//------------------------------// // Another New Guest // Story: Vanguard // by Material Defender //------------------------------// "Come on, come on, work!" muttered Wade Jayce. Damned if he didn't want to slap "ex-Cerberus" on his resume, but now he's paying back for it in spades of bad luck. The console returned another failure again. "Damn it!" He slammed his fist into the console. The alarms in the Sanctuary facility were absolutely deafening. He just hoped that Miranda Lawson could find her sister before he had to send this place sky-high. "Fine, more subroutines, and another backdoor." He went back to work again. This sort of work was normally reserved for engineers, but since he was practically a shoot-on-sight target for Cerberus, he figured that wouldn't work out for him, since he probably wouldn't have any takers. He was a soldier: the only thing he was good for was following orders and shooting guns, not this egg-head crap. "Never should have dropped out of N-School..." he muttered, cursing as the text went flying past his screen. His helmet was open, the light of the console revealing his military haircut and youthful patrician face in the half-lit research room. Small holograms projected onto his cheeks from his helmet. He was Miranda's inside source in Cerberus. Jayce had a special position in Cerberus as a shock trooper; expected, especially given his training in N-School. He was lucky to have avoided the indoctrination that hundreds of refugees underwent at this facility. It was an abomination, and needed to be destroyed. On the outside, he looked the same as any other Cerberus assault trooper, but his armor was a different color, worn grey instead of bone white, and bulkier, and he had an entire repertoire of weapons on his back. The only way Jayce could get into Cerberus bases without being detected was keeping his mouth shut: his voice, even through his helmet, was completely different from the mindless drones the Illusive Man now had under his command. Aside from that, most soldiers usually didn't question him unless ordered to; they even ignored his different armor color, strangely enough. "Warning: Internal temperature increasing. Please contact Engineering immediately for assistance," said a VI. Great, it worked! Jayce had cut off the coolant flow from the facility's Eezo reactors, in a last bid to blow it all sky-high, and expose it's existence to the rest of the universe, for what good it did now. He noticed three figures moving on the security feed near his terminal. From what Jayce could gather, it was Commander Shepard and a couple of his lackeys. He was glad that both Kai Leng and Shepard had ended up going after Miranda instead. Maybe they don't know that he was here, or maybe they just thought he wasn't worth killing. Either way, their preoccupation with Miranda allowed Jayce to successfully sabotage the reactors. Jayce was in the primary indoctrination facility, separate from the refugee testing facility, where Miranda was at, and sabotaged the reactor to self-destruct, but he had no idea what the collateral damage would be. Now that he did what he came here to do, he needed to get out. But there was just one problem... "Warning: Power flow interrupted. Containment units unsealing. Warning: Unauthorized personnel in storage." The screaming of husks mingled with the alarms. "Aw, shit..." Jayce closed his helmet as he picked up his M-96 Mattock and wheeled around to see husks exiting their pods. The closest one roared at him... and then it's head exploded in a mess. Jayce chuckled, aiming his Mattock at where the husk once stood, the effect of his headshots was never lost on him. He quickly mowed down the rest of them and made for the exit. "Miranda? Miranda! Come on, Miranda!" he said, keying his helmet comm. "Miranda, I've sabotaged the reactors, you've got to get out of here!" No response. Damn. She might already be dead. He couldn't do anything for her; she was on the other side of the facility, along with the Illusive Man's personal ninja boy scout and Shepard himself rolling through there. "Agh, no! Not now! Shit!" The only door out had been jammed. The only other way out was through the reactor room, and that place was already unstable enough as it was. But, damn it, he had no choice. "I swear, when I get out..." he angrily muttered, making for the reactor room entrance, mowing down more husks along the way. ================================================================================ Miranda had approached him in secret, asking that as a former colleague and trusted friend, if he could help her with some problems. Jayce had been well aware of Miranda's attachment with her sister, and so opted to help. At the time, he hadn't spoken to Miranda for quite a