Chapter 20 - Feros - The Machine War
'Knowledge is power. Guard it well.' - Blood Raven Chapter motto.
Arlas frowned at his armor, before shaking his head in despair. The rune armor was definitely ruined, and was beyond his ability to fix. The remains of his long rifle had completely decayed away, and he hadn't had time to replace it or his sword, so he grabbed the power sword from the Howling Banshee armor. To round out the rest of his equipment, even though he wasn't anticipating being on the ground needing it, he took his fusion gun, flamer pistol, and death spinner, due to the brief claiming that megatowers covered all of the surface, or at least the entirety of the surface where they were. It was going to be close quarters for the entire mission.
However, he was planning on spending most of the mission in his Vyper, providing close air support since he was still healing. He would have preferred the lander, but with everything being inside megatowers, the heavy weapons of the lander would more likely bring the tower down than just kill the opponents, assuming he could even get a good line on them. At least the Vyper would be small enough to follow inside and support if needed.
Done checking his equipment, Arlas stretched slowly and carefully, wearing only his bodysuit and his Striking Scorpion tabard, until he felt his mending bones protest the movement. He winced and quickly stopped, gently rubbing the sore spot as he left to go find the Twins. They wanted to have their talk, as there was nothing else to do in the time left for the journey to the system. They had wanted to do it earlier, but he had simply pointed out that he needed his equipment intact as possible, and put it off until he had done what he could. Wrex was sitting on his cot in the corner of the hangar as Arlas stepped out of the lander, doing something with his omnitool. Arlas gave Wrex a nod, and stepped into the elevator with a small smirk as Wrex grumbled to himself, heading for the Twin's room. He knocked on the door, and entered as Joannis called out. "Enter."
Arlas entered the room, and saw only the Lioness, who gestured to the seat. "Time for that Q&A session. Sorry, question and answer. Jaclyn is dealing with the ship, since the two of you don't get along, but is listening in. So let's begin. First, well, you've shown us the Orcs, and Wrex said you said something about Tyranids. Let's start with the lifeforms back from where you came from."
Two hours later, Arlas watched Joannis skim back through her notes on everything he had told and shown her. She had learned about the various races and factions, as well as a brief version of the commonly known eldar, Human, and Tau histories, and what most psykers were capable of. The question of mind control had come up, and he had said that while it was possible, to his knowledge it relied on long term exposure of several weeks to become permanent at the absolute minimum, resulted in a significant personality shift of the target, and the psyker had to remain in proximity and channeling to generate the effect, making it exceedingly obvious something was happening.
There were exceptions, of course, but most of those directly involved daemons, and the rest almost always involved them indirectly. That knowledge had seemed to relax her a bit, even as she acknowledged that he might be misleading her. Her questions about Chaos and the Warp, however, he had flat out refused to answer, only saying that the daemons he was familiar with might not be here, but there were things far older, fouler, and alien in it than 'mere' daemons. She had not been happy with him refusing to answer, but he had refused to say more on the subject, and eventually they had moved on.
For now, he was heading back to the hangar, as Lioness headed to the CiC to take command and insert them into the system. He had just gotten off the elevator when he felt the Normandy jerk, indicating it had dropped out of FTL. He felt the ship swing around, and then jump again, this time only a few seconds before the next lurch. Grumbling about the mon-keigh's inability to make a proper inertia dampener, he got into the lander, and did a final check on the Vyper. *Either of you wish to ride with me?*
Both of his spirit stone occupying companions indicated that they did not, Kap'Eiyl staying in the wraithguard, and Yol'Pvera in the lander. He gave a mental shrug, before entering the cockpit of the attack hovercraft, and gently boosted it out of the lander and into the Normandy's hangar bay. A few seconds later, it was ready to deploy out the back of the ship, and he jumped out, looking around. Wrex had already put away his cot and gone up to the CiC to wait, leaving him alone in the hangar. A shame really, as he had no idea how long it would take for the Twins to get to the planet. Instead, he did a quick lap around the hangar, and found a clear spot that he could use for the Vyper so he didn't have to keep storing it in the cramped troop bay. It would also free up some more space so he could move extra supplies along with the full allotment of troops.
For this mission, he planned to use the Vyper to provide heavy, close hover support if possible, and if not, protect the colony, built at the top of one of the megatowers. Supposedly there was a pair of GUARDIAN laser turrets protecting the colony proper, but he doubted it would stand up to an actual attack if the colony was directly attacked. If the colony was even still around, that was. He doubted it would be, if it was an eldar mission. Precision laser bombardment from lower orbit, just powerful enough to cleanse the top floor or so of the tower.
After a moment, Lioness came onto the ship-wide paging system. "All ground team to the briefing room. All ground team to the briefing room."
Arlas shrugged to himself as he finished checks on the Vyper and found the hovercraft was in adequate condition, before heading to the briefing room. A couple minutes later, and he was in the room, and took his usual spot on the wall. "Alright, we are all here. First things first, Arlas, what is your status?"
"Mostly healed with just soreness and minor aches. Armor is damaged so will be using my Vyper attack craft to support. I don't anticipating getting out of the hovercraft unless absolutely required. Long rifle is still being repaired, and my sword is replaced, so offensively I am ready."
Joannis nodded, and Jaclyn stepped up. "Alright, that changes a few things, but we can work with that. The colony is still being jammed, but there are no geth vessels or Saren's dreadnaught in the system that we can sense. Long range scans of the planet show we are on the wrong side of the planet, so currently Joker is swinging us around. Joker, how much longer?"
"Ten minutes ma'am, unless you want an FTL jump toward the planet?"
The twins shared a look, before Joannis spoke. "Do it."
Joker paused, before speaking carefully. "Ma'am, stealth systems can't hide our entry or exit from FTL. So everything will know we are there."
Jaclyn nodded. "Understood Joker. Do it."
Joker didn't reply, but Arlas felt the ship jerk, and a couple seconds later jerk again as they arrived. "ETA to view, one minute. Hopefully nothing saw us, otherwise this is going to be a very interesting flight."
