Disclaimer: EVE Online is owned by CCP and Mass Effect by Bioware, I claim ownership of nothing except the storyline.

Well first chapter with some actual combat. Was quite a joy to write although I have no idea if I'm good at it yet, time will tell I suppose. For those hoping for a completely overpowered capsuleer will go home slightly disappointed though. Eve is by no means a pushover and technically the EVE universe is much more advanced then the ME one, butsht still can't ignore the laws of physics. Though I think I'm making a good effort at bending them considering the genre.

Besides that I hope you all enjoy it and as always any reviews, comments and questions are always welcome. Quite interested to hear if people like combat chapters written like this.

Horizon Redux

Eve was bored.

After moving back to her own ship when they hit the system she had been idling in her pod as her Legion class cruiser floated in low orbit next to the Normandy. She was analyzing the telemetry she was getting from the Collecter vessel and so far the information had been interesting, but hardly groundbreaking. She had run a brief tactical analysis on the ship and from what she could tell she would probably win in a head on encounter, but the problem lay with the probably. She was immortal only so long as her ship stayed intact and that was not something she was willing to risk on a whim. The energy weapon that it boasted was quite powerful and two or three direct hits could penetrate her armor. She theorized that she would be able to dodge it, but that was too big an if. A few colonists weren't enough of a concern to risk her immortality.

However that being said, with the information she now had, helping Shepard fight the Collectors and moreover the Reapers was simple self preservation. Her Legion was strong but it would not stand up against multiple Reaper ships like Sovereign. Even if it did without some help it would take her far longer to find any way home, if there even was any. She had learned long ago that having allies paid off, even if those friends were now just mortals.

So for now she floated in her pod analyzing and listening in to Shepard's comm. link. He was making good progress as far as she could tell. The collectors were not an enemy to take lightly, especially not without energized plating, cyclotronic plasma rifles and directed energy weapons. But so far he and his team had dealt with it. She found this Harbinger intriguing though. An AI that controlled organics still came across as a little strange to her. In all honesty she had found the entire idea of the Reapers a bit weird, but now that she had some time to pile through some more data she agreed, the patterns were there.

Shepard had finally reached the colonies main transmitter and had patched EDI in. "Normandy, do you copy?"

"Joker here. Signals weak commander, but we got you."

"Time to show we give as good as we get. EDI bring the defense towers online."

"Errors in the calibration software are easily rectified, but it will take time to bring the towers to full power. I recommend a defensive posture. I will not be able to mask the increased generator output."

"When the collectors figure out what we're doing we'll have a fight on our hands."

"We'll hold this position and keep them away from the transmitter. Easy enough."

"Maybe not. Enemy reinforcements closing in, I suggest you ready weapons."

And boy if EDI wasn't kidding. Eve counted several squadrons of Collector drones closing in on Shepards location. Plus one high energy signature that she didn't recognize had just left the ship and was closing fast. She had to admit that with the gear he had, Shepard was good. He and his squad had torn through several Collector squads already, but this looked like too much. She was eager to see what Shepard would do. He had his team dug in cover around the transmitter on all four sides with Garrus in the center providing long range support. The first wave that hit were simple husks and they were being mowed down easily enough, but it was costing them thermal clips. As the actual collector drones started to land Eve deduced that they would run out of clips before the enemy would run out of troops. Quickly she checked in with EDI and also learned that it would take fifteen minutes to get the towers online, down there fifteen minutes would be an eternity. Quickly she clone jumped to her ground clone and started the process of armoring up. They were going to need her help.

This wasn't looking good.

He must have killed at least two dozen Collectors alone already and still they kept coming. He had only 20 clips left for his assault rifle and his sniper rifle was empty already. Time to switch to the shotgun. Only that would allow the Collectors even closer. He raked his brain for other options, but none left the colony defended. Then again dying here would achieve nothing. His team was putting up a valiant defense, better than he had hoped, but they were being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. He looked at the timer again, still 9 minutes till the towers would be online. In nine minutes they would be dead. They needed to extract and fight another day.

"Normandy, this is Shepard. We need immediate extraction at my location."

