"Ow."
That word currently summed up my entire existence. I had bruises from bullet impacts, bruises from my battle with the forces of gravity, and more bruises from the building predictably exploding before I could get far enough away to watch the fireworks. "Ow," I repeated lamely.
"That was fun! Can we do it again sometime?" Evidently our four-man band had a resident pyromaniac.
"Hell no," I responded weakly, clumsily struggling to my feet on the nearly weightless asteroid. "Are the rockets all shut down now?"
"Rockets wouldn't keep going for this long, Luddite." The radio and the featureless armor made identifying impossible, but the speaker's tone and his nickname for me marked him as Havers. He'd helped me with the armor and saved my life in the process, so I could trust him – probably. "But yeah, that's the last fusion torch. The Ypres is on standby, and she can evac us as soon as…"
Havers's voice trailed off as a dark shape detached itself from the asteroid's surface, trailing a dark blue glow behind it as it went. "Missiles, contact detonation, three rounds each, go!"
The three humans quickly took a knee and grabbed blocky things – weapons – from their backs as I dropped back. Nearly in unison, the three men lined up the bulky devices and fired at the departing shape in the distance. The sound didn't travel on the atmosphere-less asteroid, but I was treated to a pretty lightshow as nine missiles arced away.
I couldn't see the missiles after a few seconds, but I could see their effects. Bright flashes lit up the rocky landscape, and a slight tremor rumbled underneath my feet. I fell on my ass, not used to the near-nonexistent gravity, while the three commandos staggered but stayed kneeling. Slowly stumbling to my feet, I found myself left behind as the three humans sprinted ahead.
Running in a near-weightless environment is…interesting. You don't so much run as bound – or at least, the soldiers bounded. I jumped, crash-landed, got to my feet and repeated the process. The soldiers slowed at the top of a nearby hill to recon and to wait for me, and one was already scanning the crash site as I approached.
"Hostages. Problematic."
My gut clenched slightly at that. I'd had trouble when rescuing hostages in the past: at Bianca's mansion, or Mavra's little house of horrors…it hadn't always gone well. Generally, the scumbags who would take hostages in the first place were perfectly happy to let them die once the shooting had started. "Collateral damage" was a clean-sounding euphemism, but the truth was considerably uglier.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts, slowing my gait as I approached the soldiers. "Can we help them?"
One black-armored figure, nearly invisible against the vacuum beyond X57, peered over the small rocky ridge with a rifle scope. "Possibly. Hostages are in light enviro-suits, short-term survival only. They're being thrown out the back of the crashed ship…" his voice trailed off momentarily. "Shit. That ship's still working, and those humans' skinsuits won't last long out here."
"Screw it, we gotta move!" With those inspiring words in mind, we bounded over the ridge towards the crashed shuttle. The battered vehicle was silent in the vacuum, but occasional blue flickers from below it showed that it still had life.
We made it to within two hundred meters before they started shooting. White flickers shot by us, and two of the human soldiers responded in kind. The firefight was eerily silent, my ragged breaths the only accompaniment to the chaos. I didn't have any weapon other than my .44 and my blasting rod, and I doubted that I could hit anything on the move, anyway. One human, probably Havers, slowed to my uncertain pace, while the other two commandos sprinted ahead.
One of the soldiers bought it. The blue flicker around him flashed once and disappeared, and the armored man simply kept moving as momentum carried him over the nearly gravity-less asteroid. It was a silent death, quick and clean – it didn't make it any better, though. My gut wrenched and I felt sick to the stomach as I realized how I could've prevented it.
"On me!" I yelled, and brought my left arm up. The silver bracelet barely fit over 'my' black armor, the tiny shields on it spinning crazily in X57's vacuum. The two remaining human soldiers clustered by me, more white flickers impacting and rebounding off of my barely-visible protection. We'd halved the distance, and the shuttle loomed large on the asteroid's featureless terrain. Yelling crazily, I stepped down hard and jumped forward at my best speed. Strangled battlecries over the radio let me know I wasn't alone as we hurtled forward, my greenish bubble our only saving grace from a pair of suited figures firing weapons at us.
The two enemies collapsed as white flickers shot outward from my left and right – my two companions apparently knew how to shoot on the move. We landed heavily on the shuttle's side and somehow stuck to its surface, the silence of our sprint disappearing as a dull rumble sounded under our boots. I glanced down, seeing dust shift on the asteroid's surface. "Is that supposed to happen?"
