Jack ducked behind the wall just in time. The corner which she'd been peeking around was sliced off by a white beam. Overhead, clumps of the Collector Swarmers whirled and spun. She knew they were seeking humans to sting. But so far the frog-dude's countermeasures seemed to be working, and they completely ignored her. Beyond the swarms, the landed Collector ship loomed over the colony of Horizon like a biomechanical mountain.
So far, most of the Collectors had been no problem. They were weird looking and tough, sure, but really they were just big bugs. In the end, they went squish like bugs should. It had been a fun fight up until now. These little sneaky sniper fuckers, though, were a royal pain in her ass.
"Sniper, structure north of courtyard. Top left window," she murmured into her comm.
"Got it," said Zaeed over the radio, "I'll flush him out." She heard the boom of Zaeed's gun, which almost covered the hearty thwack of the round hitting home. Jack scuttled to the other end of the wall and risked a peek. The right half of the window was gone in a huge semicircular bite. She caught a glimpse of the Collector's dark shape flitting past the new hole, trying to regain cover. Just as fast, its head disappeared in a welter of gore. There was the crack of a high-powered rifle right after.
"Scratch the sniper," said Garrus's voice.
She had to admit, the bird-man was a cocky sonofabitch but goddamn if he couldn't back it up. Jack also had to admit that this whole teamwork thing was actually kind of...fun? She certainly got to do a lot more killing with less effort.
"I'm past the courtyard," radioed Shepard, "There's a kind of alley here, between two rows of buildings. A-Team regroup at closer end."
Jack came out of cover at a dead run. She caught a glimpse of Zaeed's yellow armor on her left, contrasting nicely with Garrus's blue on her right. Her focus was ahead, on the door into the building they'd just shot up. Jack moved up, through the door. There was a crack of a weapon and the door jamb just above her head blew apart. She saw the shooter, crouched behind a turned-over table. Lightning-fast, Jack reached out with her power and pulled, yanking the Collector over the table. There was another boom from Zaeed's gun which finished the bug.
"Nice," said the mercenary. "You ever thought of a job after all this? I could for sure use you as backup."
Jack breathed in the smell of heated metal and gunfire, reveling in it. "As long as we get to keep killing lots of things," she said.
"I'm on point," said Zaeed. He moved past her to the far door, took a quick peek around the edge. She felt Garrus move up beside her. She knew it was him without having to look. For once, Jack was actually grateful for the endless training that Shepard had put them through.
"Clear," said the mercenary. "Let's move." The three fighters went through the door, weaving in a complicated ballet that kept the alleyway covered without sweeping their muzzles over each other. Jack felt a feral grin stretching her face. She was but one part of a ferocious, well-oiled machine of death. Damn, this was the shit.
"Here, John," said Garrus as they took cover next to Shepard. The Spectre nodded, not looking at them. Shepard's bulky armor made Jack feel tired just by looking it. Sure, she wore body armor of her own but it was nowhere near the thickness of Shephard's. How could he lug all that shit around and still fight so well?
"B-Team, status," said Shepard. His voice remained even, almost robotic.
Jacob's voice came over their radios. "We've almost finished our sweep. No Collectors here, we think they're pulling back towards the ship. Lots of empty pods, some frozen colonists."
The frozen people. That had been the only thing in the colony which had really creeped Jack out. There had been lots of them almost as if in greeting when the ground team landed. People bent over, in postures indicating flight and panic. All of them surrounded by some sort of orange glow and lots of Swarmers. Jack had caught the eyes of one of the frozen, and had seen those panicked eyes track her as she ran by. She didn't want to think about it. Her past had involved lots of restraining. And every time, being held down was a prelude to searing pain. To be stuck in place like that seemed worse than death to her.
Shepard's voice snapped her back to the present. "B-Team, there should be another alley at right-angles to ours. Push through it and regroup with us at the junction. There's a main comm antenna past there, we can reconnect with the Normandy."
