And here's the first of those chapters that I was working on while I wasn't writing about Shanxi and diplomacy. Have fun.
16th June, 2172.
City of Mindoir, Remnant.
I knew today wasn't going to be a good day, thought Engineers Mate 2nd Class Theresa Shepard. Above her, the sky was ablaze with orbital fire and ships entering Remnant's atmosphere. For the last two hours, Batarian pirates had been landing, most likely to abduct and enslave the population of the small, as yet undeveloped and lightly defended colony world.
For most of those last two hours, the young Navy TSF mechanic had been getting Navy and Marine TSFs prepped for launch from the hangar bays buried beneath the city. The Remnant Defence Command had ordered the deployment of everything that could be used from the Army, Navy and Marine Corps bases. And so launch they had. There were no TSFs left at Atlas Station, and Shepard, being a mid-ranked TSF-mechanic, had been picked to join one of several hastily put together repair squad; which would roam the city to provide quick repairs to the TSF squadrons fighting the pirate forces. Such a role was highly necessary, since the batarians had come prepared; they were packing some very powerful anti-armour weaponry.
At the moment, however, Repair Team 7 was busy attempting to excavate an F-62C Comet that had crash-landed in the side of a building; judging from the explosive-damage to its right jump-unit, it's wings had been clipped, but its still alive pilot claimed that he was still capable of fighting.
Over on top of the downed Comet, Shepard saw their team leader, EM1 Gardner, with his hand to his helmet, muttering. He turned to face the repair team.
"Saddle-up people, we gotta move."
Over the squad net, the downed pilot chuckled. "Go, I'm uncovered enough to get out of here on my own."
As the engineers climbed into their Centaur repair vehicles — Shepard was in a passenger seat because of her legendarily abysmal driving scores — and started moving.
In the lead vehicle, Gardner began briefing the squad over the comm.
" Listen up team; we've got civilian transports unable to evac due to engine trouble. They don't have enough hands down there to fix the problem, and we're the closest flight mechanics in range." Gardner paused as the repair vehicles swerved around a cluster of destroyed cars. "Not to mention there're pirate forces moving in on the spaceport. Let's pick up the pace so those people get out of here."
"Aye aye" came the reply.
Then a rocket hit the ground near one of the repair vehicles rear tracks. The vehicle shook, and the Marine on the pintle-mounted Heavy Anti-BETA Weapon opened fire at some unseen target.
In the back of the Centaur, Shepard felt her dark red hair fall past her helmet. She looked down at her hands. They were shaking. I didn't sign up for this, she thought. No way. I was supposed to be doing maintenance on TSFs at the base, not driving into a warzone! Why didn't I volunteer for one of the home defence fleets? Mum and Dad came out of Shanxi without having to see combat!
It took Terry a moment to realise that she had vocalised that to the other occupants of the Centaur. One of the Marines seated across from her glared at her through his helmet visor.
"Kid, you joined the military, and in doing so, you did in fact sign up for this. Now get your head screwed on straight, we've civvies to save."
That jolted Shepard back to reality. That's right, it's not just me. The people on those transports might have basic training, but it won't be enough to help them survive this.
The Marine standing in the top hatch was hammering away with the HABW. There was another explosion somewhere nearby, and Shepard jerked in her seat as the Centaur swerved to avoid it.
Then there was a jolt as the three Centaur armoured recovery vehicles came to a halt outside the one of the gates to the spaceport, one of several gates leading onto the runway.
Inside, Shepard noticed that the explosions and gunfire sounds had reduced, since the spaceport hasn't been directly attacked yet. Despite that, it had still obviously been hit, with several blown up aerospace-craft lying around wrecked hangars and docking terminals.
The Centaurs pulled into one of the more bunker-like hangars, where a pair of civilian FTL-drive equipped transports were waiting, guarded by a single heavily damaged Aerospace Force F-61 Phoenix II. Evidently, enough Batarians had made it close enough to the port that the Phoenixes that were normally guarding it had been reduced to just the one.
The TSF repairmen dismounted, and immediately began unloading the equipment that they would need to get the engines on the transports up and running.
One of the ports remaining engineers walked up to the group, explained the situation in detail, and the Gardner began dishing out orders.
