Chapter 2 – The Geth Gauntlet

[Location: Planet Cyone, Kypladon System, Silean Nebula]
[Mission Brief: Investigate fate of missing team, retrieve artefact]

The squad watched as the Alliance Kodiak drop shuttle flew away. It skimmed barely two metres from the surface, using the same low-flying method as when it first broke through the atmosphere.

The idea was to avoid as much radar detection as possible and drop the squad off a fair distance away from the last known location of the Retrieval Squad.

"I know we're trying to be stealthy and everything," commented Rebecca, her voice directly reaching the other three team members via the mic in her helmet, "but Kev's not stashing the Kodiak too far away right?"

Tullius consulted his omni-tool for a moment; "It is best for our main method of escape to be secure rather than risk it near the combat zone, especially since one highly skilled squad has already gone missing. Carrying on with the theme of caution, can you scout that ridge over there before we scramble down it?"

"Ryoukai," replied Rebecca, confirming the order in Japanese like Takako always used to.

After dancing her fingers across her omni-tool, her tactical drone materialised a metre away with a digital barking sound emanating from it.

The engineer suddenly froze and could feel her face turning red; "Ooh, that's embarrassing."

A wide smile ran across Scott's face; "You made it so Fido can bark?! That's awesome!"

"So cute," beamed Tessia, bending over (much to Scott's delight) to pet the drone like it was a real dog.

Tullius didn't seem as impressed; "Not exactly covert, is it?"

Rebecca quickly tapped a few commands on her tool; "Sorry, a little mod I made for fun, I forgot I left it on. It should stop after this cycle."

There was an awkward pause as the drone slowly began to hover away in 'scout' mode, making quiet sniffing sounds along the way.

Scott looked towards Rebecca and waved his hands about; "If it comes back with a geth arm in it's mouth for a game of fetch, I'm gonna freak, ok?"

Rebecca pictured such an impossible scene and tried to hide her amusement in front of their leader.

Tullius detached his M-92 Mantis sniper rifle; "We're taking this one slow. Fan out but do not approach the ridge. I also want another weapons check while we wait..."

The area the squad found themselves in was fairly bare, with worn-away grass fields surrounded by mountains, and antimatter generators in the far distance.

After making sure his weapons were in satisfactory order, Scott slowly turned 360 degrees to take in the surroundings; "Where are we exactly anyway? Seems pretty... boring."

"As I told you, it's not a key location," replied Tullius, "we're nearby an abandoned fuel station and reactor, similar to many others on this planet. Plans to revive it fell through and so it's been mostly forgotten."

Tessia looked deep in thought; "I imagine the enemy are hitting the other side of the planet pretty hard. Taking out the central refuelling stations would be a likely move."

"Yes," concurred Tullius, "disturbingly, the reapers certainly have sound strategies to back up their destructive force."

A digital barking sound emitted from Rebecca's omni-tool and she quickly levelled her arm in front of herself to read the results from her surveillance drone.

The engineer gulped loudly; "Whoa… guys…"

.***

The four squad members were laid flat on their stomachs upon the edge of a cliff top, looking down on the large valley below.

In the distance, settled motionless and almost directly in front of the abandoned reactor, was a large geth ship. The craft's model appeared like a cross between a geth cruiser and a drop-ship, but it didn't match anything known in the Alliance databases, a fact that concerned the group a fair bit.

Their current focus now however, was on the wide-spread wreckage of what looked like parts of a human-made spaceship.

Tessia was the first to speak; "What do you think the other ship was?"

"Hard to say," replied Tullius, "best guess from the ground scotching and impact craters, it fought with the geth cruiser in orbit, became badly damaged and then crashed here."

Scott frowned, puzzled; "Then the geth decided to park on the crash-site and set-up camp? Taking their time with the tea-bagging aren't they?"

The turian's eyes flicked from the scattered debris and to the geth ship; "Perhaps this is an old crash-site that they purposely searched for. It does seem unusual, whatever the reason. I'll expand the mission parameters to investigate the crash, but the main objectives take priority."

Rebecca was engrossed in her omni-tool but stopped typing after Tullius finished his sentence; "Fido got good intel, I've updated our tools with a layout of the local area, and enemy detection should be more accurate now too."

Scott looked at the mini-map on the HUD within his helmet; "That's an excessive amount of red dots."

