A/N:
Third rewritten chapter. I basically took and redid the entire attack on Eden Prime, made it longer and added more action and depth.
Also reworked the Codex entry, adding a bit of explanation and foreshadowing.
Ragnarok Prime
August 5th
Eden Prime, Constant
Foothills.
18:42
"Chief, we might have a problem…" Donkey said, removing his fingers form his ear. Fuck, what now? We've been out here on patrol for the last five hours, and I had no idea what's going on anymore.
There always was the worst-case scenario, but he'd really rather not think about it, painting the Jotunn on the wall. Next to where Donkey was standing, Jim was crouched on the ground, a sniper-rifle in hand while surveying the surrounding landscape. Thomas' eyes lingered on the weapon, then went to the rifle in his own hands. He realized he'd been clutching it hard enough to made indentions in the hard-gel grip. Shit, keep it together. Keep it together, it might not be anything…or it might be…Shit!
"What now?" Ashley groaned, sounding rather annoyed as well as tired. Ashley was evidently frustrated… Ashley was frustrated, meaning shit had started to hit the fan. Fuck.
Fuck.
"I can't raise neither Saber nor Bravo Squad. My line's getting all sorts of shitty interference and my radar's constantly bugging out." He said, the muscular soldier actually sounding worried.
And, when the veteran was nervous, Thomas was twice so. Hoping for something, he activated his own HUD, only to have static obscure his radar. The only reason I could hear Donkey was because the helmet was open for now, allowing for direct hearing. The radio? Fucked, and I could only fear as to why…
"Dammit… can you raise the colony?" Ashley asks, removing her own hand from her helmet, no doubt having just attempted the same thing. Donkey taps his helmet again, and silence reigns for a moment before he takes it back down, shaking his head.
"Nothing… just static." He said, causing Thomas' blood to start freezing in his veins.
"Fuck… okay people, we know Bravo's last known site. We head there, see if they know what has happened. If we somehow fail to find them… we double-time it to the colony. Clear?" Ashley barked out, snapping Thomas from his stupor. Okay, to hell with whatever BioWare planned. Everyone was going to make it through this and to Hel with canon!
"Roger!" they all affirmed, readying weapons. Only Jim had his out already, being their sentry for the time they'd spent resting. The LAR-Lancer-II had become a weapon Thomas could almost say he knew by now.
It wasn't nearly as precise as the "antique" M4's he'd trained with back home, but it packed more of a punch, could potentially burst-fire until the block of tungsten was spent, and weighed just about half. All in all, it deserved the Light Assault Rifle term more than the M4 deserved it.
The squad started its trek back, running over and across the hills and shallow rivers as they raced towards where Bravo Squad was last heard from. Heh, it would be awkward if they were looking for us too, now running to where they were last heard from. Still, with my luck, I somehow doubt…
"Hold up." Donkey ordered, beating Ashley to it as he held up his fist, going into a kneeling crouch. The rest of them follow him into it, kneeling in the grass with their weapons pointed in all directions. Thomas' finger danced over the trigger, ready to slam slugs into whatever enemy should appear. Even should it be a geth.
But he begged the skies that he wouldn't have to.
"Bravo Squad, do you read? Bravo Squad, can you hear me?" Donkey whispered in a stressed tone, keeping his head down from whatever was beyond the ridge. As no answers came, Thomas clutched his rifle tighter, feeling the anxiety well up inside. Thomas' entire body was screaming for him to run, to panic, to fight, to be angry, to be nervous… adrenaline was a weird drug, sure enough.
"Alright, hold positions. Fisher, you're up. Sneak up and check Bravo's position. Don't. Do. Something stupid." He pressed the last words out like he was afraid Thomas was going to do something stupid. He probably was, at some point, so it was potentially justified. Nodding, the private snuck forward in a low crouch, going prone as he reached the edge of the ridge.
A thin trail of smoke could be seen coming up from the bottom of the valley below, signaling the location of a campfire. There was a smell in the air, one Thomas didn't recognize as burning wood.
He crawled to the edge of the ridge, dragging his armored body across the grass, then poked his head over the edge. What he saw… how had he not realized that the smell was actually charred flesh?
"Vanir…" He groaned, looking at the gruesome display below him. Just a dozen meters down the hill, what remained of Bravo Squad was scattered all over the place, with charred chunks of flesh and metal having been strewn with a generous hand, dried blood drenching the grass. Among the pieces of human death, a mere two broken metal figures lay, rifles still clutched in their metallic hands.
Geth…
FUCK!
"FUCK! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuuuuuck!" he fell more than slid back down the ridge on their side, tumbling the last piece of way until he ended up back with the group, cold-sweating and trembling. His heart was beating so hard, he could feel it through the armor. Oh, that's just my hands…go fucking figure.
"What, what is it?" Ashley demanded, grapping his shoulders even as he was trying to breathe. Any other situation, he'd have been glad to have her hands on him, but right now, he needed to breathe.
And scream. Scream, really much.
The image of destroyed humanity was burned into his mind, visions of fleshy chunks boiled by plasma. Like meat on a grill. Corpses with expressions twisted in agony as dead hands clutched at cooked intestines spilling into the grass.
"They- They- they're- they-re they- They're dead!" he finally managed to cram down enough air to finish the sentence, with Ashley letting go of his shoulders in favor of sprinting up the hill herself.
"Dead? The fuck you mean 'dead'?" Jim hissed, his face a shade paler than usual. Thomas snapped his head towards him;
"I mean 'DEAD'! As in fucking blown to bits and spread like fucking fertilizer! Boiled, dead, burned, shot, ceased to live, bought the fucking farm! Does that fit your fucking definition of 'dead'?" Thomas ended up shouting, the adrenaline needing an outlet. Instead of answering him, Jim ran after Ashley himself, wanting to see what Thomas talking about. Thomas himself needed air – he needed to get this helmet off!
