Taken
Tap tap tap, away I went writing some more fanfic for one of my favourite franchises.
Oh, hi. I'm Stephen, I'll be your Self Insert character this evening. Today. This Morning. Whatever. And this is a Mass Effect Self Insert. So, I arrived on Eden Prime or the Citadel just as the game was getting underway, or up to a maximum of two years before it was to start... right? And I'm, what, going to be shipped with Tali or Ashley, agonise over the Virmire choice, and generally angst over the whole 'shepard's going to die' stuff... right?
Nope. I'm not going to do that.
Hell, it wasn't until... well, after the abduction that I began to think I was in an SI story. And that was a long time before the game actually began.
You see, I arrived pretty much... 8 years before the first game. Give or take a few months. No, not arrived. I arrived long before, but I was in stasis. I woke. Anyway.
How did I get there? Well, that's the start of the story.
From the beginning.
-MD-
Unknown Location, Unknown Time.
A tall alien with four eyes, what would later be recognised as an evolutionary ancestral relative to the Protheans (sort of like humans and apes) looked up from his computer console, and nodded at his commander, a very militaristic looking man of a different race altogether.
In an alien language, that for writing purposes is English and yes I'm just going to skip over the 'his lips are moving to English words not that alien language' trope that is absent in Japanese films (because those are dubbed over)... anyway. He spoke. "Take us into the Portal."
-MD-
Earth Orbit. 2014.
In space, the great hulking Alien-movie reject slid into a high orbit, and a small shuttle left from the belly of the beast.
Within, the pilot nodded to the Prothean-evolutionary-uncle who was looking at a portable computer display, ignoring the rough ride of a fast entry into a planet's atmosphere, and the pilot too, so the nod was completely pointless as the pilot realised, and huffed in annoyance. "Where are we landing this time, Javiviromalunitunes?" The pilot finally asked, as the craft slowed down to what the humans would say was about mach 7 at 50,000 feet, and the rough ride smoothed out.
"I have already sent the coordinates for the next batch to the nav computer, dickhead." Jav responded. Insult translated to nearest earth equivalent.
"Right. Ask a good question, get a stiff-ass response." Was the nearest translation for the pilots' response.
"My name is not Javiviromalunitunes."
"Huh?"
"My name is Javivaromanulitoonas."
"Same thing." The pilot muttered too low to be heard. "Too bloody long."
After a five-minute transit time resulting in the pilot wondering who the hell sat this flight path – considering he was just following the nav computer directions since launch – finally they arrived in a well-developed island's local airspace.
"Engaging Invisibility Field Generator." The Pilot reported to hide from the various planes that were in the air. "It would seem these primitives have Radar technology and Aerodynamic lifting techniques." What he said in the alien language, was a lot cruder, and so this is not verbatim right now. The pilot doesn't like us 'primitives'. "How..." insult edited out.
"Set it down at location two. Location One has been... built over since our last visit." Jav' said. Then he turned to a bunch of gun-carrying walking tanks. "Engage Personal Invisibility fields, and watch where you move. We don't want a repeat of the so-called Roswell Incident. 'Grey' Was pissed at being held captive for five months. And you are all too dangerous to get pissed at the natives this time."
The pilot winced. He'd been a youngster when that visit happened, and the second ever visit to this planet had gone awry because 'grey', one of the Union's foremost xenobiologists had forgot to cloak his personal entry module. And that visit resulted in quite a few local breakthroughs in biology and technology. Grey had gotten bored of their terrible TV, and on further visits, sent telepathic signals to key inventors. Now he was retired on the planets' island named 'Hawaii', and gleefully supplying long-distance technical support to this 'NASA' group, in exchange for free copies of new TV Shows. Last that the pilot knew, this... 'Paul'... liked to fake being held prisoner by one of the governments every so often and had fun at 'scifi conventions', whatever those were. Hell, his last trip here when he'd caught up with 'Paul', he'd heard a tale from him about two blokes that kept being mistaken for being lovers that tried to help him 'home'. Of course Paul was just yanking their chain, and the Government got two reliable people out of the deal.
"Coming in to land."
Around them, they saw the low rooftops of only two-story buildings. The long legs of the landing gears kept the bulk of the ship above human head height, and the pads themselves shifted to where people would just bump into them. But thankfully, it was night time and they knew the humans were not naturally nocturnal, so they could go about their business.
