Mass Effect Interloper Rewrite: Chapter 5

No Heroics


The walk to the hold was nerve wracking. My new boots squeaked against the deck plates, the stiff joints uncomfortable behind my knees and elbows. It was the first time I had worn the entire get up. The weight was considerably more than the light plates and rubbery undersuit I'd worn on Eden Prime. My hands had shaken as they buckled the armor pieces to the corded bottom layer. They were still shaking as I stepped onto the elevator. Even in my full suit of armor, I felt exposed, vulnerable. Simulations were one thing, but I was about to step out onto an alien planet. My hand went to the red handgun on my belt. Its weight was reassuring, as was the very solid feeling helmet tucked under my arm. Still, I couldn't help but feel uneasy in a way that Eden Prime had not given me the chance to do.

Come on, Liddle. You're just driving the bus.

Still, the feeling persisted. The ride down on the elevator gave it room to grow, feeding on my jangling nerves until it was a monster that roiled in my guts, turning my stomach. I tried not to hyperventilate as the elevator cabin came to a stop. My nerves weren't improved by the chilly reception I received from the gathered group on marines. It was like walking back into the first day of school, and here I was with a big Learner Driver sign tied around my neck. At least Jenkins presented a friendly face in the sea of scowls. The ship shivered under my feet, the tremor of atmospheric entry. I stumbled, drawing a ripple of chuckles from the crowd. Although muttered under their breath, I caught the words 'Deputy Piddle.'

"All right, settle down, people," Shepard ordered from the head of the group. She had her game face on, a stern mask visible only through the slit visor in her glossy black helmet. Strapped to her back was a long, boxy rifle, longer than the Lancer pattern assault rifle that I had left behind in my locker. Straighter lines, too. Looks like this Shepard was an Infiltrator class. If that existed in wherever I was. I pushed the question aside. There would be time later to ask the existential questions like "Was I trapped in a video game like some kind of anime protagonist" or "Was I lying on the side of the road in a coma" when I wasn't about to drive a tank across a potentially hostile alien planet.

"We're currently making landfall on Edolus. We're responding to a distress call, though the call itself is light on the details, so stay sharp out there. Edolus is cold, and it is dusty. Visibility in the AO is going to be spotty, so keep those eyes peeled and keep track of your fire teammates. It also hasn't been blessed with an overabundance of oxygen, so helmets stay buttoned up tight. We're sticking to a standard search pattern. You see something, you say something. If that something turns out to be hostile the squad will move to contact."

She lifted her head, looking over the heads of her assembled squad to address me directly. "Liddle, you'll be taking the Mako out for some practical driving practice. Private Jenkins here will be riding along to assist."

"Yes, Ma'am," I answered. I hurried over to my post at the Mako's open hatch as something solid sounding came up beneath us and rattled the Normandy to its frame.

"Touchdown! Helmets on!" Shepard called.

I hurried to comply as the ramp began to descend with a hiss. It opened onto a vividly colored world obscured by a thin haze of dust. The squad of marines double timed it down the ramp, creating tracks in the wind washed fines. I watched them disappear into the murk. The thin wind whistled into the cargo bay, plucking at my armor. I let it take me. My boots clomped loudly on the deck and my breathing was loud in my ears. My toes hit the hardpan with a crunch. I looked down and marveled at the boot print in the mustard yellow sand. I was standing on an alien planet. Not that this was the first one, but Eden Prime had been essentially Earthlike. I could have been standing in the American South for all the differences from my home. But here, on Edolus...

I bent to a crouch and reached out to brush the sulfurous surface with stiff gloves. It flaked up in brittle flakes. I tossed it lightly and watched it whisked away into the lurid yellow sky.

"Amazing, isn't it?"

I jumped and spun around. Jenkins was staring into the sky himself, his back arched and his arms outstretched.

"Never quite get used to seeing different suns up in the sky."

"Yeah," I replied. The two of us spent some time staring into the sky.

