Noble Savage
It had been almost five years according by Ash Tree's counting, and Shepard was still alive. Of all those who had been captured on that fateful night only a handful were left, though none of them had managed that feat unscathed. Shepard had a jagged scar running from his neck to his navel when a piece of shrapnel had almost cut him in half, and Kaidan had almost been burned alive when he'd been caught inside a crashing shuttle. His body was a web of horrific burns, but through some miracle had acquired a kind of magic similar to what Garm, their owner, possessed. They had been weak at first, but once their captors took note of them they had smuggled the young man away for a time and when he came back his powers were greatly amplified. Ash Tree had managed to get through the years unmaimed, but even she had become a terrible warning of what the human body could endure. Like all of them she looked like she'd gotten into a fight with something made of bullets and cheese graters and lost. Of particular note was a line of small, pink dots running down her left thigh in a clean line where she'd been hit by a burst from an assault rifle.
While their life as slave-soldiers for the Blood Pack wasn't a kind one, once they had established themselves on the mining station Omega things did improve somewhat. While its tight streets, dense throng of residents and crushing despair were alien to the lost tribe of humans, there was something familiar about it. A certain desperation, fear and underlying danger that they were well accustomed to. To the average citizen of the Citadel, it was a place that could and would eat the unwary alive. To the humans, it was simply a different species of wasteland. All it took was a brief transition period for them to learn the rules of their new home.
And without chains to bind them, they learned quickly. After all, where were they going to run to? Very few had seen their kind before, and fewer still could understand their speech. They couldn't fly a ship, and even if they could they hadn't the faintest idea of how they would get back to their homeworld.
And, of course, it didn't hurt that Shepard had killed three Vorcha that had tried to put them on after a fight with a piece of debris. That was one of the advantages of growing up in the wasteland: when you knew how to make weapons from rocks, then a long sharp piece of metal was a lot more intimidating than it might otherwise have been. Even if they did decide to try again, one of the happy coincidences of knowing how to make weapons out of scrap was that you very quickly had a lot of them. They weren't modern weaponry, of course, but it stopped them from being helpless. Improvised knives, spears and clubs didn't seem very intimidating until they were held by thirty hands eager to use them, whereupon they transformed into the kind of thing nightmares were made of.
Armed with weapons, isolation and limited freedom, the few humans in exile returned to something familiar: the tribe. It started out slowly enough: it was only Shepard, Kaidan and a grudging Ash Tree at first, but their unity drew others towards them. Between Shepard's prowess in battle, Kaidan's friendly personality and Ash Tree's limited healing abilities there were some very persuasive incentives to join up with them. That those who remained alone did not survive long only helped things along.
It didn't matter what tribe they had come from, whether they had lived in cities or in the wasteland. Dust Walker, Stone Frogs, Dandy Men... the names lived in memories only. And, with surprising regularity, belonged to people who could expect becoming uncomfortably well acquainted with something long and sharp should the opportunity ever arise.
And as their leader in war, (something there was an abundance of,) it had fallen to Shepard to assume the mantle of leadership.
It was a mixed blessing.
"Hey, chief!" Kaidan called out from behind the tattered length of cloth that served as a door. "The frogs want us to form up. Says there's work to be done."
The young chief looked up from his work, blade in one hand and improvised whetstone in the other. The sword was the finest in the whole tribe, given to him as a gift in an attempt to buy his loyalty when fear or awe no longer sufficed.
"How many do they want?" he asked, running the stone over the gleaming edge.
It was a terrible gift. Shepard would have much preferred a gun, but Garm's proclamation that he was to fight with his hands was still in place for the most part. He had no doubt that the weapon was intended to lead him to his death.
Kaiden pulled back the cloth and poked his head inside.
Even horrifically scarred, there was a certain friendliness about him. Shepard enjoyed his company, as did the rest of the tribe. Whenever there were new arrivals, it was invariably Kaidan who brought them into the fold, or trained those too young to be considered true warriors. While not one himself, he had survived enough fights to be able to pass on the fundamentals. And he was a dab hand at repairs, so invariably everyone ended up spending time with him.
He was wearing his patchwork armour, made from whatever could be stolen from the dead.
"All of us," he announced grimly. "We're making a move against Eclipse."
Shepard grunted, and slid the sword into its needlessly elaborate sheath.
"Tell Ash Tree, the get your wards ready. Guard my back."
The former townsman nodded and smiled.
"You got it, chief."
Shepard rose to his feet, and his back crackled gently as he straightened. He grunted softly as he felt his body stir after sitting for so long, and stretched his arms and shoulders.
Not far away, Ash Tree shifted in his thin sleeping pallet.
"Why would you tell him to tell me? I can hear well enough."
Shepard buckled the sword to the length of rope that served as a belt.
