Normandy SR-2, 2185, Lazarus cell, Medical bay.
For Shepard, what she was experiencing was quite simply, fucking weird. The reason being that if Shepard wanted to get to know her crew-mates better, or just have idle chit chat, etc. She would have to go to them in order to do so. It often proved tiresome and repetitive, but she felt compelled to do so regardless because she was their commander, and she always made sure to check on their mental health.
But that wasn't the case at the moment. Instead, Grunt, Jacob, Kasumi, Miranda, Garrus, Zaeed, Mordin, Jack, and Joker were gathered in the medbay, to see who the Mystery man Shepard had brought aboard was. And of course Chakwas was there as well, which wasn't unusual, considering she was the Normandy's resident Medical Professional.
"While I would be flattered that for once, you decided to come to me to talk, I know I'm not the reason you're all here" Shepard addressed her crew jokingly
"Well Shepard, it's not everyday that you decide to go to some weird place, and then come back bringing unconscious people into the medbay" Garrus said
"Its quite funny you say that Garrus, seeing as that's almost exactly how you ended up on the ship" Shepard retorted, referring to how she brought the turian onboard the Normandy from Omega
They all grinned at their charismatic commanders words, before Kasumi decided to speak up.
"Quite the find you got here Shepard. You have a knack for finding the most... Interesting people" The Normandy's resident thief whispered whilst eying the large man's gear, armor and weapons with a greedy look in her eye.
"That I do, however, you are not taking his things. Don't try to deny it, I know you too well." Shepard told the Japanese woman in amused tone
"Fine, but if he turns out hostile, then can I take his stuff?"
"Deal."
Garrus and Jacob couldn't help but but be intrigued by the unconscious man's gear, particularly his weapons, and the ammo they used.
"What type of weapon manufacturer makes gunpowder based weapons? They've been phased out for a while now." Jacob asked out loud, surprised by the seemingly primitive rifle he was looking at.
"Could be custom made, or from the Terminus Systems. There is more crazy, weird shit there than anywhere else in the galaxy." Zaeed speculated in his rough, haggard voice. The mercenary had done and seen quite a lot in his years, and he spoke from the experience garnered from them.
Shepard on the other hand, was far more curious about the stainless steel dog-tags they had found when going through the pouch on the mans left hip, as well as a curved sliver hilt looking item that glowed an ocean blue along the edges. She inspected the dog tags, and was intrigued by what she saw.
Carter-259
6'9
279 Pounds
Alpha Company
Kat-320
6'8
261 Pounds
Beta Company
Emile-239
6'10
286 pounds
Alpha company
Jorge-052
7'3
305 Pounds
SPECWAR/GROUP THREE.
Max-312
6'11
284 Pounds
Beta Company
Hyper lethal Vector
None of what she read made any sense to her, and it it only left her more curious about where the hell this man came from, and who he was. What really irked Shepard, was that this man apparently had an A.I. inside his helmet according to Mordin. She didn't feel particularly threatened by it, as according to Mordin's scans, it was friendly, or at least non hostile.
What could help me learn more about a powerful, mysterious A.I.? Shepard thought
The answer hit Shepard after a mere second of thinking.
My own
"EDI, what have you been able to find out about the A.I. in this man's armor?" Shepard asked out loud
"Unfortunately, not much so far. It has been rather defensive every time I attempt to access its armor systems. With every attempt, it pushes me out as soon as I get in. However, what is most intriguing, and perhaps somewhat worrisome is that it has displayed the processing power and advancement perhaps comparable to beings such as Sovereign."
The entire room was quite visibly shocked by EDI's words, leaving an ominous feeling in the room, the crew muttering among themselves about what that could entail, but she didn't stop there.
"Additionally, I believe it may attempt to access the ships systems if it deems it necessary, and there is little chance I may be able to stop it." She said nonchalantly like she always did.
Shepard was now slightly panicking on the inside, but she kept cool. She realized that if she wanted to avoid anything potentially dangerous to the ship and crew, the giant of a man lying on the table would have to wake.
"Chakwas, you have anything to get this mystery man up?" Shepard asked the doctor
"I have already attempted to accelerate the process of his awakening, but every time I try to, his shields deflect the syringe easily. However, I predict he will wake any minute now." The doctor replied calmly. She always seemed to have a calm and collected exterior no matter the situation, being similar to Shepard in that regard.
"Well, I guess we wait" Shepard replied. And they did just that.
