"Senators of the committee, I have been listening with devout patience across the many days that we have been gathered in this very room—listening to you talk, bicker, but most of all, listening to your repeated attempts of accusing me. Over and over again I have withstood your snide remarks, each one delivered with the intention to brand an unflattering term upon my head. Trying to make headlines by using the media to snag up your choice lines, most likely. And, my dear senators, you have succeeded. I will make no denial that what you have said will no doubt stick within the minds of the very impressionable public, as you very well have intended. Your posturing, your petty manipulations, your political trickery, all of it has defined me now into a man in possession of a quality that everyone abhors: apathy.
Yes, apparently in your eyes, I am nothing but the definition of apathetic. My supposed 'missteps' are ammunition in your little crusade against my wish to run a company, for my employees to make money, and yet all you want to see are the mistakes present in that foundation. You don't care if the building has been constructed, you want to poke and prod at the finished product – deliberately shaking the entire frame so that it all comes crumbling down and, only then, you will find the hypocrisy inherent within you all to gasp and level your finger at me and proclaim, 'But you should have known better!'
Senators, the fact that none of you are willing to admit is this: Chimera is a necessity for this government to function. We fight your wars. We engineer your defenses. We help you sleep well at night. It might be easy for you to be able to point the blame at Chimera whenever they appear in the tabloid headlines, but the fact of the matter is this: where would you be now if not for Chimera? Where would Earth be without our protection? Would you resort to the Council to lend forces from the other planets?
There is an old idiom that resonates close to home in this case, and that idiom is: 'Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. Senators, sooner or later, you will have to decide which devil you want Chimera to be. In this galaxy, you don't win points for being complacent."
Erich Koenig, CEO – Chimera
Rannoch – 2196
Night gently gave a clench against the darkening sky, the light from the star Tikkun dampening as its glow faded into obscurity. The tall cliffs that lifted high above the house beyond blazed orange in one final conflagration before the sun dipped below the jagged and mountainous horizon, the last shaft of light being cut off as cleanly as if one took a sharpened knife to it.
Drenched in black, the house became doused in the shadow of the planet. Night on Rannoch had more finality than more populated worlds—the lack of light pollution resulted in the skies taking on a soupy quality, but the overarching heavens, filled to the brim with stars and nebulae, were ripe for perusal. The lone lingering signs of illumination in the surrounding area were nestled within the lone structure itself—lamps designed to keep the home warm and open. These beams were barely able to float past the windows their sources were perched by, as the growing twilight was able to choke them off, to snuff out the glow with ardor.
Within the house, the faint outline of a man stood at the far end of a darkened hallway. He stared pitifully at the door at the other side. A glowing rectangle seethed around the doorframe at the end—a lit bulb that strained against the absent bonds. His hand started to twitch as it hung limp at his side. Already he could feel his skin start to crawl and a very unpleasant sort of sensation—like teeth nibbling at his spine and jaw—began to make itself present. The man let in a pained breath through his nose, filling his lungs, praying that the cold air would slough off the hurt he was going through, because no matter what, he was going to have to go through that door at some point.
Shepard was not one to shy away from his problems, but even now, he was getting quite a bad feeling. He could not even feel his own feet sending him in the direction of his own room. The only thing that was apparent to him was a tiny sound, muffled as it forced its way through the doors. Shepard's ears had picked up on the sound a long time ago—it was a locus for him, a forceful call that demanded his presence.
The noise grew in volume as he crept closer. Shepard's hand automatically raised to part the door, knowing that this was the only choice he could make. Nothing else in his brain registered.
As he gave a slight push, causing the door to finally open, Shepard could behold his wife.
In seconds, he was rendered to pieces.
Lit only by a lone lamp on the night desk, Tali's bare back was bathed in soft light, melting across her gray skin as the ridges of the bones and muscles in her back became readily apparent. Hunched over, seated upon their bed, facing away from the door, a crumpled robe lay aimlessly around Tali waist, falling off her arms carelessly. Her suit, ownerless, was scattered in segments across the floor—everything from the stretchy bodysuit lying tangled in a heap, to her purple visor which blankly faced the ceiling. The risk of exposure was nonexistent in this house—Tali had long been accumulated to Shepard and the outside air of Rannoch carried very little in the way of deadly pathogens, not to mention that the house itself was tightly sealed. No, dying from an airborne infection was not on Tali's list of worries right now.
Shepard edged inside the room, now able to perceive that the muffled sound he had been hearing for the last few minutes had been Tali's feeble attempt to stifle her tortured cries. The bare quarian shook with silent sobs upon the bed, her frantic gulps for breath sounding desperate and pathetic. Her uncovered body could easily be ascertained when she trembled, as her muscles rippled with every horrid quake. The hushed sounds that made it past her throat were nearly imperceptible, but they resonated upon Shepard as if they were being projected through a loudspeaker. He felt as if her pain was being imparted upon him, simply from the knowledge that she was hurting so badly… and he could do nothing to stop it.
The cancer. Shepard knew Tali was suffering from the cancer. That, and the treatment to eradicate the disease brought upon an intense slew of pain on its own. It chewed at her body, tearing at her from within.
Shepard had seen Tali like this before. Paralytic and helpless. Some days, she had to be sedated for the pain could be too great for her to bear. Other days, she would simply take the brunt in her stoic silence, trying so badly to put on a brave face for her family. To Tali, giving a shaky smile and merely proclaiming that she was fine was the most natural reaction she could conceive, even in such a trying moment. Shepard knew that Tali was averse to being treated like an invalid—she wanted to fight her own battles all the time.
But if Tali could not find victory from this battle, surely Shepard could not even entertain the idea of just standing by.
A glare fell upon Tali's head, shining and completely hairless. Shepard had to look away as a distinct pain rippled against his heart, claiming his breath and constricting his vision in a ragged pulse. The chemotherapy had not been a pleasant experience for Tali. The chemicals that had been injected into her bloodstream to fight the cancer had caused her hair to fall out. She was now completely bald, her wavy black locks having been completely excised from her body. She had to endure medication after medication… but nothing seemed to take. The pain was always present. The cancer never withdrew completely. She was deteriorating before Shepard's very eyes.
Staring silently at the crying form of his wife, Shepard nearly sobbed out loud as well in his anguish, all because of the impotency that had seemed to have infected his very being. There had never been a problem that he could never solve before… but this… this was something else. His best friend was falling apart piece by piece every day and not even the power he held in his hands could hold her together.
The simple and obvious truth repeated itself ad infinitum within his head, exhibiting itself as a nasty taunt to drive him insane. Tali was dying.
An inclination teased itself against the very edge of Shepard's mind, inviting him to lose himself over to despair. With each passing day, the desire grew in power, driving energy from his resistance. It yearned for his collapse, to seize upon the tender core his defenses had shored up. All of his barriers were being broken down, he could not hold for very long.
He could not give in! There were people here who still needed him!
Finally edging his way around the bed, despite the uncertainty, Shepard now stood directly in front of Tali, whose head was still tilted downward as she fought to contain herself. She gave no indication that she recognized his presence. From this perspective, Shepard could now fully perceive that Tali was completely unclothed. Sweat glistened upon the quarian's chest, giving a shimmer to her skin. Tali had been a very lean person for her entire life, but every single scrap of fat had all been eaten away from the cancer. She was shockingly thin now—it seemed that she had actually shrunk a bit in size. Her ribs were now startlingly apparent. Her breasts clung to her tightly. Her stomach curved inward—she had possessed no appetite in weeks.
