the tabletop looking for something. His large eyes turned up and looked up and down the body of the giant creature. Yahg's were notoriously hard to kill, at least amongst the STG teams that had actually had hostile contact with them. They were stronger than krogan, were deceptively quick for their massive bulk, and were covered in skin so thick that it was resistant to low caliber mass accelerators and had thick bony plates that were nearly completely bullet proof covering their vital areas just beneath their thick red skin.

Yet all of that strength and toughness had done this specimen no favors as its head had been all but completely severed, the throat having been cut all the way to the bone, the vertebrae being the only thing keeping the cranium attached. It explained the exsanguination of the corpse, and was also likely the cause of death, as the only other wounds on the body were from the two salarians' rifles.

"This isn't the target," P'lok said.

The trail, the propped up corpse roughly the right size, even the fake movement to slow down the fireteams operation and waste their time all spoke to a disturbing fact.

"This is a trap… Fireteam One, come in."

Both the sergeant and the operative felt a chill go down their spines as only the white noise of a dead comm line answered the hail.

"Fireteam One, come in… Fireteam Two, sound off…"

The amphibian's heart began hammering in its chest as again, the order was met with an empty comm line, this time from soldiers who should only be a few meters away.

"Where are they…" the operative hissed, looking from the open doorway where their fellow soldiers should be answering their hails, back to the sergeant.

"I don't know-"

"They… dead."

The air rippled as a massive form decloaked as it stepped through the open doorway, an STG helmet sporting a large dent in its left hand.

P'lok's rifle snapped up, only to be shattered as it was swatted out of his hands by an unbelievably strong and sudden strike. The salarian only got a quick look of his enemy's knuckles as they struck his face, destroying the complex optics and completely removing the protection from his much softer skull, unfortunate, as he fell back against the wall, his much less sturdy cranium struck the unforgiving steel wall.

The sergeant's vision swam and his mind blanked, but his ears still registered the unique sound of a * SNAP * HISS * before his nostrils began sensing the smell of burning flesh.

The salarian's vision came back in a rush, just in time to watch his subordinate's head fall from his shoulders and a massive, white armored saurian stepping towards him. His hand went for his SMG and snapped it up, but again, he was quickly disarmed, though this time he was simply bodily thrown across the room.

P'lok flipped over, this time preparing a tech grenade, only to find the room empty, aside from the still gyrating corpse of the yahg. The shadows cast from both his, and his now dead subordinate's omnitool cast the walls of the room with eerie shapes and silhouettes, the dancing lines from the moving body not helping as the salarian desperately looked for any distortion that would indicate where his cloaked opponent was.

Bruises made themselves known all over his body as the STG agent crawled between work stations, tech grenade primed and ready within his omnitool, and pistol now drawn and cocked in his free hand. The journey to the door was slow, as every movement of the shadows caught his eye, and more than once, P'lok drew his sidearm on the wiggling yahg corpse, but not once did he catch sight of his enemy.

Standard procedure when a containment op went belly up was to retreat to the insertion point for extraction, and that's what he was going to try to do. Hopefully the target hadn't been entirely thorough in its elimination of his entire squad, but the sergeant wasn't holding out hope of meeting any of his team at the insertion point, and he wasn't going to waste his time trying to look for survivors.

As he approached the door on all fours, he could hear the target stomping through the lab, though in the poor lighting he couldn't make out any ripples in the air. With a burst of energy and pain, P'lok shot to his feet and surged out the door, flinging the tech grenade behind him. A roar from inside the lab put another burst of adrenaline and quickened the salarian's steps.

"Command, target encountered, extreme casualties, moving to extraction!"

Following the blood trail, barely visible in the starlight of Sur'kesh's night sky, P'lok wondered about the trail. It was clearly a trap, meant to draw the salarian's to a place of the target's choosing, but did the creature anticipate the squad splitting up? Did it think itself so stealthy that it could take out the entire ten salarian squad one at a time, or did it think it could simply engage them all in a firefight and win and P'lok separating the squad was simply fortuitous?

