Zaeed Space 2nd Edition

((Sorry for the long wait, I like writing off the cuff but I was hoping to do some revisions to the overall plot to give me a better grip of where I’m going. I’ve been keeping up with the thread, it's pretty glorious. Cheers to Jukebox and all my other writefags))


“Listen you paper boned ship monkey, I don’t give a damn if Shepard’s planetside, I’ve been paid, I’m moving on.” Zaeed barked into the comms unit as he was raiding the ship’s armory, getting his hands on a few choice favorites.


“Gee can’t you cool it for a day or two Zaeed? You can walk out the airlock if you want out so bad. Second shuttle’s already prepping for a trip down to get the cargo. You can sweetalk the commander after…”

“You’re right kid, we blew up the boogiemen, go have yourself a fucking holiday. But if you don’t want to bring the Alliance a cruiser with a hull crack, you’ll swing the gates open when I fly it out of here.”

“The Normandy’s hull cannot be penetrated in the manner described Mr. Masani.” The vaguely anthropomorphic projection of EDI materialized behind him.

“Well maybe all I’ll do is lower the property value, but I’ll warn you, my blood has a hard time washing out.” Zaeed slid a crate of weapons over the projection and EDI phased out.


As he went to the door, he took one last look at the antique screen. In harsh green lettering read “The nightmare is over but it won’t end.” Without realizing it Zaeed grasped his antique rifle Jesse and slung it over his shoulder.


====
The Normandy was abuzz with activity making the most of the time their gracious Batarian hosts had given them to work in their solar jurisdiction. Zaeed made his way past a score of new faces who paid him no mind as he took the elevator down to the docking bay.

Zaeed knew that such co-operation between the two factions rarely if ever happened. It took five months of repealing anti-xeno laws, and six more of negotiating around tariffs and more than a few billion credits to get the Normandy in orbit around Khar’Shan.
 	And the killer was that the Normandy wasn’t even reinstated yet as an official Alliance ship. This whole fucking trip was composed of Shepards goodwill and Batarian arrogance. Simple merchant vessels wouldn’t cut it for whatever the Hegemony were selling the Alliance.


Zaeed shook off his thoughts about politics, who gave a shit about Batarian solar space? What caught his attention was just outside of the gravity well of the Harsa system. Zaeed picked up the signal on one of his antique devices. He’d lifted off a vintage dealer on Shanxi. It was a piece of shit that no one in their right mind would ever use. That’s why it made an ingenious as hell relay for instructions. He’d kept it for the story.
	Last night it had woken him with a start as it booted up of its own volition for the first time in decades. He’d blearily thrown off the covers and stared hard with his good eye at the bulky handheld device ready smash it to pieces for waking him. It simply had a set of coordinates and that ominous message. “The nightmare is over but it won’t end.”
====
	Zaeed was almost surprised at his own curiosity, it hadn’t gotten the better of him in years.




His grizzled determination parted the crowd like a knife. He popped the seal on the shuttle and hopped in without so much as anyone batting an eyelash. Zaeed knew Joker didn’t have the balls to stop him, but he paged the deck anyway.

“So are we gonna dance here or is your pelvis giving out already? “

“Zaaed just what the hell are you doing up there?” Zaeed spent a second or two mulling over his responses. This is what he got for trying to pick fights with kids in wheelchairs. He finally spoke up.

“Nothing personal Shepard, but my pays run dry and I’ve got better things to do than swap stories with a goody goody like you.”

“I order you to stand down from whatever plan you’re going with and wait to discuss it with me once this is done.”

“No pay, no command, and trust me, I don’t need backup where I’m going. Now order your monkey to open the bay before you have to order him to mop me off the floor.”

“Just do it Joker, we can’t have a scene just over Batarian space, were not even Alliance, remember.”

“Aye Aye Commander”

===
The chaos made it relatively easy to slip past unnoticed, and his mean look stopped anyone from asking questions as he popped the seal on the shuttle. Zaeed knew Joker didn’t have the balls to stop him and was confident that he could investigate the signal and return before anyone raised too big of a stink. He paged the bridge.

