Mass Effect is the property of Bioware. 20th Century Fox owns the Alien/Predator franchise.
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Shanxi, Exogeni facility, underground laboratory
Cold... Dark...Empty...
The others... not there. She... not there.
Walls... everywhere.
Unacceptable!
A claw shot out and punched the nearest wall. The material didn't shatter, but there was a sound that told of cracks.
Again!
-o-o-o-
The ghost infiltrator, who was scouting ahead of the team, was very good at his job. He was also very unlucky. Taking cover in one of the small rooms set to either side of the main corridor, he was waiting for his stealth cloak to reset, so that he would have the maximum period of invisibility before he advanced down the corridor. Unfortunately for him, human soldiers did not just rely on visual light for detection.
Two of the Solsec mercenaries had taken up a firing position at the end of the corridor and both of them carried motion trackers. Infiltrator cloaks might be good at bending visual light. Against ultrasound, they might as well not exist.
Cloak fully recharged, the Ghost stepped into the corridor and a bright blue dot appeared on the screen of both trackers. One of the mercenaries, lying flat on the ground just around the corner, rolled over. The moment he had a clear line of sight he fired a burst down the length of the corridor, then rolled back. Only when he was back in cover did he realize that he had never seen a target.
It didn't matter. There was a standard procedure for this kind of situation and both soldiers were acting purely on their training. The moment the first soldier fired the second one moved forward, going in high where his squadmate had come in low, just in time to see a turian appear in front of him as the stealth cloak failed under the impact of several bullets.
The infiltrator, who had thought himself reasonably safe reacted a fraction of a second too late. He never had time to correct his mistake as a second salvo slammed into his torso, dropping his shield and tearing into his armour. Then the first human soldier rolled back into the corridor and the infiltrator knew no more
-o-o-o-
Saren cursed as his advance scout went down in a hail of bullets. He had been warned by other officers about the sheer amount of firepower these humans could bring to bear, but seeing it in person was a different thing altogether. Bullets were flying down the corridor and they kept coming in a continuous stream as the human soldiers advanced. As soon as one human soldier reached a door, he would duck into cover, allowing the ones behind him to continue their advance, firing as they came. His team was simply not equipped for this kind of battle. He needed to do something, or they would be overrun in seconds. Fortunately, he had other options. As the turian soldiers fell back, he curled his talons into a fist, a blue glow shimmering around his hand and lower arm.
-o-o-o-
"Push them! Push!"
There had been no time to set up the kind of ambush Zaeed had planned, but this seemed to work too. His mercenaries were advancing down the corridor, firing as they moved and ducking into the rooms to the side to reload. One of the birdfaces was down and the rest were either too shocked, or simply not equipped, to come up with an effective response. If they could keep this up, the aliens would either be overrun, or have to fall back to the elevator. There was no way they could evacuate in time and Zaeed and his team would slaughter them at the doors.
Even as he thought it, a blue glow rushed toward them. It caught one of the soldiers, lifted him straight off his feet and threw him backwards, tripping up the man behind him, who also went down.
"Shit-. Cover! Take Cover!"
Discipline and training were a beautiful thing. Surprised as they were, the Solsec mercenaries didn't lose their heads. Even before Zaeed ordered it, they scrambled through whatever door was nearest. Even the two that had been tossed around were crawling away to get into whatever room would give them some protection.
"What the fuck was that?"
Zaeed turned around and saw the Exogeni man, Santiago, huddled in the same room. Part of him was surprised that the corporate pretty boy had found the courage to follow him into the battle. Then again, just behind the soldiers was probably the safest place to be. Nor was the man unarmed. The tailoring of his corporate suit had apparently hidden a holster somewhere. Though the smallish handgun he was now holding was unlikely to prove very effective in this kind of battle, at least the man wouldn't be completely useless.
"Massani, what the FUCK was that?"
"Biotics." Zaeed snorted. "I saw a demonstration, once, when I was still in the corps. Never seen 'em used in the field, though. This is gonna be a problem."
"So, how do you deal with biotics?"
"The way we deal with everything else. We blow them the fuck up!"
Zaeed flipped a switch on his Pulse Rifle, then he activated his comm-link.
"This is Massani. When I say go, you go!"
-o-o-o-
Saren ducked back into cover. The human advance had been stopped, for the moment. However, there was no sign of panic. Clearly, the humans were not entirely unfamiliar with biotics. Still, he had bought his team at least a little time. Now, what to do next.
"Is there a better defence position ?"