"Roger, B-Team out," said Jacob. Distantly, Jack could hear the crack of shotguns and a bellow from Grunt.
There was a buzz from the far end of their alley, and six more Collector soldiers flew in and began to land. Jack was just about to pop out and give them a biotic throw or two, but then there was a large armored blur to her right as Shepard rose out of cover-
crackcrackcrackcrackcrackcrack
-and all six bugs were down before they could fully land. Jack couldn't believe it. Six precision shots in less than a second? Nobody was that fast, not even the fabled N7's. Just what the hell was Shepard?
"A-Team, move out," said Shepard. He sounded like he was going to pick up his laundry.
They ducked and wove through the alley without encountering any more resistance. At the far end was a small clearing. Grunt, Jacob, and the cheerleader bitch were there already. Miranda didn't even look like her hair had been mussed. Jacob was breathing more heavily and reloading his shotgun. And Grunt...
Grunt was toting his new pride and joy, the enormous prototype shotgun which Jacob had made for him. It was not pretty; it looked like a long metal brick with a handle welded to it. Jacob kept insisting on calling it a Claymore. However, after the armorer's pained cry of OuchMotherFuckingGoddamit during its first test firing, the rest of the crew had taken to calling it the OMFG. Grunt loved the gun. He carried it everywhere, and Jack suspected that he slept curled up with it at night like it was a security blanket. The krogan had also, somewhere along the line, acquired a huge knife that he carried in a scabbard on one boot. Jack wasn't quite sure how useful it would be against the bugs, but she sure as shit wasn't about to tell the krogan that.
Miranda gestured to a nearby low-set building. It looked like some kind of garage. "The main colony antenna should be through there," she said. Jack decided not to sneer at Miranda. If she started now, she wouldn't be able to stop. And there were things to kill. Hell, maybe one of the Collectors would kill Miranda. Now there was a pleasant thought.
"Locked," said Shepard from the garage door. "Garrus, if you would?"
The turian moved up and fiddled with the door control. He was humming a little ditty as he worked, and Jack had to admit it was a catchy tune. The door opened with a whine of servos while Garrus gestured grandly in a there you go, good sir gesture.
As they moved into the dimly lit garage, Jack nearly squished a colonist who was hiding in a corner. Shepard and Miranda pulled the frightened man aside to grill him. In the meantime, the rest of the ground team checked out the garage for any other surprises. She found herself near Garrus during the check.
"Hey, what was that song you were humming?" she asked in a low voice.
"Hmm? Oh, that's 'Die For The Cause'. It's the turian imperial anthem."
"Nice tune. Can't say I like the name, though."
Shepard's voice got her attention. "So Kaiden Alenko is here?" he exclaimed. It was the first emotion which Jack had heard out of Shepard since they'd landed.
The colonist nodded. "Yeah, he came just after they installed that laser defense grid. He was futzing around and trying to get it to work. There was some sort of targeting software issue."
"We can have EDI fix that," said Miranda. "Or just have her run the targeting herself, if we patch her into the grid. Those GUARDIAN lasers should have enough penetration to damage the Collector ship. It's just sitting there, we should be able to really hurt it."
"Was Alenko alive, the last you saw him?" Shepard asked the colonist.
The man rubbed the back of his head. "I guess so? It was really crazy after those little bugs started swarming everywhere."
Shepard nodded. "Okay, we're heading towards the main comm antenna, you lock up after us and stay quiet. Keep your comm open, you'll hear it when we get the Collectors booted out of here." Jack noticed that he said 'when' and not 'if'.
They moved out past the garage. After going through a few more buildings, they entered a large plaza with a tall, graceful-looking antenna complex in the middle. Jack scanned the plaza as they came in with weapons ready. There were a few crates, but nothing she would call real cover. That was going to make things interesting. She was glad she'd been practicing her protective barrier control.
