Deep Space: An Epic Sci-Fi Romance Page 2

  Yes, I had activated the Prothean barrier curtain, and that had turned out to be impenetrable.

  "Good object lesson. Never try to use technology you don't understand."

  I was also caught in a kinetic bubble just behind the barrier. I floated at the focus of balanced forces, my feet suspended a few centimeters from the floor, my arms stretched out to either side. I had some freedom of movement. I could move my arms and legs a little, turn my head, even curl into a ball if I was willing to make an effort. But the moment I relaxed, the field gently but firmly returned me to my original position. It was a comfortable prison, but it was a prison.

  "You do know I'm the only hope you have of escape, right?"

  I had been hanging there for three days. Battlemaster Ukarn had quickly discovered the potential for torture in the situation. All he had to do was talk to me, while his geth worked on finding a way through the barrier.

  "Please, just go away," I moaned, refusing to look at him.

  "I could do that," he rumbled genially. "I'm just as bored and frustrated as you must be. I'd like to go spend some of the credits I'm earning, eat a decent meal, maybe take in a show. Or Saren might decide to call me away on another mission. Of course, the next archaeologist to come along might find nothing but a bunch of asari bones drifting in midair. That would be confusing for him. We don't want that, do we?"

  I closed my eyes.

  They had tried hacking through the barrier. They had tried cutting through it with a laser. They had tried mining through the tower walls. They had tried firing a fusillade of rockets at the curtain directly in front of me. That last had been rather exciting, actually, but also quite terrifying. None of it had worked, although the rockets had done considerable damage to the scaffolding and elevator cage just outside the barrier.

  "You know what I think?" asked Ukarn.

  I looked down to where he stood, calmly watching me. "I don't care what you think."

  He was silent for a moment. Then he suddenly roared, a primal sound that shattered my nerves and turned my muscles to water. "I think you know how I can get you out of there!"

  I winced and turned my head away.

  "Hah. I thought so." His footsteps rang on the damaged scaffolding as he paced back and forth. "Look, Doctor. I've told you over and over, I don't have any orders to harm you. Why don't you cooperate? Tell me how to get in there and shut that trap down. You can have some water and food, wash up, get clean clothes, and rest in a real bed for a change. Saren and your mother only want to consult with you."

  It actually sounded tempting. All I had to do was mention the mining laser . . . but no. If he was careless, he could bring the mountain down on top of all of us, or worse. I couldn't trust a word he said in any case.

  Suddenly Ukarn raised a hand to the side of his head, receiving a radio call.

  "What?" Silence, while he listened. "Well, what is it, can you tell?" Another silence, longer this time. "All right, I'm coming. Hold until I get there." He grinned up at me. "I'll only be a few minutes, Doctor. Feel free to hang around until I get back."

  “Koprophagos!” I cursed at him, but he only laughed as he turned to go.

  I closed my eyes again, struggling to avoid passing out entirely. I couldn't rid myself of the horrible image of an asari skeleton hanging in space, still draped in my clothes.

  Then I heard gunfire. The sound was very faint, echoing as if it had to make its way all the way down into the cavern from outside, but it was unmistakable.

  I felt a surge of hope. Someone is attacking the synthetics.

  I could do nothing but wait for ten minutes, then twenty. The gunfire rose to a crescendo, interrupted several times by a deep booming noise I couldn't identify at all. After a time it faded to silence. Then I heard it again, just a few shots, much closer, echoing very loudly in the cavern.

  I heard a grinding sound just outside the tower. Someone was trying to use the damaged elevator cage.

  "Hello? Could somebody help me? Please?"

  Finally I saw movement beyond the barrier. A tall figure stepped up to the curtain and peered through it at me. It wasn't the krogan. Instead I saw a male human, wearing Alliance-issue armor and carrying a full load of weapons. Two others were with him, a male turian and a female quarian. They were such a strange sight that for a moment I was quite certain I was hallucinating.

  I can only imagine what their reaction must have been.

