56 Days ASR Horizon
Shepard stepped down off the shuttle and looked up at the Collector cruiser looming over the colony. "Sweet baby Jesus," she whispered, taking a couple of steps toward it. Finally, a decent look at one of them. A slow, twisting sort of superstitious terror crept through her, slithering between her ribs and curling around her spine, chill and scaled. It looked as though it had been flown straight out of hell.
"Know your enemy," Garrus said, voice hushed and subvocals flat.
Glancing his way, Shepard rumbled, a low moan of discomfort turning over deep in her throat. She reached up to rub the back of her head, a slow wave of dizziness washing over her, just a knee-deep surge of warm water and foam, gently pushing then drawing her back.
"Shepard? Are you all right?" Martin clapped a heavy hand down on her shoulder, the grip feeling like a docking clamp. The dizziness receded.
"Yeah, fine." She rubbed the back of her head again, feeling a little like the back door and all the windows had been left open, a sweet spring breeze blowing through. "It's just, every time I learn more about them, the more impossible they seem." Looking up at the Collector ship again, the fear vanished, leaving nothing but a very healthy dose of contempt.
Shaking off everything but the business at hand, she turned toward her people. "Mordin, how sure are you that these emitters are going to protect us from the swarms?" Her stare locked on the salarian.
"Only exposure will tell," he replied, moving over to stand next to Chakwas, Vincent, and Miranda. Kaidan, Thane, and Jack lurked just behind them, weapons at the ready.
A wry chuckle slipped out, riding the back of a long breath, and she nodded. Of course that was his answer. Time to push on. "Okay, science team, you'll hang back ten minutes, let the assault team clear a swath through the bad guys." Looking to Miranda, she said, "Shuttle Alpha is under your command to ferry samples or to pull you out if necessary. Don't risk the brain trust." Gaze slipping past the operative to Kaidan, she nodded toward Chakwas and Mordin. He responded with a tiny salute.
"Shuttles Bravo and Charlie. Lt. Cortez, do you read?" The colonist evacuation team sat thirty kilometres outside the colony in shuttles with geth prototype stealth drives. Hopefully with the assault team making a lot of noise, the other two teams could do their work in relative peace.
"Cortez, here, ma'am. Reading you loud and clear. Shuttles and extraction teams ready when you have colonists to evac."
"Roger that, Lieutenant." Shepard took a deep breath, blinking a little as the alarm in the back of her skull twitched. Just a blip that didn't make sense. She felt nothing off. "All right, assault team, let's move out." She nodded to Javik to go ahead on point, falling in on his four, Nihlus at his eight.
"Anyone else feel like that thing is watching them?" Martin grumbled from Shepard's six. Despite the worry in his voice, he moved sure and steady, all honed reflexes and combat assurance.
She glanced behind her, admiring the man for a moment before she nodded. "It looks more like a hive than a ship, but it is just a ship, kid." Lifting her arm, Shepard cast a quick glance at the gleaming gauntlet of chiastyllia wrapped around her forearm. "Do you have anything that will help us? Can you sense where the Collectors are? Where survivors are?"
"Our range is limited, as is our knowledge of the Collectors. Our connection to the Cynosure has been severed just as yours have been to your vessel. We feel others, crying out in pain, the pain all they've known for cycles beyond counting." The chia went silent for a second, then a heavy jolt of panic lanced through Shepard from the gauntlet. "The suzerain are here! They're here. So many chiastyllia screaming, begging for release. So much pain!"
Shepard clapped a hand to her temple, pain riding hard behind the lightning bolts of fear and grief. "Calm down!" she said, the words a sharp, barked order. "Stop forcing your emotions on me, or I'll leave you here." Shepard focused her will into a blade that severed the chia's connection and the construct opened. Pulling her arm free of the two halves, she moved to make good her threat. "I won't be manipulated. I need to fight, so if you're going to come with me, you need to stay calm so I can focus. Stay calm."