Jav and his team quickly left, and under invisibility fields, swept through the small area for 'specimens'. In other words, humans and whatever small animals they could find.
"I have an awake specimen on my scanners, Javivaromanulitoonas." Reported one of the grunts in the way only soldiers with no sense of humour can.
"Good. Capture this one. Nocturnal Specimens are hard to come by."
-MD-
In my room.
Tap tap. Oh, hi there. I see you were focused on somewhere else.
So there I was, typing away, writing fanfic on my computer up in my bedroom. You know enough to realise that I was the 'awake specimen'. Let me tell the story, don't go getting ahead of yourselves.
As I added a twist to the story I was writing, and thought it wasn't all that well done, I backtracked only to pause at an odd sound.
A bunch of noises from outside made me look out the window, but I couldn't see anything that could have made it, not in the dark low-light of a badly-lit street.
I frowned at the sound of the front door opening, and all but rushed on light feet to the stairs and looked down. Thankfully, I'd had bass-heavy music playing that could disguise the light thumping of my feet on the landing. I snuck a peek, half-lying down, and saw nothing from the front door. It was shut, and there weren't any noises.
I padded lightly down the stairs, and in the dark I slowly moved into the living room. Quiet.
I shrugged and went to get a drink, when I heard it.
Breathing.
I almost closed my eyes to make it easier to find, but then that would be a sign I heard it.
I moved closer to the kitchen, when I felt it.
My knee came up and I used it to spin me around, and a quick hop and I kicked out with my right foot, landing solidly and painfully on something... invisible.
"What the hell..."
I ran quickly to my bedroom, and heard the laughter from several places. Either that was because they liked my sudden fear, or they laughed at how I'd knocked down an invisible opponent.
I quickly reached beneath my stash of Mass Effect books and grabbed a long metal shaft pipe.
And... nothing.
-MD-
Jav looked around the bedroom of this, specimen. "This is a Mass Relay." He muttered in confusion, and looked at the computer. He was glad he'd learned the primary language of the majority of the planet (by location rather than populous), English.
The computer was, crude, but he quickly learned to navigate it, and brought up an open application called 'Opera' that showed something called the 'Mass Effect Wiki'. He looked for an option to turn the computer off without losing the valuable data – he doubted that the thing carried a battery, as the computer itself was too big to move easily.
Then he looked around, and ignored the group of grunts that picked up the unconscious human, for the various items within.
He didn't know what TV, or Games were. Only that they were 'entertainment' mediums. Thanks to 'Paul', one 'program' was required watching before being assigned to study these primitives. A Programme that the humans liked to watch, called 'Blue Planet'.
So to Jav, all programmes were fact. His people, an isolationist group that had been forcefully added to the Jinani Union, kept to themselves and were rather oblivious to some concepts like creating fiction. But his race were not naturally-evolved, they'd been created by another unknown race to be thinkers of science. Reality was their 'Entertainment'.
So looking at the shelves of what he quickly recognised as Optical Storage Media, labels such as 'Stargate' and 'Terminator' prompted him to order a grunt to pack it all up to move out.
Combined with the computer that had showed a historical document being written, Jav was convinced this person was some kind of Historian or Scientist. He turned to the large poster on a wall showing a map of a galaxy, with various dots and bits of rope between pins. Labels under each pin gave the human names of those locations, and on the rope between those locations were what Jav recognised as the local time system.
He quickly put two and two together, and realised that the specimen he'd just abducted had been creating a map of the galaxy, specifically a map of the Mass Relays.
Then a picture, instead of a written label, caught his eye. It was the Centre.
Only, it's indicated location did not match what he knew of the galaxy's mass relay network. Quickly matching the map and his own knowledge of the relay network, he realised that the location was a nebula. The Centre was not there, it was in a different arm of the galaxy. And it was not in a nebula, but a star system with no planets but several asteroid belts. Curious.
"I want this room stripped bare." He ordered to a grunt. "And get this map down. Carefully! This... Human has a map more extensive than ours, and I would know it and why!"
-MD-
Hawaii.
A cloaked figure tilted his head toward the 'Roswell Grey' alien that was soaking up the sun in the open.
"Paul."
"Alex."
