Hello Again All! Sorry for messing with all your heads again with a repost of a chapter, but there were a few things that I noticed that weren't right in this one [like a wrong chapter number] that I needed to fix. if you see anything else let me know an I will do my best to fix them a soon as I am able... Thank you all! :D
I am back after my long absence with CHAPTER 8. I will admit that this took a wicked long time for me to get out to you, and I will admit fault for this one. there is no excuse. there I said it. and I am sorry for the long wait. but I do thank you for your ever-enduring patience with me. it really does mean a great deal to me. a very great deal. thank you. I love you guys. {:'-}
note that you codex for this chapter I credited to Dark Pheonix Jake for bringing up the marvelous idea of having comparative fleet codex's for both the Alliance and the Citadel Council fleets. thank you again DPJ for the grand idea.
Now to the NRBEC.
this chapter is longer than I wanted, and it did not actually cover the content that I had originally planed for it to cover. it went a great deal more in depth into character creation than I intended and I will admit that I feel that this is a good thing. it was just unexpected. so please, read, enjoy, or not... and let me know what you think.
oh, and side note. I am also updating chapter seven once again. I can not stand the way that the Codex for the Alliance fleet was written so I once again rewrote it. i really like te way it turned out this time though, so this time it should be for good.
again, Thanks to all of you who bother to come around and read these far to slow in coming chapters. I really do appreciate all the support and guidance as I strive to become a better (and faster) writer. Thank you all again.
And now, Without further annoyance!
on with Chapter 8!
I DO NOT OWN ME OR ANYTHING OWNED BY THE COMPANY WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED!
"Our Legacy"
Part Two: A Traitor In Our Midst.
Chapter 8: "ZOMBIES!"
Date: January 31, 2681
Time: 0940 hrs.
Location: USAS SR7-1 Normandy en route to Eden Prime
John stood, leaning against the starboard wall of the Hold with one foot propped back against the wall ignoring the transport pilot and almost a dozen marines and techies flitting about from place to place prepping their equipment and the Heron for the landing on Eden Prime. They needed to be at their best. The Entire planet was surrounded by a large fleet of ships that belonged to what has been revealed, by their Spectre guest, as the Geth which were, as the information in the Citadel Codex described them; A race of sentient machines built right around 600 years ago by the Quarians, who had intended to build a mechanical labor force. What had originally started as a good idea got a little mucked up when the mechs grew their own consciousness and decided that they didn't like working for the Quarians and booted them all out of their home systems and colonies, of which there were few. Makes sense now that the Citadel species were so freaked out by the prospect of a race who share their lives with Ai's.
John had never really been that curious as to why, he didn't really do a whole lot of work with the Citadel species but it did help him understand them a bit better than he had. Which would be really important in the years to come what with him possibly becoming a Spectre and all. But now that he had learned about it, it really made him wonder why the Geth would start a war in the first place. The argument that the anti AI associations made about them starting it because they were robots held absolutely no merit whatsoever. A robot won't just decide one day that it just wants to up and kill it's maker, AI brains didn't work like that, it took an organic mind to do that. And even then, most creatures, organic or not, usually won't shoot you without a good reason, key-word there being "Usually", but still…. Yah, the story just didn't fit.
The Alliance has had AI's for a little over five hundred years and despite a few small spats here and there, they've always worked together for the common good of both. He wanted to know the hidden part of the story, but it could be very likely that the reason had been lost to history. But whatever he may want to know or do could be put off for a few hours till he had this mess on Eden Prime straightened out.
He had been in the Hold for the last ten minutes waiting for their Captain to give them the Okay to head for the surface. But he hadn't heard anything since he left the Captain and Nihlus in the Briefing room. The only thing that could be holding him up was if he managed to get in touch with Arcturus. If that was the case, then he'd probably be a few more minutes. If not, he'll be showing up any time now.
John looked over to the elevator door and waited for a moment. Alright, he thought, he's probably on the comm then.
He heard the soft whine of the engines as the Heron came online then Kaiden's voice come on in over his comm line in group chat. "Listen up People," there was a momentary pause as he waited for and received the blinking green lights in affirmative before he went on. "Orders are in from the Captain. He won't be down in time to see us off so here's the rundown. We are taking the Heron down to a private space dock on the outskirts of Eden City where we are to retrieve a high priority package. Per the original plan it was supposed to be ready for shipment. As of right now we are assuming the package is still in the facility so our original orders are in effect until we know otherwise. Once we reach the ground we will be splitting into two teams. Red team, led by Spartan 9001, and Blue Team, led by Nihlus, our visiting Specter, once touch down we'll split up, find the package, then get it back to the Normandy asap. Finish up whatever you have left to do here and get on board. We leave as soon as the rest of the team arrives. " again there were blinking lights all around as they marked the affirmative and started finishing up their last minute preparation and started piling into the small dropship.
John had half a thought to go ahead and load himself in, but only for a moment. He was one of the three largest people on the ground team so it would probably be best if he waited to get in after the rest of the team arrived and loaded up.
He was currently going over a map of the dig area that had been acquired by a quick scan of the quadrants that had been provided to the Captain for pickup. He was assessing possible approach vectors and escape routes. Both of which there were few. The Geth were everywhere. From the Normandy's scans it looked as if there were thousands of them on the planet and they had over one hundred vessels in the air that were currently bombing cities and important areas, completely ignoring the burnt out husks of what was left of the planets defending fleet. This battle was not faring well for the peaceful utopian world.