The rush of emotion ebbed. "The Collectors were taken by the servants of the suzerain and changed over the long tide of cycles to serve their needs, to be their eyes and hands from dark space," the chia said, as if the entire freak out had never occurred. "One such race is always chosen to prepare for the next cycle."
"So, the Reapers can control them from dark space?" That thought slapped her with both dread and an odd hope. A link to the Reaper fleet could prove invaluable. What if they could find a way to tap into that signal? She slapped the gauntlet back on, and sent a quick message to Miranda to collect intact Collectors if possible.
"Now, you're meant to be here as a help, not a hindrance," she told the chia. "No more outbursts, just scan and feed me data." She nodded to Nihlus, who'd stopped to wait, a hip cocked, his arms crossed with his rifle slung across them.
He lifted a brow plate. "Ready? Or do you need to argue with your arm a bit longer?"
"Move out," she said, levelling him with a haughty glare that she completely belied with a crooked grin. The smartass face he made in return set off a sweet ache behind her sternum. Playful Nihlus was a beautiful thing, and suddenly that tiny ping went off again … the one that unleashed the woman who had agreed to kids a couple of nights before.
Focus. Damn it, that's worse than the chia freaking out. Lock that down and now, Janey.
Drawing in a long, cleansing breath, she settled her Mattock in her hands, the familiar heft grounding her back into the all-too-familiar arena of life and death, bullets and things so much less sweet to contemplate than her future family.
They entered the colony from the west, the opposite side as the Collector ship. They'd hoped that further away from the vessel, they'd locate more survivors, but they found absolutely nothing. At least their armour modifications held as the seeker swarms swirled, as oblivious as leaves on the wind. The colony reminded her altogether too much of Noveria" the feeling of hostile eyes watching and waiting for the perfect opportunity to bleed them.
Her boots whispered through the tall, dry grass, each footstep sending sylphs and tiny butterflies fluttering into the air. Shepard drew in a deep breath that smelled of dust and clean, sweet meadows. The colony remained more undeveloped than she would have thought, just prefabs thrown down on the grasslands. Not that it wasn't nice to see people leaving some of the world intact, but the lack of the usual markers of life and civilization just made it feel more like a ghost town with each passing street. At least the spiders lay dormant and silent inside her head, so no black orbs awaited them.
She frowned, reaching into that aired out house inside her head. The spiders … . She prodded gently, like a tongue worrying a sore tooth, but not—
"Incoming," Nihlus called back in a soft whisper, his tone snapping Shepard into battle mode. Then she heard it. Husks howling … the frantic scramble of feet in the grass and bodies flinging themselves over obstacles in a ramshackle rush. Nihlus nodded toward one of the houses. The long building's windows all stood open.
"Yeah, we'll need decent cover." She signaled Martin and Javik. "Take the end doors. Close and lock them. Keep them that way."
"I'll go up," Garrus said, gesturing toward a ladder with his rifle, "and try to thin the pack as they close in." Shepard nodded, watching him climb for a second before heading inside.
Shepard stood in the window closest to the approaching husks, waiting for a visual, because nothing showed on her HUD. So much for the chia being of use breaking through the Collector jamming. The garbled howls drew closer, a manic grin spreading across her face. It sounded like a lot of the bastards. Glory hallelujah, a decent fight. No fucking mind games, no eldritch monsters, just husks, and she still held onto a few IOU's from Eden Prime. She switched her Mattock for Ingrid.
As the howls grew nearer, realization dawned: a sharp slap in the back of her head. No spikes anywhere. There hadn't been any on Freedom's Progress either. That meant experimental, factory husks brought in on the Collector ship. She didn't harbour a single doubt about a processing plant on Earth, not after Thessia and Palaven. And maybe, just maybe there might be something about these husks, something contained within them, that might lead her to the factory.
