Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect or the various X-COM games. They belong to their respective copyright owners. This story is not written for profit. I make no money from it. It is not for sale or rent.

Chapter 5: A taste of things to come

=SF=

Part 1

Food transport

En route to ADF base Prosperity

Marnloow

Sergeant Klaar stood in the back of along hover truck that had been carefully modified to have an unexpectedly large hidden compartment. A lot of sensor masking technology stolen and reverse engineered from the invaders, careful engineering and psi-dampeners built in the Claw's armors would hopefully be enough to get the transport through the front gate. Once inside the perimeter, the sergeant was confident that he and his men would be able to take out the shield generator or at the very least cripple its emitters. The initial plan called for using blaster launchers and indeed his Claws carried three of the weapons. However, Klaar and his last trooper had something better.

The large man closed his eyes and reverently patted the long, bulbous barrel of of the weapon supplied by the Humans. A fanged grin spread his muzzle into a sinister visage when he remembered speaking with his XCOM counterpart.

"Boys and girls, your favorite holiday just came early. This..." the Human sergeant patted an armored crate, before unsealing it and carefully extracting a really big gun, "is the M-51 Cain." Veil had a toothy smile that would have made any of the People proud. "The Cain is your new best friend. Its a twenty five millimeter particle beam-high explosive weapon hybrid. It uses dust from eezo refining chambers subjected to extreme positive and negative currents to project a mass effect field through which it accelerates an Elerium alloy slug at 5 km/s. The field itself is so intense that not only shears the target and warp the hit materials with extreme force but disrupts shields and kinetic barriers before the payload hits. The nature of the field means that most of the energy is directed into the target so the Cain is safe to use by power armored infantry on anything beyond two hundred meters. The payload has selectable yield for those cases you wish to either avoid collateral damage or make sure that the bastards are really, super dead. The later isn't recommended for use at anything closer than a kilometer."

Klaar actually purred as he imagined the havoc he could rain upon both Advent and Ethereals with this gun.

"Boss, I know you want to have the guns cubs, but leave that for after the mission. You're kinda weirding us out." Specialist Veern hissed.

The sergeant looked at the trooper. The poor boy simply didn't understand. The medic was kinda new to the Claws after all.

The truck slowed down and the soldiers went silent. Soon it stopped and the troopers froze. Thanks to all the shielding embedded in the hidden compartment, the Claws couldn't hear what was happening. If things went wrong, the first they would know it would be when the Advent started shooting at them through the walls.

Yet, this time the Ancestors were truly looking after them. After what felt like eternity, the truck continued driving. And Klaar relaxed a bit. He signed to the trio not carrying Cains to be ready – while they had blaster launchers just in case, those soldiers were meant to buy their comrades the time they would need to get out and line up their shots.

A few tense minutes later, the truck stopped again and the driver pressed a certain button. A green lamp lit up the hidden compartment and Klaar's muzzle stretched into a feral grin. The sergeant slammed his armored fist over a button thoughtfully covered by a plastic shield to prevent an accidental activation. The side walls of the compartment blew out thanks to built in charges and the Claws surged out.

An unlucky Advent trooper found himself on the way and was blasted away by a flying panel. Without any armor, the tall hybrid stood no chance. The Claws wasted no time and tore apart the handful of grunts milling around the entrance of the warehouse. Klaar barely noticed any of that. He was busy removing the safety of his Cain and looking for the tower. The Ancestors were with him again, because he didn't have to either scale the warehouse or go around it to find a firing lane. The tower was fully visible to his right, just eight hundred meters away.

Before someone could raise the alarm, the sergeant had shouldered the gun and taking aim. He laughed when sirens began roaring a call to arms a moment after Klaar pressed the trigger. His visor polarized an instant later, when the target vanished behind a flash of light. Then a second Cain roared and ensured that there would be no shields stopping the reinforcements.

"Phase two!" Klaar shouted over the comm. He was already venting the Cain's heatsinks and looking at the small map projected on his HUD. "Era, take the barracks. I'm hitting the hangars!" The sergeant ordered. He used the grappling hook built in his armor to get on top of the warehouse, before reloading the Cain. While the weapon was still hot, it was still good for at least two more shots if he left twenty second pause between them.

They had to do.

Klaar found his target – the hangars at the far end of the base and dialed up the yield. His Cain spoke again and his target was replaced by a rising mushroom cloud. While venting the weapon, the sergeant had just enough time to properly see his handiwork. Most of the hangar was simply gone with what was left being little more than smoking ruin. The Claw laughed in glee and acquired his final target. Klaar blew the second hangar away and jumped off the roof before some lucky bastard or defense emplacement awoke enough to nail him.

Before he hit the ground, the sergeant saw two more mushroom clouds rising from the direction of the barracks.

"Phase three!" Klaar ordered. He folded the Cain into its portable form and stuck it to the magnetic clamps on his back, before pulling out his favorite heavy plasma rifle.