while, following their escape from a Cerberus base. Miranda had just come hot off a possible lead on her father, a long cry in terms of difficulty after Shepard blew up that Collector base. Jayce was glad Shepard had done so; the place was already the hotbed for the deaths of thousands of humans, and he disagreed with the Illusive Man about keeping it around; Jayce had seen indoctrination and wasn't really keen on seeing if the Collector base had the same effects. The Illusive Man had to find new ways to learn about Reaper tech, and his new-found obsession with the technology had many of Cerberus' finest minds and most elite soldiers deserting, including Miranda and Jayce. But Miranda was so sure that her father was up to something, that he was working with Cerberus. Jayce assured her that he would dig up whatever he could find. Making a living off of finding Prothean artifacts wasn't bad, but it wasn't something that Jayce would have liked to keep up for long. And after the Reapers showed up on Earth's doorstep, he figured he might as well go out with a bang, and thought up an idea... like something akin to shitting on the desk of his former boss. Miranda needed to know what her father was doing with her sister. Initial checks through information dumps seemed to indicate that Miranda's father was indeed contacted by the Illusive Man for something, but he couldn't figure out what. More digging, and he learned that it was something related to the Sanctuary facility located on Horizon. Pulled some strings to curry favor from the Shadow Broker, and then he had his evidence that Cerberus was definitely dabbling in something Reaper down there. Mix with refugees, and that can't be good. With this evidence, Miranda had told him that she couldn't do it alone, so he went along for the ride. Jayce wasn't entirely sure how he'd met Miranda. He'd been an initial applicant for the N-School and made it to N1. But he figured he didn't like playing by the rules of the Alliance, and the training annoyed him to no end, having to follow orders instead of doing what he did best: shoot things and protect humanity. He dropped out and joined Cerberus instead, quickly ascending the ranks and even earned a personal promotion by the Illusive Man himself for his outstanding combat capabilities as a soldier. He liked working for Cerberus; they were pro-human and had their interests at heart, and they definitely didn't take shit when it came to the First Contact War. He was given freelance missions and worked solo; given his experience, Jayce very much preferred it that way. But after the Collector base incident, the Illusive Man started giving strange orders. He wanted relics, lots of them, and people started disappearing. Those that were still able to started to converse in secret about trying to bail. But in Cerberus, the only way out is through a body-bag, and the Illusive Man's new attack dogs were more than eager to oblige. It was during an escape from a Cerberus station that Jayce ran into Miranda. The two were the only ones still alive, and they fought back-to-back to the hangars in order to steal a shuttle. They stayed on the run together for over a year and a half before they parted ways at the Citadel; Miranda muttering something about 'talking to Shepard' or some hubbub. Jayce didn't mind; if Shepard was willing to help her, then more power to her. But Jayce thought he'd lost contact with her until she asked for his help a month later, and they'd agree that Jayce would sabotage the systems, Miranda would grab her sister, they'd extract in a shuttle, and everything would be nice and peachy. But, no, Murphy's Law always liked to be right. And now he was here, stuck inside a facility set to self-destruct, with an army of robotic freaks standing in his way. What a crappy way to die. ================================================================================ The shrill beeping of his Mattock reminded Jayce that he should probably take cover and let the thing vent. The reactor room was gigantic, and thankfully had ample cover along the half-circle walkway that led to the exit proper. But husks were pouring out of every nook and cranny in this room, and it was becoming a pain in the ass to deal with them, having already exhausted half his grenades. Jayce had told Cerberus techs that he preferred having his weapons retrofitted with the old heatsinks. He didn't like running out of ammo, and he figured that waiting for the gun to cool down a bit after firing it for a while was a better alternative than the new run-out-of-clips-and-die-painful-death route that everyone liked jumping down these days. He still thought thermal clips were pretty stupid, and now you had to hack doors manually and repair crap manually, too. God, he