  In the years after the Reaper War, many vids were produced that dramatized the events of Shepard's career. This scene was a great favorite of the audiences. Invariably they found some young, pretty actress to play Liara. The actor playing Shepard would walk up to the fake barrier curtain, the camera would pan across, and there she would be: beautiful, alluring, and helpless, hanging in midair with a halo of bright light behind her.

  It wasn't like that.

  I had been suspended in dry air for three days without any chance to take in fluids, and I had become badly dehydrated. My lips were swollen and cracked. My eyes were dry, bloodshot, and sunken with fatigue and hunger. My scalp itched furiously, and my crests were shedding flakes of dead skin all down my back. My shirt was stiff with dried sweat, my trousers likewise with the addition of dried urine. I stank. No one in the galaxy would have found the sight of me attractive.

  "Can you hear me out there? I am trapped. I need help!"

  "Dr. T'Soni, I presume," said the human in a deep, resonant voice.

  "Thank the Goddess. I didn't think anyone would come looking for me." I licked my dry lips and tried to sound appealing. "Listen. This thing I am in, it's a Prothean security device. I can't move, so I need you to get me out of it, all right?"

  "How in the galaxy did you end up in there?"

  At the human's side, the quarian worked with her omni-tool, probably scanning the force field.

  "I hid in here when those synthetics showed up. I knew the barrier curtain would keep them out, but when I turned it on, I must have hit something I wasn't supposed to." For a moment, my desperation got the better of me. "I am trapped in here. You must get me out. Please!"

  The human made a calming gesture. "Don't worry, Doctor, we'll find some way to help you."

  "There's a control panel in here that can shut down the trap. You'll need to find some way past the barrier curtain to reach it."

  "I understand. Tali, what do you think?"

  The quarian shook her head, the light on her mouthpiece flickering as she spoke. "I don't know, Shepard. I've never seen technology like this before. It's very advanced. I don't think I can hack it from this side."

  "All right," said the human. "We'll look around and see if any other solution presents itself."

  "Be careful," I warned him. "There is a krogan battlemaster leading the synthetics. He was here not long ago. I don't know where he went."

  He nodded. "Thanks. We'll be on the lookout."

  They moved off, passing out of my field of vision to the left.

  I waited, listening. Presently I heard gunfire again, then the explosion of rockets, and then still more gunfire. There must still have been geth in the cavern. The sounds of fighting didn't last long. I heard nothing for about fifteen minutes. Then a tremendous roar echoed through the cavern, accompanied by brilliant light and a tremor that shook the whole tower around me.

  He must have found the mining laser, and turned it against the rock encasing the lower levels of the tower. I shook my head, not sure whether to be amazed or terrified. Not even Ukarn was that reckless.

  My heart raced. If the barrier curtain didn't extend all the way down the tower, Shepard might be able to get in. So long as he didn't dig too deep.

  Sure enough, before long I heard the Prothean elevator moving behind me, and then footsteps.

  I laughed, for the first time since before I could remember. "That was wonderful. Your name is Shepard?"

  "That's right," said the deep voice from behind me. "I'm Commander William Shepard of the Systems Alliance Navy, a Sp
ectre. My partners are Garrus Vakarian of Citadel Security, and Tali'Zorah nar Rayya of the Migrant Fleet. Let's get you down from there before more geth arrive."

  "Geth?" I shook my head in amazement. "Those synthetics were geth? They haven't come out into the galaxy in centuries."

  "They're here now," said a flanging turian voice. "And before we set her free, Shepard, how sure can we be that she's not on their side? Her mother is working with Saren, after all."

  "What?" I shook my head violently. "Don't be absurd. I've had no contact with my mother in years. I have no idea why she's allied with Saren. I don't want anything to do with that nothos turian."

  "Relax, Garrus," said Shepard. "If she were with Saren, the geth wouldn't be trying so hard to capture or kill her. Come on."

  I turned my head and saw Shepard and the quarian examining the control panel. Before I could make any suggestions, Shepard reached out confidently and tapped four keys in succession.

  The force bubble vanished, and I fell to my hands and knees on the floor. Then he was there, offering a hand to help me up.

