CHAPTER V: EDEN BURNING
Corporal Richard Jenkins leveled his rifle, peering over the rock that he was using for cover. No sign of anything… "Clear," he said.
"Clear," Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko said as he repeated the same process.
Lieutenant Commander Layla Shepard jumped into cover, quickly sweeping the area with her pistol for hostiles…nothing. "Clear," she said. She then tried to connect her omni-tool to the colony's defense net. Nothing. She tried again, but received the same response: Signal Not Found. "I can't connect to the local defense net," she said, looking up at both of the marines with a quick sigh. "Stay low. We'll need to move fast," the Spectre candidate said. "Get those drones to scout ahead, and alert us to any movement on the ground."
Alenko took control of the UAVs, getting both to altitude and using his omni-tool to directly view their cameras and sensor data. He waited as the onboard software automatically searched for any humans, turians, asari, or any other species in the databases. "Nothing. No friendlies, no civilians, no hostiles," he said after several moments. He set both to lead mode, where they would follow ahead of the fireteam's advance, alerting them to any movement.
"Our objective is about two clicks north-northeast of here. Set your motion trackers to range while scan. Keep an eye out for survivors, and make sure your IFF is broadcasting and set to friendly; there could be marines out there and we don't want them thinking we're hostiles." However, there were no identify friend-or-foe tags anywhere. No friendlies, no hostiles, no unknowns…save for the three of them. "Alenko, guard our six."
"Aye, Commander."
She took point with her pistol drawn as she charged her barrier, running fast and low. They encountered no signs of any humans. No survivors, no marines…
Jenkins has been feeling despair at the situation. Who would ever want to attack Eden Prime? It was just a peaceful farming world, populated by hardworking, honest folk. Why did it have to happen to be here? Why couldn't the Alliance do anything to prevent the attack? What could he do against such overwhelming force?
But he was here now, and he had his rifle. His despair and helplessness soon was replaced with rage. These bastards, whoever they were, were attacking home. His home. When he saw them, he was going to do the same thing he had done with the slavers he had encountered on his previous posting: kill them all.
"This place got hit hard, Commander. Keep your guard up," Nihlus warned over the comm.
The squad moved about a hundred meters to the north. "Commander," Alenko said cautiously as they three of them slid into cover behind a large fallen log, sweeping the area and checking the drones for hostiles before advancing. "What exactly is this beacon? The loading bay was the first time we heard of it."
She sighed, weighing the classification level against her desire and need to fully inform her own crew – she hated keeping them out of the loop. "I just found out about it less than a half hour ago. Hopefully I don't get in too much trouble for telling you, but if I'm pseudo-in-charge of its retrieval and you're on my team, you need to be in the loop," she said, knowing that the armor microphones would pick up every word. "It's highly classified, but hopefully we'll be picking it up soon enough anyway," she said. "Short version? It's a prothean relic that could very likely contain more knowledge in itself than all of the small data caches we found on Mars. That's all I was told about it in the briefing with Captain Anderson and Nihlus, though I know there is more to the story."
"What? There's no prothean ruins on Eden Prime," Jenkins said, the discussion about the beacon momentarily pulling him out of his anger.
"I didn't think so either, but apparently they were unearthed a few days ago. I haven't been told anything else about—what are those!?" Shepard exclaimed as they rounded a corner. Her biotics charged instantly, quickly leveling her pistol at a creature floating about a half meter off of the ground. But she held her fire; these creatures didn't take any notice of them. Alenko did the same, staring down the sights on his assault rifle at the floating blob that looked like a tan, misshapen hanar.
"Gas bags. Don't worry—they're harmless, other than the smell," Jenkins told her, his expression momentarily softening before returning to a blank mask of well-concealed rage.
She cringed, wrinkling her nose and holding it for a second; the creatures did indeed smell. Jenkins had grown accustomed to it during his years growing up. As the fireteam continued towards a marshy pond, Shepard stopped momentarily, seeing if there was another area to cross through the rocky outcroppings. There wasn't, so she reluctantly hurried through the knee-high swamp. That sludge would make armor joints take painstaking time to clean. At the worst, they could lock up armor joints, restricting movement, which could be lethal in a firefight. At least the two marines were taller than her and didn't have to get their knee joints grungy.
Alenko took cover, bringing up the display for the UAVs. The second looked fine, but the first…
He sent the command to take it back to altitude, but the small drone didn't respond. Odd…it wasn't evading any attacks, nor had it detected any movement, other than the gas bags, which were neither sapient nor a threat. He immediately sent a command for the drone to enter safe mode, but the drone still fell plummeted towards the ground. He finally took manual control, trying to control it with the haptic interface on his omni-tool, commanding the drone to climb at full power. The last thing he saw on the UAV's cameras was ground details rapidly snapping into focus on the small display. The screen then went black, punctuated by a large red No Signal error in the middle of the screen.
"We just lost UAV 1," he said quickly. "It wouldn't respond to commands and crashed into the ground," he continued, this time more slowly, as concern began to creep into his gut.
"What?" Shepard asked, immediately dropping into the nearest cover, then turning to look at him in surprise.
"I'm…not sure what happened, ma'am. It didn't enter safe mode on its own, and it wouldn't respond to any of my commands, including manual controls."
He switched his omni-tool display to the second drone, and it only took a moment… "2 is losing altitude – it's not responding either." He quickly tried several commands, but the result was the same. The second drone smashed into the ground just seconds later. "It's down too," he said with a grimaced, tight expression.
"Did they alert to any hostiles?"
"No ma'am. Nothing at all," the lieutenant replied.
The commander paused for a moment before quietly half-asking, half-stating, "You think they were hacked?"
He nodded in response. "Had to be, ma'am," he said quietly. "The sensors would have detected incoming attacks."
She shook her head in frustration. "That probably answers why we can't connect to the local defense net." Whoever was attacking Eden Prime had advanced cyber capabilities in addition to that massive ship. And talented as they may be, they were only three Alliance soldiers, and now with no drone support… "Slow down, and keep your heads down," she cautioned. "They're probably alerted to our presence."
The three alternated ducking and covering along a low ridge. Farms and a few towers could be seen in the distance, with fires spreading across the settlements. All of that had happened quickly, in less than thirty minutes. Thirty minutes to go from Eden to hell…
The fireteam turned a corner to see about two dozen charred and mutilated bodies. The smell of scorched flesh burned the nostrils, and the ground was soaked red and black from the dried, burned blood.
"Civilians," Kaidan muttered sadly.
Shepard grimaced at the sight, suppressing a shudder as the memories returned for a brief instant. Dozens of bodies without a single survivor…just like Mindoir…
Jenkins looked for several moments at the corpses; even though his mind knew that these people could only be identified from DNA testing, his subconscious still tried to identify them. Were they someone that he knew? While he had not grown up near here, people move. Who would do such a thing to unarmed civilians? His planet was under attack…he clenched his rifle tighter, eagerly awaiting the chance to send whoever did this to whatever deity they happened to believe in, where they would have a lot of explaining to do. Whoever did this would probably be close, and he would show them the same amount of mercy that they had shown these civilians. None.
