Chapter 14
3o minutes earlier
Rokane worked at the console while Lois continued to try to get a signal across on her omni-tool. She watched the quarian and regretted bringing him into this situation. They had met a few years back when Lois beat him out of a hand in poker. Ever since then, to pay her back he had helped her in what stories he could.
"Something just knocked out communications between the Geth, this can give us a chance to escape" exclaimed Rokane as he never looked away from the console. They were still aboard their Kodiak shuttle and were locked aboard a Geth transport. Lois had hoped that when Clark called her that meant someone was looking for her. She still had no idea what was happening outside the shuttle, only that there was a Geth armada possibly being led by a mad scientist. It all made for a juicy story, one she could not stay away from.
Whatever was going on in space had caused a window for their escape and so Rokane piloted the small shuttle away from the larger transport ship. With minimal power to hide their signature, Rokane hoped they would not be seen on Geth radar, but whatever was happening was far more important; no ships were attacking them or signaling them.
The whole time Lois was messing with her omni-tool, when a message pinged. It was from an antique system, but the message still came across. At first she did not recognize the code, but then she remembered years of her father's military lessons. The small message was an SOS with coordinates.
"Rokane, punch in these coordinates" Lois said finally understanding what the brief message meant. Rokane nodded and made the course adjustments. Lois looked over his shoulder and saw that the location was a bunker on the planet Haestrom. She took a seat down in the chair next to Rokane and attempted to open a channel to the mysterious sender of the message.
There was no answer as they neared the ancient quarian planet. On a whim, Rokane checked the sensors and saw erratic movement happening all around the solar system.
"Something is moving all over the system, it's almost too hard to track its movement" Rokane noted as he checked the sensors. Lois had a good idea as to what could be moving so quick that not even sensors could keep track of; Superman. He must be here trying to stop whatever was going on.
They landed on the surface, only a few yards from the bunker the signal came from, which surprised them. The pair cautiously emerged from the shuttle, with sidearms drawn. They entered the bunker with no trouble and found the last door leading to where the signal originated. As the door opened, the quarian and human entered and swept the room. Rokane was impressed by Lois's military prowess in sweeping a room for targets. As Lois swept her weapon around the room she noticed a quivering salarian in the corner.
"Please don't shoot!" yelled the salarian as he stood up with his arms in the air. Lois and Rokane lowered their weapons, both realizing that as long as he was not Geth, he must have another reason for being here. Lois and Rokane both looked at one another and then back to the salarian. It looked like he had been in the bunker for a few days. Lois approached him and introduced herself and Rokane.
"We're not going to hurt you, I'm Lois Lane and this is my friend Rokane. We got your message" Lois said as she placed her pistol on her belt, signaling for Rokane to do the same. The salarian perked up after hearing someone had got his message. He dropped his hands and let out a long sigh as the approached the pair.
"Good, I am Doctor Emil Hamiltin. You're here with Superman then, yes?" he asked with a nervous smile.
"Superman is here then?!" exclaimed Lois louder than she wanted to say, "Great, but no we were here before him, trying to figure out what was going on. Do you have any idea?"
"Yes," started the salarian as he turned around, rubbing his hands together, "but now that you are here; I need to get a message to Superman as quickly as possible."
Present time
"Doctor Hamiltin? As in the guy responsible for all of this?" asked Superman as he hovered in the weightlessness of the upper atmosphere of Haestrom.
"Uh, yes and no" In the background of the call, Superman could hear Lois repeat what the salarian said in an angry tone. "I mean yes" he corrected, "But I can help. I created the Brainiac but never intended for it to do all of this and now that it is fully functional, in order to disable it completely you will need to shut down all of its mainframes. Otherwise it will continue creating physical forms of itself and never stop its mission."
"Do you know where these mainframes are?" asked Superman who was starting to get impatient as he applied his breather and continued flying towards Brainiac's solar station. He figured that if Lois was berating the salarian in the background, he could be trusted, to an extent.
"Earlier I had nearly pinpointed one on the Citadel, but now I fear there is another inside the station it built on the exterior of Haestrom's star, Dholen. You must destroy both of them or he will never stop…I am so sorry I brought this upon everybody, Superman." The salarian was genuinely guilty, he had never imagined his system to turn out like it did, and he only hoped he could fix the situation.
"I'll take care of it, just make sure you guys are safe, I'm picking up some weird radiation fluctuations from the star" Superman said as he ended the call and just reached an entrance to the solar station. The intense heat caused him to breath hard as he flew through the magnetic field protecting the inside of the station and found what appeared to be one of Brainiac's mainframes.
The Geth were no longer present inside the station, being summoned away to fight Superman. He reached a console that overlooked the main pump, which was still sending in huge amounts of concentrated eezo. Superman studied the console for a second and then did the only thing he thought he could; he plunged his fist through the main screen. Sparks and flames erupted from the console and its connecting systems as Superman turned and faced the mainframe behind him. With the main console shutdown, the exterior shielding of the station was beginning to fail as Superman started to feel the intense heat building. With everything around him starting to burn and crumble, he floated off the metal ground and directed himself to fly directly through Brainiac's mainframe.
He fought the gravitational forces as he cut through the metal structure and shot out of the station, reaching open space. He watched as the station exploded and was swallowed into the star, leaving no trace of it behind. Superman looked back down at his crystalline omni-tool and could still see there were some strange readings coming from the interior of the star. While looking he also noted that he was now at 75% yellow solar power.
Superman now focused on Haestrom as he took off in space towards the planet. On the way he accessed a signal on his omni-tool he hoped to only call in an emergency.
"I'm guessing that whatever you are dealing with has something to do with this chaotic mess on the Citadel?" asked the deep gruff voice on the other end.
