Engineering Away Problems

"Ah fuck!" I yelled as I clutched my head in agony.

Pain was never my thing, the whole "Blood Rage' made that shit obsolete, so you can imagine my surprise as I clutched my dome in anger and no sweet release came. Nah, instead came the fullness of Kaiden Alenko's lifetime of memories.

Ah shit.

I've become Canadian.

One minute I was a godlike giant space lizard man fighting Berserker Heracles, Lancer Cu Chulainn, and Archer Gilgamesh and now I'm a Samoan looking Canuck. At least Kaiden is handsome as hell and can juggle people with his mind.

Biotics is a major win for me. No longer will I be bullied by PK ablest dogs. Now the dog is on the other foot! Or something like that! MIND BULLY!

"Are you ok, Lieutenant." the smooth voice of Space Momma filled my ears for the first genuine time in over a hundred years.

I turned my head and there she was in all her badass glory looking like the cover art of Mass Effect 3 with her red bob cut and green eyes. Armor was a bit dated but hey, I can fix that.

"Just a bad headache." I answered, "I'll get some pain killers and get ready for the mission."

"Let me know if you are compromised." Shepard shook her head, "No need to go on a shake down mission if you are under the weather."

"I'll manage, ma'am. No need to coddle me." I denied and took off from my copilot chair to the cargo bay and engineering deck engineering at a brisk pace. As brisk as the goddamn elevator down allowed.

Fortunately, this isn't a game in need of time to load assets and the Requisitions Officer isn't some merchant attached to the most advanced ship in Alliance Space but an actual goddamn quartermaster.

Whom I violently grabbed while screaming, "ADAMS, TOOLS!"

I looked into the terrified eyes of the requisitions officer and took hold of his wrist, using his omni tool to open up the ships armory where I began pulling various pistols, armor parts, omnitools, shield cores, and wiring over to the nearby workbench.

"Lieutenant Alenko!" Engineer Adams shouted as I frantically worked the console to reprogram the various omnitools I had taken, "What are you doing!"

"Tools, Adams. No time. TOOOLS!" I shouted back at him and flashed my biotics.

Adams recoiled but came back with a tool box and I went to town on the gear I had taken.

"Are you…" Adam watched with a slack jaw as I finished attaching heavy armor plating to my combat suit and began wiring an additional shield core into the system and powering both with five energy cells I pulled out of standard issue pistols, he went over the code for the omnitool I installed to operate it all and gasped, "Did you just solve multi core redundant shield generation?"

"Yeah." I said as I welded more power cells onto my left pauldron and wired a series of omnitools set to activate using commands in my gauntlet, "And now I am programming multiple omnitools to perform my various tech abilities for greatly reduced cooldown times."

"My god…" Adams made a face that conveyed perfectly that he had never seen shit this good before, "These emitters… holographic armor and, and a defense matrix. Not just protection but amplifying your powers."

"When I drop the chain overload, fools don't get back up from the seizure." I chuckled at the insane capabilities of my programming.

"Alenko!" The Commander shouted as she showed up with Captain Anderson, the Turian Spectre Nihlus, and Corporal Jenkins, "You missed the briefing!"

"Commander, Lieutenant Alenko has been replaced by a mad scientist." Adams stated with a salute, "And it is beautiful."

As he said that the Acquisitions Officer finished strapping me into my junkyard sentinel knight armor and I pulled my full helmet over my head with those sick little glowing blue lenses Kaiden has rather than the glass visor.

"Why does the LT look like some second place science fair project?" Captain Anderson demanded.

"Second place!" Adams took offense for me, "Alenko has put together the single most comprehensive defensive system I have ever even seen theorized, let alone produced."

I sparked up the defense matrix and tech armor, startling Jenkins and the RO, but causing Adams to look like a man who received the revelation of God.

"Holographic tech armor and a foucault defense matrix that reduce incoming damage by eighty percent, and that is before anything touches the hardened multicore redundant shield system. Both provide not only additional defense but also increase power damage! On top of the improved smart targeting systems in each of his guns, Alenko on paper is the most dangerous man on any battlefield without his fingers on the trigger of a cannon. The guy is a walking tank!"

"Thanks Adams." I grinned under my helmet.

"Humans allow untested equipment on missions?" Nihlus asked with heavy disapproval in his voice.

"No we do not." Anderson hissed, "Alenko, get in your standard Alliance Issue equipment and be ready for combat. Eden Prime is under attack and you are going down there to recover the Prothean device."

Rather than strip I tossed my Lancer to Adams who opened up full auto on my chest without hesitation till the rifle overheated, leaving me completely unharmed.

"And now the equipment is tested." I nodded to Adams and took back my rifle.

"That was…" Nihlus shifted his face plates around and he searched for the correct word, "Impressive. Are we sure that the Commander was the candidate under evaluation and not this… Lieutenant Alenko."

"Sir!" Adams interrupted, "I must insist that Lieutenant Alenko not be put into any combat operation. He just solved several of the most aggravating engineering milestones currently known to the Alliance and has single handedly pushed forward our technology years. And he did it in twenty minutes and for the price of a fancy night out on the Presidium with the Missus."

Captain Anderson considered for a moment with a tightening of his mouth before shaking his head, "Denied. Alenko, you can keep the science fair project on. Now all of you get your boots on the ground and secure that artifact."

"Aye aye, Captain." we saluted minus Nihlus and made our way to the opening cargo bay door and the action down below on Eden Prime.