“So... are we gonna dance or is your pelvis giving out already Joker? “
“Zaaed just what the hell are you doing up there?” It was Shepard. Zaeed cursed, this is what he got for trying to pick fights with kids in wheelchairs.


“Nothing personal Shepard, but my pays run dry and I’ve got better things to do than swap stories with a goody goody like you.”
“What’s gotten into you Zaeed?! I order you to stand down and wait to discuss whatever it is you’re doing with me once our negotiations are done.”
“No pay, no command, and I don’t need you mucking up another one of my operations again. Now order your monkey to open the bay before you have to order him to mop me off the floor.”
“Just do it Joker, we can’t have a scene just over Batarian space, were not even Alliance, remember.”

“Aye Aye Commander.” Zaeed grinned broadly as the bay doors slowly retracted to the confusion of the many dock workers. Lucky for them that the shields stopped the vacuum or a score of fine Alliance men and women would be in orbit around Kar’Shan.
>The docking clamps released and the shuttle dropped into space.

http://pastebin.com/01WBnq1m

After a long time, Isaac’s eyes opened. The lack of oxygen had tangled his mind into a ball of yarn. Questions flashed in his mind one after another but it was hard to piece them together as thoughts. Instead of thoughts pictures flashed into Isaac’s mind.

He tried to retrace his steps in his mind, tried to focus on the last place he was.
The marker appeared before him, in a dark and sleek chamber, raised on a circular dais with stairs curving to meet it. Arrayed around it were wires and interfaces. The back wall suddenly gave way to lush and verdant planet Isaac couldn’t recognize.

The image was gone as quickly as it had crept over his mind. Isaac again focused but this time he tried to retell the story of how he had gotten there.
The marker appeared before him, and a sound shook the walls of his being. The sound of life beyond death, of life beyond life, of the final evolution. And Isaac felt himself torn back and reliving the events of the past days in mere seconds.

He clenched his teeth trying to hold onto some scrap of meaning. He seemed to recall having a purpose, and could feel it tugging at his sore limbs.

The marker appeared before him, this time only as a black silhouette against a haze of orange dust.

Who was he?

The marker appeared before him.

==

The Kodyak shuttle was finally free of the Normandy, and Zaeed felt pleased with himself at being able bend Shepard to his will. The holographic projection of Shepard looked at him sternly.

“Why now Zaeed? You could have left for Omega the second the Collectors were dealt with and we’d never have seen each other again.” He was still using his commander voice as if Zaeed was obligated to connect the dots for him.

“And thrown out the opportunity to take the most advanced ship humanity has ever glued together to Vido’s door? To be honest I half wished we never went to stop the Collectors, at least then I could have had that little shit in my hands and wrung his little neck.”

“The fate of the galaxy was at stake Zaeed! I wasn’t going to jeopardize the mission for your vendetta.”

“Piss off Shepard.” He flipped off the holographic Sheppard and then turned it off.

He marked down the coordinates he’d got from his antique and waited, checking the scanners every now and again. It seemed none of the batarians had picked up his tiny craft, and the Normandy didn’t budge. The shuttle’s fuel draw was nominal when one didn’t need the Kodiak’s mass effect fields, so Zaeed’s was unconcerned with how he’d get back.

Zaeed felt the air stir and had started to move before he knew what he was doing.


“Looks like we picked up a hitchhiker, and my does he have the itchy trigger finger. Now listen here you goddam piece of shit, do you know what’s choking you right now?

“What’s that?  You can’t answer me, with this magnificent piece of engineering in you windpipe? Let me give you the brief then. The base structure is pretty simple, a carbon fiber casing with steel pistons inside, and guess what? Those steel pistons can move independently of the rest of my body, so I could pull back the weights and punch you without even moving my hand. By the way, it’s coated in the same material as the most expensive of starships, so good luck trying to cut it with an omnitool. “
He dropped his victim to the floor. He waited a few seconds while the Batarian he’d choked gasped for air.

