Chapter 15
The pods rudimentary dampeners gave out halfway through the descent, which was bad; the guidance system calling it a day at roughly the same time was worse. Bouncing around in her harness from the turbulence, Shia threw less than polite insults at the unresponsive VI for a moment before giving up the futile exercise to focus on not getting crushed against the fast-approaching surface of Benning. She glanced over at the telemetry, doing her best to ignore the rapid countdown on the altitude meter she quickly calculated her location. The drift was considerable, off by several clicks already. Getting to the rendezvous coordinates manually wasn't an option by this point, at least with her limited flight experience; next to none when she thought about it. She let out a sigh of relief as the backup systems finally came online, only to have its VI alert her to the fact that it apparently couldn't help her either.
["Warning. Descent vector outside approved safety parameters. Recalculating."] It sputtered monotonically, repeating itself after each failed attempt.
"Why the hell would falling out of the sky uncontrollably be preferable to a faulty descent vector?" she shouted frantically, attempting to force the VI to just settle on one and do its job.
["Recalculating."]
"Screw it..." she grumbled, punching the big red button in front of her on the panel.
It was virtually the only thing she could clearly remember from the evacuation procedure rundown she'd had during basic, '... this one fires the braking thrusters manually, so a good rule of thumb; don't push the big red button!'. The thrusters fired as expected, and she felt the pod slow down considerably. Still, it was like falling from the roof of a tall building; better than falling from a tall building at an accelerated rate of course, but still not a place one liked to be. She clenched her teeth tightly and enveloped herself in as strong a biotic field as she could muster under the circumstances. The alarms ran in her ears, the altitude counter fast approaching zero. The first impact came as a shock, she tensed up, all muscles flexing to maintain the field; she screamed defiantly at the shocking and the rumbling, bracing for the final crash.
Her body ached in ways she'd never imagined were possible, she could hear her own rapid pulse in her ears; a dull throbbing in her head syncing up with the rhythm. She felt like she was lying under a thick, heavy blanket pressing down on her from all directions. She heard low, muffled sounds of thunder in the distance. At least it sounded like it was far away, though she couldn't be sure. The ringing returned as the blanket lifted from her senses, she tasted blood in her mouth and the smell of smoke and charred metal filled her nostrils. The ringing dispersed, and she began to make out the sounds around her. Muffled voices perforated the darkness as if she was listening through a closed door.
"Is it one of ours?" a barely audible female voice called out from afar.
"Definitely..." a male responded, much closer to her "It's pretty banged up though."
"Well, what are you waiting for? Get it open!"
"You sure about that? Might not be... pretty."
"Stop being such a fucking wuss, Ben. Either someone's alive in there, and we help, or we'll dig a few thermals out of the biosoup for our trouble. Either way it'll at least have an emergency medkit, so get it open."
She cringed slightly at the familiar sound of metal churning against metal. The darkness dispersed, a little at first as a small crack opened in front of her, being pushed ever wider until the harsh sunlight glared her strongly in the face. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the bright blue sky visible through the hatch above. She looked around, scanning the remains of the pod; not much left. The once nearly spherical space had been compressed beyond recognition, safe for a small sphere around her. She reasoned that the field she'd generated had done some good after all. She noticed now that she was still strapped to her seat, but lying against the ground tilted slightly backwards, at risk of tumbling over her own head without the straps. A shadow blotted out the light from above and she turned her head towards it again, a humanoid shape stood crouched down over the opening, the features were obscured by the bright backdrop but she recognized the sharp outlines as distinctly human, or at the very least not batarian.
"Hey, you alright down there?" he called out to her, poking his head inside the pod. He sounded young, his admittedly deep voice breaking slightly ever so often.
"Anyone home?" The female called out from behind her would-be rescuer. She had gotten closer than last she spoke.
"Yeah, one... I think?" he responded hesitantly, turning his head slightly to face the other voice.
Shia groaned something that was meant to sound like 'Fine' but ended up as a jumbled grunting noise.
The young man, Ben, eventually managed to help her out of the small opening in the pod. She squinted her eyes against the glare; the hot humid climate of Benning wasn't something she'd had any desire to experience again any time soon. Ben handed her the medkit from the pod, and she promptly injected the medigel solution into her arm. The relief was instant, feeling the gel moving through her system like a cool breeze, releasing the knots and cranks in her stiff muscles as it went. She scanned herself with her omnitool, noting that the damage appeared to be mostly skin-deep, a few bruises and a mild concussion that the gel should be able to handle with ease. "Water?" she hissed, spitting out remnants of clotted blood and gravel from her mouth, extending her hand to the young man. Ben handed her a small canteen that she accepted gratefully.
"Feeling better, ma'am?" the female asked carefully as she approached her.