The remaining infiltrator nodded. "There are separate stairs to the lower levels. They don't go up though. The elevator is the only way to ground level."
More human idiocy. Who would build something like that? Still ,it was better than nothing.
"Then we go down. We can hold them in the staircase."
-o-o-o-
Zaeed ducked around the corner and opened fire. The underbarrel grenade launcher on the M41 series had always been a subject of controversy. Too inaccurate to be useful at long range and a danger to the user when fired in close quarters. It had been one of the arguments in favour of the new Lacrimae assault rifles adopted by the marines, which used a more expensive, but also far more accurate and versatile alternative. Still, there was no denying its effectiveness. Working the pump-action as fast as he could, Zaeed sent three grenades flying down the corridor to explode against the far wall.
"NOW! GO, GO, GO!"
From doors all along the corridor, the mercenaries emerged and stormed forward behind a wall of flying bullets. Within seconds the corridor was secure. However, there was no sign of the enemy.
"Santiago, show me that map again. They've gone to ground somewhere."
The Exogeni rep. activated the portable display. "There isn't much on this floor, Massani. A few more rooms, then the elevator and a staircase. The elevator is the only way up and out. The stairs only go down."
"Can you lock down the elevator remotely?"
Santiago grinned. "One step ahead of you there, Massani. They're not getting out, unless they force the doors and climb the shaft."
"I'd love see them try that under fire. No, they won't take the risk." Zaeed studied the map. "If they have any brains, they'll go down and make their stand in the staircase. We'll have to root them out."
-o-o-o-
They had a problem. The plan had been so simple: let the turians and the human security run into each other, then, while the two sides fought, the hunters would open the elevator doors and either ride the elevator up or climb the shaft. However, that plan had relied on them having enough time and privacy. Unfortunately, it seemed they would get neither. Rather than fighting it out with the humans on the upper level, the turian special forces team had come running down the stairs, clearly intend on holding the staircase against the advancing humans. Not a bad plan, but it put them right next to the elevator shaft. Yautja cloaks were great, but they suffered from the same problem as all personal cloaking devices: Even if a person was cloaked, the objects he was manipulating were still visible. Turians trained to fight against cloaked enemies. A door opening without apparent reason was just the sort of thing they would instinctively look for. That could not be risked. Fighting their way out was not a good idea either. Not only would it reveal the Yautja at a time that they should stay hidden, but they might even fail to get away at all. Between turians and humans, they would face more than a dozen potential opponents. Bad odds for three warriors, even with superior technology.
So, stealth was not an option. Neither was fighting. All they could do was wait, stay hidden, and look for an opportunity, though even that was a far from optimal solution. The human mercenaries carried devices that could spot even a cloaked Yautja the moment he moved; and behind them, well, that could also notice them and at the very least give away their location.
-o-o-o-
Light... Bad
Noise... Useful
Much noise... weapons... danger
Still no others... She... still not there.
Purpose... Exterminate
The dark shape moved silently through the empty corridors toward the source of the noise.
-o-o-o-
"Grenade!"
One of the Havocs dragged Saren away from the door from where he had been shooting at the humans as they came down the stairs, just in time to avoid the explosion. A moment later they tried to get back into position, but it was too late. The human soldiers were already moving.
"What's the news from the elevator?"
The voice of his only remaining infiltrator came back through Saren's communicator.
"Not good, lieutenant. The engineers have set up their turrets to cover the doors and are trying to activate the system, but it isn't working well. The system is just too unfamiliar and it seems the humans have put some block on it."
"See if you can force open the doors. If we have to, we'll climb the shaft. Meanwhile, go scout out this entire level. Perhaps there is another exit."
The situation was not desperate yet, but certainly not good. They had killed one of the humans as he tried to come down the stairs, but the rest had responded the way these humans seemed to respond to everything: bullets and explosions. It was a strange way to fight by citadel standards, especially for this kind of small unit action; no hacking or overload attempts, no biotics, just an endless stream of straightforward violence applied to every target that presented itself. A small part of Saren's psyche was actually beginning to admire them for it. There was something almost turian about the relentless brutality of their fighting style. But, admirable or not, it was a serious problem for the small turian force. There was simply no way for them to hold out indefinitely; nor could they count on anyone coming to their aid. Either they managed to get out through the elevator shaft, or they found another exit. If neither possibility worked, it would all be over soon.
-o-o-o-
Solsec's mercenaries advanced cautiously down the stairs and onto the lower level. They had already lost two soldiers. One had died on the stairs, and Zaeed had sent another, injured by the biotic throw that had tossed him down and broken several ribs, back to the underground tramline. Though injured, he would at least be able to report if anyone tried to cut off their way out.
