AN:- Just keep writing just keep writing just keep writing
Chapter Three: Object Rho
Project Base was a standard research station, dropped onto an asteroid right in the middle of the belt. The asteroid was bigger than she had imagined, more the size of a moon than an asteroid. The shuttle put down in a grimy hanger bay that was entirely deserted. In most cases that wouldn't have been too suspicious, but she was already on high alert from all the other strange things which had happened.
Kenson's eyes sprang open just after they put down and she stood, opening the door and waving her through. "Here we are. Welcome to Project Base."
It was identical to any shuttle bay on any station anywhere, but as she looked around she saw one thing that stood out. Just above the door to the main station was a giant clock counting down. It had a little over two days left. There was no indication of what it was marking though. She waved up at it. "What's this?"
"That's our countdown to arrival. When that gets to zero, the Reapers will have come. Just over two days and counting." A smile crept onto her face. "Puts things in perspective doesn't it?"
"How do you know that's an accurate countdown?"
"It is. The artefact has been giving off pulses at definite intervals since we found it. The intervals have been decreasing at a steady rate. The artefact is reacting to the Reaper's proximity. In just over forty-eight hours, the pulses will become constant, and the Reapers will be here."
It sounded like an explanation, but she hadn't explained how she knew that the pulses and the Reapers were connected. Shepard decided to simply add it to the pile of questions instead of pushing. She might get more out of Kenson if she played along. "You're saying the Reapers could be at earth in two days? There's no time to waste."
Kenson brightened immediately. "Then let's show you that proof. That door exits the hanger. The artefact is in our central lab area." She opened the door and waved her into the corridor. "Go through the door at the end of that corridor to your left."
There were two men directly ahead of them in the corridor. Two men dressed in combat armour who stopped talking the moment they saw her. Both of them gave her an appraising look, then returned to the conversation. She tried to brush it off, but her skin was prickling with the wrongness she felt.
She followed Kenson to the left towards another door. Trying to cover her obvious discomfort she asked, "so what would it take to get the Project back up and running?"
"Everything was in place when we were arrested. It wasn't a question of 'could we' but 'should we.'"
They emerged into a common area where half a dozen people were sitting around. Most of them seemed to be in armour as well, lighter than the men in the corridor but still suited to weapons fire rather than simple EV suits. Once again conversation stopped abruptly when she walked in and every eye turned to give her the same hard look she had received before. From guards or military personnel she would have expected it, but most of these people had to be the scientists and crew, not soldiers.
If Kenson saw anything strange in their behaviour she didn't mention it, leading Shepard over to the right where another door cycled open. This was some sort of observation area, and through the window to her right Shepard could just see the tips of a strange object. A soft light came through the window, reminding her a little too much of drive cores and mass relays. It almost looked as though the artefact was just sitting in the middle of a room, but that couldn't be right.
"What alternative do we have?" She asked Kenson as they walked to the other side of the room.
"The Reapers will reach this system, regardless. But the Alpha Relay is their shortcut to the rest of the galaxy. If you want to keep the Reapers at bay, this relay must be destroyed."
Despite all the other strangeness going on, it really did sound as though the threat was real, and the solution for stopping it just as real. Shepard wished they had spoken to someone earlier. With more time they might have been able to come up with an alternate solution to the problem. All she could hope for now was to warn the batarians in time for them to begin evacuation. With two days to spare they should be able to evacuate most of the population, as long as she could convince them of the danger without being blamed for it.
Looks like it's time to play diplomat again, she thought bitterly as she stepped onto an elevator with Kenson. My favourite.
There was a small hallway at the bottom of the elevator, packed with people. In combat armour. She wondered why quite so many of them were so close to the object, rather than spread out throughout the base. She covered her worry with another question. "We have to get the Project running again. It's probably the only chance we have."
Kenson stopped before a locked door and held up her omni-tool. "One sec, let me get the door." The lock changed to green and the door cycled open to reveal a large open space with a bulbous object sitting right at its centre. "Commander Shepard. I give you Object Rho."
It squatted in the middle of the room, dense and solid. Blue pulses emanated from its inside, the energy leaking out the open top. As she examined it further it seemed almost like a flower, petals unfurled to the sky. Multiple stems that curled and coiled around each other. Her first impression was that it was beautiful, but then she felt something, like a scratch on the back of her mind, and she saw the ugliness underlying it. That fundamental wrongness that surrounded everything of Reaper design.
