Hypernova

~*~ Alternate Ending Requested by and Written for ZaeraDourden ~*~

~*~ Because nice reviewers are why we can have nice things ~*~

Damnit. Why hadn't she thought of something? A radio for back-up, a check in with the local garrison, anything but running in balls first and blind folded. Shepard cursed herself, and not for the first time that day. Geth. Fucking geth! Of all the things she'd been expecting – okay, so she hadn't really been expecting anything – crazed synthetics totting around weird alien impaling things were most certainly not one of them.

Anderson had ordered radio silence. Not hinted like he had about her and Nihlus, perverted old bastard, but outright ordered. She only had the occasional update from Nihlus to reassure her they both weren't going to end up zombie lovers like in his favorite horror movie.

Not five minutes in and she'd lost Jenkins, the poor kid. She should have scouted ahead instead of sending him to do it. She would have known to take the cautious route with more cover. She would have had stronger kinetic barriers. (She'd programmed hers to have more power in the front. If she was showing her back to an enemy, it was because she was already dead.) Then she'd have three people with her, not just two.

She shouldn't have been so hard on Williams, but damned if it wasn't like looking in a mirror, seeing the only surviving officer who'd gotten their squad slaughtered. How many times had that been Shepard? Two? If she lost Alenko and Williams, it would be three. She wasn't about to let that happen. She wasn't even going to think about what would happen if she lost Nihlus.

She must have been going mad. She had to be, if she was actually listening to a mad person. They'd stumbled across two surviving scientists who'd locked themselves in a prefab unit, one of them batshit insane. She'd half-listened as patiently as she could, and she wasn't a patient person. But when she'd asked them about Nihlus, the man had lost it, started babbling about a turian who'd killed them all, the bringer of chaos and destruction, to blame for this entire SNAFU.

She'd punched him. Williams had snorted, suppressing a laugh, but Alenko had all but thrown himself out the door in fear. Well, good. She'd seen a few lingering glances, and the sooner he lost interest, the better.

But now she felt batshit insane, too. She must have been, to be standing outside the prefab unit, disobeying a direct order from her superior officer.

"Nihlus." She radioed, pressing a hand to her helmet to signal for silence. Alenko's face rumpled in displeasure; Williams checked her gun disinterestedly.

"I read you," He replied almost immediately, "What's happened?"

"We found some survivors, there's not just geth," Or maybe. Maybe not. You're going off a hunch, a mad man, and your own paranoia ever since you saw that ship. "They said there's a turian working with them, maybe leading them. Just-be on your guard."

"I'm en route to the spaceport, they just saw me," He waved off her warning, and for some reason it made her blood run cold. "The only things here are geth and - … Saren?"

The comm went dead. Shepard signaled her team to move out, and started sprinting towards the spaceport. Saren. Why was that name familiar? She'd heard it somewhere bef-read. She'd read it somewhere before. That damn datapad.

Nihlus Kryik

/Here's everything I could find. Never say Johnny didn't do nothing for the Reds/

Known Aliases: Nihlus Kryik

Age: -Error: Redacted

Occupation: Citadel Council Operative; Branch: Special Tactics and Reconnaissance

Mentor: Saren Arterius

Father: -Error: Redacted ADDN: Deceased

Mother: -Error: Redacted

Siblings: N/A

Colony: -Error: Redacted ADDN: Mercenary Outpost; Outside Hierarchy Space

Legion: N/A

Error: Redacted

Notable Military Service

Error: Redacted

Personality Profile

Error: Redacted

Known Associates

Error: Redacted

Commendations and Miscellaneous

Error: Redacted

/ I knew you couldn't resist looking. I told you before, if you want to know something about me, just ask. I'm not going anywhere. /

It was the only part of the intel he hadn't deleted. She'd wasted good credits on what Nihlus had turned into little more than a blank datapad, save for that one line.

Saren was his mentor. His fucking mentor. He wouldn't see a thing coming. Shepard knew she wouldn't if she'd been in his place, and Steven had been a traitor instead of Saren.

Geth were waiting for them, guarding the spaceport. Bodies of the dead flung themselves off spikes and charged, wailing from the afterlife. "Payback," Williams whispered as she dropped to one knee, rested her assault rifle against her shoulder, and opened fire. Shepard decided she liked her. Yanking a grenade off her belt, she flung it towards the base of a spike as body dropped from it. The blast sent the undead corpse flying. Alenko's biotics did the same the others.

Shepard had to admit they made a hell of a team, her explosives and tech skills, Williams' firepower, and Alenko's biotics. They sent the husks back to the grave, and ripped through the geth like tissue paper.

When they'd cleared a path, Shepard saw Alenko glance towards the prefab units. He wanted to check for survivors, but they didn't have time. She waved them forward and ran down the hill, cursing her stride and her humanity. Turians ran faster. She could have reached the spaceport faster.

There was no movement. No geth. No nothing except-

"Commander," Alenko signaled, voice dropping to a whisper, "They got Nihlus."

Shepard spun to where he gestured with his pistol, to the red and black form slumped against a crate, limply clutching an assault rifle. Her legs slid out from under her as they tried for an abrupt halt and failed. She grabbed his shoulders with both hands and shook him, not thinking clearly.

