Falling
Voan Dern – Volus – Captain
Janena – Asari – Medic
Perrin Veshen – Turian – Merc
Jetor'Ath – Batarian – Geologist
The planet Alchera was doing everything it could to make the two's visit as unpleasant as possible.
Ice crystals battered the pair's armored environmental suits, flung with near hurricane force winds. The smaller of the two figures ran expert hands over blinking equipment, while the other simply tried not to get blown off his feet.
"Couldn't Voan at least have waited for the storm to pass before we drilled the final core samples?"
The large Turian sighed and said, "Negative, Jet - no time. The boss is worried by rumors of missing ships in this sector. If we wait too long...with ship's sensors blinded by this storm...our ship could be next."
The Batarian waved away the concern with a green, suited hand. "Yeah, I heard those rumors...but the way I heard it, it's only been Human ships going missing. "Peh!" It's not like the galaxy couldn't do with a few less humans."
This prompted yet another sigh from the Turian. Even beneath the metallic carapace covering his face -and the sealed, environmental helmet over that- his curiosity was visible. Perrin wondered if hatred of Humans had become genetically encoded into Batarians. It was the Turians who had fought a war with Humanity, and yet most Turians had now grown to accept most Humans...mostly. Maybe it was that both Humans and Turians were now on the Council, while the Batarians weren't. Something was keeping the Batarian Hegemony out of the club. The barroom speculation was that it was a cultural clash over Batarians' continued practice of slavery. While no sentient liked being on the slave side of the relationship, Humans seemed particularly sensitive to the idea.
Jetor pulled a long cylinder of dirty ice from the drilling machine and packed it away in a case. A few more button pushes had the drilling machine folded up for transport.
"That was the last one. I can't say I'll be sorry to see this planetary hunk of ice fading into the black."
Finally, a statement from the geologist that the Turian mercenary could actually agree with. The two climbed aboard the tracked vehicle and pointed it toward where the ship was parked. No one could argue that the tractor wasn't sturdy, but it wasn't made for comfort. That was something that the purchaser wasn't concerned about, as one Voan Dern -captain of the Arinnea and financier of this expedition- never had to drive it! It did give the two riding it an unobstructed view of the purple lightning arcing across the methane sky. While it was spectacular, their concern was more about not being hit by said lightning rather than how esthetically pleasing it looked!
The two had barely cleared the cargo hold inner doors before they began to close and the ramp pulled in under the ship. The cargo hold's atmospheric pumps drained the poisonous exterior air out until it was a vacuum, and then equalized the hold to match the rest of the ship. Removing their helmets let Jetor'Ath and Perrin Vashen hear the ship's engines already powering up.
"I guess Voan really is in a hurry to leave this system."
The Turian used his communicator to contact the captain, "Boss, you have to give us time to rack the equipment before you take off...or this trip might get very expensive." As a rule Volus weren't the bravest of folks, but if you put your concerns in terms they understand -namely credits- well, their backbones tended to stiffen a bit!
"Well, make it quick. The satellite I put in orbit is picking up some mighty strange readings, and I have no interest in meeting whoever is creating those readings."
After disconnecting the circuit Perrin said, "You heard the Boss. Stow and go!"
A few short minutes later the entire, "four-man" crew stood together in the cockpit. While the rest of the ship was built to generic standards, to accommodate most space faring races, the pilot's console was customized for the Volus master of the ship. At first glance most thought it was an overly-complicated mess, but this pilot/captain could play it like a virtuoso. The general perception of the Volus race was that they were rather clumsy, being perpetually sealed in their pressurized atmospheric suits...but past experience gave the rest of this crew a certain amount of confidence that whatever might be waiting for them above the turbulent clouds, Voan Dern would be able to get them through it.
The ship rose smoothly off the ground and into the heart of the storm. Voan stopped the ship's assent a few feet below the cloud top. With a more direct link to the sensor satellite, Voan began to refine what might have produced the strange readings he had received earlier. The short, round captain was constitutionally incapable of not being paranoid! All he found was the barest whisper of a sensor ghost, but to him it looked like that ghost was a ship, in orbit around this planet. His sensors suddenly spiked. A massive, non-ghost ship just dropped out of FTL! A few seconds later it changed course and began closing on the sensor ghost!
That's when things got real interesting, as the large ship discharged a beam of energy at the sensor ghost that would have instantly vaporized the Arinnea! Amazingly the "ghost" jerked to the side and was only grazed -but that graze was enough to reveal just what that ghost was: an Earth Alliance frigate! ...and not just any frigate, but the SSV Normandy! The frigate's pilot was good...Voan recognized that much. The no-longer hidden Normandy was able to dodge several of those massive beams, but it also took several hits! Life pods erupted from the sides of the ship, the desperate bid of the crew to survive the frigate's imminent destruction. And then it was quiet...for the massive aggressor had passed its small victim. The crippled ship was adrift, its engines desperately fluttering.
The Asari maiden Jenena grabbed Voan's shoulder and cried, "Can't we do anything to help them?"
Voan Dern never got a chance to answer her, for his words of helpless sympathy were drowned out by the outrage of the Batarian geologist.
