Buratrum - The realm of the spirits of dishonourable association.
19 Days ASR
The first, faint screams coincided with the first massive fireball that plumed, brilliant gold and orange against the black, a phoenix barely able to unfurl its wings before being slain by the vacuum. Four more followed as Shepard strode from the elevator to look out the thin layer of transparent sheeting between her and a frozen, agonizing death.
Movement snatched her attention, yanking it over to the docking bay. The large ports along the side revealed that, although the evacuation remained orderly, something volatile wormed its way through the healthy, motivating fear. It announced itself with those screams, crawling forward until it teetered on the edge of clawing off its civilized face. Did the employees know something? They looked like cattle being herded into a transport. Destination: slaughterhouse.
She shuddered, all the heat and sensation abandoning her face and her hands. Opening and closing her fists, she pulled herself together. Superstitious terror … her old enemy.
Jumping as an arm slipped around her waist, she snapped her head around, then sighed and thumped Al in the side with her elbow. Damn turian, sneaking up on her.
Ignoring her reaction, Al leaned down pressing his mouth next to her ear as he whispered, "Whatever their plan was, someone just tore its spurs off."
She nodded and gave him a tight-lipped smile, grateful to have been dragged on course. She needed to get them all on that fancy new ship, and it didn't require psychic powers to see that it was going to take some craftiness to get anyone out of there alive..
"Grab your bag of munchies. Something tells me you're going to need it before we're done." Snagging his talons as he pulled away, she looked up, meeting his eyes. "Can you use your biotics at all?" If the snakes slithering through her intestines proved reliable … her little squad would need all the weapons it could get its hands on … and even those might not be enough.
Al shook his head, his expression drawn but resolute. His confidence—having his cycles of facing the unfaceable at her back—bolstered her courage. She knew that he shared her suspicions about who—or what—had come for them, that common nightmare anchoring her resolve.
"I'll keep pushing." His hand abandoned her waist to squeeze her shoulder. "And you forgot your cane." Mandibles fluttering, he nodded to where her cane still hung from the railing.
"We're going to need guns." Shepard turned away from her cane, her stare meeting Miranda's and latching onto the operative with steel claws. "Are any of you armed?" She looked over at the other three, letting out a sigh when they shook their heads. "Where are the weapon lockers in this section?" She directed the last toward Miranda.
Miranda remained silent, lips pressed thin.
Kelly stepped forward, shoulders folded in around her chest, hands clenched in front of her. "I'm probably more of a danger to the rest of you with a pistol in my hand than I am to the enemy," she said without the slightest trace of humour, her porcelain skin turning to wax.
"You'll do just fine, Red. You've got guts to spare," Shepard reassured her, striding toward the group. She glanced over at Miranda. "Give Al the code for the locker on this level, and then we need to talk about getting the rest of the subjects onto that ship." She spun back toward the drama playing out in the docking bay. "And where the hell are those people going?" she demanded. "If they're getting on ships … what's to stop them from being blown out of the black as they run? Do you have fighters scrambling, AA mounts … anything to cover their retreat?"
Throwing up her hands, she turned on Miranda again. "I understand that it was supposed to be a staged attack, but it clearly isn't now, so what the hell are your bosses doing?"
"He sent me, and I'm trying to get you out of here." Miranda stormed over. "So, let's move. The other divisions will see their people reach the lifepods."
"There's no plan for the rest, is there?" Shepard looked to Al, who'd stopped partway down the walkway. He barely hesitated before he shrugged, the gesture turning loose a pack of coursing varren in her guts. He didn't care what happened to the thousands of innocents, no doubt seeing them as all being complicit in the organization's business.
Miranda ignored Shepard's question, barrelling on through. "I can't authorize weapons for Spec … Alpha and the others. We just need to move and move fast, Shepard."
"Give him the code, Miranda." Shepard turned and closed on the woman, making herself as tall and sharp as possible as she stepped into the operative's space. "This is why you brought me back. This is what I do. To do it, I need you to follow my bloody orders and arm these people. Is that understood?" She tried not to look up too much—having to crank her head back to meet people's eyes never felt dignified, so she stared at Miranda's neck. At least refusing to look into Miranda's eyes carried an aura of cool disdain.
When the operative opened her mouth, the tendons and veins in her neck standing out, rigid and determined, Shepard turned on her heel without waiting for the woman to speak. "Then this is where we part ways." She waved to the others. "Let's find a damned weapon locker and get the hell off this station."
For a moment, she thought it might just be Liara, Al, and herself fighting their way through, but then Vincent and Kelly trotted up to take position on her flanks.
