Chapter 2: Awake
Tali'Zorah blinked. A dim blue light was lighting up the corners of her mask.
'My face is cold. I shouldn't be able to feel anything yet my face is cold.'
In fact, that was not the only thing that felt cold – her entire body felt numb. She moved her head to the side slightly, but even that was difficult. Feeling started to come back slowly limb by limb, as if the her entire body was rebooting.
First, she nudged her arms around, and then the warming sensation continued to spread throughout her body.
'Wait a minute…' The quarian began to panic. 'Oh no. The stasis failed! I shouldn't be able to feel anything! Think girl, think!'
'The reapers – they must have damaged my pod before Shepard killed them!'
A dull impact broke her out of thought. Suddenly, friction gave way to gravity and the stasis pod began to slide. The sound of grinding rocks and metal echoed in the small cavity she occupied, causing her to wince in pain.
'There must be some reapers alive still! That means the sterilization protocols failed…that means Shepard must be….'
The pod came to an abrupt stop, smacking into a solid surface. Her combat instincts began to kick in. She turned on her suit's systems and began to formulate a plan.
'I need to get out of here. What was the layout of the compound again? There was a corridor nearby. I'll go for that.' She reached for her shotgun and spoke to Alcatraz.
"Alcatraz, I need you to unlock this pod on my command. Can you do that?"
"Yes, creator Zorah. It should be possible. I detect many lifeforms within close proximity of this pod. I suggest caution."
'Okay. You can do this. Open, shoot, run, take cover. Open, shoot, run, take cover….'
'Three. Two One' "Now!"
Tali jumped out of the pod, letting loose two volleys from her plasma shotgun. In her peripherals, she saw two of the Reapers go down. The corridor was just 10 meters away – closer than she anticipated.
She dove into the corridor, hoping to escape the enemy's field of view. Everything hurt. Arms, legs, back. 'Must be the side effects of stasis. Damn it. I don't remember Liara mentioning this.'
She rested her arm on the wall, catching her breath. Her head was throbbing, as if someone was trying to pry it open with a crowbar. 'Reminds me of how I felt the morning after Shepard's party…'
Tali paused. Footsteps. They were getting louder. Desperately, she looked around the corridor. Debris littered the sides, piling as high as a meter above the ground. At the end, a ladder was poking out of the debris. A ladder that led upwards. A ladder that offered escape.
She ran down the hall, if you could call it that. It was more of an awkwardly drunken stumble. Tali reached the end, and put the shotgun on her back. Over her shoulder, she could see a pair - possibly more - of enemy troops rounding the corridor. 'Climb girl, climb!'
Tears began to trickle down her cheek as her body lit aflame. Every muscle was screaming in agony. She reached the top of the ladder and tried to turn the wheel. It appeared to be stuck, as if unused for some time. She braced herself on the edge of the vertical tunnel, took off her shotgun, and started hammering at the wheel with the butt. It gave way slightly, and she turned it several times. Below her, the indistinguishable speak of Reapers was heard.
'That was close', Tali thought, as the crawled out of the hatch.
Rain droplets splashed across her visor as she steadied herself on the rocky mountain surface. She looked around, only to herself surrounded by a strange type of reaper she'd never seen before. In the distance, down the slope of the mountain, lay the smoking ruins of battle.
Tali looked again. The smoke did not arise from battle. They arose from factories. Around those factories, a small town. She blinked away the tears, fearing they were causing her vision to become impaired.
'No, no, no. You silly bosh'tet. You're dreaming. You must be dreaming. Am I dead?'
The figures around her did not look like reapers. They looked more like lizards. Lizards walking on two legs wearing body armour.
'You must be dead. This is not possible. Where are the reapers? Garrus? Liara? No, this must be the afterlife. Some stasis-induced dream. Or hell….'
One of the lizards wearing combat armour cautiously approached her. Tali dropped to her knees, the rain storm intensifying. 'Where is…Shepard?'
An agonizing scream pierced through the air. A scream filled with sorrow, anger, and pain. A scream let loose by Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, the last living quarian.
"Hey, Sel, do we need the military in on this? Their 'scientists' always muck things up you know…"
As a civilian archaeologist and scientist, Sel Fesov was well aware the ramifications of having the military in such a old ruin. They did not care for preservation. In fact, she was certain they'd rather do away with cataloguing the ruins all together and pick the place clean.