"Now I have to kick myself."
"Oh?"
"I thought that it was you that organized my kidnapping."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I mean... I had a link between you and Bioware. But when I got here to check it out, I mean, you know, confirm it. Nope. None. Nada."
"Yup. Not my doing." Paul agreed. "Just a coincidence I'm from that Universe." Paul gave the most innocent smile that the figure was convinced his initial thought was correct, despite lack of evidence.
"Sure. Sure."
-MD-
In Orbit
A massive vessel hiding under active and passive stealth systems watched as shuttle that should be invisible rose from the surface and all-to-soon docked with the hideous Alien-Reject.
"Captain, I have been using both active and passive sensors since I hacked into the main vessels' sensor suite to hide our presence, and I managed to get a biological scan of... the subject." A hologram spoke from her own 'control console' station of the ships' Combat Information Centre.
A Red-headed figure turned to the hologram, and nodded. "Have Doctor Michel compare it to his file."
"I already have. She reports that they must have done some substantial alterations to his body. His..."
"Yeah, he said he probably didn't have it before this point." The red-head agreed.
After a moment, the figure added, "I can confirm that the uploads to his computer were successful. The encrypted data..." the Hologram stopped short, and nodded simply.
"Of course." Red-head nodded again.
"Captain, do you read?" Came the voice that had, just before, been talking to Paul in Hawaii.
"I read you."
"Ready to return."
The Red-head turned to the hologram, and said, "Beam him up EDI."
The Hologram grinned, and in a voice and tone familiar to many on the planet below, "By your Command."
Several of the present people in the CIC paused at that, and one of them commented quietly, "Having seen that show..."
"... Yeah." Replied another, "That was just creepy."
-MD-
Unknown Location, Unknown Time.
Zorra was angry. No, she was furious.
"WHAT?"
The minion before her repeated, quieter. "The Nepotis group have been abducting natives from planet Earth." His name for the planet swapped for what we call it by the way. Their name translates more to 'The Horrible Blue Planet of Idiots that stole Paul from us'. Er, the paul bit replaced with the name that alien went by within the union, of course.
And yes, that is the more literal translation of the word they assigned to our planet shortly after 'Paul' emigrated.
"How long have they been doing so?" Zorra managed to ask with barely restrained anger.
"Twenty Standard cycles."
The minion rushed from the room as Zorra quickly unleashed her rage and massive sweeps of her telekinesis dented bulkheads and rendered less-sturdy materials to tiny chunks of debris.
"Have a ship ready to take me there!"
-MD-
Nepotis Vessel
Jav muttered to himself as he cross-referenced the various documents that had been stored on the machine, with hard-bound documents he'd ah, 'borrowed' from a library on Earth.
"This is ever more curious." He muttered to himself.
"Javivaromanulitoonas sir. Medical Technician Zg... The Chief Medical Technician would like your presence in the experimentation bay at your earliest convenience." A grunt reported, before disappearing, hoping not to be rebuked for forgoing using a formal name for a formal request. The grunt had only just managed to learn Jav's name, and Jav wasn't the most... vocal... or violent, about adherence to the use of his full name.
Jav sighed and stood slowly, the enigma that was Specimen Earth Historian-Scientist 228. Moments later, he was at the door, a large green coat indicating his high position in the group on his shoulders loosely. He walked while reading from a portable datapad in his hands. He knew where to go without looking, and he knew others avoided physical contact with him.
When he reached the experimentation bay, he looked up as Zghjskiri, the Medical Technician greeted him with an emotionless grunt.
"Yes, Zghjskiri?" He spoke, barely tripping on the name anymore, thanks to both learning to speak it properly and having genetic modifications so his body could produce the initial sound without problem.
"I have finished analysing this primitives' Genetic Structure. I do not believe he has the capacity for learning as much as you hinted at."
"How so?"
"He is a young one. Five Standard Cycles, maybe six. His Identification you recovered indicates he is Twenty-Six Earth Years old."
"Remember what we know of that planet, Zghjskiri. Their thought processes are structured different from ours."
"Yes... They don't even use Synaptic Processing Units." Skiri replied in fake disgust. "Even so, this one's brain structure should not indicate any particular ability for increased learning, compared to many of the smarter ones we have studied. One of my team did not a larger capacity for creative thought, however. And Neurological responses indicate greater memory when pleasure is involved."
