"When a field is sown with the teeth of a dragon, a soldier shall grow forth." Prince Cadmus of Phoenicia, 1972 BCE
ACV Horizon, Rayingri/Vahtz Space, Gagarin System, Armstrong Nebula, July 5, 2183
Author's Note: See that disclaimer up top? A hint of things to come. We're about to wake a sleeping dragon.
And for those who think that Tali's greatest contribution was a shotgun? Think again.
The horror dial has been set to 11. It's louder than 10.
And... happy Canada Day (7/1) to our northern cousins, as well as happy Independence Day (7/4) for all you Americans here and abroad.
Sha'ma Tali'Zorah nar Reyya entered the Bridge of a Human vessel for the first time in her life, not a mere cockpit for a shuttle or small personal craft. Having lived her whole life on the MFV Reyya, she knew the ins-and-outs of the LiveShip she had been born on, having worked on its systems and components ever since her first Suit Day. Tali had seen the Command Deck and the Bridge of the Reyya on a number of occasions, usually to aid in repairing parts or installing updated systems along with more experienced members of the Reyya's Maintenance Team. Her Birth Ship was oriented towards food production as well as child-rearing, almost a full quarter of the People having been born upon the Reyya. Maintenance upon the LiveShip was as important, if not more so, than any other vessel in the Quarian Flotilla, the Reyya producing no less than sixty percent of the necessary food components and mixtures to feed the Quarian Nation. The first time she had seen the Command Deck and Bridge, Tali'Zorah had thought it a marvelous thing.
Now she knew the difference between a utilitarian bridge and that of one of a luxury craft.
The ACV Horizon was, as the Pilgrim understood it, a 'joy' craft; it was a vessel whose sole purpose was to 'cruise' around to the benefit of 'tourists' to view vistas and sights around Earth Alliance Space. The Quarian in her scoffed at such waste, such a large vessel merely flying at half-flank so rich Terrans could sip 'wine' and eat expensive foods while gazing at the stars. According to Sara'Ryder nar Citadel vas Skybulance-37, the first full bow-to-stern deck, known as the Main Deck, had a retractable ceiling with a massive Kiggs field so patrons could look at the stars without having to jam their unmasked faces into a port window! The sheer gall! And it had a… large hole filled with water so people could fall into it without drowning! Such waste! These Humans were decadent creatures, to be sure.
But one look at the Bridge of the Horizon? Tali wanted to salivate.
"Ancestors! Look at that Command Console!" The Pilgrim squeaked, almost dropping her Rannoch Industries' Reegar Carbine Electromagnetic Emission Shotgun in her excitement as she grabbed her cousin, Niki'Raan nar Tombay. "It's a fully-integrated Augmented Reality Suite! You can just stand in it and control the ship!" The console didn't have touch screen panels for sensor readings or status updates. No, there was enough optronics and trigraphic emitters surrounding a circular pad on the deck to suggest that a person could fly the vessel with a wave of their hand! She could see the touch-spot AR gloves for the Helmsman to interact with the ship, along with what appeared to be an advanced AR visor for the pilot to wear so he could see both Real-Time and AR. The Flotilla had nothing like this! Ancestors, who did?
"Incredible…" Niki replied, her vox'ed-voice awed at the sight. There were other positions on the Bridge, likely mostly pertaining to addressing the needs of crew, both civilian and ship. But the Helm had all of Tali's attention. And she was going to be interacting with it!
The Bridge had been secured with no fuss, the four-man 'stack' having breached the Command Deck and clearing it of any hostile intent, Captain Jane Shepard announcing that it was clear seconds after the breach team entered the Bridge Door. The Command Deck was completely bereft of life, which was never a good sign. There was no evidence where the Bridge Crew had gone, either; no signs of violence, no bodies, no bullet holes, no signs of struggle. It was a kes'la room, a ghost room. The one location that should always be manned on a vessel was unmanned. That did not bode well. The Quarian saw that the big game hunter Urdnot Wrex and Sergeant First Class Ashley Williams were pulling security at the entrance of the Command Deck to defend TEAM LION from any hostiles, but there was no sign of anything wrong… except that there was no one to be seen.
"Specialist Zorah." The Captain called out. Tali jumped a little at being addressed by a Captain and a SPECTRE. "I need you to run a systems diagnostics with the thought that there will likely be intrusion software, corrupted sub-programs, and logic bombs waiting to destroy any component trying to interface with it." The Pilgrim had been made aware that this was to be her duty; to kickstart a vessel that might not be able to. While Captain Shepard didn't say it out loud, she meant Geth. Physical hardware platforms didn't need to be present for Geth to be present. The Servant Race was, after all, merely sentient code, and could infect a system with their presence and turn a vessel into Geth.
"Aye aye, Captain!" The Dataware Specialist replied as she clipped her Reegar Shotgun to her back, freeing up as much space for her to work as she queued up not only both of her Armali Councils' Nexus OmniTools with upgraded patches and anti-viral defenses, but hand-programmed apps and malware suites. Chief Ryder had pulled her aside two days before and directly asked her if she could hack into high-level security systems. It was a stereotype that many Quarians suffered throughout the galaxy thanks to their presumed engineering skills, computer skills, and the fact that they accidentally created a sapient computer race. Tali understood that Sara wasn't asking to accuse her, but to ascertain where her talents laid. The Pilgrim had demonstrated some of her skills to Chief Ryder, Agent Zevin Raeka, and Detective Garrus Vakarian, all three of them impressed when she had brute forced her way through Alliance Cryptocommunications Protocol and stole the next weeks' CommSEC key to keep the Normandy's' communications from being intercepted and listened to in less than a minute. Her next task had been to improve the very same Crypto so it was more difficult for someone else. Tali had been proud of herself to show her worth, though a little nervous that she had demonstrated her skills in front of one of the vaulted Special Crimes Detective who just so happened to be a Rapid Response Unit Sniper as well. Despite that, she had impressed three very smart, very gifted individuals.
Now it was time to prove to this bosh'tets what a Quarian could really do.
"SHODAN? Create VPN suite and route through personal TOR server." Tali told her Natural-Language User Interface Virtual Intelligence System as she stepped into the Helm's Augmented Reality Suite, looking to the gloves with a wince. Ugh, five-fingered sapients! The Pilgrim merely raised up her own three-fingered hands and began to conduct as her visor's Augmented Reality Overlay began to input over her Rainmeter User Interface skin printed on the inner-surface of her visors' SMARTglass, and upgrade she had purchased thanks to Sara'Ryder after the dataware specialist had made the request. Installing it had been a tuho, but well worth it. It was certainly better than her previous, Aero. Tali threw out her hands, spreading her fingers apart as data-links interfaced with the touch-spot pads integrated in each of her six fingers, SHODAN linking her fingers' gestures to her inputs and commands. "Run a Kerberos Integration Protocol and listen in for Nonces and insert a Man-in-the-Middle script for datakeys. Open up a Side-Channel and listen in for encryption protocols and Sniff for any Access Signatures, and give me a tactical Threat-Model reading compiled when you've mapped the system."
