Learn how to use a sniper rifle 47%
Fluttershy checked her armor a final time before heading for the Mako. She had loaded up two full canisters of medi-gel and her new sniper rifle. Garrus had given her the crash course on how to use it and the little intricacies of how the bullet would act. Even though the computer in the scope did most of the calculations for her, Garrus had still wanted to teach her to do them manually in case the computer failed for some reason. This meant Fluttershy had gotten some extra homework to do in learning the ballistics of her current rifle.
The ground vehicle was packed as the entire ground crew squeezed into its crew compartment, the exceptions being Garrus and Tali, at the gunner’s seat and shield monitoring station respectively, and Shepard. The commander was still in the Normandy’s cockpit with Joker and a couple of other members of the bridge crew looking for a landing position the Mako could use.
When they had first exited the relay there had been a moment where they weren’t sure if the stealth drive was doing its job The geth picked them up as they entered the system and sent a couple of warships towards the relay. Luckily the two ships harmlessly passed them by as they had probably only detected the initial arrival of the frigate and weren’t actively following the Normandy.
That brought them to this moment, tightly packed into the Mako waiting for the commander to come down from the CIC.
Fluttershy strapped herself snugly into one of the seats. Even though the vehicle had momentum dampeners, she didn’t want to be caught off guard if the ride became more bumpy than anticipated.
Suddenly, red warning lights started flashing and an alarm went through the garage. Simultaneously, Shepard ran into the vehicle and jumped behind the wheel. “I have good news and good news, which do you want to hear first?” he shouted at the others over the blaring alarm while he closed the door, sealing the interior.
“Guess we’ll have to start with the good news,” Garrus chuckled back at the commander.
“Alright, the good news is that we’ve found a landing site within the ruins.”
“And the other good news?” Liara questioned.
“That we’re dropping right on top of the bastard,” Shepard said as he positioned the Mako in front of the hangar door.
“And there’s no bad news?” Fluttershy asked the commander who just shrugged.
“If we fuck up the drop we’ll go out in a fireball, but that’s nothing we’re not used to.” For some reason this wasn’t too comforting to the pegasus.
“Commander, sixty seconds ‘till the drop,” Joker announced. Through the forward window Fluttershy could see the large garage door opening which revealed the rapidly approaching ground in front of them. The place they seemed to be going was covered in structures.
“Ten seconds!” Fluttershy felt a bead of sweat roll down her forehead as the Normandy still hadn’t pulled up from its dive like it had on previous occasions.
“Three, two, one, LAUNCH!” The moment Joker shouted his command the Mako was in its brief freefall towards the surface.
“GERONIMO!” Shepard shouted as he laughed all the way down to the surface, the vehicle making a violent bounce as even the momentum dampeners weren’t enough to completely negate the shock. “Status!” the commander said as he returned to a more professional mood now that they had landed.
“Turret op- MOTHERFUCKER, he’s right there!” Garrus shouted as he quickly pushed a few buttons on his console, the large cannon on top of the Mako buzzing to life as power was rerouted to it. But before he could fire, a large set of doors that lead into a building closed off sight of Saren. “Fuck!”
“Focus, Garrus. Saren managed to open and close that gate so there must be a console back here to control the door,” Shepard said as he put on the brakes and stepped back into the packed crew compartment. “Fluttershy, Liara, Wrex, on me. The rest of you create a perimeter around the Mako while we search for the console that can open this door.”
The group gave a few salutes and disembarked, immediately coming under fire from a couple of geth that hadn’t made it into the structure with Saren yet. After taking out the machines Fluttershy took a good look at the surrounding ruins. There were statues that were still intact but unlike the ones she had seen in the Everfree ruin these seemed to be very different. But that was where the similarities stopped as well. This ruin’s architecture had a lot of angles in it while the ruin in the Everfree was a lot more organically shaped.
It was a bit of a disappointment, but the pegasus had hoped she might find a clue about Equis somewhere in here.
