6 – Catch a Break

The psychic presence of the obelisk was so potent that it felt like it was putting a hand on his shoulder…actually, it felt more like a claw.

Gorman snapped out of his trance and swerved around to see the gaping maw and blinding eye-lights of a transformed human, right up in his face. It screamed as loud as it could, gurgling green fluid and raising its arms in a striking motion. Gorman yelled out, trying to push it away, but in his haste could only throw his rifle to the ground and fall down on his rear. His handgun bounced out of its holster, sliding dangerously close to the railing. The creature itself recoiled back in kind, before winding up its deformed legs like it was about to pounce.

"Hey!" shouted a new voice. The shell of a human whipped its head around. Gorman glanced left. From the cargo train ramp, a young woman in scorched overalls had rushed in. She stood defiantly against the monster in a fighting stance, anger on her face and no weapon in her hands. Gorman immediately eyed his rifle on the ground. He made to push it towards her or grab it himself, but it was just out of his reach. The creature started to bolt towards the woman.

Suddenly, unbelievably, she began to glow.

Unlike the abomination before her, the glowing was more like the flickers of a fire and less like neon lightbulbs on the skin, but a vibrant blue all the same. This was no kinetic barrier – it seemed to come from within.

With a yell, she lifted her arms like an orchestra conductor about to tell the brass section to blast their horns. The glow around her hands and eyes intensified. The creature went limp, enveloped in a new blue fire of its own, and was lifted up in the air. Gorman was greatly surprised, and imagined the levitating husk would feel so too behind its gormless expression.

The woman dragged back her arms to her chest, and then violently pushed them forward. In one last cobalt-colored crescendo the creature was blasted away, spiraling over the railing as if shot out of a cannon. It gave one more gurgling rattle, which trailed into the distance and ended with a barely audible thud somewhere at the foot of the hill.

The woman's vivid aura faded away. She redirected her attention to the wide eyes and fallen jaw of the Commander, walking over and extending a helping hand.

"Are you okay?" she asked in between her own deep breaths.

"Am I…what did you…how did you…" Gorman responded, his mouth futilely attempting to answer and ask three questions at once. Despite all he'd seen recently, this event stood out. Futuristic weapons, shields and even aliens were all somewhat…explainable, as Kalu and White had obliged to do so. But this, for the Commander, went beyond rational comprehension. She had lifted the creature and flung it a distance away with nothing more than hand gestures. The most pressing question was no longer 'who' this person was, but 'what'. Either way, he grasped her hand and she brought him back on his feet.

Part of him was immediately reluctant to do so. If she could throw a human figure like a javelin from a distance, he could only imagine what she could do to someone right next to her.

"You don't look too good," she remarked, tilting her head and looking straight at Gorman. Her hair was short, shaved on the sides, and bleached blonde – contrasting with her thick black eyebrows. Her bronze skin was marked by recent scratches. Her concerned eyes were brown, yet Gorman could swear there was still a hint of blue. Her accent was indeterminable. Eastern European? Brazilian Portuguese? Northern Irish? Noticeably, she stood at the Commander's eye level.

"What are you? How did you do that?" Gorman finally spluttered out. In response, the woman tilted her head the other way.

"I'm a biotic, and…I'm a biotic."

The Commander just stood there, stunned.

"You're a what?"

She gave a sigh, barely masking a sudden frustration. It seemed this was something people ask her about too often.

"Yes, a biotic. I know, I know."

"A what?" Gorman couldn't help but repeat.

"…A biotic."

"What?"

"I'm a…" she trailed off. Her attitude had changed – much less frustrated, much more confused, and naturally, a bit bemused. "You really don't know?"

"You all right, Commander?" rang Kalu from the gap in the railing where Gorman had climbed up before. He had managed to summit the spaceport hill, and stopped to see Gorman looking frightened out of his mind and a woman standing next to him. "Had us worried a moment, but whoever got thrown a mile down the hill wasn't wearing a turtleneck, thankfully." He turned and lent a hand down to a waiting White, raising him up with a heave. The two approached, taking in the surroundings of crates, corpses and cargo lifts.