It was time to cause some more chaos and general mayhem. It was going to be simply glorious!

=SF=

Part 2

Airspace

ADF base Prosperity

Marnloow

Seeing an Advent base for the first time – it was painfully familiar. The buildings lacked square angles and instead were rounded resembling half-spehres instead the more familiar squares favored by humans, yet the layout of the base was something I've seen many times before; hangars, barracks, armor park, warehouses and various weapon emplacements. The mushroom clouds rising up from four separate places were familiar too – I've seen it back on Earth, though now the roles were reversed.

The novel sensation was my method of insertion – this was my second combat drop and the first contested one. When we inserted in the jungle a few days ago, the Advent were in no position to shoot back – their AA assets and aircraft in the AO were killed by the Rhine before they knew what hit them.

Today was different. While Klaar did better than expected – the shield was gone and I could see hangars and barracks burning, the defense emplacements were largely untouched. They were too spread out to be worth wasting the few heavy weapons the infiltrators could carry on them. That left me in the hands of my pod's VI and the equipment built into it. I was merely a spectator hurling towards the ground like a meteor.

While I knew what was supposed to be happening and despite my training, I couldn't help it but felt fucking terrified. There was just a thin sheet of Vahlenite alloy and a kinetic barrier between me, the ground and whatever the defenders were busy shooting at everything that moved.

The air above Prosperity was chock full with shards of metal reflecting radar waves, small decoys singing their siren songs to every targeting sensor in the area, empty pods that had bigger signatures than the real thing and multiple strike packages launched by both the Rhine and her brood. Thanks to the cameras built into my pod, I had a great view of what was happening. The night was lit up by plasma bursts and particle beams. Missiles roared from their emplacements and erased their targets out of existence. Saucer shaped fighters tried to lift off from their hangars before the Rhine's first salvo hit home and set that corner of the base ablaze.

AA shot back impotently before their operators re-targeted them at vulnerable targets. KKV and slower, but able to evade munition searched for the defensive weapons and more often than not blew them up in impressive display of pyrotechnics.

Then the first wave hit the ground – ten SHIVs – Rhine's whole still operational contingent. The automated killing machines wasted no time and headed towards the barracks and nearest AA emplacements. The next orbital strike hit and the Advent armor park vanished under more firepower that nearly wiped out Nagasaki and Hiroshima all those year ago.

Time was up. My bloodstream was flooded by combat stims prescribed by my assault armor's VI and my fear melted away. It was replaced by crystal clear awareness of my surroundings. I was jolted as the pod's anti-grav drive came to life and killed most of the speed. The thin shell surrounding me disintegrated by built in charges and I found myself in free-fall for the last fifty meters. My armor's sensors were busy marking targets and a thought was all it took to trigger my gift. It was enhanced by my implants and the amplifiers in my suit before I unleashed it. For a heartbeat I was enveloped by a purple halo before it discharged into six lance made by Psionic energy.

A particle cannon tracking my descent was cored despite its heavy armor and disappeared in the center of an emerald explosion. The upper half of an Advent trooper vanished in a flash of purple and a parked APC was turned into a blazing deathtrap before I was jolted by my contact with the ground. I wasted no time and triggered my jump-jets and used them to glide away from my landing position. It was a good precaution that was a second nature for anyone trained in combat drops. It saved my life too – a heavy plasma cannon slagged the tarmac behind me. I raise a hand and sent back a Psionic lance before throwing a smoke grenade. My location was obscured by silver mist that blinded most known sensors. That was a double edged sword – my own artificial eyes and ears were equally blinded.

I cut off my jets, dug my armored boots into the ground to stop and dashed to the right. The smoke was lit up by blind plasma fire, before the weapon emplacement ran afoul of an airstrike that took it out and leveled a nearby warehouse. The ground below my feet shook Rhine's next salvo arrived and wiped out what was left of the perimeter defenses.

"All Reaper elements, you're clear to proceed. Lancer-One, secure landing zones. God's speed." The Captain's voice sounded over the comm.

That was my cue.

"Lancer Actual to all Lancer elements. Secure landing zones." I ordered.

I had two squads worth of power armor who dropped with me. Now we had to make sure that Anderson could come in safely along with the rest of the platoon and as many of the Claws as he could cramp into the assault ships.

I glanced at the map in the corner of my HUD and sent a burst transmission to my men. They pinged me back with their locations and I busied myself with giving orders. Most of them were in good enough position, however a pair had dropped far away from their designated zone. I activated my jump-jets and glided to cover their sector while keeping an eye for any still alive Advent. Surprisingly enough, the opening stage of the op went better than anticipated. No one got blown to pieces during the drop, the above ground portion of the base was wrecked along with most of the enemy's heavy equipment and with a bit of luck Klaar and company didn't ran in the way of our orbital and air strikes.

Instead of relief, I felt apprehension. In my experience, most ops that started out swimmingly, tended to go to hell in short order.