Unbeknownst to the humans and their allies, while there were no ships in the immediate area, there were several dozen probes scatter about the system. One of the probes observed the Systems Alliance frigate entering the system the first time from FTL, and two observed them performing their in-system jump to the planet, before sending out a very specific signal.
In the halo cloud of the system, a geth cruiser and three frigates drifted cold in space, waiting. As they received the signal from the probe ten minutes after it had been sent, all four powered up and made a decision concerning the contents of the message. Once the geth programs had reached consensus, they sent a coded signal of their own, and then went toward the colony at FTL, fifteen minutes after receiving the signal from the probes.
Saren had anticipated someone following his trail, and left a gift behind for them.
Joker did a fly over the colony site at mid-orbit level, taking it slow to make it harder for someone to see the ship, and to give the sensors more time to observe the site. The colony looked mostly intact, though several of the buildings were burnt shells, and a freighter had apparently landed hard enough to break itself in half in the largest landing zone. They could see two GUARDIAN laser turrets, and there were definitely beings moving around in the colony, though it was difficult to tell with passive sensors if they were geth or organics. The twins were leery about using active scans, as that would reveal them to everyone watching, but after a moment ordered it anyway. They had already blown their stealth getting to the planet as quickly as they had.
After a few moments to interpret the signals they received, the Twins resumed the briefing. "Alright, Joker is going to dock in the landing bay, and unload the ground team. Arlas, you will be in the hovercraft, your choice which you use, and providing overwatch, so try to not blow up the tower with the big guns. Collateral damage would be… misfortunate."
Joannis took over the brief. "We unload in five minutes. Teams will be Team Heavy and Team Light. Team Heavy will advance to contact, while Team Light provides long support. We are here to save this colony people, but the mission comes first. We are here to stop Saren, so if the colonists are being idiots, we cut them loose. However, that is worst case scenario, and until then, we do what we can to assist them. Remember, these are civilians, and have been under attack for nearly two days at this point. Any survivors would be a boon, if only so they can tell us what is going on."
Joker came over the comm line. "Ma'am, problem. There is a geth ship parked right in the only landing bay, churning out geth units."
The Twins shared a look, before sighing. "Arlas, hangar bay now. Joker, kill it, then drop the hangar bay door. Everyone else, we have to jump so…"
Arlas already was out the door and running, but instead of taking the slow elevator jumped into the service tunnel beside it. It contained a series of rungs built into the wall so the crew could move between levels without waiting for the elevator, or if the elevator was disabled. Arlas didn't bother, instead using his hands and feet to slide down the wall, applying pressure to slow his descent until he hit the floor of the tube. Instead of taking a minute and a half, it had taken him fifteen seconds to get to the bottom.
He quickly jogged over to the Vyper, as Joannis came over his omnitool. "Arlas, where are you?"
"In my Vyper in the hangar. Used the ladder."
"... Good thinking. Opening the bay door. Joker is killing…"
The Normandy shuddered as its main gun fired, now doubt from point-blank right into the engines of the parked geth dropship, as Arlas entered and merged with the Vyper. "... the geth dropship, but you need to clear the troops pushing up the stairs into the colony that way. Stay alive, but thin the bastards out. Otherwise the companies of geth troops will simply roll over the colony."
The hangar bay door started to open, and Arlas guided the Vyper out, doing a quick barrel roll to get under the rising Normandy as it headed to drop off the rest of the ground team directly into the colony, the burning geth dropship wreckage now blocked the landing bay. "Understood."
He juked the hovercraft to one side to avoid a barrage of projectiles, though he could hear small arms fire hitting and deflecting off the Vyper's armor. Thanking Singer for having the foresight to uparmor the hovercraft so a random rifle could not reliably damage it, he began hosing down the stairway leading up to the colony with fire from the shuriken cannon. At least, he assumed it led to the colony, as he could see dozens of geth platforms moving up the stair way.
He tried to stem the flood of units, but there was enough of whatever the megatower was made of in the way that he was only annoying and delaying the geth, not killing them in numbers enough to matter. As more and more enemy fire began coming his way, even as the platforms continued to head for the colony, he was forced to spend more time dodging and less time butchering the enemy. He hissed in frustration to himself as he realized killing the troops would be difficult if not impossible, before suddenly noticing a large metal tank built into the wall beside the stair well. He continued to spray the shuriken cannon at large concentrations of geth platforms, trying to keep them hitting him with heavy weapons, and fired the starcannons at the metal tank.
Arlas mentally cursed as the first barrage of plasma missed the tanks, hitting the wall to the side of it and blowing out large chunks of the structure. He cursed out loud as every geth platform stopped what it was doing and immediately began trying to shoot him down, making it increasingly difficult to hit the tanks as he put the Vyper through maneuvers he hadn't quite realized it was possible for a hovercraft to do to avoid taking critical damage. He aimed the second barrage from the starcannons as best he could, and fired again. The first two shots from the linked cannons missed, impacting the stairwell, but the last shot from the right cannon hit the metal tank, right above the large yellow triangle sign with a flame on it.
Even as the shot hit, though Arlas felt something impact the undercarriage of his hovercraft and detonate. It felt like something had punched him in the chest, thanks to his link with the craft, but he quickly cut the anti-gravity field, letting the vessel plummet. The tank finally exploded, the plasma eating through the thick metal siding of the tank, and even at a distance of nearly a hundred meters, Arlas could feel the shockwave fling his hovercraft backwards. He could also feel several metal and rockcrete shards, from the tank and tower respectively, slam into the hovercraft, the burning sensation from the impacts indicating some actual damage was done. A quick check showed a jagged metal spike, about half a meter long, had impaled itself into the canopy of the cockpit just to the right of directly in front of his face, and the hovercraft controls were already getting sluggish. "Arlas to Shepard."
"Jaclyn here, what the fuck was that explosion? Was that you? You made the entire tower shake for a few seconds"
"Yes. Fuel tank in the landing bay, all geth troops either disabled or unable to reach the colony. Significant damage to Vyper; I need to land soon."
"...Fine, land in the colony. Joker is out chasing dropships. And warn us next time you plan to set off an explosion underneath the rest of the group."
"Busy. And make sure the local defenses don't attack me."