missed omnigel. A rogue piece of metal dinged off of his Cerberus assault armor; the reactor was definitely going haywire. There were a multitude of objects flying all over the damn place and the reactor itself was practically a giant glowing ball of Eezo now. He had to restrain a laugh as he saw a chunk of sharp metal decapitate a charging husk. The heat from the reactor was crazy. Jayce charged forward, knocking a husk over the edge and into the boiling energy, letting out a scream. The door was right there, if only he could just-- "You have got to be shitting me!" The door was locked! Kicking the door once, he turned around and fired, dropping a few more husks, and readied his omnitool to hack the door. "Come on, come on! Work, damn it!" He frantically looked around, taking potshots at husks, dropping some, keeping others back. Then he noticed that the husks were floating now, towards the reactor, and being incinerated. He activated his mag-boots to hold him in place, but it didn't cut it. He felt the floor beneath him give a metallic scream as it gave way. The door was still locked, Jayce holding on for dear life on a metal pipe, trying to open the door. "Come... on... you... fucking... piece... of... shit!" He tried to keep his omnitool as close to the door as possible, but he could tell that his grip was losing strength; he only needed a little more... "DAMN!" He lost his grip and felt himself being pulled into this new Eezo-energy singularity. He really hoped his Cerberus assault armor could hold up against an imploding reactor, but he wasn't holding his breath. ================================================================================ "Wow! Do it again!" shouted Dash. Orion laughed as he walked back to the group. He had been demonstrating his Vanguard abilities on the training dummies the royal guards put out for him. Even they seemed impressed. Orion took up a lunge position as he felt time dilate and his body moved forward. He concentrated his barrier energy into a single massive strike that crashed into the dummy and blew it into a bunch of flying hay. "Whoa!" said Spike. "Dude, that is awesome. It's like teleporting, except you get to, like, hit stuff with it!" "That's something only people in my line of work can do," Orion smiled. He balled his his left hand into a fist and threw a Shockwave at another dummy. The remaining two he used a Pull field on, smashing the first with melee punches, and destroyed the second one using a biotic strike. He felt great about being able to use his powers again. There was something with this Eezo that changed minor properties of his abilities, though: his Biotic Charge could activate much faster, his Nova recharged as he was using it and his Shockwaves were more explosive. He was flexing his fingers when he... felt something. It was strange. Kind of like how it was with the whole 'disturbance in the Force' thing from those really old Star Wars films. It felt like that. He looked around and up in the air. This feeling was putting him on edge, but he couldn't figure out why. "Something wrong?" asked Twilight. The others were chatting amongst themselves again. "Yeah... I felt something." "Felt something?" "Yeah. Like something was... out there. Like something just changed." She raised an eyebrow in response. "Sure you're not just being paranoid?" He considered it for a moment, then laughed. "Yeah, I guess I am..." "Come on, dinner's going to be prepared soon!" shouted Spike, waving to Twilight and Orion as the rest of the group proceeded to head back inside. "Well, I'm pretty hungry," Orion shrugged, walking towards the entrance, Twilight following him. He tried to shake that feeling, but he felt that he should be expecting something... or someone... ================================================================================ "Ugh... what the...?" Jayce opened his eyes, and looked around. He was laying in what seemed to be a crater. Made by the reactor explosion? But it looked like he was nowhere near it. And nowhere near Horizon, for that matter. This sky was too clear, too blue in contrast to Horizon's musky beige skies and endless fields of brush. His helmet HUD was all fritzed out, but miraculously still intact. Hell, he was still intact, that was already a pretty big fucking miracle. He picked himself up, dusting off his armor as he did so. He was in some sort of clearing, surrounded by a forest, and there was some sort of... "An Alliance fighter?" he almost shouted, walking up to it. "And N7, too. Shit..." If Alliance special forces were here, something must be up. Reapers? Possibly. He pulled out his Mattock just to make sure. The sun had begun to set over the horizon, and it was getting dark. Jayce felt that spending a first night