Praise BioWare and pass the thermal clip.
UT-47 Kodiak "Rey Kenobi", Flight to Hadley's Hope, Feros, Theseus System, Attican Beta Cluster, July 10, 2183
Author's Note: Welcome to Priority Mission: Feros!
This will be a double-hitter; two ARCs of goodness as I increase the dial to 'Add Violence'.
For now? Welcome to THE SIEGE.
"They fall in line,
One at a time,
Ready to play;
(I can see them anyway).
There's no time to lose,
We've got to choose,
Steady at helm;
(I am losing sight again).
"Fire your guns,
It's time to run,
Blow me away!
(I will stay unless I may)
After the fall,
We'll shake it off,
Show me the way!
"Only the strongest will survive!
Lead me to Heaven when we die!
I am the shadow on the wall!
I'll be the one to save us all!"
"Hey, would you look at that? The Geth decided to come out and play."
Captain Jane Catherine Shepard (SAN, N7, OST) moved to the port window of the Bell Aerospaces' UT-47 Kodiak Utility Transport Vessel as Breaking Benjamin played over the loudspeaker of the "Rey Kenobi", and the redhead saw what Chief Warrant Officer-2 Patricia Holloway saw, the Colonial Air Force pilot pointing out the sight of white metallic figures moving amongst the crags and ruins of a fallen ancient Prothean city. The Geth were engaging the defenders of the colonial town of Hadley's Hope, to the north of the town, were a large storm wall had been constructed to prevent high winds buffeting incoming and outgoing craft from being tossed about and possibly crashing into any portion of the pre-fab constructed town. Dozens of rifles were engaged on both sides as Geth hardware platforms were using the tight confines of the basalt crags as cover, maneuvering to find a weakness in the defenses.
"Air Force? Get us within weapons range and pop open the door." Jannie commanded as she pulled off her Alliance Offensive Firearms Initiative M-99 Saber Battle Rifle from its' maglocked position on her chestpiece, queuing up a program on her HMOT MasterGear SPECTRE Mk. IV OmniTool, finding the WarApp that she had gotten from the House of Boom in the Office of Special Tactics. Yes, this should do nicely, she thought to herself with a grin as she activated the App to create the appropriate item from her armors' reserves of MetalGel, PlastiGel, CeramiGel, and OmniGel. It would take five seconds to craft, which was more than enough time for the Rey to get into range. "Wrex?"
"Get me right over them." The big game hunter Urdnot Wrex replied through his helmet, looking at a trigraphic monitor showing the battle. "You planning on having a little fun yourself, Shepard?"
"I'm the one starting the show." Jannie smirked, the facial expression lost in the confines of her HMWA MasterGear SPECTRE Mk. IV Armor's helmet, fabricated to look like the Rig Suit of Issac Clarke of Dead Space. "No worries, Wrex. I'll leave you some to play with." The shuttle banked to port as Detective Garrus Vakarian, Sergeant First Class Ashley Williams, Petty Officer (Second Class) Sara Ryder, and Niki'Raan nar Tombay stood up, having already been identified during the pre-mission brief that this might be a possibility. The rest were to secure the Landing Grid just northwest of the town of Hadley's Hope; a raised structure overlooking the mining colony and past another stormbreaker wall that protected the town. But Shepard figured with the Geth Fleet gone, the Geth would either occupy the town to hold its defensive position to their advantage, or deny the Systems Alliance the ability to prevent them from achieving a portion of their objective.
Oh fuck no. It was kick the can time.
"ETA, fifteen seconds." Holloway called out as Breaking Benjamin's Blow Me Away was changed to something more appropriate as the N7 smiled at the sound of Motley Crue pounding through the speakers as the Air Force pilot whipped a turn with the shuttle that had the vessel listing to port as the gullwing door of the Kodiak popped open to expose its crew at the last possible second, and Jannie smiled at the target right in front of her; a hundred meters down was the meat of the Geth effort, a couple dozen platforms harassing the defenders while using the crags as cover and concealment. Nowhere to run now, fuckers, Shepard smiled as she toggled her SPECTRE OmniTool, grabbed the munition that she had fabricated with its App, and launched it right towards the heart of the Geth offensive.
The Cobra Rocket-Propelled Grenade was as advertised.
The munition, a one kilogram warhead of chemically-produced high-explosives cocooned in a CeramiGel shell, fired forward with its microthruster accelerating it while keeping it on target as the hard rock guitar of the Crue lulled her into battle; her heart pounding, her blood singing as she watched the explosive round fly straight and true right into a knot of Geth assaulters, exploding where ten hardware platforms had been congregating, putting a real dent in their day. With the shuttle hovering a hundred meters above and the words of Vince Neil beginning to shout, the six members of TEAM LION exited the shuttle in mid-air to an anthem for saving the world.
"He's the wolf screaming lonely in the night,
He's the bloodstain on the sta-a-age!
He's the tear in your eye, been tempted by his lie,
He's the knife in your back; he's rage!
He's the razor to the knife, oh lonely is our lives,
My head's spinnin' round and round!
But in the season of wither, we'll stand and deliver,
Be strong, and laugh a-ah-and…
"Shout! Shout! Shout!
Shout at the Devil!
Shout! Shout! Shout!
Shout at the Devil!"
Six figures fell from the sky, weapons bared as they plummeted from a height of a hundred meters above ground level. The Geth that had been struck by the Cobra round had been battered and wrecked, none apparently getting up as the rest of their contingent found themselves in a strange sort of pincer attack from both the ground and the air. Jannie could feel the wind whip past her armor as she free-fell in a ELAELO Base Jump, toggling the Alliance Objective Firearm Initiatives' jump thrusters within five meters of the ground, cutting her decent by three-quarters as she then toggled the boost thrusters to propel her forward as she landed in front of a Geth Trooper model, hitting the ground running as she cracked its optic sensor with the buttstock of her Alliance Objective Firearm Initiative M-99 Saber Battle Rifle as Bastila disengaged from her back magnetically, the contragravity armored assault turret's weapons spinning up and engaging a Geth Destroyer with its twin miniguns as Jannie ran forward, putting two rounds into a Troopers' chest cavity, its electronic eye winking out as the hardware unit shuttered and fell to the craggy ground in a spray of white fluid and holed hull. A Hunter was landed upon by Wrex, the half-ton Krogan crushing it with his feet as he began engaging Geth with his Cipritine Armory's Phaeston Heavy Assault Rifle, laughing as he engaged a Prime unit with gusto, his left hand casting forth as the three-meter tall platform began to drift upward, spinning slowly and uncontrollably as he shot at it. The rounds caused it to spin like a top on all three axises as the big game hunter swiped his three-fingered hand once more, smashing and impaling the Geth on a crag, nearly splitting it in half.
Wrex put a dozen or so more rounds into it, laughing. Just to be sure, no doubt.
