The Sword of Humanity
Chapter Five
The first signal things were just about to go from bad to worse was the teary eyed gaze of the blue alien thing that was looking at her barely holding back a sniffle. She clenched her fists slightly as the alien began to cry like a kid. Really, she knew the Asari was considered barely more than a child, but she was supposed to be one hundred and six years old. Heck, she was supposed to be a specialist in Prothean Technology. Some sort of Indiana Jones wouldn't have cut it, but she hadn't expected to have to deal with a…
Oh, now she got her punishment.
She was to be the glorified nanny of the thing.
Ashley Williams snorted at the sight of the thing beginning to bawl her eyes out as she grasped the sides of her Gym clothes and began to cry a river, covering in her tears the clothes. She'd have to requisition new ones, since these would end up being burned…
She hoped Command would refund them.
"I…I'm sorry," the blue skinned alien cried again, "It's…unsightly of me," she whispered then with a croaked voice. "It's just…everything's so cramped in here…"
"The bridge is pretty spacey, the mess halls too," she retorted holding back her venom. What did the alien have with the way Solforce Engineers built their ships? They were made to be sturdy and effective, to hold out even as their hulls turned to tatters. They weren't fancy big things colored in white with wide halls and corridors and a skeleton crew.
They had to house hundreds of marines and crewmen, and really…when you get boarded, who wouldn't prefer to defend the ship hiding behind cramped quarters?
Their ships were as much of a kill-zone as their general defense installation.
"But he's on the bridge too," the way the alien said 'he' was like a kid speaking of the boogeyman. She couldn't help but repress a snort at that. The Commander wasn't scary. The girl should have seen him in action on Isis.
"The Commander? Nah, he's a nice CO. You should have seen the one I had while on Torfan."
She blinked. "Torfan? I know it's a Batarian moon base in the Hawking Eta sector…"
"No, it was one," Ash remarked. "Bastards had settled themselves deep within the moon, with underground bases and whatnot. We had to flush them out somehow and the guy had the nice idea to use the ships' reactors' waste."
Her face moved closer to Liara. "We burned the moon and the Batarians inside, sending radioactive material down their way as missile packages. By the time we were done the Batarians had nine eyes and more limbs than they had started with…oh, and they all died screaming too, I suppose." She shrugged then, internally smiling at the horrific face the alien was making.
"That's…That's monstrous."
"It was that or storming the base, losing thousands for a rock," she quipped back. "This way, we only needed a few days to remove the radiation, dump it in the sun and have a perfectly workable monitor station afterwards."
Liara remained quiet a moment more, before she finally scrunched up enough courage to ask the question that had been bugging her for a while.
"Why is humanity so battle-ready? The few reports said the Citadel races weren't the first you met, but there's nothing on what other species you met before," Ashley grew uncomfortable. The Curtain Silence procedure was still operative after all, and she didn't want to be trialed for high treason.
"Let's say we are extremely paranoid as a race," she remarked. "If you can make something fly, then better arm it with guns and bombs just to be on the safe side."
"I see," she smiled awkwardly. Liara remained quiet after that, her eyes settling once more around the infirmary. Dr. Chawkas was happily humming in a corner, while preparing a sort of strange green-colored vase made of glass that seemed to hold quite a bit of cables attached to it.
The doctor filled it with a strange viscous liquid —some sort of nutrient paste, she supposed— and then placed the vase in a corner. It was probably some sort of medical equipment she wasn't privy of. Liara was jostled out of her thoughts by the female soldier, who had come to the infirmary to be forgiven for her rash actions, as the woman seemed intent on standing up.
"Well, we're going to be inbound to Eden Prime soon. So how about…having a real tour of the ship?"
"I don't know if I can," Liara admitted quickly, albeit her eyes glinted with curiosity. "I don't like the pain," she mumbled then with her hand moving to her neck, where she could feel the slight bump of the metal ordnance inserted beneath her skin.
"Yeah, you get used to that too," Ashley remarked. "It's but a small sacrifice though, and yours isn't genetically engineered."
The Asari's eyes widened like saucers, as the Gunnery Chief's words escaped her mouth before she could hold them in. "That's…"
"I shouldn't have said that," Ashley winced. "Let's just forget about it, all right?"
"But it's no better than slavery!" to that exclamation, Liara suddenly found her throat constricted once more by the woman's hand. Her eyes hard as stone as she began to squeeze on her throat again.
