Chapter Text
SSV Normandy, in transit to the Sol System…
Commander Jane Shepard was many things. A space born navy brat who’d cut her teeth as the sole survivor of a failed mission on Akuze. The first human spectre who had helped to save both the Citadel and its council. Some even thought of her as the best humanity had to offer, a hero in an era where there were very few. Whether she was a hero, a savior, or a survivor didn’t really matter much to Jane in that moment because above all else, she was tired.
So tired she had spent the last day and a half of their trip back to Earth self confined to her quarters. It wasn’t just that an Alliance tribunal was waiting for her there, or the entire Batarian government calling for her slow execution. No, what was weighing her was two simple words.
Six months.
That was all the time she’d bought the galaxy at large by destroying the “Alpha” relay at the cost of three hundred thousand batarian lives. Roughly one hundred and eighty days for the disparate militaries of the galaxy to put together a defense on an unprecedented scale. Whether or not that time would matter was anyone’s guess, even if Shepard believed wholeheartedly that they could find a way to win.
Otherwise everyone she’d lost and every life traded away for precious time would have been for nothing.
“You may ask me for anything you like, except time,” Shepard quoted darkly.
“Commander,” Edi’s voice came over the intercom. “I do not wish to intrude, but your presence is requested in the cargo bay.”
“I’m not going to be a Commander for much longer, Edi,” Shepard said.
“While that may be true, until you cede command of this vessel you are its commanding officer,” Edi said with maybe a dash of sentiment buried underneath her tone. “And you are still requested in the cargo bay, regardless of rank.”
“Ah,” Shepard said as she sat up in her bed, rivulets of unbound black hair falling across her shoulders. “I suppose I’ve been rotting up here long enough. Who’s requested me?”
“Dr. Mordin and Tali Zorah,” Edi said. “They have informed me of unusual readings originating from the container known as the “Bootstrap” to the personnel from Karrif station.”
Shepard took a moment to process that. Kariff station had been an off the books, Alliance scientific outpost that they had been asked to evacuate by Admiral Hackett. Apparently an Eclipse war band was on its way to besiege the station and the Normandy was the only ship in range fast enough to evacuate the station. Just why they were about to be attacked by Mercs, or even what their primary project was, Hacket hadn’t clarified.
Even after learning that Shepard had almost died retrieving an "irreplaceable component” from the project head’s office, all he would say was:
“Trust me when I say that you don’t want definitive information about an off the books outpost when you’re staring down a tribunal.”
“What kind of unusual readings are we talking about here?” Shepard asked as she rose from her bed, only to catch sight of herself in the mirror. “Damn, I look like I’ve been rotting.”
“Exotic particles of an unknown variety and microwaves,” Edi explained as Shepard's shower turned on. “Dr. Mordin assures me that the levels are as of yet not high enough to cause problems, but the source must be identified. You have time to wash and change into fresh clothing if you would like to, Commander.”
“Thanks for looking out for Edi.” Shepard said. “Tell Thane and Garrus to meet me on deck five in half an hour.”
Twenty minutes, one shower, and a change of clothes later Shepard found herself stepping off the elevator onto Normandy's fifth deck. Usually, the deck was solely occupied by the ship’s two shuttles and the hammerhead in the hangar bay while the armory and cargo hold filled the rest of the space. But since their last “mission” most of the space, save the armory, had been turned into temporary living space for the thirty or so personnel from Karrif station. A much tighter fit than Shepard had anticipated seeing as they’d insisted on loading the station’s main project, the mysterious Bootstrap onto the Normandy.
As she entered the cargo hold, Shepard got her first good look at the “Bootstrap” since pulling the personnel off the station. It was a large rectangular cylinder that resembled an oversized shipping crate, and was made of a material that somehow looked both ceramic and metal. The thing was so large that it almost hadn’t fit through the Normandy’s cargo door, but all of the personnel had insisted it be brought along even if they all had to sleep crammed together like sardines.
Standing in a defensive formation opposite Mordin and Tali around the Bootstrap’s“front”, which was partially open Shepard saw, was around ten of the Karrif personnel. The rest of their number stood in little clumps of people against the cargo hold’s walls, most of them on their omni tools as they avoided eye contact with Shepard. Her crewmates in comparison were facing the group of ten head on, with Mordin making sharp hand gestures and Tali looking seconds away from unleashing a drone on them.
“You know,” Garrus said as he appeared on her left. “I’ve met obstinate researchers before, but these guys make them look downright agreeable.”
“Well, they’ve been tight lipped from the start,” Shepard said, taking a moment to collect herself before she entered the fray. “The project lead assures me that the thing isn’t dangerous, but they have to have a reason for protecting the secret this hard.”
“I don’t think it is a weapon, Siha.” Shepard felt Thane’s fingers squeeze hers before she saw him appear on her right. “Considering the varying disciplines among the Karrif personnel, I don’t believe it be anything so simple as a weapon.”
“That’s what concerns me,” Shepard said as she squeezed back. “Either of you know what started this?”
“From what I hear, those strange readings started when they added that crate you retrieved from the station to the Bootstrap,” Garrus said.
Near the tail end of the evacuation, Karrif Station’s head of operations had asked her to retrieve one of their most important components that hadn’t been added to the Bootstrap yet. A task she’d only agreed to after he’d insisted that it was “vital to the Bootstrap and the Alliance’s goals”. Even still, the component was immensely heavy despite being contained in a relatively small box and Shepard had barely made it back to the Normandy in time before the Eclipse fleet descended on the station.
“Hmm.”
“Ooh, I know that look,” Garrus said, his mandibles clicking excitedly.
“What look?” Shepard said.
“Your “I am going to get to the bottom of this” look, Siha.” The annoyingly pleased smile was evident in Thane’s tone.
“Ah.” Shepard sighed before starting towards the Bootstrap.
“Shepard, good timing,” Mordin insisted, turning on a heel to address her as she approached. “Detected exotic source of radiation, levels too low to be threat but would like to know where they originate. Could be useful if crew insides start melting.”
“Well hello to you too, Mordin.” Shepard chuckled as she took a place between the Salarian and the Quarian.
The Kerrif personnel watched the three of them with more concern in their eyes than malice. Not that Shepard had expected any, these people were an eclectic mix of scientists and engineers with only five of their number being active Alliance military. They were also all horrible poker players if Shepard judged their sweaty foreheads and concerned looks right.
“Mordin is exaggerating for effect,” Tali said, not looking up from her omni tool. “The burst of radiation we initially detected was the equivalent of a high intensity medical scan, but spread out omnidirectionally. I pointed it out to Mordin and he thought we should double check if anything brought aboard could do that; especially after we detected the exotic particles.”
“Indeed,” Mordin added. “Process of elimination. Simply following logical avenues of information.”
“Alright, that sounds fair to me,” Shepard said, crossing her arms as she looked at the Karrif personnel. “Is there anything on the Bootstrap that could cause the release of radiation and exotic particles?”
“That’s…” one of them began. “That’s classified, I’m sorry Com-”
They were cut off by the “front” door of the Bootstrap opening wide with a smooth swish sound and their boss stepping out into the cargo bay. His name was Thurlow Perry and his file reported that he had been the sole head of operations on Karriff station for almost its entire thirty year existence. He was a solid man, obviously former Alliance military before becoming a full time scientist and usually had a cool, calm demeanor that you’d expect in a seasoned leader.
Except as he stepped from the Bootstrap and met Shepard’s eye, Thurlow looked terrified.
“Co…Commander.” He sounded shaken, as if he’d just stared down a loaded gun. “I need to speak with you immediately about Bootstrap.”
There came sounds of protest from some of the Karrif personnel, but Thurlow raised a hand to quiet them. He exchanged a look with his “brain trust”, the inner circle of the station who headed up the different departments. Shepard’s stomach dropped as she watched horror and barely constrained panic take over their expressions.
Horrible poker faces, one and all, Shepard thought.
“Doctor, what have you brought onto my ship?” Shepard asked.
On instinct, she and her crewmates shifted into ready stances.
