REAPERS
Saturday April 20, 2177. A day that will become fixed in galactic memory. The day the Council and the Earth bloc learned, quite abruptly, that there was more to the galaxy than what they knew. The day of the First Battle of Eden Prime.
On the Obama-class patrol frigate USS Victor H Bensen, the day started just like any other Saturday. With huevos rancheros.
Lizzie stumbled into the mess hall, hair dishevelled and boots unlaced, her hunger having finally won its struggle with her fatigue. Every time the crew of the Bensen made port they had a whip round and bought enough ingredients for three days of James's huevos rancheros for breakfast for the entire crew. When one spent most of their existence living on MREs, known among servicemen and women everywhere as 'Pre-Digesteds' waking up to the smell of scrambled eggs and frying chorizo was nothing short of heavenly. That is, unless said individual happened to be on latrine duty for sassing a superior officer (again). Poor Kasumi.
James turned around as she shambled zombically into the mess hall.
"Hey Lizzie. Late night?"
She mumbled something that might have been fuck you as she slumped on the table, groaning. Staying up till three AM on a vid call with her Turian long distance boyfriend wasn't the smartest thing she had ever done.
"Well, the good news is it's Saturday. Huevos rancheros and real coffee day."
She seemed to perk up at the mention of real coffee. The vat grown synthetic coffee beans mass produced and exported by the Geth were all well and good for an instant caffeine hit but, being AIs, the flashlights didn't make very good taste testers. Real coffee beans were a stretch on the ship's already tight discretionary supply budget, meaning that like James's eggs, it was only available on Saturday mornings.
Kaidan entered next, tousling Lizzie's hair affectionately as James set a plate of huevos and a mug of coffee down in front of her. Despite the age difference being less than a year between the eldest and youngest members of the team Kaidan acted like the unit's designated elder brother, constantly looking out for his teammates in a way that was annoying as hell right up until he pulled their asses out of a tight spot or dragged said asses back to the ship after a bender on shore leave. Lizzie gulped at her coffee, ignoring the near scalding temperature, before turning her attention to the eggs, scooping some up with her fork and spearing a chunk of chorizo on the end.
The rest of the team filtered in among the rush of the ship's crew, each one receiving their own plate of what was effectively the innards of a breakfast burrito and taking it to the table usually occupied by the SEAL unit.
There was a brief lull in the conversation, the sounds of talking and eating replaced by the call of 'Officer on Deck' and the scrape of chair legs on metal floors as the mess stood as one to salute.
Lizzie had barely got her hand in motion when a familiar deep voice called out.
"At ease."
The mess hall fell back into their chairs, resuming their meal as Commander David Anderson walked up to the counter and took a plate of eggs before beelining to the SEAL's table. The SEAL team, as well as the detachment of twenty four marines aboard the four hundred and sixty metre vessel, fell under Anderson's command. He was skilled and experienced, just like the ship's captain, but unlike Captain Mikhailovich he was also popular with his men.
"Hey sir. When are we getting to Eden Prime? I reckon the crew could use some leave."
Anderson glanced up at Kaidan as the medic plopped down into his chair, having just gone for a refill of coffee.
"We should be arriving in around an hour at cruising speed. Got any plans?"
Kaidan glanced over at Lizzie, who was hunched over her eggs.
"I was planning to hit the bar with Ash and Jacob. Lizzie here has a hot date."
Lizzie didn't even respond, focusing on scooping forkfuls of eggs, refried beans and peppers into her mouth.
"I didn't think you drank, Alenko."
"I don't. Anything more than a glass or two of wine and my dodgy implant tells me all about it. Someone's got to hold their hair back while their jagerbombs make a reappearance."
Jacob snorted down the other end of the table.
"Speak for yourself, Captain Headbump. I don't have any hair to hold."
James called across the mess hall.
"That's cause when you let it grow it looks like head pubes, hombre."
The following obscene gesture had James clutching his heart in mock hurt. Ignoring the class clown, Anderson clapped Lizzie on the shoulder.
"Have some more coffee, it'll wake you up."
The conversation lulled, the only sound around the table being the clinking of cutlery as the occupants of the mess hall finished their eggs and coffee in relative quiet. The calm was abruptly shattered by the terse voice of Flight Lieutenant Halling over the intercom.
"Red alert, all hands to battlestations. Repeat, red alert, all hands to battlestations. Ground team to assemble in the shuttle bay."
By the time the announcement was over the mess hall was deserted.
The ritual was all too familiar to Lizzie. Uniform off, underlayer on, then the plating bottom up, boots, greaves, gauntlets, vambraces, chestplate, backplate, pauldrons and helm. Check seals, check plates, check seals again. Form barrier, release barrier, reform barrier, check seals again. Then check James's armour over. Run diagnostic on amp modules. Grab weapons. Check weapons. The ritual was one she had performed thousands of times, yet demanded every iota of concentration. One oversight could cost her life.