The rest of the Geth went combat ineffective as Jannie turned to see Sara put a shotgun round from her hand-made M-37 Falcon Duel-Purpose Objective Weapon into a Hunters' chest, sending the platform staggering back a meter as the Corpsman jumped forward and Spartan kicked the thing in its chest while shouting 'get some!', knocking it to the ground as she put another round where its central processor and power cell were located, ending its existence. Beside her, Niki'Raan was using her Rannoch Industries' Adas Anti-Synthetic Rifle to fry a Geth Rocket Trooper as a Shield Drone lazily encircled her head, deploying extra shielding as the Quarian loaded another electromagnetic tag to her rifle while Ryder engaged a Hunter with her assault rifle selection of her Falcon, stitching it with five-shot bursts until it fumbled to the ground. Detective Garrus Vakarian was standing in a singular location, merely pivoting and engaging no less than three Geth Troopers at different directions with his ERCS Rapid Response Unit-issued M-15 Vindicator Battle Rifle, pivoting and firing in such a way that he drained their shields and sent them reeling quickly. Shepard was impressed. Sergeant Ashley Williams was firing her Kassa Fabrications' M76 Reverent Light Machine Gun at two Geth units, a Trooper and a Pyro unit, setting the Heavy Helium tank off as it ruptured and took out both units and two more nearby ones. She then switched to her Devlon Industries' M-92 Sniper Platform and put a round through a Geth Destroyer, snapping its shields and causing the Geth unit to stumble. Bastila finished the job with a well-placed rocket to its chest cavity, turning it into so much scrap.
Jannie remembered the Trooper she had knocked down, seeing it crawling towards its fallen rifle only a meter or so away, the rest of its synthetic comrades having been Blue Screen of Death'ed. The Lion moved over and flipped the unit onto its back with her foot so its ocular sensor was looking at her as she drew and activated her Alliance Objective Firearm Initiative M-5 Phalanx Combat Pistol and put the laser dot right on the glowing reticle, her foot planted right on its neck servo. She hoped the Master Control Unit or whomever was watching.
"This is exactly what it looks like when death comes for you."
And she pulled the trigger.
For the past two and a half days, Hadley's Hope had been under siege.
Lieutenant Colonel Samantha 'Sam' Hulick had been doing her best to keep order in the mining town, its one thousand residents bunkered in the buildings of the colony proper while her Marines of the Fourth Marine Expeditionary Unit held back the constant assaults that seemed to come from one direction, ending right when another would take its place from another direction. The Half-Bird knew what the toasters were doing; running her men ragged and dry, never a moment of rest or piece. What she didn't understand was why the Geth hadn't overrun the colony or its rather simple defenses. Upon arriving to Hadley's Hope and seeing the rather poor maintenance and defensive posture, the first thing Sam had done was to get her Marines to construct a perimeter wall around the town (much to the objections of the colonists, but she hadn't cared), using the same earthmoving equipment that the miners used to dig for minerals to make a three-meter berm around the colony. It had been reinforced with firing positions, machine gun nests, and Marines.
About sixty or so hours ago, all hell had broken loose, and it hadn't stopped once.
"Lieutenant! Get what's left of Cygnus Platoon over to the south." The Colonel told her aide-de-camp as she looked onto her Blue Force program in her Tactical Operations Center, being manned as low as possible with herself, a butterbar Lieutenant as a Battle Captain, a Corporal as a Battle NCO, and a Private First Class as the Receiver/Transmitter Operator. Unit connectivity was hashed thanks to the Geth, so Hulick was relying on the old-school fashion of decision-making; plotting calls of enemy units and marking it herself and reorienting her men over pre-gen Frequency Hop communications that hadn't been hacked yet. The Lieutenant in question, 2nd Lieutenant James Vega, nodded as he got onto a physical transmitter connected by hardline to call in the action, hardlines impossible to hack or disrupt unless someone physically tapped the line. Li-Fi and Wi-Fi connections were down, there was nothing coming in on the Colonial Transmitter, and the Fourth simply wasn't there anymore.
Oh, she knew what happened, but she hadn't told her men that the Fourth was now a box of scraps floating about Feros.
"Ma'am, I'm getting a report of… an airdrop to our north!" The RTO, PFC Jerry Taggert announcing out loud from his station where the bank of RT radios sat in front of him. "A UT-47 was spotted flying overhead and dropped off six while airborne. Andromeda Platoon reports…" The PFC stopped, turned, and looked at the Colonel with wide eyes and a dropped jaw.
"They're reporting SPECTREs. More than one."
"Shit, I think its landing on the Frisbee." Vega said, looking out of the Space Traffic Control Tower that once was used to guide vessels into Hadley's Hopes' landing platform, affectionately called 'the Frisbee' by her Marines due to its shape. The Colonel looked out one of windows to see… yes, there was a UT-47 banking hard and practically on a crash-course for the platform, performing a combat landing. It banked and just missed hitting the side of it as the shuttle practically scraped the AlumniSteel surface, the gullwing doors opening and…
…no shit, a SPECTRE.
Oh, the SPECTRE wasn't alone. Sam saw the signature HMWA MasterGear SPECTRE Armor being worn by a helmeted Asari, followed by a Salarian, six Humans of both genders, another Asari, and a Quarian female. Their weapons were out to secure the platform, and Sam winced.
They had lost the Frisbee an hour ago. The Geth ruled over it and its singular Anti-Vessel GARDIAN Laser Artillery piece.
"El-Tee, get me radio contact with those assholes before the Geth paste them." James nodded as he went to the Traffic Control panel that had been otherwise useless for the past couple of days, finding a toggle indicating 'loudspeaker'. He clicked it and diplomatically informed them at a hundred and twenty decibels their current predicament.
"Hey, pendejos! Geth overran the landing platform an hour ago." Vega said, his voice being broadcasted throughout the entirety of the colony. "Get your crest down, Blue. Geth snipers gonna drill you like it's free los joder concha night!" Corporal Susan Eby snorted at the language as she updated the log while manning another radio. Hopefully that Asari didn't have Latin Spanish as a translatable language.
"El-Tee, how soon can you get over there?" Hulick asked, looking to the Marine as his eyes went shrewd.
"Minute, tops. I'm taking Big Bertha with me, ma'am." The Lieutenant Colonel nodded her approval as the large Latino Marine pulled out a Devlon Industries' M-56 Marshal Medium Machine Gun, known as 'the Ripper' amongst the Jarheads. It was a heavy weapon that was meant for defensive positions and suppressive tactics. But in the hands of beefy muscle-bound Marines who liked their weapons like they liked their music, heavy and metal, the Marshal could be carried by a man and engage from the hip with the aid of a SMARTracking System. Or by round impact.
"Get over there soonest, El-Tee, and try to make sure you don't get your head blown off." Sam told her Lieutenant, fixing him hard with a meaningful stare. She didn't have the men to throw away.
Not anymore.
2nd Lieutenant James Ernesto Vega panted as he ran in his Aldrin Labs' Medium Onyx Interceptor Armor, cradling the Devlon Industries' M-56 Marshal Medium Machine Gun in his hands. The Marshal was a beast, configured in a chainsaw-carrying configuration where the trigger was on top of the weapon, as well as the carrying handle. Supposedly, it was to help fight against muzzle climb. Honestly, it was because it was awesome-looking. Colonel said to get those ninos and ninas from out of the open, and that's what he was going to do.
But he was going to get a little help.
