Chapter 8
1
The morning showed through her window as the space station made its twenty-four-hour loop around an undisclosed star in a long forgotten sector of the galaxy. She liked few things her predecessor did but she did like the space station. To think the Alliance never moved it from its old position after Shepard nearly tore the place apart looking for the Illusive Man, they did take all its toys. That was okay she had new toys now, better toys. She stood up her naked body bathed in the warm orange-red light of the dying star, her long brown hair slightly a mess from her sleep, she walked over to a chair which held her black silk robe she paused for a moment taking in the scene of the room and its grandeur. She slipped her robe on and walked over to her desk it was in the middle of the large room and sat down, a halo-keyboard appeared she pushed a few keys and the bed sank quickly and quietly into the floor. She had it installed at great expense and secrecy. She didn't want anyone to know she lived here in her office safer that way. In an emergency, a button on the bed would lower her with it below the floor if needed she could stay there until the problem was solved or jettison the capsule into space where a ship would pick it up three thousand kilometers on the nearest planet her safely in a cryo-sleep.
She pressed a button and the only other person who knew she lived in her office answered almost at once.
"Yes, ma'am would you like your coffee?" The young-sounding female voice inquired over the intercom.
"Yes, thank you. Also please get a message to Xen and let her know I want a progress report on Operation Aurora." She said pressing another button on her keyboard and the sleek black wall to her left opened showing a bathroom and large closet, as with her bed this room two could be used as a life raft into space should trouble to arise. She cut the intercom stood up looked over at the Star now slowly moving from right to left, her office on received its light for one hour of the artificial twenty-four-hour orbit. She took in its beauty then went into her bathroom the wall closing behind her hiding it from it from sight and scanners.
2
Delta sat in front of his team that was about to infiltrate the base on Krios looking over the ten trained men and women didn't fill him with the warm and fuzzies but there were three teams for this mission meaning everyone was taking green troops into a possible cluster fuck of a situation. "Bloody hell," he thought as he snapped his rifle in place on the back of his N7 armor.
"Okay, listen up!" he said loud enough that his voice echoed off the walls.
Alpha team which consisted of ten green soldiers snapped to attention and waited for their orders.
"The mission is simple, we get in to disable the security systems so team bravo and charlie can assault the main complex and find the bloody cure to this nightmare." He said his voice still loud and imposing. "Keep it tight and we will all be having a cold one in no time. So let's get the show on the road." With that he turned to the shuttles and the team started to board the two shuttles that would take them to the base. Before Delta could board one himself Anima rushed over Jane at her side.
"Good hunting," Anima said holding her hand out to Delta.
"Bloody right." He agreed then took her hand to shake it.
"Don't forget about that rematch you owe me, I still think you cheated," Anima said playfully trying but not succeeding to break the tension.
"I don't cheat at chess, and you got it. Watch out for that one." He said pointing at Jane "She may be upgraded but she is green."
Jane bristled but didn't say anything this was her first real mission and she knew this was part of it.
"She will be fine, she is fully…" Anima started but Delta cut her off.
"Trained isn't the same and you damn well know it, if things get too hot remember I have command of this mission and if I say abort you two damn well abort!" He snapped.
"Got it." Anima agreed "Just get your old ass back in one piece." She said turning toward her shuttle.
Delta smiled made a note to tell her how he beat her in chess, but death and circumstances would slip between them before that could happen.
3
Anthony liked his job, it paid great and it was easy. Damn easy just stand and watch a door or two forget about the horrible experiments inside and cash one damn big paycheck every week. He also liked looking at all the eye candy in the lab's plenty of fine ass Asari and Quarians to sneak a look at and he did sneak plenty of looks. In fact, he had managed to ask one of the scientists out for a date which earned him serious cred with the other guards on this wing of the building. So what if she shot him down before anything really happened he was the first and so far only one who went on a date with that hot piece of blue tail in genetics. Yes, life was good until it wasn't. Suddenly there was movement quick and it was gone white fire lit up his neck, and something warm was running down his chest. "What the hell?" Anthony thought to bring his hand instinctively to his throat. His fingers and hand came away wet and red, "this isn't right." He thought, but thinking was getting harder now and he was so tired. What was he thinking about, oh yeah that blue beauty. His legs gave out and he was falling and falling the world around him getting darker until there was nothing but black and the slowing of his heart. Had Anthony seen Delta, perhaps he would have got off a shot? Instead, he took his final breath in a puddle of his own blood.