The turian shad withdrawn, not even trying to block the advancing humans from leaving the staircase. Of course, it was not difficult to guess where they had gone. The only thing on this level that would be useful to them was the elevator.
Suddenly, a short salvo tore through the leading soldier. The one behind her returned fire, then ducked for cover, narrowly missed by the second burst.
"Drone!"
Zaeed nodded to himself. These aliens seemed to be in love with high-tech gadgets. "Describe it."
"Looks like a sort of disk, floating around on anti-grav. Looks like it carries some sort of automatic weapon."
"Do you have any grenades left?"
"Yes sir."
"Use one."
The soldier unclipped a grenade from his belt and removed the remote detonator, then tossed it around the corner to where he had last seen the drone. A flip of a switch and an explosion echoed through the corridors.
"Got it!"
"Move on; and watch yourselves."
-o-o-o-
The Ghost moved slowly from room to room. He had seen what had happened to his colleague. These humans seemed to have a way to detect cloaked infiltrators; not a happy prospect for people who gambled their lives on their ability to remain undetected. The unreliable lighting did not help either. Apparently, the humans had installed sensors that switched on the lights when someone entered a room or corridor. Unfortunately, these sensors were fooled by his cloaking gear. As a result, he was spending half the time in darkness, the lights switching on only when his cloak failed and went into cool-down mode. Still, he had his orders and he would carry them out, no matter the cost.
Another door, another room, still nothing that looked like a potential exit. As he moved, the Ghost felt increasingly uneasy. Despite the lack of any response to his presence, he couldn't quite shake the suspicion that he was being watched.
-o-o-o-
Movement...
Target...
The target was armed and using stealth gear to remain hidden from visual observers. It didn't question how it knew these things. Curiosity was not part of its nature. Still, the information was useful; an armed, stealth target called for special measures. Fortunately, it knew these measures as well.
-o-o-o-
The corridor was a dead end, again. Disgusted, the Ghost turned around. By now he had searched the entire level. Time to get back. The lieutenant would probably order him to try and go down to the next level and scout that one out. Not an easy task with the human soldiers between him and the staircase. Not for the first time, the infiltrator cursed his luck for being stuck with an overeager, overly aggressive officer, who should have stayed in orbit. Dying for the Hierarchy was a fate that every good turian contemplated with equanimity. Then again, there were degrees in everything and being shot by some random alien on a spirits-forsaken mud-ball, just because his commanding officer was too impatient to wait for support, was not the sort of heroic death he had envisioned when he decided to become a professional soldier.
As he walked back down the corridor, the amplifying sensors in his helmet picked up a strange noise.
Drip... drip...
the Ghost looked around. A dripping faucet was strange. It argued that the laboratory had been used recently and so far, everything had been locked down completely. For that alone, it was worth investigating. Moreover, if there was a faucet, there had to be a water supply duct, which might have some sort of maintenance shaft. That meant a potential exit. And even if there was nothing, it would mean a welcome delay before he had to report his lack of success.
He looked around, trying to determine the source of the noise.
Drip... drip... drip...
It seemed to come from one of the rooms, a room he had searched before. That was not a good sign. The ghost lifted his rifle.
The room seemed empty. Moreover, it appeared to be some sort of administrative office, with no obvious source of water, or any other liquid.
As his eyes searched the room, he suddenly noticed something on the floor. Something that could indeed have caused the dripping noise. Cautiously, the Ghost knelt down and touched it with a single talon.
Not water. In fact, it didn't resemble any liquid has was familiar with. It was thickish, resin-like, and stuck to his glove.
Strange.
The office was dark, though, which limited his ability to determine what it was.
Right at that moment, his cloak wore out. The next moment the lights came on as the sensors in the room registered his presence.
Drip...
The noise came from behind him!
The Ghost whirled around, raising his rifle, then froze at the vision before him.
Teeth, more teeth. Nothing but teeth.
It took only a moment before his training took over, but it was a moment too long. Before he could fire, the creature was on top of him. Then there was nothing but pain.
-o-o-o-
No hive... No eggs... No need for captives
Target... finished.
Next...
-o-o-o-
The battle raged around the elevator shaft. One of Saren's engineers was down, as were both of their turrets. The remaining engineer had managed to open the doors to the elevator, but between the original electronic block and the subsequent explosions of grenades from both sides, any hope of using the elevator was gone. The only chance they had now was using the elevator shaft. The two Havocs could use their jump jets to go up the shaft, but the others, including Saren himself, would have to climb the ladder that ran to the side of the shaft. Doing so while under fire was tantamount to suicide.
