"Fortune favors the prepared mind." - Louis Pasteur
Chapter 1 – Raven: Preparations
Elevators, in the context of Mass Effect, have quite a shady reputation. They are far too slow. A cheap disguise for loading time. Only interesting for the team dialogues. You get the general idea.
For me however, the elevators here soon proved to be invaluable. Although feeling like slow pieces of junk, they were the fastest way of travelling around the wards regardless. To phrase it carefully - the Citadel was bloody huge, far bigger than the games suggested. Which, all things considered shouldn't have been surprising. It still was one of many lessons I should learn.
The best thing however was that every elevator was equipped with a news broadcasting system. Just like ingame, between every floor a single message played, supposedly feeding the citizens with their dose of information. I figured pretty quickly that these news were always broadcasted in the language of the race they concerned. I wasn't a linguist, but there was no way that the female (Asari?) sing-song and the supposedly salarian fast-paced gibberish were the same language. So when a male voice spoke in a clear and understandable English, it had my full attention.
"Today the Systems Alliance Navy formally confirmed the existence of a new frigate-class prototype vessel which was created in collaboration with the Turian Hierarchy. Its christening will take place in the coming days. As Admiral Steven Hackett of the Fifth Fleet told ANN, the ship will be named NORMANDY after a region on Earth famous for one of humanity's greatest military campaigns. Further rumours about newly developed technology are yet awaiting verification by Alliance officials."
I wasn't able to contain either my giddiness, or the relieved sigh. That got me some curious glances from some other passengers, but despite my plans of staying inconspicuous, I honestly couldn't bring myself to care. They should've been glad that I didn't start to dance though I absolutely felt like doing so.
Knowing that I was only a few weeks early for the begin of the Mass Effect trilogy took a gigantic weight off my heart and mind. I had been granted a bit of time to maximize my chances, and I was not going to let that go to waste. With renewed dedication, I went out of the cabin to continue my quest.
I will not dwell on the details of my first 'journey' around the Citadel. Take every single stereotype about gawking tourists, mix a tiny bit of 'suddenly, the future' and a fair a amount of general disbelief into it, and you're getting quite close.
It took me half an hour to find a decent, albeit slightly run-down general store with a human salesman. It was important to find a store managed by a human – as long as I couldn't get my hands on a translator, there were simply no other options.
Just walking along the wide, light grey roads and listening to the alien language made the importance of such a device unmistakably clear.
I admit, I was extremely nervous – my mind constantly rattled down all the things that could possibly go wrong, and trust me, there was a lot of them. But lucky for me, the clerk – an elderly man with long grey hair – appeared to buy my story of a lost omnitool and a malfunctioning translator. Or he saw through my disguise and simply didn't care, or he didn't care in general.
Whatever the truth actually was, he was unwilling to buy any of my items, but told me about a volus merchant who sold, bought and collected currency from all over the galaxy. He even lend me a translator. An older model, apparently, with earphones that were uncomfortable and itchy, but it functioned - I tested it on his asari coworker.
The greyed clerk took one of my coins as a pawn, then pointed me the right direction and went back to work. I felt encouraged by the ease of this deal and went on my way.
The Volus, on the other hand, was a much harder nut to crack. He was a crafty negotiator, and I suspect that he ripped me off quite nicely. I somehow kept my calm while being within his reach, but on my way back to the general store I had quite the wild fantasies about using the merchant and his football-like suit for some extensive penalty shooting. But being an illegal without any credentials, I had to endure the punches - had the volus sent a C-SEC unit after me, that would have been catastrophic, and even then I occasionally and nervously looked over my shoulder.
All in all, however, the transaction went quite well for me. It turned out that the old Euro coins were quite valuable - the Vatican City 2-Euro-coin alone brought me 2000 credits. In the end, I traded 130 Euro in coins and banknotes into almost 8400 Credits in credit chips. Again, it would have been more, but… at least I was set up for a few weeks.
Once back at the store, I used half an hour to choose a good translator, a reliable omnitool and some other useful stuff.
Finally, I settled for an Elkoss Combine Cipher-II tool. Like everything made by that company, a cheap and average, but still durable device. I was giddy to test it out, but that had to wait until I was out of public view.
My new translator consisted of two earbuds, nice to wear and yet somehow not limiting my hearing. As far as I understood, they filtered everything I heard and replaced everything spoken with a translation that sounded like the speaker's original voice. So far, so good, but I just couldn't figure out how it worked on text or hanar light impulses. The writing on the packages stayed just the same, but somehow the scribbling suddenly made sense in my head. I stared for a minute, dumbfounded, spent another five minutes theorizing about telepathy and mind reading, then I finally accepted 'space magic' as a scientific explanation.
There was just one, but big problem, for me in particular. Translators are passive devices, which means that they translate incoming languages, but not what the user himself was saying. That does make sense - why should you make one of the most important devices in the galaxy overly complicated? The problem with that is that the most common models are only able to translate English, as it is the main human language.
To cut things short: I was unable to rely on my native language, except for annoying the ever living hell out of everyone. Verdammt. I briefly railed with fate on why this couldn't be the german localization, but then my well-trained sense for cynicism reminded me that our voice actors plainly suck.
At least my English was decent enough for a start... and I would get enough opportunities to improve, one way or another. I made a mental note to look out for some translation apps, then that topic was done for the time being.
I added some cheap but durable spare clothings, which looked just like the stuff colonists wear in ME2 and 3, some basic equipment like a razor and a toothbrush (I had a 'flashback' to the Citadel DLC and deliberately chose one without mass effect fields), some colonist 'military' rations and a few bottles of water. I handed my credit chit to the grey man, and a few moments later I was 750 credits poorer.
