There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter.
The Transmigration Effect
Chapter 9
dirge (noun)
a song or hymn of grief or lamentation; especially : one intended to accompany funeral or memorial rites
"I'm sure I just misheard you. We can't be jumping out of the Normandy at twenty-five thousand feet without parachutes."
She's kidding, right? Oh she's not kidding.
"Hey, we don't have a Mako so we're going to have to HALO the drop. You do know how it works, right?" Shepard gives me a look as she fits her greaves on over her fatigues, stretching out her legs in the process. Beside her, Ash looks totally at ease, ignoring the massive expanse of open sky hanging out only a dozen metres away.
"I know the physics. That doesn't mean I can actually jump out of a spaceship!" I manage through clenched teeth.
Theoretically, The Normandy will reduce our masses to a value so close to zero that when we actually touch down the impact will be as soft as a feather. I know I can actually do this better than most people, because I can add my own biotics to the anti-mass effect.
It's still jumping out of a freaking spaceship without a parachute.
"Might want to seal your helmet, not much air up here," Garrus comments, sealing his own equipment.
He's right. I'm getting out of breath. The thought of jumping into near-orbit is bad enough; the added prospect of leaping into vacuum isn't helping. "Look, Parker," Shepard finally says. "I won't force you to go. If you haven't been trained, I know it can be daunting."
That doesn't make me feel better. Dammit Shepard, don't play the emasculating card! You suck.
I hesitate, and Shepard raps her armoured knuckles against my helmeted head. "Alright, I guess you can sit this one out. Wrex, you come to see us off?"
The Krogan shrugs his enormous shoulders. "You're the ones leaving from my spot. I couldn't care less."
Shepard gives her own little shrug in return. "Well then. Tali, Garrus, Ash, ready to go?" Even Tali's more prepared to do this than I am. They all nod, and take a step towards the open ramp. "See you groundside," Shepard crows, and falls into the void with a wild whoop. In succession, Tali, Ash and Garrus all follow, and I can't help tiptoeing over to the edge to see them fade into specks in the distance.
"Long fall, huh," Wrex comments next to me, also watching them descend.
"Yeah," I agree, trying to get some moisture back into my mouth.
I see him move back a step, "Oh, you motherf-" is all I can manage before his ironclad foot smashes into my backside, sending me flying out the Normandy's garage and into the abyss.
He… he just kicked me out! Holy shit! That asshole! Above me, the Normandy becomes smaller and smaller, a kilometre away in mere seconds.
"I'm gonna die." I whimper, feeling the slipstream tugging at my limbs.
"Oh, you decided to join us after all?" Shepard's voice sounds in my ear, cheerfully at odds with the gut-wrenching terror that rules my body. "Wrex understands me so well," she continues happily.
"That was your idea? Holy fucking hell, Shepard!" I roar back at her, temporarily distracted from shrieking in terror.
"Relax, it's easy. Just spread your arms and legs and don't land on your head. Should be simple, since the Normandy's projecting a field to keep us on course."
Sure enough, it's remarkably easy to get my arms and legs into the traditional skydiving pose, despite the wind tearing at my sealed armour. "Not an excuse, Shepard!"
"All's well that ends well." The ground is approaching extremely rapidly, and I have no means of slowing myself down. At all. An altimeter pops up on my HUD, helpfully telling me that I am less than five hundred metres away from a very messy, very swift death. Five hundred metres at a terminal velocity of approximately fifty-five metres per second means time remaining until impact is a fraction over nine seconds.
Nine seconds of life left. Puts everything in perspective, really.
"Now, use your biotics to reduce your mass." Shepard orders, having already landed. Right now, I don't need encouragement. My whole body glows blue, wisps of biotic power curling out from everywhere, dropping my mass to a fraction of its ordinary amount. The Normandy's drive core tugs on me suddenly, further reducing my effective mass to the point where landing on the barren ground feels like a feather landing on felt.
I still land on my face.
"Nice of you to drop in, Parker," Shepard comments. Ash groans.
"Please tell me you didn't just say that," Garrus remarks flatly.
"Oh, she did," Tali drawls as I clamber to my feet.
Shepard ignores us all, apparently content to get her abysmal pun off before turning towards the sky. "Joker, you read me?"
"Loud and clear, commander. All boots on the ground?"
"Roger, Joker. How close are we from the last known position of the Admiral's recon team?"
"You had a drift of about 70 south so just keep going north. Nothing I can see from up here."
Shepard frowns. "Well, something happened to the recon team. Stay in touch, Joker. I don't like this."
"Roger that, good hunting. Normandy out."
I don't even know what planet we're on, or if it has an official designation. The planet is rocky and windy, kicking dust and dirt up in momentary windstorms. No life. No movement. I guess this is what the first humans on Mars had thought, exploring a completely lifeless world.
Knowing that despite the endless expanses of whipping winds, something close by took out an elite Alliance Recon team is not a good feeling. A Thresher Maw? Certainly a possibility. If so, how would we kill it? No Mako, no Wrex, no heavy weapons. Not a happy prospect.
