Take Three: Chapter One
When all else is lost, the future still remains
- Christian Nestell Bovee
Shepard struggled forward, her amour mostly burnt away and her skin a mess of glowing scars. Already she could feel the medi-gel conduits in her bones and threaded throughout her skin began to work, restoring her ability to walk bit by bit. By some miracle, her trusty Carnifex had survived Harbinger's attack, and she held it out in front of her as the Catalyst spoke.
She had a choice that was no choice at all. She would not be party to another genocide - there would not be another Bahak. There had already been enough unwilling sacrifices in this war. She thought about controlling the Reapers, but she couldn't see how that would change the underlying cause of the problem. She wasn't arrogant enough to think that she could mend the gulf between organics and synthetics with a fleet of powerful ships. The Reapers had tried that, and all it had gotten anybody was devastation and ruin.
No, all she could do was try and fix the root cause. She knew she had no right to choose for every living creature to become like her, to become a fusion of man and machine - but she wouldn't become what she'd fought against for so long. She wouldn't let the sacrifices of all the peoples who had come before them go to waste.
There would not be another Bahak.
She walked forward, and with one last backward glance lept into the beam of green light.
Commander Shepard woke face down in a damp forest. Rain poured down, through the pine-like canopy, and she struggled to her feet. All she could remember was leaping into the green light; and then nothing. It was nighttime, but the light of two full moons shone down from above. Grimacing, she realised that she had been transported somewhere other than Earth. Somewhere outside the Solar System. How she'd arrived here was a mystery to her, but she forced herself not to think about that, or the people she'd left behind. 'I just hope that damn Catalyst had been telling the truth, because it would be a fucking shame if it were all for nothing.' She thought to herself, as she ran through her mental checklist.
Armour was a bust, but she could generate her own barrier and her cybernetics still seemed to work; so not as bad as it could have been. She only had the one gun - a Carnifex hand cannon. The big pistol was capable of dropping most living creatures with a single well aimed shot, even if she only had a single thermal clip for it. She moved her right hand over her left wrist, and managed to activate her omnitool. It glowed in the darkness, and it's haptic interface flickered for a moment of two, before it finished repairing itself. Shepard grinned - maybe she wasn't in such a bad situation after all.
Shepard had quite the collection of guns, and could maintain them as well as any soldier to graduate from the N7 training program but when it came to modding weapons in the field she wasn't the greatest. Still, she'd made damn sure that she knew how to do one particular mod in her sleep with just an omnitool - jury-rigging an old style heatsink system. Thermal clips were an advantage in a battle, but in a survival situation or when you were deep behind enemy lines without hope of resupply then even a jury-rigged heatsink system was better.
Shepard tried not stare as her scars glowed, even as her wounds closed bit by bit. She'd still rather see a doctor, but Cerberus had rebuilt her to be durable - and she'd taken it even further.
She heard shouting nearby, and with a quick check that her heatsink was working she shut off her omnitool. By this point, she was healed enough to fight if she had too, and she stealthily made her way through the trees. She came to the edge of the treeline, which ended in a sharp drop into a rocky plateau. Men and women in odd armour, carrying some kind of staves, marched through the clearing. Their helmets were almost comically oversized, but their glowing red eyes and lowered weapons gave them an intimidating appearance. She prepared to put her biotic barrier up, as both her primary and secondary kinetic barriers weren't working, but the soldiers were marching away from her, towards some kind of hill upon which sat a stone ring and scattered ruins.
They continued to march towards it, in a close formation that resembled something that would fit in more with the Napoleonic Wars than modern combat. Then, people began to run out of the opposite treeline. They were civilians, dressed in rags and some carrying their children with them. Ahead of them were perhaps ten people - she couldn't distinguish gender at that distance at night - dressed in camouflage and carrying guns.
"JAFFA, KREE! Let none of the slaves live; they are useless to our God now!" Shouted one of the soldiers - Jaffa, she supposed. She stiffened at his words - were the civilians escaped slaves? She couldn't stand by and let them massacre them, but there were almost fifty of them and she had only a pistol and no armour.
Fuck it, Shepard thought. She'd already died once today, and it was beginning to become clear to her that the universe wanted her to stick around a little while longer. She brought up her pistol, aimed carefully for the man who had barked the orders and fired, just as the armed men in front of the escaped slaves started to shoot at the Jaffa.
Her pistol flashed blue as the incendiary round punched straight through the Jaffa's helmet and exploded within it, killing the Jaffa instantly. Shepard was shocked that he had no shields, and then she noticed that the soldiers protecting the escaped slaves were using chemical weapons. That wasn't the most shocking thing about the whole situation - no, that was the fact that those staffs were firing honest to god plasma bolts. She'd seen plasma weaponry before - hell, she'd made great use out of a geth designed plasma shotgun before - but never anything like this. She'd also never seen anything that advanced without proper ergonomics or auto targeting software before either, but she was grateful for that as some of the Jaffa in the back rank turned and began to fire on her.
