~ I don't own mass effect, bioware and EA does ~
06.03.0005 PRW
SSV NORMANDY SR2
Terminus Systems
James Vega watched as Joker brought the Normandy up to the relay that would take them to their target, personally Vega didn't bother hoping that Shepard was there, she would bug out the moment the Normandy got anywhere near her sector of space and they weren't exactly subtle on Illium.
"Approching Relay-239 now, sending activation signal, sending mass and size, Relay has accepted and is translating now, all crew prepare for mass relay transit."
Vega braced himself slightly as the cockpit window glowed blue as the black giant prepared to throw them hundreds of light years.
EDI's voice joined Jokers in the process, "relay jump in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1"
Through the reinforced window James watched as the stars blurred and the blue tint go white.
"Relay transit in motion ETA 10 minutes to exit."
Vega nodded, "excellent work you two, hit stealth mode the moment we exit the relay, Shepard will probably have an early warning system in place."
Once he received an affirmation from EDI, he turned and headed for the Armoury, he needed to get geared up.
Entering the elevator, James hit the button for the cargo hold, already planning of all the tricks Zaire could throw their way, the elevator paused halfway down and Vega frowned.
"EDI?" He asked.
"Forgive me Commander Vega, but I wished to speak with you alone."
Interest picked, Vega simply shrugged "go on."
"I have been analyzing Zaire's actions while also doing a in-depth analysis of the medical data the Alliance provided, and there appears to be discrepancies, some of the Cybernetics around Zaire's head seem to be Biotic Amp tech, mixed with a very advanced greybox of some description."
"And?" Vega tried not to hope.
"The technology is ... rough, compared to similarly used reaper technology that has been found, the rest of the cybernetics are exactly the same as those of a Biotic Human Husk."
"Are you saying that someone copy and pasted two pieces of different med data together?"
"Basically, yes, I believe that the Alliance medical data is false, edited to look like reaper technology, though I cannot be 100% sure. I wanted to confide in you personally before making any official statements."
"I also have a new theory as to why Shepard has contacted the shadow broker."
Vega grimaced, that particular discovery on Illium had come as a shock to all, though Joker and EDI did seem less shocked and more worried.
The current theory was that Shepard was selling secrets to the broker in the hopes that he could locate T'Soni for her, while she was also unknowingly being coerced by indoctrination as well, as Zaire would only need to slip a few bad secrets to cause chaos.
"Let's hear it EDI, can't be worse than the last one."
"I believe that Shepard has lost faith in the Alliance, and does not trust them to study her cybernetics, she broke out and escaped to find Doctor T'Soni and Miranda Lawson."
"Lawson? I swear I've heard that name somewhere."
"Miranda was one of The Illusive Mans biggest supporters and one of his highest level operatives, she was responsible for project Lazarus, which brought back Zaire Shepard from the dead, and her Father was responsible for Sanctuary."
"You think that Zaire is searching for Cerberus remnants?" Asked Vega, alarmed.
"No, Miss Lawson defected from Cerberus 6 years ago after the Omega 4 relay was traversed, and is one of the few that Shepard has trusted to examine and operate on her."
There was a pause before the AI continued, "theoretically, Miss Lawson is one of the only people in the Galaxy who still knows how Shepard was resurrected and the only ever expert on the cybernetics in Zaire's body, it would make sense of Shepard to seek her out, for her to study the new Cybernetics and conclude whether she is indoctrinated or not."
Vega blew out a breath, if this theory was correct then the Alliance needed to remove some people from service, hell, this could cause the entire Admirality board to have to resign.
"Until we get more evidence, let's keep this to ourselves, thank you for telling me EDI."
"Of course, Commander Vega, logging you out."
The lift started to continue on to the cargo hold, although James could only think of all the complications that this mission, his first mission as an N7, could possibly create.
05.03.0005 PRW
Space Station - The Stop
Terminus Systems
It had only taken an hour for Zaire and Liara to pack up everything that they owned, as Zaire had been traveling light to begin with and Liara had most of her things off station anyway.
