Chapter 3
I don't own the amazing story that is mass effect
I do own my own life.
Reader I will keep writing this story but the number I have makes it hard to put out a chapter as often as I'd like
Azari jin I seem to remember something about making it so their weapons couldn't be used after they died (like the ancient Romans who made it so their javelins bend on impact so they couldn't be thrown back) and if there were a lot of weapons then they wouldn't have needed to keep that woman's body so if I do manage to get one it will likely be traded for her body
Darlock you were right should have been shepard not ash
EDIT: Originally I had Fast and Furious, Star Wars and Marvel not being written in order for my character to re-write them in order to make credits but I decided to remove Marvel from that list for reasons such as he already has two franchises to re-write and marvel will be the hardest one to do by far in order to suit the mass effect universe in theory that is (I mean who's going to play thor, deadpool,etc). I also wanted to use marvel movies as example of great old movies (a friend of mine even met Stan Lee before he died)
Story Start
"Well that's done." said Shepard before hanging up "Listen I need to get to the port as soon as possible, can you show me the way?" asked Shepard looking at Ash
"I can ma'am." answered Ash with a solute
"Commander, I'd like to come along." I asked, I needed to become a part of the Normandy team. It was the only way I could make the changes needed to ensure the survival and victory against the Reapers. Who would listen to a farmer after all?
"And why should I bring you along?" asked Shepard
"I've got a good aim and there's also my biotics." I answered
"He has been helpful so far." offered Ash
"...alright you can come along. But the second you get so much as a scratch or break a nail then you're to get to safety..understood." said Shepard, offering no argument or debate and looking me dead in the eye making me gulp. She was Commander Shepard after all and you don't fuck with Commander Shepard
"Understood Commander." I answered
"Good, let's go." ordered Shepard as we continued on to the spaceport
With Nihlius
"Hmmm, so there might not be more than just geth here. But geth working with organics...it doesn't make sense, what could an organic do or give to the geth to make them listen to them?" queried Nihlius out loud
Coming around a corner and ducking behind a barricade he saw...
"Saren, what are you doing here?!" asked Nihlius shocked, coming out of cover his pistol in front of him 'it, can't be, surely not'
"Nihlius its good to see you, the council thought it would best to have another spectre on ground just in case...not that often a beacon is found after all and they couldn't run the risk of anything happening to it." however Saren's friendly tone quickly faded and a turian frown appeared when he noticed Nihlius still had his pistol out and it was pointed towards him "Is something wrong, you seem unsettled." continued Saren stepping forward
"Stay there!" ordered Nihlius, raising his pistol for a body shot
"Nihlius, what are you doing?! Surely you don't think that I had anything to do with this attack?" said Saren frustrated, this wasn't how he expected things to go
"A survivor reported seeing a Turian before the attack."
"So I came here in advance to check the area, I wanted to make sure the humans didn't try anything, is that so bad?" argued Saren
"Show me."
"What?!" asked Saren
"Show me the orders given to you by the Council!" shouted Nihlius causing Saren to stiffen "It's true isn't it? How could you do this!?"
"..."
"Saren Arterius, I'm placing you under arrest. Drop your weapons immediately or I will open fire." warned/demanded Nihlius
"Wait I have my orders right here let me show you." said Saren opening his omni-tool before firing an overload at Nihlius and opening fire moments later.
Nihlius expected the attack and was able to avoid most of the overload and all but a few of the bullets. What he didn't see were the two geth units hidden around the side and out of eyesight, their bullets easily breaking through the remainder of his shields and armour before he was able to dive behind of the many boxes littering the spaceport.
"Spirits that's not good." groaned Nihlius, touching his side and coming away with blood
Waiting a few moments to make sure there would be no returning fire, Saren switches to his pistol and carefully follows. When he gets the box Nihlius dived behind he quickly strafed sideways around the box, and there he was, propped up against the box bleeding heavily.
"I-I could have sworn that I avoided most of that overload." said Nihlius
"It's a little something I got for myself, its much better than standard even for specters and when you're the best you need the best." responded Saren
"W-why are you doing this...it can't just be because you dislike the humans."
