A/N: Well here we are chapter 7, Feros, some more hints and mysteries, some more development, and a new weapon.
Happy New Year; Resolution continue this Fic and see it through, don't know when it will end but I'm going to do ME1, 2, and 3. Hopefully I can continue to learn and grow so I can give a better quality of work.
I'm excited to continue this I have ideas for another fic but I'm not going to try and write more than one at a time.
I'm sure you're all excited so let's get on with it.
Chapter 7: What propelled grenade?
BOOOSH!
"Geth! Get in cover!" Shepard yells as the colonist gets smoked by a carnage.
"Oops, sorry dude" I duck into cover as more Geth come out, I throw an overload at one and fizzle its shields, Tali takes it down with a few bursts from her rifle. I check the enemy's position noting that they're all in cover fairly close together.
"Hey Shpeard, you wanna see my new weapon?" I yell over the gunfire.
"Sure let's see what it can do." He replies.
I pull the weapon off my back, the tube automatically extends out both ends, I flip up the sight and arm the warhead, I pop up over cover aim at the ground behind the Geth's cover and pull the trigger.
CHUNK SHOOOOOO BOOOM
Little Geth bits go flying through the air in all directions as I stand up resting the smoking rocket launcher on my shoulder. Shepard steps up to me.
"I want one."
"I thought you might."
"What is it?"
"It's basically a tube with a rocket propelled grenade in it, an RPG."
"That could definitely come in handy, how many rockets do you have?"
"I've got four rockets with me, if we pick up some good salvage here I should be able to make a couple launchers, it's actually really simple the rockets are the hard part."
"Does it have a guidance system?"
"It has sights." I reply slightly sarcastic. "But no the rocket will fly straight for about 15 seconds before they run out of fuel."
"Alright any specific type of salvage we should look out for?"
"Anything with explosives in it."
We keep moving towards the colony and I put the RPG away in favor of my shotgun. As I look around this place is really, really unremarkable I'm not sure why anyone would want to live here. We get to the stairwell and I hear the sound of Geth stalkers moving, everyone starts scanning the area.
I look carefully around the stairwell as we move up something flickers in the edge of my vision and I snap to it… nothing.
"I don't like this Shepard, feels like an ambush." I say still scanning.
"I've got that feeling to." Garrus says.
"How can you feel an ambush?" Liara asks.
I and Garrus just glance to each other. "Snipers intuition." He replies.
I suddenly see the laser of the stalkers sniper and yank Liara back as the shot goes off. It goes down in a hail of bullets.
"You ok Liara?" I ask still holding her.
"Yes I'm fine I'll trust your intuition next time." I just chuckle.
The other stalker gets caught by Kaidan, he pulls it off the wall and Tali blasts it with her shotgun. We finally reach the colony and it really doesn't look good, the place is rundown and scars of battle are everywhere. I lower my gun as we walk through the colony to Fai dan. Well that's just as I remember the one lady bitches that we aren't enough and Fai dan tells us of the colonies condition, and then the Geth show up.
Shepard splits us up half going into the entrance directly to our right while me Tali and Garrus go through the other entrance to the tunnel. We fight our way into the center area where the troopship is dropping troops through a hole in the ceiling, Shepard is on the opposite end of the room from us and the Geth are in the middle, it's a killing field. Me, Garrus, and Tali all lay down fire with assault rifles while Shepard's side pulls the enemies out of cover with biotics, we're slaughtering them but, Danm there are allot of the bastards. The troopship eventually flies off, and we meet up with Shepard in the middle of the room.
"Classic pincer move always a good choice." I say as we stop in the middle of the battlefield.
"Think we've got enough scrap?" Shepard says motioning to the strewn parts.
"Yeah, I think so I say bending down and picking up a Geth's arm, I examine it briefly before tossing it over my shoulder. We quickly grab anything useful and head back to Fai Dan.
Shepard talks to him while the rest of us check over our weapons, Shepard walks back over after a minute.
"Alright some of you are coming with me to Exogeni, and some of you are staying here to help the colony, Jon, Tali your engineers so you're both staying to help with repairs." He stops and thinks for a moment. "Ash you stay too, there are still Geth in the tunnels below the colony everyone else your with me."