“The better question is what you brought onto your ship, Commander,” Thurlow said, a mad little chuckle escaping his lips before he shook his head. “No, no time for clever word play, you need context.”
“Context?”
“Yes, context,” Thurlow insisted. “Project Bootstrap was started shortly after the First Contact war, it was a project to assemble a cache of very specialized technology, knowledge, and resources. Essentially everything an isolated colony, cut off from a theoretically destroyed human civilization, would need to rapidly “bootstrap” up to an interstellar operating level. So long as they had at least a moderately robust base of scientific and engineering knowledge, they could use the Bootstrap.”
“Okay, but I don’t see why that’s relevant,” Shepard said. “Or why this is an off the books operation where you couldn’t tell us anything about the project.”
“Well, you see we are dealing with bleeding edge technologies and science,” Thurlow said as he wrung his hands so tight they were turning red. “Organic matter synthesizers, auto factories and matter fabricators, miniaturized blue box computers; all that and more tied together into a complete archive of humanity’s collective knowledge and history. Where the secrecy comes in is the fact that certain technologies, components and knowledge were attained through less than…legal means.”
“You mean some of it’s stolen?” Garrus asked sardonically.
“Yes, exactly,” Thurlow said. “Stolen from other Alliance research groups, private corporations and…governments human or otherwise, or just bought from markets on places like Omega. If it were ever found out, it would cause a diplomatic and economic scandal that would destroy the good will humanity has managed to garner. Especially since you saved the Council and got us a seat at the table, Commander.”
“I’m starting to see where this is going,” Shepard said darkly. “The “component” I retrieved before we left the station was stolen and it’s the source of the radiation burst, right?”
“Very astute, Commander,” Thurlow said, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Yes, that component was “acquired” from a transport ship on its way to an Asari collector, highly invested in the Eclipse mercenary band who believed it to be some kind of proto Asari piece. In actuality it is a piece of technology that long predates the Prothens themselves; a device that can open and manipulate wormholes.”
“I will hopefully have a chance to elaborate later,” Thurlow continued. “But for now, what you need to know is that we have spent the last four years attempting to create a wormhole connection between our station and the Earth. And in those four years, despite pouring ungodly amounts of power into the device we have never been able to open a wormhole larger than a hair’s width or keep it open longer than a few seconds.”
“Cut to the chase, doctor,” Shepard said, her gut tight as if expecting a blow.
“Yes, yes, I’m sorry.” Thurlow’s expression turned to pure resignation as he spoke. “A little over a day and a half ago, the device activated by itself drawing no power from the Normandy or the Bootstrap. We simply weren’t looking at it, thinking it inert, and in that blind spot it began gathering dark energy from the cosmic foam. The burst of radiation and exotic particles your people detected was the device releasing that energy into a field now encompassing the Normandy.”
“Alright, time to get that thing off my ship.”
Shepard made to step forward but stopped when Thurlow showed her his Omni tool’s display.
“I’m afraid it's far too late for that, Commander,” his voice was quiet as the numbers on the display counted down. “A wormhole is going to form around us in five, four, three, two, one.”
At that moment, the SSV Normandy SR-2 along with her crew and passengers ceased to exist within the space and time it had just a moment before.
Under a different sky…
The world was about to be forever changed, and not a soul realized it.
Certainly not the man plotting to change it himself. He had a name once, a rank even, but now all he had was a nickname from the nine whelps under his “command”, Greybeard. Where his pack of pups had been fresh legionnaires, Greybeard had served under Vulpas Inculta, so naturally it was he in command. Not that it mattered much considering all of them lived only because of their cowardice.
When the battle for the dam had turned against the Legion and Legate Lanius had fallen, did Greybeard die beside his brothers in arms? No, Greybeard ran. He fled east as just one coward among an army of them with the metal dogs of the Courier nipping at his heels. Their mad march back to the capital halted only when they found that the routes to the Legion’s capital were cut off by nuclear fallout.
That was when the last remnant of Caesar’s great army began to eat itself.
For five years after Greybeard had scrounged and hid, the shame weighed so heavy that not even the taking of his life would be enough to wash it away. But now, he had been given a new purpose. A mission direct from Caesar’s heir, his will born anew from the ashes, to enact divine vengeance on the usurper.
“And vengeance you shall have, Octavian,” the “unit’s” leader muttered under his breath as he looked out at outer New Vegas through the blinds.
He and his compatriots had spent the last day and a half crammed into the tight confines of several motel rooms disguised as a trade caravan. Said motel had been long abandoned and was little more than a collection of barely habitable rooms not even pests slept in. Their contact had chosen it specifically for that reason, a perfect place for hiding away men at the edges of the damned city of New Vegas. Not that the men cared, they knew this mission would end in their deaths so all that mattered was seeing it through.
“Greybeard.”
Greybeard turned to see the youngest pup approaching him with a bundle of dark red fabric in his hands. The boy couldn’t have been older than twelve at most during the battle for the Dam, and now five years later he barely looked like his balls had dropped. Not that Greybeard could complain considering most of the seasoned Legionaries were either dead or hundreds of miles away.
“Kresh, has the equipment passed inspection?” Greybeard asked.
“Yes and no,” Kresh said, nervously. “We finished unpacking the equipment left for us by Legate Vein, it seems that we only have half the ammunition promised, a third of the explosives, and the guns are…”
The boy trailed off as he held up a practically rusted over 9mm submachine gun.
“Is this…is this the worst of it?” Greybeard practically growled.
“Yes,” Kresh said. “The rest of the guns are better, but not by much. Though the armor from Savant is as promised, all complete sets of the new Ares pattern.”
“And the explosives, tell me what we do have.”
“A…a single satchel bomb,” Kresh said.
Greybeard sighed as he considered their next steps. The plan had been to use the sewers beneath the city to catch their target by surprise as he crossed the strip. Shock and awe was the key, he had hoped to overwhelm any nearby security forces and accomplish their mission before being overwhelmed in kind. Now they would have to be far more precise, knives rather than machetes.
“We…will make do then,” Greybeard said, his growl shifting somehow deeper as he resigned himself to what was instead of what should have been. “What state is our standard in, Kresh?”
“That is the good news,” Kresh insisted. “The standard is intact and untouched.”
“Good,” Greybeard said. “Our window of opportunity was narrow to begin with, but now we have no room for mistakes. I want you to distribute the dynamite amongst myself and the others, along with the ammunition. You, Kresh, will take one of the satchel bombs and bear the Legion standard as vexillarious.”
“But…I am just a lowly legionary how could I-”
“You have agreed to lay your life down for the New Legion, for Octavian,” Greybeard said as he placed a hand on Kresh’s shoulder. “Today we strike at the heart of this den of degenerates, and there would be no higher honor than to have you bear Caesar’s standard into this battle. Now, go tell the others to prepare themselves with what we do have while I consult my maps.”
“Yes, I will!”
Kresh saluted and then ran off to fulfill his orders. Greybeard in turn withdrew a folded map from a pocket and opened it to check for the fiftieth time the intelligence their contact had provided. NCR Ranger Corps: BURN AFTER READING was emblazoned atop it in thick black letters and Greybeard’s gaze lingered on a red route line to their target at the heart of the city. The path, he’d been assured, would send them through the sewers and bypass most of the city's security. Still, some part of him chafed at using a map made by Caesar’s sworn enemy, especially one so freely given, but even he recognized the quality of the information it provided.
“The Bear’s day is coming, soon,” Greybeard muttered as he looked to New Vegas and its neon lights that had begun to dim against the rising sun. “But today, Courier, you are mine.”
The Lucky 38, New Vegas…
There is power in the little rituals that start a person’s day. Those small acts done out of habit, tradition, or both that tick just the right boxes to smooth out a day. It was one such act that occupied the Courier as he sat at his desk and watched the first light of dawn creep up over the horizon. New Vegas glittered outside his window, the neon light of the Strip intermingled with the glow of street lights that now stretched out to the city’s growing edges. It looked peaceful, his adoptive home, it being the hour when the city that never sleeps actually got its rest before the new day began. Leaving the streets about as quiet as a reasonably large city could hope to be.