"I thought we were keeping this a secret," he said.
"That was a secret two years ago," she said, pulling back the threadbare rugs that had kept them warm in the night. "I was too ashamed to let anyone know."
"You attack-kissed me, if I recall," Shepard reminded her with grin. "I barely got a word in edgewise until morning."
"I took a concussion blast to the head. I was full of bad decisions that night."
"Oh?" he snickered. "Just that night?"
"Answer the damn question, dog," Ash Tree barked at him,
"I did," Shepard told her "I thought we were keeping this a secret."
Ash Tree rolled her eyes, shook her head and rose from their bed with a low sigh. She draped an arm around his shoulder and squeezed in an unusual display of affection.
"Shepard, we are the Ash Dog tribe," the woman told him wryly. "I certainly hope someone's worked it out by now."
Shepard chuckled, and gathered up his spears.
"Put your clothes on, and then go find your weapons. We have places to be."
Shepard hated the Eclipse.
He dodged between the legs of a heavy mech, and with practiced ease he shoved a discarded rifle in its joints. It wouldn't stop it, but it would slow the thing down for a moment.
"New target acquired," a soulless voice said, just an instant before Shepard whipped around and smashed the butt of a spear into a featureless head.
They always had a small army of robots to throw at them, and it was a sad reality that machines didn't feel fear when confronted by an exotic alien screaming incoherently while brandishing primitive weapons. Their first reaction, in fact, was to shoot them.
The robot staggered back, unbalanced but unfazed. Not wasting a second, Shepard flipped the spear around in his hand and finished the job with a single thrust through its robotic eye. He released the weapon and bounced back, wary of being electrocuted as it self-terminated.
Above him, the giant war machine tried to turn, but staggered for a moment as its mechanisms were jammed by an unexpected obstruction. It came and passed quickly, as there wasn't a gun in the galaxy that could withstand the combined weight of several tons of steel and ordinance and the hydraulic force needed to move it.
But it bought Ash Tree enough time to climb up its leg and onto its back in an impressive display of agility and wedge a grenade in one of the joints in its neck before leaping away.
"Get back!" she shouted even as she did just that.
Shepard threw himself forward into a fresh charge, cutting through what should have been a hard point in the Eclipse formation like a knife through butter. The explosion and rain of debris only made his sudden appearance more frightening, giving him the moment's hesitation he needed to skewer an asari through her throat as she tried to call out for help or blast him with her strange magic.
Yes, he really, truly and emphatically hated them.
"Push them back, you filthy scum!" Garm roared from behind. A chorus of frenzied roars answered him.
But not as much as he hated Garm.
The Krogan had charged blindly into the fray at the beginning of the engagement, trailing a pack of vorcha behind him. He had thought to crush the Eclipse in a single, glorious exchange, but that hadn't happened. Instead, their enemies had lured them into a long hallway that had been carefully obstructed in order to force them into a snaking path that effectively double the distance. And at the other end of that hallway? Snipers. It was a killing field out there, Shepard cursed Garm's stupidity in allowing it to happen with every fibre of his being.
The young chief scowled as he continued to wreck as much havoc as he could. Even in retreat the Eclipse manage to be a pain.
As strange as it seemed, he actually had a slight advantage when it came to fighting the Eclipse. The mercenary outfit focussed on barriers and shields for protection where they couldn't rely on expendable robots, and such countermeasures had not been designed to account for something as primitive as a spear or sword. They had been built to slow down objects moving at incredible speeds without interfering with their surroundings. A spear, as deadly as it could be, didn't move nearly fast enough to be hindered in any meaningful way.
A fact that many Eclipse learned that day.
Ash Tree led the other warriors in behind him, killing where they could and forcing them into cover where they couldn't. He couldn't keep much of an eye on them, distracted as he was by having to watch out for his own protection, but he trusted them to look out for him and themselves.
Elsewhere, he knew, Kaidan and his recruits would be doing what they could: tending to the wounded, finishing fallen enemies before they could cause any mischief, and otherwise lending support. Theirs was a small part, but it still helped.
The going was hard, and by the time the Blood Pack and Shepard's small tribe had managed to make their way to the end of the hallway the Eclipse had withdrawn even further, this time across a narrow bridge with no cover and into a fortified structure. Shepard had no doubt that they were just waiting for them to attack again, just so they could unloose one last barrage on them before finally having to commit to an open engagement.
Shepard, chest heaving and nursing a fresh pair of gunshot wounds to his chest and shoulder respectively, hoped that Garm wasn't arrogant and foolish enough to oblige them with one last charge into a faceful of gunfire. He was quick, yes, but even he didn't favour his chances of making it through in one piece.
"Regroup, you worthless maggots!" Garm commanded. "We've got them on the run! We'll push these bastards into space!"
