by Colin Cook
Pallin exhaled deeply through his nostrils, his taloned hands unconsciously tightening around his folded arms as he watched the worsening situation playing out across the
main screen.
"We were about to cripple their navigation-array, but an unknown energy field somehow materialized around the ship's outer hull. It's blocking everything we're throwing
at it!" the voice of Thompson spoke through the speakers of the console connecting the Headquarters to the leading Ray gunship. The senior pilot's assessment wasn't
wrong, even after suffering a full powered blast from the Ray's twin particle cannons, the stolen Corvette only continued to rocket away from the station, protected and
unharmed within its faintly shimmering shield bubble.
"Their time is up anyway. Control, target the ship's main body structure. Fire on my command only," Pallin ordered to the people sitting at the console ring. Both Bailey
and Chellick stepped forward suddenly.
"Executor, there has to be another way! Too much has happened to simply destroy them!" Bailey protested, even as he and his Turian comrade were suddenly grabbed by
the shoulders and restrained by two nearby console operators after a nod from Pallin.
"That group has turned multiple sections of this station into utter war-zones! They have humiliated the entire structure of Citadel-Security, made complete fools of several
of its officers…" Pallin began saying venomously with a jab of his talon to the main screen, putting extra emphasis into his words as he panned his gaze across Bailey,
Chellick, and ending on F'Loson.
"And their simple presence here has resulted in the deaths of over a dozen fine men and women of this police force. That more than warrants me blasting them into
oblivion!" With a final glare at Bailey, the Executor turned to the Turian CO standing next to him.
"Are the forward batteries ready to fire commander?" The CO remained silent for a moment, briefly looking over at Chellick and Bailey with a look of subtle apology in his
eyes before answering.
"Arming and awaiting the final order," he reported with a stiff nod. Turning back to the Asari sitting in front of him, Pallin pointed down to her console screen that was
showing a circular Defense Cannon targeting reticle focused on the center of the Corsica's main body.
"Lets see how well those mystery shields of theirs stand up to the full power of the Citadel's main guns. Order the fighter wing to pull back to a safe distance and then
zero in on the ship's aft structure, most of its engines and propulsion machinery will be located on the lower decks," he instructed to the operator. Behind him, Chellick
turned his head to look over at agent F'Loson, who was standing within the center of the control platform with her arms behind her back calmly looking up at the
spectacle on the main screen.
"Ciatra, you can't let this happen," he hissed over to her. F'Loson merely cocked an eyebrow as she turned to meet his gaze, her expression remaining completely
apathetic.
"I don't understand why you're making such a fuss Chellick. If we simply destroy them now it will put an end to this debacle and keep their disruption from stretching out
into the rest of Council territory."
"And what about all the unanswered questions that are swirling around this incident, all the resources both in equipment and in lives that were poured into this? Do you
want all of that to have been for nothing?!" Chellick demanded angrily, tugging halfheartedly against the two operators restraining him. For a moment F'Loson's
expression softened subtly at his words, her eyes slightly looking down at the floor in contemplation.
"Aft engines and propulsion systems targeted," the Asari operator reported to Pallin after recalibrating the forward batteries. This announcement made F'Loson snap out
of her brief lapse in personality, causing her to straighten up and look back ahead at the main screen.
"We all have our orders Chellick, its better for everyone that we follow them." Chellick sneered at that statement before turning back to Bailey, shaking his head to his
Human partner with a hopeless sense of defeat. Both he and Bailey looked on at the image of the Corsica as Pallin prepared to give the order, unable to do anything but
watch as the only people with the answers to everything that had happened today were about to be destroyed.
"Main batteries prepare to fire…" Pallin announced to every operator on the control platform, raising his right hand in a somewhat dramatic show of military command.
"I'm sorry Bailey," Chellick said over to the lieutenant, feeling sure that this was the end. Bailey nodded slowly in agreement, knowing full well that after this was over it
was most likely going to be the end of their careers as well.
"Me too…" he muttered in return.
"All batteries! FI…" Pallin began in a booming voice, when suddenly he was cut off in mid-sentence!
A loud odd type of music had abruptly begun echoing all around the Headquarters, booming out from every speaker or appliance capable of transmitting sound. And it
wasn't just that, everyone in the room was starting to speak to each other in heightened voices of confusion as the room's main screen suddenly changed from the
image of the Corsica to that of a strange video that had begun playing. The same thing was happening to all of the consoles, terminals, and turret control platforms
across the area, each of their screens winking out for a moment before being replaced with a duplicate of the film playing on the main one.
