Jacob was sweating bullets. Right in front of him he was shown the impossible. Its a well known fact that laser based weaponry is a science fiction myth. The galaxy would need another couple of decades if not centuries to develop reliable and effective laser weapons. But all of that was thrown outside the airlock 3 minutes ago when the commander brought him a fully functioning laser rifle out of nowhere. Nothing made sense.
How was he supposed to begin? He was told that Shepard found this and 2 more supposed laser weapons down on Alchera from two 'weirdos' as they were called. They werent wrong, they were weirdos through and through. None of their clothing had personal heating elements. It was just a thick coat of furs and other heat insulating elements. Their armor was even more interesting. Multiple plates with similiar consistency to ceramics but fused with a unknown alloy. While digging through one of the backpacks Jacob found a sword, not a ceremonial one. This one showed obvious use in combat. What kind of madman uses a sword in the 22nd century?
But the strangest part was the complete lack of Mass Effect technology. No Omnitools, No collapsing weapons and no translator chips. Everything that the average person had, they were missing. And by every second he even questioned if such a thing could exist. But here they were one deck below him, defying all logic and reasoning.
Shepard stood near Doctor Chakwas as she was taking the clothes off from the unconscious men. Shepard was able to discern both of them. The one who he found unconscious was rather young, maybe early twenties and about six feet tall. He had light brown in a crew cut. But when shepard found him his head was sagging down so he couldnt quite make his face out. But now he wished he would never have seen it. Now most prosthetics made for humans nowadays can barely be discerned from the real thing, even missing eyes can be accurately replaced. But this, this wasnt that. What this man had wasnt a prosthetic, it was an abomination. A small cylinder about one inch wide was sticking out of where his eye socket was supposed to be. It was covered in scratches and grime. How he could see through that green lens is beyond anyone. When they took off his shirt it made the commander question what kind of soldier this guy was in.
His entire back was covered in scars and burn marks. Chakwas was also shocked by everything she was seeing. These men must have been through some sort of hell to get this kind of damage done to their bodies. The doctor then moved the floating gurney to the MRI scanner. They had to check if all the internals were fine. After a few minutes Chakwas sighed "Luckily their internals seem fine only oddity is the lack.of translator chip that you Mentioned. But now I can see that his augmented eye is pretty deep in there and has multiple wires connecting it the brain. A very crude method, quite barbaric" a small drop of discomfort could be felt in her words. This was by far not the norm.
She moved on to the next man. Shepard could finally see how tall this guy was, maybe 6"7 or even an inch taller. He also looked not that old, perhaps late twenties or early thirties. This one though had a completely bald head. When the doctor removed the mans left glove she gasped. Prosthetics are always covered up by artificial skin, its rather taboo to show off naked prosthetics. But this showed Chakwas something else. Normally humans have prosthetics made by Seraphtech or other companies that copy their designs. This however was nothing like it. It was crude, she immediately remembered some film that was almost one and half centuries old. Where a man disguised as a machine cut off his synthetic skin to show his robotic arm. It looked almost like that but the hand had more plates that moved into eachother in order to simulate a functioning palm. However she noticed there was nothing powering it. How was it running?
Deciding it would be better to aks that the man himself when he wakes up she decided to undress the man to ready him for the scan as well. The clothes and boots on this one seemed to be of higher quality. An officer perhaps? "Shepard, where do you think these people came from?" she asked the commander while stripping the man "I really want to know too, Ive been fighting pretty much all my life but Ive never seen anyone with such injuries, what kind of battles must you have been in to earn such scars" he asked rhetorically.