As the crew worked on the transports, Shepard noticed that the sounds of combat seemed to be getting closer. Then there was a roar, and then a battered Army A-21 Ravager slammed down onto the Tarmac with a crack. The pilot came in over the radio, broadcasting to everyone in the spaceport.
"Get to cover, massive batarian force closing fast, they'll be here any second. I'm your support until the rest of my squadron gets here, ETA six minutes."
Shepard though she heard one of the Marines in the sandbag emplacement by the hangar door swear. And then rockets and mortars began landing near the hangar. The team radio-net lit up again, this time the Marine who had scolded her aboard the Centaur. "We'll move to the gates, hold them off there. Get those transports in the air!"
The six Marines began sprinting in the direction of the main gate, the battered Phoenix following behind them. Towering over them, the Ravager opened fire on some unseen target with its chain guns.
Down in the hangar, things were going quite well. They'd managed to re-adjust the vector-thrust systems on one of the transports, and the half of the team that Shepard was on was almost finished tuning the engines on the other.
And then everything went to shit all at once.
"Fuck! There are a lot of tanks out here! Where the hell did they come from? Oi, you Navy bastards, get those birds airbor—ARRGHH!"
Shepard heard an explosion coming from the direction of the main gate. Out front, the A-21 started moving. "Ravager, moving to eng—"
Then the Ravager, one of the most heavily armoured mechs used by the UN Defence Forces, took several anti-armour missiles to its chest block, followed by a volley of anti-armour mass accelerator rounds to several of its armour sections. And like a tree felled, the iron-clad giant toppled onto its back.
"Fuck! This is Lieutenant Kantor, my attacker is down. Neural-link is damaged, AI core offline, auto-targeting is down too. I can't fight in this condition, bailing out."
Shepard watched anxiously as the cockpit block slid open, and the Army pilot climbed out and lowered himself to the ground. Only to be met with a volley of sniper fire from somewhere outside that shredded his flight suit. Kantor fell to the ground in an expanding pool of blood.
"Dammit!" Shouted Gardner, before stopping. "We're ready to launch." He turned to one of the transport pilots. "Get out of here while you still can."
"If we try to launch now, we get shot down. And then two thousand people die."
Shepard looked down at her feet. They were shaking. I've gotta do something. Batarians incoming, and we don't have any weapons to deal with tanks. Gotta be something...
And then it came to her. She removed her M7 Lancer carbine from its holster on her leg, and began sprinting for the hangar doors.
EM2 Patel shouted after her, "Shepard, where the hell are you going? We can't hold this hangar if we're down people!"
Shepard ignored her, and continued running for her target. As she got outside, rifle fire impacted around her feet, and she returned fire as she ran. Within seconds, she was at her objective. Theresa Shepard stepped past the pool of blood containing the corpse of Lieutenant Kantor, holstered her Lancer, and quickly climbed into the cockpit of the downed Ravager, shutting the armoured canopy the moment she was inside.
She sat down in the pilot's seat, or rather; lay down because of the angle the TSA was at. Shepard took a moment to survey the Ravagers internal damage. Damaged neuro-linker, piece of hull metal broke free and pierced the AI core, several broken display panels, and fuzzy dice fell off the canopy latch. Ok, I can do this.
She pulled her two data pads from their pouches on her tool-belt, and wired them into the ports on the control consoles. Diagnostic windows opened up on the screens. Outside, she could hear small arms fire pattering off the armour.
Gardner came in the comm-net. "Shepard, what on earth are you doing inside that mech? You heard Kantor, it isn't going to fly. And you can't drive anyway."
Shepard kept working, rapidly reprogramming her data pads to replace the targeting systems. "I can't drive, but I sure as hell can stand, EM."
Her fingers stopped moving, and she strapped herself into the seat using the little-used restraint harness, then braced herself in the seat, gripping the two control sticks that were part of the manual control system. Shepard didn't have the neural code or training that would allow her to sync with the mech, but she did have a lot of TSF and TSA operation and repair manuals saved in her own neural net. Since she was wearing a normal infantry BDU, her suit didn't have the restraining locks that flight suits did, so she wasn't protected from rapid movements and g-forces like a pilot would have been. But that wasn't what she wanted. What she needed was to keep from falling out of the seat as she forced the Ravager to roll over and lift itself off of the ground into a crouch. Easy does it, easy does it. An anti-armour round flew past her. Move faster, dammit.