"What the hell is this?!" the CO demanded angrily to Pallin over the sound of the music, jabbing his talon to the dozen now identical screens surrounding them on the
control platform. Pallin was stunned, rendered frozen and mute with confusion as he gaze up at the main screen. The video currently playing appeared to be of a young
Human man with fiery red hair, dressed in a brown blazer and white dress pants with dark brown leather shoes. At the moment he was standing on a bright white stage
with background windows, matching a terribly repetitive set of dance moves with his hands and hips to the quick notes of the music. As this continued, a series of quick
shots featuring several long blonde haired women flashed into view, each of these women showing off considerably better dancing skills than the man was. For several
seconds this kept up, with the man briefly popping back into frame standing on a grassy sidewalk dressed in a blue shirt and jeans, before suddenly switching into a beige
trench coat and standing in a nighttime back-alleyway as he started singing to the music with what seemed to be an overly deep voice.
"We're no strangers to love. You know the rules, and so do I!"
Pallin's mouth fell open slightly with a clear bewildered sense of insult. He had heard this music once before back when he had studied Human history. But it couldn't
possibly be what he thought it was!
"Sirs! We're getting reports from all over the Citadel; something hacked into our wide-band receivers a few seconds ago. This video is playing on every audio and videoreceiving
device across the entire station! We're now blind and inoperable!" another console operator reported over to Pallin and the CO after a deafening barrage of
reports began screaming through his earpiece.
"A full commitment's what I'm thinkin' of. You wouldn't get this from any other guy…"
Pallin ignored the loud video of the badly dancing red haired man as he reached over and grabbed the CO by the arm, pulling him closer so that he could shout into his ear.
"We still have control of out-going transmissions! Send a signal to the Palaven-Star and the Death-Claw; order them to cut the Corsica off before she can reach the Relay.
Make sure they use everything they've got to blast Axel to smithereens!"
Across the Citadel,
people from every walk of life were trying to talk to each other over the loud music that had begun playing from every speaker that could possibly
exist on the station. Screens in office buildings, cafés, lush Presidium parks, theatres, gymnasiums, even C-Sec and military installations had suddenly activated or changed
channels and were now playing the video of the red haired man and his two female backup dancers.
In a certain café next to one of the Presidium Lakes, Emily Wong, the Salarian owner Kalowan, and all of his patrons were watching several holographic screens playing out
across the walls next to their tables. Several of them were trying to find out what was going on, while many others such as Emily and Kalowan were simply sitting back
with their drinks and watching the video.
"I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling…"
Kilometers away, lying in a hospital bed with bandages wrapped tightly around his left leg and medi-gel smeared across the side of his face, was Sergeant Verrak Vakarian.
Having been taken here by C-Sec medics after the battle in the Market Corridor, the recovering Vakarian was watching the holo-screen hung up in the corner of his room
with a cocked brow-ridge, shaking his head in slow realization as he watched the red haired Human dance and sing in multiple locations wearing multiple sets of clothing.
"Gotta make you understand…"
"Alec…" Verrak said to himself with a small smirk, easily recognizing this video as something the insane shape-shifting criminal might pull off just before he was about to
escape.
In locations all over the Wards and the Presidium, thousands of people began gathering in huge mobs around holographic pillars and billboards placed in their areas,
watching the strange video play in front of them.
"Never gonna give you up! Never gonna let you down!" the red haired man sang, his voice echoing out across the Serpent Nebula from the speakers and screens his
music was playing through.
Streams of hover cars within the crisscrossing Fast Travel Lanes started to jam up as hundreds of drivers began slowing down their vehicles in order to get a better view
of the singing man displayed on the many enormous screens built into the sides of towers and spires set up all around the Presidium's hull.
"Never gonna run around and desert you!"
However despite all the disruption this was causing, many people soon began cheering; shouting in celebration and waving their arms like the fans of a hockey team that
had just won the Stanley Cup!
"AXEL! AXEL! AXEL!" they all screamed in unison, chanting the runaway criminal's name, somehow knowing that this sudden music video that had hijacked pretty much
every inch of the Citadel had come from him and his band of misfits.
"Never gonna make you cry! Never gonna say goodbye!"
Up in the Council Chambers atop the Citadel Tower, the groups of politicians and civilians present were all looking at the various screens and terminals spread around the
area, each of them just as curious or confused by the strange video as the millions of people far down below them.
The dancing man also continued to do his performance in front of the Salarian and Asari Counselors, both of who were standing at their terminals on their high platform
looking up at the giant holo-projector that Saren Arterius had used to communicate with them during his hearing.
Only instead of displaying any commanders or known contacts of the Council, a colourless thirty-foot tall hologram of the red haired man was now swaying his hips and
swinging his arms within the projector's field of view!
The Asari Counselor could only groan in annoyance and deeply pinch the bridge of her nose to ease the sudden headache she had begun experiencing. There was no way
they were ever going to live this one down.
I blinked. And blinked. And blinked again before finally coming back to my senses, allowing myself to relax the severe frown of bewilderment that had fallen across my
face. As the infamous Rick Astley kept singing and dancing away on my omni-tool's screen, Alec was busy circling his fists around each other in sync with the music,
bobbing his head up and down and swaying his shoulders, his eyes wedged shut and a massive grin of hilariousness spread across his own face.
"Never gonna tell a lie, and hurt you!"
