Mass Effect: Extinction

Disclaimer: I don't own Mass Effect.

#4: Discovery and Evacuation

Snow sipped her drink, sitting low in her seat in a booth in the back corner of the room. She placed it back on the scarred table top, and began to nod off almost immediately. She was in some random bar in one of the seedier of the Blue Suns controlled areas of the station. Not a place she would have chosen, but she really didn't mind. After the life on the Citidel, she actually preferred the open hostility present here in comparison. On the Citidel, everyone was just as rude, offensive and selfish as they were on Omega, but at least here they were open and honest about it, not hiding it.

"Long day?" Snow jumped at the brisk female voice that sounded from her right. She had not realized that she had fallen asleep. She looked around and saw her friend standing. She stood with a smile and gave the other woman a hug before letting her grab the seat opposite.

"No more than any other. You just keep odd hours."

"No stranger than your own, Aurora." She flinched slightly. She hated being called by her birth name. Her full name being Aurora Frost, she went by Snow because it conjured a pretty image in her mind. She took a moment to examine her friend while she ordered a drink. Her dark chestnut hair flowed glossily down her back and splashing on her shoulders, a little of it falling down over her perfectly sculpted facial features. The rest of her body was built just as well as her face, and was evident by the skin tight while and black bodysuit she wore. Like most of the popular human and Asari styles, the only skin exposed was on her neck, face, and some cleavage. Snow found it amusing how the species that possessed breasts all enjoyed showing off that fact. When her drink came, she cupped the glass in both hands an spoke into it.

"Sorry, But I can't stay long. We're only here long enough to refuel and and make a few vital repairs." Snow waved her hand dissmissivly.

"It's alright. Just nice to see you again Miranda. How went you're last assignment?" The other woman gave a wry smile.

"Better than I could have imagined."

"Is it something you can talk about, or is it one of those ultra black ops kind of things?" She looked up at Snow, a nervous type of smile on her face.

"I… I can talk about any of it now. I… I am no longer a member of Cerberus." Snow chocked on her drink. She never saw this coming, although she could see that Miranda was completely truthful about it.

"*cough* what… What brought that about…" She asked, coughing. Miranda looked briefly away and Snow knew, and a sly smile spread across her face. "Aw, Miranda, you found a boy who could keep up with you. Who is he?"

"It's not only that." She said, passionately, and not due to embaressment. On of the benefits of talking with Snow was that signals were not mistaken for others. Everything said was able to be seen as it was intended. "This last mission, I saw things that we were doing… and I just could not be a part of it any longer."

"Hey, happens. Now don't dodge, who is he?" Now Miranda gave a far off, happy smile.

"Are you familiar with Shepard?" Snow could see and here the immense pride in her voice, and the reverence she held in the way her body was set. She had it bad.

"Shepard who?"

"Commander Shepard, The first human Spectre."

"Oh, That Shepard. Yeah, didn't he die? I've been hearing odd rumors about that one."

"Like what?"

"Oh, disappears about three years back, some attack or another, then all of a sudden colonist start vanishing, then everything is Shepard this, Shepard that.

"Well, he did die. But I brought him back."

"Okay." There was no challenge, Snow could See Miranda thought this was fact.

"Yes, we did. An insectoid race called the Collectors killed him, and started abducting entire colonies of humans. So I was put in charge of a project to bring him back to life. It worked."

"So he real is back out there, and it's not just all bullshit?"

"Yep. He's… Amazing. We just went on a one way trip through the Omega 4 Relay.. As close to Zero odds of survival as you can get. He brought us all back alive, destroyed the Collectors, and now is headed back to Earth to report on The encroachment of the Reapers."

"Mir, coming form anyone else, I would tell you that you need to be examined. So you really brought a guy back from the dead?"

"Yes. It took two years and an unimaginable amount of credits, but we did it."

"…and now you're dating him."

