To clarify. Yes my Shepard is an officer right from the start. As far as I know most militaries train up their officers to be officers. So Kate Shepard after enlisting at 18 would have gone to some kind of bootcamp but then to officer school, or possibly straight into officer school. And since 2nd lieutenant is the lowest rank of Alliance officers she is that. For me it makes sense that she wasn't some kind of grunt that simply had a meteoric rise through the ranks and let's face it from Private 2nd class to even Lieutenant commander in 11 years? That's 9 promotions. One almost every year. Shepard is good but that's too fast even for wartime promotion. This chapter is a bit shorter than usual but I felt that the last paragraph was a good place to stop.
And before anyone asks why this chapter was so late...the answer is simple and I am not proud of it. I found an interesting book and got a bit lost in reading it. But the time off allowed me to put a structure in mind of what actually I wanted to do for the next few chapters as before I was really just writing whatever came to my mind without really thinking long term. So hopefully you will enjoy this and I will endeavor to publish the next part quickly. Also I put in a few clues of what is coming next and I would like you to guess what it is. And as always reviews are always appreciated.
Edited 30/05/2021 for grammatical, stylistic and logical errors
25/12/2173, Eagle Nebula, Amun, Anhur, New Thebes
What should have been a quick in-and-out mission turned into a months trek across various human colonies tracking down other terrorist cells. Well, I called them cells because their MO was the same. A group of 3-4 people that perpetrate increasingly more violent and deadly attacks until either I or the local security takes them out. The worst part was that the backgrounds of the people in each cell seemed totally random. Lawyers, students, ordinary workers, housewives even kids. It's like someone just grabbed a bunch of people off the street and made them into terrorists. There were no prior connections, no prior history of violence or anti-Alliance or anti-human sentiments. They also never seemed to communicate with each other and yet somehow their attacks were organised.
And that's how I ended up on Anhur sitting in a grimy apartment with my sniper rifle for company on Christmas. It has been almost a year since I have arrived in this universe. It was making me think. Maybe it was the weather, it was currently snowing. I had always liked snow. Or maybe it was seeing those silly Christmas decorations in the window a few apartments down from the one I was aiming at. I missed my family, I missed the silly arguments and the day long preparation of too much food that is not going to be eaten all anyway. I wanted to be warm and cozy and watching the most Christmas movies of all time, Die Hard and Die Hard 2. Both of them were an integral part of my Christmas since childhood.
Instead I was in a cold apartment freezing my ass off while waiting for the other members of the cell to arrive. While my body didn't get frostbite or burns as easily as my old body I still felt the cold and heat as all humans do. The blinds on the window had been closed and all I had to go on was a thermal image from the scope. For the past two hours the terrorist was just sitting on the floor. Not moving a muscle, just sitting in the middle of the room with his back towards me. My wait however was rewarded when I saw two more people walk into the apartment, correction, one human and one batarian. Human and batarian heat signatures were different enough that I could tell them apart. I would have liked to say that it was unusual but Anhur was settled by both humans and batarians. It was a strange combination, I really thought that the only species that humans could live with more or less comfortably were asari. What I have seen here on Anhur only reinforced my belief. Batarians were slavers and a caste society and to the current humans that was pretty much dark age barbarism. Normal humans that is.
Why was I waiting in a building opposite with a sniper rifle? Because the last attempt to capture and interrogate a similar cell ended up with them blowing their stash of explosives, I was simply thrown out of the 4th floor window but the local security I lead there and the people in apartments around them were not so lucky. So from then on the standard procedure was to eliminate the terrorists and then go in and investigate.
Both of the newcomers sat down, in a circle around something and after adjusting the settings on the scope I could see a faint outline of the object in the room. I still couldn't see it properly so I decided it was time. Three shots later I was walking out of the apartment building and crossing the street. I walked at a pace that told the other people that I was in a hurry to get somewhere but I wasn't worried about it. It was common around here, people hurrying to work or from work, always not enough hours in a day to do the things that needed doing. My clothes were also the same as people who lived in this district wore, hardy workman's trousers, worn walking boots and a faux-denim jacket with a hood.
The hood was currently covering my face so I was confident that at most what the people around here would remember was an ordinary guy just like any of them. It was important to look like on of the people that lived here, people are less likely to tell police if they think you are one of them. Group loyalty by association.
And these days with the whole issue of batarians using slave labour and human companies unable to keep up and the current attempts by the human part of the Anhur government to outlaw slavery the people who lived here, mostly human workers and a few of the free batarian worker caste, were unlikely to tell the police about another worker.
