Chapter 10

It was just another day on the scenic and idyllic planet of Eden Prime. The fires of war were but a distant memory for inhabitants that lived their lives without worry of harm. After all, Eden Prime was one of the better protected colonies of the System Alliance. It could withstand even the most dedicated of pirate attacks and even full on planetary assaults as its history showed. Everything was peaceful until things started to go wrong and how horribly it went wrong.

The sky above Eden started to burn as the proud ships of the System Alliance started to fall. Numerous explosions could be seen up above as the fleet tried to fend off their attackers to no avail. People panicked as one falling wreck became many. This wasn’t a mere pirate attack, it was a full on invasion.

For some of the planet’s citizens it was a day they had been dreading for but for one Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams it was her one chance to prove herself. She was one of the first to answer the call to arm and it wouldn’t take long for her platoon to be bloodied by the enemy.

“Take cover!” She shouted as her platoon quickly encountered their invaders. Cyclopian robots who marched on and fought with a calculated and detached coldness. Machines from beyond the stars whose purpose she had no way of knowing for they were all but silent save for the bark of their guns.

“Geth?! What the hell are they doing here!” Shouted Donkey as the enemy laid suppressive fire upon their position. She and the rest of Dog Squad were trapped and there was no way out.

“I don’t know Donks, but I don’t like it one bit!” She answered as she quickly peeked from her cover and shot one of the bastards in the face before she ducked back down her cover to avoid the retaliatory fire.

It wasn’t just them that was having a hard time, everyone was. The Geth attacked with a ferocity that honestly confused the hell out of her. The Geth for centuries had stayed in their little corner of space and now they attacked and humans of all people were the target. They hit hard and they hit fast, landing near a recent prothean dig site that everyone in Eden Prime knew about.

The upper brass had been extremely tight-lipped about what was happening in the dig site but whatever it was that the eggheads found, it might’ve been what these machines were after. They were after something as it was the only thing she could think of but she kept all her thoughts about it to the back of her mind for now. She was far too busy trying to survive the attack on the dig site.

She bit back a curse as one of her squad mates got shot and taken out. The fact that the geth were trying to get to the woman's corpse was concerning, as they kept dragging the dead away back to their lines. She made sure that these geth would pay dearly for ignoring them by shooting at those vultures.

“God damn! At this rate we’ll be dead before reinforcement arrives!” Shouted one of her men as they retreated deeper into the defensive perimeter around the dig site.

“Just keep firing! We can’t miss them at this point!” She shouted as he fought for her dear life. She wasn’t sure how much longer they could last before reinforcements arrived, but she hoped they came soon as her men were being mowed down like wheat before a combine harvester.

Her hopes, however, would be dashed as she heard the most chilling of sounds. A sound that could only be described as a deep loud fog horn echoed across the battlefield. There was silence as even the geth themselves momentarily stopped to gaze upon the sky. Turning around and looking up, she saw a truly terrifying sight.

A full blown dreadnought sized ship descended down to the planet's sky. Its tentacled visage looked like the hands of a demon reaching down for them as its malevolent “eyes” peered down below. The main enemy force had arrived and they brought themselves more firepower than what the defense force of the planet could muster. It fired a lance of red fire which vaporized a chunk of the defending force to seemingly punctuate a point.

“Oh fuck me sideways” She breathed as the attack continued with a fever pitch. The geth were partially throwing themselves at her and it feels like the end. There was nothing they could do now and their guns were almost molten at this point with how many shots they’d been firing.

“We’re gonna die!” Shouted one of her men in panic as he huddled in his cover. Morale had practically shattered and loathed as she might admit it, it was probably the end but that didn’t mean she was going down without a fight. Only a passing air strike gave them some reprieve from the almost endless fighting.

“Hold the line! They’ll run out of bodies before we break!” She shouted as she popped up from her cover to pepper the momentarily dazed geth. “Just hold the line till reinforcement comes!” She shouted.

What they were defending might’ve been useless in the grand scheme of things but that wouldn’t stop her from doing her duty. The more bodies they filled the fields with, the less they could throw at their other targets, if they had any at any rate. She kept firing more and more until the sky started to burn. For a moment, she thought the sky was on fire until she realized it was merely aurora’s but they were near the equator. Those shouldn’t appear here unless there’s an unannounced flare. “Oh god almighty! What the fuck is that!?” Shouted Donks as she saw him point at the sky.

Ducking back to cover, she turned and turned around. “It’s just an aurora. Shouldn’t be- fuck!” She replied only to curse out as the angriest blue eye filled the sky above them. Covered in snow, tentacles and blazing aurora’s, a giant unholy moon had appeared above the day sky and it stared down upon the world like an angry malevolent eldritch being.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It was close, far closer than the moon or any celestial object had any right less they start careening towards the planet, yet the eldritch moon hung above the sky in an unnatural stillness. If it was just a moon she would have been fine, but the fact that continent spanning tentacles radiated out from it was just unnerving. Then there was that eye, that giant eye which seemed to be staring right at their position and frowning.