"So, want to take this old girl out for a spin?" Jenkins asked, breaking the silence.

"I suppose we should," I chuckled. The open hatch awaited us. We climbed in, crouching to squeeze past the troop bay. The twisting feeling was worming its way into my gut again. Jenkins followed me.

"How are you doing? Nervous?" he asked. He slapped a switch on the side wall and the hatch swung down. There was a hiss as the air filters quickly made the cabin breathable. I doffed my helmet and hung it on the back of the driver's seat.

"That obvious?" I asked. Jenkins smiled faintly. "I know that face, made it myself the first time I deployed. Don't worry, what's the worst that could happen?"

That there, is the entire issue my friend.

"Alright, time to start her up," I said, mostly to myself. I reached for the big red starter button. The engine shook itself to life with a slowly rising whine that the simulator had utterly failed to prepare me for. The now familiar wave of static rushed through the cockpit as the kinetic barriers powered up. The whirr of the engines built up until they reached a steady shriek. Tentatively, I released the clutch. The Mako shot forward down the ramp and onto the rock below. It bounced a little on its suspension and rolled to a stop. The engine continued its whine.

Good, didn't stall.

"Nice, awesome," Jenkins quipped from the gunner's position he'd nestled himself in. "Now, let's see you get this thing up to speed. Practice your cornering. You know, driver stuff."

"Is that your expert advice?" I asked. I slowly let up on the clutch again, listening for the sounds of the engine, feeling for the bite in the transmission. The Mako rolled back to life, much more smoothly this time. The IVF picked up speed nicely as I flipped through the double-H of the gearbox, though it hit its maximum speed fairly quickly. The IFV was much more responsive than I remembered it being. I put it through a series of nimble s-turns before bringing it about.

"Hey, you're pretty good at this." Jenkins chimed in. "You see that button there?" he leaned over my shoulder to point at a blue tab on the dash. "Push it." I tapped the button and the Mako leapt vertically into the air.

Jump jets, those'll come in handy.

"They really only work for short hops," Jenkins said, taking on the air of a lecturer, "Cool thing is though, you can reorient then almost thirty degrees above horizontal, it's part of the Mako's self-righting mechanism"

The driving practice continued until the alien sun had heaved itself high into the sky. My confidence grew with each successful turn and sprint. After an hour, I was even brave enough to take the speeding vehicle off of a short jump. We soared as I kicked in the jump jets at the peak of our arc. The feeling of nerves had slowly made its slithering retreat as I got more adventurous, but a new doubt had taken its place. Something about the whispered words in the cargo bay.

"Hey Rick," I said as I pulled the Mako into a slow stop. "What were the marines talking about back there? Did I hear it right, Deputy Piddle?" I twisted in the seat until I could see Jenkins at his station behind me. The young corporal looked profoundly uncomfortable. My fears were confirmed.

"Oh, it's nothing," Jenkins replied, attempting to sound flippant. He failed to meet my eyes and scratched at the back of his head. "Just, you know... well, you know how marines get." He trailed off. "Well, it's just something I heard, I didn't join in, you know. Some of the guys though, they were just joking around." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "So, you know when you blasted everyone with the sonic shower? Well, it's a pretty newbie mistake. And some of the guys, well, they said maybe since you didn't know how to run the shower, you'd have trouble getting to the bathroom on time. Just ribbing, you know, we like to poke fun at the civvies all the time. And I guess the guys might still see you as a civvie, even though you were in the militia and all. I guess things just kind of spiraled from there." Jenkins ran out of steam, leaving the revelation of my new little nickname to hang in the air.

"Great." I turned back to face the forward viewscreen and let my head rest against the steering column. Here I was trying to play the hero in a galaxy spanning adventure, and my teammates were slinging middle school digs at me behind my back. I let out a held breath. "Jenkins..." I was cut off by the hissing of the radio. I almost jumped out of my skin as I leapt for the receiver.

