I'm not sure why I'm writing this. I guess I just thought that we needed more Mass Effect crossovers.
I'll be using a Soldier Female Earthborn/War Hero Paragrade Shepard. I'm writing this from memory, so I apologize for any deviances from the game or show.
I own neither Mass Effect nor the Stargate series.
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Commander Jane Shepard sighed and silently wondered how the hell she got into the situation that she was in now. She was standing just a few dozen meters away from the enigmatic Collectors' front doorstep, and was surrounded by the most surreal and varied crew imaginable, from her old friends Tali'Zorah vas Normandy and Garrus Vakarian, to the likes of Grunt, the tank-bred Krogan and the psychotic Jack, and even Legion, a platform of the geth. Oh yeah, I died, she thought sardonically. Removing herself from her private thoughts, she looked up at the hologram of the Collector stronghold projected before her. The current plan was for two teams to strike from different sides while a single infiltrator would climb through a thermal vent and open up the path to strike at the heart of the station. Currently, her three options were Tali, Legion or the master thief Kasumi Goto.
"Legion," she finally decided, "I want you to infiltrate the thermal vent." The geth construct adjusted something on its rifle before nodded in acceptance.
"Acknowledged," it said in its typical synthetic monotone. Tali shifted on her feet slightly in what Shepard assumed was jealousy, but she was in no mood to play mediator between the two again, so she turned to Garrus.
"Garrus, I want you to lead the fire team," she said to the scarred Turian.
"You got it, Shepard," Garrus said. Miranda Lawson opened her mouth as if to object, but one glare from the commander was enough to silence any protest. With their respective members sorted out, the two teams poured out of the Normandy and into the Collector base while Legion traveled to its destination.
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"Keelah…" Tali gasped as she looked at the sight before her. Millions of Collector stasis pods lined the walls of the massive room before them. Stepping up to one of the pods, Shepard wiped her hand across the glass surface, revealing the face of a young brunette woman.
"This looks like one of the colonists from Horizon," she said, mostly to herself. A few pods down, Jacob Taylor announced that he had found the missing Normandy crew. A moment later, the woman before Shepard woke with a start, looking around in confusion. Suddenly, the confused look turned to one of horror as her flesh started to melt away. Her muffled screams barely penetrated the pod as she pounded against the glass, leaving bloody streaks on the surface, until her cries went silent and she disappeared into a cloud of red goo, quickly siphoned out of the pod and towards parts unknown. "Christ!" she swore. "Get the crew out of these pods, double time!" she shouted as she started pounding on the nearest occupied pod. With all of them hammering away at the pods, the abducted crew was saved, although some of them sported painful-looking chemical burns over their bodies.
"Can any of you walk?" Shepard asked. When they murmured a general affirmative, Shepard turned Mordin Solus. "Mordin, I need you to escort the crew back to the Normandy and give them medical attention," she ordered.
"Understood Shepard," the fast-talking salarian said. "I'll guard them with my life. Come along," he said, turning to the crew, "must return to Normandy before Collectors find us." With the more able-bodied crew helping the injured to their feet, Mordin led the crew away from harm, and Shepard led the rest of her team deeper into the bowels of the enemy stronghold.
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"Go!" Shepard shouted as she and her team ran towards the closing doors, the Collectors' gunfire barely managing to be deflected by Samara's shield. "You two go on ahead, I'll cover Samara!" Acknowledging the order, Thane Krios and Zaeed Massani fled forward and into cover. Shepard holstered her Revenant machine gun and drew her Carnifex hand cannon and began taking potshots at the Collectors. Just as they reached the door, Samara gave on final biotic push, sending the Collectors and the swarm of bugs surrounding them flying away. As the doors closed, Samara was leaning forward, exhausted. Shepard checked the ammo counter on her HUD: One shot left on her pistol. "Samara, are you okay?" she asked.
"I am fine, Shepard," the asari justicar said, panting. "My powers are exhausted, but they should be recharged soon."
"That's good," Shepard said. In one swift move, she planted the pistol against the back of Samara's head and pulled the trigger, and the elderly asari's body fell forward, now missing half its head. Wiping off the blood and brain matter that had splattered onto her and ejecting the now spent heat sink, Shepard walked forward and around a corner, where Zaeed and Thane awaited her.
"Where is Samara, Shepard?" Thane asked in his soft, scratchy voice.
"The Collectors clipped her just before the doors closed," Shepard lied smoothly, marching forward, "she didn't make it." She continued to walk forward until she noticed that her teammates were not following her. "What's the holdup? The fire team's waiting!" she snapped before continuing to march forward. As the two men caught up to her, they shared a knowing glance. They both knew that Shepard was lying. Justicars were infamous for having an extremely strict moral code that left no room for shades of gray, something that clashed with Shepard's fast-and-loose style. In one of their many arguments over the matter, Samara had all but threatened to kill Shepard once they were through dealing with the Collectors, and seeing as how a decent-sized portion of the crew were also less than ideal to the justicar's black-and-white viewpoint, neither man could blame their commander for taking her out before she could be a problem.
