Chapter 2
It wasn't terribly difficult to track the movements of Azrae'Vael nar Jedai on the surface of Shir. Aside from a handful of small mining operations, the planet was utterly deserted. After a few hours of scanning the planet's surface, the Normandy pinpointed the most likely location for the Quarian fugitive, and a team was dispatched to find him.
Shepard sat in the shuttle as they descended towards the surface of Shir. He looked out the window at the infinite expanse of ice. The endless snow reminded him faintly of Noveria, but the terrain of Shir was much flatter.
Joining Shepard on this outing were Tali and Grunt. There was no way of knowing what they would find once they encountered Azrae, but Shepard was hoping to find a diplomatic solution. If they couldn't, then that's where Grunt came in.
"What else can you tell me about Azrae?" Shepard asked.
Tali paused for a while. Clearly she was trying to choose her words carefully, "He worked with my father for a time. They were both involved in controversial branches of research. I never met him, though. He was exiled when I was very young.
"But people tell stories. They say that Azrae was one of the greatest geniuses in Quarian history. Many of his inventions are holding ships in the fleet together, even today."
Shepard couldn't help but note, "It sounds like you admire him."
"I do. He could do so much good for the Flotilla, if he chose to. It makes me sad that he's taken the path that he has, though."
"We won't know what's happening until we catch up to him," Shepard said. "This might not have any connection to the Reapers at all."
"Where's the fun in that?" Grunt commented, his raspy voice holding the tiniest hint of a growl. The reptilian Krogan was practically caressing his assault rifle with anticipation.
They arrived at their destination shortly after that. A massive hole in the ground, bored directly into the ice. Shepard noted that some equipment had been set up beside the opening, but subsequently destroyed. Were they too late? Was Azrae already gone? There was only one way to find out.
The shuttle descended into the hole, leaving behind the bright day. Darkness crept around the ship as they went further and further from the surface.
"How deep is this thing?" Shepard wondered.
The shuttle pilot noted, "A little under five kilometers."
Their descent was a slow one – the pilot wanted to be cautious. There was no way to be certain of what they'd find as they went further down. Eventually the tunnel opened up, exposing a cavern that was nearly the size of a small colony.
"What is this?" Tali asked aloud.
"I have no idea," Shepard admitted.
The shuttle activated its exterior spotlights, which illuminated more of the frozen cavern. On the ground nearby was wreckage from some kind of device, and the remains of Asari. They were pulverized to the point that it might be difficult to tell their species, except for the distinctive blue skin.
As the lights crept along the underground landscape, Shepard saw a towering spire on the far side of the cavern. Once it was illuminated, the structure was revealed to be a series of crystal spikes. At first Shepard thought they were ice, until he saw them puncturing the cavern in several areas. The jagged crystals looked random at first, but Shepard eventually recognized a pattern to it. These were ruins. Someone built those crystals.
Shepard felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. There was no definitive evidence of it yet, but he had already begun to suspect that these were Prothean ruins. Nothing good had ever happened to Shepard or his team inside of Prothean ruins.
"I'll get you as close to the ruins as I can," the shuttle pilot said.
The shuttle landed outside the entrance to the ruins. Shepard and Grunt, wearing their oxygen masks, disembarked along with Tali. Caution being key, they were all armed. Shepard and Tali each wielded their shotguns with confidence, while Grunt walked with a giant assault rifle. In the Krogan's meaty hands, the weapon looked more like a toy.
The group was only a short distance from the shuttle when they were forced to turn on the flashlights mounted on their weapons. Shepard kept his shotgun pointed straight ahead as they entered the alien structure.
Within the ruins themselves, they came upon a large hall moving further and further back into the cave. More spikes of crystal were twisted in strange ways, curving and twisting. For some reason, Shepard felt like they resembled claws.
It sent a shiver down his spine, one which had nothing to do with the cold.
A strange green glow emanated from the far side of the room. It pulsed in a pattern that felt familiar. One that cast the shadows into dozens of shapes against the crystals, shapes Shepard could swear he saw moving.
