(ಠ_ಠ) (break_the_cycle) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-02-23 20:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, commander jane shepard, garrus vakarian |
Who: Shepard and Vakarian
What: Shepard gets a message and they go to investigate. A shoot out happens. Reapers were there.
When: Before the HG plot
Where: Other side of the galaxy
Status: complete
Rating: PG-13 for planetary destruction
There had been a message waiting for Shepard. From Hackett. But it was a message she’d already received once, in her dreams. Before the war.
Shepard had all but dragged Garrus back to the ship, the only explanation she gave being that they had to get to Batarian space and if he could figure out a way to blow up a Mass Relay then he needed to get right on it.
Garrus felt a migraine going on. Pandora’s Box in Space had been opened and they’d discovered more than what they had bargained for. He’d been prepared to board the Normandy for another trip to the Citadel - they still had plenty to scavenge from the dormant station, including crates of medi-gel supply - but he hadn’t thought their next ‘mission’ would include venturing into what was thought to be Batarian space.
Or that it would involve destroying a fucking Mass Relay.
He’d been in one of the cockpit seats, rubbing his brows to soothe the throbbing of his head. “I don’t know how to destroy it, Shepard. The Normandy’s guns aren’t strong enough. No spaceship is strong enough. Why do we need to blow up a Mass Relay?”
“Remember when I disappeared on a mission alone?” Shepard said, gripping the controls too tight. “And remember when you came in at the last moment to save my ass before ramming an asteroid into the Relay? That’s where we’re going. That’s what I got a message about. We have to find out if there’s anything in the Bahak system.”
Leave it to Shepard to just drop an atomic bomb on the conversation.
She just hoped there was an asteroid base to ram into the Relay. She wasn’t taking any chances.
“So we’re running under the assumption that destroying this one will prevent the possibility of a Reaper invasion,” Vakarian deduced, eyebrow arched as he turned his head to look ahead. Better to be safe than sorry, he guessed, and this task had a purpose beside the flashy ‘let’s blow something up in space because it’s cool.’
Assuming there was an asteroid flying around this orbit they could use. Typically this sort of thing would be a very precise mathematical equation to hone in on accuracy, but the Normandy had the technology to process algorithms like that - and the rest would just be them ‘winging it,’ like most times.
Garrus bit back a sigh. “You’re taking me out for drinks after this, Shepard.”
“Anywhere you want,” Shepard promised. The ship passed through the Relay and on the other side was the Bahak system. She initiated three scans - Reaper signatures, the asteroid base, and for any life on the main planet.
If there was anything on the planet, she was going to have to make a hard choice.
“Our presence is going to eventually alert whatever other lifeforms out there,” Garrus mumbled out loud in thought, chin resting atop his hand. A little naive to think that in this entire big, wide, unexplored universe they were the only intelligent life form - especially in a reality that had other realities bleed over. It was naive, it was stupid, and like his aforementioned thought this was them poking the dormant beasts. Pandora’s Box, in Space.
They had headache medicine on the Normandy, didn’t they? Probably something advanced, Chakwas Approved.
“Probably. The question is will they be anything we know, or from someone else’s dreams? Or will they be our… normal aliens, I guess.” There had to be other people out there. And if Shepard had to choose she’d rather have unaltered ‘normal’ aliens, than anything from any of the dreams she’d heard of.
Though Vulcans would be fine.
“Sensors are picking up the same asteroid base I found last time. Doesn’t look like there’s anything more advanced than plant life and animals on the planet though.” So hopefully no blowing up, but if there was a countdown to arrival….Well she wouldn’t feel too bad.
Ah, a valid point. Others dreamt about space too, different lifeforms and maybe similar (or vastly different, who knew) technology. Strange, magical threats had always been prominent but they had always overlooked the possibility of something crashing into the atmosphere because of someone’s dreamscapes. Another apocalypse, this time from a different source.