The ground is uniformly red under a uniformly yellow sky and a blue sun, and the only sound I hear is the rattling of sand bouncing off my armour. There is no way to tell if you are about to walk up a hill or into a crevasse, no way of knowing if you're seeing the horizon so far away or a wave of dirt picked up by the wind bare metres from your face. The only points of reference I have are my squadmates, and the first time Tali, at the front of the group, disappears into a ditch I jumped in fright. She emerges perfectly fine moments later, but the shock stays.
"See something, Parker?" Shepard asks tersely, sweeping the rear with her sniper up. I guess nobody is immune to the sheer barrenness of the place, even Shepard.
"No, Shepard. Lost sight of Tali for a second. Elevation's hard to tell here."
"Seconded, ma'am." Ashley's voice comes from the other side of our diamond formation, rifle ceaselessly scanning her flank. "Visibility's down to almost nothing."
Tali disappears again, but this time she's the one who calls to us. "Hold on. I've found something." Sounds of scrabbling and shallow digging, while the three of us keep on watch for ambushes. "Oh, Keelah," Tali's voice says into my ear. "Commander, I think we've found the recon team."
Shepard frowns behind the reinforced faceplate of her helmet, sliding down the near-invisible hill to where Tali made her find. "It's the recon team, all right," she says heavily. "We were too late."
Come on, I came on this trip specifically to treat wounded marines. They'd better not be dead, or I got kicked out of a spaceship for nothing!
Then I see the bodies, and I can't do anything but agree. They're gone. The eight armoured figures are badly burned, armour and flesh alike. Dark green and brown armour, camouflage patterns, scorched black and pitted with debris from an explosion. Their helmets are cracked, air supplies shattered. No colour remains on their charred faces, and their eyes are boiled away. I drop to one knee, omni-tool flaring to life. No wild creature did this.
"Armour looks like it's taken explosive damage, at least the parts that aren't burned to hell," I mutter, feeding in input data. Tali crouches next to me, bringing up her own omni-tool. "I can't identify the detonator. Never seen it before."
"Neither have I," Tali says worriedly. "Close-range blast, looks like sustained heat as well. Alliance armour is supposed to be fireproof, isn't it?"
An old history lesson comes to mind from Macapa; the marks almost looks like napalm burns. "A clinging flammable agent?"
Ash shakes her head. "Something like that would leave a familiar trace, right? You'd be able to identify it."
"Unless it burned perfectly," Garrus adds.
"That only happens in lab conditions," I argue. I grab a DNA sample from what I can find that isn't destroyed, out of habit I guess. At least I can get a name. Then I freeze as the omnitool beeps at me.
A bad beep.
"That doesn't make sense." Shepard looks up at me, but I'm still staring dumbly at my omnitool.
"What doesn't, Parker?"
I take a deep breath. "According to this blood sample, this woman wasn't burned to death. She was poisoned."
"Poisoned? By what?" Ash asks dubiously.
"'Unidentified pathogen'." I read off the screen. "Never seen it before, either. It's a post-mortem sample, already used. There's no way to tell what an active strain would look like."
Tali's still digging away, uncovering the complete bodies of the deceased. "Shepard." She calls, voice carefully neutral. Even so, there's an undertone of disgust in her voice that she can't suppress. "There's one that's pointing. Due west."
Shepard stands to her full height, eyes blazing. "Let's go. These soldiers deserve to be avenged. And I'm in a mood to oblige."
"Is that…?" Ash calls, coming to a surprised stop. I can't blame her. It's so out of place it almost seems comical. But I recognise the emblem on the side, a black and yellow design emblazoned on the shuttle's flank.
Cerberus.
Besides the shuttle, there's a large tower, almost invisible in the constant dust storm. A beacon? A communication relay?
Shepard steps up to the white Kodiak, staring hard at the logo. "Anyone know what this is?" She growls.
"Cerberus," Ash and I say at the same time. She falls silent, and I continue. "Human supremacist terrorist group. Political roots. Highly xenophobic, led by 'The Illusive Man', real name unknown." Because I can't tell them he's Jack Harper, either.
"Humanity would be the species to kill its own in cold blood," Shepard mutters. I don't know if she's ashamed, angry or sad.
Next to the tower, a hatch in the ground opens, previously camouflaged by its external covering. A single scientist in a transparent bubble-suit appears from an underground tunnel, carrying a box of what looks like personal effects. He drops the crate with a squeak, diving for the cover of the shuttle as all four of us train our guns on him. The Cerberus logo on his shoulder is proof enough of his allegiance, and a powerful desire demands that I end his life right now.
"Start talking," Shepard grunts, rifle close enough to his head that she couldn't miss blindfolded.
In response, the unarmed scientist sprints the five steps to the tower, pulling down a black lever with a frantic effort. Then he bites down hard, face turning blue in seconds, and collapses. None of us really have a chance to intervene or examine him though, because as the lever falls, so too does a massive iron weight at the top of the tower. It falls straight down through the black structure, smashing into the ground with a concussive boom big enough to bowl us all over.