"Anything else I can do for ya?" He asked, sounding half-bored, half-interested. I nodded and decided to take my chance."
"Yes, there is something I would like to ask … can you recommend me a relatively cheap, but still nice hotel somewhere around here?"
He looked thoughtfully. I didn't miss the sudden spark of interest in his eyes.
"There's a Salarian called Marson… runs his so-called "Hotel" a few streets from here. Was there during my first time on the Citadel. It's more like a bunkhouse then a hotel, If ya ask me – but everyone has his own room, it's real' cheap, rather clean, and the food is not too shabby either. 30 creds a day, what I remember."
"Thank you. And, well …" I didn't know why, but suddenly I felt like doing something dangerously bold, "Any ideas where I can find an arms dealer who… how should I phrase it… is not that interested in licenses and that bureaucratic stuff?" I regretted opening my mouth the very second later, but at least the elderly clerk was the only one able to hear me.
His grin was far too wide for me to feel good about it. I had made a mistake, and an extremely dumb one.
"Had a feeling you would ask for something like that, kid. Wanna join one of the merc gangs, eh? Nah, don't worry," he had seen the look on my face, "won't tell anyone. Don't like C-SEC anyway. Listen," He leaned over his counter, speaking in a low voice and forcing me to get closer to his face. I couldn't avoid the smell of cheap alcohol any longer.
"There's that Turian guy, Drussus. Was my partner when we were runnin' around on Omega. Has some nice low-grade and cheap weapons for sale, exactly what a starter like you needs. Even sells some basic armor. Nothing fancy, only legal stuff – but he won't ask you for an ID or somethin' like that. The guy even has a shootin' range where you can practise a lil'. If he gets bitchy, just tell him that Roman send ya. I'll get my share, don't worry."
He gave me a wink which actually did feel genuinely nice. My nervosity didn't leave me, but eased off enough to allow me an ever so slight grin. Fair deal. Don't ask, don't tell, just buy that stuff and we're good. That was a business policy that I could live with. But when I was out of Roman's sight, I grimaced and heavily berated myself.
Had I guessed wrong, and that guy been a completely lawful citizen, probably not even three minutes would have passed until the sights of the authorities would have been firmly trained on my head. I couldn't believe that I had been distrustful of the asari and the volus, but slipped up in front of a fellow human. There was no reason to trust him more than any alien.
What had been done had been done, however. I had no other option than to move quickly, figure out if I had been screwed over, and then either following Roman's advice or getting the hell out.
I found Drussus where my greying 'benefactor' told me I would find him, in one of the quieter corners of the ward. He first looked at me quite suspiciously and asked for my ID. For the record, a turian eyeing you warily is extremely unsettling. To my relief, the name 'Roman' startled him just as much, his behavior changed to 'cooperative', and I was allowed to take a good look at his large arsenal.
I first looked for an assault rifle, and chose the Avenger-II. Another Elkoss Combine product, it was affordable yet still decent enough. If my plans worked out as well as I hoped, It only had to be effective for one single fight anyway – what happened after that, I could tackle later.
I guess it is fair to say that I was both very excited and really worried when I took the gun in my hands for the first time. It was surprisingly light, not heavier than maybe 2 or 3 kilograms, not counting the ammoblock which added another kilo to the weight. It was equipped with a stock grip suited for almost any hand (and almost every amount of fingers) - and the plain green-dot sights allowed a clear look on my target, even slightly reducing light effects and artificial light.
While the weapon was all good and well… I had more and more concern about my own qualities as a shooter. I had never even held a 21st century rifle, knew how they functioned only in theory, and mass effect-based weapons were an almost complete unknown. Heck, the very concept had been sci-fi… until a few hours ago.
My heart sank realizing all of that, but I couldn't allow myself to show any weakness to the turian. Who was I to dare even consider to be good enough for the NORMANDY squad? It came hammering into my mind that I could allow myself absolutely no rest trying to learn as much as I could. Being in this place a few weeks early was the ultimate saving grace. Forcefully, I pushed all of these thoughts to the back of my head and focused on the here and now.
The second item I bought was a pistol. Namely, a Judgement-II. To be absolutely honest, the main reason why I took that one was the collector's instinct inside me. You never get to use that thing in-game without using cheats. Though, something told me better not to ask how Drussus had gotten his talons on batarian guns, especially that cheap. Still, with a 'magazine capacity' of fifteen bullets and decent accuracy and damage ratings, I took it.
To complete my loadout, I also bought both a Hahne-Kedar Storm-I shotgun and an Avenger-I sniper rifle. I could have afforded higher grade weaponry, and I was tempted to do so, but… I had a strong dislike towards shotguns, and knowing my general unsteadiness, I wasn't sure if I was able to keep the barrel on target. Also, I had to be watchful of my budget. Basic grade it was, then.
The most challenging problem I faced was getting a reliable armor. Not only had it to protect my very life - and quicksave/quickload was not an option - but it also had to be concealable. I was conspicuous enough as it was, and wearing an armored suit without any markings on the Citadel would've been… I guess 'Overkill' is an adequate description.
And, well, the common body armor in Mass Effect was not exactly subtle, plus they all were probably very difficult to wear correctly or to don, especially for someone not used to it. That was quite a nerve-wrecking difficulty - until I laid eyes on the turians collection of ballistic vests.
The human/asari-unisex-models looked quite similar to the lightweight ballistic Kevlar vests from 'back in my days'. The major difference was a broad belt around the waist section. It had roughly the size of a boxing champion belt, could be worn without the rest of the gear and contained the shield generator.