“Safe to blast, then,” he concurred, thick brows furrowed. “Now I’m curious to see - what other planets are out there? Palaven? Tuchanka? Thessia?” Would they find existing civilizations? Or would they be bare, perhaps with all the different races still in their more primitive state.
“Let's inspect that base.” She pointed to the readout. “Last time I was here there was a countdown.” She didn’t need to say what the count down was for. She didn’t think it was necessary. Or what it would mean if the countdown was running. “The asteroid has engines. We can point it at the Mass Relay and then jump out.”
And maybe then they could see if Palavan or Thessia existed. But stopping potential extinction came first.
No, he didn’t need an elaboration on what the countdown was for - it clicked immediately, and he rubbed the bridge of his nose. On the very bright side of things the Agency offered quite the killer life insurance policy, he’d told Cindy he loved her before he left, but him and Shepard were experts at planetary life or death scenarios. Another mission for the books. How nostalgic.
Prepared as always, Garrus came suited in that modified navy-colored armor. All his weapons properly calibrated and loaded with incendiary and concussion ammo, better scopes installed, and if anything, this time they had an abundance of medi-gel. An alien’s version of a healing salve.
“I’m ready to go,” Vakarian said, rising from the cockpit. “All this stuff just gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.”
Jane’s armor was red and black, with dashes of white here and there. She pulled her helmet on and nodded at him. “Docking in twenty seconds. Lets treat this like it’s real.”
Because maybe it was.
As soon as the airlock cycled open, they were under fire by the familiar figures of Cerberus troops. Well. That was new. Shepard chucked a grenade out and then she glowed bright blue as she charged down the ramp and right into the fray.
New indeed. Part of Garrus had hoped it was another abandoned sight, much like the Citadel - but he also grew to expect the absolute worst of scenarios, and being on the receiving end of gunfire from hauntingly familiar expendables was on the list. Not on the very top, but on there. Somewhere.
Cover was immediately taken, fingers tapping to fully activate the visor. Heat sensors, shield levels, all activated and observed, and while Shepard did more damage pummeling through them like a bull seeing red, he was behind, in the shadows.
Flawlessly picking every single troop that tried to get on her while she wasn’t looking. One bullet each, two at most, but the aiming was honed in specifically on their heads for quick offing.
It was like the good old days. A potential apocalypse on the horizon, bullets and grenades flying everywhere, the blue glow of biotics unleashed and enemy soldiers going down from well placed sniper shots. Within a minute the survivors had retreated from the docking bay, and Shepard surveyed the bodies. “Cerberus. Wasn’t this heavily defended in my dreams. Guess reality wants to make this harder on us.”
She wished that Tali were here. Her tech could give them an idea of what might be waiting, literally around the corner.
“Are we talking actual personnel,” Vakarian began, emerging from his cover, rifle in his arms. “Or are we talking some kind of husk like indoctrinated experiment of Cerberus personnel.” Generally mindless, controlled things, he could get behind. Actual human personnel? Then he’d be convinced the survivalist group was actually somehow out there in existence and that seemed to sort of fuck with everything.
Jane shrugged her shoulder. “Actual personnel that then got indoctrinated. Harbinger had a nice message for me at the end of that mission. I don’t think this is the same as the group that used to run around Orange County before they started calling themselves ‘Hydra.’”
At least she hoped not. She crept towards the hallway, and pulled out a grenade. “Lets keep the party going.”
Garrus bit back a sigh. All bets were off, even if he hoped for the same thing - but he adjusted and readied himself, his visor scanning for any abnormal signals. “If they’re indoctrinated, you know what that helps prove,” he mumbled quietly, stepping behind her like a ghost. Existence of Reapers was quickly climbing out of the realm of possibility and into their reality.
On the bright side, they could loot Cerberus corpses for tech too. Sometimes those fuckers had better weapons anyway.