Quietly and with deft purpose, he slid the last piece of a fine, albeit weathered, 10mm pistol into place with a satisfying click sound. Gently, he placed the gun down next to its twin on a silk sheet splayed over the counter top and ran the metal fingers of his left hand over the smooth metal. They had been his mother’s guns and, alongside his father's rifle, had traveled with him for decades, one silenced and painted to blend with shadow while the other had been modified to punch hard and loudly. Cleaning both each morning had gone from a long standing ritual to physical therapy after he’d lost his arm in the closing of the battle for the Dam.
“Quite an unfortunate time to run out of ammunition, isn’t it?” the Courier quoted darkly as he remembered the moment after he emptied a magazine against a still standing Legate Lanius.
The Courier, Rex Craster to those who cared, was a lean man with a build more suited for endurance and agility than strength. There was a sharp edge to his features, exemplified by his grey green eyes that could, at a glance, seemingly dissect a person down to their components parts. Combined with his combed back red hair (that did little to hide the angular scar marking where a bullet had been extracted) and metal left arm, Rex cut a striking image even if Veronica insisted he needed to smile more outside of gladhanding.
On the countertop were two more items carried across the decades and thousands of miles; a lock pick case and a silver locket. The lock picks were prewar stainless steel, and the secret tools of a legendary gentlemen thief if his mother’s lie to a twelve year old Rex were to be believed. Yet it was the red leather case embroidered with a stylized “RC” that Rex had cherished most over the years, the last gift from his mother before she and his childhood had abruptly ended.
“Miss you mom,” Rex said as he grabbed her locket and wound its chain around his organic wrist like a bracelet.
“Miss you too, lovebug.”
He didn’t react to the voice, he wasn’t in the mood to indulge his “ghosts” today.
“Did you sleep at all?” came the voice of a living, not a delusion, person.
Reflected in the window was Veronica Santangelo, who despite her consistent ribbing about his sleep habits, looked like she had been awake for at least an hour herself. She wore her usual “uniform” as she called it, a jacket salvaged from a Brotherhood scribe uniform combined deftly with reinforced casual wear from New Vegas’ nascent clothing district. Thankfully, she’d stopped wearing her power fist to the office, but only after Rex promised that he would stop bringing his pistols to council meetings.
“I got a few hours,” Rex said as he turned to sit back at his desk. “But you know how I get when I’m waiting for news, so I worked on ED-E’s lift coils and lost track of time. How about you, Christine’s little project keep you two up all night?”
“That little project keeps your “Newsmen” well informed, thank you very much,” Veronica said, her eyes narrowed. “But no, we actually went out on the town last night. Something I think would do you some good.”
“Why would I go out on the town with your wife?” Rex asked, smirking only after Veronica shot him a death glare.
“You know that’s not what I meant, and you know that I know where you live, right?” Veronica threatened.
“Ah yes, you do know where I keep the spare key.”
“Yeah, on my key ring,” Veronica said. “My point still stands though, it would do you some good to get out there with real people instead of skulking around like a ghost haunting the streets of New Vegas. Even Boone has friends, Rex, Boone of all people! You can too, I assure you.”
“I’m busy,” Rex insisted, his grey green eyes focused on his hands as he stowed his pistols in their holsters. “Besides I have friends, remember how we formed this lovely little government of ours?”
“You know I’m talking about new friends,” Veronica insisted back. “Playing poker with Raul when he’s in town or having tea with Lily up every blue moon doesn’t count. Do I have to get your shrink of an auto-doc to prescribe some actual socializing?”
Rex sighed. He had his reasons for a solitary lifestyle, namely the long road he’d walked before having the misfortune to run into Benny while delivering the platinum chip. There was a familiar pressure in the back of his head and for a moment Rex caught a glimpse of a silhouette standing in the shadow behind Veronica. It was the image of a woman wearing a stained apron with a long scar going from the base of her neck to her left temple. Her eyes glittered, wet with tears, before the “ghost” as Rex called his delusions melted back into the shadows.
“Rex?” Veronica’s voice brought him back to reality. “You okay there, buddy?”
“Yes.” Rex cleared his throat and sat up in his chair. “Just got lost in my thoughts for a moment.”
“Who was it this time?” She asked with no judgement in her tone, just concern.
“Who do you think?” Rex said, smiling wanly. “I’m fine, really. Now, don’t we have reports to give or is this just a social call.”
“It’s both, it’s always both,” Veronica said, concern glinted in her eyes before she produced a glass phial of dark dirt from a jacket pocket. “Well then if you’re going to be your usually evasive self, we might as well get to it. Do you want to start or should I?”
“You start,” Rex said. “I can sleep a little more while you talk.”
“Haha.” Veronica deadpanned before she handed him the phial. “I’m going to skip all of the boring details we both know about population numbers and housing, and go right for the juicy bit. That sample in your hand is from the Ecological Engineering division’s test site Alpha. Three days ago, the soil bed it was taken from was like a lot of the soil in the rest of the Mojave; rocky, dry, and slightly irradiated.”
“And now?” Rex asked as he walked the phial over metal fingers.
“Now, it’s premium growing soil.” Veronica couldn’t stop the smile as it spread across her face. “The new GECKs worked, Rex. Right now, we have ten five acre plots transmuted and all ten are well within the parameters of a successful test. The Project head tells me that they’re confident we can scale this up, especially once we have a powerful enough weather device to bring in more consistent rainfall.”
It had been a serious stroke of luck when they'd found an intact GECK tucked away in the depths of Vault 11, somehow forgotten during the civil war that had destroyed the Vault. From there, it had been relatively simply to scan the wondrous piece of tech and reproduce it via the matter printers at a cost that meant only a few could be made in a given year. There was still the problem of Vault Tec's "proprietary technology encryption" keeping the actual mechanisms like the cold fusion reactor opaque, but they were making progress even there.
“A green New Vegas for our grandchildren,” Rex said, quoting said project lead who’d on more than one occasion been, mostly jokingly, called a mad scientist.
“Honestly, that’s not far off,” Veronica said. “I’ve been to the site myself, the things we’re able to do with just the tech we’ve resurrected and refined from Big Mt is astounding. Just imagine what we can do when we get into phase two of the development plan. Speaking of, how’d your end of the assessment go?”
“Oh no, I totally forgot to check in with my teams,” Rex said, feigning horror for a moment before Veronica pantomimed punching him. “Alright alright, I am happy to report that as of an hour ago the last of the Matter Disassembly/Printing arrays, from Jamestown to New Nipton, have been brought online. The salvage teams assure me that we have enough fissionable material to sustain our needs for the foreseeable future. Including keeping us in Fancy Lad snack cakes until the next time the world ends.”
“The printers are still spitting those things out en masse?” Veronica asked as a shiver ran down her back.
No doubt at the memory of her and Rex almost being buried under a wave of sugary snack cakes.
“Yep, no matter how many times we delete and reinstall the new codes.” Rex said, wincing sympathetically. “Though I’ll take that over the exploding coffee mugs any day.”
“So…” Veronica’s smile returned and she wrapped her knuckles on the desktop. “That means the rest of the Assembly has no reason to delay phase two, right?”
“Nope,” Rex said, returning the smile with a genuine one of his own. “We have everything we need to-“
Rex was cut off as the speaker on his desk, the end point of a direct line to the Big Empty, belched out:
“LOBOTOMITE SUPREME, IT IS I, DR. KLEIN DELIVERING URGENT FINDINGS!”
“Klein, how many times have I told you to keep your volume below the red mark I drew on your dial?” Rex said.
“Sorry about that,” The voice of Dr. 0 said through the intercom. “Klein got into the interface for one of our radio telescope and screwed up the settings. Which is actually why we’re-“
“I, DR. KLEIN, HAVE DISCOVERED SOMETHING!” Klein cut in with the force of a sonic boom. “WAIT, IS IT DISCOVERED OR OBSERVED, O?”
“It’s 0 you ignoramus!” Dr. 0 snapped. “And it’s the latter, you observed something.”
