Mass effect: Legends. My very own fanfiction

Those were the words on trikha’s journal, maybe she was reminded of the better days in her past, when things were simpler, even if she didn’t realize it at that age. 

At first it was tough, the others treated her differently , kept pushing her away, maybe because she was a girl or maybe because they knew she was destined for something great, but being so young she couldn’t help but to push them away too, even the trainers were starting to treat her harsher, but never the less she rose to the challenge but that only pissed them off even more, so naturally when it came to the team training she was picked last, even when the instructors said they would keep score, the academy even installed a big screen in the cafeteria, with the positions of the teams written on it, and so it began, weeks had passed and trikha’s team was nearly the best team only one other team came close, Jacob’s team, Jacob was almost as smart as trikha, he was fast and adaptable, but what made the difference was that his team did work together well while Trikha’s team always gave her the toughest jobs and always left her behind doing the most difficult tasks, but whether her teammates liked it or not, she was decided to pull them to have the best score, although her companions were… well, less than ideal on her mind, as she woulds call them “a slow tech geek, a gun nut with no experience, and an unbalanced ninja” Trikha felt she had no choice but to carry them to first place on the board seeing that they would not do it themselves, this was so exhausting for her, she had started to think on giving up, and let the other teams win, so her team would fail like she thought they deserved, maybe they would appreciate her hard work then, but before she realized it the field test came on , their first. 

The field test was an excursion outside of the facilities so for the trainees this was considered a mission, that means they were going to be left alone in the forest with nothing else than an objective, go back home, it was supposed to test their resolve, ability to adapt and survival skills on practice, but this year, it would take even more than that. 

So the young salarians that were not older than 15 years, were taken to the test grounds and accordingly to the rule book, they were dropped group by group, and they were left there. Trikha’s team was formed by Jaruth, a tech novice with clumsy hands; Ren, a gun aficionado that had never fired the guns he collected; and Tering that was fond of sneaking around but had problems keeping his face away from the ground. So these kids that had a long way to go to graduate from the STG academy, had not experience, no more skills than hamsters on a wheel, and less team work than rabid bunnies, had been left north of a river that they recognized as the same one they saw while flying into the forest, thinking they could follow it to get back to the trainers, not knowing what they would find on the way. A few hours walking up-stream and a few kashaks hunted, Tering said that he was thirsty, Trikha said that the rivers on that area was sweet water and that it was ok to drink it but that he should hurry up, Tering approached the river but tripped and slammed his face when jaruth grabbed him and pulled him out, Ren asked if he was ok, and that tering had almost drowned, trikha thought to herself “these guys would lose their heads if they weren’t attached” but then Tering said “the water, it tastes like blood!”  

-like blood? Come on, did you hit your head or something? Said Jaruth. 

Tering answered nervously “I’m sure, it’s not mine”. 

Then Trikha said “we should investigate”. 

She quickly advanced and the rest followed her up-stream when the water started to turn more and more green, Tering said “see? Blood!” 

Trikha answered “we need to know where it comes from and if it is a threat to us” 

The others never liked her giving so much orders and feeling so superior, but they knew they would never find the way back without her. 

The wait was short and they found the source of the blood, it was a salarian body, just by the river, with his arm pulled out viciously, then they looked around and saw the massacre that had taken place there, an entire team, all attacked by what it looked like a quadruped with a very strong jaw and long sharp teeth. The young group recognized the bodies to be a team of their classmates, Jaruth said “It looks like an animal attack, but what could have done this? sur’kesh doesn’t have this kind of predator anymore!” Tering said “this forest only has herbivores and fruitarians like kashaks, the only predators in this area should be us! The first field test is supposed to be easy! What are we going to do?” 

-First of all, stop yelling and don’t panic, whatever did this could still be close, and we need to be ready, weapons? Trikha claimed. 

She looked at Ren and he quickly said “don’t look at me I don’t have any”.  

Trikha answered with “if someone is going to have a gun here is you” 

Resigned he said “ok, fine, but don’t use it unless it’s really necessary” 

Then he handed her a pistol with engraved initials R.K. and chrome like lining 

Trikha told the rest to follow her as she began to track the animal that had killed their classmates. 