She was just slinging her final weapon, a TCN5 HSMG 'Happy Hans' on her hip when Captain Mikhailovich appeared as a hologram in front of the team.
"Commander, ready your team to drop in ten minutes. It's critical we extract the beacon."
"What's the situation, sir?"
Mikhailovich narrowed his eyes at James, but when Anderson made no move to reprimand him for jumping the chain of command he let it slide.
"Eden Prime is under heavy attack from unknown hostiles."
The entire team was silenced by that proclamation.
"There's an unidentified ship above the colony and significant groundside hostiles. We have to remove the beacon. To that end, we're co-ordinating with the HBF Talons of Nanus. Most of their crew are stuck on the planet but they managed to escape with a skeleton crew."
Lizzie's world shrunk to encompass three words.
Talons of Nanus.
Garrus's ship.
"What about the civilians?"
Mikhailovich shook his head.
"They're here for the beacon. It's too much of a coincidence for it to be anything else. If we remove the beacon we remove their motive for continuing to attack."
James cut in again.
"Mind filling us in, sir?"
Anderson turned to face the team.
"There's a reason we chose Eden Prime as our destination for shore leave. An excavation team recently unearthed a Prothean beacon. The plan was to use shore leave as a cover to discreetly shift the beacon onto the Victor. Nobody save me and the Captain were supposed to know of its existence until we were halfway to Arcturus."
"Prothean? Why the hell would we want that?"
Anderson shook his head.
"We don't. Our tech is on a completely different curve to the Protheans, after all. But the Asari and Salarians would pay through their noses to get hold of it. The plan was to use it as leverage over the Asari in some upcoming high key trade negotiations."
"Wait. If the Asari want it so bad could they be behind the attack?"
This time it was Ash who replied to James.
"No chance. The blues never liked us but there's no way they'd risk war just for one Prothean data cache."
Lizzie finally spoke up.
"Sir, what's the status of the Turian ship's ground assets?"
"All their ground assets are MIA apart from one team who they have sporadic comms with. They're under heavy fire at the beacon's last known location."
Lizzie nodded, crushing down her inner turmoil. Right now all she could do was pray Garrus was staying safe.
"The Marines will be the muscle of the operation. They'll deploy on the south side of the engagement zone in the Eagle APCs and make some noise. In the meantime the SEALs will free descend down the space elevator and insert directly into the north west sector of the engagement zone, then move along the Gotha riverbed to the beacon's location. We have only one piece of data on the hostiles, the comm transcripts from when the Turian team have got a signal out. They're not very helpful, seem to spend more time talking about zombie movies than what they're actually fighting. Be ready for anything."
The captain's lips quirked, as if acknowledging the absurdity of his last sentence as the hologram dissipated.
"Coming up on drop point one."
The hangar bay door slid open and with a roaring of thrusters the three Eagle armoured personnel carriers dropped out, each one loaded with Marines raring for action. Lizzie watched them pass with a neutral eye, worried expression hidden behind her opaque visor.
"Approaching drop point two. ETA one minute."
Anderson stepped up in front of his six SEALS.
"Alright. Remember your free descent training. Point your head at the planet and jump. Use your thrusters and gecko pads to reacquire the surface. If you jump too far, you'll pick up too much speed and you won't be able to reacquire, at which point you will make a mess on the planet surface. Try not to jump over a thermal vent, it'll cook you alive."
Lizzie clenched her jaw, trying to keep the eggs down as the hangar door opened once more, showing a view of the top surface of the orbital dockyard and beyond the alien ship hanging above the colony. The shape was unlike anything she had ever seen before. It looked like a space worthy termite's nest.
"We'll head directly down through the dock, then use a maintenance hatch to access the elevator trunk itself. Let's go."
Lizzie sprinted toward the hangar door, taking a flying leap and landing on all fours, quickly springing up again and unslinging her Gast's rifle from her back. Unlike most SEAL Adepts, Lizzie preferred the firepower of the Gast over the more lightweight Radiance carbine. Tucking the weapon's stock into her shoulder, she waited while Kasumi hacked and opened the hatch before dropping down and looking around, her squadmates coming down behind her. Anderson was third down, his own Gast's rifle in hand as he slowly turned on his heel.
"Shepard, Taylor take point."
Lizzie and Jacob stepped up neatly, their fire arcs intersecting as they made their way along the corridor to the spiralling stairwell.
"Commander?"
There was something in their way.
"The hell is that?"
The item in question was a sticky black mass of what looked like dense web.
"Burn it."
James stepped up, his Blitz LMG resting on his shoulder as he raised his other wrist. The Flamer nozzle fired up, intense sheets of plasma briefly turning the web into a conflagration, then ash slowly drifting to the floor.