"Adios! Get your cula in gear!" The Lieutenant shouted as he ran down the final steps of the Space Traffic Control Tower and out the door where a Latina Marine guarded it from Geth infiltration. The sole survivor of her platoon, she had fought her way through a dozen Geth single-handedly, killing the pendejos that had killed her platoon. That had been… yesterday and a lifetime ago. The woman in question, a short but muscular chica who didn't take shit from nobody, tossed her cigarette and hauled her own M-56 Marshal Machine Gun, nobody bothering to tell her that perhaps she was too short or too light to do so. Nope. James didn't need to find out if a chica half his height and weight might possibly kick his ass for suggesting such a thing. She was mal-culo enough to swing a Marshal? Then good for her. She hadn't been wearing her helmet, wearing that out-of-regs red bandanna around her forehead, not that it was needed to keep her high-and-tight haircut from getting in her eyes unlike some other ninas. No, this woman was like a panther, a War Goddess. She ran right beside him with both of their Marshals clanking against their armor as James led her towards the door that would put them outside of the defensive wall and head them towards the Frisbee.
"¿Qué pasa?" The female Marine asked, the Corporal looking to him as they ran for the wall.
"Reinforcements. SPECTREs. On the Frisbee, Adios." Vega told her, calling her by what she had tagged her Marshal with; stenciled on its side was 'Adios', and the name fit her perfect. She didn't need much more explanation, and didn't ask any more questions as they headed towards the door, Vega running right towards it, slamming his left shoulder right next to its frame as the female Corporal, looked to him once as Vega nodded his head, and she kicked out the door with a mighty boot. The door flung open as the Corporal led with the Lieutenant hot on her heels, bringing his Marshal to bear, the SteadyCam attaching the weapon to his body providing stability and accuracy, as well as compensating for some of its twenty kilogram weight as he stood shoulder to shoulder with Adios, their machine guns sweeping for any immediate threats.
They were in Indian Country now; past the wall, the Geth ruled supreme.
"¡Claro!" The female Marine announced as their Marshals swept, Vega going from twelve to nine and nine to twelve, while Adios did twelve to three and three to twelve, covering a one-hundred and eighty degree arc in front of them in six seconds. James bumped the Latina's shoulder with his own and jerked his head towards the base of the tower that led towards the Frisbee. From the ground, it looked like a flat mushroom. The entrance was easily half-a-kilometer away, not that far, really. Unfortunately, the area was littered with cargo containers, transportation equipment, lifting equipment, heavy excavators and buckets, and all the debris of a space port and a mining camp. It was a pinche mess, that was for sure, and one could have hidden two platoons in the shadows of the equipment, waiting to butcher a relief effort. James was looking for the best route through, and saw really only two options; go for the middle and hope for the best, or circumvent to the left where there was fewer pieces of equipment to use as cover and concealment, doubling the distance but halving the threat.
"Hermosa." Vega gestured towards the left, picking the smarter of two options, knowing that going through the middle was a fine recipe for them getting slaughtered. Adios nodded once as she took the lead, moving at a double time with her Marshal pointing forward, scanning in a tight arc in front of her while she moved at a semi-tactical jog towards the route he had identified. Vega followed her, keeping a few meters back to keep them from hopefully getting killed by munitions or explosives at the same time as he moved at the same pace as the Corporal in the lead, his own medium machine gun oriented more towards the area littered with equipment and places to hide. A hundred Geth could be secreted in this maze of mierda and they'd never know until they were on top of the synthetic race… or they started taking fire. James did a quick Ave María as he moved, his barrel sweeping toward the right as he moved, keeping up with the Corporal despite his awkward running pattern of keeping his upper torso slightly turned to the right while running forward. It wasn't comfortable, but it was more comfortable than picking a bullet out of ones' culo. They jogged the distance, rounding heavy equipment and checking their corners as they moved from one piece of cover to the next, the Lieutenant using the opportunities to check their six to see if anyone were trying to flank them every time they did.
"¿Teniente?" Adios got his attention as the Corporal jerked her head towards the right, towards something that was over the cover they were using, a shipping container they were taking a knee at. Obviously she had seen something around the corner, and was getting his attention. "Once agresores. Buscar y destruir patrón" James winced at the description; eleven Geth in a search and destroy mission. The machines must have picked up that they were there, and were actively trying to find them and kill them. There was really only one thing he could say to that.
"¡Que se jodan!" Vega replied fiercely as he pivoted on his knees to where he was facing in the same direction as the Corporal, duck-walking behind her so that they could move together. "Israeli Corner, hermosa, on three." James whispered to his new subordinate, the woman nodding fiercely as her dark eyes flashed with anger, pivoting the Marshal to where the trigger was on her left side, switching her hands to perform a corner-clearing on the right side; difficult to do for a right-handed firer without exposing too much of their body. The simple solution was to switch hands at the cost of firing in the non-natural way, suffering some inefficiency for the bonus of more cover. It was worth it. Vega did the same as he stood, practically towering over the kneeling female Marine. "Uno… dos… TRES!"
The both took a step out in the open and began to engage.
The Israeli Corner was a corner-clearing tactic that had two men clear a sector at the same time; one kneeling, and one standing. It offered maximum firepower and protection for the clearers, though the person at the bottom had to deal with the fact that there was an active weapon right above their head. Still, having two Marines firing upon the enemy was better than one, and having two M-56 Marshals even more so. James saw the Geth as he began to engage them, the Marshal roaring in his hands as the recoil shook his arms and shoulders as the SteadyCam's stabilizers and gyroscopic inertia dampeners worked to keep him on target as the weapons software management suite corrected the weapons' climb and suppressive abilities to make the weapon as lethal as possible. The Marshal was a testament to its design, meant to stop infantry advances and movement, wilting any formation with its deadly hail of fire. Firing at fifteen rounds a second and a large drum-like heat sink to give it the ability to fire in long ten-second bursts, it was deadly in the hands of a Marine, and the Finger of God in the hands of an artist. James was good, no slouch himself, but Adios was his better, and they both knew it. It was why he told her to come, after all.
The two Marshals opened up with a roar as the SMARTracking systems kept the barrels and rounds on target as the two Marines engaged eleven Geth Trooper units moving in a single column, closer together than was smart, only a meter between them. Their weapons and flashlights were scanning left and right when they had rounded the corner, some twenty meters in front of them as the pair of Marines engaged them judiciously, no quarter given nor asked for. James swept the formation with his Marshal from lead unit to tail unit quickly, deigning to create as much damage as he could as quickly as possible for his first two sweeps going from front to back, and then back to front. Semi-visible ripples erupted around the frames of the hardware platforms as kinetic defenses prevented the rounds from penetrating and striking the Geth units, the optical illusion halo appearing around their frames as their forms distorted slightly with the effect. James made another pass as he watched four of the rippling effects 'pop'; their shields were down. Two were already down by the hand of Adios, focusing on the ones closest to them instead of sweeping, as was generally the standard tactic, quickly turning the Geth units into holed piñatas. The Geth were moving into cover, firing on their position as rounds struck the cargo container they were using, as well as the ground in front of them, the sound of nearby rounds passing them by only focusing the Lieutenant as he began focusing an the bounding Geth, taking one down personally, and then moving to another. The two of them had eliminated seven within the breath of several seconds, the Marshals meant for mass enemy movements, not a small squad at close ranges, and the difference was telling as the remaining four Geth took positions behind various covers.