It's not a communications tower. It's a Maw Hammer. Shit.
I scramble back to all fours, grateful for the solid plating of my armour. Thanks to that, my eardrums are still intact. The scientist is dead, bubbles of spittle issuing from one corner of his mouth. Suicide pill. I rip the omnitool from its slot on his forearm, tearing apart the fragile spacesuit in the process. He won't be needing it anymore.
Ash, Tali and Shepard are all standing around, the former two wobbling a little as they get their balance back. Using the scientist's tool, I pop the shuttle's doors open. "Everyone inside!" I roar, convincing the three of them by sheer force of purpose. "Shepard, you can fly this thing, right?"
She grins. "Can I fly it," she scoffs.
"Then get us out of here!" I yell at her. I'm yelling at Shepard. A little part of my brain notes that I'll be lucky to survive. The vast majority screeches back that if we don't leave pronto, that won't be an issue.
"Why the rush?" Shepard starts to ask, before the ground trembles and explodes, twenty-metre Thresher Maw rising into the sky with a primal bellow. "Oh," Shepard finishes. "Got it."
"Now would be good!" Ash screams. The enormous predator reaches the pinnacle of its journey upwards before arcing down, looking to crush our flimsy shuttle against the rocks before dragging it underground. Shepard floors the engines, sending our stolen shuttle shooting forward the instant before the Maw's screaming mouth plunges down onto the pad.
Shepard exhales heavily. "Close call. Nice reactions, Parker."
"Thanks," I reply breathlessly. That really wasn't good. Way too close for comfort.
"Cerberus, huh?" Kaidan mutters. "Figures. You going to tell the admiral now?"
Shepard nods from the head of the mess table, our unofficial debriefing lounge. The four of us have cleaned up, Shepard's hair still wet from her shower. We could use the official debriefing room instead, but the prospect of being gazed on by the galactic council was a little stuffy.
"Never seen one of those worms before," Ash shakes her head, and I shiver a little at just how close we came to being devoured. "Never want to again."
"Thresher Maws are supposedly native to Tuchanka," I explain. "They sense prey through feeling vibrations in the ground. Just as well we didn't have the Mako, or it would have attacked sooner."
"Yeah, how did you know it was coming?" Shepard cocks her head and waits, hanging on Ash's question.
I shrug. "It was summoned by that big Maw Hammer. It sends a massive vibration underground, which draws them in." A few odd looks come my way. "I'm Australian. You expect me not to know about dangerous wildlife? I think Maws are pretty cool." When they're not trying to eat you, that is. I look around at the incredulous faces around the table, suddenly self-conscious. "What?"
"That was a pretty small Maw though." Wrex chuckles. "I'm surprised you didn't try to punch it to death."
"Maybe you'd like to lead by example," I mutter back.
"Already have," Wrex grins smugly. "Your turn."
"Um, yes, well, I've broken the encryption on the Cerberus files," Tali remarks, cutting through the accumulating testosterone. All eyes are on her immediately.
"There wasn't much, unfortunately. He was apparently a very low-level person. The project is codenamed 'Scourge' and is attempting to create a bioweapon of some sort. I would presume that this is the poison that Parker identified as killing the Alliance reconnaissance team. There is no information on the explosive, unfortunately."
"What about the recon team?" Garrus asks. "Is there anything about them?"
Tali consults her log. "According to the base's security details. There was a signal jamming field that Cerberus used to contain sensitive information. The reconnaissance team's beacon was shut off by that field, bringing them to the attention of Admiral Kahoku. Apart from the scientist who triggered the Maw Hammer, the rest of the base's personnel were evacuated. The base itself was likely destroyed by the Maw's rampage."
"Do we know where the rest of the cell is?" Shepard asks.
"Unfortunately not."
Shepard closes her eyes for a moment, weariness or disappointment I'm not sure. "I'd better contact Admiral Kahoku. He needs to know what happened to his squad."
"I'm sorry, Admiral. The team was wiped out before we arrived. We recovered proof of identity where it was intact, but the bodies were unrecoverable." There's something about Shepard's voice, whenever she's the bearer of bad news. She's devoid of her usual cheer, replaced by the emotionless voice of the perfect soldier. It feels… wrong.
"Cerberus," The admiral remarks heavily. "The bureaucracy has been little help, so I've turned to alternate channels to get information. Commander, if you are willing, I would charge you with the destruction of Cerberus' Project Scourge. A lot of aliens out there don't like humanity, and we can't let a group of idiots prove them right."
"Agreed, sir." Shepard says through gritted teeth, a new fire burning in her eyes. "We'll crush them."
"Thank you, Commander. I'm uploading the information now. Kahoku out."
The hologram disappears and Shepard turns to us, standing around and trying to be inconspicuous while we eavesdrop. "We're back in the game." She cracks her knuckles, and suddenly the cute, charming Shepard is replaced by a deadly serious N7 infiltrator. "Let's kick some ass."