Now all that Shepard could see in front of him was the last vestige of Tali, herself teetering upon the edge. It seemed pointlessly cruel that everything in his life had all led up to this, for his wife to be totally debilitated by a disease that was consuming her from the inside out. She had to live in pain every single waking hour of every single day.
And every single day Shepard wished that he had been the one to bear this punishment. Not her. Anyone but her.
"You… you shouldn't… have to see me… like this…" her voice unexpectedly flitted into his ear.
Shepard regained focus and saw that Tali had raised her head up during his ruminations. Her pearl eyes shone with tears, but they silently spilled down her cheeks as she bravely made an effort to regain some of her dignity back. She tenderly crossed her arms over her chest, covering herself on instinct at first, but loosened back up when she realized just how many times Shepard had seen her naked and that this was nothing new for him. Tali had been inside her suit for too much of her life to be completely comfortable with being naked, but she had learned to combat her fears and reveal herself to her husband, in both her body and her love.
In response, Shepard knelt down and took Tali's hands in his. Her skin was cold to the touch. Alarmed, Shepard instinctively tightened his grip upon her to give her more warmth.
"I shouldn't have to be locked away from you," was his simple reply.
The quarian sniffled, but offered no more words of opposition.
Shepard then took his left hand, leaving Tali to grasp his right with both hands in a death grip, while he gently rubbed up from Tali's naked shoulder, to the side of her neck, and finally to her cheek. Tali's sweat and tears shone upon his palm and Shepard gently cupped his wife's face, brushing away the dampness with a thumb.
"Tell me what hurts," he demanded after a strong silence, the request itself tender.
"Ev-," Tali attempted before swallowing painfully. "Everything. I… I ache all over. I can't even remain sitting without something hurting. The medicine… it burns… under my skin. It feels like there is something in my abdomen… clawing to get out. I… I can't… I don't know how much I can take anymore."
Tali's hands, having been shaking since she started talking, were now full-on vibrating. Shepard had to tense his arm up to even have a hope of quelling the violent trembles.
"John…" the quarian whispered, terrified, "I don't know what I did to be like this. I've only made you and Roahn suffer alongside me. I… that's… John, I'm s-s-sorr—"
"Don't," Shepard sharply uttered as he placed his hand lightly over Tali's mouth, causing her to cease in her talking. "I will never blame you for this. Never."
Tears mustered their way from Tali's eyes again, dripping onto Shepard's fingers. "Our daughter…"
"She'll understand. I'll make sure that she will understand everything. But… right now, you're more important."
"John, I don't know… what I have left. I can't ask you to help me anymore."
Keeping his face stalwart, Shepard tightened his jaw as he let cold determination steel him in place. He locked eyes with Tali, keeping his pupils in a firm and focused line straight towards Tali, fixating her with his watchful eyes.
"Just tell me what you want," he breathed lovingly. "Anything you ask of me, I will do."
Tali hiccoughed, obviously torn by the request that kept bubbling at the edge of her lips, desperate to become voiced. She cocked her head as a sad smile graced her lips, fumbling and drunken. She almost seemed hesitant, embarrassed to be potentially asking anything beyond what was conceivable for Shepard. He was just a man, not omnipotent.
But he did have something that she wanted so dearly. Tali's heartbeat resonated throughout her body—three pulses in a quick rhythm. 'Anything,' he had said.
Anything.
The human mustered a smile, affirming his words. So much love…
Three fluttering fingers reached out, lifting away from Shepard's hand as Tali motioned her own appendage towards Shepard's face. Her palm lightly brushed the two-day old stubble on his cheeks, letting each individual scratch of trimmed hair snag at the grooves in her skin. She sighed in bliss from the touch.
Then Tali let her hand drift lower, past his chest, down to his hips. A gray hand fumbled at the belt over his waist. Shepard looked up at Tali for confirmation.
"I… I…" the quarian spoke, a newfound courage seeping into her actions, "I want… you."
In an instant, the wavelengths between their two minds merged into a single frequency. Understanding held and locked their eyes. Shepard's own look softened, nearly melting, as he finally figured out how he could comfort his wife the most. He knew what she needed.
Sometimes the basest impulses are derived from the most powerful of emotions. Words could not be translated towards describing the sheer might that these urges would savagely take hold upon a living being—only actions could serve as the story upon which these emotions would be described. Love requited, answered both ways, is one of those bonds that goes beyond tangible strength. It could be worn like armor, yet it was malleable enough to be shaped within those that had nurtured it.
This need burned within Shepard, his final drive, this unbearable pressure to impart all of his love upon one person.
Not a second would be wasted.
Shepard moved forward swiftly, yet carefully, and immediately captured Tali's mouth with his. Their tongues met furiously as the energy that had been physically separating them had finally imploded in a burst of victory. Shepard could feel Tali's warm tears soak his cheeks, and he let out a muffled groan when he felt her hand slip inside his pants. Tali gripped and explored him with her fingers as she kissed him, both gasping with lust into each other's mouths.
Everything about Shepard felt perfect to Tali. She let his taste linger upon her tongue as she gripped and played with him with her hands, coaxing only more desperation out of him. It was working, for Shepard was grabbing at her head, tears now falling from his eyes as well, lips hopelessly locked with hers as they grunted, gasped, and cried together.
With a wet sound, their kiss finally ended and Shepard quickly yanked off his shirt and pulled his pants down, stepping out of them in a flash. Tali barely had any time to admire her husband's body, for Shepard had knelt down in a flash and had proceeded to abruptly position his head between her legs, already kissing and licking at her down there.
It was in this moment that Tali was struck by a fit of clarity. Overwhelmed emotionally and physically, pleasure wafting up in powerful waves from where Shepard was attending to her, Tali stared off into space as the tears began to drip once more. She trembled and quivered, staring blankly at the wall while her hands automatically massaged her husband's scalp. Her nails gently dug into Shepard's skin as she parted the bristles of his hair. Thick trails stained her cheeks as her entire vision turned watery. Tali had to close her eyes for a moment to collect her thoughts, her breathing now hitching as she realized she had been moaning out loud this entire time. Her hips had been grinding themselves into Shepard's face, who was murmuring in deep desire as he let himself become surrounded by the quarian, exploring her with his lips and tongue. Already her body was starting to seize. It was as if Shepard was pulling the orgasm right out of her.
Tali cried out again and helplessly leaned over Shepard's head as she felt herself begin to be captured in the throes of a climax. Her entire body was now enveloping the head of her husband; her breasts were mashed at the top of his skull, her stomach puffed out against his forehead. Her hands drifted downward as she felt herself liquefy. Tali's fingers circled Shepard's nipples and ran through his soft chest hair, making the man gasp in a fervor.
She sobbed out his name.
Answering her call, Shepard lifted his head up, lips shining, and gently placed his hands upon both sides of her neck. Her skin was now scalding hot, thudding powerfully as warm blood rushed through her body.
"P-Please…" was her pitiful cry, her bottom lip quivering heavily as she fought to contain her fears. She had to remain brave, for his sake.
Both of them soon lay on the bed, Shepard gently positioned on top of Tali. He slowly ran his fingers on top of Tali's bald head, wiping away the sweat and tears that had stained them both. Tali continued to helplessly sob, crying while being engulfed by Shepard's touch. She hated that she was such a state right now—in a time like this, she should be completely beside herself with happiness! She should have been overjoyed to be making love to her husband, but all she could consider was a resounding certitude that her delights would come to an end eventually. No more of this. No more of sharing Shepard.
