O is for Obelisk
A/N: I didn’t forget about these! I’m just really, really slow. And I got so bogged down with homework I missed while sick, I didn’t really have the time for them for a while. But now I do and I’ll try to be a bit more productive when it comes to getting them out.
O is for Obelisk
“What is that thing?” Kaidan’s voice crackles through their headsets as he stares up in wonder at the pulsating spindle. In the midst of all the carnage they cut through to get here, they’ve found something clean and sharp and practically radiant. The polished metal sides throw their own reflections back at them, distorted and stretched beyond their true proportions.
“What we came for,” Shepard answers, as though Kaidan should know this already.
“Yeah, but…what’s it do? Why is it here?” He takes a step forward, stopped only by Williams’ hand reaching out to grasp his arm.
Under her visor, she smirks at him. “They pay smarter people than us to mull that over, Chief.”
Shepard grunts his agreement, raising his mic to start hailing the Normandy. In between breaks in the feed, he says, “It could be a fancy Prothean toilet for all we know; it doesn’t matter.”
Somehow Kaidan doubts Saren or the Alliance would be expending so much energy for something so inconsequential. The bureaucrats, sure. He’s seen money wasted in odder ways. But a Council Spectre? No, there’s something special about this thing. So while Shepard and Williams crack jokes and try to flag the pilot, Kaidan takes a cautious step forward.
When it comes down to it, this thing is just one more piece of tech. A puzzle really. Kaidan’s good at puzzles. Maybe he’s not a real Alliance scientist, but that doesn’t mean he’s useless. One peek, just one little look. It couldn’t hurt.
The beacon flares, and suddenly Kaidan’s boots are sliding right over the catwalk, frictionless. He can’t stop, can’t even yelp in surprise.
Arms envelope him, dragging him back. Why Shepard thinks he’s stronger than this thing, Kaidan can’t say. Amazingly, though, this little struggle of man versus machine seems to be coming out in Shepard’s favor. Kaidan hits the deck as his commander finally succeeding in hauling him free of the beacon’s traction…only to be caught it in himself.
“Shepard!”
Kaidan tries to grab him, to do for the commander what Shepard just did for him. Only this time Williams is behind him, keeping him pinned. “Don’t.”
His teeth hum as the beacon’s mass effect fields kick into overdrive. Shepard’s lifted clear off the catwalk, head thrown back, feet dangling. Kaidan can only gape in horror as his body twitches and shudders. And falls.
Shepard lands in a heap and the glow from the beacon dies down. Shrugging off Williams’ arms, Kaidan scrambles to his commander’s side. “Don’t you dare be dead.” Not because of him, his mistake. His fingers pry the release snaps of Shepard’s helmet, and he tosses it aside like so much rubbish.
Whatever that beacon did to him, it didn’t kill him. Shepard’s breath still trips up from his lungs, shallow but present. Kaidan takes his pulse and tries to force himself calm, meditating on Shepard’s jumping heartbeat, on the vital signs he measures with his omnitool. It’s going to be okay. It has to be.