Shepard rounded a corner and took cover, but held up her hand to motion the squad to stop after a momentary survey of the area. Something was wrong. Something felt off…nothing displayed on the motion scanners, but her instincts had saved her life many times before. This was a perfect place for an ambush, so she motioned for Jenkins to stay in cover, but he instead advanced quickly, rifle clutched in both hands, his face a stone mask of rage. She willed the corporal to stop and take cover, but even though Jenkins saw her take cover order, he instead sprinted a few meters to a boulder ahead of them…
Two pairs of drones, hovering perhaps four meters off the ground, zipped around a ridge, followed by a tall bipedal robot. Shepard instantly knew these weren't simple security mechs as she unleashed a biotic throw. Open-back-relax-forward. Her biotic throw hurled the biped into the ground and caught one of the drones, causing it to spin wildly in the air. The wave of energy rippled towards the machines, but these machines could react far faster than any human. All instantly opened fire on the exposed corporal. The rounds tore through his shields, and Jenkins began to fall towards the ground before either officer could react.
"JENKINS!" Shepard screamed. The damage was done – it was too late to put the corporal's body in a stasis to protect him from harm.
Shepard ran out of cover towards the falling corporal as she strengthened her biotic barrier. Fist-up-out. The drones quickly focused on the new threat and shifted fire to her, their rounds absorbed by her barrier. Palm-up-fist-down. She pulled one of the drones into the ground; it crashed against the top of a rock, exploding in a shower of sparks and metal fragments. At the same time there was a burst of a blue overload around the second and third drones from the lieutenant, reducing the small robots to spare parts. Still running towards Jenkins, she fired her pistol at the fourth drone. Her three shots connected to the drone and blasted it apart. Rifle and pistol fire from the two officers finished off the damaged biped as it slowly attempted to get back to its feet.
In one smooth motion Shepard slid to a stop next to the corporal, pulling out medigel and frantically checking his lifesigns on her Omni-tool. There were none, and she looked at his injuries…they weren't anything that he could be revived from. Out of instinct and training, she tried to resuscitate him for several seconds before her motions slowed and finally stopped.
"Ripped right through his shields. Never had a chance," Alenko said sadly.
"Jenkins…" she whispered softly, gently closing his eyes. A few seconds later she sat back against the rock, her eyes moistening slightly. She knew what it was like have your home attacked, and the emotional distress of watching it happen. But she knew she should have gone with her gut, and kept Jenkins on the ship… "We'll see that he receives a proper service when the mission is complete. It's even more important that we find the beacon now," she said solemnly and quietly. "If we fail to retrieve it, we've failed him."
He nodded grimly in agreement, crouching in cover next to her.
"Can you keep your barrier up continuously?" she asked him, a trace of worry on her face. "That will provide some protection against…these things."
"I can," he affirmed. They couldn't be, it's just too fantastical… He asked her after a moment's pause and contemplation, "I haven't seen any drones like those before. Have you, ma'am?"
"No," she replied simply, paused for several moments, a look of concern on her face as she looked up at him. "These machines… …I-I think they're geth."
He nodded slowly and grimly. "These do match descriptions of geth that I've read. But they haven't been seen for three centuries. It's…they have to be here for that beacon," he responded.
She nodded. "Whatever it is, it's far more important than we originally thought."
Shepard tried to raise the Normandy three times, to no avail. She found that odd, and while she knew Captain Anderson had the Normandy several thousand kilometers above the planet to keep out of range of that massive ship that had landed, they still should have had comms. She wished that the Normandy was low to provide fire support, but with that thing presumably still on the surface, that would probably get both the stealth ship and the ground teams killed She was able to reach Nihlus, and updated him on the loss of Jenkins and the presumptive geth presence.
She closed the comm link and paused, then told Alenko, "Keep low, and keep your barrier up. Those drones move too fast to react, and shields don't seem to offer much protection. Set your motion tracker to display up all synthetics and robots as well. I don't know how good it will be at detecting objects not in its database, but it will be better than nothing."
They continued up the small hill through the rocky terrain. A foursome of drones zoomed through some trees towards them, but biotics from the commander and the lieutenant made quick work of them.
"I've got some burned out buildings here, Shepard. A lot of bodies, all civilian. I'll catch up with you at the dig site," Nihlus said to them over the comm.
"Copy that, sir." The two of them ran to the lid of a small depression to find a pair of synthetic bipeds holding a wounded man down by his back onto a curved, tripod device, dark gray in color and a bit over a meter tall. Before either officer could open fire, a large spike telescoped up from the device, instantly impaling the man. He screamed in pure agony for far too many moments as his body futilely tried to keep him alive. Blood, muscle, and a partially intact kidney splattered outward from the spike, and a thick red mist intermixed with chunks of white showered down from the top of the spear to its base. The man's scream decreased in volume and finally ended in one final gurgle as a fountain of blood coughed up from his mouth, a piece of his intestines and liver slowly sliding down the spike.
Kaidan heard Layla gasp as she froze in place for a split second before quickly jumping behind cover. The lieutenant went wide-eyed in shock for a moment, then joined her in cover a couple meters away. The two officers looked into each other's eyes for a moment and shared a silent, concerned look.
Shepard took a deep breath as she popped out of cover. Somehow, these synthetics detected her sudden motion, and immediately spun around to open fire on her. They apparently hadn't noticed the two soldiers approached approach, nor heard her quick gasp of horror at the sight, but they somehow detected that she had left cover. They were fast, faster than a human, far faster than a turian, maybe even faster than a salarian. Open-back-clench-punch-release. The powerful wave of dark energy tossed both of the presumptive geth troopers into a rise in elevation several meters away. They sparked and made an alarmingly organic-like screeching sound upon their demise that nevertheless sent a slight chill down both officers' spines.
She mentally shook her head clear. "Be c-careful, Lieutenant. We don't know if the geth have any other traps set up here," Shepard said to him, the tone of her voice telling the lieutenant that she was just as disturbed as he was at seeing the man impaled.
Shepard slowly approached the device, carefully stepping around the blood stains, bits of bone, and internal organs. She looked at the device, comparing it to what she had seen of the geth troopers and drones…a long shudder wracked her entire body. She began to think that whatever this device was, it wasn't geth. This was something else. Something evil and malevolent. Just being in its proximity made her want to vomit.
Both officers' heads jerked towards the sounds of the noise, both instinctively identifying the sounds as they dashed towards cover…footsteps…running…
Several moments later a marine ran into view, pursued viciously by six drones that were firing on her incessantly. Shepard's biotic corona flared as a protective barrier formed around her as she came out of cover and downed the two leading drones by using a biotic pull to crash them into the ground. The rest were destroyed by a well-placed overload from Alenko.
The fleeing marine stopped with a slight look of surprise. Shepard and Alenko stayed in cover as the marine took cover behind a charred tree stump, her eyes wide and her movements jittery.