Shepard and Garrus moved towards the antenna, and the rest of them took positions to provide protective fire if needed. So far, it looked deserted. Jack noticed that there hadn't been any of the frozen colonists around for a while. She figured that those people must have been loaded onto the ship already.
Maybe the Collectors were just going to leave? A harsh buzzing noise proved her wrong. Thirty Collectors came swarming over the outer edges of the plaza, clearly trying to surround the team. As they appeared, the crack of weapons sounded. Jack saw at least six go down immediately. She glanced over at Shepard and Garrus. The turian was frantically trying to work the antenna console while Shepard stood back-to-back with him, rifle at the ready. He took occasional shots at any Collectors that came into his field of fire.
Jack had her own shotgun out, and was alternating biotic pulls with firing. She was dimly aware that Miranda was next to her, shooting around the other side of the crate Jack was using for concealment. Jack had a vague notion that she could just turn her shotgun around and give the cheerleader a round right in the back of her head. But no, that would be a pussy move. If she did take Miranda down, it would be face-to-face. Just so she could see the panic in Miranda's eyes.
The wave of Collectors was quickly whittled down to ten. Jack thought that this wasn't too bad. She wondered if this was all that the Collectors could throw at them. It really was a bit of a letdown, now that she thought about it...
"I AM ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL."
It was a huge voice, reverberating, clotted with age. One of the Collector soldiers suddenly jerked upright, and there was a huge flash. The insectoid figure was now wreathed in flame, its eyes glowed and its body seemed to float ever so slightly off of the ground.
"SHEPARD." it called, and the transformed Collector began throwing bolts of plasma at the large antenna's base. Jack saw Shepard push Garrus down, covering the turian with his own armored body. The plasma bolts fizzed on the Commander's shields. Shepard snapped off a few shots, but the bullets didn't seem to do much to the flaming Collector.
Jack didn't know what the hell this new fucker was, but she figured it should be put down without delay. She felt her shotgun buck in her hand as she got off a round. It was a sweet shot, right in the thing's shoulder. But it didn't really seem to care. The flaming head snapped around towards her, and she was suddenly struck by the presence behind those glowing eyes.
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She called them bugs? No, she was the bug. She was a little beetle pinned to a card, under the regard of something utterly ancient, utterly remorseless-
The plasma bolt from the thing struck her crate and blew it into kindling. Both Jack and Miranda were sent sprawling. Jack didn't waste time getting up, instead she frantically crab-walked on knees and elbows towards a pillar near the edge of the plaza. She felt the heat as another plasma bolt plowed into the ground just behind her feet.
"THIS HURTS YOU."
Whatever it was, it sure liked to talk. She got behind the pillar and scrambled to her feet.
"WE ARE THE HARBINGER OF YOUR PERFECTION."
"Keep talking, assmunch," she muttered. "Don't care about bullets? Try this on for size."
She threw one arm in an underhand pitching motion, aiming around the pillar at the flaming Collector. The biotic shockwave flew across the ground, scattering debris in its wake. It smacked into the thing, and she felt a swell of gratification as she saw it reel from her attack.
"Yeah, that hurts you don't it?" Jack yelled. She glanced around. The team had recovered from the initial shock, and now the 'Harbinger' was getting it good from all sides. Miranda had gotten to one of the other only crates left in the plaza, and was snapping shots around it at Harbinger. The flaming figure raised one hand in an obvious attempt to destroy Miranda.
Fuck that. If the cheerleader was going to die, it would be by Jack's hand. She reached again with her power and pulled the thing's raised arm. The plasma bolt went wild. Harbinger's head looked in her direction, just in time to get a nice shot into its side from Garrus. The thing shifted focus again, sending a fusillade of bolts towards the antenna's base.
"IF I MUST TEAR YOU APART, SHEPARD, I WILL,"
The flaming thing was hurt, though. The protection that had allowed it to shrug off weapons fire was spent. Harbinger began to be whittled away by concentrated shots, and finally blew apart in a welter of flaming embers with a booming shot from Grunt's OMFG.