"Williams!" the sharp rebuke of the medic was enough to make her lose the hold, and as Liara coughed and gagged, staggering to breathe, the soldier retorted calmly and with an icy tone.
"Nobody forced the suit on me, smurfette. I chose to serve, I chose to fight. Then again, what do you know of sacrifice? You're barely a kid. Ever seen your home burned down? Ever seen your father slaughtered by the Rippers? Ever…"
"The Curtain, Williams!" Chawkas now walked closer to the two of them, her expression stern. "What was the Commander thinking, having you keep an eye out on the guest?"
Liara remained quiet and with her eyes closed shut. Maybe if she was silent enough and still enough they would ignore her. Maybe…
The feeling of a needle pressing against her neck made her open her eyes for an instant, before she slumped on the bed again, asleep.
"I am starting to finish the sedative supplies, Ash," Karin spoke then quietly. "And every knock-out drug I use on her is one less for our soldiers when they get wounded."
"I'm sorry," the woman —two meters and half tall— said with a chastised tone to the older and visibly smaller one. "It's just that…she grates my nerves."
"She doesn't know about life in a human colony, Ash," Karin remarked putting her right hand along the other woman's arm while gently moving it up and down in a consolation move. "She's an alien. She wasn't trying to offend you."
"I wasn't smart enough for the research department or cunning enough for the trade one," Ash bitterly mumbled. "It was becoming a soldier like my parents or popping out litters of babies like some sort of bitch."
"Now, now," Karin chided her. "I'm sure we'll be getting some shore leave once on Eden Prime, so how about we go and open up a bottle of Sherry on that occasion?"
"The tank's ready?"
Karin just nodded in the direction of the cerebro-archiving tank. "Only needs a brain to start working."
Ashley's smile was bitter and small.
"Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
She finished her quote by crossing her arms over her chest, before sighing. "Those things creep me out…but they're needed, aren't they?"
"Per Ardua, Ad Astra," Karin wistfully remarked. "They simply never tell you when you enlist just how much 'hardship' is there to suffer through to reach the stars."
"Will all of this ever be over?" to that question, Karin just shrugged.
"It wasn't over when I was your age, Ashley. It won't me over when I die. Until the last alien lies dead and its infants smothered in their cribs…it's tiresome sometimes, to think about the vast undertaking humanity is placed under…but we will persevere, won't we?" she slugged lightly the other woman's shoulder. "We're not quitters now, are we?"
"No ma'am," Ashley smiled briefly at that. "That we aren't."
"Very well, I'll wake her up again. This time keep your cool, all right?" as the woman nodded, another needle was inserted into Liara's neck, waking the Asari up blearily.
"Goddess…where…am I?"
"I wanted to say sorry…" Ashley began again, and as she did Karin turned and moved back to check the last calibrations of the 'brain tank'. It was a horrible thing to use, especially because the individual had to be alive for it to work, but in the end it was just another little thing in the larger picture.
Karin Chawkas had to keep repeating that to herself, because in the end, that was the only thing that made her sleep at night.
Eden Prime
The research station Galileo orbited around Earth, the metal contraption as big as a small moon. The symbols of Solforce were etched alongside its surface, as a visible reminder of whom the station belonged to. The military station Devastation floated in orbit on the opposite side of the planet, its missile pay-load and its giant hangars overworking themselves daily to resupply, repair and produce Destroyer-class ships with the help of the Orbital Dry Docks.
Guarding the system, the Fifth Gamma fleet led by admiral Hackett was currently patrolling the giant garden world. The world of Eden Prime had become quite the sort of advanced beach-head, in the event of an invasion against the Citadel species. The Mass Relay shone briefly in the distance of the system, orbital emplacements circling around it to open fire on whatever came through.
"Admiral?" the voice of Captain Anderson cut through Hackett's thoughts, as the dark skinned man's face appeared on the holo-screen in front of him. "We are receiving inbound signals from around the system. They look like asteroids."
He frowned. "There isn't an asteroid field in the system," he retorted. "There can't be asteroids."
"Long range bombardment?"
"Set Alert rank to Zuul-Liir, prepare battle-stations. Close blast-shields and all hands on deck! Virgo," he spoke to the Ai in charge, a humanoid green figure composed of data. "Open communication with the planet, initiate Self-Defense protocol. Send orders to the space-station: unload drones."