“I’m remembering why I don’t visit Big Mt all that much,” Veronica said sardonically. “How long does this song and dance usually last?”
“All day if I let them,” Rex grumbled before hitting his specially assigned override key. “Klein, his name is Dr. Zero not Dr. Oh, you know this. Now, tell me what you observed.”
“YES, I, DR. KLEIN, USING MY BRILLIANT INTUITION AIMED THE RADIO TELESCOPE AT A SUPREMELY INTERESTING SEGMENT OF THE SKY!”
“More like you didn’t actually know how to adjust it and got lucky,” 0 muttered.
“QUIET!” Klein insisted, somehow louder than before. “AS I WAS SAYING BEFORE I WAS SO RUDELY INTERRUPTED, I AIMED THE RADIO TELESCOPE AT JUST THE RIGHT SEGMENT OF SKY. THERE I DISCOVERED A BURP!”
“A…burp?” Rex asked, wondering not for the first or last time if he and Mobius had actually restored Klein’s intelligence at all.
“YES!” Klein insisted. “A MOMENTARY YET MASSIVE BURP OF MICROWAVE RADIATION AND EXOTIC PARTICLES THEORETICALLY CONSISTENT WITH A WORMHOLE.”
“A wormhole?” Rex and Veronica asked simultaneously.
“NOT ONE OF THOSE MEASLY MICRO WORMHOLES FROM THE COSMIC FOAM EITHER,” Klein said. “A BIG ONE!”
“Okay, what does that mean in the immediate term, Klein?” Rex said, the gears behind his head turning as his voice slipped into his “Courier” tone.
“I AM GLAD YOU ASKED, LOBOTOMITE SUPREME!” The speaker thumped as Klein “spoke” and Rex considered the paper work he’d have to fill out to replace it. “I HAVE PAINSTAKINGLY ANALYZED THE EMISSION DATA, AND-“
“He means Mobius looked over the data,” 0 added.
“MOBIUS ONLY DOUBLE CONFIRMED MY FINDINGS!” Klein said. “REGARDLESS OF WHOSE VISUAL RECEPTORS LOOKED OVER THE DATA, ONE FACT IS OBVIOUS. THE THEORETICAL WORMHOLE’S EMISSIONS BOUNCED OFF NOT ONE BUT TWO HIGH ALBEDO OBJECTS.”
“High Albedo as in-“ Rex began before 0 cut him off.
“As in mostly refined materials, yeah.”
“Do you think a couple of alien ships came through this wormhole?” Veronica asked, half jokingly.
“NOT AT ALL!” Klein said. “ONE OF THE OBJECTS APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN IN ORBIT BEFORE THE WORMHOLE OPENED WHILE THE OTHER APPEARED AFTER IT CLOSED.”
“Oh.” Veronica blinked a few times as she processed the implications. “I can see why you gave us a call.”
“HARDLY,” Klein huffed. “ALL OF THIS COULD HAVE BEEN AN EMAIL, THE REASON FOR THIS CALL IS TO TELL YOU THAT THE BOTH OBJECTS ARE NOW HURTLING TOWARDS NEW VEGAS AT HIGH SPEED.”
Rex and Veronica looked at each other, wide eyed before the former yelled:
“Why didn’t you open with that, Klein?!”
“BECAUSE I WANTED TO ENSURE YOU HAD THE PROPER CONTEXT BEFORE THEY CRASHED INTO YOU, SILLY LOBOTOMITE.”
Far above the Mojave…
For the “captain” of the Zetan mothership in orbit over the Mojave the world had already changed irrevocably.
Alyssa stood in the quiet dark of her quarters and watched the irradiated planet turn below her in silence. She was a tall woman with a frame accented by muscles gained from nearly a decade of hands on surgery and travel. Her tanned skin was dark in the low illumination of the room she hadn't left in three days, and she had her long black hair loosely bound back in a long braid she hadn’t touched in a week. Even then, she looked better than most of the people she’d taken aboard as they saved who they could from the Capital Wasteland.
It had been the Enclave, more specifically an infiltrator from some remnant group, who’d killed the Capital Wasteland. They’d introduced a modified variant of FEV into project purity before activating its self-destruct sequence; sending the now aerosolized viral load into the air. The variant was essentially a rage virus, overriding all higher brain functions and filling any one afflicted with a single minded desire to kill.
The first victims were part of the small community that had sprung up around the Purifier called Jefferson, where hundreds of people were transformed into rageful monsters. Rivet City, the Citadel, and Underworld had taken the brunt of that initial push which bought time for other communities to evacuate. She didn’t know why, but Underworld threw open its doors and drew enough of the infected that the Brotherhood was able to evacuate most of Rivet City through teleporters given to them for study. Even still, a full half of the Brotherhood’s people were lost holding the line as each of their fallen were transformed in kind to attack their brothers and sisters.
And then the monsters spilled out of DC proper and into the wasteland. Harold was gone along with all of his adult followers who’d sacrificed their lives to give Yew, Maple, and what seeds they could carry a chance to reach a dropship. All of Little Lamplight had been evacuated thanks to their outcast adults holding the line long enough for all the children to evacuate. It played out like that all across the Capital Wasteland, communities banding together and holding off the horde long enough to allow at least some of their numbers to evacuate and preserve what they could.
After only two days, the infection had washed across the wasteland and threatened to spread outward. To stop the infection before it could spread outside of their fallen home, Alyssa made the decision to use Zeta’s death ray to end it once and for all. It had been her who pressed the button, who after six firings watched the dust settle on a dead and silent wasteland that just days before had begun to heal, to grow again.
Even now, days after they’d fled into the upper atmosphere, part of her didn’t want to believe it was real. Her parent’s life work and nearly a decade of her own work stitching together the communities of the wasteland had been used to kill so many people. All her life she wanted to be like her father, a healer and leader who could help build a better world. Yet in the end she failed them both her parents and the people of the Capital wasteland.
In the end all she brought was chaos and ruin.
Alyssa brought a small picture from the pocket of her fatigues, it was a picture of her and Amata taken a week before Alyssa's father left the vault to restart Project Purity. Amata was smiling and Alyssa was looking up from one of her father's medical Journals. As she looked at the photo, she allowed a single sob to escape her before straightening and returning the photo to her pocket. Amata was dead along with Butch and all the other Dwellers of vault 101, and that was something she’d just have to accept.
“Dead like Dad, like almost everyone,” Alyssa said to her reflection in the window. “Now we need to focus on the living.”
“Alyssa,” Sarah Lyons said as she came to stand beside her. “We need to talk.”
Alyssa jumped at the sudden appearance and suppressed an instinct to grab the shot gun on her back.
“Sarah, you scared me,” Alyssa said, heart still beating fast. “You’re so quiet outside of your armor, I didn’t notice you come in.”
“I’ve been standing in your doorway for ten minutes, Aly.” Sarah’s voice was surprisingly soft for a woman like her. “Have you slept? Eaten?”
The two women had become close friends over their years helping the Capital Wastes together. Sarah was a good practical counter to Alyssa’s, sometimes naive, compassion and warmth. Together they had created something of a central government that saw every community across the wasteland getting enough water and protection they’d needed to start growing. An initiative that had slowly sanded the rough edges off the Lyons Brotherhood chapter, especially after the outcasts had been sent packing back west.
“All I do when I’m not staring out this window is sleep,” Alyssa said as she rubbed her temples. “And I think I ate some nutrient bark a little while ago when Maggie brought me some.”
“At least you had some kind of dinner,” Sarah said. “Speaking of food, some of the scribes just did an inventory, and our stores will run out in three days.."
"Three days, that's all we have left?" Alyssa somehow managed to look even more distraught than she did. "I knew we shouldn't have dipped into the emergency stores last winter, stupid, stupid"
"It wasn't stupid.” Sarah placed a hand on Alyssa’s shoulder and forced the woman to look at her. “We saved lives Alyssa, that food staved off starvation in three separate communities. We saved hundreds of lives that day and now we need to do it again.”
“We?” Alyssa asked after letting out a bitter laugh. “Sarah I just failed every community I’ve spent ten years preaching to about community and mutual aid. I’m not fit to lead anyone.”