The first appeared, running through a narrow alley between buildings. Shepard checked that she had disruptor ammunition loaded, then pulled her old lady in against her shoulder, sighting the head on the second. With a boom that shook the building, Garrus dropped the first. Not to be outdone, Ingrid punched a hole straight through the second husk's face.
A third one fell, but a swarm of the frantic techno-zombies followed on its heels, the press quickly overwhelming what Shepard and Garrus could bring down. Shepard launched an overload into the thickest part of the crowd, Garrus, Nihlus, and Martin following suit before they all opened fire.
Despite corpses covering the ground so thick that they hid the grass, a heavy wave of husks still reached the house. Grabbing hold of the window ledge, clambering over each other, they swarmed up and over, pouring into the room. Where the hell had so many come from?
What started as an orderly fight dissolved into chaos, assault and sniper rifles traded for pistols and knives, fists and boots. Bodies surged, pressing in and eventually separating Shepard from her squad.
Clawed, dessicated hands wrapped around Shepard's throat and the collar of her armour from behind, a sudden, scrambling weight sending her stumbling. Throwing herself forward, she ducked her shoulder hard and flicked her hip, trying to flip the husk over her head and out the window. For a moment, she thought the move had worked, the husk's grip sliding over her skin, its nails screaming along the ceramic armour. Then it's fingers caught a grip and the floor just disappeared from under her feet. A second later, she hit the ground outside the window, flat on her back, husks leaping on top of her like pro football players.
Gasping, the wind crushed out of her, she pulled her pistol in tight against her body and pulled the trigger, punching a hole straight up through the pile.
"Shepard!"
She heard her name shouted from all sides above the insane, garbling noises of the husks, but couldn't shift beneath their weight, not even to get enough air to yell back. Then her pistol ran out of shots.
Fucking, goddamned heat sinks. She wriggled her arm loose and bashed anything she could land a blow on, fighting to clear a path to her omnitool. A scream clawed its way from her throat as sharp-nailed fingers dug into the wounds on her cheek, tearing her open. Biting down hard, she cut it off and swallowed it down, unwilling to give them that much power. Instead, she blocked out the pain, and hammered her way to her weapon interface.
"By all that's fucking holy, I'm not dying in the middle of some goddamned husk gang bang." Her bellow of rage provoked an answering chorus of roars and moans from the husks.
Note to self: If you survive this, get a fucking pistol that hasn't been fucking well retrofitted.
She launched Droney, then set her overload, overclocking it enough that it could well fry the emitters, and render her unconscious. "Better that than ripped to shreds." Clenching her teeth, she hit the control, and the world exploded into white hot light and searing pain. Clawing hands stilled as electricity arced and tore through the pile, locking all Shepard's muscles into a rigor that twisted her backwards until her spine crunched like twigs underfoot.
"Shepard?"
Instead of trying to answer Nihlus, Shepard concentrated on breathing, a feat achieved fluidly thirteen seconds later. Twenty-nine seconds later, she could move, and shoved her way out of the pile of fried husks. Instead of heading back inside, she hobbled across the street, taking cover on a small balcony to whittle away at the husks from behind.
"I really need to stop doing that," she sighed, collapsing against the railing. "Sweet baby Jesus, that hurts like a sonuvabitch."
"Are you all right?" Nihlus called over the husks and gunfire.
"Yeah, just bbq'd myself a little." Her legs regaining some of their strength, she popped up over her cover and emptied her Mattock's heat sink into the backs of husk heads, the dance smoothing back out into the familiar rhythm. Everything settled into place, the enemy falling as senseless, brainless zombie-creatures should when facing a squad of big, goddamned heroes.
The flood of husks ended, and the street hunkered still and silent in the Collectors' shadow, not even insects droning through the air or in the grass.
Shepard leaned into the railing and pushed herself up, stretching once straight to work all the kinks out of her battered muscles. Giving herself a shot of medigel, she stemmed the slow bleeds from wounds torn open by the husks. "Everyone okay?" she called.
"Javik and Nihlus both got a couple of bites and gouges taken out of them," Martin reported.
