Ontarom was already proving to be exactly the miserable mud puddle the briefing had promised, Nick mused, both hands gripping the overhead bar a little tighter and trying to fight down his churning stomach as the shuttle battled its way through yet another bout of turbulence.

The flight down so far had been awful—their shuttle had been lurching through one of the planet's enormous electrical storms for half an hour now, and it was taking a toll on the squad. With a heavy meal in everyone's stomachs, most of the marines were looking a little green. The only person who didn't seem bothered by the turbulence in the slightest was Amy, who actually seemed to be rather enjoying herself.

This, Nick had learned, was very characteristic of drop assault marines like his fireteam leader, and it tended to make them quite unpopular with their fellow marines from time to time. Since they'd hit atmosphere, the sapper had been providing a running commentary on their flight, eventually switching to ribbing Tolo when he'd failed to get his helmet off and ended up vomiting inside of it.

A portion of the rifleman's hastily-eaten dinner had also found its way onto the floor, where the more liquid parts of it now sloshed back and forth in the grooved metal plates as the shuttle banked. Within the close confines of the cabin, it took considerable collective effort for the squad to ignore the acrid smell as it splashed across their boots.

Suffice to say, the mission had gotten off to a less than stellar start.

After a hard burn to the relay and three jumps, the Normandy had arrived in the Newton System early in the ship's "night" to find an Alliance patrol hanging in orbit over the colony. After being informed that an ongoing storm meant setting the Normandy down planetside was inadvisable, the flotilla had sent a pair of shuttles to ferry the spectre's team to the surface where they'd link up with marines already on the ground.

Naturally, Shepard was aboard the lead transport accompanied by the ground team, while the marine detail followed in the second. They were going in blind and were supposed to meet the ground force's commanding officer on the surface, but the fear that it would be a repeat of the massacre on Eden Prime went unspoken.

"We're on final approach now." The tinny voice of their pilot announced over the intercom as the side doors slid open, letting in stinging sheets of rain as the craft dropped out of a cloudbank.

Peering out careful, Nick caught a glimpse Vex—the colony's rather fittingly named capital—through the cloud cover. A crisscross of dirt backroads connected a patchwork of ranches and farms on the outskirts, convening at the city limits where the rocky grassland gave way to a collage of industrial buildings and modest high-rises. Back on Earth, it would've barely passed for more than a modest-sized town, but he knew from the briefing he was looking at the far-flung planet's largest settlement.

"Looks like the weather's letting up." Nick observed, the pouring rain turning to a drizzle as the shuttled approached the landing zone.

"Ontatom's got barriers to protect the comms arrays from storm damage." Brice explained, shouting to be heard over the rain and the howl of the shuttle's engines. "They're supposed to cover the entire city, but it looks like most of the network's been knocked offline."

Their shuttle followed Shepard's into a dive and set down in the middle of a muddy assembly area, whipping up muck and rainwater as they hovered. Being the closest to the door, Nick was the first out, his boots squelching in the slippery black muck as he quickly moved clear of the transport's downwash.

Shepard's shuttle had landed just ahead, the commander herself visible as a shock of bright red hair among the rest of the arriving ground team.

The pilot throttled up as the last of the marines disembarked, the thrusters wailing as the shuttle lifted off the ground and followed its companion skyward. Fat raindrops pattered against Nick's visor as he watched it depart, noting the faint shimmer overhead of the environmental barrier that protected the colony from the electrical storm raging outside. While it offered a measure of protection from the worst of the storm, it did nothing to ward off Ontarom's muggy heat.

The Alliance troops had established their command post at a modest ranch, a muddy paddock serving as a landing area and soldiers taking shelter from the rain in barns and other outbuildings scattered across the property. In one of the adjacent fields, a few troopers were attending to an Alliance heavy shuttle that had made a hard landing among rows of green sprouts, the mangled remains of the armored vehicle it had been carrying visible beneath it.

Three more vehicles idled in the open gravel lot in front of the farmhouse where the Alliance troops had made their headquarters—one Mako and two larger models with boxy frames the medic suspected were transports. A few sentries were posted around the area, looking miserable as they stood watch in the rain.