A few moments later John saw the elevator doors open on the far side of the Hold revealing Nihlus and the last two marines. As they stepped off the elevator John shot a friendly nod to the Spectre, which the Turian returned as he moved toward the Heron. John joined him as the last of the marines piled onto the vessel.
"Looking forward to our first mission?" Nihlus asked. His tone sounded friendly enough but it was hard to tell with the strange flanging in his voice that was unique to his species.
John decided to take it as friendly. So he shrugged and replied, "Actually, I really haven't made up my mind about the yet…" he turned his head to the Turian then added, "In all truth it will really depend on what sort of advancements the Geth have made in the last six hundred years… You?"
"Same." Nihlus replied as they climbed into the back of the dropship and took their seats opposite each other as the door sealed behind them.
"If they have managed to advance as far as your species have, then we may find ourselves with a very dangerous problem."
"They're not that advanced." John, said grabbing Nihlus' attention
"How do you know that?"
"The scans." Shepard explained. "The remains in orbit have showed that there are over 60 ships that were not alliance vessels. If I had to guess I'd say that the Geth showed up with well over a hundred and fifty ships. As it is, they lost over sixty of them in the orbital assault. And they outnumbered our ships nearly five to one. If anything, they are only slightly ahead of your species' own technology levels."
The look that the Spectre sent his way was a curious one and from it John figured that the Spectre hadn't been informed of the information.
"Sorry," he began, "I went straight to the officers in control before coming down here." He explained. "They let me look at the results of the first scans. There are perks to being a Spartan"
"I thought you said they set up a… Comm Net, over the planet, does that not block scanning?"
The Spartan shook his head in answer, "No, a comm net just blocks communication, there are ways to stop a scan but they are not quite as common as a communications block."
The stare this time was filled with incredulity. "your species is incredible, I truly cannot imagine what will come of our civilizations becoming allies."
"Our governments haven't agreed to that yet"
A look came upon the turian's face again, and John was certain that it was a smile. "Ahh, but with us working together they soon will."
John smiled inside his helmet as he shook his head in light amusement as they lapsed into a companionable silence. That was made a little too intimate by the closeness of the people in the Herons passenger bay. The Heron was small. Being barely 9 meters long, 3 meters high, and five wide, it was barely half the size of a full sized Pelican, but the Heron series dropships were built for one thing that the Pelican wasn't, Stealth. It was built specifically to carry a small team of soldiers into enemy territory and get them back out in one piece. It's small compact size was one of the prime contributors to its stealth, as well as the only reason that the Normandy had a dropship. Any other model would have been too large for the Medium Cruiser.
John looked around the small hold within the Heron considering that under normal circumstances it should be able to carry a team of twelve Human Marines comfortably but with the people in their own group of eleven they filled the small ship to a near uncomfortable level. Of the Marines aboard the Normandy there were three Kig-Yar, a Sangheilli, three Humans, and an Unggoy. The three Kig-Yar, Turc, Mokna, Dreal, and the Unggoy, Kevvek, were, as expected, smaller than the average Human. Linda and Jenkins, the smaller Human Marines, were both of average height. It was the Sangheilli, the massive Human, and himself that took up the most room in the craft. The Sangheilli, Daniel, stood just over 6" 10' tall, and while that was a bit under the average for sangheilli, that was very large for a Human. And Garin, the massive Human stood just over 6´7'. With them in the mix the twelve man seating space seemed far too small for their eleven man team.
John found it humorous.
The silence stretched for a few short minutes that were filled with the hum of the Heron's dual fusion engines and the rumbling of atmospheric interference as the small ship passed deeper the planet's atmosphere.
Since he knew that there was nothing more that he could do to further prepare himself for the encounters to come on the ground, John laid his head back and closed his eyes paying attention only to the humming of the fusion engines. He focused on calming the thundering memories in his mind's eye. It was usually right around this time that he started remembering past moments, a whole lot of them had started out just like this. A couple squads leaving on a top secret mission. And they all usually ended the same way, too. Messily... But he didn't want to think about those things right now.
John breathed deep and banished the thoughts to the furthest part of his mind and focused on the humming. And it was as it always had been to him… soothing. He would build, or in the usual case for him burn, those other bridges when he got to them. Right now there was no reason to sour a pleasant ride in this overstuffed sardine can with memories of long dead friends and lovers.
He didn't know how long it had been but his calm was eventually interrupted by a beep from his comm unit. John checked the tag and found it to be from the Normandy Bridge, flagged high priority
That was fast… He got changes to orders all the time, just usually those were given after he hit the ground. He keyed an encryption before accepting the call.
Taking on his Official tone he answered, "Spartan 9001 Copy Normandy.
"Hold tight, 1," a friendly female voice spoke over the comm, one of the communication officers. "I've got an urgent communique from the Captain. Patching you through now."
It took only a moment before he heard Anderson's serious voice over the link.
"Spartan, we have a serious problem.". Sounded like he had gotten more bad news.
"I figured that from the flag sir, what's wrong."
"A lot of things Spartan, a whole hell of a lot." Anderson replied seriously, "Long story short, this planet along with any other planets that are regularly visited by Citadel Tourists are AI free zones. But when we found the Prothean ruins on the Eden prime we moved in an AI in to handle the brain work of the dig. Turns out that the installation where the A.I. is located came under direct assault shortly after the planet came under attack." He just let that stew for a few moments before continuing. "I cannot express the importance of making sure that the Council does not stumble upon the knowledge that we went against out arrangement. If they were to find out about this it could set us back years in peaceful negotiation."
