Disclaimer: I don't own "Mass Effect" or any of it's characters…
A/N: Sorry I was kinda slow on that update, I know shame on me ;(, sorry to keep you guys waiting. Thanks to everyone who alerted, reviewed and all that great stuff… I should be quicker for next update now that I'm back in my cozy room. :D
Chapter 1: Voice of a thousand Silences
5 days, 21 hours ago…
As the shuttle hovered over the blast site, Kaidan nearly gasped, the destruction was immense. A giant smoldering crater and pile of wreckage was all that the explosion had left behind. Port Hanshan had been completely obliterated, even behind the dense snowfall it was plain to see.
The shuttle lowered, swaying as it was tackled by the curtains of snow and hale that were so common on Noveria's surface. The door slid open and Kaidan was met by the heavy winds himself. Even with a full helmet on, the cold was radiating off of the edges of the interior and a shiver ran down his spine.
A turian in black armour trudged through the snow over to him a pistol fastened to his side, he too wore a full helmet and it was (obviously) impossible to tell what he actually looked like. As he continued closer he threw Kaidan a salute. Kaidan didn't respond, to be brutally honest he didn't expect anyone from council forces to be here, and he wouldn't have been at all offended if the turian had held his salute until they reached shelter.
"First Lieutenant Nollithus sir," he yelled. His voice was already barely audible due to the wind, but behind the muffling of his helmet it was even worse, on the brink of mumbling.
"Let's get to the blast site," the two marched through the snow side-by-side until they reached the largest building left in salvageable condition. Nollithus led the way. As they stepped through one of the gaping holes in the structure's foundation, the cracked and battered exterior clearly showed inside as well. Electrical wires strung down from the ceiling, and parts of walls had crumbled.
"Sorry about this Major, resources are scarce, the war really hit us hard," the lieutenant said as he removed his helmet, revealing a green skinned turian with black face paint covering most of his odd looking mug.
"Sorry to sound a bit clueless lieutenant, but what are we doing here? We're operating under council law, but Noveria technically isn't in council space," Kaidan said as he removed his helmet as well. The temperature inside the structure was chilling, but incomparable to the outside.
"Each councillor's official ambassador was assassinated, that makes this a council issue," Nollinthus replied.
Kaidan sighed, some 50% of the population of Noveria had been wiped out and the only reason the council had even taken a second look at the situation was because 4 particular people had been caught in the blast.
"So the councillors have their very own ambassadors now?" Kaidan raised an eyebrow.
Nollithus observed the other officers as they scrambled around carrying datapads and fiddling with omni-tools. He glanced at Kaidan, "It's a system they decided to implement right after the war ended. A lot of crucial decisions need to be made on the council's part. Especially with the citadel destroyed, the council wants to remain influential, and the councillors themselves are particularly comfortable on their high-horses. The ambassadors make decisions on behalf of the person they are representing."
Kaidan nodded pondering on the situation.
Noveria may have seemed like a strange location for such a meeting to take place, however it was a logical and strategic move. Noveria hadn't even been touched by the Reapers, it had government stability and it was one of the only places where the money was still flowing. No doubt the council was worried about losing power, as Nollithus addressed, integrating Noveria into council space would've been a calculated move.
Looking at the massive crater where the planet's capital once was though clearly implied that it wasn't calculated enough.
"Sir, the research mech is acting up again," a soldier called from the other side of the building.
"Excuse me major, unfortunately I'm stuck with some of the most incompetent lot of the military. Master Sergeant Zekt Rikale should be here in a few minutes, he'll answer any questions you have and aid you with your investigation." Nollithus stomped off as he mumbled something angrily about the mech.
It felt like barely a minute that Kaidan had waited before Zekt showed up. A light brown turian, just his mandibles had white paint on them. His green eyes flickered as he observed Kaidan.
"Major Alenko," he greeted, almost warily. His armour was a shiny metallic; it had been through a lot from the looks of it.
"Sergeant," Zekt just stood there, staring. His eyes boring into Kaidan as the major shifted his eyes away to avoid the awkward stare.
