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Chapter Text

The light was flicking when she opened her eyes and seconds by seconds passed until she figure it out.

“CRAW! DIAGNOSIS! NOW!”

Lifting herself up she almost fell over from her dizziness, the Void wasn’t kind to her today. Her Warframe vision was flickering for a few seconds until it stopped, looking over the glass she could see a big station in the distance with many ships going in and out of it. What it was she could not figure it out, she has never seen something like this, a space station? A mine? A weapon? She didn’t know, she did know one thing, the Orokin didn’t build this as it has no aesthetic appeal.

“You are awake Operator.” A synthetic voice resounded throughout the Railjack as a hologram appeared in her visor. The Railjack Cephalon being purple in colour was happy that the Operator was awake, not so happy with the incident that happened. In amount of minutes the cephalon did a diagnostic. “All crew members have died.”

Silence resounded in the ship as the Operator did not believe it. The people that have spent an insane amount of hours with her, fighting with her, had died. Clearing her head a little by bashing the controls of the Railjack she left the commands of the ship and started to walk towards the fissure as the alarms were flaring and the air seems to be sucked out of the ship.

A shape sits frozen on the ground with an Omni-Tool in his hand, pointing at the hull breach. Leaning in she took it and finished what the other one could not. With the alarms gone she could look at the frozen body more closely, touching the shoulder and squeezing it to get some sort of comfort.

“He dyed with an Omni-Tool in hand, a brave man.” Sympathy? From a cephalon? Has she hit a new low now? Many consider Cephalons to be machines but she knew the truth.

“I don’t need your sympathy criminal, how did he die?” Coldness has embraced her voice as she left the man alone, tossing the tool aside as she fixed the fissure. A silent moment passed while she waited for the tool to finish, as soon as it was done she walked back towards the controls of the ship.

“Void interference has caused damage to our shields and weapons system with the engines being still offline. I have some good news at least, we are close to the Dojo. If we can turn on the engines we could get back to the Dojo to get the Railjack fixed.”

Without any word she walked towards the engines, tapping at them lightly with her foot as she crossed her arms. “How the muck am I going to fix this?”

Chapter Text

Captain Jane Shepard but most people call her Captain Shepard or just Shepard for short was on her way to the mission debrief room to talk with the council as they seem to be in a hurry based on what Joker said.

“Any news on why they are in a hurry to speak with me Joker?” Opening the door, she was followed by her squad mates until the door as they stopped, noticing it she turned around her head. “It won’t take long.” Closing the door she got close enough for the holograms to see her.

“They won’t say but we aren’t the only ones being turned around commander, it seems all citadel ships are being turned around right back to the citadel, including turian warships. I don’t know what it’s happening but it’s big and it’s around the citadel.”

“Thoughts?”

It took a few moments for everyone to think of a reason for this, the council may be slow in their judgments, but they aren’t mindlessly taking decisions.

“The citadels is under attack? What else would these lazy ass bumkins make a such a drastic decision?”

“Yeah, it might be. Let’s see what they have to say first, patch them through Joker.”

“Setting up the link now Commander.”

With a few synthetics sounds the council was standing in front of her, in all their holographic glory.

“Commander Shepard, we need you to come back at the citadel as soon as possible.” Councillor Tevos was the first one to speak. Her tone didn’t match her face, to Shepard she sounded scared, witch it would be almost impossible for a councillor member.

“Have you received my report?”

“We have but there is no time to discuss this, we have a more important matters at hand.” Councillor Sparatus spoke in a hurry and that made two members of the council that were either spooked or scared in Shepard’s opinion.

“What is going on councillors?”

All of them looked at each other and with a silent nod from each other they decided something unknown to Shepard.

“A first contact happened around 1800, a broken ship, and an unknown structure have been struck into existence approximately one-trillion-nine-hundred-billion meters from the citadel.” Councillor Valern added to the conversation, picturing the situation to Shepard.

“A direct attack?”

“It is unknown at this time if the alien had come here to attack us or to make contact with us, what we do know is that one shot from the aliens ship broke one asari dreadnought that was closing in on the structure.”

Chapter Text

“Weapons and engines are online although limited in their output.” A rising synthetic voice calmly resounds throughout the ship with only the unusual crack of electricity coming from the broken engine.

She was floating with crossed legs, meditating, keeping herself calm to not lash out and destroy something aboard the Railjack. The Warframe’s claws sometimes flinching as she tries her hardest to keep still, Garuda being the perfect Warframe for her from the moment she first used the transference.

“The Aliens have not attempted to move on our location, yet, I assume they will eventually and at the rate we are going we will reach the Dojo in three days.”