No more Roahn. Keelah, her daughter…
The quarian was dangerously close to becoming fully catatonic—her fierce love for the man sliding inside her right now was straining her mental bonds. Guilt and devotion clashed together in an epic battle in her head. As she held onto the human that pushed his way into her, Tali's could only envision a future of Shepard being completely alone. She saw, in her mind's eye, her husband and her daughter, both of them sitting in a room without her presence joining them. The image, vivid and clear, was a stark depiction of the two people she loved the most sitting at a table, facing each other with blank stares, hopelessly lost to sadness. The very thought felt like someone had run her through and Tali's teeth clenched together at the awful thought.
Tali looked up towards the ceiling, consumed by the awful images in her head even as she continued to have sex with Shepard. The tears would not stop flowing. All she could imagine was the inevitability of her death, that her illness would finally take hold, ripping her away from her family. Would this be the last time she could make love to her dearest friend? Did she only have a limited time left with her daughter? What would become of them afterward? There was so much she still wanted to do. Tali wanted nothing more than to finally scream out her terror, to cry out for Shepard to protect her, to save her, to tear out this infection that had rotted her from the inside out. The finality of her life was weighing upon her all at once right now, threatening to crush the woman with its dramatic materiality.
More time. All she had ever wanted was more time.
Did she not deserve that, at least?
Something caught Tali in her chest and she let out a fluid gasp as she suddenly felt her consciousness come spiraling down to the ground. A deep pressure pooled near her groin and a moan escaped the low reaches of her throat as she was finally able to take in the broad and muscular frame of the human smoothly thrusting into her. Now she was able to feel herself truly responding to Shepard as she pressed her body against him more firmly. The human was raggedly gasping, holding back his own fears as he buried his face into Tali's neck. His hands alternated between holding the smooth flesh of Tali's back to groping down towards her firm butt. They both drooled as they kissed once more, each one of them fully knowing the dire consequences but refusing to humor any of them right now. Their love was more important.
A sexual haze choked them both. Shepard and Tali were drenched in sweat, their bodies slippery to the touch. Tali thoughts drifted away as Shepard started to pound into her, his actions forceful yet she could sense a tiny bit of hesitation on his end, like he was trying to enjoy this moment to the full while wanting to make it last for as long as possible. Tali didn't care. She just wanted to feel the human. The pleasure was overwhelming her in a torrid and delirious fog. The quarian deliberately guided one of the human's hands to cup one of her breasts. She clenched her own appendage, silently urging the man to squeeze her there, which he did so to her everlasting satisfaction. She could feel herself clenching upon Shepard as he filled her just so perfectly. Her eyes rolled up into her head and she bit Shepard's collarbone out of instinct, tasting the salt of his skin upon her tongue.
Something began to unfurl within her and Shepard was vibrating with a similar sort of energy as well. Their eyes, millimeters away from the other, reflected each other's inner glow.
"Loving you…" Tali whispered, her breath barely wafting across to Shepard's lips, "…was the best thing that ever happened to me."
There was nothing that Shepard could say that could have a hope of reflecting the unceasing yearning for the woman he held in his arms. Enraptured by how beautiful she was, Tali's presence sang in his heart, declaring her undying infatuation for him. A ripple echoed within Shepard and he let out a desperate gasp as he finally went over the edge, losing himself within his wife.
Tali uncontrollably moaned as a new heat source bloomed inside her. Together, the couple shared one last thrust, milking the last of their efforts together while the pleasure from their sex simmered down to a broil.
The quarian stroked Shepard's now tear-streaked face, a soft smile gracing her features. She had finally come to terms with her mortality. She had found her peace.
As the night went on, Shepard would eventually find himself cradling the sleeping Tali over his lap. She seemed so small in his arms. Her head lolled as she dozed, a peaceful expression on her face. They were still naked, having not bothered to put their clothes back on. Coverings were trivialities compared to the permanence that they faced. Shepard could not take his hands off the resting alien, silently sighing in his own private form of mourning. Holding her in his arms, simply savoring the feeling of touching her warm body, was a feeling he had promised himself long ago that he would never take for granted.
By god, he still had not.
Blissfully unaware, exhausted but happy, the dozing Tali murmured in her sleep. She could still find perfection, even through her pain.
Watching Tali rest, Shepard envied that quality very much.
In its own private world, a cell exists in a hollow of near-nothingness that is a construction of what little consciousness it possesses. It cannot think or feel like any other creature in the galaxy. All it can do is live, fueled only by the most basic of programmed commands locked within its nucleus: survive.
And survive it does. The cell does not decide its ultimate purpose—life does that job for it. It could be delegated to serve as a building block for tissue, or to act as a conveyer for oxygen, or even simply to act as a defense for an organism. The cell will never realize its potential relative to its purpose. It will never determine how its duties will ensure its own survival. But the cell will never be able to stop performing its set function. It will never have a choice in the matter.
To that effect, the extent of a cell's awareness is restricted to that of a void, black and featureless. Even when confronted with any sort of abnormality that might threaten to impede a cell's duties, the cell cannot envision any sort of danger present. An individual cell is stupid. It lacks the capability to evade any hazards that might bring about its doom. A cell, positioned next to a threat, simply proceeds on its route as normal, oblivious to any sort of crisis around it.
It is this very weakness that allows such a deadly chain reaction to occur.
A particular cell might encounter an unfamiliar ripple. Energy billowing in an invisible wake. The cell proceeds, unperturbed. Careless. It does not know the sort of danger it has wandered into. Pools of emissions have gathered in small clusters within a particular organ, leeching off all the cells it comes into. This one cell has just now come into the domain of the diffusion. Its fate has now been sealed.
An ionization event occurs. Free radicals bubble deep in the very fabric of strands that comprise the cell itself: its DNA. These bubbles distort and bulge, pushing aside matter as the void of reactive oxides grows, tumor-like. The DNA bends in the wake of these radical droplets, each bubble merging together to create a foam-like structure, frothing and ballooning as it feeds off of the surrounding energy.
The foam grows too large. The DNA can no longer contain the damage. As the bubbles finally warp and explode, the shockwave takes the DNA with it. Nucleobases rip and tear from the main structure, breaking the backbone of the amino acids that have been locked together. The shattered DNA drifts aimlessly. More bubbles burst. The damage is systemic.
The cell's DNA is compromised. Nothing is left to define its genetic code anymore. The cell crumples in on itself, blackening and crumbling to nothing. It withers and dies an ignominious death. The worst part is that it never had the capacity to spare a single thought towards its demise, for had it been able to wonder what had killed it, maybe it could have saved the lives of more of its brethren.
In the wake of the cell's remains, the foaming energy lingers, waiting to snag another hapless victim.
Chimera freighter – 2198
Tali…
The scene vanished within Shepard's vision before he could even imagine reaching out with his mind to hold it back. The warmth of his bedroom was sucked into the vacuum of his consciousness with a snap, letting the cold air of the freighter's hold replace it. The heat from Tali's skin was no longer apparent—the chafing of the electromagnetic gauntlets suspending him in midair were now discernable once more.
Something scintillated in Shepard's eyes and he shook his head thickly. He rolled his jaw and gave several nictations, finding his overall situation to be quite less improved from the scene he had just left.
"Hallucination?" a layered and dark voice throbbed in the dimness. Shepard craned his neck and found that the Legionnaire was still stoically appraising him, the cyborg's eternal expression completely levelled right at his face. "A common side effect with sodium thiopental. Very quick, but very visceral. You were gone for… nearly a minute."