He hadn't even gotten it completely off before the first wave of sickness washed over him, forcing his body into mounting convulsions as he lost his dubious field-rations to the grass. Donkey, remaining remarkably calm, knelt next to the vomiting Dane, handing him his canteen of water.
"I'm fine… I'm… just…Fuck…" Thomas groaned with teary eyes, shaking his head while dismissing the bottle. He had his own, and the sergeant didn't need water tasting like puke. Thomas grabbed for his own bottle, unscrewing the cab before draining a good bit of the contents, gurgling and washing his mouth before spitting it back out.
"…First time seeing dead people?" Donkey asked, his tone calm and collected. Gods, why's the world spinning like this?
Thomas had seen dead things before, the news showed dead people all the time. What by Hel was wrong with him now? Still, he merely nodded, feeling as if his body was going to lose more contents. Seeing as it wasn't, he put the helmet back on, ignoring the mounting headache.
"Head spinning?" Donkey asked. Thomas nodded again, just giving a murmured agreement.
"Normal for first timers. Let the hardsuit administer some serum, should take the edge off." He really did sound like he had been through this before. His voice made Thomas… want to do just what he was saying, so he waited. After a few moments, a serene feeling flooded his systems and his vision and head cleared up, enabling him to get to his feet in time for Ashley and the others to return.
"Down to the site people, double-time. We find out just what the hell happened, then we haul ass back to the colony. First opportunity we get, raise the garrison and put them on full alert." Ashley barked, gesturing with a pair of fingers at the place where people were dead. Dead, in chunks… charred pieces of flesh, smoking… smelling… barbequed… stinking…Thomas felt like retching again.
He didn't let go of his gun the entire time they spent getting down there, nor when they checked the dead for ID's. Even when they stood, confused and horrified, staring at the scrapped platforms, Thomas kept a finger on the trigger, ready to fight for his life.
"Fucking… the hell do you think these things are?" Bates asked, kicking the ruined chassis of the geth trooper.
"Geth…" Thomas whispered in abject horror, not giving a fuck if it was supposed to be a secret. The others snapped to look at him, some with fright, a few – Ashley and Hillary – with agreement and dread dawning in their eyes.
"The fuck? Geth? You mean those tin-cans the Quarians made?!" Jim demanded, looking between Thomas and the ruined platforms. The closest was painted a stark white, still clutching an alien rifle in the arm still stuck to its chassis. Judging from the marks at the torn shoulder, a shotgun had taken off the other appendix. A combat knife was still stuck in the synthetic muscles of rifle-toting arm, looking like it had done little to no real harm.
"Look at it Jim! Don't you think this fits the description 'those tin-can'?" Hillary bit out, pointing a jagged finger at the dead geth. Thomas didn't even consider mentioning that the 'geth' had probably just left the scrapped platform. They were fine, as opposed to the men and women they had slaughtered.
At that moment, Thomas grew an indiscriminate hatred for the Geth.
"Fuuuuuuuuck… so, the geth are attacking us. Why?" The sniper asked, looking between the rest of the squad. No one could answer that but Thomas, who had nowhere near the peace of mind to remember that at the moment. His mind was fuzzy and spinning in spite of the serum, and thoughts beyond 'Survive!' were disjointed and unimportant.
"Where's that 'brilliant' Spectre now we need him?" Bolin growls, causing Thomas' heart to skip a beat. Spectre? What Spectre?
"Wait, what Spectre?" Thomas asked, hoping beyond any logical measure of hope that it wouldn't be who he knew it was.
"Saren Arterius. Turian who arrived here around the same time you did. He's really not the most social type, but should be good to have if the geth are attacking us." Bolin said, shrugging as he pulled the knife from the synthetic weave of the Geth's arm, looking at it. The knife was drenched in white coolant, with strands of synthetic muscle hanging onto it.
"…Saren… Arterius?" Thomas repeated, his mind briefly numbed. Fuck… fuck! He's been here more than a week already? WHY didn't I know?!
"I believe the saying is 'you never aske-"
"SHUT UP!"
"Yeah… Okay, geth-attack confirmed. Reason unknown, but to fuck with it. Chief, what do we do now?" Donkey asked, getting to his feet. The rest followed suit, not one finger leaving its trigger. Hillary had slapped her shotgun back onto her hip, instead opting for the menacing HAR-Revenant. Thomas just nodded at the sight.
It…made sense, to do that.
"We haul ass back to the colony. Be. Careful. The geth are machines, they don't feel, they don't breathe, they don't eat, they don't sleep. They can wage total war on us and not give a fuck that we kill scores of them in return. Let's move out." Ashley ordered, sending them back to the colony.
Thomas was close to getting a stroke from all of this, and they haven't even been shoot at yet. He did his best to focus on the sound of his armor's servos as he moved, not the sound of distant gunfire.
"Hold up." Donkey stopped them upon reaching the tree line of a forest close to the colony. Mostly pine, and foliage Thomas had never seen on Earth. The squad halted, kneeling in a half-circle with Hillary guarding the rear. The Sergeant took a step towards the trees, keeping his rifle ready and leveled at the darkness within; "Stella!"
"…Texaco!" came the reply moments later. It was human, and the words meant they were military. Thomas thanked the gods for that, as the bushes came alive, revealing Saber-squad, or what was left of them; "Shiva's balls! Sergeant Donkey, Chief Williams, what the shit is going on?!"
The woman who came out on point was short-cropped, dark-skinned and had a red spot in the middle of her forehead, marking her as a Hindu, of all things. It was so unexpected that Thomas forgot to be scared shitless for almost a full second.
"Serviceman Bhatia," Ashley stepped forward, lowering her own gun; "Where's Sergeant Dunham?"