"Curious. Creative Thought?" Jav asked.
"Yes, one of the technicians suggested that perhaps it means he came up with all the things you said he was writing."
"Pardon?"
"He wrote fiction." Skiri replied in mock-dryness.
Jav was frozen in thought. Fiction? No, there was much information there that matched what he knew of his home, even if particulars were different enough that he passed off as speculation on the human's part.
He dismissed the idea out of hand, and nodded. "So what are you going to do?"
"I require your authorisation for stimulating his neural synapses to promote more conventional scientific thinking. Also, our superiors wish to know if we can adapt the Synaptic Processors for Asadrei Biology. As human biology is very close but simpler, this may also be our opportunity to investigate, other... sources."
Jav nodded "You have my authorisation. And Go ahead with the implants. But I must ask why this one?"
"He is the first specimen one of our scientists decided to bring back functional." Skiri answered.
If Jav didn't know Skiri only faked emotions, being a synthesis of an organic person with synthetic technology and having lost the biochemical-side that was half the equation of emotions, he'd think that Skiri was being sarcastic.
As it is, Jav knew the truth. Most 'Specimens' that they brought back hadn't been treated well enough to be subject to the kind of experiments that Skiri was responsible for. The rest that were well enough, weren't used because of their other uses in experiments.
"Keep me informed." Jav spoke, and left simply.
-MD-
Zorra stalked the halls of the Nepotis Vessel, having arrived in secret. She'd been refused access less than five standard days ago – a long time. Finally she'd decided to screw protocol and hid aboard a supply ship that took... 'medical supplies' to the Nepotis group. She'd peeked at those supplies, and they were not the sort of thing that the shipment manifest suggested.
Finally, after taking over an hour to get there without being seen, she arrived at what was labelled as the 'specimen containment bay'.
Cages, were more like it.
She snuck in, and took a long look around the room.
And shuddered in suppressed horror. Many were dead, her mild empathic abilities were quick to show. A headcount compared to that sense, and she knew, there were a hundred bodies here, but only twenty were living.
And those that were, weren't. Not really.
She approached a mechanical hulk that vaguely resembled the shape of a human, but it was not.
"... Kill... me..." It whispered at her, and to her shock, she realised that she understood the words of English out of it's... speakers.
In her own language, she prayed as she charged her telekinesis for a powerful yet quiet blow. "May your gods free you of your burden, and release your soul to whatever afterlife your believe in."
And she slammed at it, and the full force of her charged telekinesis crumpled the... being... into nothing but metallic shards no larger than a strand of animal hair.
She looked up, and saw in the sea of dead bodies, the living ones were in similar states of being, even if not mechanical.
But thankfully, she knew as she looked into their eyes, it was not death that they wanted her to free them to. They were angry. And not at her, she was also quick to realise. "I am here to free you. Do not be afraid."
"There... Is... one... other..." She was slow to understand. Her linguistic processor implant required full input of what it was to translate, and so they were repeating it for the third time before she got the full message.
"They... experiment..."
A voice was quick to explain from the group, and again, though she heard English, she just knew that like the mechanical being she'd just killed, there was an implant in the speaker that allowed her to understand without having to translate on her end. "One of the kids they'd taken to experiment on, something about 'synaptic processors'. They thought he was some kind of historian or scientist. He's just a kid..."
She nodded at the figure that moved out slowly from the group, and she saw exactly why she understood him – an artificial voicebox on his neck.
Hoping he would understand, she spoke in turn, "Could you take me there?"
He shook his head, and she gathered from her empathy it was not the affirmative it meant to her culture.
Then she realised he had not been walking, but moving in a wheeled chair, and was missing legs.
Her eyes turned black. "I shall get him out of here. Most of you can move?"
Nods came, and she felt that that was the affirmative, rather than the negative. It was... odd. But she thought on it only for a moment, and she continued, "There is a ship docked to the airlock down the large hall."
"We will be noticed."
She just gave a chilling look. "These bastards experimented on sentient beings. They shall have no mercy from me. They will not notice your escape once I make my move."
They nodded in realisation, and the one who she could understand easily spoke again. "Good luck. And be careful, they have... energy weapons... that can vaporise in one shot."
