She made sure she wasn't followed, but Sarah was convinced the... other Shepard was set on going the other way. What a strange and confusing encounter, and she didn't had the luxury of appreciating it. The situation had evolved dramatically in a matter of minutes, and she didn't had the time to assimilate everything. She knew what he had to do.

Protect the technology, find a way out.

Preferably before "Cutie pie" began to makes things explodes. Sarah had a hunch she wouldn't hesitate to kill them both.

That woman was making her... angry somehow. And relieved. She had so many conflicting emotions, and apparently the other wasn't holding her lovingly in her heart either. Maybe it was just upsetting to fathom the idea of another Shepard, whatever her origin.

She wished she could talk to someone about it.

She wished Liara was there.

Head into battle soldier!

A hundred meters away from the objective, and maybe another horde of cyborgs. Those were truly strange creatures, dangerously reminding her of the worst parts of the Reaper War. In fact, if the technology was vastly different from the ones used by the Reapers, she couldn't help but notice a few similarities. The obscene reuse of organic matter into synthetic murdering abominations

Was it a secret facility? Maybe another Cerberus lab gone wrong. No, probably not. Cerberus was dead, buried and dissolved, she made sure of that. There were always mad scientists though, but she had no way to be sure.

Whatever those creatures were supposed to be, they hadn't found her Prometheus yet. It was still sitting there, in the back of the dry garden, like an enormous and extravagant decoration. The thought of keeping it as a souvenir crossed her mind in a flash and made her smile. She had to stop collecting things.

Getting into the pod, she began to transfer all data to her omnitool, and then fried the whole system. It was a pity, but she couldn't risk those infos to fall into enemies hand. It took only 4 minutes to destroy every usable equipment. She regretted not having brought more weapons, but she did always travelled light. With only 20 shots in her rifle, though she had to be careful.

Now came the difficult part.

Using the thermogel, she drew a circle along the red lines beneath the deactivated console. A simple electric pulse made the translucent gel melt the metal and evaporate into toxic fumes, thankfully blocked by the filter of Sarah's armour. The disc of metal, now disconnected from the rest, was easy to remove. A soft blue glow emanated from underneath.

A sphere of black metal, the size of a small fist, had been placed there. It connected to the rest of the ship by multiple cables and surrounded by a shifting blue mass effect field, making it look ethereal. Sarah never tired of admiring it, whole civilisations had been based on tiny fragments such as the one inside the containment sphere. The Element Zero core, the most valuable part of the Prometheus.

With great care, she activated her left omnitool, her Quarian arm covering itself in the orange glow of the holoprojector, and slowly slid it through the hole. Micro lasers on the tip of her fingers delicately cut the different wires around the eezo core. She could feel hers "flesh" shift in mass around the field, it was very dangerous to approach an active one so closely. Then again, it was an emergency, and her omnitool was creating its own mass effect to compensate a little for the possible degradations.

Finally, the shifting aura faded as its power source was cut, and only the black sphere remained. Softly, Sarah took it in her hand and dislodged it. That was it, there was nothing more in the pod those cyborgs could scavenge, everything had been cleansed. She put the core on her belt, lacking any real pocket on her armour. It was stable in this form, the only risk was a breach of the containment unit. But she wouldn't had mind giving cancer to the monstrosities.

-Techie, you hear me?

-Loud and clear, answered Sarah, slightly annoyed by the sound of the other's voice.

-Don't take the elevators. Those things have taken over at least 5 level around the 8th.

-Any difficulties?

-Yeah, disruptor ammo have no effect on any of them, and they carry some sort of energy gun. Any progress on your end?

-I've cleared the Prometheus and...

The communication suddenly stopped. The link had been cut brutally, her omnitool indicating a hacking in progress.

Then a deep mechanical voice took over.

-We are the Borg.

Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own.

Resistance is futile.

And then, nothing.

The commander had drawn her gun and pointed it at the entrance, acting on instinct. She was alone, and no sound of heavy boots in the corridor. They may have had located her through the communication, but they weren't in the vicinity. Yet.