"DESTROY ONE, AND ONE HUNDRED SHALL TAKE ITS PLACE," said the voice as the embers dispersed. Jack finally took in a deep breath. The plaza was now completely wrecked, with scorch marks and bullet holes everywhere. The crates were just so much firewood; there was nowhere left to hide.
"Okay, people, the GUARDIAN system is online," said Shepard over the comm. "We have to hold here to keep EDI in contact." There was the far-off grumble of large servomotors, and Jack saw several distant laser turrets swing around to point at the looming mass of the Collector ship. After a brief pause, there was the thundering sounds of the laser batteries discharging. She saw gouts of flame spew from the rocky sides of the Collector ship. Right, this was going good, it was going to be cake from here on out-
There was a horrible, ululating moan that filled the plaza. Black scuttling shapes began swarming through every door. She'd sat through the lectures by Shepard and Mordin and she knew that these were husks. Knowing didn't help, however. She turned to the nearest entrance, just in time to see five of them heading for her. They had a lumbering, hunched-over posture which belied their speed. Jack sent them sprawling with another biotic shockwave, then used her shotgun to finish them off. Her savage grin was now gone; this shit was starting to get serious.
She looked around the edge of the pillar into the plaza center. Jack began sending shockwaves out in radial patterns, trying to break up the formations of swarming black figures. It seemed to work well. The tumbling husks were rapidly put down by concentrated firing from the rest of the team. She felt the very distant beginnings of panic. There sure were a shitload of them-
There was another, deeper moan. Something new came tottering through one of the doors, a horribly tall figure which looked like two or three husks fused together into a bulbous mass. It gestured with one lanky, impossibly long arm and a biotic shockwave rippled towards Jack's pillar. She felt the blow even through cover, and went down hard on her back. The leering, white-lined face of a husk appeared above her. Jack screamed and punched hard with one blue-clad fist, hard enough to smash right through the thing's face. She tried to get up, but saw more of them swarming in-
A shot took off the head of one of her attackers. Miranda waded into the fray, firing continuously and never missing a single shot. She sent a biotic throw at the husk nearest to Jack and sent it tumbling. Jack got her feet under her, went down on all fours like a linebacker, and charged the mass of husks. She rolled through like a blue-clad berzerker and scattered them. Between her and Miranda, the next few seconds was a succession of rapid-fire shots that killed them all.
"You okay, Jack?" panted Miranda.
"Fuck...you...cheerleader," Jack panted back. Miranda gave her an ironic smirk. They regained cover and looked out.
The tall, bulbous thing that had knocked her around was throwing shockwaves at the other team members. There was another huge boom from the OMFG, and the top of the thing simply vaporized. Jack heard Grunt's satisfied roar. It went better after that. They were able to blunt the husk rushing attacks and kill off their enemies individually. Jack risked a quick look towards the looming bulk of the Collector ship, and saw that huge holes had been blasted into its rocky surface. She heard a different, lower rumble that shook the ground.
"They're pulling out," yelled Shepard over the comm. She saw the last of the huge, malformed husks go down with a shot from Garrus.
Jack began to get her breath back. "Fuck," she muttered to herself. "Fuck those guys."
They began to regroup near the antenna. "Okay, people," said Shepard, "sound off. Any wounded?" The Commander walked up to Jack and Miranda, looked them over, and moved off. "Grunt," he continued, "what the hell? What happened to your arm?"
"It is a minor wound, Shepard."
"I can see to the bone, Grunt. You have to tell us when you're hurt."
Jack checked her shotgun, making sure it hadn't gotten too banged up from all this craziness. She saw the towering mass of the Collector ship begin to move up and away from Horizon. She wished them good fucking riddance, and promised herself to kick even more kinds of hell out of them next time.