"Shit," cursed our resident pyromaniac. "The damn thing's taking off."
And indeed it was. The large craft was slowly rising, blue light arcing underneath us as the craft put distance between itself and the asteroid. Behind us, the suited hostages ducked and covered their faces from the intense light. Some, however, were clearly crying and reaching for the ship as it left – there must be more hostages on board.
I made a snap decision. "You two, go get the hostages down there. I don't know the area well, and I couldn't work life support anyway. Get them somewhere safe."
One of the human soldiers nodded, his face hidden by the black helmet. He let go of the slowly rising shuttle, letting X57's weak gravity drag him down. Havers' voice came over the radio: "The shield…your biotics…sir, what are you?"
I laughed. "A wizard. Look it up." Putting the problem of the exterior hostages aside, I focused on breaking inside the shuttle. Thankfully, no one had yet closed the nearby access hatch, and getting in merely involved kicking aside the bodies that my companions had shot previously. Once inside and free of my unwanted shadows, I steadied myself on the wall and took several deep breaths. I'd been bottling up the sheer craziness of the past few days, but it had gotten out – and as it turned out, that craziness had a wicked left hook. I hadn't snapped yet, but I could see the ledge.
I turned to close the hatch, and found one of the humans behind me. "Thought I told you to take a hike," I announced with forced levity. I didn't trust the human soldiers yet, and having one at my back could be a disaster.
"Too bad," the commando responded amiably, turning to slap a glowing button on the wall. As the hatch behind us cycled shut and the soldier turned around, I body-slammed him into the wall and pointed my glowing blasting rod at his gut. All the rage and adrenaline and fear and craziness was bubbling to the surface, and I couldn't take another shock today.
"What're you doing? I said get back!" I snarled, my voice cracking.
"Easy, partner," he drawled. His voice had deepened, gaining a slight twang. "How 'bout we talk 'fore we get to fighting? Let's put the kabooms down on three."
Kabooms? Plural? I glanced down to see him with a black disc in his palm, likely some type of grenade. "Oh."
We each relaxed slowly, both of us too high-keyed to think too rationally. The black-armored soldier took off his helmet, revealing an East Asian face. The soldier grinned at my bemused look, saying simply, "I was raised in Texas. I get that a lot."
I exhaled. "Fair enough." Glancing down the darkened corridor leading into the ship, I saw nothing but flickering lights. "Here we go into the spooky spaceship with bug-eyed aliens trying to kill us. You first."
"Mah favorite type of hoedown," the soldier drawled, his accent obvious. Slipping his helmet back on, he grabbed a snub-nosed unfolding weapon from his back and walked cautiously down the passage. I followed, shield ready and blasting rod glowing. It took us less than ten yards before the welcoming committee found us.
Two of the same aliens started firing, their strange bullets deflected away as I approached with my shield up. The impacts rattled me, but compared to inhumanly powerful undead nasties, they didn't pack the same force. My shield spread the impact pressure evenly across its surface – a little trick I'd learned from Ramirez – while my pyromaniac 'friend' gunned both enemies down. "Clear! Advancing!" he yelled, his accent buried under fear and adrenaline. We both passed quickly through the small storage room, weapons up and heads on a swivel until we reached the only exit.
Pausing to consider the fight, I realized a basic mistake – I wanted to keep my head attached to my shoulders, which meant that killing with magic was a no-go. In firefights involving mortals, my .44 revolver was a good answer to the First Law of Magic, but I doubted that it would break any combat-rated armor around here. "Hey," I whispered cautiously, "got a spare weapon?"
The soldier snorted. "Thought you'd never ask," he responded amiably. He grabbed the pistol on his left hip, and handed it to me while the weapon unfolded itself in his grip. "Safety here, folding toggle here, point it at the tangos and pull the trigger and watch 'em fall down."
I rolled my eyes, invisible behind my pilfered helmet. "I can do that much, thanks."
"Wasn't sure 'bout that, Luddite," he chuckled.
With my confidence slightly raised by having a still-working pistol in my gun hand, I took point and continued through the ship. Magic is great for solving life's problems, but enough firepower or high explosives offer good solutions too – and neither of those would have sword-happy Wardens dogging my footsteps. With those happy thoughts in mind, we continued to creep through the ship.