"Yeah, just a little roughed up.. thanks" Shia replied, handing the canteen back. She sized the pair up briefly; the bright red uniforms glowed like fire in the sunlight, even in their current state of being covered in dust and dirt. Cadets she mused to herself No more than 15... Too young for this.... She took in her surroundings. The pod had impacted a couple of three story buildings before lodging itself firmly in the plasticrete pavement of the street. Many of the buildings bore the signs of combat, but not as bad as she would have expected. She reached around her back to get her Vindicator rifle, popping a fresh clip in the slot before getting on her feet, turning back to the Cadets.
"Thanks... for getting me out of there." she remarked, stabbing a thumb towards the wreckage behind her.
"No problem ma'am." the tall girl replied "I'm Maria and this is my brother Ben...er, I mean cadets Maria and Benjamin Beaumont, ma'am."
"At ease, cadet" Shia chuckled "So, what's the sitch?"
"Ma'am?"
"The sitch, the situation; what's going on?"
"Oh... well the bombing stopped pretty quickly, we managed to get a radio working briefly and it said the civilians have been evacuated to the shelters in the downtown area, we were heading there... the batarians are landing troops all over though." Maria trailed off, gesturing southwards with her Avenger. "Seems like they're massing the bulk of their forces over at the south spaceport."
"Classic move. They couldn't bomb the planet to shit so they intend to occupy it... use the civilians as a bargaining chip." Shia scoffed, tapping her omnitool. "And still roughly three hours until the fleet arrives."
"The fleet?" Ben interjected excitedly. "We have help coming?"
"Yeah, but it won't do us any good if the batarians have control of the city when they arrive."
"So, what do we do ma'am?" Maria looked at her eagerly. Shia contemplated for a moment. She didn't relish the idea of taking cadets into a firefight. But the fight was upon them whether she liked it or not, and the idea of leaving them to fend for themselves seemed far less appealing.
"We're moving out." she said finally "Make our way dowtown. If that's where they evacuated the civilians, it's likely the Alliance has an FOB set up in the vecinity. It's our best bet."
"Aye, ma'am!" The two youngsters called out in near unison as they sprang to action immediately with a surprising amount of energy.
Shia, as senior, took point. She stopped briefly and gazed towards the buildings of the Joughin central district, black smoke bellowing from deep scratches in their pristine surfaces of steel and glass towering over the prefab sprawl that stretched out in all directions from their bases. It was several kilometers away, at least. She frowned at the low rumbling of gunfire in the distance. "We are Alliance marines! We laugh in the face of death and we run towards the sound of gunfire! Now who's like us?" she repeated the battle cry in her mind, tracing her fingers along the rifle. "Damn few..." she said as a smirk crept across her face.
"Fucking space goblins' go down hard" James cursed, unloading a final spray of bullets into the vorcha trooper below him, a red skull glowing brightly on its shoulder pads. He lowered his rifle and sat back against the wall of the barricade to take a swig of water. The cool liquid felt invigorating as it spread down his throat and dispersed around his abdomen, easing the sinking feeling that had made itself known there since he left his ship behind. He felt a presence to his side and forced his eyes open to investigate.
"Another scouting party?" Ashley inquired, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder; her still functional hand, the left one tied tightly to her chest in a sling.
"Yeah... the pendejos just keep coming. So far nothing but Blood Pack vorcha and a few mechs, Eclipse I think." he responded, throwing a glance across to barricade to confirm that they were still in the clear. "I think they're mostly just probing our defenses." His eyes focused on her injured arm, gesturing to it with the bottle as he spoke. "How's it feel?"
"What, this? No biggie, comes out of the sling in two days... You know, if we live that long."
"We will... I'll make certain of it." he seethed, hate seeping from his words as he spoke.
"You should lay down, rest for a while James." she said with deep concern in her voice. "For a few minutes at least."
"I'm fine." he said coolly, turning his head away from her.
"You're not fine, James. You lost your ship no more than an hour ago."
He sighed and turned back to face her again, only the let his eyes wander and settle firmly on the ground in front of him.
"Yeah, I guess you're right." he said as a stood up and turned to walk into the FOB they had constructed in front of the central administrative building. The sight of a full battalion put him at ease somewhat, but did little to quench the uneasiness and worry gnawing its way into his gut. Ashley patted him gently on the back when she strolled up beside him.
"We'll find her... I promise you that."
"Yeah, I hope so." he responded, allowing himself to give his fellow captain a careful smile. "Any news on my engineer?"
Ashley frowned slightly as she spoke. "No, nothing yet... We had to call off the search for now, too much contact in that area."
"Shit!" he cursed as they began to walk to towards the tents serving as rudimentary barracks. "I just hope she's... staying out of trouble."
The medigel worked its magic, and she could feel the strenght returning to her injured arm. She weighed the Carnifex carefully in her hand. "I can do this."
She ducked behind a desk in the ruined storefront as the sound of voices from outside reached her ears through the suit amplifiers. The translation matrix analysis flashed in front of her eyes on the inside of the visor. Batarian , krogan
She huddled down behind the plasticrete desk, gripping her pistol tightly and tuning the amplifiers up as she waited for the voices to disappear down the street. "Oh, please Shia... please be alright."