Mass Effect: Objects in Space - Chapter 4...

The continued tale of the crew of the Normandy SR2, as they transpire AFTER the events of Mass Effect 2. For those who haven't played it - SPOILERS will ensure. You have been WARNED!

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Thane Krios was bleeding. That didn't happen often. Even so, the pain was all too familiar - a perfect memory had its drawbacks, after all. It was nought but a flesh wound where a round has passed under his arm and grazed the meat of his ribs. But it was bleeding heavily, and the pain was beginning to hinder his aim. It was getting harder to steady his rifle, and he couldn't afford to miss even one shot.

Breaking cover, he sighted down the scope, and lined up on a Cerberus officer, hoping to overload the human's kinetic barriers. That would give the crew a chance to batter through the heavy ablative plates that covered his battle armour. Instinct told him to aim for the head - further away from the shield emitter built into the back of the suit just below the magnetic clamps. It would be weaker around the extremities, and the head gave him the best chance of scoring a debilitating shot should the round manage to pierce the shield.

Just as his finger squeezed on the trigger, a burst of fire came from the balcony above, on the engineering deck, and hammered the officers shields. The better firing angle from such a vantage point allowed for an easier shot, and with a burst of static the barriers went down. Before the man could react to this new threat, Thane gently squeezed, and his rifle bucked in his hands. A puff of red mist burst out from the back of the man's head, and he fell out of the assassins field of view.

He had lived in a dangerous profession long enough to know a kill shot when he saw one, so he dropped back into cover, checking the thermal clip to see how much more the heat sink could take. Two, maybe three more shots.

One of the crewman risked a look around the crates they were using as cover, and fell back almost immediately, his eye a bloody ruin. Thane almost prayed for the lost soul, until the man began to scream. He was still alive. Truly Arashu applauded his bravery. Thane would see to it that the man lived, or he would die in the attempt.

He lifted his head above the crate, and caught a glimpse of the enemy who had shot the screaming crewman. He counted for three heartbeats before breaking cover again, right as the enemy soldier rolled out of cover to fire again. He never got the chance, as Thane put two rounds into him, one in the chest, one in the throat. The soldier slumped forward, his pistol falling from slack hands. The thermal readout on his rifle showed enough left in the heat sink for one more shot. Good, that last kill had made him feel weak. The blood loss was getting dangerous now. It wouldn't take much more before he would need to seek medical attention, which meant falling back, and surrendering the shuttle bay to Cerberus.

If that happened, nothing would stop them overrunning the ship.

Now he had fired three times from this spot, and was playing a dangerous game. A sniper should never fire more than once from a concealed position. The muzzle flash made you a prime target for counter snipers. He needed to move. It seemed that whoever was up on the balcony had enough of experience to comprehend exactly that, as at that moment a spray of assault rifle fire came from one of the broken windows, forcing the Cerberus soldiers to keep their heads down.

Thane didn't need a second chance. He darted from cover, sprinting toward a refuelling mech that was secured in a large hydraulic cradle, and dropped into cover behind it, his vision swimming with the exertion. He took a few steadying breaths and ducked further behind the cradle, hoping to flank his foes.

His injury must have been worse than he thought, as he didn't see the Cerberus soldier looming up before him from the far side of the cradle until it was too late, the scorcher in his enemy's hands coming up to meet him, muzzle spitting restless gouts of flame. It looked like Kepral's syndrome wouldn't be the death of him after all. Smiling, Thane slipped into himself, his eyes glazing over as the memory of Irikah washed away the battle in the bowels of the Normandy.



He had watched with some satisfaction as the Cerberus soldiers dived for cover as he unloaded round after round over their heads. He found himself smiling again as Thane had switched his position, sprinting like an athlete toward the huge bulk of a fuelling mech. Smart little bastard was going to flank them.

He grasped another thermal clip from his pocket as a smouldering heat sink was ejected from the side of his rifle, steam billowing from it like the tail of a comet as it fell to the deck beside him. Ramming the fresh clip home, his features became grim as the realisation dawned on him that this was his last one. Better make it count.

He saw Thane favouring his left side, and realised the drell must have been hit earlier in the battle. Then he saw something that gave him pause. A Cerberus pyro-trooper he hadn't seen when he fired his suppressing burst had spotted Thane's gamble, and ducked behind a fuelling tank on the far side of the mech cradle. There was no way Thane could have seen him from where he was crouched.

Unfortunately the tank was also blocking his view of the trooper, so he risked the barrage of return fire that was hammering the balcony, and ran as fast as his battered form could manage toward the door to Grunt's cargo room. He dropped back into cover for but a moment, before hauling his tired body up into the line of fire.

He took a glancing hit to the shoulder almost immediately, but ignored it and raised his rifle, just as Thane broke cover once again, rolling around the back of the cradle, and right into the path of the pyro-trooper. From his new vantage point he could see nothing but a tiny gap between the cradle and the fuel tank.

Another round hit him, this time in the gut, but the bullet lodged into his armour and didn't pierce the flesh. He'd been shot enough times to know that whilst it was a minor injury, it would leave one hell of a bruise. He waited for what seemed like an eternity, expecting any moment for the distinctive whoosh of a flamer discharge, signalling the drell's demise.

Instead he caught a flicker of movement from the gap his rifle was sighted on, and he fired, guided by instinct honed from years of warfare and black ops missions, the disruptor rounds passing through the gap and missing both the cradle and the tank by a fraction of an inch.

Then everything went white, and the world trembled.



Thane's memories of his beloved Irikah were ripped from his mind as he was thrown backwards by a force that felt like the hand of a god. He slammed back into a heat exchanger, it's metal skin dented inwards from the impact. He fought through the pain, shaking away the shock of the moment and tried to find his weapon. The rifle was gone, who knew where, but so was the pyro trooper. All that remained of the Cerberus soldier was a blackened scorch mark on the floor where he had been standing, and the stench of chemicals and cooked meat.

It took him a moment to register what had happened. Someone had hit the troopers pack, igniting the volatile gasses contained in the twin flasks. None of the fire team he had brought with him would have hand an angle to pull off that shot, and he doubted any of them could have managed it even if they had. No, the shot had come from the shooter on balcony, and Thane knew of but a scant few people who could have pulled it off, himself included.

As clarity returned, he grinned despite himself, the unfamiliar sensation of the thrill of a near death experience overcoming his normally stoic calm. The explosion had had an interesting side effect. A stray round must have pierced one of the flexible pipes running from the tank to the cradle, and the burning gasses from the flasks had ignited the spilled fuel, triggering a chain reaction that had detonated the fuel tank.

Only the bulk of the cradle and the now scorched mech held securely inside had shielded him from the blast, and had saved his life. The same could not be said of the Cerberus assault team. Six of them were vaporised instantly, another four killed outright as the shock wave liquefied their organs and pulped their bones.

The rest were knocked to the deck, a good number thrown out of their cover by the force of the explosion. The Normandy fire team capitalised on this, hammering the exposed foes with everything they had - with little or no return fire from their stunned enemies.

Just like that, the tide had turned.

Thane dragged himself to his feet and drew his pistol, staggering back into the cover afforded by the damaged mech. He caught a glimpse of his saviour above him as he did, and he nodded a salute, which was promptly returned. An assault rifle flew through the air toward him, and he caught it easily, his brow furrowed in confusion.

"Make good use of it, you need it more than I do!" The figure on the balcony shouted. "And toss me a bloody pistol would you?"

Thane simply nodded, and threw his carnifex under arm up into the air, a flicker of pain running through his body as his injured ribs protested. The figure snatched the pistol from the air, and turned away from the fight in the shuttle bay, his part played out.