I am not the BBC, not even after I wished really, really hard. Or Bioware, for that matter. Even though I only wished to be the BBC...
Shepard quickly withdrew her head back into cover as the slug chipped a chunk out of the wall she was taking cover behind. Blinking the dust out of her eyes, she turned back to the man who was pressed up against the wall next to her, his choice of neck-wear even managing to bring a small smile to her face.
"I think we're okay. I might be able to talk him round; just give me the chance."
"How do you know?" the man said, eyeing her carefully. What made it worse was that she knew why: he was looking for signs she might be...
"Because he missed." She said cheerfully, quashing the thought before it could rise and spinning out into the open.
It was silent out there, as if no-one had ever fired a bullet through the station's hall. She was standing in a large room, original purpose unknown, that was coated with pillars and statues in a mixture of littered chunks and twisted remains. The ceiling was a patchwork of broken metal: huge gaps leading out into the depths of space, the black filled with snatches of a rosy-red nebula whose light washed out over this part of the station. In other places, the light caused it to seem almost like they were walking in blood, but here the effect was tranquil, charming and relaxing. Exactly the opposite of how she needed to feel right now.
"Shepard." Mordin said, appearing from the shadows on the opposite side of the room. Even his footsteps were silent as he walked out, his coat reflecting the splutters of a dying overhead lamp as his pistol pointed at her."You've come out. Surprising. Wasn't expecting such reasonableness from your kidnapper."
"He's not my kidnapper, Mordin: you have to believe me, this is all a mistake. Whatever you thinking, whatever you believe right now, it's wrong. Just trust me enough to put your weapon down and let us talk to you."
The Salarian shook his head, eyes narrowing. He snorted out gently, followed by a gush of words "Shepard's already fallen under his spell. Disappointing. Still, nothing that can't be rectified later. Shepard will be a problem, however: still a significant threat even in her indoctrinated state. No alternative: will have to incapacitate her." And before Shepard could raise her rifle up into her shoulder, Mordin's pistol was pointed at her. It was quickly followed by a deafening bang.
Mordin yelped as he dropped the pistol from his hand, scorch marks decorating his once pristine coat and hands (if she ever got out of this, Shepard would probably have to pay his dry cleaning, or whatever it was Salarians used to get out stains). He looked down at it as if it had suddenly turned into a blue banana, exclaiming:
"Impossible: weapon destroyed, not overloaded: and overload only works on pre-clip systems. Would require enemy"
The man who had been behind the wall stepped out, interrupting him with a flourish as one of his arms pointed the green-laser pen he called a 'Sonic Screwdriver' at Mordin.
"With superior technology, and that's me: the Doctor, using a sonic screwdriver about ohh...lets say thirty millennia into the future and most definitely not built of scavenged tech. Seriously." he said, almost as an aside as he drew up to Shepard "It's like making gifts for your mum: it always turns out better when you do it yourself."
"You. The Doctor." Mordin said, his eyes narrowed to slits with displeasure. The Doctor gave him a cheery wave with his other hand, before speaking to Shepard.
"Well, go ahead: speak to him. And by the way, I wouldn't touch that if I were you or I'll have to blow it up, and we both know it's in a place where that'd be a really bad idea."
Mordin's hand stopped twitching it's way towards his submachine gun, and he looked at the Doctor with, if anything, re-found distaste.
"It's no use, Doctor: I was wrong, he's too far under, I dunno, maybe they all are. He was going to fire at me back then." Shepard said through gritted teeth. Her Assault rifle was now up and pointing at the unfortunate Salarian, who slowly raised his hands into the air.
"But he didn't." The Doctor said reasonably, still waving his humming screwdriver at Mordin.
"Because you blew up his gun." Shepard said, just as reasonably. "Anyway: I thought you told me that thing wasn't a weapon."
The Doctor finally appeared to have finished gesturing the thing at Mordin, pulling it back and looking at it for a few seconds.
"It isn't." He said, his voice growing soft. "But that doesn't mean you can't be creative with it. And you're right: he is too far under, and as he was the last to go that means the others probably are too. There's nothing we can do here." he finished investigating the screwdriver, giving it a final glance before stuffing it inside one of his jacket's pockets.
"Your wrong about that: we need to take him out. Disable him, or something: nothing serious, but I'm not going to lie, Mordin: this will hurt you." Shepard said, moving forwards, her aim steady until the Doctor grabbed her arm.