Maybe he monologued a bit too long. The poor creature was still on the ground for a full minute giving Zaeed a chance to have a good look at him. He was a bit underweight for a batarian but was pretty well toned. His skin was a faded ashen color with light brown highlights on the raised areas of his face. He wore a armor of a dirty white color with sunset orange stripes going down the sides.

“I yield, I yield.” The batarian finally coughed.

“Good. What’re you doing on this shuttle? Last I checked they were prepping it for launch with cargo down to Khar’Shan. You’re not telling me you’re the cargo and that the Alliance is suddenly into slavery are you?”
===

“No… I was *cough*, slacking off in the shuttle. I’m Alliance goddammit.”

“You’re either a shitty liar or I choked you too hard. A Batarian Alliance soldier? I’ve been around this galaxy more than twice over, and this is a first even for me.”

The batarian had to fight through another fit of coughs before he could reply. “Fucking, Shit.” *HACK* “I’m a consultant. I don’t have the armor or the rank but the Alliance signs my paychecks and I tell them the best way to not fuck up.”

“Well, you’re doing a shit job of it. I’ll do you a favor.” Zaeed slammed the Batarian into a seat and omni-handcuffed him to a hand railing nearby. “Don’t follow me and you won’t die.”

The batarian let out a quick gasp but was quick on the uptake “Ugh… Hey! You can’t leave me out here of all places!! Uh… actually WHERE are we?”

Zaeed kept his silence as he checked the scans, still nothing. They were right on top of the coordinates, the scanner should be able to pick something from miles around. Zaeed fiddled with the scanner even though he knew he was shit at that sort of thing. He simply couldn’t believe his gut was wrong. “God Fucking damn I might as well look out the…” Zaeed’s good eye wandered across the viewport and saw the dreadnought in all its glory. Its hull was lit up by a holographic display of the words “RSF Rasputin” accompanied by a projection of a roaring bear swallowing a small circle that could have been a planet of some sort, were visible from a glowing projection on its mid section.
===

“Bloody hell, you’d think a ship this size would be on every scan a Batarian satellite buoy could come up with.”
The struggling batarian suddenly fell silent; he was staring out at the ship with a deep pondering look.

“RSF Rasputin, this is the Normandy SR2 Transport Shuttle do you read me?” “Come in RSF Rasputin. No response of course. Whatever they have that’s blocking the Hegemonies scanners is probably what’s blocking the comms. That’s always a bad sign.”

“The door will seal itself after me, but for the second or two of vacuum you should still wear this.” Zaeed handed a helmet off to the batarian who hadn’t said a word to protest his situation.
“What do you suppose is down there? I’ve never seen a design like this on a ship before, maybe it’s a new species?”
“And you suppose they write their ship signs in Russian?”
“What’s Russian?” The batarian stared blankly from behind the mismatched helmet covering two of his eyes.
“Human language for a different type of human.”
“Oh, well I wouldn’t know you all look the same to me human.”
Zaeed shrugged and continued to do a final inventory. “Symptom of living in a galactic society, we used to kill each other over that sort of thing you know. But of course I don’t think of aliens as having any variations.”

“But hell rookie I didn’t come to chat.” Zaeed sealed his own suit, and the shuttle doors opened upward revealing the USG Razputin from above.

“Aren’t you gonna find a place for the shuttle to land?”

“For all I know the gravity tethers might be broken, and who’s gonna open up for us?”
===

The Kodyak came with a harpoon gun for covert ship insertions that didn’t require having to even dock on the hull’s surface.

Zaeed used it more than once during his career, and he loved the ride every time. The line left between the shuttle and the RSF Rasputin was stiff and rigid, so that when Zaeed created a zipline with his omni-tool. All he needed was a shove off the shuttle and the air in his boots to maneuver him.

Zaeed had a minute to enjoy the peace that went with going out into space. Khar’Shan was the size of a tennis ball out in the distance and its sun outlined it in a brilliant aura. Zaeeds breathing rung out in his helmet as the silence enveloped him.

