A few meters behind the pilot's chair of the Normandy SR-2, Jack ground her teeth and angrily paced up and down the command hallway. The agitated ex-convict was barely able to restrain herself from launching a vicious boot at one of the Cerberus crewmembers who sat at her feet, lining each side of the walkway and manning the technical stations.
Fuckin' pissants.
Garrus and the others were forming a semicircle around Joker, too consumed with the current mission down on the surface to bother her, which left her with space to stew in her frustrations.
First mission since I got here that actually matters, and that asshole leaves me on the ship. The fucker doesn't trust me! Why am I here? He wants something. Everybody wants something. Saw the way he looked at me on the shuttle - thought I didn't see you, but I did. Maybe he's looking for a lay and thinks you're the easy score? Bitch with the tats won't say no, right?
Fuck!
That doesn't make any sense! Half the bitches on this boat are dying to bend over for him. Fuck, even that cold fish Cerberus princess was checkin' him out on the shuttle down to Zorya, and the shrink ginger chipper bitch looks at him like she's trying to rip his clothes off with her eyeballs. What the fuck then?
Standing over Zaeed protectively, Mordin fired, reloaded, and fired again. Numbers too numerous. Collectors joined by husks. Sending fodder to absorb shots and more importantly, time, to shield the advance. Appearance by husks curious. No dragon's teeth in sight as of yet. Husks not exclusively Geth constructs? Most fascinating. Worthy of additional thought and study. Terrible shame survival looking increasingly unlikely. Facing last moments now. Should think of something witty.
Less than 100 meters away, an armored Alliance Marine lay perfectly still and rigid in the grass, just like she had for nearly thirty minutes.
A single, deeper breath. A quiet moan on the exhalation.
Her eyes glistened with new moisture.
And blinked.
Joker defensively hunched down deeper into his cockpit chair, making himself smaller as he sent messages back and forth to Liara T'Soni from one of the multipurpose holoscreens that he had pulled up. Having Jack, pace, growl, and mutter only a couple of meters behind him was seriously damaging his sunny disposition. Garrus was standing next to him, one hand resting on the back of his seat like Shepard often did. Relatively unnoticed, Thane and Kasumi silently flanked the turian sniper.
"We gotta go down there!" Jack blurted out, as her route brought her close to the cockpit, before she spun around and stalked away again. On her next lap, she stopped and gestured at them angrily with both hands as she talked. "You know what's goin' on down there? Our guys are maybe shooting shit up right next to that big fuckin' battleship-thing. Bug dudes could be pouring outta it, and our guys could be outnumbered a hundred to one!"
Garrus turned his head just enough to cast her a sideways glance. "Didn't know you cared much, Ja-"
"That is," she continued, speaking over him, "A shitload of bad guys I'm not completely fucking up right now!"
"Ah," Garrus amended, turning back to the front.
"Well, the Collectors have never encountered any serious resistance before," continued the bandaged turian evenly. "From what we know, every previous colony left no obvious signs of a defensive effort. I think the Collectors are thin on actual offensive forces simply because they don't need them - and rely on those swarming creatures."
"It would be reasonable, for the sake of operational efficiency, to assume the majority of the vessel is reserved for the storage and transport of living captives," added Thane quietly.
Kasumi crossed her arms and shuddered. "Ugh."
Joker waved his hand. "Everyone keep their pants on. Liara says she intercepted reports that the defense towers are 100% hardware-ready. They just need software configuration and targeting...calibration." He refused to look at Garrus. "Anyway, EDI, if we can get you connected to the gun towers..."
"Not possible at this time, Lt. Moreau. The alleged Collector vessel would seem to be blocking all spectrums of electronic traffic at the moment. I am unable to communicate with any systems in the colony."
Garrus cocked his head slightly. "What if...the Normandy held in static orbit, and someone groundside aligned a boosted, narrow signal directly up at your location? There are certainly communication dishes down there that are functional."
"Your plan has merit. Tight-beam signal to a precise geosynchronous orbit coordinate could potentially penetrate the interference. However, we are currently unable to communicate with the ground crew in order to convey the details to execute such a link to allow access to the GUARDIAN towers."
Garrus crossed his arms. "Well then - sounds like we need to go for a little drive."
Approximately two percent of John Shepard's blood supply was synthetic. Cerberus had centered an exorbitant four billion credit project entirely on restoring his body and mind from the carbonized shell of his armor, and the shattered bone fragments contained within. The Lazerus Project had one goal: restore Commander Shepard to what he was - every hair, every cell, every memory. The technology in place was waiting and ready for him.
And it had completely failed.
The project leaders had been, as they say, retired. Miranda Lawson - involved with obtaining Shepard in the first place - was pulled in to assume ownership of the project's literal remains, and tasked with a new mission. Bring back Shepard by any means necessary; keep what you can, construct the rest.
