AU: I'm back (maybe)! After I publish this, I'm going to go back and make the last chapter less awkward to read. Also, for all the normal humans who don't remember, Meln is the Turian you find in Afterlife who is hitting on the dancer (and you if f!shep) during Samara's loyalty mission. I was really tired when I wrote that last bit.

Primitive colony, 9 hours post-landing

Meln and his expedition were still pinned down by enemy fire. Through an event of extreme misfortune, the only two deaths that had been incurred so far were the CO and his XO, leaving the group of privates with no quality leadership. Despite out-gunning and having better shielding than the primitives and their spirits-damned mechs, the Turians were unable to stage an effective counterattack. The last thing Meln wanted was to be hit by one of those acid bolts after seeing the grisly effect it had on his leaders.

The expedition was still coherent enough to remember one thing: if they couldn't counterattack, they would be outmaneuvered and crushed sooner rather than later. Using his helmet camera, Meln identified the twelve or so soldiers he had scattered in a relative U-shape and the twenty hostiles [12 mechs, 8 organics] in a larger U-shape surrounding them. Using simple hand-gestures, the self-appointed commander had the two sappers in the party each throw a handful of grenades at the enemy. With a bang, most of the opposition had fallen, but not without cost, as one of the sappers lost his shields to the near instant mech reaction-fire. He was spared the gruesome death by acid from a well-timed tackle from the expedition medic. The next command- "Fire at will!"- finished the native defenders.

The call of "All clear!" had the expedition carefully rising to their feet.

"Commander, what now?" One unsure voice called out.

"The Commander is dead. So is the XO," was Meln's response.

"What now? We can't go on, not without proper command!" Another voice.

"We should go back to camp and recive further instruction."

"Retreat? Now, after we dealt a crippling blow to the enemy? Disgraceful!"

"Better to be disgraced than dead!" As the debate heated up, the situation rapidly grew out of control, until one voice, louder than the others, came from behind the unit, none other than lieutenant-colonel Vakarian bearing down on the disorganized unit.

"WHAT THE SPIRITS-DAMNED HELL IS GOING ON HERE?! I SEND YOU ON A SCOUTING MISSION AND NOT TWO HOURS LATER YOUR COMMANDERS ARE DEAD AND YOU ARE SQUABBLING LIKE A BUNCH OF QUARIANS OVER A BIT OF SCRAP!"

Grabbing his head and huffing, the Lieutenant-colonel said in a much quieter and menacing voice "return to base camp immediately. If we didn't need every useless grunt we had, I would see that all of you are court-martialled yourselves.

Primitive colony, 11 hours post-landing

Titus Vakarian was, for lack of better words, sick and tired of this planet. His men were overconfident, uncoordinated, and inattentive, often stumbling into poorly set up ambushes by the natives of this planet. Even though their weapons were extremely primitive (acid throwers and cheap laser rifles straight out of a vid, seriously?) Expedition after expedition had reported back with casualties and a mission failure for some reason or another (he still couldn't believe that one mission had to really on fucking Meln for leadership; that pervert was nothing more than a pain in his ass since day one). He contacted admiral Silus, only to be told that the general Desolas Arterius was taking over. Walking into the command tent, Vakarian stumbled into a conversation between Desolas and another colonel.

"Sir! the scouting parties failed!"

"Failed?" muttered Desolas.

"Yes sir. Success rates were only 45%."

"These are primitives we are fighting! How could they have failed?"

"They were new recruits sir. They were picked for their expendability."

"Incompetent fools," muttered Desolas, "Tomorrow morning we march on that city- regardless of intel or casualties. Taking it will give us a proper beachhead from which we can initiate a full-scale invasion of the planet. Have a runner inform the COs."

Vakarian did an about-face to tell his men the mildly shocking news. Invading a well-fortified position without solid intel was a foolish move for any general, especially a Turian one. He reasoned it could be the stress getting to the general- after all, subjugating a client race wasn't exactly standard rutine, despite what some might believe.