"Understood, ma'am, I'll be right over." Ouder said into his radio, turning to the assembled marines and waving them in the direction of a nearby vehicle shelter. "Shepard's meeting with the company commander to get a sitrep. Get yourselves out of the rain and wait for word to come down."

The squad murmured an acknowledgement, starting for the shed as the sergeant major broke away and began to jog through the light rain in the direction of the farmhouse.

...

"Officer on deck!"

The clunking of a dozen sets of heavy boots across the aging wood floor greeted Shepard as she stepped into the farmhouse's modest kitchen. It had been hastily converted into a command center, with displays and equipment set up on counters and tables and a thick bundle of cables running across the floor, up over the kitchen sink, and out a nearby window.

Someone had even found an ancient-looking electric fan and set it up on the counter where it tried vainly to beat back the oppressive heat.

"As you were." Jane ordered, the collection of analysts and radio operators quickly returning to their duties. One, a lean-faced woman wearing captain's bars, stepped through the crowd as Jane offered an outstretched hand. "Commander Shepard of the Normandy."

"Captain Herrera, 28th Mechanized Infantry, embarked aboard the Perugia." She replied, shaking the spectre's hand. "Welcome to Ontarom, ma'am."

"It's quite scenic." Shepard quipped, glancing out the window at the storm outside. "Can you give me a sitrep?"

The captain nodded and led Jane towards the kitchen table, where several of her subordinates were looking over a holographic display of the local area.

The city itself was laid out across a broad valley several kilometers to the south-west of the command post, with the majority of the outer districts spread across the valley floor and the core of the city situated on a rise to the south. Most of the outlying structures were small residences and shops, with only a few rising above three stories tall, while a few larger buildings stood closer to the city center.

"About eighteen hours ago, a geth raiding force dropped into orbit undetected by the colony's orbital monitoring network and caught a pair of civilian freighters—the MSV Warden and the MSV Carta's Luck—in low orbit. Both ships were destroyed, but one managed to get off a distress signal. The best description we have is six to ten geth vessels of varying size approaching from the direction of Klencory. They knocked out most of the colony's satellite network, but from what we've gathered, their efforts seemed centralized here, on the capital."

"The Perugia's battlegroup arrived in the system three hours ago, but found no sign of the geth fleet and began to land troops. Our primary objective is to secure the communications center, here." A large compound near the heart of the settlement lit up in blue. "It houses the data center for the communications array field outside the city, and this building at the northeast corner of the complex is the headquarters for a company of the 543rd Signal Battalion, the Alliance unit that operates the military comms relays. It's a hardened structure and the most likely place to find survivors. Taking control of it will also give us a commanding view of the rest of the city."

"The most direct route would be the elevated highway, here," The captain indicated a raised roadway that snaked through the city, running from close to their position all the way through the heart of the city. "However, the assault by the geth destroyed a section of the highway at this interchange. Several spans collapsed, and we don't have the bridgelaying equipment to make repairs."

"Beyond that, I can't tell you much else." The company commander admitted with a huff. "High altitude recon is getting all kinds of interference from the storm and our drones can't operate in this kind of wind, so the only eyes we have on the city is my recon team." She gestured toward the holotable, indicating a blue marker on the edge of the city near the destroyed bridge.

"How many men do you have on the ground?" Shepard asked quizzically, her eyes keenly surveying the collection of blue rectangles that marked friendly positions.

"In addition to the recon team on the outskirts, I've got most of a rifle company and the three APCs you saw outside. Unfortunately, a dropship carrying one of our Makos made a hard landing due to the storm and the patrol's commander grounded everything aside from drones and Kodiaks, so we're short on heavy weapons." The captain replied with touch of frustration that seemed to indicate an argument she'd been on the losing side of. "He doesn't want to risk his heavier platforms to the weather, and we can't risk taking Kodiaks directly over the city center without air cover."

"Then we go in by ground." Shepard nodded resolutely, studying the details of the holographic map. After a moment, she glanced up at her assembled team as they filed into the dining room through the crowd of analysts and tecs. "I hope you're all up for a walk—we've got a city to retake."

...

