Jenkins
Things got complicated quickly, although I was expecting as much. We only encountered 3 more of the drones, which we were able to dispatch easily now that we knew what we were dealing with. But that was the simple stuff. No, the complication came from Ashley. We heard the sound of gunfire as we crested the top of a hill, and looking down we immediately moved into cover. There was a woman in white and pink combat armor taking cover behind a large boulder, receiving fire from two much larger machine units. Geth troopers.
They were humanoid in appearance, two arms, two legs and a head. Although that head was a large glowing lens the machine likely used to analyze and view their surroundings. The machines made no attempt at subtlety, as their large purple frames gave them away as geth design immediately. The large purple plating likely served as structural reinforcement, and rested on top of a gray metallic material that resembled muscle tissue in its design. They carried large purple rifles that fired the same blue plasma energy that the drones fired.
The troopers were moving in on where the woman was taking cover, and we were in a position on the hill above them. Shepard gave the signal to hold our fire and took position in the lead once again. I fell back into line willingly, she could lead the charge into combat as often as she wants, I’ll play support happily.
Taking the lead, Shepard gave us two more sets of signals, one for me to give her a shield boost, and the other for Kaidan to use stasis on one of the two troopers. She gave us the sign to go and things moved quickly. I hit the necessary commands on my omni tool before swiping the program in Shepard’s direction, surrounding her armor in a faint orange glow as the boost took effect. At the same time she vaulted forward over a boulder charging ahead while Kaidan stepped to the right extending his hand towards one of the two geth troopers.
A blue energy flashed across his forearm before the trooper he was gesturing at was encased in the same glowing blue energy, freezing in place. I took aim with my rifle and planted 5 steady shots into the machine's glowing lens causing it to shatter and for the machine to crumple. Meanwhile Shepard charged ahead at the other trooper, shotgun in hand. She ignored its first volley of rounds letting them bounce off her boosted shields focusing instead on closing distance. As her shield cracked from the sustained fire however she quickly raised her left hand, clenching her fist before pulling towards her chest. The geth machine engaging her was wrapped in a blue energy as it was ripped from the position where it was standing and flew in the direction of Shepard. She intercepted its flight with the barrel of her shotgun, and two successive rounds through the chest blew the machine apart, two separate halves falling to the ground unmoving.
She took a second weapon scanning her environment before she lowered it and took a second to relax. The woman in pink armor that was crouched behind a boulder lowered her weapon, not even having a chance to fire it herself. She looked across our group in a mixture of shock and relief. She turned to the commander, her black and red N7 armor and visible alliance ranking marking her as our squads obvious leader.
“Thanks for your help, Commander. I didn’t think I was going to make it. Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams of the 212. You the one in charge here, ma’am?” Ashley Williams, the second human companion from Mass Effect 1. Full soldier class, no biotics or technical skills to speak of but she’s a competent soldier. She also has a chip on her shoulder when it comes to alien races, caused by some family history that frankly doesn't justify her behavior. It’s that behavior that makes me not a huge fan of hers in general.
I choose to ignore her as the commander and Kaidan step in to ask questions about the attack and situation. Instead I focus on the bodies of the two geth troopers we fought. Unlike the drones the trooper bodies did not self-destruct, curious, since it would make sense for them to be rigged to blow as well.
Reaching down to inspect the body of the one I shot, I can’t help but be a little amazed. The geth are one of the cooler races from Mass Effect, and while they are only enemies for the duration of the first game, they’re species as a whole is more complex and interesting then most. A race of sentient machines that rose up against their creators the Quarians. Since that uprising the geth remained in deep space, and the Quarians were forced to become migratory, losing their homeworld and traveling the galaxy upon a fleet of ships called the Flotilla.
Obviously that makes the geth sound like the bad guys, full terminator and all that, but the situation is far more complicated. Not that it matters now. Raising my omni-tool I scan the mechanical body, being sure to disconnect my device from our comms network before beginning. Standard AI defenses, although it wouldn't be necessary for the geth, It would be suspicious if I acted like I knew that before scanning. A quick scan confirms what I already knew from lore. The machine was empty, not a trace of code or programming left behind, just an empty mechanical shell.
Reconnecting my comms I switch to a more direct investigation. Pulling out a knife I pry one of the armor plates of the troopers chest, exposing the material beneath. The material, while clearly still metal in origin, was very organic in appearance. It resembled muscle fibers, and cutting and peeling that material back revealed an interesting surprise. The Machine had nothing resembling organs, it was a simply a solid dense metallic frame, encased in artificial muscle tissue before being covered again in more dense plate as armor. The standard geth trooper would be more durable then any standard Citadel soldier. In fact the only sufficiently advanced hardware was located in the head stalk. I couldn't quite tell their purpose though as the one Kaidan and I dealt with had its head smashed to pieces.