Serviceman Bhatia, who was clearly of Indian origin, was clad in much the same armor as Dog-Squad, but wearing a holographic visor instead of a helmet. Her armor was scorched and checkered in multiple places, as was the rest of her group, amounting to no more than three soldiers, herself included. The woman grimaced, and the two men behind her showed similar expressions of anger and shock.
"Dead." She ground out, clenching a fist; "So are Simonns and Fyodor. Ma'am, what is going on?"
"We're under attack by what we believe to be Geth forces." Ashley looked towards the horizon, where Constant rose slightly above the plains, cutting into the view of a setting sun. Smoke was already rising from multiple places, and screams could be vaguely heard in the distance. Thomas shuffled his feet, hating every second they just stood here while innocent people died; "Saber-Squad, you're with us. We head for the colony, join the garrison and alert the Alliance. The 6th flotilla should be stationed at the next Relay."
"Lead the way, Chief Williams." Bhatia replied, readying her weapon. The men with her did the same, and like that, seven became ten.
When Ashley took the lead, and she did so promptly and without hesitation, Thomas felt just a spark of renewed hope. Hope that they might succeed, now that more had joined. Rationally, however, he knew ten soldiers wouldn't stand a chance against an army of geth.
It was a thought he did not like to entertain.
The hellscape of Eden Prime, a scenery that had been both blissful and serene only hours earlier, now felt oppressive and hostile. Thomas felt his legs starting to burn as the group made its way through the hills, heading for the fields of Constant, the easiest and most direct way of getting into the colony.
A malicious presence seemed to hang in the air, threatening them all with a violent and generally unpleasant demise. The hairs stood on his neck, and his fingertips felt numb with the adrenaline flushing his systems.
"Chief, what do we do when we encounter more of them?" he found himself asking the dumbest question possible, and he didn't know why. He knew perfectly well what to do when facing a geth: 'kill it till it dies' was a proven tactic, but he felt so far out of his depth that his mind craved confirmation.
"Shoot it in the head." Ashley's voice was cold and heated at the same time, sending uncomfortable shivers down his spine; "and if they've got shields, shoot those first, then shoot it in the head."
"Hey, wait!" Bolin called, skidding to a stop in the middle of the formation. As a result, Norroty crashed into him, barely managing to remain standing, while Ashley and Donkey both turned a glare at the corporal; "Listen."
The glares dissipated when his words were followed, and Thomas felt his legs go numb with fear at two realizations.
One; the screams and gunfire from Constant had ceased. He was nowhere near stupid enough to think that meant the garrison had fought and won over the Geth. He knew what had transported the Geth to Eden Prime, and he knew who was leading them.
"God have mercy on their souls." Ashley whispered.
Two; a cessation of noise from Constant meant the Geth had run out of targets. And the way he had worded that thought almost made Thomas vomit in a mixture of fear and disgust. Constant had thousands of people living in it; women, children, people who had never even considered holding a gun. Gods be good, what am I doing here?!
"The grim reality unfolds, as Nazara casts her web." He was not even registering the words from the entity in his head. So numbed by shock was he, that Thomas failed to realize someone was trying to get his attention. Then he was knocked on the helmet, and snapped from his stupor.
"Hey, hold it together." It was Donkey, leaning back out from a close-up. Thomas blinked, swallowing a lump before nodding. The sergeant nodded in turn, then looked around; "This isn't a good place to be."
Thomas fingered the trigger on his Lancer, following Donkey's gaze. They were standing in the beginning of Constant's wheat-fields, with a sheer cliff-face to the west, as well as a shallow pond, while the east was dominated by vast plains. North was behind them, and due south was Constant, plumes and billows of smoke rising from the city.
"Ma'am, we should keep-" Thomas had not yet had the chance to find out the names of the two men following Bhatia. Now, he wouldn't get that chance with one of them.
"AMBUSH!" Hillary screamed as the man, now a sack of meat with a hole for a head, sagged to the ground. Something had just hissed through the air, and the man's head had just…vanished. No bang, no kinetic impact, just…hiss.
"TAKE COVER!" Donkey roared. Thomas was sent staggering when the man's voice suddenly came through his comms, not just open air; "Return fire at will!"
"CHIEF!" He yelled, scrambling to get to whatever cover was available, which was none whatsoever. The field was flat, offering nothing but wheat to duck behind; "The jamming-"
"I KNOW!" she yelled back, firing off bursts with her own Lancer, directing the fire at where Geth platforms were now coming out of the woods, as well as the colony itself; "Fisher! Get a distress signal out!"
"HOW THE FUCK DO I DO THAT?!"
"FOR FUCK'S- ÜNALAN!" Thomas did not feel slighted in the least that Ashley didn't have the patience to guide him through it. Neither had he himself, when it came down to it.
"I'm on it!" the Turk called back, somewhere Thomas couldn't immediately spot him. The angry wail of his HUD, declaring that something had just grazed his shields down to ten percent, got his attention back to the situation.
Something Ashley had taught him over the days, and which contradicted what the Homeland Defense had taught him, was that when in a firefight, keep moving. People who knelt down to aim were easier to hit than the ones moving around. So he did, and took a wide sidestep with each burst he fired off. Don't spray and pray! Don't spray and pray! Don't spray and pray! Don't spray and pray!
Keeping his shots to bursts was the only thing keeping his gun from overheating. As he shot, he walked. And as he walked, Thomas' right foot stubbed something, and he fell from surprise and poor coordination. Son of a- I'm dead!
Panic took over before he even realized what he had tripped over. Thomas made a mad dash across the clearing, feeling the ground burst into flames behind him. A mechanical hiss was all the warning he received before the ground exploded in front of him, and his momentum was instead reversed, as the missile threw him backwards, landing him hard on the cold ground.
