(Untold Told) The Good Shepards Part 3

Aboard the Normandy.

GARRUS:  His story looks like it checks out.

COMMANDER:  What did you find?

EDI:  His weapon is woefully outdated.

Circa the early 21st century Earth
technology.  And zero power armor.  

GARRUS:  This Kevlar wouldn't

even stand up to my sidearm.  

And the rations tasted terrible.

EDI:  If this is all a trick it is highly unorthodox.

GARRUS:  And then there are the sealed orders.

COMMANDER:  What about our friends on the surface?

GARRUS:  Dozens more of those strike craft

have come through.  But they don't 

appear to have detected us.

COMMANDER:  Either that or we sent a message

with those first two.

GARRUS:  You might decide you'd 

rather they were more interested in us.

They appear to have discovered

the same ship we did and are in 

the process of occupying it.  

COMMANDER:  Will it fly?

EDI:  I believe it to be too deeply

buried and suffering from erosion.

GARRUS:  But what can we count on with all

these new uncertainties going on?
I don't like it.  You gotta figure there
must be something important down there.

COMMANDER:  Could be another front

for an invasion.

GARRUS:  Maybe this is a ploy and all these

creatures are controlled by the Reapers.

COMMANDER:  We have yet to confirm a sighting.

GARRUS:  And yet the Alliance sent you

on an intergalactic voyage to find out.

And now these time-coded sealed orders.

Someone's going through an awful lot of

trouble just to get rid of you, Sheppard.

EDI:  I guess it doesn't pay to live to be the hero.

COMMANDER:  Let's just make sure we live.

I want to bring the Colonel in on our

latest intelligence of the surface.

We'll watch for his response, again.

GARRUS:  You live dangerously, Sheppard.

Aboard the Daedalus, the crew hold station keeping the Wraith hive in sight, but out of weapon's range.  The crew busy themselves with circumventing the jamming signal that prevents them from beaming the culled victims.  Lacking an Asgard, the effort is proving difficult.

CALDWELL:  They're not acting right.  The hive 

should have broken orbit as soon as

they had everyone from the planet.

OFFICER:  The wormhole remains engaged, sir.

CALDWELL:  Any luck finding out

where Shepard went?

RODNEY:  He said he made it through the gate.

As near as I can tell he should be there.

CALDWELL:  He did seem to think he wasn't

where he was supposed to be.

RODNEY:  I don't have enough to go on.  For all I 

know he was delirious after being

tortured on the hive.

CALDWELL:  Keep working, doctor.

RODNEY:  Wouldn't dream of anything else.

He plugs away at his computer pad.

RODNEY:  Oh, no.

CALDWELL:  You're going to make me ask?

RODNEY:  This... could be very bad.

JOHN:  I think they might be abandoning the hive.

COMMANDER:  And why would they do that?

JOHN:  Well for one thing, with the Stargate still open

they have a direct line to the past.  And since they

found the hive they know what happens to it.

Maybe they've already figured it's about 

time to abandon ship.

GARRUS:  What do you think they will accomplish?

JOHN:  Well, they'll escape the Daedalus in the past.
One on one we outgun them pretty lopsidedly.
At this point, the only thing keeping the hive safe
are the remaining humans we tried to evacuate.

COMMANDER:  So they'll be coming
through with hostages?

JOHN:  We can't count on that.  The Wraith might
just feed on the last of them before
heading through the gate.

GARRUS:  The planet is barren.  From what you say,
without the hive they would have no way
to leave it.  They wouldn't be better off
than where they are now.

JOHN:  They could redial the Stargate.

COMMANDER:  We haven't seen any more of
these devices.  But that doesn't mean that the
Wraith won't become a danger to someone else.
Assuming, your Pegasus colonies survived.

EDI:  Do you have any recommendations, Colonel?

JOHN:  We could contact Daedalus and tell them
to destroy the Stargate.

GARRUS:  Nothing on the receiving end years later.

COMMANDER:  You would be stranded.

JOHN:  Yeah.

EDI:  Not to mention a strange causal affect.
He may not even remain stranded with us.
There is also getting trapped on the hive
or perishing inside the wormhole
when it is interrupted.

JOHN:  Can I have my radio back?

JOHN:  Colonel Shepard to Daedalus, please respond.

CALDWELL:  We hear you, Colonel.  What's your status?

JOHN:  I ran into some new friends here who lead me

to believe the hive is evacuating through the

Stargate as we speak.

RODNEY:  Shepard!

JOHN:  How you doing, Rodney?

RODNEY:  Fine.  Listen... I checked sensors and confirmed

there was a local solar flare.

JOHN:  Well that explains all that's going on.

RODNEY:  There's more to it.  The wormholes were jumped 

after activation.  I no longer believe the Stargate 

on the planet leads back to the hive.  

JOHN:  I wanted to talk to you about that.

I think it's best for you to destroy it.

CALDWELL:  At this point, are you certain

that would stop them?

RODNEY:  No.  Look... we can't break the connection

because it's still on the hive.  The one on

the planet's surface on our end is coming

from somewhere else.

COMMANDER:  So we'll have to destroy it here.

We can stop any more from coming through.

RODNEY:  Who was that?

COMMANDER:  Commander Sheppard of the Normandy.

RODNEY:  No, there's two of them.

CALDWELL:  Could this have been the Wraith's doing?

RODNEY:  You can't intentionally time travel through 

a Stargate.  It's an unfortunate by-product of when

the wormhole is randomly intercepted.

CALDWELL:  Do you know what happens 

to the hive, Colonel?

JOHN:  There's a crash site on the surface the Wraith 

are salvaging.  I assume you destroyed it.

CALDWELL:  Doctor?

RODNEY:  If the hive is destroyed, naturally,

it would cause the wormhole to disengage.

COMMANDER:  Giving the colonel an 

opportunity to find his way back.

CALDWELL:  I still have the civilians 

I'm supposed to recover.

RODNEY:  We're not getting very far

with their jamming signal.

EDI:  Perhaps I could be of assistance.

GARRUS:  She could be a millennia or so ahead

of anything the Wraith could throw at her.

COMMANDER:  Do it.

Rodney checks his pad.

RODNEY:  Normandy is downloading 

instructions to the Daedalus.

(Surprised) We have a lock.

CALDWELL:  Get them out of there.

OFFICER:  Aye, sir.

The civilians appear in the cargo hold.

OFFICER:  We have them.

CALDWELL:  Prepare a nuke.

RODNEY:  Whoa, whoa, whoa.  That could be 

what started this all off to begin with.

CALDWELL:  Then wouldn't it be too 

late to stop it now?

JOHN:  What if you use the Asgard weapons?

Then at least we'd know something

else is involved in this.

CALDWELL:  Acknowledged.  Bring the 

Agard weapon systems online.

OFFICER:  Weapons ready.

CALDWELL:  Good luck, Shepard.  Fire.

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