[Understood, ma'am.] SHODAN replied in her helmets' audio speaker as Tali's visor began to graphically populate the systems map that SHODAN was investigating, giving the Quarian the sense of what she was facing against. To think, Humans hacked away from an OmniTool and looked at letters. The Rainmeter skin displayed her CPU statistics; speed, temperature, data usage, percentage of RAM allocated, virtual memory usage, and data swap in the Upload/Download graph to the port of her sight while she looked at the tabs at the top of her Overlay, displaying a whole host of Apps and Hacks she had stored in her EnviroSuits' integrated protein chip memory drives. [Ma'am? I detect dormant self-replicating software.]
Queep.
"Captain? We've got self-replicating computation programs." The Pilgrim announced as she opened up several windows on her SMARTglass, her hands expanding them and placing them oriented towards her liking. "Could be that someone installed it to destroy the ships' systems, but I doubt it."
"Geth." Captain Shepard came into her view, standing to where Tali didn't have to turn, of in front of her and to her right. Her transparency program made it to where her work was highlighted while still being able to see.
"Extremely likely, Captain." Zorah replied, not having tried to 'access' anything. "I'm performing surveillance and reconnaissance right now to get an idea of any bugs or Zero-Day Vulns I can exploit that haven't been noticed yet. The Geth are good… but they're logical." Her eyes shifted to the Human Council Agent. "They don't improve a vulnerability unless something proves it to them that there is a weakness." The Geth didn't use Red Teams or Pentesters to discover weaknesses in their software, and the Quarians had been using that oversight for centuries to collect data for the upcoming Evening War. "It looks like all the systems are in a low-powered, automated state. Trying for access will alert the malware that I'm attacking, so I will only get one shot at this. If I can breach into the Security System and install a Rainbow Team to read through the Hash and Salt to gain a Geth Digital Signature, I can upload a RAT and gain root access into the core system."
"And then you'll have Admin Access." The SPECTRE got it. Ancestors, she hadn't asked for an explanation or questioned her about time tables or difficulty level! "How much time do you need?"
"Give me… five minutes to get a full reconnaissance layout of the security encryption level and a detailed analysis of any Jailbreak possibilities or Spearphish any OTR opportunities." The Pilgrim replied as she pulled down one of her tabs, looking at the pre-scripted mal-hacks she had preloaded. No, the Asymmetric Warfare Worm wouldn't do. Too popular. She looked at some of the historical ones as she 'grabbed' a script labeled Cannibal and opened it up in the main window front-and-center. It was a worm geared towards digi-social engineering, masquerading as old Geth software that hadn't been updated; a previously accepted client with an outdated certificate, so to speak. If she sent it to the client server and the Geth probed it, it would 'eat' the intrusion and mutate itself into the current Geth programming protocols, quickly adapting and updating itself to the current host clients' acceptance protocol. It was a good hack she had written after Therum while having a nice conversation with Chief Gregory Adams about thermal dispersion routines for the Stealth Frigate. The Normandy's Chief of Engineering probably had no idea that she had been scripting while delving into complex analytical discussion about how to keep the ship 'cooler' while having its Internal Emission Systems on to provide longer run times. Yes, Cannibal would do nicely. IF she could gain access without alerting the Geth system protocols of the attack, she could theoretically control Geth hardware platforms with Kerberos data nuggets attached to orders anywhere on the ship as long as they were connected to their own TAILS Virtual Private Network. If she could do that, she could literally order the Geth software to 'collect' themselves to a single server and disable its access, effectively assassinating the hardware platforms from their brains and containing the Geth onto a singular, and very vulnerable, location.
"Take your time, Loyd Blankenship." Tali didn't get the reference. Must be a Human thing as she continued to work with her Cannibal worm, adding two sub-routine files to it; a Core Impact Vulnerability Exploitation Tool, and the EtterCap Multi-Purpose Resource Tool. Tali pulled an EtherApe Apps to monitor network traffic data, displaying the frame-rates off to the bottom right of her SMARTglass as she entered more code into the Cannibal program, typing quickly in a Scapy Packet Crafting Tool. Cannibal was going to be a monster worm, already pegging near a gigaByte in size as she soft-tested the data-rate connection of the vessel's servers, and saw that they were 10G XTE Speeds. The attack would come fast… as would the repercussions. The Pilgrim activated one of her dataware packages, a multi-core processor that would at twenty-five gigaHertz to her processing speed, several dozen megaBytes to her serial Bus, and a Bosmun sub-particle coolant to keep the temperature down. It took her three minutes to compile, and another minute to test in her Virtual Private Network, seeing the worm populate quickly. Nodding to herself, she condensed the data, and masqueraded it in a pseudo-Geth packet that was retrieved from Therum, having scrubbed the code for its base components for potential access. Tali didn't know the End Code User Access Level, so had kept the original all-important Library Access Pass from the Trooper Unit she had phished.
"Captain? Prepare." Tali'Zorah announced as she took the code she had complied and added to, distributing it as a Remote Access Trojan attack in the form of an upgrade request. If the Geth 'opened' the package, hell would be unleashed by the means of a Brute Attack for password protocols, a Denial of Service attack to clog up its processors and cycles, a growing BotNet to turn its own servers into her favor, all the while Ghosting itself as a normal Geth program that would spread and spread throughout the network until it infected everything. They were 'technically' on a Geth ship, since the Geth didn't need to physically be on a vessel to own it, having an electronic presence instead. "Ancestors, watch me and smile!"
The request was sent.
Tali's Augmented Reality Overlay displayed on the inner curve of the SMARTglass installed on her visor shifted, letting her view display the 'tree' that was her hack as a tendril of blue shot forth towards the massive computer complex signature that was the Geth mainframe, graphically represented for her as the Pilgrim shifted her hands and created two wheel-like apparatuses to mimic her processing speeds and signal strength, able to aim and allocate where her efforts would be best used while keeping an eye on her suits' on-board computing temperatures and the Geth's attempt to upload into her systems. The malware computer virus worm encountered the system, 'ignoring' the firewall by acting as an independent actor requesting access, and being 'brought' inside the polybaric trinary-coded electronic defenses set at ten thousand plus bits. Realistically, she would never hack/penetrate that constantly mutating and evolving defensive barrier that was the Geth's firewall; she doubt the entirety of the Salarian Union working as a singular State Actor could accomplish the task. No, she was performing an Evil Maid Attack, to be given permission by tricking the Geth. Realistically, about half of hacks involved doing this, and sentients and synthetics fell for it because there was always data requests and programs that were needed. The true effort wasn't the access; it was the hack itself. The blue tendril of Tali's Cannibal worm 'touched' the request for update, and the Geth programing storm on the other side of the firewall sent its own red tendril back; a sub-system program query. The Geth program performed a cursory look, no doubt seeing the beginning and ending tags on the worm, and identified its Common Access Code. This was merely the access, the Trojan Horse, as Humans were wont to call it. Simple stuff, really. The query was performed, and the red tendril touched the blue tendril, the handshake performed.