"T-thanks for your help, ma'am. I didn't think I was going to make it." The marine glanced over both of them for a moment, then her eyes settled on Shepard, recognition appearing in the marine's eyes. The marine rattled out quickly, "Lieutenant Sh—sorry, Commander, ma'am."
The recently promoted O-4 brushed off the misstep with a quick wave of her hand. For obvious reasons, rank was not displayed on armor, no insignias were ever worn on armor, and no salutes would ever be exchanged between soldiers in a combat zone. Normally information such as data on friendly personnel was projected onto HUDs or helmets, but the two officers hadn't been able to connect to the garrison's defense network. With the geth presence, and with the capability to hack their support drones, something told Shepard that the net wouldn't be back up anytime soon. "Getting my new rank right is the least of my concerns. With me is Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko."
Williams nodded, her eyes lingering on Alenko for a moment before her wide brown eyes looked back to Shepard. "Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212. You the one in charge here, ma'am?" the chief asked.
"Sort of. Are you wounded, Williams?" Shepard asked.
"A few scrapes, nothing serious. Many others…weren't so lucky." Williams shook her head, her expression a tight grimace. "We were patrolling the security perimeter when these…things attacked. We tried to get off a distress call, but they cut off our communications. I've been fighting for my life ever since."
"Where's the rest of your unit?" the commander asked with a sinking feeling in her stomach, already guessing the answer as her heart settled in her stomach in dread at the thought of the casualty count.
"Our platoon tried to double back to the beacon. I don't think many of the others...there were just so many of these things. I'm the last one from the squad, I saw the rest go down," she finished quietly.
"This isn't your fault, Williams. You couldn't have done anything to save them," Shepard said in a soft, consoling voice, her eyes sad.
"We…held our position as long as we could. Until these…things…overwhelmed us. The others tried to make it to the prothean dig site, where they dug up the beacon."
"Where's the dig site?" Shepard asked.
"It's close, just over that rise." Williams gestured to a small climbable ridge about two hundred meters away.
"That's where we're headed, and we need your help, Chief. We can meet up with your squad and your platoon there," Shepard told her, wanting to bring a bit of hope into Williams' mind. The Spectre candidate had been watching the NCO closely, trying to determine whether she was fit for combat. She was still in the shock of the moment, but when that wore off…
"Aye, aye, ma'am." She then muttered, almost inaudibly, "It's time for payback."
Shepard nodded, and the chief spent a few seconds linking her armor's computer with the two officers. The status light blinked blue for several moments before finally switching to solid green. During the entire synching process, the commander had continued to watch the NCO carefully. Unfortunately, the current situation didn't allow for the luxury of allowing Williams to mourn. The chief would have to go back into the fight. "Williams, keep an eye on our six and use your rifles. Biotic barriers seem to offer some protection from these geth weapons."
"Geth?" Williams asked as she blinked several times in wide-eyed surprise. "But they haven't…" she paused for a couple moments, her brown eyes narrowing. "Hmm, maybe."
"Have you come across any survivors?" Shepard asked.
"You two are the first living people I've seen since I got split up from my unit, ma'am. A lot of bodies, though," she said in disgust.
Shepard winced and sighed, followed by a deep breath. "What do you know about the beacon?" she asked.
Williams answered quietly as the fireteam of three made their way to the dig site to the northeast, staying low and near cover. "A few days ago they unearthed some prothean ruins…and the beacon. I don't know much about the beacon itself. But I overheard one of the researchers say this could be the biggest scientific discovery of the century."
Ashley kept her rifle across her chest as she sprinted forward to take cover behind a tree. She spun out of cover and leveled her rifle to cover Shepard's advance. The commander was surprisingly fast, sprinting towards a boulder as dark energy swirled around her small frame. The petite biotic slid into cover, and then Kaidan took his turn dashing forward while covered by the two women.
Shepard appraised Williams' movements and covering during their first few dashes. The marine very skillfully picked her way from cover to cover, something that spoke to both experience and raw talent. The chief had no extraneous movements, no hesitation—Williams would be a much-needed addition to the fireteam.
The fireteam continued forward, but Shepard started to get a strange feeling in her stomach…or was it in her head? She couldn't tell, but something seemed…off, like she were entering a patch of fog. It almost felt a bit…dreamlike. More like a nightmare, she thought. If only this was just a sick dream, then I'll wake up in the Normandy and
She snapped her mind back to observing for any sign of geth. The ground here was muddy, resulting in their bootprints leaving small depressions in the soil. She saw no footprints anywhere ahead of them, so the geth hadn't been here yet…maybe. As she advanced, she noticed the sky begin to redden and darken ever so slightly…or did it? Had she actually seen the sky change? While it was currently dusk on the planet, and fires burned through the colony, there weren't clouds to reflect the red light from the fires back to the ground…so why did this suddenly unsettle her? This darkening seemed a bit too rapid…but was her hyperalert, apprehensive mind just imaging it? And why did her concern at the situation suddenly change to dread?
Williams paused and said, "The beacon's at the far end of this trench."
Shepard nodded, putting the growing worry out of her mind as her eyes expertly swept the area for geth. The fireteam reached the top of a ridge and took cover behind dirt and rock, but each did a double take when they peered out of cover. Nearly twenty destroyed geth, including a large black model that none of them had encountered before, lay strewn in the small dell before them.
"Holy shit…ma'am, did you two come through here with a few marines?" the chief asked in surprise as she stared at the carnage. "That wasn't the garrison." Despite her surprise, she found herself pleased by the geth being on the receiving end of a massacre for once. As much as she'd like to learn that her garrison carved up these geth squads, her unit would have been far too disorganized to administer such precise and rapid slaughter.
"It must have been Nihlus," Alenko said, slightly in awe that the turian Spectre had cleaned out a couple squads of geth so quickly. Nihlus wasn't even that far ahead of them…
"Nihlus, sir?" Chief Williams asked Alenko in confusion.
"Turian Spectre, with us to help retrieve the beacon," the lieutenant responded.
"A turian." The chief's brow furrowed slightly and her nostrils flared at the mention of a turian, but she said nothing else.
Shepard now had a very good idea of the skill level required to join the Spectres. Her trained eye took in the location and position of the bodies…this firefight hadn't been a long one at all; Nihlus had cut through these twenty geth very quickly. She was a crack shot, courtesy of endless hours spent at the range, but she knew would have to use her biotics to approach this level of destruction in such short a time. Compared to this evidence from a firefight, despite all of her biotic power, despite her being an N7, despite her experience, she now felt like more like a rookie instead of a special forces officer when compared to Nihlus.
Is if on cue, Nihlus radioed her. "Commander, the beacon is not at the dig site."
"Understood, sir. We're a couple hundred meters from the site. Over."
"There's a small tram station up ahead. I want to check it out. I'll wait for you there. Out."
The commander led the two marines forward quickly, her barrier a silent blue flare surrounding her body. Shepard glanced around a corner and suddenly dropped into cover. Alenko and Williams advanced to better positions one-by-one. The commander peered over the fallen tree briefly before hiding again. Alenko quickly peered over as well, but couldn't see anything from his position.