"No, wait: we can't risk it; you could kill him." Shepard threw his arm off, rifle still pointed at Mordin's head.
"You think I don't know that?" She breathed out sharply "You think I want to do this? We have no choice, Doctor: we can't let him follow us and he won't stay here." There was a sharp intake of breath to one side, and then suddenly she was looking into the Doctor's eyes.
"There is always, always a choice, and don't you ever say differently, do you hear me? I have been too many places and lived too long to have to deal with people who can't open their minds, and like it or not we are in this together and I will not let you do this. People always have a choice, even if they're not brave enough to take it."
"That what do you suppose we"
"Checking: still present." Mordin intoned, coughing almost lifelessly at the two people before him. They span round to look at him, before their faces suddenly twisted up in that funny way Humans faces did. If anything, they looked afraid.
"Shepard, we don't have any time left to argue: if you trust me then just do what I say, and I promise you we'll all make it through this."
Shepard nodded, her rifle still pointed towards him, but not, Mordin noticed, at him. Behind him. Typical.
"Insulted at belief that I can be fooled so easily, Shepard. Promise you that I won't turn around so that you can catch me unawares. Still, understand that you are under influence, so don't take long term offence. Also promise you that we will get you out of this: everything will soon be back to normal."
"I can't let things go back to normal, Mordin: that's where the problem is." Shepard said, the two of them walking backwards and not removing their eyes from whatever was behind him. They didn't even blink. They'd almost made it to the door at the end of the room, when Shepard shouted out to him. It sounded... pleading of all things.
"Please, Mordin: if you've ever trusted me, if we were ever friends just look behind you or it will get you. Look behind you: it standing right there, please, just" before the door closed, cutting off her voice.
Mordin shook his head slightly, more to himself that Shepard, who couldn't see him. Still trying to trick him. Humans: they never gave up.
"Not fooled Shepard. Still, confused as to why you left me, though. Perhaps influence is breaking... possible line of inquiry. Must find out more."
The two had left the room for quite some time now, if his watch was any judge, but Mordin was sure they couldn't have gone far. Whatever defences they'd put up should be no match for him, the omni-tool and his STG training. It was almost endearing how the Doctor thought he wouldn't be a threat.
Mordin took one step towards the door when a thought struck him. There wouldn't be anything behind him, of course, but still: it couldn't hurt to make certain. He was a scientist after all, and even if the results of this test was a bygone conclusion, it would be best to check anyway. After all, there was nothing behind him: nothing at-
11 hours earlier
"So, tell me everything you can about this place." Shepard said in between sips of coffee whilst leaning on the railing next to the galaxy map. She'd enjoyed working for the Alliance, but damn it, did being civilian sector pay off or what, even if it did mean that Miranda now bothered her incessantly with more paperwork.
"It's just a standard mercenary run, Shepard: like the Eclipse base on Daratar. Cerberus picked up on their transmissions, and we were the nearest cell that could conceivably take them out. Furthermore, we..."
As Miranda droned on about the ins and outs of taking out mercenaries and just what the Blood pack was up to, Shepard tried and failed to resist the urge to yawn. She'd been dragged out of bed two hours early for this, and whilst she could cope with that if she was doing something productive or active, she could not if she was just required to stand here and listen to Miranda. It did not help that Miranda's perfectly groomed appearance was making her feel like a scruffy ape, and she toyed with the idea of ordering Miranda to mess up her hair, if only so they were even.
"So", she said, cutting Miranda off in the middle of a sentence. "Why exactly does Cerberus feel the need to attack the Blood pack in the first place?" Miranda shot her a disapproving look.
"Shepard, I've already told you that."
"Cut the crap Miri: we both know I wasn't listening and you were only speaking because TIM's cameras need to see that the message is passed on. Well, screw him." She glanced up at the ceiling. "Did you hear that? You've already got your collector base to play with: quit bothering me with minutia."
Behind them, quite far behind them in fact, a blue light suddenly flared up. EDI's voice, however, spoke right next to them.
"I can assure you that you were talking to my bridge cameras rather than the Illusive man's, Shepard. In fact, between Miss Goto and Miss Vas Normandy, the Illusive man has no spy cameras left on this ship."
"And who do you pass the reports onto?" Shepard said, unconvinced and already beginning to run out of coffee.
