Authors Note: This chapter focuses on action and adventure. If your looking for love between Shepard and Ashley and you want it now, skip on over to Chapter 5 and go down a few paragraphs! Otherwise, enjoy your reading!
Shepard filled out reports, prepared a plan of attack and notified Joker of his plan 10 minutes before they arrived at the base. When the Normandy arrived at the asteroid, Garrus and Ashley were briefed by Shepard outside the M35 mako.
"Alright, this is our plan! Joker's going to airdrop us right by the base, firing some missiles immediately after to take out most of the resistance. We're going to mop up the outside resistance in the Mako, then go inside the base, kill everyone that's armed, and investigate the base once we're clear. Any questions?"
Garrus asked, "Do we know what we're up against?"
Shepard replied, "Joker got a visual on the base, there's a turret, some sniper towers, and ground troops there. For a pirate base it's well-defended, but nothing we can't handle. Anything else?"
The silence that followed after Shepard's question indicated they were ready to go, so the trio boarded the mako and prepared for an airdrop. 5 minutes later, the Normandy's cargo doors opened, and Shepard floored the pedal as the mako flew out and down towards the ground. A few seconds after the mako flew out, the Normandy launched 2 missiles at the pirate base, taking out the turret, 2 of the sniper towers, and some of the ground troops. Once the mako safely landed on the ground through jet stabilization, Shepard acquired all targets still alive and went to work. Flooring the pedal, he first drove toward the sniper tower, where Ashley locked onto the first sniper tower and fired the cannon, obliterating the sniper and the top of the tower. As the mako absorbed a sniper shot from one of the other towers still standing, Shepard turned and drove towards some of the infantry trying to gun down the mako with their weapons. Ashley rotated the turret towards the remaining sniper tower, took aim, and watched as both the sniper and the tower exploded into many small pieces. Shepard managed to run over two pirates before Ashley took out the remaining troops with machine gun fire. With their work done, and with Garrus confirming no other targets outside, Shepard parked the mako in front of the door leading into the pirate base. All 3 of them exited the mako and went inside the base, preparing themselves for battle.
Inside, there were many boxes piled in the entrance room, indicating that these pirates were very successful, or very hollow in their plundering. As they approached the door leading to the cargo room, Garrus replied,
"I can't get a reading on who or how many is inside there, Shepard. The radar's jammed. We got a nasty fight ahead of us."
"Right. Shoot first, ask questions later. Ash, cover my 6. Garrus, take down anyone above us, and provide fire support otherwise." Shepard replied."
"You got it commander," Ashley replied.
"Right, Shepard," Garrus replied.
Once the three of them readied up against the cargo bay door, Shepard gave the cue of '3' and they immediately opened the door to breech the area. They looked around, and surprisingly found nobody inside, just a bunch of piled up boxes around the perimeter of the room. As they stepped into the middle of the cargo bay, a deep voice called out,
"Well, well…looks like the Alliance is catching onto us, eh boys?" A heavy-set man stepped forward, wearing heavy grey armor, a digital headset, and wielded a strange-looking assault rifle, although from where Shepard was standing, he couldn't tell if it was a geth rifle or a custom-made one. At the same time, 4 men stepped out to stand aside the heavy man, 3 men stepped out from behind the trio, and 2 more emerged from hiding behind boxes in front of the trio. Clearly, this was a trap, and it was trouble as well.
Shepard took one step forward and spoke, "You call this piracy? I've seen Krogan make better bases than this!"
The heavy man laughed and replied, "The Krogan would never obtain wealth of this nature. Now, you three…walk away now, and live. That's more than I can say for my comrades you killed outside."
Shepard, daunted but not showing any fear, replied with a renegade tone, "I came in here to bust your ass alive. I could have killed you right as soon as you started talking but I didn't. If you really value your comrades, drop your damn guns and surrender. You'll all be dead if you try taking on a spectre!"
Surprisingly, the heavy man laughed again and replied, "Us? Surrender? We'd rather…"
At that moment, Ashley interrupted Shepard by whispering, "He's not gonna budge. Ill take the 3 behind us when you shoot."
