Subject Zero

The Normandy came out of the Omega 4 relay to find a wall of debris. “Oh shit!” Joker exclaimed, taking evasive maneuvers as he tried to pull it above the mass of ancient ships that hadn’t survived the voyage. As he finally mad it through and began to level the ship out he sat back with a sigh. “Too close.”

The ship glided effortlessly through the empty space, everyone on the bridge looking out at all the wreckage, some looking for the Collector base, the others simply amazed by the sheer amount of carnage before them.

Jack, however, ignored it all, doing her best to work some of the controls that were open to take some of the load off of EDI. She didn’t pay much attention to what was going on around her, as she was unfamiliar with the controls she was working, but heard EDI mention they had company. She laughed.

Well, this just got exciting. She thought to herself as Joker tried to pull more fancy flying, and EDI fired the guns. She heard the beam fire, but didn’t have enough time to move before it breached the hull, hitting the console next to her and causing it to explode. She went about a foot, landing on her face. Her vision began to fade, but she could still hear the voices around her.

“Jack?”

“EKG had flat-lined. She is dead.”

“She can’t be dead, get to medical!” she could hear Sheppard’s voice, but it seemed distant. If she could breathe she would have laughed. He was always worried about her.

She only had one last thought before the sweet, dark void of death took her.

If there’s a heaven, I think I’ve earned it on this mission.
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Twilight sat at home, preparing for a summoning spell. She had tried these many times before, with mixed results. “Alright, successfully summoned an apple, but the distance between here and Sweet Apple Acres isn’t enough for that to count… I got a bird once, but it didn’t seem like a species that lives around here, so I’ll count that one….” she muttered to herself, going over her checklist. She was confident that she could get something bigger now. Maybe too confident. She put her list down, checking over the runes one more time.

“Twilight, you’ve been preparing for over an hour, get on with it already!” Spike exclaimed, his boredom evident.

“And just why are you so eager to get this done?” Twilight asked with a giggle.

“I wanna see an alien, duh!”

“I said I was trying to summon sentient life, that doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll get an alien.” Twilight said with a laugh. Sometimes her assistant was funniest when he was being serious. “I could get a gryphon for all we know.”

“Whatever, just hurry up, I’m dieing of boredom here.” he said, rolling his eyes. Twilight sighed and did the same before approaching the runes. Her horn lit up brightly, causing Spike to shield his eyes.

“This is gonna be awesome.”
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Sheppard took great care in placing Jack’s corpse in a casket. He didn’t know if he’d live long enough to do it later. The Normandy had crash landed on the Collector’s base, and the rest of the team was preparing for what laid ahead. He sighed as he placed on of her hands on top of the other, both laying on her chest.

And that’s when he noticed it. At first he thought it was glare on his visor, but after a moment he realized it wasn’t.

She was disappearing. Starting from her finger tips, it wasn’t long before bother her hands were gone. “Mordin! For the love of god, tell me you can explain this!” he yelled over his shoulder. The salarian scientist rushed over, but when he got there he was silent.

“Dematerialization? No, no particles, no signs of burning, no radiation…” he said, talking as fast as he usually did. He quickly ran his Omni-Tool over her body. “Nothing, unexplainable, impossible, everything can be explained with science”

“Damn it Mordin, just tell me what the hell’s going on!” Sheppard yelled as Jack’s shoulders faded from existence. Mordin was silent for a moment, opening and closing his mouth multiple times, seeming to be trying to find the right words.

“I don’t know, Sheppard, signs inconsistent with any form of after-death disintegration I know of, rate is sporadic, uneven, no signs of abnormal heat, radiation levels relatively low, no signs of disease or cloaking devices, not enough data!” the scientist yelled, walking away in a fit. Sheppard looked back to the body of the woman he’d tried so hard to save. Her chest was completely gone, but her face remained. He couldn’t stand to see her go the way she was. He brushed her face slightly before placing one last kiss on her lips.

“Goodbye Jack.” he whispered as he closed the lid of the casket and walked away.
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Twilight strained, her power flickering at times, her eyes closed shut tightly. Spike, however, looked on in amazement. When he could see past the bright light, he saw….. He didn’t know what he saw, but it was materializing slowly in the middle of the summoning circle.

Eventually, with one final, blinding flash, it was done. Spike reeled back slightly, and his vision was impaired, to say the least. Twilight sat back, panting and sweating heavily. She opened her eyes, and nearly went into shock at what she saw.

The creature was tall, and had pale skin covered with some kind of markings. She saw no hair to speak of, but it had straps of some kind covering it’s chest, and was wearing what she thought were called ‘pants’. It was motionless. No breathing. Nothing. It had appendages similar to Spike’s claws at the end of each arm. Twilight sighed heavily, still trying to catch her breath.

“Great. I get something that might have been sentient life, but it’s already dead!”
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Jack had drifted through the void for some time, unable to speak, unable to move, unable to think clearly.

Then she saw a light. It was dim at first, but it grew brighter and brighter. Her senses slowly came back to her, the first being smell. She could smell sweat. She could smell fear.

Next came hearing. She could hear heavy panting, and heard someone yell something she couldn’t quite make out. It seemed distant. She could hear her own heartbeat, which confused her, but she wasn’t about to argue.

Then, in a sudden moment, her ability to speak came back, and the last thing she’d tried to say came rushing out of her mouth as she felt her heart beating roughly in her chest.

“Don’t let me die here, damn it Sheppard!”