in possible enemy territory, Alliance or Reaper, wasn't a good idea. He had to make his way out of here, and find somewhere safe to camp. He was pretty sure he wasn't dead. His equipment had only shortcircuited for a moment before booting back up, and the sores and pains in his body meant that he was definitely still alive. The fact that there was an Alliance fighter here only made him more curious. No use trying to figure out why he was alive, might as well make the best of it, right? He could already be considered a dead man, anyway. Among the nearly-identical walls of trees surrounding him, he noticed a path leading out. Following that, and nearly tripping on a bunch of tree roots in the progress, he came to the edge, and saw a town. "A town, huh? Architecture seems a bit primitive..." He switched his visor to binocular mode. "What in the name of fuck...?" There were ponies walking about. Colorful ponies. Talking. In English. He was sure he must be hallucinating; that Eezo explosion must have done a bigger number on him than he thought. Or maybe he was dead. Sure didn't feel like it, though. So Jayce figured two things about the ponies: bright color meant that they were either colorful, or poisonous, and he was pretty sure it wasn't the latter since that Alliance bastard is skulking about somewhere; he saw his footprints leaving the forest and go straight into that town. They might know where he is, and he was sure he could take them on if things got sour. So he walked into the town, holstering his gun. There was a number of gasps and whispers as the ponies hid in their houses. He came upon a town square of some sort and found a single pony waiting for him. "U-uh, g-greetings, human!" said Mayor Mare. "You know what I am?" Jayce questioned, pointing to himself. "Yes! Another human was here earlier today!" She could hardly suppress her fright towards him. "Really? Could you tell me where he went?" "H-he went to... to Canterlot!" she squeaked out, pointing at the mountainside city in the distance. "Right. Well, thanks for that." A world full of talking colorful ponies. And Jayce thought the Asari were as weird as it could get. He began to set off. It looked to be a long, long trek... ================================================================================ Orion looked out the window suddenly, stopping mid-bite in a salad. "Somethin' wrong, sugarcube?" asked Applejack, who sat right next to him. "Could have sworn I felt something..." "Aw, shucks, pardner, you're just being silly now. You're hungry! Just eat!" "Yeah, yeah..." He went back to his salad. ================================================================================ It was well dark by the time Jayce had made it to the top. There was no one else on the roads, and it didn't seem like there was any freaky shit trying to jump him. Still, walking up a mountain was always on tiring job. He walked through the empty streets of Canterlot, all the other ponies having gone to sleep or retired inside, taking in the views and the buildings. The moon was pretty nice tonight, he thought to himself. Wait, it looked a lot like the moon back on Earth. Was it? Probably not, there were no talking ponies back on Earth. He walked up to the castle and approached the gate. A guard stopped him. "Halt. Do you have an appointment?" "Well, no, but I'm looking for another human here. Have you seen him?" The guard said nothing. Well, Jayce wasn't particularly eager to see how this N7 would react to a guy wearing Cerberus armor showing up on his doorstep. "What's going on out here?" asked a purple unicorn, coming out of the gate. She had been studying stellar constellations in the royal gardens. "Oh, my! Another human?" She ran inside and brought out Orion. "As if it's actually anothe--" His expression soured as he drew his Crusader. "Cerberus!" "Not while I'm alive, buddy!" Jayce shouted, drawing his Mattock. "How's it like being an Alliance puppet?" He could play nice, but like hell if he was going to let someone else point a gun at him without returning the favor. "Easy for you to say, Cerberus dog." "Hah. Like I haven't heard that one before. I hear the Alliance did such a fantastic job preparing against the Reapers." "And like Cerberus did much better trying to kill Shepard and murder colonists." The tension could be cut with a knife. The two stood silent, aiming their weapons at each other. The guard had drawn their wings, making a fence of sorts between them. "Twilight, what's going on out here?" asked Celestia, walking up behind her. Twilight motioned for her to shush. "This guy is nothing but trouble," said Orion, his gaze never moving away from Jayce. "And so are you. What the hell are you doing here, N7?" Jayce shot back. "The name's Orion to