But then she saw a little black speck spurt out of one of the departing ship's ports. The speck grew rapidly larger. It resolved into a huge, beetle-like shape that began to swoop down in an obvious attack at the plaza. The thing had a giant, gaping mouth that opened wide as it came in. Instead of teeth, the mouth was filled with husk heads, all of which seemed to be looking right at her. The nightmarish shape blazed with a blue, shifting aura.
She heard a loud 'clack' behind her, as Grunt cocked the OMFG.
"Finally!" roared the krogan, "Something BIG!"
Time seemed to slow. "Take cover!" yelled Shepard. Jack dashed back for the pillar, and just had time to think to herself Really, Boss? We couldn't figure that out ourselves? She regained the relative safety of the pillar just in time to feel the ground shake from the huge beetle-thing's impact. She didn't really take time to aim, and just flung a desperate shockwave around the pillar. The beetle-thing's aura seemed to soak it up like a sponge, along with the weapons fire that the team was pouring into it. Grunt bellowed again, and actually ran at the huge scarab shape. He slammed into it with one broad shoulder. The impact seemed to jolt it slightly, but it recovered with astonishing speed and flung out one knife-edged limb that batted the krogan aside like a toy. Grunt flew ten feet before smacking into a wall. The OMFG went spinning away.
The beetle-thing's blue aura seemed to fade away as it scuttled around to face Grunt. The krogan was pushing himself up with just one hand; his wounded arm seemed to be out of commission. The huge scarab shape flared out both of its front slashing limbs and threw itself at the krogan. Jack saw shots smack into the sides of the thing, but it didn't seem to even notice. It was going to spear Grunt...
She didn't have time to think about what to do, she just did it. Jack threw a biotic pull at the thing's front legs. It felt like she had grabbed hold of a runaway dreadnought. The shock sent her to her knees, but it also tumbled the beetle-thing ass over teakettle. Grunt managed to roll out of the thing's way just as it smacked into the wall where he'd been standing.
The thing rolled back onto its legs. Now it was looking right at her, and Jack just had time to throw herself back as two wickedly-sharp limbs stabbed into the ground in front of her. She threw another shockwave, which knocked it back a bit but not enough. It pulled its stabbing limbs out of the ground and reared in front of her, clearly getting ready to strike again. Jack had time to realize that she just might die here...
A huge, white-and-blue armored blur smacked down into the middle of the beetle-thing's back. The latter collapsed into the ground, its legs splaying out in all directions. Grunt snarled as he knelt atop the thing's carapace. He pounded his good fist like a trip-hammer into the thing's shell. Jack heard a loud crack as its exoskeleton broke, and the beetle-thing gave out a piercing, whistle-like wail. Grunt grabbed at his boot, and Jack saw him yank out the huge knife and drive it into the opening he'd just made.
The thing screamed and reared again, pitching Grunt off of its back. Jack slapped her hands together in a crushing motion, and a dark blue sphere appeared above the beetle-thing. It began levitating into the sphere, and its many limbs flailed as it lost purchase on the ground. There was a multitude of wet crunching noises as the thing began to contact the edge of the sphere. It gave one last shriek, convulsed, and then fell silent.
Jack suddenly realized she was looking at the ground from very close up. Her cheek was pressed into the turf. She tried to pick her head up, but it seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. "Dammit," she slurred into the grass. "I overdid it."
Multiple hands grabbed her and helped get her into a seated position. Shepard was in front of her, his face drawn and worried. "Jack? Stay with me, Jack."
She flailed one very heavy hand at his chest in a pushing motion. "I'm fine, Boss. Just gimme a bit to catch my breath."
"That was a singularity," said Garrus with something like awe in his voice. "I thought only asari could manifest those."
Jack made a faint scoffing noise. "Hah," she mumbled, almost to herself. "Them blue babes ain't shit. I told Assface I was gonna rock."
And then the colonist they'd found earlier came running into the plaza, screaming that they hadn't done enough. If Jack wasn't so tired, she would have gone ahead and squished him. Garrus tried to reason with the man, but he was inconsolable. And then the turian mentioned Shepard's name, which stopped the colonist's tirade dead.