Opening the door to the apartment where the three dead terrorists were I was hit with a wave of foulness. The smell, the stink if you want to be more precise was overpowering. It was a gag-inducing mixture of human and batarian waste, food and sweat. Trying to breathe through my mouth I entered the apartment. It was like most apartments here a two bedroom affair with a living room that also doubled as the kitchen. Stepping over piles of trash carefully so that I don't slip and end up getting soiled in this muck I approached the three dead bodies. A quick search and scan later I had everything I needed from them and I turned my attention towards the thing in the middle.
As in the previous hideouts for these terrorists cells there was that odd obelisk thing, it resembled two thick segmented tentacles wrapping around each other. A quick scan told me that it was made out of local basalt. Nothing unusual, every time I came across one of these it was made out of local materials, stone mostly in black or red hues. I must admit that when I first started investigating these terrorist cultists I thought that they were either under Reaper influence or Leviathan. It just seemed to fit indoctrination, random people coming into contact with an artifact and then perpetrating seemingly random bits of violence.
But now I knew better. Despite the odd shape the obelisks were not Reaper in origin. I have been sending them back to my Alliance handlers and they have been sending me back reports of the analysis. They were handmade and apart from the bizarre shape there was nothing unusual about them. No circuitry, no organic traces. They were not even old, the oldest one that I have found so far dated only to a year or so ago. It was a cult but no one was talking about it. Recruitment seemed to happen at random and they were instant fanatics. I just didn't know of what. None of them had ever spoken a word of what they believed in.
I switched my omni-tool to detective mode and started scanning the entire apartment, there might be a clue here that I could overlook but I knew that the analysts that I have never met and never will might be able to pull a thread from all this chaos.
With the scan done I performed a basic manual search of the bodies hoping to find something useful but they didn't have anything apart from their clothes and omni-tools.
Grabbing their omni-tools, I set up a small cleaning charge. In essence it was an acid grenade, made specifically to melt organic matter so it wouldn't go through the floor and after melting most of the organic material in the apartment it would spray a neutralising agent that would render the acidic sludge left into powder, desiccating it. After it has done it's job the device will simply overload and explode into bits small enough that no one would be able to tell what it was. So instead of three bodies whoever comes in would only see a thick layer of dust on the floor.
Exiting the building I walked briskly back to the closest transit terminal where I could order an aircar. My temporary base was in the wealthier part of the city, a single human renting an apartment and coming and going at odd hours would draw less attention there than in the poorer parts of the city, where most people worked certain shift patterns. Especially considering that my cover was a trade representative for an independent shipping company based out of Bekenstein. I had even had taken some meetings to talk to the various companies about supplying some of the products. Of course it would never get further than just talk and considering the modest sizes of orders I was talking about I would be just one of many such representatives.
As the aircar arrived I quickly changed inside, exchanging the worker clothes for something more presentable. The aircar flew through the city on autopilot weaving through the traffic.
New Thebes could be described as a typical cyberpunk city. It looked like something inspired both by Bladerunner and Ghost in the Shell, the pyramid like mega-structures belonging to batarians and the skycrapers tightly packed in between them being of human make. Factories belching smoke intermixing with the clean armoured glass of stock market towers. The heavy clouds reflected the dull orange and blue glow of the holographic adverts back creating an illusion of twilight. The snow diffusing the light further making everything in the distance blur together.
One of these towers was the apartment complex I was heading to and the aircar started slowing down and turning towards it to land on the roof. The availability of aircars had made a drastic change on the design of high-rises, instead of having a lobby on the ground level it was on the roof as the people who lived here wouldn't actually walk. The ground level entrance was only for heavy goods vehicles and for the sentient part of the workforce tending to the building and the needs of it's residents.
I hopped out of the aircar as it landed and walked past the guard on duty acknowledging him with a nod heading towards the lifts. My apartment greeted me as always with a security report transmitted straight to my omni-tool. I didn't install any traps or anything like that because anyone skilled enough will be able to get through them and anyone who wasn't was not worth it. And the presence of the traps would alert anyone that found them that I wasn't just a normal person. So I simply didn't keep anything incriminating inside and had a standard security system. I downloaded the data from the omni-tools sending it along with the scans of the cultist apartment to get analyzed. My job was done for today and after taking a long shower I went to sleep. Even with all the modifications that were done to me, increased endurance of body and increased endurance of mind through training I still needed sleep. Laying in bed the thoughts came. I was sent here to a fictional universe by a being with wings of fire. I had assumed that I was sent here with my knowledge and my upgraded body to stop the Reapers. However in the months since I haven't done anything for that goal. Of course what I was doing was important too and it was also for a good cause but it was not stopping the Reapers. I needed to prepare an army, or at least a highly competent squad to help Shepard. Not even as much during the events of Sovereign's attack as the Collector attack. I also needed to dismantle Cerberus. After seeing Pragia and sending the reports to my superiors I had hoped that I would be set upon Cerberus but that hasn't happened yet. Cerberus might have started with good intentions and Illusive Man might have had the best interests of humanity at heart years ago but now and in the future to come he will be a monster. As monstrous as Reapers themselves. Which made sense as he was after all indoctrinated. It might not have fully asserted itself until the Reaper invasion but indoctrination does shift a person's thought patterns.