Was that all? Shepard thought, but he remained silent. He continued to pour all his focus into amplifying his useful senses so that he could reconstruct his surroundings for him to observe. After a brief analysis, Shepard did come to the unfortunate conclusion that he was still trapped and that there was no way out of this hopeless mess.
Business as usual, apparently.
It was difficult for Shepard not to wish that he was back in his memories. Even though the melancholy tone of the last time he had made love to his wife resonated upon him harshly, he would have given every single last credit in his name just to spend one more solitary minute with Tali. Just one minute. His dreams were the only place that he could be reunited with her now.
"It seems so trivial," the Legionnaire now murmured, the outline of his body barely shining through the glum darkness, "for your wife to have died of an easily treatable disease. Ovarian cancer. Interesting. A purposeless end to a person of her stature… quite unsatisfying. Yet… the connection is unclear. You said that the source of this illness came from you. I can't help but wonder… how?"
Shepard was about to answer, his tongue still being held in the grip of the drugs coursing through his body, when the Legionnaire waved a hand and answered in his stead. "No, it's too simple. I have a hard time believing that someone, even a quarian, can die from any form of cancer. It should have been picked up early enough for action to have been taken against it. Even though she supposedly died from cancer, you apparently have not been treated for it, Shepard. I have your medical records to prove it and they show that you have not been hospitalized for the same therapy that Tali'Shepard went through. Cancer technically cannot be transferred between bodies. And the ovarian form is not present within males, obviously. There has to be another catalyst involved here. How could you have given your wife this disease in the first place, Shepard?"
Drool now started to trickle out of the corner of Shepard's mouth, driven forth by gravity. Unable to wipe at his jaw, Shepard just dumbly stared as the spittle dangled from him, simultaneously feeling hot and cold as he fought to keep his lips shut, for him to not relieve the worst parts of his life.
But even his own body would prove to betray him.
"No one picked up on it…" Shepard started, sodium thiopental tugging eagerly at him, "…because when the cancer appeared, everyone thought it was a one-off thing. The doctors figured that Tali got the cancer from all the hormone therapy that all quarians are required to undergo when she was in her twenties. They never thought that a constant source might have been the cause of the whole thing."
Shepard looked up at his tormentor, teeth gritted, eyes shining with tears. "Me. It was all me. I was the one infected with the radiation that killed my wife. The radiation… I have no idea how I became exposed to the dosage that exists within my cells. There were so many opportunities in my life that it could have happened. I might have wandered too close to a cracked eezo housing on a battlefield, unknowingly exposing myself. Or… it could have been the time when I was lying unconscious on the Citadel after activating the Crucible. I had been just lying there for hours, exposed directly to the harmful radiation present in space. Cosmic rays had been pummeling my body that whole time… and I had absorbed it all. But I might have been completely irradiated even before then and… I… I just don't know. I will never know what the defining moment was that led to Tali's death."
Shepard was now openly weeping, hanging his head as tears and drool dribbled downward, splatting the floor beneath him. The Legionnaire, oddly amused at watching the great Commander Shepard sob, slowly walked forward a couple of paces until he was within arm's reach of the human. He knelt down, his head barely a couple of feet away from Shepard's face.
"No one ever detected the radiation in you prior to that?" the cyborg asked, his voice now taking on an eerily gentle tone. There was a shifting sound from the segmented portion of his neck as his head tilted in intrigue. "A medical scan would have picked that up quite simply, I reckon."
"They didn't…" Shepard said through a clenched jaw, "…because they were relying on my implants for the proper readings."
The Legionnaire straightened his head, confused. "Explain."
"My implants. The hardware that Cerberus put into me for their little Lazarus project. Cutting-edge technology, more advanced than anyone had ever seen before. It was designed so that anyone looking to do a full medical scan would only need to link to the port on my implants—near my neck—to get the accurate readouts for what my health was like. But that was the problem. The implants… had changed me. Made me… something else. They heightened my metabolism, increased my muscle density, improved my immune system, and… and they had even made it so that I could take radiation exposure much better than I could normally. More than any normal human could take."
"I see," the Legionnaire nodded but gestured for the human to continue.
"So, even though the radiation in me continued to build up over time, my implants made it so that I would not be adversely affected by it. The threshold for it harming me had been increased but that very threshold was being compared to the limit that was considered healthy for everyone else. If I absorbed a dose lethal enough to kill a regular human, the implants would simply measure that as a percentage against the true dosage level I could theoretically take. I could store more radiation, you see, but the implants would continue to give normal readings!"
"Ah. A bug in the software. A very costly error for the developers to make. I suppose this explains why you've been using Entolimod to counter the effects. It's well known that Entolimod does help lessen the damage done from radiation poisoning, but is also prone to exhibit painful side effects, which, I'll wager, are what you're feeling right now."
The Legionnaire reached out with a finger and gently prodded Shepard's forehead. The battered and agonized human winced at that, the tendons in his arms now bulging their way past the skin as a ring of sweat drenched his shirt near his neck.
"You exposed your wife to this radiation repeatedly," the cyborg hissed. It was not a question.
Shepard blurted out a cry before proceeding. "It was in my blood. My fluids. Everything. Whenever Tali and I shared ourselves, shared our fluids, I was exposing her to my radiation. God… I… I kept on infecting her… it was in my sperm… and I never knew until… until… until it was too late."
A final keen escaped Shepard's throat as a flash of Tali's loving face floated across his subconscious. Prolonged guilt and misery were finally allowed to seep into the pores of the human as his worst crime became exposed. Shepard's head hung limply, pupils dilated, feeling sick as his nerves, previously wired hot, all fell dark in an instant.
The human, broken, dangled where he was hung, left to contend with the weight of his crime as judgment reared its head.
A tiny warble murmured from the Legionnaire's vocabulator—a sign of satisfaction. He patted the top of Shepard's head as he stood back up, his eyes emitting a distant sort of understanding, but also a complete lack of caring at the same time.
"Touching," the cyborg sneered, "but maybe you do understand the cost of what you've wrought by keeping secrets. Now you're at your most pliable. We can proceed with the real questions, which should become quite simple for you to answer now that we've gotten past the hard part."
At this point, Shepard had gone past the realm of minding his own sanity now that his most private memories had been ripped out of him with ease. He would have answered any questions the Legionnaire had for him without mounting any resistance now that the futility of his life was slowly coming to fruition. Even though he was in a miserable way, a deep part of his brain remained receptive, eager to provide the answers his captor sought. They would have been offered soon enough… had the freighter not given an unexpected lurch.
The jolt was nearly imperceptible to all within the hold, but Shepard could at least see that the Legionnaire had to subtly shift his weight from one leg to the next. The cyborg was more attuned to changes such as this and he whirled in all directions, trying to determine the source of this disturbance before he looked out of the tiny portholes in the corner of the room, finding them lit by the light of distant starts instead of the purple haze that was a usual hallmark of FTL travel. They were back in real space, traveling at sublight speeds once again.
"Hmm," the Legionnaire grumbled. "That was certainly quick." What was unsaid was that their perceived passage had been quicker than altogether expected… by about an hour, according to the Legionnaire's timetable. Unless they had somehow managed to break a few more laws of physics by hopping through FTL and the relay system faster than they had thought possible, there was no reason for this ship to have suddenly been pushed out of their extreme speed lane.
The harried ringing from a notification on the Legionnaire's omni-tool was too suspect to be a coincidence, either.
"What?" the mechanoid barked as he activated the call.
"We've been deposited out of FTL before we could reach our destination, sir," a guard broke out on the other end. "Some sort of problem with the navigational flight controls."