"Nothing that a little medigel won't patch," Nihlus said, talking over Martin at the last. "We're ready to move out, Shepard."
"They know we're here now," Shepard said despite knowing she didn't need to. She picked her way through and over the twice dead corpses, aiming for the alley from where they'd come. "If you're up and functional, let's keep moving."
"I need another minute," Martin said. "Need to bandage Javik." A muttered tirade from the Prothean followed, but Shepard couldn't make out any words until Martin replied, "Oh, stop grousing."
Shepard grinned and shook her head, then crouched down next to one of the husks, rolling it over on its back. The Collectors had definitely upgraded them from the Eden Prime variety, making them larger, heavier, and stronger. She reached up and rubbed her neck, the muscles all torqued from tossing the one that had dragged her through the window. She stood, her hand migrating back to her head, fingertips lingering over the massive scar.
"You all right?" Garrus asked, striding up behind her. He gripped her shoulders, turning her to face him, then looked over her scrapes. "That overload couldn't have felt very pleasant." He nodded at her hand. "What's going on with the back of your head? That's got to be ten times you've reached up and poked at it."
"Really?" She dropped her hand to her side, then grinned and shrugged. "Yeah, the overload stung a bit." She smiled, hoping the expression didn't look as weary as it felt. When he released her, she turned toward the rest of her squad. "All set?" she asked, levelling Javik with a 'don't give me any BS' stare.
"I'm fine, Captain." He strode past her, taking point up the alley. "The primitive child overreacted."
"Okay, then." Shepard tossed a grin over her shoulder to the 'primitive child' and winked before setting out after Javik.
Three streets further in, they began to find paralyzed colonists scattered between buildings and hiding within. A good sign, but for the complete lack of Collectors. The further in they got, the more she felt something missing. She prodded the sore tooth, but couldn't nail down what kept pinging her alarm. Still, it kept buzzing like a wasp at the very top of her spine.
"Where are the Collectors?" Martin asked, his mutter giving her wasp a stinger. The kid leaned over a strange, almost cocoon-shaped pod. "This is what they transport the colonists in?" He sounded on the verge of turning the pod into a puke bucket. "It would feel like being nailed into a coffin and forced to watch as they buried you alive."
Shepard crouched next to him, giving the pod a once over. A second later, she stood and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, let's make sure these bastards don't stuff anyone else in these things."
They spread out across a long, wide street that led between homes and warehouses to a large, permanent structure. Judging by what she could see of the doors, Shepard figured garage, and probably the way into the spaceport and secure part of the colony. If the colonists managed to mount any sort of defense, it would be further in.
A gleam of opalescent greens, browns, and silver drew her eyes to a strange, almost insectile shape propped up against one of the pods, that one occupied. Shepard forced herself to look past the woman's expression of terror, her eyes wide and staring ... murky beneath the amber-like shell. She placed a hand on the pod. "Is this made of corrupted chia?"
"Yes, partially," the gauntlet replied. "The main casing is made up of a resin created by the Collectors similar to the construction of the computer on Thessia. The pods are bio-mechanical/electrical in nature and are meant to be slotted into a larger construct."
Processing chambers. Shepard bit down on her response, not wanting the poor soul trapped within to overhear them discussing her fate as grey paste.
Instead, she plastered what she hoped was a reassuring smile on her face; it felt like a grimace. "Just hang in there," Shepard said to the trapped colonist. "We'll get you out as soon as we can." Swallowing the urge to tear the thing open with her bare hands, she picked up the object that had grabbed her attention in the first place. "It's a weapon." She aimed it down the street and pulled the trigger. A heavy beam tore down the empty street and burned a hole through a low fence. "Blessed fucking Enkindlers, it's a hand-held particle beam."
Garrus stuck his head out an upstairs door. "I think you'd better let me take that," he called down.