They had killed two more humans, but the human advantage in firepower was counting heavily. All turians had their shields depleted and several were injured. Fortunately, there seemed to be only three humans left and only two of those were actively fighting. Saren allowed himself a moment of satisfaction. If he could get his remaining infiltrator back to the elevator, that would allow them to attack the humans from both sides and either finish the battle permanently or at the very least force the humans to retreat far enough that they could make a clean getaway. Unfortunately, the Ghost was not answering his communicator calls.
Just at that moment, one of the humans dove into the corridor in front of him. Curling into a ball in a way that an asari commando or drell assassin might be able to emulate, but that was utterly impossible for a turian, the soldier rolled once, then fired a long burst from his assault rifle. The remaining engineer, already wounded was nearly torn in half.
Saren dove sideways, away from the stream of bullets ... and slammed into something that wasn't supposed to be there.
Cloak!
This was a situation for which turians trained and Saren's reflexes took over. There was no time to power up his biotics. His pistol came up, ready to shoot what was clearly someone in an infiltrator cloak.
Saren never made it. Seemingly from thin air, a blade swept down, cutting through his arm, even before it was fully raised. For a moment, all he could do was look in stupefied amazement at the severed limb that fell at his feet, then he collapsed.
The two remaining turian soldiers, both Havocs, saw their leader fall and blasted away with their shotguns in the hope of catching the cloaked enemy, but they were too late. Whoever, or whatever it was had already vacated the area. Without further delay, they grabbed the unconscious lieutenant by his armour and jumped into the elevator shaft. Havoc jump jets were not really designed to carry more than one turian at a time, but there was some redundancy built in, and two Havocs working together could lift a third turian for a brief period of time, long enough at least to reach the top of the elevator shaft before their jets failed.
-o-o-o-
Disaster! One of the hunters, eager to find a way past the fighting had come to close, only for the turian to jump straight into him. A combination of overconfidence, inexperience, and just plain bad luck. Still, perhaps it was not all bad. The turians were out of the way. The remaining humans approached the elevator shaft, but they were moving slowly, cautiously, expecting to run into more gunfire, or perhaps a booby trap. Fortunately, Yautja cloaks, unlike those of less advanced races, didn't fail when they were hit, so at least secrecy had not been completely lost. The hunters stood motionless, waiting.
-o-o-o-
"They're gone."
Zaeed peered up the elevator shaft. AT the top he could see daylight. Presumably, the turians had forced open the doors there when they first entered.
"Alright. I guess we got lucky this time." By now he was down to only one other soldier and Santiago. The corporate man had handled himself alright, but he was not trained for combat and had wisely held back from the fire. That left only two active shooters and Zaeed had known a moment of despair just before the turians decided they had had enough.
"We'll check this floor, but then we're done."
"You've got it boss."
The two mercenaries moved forward, with Santiago following slightly behind Massani. Unbeknownst to them, behind them, three ghostlike shapes entered the elevator shaft and started climbing upwards.
-o-o-o-
Movement... more targets
Different species...
Exterminate
-o-o-o-
The soldier never even had time to scream. One moment he was advancing cautiously down a corridor, the next moment something slammed into the small of his back. As he looked down, he noticed that whatever it was seemed to be protruding from his abdomen: a green-black spike. He tried to shout something, but all that came out was a bubbling noise, then the point withdrew and he fell.
Zaeed Massani turned around a corner, just in time to see his last remaining soldier, impaled on the tail of a dark creature with a smooth, dome-like head. Instinct and training took over. Without even realizing it, he levelled his Pulserifle and fired a burst. He saw several bullets hit, but the creature, with astonishing speed and agility, twisted away and disappeared around another corner.
"WHAT THE FUCK?! Santiago, you'd better have a very good explanation for this, or I swear-"
"Explanation for what, Massani?"
"Don't give me that bullshit! I was a marine, remember? I know one of those fuckers when I see it."
"But you didn't see anything, Massani and neither did I." Santiago's voice was very cold. "There is absolutely nothing here, other than ourselves and these turians, or whatever they call themselves. Nothing whatsoever."
For a moment the temptation to just cut the little corporate prick down was overwhelming, then common sense returned.
"So, what are we not going to do about the thing that we didn't see and was never here?"
Santiago smiled thinly.