Oooh, that is bad. "So, in a nutshell; find the AI, and get it back to the ship without anyone noticing."
"Correct, I sent the last known coordinates of the AI to your PC."
"Understood."
With that Anderson cut the call. With the call over John checked the location of the A.I. with his GPS.
They were just three Kilometers from the AI's position.
Better hop off while we're still close. He thought then he keyed his comm and asked aloud, to the Pilot, "Donii, how far are we from the ground?"
The Sangheilli woman's reply wasn't as quick as he would have liked and when she spoke it was with a very notable level of curiosity. "about thirty meters… Why?"
Perfect. "stop the Heron and hold it steady."
The whole team had a few questions when the Heron that had been traveling at almost 250 miles an hour shuddered to a near sudden stop.
As the ship came to halt and hovered John turned to Nihlus. "Sorry for the hasty retreat, but I've got a situation that needs to be taken care of."
Nihlus nodded in understanding, "If anyone understands hasty retreats it's me. See you on the ground Spartan."
John tuned in his comm to group chat and looked at the rest of the team, "I have something that needs to be taken care of not far from here, until I meet up with you back at the drop sight Lieutenant Alenko will be taking charge of red team."
A round of green lights blinked in acknowledgement. "Donii, open the door."
"Spartan, I can't land here! There is a squad of mechs directly below us. If I get any closer they could detect us."
"I don't need you to land, just open the door."
There was once again a momentary pause then there was a click and hissing of mechanical gears working to open the door of the Heron. When it had opened all the way John gave a thumbs up to the team behind him and jumped into open air as he engaged his cloaking field, before he had fallen out of view he had already vanished into thin air.
Geth runtimes1,999,673,941-1,999,673,962 checked their assigned quadrant of the clearing with a precision that was perfection. That was the Geth, they were perfection. And their God had given them a mission. Keep everything away from the beacon until their Prophet could finish his collection of it's memories. And so far they had succeeded.
But that could change at any moment.
Just a few moments before, they had detected an anomaly in this exact area. They had been swarming over the planet for the last several hours and had yet to run into anything that "felt" like this thing. So it was only logical to assume that it was a threat. After consensus the rest of the Platoon agreed. So the dozen platforms in ,941-,962's squad had taken it upon themselves to find it.
Currently they were checking the clearing the anomaly had appeared in. But there was nothing here besides a few small trees and a dust cloud. How it got there none of the programs could answer because there have been no winds that could have picked up this much dust and threw it into the air. It was a strange occurrence that the squad could not reach consensus on, so they let the mystery be.
Because of the attendance of the Runtimes in the Destroyer platform that had taken place in the clearings center the search had taken no more than five seconds. at the end of sixth, Runtimes ,941-,962 had turned with the rest of the unit to return to their patrol, but as they turned and took sight of the Destroyer platform an unusual event took place that none of the now weighted intelligences of the Runtimes knew how to explain.
The Destroyer that had been standing in the center of the clearing had begun to turn, but as it did so it was reduced to a crushed mass of sparking wires and scrap metal. It looked as if a massive weight had been dropped on it from above. But there was nothing there.
The platoon shared their individual perceptions and knowledge of the event with each other in attempt to build a consensus on what action was best to take with the loss of their Destroyer. They had gotten halfway through a consensus before another two blinked out of existence with the unexplainable rupturing of their processing cores. The remaining runtimes concluded that the ruptures seemed as if there was an enemy within the area that had opened fire on them with a powerful anti armor weapon, but again, there was nothing in the clearing besides the nine platforms. After another split second of consensus one of the remaining runtimes realized what was happening.
Cloaked threat! It revealed to the others right before it and the one standing beside it joined the dead ones as their cores exploded in an explosion of sparks.
Despite the loss of units providing additional power to their Under-Mind-Network, the remaining seven Platforms reacted to the news quickly. In a fraction of a second they had run through every sensory option in their short list in tangent. And In a too long .25 seconds in which they lost another two of their platoon, they finally could see the threat. But see, in this sense was only a relative term. Because the thing… whatever it was, had somehow shifted itself out of the known visible spectrums and was revealed to the platforms sensors as little more than a pitch black shadowy mass as their sensors attempted to bounce high resolution rays of light, sound, and microwaves off of the target and build an appropriate visual of it's body with five different forms of detection equipment.
The thing stood upright and was large, as large as a Prime. But they could discern no shape from the shadow. In the time it took for the runtimes to process the information that they were under attack by the massive invisible thing. Two more of their number had joined the dead. In the time it took the remaining ones to raise their arms and fire, two more had been destroyed.
The rounds fired from the last remaining three platforms seemed to have no effect on the creature as a barrier shimmered around the creature as it returned to the normal visible spectrum and activated a shield in turn for it's cloaking field. It was a Human, a very large armor plated Human. The barrier absorbed the impact and energy of the rounds without any trouble.
Runtime 1,999,673,941 and his ilk realized quickly that standard ammunition would not do enough damage against the creature to hinder it so they quickly switched to an over charged plasma blast from their blaster arm. The moment it raised it's arm to fire on the creature it felt a massive force against it's core as the metal armor casing burst against the force of an amazingly powerful round that tore through it's chest cavity. When it hit the ground it realized it wasn't dead and needed to relay the new enemy information back to it's Prime. But the round that destroyed most of the Platform's chest had also destroyed it's transmitting equipment. There would be no information going to the Primes from this patrol team.
