Echoes of the Past - One

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The next few days were a mix of routine chaos, born out of a familiar problem - too few hands needing to do too much in too little time. He woke up for breakfast, ran off to tech and maintenance training with Vega and Cortez to familiarise himself with a galaxy's worth of principles he knew nothing about, then lunch and off to Doctor T'soni's - mandatory, now, courtesy of the Admiral apparently - interview sessions. After, he'd head to dinner and then retire to his quarters to tinker, exercise, and listen to historical 'podcasts' - a new name for an old convention - courtesy of T'Soni herself. He would send her topics, or ask after them in their talks, and she would, later, curate several files for him to go over and listen to. Apparently, it was her way of thanking him for all of the interviews.

Mandatory or not, she considered it a favor.

And he needed the help, as quiet as he preferred to keep the fact, so he was glad to let her repay it.

The interviews ended a few days into their trip, when she needed time to 'compile her notes' and, after, was pulled off for an op under the Commander's order. He spent those days tinkering and studying on his own, familiarizing himself with his new equipment. And tinkering and checking over his armor the way only an ODST, training to live with the BDUs, could hope to. Once he was satisfied the seals, wiring, systems and armor plates were all solid, well-attached and well-prepared, he moved on to his Avenger and Predator. Those, too, were fine.

So, he moved on to studying their next A.O. - Eden Prime.

Finally, at oh-six standard ship hours, Shepard pinged his comm. "Deployment. One hour. Prep."

He pinged her back, "Understood."

He arrived no the hour to find the bay completely, almost eerily, vacant aside from Shepard herself. And, he assumed, Cortez in the Kodiak. As he approached, she pushed off its hulls and the engines burst to life. The door slid open automatically and he followed her inside, sliding into a seat as she sat by the door and the Kodiak lifted off. The ship turned and angled as the door sealed, and he felt gravity shift as it left the ship and turned planet-ways.

As gravity settled into place, the Commander spoke, "We're coming down in an area near the excavation."

"Objective?"

"Unknown, precisely." She answered, "Some sort of Prothean Relic. High enough value Cerberus invaded for it."

"Prothean?"

"Haven't gotten there yet?"

"No." He blinked as the niggling suspicion suddenly lined up properly and grunted, "Wait… Mars?"

"Had Prothean ruins, yes." She nodded, sounding… Coldly pleased. ""So you really are studying."

"I am." He nodded as upper-atmo turbulence rolled through the cabin, "Doctor T'Soni is… Helping."

"Good." She nodded, her tone cold and clipped. It was like it had been on Menae, and different to how it had been on the ship or even for that short moment when she realized he'd been studying. It was an affectation he was familiar with - the Corps and Navy both had plenty who did the same. "She and my team are already planet-side. By our land-time, they'll be engaging Cerberus. Pulling as many Troopers and eyes as they can away from the site. We'll use that, clear the immediate area as needed and extract the asset or whatever data we can, if it's too large or gone already."

"Understood, Commander." It was a clever play, one part risky as needed and two parts quiet and conservative. And right up his alley - ODSTs were trained to run these sorts of ops, too, as he'd told Doctor T'Soni.

And, he supposed, that was probably why she'd fingered him for the op at all - Vega, for instance, didn't strike him as the subtle type.

"ROEs?"

"Free target, but not free fire." She answered, "We're aiming to be quiet. Subtle. As long as we can, at least."

"Understood."

"You can handle it?"

"Better with my weapons." He shrugged as lower-atmo tremors rumbled through the cabin. "I'll manage, Commander. Making do is page one of the ODST manual."

"Good." She nodded and added, quietly, "If you fall behind I'll leave you behind. I expect you to impress me, Doe."

"I aim to please, Commander."

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They didn't quite land so much as come down low over a spot of open, paved ground at the top of a hill that they dropped down on before the Kodiak turned and twisted up and away. It was an isolated spot, sheltered from the low ground to three sides by towering prefab hab units stacked one on top of the other, crowned by antennae and dishes and spider-webbed by ladders, sheltered bridges and walkways. But all of it was quiet - eerily so. And dark. Unpowered, in fact - even basic status lights and ad-signs were dim.

"Must be diverting power to the dig." She murmured, waving her partner forward. "Let's move."

"Survivors, Ma'am?"