"Show time."
Tali'Zorah nar Reyya watched as her worm shot into the program query, 'eating' its code and mutating it, adapting it, and taking it for its own. The red tendril of Geth computations changed into blue as the light shot forth from the firewall barrier and towards the governing system of the Geth sub-Collective, the tiny branch slowly thickening as it connected with the storm of Geth adaptive algorithms. The blue tendril of Cannibal hit the seething mass of Synthetic Intelligence Systems, branching through the storm of constantly-evolving systems and programs as tendrils came into contact with sub-systems, programming, command lines, and input, beginning to look like a young tree with the flowering branches as the worm grew and grew, eating more programs and converting Geth systems into Cannibal. The trunk began to grow as Tali's left hand slowly increased her signal strength, accessing her EnviroSuits' power supply to boost the strength while her processors' temperatures began to increase with the power. The strength began adding speed to the Cannibal program as the branches grew longer and more complex, more tendrils spreading from the trunk as her program attacked the broiling storm of Geth, her ARO SMARTglass showing the personal war she was leading against the Servants.
Red threads erupted from the storm and struck the main trunk of her hack like lightning. Geth Cyberwarfare defenses.
The defenses had their effect; her hack was slowed. Tali's right hand increased her processing speed, increasing the strength of her hack, making it harder to fight back while dialing down on the speed of infection and integration, finding a balance for her power usage to keep her temperatures down while fighting the Geth. More red lightning defender programs attacked her trunk, but they did less damage as her Cannibal program grew in strength instead of size.
"We'll be having none of that. SHODAN? Focus on Trash Bin file storage." A PiP window opened up as she changed the settings for her attack on what was normally an undefended backdoor program often overlooked by Humans and Turians. A branching tendril shot out towards the recycling bin program as Tali adjusted its speed, going for swiftness and surprise as Cannibal corrupted the simple program, and all the data included within it. Thousands of useless documents and files were quickly corrupted as it turned into a thicket, thousands of branches and tendrils returning to their original locations as the files were returned to where they had been sent from, spreading thousands of weak tendrils everywhere. Tali smiled as the red lighting of the Geth's CyWar defensive strikes turned away from the trunk of her Cannibal program to assault the breach as she increased the signal strength with her left hand to maximum, watching her power and temperature gauge take a hit.
The branches grew in strength as they spread like a forest in the storm of the Geths' processors and activity, attacking programs and sub-daemon routines as they ate and mutated anything in their way as Tali focused on other avenues of approach. Like their hardware platforms, the Geth would adapt to her tactics, so she had to keep them off-balanced. She went to another branch and toggled its processing strength, hardening its connection as the weaker-yet-more prolific garbage files ranged deep throughout the data cluster. The defenses were 'pruning' her advances in dozens of locations a second, the worm doing its job well. The Scrapy Packet Crafting Tool was creating requests by the thousand in a Distributed Denial of Service attack to clog up the servers and slow down Geth runtimes while Core Impact looked for any Jailbreaks or Spearphishing exploits. EtterCap was running havoc through scripting protocols, turning letters in to symbols and vice versa, forcing the Geth to correct the airs while defending itself from several avenues of attack. Tali moved through her branches, adjusting the strength and speed of different areas, either from making them faster or stronger. She continued her relentless assault as she watched her power slowly deplete while her temperatures began spiking into the yellow area, heading steadily towards the red.
"SHODAN? Brute Force a Root Attack." Tali commanded as she selected everything in her attack and max'ed out both dials.
The effect was instantaneous.
Hundreds of thousands of infected programs under her command lanced right into the core processing unit of the Geth Collective, hitting it with the subtlety of a Dreadnaught's kinetic strike. The firewall protecting the root system was strong, but the Geth's attention had been on the mutating worm infecting unnecessary programs. Instead, Tali had limited its intelligence by turning their programs into her programs, adding to her strength while weakening them, and then striking it when the Geth least expected it.
And like that, she was in.
"I have root access command!" Tali announced, not bothering to hide the joy in her voice from the accomplishment. The first thing she did was to partition the root systems from the rest of the Geth servers, setting up a VPN Network through her TOR systems to keep it and herself from being vulnerable. And then just to be nasty, she sent a reformatting routine through the partition. Let the Geth eat Void. "Ship systems and command are now under my control, Captain Shepard."
"Good work… Captain Zorah." The Human SPECTRE replied, clapping a friendly hand on her shoulder in congratulations. Tali blushed. Hard. Her Rainmeter skin was showing that her core processors and temperatures were slowly sliding back into the low yellow range, and that she was perhaps a little low on 'Suit power. Well, she did carry extra Universal Power Cells for a reason.
"Accessing Security sub-daemon files, ship access, and surveillance." Tali announced as her touch-spots began accessing files as she kept an eye on the partition. She didn't doubt the Geth would try to kick her out whenever they were done fighting the reformat trick. "Instituting physical lockdown on all levels, access hatches, maintenance hatches, and sub-levels. Surveillance… has been corrupted beyond recovery. We want eyes on? I'll have to re-write a program I've never seen from scratch for each sub-section of the vessel. That could take hours, Captain." That wouldn't do, not with a vessel hovering in between two planets that could sink it to crash upon either of their surfaces. "I'm looking at error logs and data requests from approximately seven days ago, Captain Shepard. It looks as if… there was a docking procedure with the Xterra?"
"That's a Corvette's name." Petty Officer Sara Ryder replied, standing over by one of the monitoring station for the bridge, trying to access something on the ships' library. "I can't think of why the shark would need to dock with the cruise. I don't even know if they can unless there was a medical or security emergency that would involving linking ships. Do you think that the Xterra was used as the Trojan Horse?"
"I found a AudVid file." The dataware specialist pulled it up, and brought it up on the main display holoscreen for viewing as TEAM LION watched on as the AV file played.
"Oh… oh fuck…" Sergeant First Class Ashley Williams spoke up as everyone watched on as the file ended, a ten second clip that ended with static. Now they had an idea what had happened. Ancestors of Humanity, please take these poor souls to their Eternal Reward, Tali thought to herself at what she had seen. She had only heard stories about Eden Prime, but stories weren't enough. What they had seen on Therum didn't prepare her for that level of brutality; in that, the rescue team had been lucky.