We passed by darkened rooms, the only light coming from flickering panels above and red-glowing lights on the doors. The dull roar of the ship's engines was oppressive, broken only by strange rumbling noises as something or someone broke free. I could feel my mind wandering to places I didn't want to visit anytime soon, and knew that my erstwhile companion was probably doing the same after the deaths in his team today. "Plan?" I whispered hoarsely, more to break the silence than anything else.
"I got nothing. You?" responded my shadow.
"Four eyes bad, two eyes good. Got anything past that?" I quipped.
He seemed to consider it seriously for a second. "We manfully bust onto the bridge, beat down the aliens there with our swingin' cocks, take the ship an' become kings of the Terminus."
I reviewed the plan in my head for a second, only finding one glaring flaw. "Wait, how in the hell do we bust manfully onto the bridge?"
"See, you gotta-" he started, before a muted crunch up ahead caught our attention.
We both quieted immediately, weapons trained on the door. The green light in front of it seemed to be a positive sign, so I approached and waved the pyromaniac to the right side of the door. He nodded, taking up the position and holding a three-finger countdown. I checked my pistol, shook my bracelet into place, and nodded back. At 'three,' he pressed the mark at the center of the door, holding his weapon high as the thick doors ground slowly open.
I raised my gun and my shield, and walked into the blizzard of fire.
Probably every surviving alien on the ship was gathered here, the armored creatures crouching behind cover and firing weapons as I stormed the room. My shield juddered under the fire, and I could feel myself being pushed backwards by the sheer volume of shots flying at me. Sweat already beading on my face, I dove for cover while blindly firing my pistol forward. Disciplined barks of fire behind me dropped enemies in front, while another Frisbee-like object flew forward to detonate next to a cluster of aliens. I breathed a sigh of relief as soon as my back touched cover, dropping my shield and reaching for my blasting rod. Although hardly the best object for the job, it could channel wind fairly well, and would be useful for my next hat trick.
Had I not been chanting and entirely focused on making my evocation spell work properly, I would've spared a silent "thank you" to the enemy soldiers for fighting smart. Zombies, ghouls, and most vampires would have rushed me by now and turned my spine into a pretzel while I was preparing. Professional soldiers, of course, were far too sensible to do such a suicidal open-ground charge. Their loss.
Not to say that the enemy was quiet. A teeth-rattling BOOM near me announced that they were trying to flush me out with grenades, but I ignored the attacks and continued chanting. Preparation finished, I turned the corner with blasting rod out. Blue light flickered as enemies fired at me, but the strange ray-shields and my leather duster held against the attacks. I aimed for the center of the room, and let fly. "Ventas! Vento, ventas servitas!" I bellowed, my voice lost in the storm that followed. Wind flew down the length of the room, passing over obstacles to catch the enemy soldiers and fling them towards the end of the room. Two more Frisbees followed them, one hitting the wall while another latched onto a surprised enemy. He yelled and attempted to run, getting two steps away before the explosives detonated.
I advanced cautiously, pistol and shield out as I approached the motionless group of bodies. A small video feed in the corner of my vision showed my pyromaniac companion's view as he ran from the doorway into the room itself, his rifle raised to cover me. Mentally nodding in approval, I nudged one of the bodies, which stirred and turned to face my darkened helmet. Four eyes glared at me from an un-helmeted alien, and his voice echoed oddly as he spoke. "Good, you're finally both inside. F'sheru ghazi!"
The only warning we got was a second-long high-pitched whine. I ran for cover, seeing two turrets in the back corners of the room pivoting to face my 'friend.' I fired at one non-stop, but was too late to stop it from firing. The two weapons fired downwards, and the feed in the corner of my vision faded to static as the Asian Texan collapsed. I snarled and kept shooting, my shots destroying one of the turrets while the other smoothly turned to face me. Ducking behind cover as white-hot shotswhizzed by, I shook out my shield-
"Rrraaaaahhh!" Hands gripped me from behind, making me drop my blasting rod – Nostrils, the un-helmeted alien who'd activated the turrets, was on his feet again. I struggled as he reached for my gun hand, trying to elbow him while the turret merrily blazed away. Alarms hooted and red lights flared as the turret's shells burned through my apparently-vital cover, but my attention was riveted on the limpet on my back. I twisted and tried to yank him off me, but my enemy was a professional soldier and clearly used to fighting humans. A sudden impact against my helmet dazed me, while he performed a strange thumb-lock to rip my weapon away. I swung a wild haymaker, gratified to see Nostrils stagger under the impact. His back was hit several times by the wild turret fire, causing a blue corona to flare around him as his strange shields disappeared.
