The ground beneath Jane Shepard cracked from the impact of a nearby explosion. Shrapnel bit into her left shoulder as she ducked behind a half-collapsed ferrocrete wall.
Smoke filled her lungs, and blood was already beginning to cake beneath the collar of her borrowed armor. She winced, grit her teeth, and jabbed a burnt stimpack into her thigh.
"Son of a bitch!" she hissed, adrenaline overriding pain.
"Shepard, come in!" a voice crackled through her comms, barely audible.
Static. Again. The signal was dead or jammed.
She clenched her jaw. Of course it's dead. Of course this entire op's turned to hell.
Jane wiped soot from her brow, fingers trembling more from rage than fear. All around her, the jungle-choked ruins of the Batarian slaver compound sizzled with gunfire.
It had looked almost abandoned from orbit with heat signatures few and far between. But as her team touched down, the enemy burst out from beneath the trees, from hidden vents, from sublevels that weren't supposed to exist.
It was a trap.
They were waiting.
"Does anyone copy?" she tried again over short-range.
No answer.
The worst part wasn't the chaos. It was the silence after.
Jane pressed herself into a corner of what used to be a processing room. Shackles still dangled from the ceiling. Old blood painted the floor. The stench of oil and old screams hung in the air.
Slavers. Goddamn slavers.
She pressed her back to the wall and loaded a new thermal clip into her scavenged M-7 Lancer. Her original rifle had been destroyed in the crash. So she had to make do with whatever the base's dead offered. The Lancer was heavier than she liked, older than she'd trained with, but it shot straight. That was enough.
You're not dead, Jane. You're breathing. You're thinking. Use it.
She paused and listened.
Muffled voices. Two batarians arguing. Jane couldn't listen to all of it, but the tension in their voices was clear enough. They hadn't found all the bodies. They were still searching.
Good.
She clicked her rifle into burst mode and waited behind a shattered control panel. One of the batarians stepped in first slow, cautious, scanning corners.
She dropped him with a burst to the head.
The second spun, and shouted.
"Shit!"
Jane leapt from cover, shoulder-tackled him to the floor, and slammed the butt of the rifle into his throat before he could scream.
Two down. Too many more to go.
She leaned against a steel crate, catching her breath. Her armor was scorched and cracked. A gash ran along her right thigh where a stray round had punched through, but it hadn't hit anything vital. She'd had worse.
"Where the hell are you, Kalen," she muttered aloud.
The words stung the moment they left her lips.
He was the one who pulled her out of the rubble two years ago. When the fires of Mindoir still raged, when the sky was black with smoke, when the smell of burning flesh was the only thing left of her family.
When he had carried her out.
Despite being the same age, he was stronger. Different. Not just in the muscle-bound way some soldiers were, but in a presence she couldn't explain.
He had looked into her shattered world with those eyes of his and had simply said: "You're not done yet."
She'd never told him how much that meant.
She'd never forgotten.
But this wasn't two years ago. She wasn't the shattered girl clutching a broken gun in a burning field. She was an Alliance officer now. Shepard. A name. A rank. A cause.
She took another breath.
"He's not here, Jane," she told herself. "You are."
She opened her omni-tool and pulled up the rudimentary layout of the base she'd memorized during briefing.
She wasn't going to wait for reinforcements. She couldn't. If her squad was alive, they needed her. And if the slavers were planning another raid, she had to stop it. Now.
She rerouted power through her shield belt and slammed a fresh clip into the Lancer.
She slid into the shadows of the corridor and began her descent deeper into the compound, moving like a ghost. No backup. No miracles. Just her.
And somewhere far above the stars, beyond even her sight, she couldn't help but wonder.
What's he doing right now?
Was he still in orbit? Was he helping someone else in silence, far beyond the headlines?
Kalen…
Her silent savior. Her oldest friend.
She blinked the thought away and vanished into the dark, one soldier against a fortress of monsters.
* * *
The winds screamed over the glacial tundra. But Kalen barely felt it. The cold had long stopped affecting him as his physiology refused to acknowledge such extremes as a threat. Still, even for someone who could lift a starship, this place made him pause.
Before him, the structure rose out of the icy landscape like a dream or a warning.
Towering spires of crystal-like material jutted upward at sharp angles, glistening faintly in the dim light of the arctic twilight. Their jagged forms looked like natural ice formations from afar, blending perfectly with the snowswept expanse.
A citadel carved by minds beyond human comprehension, each angle calculated, each surface humming with purpose. The entryway stood thirty feet tall with an arch of shimmering energy that flickered gently as if it had been waiting.