She knew that, and nodded her head at him, only just remembering to do his affirmative nod, not her own affirmative shake.
She turned and left.
In her hands, she began charging up her telekinesis again.
-MD-
Jav Frowned at the data that was not cooperating.
"Computer. Analysis of data encryption."
"Working. Encryption pattern not recognised. Insufficient Data."
"Protocol Rei Jok Twelve. Analyse Data encryption."
"Working. Analysis complete. Insufficient Data."
"Insufficient Data? Explain."
"Analysis under Protocol Rei Jok indicates encrypted data is not complete."
Jav leant back, and almost growled. This was maddening.
Suddenly, however, a massive explosion tore his attention away from the problem, and he turned in shock to see a massive psionic wave dissipate not far from him, and as he rose from his chair he realised that there were odd piles of dust on the floor in the empty room that had, a moment ago, had twelve of his colleagues working on their own projects.
What he saw next put a halt to his thought of what caused it... along with a halt to his existence.
-MD-
Zghjskiri finished speaking to his sponsor on the image, when the sound of an explosion from another room interrupted.
"What was that?" his sponsor asked.
"Just an experiment." He replied with a fake sigh, as if this was a common occurrence that rankled at him. "You may go ahead with the Genetic re-sequencing of the Asadrei. Combined with their latent psionic abilities, there is much potential for them to evolve to higher sentients."
He'd barely stopped speaking when another explosion came, this time it rocked his room a little.
"Of course. I shall let you back to... your projects." The sponsor said with a heavy dose of sarcasm, then cut the connection.
With that Skiri stood up and moved to investigate, and for a moment, he felt shock, and felt curiosity at feeling shock, as down the hall was a Psionically berserking Zorra of the Union, turning several of the grunts that were rushing in to piles of dust with overcharged telekinetic bursts, ripping them apart at the cellular level.
And that was when the alarm sounded.
Zorra noticed him, and for a moment, Skiri was shocked to feel fear, and he froze.
Zorra smiled... and this made him feel a chill, even though his sensors did not show a temperature deviation.
And then she raised a psionically-charged hand just behind her head, and then flung something at him.
And he was not shocked to not feel anything. Anything at all.
-MD-
Initialization complete.
What the?
Pzzzz OWW!
I sat up, and realised that I was, first... naked. And second, covered in wires.
Oh, and there's an alien lady covered in goo looking at me. Odd piles of dust near her. And she looked like she was breathing heavily, and she half collapsed, grabbing a desk to hold herself up.
Yeah. What the fuck?
I looked around the room... and wished I didn't. Tools that I didn't know the use for were covered in blood. And I looked down, and sure enough, I had fresh scars, complete with sudden feeling from them.
"... Are... you.. okay...?"
I blinked up at Alien Lady.
"You speak English?" I asked.
She blinked in, shock I think.
"I'll take that as a yes."
I got up and began disconnecting the wires, and looked around for something to... ah hell, who am I kidding, I don't want to wear any of the lab coats I can see. She's already seen me naked.
And I began to mutter. "Of course she does. She's an Alien who's here to rescue me. That means she knows of what happened here, and that implies possible knowledge of where I came from. Since she speaks English, she knows."
I tilted my head as my thoughts slowed down. "Huh." I hummed, knowing that I came to that conclusion a bit quicker than I had any right to.
I shook it off as she stood up fully, and nodded hesitantly to me. "Come, we must leave this vessel."
I had to ask, "How far from my planet are we?"
She looked at me sadly, "I'm afraid that you and the others cannot return to your world, the portal to it closed shortly after you were brought here. We do not know what opened the portal, or what closed it."
I sighed at that, and I followed her out of the door.
I looked around as we moved slowly – she had noticed that too much activity would have affected me in a bad way – and noticed more piles of dust.
"Whats with the dust?"
"... that was your captors."
I turned to her in shock. "Okay... Can't say I'm not horrified by that but... Well, I'm grateful for the rescue all the same."
"And oddly clearheaded about it." She commented as we passed a lab.
I peeked in as I passed it, only to stop in shock.
She noticed and turned to me in curiousity.
"That's my stuff!"
She raised her eyebrows. Or whatever those things above her eyes was.
She looked in, and nodded, "Earth technology. Computers. Books." Then she looked, really looked at some of the stuff. "I was not aware that Earth knew of the Transit Network."
