Hello there,
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If you like how Shepard is a total genius badass, you should check Arrival : Ruptures to enjoy more of it.
—
A Month After the Battle of the Citadel
Omega Nebula
"Disengaging FTL drives."
"Emission sinks active."
"Board is green… we are running silent." The SSV Normandy's pilot gave a situation report following their arrival in the system.
"We are wasting our time. Four days searching up and down this sector, and we haven't found any sign of Geth activity." XO Pressly made his opinion known again, tired with the pointless mission.
"Three ships went missing here in the past month. Something happened to them." Not that Joker didn't think this was a waste of Normandy's time too, but it was a job, and somebody had to do it.
"And with the slaver presence in these sectors eradicated, it is suspicious, but again, no sign of Geth." Pressly was just about to go and lodge another complaint with the Alliance when something did finally happen.
"Picking up something on the long-range scanner. Unidentified vessel. Looks like a cruiser." The ensign manning the scanners warned, and both Joker and Pressly stood straight, knowing this could be what they were searching for.
Joker checked the scans, comparing them to all known vessel scans in the database, and came up empty-handed. "Doesn't match any known signatures."
The ensign became alert as the readings before her changed. "Cruiser is changing course. Now on an intercept trajectory."
"Can't be. Stealth systems are engaged. There's no way a Geth ship could—" Pressly denied, but the pilot cut his sentence off.
Joker realized what was happening. "It's not the Geth. Brace for evasive maneuvers."
In that moment, the cruiser fired, its gold beam moving near the speed of light. Joker's preemptive maneuvers caused the beam to miss, but the enemy corrected the firing trajectory, blowing one of the engines and overloading the Normandy's systems.
One of the monitors blew up, killing XO Pressly on the spot, and another one killed the ensign who tried to get up and check on him.
"Kinetic barriers down. Multiple hull breaches. Weapons offline. Somebody put that fire out." Joker called out, trying to save the ship from taking further damage.
He continued the evasive maneuvers, but the enemy cruiser just kept shooting the Normandy, further compromising the integrity of the ship.
—
Ashley rushed through the ship, evading crew and wreckage alike to reach Shepard.
"Commander!" she shouted, directing the running crew members to the escape pods.
Shepard put on his helmet. "The distress beacon is ready to launch. Has the crew evacuated the ship?"
"Almost everyone's out, but Joker's still in the cockpit."
"Damn it. Get to an escape pod; I'll get him, and we'll be out of here." Shepard had some choice words for the pilot.
"Understood."
—
Shepard made his way to the cockpit through the burning wreckage of his ship to rescue Joker and heard the pilot's calls for help on emergency channels.
"Come on. We are getting out of here."
"No! I won't abandon the Normandy. I can save her." Joker refused, but Shepard wasn't in the mood to listen.
"I said move, now." Shepard hauled Joker over his shoulder, ignoring the pilot's objections and probably breaking some bones.
"They are coming around for another attack!" Joker warned, and the cruiser's golden beam blasted the ship again, right on the deck before the cockpit.
Carrying Joker to the escape pod, Shepard gently lowered him inside, but before he too could get in, the ship shook and something dislodged his magboots from the deck, causing him to float away from the escape pod, but he managed to hold on to the wall right next to the external launch button.
The cruiser's next attack came right between him and the escape pod, slowly moving to kill him no doubt, and against Joker's screams, Shepard slammed on the button and launched himself away from the beam, right towards the cruiser.
Activating his anti-gravity generator and covering himself in a biotic field to avoid damage from the wreckage, Shepard readied himself to take that ship down.
—
His oxygen was running low by the time he reached an airlock and started hacking his way in, which took time since the systems were more advanced than anything he had seen so far, but he succeeded nonetheless.
Once inside, Shepard took his helmet off to breathe in deeply and allow his suit to refill its small oxygen tanks and pulled his pistols, waiting for the enemy.
A swarm of flying bugs came through one of the doors, and Shepard covered a small radius around him in a biotic barrier, keeping them out, and switched his pistol to the microwave mode and fired.
The beam chained from one bug to the other, incinerating them en masse, and since they were kind enough to cluster around him, it was an easy job, but it ate half of his pistol's battery.
Checking the area for any stragglers, Shepard's barrier flickered out of existence as he stopped.
The doors opened once more, and anthropoidal aliens with four glowing yellow eyes opened fire on him.
Pivoting on the spot towards the nearest wall, Shepard took cover and returned fire, his pistols proving more effective than the enemies rifles, though they were nothing to scoff at, as a single shot took more than twenty percent off his shields.
The Collectors, for he had seen rare footage of them once during a raid in the Terminus systems, kept pouring into the bay, severely outnumbering Shepard.
His anti-gravity generator flared to life once more, and Shepard sent out a wave of biotic flare to confuse enemy sensors, followed by throwing one of his two grenades and launching himself into the air, still taking cover behind the wall.
As soon as the laser grid grenade stopped carving the Collectors to pieces, Shepard launched himself out of cover, overcharging his pistols and firing two microwaves that flash-cooked two dozen Collectors at once, clearing the room.