Shepard shook her head and cocked an eyebrow as she hung it from her back, her Mattock settling into her hands. "It's always the biggest gun with you," she said. "Somethings never change." She looked down at the pod again, hoping its inhabitant could hear her. "We're going to push ahead, clear out the Collectors, but I promise you, a team is on its way to get you out and take you somewhere safe."
The pod pulled at her with the gravity of a super-massive black hole as she took her first step down the street, but each step grew a little easier. The extraction team would rescue all the paralyzed. Her duty lie in securing the colony and killing every Collector that crossed her sights. And so, she pushed on, heading toward the garage at the end of the next block.
When Garrus fell in at her four, Shepard stopped and cocked a shoulder toward him. "Go ahead, Callor, you can take the big gun." She chuckled as he took the weapon, a rolling purr of pure gun-porn pleasure vibrating in his throat.
"Shepard!" Martin stuck his head out of a top floor window. He vaulted through the open portal, dropping easily the five metres to the ground. "What about the rest of us?"
Pointing to the path ahead, Shepard squinted against the brightness and said, "Go, find some Collectors, kill them, and take theirs." The sun's glare stabbed straight in from above the garage roof. "And keep your mind on the mission, there's a reason we were hit by such a massive wave of husks." She stabbed her Mattock toward the fence she'd hit with the particle beam. "Move up, get into cover, keep eyes on. They're setting up an ambush."
When the kid moved to take his position, Shepard dove into her belt pouch for her sunglasses, slipping them on. Not that they helped all that much, the glare still proved blinding. Perfect conditions for an ambush, indeed.
Shepard moved forward, keeping to the center of the open space between the buildings despite every shred of common sense she possessed insisting that she stick to cover. The Collectors sent the husks to slow her down, but also to test them, get a read on their strength. The next wave wouldn't be so easily taken down, but even then, it wouldn't reveal their full strength. Let them see her coming, cocky and exposed, maybe they'd show their hand.
The wasp stung, sending a jolt down her spine.
"Nihlus, scout ahead, twenty metres ahead of Martin on the left." She pointed toward a small shed and generator that provided decent cover. "Javik, up on the lower porch on the end on the right. Garrus, upper balcony, same building."
Everyone moved into position as she continued forward, moving slowly, but steady.
Maybe ten metres before she reached the end of the first block, a papery sort of buzzing sound tickled the outside edge of her hearing. It reminded her of the drone of a large dragonfly.
"Does every breath still taste of grave dust and ashes, Shepard?"
Shepard froze, the voice stopping her in her tracks, the wasp sinking a stinger the size of a K-bar ™ into her spine. She knew that voice. It had reached out of the stone on Thessia and possessed the swarms on the Cerberus station.
"Have you wondered why your terror of darkness and death have lost their hold? Do you feel them moving, inevitable and welcome, at your core?"
"Incoming," Garrus called from his perch. His voice—supremely confident and ready for business—helped banish the voice and the sliver of ice it stabbed down through her. "Flying in at our twelve."
Shepard tore her hand from the base of her skull, and shaded her eyes against the sun, a small cloud of shapes dropping down out of the blue.
Isn't that always the way?
And for a moment, she froze, something … ugly and nameless and blacker than sin … blacker than the tar-spiders that lived between the folds of her brain … pressing in on her from that lying sun and powder-blue sky.
The spiders … she felt nothing, not a twitch or a skittering leg, and the reason for the sting finally registered. That open door and the windows letting in the breeze … they were the fresh air of freedom. Shepard clapped a hand to her temple. Sweet Jesus, she'd actually forgotten what it felt like to be alone inside her skull.
But no spiders meant no protection from the Reaper indoctrination signal. Eyes remaining glued to the incoming Collectors, she dove into her belt pouch for a syringe of the indoctrination serum, injecting it before moving forward once more.
"Do you feel it?" the gauntlet of chia cried, their voice laced with terror that they blessedly kept to themselves. "They're here."
Shepard took standing cover behind a wall. She could feel … something. Greed … no … not greed, hunger … a ravenous, endless hunger to recover what was stolen. A hunger so pervasive as to constitute madness.