The air was knocked from his lungs, and for a moment, just one blissful moment, he thought maybe he should be playing dead, letting the machines walk past him. He was just one man, just a human being. What the Hel could he do against this kind of enemy?
"Come on! Get up or you're dead!" someone grabbed him by the forearm, and Thomas found himself hauled to his feet by hands strong enough to make his arm scream in protest. Donkey let him go when he stood, by some miracle avoiding death; "Get on your fucking feet, Private, and return fire!"
This was all his fault. Everything was his fault, and just because he hadn't told them to get disrupter-rounds. Now everyone would die.
"You already died once, the notion shouldn't scare you so much a second time."
Thomas didn't agree. But he still got some sort of kick from his armor's injectors, and found himself resuming firing at the Geth.
Some of them had been taken down, actually. The sight somehow made him feel better, as if it was a confirmation that they could actually be killed. And yet, every shot he fired simply seemed to splash off against kinetic shielding, while whatever the Geth were firing had no problems whatsoever at going straight through their shields.
This time, he kept shooting at one Geth until his rifle overheated, then pulled the pistol out and started shooting that at the platform. His aim was horrible though, and the rifle weighed him down too much for him to have any hope of actually hitting. Then his rifle came back on, and the Raikou was holstered as the Lancer came back up.
Something blue whizzed past his head, draining his recovering shields back down to fifteen percent with a mere graze, and he returned fire, more out of fright and instinct than because he actually knew what he was doing. The Geth, much to both his and its own evident surprise, lost its shields after almost ten seconds of sustained firing, and every following slug tore its body to scrap.
"Move towards the colony!" someone shouted. Thomas was unable to recognize the voice, something he idly knew was because of the adrenaline in his system, and his nerves going mental. He'd just killed a Geth.
Only when someone smacked him on the helmet did he actually start running as well, with blue projectiles dogging his every step. For reasons he didn't understand, but nonetheless hated, the mechanical constructs seemed to focus on him.
"Incoming!" Donkey shouted, rolling into cover with the rest of them following him.
Even as Thomas was diving behind a truck, his HUD started screaming again, alerting him to the fact that his shields were almost down to half after only a second of fresh exposure. Just what the Hel were the Geth shooting at them? The Geth were never this strong… fuck it! They fucking blew human beings up in meaty chunks.
They had probably already spiked the entire colony! And now, they thought they could just fucking kill me? I just came back from the fucking dead!
He yanked the Lancer over the dwindling cover of the front-end of the truck, sighted down the nearest enemy, a steel-grey geth platform wielding one of their trademark rifles, trying to focus on training the end of the rifle at the center of the closest Geth.
Not even waiting to breathe, Thomas pulled the trigger, sending out a long spray of hypersonic slugs. A testament to just how terrible his aim was when under pressure, most of the slugs went way off to the right, hitting nothing but air and prefabs. However, it made the geth look at him for just long enough that the rest of the squad could join in the firefight, spraying the mechanical constructs with tungsten. Hillary in particular seemed effective, pinning down platforms with precision-bursts from her Revenant.
Odd as it sounded, the scene of carnage being dealt from both sides… filled him with some sort of calm. Like, he was feeling his heart slowing down to regular paces and his breathing becomes less ragged. Adrenaline was one weird drug alright, and he wasn't sure whether this time from his own body or the armor providing it.
Feeling his hands stop shaking, Thomas rejoined the firefight, this time actually managing to hit what he was aiming for, even if it wasn't a killing shot.
Still, having the right leg turned to scrap could do the same shit to a Geth as it could to a human. A loud blast came from the left, causing him to flinch as balls of plasma suddenly ate their way through their cover from a new angle.
Looking to the source of the firing, a Geth had just emerged from under some sort of cloaking, hefting a shotgun with a design that was utterly alien, even for this place. Oh fuck me…
Ünalan was already firing away at it with his sidearm, for some reason not using his left hand to wield the pistol, a Raikou like his own. The hand cannon boomed and punched the Geth to a stagger. With the joined fire of the Turk, Jim, and Thomas, they took the geth down with enough holes that they could've seen through its body. New blasts sounded already as the geth was tumbling, forcing the squad to return attention to a new spot, where multiple geth troopers were pouring in from around corners of buildings, some discarding dead bodies as they opted to shoot at the live humans instead.
Surprisingly, the plasma didn't make a lot of noise like Thomas thought it would. It was more of a hissing sound whenever the geth fired, whereas their own weapons barked fire with the best of them, the noise drowning out whatever else could be said or heard. As Thomas was about to start shooting again, his rifle having cooled down, a hand dragged him down to his knees. Out of instincts, and possibly the rush of adrenaline too, he almost whipped Donkey in the head with the butt of his rifle before recognizing him. His mouth was moving, but hearing anything in this noise was not possible, as illustrated when Jim stood back up behind the sergeant, his Katana barking off several loud blasts, the sound merging with the existing level of noise. He seemed to have lost his rifle somewhere.
Instead then, Donkey slapped Thomas' shoulder, then pointed at the corner of a building some twenty meters from the truck. He then held up three fingers, doing a rapid countdown on them before pointing at the house again. Run to the house… run to the house! Is he insane?
Thomas wasn't sure if Donkey had somehow not noticed how a single burst of fire drained his shields to half, but Thomas knew he'd be dead long before he ever got over there. The sergeant just looked to where Ashley and Hillary were trading fire with the geth, both of them belching out fire from their Assault Rifles before taking shifts to cool down. He then looked back at Thomas, shouting something. It sounded like…
Over you… over you… cover you?
Thomas just hoped he was right, or he wouldn't even get to regret being wrong in the thinking that – Aesir help him – they would give him some covering fire. He pressed his eyes closed, trying to shut out the constant noise that not even the helmet could shield him from before opening them again, nodding at Donkey.