Suddenly Shepard stood out of her cover and her corona flared brightly as her left arm reached forward, sheathed in radiant blue energy. A moment later a blue sphere of dark energy appeared a couple meters off of the ground. Geth, rocks, and debris within a five meter radius were slowly, inexorably pulled into the swirling vortex. Alenko primed a sabotage and released it into the center of the sphere; watching as it overheated many of the geth troopers' systems. Williams opened up with a full stream of automatic fire for several seconds until the geth were little more than scrap metal. At the end of the barrage, the commander's right hand glowed brightly and the singularity detonated in a biotic explosion.
"Good work, you two. Let's meet up with Nihlus and get the beacon," Shepard said.
The three of them entered the area excavated by researchers. But nothing out of the ordinary was there, just some old, partially dug up structures and several motionless bodies.
"This is…was the dig site. The beacon was here this morning," Ashley said.
"You think anyone got out of here alive?" Shepard asked, looking around with hope in her eyes.
"If they were lucky; they may be hiding up in the camp. It's just up this hill." Ashley motioned to a slope behind them.
Shepard nodded wordlessly. The three of them advanced up the ramp and looked before them to see the research camp in ruins. Crates of supplies were strewn around the camp; tools and weapons were scattered about like confetti from a particularly ill-timed party thrown in bad taste. Several smoldering corpses lay on the ground, and the smell of burnt flesh nearly overpowered the three Alliance soldiers. They were burned so badly that one couldn't even tell their gender from looking at the corpses. Alenko wrinkled his nose at the horrible stench.
"Looks like they hit the camp hard," Alenko said quietly.
"It's a good place for an ambush. And the geth could have left a squad or two behind. Keep your guard up," Shepard warned.
Nihlus Krylik moved forward both rapidly and silently, rifle in hand as he pressed forward. Commander Shepard looked to have encountered several synthetics, advising him that she thought they were geth. He found himself skeptical of her claim until he came across a fireteam of four bipedal synthetics supported by three drones. He slid into cover behind a tree and evaluated what he saw of the synthetics from his brief glance, silently cursing and flaring his mandibles. Shepard had been right. They were almost certainly geth.
He engaged and eliminated the geth after a brief one-sided firefight, pressing onward after another quick update from the commander. The Spectre advanced rapidly, halting when he saw two geth squads moving through a dell, heading from a low hill to a higher ridge.
Nihlus instantly began analyzing the positions of the geth troopers, the location of cover near them, the location of cover near him. His highly trained and skilled mind ran through possible engagements scenarios; he knew next to nothing about geth tactics, and he didn't have a baseline behavior for how they would behave in combat, other than three hundred year old reports from quarians.
He did know that he wanted that large black unit taken down immediately, and he drew his sniper rifle, charging it to full power. He then snuck to take cover behind a large rock. Taking a deep breath, he left cover and aimed his sniper rifle in one fluid motion, firing a split second later.
The max power shot impacted the neck of the large trooper, and his target collapsed to the ground as its limbs flailed and it let out an unnatural mechanical screech. Scarcely had the trigger been pulled before he unclipped a grenade from his belt and hurled it submarine-style towards a geth fireteam. Decades of training and experience allowed his mind to automatically determine how hard and high to throw it; he instinctively accounted for the timer on the device, gravity on the planet, and atmospheric density. The grenade had barely hit the ground once before exploding directly in the middle of the geth fireteam. Four hostiles down, fifteen to go.
Nihlus drew his assault rifle, swinging around the other side of the rock to take aim and drop a trooper with a short sustained burst of fire, with every round impacting the neck. It took several shots to drop the shields, and the trooper slumped to the ground unceremoniously. He stowed his assault rifle, switching to his pistol as he sprinted out of cover, firing the weapon one-handed and hitting another trooper in the neck as he dove into cover behind a mound of dirt on the hilltop. Thirteen to go.
His HUD showed he had taken a trio of shots that had drained his shields on his Phantom armor quite precipitously. He primed an overload and prepared another grenade as he shifted several meters to the left. He popped out of cover to release the overload, nearly simultaneously throwing the grenade with his other hand. He drew his rifle in one fluid motion as he jumped into cover behind a rock, firing a rapid pair of three-round bursts into a pair of geth whose shields had been dropped with an overload. Eight to go.
Nihlus waited for his shields to fully recharge as a sound like tiny jackhammers told him rounds impacted the other side of his cover. He held his assault rifle in one hand as he drew his pistol, blind-firing with the latter around the cover for a couple seconds before stowing the pistol and emerging from the other side of the rock, dropping another geth trooper who was slow to open fire at the new position of the Spectre...he saw three troopers take cover behind a log. He unclipped and hurled another grenade at the trio of troopers. Four to go.
He ducked and crouch-ran to a tree as he swapped to his shotgun, charging it for a carnage shot. Barely had he taken cover behind the tree when he fired at the feet of two troopers, knocking them both to the ground. With lightning speed he switched to his assault rifle and fired a concussive shot at the two standing geth troopers, finishing them off before turning his attention to the last two troopers trying to get to their feet.
He swept the area for any movement, any bodies that had even twitched…nothing. All hostiles down.
The Spectre moved quickly several meters below a ridge, keeping to cover as much as possible. He contacted Shepard again, and she seemed to be making decent progress from her reports. He knew that he should be evaluating her, but her evaluation for and admission into the Spectres would have to wait. Retrieving the beacon was far too important, and Nihlus knew that it had probably already been found by the geth.
Nihlus reached the tram station and took cover behind a large crate. Someone or something was on the other side. Tall and armored. He didn't get a good look at the presence as he was trying to stay concealed. After a moment he spun around and leveled his rifle at the figure.
He was rewarded with utter shock; the figure was a turian, albeit with heavy armor plates that Nihlus didn't recognize. After a moment he lowered the sights on his rifle as recognition set in. "Saren?" he asked incredulously.
Saren slowly turned to face him. "Nihlus," he said.
"This isn't your mission, Saren. What are you doing here?" Nihlus asked, feeling a bit wary, but not quite sure why he should be.
"I heard rumors that the geth learned about the beacon. But I never expected this," Saren responded as he walked towards Nihlus.
"I wasn't expecting to find the geth here, either. The situation's bad," Nihlus responded as he lowered his rifle and Saren walked past him. Both Spectres had known each other for years, and Saren had been responsible for bringing Nihlus up into the Spectres. While Nihlus' instinct said something was very wrong about the situation, his trust in Saren momentarily won out. It turned out to be a fatal error.
Saren stopped when he was a couple meters behind the other turian. Saren silently pulled out his rifle and aimed it at his friend's head. "Don't worry. We'll get it under control."
Shepard ran towards the next bit of cover. Williams did the same, following the commander as two members of the fireteam covered the one member advancing.