"Get some, marines!" Tolo shouted after a passing Mako, a few of the soldiers piled atop it returning his wave. As the vehicle bounced down the worn asphalt road towards the eastern district of city, the rifleman grumbled quietly. "Lucky bastards. This is bullshit."

Nick chuckled, surveying the column of troops ahead of them as the platoon they were attached to plodded their way along a wide avenue towards the city center. "If you didn't want to march, you shouldn't have joined the infantry."

"Let him sulk." Amy called back from up ahead. "I was enjoying the quiet."

"Nah, Doc's right. I should've been a fighter pilot. Sit my ass in a chair all day, every day. Get stationed on a carrier—good food, good quarters. Like, Joker? He's got it figured out, I'm tellin' 'ya man."

"Do you not have to be smart to be a pilot?" Scarpasky jabbed, a smile in her voice.

"Hey, I'm smart as shit." Chris said defensively. "My aptitude test scores were crazy high—my recruiter said I should've been an intelligence specialist, but I told him I wanted to see some action. I'm probably smarter than you are, Doc."

"Sure." Vandas laughed as he pulled his foot free from a muddy pothole with a wet shlorp. "But still not smart enough to avoid marching in the rain with the rest of us."

Tolo grumbled but didn't reply, adjusting the bulky assault launcher he was carrying and turning his attention forward once again, which suited Nick just fine.

The medic had, in a strange way, actually rather enjoyed the march. Slogging through the muck in the middle of a downpour without a clear destination and only the haziest outline of the mission was exactly the sort of thing he was used to. It was pleasant in a refreshingly nostalgic sort of way—or at least it had been, until the column had cleared the road's last winding bend and the city came into sight.

The "plan," in so far as it had been explained to him and the rest of the squad, was that the rifle company would be making a two-pronged thrust towards an objective on the high ground in the city center. Rough Rider would support one thrust while Shepard and the ground team spearheaded the other, hopefully dividing the attention of any geth still within the city. A reasonable enough plan in theory, but Nick was worried. It was like the start of a bad dream—only the haziest sense of things, but a looming feeling that something was terribly wrong.

The Whitestone district was spread across the valley floor ahead of them, a mess of stout industrial buildings and drab apartment blocks with a tangle of narrow streets running through them. Without the canopy of the colony's environmental shield to protect it, the heart of the city found itself subjected to the full force of the raging storm, the haze of rain hampering visibility. Even so, a few structures damaged by the geth attack still smoldered in the heavy downpour, sending dark grey columns of smoke climbing into the low clouds. With the expressway crossing destroyed by the air attack, the district's debris-strewn streets were the most direct route to the city center, a fact the geth almost certainly hadn't overlooked.

The exposed, canyon-like main avenues between apartment blocks were killzones the marines would be forced to cross, and the choked maze of alleys and backstreets would spread them dangerously thin as they advanced. Meanwhile, defenders concealed by the rain in windows and alleyways would have ample opportunity to pick their moment to strike. From a tactical standpoint, it would be extremely difficult for a single infantry company with limited support to fight through if they met resistance.

For Nick, it was a glimpse into a kind of nightmare he knew all too well. The medic shifted anxiously, his nose filled with the stench of muddy water and the phantom sensation of fine, dusty soil prickling in his throat.

Distracted, his foot found another pothole and he stumbled in the slippery black mud, narrowly catching himself against the metal guardrail that flanked the road.

The noise earned him a few looks from the rest of the column and a concerned glance from Tolo. "You good, Doc?"

"Yeah," The corpsman murmured, absently rubbing at the dull ache that radiated through his left arm as he pressed on towards the waiting city ahead of them. "I'm fine."

...

"Clockwork, this two-six. We've rerouted around a collapsed building at waypoint three. Proceeding to waypoint four."

There was a momentary pause before command responded, the operator's voice carrying the crackle of interference from the storm as they spoke in Tannis' ear. "Clockwork copies all. Out."

The sergeant sighed, his fingers drumming anxiously against the side of his rifle as he scanned the narrow side street his team was cautiously making their way through. He caught the eye of Bruman, his grenadier, who gave the barest of nods, failing to appear unbothered by their surroundings.