They didn't last very long as Vega and Adios butchered them one-by-one in duel-firing techniques that stripped the units of their shields and their functionality in a second, thirty rounds a second a murderous torrent of fire for anyone.
"Damn." James announced as soon as the Troopers had been wiped out, pleased with how well it had gone. He had barely taken any hits, and the Corporal was getting on her feet with no issues. "Wish they were all that easy." Adios reflected her opinion by hocking up and letting out a wad of spit in the Geths' direction, letting them know how she really felt. "Hey, Adios? Ever been mistaken for a man?" James asked, feeling a little cheeky. The female Marine just turned her head and looked at him wryly.
"No." A broad smirk grew on her lips as the Corporal's dark eyes flashed with surliness.
"¿Y tú?"
Systems Alliance Federal Marshal Samantha Lynn Collins (SAMS, OST) had been in many a shithole in her life; a part of the life of being in the Systems Alliance Marshal Services. As the top lawdogs of the Systems Alliance with a jurisdiction that included 'anywhere a man lives, works, or prays', Frontier Marshals and their Deputies were posted on every colony that the Alliance had to keep law and order, and the Federales like herself in locations in between said colonies. It was the job of those such as herself to hunt criminals down; she was the bloodhound that chased those who thought they could get away with it all. What made her so damn good at it was a quirk, actually; Sam was born a high-functioning Autistic Savant, with progressive social interaction abilities and high-level trends in hypercalculia. She was one of those very rare few in which her natural disability was not inhibiting, but she actually came out with a good deal of benefits. Yes, crowds and strangers still made her nervous and awkward, and she never did get the hang of differentiating between most facial expressions (yet she picked up on Turians' well enough thanks to their mandibles spacing out at certain distances, something her calculating eyes could tell), but Sam could calculate statistics, odds, spatial distances, and complicated high-level math problems in her head in rapid amounts of time. It came with an added benefit; she could translate the code of Mass Relay translation data to figure out what a ship was, how much it carried, its energy output, and several other facts by reading and deciphering its hypercomplex algorithms. That meant she could calculate and plot when and where a ship translated from… and where it went. In Layman's terms, there was nowhere anyone could run and hide from the Butcher of Torfan.
It was the reason she had been selected for the Office of Special Tactics.
Nearly eight years serving the Council alongside her husband, Council Agent Nihlus Kryik, had her going in a wide variety of locales throughout the galaxy, the ultimate shiphunter cracking down on terrorists, anti-government forces, smugglers, slavers, pirates, and criminal empires. She had been the bloodhound, and Nihlus the iron fist, the dark places of the underworld absolutely screaming at terror as she slowly dismantled every location that a pirate could hide, any slave pen that could be found, any lonely outpost a fleeing criminal could pay to be kept in hiding. Together, along with a few friends, Sam and Nihlus had scoured the galaxy of no less than seven major criminal empires, thirteen trafficking networks, and more narcotic runners than even she could remember… and she had almost perfect memory recall. For years, Collins and Kryik had worked together well, their relationship developing from professional to casual, casual to friendly, friendly to the day Sam had taken Nihlus' talons in her hand and guided him to her bed, the male she had come to trust, and later to fall in love with. The day he had asked to formally bond with her, to officially become bondmates, Sam hadn't needed to think of an answer; in her heart, she already knew.
And then a Turian Nihlus had looked upon as a sire had taken that all away.
Feros, in a word, was a shithole.
Collins was on the top of the Landing Grid, a thirty meter-by-thirty meter raised platform where shuttles could be landed, booms could collect cargo containers attached to Kolwoon-Class cargo transporters, or personnel could embark/disembark spacecraft as need. There was only one place to go on the large circular platform; a cargo container had been turned into a waiting area, one of its walls removed for access while benches had been added for a place to sit. For a waiting area, it sucked; open to the elements on one side, with no kind of atmospheric barrier for the dust or heating for the cold, its only saving grace was that… no, it just sucked. Benches and a hole where the stair access was, that was it. Not even an elevator.
Ten members of TEAM LION were using the crappy terminal as cover and a rally point. The Marines Ubantu, Hoss, Broussard, and Balsach had immediately ripped the benches from their moorings and used the MetalGel-fabricated long benches as impromptu cover when they started getting fired upon when they landed on the Landing Grid; crappy cover, but certainly better than no cover. Ensign Tali'Zorah nar Reyya had done what she could to provide cover with a pair of defense-oriented Shield Drones she had minifactured as TEAM LION hustled to the only damn location possible, buying them time to engage and suppress the enemies as the Marines built up what defenses they could. Snipers had been put out in the craggy ridge lines surrounding the colonial town of Hadley's Hope, their rounds almost devastating as the members of TEAM LION used the terminal as some sort of concealment; evidently, the logical processing centers of the Geth had yet to learn to try to shoot through cover, so that was something. The Marines had used MetalGel, PlastiGel, and CeramiGel to better strengthen their bench-berm (what Private Nathaniel 'Ballsack' Balsach simply called 'the benchhead') as Marines were taught to do; engage, fortify, and exploit tactical weaknesses of the enemy. Agent Zevin Raeka of the Salarian Special Tasks Group, their only long-range specialist, engaged the Geth snipers with her Araike Technologies' M-90 Indra Automatic Sniper Rifle, coolly putting bursts of erringly accurate fire into Geth units trying to lase and destroy them. Doctor Liara T'soni, the Asari Protheantologist, hand her hands held forward as she herself warbled slightly with bluish tint that wreathed over her armored frame; she was using her Biotics to create a defensive shield that reflected the rounds back, though the distances were too great and the angles wrong to damage the Geth. Tali'Zorah was busy making Assault Drones and Assault Turrets, sending out the OmniGel-crafted spheres to harass the Geth and the hovering little turrets to add to their volume of fire as the Marines laid waste to any muzzle flashes they saw.
Doc Negulesco was working; one of their own had been shot.
When the loudspeaker had come on, the booming voice of a Human male telling them of the threat of Geth snipers (in a rather colorful manner), Collins had ordered her team to the only cover in sight; the waiting area. They had come under fire almost immediately, Tali tossing out a Shield Drone while T'soni erected a small Biotic dome of protection as they moved towards the only position they could take, covering three sides while unfortunately leaving a fifteen meter gap of exposure from where the containers' wall had been cut. 1st Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko had been struck twice almost at the get-go; the first round had clipped his shields, sparking off his Kassa Fabrications Inferno Heavy Engagement Armor (EOD Variant), while the second shot less than a second later pierced right through his kinetic defenses and armor, piercing his right shoulder, right above the collar bone. Seaman Monica Negulesco, her first time on the ground and her first combat action, had ducked down and rushed to the Combat Engineer, hauling the beleaguered man as he stumbled forward, injured and disoriented as he grabbed his firing shoulder. Doc had rushed him to the only possible bunker and had gotten to work on his as the Marines began constructing their defenses by ripping the benches off their cheap brackets and laying them down to form a barricade, calling out Semper Fi, Doc! as they did so. Less than a minute on the ground, and Doc Nugee had already proved herself once.