There was a trail of foot prints, and a distinct scent of blood, she had planty to go on with her search, while her teammates tried to keep up, the search had taken a few hours, the sun was starting to go down as the team were starting to feel the weight of the gear and the weakness in their legs, jaruth exclaimed “we should make camp, night could be dangerous now, and we need to rest!” 

Trikha responded “fine, gather leafs have tering help you, Ren and I will make the frames” 

And so jaruth and tering looked around for leafs for a few minutes, when they came back they were surprised to see some bed frames tied on the trees with rope and vines. Trikha explained “good, with that we should be away from the ground and safe from bugs and the thing that killed the others while we rest, I will take the first watch, jaruth you are second, now finish the beds and get your rest!”. 

After a few hours one of the young salarians is awaken by yells and the sound of fighting, jaruth tells the others to wake up and as they do so, trikha takes notice, and yells at ren “your shit doesn’t work Ren!”, when they fully regain consciousness they see trikha fighting a beast using a broken branch as a spear, jaruth yells “guys wake up! We need to help her!” 

So they got down from their beds and grabbed whatever they could find to fight off the beast after a few hits and some risky moves, they manage to kill the vicious animal, but while in the process trikha was bitten in the leg. Fortunately the STG training comes with first aid classes and the other three followed trikha’s instructions on how to stabilize her. After a few minutes they had finished bandaging but she couldn’t move the leg but she was stable, so with a moment to breath and the adrenaline fading, the last moments were finally starting to sink in, and they were feeling panic, thinking about what was the thing that attacked them, and how would they get back to the academy, they argued about what had happened and the strange creature they had just fought almost ripped them apart, while the others were busy Ren looked around for his engraved pistol, which he didn’t want to leave behind, Jaruth and Tering fought until Trikha yelled at them “quiet! All of you! I will get you out of this, I will drag all of your asses out of this forest because I can’t make it out alone now, I don’t like it, but I need you and you know you need me… Now help me up we need to get moving”. 

While the group was getting ready to move, Trikha was thinking on what to do next, as it turns out, she needn’t have bothered given that the hauling of the beast during the fight, had attracted other like it, and soon the arguing was over while realizing they were surrounded. While seeing they bushes around them move and hearing the growling made them more scared than they have ever been in their lives, when they finally saw those creatures Trikha said “get behind me!” and then Jaruth answered “no, you are wounded, stay back we will protect you” as he was grabbing a branch with some leaves, he lit them on fire to try and keep those things away, seeing the bravery of their teammate Ren and Tering did the same and got around trikha, she said “you fools, you are gonna get yourselves killed” but deep inside her she knew that this was the bravest and kindest thing anyone had ever done for her. So she tried to coordinate them to move towards the river and keep the beasts back at the same time, they managed to do so for a while but in a critical moment Tering tripped leaving an opening in the formation, this made an opportunity for the beasts to pounce at him but jaruth used his branch to attack and burn one of them, the rest backs down a little but with no time to get ready, tering fears the worst, he turns around and sees the beasts about to attack he yells “watch out!” but then a burst of gun fire is herd, and the sound of bodies dropping, the beasts were killed quickly and effectively, the entire team was impressed and exited at the same time, and then they heard a familiar voice say, “all right move in, check for wounded and make sure those things don’t get up again” Trikha knew that voice and those commands, it could only be one person, Jacob and his team. Although relived to see friendly faces, she couldn’t help but to feel some shame over her injury and the state that her team was on, not noticing this, Jacob approached Trikha and offered to help her stand up, she tries to get up by herself but then feels the pain in her leg, and resigns to take Jacob’s hand, while helping her stand jacob said “it’s nice to see you in one piece, when we herd the beast calling for help we knew it had to be one of us, and we came as soon as we could, it was a good move to go for the river, great minds think alike I see”. 

Jaruth asked Jacob where had he found the guns saying “we aren’t allowed to bring them and those are too big to hide” 

Jacob told them about a facility nearby, and said that he would show them, given that this facility had a medical bay it seemed to be the quickest way to get everyone ready for the trip back home. 