She turned to see Kenson staring at it with an expression close to awe and felt her paranoia ramp into overdrive. "You have the Reaper artefact just sitting here⦠out in the open?"
"When we found it, it showed me a vision of the Reaper's arrival."
Shepard's hand strayed to her pistol. "Kenson, this is not good."
"Give it a moment Shepard, it'll give you the proof you need."
She looked back to the artefact, focusing on the pulsing energy.
She felt it.
Fingers scratch her face, tear at her armour, rip it open and expose her to the harshness of the vacuum. Shepard looks down and see the relay below her, a hundred thousand black shapes appearing in sync. Their numbers blot out the sun, obscure every planet as they swarm to the Alpha Relay. Then they are gone, but she sees the impact of their arrivals in a hundred different systems, a thousand different worlds. Beings scream as the life is ripped from them in a hundred thousand ways, each more torturous than the last.
Shepard shook her head and looked back to see Kenson standing over her with a pistol in hand.
"I can't let you start the Project Shepard. I can't let you stop the arrival."
Enough of this. Shepard exploded off the floor, knocking the pistol aside and grabbing Kenson's arm. She squeezed hard and heard the doctor's wrist snap. She screamed and dropped to the floor but before Shepard could subdue her properly two commandos raced in from the other side of the room and opened fire, forcing her into cover.
She drew her pistol and put both men down easily, turning to see Kenson already running from the room, cradling her arm and shouting to the people outside in the hall. "Take her down!"
Shepard sprinted for the door but it slammed closed before she made it through. Bullets sparked off the door around her and she scrambled back for cover, looking over to where half a dozen commandoes were dropping in from the control room she had seen earlier. I hate it when I'm right.
Switching to her SMG she kept them back with a sustained volley, retreating further into the room, where tables and chairs would provide her better cover. Two of the men tried to storm her position and she put both of them down with her pistol. They might have been wearing the armour and wielding the guns but they were not combat trained. She could easily hold them off if she had to.
Ducking for cover behind a couch she reloaded and scanned the position. She had range on them, and she had a height advantage given from a small set of stairs they would have to climb to reach her. That would funnel them almost to single file, easy pickings for her SMG, let alone her other weapons. She also had the advantage of them being raging lunatics who didn't seem capable of forming actual tactics, preferring the standard 'screaming charge' she had seen from other indoctrinated and husks.
In the second before she would be forced to open fire she let herself feel sorry for them, forced into doing this by Reaper control. They weren't responsible, they were victims of something evil. But she didn't have another option for subduing them. They were too many and too well armed. All of this passed through her mind in a single second before she opened her eyes again and opened up with the SMG
Two on the stairs died instantly, their light armour no match for the disrupter slugs she had on tap. A third went down screaming as her bullet punched clean through his leg, breaking the bone and sending spurts of arterial blood everywhere. A fourth tried to make the same assault, pounding up the steps with no thought given to his fallen comrades. She put a controlled burst into his chest and he collapsed against the railings before sliding back down to the lower level.
The fifth and sixth at least learned a little, covering her position with assault rifle fire while they made their advance. But their shots were wild and untrained, barely troubling her cover or shields. She dropped the bigger one, who fell against the smaller and sent them both stumbling, where another short burst finished them off.
Ten seconds, six men dead, and not even a full clip of ammunition expended. She ran through her options. Reload and hope she could find more ammunition or risk needing to reload at a more difficult time? She had no idea how many they had to attack her wit and she didn't want to waste a single heat sink.
Before she could finalise her decision another six enemies burst into the room, three coming over the side of the command booth while the other three came in through the main door. She set the SMG down on the table in front of her and drew her pistol instead. Capping the last one through the door in the faceplate. His head snapped back and he collapsed in a heap. The others didn't even notice his death, coming at her with their guns blazing.
Either they were more skilled or they had learned from the first wave, because they split up, two of them keeping a steady hail of fire on her while the other three made for the stairs. It would have been a good tactic if she hadn't been on a higher level. As it was the covering fire was mostly blocked by the low level guard rail around her platform, or by the table she was behind. Three more pistol bullets dropped the three on the stairs, down but maybe not dead, and she picked up her SMG again.
The two men firing on her position broke cover and ran for the stairs, firing as they went. She swept the SMG across them, expending the rest of the clip in one fluid motion. The closest man went down with half a dozen holes in his chest while the further one simply fell to one knee, an arm wrapped around his stomach. She stood fully from cover, picking up the pistol, and put a bullet into the very top of his helmet. He jerked and fell to the floor.