"Its got nothing to do with the humans, all that matters is that beacon and the secrets it hold, Asari, Salarian, Batrian it wouldn't have mattered who found it. I would have taken it just the same. In the coming storm all that matters is the turians be the ones to survive." said Saren before pulling the trigger
"I'm sorry old friend but I'll allow absolutely nothing to stand in my way." turning to the geth "Check his omni-tool and make sure there isn't anything on it about me."
Back with Shepard
Halfway up the slope to the slope to the hill overlooking there was a short patter of gunfire that was barely audible before a much louder shot ran out moments later.
"Shit! Everyone double time!" shouted Shepard
Coming up the hill less then ten minutes later we were just in time to see the reaper take off, probably with Saren on board, he must have used that floating platform that I saw him us on Virmire to escape that quickly.
"That's the ship that I saw before!" said Ash
"Look at the size of that thing!" exclaimed Kaiden
While everyone else was momentarily distracted I took a snap shot with my omni-tool, I needed a good picture for something I had planned later.
At the base of the spaceport were numerous geth and husks. As ordered I stayed at the back, picking out targets I was able to lower the number of geth and husks that reached the others. Despite that, however, they still had a lot to deal with. Shepard seemed to favour shotguns and assault rifles, only switching to a pistol when one of the former was overheating and she needed a quick draw.
Ashley prefered her assault rifle over her pistol but used it when a geth or husk needed a few extra hits to go down when her assult rifle needed to cool down. Kaiden was the opposite preferring his pistol over his assault rifle until the numbers got too many and too close, using his biotic abilities the whole time, mainly lift or throw. As for me, as promised I stayed at the back with my bow, using my biotic abilities when they got close enough.
I wasn't going to jeopardise my chances of getting on the Normandy, at this point Shepard needed to know that I was useful and reliable. If I was one or the other there was a good chance I wouldn't be on the Normandy no matter what I did. When Zaeed went all cowboy on me in Mass effect 2 and started to shoot the refinery up I honestly felt like kicking him off the Normandy and I might have if I could without killin him if not for the fact that everyone would have been needed for the suicide mission.
Considering I wasn't Zaeed or on his level and Shepard wasn't desperate I needed to show her I could contribute and follow orders when needed, that said if I needed to ignore her orders to save her or another team member then I would. I wasn't a sheep after all and if I was Shepard would have no use for me.
It took slightly longer than I hoped to clear them the geth and husks but when we did Shepard lead us down the slope to the space port when...
"Hold on, what's in that shed?" asked Shepard
"I think it's just storage or maintenance shed." answered Ash after thinking about it
"...Ash you're on me, it's probably nothing but I don't want it at my back without checking it out. Callum, Kaiden wait here." ordered Shepard before heading over
Staying where I was Shepard quickly goes over to the shed, she and Ash didn't even get near the door before it opened and a small group of people, talking to them for a moment they came back and the people returned to the safety of the shed.
"Okay, good news. We have more survivors, also according to them a lot of people haven't been turning up to work recently so that should be the last of the husks. Bad news is that after the attack they have no idea what's been happening." said Shepard
Continuing on it wasn't long until we arrived at the base of the spaceport where we quickly came across Nihlius's dead body, instead of laying in the middle of the floor however he was propped up against a box and instead of a single gunshot wound there were multiple.
'Unfortunately, it seems that I failed to save Nihlius. Now the dockworker should be around here.' I said starting to look around "where is...oh shit.' there he was right next to one of the dragon's teeth, the lazy dock worker that hid behind boxes to avoid the attack, except he wasn't hiding behind any boxes nor did he avoid the attack.
'Shit, why wasn't he behind the boxes? I'm sure he said he regularly hid from the supervisor to get through a shift unless ''a lot of people haven't been turning up to work'' that's what Shepard said before...maybe because they didn't have enough workers so he couldn't avoid the supervisor's attention long enough to hide...which meant he died because of me, even if it was indirectly. I often thought about how to save as many people as I could, while I knew I couldn't save everyone I never thought that by saving one person it'll cause someone else to die, I must be more careful in the future. It was only because of this guy that anyone knew who was behind the attacks, without him how will people know that...'
