Prologue - Mech Story

The Solace's alarm system screeched after the impact. He looked at Shen, lips moving, but the alarm was too loud. The Solace had switched to red light, meaning the power core had been breached. It looked like they had left reality and were in a dropship heading straight for hell.

Shepard clawed his way back to his feet, every step shaking off some of the disorientation like it were rust. He was close enough now.

" Captain, I can't shut the alarm system off! Override commands aren't working, but we're stable"

"What the fuck just hit us Shen!"

Shen looked down at the busy display before him, his face losing color.

"A Ferelden Confederation ship... they're firing on us sir."

The ship went silent, someone had managed to disable the alarm. Shepard leaned in, scanning the display.

"Ok, I wouldn't mind knowing why they did that. Get them on Comms" he yelled towards a deckhand, still in a fugue. "But I really want to know why they stopped... Lets hope this was an unfortunate accident... Shen are our Mechs ready to launch?"

"What? No! All of our long range missile systems were stripped off for maintenance, and the Griffon doesn't have any of her jump jets fueled up. We were caught with our pants down Captain."

"Are they ready to drop Shen"

Shen shook his head in frustration. " They'll drop , and when they do drop, they'll drop again from better equip pirates"

The holographic central display blinked the face of a Fereldan Captain into existence before them.

" Captain, apologies for any casualties our weapons may have caused. Our intention was to disable your ship, not hurt your crew." A figure leaned into view and passed the Captain information. He nodded, and continued. " Our boarding party is on route to the Solace, tell your security personnel to stand down and nobody will be hurt. The Fereldan confederation is commandeering your ship. We'll speak in person shortly , Captain." The holo display flickered off.

" We can't let them get those mechs Shen "

" Then get your ass down there, all mechs but one are piloted and ready to go."

"Don't let them rough the Solace up too bad while I'm gone" Shepard yelled back, disappearing behind metal.

"Here I thought the Captain was supposed to go down with his ship..." Shen patted his chair "Don't worry old girl, I won't leave ya."