I blinked at her when she saw my map of the mass relay network. But I quickly turned in surprise when she moved in, and asked, "Since it's your stuff, I guess you'll want to... take. It." She blinked in surprise at several boxes of items around the room.
"That is a lot of stuff. They don't normally take this kind of thing though... on the other hand I didn't think they actually abducted people either..."
I noticed sure enough that, "It's all my stuff! And... my god they must have taken every DVD I had... what... and my books."
"Huh."
"What?"
I turned to her, and saw her reading something off a tablet of some sort. It looked similar to the Apple iPad, but not.
I moved closer, and quickly read what it said.
"Historical Documents?" I muttered, then looked at the screen that was showing one of my stories... and I began to laugh.
I was insane, I must be. An Alien had just abducted me and thought that my stories were historical documents.
It was too hilarious to be real.
It had to be.
"They're not historical documents?" Alien Lady asked.
"No, it's fiction. Stories."
She looked at me shrewdly, and at my Mass Effect books, but didn't comment beyond asking, "I can deal with anyone else here... but it will take time to get all your stuff to..."
She was cut off by an announcement
"Alert. Incoming hostile craft." The ship shuddered. "Defense Barriers holding."
The ship shuddered harder, and was followed with what felt like an actual explosion... followed by a sudden drop in airpressure, that halted just as suddenly.
"Defensive Barriers Down. Hull Breach Detected, emergency Bulkheads engaged."
Another shake, but this time it was... muted.
"Alert. Docked Vessel under fire." Another muted shake, then, "Docked Vessel destroyed. Airlock Breached. Emergency Bulkheads engaged."
"... But the others..." Alien Lady whispered.
I looked at her, and although I was concerned at what 'the others' meant, I asked, "Please tell me you haven't killed anyone in the command centre or bridge or whatever this ship has?"
She winced.
"Well, lets hope this works..." I thought for a bare second, then asked, "Computer, reroute power to defensive systems from engines and non-essential systems. Identify Hostile Vessel."
"Reroute complete." A shudder. "Barriers holding. Hostile craft reads as Qualoniun Military Attack Frigate." Another shudder. "Barriers Holding."
I looked to the Alien Lady, and asked, "Hostile to just these guys or, just hostile?"
"You mean, can we fight back?"
I nodded.
"Unfortunately not. The Qualoniun are a member of the Union. Ah... my people. They'll be attacking because they learned like I did about the abductions. But they're..."
"Yeah. I get that bit." I nod at her, and sigh. "Computer, how long can the ships defences hold off an all-out assault from the hostile vessel?"
"Two Kunis."
I looked at Alien Lady, "Er, what is that in Earth time?"
The computer responded. "Calculating... Two Kunis equals One point three 'Earth Hours'."
"Does this ship have escape pods?"
"Affirmative."
"Okay... uh... what's your name?"
"Zorra."
"Zorra. I'm Stephen. Lead the way to the pods if you please." I sighed.
-MD-
"Cargo storage?" I asked, looking at the back of the pod.
Zorra nodded. "I think we can fit your stuff in there." She looked at me, and I think she smiled at me.
"Not all of it. The hard drives, my xbox, and if I want my books I'll need to put only the discs themselves in, without the cases. This'll take an hour. Computer, remaining time, earth units?"
"One point one earth hour."
"This better be worth it." Zorra said.
"It's a lot of fiction, so its worth it to anyone fascinated by other cultures' ideas of entertainment, er... if that makes sense."
"... Yes, actually." She grinned then, and while it looked a bit, predatory, since she looked rather avian without feathers and her mouth was a bit pointy, but flesh instead of a beak, I grinned back.
-MD-
One hour Later...
"It'd be easier without constant shaking from that." I said.
As it was, I had only 'point two' earth hours left. A little extra there from shutting down life support to everything except the corridor between that lab and the escape pod I'll be using.
I put the last lot of discs in handy thin cylindrical containers into the cargo section of the pod, and winced as I hit my head on the side from another shudder.
I moved away, and Zorra placed the last of my books inside. Well, the last of the books I was going to take. Some I was going to leave. Particularly, a lot of the smaller books that I already had digital copies of on my computer. Most of those were Star Trek ones.