The A-21 Ravager rose itself to its full height, and stood still. I can do this. I can do this. I CAN DO THIS!
Engineers Mate Second Class Theresa Jade Shepard slammed her fingers down on both triggers, and the two shoulder mounted, five barrelled GAU-37 Eradicator chain guns began tearing into the batarians forces that had been approaching the hangar from all sides. Her eyes darted between the screens, taking in the vast amounts of information displayed all around her.
Shepard removed her right hand from the control stick, and began tapping away on one other the data pad. The two back mounted Eradicators swung down and spun around, and began tearing into the targets that were approaching from her rear using the other pad. She didn't even need to look. She just had a gut feeling that they were coming.
Within seconds, the batarians forces, several dozen pirates and some right tanks, lay still on the ground, shredded, perforated and trailing smoke and steam into the air.
"Holy shit. Good work kid," said one of the other engineers.
Shepard let out the breath that she hadn't realise she'd been holding in. She blinked a few times, taking in the destruction that she had wrought. Whoa. I did that? That actually worked?
As her pulse began to fall back to normal levels, she tapped on the controls to rotate the head mounted cameras. And the she swore.
"You guys might want to get out of here. Like, right now. I think that commotion I just caused is starting to attract batarians. There's a whole battalion worth moving this way!"
She could have sworn that she could see Gardner down on the ground cursing.
"Alright, let's get these birds in the air. Shepard."
"Providing support, EM1."
Within moments, the repair teams were towing the large civilian transport craft out of the hangar and onto the runway.
The first of the transports took to the air, heading south in the direction of Vael, which hadn't been hit yet. They couldn't break for warp, since the Navy already had their hands full taking on the slaver fleet in orbit and was unable to provide cover for them.
As the transport took flight, Shepard felt a strange compulsion. Like something dragging at her subconscious. The feeling was taking over, and she felt her hands moving to the fire controls. All around her, she could feel the air burning red, and out in the city, she could feel something, something compelling her to act.
Her semi-controlled left hand wrapped around the left stick, while her right went to the targeting controls on her pad, selecting a targeting vector. I don't know why, but I have to so this.
She pulled the trigger, and all six of the Ravagers Eradicators opened up, hundreds of 20mm rounds streaming towards the first transport.
Someone screamed, "SHEPARD, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!"
And then the cannon rounds intersected the paths of a dozen missiles fired from the ground, which exploded a safe distance from the transport; several bursts took down a group of batarian gunships that had jumped out from between the city spires to intercept the transport. How the hell did I do that?
Still following that strange instinct, Shepard raked the two forearm mounted Eradicators across the ground, tearing through a platoon of slavers that had were moving towards her from the ruined hangars. She hadn't even noticed them. She took control of the guns back and began focusing on taking down the missiles that she could feel were being fired. It was like she could feel the batarians firing before they actually did, like she could sense their intentions. As she focused on following those feelings, she failed to notice that the long-faded streaks in her dark red hair were beginning to glow gold and silver.
The second transport was away very quickly, Shepard intercepting all of the firepower directed at it. The sheer volume of munitions being directed at them didn't stop the batarians from advancing on the now empty hangars.
"Shepard, get your ass out of there, we're leaving."
She looked around at all of the very angry batarians approaching, hundreds of them. Most of them carrying rocket launchers.
"No go, sir. Too many approaching. You won't have time to pick me up before the pirates get here. I'll provide cover while you get out of here."
"Shepard."
A rocket slammed into the the Ravagers left shoulder block. "We're out of time. Get out of here! Go!" Shepard jammed down on the trigger, dragging the guns across the lines of advancing batarians.
Below her, the Centaurs carrying Repair Team 7 and its surviving Marine escort darted out of the hangar, driving away as fast as they could.