"What… were those?" Marshal Samantha Collins asked, standing by the Bridge door, pulling security. There was only a one word reply to the Level Two SPECTRE's question. Only one word was needed, given to her by her Level Three counterpart.
"Husks." Captain Jane Shepard replied.
Petty Officer (Second Class) Sara Elaine Ryder toggled her Tech Armor app as high-grade OmniGel gushed forth from her OmniGel Dispersal Units she had installed onto her HMWA MasterGear SPECTRE Mk. I Armor, solidifying to its correct perimeters over the rigid parts of her highly-advanced armor for extra damage protection. She knew that for the upcoming fight, shields and barriers would be useless against a melee opponent, but a physical barrier would do just fine. She grabbed her custom-made M-37 Falcon Duel-Purpose Objective Weapon in her hands, pulling back the heat release mechanism to make sure that the ammo block was fully seated properly and the shaver correctly aligned as she looked over to Federal Marshal Samantha Lynn Collins (SAMS, OST), suited up in her own Mk. I Armor, ratcheting her HMWSG MasterGear Mk. I Shotgun ready, the Federal Marshal's face looking hard, the Tridend Colonial Markings of her late-bondmate Nihlus Kryik making her look that much more fearsome. The sight of that video, of seeing dozens of Husks avalanching from the opening airlock and tearing into the awaiting personnel of the ACV Horizon had been a sobering sight for all of them. Who knew how many there were… and how many more had been made?
"Tali? Open bridge door, and give me the most direct route to the Core Room. Lock down everything else." Auntie said over their SquadComm, SAM monitoring their traffic feeds and encrypting them through the means of a Quantum Entanglement Protocol piggybacked through her 'little brothers' Node carried on Sergeant First Class Ashley Williams' back. Collins had been guarding the door with Urdnot Wrex on the other side, the big game hunter hoisting his Nakmor Arms' Graal Hunting Shotgun in his meaty three-fingered paws, ready to dispense a messy death to anyone. Now that they had a good idea what they would face, everyone had brought out the 'hits', as Auntie said. Anyone carrying a shotgun was told to arm themselves with one. First Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko had minifabricated Claymore rounds for his Milkor M32 SuperSix MPML Munitions Launcher, while Ash had her Kassa Fabrications' Armageddon Objective Shotgun, the same she supposedly used on Eden Prime, Sara supposed. Those without shotgun capabilities were put in secondary positions for suppression and flanking tactics. While the Corpsman had never fought Husks, one of the training modules that Auntie had on the Arc was dealing with a sprinting enemy with the capability to tearing a man to pieces in seconds. The program had been true to what Jannie had seen on Eden Prime, and they had learn that the best method was brute force.
On a ship with thousands of people, they had no idea how many there could be… or if more had been made.
"Keep an eye on those corners, and take knee when you need to cooldown." Auntie said as she stood in front of the Bridge door, her Alliance Offensive Firearms Initiative M-99 Saber Battle Rifle at the ready as her armored Assault Turret Bastila remained magnetically locked on her back, but its main cannon set over her left shoulder, ready to fire. Ghost, her electronic intrusion and cyberwarfare combat drone, hovered just over her right shoulder. "Three up front, with another three in back as secondary and volume of fire. Corridor runs to a turbolift that will take us to the eighth deck, which is the bottom-most full deck. That will take us to the lower two half decks at the stern of the ship where the engine core is, but we're going to have to traverse the entirety of a ship that has husks at the least, and possibly Geth hardware platforms as well."
"Auntie? It isn't just a single corridor running down the ship." Sara winced at the thought, remember a little of Deck Eight from ten years prior. Her and Scottie had explored a great deal of the ship… pretending to be Pathfinders, like their Dad. "There's a damn atrium that runs from Decks Three through Eight, from Quarterdeck to Orlop Deck. It takes up about fifteen percent of the total vessel, and it has physical staircases as well as turbolifts to go from one deck to the next. If there's Husks or Geth there…" The Corpsman wasn't exactly thrilled being the bearer of bad news as she watched helmets from several different species trade looks. "There's… ah… a large ballroom that takes up Decks Seven and Eight aft of the Atrium. That alone is probably ten thousand meters squared." That meant they would potentially be holding off anything in the center of the vessel if there were any forces not caught in the lockdown in the center of the vessel. The schematics hadn't been exactly clear on that regard, only showing each deck as oppose to the entirety of the Horizon. "We want to get through? We're going to have to go through a potential warzone on a space vessel."
"Well, that's just cheery." The Lion snorted, shaking her helmeted head. "Wrex, Collins, and myself take lead. Williams, Ryder, and Vakarian take second. Raan, Alenko, T'soni? You defend this bridge from anything and everything. Blow the hull if you have to." There was certainly no fencing with Aunties' intent. "Zevin, you've got secondary drone support, while the Marines have rear guard. Just because we've locked down electronic access doesn't mean the Geth can't enter." Sara shoulder-bumped Williams as the Colonial Soldier switched out her Armageddon Shotgun for her Kassa Fabrications' M-76 Reverent Light Machine Gun, slapping an attachment to the port side of the weapon that she had crafted herself out of a small bottle of Liquid Helium to further cool down her 'Puff the Magic Dragon' and overclock it without damaging the internal mechanics. It was a simple but effective modification. "Prepare for boarding action. Hastist suppression upon contact, take knee at cooldown for secondary team engagement in a rolling phalanx technique." Collins took to the port side of the door while Wrex took to the right, holding shotguns at the ready as Auntie took to the middle, hoisting her M-99 Saber at the ready. "Tali? Open door."
The bridge door opened as Captain Jane Shepard bullrushed through the opened portal first, her Saber leading the way as Wrex went through next and Collins after the Krogan, making a three-man front that covered nearly the entirety of the width of the corridor, their respective weapons pointing down the passageway and to where the turbolift access was. Sara was through the door after Detective Garrus Vakarian, hoisting his ERCS M-15 Vindicator Battle Rifle as he took his spot behind Captain Shepard while Ryder took hers behind Marse Collins and Williams behind the big game hunter.
"Move." Auntie called out through her vox as the front line moved at a tactical bounding pace towards the uncleared corridor towards the access door of the turbolift, weapons oriented towards the conveyances' access as Sara kept in step two meters behind Sam Collins, just enough distance that her being hit with an explosive wouldn't necessarily put the Corpsman on her back. Besides, using explosives on a ship in space just reeked of stupidity. TEAM LION traversed the corridor quickly, only being a dozen or so meters in length before terminating at the turbolift. Sara held her Falcon at the low-ready so as not to flag Collins in front of her as the Marshal had her body practically coiled around her HMWSG Shotgun, slightly scanning back and forth from left-to-right and then right-to-left, her aim just touching the doors in front of them before they passed; a cop-clearing tactic. Despite Tali'Zorah having the doors electronically sealed, it was never smart to assume the Geth or someone else would find away to circumvent the electronic security and find a way to physically bypass it. They were at the turbolift door in less than a minute as the Marines took a knee and guarded the passage they had just traveled through, not having truly cleared it since they hadn't entered any of the rooms. "Tali? Open turbolift access."