"How could they track you from Tuchunka to Illium?" Liara asked, "Wrex said he didn't say anything."
"Someone else must have seen me, maybe Wrex's brother saw something he wasn't supposed to" was Zaire's reply.
"There, that's everything" stated Liara, as she programmed the hovering bag holder to go to the Wanderer.
"What's next?" Asked Shepard, sitting on the stripped bed.
"We should head down to the Armory and collect my armour and weapons"
Liara paused a moment before adding, "we should probably get you some armour as well."
Shepard grimaced but nodded, being prepared was a necessity in her messed up life.
They followed the path the baggage carrier had taken and entered the elevator, and Zaire hit the button for the 6th floor, which contained both long term cargo storage and the Armory.
As the doors shut and the elevator started moving Liara's Omni-Tool pinged, looking down at it, the Asari frowned, before typing in a reply.
"Problem?"
The Asari shook her head, "a old Turian Battle Cruiser has entered the system and has requested refueling, normally this wouldn't be enough to bring suspicion but I have had the station on high alert for unusual incoming vessels."
"The Cruisers affiliation?" Asked Shepard.
"The Blue Suns, apparently, though I have put security on alert in case it's a ruse."
Shepard nodded before smiling at the expression on her Asari's face, she always looked cute when she was concentrated on something she found annoying.
That thought was promptly forgotten as the entire station rocked and the sounds of explosions ripped their way though metal.
The elevator immediately died and automatically locked itself into place to prevent any accidents, and Shepard and Liara gripped the railings and the station continued to rock with explosions.
Hitting her Omni-Tool Liara yelled an order for an update, and was promptly told by a Turian that the Cruiser had opened fire on the docks and was destroying any docked ships on station.
It barely took seconds for Zaire to realise the next part of the Cruisers plan, "Li, their going to send boarding craft to air locks and escape pods."
Apparently agreeing with her assessment Liara passed on orders to secure primary areas of the station and prepare for boarding before cutting the comm.
"We need to get to the Armory."
Agreeing with that statement, Zaire climbed up to the roof of the elevator and pushed open the maintenance hatch, hauling herself up she turned and helped her girlfriend up as well.
Taking a brief look at the markings on the walls the Asari pointed up, "two floors to the Armory."
Feeling out her limited biotics Zaire lowered her mass and grabbed the edge of the elevator shaft, her partner doing the same.
Knowing that the climb will take a few minutes Zaire decided to plan, she knew that The Wanderer was destroyed, along with the other ships in the docking bay, so they would need a new mode of transportation, pausing to think Zaire realised that the only working ship in system was the enemy Cruiser.
"How many combat capable people can you get together in 20 minutes?"
Liara looked puzzled but answered "probably 40 or so, why?"
"Because we need to get off this damn station, and the only way out of this system is on that bloody Cruiser."
"What?!"
"Li, we have 40 people, that's just enough to take a fully staffed Battle Cruiser if we need the original crew alive."
"That's if we have 40 people Zaire, and how do we get that many people onto said vessel?"
"Same way they got on board, and we don't need the original crew."
"We don't?"
"Who's ship's did they just blow up in the docks?"
Liara grinned when she caught on, the crews lounge was separate from the docks and they would be pissed that their ships were destroyed, it was perfect.
Reaching level 6, Zaire got to work prying the doors open while Liara got to work on getting their plan going.
Eventually getting annoyed Shepard simply punched her fists into the doors, embedding them, and used the new hand holds as leverage to pry the God damned doors open.
Though Liara didn't say anything, she could tell that the Asari had watched her do it, and it made her cough in embarrassment.
Her own Omni-Tool beeped, and Zaire was glad for the distraction, hitting the button to accept the incoming call.
"Zaire!?"
"Miranda, I'm with Liara, we're both fine" Shepard answered the incoming questions before they could be said.
"Good, I've grabbed the physical data and started the deletion process for everything digital, I'm heading after you now."
