Chapter One: Roswell
The day had started out so well.
Relatively speaking, that was. Staff Commander Kaidan Alenko hated his current assignment. He awoke from a deep slumber with a monstrous insect bite throbbing on his left arm, the gooey remains of what could only be described as a terrestrial mosquito on steroids splattered where he had unwittingly swatted the thing. The itching was already driving him up the wall as he slathered ointment on the angry red welt, examining the bite in the mirror.
The shower was a pathetic little thing, hooked up to a small reservoir of rain-water gathered and purified on the roof. It could have been worse—after a life in space, Kaidan was used to the rinse-lather-rinse procedure, something referred to by marines as the "Arcturus Shower." It got you clean, but that was about it.
It was only when he wrapped a towel around his waist and walked back out into the rest of the pre-fab that the day really soured.
"Aw shit son, you got another of those damned headaches?" Gunny Harrison said as Kaidan flinched away from the harsh artificial light.
Kaidan said, "Not exactly my choice Gunny, but yeah."
"Well then," the gunnery chief said. "You just sit here and take your beauty nap and leave the locals to me! Just wait 'til you see ol' Gunny Harrison in action," he swaggered around the room, "You ain't seen nothing until you watch all the ladies—"
"Horizon is doomed," Kaidan deadpanned as he smacked Harrison in the face with a thrown MRE.
Catching the packaging before it fell to the pre-fab's floor, Harrison looked down and licked his lips. "Mmm-mmm, re-constituted strawberry short-bread, re-constituted egg whites, egg-yolk separate (also re-constituted), and a protein bar of mysterious flavor and origin. Man," he griped as he unwrapped the protein bar and took a bite, walking into the washroom. "The grub here just gets better all the time, eh commander?"
"You shut your face, Gunny, I gotta choke down twice as much of this stuff as you," Kaidan said as he slipped into his under-armor jumpsuit. The ballistic nylon stretched and slid on like a second skin. "I'm really quite surprised none of the locals have picked up on that."
"Yeah, well, you need a bit o' crazy to come out here, nothing says you need a bit o' brain."
Kaidan grunted an agreement to Harrison's sentiment. He slid the various bits of hardsuit into place with a series of muted clicks and closed the snaps, ceramic settling over the jumpsuit and interfacing with the back-mounted processor and radioisotope battery. The commander's omnitool beeped obligingly when he flipped it on, throwing up a small holographic readout of the suit functions while it performed a self-diagnostic check. The routine was the same as always, and some of the kids had asked to see it before. Kaidan had obliged them until their parents started complaining. Yet another way he was corrupting the colony's youth into obeying the iron fist of the Alliance, or something like that.
Putting a hand to his temple and massaging his head, Kaidan bit into a protein bar, the dry gritty taste clogging up his throat like always. This one was flavored with a bit of beef bouillon—or maybe it was pork. He couldn't always tell with MRE's. "So," he said around the thick cloying paste in his mouth. "Any ideas who has that missing calibration chip, Gunny?"
A frustrated sigh was his answer. "Any one of these yahoos could have swiped it. Who knows, maybe it was a kid playing soldier-boy."
"I just hope it's not deliberate."
"Face it Commander. It probably is," Harrison said. "You've seen the looks they give us. We're baby-killers."
"Gunny, that's not quite fair, and you know it."
"Fair or not, it's how they treat us." The shower flipped on, and Kaidan nursed his headache while finishing the rest of the protein bar. One down, one more to go. Damn the biotic metabolism.
By the time Harrison was suited up, Kaidan had finished his breakfast and made his way through his second kata, the smooth, choreographed mnemonics that tickled the back of his brain and swathed him in a pleasing blue aura. Horizon's sun peeked into sight, flooding the pre-fab with golden light. Wincing at the sunrise, Kaidan dropped his stance, the biotic glow fading from sight, and grabbed his weapons, slinging them onto the magnets on his back and waist, locking them into place once he was satisfied with the balance.
Of course, a pair of mass-accelerator small arms little endeared him to the colonists, but regs were regs. Planets in the Terminus Systems were considered to be at constant risk for another aggressive push by Batarian scum or other lowlifes, and this planet in particular was supposedly serving as bait. Slavers weren't stupid, but they were opportunistic. Officially, InOps had pegged a sophisticated slaving ring as the most likely culprit behind the colony abductions, and going by the pattern of abductions, Horizon looked like a likely candidate next on their list. On the other official hand, if it were Cerberus behind this mess, and if Cerberus was half as well connected as InOps believed them to be, then they wouldn't miss a chance to nab these people. Horizon was a healthy colony, a prime control group with few habitat-related abnormalities. They might even get a few recruits out of it, considering the mix of xenophobia, anti-Alliance sentiment, and rebelliousness that comprised the majority of the population here.
