The Normandy was quite the sight as she dropped through the cloud-cover to hug the treeline, skimming low over the terrain like a particularly large and metallic falcon, the sun gleaming off of her white-and-black paint, the quiet -relatively- hum of her thrusters falling over the forest. Or, at least, should would have been quite the sight, if there was anyone to see her. Unfortunately, there wasn't anyone to see her, and not just because Eden Prime wasn't the most sprawling metropolis in the galaxy. Most of it's inhabitants were still concentrated in the major, scattered cities across the planet and little in the way of rural or suburban development yet done.
And what inhabitants there were on the outskirts of the settlement ahead of them were either dead or scattered in the wilds, desperate to survive the surprise invasion that their homeworld was suddenly and inexplicable enduring.
"Your primary missions is to secure the beacon and get it off world before the main fleets arrive. Help what civilians you can, gather what intel you can, but if a shooting war is breaking out here, the last thing we need is a stray fire mission taking out the beacon or something of the sort. Leave any heroics to the response forces. Clear?" Anderson ordered briskly as the hanger bay door opened slowly, wind roaring even at the relatively low speed that the Normandy was currently moving at, to reveal the gentle, forested slopes…and the pillars of thick, black smoke tainting the sky in the distance. Cassandra and her two subordinates saluted dutifully, and he turned his attention to Nihlus. "Nihlus, I can't give you orders, but I recommend you stick with the original plan and stay with Shepard's team. Whatever is going on, you saw that video. Those Marines were getting cut to pieces, and SPECTRE or not, quantity has a quality of it's own."
Nihlus nodded curtly, mandibles twitching in what Cassandra had come to recognize over the years she had encountered turians to be an expression of grim determination. "Agreed. Our expectations of the situation obviously need to be discarded entirely, and while I might move faster alone, I agree that this isn't the time for it." His mandibles shifted in again, in the turian equivalent of a wry smile. "Seems a good a time as any for an evaluation on rapidly changing and chaotic mission parameters, no?"
Anderson huffed a short, somewhat bitter, laugh and nodded in agreement, and Cassandra watched with an old feeling as the two old soldiers seemed in that moment to have no differences between them. It could have just as easily been another human talking to her Captain, just another veteran of countless battlefields, making the same tired jokes and looking for the same thin silver linings. It was oddly comforting, as outlandish, even inappropriate as it was under the circumstances, and Cassandra found herself suppressing a small smile of her own.
"Alright team, we're going in hot. Keep your eyes up, the distress signal clearly showed the 212th being attack from airborne enemies of some kind." she called out over the roar of the engines and the wind. "I'll take point, Alenko take the tail. We'll put up barriers if we get ambushed or flanked. Jenkins, left flank, Nihlus the right. We're moving fast and quiet, grabbing the Beacon, and bugging out. Anything we don't have to fight, leave alone. Let the fleet handle the chaff. Any questions?"
A chorus of "No ma'am" and a curt nod from Nihlus was her answer, and Cassandra took a deep breath as she centered herself, letting her biotics and psionics alike start to bloom beneath her skin. This was important, she knew, an event that was going to change so much, but the temptation to follow the threads of the the future was easily resisted. Not least of which because she didn't actually possess precognition, per-se, but the vaguest awareness of temporal events. Rather than seeing the future, she had already experienced what she was someday going to experience, and had foggy memories thereof.
Something like that, anyway. The Force had never been particularly interested in explaining things deeper about that potential power, telling her only that it had learned that providing it's hosts the unrestricted ability to manipulate events across the timelines tended to end poorly. Which was disappointing, on one level. She certainly wouldn't mind being able to bring her father back, to never lose him to begin with. On the other hand, she was smart enough, wise enough, to know that it would be all to easy to abuse that sort of power. To inadvertently create a world worse than the one she lived in, to begin playing god and manipulate the lives of anyone she saw fit in pursuit of what she thought was 'better' for them. So, she had forsaken that power, limited herself only to these vague impressions and the occasional dream, and…
"That's the drop point! Godspeed, all of you!" Anderson's voice broke her out of the well-worn mental path that she had been travelling, and she jogged forwards to jump from the mouth of the hanger onto the small, grassy hill a dozen feet below her. She landed easily, rolling with the impact as her armor hummed softly, it's servos absorbing the blow, and her favored duel submachine guns were in her hands when she returned to her feet. Well, favored for longer ranges, that was. She had other weapons, natural and mechanical alike, to use at close ranges, but this wasn't exactly the ideal situation.