"Those vests are used by C-SEC covert ops and civilian VIPs" said the now slightly less nervous Drussus. His mandibles flared. "It is meant to be worn under your clothing and protects from low-grade weaponry. Even sniper rifles up to Tier III will have problems to penetrate the weave. But the major advantage is a relatively strong barrier that protects even the areas which are not covered by the vest itself – especially head and legs."
That sounded almost too good. "How strong is 'relatively strong'?"
"This vest has a shield with a protection rating of 200, the ballistic weave itself is rated as a six." Not bad at all. Doing the quick maths, that rated the material at half as strong as a Tier-I-Light Armor. A suit that surrounds the entire body, compared to something only covering the upper body. And the shield's strength was equivalent to a Tier-III-Heavy Armor! More than enough for the amount of trouble I was expecting.
"A very good choice – if you can afford it."
Oh, I certainly could. Although, not without wincing internally as the turian cutthroat took another 3200 credits off my account. Well, at least now I was fully decked out and somewhat well protected. The only thing left to do was to get used to handling the gear... meaning, kill things without dying myself. And for that...
"Roman told me you have a shooting range where I can practice."
The turians green eagle eyes focused intensely on me. "Yeah, it is in the basement. Whatever range or target, I got it. Twenty credits for the whole day."
A tempting offer, but I needed to set up a 'base of operations' first. "Tomorrow." I suddenly noticed how tired I was, stifling a yawn yet trying to look alert. I guessed that travelling through time and space, ending up on a supposedly fictional space station and going shopping took a bigger toll on me than I thought. In that exact order.
"Alright." He took a long look at me, like he was trying to determine my skill – or, to gauge how much more he was able to squeeze out of me. "I'll be back in thirteen hours, just come here if you want to let off some steam."
"Good". I nodded, kneeled on the floor and stuffed everything into my backpack. "I'll be here." With determination, I zipped the bag shut and looked up.
The turian's mandibles clicked, I guessed in slight amusement. He turned around and walked back to his counter, but turned around halfway to drop a last snarky remark.
"Ah, and if you happen to kill someone with those weapons... I had nothing to do with it."
A look at my watch told me that it was almost 20 o'clock, at least 'Oldtimer standard'. Not that it really mattered. I had no idea how long I had been unconscious, I had stayed in that alleyway doubting myself and the world, and the Wards lacked a day-night-cycle anyway. Now that my bases were covered, I could allow myself such useless considerations, but I could not allow myself to rest just yet.
Heavily packed with round about sixty pounds of arms and armor and other stuff I made my way to that bunkhouse. It was cheap, no doubt. Otherwise, I would've been able to at least see some windows from the outside, and not just the black façade of another Citadel ward 'skyscraper'. Or maybe people around here didn't care about windows, it was hard to tell.
One of the typical Citadel automatic doors further and I stepped in front of Marson's counter. He was rather non-talkative for a salarian. Or maybe he was actually a 'regular speciman' – the only two salarians I remembered in detail were a certain salarian scientist and the SPECTRE Jondum Bau from ME3.
Whatever was the truth, I paid him 90 Creds for three days in advance and additional ten for a dinner, and then he led me to a bigger dining room, really plain and only with few pieces of decoration. Inside, there were roughly twenty other patrons enjoying a break, most of them salarians. To my relief, nobody took more interest in me than necessary, and I made sure to get a table for myself.
The food itself was … interesting – some sort of fish with some sort of vegetable. Clearly alien, but it wasn't too bad. It didn't look too strange either. It did lack a little bit of taste, I assumed to make it appealing to a broader range of customers. Well, as long as it kept me sated and didn't poison me, who was I to complain? Maybe I would be able to get myself some tabasco somewhere.
Once I had finished my meal and felt a lot better, Marson walked over and handed me a keycard. "First floor. Left side, last room." I thanked him and walked through the grey floors. A keycard lock was probably the lowest low-grade security tech available on the Citadel… but it got the job done, even if someone like Kasumi would probably have laughed her ass off. I sent a brief prayer to Lady Luck that I hadn't been tagged by any type of security measures, because that was bottomline everything I could do about it.
The room itself was quite small and had only minimal furniture, but it was clean, had a small bathroom (which looked surprisingly similar to the ones I am used to) and felt comfortable enough. And really… should I, somehow, manage to get aboard the NORMANDY, living in small spaces would be a given regardless, so I had to get used to it one way, or another. I still missed a window, though. Ah, whatever.
I sat down onto the bed, noticed how soft it was, and with a sigh let myself sink on it before closing my eyes. I suddenly felt very tired, but also lightheaded… and had the sudden urge to laugh.
I was able to hold it back for a few seconds before it burst out. The whole craziness of the situation came to my mind, and my laughter turned just a little bit hysterical. Adios, sanity! Hello darkness, my old friend...
It took some time to calm down, then, with a resignated sigh, I refocused on my To-Do list. That was easier said than done, however. I guess the lack of adrenaline made me feel just how much had really happened that day. Tiredness crept in my bones, and all energy seemed to be drained into the abyss. Still, there was one last thing to do before I could allow myself a rest.
It required quite some time to get used to handling the omnitool (for example, that thing activated itself when you moved your fingers in a certain way) and even after half an hour of try-and-error and RTFM, I only knew the very basic features. Ignoring the additional few hundred milligrams of black and blocky weight directly next to my watch would require days. At least the Extranet wasn't that different from the Internet I was used to … if you ignore the fact that the preinstalled browser was better, faster, and more intuitive than anything I knew. Not to mention bloody interstellar.
One hour of digging up the past later, I had most of the information I needed.