She stormed out. No one. No sound.

The other... Cutie Pie was probably in trouble, but on the other hand she had to secure an exit for them both. The decision was simple. Her unwilling partner was on her own for now, and she had no idea where she was. They both needed a way out other than getting spaced.

She ran through the white corridors, her pistol ready in her hand. Several times, she heard the march of a Borg patrol, looking for her without a doubt. But they were slow and clumsy, and with a map of the placeas her weapon , she escaped their notice without any difficulty. The thought of having them in her back was troubling her, but there was no way she could withstand an assault if they were all onto her.

The other one told her not to use the elevators, and for a good reason. As she approached one, two borgs were guarding it. Those mechanical beasts may not have been the most mobile enemy, but they knew how to occupy territory. With a whisper, she turned invisible.

The two borgs were completely immobile, unwaveringly looking straight forward. Then there was a terrible shriek, and one of them fell, cut in in half from the hip to the shoulder. The other barely had the time to turn the head that five detonations torn his face and head implants apart. His body fell to the ground like concrete, convulsing madly despite the critical injury. A female silhouette appeared as the photoreceptors on Sarah's armour deactivated. She put several bullets in the other's brain, to satisfy her paranoid survival instinct, and holstered her handgun.

Clutching her metallic fist, she gathered strength and momentum and slammed it violently in the elevator doors. They bended through the terrible shock, enough for Shepard to slid both her hand through. Already she could hear the inexorable march of the Borg, alerted of her presence. That only made her more determined, and without any apparent effort, she pushed the doors to the side.

But there was no cable inside. Just an empty tube. Looking up and down, she could see that it was far from being an usual elevator. There were multiple paths, some horizontal. Clearly it was more of a specialised highway than a simple up and down button. And the borg were closing in.

Think Shepard, think!

She tapped on her omnitool and prepared for the leap of faith.

Just as a patrol came from the corner, she stepped in the empty tube. Spreading her legs as close as possible to opposite part of the tube, she activated her grav boots. Both of her feet were suddenly attracted to the nearest surface, but Sarah resisted the gravitational pull, and she fell down... far slower that she should have.

Her grav boots acting like brakes on a falling elevator, she speeded through the tunnel, controlling her velocity to prevent her losing control and actually falling in the seemingly endless pit. But one her feet passed in front of an horizontal tunnel. Brutally deprived of footing, Shepard tripped to the side, grabbing the edge of the smooth elevator highway purely on reflexes.

Far above, she could see a borg looking at her, taking aim. The first shot missed, but the powerful blast of green plasma burned through the walls just beside her. In one desperate move, she jumped upward, to the opposite side of the tunnel, her grav boot gluing her foot to it for a fraction of a second. And with a powerful leap that made her leg scream in pain, she rushed into the horizontal tunnel, escaping another blast behind her.

Her body crashed and rolled on the ground but immediately got up. She was out of sight, even if they knew in which part of the station she was. Bringing up the maps, she scurried away before the Borgs had the idea of bringing an elevator to crush her where she stood.

It took her several minutes to find her way undetected into the base of the station through the elevator highways. Switching between maintenance tunnels and vertical lift tubes, she managed to quickly travel the distance and finally arrived at the very base of the space station. There was only one door leading to the alcove she had noticed on the map, and she didn't like it.

But there wasn't any room for comfort, so she pried open the door anyway. It was far easier from the inside and the doors opened without any difficulty... to a large room full of monitors and completely devoid of borgs.

The base of the station was a circular cone pointing downward and surrounded by transparent glass, letting calm light of stars irradiate gently illumate the room. The elevator was at the centre, and all around were dozens of computers ergonomically placed so that multiple people could operate them without bumping on each other.

It wasn't a hangar nor an emergency exit pod station, and that was a bad news, but Sarah was curious nonetheless. There was no power here, yet the Borg didn't seemed to have reached that level yet. Maybe that meant that they were still in the process of acquiring the station. Maybe there were still people in here, alive and fighting. And with answers.