"So? Fix it!"
"We can't, sir. It appears we have a saboteur on board."
"Oh? And why do you think that?"
"Because a hole has been blown into one of the cooling tanks in the engine bay… and the security desk has been completely shot to pieces. We've also got a smashed LOKI mech down on the furthest level. Our guess is that someone hacked into the mech and ordered it to shoot up the place before forcing it to commit suicide."
If the cyborg could display expressions, he would have looked absolutely murderous right about now. "You can't muster a patrol to find this saboteur yourself?"
The man on the other end did not sound all that pleased to be having this conversation, either. "Well… sir, we're going to need to input your override code into the secondary station to resume our transit. Right now, we're several thousand lightyears from our main destination. Chimera protocols maintain that only the commander of the ship can program—"
The Legionnaire, now completely disgruntled at having been interrupted, unleashed a ferocious sigh. "Fine. I'll be right down." Hanging up the call, he nudged a final look at Shepard. "The result of an inefficient hierarchy. This organization just does not prize individuals who take the initiative. Failure is an inevitability, it seems. Not for me, though. You're my ticket out of here, Shepard. Soon enough, there won't be any of me around to care at all what happens afterward."
The Legionnaire placed a hand upon the thick plume of gray hair that adorned Shepard's head. The human winced at the cold touch—it felt like someone was placing ice cubes directly to his skin.
"We'll talk later, Shepard. Try not to wander off."
Laughing to himself at the rather lame joke he had just made, the Legionnaire stalked right out of the room, the doors parting to briefly reveal a pair of Chimera troopers flanking the threshold, before it slid shut once more, sealing Shepard all by his lonesome within the expanse.
Several minutes passed with Shepard having been left to his own devices in the matter of keeping himself entertained. Of course, it was difficult trying to lose himself in his own thoughts while he was dangling like this, trussed up in such a demeaning position while his blood pooled in all the wrong spots, his head spinning from the mental abuse he had just inflicted upon himself. At this point, Shepard was even hoping that another drug-induced hallucination would take him right now so that he would no longer have to concern himself with the affairs of the present, but that aspect of the sodium thiopental had long passed. Sober reality was all he had to contend with right now.
Just take me to when she was alive. Let me be in a time where I had not yet made my mistakes.
His solemn concentration and prayers for another round of visions did not help, as he still remained remarkably lucid. It had felt like he had been mustering his mind to break for over an hour when it had not even been five minutes yet. If Shepard had access to a chronometer, he would be deeply dismayed.
With having nothing to do except wait around for the Legionnaire to return, Shepard relegated himself to be continually suspended within this infernal contraption until then.
But then a clattering sound—just below him, at the foot of the dais he was positioned on—caught his attention. There was a muffled grunt, a hollow noise like someone kicking sheet metal, and an empty grate suddenly tumbled into view, emitting a tinny racket as it bounced upon the floor. Shepard was still in too calm of a state for him to betray much of a reaction to this grate suddenly being propelled upon the sloped floor, but even the sodium thiopental could not stifle the reaction he gave when he saw his daughter scurry out from a passage beneath the stage, the sapphire colors of her hood and visor (not to mention her diminutive size) quite unmistakable.
Dusting herself off, Roahn turned around at an agonizingly slow speed. Her eyes met her father's in an instant, shining sadly through the murk, the pain readily apparent upon her veiled expression, mirroring his own.
If Roahn had been expecting a certain kind of reaction from her father, namely a choice rebuke at her spontaneous and perhaps unwise decision to rescue him in such a fashion, it did not come from Shepard's mouth. The man had finally run out of all resistance in his body. It was done, the final barriers breached. Deep within, Shepard knew what had motivated his daughter to get this far and that chastising her for acting upon her own natural instincts would be just another exercise in futility.
She is her mother's child, through and through.
The air between the two of them had become thickened, a tenuous sort of energy almost passing imperceptibly around them. Shepard did not take his eyes off his daughter but puffed out a silent sigh, nothing but acceptance sagging his features.
"How much did you hear?" he whispered, already knowing what the answer was going to be.
Roahn's hands formed a knot as she held them close to her chest. Unblinking, she slowly tiptoed her way to the hovering and spread-eagled form of her father, facing a slight resistance in her legs as though Shepard exuded an invisible force field of repulsion around him.
"I think I heard everything," the girl mustered, her words piercing with a terrible clarity.
Shepard just bit his lip and gave a sage-like nod, closing his eyes as he did so. There was nothing else to say because he knew he had no defense for her. The hole had already been dug with him in it. He could not hope to clamber his way out.
"Look, Roahn… I…" Shepard shook his head pathetically but appearing contrite was rather difficult in his current position. "I know what you must be feeling right now and… I completely understand. But if you would just listen to me for—"
Just how long the length of time that Shepard intended to use in order to provide all the context he could to his daughter was never made apparent. In that moment, Roahn had stabbed at a control upon her omni-tool, forcefully and unsubtly using it as a message to convey to her father that she was envisioning her emphatic movements to be metaphorically causing him harm. Shepard felt his body begin to be lowered gently to the ground, as the electric bolts casually warped from the electromagnetic gauntlets while he was in the process of being deposited. He landed upon his stomach quite smoothly and, with a hissing and a series of dull thunks, the bolts upon the gauntlets released, emitting an acrid scent of cordite and copper. The gauntlets then split in half, allowing Shepard to crawl to freedom, albeit with a few markings etched into his skin from how tightly the gauntlets had been fastened around his wrists.
Rubbing at his limbs to coax blood back into those areas, he was about to utter another apology to his daughter when he was suddenly face-to-face with her as she glared angrily at him, towering over him while he was still on his knees.
"Shut up," he heard Roahn snap at him. "Just shut up right now, dad. There will be another time for this, but not now. Just be quiet and we'll be able to get away."
"Yes, Tal—I mean, Roahn," Shepard murmured, head still feeling thick. He stumbled to his feet, but walking was difficult. His balance was shot and a murky filter was still seeping across his eyes like he was drunk.
"Here," Roahn offered as her voice took on a tangible softness, a far cry from the harshness that she had just exhibited. She grabbed at her father's hand and gently led him off the platform, slowing to make sure that he could climb down the stairs without tripping and falling like an oaf.
Shepard tried to stem the flow of wheezes that were being emitted from his throat—his calves were already cramping, his joints felt like they were grinding against one another, and the headache at his temples was approaching a steady throb. Dizziness pounced upon him. He was in quite a bad way.
Roahn, truthfully having been terrified after speaking to Shepard in such a vicious fashion, was now fueled by a bottomless patience as she led him to the back of the room, slowly so that the human would not stumble over his own feet, where there was a tiny door that led to the outside hall. Roahn had already scoped it for guards before entering the room, but she still poked her head out to make sure. As expected, there was no one in sight. Jerking her father's arm to make him stay close, she hung a right and headed to a service staircase near the corner of the ship, confident that they were not going to cross into any Chimera troopers along the way.
"You have a plan?" Shepard whispered, submitting himself completely into his daughter's guidance.
"I do," the girl replied with confidence, her narrowed eyes brimming with determination.
"The ship dropping out of FTL… you had something to do with that, I reckon?"
"Yes," Roahn nodded. "Didn't take much, really. Just inserted a few lines of code into the ship's programmed flows and… well…"
"Hey," Shepard murmured, causing Roahn to look up at him. "Good job."
The well of anger inside Roahn lowered a tad. She broke their stare and appeared lost for a second. "Thanks," she breathed nearly imperceptibly.