Moving down, they encountered three more webs on their way to the bottom level, but no sign of their source. Other than that, they reached the maintenance hatch without incident.
"Intel is that the platform has stopped halfway up the cable. Nobody fuck this up, okay? Remember, thermal vents bad."
With that, Anderson swung himself out of the hatch, clinging onto the space elevator cable with the gecko pads in his armour. Muttering a quick prayer to whichever deity might be listening, Lizzie followed him.
The cable was disorienting to say the least. Lizzie latched on with her head pointed at the planet as per Anderson's instructions, upside down compared to the orientation of the orbital dock and the planet's gravity. Her HUD helpfully shifted, displaying the distance to the planet's surface. The orbital dockyard they had been dropped on was used as a terminal for high speed planetary transit vehicles, situated ten kilometres above the surface. Ten kilometres straight down.
Anderson was the first to make a leap. He pushed off from the surface of the cable, accelerating as he fell, using his armour's jets to swerve around the enormous hooks designed to prevent the platform from falling too far in the event of power loss and the plumes of plasma from the thermal vents. When he fired his back mounted thruster and grabbed onto the platform again he was two hundred metres closer to the planet. Beside her Ashley smacked her head against the elevator cable.
"Goddamnit."
Slowly but surely, the SEALs started leapfrogging down the elevator cable.
###
The enemy had given them a brief respite, something the six surviving Turians were taking full advantage of. Four of them were members of the Armiger Legion, the Turian equivalent of the SEALs or Spetsnaz. The other two were Spectres.
Nihlus Kryik groaned as he lowered himself to the ground. The attacking waves had been relentless. Their assailants were mostly human, or more correctly ex-human, but he could have sworn a couple of those ... husks had been repurposed Turians. He had never faced anything quite like it before. His HWSG X shotgun had been very busy, incendiary rounds blowing through husked corpses with alarming ease, and yet the monsters had almost overwhelmed them before scurrying away again.
Beside him, Garrus Vakarian crouched down, trying to repair a Phaeston assault rifle that had been used as a club and had several components shaken loose. Nihlus glanced over at the Phaeston.
"Don't bother, Vakarian. You won't be able to fix that without a replacement kinetic coil."
The young Centurion threw down the weapon in frustration.
"Great. Now I'm down to my sniper, which is no good against hordes of zombies."
Nihlus frowned for a moment.
"You Armiger kids have been calling these things zombies a lot. Sounds like a Human word."
"Yeah. A zombie is a hostile reanimated corpse. It's a popular concept in Human fiction."
"So you watch a lot of Human films? I didn't think many were translated into Turian."
Garrus shook his head.
"I speak English fluently and I know enough Russian to get by."
"Impressive."
Their conversation was interrupted by Saren.
"Okay, enough chat. Vakarian, take Sidarin and check those buildings for any supplies the US army may have left. Vorolan, Coltonus, search that platform over there. Kryik with me. Return to this position in ten minutes or when someone reports contact."
Nihlus walked up to stand next to Saren.
"Why did they retreat? They could have overwhelmed us. We were at breaking point."
Saren looked out over the field of corpses.
"Perhaps they were required elsewhere. The Americans perhaps? Putting up a fight?"
"Mm. Or maybe that US ship the captain mentioned before the comms cut out."
Saren knelt down and looked at one of the Husks that had attacked them. It was smaller than the others, the remnants of a pink dress hanging off it, the chest obliterated by a shotgun blast.
"No doubt these husks are repurposed civilians. We saw some wearing US military gear as well."
"The shields were a nuisance."
Saren clapped Nihlus on the shoulder.
"Stay sharp, friend. We won't remain ignored for long."
His comm crackled.
"Contact. I have no idea what those things are but they don't look friendly."
Saren slapped a hand to his forehead.
"I jinxed it."
"What?"
"Human phrase. I'll explain later."
Nihlus sighed and shook his head as he followed his mentor back to their position. It seemed he was the only Turian in the group without an intimate knowledge of Human culture.
The two Spectres slid into cover, unslinging their weapons. Vakarian and Sidarin were already there, alien rifles clutched in their talons.
"Found something I see."
Vakarian held up the rifle he was holding.
"M96S1 DMR 'Sharp'. I have always wanted one of these. Sidarin over there has himself a heavy missile cannon."
Nihlus looked at the weapon and did a double take as Serviceman Hadreus Sidarin piped up.
"I read about these. It's basically a Seu'Seun rocket rifle with the handles replaced and a tripod added."
The last two troopers showed up and took up their positions, returning empty handed save a bag of thermal clips.
"We brought these in case you guys found Earth tech weapons and needed them."
Garrus placed two Eviscerator-Five shotguns and a TCN4 SMG in the middle of the position.
"Anyone wants, now's the time."
Nihlus's mandibles gaped open in shock as the next wave of attackers crested the hill.