Unfortunately, that was also when somebody else appeared. Someone who needed squishing even more.
----------------------------------------
Donnelly sat in the conference room with the rest of the senior staff, going through the Horizon mission debrief. The report was filled with images of frozen humans, of swirling masses of paralyzing bugs, of huge nightmare insect shapes. Shepard didn't give the presentation; he had stomped back aboard and then promptly locked himself in his cabin. Miranda was giving the debrief in his place. She flicked through the images, describing in dry tones the horrors they had found. She stopped on a video of a paralyzed colonist. Donnelly swallowed as he looked at the frozen man, whose eyes darted about in panic.
"I know there may be some doubts about our organization," said Miranda. Her gaze flickered across Donnelly, who stared back impassively. "But this is not some kind of theoretical threat. This is real. People are undergoing terror that we cannot imagine. And there is no one coming to help. There is just us. We're all that stands in the way of this."
"Ms. Lawson," said Dr. Chakwas, "I am solidly behind Shepard and you on this, you know that. But we are just one ship. Surely we now have enough evidence to get the Council or at least the Alliance involved?"
Miranda shook her head. "I would say yes, but politics is unfortunately in play here. These abductions are taking place only in the Terminus systems, which rules out any direct Council involvement. Any help from them would certainly result in military escalation. They have given Shepard leave to operate in the Terminus systems, but that is as far as they're willing to go. And as for any help from the Alliance...well, I will let the Alliance speak for itself."
She tapped a few controls, and the vid of the paralyzed human was replaced with helmet-cam footage. From the high vantage point of the vid, Donnelly figured it had to be from Garrus' visor. He heard a low growl next to him. He glanced over at Garrus. Turian faces were normally hard to read, but now the sniper looked like he was carved from granite. He could see, however, that the turian's eyes were furious. Donnelly shifted his attention back to the video.
Shepard stood wearily, his armor scored and blasted, arguing with a smaller dark-haired man who wore Alliance-blue armor. "This is more important than me, Kaiden!" he yelled. "You've seen everything that's happened here, all of it. And you think that I'm somehow the threat?"
The smaller man shook his head, his arms crossed. "These attacks are bad, but there's nothing to indicate an existential threat like you say. We've dealt with Batarians and slave-takers before."
Shepard dropped his arms. There was nothing but shock on his face. "Slavers just do smash-and-grab, you idiot! These bastards take entire colonies and don't leave a trace! Hell, it was pure dumb luck in the first place that we found out it was the Collectors. And there's HUSKS here, damn it! Remember them? That means Reapers! You were there at the Battle of the Citadel, you SAW goddamn Sovereign-"
Donnelly flinched slightly.
"-and what it took to destroy ONE Reaper. What are we going to do when a hundred of them come rocking up, huh? Or maybe a thousand? A million?"
Kaiden dropped his gaze. "It's all circumstantial, the husks could have been given to them by the geth-"
"I don't believe this," snapped Shepard. "The Council was always a pain in the ass, so I expected them to give me the brush-off. But you? How far back do we go? You just shook my hand, you've looked me in the eye. This is me, Kaiden. Can you please just trust me?"
Kaiden looked back up. "It sounds like you, and it looks like you. But you've been in Cerberus hands for two years. I don't know what they've done to you. What if they're controlling you? Would you even know?"
"DAMN it, Kaiden-" yelled Garrus from offscreen.
Miranda touched a control, and the video froze. "There were some...heated exchanges after that, of a personal nature," she said. Her smooth, alabaster brow furrowed slightly. "Out of respect for Shepard, I think it's best if I don't play it."
She looked up, meeting their eyes in turn. "Kaiden Alenko is...was one of Shepard's closest friends. They served in many of the same units for five years before they joined the original Normandy. If anyone in the Alliance was going to support us, it would be him." She looked down again. "So no, I don't think the Alliance will be helping us either."