A Different Perspective

Dreadnought Cyprian's Grace, Shanxi Orbit. March 19, 2157 AD

Somebody had screwed up. Not in a waiter-brought-the-wrong-flavor-of-Tupari way nor a sent-in-the-wrong-tax-form way. No, this was a once-in-an-asari's-lifetime mistake. The kind of mistake you hope to only read about because if you happen to witness such an occurrence then that means you are already within the event horizon and there is nothing you can do but pray to the spirits that you make it out alive.

A patrol group in the Attican Traverse, under the command of one Captain Jallus, discovered several unknown vessels attempting to activate a Mass Relay. The hotheaded Captain ordered his ships to open fire before making any attempts at communication. While Jallus was successful in preventing the Relay from being activated, one of the unknown ships managed to escape and brought back reinforcements which destroyed all of Jallus' ships. Fortunately, Admiral Marius had been informed of the situation by that point and was already on route with his fleet. Marius dearly wished he knew which moron was responsible for giving a trigger happy cloaca like Jallus command of multiple ships, anyone who had ever met the man knew he wasn't fit to lead a pyjack to food, much less lead a group of ships in a volatile area of space. When this was all over Marius would make sure to get to the bottom of Jallus' promotion, but for now he had a job to do.

Truth be told, Marius wasn't even sure what his job exactly was. When he had first received Jallus' distress call, Marius had been under the impression that it was Terminus pirates that were responsible and so he had planned to track them down and blow their base of operations to the spirits. When it was discovered that it was an undiscovered race Marius had sent a message back to his superiors to let them know the situation but he nonetheless had to track the aliens down. Marius and his fleet needed to, while not necessarily decimate, at least do enough damage to subdue the aliens. He needed to prevent any attempts by the aliens to launch a counterattack. But beyond that. . .probably wait until a politician made a decision.

Marius sighed and glanced back over the reports his second, General Desolas, had sent up from the planet's surface. The aliens were a diverse group, employing a wide range of tactics. While Marius admired the spirited resistance they were putting up, the fact that they were killing his men mostly negated any positive feelings that arose from that respect. Marius couldn't help but wonder what sort of society these people lived in that caused them to be so diverse in their fighting. Most races had skills that they were good at and stuck to them in a fight; asari were mobile warriors that made precision strikes, salarians planned three moves ahead with top-of-the-line tech, krogan just kept going until either they or their enemy was dead, turians were a well-oiled war machine that worked together to engage in total war, but these aliens. . .the first rule of their combat doctrine appeared to be to disregard all other rules of their combat doctrine if it was advantageous to do so.

When the first turian boots began touching the ground the aliens stood their ground while making use of mechanized suits of armor and handheld laser weaponry. Thanks to some carefully aimed orbital bombardment the aliens were forced to scatter which allowed Marius' men to establish footholds and set up several headquarters for the course of the invasion. Based on their initial defensive maneuvers, both Desolas and Marius had agreed that the aliens were probably similar to the krogan in that they preferred fights to be straight up and solved with a gratuitous amount of firepower. Both men were proven wrong when the aliens retaliated, making use of clever hit-and-run tactics in order to lead turian patrols into ambushes that, more often than not, resulted in entire patrols getting killed. When Desolas made it a requirement that every patrol had to be accompanied by either a tank or a gunship the aliens switched tactics again and began making heavy use of booby traps, they usually didn't do much, if any, damage to the tanks (the gunships were always out of range of the traps) but they could do some heavy damage to the infantry. So, in an effort to divert the alien's attention, Marius had authorized the use of the hastatim in order to regain momentum. Since all turians received military training the 'execution squads' were necessary step in taking over an area but the asari and salarians tended to be disgusted at the targeting of 'civilians' so the hastaim were usually only ever deployed against other turians but given how this campaign was going, Marius had felt it was necessary.

Even with all the problems the aliens were giving them, this planet would come under the heel of the Turian Hierarchy, it was just going to take longer than anyone had expected. Things were actually going well overall. The fleet had taken control of the system with a minimal loss of life turian life. Scout ships had been sent out to nearby systems to see if there were anymore of the aliens lurking around and so far nothing had been found. Last thing Marius needed was a flotilla of alien ships showing up and causing havoc just because he hadn't bothered to secure his rear.