Not that he'd tell anyone the real reason the Ain Jalut was in Standard Orbit overhead.
Jogging alongside Harrison, Kaidan made his way into town, smiling and waving to the few colonists out and about this early in the morning. Few waved back. Horizon was a testament to the power of efficient resource use. Every single building was the exact same, one pre-fabricated rounded rectangular structure after another set out at pre-determined intervals, the hydraulic feet mounting each one perfectly level a few inches off the ground. The antiseptic white walls (actually, just un-painted) made the entire colony feel like a hospital or a science facility, though occasionally a colonist had spent the time and effort to personalize their home. Christmas lights and small paper lanterns were hung across some of the buildings, and a few had murals painted on the side—the work of Ophelia, one of the children.
In the distance, a shuttle could be seen lifting off from the spaceport, likely darting off to one of the moons dotting Prospect's orbit. Its forward viewport glinted in the sun as it ascended until it was no more than a pinprick of white, fading out of sight into the brilliant blue sky. Overhead, he could see a small speck of light arcing its way across the cloudless vista—the Ain Jalut, his omnitool said, on its routine trip to the planet's South Pole to disperse its static charge. Cuing up a message explaining his intentions and suspicions with regards to his task, Kaidan transferred it to the communications center for relay to his ship and then breathed deep as he jogged, helmet clanking off his hip.
The smell was something he'd never gotten used to. It was too sweet, too bitter, too ephemeral and ever-changing. For a marine who'd served his entire life on space stations or in the halls of a frigate or cruiser, real air, with its heady mix of pollen and dew and freshly turned soil, felt unnatural to breathe for more than a day or two. Its lack of metallic taste was subtle—in all honesty Kaidan himself never realized how important that particular smell was until it wasn't there.
"Hey soldier," came a nearby voice. "Care for some company?"
"Lilith," Harrison said. "Nice to see you again."
"Likewise," she replied, pacing the pair of marines as they entered the center of town. "I heard you were going to give another crack at calibrating the targeting matrix?"
Kaidan grimaced, a flash of sunlight jolting his head with a shot of pain, "Actually, that bit is simple enough—we just need the right calibration chip."
"So do you have it?" she asked.
"No. We just need to contact my ship and have them fabricate one for us," Kaidan lied effortlessly.
Harrison shook his head. "What the Commander means to say is one of your buddies made off with it during our lunch break yesterday."
"What?" Lilith said. "They're still giving you grief?"
"No end of it," Harrison replied.
With a contrite look at Kaidan, Lilith said, "Commander, I—I'm sorry about this. I know you're just trying to help us, and look how we repay you."
"There's no need to apologize for it, ma'am," Kaidan said, waving off the remorse. "Doesn't help us get the thing up and running."
"Well, for what it's worth, I'll come along and do what I can to help."
Harrison caught the commander's eye, shrugging as if to say, what've we got to lose? To an extent, Kaidan agreed. Besides, she really did seem to hold some respect here—more than could be said for either soldier.
"That would be appreciated, ma'am," Kaidan replied.
"A what?"
Kaidan repeated, "A calibration chip – it's a small computer chip—"
"I know that, genius," Delan said, glaring at the commander.
"It's a computer chip," Kaidan resumed, "that has the parameters of the guns on them. We took it from the Ain Jalut when we pulled off the GARDIAN batteries, and—"
"I ain't seen a chip around here, so buzz off and leave me alone would you? I got actual work to do—don't have the luxury of screwing with someone else's life like you."
Lilith piped up, "Delan, we're just trying to get those things working so that they can leave and let us get on with our lives."
"Lilith, open your eyes. You think they're just going to leave us alone? No, Commander shiny pants here is going to stick around to babysit us."
Kaidan said, "Sir, I—"
"Don't 'sir' me like I'm one of you guys," the prickly mechanic said.
"Delan, then. My mission is to give this colony a viable defense, and then leave you alone. The Alliance has no interest in controlling you, just protecting you."
"Yeah, from your threats!" A greasy finger waved in Kaidan's face. "We're only going to get in trouble now because it looks like we're your colony."
The lights within the pre-fab structure flickered momentarily, plunging the room into darkness for several seconds before flashing back to full.
"What was that?" Lilith asked.
Delan grumbled as he looked over his omnitool, "Looks like a power surge. Came from that damn generator the Alliance installed under the spaceport. Typical, now I gotta clean up your mess."
With as infuriatingly polite a tone as ever, Kaidan said, "I'm sorry to be a bother. If you see the chip, please tell me at once."
"Yeah, buzz off," Delan said with a dismissive wave.