Lieutenant Commander Jane Shepard. Daughter of Captain Hannah Shepard, the father's identity unknown to the public, presumed dead. Originally an Alliance Navy Infantry soldier, she was now an N7 specialist and elite operator, considered to be one of the best. Hero of the Systems Alliance, known also as the Lioness of Elysium.
Most noticeable accomplishment: Rallying the besieged and demoralized defenders and leading the fight for the colony's capital city. Defended the colony with only 86 militia, marines on shore leave and armed civilians for eight hours against multiple hundreds of batarian and Hegemony-backed slavers. Personally killed the slavers field commander during the Alliance' counterattack by cutting his throat wide open with her omniblade. Bestowed with the Systems Alliance Star of Terra, the highest military order available, for "extreme bravery far above and beyond the call of duty".
Or, in gamer's terms: F!Shep, Spacer, War Hero, presumably Paragon. Her picture in the extranet equivalent of Wikipedia looked almost exactly like the default female Shepard of the Mass Effect series... the one from ME3, to be exact. Right down to the freckles, with the only difference being that on that particular picture she was in formal dress, had her hair in a bun and was wearing the Star on her chest.
I allowed myself to relax a little. A Paragon Shepard was, in my opinion, the best case scenario. Some of the actions of Renegade Shepard were… fun, certainly, but in a very fucked-up way. And a Renegade would have many problems rallying the needed support for the Reaper War.
Plus, I personally wouldn't want to work with someone who sacrifices civilians and does other despicable things. Well, not that I would have considered myself to be an all out Paragon. Sometimes a little bit of ruthlessness was quite useful in making my life easier. But there was a line that may not be crossed.
Of course, I had no way of being sure that this incarnation of Shepard was indeed a Paragon. Real life has its way of being unpredictable in its own right. But at least the signs pointed towards a tolerant, respectful and all in all nice Commander, with 'Spacer' being neutral and 'War Hero' a Paragon background.
I admit, although retrospectively with a little bit of shame, that I was slightly disappointed that it was not a Bro!Shep. It was a immature thing, but I liked Mark Meer's deadpan snarking more than Jennifer Hale's emotional speeches. And, to my credit, I noticed the ridiculousness in my thoughts myself.
"Don't you have bigger problems right about now?", I ask myself aloud, shaking my head in irony. But there were indeed some unexpected details.
For example: Jane Shepard ... had a living sibling. Unfortunately, the article wasn't very enlightening – it only stated that he was a twin brother. It threw me a little bit out of balance... but then again, the Mass Effect canon didn't exactly deny the existence of a sibling. He or she just wasn't mentioned at all. Still, is he now M!Shep?
However I turned this around, it was a factor that I would have to take into account. But for now, it was irrelevant, and there were more important matters to think about.
The NORMANDYs official launch was scheduled to happen in the coming four to five days, according to most Extranet news sources. Adding another few days for supplying, the flight to Eden Prime, the mission on Eden Prime itself and the flight to the Citadel, I estimated roughly seven to ten days until I would have my personal "First Contact" with the Going-To-Be-Most-Famous-Human-In-Existence. I had looked up average travel times between different planets, was surprised to find out that it was slower than anticipated (five days for the regular Earth-Citadel passenger ships) and tried to make my guess as reasonable as possible. So, between one and one and a half week were left to make the best of that situation. It was pretty clear that I couldn't afford to waste a single day.
It was a crying shame that Nihilus Kryk and Corporal Jenkins were going to die on Eden Prime, but my hands were tied for the time being. The only way I could imagine to pass a warning which might have been heard in time would be to contact the Shadow Broker via his resident agent and banker Barla Von… but firstly, that would most likely have been too expensive for my rather slim money reserves, and secondly, the whole 'keeping a low profile' thing would've been completely impossible then. And there was only one thing I feared more than a Cerberus interrogation... the Shadow Broker tracking me down.
Make sure their deaths are worth it, I grimly vowed to myself. You owe them that much.
No news from Eden Prime had been reported, not even rumors. Also, no recent stories regarding a SPECTRE named Saren or anything else that kept my interest for longer than a quick fascinated glimpse. And even if there were such information to be found…
I suddenly yawned and reminded myself that there was going to be more than enough time in the coming days to do some research about the recent human history and everything else. I used a newly discovered omnitool-application to remotely switch the lights off, and a few minutes later I was fast asleep, dreaming wild dreams of dimension travels and instruments of torture.
I woke up roughly ten hours later, thanks to my cellphone's alarm. Keeping my eyes closed, I didn't notice anything out of order and instead cursed at the alarm for waking me so damned early for yet another day at the university.
But when I grabbed for the phone, my arm kept grabbing air... and a metallic surface. Drunk with sleep, I felt utterly confused. My nightstand was made of wood. I finally opened my eyes. And the outstretched arm froze mid-air. I saw where I truly was. I recalled what I remembered. Darkness. The Presidium. The panic attack. The Wards. The shopping tour. And the freakin' hotel I was sleeping in. I wasn't dreaming. My fist slammed into the table next to me, and I muttered a hell lot of curses to keep the quickly rising tension at bay.
Lucky for me, a cold shower was very effective in both ridding me of any remaining dizziness and also calming me down. I sat down down onto my bed, stared against the wall for the next fifteen minutes and then began to feel better.
I set my mind on the next objective at hand - getting used to guns - and a quick check of my equipment erased the last bit of insecurities for now, replacing it with anticipation. Even more so, since my new futuristic 'toys' still amazed me to no end. If you would call me a pretty simple man, at least for that time, I wouldn't object.
And when I finally zipped my jacket shut and left my room, I felt almost content with the situation. Almost. But that was at least one thing I was good at... accepting situations for what they were and adapting to get the best out of them.