"I've never seen anything like this before," Tali remarked over her comm device.
Shepard remained defensive, "Keep your guard up."
"Yeah. It'd be a shame if we got killed by all this snow," Grunt noted.
When they approached the source of the light, Shepard felt the horrible rush that accompanied all his worst suspicions being confirmed.
The pulsing green light was coming from a Prothean Beacon, similar to the one on Eden Prime. The Beacons were pillars of information that transmitted their data through thoughts. Using one felt like having a dream shoved into a person's brain. Shepard had experienced it twice, once on Eden Prime and once on Virmire. He still had nightmares about it sometimes. They were not designed to be compatible with human brains, and so a Beacon could drive people with weak willpower insane, or shatter them entirely.
"Another Beacon," Tali noted.
Grunt tilted his head slightly, "Do we shoot it?"
A strange, almost magnetic, pull overwhelmed Shepard's senses. He could hear a distinct ringing sound, an echo from a civilization that had been gone for fifty-thousand years. The light of the Beacon felt warm, comforting. That comfort was certainly a lie.
Shepard did not even realize that he was walking towards the device. Not until it was too late. His feet left the ground, levitating him in front of the Beacon.
"Shepard!" Tali called out, but she was already too late.
What happened next was familiar to Shepard in theory, but there was no getting used to it. The Prothean Beacon sent a series of images directly into his mind, data meant to be absorbed by an alien brain. It was all deeply fragmented and disorienting, the individual pieces holding very little meaning at first.
A bright glowing cube. A deep ocean filled with unimaginable predators. A sky burning in all directions. Protheans fighting Reapers in a desperate struggle. Several more thoughts also flashed by, barely registering, finding places to nest in Shepard's subconscious. Then, a string of symbols Shepard didn't recognize, the same two symbols repeating over and over again. They were not Prothean, he would have recognized those. Could they be Reaper symbols?
After a few brief moments, the transfer of information was finished, and Shepard was released. He collapsed to the ground, a throbbing headache pounding against his skull. Everything was moving in slow motion as Grunt helped Shepard back onto his feet.
"What did you see?" Tali asked.
"I don't know," Shepard said. His voice was shaky. Forming coherent thoughts remained difficult.
Something caught Grunt's attention. The Krogan let go of Shepard and aimed his gun into the darkness, his flashlight shining. The light reflected off of a crystalline surface, but nothing appeared out of the ordinary.
"What's wrong?" Shepard asked. His breathing was growing steadier with each exhale.
"We aren't alone," Grunt said, growling.
"Are you sure?" Shepard forced himself to raise his weapon, surveying the scene.
Then, Shepard saw it too. The pulsing light of the Beacon had masked it, but there was no mistaking the fact now – the crystals were moving.
"We're leaving. Now." Shepard said, shortly before beginning to make his way back towards the entrance. Tali and Grunt moved into formation. Before long, they were all going at a healthy sprint.
The team was about halfway to the entrance when all hell broke loose. A sound somewhere between a scream and nails on a chalkboard filled the room. In front of them, the real shape of the crystals became far more obvious, even with the sparse light.
What Shepard originally believed to be claws were, in fact, claws. Soon they were joined by elongated snouts, like those of a reptile, and sinewy spider legs – all made of the same crystalline substance. The translucent carapace allowed Shepard to see frosted blue organs that looked somewhere between snowflakes and flesh. There were dozens of the strange spider-creatures, a number of which were blocking the way to the exit.
As the large spiders approached, the entire building shook, a violent reaction to the trespass of the team. Shepard looked around further and came to a startling conclusion – some of the columns of crystal were still moving, but they were attached to the walls and ceiling.
The structure was not a structure at all. They were inside of something, something alive.
"Go, go, go!" Shepard ordered. Then he, Grunt, and Tali all opened fire on the aliens in front of them.
Every single round bounced off harmlessly, drawing Shepard to the inevitable conclusion that these creatures were impervious to normal ammunition.
