Lifetime of War
Chapter 8: The Legions
Block by block our troops took the capital city of Bowerstone. Every building was turned into a fortress, every step a potential last for the troops on the ground. The cause of all this? The Human legions. However; the second our troops advanced en mass the legionnaires ran away. If this was the best Humanity could give then there would be nothing to worry about.
The bulk of the remaining legions and militia were pinned against a raging river. Several pockets of resistance kept popping up, but they were the dying embers of a once proud military. Or so we thought.
Cut off from supplies we saw the legions were truly armies unto themselves. With no lines of contact millions of men and women kept food, water, and medicine flowing to those who needed it. They did not simply wait for backup nor did they try to re-establish communications with their General. No, the legions acted independently of each other making it impossible to determine what their overall plan was.
It was this reason I ordered the troops to not advance until all forces in Bowerstone could be consolidated into one unified attack force. A month passed and on the seventh day of the Human month of September I ordered the first attack.
Our troops would destroy all known pockets of resistance while simultaneously assaulting the last unified front the Humans had. Once the resistance cells were eliminated then the survivors would reinforce the front line and assist those attacking the main enemy force.
Seven times the attack was ordered. Seven times they were repelled. The Human bodies piled up forming large hills. When the hills of bodies became too high bulldozers were called in to clear out the bodies and dump them in mass graves or the river.
After the seventh and final assault the legionaries advanced on our broken troops- the militia bringing up the rear. They entered the camps and began killing everyone who didn't surrender immediately. I watched through a dead soldier's imbedded helmet camera as the impossible happened. One of the human females picked up and slammed a Turian soldier to the ground using biotics!
It was impossible. None of our records had previously indicated that humans had any biotic in their society- natural or otherwise. So what happened? Any test on any human would tell us the exact same; humans were not natural biotic nor were there traces of element zero in the atmosphere of their worlds.
Only one answer remained; some of the Asari troops had turned against their own. The question wasn't 'why' but 'how.'