"Who or what is 'Saren'?" asked Shepard unexpectantly taking me by surprise
"What?!" how did she know that name
Giving me an odd look Shepard answers "I was going over the body when I saw this."
Moving Nihluis's body slightly Shepard points at some marks that were written in turian blood "At first I didn't think much of it but when I did a scan my omni-tool revealed that they're turian letters that translate to 'Saren' any idea on who or what that is?"
"Nihlius didn't seem to be the kind of guy to waste his last moments so it must be a clue about who's behind the attack." inputted Kaiden
"That's what I thought too, but is it a person, a ship, an organisation or something else." frowned Shepard "Never mind we need to keep going and it doesn't look like the beacon's here."
"Maybe it's up ahead, there is a tram near here, it might have been put on and moved further forward." suggested Ash
"... it's not much to go on but it's all we have for the moment. Besides we know it was sent here so either they moved it away which doesn't make sense or they moved it forward. The only other possibility is that we're too late and it was on that ship but that's the worst case scenario." said Shepard
"Wait, someone should take these." I said holding Nihlius shotgun and pistol
"Taking more weapons from the dead really?" asked Ash disapprovingly
"I don't like it either but we're going up against the geth besides these are far better than our current loadout and if it was me I'd be happy to know that my weapons are being used for a good cause. I'll take the shotgun, Ash you take my old one and Kaiden take the pistol." said Shepard
Continuing on we encountered more geth, no husks thankfully but there was a large number of geth in front of us. When we got to a set of stairs I stayed behind to do some sniping from the side at the top while Shepard and the other continued on down the stairs to the front of the tram. That way we could keep the attention of the geth divided and attack from as many positions as we could to deal with them quicker, for the moment its was just the basic geth units, grey and white but I was sure that would change soon.
Sure enough, moments after Shepard, Kaiden and Ash had advanced up the tram two massive geth primes started to charge at them the same time Ash had to duck to avoid sniper fire.
'Shit!' in the game even though it said some enemies increased the performance and their strategies but I'd never noticed it. Now however I did, the geth Primes clearly waited until Shepard and the others were to far into the tram to retreat while the snipers made it even harder.
Releasing over and over again I was able to put five arrows into one of the geth primes but it barely started to slow and spark. Even with Shepard, Ash and Kaiden pouring fire at the Primes they would get into point-blank range long before they went down and I knew that happening would be a death sentence. Thinking quickly I lobbed a singularity just in front of the primes, it barely affected them but that wasn't the plan, thrusting my hand forward I let loose my strongest shockwave that detonated the singularity. The more heavily damaged prime that had five arrows sticking out of it was destroyed while the other just hit the side rails. Wanting to keep the upper hand I lashed out with a pull, trying to tip the prime over the edge.
"Kaiden lift!" I shouted
Thankfully Kaiden understood what I was trying to do and soon the geth prime was tipped over the edge and fell to the ground below. With the overwhelming threat of the primes dealt with the snipers were much easier for Shepard, Ash and Kaiden to deal with as they were out of my field of vision and once they were gone Shepard called me down to join her at the front of the tram.
"Good thinking back there, those guys were a lot harder to deal with than the normal geth so far and if they got any closer things could have gotten quite messy." said Shepard thankfully
"Yeah, primes will always be hard to deal with." I said unthinkingly 'shit'
"Primes?" asked Shepard strangely
"Yeah like optimus prime." I said quickly
"..."
"..."
"..."