The fireteam advanced to see several of the spike devices that had been used to impale the civilian several minutes ago. Corpses lingered near the top of each, with dried red spots beneath each pike, and the commander at least found some small gratification that while their deaths were horrific, they were at least quick. But something looked strange about them. Different. Almost as if they had been transformed into…
The spikes lowered one by one, and the corpses on them began to stir and make horrible moaning sounds, not fully human and not fully machine. These corpses no longer had the tan and brown shades of human skin, but rather had the dull grey of metal, with the veins being disgustingly lit by shining blue lines. The now-metallic muscles were now exposed as dark grey sinews tracing across the body, with the exception of several lingering patches of skin that clung tenuously to the modified muscles and tendons. The eyes had vanished, replaced with empty blue circles, the mouths hanging lifelessly open.
"Th-they're still alive!" Williams exclaimed in horror, her voice trembling.
"God, what did the geth do to them?" Alenko exclaimed.
Williams shuddered as the reanimated humans began hobbling towards them. Two left a lingering trail of maroon fluid as they shambled forward, moaning in what seemed to be pain in the process. The fact that the corpses had reanimated as robots shocked the commander into momentary inaction before training kicked in. She leveled her pistol and charged her biotics, preparing to treat these new entities as hostile, but these were…had been...
The reanimated humans turned toward the fireteam and shambled forward, making horrible groaning sounds as they closed to within twenty meters. Alenko and Williams waited for the commander to open fire. Shepard's breath hitched as a large piece of lingering skin, complete with nose and eye sockets, slid off the face of the lead corpse, complete with a surprisingly loud and disgusting splat upon impact with the ground. The commander hesitated, but it was clear that these withered husks were no longer human, and she pulled the trigger on her pistol with a wince.
The nearest husk gave out a blood-chilling howl as it fell to the ground, emitting a shower of sparks and a thick red fluid. The lieutenant shuddered for a moment before his training kicked in and he biotically threw one into a rock. It smashed against them with a sickening thud as sparks and blood splattered across the side of the boulder. While the corpse may have been transformed, he still recognized that scream as humanlike. Shepard lifted another one into the air, where a stream of rifle fire shredded the husk into metal scraps and red ooze. She threw the last corpse into a tree, where it split apart into gore and metal bits, shuddering at the screeching sound of its death, not quite fully human but not fully robotic.
No one in the fireteam spoke or moved for several moments. Then Shepard began to advance slowly, hesitantly. The lieutenant glanced to Williams, and saw concern and fear in the chief's widened eyes. He was frightened too; those husks were unlike anything he'd ever seen or experienced. What could convert a human to that…monstrosity? In less than an hour? Even Layla Shepard, the unflappable Angel of Elysium, seemed disturbed by the encounter.
The three of them cleared the area; there were no more of those husks or geth nearby. The commander looked back towards the squad and said, "We're clear." Alenko saw a look of concern in Shepard's eyes as she walked over to insect the devices that the people had been impaled on.
"Why did the geth do this to them?" Williams asked, her voice shaking slightly.
"Minerals. Resources. Who knows? Or it could simply be a hatred for organics. It was organics that tried to wipe them out in the first place," Alenko responded.
Shepard approached to within several meters of one of the spikes, inspecting the devices closely. Just like with the first spike she had encountered, she felt chilled by their presence, as if their purpose was enough to cause panic in organic beings. That uneasy feeling only got stronger as she stood a mere several meters from the apparently inactive devices. Both marines saw the commander's body let out a long shudder before she finally turned away from the spikes.
All three soldiers jumped as the ground shook slightly, with Shepard's corona flaring brightly in surprise and defensive reflex. The three of them were already in cover, and leveled their weapons at lightning speed towards…nothing. The fireteam moved up to the ridge and lay prone on the ground, peering over, with Shepard in the middle. All three saw the same thing instantly.
"What is that? Off in the distance?" Williams exclaimed suddenly.
"That's the ship from the transmission. Look at the size of it!" Alenko said.
The giant hand or claw that they had seen was merely a small part of the bow – or the stern. Hellish red lightning radiated outward from the claws and jet black hull. From tip to claw it had to be at least two kilometers long.
Now with a full view of the ship, Shepard's mind raced through the ship configurations that she knew. It wasn't a ship from any of the Council-affiliated species, wasn't a ship from any of the Terminus species…could it be geth? But the geth units they had encountered seemed to have a comparable tech level to the rest of galactic species, with the exception of those spikes…so who could have built such a massive ship? The answer, or lack thereof, scared her.
Then the sound reached them. It seemed that the ground itself groaned and the ship left a terrible screech emanated as it accelerated. Layla couldn't help but shudder at the sound, and she stared in silence as the ship rocketed into the sky. "Have either of you seen a ship like that before?" she asked quietly, receiving two concerned shakes of the head as the responses.
"What the hell…oh shit! New ship contact on the surface, designating Sierra 1! Captain, that ship from the transmission is taking off!" the Normandy's sensors chief said.
"Sierra 1's location on the surface?" Captain Anderson asked immediately.
"A spaceport, sir, a couple dozen clicks from our ground team."
"Get a shooting solution. Get us moving. Don't use the engines," the captain ordered. The stealth frigate was currently in a low-medium orbit with the stealth system engaged. In orbit the ship was simply in an eternal free fall around the planet, so it emitted no energy from the engines. The Normandy generated a mass effect field to accelerate into a higher orbit. There was a flurry of activity in CIC and the cockpit as the stealth frigate began to maneuver.
"We didn't detect it until it powered up. Sierra 1's accelerating rapidly…sir, it's already cleared the mesosphere and changing course."
"Heading?"
"Two-one-five, declination zero-three-three."
The crew breathed sighs of relief; the ship was not headed in their direction. "Train all passive sensor suites on the ship."
"Yes, sir." Several seconds later the sensor chief said, "Sierra 1 just jumped to FTL."
"Plot a vector."
The sensors chief went to work, stating ten seconds later, "Sir, there is not a known mass relay along that vector." Something about that statement did not surprise the captain in the least bit. "Shit…that thing is fast, sir," he said quietly. "From its FTL flare, it's doing at least ten thousand c."
Anderson saw the bridge crew exchange nervous glances with each other for a moment. Ten thousand times the speed of light was nearly twice the top speed of the Normandy. "Comm, can you pick up Shepard or Nihlus?"
After several seconds the comm officer said, "No, sir."
"Any transmissions at all from anywhere on Eden Prime?"
"Nothing, sir."
"And explain to me why we didn't detect the ship until now?" the captain said, turning in his seat to look at the sensors chief.
Senior Operations Chief Marcus Greico held the captain's gaze with a thin, tight expression. "Nothing showed up at all on the passive scanners while it remained on the ground, sir. We didn't use active scans, and we egressed from the drop points the same way we came in. We don't really have the capability to search visually. That thing must have a form of a stealth system, and they shut it off when they departed. But a stealth system on a ship that size…no wonder it can do 10k c, and we had no engine signatures from Sierra 1."
"That element zero core must be massive," Pressly said quietly.
Anderson nodded grimly, still in slight disbelief that they had never picked up the ship until it departed. It's sad how the most advanced suite of sensors did not detect that ship, but slapping a damned camera on the hull or looking out a simple window might have, the captain thought.
"When will the nearest backup arrive?"
"Thirty-one minutes, Captain. Sydney, Calcutta, and nine frigates."