4
Delta looked down at the guard who was bleeding out on the ground in front of him "sorry mate" he said cleaning his knife off before putting it away. "Alpha team on me," he said and his team appeared around the corner looking at the carnage that lay at Delta's feet.
"Never bloody mind the guard, get your heads in the game or I will fuck you up." He whispered in a harsh tone. The green soldiers stiffened and hardened. "Good, now let's go," Delta said pointing down the corridor
5
Anima's shuttle landed at the south end of the lab complex, she checked her gear one more time looked over Jane's then opened the door. The loading bay was empty just like the intel had said it would be. Anima stepped out of the shuttle and looked at Jane. "No heroics, you have nothing to prove to me or anyone else." She said pulling her M-11 Suppressor and looking over it, it was a good pistol but she missed her old one. This particular pistol could be changed to fire both lethal and non-lethal rounds with a push of a button. They needed stealth for this mission and going in guns blazing would only get them killed.
Jane nodded pulling her two blades one long and one short from their sheaths, the two swords were black as night and insanely sharp. Looking to Anima for the signal with a devilish smile.
"Okay, go, but remember your job is to get in get the samples and get out. If anything goes wrong or you need back up you call me." She didn't like sending Jane alone but she was overruled by her father and Delta. "Had to earn her pay at some point," Delta had said to her, and she wanted to hit him. It was Jane's job to infiltrate the main lab grab any data she could and the samples of the two know viral strains. She wore no protective gear she immune after all. Anima was likely immune as well but no one wanted to find out the hard way. So the mission fell to Jane Shepard and her lovely swords, knives, silenced pistols, and blinding speed. Anima watched her open a service door and slide inside before closing the shuttle door and heading to the rally point that she had to clear and hold.
6
Jane closed the door behind her and slowly made her way down the large and empty hallway, she put her two swords aware and pulled a small fighting knife. The knife which was also had an edge as sharp as a razor was black, and six inches long. The Marine K-Bar had long been a staple of the Marines but as combat moved from close range to long it fell out of use. Her teacher had insisted that despite its rather simplistic construction it was deadly in a fight. She had learned that lesson the hard way spending an hour in the med-bay after saying it wasn't. Her instructor had a habit of proving his statements when Jane contradicted him so she no longer did.
She moved quickly on the balls of her feet taking in everything as she was taught, the mission would go to shit in a hurry if she hit an alarm. She reached the doors that lead into the labs and stopped and activated her comms. "Bravo in position." She said in a hushed tone "waiting for Alpha to kick the nest."
7
Delta heard the go code of 'kick the nest' and smiled, he always smiled before going into a fight. However, that smile didn't reach his steel gray eyes which were cold and calculating. "Alright, let's stir things up a little. Team one you break left and right and cover our flank, team two I want you on my ass." He watched the soldiers nod, turned and opened the door. On the other side two guards sat behind a control panel, Delta walked in said "Hello mates" and shot them both in the face before they could say anything back. This time his team didn't gape at him, they did as they were instructed and took up their positions.
Delta walked over to the console pushed the two dead and bleeding guards out of the chairs and sat down. He waved his omni-tool over the console and it loaded a series of viruses developed by EDI onto the lab's servers. The viruses' job was simple, copy all data send it to EDI and destroy the originals and local backups. If possible the viruses would self-transmit to offsite locations but that was a long shot.
"Viruses loaded and security systems are down," Delta said into his radio and stood up. "Okay, we hold this location until Bravo is finished." And that is when all hell broke loose.
