A Woman and her Wolf

The stinging sensation of the bullets leaves mercifully quickly, allowing me to bounce straight back and be ready for what's next. A quick glance around shows that the rest of the team is just as ready to keep moving as I am, if not more. Shepard notices this as well, giving a quick nod, hefting her assault rifle so it's ready to fire at a moment's notice, and begins to lead the way for everyone else.

Kirrahe suddenly blurts out over the radio "They're calling sat-strikes! Jaeto, watch for comm stations! Williams, can you see anything?" I like how that's just a big neon sign for 'Hey Shepard, would be really cool if you solved the problems', it's the most videogames thing you could possibly hear.

But, being the ever so nice people that we are, we are moving up to the comm station right now. Well, it also just so happened to be in our way, but as long as it's done, right? As we move towards it, we flitted from cover to cover, yet not a single flashlight has shown from inside the building.

A mere stone's throw away now, the geth have decided that the 14th annual hide and seekathon is now over, and have jumped out from their cover inside the building in a way not too dissimilar to a jack-in-the-box, and shown they are rather lacking in the numbers department. Of what's visible, I can only see three, but they are all coloured white, meaning they are of the Shock Trooper variant, who have better shields and if my memory serves me correctly, rocket launchers.

One of the three musketeers confirms my suspicion, and fires a rocket at me, which would be a problem if I was anyone else at this kind of range, but I'm not anyone else. I'm quite small and very agile, and four legs are faster than two, so I easily dodge to the side with time to spare, which I decide to spend getting as close to the geth as possible.

While I had my little rocket dodging routine going, the other two Shock Troopers clearly went for the logic of 'shoot the big one' and are trying their damnedest to make Wrex resemble a snowflake through the usage of bullets. And Wrex being Wrex decides that instead of ducking for cover and going from there, that charging in whilst firing his shotgun is a better idea. His own shields are not faring well to the sustained fire, but the geth are not doing so much better, with one of the Troopers shields having dropped completely, and Wrex almost in fist to face distance.

Not one to be outdone, I also charge in, impacting into my own target just as Wrex slams into the first of his. The walking toaster collides with the ground hard, but being an AI, it spends no time trying to push me off it. Emphasis on try mind you, as he quickly finds itself disarmed through two quick swipes of my chainsaw. But the bold little geth attempts to soldier on, in a way that only a pseudo-AI can manage, and attempts to headbutt me with its flashlight face, which doesn't do anything but make it look like a floundering fish. I should probably finish him off, don't play with your prey and all that, so a quick decapitation and backflip flourish does the trick fine, as well as making me look SUPER COOL in the process (Well, I thought it was cool at least).

Wrex has made quick work of the first geth he was fighting, the robots head being in a million pieces on the floor telling me a shotgun was probably involved somewhere along the line. I also have front row seats to see Wrex stand atop the other Shock Trooper and blow its head clean off as it tries to get the massive weight off its chest. It was pretty cool, at least, until this random krogan came running straight out of nowhere and tackled him from behind, taking them both to the ground.

The hostile krogan is currently atop Wrex and they are wrestling for control. The newcomer is got the same armour and colour scheme as Wrex, but he is wearing one of those bug-eyed weird krogan helmet/gas mask things. They keep at it for a few seconds, until the krogan is surrounded in a blue field and is lifted off of Wrex. A quick glance reveals that Liara is the one to thank for the usage of biotics here.

Looking back at the currently floating krogan, I get to watch him gracefully hover in the air for half a second before the whole squad opens fire on him, filling him with more holes than even a race as sturdy as his can't handle. His large corpse floats in the air for a second, before abruptly dropping on top of Wrex, who pushes the corpse to the side, gets back up and dusts himself off a bit, looking no worse for wear than before.

Tali points at something atop the small building and says "Shepard, that looks like some sort of satellite uplink, it could be what Kirrahe was talking about"

"Let's shoot it down then, I imagine they need all the help they can get" Shepard replies, and takes aim at the uplink, before letting off a small burst from her assault rifle. Not realizing before too late, one of the panels shot off the uplink bounces off my head, which hurts slightly, causing me to jump back in surprise and lose face a little. Luckily I don't think anyone was paying too much attention to me, so everybody gets back into formation and keeps moving forward.

We are moving on this elevated walkway before the radio crackles to life yet again, but this time it's Ashley on the over end, talking about aircraft having gone back to refuel or something, to be honest I wasn't quite listening at this point, I was just sort of following Shepard. Not like there was much for me to do, a geth or two might show up, but they wouldn't last very long from the combined firepower of the whole group bearing down on them. The refuelling station wasn't exactly a shining moment for me either, being nothing but gun drones and a rocket drone or two, meaning the most useful thing I could do was stay behind cover and avoid getting shot, while everyone else did the work.