Something told Anderson that if that massive ship decided to return, a dozen Alliance ships wouldn't stand a chance. The captain issued new orders to the Normandy to improve her position to provide support to the ground team.
Shepard, Alenko, and Williams had hid in an abandoned structure while the massive ship's shockwave from going supersonic had washed over them. They covered their ears and crouched as the top of the ship reached supersonic speeds just below the tropopause. The blast had shaken the structure, cracked the windows, and knocked over nearly every light object that rested on shelves, but the fireteam was otherwise physically unharmed. Mentally, though, was another story, Shepard thought. Each of the three Alliance soldiers was slightly shaken after the encounter with the reanimated humans.
The fireteam left the structure a minute later, with the commander peering her head out of the doorway, biotics at the ready, but finding nothing, as the three humans proceeded to move towards the tram station. The commander tried to contact Nihlus three times, but he hadn't responded. The unresponsiveness began to concern her. Sure, he could be in a firefight, but…
"Take cover," Shepard suddenly whispered to the two marines, who immediately complied. Alenko peered around the tree to see a geth patrol, unaware of the humans' presence but still on alert.
"Let them get in close before opening up, to funnel them into that depression," she whispered. They waited for perhaps ten seconds, then Shepard placed another singularity in the middle of their formation. Only four escaped the swirling vortex of dark energy, and one of those four survivors was hurled against a boulder in the subsequent detonation. The three remaining troopers opened up on Shepard, their accurate fire impacting her barrier before she dropped back into cover to recharge.
Williams opened fire on one of the three remaining geth, killing it in a several seconds of sustained fire. At the same time, Alenko charged his biotics for a throw on another trooper. He aimed his rifle at the last trooper, glancing to watch his prior target sail through the air and wrap around a tree, emitting an unnatural screech before falling silent. Only a single geth trooper remained; it had taken cover behind a large boulder before the lieutenant could get more than two shots off.
Apparently being entrenched in cover did not make one safe from the commander, whose corona again flared brightly. She made a lifting motion with her hand, and the boulder slowly floated into the air. The geth froze in place, entirely unmoving, and Alenko spontaneously wondered if its subroutines and logic didn't have the capability to handle what to do if its cover suddenly floated into the air. This "confusion" ended rather quickly; Shepard slammed the boulder down on top of the geth with more than just gravity, and Alenko could only imagine what little of the geth remained. Williams looked at the rock for a moment with a bit of disbelief; the boulder easily weighed a few thousand newtons. "Good work, everyone," Shepard said simply. She turned to look at the tram station, her narrowed eyes expertly surveying the area ahead of them. "The tram stations's just over this hill."
The three of them moved down the hill rapidly despite alternating between brief dashes and longer ducks in cover. They continued on for perhaps fifty meters before Shepard yelled, "Down!"
All three squad members took cover as a carnage shotgun shell roared overhead, exploding harmlessly twenty meters behind them. So the geth have those too… Shepard thought.
"Williams, Alenko, cover me while I move left!" Shepard ordered.
Williams took aim at an advancing trooper just over fifty meters away. She knew exactly what her weapon's accuracy and muzzle velocity were, and taking into account the geth's movements she lined up the shot in her HUD and pulled the trigger. A stream of rounds impacted the geth's head. The last few punched through the shields and smashed into what passed for the geth's skull, and it collapsed into an unceremonious heap on the ground. Alenko lifted a geth into the air, but this drew geth fire so he ducked back into cover, so Williams took aim at the floating geth and pulled the trigger. A couple seconds later the synthetic collapsed to the ground and did not move. Alenko laid down suppressing fire while Williams fired into the center of the geth formation. She wasn't trying to hit anything, she was only trying to distract them so the commander could do whatever it was she wanted to do. The chief glanced around for any sight of Shepard but couldn't see her…
A biotic corona flared from the geth's right flank as most of the synthetics got pulled into an enormous swirling singularity, bigger than the other ones the lieutenant had yet seen. Alenko and Williams both threw grenades into the vortex, and after several seconds the geth floated limply in the air.
"Lieutenant! Get ready to detonate!" Shepard shouted. Stowing his rifle, he charged his biotics, drawing energy from his surroundings and from his own barrier. "3…2…1…now!" she shouted as she reached with both hands towards the singularity as Alenko did the same. The maelstrom detonated with an eye-popping and ear-shattering explosion, breaking windows in a hab module near Alenko's cover.
The squad then commenced mop-up, the geth primarily focusing on Shepard, the closest and apparently most dangerous threat to them, giving an opening for the two marines. Alenko overloaded the shields on one of the rocket troopers, setting it up for Williams' killing shot. He then threw a geth into a tree before opening fire on a third, while Williams dropped a fourth.
Shepard swept the area with her pistol, but no targets remained. "Great work, you two." She looked further down the hill, and motioned towards the slight incline towards the bottom of the hill. "We've got company. I think they heard our little biotic party popper," she said quietly.
That biotic attack was anything but little, Williams thought. She had heard of humans using biotic attacks, but nothing on that scale. Now she understood how Shepard had been able to deal with a couple platoons on Elysium. The chief then noticed a small squad of geth troopers down the hill, slowly advancing towards the squad upon hearing the signs of battle.
"Lieutenant, Chief, cover me while I advance," Shepard held her pistol in her right hand. Her barrier flared brightly and she sprinted down the slope. Williams and Alenko pulled out their sniper rifles and took cover behind the hill's many boulders. The three humans definitely had better positions; they had the high ground and were looking down at the geth.
Shepard hurled the nearest geth into a rock, where it collapsed into a hunk of electronic components. A geth sniper took aim on Shepard, a red beam centering on her torso as she jumped back into cover a moment before it fired. Alenko lifted the offending sniper into the air with his biotics. Williams fired on the other geth sniper on the platform that took aim on Alenko. Shepard then lifted a pair of shock troopers into the air as they were powering up their carnage shots. Alenko and Williams each took aim on one of the floating geth. Several seconds later the troopers fell back to the ground, their heads bent at unnatural angles.
None of the squad moved for several seconds until Shepard said, "Clear."
"Clear," Alenko responded.
"Clear," Williams said.
The commander moved forward, sprinting from one piece of cover to the next. She approached a ridge, and peered over before quickly ducking back down. "Geth squad, about a hundred and fifty meters head," she said quietly. She drew her DMR, and the two marines drew their sniper rifles. All three members of the fireteam took prone positions and leveled their rifles. The commander assigned first targets to each of them on their HUDs, then specified whether each person should then search left or right of the first kill. This prevented everyone from shooting at the same target with high-powered weapons.
"3…2…1…shoot," the commander said, and three rifles spoke in unison. The two targets from sniper shots dropped immediately. The commander's target took two more hits to the neck to drop, then she immediately shifted fire to a target slightly to the left, dropping it with three more shots as the pair of sniper rifles fired again. The geth began to return fire, and Shepard jumped to her feet, her barrier flaring as she opened fire on her third target. This act of standing in the open drew rifle fire towards her, but the handful of rounds that hit her reflected harmlessly off her barrier. She fired while she ran, loosing five more rounds from her DMR that dropped another geth. Two more sniper shots from the marines followed, and the small valley suddenly became quiet again.