Kimbra was 'middle aged' for a UNSC A.I. She came into operational service a little over three years ago, being made/based off the dead brain of Miranda Keyes. Because of this, she took after the deceased woman in many ways. She was an excellent tactician, serious, and willing to take risks. She knew how to remain calm and instantly come up with solutions to any problem, whether big or small, unorthodox or simple.
But the last two and a half hours had all but shattered that.
The slipspace incident was completely unprecedented, and for a relatively short amount of time she and her newly assigned Spartan had traveled through the pitch black realm. There were no protocols in place for such a thing, after all, who would think of a single spartan going through the eleven dimensional plane that was known as slipspace?
Only ships of large mass were generally considered able to make it through slipspace, and it was thought unfeasible that anything smaller than a pelican could survive the journey through the dimension where the laws of physics and time were all but nonexistent.
After exiting slipspace, the pelican was somehow gone, and she found herself and Max in an odd cave system. What truly worried Kimbra was that Max seemed to be in some kind of coma. Despite multiple attempts, she was unable to wake him. His vital signs were green, and his brain activity showed brain waves similar to high intensity REM sleep.
Two Hours later, after doing everything she could to wake him and establish radio contact with anyone or anything (with no success), something somehow even stranger happened.
Two well armed unknown aliens walked into the cave, accompanied by a human female in front. The one to her right was tall but skinny, and had somewhat amphibian features, such as scaly looking skin, and dark, large eyes. From what she could tell, it was most likely male. It had two horns protruding from the top of its skull, but its right one was cut off at about half length. Apparently its name was 'Mordin' according to the human.
The woman, whose name was apparently 'Shepard' told the the amphibian like alien to scan Max, and it did so.
The lanky alien seemingly summoned what looked to be a orange holographic device upon its arm, and scanned Max with a wave of its limb. Kimbra instantly detected a multitude of various programs attempting to possibly access or relay info on the armor systems back to the alien. Kimbra had little difficulty expelling them out. It would take more than such pitifully weak things to breach a UNSC A.I.'s security.
The alien was surprised by the fact that it had been so quickly rejected, but it simply smiled and quickly told the woman (Whom Kimbra now theorized was their commander) About what basic things it had able to learn of Max's armor. It seemed absolutely amazed by the titanium plating and fusion plasma cells powering the MJOLNIR MKVII. But what intrigued it the most was that it had realized what casted it out of the armor systems was her, an A.I.
When it told the woman about her presence, she seemed quite surprised if her facial expression said anything. After some bantering between the two, the woman decided to try to pick Max up, only to find that she could barely nudge him.
Kimbra was tempted to hack into the alien's holographic device to try to find out what was going on, but she weighed the options in her mind.
On one hand, she could probably hack into the trio's armor systems with ease, and attempt to immobilize them. But if she were to do this, the chance of failure, albeit small, still existed and if she were to fail they would most likely turn hostile and attempt to kill her and Max. That was a risk she did not want to take, seeing as her Spartan's unconscious state left him and her defenseless.
On the other hand, if she allowed them to take Max and her to their base of operations, or star ship, there was a good chance she could gain access to their data files once Max awoke, and get a grip on what their situation was. There was the risk that the trio did not have the most pure intentions, and would possibly attempt to interrogate her and Max, or something else equally unfortunate was potentially waiting for them.
A couple of seconds was all the A.I. needed to make a decision. She was supposed to assist and protect Max to the best of her ability and the latter option would give him more time to wake up and make a decision for himself on what to do.
The human female ordered the alien called 'Grunt' on her left to pick up Max up, and it called the amphibian alien whose species name was apparently 'Salarian' weak, along with humans, remarking how Max may be different.
This 'Grunt' looked an awful lot like a reptile. It appeared quite muscular, a wide set of eyes, rough looking skin, and what looked be partially developed plating on the upper portion of its skull. It stood taller than the Woman, but shorter than the 'Salarian'.
The large alien managed to pick up Max and sling him over its shoulder (With an evidently large amount of effort) and walked out of the cave system with the other two. What awaited them outside was a large rectangular shaped shuttle. They entered and soon enough, left the planet. Shortly afterwards, they approached a relatively small ship called the 'Normandy' according to the trio, and the bolded word on the side of said ship.