I needed more freedom to act, to go on my own missions. I needed to gain freedom of choice. And to do that I needed to know who I was working for. Parting on good terms usually relied on both parties agreeing on a compromise. And I couldn't compromise if I didn't know what they wanted. Falling asleep to this thought I hoped that soon I could finish up with this mission so I could go and visit the kids I saved on Arcturus station and maybe even see Shepard.
26/12/2173
The morning greeted me with the beeping of my omni-tool. Looking at the clock I saw that I had managed to sleep for 5 hours, which was enough for me in my new body. Reading through the report that the analysts had compiled overnight I went through my morning exercise routine. The scan of the room was a total bust, nothing useful there but the omni-tools did give me a lead. A space station built by Ishimura corporation was noted as some kind of transfer point. It would take several days to get there as it was built in a star system without a Relay. I had to leave the turian shuttle in Kal'leena's hands and so to bolster my cover I obtained a human shuttle, AT-39C, a modification of the stock AT-39 where some of the cargo area was sacrificed for more comfortable quarters to allow for long range voyages. But even with the shuttle optimised for longer voyages it still would take a better part of two days to get there from the closest relay. Gathering up my stuff, it still all fit into a single duffel bag. Not because I haven't got more stuff but because I keep leaving it. I now had bags like this hidden all over Alliance space and some of the more popular destinations in the Traverse. Just in case. My paranoia was working overtime the last two months. Mysterious killer cultist terrorists would do that you. I walked out of the apartment and took the lift to the roof where an aircar was already waiting for me. I remember back in my old universe the whole smart home thing was taking off with people buying all kinds of things that could be controlled from a smartphone or over the internet. They constantly promised it being all so easy and it never truly was. In 2173 it was actually all very easy. The omni-tool and a basic VI made everything work just with a wave of the hand. Inputting complicated passwords by hand was replaced with secure hand shaking protocols with encryption algorithms that the spy agencies back in the 21st century would gladly pay an arm and a leg. And that was just civilian grade stuff now.
To preserve my cover I sent out messages to the various companies I had visited informing them that I was getting recalled and that we have their prices and will contact them if we decide to make an order. Nothing unusual at all since the location of Anhur and the political instability were enough to diminish any gains provided by the low cost of the goods produced. A standard courtesy email that the people on the receiving end usually don't even read fully.
The spaceport was quite traditional to my eyes, both batarians and humans didn't care much for limiting their impact on the planet like asari so instead of building the vertical spaceports with lots of mass effect field assisted docking points they just flattened a piece of land and covered it concrete. Cheap and cheerful as the saying goes. Just cheap really as there was little to be cheerful about a dark grey reinforced concrete field stretching for a couple of kilometres on the outskirts of the city.
I liked the AT-39, to me it had the proper spaceship feel, it's short stubby wings, the rounded nosecone where the cockpit was and two twin engine assemblies mounted in the short wings. Two facing front and two facing back, each engine capable of vectoring independently. I also liked that in addition to the usual kinetic shielding the ship was also armoured, an inch or so covering most of the hull. I knew that against serious weapons it would do no good but it made me feel better and made the ship look cool. My inner nerd had loved it on the first sight.
Climbing into the cockpit I went through a pre-flight check and after the VI gave me an all green signal I powered up it's mass effect core and lifted off with practiced ease. I was not a great pilot, I would never even get close to someone like Joker or Cortez but I was confident that I could outfly Vega.
When the shuttle exited the atmosphere of Anhur I couldn't help but feel excitement, not just at finally getting a proper lead but also at simply getting off the planet. Anhur was not a pleasant place to be even without all the human-batarian tension. I also loved flying in between planets, star systems. I loved waking up and seeing the empty space outside, the stars distorted slightly by the blue-purple mass effect field surrounding the ship. Even though I knew I was going into a fight and will likely kill more people before the New Year the simple knowledge that I was flying through space at many multiples of speed of light gave me comfort. After all it was a dream come true for my real-Earth geek brain.