The Vyper was getting harder and harder to control, but he didn't have to go far. He managed to make it up over the lip of the wall that surrounded the colony, but could feel a growing burn along his stomach and back, indicating the Vyper was on fire. He needed to land, soon.
Arlas directed the Vyper forward, and noticed the defense laser turrets were swinging around. He glanced up and behind him, wondering if something else was up with him, before suddenly realizing that both turrets had targeted him. He felt everything suddenly slow, and became conscious of just about everything in front of him. The soft glow on the barrel of the turrets as they began to fire. Joannis frantically gesturing at some colonist standing at a console near one of the turrets. Wrex using one geth platform to bludgeon another platform. Tali pointing her omnitool at one geth chassis as a large red platform just stepping out of cover to her side. Ashley, Kaidan and Icivia near a staircase leading upwards, stemming a tide of geth reinforcements. Garrus on top of a prefabricated building, firing his sniper rifle. Liara dragging one colonist into cover, her omnitool held over the wound, likely dispensing medigel. Several other humans in what looked like proper armor with light plating, a couple with shields attached to one arm fighting in a circle near the largest prefab. Then time resumed its normal flow.
Arlas jerked his mind to one side, trying to get the drunkenly wallowing hovercraft to dodge, and then felt a piercing pain in his chest, as if someone had shoved a spike through it. He glanced down, but saw no damage, before remembering these were laser turrets, and if one had hit him directly he would have exploded. The phantom pain that felt like a hole in the side of his chest was from the hovercraft, and he suddenly realized one of his engines was out as the vessel began losing altitude and spinning.
He grimaced, and had just enough time to brace himself before the hovercraft crashed on top of a prefab, thankfully right side up, before it skidded, bounced into the air, and then plummeted down to slam onto its side on the ground. Arlas groaned inside the cockpit, idly wondering why he couldn't stop getting hurt these last few missions, before mentally reaching back out to the Vyper. The remaining engine could still apply some basic lift, enough to get the Vyper right side up and pointed to the staircase where more geth were still trying to emerge. He made sure the others were out of the way, and pulled the trigger as he lined the Vyper up with the entry.
The turret promptly exploded, but the shuriken cannon was just fine, firing a hail of monomolecular shuriken into the doorway, completely shredding several geth platforms still trying to advance out the doorway. He kept firing into the doorway, a thick pall of dust rising from shuriken that hit the frame of the door and the wall around it, until another rocket from one of the geth already in the colony screamed by, just missing the cockpit. He jerked backwards reflexively, and the badly damaged Vyper tried to respond, only for the remaining engine to fail entirely, causing the hovercraft to finally fall to the ground.
Arlas disconnected himself from the stricken hovercraft, and winced as his body started protesting the damage he had taken from the impacts now that the damage from the hovercraft wasn't overriding them. He took a few seconds to get his breath back, before being reminded he was still in an active combat zone when a couple bullets bounced off the side of his craft. With an annoyed grumble, Arlas pulled out his power sword and pistol, activated his cloak, and then popped the canopy. He quickly sought cover, though felt an errant bullet bounce off his chest plate as he ran. Cursing under his breath about not having a long range precision weapon, he mentally resealed the canopy of his Vyper, before taking stock of the situation.
The geth advance at the entrance to the colony from above was halted, his barrage had stalled it long enough to Icivia to deploy several of her turrets in protected locations, which were comprehensively shredding everything trying to push through it, especially since Icivia was staying to help with her shotgun. Ashley and Kaidan had moved to assist in clearing out the geth already in the colony. Joannis and Jaclyn were annihilating a white geth unit twice their height in one corner of the colony with the combined biotics, while Wrex had moved to the interior of a prefab, where he had engaged an entire company of geth units judging by the raucous laughter and the sounds of combat coming from it. Garrus had jumped down to join Tali, who were advancing toward where Liara had taken cover with a couple of injured locals near what he guessed were the consoles for controlling the laser turrets that had shot him down. The humans he had not seen before, the ones in heavy armor like what Ashley or Wrex wore, were still gathered around a single prefab in the center of the colony, covering the three entrances, four men to an entrance.
Curious about the newcomers, he took a moment to examine them. All of them were large for humans, or their armor made them appear bigger, and wore heavy green armor, a larger pauldron on their leading shoulders. The front and center one had a large shield attached to one arm, and was firing around it with a handgun, an orange slot, like the hologram plating Kaidan could add to his armor, allowing him to look out without worrying about sniper fire. On the left and right, two humans in heavy armor but wielding heavy assault rifles stood, firing away at the nearby geth, while behind them a person in medium armor fired a long rifle, taking out priority threats. Each group seemed to work together, and reminded him of a veteran stormtrooper squad of the Imperial Guard. Competent and dangerous if underestimated or ignored, but slow, cumbersome, and easy to work around if someone was careful and skilled.
Done taking stock of the situation, he began looking around for some way to help, but even as he looked around, he could hear the rest of the squad announcing they had run out of targets. Arlas looked around, and cursed as he saw that his Vyper was on fire, the purple flames indicating that the power cell for the turret was damaged. He ran back over, and mentally began twisting the energies of the eldar craft, popping the cover just as the cell failed, all of the energy dumping out the sudden hole in the back of the vehicle rather than blasting free of it. He cursed as he knelt down to examine the damage, before he concluded the Vyper was a wreck.
He wouldn't leave it behind, but he wasn't going to be able to repair it himself. Both starcannons had exploded when he had tried to fire them, likely the barrels had been damaged upon impact with the ground or the prefab during his first fall. The shuriken cannon seemed intact, but he couldn't get under the chassis to give it a full check. Several pieces of shrapnel had pierced the chassis in several spots, most obviously the canopy but another had ripped off most of one stabilizer wing, and the other had been crushed during the crash. But the worst damage was a sizeable crater in the front cone, where the forward stabilizer had been, likely damage from the turret. Shaking his head at the wreck, he headed over to talk with the Twins and see what they were doing next.