The echoes cannot be allowed to complete the Catalyst at any cost. We will regain our rightful place. The servants will obey and perform the task for which they were created. The thralls will thrive in our care, never again rising up against us.
"Yes!" the chia said. "Yes! The suzerain. They need to reclaim their servants … the entire galaxy."
"Neutralize Captain Shepard," the deep, terrible voice said from a couple of metres distant, tearing Shepard away from the distant presence and madness of the suzerain. "Kill the rest."
"Fucking hemorrhoidal Enkindlers," Shepard grumbled, clenching her jaw. "As if one terrifying evil power wasn't enough. We had to get stuck in a war between two."
She glanced out. Collectors landed along the grassy courtyard. The closest one strode toward her, its shell cracked and glowing as if magma threatened to explode through, just like the little drones. Swallowing a bolus of overwhelmed helplessness, she pressed her back to the wall. Oh well, two evil powers or not … she just needed to kill the ones in front of her, and keep doing it until she'd cleaned the galaxy of every last one.
"Possessed drone," the gauntlet said, its volume lowered to a whisper.
"Whatever the hell it is, it's dead." Shepard ducked out of cover just in time to face a ball of undulating black energy flying straight at her, another ball … that one like a ball of flame … following right on its heels. She turned back into cover, then something slammed into the wall, throwing her back, right into the path of the shot. Throwing herself into a roll behind the wall, she felt the fiery ball slam into her left hip. It sent her sprawling, flames exploding along her armour. She covered her head, the stink of roasting hair filling her nostrils before a torrent of cold and wet splashed over her head.
"Drop your arms, Shepard."
She did as Martin said, scrambling up once the kid extinguished her hair and the effect burned itself out. "Shit. Avoid that one." She gave him a shove toward Javik's position, not willing to send him back across and expose him to the drone boss's attack, then took cover again.
"Garrus, you have eyes on that glowing bastard?" she called rather than sticking her head out to see and chancing another hit.
"Affirmative. Another attack incoming, move!"
She rolled further behind the wall, then stepped back. Black tendrils, almost like the indoctrination field around the Conduit, snaked through the wall. A couple seconds later, the fireball roared past the end. "Hit it with a concussive shot," she said, returning to her cover. Once she heard his shot impact, she leaned out, launching Droney before opening fire. As soon as her tool pinged, she keyed up incinerate, the power turning the Collector into a pile of ashes.
"Okay, we know how to kill that one now," she said, turning her attention to a drone armed with one of the particle rifles. The rest went down easily, only eight of them taking the field. A test for certain, and probably a delaying action. Shepard strode over to the last one to fall and picked up its weapon, tossing it to Martin. "There you go, kid. A great big gun, all your own."
"It's power cell is almost drained," Martin said, shoulders slumping. "Can't wreak bloody doom with no charge." He crouched next to the dead Collector. "Maybe it was carrying a spare." After a second, he let out a small crow of victory.
Shepard strode over to the first set of garage doors. "Nihlus, Javik, watch our backs." Activating her omnitool, she set into bypassing the lock. Someone had scrambled the hell out of it, giving her a reason to hope that some of the colonists had made it to safety.
Garrus hefted his particle rifle. "I imagine the geth will be able to take these apart and adapt them for standard power cells." He hung it from his back. "It tore through the Collectors in seconds. I can't wait to see what it can do against the Reaper units."
"Garrus," Nihlus said, gesturing his fratrin over. "Take my position for a minute?" When Garrus replaced Nihlus, the Spectre walked over to lean against the door next to Shepard.
She glanced at him for a split second before returning to her bypass.
"Do you feel it?" he whispered, pressing close.
Shepard frowned, but stayed focused on her work. "The spiders are gone. Whatever the suzerain are, they've completely pulled out of my head. Is that what you mean?"