I stood, and walked over to the other trooper, the one that had been blown into two piece by Shepard. Not only was that badass as hell it preserved the head, meaning I could investigate for hardware. Peeling the head armor open I found my second surprise for the day. The entire interior was slag. Overheated by some internal program or system when its frame was rendered useless. That makes more sense then just leaving them fine. Oh well might as well scan this one as well, compare similarities.
“Jenkins, what are we dealing with here, you have confirmation?” Shepard's voice broke through my concentration only a few minutes later.
“Well commander they are definitely geth. The material they're made out of is durable as hell, heavy plate over top of some kind of synthetic muscle. I’d love to study the material closer but with what I could gather they keep most essential hardware in the head. The eye stalk that is. The armor up there is the thickest on the body though, so unless you can guarantee your sending rounds into the actual viewport here you're better off aiming for center mass.”
“Do we have to worry about our comm network being infiltrated. I don't want to carry an AI back into citadel space.”
“Shouldn't be an issue commander. The geth are weird as far as AI go. A bunch of small barely intelligent programs, on their own they are less useful the VI. When they group however they share processing power, making them far more intelligent and effective.” I was noticing blank stares from Kaidan and Ashley, while Shepard only nodded, not visibly showing if they understood or not. For their sake I simplified.
“Even if a Geth program managed to sneak into our system it would be destroyed by our cyber security in microseconds. It would take thousands of geth programs to be smart enough to get past our defenses and we would notice that kind of attack. The geth clearly aren't designed for cyberwarfare.”
“Good, send the intel about structural weakness over to Nihlus, we need to move out and get to the beacon. Williams, you're with us.” Ah so Ashley still joins the crew even with Jenkins alive, good I suppose. More allies is always better, and it will guarantee I make it out of a complicated situation later, if my plans fail anyway.
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“Aye aye commander. Ready to move out.” Williams gives a salute and falls into step moving with our group.
As we move past our clearing we come across a gruesome sight. Geth tech, a circular pod with a large mechanical spike shooting into the air. Impaled on the end of these is a human corpse, his blood still flowing down the spike that killed him.
“The beacon’s at the far end of this trench.” Ashley turns away from the man too quickly, and I notice the alliance armor he's wearing. Part of her unit possibly, shit I can only imagine how that would get to you. Kaidan walks up to it looking at the gruesome site in horror.
“Eden Prime will never be the same again. That man was still alive when they stuck him on the spike.” His voice is sharp as he stares at the gruesome site before turning to walk down the trench with Ashley. They continue to speak as I step closer to the device.
I know what this item does, how it changes the bodies stuck to it into mindless weapons of destruction, Husks. I raise my omni tool giving the device a scan, and realize how it accomplishes this. My anger rises and I raise my rifle. Firing a burst of rounds into the base of the machine, causing our squad to turn back with their weapons raised. The spike retracts as the machine breaks, and the body it was holding up falls down to the ground.
“Jenkins, why did you open fire, what’s wrong.” Kaidan speaks first, the only one to notice the look of rage in my eyes.
“These things, they're doing something to the body. The spires were pumping him full of that synthetic muscle tissue and fluid. Then charging it with energy. They were going to turn his body into some artificial husk they could control.” I shot the machine again, for good measure.
The group looked at me in horror, even Shepard was silent, before raising her weapon as well, shooting the two other machines here, even though they were inactive.
“Squad, smash any one of these things we come across. No mercy for the geth after this, I don’t care if they try to surrender. The only way geth get off this planet now is if they're running.” Her fury took me by surprise. She was talking about extreme measures here, even though I couldn't blame her for it. It’s an unspoken rule that you don't disrespect the dead of your enemy.
“Copy.” - “Yes commander.” Kaidan and Ashley's response is quick and professional. I caught my breathing and steadied my emotions. We were all pissed about this, but we needed to keep a cool head.
I turned back to look at the corpse of the alliance man. His flesh a dull gray and the bulge of machinery and tech pushing beneath his skin. The fact that the Geth could and would do something like this is frankly disgusting. While I can understand intellectually that this is likely the Reaper’s influence, the fact they would use it makes it hard not to hate them on principle. The only relief I could come to is that husks are easily identifiable, if this tech could control and make the hosts appear lifelike then it could be a major security concern.