His headache worsening by the moment, Kaidan stepped back outside into the mid-morning sun. Every step echoed in his head as waves of frustration bounced around his skull incessantly. Harrison tossed his cigarette down into the dirt and stamped it out as Kaidan blinked in the light, giving the Gunny an angry grimace. While Lilith walked away to speak with Sten, the utilities guy, Harrison ambled over and handed Kaidan a canteen of water. The commander gladly accepted it, taking a swig, then sloshing a handful over his head.
"I take it things went better than last time?" Harrison asked.
"I didn't punch him, if that's what you mean," Kaidan said, leaning against a nearby rail and rubbing the water into his face.
Harrison grinned, "Not-punching the dumbass ain't exactly a thing to be proud of." At the lack of response, he changed his tack, "Hey Alenko, just trying to find a laugh in you somewhere."
Kaidan laughed, a stilted chuckle that came out more a sigh. "Thanks for the thought, Gunny."
"No problem. Someone's gotta look out for you high-and-mighty types," Harrison said, eliciting a more natural smile from the commander. "Ah, what's the use," he said, dropping his voice. "Not like those damn things are going to be useful anyways."
Kaidan turned and looked at his comrade. "What do you mean?" he asked innocently.
"I mean, that even a young'un like you ought to see what's wrong with this. None of these damn yokels know their way around a comm laser, much less a GARDIAN battery, but you, you oughta see what's wrong."
Kaidan could see the problem Harrison mentioned. The commander had seen it the moment he had drawn this assignment. The GARDIANs were certainly effective weapons—at knife-fight ranges, a frigate wolf-pack could use their lasers to simply carve up a good sized cruiser into little cubes. A properly emplaced GARDIAN turret could even defend a sizable arc of sky, and theoretically, the emplacements installed around Horizon were adequate to keep any ship from approaching within line of sight.
The devil, as always, was in the details. The GARDIAN batteries pulled from the Ain Jalut weren't designed for atmospheric work. A ground-based GARDIAN might look the same as the ship-board variety, but the guts were completely different. To be used in atmo, a GARDIAN needed to be fit with a new focusing lens, a power source nearly three times the strength of the space-borne equivalent, and a special software suite designed to prevent blooming. The first bit was easy enough—micro-fabricators in the colonists possession could fashion the right lens and focal assembly. The second bit was harder—the Ain Jalut had been forced to offload its ground vehicle in order to fit a full-sized perimeter defense generator into the cargo hold, and it had been an absolute mule to install underground.
The software was the real problem though. Without it, the GARDIAN lasers would roil the air it passed through, de-focusing the beam until it more resembled a flashlight instead of a lance of infrared energy. Simply put, the GARDIAN batteries would have one, maybe two effective shots, after which they would be useless. The software was, quite obviously, highly classified, and the moment they'd left Arcturus, they'd lost access to it.
He'd known this from the start, and he had little doubt Gunny Harrison wasn't the only crewmember to figure it out as well. It all begged the question as to what the Ain Jalut was even doing here, a question Harrison was no doubt burning to ask the commander. After all, no one else but Kaidan had been invited onto Arcturus Station a month ago to meet with Admiral Hackett and Councilor Anderson. Everyone knew their new XO had returned much quieter and more pensive than he'd left. Everyone knew Councilor Anderson's trip had been made in the strictest confidence, going so far as to even cover up his having left the Citadel at all. No one knew just what, or rather who, that briefing had concerned.
No one knew Shepard was back.
No one knew she was wearing a Cerberus uniform.
No one knew the extent to which Kaidan had wanted to utterly trash Hackett's office when the good Admiral had shoved the photos in his face. No one knew the amount of sheer iron-fisted control he'd had to exert to rein himself in.
No one could know that the GARDIAN assignment was a red-herring. If it turned fruitful and fended off a Batarian attack down the line, then all the better, but the real purpose was simply knowledge. InOps liked to think itself clever, but Anderson was the true brains behind this. Kaidan had always known there was more to the captain than a rifle and an attitude, but the one thing he'd never known before was how utterly ruthless Anderson could be.
Truth, he'd said. Duty yes, but Truth is why you will do this mission. Because deep down inside, you want to know whether that's really Shepard. You want to know. You have to know. You need to know. And if you won't do it because of Truth, then you'll do it because of Duty, you'll do it because your uniform means more to you than one night of glorious fucking!
The provocation had worked. He still had no idea how Anderson had found out, but it had worked, and the councilor had played Kaidan like a fiddle. The truth had been plain to see on the commander's face, and he knew it from the flush of anger that had swept up and down his spine.
No, Anderson had said. No, it wasn't just that, was it? You need this answer just as much as we do. For far more noble reasons than ours. We're just tired old men, grasping at straws. Those old eyes, witness to a hundred battles, had looked at Kaidan, seen through the image to the man, and Anderson had finished. Your ship leaves in twelve hours. Don't worry about finding her. If it's really her she'll come to you. You'll know what to do.