"Do you really think there's no plan to save everyone?" Kelly whispered, her voice tight.
Shepard glanced over, meeting the young woman's glassy eyes with a slight head shake. "We'll do what we can Red."
"It's been a long time since I last fired a gun," Vincent muttered. "Didn't think I'd have to when I left my old life behind."
Shepard reached back without replying, squeezing his fingers when her took her hand.
"Found a weapon locker," Al reported, sticking his head out through the door of a maintenance room. "They weren't concerned about the specimens getting loose. It wasn't even locked."
Left open? That didn't make any sense, even for the "let Shepard think she's escaping" plan. The sleet building up on Shepard's insides started to feel like it was trying to reveal something, like charcoal rubbed over paper to reveal what lay beneath, but hell if she could make sense of the message.
Yet. You can't make sense of it yet. Meanwhile, keep—
"Is it stocked?" she asked, cutting Bunny off at the pass.
Al grinned as he held up a Mattock. "And stocked well."
"Oh, it makes me miss Roger." She met his grin with a teasing shake of her head. "You're going to make me wrestle you for that, aren't you?" One eyebrow climbed up a tiny bit and she craned her head as if trying to see past him. "Don't have a decent sniper rifle in there, do they?"
"Two Shurikens, two Carnifexes … ." His mandibles tilted along with his brow plates as he looked to Kelly and Vincent. "Not exactly forgiving if they shoot us in the backs by mistake." He dove back in and came out grinning, a Mantis held in his talons. "Will this do?"
"Oh, she will. Thank you." Shepard stopped outside the door, taking the rifle from him with almost reverent care. "Hello, beauty." She nodded back toward the others. "Liara would prefer a Shuriken if I recall correctly. And you can give Kelly and Vincent the hand cannons. We'll take two minutes to acquaint them with the kick."
"Shepard!"
The captain took a long breath before she turned to face Miranda. "We have minutes before those ships get here. I don't have time to argue over every order."
Miranda hesitated long enough that Shepard almost turned back around, but then the operative nodded. "Very well, but I need to speak to you alone." She spun on her heel and stalked off several metres.
Glancing back, Shepard called. "Liara, help Kelly. Al with Vincent." When she got nods of agreement, she turned and followed her Dr. Frankenstein partway down the length of The Summit. "Okay. I'm here," she said, holding out her arms. "Talk fast, we have people to rescue."
Miranda walked away a couple of paces and stared out into space. "The rest of the specimens are already aboard the SR2, Shepard. You're not the only vital project this base housed." She let out a long breath. "Their project leads were given the evacuation order while I was rushing to the cafeteria to stop you from blowing out all your cranial implants." Pivoting on her heel, she spun to face the captain. "All we need to do is get you onto that ship and escape."
"Shepard!" the note of panic in Kelly's voice threw Shepard into a run before she even got turned around.
"What?" she demanded, then followed the young woman's outstretched arm to the view of the docking bay's exterior.
Shepard squinted, not seeing anything until she walked up to the railing. "What in the great living fuck?" Shooting a loaded glare over her shoulder at Miranda, she called, "Get over here and tell me what the hell your organization has thrown us into."
Five long, dark missile-like shapes streaked through the vacuum, taking aim along the docking bay. Shepard shoved Kelly back.
"Negate that order! Everyone in the maintenance room." Shepard didn't follow her own advice, praying that the force field on the other side of the graphene would both keep shrapnel out and the air in. Of course, she'd already been spaced once, but no doubt blowing up to twice her usual size, being scorched by solar radiation, and then freeze-dried would probably hurt a lot more without being dead first.
When neither Kelly nor Miranda followed her orders, she let out an exasperated hiss. "The next person who ignores me, stays here."
Kelly turned and ran, grabbing Miranda's elbow and dragging the operative along with her.
Shepard winced away from the impending blast, her arms leaping up to cover her head, but then the missiles slowed. "What the … ?" Her brow furrowed, heavy knots tying in the skin between her eyebrows. Not missiles. What? Drones? She pressed up against the railing, running sideways along it, trying to get a better vantage point.
"Miranda? What is this?" she demanded, glancing back to the operative, who'd stopped halfway to the storage room.
Miranda raised a hand to her ear, then shook her head. "Nothing … my comms are dead."
Comms blanked … that tweaked something, a memory, but she pushed it aside.
The drones slowed to a stop outside five of the exterior docking hatches and sat there. For a long couple of breaths, she thought they might be breaching pods, but then the docking hatches opened as if inviting the enemy in, and the drones entered as slick as shit. As soon as they hit atmosphere, the top of the drones detached like beetle wings, and a swarm of … a swarm of … what the hell were they? A swarm of what appeared to be insects or maybe smaller drones flew out, forming a cloud so thick that it dimmed the light in the decon chamber. Then the outer hatch closed.