After a long, salarian-made imitation of a human breakfast (and of course they only had that three-times cursed floppy american toast and no real bread), I grabbed my gear and headed over to Drussus. Twenty credits changed their owners, and the barefaced turian led me to the basement and left me alone with my anxiety – there was no other customer. I was glad about it – I suspected this 'secret' range to be a gang's training area, and I wanted nothing to do with that.
The 'basement' was a large area opened up on the left side – it didn't only look like your typical in-game warehouse, it even felt like one. There were some crates scattered around, and on the far end I saw a quite extensive shooting range. Pop-up dummies, moving targets, even some of these typical cylindric bottles were lined up and awaiting their fate at the hand of a rookie shooter. The entire ensemble looked like makeshift, but it was at least relatively unlikely that anybody was going to disturb me here.
I put on my ballistic vest and then my jacket over the vest as instructed. Hm.
It was quite light and thin, no more than a winter pullover, but still not as flexible as I would have liked. It did restrict my movement somehow, but much less than an actual armor. I guessed. After all, a full-on armored suit consisted of absolutely rigid ceramic plating while this vest one was some kind of advanced plastic. The most important thing that mattered to me was its effectiveness at saving my life, and that was something I could only check later.
Let's start easy, I thought with a funny feeling in my stomach. I grabbed the Judgement pistol, inserted the ammo block like Drussus had shown me the day before, took it in both hands, went into position, aimed down the sights onto my target (the chest of one of the dummies roughly twenty meters away) and, not without gulping, pulled the trigger.
The recoil was less strong than I had expected, but still strong enough to made me sway a little. At least I knew a bit of theory about firing stances and good grips on guns, so I avoided dealing any damage to my hands and arms. Still, I had missed my target. Meh.
The next hour was spent on recoil management and actually hitting the target. I sent half an ammoblock - roughly five hundred rounds - down range, and felt like I actually made progress. As long as I aimed for the chest, I scored. Sure, that was nothing extraordinary, but it was something. I sighed in relief when I clicked the sidearm to the vests magnetic holster. I was not completely helpless anymore.
The Avenger-II rifle proved to be not too bad to handle either. I did have some problems keeping it steady – not to mention the stress it put on my whole body – but somehow I still managed to hit my targets more often than I missed them. I quickly switched from trying to full-on spray to short, controlled bursts or even single fire - the automatic mode was, at least for now, uncontrollable for me. And the Avenger was supposed to be a relatively stable gun. I had tried it, though, and would make sure to improve.
The shotgun and the sniper rifle beat me, though, and these two weapons were not as forgiving of noobish mistakes as assault rifle and pistol. My first experience with a sniper rifle was as follows: Raven taking the rifle, of course holding it wrongly, in his hands. Raven drawing a bead at a dummy, bringing the sight too close to his eyes. Raven pulling the trigger… Raven being slapped by the rifle's stock and barely manages to avoid a black eye.
I can grin about it now, but at the time it was both hurtful and humiliating. Tears shot in my affected eye and I muttered a five minutes long string of German and English insults and cusses.
For the second try, I made sure as hell to fasten the grip on the weapon, but it still was everything but easy to handle. Keeping the long barrel steady enough for a precise shot seemed physically impossible, the four-times magnification sight swayed wildly and every attempt at steadying or counteracting only made things worse. I finally managed to fire a single, steadied bullet… which barely hit a bottle fifty meters away. It was pathetic, but I felt like a champion… for a few minutes. I had a fancy for sniper rifles and was very tempted to invest all my practice time on actually learning that thing, but rationality kicked in and brought me back to reality. Decent handling of the basics was more important than some fancy-yet-impractical sharpshooting. I wouldn't impress anyone, let alone Shepard, with that. It would take some time to gain the necessary steadiness… time I definitely did not have.
And then came the shotgun. I had thought that my attempts at sniping had been mortifying. I had been wrong.
The muzzle flashed, and in the same moment a flash of pain seared through my right side. It hurt enough that I had to drop the weapon and grab my shoulder, clenching my teeth and hissing wildly. The kickback had almost broken my arm.
At least the gun was stable enough so that the fall didn't trigger another shot with potential deadly consequences.
As I carefully moved my overtaxed arm, I asked myself in all seriousness why I had even bothered to buy that gun. I was not going to use it anyway.
Yes, a shotgun's potential stopping power is enormous, but so is the time in-between shots. I would have preferred a high rate of fire and spray-and-pray at any time over the questionable one-shot-one kill, at least when being in close quarters. The thought of having an enemy in front of me, while I would be forced to cycle in a new shell and being at his mercy was horrifying.
Unfortunately, machine pistols were not available to me in the moment. The first of many reasons why I would be glad for the transition to ME2.
The problem that now came to mind was: What other weapon could I use in melee range?
Suddenly, it struck me. Wait…melee… knife range, that's exactly…
An omniblade. The combination of heavy pistol and omniblade should be able to do the job. My sidearm had enough punch to damage or even down an enemies shields, and omniblades tear through most materials known to mankind. The more I thought about it, the more I grew worried about my brawler abilities, but the more going all stabby-stabby sounded like an actually good idea.
There was, however, another question... Whatever opponent would be able to get close enough, despite the three weapons of Shepard's squad firing at it might not exactly allow me the time to drop the assault rifle for pistol and blade.
A bayonet? I remembered some photos I had seen, of old World War II rifles with knives attached to them. That would definitely be cool. And also, arguably the best, or at least a reasonable way to take on someone that close. I would still have my rifle in my hand and could keep shooting without having to pause once the 'problem' had been dealt with.
I kept the idea in mind for later - I had neither any equipment to really turn it into reality, and I highly doubted that it could work if I simply glued an additional omnitool on the barrel.
