Chapter 2
The drop had gone without a hitch, the grav lift system courtesy of hiigaran marine frigate technology had enabled them to come in fast and low while minimizing the time over the drop zone that it did not attract too much attention, still the rumble of engines could still be heard and Alaya knew that David would not take any chances. Technology was great, but it was always the fool who blindly trusted that their tech would help them out of the worst of situations.
The woman pulled her rifle off her back, the weapon being the A-78L light infantry rifle. The weapon was a perfect mix of Pax and Alliance technology that was based off the hiigaran coil gun technology that had proven itself over the years. This weapon had a slightly shorter barrel, a magazine that fired much smaller 4.45mm flechettes allowing each magazine capacity to have increased to fifty rounds with the added benefit of mass effect technology that allowed them to accelerate the rounds faster all the while able to reduce the size of the recoil dampers.
The weapon was not without its problems, though. As opposed to their council contemporaries, the A-78L had a much lower rate of fire, there was need to carry spare magazines and too much use on full auto could warp the barrel. Still, the weapon packed quite a punch and Alaya preferred a few well-placed shots anyways.
"All right, Jenkins," Alaya said as she looked over to the young marine who was carrying the same type of weapon, the piss and vinegar demeanor she had seen on the ship was gone, clearly the man was having a hard time coping with what had happened to his home. "Hey, you with me, Richard?" She asked, using his first name to get his attention.
"Yes ma'am," the man seemed to almost jump a little.
"Listen, I know it doesn't look good, but we won't be able to help anyone unless we can get ourselves into this fight, and I can't do that unless I have some intel to work with. So tell me where we are, and possible routes to the dig site."
"Right," Richard said as he looked around for a moment before he spoke up. "Looks like the captain dropped us at Calais Point, it is…well, it is a popular makeout point."
Alaya could not help but glance over to Kaidan with a bit of a grin and back at Richard. "Seriously? Remind me to have you give me a tour of this planet once we give our friends their eviction notice, I'm sure it would be very enlightening."
Richard cleared his throat at this, his face clearly going a little red before he continued. "Right, like I was saying, this is Calais Point, we could follow de Gaulle Parkway into town as it follows the ridgeline to the valley where the town is located, but it is pretty exposed. There is also a gondola nearby and we could probably make our way down the service road, and the last option is Vichy Nature Preserve, it runs down the backside of the hill and while it is not direct, it has plenty of cover."
Alaya thought about her options, the first would get them to the dig site the fastest, but any enemy worth their salt would be watching that road with a couple of sniper teams, so that was a clear no-go. She was tempted with the second option, but like the first an access road while having more cover was still likely to have its own roving patrol which left her with only one option.
"Let's take a walk in the park," Alaya said and signaled for Richard to take point. The three of them moved into the treeline, keeping up a good pace but at the same time they made sure not to run to keep down the noise level, as well as making sure they didn't tire out or make a wrong step. This became more and more vital as their pace slowed down while the hill became steeper and steeper to the point they had to shoulder their weapons.
"At times like this, I really envy you, Kaidan. No lugging a big frickin rifle and heavy combat armor down this blasted hill," Alaya said as she grabbed onto a tree with her armored gauntlets to help her down a particularly steep area covered in loose rock.
"Well, this medical kit is not exactly light, and I'm sure you wouldn't want to deal with the migraines," the young officer said as they made their way down, Alaya then remembered that the Lieutenant was a biotic.
"Oh I'm sure that she uses the headache excuse more times than you do, el tee," Jenkins piped up, only to be rewarded with something akin to a pine cone thrown lightly at the back of his head, causing him to flinch, his feet sliding a little before he grabbed a small sapling to arrest his fall.
"What the hell, ma'am, you trying to get me killed?"
"I think you're over-exaggerating," Kaidan spoke up. "Besides, maybe it is a good learning experience about running your mouth, and even if you fell on your head, I don't think there would be any damage that anyone would notice."
"Ha, ha," Jenkins grumbled as he continued down the embankment. "Looks like I'm on mission with a pair of real comedians."