"You served with Shepard right?" Kaidan almost winced when he heard that name. There was no one person he respected more, but honestly he'd been trying to avoid the thought of her. In fact the only name that made him feel worse was of the certain pale-green turian she had left him for.
"Vakarian too?" Zekt added.
Kaidan sighed, "Yeah… lets get to the blast site if you really want to know about it I'll tell you then."
Zekt made somewhat of a sneer then turned and started walking, leading Kaidan into a giant area littered with debris, it had been covered by plastic barriers to keep the conditions from damaging or scattering the remaining evidence, this however, didn't keep the temperature from rising at all. The ground was covered with a layer of charcoal colored ash and there was barely anything that remained identifiable.
"This was the initial…kaboom spot, anyone remotely close disintegrated," Zekt explained as the major searched for something he could meaningfully observe that wasn't a piece of rubble.
"What kind of bomb was it?" Kaidan noticed something, the charred remains of something that resembled a sentient being.
"Tactical fission, there were harmless traces of radiation recovered," Zekt watched as Kaidan kneeled down. "That's a geth by the way, the meeting being held was considering the geth and krogan, apparently the quarians couldn't make it." He hissed, and there was no better way to describe Zekt's voice, cold almost hollow. He clearly wasn't very excited about being around here, whatever the case, his body language was stiff, and his eyes were carved into his face with an un-amused look almost like horizontal half-moons.
Kaidan paused and looked back at Zekt, "Pardon me for asking, but you aren't very eager to be here, are you?" Judging by the lack of significant evidence Alenko would be here for a while, might as well get friendly.
"Freezing my ass off investigating some crater wasn't exactly how I planned to spend my week, major," he replied casually.
"Don't forget your commanding officer's making you babysit a spectre."
"Don't remind me," he snickered, "So you're the second human spectre? No offense major but doesn't that kinda you know… blow?"
"What makes you say that?" Kaidan continued to search the room.
"Well, just look who came before you, the woman who almost single handed ended the worst conflict in history. Even before that Shepard was famous for that Skyllian Blitz thing. And I gotta say, for a human, she's a looker," Kaidan's mood diminished with every achievement Zekt mentioned.
"I try not to look at things like that. I'm not competing with anyone; in the end we both earned the title one way or another," he responded, trying to brush Shepard off his mind.
"Yeah I guess; but if I were you I'd be more than overwhelmed. Living in somebody else's shadow… isn't for me."
Kaidan took the opportunity to switch topics, "So what landed you this babysitting job anyway, you lose a bet or something?"
"Second highest rank on this investigation, third if you're counted, I usually get landed with the crap chores, again, no offense; let's just say just say I'm not too popular around here. Well I am, but not in a good way," Zekt shrugged, he didn't seem very bothered by it. Zekt looked pretty young, (as far as Kaidan could judge turian age) he must've been doing something right if he had advanced to his relatively high rank that quickly.
Kaidan continued sifting through the ashes of what was left of what used to be Port Hanshan. Suddenly his ears pricked, a sound, like static, flared through the room.
"… K-Kaidan Alenko-o," The voice was not from something organic, and the static made the sound piercing.
"What? I assumed there weren't any systems operational after the explosion?" the major looked over to Zekt.
"There aren't, I don't know-"
He was interrupted as the voice began to speak again.
"I am… n-not a system native to this facility… I was integrating into this facility's-s programs at the time of the e-xplosi-o-on…"
"You're the geth," Kaidan stated as he glanced over to the scorched body of the synthetic.
"That is c-c-correct."
"Did you see what happened here then?" Kaidan brought up.
"N-no… The security cameras in this room were destroyed immediately after the explosion."
"Hold on… why are you revealing yourself now, the lieutenant never brought this up and he searched through this room before?" Zekt scanned the room, trying to figure out where the voice was coming from.
"I revealed my-s-self to lieutenant Nollinthus, but he… attempted to destroy the c-onsole that I was operat-ing from, how-owever, I had already… integrated with th-e facility's main pr-programs. Func-tionality is ex-xtremely limited…"
"Nollinthus is dirty," Kaidan stated, tilting his head towards the ceiling not sure where to speak.