The door parted and slid to the sides of the wall with no less than six weapons pointing in its confines to reveal nothing inside save for the conveyance itself.
"Clear." Auntie called out as twelve people filed into the turbolift car, a bit of a tight fit with so many sapients at once, one of them being a Krogan, another being a Turian. Agent Zevin Raeka was already queuing up her OmniTools, her minifacturing suite on her Armax Arsenals' H-Series Predator Salarian-oriented Heavy Battle Armor spitting out a pair of reconnaissance drones that hovered over their heads. Sara had seen them fly and detonate on contact on Therum, disposable drones with explosive suicide protocols. It was more accurate than a grenade, and Ryder didn't doubt that the Not-Dalatrass could control the level of detonation for each. Both drones hovered above Raeka's head, spinning about like a binary pair of moons. "Zorah, Deck Eight, if you please."
"On the way, Captain." The turbolift didn't even shudder as it began to move downward from the Fo'c'sle towards what would be the Lower Gun Deck on an Alliance Carrier-Class Vessel, but merely called Deck Eight on the Horizon. The Normandy's elevator shuddered slightly every time, and the difference wasn't lost on Sara, the expense at such a thing. The digital display of the deck counted higher the lower they went, heading towards the keel of the Carrier. When the turbolift reached 'Eight', Ryder closed her eyes and concentrated, holding out her left hand past Collins' left shoulder and 'pushed' her concentration forward, feeling a pins-and-needles sensation running from the base of her neck, traveling quickly down her left arm as a bioelectrostatic discharge exited her hand and created a shield-like dome in front of her, composed of the bioelectrical energy generated through her nervous system via the Biotic nodes attached to her lymphatic system and amplified by her Conatix Industries' L2X Implant handcrafted by her mother, Doctor Ellen Ryder, as well as the Bastion Bio-Amp that was one of two unique Amps Ellen had made for her twin children. With it, she had the power and capacitance of an L2-implanted Biotic, enhanced with better micro-capacitors and more efficient resistors for better efficiency and zero side-effects that other L2's suffered. The shield she created with her Biotics, what she called her 'Aegis Shield', was made to reflect frontal attacks, returning potential damage back onto a threat. It was a form of defense as well as having the ability to harm an opponent. Urdnot Wrex did something with his left hand as well, the air shimmering in front of the door, obviously also creating a Biotic defense as the turbolift rested at Deck Eight. "Opening the door now." Tali'Zorah's voice came over the SquadComm. "May the Ancestors guide your aim."
The door opened.
Three people rushed out the door with weapons raised as Captain Shepard, Marshal Collins, and Urdnot Wrex occupied an empty corridor measuring a hundred meters long at least as Sara Ryder came out next, followed by Detective Vakarian and Sergeant Williams, their own weapons appearing over the shoulders of who they stood behind, or around their bulk in Ash's case with Wrex. Six guns pointed down the corridor in less than three seconds, but there was nothing there. Well, that was potentially a good thing. The less opposition they faced on their way to the engine core, the better.
But that also meant that everyone was somewhere.
"Bound forward, mark time, pause in front of intersections." The Level Two SPECTRE announced as the first three moved forward at a speed slightly slower than a normal walk, moving in a tactical manner so as to be able to fire accurately while moving, able to take the recoil of their weapons and re-engage an opponent in less than a second. Sara, Garrus, and Ash stalked right behind Shepard, Collins, and Wrex, their weapons at the low-ready as they kept the same pace, their eyes up and moving for any signs of threats. The Corpsman paid particular attention to the cabin doors that were the passenger quarters for the cruise, common pneumatically-sealed doors that were coded for privacy and security. Her own room that she had had been one of the stately quarters on the First Deck when her family had been a part of the Horizon's inaugural cruise ten years back, a large cabin that was likely three times the size of any of these quarters, if the amount of access doors could be believed. A part of her almost wanted to visit that cabin. A part of her was afraid to.
TEAM LION approached the first intersecting corridor that went from port-to-starboard, what would connect to the other two corridors that ran the length of the vessel, maximizing the volume of the decks for passenger volume. Though the central corridor seemed bereft of life, the port corridor or the starboard corridor could easily contain persons or entities of threat value, able to attack by traversing the ship where there were no doors to close and lock until they reached the Atrium. The Lion held up a left fist in a signal to stop as she detached Bastila from her back and let the contragravity armored hoverturret proceed forward to survey the intersection without putting any of them in danger as the first line took a knee to gain maximum volume if the enemy were alerted to their position.
Bastila moved forward, traveling silently on its contragravity buoyancy levitation modules and propelling itself on a whisper-quiet enviro-compressor, sucking in the atmo and pressing it out through small multi-directional jets that could pivot for three-hundred and sixty degree maneuverability and turning. Auntie had crafted it with reconnaissance in mind, keeping Bastila as quiet as possible for missions that required surprise and audacity in mind, and made the hovering mini-tank well-suited for its role. Bastila moved forward, its sensors no doubt checking both sides of the intersection simultaneously, and a soft 'wooow' chirped from the assault turret, meaning it had detected no present life signs.
"Bastila, move forward, keep three meters in front of my position." The Lion ordered as the front-line team stood up and began to tactically-bound forward again. "Rearguard? Keep eyes on the corridors as we pass them. We can still be flanked." The Captain reminded the Marines whose job it was to guard their rear. If an enemy were to be sighted to their rear, Ryder knew that her line would do an about-face and add their fire to protect the team while Jannie's line would hold the 'rear' position, maintaining full security. It was a hard thing to do to keep ones' back to a firefight to watch a sector of fire with nothing in it. That was one of the main differences between military discipline and mercenary discipline; trusting the men not only beside yourself, but trusting them with your back. "Zevin? Can you leave one of your drones in the intersection for monitoring purposes?"
"Affirmative, Agent Shepard." The Salarian Not-Dalatrass replied, and Sara knew without being told that the Salarian female was doing just that. A sacrificial drone that was meant to be a self-sacrificing weapon. It kept their numbers up while preventing them from losing unit effectiveness or the advantage of their infiltration of the Carrier. It was a smart play. "Reconnaissance is tethered to the intersection, SPECTRE."
"We move forward." Auntie's vox called out softly as Jannie's three-man team moved forward, their weapons sweeping the corridor, Sara following behind the Marshal, her M-37 Falcon sure and steady in her hands as she watched Collins sweep-and-clear with her HMWSG Shotgun. Bastila had the lead, keeping exactly three meters in front of the forward team, its main cannon pointing forward as its sensor suite swept the corridor as well as they began to approach the second intersection.
