It's not hard to see why I'd fall in love with her. She was my soulmate. So what if we were a different species? Hell different amino acid groups. She was mine. I was hers.
I was 26, fresh out of military training. Earth Systems Alliance N7. I was biotic. An angry vanguard. I could destroy anything in my path. I took only a Carnifex handcannon. Power to kill a Krogan and weight to balance on my finger. I loved that gun. She kept me out of the ground more times than I can count.
They landed me on Eden Prime. I was with the 212th Infantry division. I was biotic support for a unit and a squad leader. I led 11 other soldiers, none as trained as myself. Looking back, I can't remember their names. It's not important. We were there when the Geth made landfall. I was in the mess, grabbing some grub. It was about that time. This... Noise was the first thing I noticed. It got in your head. I didn't feel anything like it again, at least not for a few years. It had no source, really. It was just in your head. It got so loud that it blotted out most of your other thoughts. I thought I was loosing it, maybe I finally got the L2 headaches. I asked my squadmate next to me if he was hearing it. He said he thought he was loosing it too. I set my food aside and tried to focus. I got enough to lift my cup with biotics, but another sound racked me. This one was real. An explosion. I ran out the door, letting the water spill to the floor. That giant ship landed. It was black as midnight and just as haunting. It set it legs into the city proper and walked through it. It never fired its weapons. It just strode through. I was miles away, on the outskirts, and this thing was still clear as day. It was massive. Then the other ships started to land. They were grey. I wasn't dumb enough to walk around unarmed. I knew this wasn't going to be good. I drew, and prepared for combat. I wasn't in armor, too heavy and stuffy in that hellhole. I threw up a basic biotic barrier, and got my squad together from the barracks. They had armor and proper assault weapons. I rallied them, and I tried to reach our unit commander. No luck. I pressed towards the space port, knowing that's where extraction would be. I didn't fight any Geth until we were almost in the city. They killed my men outright and the only reason I survived was my barrier. I took a round right through my torso, dampened by my barrier. I had no medigel, so I had to muscle it out. At least they died when you shot them in their little flashlight heads. I pressed on, alone. It was grueling. I fought wave after wave of Geth. I was tired and shot when I saw my first Dragon's tooth. It had been there since they touched down. What was once a human was writhing and moaning on the giant spike. I approached it with tentative steps. The spike disengaged, and the thing slid down. It looked at me with those cold, empty husks of eyes and it charged me. I crushed its head with biotics, brain and grey desiccated flesh squeezed out everywhere. I vomited, and I lost some of my energy. The biotics and running and shooting and yelling had tired me in a way I haven't felt since I basic training, when I was out of shape and 18, fresh off the presses. I leaned against a prefabricated building and opened my omnitool. The extranet connections were severed, there would be no way for me to get a message out.
Off in the distance, I heard a thunderous roar. I turned and saw the Ship fire it's main gun. The concussion could be felt even miles and miles away. The weapon fired a beam of red death that cut down the downtown city proper, felling buildings like card houses. It swept the beam from left to right, destroying the buildings, and then it seemed to set itself. Splay out it's limbs and square itself. It pushed off the ground and rose, up and up into the atmosphere. The sound in my head finally relieved, and I finally felt the pressure release. I had a sudden clarity of mind, and I saw where to go: towards that sleek-looking, four engined frigate, and where it was landing. I'd not seen one like that before. I moved out from behind the building, haggard and breathing hard but ready to fight. Good thing too. A group of ten or so Geth, with a few more husks were waiting, backs to me. They were making sure every corpse at their feet was dead, shooting a flurry of rounds into the two dozen already-dead bodies. I roared in disgust and frustration at the atrocity, and I charged: biotics lifting my body into the air, and propelling me into the crowd. The atmosphere in front of me became a battering ram, compressed beyond belief by the mass effect. I slammed into the rearmost machine, and released all the pressure. The explosion tore two, three of them to pieces. I was a flourish of motion, rounds fired quickly but precisely in that close of an environment, biotic-charged fist flying, connecting with anything that got too close, rending the bodies into pieces, components and fluids and desiccated flesh littering the ground.
The machines were dead, their actions paid in full. I was even more tired now, limbs screaming to let me rest, even for a moment. I ignored the pain in my side and arms and legs and pressed ever onwards. I finally reached the tramway to the space port. I saw litters of geth bodies and new a battle must have taken place here. I vaulted onto the platform and saw my first Turian. A dead man, it seemed. He was clad in dark red and black armor, a single gunshot to the back of his head. I recognized that kind of wound immediately: Carnifex. I turned his cold body over and saw that his forehead and top of his face had been obliterated by the high-caliber, high-velocity round. There was nothing I could do for him, except cover his upper body with my coat. Before I did, I saw an emblem on his neck, scarred or tattooed: it was the symbol of the Spectres. I draped my light coat over his broken body and walked down the stairs to the walkway. There was one more tram and I slumped onto the console. I waved my omnitool and made the tram accelerate faster than it was designed for. I screeched into the next station just as the new frigate, Normandy, by her side, touched down onto the edge of the platform. I rallied the last of my strength and sprint towards her. I screamed for help from the few soldiers that were keeping cover for the man carrying a small woman and the larger woman flanking him. An enlisted marine sprint over to me and helped me onto the end of the ramp of her hold. I limbed up the ramp and collapsed, out cold, onto her solid floor.