"Sweet baby Jesus," she muttered, the snakes in her guts starting to gnaw their way out. Oh, this was so much worse than superstition or some hysterical fear. The terror before her amounted to the foundation upon which all that crap had been built … the truth behind the monsters under every child's bed and in every closet. Monster given fifty thousand years to create newer and more efficient ways to commit their atrocities.
Shepard backed away from the wall of windows as she saw the inner hatches open, the swarms poured out among the evacuees. The thin veneer of calm in the docking bay cracked wide open, shattering into panic as the insects attacked. Each person stung froze in their tracks. Some fell, but most just stopped. Alive or dead?
"Sweet baby Jesus," she whispered again, the tiny part of her who still believed adding, "protect them." Tearing herself away from the chaos and terror, Shepard leapt into a run, following the others to the maintenance room.
"We need to get out of here and now, try to gather up as many people as we can, get them onto that damned ship."
Her body stopped at the threshold, her mouth hanging open, halfway through commanding Miranda to put a pair of coveralls over her catsuit, the hand that reached for the sniper rifle dropping limp and useless to her side. For a moment, Shepard stretched thinner and thinner, an elastic band drawn between several places and times. Inside her mind, a presence struggled to bridge a chasm thousands and thousands of light years across.
Heart hammering in her chest, sweat prickling on her skin, she struggled to break free, to close that open line and regain command of her body.
Not the spiders. Please.
Instead ... music poured into her. A familiar, eerie voice sang a lament of such exquisite luminosity that it shattered reality. Crystalline and razor-edged, the shards pierced her through, tearing away the ruptured, fabricated body that weighed her down. So very heavy, that mortal yoke. Crying out in both agony and joy as her flesh sloughed away, Shepard threw herself into that sea of infinite sensation—infinite connection—seeking currents intimate, known and comforting. Revelling in her return, they wrapped her in ribbons of glacial embers and salient velvet … and memory.
Welcome home, stolen child.
Notes of peridot, coral, and thistle burst onto Shepard's tongue, sweet and bitter. Gentle claws sliced through the tangled maze of neurons and machinery inside her skull, coaxing and tugging until they eased a memory free of Miranda's blockades.
Thunder filled the space between the crumbling earth and the perfect bubble of the clear, violet sky. It churned, a massive wall of sound rolling over the land, every bit as devastating as a sandstorm, the antecessors' clarion announcing the arrival of Death. Shepard clutched her courage tight around her. If she lost heart, how could she help the refugees maintain theirs? Everywhere people fled, more and more falling by the side. Some fell, but most just froze, statues caught mid-action.
The beautiful music twisted, contorting with a horrendous scream that forced itself into her very cells, twisting and writhing. At arm's length, she felt the floor come up to crack against her knees. Arms grabbed her … she could feel their heat, their pressure, but an oily black wall blinded her, wrapping around her, intractable and crushing. Wedges formed of the spiders splintered the music, shattering it into a cacophony.
"Shepard?"
Al's voice cracked the wall, allowing Shepard room to breathe, to struggle free. No! The spiders didn't get to cripple her. She'd fought them off before. Reaching out, scrabbling, blind fingers found Al's cowl and latched onto him. Better. Better. She fought, fists of will and rage pounding against the cracks, forcing them open.
"Shepard?" Al and Liara leaned in, staring at her, shouting at her in concert. Al shook her, hard, and the wall shattered.
One hand left Al's cloak to press against the tap that let loose inside her head. Why did everything end in a bloody nose?
The turian and asari pressed in on her, and Shepard winced away from them, swatting at them without any real heat. "Get back, close talkers. I'm fine. Just had a little conference call with the rachni queen that got cut off by a surly indoctrination operator. Those little drone things … ." She sagged against Al's arm. "We can't let them touch us."
After a couple of long breaths, she lurched to her feet, standing splay-legged and wobbly for thirty seconds before she dared step away from the turian's support. "Okay. Let's get moving." She lifted the Mantis from Al's hand and grabbed the second Shuriken. She hated using SMGs—twitchy, hard to control buggers—but a hail of goddamned bullets was a hail of goddamned bullets.
The guns settled into their places, easy and comforting. Shepard allowed herself a tiny smile as the game reached the end of the first quarter. Time to get back out on the field. Sitting on the bench left her far too much time to think, her place was in the middle of the action, but not the one moving the ball. Oh no, her job was to make sure the one with the ball got an open shot at the end zone. A sardonic grin slashed across her face. Galaxy's tiniest left tackle.