As she felt hem leave, Shepard turned her attention towards the pirates and slavers approaching the Ravager. Some were sprinting towards her, carrying what looked and felt like demolition charges, while other hung back in whatever cover they could find, aiming missile launchers up at her. Her fingers danced across the screens, hands alternating between screens and sticks, eyes darting left and right, processing data with just her brain at a rate that would have been difficult for her neural net to handle. Some of the batarian sappers managed to get through the barrage. As the alien began to reach up to affix the charge to the Ravagers right leg, Shepard's hands hammered away at the controls with the ease of someone whose hand been using keyboard inputs for years. Within a second, a small device mounted in the leg armour rotated in its socket, stopped, let out a quiet crack, and then a twenty centimetre long tungsten spike impaled the batarian through the skull. Moments later, the other sappers followed, the Phalanx CIWS tearing the slavers apart before they could even arm their charges.
Shepard felt the batarians aiming their launchers, and raked the chain guns over their positions.
And then something hit her. Followed by another thing. And another. One by one, the batarian tanks that had driven onto the runway were firing their AT cannons at her. One shot took off her right forearm and Eradicator. Another clove a huge chunk out of her left shoulder block. Slowly, even as Shepard retaliated, the tanks tore into the Ravager, before a rocket fired by a pirate infantryman shredded her right knee, which caused the heavily damaged mech to lurch and topple. As the Ravager fell, Shepard got her revenge by tearing the tanks apart with the five remaining Eradicators. Then it landed heavily on its side. Inside, Shepard was flung against the restraints, which, thankfully, held. Mostly, anyway, as the force of the impact caused her to hit her head on one of the consoles, and she could feel blood slowly falling to the side of the cockpit below-to her left. Her helmet had also come free, and was lying on the impromptu deck. Well, shit, looks like this is the end.
She reached over and tapped on the controls, turning the Ravagers armoured head to face the oncoming batarians. There were a lot of them.
With great difficulty, she pulled her Lancer from its holster, while with her other hand, she tapped on her makeshift targeting system, trying to find a gun that was still functional. There wasn't one. Shepard exhaled. Time to go then. She unbuckled herself from the seat, falling a very short distance into the cockpits side armour. With a groan, she pulled herself into a crouch, as high as she could get without hitting her head again, swept her helmet up onto her head and raised her carbine. She had half a magazine still in her Lancer, and another eight magazines tucked into her tool belt, as well as enough power cells to use all of those magazines. She pursed her lips, before pulling her bulky monkey-wrench from the strap that held it. She gave it a quick once-over before returning it to its spot on her belt. If it works, it works.
Shepard exhaled again. Can't let them use explosives to force me out. I go out on my own terms. She brought the Lancer to her shoulder, then slapped her hand down on the cockpit release. Climbing out of the sideways cockpit, she found herself pinned behind the downed Surface Attacker as the batarians approaching from its rear opened fire. But she was lucky, and the TSA had fallen against the hangar, blocking any attempt to flank from behind. Taking cover behind the remains of her left shoulder block, Shepard ducked out of cover, spraying fire across the batarians that were advancing on the totalled Ravager. Several went down, the overpowered anti-BETA rounds penetrating the barriers protecting her targets, before perforating the targets themselves.
Pulling back behind the armour, Shepard reloaded, before dashing over to the other end of the shoulder block, ducking out of cover and dumping high-explosive hypervelocity rounds into as many batarians as she could.
She fired off several more bursts before finding her magazine out of ammo and her carbine on the verge of overheating. Just as she was shifting her position to get back into cover, a rifle round punched through her lightly armoured BDUs and into her right shoulder, narrowly missing the bone.
Theresa screamed in pain as she fell back against the armour. "Fuck!" Gritting her teeth, she pulled a canister of medi-gel from her tool-belt and sprayed it into the wound, letting out a sharp breath as the gel released its painkillers and began to harden, sealing the bullet hole. Struggling to her feet, she lifted her Lancer, cradling it in her wounded arm, slid in a fresh magazine and rotated out the overloaded heat sink using her good left arm. Painfully, she raised the carbine in her left hand. I can do this. Stay alive, Terry. Wasn't trained for this, but thats what those regular retraining sessions are for. Stay alive. It's Janes birthday next month. Gotta be there for that. Gotta stay alive. She let out few ragged breaths and grit her teeth.