"You know Optimus Prime? Leader of the Autobots? ...you guys really need to watch the classics, anyway Optimus Prime is a big tough, red robot." I continued
"Ehhh, it doesn't have a designation and prime is just as good as anything else and it kind of fits. Ash have you seen anything like this?" asked Shepard
"No Commander, we did deal with a number of different units they all looked similar. The only real difference I can remember is colouring and some of them having antennas on their back and different weapons for a few of them." answered Ash as Shepard started the tram
"Hmmm, I wonder what other variations they'll be?" wondered Shepard
Seeing an opportunity to let her know what I new without being obvious I answered
"Probably one or two more kind of heavy units, maybe even a geth version of a tank. They'd probably have some sort of quick moving platform to."
"And how do you figure that?" asked Kaiden curiously
"Most species have similar sort of divisions, for human historically it was infantry, cavalry and artillery aka standard, light/fast and heavy. We've seen the infantry and the heavy...though they probably have more but I doubt a synthetic race would be foolish enough not so see the benefits of a quick but dangerous unit...though I have no idea what that would look like."
"Well I did take out those geth drones before...perhaps that's their light division?" suggested/asked Ash
"I think its best to assume that we've only seen a fraction of what the geth can throw at us, though I will pass on your ideas to Captain Anderson either way." said Shepard
Halfway through the tram ride, Shepard approached me quietly
"Listen I know biotics can't spam attacks like everyone thinks and you've been working as a farmer, not someone that would normally use a lot of biotics, are you sure you're okay to keep going? You can just stay on the tram if you want." asked/suggested Shepard
"I'll be fine, but I'd like if there wasn't too many more biotic attacks one after the other." I said, unlike in mass effect I couldn't do biotics over and over again. But I noticed that if took time to recover between each attack I could perform a lot more attacks than if I did biotic attacks over and over again.
"Alright but let me know if that changes." added Shepard
Soon after that conversation, we arrived at our destination and...
"You've got to be kidding me." said Shepard
"I'm afraid not commander, it's definitely a bomb and I'm afraid I doubt it's the only one." said Kaiden as he started to disarm it
"How difficult is the disarming process? Can you forward the instruction via omni-tool?" asked Shepard
"No, well I could but it's much too intricate, besides one of the bombs might be wired differently so it's best if you left it to those who have experience in bomb disposal." suggested Kaiden
"Then I'm afraid that's going to be just you, unless Ash?" queried Shepard
"Afraid not Commander, you need someone to take out a hostile hiding behind a wall of hostages or sprint past a sniper then I'm your girl. Cutting a wire and hoping it's the right one is not a situation I ever wanted or planned for." responded Ash
"In that case your with me, Kaiden you disarm the bomb and Callum you stay with understood." ordered Shepard before moving out
While Kaiden worked at defusing the bomb and sounds of gunfire echoed overhead I could only stand and keep watch. Being below and the upper level being out of sight there wasn't anything I could actually do.
"Alright done on to the next." said Kaiden
By the time we got onto the second bomb Shepard and Ash had already cleared the area near it and I was able to help clear the geth near the third bomb. The fourth bomb however was a completely different story, it seemed all the nearby geth were stopping us from getting anywhere near it. To make matters worse the area between us and it were completely open and the geth were making use of a large steel container to hid behind.
"Commander we need to move forward, we don't have much time left." warned Kaiden
Chewing her lip Shepard responded "Fine, make a break for it we'll try and cover you as much as possible."
"Wait I think I can help!" I said quickly
"How?!" asked Shepard
"I can create a biotic shield and go in front." I answered
"...alright, it's better then Kaiden just running in there. Wait take my shotgun, your bow and pistol not going to be much use there." said Shepard as she gave me the shotgun she got from Nihlius
Spinning out of cover I created a biotic shield to cover me and Kaiden as moved forward. It didn't take long for the geth to realize what we were up to and even with Ash and Shepard providing covering fire it was hard to hold. When we got near the last bomb I concentrated in keeping the shield in place with my left hand and lash out with a throw with my left before grabbing my shotgun and firing twice at a geth unit that ducked out of cover and tried to close the distance.