He guessed right here and now wasn't as much about being the highest rank as it was about taking initiative. And seeing as Ashley was busy throwing down with the geth rifles, the role fell to Donkey. Okay… I can do this if you cover me. Just… don't let me die, alright?
"Well this is certainly an interesting situation. If it makes your mood better, I see the life forms of the Normandy crew entering the system as we speak. Shepard should be here soon."
"Well that's fucking great." Thomas muttered, wincing as shots strafed above his head. The spheres ate their way into the wall of a prefab, turning wall into perforated plasteel. Would you mind having him hurry the fuck up?
The slap on his shoulder was all the signal Thomas needed – and got – that the time had come for him to haul ass towards the prefab-house.
He jumped from behind the truck even as Donkey started belching out fire from his own position, pouring rather unfocused, but – hopefully – suppressing, fire at the geth. He could just feel how the stunt snapped some tendons in his ankles, - gods it HURTS! – Not that he had the luxury of stopping to complain as plasma scorched the grass behind him, adding yet another insensitive to hurry the fuck up and run, getting behind the building just as more plasma ate the ground behind him.
Even as he slammed into cover, Thomas could hear a scream coming from the truck.
Feeling the dread rise in his chest, he snapped around just in time to see Mikhail getting the majority of his chest carved out by balls of plasma fired by a geth shotgun. There wasn't even any blood this time, just the holes in his body. The others took down the machine even as the corporal sank to the ground. Thomas stared, unwilling to believe what he was witnessing. Fuck! No! No gods damn it! Where the fuck is Shepard when we need him?!
Anger. Rage. Fury… it welled up, almost blocking his vision as the world became hazed, slightly green-tinted, and seemed to slow down. Thomas yanked the rifle around the corner, pulling the trigger straight into the head of a geth. This time, every slug hit, and the platform crumbled with the destruction of its flashlight. Looking back at the truck, he noticed something beyond it, seeing what looked like low-flying birds. Only… Oh fuck me!
"MOVE! DRONES!" He screamed, trying to get their attention. Fucking geth! Why the fuck couldn't they play fair and just let their radios work?
His squad couldn't hear a word he was saying, and the drones were closing in. They opened fire, concentrated sprays of plasma-like fire hammering the truck only inches from Hillary's head. The woman ducked down in shock, avoiding the next burst as it flew straight above her head, slamming into the side mirror of the truck, turning it into molten glass and slag. The squad shifted targets, hammering the drones which, thank the gods, seemed much more frail than their bipedal counterparts.
Thomas couldn't shoot the drones for fear of hitting his own comrades, but he could shoot the geth trying to pin the squad down. For some reason, his shields had stopped screaming and were steadily rising again, despite the fact that more than one of the machines were actively firing at him, each stray bolt eating away at the building he was covering behind. As soon as the barrage stopped, he leaned out again, putting death to the machine as dozens of slugs hammered against its shields, breaking them before penetrating its armor and shattering the body.
As he was laying down fire, more geth were streaming in and the squad was forced to abandon the truck, as the vehicle had started catching fire from a bolt hitting the fuel cells. Thomas just put down range as much fire as he could, trying to force the geth into cover. But, how do you suppress an enemy with no fear of death?
The small, grassy plaza was starting to crawl with geth, the robotic assholes simply stepping over their own dead to get to the soldiers. Mikail was still lying where he fell, smoking holes in his torso. The encroaching geth were already at his position, one of them putting its rifle to his head before pulling the trigger. His head exploded in a spread of red and pink. As if it wasn't enough that they killed him already, now they were just desecrating his body!
"FUCKING BASTARDS!" Jim screamed, his shotgun blasting out pellets at a rapid pace as he rushed the geth currently gunning down the dead corporal. They merely turned their necks to regard him, as if he was nothing but a mere nuisance.
"JIM!" Hillary screamed as she poured fire at the geth along with the rest of the team, desperately trying to keep the machines from both killing them and Jimmy The woman started out from the corner, dodging and running through gunfire to get to the private. Jim was kneeling over Mikail's corpse, desperately firing at anything coming close enough.
"GET BACK HERE PRIVATE!l!" Ashley roared, pulling out her own sidearm as the rifle cooled off, taking the flashlight out in a geth that came just too close for comfort, meaning it came into view at all. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
"We' can't stay here!" Thomas shouted, watching as more and more geth appeared from the alleys and corners around houses. It was only a matter of time before something worse than geth started appearing, and he didn't want to see what Dragon Teeth did to humans. Not in real life.
"We have to protect the colony!" Bates shouted, diving behind cover as a volley of plasma traced him to a near-fatal hit, burning into his shields at the helmet. Thank the gods, the shielding still worked.
"Bates, do you fucking see anyone but us here?!" Thomas shouted back, wincing as more plasma comes his way, tearing off a sign from the building. When it lands on the ground, it roughly reads 'B- guns' with a hole burned straight through the Scotsman's name.
Thomas dared looking around, hoping to see the Scott hiding somewhere around. Instead, he saw Bhatia vanish around a corner, being dragged by a Geth. Ashley didn't appear to have noticed it, so he didn't say anything, but nonetheless felt a terrible sting in his chest, knowing the fate awaiting the woman.
"Our orders in this situ- fuck!" Bates shouted, recoiling as the cover of a traffic-barrier was eaten by plasma, just a few inches to the right of his elbow; "Our orders are to protect any and all civilians during the evacuation, then hold for reinforcements or scatter into the hills. WE HAVEN'T EVACUA-"
He was cut short when more plasma broke through the barrier, eating both shield and armor in his hardsuit before carving straight through his helmet, leaving his body to drop the rifle and slump to the ground. The look on the remaining pieces of his face, mostly the left eye, showed pure surprise, as he never even got to duck from the plasma. Thomas' heart was beating away faster than ever, his head hurting from the adrenaline pumping through his body. Fuck! No!