Shepard acknowledged Ashley's message as the heavy man finished,
"to you. Now…"
Suddenly, Shepard made a renegade move as he drew his pistol and fired at one of the pirates in front of him, hitting him in the head and killing him instantly. All 3 of them ran for cover as Ashley threw a grenade she had ready at the pirates behind him, killing one pirate but missing the other two that fired at them and ran to cover with her Assault Rifle drawn. Garrus ran to a box adjacent to Ashley, with his sniper rifle drawn and prepared to take aim at the pirates. All three of them took glancing hits as the pirates above and at level shot at them, although not nearly as much as they could have given Shepard's surprise attack.
When the three of them got to cover, Garrus quickly peeked out, took aim at a pirate up above and fired, hitting him directly in the head, but the shot was absorbed by his shields and he was only moderately wounded. Shepard ducked from cover as he took aim at the other pirate in front of him and fired 3 shots, all of them landing in his torso and taking him down. Shepard took a few hits from the pirates above but his shields were intact. Ashley rolled to a stack of boxes next to her, then peeked out with her assault rifle and fired a short burst of rounds, taking down a pirate running towards her with a shotgun. Garrus peeked out from the other side of his cover, took aim at a pirate spraying assault rifle rounds at Ashley, and shot him square in the chest, bringing him down quickly. As soon as Garrus fired that shot, he took a few hits from the pirates up above, including the heavy man and lost his shields, but not any blood.
With all the pirates dead on the ground floor, Shepard readied a grenade and threw it up above. The pirates were splitting apart before this happened but Shepard still managed to hit a few and kill one pirate as it exploded up above. Some of the pirates, aside from the heavy man, had shields, which were only weakened by the blast. Ashley threw a grenade up top as well to try and suppress their fire, and succeeded in killing another pirate and hitting a few others, bringing down the shields of some. Garrus peeked out of cover, took aim at a pirate that was stumbled by a grenade blast, and shot him in the head, blowing it clean off. As he was not taking any fire, Garrus quickly took a hasty shot at another pirate and hit him in the chest; he must have been wounded, for he went down after struggling in vain to stand.
Now it was him and the heavy man, who was now roaring in anger with his losses. Ashley broke from cover to open fire, but the heavy fire from the man's rifle surprisingly took down her shields and forced her back to cover, taking a few hits on her armor but not losing any blood. Shepard broke from cover and managed to land 2 pistol shots, which deflected off the man's shields, before he opened fire and forced Shepard back into cover. At the same time, Garrus broke from cover to aim his sniper rifle and shot the man's head, disabling his shields but not dealing any visible damage. The man was enraged, spraying assault rifle fire at all 3 of their positions and eroding their cover. He then threw a grenade at Garrus's position, causing his cover to be blown and him to be thrown back with the detonation. His shields partially regained strength but it was not enough to absorb the entire blow, causing Garrus to sustain moderate injuries. Ashley and Shepard managed to interrupt him from firing a deadly stream of assault rounds at Garrus by firing at him the moment the grenade exploded; he stumbled back as he took the many hits from Shepard and Ashley, but did not fall. Instead, he retreated further back and failed to provide suppressing fire as it missed Shepard and Ashley. Garrus looked up to see what was going on, and grouped with Shepard and Ashley in going upstairs. They had no choice, and had to hurry before the heavy man could regain any life or his shields.
Shepard wasted no time, for when he ran up the ramp, he dived to and from cover to acquire the heavy man's position; he was behind some boxes, and immediately rained fire at Shepard when he dove. Luckily, only a few hits hit Shepard, and he did not lose his shields, although he was close. He managed to keep the heavy man busy for a few moments in the hopes Ashley and Garrus could take him down, but lost his shields firing a few shots off at the heavy man, and lost some blood as a few assault rifle rounds hit him in his torso and arms. As Shepard was taking hits, Garrus and Ashley rounded the corner to take aim, and both of them opened fire at the same time, Garrus hitting his head and Ashley spraying a dozen rounds in his torso. The heavy man, unable to sustain such lethal damage, finally fell down.
As the trio approached the heavy man, they realized he was still alive, but dying. Shepard quickly shot the man's arm holding his rifle to prevent any counter-attacks. When Shepard finally came close to the man, he kicked away his rifle and said,
"Too bad it ended this way for you. Pirate scum like you never make the right choices."
"You don't know Shepard…what I have done." At that moment, the pirate took a faint last breath and died. Assured that the pirate leader is dead, Shepard then turned his attention to the strange rifle he had and picked it up. Upon examining it, he realized it was not geth or any kind of technology he's ever seen; what the hell kind of rifle was this? Ashley commented,
"Can't say ive seen that before. Doesn't look like geth technology. Where the hell did he get that?"
