I am Iron Man

by Colin Cook

  "What just…" I barely began saying before suddenly the Corvette rocketed forward three times faster than it had been a moment ago, while at the same time blasting

  several navigational boosters jutting out from its roof and dropping us down out of the Cruisers' line-of-fire like a stone!

  Now normally that kind of maneuver wouldn't have caused much of a problem, but in this instance something strange happened to the artificial gravity the Corsica was

  generating that had kept us properly attached to the floor this entire time.

  Instead of having the gravity adapt to the movements Haxon had just put us through; Alec, Yoda, the Replicators, and I found ourselves yelling in one way or another as

  the sudden drop caused all of us to fly up from the cockpit's floor toward its ceiling!

  I took some small comfort in the fact that I was still attached to my seat, the crisscrossing harness that Haxon had urged me to strap on digging into my armoured

  shoulders from the odd change in gravity. The others however weren't so lucky, each of them smashing into the ceiling head on and becoming plastered against it for a

  few moments before the barrage of Cruiser fire harmlessly went by over top of us, allowing Haxon to cease our sudden drop and continue flying onward. All of us yelled

  again as we dropped back down to the ground, Yoda managing to land rather comfortably in the cushioning of the Captain's chair while Alec and the Replicators

  unfortunately slammed down hard onto the floor around him.

  "Somebody wanna tell me what in Hel's name that was?!" Alec asked angrily while rubbing the side of his head.

  "I had to transfer most of the power from the internal motion-dampeners to the navigational thrusters, it's giving us the energy I need to make the Corsica dodge the fire

  from those Cruisers while getting us to the Mass Relay faster," Haxon explained quickly.

  "But on the flip side that's going to throw us around the inside of this thing like a Piñata!" I yelled as the Turian ships began slowly rotating inward, retraining their guns on

  us before the one on our right started firing another barrage as we began passing underneath them.

  "I'm sorry, there wasn't enough time to think of a better plan. Just make sure you keep the connection between the controls and your omni-tool open or this'll be a very

  short trip!" Haxon shouted to me before manipulating the Corvette again.

  "At least give us a chance to, AHHHHG!" Alec shouted frantically before screaming as Haxon fired the thrusters jutting out of the ship's port side, diagonally cutting us

  across a wide distance and swooping low underneath the massive flaming cannon blasts. Behind me Yoda was grunting in effort while digging his nails into an armrest of

  the Captain's chair, his entire body haphazardly floating in mid-air as he fought against the redirection in gravity. As that was happening, Alec, Polly, and the other

  Replicators could only continue to scream or screech as they flew across the room and slammed into the left wall of the cockpit. I bared my teeth, straining every muscle

  in my body to help my harness keep me firmly within my seat, pressing my hand against the dashboard with all my might to make sure Haxon's connection remained

  intact. Glancing up through the windshield toward the port side of the ship, I could see the Palaven-Star following the same action its sister ship was taking, retargeting us

  and making the insides of their forward guns glow blue again in preparation to fire.

  "Haxon!" I warned in the face of the oncoming danger, my breathing becoming tighter from the adrenaline pumping through my veins.

  "I know, HOLD ON!" he responded before activating and firing the booster thrusters built into the starboard side of the Corvette.

  "WAIT! Give us a sec to, HAHHGGH!" the Guardian began, shaking a hand to me in desperation before screaming again as he and the others were forcibly launched from

  the left wall and thrown across the cockpit to the right!

  The Palaven-Star had just fired its deadly barrage, but thanks to Haxon's careful calculations all of its bright blue cannon blasts narrowly flashing over the top of our hull as

  the A.I. pulled the Corsica into another low arcing swoop.

  "The second one's firing again!" I shouted over the roar of more resounding thunderclaps coming from the other Cruiser.

  "On it!" Haxon shouted, firing the thrusters on the port side again.

  "Come on, you gotta be kidding me, AHHHGG!" Alec shouted as he flew past the back of my chair across the room once again, crashing against the left wall for a second

  time with Polly, Sparky, and the other few Replicators unintentionally smashing into him.

  For a whole hectic minute this continued, with Haxon using his advanced processing speed to anticipate and avoid everything the two Cruisers tried to throw at us,

  keeping us blasting forward across space while zigzagging from side to side underneath them. Unfortunately this also meant for that entire time Alec and the others,

  except Yoda who was still hanging onto his chair, continued to get thrown back and forth from each side of the cockpit, briefly screaming each time before smashing into

  either wall!

  The same thing was happening farther back in the other areas of the ship, with the rest of the Replicator horde screeching and desperately latching onto anything nearby,

  including each other, in order to keep from being tossed from one side of the ship to the other. Finally after the third or forth maneuver, Haxon leveled the ship out and put

  it into a straight forward charge, clearing away from the two Turian ships and blasting us toward the now completely visible Mass Relay lying dead ahead.

  "Is this nightmare about to end?!" Alec pleaded in a strained voice as he and the others crashed down onto the floor and skid to a painful looking stop on their backs next

  to the side of my chair.