"Yeah, you do," Harrison said. "You know what's wrong, and what's really going on. It's classified?"
"You know I can't answer that, Gunny."
"Yup, it's classified."
"The old 'need-to-know' deal," Kaidan said.
Harrison nodded. "And right now, I don't need to know. I get your drift, sir; forget I asked."
The conversation died, leaving the two soldiers leaning against the railing, passing a canteen back and forth. The hell of it was, Kaidan really did want to tell. A secret was no fun unless someone else knew, and the universe really did need to know of Shepard's messianic return. The woman was a force of nature, a saint, and to have her resurrected like a mythical demi-god was… well, it just was. All his life, Kaidan had seen the worst this galaxy had to offer. The assholes who damned biotics like him to second-class citizens, the smug and patronizing aliens who nonetheless showed all too human flaws, the offal of Earth that enlisted to escape mile-long rap sheets.
There'd been a time when it had been too much, when even consoling himself with the notion that every act of good he did canceled out another's act of ignorance wasn't enough. There'd been a time when he'd lain his gold bar on his superior's desk, and the captain with one eye on the milnet and a knowing smile on her face had told him to sleep on it. That night had brought with it official word of the Skyllian Blitz, of the horrifying atrocities perpetuated while Kaidan had moped, and of the other first lieutenant, the valkyrie named Shepard, who had emerged out the ashes of Elysium to save the entire colony. He'd fallen in at roll-call the following morning, his back straight as a pole, armor cinched down regulation tight, and that same gold bar polished and shining on his jumpsuit collar.
There was no doubt, Kaidan was standing here not-talking to Harrison only because of Shepard. He knew his slight hero-worship of her must have been annoying at first, but at least she had known how to handle it with calm and maturity, doubtless learned through years of experience as the "Hero of Elysium."
Pulled out of his reverie by a slap on the back from Harrison, the commander stood back up, handing the canteen back to its owner. Lilith and Sten had finished their chatter, the latter watching Kaidan with wary eyes.
"Bad news, Commander," Lilith said. "You know that power surge that happened while we were talking with Delan? It knocked out the comm tower—Sten was in the middle of a call to his sister back on Yandoa."
Flashing her a harried smile, Kaidan looked over at Harrison with a warning in his eyes. To the commander's relief, Harrison was already running a quick and subtle suit diagnostics check. Kaidan's mind whipped into action, considering the circumstances.
"Well Commander," Harrison said, watching the omnitool readings out the corner of his eye. "How long do you think it'll take them to start blaming that one on you?"
Kaidan replied, "I'd be surprised if they hadn't started already."
"People just don't like the Alliance out here, Commander, it's nothing personal." Lilith smiled apologetically, but Kaidan's mind was elsewhere, tracking the Ain Jalut's schedule. Between 1000 hours and 1130 hours, diverting orbit to hover at Horizon's south magnetic pole for static discharge. Therefore, below the radio horizon. Therefore out of point-to-point transmission, meaning they'd be reliant on boosted signal bouncing to communicate.
Which was now impossible without the comm tower.
It was a weakness of this colony that Kaidan had already attempted to correct, but the locals' response to the marine's proposal had been as predictable as it had been stupid. Redundancy was always a good thing, but there had been no chance of talking down virtually the entire town. So, like any good marine, he'd planned contingencies, one of which he was putting into motion now.
"Excuse me Lilith, we have some work to do on the generator," Kaidan lied. When she made a disappointed sound and walked off, he looked to Harrison. "Well, now that we can talk, what do you have?"
Harrison's omnitool was dim and subdued in the morning sun as it spat out a program log. "The tower's back online, but one of the transmitting circuits looks to be burnt out for good. I think it took a full load of GARDIAN-strength capacitors, so I'm surprised the entire thing didn't go up in flames."
"Any sign of foul play?" Kaidan said as he drew up the program log for himself.
"Negative. This isn't anyone trying to cripple us. Looks like it really was just a damn power surge from whichever idiot tapped into the GARDIAN generators."
Tension bled away as Kaidan looked through the log and reached the same conclusion. It was anti-climactic, to say the least. He'd been preparing for weeks to intercept a Cerberus ground-party, and this, the communications black-out, had been one of the ways he'd seen the confrontation starting. He chuckled, chiding himself for his paranoia, and was about to crack a joke when Lilith came up behind him and asked, "Commander?"
"Yes Lilith?" he replied. Harrison was visibly struggling not to roll his eyes.
"I know I'm supposed to leave you alone, but I think there's something you ought to see." She gestured past the pre-fab building, and the two soldiers moved to follow her line of sight.