you, dirtbag. And I got here by accident." "You have a fighter, and you got here by accident. Right." "I had to crash land. My FTL jump got screwed up after those Reaper fighters scored a hit on me." Silence again. "So what're you in for, Cerberus?" "That's ex-Cerberus to you, Orion. Name's Jayce. I blew up the Sanctuary facility on Horizon and now by some weird shit, here I am--" "Back the hell up. You blew up Sanctuary? The refugee Sanctuary? You guys are nothing but a bunch of terrorists!" The guards, Twilight, and Celestia had been watching this back-and-forth exchange for a while now, not really knowing what to make of it. The guards just looked at each other and shrugged. Jayce sighed. This was going nowhere. He holstered his Mattock and held up his hands to show that he wasn't armed. "Cerberus was running that facility. I went in with another ex-Cerberus to take the place down. You ever wonder where the hell the Illusive Man started pulling soldiers out of his ass from? It's from Sanctuary! The damn place is an indoctrination facility! They were using colonists as test subjects, man. No way in hell I was going to let that place stand." Orion kept his gun trained on him. Jayce lowered his arms, then shrugged. "And that place wasn't going to last long with the Reapers running around outside, anyway." Jayce wasn't willing to chance a fight with this guy. His HUD read that he was staring right at a Vanguard, and at the range he was at, he would be dog food if he tried anything stupid. "Listen, man, I'm stuck here just like you. We should at least work together, right?" Orion eyed him carefully. "What else happened in Sanctuary?" "I went in with Miranda Lawson." Orion knew that name. She worked with Shepard. If she was with him, then maybe he could trust her. "I'm sure you must have heard about the Illusive Man's most experienced assassin?" "Yeah. Kai Leng, right?" "Yeah. Well, that fucking boy scout was going after Miranda. Shepard came in hot on his heels. I rigged the place to blow, but I guess you can say I didn't make it out in time." He shrugged again. "I got pulled into the core of an exploding Eezo reactor and--" "Wait. An Eezo reactor?" "Yeah. Something wrong with that?" "No. Just that Eezo's been connected to how I got here, too." "Your fighter?" "Using a special Eezo-enhanced FTL drive, which took a hit just as I activated it." Jayce raised a hand to his chin in thought. "Weird." Orion holstered his weapon. "So what was Miranda doing at Sanctuary?" "Turns out her dad was working for the Illusive Man. Ran the whole damn facility. And he took Miranda's sister, and she wouldn't take shit for that. Shepard went in to make sure she didn't do anything stupid." "Did they make it out?" "How the hell would I know?" "Right. Well." He held out his hand to shake. "Matias Orion, N7." "Wade Jayce, ex-Cerberus." The two shook hands. "Well, uh... that went well," chimed Twilight. "Uh, yeah, what's up with all that?" Jayce asked, pointing towards the ponies and the alicorn. "Don't ask," Jayce laughed. "You hungry?" "I just got blown up to hell and back, you bet your damn ass I'm hungry." ================================================================================ "Wait," said Jayce, in between bites of fruit. "You're telling me that the Alliance is building some Prothean superweapon from some plans? Found in some millenia-old Prothean rock?" He was sitting at the dining table, helmet sitting next to his plate. "Yeah. It's crazy. We don't know how the hell it works, or if it even does, but it's better than trying to break our arms at the Reapers," said Orion, sitting across from him. They were the only two there, the ponies having gone to rest. It was a strange sight to the guards, to see two heavily armored humans having a conversation. Jayce nearly choked. "You don't even know what it does?" "Still better than nothing." "Right." Jayce finished up the last bite of fruit. "Well, we're stuck here, then. No relays, no transport, no comm buoys, no nothing. So what the hell do we do? I mean, it's not like we can take one of their damn airships and make a relay jump with that." "Well, they need me to banish or end some sort of 'ancient evil' from their old times." Orion made air quotes to emphasize. "Oh. Well, how's that working out so far?" "Absolutely crap. Some Nightmare Moon or some crap." Jayce snickered. "I'll eat my own helmet if she's just some two-bit Reaper wannabe." "Yeah. I suppose you got the go-ahead to stay here, then?" "Yep. Well, I don't think there's really anything to do. Other than work, I mean, we're practically freeloading, right?" "I didn't take you for the working type." "Hey, I don't like following Alliance rules. Too strict and all that shit. We're playing too nice and no one's