  "I think it did just a second ago, look at what we managed to do while we had their attention focused us!" Haxon stated in a relieved tone, making a small screen pop up

  on one of the holographic consoles beside my still interfaced Savant-X. Lifting a shaky hand and grabbing onto the dashboard, Alec grunted and wheezed as he pulled

  himself up onto his knees so that his head could ascend above the edge, allowing himself to see what exactly Haxon was talking about. On the screen was a clear picture

  showing a large portion of the slowly shrinking Citadel, most likely taken from a security camera placed at the aft section of our ship. As we continued flying farther away,

  the hulls of the two huge Cruisers suddenly pulled into view, both of them frantically firing hundreds of navigational thrusters and unceremoniously gliding within mere

  inches of each other!

  We had unintentionally caused them to nearly collide!

  On the darkened low ceilinged bridge of the Palaven-Star, the Turian officers and crewmen present were working away like mad, trying to coordinate with the Death-Claw

  across from them while at the same time rotate their ship to keep up with the faster and significantly more maneuverable Alliance Corvette.

  "I want another salvo fired as soon as we line back up with them!" the Cruiser's Captain ordered to the helmsmen and gunner crews working away at the line of control

  consoles stationed in front of the bridge's wide view-port windshield. As the SSV Corsica shot forward underneath them on its way to the Mass Relay, the two enormous

  ships continued to sluggishly turn inwards in pursuit, their great size and mass making it practically impossible for them to turn on a dime. Unfortunately what the

  operators of both ships weren't realizing was that in the time they had been turning and firing upon the fleeing criminals' ship, they had failed to notice that their own ships

  were still drifting forward during their rotations.

  "Captain!" one of the officers shouted, pointing a talon up at the win
dshield. All of the Turians on the command deck gave a small gasp as they saw the front of the

  Death-Claw's bow begin to drift dangerously close to their own, threatening to smash into them in less than a minute!

  "Take evasive action!" the Captain barked over to the helmsmen, his orders immediately being answered by a deep klaxon alarm booming out and a flashing red light

  illuminating the dark room. Everyone who wasn't sitting in a chair suddenly found themselves struggling to keep from falling over, many of them staggering against

  consoles or bracing against bulkheads as the battleship began slanting to the side.

  Across its belly and along its portside wing, the Palaven-Star began firing hundreds of it navigational rockets, abruptly ceasing in its inward turn and lurching into a heavy

  skewed climb that veered off to the right. The commander of the Death-Claw seemed to be smart enough not to try and force his own way out, sending his Cruiser into

  an immediate dive underneath its sister to allow the first to glide safely overtop of its back. While this might have worked had the Palaven-Star been only climbing through

  the air, the Death-Claw didn't have enough time or room for maneuver to avoid smashing its port wing into the Star's slanted starboard one!

  A loud scream of breaking metal shot across the airless vacuum as the two wings collided in a slanted X of sorts, twisting and snapping off a portion of their ends as they

  slammed against each other.

  "Oh…they are so going to sue us into the ground for that," Alec stated with a deep wince as he saw the hundreds of torn pieces of debris begin to float up around the

  damaged ships.

  "At least it was just the wings and not something more sensitive, none of their crews will have been killed from that collision," Haxon explained.

  "Technically a fault of theirs it was for moving so close to each other," Yoda added in from the Captain's chair, leaning back comfortably into its cushioning while crossing

  his legs.

  "Look on the bright side guys, we made it! The Relay is right in front of us, we can finally get out of here now!" I declared with a wide grin, gesturing to the gargantuan

  grey metal structure floating in front of us. The rest of the crew, even Polly and Sparky, seemed to share my sentiments with a collective hiss/breath of relief.

  Suddenly however, the set of giant hoops spinning around the Mass Relay's glowing blue core began to speed up in their rotations, going faster and faster for a few

  seconds before very abruptly stopping all lined up together. Immediately as that happened a massive section of the space surrounding the Relay seemed to warp, followed

  by a faint blue aura of Mass Effect energy shooting out alongside its length.

  In that moment the famed Destiny Ascension, the massive cross-shaped Asari Dreadnought and flagship of the entire Citadel Fleet flashed into existence, followed by over

  a dozen other Turian Battle-Cruisers fanning out around it!

  "Well fuck that!" Alec said matter-of-factly after a pause of awkward silence. (We've been having a lot of those lately.)

  "That's uhh…that's one, three, ten, fifteen, and then there's the Ascension," I began counting off the numerous ships despite the atmosphere of the situation as we

  continued flying closer to the opposing fleet.

  "I'll tell you what that is, that's gods-damn overkill! We may have caused damage on that station but we didn't cause enough to warrant calling in the entire Fleet on our

  ass!" Alec shouted furiously while snapping up to his feet and jabbing a finger at the colossal Dreadnought in front of us.

  "SSV Corsica, this is the Des…" the voice of the Ascension's Asari Captain began speaking through our consoles, but we had already heard this line a thousand times

  today.

  "Shut up!" Alec and I said in unison as he reached over and clicked the console off.

  "The Ascension is targeting us with their main cannon! Even with my calculations we won't be able to dodge a blast of that magnitude!" Haxon reported as the giant oval

  centerpiece protruding outward from the Dreadnought's midsection began to glow a bright white-blue colour.