Kaidan noticed locals from across the town wandering over, all looking up into the sky. A towering bank of clouds had appeared, apparently in the last minute from the way they moved. They roiled and churned, flashing with brief arcs of yellow energy. A detached portion of his mind watched them move and concluded that they were boiling through the air at a blistering pace—far faster than weather was able to naturally change.
"The hell is that?" Harrison whispered. No sooner had he looked up, then his omnitool gave a flat beep, as though protesting a particularly offensive smell. "Uh, Commander? We're getting some growing fuzz on the communications channels. Whatever, whoever that thing is, they're trying to jam us."
More telling than that, however, was the sudden amplification of that dull pain in the back of his head. The migraines, only they weren't merely migraines anymore. He could only recall a scant few other times when this had happened, and as the clouds parted and revealed a strange rocky protrusion floating in midair, he realized that the stakes had jumped tenfold.
"Gunny!" he barked as he reached back and unhooked his helmet. "Seal up and get the colonists to the safehouse."
"Aye aye, sir." Harrison was quick on the uptake, and as he hurried off, Kaidan slipped his helmet over his head. Reaching back, he connected the power and oxygen cables, seating the shell comfortably on his head before triggering the hard-seals. In half a second, the lining inflated and sealed closed, the internal HUD flashed into existence, and the independent air supply activated as his armor instantly readied itself for combat. There was a visible crackle of energy as his kinetic barriers powered up and the suit discharged the static electricity into the ground. His rifle coming off his back and telescoping out to combat mode, Kaidan looked behind him where the HUD indicated someone was still standing. "Lilith, head to the safehouse with Gunny Harrison, this is no place for civilians."
"Commander, come with us!" she said.
"No time, I need to set up the emergency beacon. Go!" his voice brooked no argument, and Lilith dashed away as Kaidan glanced up and noticed a huge swarm of eezo readings, clearly marked by his armor. He didn't bother to raise his rifle, instead running for the pre-fab while recording a message into his omnitool.
"Scimitar, Artemis-Actual, priority alert, repeat, Scimitar, Artemis-Actual, priority alert. Horizon is under attack from unknown hostiles and is unable to mount effective defense. I am declaring Code Roswell, repeat, Roswell, authentication Alenko-Whisky-Delta-November-Seven." Flicking off the omnitool, Kaidan continued his mad dash for the pre-fab.
Something struck him in the back of his head. Kaidan flailed for balance as the object franticly clicked at the top of his helmet, and he reached up to grab it, bringing the offending object before his visor. It was an insect of some sort, but much larger, much stronger, than anything he'd seen. Even now, it was squirming, struggling to escape his grasp. With a swift clench, he crushed the thing, his armor slightly amplifying the effect, the bug's strange outer shell cracking and snapping in a grisly display of shattered chitin and viscous yellow fluid. Wires too. Obviously the thing had been cybernetically implanted with something, though the device's functionality was certainly impossible to tell now.
Another smacked into Kaidan's armor and futilely stabbed what could pass for a tail down at his chestplate. A swift palm turned the bug into a sparking, greasy stain, but another took its place, this one scrabbling upwards towards his vulnerable neck seal. They learned fast. Rather than attempting to swat this one, Kaidan raised both arms, slamming them together before him in a violent mnemonic, and the world turned blue. A cocoon of gravitic force wrapped around Kaidan's armor as he drew it in tight, warding off the encroaching insect. He stumbled twice more as a pair of bugs attempted to pass though. Throwing his arm out in a grand sweeping gesture, the biotic field he projected cleared out an arc of air before him, and he charged through, struggling to escape the center of the swarm.
"Harrison," he said into his helmet microphone. "Make sure whatever cover the locals get into is bug-proof."
No response. Biting off a curse, Kaidan spun and flung another biotic sweep behind him, dispersing a small swarm of the cybernetic bugs. Feeling more and more impacts against his barrier, Kaidan fired off a panicked burst with his rifle before turning to run.
He instantly vowed not to do that again as countless bugs, homing in on the mass accelerator signature, slammed into his barrier, some of them hard enough that they pulped themselves against his blue shield. Kaidan slung the firearm across his back, the magnetic slabs charging and holding the collapsed rifle in place. With both hands glowing blue, he jabbed and bulled his way through the swarm until he found himself face to face with the pre-fab in which he and Harrison had been stationed.
The door hissed open as he slapped his hand through the haptic display, and a cloud of the accursed insects flooded in while Kaidan dove through. Slamming the door shut, Kaidan crossed his arms once more before violently ripping them apart. At that command, his protective blue cocoon flew outwards, smashing the remaining insects, along with cups, plates, tools, and other assorted dross, into the walls and ceiling. The door buckled and jammed from the force of the impact. Releasing the barrier from his control, Kaidan sighed and fell to one knee as the blue field flickered and died. While the crushed cups and detritus clanked to the floor, he could feel his hairs settle, the build-up of static charge within his body finally dissipating into the ground as his suit recognized a lull in combat.