Wait. Shit I’m the only one who knows that distinction, it's perfectly reasonable to assume that this geth tech could accomplish that. Holy shit this might work, at least better then my half assed warning attempts earlier. I activated my comm frequency, reaching out to Nihlus.
“Nihlus, this is Jenkins. We came across some geth tech that seems capable of infiltrating and controlling a host body. Show caution of anyone displaying unusual behavior or with integrated tech that looks like this.” I sent off a photo of the body, its purple pseudo muscles visible beneath the flesh.
It takes a moment before the reply comes through. “Copy that, thanks for the warning. There’s been a change of plans, Shepard. There’s a small spaceport up ahead. I want to check it out. I’ll wait for you there.” He finishes the message by cutting off his signal once more.
I breathe a sigh of relief. This genuinely might be enough to help him survive. The only living specimen with integrated geth tech in the first game is Saren, the rogue spectre that's supposed to kill Nihlus at the start of the game. At least with this warning he should be a little more cautious of Saren’s sudden appearance.
“Jenkins, are you ready to move? We have a job to do, we need your focus.” Shepard is looking back at me, her eyes the only thing visible through the visor. While her tone still sounds harsh, I can see in her eyes she just looks concerned. Worried, although I’m unsure if it's about the mission, or about us.
“I'm good commander. Apologies. Let's carry on.” I adjust my grip on my rifle and step forward, falling into formation.
She only nods at me before moving her way back to the front of the line, taking lead as we carry on down this narrow trench in the terrain. As we reach a clearing, we see a set of unearthed ruins that the supposed beacon resides at. We also see another collection of geth troopers. The fire fight is quick and brutal once more.
With Shepard and Ashley taking support, my tech aiding Shepard and Kaidan biotics aiding Ashley we smash through the machines in only a moment. They aren't even able to breach our shields. Small victories aside however, we find another problem as the ruin is empty. No people, and no beacon.
“This is the dig site. The beacon was right here. It must have been moved.”
“By who? Our side? Or the geth?” Kaidan responds to Ashley first, the two already seem to have a decent rapport, similar ranks and experiences make fast friends it seems.
“Hard to say. Maybe we’ll know more after we check out the research camp.” The mention of a research camp grabs Shepard's attention quickly
“You think anyone got out of here alive?” She asks Ashley, hoping for a positive response.
“If they were lucky. Maybe hiding up in the camp. It’s just at the top of this ridge. Up the ramps.” Ashley gestures to the dirt slope that heads up the hillside, and we set off once again, moving in formation.
We clear the top of the hill, to see yet another clearing in the terrain, portable housing set up as an obvious research camp. We also see the bodies, raised on spikes high into the sky, more of those damn machines.
We don’t need to speak, as a group we open fire on the machines, causing them to spark and fail and for the bodies to fall to the ground. They are visibly much further along in the process then the other we had encountered, barely recognizable as human any more. Completed possibly, judging by the fact that two of the 4 bodies begin to move and stand.
“Oh, god! They’re still alive!” Kaidan takes a step back in fear, but I don't bother. I immediately open fire on the one still trying to stand, only a half moment behind Shepard, who lays into the one that had managed to get to its feet with shotgun fire. We drop them both quickly, not giving Kaidan or Ashley a chance to react.
I walk up to the one, giving it a quick scan for appearances and to review later, before turning back to the group.
“They’re not alive. Hell they don’t even have hearts or lungs anymore. It’s just a meat puppet powered by that abhorrent Geth tech.”
“Right, right. Even if they were alive, killing them in that state would be a mercy.” Ashley responds, although she seems more like she's trying to convince herself than comfort Kaidan.
We move away from the monstrosities, clearing the camp. It's only a collection of a few buildings, and we are able to clear all but the last one quickly and without incident. The final building is sealed shut, and Shepard turns towards me.
She doesn't need to speak, I pull up my omni tool and it's barely a second before I breach the security and disable the lock. I give a wave forward, allowing Shepard to take the lead. As she steps up the door opens automatically, and a female voice gives a shout of panic from inside. Survivors, as I knew and the others had hoped. Speaking with them wouldn't accomplish much, but would allow us to gather a small amount more information.
Not that it mattered to me, I already knew more than they would be able to share. I was just going to take the chance to catch my breath, and try not to picture the image my scanners showed of those Husks. I’m reminded once again that while this world is familiar, It’s not a game anymore. Each and every one of those people were once a real living person with families, hopes and dreams. Hell Jenkins family, my family, was on this planet somewhere possibly suffering the same fate. It was a weird disconnect, both not knowing these people and still caring for them. I’d get Anderson to check if they survived after the mission, for now we had other survivors to deal with.