"Guilty" admitted Superman as he soared closer to Haestrom, "And I need your help with something. There is a mainframe on the Citadel that is housing an advanced rogue VI; do you think you can find it?"
"All of the networks are going haywire here, even mine. I can try to locate it, but I am dealing with other problems. Standby and I will see if I can send you the coordinates."
"Thanks Batman" replied Superman just before the line went dead. Superman now wanted to check on the pieces of Brainiac on the planet, make sure they were disabled and then head to the Citadel to end all of it. He swooped down to the planet's surface to where he left Brainiac frozen and let out a sigh of relief, seeing that it was still incased in thick ice.
Superman stepped closer to the frozen pile of metal and parts as he once again let his irises ignite. His intention was to incinerate every last piece of the android and then move onto the Citadel. He focused his vision on the first nanite he saw when heard something approach from behind him.
"Superman" the voice was toneless and as Superman quickly turned to face what caused it he felt several punctures strike him in his torso and back. Before he knew what was happening, he was face to face with another Brainiac as it drove its own arm into Superman's chest with several metal tentacles extending out of it. A pain surged all through his body as it felt like his very essence was being drained from him. Superman fell to his knees as he wearily looked up to Brainiac, who had detached its arm, leaving it to reform on Superman.
The arm split itself into quadrants as the upper two parts of it swirled over Superman's shoulders and the other two swung underneath them to come together on his back. Several tentacles still wriggled from the main four pieces of the arm, burrowing through Superman's suit and into his skin.
"There is no stopping this program from completing its primary objective. The more you struggle against the solar siphon, the more energy it will drain from your cells; escape is futile" Brainiac spoke as a new arm formed from its empty socket. With its new arm, it approached the ice pile and extended its hand towards it and with a spark, ignited a stream of flames upon it.
The ice melted rapidly as Superman could only watch. He struggled to remove the harness, but as Brainiac said, every time even touched the metal it drew more of his vitality and sent him in agony. Still on his knees, he curled his fists and fought with every ounce of his being, but the harness was too embedded into him. He could feel the metal appendages move all through his muscles and into his bones.
Free from the ice, the original Brainiac unit began to rebuild itself piece by piece. Starting at its legs and forming upwards, within seconds it was completely reformed. Both of the Brainiac units looked at one another and then back to Superman. The original unit stepped forward and looked down at Superman.
"This program has studied and observed you, Superman. It discovered that your body relies on the solar reserves of a specialized suit in order function at peak levels" Brainiac reached down and grabbed Superman by his throat and hoisted him up to eye level. Superman struggled to get free, but could do nothing to fight the android. Brainiac then swung Superman around and threw him towards the other waiting Brainiac unit, who reached back and slammed its fist into Superman's gut sending him skidding across the rocky terrain.
"You no longer register as a threat to this program" code flashed across each of the Brainiacs eyes as they watched Superman come to a stop several yards away from them. They then looked at one another and communicated through their own internal network.
They knew that with the solar station destroyed they could not introduce anymore eezo, but with the amount that was already inside, it may be enough. As long as they got to it before the star could naturally burn up all the eezo inside of it, they would be able to trigger the reaction and open a relay to the Reapers. Wasting no time both of the Brainiacs took off into the skyline, leaving Superman to watch in anger as they headed for Dholen.
Superman writhed to get free from Brainiac's device, but as much strength he put into it, the more he lost. The pain was starting to get unbearable as he could feel himself drifting into unconsciousness, when he thought he heard someone call him by his real name. Through his blurring vision he could see three figures running towards him, before he closed his eyes and everything went dark.
"Ms. Lane we can't be out here very long, the solar radiation is increasing!" yelled Hamiltin as he trailed behind the intrepid reporter. After he had told Superman what he needed to do to stop Brainiac, he reiterated what Superman had told him about staying in a bunker for safety to Lois, but she brushed him off. She insisted Rokane get a working image of what was happening outside, when they saw on the long sensors that Superman had destroyed the solar pump station and was now on his way back to Haestrom.
A relief washed over all of them as they could feel the end to the ordeal coming. Hamiltin told them that Superman had landed on Haestrom's surface, not far from where their bunker was. He attempted to redirect the scanners to get a better look, when he spotted what looked like two Brainiacs standing over an injured Superman. Lois pushed the salarian out of the way to see for herself and confirmed that Superman was down and that there were now two super powered androids.
Lois immediately began to backtrack the way they had come in to reach the outside. Rokane followed quickly behind her as Hamiltin hesitated and then followed suite. Their Kodiak shuttle was just outside the bunker as Lois climbed in and Rokane hopped in the pilot's seat after her, engaging the engines to life.
Hamiltin had just barely made it in as they skimmed across the terrain and reached Superman within minutes. Now running towards him, they could see a metal harness attached to his chest and that he had fallen unconsciousness. Lois knelt next to Superman as Hamiltin and Rokane huddled over him, analyzing the device.
"Can you get it off of him?" Lois pleaded, looking at Hamiltin. The doctor rubbed his chin, theorizing that the device was absorbing energy from Superman. If he could reverse the process, he may be able to return the energy, and then have to figure out a way to detach it.
Hamiltin said nothing as he knelt beside Lois and pulled a small tool kit from his coat pocket. The harness had a node hub in the middle of Superman's chest, which Hamiltin assumed was the control center for the device. From his tool kit, he grabbed a laser cutter and brought it the hub to open it up and as soon as the laser activated Superman gritted his teeth and tensed up.
"Hold him down" stated Hamiltin to both Rokane and Lois as he continued cutting into the device, hoping he could work fast enough.