It had been months since his biotics had been tested so. Katas and gravitic sparring were one thing, full on combat was another entirely, and Kaidan began running through his observations a mile a minute. They were insects of a sort he'd never seen before, cybernetically modified and apparently controlled by a sentient intelligence—the swarms had wheeled and flown as one, not as a loose amalgamation of creatures with similar reflexes. The alacrity with which they'd learned his armor was impenetrable to their stingers was frightening; it indicated intelligence and cunning behind the mind of the swarm's controllers, and already Kaidan feared Harrison and the colonists had been overrun.
"Harrison, this is Alenko. Harrison, come in," he said, keying his comm and sweeping aside what little odds and ends remained on the desk. "Harrison, do you copy?" Still no response.
He found what he was looking for a moment later, switching on the emergency beacon. Fiddling with its controls, he dumped the message recorded on his omnitool into the buffer on the beacon and then set it on the ground by the ruined door. Outside, the air was black with bugs as they circled around the sealed pre-fab. The beacon's indicator blinked red, screaming its message out into the deceptively beautiful mid-morning sky, completely clear save for the towering orange cloud where a frightful cylindrical spaceship was slowly lowering itself down to Horizon's surface, yellow lightning arcing off in fantastic rays of energy.
For a brief moment, Kaidan thought himself safe.
A loud bang dispelled that notion, and he looked up as his suit identified more of those damned bugs swarming into a dense knot of fluttering wings. They took aim at one of the windows and slammed into the tempered glass again, spreading spider-web cracks across the entire surface. Stepping back into a rather formal biotic stance, Kaidan drew his right hand across his chest, readying a high-velocity strike as the black ball of insects readied itself for one final ram.
They both lunged at the same instant, the swarm bearing down angrily upon the fractured glass, Kaidan's clenched fist preceding him as he broke into a sprint.
He reached the window first. Timed exquisitely, the biotic strike shattered the glass outward even as the swarm attempted to smash it in. The whipping fragments sliced apart countless bugs, and the swarm flew into disarray amidst a spray of yellow and orange ichor; Kaidan leaped through the center of the shattering glass, flinging up a barrier in time to avoid flailing stingers, and landed on the ground, rolling to the balls of his feet as he launched himself into a sprint, blue shield swirling in the air around him as more and more swarms of the infernal insects descended upon the fleeing marine.
More important though, was a beam of coherent light lancing through the air. Diffusing as it slipped right through both biotic and kinetic barriers, it struck his torso almost dead center, boiling away a layer of ablative armor with a sickening sizzle. A cloud of vaporized ceramic smoke sprayed into his visor as Kaidan roared in surprise, identifying his attacker and snapping out his hand. A biotic field pinned the hapless enemy in place, and the commander sidestepped out of the path of the energy beam. Drawing his hand back, he yanked his assailant off its feet and pulled it towards him with a cloud of gravitic force. Whipping forward with anger and fear amplifying his strength tenfold, his fist glowed a brilliant blue, and as the insectoid figure drifted closer, Kaidan surged in and let loose. His fist connected with the creature's head, and an unfettered biotic pulse rampaged down his arm, smashing the unidentified opponent into the ground where it lay, twitching.
Panting from the exertion, Kaidan looked down at the crushed corpse at his feet. Almost instantly he recalled various intelligence briefs, from InOps operatives on Arcturus, to an STG member taking part in an intercultural exchange, to Lieutenant Phillips aboard the Ain Jalut. Collectors. Those enigmatic insectoids from beyond the Omega 4 relay. Why were they here? What were they doing here? And where the hell did they get directed energy weapons?
All those questions and more passed through Kaidan's mind, but were shunted aside by the buzzing arrival of two more collectors. They landed, their strange chitinous limbs raising strange chitinous weapons, and Kaidan dove for cover. Traditional mass accelerator fire flashed overhead and hammered into the low garden wall he'd ducked behind. Rock chips flew up as he drew an electronic warfare grenade from his belt, priming the device with his omnitool while his other hand reached for his rifle.
In one smooth motion, Kaidan pivoted to one knee, flinging the grenade overhead and spraying unaimed mass accelerator fire out towards the advancing collectors. Stray rounds skipped off kinetic barriers as the creatures chittered, one ducking behind the corner of a pre-fab, the other slipping behind a thick tree. As expected, a vortex of the accursed cybernetic insects spiraled down, attracted once again by the mass accelerator signature. This time though, they dove into a small electromagnetic pulse, the EW grenade detonating in their midst and frying their unshielded circuitry. Kaidan's suit systems flickered for a brief moment from the proximity of the electronic blast, and the charred remains of insects collapsed to the ground around him, sizzling and twitching on the dirt and grass. Above them, more swarms circled around with an angry buzz, wary of another ambush.