A few seconds later, the Human came into view of the platform and pressed a large booted foot on the platforms chest and crushed it. Without another thought, Runtime 1,999,673,941 and the rest of the minds in the platform ceased to be.
Shepard's eyes roved the clearing taking in any possible threat, but after a moment of scanning he deduced that all the Mechs in the area had been neutralized.
That was surprisingly easy. He thought as he holstered his smoking pistols, considering the quickness in which he had dispatched the dozen Geth units. He attributed the easy win with the element of surprise and a very hefty sum of providence. How else could he explain the chances of the biggest mech standing right below where he landed? But he also knew that it would not be that easy again.
Mechs learn quickly. Especially when they were as intelligent as these mechs seem to be. They located him only a little over a second after he had landed. That was very impressive. But he still had to take into account that they were in fact machines, so it wasn't that impressive. But it was very impressive. Practically smart A.I level.
If they are this efficient it really does make one wonder what the flashlights are for. He looked around the clearing once more, this time scanning over the dead mechs and taking in the fact that when he had fallen, the lights were on, after he shot them, the lights went out… well, all except the one that survived his initial onslaught… Aha, they do serve me a purpose. When they 'died', their light went out. That would prove to be quite a useful bit of knowledge… as well as a rather corny analogy.
He looked up to where he knew the Heron had been moments before and could make out nothing but a barely visible ion trail of its thrusters, it was already gone. It was a handy little vessel. It had very little in the way of offense. Just two chain guns. But it's stealth ability made it completely invaluable in for getting in and out of a dangerous area without being detected. To bad it wasn't as advanced as the Normandy's stealth systems though.
According to what he had read and what the Chief Engineer had told him the Normandy would be completely undetectable to over ninety percent of the entire Alliance navy as well as being outfitted with offensive and defensive systems that seemed more at home on a standard destroyer. The only ships with the technology to detect it would be a Prowler or a Dreadnaught and it could very likely take on a ship that was well over three times its size. It was the ultimate Cruiser.
He had to remember to look into the tech when he returned to the ship. For a Spartan who constantly found himself in situations where he had to build his own way out of a dangerous situation there was definitely a lot to learn from this.
With the adoration of the ships out of the way he turned to the mechs on the ground to get a better look at what he would be facing during his stay on Eden Prime. Besides the actual shape of the machine, it's basic design looked very similar to that of the Alliance's combat mechs. It was humanoid in structure with two arms and two legs and it even had a weapon for it's left arm. As a matter of fact. The only things he could actually say that these, Geth, and the Combat mechs didn't share were their heads which looked like an eel coming up from between their shoulders and the fact that on it's right hand and both feet it had only three digits.
After taking a few moments to make sure they were all dead, he checked his heading on the HUD. After ensuring he was pointing in the right direction he started off toward the 212's last known position, about 12 Kilometers from the dig sight.
He grimaced as he thought of what this simple pick-up jaunt had turned into. There was a full blown war going on right now with a race that has, up till now, been hiding for the past six centuries. That was a major problem added to an already horrific situation. The last thing anyone needed right now was another enemy. But that is what they had. All they could do now was try to make the best of a very messy situation.
The coordinates that Joker and Dona had managed to acquire from the short transmission from the planet's surface was the last known location of Marine platoon 212 one of two platoons stationed on the planet to protect the Archeological find of the decade, The Prothean Beacon that had been buried for only God knows how long.
The easiest way to find them would be to track the Soldiers of the 212. According to the transmission, the commanding officer had begun a retreat to the Barracks. With any luck, a few of them had made it and they would be holding it and waiting for reinforcements. Or, in the event of being overrun, they would be destroying anything that could provide the enemy forces with important military intelligence.
And without any luck… well… at least he'd be able to pry the information from the Sergeant's implants if necessary.
He shivered internally, thinking about the possibility of needing to dig around inside someone's head for a chip the size of a dime.
Better not to think about that unless it becomes necessary.
Since he knew that he would only be here for a couple hours at best he knew he didn't have to worry about conserving too much energy for a long engagement. So he zipped off at a breakneck run that left the scenery flying past him in a flurry of spring colors. It was practically spring here all year round. After a little over a couple minutes of jumping boulders and leaping through underbrush with an agility and silence that would have made a panther from the forests of earth jealous he spotted the first marks of battle.
He cleared the forest line and entered a clearing that a dirt road passed through that was easily as wide as a football stadium with only a few large boulders and a few sparse clumps of trees. But what drew Sheperd's attention were the scorch marks that covered everything. He walked up to one of the marks and examined it closely, it wasn't a scorch mark, it was a small hole burnt into the side of a boulder.
No, not burnt… Melted? He scanned it with a quick wave of his left hand and let his PC digest it while he looked over the battle scene. It was a burnt mess, but besides the dozen bullet ridden husks of the mechs and even the places on the ground were a body had fallen in death, but there were no bodies. there was nothing here. Throughout the entire clearing he could see the boot prints of Alliance soldiers all over the area, all heading in the same direction. That would make their movements easy to follow. A blind man could follow these tracks. But there were no dead organics… where are the bodies at?