During the next two years spent to restore his body and mind, every feature of the human body was broken down, examined, and fused with the technology of all races available to the expansive corporation. Dormant chemicals flowed through him, that, when catalyzed, eased the transition of oxygen in and out of cells; magnified the effects of adrenaline on the body; and near super-conducted the synapses of the brain.
Implants pitted his body that enhanced signal relays in his nervous system, bathed in chemicals that accelerated data transmissions from mind to body. Synthetic materials webbed and woven into bones to enhance shatter resistance.
Shepard himself was aware of little of this - bits and pieces had been disclosed to him by Miranda, but it was not a topic he pressed. Nor did she see the value in his complete knowledge on the subject. He knew enough. Enough to act, to fight, and to win.
As quick as thought, this two percent activated. A large implant, nestled behind his heart, came to life and flooded his body with reserves of pure glycerines, adrenaline, analeptic stimulants, and the most perfect of his already-enhanced red blood cells. A module inside the base of his skull flooded the incoming blood supply to his brain with neurotransmitter chemicals. Shepard's vision - images sent to his visual cortex as pre-processed data from his entirely artificial eyes - darkened, narrowed, and focused to nearly painful detail, the edges rendered blurry and dark.
The M-6 Carnifex has only 11 primary components, and of these, only six of them move during a firing cycle. Shepard centered the sights on the face of a Collector three meters away from him, the entire scene evolving in magical-looking slow motion filtered through a haze of orange. The Collector he was sighted on already had an alien-looking rifle pointed into the chest of Mordin, while the salarian slowly raised his omni-tool, perhaps to reinforce his personal shield. It all happened in maddening calmness, like tracing a single, gentle fingertip across the surface of a still pond. The passage of time lost meaning.
A long, quiet thoooommm went through his hearing, then silence, then slowly building into another thoooommm...his heartbeat. Shepard's index finger pulled back on the weapon's trigger, the tendons in his index finger scraping along the grooves in the bones, feeling every millimeter of travel before sensing a strong push begin in the center of his palm. As the push intensified, a glow quickly flashed from the barrel opening, and the slide on top of the gun grated back with a textural feeling of metal-on-metal he had never sensed before.
All six of those moving pieces he could feel now, working in conjunction to shave off a tiny pebble of metal, encapsulate it in a mass distortion and disruption field, and accelerate it to supersonic levels. Slow, distorted thunder assaulted his ears as the sound of the gun reached him.
Shepard could witness the impact as the field-encased shard of mass struck the carapace of the Collector, shattering it and sending gouts of yellow fluids spraying in all directions, as if a rock had been hurled into a water puddle with ferocious power. Hundreds of sickly looking droplets patterned out and lazily hung in the air, hypnotically, and despite himself Shepard found himself taking a moment to watch in morbid fascination.
There was just so much time to waste. It was endless. Without value.
His hand slowly swept over, the motions smooth and liquid, and he fired again.
Again.
Again.
Again.
All around him, heads were exploding, bursting open like blossoms. He was surrounded by gore and chunks of flesh that danced slowly in the air. As the sixth round exited the hand cannon, he thumbed the eject button and the red-hot heatsink began to fall from it. He felt the scrap of metal-on-metal as gravity pulled it down and out of the weapon, having time to savor the sensation.
It had barely cleared the bottom of the gun before his other hand was ramming a new one in. The commando sidestepped another glowing energy shot from the huge, fiery Collector as he did so. The blazing heat from the projectile as it passed lazily by his face was nearly enjoyable - much like warming one's hands over a fire.
Avoiding it was as simple as dodging a pillow thrown by a small child.
He fired over and over.
All the time in the world.
Perfect shots.
It was the easiest thing he had ever done in his life.
Shepard fell to his knees in the grass, even as nearly a dozen bodies hit the ground all around him. His pistol hung straight down, between his legs, feeling like it was trying to drag him into the core of the planet. His helmet weighed as much as a dreadnought, and, helplessly, he fell forward. The face of his helmet impacted the ground, his gun trapped under his body as the seeming weight of a world pressed down upon him.
So heavy, so weak...crushed. Can't...draw breath. Hot...I'm burning up...can't breathe...there's no air...
"These attacks are pointless. You are vermin."
"COVER ME! SPREAD OUT AND SUPPRESS!"
Miranda screamed over the thunderous explosion as Harbinger's blue plasma shot detonated into the building behind them. The Cerberus operative crouched and set herself, then exploded into three quick strides and slid across the ground and directly into Shepard, banging her knees into his armor.
Jumping to her feet, she crouched and seized him under his arms. Dragging him over the grass, she started to pull him away from the lone remaining Collector.
Everyone had been stunned by the sudden collapse of the wall of enemies which had surrounded them. In a symphony of head-bursting eruptions, they simultaneously hit the ground like puppets with snipped strings. For a moment, droplets of alien blood pattered down upon them like thick, sticky yellow rain.
