Chapter 1 – Feet First into Bahak
(Ten Years Ago)
February 22nd, 2201, 0932 hours — Kite's Nest, Gunthel System — The Planet of Bahak
Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…
(First Lieutenant Lancelot Percival – Fifth Battalion, 104th Marines)
The shuttle vibrated like it was possessed by a demonic spirit. The Captain had mentioned that the winds on Bahak could hit up to ninety kilometers an hour, but at the time he had said it Percival had filed the information into the back of his brain as "non-essential". Systems Alliance Hammerhead Dropships could be fielded in winds of up to one-hundred and fifty kilometers an hour — ninety should have been nothing.
That is if you considered being shaken about like a rat by a terrier for three whole minutes before getting shot at by batarian slavers 'nothing'.
Percival closed his eyes and willed the surging sense of unease and fear away, or at the very least, as deep-down as he could. His finger tapped incessantly against the trigger-guard of his M-7 Lancer. Nothing could make that sense of unease and fear disappear, Percival knew, not unless he was kipped up on uppers or some sort of psychopath. He also knew that it was up to him to take that fear and turn it into something constructive – to use it to help him survive and to get his men out in one piece.
"Sixty seconds!" The pilot shouted over the intercom. Percival swallowed and grabbed the hand that was tapping on his rifle with his other one, squeezing it as hard as he could. It wouldn't do for the rest of the platoon to see exactly how nervous he was, not when they were counting on him to be lead them.
Beside him he heard one of his marines noisily vomit onto the deck of the Hammerhead.
"Jake, make sure Santiago is fucking awake! And Scully, you better not choke to death before the batarians even get a crack at you!" screamed the platoon's head NCO, Gunnery Chief James Fairchild.
"S-sir, yes sir!" the private whimpered.
Percival squeezed his eyes shut and hoped that all the unease and the fear would go away once he had his boots on solid ground, where he could lay-up, take cover, and actually return fire at slavers now currently picking off the shuttles one by one.
A loud explosion from the outside jolted his eyes wide open. Percival double-checked his harness in case something had hit their shuttle and looked around to try and spot any structural damage.
"Christ, that was Foxtrot 2-2, Foxtrot 2-2 is down!" One of the pilots shouted.
"Hey, slaps, you okay?" asked Gunnery Chief Fairchild, or 'Fairy' as they sometimes called him. AA fire and downed shuttles apparently didn't so much as even phase the man but the sight of his superior officer looking scared shitless somehow did. Percival wished that he had a fraction of the courage that James had, maybe then he'd have a shot at bringing all of his marines home in one piece.
"I'm good man, thanks," Percival replied. It was a white-knuckled lie, but thankfully for him he was wearing full-fingered gloves.
"Thirty seconds," came the penultimate report.
Percival and the rest of the marines began undoing their harnesses and checking over their weapons and armor one last time. As one they all stood and formed up in two lines of eight, facing the rear of the dropship where they'd be departing. As was custom, Percival took his place at the front of one line while James took the other. There were a whole lot of whispered prayers and half-promises flying among the marines as the shuttle began to slow down.
He felt a hand grab him tightly by the shoulder and Percival turned to see his friend staring at him with a look of steely resolve.
"Hey, Percival, look at me. You'll do fine man, you're a good officer. You've trained for this".
Percival had trained for this. They'd told him what it'd be like back in Officer Candidate School, but in the two years since he'd graduated he'd yet to fully shake off the fear that preceded every single combat drop. Even when he'd be given commendation after commendation, completed successful mission after successful mission, Percival had never fully stopped being afraid. He knew that the day he did, either he had finally snapped or he had nothing left to live for. Either way he'd be dead.
Percival nodded at his friend. The shuttle's doors dropped open to reveal a hellish, dune-like landscape dotted with charred, glassy patches of sand, gunfire, and tiny figures either in Systems Alliance armor or the bladed armor of the slavers exchanging weapons-fire with one another from behind impromptu foxholes or large rocks.
What's worse, even though they were still about twenty meters in the air and travelling at roughly fifty kilometers an hour towards their designated landing zone, Percival could still hear the cacophony of pained screams and frantic, angry orders that echoed from human and batarian throats alike. It wasn't like anything he'd ever experienced before, and although Percival had never been particularly religious he now felt compelled to call upon every deity he knew to grant him the courage to step off of this shuttle and into the howling inferno of battle.
A metal spike suddenly lodged itself into the compartment above his head, missing his helmet by mere inches. Percival cursed and tightened his grip on his M-7 Lancer.
"Five seconds!" screamed his pilot, then "Go! Go! Go!".
Percival leapt out of the shuttle, rifle up and his head down, tracking for any slavers tempted to loose off a few shots at his marines currently departing from their shuttles. A few meters away and a couple of feet behind him James fired his Lancer at a few figures with large, black blades jutting out from their shoulder-guards. It was hard to see where all the slavers were positioned; all the shuttles were kicking up tons and tons of sand to the point where Percival could barely see forty meters in any direction.
All around him shuttles were dropping off more and more marines from his company. He watched as a tight group of about three marines from another platoon off to his right were suddenly hit by a group Overload, burning right through their shields and leaving them twitching in place.
He watched in horror as a stick-like device landed among their midst. Before he could do anything it went off, sending dozens of foot-long barbs lancing through the incapacitated marines, punching right through their armor and tearing them to bloody ribbons.
Percival found his voice then. "Spread out! Spread out! One marine is a waste of ammo, five is a juicy target!" he bellowed into his radio.
No one could accuse fate of not having an ironic sense of humor. A marine somewhere to his right quietly wilted and folded under a hail of spikes, blood spewing in great spurts from his shattered chestplate. A medic ran towards the fallen marine only to take a burst of spikes to the femur. She went down with a scream, one hand clawing at them in pain and agony, the other scrabbling through the sand as she tried desperately to pull herself to the fallen marine.
