Flesh and Metal:

Book One:

The Saren Incident:

Chapter Six:

"God."

It was really the only thing that could be said in that moment as the data streams unfolded in front of their eyes on the Normandy's haptic screens, giving them a good idea of what was going happening on Eden Prime's surface. The Batarian Fleet, modfied with strange technology and lead by a dreadnought that dwarfed all other known ships on record, had cut through the Geth fleet that had been defending the colony and the Batarians were on the colony in strength.

It was a slaughter, according to the Geth runtimes on the surface who were feeding them the intel. It was also not at all how the Batarians operated, to be certain a slave raid would almost always lead to heavy casulties to the world being raided but according to the data there weren't any colonists being taken as slaves, anything that the Batarians came up against were being slaughtered.

"EDI, are you sure that this is right?" Ethan asked as he looked away from his screen to walk over to where Joker was sitting, resting his hand on the back of his chair as he looked down at the tactical screen in front of the pilot, a heavy frown on his face as he watched the casualty numbers jump up by another few thousand. "Failing that, are we sure that it is the Batarians down their on the surface? Because this is not their MO, at all."

"I am certain Commander, while their ships have been modified to a heavy degree their outlines still match Batarian ship profiles with only a 0.00000000000000000000000002 percent chance of mistaken identidy. Also, while the Batarians on the surface do seem to have been...enhanced and modfied to an extreme degree, they are still Batarians." EDI's avatar pulsed, as if to added puncation to her statement.

"This can't be the ICBP, they are at each other's throats most of the time and they had to know that there would be a reprisal for this." Ethan tapped his foot against the floor of of the Normandy's flight deck, an old nervous tick that he had never been fully able to quite shake off even after all he had done since joning up with the Alliance and serving in the Network. "And that fleet is massive, and that dreadnought, I have never seen anything like it."

"Commander, I do not believe that it is the ICBP. May I drew your attention to something?" When Ethan nodded his Omni-Tool pinged as EDI interacted with it, in his head he could sense Nova bristling but she did let down her defences for EDI without a fuss and soon enough there was a blurry image of a Batarian warship firing it's weapons at a Geth frigate hovering in front of his Omni-Tool, it looked like a fairly standard cruiser aside from the modifications of the strange technology.

"Okay, what am I meant to be looking at?"

"Commander, this is an image of a Batarian cruiser that I have just retrived from the data archives in the main Geth server in Eden Prime's capital city of Constant, it is the clearest image we have and I have accessed Alliance archives to see if there are any matches to known Batarian ships and I have found a match. But it is a match that should be impossible."

"Why?"

"Because, if the match is correct then that vessel is the Hegemony State Vessel Divine Right, a crusier who's last known location was on the other side of the Khar'Shan relay when it deactived."

"That can be right EDI, I think you've got a bug in the system somewhere."

"I am not mistaken, Flight Lieutenant Moreau, it is the same ship."

"But that should be impossible." Ethan said as he stepped back from Flight Lieutenant Moreau's chair and let his eyes fall shut as he tried to think on what this could mean, because it certainly meant nothing good but he needed to try and figure out exactly how bad it was.

The Alliance had gone to war with the Batarian Hegemony not long after the Skyllian Blitz where Elysium had been attacked, while the Blitz had actually been carried out by pirates and warlords in the Terminus Systems, STG intelligence teams and Geth hacking teams had managed to find out that the Batarian Hegemony had financed and supllied weapons and ships that pirate lords wouldn't have been able to get a hold of any other way.

Humanity wanted blood after that and the Geth were with them, having signed a mutual defence pact with them after Shanxi when it looked like the Geth coming to their defence would end up with both their species at war with the rest of the galaxy, but even with their closest allies helping them and the Geth's own very advanced technology and incredible construction times large fleets it would still be close if it came to a war.

Thankfully, the Asari and the Salarians had no love for the Batarians and both had agree to provid fleets and soliders to aid in the war, the Turians were more reluctant as they still felt the scars of the First Contact war but they had hated Batarians more so they sent weapons and armor assets, the Volus also agree to finance the war and the Elcor had also provided some ships.

It had been long and bloodly, to say the least. But three years after the war had begun the joint species armada was ready to fly through the relay that would lead to Khar'Shan when all of a sudden, the Relay simply...powered down.

The thing about the Relays was, while they were relatively easy to turn on if found dormant they were much harder to power down from an active state but it had seemed as though the people on the other side of the Relay had managed to do it.

