Miranda had to admit that Shepard's quick action saved her life. The plasma beam passed so close that she could smell the acrid scent of her hair burning from the heat it emitted. She landed with a thud on her back as Shepard reached up and pulled a collector drone over the parapet executing him with a swift stab from her omni-blade. She saw the head of the collector who had very nearly killed her explode from a well timed shot from Thane as she finally gained the presence of mind to alleviate the current situation. She chided herself for her rare lapse of judgement as she got up and warped the nearest oncoming drone into oblivion.
The Collector's were Prothean. They were experimenting on humans. The ship was a trap. The Illusive man knew it was a trap.
It was all too much to take in with everything descending into chaos around them. Miranda Lawson was no stranger to processing a new set of orders or information with impressive speed, but her mind seemed to stall frustratingly with these new developments. EDI didn't lie. She struggled to understand the Illusive Man's decision. The Collectors seemed to want nothing more than to obtain Shepard dead or alive and they had gone to great lengths to prevent just that. Why were they here in the lion's den when he knew it was all a trap?
Just as she has predicted and as she had unsuccessfully tried to convey to Shepard, everyone on the ship was dead, but her correct assessment afforded her no pleasure. Seeing the bodies strewn across that filthy floor had reminded Miranda of the bodies she had seen, wearing her face, or maybe she was wearing theirs, discarded in the incineration tip. She had realised that day that she was not unique, she was easily replaceable and any misstep could see her lying on the disposal heap ready to me immolated into nothingness. Slaughtered like sheep they lay with the lifeblood that ran through her veins seeping away from their paling bodies, endless copies of a woman she never met or who never existed,
carved in perfection for the eye of their creator. At points she envied them, at others she would risk everything to not end up like them. Because she could be repeated, perhaps her value was diminished, she knew only wounded pride drove her father to chase her sister across the galaxy rather than any sense of her preciousness
Somewhere in her busy mind she wondered if the frustrated grunt Shepard made as she pulled her out of the way was directed at her. That thought made her face burn in anger and she vented her rage on the unfortunate drone to her right who tumbled down into the gaping abyss.
Shepard barked orders at them over the din of gunfire and explosions. Miranda couldn't see her face through the glare of light on her helmet's visor, but she could picture her mouth drawn in a thin line and her eyes fixed with determination. The Collectors threatened to overwhelm them on this platform that seemed to become increasingly smaller by the second. They were running out of room to manoeuvre and that damn scion to the right wasn't helping matters at all. It did its best to ensure anytime they spent out of cover was deadly or short-lived. Shepard made it abundantly clear that she wanted it dead post haste.
Zaeed swore loudly as a shockwave nearly pushed him into the line of fire. Thane and Miranda warped the scion simultaneously, obliterating its barriers and granting Mordin the opportunity to burn away some of its cerebral sack. With the groaning creature significantly weakened, Shepard dealt the finishing blow, riddling it with bullets until it collapsed in a pool of glowing blue fluid.
The breathing room the fallen monstrosity provided however was amazingly short lived. The eerie sound of another platform signalled the arrival of reinforcements. The platforms hovered towards them like graceful arbiters of destruction.
"EDI get us out of here!" Shepard yelled.
"I am simultaneously fighting Collector firewalls in over 8,000 nodes. I am tasked to capacity" the AI replied in dulcet tones.
"Shit" Zaeed hissed.
Their backs hugged the barriers as a multitude of shots whizzed over their heads. Thane crouched with head bowed low as if in prayer, his facial expression indiscernible through his mask. All they could manage was lines of suppressive fire, but Shepard didn't like firing blind with Harbinger possessing soldiers, though so far he always managed to haughtily announce his presence. They couldn't remain pinned like this. She signalled her intentions to her team with fluid movements of her hand before throwing a frag, an incendiary and a flash bang into the oncoming horde. A cacophony of explosions went off startling the Collectors who gargled and rasped indignantly.
As the flash bang bathed them in light, they rose up like Krogan undead mowing down the Collectors who had previously had them in a choke hold. They regained the platform pushing the reinforcements back.
Just then, a convulsing Collector levitated briefly in the air and then exploded in a blaze of orange light. It landed back on its feet a demon of destruction. It advanced quickly. They were losing precious ground again. They couldn't keep this up. A frantic calm that rears its head when death becomes more probable and almost certain passed over them all and the pods overhead glowed like a million eyes waiting to watch their demise.
The forces of the Universe bend to me, we will end you.
The sound felt to Shepard as if it originated in her own skull as if Harbinger had managed to dictate his words into her very thoughts. It was intrusive, violating and she sought desperately to drown it out. Thane had tried to ration his biotics with measured attacks, but as the situation grew more desperate and as harbinger drew closer, he pitted his strength against the thrall ablaze with glowing light trying to push it back or at least slow it down giving the others vital additional seconds to concentrate their attacks.
I am the Harbinger of your destruction
"Shut Up!" Shepard yelled pumping the glowing Harbinger thrall full of bullets as it moved weightlessly across the glassy platforms. They all attacked it in earnest, trying to avoid gunfire from the surrounding Collectors. An inky ball of dark energy hurtled towards them knocking Mordin out of cover and disorienting him. Seizing the opportunity of his downed shields, a drone took aim at the Salarian.
A cloud of ominous green mist erupted from Mordin's chest and time seemed to swim.
"Mordin's down! Miranda!" Shepard shouted, readying the Arc Projector.
Miranda avoided the gunfire as best as she could as she made her way to Mordin's position, but she felt her barrier quiver as it caught shots and threatened to fail. Giving first aid to salarians was not her speciality but she did what needed to be done as quickly as her hands would allow. Mordin really was the worst kind of patient: even as he lay there bleeding out and quickly losing body temperature, he wagged his finger at her and gave terse instructions.
Shepard vaulted over the barrier, pummelling a Collector in the face whilst remaining directly in front of his body so he would take the brunt of any oncoming fire. Thane took a place beside Shepard creating a unilateral barrier between the team and the Collectors. They had to hold the line here at least until Miranda had done her best. It wasn't worthwhile to risk their position. Shepard, Thane and Zaeed were able to take well placed shots with their sniper rifles and pick off the Collectors in the distance.
Finally and thankfully the onslaught began to thin until no further reinforcements approached and the last drone fell.
"Shepard," EDI interjected, gathering that the coast was definetley clear for the time being "you must manually re-establish my link to the command console."
Shepard didn't respond immediately as she caught her breath crouched low on the ground, her forearm resting on her right knee as she surveyed the area lit with a faint orange light emanating from the end of the tunnel like structure they were located in that glowed like a sun in-between setting and rising. Thane, crouched beside Shepard reached out to her, his palm resting gently on her arm.
Well that was a new development. Miranda had long learned to read between the lines and pick up on subtle details but it seemed she was slipping it yet another department. It wasn't simply the fact that he had touched her with marked affection; it was her reaction to it. Shepard did not tense up as if it was unexpected or remain unmoved by it, she did not return the gesture, she did not turn to look at him she just…accepted it, welcomed it. Her body relaxed at the touch even though she couldn't really feel his hand through the thickness of her armour. Why hadn't Kelly clued her up about this? She really hoped Shepard wasn't being stupid and putting the mission at risk. But then again maybe it wasn't entirely negative, at least it meant her thoughts would be more on the Normandy and not who remained outside of it. If this really was a 'thing' she highly doubted it was the light-hearted kind and that could create problems.
A/N: Short chapter, but didn't want to make it too complicated and decided not to delay any longer and just publish it. As always thanks for reading.