“Wrong,” Sarah insisted. “Alyssa, the only reason any of these people are alive today is because of you. It was you who united them in the first place, you who with that big heart of yours got them to believe in a better world, and it was you who coordinated the evacuation of hundreds. I know it's hard, I lost half the Brotherhood remember, but right now we need to step up. We need to do what’s best for our people because-”
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Alyssa finished the phrase she so often used against Sarah. “Alright, so we have three days of food left for roughly eight hundred people. What are our options?”
“Well, the scribes tell me that we might have three somewhat viable options,” Sarah said as she hid the relief at seeing her friend come out of the stupor if only a little. “There’s the Commonwealth, The Midwest Brotherhood, and checking on rumors about New Vegas in the west.”
“I don’t think we can go to the Common Wealth,” Alyssa said. “Some of our traders reported that the Minutemen have the entire outer periphery loosely under their control, not to mention the Boston Triangle hoarding resources. Also, I’m pretty sure the Institute has it out for me for helping the Rail Road move synths through our territory.”
“Likewise the Midwest Brotherhood is probably a no go,” Sarah said, nodding. “They’re…weird, even to us. My father told me stories about how off they were, especially in their dedication to their “Elder” who is actually a bunch of human brains stitched together.”
“I’ll take that to heart,” Alyssa said, half bemused, half horrified. “So that leaves New Vegas in the west, and the NCO on the west coast, right?”
“It’s the NCR,” Sarah corrected. “And no, just New Vegas. The NCR and pretty much all of the Brotherhood Chapters are hostile to each other on a good day. So if the rumors are true that New Vegas is still independent of them that makes them our best bet. And before you ask, the founding chapter won't take us in seeing as they have enough to worry about being surrounded by the NCR; not to mention our past...interactions.”
“Which is why we’re in orbit above Nevada?” Alyssa asked.
“You left me the helm, Captain, so I made an executive decision.”
“I think you’re getting your terminologies mixed-”
“Captain, this is Helmsman Sally reporting from the bridge!” Came Sally’s voice through the ship's intercom. “We have a space kind of situation up here.”
“Yes, Sally?” Alyssa asked, knowing it was better to humor the young woman in case she was serious. “What’s the situation?”
Sally had never actually left Zeta after she and Alyssa’s misadventure that saw the latter becoming its “Captain”. As Alyssa moved into the ship full time, using it as a sort of nexus for all the growing operations of the Capital Wasteland’s unified community, Sally had quickly become her Helmsman. More often than not she spent her days watching Zeta’s sensors, she was one of the few who could read them in the original alien text, or flying the ship around the Earth.
“The sensors just lit up from some kind of microwave burst,” Sally explained. “Then another spaceship just appeared out of nowhere!”
“Another spaceship?” Sarah said, both blond eyebrows ratcheted all the way up. “Like the one you and Alyssa fought off years ago?”
“Um, no,” Sally said as a hologram appeared between them. “This one’s much smaller and is sending out a distress signal, in english!”
“Mayday mayday,” a man’s voice came through the intercom. “This is the Normandy SR-2 requesting immediate aid. We have sustained heavy damage, our mass effect core is inoperable, and our thrusters are at half capacity. Any Alliance ships in the area please respond, there are sixty four souls aboard.”
The hologram certainly showed…something. It certainly didn’t look anything like the UFOs she’d come to expect from prewar comics and radio serials. Instead it looked more like a race car, with a sleek aerodynamic body that flared out into what she assumed were the ship’s engines. And on its side, stenciled into the hull, were the words “Normandy SR-2”.
“What are the odds that there are aliens that speak English?” Sarah asked.
“Nearly ten years of nothing and now this,” Alyssa muttered before speaking up. “Not very high. Sally, where is this other ship go-”
Alyssa trailed off as the ship flew past them like a silver bullet, its trajectory making reentry inevitable.
“Forgive me if my sense of things is wrong,” Sarah said as they watched the ship hurtle down Earth’s gravity well. “But a ship with thrusters at half capacity won’t make for a smooth landing, right?”
Alyssa didn’t respond for a moment as she thought over her next action. The ship would soon start skipping across the upper atmosphere and then it would be forced to start reentry. After that it would become a cannon ball destined to strike some unlucky spot in North America, possibly killing every one of those sixty four souls. She wasn’t an engineer, but Alyssa did know Zeta’s capabilities better than anyone other than Sally.
And she knew that they could save them.
“Moira, are you on the bridge?” Alyssa asked.
“Yes ma’am, I sure am,” came the sing-song voice of Zeta’s defacto head mechanic.
“If we hit that ship with every one of Zeta’s tractor beams, could we catch it?” Alyssa said.
“Catch it?” Moira said, the wonder evident in her voice. “Gee, I suppose we could catch it like a baseball if we tried, but the problem is that we’d have to pour half our power capacity into doing just that. Not to mention pour the other half into our breaks.”
“Oh no,” Sarah groaned. “I know that look on you and that tone from Moira. If we want to save them Zeta’s gonna have to get right on that ship’s ass, right?”
“Yes sir ree Sarah Clara,” Moira chirped. “We’d have to get close enough to check its paint job and we’d only get that close chasing it all the way into the Earth’s atmosphere.”
“But it can be done?” Alyssa said. “Can we do it without risking the Zeta and everyone aboard?”
“We’d probably have to land soon after for repairs and what not, but yes we could do it with Sally driving.”
“I see,” Alyssa said after chewing on her lip. “Sally, does the ship’s computer have a flight path for the ship? Do we know where it might crash?”
The hologram changed to a model of the Earth with a line of blinking dots denoting the crashing ship’s trajectory to-
“Well I’ll be damned,” Sarah said, actually giggling as they both realized the location ship was on a crash course with. “It’s practically aimed at New Vegas.”
“Well, we were going to land anyway,” Alyssa said before she looked back out of the window. “Sally, we’re on our way to the bridge but I want you to pursue that ship and get us close enough to engage the tractor beams, got that?”
“Yes Captain!”
“Moira,” Alyssa continued as she activated a panel that would patch her into the intercom for the rest of the ship at the press of a button. “I want you to make sure we have power for the beams and propulsion, even if we have to shut off other systems I want to make sure both ships land intact.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want either of us to end up as a fiery smear across the desert, now would I?” Moira said, giving about as definitive an answer as she was capable.
Alyssa felt the ship shudder and the sudden lurch as its drives engaged.
“Sarah, get ready to move,” Alyssa said as she pressed the button and activated the ship wide intercom. “Everyone, this is Alyssa Montgomery. We’re going in for a quick, dirty landing so I want everyone to secure what they can before strapping yourselves in. This is going to be a bumpy ride, and we don’t quite know what’s waiting for us on the other side, but I do know one thing for certain. That together we’ve survived far worse than a little turbulence, and together we are going to see this through.”
“You know,” Sarah said as the ship’s lights dimmed and they felt its speed ramp up. “I miss the days when all I had to worry about was Super Mutants. Are we really going to catch a space ship out of midair?”
“What?” Alyssa asked as she made for the door, patting Sarah on the arm as she passed. “You never played catch with your dad as a kid?”
New Vegas…
Veronica liked to tell herself that her life had once been a simple one. It was easy to reminisce about the days when her largest concern was finding food and medicine for the bunker, or the ever constant pining for a woman she was sure she’d never see again. Of course, those days were anything but simple considering all she’d been through even before being essentially exiled from the bunker.
That said, even in the mess that was her old life she never had to deal with crashing spaceships.
She stepped out into the now abandoned Mojave Central Command Center. It was the beating heart of the Mojave’s Logistics and Command Corps, built into what had been the Lucky 38’s cocktail lounge. Usually dozens of techs and analysts would be hard at work at terminals and radio stations tied directly into the Mojave’s growing communication and command network. But now with the ships barreling down on the city there was only Rex at the “nest” where the two of them usually stood.