Rapid blasts of plasma slammed into the position she'd been in just moments earlier, kicking up explosions of gravel that pinged harmlessly off her barrier. She leant out of her cover and fired once more, dropping another Jaffa then again and again before they located her and she had to dive out the way as her cover was blown to splinters by the powerful weapons.
Glowing blue, she summoned her biotic power and sent lance of force flying at the Jaffa, sending a dozen of them sprawling on to the ground. She took cover for a moment to catch her breath, then stood up and stepped forward. She moved, her biotics turning her into a human mass relay as she slammed into an unsuspecting Jaffa, sending him flying. Her barrier exploded outwards, totally disrupting the tight firing line the Jaffa had been in as she reformed it and charged once more. A staff came swinging at her head, and she ducked below it and elbowed the offending Jaffa in the gut, stunning him as her biotics-enhanced punch slammed straight through his armour.
A staff blast slammed into her barriers, kicking like a sniper round, and then she decided that she'd disrupted their formation enough. She vanished in a beam of blue light once more, charing back towards the treeline. The Jaffa held firm, even as what must seem to them magic tore apart their ranks. The bullets of the soldiers cut more down, too, but the courage of the Jaffa never wavered. The slaves and the soldiers had taken cover, but the Jaffas' armour was resistant to bullets and as their disrupted firing line advanced they managed to inflict a few casualties of their own
Soon enough, however, the last one died. The slaves and the soldiers moved up, and then as they milled around the ring the soldiers called out to her. His accent was American, and at this distance she could see his familiar, if anachronistic uniform.
"Hey, you! We appreciate the help, but more of these assholes are on their way; with air support. Come with us!" He shouted in her general direction, and as she had no idea of where she was or how she got there she figured that she may as well go along with them. At least they hadn't been about to gun down escaped slaves, and they looked human.
So Shepard vaulted down onto the plateau, attaching her pistol to one of her magnetic holsters that still worked.
"Holy fuck!" One soldier exclaimed as they caught sight of her, glowing scars, scorched armour and all.
"It's a fucking terminator man, why the hell'd you invite it to come with us!" Another said, and Shepard vaguely remembered that he was talking about some kind of classic vid. It had killer robots in it, but Legion had liked it.
"Hey, asshole, I don't appreciate being called an 'it'! And I'm not a fucking robot, got it?" Shepard replied, the full badness of her day hitting her all at once. She'd had approximately the worst day of human history, and this asshole seemed to be determined to add to it.
"Shut up, you dumbass. Sorry about that ma'am, Sergeant Jacobs here was just running his mouth. Though, um, I hope you don't mind me asking but why are your eyes glowing red?" Said one of the soldiers, as others started touching some kind of dias near the ring. They were all wearing hopelessly outdated body armour and carrying chemical firearms, but they were clearly very well trained.
"A spaceship shot me. Now can we hurry up and ge- GET DOWN" Shepard shouted, as she saw the fighter come screaming towards them, plasma spewing forth from it's cannons. Explosions blossomed into life all around them, killing a few of the slaves and blowing some of the ruins to bits. "As I was saying, now would be a good time to leave! How do you intend to get us out of here?" She said, just as the ring burst to life with a waterlike ripple, and the former slaves began to pour through it.
"Through that!" He said, before continuing "Now let's move it people, that glider is gonna come round for another pass any second now!". Shepard nodded, deciding to just go with it - hell, it's not like she had many other options. A huge number of Jaffa began to march over the plateau, easily multiple hundreds of them, firing as they marched. Shepard and the soldiers fired back as the staff blasts from the front row went wild; and as Shepard raised a curved plain of biotic force in front of them - a barrier for a whole squad.
"I can't keep this up for long, so we need to fucking hurry it up!" Shepard shouted, and as the last of the slaves went through the ring the soldiers began to retreat, Shepard with them. Staff blasts slammed into her massive barrier, and Shepard felt it begin to lose integrity. As it collapsed, she and the last soldier leapt through the ring.
She couldn't describe what it felt like to travel through it, but the feeling of her face smacking into the metal ramp as she flew out of it was all too familiar. Then she looked up, and saw a pair of very large machine guns and a truly absurd amount of small arms pointed at her.
"So is this how you treat all your guests, or am I special?"
Samantha Carter stared at the unconscious woman in the SGC medical bay. Her scars and cuts - which glowed - were already beginning to close. From what Janet had said, the woman was stuffed full of cybernetics. She'd apparently broken multiple needles trying to hook her up to an IV and draw blood, until Shepard - that was her name - had gone and made one by breaking down several of Janet's with her arm mounted holographic computer and manufacturing device.
She'd seen impressive devices which fit into a person's hand before, of course - a Goa'uld Hand Device could project an immensely strong energy shield; as well as being able to throw people through the air with only a burst of energy. But Commander Shepard, of the Systems Alliance Navy, wasn't a Goa'uld. She was a human, and apparently a military officer at that. She must come from an incredibly advanced civilisation, but she didn't recognise the Stargate. It was all very odd, and Carter desperately wanted to get the Commander home. Earth needed allies, and Shepard's people seemed both incredibly advanced and not unwilling to fight. The Tollan had once had the technology to drive the Goa'uld back, but they were gone.