Getting inside the actual facility was a bit more fun though, as while at first it started off as a sniper duel with Garrus and Shepard against some of those Geth Snipers, which was unfairly one sided for us, but then two krogan start coming barrelling down the walkway towards us, making the mistake of thinking they were the most dangerous thing there at close range. I quickly showed them just how wrong they were, by slicing one of their throats like one might slice into butter, and stabbing through the others headplate and into their brain, tearing it apart from the inside and turning it into a sort of mush. I notice Wrex has made the first signs of recognition towards me now, likely due to going straight through a krogan's headplate.

And with that, the combat draws to a close, and we move forward. I hear a whistle behind me, and a quick look reveals that Kaiden is appreciating the fine work I just did, stroking my ego in just the right way, not that he knows that of course. Faced with a door, Shepard pushes its weird hologram button and it opens with a little chime, like an egg counter.

We move through the door, and down a long walkway, reaching a wall, with three spaced out doors along it, the red holograms indicating that they are locked. A single terminal stands in the middle of the three, which Shepard immediately brakes for, looks at for a few seconds, then calls Garrus over, who starts pressing buttons and generally looking like he knows what he is doing.

"We got access to base security. We should be able to cut the alarms from here. Might even be able to trigger the alarms on the far side of the base" Garrus lays this out in a very manner-of-fact kind of way. "It will clear out the guards for us, but they might be too much for the salarian teams to handle" Shepard doesn't look to happy with that.

"Just disable the alarms. We can handle anyone inside." Damn straight Shepard.

And with that, Garrus hits a few more buttons, until all the door locks go green, and he pulls away from the console with what I assume is a satisfied look amongst turians. Shepard leads the party again, opening the door and hoping for the best. Of course, 'the best' is not what is on the other side.

What is on the other side is a warehouse full of salarians and another one of those huge geth. Shepard hesitates, likely due to the salarians in STG colours and armour, but quickly changes her mind one they turn to look at her with these cold, lifeless eyes, and pull their guns up, looking a bit like a marionette on strings, and start firing wildly in her, and by proxy, my, direction.

Shepard dives into cover at the side of this door, along with Garrus. A quick looks to my left and right show that the rest of the team had the same idea and are currently hiding behind the other doorways, leaving me with a problem of where to go. My only safe route is going into the building proper, but I cannot guarantee my own safety in there. But I guess 'Who Dares Wins' right?

Luckily one of the bonuses of being a quadruped has shown itself. As I'm close to the ground, which gives a much smaller silhouette compared to anyone on two legs, I barely get noticed by the indoctrinated salarians, whose attention is fixed upon those currently behind cover waiting to get a shot in.

I'm almost at the cluster of ex-STG by now, only a few more dashes and I can get nice and close. As I'm about to charge in, two small discs fly into the group of seven indoctrinated thralls, which immediately explode into crackling energy, which wile does not appear to do much to them, the sudden quiet coming from their weapons tells me that their pistols have been overheated, meaning I must have Tali, Garrus or Kaiden to thank for that.

Not willing to waste any time, I quite literally spring into action, pouncing on the closest foe, claws first. As he lands with me atop him, the sharp claws get pushed deep into his body, tearing apart important organs and other meaty bits, causing his green blood to seep onto the floor and my paws.

Not having the time to add my usual pizazz and flare to my actions, I get off the bleeding salarian, who is either dead or at least not in any fighting capability, which is good enough for now. Luckily whatever mind-rape the Reapers do to these people takes any resemblance of strategy and self-protection out the window, the ones still alive just standing there, a quiet staccato of beeps coming from their pistols, as they attempt to shoot me.

Running into the middle of the group and doing a quick spin whilst having my HF chainsaw outstretched gets them all in one quick movement, bisecting their lower and upper body and making blood and flesh fly everywhere, making me thankful that I no longer have a sense of smell, the room likely smells like a bloody charnel house now. I take a moment to take in my handywork, but a sort of thudding is interrupting my thoughts, and it's progressively getting louder. 'Didn't I forget something? All the indoctrinated are dead, that just leaves… Oh' turning around reveals a huge fucking geth who punts me, throwing me across the room and slamming me into a shelf, knocking off some boxes that quickly bury me underneath them.

Christ this hurts a lot. I can hear a lot of gunshots, and a few cracks of electricity, so I think Shepard and Co. have it. At least I hope they do, because I'm a bit out of it right now. I slowly push myself up as the gunfire stops, pushing and cutting any boxes in my way. I stumble a little out of the pile, before shaking my head and taking the robotic equivalent of a breather.