Shepard replied, "I don't know. But I don't like it."
Garrus noted, "If this is prothean technology he hoarded, this guy would have gotten a death sentence for sure. Better that they died now than later."
Shepard reluctantly stated, "They're pirates. They deserve no mercy. Yet we gave it to them."
"And your better for it, Shepard," Garrus replied.
"Come on, we gotta find out what they were doing here," Shepard commanded. He searched the pirate leader to find a tablet containing data about items they've received, as well as a password to a terminal in the back room of the upper floor. He also realized that what he thought were shields supplementing his armor were actually barriers; Shepard commented,
"I thought he had shields, looks like he had barriers instead."
Ashley replied, "What? How is that possible?"
As Shepard took apart his barrier technology, he held it up to his eye for a moment, then stated, "Doesn't look like geth technology either. Wonder if that's what some of the other pirates used."
"Worth taking a look," Ashley replied.
"Comeon, we gotta find out where the hell this all came from," Shepard commanded. He took the alien rifle, pocketed the barrier technology and went to the back room. Inside, there were ordinary guns and armor strewn about, as well as boxes, a terminal, and a table with mysterious trinkets on it.
"What the hell?" Ashley commented as the three of them approached the table with the mysterious trinkets. What caught Ashley's attention were pieces of some chitinous armor, almost as if it were peeled off from something; it was disgusting to look at. There were also some amber organic looking vials containing a black, constantly-moving substance, what looked like an amber injectable in a form unknown to them, and surprisingly, a few pieces of geth technology along with a rifle. The mixture of geth and alien technology troubled all three of them.
After a few moments of looking, Ashley continued, "Did the geth get this from the reapers? It would certainly explain why they're carrying around this technology."
Shepard replied, "Could be. Either that or the Reapers are twisting the geth into something we don't want them to be."
Garrus asked, "Why would the reapers want to transform a machine race? I could understand them giving them weapons and using them as cannon fodder, but it seems like a waste to turn them into…whatever."
Shepard focused his attention on the console and replied, "If we're gonna find answers, there might be some on that console." Shepard walked over to the console, typed in the password he found, and gained access to the gang's entire network of operations. There was a lot Shepard wanted to look over, but first, he tried to find logs of the gang's activities or cargo. He eventually found a folder of audio logs, and played back the last one. The person speaking in the logs was the heavy man they killed, and in it, he said,
"They left the colony intact like they said they would. Wasn't even a damn sign they were there, unless you count the crater a few miles away. We got it all – red sand, eezo, food, water, shelter, guns, geth hardware; hell, we'd take the whole damn colony away if we could. I wish we could just move our base there, but someone will catch on sooner or later that this WAS a colony, and people will ask questions. We still got a lot of cargo to haul, and I still gotta think where we're gonna hide what we can't fit. I don't like how this looks, but an opportunity like this is too good to pass up. I just hope nobody finds out what happened there."
The log ended. Shepard, curious as to who the man made a deal with, played the log previous from that. The heavy man spoke again,
"They honored their end of the bargain. I was ready to take them out, I almost thought making a deal with them was a mistake. They hide like a thief in the night. But they showed up, and offered us gifts. I wanted to kill them and take it all, but…I changed my mind. What they offered alone makes us even, and if what they is true about the colony, then we'll have more than we can dream of. I will never understand the collectors, or their ways of life. Maybe they were never meant to be understood. But I do know that they have given us the means to ensure our survival in the galaxy."
As the recording ended, Garrus replied, "The collectors? I thought they were a myth. If what he's saying is true, then we're one step closer to proving they're real."
Shepard replied, "I think we're one step closer to finding the reapers. If there's anyone who has intel or even technology about the reapers, it's them. Hell, for all we know, that could be reaper technology they gave them. But we can think about that later. Get all the weird technology laying around and put it on the mako. I'll download the logs and let the alliance know what the hell's going on here once we're back on the Normandy."
The trio searched the entire base, making sure to gather every piece of technology they didn't recognize, including the barrier technology on the dead pirates, and anything else on them, and loaded every last piece on the mako two hours later. The search was extensive, as was piling up the technology by the entrance to haul it out to the mako, but in the end, they had a huge treasure trove of alien technology that they wished they could keep for themselves.