The Twins were talking with one of the green armored soldiers he had seen, as well as a woman in more basic brown and black armor and a man in common worker clothing. The green armored soldier was one of the ones with a shield attached to his arm, and carried a large pistol on his hip. The worker carried a simple pistol on his hip, and seemed to be nervous about something, understandable with Geth running around. The woman was waving an assault rifle around, and snarling at the Twins.
As he approached, Jaclyn turned to him, and then glanced at his hovercraft before wincing slightly. "Total loss?"
Arlas nodded grimly, before turning to the others. Joannis cut off the woman, no longer amused at her ranting. "We came as fast as literally possible. If that isn't fast enough for you, we will be more than happy to leave and come back at a time when you will be more appreciative. Otherwise, be silent unless you have something helpful to add. Fia Dan, I apologize for our tardiness, but you are quite a distance from the relay."
The armored woman ground her teeth, before turning and stalking back into the prefab. The working male simply nodded. "Yes we are. I apologize for Arcelia. Thank you for coming though. But the Geth will be back. They also blocked our water supply, but we had enough advanced warning to start stockpiling some things. As long as the Alliance gets here soon, we should be fine."
Joannis nodded, as Arlas suddenly became aware of something on the very edge of his mind. It was similar to the singing orb thing he had found, but far quieter, and he hadn't heard it while approaching the planet. He frowned, before dismissing it from his thoughts to pay attention to the conversation, the worker still speaking. "Our food will hold out for as long as two months, we got a freighter in right before the attack, and they managed to unload a significant portion of their supplies before the geth hit it.
"Water is a bigger problem, we only have a couple more days worth, as they turned off our water supply somehow. Likely redirected the aquifer to another area using the connections on the lower levels.
"But the biggest problem is power. Those turrets are going through it quickly, we have only a couple hours, at most, before the turrets power down, and then the geth can just hover overhead and off load as many units as they want. There are a few destroyed salvaging vehicles in the levels below us, we used those to hunt for prothean relics and artifacts before the geth came. They might still have a few power cells we can jury-rig to provide power for a bit longer. But there are geth in the tunnels below us, Michael here would know more about that."
Jaclyn turned and yelled for Tali, before assigning her to the turrets, and then designating Kaidan and Garrus to help. She then called Liara over, assigning her to make sure the colonists were doing alright, and provide first aid. Ashley and Wrex were last, saying she was taking the two of them with her into the tunnels to do some geth hunting, and some other stuff. Joannis just grinned at her sister, before turning to the large human in green armor. "Lieutenant Michael, glad to meet you again, and to see you got promoted. I am sure it is well deserved."
The human grinned back. "Glad to see the Lioness remembers me. Take it you want to know about the geth, and why Phalanx Company has a squad here?"
She nodded, and the big human turned and clapped Fai Dan on the back, staggering the colonist slightly. "We military types got this, mate. You go take care of your people."
Joannis watched Fai Dan leave, before turning to Michael. "Alright Michael, what is the situation?"
"Fucked ma'am, and it ain't just the geth. Might wanna put a helmet on, ma'am, just in case."
Arlas frowned, as Joannis raised an eyebrow, but put her helmet on anyway. "Explain."
The human brought up his omnitool. "Corporal Tenenbaum, an engineer of mine, noticed it first, there is something in the air here. Some kind of seed or fungus spore, he thinks. He has a logic arrest three omnitool, and was running tests on the air after the geth blasted a hole in the tower above us to drop troops, same ones that came out that building your engineer is covering. Worried the dust might cause issues, like being flammable or explosive. Instead, his omni identified this."
Arlas frowned as he looked at the display, noting the displayed… thing was shaped like a long, thin seed, but had freely waving tendrils on it. "At first we weren't worried, figured it was something that was coming up from the permanent dust cloud below. But when he asked the Exogeni personnel about it, sending the picture, they got really shifty, and told him it was nothing, ordered him to delete the file and tell no one about it, or it would void the nondisclosure portion of our contract. Funny thing, our contract was with the System Alliance, not Exogeni, didn't have a non-disclosure agreement, and nothing about listening to their stupidity, so he told me, and I asked the colonists about it.
"When I asked though, every colonist in the room froze when they saw the image, and then flinched like they just stubbed a toe or something. Painful but not damaging. Every one of them then refuses to look at the image from then on, and claim they have no idea what it is."
Joannis frowned, before shaking her head. "Odd, yes, but why…?"
"Because ten minutes later, after walking out of the meeting, one of the colonists tried to brain me with a sledgehammer, one of the ones from the meeting that flinched when he saw the image. He said it was dark, and he thought I was a geth that had snuck into the colony when we questioned him later. But I stopped going anywhere alone at that point, and ordered the rest of Phalanx Company to as well."
The big human leaned down, looking the smaller Shepard right in the eye. "I am just a soldier, ma'am, but I know a cover up when it tries to murder me. I have no idea what it does, and we don't have the processing power on our omnitools to figure it out. But you have your frigate's computer. It might be able to analyze this… thing enough to tell us why Exogeni and the colonists want to hide it so bad. And if not… well, the geth have a frigate parked in the tower that Exogeni was using as a base. And if you are here to deal with the geth, then you have to deal with that frigate at some point. And maybe you can use your Spectre access to figure out what Exogeni knows."
Joannis hummed at the thought before nodding. "True, though what are you doing here Michael?"
The big guy straightened and then leaned against the wall, smirking slightly. "Same thing I was doing on Elysium with Captain Ajax when it got hit by the Blitz and the company made history with you. Training up the local militia, teaching them how to actually survive in a fight, how to take cover, fire and movement, how to suppress, how and when to retreat, things like that. Won't make them into soldiers, but will make sure they ain't snow larks to a hunter. Still will get killed, but won't get utterly butchered in the first two minutes of a fight. And to deliver and help install the GUARDIAN laser defense turrets. Though we didn't expect the geth before we had a chance to start training the locals up, we were in a bad way toward the end there. Lucky you and your crew showed up when you did, we were just about to fall back into the central unit to make a last stand. If you don't mind me asking, ma'am, who is the bloke? Oh, and sorry about your… craft?"
