//------------------------------// // Harbinger // Story: Mass Effect: Element of Kindness // by CommanderApplejack //------------------------------// Chapter 91 Harbinger Shining wordlessly pressed a button on the hologram in front of him and the engines mounted on the asteroid sprung to life. “Fidelis, can you open a channel to the entire system with the base’s communication system?” his voice not louder than a whisper. “Done,” the AI simply replied, not saying any more words on the matter. “All colonists receiving this, head for the nearest spaceship! Evacuate-” “No! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!” Doctor Kenson appeared on one of the screens, completely outraged. “You leave me no choice! If this asteroid can’t be stopped it must be destroyed!” “Where is doctor Kenson!” Shining demanded from the VI in the system, his voice croaking but filled with pure rage. “The doctor is currently on her way towards the reactor room.” The captain cursed and immediately sprinted off towards the door that was marked as the passage towards the reactor room. An elevator awaited him at the end of the passageway which took him down to the reactor level, only a couple of guards standing in his way before he reached a chamber where he could observe the main core. Doctor Kenson noticed his arrival as she worked on the core’s computer. “You! Don’t try to stop me!” She shouted at Shining who growled back at her. “Stop this madness doctor, don’t let the reapers win this fight!” he shouted. The doctor shook her head and turned to watch at the rapidly destabilizing core. “There is no escape from this, no redemption. You will die along with everyone on this asteroid, never having seen the reaper’s blessings for yourself!” Deciding that this wasn’t worth his time, Shining started looking around the room. “Fidelis I need to know how to stop this thing from blowing!” “Give me a second, I need to pull up the base’s schematics… Got it! There are two cooling rods that you need to manually insert, the first one is right in front of you there!” She exclaimed, a pillar of sorts sticking out of the machinery. Shining immediately pushed it into the machine which came to life and started cooling the reactor and slowing down it’s overheat immediately.  “Perfect, one more to go!” Shining said as he sprinted towards the door leading to the next rod, Fidelis using the system to open the doors that hadn’t been welded shut yet by the guards that were trying to shut themselves in and stop Shining’s advance. Heavy fighting continued all the way from the first control rod to the second, but the determined captain wasn’t going to be stopped now as he viciously fought onwards. “There, the second one! Quick!” Fidelis shouted as warning lights flashed everywhere along with a siren blaring through the station, all of those going away the moment the control rod was inserted. “That was way too close… Don’t ask by the way.” “I wasn’t going to,” Shining said with a bit of humor but his dark mood didn’t allow him to indulge in the banter any further. Kenson’s voice blasting through the intercom cut him off from doing so anyway. “You’ve done nothing! I can still reroute the power away from the engines!” the doctor shouted. “Elevator behind you. Stop her,” The AI stated with her cold, machinelike, voice. Shining, sharing his feeling of revulsion with his newest companion, followed her direction and used the elevator to get into the main reactor room. “Step away from the console!” Shining said firmly as he approached the doctor from behind, keeping his rifle trained on the human scientist. “You ruined everything!” Kenson shouted before softly adding that she couldn’t hear the whispers anymore. “You’ve taken them away from me, I will never see the reaper’s arrival now...” The doctor turned around with a detonator in her hands. Shining immediately brought up his shield spell as Kenson pressed the detonation button, fire engulfing her and Shining. “Damnit!” the captain cursed, coughing a couple of times as he lowered his personal shield and breathed in some of the smoke. “I need an exit, Fidelis!” “I’ll navigate you to the escape shuttles but hurry up, it won’t be long before this rock hits the relay,” she replied. There really wasn’t much of a resistance as the two made their way towards the shuttle landing pads, the base had been adequately supplied with shuttles in case of an emergency or if the project was completed so as Shining stepped out of the station onto the roof a couple of them were still present.  “No, no, no, NO! That’s impossible!” Fidelis shouted in panic, cutting off her sound. “Fidelis what’s going… on...” Shining fell silent as he could see a massive hologram of what looked to be a reaper, given the similarities to Sovereign, appear above one of the landing pads. “Your interference serves no purpose. You fight against inevitability, dust against the cosmic wind. A star system sacrificed? It may seem like a victory to you but in the end the galaxy will fall.” “A victory?” Shining questioned, rage bubbling up within him. “This is no victory. It’s a tragedy. A tragedy that’ll ultimately give us the time we need to prepare! And even though you might be right that we might fall, we will fight you regardless!” “Know this as you die in vain. Your time will come. Your species will be extinguished as it was supposed to be before. Prepare yourselves for the arrival, but know it will all be in vain.” The hologram faded out again at the same time as Fidelis appeared again. “Run, get out of here!” Shining didn’t need to be told twice as he ran towards one of the parked shuttles, entering and running towards the controls. “Uhm, Fidelis, I might need your help flying this thing!” Controls lit up as a small projection of a galaxy map appeared in the cockpit, lights blinking on as the AI in his suit took control. The relay was getting scary big in the shuttle’s viewport as it took off and started interacting with the massive alien structure. The relay’s rings sped up and within a couple of seconds it fired the shuttle out into deep space, away from the star system. Shining’s eyes remained glued to the hologram of the galaxy, in particular the place he’d just come from, tears welling up in them. The node went red. What have I done…?