"Not a priority." She answered, sparing a prayer for whoever they had to leave behind as they moved to the corner at the head of a road leading down the hill, towards the dig site. She peered around the corner and down, humming quietly. "No evac options - Normandy can't come in and Cortez can only carry maybe ten, and no asset."

"Understood." Doe grunted, "On you."

He didn't even argue… Which almost gave her pause - and would have given most people pause, too. If he came from where he said, from the kind of world he said, then it made sense. But… A spy would have just agreed to what she'd said, too. Gone along with almost anything, as long as it let them avoid suspicion.

So, it tracked both ways…

Damn it… All she could do was offer up a prayer to Arashu, and hope she would hear her.

"Take point." She ordered, setting the thoughts aside and refocusing. "Head down. Quiet comm. You know the drill."

He nodded and slipped past her, sticking to the right as he moved down the dirt path.

They'd inserted where they had because, when they sent the Normandy's stealth probes over the edges of the region, they'd not detected much. Very little movement, until this morning. And then none. No thermal variances in the building either - at least beyond the margin for simply being indoors at all - no thermal senss, no power. No motion and no power meant no eyes on the insertion, of course, and thus made it an obvious choice.

Even so, it was… Wrong. Too silent, too quiet, somehow.

It made her anxious.

They made their way carefully and as quickly as they dared to risk, pausing to clear alleys and peek through windows, wary of surprises. Avoiding the roads meant plodding through the more uneven grass, and vaulting the occasional wall, but it meant avoiding any traps left behind, so they had little choice. But they didn't find anything, at least beyond a set of very simplistic, barely hidden, sensors. Low-grade ones, the kind their well-tuned, military grade 'Tools caught meters away.

The kind no soldier would trip…

For civilians, maybe? But why?

She pinged the note up to Cortez on an encrypted channel with a note to ping it off to the ground teams elsewhere and moved on, mind working constantly.

As they made their way, more and more pieces slowly began to come together. Slowly pieced into a monstrous whole in her mind's eye. More settled, developed, colonies had large-scale air-traffic skyways and paved roads and, once upon a time before Saren, Eden Prime had been well on it's way to that. And more, to metropolizing properly. But with the main colony butchered, and all the staff and advisors dead, corprorate investment had dried up for a long time. Even so, the survivors had come a long way in recovering, farther than she'd expected, but…

The Reapers - and Cerberus, more directly - had come before they could get there, trapping them once again in that interim stage of skyways and roads linking prefab clusters.

But knowing that let her notice something else.

As hastily assembled as the prefab maze looked, she knew the meticulous planning behind it. Homes, offices, clinics and shops all carefully laid out to allow freer, easier, more flowing air-traffic and ground traffic meant that plenty of paths in and spaces further up existed for air-cars and conveyors, and the roads were lined by enough parking and maintenance garages for supply incoming and outgoing. All normal, ideal even, for a bustling little node of civilization.

But this one was dead and frozen - tricks and air-cars filling every spot, idle and inactive but, most importantly, there and thus not in use. As they passed an open garage something caught her eye so she paused, turned, and stepped inside.

"They pulled out…" She murmured, pacing into the darkened workshop and humming. She knelt a few feet in beside an abandoned tool box and looked at the scattered tools fanning out in front of it. "And in a hurry. An unorganized hurry…"

"An unwilling one, too." Doe added, pacing in further than she had, to the rear end of a large, industrial digging truck hoisted up onto maintenance struts. He came to a stop beside it and looked down, and Shepard followeed his gaze.

Blood… Fresh enough to only be browning now, in a fan away from him.

"Execution." He murmured, kneeling at its inner curve, where it had started. "Knelt right here…"

"Gods…" She murmured a prayer for the lost, now, and the taken as well, and shook it off. Suddenly, the obvious struck, "This is maintenance… For the digging equipment."

"It's abandoned." Doe nodded, standing and shouldering his rifle. "Cerberus doesn't need it."

"Double-time, Doe." She snapped sharply, "Stealth be damned until we actually see someone- Just avoid the roads."

"Aye, Commander."

Her timing had been almost perfect, thanks to Liara's intel… But damn it all, 'almost' didn't seem to have been good enough. They were off by barely a couple hours, it seemed, but that was enough of an error to risk the entire op. And, potentially, everything else with it, too.

"Don't fall behind." She added, "I'll leave you behind."

The ODST didn't complain or hesitate, in spite of his bulky armor and lack of mods. He simply grunted, and fell in beside her, running as fast as they dared.