"…pard calling ..mandy. Co.. in Nor…" the radio hissed with the interference of the growing dust storm.

"Wait, I can clear that up." Jenkins said. After banging around in the troop compartment, a lot of the static dropped out of the call.

"..peat, this is Shepard calling all ground teams, we are under attack." In the background the sounds of gunfire and some unearthly wail rose above the din of the blowing sand.

"Threshers." I said, recognizing the sound.

"What, no way," Jenkins' voice quavered, "no way they startled a Thresher Maw." But I knew better. This was the start of the Cerberus questline. How could I have forgotten?

"This is the Mako team, what's your position, over!" I yelled. More gunfire echoed over the channel.

"Liddle, we need … immediate extraction. Coordinates …. screen." A blank panel inside the cockpit began projecting a rough map of the landing zone. Shepard's squad showed up as a blinking red dot.

"Alright, we're coming to get you." I replied.

"No heroics Mako team, just get us the hell out of here."


I cursed as I leant over the steering column of the Mako, as if pushing down hard on the control surfaces could coax a little extra speed from the shrieking engines. Outside, the dusty hills of Edolus rolled by under our spinning tires. The suspension jounced again and I bit back a fresh curse. The Mako slewed left, its wheels whirring freely in a drift of fines. I torqued the wheel the other way, narrowly avoiding flipping the vehicle over. My heart thundered in my ears as I slithered out of the spin. I had to slam on the clutch to avoid another stall. We rolled forward until I was sure it was safe to pile on the gas again.

In the back, Jenkins was quietly swearing over and over again. It became the mantra to our mad dash over the dunes. I wracked my brain for a way to take down the Thresher without getting anyone killed. Taking down Cerberus was the key to saving a great many lives, and without a proper investigation of the site that wouldn't happen. Circling the beast while Jenkins plugged away at it with the cannon made the most sense. But, with marines on foot, could we afford the time to slowly needle it to death. If it went underground, could we risk stopping to pick them up? I needed to hit it hard, and I needed to hit it fast. I needed a bigger bullet. A sudden flash of inspiration hit me.

"Jenkins, the Mako has kinetic barriers, so it must have an eezo core, right?" I tried to imagine the blueprints I had spent all night poring over. It was hard to focus on the layouts of circuits and power relays while pounding across the terrain at full speed, but if my theory was correct...

"Yeah, why?"

"Can we use the core to change our mass, make us lighter or heavier?" I turned to look at him. He seemed to be thinking frantically.

"I guess if we unhooked the barrier projectors the core should just emit a standard mass effect field. I don't know, I'm not a tech or anything, why?"

"Do it, also, I need you to expose the leads into the core."

"But that, that's dangerous." Jenkins stuttered.

"More dangerous than a Thresher Maw?" I asked.

Jenkins' face took on a determined set. "Alright, give me a second." I glanced at the map. The squad was a good minute and a half away.

"You've got thirty." The seconds ticked away. I began to see the flashes of gunfire through the dust, which was lit up by an eerie luminescence.

"Done." Jenkins said, "Now what?"

"Now we crank up the shields." I said, hitting the switches. For an instant the compartment was filled with little arcs of static. Then, everything felt weightless. The wheels began spinning against the dirt.

"Mike, we've lost traction!" Jenkins yelled. I jabbed more switches, then held down the jets. The burst of gasses slammed us into the ground. We began to rapidly build up speed. Warning lights flashed next to the jet panel, but I ignored them.

"Alright, I'm going to jump us off this ridge, hopefully, the Thresher should be right in front of us. Now, I want you to switch the leads the second before we impact." Jenkins made a little sound of horror. "Rick, can you do that?"