As they'd made their way through the district, they'd stumbled across countless signs of the violent geth assault that had raged only hours before—buildings pockmarked with the telltale scars of plasma weapon fire, debris from destroyed skycars and cargo drones that still smoldered in the street where they had come crashing down.

But no survivors. Not even any bodies. The streets were deserted.

Save a few battery-powered billboards that played their looping advertisements for clothing and energy drinks to the empty streets, the entire district had lost power, leaving the marines to navigate by flashlight and the dim glow of the stormy, afternoon sky. Aside from the clamor of the thunderstorm overhead and the sound of rain driving against the rooftops, there was only the sound of their boots splashing through the streets.

Glancing down a narrow alley, Tannis halted as the lights mounted on his helmet illuminated the barest flicker of movement in the darkness. The rest of his squad froze as he snapped his rifle to shoulder, holding his breath for a few long seconds as he strained his eyes to search the shadows.

Beyond the range of his flashlight, a single blue-white orb shined in the depths of the alley. He hesitated for a moment as the orb began to gradually grow brighter, his finger hovering uncertainly over the trigger. Over the storm, the sound of running feet reached his ears. The orb wasn't getting brighter—it was getting closer. "Contact!"

A grotesque human face rushed into view—its empty, blue eyes fixated on him as it gave a shuddering howl that echoed down the alleyway. The creature took a few more ungainly strides forward as Tannis' rifle barked, quickly succumbing to the barrage of hypervelocity rounds.

The figure tumbled to the ground, loudly crashing through a trash can before settling into a motionless heap. Tannis kept his rifle trained on, resisting the urge to put a few more shots into it for good measure.

From the cityscape rose a chorus of inhuman shrieks and cries—a hunting call to answer the creature's dying wails. All around them there came the sound of breaking glass and the noise of hurried footsteps across metal rooftops.

A tide of sinewy black figures spilled into the narrow passage, black bodies tumbling off rooftops and emerging out of alleyways with a chorus of groans and shrieks. The sharp report of frantic gunfire rose over the noise of the storm as the rest of his squad found itself overrun in a matter of seconds, the few that tried to stand their ground swallowed in an instant.

Tannis cut down four that were clambering out of a balcony above him, but hesitated as he brought his weapon to bear on the surge of husks further down the alleyway, watching a pair of his squad mates attempting to flee the swarm of talons and teeth. He watched as Bruman stumbled and disappeared in an instant beneath a pile of inhuman bodies.

Suddenly, something slammed into him from behind, his rifle slipping from his hands as he fell and disappearing into the sea of husks closing on him. A searing pain shot down his back as their relentless claws ripped at his armor with animalistic frenzy, the young marine pinned in place as they tore into him.

Tannis wrenched one bloody arm free from their clutches and pawed frantically at his chest, eventually finding what he was looking for—the round body of a grenade hanging on his rigging.

Wrapping a finger through the pin, Tannis squeezed his eyes tightly shut.

...

The sound of an explosion from somewhere nearby rose over the sharp crackle of gunfire and the rumble of the storm as Nick ran.

The medic momentarily lost his footing as he rounded a turn, landing on all fours in the slippery black muck before quickly scrambling back to his feet to run after the rest of the team through the maze of dead ends and blind corners.

Right.

Straight.

Left.

... Right?

The medic skidded to halt, finding himself alone as he breathlessly surveyed his surroundings.

The rubble of a collapsed high-rise had forced the platoon to divert into the district's winding network of alleys and side streets, and as he'd feared, the labyrinth of chokepoints and narrow streets had spread them perilously thin.

The city's eerie silence had been broken as its former residents swarmed the marines, some still wearing the shredded remains of clothing on their twisted black bodies.

Husks. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them. Caught in the close confines of backstreets and with the limited visibility from the storm, the ambush had hit the Alliance troops like a tidal wave.

Those that could were pulling back towards their starting point on the outskirts, a handful making a somewhat orderly fighting withdrawal while the rest were simply running for their lives. Frantic gunfire rang out from across the district as scattered groups of marines fought back desperately, the sound of combat echoing across the quiet city amidst the occasional rumble of thunder.

Vandas had been following Amy and Tolo as they tried to link up with Ouder and the rest of Rough Rider, but the storm and the chaotic mess of conflicting orders and distress calls on the radio had complicated matters.