Percival's comm unit crackled to life and he could hear his captain hailing him on the other end. "Percival! Get your fucking men on the line and lay down suppressive fire!" shouted Captain Garen.
"Roger that, captain!" Percival replied. "Fairy, take your squad up our left! Dimi, Ruiz, right flank! We need to get to the line!" he screamed into his comm. set.
"Roger that slaps!"
"Affirmative, Lieutenant!"
"You've got it!"
Percival had fought on sandy planets before and he absolutely hated every one. In addition to the slavers firing their spike-throwers at him, each step took nearly four times more effort than it would have usually taken than if he had been on stable ground. Percival wasn't exactly a light marine – each heavy step brought the sand nearly up to his ankles, and the heavy armor he was wearing wasn't exactly doing him any favors either.
But fear was a hell of a stimulant, giving him the energy he needed to sprint on. A trio of spikes whistled past his head. Percival caught sight of a pair of figures in bladed armor suddenly emerge from beneath the sands. Without stopping, he let loose an extended burst, giving a wordless prayer of thanks when he saw that his rounds had landed right on target and a spray of reddish blood erupt from their chests. Both of the slavers flopped back down, where the sand would soon cover them back up.
Another pair of slavers rose up from a spider-hole somewhere to his left, but before Percival could swing his rifle to neutralize them a hail of gunfire shredded them before they'd even had a chance to take a shot at the marine lieutenant.
"Got your back, Perc," James replied over the comm.
"Thanks," Percival grunted.
He could see the spike-ridden bodies of scores of marines on the dunes ahead of them, bleeding. It was brutal, the way that they'd been killed. Kinetic barriers were designed to stop the fast-moving, sand-sized grains of titanium that modern-day mass effect weaponry fired, not the large-caliber spikes that the slavers used. Marine combat armor was tough, but the sheer mass of the metal spikes that the slavers fired allowed it to punch right through, inflicting terrible damage on organs and flesh.
Behind Percival his marines wordlessly traded fire with any targets they could see in the sandstorm, saving their breath for running in the mire-like sand. None of the marines in his squad had been hit yet, but he could see more than a few marines missing from the other platoons in his company currently running further out on his flanks. It was turning into an absolute bloodbath.
Cries for medic erupted around him as marines caught spikes to the legs, arms, torso, and head. Those that caught them in the head or in a vital artery died either instantly or in seconds, with no amount of medigel being capable of stemming such terrible wounds. Those who caught one in the non-vital areas still suffered intense tissue trauma from the large-bore spikes that the batarians fired.
"Hurry the fuck up Lieutenant!" His captain cried again.
"Running as fast as I can sir!" Percival panted laboriously.
"Run faster!"
The line was now about thirty meters away. Percival could see the rest of his company arranged on a rough line of dunes and in hastily-dug foxholes firing at pods of slavers on the other side of the no-man's land. The other companies of his battalion were covering other points further down the line, trying their best to secure a landing zone so that the heavy artillery could finally arrive and start kicking down some doors.
Percival finally made it to the position his platoon was supposed to take up in the line. He slid into a foxtrot, placed the barrel of his Lancer up on the lip, and started firing at anything that wasn't in the armor of a Systems Alliance Marine.
Corporal Kara Johansson slid into position beside him, sporting a couple of gashes in her pauldron where a slaver had likely gotten off a lucky hit, but otherwise unharmed and extremely, extremely angry. She screamed in anger and unloaded her rifle at a trio of slavers currently laying down fire on a squad from another company somewhere to their left. They all pitched face-down into the sand, bleeding from dozens of wounds.
She turned to Percival and depolarized her helmet, revealing her shaved head and her sharp cheeks pulled back into a savage grin.
"Not the way they wanted to start their morning, huh LT?" Kara joked.
Percival smiled in return and nodded at the corporal. "Not the way they wanted to end it, either. Anyone hit?" he asked her.
"No, everyone in the squad made it. The captain still kicking?"
"Yeah," Percival replied. "Can't see him with all this damn sand though."
"I hate sand," Kara said between bursts from her Lancer. "It's coarse and it gets everywhere."
Percival ducked down into the foxhole and keyed open his comm. channel. Private 1st Class Jasmine Mendoza, or 'Jazz' as she preferred to be called, and Corporal Duc 'Ducky' Nguyen slammed down into the foxhole to his right and opened up with their weapons alongside Kara.
"I am already fucking done with this shit," Ducky sighed as he ducked to avoid an Incineration bolt tossed by one of the slavers.
"You know you love it, you dog," Jazz scoffed.
The rest of his squad went prone on the dune behind his foxhole and added to the covering fire. Percival had no clue as to whether or not the planetary cannons were close to coming offline, all he knew was that his entire battalion had to establish a landing zone for the heavy artillery before they did.
"Fairy, you still alive man?" Percival asked.
"It's been like five minutes, who do you take me for," his best friend chuckled.
"Casualties?" Percival inquired to the other NCO's in his platoon over his comm unit. "Ruiz, Dimi, any losses?"
"No, we're green," James replied.
"We lost Eugene and Carssen," reported Gunnery Chief Adriano Dimitrios. The greek Systems Alliance marine was a ten-year veteran who'd been a part of the Slaver Fringe Wars since it began, and he'd spent the better part of their journey to the Gunthel System claiming that he was more than ready to see it end.
"Ivanovich took a spike through the leg," reported Service Chief Francisco Ruiz.
Percival cursed. Like James had said, they'd barely been on this planet for five minutes and already their platoon had taken ten percent casualties, and after they had established the landing zones they'd still need to seize and take the slave facilities, fighting the slavers in close-quarters combat on their own turf. He'd be writing a lot of letters when he made it out of this. If he made it out of this.
He swapped channels to the company-wide channel. "Captain, third platoon is in position. Three casualties – two of which are fatalities."
