"We're at war.
Nobody wants to admit it, but Humanity is under attack."
- The Illusive Man
Interlude: Rise And Shine
The heat.
No matter the dizziness, the sickness - the heat remained. All-encompassing. All-engulfing.
The heat of metal surfaces, set ablaze by fires raging throughout the station. The heat of weapons spitting death, hundreds of times per minute, multiplied by dozens, leaving no space on this accursed station unaffected.
The heat of projectiles, glowing white with the energy of their own velocity, grinding against the molecules of atmosphere they traveled in. Their impacts into shields, the sparks of ceramic composite collapsing upon impact, metal grinding on metal.
The heat of high-powered lab lights illuminating the massacre in all its gruesome.
Her own heat, generated within her body, put under stress for the first time since…
The heat from her biotic amps, working hard to power the whirl of physics-defying energy she hurled against her adversaries.
All of that in stark contrast to the immense cold in her mind, soul, extremities. The hands holding and firing the pistol felt like ice. They were not yet properly supplied with blood. A feeling that seemed to extend across her whole body.
Ghostly images danced past her eyes.
The explosions. The fire. The screams. The void. The hiss. Decompression. Suffocation…
Sweat glued strands of red hair to the brows. Her stomach made somersaults with each move, whenever the heat outside met the cold within. She almost threw up again.
The pain, she thought. Focus on the pain.
The sharp pain in her side. The dull pain on her face, left cheek. The pain in her thoughts. Focusing on the pain kept her composed. Fighting kept her mind occupied. Those mechs were no match for her. She'd destroyed dozens of them in training.
And even now, even dazed, confused, hurt, frightened as Shepard was - she was still a lethal force of nature.
A crackle in her ear. She winced. This armor was not hers - not tuned to her needs on the field. Things like a falsely calibrated headphone made it painfully obvious.
Miranda.
"Don't waste time - I can't distract the mechs for long!"
She followed the voice. It gave direction. It gave purpose. It gave a goal, in spite of the chaos - outside, within.
Shepard was a soldier. And she soldiered on. The answers would come later.
She had to believe in something.
Somewhere else in the galaxy, black clock hands had begun to tick away on a ruby clock face. Not bothered by anything save their own momentum, the new battery that powered them. For them, nothing had changed. They didn't care that the new battery was far more advanced than what they were used to. It would keep going for hundreds of years - if left undisturbed.
A chuckle. "Yep. You guys are back on the clock, too.", a male voice said. Then chuckled again. A metal click as the armband was fastened.
A cynic could have said that the man this left arm belonged to was a man of two halves. He would not have objected.
His upper body was clad in a black quarian suit, with few modifications visible from the outside. An armored suit, made for a warrior. But the legs were clad in something else - pants that were not exactly loose, but certainly not the type of body glove a typical quarian would wear.
Thin armor plates on thighs and shins. It needed no closer look to notice that the feet were smaller - and the shins straight. A strange mismatch of parts - that still looked like they belonged together, somehow.
Even more strange - he wore no helmet. In this small corner of the ship, two by two meters in size, he didn't need it. A small life support unit, salvaged from an asteroid mining vehicle and vigorously maintained, cleaned and kept separate from the ships' main systems made sure that he didn't pose any risk to his fellows. As much as his armor had become a second skin - sometimes, he needed to shed it.
This was one of those moments. Taking a deep breath just isn't the same in a self-contained unit.
He stared at the star-lit void. The Fleet had come to a halt in a fringe system of the Terminus - mining operations for minerals, ore and, most importantly - water. If one looked closely enough, they could see an armada of tiny shuttles and corvettes feeding the hungry fleet. Old cargo ships, repurposed into flying processing plants were constantly fed the ice found on asteroids, cleansed it and filled up the always draining tanks of the entire fleet. A red star burned in the distance, casting a sinister light on the simple routine.
He could look at it directly - it was only a video feed of an outside camera. A screen, on which an incoming message suddenly blinked up. He read it, acknowledged and grabbed for his headgear. The red star vanished, being replaced by a vast amount of data from the triple-redundant atmosphere scanners.
With one sharp tug, the modified Mk II Recon Hood snapped into place on his skull. As he fastened and triple-checked every seal, bright decontamination rays started dancing through the air.
He turned around and gave the items scattered on his bunk a gaze. Most things had been stowed already. But donning the chest rig, attaching the knife in its quickdraw-holster on the thigh and giving the weapons one last check had become a ritual.
As he held his rifle in hands, he stopped. The dark lenses of his mask betrayed no emotion as he ran a gloved thumb along the frame of his M-96 Mattock, tracing the thin white lines on the black paint job. They formed a wing, extending from the muzzle and curving back, the tips of the top feather nearly touching the rubber plate on the edge of the stock. Had he not known it better, he would not have recognized it as the same gun that had been assigned to him over two years ago. In fact, he wasn't even sure if he could call it a Mattock in good conscience.
Neither you nor I are the same anymore. Wonder what she'll have to say about it.
With one motion, the screen he looked at was split, with one half showing the declining levels of impurities in the air, the other half displaying the details of the mission he had been given. Ignoring the vast amounts of data, his eyes were immediately drawn to the summary.
Rescue & Recovery mission. Find and extract MIA pilgrim, Veetor'Nara nar Rayya. Human rogue colony of Freedom's Progress. Colony went dark. Expect unknown levels of resistance.
"Rise and shine, Jane Shepard, rise and shine." He murmured. Two years, twelve days. "Sadly, you never got a chance to rest… but your hour has come again."
He...
I had to grin, despite myself - and the circumstances, with a strange feeling of relaxed anticipation.
"The right woman in the right place can indeed make all the difference in the galaxy. So, wake up, Commander… wake up, and…"
I exhaled, inhaled and gripped my weapon firmer.
"... smell the ashes in the air."
I gave myself one last nod as the airlock opened, then turned around and faced the two quarian marines that awaited me on the other side. Both of them had their rifles at the ready, but secured. They nodded.
"The team is assembling at the Scythe, Squad Leader. Platoon Leader Zorah and Squad Leader Prazza are waiting for you."
I nodded in return.
"Alright, Gentlemen." It was only a single step to exit my cabin and join them.
The shine of bright, shipboard light illuminated my matte-black armor - only reflecting off the insignia on my shoulder. A black-metallic raven with ruby accent colours.
"Let's move out."
A/N: Chapter 1 of Book 2 will be released on June 19th, 2021. It will be continued in this story, so stay followed!
I am truly sorry for keeping you waiting - but at the same time, if preparing myself properly allows me to not have half a year of delay between chapters - as happened far too often for my liking, not to mention yours - then it is worth it.
And at the same time, the opportunity for a small teaser was too good, so… pardon me for that.
Speaking of which… I released a small Alternative Universe crossover a while ago. Between ME Raven and… The Elder Scrolls V. "Wildcard: Raven's Flight". A 'what if…?', if you will. Only one chapter, a concept almost. Perhaps something for you?
And you didn't hear it from me - but given the feedback on what originally was only a small side idea that evolved over multiple years, I might just have to continue it. And I will regret putting this statement out there. But, ah well.
Hope you all are dealing well with the situation at hand. Myself? Not as well as I would like, but it's been worse. I'll see you around!