As the airship flew, Garrus kept an eye out from the crow's nest. An old human term for a ships' lookout post which he never understood. But being the squad's sniper, he had the best eyes for this. Taking a quick glance around, but seeing nothing, he returned to cleaning his sniper rifle. Taking an oiled rag, he began to clean the bolt for a few moments before taking another look around.

While nothing caught his eye to be alerted at, he did notice some shapes in the distance. Despite not being able to make them out, he made a mental note of it before returning to his cleaning. He had cleaned a good half of the rifle before he managed to get a good look at the shapes. Frowning at what he was seeing, he moved small plastic cased receiver and spoke into it.

"Joker, I've seeing something 13 degrees off starboard," he said, squinting to try and get a better look.

"I see it too, I'll head over. We can get an exploration party ready, maybe I'll find a hot girl there," he chuckled.

"In your dreams," Garrus shot back with a supressed snort.

"I'll keep us up over a drop location, come morning we'll see what the place is," Joker replied.

Garrus agreed and moved back to cleaning his weapon, occasionally checking around to see for any threats. By the time morning came around, the crew leaned over the railings to get a better look while eating brontosaurs sandwiches with rice on the side. The place they overlooked was a village of some kind, the purpose lost to the crew.

"So, what does our glorious leader think?" Zaeed asked in a mocking tone.

Shepard blinked pointing at herself. "Me? Why are you asking me?"

"You've been here longer than us," the merc replied.

"You are used to wooden settlements," Jack added.

"And you can tell how long they have been destroyed," Liara smiled with a cheeky look.

Shepard just looked at her lover with a defeated look. "Et tu, Brute?"

While the humans sniggered, Liara just looked "Huh? I don't get it,"

"Neither do I, but we have to get down there and see what happened," Garrus muttered.

Ashley nodded. "Can't disagree with that," she finished her food and looked to the commander. "The ropes are at the underside, right?"

Sonja nodded. "Yeah, I'll meet you down there,"

The former gunnery Sargent nodded as she made her way to the armoury while Sonja looked around. "Garrus, keep and eye out. Miranda, Wrex and Tali you are with me and Ashely," The crew nodded and split to move to their duties.

After getting her armour and weapons, Ashley was the first to slide down the rope and moved into the burned-out village. Alliance marine training was quite varied, sending recruits to several different environments to allow them to operate in different environments. Jungle, desert, tundra and urban environments are all standard training for any marine. The training came from several elite groups such as the UK's royal marine Corps or America's Marine corps.

All of it drilled into her from her early years as a cadet. But according to Shepard, a good chunk of that training was useless here. That didn't mean it couldn't be used, but she needed to be wary and aware that not everything she learned could be applied here. Especially with the fact that titanic lizards roamed. She needed to have her sensors alert at all times.

Keeping low with her sub machine gun close and her senses alert, she entered the village looking around doing her best to take everything in. The charred soil cracked under her feet as she took slow steps forward. Something happened here, as if someone came in with a flame thrower and burned it all down. Shell casing scattered across the floor, mixed with the charred grounds.

"Seeing anything?" Shepard asked as she walked up next to her.

Ashely shook her head, not taking her eyes away from the scanning motion. "Nothing much, it looks like the place got burned," she shrugged at stating the obvious. "Looks like a fight as well," she indicated to the spent casings.

Shepard nodded as she bent down to look at them. "5.57," she muttered. "Kinda standard ammo, assault rifle calibre,"

"The question is, who used it?" Miranda said as she looked around. "This looks recent,"

"Very recent," Shepard agreed. "A few days recent," she muttered as she stood. "Let's check the buildings, see if you can find bodies,"

The squad grunted in acknowledgement before moving off into a couple of the buildings. Shepard made her way to what seemed to be the town all and looked inside. While it was burned out like the rest of the buildings, this place seemed to have marble pillars and floors. Seems that the people who lived here put a few more resources into this place. That in itself wasn't a surprise as many villages did something similar.

Town halls tended to be the centre of the village, holding records, meetings and other important things. Because religion wasn't a big thing on Ark, due to how many faiths there were, churches weren't a big thing. At least, their use as the centre of the town or village had stopped due to the number of faiths around. Town halls now played that part, so people made it look good.

As she moved further into the former building, she found several bodies laying near the back. Squatting down to get a good look at the burned charred bodies, the main thing she noted was the green armour. Granted it was burned, but with a quick brush she could see the green plate. Looking around the body, she soon found a badge close to the chest. It was a shield with a pair of crossed fangs on the forefront and a sword pointing down behind the fangs.

Pulling it off, with some difficulty, she looked it over. There was nothing special about it, all nations and factions had their own emblems, but this one was new to her. The war she was forced into gave her a crash course in all identifiers. So, it seemed that there were other factions in the forbidden zone, which itself wasn't a surprise. But the question was how many? Some forbidden zones were isolated, but the one she was in had the largest territory of all the zones.