Shepard walks off and we go get our tasks from the various colonists, water, Varren, Transmitter, power cells. As soon as we get into the tunnels Tali speaks up.
"Something seems… off about the colonists, did anyone else notice?" Wow she caught on about the Thorians influence.
"Yeah, they did seem a little weird." I reply nodding to Tali.
"I think your both off." Ash replies grumpily.
We reach the first water valve.
"Alright Quarian this is your shtick." Ash says waving a hand at the valve.
"Hey what's your problem?" I say a little bit angry.
"I should be off fighting with Shepard, not babysitting you two."
"Well Shepard put you here, if you don't like it and have something to say about it you can take it up with the commander, just keep quiet and let us do our job." I give her one last angry glare before going to help Tali with the valve, but she already has it working.
"Thanks Jon, really I appreciate that." She says referring to me defending her.
"Of course you're my friend, I'm not gunna let someone talk down on any of my friends." I reply giving her a smile.
The next hallway has Geth in it, it stays a long range AR battle, but we get them eventually. Me and Tali walk up to the next valve, the technical part opens but the actual valve gets stuck.
"Bosh'tet, the valve is stuck, we'll have to open the pipe to get at it."
"Hang on let me try something." I say and step up to the pipe, I carefully examine the area where the valve is before standing up and giving it a good solid kick. The valve rattles then clicks open. "Ha concussion mechanics, much easier and usually effective, don't try it without boots on though."
"Well that takes care of that, but do you think it will malfunction if they close it again?" Asks Tali.
"Maybe but by that time the Geth will be gone and they can repair it properly, we need to move right now." I reply.
"Good point we'll have to tell them when we get back."
We move on and arrive at the last valve, the controls on this one are malfunctioning though.
"I don't know what's wrong with it, I'm not familiar with this tech." Tali grumbles.
"Can you fix it?" Ash asks.
"Yeah, it'll take time though." Tali replies, sifting through her Omni tool.
"Let me at it, let's see her- ZAP
"Ow, sunofabitch!" I yell jerking my hand away and waving it around to get the feeling back.
"Jon! Are you ok?" Tali rushes over to my side.
"Yeah, I'm fine it shocked me." I reply still flexing my hand.
"Well whatever you did it fixed it." Ash says from over by the console.
"Isn't that the same thing that happened on Therum?" Tali asks quietly as we move out again.
"Yeah, I guess machines don't like me." I reply, "That is weird, and cannot be coincidence, those two machines are completely different, what is this?"
We move on and reach the Varren's lair. We get inside and are immediately swarmed by varren. I keep firing my shotgun, Tali is at my back doing the same. One gets close to me though and my clips empty, it leaps onto me and I hold up the shotgun to stop it from biting me. I struggle with the beast for a second before Tali kicks it off me.
"Concussion mechanics right?" She says, and I can see the smirk in her eyes.
"Only kind that works with Varren." I reply.
We suddenly hear a loud roar, I turn and see a fucking huge Varren stomping outside of its den.
"Oh fuck that." I say pulling out the RPG.
CHUNK
The RPG smacks the Alpha Varren in the face and turns it into a bloody mess. I reload the RPG and stow it on my back.
"That's gross." Tali says pointing at the bloody paste that used to be a Varren.
"Yeah but it's also not attacking us, do you think we could salvage power cells from that grizzly over there?" I reply motioning over towards the burning vehicle.
"Yeah, c'mon help me out."
Tali and I salvage the power cells from the vehicle in short order and hand them to Ash who has a pack for them. We move over to the last objective, the Geth transmitter. When we get there and there are several Geth and Krogan moving ordinance around the area.
"I think we should hit them hard and fast." Ash says.
"The Krogan are a problem, we should lure them into a trap." Tali says scanning the area.
"You got an idea?" I asks from next to her.
"Yeah put some demo charges on the ground in the doorway, when we attack the krogan will charge us then boom." She says.
"Sounds good get grenades ready we still want to hit them hard." I reply moving to set the charges.
A few minutes later. "Ready?" I ask glancing to Ash then Tali, they both nod and I pop around the corner.
