The pair of figures, despite their size, moved like graceful dancers through the trees and hills outside the colony. In the distance, once could see the smoke, and outside their suits, they could have smelled the ruin that had befallen this place, which only a day ago had been one of the largest colonies of the Terran Federation. Now it was a dead world. Crops were destroyed, homes were shattered, and worst of all, the bodies seemed to litter the ground everywhere, the micronains on those weird blue spikes, while the Terrans were piled high, seemingly stacked like wood to be burned.
"Samesh, Abhay," said the Terran as she looked towards one of the piles they passed. Her stride never wavered, her march didn't slow, but over the tight comms the two figures shared, her partner could hear her pain.
"I'm sorry, I don't know what to say, Nirali," she said at last, ducking behind a stand of trees, trying to get her wanzer to the smallest profile she could, keeping every passive sensor she could open, trying to find a sign of the ones who'd done this.
"There is nothing to say, Doctor. Nothing at all. The Budda teaches that in their passing, they shall be reborn anew into this world, and hopefully they will find the path both in and out of this world far gentler than this," responded the Terran, offering the mech a hand to rise back up, and the pair began to walk down the path. Their course swung wide of the colony, or at least, as wide as they could make it with Eden Prime's odd geography of massive plateaus and rolling hills, while always keeping the colony itself in sight.
The two had been walking for the past ten minutes, emerging from the Doctor's lab on the far side of the colony, one she'd insisted on covering as thoroughly as they could before leaving. That delay had annoyed Nirali, but she'd known the reason. The things in that lab, they were far more valuable than the lives of their guards. To the galaxy, they were worth the life of everyone on Eden Prime, really, and with the fires crackling out in the fields, the galaxy apparently meant to collect every life it could.
"Route check," said the wanzer suddenly, and she began to feed her sensor data to Nirali, causing the Terran woman to finally stop, as her hud was cluttered up by the map. It showed the path they'd been on, leading back towards the hidden lab, and towards the explosions they'd picked up that had made them leave. It was their hope that whoever was fighting these invaders was an ally. If not, well, they were likely to die anyway, and Nirali was a Terran, she prefered to die facing danger, rather than cowering, a sentiment her partner didn't wholly agree with, but figured it would be the best way to protect her lab and the precious things inside if she weren't there to draw attention to it.
"We're on course," said the pilot at last, and the pair started off again. They were barely half a mile farther on when they heard it, and both dived down. Above them, they quickly spotted the source of the distinctive whine of jets and mass effect fields. Four geth warframes, flying in diamond formation. Seemingly, they ignored the pair as they went on about their business, but both knew they weren't that lucky. They'd been spotted, and the instant the formation was out of sight, they rose to their feet, looked at one another, and then redouble their speed, the wanzer pilot projecting a mass effect field around her entire unit, exhausting as that was, to give them speed.
They were just cresting a rise when they finally had fire incoming, the wanzer pilot pushing Nirali down even as she leapt to the side to avoid streams of red light that impacted the ground with explosive force. Coming down in a roll, the Terran armed her palm blasters with a twitch of her fingers, and sent lines of blue energy upwards at her foes. Sadly, the purple barriers sprang up in defense, the blue bolts of destruction scattering like water on the defense, even as the three above shifted from jet, into a humanoid mode.
"Die Monsters!" cried the Terran over her speakers, beginning to rain fire towards her foes, rather than sustained blasts. A minute of such fire might have brought down one of the units, but they didn't give her free reign in this time, and began to fire back, their arms in that gattling mode, shifting barrels to allow them to rapidly fire out thanix blasts. Having seen her squad torn apart by such things, Nirali dodged amongst them, never letting the lances of deadly liquid metal touch her, but forcing her to give up on her own assault at the same time.
"I must agree, it would be best if you went away!" shouted the wanzer pilot, whose unit began to glow, the blue light shifting to purple as she focused it in the palm of her own unit, where the wanzer's own core enhanced and powered the shot. She then 'threw' a bolt of energy upwards, the projectile as charged as she could make it, and Nirali seeing an opening, fired herself. The two flying above dodged as much as they could, but the wanzer pilot was good enough that the bolt she'd fired shifted, slamming hard into the warframe on the left, whose barrier sparked under the power of a warp, just before a rain of shots from the Terran impacted the armor, denting it at first, but then rupturing it till it exploded like a bomb in the air.