"You know as well as I do that it is not my choice to make. They always bud in these Terrian ruins, ever since they discovered that alien weapons cache on Adanac IV." She replied, glaring at the military 'scientist' a few meters away.
This ruin was one of the best ruins she'd seen. It was also in one of the worst conditions imaginable. The signs of an intense struggle were found all over the interior. Supporting columns were cracked, and in some places missing all together. The front of the ruin had collapsed at some point in its history. The entire south and east sections was underwater, and efforts to drain them had seen little headway. The cavities were littered with open pods – some crushed, some just simply open – their contents having rotted away long ago. A figure entered the dimly-lit ruins.
"I wonder if these people turned on themselves, you know, like maybe some of them went insane?" Commander Ara Alaya casually commented as she strolled in.
"Commander Alaya. I did not realize you were coming here. I would have hid everything valuable from your group's thieving hands" Sel spat. Oddly enough, she'd thought something similar when she first saw the ruins – there was no wreckage to be found outside the cave structure.
"Now, now, Miss. Fesov – there is no need to be rude. Anything that can further the cause of the Empire is more valuable to our species as a military asset rather than a museum piece, don't you think?"
Commander Alaya walked past the two scientists, whom had not retorted in kind. 'Wise of them', Ara thought. 'It is unwise to criticize the Empire's strategies when it comes to our expansion'.
Sel and her junior archaeologist, Sirk, went back to cataloguing the various pieces of destroyed technology in the central cavity. They'd found mechanical beasts, burned by what appeared to be some form of plasma rounds. These machines were odd devices – possibly once having walked on two legs like they did, but lacked a tail for balance. The face on the machines was similar to theirs, minus the two crests that marked their species. It also missed a snout. 'Peculiar' she thought. Another mechanical beast had a terrifying facial complexion, with metal tendrils extending off the back of the head. 'If they made these machines in their image, then they would have been an interesting species to meet…'
She looked up to notice the commander climbing up some of the debris. She was attempting to access one of the higher levels of the complex – a level that was at best unstable. While an 'accident' would please her greatly, the added scrutiny that would follow would just make her life more difficult.
"Commander! That area of the ruin is prone to collapse! Please step away from the edge, for your own safety…"
"Hold on, there is something here. Can't you notice the…."
The ground beneath her feet gave way. The Commander slid down the embankment, having knocked large debris loose on her tumble. An unopened pod narrowly missed crushing her limbs as it made contact with the opposing wall.
The Commander staggered backwards, attempting to avoid any more possible debris. She appeared somewhat dazed – a state very few ever saw her in.
"Are you trying to get us killed! You're going to bring the entire damned structure down on our heads!" Sel practically screamed at the Commander.
"Watch your tone, or I'll…." Ara trailed off, as she noticed the pod. Sel, Sirk, and the escorting guards stared at the pod. There were lights on it. The pod was still active.
"By the maker – this pod is still online! How is that possible? Didn't you say this structure is at least 25,000 years old?" Commander Alaya quizzed – having immediately forgot her anger towards the scientist.
"Yes…..and could possibly be much older. This shouldn't be possible.". Sel approached the pod.
"Sel, stand back. Guards, move in front of us."
"Commander, is that…" Sel began to protest.
"We don't know if whatever is in there is friendly or foe. You're a damn fine scientist and I'd hate to lose you to some accident due to carelessness on my behalf. Command would kill me!"
Sel kept quiet. It was rare to receive a compliment from the Commander. Given their rocky relationship, she was not about to push her luck.
The pod hissed, and the two guards trained their gun cautiously on the pod. Suddenly, a figure appeared and several light-blue spheres flew from the pod's direction and made contact with the guards. The guards screamed, and dropped to the ground, holes melting through their combat vests.
The Commander and the three scientists dove out of the way. The military scientist collapsed to the ground, a hole having melted through his snout. The Commander hissed.
"This is why the military should be in here first! Damn that thing!". The Commander drew her pistol, and took off in pursuit. The two remaining scientists trailed – this was potentially the biggest find either of them would come across. Only if the military didn't kill it first.