"BATES!" Donkey cried, a mere second of denial in his voice; "BATE'S DOWN! WILLAMS!"
"HILLARY! JIM! GET BACK HERE! WE. ARE. LEAVING!" Ashley screamed, firing her rifle on full auto at the geth who just took Bate's life, cutting it down with fury. Hillary was tearing into the geth on her own, allthewhile trying to pull Jimmy to his feet at Mikail's corpse.
No, no, no, no! They couldn't lose like this, not like this! They couldn't just be meaningless sacrifices in this shit! No one else gets to die! Please gods, no more!
"Chief! Above you!" Donkey shouted, pulling Ashley's shotgun from her hip before blasting upwards in one fluid motion. Toppling from the roof of the prefab, just a few meters above them, a rubbery geth fell to the ground, front shattered by the surprisingly fast reaction from the sergeant. Thomas looked around as a panicked notion entered his mind;
"Where the fuck is Bolin!"
"HILLARY! JIM!" Ashley shouted again, her voice strained and desperate. Fuck, fuck, fuck! This is Hel! We're dead, dead! We're all going to die here, on this putrid mud ball! And what happened to Bolin? He was here just before!
Hillary finally managed to yank Jim from the ground. The idiotic private didn't want to leave the dead corporal, only retreating painfully slowly, making Thomas cringe with each step he could have taken so much faster.
"Donkey! Where the fuck is Nadang!" he cried out, trying to get the sergeant's attention. Donkey turned to him, his face ashen grey. He didn't know either, and the dread was clear in his eyes. For the love of all Deities ever invented by humankind!
"JIM!" The sergeant shouted. Thomas looked back to where Hillary and Jim were retreating, only to watch the woman pick up the private in her arms, carrying him backwards while he kept up a relentless barrage of fire. The explanation to why she was carrying him was found by looking at his legs, where most of the left leg had been shot off beneath the knee. Donkey slapped Thomas' shoulder, getting his attention to him.
"Give me some covering fire!" was all he shouted as he rushed into the killing field, grabbing Jim around the waist before carrying him over his shoulder, allowing Hillary to switch back to her rifle and fall back to some cover. Cover… what good is cover? We are all going to die here anyway… Thomas sank to his knees, trying to get the fuzzy sensation from his head. This place was never in the game, Shepard won't pass by here… we're on our own, surrounded… outgunned, outnumbered… outclassed probably too…
To think, he had held the dream of coming here once. He had had the notion that in this universe, all was good and even war was manageable since you had all this modern gear and shields and… now… now this was just as much Hel as they used to describe Afghanistan and Serbia… To think, Thomas carried the dream that he could do something here.
That he could make a difference… it seemed like, now, the only difference he was going to make would be in the number of geth Shepard faced down. He might've even gotten a memorial plate, if the Reapers didn't win. Hel, to think, I thought I could serve with Shepard, Kaidan and Garrus and Ashley…Ashley!
Ashley was still fighting.
Ashley was still fighting, Jim was wounded and even Hillary was fighting… and he was just sitting here, wallowing in self-pity. The world started coming back, the fuzzy feeling receding somewhat. Then the whining pitch in his ears started dying down, replaced by the sounds of battle.
Ashley was still fighting. And to Niflheim with the geth, he was going to fight as well!
Shaking the dread from his mind, Thomas picked the rifle back up, gritting his teeth as he aimed down the sights, targeting a geth firing at Hillary before pulling the trigger, sending a spray of death against the platform of destruction. He stayed on his knee, using the crouched position to help his aim.
As Donkey ran past him with Jim in a fireman's carry, Hillary in tow, Thomas got up from his place on the ground, turning around to follow the others. Gods, this is never-
His mind shut down completely as plasma once more seers from behind, cutting straight past him, into the back of Hillary…No… No, not her too. Not Her Too! No more, please Gods, no more!
I turned with a desperate, silent scream, pressing the stock of his rifle against his shoulder as he took aim, gunning down the geth that just took down Hillary. He kept up the fire, only stopping whenever the bar was just about to reach overheating on the HUD. He didn't know how many geth he'd gunned down, only that every geth coming around the corner while Ashley was helping Hillary, was getting sent to whatever Hell it believed in.
That was when he heard it.
The sentence he had dreaded since the start of this entire thing. The words that, put together, would mean the end of his purpose here.
"The Chief is down! Fisher, help her!" Donkey shouted, managing to provide steady firing with just one hand holding the Lancer, the other keeping Jimmy over his shoulder. How? How? Both Hillary and Ashley are down, I can't- I can't help them both!
As the sergeant poured down fire and death at the geth, Thomas slung his own rifle over his shoulder, fastening it in its magnetic clamps. He picked up Ashley from the ground, seeing the shoot that went clean through her leg, eating inwards a good way before stopping short of penetrating into a golf ball sized hole. If there was one sick bright side to all this, it was that the wound wasn't bleeding. And, she was still conscious, although there was no way she could stand on that leg, even he could see that in his panicked state. Fuck! Fuck! Fuuuuuck!
There was no way he was leaving her behind! No fucking way! But, he couldn't just leave Hillary, not while there still was a chance to save her. She was still showing up as 'alive' on his HUD, and there was no way he was leaving her for a neckshot from the geth.
Thomas looked at where Hillary was injured, finding that plasma, while having eaten her armor, had only managed to boil through skin and some outer tissue. The red, raw muscle was still covering the bones, but undoubtedly giving her severe pains, unless she was already passed out. He looked to Ashley, who was still taking shots at the geth with her sidearm.