He was fully in his “Courier” mode as he typed at a terminal, embodying a kind of intensity that could burn through paper with a glance. An intensity that Veronica knew was mostly a mask, the hard shell that had grown around the real Rex that protected him and was just as much a weapon as his pistols were. When it slipped over him, her friend was gone and in his place was the Courier; the living legend that had rained down fire on his enemies.
“I thought I ordered you to the sublevels,” Rex said as Veronica took her place at her terminal, his voice fully that of the legend and not the man she’d been discussing reports with minutes earlier.
“And I thought you knew that I don’t take orders well,” Veronica said as her terminal booted up. “You think I’m just going to let you play the hero and do this all on your lonesome? Besides, the two of us can get those targeting systems aligned much faster than either of us alone.”
Shortly after Klein’s call, Rex had thought to use the targeting system of the Lucky 38’s laser defence grid to lock onto and track the falling ships. Unfortunately, the laser grid was designed for ICBMs and relatively small bombers that didn’t compare to the size of even the smaller of the two ships. So the grid would have to be manually recalibrated to not only target the vessels, but to also track them well enough to establish a trajectory.
Or need be, shoot them out of the sky.
“Fair,” Rex said, some of his actual voice peeking through the Courier’s. “But if this gets us killed, Christine is going to be so pissed she’ll resurrect the both of us just to kill me herself.”
“Oh come now,” Veronica said as she went to work on her own half of the targeting grid. “She’d just kick your ass from Jacobstown to New Nipton and back.”
A map of the Mojave on the Center’s main screen, once the very screen Mr. House transmitted through, two triangles appeared. One, the smaller and faster ship, far ahead of the other as both hurtled towards New Vegas. They flickered slightly as the two tinkerers worked to recalibrate sensors and set the computers to tracing flight paths across the Mojave. Flight paths that crossed directly over New Vegas, cutting the city in two on the map at an unclear elevation.
“Shit, it’s going to either go through us or right over,” Veronica said as the last of her sensors came back online. “Elevation unknown, but-”
She stopped talking as she felt Rex’s hand gently grasp her arm and she looked to see him staring out a window. Following his line of sight, Veronica’s eyes widened when she saw a glittering flash of silver in the sky and felt a sickening drop in her stomach as she realized what it was. The smaller of the two ships was rocketing towards them on a trajectory that would almost certainly strike the Lucky 38 head on.
“How…how much time do we have, do you think?” She asked.
“Minutes going by that thing’s speed,” Rex said softly, the Courier tone gone. Replaced by the comforting softness she’d come to know. Only this softness was tinged with a quiet acceptance, an acquiescence to fate whether that be death or survival she didn’t know. “The elevator’s still at the bottom of the tower with that last load of staff, so no chance it will get up in time.”
“What about the lasers?” She asked, knowing the answer as she slipped an arm around his back to pull him into a half embrace.
“By the time they warm up it’ll be too close.” Rex said as he returned the gesture; a last bit of human comfort before the chips fell where they would. “Even then, say they do work on whatever it's made of, the best case scenario is that it explodes right next to us. That means shrapnel traveling at what’s probably super sonic speed.”
“Transportalponder?”
“In my workshop,” Rex said softly. “Didn’t think I’d need it today.”
“Damn.” Veronica let out a long breath as the ship grew larger and larger. “I had such a nice dress picked out for Christine and I’s date tonight.”
“We’ve survived worse.” He held her close as the two stared down the flame wreathed ship. “But if we don’t…Veronica, I want to thank you for taking a chance on a messed up gunslinger from Oregon.”
“Likewise, Rex,” She whispered. “Thanks for showing me the world.”
The ship was close enough now that Veronica could make out its vague outline and even some of its coloration. Yet it was moving so fast that as soon as those details registered she felt her most primal instincts trigger and her entire body braced for impact. Rex held her close, his own body tensed against the inevitable impact, as together they stared down the ship and bathed in the roar of its engines as it got within a hundred yards of the Lucky 38.
Only for the impact to never come. Instead, the entire building shook as the second much larger ship overtook the first and fired three blue beams that seemed to grab at the ship. With a cacophony of sound, the larger disk shaped ship roared overhead and carried with them the smaller ship. Its trajectory apparently changed at the very last second so that it missed them entirely, with only the sound of it passing overhead as indication.
“Thank the Stars and the Mother who lit them,” Rex whispered as he let out a breath.
“How…how many lucky breaks like that do we have left, you think?” Veronica said as she let go of Rex and had to grab a railing to fight off giddy vertigo of relief.
“Enough to last us till we’re dead, I think,” Rex said.
Together, they watched the main screen as it traced the trajectories of the two ships with dotted lines overlaid over each other. Minutes passed by as they watched the triangular markers fly over New Vegas and out past the slowly developing outskirts of the city. Each finally came to a stop in a section of the Mojave that was mostly untouched ruins and forgotten Fiend nests long abandoned.
“Looks like they’ll be going down in sector 3,” Veronica said, oddly calm after yet another brush with death. “That far into the outskirts there’s not much but radroaches and boarded up prewar buildings.”
“Isn’t that old motel we got trapped in out there?” Rex tapped a command into his terminal as he spoke. On the screen, other icons began to appear representing the Mojave’s scrambled community peacekeepers and the “Regulars”; the slowly growing number ranks of an actual military. Most of which had been deployed to get people in shelters, basements, and or anything that could shield them from the crashing ships. “The one where those fiends thought they had us trapped until Boone and I whittled them down?”
“Uh, yeah I think it is,” Veronica said as she traced the trajectories to where they terminated. “In fact, it looks like the smaller of the two ships is going to land right on top of that radroach den.”
“Land is a nice way to say crash,” Rex said, a little of the Courier bleeding back into his voice. He entered a command into his console, queuing up the several preplanned order sets the Mojave Regulars and Community police had been developing over five years. “We need to figure out what the hell is going on, we have to get someone out there as soon as possible.”
“That’s gonna be tricky with everyone tied up.” Veronica chewed on her lip as she thought through the consequences of the “shelter in place” order given to everyone in the city. “Even if we send out an all clear, the streets are gonna be utter chaos. Not to mention any tramplings, heart attacks, and just general injuries you get telling twenty thousand people to hide in the basement. It’ll be hours before we can even get a Securitron off traffic duty.”
“Those are just the forces inside New Vegas,” Rex said idly as he drank in the growing number of symbols on the main screen. He pointed a metal finger at an wireframe icon depicting a pair of glasses heading up a convoy. “Arcade’s heading back into the city with his medical convoy, fully loaded with medical supplies and equipment from the drills they were running. Plus, they have a platoon of mixed Regulars and five of the new model Securitrons, so if they meet us there we’d have security and plenty of first responders.”
“Not a bad idea,” Veronica admitted, one eyebrow raised at the idea their doctors would be of any help to crash-landed aliens. “But who’s we in this scenario and how are we going to get there to meet them?”
“ We as in Me, you, ED-E, and anyone from the gang in town,” Rex said as he idly counted off with metal fingers. “As to how we get there, well, there is always the Phoenix .”
The Phoenix was the renamed vertibird that used to belong to the Enclave Remnants and the heart of the Mojave’s growing fleet of vehicles. In the five years since the Legion had been shattered and the NCR forced to retreat, the vertibird and other vehicles had been reverse-engineered for use across the Mojave. Three more vertibirds were being built in Big Mt but in the meantime the flight “school” established by Daisy Whitman had produced four expectant pilots trained on the vehicle they did have.
“We’re a gang now?” Veronica asked as she rolled her eyes. “Boone’s in town, on leave with his unity, and I think Cass got in last night from that caravan run to the NCR Outpost.”
Where most of their companions had found places in the solidifying Mojave state, Cass and Boone hadn’t stayed put. Boone had, under his own volition, formed a ramshackle company to watch the eastern borders not closed off by nuclear bombing. Cass on the other hand was a founding member (crucially not one with any administrative duties) of the Mojave Trading Authority, an organization that had spent the last five years stitching together the communities of the region into a solid trading bloc. One that gave the Mojave a stronger trade position with the NCR, even if the western nation wanted to downplay how much it relied on the increasing supply of raw resources and specialty goods they produced.
