Feros kind of sucked.
Even from orbit Lizzie could tell she wasn't going to like the planet. The whole thing resembled something coughed up by a cat.
"Remind me why we're here again?"
Garrus didn't respond immediately, instead running a hand over the exposed strip of skin on her back where he was supposed to be zipping up her armour's underlayer. She reached behind and slapped his wrist.
"Down boy."
Coughing awkwardly, Garrus finished zipping her up, the synth-muscle contracting to fit snug against her form as she walked round behind him to return the favour.
"Nari remembered Nazara sending Benezia here."
"I know. The planet looks like a hairball though."
Garrus raised a brow plate. Recently Lizzie had noticed he had started to subconsciously emulate Human facial expressions.
"I must be missing something, what's a hairball?"
She chuckled as she zipped up his armour underweave.
"Remember those things that stray cat was always leaving on my doorstep?"
There was a brief pause as Lizzie stepped into her boots, the armour plates closing around her shins.
"Oh yeah. It does, I hadn't spotted that."
They finished armouring up in companionable silence, then headed down to the elevator. When they got there they saw Jack leaning against the wall.
"Lizzie, you should take me with you. I can fight, I'm a biotic, level ten."
Lizzie stared at the teenager for a second.
"Two Collector soldiers approaching with barriers up from your twelve and your two with shotguns and a Collector sniper on overwatch."
Jack leaned forwards in a display of arrogance.
"Shockwave the soldiers then warp the sniper."
"Wrong. While you're charging your Shockwave the soldiers would use their shotguns to stagger you, then the sniper would take your head off, doesn't matter how powerful your Shockwave is. Three Collector soldiers are approaching you from the front using a linked barrier. The one in the centre has been hit by a Warp field."
This time there was a momentary pause as Jack thought through the scenario.
"Warp the other two."
"Wrong. Throw the one in the centre to create a biotic detonation. Stagger them out of range to disrupt their barrier then gun them down."
Lizzie rested an armoured gauntlet on Jack's shoulder.
"Don't be so eager to dive into combat, kid. Enjoy your childhood while you got the chance."
Leaving Jack behind, they stepped into the waiting elevator and made their way to the shuttle bay.
After picking up their weapons, they joined the rest of the ground team at the shuttle.
"So what's the plan, sir?"
Saren stepped up to the centre of the circle.
"The situation is bad. We've got significant Collector presence on the ground but the colonists at Zhu's Hope seem to be holding, we don't know how. Our objective is to get groundside by shuttle insertion and assess the condition of the colony, then scour the area for any indications of Benezia's presence. Should we fail to find anything we are to assist the colonists until relief forces arrive. Joker, what's our ETA?"
The snarky pilot was quick to reply.
"Fifteen minutes, sir."
"Time for a little orientation on the colony itself. It is built in the upper layer of a planet spanning megalopolis believed to be Prothean in origin. There are two main population centres - the spaceport at Zhu's Hope and the corporate building, connected by an elevated road bridge called the Skyway. The corporate HQ is run by ExoGeni Incorporated, a Soviet colonial exploitation venture with a less than stellar reputation. They have ... had a population of about two hundred, an even spread of bureaucrats and researchers with about thirty hired guns for security. Their current status is unknown but the odds are they're all dead. The other group are the Zhu's Hope bunch. They run the colony's spaceport. They're the original colonists, an Asari splinter group who wanted to found an independent colony outside Republican space. They went ahead and bought Feros's airspace but ExoGeni outbidded them on the archaeology rights. The Asari need ExoGeni for the Prothean tech that forms the foundation for their economy, the corporates need the Asari to operate the spaceport. Word is there's a bit of a cold war between the two settlements."
There was a brief pause as Saren consulted his Omnitool.
"The Asari population measured about four hundred before the attack. Sporadic comms from the colony show that the initial wave hit them hard, with approximately 80 per cent of the population killed or taken prisoner during the first fifteen minutes before they rallied around the docks themselves. They erected a biotic bubble to protect them from Seeker Swarms but they're down to twenty six able bodies. The original colony leader was KIA in the first attack, word is her Human bond mate, Fai Dan, has stepped up as their leader. Be aware as of now this intel is twenty seven hours old. These people have been here four days nine hours already. One more warning."
He paused for a moment, subharmonics humming embarrassment.
"These Asari are part of a group known as the Mendicants. I suppose the closest comparison I can draw is the Human Amish. They believe in reliance on anything other than their own biology only when absolutely necessary. As a point of interest Feros is a balmy twenty three degrees."
He briefly glanced down at the ground.
"We don't know what to expect down there. Just ... don't expect many clothes."
###
Saren's warning was the only thing keeping a lid on Lizzie's reaction as they were met at the LZ by a perky young Asari, developmentally equivalent to a nineteen or twenty year old Human. Perky in more than one sense. Lizzie refused to let her gaze settle on the blue flesh on such brazen display, instead scanning the area for hostiles. The awkward was compounded when the girl practically threw herself into Anderson's arms.