Tessia smirked; "Not concerned about how out-numbered we are, are you?"

"Pish-naaarh," he calmly retorted, "it just looks like some crazy pizza-related eye-test in the bottom-corner of my vision all the time."

"Just one reason why I don't use a helmet myself," remarked Tullius, "I can see and focus better without it, I just check my omni-tool when I need any intel."

Scott frowned; "Which is a shame, coz turian helmets look badass."

"Tess, why don't you wear a helmet?" asked Rebecca.

Scott interrupted; "Don't suggest that, we shouldn't be hiding such beauty."

Tullius turned slightly; "But it's OK to hide my face?"

The turian's voice was so deadpan that Scott was actually concerned that he had caused him offense.

The team leader simply continued to stare at him, secretly amused at how much he was making the human squirm.

Tessia quickly chimed in with a chuckle before Scott could say anything stupid, nudging his shoulder with her elbow; "To answer your question Becky, it's because I fully trust in my own biotic barrier like you do your shields. Also, like our fearless leader, I prefer to have completely unobstructed vision, even if it does make checking maps and team locations less convenient."

"Back on task," stated Tullius, peering back over the cliff and to his omni-tool, "I'd estimate around one hundred of them."

Rebecca added her own observations with a waver in her voice, "and that's just in this area, there's probably more in the ship, maybe even some in the reactor."

Tessia squinted; "I can't really see one hundred of them. Most seem to just be standing around down there, but some are likely hidden behind the debris."

"Let's get blasting," said Scott, eager to start shooting.

"Not so fast," commanded Tullius, "remember, the geth have a swarm intelligence, we can't rush in without a plan."

Scott blinked a few times beneath his helmet; "What?"

Tessia looked over to him again; "You know, net-worked, share the same mind. So the moment we attack, they'll all instantly know about it and be on us."

"Oh yeah, I knew that. So what's the plan?" asked Scott.

Tullius glanced at the data on his omni-tool again then back to the valley; "We move to infiltrate the geth ship. It's the likeliest place they'd be holding the artefact, we may also find evidence on-board that'll help us find out what happened to the Retrieval Squad."

"I've brought all my best geth-system hack routines," informed Rebecca, "if we can get past their firewalls we should be able to get answers."

"Then we sabotage the ship, right?" suggested Scott.

"If we get the chance," hoped Tessia.

"Without blowing ourselves up," added Rebecca.

"Correct," accepted Tullius, "if we get no results, we then move onto the abandoned reactor. Since it's without power, it's the least likely place the geth would occupy, but there must be a reason they're guarding it."

"Sweet," said Scott starting to get up, "now we get blasting?"

"Be patient while I explain our strategy," said Tullius, ignoring the human who slumped back down with a sigh, "the geth have strong shields so equip disruptor ammo to bring them down and then finish them off quick, with luck, the ammo should also stun them in the process. We need to hit as many of them simultaneously from the out-set as possible, starting with the closest first to give us breathing room, so I want you in position and to hold until I give the signal."

"Sounds good," smiled Tessia, a small wave of excitement washing over her as adrenaline began to pump through her body.

The team leader consulted his omni-tool again; "I'll mark the positions for you. After the opening shots, stay at least a few meters away from each other so you're not bunched up, but don't isolate yourself in case you need back-up."

Rebecca glanced down to her right as a small distance marker appeared within her helmet HUD; "That puts us right in front of this cliff. We'll be against the wall to avoid sneak back-attacks, but will have nowhere to run if they rush us."

"That's why I'll be staying up here to cover you," said Tullius readying his sniper rifle, "I won't allow them to overwhelm you…"

Scott let out a little side comment; "Aww, he cares about us."

"… I'll keep an eye on all three of you and direct when needed. Now, move out."

The asari and the two humans began their slow descent. To their relief, it was a relatively easy climb down the cliff with enough solid rocks jutting out to give decent footholds.

"Dammit," hissed Tessia as gravel noisily gave away under her foot and cascaded down the cliff.

Seeing that Tessia was otherwise fine, Rebecca paused; "We ok?"

The voice of the squad leader calmly spoke over the private comm system installed within each member's armour; "Concentrate on the climb, I'll inform you if there's movement. No change so far, all the geth units are stood still, none of them are looking in our direction."