“Well, Boone will be in a bad mood and Cass will be in a good one,” Rex said sardonically.
“Seems like we’re getting the band back together,” Veronica said as she slid her fingers into the collapsed power knuckles on her hip. “If only Lily and Raul were here, we’d have the whole set.”
“Too bad, Raul always loves situations like this.” Rex’s hands came to the holsters on his hips as he spoke, his gaze looking out at the city below them. He deflated a little and Veronica saw a tremble pass through him that would disappear the moment someone else entered the command center. “Actual fucking aliens, really?”
“Yeah,” Veronica said, not knowing if she was agreeing or just stating the obvious. “Out of everything we’ve seen and done, I somehow thought aliens would stay fictional. Silly me.”
“Yeah…,” Rex said, as he turned towards the elevator. “You remember when Powder Gangers and Cazadores were some of our biggest problems?”
“Fondly, buddy, fondly.”
Shepard had been knocked out a lot in her life. Be it from blunt force trauma or sheer g forces or even being poisoned; she had experience with unconsciousness. So much so that she was almost enjoying its groggy depths when she felt the electric tingle of medigel being applied; especially as it kick started her brain.
“Ack!”
Shepard shot upright, spitting out a wad of bloody spit as she cleared her lungs. Everything hurt with a deep, pulsing ache that seemed to come from her bones to harmonize with the pain in seemingly every muscle. The fact that she remained conscious at all was probably due to her implants and however much medigel that had just been injected into her.
“There we go, breathe,” someone, Garrus she realized, said as he held a hand over her mouth. “Let the medicine do its work but you have to be quiet.”
Shepard looked up through red rimmed vision at Garrus crouching in front of her, his expression saying all she needed to know as she swallowed another grunt of pain. They were outside of the Normandy, under the cover of a slab of concrete with the stench of burning plastic thick in the air. The Normandy herself lay at the bottom of a divot hundreds of yards long with its port side facing her. Thick plumes of smoke coiled out of blasted open emergency hatches or from gashes in the ship’s side where whole sections of plating had ripped off to reveal sparking wiring underneath.
“Most of the crew is okay, beat to shit but okay,” Garrus explained as he prepared another dose of the medigel; specifically a combat variant that was infused with a stimulant. “You got most of them into crash couches while you were running around, so no deaths or truly catastrophic injuries were reported. Bigger problem is-”
He was interrupted by the sound of gunfire and an unintelligible shout.
“That.” Garrus said softly as he ducked lower. “We hit some kind of building on the way down, ripped the roof right off it. Turns out there were people inside who started shooting at us then another group that had just got on scene as Grunt and I pulled you out. Everyone else is regrouping on the starboard side of the Normandy, but I couldn’t risk moving you again until your wounds were tended.”
“How many?” Shepard croaked softly.
“Nine by last count, thirty yards that away,” Garrus said as he gestured towards the sound of gun fire. “They’re using museum piece guns, semi autos and repeater rifles if I’ve got my terms right; possibly sticks of some kind of explosive. Normally not that bad a group to repel, but none of our weapons, shields, or biotics are working. The point is, we need to get you moving, Shepard.”
“Fuck.” Shepard cursed through gritted teeth. “Hit me.”
Without hesitation, Garrus covered her mouth again and applied the second dose. For a brief moment, Shepard’s vision turned white and she was made painfully aware of every cell and muscle fiber contracting as the medicine went to work repairing the most egregious damage done to her body. Which included several cracked ribs very suddenly mended as she gripped Garrus’ arm so tight she almost ripped into his suit. Then the pain treatment kicked and she let out a deep breath through her nose as the all encompassing ache went down by a notch or two.
“Ahhhhhh,” She hissed. “I swear that hurts worse every time.”
She looked over the top of their cover and saw the remains of a blocky building that almost resembled a motel from the old movies her parents liked. Rubble and chunks of the courtyard where four men in red armor, an odd cross between military and sportswear, took cover from gunfire coming from a ridge across the road running perpendicular to the courtyard. Five more men stood on the motel’s barely standing second floor and either taking potshots at the Normandy or focusing their fire on the road.
“Come out, Courier!” A man on the second floor yelled out. “Face the Judgement of Octavian!”
“The Courier?” Shepard huffed.
“Must be someone in the group on the ridge,” Garrus explained as he helped her up into a crouch. “We thought these guys were just squatting in the building until they caught sight of the other group, and then started yelling about Octavian this and the Legion that.”
“Just once I’d like to not crashland into the middle of something violent,” Shepard said.
“Yeah, we never seem to land on soft sand beaches with open bars, do we?”
“Alright, Vakarian, what’s the plan?” Shepard asked. “No guns and no shields doesn’t leave us with a lot of options.”
“Run like hell while everyone is looking that way,” Garrus said as he took a singular flashbang off his belt. “Had this left over from our last away mission, on three I throw this and you start running. Once we have some distance, we head towards the rear of the Normandy using rubble and the building as cover. I sent Grunt that way to clear a path for us, so the others should be waiting.”
“Sounds as good a plan as any,” Shepard said. “But we-”
She was interrupted as someone suddenly slid into a crouch behind their chunk of cover. The person, who had somehow snuck around the side of their cover, was a lean man dressed in an black leather duster and sturdy clothing that gave him the look of either a mechanic or a gunslinger. He wore his red hair slicked back showing off a gnarly surgical scar on his head and had a set of thick, black glass goggles over his eyes that glinted in the sun as he breathed hard to catch his breath.
“Their armor is better,” the man said aloud as he holstered a reinforced pistol of some kind and reached into his duster. “Should have brought Panciencia I know, now shut up, Dad.”
The man pulled a pack of cigarettes from his duster and had one in his mouth, ready to light with a lighter built into a metal thumb, when he finally noticed Shepard and Garrus.
“Hello.” The man said, the cigarette barely hanging on his lips as he stared at Garrus.
“Hello.” Shepard and Garrus said back.
“You two wouldn’t happen to be from that space ship, would you?”
“We are,” Shepard said, partly dumbfounded by how casual the conversation was.
“And you aren’t by any chance affiliated with Caesar's Legion?” He asked.
“No,” Garrus said. “I don’t think so.”
“Good to know,” the man said. “I’d ask what brings you by, but-”
There came a blast as something exploded near the road.
“Them,” The man said as he looked them over. “Name’s Rex, by the way. Are either of you armed?”
“Besides a flash bang, no,” Garrus said. “Name’s Garrus.”
“Really?” Rex said. “Flashbangs but not guns, an interesting combination.”
“I lost my side arm in the crash and Garrus was helping to get our people out of the ship when this popped off,” Shepard. “You can call me Commander Shepard.”
“Commander, eh?” Rex mulled as he peeked over the rubble only to duck back as gunfire strafed concrete.
“The Courier is behind-”
Before the speaker could finish the sentence, Rex was up and had drawn the bulky pistol in a blur of motion. It was like watching a gunslinger straight out of an old west tale as he fired off five shots at the upper level before jerking his body to fire another five at ground level. Shepard peeked over the top to find that four of the armored men had fallen; one on the balcony and three on the ground. The one on the Balcony clutched his neck with a bloodied hand while one of the men on the ground was now missing his head.
“Six shots left in the mag,” Rex muttered as he crouched back down behind cover. “Killled two, wounded two. Should open window for…”
There came the sound of a high powered rifle firing and the last man left standing on the ground lost his head. Curses and the tell tale sound of a gun jamming rang out from the second floor only to be drowned out by another rifle shot. Shepard looked back just in time to see the man who’d been clutching his neck fall over the railing to slam into the ground.
“Five down, four to go,” Rex said, something more intense in his voice than the shocked bemusement she’d detected earlier. “Listen, there are reinforcements on the way, but there’s still plenty of time for these assholes to turn this in their favor. The ones left are gonna be coming down the stairs closest to us as they fall back.”
He gestured to a side stairwell barely twenty yards from them at their eleven o’ clock and sure enough the remaining men were falling back towards it. Sniper fire kept them pinned to the inner walls, but it was clear that they only had minutes before the men made it to the top of the stairs around a protective corner. An intent made clear by the men risking being hit by sniper fire every time they leaned out to suppress the trio’s position with their semi automatics.