"Oh thank the Goddess you've come!"
Garrus's snicker was curtailed by a glare from Lizzie that he could feel the heat of even through both his and her Yorick.
"You need to come with me ...", this time Lizzie cuffed Garrus upside the head, "and speak with Fai Dan. He's our leader."
Anderson disentangled himself from the young girl, clearly just as distracted by his very own lap dance as the rest of the squad.
"You should come over to Fai Dan. Follow me!"
Lizzie toggled a private channel with her boyfriend, catching the tail end of his chortle.
"One more time and you're sleeping in the mess hall."
Any further conversation was cut off as the familiar thrum of Collector particle beams heralded an array of golden streaks of light, each one seeking out a different target. The squad dove for cover, hiding from the questing lances of the snipers hiding in the ruins. Lizzie couldn't suppress a shriek as a splash of violet blood sprayed over her, swiftly followed by an Asari forearm landing in her lap. Biting back a curse, Kaidan reached out and biotically pulled the rest of their guide into cover, applying a regeneration spray to where her left arm terminated in a stump just below her elbow. She was silent for a moment, lying limp as the spurts of blood pumping from severed arteries steadily decreased in volume, the regen spray forming new tissue to seal off the stump. Then the screams started, high and shrill, the girl instinctively clutching at her stump as she lay behind cover, soaked in her own blood.
Behind her fallen chunk of Prothean building, Lizzie was cursing herself. She let herself be distracted by an awkward naked lady and said lady, barely an adult, was paying the price for her carelessness. It was a grim and visceral reminder of the enemy they faced. She tried poking her head out of cover, only to whip it back as more particle beams lashed out at her position. The whole team were well and truly pinned.
###
In the cockpit of the Normandy, Tali and Jack watched the predicament of the ground team with mounting concern. As long as the Collectors could keep this up, i.e. indefinitely, the soldiers weren't going anywhere. Between them, Joker's tail lashed from side to side anxiously as he quietly consulted with EDI. Tali was suddenly struck by inspiration.
"I'll be right back."
She dashed off, returning moments later with a very strange device. It looked like a Geth eyepiece with a smaller tube-like camera mounted top left, a vertical fin and multiple cables protruding from the smaller camera, with the entire assemblage mounted in a heavily modified Geth recon drone lacking the distinctive underslung pulse cannon and covered in smooth black hexagonal plates. Jack and Joker turned to look at the contraption.
"The hell is that?"
"This is Smoky. He's a prototype I've been working on for my father, an advanced stealth recon drone. If I send him out he can locate the Collector snipers and check to see if there are any civilians nearby."
Joker blinked at her.
"And then ..."
"And then we blow them up with the Normandy's torpedo launcher."
Joker chortled in glee.
"I knew there was a reason the captain keeps you around. Let's get it done. I'll comm the ground team."
As Joker explained their plan to the ground team, Tali ran to the airlock and released Smoky into the air. The little drone flew off, disappearing from sight thanks to its inbuilt stealth shroud. Tali opened her Omnitool.
"Receiving telemetry. Ah, there we go."
On Joker's HUD the offending Collectors were highlighted red as the aiming reticule for the ship's disruptor torpedoes appeared. He shifted it to the centre of the formation and lit them up.
###
Their assailants obliterated in a blue flash, the ground team started to move up again, racing through the corridors of the Prothean ruins. Carried on a makeshift stretcher between Kaidan and one of the Emaris commandoes, Haleu, their Asari guide's screams had died down to weak whimpers and weeping, interspersed with the occasional call for her mother. Beneath her armoured gauntlets, Lizzie's knuckles were white from gripping her rifle. She was angry. The Collectors were about to feel the brunt of that anger.
Ascending a flight of stairs, the team ran into the back of a Collector squad. Taking the bugs by surprise, they quickly fell to the storm of bullets and biotics as the Normandy's ground team rushed past. There was a tense moment as the Asari guards aimed their rifles at them, then they allowed the team through.
"Where's your medical centre?"
One of the guards gestured to a freighter docked at the centre of their little redoubt, then went back to her vigil.
"Speak to Fai Dan."
Frowning, Lizzie followed Saren through the colony, standing guard as he spoke to a middle aged Human man and his bitchy companion, who turned out to be ExoGeni's liaison to the spaceport. Garrus stood beside her, his sniper rifle extended in his hands as he looked around the area.
"Something feels off about this place."
Lizzie let out a sigh, glad that their Yoricks were keeping their voices hidden from the nearby Asari colonists.