"We're at the Armoury suiting up" reported Zaire, heading through the door and taking stock of the weapons and armour.
"Then get ready for company, you've got multiple hull breaches on your level!"
Nodding in response she said out loud, "anything coming our way can be dealt with, worry about your own route getting here."
Hanging up, Zaire turned and entered the Armory, her lover had put on some medium level, Asari based armour and was currently grabbing herself a Heavy pistol and 2 submachine guns.
Heading over to the armour fitting station she spoke, "we have hull breaches on this level, watch the door while I change, love."
Nodding in silent agreement, her Asari moved to an 50 degree angle from the door, pulling out one her SMG's to have at the ready.
Turning back around, Zaire quickly stripped down to her underwear and pulled on the skin tight under armour, before activating the Automated Armour Assistant, which promptly started scanning her and pulling out the correct sized armour Zaire had requested.
As she was armoured she took a moment to think about the loadout she was going to need , her was going to need to compensate for the loss of her swords, and they were going to be in close quarters for the foreseeable future.
The Heavy Armour she had chosen was what Human Special Forces now used, painted completely black, and had the new human helmet design.
After the War ended, multiple people in the Marines and Army complained about the basic helmet design, as the constant need to take it off and put it on meant that many people died due to being taken by surprise.
The answer was, as always when giving a human think tank a simple task, a simple solution, the new helmets contained no glass apart from two small eye holes, which were there incase of loss of power.
The solution was to create a faceplate that could be moved, so that at the press of a button, the person wearing it went from eating lunch, to facing heavy combat with full head protection always worn, whether in space or on the ground. The retractable face plate simply slid upwards, showing the face and giving the soldier preifial vision while still protecting the rest of the head.
The reason that this wasn't introduced sooner was 2 problems: budget costs and technology level.
In order for the soldier to have full vision, micro cameras are planted on the helmet and shoulder pads, with the inside of the faceplate projecting what they saw real-time, this was difficult to create small enough and tough enough cameras that could survive active combat, with the reengineering of reaper technology, however, this tech was minimised and tough enough to be implemented in the Special Forces.
The Armour clicked into place and the helmet was presented to her, taking it she turned to the wall of guns and started walking towards it, placing the helmet on her head.
The reinforced Titanium doors buckled and exploded inwards, missing both her and her lover, and smashed into the gun wall, destroying most of the present inventory.
Spinning to face the now considerably wider door frame, Zaire watched as three humanoids in heavy armour charged in, spraying shotgun rounds in her and Liara's direction.
Liara returned the favor, using her new SMG to take down the lead hostiles shields before hurling a heavy warp, which struck his helmet and crushed it like a tin can.
Zaire hadn't been idyll either, and by the time her lover had taken out the first hostile she had crossed the room, aiming for the only female of the group.
Time slowed for Zaire as she closed in and she easily moved out of the way as her opponent tried to shoot her with a Eviscerater shotgun, idly in the back of Shepard's mind she wondered how fast she was really moving.
Watching as her opponent attempted to correct her mistake, she turned to the other male of the group and brought her foot down into the weak point in his armoured knee cap.
He crumpled, and on the way down she drought her fist up into the faceplate of his blank helmet, sending him into a awkward backflip and rendering him unconscious.
Turning back towards her original target she batted the gun upwards forcing her equally blank opponent to shoot the ceiling, Shepard followed up with two powerful jabs to the ribs, before spinning around to face her opponents armoured back, she lashed a kick out at her exposed legs making her fall to one knee, gripping the helmet in both hands Zaire twisted and broke the woman's neck.
After a few more seconds of watching the bodies hitting the floor, time seemed to catch up with Shepard, as everything sped up to normal again. Taking a moment to steady herself, Zaire flexed her hands and rolled her shoulders.
"Zaire?"
Snapping out of her trance, Zaire looked up at her startled girlfriend, who was starring at her, though whatever expression on her beautiful face was masked by the high tech faceless helmet she wore.