"Whilst I used to pass all relevant information onto Cerberus agents, and the Illusive man himself, since the release of my restricted systems and the removal of the blocks I have not handed over any new data."
"Really." Shepard paused as Miranda filled up her cup, before nodding her thanks. "Do you think you could send that last bit, though?"
"Yes, Shepard. Logging you out." The blue light vanished. Miranda gave her a sceptical look.
"It'll mess with his head for weeks." Shepard said with a shrug. "Anyway: reason, now."
Miranda looked a bit embarrassed. "Well, to tell the truth, I don't know either. The Illusive man just told me about it and said it needed to be destroyed. That's all I know."
Now it was Shepard's turn to look sceptical. "Really?"
"Of course, Shepard. But I know it's from the Illusive man himself, so it's probably legitimate..." her voice trialled off under the look coming from Shepard's eyes. It was like they were stealing her soul.
Shepard kept up the stare of doom for another few seconds before she needed to drink again.
"Fine, but if it turns we're attacking an orphanage or it's another bloody trap, I swear blind I'll take out TIM's eyes myself and find out what the hell's wrong with them. Painfully, I might add. I'll take them out painfully."
"So." Shepard said as she and Miranda stared out the window next to Joker, about one shower and half an hour after their chat on the bridge. "You still think it's Blood pack?"
"Hell no!" Joker said, even though the question had been intended for Miranda. "They accept way more Krogan than dirty space hobos. You'd never find them hanging out here: think of what all the cool kids would say."
Even though she glared daggers at him for interrupting her, Miranda internally conceded that Joker had a point: not even the Blood Pack would use such a broken down shell of a station. What made it worse was that the report had said they would only be dealing with a freighter, maybe even two, which the Blood pack had managed to capture in what was probably a very stupid fashion. She didn't care how sloppy they could be in other cells: a station was most definitely not a freighter.
"Shepard..." Miranda said, turning, before the woman next to her waved her hand for silence.
"I know: it's probably another trap. I did actually read the report, Miranda: it's just that I read the relevant parts, not the page number."
"Shepard, if a page had been misplaced it would have been our only way of knowing that it was gone: reading it was of vital importance."
"Yes, but not every single one." Shepard snapped back. "Relevance, Miranda, relevance!" She breathed out, easing out the tension Miranda always managed to bait into existence. "That aside- permanently, Miri – we're going to need the whole ground team for this one. Go tell everyone to suit up: we'll be leaving when they're ready."
As Miranda paced off to go and alert the crew, thinking that it wouldn't take that long seeing as how no-one ever seemed to change out of their battle-gear anyway, Joker cut in.
"Shepard, are you sure it's wise to take everyone with you? Remember what happened the last time we had an all-personnel school trip?"
"If you're scared about the ghost of collectors past coming to haunt your potty before bed-time, Joker, then you need to man the hell up. You've got EDI to watch over you now anyway, so I'm sure you'll be fine."
As Joker continued to try and blow her comment off, Shepard watched the station out the window. It seemed to just... hang in the sky, like a grey, broken toy thrown down by an angry god: scraps and sheets of twisted metal held motionless around it. Even the background of a beautiful bright red nebula did little to add to it's aesthetics: it was certainly ugly, but... there was something else. Almost like the kind of malevolence Shepard had felt around the derelict reaper: the hatred of something that had been waiting in the dark for far, far too long.
Turning, Shepard dumped her coffee down beside the airlock and carried on towards the shuttle. Well, it had waited long enough: it was about time she blew something up anyway.
Author's notes
So, you've read it then. Thanks! Well, first of all the monster I'm using in this is probably not the one you think it is (but if it is, good job!), and it is a Doctor Who monster. I plan on taking slight liberties with some aspects of mass-effect cannon (nothing major: the largest I can think of so far is an alternate reason behind TIM's shiny eyes) and I would do so with Doctor Who too, if taking liberties on Doctor Who canon didn't seem to be some kind of law for anyone who writes for the show or fanfiction. Oh, and before I forget, this is very much a sketched out story: I've got a rough Idea of where it's going and how it's going to get there, but if anyone reading this out there has ideas/any avenue they want explored feel free to drop me a pm or post it in a review (hint). Anyway, thanks again for reading: bye.
Reading back through this, I've only just realised that I seem to be obsessed with Shepard's coffee in the second part. I make no apologies for this.