Shepard quickly ran forward fifteen meters, sliding into cover and quickly sweeping her DMR around for any more geth…none, only destroyed geth troopers. The two marines joined her one at a time, then the commander biotically charged forward thirty meters towards the tram station. The marines followed, and after another minute they reached the ramp to the tram station. Shepard charged her biotics as she took an excellent position to cover the tram platform, eyes sweeping for any movement.
"Lieutenant, take a look," the commander said. Her barrier glowed bright blue as her left hand swirled with dark energy, her pistol in her right as she continuously swept the area for any hostiles.
Alenko leveled his assault rifle as he strengthened his barrier, sweeping his surroundings for any more sign of the geth, dark energy swirling around his hand so he could unleash a biotic throw at a moment's notice. Bodies of civilians were strewn everywhere, and patches of the brown dirt had been stained red. He stepped around the puddles of blood, advancing slowly, and he then saw one body that didn't match…
"Commander. It's Nihlus," he said gravely. The turian's body lay face down with a pool of blood around him.
Shepard approached quickly, then sighed and hung her head. "No…" she whispered.
The commander suddenly raised her head in surprise. Her corona flared brightly as it condensed to strengthen her protective barrier and dark energy swirled around her hands as she leveled her pistol, ready to be used at an instant's notice at whatever attracted her attention. Alenko and Williams took the hint and leveled their weapons at the spot where Shepard was aiming at, behind a large cluster of crates. "Someone's moving! Over behind those crates!" the commander shouted.
"Wait! Don't—Don't shoot! I'm one of you! I'm human!" a man exclaimed as he slowly came out of hiding with his hands in the air.
Shepard drew in a deep breath after the brief spike of adrenaline. "A survivor," she whispered in palpable relief. "I'm just glad you're unhurt," she said softly. "What are you doing back there?" Alenko continued to sweep the area for any hostiles as all four took cover behind a large set of crates.
"I…I'm sorry. I was hiding. From those machines," the man said. "And…and…from him," he stammered.
Him? Shepard paused for a moment. "There was someone else here? Not ge…a synthetic?" she asked. She didn't want to let her theory slip to any civilians.
"Yeah, he…he was a turian," the man confirmed.
"A second turian? There were two turians here?" Shepard asked in clarification, glancing to both members of the fireteam with a look that conveyed both skepticism and puzzlement.
"Yeah. The dead one here called the second one Saren," the man said. Both marines instantly saw Shepard's expression instantly change to one of concern at the mention of the name 'Saren'. "I think they knew each other. Nihlus seemed to relax. He let his guard down…and Saren killed him. Shot him right in the back of the head. Nihlus didn't die right away. He tried to say something…but Saren shot him a few more times. I'm…just lucky Saren didn't see me behind the crates," the man stammered.
"When did Saren kill Nihlus?" Layla asked.
"Not that long ago…just a few minutes before that ship took off."
"Where did Saren go afterward?" the commander asked.
"He jumped on the cargo train and headed over to the other platform. We loaded the beacon onto the train and shipped it to the other platform. Maybe that's what Saren's after."
So Saren is after the beacon; he probably took it, then departed on the ship, Shepard thought, grimacing for a moment.
The civilian continued. "First these robots hit. Then that damned ship showed up just a few minutes later. I've never seen anything like it before. It—it was huge. The whole place got dark as it came down. And—and it was making this awful noise, this—this sound that bored right into your brain. I…I froze. I didn't move, I just stared in horror as that ship came down."
"It probably was a jamming signal. Comms have been down since that ship showed up," Williams commented. "And that shockwave was loud."
The man shook his head. "It wasn't the shockwave when it took off. It made a screeching sound when it landed…like…it's hard to describe. But it sounded like it was drilling right into your brain."
Something about this man's words brought more concern to Shepard, if she wasn't already worried enough. Boring into your brain? That's not just a jamming signal. And communications signals were EM waves, inaudible to humans…
She looked back towards Nihlus's corpse…the colonist was right, Nihlus hadn't died instantly, and from the arrangement of the body and the blood stains, it had taken several more shots to put him down for good. But…a couple other blood stains and wounds didn't match, and it took her a moment to figure out what it was. "Cover me while I take a look at Nihlus," she told the two marines.
Keeping an eye out for any more geth, Shepard vaulted over the low wall she was using as cover and slid next to his corpse. Upon close inspection after a couple moments, she confirmed it. His armor recording systems had been physically destroyed, and she had no idea how long it would take to hack into his armor, if it was even possible. His Spectre armor would certainly have failsafes to prevent unauthorized access to its mission data and especially its vital functions. One wrong step and it would wipe any residual data that may remain in its sensors or storage systems, if any data even remained.
She returned to cover behind the ledge and said, "His armor's recording systems have been destroyed. We won't be able to extract anything from the computer."
"Saren did some things to this turian's armor after he died. He pulled something out and fired his shotgun twice into different parts of the armor," the man said.
That would do it, Shepard thought sourly. She turned to face the civilian who had told them about Saren. "Sir, thank you for the information. What you've told us will be invaluable. Now, please stay hidden. We should have taken care of all of these robots nearby, but there will still be more out there. Alliance reinforcements should be here in less than an hour. When they arrive, announce your presence loudly before leaving cover. Let them know you're human, then tell them what you've told us. What's your name?"
"Powell."
"Commander Shepard."
"Yeah, I, uh…kinda recognized you," he replied, a bit sheepishly.
Normally this would have elicited at least a small smile from the commander, but her only reaction was a quick nod. "Please stay hidden until reinforcements arrive. Just…stay safe," she told him. She found a hint of relief that they had finally found a survivor from the colony attack, but felt more despair that they had only found one in their time on Eden Prime.
Shepard tried yet again to contact the Normandy, but received only static. She figured comms would be back up now with that ship gone, so…something else must be causing the blackout. She shook her head as she charged her biotics, as she jumped out of cover. She had only moved maybe twenty meters when she suddenly ducked back behind a low wall.
She signaled to Alenko and Williams. Two geth, stay down.
For several moments the lieutenant heard nothing, then some sort of mechanical…growl, it sounded like to Williams…came from around a corner, and the chief –
Shepard suddenly dove out of cover as her corona flared, followed quickly by two crunches and thuds. She took cover on the other side of the wall, peering around the edge. Satisfied, she left cover and motioned the marines forward.
Alenko and Williams caught up the several paces to the commander. The lieutenant saw two large dents in the wall, a pair of geth troopers lying on the ground near them, smashed into the wall and unmoving.
"Lieutenant, Chief, there's about two dozen geth from here to the walkway. Williams, get your sniper rifle out and cover Alenko and I from there," the commander said, pointing towards a section of the ramp down to the walkway. "Don't open fire until we advance about fifteen meters down the walkway so we can cover you; if you do, you'll expose yourself to too much enemy fire."
"Got it, Commander," the chief responded.