While it was patently obvious that this wasn't the aliens' home-world, Marius wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing that they hadn't found anything in the nearby systems. Did that mean this was just a really remote colony? If that was the case reinforcements could be on the way and it would just take a long time for them to get here. Maybe the colony was founded by refugees fleeing their home-world, if they had fled persecution would they even call for help? Marius remembered reading about a star somewhere around this part of the Traverse that went supernova several decades ago, what if the aliens had been from that system and this was all that was left of their entire race? There were too many unknowns, that was one of the deciding factors in deploying the hastaim. While the turians were slowly winning, Marius didn't want to have all his troops stuck planet-side in the event that an alien armada showed up, he wanted them safely back up on the ships which meant winning the land war as soon as possible.

Jia Siang, Shanxi. March 19, 2157 AD

Aeliana ducked behind an overturned vehicle and tried to catch her breath. She couldn't decide if she was the luckiest or unluckiest turian on this spirits-be-damned planet. She was the pilot of a gunship and had been making passes over an area known to have snipers when she was shot down by an alien with a rocket launcher. Her copilot had died instantly when the rocket had struck the ship, Aeliana not only survived the blast but also the crash landing. Unfortunately, her omni-tool had been damaged either by the rocket or the crash (probably the former) so Aeliana couldn't call for a pickup, she was forced to make the trek back to the turian line on foot by herself.

She hadn't gotten far when one of the aliens walked out from between two buildings. The weird thing was that, at first, the alien hadn't even noticed her. In fact, it hadn't noticed anything. It was walking through a war zone as if it was walking through an office. It didn't turn its head to look around, didn't change its pace as it came out in the open, the alien might as well have been a security mech. The alien did, however, notice Aeliana after she shot it which, in retrospect, was a stupid thing to do. Why call attention to yourself if the enemy is content to ignore you? The worst part was that she hadn't even hurt it, its shields had activated and deflected everything her pathetic M-1 Predator pistol spat out.

Aeliana ended up wasting too much time pouring useless fire into the alien, hoping to get its shields down, which allowed the damn thing to get close enough to engage her in a melee fight. As it swung its right arm at her Aeliana got a clear look at the alien and she couldn't help but be reviled at what she saw. The alien was covered in cybernetics, Aeliana wasn't sure how much of the creature's suit was removable and how much was grafted onto its body. What little skin was exposed was sickly white with dark black veins pulsing underneath. What kind of monsters were these aliens that they would alter their bodies to such horrific extents? Aeliana tried to block the alien's swing with her left arm, and she was technically successful in that, but the force of the blow drove her to her knees. Before she could react the alien brought its left arm to her neck in what she thought was going to be an uppercut punch but instead it grabbed her head and she felt it jab something below her mandible joint. Aeliana moved her right arm up and shoved at the inside of the alien's elbow to get its arm away from her head. Surprisingly, given how strong the alien had been when it first struck her, Aeliana was able to push the arm aside and scramble backwards. The alien just stood there, staring at her, before it turned around and walked off. That had been the most terrifying part of the whole encounter. Who just walks away from an enemy that is trying to kill you?

That had been the point when one of the local snipers had noticed her. He had clipped her hip and after that had been content to take potshots at her as she ran. Aeliana knew, based on the reports, that the snipers in this area were very, very good so she knew the sniper wasn't missing because of lack of skill. He was intentionally shooting next to her, just to let her know that he could kill her at any time. The sniper's shots chased her three blocks to her current position, hiding behind the wrecked car. Aeliana actually recognized where she was, it was just two more blocks to the turian line. Under normal circumstances she would be able to run that easily but between the bullet wound, her injuries from the crash, the. . . whatever that alien had done to her, and the exhaustion brought on by dodging the sniper Aeliana wasn't sure if she would be able to make it, assuming the sniper didn't kill her first.

Aeliana waited until she got her breathing under control before sprinting out from her hiding place. As soon as she started running she heard the bang of a shot striking a sign next to her. Aeliana dearly wished she had managed to kill some of the snipers when she was patrolling overhead. Every single turian assigned to this area, regardless of rank or job, would sacrifice a limb to get their hands on one of those snipers or their guns. No one knew how, but the snipers were capable of seeing and shooting through walls. It was the only way this sniper was able to hound her throughout her entire run, a normal sniper would have given up long ago, there were far too many obstacles that she could have used as cover otherwise. Come to think of it, had that car she hid behind done anything? Was it a special material that blocked the snipers sight? What if the sniper had just been reloading at that point? Or maybe the sadistic bastard was just letting her have a breather before chasing her some more. . .yea that one seemed the most likely.