"Halt!" he yelled, which I responded to with another punch. Some rational part of my mind realized that the alien must have been stopping the turret, because the constant thump of fire stopped. I tried to twist away, but the alien kicked the side of my helmet and sent me sprawling. Dazed, I wasn't able to stop him from grabbing my pistol and aiming the weapon at me.
The alarms continued blaring, unabated, while Nostrils seemed lost in thought. "Ship," he growled, "eezo status of my target?"
"One source, presumably armor," echoed an impersonal electronic voice. "Good," snarled the enemy angrily. "An unarmed N6 operative, here for me to capture. The interrogators will love having you around."
Stock-still, I tried to figure out a plan, but couldn't see one. Nostrils kept talking: "The mission's a damn bust, but getting you alive back to Hegemony space might help." He growled slowly. "I'll enjoy seeing the propaganda vids they make out of you."
I glanced to the side, for once glad of the face-concealing helmet. The human soldier was on the ground, but seemed to be stirring feebly. Nostrils, though, looked ready to leave the dying ship – I needed to keep him busy. "Tell me," I drawled, "d'ya really think you'll get a free pass after getting all your men killed and failing the mission to boot?"
The alien pivoted and fired, a shot scarring the deck near my head. "Screw you! Whether you die here or at Khar'shan, I'll live while you're dead!" Happy to find a weak point, I kept pressing the issue.
"Keep up your fantasies, four-eyes," I chuckled with forced humor, watching the human soldier out of the corner of my eyes. He reached for Nostrils, but his hands were empty – the turret had shot his back, and smoke arced lazily up from where his weapons were stored. I kept watching, mystified. What could he-
The soldier's arm lit up with orange light, and a lightning bolt arced from his…thing…to hit Nostrils squarely. My pistol shuddered in the alien's hand, vents spewing smoke from the sides, while Nostrils himself staggered and bellowed in pain. I pulled my hand from my pocket, sighting my old .44 on the alien's face. It had just gone through vacuum and might not work, but at this point I was out of options. Muttering a second-long prayer, I pulled the trigger. The scarred revolver spoke twice, the crack of each shot almost quiet next to the noise of the previous firefight. Two holes appearing in his head, the alien collapsed in a heap next to me.
I was on my feet within seconds, wincing with pain at each movement. The remaining turret in the corner whirred to face me, but didn't fire; apparently Nostrils' override still worked. I hobbled over to the Asian Texan, barely keeping my stomach down at the sight.
The human soldier had nearly been sawn in two by the impacts. I could see through his body where his lower back used to be, blood pooling across the floor while a light blue gel dribbled down his torso and stopped some of the bleeding. Seeing me approach, the Asian Texan slowly reached down to his helmet and unlatched it, letting it roll slowly away. His face was chalk-white, and his breath came in shallow gasps.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit," I muttered, panicking as I tried to help. I reached for a bandage, looking around for anything Red Cross-shaped nearby. "Just hang on, OK? We'll get you fixed up and-"
"Hey," the soldier muttered. "Don't worry, man."
"Worry?" I snapped. "You're in a little trouble right now, damnit! I'm going to-"
"Ain't happening," gasped the dying man. "The medi-gel'll keep me going for a bit, but no one around here can fix anything this bad."
I slowed down, realizing the futility of saving him. "Anything I can do?" I asked quietly, kneeling by the soldier.
"Nah, just clear the damn four-eyes out and get the hostages free," he responded quietly. His eyes rolled back and he shuddered as pain wracked his body.
"I've got family on Terra Nova down there," he said. "Doin' this…that's enough for me." He reached for the orange-glowing thing with his right hand, popping something free and handing it to me. "You don't have long. Take this, get everyone free, and get the hell outta here."
I froze, hesitating. "Now!" he croaked weakly.
The klaxon kept sounding distantly as I rushed through the ship, pistol out and looking for openings. I couldn't see anything moving, and the doors nearby were sealed with red lights glowing. I was lost, confused, and running out of time.