Looking around, Shepard found a very pleasant surprise. On the wall was a detailed map of the whole station. She took a picture and studied it.

To her delight, she located the actual hangar, a little above her level, accessible through the "Turbolift" tunnels. And even more, she learned that she was in the communication centre. The Borgs must have had the power cut as soon as they began their "addition" of station "to their own". They were bulky and slow, but smart enough to disrupt communications and send patrols at the best places. Thankfully, Sarah didn't need a fully operational comm centre. She only needed to link her omnitool to an emitter and boost her signal as far as she could.

Rummaging through the room, looking for something familiar, the revelation finally hit Sarah. She was far, far from home. The tech was indeed both familiar and extremely alien. She had travelled throughout the galaxy, meeting aliens and learning about their culture, familiarising herself with their weaponry and various technical skills. Yet this was new... and... old. She couldn't quite put her finger on it.

One thing for sure, they made no use of any VI, nor any holo console. However, they still used radio signals to communicate, and there was an antenna. And that was enough.

She opened panels on the ground and dug her hand in the guts of the machine. The power being out, the only danger was to destroy some component, but considering her situation, it was the least of her problem.

She finally found what she supposed was the link to the emitter and wired it to her arm.

She knew the Borg would descend on her as soon as she activated it, and try to scramble her communication. She had to act fast and clever.

-SOS, SOS, Borg on the station. This is commander Shep/

And the comm was suddenly cut. The whole frequency had been filled with noise, making any attempt to communicate impossible. Interestingly enough, even if the Borgs had been extremely quick to react, they couldn't jammed all transmissions at once.

Time to get out.

But just as she as going for the turbolift when a deep vibration filled the empty tube. A lift was coming. Shepard realised that the Borg had been waiting for such an opportunity, having probably a squad in ambush, ready to run to her position. And she was trapped.

She jumped on the side as the lift appear, and three borgs got out and deployed the room. But they saw nothing. Sarah had hid herself in the comm room, crouching behind the consoles rather than activating her power hungry cloak. She could take them, without a doubt. But even then, there would be more. Already the lift had disappeared, probably making way for another batch of fresh killing machines.

But the commander had survived far worse. She took her rifle, three shots before she needed to change the thermoclip. Concentrating deeply and she activated her secret weapon. Through her will, a small biotic field enveloped the metal of her ammunition, ready to tear apart anything that came near it with a biologically induced mass effect field. Using her small biotic talents was draining. But so worth it. The three mechanical monsters checked the room with cold determination, inexorably approaching her position. Already Sarah could hear another Turbolift coming in.

She took aim and shot... at the glass.

The first two shots resonated, loud and deafening in the closed room. They stroke a force field, but nonetheless disrupted it. The borgs turned sharply, and aim at her position. Far too late.

The third shot completely shattered the heavy glass, the mass effect field surrounding the bullet twisting it, tearing it apart in an instant. It exploded spectacularly, and the void of space sucked both Shepard and the Borgs outside.

Having prepared herself, Sarah grabbed the edge of the window with her left hand and whirled violently, the momentum smashing her against the exterior of the station. She saw the three borgs silently pass her by, trying to grab at something, but unable to resist the sudden exfiltration. To her surprise, they were still perfectly functional, even in the void of space, but their course was now deep space. And soon, they were invisible to the human eye, lost in the darkness.

Her grav boots kicked in and she could get up. She was now on the station, the head toward the infinite and only her armour protecting her from suffocation. She refrained from taking a deep breath, saving oxygen for when the Borg would follow her out there. She didn't know if they could work as well in vacuum as inside the station, but wasn't willing to find out.

Activating her omnitool she summoned the maps, and located the hangar bay.

In a curt move, she ejected a 30 cm long cylinder from her weapon. The thermoclip was glowing orange form the heat it absorbed from the shots, but Shepard took it none the less and attached it to her side. In space, it would cool itself nicely.

And she knew she would need ever bit of firepower in the next minutes of space walk.