Wow, way to flash back to Dad there, Janey. Remember Sundays? Soooo much football.
Shepard pushed away the nostalgia and looked to her unlikely team. "We need to figure out a way to keep those swarms at bay. Any ideas?" When no one answered her, she glanced at the turian. "Bring up drag? Keep an eye on our six?" Shepard smiled as she moved on to the psychologist and physiotherapist. "Red, Vincent, you two keep an eye out for survivors. Let's try to save as many as we can."
When everyone acknowledged her orders, Shepard jerked her head toward the elevator. "All right, let's move and move fast."
When they nodded, she gave her squad a slow wink, one corner of her mouth quirking. "Let's get the hell out of here."
They double-timed it to the elevator, Shepard's entire body humming with adrenaline. The last vestiges of the indoctrination influence faded, allowing the memory of the rachni queen's song … that great sense of connection … to return. Her pulse beat hard but steady as her mind shifted players on the field four moves ahead. They needed to return to the main corridor and then it was a straight elevator ride down from there to the docking bay. She didn't anticipate much resistance until they got off the elevator. Not if the swarms were spreading out from the docking bay. If they'd also entered elsewhere … things would get interesting a lot sooner.
The fear she'd felt seeing the swarms paced at the back of her skull, pausing to snort and paw like a bull ready to charge. It warned her that things would get very complicated and soon. She needed to keep on her toes, because the battle had just began in earnest, and so far, she had no way to keep her people safe from the stinging drones.
The partial memory whispered dreadful promises. It could get so, so much worse than dying.
"Every cycle there are hundreds like you. Hundreds who fight back, who organize and resist. We find every single one of you, destroy you from the inside out, and then turn you on your own people. You aren't special. You aren't mighty, and in the end, we'll reduce you to dust, just like the thousands before you."
Shepard gritted her teeth and stared forward as the elevator descended down through the station's power generation plant. Setting up walls she hadn't needed in two years, she braced herself to kill … and so much worse.
Then Miranda's hand jumped to her ear, grabbing Shepard's attention. A thoughtful, searching scowl twisted the operative's face, her head tilting in that 'trying to filter sense through bad comms' way. "Jacob? Jacob, is that you? Repeat, I can't hear you."
The elevator stopped, but Shepard hit the door control to keep it closed. They'd move once Miranda's attention returned to her task. Watching the operative from the corner of her eye, Shepard noted the way she straightened, stiffening. Bad news—not that her conclusion amounted to much of a leap, considering. Dr. Frankenstein's hand dropped away from her radio, hanging limp but for a sporadic, helpless sort of flutter.
Very bad news.
"Fifteen minutes? Is that what you said? Jacob?" Miranda's stare latched onto the side of Shepard's head with enough force to turn the captain around. "Jacob?" Her hand flipped once, hesitating halfway to her ear before rising the rest of the way to close the channel.
"Bad news." Shepard kept her tone as flat as possible. She might not trust her benefactor, but she certainly didn't wish for anyone to experience the sort of pain that flashed across Miranda's face before disappearing behind her usual mask of cool, professional control.
"Comms are still jammed. I caught one in fifteen words, but near as I could understand, the station is overrun," the operative said, her words clipped and coming out just a hair too quickly. "My employer gave the evacuation and self destruct order from the executive yacht." She swallowed. "It was destroyed on the way to the relay despite its stealth technology."
"How long do we have?" Shepard asked, but then just pushed through. "That was the fifteen minutes?" She held Miranda's gaze, steady and empathetic but also businesslike. "Are you ready?"
"Of course, Shepard." Miranda reached past the captain to open the doors. "A great deal of work remains to be done, work larger than one man or one organization." Pushing none too gently past Shepard, she exited the elevator.
Shepard followed, the scowl that had formed when the drones unleashed their payloads deepening until a vicious ache settled behind her eyes. The corridor, even as far down as the atrium and cafeteria, stood silent as death. She strode forward, but sent her team a glance that warned them to be ready for anything. No matter how orderly or efficient … no evacuation could have cleared the core of the station suddenly and completely enough for silence. They should be able to hear something.
Her hand drifted past her hip, the Shuriken settling uneasily in her grip despite finding its way to low ready. Bending a little at the knees, she dropped her center of gravity, and glided forward. The soles of her feet barely clearing the floor to minimize her footsteps, she moved quickly and quietly toward the central corridor and the elevator to the lowest levels. As she began to take more shallow breaths and her heart thumped light and quick, faint dizziness crept in behind her eyes. She needed to stay grounded and strong.