"Locked and away commander, ETA 4 minutes."

Good, they would hold for another four minutes.

"Commander orbital insertion sequence started, ETA 32 seconds."

What?! "Eve what the hell are you talking about? And how did you get on this frequency?"

"My comm. will go down in 2 seconds commander, hold your position."

He heard a hiss over comm. and then nothing. "Joker what the hell is going on."

"I don't know commander, but I'm tracking something tiny entering the atmosphere and boy is it fast."

"How tiny?" He answered as he popped from cover and fired the last of his rifle clips at a nearby collector.

"Like one person tiny commander and its heading straight for you. ETA 26 seconds."

Eve better knew what the hell she was doing.

She must have looked like a rocket from the outside.

She was at peak velocity in her descent at the moment and the webbing field was struggling to control her speed. The temperature around her feet had reached a good 1450 degrees and the air around her itself was igniting. She was now only 13 seconds from the landing site as the stasis webifier fired up at full speed and she rocked back and forth in her heavy Gallente armor. If it weren't for her upgrades and the active gel layer in her armor she would have been crushed in the deceleration.

A quick last scan of the landing site and some final adjustments to her course. She powered up the thermal smart bomb on her back and ran a final diagnostic on her CAR-90 pulse rifle. The Amarr laser rifle she had picked for its direct energy capabilities. In theory that should utterly bypass mass effect shielding. The webifier had slowed her enough for all of the fire to dissipate and all that remained was the blue hue of the stasis web.

At a poultry 180 kph she hit the ground and triggered the smart bomb.

Time to get to work.

As the shockwave from Eve's landing washed passed he had to wonder how the hell she could have survived that. The impact alone had killed an entire squad of Collector drones and thrown the crates they had been using for cover everywhere. Shepard was still trying to get an actual visual on anything through the flames when he saw a white light flashing through the smoke.

"Eve?"

"Regroup your squad at the transmitter Commander, I'll cover you."

He called Miranda, Zaeed and Grunt to fall back to Garrus's position when he spotted a figure move through the fire. Standing almost as tall as he did the figure was clad in armor that gleamed in a deep blue color. It was sleek with almost no right angles and few visible cracks and hefted a gun that looked around the same size as his assault rifle, but more resembled a golden artwork. As it fired a white light pulsed through the sky and part of a Collector vaporized.

That shook Shepard out of it and he quickly met up with the rest of his squad.

Eve apparently knew exactly what she was doing.

Eve fired her pulse rifle relentlessly, every shot vaporizing chunks of Collector. The horde was thinning out so nicely that with Shepards squad firing as well she didn't even bother to look for cover. The random stray shots posed no threat to her reinforced heavy armor. That particle beam was another matter entirely though, but then the operator was dealt with easily enough. Even then, released nanobots quickly repaired any damage done to her suit. She was jacked into her armor through her implants in a similar way she would normally interface with her ship. The armor became her skin and powered joints and servo's her muscles. The heavy armor placed very few restrictions on her movements and its integrated sensor suite and orbital uplink allowed her unparalleled battlefield control.

There was one thing her armor was missing though and as her sensor picked up there approach she cursed herself for not asking EDI for the upgrade specifications. Without Mordin's modification to her armor they could see her and boy were they coming for her. As they passed over the last buildings a swarm of hundreds of seekers descended on her attempting in vain to penetrate her armor to sting her. As ineffective as there stings were, they were distorting her sensors, clouding her vision and hindering her movements. In this state she would be useless to fight any collector opposition.

With a tingle in her mind she noted that her smartbomb had finished charging again.

"Excellent."

Once triggered the Inferno grade smartbomb sent any seekers within a 15 meter radius to a fiery death. Hundreds turned to ash in an instant and only a burnt out circle around her remained. A few remained, some fleeing and some attempting to reengage. She simply ignored them and concentrated on the remaining collector drones, they were no longer worth the effort.

Still she had to hurry, the high energy signature she had tracked from orbit was inbound fast and she wanted to have a clear playing field to tangle with it. With most close range targets gone she switched from Multifrequency crystals to Scorch and the white light changed to purple as the range on her rifle tripled.