It was only about a hundred and seventy meters in length, one of the smallest vessels Kimbra had ever seen. The smallest star ship most widely used in the UNSC navy post covenant war was the Strident-Class frigate, and it was five hundred and seventy five meters in length, dwarfing this 'Normandy'
It was quite a sleek ship, with four proportionally large thrusters on the back, two on each side of the vessel. While no weapons were visible, Kimbra theorized that there potentially could be weapons simply not visible, but rather would come out of the ship during the combat. Its color scheme was orange, black and white, and the logo on the nose of the ship was the same.
They docked in a small hangar bay, and they walked towards an elevator which led them through multiple levels of the small ship, leading up to the third deck.
For what Kimbra assumed to be a Military vessel, the general atmosphere seemed pretty lax. Perhaps they were a scouting vessel for a larger fleet? That would explain the small design of the ship and small amount of crew-members.
The 'Grunt' went into the ships med bay, and unceremoniously set Max on the farthest table. The doctor who looked to be in her mid fifties did her best to analyze Max, and Kimbra let her, to an extent.
However, every time the doctor would attempt to inject him with a multitudes of syringes, Kimbra would block them with the MJOLNIR's shielding systems. The doctor gave up after three tries, knowing when to quit.
A small crowd seemed to form shortly after, with another odd, unknown alien coming that looked similar to an avian. It stood around 6'5, and she couldn't quite tell if its armor was very bulky, or it itself was.
Five other humans came into the room. Two of them, a man and a woman, wore the same logo she saw on the side of the ship before docking in the hangar. Another, who wore a cap and limped was apparently the pilot of the ship. Another was a shaved headed woman, who looked quite... shameless in her attire, and had many tattoos.
The fourth was a small woman, who wore a hood covering the top half of her face, and seemed to be content with being in the shadows.
The last was a man who looked to be quite rough. He had an old and scarred face, but he seemed to be in shape.
Whilst Kimbra was analyzing the various people in the room, she suddenly detected an intruding force aggressively pushing to gain access to the MJOLNIR's armor systems. At first, it smashed through Kimbra's initial basic security measures like paper. Whatever this was, it was far superior to what she fought off earlier. It had the initial element of surprise, but was quickly stopped by the more and more advanced cyber security as it got deeper into the systems, and Kimbra quickly casted it out.
She soon realized that it was in fact another another A.I., and if her scans were correct, it was housed in a room connected to the medical bay she and Max were in. It kept attempting to crack Kimbra's extensive firewalls, but kept finding less and less success each time.
KImbra turned her attention to Max's condition, trying to figure out a way to get him up. His vital signs were still green, and his brain waves had fallen back to normal levels. Every time she attempted to shock him through the suits gel layer, it was met with failure. When she yelled at him through his helmets internal speakers, he was completely unresponsive.
She did have one more choice, but she hesitant to use it.
Every Spartan generation had an upgraded neural interface in back of their skull, allowing them to house an A.I. the same a way a UNSC warship could. This amplified a Spartan's already legendary combat abilities, especially their seemingly instantaneous reaction times. Theoretically, she could alter his brain's adenosine, melatonin, and cortisol levels through the interface, and attempt to essentially jump start his mind.
However, this had never been done before, and while she was certain it couldn't kill him, there was the slight chance she could potentially injure him. After all, it wouldn't do for the arguably greatest soldier to ever exist to become paralyzed.
Shepard, the commander of the ship decided to ask the A.I., whose name was 'EDI', about its progress on getting info on her and Max.
Of course, it had little to offer, but compared her to something known as 'Sovereign' in advancement and capability. The whole room tensed hearing this, and seemed to be on edge at her presence now.
Fearing what potential hostile actions could happen soon, Kimbra saw no other option then to wake Max up through the neural interface.
She accessed the interface, gained control of his adenosine, melatonin, and cortisol hormones, lowering the first two's levels, whilst simultaneously supercharging his cortisol levels to start the onset of an adrenaline rush in order to wake him.
She was successful.
Max's whole body felt like it was encased in ice, his skin tingling and cold, his flesh sore and stiff, his mind foggy and confused. He had felt like this for what seemed an eternity, unable to speak or move, and wholly unaware of his surroundings.
He could barely think at all, like his brain was being hijacked by an out worldly force, thinking for him, maintaining an ironclad grip on his skull. Suddenly, he felt it release control, and his body went from cold and tired, to awake and on fire.