"I know what you mean. There can't be more than forty able bodied defenders in this little fortress of theirs yet they're practically fending off an entire Collector army with vermin rifles and chemical-ballistic shotguns. It shouldn't be possible unless they have commando training, at bare minimum. Plus, they've maintained this sizeable biotic bubble throughout the entire attack. Even if they rotated the team holding it up, it shouldn't be possible unless they're all Level Ten biotics."
Garrus nodded his agreement.
"And have you noticed they're all in peak physical condition? Not half a gram above or below the ideal Asari BMI on any of them, practically no fat anywhere. Skin tone almost uniformly pale blue despite the colony being directly exposed to Feros's sun. You'd expect them to tan purple."
Lizzie frowned slightly.
"No kids either. Every single one I can see is between the ages of one hundred and four hundred, which is considered to be an Asari's prime."
There was a brief pause, then a chortle from Garrus.
"A colony full of Asari, each one a mirror image of the race's perfect ideal and wearing no clothes? I thought that kind of thing only happened on Fornax."
They were distracted by Saren gathering the team.
"Okay, here's the sitrep. The Collectors have taken over the ExoGeni building and are using it as a base of operations. Our objective is to get across the skyway and find out exactly what they're after. However, the colony has some problems we need to take care of as well. We'll deal with those, then head across the skyway. We're going to split up into our fire teams. Team Auhelu, stay here in case of further Collector attacks. Team Anderson, secure the skyway entrance. Team Arterius, we're heading into the tunnels to run some errands."
He was interrupted by a shout going up from the colonists.
"Collectors in the tower! Collectors in the tower!"
The response was immediate.
"Team Auhelu, rearguard! Everyone else, with me!"
The unit sprinted up the stairs, coming to a halt and stacking up outside a door where five colonists were waiting, each one gripping a chemical-ballistic shotgun. Although chemical-ballistic weapons were out of vogue next to the far more effective mass accelerator style firearm, they weren't any less effective than they were one hundred and fifty tears ago. In fact, when it came to shotguns chem-ball tended to be effective at longer ranges than mass accelerator designs.
Stacking up outside the door, Lizzie found herself between Cassatian, the Turian CQC specialist on Anderson's team, and one of the Asari colonists. She was momentarily surprised at the ease with which they integrated themselves into the squad, almost as if they were elite commandoes instead of disgruntled frontier cultists. Saren glanced back at the colonists.
"Maybe you should stay back."
They turned in unison to stare at him.
"This is our home. We will protect it."
"Right. Breach!"
The door slid open and immediately a hail of gunfire poured through, the Collectors on the other side opening up a withering barrage of suppressive fire from their annoying infinite ammo rifles. The colonists immediately sprung into action, erecting a biotic half-dome which they used to shield themselves as they advanced into the room, scrambling to cover as soon as the bubble collapsed and leaving the Normandy's ground team feeling thoroughly impotent. The Collectors shifted their suppressive fire to the Asari positions, allowing Saren to lead the charge through the doorway, using his Omnitool to fire off an incendiary projectile as his other hand flared with biotic energy. Anderson was right behind him, Omnishield out and absorbing Collector bullets as he kept up a steady barrage with his sidearm. The rest of the team poured in, alleviating the pressure on the colonists. Lizzie got her first look at what they were up against.
Fifteen Collector soldiers were visible, firing their assault rifles at the approaching team as directed by a Collector Captain who was safely ensconced behind cover. Behind them were six Collectors armed only with a small sidearm type weapon, another Captain with them, and at the far end of the room a Scion advanced, arm mounted cannon scanning for targets. Jumping into cover beside one of the colonists, she reached out a Lash field, her ability to make it phase through biotic barriers making the technique indispensable against Collector soldiers and their linked barriers. The soldier in the centre of the closest formation was yanked out of the barrier, the other two staggering back as their linked barrier popped. The colonist beside her leaned out of cover and pumped her antique chemical shotgun, killing three for three before replenishing her shotgun's internal magazine with shells from a brace around her right thigh. Lizzie cocked an eyebrow, impressed. She hadn't expected chem-ball shotguns to be so accurate compared to mass accelerator models.
Not to be outdone, she reached out a hand and Reaved the next group, their linked barrier weakening as hers was boosted. Capitalising on her advantage, she took aim with her rifle, spraying about ten rounds to collapse the barrier and send the soldiers scurrying for cover. One of them didn't hunker down quite far enough, the top of its head being blown off by a sniper round, from Garrus or Ash she wasn't sure.
Anderson and Taeri both opened up with their LMGs, the punishing rate of fire of the weapons depleting the barrier of the next group before it could regenerate and then cutting through their natural chitinous armour. A colonist finished off the last one with a biotic warp so powerful it contorted the limbs of the Collector into unnatural shapes. The remainder of the soldiers were swiftly felled by a concerted biotic assault, the Captain being blown away by a grenade courtesy of Maesi.