Is that all you can say to him?! was the lone statement that thudded in the girl's head. No, she reasoned. No, it wasn't. After what she had just heard, all those abominable statements about how her mother had passed… Roahn still had not managed to find the words to chastise her father with. This unspeakable anger was boiling inside her, but that was just a distraction. She could not let herself be blinded by her revulsion to the man whose hand she was now holding.
Father, what have you done?
They edged their way down the stairs, both on their guard at all times, but their caution would soon prove to have been all for naught as they reached the bottom floor without having run into any unsavory individuals at all. For what they knew, the Legionnaire and perhaps the majority of Chimera soldiers were in the engine bay, checking out the damage, which was on the opposite end of the ship. With any luck, Roahn and Shepard would be out of harm's way before any of their enemies realized what was going on.
"Where are we headed?" Shepard whispered to Roahn as they entered a very dark and industrial looking area. "Hangar bay or escape pods?"
One of the two would be ideal for usage in escapes.
"Escape pods," Roahn grimaced as they crouched underneath a low overhang filled with brightly colored pipes that carried some sort of deadly gas or liquid throughout the ship. The yellow warning labels plastered onto the pipes helped reinforce the danger inherent and Roahn made a mental note of her surroundings for later use.
Light shone from the top and bottom in segmented patterns, thrown into disarray as the illumination was parted by the thick grating that acted as both floor and ceiling for the entire area. Steam hissed off into a shadowy corner, obscuring part of the hallway in a faint mist. A couple dozen meters in the distance, Roahn was able to see six bright red lights spear their way through the darkness—three lights on either side of the hall. Each light corresponded to a large circular door, thrown wide open, that emitted a column of unnaturally white luminosity—entrances to the escape pods.
None of the pods had been ejected, to Shepard's relief. Dealer's choice.
"We're in range of a planet," Roahn said before Shepard could think to inquire more as to what the plan was. "We'll get down to the surface and get help from there."
It was certainly more of a plan than Shepard had a few minutes ago, so he could only go along with whatever his daughter had in mind.
"What are the chances that we'll be found out before we leave?"
Like clockwork, a harsh roar of an alarm blared monstrously off in the distance, loud klaxons endlessly repeating the same multi-toned note over and over while blaring yellow diodes started to blink and spasm in the throes of its chaotic wiring. Shepard and Roahn were alternately bathed in crimson and orange lights, offering strobing glimpses against their faces as Shepard's question was answered before Roahn could even open her mouth.
"Forget I asked," Shepard struggled to make his answer audible above the din.
The two of them then doubled their efforts to reach the end of the hall where the pod entrances were located. However, Roahn did not enter the closest one right away, and Shepard hung back, leaning against the wall to watch her. The girl headed instead for the console right at the side of the door, opening up separate tabs to different processes as she worked.
"I have to set the escape pod's trajectory!" Roahn explained. "I couldn't do that earlier at the security station."
"Just be quick, we might have some company very soon," Shepard said. "Do you still have the pistol I gave you?"
Roahn reached down at her waist and tossed the gun to her father. Shepard fumbled the gun for a few seconds, his hand-eye coordination still out of whack. Eventually, he managed to fit the grip in his sweaty palm, taking note that the pistol's readout indicated that the thermal clip was one bullet less than a full load. He disregarded that for now, as a new sizzling noise, apparent even amongst the thick steam, started to make itself known. A glimmer of movement sparked from the end of the corridor they had just came through, light folding upon itself to create a humanoid shape, entrancing in its fluidity.
From out of the fog, a hologram stepped forth.
"I knew, I just knew that something like this was going to happen," Larsen's image bemoaned as he shook his head, stopping to within a few feet of Shepard and Roahn. "I had hoped that I was merely succumbing to superstition, because even though the empirical evidence clearly indicated that you had a knack for escaping any confinements placed upon you, that somehow you would actually stay put this time around. Stupid of me, really, to expect any other result."
Shepard readjusted his positioning behind the sights of the pistol as he squinted his eyes angrily. "If you knew I'd escape, Larsen, why'd you make it so easy for my daughter to bust me out?"
Larsen, Roahn tested the name out on her tongue as she stood beside Shepard. So, this was the man responsible for chasing them all around the galaxy. She committed the human's image to memory, automatically linking his slick black hair, his trimmed goatee, craggy face, and broad frame with every single emotion in her body that linked to some form of disgust.
The projection of the prim and proper man stiffened, the corner of his mouth noticeably twitching in response to Shepard's taunt. "I would have assumed that our contractors would have had everything under control. Obviously, that was not the case. Trust me, I cannot wait to hear this one explained." Larsen's gaze then shifted over to Roahn, who took a fearful step back as the blazing projection of the human's eyes took their time in spearing through the gloom to seemingly pierce through her visor. "So… this is your daughter, eh? Can't say that I see much resemblance, Shepard."
Voices from the upper deck echoed frantically, wet and metallic. More steam surged into the lower levels, flooding the area with moisture.
"Oh, I'm going to be coming for you real soon, Raynor," Shepard gritted through pained teeth, momentarily ignoring the noises. "You know the one thing that I've never understood about the people that chose to align themselves against me? It's that they thought they could get away with it. I've never made a habit of underestimating my abilities, Larsen, and still I had to face those that thought they knew better. Well… if you really wanted to test my patience, then you've got it. You wanted me to be back so badly? You should be careful what you wish for… because I will be back sooner than you think. This time, it will end with my hands around your neck, squeezing the life out of you!"
The entire time, Larsen's grin had been growing wider and wider, despite the fact that Shepard had become increasingly demonic as he threatened the senator. Larsen, showing gleaming teeth, then embarked into a slow clap, the noise oddly distorted through the hologram.
"Dad…" Roahn warned as she tugged at his wrist.
Larsen then gave a low chuckle, shaking his head as if he had not been listening to Shepard. "You're no longer the commander you used to be, Shepard. You might still be able to spin an original speech here and there, but the ability of you backing up your words with actions is… lacking. Also amusing is the fact that you still believe that I am against you, when in fact my allegiance has never wavered at all!"
"Oh really?" Shepard waved the pistol around flippantly, gesturing to the bowels of the freighter. "Then what's all this? Overreacting on my account? Using military contractors to try and bring me in?"
"No! This is all because you have strayed from your true allegiance: to the Alliance and to humanity! I am not the villain here, you are!"
"I only wanted an out, Larsen. When I saw an opportunity, I took it. Don't try and insinuate that I somehow have sabotaged all of humanity just to fit this harebrained narrative that you're pushing."
"Humanity has been sabotaged, Shepard. But are you so blind that you cannot see it, or is it because you're trying to protect yourself by denying all responsibility? Have you done enough to erase your guilt?"
"I harbor no guilt for humanity. I did all that was in my ability to do so for them," Shepard said and Larsen fumed.
"What you did during the war might have been the right thing, but someone has to pay for all the posturing and the delaying. You may have done your job to bring the other races in line, Shepard… but were you quick enough?"
Before Shepard could answer, Larsen reached over past the lens of the hologram and plucked up an object out of the line of sight. Returning to his original position, the man suddenly waved what appeared to be a picture frame in front of Shepard's face, shaking his arm in determination as he meant for Shepard's gaze to focus there. He could see that two people were situated in the center of the frame; a woman and a child who was ostensibly her daughter, both human. They were dressed severely, in thin and sharp looking outfits, but their expressions were rather bright and cheery, each one smiling towards the camera that had taken their picture.