She was a field medic. She'd had training, all of which flew out the window at the sight of Nihlus motionless in a pile of his own blood. She needed to run a scan, to find and staunch the bleeding, she needed to-

A ragged cough and three talons batted her hand away. She choked and swallowed, mute with relief, when a clatter from behind the loading crates drew Williams' and Alenko's attention away from them.

"He's still alive?" A frail human voice squeaked, and a dirty head peaked over the crates. "I saw-I thought-I just… If I'd known…"

"Now you do. Be useful and get a medkit." Williams snapped with what Shepard would have said if she could speak. Shepard definitely liked her. She'd have to apologize later.

Shepard felt detached from her body as she brought up her omnitool and ran a scan. He'd taken a shot to his shoulder, another to his stomach. She made short work of his armor – thank whatever deity would listen she'd had practice - and pressed her hand against the injury. She had to stop the blood flow, but all she had was a salve. She needed-

"H-here," The stranger stammered, dropping a medkit beside her. Idiot, she needed it-

Alenko bent down and opened it, his lips pressed in a tight line. She didn't bother to identify the expression; it seemed strange and alien on a human face.

Grabbing the syringe ready with a shot of liquid medigel, she bit off the cap and stabbed her turian with it. Shepard waited until the blood flow had slowed to a trickle before covering his stomach would with a salve, then twisted around him so she could do the same with his shoulder.

Her body brought up her omnitool and ran another scan, and only when it was complete did she feel like she was herself again. "What happened?" She breathed, air rushing painfully into her lungs. Had she been holding her breath?

"Saren-" Nihlus coughed, then coughed again. Then started laughing. "Saren." He laughed and shook his head, then kept laugh-coughing and shaking his head, hysterical.

"I-I saw it." The human spoke up. "I saw the whole thing."

The man, Powel, explained how he'd been hiding behind the crates, napping when the fight started, much to Shepard's and Williams' disgust. Nihlus and Saren had spoken, but Nihlus had seemed stiff and uneasy the whole time. He'd turned to take a glance around the spaceport, when Saren had insisted he had the situation under control, and pulled a gun on him.

Nihlus had been turning back, in the mist of saying, "No you don't." When he'd taken a shot to the shoulder and dove behind a crate, thankfully, Powel added, not his.

"I wish you hadn't been here, Nihlus." Saren levered his pistol, waiting for Nihlus to remerge.

"I could say the same," He'd thrown a grenade at his mentor and taken a shot to the stomach for it, before he'd fallen back against the crate and hadn't gotten back up.

"Argh!" Saren had snarled, and taken a few steps forward before he'd thought better of it. "You shouldn't have come here Nihlus. You know I can't let you leave. But I don't need to shoot you to kill you." He'd walked off towards the transit station to the far end of the spaceport, adding, "You have only yourself to blame for this, Brother." Before he'd left.

"What the hell does that mean?" Williams spoke up, glaring down Powel. She'd dragged out a confession of smuggling from him while he'd been getting the medkit, and looked ready to shoot the already traumatized man.

"Explosives…" Nihlus struggled to push himself up and slipped on his own blood. Shit, he'd lost a lot. He eventually managed to struggle back to his feet, supporting himself on the crates and he limped towards the tram station. Limped? What was wrong with his leg? What else had happened? Damn eye-witness reports.

"Williams, stay with him," Shepard fixed the Chief with a stare.

"Aye, aye ma'am," Williams nodded, purposefully loud over Nihlus's coughed protest, "We'll catch up," She added, but phrased it like a question, to which Shepard gave another nod and turned to the LT.

"Alenko, with me. Time to defuse this."

The two of them ran forward, slower without Williams' additional firepower, but still faster than they would have been if they'd had to wait on Nihlus. He was fine for now, but Shepard knew she wouldn't be able to finish the mission if she was worried about him.

So she left him with the stronger team member, and took the additional tech support to disarm the bombs they encountered, and fuck, were there a lot. They were a sweating mess of anxiety by the time they stumbled down the stairs from the last bomb. They took out another group of zombie-husks that had been left clustered around the beacon, and all but collapsed against each other.

Shepard radioed in the Normandy just as Ashley – was it Ashley already? - and Nihlus arrived. She breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at him. Nihlus cringed and tried to return the gesture.

Shepard turned around; she could barely look at him. He'd been so close to gone, if she hadn't radioed to warn him…

A hum filled her ears, a pulse gentle and rhythmic like the call of the sea, soothing her worries. Shepard blinked. It was coming from the beacon. Shepard relaxed, feeling more at ease the close she got to it. It calmed her, called to her… pulled her towards it. By the time she realized what was happening, she couldn't pull away. Her muscles tensed against her will, dragging her further towards the ancient relic, when strong arms wrapped around her waist and threw her out of the way.

Nihlus. No. Damnit, no! Not after she'd saved him, not after all this, not now. Shepard scrambled over herself to reach him, horrified as the relic took him in her place and left him suspended midair, lost to seizures and whatever the hell that damned beacon was doing to him.

Ashley grabbed her as she dove for him. "No! Don't touch him!" She insisted, "It's too dangerous!" Kaiden latched on to help hold her back, forcing her to watch until Nihlus collapsed, unconscious or dead.

Damn her. Damn him. What had she done? Ashley and Kaiden let go of her, and she crawled across the floor to pull his head into her lap.

Damnit, what had she done?