Colonial Military Memetwork

The conversation, transmitted through quantum tunneling, took less then four seconds and would be completely incomprehensible to anyone who had not spent years hooked into the neural network. Translated into English, it would look something like this.

The enemy is taking the bait. They are advancing. Estimated 4 hours until entrance

into killzone. Initiate combat protocols for SABR units.

The Turians would never know what hit them.

The battlefield

Waves of Turians march in sync with their armored escorts and surviving fighters ready to be scrambled at any time. They had entered within 1.5 kilometers of the city and begun to set up artillery. For thousands, their lives would be ended by a single digit binary command. SABRES hidden within the hills around and withing the city activated. Loading reactive Firaxite rounds into their barrels, their local CNDR networks evaluated every possible variable that could interfere with the accuracy of the bombardment. Once done, thousands of SABRES fired orange blobs of death into the advaning enemy columns.

INCOMING FIRE! DUCK AND COVER! RAISE SHIELDS!

The artillery wave crushed into the incoming line, ripping through shields, metal, and flesh. Entire armored battalions were lost in seconds. Those struck but unlucky enough to not be killed instantly suffered compound fractures and vaporized limbs. Men were shellshocked as they were covered in bits of their former commanders and comrades.

KEEP THE CHARGE, DAMNIT! NO GLOWING BALLS ARE GOING TO STOP US!

The Turians had a few tricks up their own sleeves. Immediately, fighters were scrambled to the calculated positions of the SABRE strikes. Though they were being cut down by the minute, they forced the SABREs to target aerial fighters where the heat and shockwave would be mitigated.

Once the Turians reached a predetermined point, they threw down tunneling charges, instantly blowing trenches and foxholes to protect the soldiers from the crushing artillery. They were safe momentarily until the CARVRS got involved. With flashes of brilliant blue, the mecs appeared in front of, behind, and within the Turian lines. The machines were capable of taking down dozens of soldiers with their heavy fusion lasers before being destroyed themselves by Turian armored units. Which were quickly being blown to pieces. It was mass hysteria. COs and Xos were being killed faster than they could be identified, and the concept of a battle line was nonexistent.

But the Turians weren't the council's strongest fighting force for nothing. They fought bravely, and had nothing else changed, might have won that battle. With a tremendous roar, the ANGEL awoke. Standing to its fullest height, the metal monster easily dwarfed many of the city's buildings. The entire battle paused for a moment as the weapon realligned itself to aim at it, one side in awe, the other in pants-shitting terror. Mandibles dislocated themselves from their sockets and some weaker-willed Turians openly wept at the sight. Only general Desolas himself, rocket launcher in one arm, rifle in the other, kept firing.

ANGEL-pilot Hannah Shepard had a wolfish smile on her face*. This was the second time she got to fight with the ANGEL, and boy was she excited. While the main gun spun up, anti-personnel cannons swiveled in their turrets, rapidly scoring headshots. The larger cannons either decimated the remaining armored vehicles or destroyed clustered units of four or more. And then, the main turret was finished charging. A focused shot could dwarf a nuclear explosion, but a controlled and sustained fire could last for up to a minute. The second option was chosen. The laser literallly carved through any armed resisatnce the Turians could put up, before aiming at the Turian base camp, annhilating it. Hannah seeing only one enemy left, thought lets have some fun.

General Desolas

It was over. It was all over. Numerous check-ins showed he was the only one left, and he was surrounded by the enemy mecs. He collapsed on the ground and shut his eyes out of exhaustion and defeat. He jerked them open when he heard a sound like grinding metal. He looked up, only to see the leg of the menace that had destroyed an entire army bearing down on him.

" OH SPIRITS N-"

FUCKIN SMASH**

AN: and there we have it.

*see it's funny because while shepards guard sheep, wolves hunt sheep, and her name is Shepard, and having a wolfish grin is making giving her the characteristic of wolfish, meaning while her name denotes she would protect sheep, the characteristic denotes she would hunt sheep which is ironic

**You come up with a better onomatopoeia, asshole