Authors note: Thank you to everyone who's reviewed, favourited or followed the story. I hope you enjoy where it's going to head . On a different note I have no clue why half the story is in Italics as it isn't like that on the file. I suppose I didn't enact the proper appeasement rituals for word. So the italics in this chapter aren't any warpy nonsense, they're just the machine spirit acting up
Chapter two
Orks aren't the only ones that enjoy looting
"But commander I must protest!" Miranda Lawson said as calmly as she could to Shepard. "We should be recruiting individuals to help us fight the collectors. Not messing around on some old wreck." Shepard looked up and forced herself to smile at Miranda. If Miranda wanted to play the "difficult game" with Shepard she'd find that the Commander had won that game three years in a row. Until she died of course .That had prevented her re-entering in that competition for a while. "We aren't messing about on it" she said with fake cheer "We're looting it. That's very different to messing around". Miranda sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "May I remind you commander that two of our possible recruits are on Omega? A place so dangerous that the unprepared are unlikely to survive on it for more than a few days?" Shepherds smile never wavered. "Come on Miranda. If that Archangel guy has the skills to fight the mercenaries of Omega for years he can survive for another day if that. And who would attack a doctor? It's just asking to be left to bleed out." Miranda opened her mouth few a few seconds before closing it. "Fine" She muttered. Shepard smile grew a little wider and became a little more genuine. "Nobody beats me at being difficult" she thought. Out loud she said "Glad that's settled. Now suit up and get ready to head off". "I am suited up" Miranda replied putting on a clear face mask. Shepard looked her over once or twice. "Um… no you're not. You're just wearing that really slim jumpsuit you always wear." Now it was Miranda's turn to smile. "This is me suited up commander. This jumpsuit may not look space worthy but it has a heavily modified kinetic barrier that protects me from extreme pressure or extreme temperature. In other words this is as good at protecting me from space as your armour is." Shepard glanced at Jacob who was putting his own armour on. "She's telling the truth commander" He said, sealing his helmet, "The Illusive Man poured a great deal of research into that tech. A worrying amount if you ask me." Shepard sighed, fixing her own helmet on. Okay so maybe someone could tie with Commander Shepard in the game of being difficult. Still didn't mean she was going to lose. "Alright. But don't blame me if you turn into a Miranda-cicle"
Stepping out of the armoury the three of them headed for the elevator. As the elevator started Shepard kept an eye on the floor counter above the door, watching as they moved from mid deck to hanger with excruciating slowness. "So he can put a worrying amount of funding into space worthy cat suits but can't be bothered getting an elevator that moves any faster than snail speed?" Shepard thought to herself. "I thought he was supposed to be an extremist, not a pervert." The second they reached the hanger Shepard speed out of the elevator and headed straight for the Kodiak shuttle giving a quick nod to Cortez as she clambered in. "We'll start searching from the bottom." She said fixing on a safety harness as Miranda and Jacob clambered in. "Then start going up after we search that floor". "We're going to loot this whole thing ourselves?" Jacob asked incredulously. Shepard snorted with genuine laughter. "Course not Jacob. We're just going to make sure the place is secure before we let any non-combatants on it to begin the looting process. Don't want any of the crew dying to mechs or traps do we?" Jacob shook his head "No ma'am".
The shuttle lifted off the deck and flew out the hangar doors. The dead hulk of the vessel lay before them, slowly rotating in front of the mass relay. The small shuttle headed straight for the lowest floor and slipped into the largest hole on the bottom floor. As it above the deck the doors on the side opened, allowing the team to step out onto the deck, mag-boots activating and fixing them to the deck with loud clangs. Miranda turned to the shuttle and spoke to Cortez through he inbuilt communicator. "Head back to the Normandy. We'll call you when we need a pick up." "Actually Miranda" Shepard said slowly "you may want to hold off on sending our ride away." "Commander?" Miranda said confused, turning her head to look at Shepard who was marching towards the mangled remains of what might once have been a fighter but was now just a large hunk of metal that looked like it had lost a fight with a trash compactor. It also had a large, humanoid figure in blue and gold armour stuck in the side.
Shepard walked over to him, put on hand of the metal and grabbed the figures shoulder with the other, braced her leg against the battered mass of metal and heaved. It took a few tries but she eventually managed to free the figure from his position, letting him float freely for a short distance. "Must be one of the crew." Shepard said staring at the armour and trying to remain as calm as possible. This was one of the beings from her dream. Ah arm with what had been his name again…? Gandling that was it. How could he be here? He was something from a dream. Her brief reverie was broken by a call of "Commander" through her earpiece. She turned to see Jacob strolling towards her holding the leg of another armoured figure. One with steel coloured armour and a series of long metal… tentacles protruding from its back. The spitting image of the other figure in her dream that had been in the hangar. "Found him floating behind some wreckage" Jacob said hauling the figure towards her. "What should we do with them commander?" She shook her head to clear the shock from it. Yes. Think. That'll keep your mind from freaking out. "Get them on the shuttle" She said before turning to the Kodiak. "Cortez take these guys back to the Normandy and get them to the medical bay." She said. "Tell Chakwas to give them an examination to see exactly what they are. Also make sure there's a security detail on them just in case they're a little… feisty." "Yes ma'am." Cortez answered as Shepard tried to fix the safety harness onto "Gandlings" armour. After both of their new guests had been strapped in Cortez took off and headed back to the Normandy. Shepard looked towards the bowls of the ship, lifted her shotgun and set off.