As another shot struck the ground a few feet in front of her, Aeliana saw two turian tanks coming out of a side street onto the road she was running along. She didn't know whether to be pleased or worried by this. She was happy because if she made it to the tanks she could get a ride back and would be safe from the sniper (while they could shoot through walls they couldn't shoot through the heavy duty shields the tanks sported) but Aeliana was worried because the sniper also knew that she'd be safe in the tanks. He'd probably decide to stop toying with her and kill her just as she got to the first tank. Still, it was a chance she had to take. As Aeliana ran towards the tanks she began shouting and waving her arms, trying to get their attention, when pain suddenly blossomed in her chest. She stumbled and fell to the ground. Aeliana groaned and looked down and saw blood pooling on the ground from the hole in her chest. Right before she passed out Aeliana couldn't help but admire the power behind that gun.

Jia Siang, Shanxi. March 19, 2157 AD

Cassius was not prepared for the situation he found himself in. He was a field medic, freshly graduated from boot camp. When he had first been assigned to Admiral Marius' flotilla Cassius had expected to be part of raiding parties that boarded pirate ships. He expected his job to be to stabilize wounded soldiers long enough to get them to a proper medical facility back on the ship. Instead, Cassius found himself in charge of all the medical personnel of this city because two days ago one of the alien snipers had gotten close enough to the base and taken out every single person working in the makeshift field hospital at the time. Those that were in the base but weren't working at been killed when they rushed in to try and help. There were only three medics (besides Cassius) still alive and that was because all four of them had been out on patrol during the attack. Cassius had sent a request up the chain of command asking for someone with more experience to get transferred here and put on charge of everything but he hadn't heard anything back yet. So here Cassius was, trying to keep a group of turians with a various degree of wounds alive, all the while hoping that the increased security meant that the sniper couldn't make it back here and kill him off.

"Medic! We got a wounded for you! She taken a shot to the chest, lost a lot of blood but is still breathing!"

Cassius spun around at the sound of the voice. He quickly dropped the datapad he was using to check his inventory of medicine and rushed over to the group of men as they brought in a wounded turian and put her on the nearest empty bed.

"Any idea how much blood she's lost? What's the time frame I'm looking at here?" Cassius asked as he activated the scan function on his omni-tool.

"She was shot less than five minutes ago in front of our convoy," one of the soldiers answered. "We got her inside our tank as quickly as possible and kept pressure on the wound the entire time back here."

Cassius reached into one of nearby cabinets and started grabbing supplies. "Good news is the shot didn't hit any vital organs, bad news is it hit a big artery and that's why she's bleeding so much. If I don't clamp that artery shut she isn't going to make it another five minutes."

Jia Siang, Shanxi. March 20, 2157 AD

Aeliana was vaguely aware that people around her. That was good, it meant she wasn't dead. Aeliana wanted to figure out where she was but she couldn't seem to focus on anything. When she opened her eyes everything was fuzzy and it made her head hurt so she just lay there. The only thing she could really focus on with any kind of clarity was the incessant murmuring in the back of her head. It was like if a hundred different people were talking on the floor above you, you could clearly hear something going on but couldn't make out the exact words. She tried listening to what the voices were saying but she just couldn't understand what they were saying, almost as if they were speaking a different language. . .that realization was enough to force Aeliana to bolt upright from where-ever she had been laying. She had been captured by the aliens!

"Whoa whoa soldier! Calm down before you undo all of my work!" a distinctively turian voice said as Aeliana felt hands grab her shoulders.

Aeliana tried to calm down and focus on the person in front of her. Gradually, they came into focus. It was a fairly good-looking man and judging from his attire he was a doctor, that would explain his comment.

"What happened?" Aeliana managed to ask.

The doctor released his grip and took a step back to examine her. "You were shot by a sniper, a tank crew saw you go down and they brought you in. I managed to keep you from bleeding to death but please, stay calm, I don't want you to tear anything."

"So. . .I wasn't capture by the aliens?" Aeliana asked.

"No. . ." The doctor sounded just as confused as Aeliana felt.

"It's just, I thought I heard voices and I couldn't understand what they were saying, I just assumed. . ."

The doctor put on a comforting smile. "Don't worry about, you had lost a lot of blood, that can cause all sorts of delusions and hallucinations due to lack of oxygen getting to the brain." He patted her shoulder. "We were quick getting more blood into you so there shouldn't be any lasting effects so just try to take it easy."