  I must confess that my first impression of Shepard was not a favorable one. I thought him quite ugly.

  His face and body were all wrong, planes and angles and bulky masses, just close enough to an asari shape to be repellent in their strangeness. What little skin I could see showed an unappealing beige color, much of it covered with short, dark stubble of that odd human integument, hair.

  On the other hand . . . Goddess, he's very strong, I thought as he effortlessly hauled me to my feet. For just a moment I stared closely into his eyes, bright and intelligent, a crystalline blue that anyone on Thessia would have considered beautiful. I felt a small shock, as if my heart had skipped a beat.

  "Can you walk? We need to get out of here."

  My joints and muscles creaked and popped from disuse, but I found myself steady on my feet. I nodded. "I can travel. Come on, let's try the elevator."

  We moved, not a moment too soon. A tremor shook the whole tower, and we heard rock grinding and falling outside.

  "What the hell was that?" demanded the turian.

  "These ruins and the rock layers around them are not stable," I informed them. "If you dug too far with that mining laser, relieving some of the pressure on the deep rock, that might be enough to trigger a seismic event. We have to hurry."

  Shepard activated his suit radio. "Joker, get the Normandy here on the double!"

  "Aye-aye, Commander," said another human voice over the connection. "Secure and aweigh. ETA eight minutes."

  "He needs to move faster," said the quarian, bouncing on her toes in anxiety.

  At least the elevator still worked. I tapped in commands to raise it, and we all waited for it to reach the top level. It slowed, then stopped.

  Gatatog Ukarn stood in the top-level entrance to the tower, four geth at his side.

  "Surrender," he commanded. "Or don't – that would be more fun."

  I glanced at Shepard, but he seemed completely unconcerned.

  "I don't think so," he said, reaching behind his shoulder for his assault rifle. "We don't have time to negotiate. Back out of here now, or we'll leave footprints on your spine."

  "Hah!" the krogan barked. "I like your style."

  Well, at least the odds were better than they had been when I was alone. I was determined to help. I called up my biotics and prepared to throw a warp field at the krogan . . . and just then my blood pressure decided to collapse. Blackness closed around my vision, my knees buckled, and I felt myself hit the floor in a dead faint.

  I didn't see much of the battle. It was all I could manage to curl into a ball behind the elevator control panel, the only cover available in the middle of the platform.

  At first Shepard and his friends backed away, using the columns and conduits around the outside of the platform as partial cover. Gunfire and overload charges took down the geth one at a time.

  Then I watched, horrified, as Ukarn broke from his own cover. The battlemaster was in a full krogan charge, his blood-rage lending him strength. He used his shotgun to fire grenades as he ran, closing with Shepard within seconds. I fully expected to see the human go down. I wanted to intervene, but I was as weak as an infant ailouros and could do nothing.

  Ukarn was less than two meters from Shepard when he was caught in a cross-fire of incendiary rounds. He screamed in frustrated rage and fell, burned beyond even his ability to regenerate.

  "Come on!" Shepard pulled me to my feet and supported me as I broke into a staggering run toward the entrance.

  We had to pause for a moment, watching kilotons of rock fall from the ceiling of the cavern. The low rumbling from the deep rocks far below had turned into a deep booming roar, deafening all of us.

  "Goddess, the mining laser must have penetrated a magma pocket." I shook my head in horror. "Mount Kondratyev is an inactive volcano. It may be about to erupt through this cavern."

  "Then it's time to go," Shepard said. "Everyone make a break for the surface. Now! Move, move, move!"

  We ran out of the tower and across the scaffolding. Even I ran on my own, calling up my body's last reserves. I prayed that a piece of the cavern roof wouldn't choose that moment to obliterate the fragile iron bridge while we were on it.

  The quarian and I raced side by side up the entrance shaft. I could see daylight through the hatch. The air grew hotter, sawing at my throat and lungs as I ran, but I wasn't sweating. Not a good sign.

  We reached the surface. A sleek black-and-silver starship hovered just above. Shepard half-carried me up the loading ramp and into the cargo bay. I was unconscious before the ship rose into the sky.