In, two, three, four, five. Out, two, three, four, five.
The old trick worked, her body settling back into lean, mean, fighting machine mode. After so many years walking into and dealing with so many unknowns, what was one more?
"What level for the ship?" she asked, her whisper carrying far too well in the tomb-like silence.
Miranda held up five fingers and then two.
They found the first victim in the atrium, poised in mid-twist. The man's hand still clutched the writhing creature that had stung him. Shepard stopped, motioned for the others to keep guard, and leaned in to examine the insectile drone. It possessed a single, reticulated carapace; four limbs, and a stinger. Even though very organic wings fluttered on its dorsal surface, its lack of anything resembling mandibles, mouth, or even eyes led her to the conclusion that it was a construct rather than an organically evolved being. Reaching out, she crushed it, then turned her attention to the man.
His eyes followed her, watching her through amber and ebony vapours … or was it smoke … or perhaps even energy … a dark energy form of biotics perhaps? Twining spirits of fire and death, the stasis encased him in greedy fingers that whispered over his form like an over-friendly cat, or a mock lover's caress, before detaching to fade into the ether.
It looked like a biotic effect, but not the normal sort. What was the black? It tickled her memory. She'd seen tendrils of absolute nothing like it before, but … not stasis. Maybe they had the same source? One curious finger stretched out to touch him, but Miranda cleared her throat. Right. Not worth the risk. Not with the high chance of Reaper involvement.
"Eleven minutes, Shepard," the operative said, her tone so even she might have been announcing tea service.
"Can you move at all?" Shepard asked the man. Apparently not, since only his eyes responded. She looked to Miranda, already knowing the answer in her gut but needing someone else to stand at her back when she condemned him. Despite opening her mouth to ask if the operative possessed even a single idea as to how to release or save the man, Shepard bit the question off before it formed. It would feel too much like passing the buck.
A deep, rumbling vibration thrummed through the air, impatient fingers drumming against Shepard's breast bone. Swarms.
"Now, would be a very good time for ideas on how to keep those things off us," she whispered before looking back at the frozen man. "I'm sorry," she said, unable to leave him without acknowledging the crime she was committing. But then, she took a deep breath, straightened, and walked away.
A low, resonant whump of sound and air pressure accompanied the sizable sapphire dome that burst from Miranda's outstretched hands to encompass them all. "Biotics, maybe?" the operative asked.
Shepard nodded. "Good idea." She glanced at Liara. "If Miranda starts to lag, you can spell her."
"Of course, Shepard."
Without looking back or toward the heavy droning sound that echoed from the direction of her quarters, Shepard led the team to the elevator. They needed to move. If they found people who had yet to be frozen, they'd bring them along. If not, well … she envied them their return to that sea of infinite music and connection. Even after that single moment of immersion in the currents that married all things, she understood why she'd chosen to forget it.
The elevator opened at the end of a long corridor littered with frozen people. The swarm filled the air, swooping toward the elevator the moment it opened. They rebounded off the barrier, each impact setting off a tiny detonation. Well, that confirmed some sort of biotics at work.
Miranda let out a low, shaky sounding moan as they set out, more and more of the drones attacking the barrier. Liara stepped in, shoring up the lagging protection. Still Shepard could see that compensating for each detonation cost them both too much. The barrier would fall long before they reached the ship. Panic began to whip the fear until it bellowed to be released. Shepard shoved it aside. She hadn't suffered and fought and made Miranda's life miserable for three weeks just to die to a bunch of damned bugs. Fury built a wall around the panic as she clenched her jaw and brought up the Shuriken.
"Going to do an experiment, ladies. Tell me if it helps or hurts." Striding forward, Shepard brought up the Shuriken, each squeeze of the trigger launching three projectiles. She cursed as the muzzle continually jerked toward the ceiling. "And this is why I hate this bloody thing." Still, it effectively managed to bring down quite a few. And damn, wasn't it satisfying to pepper bad guys—even little, buggy ones—with lead?
"Helps," Liara said between gasps. "The rounds pull the barrier down a little, but not as much as those things exploding against it."
Al opened up with the Mattock, although the more erratic spray and pray fire of the Shuriken brought more of the tiny targets down. Vincent took the other SMG off Liara's hip and picked off the drones with an efficiency that surprised Shepard and begged the question as to who he'd been in that old life.