"Sound off." she asked briskly as three more weights landed behind her, keeping her eyes on the world around her and trusting her fellows to report their statuses honestly and promptly.
"Alenko, green."
"Jenkins, green."
"Nihlus, green."
She didn't bother to say anything in response, simply started moving forward, every sense and sensor she had probing the world around her.
The forest was eerily quiet as they advanced, the usual ambient sounds of wildlife conspicuously absent, doubtlessly driven away by the violence and the scent of smoke and flame on the wind. Indeed, it felt as if the only real sounds being made were the wind in the trees and the armored footsteps of her squad on the collective natural detritus of the wilds. If nothing else, the utter silence of the world around them could -hopefully would- make it easier for them to hear any approaching enemy, sounds of combat, or pleas for help. God, she hooped that they ended up hearing some pleas of help. Even if they found people badly injured, they'd at least be finding people alive.
"Nihlus, any idea how far we are from the dig-site?" she asked quietly, and there was a brief silence before he responded.
"Two miles, maybe a bit less."
That wasn't far, especially not for trained, fit soldiers, but it also placed them just outside the area where the embedded data in the distress signal had indicated the 212th had been fighting in the video that they had received. Which meant that they might find themselves engaging an enemy soon. Or finding the surviving Marines, but if she was going to be honest with herself, Cassandra considered that a bit less than likely. She had faith in her comrades, and battles could turn in moments, but last she had seen those Marines had been surrounded, under heavy fire, and taking significant casualties. It would be a genuine miracle if any had survived, never mind won the fight.
Cassandra's instincts screamed a warning just as they crested a small rise into a small, boulder-strewn valley. She raised her fist, signaling the squad to halt and take cover. Dropping into a crouch behind a large rock, she scanned the area ahead intently, trying to find whatever it was that had sparked her gut to warning, but she couldn't see…
"Movement, eleven o'clock, airborne." Nihlus whispered, his keen turian eyes picking up what her human ones had missed.
Now she saw it too - flashes of synthetic white between the trees, accompanied by an eerie mechanical whirring. Whatever was out there, it wasn't human, and she cursed that fact violently in her mind. As powerful as her senses were, they weren't made for detecting non-living and purely mechanical entities. She wasn't helpless, sensing the danger moments ago had proven that, but this was far from ideal.
"They're looking for someone, you think?" Jenkins muttered, peeking out from behind the tree he was busy trying to use as cover, and she made a mental note to work with him on that particular talent, because he was both far louder than he needed to be and behind a tree that wasn't remotely large enough to disguise his armored form, never mind protect it. "If there were survivors, then…"
He was cut off by a high-pitched whine that pierced the air as a swarm of small, flying drones burst through the treeline, their weapons already firing. His shields flickered briefly before failing, rounds punching through them and the armor they covered in seconds. The kid didn't even have a chance to make a sound, outside of a choked gasp, and Cassandra snarled furiously as she felt the spark of his life get snuffed out instantly. She lashed out with one hand, dark energy blooming around her fingers in a long, whip-like arc to shatter three of the attackers, sending their sparking scraps raining a cross the grass.
"Alenko, barrier up and draw their fire! Nihlus, we move up and pick them apart! Move!" she barked, none of the pain she felt at losing a kid -and Jenkins had been a kid, a big dumb kid who had left his homeworld in search of adventure, only to be killed so quickly after returning- tainting her voice or her actions. She couldn't let it, not if she wanted to keep the rest of her team safe and finish the mission. The only thing she had time for right now was the fight ahead.