"Can you do that again?" asked the Terran as she and the wanzer retreated behind a rock outcropping, the remaining warframes in the air backing off, one even transforming back into jet mode and rocketing over the horizon, possibly for more reinforcements.
"I'm afraid not for a few minutes, Chief Bhatia," admitted the wanzer pilot, her voice gasping and gulping for breath. She was spent for the moment, and that meant they could do little but run, as the geth warframe flew over their cover, and resumed the attack, the single unit pressing them hard enough to force them to flee. Nirali shot back as much as she could, trying to keep the geth focused on her, as the wanzer moved much more clunkily without the mass effect field, but she knew, a single shot from that weapon hitting her, and it would all be over.
"GET DOWN!" shouted an unknown voice, and Nirali leapt forward, her arm latching onto the wanzer and carrying it forward, just as a bolt of pink light came over the horizon. It struck the warframe in its left foot, causing the jet there to explode into shrapnel and debris, while also making the warframe itself spin in place. Only for a moment, though, as another two bolts of light, one pink and one green, struck it at the same moment, one piercing the eezo core, the other obliterating the piloting geth platform, causing the thing to go up in a fireball.
Looking towards the source of the bolts, the pair were shocked to see Terrans, armored Terrans, but given the voice, Nirali was certain they weren't locals, which meant help had arrived. In addition to them was an unknown unit, designed to look like a Terran, with a face with two eyes, rather than the mono eye of a veritech, or the glass front of a wanzer or destroid. The final member of the party, a geth warframe, caused Nirali to aim her hands towards it, but given that the others weren't reacting to it in hostile fashion, and it wasn't covered in the glow of a mass effect field, she assumed it was a friendly.
"Soldier, report!" shouted a voice from the unknown unit, and Nirali quickly snapped a salute, her fist smashing into her heart as she stood up straighter. Beside her, one could hear a very weary groan from the wanzer, either because the pilot was annoyed with the military display, or because she was trying to recover from a headache, given the biotics she'd been throwing around a few moments ago.
"Chief Master Sergeant Nirali Bhatia, leader of the Eden Prime ground defenses. At oh-two-five-nine this morning the mass relay began to go through activation protocols. Given no transports were known to be coming, the local defense fleet was scrambled, but before an emergency signal could be sent out, an unknown field began to project itself over the colony. It had the odd result of making it so no fold would form out, though some still came in," she began, moving her fingers rapidly to give the units in front of her all relevant tactical information she had.
"The interference field was that large?" asked one of the terrans, a woman by the sound of her voice, and Nirali nodded.
"It was. Regardless, we believed that an attack was forthcoming, and began to evac the civilians to the shelters, but before we could do much of anything on that front, the sky lit up with bolts of red light. The five frigates that made up our space based defenses were torn apart before they even knew what hit them. The strange ship, code named Cthulhu by one of my men, then descended into the atmosphere, an impossible feat for a mass effect ship, but impossible didn't seem to matter to it," as she spoke, videos played out as slide shows, allowing them to witness the slaughter of the colonists, as the ship overhead shot lances right at the buried shelters, which should have protected them from anything an eezo core could dish out.
It didn't, as they well knew. The ship's thanix like weapons tore right into the shelters, melting the metal, and boring into the barriers that defended the lives inside. Worse, as the shelters exploded, the colonists on the ground had nowhere to go, and began to run into the hills, possibly hoping to hide. At that same instance, a wave of geth warframes poured from the ship, darkening the sky, and firing their weapons into the crowds. Micronian and Terran alike died screaming, as the horde descended on them.
"When they were...done with the initial assault, it was just my personal squad and I left. We tried to send a real space burst transmission, let people know what had happened, even if we died. Enrique and the rest were blasted by that thing into atoms, and I only barely survived, unconscious and thrown by the explosion. That was when Dr. T'Soni found me," as she spoke, she gestured towards the wanzer next to her, which turned to reveal the pilot, a young looking(not that that meant much) asari maiden, her face ashen and drawn from the things she'd been doing to survive.
"Ah, I know you. You're Liara T'Soni, the Prothean Expert," said a female voice, and one of the Terrans turned, revealing they were wearing an Assistant Pod on their back, with a suitless quarian at the pod's controls, and looking towards her.
"Yes, I am. I was informed of the discovery on Eden Prime a few days ago, and was ordered to the Citadel where I could study the beacon and the stasis pods. I was already nearby, however, and decided to make my way here, rather than wait for them to come to me. After all, artifacts are one thing, but a full prothean facility, full of functional gear? That's the find of a lifetime," as she spoke, her voice grew stronger, speaking of her work obviously giving her renewed vigor.