"Shit, okay," replied Captain Michael Garen. "Keep up suppressive fire, we're waiting for a few stragglers from Miller's platoon. Zulu company landed about two minutes ago – they've got the heavy weapons. Once they're here we'll begin to push back."
A spike grenade went off somewhere nearby and a chorus of screams rose up. "Any updates on the planetary cannons?" Percival asked, doing his best to ignore the cries of dying marines.
"Not yet, but the 63rd should already be on-board the cannons! They'll have 'em down in no time and we'll paste these slavers faster than you can spit, Lieutenant!"
"Oohrah, captain!" Percival grinned. He clicked off his comm. set and stood up and re-took his position on the line, firing at a slaver who was taking aim at a combat medic currently treating a wounded marine.
"What's the word?" James asked.
"Zulu company is on the way with the heavies, and the 63rd is engaged. We just need to hold out for now," Percival told him.
"Well let's hope your girlfriend gets here in time then," snarked his second-in-command. Percival rolled his eyes and ignored the jab his friend made. He knew it wasn't personal, after all it had been James who'd introduced the two back on Terra Nova. He had told Percival that officers should stick with the officers and leave the enlisted for the NCO's.
"Hey Fairy, you gonna find me a nice, well-endowed female jarhead as well?" Corporal Johansson asked.
"And get sent to Dante's ninth circle? Fuck that corporal." James chuckled.
The marines in the platoon all erupted in laughter at the Gunnery Chief's reply. All of them were familiar with Corporal Johannson's appetite. She was currently at the top of the unofficial company leaderboards, and if rumor had it – the entire battalion, although Whitley from Victor Company could give her a run for her money.
One of the marines in the foxhole some meters away to Percival's left suddenly went down with a spike through his eye, putting a sudden end to the storm of laughter in his platoon.
"Medic!" screamed Service Chief Ruiz. Percival could see a marine with a red navy corpsman's cross on her pauldron dash over from an adjacent foxhole and kneel to check on the hit marine. It was pointless, Percival knew, but he respected and allowed the corpsman's attempt nonetheless. It was what made marines marines – that stubborn inability to leave any of their brothers and sisters behind.
That made four casualties now, and if they had to wait any longer soon there wouldn't be a company left to take the slave facilities.
Percival fired a carnage blast at a group of slavers currently leap-frogging from enemy foxhole-to-foxhole, killing two of them outright and knocking out the shields of the other two. Before the two surviving slavers could reach safety, Jazz and Ducky both brought them down with concentrated bursts of fire that shredded through the slavers' rather flimsy armor. Although their armor looked impressive and intimidating – what with the implanted spikes and blades on their pauldrons and the black batarian script that ran up and down their arms and chest – It only took about two seconds of sustained fire to punch through their kinetic barriers and another half-second to kill them. It was cheap, mass-produced stuff.
But what the slavers lacked in armor, they made up for in arms. Modeled off of Graal Spike-throwers krogan used to hunt thresher maws on their native planet of Tuchanka, the slaver's Spike-rifle was their answer to Systems Alliance hardsuits, kinetic barriers, and combat armor.
Essentially rifle-sized nail guns that fired six-inch long flechettes. Their spike-rifles ignored any defensive advantages that the Systems Alliance marines might have had and put the two opposing forces on essentially even ground.
A massive, six-foot long metal javelin suddenly flew right at Corporal Nguyen. Ducky ducked just in time and the javelin embedded itself on the dune behind their foxhole, just barely missing Private 1st Class Malcolm Sterling.
"I am so done with this shit!" Ducky cursed.
"God, fucking damn it!" cried Sterling. The heavy gunner stood up, ignoring the hailstorm of spikes that were flying around him, and unloaded his M-76 Revenant at a group of slavers manning some sort of weapon they currently had braced against the ground – like a Kishock harpoon gun, but oversized. The slavers disappeared in a shower of blood and gore under the withering gunfire.
His M-76 Revenant overheated just as the last slaver went down, and as it cooled another group of slavers rose up from a nearby spider-hole, their spike-rifles aimed at the angry heavy gunner.
A hand grabbed the private around the ankle of his hardsuit and jerked him down back behind the dune just before a line of spikes ripped through the space where his head had been mere moments before.
"What the shit, Sterls? Are you fucking trying to get yourself killed?" hissed Private 1st Class Laverne Kane. The private fired at the slavers who had tried to impale his friend, forcing them to duck back down into their spider-hole.
"I am trying to win this goddamn fight. You can't get killed if there's no one left to kill you," Sterling shot back.
"That is not how this works!" Kane hissed even more furiously.
Another six-foot long metal javelin flew into a nearby foxhole and punched through the armored chest of a marine and the marine who'd been reloading behind him, pinning the two of them together. Percival's eyes went wide in shock
"What the fuck was that!" screamed James.
"Modified Kishocks!" Percival screamed back. "We need to take them out before the Goblins can land! Those things can punch through the plating on our heavy artillery!"
"Fairy, Kishock coming up your lane!" Kara yelled.
Either the batarians didn't care about saving their modified harpoon guns for the heavy artillery or they had enough of them to spare. Many of the javelins missed but Percival saw more than a few marines get brutally impaled by the savage weaponry. The six-foot long metal spikes could punch right through sand to hit a marine in a foxhole or behind a dune, they had to take them out soon.
"X-ray Company, focus fire on those heavy weapons!" ordered the Captain.
Percival and the rest of his marines obeyed, prioritizing batarians who were manning the modified Kishocks.
"Perc, you've got an enemy squad moving towards a Kishock at your eleven!" shouted Ruiz over the comm set.
Percival turned to the direction in question. He squinted through the sandstorm and saw that a group of batarians were stealthily making their way towards a Kishock that had been dropped by another group of slain slavers. He tapped on Kara's shoulder and gestured towards the group.