"C-orrect, there is corruption within your ranks. You are a s-pectre, you do not op-p-erate under the lieutenant. I b-believed you could b-b-e trust-ed."
"Figures, I'm freezing my ass off babysitting a spectre and my commanding officer is working for terrorists," the turian joked as he chuckled grimly.
Kaidan spun around drawing his pistol, Zekt stood there a clueless expression over his face.
"How do I know you're not working with Nollinthus?" Kaidan demanded with a determined look in his eyes.
Zekt looked at him barely fazed as he stared down the barrel of Kaidan's gun. "I had plenty of chances to kill you," he shrugged, "Beyond that I guess you're going to have to take my word for it."
"Sorry, but that's not good enough-"
He paused as footsteps crossed the corridor they entered from.
"Look, we have to find a way to, uh… move this geth. If we keep waiting around Nollinthus is gonna get suspicious. I can help you, but you're going to have to trust me, at least to the extent of not blowing my head off." Zekt looked him, a certain sincerity in his eyes.
"Trust your gut," those words that Shepard had said to him before she shot Udina they echoed in his head, something he wasn't so sure he could always abide by. His gut was telling him that Zekt was telling the truth, but he could easily shoot him in the back if he let him go.
"Fine… just stay ahead of me."
"I canno-t be moved with-out having acc-ess to a m-obile platform… there is a hea-vy assault me-ch towards th-e north side of this fac-i-lity that I may be- able to integ-rate my system-s into. How-e-v-er, I can-not do this with-out you-r aid, you mu-st recalibr-ate its systems and hook it u-p to a wor-king console in ord-er for me to gai-n full acces-s," the computer explained.
The two picked up the pace, heading north for a door on the far end of the makeshift structure.
"Well, recalibrating the systems'll be the easy part, finding a working console in the aftermath of a 100 megaton explosion, not so much," Zekt remarked as the two jogged for the door.
Kaidan sighed, the display light on the door flickered yellow, "We'll cross that bridge when we get there." He pried it open, and the door's manual release kicked in.
This corridor was dimly lit, several of the lights brought in by the investigation team had, for some reason died out. Somebody sat in the corner watching; only the silhouette of them could be seen, and as Kaidan and Zekt approached it ceased to move. Kaidan drew closer and a horrid image came into view. It was a turian, Nollinthis by the looks of it, his mandibles had been brutally ripped off his face and blood (dark blue as turian blood was) drenched his armour and the floor beneath him, it had been smeared across the hallway, he had been dragged there.
Zekt immediately armed himself, pulling the phaeston assault rifle from his back and clutching it, as he continued to stare watchfully at the mutilated corpse of Nollinthus.
"I assume whoever did this isn't going to be any friendlier to us," The major muttered as he glanced back at the corpse. He knew very well what it was, a warning, whoever killed Nollinthus was threatening them.
"You think they got the others too?" Zekt asked thoughtfully turning to Kaidan.
"I don't know, but we have to focus on getting to that mech, whoever did this probably doesn't want us make it there that means it's a step in the right direction."
The two pressed forward, but the geth didn't speak again to guide them, all they had was a general direction. As they treaded through the shadows of the scarcely lit corridor something changed, it became silent and the wind, something Kaidan had gotten so used to, had just made its absence known. The blizzard must have concluded, now there was silence and Kaidan wasn't so sure he preferred this. It was like something out of a nightmare, creaks and footstep-like sounds echoed across the hall.
At the end of the hallway was a hazy white light beyond a jammed open door, the heavy mech stood in that room, an eerie beacon in the darkness, showing them their objective, mocking them.
"How typical," Kaidan stated inwardly, a dark unwelcoming tunnel at the end of which they would reach "safety". This scenario never ended well, and he wasn't sure it'd be any different this time around.
Suddenly the dimly lit corridor was shot into darkness the only thing left as any source of light was that damn heavy mech.