Before he went off in search of the lost marines he decided to take a head count of what he would be running into when he caught up. It was not good. There was easily a full companies worth of these things still alive and hunting the Marines that had survived the first attack, from the marks on the ground, he guessed that the Marines now numbered around a dozen alive from a platoon of around forty Marines. Twelve versus a hundred and eight…
Not good… he thought to himself. Then looked over to the fallen mechs scattered around the clearing. His eyes fell upon a mech that was differently designed from the others. This one had hands on both arms, no blaster arm, and it was big. Bigger than he was and it was red with a large antennae coming off it's back. The weapon it was carrying looked a lot like a large, if short, heavy assault rifle. If he had to choose a word to describe it he'd say it was beautiful much like the machine's own design, all soft curves and slim casings all colored a bluish purple very similar to the Covenant's favorite color. After another quick scan he deduced that it was, in fact an energy weapon that fired a much more stable formula than the Covenant's plasma weapons use. And it would not blow up if he touched it. Experimentally he plucked up the Rifle and hefted it in his hands.
It was heavy, heavier than his own rifle and it looked fairly durable. After a few moments of examining the weapon he placed it on his back and started off at a run, following the Alliance Soldiers tracks.
Never hurts to have an extra weapon.
Come on Ash, the young Brunette thought to herself, trying to catch her breath and keep from hyperventilating as she ran through the Geth infested forest surrounding her. Don't stop breathing, don't stop breathing… Oh, God! Don't let me stop breathing.
This was one of many prayers she had made over the last several hours. Since the attack began she had been running and shooting constantly. And every minute of it had brought with it a dead friend. It was becoming hard for her to distance herself like the training she received in the academy demanded. In those short two and a half hours she had seen things that she would never forget, lest forgive. Her Colonel was lost in the first wave from a plasma cannon that looked like it had come straight from the Covenant/ Human War and the Geth were even more relentless. His death had left her in charge of the platoon, at least, what was left of it.
And what a great job you've done, Sergeant Williams, she berated herself as a few more tears slid out her eyes. And for what, for some stupid A.I. that wasn't even supposed to be here.
Stupid Brass, always playing around with rules and people's lives as if they didn't matte-. Her thoughts were interrupted as she heard a few of their drones close in on her and open fire with their rapid-fire weapons. She dodged to her left and made a break for a clearing she could see through the trees. She made her way to the clearing quickly, making erratic zigzag motions to evade the rounds that tore into the ground at her feet and flew by her to strike trees or thin air. But all their shots were off. She watched her motions tracker for them to be sure that they were close enough for her not to miss.
Please, God, let this work. Once they were within a dozen meters she spun and opened fire with her rifle on full auto. The momentum that she had been running at carried her to the ground on her back but the three drones following her burst into pieces under the heavy attack of her assault rifle. After dispatching them she just lay there nearly coughing as she tried to get her breath back.
She was in excellent physical condition. She knew this, but the constant action and emotional extremes over the past two and a half hours had gotten to her two miles ago when she had started the run for the Dig sight. She knew that the other platoon had been stationed there and would probably still be there holding it for evacuation. So if she wanted to get out of this alive, she would need to head there.
Only problem with that was the seemingly endless horde of Machines that bard the way. These Geth were relentless and when they started moving they didn't stop until they achieved their objective. And it looked as though their objective right now was to catch Ashley and commandeer the A.I. core that was currently plugged into a mobile hard drive that was clamped to her belt.
How had they even known about it, most of the soldiers didn't even know that there was an A.I here. So how had the Frikkin Mechs learned of it?
She took a few moments to gather herself before standing back up and starting off again at a stead run. She had to get back to the dig and get this A.I. to safety. There was absolutely no way that she was going to let these horrible robots succeed in what all of her friends had died to stop.
Three more times she was overtaken by drones and each time she managed to take them out the same way the first three had been dispatched.
She ran continuously through the brush and undergrowth, doing her best to stay ahead of the Geth horde behind her and she managed to do just that.
She followed her compass readings for another kilometer till she ran into another clearing on. But once she cleared the trees she stopped dead. Off to one side was a crashed hover car that looked like it had been brought down by weapons fire. Beyond the crash there were a half dozen geth carrying a human man from the crash to a placement of three strange tripods. She had no idea what they were, but if the Geth were carrying people to them then they couldn't be good.
She watched, trying to figure out what they were doing. Two of the machines held a young man with brown hair, maybe 25 years old, over one of the tripods, she noticed then that the man was still breathing. He groaned and lifted his head to look at the mechs and his green eyes widened in horror but didn't manage to say a word. The moment he was fully suspended over the pod the leftmost mech hit a control on the side of the device and with a mechanical groan a spike grew from it's beveled top and impaled the man and lifted his dying corpse eight feet into the air.
Oh My GOD! Ashley thought with a gasp and nearly hurled as she hit the ground from shock. She stifled the noise and looked up to see if she was noticed.
Shit… she was.
The Geth with Mechanical precision moved toward her position and opened fire. She fired at them blindly and ran for her life. She was in no condition to take on a half dozen of these things, especially in an open environment. Her only hope was to get into the trees and outrun them.
But she was out of breath and exhausted from the long run from the Barracks, how could she manage to outrun a team of mechanical soldiers that ran faster than a man. Yah, she was gonna die if she didn't think of something soon.
She ran through the trees ducking a dodging, giving the synthetics as difficult a target to hit as possible while trying to figure out how to get out of this mess. Her mind came up blank as several rounds torn into her shields.
Oh, God, please help me. She prayed as she dived out of the way as a slew of round tore past were her head had been a moment before. She came up and sent her view ahead of her looking for a way to escape. And she found it. To her left there was a sort of valley that was lined with thick trees and bushed and down a ways she could see a very large tree had fallen down and blocked the path she remembered it from several weeks ago when her squad had found it on patrol. She remembered that between it and the ground there was a hole that looked like she could fit through it. But if she went down that way and her memory was wrong, the Geth would catch her and killer her, or taker her back to the spikes. But she couldn't keep ahead of them for much longer. She was reaching the edge of her stamina and she knew it.
