Mass Effect 4: the Second War (Mass Effect fanfic)

Chapter 17

"Sir, look!" The marine shined his flashlight to where the hole was to discover something.

"Bodies!" I grabbed the Prothean rifle and aimed. There were bodies in the area and the smell of blood and rotting flesh was filling our nostrils. We ran up to them, to find different kind of dead races. Quarian marines, Asari commandoes. A single krogan juggernaught. From where we could see, there were at least 20 bodies in the dark tunnel.

"Check for survivors." I knelt down next to an Asari commando and gently pressed my hand to feel for a pulse. No pulse. Asari commandoes have a strict military code for identification so I grabbed her dogtags. I looked to the others who were checking for survivors. Slowly, all of them reached for dogtags.

"No survivors." Then the realization hit me.

"Get up top on the double!" They left the ropes and I grabbed one and climbed my way to the top. It took the better of about 40 minutes to get up top and by the top I got up, I nearly passed out from exhaustion. But I got up and viewed the horrible picture that lay in front of me.

Dead bodies were everywhere ranging from civilians to soldiers. There was blood everywhere and bullet holes peppered on the walls of the giant room. My eyes watered as I remembered all of my teammates. Probably gone. I knelt down and grabbed the dogtags of off the nearest marine. I did it so many times, walking through all the dead bodies. Grabbing dogtags. I didn't even notice when the rest of the squads led by Corbulos reached up top. They saw me and some were shedding tears.

Names were circling in my head as I grabbed the dogtags and reading their names. Warkovsky. T'Algo. Gerrza. Jilia Vas Rannoch. Garrete. I didn't even know their full names much less know them. And yet these soldier's names were circling around my head. Blood was stained on my boots as I retrieved all the dogtags from the main hall. Who knows how many more in the other rooms.

"Shepherd. Shepherd." I turned around to find Corbulos walking to me.

"All these people. Gone." I announced. Corbulos grabbed my shoulder and shook me.

"Man up. You are our leader and we need your orders. These people also needed our orders but we were too late to stop it. Now it's up to us to find out why and how. Now let me ask you again. What are your orders, commander?" Corbulos asked me.

"Look for survivors. Grab all the supplies you find. Take the bodies and put them somewhere. And someone find out how did they enter." Corbulos nodded and went off to follow orders. I walked to the office. The door was wide open and the guards were dead. Bullet holes were on the windows. I entered to find bodies of all the other officers. Gustavo dead on the ground. But there were no Spectres.

"Corbulos, I got no bodies of Spectres here. How about your end?"

"Negative commander. I got no bodies of the other Spectres in the area."

"Keep me updated. I need a status of the other Spectres."

"Roger that. Regroup at the west barracks. Hold on, I got movement... sh*t contact. Open fire!"

"Talk to me Corbulos, what's happening? I'm coming to your position. All available teams. Block the other corridors." Other acknowledgements from the other teams responded and the pounding of the 2 other squads were heard as they locked and loaded the guns. I pulled my rifle from my holster and ran down the steps.

"Keep the west barracks locked until I come back. You're in command." I pointed to Sgt. Vector the turian. I ran down the steep mine and slammed into a turian who hauled me up by my straps.

"Commander. Get your head in the game. They don't look like reapers. Probably bandits." He reloaded his sniper rifle.

"Have you tried contacting them?" I asked him.

"No. They fired first."Codbulos answered. I made a hand signal for the squad to hold fire and they stopped shooting. And so did the enemies or assumed bandits.

"Ringo, Fox, Beast. That you over there?" There was no answer for about a minute until they yelled back.

"Commander! Friendlies everyone." I let out a sigh of relief as I got out of cover and into the open where my squad were standing in front of us.

"We thought you were dead. Reapers entered somehow. Everything went to hell. They hit the officer's room first. Most of the N7 were there. They didn't last very long. Security went down and once they took the main hall. Killed everyone. We got anyone who was still alive and took shelter in the west barricades. Follow me." Fletcher stood up from cover and got up and walked to a hallway. She tapped lightly on a door in some sort of beat before the door opened by one of the civilians holding a shotgun. Fletcher beckoned me to follow and I walked.

"We got some casualties here but our supplies won't last. Here follow me." The civilian let me in and the first thing I smelt was blood. There were wounded people all over the place. Very few soldiers managed to be alive since I saw about a small squad of Marines standing around. They led us to a small, secluded room in the back with what was left of the officers. Mostly Spectres and at least 2 - 3 officers in the room.

"So, what did you find? Weapons? Reapers?" Sanchez asked.

"Even better. Protheans." The look on their faces all ready gave me their answers.

"Wait, we're talking about the Protheans? The dead, fossilized things?" Camille asked suddenly.

"No. What we stumbled on was a living colony of more than about 30,000 security. Corbulos has them recorded." Corbulos handed me the data chip and plugged it on the desktop. Immediately the recording plays along since the start of the firefight to the time when Commander Delron let us leave. Just then, my omni-tool rang.

"We talked to them and they allowed us to evacuate the civilians to their city."

"Commander, our Prothean friends are here to pick us up." A soldier on the other end announced.

"The civilians would be safer under the protection of the Protheans. We have a mission to finish. Now we are running out of time and we don't have anymore options." The surviving Quarian marine nodded and went outside to order the civilians to move.

In the end, we got all our civilians to the Prothean gates and they let us through. Commander Delron approached me as we entered.

"Commander, I've spoken with the other officials and they allowed you to use 2 ships. " I nodded. My team and Corbulos' crew sat next to each other.

"Listen up. Commander Delron said that he will only allow 2 teams with 5 squad members to go. Will you accept the mission?" Slowly, all of us stood up.

Author's Note: Newest chapter is out. Vote, comment and thanks for reading.