"What the fu ..."
He threw himself to the ground, a trio of heavy cannon projectiles passing over his head and leaving craters in the ground that glowed a sullen orange. The source of the cannon blasts advanced on slow, stomping legs, right arm replaced below the elbow with the weapon, left arm enlarged to match the monster's gargantuan proportions, a human sized left arm protruding from its hip.
"Look at the size of that thing!"
Saren rallied the six defenders.
"Less gawping, more killing!"
Sidarin gripped the handles of his missile cannon.
"Say hello to my little friend!"
Nihlus rolled his eyes.
"Another Human thing?"
The reply was drowned out by the booming of the missile cannon. The first impact caught the thing in the gut, making it stumble. The second elicited a pained shriek as it obliterated the bulbous sac on the left shoulder. The third hit full in the chest, knocking the creature to the ground. The fourth blew the cannon off its arm. The fifth destroyed its misshapen head, ending its struggles for good.
The next thing to appear over the crest of the ridge was three more of the cannon wielding creatures, along with a highly disturbing one that looked vaguely Turian, but with enormous claws and squat, powerful legs that crawled on all fours towards them.
"That thing is ugly as sin."
"Blow it up."
Biting back a curse, Sidarin held down the trigger on his missile cannon until the weapon clicked empty. When the smoke cleared there was very little left of the heavy units.
"We're out of missiles. Here's hoping that was the last of them."
"Or at least the last of the big ones."
An eerie chittering sound filled the air.
"You just had to say it, didn't you."
"Sorry."
###
"Nobody ever told me we'd be fighting frikkin' zombies!"
Corporal Richard Jenkins pumped the light shotgun slung under his Mattock-Ten, blasting another cluster of sledgehammer rounds into the chest of a Husk at close range. The Husks, as they had become known, had been constantly assaulting the Victor's marine team from the outset. It was only thanks to the guns of the Eagle APCs that the entire unit hadn't been overwhelmed. The high caliber autocannon were proving supremely effective at ripping through swarms of the zombie creatures.
Beside him, Private Raymond Tanaka sighted down his Axeman and put a three round burst into another of their assailant's head, making it pop in a grotesque splash of thick black goo.
"Jesus, that's nasty."
Jenkins dropped to one knee and fired long bursts from his own rifle, switching again to the shotgun as one of the Husks got too close for comfort, then raising it to club another one to the ground, another shotgun blast taking its head off as the heat sink popped out of the underbarrel slot. He took the momentary lull to change the sink in the main barrel slot as well, seeing as he was down to two rounds, then whipped the weapon up, eyes scanning the area for any imminent threats.
Sergeant Isis Mace, the squad's designated biotic, let the corona of dark energy dissipate as she surveyed the field of dead husks.
"Looks clear. Everyone stay alert."
The four man fire team moved in conjunction with the next team over, each squad consisting of an assault, a marksman, a heavy and a biotic. Between the two fire teams the Eagle tank advanced, held aloft in eerie silence by three mass effect boosted aerofans, twin linked automatic cannon turret swivelling in a search for hostiles.
A humming sound filled the air, startling the Marines and prompting them to dive for cover, the biotics erecting barrier bubbles as the other three members of the squad sighted down their weapons, each team covering the other.
"What have we got?"
"Unknown incoming. Stay alert, Eagle Two."
The tank never got a chance to respond. From points hidden up on the ridge, dirty gold beams lanced out, transfixing the lightly armoured APC and burning through the shielding at an alarming rate. The armour was hardly any obstacle to the destructive beams, slicing through the tank like butter, eventually hitting the fuel tank and detonating it in a thunderclap and a nova of burning fragments of armour. It was only the biotic barriers that saved the Marines from being obliterated by the wave of fire that washed over them.
With a couple of snapped commands, Sergeant Mace regained control of her panicking squad.
"Hold fire! Those positions are two kilometres away, there's no chance you'll hit anything."
The Marines reluctantly ceased their fruitless fusillade, instead looking to the sergeant for instruction. She waved them on.
"We continue with the mission. Tanaka, call in the casualties."
"Yes ma'am."
Jenkins advanced slowly, keeping an eye out for anything that could have been the source of the beams. He was on point so he saw the strange, chitinous weapon sitting on the fallen chunk of rubble first. He gave the area a cursory inspection for any sign of booby traps, then examined the weapon. His best guess was that it was some type of SMG, but the construction was so alien he couldn't really be sure.
"Sarge, come look at this."
The squad crowded round the weapon as Jenkins picked it up.
"This must belong to whoever was shooting those beams."
He squeezed the trigger and the weapon made a quiet hissing noise as it spat out a fusillade of rounds.
"Impressive."
He was brought abruptly out of his admiration of the weapon as it wrapped a tendril around his wrist.
"Jesus Christ!"
He tugged at the tendril momentarily, then shrugged.
