"Demolition charges!" Kaidan cried out as the cargo train approached the station. "The geth must have set them!"
Shepard followed his finger towards the cylindrical object planted by the support struts, and frowned.
"Godamnit. We'll need to disarm them ASAP. Alenko!" She barked, glancing at the sentinel. "We'll cover you!"
"Aye aye ma'am." He nodded.
"Company!" Ashley shouted, as the geth made the electronic warbling they'd come to recognize as the synthetic's battle cry, targeting the group as the train came to a halt.
"Go, focus on the bomb." Shepard urged, giving the biotic an encouraging shove in the right direction.
Kaidan hurried over to the bomb, crouching down beside it with his omnitool activated. Shepard and Ashley closed rank around him, firing as they went, making the geth pay for every step they took.
A soft hiss and mechanical clicking signalled Kaidan's success, and he added his biotics to their attacks, flinging a red geth shrieking to its death on the electrified tracks below.
"Need to move, Commander." He rasped. "There are three other ones here."
"How can you tell?" Ashley demanded.
"The Lieutenant can explain when we're safe." Shepard interrupted. "Someone needs to tell the Captain what happened here."
Neither marine argued with that point and quickly dashed for the second bomb, both soldiers forming a human wall to protect the sentinel as he worked. Shepard eyed the bridge to the main area of the space port dubiously, watching the geth moving in on the other side.
"This is gonna get messy." She grunted, shifting her grip on her rifle.
"Yeah. Who knows how many geth that squid ship dropped off." Ash said, blasting a group of drones out of the sky. "If we see of those big geth whilst we're on that bridge, we're not going have a good time."
"You're telling me." Shepard sighed, lining up her sights along the bridge with Ash's.
A big geth did indeed turn up, this time a solid red one, instead of black and gold, like they'd seen before.
"Oh fuck me." Shepard groaned. "Lieutenant?"
"Almost there, Commander!" Kaidan replied.
"Can't you just snipe him?" Ash asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Not off the cuff; I'm not an Infiltrator. We'll just have to fill him full of lead. Ready?" Shepard said, looking to the woman at her side.
"You bet your ass I am." She nodded, smiling grimly.
The women positioned themselves on the bridge as a human blockade, and at Shepard's cry, they unleashed hell at the geth, which began its charge down towards them. The rifles began to heat beneath their gauntlets, but they didn't stop, the geth's shields breaking as it reached halfway.
"Come on, you son of a bitch!" Ashley roared.
"Just a little longer, come on…" Akeelah muttered, eyeing her rifle's heat monitor, the final bar flashing rapidly before it became solid, the rifle locking up and the soldier cursing. "Fuck! Alenko!"
Before the sentinel could respond, the younger woman threw something from her belt, the object attaching itself to the geth's chest. The synthetic's pace hesitated for a moment, only a yard from being on top of them, before the object detonated, ripping the geth's chassis apart and causing it to tumble harmlessly to the ground with a shriek.
Shepard heaved a sigh of relief, shaking her head.
"Thank God. That was very well done, Williams." She grinned. "You just saved our hides."
"You're welcome, ma'am." The younger marine grinned back.
They both cast a look at Kaidan, who shook his head.
"Sorry. Made a mistake during the disarm, had to correct so it wasn't going to detonate during disposal." He explained. Shepard nodded.
"Worked out in the end. We should move, there are still two other bombs primed."
The other two bombs were much easier than the first two, with the geth in smaller numbers, and less aggressive than before, if not a bit slower and cautious as well. Despite their caution, they were quickly wiped out by Ashley and Shepard.
"All bombs disarmed, Commander." Kaidan said, a half smile playing on his lips.
"Great work, everyone." Shepard nodded. "Now let's see if the beacon is still here, and hopefully undamaged."
The two marines nodded, and followed the Commander onto the main docking platform. They were ambushed by a collection of husks and two geth soldiers as they turned the corner, the final vanguard between them and their goal. They were dispatched with contemptible ease.
"That's the beacon, Commander," Ashley said, pointing to the tall, cylindrical artifact sitting at the edge of the platform. It was glowing an eerie, foggy green, and was clearly alien to its surroundings, its curved lines at odds with the straight-lined architecture around it. Something fluttered in Akeelah's gut, but she pushed it aside. She hadn't got time to admire alien technology.
"Good. Looks undamaged too." Shepard turned away and lifted her hand to her ear. "Normandy, the beacon is secure. Requesting immediate evac."
"Roger, ground team. Stand by for pick-up, ETA 10 minutes." Anderson replied.
"Roger, Normandy. Standing by." Shepard said. She turned to regard Ashley's approach, noticing Kaidan observing the beacon out of the corner of her eye.
"You got a ride?" Ashley asked.
"Yeah, the Normandy's coming to pick us up." She watched the younger soldier carefully. "You best come with us. The Captain would like to get your side of the story."
Ashley opened her mouth to reply, when her eyes widened, and there was a sharp grunt of surprise that sounded out behind the Commander. Shepard spun around to see Kaidan being dragged towards the beacon by invisible hands, his feet desperately scrabbling his feet against the metal floor in an attempt to arrest his movement, hands grasping thin air.
