Mass Effect: To the Last Man/Uninvited Guests

A few weeks passed since basic training had begun. Gerard and Jessica continued to compete against one another in just about everything. At the end of the third week, the drill sergeant sent off the recruits at taps.

"Alright recruits, head back to your barracks and get ready for week four, bright and early," announced the drill sergeant. "Tomorrow we start using live-fire ammunition, so be ready for some competition between all of ya'. Dismissed."

All of the recruits headed back to their barracks for a much-needed rest.

"Hey, Jess," called out Gerard as Nolan headed for her barracks. "Looks like I'll be the one winning this week."

"We'll see," she replied with a beautiful smile. Keller smiled back and headed for his barracks. As he lay in his bunk, staring at the ceiling of the barracks, his thoughts drifted.

''"Why?" he thought to himself, "Why is she so beautiful? She's just...just so perfect." ''He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

Hours passed by before he was awoken by a sudden explosion. He jumped from his bunk and rushed outside. Looking up, Keller saw about a half-dozen alien ships overhead, dropping off multiple batarians. The base was under attack. He could see the corpses of most of the drill instructors lying in a pool of their own blood. Suddenly, Keller's tactical instincts, which his parents had drilled into him since he was three, kicked in.

"Everyone get up!" he yelled without thinking. There was no time to think, only time to react. "Follow me to the armory."

All of the recruits exited their barracks as Gerard yelled to rally them together. As Keller began sprinting towards the nearest armory, however, he glanced back and expected to see the entire contingent of recruits to be following him. Instead, only a handful had worked up the courage to follow his instincts while the majority of the recruits scattered and hid from the vicious raiders.

"Damn it!" he thought as the group of eleven rushed across the war zone that was their training camp and reached the armory's doors. When Gerard moved to throw the doors open, he encountered a serious problem. The doors were locked.

"Scheiße!" he cursed in German. "Who here can hack this door?" he asked the group.

Jessica stepped in front of the gathering of recruits, saying, "I can. Just keep those bastards off of me." She immediately approached the door and began to bypass the door's security.

One of the recruits turned to Gerard and asked him, "How in the Hell are we going to cover her?" Gerard could see the fear in his eyes. Gerard looked around for something useful. He spotted a dead soldier about fifteen meters from them. It was one of the guards who died defending the camp. He still had an M-8 Avenger on his corpse. Keller rushed over to the guard's body, though he was noticed by two batarians.

The pirates immediately opened fire on Keller, who jumped behind a nearby make-shift barricade.

"Everyone, stay in cover! I'll handle the bastards!" yelled Gerard to the other recruits, who did as he said and hid behind walls, large boxes, or anything else to shield them from the gunfire.

Gerard waited behind the three-foot tall barricade, listening for a pause in combat. Then the sound of bullets ricocheting off the barricade ceased. The enemy was reloading, and now was the time to strike. Keller took a deep breath, quickly stood up, and opened fire on the attackers. Using his ocular implants and his proficiency with the Avenger, he quickly shot and killed the two pirates. However, after the two attackers were dead, others began to converge on Keller's position.

"Gerard?" Jessica called out. "What the Hell's going on over there?"

"I'm fine!" he answered as he put a round through one of the pirates' heads before hid back behind cover. "Just concentrate on the door!"

"Right," she replied as Gerard fired another barrage of bullets at the oncoming batarians. "I'm almost through!"

As Gerard was firing back at the pirates, one of them had managed to flank him. Gerard noticed him out of the corner of his eye, just as the alien prepared to pull the trigger and kill the recruit. He had no time to fire back. He knew that he would be dead before he could even face him.

Suddenly, the batarian's body jerked forward, dropping the gun and falling to the ground with a bullet hole in the back of his head. Looking past the dead body, Keller spotted one of the recruits holding an M-3 Predator pistol, which he had found next to the dead drill instructor near him.

"Thanks for the assist!" Gerard thanked him.