Again, Shepard had them pause as the hoverturret moved forward, 'clearing' the side passages with its sensors and presence. It gave another electronic affirmation of clearance when it spotted nothing in either the port or starboard passages. TEAM LION moved forward again, another of Raeka's drones left tethered to the intersection as the Marines watched their rear in case something tried to come at them from the rear, their Valerion Kinetics' R36 Karseus Battle Rifles ready to engage. They crossed the second intersection and headed towards the access door that was labeled 'Atrium' in large, black stenciled letters across its eggshell-white surface.
"Captain!" Tali'Zorah's voice came through the SquadComm, a hint of panic in it.
"What is it, Tali?"
"I can't bring up the Horizon's security cameras, but I was able to secure some of the footage of the attack after the Xterra's docking." The Quarian replied, her tone still… afraid. Sara felt her eyes going to Garrus Vakarians', the Special Crimes Detectives' slightly ovaloid blue eyes looking at her. "The Geth were here physically, and rounded up what appears to be all the passengers and surviving crew members… as well as the corpses of those who fought back and lost."
"Oh. Oh shit." Sara gulped at that thought. Eden Prime and Therum were a lesson on what the Geth did to the captured and the dead.
"Everyone?" The Lion asked, her tone pure steel. Auntie was partitioning her emotions for now, but Sara knew rage when she didn't hear it in Jannie's voice.
"Unknown, but at a guess? At least two-thirds of all accountable personnel." The Pilgrim informed them. Two-thirds of over four thousand people?
"That's at least twenty-five hundred." Sara did the math automatically. She couldn't help it. "I think it's safe to say this won't be a rescue mission at all." With that many enemy forces, it would be impossible for someone to hide or sequester themselves to where they couldn't be pulled out. The only real question was… "Dragon's Teeth?"
"Yes." The dataware specialist replied, her voice thick. "I count at least two-hundred and fifty units for assimilation, Chief. With nine days in between docking and right now…" Tali didn't finish the statement. She didn't need to.
Everyone on the Alliance Civilian Vessel Horizon was now a Husk.
"There… there were families here." Ryder felt her heart bottom out, like her soul wanted to throw up. "God… kids." That had the big game hunter growling viciously; Krogan took hard offense to crimes against the young, regardless of species. "Lord, judge not what their bodies do."
"Where was the collection point, Zorah?" Jannie remained practical; she had to. Thankfully, the Alliance trained N's to be just that; professional and lethal no matter the circumstances.
"Video logs suggest the central spire known as the 'Atrium'." The Quarian replied, her tone still heavy. "I have at least three pieces of evidence that they were brought from various points of the vessel to Amidships. Bow, stern, port, starboard, Quarterdeck, Orlop Deck… the Geth were likely logically thorough."
Not a word was said amongst TEAM LION, but Sara saw everyone looking at one another. Their eyes said it all.
"Good work, Tali. Keep to your orders, and see what else you can discover." The Captain replied, logging off from the SquadComm. The redhead executed an about-face and took a knee, opening up her Kassa Fabrications' Polaris OmniTool and bringing up an app. "Alright, everyone. Listen up." Her voice was still made of steel as Auntie worked on her OmniTool while everyone else remained in their positions and monitoring their sectors-of-fire. "Priorities remain the same; head into the engine core and return maneuverability to the vessel with the intent to pilot it back to Alliance Space. There is a possibility that some may have survived, though unlikely. Regardless, we will not abandon this ship to whatever devices the Geth have planned. Here's the update;
"We will return to the turbolift and hold there." The Normandy's Commanding Officer informed them, her armored visor looking up from her OmniTool. "This corridor is nearly three hundred meters long, and we will turn it into a funnel. If there are Husks in the Atrium, we will get their attention and have them come to us. If they batter the other doors down and make their way into the port and starboard corridors, they still won't be able to flank us. We hold the position and have every gun eliminate the threat until they no longer come towards us. Then we send recon drones to see if there are any other Husks or surprises waiting for us. When the Atrium is cleared? We move to the engine core." Jannie tapped on the App she was pulling up, and Sara watched as the Lion minifabricated a small shaped charge. "This will be a long and hard endeavor, folks. There will be… small Husks." Sara's heart shuddered at the thought of children being turned into Husks, but realistically there was nothing they could do about it. Jannie was right. "You see a Husk?
"You pull the trigger."
TEAM LION was set and ready.
Sergeant First Class Ashley Madeline Williams held her Devlon Industries' M-92 Mantis Sniper Platform in her hands as their twelve-man team held the position in front of the turbolift, the door opened for access in case a tactical retreat was needed. The Skipper had them set in positions; three of the Marines, Private Nathanial 'Ballsack' Balsach, Private Louis 'Brassiere' Broussard, and Private Holland 'Lapdance' Hoss, were lying in the prone at the front. Lance Corporal Oblong 'the Kenyan' Ubantu, Lance Corporal Hong 'K-Pop' Jeong, and Petty Officer Sara Ryder were in a crouched position, practically sitting on their ankles right behind the Marines in the prone. The Skipper, Marshal Sam Collins, and Urdnot Wrex were in a kneeling position, their weapons just above the crouched shooters. Agent Zevin Raeka, Detective Garrus Vakarian, and herself were standing up while holding their respective sniper rifles with the order to 'whittle' whatever came through the Atrium door. Everyone else was going to stem the tide with their respective rifles, but the snipers would take the long shots to keep the hallway from becoming too embroiled with presence of Husks.
It wasn't hard for Ash to remember the horrifying shock of seeing her first shambling Husk pulling itself from a Dragon's Tooth and sprinting right for her… its' Colonial Army Light Onyx Armor plain to see.
"Everyone? I'm blowing the charge in five seconds."
The Skipper had a simple but effective plan; a kill tunnel. Tali'Zorah nar Reyya was to open the Atrium door to allow access for the Husks to come at them. The Lion was going to blow a shaped charge that was essentially a noise maker, to garner the Husks attention and have them investigate the point-of-impact, right in range of their weapons. TEAM LION would engage them, depopulating the Atrium and its dangerous, likely lethal, zone with a location that was likely to be in the favor of the Normandiers. It was essentially the same tactic that Ensign Jane Shepard used on Elysium during the Assault back in '76, defending a school from slavers. With a corridor that ran nearly three hundred meters long and twelve weapons pointing down it, they could hold off potentially thousands.
They were going to have to.
Shepard touched something on her OmniTool after giving Tali the go-ahead, the doors to the Atrium in the central corridor opening, blowing the charge.
Even through her suit, Ash could hear the telltale moan of a Husk's attention being garnered.