His memory washed over him like a tsunami
The Slipspace Portal
Max quickly opened his eyes, taking in his surroundings as his body started to fully wake. He was lying down on a table akin to a large bed. To his right was an odd looking door and wall. He heard a feminine voice inside his helmet, whispering his name. It sounded... distant, but close all the same. He disregarded it.
He looked to the left.
The Spartan III was not pleased by what he saw.
Looking over him was a bulky reptilian like alien. Seeing Max move, it only moved closer, seemingly curious.
Given Max's hatred fueled hostility to nearly all and any extraterrestrials, plus his current adrenaline rush, the alien made a colossal mistake moving closer to the Super Soldier.
Moving nigh incomprehensibly fast, the Spartan was immediately on his feet, and easily threw the surprised alien across the room with a textbook judo shoulder throw. He saw a group of humans and two other unidentifiable aliens near where he threw the reptilian, most of whom were pointing various odd sidearms directly at him.
Looking to the other table, he saw his weapons and gear spread out.
Max quickly picked up the energy sword hilt that was out of its protective casing, and activated the Sangheili weapon and the small miniature version in his left gauntlet to face down the group which greatly outnumbered him.
"What the fuck?!" Shepard yelled, aiming her M-6 Carnifex at the man who somehow went from unconsciousness to actively hostile in a less than a second.
She was not expecting this to happen. The towering man had just thrown the strongest Krogan she ever knew (Next to Urdnot Wrex) like a rag-doll across the room in the blink of an eye. He grabbed the odd silver item she observed earlier and activated it, turning it into a blade of pure energy, and activated something similar in his left gauntlet.
The man was truly a giant, his presence intimidating and wholly encompassing, adorned in suit of armor that looked like something out of legend, wielding a weapon of equal awe inspiring mystery, and the crest of his helmet scant inches away from the ceiling.
The warrior did not attack, but appeared ready to engage Shepard and her squad at any second.
Max did not engage the group yet, his confusion from the current situation had his head spinning with countless questions and hypotheticals.
Just how long was he out?
Was he transported to another system? Another galaxy, even?
The voice in his helmet was growing louder, his name now more than a whisper. He disregarded it again.
Had he been transported through an unfathomable amount of time backwards? Perhaps forward? Time skips in slipspace travel were not completely unheard of occurrences, there having been a few multiple reported instances in the UNSC. But they were only minutes, hours, a couple days at the most. This would be a whole other level of different, if it were the case.
Max begrudgingly knew that if he wanted his questions answered, he would have to speak to the heavily armored woman who had now taken point ahead of the group, aiming her large pistol at his helm with a certain... Confidence, that he only saw in few individuals.
"Where am I?" Max spoke. His rough voice dominated the room, the group of humans and extraterrestrials complete and undivided attention easily becoming his.
"You are onboard the Normandy Sr-2, and I strongly suggest that you deactivate your weapons." Shepard answered, her levity from earlier gone, replaced by firm authority.
"Give me a reason to" Max responded, Shepards tone having little affect on him.
Shepard was no amateur when it came to talks such as these, and she had a feeling it would come down to words to resolve the situation.
"Any information you want, I can give you. If you want, I can drop you off at any world of your choosing as soon as I am able. Thirdly, I can potentially give you a place on my team if you wish to join. But first, I need you to stand down." She said, smoothly as she was able.
Max thought about his options. As he was, he could probably kill the group in front of him, and subdue the rest of the area if need be, but that would most likely accomplish little for him in the long run.
The woman's offer was tempting, and he realized that it was his best chance to figure out what was going on. However, before he could speak his mind, someone else did.
"Spartan, can you hear me!" Kimbra's worried voice rang in his ear.
Of course Max thought, he had completely forgot about his recently assigned A.I.
Seeing that Kimbra had muted his helmets external speakers with a small blip on his HUD, he responded.
"Whats going on Kimbra, and where are we?" Max asked, his patience for the absurd situation slowly eroding away.
"I can't really explain it quickly, but these people mean us no harm Max, I assure you." The A.I. answered.
With no small deal of reluctance, Max deactivated his weapons. Shepard signaled her team to do the same, and they did so.
"So, I promised you info. I'm going to assume you want it? Shepard asked the man.
He only nodded.
"Well, I can answer any questions you want, and give you access to most of our databases." Shepard continued
Max only had one true question on his mind, one that he knew very well not be the answer he wanted.
"What Year is it?"
Yeah, yeah, I know, I took way too fucking long. Life still happens though, but I might be able to update more now that I got some free time and some motivation.