-We are the Borg.

Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own.

Resistance is futile.

-Trash talk never gets old.

Behind Lauren, the elevator door had been blasted open from the inside, and the elevator itself was missing. Instead, the superior half of a borg was clinging to the edge, trying not to fall in the bottomless pit as his insides were barely holding in. The whole section had its white walls blackened by plasma fire, and covered of a translucent liquid, that turned out to be Borg blood. With her slenderly designed N7 Eagle handgun, she granted the agonising monster another hole in the head, shoving it off balance and sending him down with the rest of his death squad. And the elevator.

She took a deep breath. The fight had been short, but intense, she never expected those creature to find her so quickly, or to fight so well in close combat. To make matters worse, they seemed now all equipped with weapons and some form of force shield, akin to kinetic barrier, but easier to overcome. So far. There was no doubt, those creatures, those "Borgs" were adapting their equipment in real time to counter her own tactics.

However, they didn't withstood the full barrage of fury sprung by her automatic close combat personal devastator, the N7 Piranha. She had barely used any other weapons than her Valkyrie during the Reaper war, but she was glad to have add the bulky black shotgun to her arsenal in the Prometheus.

Judging from the ominous sound of heavy boots closing in, she was going to need every edge she had to survive.

First of all, she had to plan her route. She didn't had enough thermoclips to indulge herself in wanton destruction, and whatever source of energy those Borgs used, she couldn't scavenge it. Running in the opposite direction, her Valkyrie back in her hands, she quickly assessed her situation.

Being blocked at the 13th level was her biggest problem. As soon as she entered it, she had been automatically led here to be sliced to pieces by an ambush. Turned out differently than they thought, although her whole body was still shaken by the terror she endured at that moment. A terror that kept her alive, once again.

Opening the map gracefully conceded by her royal majesty Techie, she quickly selected her best routes. There were multiple access ladders to the upper level. She took the second closest and run to it.

Getting up the first one was easy. She couldn't help but feel a different atmosphere around. There was a deep buzzing coming from up high, probably the power source. But also in the aesthetic. Running through the 12th level, she saw that it hadn't only been stripped, but also modified. The whole structure was being redesigned from the inside. Looking more... rectangular, sharper.

Three borgs appeared in the corner at the end of the corridor. Her body reacting on its own, Shepard stopped, secured her footing, aimed, and fired three burst of two bullets. Her armour guiding her hands and compensating for the recoil, she hit the bullseye three time in a row. Each time the first bullet disabled the shield temporarily, and the second buried itself in the head of the borg. Quick and efficient. The three already dead bodies fell to the ground, inanimate.

-Scoped an' dropped, she muttered under her breath with a grin.

So far, those cyborgs were a challenge up close, but mere target practice at range. She continued her on her path to the other ladders. Frequently, she'd hear a patrol nearby, and she'd try to avoid it. Despite her confidence, she knew that any prolonged fight would only get tougher and tougher as she went on.

And as much as she'd love a challenge, she wasn't here for pleasure. She had a job to do.

Getting up at the 11th floor was easier than she thought. The change in atmosphere was also a change in overhaul design. Many ladders had been sealed, but many more new ones had been carved from the ceiling. She could hear borgs working the metal in the distance. They were building something, inside the station. And Shepard was heading right to it.

As she climbed one of the untouched ladder and entered a room completely in the dark, save for a soft pulsating green glow. Shepard shifted her helmet to night vision and was stunned by the view.

There wasn't any white walls anymore, nor any ceiling for that matter. All the walls, all the rooms, all the corridors had been cut down and collected on at least 7 levels, all to create on gigantic structure whose size made Lauren feel crushed. It was a cube, a gigantic one, made of black metal torn from the station and remodelled into grids, upon grids, so far and so high that she couldn't see through it. From the inside of this beast several eery lights were pulsating, colouring the colossal building with its dark green aura.