Everyone stopped as they stared up at the giant being, not even the giant dreadnought could ignore it. She would swear till her last breath that she saw genuine fear and incomprehension in the squid ship’s red eyes. “Ma’am, permission to retreat. I want to talk to my family one last time.” Called out the same man who shouted in despair earlier.

“Permission granted.” She whispered as she waited in bated breath on what this thing was going to do and started praying silently inside her mind to any deity or creator out there because she felt she’d be needing it right then.

It was then the moon's lone cyclopean eye started to glow. Light seemed to be pulled into it as it started shining a bright purple. Her legs started to move before her mind processed what was happening. Grabbing Donkey and breaking the men out of their stupor, she shouted, “Run!“

They ran as fast as their legs could carry them, her lungs burning as she pushed herself farther than she ever had before until her world was enveloped by purple. There was only light as she felt herself flung into the air until a deep reverberating boom that she could feel in her very bones.

She landed hard on her side and felt like she’d broken a bone or two but at least they didn't hit any hard objects. Groaning, she turned to her side to see the squid dreadnought trying to limp away and flee. The ship was tougher than it looked as it somehow survived whatever that moon threw at it.

“Everyone still alive?” She croaked out as she felt sore all over. She felt like her entire body was one giant bruise. The groans she heard were reassuring as she recognized everyone. No one miraculously died in her squad from whatever the hell that was. Even from a distance, she could see the Geth falling back while the Dreadnaught was firing its death beam to no avail. She couldn’t even see the explosion on the surface of the moon.

“Think that thing’s on our side?” Donks groaned out in pain as he crawled closer to her.

One of the smaller tentacles reached down from above, its tip coated in darkness as it slammed hard against the ship like a demented whip, swatting the damaged dreadnaught like it was an annoying gnat, which to its size it was. She only realized now just how big it was with its thickness rivaling that of the biggest towers on the acropolis.

“Let’s hope it is…” She replied as she felt herself slip into unconsciousness. The last thing she saw before she dozed off was the crippled ship being pulled up to the sky by some unknown, almost biotic like force. At least that problem was taken care of, for the other more mysterious problem, that was something she’d have to leave to the eggheads because she wasn’t paid enough for it.

-x-x-x-

Nevermore shivered as he lifted up the dazed, but still very much alive Reaper. He could have killed it with his beam and even outright vaporized it if he felt like it, but he needed to wave this thing in front of a galactic audience for them to listen; like showing off a White Walker before the nobility of Westeros.

“God damn it, Nevermore! Did you really have to be that cold?” Shouted Jinx as she walked across the frozen surface of his planet. Most of his flora and fauna had been safely tucked beneath his surface as he had to travel through interstellar space. Alcubierri was right, but he didn’t tell people how cold interstellar space would be. His entire atmosphere practically froze over and if it wasn’t for his precautions there would have been a second mass extinction.

“Why did you insist on being outside when I traveled then?” He asked Jinx, who was currently trying to warm up. Even inside her bubble of magic, courtesy of Raven who floated near them without much problem with the cold, Jinx was shivering like crazy. While the grounds were made of frozen oxygen, he could understand it well given how most of his outer “skin” cells basically froze.

He had to pump magma from deep within his core to his tentacles to get them moving again and even then he felt sluggish. He really had to get better with magic to protect himself from the harsh conditions of interstellar travel.

“Trying to impress much?” Raven asked with a smirk on her face. She had the same protective bubble but hers was noticeably darker. He snorted at that as Jinx flipped her off.

“Oh shut up.” Jinx replied through her chattering teeth. Oh she had a lot of firepower sure but it seemed that his familiar had a shallow spell pool to pick from.

“Ok, we got our objective. Can you prepare a prison for our friend over there Raven? I’ll be sending up the material for the Moon Prison. We need to make Sovereign nice and comfy for his trip to the citadel.” He asked. He had a lot of explaining to do given his very public appearance. Best to give as much of an impression as possible. He came in as a hero, now it’s best to give the bad guy to the proper authorities to make them feel better.

Raven nodded as she flew up along his tentacles, hugging the large pillar of flesh as his atmosphere extended around it, to meet with the prisoner. He was making sure that Sovereign was constrained. He had yet to find Saren but he had a feeling that he was within the Reaper.

“As for you Jinx… you really should get back inside. You could just have taken a nap, you know.” He then said to his familiar. It was still weird that he was practically connected to Jinx, but he was getting used to it.

“I regret everything.” Jinx replied as he entered one of the tunnels running up and down his tentacles to find some place warm, he assumed. She really had a thing against Raven. He really should’ve been doing his best to keep those two away from each other for the sake of his sanity. Either that or find a way to force the two make up in some way or fashion.

A flash off in the nearby Relay tipped him off to a certain hero, or heroine really, finally arriving. “Well, it’s finally show time. I really hope I don’t fuck this up.” He said aloud as his new massive eye focused on the incoming ship.