She glanced at Arlas, who was playing with his omnitool, trying to get it to scan the air to view the spore himself. "That is Pathfinder Arlas of the eldar race. He is useful, even if he has had the worst luck on the last few missions. And no tech skills at all."
Arlas refrained from snorting. "Haven't died yet, so not the worst luck."
"You got your arm cut off, stabbed in the gut twice, shot six times, and just had your hovercraft shot down in flames. You are as close to worst as you can get without dying."
He gave an eloquent shrug, before giving up on his omnitool. "What do you want me to do?"
Joannis frowned, before looking around. "You aren't medic trained and have all the social charisma of a dead batarian glorpi-sucker fish, so not with the colonists. And I am certain you and Icivia are still secretly trying to murder each other, so not the perimeter. We need it intact, not in pieces."
She hummed to herself, ignoring his glare, before turning to Michael. "How would someone get across to the Exogeni tower?"
"Two ways assuming you don't just fly. The first is to use the mostly covered vehicle roadway to get there, but there are multiple geth armatures in there, the condition of the roadway is poor, it is cluttered with plenty of rubble, and they were mining it last we saw before we pulled back to the colony. The other way is a small passage under the vehicle roadway, but it doesn't connect to the roadway directly as far as I know. You can get to it by taking the stairs the geth were coming down, then the elevator down a landing, and entering the vehicle bay. The door in front takes you to the roadway, the passage is a small door on the right wall. Bit of a climb and then walk, or so the colonists told me."
Joannis nodded, before turning back to Arlas. "Feel up to a bit of scouting?"
Ten minutes later, he was in the passage, carefully moving down the narrow hallway. The first thing he had checked was to make sure there wasn't a sniper at the far end of the kilometer long passage, just firing shots every now and again in case someone was trying to sneak down. Thankfully the wall at this end was undamaged, so he doubted that the simplest solution was in use. He still stayed low, just in case. He had been given an hour to scout as much as he could, before he needed to report back to the colony.
He moved smoothly, taking his time to ensure he didn't cause his cloak to shift from concealment to distortion, but quickly found that Michael had clearly not had time to stick his head down here himself. Otherwise, he was fairly certain someone would have mentioned the ubiquitous rooms on each side of the passage. Not very deep, only a few meters, but long enough that the rooms shared walls. Though considering most had small slits to let someone view the interior from outside, maybe they were originally meant as storage spaces. Either way, he had only checked a couple of rooms, which had both been empty, before the Twins contacted everyone in the group. "Joannis to all teams. Joker just reported a Geth cruiser and three frigates inbound to the planet. Arlas, keep doing what you are doing. Everyone else, head to the vehicle bay under the colony."
Arlas grumbled about being in a time crunch again, but continued to move carefully. He paused twice to deal with a few geth units in the passage. For the first group he used the fusion gun, wiping out the geth fireteam that had made the mistake of grouping up in one of the side rooms. For the other, well, that trick was going to keep him amused for a few weeks yet. The only way it could possibly have been funnier would have been if he had understood why the geth had gathered around the plasma grenade after one of them had picked it up before activating it.
Geth trooper platform unit T15963A02 looked around the small room it was in, visually confirming that nothing had changed since its last check exactly one half of a minute previously. Contact had been lost with Tunnel Team 01, but no alarm had been raised, and no sounds of combat recorded. An error report had been logged, but they were to wait for the genocidal organics to come down into the passage to avoid the descending squadron of geth ships. It could see trooper platform units T10023T91 and T32009Z15 in the other side of the room, spread out to avoid presenting a target, while hunter platform unit H08912L11 stood in the entrance, its powerful shotgun at the ready.
Exactly nineteen seconds after its last visual inspection of its surroundings, it heard something clatter to the ground at the closest end of the room. It immediately pivoted, bringing its weapon up to bear in the direction of the noise, but found no targets. Warbling an error message, its visual inspection noticed a small orb on the group, slowly rolling back and forth at the end of the room. When it tried to use its more advanced sensors to check and see if it was an explosive, and determine what the ball was made of, however, its sensors did not register the ball. The geth platform made a diagnostic check of all its sensors, and then repeated the scans and diagnostic check no fewer than one hundred seventeen times over three seconds, before realizing it was stuck in a logic loop. A quick check reached the internal consensus that the ball was a visual artifact or the result of damage to its visual sensor, and did not actually exist.
The geth unit straightened and took four steps, before bending over and picking up the ball. This immediately caused all its other functions to crash, as it was forced to conclude that the ball was real, even though only its visual sensors could detect it. Realizing that such an item could not possibly exist, it attempted to form an internal consensus with the programs contained within its chassis about the ball. After two seconds of being unable to come up with a satisfactory consensus, it turned to the other units, and requested assistance in binary. (Alert: this ball exists.)
The three other units immediately turned at the… unusual declaration of their fellow unit, before immediately running their own scans on the ball. (Observation: Ball does not appear in any scans but visual. Internal consensus: Ball is the result of damage to visual sensor or data artifact.)
Unit T15963A02 turned and tossed the ball against the wall, where it hit with a click, before bouncing back and being effortlessly caught by the unit. (Alert: this ball exists.)
The other three units quickly formed a circle around the ball, before carefully examining it with their sensors again, and also examining the feeds from the other Geth. The first unit turned the ball so they could see all of it. Unit T32009Z15 offered its conclusions first. (Internal consensus: Ball is made of material that does not register on electromagnetic, gravitronic, thermal, or ultraviolet scans.)
Unit H08912L11 responded. (Alert: No material matches description provided.)
There was a brief pause before Unit T32009Z15 warbled back. (Internal consensus: Ball is made of new material that does not register on electromagnetic, gravitronic, thermal, or ultraviolet scans.)
Unit H08912L11 countered. (Alert: proposed material is impossible with known models of the universe.)
All four geth paused for a second to stare at the ball, before Unit T15963A02 adjusted its grip to look at the parts that its digits had covered. As it resecured its grip, the orb suddenly emitted a point of light, which began circling the ball, making a line. (Observation: Ball is now emitting light. Alert: Light does not register on any sensors but standard visual.)