The Scion came within weapons range, its cannon twitching as it aimed it at the position of one of the colonists. The rest of the team started pouring fire into it, the lone monster quickly falling to their sheer weight of fire. The only ones left were the six SMG wielding Collectors.
Their arms snapped out, golden coloured biotic lashes appearing, crackling with energy. The Collectors hissed in unison and charged, surrounded by golden barriers.
"Well this is less than awesome."
Lizzie wasn't sure who said that, but it was an accurate summation of the situation. Seemingly oblivious to the weight of fire bearing down on them, the Collectors raised their arms and brought them arcing down, each lash impact on the ground creating a burst of golden light that sent the defenders sprawling.
One of the Collectors raised a hand, golden light issuing forth in a ball of energy that hit one of the colonists in the chest. She fell to the ground, mouth open in a silent shriek of pain as the attack stretched her limbs out into an X shape. Wriggling desperately, she managed to free her arms and one leg from the biotic field, but her left leg was still trapped when the gold pulsing flashes reached their climax. With a yanking motion from its hands, the Collector vanguard ripped her leg clean off, purple blood pumping out over the floor as she screamed in agony before passing out. Furious, Lizzie stood and flicked out her hand, Reaving the nearest one before firing up her Annihilation Field and charging.
As Lizzie closed in to the nearest vanguard, Garrus sighted down his rifle scope, pouring fire into the absurdly strong barriers of the next one over. Out of everyone in the crew, Lizzie was the best equipped to deal with biotic barriers - by Reaving them, she used the other Biotic's own strength against them. By comparison, Garrus had to get through them the old fashioned way.
Checking his HUD, he observed that the Collector he was firing on still had 10 per cent of its barrier left after a full magazine from his heavily customised Sharp. He was really starting to hate Collectors. As he pulled a fresh heat sink from his supply the Collector he had just been firing at spun on its heel, sending an orb of biotic energy at him. Not keen on being biotically dismembered like the poor Asari dead on the floor, he ducked behind cover. Only this time, cover didn't help much. With a rattling thump, the biotic attack was absorbed into the boulder he was sheltering behind, the rock and surrounding floor glowing gold for a moment before he was bodily flung into the air, crashing down on his back a moment later as a biotic lash snagged round his leg. He unleashed a torrent of curses as the Collector yanked on the lash, sending him skidding along the floor right into the engagement area.
Seeing the predicament of her Turian comrade in arms, Ash brought her sniper rifle to bear. The Collector's barrier still hadn't fully recovered from Garrus's assault, so she was able to break it with three shots. The fourth and fifth found the Collector's neck and chest respectively, the sixth its eye socket. It fell and didn't get back up, the lash dying to a narrow chitinous thread that Garrus untangled from his ankle.
Anderson caught a biotic orb on his Omnishield, only to have the flash forged tungsten carbide surface transmit the pulse through and send him flying, almost wrenching his arm off in the process and eliciting a surprised grunt as another biotic field caught his form mid-air, dangling him above the ground momentarily before accelerating him towards it. When he hit, the impact was equivalent to jumping off a four storey building. If not for his armour's shock absorbing gel layer the landing could have killed him. Instead it merely stunned him for a couple of seconds. While he was recovering, Taeri opened fire with her LMG, close range fire quickly overwhelming the Collector's barrier and forcing it to cover. Then it was her turn to use biotics. Beneath her armour, the bioelectric glands on her forearms dilated, superconducting filaments in the gauntlets directing the high voltage current to her fingertips where they entered the biotic field she was projecting. Arcing along the path of least resistance, the bolt of lightening shot straight for the Collector's cover, the low energy biotic field surrounding the boulder turning it into an enormous superconductor. The unfortunate bug on the other side was barbecued in its chitinous shell as the biotic/electric attack did its work. Once her target was down, and confident that the others were well in hand, she hauled Anderson to his feet.
"Thanks. I owe you one."
She blinked at him momentarily.
"More than one."
Lizzie dropped to a crouch, scanning the battlefield for new targets, finding none. Those Collector vanguards had been a tough fight, as shown by the body being borne back to the colony by her comrades. Panting, she plugged a tube of high energy serum into her helmet, sucking out the contents with a straw. After a fight, it was always useful to replenish her energy reserves, especially since she had a feeling Lash and Reave would be seeing heavy usage by the time the mission was done.
She observed the scuff marks on Garrus's armour, hiding her concern with amusement.
"Looks like someone took you for a ride."
"Har de bloody har."
They tromped back to the colony, Saren exchanging a few words with Fai Dan before splitting off, her, Garrus and Taeri in tow as they made their way down to the tunnel entrance.
"So what's on the shopping list, Captain?"
Saren ticked the items off on his fingers.
"Let's see. We need to kill some varren for food, get the water mains back open, scrounge power cells and take out a Collector comm hub. Should be easy, right?"