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Almost finished, Shepard thought as she opened a power conduit hidden underneath the floor. After fighting her way through countless Collectors, she had finally found out what the mysterious aliens had been collecting humans for: A giant, half-built human Reaper. While simultaneously fending off waves of Collectors, she along with Garrus and Miranda had managed to sever the supports that held up abominable construct, sending it toppling down into the seemingly bottomless chasm below. With that mess taken care of, Shepard was preparing to cause the Collector ship to have a catastrophic meltdown when Miranda said that they were receiving a call from the Illusive Man.
"Shepard, wait!" he said. Suppressing a growl of frustration, Shepard stood up from her work and crossed her arms impatiently. After listening to the old man ramble on about saving the Collector base for the sake of humanity, she had finally had enough. She had put up with the Illusive Man's bullshit for nearly six months, and she had even agreed with some of his ideals, if not his methods, but after seeing firsthand what this base could do, preserving it was too much to ask.
"I won't let fear compromise who I am," Shepard said as she turned to resume her work. However, she immediately spun back around at the Illusive Man's next words.
"Miranda, stop her!" the old man shouted. Garrus and Shepard immediately trained their weapons on the Cerberus operative, ready to strike her down should she make a move. However, the brunette woman merely cocked her eyebrow.
"Or what?" she asked defiantly, "you're going to replace me too?"
"Damn it, Miranda, I gave you an order!" the Illusive Man yelled, losing his temper.
"I noticed, consider this my resignation," Miranda said. She cut off any retort the Illusive Man may have had by shutting off her omni-tool. Looking at Shepard coolly, she asked, "Do you trust me now, Shepard?" After a moment, Shepard lowered her weapon, feeling a small sensation of pride that she could inspire loyalty in as fervent a supporter of Cerberus as her.
"Yeah, we're good," Shepard said, bending down to finish her work. After she had rigged the base to explode, she stood up and dusted her armor down. "Alright, we've got about fifteen minutes to—" she began, but was interrupted by a thunderous boom that shook the ground.
"That didn't sound good," Garrus observed.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Finally, the source of the noise was revealed, when the very much alive and functioning human Reaper pulled itself upwards, its orange eyes glowing menacingly. As they gazed upon the swaying skeletal construct, two words drifted through everyone's minds: Oh shit.
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As she pushed debris out of her way, Shepard was wondering to herself why she was doing this. After cutting off the Illusive Man, Shepard and her team were forced to fight off the human Reaper. Through luck, perseverance and the liberal application of heavy weapons, they had managed to destroy the Reaper for good and just barely managed to escape the base's annihilation with Samara as the only casualty. An hour later, Joker had reported an incoming transmission from the Illusive Man, flagged as urgent. She knew that she should have just ignored it, but something compelled her to humor Cerberus' enigmatic leader. So, stepping into the conference room that miraculously still worked, despite the extensive damage to it, she stepped onto the holographic projector and found herself staring at the Illusive Man.
"You wanted to talk?" Shepard asked sharply, crossing her arms. The Illusive Man pulled a drag from his ever-present cigarette and exhaled, the plume of smoke pouring out from his lips before he responded.
"Good work defeating the Collectors, Shepard," the Illusive Man said. "Although I have to say that I'm disappointed that you decided to destroy the base. Who knows what we could have learned from there. We might have discovered a way to defeat the Reapers once and for all." He took another pull from his cigarette before continuing. "I must also confess that I am surprised about your decision, considering that you seemed to be receptive to Cerberus' goals in the past."
"That thing was a Reaper-making factory," Shepard retorted. "The derelict Reaper managed to indoctrinate and turn the entire science team there into husks just by existing, and the Reaper IFF crippled my ship and nearly killed my crew. God alone knows what would have happened if you had gotten your hands on the information there."
"That is not for you to decide, Shepard," the Illusive Man said as he crushed his cigarette and pulled out a fresh one from his jacket pocket. "We need every edge we can to fight the Reapers, especially if the Council remains as stubborn as they are now. Humanity needs you, Shepard."
"You mean, Cerberus needs me," Shepard corrected.
"Cerberus is humanity," the Illusive Man said. "And you still owe me for bringing you back to life."
"No, I don't," Shepard said, her grim smile twisting her lightly glowing scars. "You resurrected me to stop the Collectors, and that's exactly what I did. If you don't like my methods, that's your problem, but my debt to you is paid." Looking away from her former host, she added, "Joker, lose this channel." With a flicker and a hiss, the image of Shepard disappeared, leaving the Illusive Man alone with a glass of scotch, a cigarette, and an image of a sun that glowed a strange mixture of red and blue.
