“Well, what about Shepard? She’s a spacer. Lived aboard starships most of her life.”
“Military service runs in her family. Both her parents were in the navy.”
“She proved herself in the Blitz. Held off enemy forces on the ground until reinforcements arrived.”
“She’s the only reason Elysium is still standing.”
“We can’t question her courage… but do we really want that kind of person protecting the galaxy?”
“Humanity needs a hero. And Shepard’s the best we’ve got. She’s the only kind of person who can protect the galaxy.”
“I’ll make the call.”
*****
Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams sprinted as fast as he legs would carry her. Her feet slammed into the soil of Eden Prime with each bound forward, but it did not feel like it was her legs moving her forward. It felt instead like she ship in space free from any unbalanced forces to act on it, being carried forward only by inertia, rather than bipedal mammal using its limbs to accelerate itself. That said, she also felt very much like a simple mammal, in that she was prey being stalked by a predator.
A drone was pursuing her — a Geth Drone — and it was firing at her heels. One shot finally hit its mark, where it was deflected by the kinetic barrier projected by the soldier’s armor. Though there was no damage done, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and the shot being deflected caused enough of a reaction to disrupt the delicate balance of her forward inertia, and she tumbled into dirt. The Chief hit ground and rolled onto her back as seamlessly as she could, her survival depending on a quick response. Her side arm was pulled and several desperate shots fired at the drone as it pulled up to finish her off. The shots which connected were just enough to pierce its shields and hit something critical; the drone exploded, pieces sent flying and falling scattered into the grass.
Though her pursuer had been destroyed, the Chief was not yet out of danger. As she sat up in the process of getting back on her feet, she saw two more Geth — not drones, but real, bipedal, proper Geth, the likes of which had not been seen outside the Perseus Veil in three hundred years. They had one of Human colonists held captive, and were putting him on his back atop some sort of pedestal. Before the soldier could make sense of what she was seeing, let alone act on it, a spike erupted from the pedestal, penetrating the colonist through the back and coming out through his chest, skewering him and lifting him high up into the air as the telescopic spike extended to its full length.
The gasp that escaped from the Chief at what she was seeing drew the attention of the two Geth to her. She scrambled back onto her feet and started running again, bolting behind a large rock just in time to avoid fire from the Geth. Gasping for breath, she pulled her rifle from her back, which automatically unfolded from its carrying configuration to its full size for firing. These things and others like them had be slaughtering the colony’s garrison as easily as they butchered the unarmed civilians, even wiping out her entire squad. She didn’t like her chances fighting them on her own, but she had few other options.
PWOOM
PWOOM
The Chief knew her guns, and that sounded like an HMSRW firing, a weapon only used by Spectres. peaked around the rock, and saw Geth splayed out on the ground, their flashlight-heads absolutely mangled by the sniper fire. Then she looked back to where the sound of the shots came from, and up on a hill she a male human soldier in light variant Onyx armor, and coming out from the trees behind him…
“Wait… is that…”
{b“…a mech?” Commander Shepard is big enough to be mistaken for a bulky combat mech from a distance! Ashley must think she eats non-stop to have gotten this huge!
“…a tank?!” Commander Shepard is massive enough to be mistaken for a whole ass tank from a distance! Ashley can’t imagine how anyone has managed to get this fat in a single lifetime!
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