And now, the corpsman had gotten himself separated.

Out the corner of his eye, Nick spotted a black blur of movement to his right an instant before a mass of flailing limbs slammed into him and knocked the medic off his feet. His vision flashed white for an instant as his head met concrete, the seal on his helmet failing with a muted pop.

It tumbled off his head as he landed, the splash of cold mud across the back of his bare neck barely registering as the ghastly form of a husk crashed onto him, its howl matched by his own hoarse scream.

Taloned black hands slashed wildly towards the medic's throat, the husk's metallic claws raking across his plated gauntlets as he raised his arms to defend himself against the thrashing monstrosity. A clawed hand found its way through, Vandas yelping in pain and surprise as the tips of two twisted claws tore through the air and found purchase as he struggled to evade the blow. There was a sharp sting as one effortlessly tore a jagged line across his brow and the tip of the other caught the bridge of his nose, sending a cascade of blood running down his face.

He forced the creature's head back with one hand as it gnashed and screamed, forcing it just beyond reach as its claws swiped furiously at the air. Nickeli's other hand found the grip of the pistol at his side, and despite the husk's weight pushing him deeper and deeper into the syrupy, black muck, he managed to wrench it free of its holster and bury the muzzle into the monstrosity's side.

A mass of sickly black ichor burst from its other armpit as he pulled the trigger, the bullet ripping a hideous track through its torso to little apparent effect. Nick fired again, and the husk's right arm fell limp with a sickening crack as the round shattered its shoulder blade. Still desperately trying to push back the flailing mass of razor-sharp talons and black teeth with his free hand, he pulled the trigger a third time and... nothing.

His Beretta choked as the ejector port swallowed the thick muck, the slide jamming half-way to the rear with the spent cartridge lodged in the action even has he desperately pulled the trigger again and again.

The husk made another wild swipe at Nick's face with its functional arm, narrowly missing as he lurched desperately to the side. Unable to compensate for the deadweight of the shattered arm flailing limply as it swung, the husk tumbled awkwardly to one side, giving Nick just enough leverage to push it off of him and send it sprawling into the muck next to him.

He hurriedly rolled on top of it, planting his knees on the husk's chest and using his left hand to pin its head to the ground. His right hand closed around the muddy handle of the fighting knife strapped to his chest as the husk flail, the blade's sharpened edge gleaming hungrily as he drew it.

With a ragged scream, Nick drove it downward into the husk's neck, the sturdy blade punching easily through the creature's black, putrid flesh. The monstrosity continued to thrash vainly with its good arm, its rasping howls become fainter as he drove the knife into its throat over and over again.

Eventually, Nickeli stopped, his throat raw and hoarse as he breathlessly fought for air.

The husk, he noted belatedly, has no longer moving. In fact, it seemed that it hadn't been moving for some time, given that the creature's head was attached to its body by little more than a few stringy tendrils of flesh.

Using a muddy, ichor-stained hand to wipe away the blood running into his right eye, he carefully got back to his feet. For a long for moments, he stood there staring at the nearly decapitated husk, every inch of him trembling as rain fell and adrenaline danced through his body like electricity.

Eventually, the sound of his heartbeat thundering in his ears receded and he looked around, as if only now realizing that he was still standing in the narrow muddy, alley.

Nick wanted to scream. To vomit. To throw himself to his knees and sob.

Instead, he collected his rifle and helmet and took a moment to smeared a messy blob of medigel across the bleeding gashes on his nose and brow before dashing off towards the distant sound of gunfire.

...

A/N: I've always felt that husks went curiously unexplored across all three games. They're just this generic zombie type enemy that the main cast dispatches with ease whenever they show up. Really, though, they're pretty terrifying—they don't tire, they don't feel pain. They exist solely for the purpose of getting up close where your kinetic barriers don't help and messily hacking you to death, and they're going to try until they are no longer physically capable of doing so.

Additionally, as some of you may have noted, I've elected to have the Alliance use a more typical western military rank structure than the (somewhat nonsensical) system Bioware outlines in the codex. I've tried to be fairly consistent with this throughout the story, and it's why Shepard, a navy lieutenant commander, outranks a marine captain.