"Must be a wrist loop or something, stops me getting disarmed. Pretty clever actually."
Mace frowned at him.
"You sure you're okay, Jenkins?"
He nodded happily.
"Yeah. Bet this gun does a shitload of damage."
Before anyone could react his arm snapped out, the muzzle of the SMG jabbing into the sergeant's chin. Her head disintegrated under the point blank barrage.
"Cool!"
He turned the weapon on Perez, the heavy weapon specialist. Her shield didn't last long under the sustained fire.
"Double cool!"
He turned to Tanaka. The panicking marksman grabbed his rifle and blew Jenkins's head off. The blood splashed over him, making him scream softly and curl up into a ball as the other fire team on the opposite side of the street stared in dumb disbelief.
###
"Heads up, we've got company."
Lizzie glanced up, seeing ... something crawling up the elevator column towards her. They had almost reached the elevator platform, stuck about halfway to the surface, falling down the cable in two hundred metre bounds.
"The hell? Those look like zombies!"
Anderson was quick to make a decision.
"Take them out."
Lizzie flared up her biotics, grimacing as the familiar surge of power flooded through her veins. Crawling towards the zombies climbing the shaft, she pulled out her Talon pistol, taking aim at the lead zombie. Beside her, James held his Eviscerator-Ten shotgun one handed, scrunching up his arm to brace the weapon against his shoulder. She squeezed the trigger, nodding in satisfaction as the sledgehammer rounds hit the first zombie full in the face, accelerating it towards the planet high above her head. Or is it below? Before she could think herself into another bout of nausea, she reached out with her biotics, throwing a Lash field into a dense group. Three of them were ripped off their feet, flying towards her until she cut the field, letting them fall down to the planet below. Above. Below. Shut up.
James's shotgun boomed, reducing another zombie to something resembling mashed potato as on her other side Ash calmly rolled an inferno grenade down the cable, up the cable, SHUT UP and hit the leader of another wave square on the head. The casing burst open, incendiary bomblets arcing upwards, no, downwards GODDAMNIT onto the followers of the pack, setting them alight, dropping off the platform and plummeting towards the planet as they frantically flailed, trying to bat the flames out. Lizzie closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Okay Lizzie. Grow a pair. Toward the planet is down. Got it? Good.
Opening her eyes again, she raised her Talon, blitzing the last of the zombies and switching the heat sink before reattaching the weapon to her belt.
"Two more jumps should take us to the platform. Be ready for anything."
Gulping hard, Lizzie kicked off the cable, immediately feeling the familiar rush of adrenaline as gravity snatched her away and accelerated her towards the planet far below. Tilting to the side triggered her armour's thrusters, swerving out of the way of a plasma vent, then dodging back to skim the side of one of the platform hooks. She kept an eye on the velocity gauge in the bottom left corner of her vision, her attention divided between monitoring it and scanning the trunk for a good landing zone.
An insistent beeping informed that her velocity was approaching the maximum safe landing speed as she finally located a landing zone. With a feather-light touch of her back mounted thruster she glided into the surface of the cable, arms and legs splaying out, gecko pads adhering to the surface as they abruptly decelerated her. Even with the shock absorbing gel layer in her armour the impact was jarring. She would be covered in bruises tomorrow.
Checking her HUD, she saw Kaidan and Kasumi coming to a halt beside her as the other members of the team landed on the opposite side of the cable. The platform was only one hundred and twenty metres away, so one more jump should clear them.
"Heads up! We've got movement on the roof of the platform!"
Peering at the platform, Lizzie triggered the zoom on her HUD.
"The hell are those?"
The aliens on the platform looked wrong. Brown chitinous bodies, elongated heads, faces featureless save four glowing yellow eyes and long, organic looking weapons clutched in their three clawed hands.
"Uh, they're armed ..."
The aliens raised the rifles into a stance Lizzie universally recognised, regardless of the shape of the weapons.
"Sniper rifles!"
"Go!"
Yellow-gold beams lanced up at them as they kicked off the cable, using their thrusters to wildly evade the weapon fire. It seemed the aliens couldn't sustain their beams for more than four seconds without needing to vent their weapons Council style. Lizzie had no idea of the destructive potential of the weapons and she had no intention of finding out the hard way.
"Anderson's hit!"
Fuck.
Kaidan pulsed his thrusters, drawing ever closer to their stricken commander and looping an arm around the unconscious man's waist before boosting himself towards the cable again. Lizzie came down onto the surface of the elevator trunk, closing the distance with a couple more bounds before landing on the upper surface of the platform. Grinning to herself at the abrupt return of gravity to its proper orientation, she fired up her biotics, in particular two skills. The first was the Annihilation Field. The second was Mak-Chan.