"It will be done, Admiral." The Ai disappeared in a flicker of green.
"Captain, get your fleet and intercept them at mid-range," Hackett ordered then. "If it's asteroids, missile them down."
Captain Anderson nodded and closed communication, as in his place the holographic display of the system now appeared in full-force. Red markers began to shine and beep dangerously, as the lights surrounding the command deck turned red and a siren blared to alert the crew. He could hear the rumbling of the engines moved to full-power, followed by the full contingent of crewmen taking their position as auxiliary and secondary officers began to pour in.
You never knew when you might need a replacement, after all.
"Sir! We've got to protect Ambassador Udina's ship," the communication officer remarked. "They'll be inbound in three-zero-zero! We've got the Deep Darkness arrival scheduled in five-zero-zero!"
"Then let's clean up fast," he remarked. "And if we can't, send a com buoy message for Ambassador Udina to reach the space station when he arrives in system." He mused for a moment. "Send one to the Deep Darkness too."
He then stood up, with his arms crossed behind his back as he looked down at the rest of his crew.
"Men, women, keep your cool and remember that if even a single rock goes us by, it might mean months of terraforming and reconstruction. Make Solforce proud and take those rocks down!"
The crew returned their attention on screen. Hackett sighed…that wasn't as much of a speech as it was merely stating the obvious. Still, he hoped that everything would be solved…
Asteroids weren't that difficult to fight now, were they?
Deep Darkness
"Attention. Exiting Sub-Space in five minutes." Edi's voice rang through the bridge, where Commander Shepard was currently reviewing the latest reports. Their fuel stocks were surprisingly low after the Sub-space travel to and from the Citadel, yet it was nothing a refueling at base wouldn't solve.
"All hands on deck," he piped in. "Sub-Space exit in five."
Ashley would probably be bringing Liara to the forward mess hall. Maybe he should open the blast shields? Give the alien a taste of Solforce's might?
He inserted the unlocking code and ordered the delay-order until they exited Sub-Space.
"Exit in five seconds." Edi commented.
"Exit in four."
"Three."
He thrummed on the palm shelf.
"Two."
"One."
He tensed slightly.
"Exiting Sub-Space."
The moment the Sub-Space disappeared, the holographic display roared an angry red as sirens began to blare.
"Attention. Code Suu'lka initiated. Attention, Code Suu'lka initiated." The blast-shields came down, and in that moment…In that moment John Shepard yelled.
"All hands to battle-station! We're entering a war-zone! I repeat! Entering War-Zone!"
In front of the Deep Darkness ashes and scattered remains of ships and broken drones stood floating eerily, as unknown vessels fired their cannons throughout the emptiness of space towards the Solforce fleet who was engaging them in knife-fights at close range.
"Admiral Hackett patching through," Edi remarked.
"Commander!" the Admiral remarked. "They've made planet-fall! Your Dreadnought is equipped with Assault Shuttles: send them down to provide air support!"
"Attention," Edi spoke. "Hacking attempt rebuffed. Enemy's signals are not organical. Loa priorities engaged."
The lights turned silver in the command room, as small version of Edi popped up near all the terminals. "Closing off from vital systems subroutines. Initiating manual command."
"Will do Admiral!"
"Hackett out."
It was in that moment, as the hologram updated to reveal the situation that John Shepard saw how bad the situation was. He counted over a hundred of small vessels, the shape similar to Silicoid queens, flying around and nimbly avoiding the lasers. Their own point-defense systems made it difficult for the missiles to get a lock-on, and since they hadn't expected Loa-ships all the Ais could do was lock down their sub-routine and leave manual operations online.
Still, the ships didn't appear in any of the Loa database, but if they had managed to rebuff the hacking attempts and there were no organic signals aboard…it could mean only one thing: Ais.
The trouble was one of the vessels, easily longer than a kilometer and with a strange squid-like shape. It seemed to prefer tackling the Solforce fleet ships and then crush them in half while firing a highly concentrated ray of molten metal.
It was like watching one of the Suu'lka's special 'elders' when they arrived on the scene, crumbling and destroying everything as if they were just swatting away flies.
This thing however was as if the Silicoid queen had decided to have sex with a Von Neumann machine, and the aborted monster had then merged with Cthulhu to create some sort of…of thing.