Looking up reveals that the majority of the team are looking at the pile of corpses I left in revulsion. Only Wrex looks completely disinterested in what I did, which doesn't really surprise me actually. Shepard takes a look at the corpses, then at me, and shudders slightly. I wonder what got her spooked. She shakes her head, clearing whatever thoughts she had, and gets everyone moving again.

As we leave I get a few looks, mostly from Liara and Tali, but Kaiden throws one too. I don't really see the problem, they died quick, not very clean, but hey, this is a war right? Anyway, Shepard moves into the next room, a small hallway with two monitor things on the walls, showing some sort of info on them, none of it is of any importance to us, so we move straight through the room and onto the next, where we walk down a catwalk overlooking a room with three cells, containing some salarians.

"Hello? Is someone out there?" One of the salarians pipes up. Shepard doesn't reply. I should probably move near the back for now, all the upcoming enemies are indoctrinated, who have pretty poor shields, and are organics, so I should avoid disturbing everyone else. Opening the door on the far side of the platform, Shepard and Wrex start firing at a foe I can't see yet, but it only lasts a second before it stops, the enemy providing almost no useful opposition.

Moving into the room does reveal a few corpses, full of bullets as opposed to cut in half, so apparently that's fine. Shepard moves us down some stairs and into the same room with the catwalk, but now on the floor with the cells. Shepard moves to the 3rd one on the far right with the salarian who called out earlier.

"Well, you're not a geth. And you're not wearing a lab coat. I guess I'm glad to see you." The salarian tells Shepard as she approaches. "Lieutenant Ganto Imness of the Third Infiltration Regiment, captured during recon. I assume the fleet was called in to destroy the base?"

"The transmission wasn't clear. The fleet is not coming" Don't think it makes too much of a difference to him though.

"I see. Then you must be the infiltration team. I know the captain. He will want this facility destroyed. My team was altered, indoctrinated." Oh boy, it's the weird bullshit science magic time! "He knew about the breeding grounds. But the indoctrination is a greater threat, and far more horrifying." Yeah, sounds about right. "I watched good people turn into mindless husks. There wasn't anything left. Others died during the experiments. I envy them." Dark.

I phase out a little, while Shepard asks a few questions about indoctrination that I already know the answer to, and cannot be bothered to listen in.

"I'm opening your cell, but then you're on your own" Shepard states, then pushes a button on the cells keypad. The salarian looks thankful, but not that happy, makes sense if you think about what he has been through. He quickly scarpers out past us, likely tracing back from where we came from.

Shepard takes a moment to consider what she just heard, before getting a move on again, remembering the salarian teams, no doubt. We pile into a lift, and ride it down into a long room, full of husks. This is the first time I have ever seen a husk, and damn, they are rather unsightly. Not that I get long to inspect them, before they start their shambling gait towards us.

That doesn't last very long either, as the room is suddenly filled with biotic attacks, electrical explosions and regular explosions, showing that everyone here is quite used to dealing with these things by now. The mist of dust and the blue tint of the biotics slowly dissipate, revealing a whole lot of robot zombie corpses. Damn.

Looking around the room, there are a lot of sealed capsule things, with beds inside. The capsules were likely some kind of storage for cloned krogan, if I guessed correctly. Not like it matters though, because we just ploughed through this room and are about to head onwards to great adventure or something!

Authors Notes

So err, I kept you waiting, huh? I guess I owe you a bit of an apology for taking so long, a lot of things came up, like Metal Gear Solid V, work, my laptop got broken at one point, redecorating, general lazyness, other excuse here... and the list goes on. So sorry if you enjoy this story, but did not get to see anything new for a while! I will try to update more often, but no promises. This chapter was going to go on longer than it ended up, but I felt that you deserved an update now instead of like, three weeks or something.

Also, to answer a few questions. I'm just having it as a given that Andrew has the translator in his head/programming, it makes the whole story a lot easier, and go the way I want to.

So next chapter, everything goes down, someone MIGHT DIE, WHO KNOWS (I do!)? So, as always, tell me what you liked, what you didn't like, what was good, what wasn't, etc. Plus, as two extra things that would be really cool if you did it for me, do you want me to reply to comments directly on authors notes, or do you want me to continue PM'ing replies? For the second thing, I have seen reviews saying that my story is interesting, or original, or whatever, while on similar-ish fic's (won't name any names here) people don't like them, or say they are not very good. So what I want to know, is what makes you read this, and enjoy (or at least, be interested by) it, while not enjoying something else?

Thanks for reading, have a great time doing whatever!