Chakwas was done stripping the second man. She could now see the all the untold stories in those numerous scars. A large straight scar, likely a cut or a stab with a large blade on the right pectoral. Prosthetic left arm from the shoulder down. A patch of uneven scars on the left side of the torso, most likley exposed skin that caught some shrapnel from an explosion. And countless other wounds that healed up somehow. "This guy should be dead with all of these wounds, how was he able to survive a throw from Miranda?" Shepard replied jokingly "Maybe the guy has the fighting spirit of ten men"
After the scan Chakwas could see that the prosthetic could be taken off and the shoulder had some kind of port for easy attacment and detachment. The port was also connected to multiple nerve endings, once again, in a very crude manner. Deciding to take the liberty in this she automatically implanted translator chips into theie necks. How did one live to be thirty and not have a translator chip?
"How long do you expect them to be unconscious?" Shepard asked from behind the Doctor. "The one with the robot arm might wake up in a few hours, his friend however might take a day or two. I cant really tell why" if Chakwas is unsure of something like that, it could be really bad, Shepard thought. "Please call me when one of them wakes up, I want to be the first one to talk to them" he paused "besides you of course" and with that he left the medbay.
Danil lazily opened his eyes. His head was splitting open. The second time he opened his eyes he saw a white ceiling. Turning his head he saw his comrade. I really need to get his name, he made himself a mental reminder. Danil tried recounting the events before it went black. He simply started flying after some jolt hit him in the back and bam. Unconscious. Then that could only mean hes in the enemies medbay. Wait, medbay? Hes still alive? Either his enemy was foolish and wanted to get information out of him it would be pointless, or he was wrong from the start and this could be some Rogue Trader vessel. The latter started making a bit more sense. But the lack of knowledge of the gothic language was still the main issue. "Medicae" but he felt how dry and soar his throat was. Nonetheless the medicae heard him and came to his bed. This time he could understand a few words. "Are you okay?" So this is a rogue trader vessel. A imperial who finally speaks gothic.
"Where am I Medicae, is this the ship of a Rogue trader?" trying to talk with a dry throat was begin to irk Danil. He will ask for water next. The medicae simply stared at him confused as if she didnt understand him "Oh by the emperor, not again" she didnt understand him but he can understand her, whys that.
"Who are you? A mercenary or what?" The white haired woman asked him. "Im no damned merc, Im First Lieutenant Danil Cherenkov of the Interior guard on Valhalla, and who are you wench?" he said sneering at the medicae.
Suddenly another femal began talking, but Danil couldnt see her "Ive analysed the speech of these two individuals and have a accurate translation algorithm now. Should I upload it to the crew?" could ot have been some kind of PA announcer?
"Please do EDI" the medicae replied starring into the ceiling. Definently and announcer of sorts. "Try talking, it should be fine now" her voice was a bit raspy, but expected judging by her age. "I will tell you again, My name is Danil Cherenkov. I am part of the Interior Guard of Valhalla. Now who are you". She recoiled back at how hostile he was, but how can he not be. Being called a mercenary was like being called a heretic in Danils eyes. He had to deal with many mercenaries who fought alongside xenos if the money was right. It was a hard a time but he was glad to be stationed back on Valhalla to teach new recruits.
"Well, I am Doctor Chakwas and I'm the Chief Medical Officer on the Normandy" she replied coldly. "I will inform the commander that your awake, he wanted to be the first to speak to you". She walked over to what looked like a very sophisticated cogitator and called someone. She turned to face Danil and asked "You sounded thirsty, do you want some water?". Water would be nice but it could be tainted with something. He cant trust these people. "Im fine" was all he could say, it was still irritable to talk.
Some time passed and the doors of the medbay slid open. The same man Danil was pointing his lasgun at was standing there. "Oh so I almost killed your commander down there" he snickered to the doctor. Chakwas turned around and laughed "Ha as if you could have even-" Shepard stopped her "Actually Doctor he isnt wrong, my barrier wouldnt have held against his laser rifle". The doctor froze in disbelief. "That cant be right, you're joking" again with more disbelief "Laser based weapons are a myth, we need at least a century to develop them". Danil was confused and decided to butt in "What are you on about? Lasguns have been widely used by the guard for since the 36th millennium". Both Shepard and Chakwas turned to face him.
"The 36th what now?"