"Kabiru, Stone, she just chucked that…thing off the cliff with her mind!" Gorman exclaimed. Kalu and White looked at each other a little strangely.

"I'm a biotic," the woman recited one more time. She saw something in the pilot's hands. "Nice sniper."

White clutched the rifle closer to his chest. He gave a frown, and something told Gorman that it wasn't just because she noticed how he was dragging it around.

"Commander, is it?" the woman redirected her attention. Gorman snapped his head back to her.

"That's right. Kevin Gorman," he declared, still dazed. He began scrambling to retrieve his weapons from the floor panels. "Alliance, I think."

She looked up and down at the Commander. Kalu put his head in his hand.

"My name's Zaz…I also think," she gave a puzzled laugh. "You're not with the other Alliance team, I take it?"

"The other Alliance team?" White interjected. He and Kalu moved in closer, the Lieutenant trying to hide the sound of the sniper scraping against the ground as he walked.

"Yeah, hours ago a few marines were here. Took out all the geth at the spaceport…and then some." Zaz paused for a moment to take a look for herself at the battlefield around them. "They disarmed bombs the geth planted – without them, we'd all be standing in a crater."

"And then they just left!" came another voice approaching down the cargo ramp. An older man with a beanie on his head and anger on his face led the way, a similarly-dressed sidekick beside him. "And you're the backup?" he shouted indignantly, giving Gorman's squad no chance to say anything. "What, one armored goon, a lightweight with a rifle twice his size, and a man wearing goddamn khakis? What kind of sick joke is this?"

This time Gorman came to his senses quicker. He rushed up to the man, towering over him and keeping his hand conveniently on his sidearm's holster. The man's eyes grew wider, and his silent buddy apprehensively motioned his hands to potentially pull him away.

"We just took down a whole platoon of geth to get here, and this is the thanks we get?" Gorman icily said. The Commander could count the number of robots defeated using his fingers, but these dockworkers didn't need to know that. He pointed to a surprised Zaz. "You have people who can launch bad guys with a flick of the wrist, and you're telling me some marines just cleaned up while you all sat back and watched? They're turning humans into geth!"

"Hey, hey, easy," the man retreated, raising his own hands. "We're just dockworkers. Excuse us if we're not trained for the geth showing up for the first time beyond the Veil in centuries."

"Besides, Dave here wouldn't let anyone leave the 'safe' room until it was too late," mumbled Zaz.

"You have any idea why the geth were here at all?" Kalu jutted in, trying to cool the standoff.

"Well…if I have to guess, it's because of the beacon," he revealed, gesturing down the spaceport terminal to the platform containing the remains of what was once a mysterious obelisk. Gorman did a double take.

"Has to be, Dave. None of this would have happened if they didn't dig it up," the man's friend chimed in.

"That's a beacon?" the Commander pried.

"Prothean beacon," Dave attempted to explain. He had to reword and rephrase what he was saying constantly, clearly unsure about the subject. "Uh, it's kind of…it's a little like what we found on Mars all that time ago, you know, the thing that told us about the mass relays. Or maybe it is exactly like it." He scratched his head and glanced to his partner, who himself shrugged. That guy looked decidedly anxious, like he wanted to leave before he was asked any more questions. "I'm no scientist," Dave continued, "but it's like, really important. Someone moved it from the dig site. I thought it was the Alliance, but Powell here says the geth did it. That's all I know." Gorman did a triple take at the mention of that particular name.

"But that's not all you know, is it?" Gorman redirected his attention towards the man now known to be Ray's contact. Powell recoiled, before looking at all the faces pointed in his direction and giving a heavy sigh.

"Hey, leave me alone, I've had a miserable, miserable day. First the geth drop in out of nowhere, most of my coworkers are dead…or worse. Then turians show up and start shooting each other, and I had this Alliance guy and his asshole friend berate me for sleeping on the job. Can't I just catch a break for once?"

Suddenly most of the people gathered at the cargo terminal were bursting with questions.