The corporal nodded and slid a carnage shell into her Lancer. Percival did the same, then held up three fingers and started lowering them one by one.
At the end of the countdown, both Percival and Kara lifted their Lancers and fired their carnage shells directly at the group of slavers. The batarians had just reached the weapon and were in the process of loading it when the shells went off, blowing them into chunks of steaming metal and flesh and the weapon to a mangled ruin. The sand then began the laborious work of covering up the gruesome slight.
"Good shot LT," Ducky acknowledged.
"You too Kara," Jazz whistled.
Suddenly a hail of heavy gunfire erupted from behind the marines, not directed towards them but towards the slaver line. All the foxholes at the front of the slavers ranks erupted in plumes of sand and blood as the heavy gunners of Zulu company fired their M-110 Crocodile Heavy Machine Guns at slaver lines. The weapons were heavy and had to be carried by two marines but were capable of firing in excess of 900 rounds per minute, for five straight minutes.
Their radio's crackled on again, and the voice of their captain could once more be heard over the company-wide channel.
"Zulu is here! Push those fuckers back and secure this LZ before those birds get here with the heavy guns!"
Percival took several deep breaths and tightened his gloves around the barrel of his M7 Lancer. Beside him Kara quickly crossed herself and said a few quick words beneath her breath. They would be getting the order to charge any minute now, once Zulu Company had successfully suppressed the slavers. Marines would die, and he'd lose friends, but that was what they had signed up for, right?"
"Down in that valley rots thousands of poor souls—souls that the slavers have torn from their families, homes, and loved ones—all in the name of rebuilding their 'glorious' empire," the captain continued. "I don't know about you, but that shit absolutely will not fly with me! I'm not going to sit around and let living, breathing beings of any species live under the tyranny of another, and I'm damn well sure neither will you!"
"Oohrah!" echoed from the throats of the hundreds of marines of the five companies of the 5th Battalion of the 104th Marines. They were the last battalion of the last marine regiment in the Systems Alliance. With a roar, the marines of Victor, Whiskey, X-Ray, Yankee and Zulu company all prepared to meet the slavers — not their gods, no. Today, they were the gods.
Percival roared alongside his marines. He didn't sign up to kill people. He didn't sign up to become some paper-pushing general or some fobbit on a backwater colony stamping procurement papers and checking inventory. No, he signed up because he had never been one to shy away from a fight that needed fighting – not when he had been a child on the playgrounds of Elysium, standing between his friends and a group of bullies who'd wanted to take their soccer ball, or when he'd heard that his father had been killed out on patrol by a group of pirates. No sir.
"Marines, last of the last! Freedom is not. fucking. optional!" roared the captain.
The Crocodiles ceased their relentless barrage and a blanket of silence fell over the slaver's front lines. Percival watched as a lone, armored figure sprinted up from a foxhole some distance away and began to sprint across the no-mans land, through the sandstorm that whipped across the battlefield and towards the enemy ranks.
He turned to his marines. All of them – Kara, Jazz, Ducky, Kane, Sterls, Woodhouse and Cormack – all of them had their faceplates depolarized and all of them had looks of sheer determination etched onto their faces.
The sands swirled and danced and began to cover up those who had already fallen, slaver and marine alike. In time their bodies would be covered and the blood would be hidden, and any future generations that walked upon Bahak, upon this spot, would be hard-pressed to tell that on these sands brave men and women died so that others could be free.
Percival nodded to all of them. "You heard the captain! Freedom is not fucking optional!"
He grabbed the lip of the foxhole and heaved himself over it, his throat hoarse from all the yelling, his Lancer held in his other hand. Beside him Kara did the same, laughing lyrically.
Ducky and Jazz came up next, with Ducky muttering for the third time that he was completely over this shit. Both of them fell into step behind Percival, the rest of the squad trailing behind them. All of the marines roared and began firing at the slaver's lines, further suppressing the batarians and buying the rest of the battalion time to make it through the killing field.
No, freedom wasn't, not while a single marine of the last of the last still had breath left in their body.
February 22nd, 2201, 0925 hours — Kite's Nest, Gunthel System — The Planet of Bahak
Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption…Profile Reconstruction Required…
(Lieutenant Commander Thomas Locke – N7 Team One)
Locke set the last charge in place, then ensured that the activation triggers were properly synced up to his omni-tool. A mistimed charge would at best ruin their grand entrance or at worst, go off before his team could fully clear the airlock, killing them or spacing them and leaving the planetary defense cannon up and running to tear through the Goblin transports responsible for bringing the heavy artillery down onto Bahak.
You're not dying here today Tom, you've still got things to do, Locke thought to himself.
"Did you double-check the charges? I'd prefer if it were just the batarians who died today," quipped Staff Lieutenant Alexander Avery. The second N7 in Locke's team was currently magnetically attached to one side of the airlock that the team would breach from, his fingers drumming impatiently on the barrel of his modified M-76 Revenant.
"Looks like we've got different preferences," retorted Staff Lieutenant Linda Churchill. The sniper and tech expert had never really gotten use to her fellow N7's gallows humor, even after nearly five years of serving on the same team. She had traded in her customary Black Widow sniper rifle for a modified M-15 Vindicator, a prudent exchange given the lack of open spaces in the planetary defense cannon.
"Charges are triple-checked. Check your weapons and your mag-settings, and make sure you keep your helmets sealed. We can't guarantee that the cannons have a breathable atmosphere or artificial gravity," Locke reminded his team. Although the three of them had maybe a combined total of nearly forty years of combat experience, it still never hurt to be more than careful.
"I hate space ops," groaned Alex.
Locke and his team were currently mag-attached to the perimeter of an airlock on one of Bahak's planetary defense cannons. Two platoons from the 63rd had boarded this particular cannon facility about ten minutes ago and had encountered stiff resistance, and as a result Locke's team was sent in to expedite the process.