One of the men on the stairs was getting back up, bleeding badly from his shoulder but still able to raise his assault rifle and fire it. She cursed and ducked behind cover, waiting for his gun to run dry. The fire stopped and she whirled round, bringing her pistol to bear on his position. But instead of trying to reload he had simply grabbed one of his fallen comrade's rifles and was bringing it up as well. She centred and fired as fast as she could but as the bullet blasted through his neck his finger depressed on the trigger.
Her shield caught every bullet from his dying volley, but as another group rushed into the room she realised it had overloaded. A bullet caught her in the side and she hissed, feeling it burn as it exited somewhere on her back. Not a mortal wound, but a stupid mistake on her part. She ducked behind cover again and reloaded her pistol and SMG, hoping for a lull in the attack.
Footsteps on the stairs and the men providing covering fire ran empty. She stood and fired with both guns, using the SMG to keep them pinned while her pistol sought out targets. One female soldier with a shield up and a shotgun in hand got two shots to the face. A man trying to ready a flashbang she took with a shot clean through his shoulder. He dropped the grenade and she ducked again as it went off, her ear filters closing entirely to keep the noise out.
The fire on her position stopped entirely and she popped back out to see every one of them reeling from the flashbang's effects. It was an easy matter to hit each of them with a single headshot each and another eight bodies joined the pile at the bottom of the stairs.
They were beginning to adapt though, and were sending greater numbers now. She reloaded quickly and grabbed the rim of the table, heaving at it until the bolts which secured it gave way and she was able to plant it firmly down, giving her maximum cover while still allowing her to fire around on either side. The chairs would still give her cover from the sides, and the heavy metal table had so far proved more than adequate to resist their bullets.
Metal clanged and a dozen soldiers raced into the room. She snatched her sniper rifle first and shot one of them in the centre of the chest. The bullet passed clean through him and hit the commando behind in the neck, dropping him as well. Rather than reloading she dropped the rifle and switched to her SMG, raking fire across their front line. Every one of them dropped for cover, but she scored a couple of solid hits that would definitely incapacitate.
Her next job was the three on the far side of the room armed with rocket launchers who were moving to get a lock on her. She reloaded the rifle one handed and drew her pistol in her other hand. Two shots caught one of the men in the stomach and throat and he fell to the floor. She shifted to the rifle and shot a second man through the head. His finger jerked on the trigger and a rocket slammed into the wall, the shockwave forcing the final one out of cover. She used the rest of her pistol's clip dropping him, then turned back to the main room.
Six of them were up and firing, with a seventh trying to crawl for better cover. She switched back to her SMG, popped the sink and reloaded. Two on the stairs caught half a clip each and she reloaded again, her shield beginning to flicker and fade under the constant fire. The table was absorbing a lot of the fire but there were too many of them and she couldn't afford to give them an inch. Four men, two moving to flank her with covering fire while the other two moved for the stairs, running from cover to cover. They both had shields and were smart enough to wait for the covering fire before moving.
A bullet finally overloaded her shields and she fell back cursing, grabbing her pistol and rifle and reloading them as fast as she could. In between bursts of fire she could hear the two men climbing the stairs and knew she had seconds before they came round the side of the table. She primed an incendiary charge and attached it to the pistol, then took her SMG in her left hand and breathed deep.
A foot emerged from behind one side of the table and she fired the incendiary shot into it. The man screamed and leapt back as the fire spread up his leg. She ignored it, already turning to meet the other man who was coming from the other side of the table. Her SMG opened him up from head to foot and he dropped into a puddle of his own blood. She fell onto her back and found the first man, still alive with most of his leg entirely gone. He had fallen against another table and was trying desperately to crawl away from her. One last bullet put him out of his misery.
Too late she realised that the two who had been providing cover fire had taken advantage of the distraction to mount the stairs. Bullets poured into her shield and overloaded it in seconds as she tried to scrabble back to cover. Two bullets got through and her shoulder exploded with pain, making her cry out and drop the SMG. The second bullet had caught her somewhere in the stomach and made her gasp with every breath.
She made it to cover and desperately loaded up her medi-gel, but they were already on her. She swung her pistol round and emptied it into the first man, knocking him back into his partner, who simply shoved the corpse aside and took careful aim. With a flick of the wrist she threw her pistol at him, distracting him another crucial second as she leapt for her sniper rifle, snatching it up and bringing it round in a heartbeat.