"Ash, if I support you, could you limp next to me, use me as a crutch?" he asked with a groan, starting to pick up Hillary. The servos in his suit kicked in at the extra load, yet he could still feel his spine protesting the weight. Gods, why did the same armor saving her life have to be the heavies hardsuit on the squad?!
"Don't… worry about me, just get… Hillary up." She hissed, biting her lip. The pain she was in was evident, and Thomas cringed at the sight of her injuries.
He couldn't imagine even the famous Medigel being able to dull that kind of pain. The fact that she wasn't screaming with a hole in her thigh… he wasn't sure what to say actually. Right now, his mind was fully occupied on maintaining a balance with an unconscious Hillary on his shoulders.
"Come on Ashley! I am NOT leaving you here!" he shouted, making sure the sergeant was still doing his best to cover them with Jim carried over his shoulder. Donkey didn't even spare a glimpse to Thomas or the women he was carrying, instead firing his Lancer with one hand, while hoisting the incapacitated Norroty on the other.
"GO! GO GODDAMMIT!" Donkey roared, turning to see if Thomas was complying; "GO! I'll take-"
As if to prove that the universe was a crueler place than Thomas'd thought it to be, a volley of plasma suddenly cut through the air, impacting on Donkey's abdomen with the sound of dispersing, wet air. The first few splashes drained his shields, while the next ate through the armor of his hardsuit, unrelenting until they passed out the other side of him again. There was no kinetic impact to send the man to the ground, and so he simply remained standing, taking the shots.
The world froze as they both looked at his stomach, Donkey's eyes wide with surprise as he dropped the rifle, hand crawling towards the multiple holes in his body, all centered in one single cluster. Guts started spilling out, thick coils of fat snakes with burns, dropping from the holes like fleeing worms. No! NOOOO! NOOOOO!
"NOOOOOOOO! NOOOOOOOO NO NOOOO NO NO NO!"
Thomas was screaming, wanting most of all to not believe what he was seeing. He wanted so desperately to help, yet there was nothing he could do. Ashley was the only person alive with paramedical training, and she was close to passing out from pain!
Donkey's hard eyes meet his, a silent plea for help as his legs buckled under him, sending him and Jim crashing to the ground. Ashley didn't scream yet, instead pulling off multiple shots from her sidearm, the Raikou sending off shots that were starting to lose their accuracy, hitting widely past the approaching geth. A few did hit though, hammering the torso of a geth with its shields having already been drained.
It didn't stop it, but causes it to switch target from himself to Ashley. That'll be a lie! Not us! Not us! Not us!
Not knowing what else to do, Thomas took off at a run towards the geth, using the added mass of Hillary's slumped form to kick the machine to the ground. He grabbed the Raikou from his hip, squeezing off shots as he retreated with one wounded soldier over his shoulders, and another waiting to be supported. How did things go so wrong?!
Not even stopping, he drew on whatever resources remaining in the hardsuit, pulling Ashley from the ground hard enough that he could feel a joint dislocate somewhere in his shoulder. Biting his teeth in pain, he closed his eyes as he stumbled past the unconscious form of Jim. I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry!
Thomas cried. The tears were making it difficult for him to see where he was going, and only a miracle saw me running uphill, having put the prefabs behind him in favor of… green. Green and brown. The tears and the adrenaline were making it hard to tell.
Somewhere back there, Jim had probably already received a neckshot from the geth, unless they wanted him for… No, no he couldn't think like that. Thomas just had to keep running, running and running. He didn't know where, but he knew he had to get out of there, out of this colony, away from the death.
Pain.
White-hot, searing pain burned through his leg, causing him to stumble in his running. Nausea filled him as the pain intensified, burning through his system. He didn't know what was wrong, didn't know what was happening, why it hurt, but he had to keep moving.
Pain again, the same leg.
This time, he stumbled hard enough that he lost his grip on Hillary, the woman falling from his shoulder as he struggled to keep standing, to keep running. The pain intensified, adrenaline rushing through his veins, sharpening his senses. Thomas turned: he had to get Hillary. Had to save her. Had to save as many as he could.
The team… Bolin, Donkey, Jimmy, Bates, Mikail, Bhatia, the doctors… all dead. But he could save just these two. Aesir, please let me save these two! Just these two!
He managed to find Hillary through the blurred outline of his vision, the tears having mostly stopped. He didn't know why, didn't much care either. Thomas was drained. Physically and emotionally drained, and even just trying to pick up Hillary was enough that his legs started finally giving out under him.
Hissing sound…
When he grabbed and threw the women to the side, Thomas wasn't even fully conscious of his actions. He knew what the sound was, could tell where it was going, and how far away it was. Ashley landed in a screaming heap, while Hillary didn't make a sound. Having thrown the latter, his servos gave out.
Then something punched him in the back. Something tore. Something broke. Something burned. Thomas couldn't understand what he was feeling, when the explosion sent him flying through the air. He knew it was pain, but beyond that, he was mentally drained beyond comprehension.
Boulders. Familiar boulders. He knew them; he'd seen them before. This was where Shepard would come through. He'd made it, he'd saved Ashley and Hillary. He'd…
A sight before him, a person, cut down his train of thought, even as he hit the ground.
Tali!?
Codex entry: Alliance Navy.
The Alliance Navy is the branch of the Systems Alliance military responsible for naval operations. The Alliance Marines, the ground operations branch of the Alliance military, are a specialized branch of the Navy.
The Human Systems Alliance is the main military force dedicated to the defensive and offensive operations of Humanity beyond Lagrange-II orbit of Earth. Its vessels are split into several fleets, currently numbering at ten main fleets, as well as seventy flotillas ranging in sizes from escort-groups of five, to raiding flotillas of dozens of warships.