Pioneered at the Petrovsky Institute, Mak-Chan was humanity's first and only biotic martial art. Combining aspects of Krav Maga and the Raachok Hexhaxhe school of fighting, Mak-Chan was brutally effective at channelling biotics in close combat.
One of the aliens was different from the others, a slightly more greyish cast to its body and a larger, wider head. Spreading it's arms, it unsheathed a long blade, the same dirty brown and deep red aesthetic as the aliens and their rifles yet strangely resembling an ancient Japanese katana. The alien, who was undoubtedly the leader, waved his subordinates to return their attention to the SEALs still descending, then swished his sword at her. A challenge. Smiling sadistically beneath her helm, Lizzie triggered her annihilation field, noting the slight surprised jolt from her target. Time to dance.
Her first move was a flowing spin that parried the alien's sword swing off a mass effect boosted forearm, culminating in her wriggling well inside the bug's comfort zone and hooking a hand behind its head, using her leverage to yank the creature down into a knee strike to the face. She was rewarded with the cracking of chitin plate and a pained shriek as she followed up with a biotically charged elbow strike to the back of the thing's head, her annihilation field burning at its armour all the while.
It was quicker than she had anticipated. The bug threw itself forward into a headbutt, knocking her away, then swung the blade at her neck. She ducked, feeling the sword momentarily scrape across the top of her helmet as she lashed out at a knee. The alien skipped its leg out of the way, momentarily over balancing itself in the process. She took advantage of that to sweep its legs out, at the same time gripping and twisting its head. The bug's neck broke with a crisp clean snap.
Acting on instinct, she immediately rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding a beam as the underlings, seemingly incensed by the death of their leader, moved to attack her. Grimacing, she pulled out her TCN5 and returned fire, warp rounds dealing heavy damage to their chitinous armour in a punishing fusillade as she dodged and ducked the questing beams.
A beam dealt her a glancing blow and she faltered, horrified at the drain to her barrier. The weapon had grazed her for half a second and taken down almost two thirds of her barrier. Reaching out a hand, she Reaved the nearest alien, feeling herself become re-energised as the alien's own barrier drained to supply hers. She couldn't help but pause for a moment to revel in the sensation before throwing herself back into the fight.
The unfortunate alien currently in a heap on the platform's roof as she Reaved it made for a convenient setup for a biotic detonation. Her Lash field locked onto it, creating an enormous boom and a blue pulse that knocked another alien sniper down for James to perforate with his Blitz. Kaidan bent over the wounded Anderson, stabilising him as Ash and Jacob stood over them, keeping up a steady barrage of rifle fire. Kasumi was in the middle of the fray with James and Lizzie, her Omniblade swinging as she flipped between the aliens, cutting through limbs and torsos. There was little cover on the surface of the platform, meaning the fight was over far quicker.
The last alien fell and Lizzie immediately took charge, taking over from the wounded Anderson.
"Alenko, call a medivac for Anderson. Everyone else, weapons check. Anyone care to guess what the hell these things are?"
James spoke up as he nudged a corpse with the toe of his boot.
"My uncle Marco's with the Blue Suns on Omega, says the residents tell stories about these creatures called Collectors. Looks like them."
"What do you know?"
He shrugged.
"Not much. Word is they're damn secretive. They show up in the Terminus and make trades with slavers and the like, really specific, like, I dunno, ten female Batarians with yellow markings, sixteen left handed Quarians, that kind of crap. They pay for the slaves with super advanced weapons, like these beam rifles."
Jacob walked over and picked up one of the rifles. Something extruded from the grip, wrapping tight around his wrist. He tugged at it for a moment before shrugging and raising the gun.
Suddenly Lizzie knew what was happening. As Jacob pulled the trigger she dove in front of Anderson, her barrier catching the brunt of the blast. Gasping in shock, Kaidan reinforced her barrier with his own, ensuring the rifle overheated moments before her defence was breached. Frowning slightly, Jacob lashed out with the rifle's barrel, clubbing an unsuspecting Kasumi to the ground and knocking her out cold before sending a biotic burst at James.
"STOP!"
Lizzie noticed Kaidan holding out a hand, blue flickering around him as he held Jacob in stasis. She immediately ran up to him and ripped the rifle out of his hands, lobbing it over the side of the platform before knocking him out.
"SEAL team to Victor. Require urgent medivac. Commander Anderson, Lieutenants Goto, Vega and Taylor all disabled. Assume Lieutenant Taylor is compromised, keep sedated."
The shuttle was only a couple of minutes away, disgorging a group of medics who hauled the four wounded SEALs into their vehicle, ensuring Jacob was appropriately restrained. As they were packing up Lizzie accosted one of them.
"Groundside comms are patchy. What's the status of the Marines?"
The Atavira rubbed at her breather mask and frowned.
"Bad. Almost half the unit is KIA already and we're getting a lot of friendly fire casualties. We don't wrap this up quick we could lose the whole team."