"We're going in heavy. Everyone got armour?" Liara nods, still reaching around every now and then to make sure her new set of armour is on properly. It's the first time I've seen Shepard really pissed off, to the point where the entire ground team is coming besides Kaidan. Shepard, Ashley, Garrus, Tali, Wrex, Liara and myself. I almost feel sorry for Cerberus.
"Here's the plan." Shepard begins, drawing us all in. "According to the admiral's information, the base was abandoned because they're planning on testing the poison in a live setting. We're going to find their ship and seize it. If we can't, we'll shoot it down. The ship's name is the MSV Odysseus, last seen headed towards Union space. Spectre offices on the Citadel are searching now, so be ready for ship-to-ship action at any time."
Ship-to-ship fighting. I've never done it before, never got a lick of training about it. It could be incredibly awkward, with the constant risk of depressurization and loss of gravity. Not to mention the issue of maybe crashing into a star.
Everyone retires to their own spots, suiting up. The Normandy is one of the fastest ships in existence, so I have no doubt we'll catch Cerberus. Just that I'll be able to fight properly when we do. It'll be my first combat since breaking down in the med bay, and this time versus organics. I've never premeditated killing before.
Does Cerberus need to be stopped? Of course. Will people die? Most definitely. By my hand?
Ah. I don't know.
If I need to kill to save, then I will. I know that. That's not difficult. But can I really kill someone just because he's barring my way?
I guess I should admit something; I'm not worried that I'll freeze up or anything. I'm worried that the moment I pull the trigger or beat someone to death, I'll only feel satisfaction. Even happiness.
"Shepard," I ask, knocking on the doorframe. It's a habit. Doors in Mass Effect make it really hard to knock politely. "You have a moment?"
"Sure, what's the matter?" Shepard doesn't lift her head, instead poring over the disassembled sniper rifle before her. Come to think of it, this is the first time I've been in Shepard's cabin since she took over as captain. It's obvious what her hobby is. Guns cover almost every wall, firearms of all descriptions. New guns, old guns, shotguns, pistols, sniper rifles. All pristine, of course. An M-1 Challenger, the first human gun to use Mass Effect technology. An old blunderbuss, even a musket. Holding pride of place above the bedside table is an old WW2-era Winchester rifle, oiled wood gleaming.
"Nice collection."
"Many thanks. Not a patch on most Turian collections though."
"Well, actually, I wanted to ask you a question about fighting."
Shepard puts down her magnifying glass, carefully placing a small spring into its place on the table. "Go ahead."
"When you shoot someone and kill them, do you ever feel a kind of satisfaction?"
"How to kill remorselessly," Shepard chuckles to herself. "A lot of the brass have different ideas on this, but I'll give you my thoughts. When I kill someone, I do get a little exultation. For me, it's a matter of pride. I'm proud of my skill, and I don't think it's wrong to be proud of the effort you've put in. For you it's biotics, but the principle's the same."
I mull over her words quietly, and the commander smiles. "That's not what you're really asking, is it? You want to know if it can go further than that, when your moment of pride in the heat of combat isn't pride at your biotic skill, or sniping skill, it's just skill at killing." Her voice tapers off near the end, growing ever quieter, but just as resolute.
"Yeah." I manage equally quietly.
"It's hard, no doubt about that." Shepard looks down at the disassembled gun in front of her, suddenly melancholy. "Honestly, I can't give you an answer. It's something you're going to have to figure out on your own. Don't believe the crap about not being able to fight it, because there's always a choice."
I open my mouth to speak, and the redheaded commando gives me a glare. "If you're about to say something angsty like 'you don't know what it's like', I'll kick you in the balls."
I shut my mouth.
"Here's what I think," she continues. "The moment you stop fighting for your humanity, you lose it. Those people who give in, who don't make an effort to be better than they are, they're the biggest cowards out there. Sure, it's hard, but what isn't? If you aren't willing to fight for that, what are you willing to fight for?"
"Fight a battle that you can never really win, for the sake of fighting," I summarise wryly. "Fight not to like killing."
Shepard's terminal begins to blink with an incoming call, but she gazes up at me. "You can handle it."
I take a big breath. Grow up, Parker. Kids don't survive on the battlefield. "I can. And I will."
Shepard smiles. "Good man." Then she turns to her console, pushes a button. "What've we got, Pressley?"
"Commander. We've got them," he remarks in his perpetually unhappy voice. "The MSV Odysseus was last sighted en route to the Pilum Relay, along the borders of Salarian and Asari space. Logged destination is a deep-space research station, delivering food, water and other necessities." And poison, I thought.
"What's our ETA?"
"About forty minutes. If the sims are right, we'll be intercepting them just before they dock. It'll be close, ma'am."
"As long as we're on time. As you were, Navigator. Pass the message along to the rest of the assault team. Well done."
His tone lifts a little. "Thank you, commander."
I spend the next twenty minutes shadowboxing in the garage, just thinking. Wrex, Ash, Tali and Garrus all snatch glances from time to time, Wrex blatantly watching from his spot. I still haven't forgiven him for kicking me out of the Normandy, Shepard's orders or not. That bastard had been all too happy to do the deed.