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Nearly five months had passed since that day. After stopping in Omega to drop of Zaeed and Jack, as well as patch up any major damages, the SR-2 Normandy managed to limp its way back to the Citadel. There Thane had left so that he could spend his last days with his son, as well as several of the minor crew who had families. Surprisingly, however, most of her ground team remained behind, as well as Gardner, Kelly, Ken and Gabby. When asked, practically all of them said that they joined her to fight the Reapers, and they were with her till the end. The only ones that said otherwise were Grunt, who claimed that she was his battlemaster, Legion, who said that it was not necessary for it to return to the Perseus Veil and would remain an envoy of the geth, and Kasumi, who said that she was having too much fun around Shepard to leave.
"Besides," she said, "I've accumulated enough wealth over my career to take a little…sabbatical." Shepard gave her a confused look, but otherwise did not complain.
The Council had reluctantly acknowledged the Reapers' existence after presenting evidence from the derelict Reaper and the Collector base, including helmet cam footage gof the human Reaper. When confronted about the presence of a geth among her crew, Shepard stated that as a Spectre, she was free to do whatever was necessary to ensure the completion of her mission, to which the councilors begrudgingly agreed.
The Council had ordered the bolstering of their fleets under the cover story of an unidentified threat from beyond the Terminus Systems, a story that was technically true but still did not reveal the presence of the Reapers to the general public. They had also approved of the full repairing of the Normandy, although the presence of EDI was kept secret from them. Afterwards, Shepard was to do whatever was necessary to prepare for the incoming invasion, which to the Council meant gallivanting all over the galaxy to deal with minor problems.
"I saved their asses twice in three years and I'm still treated like a goddamn errand girl," Shepard grumbled to herself as they approached a relay that would take them to the Local Cluster. Kelly smiled at her commander's complaining, but said nothing.
"Approaching the relay now, Shepard," Joker announced over the comm. System as he entered the coordinates for the Charon relay. As the Normandy approached the enormous mass relay, the device released energy from its center to surround the ship. Joker was prepared to kick back and let the automated systems do the rest of the work when warning alarms began to go off. "Crap, that's not good," he said, his hands flying over the holographic consoles. "EDI, what the hell's going on?"
"I don't know," the Normandy AI said. "There is an anomalous energy signature emanating from the mass relay." The ship began to shudder more than normal during a jump. "I cannot stop the jump process, Jeff, I'm sorry," EDI apologized.
"Shit," Joker swore, grabbing onto the armrests of his chair. "Hang on everybody, this could get ugly!" The Normandy began to rattle violently, and those who did not grab hold of something solid were swiftly knocked about. Joker himself felt several of his bones break and cried out in pain accordingly, but maintained his death grip on his chair until the turbulence finally stopped.
When the shaking finally stopped, Shepard released her stranglehold on the galaxy map's railing, which now had two hand-shaped indents on them. Steadying herself, she turned to her yeoman, who was also clutching the railing.
"You okay, Kelly?" Shepard asked. When the other woman nodded, Shepard turned her attention to EDI. "EDI, damage report."
"There is superficial damage across all interior sections of the ship," the AI reported, "along with minor injuries amongst the crew members. However, Joker has several broken bones that require immediate attendance," she continued.
"That's just great," Shepard grumbled, reaching for the button to activate the ship's comm. system. "Shepard to Chakwas, Joker's in bad shape; get a medical team to the bridge ASAP!" Five minutes later, Joker was being carried out on a gurney, splints across his left arm and both legs. When the medical team disappeared into the elevator, Shepard spoke again. "EDI, what the hell just happened?" she asked.
"I don't know, Shepard," EDI replied, "I am currently running a diagnostic. However, I can confirm that we have reached the Sol system."
"Can you fly us the rest of the way without Joker?" Shepard asked as she helped the bridge crew back to their feet.
"Not until I complete my diagnostic," EDI said. With a heavy sigh, Shepard checked on her various crew members, who mostly seemed occupied with cleaning up whatever mess had occurred in their little domain. She had just left from checking on Garrus in the forward battery when EDI's holographic avatar appeared. "Shepard, I have completed my diagnostic," she said. "None of my systems are damaged, but I detected an unusual anomaly that you should be aware about." Shepard frowned at the announcement and asked what it was. "I have calculated the stellar positioning relative to our current location, and have determined that although we are in the Sol system, we are in fact sometime in the first decade of the twenty-first century."
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And that's that; I hope that you enjoyed it. The Stargate crew will start showing up next chapter.
It's been years since I last watched Stargate SG-1, so please feel free to correct me on any mistakes that I may make in that regard.
Also, a question for you military folks out there: What role does Garrus serve on the Normandy? And I don't mean gameplay wise, I mean when you're on the ship. In the first game, he seemed to be in charge of maintaining the Mako, and in the second he messed around with the ship's weapons, so I'm curious as to how he should be labeled.
When you think about it, out of the twelve possible crew members, less than half of them actually do something: Miranda is the XO, Garrus is messing with the ship's guns, Tali's down in Engineering, Mordin does his mad scientist work, and I'm assuming Jacob is the armorer, considering that's where he hangs out. The rest are basically freeloaders.
So anyway, I hope that you liked it; don't forget to leave a review on your way out!