As they closed on the docking bay doors, they began to find survivors who'd avoided the swarms. It fell to Kelly to coax the traumatized evacuees out of their hiding spots. Not an easy task when they had to dodge nightmares and a flurry of bullets. Still, by the time the group reached the doors into the docking bay, they'd gathered nearly twenty people, Space in the bubble became tight.
Shepard hit the control to the large double doors, steeling herself for a fight, but when they opened, they revealed a silence as absolute as when they'd stepped off the elevator upstairs. Nothing moved. Stomach heaving, Shepard swallowed spasmodically, trying to wash away the burn of defeat and despair as it clawed its way up her esophagus.
Taking her first steps into that forest of more than a thousand frozen, helpless people, her knees trembled and a scream tried to bully its way up from the pit of her churning belly. She knew where they were headed. Perhaps that was the worst part … perhaps not, but … dammit, she knew that even though the tools had been upgraded, the purpose was the same. Living building blocks.
Somewhere the Reapers' servants were replacing Sovereign, and using humanity to do so.
You have to leave them, Janey. The only other choice is meeting their fate. Having seen why Miranda brought you back, can you just let it keep happening?
"Two minutes," Miranda warned as if she could read Shepard's thoughts. "We're going to have to run." The heavy oscillation in the operative's voice drew Shepard's eyes to her. For Miranda to show weakness, she had to be nearly spent. And sure enough, she looked about ready to collapse.
"Okay," Shepard called. "Let's go. Stay together, help each other, and run." After a glance at Liara and Al for confirmation, she took off, running as fast as she could manage. Going so far without her cane had sapped her strength, and her little pantomime with Al had the insides of her already tattered legs feeling as though someone had dipped her in acid.
Failure is not an option, Janey. Quitting is not an option. Suck it up and run!
"Great plan, Shepard," she muttered, ducking around a small cluster of people. She stumbled, nearly going down on one knee, but someone grabbed her and hauled her back up. "Yeah, the escape plan couldn't have gone better." Not that she could have anticipated the attack of the evil bugs, but damn … so many innocent—
The last airlock before the SR2 opened, admitting yet another swarm. However, unlike the others, those drones glowed as if filled with magma to the point where it burst open their carapaces, the rents bleeding the black and amber almost-smoke. They poured into the enormous space, wheeling and swooping more like a flock of starlings than insects. At least they did for the first ten seconds.
On the eleventh second, they stopped dead, and, in perfect unison, turned to face Shepard. Despite their not having faces or eyes, she knew every single one of them was focused on her.
The copper and iron tang of terror burst in her mouth as the spiders began to crawl out of the folds and crannies of her brain, skittering along neurons. They swarmed for her eyes and ears, the familiar tar-slick darkness clouding the edges of her vision.
Someone pushed her from behind, and she realized that she'd ground to a halt. Someone shouted at her, but the words made it through the crush of bodies too muffled to understand. Hands grabbed her, dragging her forward, but the narrow tunnel of her vision remained glued to that swarm.
Her heart stopped as a massive tentacle of the nebulous energy exploded from the insectile ranks. Gasping, sweat beading on her skin, Shepard faced the impossible. She had to be dreaming, didn't she? Things like that nightmarish arm of malevolence just didn't happen in the real, sane world. As the first tiny stream of liquid fear trickled down her temple, the tentacle snapped across the metres like a whip, slamming into Shepard's still chest. Her heart restarted, pounding against her ribs, a terrified prisoner trying to escape its death sentence, even as the blow tore her off her feet. She flew five metres before slamming into a small cluster of frozen evacuees.
Rearing back, the tentacle split into several tendrils. It hesitated, as if giving her a moment to realize what was coming, then lunged at her, stabbing into her eyes, ears, nose and mouth, pouring into her. She screamed, a clotted, choking sound. Clawing at her face, her fingers struggled to free her from the chill insouciance … the macabre contempt of that darkness. Her scream devolved into garbled gibberish, the tentacles wrapping around her heart and lungs, crushing them.
Fireworks of dark energy exploded behind her eyes, and the spiders rejoiced, fawning over the darkness like a pet long separated from its owner, or perhaps like children reunited with their parent. Yes. She felt the rightness of that. Children.
Then the tendrils burst into black flame, searing through her in a blast of trenchant agony, and she knew that the horrible magma glow showed through the cracks in her flesh. Laughter, manic and terrified cut from her throat as the flame incinerated her fear, leaving behind molten rage. She came made to order.
All the glowing cracks, no waiting.
"I am the harbinger of your perfection," a deep, terrible voice boomed … and not just in her head because she felt the person holding her flinch away from it. "The forces of the universe bend to me. Relinquish your form to us."