"Don't tire yourself out before we get started," Tali reminds me. I know, but I still need to burn off the nervous energy. Some of it, at least.
"Did you talk to Adams?" I ask, pulling my helmet off to dab at my red face with a towel.
She hesitates. "I did. I'm sorry, but I don't know. I don't know what to look for in humans and I've never done this before, and," her voice fades to nothing. She stands defensively.
"Don't worry about it. It'll be fine. We'll find him." Especially if AONI is really controlled by Cerberus, which it probably is, there's no way this will all go so easily for us. Unless it's an honest-to-god Alliance spook who hates terrorists, but then what if it is Cerberus and he's just helping us to maintain his cover, or any one of a hundred possibilities swirling around my head.
Did I ever mention I liked simplicity?
"What do we do?" Tali asks worriedly.
"For now, we take down the Odysseus and stop Cerberus from killing the entire population of that research station," I reply, wiping sweat from my eyes.
"Oh." She responds softly. "Right."
With a flicker of pseudomotion, the Normandy flits into being. Joker immediately finds the Cerberus freighter, blowing it up until its image fills the entire viewport. "That's it," he says, lacing his hands behind his head. "The MSV Odysseus, a modern-day Trojan Horse." It's a large ship, much larger than the sleek Normandy. The Cerberus ship is angular and boxy, more like a gigantic cargo container tugged along by a series of little engines than one complete entity.
Ahead of the freighter is its destination, hanging at the system's second Lagrange point, the furthest Council station from the Citadel. Named 'Deep Contact', it is jointly crewed and operated by the Salarian and Asari governments.
Trust the Asari to name their space station 'Deep Contact'.
Shepard motions for silence, while Joker flips a switch and nods. "MSV Odysseus, this is the SSV Normandy. We require that you come to a complete stop and power down your drive core immediately."
There's a minute of silence, before Shepard repeats her demand again. Finally a response comes back, a human voice brimming with self-entitlement. "Unidentified Vessel, this is Captain Christopher Stenson of the MSV Odysseus. As you have no authority over us nor reason to delay us, we will not comply with your request. Good day."
The transmission cuts off abruptly, but Shepard just smiles a wolfen smile and motions for Joker to reopen the channel. "Captain Stenson. This is Commander Annelise Shepard of the Systems Alliance Navy, Captain of the SSV Normandy, and Council Spectre. I demand that you come to a complete stop and power down your drive core immediately. If you refuse to comply, we will destroy you."
Silence reigns while everyone stares at Shepard for a good five seconds, including me. "What?" she says, grinning. "What's the point of being a Spectre if you don't do stuff like that? Plus it probably gave Cerberus a heart attack."
"And if Cerberus just decides to hit the self-destruct when we get on board?" Garrus asks.
"They'd need to have their core powered up to use it. Trust me; this isn't my first time boarding a hostile ship."
The voice returns, shaky and afraid. No wonder. "S-Spectre Shepard. This is Captain Stenson. We will comply."
"Very good, Captain," Shepard says easily. "Stand by to receive my boarding party."
Joker chuckles as the line goes dead once more. "I think you made him piss himself a little, commander."
"We can only hope," Shepard murmurs solemnly, trying to hide the little grin on her face. "Team, let's go. Time to kick some ass."
The Kodiak's pretty cramped with all of us inside, and Kaidan's still in the med bay. To be fair, Wrex counts for two. "So," Ash asks, assault rifle held in between her knees. "What're the odds we're walking into a trap?"
Shepard looks back at us from the co-pilot's chair, thinking. "If they think we're just doing a routine surprise inspection, there won't be one. If they think we're onto them, probably as soon as we step on board."
"Council Spectres don't do surprise inspections, that's way below their pay grade," Garrus points out. "If I were them, I'd smell a rat."
"True," Shepard admits. "Wrex, Liara, Parker, you're on barrier duty. Anything looks like it's going to have a crack at us, you're the defensive specialists."
Our pilot, one of the Normandy crewmen, guides the shuttle into place next to the Odysseus' docking cradle. The shuttle's door slides back, to reveal an empty airlock. Shepard lowers her sniper rifle, eyes scanning every corner for threats.
"Shepard, this is going to be a close-quarters fight if anything. Why did you bring a sniper rifle?"
The commander looks at me, affronted. "You should always bring a sniper rifle," she states, like it should be obvious.
Garrus nods sagely, hefting his own. "Wiser words have never been spoken." He smiles at Shepard, and she smiles back.
Good grief.
The airlock door behind us cycles shut, cutting us off from the shuttle in order to pressurise the space. A grey gas begins to filter into the small, sealed chamber, spilling in through vents in the ceiling. We all back away immediately, only Wrex and Shepard stepping forward to get a better look. "Guess we found the poison," Shepard replies happily. She's happy? About being trapped in with a deadly poison?