The geth examined the ball, watching the light circle it, before Unit T32009Z15 responded. (Internal consensus: Light is the result of damage to…)
The light finished its journey around the ball, and converted the ball into pure, rapidly expanding plasma. The expanding plasma immediately engulfed the units, interrupting whatever conclusion the geth trooper had come to. They were destroyed before they could notify the Consensus of the new material they had discovered, its unusual properties, or even how they had found it.
Arlas got to the HUD marker he had applied at a distance of a quarter kilometer, before activating his omnitool. "Tunnel clear to quarter marker. Continue or pull back?"
Jaclyn responded. "Continue deeper, the Normandy is attempting to ambush the geth squad. Updated orders in two minutes."
It was as quiet as a cemetary in the CiC of the Normandy, as the ship slowly eased into position behind the advancing geth squadron. They were arranged in a modified pyramid formation, the three frigates arrayed in front of the heavy cruiser in a tight triangle formation. All of their active sensors were running, and the Normandy sensor operator reported that while they had been scanned several times, the IES, or Internal Emissions System, had absorbed the signals, exactly as they were designed to. Yet in spite of the success, no one moved or spoke more than they had to, afraid that the slightest sound or movement would somehow betray their locations to their opponents.
Staff Lieutenant Pressly stood at the command console, reviewing the data. "Come about to heading zero zero one, increase thrust by two percent for three seconds."
Joker replied. "Aye sir, heading zero zero one, thrust up by two for three seconds."
Serviceman Caleb Morkopl was at the weapons control console. "Entering optimal firing position in five seconds. Three torpedoes targeting each frigate, remaining seven for the cruiser. Main gun at one hundred percent charge. All guardian lasers at full power, no heat build."
Servicewoman Michelle Draven was monitoring their heat sinks. "Heat sinks at twelve percent capacity."
Joker cut the extra thrust from the engines. "Engines back at geth cruising speed."
Pressly looked at the various status displays in front of him, and nodded grimly. "Target the cruiser with the main cannon."
Joker nudged the ship, bringing it around to put the targeting reticle directly over the engine cluster of the geth cruiser. "Aye sir. Target locked. All javelin's locked."
Pressly took a second to review all the data and ensure everything was correct, before giving the order. "Fire all."
Arlas made it another hundred meters down the tunnel, before Joannis transmitted a message over the squad channel. "Joannis to all ground personnel, the Normandy took out the incoming squadron, continue with previous assignments."
Arlas grumbled to himself, but was glad he had remembered to take a comm bead, so he could hear reports without needing to broadcast them from the omnitool. Someone might hear him listening to orders.
He was a third of the way down the tunnel, and had yet to find anything other than the first two teams. A quick check of the room on his right indicated nothing inside. When he stepped out, however, he saw a potential problem coming down the kilometer long passage. A fairly large one, actually. He quickly stepped back into the room, and opened his communicator. "Shepards, Arlas. Geth moving in force down the tunnel. Armature, at least two destroyers and juggernauts, and assorted other units."
He glanced down the tunnel from his cover, glad the rangefinder in his helmet had a built in zoom function, allowing him to identify the approaching enemies. They weren't moving quickly, the Armature was too slow for that, but having the equivalent of a light tank made them something of a threat. After a moment, Jaclyn called him back. "Arlas, say again? Comms were breaking up."
"Geth, moving in force down the tunnel. Armature leading, two juggernauts, two destroyers, and assorted other units."
After a moment of silence, Jaclyn came back. "Understood. You have the melty gun?"
"Yes."
"Then you are to destroy the armature and then fall back. Ashley and Garrus are coming down to start sniping the other geth. How far is the group from this end of the passage?"
He used the rangefinder, before advancing forward, ignoring the side rooms now. "Approximately nine hundred meters."
"Understood."
He advanced down the passage, until he reached the halfway point, and found something almost as concerning as the advancing geth. "Arlas to Shepards. Found stairs leading up."
Joannis answered him this time. "Bypass for now, you can check after the push is dealt with."
Arlas continued closer to the geth, stopping at the six hundred meter marker and taking cover in the door to one of the side rooms. A few minutes later, the geth had reached the seven hundred meter marker, and he was just about to call and find out where his help was, when one of the geth troopers suddenly had its chest explode. He heard Tweak's flanged voice in his ear. "Scoped and dropped!"
Arlas rolled his eyes, before dropping onto his stomach, and carefully leaning around the corner. The geth had sought cover with a speed and efficiency only machines possessed, none of them screaming sniper, or standing around to catch the next sniper shot. Only the armature kept up its plodding advance, unable to fit into the side rooms. The geth let the armature advance as quickly as it could, soaking up sniper fire, and once the large walker had passed the next room, the geth began advancing to the next cover. Geth Snipers attempted to fire back, and he could hear Ashley swearing softly as she took a couple hits, but all the upgrades the ground team had been acquiring by dealing with all the incidents and extra assignments paid off, and she managed to get back into cover without being wounded.
The scene of the geth's advance repeated itself eight more times, the entrances to the side rooms off set every ten meters, despite Tweaks and Anvil's best attempts to stem it. None of the geth were providing easy shots to the main processors in their chests, and the armature's shields were surprisingly robust, soaking up all the fire the two snipers put into it without noticeably reducing the shields. It wasn't until Arlas spotted a small hovering machine behind the armature as it got closer that he realized what was happening. "Tali, are there drones that can restore shields and do the geth have any?"
"What? In theory, yes, but it wouldn't be good for much else. Not that I know of, but if anyone would, it would be geth. Why?"
"Figured out why the two snipers can't put down the walker, it has one of those behind it filling its shields up. Hold one."
The armature had finally come into range, and Arlas planned to do something about it. He carefully removed the fusion gun, aimed it at the big walker, and caressed the trigger. The gout of superheated plasma roared out, and slammed into the walker's shield, before the heat haze blocked it from view. Arlas quickly rolled back into the doorway, as geth fire suddenly lashed at his position. It was so thick he didn't dare stick his head out to try and aim his next shot, so he simply pointed the barrel of the fusion gun around the doorframe, and pulled the trigger again.