She made a rapid decision and quickly shot to her left and raced for the downed tree. The mechs followed closely behind and steadily got closer, firing all the while. As she drew closer to the fallen tree she saw it. When the tree had fallen it must have landed on one of it's limbs because where it should have been laying on the ground there was a gap between the tree and the ground. Just barely a full foot of space. Just enough for her to fit through if she dived into it. Her shield took several more hits.
With her hope renewed and desperation clawing at her heart she pumped her arms and legs to gain more speed. She made it less than ten feet away before her shield failed her and she felt a fierce burning on the back of her left calf, she screamed as the burning became a searing pain that caused her leg to collapse when she next tried to step. But mid-fall she turned her fall into a dive and slid into the gap just as several rounds hit the bark above her head. The next moment she was through and she was airborne.
What?... oh, yah, there was a cliff back here wasn't there?
That was about all that she managed to think before gravity pulled her into a shallow dive that she knew ended with her hitting the ground nearly forty feet below her with the force of a hovercar hitting a cat at thirty miles per hour. In other words, it was going to hurt, if not, kill her.
She screamed. She tried to grab onto a few branches that she passed on her way down but couldn't reach them. It was only moments before she hit the ground that she noticed that someone was racing for her falling form. It was a large man in thick heavy assault armor who was missing a helmet. And he was moving fast. Very fast.
Before she hit the ground the man had closed the distance, leapt into the air and caught her then landed rather gracefully for such a large man, efficiently ending her potentially lethal fall. Once on the ground his momentum carried him to a copse of large boulders. There he set Williams down and turned to engage something that Ashley couldn't see. Weapons fire erupted beyond her vision as the man started shooting. She took the moment to examine her leg and cried our softly when she saw the wound. Whatever they had hit her with had melted straight through the armor on her leg and had burned into her calf it was deep and it hurt terribly. So it wasn't a third degree burn. That was good at least. With a glance she checked her Medigel supply and groaned. She was out. She heard the gunfire stop and she gasped and shrunk inwardly as she heard something move toward her. She grasped her pistol, her rifle had fallen out of her grip while she fell and was on the ground somewhere out there. As she heard the footsteps come closer she prayed that it was the human and not more Geth.
"We're clear." A deep male voice, not at all unpleasant, called from out of view, "I'm coming around so don't shoot."
Ashley took a moment to realize that it was a human that just called out and she sighed thankfully as she lowered her weapon as the large man came around. She looked up at her rescuer as he came around the boulders into her view.
He was big. Easily standing over seven feet tall, and if the form of his armor was anything to judge by, he was powerfully built and he wore more weapons than her entire squad had together when this infernal war had begun. His face looked as if it was chiseled from granite with strong handsome features that seemed hardened by two scars, one small one right above his right brow and the other a large white scar that stretched from just over the left edge of his mouth to just under his ear. He was clean shaven and had close cropped jet black hair and piecing blue eyes that seemed to stare right through Ashley, as though he could look right into her mind and divine what she were thinking anytime he wished. Almost entrancing… she shook her head to clear out any of those thoughts and looked up when the man next addressed her with a smile.
"Sergeant Williams." He said with a light smile, "Spartan 9-0-0-1… Good to see you're still with the living."
Oh… My… God. Ashley's eyes widened when he introduced himself. I was just saved by a Spartan. She was ecstatic, but her joy was short lived as the bitter reality of her situation descended on her and her eyes dimmed as she remembered all the people that had died in the last two hours. "Yah," she said not vey convincingly. "It's good to be here," then she grimaced as the pain came back.
"You're injured." It was a statement and Ashley could say nothing as the Spartan crouched down next to her and looked over the wound.
"Heck of a burn you got there." he said lightly, "medigel?"
She rolled her eyes, "If I had any left I'd have used it." Her voice was more acidic than she intended, but he didn't seem offended,
"Of course you would have. My apologies."
Oh, God. This guy just saved my life and he's offering medical treatment and he's apologizing because I attacked him for it. She cringed inside and was about to offer an apology but he put up a hand.
"Don't sweat it, you're in a very stressful situation right now and I reckon you've lost a great deal of friends today. There is no need for apology."
She almost cried, she had lost a great many friends today. Too many…
"Thanks," was all she could bring herself to say as the Spartan applied a tube of Medi-Gel he had removed from a hidden compartment on his leg to her burn.
"Don't mention it." Was his only reply. In moments he was finished with applying the cool clear reconstructive mush and he sat down next to her and hefted a heavy Human rifle looked like a variant of the Revenant, possibly a HAR-80-M3… a very powerful weapon. "let's give that a few minutes to seal up then we'll get moving."
She gave him a cursory once over and spotted the Spartan insignia on his shoulder. So at least she knew he was a Spartan. But it looked scorched. As a matter of fact, his entire suit looked as if he had just walked through a bomb strike. She wanted to ask why, but it seemed pretty apparent. He'd been in a fighting, and a big one, by the looks of his armor, but where was his helmet at? She would have asked but she had another question that seemed more important to her at the moment, and though she knew that where they were going to should have been self-explanatory, but like he had said, she was really stressed out right now, so any stupid questions would probably be allowed at least this once.
"Where are you going?"
He sent a look over to her that seemed a little probing but he answered, "to the dig sight, the rest of my team is there securing it."
Oh. She thought, his team must be the one coming for the artifact. "You're here for the beacon?"