One of his pistols was out of charge, and the other only had about a quarter left, and since he didn't have a recharge station at hand, Shepard took one of the organic-looking rifles among the ashes of his enemies, strapping it to his back and moving towards the middle of the ship to take over.
—
Even with the numbers he killed, the cruiser had so many Collectors that they sent them out in a massive horde to kill him, and with his small arsenal, Shepard couldn't face them conventionally.
So he resorted to more creative means.
In one of the bays, he found drones armed with laser beams and grinned.
—
Shepard stood before the door that separated him from the small army of Collectors on the other side and opened it.
As the door slid open, Shepard stepped forward, standing in full view of the aliens that bore their weapons on him, ready to fire, before one of the drones slammed through the wall, creating an opening that allowed the four other drones to come out.
The drones fired at the Collectors as Shepard stood back to watch the carnage.
—
Oculi was scrap now, but the Collectors were down too, so Shepard called it a good trade.
Checking the internals of one of the drones, he scanned its power source, an advanced fusion core.
One that he could use to charge his pistols again, though only once, as the jury-rigged system would burn the charge port.
A risk he was willing to take, as the Collectors were trying to open the door he had just locked, wrecking its software to keep it that way.
Taking what parts he could, Shepard raced against the time, barely finishing recharging his pistols as the Collectors finally had enough and blew the door open, pouring inside the war-torn room, only to meet with laser bolts.
—
Slowly, Shepard pushed the Collectors back to the cruiser's bridge, one last laser bolt putting the last alien protecting the door to the bridge down.
Shepard hacked the door, waited for it to open, and gathered the corpses of the Collectors, holding them up with his biotics to use as meat shields.
As soon as the door opened, his idea proved to be a good one, as a particle beam slammed into the bodies, chewing through armor and flesh, along with the assorted weapons fire. Shepard launched the corpses, dogpiling the Collector firing the particle beam, before diving at the nearest bug with a biotic charge.
Disarming the Collector, Shepard put it in stasis, using it as makeshift cover, and opened fire, alternating between each side of his cover to not give the enemy a chance to focus fire.
He shot one Collector through the head, twisting out of the way to shoot another one who was raising a particle beam.
The shot went through the barrel of the particle beam weapon, causing a violent explosion that incinerated the Collector on the spot and started a fire in addition to damaging some of the consoles.
His cover came out of the stasis, and Shepard shot it in the head before using his biotic lash to pull another Collector in front of him, blocking several shots that quickly killed the alien and launched him at one of the shooters.
Jumping over the console, Shepard slid towards the Collector, his maneuvers evading fire, before kicking the alien on the knee and shooting it through the groin, the bolt making its way out of the top of its head, and pulled the remaining Collector to himself as he sprang up to his feet, ready to finish it with his omni-tool.
The Collector began to glow, breaking out of his biotic pull, before a deep baritone voice rang out. "Assuming direct control."
Orange lines began to cover the Collector before a biotic pulse, the kind he had never seen before, caused a small shockwave.
"Shepard, you resist the infinite." The Collector, or whatever it was that hijacked its body, warned him.
"Do I know you?" Shepard held out his pistols, ready to shoot, but also wanting to hear what it had to say.
"We are the harbinger of your salvation through destruction. You will submit to us."
"Yeah, I'll pass. You're too fucking ugly for that."
The Collector, or rather Harbinger, didn't seem to want to talk anymore and launched a biotic orb, and Shepard dodged, shooting the possessed Collector. The laser bolt hit a biotic barrier, one that under normal circumstances shouldn't have been able to block it, and ricocheted.
"Your attacks mean nothing." Harbinger spoke, launching a continuous barrage at Shepard, and he turned back, jumping over the console to take cover, and took his remaining grenade out, deciding to try something else rather than throwing it.
"You cannot escape destiny, Shepard."
"Really?" Shepard launched his strongest biotic halo to date, disrupting Harbinger's attack, and held out the grenade in his grasp, pressing the button.
A single beam with the full power of the micro-fusion cell tore through Harbinger's biotic barrier, leaving a gaping hole in the chest of the Collector.
"This changes nothing, Shepard. We will be back." Harbinger released the control, and the Collector fell to the ground, turning to ash.
"Self-destruction initiated." Shepard looked at the computers before that annoying voice rang out again.
"Run, Shepard, knowing the futility of your actions."
—
Shepard did run through the Collector cruiser as the ship exploded around him and barely made it to the bay he had arrived in.
—
Following Normandy's destruction at the hand of the unknown vessel, the Alliance and Citadel forces responded as soon as they received the distress call, sending out search teams to find Commander Shepard.
After three times the length of time for survival in a vacuum and on inhabited planets with no life support passed, they began to search for Shepard's body, coming up empty-handed.
It wasn't just the Citadel and the Alliance, but some other groups too that scoured the system for Shepard's body for their own ends, all coming up empty-handed.
The only good thing that came out of the search was the treasure trove of Collector technology found by the Alliance and the Citadel, as well as tidbits they missed, which were picked up by scavengers and unsavory groups.
It seemed as if Commander Shepard, who the galaxy thought to be invincible, was finally killed.