A fleck of the grey dust lands on Tali's arm, and she feeds it into her omnitool's analyser suite. She sucks in a deep breath, pulling Shepard back into the corner where the grey gas hasn't reached yet. "Shepard," she says carefully. "That's not just a poison. It's an explosive."
Wrex tactfully steps back into the safe zone, which is quickly shrinking. I concentrate, flare blue and act, throwing up a barrier between us and the explosive gas. The blue shield flickers, and I forces myself to calm down. Ken. I force the power out, and the wall stabilises.
Liara focuses her own will a second later, adding her power to mine. "Need a hand?" She manages, the words clipped with strain. Constantly holding back something like gas was incredibly tiring, deceptively so.
"Hmph," Wrex grunts, stepping forward. "Looks like you always need the Krogan to bail you out." His titanic body radiates biotic power and the barrier strengthens and shines, powered by the will of three biotics in unison.
A harsh rumbling grows in the space above us, drawing closer fast. The explosion. The Cerberus assholes that have trapped us in here have ignited the gas at their end, and the fireball is burning everything in its path, growing ever stronger as it consumes more fuel. The torrent of fire rushes into the airlock with the fury of a roaring titan, devouring the massive amount of gas in a heartbeat, exploding with horrific force. The wave of force hits our barrier like a giant sledgehammer, and I can see the strain in even Wrex's body as the three of us fight to hold back the tide.
But the force has to go somewhere, and the fire chases the path of least resistance. Turned away from our unified shield, the explosion blows out the external airlock door, spewing flame into the empty void. The flames die in an instant, robbed of anything that could sustain it. I start to rise as their airlock's gravity fails, only to be pulled down again by Shepard, quickly activating the magnetic clamps in my boots to stop myself from just floating off in vacuum. Our shield is dispersed by lack of air and the abrupt release of gravity, so I recreate my personal barrier at full strength. There could still be debris floating around.
"Everyone alright?" Shepard asks, her own feet magnetically secured to the floor. What was left of it, anyway. Ashley was clamped to the ceiling above me, blown away from the floor by the explosion.
"A little worn, Commander," Liara replies, flexing aching hands.
"You should be asking the human," Wrex grunts.
"I'm fine," I say, windmilling a little to keep my balance. Zero-gravity is weird.
Everyone else calls in, without incident. "Well," Shepard intones calmly. "I think they've figured out we know who they are."
You think, Shepard?
The interior airlock door slides open, admitting a space-suited Cerberus technician. The logo plastered over the shoulder is a bit of a giveaway, admittedly.
The technician realises the lack of dead people in a bare second, and his body goes stiff. Garrus steps forward quickly, snatches his gun from his hip and tosses it to Shepard. Everyone watches from their places on the walls and ceiling, very much alive and pissed as hell. "You goofed," Shepard points out mildly.
"H-how did you survive?" the technician squeaks, eyes wide.
"Fuck you, that's how." I smirk.
The techie bolts for the door. Idiot. He doesn't even have a shield. Liara reaches out and pulls him back with her biotics, into my waiting fist. One biotically-enhanced punch cracks his armour, spewing air out into space in a white mist. Then the momentum of Liara's throw takes him out of my reach, limbs flailing wildly as he vanishes into space.
"You were just going to leave him hanging in space forever?" I ask the Asari. Liara gives a little shrug, eyes hard.
"He did try to kill us all," she answers. "I was going to shoot him."
"I've been meaning to ask," Garrus interrupts, "how does your punching actually work? I mean, biotics don't make you physically stronger."
"I swore to my teacher I wouldn't give out the details. Sorry, Garrus." I've already said too much that Eri instructed me not to say, but I'm sure they would have figured it out anyway. They're a canny bunch. I want to tell him that it's actually a very simple skill, vastly increasing the mass of a fist in the moment before impact. Force equals mass times acceleration, so when I punch someone it's effectively a truck's worth of mass hitting them instead. Plus, with so much mass, it's almost impossible to injure yourself if you hit right.
"Why would they make the gas grey?" Shepard asks softly, mostly to herself. "That's just giving warning."
"I think the gas is normally colourless," Tali remarks, still checking her omnitool. "The number of solid particles in that gas was unusually high. I would guess that when the substance is a solid, it is an explosive. In gaseous form, it is a poison. Ingenious."
That's one word for it. I was going for 'insidious', myself. "What's the usual crew size on one of these things?" I ask out loud, not really sure who would have the answer.
Surprisingly, it's Wrex. "A freighter this size, about thirty." Only thirty? I suppose you wouldn't need many people to haul foodstuffs. "But if you wanted to smuggle warriors, you could have at least eighty."
"Sorry, but how do you know that?" I ask, shooting him a sceptical glance.
The Krogan smiles. It's very unpleasant. "Experience." He chuckles, turning away from me. "This is going to be fun."
At worst, eighty Cerberus troopers. I don't think there are that many, but even half that number is a lot to deal with. I can see why they would bring a contingent of soldiers though; an airborne poison wouldn't kill everyone on a station that size, not with airtight bulkheads, airtight spacesuits and air cyclers. You would need a team of soldiers to clean up the survivors afterwards.