Raising his rifle to his shoulder, Kaidan gripped it with both hands, drilling mass accelerator rounds into the native Horizon tree. As expected, the collector behind it stumbled into the open, its barriers sparking from the rounds passing straight through the hardwood. Kaidan placed another burst on target, stripping away the collector's shields as the panicked creature sprayed return fire towards the commander. A single mass accelerator round struck his kinetic barriers, flickering as the mass effect fields arrested its momentum and dropped it safely to the ground, a speck of sand lost in the dirt and grass.
The rifle came up again and fired. Small flowers of orange ichor blossomed up and down the collector's chest as the hypervelocity rounds tore through the insectoid flesh, and the creature dropped to the ground like a discarded ragdoll. Its wingman wheeled out of cover and sprayed Kaidan, its rounds tearing and clawing at the commander's kinetic barriers, sparking as the capacitor readings on his helmet's HUD dwindled. Ducking back down into cover, Kaidan dashed into a nearby pre-fab that had been turned into a communal dining hall, priming another grenade and slipping it onto the ordinance rail attached below his rifle. He watched the heat indicator on his weapon while it cooled in the morning air, and then leaned out a window, triggering the ordinance rail.
With an electric whine, his weapon flung the grenade out into the open, where it detonated in a blast of electric fervor, the EMP washing over the second collector. Raising its rifle, the alien pulled its trigger, looking puzzled when the weapon sputtered and died. That puzzled look was wiped off the collector's face by a barrage of mass accelerator rounds, the first twelve stripping away the collector's barriers, and the last five or so ripping apart the alien's head.
A sudden series of impacts threw Kaidan forward, and he launched himself off his feet to dive through the window. Rolling to a crouch amidst a bed of azaleas, he fired back through the window at a collector who had flanked him through the kitchen door, mass accelerator rounds chewing at the collector's shields as the alien continued to pound away at the commander's own barriers. His suit abruptly spat in protest and the kinetic barriers died, at which point his biotic barrier, much weakened since he had activated it, flickered and warped, protesting the punishment coming his way. Coming to his feet in a mad sprint for breathing space, Kaidan felt more than saw another collector to his left. A snapshot from his rifle missed the alien, ripping up the façade of a toolshed instead, and the collector returned fire with another of those damned energy beams.
Armor sizzling under the searing heat, Kaidan knocked a glowing red heatsink out of his rifle, flinging out a desperate biotic strike while the collector advanced relentlessly, burning away millimeter after precious millimeter of ablative armor. The blue bolt of biotics struck the collector in the center of its torso, but barely rocked the alien as it countered with its own biotic push, taking its energy beam off target long enough for Kaidan to slide behind a rock and bring up an overview of his armor. The glowing holographics showed significant damage to both front and back ablative layers, with one almost completely burnt through. His kinetic barriers were struggling to re-initialize themselves. Activating his suit's emergency reserves, Kaidan counted to three while the capacitors whined and dumped their power into his kinetic barriers, recharging them to full. He crossed his fatigued arms, summoning as powerful a biotic shield as he could muster, before turning and firing three quick bursts from the fresh heat sink.
The first burst missed. The second and third sank dead center into the beam wielder's barrier, the shielding absorbing the potentially deadly grains of hypervelocity metal. The energy beam lashed out again, brushing past Kaidan's cover and flashing overhead when he ducked down. Grains of metal slammed into the far side of the rock as Kaidan struggled to reinforce his biotic barrier, only to have it ripped apart by a near-miss as a third collector emerged from a pre-fab before him.
There were simply too many of them. Kaidan was one of the most talented soldiers the Alliance had turned out, true. He was in serious consideration for Spectre status to replace his mentor, his lover, his Shepard, also true. He was among the tragically tiny group of L2 biotics that had been able to make good use of their immense power and ability, yet again true. Most importantly though, he was just one man, caught in a deadly crossfire without a wingman to cover his six. His rifle beeped, the heat sink having reached 115% rated capacity, and he tossed it aside, drawing his pistol and a grenade with resigned efficiency.
The collector that had come up behind him was stunned by the point-blank detonation of an electrostatic grenade, the arcs of electricity coursing through its cybernetics, shattering its compound eyes in a grisly nightmare of yellow ichor. As it fought past the commands issuing forth from its ruined cybernetics and clawed at its face, Kaidan put the thing out of its misery with a single mass accelerator round that cored the insectoid's head.