A few more minutes of careful climbing later, the three reached the bottom of the cliff and promptly began to move to their designated points.

Scott used his tactical cloak to avoid any chance of detection, while the other two had to make do with crouched-running. Rebecca scurried up to the virtual objective cone pointing at the ground a few metres in front, and watched it vanish from her HUD as she took cover behind a large sheet of crumpled metal.

The wreckage of the unidentified ship made for great cover and Scott easily made it to his assigned point while tracking the red dots on his mini-map. He suddenly noticed one of the dots turn into a small red cross.

The voice of Tullius came through just as Tessia reached a collection of dented shipping containers; "I've marked the closest targets I want you to take out. I'm lining up my own shot too, execute on the count of three."

Tessia's left hand began to glow with blue energy.

"One…" counted Tullius.

Scott engaged the disruptor ammo on his M-8 Avenger assault rifle.

"Two…"

Rebecca took a deep breath.

"Wait!"

Scott half began to stand up but then dropped himself back to the ground; "Ack, you trolling? What's happened?"

"Tess, stay still and don't make a sound," ordered the turian as he watched a previously unseen geth trooper rise from the other side of the containers that Tessia was using for cover.

Scott watched on from his position on the left, now also able to see the trooper stand up; "It must have been sat still all this time, it's position has only just appeared on my map."

The asari adept glanced to the radar on her omni-tool, the same new blip appearing on her read-out, barely a metre in front of her.

"Maybe it heard her and it woke from a kinda rest mode," whispered Rebecca to the team as she watched from the far right.

The synthetic being made a series of beeping as it looked towards the cliff-face over the containers.

"Hold," whispered Tullius.

Tessia bit her bottom lip in frustration, not fearful in the slightest, but well aware that she'd have to retaliate if spotted, and the team would then lose the advantage of a surprise attack. Remembering that some geth could see heat sources through objects, she wondered if such a scenario would play out. The asari's heart-rate began to increase but she stayed silent and still.

The mechanic trooper slowly turned, sounding out a small burst of squelched glitch-like sounds before slowly walking away.

"You're in luck T'Loki," informed Tullius, "it's moving away, seems to be heading towards your original target, you'll have to deal with that one too. I'll start the count again, on three. Everyone ready…"

The team leader lined-up his shot again, the crosshairs skilfully locked on the head of a geth far off in the distance; "One… two... three!"

The following happened as simultaneously as the turian had hoped for.

Scott stood up and promptly aimed at his target, the disruptor ammo rapidly blaring from his assault rifle and making quick work of the trooper's shield. Upon it shattering, the following spray sent enough voltage through the geth's mechanical body to give it no chance to retaliate. It's broken frame fell to the floor, twitching with electricity.

"Electric Swiss cheese baby!" yelled Scott.

There was a cracking sound heard overhead and a distant geth dropped to the floor, the handy work of Tullius.

Rebecca rose with a fully charged arc pistol, humming with intent, in her right hand. She had confidence in the weapon, knowing it was built by quarians for use against the geth, but whimpered when her shot hit around her target's upper left leg.

She silently cursed at how much she relied on the laser-sight that had been attached to her old pistol, but to her relief, the fully charged blast had taken out the geth's shield in one large spark, causing her more recent training to kick in.

The engineer's other hand clenched at the pistol to steady it and she moved her wrist slightly with a quick tap of the trigger. A weak blast hit the trooper's chest to no effect.

'Higher, more to the right.'

Raising her hands slightly allowed her next quick shot to hit it just below it's long neck. This shot seemed to stun it but still did little damage.

'Bit higher.'

Her arms raised a fraction more and she held down the trigger causing the pistol to charge with a hum.

The geth aimed it's rifle towards her, and the seconds it took for her own weapon to charge up additional power seemed to drag like minutes. The moment the hum built to its familiar apex, Rebecca released her trigger finger.

There was a shower of sparks as the geth's head popped off.

"Nyyyaaahh," whined Rebecca, half in frustration, half in victory.

Another sniping shot flew overhead as Tullius scored another distant kill.

Tessia rose up, her entire body shaking with excitement, and her left arm already held out to fire a blast of biotic energy at her original target; "Warp!"

As the geth's shield and armour shimmered with blue flames, the trooper who had been walking towards the now fiery scene quickly turned 180 with the shared knowledge that an asari was attacking them from behind the containers.