taking us seriously on the Council. But on that, I'll still work to make a living, just not to play puppet for those deadbeats in high seats." "Sounds like Udina. The nice thing, I mean." "The councilor?" "Yeah. I heard Shepard had to pull the trigger on him when he was exposed for working with Cerberus." "The asshole got what was coming to him, working with those bastards." Jayce took a sip from his cup, then looked curiously inside. Apple juice. Huh. "As far as I'm concerned, Cerberus is a terrorist organization. I might have agreed with what Udina said sometimes, but he went about things the wrong damn way." He laid back a bit, his armor clattering as he did so. "We should get some jobs," he said nonchalantly. "I don't think anyone's hiring." Jayce gave him a look. "We have fucking thumbs, man. You know they'll hire us for that." "Lots of manual labor that could use some thumbs," Orion nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, that could work. So I hear N7's been run ragged pulling missions out of their ass." "No joke. Hackett wants us stonewalling the Reapers every chance we get." "Hmm. Hackett. There's a man who went by the books if I ever saw one." "Talks like a brick wall." "Yeah, I guess he has that." He looked out the window at the rising moon. "At least he didn't just sit and twiddle his thumbs like those assholes in the defense committee did. They're probably all dead by now." "Serves them right for ignoring Shepard." "Tough talk for an N7 like you. You could get court-martialed for that." Both laughed as they recalled war stories late into the night. A curious Celestia had been eavesdropping on their conversation the whole time, intrigued by human culture... ================================================================================ Another one. There was another one of the beings here. A new one. Different, but also the same. Yes. Perhaps he could also be made of use, as well. ================================================================================ "You're telling me we're breathing Eezo?" Jayce said to Orion, both now in combat fatigues instead of armor. They'd met up in the morning and they were both on their way to the dining hall. "It's not harmful, and it only affects you if you're a biotic, like I am. You're 100% soldier, so nothing will happen to you." "That's like saying drinking mercury is fine because I can't process it. It's fucking Eezo, man, that's some dark matter shit right there." He gave an exasperated sigh. "Fine. I'll just go along with it. I haven't sprouted wings or horns or some weird-ass shit, so we'll go with your explanation." "It'll be fine. I mean, we're not dead yet, right?" he said as they entered the dining room. "Good morning, you two," Celestia said, sitting at the head of the table along with Spike and the Elements of Harmony. Silence. Then a huge gasp. "SOMEPONY NEW?!" Pinkie jumped out of her seat. "We need to have a PARTY!" "Party? With booze?" said Jayce. "No, of course not, silly! With cakes and balloons and streamers and cupcakes and--" "We get it, Pinkie," Orion said. "No booze here, man." Jayce grunted disapprovingly. "I can do without it, I guess." They sat down to have breakfast. Mostly non-meat fare again, but Orion was glad to avoid anything that wasn't military rations. Jayce seemed to share the same sentiments as he eagerly bit into a piece of bread. "Oh, Celestia. Did you manage to bring my fighter here?" Orion asked. "Yes, we retrieved it early this morning. It should be awaiting in one of the storage rooms below." "Thank you. We'll go down and take a look to see if we can't salvage anything from it." Breakfast passed uneventfully, though Jayce still expressed his concern being in a world full of talking ponies. Orion countered by regaling a tale of conversation with an elcor that ended badly, lesson of the story being that anything was better than talking to an elcor. Laughs were had. ================================================================================ "Gentle... er, men," Celestia said uneasily, unused to non-pony words. "I hope you will find something in your research. Good day to you." She went off to tend to her royal duties, the door closing behind her. In the massive storage room, Jayce and Orion stood before the Alliance fighter. "Nice piece of work. I'm surprised you actually landed this thing in one piece," whistled Jayce. "For what it does now. The engine's beyond repair." Orion tore off the engine panel, revealing a mess of melted wires underneath. "There's nothing we can use here..." Jayce popped open the cockpit. "Damn. They really did a number on everything." "So we can both agree it's useless then?" Orion looked at the engine block in frustration and shook his head, then proceeded to