Reap This!

…or: Actually, YOU are irrelevant!

Part I

The day, in Alliance Commander "Shepherd's" opinion, was absolutely crummy.

Eighteen hours ago, he was the commanding officer of the VDV detachment stationed on the Marshal Zhukov, the Russian-designed Dreadnought so coveted by the Alliance Navy Command. The ship was a marvel, carrying enough armament to obliterate three Turian counterparts, and, at a pinch, take on the Destiny Ascension; all while having a reasonably comfortable environment and being relatively small in size.

The ship's officers were equally sought after for their professional demeanour and dedication to duty, as well as loyalty and integrity. That, in a nutshell, was why he found himself woken up at o-dark-hundred Moscow time and reassigned to the Normandy.

It would have been obvious to a blind hamster that something was up. Admiral Hackett rarely asked such great favours from his Russian counterpart, and even rarer did Turian spectres travel on prototype Alliance stealth frigates.

It was no surprise that this was where most of Viktor Ivanovich Romanov's, or simply Shepherd's – the call sign he had earned during the Skillian Blitz and the subsequent counteroffensive for his efforts at coordination – troubles began.

"What the hell do you mean the planet is a warzone?" Viktor roared over the blaring of alarms in the CIC.

"Just that, Commander!" Joker bellowed back, trying to avoid ground-based flak. "I count four regiments of mechanicals, one unidentified combatant species, roughly company strength, various aerial assets and one big, ugly thing over two kilometres long."

"Any ID on it?" Viktor asked, curious despite himself, "And how on Earth did the hostiles gain control of our air defence assets so fast?"

"Not flashing any transponders I recognize, but it has 'REAPER ONE' stencilled on the flank." Presley reported in a bit of a hurry, trying to avoid a snarky crack from Joker on the subject of them not being on Earth. "Oh, and, Commander; Captain Anderson is pulling his hair out trying to get in touch with you."

"Put him through," Shepherd acknowledged, moving over to a tactical console nearby.

"Ah sir?" Presley asked, "Aren't you going to go to his cabin? I mean, he has some uber-secret, top priority briefing for you, most likely."

"And?" Viktor responded, sarcasm dripping from his voice like honey off a spoon. "I have an uber-secret, top priority battle to win here, or at least not die in. Now, are you going to link that feed?"

Presley gulped, at about half a meter shorter than the commander – who, incidentally, was a freaking biotic with a fetish for grenade launchers and shotguns – he really didn't want to argue that point. Any point, actually.

"Shepherd! We have a situation!" Anderson called, pacing about his cabin. Frankly, Viktor thought, the captain only wanted to see him in person for the display to be more effective.

"Well, I have a situation too, wanna see whose is better?" he muttered absently, as he opened up another channel and called, "Intelligence, get me profiles on ground hostiles. Tactical – do your thing. Electronic warfare, forget that Dreadnaught, focus on shutting down the AAA."

Ayes came in acknowledgement, but Viktor's attention had shifted back to this conversation with Anderson. "Actually, I believe my situation has led to your situation." The captain said wryly, "Archaeologists have discovered an intact Prothean beacon on planet, and those are a rare commodity these days. Nihlus wants you to suit up and meet him in the hangar bay; you're going down for extraction of the beacon."

In his long and storied career, Viktor had heard some stupid orders, but this bought the cake. Actually, it bought the entire cake factory. "What's he on?" he demanded incredulously, "Intelligence just confirmed that our robot friends are Geth – yes, those Geth, the ones from beyond the veil – and Tactical has just informed me that they also have some sort of cyborg army down there. That's not even mentioning the still-active triple-A or the power output on that Dreadnaught."

Anderson looked over the reports forwarded to him, and even through the poor, 800x600 resolution of the monitor, his grim expression could still be seen. "I understand Commander," he tried to placate, "but politically there's diddly-squat I can do, he's a Council Spectre, and we sort-of need that beacon. I am, however, open to brilliant plans."

Viktor chuckled; Anderson was still a good officer, good enough to recognize when a situation could be handled by another when he himself was constrained by political entanglements. "One brilliant plan coming right up," he said, "would you like fries with it?"

Anderson did not so much as respond before cutting the feed.

"Right…" Viktor clapped his hands matter-of-factly, "Tactical, designate cyborg army as 'Husks' and send a bioprint – if you can get one – to Alliance command. Weapons – prime for anti-ground. EW, how are my towers doing?"

"Not all that well, Commander," Ensign Fields of the Electronic Warfare Unit reported, "Geth runtimes currently outnumber our unit. If this was a dedicated EW frigate, we might have had a chance to rest control, but as it is, they are just too many to deal with."

"Understood," Viktor hummed. If he was to secure the beacon and do something for the colony, those towers would need to be taken offline, or, better yet, retargeted. Retargeted! Most Alliance technology was controlled remotely, which did help minimize logistical hassle, but also meant enemies with cloud computing powers – like the Geth – had an easier time of hacking into them. This reliance on wireless communication did not mean that there were not any backups. On the contrary, all defence installations would, upon cessation of the control signal, revert to defaults and those defaults were to shoot anything that didn't have an Alliance paintjob.

"New plan," Viktor grinned, "Get control of the central telecom hub on planet. Once you're done, pipe something loud on all frequencies, we're jamming this system."

And so it was that ten minutes later and to the tune of the Russian National Anthem blaring through every speaker and on every frequency imaginable, the Eden Prime Anti-Air Artillery recalibrated targeting parameters and began slugging away at Geth dropships and Reaper One. Nazara, needless to say, was rather pissed and departed in an aggrieved huff. Saren Arterius, frantic to not be left behind, yelled, "Screw the beacon!" and bolted aboard the nearest shuttle.

Okay, so, my will finally crumbled and I could not resist posting this story.

I had written half of it in February 2013, but considering my extremely cynical outlook on the Mass Effect series, I was not certain that posting it was such a great idea. But, as anyone who has read my Star Wars stories knows, I love parody, and the Mass Effect universe is SOOOOOO ripe with the absence of logic that it has infinite possibilities for satire.

Even so, I do uphold a certain standard, even when parodying the hell out of something, so, though you can expect a U-turn from canon, you can also rest assured that:

A: There will be no moronic self-inserts, and OCs will be limited to minor speaking roles for story purposes,
B: There will be no out-of-universe comments on the part of the characters. When a character comments on the narration, starts acting like they are in a game, or other crap of that sort, the story stops being a parody and becomes demented trash.
C: All alterations to personalities of entities will be made not "for the hell of it" but in line with the story.

Anyway, I do hope you enjoy.

Cheers!

Clean word count: 1,056 | Published: 3/1/15, 01:21 GMT