"HEY UGLY!" All the enemies in the room look towards me… holding an RPG. "FUCK YOU!" I yell firing the rocket at a particularly large pile of ordinance, Tali and Ash throw their grenades and we fall back into the hallway. Sure enough the Krogan charge at us, Tali sets of the charges and blow the Krogan to pieces. We finish off the few surviving Geth and happily salvage some good stuff from all the ordinance the Geth had here, we blow up the transmitter and start heading back.
"I wonder when the colonists will go crazy from the Thorian, because I would really like to not walk into that."
Suddenly Joker comes over the comm.
"Hey! Anybody can you hear me?"
Ash is first to respond. "Joker, this is Ash whats going on?"
"The colonists are banging on the hull trying to get, they've all gone crazy!"
"They can't hurt anything can they?" I ask.
"Not with small arms but I'm creeped out and the ground team is all away."
"I knew the colonists were acting funny!" Tali says.
"Yeah but now what do we do? I can't get ahold of Shepard." Ash says angrily pushing buttons on her comm.
"The Geth must be jamming his transmissions, I think we should just find a place to hunker down until we can contact him again." I say.
"Joker will you be alright without us?" I ask over the comm.
"Yeah, I'll be fine but I'm gonna take off and wait in orbit, I'll be ready to pick you up quick though." The pilot replies.
"Alright, keep trying to make contact with Shepard, Knight out."
"Alright Joker out."
"C'mon let's find a good position."
We wander around for a while before deciding that a blocked passage across one of the bridges is good, we don't have to worry about anyone coming from behind but there's no escape route. But I don't really expect to be attacked down here. I sit down against the wall and pull out my canteen. Tali sits down next to me.
"What do you think happened to the colonists?"
"I don't know, maybe something Exogeni did?" I reply knowing that's partially true.
"Maybe, strange stuff seems drawn to Shepard."
I chuckle, but my Omni tool suddenly lights up and begins playing 'Stranger things have happened' by the Foo Fighters.
"Did you do that?" Tali asks looking at my Omni tool.
"No, seems appropriate though." I start checking over my Omni tool wondering what could cause it to start randomly playing music.
"Technology acts weird around you." Tali says chuckling.
"Whatever I'm just going to let it play." I pause for a second. "Speaking of music have you found anything you like?"
"Yes, quite a bit actually, I like this band Foo Fighters, and what was it Green…day I think?"
"Yeah Green day is good, I like 'Boulevard of broken dreams'."
"Mmm, I get this weird sense of feeling when I listen to some of your music, like… they're singing about me, does that make any sense to you?" She looks over to me.
"Yeah, I get the same feeling, I listen to different music based on what mood I'm in, it always helps make me feel better and inspires me quite often." I reply. "The music of this time seems to have forgotten what music is truly supposed to do."
"What's that?" Tali asks.
"It's supposed to inspire you, makes you want to get up and move, it's supposed to be an emotion, weather to mend a broken heart or heighten two peoples love for one another, it's supposed to MEAN something, not just be a sequence of beats." I reply with passion.
"You're really into music aren't you?"
"It's been one of few constants in my life, no matter what has happened I can always listen to my music." I reply. "I miss home."
"Me too, this music may not remind me of my home but it is comforting." She looks over to me. "Are you going to go home after all this?"
I give her a tired smile. "I'm afraid it's not quite that simple."
"Why, can't you just go back to Eden Prime?"
"Eden Prime isn't my home, I don't know that there's anywhere that I would really feel at home." I sigh sadly.
"I suppose that's true of the Quarians as well, I may say the flotilla is my home but it really should be Rannoch and even if we got there it wouldn't feel like home because I would still have to wear the suit."
"I guess that means we'll have to make ourselves a home eh?" I pick my head up and take a swig from my canteen. "Nothings ever gunna feel like home if we don't make it our home."
"Make a home, yeah if I keep thinking somewhere else is my home I'll never feel at home."
I put my canteen away and smile, but a noise catches my attention. "Did you hear that?"
"Yeah sounds like it came from over there." She says pointing across the bridge.
I pull out my sniper and look through the scope. "That can't be good."
Ash comes over. "What is it?"
"Hell if I know but it's definitely not human." I reply still looking through the scope. "Looks like some weird plant, zombie… fuck it I'm just gunna shoot it."
CRACK
The creeper falls over leaking acid.
"Be on watch for more." Ash says trying to contact Shepard again.