The slavers had spared no expenses in protecting the planet of Bahak, their last stronghold. Nearly a dozen planetary defense cannons – each of them essentially mini space stations built around a mass accelerator cannon – were currently keeping the Ninth Fleet's heavy transports from dropping off the heavy artillery that the boys on the ground needed to punch through the shield covering the valley in which the slave facilities were currently situated in.
What's worse, instead of having one large central generator to power every single cannon, each cannon was apparently currently running on their own smaller generators, meaning either the marines of the Ninth Fleet had to take out each individual cannon or they had to wait for the smaller generators to run out of juice before their Goblins could start landing mission-critical equipment, meaning that the marines on the ground responsible for securing the LZ we're currently getting their asses shot off waiting around.
"Why the fuck is Murgen not handling this one? We're better off down in the facilities, picking off their commanders and shit," Alex complained even further. Unlike his two fellow N7's he had no qualms about openly voicing his opinions about the decisions of their superiors.
Locke couldn't blame him, this really was a job for the Jaegers. Had he been in charge Locke would have had the Jaegers on standby to assist the marines of the 63rd. Instead his team and three others were tied up in orbit when they could have been more of use assisting the marines on the ground.
But orders were still orders, and Locke didn't particularly care what role he had to play in order to get the mission done. He only cared about making it back in one piece so he could continue his true mission.
"We'd also be better off if you'd keep your trap shut before we breached, so that Tom and I can have just a little bit of peace and quiet before we get shot at by a bunch of angry slavers," chided Linda.
Alex powered on his M-76 Revenant. The massive red machine-gun extended to its full length with a hiss. "You know you love it," he chuckled. On the other side of the airlock Linda powered on her omni-tool in one hand and readied her Vindicator in the other.
"Cut the chatter, breaching in five," Locke told his team. Both of his fellow N7's nodded. It was game time now.
"Five… four…three…two…MARK!" yelled Locke. He slammed his finger down onto the activation trigger displayed on his omni-tool and detonated the charges.
All four charges detonated inward, sending the door flying into the station. Locke was the first one through the breach, grabbing the lip of the airlock and deactivating his mag-boots, swinging himself into the large corridor that the airlock had fed into and re-activating them once his feet had found solid purchase on the deck. As he had suspected there was no artificial gravity, and thanks to the gaping hole left by their charges there was no air either.
He activated his omni-shield just in-time to catch the withering barrage of spikes that the slavers fire at them. Each one felt like a hammer slamming into his shield, hitting much harder than a mass effect-propelled slug would. For a moment Locke was stunned in place by the barrage, locked into place by the overwhelming batarian gunfire.
But his training kicked in mere moments after. Locke brought both his feet together, disengaged his mag-boots and jumped straight into the air, keeping his entire body behind his omni-shield and keeping the shield between him and the deadly spike-fire. The force of the fire pushed him to the ceiling where he re-activated his mag-boots and latched on, still on the defensive.
"Eight hostiles with spike-rifles, six clumped at the front, two at the back," he quickly radioed to his team.
"Roger that," Linda replied.
All eight of the batarians were currently firing all they had at the N7 on the ceiling of the corridor, and in their bloodthirst they neglected to cover the ragged hole that Locke had came through, leaving them exposed to the other two N7's who had been waiting patiently outside.
An armored arm with a red-stripe running down it and an activated omni-tool glowing around its fist suddenly appeared around the lip of the shattered airlock and released a massive Overload charge. The blue bolt arced into the six slavers, shorting out their shields and causing them to seize in place. One of the two slavers who'd been standing at the back barked something in his coarse, native tongue and pointed at the airlock.
But it was too late, a second armored figure also bearing a red-stripe on his right arm pulled himself into the airlock and silently unloaded into the stunned batarians with his M-76 Revenant. Staff Lieutenant Alexander Avery cut them down without a word, his loquacious tendencies being completely subdued once he started taking lives.
There was nothing to take cover behind. The two batarians shifted their weapons towards the exposed N7, howling furiously over the loss of their brethren, and squeezed their triggers.
Locke released his mag-boots and pushed off the ceiling to propel himself in front of his vulnerable comrade. He brought his shield up between him and Avery just in time to catch the barrage of spikes.
Staff Lieutenant Linda Churchill ended the barrage with two well-placed bursts that destroyed the fragile spike-rifles. Another pair of bursts chewed through their shields, allowing Locke to take out the last two slavers with well-placed headshots from his M-5 Phalanx. Both batarians slumped over alongside their fellow slavers. It was a gruesome sight, the way the slavers bodies remained limply upright, held in place by their mag-boots.
The whole encounter had taken less than fifteen seconds, and thanks to the lack of oxygen in this part of the station had occurred without a sound.
"Let's move, the boarding party is still pinned down," Locke told his team over the comm.
Both the other N7's flashed green acknowledgement lights and readied their weapons. Together the three moved towards another door that would lead deeper into the facility.
It suddenly opened and a quartet of slavers appeared in the doorway. Linda's omni-tool flashed blue and another Overload charge short-circuited their shields. Locke advanced in a crouch with his omni-shield held sideways so that both he and Avery could fire over the edge of his shield on the defenseless slavers while the shield protected both of their torsos. Their weapons coughed soundlessly and the four batarians died as their comrades did, fixed in place with their bodies limp.
The team moved forward. A cloud of reddish batarian blood floated in front of the entrance of the doorway but the three N7's paid it no heed, travelling through it without a word of complaint. The ghastly fluid coated their armor, giving each of them the appearance of having literally bathed in the blood of their enemies.
They passed through the doorway into another vestibule with an airlock at the other end. Linda pressed a nearby button, causing the door behind them to slam shut. With a loud hiss the little vestibule began to fill up with oxygen as the facility's VI registered that station breach had been isolated.