It also meant that the war was basically over as even with FTL drives they could not hope to reach Khar'Shan's home system and as the months and years passed without even a hint of activity from the relay it seemed that it truly was over, though the matter of how the Batarians had shut down their relay was always a matter of concern to some.

It had been nearly five years since the war had ended and there had not been a peep of Hegemony activity since then, the only Batarian activity was from the ICBP, the Independent Coalition of Batarian Planets. After Khar'Shan was cut off from the rest of the galaxy that still left the rest of the colonies that the Hegemony had established on other worlds, many of them in chaos due to slave revolts and now cut off from their leadership.

They had formed a new goverment, based similar to the Asari model with each planet being an independent state that worked together through a loose agreement, of course all those worlds might have different needs so there was still quite a bit of disagreement between them so Shepard didn't think it could have been them behind this, they wouldn't have been able to amass as large a fleet as was attacking Eden Prime now without them noticing and it didn't seem possible that they had this technology.

"And yet, it is not." EDI answered him and Ethan sighed before he glanced over his shoulder to catch sigh of Anderson stepping into the cockpit, the man's face was serious but not emotionless. That was one of Anderson's weaknesses, if you asked Ethan, he had a hard time when it came to hiding how much he really cared when he did.

"Joker, get us as close to the dig site as you can. Commander Shepard, get down to the cargo bay on the double, you'll be leading a team while Master Chief Baroni leads another."

"Yes Sir." He said, snapping off a salute as he ran down towards deck 2 and took the elevator down to the cargo bay where the Normandy's contingent of marines were already waiting for him, they all saltued him as he stood in front of them, all of them in their hardsuits.

"Commander?" One of the marines, a young looking man with his hair cut close to his scalp and bright blue eyes that made him look younger than he probably was. "Are we going to be deployed into the capital? The reports say that's where the fighting is at it's worst and then's fires burning out of control across it, we have to help them I mean...that's the job isn't it?"

"It's not our job marine, our job is to head to the dig site and retrive the Prothean beacon while there's still a chance." Shepard spoke as he walked over to his locker and retrived his helmet for his own hardsuit.

"But!-"

Shepard turned around and glared at the marine and it made him step back, it was one of his special skills that he could make anyone wither with a look and he had to admit that he was impressed that this kid hadn't backed all the way off completely. "But what marine?"

"Commander." Alenko took that moment to step in, placing himself in between Shepard and the marine in a way that might have been subtle but his experince doing missions for the Network meant that Shepard saw through the actions. "Jenkins grew up on Eden Prime, he didn't mean to be disrespectful diid you Jenkins?" Jenkins shook his head. "But, I think I speak for all of us when I ask if we're really just meant to do nothing for the people down there?"

Shepard chose then to glance around the cargo hold at the rest of the marines and Alenko was good at reading people, Shepard would give him that much if nothing else. This mission didn't sit right with any of them, not even the Master Chief. The Geth marines were harder for him to read, Shepard always perfered working with Geth as they more often understood the bigger picture rather than the smaller good.

"Let me be abudently clear about this, and you will not make me repeat myself. We are one ship, there was an entire fleet guarding this colony and a garrison of troops that this contingent of marines is a drop of water compared to them in terms of numbers. There is nothing that we can do for them, no matter how much you or I wish that might be different. We can only do what we can."

"And what we can do is our mission, our important mission." Shepard glanced over to where Master Chief Baroni was wanting near the armory, her arms crossed over her chest. "Master Chief!" He barked and she stood up straight to attention. "Are we ready to move!?"

"Yes sir!"

"We better fucking be," He gestured over to Baroni, getting the attention over the other marines on to her. "You all know who this is? This is goddamned Nicola Baroni, this is one of the biggest baddest bitches in the entire goddamn fleet! She was at goddamn Shanxi! The fucking spikes sent an entire goddamn army to try and kill her and guess who fucking won?!"

"Is-is it true you had a broken arm at time Ma'am?" Jenkins asked.

"Well, I had to give them a fair chance." She answered and the hold was suddenly filled with yelling.

"One human did that, one human held off an army of the bastards." Shepard kept going, to be honest he was never certain how good he was at these kind of speeches as his talents did lay into a more subtle line of work but that line of work had made him more aware of how people thought and how you could get them to think a certain way, and so far he hadn't mistepped with his words.

"They could have blown our world out of the sky, but we had help. We found allies." He thrust his hand towards the Geth marines. "Decades ago, the entire galaxy was afraid of the Geth. They were the monsters under the bed, the cautionary tale that they told to their children at night. Well, we made friends with the monsters and we slapped the arrogant bastards down."