He kept firing the fusion gun as fast as he safely could, never choosing the same height to shoot from, trying to avoid having the gun shot out of his hand. After a minute or so of firing, he carefully leaned around the corner, to see the results of his handiwork.
The amature was vaporized. The passage was now unpassable, a large section of it melted from him having to estimate instead of aim his shots, and the rock like substance the passage was made from glowed dimly, its surface hissing and popping as it shed heat and bubbled. Arlas could see that the geth had withdrawn, several geth firing as they made the last turn, and only a juggernaut still in the passage. Before he could call in that the attack had been fought off, Tweaks beat him to it. "Shepards, Garrus. Geth are in retreat, they really didn't like Elfy firing off the melty gun. Though I think he damaged the passage a bit. Might have to find another way around."
Arlas frowned as he realized that Tweaks had called him Elfy, and made a mental note to correct the male turian later about it. Before he could do more, new orders were issued. "Ashley and Garrus, stay down there and keep an eye out for more geth. Arlas, you mentioned stairs earlier. Clarify."
"Passage leading up, likely to the roadway."
"Confirm that, and then report back."
Arlas headed back, and climbed slowly up the stairs, keeping his fusion gun out. With the cloak active, he wouldn't be spotted unless he had extremely bad luck. That thought made him pause, and then curse himself, before continuing upward; thoughts like that attracted the Twin God and Goddess' attention. He climbed two levels worth of stairs, both the landing leading to blocked exits, before suddenly stopping and activating his communicator. "Twins, Arlas. Hear voices. Humans. Arguing."
He tried to listen to the conversation he had heard above him, but only caught last few words. "...nothing now."
He waited a moment, and Joannis got back to him. "Pull back, the rest of the team is coming. Do not try to make contact with whoever you heard. Michael mentioned that all the colonists were accounted for at the colony when the shooting started. Might be Exogeni survivors. Meet us where Garrus and Ashley are. Tali has a gift for you."
Arlas rolled his eyes as Tali protested in the background, but Joanniss cut off her communicator before he heard anything specific. With a mental eye roll, he silently withdrew, lest he tempt one of the humans at the top of the stairs to lob a grenade down it. Once he got back to the passage, he glanced at the direction the geth had come from and retreated towards, and noted that the passage was still quite heated, before heading back toward the colony. He arrived after the rest of the ground team arrived and finished talking to Garrus and Ashley. He nodded to Wrex before turning to Tali. "Lioness said you had something?"
She glared at him for a moment, making him wonder what he had done to earn her ire, before idly deciding it was the same thing he did to earn every woman's ire; existing. After a moment, she pulled something off her back and offered it to him. "One of the geth back at the colony dropped this, and it was intact enough to give you some use."
He took the rifle, and after a moment of examining the unusual gun managed to find the button to expand it. Its collapsed form was oddly shaped, mostly reminding him of a piece of piping, but with an odd greenish-blue sheen to the metal. Once deployed though, it was clearly a long rifle of some kind, the metal sides expanding out to reveal several cords and ribbed tubes in the center, as long as he was tall. A scope popped out of the top, and the back of the piping extend and expanded, revealing the stock. A single long barrel extended from the front, making the geth long rifle even bigger than his destroyed rifle. The design clearly wasn't meant for an organic, the hard lines of the stock dug into his armor and suit, but it would at least give him something to use at range.
He finished his inspection of the long rifle, before looking up at Tali and nodding his thanks, before turning to the twins. He didn't say anything, as they had called his meeting. "Arlas and Ashley will be staying here to guard the tunnel. Everyone else will be coming with us to the Exogeni tower. If we can't make it down the passage thanks to Arlas being trigger happy, we can hoof it down the roadway, and deal with the armatures, troops, and mines on it. First though, we are going to check out that report of people down the passage. Arlas, details."
"Stairs leading up on the left side, halfway down passage. Two levels up heard voices."
Jaclyn rolled her eyes behind her fully enclosed helm. "Succinct. Lets go people, might be able to figure out why there are geth here."
Arlas glanced at Ashley, before heading to the opposite side of the hallway, and setting up the sniper rifle to rest on the ground, before lying down. It was on the opposite side he normally shot from, but he was adaptable. After spending a few minutes getting as ready to repel a counter attack as he could, he settled in to wait. Anvil, however, quickly proved that she lacked the discipline to do her job. "Awful nice of Tali, taking the time to get that rifle for you."
He continued to watch the passage, ignoring the distracted human. "I mean, she must have taken thirty minutes to hunt up the rifle and defeat the security features on it. Could have spent that unlocking one of the geth shotguns, but instead…"
"How you humans became the dominant species following mine is something that will forever baffle me. Focus on our duty, save the musings for when we are victorious."
Ashley's tone went low and insidious. "What? Eldar can't walk and chew gum at the same time?"
He was saved from her inane babbling by the Commander's on the communicator. "Arlas, Ashley, Michael. We found some Exogeni survivors. A few scientists, an administrative leech, and a double handful of security forces. However they refuse to relocate to the colony proper, in spite of their current location being less than defensible. Make of that what you will."
Ashley snorted, but the commanders continued the brief. "Considering the state of the lower passage, we are going to check the roadway. With any luck, geth have pulled back some, and will be clustered near the Exogeni tower. If so, Arlas, can you have your lander make a strafing run on their forces? Without blowing apart the roadway?"
Arlas would have sent back his annoyance at such a simple order, but at more than half a kilometer, they were too far for him to reach for that level of precision. "If they aren't under the covered portions, of course."
He could reach Yol'Pvera because she was a psyker herself and the lander had an amplifier, and could help establish the connection. *The Twins need us to save the day again. Launch, and get ready for strafing runs. You have an active communicator?*
*Yes. I can receive only.*
He sent back his understanding, and returned to the conversation with the Twins. "Yol'Pvera is on the squad channel now. Can't respond, but she can hear. Describe the target, and she will annihilate it. She is five minutes out, and launching now."
"We will settle for killing the target. Annihilation will cause damage that might collapse the structure."