"Haxon, make sure this stays on a protected loop across the Citadel. We don't want those cannons coming back on-line for another few minutes," Alec instructed over
the rest of Astley's lyrics, even while he continued to bob his head to the beat.
"Already done. I figured you'd want to give C-Sec the full treatment before we left," Haxon answered immediately in a strained voice, sounding out of breath as if he had
just run a marathon after the extreme effort he had just put out. After shutting down the video and making my omni-tool vanish, I looked over to Alec as he turned to
me with his wide grin, my look of pure astonishment still on my face.
"What?" he asked rhetorically after a moment of silence, his expression never changing.
"You…Rick-Rolled…the Citadel. You actually Rick-Rolled the entire Citadel?!"
Alec only laughed at my semi-horrified question as he moved over and sat back down in the Captain's chair.
"Uh yeah, because I'm awesome," he answered in an overly proud voice with a pronounced smirk, as if he expected the renown of his awesomeness to already be public
knowledge.
"That's either madness or…brilliant!" I stated after a quick moment to think it over, cracking an astonished smile despite myself.
"You wouldn't believe how often I've seen those two go together in my lifetime," Alec added in with a slight wince and a chuckle, as if he were reflecting on a slightly
unpleasant but comical memory. As we were speaking, Yoda had come to a stand beside Alec's chair and was now staring up at the windshield, narrowing his large eyes
to get a better look at what was visible of the Citadel's Mass Relay from this distance.
"Until we reach the Mass Relay, how long do we have Axel?" he asked over to me. Spinning my swivel chair around to the controls, I did a quick scan of the console
screen before looking up at the windshield.
"With the fighter-wing having broken off from us, and with Pallin now out of the fight, we should make it to the Relay in just over a minute or sooooooooohh SHIT!" I
began explaining before seeing two large shadows begin to darken the Nebula clouds on either side of our intended flight path.
Just as I said this, the bows of two massive Turian Battle-Cruisers cut out into the bright white glow of Widow's sun-rays, making the many barrels of their intimidating
forward weapon emplacements glint slightly from the radiance!
"SSV Corsica, this is the Palaven-Star of the Citadel Defense Fleet. You are ordered to power down your engines or be destroyed, repeat you are ordered to power down
your engines or be destroyed," came a harsh Turian voice from out of our communications console. Immediately I swiveled around to face Alec with a cocked eyebrow.
"So Picard, you got any other brilliant ideas for getting us out of this?" I asked sarcastically with a hand gesture to the two nearing ships. Alec only shook his head while
throwing up his hands in surrender.
"Hey, I just saved us from being blasted to bits by C-Sec, its your turn now."
"I don't suppose our shields would be strong enough to stand up against those guns either?" I asked over to Polly and Sparky. Right on queue the two Replicators paused
in whatever work they were doing to the cables sticking out of the consoles, quickly looking up at me and shaking another no before returning to their frantic attempts at
upgrading the system. Blowing out a deep breath, I laced my hands in my lap and slumped back lazily in my seat.
; "Welllll…we're cut off, we're outnumbered, and our shields are useless. Any suggestions anyone?" I asked casually to the crew with a deliberate raising of my eyebrows.
Everyone, even the wise Yoda, shook their heads or bodies in defeat. I shook my own head with an ironic chuckle.
"You know, if Leonard McCoy were here and I asked him that same question, he'd probably say 'Dammit man! I'm a doctor, not a…" I began while trying to make a good
impersonation of DeForest Kelly, hoping to tell one last joke in my lifetime before being blasted into oblivion, when all of a sudden…
"Axel! I have a solution!"
I tried forcing myself not to seem too startled by our A.I.'s announcement, but I wasn't able to keep my back from going as stiff as a board and my eyes from widening
immediately.
"Or Haxon could just come out and save us at the last possible second," I finished while straining to make my voice still sound casual.
"I hate to seem like a pessimist but it may be too late. They're about to fire," Alec said with a jab of his finger to the two battleships, having just noticed a deep blue glow
begin to shine out from the depths of their large cannon barrels.
"Buckle up and interface me with the main controls!" Haxon ordered tensely as I spun around to see the change in the approaching Cruisers for myself.
"Why? What's the plan?!" I asked hurriedly as I quickly pulled and fastened the swivel chair's two crossing seatbelt harnesses over my chest, activating my Savant-X once
again in the process.
"No time to explain, GIVE ME THE SHIP!" With little to argue about I could only shrug and braced myself as I slammed my open palm against the console dashboard,
creating a cyberspace bridge for Haxon to travel through my omni-tool and take direct control of the Corsica.
"Here it comes!" Alec shouted to everyone, grabbing onto both of his armrests as several deep booming thunderclaps echoed out across the space surrounding us, the
Palaven-Star and its companion ship firing several blue energy blasts from the main guns attached to the underside of their main bodies. Seconds before this racing
barrage could hit us; a pulsating sound flashed from the cockpit's controls, followed by an odd sensation of semi-weightlessness and lightheadedness.