"Then I guess with you, that makes us the three stooges," Kaidan returned to which all three of them could not help and smile a little about. The distraction was welcome, especially since it kept Richard from dwelling too much on what was happening to his colony.
The trio had made it down the hill at a respectable pace, and as the ground leveled off, they came near the edge of the treeline. There was a construction road, basically it was cut through the trees with large rocks and coarse gravel covering it and given how wide it was, this was clearly a baserunner service road. On the other side of the road, Alaya could see the vertical columns that were the pilings or the monorail currently under construction.
"Hold up," Alaya said as she moved to the edge of the treeline, taking a knee and Jenkins doing the same thing with Kaidan close behind. "Okay, I am going to cross first, then Richard followed by Kaidan will take rear guard. We will then follow the monorail into town."
Alaya pulled her rifle off her back and after a quick sight check, she clicked off the safety and after a quick mental countdown, she ran across the road, feeling and hearing her armored boots hit the loose gravel until she reached the other side. Once behind the relative safety of the embankment on the far side, she brought her weapon up and after scanning that it was all clear, signaled for Richard who sprinted across and then baseball slid over the embankment beside Alaya. Kaidan was the last across and while he did not move with the same gusto as Richard, he still moved quickly.
"Okay, it looks like we're in the clear, for now," Alaya said as she kept low while they moved away from the embankment. As they moved towards the first of the support columns, they came across what had remained of the construction crew, this caused Richard to run ahead.
"Corporal! Get back here," Alaya barked out but it was too late, she heard a whirring sound and moments later, floating objects she had never seen before came out from among the smouldering construction equipment and while she fired on these strange craft, she watched as Richard's shields flared for a moment and then the rapid-fire blue rounds impacted his body. The man fell to the ground, she could see that he was still alive as he half crawled, half dragged himself to the support column. When the last of the drones had been taken out, she ran towards him.
"I'm sorry ma'am, I," Richard gasped, his armor was smoking and based on the gaping wounds and the blood he was now coughing up, he didn't have long. His once bright blue eyes filled with the energy of youth seemed to now only be filled with fear and regret.
"Take it easy, Richard," Alaya said as she was now knelt beside him, pressing her hand on his chest, even though knowing full well there was nothing she could offer to him. "You did what you thought was right, no one could ever fault you for that," she said offering up a weak smile all the while she blinked quickly not to let the tears she felt from falling.
"I…thought…my dad," was the last words he said and she could feel that his labored breaths had stopped. She moved her blood-streaked gauntlet over his eyes, smearing his face with his own blood as she closed his eyes.
"Safe journey, Richard," she whispered as she could see a shadow cast over her and knew it to be Kaidan. "Set Richard's armor to transmit KIA status and let's get moving. We'll retrieve him once we complete the mission," Alaya said as she stood up, a feeling of both anger and guilt sweeping over her, but she knew they had to press on.
The two of them approached the first of the destroyed drones while Kaidan stooped down beside it, pushing it over and looking at the weapon attached to the base of it. "This is interesting, the weapon seems to be mass effect based," he said as he continued to examine it.
"So we're dealing with more than just taiidan or vaygr," Alaya said as she stated what her fellow officer was thinking in regards to the strange construct. "Either way, we don't want to be caught up in the open, not against these things."
"Still, they seem like glass cannons, ma'am," Kaidan said as he used his omni-tool to make an image capture before giving Alaya the nod that he was ready to go, this time the woman took point, the duo needing to be much more careful, using cover to good effect.
As they continued along the monorail, the support columns giving way to sections with horizontal cross-sections which was a sign they were headed in the right direction, they encountered more groups of these drones. Now that she knew what to listen for, whenever she heard that whirring sound, she knew that the drones were close, and they took cover, using the columns and other obstacles as they returned fire, Kaidan's biotics weakening them while Alaya finished them off in a powerful one, two punch.
Finishing off another group of drones, she could hear gunfire similar to the sounds she heard in the recording, as well as the report of a heavy rifle, one that she knew very well. "Come on Kaidan, we need to double-time it, I think there might still be some marines alive," she said as she felt a surge of hope rising from within her. The loss of Richard was tough, especially to be cut down before he even got the chance to engage the enemy and prove himself, but the thought that there could be some marines alive gave her a sense of renewed vigor and soon enough they could see exactly the source of the firefight.