The group under Shepard’s command moved forward through the ruin at a steady pace. The commander and Wrex took point while Liara and Fluttershy hung back a bit and used their biotics to force enemies into compromising positions, the pegasus also occasionally using her new rifle to pick off particularly annoying geth. They did this until they found an elevator that led down into the depths of the facility that had been better defended than any other passageways.
“Form up on the door. They made the effort to defend this one so be ready for anything once we get down there,” Shepard said as they got into ready positions at the door. Fluttershy fed a lot more energy into her wings than she usually would to give her next move some extra power.
Luckily for them, they weren’t greeted by a small army of geth when the elevator door opened, but the long hallway in front of them that had absolutely no cover wasn’t that encouraging either. “Perfect place for an ambush,” Wrex casually pointed out what the others had also worked out.
“You know that you just jinxed it, right?” Shepard asked as they moved forward. At about the half-way point a geth revealed itself and fired a couple of rounds at the group before being cut down by the combined fire from the human and krogan. They rushed forward to avoid getting caught in the hallway by more of the machines and spread out.
The underground room they entered only had a handful of geth in it, but none of them were of the flimsy variety they had faced up top. A set of destroyers and a Prime immediately opened fire on the four trespassers, while the shock troopers placed shields in front of them to give themselves some cover.
“Focus fire on the Prime!” Shepard shouted as he opened up on the largest of the machines. Fluttershy lobbed a bolt of biotic energy at the machine in the hope of pushing it off its feet but in doing so revealed herself for too long. One of the destroyers managed to get a lock on the pegasus and fired one of its rockets.
In a panic Fluttershy created a barrier in front of her, something that probably saved her life as the projectile impacted it and exploded, flinging the pegasus away from the blast. The ringing of her ears prevented Fluttershy from hearing Wrex roar as the krogan charged the offending destroyer, ripping it’s internals out of its shell in a fit of rage.
The second of the geth to go was the Prime as it was hit by one of Liara’s biotic warp fields, its armor shredding off, allowing Shepard to pump it full of lead. After that, the geth lost a significant part of their coordination, which made them easy pickings for the three remaining soldiers.
Fluttershy, in the meantime had been checking her medical sensors. To her relief, they came up with nothing other than possible bruises. The armor had taken the majority of the force that was left over from the blast.
“You good, Fluttershy?” Shepard asked as he crouched down next to the wobbling pegasus who gave him a nod.
“A bit disoriented, but fine otherwise,” she said, shaking off the final bit of dizziness and ignoring her aching body.
“Good. Liara, can you identify a prothean console around here?” Shapard asked the asari, who shrugged.
“I’ll have a look around, though I’m guessing there’s one up there,” Liara answered while pointing at an overhang that had a view over the room below. Careful not to run into any more geth, the group made its way up to the room Liara had pointed out and, just as she had predicted, found a console there.
“There, that should do it,” Liara told the commander as she pushed a couple of buttons on the console, “Now we should-”
The asari was cut off by a hologram that sputtered to life next to the console, “Too late… unable to… invading fleets… no escape… ponies have abandoned us...” The message was garbled and full of static but the last thing that was said terrified the pegasus.
Ponies have abandoned us?! How… that can’t be!
“Just a garbled mess. Must be prothean,” Wrex grunted, clearly not wanting to stay.
“unsave… seek refuge… archives… force of reapers… Citadel overwhelmed… only hope… The conduit, all is lost!” the message continued before flickering out.
“That was ominous,” Shepard said as he stepped back from the hologram, Liara looking at him in awe.
“You understood that Commander?” she asked intrigued.
“I did as well,” Fluttershy said without taking her eyes off the place where the hologram had been. “Commander the message said-”
“I know. No point in dwelling on that now. We need to get back to the Mako and hook up with the others to stop Saren.” Shepard cut her off. The pegasus reluctantly agreed and followed the commander back to the Mako where they continued their chase after the rogue turian.