Shepard glowered at the Krogan hatefully. Of course he would think that he was winning. Because only cowards and the weak would ever even consider yielding ground, never mind that it would be with a greater purpose in mind. Garm was very much a single minded person, and right now he was focussed on his impending victory.
Which, Shepard reflected as he gave the building a closer look, might not be such a bad idea.
He waited for Ash tree and the other warriors to catch up to him, using the pretence of retrieving his spears from the dead in order to do so. It didn't look like Garm cared enough about him to notice just now, but he would soon enough. He wanted Shepard dead, and this was a good way to help that along without seeming to do so.
"Hold back on the charge for a moment, let the Vorcha go before you. And then wait on my signal." he told them when they caught up to him. "Don't take any senseless risks."
"What are you thinking?" Ash Tree asked suspiciously. "Garm will take it out of our hides if we try and hide from battle."
"He won't be paying attention once he gets the charge underway," Shepard assured her. "And by the time he does, I'll be ready."
"Ready for what?" the woman demanded. She was already agitated from battle, and his evasiveness only made it worse. "What are you planning?"
Shepard shouldered his last spear, the others having been either destroyed or lost in the fighting, and grinned mischievously. He didn't know it, but the blood splashed across his across his face made the friendly expression deeply sinister.
"Plan? I don't have one yet. Just wait."
"Wait on what?" she all but snarled. "You said there would be a signal."
Shepard didn't like having to hide his plan from her, but there could be no room for error in this. Garm could kill them as easily as the Eclipse if he an inkling of what he was doing.
"You'll know it when you see it," he assured her. "Trust me."
It was an unfair thing to ask of them, considering that they were only there because of a violation of trust. Whether it was by jealous friends, hungry families or ignorant leaders, each of them had very good reason to be suspicious of someone asking for their faith.
But he was Shepard, their chief. If they could not trust him, who could they trust?
And that was a question Shepard was determined to prevent them from having to ask.
The warriors nodded and voiced their affirmation either through words, murmurs or unintelligible grunts.
Ash Tree, her posture tense and guarded, bit her lip. To anyone else, it would look like she was calculating something. Weighing the pros and cons of his death, perhaps. But Shepard could see through it: she was scared, and looking for a way to not show concern for his wellbeing. (Shepard was fond of her, but even he had to admit that she could be a basketful of crazy at times.)
Eventually, she seemed to settle for sighing and shrugging dismissively.
"On your way then, dog!" Ash Tree told him firmly.
Shepard held up his hands in defeat, pretended not to see the worried frown she was wearing as he wandered off to join Garm in his hopeless charge.
He pushed his way through hissing and growling vorcha, careful not to prick himself on their many spines and spikes. It was a futile measure, of course, because he knew full well that he would get more than his fair share of lacerations and abrasions in the charge, but there was no sense in adding more. And besides that, you could never tell where a vorcha had been. Better to put it off for as long as possible and hope for the best.
It didn't take Garm long to spot him, towering above most vorcha as they did.
"There you are," the Krogan rumbled, and gave a meaningful nod towards the human's compatriots. "Your dogs lost their nerve?"
Shepard bristled at the accusation, and bared his teeth to show his displeasure. The krogan were completely worthless at discerning any human expression save the most obvious, which in turn forced the humans to be more primitive in expressing themselves.
"They are recovering," he lied angrily. "We do not heal as quickly as you."
"No?" Garm sneered. "Could have fooled me. You're doing fine, even with two rounds in you."
"I am hurt. I just choose not to let it stop me," he informed his owner stoically.
"Hmph," the Krogan grunted derisively. "Just make sure you keep up with me, you little pyjak. I want to see those hands of yours at work."
And there was nothing in the world that Shepard wanted than to show him, though decidedly not in the way that the enormous alien imagined.
"It would be my pleasure," he said with real eagerness.
His unusual attitude gave the would-be warlord pause for a moment, but not long enough for him to stop his suicidal scheme. He turned from Shepard without another word, and instead addressed to the masses surrounding him.
"Right then!" he shouted with his thundering voice. "Let's do this thing! Show the Eclipse not to mess with the Blood Pack! Extra rations to the one who brings me their commander's head! Hraagh!"
And with that, Garm, Shepard and the vorcha shock troops advanced. Moving with the frenzied speed of fear, fury and primal bloodlust they quickly left the labyrinthine hall behind them. At a somewhat slower pace came the humans, obedient but wary of enemy fire.
They had barely made it on to the bridge before the loud crack sniper-fire sounded out and people started dying. Shepard, suspecting he knew what was going to happen next, quickly got as close to Garm as he dared. He dodged between snarling vorcha where he could, and violently pushed them aside where he could not, desperate for the only cover to be found in a charge: behind someone bigger.