Nodding, Lizzie waved Ash and Kaidan over.
"Just us three now. Nobody touch any Collector weapons, okay?"
They both nodded tersely as they resumed their descent of the cable.
###
Garrus sighted down his salvaged Sharp, the rifle kicking back into his shoulder as he put a bullet through the head of the last bug. Once he was sure all the hostiles were down Saren walked forward, closely followed by Nihlus. Both Spectres bent down to pick up some of the weapons used by the bugs. Nihlus picked up one of the assault rifles that seemed to never need reloading or venting as Saren picked up an enormous weapon that Garrus was very glad the wielder never got a chance to fire.
Almost immediately both Turians grabbed at their wrists. Then two very different things happened. Saren grunted and hefted the weapon to balance on his shoulder as Nihlus turned and took aim.
"Nihlus, what are you ..."
Sidarin squeaked and dove for cover as Nihlus opened fire, strafing their position. Saren's reaction was immediate. He tackled his fellow Spectre, swinging the weapon attached to his hand like a club as Nihlus lashed out, trying to bring the rifle to bear on Saren. The elder Spectre had no choice. He jammed his weapon's barrel into Nihlus's gut and pulled the trigger.
The blast from the weapon obliterated Nihlus's torso, leaving a smoking crater on the floor as Saren wearily stood and called out.
"Nobody pick up any bug guns."
He was faced with the barrels of four rifles.
"You're holding one."
He waved it in the air, gesturing to his wrist.
"Cybernetic arm. Never been more glad my real one got eaten on Shanxi."
He looked down at the corpse of his pupil and bowed his head in respect and sorrow.
"We'll mourn the dead later. Right now we need to prepare. I can guarantee you they won't be leaving us alone for long."
###
Lizzie landed lightly on her feet, weapon immediately up and sweeping the area for any sign of hostile contacts. Kaidan seemingly stepped out of thin air, his own biotic corona dissipating as his own rifle panned around, seamlessly covering Lizzie's blind spots. The aura of cool professionalism was slightly ruined by Ash's surprised curse and bellyflop onto the ground, scrambling up a moment later to cover both of them with her sniper rifle.
They surged forwards as one, silently stepping along the bank of the lazily flowing river Gotha, sticking to the low trees that helped hide their forms, the active camouflage on their armour shifting to blend them into their surroundings.
Her comm crackled in her ear with an update from the Victor's ops centre.
"Lieutenant Commander, a Raachok Battlestar just arrived in system. They're ETA two hours."
"Affirmative. Thanks for the update. Shepard out."
The greatly reduced fire team made their way along the bottom of the valley, relying on the strip of vegetation allowed to grow beside the river to conceal them from any hostiles that may be in the spaceport complex.
"Hold."
The three SEALs immediately took a knee, weapons held at the ready.
"Company."
The Collectors picking their way through the trees were slightly different to the snipers they had fought on the orbital tether platform. They seemed stockier and were carrying three vaned carbines of some sort. In all there were six of them, led by another one of the commanders she had faced on the platform.
"On three. Ash, snipe the captain. Kaidan, lay down a Singularity on the left side. One. Two. Three."
As she said the word three, Ash squeezed her trigger. The Sharp she was carrying spat out a round that impacted against the captain's barrier, drawing a surprised squawk. The second round took down the remainder of the barrier and the third one obliterated the Collector's head. Meanwhile Kaidan lashed out an arm, a Singularity appearing in the midst of the soldiers and yanking two of them off their feet. Lizzie flicked out a hand, Reaving the rightmost one even as her Gast's rifle opened up on the one next to it. The incendiary rounds she had loaded stitched a line of fiery impacts up the soldier, barrier breaking and body catching alight. Kaidan and Ash both turned their rifles on the floating soldiers trapped in the singularity, quickly taking them down.
The remaining two soldiers reacted, raising their rifles and opening up, making all three of them duck behind trees. The three vaned rifles showed no intention of letting up, their lethally precise streams of fire chewing away at the SEAL team's flimsy cover. Thinking fast, Lizzie flicked out a hand from behind her tree, applying a Lash field to the closer soldier and yanking it off its feet and towards her. The volume of suppressive fire suddenly halved, Ash leaned out and double-tapped the last one standing as Kaidan detonated the unfortunate floating one with a well placed Throw.
"Good work. Let's keep moving. We have to reach the beacon before the Collectors break through the Turians."
Kaidan held up a hand.
"Ssh. You hear that?"
She paused, listening. A faint sound reached her ears.
"I hear it. This way."
She stalked through the forest, following the sound until they reached the source, huddled in a gap in a tree trunk. Lizzie knelt down and peered into the trunk. Four terrified black eyes peered back. Shuffling through her neural net, Lizzie activated a Khar'Sel program, allowing her to speak the most prominent Batarian dialect.
