Horizon
Chapter 111
Horizon
“A couple of hours ago we lost contact with the colony on Horizon, complete communication’s loss like the other colonies. This is the first time we’ve had this much warning on a raid,” Shepard explained as every person on the strike team was assembled in the comms room that acting as briefing room too. “Mordin, how is your countermeasure working?”
“Prototype, still working on. Will work for no more than five,” the salarian doctor answered, Shepard nodded.
“Better than nothing I guess, but that still means we can’t all go. This mission will be an all-out assault on the collector forces in the area, our objective is to gain control of the main colony and activate any defenses it has while saving as many colonists as possible. Collector capability is unknown but we know they are working with the reapers so we’re expecting husks.” Garrus and Fluttershy winced at this, they were reminded of the corrupted humans they’d fought years ago.
“That leaves the question of who to take, commander,” Miranda asked.
“I need the toughest among us on this mission, we don’t have room for mistakes,” Shepard agreed, looking over at Garrus and Fluttershy. “Vakarian, Shy, you two are going. I know what the two of you are capable of.”
“Understood Commander,” Garrus answered just as Fluttershy gave him a determined nod.
“Grunt, you’re up as well, I could use someone durable. And lastly, I want you with me, Jack.”
“Hell yeah!” Jack exclaimed, the human biotic grinning ear to ear. Grunt pounding his chest with a grin as well.
“Everyone else is on standby while we’re gone. Mordin you get to make the call on reinforcements were one of the field operators to be neutralized,” Shepard told the salarian.
“Understood. Will continue to develop and improve countermeasures with live data. Might send reinforcements throughout mission if successful,” Mordin answered.
“Good. For the old crew here: Kaiden Alenco is on the surface there as well. We’re getting him out if we can. Groundcrew be ready at the shuttle in fifteen, everyone’s dismissed.” The team walked out of the briefing room to get ready though Fluttershy stuck close to Rainbow’who seemed slightly annoyed.
“You’ll get your shot, Dash. This is a really serious operation, Shepard has his reasons for the people he picked.”
“I know, and I flew off the handle before so it makes sense to not take me,” Dash grumbled but brushed her wings against that of Fluttershy. “Don’t worry about it, Shy. I’ll watch you from up here. Kick their flanks.”
“Thanks Rainbow, see you back here after we’re done.”
The shuttle carrying the five Normandy crew members made a swift descent through the atmosphere, coming to a halt on the outskirts of the main colony facility before flying off again. In the distance at the other side of the complex, the collector ship prominently stood jutted from the ground. Fluttershy looked in awe at the massive ship, it looked to be just an elongated, massive asteroid with a superstructure wrapped around the middle. The fact that it was able to land on the planet at all was astounding.
“If we hit that thing with all the defenses we’ve seen around here then we can force the collector ship to back off,” Garrus observed as he pointed at all the various planetary defense batteries scattered around.
“Indeed. That’s our main objective now,” Shepard agreed, motioning for the group to move. Grunt and Jack took point with Shepard in the middle and Garrus and Fluttershy at the back. The buzzing of insectoid wings put everyone on edge as suddenly a squad of the little insects flew overhead.
“Looks like your countermeasures are holding, professor,” Fluttershy said over the comms to inform him of this.
“Perfect! Will start analyzing immediately. Shuttle will be loaded with reinforcements in case successful,” The professor replied just as a second wave of buzzing wings could be heard, this one sounding like they had much heavier wingbeats.
“Contact!” Grunt roared as the bipedal collectors carried by wings on their back came flying into battle. Two shots sounded from out back at the same time as two of the creatures dropped out of the sky, bot Shy and Garrus having hit their first mark.
“This was never going to be easy, Take them down and advance!” Shepard ordered, taking down another collector with his assault rifle. Grunt all to happily followed this as he charged and headbutted one of the overgrown bugs, crushing its head, followed up by a shotgun blast to another. Jack took care of the last one as she lifted it up with biotics and then crushed its carapace.