8
Anima landed the shuttle got out and activated it's stealth system, in a second the shuttle blended into its environment by using thousands of tiny cameras and superimposing the live feed onto the shuttle. As long as no one walked into it no one but those with the proper codes loaded onto their omni-tools would know it was there. She took up cover behind some metal crates pulled her pistol and waited. She heard Jane give the signal to go and she readied herself for anything, she had the easiest job in all of this but Anima knew how quickly easy jobs could become anything but.
9
Jane heard Delta say the say the viruses were loaded and she opened the door, but she sensed that something was wrong. Jane had lived on Earth as everything went to hell and you didn't survive in that hell without developing and listening to a finely honed sense of intuition. She moved down an open and empty laboratory hallway, there should be a dozen of scientists working she thought as she hurried to the location with the samples. The hair on the back of her neck stood up and she knew someone was behind her, she dove down just as a burst of gunfire boomed in the hall. The rounds coming so close to hitting her she could feel the heat from them on her neck as they flew past her. She hit the ground and spun to face three men with assault rifles and smiles. "No armor, though" she taught as she assessed the situation. They had her dead to rights but they didn't take another shot "want me alive?" she thought standing up and to raise her hands.
"Put your hands behind your head." One man demanded.
Jane acted as if she didn't hear him closing the distance, they had lowered their weapons after seeing she only had a knife. That was good for her and bad for these three.
"Put your…" was as far as he got before Jane's K-bar embedded itself into his throat. He tried to scream but all that came out was a wet gurgle then he fell a pool of his blood spreading around him his hands clutching at the knife.
Then Jane pulled her sword and ran at the other two who were staring at their dying comrade. She closed the distance between them quickly her mind focusing on the one guard who was now raising his rifle "mistake" she thought as her blade freed the man from his lower arm and rifle. He screamed in pain and surprise as a geyser of crimson sprayed into the air. She turned to face the other guard but he was ready and landed a hard right hand to her temple and her world went white for a moment. Jane staggered back dropping the sword as she tried to hold onto consciousness. Then he was on her his rifle forgotten in his rage he hit her in the ribs, the jaw, the abdomen, she tried to block but she was too clumsy and she fell backward hitting the ground another shock of pain as her head struck the hard floor. She saw him raise a foot to end the fight and she turned from the attack as he stomped down. Her world was slowly coming back when he kicked her in the side. She heard and felt her ribs crack and pain flared in her mind, this time she used it. She kicked out hard and caught his leg and knocking him off balance it was just enough to get back to her feet.
"I'm going to hurt you bitch!" The last guard exclaimed as he rushed into her.
Jane still had two more knives, her long blade, and a pistol but she wanted to end this with her hands. She used the pain in her side to focus herself then readied herself for his attack. "I'm right here," she said taunting her attacker.
The man swung his right fist as hard as he could, she moved into the punch and used his momentum to spin him away. He went staggering past her and spun back around as rage flared across his face. Jane had him and she knew it, he charged again only this time she kicked him hard in the chest sending him backward but he stayed on his feet grabbing his chest trying to suck air in. She then attacked, she kicked him hard in the left knee and it exploded as bone and tendon snapped. The man cried in pain and fell to the ground clutching his knee, he didn't have to feel the pain long. Jane stood over him and brought the heel of her right foot down hard on the man's throat, a loud snap as the windpipe broke cutting the air supply. The man turned red, then purple, then blue all while staring up into Jane's cold eyes. Finally, he went limp and Jane walked over to retrieve her weapons. She would have to atone for dropping her sword but that was later, right now she had a job to do. Looking at the last guard clutching his stump to his body she pulled her pistol and shot him in the head.
10
Anima heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire from both the lab and security rooms, she called to the Bastogne "Permission to enter?" She asked her father.
"Negative hold the evac site," Shepard responded.
"Damn it," she said under her breath. As she did two guards without any armor ran out rifles drawn. She shot them both in the head and they tumbled to the ground as blood and gray matter sprayed into the air. Anima stood up walked over and hit them both with a biotic wave, not to kill them that was already done, but to keep the path empty. She went back to her cover and waited for more guests which were certainly on their way now.