Just as it raised it's rifle, Tessia let off two precise shots with her M-6 Carnifex. The shaved-off metal from the heavy pistol shredded off the geth's right hand, causing it to drop it's weapon.

The first geth, although still coated in a blue hue, took aim and fired it's rifle.

Expecting this, Tessia had already begun to slide her left foot around, her right foot then pushing her body a step to the left of her position to dodge the attack. The asari's body gracefully twirled around as she thrust her left arm from her hip and out; "Throw!"

The biotic attack sailed through the air at blinding speed, connecting and reacting with the blue flames on the first geth. There was a loud but satisfying detonation that obliterated the target and launched the second geth into a crumpled heap a few metres away.

Tessia's face seemed to darken as she stood there, the winds causing a light breeze to blow across the battlefield while she glared at the remains of her defeated foes. She then turned to wave back at Tullius on the clifftop with a child-like giggle, her face now bright and cheerful.

Rebecca's eyes widened at the display; "Damn she's good…"

The asari's lips formed a smirk as she turned to Scott; "That's two for me Scotty, try not to fall behind now."

"Ohhhh," replied Scott rotating his shoulders, "you wanna keep score again, you're on blue."

Rebecca shook her head in disbelief; "Shouldn't you be more concerned about living through this rather than counting kills? There's like, a hundred of them remember?"

Scott pointed over towards his fellow human; "Becky's in too."

"Whaaaattt?" whined Becky before doing a quick calculation in her head, a second later she added; "OK fine."

The voice of Tullius joined in over the communication system; "Area is clear, but now they're alert to us, expect their full force to come at us."

"Bring it! Let's kick some ass!" cheered Scott, "Hooha!"

Various types of geth began to reveal themselves from behind the countless parts of wreckage further up the field.

Tullius also noticed more pouring out of the geth ship; "Stay in position, let them come to you so there's less chance of being flanked. This'll mean I'll be able to protect you from range too."

Scott's voice came in through the team chat; "Aww man, we have to camp?"

The turian's voice became slightly sterner; "Do NOT just dash out without support."

"That last comment was mostly aimed at me wasn't it?" asked Scott not really expecting an answer.

Rebecca chimed in; "I like having a team leader who knows what he's doing."

"I bet you do," replied Scott in a mischievous tone.

"Shut up," grumbled Rebecca.

The turian sighed over the channel, not entirely sure what they were referencing, but refusing to even remotely let any of his squad start arguing amongst themselves; "Stay focused team, leave the non-essential chatter until after we're in the clear."

"Impossible sir," laughed Scott.

Tessia's voice calmly announced; "The geth are approaching fast."

The nearest one was downed before it even got in range of the three ground troops, but even with a skilled sniper on their side, they knew that it was just a matter of time before they would have to fight too.

Rebecca gulped at the sight of the large mass of advancing units; "I've never seen so many geth in one place before."

Her attention was then drawn to something fired from the group on a collision course with one of her teammates; "Tess! Rocket trooper! Tess!"

Tessia's heart skipped a beat as she saw the missile speeding towards her, adrenaline and biotic energy automatically rushing through her being.

From the viewpoint of her teammates, it looked like the rocket was going to slam right into her, but the asari glided a few steps to the right in a blue blur as if she slid across a sheet of ice. The projectile then continued its course, crashing into the cliff-face with a loud explosion.

Tullius felt the mild tremor through the ground beneath but wasn't concerned as he knew the vast cliff was unlikely to crumble.

Still, he paused a moment to sense any further structural movement before returning his right eye to his scope; "They're closing in, approaching front and both sides."

"Going for the counter," stated Scott cloaking himself and shifting to the next piece of cover as he watched the rocket trooper get closer to his position.

Scott then stood and took aim before suddenly dropping back down to the ground as a missile flew overhead.

The infiltrator turned his cloak off as he hid and yelled at the geth; "I'm a mile away and cloaked! How the hell did you see me you cheap bast-"

The explosion behind him masked the rest of his ranting while Tullius took aim to cover Scott.

Rebecca's voice came crying out over the comms; "Ahhh! It's trying to poop bombs on me!"

The team looked over to see the engineer being chased out of cover by a small hovering drone dropping fist-sized bombs in a row after her.