Now they had to get out of this bottlenecked death trap.
Collins was engaging a Geth sniper at rather extreme ranges with her Nexus Engagement Reliable Firearms' ECS-10 Modulus Assault Rifle, having switched it to single-shot and using the three-powered acquisition scope to fire upon Geth units. It was an assault rifle, not a high-powered one, and it would take at least ten shots to bring a hardware platform down if it remained in the open. Which the Geth didn't, taking a shot at the team, and slipping back into cover. There were at least seven units sniping at them, but two had already been taken down with a combination of Indra fire, Modulus fire, and Karseus fire from the Marines. Still, five snipers was nothing to sneeze at.
"Engage hostile!" Tali'Zorah nar Reyya told her Armali Council's Nexus OmniTool, linked to her Assault Drone that had been tossed and ordered to flank and harass. The little hovering spheres weren't strong, firing OmniGel-crafted rounds out of a minifabricated electromagnetic rail that acted like a submachine gun. While not terribly damaging, it worked to flush enemies out of their positions, rounds impacting their shields to destroy their kinetic defenses. Likely it wouldn't do much to Geth armor itself, but it seemed that the Geth were more focused on shield technology rather than heavier armor. There was a distant sound of rounds blistering at a position somewhere to Collins' two o'clock, and she used her scope to track the location. There, a Geth unit popped up to aim its sniper rifle at the hovering drone.
Sam sighted and began firing, her Autistic mind hard at work to make the further-than-maximum distance target be engaged by her rounds. The scope she used was only rated for a bullet drop of four hundred meters, and the Geth sniper was at eight hundred. She knew the minute of angle for her Modulus to be a centimeter every hundred meters, and the math was calculated by her ceaseless supercomputer of a brain, though it really was quite simple to deduct. There was a five degree drop at four hundred meters, but rounds' would arc exponentially after that distance; bullet drop wasn't linear, but a J-curve. It was a four centimeter drop at four hundred meters. It was five and a half at five hundred. Seven and a half at six hundred meters. Ten and a half centimeters at seven.
Fifteen at eight hundred meters; twelve and a half degrees. Her mind did the math in less in a second.
The Butcher of Torfan began firing, putting three rounds in less than a breath with her Nexus' Modulus, feeling the recoil of every shot as she reacquired and fired quickly, her Autistic Savant mind able to make corrections much quicker than her normal Human counterparts, her reflexes almost twice as fast despite being organically the same. Three rounds went out in a second as all three struck the Geth platform, its shields having been drained by Tali's drone, and her rounds impacting against hardware.
Its chest caved in at the third shot, the platform dropping away like a puppet with its strings cut.
That's three, Sam noted, hoping the Geth wouldn't reinforce their position with four snipers left. As it was, their position was precarious with bare cover against well-aimed high-powered rounds. If the Geth found a way onto the Landing Grid, TEAM LION would be done for. She ducked down behind the benches, hearing the vwip! of a round passing where her head use to be, the Marshal grimacing as she pulled back the bolt on her rifle to dispense heat even though the heat sink was nowhere near to full capacity; a lesson she learned on Therum, dump heat at every available opportunity. Liara was down on one knee, her armor moving in a way that suggested that she was breathing hard, her hands no longer holding up an invisible shield, and the Asarikin no longer looking as if she were wreathed in bluish tint. Her Biotics must have been exhausted protecting them from sniper rounds. Sam gritted her teeth in her HMWA MasterGear SPECTRE Mk. I Armor, trying to figure out a way out of the deadly crossfire. She was a cop, not a soldier; her expertise laid in close-quarters acquisition and combat, not long-range fighting and sustained defensive postures. TEAM LION being led by Captain Jane Shepard were at another location, what had looked to be a push towards the mining town, aiding the beleaguered Marines holding the fort. They wouldn't be available to take out the Geth for some time, and were likely in the wrong position to do so for their other long-range specialists, Detective Garrus Vakarian and Sergeant First Class Ashley Williams.
"I can hit them from here." Came the pained voice of 1st Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko, his back against one of the container walls and out of the line of fire, being overseen by Doc Nugee. The round that had struck him had luckily only been rather minor; it clipped the trapezius muscle that went over the shoulder and connected to the neck. A centimeter or two to the right and it would have been his shoulder blade shattering, rendering him combat ineffective for weeks. A centimeter or two to the left and it would have been his neck and/or his throat. The Combat Engineer was hoisting up his Milkor Supersix M32 Multi-Purpose Munition Launcher in his left hand, grunting through the vox of his Inferno Armor. "Doc? I need you to load me." The minifabrication suite at his left side, where the Naval Explosive Ordinance Disposal Team Member created explosives, had a round ready in its chamber, a forty-millimeter round encased in a MetalGel shell. "I got a little surprise for our robotic friends." His left hand snapped sideways quickly as the drum-like revolver of the Munition Launcher swung out to the side, revealing six empty chambers. Monica gulped audibly as she took the round from the fabrication chamber and loaded it into the weapon, handling it with extreme care, a live grenade in her hand. "Slap it in and cock the forward carrying handle back and then forth." Collins watched as Doc pushed the revolver chamber back into the weapon and took the forward grip and cocked it like an old-school shotgun. "Help me up and forward."
"Prepare to lay down covering fire!" Collins called out to the rest of TEAM LION as she watched Negulesco helped the El-Tee forward, shooting forward to keep themselves as low as possible to take advantage of the covering benches. She could see the make-shift MetalGel/CeramiGel armor patch at the back of Alenko's armor, where the Corpsman had patched up his armor after injecting him with MediGel, the substance used to plug up wounds to prevent further injury, seepage, as well as delivering antibiotics and localized painkillers to the site. It wasn't MiracleGro, but it would do in many cases. The Navy EOD Officer reached the benches in question with Doc at his side, Negulesco pulling out her Winchester Arms' M-96 Mattock Auto Assault Rifle, her body language suggesting that she was nervous as hell. Probably scared out of her Goddamn mind, Sam thought. Yet she wasn't a puddle of tears in a corner, instead manning the line along with the rest of them. Doc Ryder would be proud of her little sidekick if she were here.
"Y'know? Gotta hand it to the Angel." Kaidan's helmet looked over to the Marshal, his tone pained but amused. "Magnetically-seeking grenades can be a beautiful thing. Captain's not the only one who can curve a round."
"What?" The Marshal had no idea what the Sailor was talking about as he stuck the barrel of his weapon past the cover of benches, not even sticking his head out as he aimed in the general direction of one of the Geth snipers. Despite being an area-of-effect weapon meant to suppress infantry charges and formations, aim was still a necessity. A grenade only had a kill radius of a meter or two in most cases. Yet she watched as the Lieutenant fired his weapon once, the thwump! of its discharge distinctive, almost cartoon-like. The round quickly shot out, a black orb that grew into a speck in the air as it arc'ed up and then downward as its' velocity increased as gravity took over.
And then the damn thing went and curved to the right.
Sam felt her jaw drop as the speck disappeared right behind a crag where a Geth sniper had been taking position, firing at any of them that had stuck themselves out from cover, now more lethal with Liara's Biotics overtaxed. There was a distant wump of an explosion, and Collins jerked her head up and down for a brief moment to see that the explosion was more than just dust and smoke; pieces were involved, too.