dig further into it. "What about weapons? Anything extra?" "Nope, anything that was useful I already brought with me." "Damn. Noticed the Cain back there, by the way. Sweet hardware." "Let's just hope we don't have to use it." "If the Reapers find this place, we might just have to." The men stopped for a moment. That was a thought they didn't want to entertain. "Like hell. No relays, no comm buoys. It's like we're in a completely different universe." "True to that. Those damn comm buoys are usually fucking everywhere. Cheap to build and throw out, so I think you just might be right." "Greetings," they heard a female voice said. They both looked around, apprehensive. "Shit... and I pick today of all days to think that it just might be fine to walk around without a gun..." muttered Jayce, grabbing vainly at the empty space where his pistol normally was. "Whoever you are..." Orion's form began to glow. "You better show yourself." "Calm yourself, human, I mean no harm," a midnight blue alicorn stepped out of the shadows. "I was merely interested in who you are." Jayce threw up his fists, his massive bulk implying great strength. "And just who are you?" "I am Princess Luna, beloved sister of Celestia and Princess of the Moon." Jayce eyed her. "How the fuck do I know you're not lying? Or some crazy bitch out for our blood?" Luna was unfazed by the insult. Orion shrugged at Jayce, his forearms covered in engine oil. "If she wanted us dead, she'd have probably jumped us while we were scrounging through the fighter, Jayce." Jayce gave Orion a sneer, then looked back at Luna. "Fine. But I'm watching you." He sat down on the fighter's wing, watching Luna with an apprehensive look. Luna ignored him. "What is this contraption that you have brought into our palace?" "A fighter. It's mostly used for travel, and, uh, defense." "Travel? What kind of travel?" "Flight," Jayce flatly said. "Your people can fly?" "Yeah," Jayce said mockingly. "We just do it by shooting lots of fire out of our ass and call it flight." "Jayce..." Orion warned. "Pff." Jayce repositioned himself on the wing. "It's just a damn joke. You've only been here a while, and you already put too much trust in these... things, Orion." "I know enough that they're not going to kill us." "Not yet, anyway." Orion frowned. "Apologies for my... friend... here. He's a little suspicious about being here." "But it was you who came to our world, did you not?" Luna rebounded. No response. Jayce looked away in denial. "Well, it's not like we knew how we got here... or how to get back..." "And did my sister not tell you of Nightmare Moon?" she asked. "Yeah, well..." Orion gave a sigh. "That dream talk you told me about earlier?" asked Jayce. "Yeah. Apparently I'm needed here for something. When I find a way, you can just head back, Jayce, I can tell you don't like it here." Jayce scoffed again. "Astute observation, Private Obvious." "That's Lieutenant Obvious to you, ex-Cerberus." More silence. Luna had walked up behind Orion and was looking at the engine block with him, curious about the contents. "Why bother?" Jayce said out of nowhere. "Why bother going back?" "Huh?" Orion was genuinely confused by Jayce's question. "Think about it, man. Earth is as good as fucked. The Reapers are spreading like a fucking plague across the galaxy. Hell, last I heard, they were pushing full speed for Thessia. Thessia. You know things are in the shitter when even the Asari are getting their asses creamed. And last I heard, they're taking heavy casualties trying to retake Palaven." "That's why they need men like us back there, Jayce." "No, that's why they have Commander Shepard. The only thing grunts like us are good for are eating, shitting, fighting, and dying." Orion's brow furrowed a bit. "You seem a bit bitter about this." "Of course. Spend all this time trying to work against the Reapers, and then it all fucks up anyway because those stupid shits at Arcturus Station wanted to plug their ears and sing themselves a lullaby. Short-term notice was never going to work against the Reapers, and now they're paying for sitting on their asses with billions of lives. Don't get me wrong, man, I don't hate you Alliance types, but goddamn if the politicians aren't stupid as fuck." "Yeah, well, sometimes I feel the same way." After deciding that there was nothing to be salvaged, Orion sealed off the engine panel, clapping his hands free of grime as he stood up. "Nothing in there. This thing's a giant paperweight now." "Keep it around. Might come in handy if we need to detonate the drive as a bomb or something." Orion frowned at Jayce. "Not in here, I hope." "No guarantees," he shrugged, walking out of the room. Orion and Luna gave each other worried looks. This was going to be a long week.