"Yeah," he said weakly. The Mako zoomed along the plain, bouncing off the ridge and into the view of the Maw. Mass Effect had not prepared me for the sight of it. The scale. It towered over the figures that ran to and fro on the hardpan below, higher even than us up on the ridge. The bulbous pustule head swung frantically back and forth, spitting up a frothing spume of vomit green acid. The long, unnervingly lithe tongue that pulsed with a piercing blue bioluminescence in time to the quivering of its leathery head plates. The long, mantis-like legs that rose above the head. The head that whipped around to see the source of the new noise. Its mouth tendrils opened wide to show us the gaping abyss of its gullet, but it was too late to divert course. Being massless, we flew in a straight line right at its head.

"Now!" There was a bright arc behind me, and I felt as if I had been turned to lead. The nose of the Mako dipped suddenly, barely missing the jaws of the Thresher. The pointed prow hit the worm with twice its usual mass. The Mako sheared clear through the massive creature, neatly decapitating it. Behind me the core gave a final shriek in protest, and the interior went dark. The landing was jarring. The Mako pinwheeled end over end until coming to stop in a ditch. Everything was dark. My head ached, and my limbs refused to move. Suddenly, light poured into the compartment and I felt myself being dragged out by the arm. Through the haze, I saw figures running from the crater that had housed the maw worm.

One, two, three, four, five, six. Good, everyone made it.

The figures were closer now, their voices seemed to come through deep water. There was a flash of orange and a cool feeling on the back of my neck. My vision cleared to see Ashley leaning over me.

"Deputy, can you hear my voice?" I nodded. She looked relieved. "He's still with us Commander." The Commander looked down at me.

"Liddle, it seems I'm going to have to get Dr. Chakwas to check your hearing. I think the beacon might have scrambled your eardrums as well as your brain." Behind us, the Mako's jets gave a feeble hiss. "Come on Deputy, we've got work to do."


Back on the ship, the sight of the Mako earned a few stiff remarks from Engineer Adams. As punishment for disobeying orders, I was given the task of re-running the burnt-out wiring, replacing fried circuits, and putting the kinetic barriers back together. All under the watchful eye of one of the Normandy's mechanics, of course. Jenkins was exempt from this task, since he had been under my orders. The hours spent lying under the vehicle waving my new omni-tool first over the pile of metals and ceramics, then over the tank were not completely wasted. Tali had been happy to help, when Kaidan or the Commander weren't looking of course, and her cheerful conversation gave me the opportunity to learn a lot about the quarians that wasn't in the game. Somehow, we had meandered into the realm of her favorite quarrian boy band.

"So you see," Tali said, quite emphatically, "this is Haan'Wizh. He's probably my favorite. He's definitely the flirty one." The quarrian swooned as she pointed to the rightmost member of the quintet on the holopaper she'd been showing me. Looking from mask to identical mask, I would have to take her word for it. "They're pretty controversial, I don't think the Rayya was ready for 'Linked Environments.' And don't get me started on 'Baby, can I Share Your Air."

"What was the name of this band again?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know what they're currently going by these days," Tali replied with a dismissive flip of her wrist. "These bands form and reform all the time as their ships fall in and out of the Flotilla. I'll never forget…" She was interrupted by the clomp of boots on metal. Wrex was approaching us with a disgruntled look in his eyes.

"Liddle, Shepard wants you up in the Comm room." He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder. I pulled myself up off the floor and dusted myself off.

"Don't worry, I'll finish this off." Tali chirped from inside the Mako.

"Thanks, Tali." I shot back and set out for the CIC.

The commander was sitting waiting for me. "Commander," I said, snapping off a much-improved salute, "you wanted to see me?"

"Yes." She said, "I've submitted my report to Alliance Command. Admiral Kahoku wants to give you a medal for taking out the Maw." She was smiling, which was a good sign. And probably meant that she didn't have the Sole Survivor backstory.

"Did the Admiral find anything out about where the transmission came from?" I asked. If it was anything like the game, it would be a while before he found the ties to Cerberus.

"He's still looking, but he says he's close. Anyway, I wanted to hear from you. Anything new from the beacon's images?" I shook my head.