What I did do, was to activate my own tool and, after a little bit of browsing around, start to download an omniblade app. It actually and surprisingly was freeware - a civilian 'downgrade' from the military weapon, with a shorter blade and a delay from activation to the blade's materialisation. However, it was literally only one step further to extranet sites with shady reputations, but excellent guides on how to… modify the tool to reach that level of deadliness.
Now, all I needed were some light metal alloys for the mass fabricator to work with. I made a note to myself to search for some scrap and to ask Ashley Williams for the bayonet once I - hopefully - was a part of the NORMANDY crew. But first steps first - and that meant practice, practice and then some more practice. Getting better was the key - I didn't want Shepard to take me aboard out of pity.
Thinking about it, getting aboard the ship without being part of the squad might actually have been an option. I could have asked for protection, as a witness or source of information. But two things stood against that idea. First, chances were that I instead could have been put into protective custody on the Citadel. Second - my own pride. My own, damned pride forbade me to accept an existence as a simple observer. Now that I, under whatever circumstances, had ended up in this reality, in this future, I would do whatever necessary to be a part of it. Seriously. Having this chance I was not supposed to have and then being sidelined would suck, wouldn't it?
So I ended up spending half the day at the warehouse, shooting and slicing practice targets until I was too tired and exhausted to be able to do anything useful anymore. I headed back to the 'hotel' and pretty much collapsed on my bed, slightly wincing as I put too much pressure on my sore bones. Well, I had to deal with it. Nobody said it would be easy to become an acceptable rifleman.
Or to become part of a video game, for that matter.
I wrapped up the day by activating my omnitool and reading about the time between 2015 and 2183.
The 'alternate universe' theory was confirmed. It wasn't clearly visible on the first glance, but there were a lot of indicators and proof once you had figured out what to look out for.
I looked up historic events and compared what was written in encyclopedias to what I remembered myself. The major events up until 2000 were the exact same as in 'my' timeline, but the closer you got to 2015, the more differences there were. For example, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 or the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 were still 'the same' in all aspects I had in memory.
And in the US 2012 elections, it was still Barack Obama who got elected for the second four years period. But here the discrepancies started - his direct opponent was not Mitt Romney. It had been Sarah Palin. Germany still has won the 2014 Soccer World Championship (yay!), but it was not Mario Götze who scored the deciding goal against Argentina during overtime. It was Miroslav Klose, who had scored that goal per penalty. For that matter, it wasn't even Argentina who we played against but the Netherlands.
I could add a lot more and more significant changes the closer you get to summer '15, but you get the idea. With significant worry, I even tried to check if I was still 'myself', or just an 'alter ego'. But the websites where I possibly could have left traces on – where I have written articles, posts, stories on – were nowhere to be found. So, I had no idea if I had gone missing in 2015 or if I still existed in that timeline. It freaked me out a little bit, thinking about the possibility of at the same time being on the Citadel and long dead in a grave on Earth.
And I was just unable to find an answer… I couldn't not find a freakin' trace of my friends or family either. There were people with my family name…. but it isn't that rare in Northern Germany.
I had to stop that line of thought once my head started spinning. It was easier to just pretend ... or accept... that no one of my friends, family members or acquaintances existed or was still alive here... but I couldn't help but feeling sad and lost.
Letting my head hang low, I had to come to terms with the fact that there was nobody whom I could talk to, or who could help me here. No one who watched my back. I was standing alone.
For the next eight days, I followed a routine of combat practice and getting at least somewhat familiar with the Citadel - there was no chance in hell to visit everything, but I tried to at least visit the most important locations, although I always did my best to avoid C-SEC. Which was actually easier than I thought - the security measures prior to ME1 were a joke, really.
Day 1, I spent almost entirely on the shooting range, but as I grew more used to my weapons I began to realize that it lacked a little bit of a real combat situation and, frankly, of a challenge. So I searched for combat simulators on the Citadel, and got lucky. While Armax Arsenal Arena was both too expensive and too close to the bright areas of the station for me to move without a risk (not to mention that you need an official license to participate), but a smaller and a little janky arena was roughly a kilometer away from my sleeping place, close to the border of the ward.
Their advertisement looked quite well, especially their 'free-for-all time' where civilians were able to 'play around' with their guns without going competitive. And no need to register yourself or your weapons. Music in my ears.
And it was great. Randomly generated maps, the people got randomly mixed up to teams of five and had to survive for as long as possible, with every next wave harder than the one before. It was fun. And an extremely tough challenge.
The lowest two settings the simulator offered were barely more than a shooting range and, as a fellow human named it so nicely, 'like shooting fish in a barrel'. Tier 3 forced you to take cover, Tier 4 felt like and required reflexes like a real firefight - at least to my mind - and in Tier 5, just staying alive was a challenge, even if the team worked together nicely, which was not always the case.
The fucking arena offered nine settings, number nine adequately named 'Deathwish'.
The amount of beating I received made painfully clear what I lacked. It started with experience, went on with things like stamina and a cool mind, my aim was not the best and in some situations, I also wasn't quite fast enough to quickly change my cover.
My equipment proved to be lackluster as well. The ballistic vest, while light and allowing for good mobility was no match for a shotgun. Once, one of the holographic enemies got close enough to get a full blast of its weapon straight in my chest. The impact threw me on my back, I hit my head on the ground and I realized that in a real fight, I would have died from that blast without any chance.
My nearsightedness was an obstacle, too. The reserve glasses I always carried with me allowed me to be not too carefully during the firefight, but without them, I would've been almost helpless. My hopes were on getting a medical treatment as soon as I could get out of hiding, hopefully with my favorite doctor who, currently, was probably busy packing her things for the NORMANDY.