The air filled with the staccato rhythm of gunfire as Kaidan, cloaked in biotic energy, unleashed a barrage from his assault rifle, forcing the drones to scatter and buying precious seconds as they turned to track the 'easy' target. Nihlus moved fast, darting forward faster than Cassie had ever seen a non-biotic move, his shot-gun booming, and as he ducked behind another tree -deftly avoiding some scattered return fire- he tapped away on his omnitool. A moment later, Cassie's eyebrows were in her hairline as one of the drones promptly turned on its allies and started shooting at them. It didn't last long, the hacked drone only managing to destroy one and damage a second before whoever was behind this debacle was able to regain control, but it helped.
Between the three -and a half, perhaps- of them, they were quickly able to eradicate the rest of the flying attackers. Nihlus, confident that he would be able to idenfity the technology, began collecting some of the larger pieces and inspecting them, leaving Cassie and Alenko to check on Jenkins. He was dead, of course, Cassie had already known that, but the confirmation was…well, if not good, than necessary, and she closed her eyes briefly and exhaled deeply as Alenko voiced that confirmation and placed a locator beacon on the body.
"God damnit…"she sighed, running a gauntleted hand through her unbound and uncovered hair.
"There was nothing you could have done, Shepard. Your fleet will recover him later. We need to keep moving." Nihlus said, not unkindly, as he came up behind her and a briefly lay a hand on her shoulder. She sighed again and nodded, getting to her feet and looking towards their objective again, unholstering her guns and glancing down at Alenko.
"Come on, Kaiden. Nothing more we can do for him now."
"I know, Commander. It just…it figures that the damn things attacked the most vulnerable one of us." he aknowledged, getting to his feet as well, before glancing over at the turian. "Any luck, Nihlus?"
"Geth. Geth drones. I haven't encountered them in years, not since I busted a black market deal trying to sell hacked ones off to various unpleasant sorts, and the designs different, but it's impossible to mistake the tech for anything else. Which explains why they were able to hit the marines on-world so hard and kill Jenkins so quickly. I was never able to find out all the details, but I know that they fire some sort of pseudo-plasma round." he responded, sounding aggrieved, and the two humans stared at him.
"Geth? Here? They haven't been outside of the Perseus Veil in…centuries, at least, and now they're here? The Veil is on the other side of the galaxy, practically!" Alenko voiced their mutual shock for them, and Nihlus nodded grimly, mandibles fluttering furiously.
"Yes, it is, and that means there has to be something big going on. It could be the beacon itself, they could be trying to acquire it. It's the only thing that makes logical sense, and those damn machines are all about logic. We can't let them get their hands on it, Shepard. They're dangerous enough as it is, but with unfettered access to a Prothean beacon, with all the technological development that it offers…"
His voice trailed off, but then again he didn't really need to finish, did he? The implication was blatantly clear, as was the potential consequences of the Geth gaining technology superior, perhaps even vastly superior, to the Citadel races.
"Then we abandon stealth. They have to know we're here now anyway. We double-time it and hope for the best."
Nihlus nodded sharply in agreement. "Agreed. Speed is of the essence now."
Without another word, Cassandra set off at a rapid jog, the surviving members of her squad falling in behind her as they continued moving through the culvert. It might not be the safest idea, taking the low ground rarely was, but it was doubtlessly a damn sight faster than moving through the trees. The forest blurred around them as they pushed forward, weapons at the ready, their ears straining for anything besides the sound of their own breathing and the rhythmic thudding of their armored boots striking the ground. Nearly five minutes passed this way before two minds, pained and full of fear, desperation, and determination, bloomed in her awareness. Survivors, she knew, humans. Injured, at least one of them, and the other was trying to help the injured one escape.
"Gunfire ahead. Could be survivors of the 212th. I'm going ahead, catch up as quickly as possible." she made a snap decision, one that could -possibly- harm her evaluation with Nihlus, but quite frankly she didn't find the idea to be that terrifying. She'd rather save at least a handful comrades, a handful of lives, if she was remotely capable of doing so. Besides, he seemed like a good man. He would understand.
A moment later she was gone, activating her HAVOK pack and rocketing dozens of feet into the air before firing off a biotic charge and cross a hundred feet in a heartbeat, soaring through the air with an intent that could only be called 'wrathful'.