All that was left, was the xbox, and the hard drives from my computer. I had enough space for a few items, but... as it was It would take too long to return to the lab, choose what would fit and return with them. The trolley, well, makeshift trolley that we'd used to make two trips only had the drives and xbox left.
I put them in, and closed the hatch to it.
Then the explosions began again, even as I began inputting security measures.
"Barriers down to 67% Coverage. Alert, hull microfractures detected. Structural integrity compromised. Alert, Sensor systems offline. Alert, Barriers down to 32% coverage."
Zorra looked at me as I opened the pod, thinking that it would be big enough for two. The outside made it look big enough, afterall.
But when the sloped part of the pod opened, and I saw that it was very cramped... too cramped for Zorra alone unless she stripped her heavy armour off... which I reliased would take too long.
"You must get in... Stephen."
I blinked. "There's another just..."
"there is little time left. Get in. I stopped the monsters, that is all that matters to me now. Go."
I got in, and Zorra closed the lid. Through a small window I could see she gave me a sad look. I couldn't make out what she said.
And Then...
-MD-
In Space.
The Frigate finally stopped it's hour-long siege on the ship. Not because it ran out of ammo, nor because they realised they needed no more shots to cause the destruction. But because they were attacked.
Two beams of hot metal slammed into the ship, the immense mass ignoring powerful barriers, and the metal cut through the hull like it was made of tissue paper.
And that was all she wrote. It exploded before the tail of the beam even vanished into the ship.
And in the distance, the ship that had fired, was visible. Long, massive, and with several obvious gun turrets, Several massive engines on its hull and and eight more smaller ones mounted to large Cowls either side of the hull.
Just as it turned to the Nepotis vessel, an object was blasted from a section of hull, right before the ship exploded.
-MD-
"Dimensional Transition complete. Analysis indicates we have arrived precisely where and when we intended." EDI reported.
"Good. The ship?"
"Is being attacked. Curious, Scans indicate that the subject is near one of the Escape pods, with one other."
She read a report and nodded. "Alright. Lock on the other life sign. And target that ship shooting him."
"You wish to destroy it?"
"... Power up the Primary Thanix weapon, and fire when ready."
"We will be visible from the moment we fire." EDI reported, yet she didn't hesitate from saying so to, "Powering." Edi spoke, then less than a second later, reported, "Firing. Target destroyed. The Subject is in the Escape Pod."
"Beam aboard the other one."
"Done..."
She blinked, along with EDI at the visual of the ship exploding... and a cough from nearby.
She turned to the person that had coughed, who looked a little nostalgic at the screen, then at the Red-head. "I'll go greet Zorra. Boy is she in for a surprise."
They looked between each other.
"EDI, Ready the ship to transition dimensions again."
"What about our, passenger?"
"That's up to him."
-MD-
Unnoticed in the vastness of deep space an escape pod, inside of which there was a person in cryogenic stasis, tumbled end over end until it was swallowed by a vortex to disappear for a very long time.
Throughout the galaxy, civilizations rose and fell, rose and fell, and great machines came, harvested, destroyed and more until they left, and then a long time again passed with more civilizations rising and falling. This pattern repeated, until at the start of another cycle, the machines moved an object once more to a place near whom the machines knew would rise next. They placed the object next to a nebula, knowing that in time it would be discovered and used as they had intended. To become a seat of government. A capital of many races, as it had served as such so many times before. To be a safe haven. A Citadel.
But the machines did not count on the arrival of something from the distant past. On the fringes of the Tomaros System, a vortex appeared and spat out an escape pod, with it's lone occupant, asleep. It is the year 2071, and humans have yet to reach beyond their own star system.
And the nearby colony world occupied by the race called Asari detected this pod. But they have not yet identified it as an escape pod, only a very small asteroid or comet on a slow path through space. Why, it would take a hundred years to approach orbital distance of that colony world. A hundred years before they realise. A Hundred, before they recover it. And a hundred, before they open it. While inside, the sole... human, occupant, lay in wait.
-MD-
A/N: I notice that FFN likes to bloat the word-count. Word gave 6,000 words exactly for this chapter. And then FFN strips out all the scene breaks, and still says theres a hundred more? Pfft. And I had to edit them back in. Damnit. Otherwise it's just confusing.