The top half of another collector ceased to exist as she almost mindlessly released another cycle of nanobots from her internal repair systems to top off her armor.

Whatever it was, it was almost here.

Shepard had met up at the transmitter and fired away at the few collector drones that still remained. In only a few minutes Eve had absolutely decimated their numbers. To the point where only a minute after her landing he had called off the Normandy. He had been worried when the seeker drones had swarmed her after she landed, but whatever explosive she had strapped to her suit it had cleared them off without much problems. Meanwhile the Collector drones were hitting her with everything they had, but that armor seemed to just shrug it off. She had definitely not been kidding about her combat capabilities.

"Commander, ready your squad. We've got incoming from the eastern ridge. I'm reading multiple collector drones and one high energy signature. Pattern unknown."

He quickly looked around for the best way to set up his squad when he realized something else, her sensors can cut through the interference. He didn't have much time to think about it though as he could already hear the buzzing of the Collector drones wings in the distance.

"Listen up, we've got something big incoming from the east. Pass around any spare thermal clips and get ready. Garrus take up position on that terrace. Grunt, Zaeed behind that truck. Mow anything down that comes close to Garrus. Miranda take cover over there and cover the left flank, I'll take the right."

Grunt was the only one actually excited by the prospect of more targets, but they all knew to follow orders in combat. As he dug in he took a quick look at Eve who was just standing in the middle of the courtyard after having vaporized half of the last Collector drone around. Her armor still didn't show a scratch as it gleamed in the sun. He was soon pulled out of his thoughts by Garrus though.

"Here they come, I count ten drones and one big…. I don't know what that is, trailing behind."

"Watch your cover people. We don't know what that thing can do." Shepard added before focusing back to the drones. Garrus had lent him some thermal clips for his assault rifle and he would make good use of them. He lined up his rifle and waited for the drones to land.

Eve apparently had other ideas though. Purple streaked across the sky as 3 drones died before they even hit the ground. He had to admire her accuracy as he sprayed some fire on another collector drone. Then he heard the one sentence he wished he hadn't heard all day.

"Assuming direct control!"

One of the drones exploded with energy as Harbinger seized control of its body.

She watched the process curiously and concentrated on taking out the other drones as much as she could before the high energy signature would arrive. The one drone glowed with vanes of energy now as she tagged it with a higher threat marking. The controlled drone seemed to forgo the use of its standard collector rifle as it conjured forth what seemed like a form of biotics. She quickly deduced that her mass with her armor on would be far too high for any standard biotic attack to be very effective and made a snap decision. Instead of dodging she allowed the attack to her he head on, she needed to judge its effects.

The first bolt set her entire suit aflame causing the suits cooling to go into high gear to maintain average temperature. It affected some systems slightly, but her suit was designed for far harsher planetary conditions and was coping as well as usual. Then the second bolt hit and she was launched several feet backwards. Damage reports flooded her mind as nanobots were released en masse to repair the damage. Her frontal plating now featured a large crack that almost made it to the gel layer. The impact itself had managed to trigger the high gravity settings in her suit as all servos fired up full blast to counter the gravitational force that the floating orb had unleashed on her. She took half a second to complete the damage report and she noted micro fractures all around her armor, several systems were on the verge of overload and the smartbomb had been damaged beyond repair. The wave of released nanobots was quickly repairing her armor and some redistributing of power managed the overloaded systems. She would survive, but made a mental note not to get hit by that again.

As she opened fire on the possessed drone she ran a quick analysis on the attack and had to admit that it was ingenious. The first blast would set the average person on fire, hurting him and making him disorientated allowing the second blast to hit. The floating orb that followed seemed to be a miniature black hole only several micrometers across and unstable in its form, which would explain its slower speed. Upon impact the containment field collapsed releasing the mini black hole which instantly imploded all matter around it, only to then quickly explode as critical mass was reached. The resulting gravitational shift would do more damage, the bigger the target it hit as there was more mass to throw around.

Definitely not your standard biotic attack.