"You got it!" The Butcher laughed as she watched Monica pulling out another grenade from the fabrication chamber, loading another shot into the weapon. Collins raised her rifle and suppressed the area of one of the snipers, knowing that the units needed to stay in place for the grenade to work. No doubt, it had a certain range and curve it would work in, but if the Geth were pinned down, the Lieutenant could rain down death from above. Another shot went out a few seconds later, and Sam noted with a smile that the Geth she had been firing on went up in an explosive cloud of smoke and dust, a portion of the upper torso separated from the rest of it. Raeka took the opportunity to snipe out another Geth unit with her Kassa Fabrications' M-55 Argus Battle Rifle, the heavy three-round burst cracking the chassis open violently as the remaining sniper count went down to one. The Marines were laying down heavy suppressive fire in a 'talking gun' fashion; two would fire a short burst, and then the other two would fire a longer burst, going back and forth. The hardware platform tried to engage, but some of the Marines' fire were impacting against its shields as Collins aimed and fired with her Modulus at the same time Raeka did with her Argus, and the platform went down hard.
"Ancestors! That was intense!" Tali called out, the Quarian Pilgrim sounding relieved as her Nexus OmniTool glowed briefly and her two Assault Turrets hovered over to her and attached themselves to her thighs; no need to break them down and make more when they would surely be needed sooner rather than later.
When Sam saw a Geth unit, what looked to be a Destroyer, jump onto the raised platform of the Landing Grid from God knew where, she realized that she had jinxed herself too prematurely. Especially when it came with well over a dozen friends landing beside it, weapons drawn and ready.
Great, I'm going to die on this shithole.
Someone upstairs was fighting back, and fighting back hard.
2nd Lieutenant James Vega was cursing the man who invented stairs in two separate languages; English and Espanol. The Frisbee was situation some fifty meters above the ground, and whatever genius had decided to make a landing pad in the air had thought stairs would be better than a lift or an elevator.
Thirty…two… pinche… stories… of stairs.
The Marine huffed as he continued the climb at as fast a pace as he could manage wearing Aldrin Labs' Onyx Medium Interceptor Armor (twenty kilograms) while hoisting a Devlon Industries' M-56 Marshal Medium Machine Gun (fifteen kilograms) connected to a SteadyCam Armature Carrying Harness meant to aid in accuracy and firing (another five kilograms). Throw in his one hundred and five kilogram bulk of mean Mexican muscle, and stairs were now his new favorite enemy.
All fucking thirty-two stories of it.
Adios was right behind him, huffing and puffing as well as she kept up, thankfully not ripping him for now going about half the speed in which he started at the ground level. They were approximately two-thirds the way up the stalk of the Frisbee, and unless he had planned to saunter the pinche climb, it was going to wear him out no matter what. It was a matter of life-or-death that drove him to continue the burn, to push himself no matter how badly his body cried out for him to stop and take a break. His thighs felt big enough to burst through the seams of his combat underarmor pants, and he felt like he was breathing both fire and acid in his lungs despite the internal environmentals of the Onyx Armor. Carrying Big Bertha certainly wasn't helping matters as he lugged the Medium Machine Gun, wishing he'd grabbed a Lancer or a Mattock. Sometimes being too macho had its…
…nah. That was bullshit.
The climb continued as James hustled, hearing the exchange of gunfire at the top of the Frisbee, with the muted sounds of explosives going off; whose side, he couldn't tell. All he knew was that the first sign of reinforcements in two days had come and landed right in the middle of Geth territory, and if they got waxed, who knew how long it'd be before they got more? SPECTRE propaganda and rumors aside, they were heavy-hitters who could call in for the big boys and the big guns if they felt the need, and that was more than enough for him. Probably wouldn't hurt that the Blue in question probably be rocking out in that armor of hers.
He was a man. He was allowed to appreciate beauty in whatever form it happened to come in, right?
"Five more story, Adios!" Vega called back as he muscled through the pain, taking the stairs two at a time to make up for his lack of top-rate speed, his teeth clenched and sweat pouring down his face. Just what he needed, to be exhausted in the middle of a firefight with the Geth, too tired to aim straight. James shoved the thought aside violently as he continued on. If it had been his brothers and sisters of the Marine Corps, he'd run until his lungs popped… and then he'd keep running. There had been Humans on that Human UT-47, so chances were that the SPECTRE (or SPECTREs) had gathered whatever fighting forces were available to make a push; made sense.
"Fuckin'… stairs, man!" The female Marine behind him grunted out loud as she panted, her unhelmeted head probably making the ascent more uncomfortable; Feros wasn't a lovely place. In fact, it was a dust-choked shithole that forever smelled like ass and mold.
"Almost… there!" James felt like he was on his last legs. Fuck that, he was on his last legs ten stories ago! That Asari's cula had better be damn sexy after all this running. He rounded up the last turnbuckle of the stairs and saw that the trapdoor was open, and the noise coming out of it was deafening. It was well beyond a full-fledge firefight up there by the sounds of it, dozens and dozens of rounds per second being fired on a two-way range. Adios stopped next to him, her jaw clenching as she looked up into the hole that would lead them to hell, her dark eyes tight and hard as she looked up to him once, rotating her head and cracking her neck as she nodded once. She was ready. True blue Marine, that one.
"Let's go fucking get some." Vega said he bullrushed the last flight and dashed into hell.
"¡El riesgo simpre vive!" The Corporal shouted as they burst out from the ramp with their M-56 Marshals lowering into engagement level and Vega started firing at the first Geth he saw, his eyes taking in a lot. The Medium Machine Gun sprayed round right towards a Geth Trooper, reducing its shields and its body into a mangled mess in a couple of seconds as Adios showed off her own charms, dancing and pivoting around her weapon, an artist hard at work as she threshed a Pyro unit, causing it to explode violently. There were dozens of Geth units on the Frisbee, some jumping up from God knew where and landing on the platform to engage at the position just to his right. There James saw the SPECTRE team huddled behind the waiting room benches, having been torn out and turned to metal cover, ten people bunkered behind its protection as they fired over their defenses to engage the Geth.
"Get down!" The SPECTRE in MasterGear Armor shouted from behind her helmet, carrying… was that fucking Mammothkiller in her hand? James was still laying waste to the Geth, engaging his third as he saw two cute little hovering drones float to his position, aiming at the Geth and engaging with some weak-sauce fire. Adios had danced and pivoted her way to one of the walls of the waiting area, using some of it as cover as she fired in broad sweeping arcs, screaming Spanish profanity as she laid low a Geth Destroyer while Vega crumpled a Hunter variant to his left. An explosion rocked the Frisbee as two Geth went down in a puff of smoke and metal debris, and the Lieutenant spotted a Human with a fucking Munition Launcher being loaded by a Doc, by the looks of it, his right arm taped to his side. Got shot but kept fighting. Tough bastard. Laugh now, cry later.