Her vision narrowed, the world slowing the way it did when her implants took over. She still seemed to move in real time though, and knew that her enhanced muscles were pushing her past human limits. The rifle came down, braced against her body while her elbow locked to keep it steady. Her left arm was useless, but he was barely two feet away, taking aim again. She wouldn't need the scope, she barely needed to aim before she pulled the trigger.
The rifle bucked hard, pulling itself from her grip, but the AM round caught him in stomach and blew him entirely in half. His legs dropped immediately while his torso was sent back half a foot from the force of the blow. Both parts landed in a huge pile of gore and blood, his head now facing the top of his own waist.
Shepard's head dropped back against the table and she spat blood onto her armour. Somewhere along the way she had bitten her lip hard enough to make it bleed. She forced herself up, locating her weapons and sliding them into cover. Surely they couldn't have many more to send against her.
A voice echoed in her head, filling the chamber. She recognised it, despite having never heard it before. It didn't have anything to say that she hadn't heard before.
"Do not resist, give yourself over and be spared."
She reloaded, looking over to where Object Rho sat, malevolent and pulsing with sickly blue light.
"Give me a minute," she said, racking her final heat sink home. "I'll be right out."
No more commandoes had come to attack her, and the intercom was finally silent of Kenson's demented ramblings. She stood, pistol in hand, and faced the artefact. "Now how about you shut up?" She said.
The door whirred open and she heard a mechanical clanking from beyond. Wincing with every movement she turned to face it, raising her pistol and focusing on the noise. She shouldn't have been shocked when a YMIR mech walked into view, but it did at least get a sigh out of her. "Come on, seriously?"
The massive cannon arm came round to focus on her and she sprinted back for cover, firing as she went. The pistol bullets barely even dented its shields as it opened up with a gatling burst of fire that tore holes from the floor around her. She vaulted over the railing and onto the upper platform, heading for her makeshift barricade, making it just as a rocket whizzed over her shoulder and exploded against the far window.
She dropped the pistol and grabbed her rifle instead, priming another incendiary charge. She would only have one shot at taking it down, before her injuries did the job for them. The table was beginning to shred under the heavy assault gun and she knew it would only be seconds before it had another rocket ready to launch.
The moment there was a lull in the firing she sprinted from cover, trusting her enhance3d muscles to take over and propel her forwards. Her legs powered under her and the world seemed to slow to a crawl. She watched as the blue emission trail of the rocket poured from the YMIR's arm and she was already in motion when the black-nose of a missile emerged from the centre of the fire. It was moving at several hundred metres a second but she had already made her move, launching herself up and planting one foot on the railing.
Her jump carried her clean over the rocket, the jetwash burning her legs even through her boots as she sailed through the air, locked on target with the YMIR. It tried to bring its assault gun up again but she was already landing on its shoulder plating, finding her balance through sheer luck. The world was beginning to return to normal speed as she brought the rifle down and pressed the barrel right up against the top of the YMIR's head plating, underneath the kinetic field.
The rifle was wrenched from her hand again as the powerful round cracked straight through the plating and blasted the head apart, burrowing down through into the chest cavity, expending its incendiary payload as it went. She followed her rifle, springing off the back of the mech and flying past Object Rho. The mech was groaning as it sank to its knees and she snapped back to realtime with a crash as she skidded along the floor, rolling several times and coming up against a desk.
She gasped and coughed and yelped as the pain in her stomach intensified with the impact, rendering her little more than a quivering ball of pain as she struggling to make her limbs respond. The mech blew with a nuclear blast, heat and shock slamming her against the desk and floor again. Her head spun and she vomited what little was in her stomach.
A second pulse undercut the first, dense blue waves that washed over her and overpowered any mental defences she might have previously had. She finally lay still, unable to fight anymore. It had left her her senses though, and she was able to see the far door open and three people enter, their eyes burning orange as they knelt beside her. She heard Kenson's voice, overlaid with the Reaper that controlled her.
"Take her to the med bay and patch her up. We want Shepard alive."
Blackness claimed her.
AN:- I used to write prophecies and visions in first person, back in the ME1 novelisation. Continuity!
Isn't that fight fun? I ended up planted behind a desk emptying everything I had in a desperate attempt to survive.