Jane could certainly use a new fancy shotgun. She liked new, fancy shotguns. But she also liked explosives, and she quietly rolled her grenade down the hall. As soon as it went off, she shot around the corner. Killing people was, at times, a little bit too much fun for her. It didn’t matter who they were or what they wanted, they were the enemy and they were in her way. She trusted Garrus to have her back.
As the hallway got cleared, something rumbled on the base. In her dreams she’d gone one way and gotten overwhelmed, but this time she turned in the opposite direction, searching for the main controls. She also had a Taurian to help.
Garrus merely did what he had to do - he was military disciplined, both from his Turian past and his existence here. Killing was part of the job. Sometimes it weighed him down to the point of physical exhaustion, but he either sucked it up or slept on it. Picking these guys off didn’t phase him at all; better them than he or Shepard. They had people to come back home to.
“What the hell was that?” he asked, that rumble causing him to be on high alert. Thermal clips loaded again, he followed her down the hall - back to her as he picked off the last remaining white-clad personnel. Thank fuck that the shields of his armor were up and running, too.
Garrus had more people to come back to than Shepard. With one or two exceptions, one of whom was an ex and the other of whom was something complicated, Garrus was the only person she had to come home to. And he was here with her. But then, she wouldn't have him anywhere else.
Shepard led the way up to another level. There was more resistance and it was getting thicker and thicker the deeper they went. "We're moving. That could be bad, or it could be good. But it does mean we can take out the Relay."
And worse case scenario that was her goal. Surprisingly, the defense thinned out near the control center. And inside were a wall of displays, and a count down with thirteen minutes to go. Each display seemed to be a deep space camera.
And each display was filled with hundreds of the telltale lights of a Reaper.
Some ammo was replenished from the fallen resistance; he didn’t expect to need this much, and the throng of gunfire they’d been pummeling through had been alarming. His armor had taken a couple hits, some scuffs here and there - it was two against a fuckton, but thank the spirits that these two weren’t exactly amateurs either. A mix of tactic and brute force.
Garrus had been slamming another set of clips into his assault file once they reached the control center, tweaked the scope on his sniper just a smidge - before glancing up and being greeted with a sight that belonged in the dreams sleep had wrought onto them.
“Tell me that’s not what I fucking think it is,” he choked, the air in the room seemingly sucked away for a moment.
“We can buy time.” It was a confirmation that it was exactly what Garrus thought it was. “We can delay them for months. Years. Enough time to build a defense.” She moved towards the controls. “We just need to ram this base into that Mass Relay and that will set them back a nice long time. We can deny them access to the Citadel too.” It had taken three years, between Sovereign’s attack on the Citadel, and the Reaper invasion to begin. That would give them time.
“If there’s a Citadel, maybe we can figure out a way to replicate the Crucible.” She just wasn’t sure there was enough material on Earth to build one.
Hypothetically, sure. There was a lot that went into building the Crucible, including thousands of actual people - minds and muscle working together to get it done, along with all the tech they could salvage. Scraps of metal, resources.
Time.
“Let’s contemplate that after we destroy the relay,” Vakarian hurriedly suggested. “Do what you have to do - I’ll keep an eye out to make sure we don’t get shot in the head by any surprisepersonnel.”
They could get the Agency in on it. Maybe some other government agencies as long as they were kept in the dark. Make NASA think it was some kind of orbital observatory. Shepard could leave that to people who were better at conspiracies.
“Okay. Cover my back.” She hacked her way into the console, and accessed the engines. If she cut the power to one long enough it would change course and take it right into the Relay. With plenty of time to get back to the Normandy.
She also started downloading as much information from the computers as she could.
That’s what Garrus did best, didn’t he? In the distance he could hear the echo of footsteps through steel halls, and in a compartment of his armor he pulled a proximity mine. He tossed the sticky explosive before they entered, and it glued itself to the floor - it blended it, it was small, so when they came stampeding down it was the first thing they stepped on.