He shook his head, his mandibles canting a little. "No, although that might be a part of it." He cleared his throat. "I feel something … a pressure … like … ." He grumbled. "I can't explain it. It's not strong or clear enough, but it feels like it's coming from Merol, or the beacon information, anyway." Shaking his head again, he muttered, "There's something about this place. Feels like … maybe I've been here before, or something."
Shepard let out a soft cry of victory as the lock succumbed, then turned to look into Nihlus's eyes, searching for any sign of trouble. She didn't see anything but a deep concern and some confusion. "Keep yourself open, we'll see." She shook her head and reached up to scratch at the back of her head. "The presence from the orbs has pulled out, but otherwise, I feel as jammed as the comms." And she did. Her emotions felt flat … distanced.
His brow plates rose, slanting a little. "Except your alarm keeps going off, doesn't it?"
Sucking in a strong breath, Shepard nodded. "Yeah, except that." She tipped her head toward the garage. "Let's keep moving. Beacon mischief or no, there's a trap waiting ahead of us. Of that I have zero doubt."
"Extraction team to Shepard. First two shuttles are loaded and away."
Shepard slapped the door control. "Excellent news, extraction team. Keep me informed. Shepard, out."
Inside the garage, people stood packed tight, standing room only, every single one frozen, surrounded by the amber and black smoke. They might not have kept the seeker swarms out, but they'd managed to avoid the Collectors and their pods.
"Let's move. We're taking too long to get through here," Shepard said, pushing through the wall to wall colonists. "At this rate, they're going to have ninety-eight percent of the colony."
The door on the far side had been scrambled, but luckily set to release from the inside, and they emerged back into the sun. Shepard cracked her neck, feeling as though she'd just crawled through a mass grave. The sun did nothing to ease back the dank chill, especially when she reached the top of a short ramp and turned into an elaborate complex, Collectors wandering the walkways and gardens, standing inside the buildings as if they belonged.
Shepard dove into cover praying to the sweet baby Jesus that they hadn't spotted her. She waved the others into cover by her side. Using hand gestures, she organized their assault, Martin and Nihlus hitting the small clusters of husks with grenades, then Garrus and Javik—
The sun darkened as if a cloud slipped over its face. Glancing up, Shepard shielded her eyes against the glare of the piercing blue sky, just as cloudless as it had been minutes before. She held out a hand: shadowed. She poked at the sore tooth, but the spiders hadn't returned, so that wasn't messing with her eyesight.
"Is it getting darker, or is it just me?" Martin shifted next to her, glancing toward the sky.
"Spirits." Garrus's soft oath pulled Shepard straight back to the Collectors. She looked to her husband, then followed his stare to a massive bug-shaped metal monster flying in above the buildings. "It took the Normandy to bring down the last one of those we tangled with."
"Oh, shit." She glanced at Martin. "Get ready to use those power cells. We're in the crap up to our teeth now."
"Two more monsters descending from the top floor right rear building," Nihlus whispered. "What in the name of buratrum are they?" His sentence dissolved into a subvocal that lifted the hair on the back of Shepard's neck.
The two lumbering down the stairs from the right each looked as though someone took a few ordinary husks and smooshed them together like plasticine. Was that …? A massive cannon replaced their right arm, the damned thing made out of at least most of another husk. Their heads stuck out at odd angles, a massive sack of … who knew what … pulsating on their backs. For a moment, Shepard had to fight back her breakfast, but then the things both sent some sort of shockwave pounding across the complex toward them. Everything the splash hit froze solid.
Fan-fucking-tastic, biotic cryo zombies.
"Move out! Nihlus and Martin, head for the first building on the left. Garrus and Javik, just try to find decent cover, but keep mobile." She switched her Mattock for Ingrid, and launched Droney. "Nihlus and Martin, use your grenades on those two big bastards. Martin, Garrus, Javik get your particle beams on that massive, flying mother of an Enkindler's ass." She set her incinerate for area effect and sent it searing toward the two lumbering monsters, pulling down some of their armour.