Aeliana slowly lowered herself back down onto the bed. "Thank you doctor. . ." she trailed off, realizing she hadn't gotten the man's name yet.

He chuckled. "Cassius, though I'm not actually a doctor, not yet anyway."

"Well, thank you all the same."

Cassius gave a nod of his head in acknowledgement and turned to check on the other patients in the room. Aeliana lay there, trying to calm herself down. She was alive, she was surrounded by fellow turians, she was Borg, she was safe. Wait, what had that thought been? Borg? What's a Borg? Aeliana shook her head in an attempt to clear it. She was still suffering side effects of the blood loss it seemed. Aeliana was perfectly willing to put up with some medical complications when the alternative was death.

Aeliana was lucky that sniper had been content to toy with her instead of just killing her. . .and that the cyborg left her alone. She had no idea what that thing had been thinking, just walking away in the middle of a fight like that. Wait, that wasn't true, she did know, it left her alone because they were allies. Why had she attacked it? Because they were at war. . .weren't they?

"Cassius?" Aeliana called out.

"Yes? Something wrong?" Cassius answered as he made his way over next to her bed.

"I'm not sure. Who. . .who are we fighting?"

Cassius looked at her with a worried expression on his face. "I don't think we've discovered what they call themselves. Look kinda like a cross between a batarian and a pink pyjack to me. Why? How's your memory?"

"My memory is fine. . .I think."

Cassius didn't look convinced, Aeliana didn't blame him, she wasn't convinced either.

"Lemme ask you a couple questions, see how quickly you can recall the information. Granted, I won't know if you're telling the truth or not but lying to me sort of defeats the whole purpose of this so I'll just accept the fact that you'll be telling the truth."

"OK," Aeliana agreed. "That sounds like a good idea."

Cassius sat down on the edge of the bed next to her. "What were your parents names?"

"My dad's name was Paul, he died in a car accident when I was five. My mother's name is Sharon."

"Paul and Sharon? Odd names but OK. Where did you grow up?"

"I grew up outside of Chicago but my mom remarried when I was sixteen and then we moved to Cincinnati."

Cassius had a strange look on his face but he continued without making a comment. "Any siblings?"

"Just my brother, George."

"You married?"

"I was, my wife's name was Emily but we got divorced when I was assimilated."

"When you were what?" Cassius asked.

"When I was. . .when I joined. . .I was never married, why did I say I was?" Aeliana tried to figure out what she had just said. Who was Emily? Come to think of it, who was George?

Cassius stood up and activated his omni-tool. "Well Aeliana I would say you're definitely experiencing something out of the ordinary, I just don't know what exactly. Maybe if Doctor Urbana was alive she could tell you."

Aeliana sat still as Cassius scanned her. He hmmmm-ed and ahhhh-ed as he read what his omni-tool was displaying. He fiddled with it before scanning her again.

"OK Aeliana, it seems that the your implant is malfunctioning and that's why you're having problems."

"Implant?" Aeliana asked, confused. "What implant?"

Cassius stared at her as if she had just told him she was actually an asari. "The device in your brain. . .what implant did you think I was referring to?"

"I don't have a device in my brain," Aeliana said sharply.

"Uh, yea you do. See?" Cassius turned his arm around so she could see the screen on his omni-tool. Sure enough, there was something in her head.

"I don't remember getting that. What is it?" Aeliana asked.

"Based on its location and the problems you're having, I would say it regulates your ability to recall memories," Cassius guessed. "The fact that it's damaged probably explains why you can't remember getting it."

"So what's wrong with it?"

"Well that question is a bit outside my field of expertise but it looks like it became partially disconnected from your brain, I'm assuming from all the trauma you recently experienced."

Aeliana hoped she was following this. "So you just need to go in there and move it so that its back in the spot it's supposed to be and that will reconnect it and I'll be back to normal?"

"Whoa there," Cassius said. "I am NOT about to attempt brain surgery on you for a non-life threatening injury. For starters, I am not qualified for that. Secondly, this is not a suitable location for something like that. I'll see what I can do about getting you transferred to a ship in orbit, if they've got a proper med-bay they might be able to attempt to fix you. But again, this is non-life threatening so there isn't any guarantee that they'll do it anytime soon."

"Thank you Cassius. This. . .thing worries me. I don't feel like me right now. My memories, my experience, made me who I am, if I can't trust them, who am I?"