He looked at her again. Again probing, but didn't say anything. "The Prothean Beacon that we found while extending the Monorail." She clarified.
"So, you know about the Beacon?"
She felt a little perturbed by the questioning, but she guessed that he had to be sure that she was for real. "All the soldiers from the 212 did. We were assigned to patrol the area surrounding it to make sure no one accidentally discovered the Alliance's little secret."
The answer seemed to satisfy him, "mhm. Having a little trouble finding it right now, but yah, that's why I'm here."
"Right, your helmets missing." God, that was so obvious.
Didn't seem like he minded "Yah, I got hit while my shield was down by some chemical weapon back at the Barracks. I was fortunate to get it off before it ate through." He grunted in derision. "Too close if you ask me."
"No kidding… well I'm glad you got it off. If you hadn't I don't think I'd be breathing right now." Ashley sighed waiting for the pain to subside was agonizing.
"Don't sell yourself short Sergeant; I saw the handy work of your escape into the forest. You'd have found a way out of this situation. Of that I am sure."
Then how wasn't I able to save any of them? She thought darkly as her memories swam with the losses over the last few hours, why couldn't I save them? She cinched her eyes shut to keep herself from crying
"Don't do that."
Her eyes snapped open as the Spartan interrupted her from her reverie. "Do what?" she asked as calmly as she could, but she noticed her voice cracked slightly.
"Blame yourself," he said explained, "it wasn't your fault."
"But,"
"No" he refuted, "It wasn't." his tone left no room for argument. "Since I've been on the ground I've almost died four times. And each of those times I've managed to barely survive and that was only since a half hour ago."
She gasped slightly at his tone. She hadn't thought about that. His armor had been burnt up pretty bad, but he was a Spartan… They didn't die, they were practically invincible.
"You managed to survive throughout all this with only basic military tech. That shows you are an incredible soldier, easily one of the finest I've ever met. You did your best." He spoke with sincerity. "No one could have asked for more."
She looked up into his eyes to see, she had to know if he was being sincere. She felt like a little girl who had just done something terrible and didn't know what to do next. She had to know that she couldn't have done any better. And his eyes, those deep piercing ice blue eyes told her, that he was right.
"If you need to be mad at someone for your friends deaths then blame the Geth, it was the Geth that killed them, not any inaction on your part."
Ashley's arguments died on her tongue, she didn't have the heart to argue the point. One of her childhood hero's had just refuted every argument that she had and he said it wasn't her fault, and while she may never grow to fully believe him. Right now she could believe that he knew what he was saying. She inhaled deeply and sighed loud, "Alright. I get it." She checked her leg and found she could stand on it. So she stood and walked over to her fallen assault rifle and snatched it from the ground.
She looked to the Spartan who threw her a fresh clip. With a single fluid movement she ejected the old block, slid the new one into it's place, and activated the weapon. She looked at the Spartan and hefted her rifle.
"Time for some payback." She stood there for a moment waiting for an order.
"Well… What are you waiting for?"
She was confused by the question till he pointed to his helmetless head. "No HUD, you've got point."
She smiled awkwardly and not just a little shyly. "sorry," she checked her compass and pointed in the direction they needed to go.
"Four klicks due Southeast of here."
The Spartan motioned her ahead, "Lead the way Sargeant."
"Aye, Spartan."
And together they were off.
The way was flooded with Geth patrols, dozens of them, and each one had between six to a dozen units each. Despite the danger and near exhausting constant action, Ashley found herself in awe of what the Spartan was doing to the machines. She may have been well trained and managed to drop a few of them, but the Spartan was everything that she had read about in those Sci/Fi novels she had loved reading and hearing about since she was a young child. With movements that seemed equal parts exotic dancer and barbarian warlord, he ruthlessly dispatched anything that got into his way.
It was beautiful in a deadly and terrifying sort of way. Almost like the dance of some deadly venomous snake. And she more than once sent a silent prayer of thanks upward that the massive man had come along when he did. Despite his warm words, she knew she would never have made it to the dig sight without his help.
As they made their way steadily toward the dig sight, the minutes seemed to stretch into hours. Ashley knew it was just the fighting that stretched the time but it felt like an eternity before they made it to the first dig area that was at the bottom of a large trench that had been dug recently to locate the Prothean artifacts. The entire area had been roped off then was divided into 3X3 foot sections in a grid pattern. She had been here just yesterday and it had been full of happy people. Scientists and archeologists the lot of them. But now there was no one to be seen. Though she knew it was probably to late Ashley sent a silent prayer for their safety.
The sight looked clear though. There were no Geth around and there was no Beacon.
"This is where they found it." She said as they neared a large metal plate in the ground.
"It was just sitting there, as if it had been just waiting for someone to trip over it."
"Where is it now?"
"Until about a week ago they had it up to the primary pavilion for 'research'. But they moved it to a warehouse near the docks twenty miles north of here."
"Hm, I assume then that there was a reason that you took us three miles out of the way?"
She pointed toward the west, "The Monorail runs right past it. The nearest dock is right on the other side of that hill."
The Spartan looked pleased. "Good thinking, Sergeant. That will certainly speed us along our way."
Ashley beamed inside at the compliment. If she wasn't so tired she would have whooped for joy. But as it was she just settled for an ear splitting grin.
Her grin fell when they crested the top of the hill.
"looks like they hit the camp… hard."