The Asari SPECTRE jumped out from her cover with her hands filled with guns; a no-bullshit Smith and Wesson Model 696 MA Revolver in one of them, and what looked to be a Springfield Arms XD Seven-Five Pistol in the other as she began obliterating Geth with her Mammothkiller; she used the underside of her right forearm to pull the hammer back and fire shots at a speed that impressed the hell outta him, going through six shots in three seconds, six Geth either stumbling back or falling down. She then switched her hands and wrists over and began engaging with her Seven-Five, taking another two out with her pistolo. Damn that Blue had some balls and some fast hands.
Vega briefly wondered what else those hands could do.
A vomit of electrical energy being spewed out as he fired scared the shit out of James as he side-stepped towards the defensive position, seeing the Quarian lady using what looked to be a (holy fucking shit!) plasma/electric flamethrower and nuking about half-a-dozen Geth at once, arcs of electricity just bouncing off their forms and frames and causing them drop with their lights out. Where the fuck could he get one of those! The Marines in the team were firing in heavy bursts, switching off in pairs to keep up a volume of fire while letting the others cool down their weapons when a Salarian popped out with a glowing OmniTool and fired twelve little glowing orbs that flew out like fireflies and proceeded to blow everything up in front of them, knocking Geth around.
Holy fuck. The movies weren't lying!
"Blue! Get your teams' ass down the chute! We got this!" James shouted as he cooled down his Marshal, needing several seconds to force-vent the drum as he pulled out his Colt Arms Python and put six rounds from the revolver-styled pistol into a Geth Destroyer, bringing it down. The SPECTRE looked over her shoulder for a second as she continued to transition fire her pistols like some Human gunslinger, switching back and forth between her Mammothkiller and her Seven-Five, never once using her Biotics. Huh.
"T'soni! Give me a singularity right in the middle!" The Blue called out, and another Asari popped up and threw a glob of bluish energy towards the center of the Frisbee where it began to spin and implode, starting to suck anything nearby that was lightweight or not connected to anything. Several of the Geth were getting pulled into the vortex, losing their footing and going airborne in a strange sort of circular tornado, at least seven or so spinning about lazily as they circled the ball of bluish energy. Vega focused on the several or so that weren't pulled up and in as Adios cursed, a spray of blood coming from her right forearm as she continued to fire. "Team! Suppress and exit!" The first one up was Doc, half-carrying the Human with the Munition Launcher in his left hand as the not-SPECTRE Asari raised up her hands in a defensive fashion, a ribbon of blue energy appearing before her, obviously to cover their escape. The Salarian was engaging with a heavy battle rifle, its deep-throated three-shot burst devastating as the Quarian called her turrets to her, the cute little guys still firing as they went back to their owner. James laced up a Trooper that was firing at them as the Marine Corporal tackled another Pyro unit with her Marshal as the Marines filed out firing in staccato bursts as the SPECTRE team filed down towards the stairs. The SPECTRE herself was still transition-firing with no cover, her wrists swapping with whichever gun she was using; first the Mammothkiller, then the Seven-Five, then back to the Mammothkiller. Her body jerked a few times as her shields fizzled out and rounds struck her armor, but she kept on fighting.
"Adios! Get Blue!" Vega ordered as he stepped forward and began laying waste, firing his Marshal in one long burst of fire as he swept back-and-forth like a sprinkler, engaging as many as possible as everyone filed down the stairs, James walking backwards and firing as he felt a round hit his shoulder but not penetrate; his shields were gone. Before he left the scene of the battle, he saw the vortex of Geth still in effect, and he snorted as he plucked a grenade off his belt with his right hand and tossed it towards the obvious target.
The grenade went off… and everything blew the fuck up.
Vega was knocked back against the wall of the waiting area hard, knocking the breath out of him as he almost fell down the stairs, staggering back up and leveling his Marshal to engage… nothing? Wisps of remaining blue energy ribboned and fainted away as burning debris fell onto the Frisbee with tangs and clangs of metal-on-metal. Santa mierda, that's Geth, the Marine Lieutenant realized as pieces fell onto the Landing Grid, smoldering and burning. There were no platforms left on the platform.
"Well… that worked." Vega sniffed as he went down the stairs to join everyone else.
Things were starting to look up.
Seaman Monica Negulesco was patching upon one of the Marines who had come to aid them in the fight against the Geth on the Landing Grid, the woman having removed her rerebrace and bracer off of her left arm to expose the wound. Monica winced at the sight of an in-and-out; that's what Chief Ryder called them. The round had penetrated through the Marines' shield, had hit the armor in her forearm, and penetrated right through, burying fragments of her armor into her flesh as well as the bullet. Thankfully, the round went right through her arm and out the other end, burying itself on the other side of the bracers' armor. That meant the Corpsman wasn't going to have to cut open a small incision and extract the round before suturing the wound close. A quick look with her Medical Monitoring Device showed there to be at least a dozen slivers of metal in the womans' arm, though none were bigger than splinters.
"Okay, you've got tiny metal fragments in your arm, Corporal, but no round, it went clean through." There was now a world of difference in Seaman Negulesco from before the Battle of LaGrange Point Two and after. Before, the worst she had ever seen was a sprain. After? She had been pulling out pieces that were close to the skin out of Sailors as they grinned and bore it, suturing wounds and setting bones. And she didn't even have the bad cases; Chief Ryder had taken those, having the most experience as a CitEMS Paramedic and a Navy Corpsman. Before, she was a little unsure what she would do if something 'bad' happened. Now?
Now she was motherfricking Doc Nugee, and people were counting on her.
"Just patch me up, Doc. I ain't worried about a couple bits o' metal." The female Corporal replied, her accent thick. It took a moment or two for Monica to place it, having been born and raised on Elysium. United North American States of Mexico, she guessed. And like any true Marine, the woman probably griped about blisters and bit her tongue with serious wounds. Just like Chief told her. She wondered if the red bandanna around her forehead was suppose to mean something or just make her look tougher.
"Okay, your call, Corporal." Negulesco replied as TEAM LION and their two brash cavalrymen in the form of machine gun-toting Marines took five by the door that served as the access of the interior of the Storm Wall protecting Hadley's Hope. Geth hadn't bothered them during their escape down the Landing Grid platform or across the area that went from the base of the platform to the access for the door, code-locked and controlled by the Space Traffic Control Tower in the interior of the town. The big Marine Lieutenant had punched the access to call out his name and service number to gain access, and Monica realized that it wasn't being controlled by a VI, but by a person, probably a hardline. The Marines had found ways around Geth hacking. There were a couple of wounds to the team during the fight, but nothing super serious, thankfully. 1st Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko had taken a round through his right trapezeus muscle, and the Marine squatting in front of her had taken a round through her arm. Others had been hit when their shields failed, but their armor held. Doc would look over them when she was done with the real wounds and make sure no one had any lingering or hidden injuries. Negulesco put away her Medical Monitoring Device into her MedBag, packed and inventoried by both herself and Chief Ryder, as she pulled out an old-fashion suture kit. Late-22nd Century, and it was still the best way to close wounds, Monica thought to herself as she dabbled a little bit of MediGel from its tube onto her finger and pressed it into the exit wound of the Corporals' arm, getting the Latina woman to suck in a breath but that was it.