"What? No. He's in a relationship with a Quarian." She continued after noting the skeptisim on Snow's face. "It doesn't bother me. Pro human does not necessarily mean anti Non-human. I was working with some of the best in the Galaxy, of a number of different races. But, Shepard is simply amazing. That's partly why I am here." Her voice shifted to a business-like tone. "The Reapers are coming." She did not elaborate.

"What are "The Reapers?"" Snow asked. She knew it wasn't a good thing. It was obvious to her by the note in her friend's voice.

"The Reapers are a race of Sentient Machines that live only to wipe out all organic life. They are what made the Proteans extinct, and what attacked the Citadel 3 years ago with Saren and The Geth. And now the Reapers are coming. I came to you because we are going to need everyone we can get if we are going to have a chance. Will you come when I call?"

"Of course." She replied at once. "I'll have to tell Mark we're doing it, but we're in. It might be hard to reach us, because we're going off station on a job starting tomorrow. We'll Figure it out when the time comes. Now, tell me more about this guy."

(…)

When Snow made it back home, it was well past local midnight. She slipped in and moved silently through the living area. Mark was at his tool bench, his head on the table, the subdued light off. She moved to her own room and noticed the two Asari who were married together in her bed, fast asleep. She did not mind, so she quietly grabbed her night clothes, and dressed in the bathroom, choosing a T-shirt in lieu of her open fronted one. She still stuck with only underpants, though, as it was still her house. She folder her clothes and left them on the counter. When she returned to the living room, Mark was up and back at work at the table, it's holographic projector showing a skeletal human arm. He was winding different colored wires around the bones and through the skin.

"So, how's your old contact?" He said without turning away."

"She's alright. Not my contact anymore, you know. Plus, not even Cerberus anymore. It's crazy."

"Usually is. Sorry about the Asari in your bed. Jericho and Raeka are in her room, and I got Sileen in mine, Tealsa and the other in Jericho's. if you want the couch I can grab the floor."

"I can share. No worries. Hey, listen. While I was out, Miranda laid some… heavy shit on me. The short of it is that she's going to call me when a race of near omnipotent machines whose only purpose is to wipe out all organic life. I told her when it happens, she could count us in for the fight."

"Okay, that could be interesting. Tell me about it." For the next hour, Snow went over all the things Miranda had told her about, and even had a drive with some reports and data on it. Mark continued to rebuild his damaged arms, rewiring it a bit so that he would loss control in similar situations. He also ran back up control "nerves" outside of the bone to in event that they were shattered. When she handed him the dive he opened a wireless link with his thoughts, and zipped it to his own hard drive before handing it back. Finally he finished the redesign, told his machines to fabricate 4 pairs, then clicked out the lights. Snow had was laying on her back, looking up at him, her eyes glimmering in the light in the kitchen. As he joined her she flowed up against him like a cat, and was fast asleep. He was glad she could drop of so easily, having burdened him with the shit she had learned. He decided the full details could wait until later, because even with the relays and FTL flight, Space was still big and boring. He would have plenty of time to look over the stuff on the flight out. And with that though, he fell asleep.

(…)

The flight out to the system and then to the planet took a total time of just under a month and a half. The ship itself was an old surplus Turian frigate that was owned by Sileen, and once the course was set, flew on auto pilot for most of the time. Mark got better acquainted with Tealsa, though not in the manner he had initially been trying to, and also with Sileen. The Turian truly had left her anti human beliefs in the past, and he liked her gruff, dominant attitude. They had taken to different card games during the ships night cycle, and she had become his partner, although everyone lost to Snow. All the Asari save Tealsa kept to themselves, but she was always around, peppering the humans with questions and just getting to know each of them, save Jericho, who kept his distance from all the Asari. Mark knew the real reason for this, but deflected it by saying that because he spent so many years learning about the Asari, that he couldn't help viewing them with detachment, and didn't want to offend. He thought Sileen might be able to see through this, but she did not say anything.