As he closed in on the initial slaughter that his squad had encountered, the sergeant noticed that for every bloody hoofprint he passed, he needed two steps to match it. The creature had long legs, and was clearly very strong, it should have been more than swift enough to catch him from behind by now. Was it toying with him? It would regret that, once P'lok was on the shuttle and the rest of the squads had been pulled back, the STG would write the research station off as a total loss and bombard the place until it was nothing but rubble.

Unless it realized he was going for extraction…

The realization came too late, as P'lok burst out onto the insertion point, his omni light a beacon for the shuttle to come and pick him up, he felt the presence of the target behind him. The agent started to key his omnitool's comm and was going to bring it up to his mouth to warn the shuttle off when an iron clad grip pinned his left arm in place and a four fingered hand smoothly slid around his throat and cut off all air.

The shuttle descended, spotlights illuminating the landing pad, allowing the sergeant to see the very faint distortion to one side, indicating the creature had slid up next to him, keeping both his omnitool and throat pinned in its unbelievably strong grasp. The troop bay doors opened and four Salarian Army Regulars slid out, high powered machineguns sweeping the platform, looking for any hostiles, not noticing the ripples in the air next to the STG Agent.

"Sergeant, where's the rest of your squad?" one of regulars, a corporal, asked as he approached.

It must have been difficult to see in the harsh light of the shuttle's spotlights, for the corporal didn't notice the strain on P'lok's neck, nor the coloring of his porous, amphibian skin, as the soldier approached the agent to repeat his question.

"Sergeant! Where- Blessed Waters!"

P'lok heard more than felt the snapping of his very own neck. Having performed the same action many times before, he had always felt it to be a merciful death. Quick, painless, and without any of the existential crises that came with a slow death. Well he had been correct about it being painless, as he felt nothing below his own chin, even when his now limp body was tossed aside and tumbled across the hard concrete, his head coming to a convenient angle where he could see the target decloak, revealing all two and three quarter meters of white armored death incarnate.

This specter of the afterlife ignited a blade of pure cerulean energy and split the corporal in half. Machinegun fire from the other three soldiers raked the monster, but shimmering silver kinetic barriers repelled the firepower with ease and with speed and grace that should not belong to a creature of that size, it leapt upon the pair of regulars closest to it and dispatched both with but a single swipe of its devastating blade.

The final salarian standing took off towards the shuttle, waving his arms frantically at the cockpit, yelling for the craft to take off. The transport did lift off the ground, and the soldier did manage to get aboard, but not quickly enough to stop the monster from simply taking one powerful leap and depositing itself smoothly within the troop bay where P'lok could just make out its purposeful and easy stroke that lopped the soldier's head from his shoulders.

As a laboured breath shuddered between his numb lips, the agent wondered if the pilot even knew if he was carrying a dangerous enemy within his troop bay, and if he did, would he have the resolve to request that he be shot down, or crash the shuttle itself? A more disturbing line of thought came about when P'lok considered that the pilot might not know about his dangerous cargo, and where he might ferry that creature to.

What if the creature knew, or could simply observe the pilot enough, to learn how to pilot the shuttlecraft? What if it took the pilot hostage and forced him to take the monster to safety, or worse, to something of high value to the STG? It had already wiped out an entire research base, what if it took down an entire command center? Or blew up a naval base?

A much more pressing question entered P'lok's mind as he took another shuddering breath. How long until rescue came? Would he die of dehydration first? Was there a blood clot growing in his neck that would travel to his brain and kill him?

As the shuttle disappeared into the dark sky, the salarian's eyelids grew heavy. With exhaustion, or death, P'lok knew not.

I rewrote Ashley's section several times, and the meeting on the Normandy several times. I'm happy with the way Ashley's section came out, but not the way Emile and Nihlus interacted on the Normandy, so tell me what you think.

I don't really have a whole lot to say, at the moment, I've basically got what I want from the MAC numbers, I've got a workable number with which to hopefully write some realistic space battles, so I guess I'll let you guys go.