"You got it! Now let's finish these bastards off!" yelled the recruit.

The two recruits fired back at the advancing pirates. Though many of them were being cut down, the batarians kept pushing forward.

"I got the door! It's open!" yelled Jessica. Gerard glanced over to her, the doors to the armory sliding open behind her.

"Everyone get up and grab a weapon!" yelled Gerard over the sound of the ricocheting rounds.

The other recruit yelled to the others, "Go! We'll co-!" A bullet suddenly pierced through his chest, and he fell to the ground, dead. Some of the recruits shrieked in terror as their fellow recruit was shot in front of them. Others fled inside the armory and hid. Jessica and two other recruits emerged from the armory wielding assault rifles, and they each moved behind cover. Jessica was holding an M-96 Mattock battle rifle while Ben Hatzis and David Payne, the other two recruits, were both using M-8 Avengers. Even with their combined firepower, it was still not enough to push the batarian pirates back as seemingly the entire invading force was advancing on their position, and they were not ready to back down yet. Even though their chances of survival on their own looked grim, the four recruits continued to fight valiantly against the slavers. Luckily, the armory was in such a position that it funneled all of the batarians into the recruits' line-of-sight, with walls on either side.

"Damn! Pyro at ten o'clock, take him out!" yelled David, who was in the center of the line formed by the recruits. One of the batarians had brought a flamethrower, likely a Firestorm, to the fight. As he came within range of Ben, who was the further to the left of the four, he blasted the recruit with the searing-hot flames. Jessica immediately put a bullet through the alien's skull before rushing over to Ben's aid. Fortunately, only Ben's right arm had been hit, and the flames were easily brushed away without any injuries.

Gerard leaned out of the side of the barricade to fire back at the fast-approaching batarians. However, one of those batarians, who was wielding a weapon Gerard had never seen before, fired at Gerard, hitting him in the leg and completely immobilizing him. Gerard fell back in agony as he slowly crawled back behind the barricade. Embedded into his leg was a spear-like object. Not that he cared at the moment, as the only thing that Keller was thinking about was the searing pain caused by this strange weapon.

"Gerard!" yelled Jessica, who attempted to rush over to him but was blocked by enemy fire.

"I-I'm alright," said Gerard, trying his best to suppress his agony as he grasped the spear, which caused him more pain. "Damn it, I'm losing a lot of blood!" he thought. Bracing himself as best he could, he quickly grabbed the spear and tore it out of his leg as David rushed to Keller's aid.

"Here, I got medi-gel," said Dave, immediately applying it to Keller's bloodied leg, sealing the large open wound. Just then, an Alliance Kodiak shuttle appeared, dropping off a few soldiers and yelled for the recuits to evacuate. Just as the shuttle landed in front of the armory, dozens more pirate ships appeared overhead and were dropping off what seemed like an endless wave of batarian pirates.

"Gerard, can you get up?" asked Jessica, who had moved from cover-to-cover to Gerard.

"No, I can't move my leg," said Gerard.

"Alright Dave, help me carry him," said Jess.

"No, just get to the shuttle without me," said Gerard, no hint of uncertainty in his voice. "I'll cover you!"

"Hell no! I'll drag you myself if I have to!" barked Jessica.

"If you stay, I'm staying, too!" added Ben.

"Same here!" said David.

"Then we finish this here!" said Gerard.

With the combined firepower of the four recuits, dozen soldier, and the newly-arrived Alliance frigates, the batarian pirates were soon overwhelmed after a long and bloody battle. Those that survived fled in their ships back to the Terminus Systems.

The four recruits; Gerard, Jess, David, and Ben; were all honored for their bravery, courage, and self-sacrifice in the defense of the training camp. They were each given the Systems Alliance Medal of Honor, something extremely rare in raw recruits, and were all recommended for ICT at the 'N-School' instead of finishing boot camp. At the requests of the four, they were all assigned to the same unit for training, and they would begin training after Gerard's injuries were healed.