After the debacle on Omega, Tealsa had expressed a desire to become more proficient in self defense, and was working with Snow and (closely supervised by Snow) Raeka to that end. By the time they landed at site, she was able to hold her own physically, and had a real grasp on offense biotics. They would work on firearms now that they had landed.

The site consisted of a single black/purple spike of metal protruding about 20 feet out of the side of a hill. A series of prefab buildings were placed up to a section of the hill that had been dug up. Sileen had explained the setup to Mark before they were shuttled down. The buildings were several labs, a kitchen, and a barracks, and had been set up by another independent firm. They settled in, gave half of the bunkroom to the Asari, and took the other for the Humans, although Sileen choose he bunk on their side rather than with the rather aloof Asari. The edge of building that touched the hill ended in an airlock that connected to the black metal thing buried in the planets crust.

Sileen and Mark each took teams to explore the wrecked ship, and quickly realized just how big the damn thing was, and that is was unlike anything they had ever seen before. It was at least the size of a dreadnought, and almost all of it was buried. It was a maze of dark, twisting passages and wide open spaces, and it was hard to determine where you actually were within it, like the passages changes once you walked through them. So it went for weeks, Mark leading Raeka and Tealsa and Sileen taking Jericho and Snow, they were moving through the ship, taking pieces and bringing them back for the other three to study in their labs. The site was creepy enough during the day, and they stayed out at night.

The planet itself was not unpleasant, Earth like atmosphere with slightly less gravity. Thing was, it rained all the time. Constantly. So much so that no vegetation larger than grasses could get a foot hold as the constantly shifting plates below the crust created an ever-changing landscape of mud. The prefab had been attached to the ship they were working on, the ground that the supports had originally rested upon had already melted away and left a 2 foot gap under the habitat. But outside this, it was a pleasant trip, almost a vaction. You know, except again for the eerily silent ship corpse they were digging through. Finally, after about two months, they had placed enough probes and beacons to get a full holographic display of the ship.

Mark was leaning over the screen, with Tealsa, Sileen, and the other scientist standing in a circle around the large projection dome Mark had Jury-rigged in their main lab. HE waited for the final green light to blink on, tapped a few places on the display, and grunted in satisfaction as the lights in the prefab dimmed, and shaky red lines began to trace in the air above the dome. Snow walked in, dressed in a white tank top and black cargo pants, no shoes and her hair dripping wet from the shower she'd been taking, and tapped Mark on shoulder. He reluctantly tore his eyes away from the blossoming image and immediately became tense at the look on Snow's face. She was pale as looked about to faint. She opened her omnitool and slid a message over to him. He did not recognize the address, but the attachment made his eyes narrow as he scanned the content. Sileen, noticing the sudden shift, walked over and asked about what was wrong. He did not bother forwarding the message, but simply filped his display so she could read it.

When she finished, the three exchanged a few more words, then all retreated while the four Asari continued watching the blossoming image grow.

(…)

Back in the bunkhouse, Mark, Sileen, Jericho, Raeka, and Snow were all sitting in stony silence, watching footage of Machines dropping to the planet below amidst a glittering velvet black backdrop rent with explosions and death. After Snow had shown them the flash alert sent on all channels by Admiral Hackett, the highest remaining officer left in the human fleet, they had sat without words, watching footage of the Reaper attacks for over an hour. After two hours, the door slid open, and Tealsa entered, wanting to inform them that the modeling was completed. She was about the speak when the noise and images on the screen registered.

She stood transfixed for a moment, the moved and sat next to Sileen and watched with the rest in silence. Finally, when the shock started to wear off, she realized the she had seen the shape that the ships destroying everything before.

"Hey!" She exclaimed, making everyone jump so bad that Snow had to check herself to keep herself from bringing a knife to bear on the Asari out of instinct.

"What?" Mark shook his head to clear the fog out, and looked over at her. She pointed at the things on screen.

"The scans finished a little bit ago, and we have been rooting around in one of those!" Before anyone could react, the was a loud thump that shook the entire habitat. A few seconds later the was a static rattling and the sound of screams filtered in. The ones that were veterans of combat were instantly alert, the horror they had seen forgotten momentarily.