Mordin, for once in his life, was completely struck speechless. The infamous human had just...compressed time? Highly unlikely. Time manipulation outside of FTL space-time compression even of such short duration considered an impossibility of physics by all races for centuries. Certainly, Shepard had suddenly moved and executed actions at a highly accelerated pace, far beyond the reaction time of any organic being he had ever known of.
Overloaded cybernetics boost, akin to a brief overclock? Chemical boost to organic systems? Combined effort? Immediate collapse following supports notion of natural threshold transcendence. Must speak with him or Miranda Lawson about this, fascinating!
The bodies fell, and suddenly the battlefield was dominated by one enormous glowing Collector and...nothing else. Relief was short-lived as it fired into the concrete cover again and blew up a huge chunk of it into their faces. Grunt absorbed the majority of the blast and was thrown backwards into a wall. He left a huge, broken imprint in it before falling to the ground, and half-rose, shaking his head to clear it.
Miranda's voice cut through the smoke-filled air. "DON'T BUNCH UP! DISPERSE AND RETURN FIRE! MORDIN! MORDIN! TECH ATTACKS!"
The salarian was an STG veteran of many battles, so she was surprised to see him momentarily distracted. He hesitated only a moment before nodding grimly. The scientist loped ten meters to the left side of the battlefield and grabbed new cover, before using his omni-tool to envelop the Collector in supercooled subatomic particles that crystallized briefly at near absolute-zero temperatures, slowing the enemy and buying them a moment.
Miranda dragged Shepard around the corner of the housing shelter and away from the line of fire, having to trust the group to withstand the battle for a few moments without her. She heard Zaeed's grenade launcher fire and a resulting explosion, and figured they could hold the line, if only briefly.
"You prolong the inevitable."
"Shepard! Shepard!" Miranda fought down the panic rising in her throat and knelt over his prone form, bending forward while holding his helmet in both her hands, her face almost touching the visor as she peered closely at him in desperate concern. His eyes were rolling around glassily in their sockets, his face was dotted in sweat, and he was wheezing for oxygen. "Hold on, Shepard...it's the...like falling off a cliff after a rush, you'll be ok, can you hear me? Try to relax...we never had a chance to test this."
His eyes squeezed shut in pain, but he offered a quick nod before rolling onto his side and curling up, still gasping for air.
"It's ok, you'll be ok...just breathe...just a minute or two and you'll be fine. I need to go help the others, alright? Just take a minute and get up when you can."
Miranda stood and ran around, back to the sound of explosions and gunfire. She knew the sudden shock of his first "rush" could bring on a heart attack or a cerebral hemorrhage.
Please don't make me a liar. Please be ok.
"You only damage the vessel, you cannot hurt me."
Shut up.
Shepard placed one armored hand on the ground, and propped himself up to one elbow. Slowly, he dragged his knees under himself, gasping at the effort. Breathing was now simply difficult, rather than the sensation of suffocation, but a deep exhaustion still dug into his bones. Pushing off the ground with both hands, he rocked his body-weight back until he was kneeling, unsteadily.
Heaving a deep breath, Shepard coughed on the smoky air.
"This form is irrelevant. This changes nothing, Shepard."
The Normandy's captair slowly rose to his feet, his muscles protesting with ache at every movement.
Shepard stooped and picked up, first, his Carnifex handgun, followed by the Vindicator assault rifle, and stored them at his back. He was proud of his team. They had killed the flaming, possessed Collector without his having fired a single shot at it.
Mordin was applying medi-gel to Zaeed's leg as the old merc cursed vigorously; Grunt was pacing back and forth excitedly next to the smoking crater the Collector had left when it had explosively died; and Miranda was standing next to Shepard, holding his upper arm to steady him.
Except for his Cerberus XO, they were all looking at him oddly, clearly with questions they were saving for later. He was feeling a lot better now, and he nodded reassurance at Miranda before standing taller.
"Guys, team...you did great there, you dug in and you overcame a tough spot, and took down a serious enemy. Everyone, we need to keep moving. This colony is still in mid-abduction, from what we can tell. Pressing forward can save lives. Minutes count. How you doing, Zaeed?"
The mercenary was just being pulled to his feet by Mordin.
"I can walk an' I can shoot, Shepard. Just a scratch, not like that time on..."
Shepard held up one hand. "Not now, Zaeed. We need to move."
Moments after the group moved on, into the next section of the colony, a second shuttle craft descended, unseen, and landed just outside the main entrance.
Operations Chief Williams rose stiffly to her feet, feeling like she had just been thawed out from spending fifty years in cryo...or, at least, how she imagined that would feel. The lump on her face throbbed in time with her heartbeat, and she didn't even want to think about what was going on with that.
Seen too many horror movies, get your shit together, Marine.
She picked up her Avenger rifle and flicked the ammo selector to incendiary.
I'm going to find something to shoot, and that motherfucker is gonna burn.