He rolled his eyes, and returned to watching the hallway. He immediately frowned inside his helmet. The air was still disturbed due to the residual heat from the fusion gun, but he was certain that there was a shimmering outline on the far side of the heat haze. Deciding a bolt was worth less than a wound, he brought the rifle up, glanced through the scope to check the rifle's alignment, and was surprised to notice an outline of a geth unit. He mentally shrugged to himself, just as Ashley started chatting again. "So, when are we going to meet this co-pilot? If not for Liara and Tali's story of the singing orb/egg/artifact thing, everyone else would think her a figment of your imagination."
Arlas simply fired his newest long rifle, and watched the bolt hit something, producing a spray of white fluid. A half second later, a black and grey geth chassis faded into view, the top half of its chest missing and the head severed, before falling forward onto the ground. "Well spotted, Anvil. Truly, you are a soldier without peer, whose keen vigilance will surely protect your people from great threats."
Ashley stared at the geth 'corpse' before turning back to him. "That was at least two thirds of a kilometer. How did…?"
"By paying attention. Now focus."
An hour of working with Ashley was turning into more of a strain than fighting lictors in a jungle, if only because she kept talking. He didn't mind learning about family or history, it made figuring out how to manipulate her simple, but it did raise some interesting questions, like why did she join a group that clearly hated her, considering her father never made it past the lowest rank in spite of a perfect service record? In the end, he concluded that mon-keigh were just strange, and that she enjoyed punishment.
Though her current and most common 'conversation' was the most torturous yet. She was implying that Tali liked him and desired him as a mate. Which was the height of foolishness, cross-breeding between species was unclean and a waste of time and energy as nothing would result from it. Except eldar and humans, but that was because the gods enjoyed tormenting the Asuryani. Though only Fallen Asuryani males would willingly copulate with a human female, and no Asuryani female would tolerate the touch of a human male. And even if one did, the eldar female would kill herself as soon as she could.
Though he did admit that the asari caused that thought process to derail a bit. He would need to do more research into the exact mechanics of how an asari took genetic information from a non-asari mate. If it was a psyker phenomena like he suspected and was something the Asuryani could learn, then the eldar could use it to more quickly expand their populations.
He frowned, and did another communicator check with the mercenary company who were guarding the vehicle bay, making sure the geth hadn't pushed them out. "Arlas to Phalanx Company, status check."
"Same as it was fifteen minutes ago, mate. Dead quiet. Kind of creepy actually, I expected a geth push by now. Maybe the commanders are doing more than we thought."
The commanders had entered the Exogeni tower more than half an hour ago, their advance unimpeded by the geth after they had called on Yol'Pvera to make several strafing runs, clearing out the larger walkers, and clusters of infantry. Arlas simply grunted in reply, before changing the channel. "Joker, status."
The pilot technically didn't have to respond to his status request, but with nothing else to do, the pilot clearly didn't mind the distraction. "Nothing on comms or sensors here. Your lander has landed, by the way. Anything from the commanders?"
"No. Nor the geth either."
"Oh, well, just as well for the latter. I don't know what I would do if they invited us over for tea. Or would it be oil and coolant fluids? And I have nothing at all to wear. … What do you think female geth look like?"
Arlas closed the channel as Joker went into a winding monologue about geth genders and fashion, before wishing for something to shoot. Sadly, after he had sniped the first geth scout, no others had come down, or if they had, he had not seen them.
Five minutes later, Joker suddenly contacted him. "Joker to ground team, is there something wrong with the colony?"
He exchanged looks with Ashley, letting her respond this time. "Ashley here, not that we are aware Joker. What's the problem?"
"The colony just took some pot shots at us with their GUARDIAN lasers. They scratched up the paint job before I could get us out of range."
Arlas stood up, and collapsed the geth long rifle back into its carry form, before pulling out his fusion gun. Ashley swapped to her assault rifle as she replied. "Understood Joker, we will check it out. Might be a power problem causing the system VI to triage the IFF sensor."
"Yeah, well, break your foot off in someone's ass for me, they scratched my baby. I would, but I don't think I could get very deep."
Ashley laughed, before killing the channel and opening the one to the mercenaries as they started ascending the stairs to the vehicle bay. "Michael, problem. The turret fired at our ship. We are going to check it out."
They got out of the stairwell before he replied, and he closed the channel to talk directly to them. "They haven't reported anything wrong. Want one of my engineers to go with you?"
Arlas was heading for the elevator, and idly noticed the indicator above the door showed it was already descending. Convenient. Ashley shook her head as she followed right behind him. "No, the colony must have several we can use. Having it up and working right will benefit them as much as us. Just keep an eye on the stairwell, a cloaked geth scout tried to get through a while ago, they might try it again."
Arlas was almost to the elevator when it dinged, making the others in the vehicle bay turn in surprise. Arlas rolled his eyes at how unobservant the mon-keigh were, just before the elevator opened. Arlas stopped in shock, staring at the gaunt humanoid figure staring at him. After a second, he realized the elevator was full of them, and that they didn't have eyes, instead just empty, gaping holes. Instead, he could feel psyker enemations coming from them, and frantically began backpedaling, trying to exchange the fusion gun for his flamer pistol and power sword.
The figures suddenly broke into a lumbering run, the first one's hands reaching for him, revealing its fingers ended in claws. He swore and dove to the side, barely avoiding its grasp, before realizing the humans were gaping in horror instead of being productive, though a few were starting to turn and raise their weapons. "Open fire you fools!"
A/N - Looks like someone moved their time table up. Hopefully the heroes can deal with it.
As always, read, enjoy, favorite, follow, and review. Also, moved my Author's Notes to the end of the chapter, seeing if the different formatting works.
Also, if anyone wants to submit a character for inclusion into Phalanx Company, send me a PM, I will send back the details about them, and the roles you can have in the group. Remember, these guys are essentially mauve shirts, to use the TV Tropes term, so if they get killed horribly, well, they are mercenaries, sometimes you become heroes, other times someone becomes a hero for killing you. Phalanx Company will, however, be sticking around for the entire story line, and are mostly good guys.
Also, another thanks for all the readers who have reviewed, favorited, and followerd, as this story is now in the top 25 ME/WH40k crossovers on the site in all three categories. Quite an accomplishment, and very inspiring for me.