“I really hope you’re nearly done, doctor!” Shining shouted as rounds impacted his shield, making him grunt as he felt the impacts drain some of his magic built up in his horn. He’d severely underestimated the amount of energy he’d need to keep up his shield. The small pellets hitting it at high speed turned out to be quite a challenge to stop.
“There, it’s done! Let’s go!” the doctor shouted. Shining grunted as he led her onto an elevator platform. His shield was nearly depleted as they went up and out of reach of the batarian’s guns.
“That… was… too… close...” Shining panted, rubbing his throbbing horn. “I take it that you have found a way out as well?”
Kenson nodded. “Yes, this elevator will lead up to a hangar. I locked the surrounding doors but the outer doors have to be manually opened.”
Rolling his eyes Shining put one of his few remaining thermal clips into his rifles, “More work, great. I really hope whatever in Tartarus you’re doing out in that asteroid belt is worth all this loss of life,” he growled. Not waiting for an answer, Shining sprinted off of the elevator and into the hangar. A few batarians were in his way but were swiftly taken out as they panicked at the sight of the charging pony who viciously took them down with an omni-blade, not even wasting shots on them. “Get into the shuttle!” Shooting a couple of rounds into the hydraulic system the doors slammed open, allowing the spacecraft to take off safely. “I’m clear, GO!” The door of the shuttle slid shut and the engines roared to life and blasted the hangar with flames, incinerating everything flammable inside.
“Their defenses should still be scrambled so we won’t be followed. I plotted the autopilot to return to our base.” Kenson explained as she sat down in one of the chairs while Shining just lay on the floor to get his breath back under control. His horn fizzled slightly as the last bits of magic flowed out of it, he wouldn’t be using that any time soon for anything other than simple levitation and light spells.
“Fantastic, now I want to know what in the world you have been doing over here. Every. single. Thing.” Shining demanded, getting back onto his hooves and facing doctor Kenson.
“I guess that’s fair. A couple of months ago I went out here with a team to investigate the rumor of reaper tech out in the system’s asteroid belt. We found an artifact and deduced the reapers would use this system as a springboard to invade the galaxy,” Kenson explained to Shining who let this new information mull through his head.
“So the guards talking about slamming an asteroid into the relay… That’s true, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so, there’s no alternative if you want to stop the reapers from using the system as a springboard,” the doctor admitted.
“What kind of evidence do you have, how do you know that the reapers are really arriving? You can’t just cut off an entire system if the evidence isn’t airtight.” Doctor Kenson grimaced slightly at Shining’s statement.
“They won’t be cut off captain… the energy contained within the relay will probably make it go supernova and take out the entire system,” She told Shining, the captain silently staring at her with his mouth slightly ajar. “The project is the only way that can assure that the reapers won’t use the alpha relay.”
“That’s… no. I still don’t know how you found all this out in the first place.”
“We found a reaper artifact on an asteroid relatively near the relay that after some work showed us they were coming. It also has an unknown installation deeper in the asteroid itself which admittedly we know less about as we haven’t been able to enter it.” Kenson told Shining as she stood up to look out into the void of space, the relay visible as a speck in the distance.
“I want to see it and determine that for myself, doctor. I can’t just condone the murder of the colony on hearsay,” Shining stated. Kenson sighed in resignation.
“I guess that’s fair. I’ll explain everything in detail when we reach the base. Sit back and relax, we’ll be there in no time.”
The shuttle landed on the small asteroid base about an hour later, Kenson swiftly powering down and opening the shuttle’s doors. The first thing Shining noticed was a large digital clock hanging above the entrance into the base reading two days and three hours. “Doctor, what’s that for?”
“That’s our countdown clock, if that reaches zero the reapers will arrive.” Shining shot her a questioning look. “The artifact has been giving off pulses which have been speeding up consistently, the moment the pulses become constant the reapers will be here,” Kenson elaborated, a shiver going up Shining’s spine at the doomsday prediction.
“You also said something about a ruin deeper into the asteroid, could we go see that as well?”
“Of course, but first I’ll show you the reaper artifact that made us aware of the imminent invasion.” Kenson led Shining into the facility itself, continuing her explanation along the way as they passed various other humans that were doing tasks in the base. “The reapers will reach this system regardless of the relay being destroyed or not, it’ll only serve as a shortcut to the rest of the galaxy. If the reapers are to be kept at bay, the relay must be destroyed.”
The two of them arrived at the door that lead to the reaper artifact. The moment the doors opened a throbbing buzz hit Shining’s horn, amplifying the already present headache he had from magic overuse. “You have the artifact standing out in the open?!” Shining growled, keenly aware of the indoctrination effect it would have been giving off.
“Wait for it, it’ll show you all the evidence you need.” Visions suddenly hit Shining, making him collapse to his knees. Images of reapers approaching the mass relay flashed through his mind. “The reapers are in inevitability, Hackett is a fool to oppose their salvation.” Looking up, Shining gazed straight into the barrel of a heavy pistol. “I can’t have you attempting to oppose their glorious arrival.”
BANG
The captain’s shield went down by three-quarters at the range the shot was fired at and he immediately jumped back in an attempt to find cover...
BANG
The shield went down completely and the round buried into his armor, the captain staggering as he couldn’t find anything adequate to shield him.
No! It can’t end like...
BANG