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Sucking in the kind of hot, desperate breaths he'd only had to draw twice since basic, he slid into cover beside the Commander and shouldered his rifle, leaning back against the heavy railing that ran on the outside of the little dirt switchback road. He was out of breath and sweating from what had to have been a mile long sprint but they'd made it, and without anyone shooting at them, too. She turned to him and he sucked in a breath and held it, forcing his heart rate down and nodding curtly.

"Dig site is down there." She said, standing and pointing with her rifle. The road curved a few feet to their side and came down, ending in a stretch of gravel and sand just a few feet below them. Further on, past a pair of buildings flanking a path, the ground opened up until it struck a cliff's edge. "Bottom of the cliff- But, lucky for us, labs are up here."

"So is the asset."

"Presumably." She nodded, kneeling and turning to him. "If not, we go down."

"Right."

"On my lead." She ordered, standing smoothly and vaulting the barrier.

The drop was only half a dozen feet or so onto relatively soft sand and sparse grass - enough for it to sting a bit, but not enough to slow him at all. And certainly not the Commander - she didn't seem to have noticed it, pushing on quickly while he stood and shook it off. Moving together, they came to a stop against a thick, metal wall with the Cerberus logo emblazoned on its side and an armored, open, door less than a foot away from them. The prefab was raised up on short stilts, so the door was at his chest, with stairs leading up to the recess where the door could seal in. Shepard waved him forward and he stepped past her, standing and peering around the bottom corner of the door-frame.

The back of a pair of heavy, armored black legs made him come up short - the Trooper was barely a few inches from him, facing inwards and watching the scientists working further in. He was armed with a stocky white rifle and carried a handful of grenades on his belt, but seemed inattentive. Or more attentive on the scientists working inside, at least.

When he didn't turn after a moment, Doe looked to the scientists themselves.

None were armed, but all wore Cerberus uniforms. The three of them worked at terminals scattered around a wide, open laboratory, lined by terminals with dozens of read-outs, data-streams and vid-feeds. None of which he could read - they were all in some odd, alien language that his updated VISR couldn't recognize. Leaving them, he flicked a look to the wide table in the center and the black… Coffin? He couldn't be sure, but dozens of cords and cables ran to it, slotting into adapters which in turn connected to it directly.

Whatever it was - the asset, he presumed - could wait until after they'd secured it.

Ducking back, he turned just enough to see the woman over his shoulder and held up a hand, moving through shapes and numbers in turn, "T, one. C, three."

She nodded slightly and held up a hand, curling her fingers into a fist and shaking it forwards four times, "Four targets."

He tapped his rifle butt, "Terminate?"

She nodded.

He frowned but slowly stood, shouldering his rifle more firmly. Taking a deep breath, he stepped away from the building and back a bit, leaving his space for her to fill. Slowly, careful of sightlines through the door, he slid around and raised his weapon, bringing the barrel in close to the Trooper's unarmored knee rather than try for his head at the bad angle. Crippled, he'd be easy prey after.

She clicked her comms on and murmured a single, "Engage."

Three mass accelerator rounds ripped apart the man's knee, amputating it in a spectacularly spray of blood, viscera and annihilated bones.

The Trooper screamed as a panicked yell, a cry of alarm, and a shriek of agony all melded together and he fell, rifle clattering as his arms flailed, on instinct looking for a grip. John slammed into the ground and the ODST brought his boot down on his throat, shattering it and leaving him to choke to death as he stormed up the stairs and into the lab.

The closest scientist turned to him as the surprise of the moment registered ad - trapped between the odd coffin and him - she threw herself back, eyes wide in panic. His burst ripped through her throat and he turned, sighting down the fleeing backs of the other two. He waited until they were away from the terminals and the coffin before he fired - neat, four round bursts that ripped apart their upper bodies and sprayed red out the door they'd only just reached,

As they tumbled out the door, a pair of Troopers appeared, drawn by the noise. They shoved the corpses aside as they landed and stormed up the stairs as John stepped in. He emptied - or rather, filled, he supposed - his clip into them, rounds peppering their more lightly armored helmets. As they tumbled, he felt his shoulder jerk back and snarled-

A round had caught him, deflected off his kinetic barrier and, for a heartbeat, he wondered if his armor would have saved him there.