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"Dammit Ash, leave me and get the fuck out of here!" Serviceman Nirali Bhatia, Corpsman Extraordinaire (according to most of her platoon, but she had never let it go to her head. Everyone loved Doc, no matter how good a medic she was), snarled through the pain of a bullet-punctured leg as she fired somewhat wildly in the direction of the smooth, flashlight-headed mechs that had wiped out their entire patrol unit and nearly killed the both of them.
"Not a fucking chance, Nira!" Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams snarled back, hurling a grenade with deadly accuracy, the whirling metallic disk detonating just as it impacted the chest of one of the mechs pursuing them. The subsequent explosion destroyed it and the two on either side of it, sending the survivors stumbling and buying the still-standing marine to pull the more injured into cover behind a pair of particularly large boulders. Leaning around the boulder and peering in the direction that their pursuers had come from, Ashley spoke again in a somewhat calmer tone. "How's your leg, Nira?"
"It would be better if I hadn't used all my fucking medi-gel already!" the Indian woman ground out, adjusting the injured limb carefully and trying to examine it through her armor, which was slowly but steadily seeping blood from both the entrance and the exit wounds. "It's a clean wound, and it's not going to kill me anytime soon, but unless it gets treated I'm not going anywhere. And I don't know how long it will take for me to pass out from bloodloss, either. You should leave me, Ash, you're not hurt. You can outrun them."
Ashley's jaw clenched as she shook her head firmly, glancing away from the world around them to meet her friend's eyes, hardly flinching as freshly-arrived enemies opened fire, blowing chunks of stone away from the edges of her cover. "Not happening, Nira. We're getting out of this together or not at all." She popped out of cover to fire another burst at the advancing synthetics before ducking back down. "Besides, I made a promise to Samesh when we shipped out, remember? I promised him that I'd bring you home safe. Can't break that now, can I?"
Nirali managed a weak chuckle despite the pain. "Using my husband against me? That's low, Williams."
"Whatever works." Ashley replied with a grim smile, firing another burst and cursing as the return fire -of all the godforsaken luck- clipped her rifle, crippling it and leaving her with nothing but her pistol, which she promptly drew and used to put a round through one of the fucking robot's glowing eyes. The synthetics advanced, undaunted, chirping back and forth to one another as they spread out to flank her, and she reached back to grip Nirali's hand tightly as she prepared for her last stand…only for a blue-gold blur to streak overhead and slam into the heart of the enemy formation like a comet, sending up an explosion of dust and dirt. A moment later, a woman strode -no, strolled, like she was walking to church instead of surrounded by enemies on a battlefield- out of the dust cloud, her armored form crackling with gold-threaded biotic energy.
"Holy fucking shit, is that…?" Nirali breathed, her hand tightening around Ashley's, and all Ash could do was nod dumbly and stare. "It's her. Its the fucking Dragon!"
Commander Shepard. The Dragon of Elysium, so named for her fierce, fiery defense of what was 'hers'. She looked like an angel descended from Heaven, a warrior angel, wielding fire in one hand and an honest to God sword in the other. She'd heard that the asari had gifted Shepard a biotic-resonant sword, the sort that their Temple Guardians wielded, and the training to use it for her actions on and after Mindoir, but she had never seen any images of the woman actually wielding it. She'd thought it was ceremonial, but it obviously wasn't - she grinned savagely as she watched the second-most-famous human alive cut one of the synthetics in half with a blow that cleaved it from shoulder to opposite hip- and it was equally obvious that she had learned that training very well indeed.
Pounding footsteps from behind them had both she and Nirali spinning to point their pistols at whomever was approaching, fingers tightening on triggers, rounds spitting across the intervening distance to crack across the terrain, causing whomever was approaching to jerk back just before rounding the corner.
"Check! Check fire! Friendlies!" a voice, a male human voice, shouted as a distinctly human hand appeared and waved frantically in the universal 'calm down' gesture. "Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko, SSV Normandy, responding to your distress call!"
"Friendlies confirmed!" Ashley shouted back, though neither of the two women lowered their pistols until the man -and, more importantly, his empty hands- were fully in view. Ashley couldn't help but frown faintly as a turian, one in heavy, high-quality armor and carrying a shotgun so pretty that -in a less terrifying and stressful period- she might actually beg for a chance to take a look at it followed him.