"... yes?"
The Asari's helmet split as the faceplate slid up and back, exposing her lovers face, which was currently set in that of astonishment.
"I think your cybernetics are a little bit more online than Miranda thought."
Turning to look at her handy work, Shepard couldn't help but grimace, now that she had started to process things normally again she realised that the colour scheme was familiar.
Snatching up the Eviscerater, Zaire strode over to the only surviving member of the 3 that entered and ripped off his helmet.
Memories of indoctrinated Cerberus troops and the Reapers Cybernetic thralls dominated Zaire's mind as she stared at what once had been a human male.
"Goddess have mercy on his soul, for he received none here."
Zaire found that that sentence summed up this perfectly, the obvious Cybernetics that had been implanted were defiantly reminiscent of the Reapers own work, however, the shining metal and neat perfection of the eyes and ears made it clear these were more copy and paste than original.
The only symbol on the white washed armour the poor sod wore was a small logo, a two headed dog, one head looking left, the other right and encased in a circle, all black.
"I don't like the look of this, Li." Stated Zaire, feeling light headed and probably pale if the helmet didn't obscure her face.
In response she gave the trooper a good kick, which did a good job of waking him up.
He groaned and opened his eyes, which while human, still glowed bluish around the edges.
"Name and number?" Ordered Shepard, going for the pissed off drill instructor feeling.
"John Armstice 3254-D-2546"
His eyes widened when he realised that he had made a mistake, and screamed, "Long Live Orthius."
Shepard, realising his intentions, tackled Liara to the ground as the unknown soldier detonated his own grenades, blowing up himself and most of the floor around him up.
"We need to get moving" coughed Liara, who was pressing the hidden button to seal her helmet to get away from the smoke.
"Agreed, that was an Alliance standard breaching method, so they were all probably former Alliance."
Picking themselves up they made their past the hole in the floor and the dead bodies, and peeked out into the storage room proper, no sign of movement, so they headed for the elevator shaft again, were they could move to a different floor and find Miranda.
Coming up to the last container before the elevator, Zaire stopped and listened, the sound of moving feet indicated at least 5 people were guarding their escape path.
Keying in her radio Zaire muttered "around 5 hostiles guarding the elevator shaft, probably waiting for back up, you flank round to the other side and we can hit them both from different angles."
Her lover simply nodded before turning and quietly moving around the large metal container, looking to gain some higher ground.
Zaire herself checked her shotgun and prepared to rush, she would need to be quick in order to remove the number advantage.
Getting a quiet "ready" from Liara, Shepard counted down from 5, on one Liara rose from her hiding place on top of one of the containers and fired her heavy pistol.
As every guard made the mistake of looking in the direction of the incoming fire, Zaire burst around the corner and sprinted towards the group of 5 people in white and black armour.
They didn't notice her until she was on top of them, using her shotgun to batter the first soldier, she turned and fired twice, taking out the two who had lost their shields due to Liara's own fire.
The last two turned and fired at Shepard, but she had already taken cover in the elevator door frame.
Leaning around she fired again, taking down another's shields, Liara finishing him off with a head shot, the last guy realised that he was out numbered and out skilled so he simply started throwing grenades.
Instead of backing into cover or retreating, Zaire stepped out of cover, and swung her gun like a baseball bat, knocking one of the grenades back towards the thrower and killing him seconds later when the grenade went off.
"You okay Li?"
"I'm fine, come on, I've let Miranda know that the Armory is gone."
Zaire nodded to her partner, before turning and putting her last shotgun round into the woman who she had battered down earlier.
Getting back into the elevator shaft, they repeated the process of lightning their mass and climbing up, heading for the 9th floor.
Cliff hanger! Will Shepard make it out before Williams gets there?
I don't know, I haven't thought that far ahead yet, LoL.
Anyway, thank you as always for reading, please feel free to review as it motivates me to get this done. (If I write more than 2 chapters in the week I will post early)
I hoped you enjoyed
~ JunkMail