The bomber was then struck by a pistol shot from Tessia, causing it to 'rattle' in mid-air before being finished off with another pull of the trigger.

Rebecca sighed in relief but a second later raised her arm to activate her combat drone; "Behind you!"

Fido materialized next to the asari as she turned around, realising that a cloaked geth hunter had crept up on her during the distraction. The combat drone sent a high-voltage shock at the geth unit just as it de-cloaked to fire at Tessia point-blank.

Tessia slammed the palm of her left hand against the mid-section of the attacker, a wave of transparent blue seemingly blasting out through it's back before it's entire body was thrown several metres back. While in mid-air, Tessia expertly fired a pistol shot at it's head before it hit the ground.

"Whoooaaa, did you guys… whhooaaa," said Rebecca, impressed.

"She knows the space kung-fu!" laughed Scott.

Tullius quickly jumped in on the communications; "Nicely dealt with, but save the victory dances until we're clear. More incoming, stay in the current formation, you're all doing well but don't get cocky."

The following ten minutes ended with the three ground troops surrounded. Even with the long-range sniping support, they were soon overwhelmed as the geth tactically carried out suppressive fire while using their number to flank around the sides.

Rebecca caught her breath while her shield recharged; "We're pinned down, the moment we even try to retaliate we get blasted."

A geth hunter revealed itself beside Rebecca, aiming it's plasma shotgun at her head.

The female human yelped and, without even thinking, had already turned and pressed a quick-key on her omni-tool. A shower of sparks from the overload caused the hunter's shield to power down and granted the added benefit of stunning it for a couple of seconds. Rebecca took that time to start scrambling on her hands and knees to the next available cover.

"Becky!" cried out Scott, too far away to aid her.

Tessia was closer, being placed between the two humans, but she was engaged with three troopers that had advanced on her.

Rebecca could hear the hunter's weapon fully charge up and rolled onto her back.

Knowing her omni-tool needed a while to cool-down, she reached for her sidearm; 'Please.'

She held her pistol up, already aware that she wouldn't be able to cause enough damage to save herself, but there was no way she'd not at least try in her final moments; 'Please.'

Her index finger was only half down on the trigger when a much more powerful shot was fired.

Rebecca closed her eyes and then screamed out, her knees coming up to cover her chest in reflex before she realised that she was unharmed.

One of her eyes opened to see that the hunter was missing it's lamp-like head.

"Epp!" cried Rebecca realising the geth's shotgun was still fully charged and pointing at her.

There was a familiar sound and a spark bounced off the headless geth's left shoulder, causing it to half spin and fire the charged shot off harmlessly into the distance before it crumpled to the ground with no signs of life.

"Thank you," said Rebecca, scrambling up onto her knees and keeping her back against the nearest chunk of wrecked spaceship.

"No problem," replied Tullius over the comms as he reloaded his sniper rifle, "you're doing good, keep calm and just stay alive."

"Yes sir."

"Ya good there?" asked Scott, his voice sounding better than ever in Rebecca's ears.

A wave of emotion hit Rebecca as her confidence slowly returned. Wanting to sound light-hearted, but unable to help complaining over her near-death experience, she replied with; "Why does everything have to be on insanity mode?"

"I've had harder challenges in the Annex Arena than this," chuckled Scott while unloading his clip at the nearest geth trooper before dodging the return fire, "whoa! I'm sorry, mercy! Mercy!"

Rebecca watched as Scott hid behind cover, seven troopers advancing on his position; "Thought you said this'd be a walk in the park."

Scott dived to a better position, trying his best to return fire; "This is not the park!"

"Scott," called Tullius, "there's too many on your side now. Make your way to Tess, then both of you move to Rebecca's location before spreading out again but facing west this time. I'll cover you."

Tessia took out two more geth troopers but became concerned that she had 'lost' the third one that she had been fighting during the action.

Realising she was sharing the same piece of cover with the enemy, Tessia leaned over and grabbed the geth trooper with surprising strength, dragging it over the top of a broken scanner desk and then throwing it to the ground by her feet. Before the trooper could react, Tessia's entire body began to glow a fierce blue as she punched through the robot's head with amazing force.

She stood back up and cracked her knuckles while glaring at the remaining, but still plentiful, collection of geth units; "Let's do this!"

"Oh yeeeaaahhh!" yelled Scott, blasting away as he ran.

.***