"Boy, LT, are we glad to see you." Nirali breathed as the pair joked up, Alenko promptly dropping to his knee beside her and starting to perform first aid on her leg. Hissing faintly as the medi-gel went to work, she continued. "Servicemen Nirali Bhatia, 212th Marines. Thanks, that feels better already."
"Glad to help. Like I said, Kaiden Alenko, Lieutenant. 103rd Special Operations. This is Senior Agent Nihlus Kryik, Special Tactics and Reconnaissance." he smiled warmly -a pretty enough smile, Ashley noted absently, though he wasn't exactly her type-, gesturing at his companion, who nodded respectfully but kept his eyes on their surroundings.
"A SPECTRE? What the hell is a SPECTRE doing here?" Ashley almost barked, shock driving both courtesy and military respect entirely from her for a moment, though she quickly flushed and bobbed her head apologetically as she tacked a 'sir' on a moment later. Fortunately, the LT didn't seem to take an issue with her tone or the belated respect.
"We're here for the beacon, Chief. Orders are to escort it to safety before the geth can get their hands on it, let the fleet handle things when they respond to our Case Zulu." he explained, glancing past her to check on Shepard, and grinned before standing up and offering her his hand. "On your feet, Chief. Fight isn't over yet."
She took his hand, letting herself be pulled to her feet, before helping him do the same with Nirali. Both turned to follow his gaze, and both exhaled heavily at the sight of the mechanical carnage on the far side of their cover.
"I dunno, LT, fight looks pretty over to me." Ashley couldn't help but remark a bit snarkily, watching intently as Shepard stood over one of the fallen mechs, one nearly three times as large as those that she and Nirali had been fighting before, working her sword out of it's head before sheathing it and turning to make her way towards the observing group. God, but she looked amazing like that. A knight in midnight armor, the golden phoenix emblem that was her personal mark in the center of her chest, flanked by the crimson and white N7 stripes on one side and the screaming eagle of the 101st of the other, the sun framing her and making every strand of her copper-red hair glow like it was on fire. She's a goddess, Ashley thought, instinctively grimacing and sending a quick apologetic prayer Heavenward for it, though she rather noticeably didn't find herself withdrawing the label.
"Yeah, Shepard has a tendency to do that. You get used to it after a while." she vaguely heard Alenko respond as Shepard finally came to a halt in front of them, looking them over with a soft frown of concern, jade eyes lingering on Nirali's injured leg before rising to pin Ashley in place.
"Status report." she asked, a throaty contralto that seamlessly combined absolute authority with soft, genuine care, and Ashley found herself trapped by the eyes on her own even as she braced to attention and saluted.
"Gunnery Chief Williams, 212th Marines, Ma'am. Serviceman Nirali Bhatia, of the same." she answered promptly, determined not to look foolish or helpless in front of one of her heroes. "We were on perimeter patrol when we were ambushed, ma'am. The rest of the 212th, at least those in the local area, were wiped out. Nirali and I survived, but these mechs have been hunting us ever since. No idea what happened to the 232nd or what's going on anywhere else on the planet, ma'am. And we know who you are, of course, and SPECTRE Nihlus told us why you're here. The beacon is about a mile, mile-and-a-half ahead, ma'am."
"Very good, then. Bhatia, you'll stay with us. Normally I'd leave you someplace safe for recovery after the fighting, but with geth roaming the forests, you'd likely be safer with the squad." Shepard nodded, not sounding offended or concerned by Ashley's knowledge or brisk words, and both marines frowned faintly.
"Lieutenant Alenko mentioned that they were geth, but that seems crazy. They haven't been seen for centuries, and they show up here of all places? Aren't they, like, dozens of lightyears away from here?" Nirali inquired, and Shepard nodded again.
"Hundreds, actually. We think that they found out about the beacon somehow and are trying to take it so that they can mine it for technological advances, get the edge on the Citadel. We need to stop them." she explained, unholstering her Avenger and passing it to Ashley before drawing her submachine guns. "Now. Let's be about it."