Cue a hellfire explosion, because he sometimes liked to indulge in the flashier things. Sometimes. It rattled the immediate area, smoke spread like poison.
The sound of bullets pounding their ears next and wisely, he took cover, surfacing only to fire. It was a damn good thing his aim was one of the best; they didn’t have an infinite supply of ammo and every shot counted. They were not going to fucking die here.
She didn’t look back, trusting in Garrus to get the job done, and needing to focus on what she was doing. “Where’s Tali when you need her?” A less capable person might have panicked. But She hadn’t earned her N7 by giving into panic.
The base rumbled again, turning so quickly that she was nearly knocked off her feet. The ‘ground’ stabilized, and she looked over at Garrus. “We have seven minutes to get back to the Normandy and make the jump.”
They needed to clear a path. She was out of grenades, but when one was a biotic like her, they were their own grenades. The corridor lit up as she barreled down it. Skidding to a stop, Shepard didn’t hear the charging of a weapon until it was too late.
It wasn’t too late. Garrus wouldn’t let it ever get that far, because at the very last leg of that power up he unleashed an armor-piercing ammo - it zinged through the air, penetrated the trooper’s helmet and exited out the other end. A clean kill. The body dropped hard to the ground, and he let out a gust of breath.
He took a quick second to wipe the sweat from his brow, but he hurried behind her - now they had less than six minutes, and at this rate it really was best to pummel through and fucking run. Don’t get bogged down with combat unless absolutely necessary; everything else on this station had a clock ticking.
“Let’s go somewhere nice after this.”
Shepard jumped, then looked behind her at the dead man. Maybe she was getting distracted in her young-old age. “Nice shot. Thanks.”
Garrus had the right idea. Shepard pinched her nose and nodded. “I think a week in the bahamas sounds like a great idea after this.”
Bahamas was warm. Garrus liked warm, and maybe they could contemplate beach-inspired plans after they got off this wretched station and safely into the Normandy. It was a race against the clock now, and while running through the corridors to get back to the ship, there were greeted with more and more personnel - part of him wanted to know where the fuck they even came from. Like there was a center of this place that kept spitting up armored troops over and over.
But there wasn’t time to stand back and shoot at them. Relying on Shepard’s biotics, the toss of a couple explosives behind them to rid of some seemed like the most efficient way.
Vakarian swung himself into the airlock containment, and pulled her with him.
With no one to take the ship away they lost precious time getting to the cockpit. For once, Shepard’s driving skills actually came in handy. The Normandy rocketed towards the Relay, the base just behind it. Seconds before they jumped, something large appeared in the system, alarms ringing throughout the ship as weapons locked onto them.
But then they were gone. They came out the other side near the Citadel, and Shepard checked the system. “...That Relay is gone. No way to get back to that system quickly.”
And the nearest relay to it was far enough away that they’d have plenty of time to prepare.
Spirits, was that a fucking ‘adventure.’ The shields on his armor had done well and all, but there were still dents and scruffs from the mess of Cerberus troops that had generated from that damn place - it’d only been two of them, and while they were good at what they did, weren’t invincible. Underneath the metal there’d be bruises and aches, but he couldn’t feel any of that yet. Not with the weight of what was definitely their reality dawning on them.
Garrus had known this was going to be a possibility. Both of them did. But this sealed the deal, finalized what was to come, and he let out a growl of a sigh.
“Talking with Carter’s going to be fun,” he deadpanned, shouldering the assault rifle he’d drained of ammo.
Bruises, aches, cuts and scrapes, your typical day on the Normandy. But they’d made it, and now they were armed with the knowledge of the apocalypse. It wasn’t entirely a bad thing. There was always hope until the bitter end.
Shepard set the auto-pilot them into the citadel. “How about we restock, and then raid Purgatory for the good stuff.” Her softened into something approaching exhaustion. “I don’t know about you but I could really use a drink.”