"Looks like we're not the first ones here," said Lieutenant Garvey, his breath fogging inside his helmet. The squad of Alliance scientists and soldiers stood just behind Kalen, weapons at the ready, eyes darting between the spires.
"Or maybe," murmured Dr. Chakwas, "we are. The first in a very, very long time."
They passed through the arched entrance.
Inside, silence fell. No echoes, no ambient noise, just the low hum of dormant power. The chamber they entered was cavernous, with ceilings arching impossibly high. Crystalline pillars rose like frozen trees, refracting the soft, bioluminescent glow from embedded panels on the walls and floor.
Everything shimmered.
Reflections danced around them in all directions, playing tricks on the eye. Floating platforms hovered at different heights, each one motionless, suspended as if frozen in time. Glowing symbols pulsed faintly across them in an unrecognizable language. Machines the size of dropships loomed in corners, dormant but intact.
"This place… It's like walking into a cathedral," Garvey whispered.
"Perhaps," Chakwas stated gently, staring upward, awe lining her face.
Suddenly, movement.
From the far end of the hall, a set of figures emerged. Three of them, gliding with mechanical grace.
Their bodies were sleek, blue and silver, limbs segmented but seamless. Each had a smooth, metallic head with a glowing horizontal visor in place of eyes. On their chestplates glowed insignias: numbered crests inside crystalline shields.
The figures halted before Kalen.
And then, they bowed.
Deeply.
"Designation: Sentinel Unit 7-03, 8-11, and 9-20," one of them said in a serene, androgynous tone. "We are the faithful. We serve the line of El. The House of El."
Kalen blinked. "What are you?"
"We are archivists, caretakers, and protectors. Our prime directive is service. And now… our master has arrived. Kal-El."
The words stopped the room.
Behind Kalen, the Alliance personnel exchanged looks. Chakwas furrowed her brow. "Did it just say master?"
"Arrived?" Kalen said, stepping forward. "Hold on. I don't…what's the House of El? Who's Kal-El?"
The machines gave a simultaneous pause, an eerie, synchronized hesitation as if processing a contradiction too large to compute.
The one with the shield marked 8-11 leaned closer. Its voice quivered, almost emotional.
"…You are Kal-El."
"I'm Kalen," he snapped. "Just… Kalen. That's all I've ever been called. I don't know anything about a House of El."
Another synchronized silence.
"No," murmured 9-20, voice soft like falling snow. "This is not right. The son of Jor-El does not know his name. His legacy. His bloodline."
Kalen turned slightly, glancing at Chakwas, but she looked just as stunned. Even Garvey, never one for mysticism, had lowered his rifle, caught between fear and wonder.
"I'm not your master," Kalen said slowly.
"You are what was born of a dying star, sent across the void to survive the death of worlds," said 7-03. "You are the scion of Krypton. Kal-El. You are the last hope of your people."
Kalen's chest tightened. The Fortress seemed to grow colder.
Before he could speak again, the machines turned in unison and gestured deeper into the glowing corridors.
"Follow."
They moved without waiting.
The group pressed on into the fortress. Chambers unfolded like petals with each more majestic than the last.
Rooms filled with stasis pods, archives of holographic crystal tablets, and massive planetary models suspended in mid-air. The architecture remained symmetrical and elegant, a kind of alien minimalism that radiated purpose.
And then, they stopped.
At the edge of an immense inner sanctum, a glowing gateway pulsed before them.
"This chamber is for Kal-El alone," said 8-11. "Within lies the Genesis Archive. All that remains of your lineage. The truth your people entrusted to you. By core programming, none but the heir may pass."
Kalen looked back. Chakwas opened her mouth to object, but stopped herself. She saw something in his face. Not confusion. Not fear.
Resolve.
He turned, passed beneath the gateway and was gone.
***
Jane Shepard crept forward, rifle low, boots muffled against the scorched flooring of the Batarian facility. Blood ran in streaks across the walls. Some old. Some terrifyingly fresh. Muffled sobs echoed from somewhere ahead, threading through the burned corridors like ghosts.
She had lost contact with command hours ago. Her squad was missing, likely dead or captured. She was outgunned, wounded, and running on pain suppressants and pure instinct. But she hadn't stopped.
Because she knew this place. Not by name, but by shape. By the feel of it. Where people were treated as numbers. Where childhoods ended and monsters ruled.
Just like what would've happened to her home.
The reinforced blast door before her hissed and groaned as her bypass tool completed its final override. The panel lit green. A mechanical clunk echoed down the hall.
Cargo Hold. Biometric Processing.
The door slid open.
Shepard's heart seized.