"Room clear, room clear." He called out, just before more, muted, shots echoed from off to his side. Storming forward, he took cover at a low window wall in the middle of the groom.

Straightening, he stood as much as he had to and turned his rifle on its side, leaning it out of the window and peering over in a way that exposed as little of his body as possible.

Outside, six rows of crates - Cerberus, Alliance and a few corporate insignias and colors splashed across the sides - had been arranged in long rows almost reaching the lift platform on the cliff's edge. Most were closed, stacked in neat rows, but some had been left open, surrounded by low tables covered in odd looking pieces of metal, rock and equipment he couldn't recognize. Prothean, he figured, but it didn't really matter.

Shepard stood in the middle of them, one foot planted on the throat of what his VISR told him was a dying Centurion and her shoulder pressed back against a stack of Alliance crates.

Several more Troopers were further up, to his right, using the crates for cover and crawling as often as not to look for angles to get at the woman. Two of them hung back while the others worked, using their small sub-machine guns to pepper the Commander's position. To keep her pinned down for the flank. But, as one of the Troopers got an angle and stood, Shepard's arm snapped up, glowing dul orange, and her fingers played through a motion.

The man screamed as a glob of arcing Omni-Gel smacked into his shoulder and set him on fire. Staggering away and smacking at his armor, he was easy pretty for the burst John put through his helmet and throat.

She was holding, then - but one of the Troopers pinning her down spotted him and barked something at the other, who turned and vaulted a crate, headed for the corner of the building.

Leaving the Commander to hold her own, he turned and thundered toward the other door. He reached its top as the Trooper reached its bottom and growled. Leaping, he brought his legs up in front of him, gritting his teeth against the feeling of a mass accelerator round pinging off his kinetic barriers. Nearly three hundred pounds of Helltrooper slammed into him and the woman cried out in surprise, stumblined in the blood-muddied dirt and fell, him on top of her.

He snapped his rifle-butt down into her throat and, when she hacked and scrabbled at her throat, straightened and turned, kneeling on her and bringing his rifle to bear. The other pinning Trooper noticed him just as Doe lined up his rifle on him and tried to raise his weapon, but caught half a dozen rounds to the chest and face before he could fire. As he fell, John turned his rifle on the other Trooper further up the line of crates, trying to get an angle on Shepard herself. He ducked his head, and Doe's shots couldn't punch through his heavier back and shoulder armor, but as he slipped around cover more shots came in from the other side and he tumbled away.

Slowly, he stood and called out, "Troopers down!"

Almost as soon as he did, a round slammed into his head, cracking his shield and dazing him.

"Sniper!" Shepard shouted as he threw himself down and scrambled back, around the cover of the low retaining wall off to the side of the lab-building.

"Shields down!" He called out as the Commander came to him, raking fire from her rifle across wherever she'd apparently spotted the marksman.

"Wounded?" She asked, pressing her back against the same wall as him.

"Negative." He grunted, rolling his shoulder and grimacing. His head ached, and he'd slammed into the wall harder than he should have, but it was fine. After a moment his shields hummed and he watched the bar fill, grunting a quiet, "Shields up."

"Hold." She nodded, trading her rifle for her Predator and taking a breath. Finally, she waved him forward and grunted, "Move out."

He flicked her the shorted look, but didn't argue, rushing forward into the open with his arm curled up beside his head protectively. A second passed and another shot slammed into him, catching him on the side of his thigh and tossing his legs out from under him, sending him sprawling in the dirt. He rolled onto his side and curled into a ball, covering his head with his back to the shooter, and grit his teeth.

But the gunshot that cracked didn't hit him - and two more followed far faster than a marksman could have.

"Clear." Shepard called out as he rolled over and pushed himself up on hands and knees, looking for the rifle he'd dropped as a shadow passed over him. He turned on his knees, looking up as Shepard loomed over him, her steaming Predator in her hand hanging at her side.

After less than a second, she offered her hand and grunted, "Up, Trooper. Not done yet."

"Aye." He took the hand and grabbed his rifle with the other, standing and shouldering it. "On you, Commander."

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I love that my comments are just physics debates now, lol. XD

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Robbeey :

While not a terrible idea, that would kind of rob a lot of the themes of the story. It's hard to be the 'man from another world, lost and fighting for purpose' if there's a bunch of other people too. Now, smaller things, i won't say no to. But we shall see what, if any, comes from that.