The Cube had pillar-like arms, buried into the walls that separated it from outer space, maintaining its massive weight in check. The whole thing seemed to come out of one of Javik's tales of the Metacon wars of his time. When the Galaxy was in danger of being destroyed by hybrids of organics and synthetics. Her resolve steeled instantly. Somewhere inside that thing was the source of the energy spikes. And she was going to make it rip the whole station apart if necessary.

Looking for an entrance was easy, there were multiple breach in the structure, leading to long corridors and elevating platform allowing to navigate through the multiple levels. But before she could enter, a patrol of three borgs appeared from the corner of the Cube. She took aim in an instant, but didn't pull the trigger. She could see it from there, those borg were fully armoured with dark plating all over their body. The VI integrated in her weapon and armoured calculated in milisecond the thickness of it, and it was too much for simply a couple of bullets. The bastards were adapting a little too fast.

Appearing from the darkness of the Cube, a powerful hand gripped her shoulder so hard it could have broken it if it wasn't plated. Instinctively, Lauren grabbed the hand and ducked, evading what seemed to be two sharp dart aimed at her head. She spun and twisted the assailant arm and exchange places with him. Just as she made him stood where she was an instant ago, three blue mass effect fields reaped the borg were he stood, propelling him at lightening velocity a hundred meters away, in several pieces.

The Commander plunged head first deeper in the structure to find cover. Her mind was overcome by the sudden realisation. The borgs didn't just upgraded their armour, they had build grav-guns with mass effect fields! No time to think, she had to either fight or flight, and she chose to escape first. She couldn't take the risk of dealing with new enemies on open ground, and she just hoped that she wasn't heading into a trap.

The inside of the Borg Cube was extremely well ordered and ergonomic. There was nothing left to chance in the rough design, with long corridors along series of strange monitors, the grids crossing each other in a perfect angle. It was admirably done, and exceptionally good to get attacked by surprise.

With no one to watch her back, Shepard knew she had to be efficient and extremely careful. First, she had to lose her opponents. Right at the moment she was conjuring that thought, two deformed arms ambushed her from the corner. The two fell to the ground in a flash, as her red omniblade severed them both like a hot knife on butter. The Borg stayed idle for a moment, then turned its back and walked away without any form of pain or panic.

She had no time for this, already her instincts were telling her the heavy patrol was nearly to her entrance, and she had only run a hundred meters. She didn't knew the range of their gun, but she knew the range of hers.

Lauren detached a heavy black rectangular from her back and activated it by pressing a switch. The gun deployed, becoming a meter and half canon more akin to artillery than to rifles. Lauren, knelt, took aim and lightly open her mouth to prevent her teeth from touching. The first Borg appeared at the entrance, and she took the shot. Her whole body shook as she absorbed the terrible recoil of the Black Widow, her feet brutally bending the metal grids behind her. The Borg wasn't even hindered in his motion, but soon its walk became slower, and finally stopped. It didn't seemed to have realised its head had been obliterated, and its neck implants were red hot of the sudden impact. Behind it, a terrible deep sound indicated the shot had reached the wall. Thankfully, it hadn't pierced it.

A familiar detonation resonated in the air, and the lifeless body of the borg was hurled forward by another mass effect field. Shepard was fast, but not that fast. She could only bring her massive gun in front of her as the decapitated body smashed on her with such a violence she was thrown to the ground a few meter away. The bastard was heavy.

She grunted and rolled cadaver to the side, out of breath. Her body was screaming in pain, another human would have been at least knocked out. But for Lauren, pain was good news. It meant those in front had missed, and that she was still alive. She ducked into a perpendicular corridor. There was no way she could fire the dreaded Black widow in close quarter, but she was glad to have used it that effectively. Even ships designed to resist entering atmosphere were getting holes from that baby.

But for now she had to destroy those pursuers. The Borg were relentless, once spotted they never gave up the chase. But they were otherwise very avoidable. The main problem was their new armour, but her Piranha should make short work of it. Unless they shot first.