"It's still fuzzy. I think it's a warning though, maybe the Protheans figured out what the Reapers were up to, tried to leave something behind for us to find." That was close enough to the truth anyway. Shepard seemed to consider this for a while before speaking again.

"I see. Well, in the meantime, we're approaching the planet Therum. Our sources indicate that this is the most likely location of Dr. T'Soni." Shepard turned to the screen. The volcanic planet revolved slowly. "Most likely she's here, at this dig site." She pointed to a green light in the Northern Hemisphere. "We'll have to approach the site from the ground, the volcanic activity interferes with the Normandy's sensors. You up to getting us there?"

"Yes ma'am." I assured her.

"Alright, no crashing this time though, the Mako's pretty forgiving, but it's not rated for volcanoes."

"Um, right." I remembered hating this mission, falling into the rivers of lava. Actually being in the cockpit gave me a lot more control though, hopefully enough to avoid fiery death. "So, what do you think we'll find down there?"

"Well, if she's anything like her mother, I'm expecting Geth, and lots of them. If not, I'm not sure. We'll do a quick sweep from the air before we touch down." She was half right, there'd be plenty of Geth. It was good to know she was at least expecting a fight. "So, is the Mako ready for action?"

"Yes, ran the last wiring this morning." I lied. Tali had covered that particular bit of repairs.

"Good, dismissed then. And Liddle, good work on Edolus. Just don't ignore my orders again." The Commander turned serious. "You got lucky with that little maneuver. My XO had half a mind to ban you from driving going forward, and he has a point. There's a reason we had you up studying the book. You put yourself and Jenkins at risk groundside, and you do that with a bay full of my marines, I will put you on the bench. Am I understood?"

"Yes Commander."


"Hey Mike!" Jenkins called from across the Mess. He waved me over. "Have you met Serviceman Dubyansky, or Corporal Steiner?"

I didn't recognize the man or woman who were sitting with him. "I don't think so." I offered a hand, which the two soldiers promptly shook. "This seat taken?"

"Not at all, Deputy Piddle," the man named Dubyanksy said in a voice heavy with a russian accent. I froze halfway into the chair. The man stared me down. I took the seat, fuming. Already I could feel my cheeks heat.

"Don't be an ass, Dubyanski," The woman cut in. "Corporal Diane Steiner, I'm a marine in LT Alenko's squad. This piece of Siberian hospitality is Alexei. Don't anything he says too seriously, he is just a snipe after all. They don't get out much, makes them speak without engaging their brains."

"I may work in the engine room, but at least I'm not one of Alenko's flying monkeys. I will apologize. I'm sure it is common for colonists to have trouble cleaning behind their ears."

"Is it true you ran over a Thresher Maw with the Mako?" Steiner asked, interrupting the engineer again.

"More like flew into it." Jenkins said excitedly. "It was awesome. Anyway, Steiner managed to find a vid on the net, early Hicks. It's no The Good, The Bad, and The Hanar, but from what I hear, it's really good."

"Yeah, sure." I replied. Seeing the Western of the future would certainly be interesting.

"I rigged up a screen in the barracks." Dubyansky said flatly, "And Steiner managed to get a hold of a whole crate of MRE apple pies." The corporal smiled.

That night, we played our way through 6 films. I found every second fascinating. Not just the concept of a Turian cowboy, or a Dyson Sphere set up like the American Old West, but the way the genre had stuck around almost intact. It was early in the frigate's "day" cycle when we all rolled into our separate bunks.


Author's Note:

This chapter demanded some hard choices, mostly regarding whether I'd leave the encounter with the Thresher Maw in place as originally written. While I considered toning it down significantly for the purposes of 'realism, I honestly just love this scene and the reaction to it when it was first posted tipped my hand. The rest of the chapter needed a little tightening up, hopefully to good effect. See you next week.

-Liddle Out