11
"Put down your weapons!" A male voice boomed over a PA system. Delta ignored the request jumped up from cover and shot one of the guards on the upper level in the face. "I'll keep my weapon, thanks." He said crouching behind the console.
"You have lost Delta don't get your team killed for pride." The male voice said again over the PA system.
Delta looked around and his heart sank, there were no less than twenty heavily armored and armed men all pointing assault rifles at his team, not him, his team.
"Let them go and you can have me," he yelled standing up aiming his rifle at what looked like the person in charge. He was the only one with no armor or weapon drawn and he had an eye patch.
"Your deal is accepted, order them to lay down their firearms and move out the door they came in. If you so much as itch your ass they will die, and you will watch it all." The one-eyed male said.
Delta did as he was instructed but he never took his aim off the man with no armor and an eye patch.
His team didn't want to follow orders that would cause them to leave their leader behind but Delta repeated them and added, "do it or I'll bloody shoot you myself!" After that, they listened dropping their weapons and exiting the room.
As the door closed Delta felt the sting on the back of the neck long enough to reach up to feel a dart before his world went black.
12
"All stations on this net, we are code black… I say again code black." The words froze Jane's heart. Code black, someone had been captured. She tried to contact Anima but all she got was static on her comm system. Bringing up her Omni-tool she scanned for jammers and found more than one hundred spread out in the building.
"They must have had them off, this was a trap the entire time." She thought as she moved quicker now trying to get the samples, she knew that without them no vaccine could be manufactured and innocent people would continue to die. She was close just one more door, she checked it for booby traps found none and opened the door and stepped inside the cold Bio level Four lab.
The series of rooms were all linked to the main hallway, each room had a staging area where the staff would put on and take off bio-level suits and be decontaminated by UV lights and a fine decontamination mist. A heavy door separated the warm zones and the hot zones of the lab, Jane held up her Onmi-tool and it sampled the air a small red light appeared and a quick read out. This was where the virus was and so she walked down the hall placing small thermobaric charges on the walls as she went. She intended to blow this lab and all its deadly toys back to the stone age, hell back even further if she could. This fucking virus killed everyone she knew back on earth, it ensured that she didn't have a normal life, it stole from her everything that matter back then and she wasn't going to let these Cerberus pricks keep any for themselves. She walked into the bio level 4 staging room and held up her Omni-tool which had a nifty hacking function EDI had installed. An AI started up nearly scaring Jane to death, a small yelp escaped her throat and she took an instinctive step back. The hacking app was doing its job as the AI spoke up.
"Warning, this is a biohazard level four hot zone all personnel must follow proper safety protocol when accessing the bio level four labs." A female voice said.
"Yeah well I think I'll skip that step," Jane said as the Omni-tool gave a ping and turned green letting her know the large steel door that entered the laboratory was unlocked.
"A safety violation has been detected, your name has been logged and will be reported to security. Please wait for them to escort you for interrogation." The voice informed Jane in a way that only AI's can seem to pull off.
Jane laughed a little and swung the heavy door up a cold blast of air pushed past her into the labs and Jane's ears popped. The lab was under heavy negative pressure to prevent any of the labs smaller guests from leaving. Moving quickly but carefully Jane made her way to the metal freezer marked bio-level 4 samples in bright yellow letters. She realized she hadn't taken a breath since opening the door and relaxed. "You damn fool you are immune," she said to herself as she opened the freezer and looked down at the metal shelf of test tubes. The words didn't help and she could feel her skin crawling as in revolution of what tiny organisms sit just one meter from her. She pulled a metal cylinder from her pocket it was designed to keep the contents frozen for two hours after that she would have a soup of the most lethal virus known in the galaxy slushing around in her damn pocket. She carefully and gently pulled the test tube that she needed slid it carefully into the metal cylinder and put it back into her pocket. She then tossed her last two bombs into the freezer closed it and walked back to the decontamination area where a bright light and fine mist hit her as soon as she closed the door behind her.