“All down. Move.” More collectors jumped in the way as they moved deeper into the facility, though this time instead of just collectors husks came charging at them as well.
Fluttershy cursed as she swirled around and flung one back with biotics, shooting it out of the sky before it even hit the ground. “Damnit, I hate these things!”
“What are they?!” Jack asked as she tore another in half before forcing a collector into cover with her pistol.
“They used to be human, we ran into them a lot when we were chasing Saren and Sovereign. The geth impaled them on these spikes, or dragon’s teeth, which turns them into these things,” Garrus replied over the comms.
“Guess that confirms the collectors work for the reapers,” Grunt chipped in, taking down the last of the batch of enemies.
“Nothing we can do for them now but to put them out of their misery,” Shepard finished. “Come on, we’re getting closer to the heart of the colony.”
“...Shepard… breaking… collector ship… interference...” Joker’s voice was choppy as they moved closer to the enemy vessel.
“We’re jammed, Normandy will not be with us after this point,” Garrus confirmed.
“No matter, we know what to do. Let’s hope Mordin has collected the extra data he needs.”
The compound buildings were placed closer together the deeper they moved into the facility, giving more places to take cover in the following couple of firefights until they found something they weren’t expecting. They’d seen pods of some sort scattered around, but now they found what was being stored within them…
“It looks like they’re in some kind of stasis,” Garrus said as they found humans standing around, completely frozen in place stuck doing the last thing they were doing before getting stung by one of the little bugs that flew overhead.
“Assuming direct control.”
The warped voice immediately gained the attention of the squad, a new group of collectors coming in but one of them was twitching and had growing glowing cracks covering its body.
“Take that one down!” Shepard shouted as it shot black balls of biotic power at the commander who ducked into cover. Everyone immediately jumped into action, ripping into the collectors that surrounded the supercharged one first so they could all focus fire. Fluttershy and Jack worked off of each other’s biotics, one recharging while the other was throwing waves of energy at the collector.
“You prolong the inevitable.”
“Sure! That’s what Sovereign said and where is he now?!” Shepard jumped the barricade right after one of the strange biotic attacks hit his cover, charging and knocking over the large collector putting the barrel of his assault rile against its head and pulling the trigger. “That’s what I thought.”
“The way’s blocked, give me a couple of seconds to get this door open,” Garrus said, already moving ahead and working on a large hangar door.
“What do you think that was?” Jack asked Fluttershy as they took a second to get back the energy they’d expended.
“Don’t know, but my biotics weren’t exactly doing a lot,” Fluttershy admitted to the human.
“Same shit here,” Jack grumbled as the large door behind them slid open. “At least bullets do the job. Let’s get going.” There was a complete lack of the bugs in the hangar which had yet to happen in any other building in the colony.
“Company,” Grunt called out as he noticed something in the corner of the room. Everyone raised their weapons at the particular spot.
“Come out. Slowly,” Shepard ordered as a human stepped out of his hiding place.
“Y-You’re human… What the hell are you doing? You’ll lead them right here!” the man exclaimed, making Garrus snort.
“You had to hear them trying to get in here, I had to bypass all of the collectors’ failed attempts at opening the door,” he laughed.
“Those things are collectors? You mean they’re real?!” The man said in shock. “I thought they were just made up, you know–propaganda. To keep us in alliance space.”
“Sorry chump, they’re very real,” Jack deadpanned.
“Shit they got Lilith… and everyone else too! This is all the Alliance’s fault, the should have never sent that representative here and built those defense towers. It made us a target!”
“You would have been attacked regardless. The collectors are targeting human colonies on the fringes of the Terminus,” Shepard told him. “But that’s not the point right now, why didn’t the defense towers fire at the collector ship?”
“The damn things’ targeting system needs to be calibrated first,” the human growled. “The central transmission tower with controls is further ahead if you want to gain control that’s where you need to go.”