She holstered her Widow, reducing it to its compact size, and put a mine on her position. Jumping across the main corridor, she saw the Borg took aim, but not shoot. It meant two things. One they were reluctant to shoot such destructive weapons inside their own Cube. Second, the third armoured Borg was unaccounted for, probably trying to flank her. This was a game of chess, the one to win would be the one to trap the other.

It was time to take a little height. Rushing to the next elevator, which revealed itself to be merely a moving metal plate, she realised it wouldn't move for a non-borg. Nevertheless, hearing the boots of the one who threw the other borg at her, she climbed the grid and jumped to grab the edge of the next level. As she was just standing there, vulnerable, the sharp detonation of her mine brought her a smile. She pulled herself up, noticing her adversary, face first on the ground, but barely scathed by the explosion. She now had a little heads up, and she rushed forward, keep them from cornering her.

But they were smarter that she gave them credit for.

The second armoured one appeared before her, dominating her with his massive black body. He lifted his left arm, a blue glow building around it. Her blood boiled as fear took control and she grabbed the arm and pointed it up. At the same time, two sharp sticks grew from the fingers of his other hand and were aimed at her throat. She intercepted it too, just as they were going to make contact with her.

That monster was powerful, even more so than a Krogan, his metallic members pressing on her so hard she could feel her muscles burning in the effort. Then she heard the tingle. To her horror, the two sharp sticks were in fact flexible, and were now prodding the armour of her finger in search for a weakness, like two parasitical worms with life of their own.

She shifted her weight and headbutted the Borg.

The sudden and unexpected attack threw him off balance, enough for Shepard to activate her omniblade, release her grip on the grav canon and cut the right arm of the creature, killing instantly the metal worms before they could find their way to her skin. The cyborg wasn't stunned however, and he dangerously pointed his remaining arm to her. Like in slow motion, Lauren witnessed herself jump forward, blade still hot. She saw her weapon bury itself under the shoulder and progress to the heart.

And she saw, powerless, the grav-gun shoot, point blank.

The rest was confusion.

She woke up brutally, her body still burning of adrenaline, masking all other sensations. Her vision was blurred, her breath was short, her ears ringing. She tried to move, and felt restraint. She panicked, liberating her arm from the unknown grip and repeatedly smashing her elbow at whatever was behind her. The vibration dislodged her as her vision came back. Before her was a hole. Several holes. She had been blasted diagonally through five level before being embedded on what appeared to be the side of a pod.

How long had she been out? She had her answer quickly, as far below, she saw the armoured borg walk to its colleague, whose insides were dropping from his lifeless body. The only remaining armoured hunter looked up at her, and aimed. She fell more than jumped to the side, and the pod where she was seconds ago was crushed by the sudden pressure of the mass effect field. She crawled away, an awful sensation in her guts. She knew the feeling, she had been rammed through walls before.

Her helmet fell to the ground and she regurgitated everything her stomach contained. Her mouth burned as her own acid were attacking her tongue, coming up in uncontrolled spasms. Her vomit filtered through the grids and splashed downward in a disgusting and slimy way. Lauren's body was also waking up, and she felt tore apart, as if her insides had been turn to mush. Her back was bleeding, despite being treated automatically by her armour, making the fabric of her cloth stick to the wounds. It would be a pain to tear it away from the coagulated blood.

But Lauren Shepard had survived once again.

A metallic boot made the grid trembled.

-Of fucking course...

She tried to reach for her handgun but lost balance and fell on the side. A borg was approaching right in front of her... and passed her by, ignoring her even paying attention to the human, helpless at its feet, the Borg knelt and began to use its tools to repair the floor.

Lauren was stunned. What... was happening? She slowly approached her hands to her gun and the Borg froze. He was seeing her! Just as carefully, she put her hand away, and the Borg resumed operation. That borg was like an ant-worker. And the ant-hunter was still chasing her. She got up as best she could, her legs resisting commands. The green light were much more intense there, it was a whole different level.

A level whose inhabitants may not perceive her as a threat, unless she disturbed their work.

She still had at least one borg unit aimed at her, but he was five level below. Time to get back to work, and blow the hell of those things.