>I’ve never once seen a ship like this, the design is unlike anything in the field. Not to mention that there hasn’t been a spaceship commissioned outside of the Systems Alliance in centuries. To create such a thing in secret? That was nigh impossible.

Zaeeds mag-lock boots engaged and the wonder of it all was lost on him. He was now firmly fixed on getting to the bottom of this mystery. He’d landed near the ship's primary thrusters. Zaeed had seen the engines were cold from the Kodiak and assumed them to be his best bet. Usually you could count on the engines frying any would be boarding party, but on a cold ship it meant an easy way to bypass virtually all security measures.

Hoping that the engines wouldn’t suddenly flare back to life Zaeed hustled to the end of the booster. The exhaust stretched out for what could easily have been a city block. By the time Zaeed reached the end he had a good huff to his breath.

He finally arrived at a gargantuan door that wrote ENGINE ROOM & FUEL CHAMBERS. There didn’t seem to be a maintenance door, just two scaffolds, with two interfaces on either side.

==
So Omni-Handcuffs were resistant to the Omni-tools torch. “Fuck that kwarsan!” Quoros gritted his teeth, this might be the roughest patch of his new career as an Alliance Consultant yet. It didn’t help that two of his eyes were covered by this helmet too. He tried to be delicate about getting out of his restraints, last thing he needed was a hole in his armor while the door of the Kodyak was still ajar.

After a good while Quoros gave up and took a breather. Anyone with more brains than a vorcha would make omni-cuffs resistant to torches. He’d sooner chop his hand off before he did anything significant. His head still pounded, and he could almost feel that metal hand clasping his throat.

“Let’s go Scorch, think outside of the box. You’re batarian we always have something up our sleeve! What do you have that he doesn’t?”

Scrolling through his Omni-tool programs he finally found something. It was highly illegal, provided solely by Batarian State Arms and outside of the Terminus no one used it. Working Alliance for a time almost drove the configuration from his mind, but this most certainly did the trick.

The bindings snapped as his armor responded to his command and assembled his Blade Armor. The growing wrist blades dislodged his cuffs as they expanded, leaving him free oncemore.

“Now you’ve got an easy choice here Scorch, do what the Hegemony always told you and alert the authorities, do what being in the Terminus taught you and steal the ship and run, or just go and harp over to the Alliance.”

“Decisions, decisions.”

===

“Alright I’m not the most stellar pilot but there hardly is anything for me to hit out here.” Scorch sat down at the controls to the Kodiak and tried to find the control to retract the harpoon.
*Access Denied* Red letters flashed across the screen.
“What? Damn that kwarsan! He locked the controls! Fuck, try again.
*Access Denied* Scorch’s mind raced, he was at a loss for anything to do. Again, he tried to take over the controls, trying to make the system work with him somehow.
“Cooooome on! I don’t have the air to stay up here! Lets see it!”
*Access Denied* He tried to get the Kodiak to broadcast a signal, both to the Normandy and in the general vicinity. But there was no response. Scorch could feel a wave of exasperation, as he knew he was out of options. Unable to contain himself he switched on the recording option on his omni-tool.
“That’s it I’m done! I’m done! I’m done! I was just taking a nap and now I’m in the vacuum of space. And my only chance to escape is to get some old kwarsan who nearly choked me to death with his iron fucking hand to lift the lockdown. And of all places where does he wanna go? A derelict spaceship.”
“If the Hegemony finds this let them know that I liked working Alliance better, how’s that for propaganda!”

Turning off the recording Scorch felt mildly better about his prospects. Scorch did a quick pat down of his gear and then felt much worse. He was equipped with only a katana shotgun, a predator pistol, one detonation charge, and only one application of medigel. Oh, and a spare helmet. A spare helmet made for batarian faces.

“If I make it out of here I’m giving myself a medal. Here goes nothing, WAHOOOOOOOOOOOO!”