Like hell. The rage flared through her bones and muscles, infusing her entire frame before it cooled into steel. Reinforced and resolute, she pushed back, fighting against the abyssal fire … the pitiless, almost nihilistic, presence that sought to possess her. She'd burn before allowing them to use her against the rest of the galaxy.
Scraping her last reserves of strength, she managed to scream, "Run!" channelling all her pain and terror … even the steel-clad fury into the cry. The others needed to leave her and go.
"Fight back," Al's deep, cracked voice whispered in her ear, his talons gripping her arms hard enough that the clean, true pain cut through the rest. "It can be fought. You know it can, but being afraid of it gives it power." The hard, ruined plates of his face pressed against her temple as he commanded, "Fight it!"
Shepard managed to nod, forcing her heart to beat strong and true … willing her lungs to draw in the good, cool air.
In … two … three … four … five. Out … two … three … four … five.
A wave of renewed determination swept over her, and she dove … delving deep into the core of who she was … digging down past the walls she'd erected as she lay in Anderson's arms on the shuttle ride away from the only home she'd ever known. The weapons she needed lie beyond the brick and mortar shielding her from the pain of losing everything.
You didn't lose everything, Janey. Bunny's voice barely registered. You didn't lose your heart and vanish into hatred. You gained so much strength … so much compassion and honour.
"That's it. Yes," Al coaxed. "You've got to stare right into it. It's going to hurt like the spikes of buratrum, but you can face it."
The fire lashed at her with an ancient, barbed whip. "You cannot escape your destiny, Shepard," the voice roared, somehow coming out of the fire. "You escaped us before, but even then you knew that we had become your true architects … your creators."
Even as the thong tore into her, the fall embedding in her flesh, she didn't fight the pain. She didn't need to fight it. The pain—the horrible presence behind the fire and the darkness—already lived so far down inside her that her entire being had formed around it, a tree's flesh growing around a nail. The bands squeezing her heart and lungs eased their grip.
Through the stink of blood and urine, sweat and feces … through the hood that sealed away the outside world, Janey felt her father approach and stand over her. Despite the numb chill that encapsulated her, his familiar energy and strength warmed her. She felt his knees brush her arm as he knelt, then his gentle arms embraced her ruined flesh.
Daddy. A thin smile accompanied the soft, trill of raw sound that spilled from her lips.
It was okay. Surely now, it would all be okay. Daddy had come to send her on her way to Jesus. The nightmare would finally end.
"I'm so proud of you," he whispered, his face pressed against the hood, his breath heating the coarse material. "I've never been more proud … no, not proud … in awe of anyone or anything in my life, my beautiful girl." She felt a kiss, a soft blessing high on her cheekbone. "No matter what, you have to survive this, Janey. Something big, and probably terrible, is waiting for you, and I know that you'll face it. I know that you'll beat it, kiddo."
Agony … no, not agony. Agony was mere pain. The monstrosity that tore through her as she faced the moment of knowing … of knowing what was to come … of knowing that she wouldn't just be allowed to die … of seeing the truth behind the beautiful lie she'd told herself all those years. Her father hadn't given her his blessing and told her she could let go. Instead, he'd trapped her … forced her to stay behind, using her love to bind her. That torture amounted to every evil and stygian concept dreamed up in nightmares.
Shepard screamed, shrill and unearthly … a sound to stab madness into any mind that heard it … a sound to freeze tears solid.
"Yes," Al whispered, pressing close. "Keep digging."
Her father whispered one last thing before a gun roared and his body fell over her, pressing her into the gravel and mud. As she lay there, the breath squeezed from her lungs, she felt the darkness seep into her. Silent, it slithered between her cells, creeping all the way in to her center as the hours passed. There, it took root.
Then light … a terrible, searing light and a kind face smiling down on her even as tears rolled from its eyes. She'd screamed then too, but it hadn't been a scream of pain or defeat. Defiance raged at the heart that continued to beat in her chest, at her father's last charge, at the cruel universe that would leave her alone … alone and so very soiled.
As she stared up into the dark brown eyes of her saviour, her father's last words whispered through her mind, finally registering over the storm within her. They calmed the scream.
"Millions suffer, thousands rebel, hundreds lead, but it only takes one … the right single heart to beat them. You are that heart, my beautiful girl. You are that heart."
The anguish drew back, easing until Shepard could draw a full breath, the scream fading from her lips and her mind. Wrapping herself in her father's love and admiration—his complete faith in the strength of her heart, mind, and will—she forged it into armour. She knew Harbinger's words formed truth, but just a tiny piece of it. The Reapers and whatever they served had created her. The darkness had shaped her, but not into a tool. Never into a tool. Her father hadn't condemned her, he'd armed her.
