Well, I thought I couldn't publish a ME story without any ME elements, so here it is: Chapter 2! From now on set in the ME-verse.
Also, hot damn! Didn't think I'd already get any follows this soon, much less any comments at all. You guys rock!
Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect, nor any of its characters or content. I do however own some original characters. And no, I do not make any money from this.
Monday February 28th, 2174, 15:57
Cerberus Research Base, Colony of Terra Nova
Doctor Edward Hansen was ecstatic. After decades of theoretical research and spending the last 10 months on the practical implementation his life work was finally complete. It had cost him everything to get to this point. His family, his friends, even his job at Terra Novas most prestigious university, it was all gone. A crazed maniac, they called him. A feverish dream, they called his theories. Everybody thought his work was pure fiction. Well, he thought with a small, evil smile, not everybody.
When he lost his job and came home to his tiny apartment, the first thing he noticed was the radio running quietly. 'Weird', he thought to himself, 'I always turn that off.' He took two steps towards the radio, when a voice startled him from behind. "Good evening, Dr. Hansen," he heard a voice behind him. He jerked around to see a stunning raven-haired woman who must have been in her early twenties. Despite her looking like a supermodel, she had a dangerous feel to her, as if she knew how to kill you in an instant. With a slight australian accent, she continued in an even voice, "my name is Miranda Lawson, and I would like to talk with you about a job opportunity in our organization."
That was almost a year ago, and it was the best thing that had ever happened to him. They listened to his theories, and when he showed them his calculations they decided to fund a project to turn his theories into reality. He was the project lead, while that Lawson woman provided the link between him and his illusive boss. He had no idea who he was of how he was able to fund his things, but if he was honest with himself he didn't really care. All he cared about was proving the galaxy that he was right, and that he was no maniac.
Hansen looked up from a datapad that he was holding and looked at his device that they have managed to build. He had personally triple-checked everything to make sure that there was not a single flaw. And now, after all this time, he knew that his invention would work. His Space-Time manipulator would show the entire galaxy that he was not a maniac, that he had been right all along.
Little did anyone know, the machine would would end up doing something completely different.
Monday February 28th, 2174, 23:57
Near the Cerberus Research Base
"Alright men, listen up. You have all been briefed on what we know, and you are all aware of the fact that we've got no clue on what they're up to in that base. However, we know that it's a scientific base, so there should be limited resistance."
Service Chief Federico Murphy was silently moving through the woods, his squad of Alliance Special Forces following closely behind him. Through their shared comm channel, he keeps speaking.
"Nevertheless, this is the first time that we have managed to pinpoint a Cerberus base, so make sure that you damage and kill as little as you can so that we get as much intel on this terrorist group as possible. That's all guys, oorah!"
"OORAH!", comes the reply of his men through his helmets speakers. He didn't have to say anything else, they all knew what to do. They were Special Forces, the best of the best, and the heavily armed group of 6 men moved through the dark forest, as silent and deadly as ghosts.
Tuesday February 29th, 2174, 00:37
Cerberus Base Entrance
A pair of guards stood at the entrance, being thoroughly bored. The base was located deep in an uninhabited forest, and the closest settlement was 150 km to the north-west. Not once has anyone even come close to stumbling over the base, and a sensor net secured everything in a 500 meter radius. Because of this guard duty was seen as a punishment for lazy personnel, rather than an important job to keep intruders out. And the night shift was reserved for the worst punishment.
Unsurprisingly, the guards weren't paying any attention what so ever to their surroundings and were simply fighting the urge to lay down and take a nap. After a loud yawn from the first guard, he looks at the other and asks, "Hey Joe, I'll fall asleep here standing if I don't do something. Wanna play a round of 'I spy'?"
The other guard turns to face the former and in an annoyed tone replies, "Seriously, Gary? 'I spy'? In case you haven't noticed, it's the middle of the damn night and I'm not 10 years old. Why the fuck do you think I'd want to do that?"
"Aw, come on man," the first one begs, "there's nothing else to do and our shift goes 'till 4 o'clock in the morning. I'll die from boredom and sleep deprivation if I keep standing around here. Please?"
"Ugh, fine", comes the reply from the guard named Joe, "I spy something white. Happy?"
"No I'm not, because obviously you're not putting in any effort because that white thing is your armor", Gary pouts.
Joe rolls his eyes and responds, "Yeah well you got me to play this stupid game, be happy with that."
"Fine," Gary grumbles, "guess now it's my turn. I spy somethi-"
*POP*
Out of nowhere, Gary exploded, showering the other Cerberus guard in a mess of blood and brain matter.
