Mass Effect -- The Conduit

[The Citadel]

  THE YEAR IS 2183.  
EARTH IS NOW PART OF AN ALIEN ALLIANCE, UNITED AT AN ANCIENT STATION KNOWN AS "THE CITADEL".
WE ARE IN DANGER.

THE GETH HAVE ATTACKED OUR COLONIES, KILLING THOUSANDS.
THE CITADEL WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A REFUGE -- THE SAFEST PLACE IN THE GALAXY.
BUT NOT ANY MORE.

THE GETH HAVE BREACHED THE CITADEL'S DEFENSES USING "THE CONDUIT", A PROTHEAN ARTEFACT DISCOVERED ON ILOS.
THEIR FLAGSHIP, "SOVEREIGN", HAS ATTACKED THE CITADEL FLEET.
INITIAL REPORTS CONFIRM MAJOR DAMAGE AND HEAVY CIVILIAN CASUALTIES.

NOW, MILITARY LEADERS OF THE "SYSTEMS ALLIANCE" HAVE PREPARED THEIR RESPONSE...
A TEAM OF HIGHLY TRAINED ALLIANCE SOLDIERS IS READY TO ASSAULT ILOS AND DISABLE THE CONDUIT.
AN ALLIANCE FLEET STANDS READY TO BOMBARD THE PLANET FROM ORBIT IF THEY FAIL.

THIS IS A NEAR-SUICIDAL MISSION.
BUT THESE TROOPERS ARE THE BEST OF THE BEST.

[Nikolai Odell]

"God damn it."

The butt of the pistol slammed against the bulkhead with a thud that was more satisfying than it was productive. The old Kassa Fabrication pistol was reliable, and had enough stopping power to make a charging Krogan flinch if you aimed right; but the damned ammo cell kept jamming, and no amount of cleaning or tweaking seemed to solve the problem.

Finally, his brute force approach wrestled the spent unit free, and tossed it back into the battered old tool box that held such things as makeshift trophies. As he slid the new unit into place, he could already feel the poor fit clamping around with fresh reluctance to ever release it; but if he ever found himself in a situation where he was in the field and had spent so much ammo that he'd drained his last pistol clip, he probably wouldn't survive long enough to reload anyway.

Satisfied, more or less, he slid the pistol back into place on the hip clamp of his armour, and rose from his crouch, rolling his neck beneath the skin tight pressure seal at his throat. He should have been used to it by now, after all these years strutting into hazardous environments on the Alliance's behalf, but he wasn't. And Alliance R&D hadn't bothered to invent a suit that didn't make him sweat like a pig in heat either. Thinks would be deeply unpleasant inside his rig by the time they got back from this op.

If they got back.

The walked calmly through the corridors of the Alliance Frigate SSV Saratoga, a few familiar turns leading him to the launch bay. Techs were doing their last minute swarming over a stealth-rigged UT-47 Kodiak; Odell would have been much more comfortable heading down there in a Mako - or, hell, something bigger - but this was a softly-softly mission, and the little shark-buggy Mako was anything but subtle.

"Why the hell are we even here?" Odell heard one of his men mutter to another. "Isn't this kinda shit what the Normandy is meant to be for?"

Odell thumped a fist into the armour plate above the Corporal's shoulder blades, succeeding in attracting his attention. "Normandy's busy saving the galaxy," he grunted, face forming a natural scowl without any effort. "The best are busy: that's why they're sending in the rest." He let his eyes linger, his silence suitably dressing down the much younger soldiers.

"Stow your gear, and stow the chat," he ordered eventually, jerking his head towards the shuttle. "Saddle up."

The two Marines hustled off, and Odell caught himself sighing. He also caught sight of the one geared-up soldier not wearing the same dull greens as the rest of his unit; and caught sight of the short-cropped cascade of redhead that probably should've clashed horribly with the N7 stripe down her sleeve, but somehow didn't. He crossed the deck towards her quickly and quietly, stepping alongside before uttering a word.

"Congratulations on being not quite as popular with the brass as Shepard, L.T," he opened, expression a complete deadpan. Not many people knew who'd made it to the final selection round for humanity's prospective SPECTRE; and out of all of them, Odell was pretty sure that the Lieutenant was the most sore about losing out. "Guess you're stuck with us as your consolation prize."

[Victoria Collins]

2647



An elbow was driven into Odell's throat. Truth was, she was aiming for his jaw but had timed their footsteps just slightly off.