  "Unless we continuously dodge it while it's firing," I said quickly as I used my right hand to bring up several manual flight control screens on my console.

  "And how exactly do you plan on doing that?" With a wicked grin I pressed the fingers of my right hand on the holographic levers of the screen before me, the very ones

  that that were controlling the level of power the Corsica's main propulsion thrusters were putting out.

  "By winging it. We're going to use my Human unpredictability with your enhanced A.I. processers. Make sure you use the navigational thrusters in sync with what I'm

  about to do as best as you can."

  Just as I finished instructing this, the Ascension's main cannon let out an enormous humming sound that seemed to vibrate the very space around us, showing that the

  weapon was seconds away from unleashing its full might. And in that precious few seconds, Alec could only turn to me with his jaw dropped and a look of unbelievable

  horror stricken across his face.

  "WINGING IT?!" he blurted out at the instant the Dreadnought fired, blasting out a blinding continuous burst of white light directly at us. At the exact second that this

  happened, I rammed the propulsion levers up to the their farthest notches, followed immediately by me flicking my hand up and rotating a holographic dial meant for

  controlling a portion of the ship's steering sharply to the left.

  I was thrown back in my seat as the sudden increase in speed hit us, fighting to keep both my hands attached to the console against the unchecked G-Forces pressing in

  on me. As the Corsica blasted forward, my turning of the steering dial made it twist upward onto its back, making us barely manage to swipe up out of the way of the

  Ascension's main cannon blast. With expert help from Haxon firing the navigational thrusters on all needed sides, and from me keeping my hand constantly rotating the

  dial at a steady pace, the Corvette began quickly spiraling around the destructive beam of light like the red stream on a Candy Cane!

  Amazingly this improvised and unexpected tactic was actually working just as I had hoped, keeping the ship and ourselves alive by corkscrewing around the outer edge of

  the blast's diameter just fractionally out of harm's way. Although this also meant that anyone who wasn't properly strapped in was going to experience one gut wrenching

  ride, made evident by the new chorus of yells and screaming that rose up from the rest of the group. At the moment that I had turned the dial and sent us into this insane

  swirling charge; Alec, the Replicators, and now even Yoda had been thrown up from their positions toward the ceiling once again. Only this time because the ship's gravity

  was constantly in motion as we spiraled around and round' the beam blast, the group wasn't smashing into the ceiling or any of the walls this time. Instead they were

  floating and spinning in mid-air, the changes in gravity making their bodies almost completely weightless!

  "We're gonna die! WE'RE GONNA DIE! First I'm gonna throw up an then we're gonna die!" Alec shouted to everyone, holding onto the back of the Captain's chair by his

  extended talons with Yoda tightly holding onto his shoulder, both of their legs and torsos flinging about wildly from the Corvette's spinning motion as they desperately tried

  keeping themselves anchored to the chair.

  "Stabilize Axel! Stabilize it you must!" Yoda shouted frantically over to me, ducking his head as Sparky and other Replicators flew screeching past his ear. Outside, the

  Replicator's new shields were flaring brightly against the searing heat of the Dreadnought's blast, blocking out as much of it as they could but being unable to keep our

  white and blue hull from giving off billowing wisps of steam
as the top plates began to glow red hot from the extreme temperature. More flaming sparks and fragments of

  debris began to explode out from panels and components around the cockpit as the ship's systems began to overload from the strain, the entire vessel quaking

  underneath us with a deep metallic groan.

  "HERE I COME LADDIES! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" I bellowed out loudly with an insane grin, craning over the consoles to keep the ship under mine and Haxon's control,

  overcoming my fear of this perilous moment with death defying humour as I used the same line that crazy Royal Air-Force pilot had shouted out during his only action

  scenes in The Mummy!

  Twice more we spiraled around the Blinding-Beam-Of-Death, every second rocketing closer and closer toward the Destiny Ascension and her still firing main gun. Finally

  after flying us almost into the very mouth of the gun itself, I sharply manipulated the controls with a defiant shout and sent the Corsica shooting up from the beam,

  skimming us over one of the Dreadnought's wide branching wings and leveling us out onto our belly. With a fluttering trail of steam coming from our quickly cooling hull,

  we shot away from the back of the Dreadnought and came racing up alongside the large round section at the back of the Relay's two pronged frame.

  "Hwoow! That was fun! Who wants to wheel around and do it again?!" I asked jokingly back to the others as I disconnected Haxon's cyber bridge and deactivated my

  omni-tool, leaning back in my chair and breathing deeply to still my rapidly thumping heart.

  "What good did it do us? How are we suppose to use the Mass Relay with those guys moving around it?!" Alec pointed out as he jumped up to his feet after he and the

  others had crashed back down onto the floor. Coming over to my side again, Alec and I looked out through the windshield at the space ahead of us, seeing the rest of the

  Battle-Cruisers spread out along the length of the Relay close to its hull. This tactic effectively cut us off from being able to use the Relay itself, barring our escape.

  "We haven't come this far to be stopped now. There's gotta be some way to get out of this, there's always another way!" I began saying optimistically, looking at the