"Hey there. Who are you?"
The Batarian girl pressed herself deeper into the trunk. Lizzie knelt down and removed her helmet, smiling at the scared child.
"What's your name?"
The girl blinked the top pair of eyes and gulped.
"N ... Nari."
"What are you doing in there, Nari?"
There was a pause for a moment.
"I lost my momma."
"Are you hurt?"
The girl nodded, eyes filled with tears.
"Here, let me see. I can make it better."
After a moment's hesitation Nari crawled out of the tree trunk and held up her arm. Lizzie was struck by how small she was. She couldn't be more than five. She had a nasty burn across her right shoulder. Lizzie cooed softly, calming the girl as she rubbed medigel into the burn.
"What happened?"
Nari sniffled a couple of times.
"We were walking in the spaceport when the brown beetles came. Momma hid with me behind a crate and the nasty blue lady started bossing the beetles around. Then Momma told me to go play hide and seek in the trees and started counting but she was crying. I ran to the trees but the beetles shined their lights at me and Momma. Momma told me to keep going no matter what then she fell over and the beetles burned me with their lights."
Ashley stomped up to the girl.
"Wait. What blue lady? An asari?"
Kaidan held up a hand.
"Give it a rest Ash. The girl's just lost her mom."
Lizzie knelt down and rested an armoured hand on Nari's shoulder.
"We need to go get something and find some of our friends, but then we'll be getting away from the beetles. You should come with us."
Nari whimpered and latched onto Lizzie's arm.
"What about momma?"
There was a long pause as Lizzie wasn't sure how to respond.
"Is she dead?"
Not trusting herself to make a sound without bursting into tears, Lizzie nodded. Nari just held up her arms and Lizzie hoisted the Batarian child up to sit in the crook of her arm, tiny arms wrapped around armoured neck as the little girl wailed. Lizzie stroked the back of her head.
"Ssh, ssh Nari. You need to be quiet otherwise the beetles might hear us."
Her wails turned to silent sobs as the three man team moved out again. Kaidan on point as Lizzie had an extra passenger. As they moved along the riverbed, Nari whispered in Lizzie's ear.
"I miss my momma."
It broke her heart.
###
Saren fired the bug weapon he was holding again, the yellow beam spearing out and obliterating another cluster of enemies. The weapon, which Saren had christened the Beam Lance, had proven absurdly powerful, each charge ripping through enemies like wet tissue paper. It was unfortunate that the weapon had to recharge for almost thirty seconds between each shot but, having taken out what they were now calling a Brute in a single blast, it seemed a small price to pay. While the weapon recharged he jabbed the muzzle into the ground, resting his wrist on the handle and using it as a post to steady his assault rifle's aim.
To his left, Vakarian and Coltonus tag teamed, him with his salvaged Sharp and her with a Krysae, each shot finding an elongated brown head. On the opposite side Sidarin bent over the fallen Vorolan, patching up the engineer's arm where he had taken a glancing blow from a sniper beam. The bugs abruptly disengaged, unfurling their wings and flying off towards the ship that hung on the horizon.
"The hell? Looks like they're bugging out."
"That pun was terrible, Sidarin."
Ignoring the banter, Saren kept his eye on the surroundings, and so he was the first to spot the three figures emerging from the wooded area beside the river. Peering down the scope of the beam lance, he identified them as US SEALs.
The Humans jogged up to the Turian fire team. As they approached, Saren noticed that one of them was carrying what looked like a Batarian child. The leader, the one carrying the child, saluted him.
"Lieutenant-Commander Shepard, US Navy SEALs. What's the situation?"
Then her eye drifted to Saren's Collector weapon.
"Relax kid, cybernetic arm. I'm keeping this pointed at the bugs. You Adam Shepard's kid?"
She nodded, confused.
"Wow, you got big. Last time I saw you, you were the size of your little friend there. Now I feel old. Saren Arterius, Council Spectre. The bugs have been pushing us hard but we kept them off the beacon. Looks like they're evacing now."
She nodded and shifted her arm, better balancing the Batarian child on it.
"We got word a Raachok heavy's insystem. Could be it spooked them."
Garrus came up behind Saren. At the sight of him, alive and unharmed, Lizzie felt the knot of tension in her gut dissipate.
"Beacon is secured, sir."
Lizzie looked past Saren and Garrus to Kaidan, who was examining the beacon. He took one step, then another, leaning backwards alarmingly as his boots started to scuff along the ground.
"Kaidan! Hold this."
Shoving Nari into Garrus's arms, she took off sprinting, taking a flying leap and spinning Kaidan round her, shoving him away from the beacon but getting pulled in herself.
Visions flowed into her mind, filling her head with images of death and destruction as a mounting pressure built up behind her eyes. The last thing she remembered before blacking out was a colossal rumble, as if the entire planet was shaken. Then nothing.