"You see this?" Larsen was now seething, some intense emotion bubbling its way up his throat. "The woman and the girl in the picture here? Do you recognize them?! Of course you don't—but you still feel their presence because their blood is on your hands, Shepard. They are among the humans that rests upon your conscience. You can't deny it, because you still own these deaths. All of them!"
"Wait a second," Shepard shook his head. "I don't—"
"The woman and her child? They're just like the rest of the billions on Earth who were slaughtered when the Reapers came. They thought that… if they made it to one of the shelters in the city… in London… that they would be safe. They probably held onto the hope that help would come. 'Commander Shepard will save the day!' That was the word the radios held onto constantly. Every week there was some new exploit about the adventures of the Normandy and its brave captain. You were out in the galaxy, securing allies for the final push on Earth for months on end. The folks in the trenches must have cheered each time you secured a victory—they were certain that the upcoming assault must have been days away. But weeks passed, then months, and those that who still survived could not understand what was taking so long. How could Commander Shepard forget about them? After all, he had managed to get so many people on his side: the turians, the quarians, the krogan, and even the geth. Still the skies remained dark. Eventually, without the arrival of their salvation, over time the Reapers eventually found the shelters and overran them in the eternal night. No one could hide forever. These humans… were either burned to ashes by the beams of the Reapers, ripped to shreds from the claws of banshees, or liquefied into fuel when the marauders came to take them to the processing plants. Which fate do you think my wife received, Shepard? What do you think happened to my daughter?!"
"Your family was in London…" Shepard gaped as the picture of the smiling girl etched itself into his eyes. A spark of life—unconditional love seeping through the constraints of the medium. "Everyone you ever cared about was killed twelve years ago."
There was a shattering sound from the hologram as Larsen angrily chucked the frame away, throwing it like a discus. "All that mattered to me was in that city. When it was all over, I hurried back to the ruined planet to look for them. I sifted through the shattered remains of that city for three months, hoping to find their bodies. I must have turned over every stone, bloodied every inch of my body, just looking for them. But I never found them. When I finally accepted that cruel fact, I vowed that I would find some way to make whomever was responsible for our downfall pay for what they had done. I… promised… the memory of my little girl that I would show the galaxy at how we had been wronged!"
Shepard nearly flinched away, reeling from the unbridled savagery that was oozing from Larsen's very voice. "You're just trying to find a way to lash out at everyone because the assault arrived too late to save your family?"
The very form of Larsen seemed to simmer in rage. "Humans have suffered enough, Shepard. I have suffered enough. If it fell upon the aliens to save my family, then I shall stop at nothing to punish them in turn. You could not get the other races over to Earth quick enough. We all burned here while you were out there, tarrying around!"
"All I did was to save Earth!" Shepard roared.
"You didn't do enough! Would you call the loss of billions of lives a victory? Would you really be so content to let bygones be bygones in the wake of such a catastrophic genocide? I am not ready to accept that. Make no mistake, someone will face a reckoning for allowing this holocaust to happen. The Council failed to act despite being warned time and time again. Now is the chance for humans to show them what we're capable of. With or without you, Shepard, I will sever all of humanity's ties to the Council. No more will we be beholden to the whims of others. No more will we shoulder the hypocrisy in stoic silence. No more—"
The sound vanished from the hologram in a heartbeat, making it look like Larsen was choking in a vacuum. Apparently not realizing he had been muted, the image of the senator kept on rambling to himself, at least until the projection finally warped and dissipated with a snap, ridding the hold of his presence for good.
Shepard was allowed to breathe again, now noticing that sweat had beaded all along his eyelids. He mustered a tiny intake, filling his lungs, and he wiped his brow, more relieved than anything else that he no longer had to verbally spar with the damnable senator.
But how had…?
"That's enough out of him," Roahn snarled as she stepped forward, her omni-tool aglow about her arm, having hacked into the frigate's communications. "Come on, dad, get in the… uh oh."
Now Roahn was somewhat regretting cutting Larsen's feed because, just past where his hologram had emanated, the multitudinous glow from an array of tactical optics burst their way through the steam clouds, headed at the front by the tall, metallic foe that had been stalking them for so long. The crowd of Chimera troopers remained silent, their weapons nowhere near being pointed downrange, as they let their commander, the Legionnaire, stride forward. This was his show to deal with, and no one else's.
"You probably did everyone a favor by silencing that man," the Legionnaire crowed over the hissing pipes. "Had I the capability to tune out his words, given the chance, I would be availing myself to that ability quite often. Unfortunately, you two are due to suffer his presence just a bit longer."
The cyborg now lifted his arm, gripping what looked like a comically oversized shotgun. A variety of tubes had been plugged into ports upon the Legionnaire's chestplate, a cooling system already activated in preparation to disperse the excess heat. Casually, with a metal thumb, a laser sight was flicked on, mostly for the intimidation factor rather out of a tactical necessity, and a thin red beam poked its way through the fog and mist to rest gently at the middle of Shepard's chest.
The gesture was obvious: do not struggle and you won't be hurt. The Legionnaire had Shepard dead-to-rights, and that pistol that Shepard was holding was going to do far less damage to the Legionnaire compared to the shotgun the monstrosity was lugging around. One slug from that would probably burst his torso like an overripe piece of fruit.
In any case, Shepard was still not in any shape to land a direct hit on the Legionnaire at this distance—the sodium thiopental was still dancing in his veins, tilting his world from side to side, turning him sloppy.
The Legionnaire recognized this as well and gave a warbling laugh, the laser sight barely wavering. Dejected and a little bit humiliated, Shepard lowered the gun in frustration and let it dangle near his hip, fingers barely gripping it.
But another hand gently pulled it out of his grasp before he could even comprehend what was going on.
Roahn stepped in front of her father, both of her hands clenched upon the grip of the gun, one eye closed with the other lined up behind the iron sights of the pistol.
"Get in the pod, dad," she said emphatically. "We have to go."
Shepard staggered to the side and reached out for his daughter. "Roahn—"
"Damn it, will you just do what I say?" she begged. Now is not the time to be so stubborn, dad!
The Legionnaire had been creeping forward this whole time and, even though the Predator pistol was in steadier hands now, he seemed to be more amused than ever as he took in the sight of the girl levelling the weapon right at his head. The cyborg was not at all concerned, for Roahn's novice skill level and the pathetic caliber of the pistol were not going to be enough to pierce his armor. Sensing that this would be the sort of encounter where perhaps his shotgun would be overkill, the Legionnaire stowed the weapon, clipping it onto his back.
"Put that down," the towering metal giant intoned as he crept forward, a claw-like arm outstretched. "A child like you should not be playing with guns."
Either it was the sheer adrenaline of the moment that caused Roahn to depress the trigger or it was from the indigence of being called a "child" that resulted in what happened next.
The blast from the pistol shook Roahn's wrists as a wreath of flame emitted from the muzzle. The shockwave threatened to deafen her, roaring and bouncing its way through the tight confines of the hold.
A streak of light, visible for only a nanosecond, but bright and beautiful as it sliced through the air, spat on towards its target while dozens of eyes tracked its trajectory in horror.
There was a spark and a harsh ping resounded as the bullet punched a small hole into a pipe next to the Legionnaire's head. The cyborg had long predicted where the actual shot was going to impact, thus he had not bothered to move at all. Instead he merely took a sideways glance at the leaking pipe that was causing a superheated jet of invisible gas to flood out with a high-pitched wailing noise.
The Legionnaire's gaze briefly shifted from the pipe and back to the girl. Roahn still maintained her stance, her eyes still slit as she gripped the pistol tighter. Her chest fluttered heavily, her arms were aching quite badly now.