"What the-" he cried out, only to be silenced by another mass-accelerated grain of sand hitting his head, giving him no time to raise an alert for the unsuspecting scientists inside the base.
Six armed figures suddenly appear, moving towards the entrance with their weapons drawn.
"I spy two dead terrorists", one of the figures mutters before unlocking the door, forcing themselves into unknown territory.
Service Chief Federico Murphy was silently thanking whatever entity was watching over him for giving them a perfect, unnoticed entry into the facility. However, they now didn't have the cover of darkness protecting them, which meant that they had to take the base the old-fashioned way. The room they entered was a small changing room with a few sets of armor hanging on armor stands.
"Chief, left of the armor stands", the voice of Private First Class Patrick Carrol, the squads close combat specialist, sounded over the radio. Murphy looked over to that point and saw a grated locker filled with what looked to be weapons in their collapsed state. The Service Chief walked over to the locker and loaded up a hacking program on his omni-tool. Waiving said tool in front of the locker managed to hack the lock almost in an instant, and Murphy opened the locker. He takes out a gun, and it immediately unfolds in his hands. He grimaces when he immediately recognizes the model.
"Watch out guys, they've got M-7 Lancers", he radios through the squads channel, putting the rifle back into the locker.
Cheap, tough and reliable, the M-7 Lancer is the standard issue weapon to every Alliance marine. While there are millions of different variants of this iconic human weapon in the galaxy, most notably the civilian AR-7, the Alliance has strongly regulated the military version. The fact that a terrorist organization had access to these weapons was a glaring indicator that they had deep connections, something that didn't exactly fill the soldiers with much optimism.
The six men make their way to the door that would lead them deeper into the base. There, Murphy starts relaying orders
"Carrol, you go in first and take the left, Daniels, you take the right next, the rest of us move through and take the middle, we'll try to stay silent as long as possible, so no flash-bangs or loud noises. All copy?", he says professionally. A series of confirmations follow.
"Good, now stack up, I'm hacking the door."
The squad forms up, on each side three men. Murphy lets the hack begin and soon has control of the doors locks.
"Standby for breach in 3, 2, 1, BREACH!"
The doors slide open, revealing a startled guard standing on his own in the middle of an otherwise empty hallway.
"Wha-" was all he could say before a pair of black armored gloves wrap themselves around his neck and twisting sideways rapidly, killing him instantly.
"Tango down, we are still moving silent", was the only thing said as the six armed men step over the body, their black armor not reflecting the lifeless face.
The squad reaches the end of the hallway, and from there three doors branched off. A locked room labeled 'Project Lead' was on their right-hand side, the door on their left was labeled 'Main Facility', and the door straight ahead was simply labeled as 'Maintenance', with a big, red warning sign underneath that read 'DO NOT ENTER WHEN ACTIVE'.
Quickly coming up with a plan, the service chief let his men hear his orders.
"I trust that warning sign, and we desperately need intel on these guys so we'll secure our right before advancing", he ordered.
Making short work of the lock, the soldiers quickly move into the room with their weapons drawn, expecting company. Surprisingly, no one is there.
'Where the hell is everyone?', Murphy thinks to himself, 'so far we've only encountered three people, and those were all guards'.
"Carrol, cover the door", he orders, "the rest of you try and find out what the hell they've been doing here".
Wordlessly the men start searching the room, with Pfc. Carrol taking cover behind a desk and pointing his barrel towards the door. One of them touches something, and a holo-record of an older man with a lab coat starts talking.
"Vid-log Day 26, Doctor Edward Hansen. Today marks an important day in this project. We have finally received enough of the rare metals to start construction of the Space-Time Manipulator. I am finally able to make my dream come true. The fact that I have to work for this organization is merely a small loss of prestige, nothing that I care about anyway. This is truly one of the most important days of my life."
"What the bloody hell was that about?", Private Elliot Ross asked with a heavy English accent, "Space-Time Manipulator? That cunt sounds like a bloody nutter!"
"Yeah well obviously some people thought that it could be done," the Chief replied, "whatever the hell that is. He's marked three entries as important and we've opened the first one, go ahead and hit the second one"
"Copy that, Chief", Ross replied as he selected the second entry.
"Vid-log Day 178, Doctor Edward Hansen. Construction efforts are going as planned, this 'Illusive Man' is keeping his word. We've been able to finish the first of the generators, and the second one is on schedule to being completed. Imagine what we can do once we finish this device! The laws of space-time would no longer apply to whatever we point the generators at. Time travel and teleportation over infinite distances would be possible! We could even bring people from the past and future into our current time! Oh, the possibilities, the endless, endless possibilities!"