Craw’s voice resounded in her ears but she didn’t react, she was in her mind castle, away from everyone and everything.
Nothing can hurt her here.
Nothing can reach her here without her will.
She was the master of her body and mind.

Seconds, minutes, hours pass in her meditation giving her some relaxation in her unusual sate.
A cold calculating mind begun to break the old gears and rebuild them with brand new materials, like a blacksmith would with a blade.

I have Garuda, the Railjack, the Orbiter and the Dojo. I still have my weapons and mods and even with the loses that I have suffered I can still use the Railjack by myself, if the weapon shot that I did on the alien ship is any true. Plus the Archwing, Odonata Prime, and the other Warframes.
I am still a weapon, I am still feared,
I am no longer tortured, I am no longer in fear,
I am still craving blood, I am still craving their fear,
Yet I am in control of my mind
I am in control.

Her chanting, continued in her mind, keeping the ship silent until the cephalon spoke again.

“Operator we have company.”

With that simple sentence her meditation is broken and with simple but quick movements she was back in command of the ship, taking control of it.

“One unknown ship has entered my scanner range but because of how damaged my sensors are I couldn’t see them until now. You have visual.”

Her Warframe vision pinged with a picture of the ship, strange in nature, unlike any ship she has seen be it either Grineer or Corpus. Strange letters decorated the ship that she did not recognise but for the Cephalon it was easy to translate the language into Orokin.

“Normandy is in range of our weapons.”

Chapter Text

“SHEPARD THE SHIP IS LOADING ITS WEAPON!”

Joker screamed from the front of the ship in a hurry, evading the shot by millimetres at the last moment, leaving scratches outside of the ship. Everyone was getting up from the ground, no doubt in their mind that was way too close for comfort for them.

“What was that Joker?”

“Fuck if know Shep, that shot took out our shields and scratched the paint on my baby!”

“One shot? That’s all it took?”

“YES! We can’t take another shot like this! I barely managed to evade it at the last minute.”

“Where was it supposed to hit?”

Garrus asked behind Liara, both of them still shaken from the evasive manoeuvre while Wrex was helping up Tali from kissing the ground with her helmet.

“Left wing, straight shot at the connection, it would have taken us out, like the dreadnought thats drifting behind us.”

A bitter tone responds, grasping her head in pain while she is lifted up on her chair by Kaiden.
“Warning shot? For what?! We are no threat to the ship. Sure a dreadnought would be but us?!”

Shepard took a look at Ashley while she thought of a response, sure they have the snakiest ship in the galaxy and while their weapons were not some of the heaviest they still packed a punch. So why? Why would anyone take a shot at another… unless they feel threatened…

“Joker pull up the ship.”

Without a response a holograph appeared, showing the ship in all of its gold white glory, except, some parts seem to be missing, broken by something… or someone…

“SHEPARD! THE SHIP IS PREPARING TO FIRE AGAIN!”

Pressured by the situation, Shepard made a drastic decision, made by years of combat experience and street fights.

“JOKER STOP THE SHIP!”

“WHAT?!! ARE YOU CRAZY?! WE WOULD BE SITTING DUCKS!”

“Do it, stop the ship.”

Grumbling, Joker stopped the ship from advancing more towards the unknown ship.
Tension high in the air, like a string about to break under pressure, they waited for the shot to come, only for it to never be made.

“Holy shit, it worked.”

“Figures… the ship is damaged. How they got here and why is not important. They walked out of a fight and they are looking for repairs. That building is their docking station and we are threatening them from getting there.”

Heavy steps resound behind Shepard as Wrex takes a look towards the broken ship with a mesmerising look, promising a story.

“Like a pyjack. Crazy pyjaks, hurt one and they run away but if you run towards them they will do anything to survive.”

Chuckling slightly to himself, he walks back to his spot, leaning against the wall with his leg athwart on it.
Taking his words with the slight interest of a story, Shepard looked back again at the slow moving ship.

“Joker are we close enough to the ship to transmit a message?”

“We are, don’t keep any hope for a response Shep, these guys look like the kind to shoot first ask question never.”

“Just send the message.”

“On it, Shep. You have the scene.”

A deep breath was taken, based on the turns the day took Shepard had no hope for a helpful response.

“This is Captain Jane Shepard from Normandy, we have stopped our engines and we are not powering our weapons, we are not a threat and we are not here to fight. I repeat we are not here to fight. We are here on peaceful terms of making first contact with a new species. Please power down your engines so we can talk and help you in any way we can. Joker send the message.”

A few seconds passed after she finished speaking, leaving the silence to emanate in the room.

“Joker did the Asari dreadnought sent any first contact packages before it got shot down?”

“They did… three.”

“Wonderful, we might have a spices so alien that they can’t translate it.”