"Left up ahead," a familiar voice croaked over the alarm noises. "Six human life signs in there." I dashed into the room, slapping a door button and seeing six handcuffed prisoners on the other side. "Move, the cavalry's here!" I yelled, ushering the humans towards the door and ignoring their harried questions.
We ran. An impersonal voice echoed over the loudspeaker: "Atmospheric decompression. All personnel, evacuate immediately. Atmospheric decompression…" The voice kept droning on, a few directions from the dying soldier keeping us on the right path. We sprinted past locked doors and empty rooms, reaching a small corridor with red stripes over small hatches. "Escape pods," gasped a former prisoner, hands still cuffed behind his back.
"In here!" I yelled, hitting a nearby button and hoping that the controls were idiot-proof. The hatched cycled open without even a groan of protest, and I began bodily throwing the prisoners inside. I'd gotten five through before all hell broke loose.
"At-atmospheric decompress. Ess. –shun occur. Ring. A-all p-person-sonell evac-c-cuate," stuttered the nearby loudspeaker, cracked and sparking from the crash. I could feel the rumble in my boots, and knew I was out of time. The air was rushing by me as something, somewhere broke loose, and I stuffed the last human inside before trying to follow him into the pod.
"Atmospheric pressure decreasing, failsafes engaged," droned an electronic voice from inside the pod. Heedless of my attempts to get in, the hatch began to slowly cycle closed. "Damnit!" I yelled, before remembering the chip in my pocket. Hastily grabbing it and shoving it through the opening, I squeezed my arm back through the narrow gap and let the escape pod close. The rushing air yanked my body around, and I held onto a nearby railing to compensate.
As the hallway quieted in the stillness of vacuum, a quavering voice spoke up in my helmet's radio. "Hey. Head down another fifty feet and turn right. There's a cockroach – sorry, a Kodiak – parked over there, and that can get you out of here."
"Why not another escape pod?" I asked, turning to follow the directions regardless.
"You ain't from around here," drawled the dying man's voice, wheezing with laughter. "The Alliance, they'll hold you, question you, and you don't deserve that after what you've done here."
I said nothing, simply jogging through the vacuum inside the ship and hunting for the shuttle. Another turn, another door, and I found myself looking over a tiny white-shelled craft.
"That's the one," croaked the voice. "Go skedaddle on out of here, before the Ypres gets too close." A choking cough echoed over the radio, and I winced in sympathy.
"Hey, what's your name?" I whispered, fighting the words past the lump in my throat.
"Sam," whispered the soldier. "Been an honor, sir."
"Good luck," I replied softly, blinking the tears back. I stepped into the shuttle, barked at the computer until it started flying, and wrapped my arms around myself until the shuddering stopped.
I don't know how long I spent there. My exhaustion, both mental and physical, finally caught up with me and beat some sense into my tired skull. I found myself curled up, still in armor, on the shuttle's bare floor. The computer was blinking new messages at me, and I slowly navigated my way through the unfamiliar interface.
Blinking messages caught my eye, one standing out in particular. Looking for something to distract me from X57, I opened one at random. Instantly, the computer's screen expanded to show a news network across the side of the shuttle: "The colony of Terra Nova has been saved from a batarian terrorist attack, thanks to the heroic efforts of the System Alliance's N operatives. Despite terrible odds, these soldiers drove into the heart of-"
The screen was showing images from the assault. I flicked it off, disgusted, but another message kept stubbornly blinking. I opened it, and groaned in despair at the sight:
"The mission's success is largely due to the efforts of undercover N6 agent Harry Dresden. Although his name does not appear on Alliance records, and although the Alliance continues to deny his existence, we have irrefutable video proof of the elusive biotic's work."
The screen shifted to video footage from Sam the Texan's helmet, probably from that same chip he gave me. I watched, dumbfounded, as the chip showed me throwing the bug-eyed aliens – batarians – around on the unnamed ship.
I closed my eyes, leaning back and exhaling slowly. "Hell's bells."
"Please state a destination," droned the tiny ship's computer, interrupting my reverie. I considered roasting it for a second, before realizing that its tiny electronic brain probably handled important little things like the engines and life support. "Earth," I muttered, hoping that it could magic me there somehow. I had some unfinished business to deal with, an archangel to punch out, and a Council to plead with on the third rock from the Sun.