"What's the matter, human?" Wrex grins. "Not up for it?"
I sigh again. "Not looking forward to patching up your sorry ass when all this is over."
"Hah!" Tali shouts, punching a fist into the air. "I'm into the system. Take that, you Cerberus bosh'tets. I can see them on the ship's internal network. They're all headed to the cargo area, where the containers are. The bridge is relatively unguarded."
"Nice job, Tali. Lead the way." Shepard waves us all forward, Tali's instructions guiding us at every turn. In no time, the bridge door is ahead of us, up a flight of stairs. Four Cerberus guards stand at the doors, armour sealed and watching for any sign of us. Shepard nods at Garrus, who collapses his assault rifle, drawing his sniper in one fluid move. The two of them step into line of sight, and instantly the guard's rifles chatter to life, spewing slugs at them. But the twin snipers sight and fire simultaneously, blowing out the back of their target's skulls, shields or not. At this range, shields would only slow down a sniper rifle. Stunned at the speed of their comrade's demise, the remaining two guards are caught helpless against the onslaught of rounds coming from everyone else. They go down with more holes than Swiss cheese.
"And you thought I wouldn't need a sniper rifle," Shepard taunts me. "Let that be a lesson to you. Snipers are always the best weapon."
"Well, what would you have done if they had sniper rifles as well?" I rebut.
"Sniped them," Shepard remarks easily.
"What if you didn't have a sniper rifle?" I press.
"Trick question," Shepard says, assuming a lofty air. "I always have a sniper rifle."
I think Garrus is in love.
Wrex and I smash the doors apart with biotic fists, Tali and Ash helping out with judiciously applied shotgun blasts. Despite being reinforced to withstand vacuum, it isn't able to withstand the ongoing assault of biotics and bullets, and eventually succumbs. Ash is first in, shotgun at her shoulder, assault rifle ready if need be. Bullets from the meagre bridge crew's sidearms patter off her shields, and she ducks behind a terminal with a muttered oath before they can deplete. "Put down your weapons!" Shepard shouts over the roar of gunfire, and eventually the clamour ceases. "We have you at our mercy," she continues, "and if you continue to resist we will do to you what we did to your door. Are we clear?"
The Cerberus troops surrender. It's kind of hard to find a comeback for something like that. Captain Stenson watches us with a white face, expressive jowls trembling, pistol discarded.
Garrus and Ashley hustle them all to the bridge escape pods, usher them in at gunpoint before launching them into space. Cerberus should be along to pick them up, eventually. The Normandy doesn't have room for many captives, or resources to keep them alive. Stenson remains, of course. We want to question him.
"What've you got, Tali?" Shepard asks the machinist, who has comfortably settled herself into the captain's chair, calling up the ship controls.
"Another level of encryption, unfortunately." She looks up at the commander, eyes wide behind the visor. "It'll take a while to crack."
"Down!" Wrex yells, tackling the closest one to him, Ash, to the ground and behind a partition. Machine-gun fire rips out from behind the wrecked bridge doors, tearing into all of us not fast enough to react. The high-calibre bullets come fast and furious, tearing through my barrier from behind and opening up a bloody hole in my abdomen, pitching me over behind a little wall. I clamp down on a scream of pain, grateful that my fall took me out of the line of fire. That's what I get for focusing my barrier forward.
Next to me Liara is strafed as well, her own barrier lasting a shot longer than mine did. Her own leap almost takes her to safety, but for the tell-tale trickle of Asari blood. Shepard leaps almost instantly away from the shooter, taking the first couple of shots on her shield but escaping unharmed. Tali is sheltered behind the bulbous captain's chair, apparently bulletproof from behind. She continues to type, trying to bypass the encryption despite the torrent of gunfire. "I didn't see any heat sources approaching!" She screams at everyone and no-one.
Garrus gets the worst of it, caught in the open between the escape pods and the captain's chair. Two of the four ceiling-mounted machine turrets focus solely on him, cutting through his barrier in a second before drilling into his chest. It looks like his armour holds up for the first few shots, but then the rounds punch through. I snag him in a biotic field, shove him away. The guns lose their tracking, and Shepard yanks the Turian to safety.
The four machine turrets keep up a constant stream of fire, seemingly unlimited heat capacity allowing them to just keep hammering at us. Shepard is screaming at Garrus, who is nodding drunkenly, scaled face pale.
Despite her wounded leg, Liara rises on one knee and unleashes a Warp, tearing one turret from its ceiling mount with a primal roar, shields or not. Damn. I sure as hell couldn't pull that off. Wrex rises as the remaining guns shift onto the archaeologist, blasting away the shields of a second. That one starts to retract into the ceiling, but Ashley pops up alongside Wrex and blows it apart before it can retreat and recharge its shields.
Then Shepard steps forward in a rage, overloading one of the remaining turrets. Before it can even try to pull back, a sniper round catches it in its swivel joint, perfectly severing its connection to the ceiling in a single shot. She doesn't pull back though, continuing to attack the last turret. It tracks towards her, firing with enough force to deplete her shields in a second.