The entire camp was a smoking ruin. Of all ten building that had once stood in a circle, only two remained upright. And one of those was on fire. It was a mess, there were Geth bodies lying around, but there weren't any humans. Seems that the geth had dragged them away again. but where are they taking them?
Ashley's question was answered a moment later when the Spartan tapped her shoulder, she looked at him and he pointed. She followed his finger and gasped at the grisly sight that met her eyes. Off to one side of the camp, hidden behind on of the burning husks of a shelter were those spikes that Ashley had seen the Geth impale the young man on. most of them had a human, suspended high in the air, impaled on their spikes.
"Fifteen of them in all if I'm counting right." He said aloud. "How many were here?"
"Twenty-two…" she said pitifully "there were twenty-two archeologists and scientists here working at the dig. All of them were good people."
He stayed quite for a moment then said, "Split up and search for survivors. Hopefully we'll find the other seven. If you see them, call out."
Ashley nodded and mover toward the buildings. She noticed the Spartan turn and walk toward the spikes. She figured he was trying to figure out what they were for. She was thankful that he had sent her to look for the missing people though. The longer she didn't have to look at the bodies the better.
She went about the work of searching the mess for survivors but didn't have a lot of hope in finding them, until she raised her eyes and saw the yet still sealed shelter on the far side of the camp. It was behind several others and was used as a storage room for whatever the Archeologists had found until they had them transferred to the warehouse for study. It was still solid and the lock on the door was activated. There were burn marks on the building but it looked like it was still sealed.
Yes! Thank you God! Someone did survive this. She rushed for the door but tripped when something twisted around her ankle. The sudden fall disoriented her but it took her only a second to get her wits back, that was when she noticed that whatever her tripped her up had moved up her leg and was now clenched around her calf.
She twisted around onto her back and looked down.
Later she would look back on this day and curse her weakened state of mind that had caused her to. But she screamed; loud and high as a high school cheerleader that had just found a snake in her dresser as she lifted her rifle and held down the trigger. For ten long seconds she screamed and fired blindly because she had closed her eyes. Refusing to believe what they had just shown her. After she ran out of breath she opened her eyes to see what remained of the creature that had grabbed ahold of her leg. It was an arm. A severed human arm. And not just any human arm either. This one was black and skinny, like it was only skin and bone. And it was covered in glowing blue veins that pulsed eerily against the darkness of the collapsed shelter the thing had crawled from underneath of. Stretching into the shadows was a trail of glowing blue goo that ended in blackness of shadow. In the shadow she heard a groan. And out crawled the owner of the arm. It was covered in coal black skin glued to bone covered from head to toe in those glowing blue veins. Half it's head was missing and it had been riddled with so many holes that you couldn't even use it as a strainer. But it crawled toward her with a malice in it's empty black eyes that didn't belong among the living. And it was followed by two others.
She had only one word to describe such creatures, but those weren't real. But despite that solid fact that she was still adamant on believing she heard herself screaming it as she pulled on and held the trigger. "ZOMBIES!"
Galactic Codex: Ships and vehicles/Military Ship Classifications/Citadel Council Navies
The Citadel Council navies generally class their vessels into 6 different classes.
Fighters/Interceptors: A small close assault single man or un-manned fighter craft. No larger than a few meters in length.
FRIGATES: Light-weight assault craft; Small, fast ships used for scouting and screening larger vessels. Frigates often operate in wolf-pack flotillas. Length – shorter than 100 meters.
CRUISERS: Middle-weight assault craft; More heavily armed and armored than Frigates. Cruisers are the standard patrol unit for the Citadel Navies and often lead Frigate flotillas. Length – average 150 meters.
HEAVY CRUISERS: Heavy-weight assault craft; The backbone of the Citadel Council Navies. Heavily armed and armored and geared for long-duration heavy engagements. Length – average 260 meters.
DREADNAUGHTS: Kilometer-long Capital ships mounting heavy, long-range firepower. As these massive vessels are expensive and hard to construct they are only deployed on the most important missions and are usually used as planetary defense platforms.
CARRIERS: A recent addition to the Citadel Fleets, the Carriers were brought into production soon after the First contact war of 2657 after the realization of the incredible lethality of the Alliance super-massive CARRIERS and DREADNAUGHTS. These kilometer long vessels carry legions of fighters/interceptors into an engagement and provide light fire support. They are kept out of the primary engagement as they are little more than a large hanger with an engine.
WOW; this chapter now has 9,321 words. that is awesome! And is No longer the longest chapter to date...
:Like I noted in the NRBEC
I did not plan in having a heavy emphasis on Ashley in this chapter, it just sort of happened. and i want to know if i managed to capture the Strong young Woman Marine character that I saw her as.
And before you say "You made her scream, i hate you." take into account that i base a lot of what i write on how i think i would handle a similar situation. i don't know about normal people, because every one has a different view on that, but if I had just had a Zombie snag my Leg I would of went freaking Crazy. I am dead serious here. I would have totally gone Umpa Lumpa on that MoeFoe and lost all sense of reality.
but i digress. if you think i totally crashed and burned, let me know how so I can fix it in later chapters, if not. let me know how i succeeded so i can continue to be awesome and gain much fame :D
and once again, you have my thanks for reading.
and again! (Last time, I swear)
in regards to chapter seven's codex.
There were some flaws that were not well thought out with the Alliance's vessel list. So I mopped it up a bit, cleaning up the sizing and got rid of the super carriers and changed Dreadnaughts into a sort of Destroyer/Carrier mix like what the covenant used as their main vessels because that, in my opinion, makes up the most wicked awesome ship combination in the universe.