Her repair systems were still cycling when her third shot breached the controlled drones energized armor and completely incinerated the drone. She quickly scanned for more targets, but Shepards team seemed to have taken the rest out. Her armor read 70% overall with her frontal plating down to 40%, but coming up fast. Capacitor level was down to 50% but holding steady as she routed the remaining power from her smartbomb back into the grid.

Then with a ground shaking crash the high energy signature landed.

"Crud."

It didn't look like anything he had seen before, but that didn't stop Shepard from immediately opening fire on it. However his rifle rounds pinged helplessly of the shield. The four legged creature seemed to glare at him for a moment before taking off and hovering towards Eve.

"Alright, heavy weapon it is."

He looked over to check on eve for a moment and mentally reeled at what he saw. So her armor isn't indestructible. Eve had to have been hit hard by the Harbinger controlled drone. Her entire armor was scorched black and showed a large gash at the front. Did she actually let his fire hit her? Then he noted something else, a green shimmer, and the gash getting smaller? Was Eve repairing her armor on the fly? Was that even possible?

Quickly he shook it off and filed those questions away for later as he reached for the Collector particle beam he picked up earlier.

"Let's see how they like a taste of their own medicine."

He popped out of cover again and lined up his shot. The black monsters eyes started glowing and a particle beam shot out towards Eve at the same time he fired his. His beam impacted the creatures shields while the creatures beam found nothing but air. He ducked behind cover again and heard Garrus call out another direct hit of his own. Quickly looking over the battlefield he found where Eve was again. A full 50 meters away towards the other side of the creature.

"How in the hell had she moved that fast."

He didn't have time to think on it though as he saw Grunt charge the floating monster out of the corner of his eye. He motioned for Grunt to move back, but it was too late. The creature landed with a crash and caused an explosion of energy that sent Grunt flying backwards. He opened fire again to distract the creature from Grunt who seemed dazed, but otherwise okay. The creature itself on the other hand didn't seem to need the distraction as it focused all of it attention on Eve, firing its particle beam at her relentlessly. For her part Eve was dodging the beam at a speed he hadn't thought possible in an armored suit that large.

He continued his barrage and Miranda, Zaeed and Garrus joined in with pistol, assault rifle and sniper rifle respectively. Then EDI came on comms.

"Guardian anti ship batteries at 100%. I have control. Targeting Collector vessel."

Finally some good news.

The thunder of the Guardian batteries opening fire almost drowned out the sound of the particle beam that seemed to be following her around. She had her suits servos running on full power in order to dodge the beam. From her readings the beam had at least 4 times the power the handheld Collector particle beam Shepard was wielding and that thing she had already identified as a threat. Now with her armor already damaged she did not feel the need to test out its damage potential. However in a moment she might have no other choice. With both her armor repair systems cycling and her servos running on maximum power she was putting a serious drain on her capacitor, to the point where she was almost capped out. She had managed to get her frontal plating repaired back up to 80% though so it had been worth the energy spent.

"Good enough."

She was done running from the Praetorian. While running she had quickly queried EDI, who had run the visual profile she had uploaded through multiple databases and come up with the ID. There were few sightings, but they had been seen before and been dubbed Praetorians. Though the close range attack it had released on Grunt had been new information and use full at that. Charging something he could not defeat twice in the same day though, she had expected better from Grunt. Then again his species was known for being able to survive far harsher punishment. Probably for good reason.

She ended her musings when she rolled out of cover and quickly released two pulse rifle shots at the Praetorian before jumping over a crate and dodging the particle beamed counter. A quick look allowed her to analyze the damage. The Praetorian was far tougher than any other Collector opponent to date. The two shots had passed through its shield as expected but the two scorch marks on the armor made it clear that it would require more rounds then that to take it down.

"Unless…."

A quick analysis told her it would be worth the risk. Probability of success over 90% and even if it failed, the Praetorian would be badly damaged. A few more shots to keep it occupied, while she shunted power back into the damaged smartbomb on her back. Within seconds her mind was flooded with warning signals indicating overload and explosive danger. She jumped a few more crates, luring the Praetorian as far away from Shepard as she could before… The final red warning went off in her mind.

Now or never.