"Zombie Apocalypse time." Williams said with a heavy heart and steel in her voice as she lifted her Mantis' SMARTscope to the faceplate of her armor, looking through the device and its auto-correcting reticle. At three hundred meters with no environmentals to alter the trajectory of a shot, this was likely to be as easy as gauging her zero and adjusting her weapon's accuracy at a range… albeit with moving targets that would rip her from limb-to-limb if they reached her. She knew that Husks were really once-upon-a-time Human Beings, horrifically changed. It wasn't like shooting a pirate or a slaver, someone who had chosen the wrong path and would be paying the price with a righteous bullet. No, these people had be converted against their will. It was worse than slavery.
The moans multiplied and grew louder as the seconds wore on before the first Husk showed up. Ash could see through her scope how little it looked like a Human Being; its skin molted and shriveled-looking, dark blue veins crawling under its flesh, the veins almost neon-like under the skin, subdued but definitely glowing. Then there were the eyes. The eyes were the worst.
The eyes were gone, ruinous cavities that glowed a hellish blue from the depths of the sockets.
"Army. Take the shot."
Williams took a slight breath, held it for the briefest of moments, and squeezed the trigger of her Mantis evenly.
The Husks' head snapped back as a fifteen gram round introduced itself into the center of its skull, entering the nasal cavity at over a percent of the speed of light. A spray of blackish blood blossomed from behind the desiccated head as the assimilated creature stumbled half-a-step backwards before dropping to the deck like a puppet with its strings cut. Williams whispered a quiet prayer to the soul that once belonged to that body, having noted that the clothes were oriented towards going to a beach. It had only been wearing swim trunks, obviously being a Human male. That… was someone's son, someone's brother, someone's father. He had been worse than dead, and she had given him mercy.
The shot had its intended effect.
The moans turned to ear-piercing shrieks, an instinctual alert of warning and challenge coming from what sounded like a dozen altered throats… and then even more. Several more appeared through the opened doorway into the Atrium, at least four, with what looked to be more gathering behind them deeper in the large room.
"Snipers? Engage with full prejudice."
Three sniper rifles went to work, quickly and competently in the hands of trained professionals. Agent Zevin Raeka fired her Ariake Technologies' M-90 Indra Automatic Sniper Rifle with sure hands, while Detective Garrus Vakarian operated his own Kassa Fabrications' M-98 Widow Sniper Rifle with cool precision. Williams fired quickly and accurately, each shot finding its mark, going for the better target of the chest shot instead of head shots. The Husks were moving as the first three dropped almost simultaneously with the Skippers' order, and then they began to fire in sequence; Zevin, Vakarian, Williams. Zevin, Vakarian, Williams. Each shot happened a second apart to whittle the number of Husks beginning to pour through the Atrium door while keeping their weapon temperatures down.
The funnel that was the door worked to their advantage as the first several bodies of Husks clogged the entryway, forcing the Husks to mind their footing or trip and be stampeded by their comrades as more bodies were added to the macabre obstacle. The ones that succeeded making it through the deadly fire and the fallen charged ahead at a dead sprint, running at an easy thirty kilometers an hour; the speed of a Human athlete sprinting. Williams ignored the sprinters as she fired at the door itself, clogging the path to keep the numbers down, keeping to the sequence. Zevin, Vakarian, Williams, three bodies dropping in three seconds. The obstacle of bodies was becoming a carpet, Husks struggling for proper footing while they broiled forward, some being pushed aside by their fellows from the Atrium as the ones coming forward were being engaged by the rest of TEAM LION, being threshed like so much wheat.
It was a killing field.
Ash fired her fourth shot when her Mantis' overheat alarm finally rang off, the Colonial Soldier pulling back the heat dispensing bolt on her sniper rifle as Zevin fired again, Garrus having to pull his bolt back after the previous shot. The Marines with their Valerion Kinetics' R36 Karseus Battle Rifles were engaging Husks with three-round bursts, cutting down runners quickly. Doc had already pulled her heat bolt back on her M-37 Falcon, the five-round burst of her weapon going through the heatsinks' capacity quickly, though she was able to cut down two with one burst if the angle was right. The Skipper was mowing down Husks with her Saber with cold efficiency, locking back her bolt after eight shots and pulling out a SOCOM N7 Hurricane Submachine Gun, quickly pulsing shots. Ash waited the pre-requisite five second wait to cool off her sniper rifle as she snapped the bolt forward and took aim through her SMARTscope.
She drilled a hole through a chest of a female Husk. Zevin, Vakarian, another hole, this time a fat Husk. Zevin, Vakarian, a Husk too small to be an adult. Prayer. Zevin, Vakarian cooling down, a shambling Husk, probably an elderly person in life. Rock bolt back.
The floor was carpeted with Husks within the first minute.
Urdnot Wrex was opening up with his Cipritine Armories' Phaeston Heavy Automatic Rifle, suppressing numbers that were getting past the initial line of fire as Marshal Sam Collins put three-round bursts through her Nexus Engagement Reliable Firearms' ECS-10 Modulus Battle Rifle. The Marines kept up with their steady firing routine, none of them losing their cool and not firing through their entire heatsink like Privates were wont to do. The Husks were already past the furthest intersection, and beginning to get closer to the nearer one.
Rock bolt forward. Zevin, Vakarian, fire, a Husk to the ground. Zevin, Vakarian, another Husk added to the pile being pushed to the side by other Husks in their attempt to flood them. Zevin cooling down for the second time, Vakarian, another soul given mercy. Prayer. Zevin still cooling down, Vakarian rocking his Widow's bolt back. Take another life. Dispense heat.
Bastila, the Skippers' totes awesome hovering mini-tank, was magnetically latched to the ceiling, kept from firing initially. It didn't have great range, meant for short-to-medium ranges, built for suppression and cover-denial. It began to fire, its duel co-axial machine guns firing at an alternating pattern of four round bursts each, going back and forth to maximize volume. The effect was instantaneous as Husks reaching the closer intersection were introduced to the meat grinder of rounds, black ocher and desiccated flesh splattering all over the egg-white duraplast walls and maroon carpeting.
The moans filled the corridor, almost drowned by the constant barrage of gun fire as Ash watched Sara pull out her HMWSM Submachine Gun and began firing fast pulses at the targets less than a hundred meters away as her Falcon cooled down while Sam Collins drew leather and fired six fast shots with her Smith and Wesson Model 696 MA Revolver, six Husks crumpling with their chests blown out. The corridor was clogged with Husks practically tripping over themselves in their rush for TEAM LION, killed bodies being shoved away and forgotten upon the deck as the ones behind them shrieked and sprinted, only to catch death themselves.