13
Shepard sat helplessly in the command suite of the SSV Bastogne watching a mission two months in the making fall apart. Everyone inside the labs had their comms, telemetry, and video uplinks all go down at the same time. Only Anima who was outside at the extraction point was reading. He didn't wait he issued the code black hoping everyone would rally back at the evac site for exfiltration. Bring up Anima's screen he opened a direct comm link with his daughter and best chance of stopping whatever this was before it got even worse.
"Charlie come in." He said.
"This is Charlie send it," Anima said.
"New orders as follows," Shepard said looking over the blue prints of the labs on another screen. "You are to proceed to checkpoint alpha link up with the Alpha team and find Bravo, you will have ten minutes to complete this mission. Be advised there appears to be a jammer blocking all communications in the building, you will be going in blind, how copy?" He said waiting for a reply.
"Copy that, moving out," Anima said and the comms and her screen went dark as she entered the lab.
14
Jane rushed toward the loading dock were Anima and the shuttle were waiting, she checked each room but all were empty so she didn't stay long. Only three more rooms and she would be on the south side of the lab and its loading area. She checked the last room as she went to close the door Anima came around the corner nearly running into her.
"What is it, boss?" Jane said as she placed another bomb in the hallway, it was her last and a small smile flashed on her face.
"Give me a report," Anima said looking over Jane's shoulder at the hallway which had little red blinking lights going all the way down it.
"Took out three guards, got the samples, and placed the demo charges," Jane said.
"I see you are planning to send this place to hell where it belongs, okay let's find Delta and his team and get off this planet," Anima said pointing down the hall that leads to where Delta and Alpha team were supposed to be.
15
Private Adams sat with the rest of Alpha team in a dark and cold room, hoping that he would get to go back to the ship and the sooner the better. "I wasn't even supposed to be on duty today" he kept repeating in his head, that didn't matter much now. He was here without a weapon sitting in a cold empty room waiting on rescue or at least release. It never crossed his mind that there was a third option, which is why he never heard the hiss of gas entering the room.
It started with a simple tickle in the back of his throat, he coughed a few times and it seemed to help so he didn't notice that everyone else started coughing at roughly the same moment. A few seconds later is when the screaming and pain started so much pain, in his head, his bones, his neck. Adams coughed again and felt something give as his mouth filled with a warm copper-tasting liquid that could only be blood. That is when the seizures started and Adams's last thought before the blackness took him was "this isn't even my day to be on duty".
16
Jane was a step behind Anima when she scanned the room for traps. Anima frowned and started to punch some buttons on her Omni-tool. "What is it?" Jane asked her as she waited impatiently, her mind kept reminding her of what was sitting inside her pocket.
"Got an alert for gas, I'm venting the room before I open the door. There it should be…" Anima's words trailed off and Jane looked inside the room to see the horror.
The room's floor was covered in blood and vomit as ten Marines lay lifeless on the floor. Jane watched dumbfounded as Anima slowly went to each Marine and removed their ID tags from around their necks. Jane was about to ask why when she realized they didn't have time to take the bodies off world, they had one hour and change before those frozen samples became liquid samples.
"I don's see Delta," Anima said the relief shown on her face for a second then she was ashamed for feeling glad while so many good Marines lay at her feet.
"The security office is in there" Jane pointed out and she watched Anima put ten pairs of ID or Dog tags in her pocket. Jane decided to take the point but Anima shook her head so she fell back a few steps as she watched Anima scan the next room with her Omni-Tool then open the door to an empty room except for two dead guards.
"Let's go," Anima said pointing to the way out.
"But Delta," Jane said moving up to meet her commanding officer.
"He isn't here anymore," Anima said.
"How do you…" But before Jane could ask that question she heard what Anima must have heard first the sound of a midsize ship taking off. Before she could say anything else her comm. system kicked on and Admiral Sheperd was in her ear demanding a status report. She watched Anima scan the room once more, put her pistol away, walk back out to the hall, and begin to tell her father what had happened. She hadn't realized she was shaking or crying until she felt the warm liquid run down her face and wiped it away with a trembling hand.