Chaos reigned once more. The massive bug-shaped one slammed down into the ground, letting out some unearthly wail that threw everything in the courtyard onto its ass. Shepard scrambled back up, sending Droney zipping toward the biggest target. Maybe if she could keep the three big ones occupied … .
"Assuming direct control." Even over the cacophony of battle, Shepard heard the boss Collector's voice. One of the drones at the back of the complex rose into the air, writhing as if being torn apart from the inside. Then with an explosive flash, it burst … getting larger, the cracks glowing from within. It flew toward her, landing just the other side of cover.
"You escaped us before, Shepard. Not again," the thing said. "You cannot escape your destiny."
She glanced over the low wall just as Garrus hit it from behind with a concussive shot that blasted away its shields. Striking with incinerate, she rolled down the wall, coming up hard against the wall of the garage. Fuck. Nowhere to go.
"Shepard!" The air sizzled just above her head as Garrus turned the particle beam her way. "Nihlus, the glowing one has Shepard pinned."
The rumbling thumps of shockwaves cut off any replies, but then flakes of ash drifted down onto Shepard's face.
"You're clear," Garrus hollered. "Get to better cover."
Instead, she crept out a little further and sent another incinerate into the two sack-monsters, tearing down the rest of their armour. "If you've got grenades, hit those two. Armour is down." Taking a long breath, she waited for the grenades to detonate, then darted straight toward the two slow monsters, hoping to deke past them and up to the second level.
She was halfway across the complex's courtyard when the sun all but went out. She stumbled a little, recovering in time to roll out of the path of one of the cryo-shockwaves.
"Come on, Shepard," she said, growling at herself, low and fierce. "Move your ass." She dug in running hard, dodging husks and the smaller Collectors. Strange how they suddenly seemed so damned harmless by comparison.
Almost there, Janey. Almost—
The massive bug crashed down into the stairs above her, the husk heads inside its maw emitting one of its piercing 'scream of the damned' shrieks. It flung Shepard backwards, lifting her right off the metal decking, throwing her four or five metres to land flat on her ass. Crawling backwards, nose and lungs burning with scorched ozone, she raced to put some distance between them as the thing pounced, landing half on top of her. Two blinding purple particle beams erupted from the thing's eyes. Shepard barrel-rolled to her right … beneath the creature. She crashed into a back leg and flipped over, scrambling out from under the thing's ass and straight into a sprint.
She'd made it halfway up the stairs when the Collector monsters suddenly all let out a thunderous chorus of screams, wails, and bellows. The power and … and … sheer agony of it staggered her, but she pushed on. She needed to make it up to the second level to provide cover for her team.
"What the hell?" Martin asked, his tone a disturbing combination of terror, delight, and fury. "What the hell?"
Reaching the top of the stairs, Shepard paused and turned in time to see the bug's particle beams tear both of the sack monsters into ribbons. Collector drones fought off husks, the tech-zombies crawling over each other and their allies like they'd caught some sort of zombie rabies. Her people stood out of cover, mouths hanging open as the Collectors obliterated each other.
The bug ended the battle flopped on its side, twitching. Climbing down a couple of stairs, Shepard finished it off with three shots into it's flickering eye-lights.
"The suzerain have come!" the chia cried.
Shepard looked up, her eyes suddenly too large and too dry for her face. She staggered back toward the building, her heart stopping in her chest, her lungs freezing solid. A ship … at least she thought it was a ship … blocked out the sky in every direction, covering at least the entire compound, but more likely the entire colony. Not even Sovereign had come close to matching the size of the gleaming, crystalline monstrosity hovering over their heads.
"The suzerain have come!"
(A-N: A day late, hopefully not a dollar short. Horizon has taken a strange, strange turn. :D Thanks, as always for reading. To those who leave reviews and comments, thanks so much. Sometimes the encouragement of readers is all that keeps me beating my head against the keyboard. I luv yah!)