Bolt forward. Zevin, Vakarian, fire into the crowd, watch two Husks drop. Zevin, Vakarian, heart breaking at the sight of a toddling Husk.
Lord, please forgive me.
Pull trigger. Dispense death.
Ash pulled out her Reverent when her Mantis went heat critical, mag-locking it behind her back with one hand while ripping 'Puff the Magic Dragon' off her chest with her right hand, activating the Liquid Helium bottle as she began to fire in a Sprinkler tactic; three short bursts from left-to-right to take out a Husk with each burst, and then a fully-automatic sweep back right-to-left to suppress and damage. She did this several times over, more so than she would have without the 'Overkill' modification she had slapped onto her Reverent. The Husks were less than twenty-five meters away, bodies piling up as the closeness of them almost made it a turkey-shoot as Vakarian switched to his ERCS M-15 Vindicator Battle Rifle and Zevin Raeka her Kassa Fabrications' M-55 Argus Battle Rifle, pumping rounds as fast and as accurately as they could.
Ash locked back the heat dispensing bolt on her Reverent as she drew her ERCS M-3 Predator Combat Pistol with her left hand and fired into the oncoming crowd, probably not doing much but still adding to the round count as she held her Light Machine Gun in her right hand still. Bastila was firing slow to keep from overheating as Sara Ryder was alternating between firing five-round bursts and shotgun rounds through her M-37 Falcon, and Marse Collins was firing with her SPECTRE Shotgun, pumping slug-weight rounds through a couple of Husks at a time.
Ash holstered her Predator with its upper cover back to dispense heat as she hoisted her Reverent and began to spray. She went through the entirety of the heat sink in a single go; normally a no-no. But the effect was devastating as a dozen Husks were chewed up, meeting the meat grinder as Wrex did the same with his Phaeston. The weight of the Husks were pushing the dead forward, still gaining ground as everyone continued to fire, going through heat sinks and ammo blocks. Williams shot at skinny Husks, fat Husks, tall Husks, short Husks, fully-clothed Husks, even one in a bathrobe.
She was indiscriminate as she went through the entirety of her Reverent's heatsink, able to fire over a hundred rounds thanks to her 'Overkill' bottle as she slapped the Light Machine Gun on her chest and yanked out her Kassa Fabrications' Armageddon Shotgun, firing all six of its shots as quickly as she could, watching corrupted flesh shred and splatter as she pulled her ERCS M-9 Tempest Submachine Gun and fired it in a cone at the teeming mass of Husks that kept coming closer. She went back to her shotgun and fired six more times, switching it to fire her Predator left-handed. It was like a slow-moving avalanche, the coming wave breaking over the bodies of the dead, dying themselves, and being pushed down and away by those behind only to be shot as well. And like an avalanche, it seemed unstoppable.
"Fall back to the turbolift!"
Williams grabbed her Reverent and fired good solid bursts as TEAM LION retreated in a Turian fashion; herself and Wrex provided high rates-of-fire to provide covering fire for the rest of the team as they turned and entered the conveyance, Detective Vakarian and Captain Shepard standing by the doors to cover them. Lance Corporal Hong Jeong got up from his kneeling position after Balsach, Broussard, and Hoss extracted themselves from their prone position and filed past the rest of TEAM LION to occupy the turbolift, but was unexpectedly jerked to the ground, a Husk who had survived being shot having crawled forward and gotten a hold of his ankle, yanking it and the Marine to the ground. Jeong fell to the ground with a cry as the Husk raised its arm and Ash watched as she fired into the crowd of Husks as two strange-looking tubules erupted from the knuckles of its right hand and stabbed Jeong in his ankle, making the Marine cry out in pain.
"K-Pop!" Doc Ryder shouted as the Corpsman dived forward in absolute disregard of her own life as she grabbed onto K-Pops' wrist with one hand and drew her Model 696 with the other, shooting the offending Husk in the head as she began dragging the Marine back into the turbolift, emptying her revolver into the five closest Husks as Williams covered her, her teeth aching hard as she clenched them. Doc and Jeong were the last ones on as the Skipper shouted for Tali to shut the doors as the Husks were practically at the door now as Marshal Collins emptied her Mk. I Shotgun into the mass of enemies while PFC Broussard stood by her side, emptying his Karseus' into the broiling mass of bodies as the doors closed with finality.
Zombie Apocalypse Time, Ash thought as the doors closed and the turbolift moved, me and my big fucking mouth.
Author's Note: SHTF? Yes, yes it did.
I promised hacking; real hacking. Minus me typing the shit in C++ or JavaScript, every term that I used is a real life use involving InfoSec, hacking, protocols, and methodology. Since I can't hack for shit, I had to work off of resources to get a 'feel' on hacking operations, both White and Red Hat. I know I tend to describe a lot (like with weapons), but this would be a massive chapter if I did this with hacking. Which I can't do.
SHODAN - yes, named after the antagonist of System Shock, as well as the real-life Google-like search engine to detect connected devices on the internet, like baby monitors. A Natural Language User Interface System actually comes with an example; JARVIS of the Iron Man/Avengers movies is a Natural Language User Interface System. So… Tali is basically Tony Stark minus not being a weapons tycoon. Or a playboy.
Loyd Blankenship, a.k.a. "The Mentor" - The granddaddy of hackers, active since the 70's! While Robert Morris is given credit for inventing the first Computer Worm (to gauge the size of the internet in 1988), Blankenship is one of the 'first generation' professional hackers, and part of the infamous group the Legion of Doom. He has written essays that are considered the manuals to the hacking culture. For an idea of his professionalism? This guy wrote the GRUPS CyberPunk manual for Steve Jackson Games in 1990, which prompted the FBI to raid his house, calling it 'the handbook to computer crime'. We ended up with a luke-warm version, the draft never returned.
Fo'c'sle? The Forecastle, or the deck with the Helm on wooden warships. Pronounced 'fossil'.
For Biotics, I went with something closer on how one uses the Force in the Star Wars Universe, as the explanations for the MEU were rather light on how Biotics worked. I know that hand gestures (known as pantomimes) were a part of it, as it was suppose to train your brain into developing the power/ability to work in that fashion. Instead, I went with more of what telekinesis is suppose to work; thought, concentration, and 'push', much like wild sorcery in DnD. If one wants a Barrier, one thinks 'barrier', forms it in their mind, and 'pushes' it forward with their concentration and effort. This marks the first time I really describe a Biotic power's mechanics, only using it briefly back in 'Fall of the House of Therum' with Urdnot Wrex warping damage in the Armature and lightening loads in the shaft, and then Sara basically swatting a Krogan away in the elevator.
It's funny to think that all those Zombie Apocalypse Preppers think that their cute M-4 will let them survive. No. You will run out of ammo. You will get tired. You will get swarmed. There's a reason there are so very few battles won against overwhelming odds throughout history.