SPOILER WARNING! Do not read this if you have not read my Lauren Shepard fic,Normandy. There be spoilers here.
"Shit!" Staff Commander Kaidan Alenko cursed as he jerked, smacking at a sharp sting on the back of his neck. He seized something squirming and alive. Looking down in horror at the unknown, buglike creature, he knew he didn't have time to figure out what it was or even scan it with his omni-tool. He crushed it in his hand and moved toward a massive ship that had just descended from the sky. It appeared to be the source of these swarming things and the cause of terror and chaos now coursing through the little colony of Horizon. Something about the vessel's rough, organic structure made his gut clench in dread as memories of Alchera flooded his mind. Lauren.
Pushing past panicked colonists and trying to hold on to the lunch that threatened to come up, Kaidan could easily see the ship looming over the roofline of the colony's pre-fab buildings. He needed to get those defense towers up. They were just beyond the line of buildings in front of him, but before he could take one step further, his body froze.
His heart pounded inside his chest, raging for him to escape. Since only his eyes could move freely, he glanced around to find other colonists frozen where they stood. Swallowing as best he could, he tried to calm himself and think through the situation. He did not know what caused the stasis, but he figured it was possible something could disrupt it.
Closing his eyes in concentration, Kaidan summoned as much biotic power as he could muster. Brilliant blue wisps of dark energy enveloped his body as he tried to generate a barrier. Cool prickles danced along and through his skin as the force of the eezo in his nervous system intensified, and fingers of pain quickly wound around his head from his amp to his face. Blood flowed from his nose as the struggle burst vessels in his head. He could feel it running down his face, oozing between the slight part in his lips. His tongue recoiled at the metallic taste, but he could not shut his mouth nor attempt to spit. His body and biotics felt encased in glass, the stasis thwarting his efforts.
His stomach dropped and panic tried to set in as biotic energy faded from his view. Fear was not an option right now, so he regulated his breathing back into slow, deep inhalations. As he cleared away the jumble of unhelpful emotions, the hammering pain in his head screamed for attention. A migraine was probably the least of his worries, but the aura of pain in his eyes had rendered him partially blind. He could be of no use to anyone in this state. His muscles tensed while he tried simply moving his left arm to hit the button on his right wrist that would release medi-gel. FUCK, his mind said, but a stifled groan was the only audible sign that even his cursing resulted in failure.
Strange clicks and chirps approached his location, diverting his attention. It sounded like nothing he had ever heard before, and he wondered briefly if his translator glitched. Another blurred glance at the ship in the distance told him this race was foreign to him, but searing memories made him wonder.
Had Lauren seen them on Alchera? Did she get a look into the eyes of her killers? He knew the Normandy had been blown apart, but what if she survived atmospheric entry, however briefly? What did they do to her? Or was she just a bit of galactic dust? Bile rose in Kaidan's throat as he contemplated the idea.
Abruptly stopping that train of thought, he once again focused on alleviating the relentless pounding in his head. Deep, slow breaths. In and out. Let in clean, fresh air. Push out the clouds of pain. As his mantra continued Kaidan's vision began to clear just as the first Collector rounded the corner. His calm shattered as his soul twisted and thrashed inside him as if it could somehow create an internal momentum that could knock his body off balance, allowing him to hide behind a nearby crate. But his body remained still as he watched the first team make a quick survey of the area and he cursed once again the futility of his situation.
The Collectors were not a complete unknown to Kaidan. He read about them briefly in recent months in Alliance intel reports. The rumors of tall, winged bipedal insects sounded ludicrous, and the speculation as to their objectives seemed just as ridiculous, so he never put much stock into them. Terminus colonists, even the ones on Horizon, notoriously created all sorts of myths and fairytales when someone mysteriously disappeared. But now? This wasn't simple frontier storytelling anymore. He couldn't deny the rumors nor the Collectors any longer. What are they doing here?
Some of the insectoid beings lumbered into the open area where Kaidan and nearly a dozen other colonists remained frozen. They moved in pairs carrying pods that looked biogenic in nature. And they were efficient. Like an assembly line. One pair lifted a colonist into a waiting pod. A second pair sealed the pod and whisked it away. Another pair and another pod waited to take their place. Always another pair. Always another pod. Dozens of colonists remained trapped near him, but the Collectors worked damned quick. He knew his time was short.