"Yes, you created me," she called out, challenging the darkness and flame. "And that was your first mistake, because I know what you are." She managed to wrestle one arm under her control and reached for Al's talons, closing her fingers around them like vices. "I'll never believe your lies, and I'll never let you possess me … never let you subvert me. I'll fight you to my last breath, and I'll win because … this is who I am. I'm not afraid of you." Although the last was a lie, she knew it needed to be said … no shouted, as loud and as long and as many times as she needed to make it true.
"I'm not afraid of you!"
"You thought to build a tool, but instead you created a weapon." Power—true, liquid fire—poured into her, burning her clean. Clutching Al's hand, she bullied herself up onto her feet. "Congratulations, Harbinger, you created yourself a nice big nuclear bomb, and it's going to blow up, right in your fucking faces." She gathered the flame and the spiders, wadding the whole mess into a ball.
Under her feet, the floor rocked, the station bucking and heaving in its death throes. Shepard forced back the tar-black slime until she could see that cluster of tiny, possessed monsters.
Born in fire? The phoenix rising from the ashes? Was that always to be her fate? She threw her shoulders back so hard her back snapped. Fine. If that was her fate, she'd meet it head up, hands fisted, heart and mind focused. She might stumble, but she'd be damned if she'd let them—any of them—throw her down.
Turning a fierce smile on that glowing swarm and the gigantic mind speaking through it, she launched the whole mess—spiders, darkness, black flaming ichor and all—right back in their faces. "Now, get the fuck out of my head, and stay out."
A high, manic laugh of relief tumbled from her as the possessed swarm crumbled to ash and Harbinger's presence vanished. Shepard turned toward Al, her free arm hooking around his neck as he snatched her up into his arms and ran for the ship.
"I need to get to the bridge," she gasped as they entered the main hatch. Not trusting her legs, she allowed him to hold her as the decon sweep passed over her. When the door opened, he leaped through.
"Here!" Miranda called from their left.
Al set Shepard down on her feet behind the pilot's seat. She clutched the leather, nails sinking into it to hold her steady as the ship detached, wheeling away from the docking tube.
"Stealth systems are active?" she asked, wincing at the broken sound of her voice. Without waiting for an answer, she continued, "We're going to need more power to the inertial dampeners. This is going to call for some fancy flying."
"Yes, ma'am," the pilot answered, his hands flying over the controls.
"Good. For now, keep the base between us and the incoming ships." Peering through the ports, she saw explosions tearing through the base, working their way up through the levels. "When the whole thing goes up, hit the accelerators hard and fly us straight at the starboard vessel. Get as close as you can, keeping it between us and the other one, then head for the relay."
"And pray?" the man asked.
"And pray," she confirmed. A tickle under her nose drew her attention back from the destruction outside. She brushed it away. No time. Still, the red-black smear across her hand promised consequences to her rebellion.
In a blinding flash of light and fury, the station succumbed. Shepard threw a bloodstained arm over her eyes but quickly dropped it back to the chair as the pilot made his move. Picture perfect, handling the large frigate as if she were a fighter, he swooped around the explosion and straight into a roll. The enemy vessel to starboard fired, but the SR2 was already well into its evasive roll and dodged the massive … .
"Particle beam?" Shepard yelped as Tashac's memory came through for her again. "That's a particle beam. It'll go straight through shields." She slapped the pilot's arm as he dropped them nearly ninety degrees to miss another blast. "Nice flying there, Tex. How nimble is this baby?"
He chuckled. "Nimble enough." His fingers flew over the interface, setting a evasive tactics for the run on the relay. "Don't worry, captain, I'll get us through."
Shepard nodded and just held on for dear life as the frigate's inertial dampeners struggled to keep up with the rolls, twists, and dives.
"Relay in sixty seconds," the pilot called. "Entering calculations."
Shepard counted down in her head as blasts from both cruisers' cannons tried to catch the little ship and carve it into slag. Three or four times, death appeared certain, but then the arc of blue lightning reached out, grabbed them and tossed them through space.
Letting out a long breath, Shepard clapped the pilot on the shoulder again. "Excellent work there, Tex. Excellent work."
"Thank you, ma'am, but the name is Cortez, Lt. Steve Cortez." He flashed a brilliant smile over his shoulder at her, looking as relieved as she felt.
"Well then, excellent work, Lt. Steve Cortez." Shepard turned on wobbly legs. "We … ." A dozen molten daggers stabbed through her skull, driving her to her knees, but Al caught her before she hit the floor. "We … ."