"What I discovered already dwarfs everything my people have found about the protheans in all of our history, and I requested a private lab to continue my studies without...risk to myself or the materials themselves," she said this with a tone that implied something, but it was Nirali who explained.
"We caught one of the younger cadets playing around with the pods, juggling them and such. It was decided to give the good doctor a facility outside the norm, and we set up a deep lab for her in one of the holding cells outside of the colony," as she spoke, a map appeared before everyone, detailing the location.
"It had the room I needed, and was properly shielded. It apparently hid me from the geth as well, and I only learned about the attack when I looked outside and saw smoke. I quickly booted up my personal wanzer and found Mrs. Bhatia, and brought her back to my lab. We've been holding up there for the past few hours, hoping for rescue," finished Liara, and the others nodded.
"So, how many ships are in orbit? Were you able to take out the big ship?" asked the asari, a note of hope in her voice, but when the two Terrans and strange unit turned to face each other, she felt her heart drop.
"Unfortunately, we're just a ground team of a single vessel, the Normandy, which was to be the transport for the beacon and the pods. That ship led the enemy vessel away, and with our arms we've destroyed much of the ground force. We do have anot-," began Garrus, only to be interrupted by the sound of static over the comms, as a general burst transmission came in.
"This is Nihlus Kryik to Normandy Ground Team. I've encountered a turian SPECTRE named Saren. He's assisting the geth, and has sent several of them to activate something he calls a contingency plan. More, there's at least two survivors in the colony, actively being hunted by some of the geth. Save them if you can," said the turian's voice over the comms, and the team had that silent moment as they processed what had been said, before Tali reacted, homing in on his position with her scanners, and then locking on.
"This is Normandy Ground Team to Nihlus. We have the survivors. No geth in sight, however. Lock onto us, and we'll join up," she sent out, and the group quickly started towards the source of the transmissions, hoping to reduce the meet up time. They were only a mile or so on when the dull droning noise began to echo over the colony, and the Terrans cried out in pain, their hands going to their heads as they tried to keep them from bursting open, even as they all fell onto their sides.
Legion seized up at that point as well, no screams, but just silence from him as his body froze in mid stride. Beside him, Garrus' Gundam unit wretched itself to the side, staying standing only by grabbing onto a stand of trees, which cracked but did not fall under the weight. Liara's wanzer similarly nearly fell, but she was able to put one of its feet forward, and catch herself. Inside her head, and Garrus', it felt like they were being struck by hammers, their thought trains derailing completely, but just for that moment.
The Terran experience was different. this wasn't hammers pounding to try and smash their way in, this was spikes, powerful things that tore into their minds and made them think things they had never done before. Mental levers were pulled, and images flashed across their brains of things they had no idea about, of worlds burning, and of voices shouting in victory as they ground the populations to heel. Screaming, they writhed in agony, their legs wildly kicking out at the world, while on their backs, the pods held firm.
Luckily, the dull tone ended after only a moment or two, and when it passed, the non-Terrans of the group recovered quickly, with Legion taking only a moment more to collect himself, looking around like he expected something to have changed. Nothing had though, except that the three Terrans were still on the ground, their convulsions not as severe anymore, but still, not rising, as they groaned in pain. Above them, they spotted Nihlus veritech, the black plane growing arms and legs as it came down and shifted into guardian mode.
Just before he reached them, a new whining noise could be heard, echoing over the trees, and Garrus whipped his Gundam around, drawing his rifle and aiming it. What he saw though, gave him that one moment of pause, as a Terran, huge and imposing, stood there. Not a normal Terran though. This one was nude, with skin of blue coloring, yet not fleshy at all. No, its skin was hard, like armor, and its eyes glowed with blue light. Then the mouth opened, and the whining noise from it back even louder, before its head exploded, and a blast of biotic energy shot out.
The blast was powerful, the eezo that had made it charged with the protoculture that had been in the altered Terran. Garrus had no time to dive aside, but luckily for him, the blast wasn't meant for him, instead it slammed hard into Nihlus' veritech, the unit crumpling under the assault like it was tissue paper, the core inside exploding in a blue white ball of light, while the cockpit blew off the front, metal and fire still tearing at it, and the form within looking like it was going to be torn apart.