Grunt seemed entirely unconcerned by this fact as he barreled toward them. The Krogan warrior slammed into the nearest creature, picked it up, and tore one of its legs off. The joint, a structural weakness, snapped with little effort. Then Grunt began using the leg as a weapon, jamming the sharpened tip into the next of the creatures.
"Target the legs!" Shepard ordered over the comm, and Tali took note.
One of the creatures got dangerously close to Shepard, but he managed to fire a shotgun blast into its open mouth. The hinges of the jaw came undone, and the monster was sent sprawling to the ground. Shepard narrowly rolled out of the way as the hulking mass of deadly sharp crystal flew past him, before finally going limp several meters away.
The three crewmembers continued their evacuation with haste. Grunt lead the way, with Tali in the middle, and Shepard covering their rear. All the while, the "building" never stopped shaking.
"Uh, Shepard, we've got a problem," Grunt announced after reaching the entrance.
Shepard noticed it shortly thereafter.
The "building" was moving. What was once the entrance now loomed nearly thirty meters from the ground. Shepard could see the shuttle trying to escape out of the entrance to the cavern. Massive crystalline claws were taking swipes at the vehicle, trying to swat it out of the air.
The crystalline insects were closing in fast, and there was no exit anymore. If Shepard didn't think of a way to incapacitate the larger creature, then they would lose their shuttle, as well.
Shepard looked back across the room, at the Beacon on the far side of the hall. There was a virtual army of monsters between them and the Beacon now, but it was their only chance to get out of this alive. Prothean technology required a large amount of energy to be powered, especially to function after thousands of years.
"Tali! Use a combat drone on the Beacon!"
Tali's attention went to the Beacon, and she nodded in understanding. Then she pulled the central processor of a Combat Drone out of her pocket. The tiny orb began tingling to life, surrounded by a bright orange shield. It floated in the air and glided harmlessly above the onslaught of crystal spiders. Then it finally arrived beside the Beacon before detonating the self-destruct mechanism.
The resulting explosion sent a shockwave throughout the entire room. Splinters of crystal resembling broken glass flew through the air. Dozens of the creatures were shattered to pieces, even more screamed in pain as slices of their bodies were removed without remorse.
A large chunk of the ceiling collapsed and sent the massive creature falling towards the ground. The sudden shift in gravity sent the team all soaring in different directions. Shepard found himself falling straight out of the entrance.
Shepard slung his arm out desperately and managed to grab a stray piece of crystal jutting out from the entrance. Half-inside and half-outside, Shepard was able to get a better look at the behemoth that they were inside of.
They were in an alien creature unlike anything Shepard had ever seen before. Like the spiders inside of it, the monstrous beast was made entirely of crystal. It looked more like a crab in many ways, though, with two giant pincers and a set of legs running parallel. It had no distinctive features to suggest that there was a face, instead a series of glowing tendrils snaked out of it at random points along its entire body.
The creature was groaning in pain at the explosion within its body, and it buckled and slowed. Afterwards, the thing fell to the ground, sending the snow and dust of the cavern spiraling in all directions as a giant cloud.
When everything settled, Shepard saw that the "entrance" was now much closer to the ground. He released his grip on the wall and landed with a slight impact. Tali and Grunt both came back to the scene from where they had been thrown, each of them looking injured, but alive.
"Now that was fun," Grunt smirked.
Shepard tried to contact the shuttle, "Shepard to shuttle. Do you read me?"
"We read you. Sorry, had to get out, or that thing was going to make us into scrap metal."
"Acknowledged . We require immediate extraction," Shepard said.
"Understood, coming to get you now."
Shepard turned his attention to Tali and Grunt, "Everyone okay?"
Grunt just nodded, still smiling from ear to ear.
"I think so," Tali sounded a little shaky. "I'll let you know when I'm done throwing up."
Shepard laughed, "That wasn't a very graceful landing."
Shepard's mind went back to that vision. It was still just a bunch of images, with very little context. If he didn't know the subject of Azrae's research, then it would be difficult to assign meaning to those images. Shepard needed more information. And if someone needed information, there was only one place to go.
Shepard had to pay a visit to his old friend, Liara T'soni, the Shadow Broker.
To Be Continued…