Murphy's face turned white when he heard those words. What would happen if this kind of power would fall into the hands of a terrorist organization? More importantly, what would happen if any power got their hands on this technology?
The same thoughts flew through everyone's minds at that moment. "Blimey", came the muttering from Ross, "I want to shoot that wanker"
Without any other word, he hit the third entry.
"Vid-log Day 302, Doctor Edward Hansen. It's complete! It's finally complete! I can't believe it. My whole life I have been working towards this very moment. And now my theories are reality. All of my colleagues who have ever doubted me, believe me when I say that I'll make sure that you will never be born. You shall all be struck from this reality and never exist! The Illusive Man wanted me to wait until the beginning of the next month to start testing, but I don't care what he says. I will give the order to charge up the generator and according to my calculations it will be ready sometime tonight"
"Chief, the timestamp on the recording indicates that this was taken about 9 hours ago. This thing could go live at any moment!", Cpl. Daniels exclaims.
"Lock and Load squad, we are done staying silent", Murphy says, a steely resolve in his voice, "let's kill this lunatic."
"OORAH!" they go before charging out of the door back into the hallway they were in earlier. They take up positions at the 'Main Facility' Door and the Chief's hack was already activated. The same instant the lock turned green, they all rushed in the room, weapons drawn.
The sight before them would haunt them for the next few months.
Ten guards stood before them, their backs facing the team. In front of them were dozens of bodies in what looked to be worker uniforms. One of the workers was still alive, begging for his life.
"-on't tell anyone about this place," he shouted, "I just took this job to feed my family"
"You're a potential leak, and we've got orders to stop any leaks", one of the guards goes before executing the man.
The Alliance squad opened fire and took the Cerberus troopers by surprise. They didn't even get the chance to return fire before they were cut down.
"This makes me sick", Murphy states in a somber tone. He gets a few nods of agreement from his men before pushing further into the facility.
"Doctor Hansen", a guard says, "we have intruders in the base"
Edward Hansen stops typing on an interface for a moment before replying, "Kill them. Nothing can be allowed to stop me now"
The guard nods in confirmation before marching out the door, redirecting the remaining guards in the base.
Doctor Hansen continues typing. 'Nothing can stop me now', he thinks to himself.
On the top-left corner of the interface a command box read 'Awaiting target coordinates'
The six Alliance soldiers are moving down another corridor, when an artificial voice overhead booms:
"ATTENTION, GENERATORS ARE BEING ACTIVATED, EVACUATE CONTAINMENT ROOM IMMEDIATELY."
"Fuck", shouted Murphy, "we gotta move, NOW"
No second later, the door they were moving to opened and revealed enemy troopers.
"Contact, 12 o'clock!", shouted Ross and the squad immediately scatters to cover. The Cerberus troops fire blindly in their direction, saturating the air with countless bullets.
The Special Forces return fire, forcing the enemy to take cover themselves. One of them however is caught out in the open, and a well-placed spray shatters his shield and cuts right through his armor, killing him before he could take cover behind a desk. Murphy drops his rifle and reaches towards a disc-shaped object on his hips.
"FRAG OUT", he yells before tossing the grenade in the middle of the Cerberus squad. One of the guards sees the object and tries to flee, only to get cut down immediately by Ross. The grenade detonates with a loud bang, and the concussive force along with hundreds of small metal pellets obliterates three more enemies who were stuck inside the blast radius.
The remaining guards are down to three men, but put up a desperate fight. Bullets hit everyone, but are deflected by their shields. Then one Cerberus trooper fires a lucky shot towards Murphy.
"AAH!", he screams out in pain as he feels the tiny round tear through his armor and left arm. The intense burning pain however doesn't last long, as his armor automatically dispenses a dose of medi-gel on the wound.
The hit of the Chief distracted an enemy trooper for a moment as he switched targets to aim at Murphy. One of the soldiers however immediately took advantage of this and shot him in the lung, making him collapse while gasping for air.
Ross takes out a grenade himself and chucks it directly at the last two troopers. Deciding to make a run for it, they jump out of cover and start rushing towards the Alliance soldiers. However, they immediately get shot by six rifles and they slump to the floor, their bodies riddled with bullets.
"Take that ye bloody cunts", Ross says before looking over to Murphy. "Ye alright lad?", he asks with a slightly worried tone, "Tha' looked like it hurt."