"We still have the same option we always had, Massani." He pulled out his pocket computer and connected it to a dataport in the wall. "I guess that the turians started tinkering with our equipment here and accidentally triggered the selfdestruct. Too bad, how sad, everything's dead."
He typed in a long, complicated, command string.
"All problems will be solved within the next five minutes. Let's go!"
-o-o-o-
Injuries ...
Need time ... concealment ...
There was a rumbling noise. Then a blaze of heat swept through the corridors.
NOISE! FIRE!
Need to move ... survive...
FAILURE!
-o-o-o-
The three survivors, Zaeed, Santiago, and the injured soldier that had been sent back before they descended to the lower levels rode the tram back in silence. No-one felt the urge to talk. Behind them, they could hear the rumbling noise as the underground laboratory collapsed. Zaeed's gaze briefly crossed that of Santiago. The corporate man smiled briefly, then stared ahead.
Outside, as the two Havocs dragged their unconscious commander away from the building, it collapsed behind them. The dust cloud that rose up provided a welcome cover as they made a series of short jumps back toward the turian lines.
-o-o-o-
No one doubted that Salarian sensors were the best in known space, but the increase in sensitivity came at a price: they tended to generate a lot of false positives. As a result, they needed constant supervision.
From their position in a far orbit around the planet, the crew of the STG vessel had observed the progress, or lack of same, of the turian invasion. For some it might have been frustrating to watch, rather than participate, but for the STG, it was paradise: So much to see, so many things to learn, not to mention the amusement factor of seeing a turian army bogged down on some alien backwater. Still, the many false returns generated by their sensitive, but somewhat temperamental instruments was starting to wear on their nerves, and it was with some annoyance that one of the sensor annalists noticed the faint echo on one of his screens. If he hadn't known better, it would have seemed as though a small ship, about the size of a shuttle craft, had just departed the planet and was making for one of the Lagrange points. Of course that was ridiculous. At this range, such a craft would have been clearly visible, not just a faint trace. That would imply the existence for a sensor cloak, big enough to hide a ship and while STG had spent a fortune on the development of such a device, they had been unsuccessful. The idea that either the turians, or the even more primitive humans, possessed something like that was ludicrous. Still, the trace, though faint, was surprisingly persistent and showed up on multiple, independent systems.
The annalists checked and double checked. The faint sensor echoes remained. Finally, after multiple system diagnoses, he made an entry in his watch log. His supervisor would be informed, but that was fine. That was one of the good things about working for STG: No report, however unlikely it seemed, would be dismissed out of hand. If nothing else, it would make for a very interesting puzzle.
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In my previous story Mordin lost his horn to a xenomorph, now Saren has lost his arm to a Predator.
As I said in Someone has heard the scream, humans know about biotics, they're just very rare. It only makes sense. They have eezo and the Alien-style corporations would certainly experiment on humans.
timedraven117, thanks for your in-depth analysis. I agree that fighting a large war would be ruinous for the turians. Of course, unlike in Mythos effect, the humans here are also vulnerable to piracy. As soon as their existence becomes common knowledge, the Terminus pirates and the batarians will be looking for ways into human space, so the trouble would be spread around a bit more.
Economically it is more complicated. In this story the turian economy is already stretched to maintain their military budget. Going to wartime production will make it even worse, but the other species can help. Even if salarians and asari don't have a big military industry, they can help the turians by supplying civilian products, freeing up the turian industry to focus on weapons. In the end, this would cause a turian bankruptcy, because they would no longer be generating any income (compare Great Britain at the end of WW2), but they would be able to keep fighting as long as the other species didn't call in their IOUs.
In fact, this is the reason the turians have attacked Shanxi. They hope to force the humans to ask for negotiations without the need for a full-scale war. This kind of ploy (trying for a small military success to break a political and diplomatic stalemate) is not unknown. It is however very dangerous, because the war can spin out of control. It requires intimate knowledge of everyone's capabilities nd political agendas Desolas has miscalculated both the total number of humans (I'll get to that in a later chapter) and the reasons for the lack of a large scale response. I see him as being a rather mild sort of racist. Subconsciously, he figures other species are basically funny looking, kind-of-inferior turians that will behave the same way as turians, just less effective. So, by now he figures that if the humans had the strength to attack him, they would have done so, because that is what turians would do.
As for the predators' decision to turn the xenomorph loose, I see the predators as having a sick sense of humor (my own interpretation, we really know very little about them in canon). This is their equivalent of a human who puts a cat into a cage full of birds, just for laughs. If they had more time, they'd probably start laying bets as to how many turians and/or humans it can kill before it dies.