  Chapter 4 : Orange Juice and Heartbreak

  25 February 2183, SSV Normandy, Interstellar Space

  I awoke lying supine on a horizontal surface, with pillows behind my neck and a light coverlet thrown over me. In the quiet, I could just barely hear the sound of a mass-effect drive core in operation.

  I am on board a spaceship, I realized.

  Even that much thought took some effort. My mind seemed to be moving very slowly, as if I was still half-asleep. At least nothing ached, itched, burned, or hurt. In fact I felt perfectly comfortable. I lay quietly with my eyes closed for a few more moments, to drift in darkness and savor the sensation.

  "Dr. T'Soni?" A soft, higher-pitched voice, like an asari's.

  I opened my eyes.

  "Good, you're awake."

  A female human leaned over me, giving an impression of silver and white: pale skin, delicate features, large smoke-colored eyes, and iron-gray hair cut short to frame her face. Her expression spoke of serene compassion. I liked her at once.

  "What ship is this?" I asked.

  She took my wrist and timed my pulse with practiced competence. "You're aboard the Alliance warship Normandy. I'm Dr. Karin Chakwas, the ship’s surgeon. How are you feeling?"

  "Much better, thank you." I glanced around and saw a small medical bay. Dr. Chakwas was the only one present. "I should speak to the ship's commanding officer."

  "You've already met him."

  "Commander Shepard?"

  "The same. He wants to see you, but only after you've had a chance to refresh yourself and I've cleared you for light activity. He specifically requested that you take your time."

  "All right." I pushed the coverlet aside and sat up, swinging my legs out over the side of the sickbed, and only then noticed Dr. Chakwas's eyes widening in surprise. "Is something wrong?"

  "Not at all," said the doctor. "May I check your lungs? I relieved your parched and abraded skin with a topical application of medi-gel, but I want to be sure you've taken no respiratory damage from long exposure to that harsh atmosphere."

  I nodded in agreement and sat quietly, breathing deeply as she applied a stethoscope to the appropriate points on my upper and lower back.

  Finally she nodded, satisfied. "Well, Dr. T'Soni, I'd say you're in very good health considering what you've been through. You ha
ve low blood sugar and your electrolyte balance could be better, but I see no evidence of anything more serious. I recommend you eat a high-calorie meal, and rehydrate over the next few hours by sipping an isotonic beverage. The chief steward can provide what you need out in the crew mess."

  "Thank you, Doctor. I must say, I'm impressed with your knowledge of asari physiology."

  "It's entirely book-learning, I'm afraid. I rarely have asari patients." She took my hand to help me get down from the sickbed. "Here, there's a refresher cubicle in the back of the medical bay. Would you like to take a shower?"

  Hot water, soap, a stiff brush for my scalp? I sighed in contentment at the very thought. "That sounds delightful."

  "Good. May I offer a word of advice?"

  I performed a few stretching exercises, enjoying my renewed strength and freedom of movement. "Certainly."

  "I gather you haven't spent much time among humans."

  "No. I've spent most of the last fifty years working on one dig site or another, often alone. I am not a very social person, I'm afraid. I've met humans, of course, but I've never socialized with any of your people for very long."

  "I see." She looked uncomfortable. "What you may not realize is that most human cultures disapprove of nudity."

  My eyes flew wide with chagrin. Of course I was nude; the doctor must have removed my clothes before placing me in the sickbed. I made a futile grab at the coverlet, and then tried to cover myself with both hands. That didn't work either, since I wasn't sure what parts most needed to be covered. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend!"

  Dr. Chakwas smiled kindly at me. "Don't panic, Doctor. Among most humans it's perfectly acceptable to be nude in private, or in the company of your physician. But in most situations humans tend to associate nudity with eroticism and sexual availability. This is . . . probably not the impression you want to make."

  I relaxed a little. "I begin to understand why asari dancers are so popular with your people. Where are my clothes?"

  "Taken to the ship's laundry. You can have them back in an hour or so, or you can borrow one of my spare uniforms if you like. I think we're close to the same size."