"All marines to assault shuttles!" John yelled through the intercom. "This is not a drill! Eden Prime is under attack by unknown forces!"
He gritted his teeth as he assumed direct command of the ship's steering wheel. Edi could only provide vocal assistance due to the Loa-blocks, in order to prevent a counter-hacking of the Ai shackles and the Ai then assuming control. The officers scrambled to the battle bridge, the blast-doors around the Dreadnought beginning to close off as pressure was removed from the unused rooms.
"Williams! Get the package down on the planet! Evacuate Vip protocol!"
The Solforce ship began to rise and speed up, as the engines burned through the fuel at double time, soaring through the air as the Marines ran to the shuttles within the bay, their suits on.
"We're in missile range, Commander!"
"Open fire! Cover the Shuttles!"
Ashley Williams
It was a rocky drive down.
Missiles detonated near the shuttle, as lasers pinged across the surface of the small vessels used for planet-assaults. Next to her in a hastily donned space-suit was Liara, belted up against the wall to prevent her from moving too much. Ashley had the Brawler suit on, which pressurized and contained the momentum of the shuttle, while the alien was simply wearing her normal clothes and a baggy space-suit normally used for repairs.
"Oh Goddess," Liara moaned as the shuttle trembled once more. "We're going to die."
"Shut it princess," Ashley barked back. "This is nothing compared to Zuul rippers."
"Major, sitrep on ground?" one of the fifty grunts piped in, turning to look at the Major Alenko who was currently reviewing infos through his Datapad.
"We're coming down hot on the alien. Regular scenario applies: if it isn't human, you shoot it down. If a human doesn't vouch for it, you shoot it down. Ambassador Udina has made planet fall already, the station Devastation is badly damaged and in the process of falling out of orbit. We've got zero orbital support, so make the shuttle's air support count."
The marines checked their rifles, looking at one another before turning their gaze back to the team leader.
"Shuttles are equipped with Armor piercing rounds, so don't ask for support in battle, but against enemy structures. They can avoid laser fire, but we've got nothing against mass driver technology so shape up and be smart. Group of five as always, Williams and the Vip you're with me, Fredricks and Jenkins. The rest split up and provide support to land-marines."
The shuttle's rocking motion was now accompanied by sound.
"We've passed the atmosphere!" the pilot remarked. "Going down!"
The noise was now deafening, as the Anti-Air systems of Eden Prime passed by their shuttle to fire at the incoming enemy barrages.
The shuddering of the shuttle came to a halt abruptly, as it began to change the gradient of descent. In mere seconds, the speed lowered itself to a few miles, and then abruptly stopped. The doors to the back of the shuttle opened up, letting the marines descend to secure the landing zone.
Ashley took a deep breath, before unbolting Liara. "Come with me, understood?"
The alien girl just nodded meekly, before following straight behind her. Major Alenko gestured for Fredricks and Jenkins to follow, and soon they had fanned out in a three point advance, with her covering the rear and Liara in the middle of the formation.
The next instant, a strange Silicoid-looking thing flew over their heads, dropping tight bundles of white on the ground that unpacked, to reveal flash-light heads on sinuous bodies…and the corresponding rifles.
"CONTACT!" bursts of bullets flew from Alenko's rifle and slammed against the closest of those things, which seemed to be dumbly walking forward without a real purpose. It fell, crippled and oozing white liquid that couldn't be blood.
"Geth?" Ashley's body twisted sharply towards Liara, who seemed to have stilled at the sight. "What are Geths doing here?"
"You know what these things are?" her voice was probably telling loads of her current emotional state, as the alien seemed to recoil slightly.
"They're supposed to be beyond the Perseus Veil! They never went further than that!"
Ashley's brawler suit wasn't meant for finesse. So, when she grabbed Liara's shoulder, the 'squeeze' was in truth a bone-breaking crush force that nearly turned to mush the blue skinned alien.
Liara didn't scream, frightened as she was.
"Williams! Stand down!" she snarled through the helmet, before dropping the alien on the ground.
"Sir! She knows what these things are!"
"Killing her won't give us answers, Williams!"
Liara recoiled from the two, tears running down her eyes as she began to run in the opposite direction.
"Follow her!" the moment Alenko said that, Ashley was already hot on the girl's heels. The suit increased her speed, but as her right hand was about to clasp against the alien's arm —probably also snapping it in two in the process— a strong force slammed her backwards.