“They’re after me and are gonna beeline towards us even if it costs them their lives,” Rex said. “My people should be moving up now, but they won’t reach us before the Legionnaires do. So I’m going to loan one of you a gun.”
He reached into his duster and drew another pistol, this one sleeker and equipped with a silencer.
“This is Whisper,” He said as he offered it to them. “She doesn’t pack Buster here’s punch, but if you land solid shots it will still give anyone pause, armor or no. Who of you two is more fit to shoot?”
“Garrus,” Shepard said, aware enough of her condition to know the correct choice. “I’ll take the grenade, I might have a concussion but I can still pitch a mean slow ball.”
“Starting to see why you have the rank, Commander,” Rex said, a smile peeking through the intense mask on his face as the weapons were exchanged. “I’m sure you know what to do when they reach the top of those stairs. When it goes off, we move towards the road using the courtyard rubble as cover until we link up with my people. They should be close enough to cover us.”
Instead of replying, Shepard primed the grenade and looked to the stairway to see that the men were just peeking around the railing. Garrus and Rex stood, each unloading on the men with about as precise shots as you could get with pistols at that range; outright killing one with a hit to an eye while the others kept moving thanks to their armor or force of will. In kind, Shepard stood and threw the grenade with all of her regained strength in a wide arc that brought it down directly in the middle of the clustered men.
“Move!” Shepard yelled.
Just as the grenade detonated, she wrenched her body and darted toward the road. Every muscle burned and she could feel her bones ache with every step, but still she pushed forward through it all. Garrus and Rex ran beside her, the former staying low with a death grip on Whisper while the latter managed a near sprint while reloading Buster with an almost military precision.
“Get down!”
A red headed woman in a straw hat appeared from behind a particularly large chunk of rubble. Rex hit the deck without hesitation, prompting Shepard and Garrus to do the same just as the woman fired off a grenade rifle. Something glowing bright green over their heads in a wide arc that terminated a couple dozen yards to their rear with a loud, very bright explosion. The heat of which Shepard felt on the back of her neck as globs of green plasma fell all around them.
Beams of red light erupted over the woman and a drone of some kind came flying in with its own battle music blaring on a speaker. Behind it was another woman wearing light weight, padded road clothes and her only weapon was what looked to be a matte black pneumatic augmentation on her right arm. Considering the diversity of her own squad, Shepard was a little surprised to find that the sight of the women and drone was actually somewhat novel to her.
The first time I’ve been pleasantly surprised in a while, she thought idly.
“Two more assholes down!” the woman in the straw hat yelled as she reloaded her rifle and fired.
There came another blast of heat and green light as Shepard moved behind the cover the woman had emerged from. She turned to watch as the other woman helped Rex to his feet and together they advanced towards the stairs without missing a beat. Wordlessly, the pair split with Rex side stepping in a diagonal as the woman hugged close to the wall; stepping over piles of glowing green gloop as she did. A man came staggering looking half dead with visible third degree burns across his legs and entire sections of his armor literally melted to his body. In one hand he held a knife in a death grip, and pointed its tip at Rex as he fell to his knees.
“The…the…the Legion remembers, Courier Six,” the man growled through the bloody spit dripping from his mouth. “And Octav…Octavian has marked you for death.”
Then, with a final rattling breath the man fell forward face first into the dirt.
“Three dead assholes,” the woman in the straw hat chirped gleefully.
“You know, just once I’d like to understand at least part of the shit shows we drop into,” Garrus said as he came to crouch beside her.
“Eh, it keeps things fresh,” Shepard dead panned.
“Cass, you do remember my views on energy weapons, yes?” Rex said, his gaze locked on the corpse.
“I do,” the woman, Cass, retorted. “But I don’t have your sensitivities and 40mm plasma grenades don’t count anyways.”
“Of course.” Rex holstered his gun and turned to look at Shepard. “Commander, you’re clear to go check on your people. A medical support convoy is minutes out, so we can treat any of-.”
Rex looked at Garrus before he slid his goggles up to reveal a set of piercing grey green eyes aimed at Shepard. Then he cocked an ear and glanced at a partially collapsed doorway on the building’s lower level. A moment of contemplation passed before he looked back to Shepard and said:
“ Most of your people if they’re as human as you look.”
“Thank you,” Shepard stood, her ears ringing as they always did in the silence after a gun fight. “But are you certain there’s no other attackers?”
“Just the one crying over there,” Rex said as he pointed at the doorway. “Come out now and you won’t be hurt.”
Sure enough, Shepard heard a gasp and shuffling from beyond the doorway. Then another armored man, no, a teenager in armor came stumbling out from the gloom covered in a layer of dust so thick his armor barely looked red. On his back was a standard straight out of a roman history book that showed a yellow bull against a red background, but the more pressing detail was what he held in his hand. It was the handle of a rip cord that terminated inside a satchel draped over his other arm, an obvious explosive meant to make him a martyr.
“A…a…a…ave, true to Oct-” the boy said, hand shaking as he fingers turned white gripping the cord’s handle.
Time seemed to slow as the kid’s arm tensed and Shepard thought he was going to pull the cord. Everyone around her reacted in kind, Shepard grabbed Garrus by the shoulders and dragged him back into cover while the others leaped backward towards what cover they could find. As she hit the deck, Shepard wedged herself and Garrus into the rough seam where the chunk of rubble met the dirt, hoping that the slab of concrete would be enough to absorb the force of the blast.
Only as the seconds ticked by, the blast never came.
“Why…” she heard the teen soldier say. “Why didn’t you move? Why didn’t you even flinch?”
Shepard peeked over the cover to see that the kid was still standing with Rex having not moved at all.
“Because you're not going to pull that cord,” He said, his tone blunt and authoritative.
“What?” the kid squeaked.
“You are not going to pull that cord,” Rex said.
“Of course I am!” the kid insisted even as his voice cracked. “I am a vexillarious, I bear the standard of the Legion, of Octavian’s Leg-”
“And if you really meant that, then you would have bum rushed me the moment I holstered my gun.” Rex took a step forward, his hands raised. “I’ve been where you are, a kid with a weapon and a cause and not a lot of options. That means I know what you really want out of this conversation.”
“And what’s that?”
“You want to live.” Rex took another step forward. “Giving your life for a cause is all well and good until the price comes due. If you were serious then you would have died with your fellow Legionaries, but here you are still alive and talking to me.”
“A…and if you are right.” The kid didn’t flinch as Rex took yet another step forward, his eyes pleading even as his grip remained firm. “What happens to me if I don’t pull this cord?”
“We take you back to New Vegas where you’ll get a hot meal, a chance to bathe, and a clean bed to sleep in tonight,” Rex explained in the tone that implied he was very much the man whose promises meant something.
New Vegas, like Las Vegas? Shepard thought, remembering the films about gangsters and gamblers her parents loved. Are we…
“Is it that easy?” the boy asked. “I…I can just give myself over?”
“It’s that easy.” Rex said. “All you have to do is let go of that handle and put the bomb down.”
Gently, Rex reached forward and brushed the kid’s fingers off the handle with one hand as he took the satchel from the kid with the other. As soon the satchel left his arm, the kid collapsed to his knees and he let out a guttural sob that came from the core of his being. Shepard didn’t know if it was the sound of relief or mourning, but she suspected he probably didn’t know himself.
“Today’s the first day of the rest of your life, kid,” Rex said as he stepped back. “I hope you appreciate that.”
“Okay, can someone please tell me where the hell we are?” Garrus said as he and Shepard stood. “And what the hell all that was if you’re feeling generous.”
“We’re on Earth,” Shepard said. “Outside of Las Vegas, right?”
“Last I checked, we’re on Earth,” the woman with the pneumatic fist. “And it’s New Vegas, no one’s called it Las Vegas since the Great War.
“The Great War?” Shepard said, her voice soft.
“Shepard.” Garrus said. “What does any of that mean?”
“It means we’re not on our Earth, Garrus.”