The inside of the vessel was pitch black, no emergency lights at all (probably due to the fact that the ship didn't even have a power core anymore). The corridors were simple and unadorned yet wide enough for the three of them to walk abreast but only just. But they often couldn't because of the corpses that were littered around said corridors. All of them were big, all of them were imposing, all of them had ridiculously huge shoulder-pads and all of them looked like the warriors from her dream. Okay one or two things being similar she could stomach but this?! What was next she'd see a big unicorn from a dream she'd had when she was ten? And through it all she couldn't shake off the feeling that they were being watched. Her train of thought was interrupted by something knocking gently against her helmet .She blinked and grabbed at the object to examine it. It was small, vaguely spherical but sort of looked like what someone who'd heard of a sphere but not fully understood the concept would make when asked to make a wheel, and it was a dark sanguine in colour. It looked like a tiny ruby, but Shepard knew better than to think it was one. "What is that?" Miranda asked moving closer to look at it. "Blood gem." Shepard replied mildly. Miranda glanced at her questioningly. "They're what happens when someone bleeds in space. The blood freezes after it leaves the body and forms these long fronds of frozen blood. Sometimes chunks break off as the corpse floats about and that's what this is. The alliance marines call em blood gems cause... well you can guess why." She stared at the small mass of frozen blood in her hand and then slowly began to look around. The tiny gems were floating everywhere, but they were floating from a small tear in the wall of the side of the hallway, just a few meters in front of them. Shepard slowly walked towards it, shotgun in hand, finger on trigger and body tensed. As she approached the rent a small blood gem came flying out of it at a surprising speed, bounced off the opposite wall and headed off-a little slower but still rather quickly- down the hall, bouncing from wall to wall like an excited five year-old. She watched it bounced down the hallway, narrowly avoiding knocking both of her squad mates out, before slowly looking into the rent. What she saw caused her to let out a small gasp.
Within the rent was a corpse. But that wasn't what disturbed her. The red skinned, horned, demonic looking creature gleefully hacking away at the armoured corpse like a lumberjack with a recently felled log, using a long black sword was what disturbed her. The… thing looked up at her, surprise written across its face. Then an evil grin spread across its features and it launched itself off the wall it had been holding onto, mouth open in what probably should've been a terrifying scream. Shepard reacted instantly pulling the trigger of her shotgun and blasting the things face off. It was only as the things corpse hit the wall behind it with a wet thud that Shepard felt a deep feeling of unease wash over her. It was the same feeling she always got when something made an awful high pitched noise that summoned more of its kin. But it couldn't have done that. After all in space nothing could hear a scream. She was proved wrong as she felt a series of vibrations coming up through her boots and something rounded the corner. A lot of somethings.
Some of the things that came barrelling down the hallway looked similar to the creature that now needed a face transplant. Others looked nothing like it. Some were green, some were blue. Some had crab-like claws, some had rips in their bellies that allowed their guts to hang freely. Some look almost human. The majority did not. Shepard and her team reacted on instinct, Shepard sending a couple of shotgun blasts towards the swarm as Miranda dropped a singularity in their centre causing several to lose their grips on the walls making them perfect targets for shotgun shots. As the corpse continued to float around Jacob sent a warp into the singularity causing it to detonate violently send chunks of monster in all directions –it even sent a demonic head into the ceiling where it stuck, horns poking through the ceiling. It was just as Shepard sent a shockwave down the corridor to knock back the foes at the front of the mass that she felt more vibrations through the floor. Shepard turned around and saw more of the monsters coming from the hall way behind her. "The bastards" she thought "they lured us in here to trap us. One group attacked us from the front and the other snuck around behind us and waited for these guys to attack us" They could hold their own against one front of these things. Two would be far more difficult- perhaps even impossible. But Commander Jane Shepard was not about to go down without taking a few of these bastards with her. She turned to face the new mass of beasts heading her way and pumped her shotgun. It was just as she prepared to begin blasting indiscriminately at the horde that a massive figure appeared from nowhere in the middle of them.
It was a few seconds before Shepard recovered from the shock of a large, clawed, figure in pink and black armour with a pair of old fashioned jet turbines attached to its back and a slightly bird like helmet, appearing out of nowhere, and by that point chunks of the ceiling had been ripped out, allowing three more armoured figures to drop into the fray. The large clawed warrior in front of her turned to her and she heard a crackle emerge from her communicator. "Don't just stand there!" a deep sonorous voice said through her communicator "FIGHT!" Shepard snapped herself out of shock and proceeded to attempt to meet her shotguns daily quota of blown off faces. Between shots she watched the figure leap through the mass of beasts, claws severing limbs and tearing through flesh. It was almost too easy for him. The figure was secured to a surface with mage boots and so had his hands free to murderise monsters while his foes had to cling to the surfaces with their claws and so were having a harder time attacking their new melee foes. As such, things were not looking good for the bad guys. They seemed to have realised this and were back pedalling furiously trying to get as far away from the claws of their foe as possible. Of course he didn't seem too keen on that and was still trying to kill as many as he could. As the last of the beasts fled back down the hall Shepard finally got a good look at the other individuals who'd saved her life. In addition to the big pink one with the claws there was one wearing battered armour that was a strange sickly green and carrying a gun that was probably bigger than Shepard, and one in blood red armour with tall, pointed almost wing-like plates of metal attached to each side of his helmet and carrying a pair of weapons that looked like the love-child of a chainsaw and a battle axe. And finally there was... She stopped and stared. The colour of the armour. The knight-like helmet with tall horns protruding from the sides. The fact that his armour was larger and bulkier than the others. As she heard his voice crackle through her communicator she knew who the warrior before her was. "Who are you? And what are you doing on my ship?" said Ezraiel.