Akeelah was moving before her brain said hello to her legs, reaching the sentinel's side in a couple of strides. He jerked like a puppet with strings, his unseen master trying to pull him into a pose. Shepard wrapped her arms around his waist, using all her strength to heave him clear, Ash quickly coming to his aid as he tumbled to the floor.
Of course, this left her in front of the beacon alone, and she instantly felt that same pull grip her, like a biotic Pull, but with more…probing fingers. Was it searching her?
She didn't have time to ponder it further, as suddenly she was yanked into the air, body pulled into a pose with her arms outstretched and her back arched, and she felt hot needles at her eyes and then-
A blur of images and noise, so much noise, a trumpeting roar unlike anything she's ever heard, shaking her down to her core. Screams, howls, hissing, she thinks she sees flesh being contorted into machinery, but there's too much, too intense, it hurts! Death, destruction, everything burning and her head searing as if it was going to burst and she's got hot pokers in her eyes. Shepard grinds her teeth tightly against the onslaught because surely it had to end soon, surely, surely-
Everything exploded into white.
"This is amazing! Actual working Prothean technology. Unbelievable!" Kaidan breathed, looking the beacon up and down with wide eyes.
"It wasn't doing anything like that when they dug it up." Ashley said, turning away to Shepard behind them.
"Something must have activated it…" He murmured, stepping forward. His cautious side reminded him that it was best not to touch something unknown and alien, but for some reason he felt compelled to take another step.
He felt something ghost across his mutant sixth sense for just a second, and then the pull took a hold of him, with an an almost incomprehensible strength. Kaidan let out a strangled cry for help, trying to dig his boot tread into the metal floor or something that would slow down the attraction the beacon had upon him.
Probing needle fingers crawled across his face, burning into his screwed up eyes and ears, before tugging at his body-
Suddenly, there were arms around his waist and a body bracing against him, the beacon's grip thrown off by the second person. The person tensed and hurled him clear, the hot needles torn away and replaced by the comforting thump of flooring and correct gravity.
Kaidan sat up to see Ashley by his side, and he turned around to see Shepard by the beacon, trying to resist its pull as futilely as he had. To his horror, it yanked her up off the ground, pulling her into the pose it had tried to force him into moments before.
"Shepard!" He cried, lunging for her but stopped by Ash's hold on him.
"No! Don't touch her! It's too dangerous!" She said, holding him back even as he reached in a half-hearted attempt to Pull her to safety. Though the beacon held her firmly, he could see her body twitch and fingers clench, and the tide of helplessness that swept over him almost drowned him.
Without warning, the beacon suddenly exploded, throwing Shepard and its fragments over the platform. Kaidan instinctively flared to protect him and Ashley, the commander hitting the floor before them with a thud, her limbs limp and unresisting.
"Shepard!" Ashley called, but the soldier did not respond, her body still.
Kaidan scrambled away from the younger woman to Shepard, heart beating almost out of his chest. Please don't be dead, God no, please… He clawed at the locks on his gauntlets, pulling his bare hand out to feel her neck, searching for a pulse. After a few moments of building panic, he felt a very soft beat under her smooth skin, and he sighed with relief.
"Is she okay?" Ashley asked, kneeling down next to him as he gently turned the unconscious Shepard onto her back.
"I don't know." He admitted. "But she has a pulse." The sentinel dipped his ear to her nose and mouth. "Some breath." He pulled his gauntlets back on, staring at his commander's chestplate, unable to meet her face. "Do we know if the Normandy's en route?"
"Yeah, but I don't know when it's gonna arrive. She didn't have a chance to tell me." The Gunnery Chief replied.
"Okay." Kaidan took a moment to collect himself, holding back the chaos in his head. "I'll need to update the Captain." Ashley nodded as he activated his comm. "Come in, Normandy."
"Lieutenant? What's happened?" Anderson's tone belied his concern.
"We, we have a problem." The sentinel rubbed his face. "Captain, the beacon's destroyed and the Commander…" He shook his head. "She's unconscious and she needs medical aid ASAP."
"We're two clicks from your position, Lieutenant." Anderson said, almost emotionlessly, but Kaidan felt the guilt gnaw at him anyway.
"Roger, Normandy." He murmured, letting his hand fall. "Normandy will be here soon. Help me with her."
Ashley joined Kaidan as the sky filled with the sound of Normandy's engines, the frigate emerging from between the clouds. Ashley removed the Commander's weapons, and Kaidan picked her up, troubled by her limpness. This was wrong, and it was all his fault…
Kaidan looked up at the sound of the cargo door opening, two marines with a stretcher and Captain Anderson appearing as the Normandy carefully manoeuvred towards the platform. As soon as the ramp touched, the marines jogged towards the ground team, Ashley helping lay the Commander down and secure her.
"Take her to the med bay, ASAP." Anderson ordered. "You, marine," he glanced to Ashley, "go with her, help the doctor with her."
"But-" Ashley began, but Anderson fixed her with a steely look.
"Go."
The Gunnery Chief didn't argue further, jogging after the stretcher bearers. The Captain then rounded on Kaidan with one question:
"What the hell happened?"