"Major Alenko," this was not Zekt. The voice sounded like it was carried along to him, as if picked up by a gust of wind and swept away. "What do you hope to find? There is nothing, but death," Kaidan knew instantly that whoever, whatever was speaking was the same thing that killed Nollinthus, the same thing that warned them.
"The fuck?" Zekt cursed as the voice drew closer, repeating that same sentence.
"There is nothing, but death. There is nothing, but death. Nothing…but…death."
Zekt dashed for the mech at the end of the corridor and Kaidan followed close behind, the creature's word's speeding up as they rushed for the door, sounding as if it was gaining on them.
"Nothing, but death. Nothing, but death. Nothing, but death."
The soldiers sprinted, with all their might they willed their legs to carry on, just beyond the reach of their stalker a few metres felt like miles, the doorway was drawing closer at a remarkably slow pace.
Kaidan wanted to stretch out and reach for the doorway, more than anything he wanted to get to that doorway, more than he had wanted to catch Saren, more than he had wanted to stop the Reapers. However, even in this darkest moment, of utter desperation he was thinking of her, Shep-
Gunshots broke the air, rattling the cold walls of the facility, Zekt had turned around and fired off a few rounds at their pursuer, at that second, it became silent again. And again the silence was deadly as both awaited for the voice to sound again, the two stood still, Zekt's gun still pointed into the shadows.
"Shit," the turian sighed holding back a bit of relief, half still expecting the creature to return, "This goddamn mech better be worth it."
"What… was that?" Kaidan panted, still not being able to fully process what just occurred.
"I don't know… but it sure as hell wasn't Cerberus." Zekt replied.
Kaidan scurried over to the mech, accessing it's systems with his omni-tool and hitting "recalibrate" luckily the working console that was required was to the left of it.
Zekt continued to stare into the corridor now an abyss gradually fading into deeper darkness, the voice continued to play over and over in his head. He aimed his gun through the doorway and flicked on the flashlight, it was a hesitant action, as he was not quite sure he wanted to know what the creature was. As the light draped over the shadows of the corridor beyond he could see the faint outline of Nollinthus' corpse propped up against the wall, but... nothing else, whatever had been chasing them was silenced by a shot, but had not been killed as far as Zekt could tell. "It's gone, I didn't kill it... I don't think i did."
Kaidan looked at Zekt and glanced into the hallway no body, no blood (apart from the smear of Nollinthus'), nothing. There was a sinking feeling inside his breast, but before he could say something their attention was snapped to the sound of the mech powering on. "Systems online, I have transferred all my core data into this machine. Its functionality speed is quite low, systems such as auto repairing shields and armour will not be possible." A blue light on the "face" of the heavy mech flickered when it spoke.
"We should go back and warn the team," Kaidan suggested, Zekt shrugged mildly approving by the looks of it, but the geth interrupted.
"Negative major, I no longer detect any organic heat signatures in this general area."
Kaidan paused, "Then we focus on getting out of here."
"Getting out of here isn't exactly a good idea, unless you want to be frozen for a couple thousand years," Zekt grinned and shook his head. "What am I saying? You're a spectre the council must've provided you with a ship to get over here."
Kaidan hesitated, "The alliance actually offered to give me all the transportation I needed through shuttles and nearby vessels. I don't actually have a ship; the mission was only expected to be a drop off-pick up."
"I stand corrected."
"There are several cargo-ships seemingly in working condition just outside of this room," The heavy mech lifted one gigantic arm and pointed the gun protruding out the end towards a hazardous looking elevator.
"We go to alliance space, present the geth to the council," Kaidan ordered.
"Pardon me Major Alenko, but as I said, at the time of detonation systems were severely damaged, I'm afraid it is unlikely any evidence I have retrieved will be significantly useful.
The three stepped out of the elevator shaft, the heavy mech crunching the snow beneath its feet as it continued slowly towards a badly battered cargo-ship.
Kaidan looked back to the crater, whatever the geth had to offer it would've had to suffice, he had something bigger on his hands, Zekt was right. Whatever the hell was inside that facility it wasn't Cerberus.