"Clever," the Legionnaire sarcastically lauded. "Going after the gas line in the hopes of inciting an explosion… a good effort. Shame that you tried to detonate the inert O3 lines. It's not a flammable mix."
"I know," Roahn nodded. "But it is if you combine it with xenon."
The last syllable had barely finished being uttered when Roahn, wasting no time, lightly pulled on the trigger of the pistol a second time. Another roar emitted as the gun bucked again, letting loose its red-hot payload in a fine line, directed towards a tube that had been positioned next to the already leaking O3 pipe, this one marked with the chemical symbol "Xe."
"No," the Legionnaire whispered to himself.
Another spark glimmered into existence.
Perxenates of microscopic crystalline structures flumed out of the leak in the pipe—alkaline agents already oxidizing in the presence of the nitrogen-oxygen mix. The perxenates, however, then were assaulted by the billowing jet of O3 that had been slowly seeping into the air. This caused the crystals to collide in mid-air, inciting them to rapidly absorb what little moisture they could out of the stale air. In a flash, they merged, producing a boiling heat as a result of the fusion they had undergone. Combined, the scope of the conflagration inherent in their potential energy was massive.
Blue fire erupted in seething coils, bursting the pipes at the seams as it created a wall from the inferno. The Legionnaire was bathed in the blaze in an instant, surrounded by the oxidizing gases that fed the charring and hungry energy. The cyborg let out an uncontrollable bellow, his body draped in sheets of the sapphire flames. His shields fizzled and shattered in hexagonal fragments. His metallic armor began to glow red, then white as it grew hotter. The troopers on the other side of the partition flinched back in terror, momentarily caught off guard.
"Go!" Roahn cried to her father, who was already clambering into the escape pod.
A calamitous series of barks and clangs from the corridor drew her attention away, just as she was about to follow Shepard into the pod. Bursting from the fire like a hellhound under the command of a demigod, the Legionnaire raced forward on all fours, snarling like a wild animal, flames licking at his chassis. The curling tendrils of the fire wrapped around his head, enhancing the otherworldly glow that emitted from his eyes. Roahn could only see murderous intent as the cyborg ripped the ground up with his clawed feet and hands, wrenching aside metal and steel to drive himself forward, the scorched and damaged body not willing to let such punishing heat slow it down.
"SHEPARD!" the Legionnaire screamed, the force of the shout seemingly yearning to tear both Roahn and Shepard apart from the inside out as it shook their bones and rattled their heads.
More atomic flares glimmered from the Legionnaire's feet as he made gouges in the grating. At this speed, he would be on top of them in moments, able to rip them apart or take them back into custody. The cyborg was only becoming more beastly as the fire transformed him, creating a shining wreath not unlike haptic armor that shrouded him, coddled him, that seemed to grow out of his very body as if the fire was natural to him. Wherever the machine touched, embers lingered behind to suck at the empty reserves of oxygen left down here in the hold. Ashes and cinders puffed out from the air intakes near the Legionnaire's column, almost as if he was expelling smoke with each breath.
The Legionnaire was almost on top of them and the monster raised a hand, steaming and boiling with heat, in preparation to strike.
But Roahn, thinking quickly, depressed the control for her scanning tool, letting a multitude of high-powered microwaves to burst forth from the emitter in her palm instantaneously. The waves, directed towards the electronics in the area, positively resonated joyously as they surged en route to wreak havoc wherever they had been sent off to.
The Legionnaire abruptly halted in place, frozen and statuesque. An alarm blared from his vocabulator, a series of two notes squealing unconsciously in a panic. All eight of the cyborg's optics flickered in an uncontrollable series, alternating between four on the left side and four on the right side of his head. The gears and hydraulics powering the Legionnaire's movements squealed to a stop as if they had suddenly rusted into place. For a brief moment, silence befell the lower deck.
Then, all of a sudden, the Legionnaire grasped at his head and gave a high-pitched shriek, a long howling note as all of his electronics went haywire. The feedback was sending excess electrical signals back into his brain, overloading many of his basic processes and causing a total and cataclysmic lockup. Staggering from side to side, the cyborg bellowed and gnashed as he smashed into the walls, trying to clear his head. His optics had now been completely filled with junk tabs, blinding him and strobing so rapidly that his nerves were about to seize up.
In tremendous pain, the Legionnaire sank to his knees, retching even though the remains of his esophagus was not designed to allow any nutrients to pass back up. Deaf, half-blind, and completely disoriented, the still cooking Legionnaire crawled on the floor, grasping at whatever lay in reach, still lashing out in his desperation to reach his target.
Roahn had finally clambered into the pod at this point and had thrown down the crash harness above her shoulders, being just barely tall enough to be kept from sliding around. The last image she had of the freighter before the pod doors slammed shut was the Legionnaire, looking forlornly at them in a mixture of pain and regret. The creatures eyes pulsated and it looked like he was about to reach out to them. A hand, draped in flame, stretched out one last time to pry his quarries from their destiny.
Yet destiny's wheels were already in motion—too strong for the Legionnaire to halt them in their tracks.
The heavy doors of the pod smashed shut with a ferocious clang. Six separate bangs then reverberated within the pod, a prelude to a terrifying shudder and a vague tugging sensation that began to pull at the bodies of the two individuals inside the pod. The craft had launched.
They were away.
As they tumbled, the bright glow from the nearby planet's atmosphere wafted into the pod, the curvature of the world nearly a straight line as the gravity pulled them in further and further. The pod soon began to straighten as it entered the atmosphere, sending micro-shudders throughout its construction. The interior of the pod started to grow a little hot, but the thermal shielding was compensating for the immense friction of reentry nicely.
Regardless, Roahn clenched her hands upon the safety harness, shaking within its protective embrace, and tried so very hard not to scream.
Next to her, Shepard, who had been keeping his eyes shut the whole time, opened his mouth in a soundless roar, letting the infernal noise of the atmosphere scraping off the surface of the pod fill his mind, drowning out the tender whispers that had been steadily growing there for the last few minutes.
A lingering reminder…
A loving voice…
All he heard was his miserable failure.
"I did get better, Shepard. I got you."
"A young woman gets rescued by a dashing commander who lets her join his crew and then goes off to save the galaxy? How could she possibly develop any kind of interest in him?"
"Wherever you go, I'm with you."
"I have a home. Come back to me."
The words tumbled together in his brain in a soupy mess. They blended, coalesced, and repeated themselves endlessly, to Shepard's chagrin. Within this damnable escape pod, his fever dream, bolstered by the growing heat, scaled in intensity, eagerly slipping through the cracks in his armor now that his weaknesses were exposed.
Roahn… he wanted to cry out, but his jaw was locked shut. I'm sorry!
A/N: We are now growing closer and closer to the final act of this story. I really hope all of you have either enjoyed or have been enraptured by Cenotaph so far. I'd really love to hear your thoughts on the progress of the story, not to mention your thoughts on this chapter as well. As before, I'm always open to thoughtful feedback. Me, I'm just happy to have gotten this far. This is the part that I really enjoy.
Playlist:
The Last Night: "A Small Measure of Peace" by Hans Zimmer from the film The Last Samurai
Radiation: "Welcome to the Real World" by Hans Zimmer and Andrew Kawczynski from the film Chappie
Shepard is Released/Sneaking Through Ship: "Escape from Hellgate" by James Horner from the film Avatar
Cyborg on Fire/The Escape: "Apollo 11 Launch" by Justin Hurwitz from the film First Man