"That will be the first and only time you mention that, Gunny." If her words had taken shape they would have been hard pressed to decide between daggers or ice. Maybe ice daggers. The look she gave him made it clear that part of her wished she had simply Thrown him across the room. Anyone else she maybe would have just tripped up but well...special situation. Consider it all asserting the Alpha mentality or whatever.

Sure as hell the SPECTRE thing was a sore spot. They picked Shepard to represent humanity... when the bastard wasn't even born on Earth. Fuck that. And now he was off playing the big damn hero while they got stuck with the shitty side job of cleaning up? It was infuriating to put it nicely and being reminded of that fact was all the worse.

A few members of the crew had stopped in their preparations to gawk. They'd figure it out sooner or later.

"As you were." There was no room for questioning in her voice and thankfully they all seemed to go back to their duties.

"So," her attention returned to Odell. "Aside from reminding me why the hell I'm here in the first place, you have any opinions on how to deal with this damn thing aside from an ass-ton of grenades?"

[Ento]

"Grenades?"

A midly distracted Salarian paused mid-stride, otherwise oblivious to the struggle among Saratoga's finest.

"Must it come to that? Surely mustn't. Simply because we have to crack eggs to make omelets doesn't mean we throw bits of shell into the pan as well."

Half in and half out of the conversation he'd butted into, Ento walked between the quarreling pair to access a computer terminal on the wall.

"Prothean artifacts, much less working ones, are still something of a rarity. I imagine a civilization that advanced would probably know a thing or two that could even make a Geth's head spin."

[Nikolai Odell]

"Ain't that the problem?" Nick interjected.

He sucked in a quick sniff, and shrugged. "The artefact making the Geth's head spin, I mean. Last thing we need is a bunch of synthetics getting their hands on crazy-advanced knowledge from the race that built the Mass Relays and the Citadel. They already managed to catch us with our pants down and take us roughly and lube-free through a back entrance we didn't even know we had. I dread to think what they'd be capable of if we let 'em get access to any more Prothean tech."

All this talk of grenades distracted him momentarily, and sent him rummaging through his own supplies. His armour rig only had enough latch points for three, which seemed like a woefully inadequate amount for this kind of situation. His old gear had custom mounts on pretty much every available surface, but command had signed off on some sort of deal with some sort of turian manufacturer or something, and now all the Alliance's front line units were swapping out their old Predator gear for almost identical but allegedly superior stuff. To be honest, it all sounded like some scam that command had fallen for, but whatever. If your superiors said jump, and all that.

"Besides," he added, with a quirk of a smile, "If you ain't all that fond of blowing things up, you're probably riding with the wrong unit. It's kinda what we do."

He hesitated for a single beat. "The L.T here, too. Never met anyone who blows stuff quite the way she does."

[Kendon Adair]

At that moment, the venn diagram that depicted people who didn't trust biotics compared to people who didn't want to be elbowed in the throat by Lieutenant Collins was just one perfectly aligned and overlapping circle.

It was impossible to miss the wide berth that the crew were giving the latest arrival to the Saratoga. Adair recognised their furtive glances and frowns; he was still regularly on the receiving end of those looks, even after a handful of drops with Odell. The tattoo of an eclipsed sun visible just above the collar of his light armour probably didn't help. He stole another glance at Collins, wondering what had lead to Commander Shepard's meteoric rise to the forefront of humanity while Collins was stowed away on board the Saratoga with the rest of the Alliance's questionable recruitment choices.

Adair shook his head, pushing away that train of thought as he slipped his pistol into its holster. However heavy the weight of the past was, it was nothing compared to the potential future that lay in wait on Ilos. He needed to focus, not just for himself but for the safety of the entire team.

[Maurice Godfrey]

Service Chief Godfrey was going through his checklist for the M35-Mako while inspecting the shuttle with the responsible engineer. Checklist item 187 of 243 was 5% off from its specifications so according to System Alliance standards it was doing great so it got an X on his checklist. The engineer was now talking about the element zero core but Maurice was only listening with one ear while observing the little fight between Gunny Gruffy and Lieutenant Redhead. Their names were somewhere on his cargo list but he did not really care to learn them. He had flewn 10 simulations of the drop and so he had a pretty good idea of how this mission would pass. Now the service engineer said something about the core running at 98% so item 188 was fine as well. Now on to ordnance. That was easy just filling in the right numbers while the engineer is counting them.