“Thanks, we’ll get the bastards,” Shepard said turning to the door to leave.
“Yeah, fine, but I’m locking the door after you’ve left again,” the human said before they left the safety of the hangar and moved into the habitation blocks. There was some more resistance which they had to fight through there but it was manageable. After fighting their way through they got sight of the transmitter.
“So, Garrus, think you can get these things calibrated?” Shepard grinned, getting nudged on the shoulder by the turian.
“Who do you think you’re talking to? I’m only concerned about what will happen after I’m done with it. These look like some serious defenses, there’s no way the collectors aren’t going to notice us charging the defenses.”
“We’ll keep them off your back. Spread out everyone, be ready to defend Garrus while he gets the towers in order.” Shepard got a couple of affirmatives from the others who took positions while Fluttershy thought about where she’d locate herself.
Jack is going to get overwhelmed without biotic support if those collectors get controlled again… but without Garrus we don’t have a high powered long gun picking off hard targets either… But I could also use my stealth to hit critical hard targets…
1. Use Biotics to support Jack
2. Find a vantage point and Snipe
3. Stealth around and hit them from the shadows
Bit longer than usual but it's an important mission after all 
[Paragon] or [Renegade] are colored when available, though normal options might also contribute to one or the other. As for the shippers under us, [Romance] is now also a thing.
When an option is not available due to various reasons it will be colored [Grey]
https://www.strawpoll.me/19964453
[Certainty: 80]
Remember that comments are like authors' food, we gain energy from them. Constructive criticism is welcome.
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If Shy stays in one place to add dedicated support, the Reapers will be able to target by elimination.. If she stealths and moves, it will take the Reapers algorithms that much longer to estimate her next probable location.
Option 3.
Even though I like the sniper option I agree with
10220163 that stealth is probably the better option
I went with Snipershy but I'm not opposed to Stealthshy; really the first option seems to be the only one that'd be relatively useless considering what she and Jack learned earlier.
Stick and move does sound best. It's not like Shepard or Jack aren't formidable on their own, and with Flutters disrupting the enemy they shouldn't be likely to be overrun.
Unpopular opinion here, use biotics to help Jack.
Option 3.
10218848
Horses and ponies are two different things actually. Also, the show always being monogamous.
The best response!
As for what to do, option 3. Having the stealth advantage is not something to be passed off
Should her stealth even work against collectors? They could still be too Prothean for that. (It pretends to be invisible. Foolish primitive. Nothing escapes these eyes.) Especially considering they seem to be way more of a biological Prothean modification rather than machine-conversion a typical Reaper unit is.
I know Kasumi's stealth works on them in game, but I'm not sure the mechanics would even allow for otherwise to be possible, so I might just consider this a technical limitation. Infil-Shepard's doesn't matter, as Flutters uses one she got from Kasumi anyway - we don't know if or how the technology differs. Either way, something to consider for headcanon.
I'm going with sniping. Jack can take care of husks and Shepard and Grunt are there to shut up anyone that decides to go I KNOW YOU FEEL THIS, but the biggest problem here, if I remember correctly, are the Scions and Praetorian - good luck biotic-ing that.
10222519
If you have read fanfiction long enough, you quickly learn that shipping ignores all of the rules. Canon doesn't apply. Common sense doesn't apply. Magic, biology, and physics don't apply.
If the author wants a 3+person romantis relationship, it happens.
That said, thus far nothing has pointed to polygamy that I've seen, so you are likely correct.
Just bumped into an old theory video. It was more relevant a few chapters ago, but some here might find it interesting:
Nr3 Is her individual strength. Kill them when they least expected it
Jack isn't the most powerful Biotic anymore ones Fluttershy totally recovers and Rainbowdash learned to use Biotics.
Snipers are both a lot, if we could play the Campaign of mass effect 1,2 & 3 co-op than the snipers would do the most work whole one player keep the main enemy force occupied.