"Motherfucking Cerberus," I grunt, levering myself up, one hand covering the hole in my armour. Holding my escaping lifeblood. That really, really hurts like hell. Don't think about it. I get enough force together to lash out a throw, knocking the turret's barrel off course. That gives Shepard an extra second of time, and with it she brings the gun down.
Finally the medi-gel injected by my suit takes effect, stemming the bleeding. Gut. Not a good place to get shot. Holy hell, but that hurts a lot. It feels like someone drilled into my skin with a red-hot poker, and then kept going. The medi-gel takes the pain away, enough for me to stand and stagger, if not walk. I have to help Garrus.
He's in bad shape. Three shots penetrated his armour, and a few more left heavy dents. Medi-gel is the first thing I do, pumping it directly into the wounded area. In the background, Shepard's flitting everywhere like a distressed butterfly. Liara's lost a toe. She'll be fine. Garrus might not.
He gives a hacking cough and I pull his helmet off, letting him spit out the blood. One of the shots punctured his lung wall, according to Garrus' suit diagnostics. The bullets are still in his body, but right now that's of little importance. They're not doing any more harm. Medi-gel will stop him from bleeding out, so that won't be an issue. Thank God Cerberus isn't lacing their bullets with anticoagulants.
My armour has a whole host of useful pockets. I grab a spray bottle from one of them; jam the nozzle into the bullet-hole. One vaguely avian eye looks up at me questioningly, that's a good sign. He's still lucid. I give the bottle a good few sprays, and he coughs as the heavy mist settles in his chestplate, solidifying in seconds. Almost immediately, his breathing stabilises. Thank god.
Shepard is kneeling beside us, thankfully keeping her mouth shut. I don't need any more distractions. When I rock back and give a sigh of relief, she does too. "What was that spray?" She asks softly.
"Turian military designed it." I explain, eyes shut. Pain. Treating Garrus might have reopened my own injury. "Bottom line, it hardens into a patch over a puncture wound. Used to fix combat vehicles and engines but it works as a temp measure on Turian skin. Stop the bleeding first though."
The Cerberus captain watches everything shakily, curled up in a ball on the floor. The guns had spared him. Of course they had; he'd activated them. For a moment, I want to kill him. Sure, he didn't kill us. But he sure as hell gave it his best shot. Funny, that's just what I want to do.
"I'm in the system," Tali says softly, without any of the earlier exuberance. "I couldn't leave the hack or I never would have gotten in. I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Shepard says tiredly, "Where's the rest of Cerberus?"
"I've sealed them in one of the cargo containers," Tali says, fingers flying over the console's holographic keyboard. "Also, I've extracted virtual samples of the explosive and the poison. We don't need the physical sample."
"There air in the cargo containers?" Shepard asks.
"There is."
"Jettison them then. Along the same heading as the escape pod we fired earlier."
A muffled thump runs through the ship, and Tali looks up from the console. "Done."
Shepard squats down in front of the Cerberus captain, pristine grey-white armour all but sparkling in the light. Of course it is. Nobody ever gets close enough to get their blood on her. "Captain. You'll be coming with us." The officer whimpers, trembling. He knows what he did. "You will be imprisoned on the Normandy, and when we return to the Citadel you will be handed over to an Alliance official to face trial."
Stenson's whole bearing changes immediately. Oh, he tries to hide it, but the man is a cretin. He's gone from trembling to all but totally calm in a single second. Raw loathing coils in my gut, because I know why. He relaxed the moment Shepard had said he would stand trial in an Alliance court.
Now why would a terrorist be happy about going to an Alliance court? Even the most corrupt jury would have no choice but to convict with Shepard doing the arresting.
But he'd never face that jury, because Alliance intelligence is tantamount to Cerberus. No wonder the Alliance has never made any headway.
"Very well then, Commander," Cerberus captain Christopher Stenson says, a moment before I draw my sidearm and shoot him in the temple.
A/N: I have to give a shoutout here to The Naked Pen, the author of my favorite fanfic ever (Mass Effect Interregnum) for that line about always having a sniper rifle. I loved that line so much, in fact, that I had to put it in here. Because his whole fic is that awesome, and if I can channel even a little bit of that I'll be happy.
Also, I can now officially say that I have more than 9000 views! Unfortunately I don't have Chris Sabat or Lanipator's voices, so I can't scream Dragonball Z references at everyone. Oh well.
Oh yes. And people got shot. Quite a few people, actually. Hmm. Well, as far as update news goes, next chapter will be exactly one week from now! I haven't had a schedule slip yet, and I'm not planning on one. Also, my lectures finish this week, and happily I only have one exam this semester, so plenty of time for writing! I used to have a buffer of chapters, I should probably try to build up another one. The first buffer died a horrible death during my weeks of assignments.
Again, thanks to the extroverted recluse for the editing and beta-reading, without which this story would languish in obscurity and crappiness for ever.
Anyway, until next time. TTFN, ta ta for now!