On the way Jacob told Trikha’s team about the facility and what they had found inside, some people had been making experiments with an off world species called varren, and that the beasts that trikha and the others had been fighting were exactly that, a predator from a world much more hostile than sur’ kesh, also that the facility appeared to be destroyed, apparently it had been attacked but by the looks of the damage, it began inside the facility and that whatever happened, the ones responsible, were already inside when trouble started, Jacob explained that the facility looked like some sort of military research camp, and that it was well armed but most of the personal had been shot or eaten, so they should not worry about unexpected guests, or so he thought, but when they were close to the facility they heard voices, and Jacob’s team quickly got into position while trikha’s team did not know what to do, soon Jacob told them to take cover and trikha called them to regroup with her and Jacob, they took cover and stayed silent, so they could overhear some people having a conversation. 

-are we secured? 

-perimeter is clean, sir. 

-good, don’t want any more of those salarians to get the jump on us, it’s a shame things got this bad, but if those slimy bastards were not going to pay… Well I guess we had to take our specimens to some other buyers. 

-not before they released the dogs on us, at least we had our fun, right sir? 

-fun? You think this was fun!? Do you have any idea how much this cost me? We lost men, the specimens have escaped and we didn’t get paid, this wasn’t fun, this was a disaster. Now check the perimeter again! 

Tering thought this people sounded strange, something in their voices made him suspicious so he had the idea to take a peek at them, which proved unwise because he was right, they were not salarian, naturally he started to freak out. Saying “g-guys what are those things, I have not seen anything like them, those spikes, their teeth, they are monsters” while trying to whisper. Trikha was quick to cover his mouth and said “god tering shut up, you are gonna get us caught” 

Jacob said “those are turians, they are from off-world”. 

Trikha replied “pirates probably, seems like they were making profits by smuggling fauna from other worlds but why bring them here?” 

Jacob: “there were scientists there, making experiments on the so called varren, there is a vid I have to show you, but we need to get in there and it’s only a matter of time before we get busted, let’s make a plan to take them out, so we can get those medical supplies”. 

Trikha and Jacob worked together to make a plan but couldn’t decide between an up-front assault, of a more subtle way, Jacob and his team were inclined to take the quiet route and, tering couldn’t say no to that, so being at a disadvantage Trikha had to accept the sneak plan, and after a few minutes to prepare the students were set up, just in time because a guard had just opened the perimeter door, this was the perfect opportunity so Jacob threw a rock to distract the guard while one of his team got near enough to go for the knife he had on his leg and before he knew it, he got stabed in the neck, so Jacobs team advanced towards the facility with tering that volunteered for the mission while jaruth and Ren stayed to keep watch and cover Trikha, who couldn’t take part in the plan. Trikha hated that she was injured and could not execute her plan, and she said “I should be the one to go in there, tering is going to ruin the plan”. 

Jaruth replied “you should have more faith in him” 

To which trikha replied with “more faith? He can’t stay standing for five minutes let alone carrying out a stealth mission” 

Jaruth: “well he is our stealth specialist, if any of us is going to make it, it’s him” 

Trikha: “he is green as a lettuce! You all are, you have not gotten any better since the teams were formed, you are not ready for this kind of…” 

Ren interrupted the conversation saying “shhh guys someone is coming”. 

While whispering Trikha said “damn it no, it’s one of them, this wasn’t part of the plan, quick, jaruth you try to get behind him, Ren you go toward those bushes and move them a bit, that should give jaruth the chance to get him” 

Following the improvised plan Trikha had made, jaruth went behind the turian and when he got distracted by Ren, jaruth took a rock from the ground and hit the pirate in the head with it, what he didn’t realized was that turians have an external shell around their skin, which protects them from physical trauma. So when Jaruth hit him with the rock this only disoriented him for a bit, while this happened jaruth did not know what to do, he froze there. Seeing this trikha had taken a rock and threw at the pirate, hitting him in the head too, in the confusion he fired a shot without aiming, after this Ren grabbed a broken branch which he used as a knife to stab the turian in the neck, they had killed the pirate, but made a mistake and alerted the rest of them that were inside, knowing this Trikha asked Ren to help her move to a more defensible position, she told jaruth to take the guard’s gun, the backup gun and his thermal clips, Ren asked jaruth for one of the clips and put it inside his pistol that Trikha had thrown away the night before, she said “I thought I tossed it away ¿how did you get it back?” which Ren replied with “I wasn’t going to leave it behind, so after we bandaged you I went to look for it, you couldn’t shoot because it wasn’t loaded” Trikha replied “at least you thought of something”. 