Rows of caged cells lined the walls, some stacked atop one another like storage crates. Inside them were civilians. Dozens. Pale, gaunt, and terrified. Some were strapped to upright operating chairs, tubes running into their arms or skulls. Most wore tattered clothing. Others... nothing at all.
Several bore surgical markings or tags embedded in their necks. Barcodes.
The air smelled of sterile chemicals, dried sweat, and something far worse. The unspoken stench of fear.
As she stepped in, weapon ready, a murmur rose among the prisoners. One voice, a girl, maybe ten years old, whispered in broken English:
"Please. Not again…"
Jane stopped.
Her arms ached. Her ribs throbbed. She was breathing hard now. Not from exertion, but fury. Horror. Helplessness that she refused to let rule her.
She lowered her weapon.
"I'm with the Alliance," she said, voice steady, commanding. "I'm here to get you out. You're safe now."
No one moved. Most flinched at the sound of her voice, as if fearing retribution for hope.
Then slowly, so very slowly, a woman reached through the bars and touched the edge of Jane's sleeve. Just to see if she was real.
The contact nearly broke her.
She saw flashes. Fire raining from the skies of Mindoir. The smell of charred wheat fields. Her mother's scream. Her father's blood. The rubble that nearly crushed her to death before Kalen dug her out.
What if he hadn't?
She looked into the eyes of the children. Some were blank, others too wide, too broken.
What if she had ended up here instead?
She gritted her teeth and fought back the wave of emotion.
This wasn't about her.
She opened her omni-tool and tried her comm again. Still nothing. Interference or jamming.
Her CO's last known orders echoed in her memory. Secure intel. Hold until reinforcements. Do not engage without support.
But support was hours away. These people would not last that long.
She took a breath and turned to the captives. "Listen up. I'm getting all of you out. Every single one."
She turned to the largest woman among them. Tall, middle-aged, tough eyes.
"What's your name?"
"…Ruth."
"You're in charge of triage. Get everyone who can walk on their feet. Find out who's bleeding, who's drugged, who can carry."
"What about you?" Ruth asked, warily.
"I'm gonna make sure no one follows us."
And so, Shepard set to work. She found a weapons locker nearby, looted it. Scavenged gear off the bodies in the hallway. Rebound her ribs with combat tape. Recalibrated her omni-tool to override local security feeds.
She moved like fire through ice. Deliberate, burning, precise.
Doors were sealed behind them. Patrols diverted to empty sections of the compound. Shepard made the place work for her now.
A young man, barely more than a teenager, helped her rig pulse grenades near the armory.
Ruth organized the able-bodied into three small teams. One for medics. One for carrying the injured. One for defending.
One man, panicked, traumatized, bolted when the alarms died down for a few seconds.
"No. Wait." Shepard shouted, reaching.
Too late. He sprinted into the main hallway and tripped a sensor.
Sirens screamed again.
They had minutes.
She cursed, dragged him back, disarmed him, and forced eye contact.
"You do that again and we all die. You hear me?" she hissed.
The man nodded rapidly, crying. She hated herself for yelling. But they had no time.
Nonetheless, the escape was hell.
They moved through maintenance tunnels and storage shafts. Twice, Shepard had to lead a group in a running firefight, taking cover behind heating coils and burst steam valves while she laid down suppressing fire.
She never left a civilian behind.
Her team was untrained. Her leg was barely functional. Her rifle was running dry.
But still. She moved.
And finally, they reached it.
A rusted dropship, half-buried in sand and rock at the compound's perimeter. Probably used by the Batarians to ferry slaves.
She got it working. Barely.
Civilians loaded in, half-carrying the wounded. The rest huddled around emergency seats or in the cargo hold, gripping whatever they could.
That was when the sky lit up.
A Batarian gunship swept overhead, roaring like a demon, weapons spooling up.
"Go. Take off." someone screamed.
Jane didn't.
Instead, she bolted to the base's old defense turret. An AA gun left behind years ago. She slammed her omni-tool into its interface, forced a bypass, and took the controls.
The turret hummed to life.
She fired.
A plasma bolt lanced upward, striking the gunship's left wing. Another slammed into its fuselage. The gunship veered, struggling to stay airborne, then exploded. The fireball illuminated the ruins behind her.
A second ship came. She fired again. And again.
Smoke covered her. Screams from inside the shuttle turned to gasps of relief.
Her sidearm empty, her limbs shaking, Shepard made one final sprint.
She threw herself into the closing dropship hatch just as it rose from the ground.
Inside, Ruth helped her up. A small child stared at her in wonder.
But Jane wasn't such.
She was just a girl from a broken farm. With a gun, a limp, and a promise to keep.
They were alive. Every one of them.
"Told you I'd keep that promise," she muttered to herself thinking of only one person.
Him.