Go. Theresa Shepard poked herself out of cover, firing her Lancer one handed at the crowd of batarians that seemed to be increasing in size. And because their numbers were increasing, they were becoming bolder. As she ducked back to reload her nearly empty magazine, two pirates managed to get close enough to rush her, probably to try and take her as another slave. Apparently, highly capable slaves were valued in the Hegemony. In response, she blasted one of them with the remaining rounds in the carbine, dropped it, and then caved the other ones skull in with her monkey-wrench, before kicking the corpse out of her cover.
Behind the downed Ravager, the batarians had stopped firing. They were still seething with rage at the lone human who had fought them to a standstill, but they had stopped firing. Shepard poked her head out from cover, and saw a single batarian stepping forwards, holding what looked like a megaphone up to its hideous face. She pulled herself back. "Surrender human, and we will grant you a quick death. Continue to fight, and we get you, you will suffer a fate worse than that received by the most traitorous of slaves."
Yeah right. She let out a pained laugh, before shifting slightly. "Go fuck yourself, you four-eyed freak!" She shouted at the top of her lungs, before spinning out of cover and firing a burst into the arrogant bastard with the megaphone. The slaver dropped, its corpse eviscerated by the explosive ammunition.
The batarians returned fire, forcing her back into cover. A rocket smashed into the back of the TSA. So we're back to heavy weapons. Guess they really wanna kill me now. She poked her Lancer around the topside corner, and fired off another burst. And then the weapon ran dry. Shepard looked down at her feet, and realised that there were eight empty magazines lying at her feet. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. That wasn't supposed to happen! The hero never ran of ammo in movies!
Shepard returned the now empty carbine to its holster, and surveyed her cover. Lying in the ground was the rifle that had been carried by the pirate whose head she had caved in earlier. Picking it up with both hands, she pulled it to her right shoulder, which by now was healing quickly — she could almost feel the flesh slowly regenerating— before ducking out of cover to fire a the batarians. The first one she hit didn't go down immediately like what would normally happen. Instead, Shepard saw the telltale blue flash of mass effect barriers activating to block the bullets. Fuck. Damn these crappy, underpowered mass effect pieces-of-crap.
Now very pissed off, she continued firing, until the weapon flashed that it was about to overheat. She ducked back, to let the weapon cool. As she did so, she clambered up onto the chest block of the Ravager, took aim at the pissed off batarians closing in, before firing long bursts at their heads.
The return fire was savage. Along with the usual wall of bullets, several missiles lanced out at her, impacting against the mech's right shoulder block and back, rocking Shepard's firing point. Shepard felt a jolt, followed by a sharp pain. Her hands sprung open from the shock, letting the captured rifle tumble to the ground. Dropping back into cover, she looked down and saw blood beginning to spread from her lower torso. "Fuck", spat Shepard, as she pulled another medi-gel canister from her belt with shaking hands. There was a quiet hiss, and the pain began to recede. As her vision began to clear, she noticed that her bio-monitor was trying to warn her about her punctured left lung. Ignoring the warnings, she reached to her tool-belt and once again extracted her blood coated wrench. Poking her head up slightly, she shouted as loud as her reduced lung-capacity would allow. "Come and get me, you four-eyed fucks!" The exertion forced her to cough up blood, despite the medi-gel sealing off the ruptured areas.
Just as she was about to jump down to meet them she felt the presence of something, and the batarian lines exploded. Several dozen batarians, preparing to rush Shepard's now silent position, had been torn to shreds by cannon and missile fire. Looking up as she climbed down, Shepard could see eight micro-TSFs decloaking. They were painted in a wide array of colours, red, white, black, yellow, orange, pink, red and green. Her comm, neural net, not radio, lit up in her mind.
"This is Beacon-1, off the UNS Lemuria. Ready to lend assistance, Engineer Shepard." The woman on the other end of the line sounded around the same age as her, if not younger.
Shepard felt her consciousness fading as her adrenaline wound down. "Aye, Aye, Beacon-1. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll take a nap." And then everything went black.
No codex this time, couldn't think of what to write about or explain. I do hope you guys like the explanation for the BETA that I gave last chapter. I've been sitting on that one for months.
Until next time.