Jaruth and Ren took side arms while trikha grabbed the assault rifle, now they were ready to face the trouble they were in, they heard the yelling of the turians giving orders and their weapons getting ready, not long after they saw them, they were on all windows and on the roof. One of them looked like the leader, he was on the roof too, when trikha and her team saw him he said “whoever you are, you have come to the wrong place, and you’ve killed one of my men and that I cannot forgive, you die no-“ and then he was shot in the head by trikha. Everyone was surprised then trikha said “you talk too much” then the shot out started, jaruth and Ren used some trees as cover while trikha was behind roots that were tall enough to cover up to her chest. 

Before they knew it the shootout had begun and trikha’s team was all under fire. Ren said “looks like they are putting our training to the test”, while taking fire the young salarians discovered that the turians, being the military race that they are, they often time their shots for maximum efficiency, but this tactic would proof to be a disadvantage in this case, because it made them predictable, using this knowledge the salarians timed their shots with small windows of opportunity given by the pirates, but even with this tactic there was only so much that could be done, the fight prolonged and jaruth was starting to get tired and nervous wich made him reckless and he bit more than he could chew shooting more than he was supposed to, now the turians would not doubt to make him pay for it, and so he got shot in the arm, starting to freakout he said “oh no I ‘ve never been shot before, we are gonna die here, we’ve made a big mistake, why is thi…” and he got interrupted by trikha who told him “stop that right now, this is not the time to have an episode, we have to hold them, all this noise is bound to get the attention of the academy, now I’m not dying here with you morons, so get your shit together!” 

Jaruth was surprised to hear such a speech from trikha, and realized she was right, test was taking place in a secure forest in the academy’s back yard, so he replied to trikha “all right I’ll keep my cool, but I can’t shoot anymore, Ren take this!” and then threw the clips he had left to Ren who just nodded with his head and reloaded, trikha was thinking “damn it, I hate to admit it but we needed him, this guys are too many for just two of us, what now? Damn it!” 

But then Trikha’s team started to hear even more gunfire. “Great, ¿the got reinforcements?” trikha thought (pensó) but then she took a peek at the turians and noticed that they were being killed from the inside of the facility, and after a few seconds all pirates were dead and trikha’s team was saved, and while they were looking at the battlefield they heard the voice of tering, “are you all ok?” he said, and jaruth replied “tering you sneaky bastard I thought you were dead!, how did you get there!?” 

“Just let me get down there” said tering while walking back. 

Then jaruth exclaimed “I can’t belive he saved us, where has he been all this time?” the looked at Ren and he just shrugged. 

Then Ren and jaruth helped trikha, stand up, and they all went to the facility where Jacob’s team and tering were waiting for them. There trikha exclaimed “somebody better tell me what happened” 

Jacob replied “I’ll tell you everything but first let’s clean you up.” And so they took her to the infirmary where they cleaned her wounds and applied medigel so she could walk again, meanwhile in the principal hall jaruth and tering and ren were reunited, “so Tering tell me what happened? Jaruth asked, and tering grabbed him and Ren and started to tell his story” 

As Tering tells it, after they killed the first guard outside and got in, there were a dozen more inside waiting for them and tering being the first to go in, he had to act quickly to avoid getting the infiltration team discovered, so he claimed on the vents and from there he silently moved to the first guard and from behind he broke his neck and took a knife that was strapped to his leg, the threw the knife to his next target, and jumped another guy who was coming to see what was going on, tering beat him hand to hand and took another knife to stab the guard three times before he hit the ground, now armed he moved like a shadow from pirate to pirate killing them without making a sound, when Jacob and his group was ready to come in the only saw tering standing over a pile of dead turians with only a knife in his hand, he only said one thing, “what took you so long?”. 