At 90% charge she disconnected the smartbomb from her back and in one turn caught it and with all her strength flung it at the following Praetorian. Half a second later she had lined up a shot with her pulse rifle. Barely a foot in front of the Praetorian she hit the smartbomb dead on and the world turned to fire.

"Beautiful"

Shepard had no idea what he had watched Eve fling at the creature EDI had identified as a Praetorian, but damn had it made one hell of a bang. Apparently she had decided that her rifle wasn't doing enough damage either, though he wished she had given him a warning. As the Guardian batteries around them still thundered he gathered his squad at the transmitter again and searched the flaming crater to the right for any signs of Eve.

Before he could get a gimps of her the Collector ship decided to take off. The centre of the of the colony erupted in fire as the massive ships engines powered up.

"Their pulling out!"

Garrus yelled as they took cover against the blast wave. All they could do was watch as the ship took off still under Guardian fire and became nothing but a speck in the distance.

"They got all the colonists, no reason to stay." Zaeed grunted as he got back up.

Of course now that mechanic, Delan, he met earlier decides to show up.

"No, don't let them get away!" He heaved as he came to a halt.

What exactly did he expect me to do against a ship like that, Shepard couldn't help but wonder. But he could understand the colonist fear. After Mindoir he could understand it all too well. All of the man's friends and family were likely on there.

"There's nothing we can do. They're gone."

Delan just kept ranting on. "Half the colony is on there. They took Egan and Sam….. and Lilith. Do something."

Shepard wished that he could. They had just barely managed to fight the Collectors off, let alone chase after them. "I didn't want it to end this way. I did what I could."

As per usual Garrus always backed him up. "More than most Shepard." Didn't make him feel that much better, but it helped he supposed.

"Shepard? Wait I know that name." He seemed to think for a second. "Sure, I remember you. You're some type of big alliance hero."

Then he saw someone he had both hoped and feared to see here, Ashley.

"Commander Shepard. Captain of the Normandy. The first human Spectre, Savior of the Citadel." She strolled up, seemingly so casual and put her hand on her hip the same way her remembered. "You're in the presence of a god, Delan. Back from the dead."

Two years ago, he knew there had been feelings there. But there was too much pressure and not enough time back then, not to mention regs, so nothing had happened. Now he wasn't sure, but he knew they had been friends, good friends, at the very least.

"All the good people we lose and you get left behind. Figures." Delan decides to butt in. Shepard still couldn't believe that man was still blaming the alliance for this, though at this point he didn't really care anymore either. "Screw this. I'm done with you Alliance types" And with the Delan simply walks off. Where too, Shepard didn't know and he was hard pressed to care. Ashley on the other hand, it was good to see her again.

"We thought you were dead Commander. We all did."

He couldn't help but smile. "It's good to see you Ash. How've you been?"

It sounded good in his head, she seemed to disagree. "That's it? You show up after two years and act like nothing's happened?"

This conversation did not start as planned.

Eve meanwhile had walked around the crater her homemade bomb had created back towards Shepard. Giving her systems ample time to repair and reset, while analyzing further data on how the Praetorian had reacted to the explosion. Which was to blow into small bits and have to those bits then disintegrate from what she judged was some form of self destruct mechanism.

By the time she made it back to Shepard and his squad her armor was once again fully repaired, though obviously missing a smartbomb charge on her back. He meanwhile had started a talk with another woman. She queried EDI for an ID and came up with Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams, Alliance Navy. Apparently a former team mate of Shepard and by the looks of things the conversation was not going well. The woman was currently in the middle of a rant about Cerberus. Alliance Navy didn't hold the organization in kind regard either apparently. At the very least that was another piece of information to file away.

She stuck to the background and observed in a way only a capsuleer could. Noting every word, every intonation and every detail. Garrus tried to talking to her as well, but it was useless. Eve had already judged that she would not be persuaded in any way. Still Shepard looked sad as she left, they had something. Whether they used to be friends or more, she could not yet judge, but there had been something.

As Shepard called for a shuttle back up she made her presence known again. He simply looked at her and smiled slightly, apparently glad she was still alive. Such a useless notion, though as the shuttle approached she did come to one conclusion.

She would have some fun in this universe after all.