"Nothing that'll slow us down", Murphy responds. Ross keeps looking at him for another moment before he goes "Alrightey, but when we get back A'm takin' ya to the pub mate."
The squad rushes through the door and enter a control room, where they see an older man wearing a white lab coat point a pistol in their direction. "Don't come any closer", he shouts, "I will not let you destroy everything I have created!"
"That's the cunt", Murphy hears Ross on the radio, "That's that Doctor Hansen, Chief"
"Doctor Hansen", Murphy talks slowly, "We are Alliance Special Forces and you are working with a terrorist organization. You are under arrest."
"No, no, no, no, NO! You don't understand. This is my life's work. My precious." he looks the Chief straight into his visor "And you will not stop me from activating it."
"STOP!", yells Murphy, but the doctor is already moving for the activation pad. He extends his finger towards it, but just before he pushes it, a bullet punches straight through his chest. The body goes limp and smashes on the controls, pressing random numbers and letters. Murphy goes wide-eyed when he sees in which direction the body is starting to slide and starts sprinting as fast as he can. Before he can reach it however, the doctors limp arm rolls onto the pad, activating the machine.
A window to the left, previously mistaken for part of the wall, suddenly starts shining in a bright blue light, while a loud mechanical sound penetrates their ears. Helplessly the squad watches as the light gets brighter and brighter, realizing that behind that glass was the 'containment room' the automated message before mentioned. 'Anything can come through that teleporter', Murphy thought and prayed that whatever would come into existence, it wouldn't destroy them all. The brightness is now blinding, and a warning suddenly sounds through the base, "Warning, warning, generators destabilizing, failure of fusion reactors in the next 10 minutes unavoidable."
"Chief, we better get out of here!" one of the men yells, but before Murphy can utter a reply the light as well as the sound suddenly vanish, being replaced by an occasional sound of a rupturing pipe.
Nervously, the men creep closer towards the window and cast a glance inside. They all gasp when they see a human wearing very old body armor, camouflage clothing and what appears to be a gunpowder rifle bleeding from what appears to be a gunshot wound in his stomach.
"Private, slap some explosives on this glass, we are rescuing that man and then getting out of here", Murphy ordered. He looked at the man inside. If he truly is what Murphy thought he was, then things would become very complicated.
Codex: Systems Alliance Rank Structure
The general hierarchy of the systems alliance is roughly split into 3 distinct groups. There are Enlisted, Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) and Commissioned Officers, commonly just called officers. While the name would suggest otherwise, it is quite rare for NCOs to become actual commissioned officers. However, it is in fact a requirement to have served as an enlisted for a given time to become an NCO. Members of the Alliance that started off as an Enlisted and managed to rise all the way to the ranks of commissioned officers are unofficially dubbed 'Mustangs', a term that has been coined almost 250 years ago during the humans second 'world war'.
Due to the fact that the Marines have a history stretching more than 300 years back, they have as a matter of pride kept their lower rank names, such as private or corporal.
From the lowest rank to the top, the ranks of the Alliance are:
ENLISTED
-Serviceman Third Class (3Svm.) / Private (Pvt.)
-Serviceman Second Class (2Svm.) / Private First Class (Pfc.)
-Serviceman First Class (1Svm.) / Corporal (Cpl.)
NCO
-Service Chief
-Gunnery Chief
-Operations Chief
Note: NCOs do not have abbreviations.
COMMISSIONED OFFICERS
-2nd Lieutenant (2Lt.)
-1st Lieutenant (1Lt.)
-Staff Lieutenant (SLt.)
-Lieutenant Commander (LtCdr.)
-Staff Commander (SCdr.)
-Captain (Cpt.) / Major (Maj.)
-Rear Admiral (RAdm.) / General (Gen.)
-Admiral (Adm.)
-Fleet Admiral (FlAdm.)
Yes, yes, I had to do some sciency mumbo-jumbo to get myself transported into the ME-verse, I can already see the hate flow. But honestly, I don't like the other way of suddenly dying and waking up somewhere or any other supernatural explanation. "But Budget", you may say, "why did you let yourself almost get killed if you then appear in a Cerberus base?". Well, that's because it's going to play an important part in the future story.
On another totally unrelated note, who got the "Lord of the Rings" reference? (Admittedly it's quite obvious but eh, what can you do).
Also, I noticed that the wikia page didn't have any abbreviations for the Alliance ranks, which is why I had to make my own. I'm not happy with a few of them, most notably the NCOs, but I can't come up with any good-locking alternatives. If you've got an idea, let me know in the comments!
Anyway, see you in the next chapter!