"Shepard-Commander," One of the Geth Marines, he just now realised that it was the same one he had spoken to in the Med-Bay called Legion, stepped forward as it spoke. "This unit would like to remind it's allies that it was the Geth who did most of the slapping down as you say, your people were throwing insufficent firepower around and running for cover while praying to various non-existent tribal sky gods for help."

"Big talk marine, even more so from someone who's presence on this ship means we can't use the microwave." More laughter, he was almost done. "Honestly, all that fancy smancy Geth tech gets fucked up when I want to have a curry for dinner."

"We've got a goddamned job to do marines, we can't save Eden Prime today, we can't avenge Eden Prime today, but I promise you this. We are going to make whoever is behind this fucking regret it, we are going to find them and we are going to fucking burn them. But not today, hold on to your anger, hold on to your rage, hold on to your hate. Because I promise you, you are going to need it! Now, are you with me!?"

"Oorah!" The human marines answered him in a roar, the Geth marines made their own cry in a series of high pitched bursts. The cachphony was brought to an end when the elevator came down once again and Captain Anderson walked off the elevator and glanced at them before making his way over to the back of the cargo bay where the ramp would be waiting to descend.

The marines set about checking their weapons as they waited to drop and Shepard was about to check his own equipment when someone clearing his throat drew his attention. Nihlus was standing there, clad in heavy armor and his arms were crossed over his chest. "Not bad, improving the morale of your men and keeping them focused on the task at hand. Not bad at all, this spike approves."

"It wasn't anything personal, we have a job that needs to get done and I need to keep them focused."

"Oh, I don't disapprove. Trust me, I was a solider before I was a spectre and I've made plenty of remarks about soft primatives in order to keep my men focused. In fact, I approve a great deal because I know you didn't mean a word of it." The turian Specter leaned into his face, his green eyes suddenly holding a dangerous glint to them. "The way you spoke changed, the way you held yourself changed. You are a born liar, you can even lie to machines and they weren't able to tell, and that's what the Specters need."

"Well then, I am glad that I am already making a good impression on you Specter, maybe we'll be working together as partners before to long."

Nihlus laughed at that, softly so as not to draw attention, and Ethan didn't trust it, if being a good liar was a needed part of being a Specter then that meant that Nihlus was a good liar to and even with Nova helping out in his head Ethan did find it hard to read him. "Oh, let's not get ahead of ourselves. You're good at inspiring your men, you're good at lying to them. But I still need to see how you lead and how you fight first."

Ethan was about to respond when when the Normandy slightly tilted to the left and Ethan nearly lost his balance as Flight Lieutenant Moreau's voice filled the cargo bay from the intercom. "Ladies and gentlemen we've just entered the upper atmosphere, we will be approaching drop site one in approximately five minutes."

Nihlus hummed and stepped away from Ethan then and stepped towards Captain Anderson, unholstering his shotgun as he walked. "Anderson, remember that the beacon is our top priorty here! We need to get it off this planet, no matter the cost."

"Understood Specter." Anderson answered with a nod.

"Good."

"We are approching drop point one." Flight Lieutenant Moreau's voice stated as the cargo bay ramp began to open while the ship kept moving through the air and as soon as they were overhead Nihlus took off running down the ramp and jumped off to the ground below, as soon as he was out of sight the Normandy was soaring through the red tinted skies of Eden Prime to the second drop point.

"Nihlus will be acting as a forward scout, luckily for us he's used to working alone. He'll feed back status reports to you as he goes, understood?"

"Understood Captain!" Ethan yelled over the wind that rushed in as they approached the second drop point, Master Chief Baroni ordering the men down the ramp.

Ethan was about to follow them when Anderson called out to him. "Shepard, I don't want another Torfan, do you understand me?"

"I'll get the job done Sir, however I have to." And with that, he hurried down the ramp to join the landing party. As soon as his boots were on the ground the Normandy soared upwards to get out of the line of fire.

"Ladies, Gentlemen and Robots, let's get to work."

End of Chapter Six


I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG TO GET BACK TO!

I never meant to put this story on the back burner for so long but at least we are finally back to it now, and while I am not certain this is a chapter waiting two years for I promise we should have a more regular update schedule from now on.

Speaking of which, the next chapter will be an interlude which, while set on Eden Prime, will not focus on either Shepard or Ashley's group. Instead, it puts us with a different group and you're going to see another change from canon which I can see as being a bit...controversial, with luck I will have that up within a week.

With warmest regards,

DiscordantSymphony