Well around 20 minutes go by in which a few creepers wander down here before we finally regain contact with Shepard.
"Ash? Knight? Tali? Can you read me?" Shepard's voice comes over the comm.
"Yeah we're here." I reply. "What's going on? Joker said the colonists we're acting up so we've been hunkered down beneath the colony, and these weird plant things keep wandering down here."
"The colony is built over some ancient plant thing called the Thorian, and it's controlling the colonists." Shepard says over the comm.
One brief discussion about the Thorian later…
"We've got gas grenades and are going to knock out the colonists, you guys are ok down there right?"
"Are you kidding me? These things are easier than target practice." I reply shooting another one and watching it tumble of the causeway.
"Ok, we took care of the Geth well radio when we get all of the colonists."
"Ok boss." I hear Tali chuckle slightly when I say 'boss'.
"These things are going down really easy, I haven't even fired a shot yet." Tali says.
"Well seeing as that they're full of acid, I would rather keep them over there."
"Hehe, good point."
Shepard eventually radios us and tells us it's safeish to come up. There are a few creepers but we take them out easily, because they're scattered. When we get up Shepard and his team are over by the crane controls and the freighter is moved out of the way.
"Everyone ok?" Shepard asks as we come up.
"Yeah, we're fine." Ash replies.
"Alright the Thorian is down there, but I'm not going to take everyone, it's to cramped down there." He stops and thinks for a moment. "Wrex, Ask, Kaidan, and Garrus your with me, everyone else head back to the Normandy."
"Shepard wait." I say coming up next to him.
"I said back to the ship Knight." He says not altogether menacing but forceful.
"Yes, here take this you might need it." I say handing over the RPG and it's two reaming shots. "Try and bring it back in one piece, it took a long time to make."
"Thanks, and I'll do my best but no promises."
"That's the best I could ask for." I say giving him a weary smile before walking back towards the docking bay. "Good Luck."
Back in the Normandy's cargo bay-
I start taking off my armor and stow my weapons. I'll check them over after a shower and some food. I head up to the Showers. While not exactly an intense mission it always feels good to take a nice hot shower. I shuffle the music library on my Omni tool and just let it play.
Afterwards I grab some food, then head down to check over my weapons. I strip and clean all my guns and then start organizing some of the salvage we picked up. Damaged Geth rocket launchers, tungsten ammunition, some armor parts and "Ooh whats this?" I pick up what appears to be a Geth shield generator, I scan over it and get a whole lot of blether.
"Ah Shit, it doesn't match any know data since it's Geth, and is giving me all the equations."
I try my best but these are Geth equations. I wander over to Tali after uploading the equations onto my Omni tool.
"Hey Tali." I say walking up to the engineer.
"Hmm, oh hey Jon whats up?" She says turning around to face me.
"We picked up some salvage from the Geth and my Workbench can't make any sense of these equations." I reply still fiddling with them on my Omni tool.
"Let me see, I'm more familiar with Geth tech." I send her the data.
"Hmmm, a shield generator correct?"
"Yeah, I can test its strength and its stronger than any medium shields we have, so I could simply stick into medium armor, but if I can get these equations figured out I could make them and use the data to improve heavy and light armor shields."
"I think I can work these out, might take a while though."
"Well I couldn't solve them at all so good." I reply chuckling.
She gives me what I assume is a smile. "Alright I'll send you the data when I decipher it."
"You're the best Tali." I say over my shoulder.
As I walk out into the cargo bay the ground team steps off the elevator.
"Oh hey how'd it go?" I ask.
Garrus tiredly turns and faces me. "No way that was a plant."
I walk up to Shepard. "Everyone alright?"
"Minor cuts scrapes, and a few minor acid burns."
"ouch"
He chuckles dryly the hands me the RPG back. "Still intact." He says smiling. "Dam useful too, I want you to make more of those."
"Can do, I've sorted through most of the salvage we brought back and should be able to make at least two."
"Good, I'm going to go take a long hot shower."
"Next up Noveria, should be fun I wonder if Shepard will free the Rachni? Well that's for later."
I turn back to my station and start working on a new RPG.
A/N: Well there it is, I think one more chapter before break ends is probably safe to assume. I am much happier with the length of this chapter.
Happy New Year and ROCK ON!