With the danger and the immediate threat removed, Avery's mouth resumed its primary settings. "How many slavers do you think they've got manning this place? From the outside I'd say that we can expect up to a hundred, but I seriously doubt that the slavers have the manpower to garrison each of their cannons with nearly a full company. I'm betting that—" he prattled on.
"Atmosphere is breathable, artificial gravity is online," Locke informed his teammates, completely brushing aside his fellow N7's commentary.
"Should we stick to private comms?" Linda asked.
"Yes," Locke nodded. "We'll go loud once we make contact with the marines. Let's move."
Locke took point through the airlock with his shield held horizontally to protect both him and Avery. The Staff Lieutenant snapped his mouth shut, even though technically no one could hear him through his sound-proof helmet, and followed behind, his weapon just raised over the lip of Locke's shield. Churchill followed three meters behind, omni-tool ready.
They passed through the airlock into a corridor. Locke could hear the faint sounds of gunfire interspersed with the guttural bark of the batarian tongue and the muffled shouts of marine voices. Although technically Locke's team could head directly to the generator in each station and shut down the planetary defense cannon from there, the two platoons assigned to take this station had radioed in reporting heavy casualties. As a fellow Systems Alliance marine, Locke wasn't about to just leave them hanging.
"Third and fourth platoon, 1st/63rd, should have boarded at the hangar bay approximately twenty-five meters away, under the command of First Lieutenant Steven Vallon. Second Lieutenant Gowri Chaudhaury is KIA. Fifteen dead and twelve wounded, they were ambushed right out of their shuttles," Linda reported to the team.
"Where's the generator? Alex asked.
Linda pulled up the schematic to double check. "There's a door in the hangar bay. Ten meters down that corridor, hook a left, then your first right, and a left again, and straight down that one 'til you hit the generator. Easy-peasy."
The sounds of battle echoed even more loudly now. Locke increased his pace, eager to save some marines. The two platoons had about half of their men in fighting condition still, and unless he double-timed it that number could potentially drop to zero before he could so much as blink.
"Got a plan, Lieutenant Commander?" Alex whispered over the comms.
Locke holstered his pistol and pulled out a pair of arc grenades with his spare hand. Normal grenades might risk causing a blow-out, hence the N7 had opted for the non-lethal ones instead. Non-lethal was a bit of a misnomer though. Arc grenades not only drained your shield, but unless you were wearing specialized armor they'd leave you stunned and twitching for the better part of half a minute, making you easy meat for anyone with a rifle.
"Stun and neutralize," Locke simply said.
"What, no stealth recon? No optics cable? We're not even going to attempt to hijack their security grid?" Linda said in amusement.
"We've got no time, men are dying."
The N7's made their way to the entrance of the hangar bay without encountering any further hostiles. Likely the slavers on board had split up into three groups – one to guard the escape airlock that his team had come through, one at the generators, and the largest one at the hangar to repel the marine boarders.
Linda and Alex each stacked up on one side of the entrance while Locke stood in front of the doors, his omni-shield raised and his grenades still in hand. He gestured to Linda and the female N7 pressed on the door's activation button, making them slide open and revealing to the team the carnage currently taking place inside the hangar bay.
A ruined shuttle lay smoking and burning at the back of the hangar bay, several charred and blackened marine bodies around it. Marines were hiding behind the other three shuttles returning fire at batarian slavers in bladed armor firing at them from behind make-shift barricades. From the looks of it these slavers had had time to put together fortifications and set a trap before the marines had arrived, and it had been highly effective.
"Third and fourth platoons, friendlies coming in from behind the batarians!" Locke exclaimed on the marine channel.
A shout of hope went up from the marines. Locke and his team were positioned directly behind the batarian slavers and their barricades, who amounted to roughly two platoons but had better cover and harder-hitting weapons compared to the Alliance marines.
He took two steps in and let loose the grenades in his hand. One landed among a group of slavers manning a heavy turret that they had lugged in, while the other landed at the feet of some slaver in a more decorated set of bladed armor who seemed to be directing the ambush. Luckily for Locke, not a single batarian had noticed the door opening or the lone N7 walking in.
The grenades went off, sending nearly a score of batarians to their knees, shields short-circuited.
Linda and Alex rounded the corner. The N7 Marksman put a burst right between the eyes of the slaver commander before either Alex or Locke even had a chance to pick their targets, snapping his head backwards in a spray of brownish-red blood. The slaver commander crumpled to the ground, the black batarian script on his armor covered in his own gore, his bladed pauldrons scratching the hangar floor.
Alex opened up with his M-76 Revenant and cut down the stunned slavers who knelt twitching around the heavy turret. Linda let loose another four bursts that killed the batarians who had been standing around the commander, then twisted back around the corner, weapon venting heat.
"Swapping heat-sinks!" she exclaimed.
Many of the slavers turned at the sound of gunfire coming from behind their lines and were stunned by the sudden appearance of the bloodied bodies of their commander and fellow slavers. Their fire towards the marine line slackened ever so slightly.
It was a shock that Locke was quick to capitalize on. With a low growl he leapt towards the nearest slaver and slammed his omni-shield like an axe towards the batarian's face. The force of Locke's blow paired with the sharpened edge of the silicon-carbide shield allowed it to bypass the batarian's weak kinetic shields and nearly sheer the slaver's face in half. His face erupted in a fountain of blood, the bottom half of his jaw flapping uselessly, coating the front of Locke's armor even further.
A couple of the nearby slavers let out terrified shouts at the sight of the blood-soaked N7 nearly severing their comrade's face in half. Locke didn't let up on his advantage. He brought his shield down in a vicious downward swing and sliced open the chest of another slaver on his left before whipping it around in a wide arc to cut through the throat of another on his right. His free hand then grabbed his M-5 Phalanx from his holster and emptied four shots into the helmet of a fourth slaver.