"You were sleeping on the job?" said Dave.

"There were turians here?" asked Zaz.

"What's a turian?" Gorman turned and whispered to Kalu and White.

"Bad news," said White through gritted teeth.

"We'll tell you later," concluded Kalu.

Powell looked thoroughly exhausted.

Gorman got back on track, another mind-bending alien discovery notwithstanding.

"The Alliance team…the one before us, that is. They were after the beacon?"

"That's right," Powell confirmed. "Although between you and me, I could have sworn it was more…intact when the scientists dug it up last week. Who cares, anyway? It wasn't worth everyone dying over, or being turned into those…things."

"You think the geth blew it up?" Dave spitballed. He gasped. "Or…did the Alliance destroy it! To remove evidence!"

"It was obviously the geth, dumbass," fired Zaz. "They were trying to blow up the whole spaceport with those bombs, remember?" Dave backed down.

"Someone used it," stated Gorman confidently. "Same thing happened to me." This time, everyone's eyes fell on the Commander. Only Kalu came close to understanding. It was his turn to gasp as he made the connection between Gorman's story and what was in front of him.

There was a lengthy pause.

"We need to get off this planet."

"You're kidding, right?" moaned Powell. "Some relief effort you guys are."

"We've got…supplies down the hill, isn't that right?" Gorman announced, turning to his crew for validation. Kalu and White took a moment before nodding their heads vigorously in agreement. "What we need is a spaceship. I don't suppose there's one at this spaceport?"

"What? You don't have your own?" Dave almost jumped in surprise.

"You were shot down, weren't you?" Zaz realized. The three 'Alliance' men looked at each other. It was the truth, after all. They gave more solemn nods in response. She had, unlike the two cagey dockworkers, a great sympathy in her eyes. It was as if she could tell from Gorman's thousand-yard stare towards the beacon that them getting back on a ship and off Eden Prime was more important than any reason not to let them leave. She crossed her arms and addressed Powell and Dave. "Come on, tell them about the ship."

"God, I almost forgot about the ship," began Powell. His demeanor changed, reliving but one more traumatic event from this eventful day. "It was massive. Like, bigger than any other geth ship by a longshot. It gave off this, I dunno, rhythm that just…wormed its way into your head. It was terrifying. As soon as it appeared, everything went to hell." His cornered stance changed – he was genuinely afraid. Gorman's men shifted uncomfortably.

"I think she means the…other ship, Powell," muttered Dave.

"Oh, that old Alliance rust-bucket in the underground hangar? The transport ship with a gun strapped to it? Too big to be a shuttle, too small to be a frigate? The one so useless the geth didn't even bother to touch it?"

White could feel his piloting fingers twitching…or maybe it was his grip on the sniper straining again.

"Absolutely not," Powell asserted. "I don't care what 'provisions' you've got…down the hill, that ship is all this spaceport has left. What if any of us need it? Unlikely, but still!"

Gorman flung up his hands in resignation. He turned his back on the dockworkers, staring at the clueless faces of White and Kalu.

"Well, I guess that settles it then. We sit around and wait for more reinforcements. When they arrive we'll tell them about everything we know – the geth, the beacon, whatever a 'turian' is, those spikes that turn humans into robots…am I forgetting anything?" The Commander's crew was silent. Gorman gave a reassuring smirk, twirling around to point at Powell with an accusatory finger. "Oh, that's right – the interstellar smuggling ring."

"What? How could you know – I mean, I never did-" Powell stammered. Zaz and Dave's eyebrows were raised high as they stared at the now-sweating dockworker.

"If the Alliance can get Ray Toner, they can get you, Powell," Gorman falsely announced, planting his finger on Powell's chest for emphasis. "We don't want that to happen, right? You've had a very rough day as it is."

Powell gave one, last, almighty sigh.

"The code for the hangar is one-nine-eight-two. First my grenade mods, now this…"

Gorman raised his chin in triumph.

"1982? Hardly the year you were born," Kalu gave a small chuckle.

"Funny, that's the year I was…" Gorman began. "Never mind."