Now within reach of the last bomb Kaiden ran towards it, only pausing to lob a singularity near the closest corner of the steel container, something I was very thankful for
"...done!" said Kaiden shortly before Shepard took out the last geth unit
"It looks like that was the last of them." said Shepard looking around
"Oh thank fuck." I said relieved, that biotic shield took a lot out of me
"Relax here Callum you've done well. Kaiden how much time was left?" asked Shepard
"You don't want to know."
"Show me." repeated Shepard before Kaiden showed her "Shit."
"How bad was it?" asked Ash
"Let me put it this way, it was closer than you'd like but more time than it takes to sneeze." answered Shepard "Now lets check the next area, Callum you can wait here for a bit and follow when you're ready." continued Shepard as she grabs Nihlius's shotgun back
Taking a few moments to rest and recover I follow, it seems all the geth died trying to stop us from disarming the bomb and their were no more geth left.
Near the beacon Shepard was calling in a pickup while Ash drew closer to the beacon. Part of me wanted to interfere but there were two problems with that. 1 I was 90% sure their was some sort of explosive charge or sabotage that would break it quite soon or if we tried to move it. 2 Liara was amazed that Shepard didn't become brain dead afterwards so I doubt anyone here (definitely including me) could withstand it.
Soon after the entire screne played out below me and Shepard was thrown away from the beacon in explosion. Rushing down I open her eyes with my fingers with my hand, which was hard with the visor in the way.
"Shit! Normandy Shepard's down! Ready the med bay!" shouted Kaiden into his omni-tool
"Wait, does your ship have the equipment to deal with head a brain trauma? Prothian beacon were made to download information directly to the brain."
Pausing a second Kaiden relayed my question and waited for a response
"...Dr Chakwas has confirmed that we do. Heading to nearest landing zone near you."
OMAKE Red and Blue Effect
This is an idea I've had for a while, however with all my other stories I don't just have the time to devote to another story so I'll just write it as omakes until I have enough to publish it as another story. It was originally for my other mass effect story but as thats cold for the moment I'll put it here, what do you think
On Eden Prime,
"I wasn't expecting to find geth here, the situation is bad," said Nihlus sadly before something reaches his ear, some sort of music. "Hey, do you hear that?"
"Don't worry, I've got it..." Saren started as he raised his gun before hearing the music as well causing him to stop momentarily.
Before Saren could open fire a blue circular portal appeared from nowhere and out of it came some kind of ground vehicle … heading right for them.
As Nihlus rolls out of the way he notices a few things, 1 that the vehicle has three passengers wearing heavy armour, each with a different colour. Red as the driver, aqua as the passenger and yellow as the gunner and that Saren was about to shoot him in the back.
"YOU BASTARD! You're behind this?!" shouted Nihlus opening fire.
"It's nothing personal, this needs to happen and you just got in the way," answered Saren calmly, returning fire.
"Hey Sarge, what should we do?" asked yellow aka Grif.
"Shoot the blue one!" ordered Sarge.
"Wait we don't even know what's going on!" tried aqua, aka Tucker, "and you're just saying that because the other guy's red!"
"And I don't care either way, this is a big gun and I'lll be damned if I don't use it," interrupted Grif before opening fire at one of the fighters … who just happened to be the one Sarge ordered him to shoot, causing him to retreat.
With Saren retreating, Nihluis ran over to the ones that saved his life.
"Thank you, you saved my life," said Nihluis sincerely.
"You're welcome noble warrior." replied Sarge.
"Now I don't know how you got here, or what that portal was, but I'm here with a human called Shepard to recover a Prothean Beacon and I would appreciate help with that," requested Nihlus.
"Hmmmm … of course," answered Sarge.
"What's he saying?" asked Grif.
"I don't have the faintest clue, but as one warrior to another, I can feel the wisdom coming out of his mouth."
"Wait … how do we even know it's a guy, for all we know its hot alien chick under all that armour!" argued Tucker.
'...the fuck is happening.' thought an extremely confused Nihlius.
"Yeah, but the last time you got it on with an alien you're the one that got pregnant remember?" asked Grif.
"Yeah but that was just one bad experience, I can't let it stop me from any future bangs!" exclaimed Tucker.