The alien tore through the suit while flaring a powerful blue color, before keeping up her run.
"Sir! The remote!"
"We don't have it!" Alenko snapped. "We can't contact the Commander too! Follow and subdue her!"
"Yes sir!" and then they began to pursue the overgrown smurfette.
…
She was going to make the alien pay. Somehow, she just knew the alien was responsible for these…Geth, or whatever they were.
Liara T'soni
Liara ran. She ran with her sight blurry and her biotics flaring. She ran through the undergrowth and past the rubble, the sound of shots and the noises echoing all around her as she crossed a veritable battlefield. The Geth's plasma rifles fired repeatedly until overheating, their shots pouring their mass-effect drivers against the armors of the human forces.
Had they told her she would have preferred the sight of a Geth to that of a living being, she would have laughed at the morbid joke. Yet in that moment the Geth seemed like the nicest 'want to kill you' guys around and she had enough. If they wanted to kill her, then so be it.
She wouldn't go down without a fight.
Maybe she could steal a shuttle and run away? She had no idea how the human shuttles worked, but the Geth ones should prove easier to use.
With the corner of her eyes she saw a Geth Colossus helped by Geth Destroyers flank an human entrenched position, the screams of the dying human mixed with the shots the wounded still fired against the machines. She overheard the loud noise of engines, soon followed by a Geth dropship being gutted inside out by a human shuttle, the bullets opening up holes the size of windows and detonating the synthetics' air support.
The Geth Colossus turned to open fire on the shuttle, who seemed keener on…
Was it going to slam against…
The shuttle slammed against the Colossus as the pilot ejected from the seat, the explosion sending waves of radiation to fill the air as the nuclear fusion reactor within it exploded. Liara felt her mouth fritz, even as far as she was…and in point-blank range nothing but ashes and charred ground remained.
The pilot himself had probably been imbued in so much radiation that he wouldn't survive, or so she thought as she scrambled from her cover of a splintered tree towards the entrance to the space-port, past metallic crates and…
Straight in the arms of a Turian.
"Ah!" she fell on the ground hard, before ending up face to face with the barrel of a Spectre-approved gun.
"Thank the goddess!" she exclaimed somehow giddy, as she took in the figure who had in the meantime holstered the weapon and was now helping her stand up. "Wait…you're…"
"Saren Arterius," the Turian remarked calmly. "Are you Liara T'soni? Your mother asked me to come and get you."
"My…my mother?" she was surprised. They were in a Geth filled planet, in a human colony under assault, and yet her mother had…
"How did you manage to get here?"
"Well, I'm a Spectre…and a few things have changed during the time you have spent with the…humans."
Another Turian Spectre walked in, before looking in surprise at Liara.
"Nihlus? I found Benezia's daughter."
"Saren, why am I not surprised, old friend?" Nihlus smiled briefly, a low chuckle escaping his throat. "Have you told her?"
"Not yet," and then Saren turned to stare at an incoming Geth unit. Liara's eyes widened to saucers as the Geth Prime send in an electrical voice.
"Saren-Prophet, we are securing the beacon. Enemy hostiles have proven tenacious. Fifty-nine percent casualties among ranks. Additional forces from orbit required. Nazara-bringer-of-future is requesting update."
"The Geth talks?"
"The Council," Nihlus said then as he stepped closer to Liara. "Has allied itself with the Geth. Saren has brought to us irrefutable proof that we may have means of contacting the Prothean Empire through the Citadel, and the Protheans…they might help us fight back Humanity's advances throughout the Council space."
"W…What?" Liara's eyes widened further.
"We just need the beacon of Eden Prime —once it arrives through the rail system we will be able to access the data for the Conduit. Due to time and tear the Citadel had the only mean for the Protheans to return blocked, but they thankfully left behind an Artificial Intelligence that contacted Saren in order to help in the return of the Protheans."
Liara's heart began to beat faster. "So…the Protheans didn't disappear?"
Nihlus shook his head. "No, but you'll see. Nazara will explain it to you once we get out of the planet."
And Liara finally breathed in ease. She was safe. She was with two council spectres, the Prothean would certainly help them with their advanced technology and the humans would probably finally meet an enemy at their level. It was as she stood there in wait however, that a thought crossed her mind.
What did Ashley mean with Zuul rippers?
Author's notes
You did not see this coming.
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