By then Alex's M-76 Revenant had overheated and he had swung back behind the corner to reload. Linda took the opportunity to swing back around and start targeting batarians trying to draw a bead on Locke, blowing out face-plates and kneecaps and occasionally letting out Overload charges.
In thirty seconds nearly a third of the batarians had been killed. The marines began to rally and lend their fire to the fight, opening up on any of the slavers who were preoccupied with trying to deal with the N7's.
A marine lieutenant waved his arms and urged his men forward. "Go! Charge them down!" he yelled.
Angry roars erupted from the thirty-odd marines still on their feet. They rushed at the slavers who were caught between the three N7's and a platoon of pissed-off Systems Alliance jarheads. A few more marines fell but the majority of them made it to the barricades, leapt over, and engaged the slavers in close quarters.
Locke dodged the bladed vambraces of an attacking slaver and slammed his omni-shield into the batarian's face. He triggered the shock setting, stunning the batarian and causing him to sizzle with electricity. The N7 placed the barrel of his phalanx just beneath the slaver's chin and pulled the trigger. Linda shot a submission net out of a slaver's hands, saving a pair of marines, while Alex simply gunned down everything in his sights, hitting each of his targets with two seconds of sustained fire.
Locke watched as the marine lieutenant ducked beneath a jagged sword wielded by a batarian and emptied his clip in the slaver's stomach. Another one tried to tackle him – to impale him on his bladed pauldrons – but the marine lieutenant spun around and dodged the attack, firing into the back of the slaver and leaving him open to the gunfire of another one of his marines.
The slavers fought to the last man, fought harder than anyone Locke and his team had ever fought before. Locke knew that Bahak was the slaver's last stand. The Slaver Fringe War had been going on for nearly five years – five years of cat and mouse between the Systems Alliance and batarian extremists who had turned to enslaving refugees of the Reaper War in order to re-build their shattered empire. It had been a long, grueling war of attrition as the Systems Alliance had hunted down each slaver stronghold, scattered across the galaxy.
Locke slammed his omni-shield into the stomach of the last slaver, who groaned and dropped to his knees, his hands trying desperately to keep his guts inside him. Rather than let him suffer, Locke placed the barrel of his M-5 Phalanx to the batarian's forehead and mercifully ended it. The echo of that final gunshot ushered in a sense of calm and quiet that contrasted heavily with the harsh sounds of battle that had covered the hangar bay mere moments before.
Now there was nothing left but the groaning of wounded marines and the hurried footsteps and the reassuring whispers of the medics trying to treat them.
Made it through another one, dear, Locke thought. His fingers brushed over his chestplate, resting momentarily atop the spot where he kept a picture in a hidden compartment and giving thanks to it for seeing him through yet another fight.
The marine lieutenant made his way over to the N7's. His helmet was off, a lucky blow from a slaver with a bladed gauntlet had crushed half of the visor but had thankfully spared the lieutenant's face. He was young, maybe in his early twenties. A pair of Gunnery Chief's flanked him, one with blood trickling down the joint of his arm and the other with a series of burn marks on half his armor.
"First Lieutenant Steven Vallon, we owe you a big one El-Cee," the lieutenant greeted. All three of the marines saluted, then Vallon held out his hand which Locke took and gave a firm shake. Lieutenant Vallon then did the same for Linda and Alex.
"Think nothing of it, we only wish we'd gotten here sooner," Locke replied.
"Still, we appreciate it nonetheless. The bastards took out Chaudhaury's shuttle right off the bat and tore through half of my platoon as they were leaving. Without you guys we probably wouldn't have made it."
Linda stepped forward with her Vindicator held tightly across her chest and addressed the marine. "Lieutenant, I'm sorry about your men, but we've got to shut down this facility asap. There are still marines on the ground relying on us to get these guns down."
"Of course," nodded First Lieutenant Vallon. He turned to his two gunnery chiefs and issued his orders. "Amadou, keep your squad here and take care of the wounded, get 'em prepped on one of the shuttles. Theo, round up the rest of the men who can still fight. We're accompanying the N7's to the generator."
"Sir," saluted both gunnery chiefs. One of them went off to one of the shuttles while the other started rounding up the marines that weren't bleeding. Linda nodded, satisfied, while Alex and Locke both slipped new ammunition blocks into their respective weapons.
In under a minute they set off for the generator, with the N7's in the lead and around a dozen marines following behind them. Linda had highlighted the route on their schematics, and like they had determined earlier, it wasn't a particularly long way away.
They made it to the doors to the generator without running into any more slavers. As Locke had surmised, the surviving slavers on board the facility had likely decided to make their final stand here.
The N7's stacked up in their customary breaching positions with the marines split up into two groups to either side of them. Locke stood in the middle, his omni-shield at the ready. He'd be the one to soak the majority of the first wave of fire, buying time for his allies to slip into cover and start returning fire at the batarian positions.
"No optics probe? Stealth recon?" Linda repeated again.
"Now can we hijack the security cameras?" Alex chuckled, weighing in on his fellow N7's joke.
Locke didn't reply. Instead he signaled for Linda to open the door once more. His fellow N7 dutifully slapped on the trigger and the doors slid open. Both Alex and Linda slid a pair of flashbangs into the room, the twin cylindrical devices going off like mini-thunderclaps and working super-effectively against the photo-sensitive four eyes that the batarians had.
Locke was careful not to stare at the devices. He stepped through with his shield raised and his pistol out. With lethal precision he gunned down a trio of batarians clutching at their eyes with a series of precise shots. A couple of batarians blindly fired a few salvos in his general direction but he caught them on his shield with ease.
The generator was in the middle, and Locke could see that the batarians had constructed a rough barricade in front of the console that controlled it. The rest of the room was a series of large consoles on slightly-elevated platforms lined with rails and a few over-turned tables.