According to Military Intelligence the weather forecast said it would be raining on the planets surface, the recon images showed a few Geth Rocket troopers and maybe one or two Geth Colossi in the LZ but they were ill placed and thanks to the rain the Geth fire will be mostly unaimed or countered by the Mako's flares and smoke projectors. After the landing he would simply drop off the commando crew of these unlucky bastards, wish Lieutenant Ginger good luck and then accelerate up Hill Delta 15AF as fast as he can. At waypoint Echo the Mako will reach the lowest friction so the vertical boosters will have to be ignited. Then Maurice is going to make some quick angle corrections for a proper pickup by the Saratoga. 20 minutes later Maurice will leave the debriefing of the CAG. So ordnance was done now. "What do we have for dinner today?", Service Chief Godfrey asked himself while looking at item 212 on his checklist.

[Victoria Collins]

Vision flickered red followed swiftly with shades of purple as Victoria's L3 implant switched itself into fuck this nonsense mode. The Throw wasn't hard, just enough to crash the Gunnery Chief into the nearest load-bearing object. She would have loved to hurl him into one of the ship's bulkheads but there was such a thing as too much overkill. Three quick steps were all it took to put her next to him, her arm barred across his neck, eyes daring Odell to make any sort of move.

"Let's get one thing straight here. These may be your Marines, but this is my damn mission. I don't have time for this and I'm sure as hell not going to let your misogynistic bullshit stand and be considered acceptable around here. If you can't deal with that, then you better have command call in someone who can. The last thing I want right now is to think I can't trust the people I've supposedly got watching my back down there." Where her actions had been fueled with emotion her words were completely devoid. "So, we all clear or do I need to get on the comm?"

[Nikolai Odell]

The impact with the side of the Mako was jarring, but his mind was too caught up in the sickeningly unnatural sensation of being gripped by invisible and impossible forces and getting tossed across the room. The force was such that it didn't get all that much height, and he didn't fall more than a couple of inches when he came to a sudden stop; but it lifted his feet uncomfortably from the deck plates in a way that he did not like. At all.

He arm across his throat made matters worse, the air seal digging into his skin all the more beneath the pressure of Victoria's clunky, armoured forearm. His heart hammered in his chest, and not entirely for the right reasons. He fought back a tiny hint of a smile that threatened: a mix of triumph at having found her buttons like a sniper, and pride at seeing that the whelp of a Lieutenant he'd once known had finally grown some balls.

"Clear as crystal."

He swallowed hard, fluid struggling to dodge around his half-compressed windpipe.

"Sir."

[Victoria Collins]

"Good."

Collins stepped away from Odell before bringing two fingers up her to lips and let a loud whistle echo throughout the bay and watched with mild amusement as those who had been doing their damned best to avoid watching her confrontation with their lead now turning a reluctant eye towards where they stood near the Mako.

"Listen up," a momentary pause was given for those who hadn't gotten the idea the first time around. "In case you haven't been made fully aware of the situation, allow me to explain so you can stow any rumors that have been going around. I've gotten word that our LZ is fairly clear but the path to the Prothean Conduit is swarming with Geth. I'm sure the last thing you want to hear right is now is that there's a high probability of taking heavy casualties but that's the damn truth of it. We can minimize our risk by going in as quiet as possible - we aren't there to sweep the Geth off this miserable rock, that Artifact is our priority. From what I've been told the thing's tucked away in a bunch of ruins so cover should be plenty. Don't try and be the hero, we move as one. Once we secure the area Ento will tackle the problem of turning that damn thing off for good. We keep him covered, we keep him alive, we get this thing over with and we all go home." If Shepard can pull off some fancy shit and get the Citadel situation under control. Her words had been grim enough without adding that fun little caveat.

"Any questions?"

[Maurice Godfrey]

Maurice stepped outside the Mako. He observed the Gunny getting back on his feet wondering if he should check the suspension of the Mako again with the engineer. He decided not to and signed the checklist on his pad before he submited it to flight command. So that's it. We are ready to go and they already started trying to kill each other. This mission seems to be more desperate than the mission briefing sounded. Maurice tried to keep a low profil as he crossed the hangar behind the marines.No one dared to ask the Lt a question about the mission.

Maybe he should learn her name after all. He switched his pad back on and tabbed over to the mission briefing. Lieutenant Victoria Collins, N7, her name suddenly sounded familiar. He had eventually reached his locker on the other side of the hangar and climbed out of his engineering jumpsiute. He copy and pasted the name of the lieutenant into the sector alliance database on his pad that was now lieing on the bench next to his locker with his left hand while he was putting in the security code for his locker with the right one.