She admired them, yes, because they had been for all their faults an inherently altruistic people who had created a society that made her own look brutal and primitive. Yet the Tau'ri were still here, and the Tolan were just so much dust and ash.
She shook her head and left the medical bay, as well as her dark thoughts, behind. She was headed to brief the general on what she'd been able to decipher about Shepard's technology. She hadn't done any destructive analysis, but even the little she'd been able to decipher about it was exciting. It looked like an entirely new tech base - no naquadah, no trinium and little in common with the Ancient-derived technology that was relatively common in the galaxy. She arrived at the briefing room, where a large number of scientists, SG team leaders and doctors sat in the hastily placed rows of chairs. The normal table and the much nicer chairs that went with it sat off to one side of the room.
"Major, if you would begin the briefing?" Hammond asked, as her slides appeared on the room's projector.
"Yes, General. At 1700 Mountain Time, SG-5 and SG-12 came under attack from a large force of Jaffa. They were aided by the woman pictured, who displayed both technology beyond our own and telekinetic abilities. Her weapon was able to penetrate Jaffa armour with a single shot, and was incredibly accurate for a pistol of it's size and power. Preliminary examination suggests that it's some kind of railgun or coilgun, a magnetically propelled projectile weapon simmilar to the F-302's guns." Carter said, flicking through slides.
"Major, you said this weapon was simmilar to the F-302's cannons. Is it really that much more advanced than our own tech?" Asked the leader of SG-3.
"To put it bluntly, yes. We, for lack of a better word, cheated when designing the F-302's weapons. Naquadah and trinium are very suited towards the construction of weapons such as this, and Commander Shepard's included none of either element. Even with our access to those elements, we couldn't match this weapon." As Carter finished, an airman quietly entered the room and said something to Hammond.
"She's awake - we'll postpone the briefing until later. SG1, come with me." Hammond ordered, and the crowd began to disperse.
Shepard woke to dull grey concrete and the steady beeping of a heart monitor. A needle and a tube connected her arm to some sort of bag filled with clear liquid. She reached over to tear it out, but thought better of it when the pain kicked in. Now that her adrenaline rush had worn off, as well as the fact that she was out of medi-gel, the wounds she'd suffered at Harbinger's hands had gotten a hell of a lot more painful. A woman in archaic clothing stood over her with - was that a real clipboard? With paper!?
Who the hell were these people, Shepard thought. It was like she'd gone back in time, or stepped onto the set of a historical vid.
"Easy there. You've been through enough trauma to kill a normal woman twice over, so just lie down and rest for a while longer; okay?" The woman said, her smile pleasant.
"My... my implants need more materi-" Shepard said, her voice hoarse and interrupted by coughing. After it had subsided, she continued on, "Materials. If you can get me some of this, I'll heal faster." Shepard finished, opening a list on her onmitool. You could make medigel yourself with some pretty basic ingredients, but it needed to 'cook' for days and wasn't as good as the stuff you'd get from a military medpack. Still, Shepard had already been blown out of one ship, and she had been determined not to die from being stranded on some deserted planet, waiting for rescue.
"Well, I'll have to check those for security but I should be able to get you most of this today. Though the list is a bit broad. Will this stuff really help you get better?" The woman asked.
"It's -" Shepard coughed again "- the survivalist's version. Meant to be bashed together from whatever organic material could be found." Shepard explained, and just as she finished five people walked into the medical bay.
"Is she well enough to speak, Doctor?" Asked the oldest one, who had an accent she associated with historical cowboy vids.
"Yes, though I'm not quite sure how. She wants some stuff to make some more of her people's medicine - most of it is just vague categories of plant and insect life. I can't see how it could be dangerous, but..." The woman said, trailing off as she finished speaking.
"Get Dr. Mann to take a look at it. Commander, how are you feeling? I'm General Hammond, the commander of this base." Hammond said, while the four people following him looked curiously at her.
"Like I got hit by a half a dozen really angry Krogan. But I'll live, hell I've been through worse and survived." Shepard replied, grinning. The guy seemed nice, even if he and his people were stuck a century or two in the past. "That being said, I was wondering where I am? No offence General, but I feel like I've stepped a couple of hundred years into the past." She continued.
"You're in a place called the SGC, a military base in a country known as the United States of America on a planet called Earth. We're also known as-" Hammond said, but stopped at Shepard's look of shock.
"Respectfully, General, I'd like you to stop the jokes. The United States hasn't existed for almost a hundred years! And this certainly isn't any military base on Earth!" Shepard shouted, disbelief gnawing at her. If it looked like she'd taken a trip back to the early twenty first century, could she really have...
"Commander, I assure you that I am being very serious right now. The year is 2001, and the United States very much still exists. What year do you think it is?"
"2186." Shepard said, in a very quiet voice. Could it be possible - could she really have travelled back in time? Back before humanity had even found the Prothean ruins on Mars. Before the Reapers had nearly destroyed galactic civilisation. Back before everyone she'd ever loved was even alive.
She didn't want it to be true, and she almost hated herself for that.