A lone colonist lay on the ground not three meters from Kaidan, her arm reaching helplessly toward him for aid. He could see her face and for the first time since he froze, his eyes met hers. Tears ran rivulets down her face. Kaidan lamented that he couldn't even move his face enough to show her empathy. Swallowing again shallowly, he started improvising a plan to fight back. If I keep my biotics ready, I could use the new reave technique I've been working on as soon as the stasis drops. It has to drop. Take out enough Collectors to find cover. Then shoot until there's nothing left to kill.
As soon as that thought crossed his mind he heard another sound. It wasn't shuffling or the strange clicking, chirping language of the Collectors. It was very familiar. It was the sound of a shuttlecraft. The small transport flew in a landing pattern that crossed his line of sight. A bright yellow insignia blazed on the side. Cerberus?
Kaidan averted his eyes and grunted in disgust. He knew what kind of organization they were and he was sure he did not want their kind of rescuing. His stomach turned as he recalled finding Robert Jenkins alive on Ontarom. One of his best friends from boot camp, who Kaidan thought was killed with everyone else in his landing party on Akuze, survived that ordeal only to be captured and subjected to horrific injections of thresher maw acid. However, what really repulsed him were the rumors about Lauren.
His eyes closed in anguish. She died over two years ago, but it still hurt like hell. Trying to move on from the shock of her death and the hole it left in his life was torture. Hearing that she might be alive was … worse. Where had she been all that time? Why no contact? Did he mean nothing to her? No, Kaidan reasoned, you cannot bring someone back from the dead. It's just not possible.
That didn't stop guilt from riddling his thoughts. He left her behind to rescue Joker because he had no choice. Lauren ordered him off, but he didn't fight her on it because Adrian needed him. Adrian. Kaidan's heart swelled in pride at the mention of his son, but ached at what it cost him. Finding out he had a child with Rahna tore apart everything he and Lauren had. Sometimes he hated Rahna for hiding his son for so long, but he never blamed the boy for his own anguish. To be honest, at times, he really couldn't blame Rahna either.
Kaidan had only been a part of Adrian's life for a little while, but he couldn't help but love that determined 17-year-old. Gentle and kind like his mother, Rahna, but stubborn and a highly skilled biotic, like himself. But right now, he wasn't sure if he'd see Adrian, Rahna or anyone ever again.
Returning to the present, Kaidan noticed that the woman lying on the ground remained and no Collectors had come back since he saw the Cerberus shuttle. Listening carefully, he thought he could make out the sounds of distant gunfire. Great, he thought contemptuously. What kind of experiments will I be the lucky subject of? He determined to use the same escape plan for Cerberus. I refuse to be some sitting duck ... if only this damn stasis would drop!
A woman's voice barked orders as gunfire ceased. He could not make out what was being said, but he could tell other voices acknowledged her demands. He blinked quickly as his mind clung to the sound of that voice. That couldn't have been Lauren, but damn, it sure sounded like her. A conversation began between the strangers, but it faded out of Kaidan's earshot. He desperately wanted to hear the voice again, to get some sort of confirmation of who was the source of it, but the silence was short-lived and shots rang out again, coming from the direction of the defense tower. The firefight intensified for a while and suddenly the defense tower started firing at the Collectors' ship. It only took a few shots before the vessel began to rise into the atmosphere. As it disappeared above the clouds, the stasis dropped. Kaidan fell to the ground, weary but relieved.
He rose, stretching his stiff, aching limbs. "Get to the safehouse," he coughed, helping the woman up. She nodded and quickly ran away. Kaidan sprinted off the opposite direction toward the tower, his gun firmly in his grip. He may need to thank Cerberus for getting rid of the Collectors, but he refused to let them just leave. They simply had too much to answer for.
As he rounded a stack of crates, he heard Delan, a crusty mechanic, yelling. Kaidan stopped in his tracks just before reaching the open area around the tower when he heard the man say, "Shepard?" His breath caught in his throat. His heart now raced for all-too different reason. After all this time? What was she doing with Cerberus? He spat in his free hand, wiping the now dried blood from his face. He holstered his gun and prepared to face a ghost.