"Are you insane?", he practically screamed. All four of his eyes squinted with rage. "Let's forget for a moment what that monster of a ship would do to us if we did try to help them, but do you have any idea who's frigate that is? It belongs to Commander Shepard, the Butcher of Torfan! She slaughtered unarmed Batarian prisoners! She murdered a caste-mate of mine from primary!" With no small amount of venomous satisfaction Jetor'Ath finished with, "She's finally getting what's been coming to her."
The other three looked with astonishment at the Batarian. They too had heard of Commander Shepard, but not for the things Jetor described! To the rest of the crew she was the Hero of the Citadel. Granted, there were persistent rumors that it was her decision that led to the counsel getting killed -and the new counsel with humans at its head. The three dazed crewmen weren't given a chance to respond for the mysterious, massive aggressor had come about, and was again firing on the drifting frigate -blasting it apart! One final escape pod sped away from the disintegrating frigate. The large ship, apparently satisfied with its handiwork, leapt back into FLT.
The Asari medic was the first to speak. Shakily she said, "W- we have to go pick up the life pods! They might have injured! I could help."
Captain Voan shook his head slowly. It was impossible to see his expression through the helmet of his environmental suit, but the crew could guess their captain's feelings. Voan was pragmatic and business-like -but not heartless. "We might be able to rescue some, but we don't have the life support to get them all." He turned back to his console and touched a few controls. "They got off a mayday, so there should be Alliance help arriving shortly...and we are going to need to be gone. If we get involved there will be way too many questions about why we're here."
"...Is there nothing we can do?" Tears were welling up in the eyes of the beautiful, pale blue Asari.
In an effort to appease her, Voan dutifully turned back toward his console. "I can scan to see if there was anyone in an environment suit who didn't make it to a life pod." This was just a gallant show on Voan's part. He didn't really believe that anyone outside a life pod could have survived the breakup of the ship. The small cargo ship Arrinea rose out of its hiding spot in the storm to bring the ship's sensors to bear. Much to Voan's surprise there was one flailing figure, just beginning to touch the upper layer of the planet's atmosphere.
"But how-? ...Oh, alright then. You three get down to the cargo bay. Drop some nets and I'll see if we can scoop up whoever that is."
The astonished Batarian looked about to protest, but the expressions on the Asari and Turian faces let him know that he wasn't going to win here.
Within minutes the fleet cargo ship had closed the distance to the no longer flailing figure. With the cargo doors open and a cargo net stretched across the bay held on with flexible cords, Voan tried to match speeds with the human. He was a master pilot and was able to come close, but the cargo net collapsed almost to the inner hull before arresting her speed. The trio quickly untangled the figure from the net as the cargo doors closed and air once again flooded the compartment.
The three were very surprised by who they had actually caught. The insignia on her armor was clear. Perrin's metallic mouth and mandibles opened in astonishment. "Take me for a Krogan...this is Commander Shepard!" The Asari and Turian knelt by her body to examine her closer.
"Look here...the seals on her helmet are cracked", Perrin said to Jenena. "I don't know what exposure to vacuum does to humans or how long they can survive in it."
The medic passed her omni-tool over the prostrate form and said, "I'm still getting life readings -if only just. Can you remove her armor?"
The Turian looked up at the sullen Batarian and asked, "Batarians wear the same basic armor as humans, can you help me get her out of it?"
"Forget it. I'm not helping you save Shepard. We need to throw her back out the air lock and let nature take its course!"
The Turian shook his head and turned back to the human and began working out how to remove the armor.
Getting the helmet off turned out not to be that hard, as the seals had already been broken. Unfortunately, what it revealed was not promising...for Shepard's face was a real mess. Her face had dried in the vacuum and the skin had cracked so much it looked lacerated. Her combat armor had desperately tried to apply medi-gel to her wounds, which was the only reason there were any life signs at all.
Jenena looked helplessly at the Turian, "There's nothing I can do. There's too much damage for me to repair outside of a hospital. She's going to die. We can at least give her body back to her people."
At that Jetor spoke up, "Now I know you're insane. If we give her back to the humans, do you think they won't ask what we were doing here? They'll take one look at me and assume we had something to do with the destruction of their ship! If they don't execute us right away, we will most certainly spend the rest of our lives in some filthy human prison."
"Jetor is right", the soft wheezing voice of their captain came from the doorway. "But that doesn't mean we just throw someone as valuable as Shepard out the air lock. Finish stripping her armor and toss that out the air lock. That'll let them think she died on reentry. But before you do that -put her in one of the cryo-storage units. That'll keep her from completely dying...because alive is always more valuable than dead."
The Asari and the Turian finished removing her armor and then placed her into cryo-storage. Meanwhile the grumbling Batarian gathered up the armor and, with much satisfaction, jettisoned it out the side air-lock.
The four crew were back in the cockpit as the Volus captain jumped the Arinnea into FTL.
Perrin asked, "So where are we headed Boss?"
Voan Dern turned the pilot's chair around. His voice tinged with avarice the Volus said, "Omega. I'm certain I can find someone there who will pay for a slightly dented hero."
5