Two things I think I did well were the peeking in and out of my cover to check the battlefield - I never really got surprised by enemy movement - and laying down suppressive fire to force some of these simulations to keep their heads down.
Still… it was everything but easy. Every day I did my best to keep going, but there was more than one moment where I was close to giving up. When another wave of hostiles took advantage of my numerous mistakes and gunned me down, or if I got downed because I couldn't move my sore muscles fast enough to cover I absolutely felt like giving up, going home and spending the rest of the day in bed.
But every time I was so close to defeat, I remembered myself that the prize was literally living a dream.… and that failure was very likely to be my death sentence. So, I always stumbled back on my feet, took the rifle in my hurting hands and forced myself to continue.
And, even though I didn't quite feel it that well, I improved.
After three days, I had managed to be a valuable asset for Tier-5-teams. I learned some neat tricks by spectating the higher-level players – mostly C-SEC guys on breaks and what appeared to be military personnel on shore leave - and copied stuff like quick combat rolls to change positions, or the correct movements to quickly change weapons. Two of the stronger fighters – young human and turian C-SEC recruits – were even nice enough to show me good combat stances for pistol and assault rifle shooting, and ways of steadying a sniper rifle. I became calmer as time progressed and by that increased my precision, but still I needed too much time for lining up a scoped shot.
But overall, after that week of practice I felt like I was not a complete rookie , I was able to hold my own in a Tier-6-setting. A promising sign.
One of these days, I went to Drussus armory for the third time and added some other useful items to my gear. It was quite impressive, the sheer variety of items he had up for sale. For example, a black human-style balaclava which covered my whole face save for a stripe at my eyes. It was made from a material I didn't recognize but felt surprisingly nice on my skin. I'm not very fond of helmets, but happened to know that there would be some areas where I should cover my head. For example, the bleakness on Noveria. And of course, the ability to conceal my identity could come in very handy as well.
To protect my eyes, I added some glasses (labeled 'combat glasses', but looking suspiciously like ski goggles). I made sure that they were large enough to allow me to carry my regular glasses beneath them.
Also, a dangerous looking bayonet knife with a very sharp seven-inch-blade made from a dark metal, complete with a fitting black thigh holster.
I bought all three items. Admittedly, mostly for the optics. You know, the whole 'guns are for show, knives are for pro' thing. Of course, I suffered a severe case of vanity, but still had an excellent excuse for such a behaviour – to be precise, a very bouncy and quarian excuse who wore her knife in a leg holster at all times. If whoever designed Tali thought it a good idea to spice up her look by adding a knife she never uses (save for a single scene you only get when you have failed before), why wouldn't I be allowed to do the same?
Also, I definitely felt better carrying a real steel-bladed knife with me, rather than just a blade of orange light, even if that cut through everything. Feel free to call me hypocritical, if you wish.
And in reaction to my first experiences in the simulator, I upgraded my armor with fingerless gloves of a light plastic-like material and a set of equally light armored splints for all of my limbs plus knee pads. The reason I decided to wear gloves was that I had managed to burn my hand on a heatsink. Lucky for me, it was not overheated, but I still felt like a complete idiot. The splints for thighs, shanks and arms were basically thin ceramic plates, a little heavier than the plastic but with better durability.
I had no illusions about the protection they offered though – they didn't even cover everything – but at least it was, well, something. Plus, they were easily concealable under my clothing with no real downside, so why not. As for the knee pads… I am a little ashamed to admit it, but I just forgot about them during my first shopping tour. The reality of the simulations – pun intended – and really sore knees after some of the rounds put me right, though. The pads were too thick to be concealable under my jeans, but hey. I put every item to the test and was very satisfied – the damage I took was reduced by a noticeable amount, which added a lot to the overall feeling of 'progress' I had. Maybe, just maybe, thinking that I could make for a useful squad member was not as arrogant as I had thought - that, in hindsight, was pure hubris.
But at least I was able to look now into my bathroom mirror and looked - to my eyes - like an acceptable fighter. The mixture of 21s century everyday clothing and 22nd century ultra light armor mixed together made me appear like a member of a militia, or an insurgent. One way or another, like someone who meant business. No idea what kind of business, but still.
Whenever I wasn't practicing in the simulator, I was either in my hotel room either resting for my next field trip and/or doing additional research into a logical and hard to prove or disprove background story. I had come up with a decent foundation - basically, something around me growing up on Earth, being isolated from the reality of the universe for some time and then fleeing my home to the Citadel to do become a mercenary.
It wasn't a perfect story, and it is likely that some people will see through some parts of the disguise… but that was also part of the plan. Admitting that the name I went by was fake and also pointing out that I left every part of my old life behind by taking up a new identity only makes me more believable, and staying flexible regarding the background would allow me to adapt as needed. At least, that was what I hoped for. Only the live test would tell if I would be able to deceive my surroundings... okay, that definitely sounded better in my head.
In the time I had left, I was wandering around in the Wards – all five of them. It was still hard to actually believe that I was really here, and I always had a hard time looking away from the aliens. The asari in particular, but... that's another story.
It wasn't all about simply satisfying my curiosity, though. I visited the important places of Mass Effect 1 – Chora's Den, the lower markets, the alleyway where Tali would be getting double-crossed by Fist. I thought about visiting Dr. Michel's clinic to fix my eye problems, but I remembered in time that there was a sort-of-prequel to Mass Effect called Homeworlds … and that I better do not interfere in a story I do not know. Especially given the chance that I could meet Tali too soon, which had the potential to have all sorts of bad and, moreover, uncontrollable consequences.