A file was opening up while Maurice was putting on his light recon armor. The chestplate was adjusting itself to his body when he bent forward over his pad again. Lieutenant Victoria Collins was the sole survivor of a Thresher Maw attack on Akuze. The sole survivor in a mission with 28 casualties - 29 if you count in the Thresher Maw. He took his eyes off the pad and checked his sidearm. The thermal clip in the M-9-Tempest was at full capacity. He put it into the holster on his right thigh and added 3 additional thermal clips to his chestplate.
"That should do it", he thought and put his helmet under the left arm and closed his locker. He wanted to read more about the lieutenant as he turned around to his pad. "Are you stalking the cargo again?", Seargent Rossi asked with a dirty smile on his face handing Maurice his pad back. "You know that you can get to know women by actually talking to them. My wife could arrange a date for you when we are on leave again." Maurice blushed as he was reminded of those awkward dates from the past that Rossi's wife Giselle had arranged in the past.
"Are we ready to go?" Maurice tried to change the subject. "Yes the Kodiak has been ready for deployment three hours ago." Rossi replied. "Yeah I was added by the CAG as a last minute request and spent the last few hours in the simulator. Once we enter the atmosphere you just stay behind me and we will be both back for dinner." Maurice explained.
"I am glad to have you with me on this!" the other seargent admited and put his arm on the shorter man's shoulder. Maurice and Rossi were good friends since the academy. Maurice was the godfather of Rossi's third daughter, Anabel. He looked over to the marines and started walking torwards them. "Let's do this!"

"Service Seargent Rossi and Service Seargent Godfrey reporting for duty, Mam!" Rossi said introducing themselves to Collins. "The Kodiak is fully operational and ready!"
"And so is the Mako that was added on your special request. We are ready to board now. You just have to give the order, Mam!" Maurice added while saluting the Lieutenant as good as he could. He did not want to drop a brick while dealing with this woman.

[Nikolai Odell]

"Easy there, boys," Odell muttered, eyeing the Sergeants in turn. "Ma'am at the Lieutenant any harder, and you'll wind up straining something."

His attention expanded, sweeping across the Marines that had gathered around their two insertion vehicles. The way that they were all looking at Collins suggested that at least a few of them had worked out who she was; either that, or he hadn't worked hard enough to bash the standard issue hero worship for N7s that they handed out at the Academy.

That didn't irk him quite as much as the fact that he was being upstaged, though. He wasn't a whore for attention or recognition; frankly, he didn't care either way if he got it or not. What bugged him was that these were his people, his Marines, and all of a sudden a few words from command had dumped the Lieutenant in their lap and everyone had turned traitor to hang off her every word. The guys and gals in his unit were the closest thing he was ever gonna get to having kids; some redhead floozy swooping in and stealing their affections was even more of a shock to the system than being slammed spine first into a Mako.

"The El-Tee needs a recon team to ride down in the Mako and scope things out. Her, Ento, and me makes three -" His eyes picked out Adair from the crowd. "Congratulations, Rookie. You just volunteered as fourth man."

His mouth drew into a thin line. "Maurice will drop us in close, and then bug straight out. It'll be up to the boys and girls riding the Bear to get us out. Secure the LZ, carve an extraction path to the ruins, and wait for our signal. If all goes well, we call you guys in to help secure the device, and have a nice picnic with lemonade, cake, and little cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off while we wait for the Alliance to muster together enough braniacs and a fortification team. If things go bad -"

He shrugged. "- we'll come out running, or not at all. If the former, try and keep up: because it probably means stuff is about to go boom."

He sniffed, his arms folding across his chest as he focused on the Salarian. "How long are you gonna need with the device to work out if this is a blow or no blow situation?"

[Ento]

His fingers flew over his omni-tool's interface, bringing up a myriad of readouts on the GUI. Some he scrolled, some he discarded.

"Conservatively, two minutes. We have Prothean cyphers from historical archives, but as you expect, cataloging these is not exactly ideal. We've got a ring full of keys and one lock, and we're only pretty sure one of these keys work."

He glanced at Odell, the nictating membranes on his eyes sweeping over quickly.

"The alternative is to have my VI brute-force entry. She's clever enough, but I doubt we'd break through if resistance is hot."

Ento continued to pan through data, still answering the question before him but obviously on multi-task mode.

"It's not the answer you want, but I'll know more when I'm staring the whole enchilada in the face. Ahem, as you Terrans say."

Deftly minimizing the interface at his arm, he stepped toward the Mako, making a face.

"I don't suppose I could request that the driver mind the bumps on the way in?"