"Color preference?" That had the Marine look at the Corpsman as Negulesco took a pair of hemostats to the needle and another pair of sticks to pinch the wound close while she sutured. Monica noticed the glare as she slipped in the suture thread through the eye and took the sticks to pinch the wound close neat and tight; just like in the Medical Education and Training Campus in Lowell City, Mars. "Not much of a talker? Seems like most Marines won't shut up around a woman. Trying too hard to be impressive."
"Don't swing your way, Doc." The Corporal grunted, being gruff as Negulesco took the suture and pieced through muscle to close up the inner wound first. The Marine just flexed her jaw and took it like a champ. She looked for a second to see what the others were doing, and she saw Marse Collins with her helmet off, like everyone else, talking to an older woman in Onyx Medium Armor; Monica guessed that to be the Colonel. She went back to her work, pulling thread and suturing the wound.
"So got a name? Or should I grunt every time I see you and save the trouble?" Monica asked with a smile. She was already on her third suture of seven. Thankfully, gunshot wounds, while messy, could be closed up pretty quickly.
"It's Vasquez." The Latina looked to her, her lips pursed from the pain from the sutures as she took in a deep breath and fumbled for something inside of a hardcase pocket of her armor. Much to Monica's annoyance, the woman fished a cigarette out and lit the end of it with an old-school Zippo, blowing out a cloud of smoke.
"Corporal Jeanette Vasquez."
Author's Notes: Told you it was a siege. Who's biting their fingernails?
Copyright stuff.
Breaking Benjamin's Blow Me Away (not that one with the chick singer that made the band break up. (They... broke Benjamin?)
Motley Crue's Shout At The Devil!
The Cobra RPG is a weapon from Andromeda, a consumable one can use along with Incendiary Ammo and Shield Capacitors. Here, it is minifabricated on the spot, attached to an OmniTool, and launched electromagnetically like an arm crossbow… with a rocket on the back and an explosive warhead.
Base Jump - I'm not sure the altitude of a base jump. But I describe it as ELAELO; Extreme Low Altitude Extreme Low Opening. One of the N courses is, in fact, a jump-jet course.
The jump jets that you see in Andromeda were actually an idea I had for the Mass Effect vs. Aliens series, to be known as 'Jump-Assisting Boosters' that would propel someone upward/forward to a certain height, and then flare again to limit impact upon landing, often propelling the person forward towards a running landing instead of having them hover over ground like a fresh, ripe target. While I'm going back to that original idea (Jannie's mentioned it before that N7's had jump jets back on Therum), I'm letting you know that they aren't exactly like the ones from Andromeda, though they are similar.
I mention that the Lieutenant Colonial in charge of the Marines is Samantha 'Sam' Hulick. This is actually a little bit of a joke. Sam Hulick is one of the score composers of the Mass Effect series.
Hi, James. Thank you for not showing up late in the series. (Yes, it is that James Vega)
Who knew that it was Jeanette Vasquez from Aliens before I fully introduced her? Chances are, if you've ever read my Mass Effect vs. Aliens series or even The Hale/Meer Chronicles, you'd know that I've used Vasquez on more than a few occasions. The M-56 Marshal was the Mass Effect version of the M-56 Smart Gun from Aliens, converted for the MEU in the ValkyrieVerse. Since James likes to give everyone nicknames, I stuck with the obvious for Vasquez; Adios. As for the battlecry that Vasquez lets off? It's the same painted on her armor, and while literally translated means 'the risk never die', it truly translates to Fortune Favors The Bold or Who Dares, Wins. And, as a side note? Jeanette Goldstein is actually not a Latino; they died her hair, darkened her up, and gave her contacts for the movie. Huh. She actually got the part because the name of the movie (Aliens) led her to believe it would be about illegal aliens and not extraterrestrial ones (which Bill Paxton references in the movie as a joke), and had dressed and acted like a tough Latina woman from the streets of LA. Obvious, she did something right as she was nominated for several awards and earned herself the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress in her very first movie.
The maker of the ECS-10 Modulus Assault Rifle is named Nexus Engagement Reliable Firearms… or NERF. The NERF ECS-10 Modulus is, in fact, a NERF Weapon with a series of attachments that turn a $40 dart gun into a $80 dart gun. It can be changed to a sniper platform, have a carrying handle, and tactical scope (for those really long 45ft/13m shots) and other cool guy shit. Seen in Where The Lase Stands Tall and A Fox Amongst The Wolves, this was (and still is) Marse Collins' main rifle. In Where The Law Stands Tall, she plucks it off the corpse of a slaver she kills when her Nexus Engagement Reliable Firearms 2169 Lawbringer Battle Rifle (a non-lethal weapon… and another NERF gun) doesn't cut the cheddar on Revan.
Sam mentions why she was selected for the Office of Special Tactics; she has the unique ability to look upon unreadable relay data and 'recognize' ships through their weight, mass, energy output, and several other facts, not fooled by name changes or claims. She can 'see' where a ship went to, and if they use another relay, she can track a recognized ship from any Relay-to-Relay travel anywhere in the galaxy with proper access. In the OST, she is known as 'the shiphunter'. In the undone story "The Fury Of Our Makers' Hand", a portion was to involve Sam Collins doing just this; tracking a shadow organization known as CHAOS through the means of tracking vessel when both Salarian Councilors (the lame duck and the incoming) are both assassinated at the same time by, of all things, a SPECTRE Agent. CHAOS was to be the antithesis of SPECTRE. Sam was to run the STARS Detachment that, while a SPECTRE Office, didn't report to them; there were traitors in the OST, and the SPECTRE Commandant orders Sam to 'cut the rot out' known that Collins would never be a part of it (being both new and Human).
Would Mass Effect weaponry have bullet drop? In physics, yes; everything has resistance (see Newton's Laws) and anywhere with gravity will mean that gravity will eventually win. The games had a sort of 'engagement limit' on how far one could fire, generally seen in Andromeda (I think the furthest I've ever shot something in that game was around 300m). This is nothing for even a basic hunting rifle, and easily doable with an assault rifle of the modern era, even with iron sights (the Army drills us at maximum of 300m, and the Marines go for 500). The Modulus is the M-4 of the Mass Effect world. Now you might mention that engaging a 800m target with something like an M-4 is silly; no, it's not. I've taken Known Distant Ranges with an M-4 and an ACOG and hit a 800m target 3/5 times, and was one out of four who could hit a 800m target with a weapon whose point target range is 350-400m and suppressive range is set at 500m. And the math that Sam did? Nowhere near correct. I'm not boring you with deals an actual sniper would know, considering I don't and am not one.
In ME:A, you could set off combos with Tech, Fire, and Biotics, which is what Vega did with a grenade. Yes, they don't detonate combos (for some reason) but I made it here where they do.
The Medical Monitoring Device - I know I used it on Seaman Cave to announce her pregnancy, but I didn't explain what this was. Really, its more along the lines of the Medical Tricorder from Star Trek, offering different options to view a body, such as X-Ray, ultrasound, and even short-band MRI.
I've never sutured anybody. Stapled? Yes. Sewed? Yes. Done it properly? No. I've even superglued and duct taped wounds together. We're a bit messy when we're cut open and spilling apart, let me tell you.