Snow pressed low on one side of the door as Mark slid to the other, both their sidearm's drawn. Mark triggered the door releases, and the swept into the next room, before a muffled clear told Jericho, Raeka, and Sileen to follow, all with weapons drawn. Tealsa, picking up the hint, drew her own pistol and followed hesitantly. They stacked up against the door where the other Asari were, and Mark overrode the door controls, and edged it open a crack with his augmented arms.

He peered through the door, and saw several people in white and yellow armor prowling the room, one stacking the bodies of the scientists. Mark left the crack, but kept his eye on it, while he whispered his intent to Jericho to pass down the line.

"Cerberus. Flash and smash." Jericho nodded and passed the word around to the others. He moved back to the door, and counted 12 soldiers. He knew enough about Cerberus to know this might not be easy. But he had confidence in his team, and knew the Sileen would watch after Tealsa. He removed a flash grenade from his belt, primed it, looked to his group, found them ready, and tossed it in.

He heard the bang, pushed in, and learned a valuable lesson. It is never wise to rely on a flashbang when going up against troopers in fully pressurized suits and leaded eye lenses. He entered to see all 12 level their rifles at him. He swore and dove sideways, activating all his emergency features. In reality, all that happened was his legs vented smoke while his arms sent out a radial pulse of electricity that disabled the enemies weapons just long enough for him to claw his way into cover while the shocks wracked his body. He thought he heard shots, but his aural sensors were flicking from the overload. Finally, after what seemed like hours, but was actually only about thirty seconds, his displays reset, and he managed to push himself up with his back to the crate he was covering behind.

"Are you okay?" Snow called over from the next piece of cover. He could see the others arrayed around the room, trading shots with Cerberus. He checked his danger indicator, and it still crawled with fuzz.

"No, " He said, shaking his head. He ejected the burned out thermal clip from his pistol, and sloted a new one. "this is bullshit. All I wanted was to have sex with a fine ass little Asari chick, and now I am on some damn mud planet fighting soldiers while the earth burns. I woyld say okay is not something I am." Snow shook her head with a slight smile, while across room, Tealsa was reloading her gun, and suddenly realized what he had said.

"Wait, WHAT?"

"Not now, sweetie, daddy's working." Mark yelled back, swinging around and shooting one of the soldiers. The rounds struck the side of one that was shooting at Raeka, cracked it's armor and threw it against the wall. Jericho's shotgun barked, and another fell. Thankfully, the Cerberus soldiers were only expecting a small, Asari only research party, and not a paramilitary security team, and were cut down with no further casualties to Mark's party. When the last of the incoming fire died off, Mark took quick survey of the room, before calling it clear. He began to move through the room, delivering a Coup De Grace to each corpse in turn. The others just stood and looked around, marks group waiting, while Tealsa moved over and looked down at her fallen race mates. Sileen spoke first, after the last of the corpses was assuredly dead, and Snow, Raeka, and Jericho started collecting weapons and kit from the dead Cerberus.

"So… uh… what is the plan?" Mark fired two shots into a corpse, ejected the spent clip, and replaced it from one of the body he looted. He hefted the fallen troopers weapon and inspected it.

"I don't know. I will get you wherever you need to go, but I for one am going to join the fight. Snow, Jer, Rae, You all are free to do as you please, But I am going to join up for the duration."

"You don't get to ditch us that easily. We're with you." Snow said, knowing the other two felt the same way.

"Alright, pack you're crap and load up whatever you think we should take." He finished checking the rifle, and slung it, before facing Sileen. "Whatever we have here, those people want it, and I am not keen of letting them have it. I'm going to rig it's Mass Effect core to explode, then we are bugging out. Our destination is the Citadel, but I will take you wherever you need to go first. Prep your stuff, and have it loaded, I want to get out as soon as possible, lest they bring reinforcements." And Mark moved about his business, his mind already thinking about what lay ahead.