In order for a fleet to become a MBF, or Main Battle Fleet, an admiral is required to directly oversee the actions and procedures of the fleet, assume direct control as well as responsibility for all actions taken by the respective captains of the included vessels. That aside, seeing how the 6th Raiders are commanded by Admiral Petrovsky, a fleet also needs to meet a certain standard of numbers, as well as class-range to be considered MBF-material.
The key requirement is for the fleet in question to field one Dreadnought and or Carrier. As Humanity currently boasts just ten Dreadnoughts, there exists just ten Main Battle Fleets.
1st Fleet
Commanded by Admiral Ines Lindholm, the First Fleet is responsible for guarding the Relay to Arcturus from Sol. It serves as a quick reactionary force to be called upon in case of attacks over three separate clusters, and with its size of three hundred vessels, remains the largest of Humanity's fleets.
Lindholm is a former Military Commander of the Kalmar 2nd Navy, and commands her fleet from onboard the SSV Kebnekaise.
2nd Fleet
Commanded by Admiral Kastanie Drescher during the First Contact War of 2157, the Second Fleet was responsible for the liberation of Shanxi from Turian occupation. Part of the Second Fleet was made up of materiel and volunteers from Elysium.
Drescher still serves as Admiral of the Second Fleet, commanding it from onboard her Dreadnought, the SSV Watzmann, a Kilimanjaro-class Dreadnought built before the First Contact War. It remains one of the oldest Dreadnoughts in use by the Alliance Navy.
3rd Fleet
Stationed at Arcturus Station, the Third Fleet is headed by Admiral Nitesh Singh. Being part of the Arcturus fleet, Singh is one of the Admirals whose vessels are highest prioritized for overhauls, retrofits and upgrades coming out of the Alliance Munitions Labs.
Nitesh Singh commands the Third Fleet from his Dreadnought, the SSV Logan, the second Everest-class Dreadnought constructed after the First Contact War.
4th Fleet
The Fourth Fleet is directly responsible for the safety of Earth, as it is the Guardian Fleet in constant orbit of the planet. Commanded by Admiral Stephen Hackett, it boasts not just a Dreadnought, the SSV Rushmore, but also two Fighter Carriers, the SSV Nelson Mandela and the SSV Nikola Tesla.
The Fourth Fleet is the only Alliance Fleet to also include ODP's, or Orbital Defense Platforms, armored and armed satellites ranging in sizes from telescope-sized turrets, to floating guns the size of a heavy Cruiser.
5th Fleet
The Fifth Fleet is also known as the Arcturus Fleet, as it is based at Arcturus Station. Admiral Hackett is the current commanding officer. Along with the Third Fleet, the Fifth is tasked with defending Arcturus, the entrance to Sol and connected systems.
Admiral Hackett commands the Arcturus Fleet from onboard the SSV Everest, the very first Everest-class Dreadnought ever made, and the progenitor of the class.
6th Fleet and Flotilla
Not to be confused with the popular vid of same name, the Sixth is a special case in which Admiral Oleg Petrovsky commands both the Sixth Fleet and the 6th Flotilla from onboard his Dreadnought the SSV Caucasus.
While the Fleet remains stationed at Terra Nova, the flotilla is regularly utilized by the Alliance for fast insertions, recovery missions, patrolling and harassment of enemy convoys. Petrovsky often commands such missions in person.
The SSV Caucasus was finished the appliance of its armored plating mere weeks before kinetic shielding came on par with that of the Turians, meaning the ship is one of the most expensive, but also most heavily armored warships in existence, sporting both 1600mm titanium plating, as well as Dreadnought-class shields.
7th Fleet
The Seventh Fleet is currently stationed at Grissom Academy over Elysium, commanded by Admiral Joseph McAllen. The fleet is currently made up of seventy-five vessels, most of which are heavy frigates and battleships. It is due rotation for Eden Prime in 2184.
McAllen commands his fleet from onboard the SSV Sandford, an Everest-class Dreadnought.
8th Fleet
The Eight Fleet is currently stationed in the Asgard system. It is commanded by Admiral Johann Sanders, from the Dreadnought SSV Blind Justice.
9th Fleet
The Alliance Ninth Fleet patrols the outer systems of Alliance Space, particularly in the Skyllian Verge, where colonies are often raided by Terminus slavers and pirates.
Admiral Amandepp Zuu commands the fleet from the fleet's Carrier, the SSV Mahatma Gandhi, not the SSV Cook, as usual doctrine prescribes.
10th Fleet
Commanded by Rear-Admiral Anna Cologne Fisher, the Tenth Fleet is stationed at Arcturus Station, yet does not include in the designated Arcturus Fleet. Rather, the Tenth is a flexible fleet, intended for heavy-duty reinforcements, as well as providing the bulk of an eventual defense against intrusions into Inner Alliance Space by hostile warships.
Admiral Fisher commands the Tenth from her Everest-class Dreadnought, the SSV Hong Kong. It has been debated whether the Hong Kong is a Dreadnought or a Battleship, as it sports the superior broadsides of a Battleship, but the size of a Dreadnought.
The Tenth Fleet consists of over two-hundred warships, thereby making it the second-largest fleet in the Alliance, as well as the size of Humanity's collective warships before the First Contact War in 2157.
11th Reinforcements Fleet
A source of controversy, the Alliance Eleventh Fleet technically falls outside of usual doctrines, in that it does not include a Dreadnought, yet remains a 'Fleet'.
Commanded by Admiral Anna Cologne Fisher together with the Tenth Fleet, the Eleventh serves its main purpose as a multitasking fleet, providing replacement ships for the Tenth, as well as additional security when stationed at Arcturus Station.
The Eleventh Fleet as a whole has never seen actual combat, but remains on standby whenever the Tenth is tasked with combat-probable missions.