But then Grish, jacob’s second in command said “that’s not what happened”. 

“Please don’t ruin this for me” Tering answered. 

“What are you talking about? There were like three guys, and they were all distracted playing cards or something, we didn’t even bothered to kill them our mission was to clear a way for the others to come in quietly, but after a minute or so everyone got alerted and started running to the south entrance, apparently there was a perimeter breach” said Grish. 

Jaruth responded “yeah that was us, sorry”. 

Grish continues “huh? Hmm anyway, that was perfect for us because it was the perfect distraction, we managed to find the archives and downloaded the vids of the reseach team that was working here, we also secured the infirmary so the pirates wouldn’t go in and steal the supplies, then we ambushed the ones that were shooting at… you guys… I guess, well I’m glad none of you got hurt”. 

Jaruth replied “hey I got shot!” 

Grish answered “sorry, I meant seriously hurt. Now let’s find out what was happening here”. 

And then Grish reproduced a video on her omnitool where a salarian can be seen, he can be heard saying “this is doctor nakit reporting on experiments 18 to 25, we have begun to understand the motivations and the ways to manipulate the specimens, although these methods need perfecting and we better means of containment, yesterday we had a breach while trying to relocate one of the samples, *sigh* if it wasn’t because of the kinetic barrier I don’t know what would have happened to us, I think this things are getting smarter, and I fear they may be sabotaging the… wait… looks like…” the salarian gets up from his chair, and looks away as he continues “no, no no no we can’t take anymore specimens!” he says as he gets away from the monitor, and then the video is cut by an explosion. 

Grish says “I guess we know what happens next”  

-“what happened next?” asked Tering. 

-“What do you mean what happened next? They had a falling out and shit hit the fan, that’s what happened next, and that’s when we come in” replied Grish. 

Then all of them looked up to see Jacob and trikha coming down the stairs, jaruth was surprised to see trikha walking on her own and said “trikha, you are fine? What happened to your leg?” 

Trikha answered “same it’s going to happen to your arm” as she was applying medigel on jaruth’s arm. 

Jacob then says “now that we are all in good shape, let’s see if we can get back out there, the sun will rise any minute now, oh and keep the guns, we don’t know if there are more of those things out there”. 

It took them a few minutes to pack up supplies and ammo for the road, and now that they were ready for anything it didn’t took very long before they were back at the academy, when they arrived they saw the trainers preparing a search party, but Trikha’s and jacob’s were the last teams out, at least the last ones alive, so as the trainers were leaving, one of them told the kids to go to the camp and check in with the supervising officer, and so they did, but when the supervisor took one look at them and said “what are you doing with those weapons? One of you better explain this” and as the kids tried to explain, the supervisor understands the gravity of what they were telling him, and so he says “I see, let’s take this to the director” and after a few minutes of explaining, the director asks if they have any evidence of this, and all the other looked at Jacob who took out his omnitool and started playing the vid on the facility, the director was impressed and complimented the students for their survival abilities and their decisive conviction to not let the pirates go free, the director explained they were suspecting some activity near the academy’s grounds but never thought all that smuggling and all those experiments were taking place inside their territory, he once again complimented the students and said that he didn’t expect less from the academy’s best teams, then he promised to look more into it, told them to get some rest, the evaluation plan is on tracks again, but what they didn’t suspect is that this incident was recorded and reported, someone somewhere was very interested in what had happened there, and so they kept an eye on these recruits.   

The next few months were nowhere close to exciting as the first field test, but it never sat right with the students what the director had told them, and after having that facility on their nose all this time, Jacob’s and trikha’s team did not expect to academy to do a better job to go to the bottom of that mystery. 

The questions remained in their heads, for how long was that facility there? How did it stayed undetected for so long? Why the pirates were never detected? How did they find sur’kesh? 

No, looking into it wasn’t good enough for the young students they needed answers, so trikha and Jacob decided to form a secret alliance, they decided to call this alliance “the splinter” and they would focus their efforts to answer their questions.