"Ready, Lieutenant?" Shepard asked.
The lieutenant nodded in the affirmative.
"Move out," she said as she sprinted down the ramp to the walkway, turning and sliding into cover behind a crate. There were crates and protrusions from the walkway every several meters, and if these were other circumstances Shepard would have grinned - they were perfectly designed to be used as cover. Wonder if the walkway designers knew how handy these would come in now…
The geth did spot the two humans sprint down the ramp, and turned to face the threat, waiting for one of the humans to exit cover. The smaller one did, vanishing in a bright blue flash and reappearing about fifteen meters closer to them. The geth opened fire, but the tiny human did not fall to the ground quickly like the other humans they had encountered. She slid into cover about thirty meters ahead of their position, so several of the troopers advanced to flush her out, keeping an eye out for the other human soldier.
A moment later the male ran out of cover, also surrounded by blue light as a pair of geth were hurled off of their feet and into a third, knocking them all to the ground. He disappeared in a flash of biotic light, reappearing much closer to them and preventing a quick advance to get a good shooting angle at the human sniper above them. The small female's corona glowed again, and a geth trooper began squirming in the dark energy as it was suddenly lifted into the air, where a well-placed sniper round ended its efforts to get back to solid ground.
Shepard raised her arm and sent a shockwave towards the geth, sending a pair of geth nearly ten meters into the air. She slid her back against the crate as another sniper shot from Williams rang out, followed by another thud. She withdrew from cover momentarily and unleashed another shockwave towards the geth positions. She was a bit surprised, but quite pleased, that shock tactics worked so well on the geth. The geth did not appear to have a counter to heavy biotics, quick advances, and flanking maneuvers. Another loud rifle report and another geth fell to the ground.
Shepard suddenly got a sinking feeling in her stomach. "Commander incoming!" Kaidan yelled. She turned out of cover just in time to see a large, dark gray geth behemoth, nearly three meters tall, lunge towards her. She instinctively jumped to the side to avoid the imminent blow which she would normally have easily avoided. However, the left knee joint on her armor still had a bit of sludge stuck in it from the swamp, and it partially locked up from the drying sludge and the sudden motion. She staggered and tripped due to the failed joint as she started to fall to the ground.
The geth destroyer viciously swung its rifle at her. Even though she had tripped, her quick reflexes had limited the strike to a glancing blow on her side, but the force of the blow was still enough to send her airborne and spin her around. She landed on her side and charged up a biotic attack to unleash on the geth, but the trooper was too fast as it violently swung its rifle at her chest again as if the weapon were an oversized club. Time seemed to slow to a crawl for her as she felt dark energy condense around her hands, trying to level her shotgun one-handed at the behemoth, the other hand for a biotic punch, and the shotgun hand for a throw for good measure if needed, as she condensed the barrier around her body. Her mind registered that the geth would get in the first hit, swinging towards her chest. Faster she had to charge faster –
The trooper was suddenly knocked off balance to the side as a rifle round hit it, missing her with its vicious swing. Immediately after it vanished out of her sight, sailing at least twenty meters down the walkway. Surprised, Shepard looked behind her to see a blinding corona dissipate around Lieutenant Alenko, who rushed forward with his rifle firing at the geth. Another loud crack announced the passing of another geth from a sniper rifle. The lieutenant slid into cover beside her. "Are you okay, ma'am?" he asked.
"Just a glancing blow, Lieutenant," she responded. "Armor's knee joint partially locked up." Another crack echoed, after which there was silence.
"Got 'em all," Williams said over the comm.
Alenko turned towards the commander as he opened his Omni-tool's medical program and ordered it to check on the health and vitals of LCDR Shepard L. No internal bleeding, no broken bones, no apparent protrusions…she should be fine. One final message appeared at the end. Wait – dark energy…what? Just what does that mean? the lieutenant asked himself. He hadn't seen that message before when scanning a biotic – ever.
Shepard slowly rolled onto her back and sat up, pulling the lieutenant out of his thoughts about the strange message. "Where did that thing come from? I saw a larger geth unit, but it was all the way down at the end of the walkway," she asked Alenko.
He nodded. "It was. Suddenly it charged towards you at probably over twenty meters a second. I charged up a biotic attack but the thing got to you too fast."
"Thank you. I owe you one, Lieutenant," the commander said with a small smile as she worked her left leg at the knee to loosen the armor's joint. She slowly got to her feet, helped by Alenko. "I'll make it up to you when we get back to the Normandy."
"You okay, Commander?" Williams asked as she approached the two officers.
"Nothing serious," she responded. "Thank you, Williams," she continued with a small smile. "Good shooting."
"What happened, ma'am? You just suddenly tripped up trying to jump out of the way," the chief asked, a confused look on her face.
"When we landed we had to trudge through a mucky pond. It wasn't deep, and it wouldn't have been an issue at all for locking up knee joints, unless…well, unless you were really short. Like me," Shepard said, her face breaking into a small, tight grin, a lame attempt at humor in the situation. Both of the subordinates' expression softened in amusement, but no grins appeared. "So I ended up getting sludge in my knee joints."
The three moved towards the tram platform. Alenko had heard of the name Saren, of course, but…was there something she knew that he didn't? "Permission to speak freely, Commander?" he asked cautiously.
"Always, Lieutenant," she replied.
"What do you know about Saren?" he asked slowly.
The question caught her off guard, and it showed. At times Shepard was easy to read, and her change in demeanor at the mention of the name several minutes ago was obvious. "What makes you ask?"
"There's a chance he might be at the spaceport now, and I want to know what kind of adversary we could be dealing with, Commander," Alenko responded cautiously.
The commander sighed as she closed her eyes, biting her lower lip for a moment. "Saren's a turian Spectre. One of the best, if not the best agent the Council has. I've only heard of him and the cloud of rumors that surround him. The only thing I really know about him is he is ruthlessly efficient and very dangerous. He was able to catch Nihlus off-guard and murder him," she responded.
"Do you really believe that Powell guy, ma'am?" Williams asked, a bit skeptical.
"That guy wasn't lying to us. There are tells that people have when telling lies, and he didn't exhibit a single one. Either that or he is one of the best agents I've ever encountered to fool all three of us. And why would the geth bother with destroying the armor recording systems? We already know the geth are here." Shepard opened the train controls terminal, pausing before looking up at the two marines. "Regardless of whether or not Saren took off on that ship, the platform will be crawling with geth. Be ready for anything." She got nods from the fireteam. She pressed a button and the train accelerated towards the spaceport, all three of them silently pondering their encounters so far. Each wondered what new unpleasant surprises waited for them at their destination.
Author's Notes:
A couple changes in this chapter. The next one has a few more.
I added a brief section where Nihlus reminds everyone why he's been a Spectre for a while. Spectres are supposed to be all-around badasses, yet he dies twenty minutes into the game without ever seeing him in action.
Note that the fireteam, especially biotic powers, are carving through the geth. The geth haven't really encountered many biotics, and aren't yet sure how to deal with the output of a couple high-power biotics. The geth will certainly adjust.