As expected, the Eclipse burst from cover just as he got behind the Krogan, and the air was filled with the sound gunfire. The tiny pellets that served as bullets pinged off armour in rapid bursts, insufficient at first but tearing through with sustained fire. The vorcha enjoyed a few seconds of safety before they were riddled with wounds. Garm himself, decked out with heavy armour and strong barriers, barely even noticed the sudden retaliation even as he bulldozed through a makeshift barricade and proceeded to pump round after round of shotgun blasts at the Eclipse. Safely behind him, Shepard had weathered the assault without harm and now nimbly leaped through the hole Garm had created.
He appeared next to a terrified asari who was trying to reload her weapon with trembling hands, and instead of killing her outright he whipped his spear around so that the butt smashed against the side of her skull. She collapsed instantly to an unconscious heap, and wasting no time Shepard retrieved her gun and loaded the thermal clip in as quickly as he could.
He whirled around and unloaded into Garm's knee. The rifle kicked and jumped in his grasp surprisingly, and very few of his shots actually hit their target. Even so, there was only so much armour could do to protect joints. The Krogan bellowed in surprise as one of his knees buckled under his weight and he went down.
But the damned frog monster was experienced if nothing else, and as he fell he twisted around to face Shepard fully, weapon raised threateningly.
"You stupid little monkey!" Garm roared furiously. "I'll kill y-"
Whatever he had been about to say would forever be a mystery, as Shepard had discarded the rifle when he saw the krogan move and was already lunging forward with his spear. He jammed the long spear up through the krogan's nostril and into his brain, and the jolt that reverberated up the spear shaft as it pushed through meat and bone sent an electric tingle up Shepard spine. The great body writhed with a spasm, and the chief felt his spearhead snap free from its bindings as it bounced around inside Garm's skull.
Shepard felt an almost perverse glee come over him. Fatigue washed away from him like it was mud in water, and for the first time in years he felt the wild exultation of victory surge though him once more. Every fibre of his body, from bones to balls, ached for action, for destruction, for triumph, for freedom. And he had no desire to deny himself anything, not on the eve of his tribe's liberation.
He placed a foot on the krogan's chest for leverage and tore his spear free with a savage wrench. He allowed the weapon to clatter to the ground, and slowly unsheathed the sword that Garm had given him. He brought the weapon up and down in a mighty blow, but it proved insufficient to sever the krogan's head from its body. Undeterred, Shepard followed up with a second swing, then a third and finally a fourth that only just managed to break through the thick carapace on the alien's neck.
Garm's head was much larger and heavier than he had expected it to be, and it took him two tries to lift the enormous thing off the ground and hold it high in both hands.
The effect it had was almost instantaneous.
Their vorcha "allies" scattered as they saw the leader of the Blood Pack fall, and in that moment of hesitation the Eclipse too the opportunity to pull back and attempt a retreat, not that it would make any difference.
His Ash Dogs, however, screamed and howled and hooted and laughed. They didn't need speeches or time or even thought to know what he had done and what it meant. For years they had fought side by side with enemies, and now it was over.
Now it was time to repay their captors for every year they had stolen, for every friend killed in pointless battle, for the world they had lost.
"Kill them all!" Shepard cried out. "Leave no one alive!"
And though he gave the order, the Ash Dogs had little need for it. They turned on their former masters with gleeful eagerness, killing with reckless abandon. Krogan, vorcha, salarian or asari: it didn't matter to them. They were all enemies in what had become a war for survival.
And if the Ash Dogs knew about anything, it was war.
Elsewhere, worlds away from the decrepit building, Garrus Vakarian awoke after two years of death. And while the experience was a great deal more disorientating than it sounded, (if such a thing were possible,) he wasn't so confused that he missed the prominent logo of Facinus, a terrorist organization of turian supremacists.
But he didn't let him faze him too much, because that's just the sort of thing that happened when you're Garrus Vakarian, saviour of the citadel and slayer of the of the rogue spectre Saren Arterius. There were bigger things on his mind.
AN: ... Aaaaand we shift from Conan to Spartacus. Fun times!
And enter Garrus, stage left. For a while I was actually in something of a tossup between whether I wanted Fallout and ME dates to coincide, in which case the Reaper invasion would be in full swing and Shep&co would be just trying to survive, but in the end I figured that I much preferred flipping Shepard and Garrus's roles around. If you missed it (which is cool, because attention to scenery is one of my weakest points,) Shepard and the Ash Dogs ended up in the building that Archangel had been using in ME2. So yeah. I think I'll have maybe 2-5 more chapters, depending on what happens and the general reaction. Not a long story, I know, but I think I got a good idea of how things should work out.
Now go and review like good readers, because a large number of those makes me feel like I did good.
Take it easy 'til next time, space cowboy!