The commander glanced around the rock, charting a path to the nearest building that looked like it could be sealed for just a brief half-minute; a barrage of mass accelerator rounds answered him and sprayed his helmet with rock fragments for his trouble. Twenty meters from the rock to the doorway. He exhaled a fit of breath, steeling himself for what was to come.
Spinning up and around, he squeezed the trigger, snapshots glancing off barriers, one of them dropping a collector to the ground without an arm. The aliens ducked in and out from behind pillars, doorways, windows, firing away, slowly depleting the commander's shields as he ran for the doorway. A beam of light lanced out and drilled into his side armor, the heat dully apparent through the mesh of his jumpsuit. More pistol fire drove that collector to ground, and Kaidan continued to run for the door, muscles and element-zero nodes burning from exertion and fatigue.
"Fifteen meters, ten meters," he whispered to himself as he ran, mass accelerator rounds striking his shielding as he returned fire as best he could. "Five meters."
Thud.
A weight slammed into the back of his neck, driving him down into the dirt path. His helmet scratched and squeaked against stray pebbles and rock fragments as he slid, his momentum continuing to drive him forward until he slid to a halt an arm's length from the door, mass accelerator fire flashing overhead and digging divots into the pre-fab's side. "No, no!"
Blinding pain. A sharp bite shot pain through his neck, and Kaidan's element-zero nodes screeched in white hot agony as a thick burning serum sprayed into his veins. It raced through his system, his heart involuntarily speeding up in a vain attempt to clear away the poison. He could feel the serum at work, freezing nerves in absolute paralysis. With the last semblance of voluntary movement, Kaidan reached up and snagged the insect that had darted down and stung his neck in his moment of distraction. Its image swam before his eyes, a nasty needle-like stinger thrusting in and out of its tail, dripping a violent purple liquid that pulsed with a frightening white glow. His fist tightened and then froze lifelessly, crushing the insect as more and more landed on his vulnerable joints, neck, and anywhere else uncovered by his ceramic armor, ready to sting if the human showed any sign of resistance.
He didn't.
More and more collectors landed around him, their weapons trained and charged, wings folding from flight. One drifted in, flesh burning and trailing smoke as it spoke in a menacing voice. "This one is powerful. He shall make a potent addition to this batch of ascendants. Prepare him for transport."
The burning one leaned close, flames licking at its forehead as Kaidan spotted cybernetic augmentations within of a kind he knew all too well. "Worry not, human. Your contribution to this galaxy's salvation will be as glorious as it is necessary."
The day had started out so well. Feeling insectoid hands grasp his arms and legs to carry him off, Kaidan knew it probably wouldn't end quite so happily.
Codex Entry: Code Roswell
Contrary to popular belief, the Systems Alliance is not standing idle by after the horrific events of 2183.
After the decimation wrought on the Fifth Fleet at the Battle of the Citadel (publicly blamed on the Geth) the Systems Alliance Military reinstated Code Roswell, an old emergency condition predating first contact with the Turians. Originally meant to signal contact with an alien race, Code Roswell now signifies something far more sinister and, in its current iteration, supersedes even the Mayday code in importance, one of the key factors regarding its secrecy.
Code Roswell now alerts the entire Alliance command structure to a Reaper-related threat; due to the severity of this alert, the ability to declare a Code Roswell is granted only to O6 Captains or higher. A special dispensation has been made to many surviving crewmembers of the SSV Normandy due to their close encounter with Reaper technology and assets, and each crewmember who is considered a qualified observer has been put through basic special forces training and reassigned secretly throughout the Alliance fleet. Numbering twelve in total, these former disciples of Shepard act as the Alliance's eyes and ears in regards to the Reapers. Chief among them is Staff Commander Kaidan Alenko, now classified N7 and in the running to become humanity's second Spectre agent.
Author Notes:
Yes, these heat sinks can either be discarded and replaced by another in the tube magazine for a nearly un-interrupted stream of fire, or they can be shepherded like the first game's heat-sinks until they radiate what heat they've gathered.
There was one thing that greatly irked me about my Mass Effect 2 experience. In both my playthroughs, Kaidan was the one who survived, but in the introductory cutscene to Horizon, he goes down like a punk, never thinking once to use his biotics. It's patently obvious that the scene in question is designed as though Ashley had been saved on Virmire.
In terms of voice, Bioware wrote Kaidan with a voice incredibly similar to my default, therefore consider this the "base-line comparison" with which to measure everything else to.
Also, biotics are so much rarer than the game lets on. In game, you'll face something like two-hundred human biotics in the course of the whole shebang. There likely aren't many more than two-hundred viable human biotics from the first three or four "accidents" alone, and the odds of a parent saying, "Ooo, industrial accident, I want my baby to have a 90% chance of developing horrible cancer while in the womb!" are rather… low.
~ Ferrard