Until now, I had been in a state of 'accepting disbelief'. I had - more or less - accepted that I was on the Citadel, that I was in another, in the Mass Effect universe. By its own right a difficult thing to grasp. But walking around the places Commander Shepard will walk in during ME1 and seeing the sites from my own perspective hammered the whole truth into my brain. That stupid video game was now reality. And I was now a part of it, for better or for worse.
I even went so far to try my luck at the Flux' Quasar machines. When you play it clever, you will usually win more credits than you lose – I had 'farmed' them ingame more than enough times. After some try-and-error, I remembered the trick and came up with an enormous winning streak. I ended up round about two thousand credits richer... and on the receiving end of some extremely resentful glares from the volus owner. I am sure of it, even though I couldn't see his face behind the envirosuit. What was his name again...? It didn't matter. He couldn't prove that I was cheating, and technically, I wasn't. Even when he stood directly behind me, he didn't find any evidence. So, I sat at his bar, smiled at him a bit lowly and casually sipped my favorite Jack & Coke, while he huffed off to tend to his own business.
The most interesting and important part of all these trips was taking a good look at the place where the ambush on Tali was going to happen. I had made the decision that that place would be the one that would mark my entrance into the trilogy. The point of no return on whether or not I would be allowed to join Shepard on her epic journey. I scoured my mind to remember where the enemies will most likely stand, and played some possible scenarios in my head. If the events in the game were the same as the events here, then Tali would survive the encounter anyway – but I had to prove myself as useful, so careful planning was of vital importance.
The, let me call it 'level design' was simple enough. One way, lots of crates to hide behind, the perfect place to counter-ambush Fists goons. If Shepard arrived on the scene just as she was supposed to, then this whole encounter was going to be over in a few seconds. If not… well, after all that practising I estimated myself to be at the same level as these lowly guns-for-hire. With Tali on my side, winning the resulting firefight was definitely possible.
Even more so, that, sarcastically spoken, I had unlocked my first 'ability' as a 'squadmate'. By chance, admittedly, but still.
I was looking around the crates for the perfect place to lie in wait when I smelled something familiar. An aggressive scent of... gasoline? No. Similar, but not quite.
A little bit of sniffing around later, I had found the source: One of the crates had been cracked open. Inside, there were among a few junk items, three or four canisters - the smell turned suffocating, and had to hold my breath. Driven by curiosity, I carefully pulled one of the canisters out and unscrewed the cap. A bit of the liquid spilled over and splashed on the ground, forming a small puddle at my feet. And that fluid shimmered suspiciously colorful in the dimmed light of the alley…
As I should learn later, that liquid was some sort of an hydraulic oil, used in many clubs' electricity generators as most of the businesses in the lower wards had to produce their own energy and no access to the surface's array of solar power plants. And Element zero was expensive, so adding this type of oil as a current-carrier served to increased an Eezo-generators efficiency. That's at least how far I understood it. These oils were relatively cheap, but they had one significant weakness...
A thought came to my mind. I took an empty water bottle and transferred a bit of liquid into it. To minimize the danger I was suspecting, I put some meters between myself and the cloud of gas by walking to the other end of the alleyway. There I emptied the bottle on the floor and lit up one of my cigarettes (I had found out that smoking was not forbidden in the lower wards). I took a few drags to stoke up the blaze, made it sure as hell that nobody was watching me - and then from a safe distance threw the cig into the puddle.
It went up like a bonfire, flames rising high and burning aggressively. I could feel through my boots how the metal ground heated up, even though I was five meters away.
I stared into the flames with a ghost of a smile on my lips.
I made a detour back to Choras Den and took another five bottles from the dust bins outside that place. Once I was back in the alley, I took one of the bottles and threw it from five meters distance on one of the crates. It splintered quite well.
So, grinning like a lunatic, I took the remaining five bottles, filled them up to the brim and thanked whatever deity had sent the fuel for my makeshift Molotov cocktails. I now only needed some sort of rugs to light them up, and those were laying around, especially in the darker areas of the Wards. Some guys are in for a surprise, I summed it up and stowed the cocktails in my backpack, hoping that on my way back no one would smell anything suspicious. Nobody did, and the bottles proved waterproof.
As I said, I spent overall eight days like this - using every minute I was awake to either improve my combat skills, on getting used to the simple feeling of being around aliens, on making excursions around the Citadel and reading up as much background and stuff as I could.
Everything changed on the ninth day. I woke up and showered as always, and then I activated my omnitool for the daily news. I froze dead in my tracks. The headlines of my news app sprang in my eyes.
"DEVASTATING GETH ATTACK ON EDEN PRIME"
"BLOODY ATTACK ON HUMAN COLONY SHAKES UP COUNCIL SPACE"
"REPORTS OF ATTACK ON HUMAN COLONY OF EDEN PRIME; ALLIANCE OFFICIALS UNWILLING TO COMMENT"
I couldn't help it – I had to grin. A wave of euphoria rushed through me.
The time for waiting was over. History had been set in motion, and I felt hyped up and ready to leave my mark in this story.
Let's go then, shall we?
Addendum, June 2017: Largely reworked in June 2017 to improve everything from style, to logic, to grammar. Please, let me know what you think!
Original A/N, April 2015: Hi folks! Thank you for the favs, follows and reviews! Honestly, I didn't think that the prologue(!) would get such
attention. That keeps the writing morale up! :D
I originally planned to release this one in two or three weeks, b ut I thought – why the hell not? But don't expect me to
always b e that fast... I want to have some chapters in reserve in case I can't wirte as much as I would like.
Anyway, if you happen to find any errors – spelling, grammar or lore-wise – please write me a review so I can check that.
Thank you, and 'til next time!