Linda and Alex were both first through the door, followed by the marines. They both started fanning out along the perimeter of the room, taking up cover behind consoles or behind the elevated platforms, forcing the batarians to split their fire into multiple directions. Several batarians went down as they scrambled in confusion to try and adjust their aim. Despite their brutal weaponry and their intimidating armor, the slavers were still a bunch of undisciplined thugs at heart.
Locke leapt into action, heading straight for the console and giving the batarians a third problem to deal with. He kept his shield up and maintained a steady source of fire at any slavers who tried to take shots at him. Meanwhile Linda was picking off targets at range and Alex kept up a steady source of suppressing fire. The marines did their best to lend their firepower as well. All of them knew that the generator had to go down soon, or the marine's planet-side would be paste.
A quartet of burly batarians emerged from in front of Locke, all of them with massive blades affixed to random parts of their armor along with black batarian script. Locke rammed into the first one, triggering the incendiary function on his shield and setting the batarian alight. He went down screaming and rolling around while his comrades growled in anger.
He brushed aside the barrel of a one of their spike-rifles with his shield and whipped his M-5 Phalanx up, firing a barrage of shots at its wielder. The batarian pitched over from the bullet-wounds and slumped to the ground. The third one suddenly wilted and folded as Alex riddled him with bullets from his M-76 Revenant, and the last one managed to finally hit Locke in the meat of his upper arm with one a spike from his rifle before Locke cleaved his head in two with his omni-shield.
"Locke, you're hit!" cried Linda. Locke ignored his teammate and slapped the trigger for medi-gel on his armor, his icy-blue eyes never leaving the console to shut down the generator. He leapt over the corpses of the four batarians and continued on towards it like a man possessed, his pistol flipping from target to target, four taps and they'd go down.
A marine suddenly went down with a scream, clutching at a line of spikes that had embedded themselves in his upper thigh. Locke turned, instinctively seeking out the wounded marine. A large batarian in bladed armor holding a smoking spike-rifle grunted in annoyance as it clicked empty. With a derisive snort, he tossed it aside and charged at the cripple marine, intent on tearing him apart to shreds with his bare hands.
Locke watched as the form of the First Lieutenant Steven Vallon imposed himself between his marine and the batarian, firing his M-7 Lancer at the hulking, four-eyed brute and screaming angry curses. The batarian's shields crumpled after the first burst but somehow his armor held together long enough for the batarian to duck beneath the Lieutenant's rifle and slam his bladed shoulder into the marine's thigh.
First Lieutenant Vallon gave a cry of pain and fell onto his back with the batarian atop of him, screaming in agony and clutching at his thigh. The bladed pauldron in combination with the weight and acceleration that the batarian had put behind it had sliced into the marine's leg right above the knee, where nothing but the undersuit covered the joint, and had nearly severed it completely. Only a thin strip of flesh and meat kept both halves of the leg together. Locke could see shattered bits of femur jutting out from the gaping wound.
The N7 halted mid-sprint towards the console and instead ran towards the downed marine. The slaver crouched on top of the lieutenant had pulled out a large, serrated blade and was currently holding it poised above his heart.
"Alex! Get to the console!" Locke screamed.
"On it!" the Staff Lieutenant replied. Marine gunfire was starting to overpower the hiss that the Spike-rifles made as more and more slavers fell.
Time seemed to slow down for Locke as the hairy, grizzled hand of the knife-wielding batarian began to descend towards the marine. He was only three feet away now from the two now.
A line of spikes flew mere inches away from his face but Locke was unperturbed. He was only vaguely aware of one of his teammates yelling at him, Linda maybe, and could barely feel the wound in his upper arm that he'd taken mere moments ago. He pulled his omni-shield back and sent it scything towards the back of the massive batarian's head.
The sharpened lip of the silicon-carbon shield dug right into the neck-seal of the slaver's suit and cleanly parted the slaver's head from the rest of his body. The large batarian gave a little jerk as the nerves in his body were suddenly disconnected from his brain, and the knife fell from lifeless fingers before it could finish its journey into the wounded marine. The body of the batarian flopped down onto the Lieutenant and the head rolled away.
Locke twisted back around just in time to see the last slaver fall to a headshot from Linda and for Alex to slam his fist on some sort of button at the central console. With a loud hum, the generator fell silent and the planetary cannon with it.
Locke gave a sigh of relief. There were maybe half a dozen marines still on their feet, and Alex had a nasty gash on his left leg where he'd taken a glancing shot on his run to the console. He unsealed his helmet with a hiss and set it down on the console beside him and deactivated his omni-shield.
"Alex, let's get these wounded back to the shuttles," Locke ordered.
"Yes sir," the man replied. Alex made his way towards a pair of marines now huddling over the lieutenant, his med-pack held in his outstretched hand. The medi-gel issued to N7's were magnitudes stronger than the stuff that marine medics had, not to mention the synthstims were of higher quality. With any luck the lieutenant would live, although he'd probably lose his leg below the knee.
"Linda?" Locke called out.
"Yes, Lieutenant-Commander?"
"Radio Admiral Octavian, let him know that the last cannon is down and that they can begin their assault. The fight's not over yet, at least not for the boys on the ground."
"Roger that," Linda replied. She moved off, one finger depressing her comm. unit. Although she had escaped unscathed, not a single spare heatsink for her Vindicator hung from her combat webbing and there were plenty of gashes on her armor that marked the many times that a batarian slaver had gotten lucky and had nearly ended her life.
Locke picked up his helmet and twirled it in his hands, staring at his own reflection in the polarized faceplate. He had survived yet again, had gone up against nearly a hundred batarian slavers with weapons that his kinetic shields would have done nothing against and lived. He'd survived this mission and soon he'd be able to return to his real one. As important as his real one was, he was still an Alliance marine at heart, and that meant that in the meantime he still had a duty to fulfill his brothers and sisters.
Just a little bit longer, he thought to himself.