Up ahead there was a monorail station that looked to be under construction, the simple two storey building was smoking at several places, and Alaya finally got a look at the opposing force and was surprised at what she saw. They appeared to be metallic, and strangely enough had some sort of light in their heads, and while she didn't know what they were, seeing them fire on the station gave her all the intel she needed. It seemed that most of the enemy were coming from the direction of the city, leaving very few on her side, most likely just to keep the marines from getting out of there.
"Kaidan, focus fire on those in the treeline, we'll then break for the station and link up with the friendlies." The man nodded and a blue aura surrounded him for a second before there was the telltale sound and moments later an small biotic explosion could be heard from the treeline, cracking branches and soon Alaya opened up with her rifle. She heard odd squealing sounds and the lack of return fire made it clear that they had downed their hostiles.
"Head for the station," she said to Kaidan and began running herself towards the structure and then once she neared the building, rounded a corner for the main entrance. "Friendlies!" She yelled out before she made her way through the front door, the smell of death was thick as she entered what was the main lobby. On the ground were bodies of civilians and marines, she could smell burnt flesh and ozone so thick she almost gagged on it. This had been clearly set up as a morgue and as she rounded some check-in terminals towards a sign directing to the upstairs, she could see the walls were blackened and a large number of the strange silver aliens strewn all over the place. As she approached one of them, it became clear that these were some sort of robots, possibly mechs.
Reaching the stairs, she glanced down to see a laser on her chest, and looking up the stairs she could see a marine. "Reinforcements? Thank God," the woman at the top of the stairs said, finally lowering her weapon.
"Not exactly," Alaya said as she made her way up the steps. "We are part of the recovery team that was supposed to pick up the beacon. Sorry," she said as she got close, surprised to see that the soldier was a woman, her hair was braided and tied back into a ponytail. Yet that was not the part that surprised her, the armor she wore was black and red with a red symbol on her left arm that she recognized immediately. This woman wasn't an Alliance marine.
"Right now, I will take any help I can get," the woman replied. "Group Sergeant Ashley Soban of the forty seventh strike fleet, detached as a training officer for the Alliance."
"Lieutenant Commander Alaya Shepard," Alaya responded and glanced back at Kaidan. "That's Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, what's the situation?"
"Situation is that we got caught with our pants down," the woman said as she moved over to a window where she had set up essentially a sniper perch in the offices. As she looked around, Alaya could see that there were perches all around the upper floor with various weapon types by each one. It didn't take an overly creative mind to realize that she fired from each station with the various weapons to keep the enemy from realizing there was just one soldier up here.
"Sergeant…" she began before Ashley cut her off.
"Please, just call me Ash," the woman said as she walked over to where she had a sniper rifle and got into position, looking down the scope while Alaya and Kaidan kept low, making sure not to make themselves easy targets for sharpshooters.
"Okay, Ash it is. Tell me, what happened here?"
"We got jumped, I don't know how they pulled it off, but the enemy achieved complete surprise. Eden Prime just has a handful of some loaner Torpedo Frigates along with the newer Alliance Assault Frigates. Most of those ships were lost before we even knew what was happening, all we knew was the enemy force was spearheaded by some upgraded taiidani and vaygr assets along with a new super-capital class ship that is not in the databases. About that time is when these metal bastards began raining down on the planet, and from all appearances I would wager anything that they are geth."
"Geth? Out here, beyond the Veil?" Kaidan spoke up. "They have not been seen nor heard of for over three hundred years. Why attack us now, and why us?"
"I don't know, Lieutenant, maybe you should go down and ask them," Ashley said and then squeezed off a round. "Looks like their scouting elements are coming back. Your little attack threw them off, but it seems they have recovered and are making another push. I've held them off for almost a day, and with your help, we should be able to break them."
"So we're digging in?" Kaidan asked Alaya.
"Yeah, we are. Let's show these flashlight heads what happens when you screw with the Alliance." It turned out that they were getting the fight that Richard had wanted. He might not have been there in person, but Alaya felt he was there in spirit.