Pocketing the badge, she looked at the rest of the bodies. But they were similar in terms of armour, but one seemed to worn some kind of fancy garment. Either a leader or religious figure she wasn't sure, but it was clear that whoever he was he was being guarded by the soldiers around him.

"COMMANDER!" Ashley yelled braking Shepard's attention. "GET OVER HERE NOW!"

Sonja jumped up her feet and ran towards where the Gunnery Sargent was. The village wasn't large and the marine was at the other side, inside a burned-out warehouse. The marine was at the entrance, looking at something in front of her. As she slowed, Sonja called out.

"Something wrong?" the commander asked as she walked up.

Ashely turned to look at the commander as she stepped to one side. "You tell me," she said as she indicated to a glowing blue machine causing Sonja's eyes to widen.

"Th….t…that's….." she began before a word found it's way out. "Impossible,"

OOOOO

Mortar fire landed around the camp causing the troopers of the Scaled fang to jump to the ground or get flung into the air. The others moved up to wooden barricades and began to engage the bandits. They metal barricades due to the temporary nature of the investigation and the time required for them to be brought over wasn't worth it. While hindsight was 20/20, this attack came out of nowhere and no one expected it.

Everyone thought that the bandits would back off and leave. It seemed that that wasn't the case as they moved in a way that make it look like they were desperate to get the tech back. That just made it easy for them to be targeted and taken down. Bandits, in general, had little military training or experience. For the most part, they acted in hunter packs. Laying in wait for ambush waiting for people to come by.

Bullets flew through the air, hitting, wood, dirt, metal and flesh. People on both sides fell down as vital organs were pierced and ripped open flesh. Kadian and Shepard moved up to the barricades, weapons in hand, and began to target the bandits at the back. They were soon joined by two of the Williams sisters, James and Kreeger. Lynn and Kreeger used their rifles to pick off the snipers.

But the bandits stell kept coming to take them on. Being the local commander, Kadian moved to grab his radio and called.

"Any nearby Scaled fang ships, requesting immediate aerial support!" he called out.

Shepard, however jumped over the barricade and charged in. "Damn it, just like her sister," he growled. "Follow Shepard!" he yelled as he changed after her.

Lilith drew her sword as she charged into a group of Bandits as they tried to target her. But she moved fast enough for them to miss her. Using her agility, she pushed off of a large tree. Sword in hand, she cut the head off of one of the bandits trying to take her on. As she landed, she drew her pistol and fired at the others, wounding one and killing another. Kadian and the others joined her as the rest of the Bandits began to fall back.

"They were so eager, why are they backing of?" Kreeger asked.

"Maybe we stalled the attack?" Abby suggested as she moved to take up a defensive position.

Both Kadian and Lilith shook their heads. "Doesn't seem like it," Lilith muttered as Kadian's radio cracked.

"Commander Kadian, this is airship Seafair. We are over the outpost and will provide cover," the voice said, most likely the airship captain.

"Seafair, this is Kadian, we are in pursuit of the bandits. Requesting overwatch and tracking," he called back.

The sound of crackling echoed in the ears of the team for a moment before the voice came back. "That's a negative sir; we are unable to track the bandits from our current hight. We will be required to maintain our current hight for guarding,"

Kadian just cured. "Understood," he replied in annoyance before looking at the others. "Ok James, Lynn, Kreeger, go with Shepard, recon mission only," he stared pointedly at Lilith as he said that. "Understand,"

"Sir," the four said before they moved off into the darkened jungle.

Lilith took the lead as they moved though the jungle, following the tracks the bandits left. They slowed so as not to catch up to them too quickly and get overwhelmed. After some distance, the team reached a ridge which overlooked a clearing and a bandit camp. They fell to their bellies and looked at the poorly lit camp.

"Are those tanks?" Lynn asked as she pointed to a group of 5 steel hulled tanks.

Lilith nodded. "Yeah, what they're doing here I have no idea. They're rare and only big factions, like ours, can build them in any meaningful number," she stroked her chin in thought. "They look like the MK V breaker tanks from the Eriicat Dominion,"

"Which means nothing to us," James muttered.

"They're another faction to the north," Lilith explained. "They based themselves on the old Soviet Union. I think due to some old Soviet General who fought in WW2," she shrugged. "We aren't on the best of terms,"

"I'll bet," Lynn muttered.

"Soviet?" Kreeger asked but shrugged. "I'll ask later,"

"Ask Oriana when we get back," Lilith suggested. "She's likely to know more than the rest of us,"

The Quarrian nodded as he looked at the camp. "I see about, 300 bandits. Hard to tell in the light,"

"Agreed," Lilith agreed. "They got a raptor detachment, mostly infantry, several artillery units then the armour," she gritted her teeth. "They're planning an attack,"

"Where?" Lynn asked.

"I have no idea," was all Shepard could say.