Chapter 10 : Matriarchal Concerns
Finally! Double digits at last! It's been a while... I thought I'd get this going, seeing as there are still some viewers left on this fanfic. So, without further ado...
Far be it for me to trudge through thick snow on a whim's notice, but my boots were starting to feel quite chilly with each step I took towards Peak 15. The research station loomed ominously, the howling winds bombarding my eyes with hazy fog. Remembering back, I could think on how my frail body cringed against the extreme temperatures and tried to beat back the tide. My comm link burst to life, crackling with the sound of my teammates.
"Isaac?... you...ad me? Is... Can you... re...me?" Snippets of her voice trailed in, just as her shadow appeared in my field of view.
"Nope... Signal here is spotty at best." I complied meekly. Shepard frowned slightly, her brows creasing to reflect her mood.
"Blast... Hopefully we'll still have local comms. Hate to think that we don't. Guess we can consider fire support out. We'd better keep moving." Shepard signalled to both me and Liara to form up on her, her hand gesturing in a spiral motion and then straight ahead to the grey structure ahead.
"Got it..." I remarked as we set back onto the trail. Through the snow we slapped across, forming a leg-deep trench of snow right behind us. No doubt that it wouldn't last long and my body could look forward to pulling itself through the same patch on the way home. Jeez, when did home become a warship bristling with guns and even sharper dialogue? Nearing the entrance, trouble came running along to greet us like something out a Max Payne game. A thick dribble of a sickening olive-lime green started right outside the metal frame of the door and travelled into the bowels of the facility itself.
"Stay sharp. We're not alone here, it seems." Liara 'helpfully' chimed in, my bowels clinging hard not to add more green to the mess. Shepard grimaced but complied with the threat assessment, taking point like any good leader should. A flick off our fingers on our wrist and the omni-tool built in LEDs lit up like a Christmas tree, dispersing a small cone of darkness in front of us. Single file, I heard. I took the rearguard, watching as the door outside grew smaller and smaller till we had to turn a corner and it vanished from view. I think I whimpered slightly. How utterly unmanly and yet a given...
Further and further we trekked down the rabbit hole, stumbling upon scene of scene of devastation. Circuitry boards cluttered the narrow passageways, frayed wires shot sparks periodically and more of that green slime intermixed with spurts of white simply gave rise to more questions in my head. How far did the Rachni push the Geth back? Are they even still in control? To the extent of my memory, we would have been met by the Geth before we even got to the entrance. Instead, cold silence had met us. Something had changed in the scenario and I wasn't certain if I was going to like it.
Aching silence, a walk that even a tortoise could beat. Paranoia and caution were at an all-time high. Heck, I swear I could Shepard bite her lip and some strands of blonde hair within her teeth in the process. Liara seemed just as anxious, though I dare not comment at this juncture. She could reading this if I'm not too careful...
"Activating VI. Designation : Mira." A cool, authorative yet absolutely out of the blue voice echoed in our ears. A slight yelp from me, another from Liara and a calm, collected approach of levelling the weapon at the potential threat soon followed.
"Phew... Just a VI..." I sighed, relieved as I could be given the situation.
"Can you tell me what happened here?" Shepard queried the dumb artificial intelligence.
"Video archives severely damaged. Partial clip still active." The deadpan female voice confirmed with questionable integrity. The holoprojection flickered in back and forth, rarely stable for more that ten seconds.
"Play it." She responded. At her behest, the female avatar melted away and was redesigned into a 2D recording. A bald, thinning man appeared on screen, righting the camera on his personal holocommunicator.
"Day 225 on this curse-forsaken planet. Dr. Kessel Matthews presiding. Yesterday, we got ourselves an esteemed guest. One Matriarch Benezia. Nira, our resident psychologist started whooping with joy. Claims she's never seen a Matriarch up close before. Anyway, Cohen got reeled in to take the hotshot around our little hovel. Frankly though, I'm..." the senior scientist droned on with snide remark and dry sarcasm with the lab running smoothly behind him until an explosion cut him midsentence along with the remainder of the video. Shepard stepped back to assess the recording in her own head.
"That's all there is?" she queried further.
"Affirmative..." the deadpan tone continued its winning streak.
"Wonderful..." she muttered witheringly before turning back to face us.
"Why would my mother come here? It doesn't make any sense." Liara pondered, deep in thought. 'Guess she must have gotten over the shock of her mother being the enemy, if she's questioning goal rather than motive?' I contemplated myself.
"Maybe it has something to do with whatever's leaving this green stuff behind." Shepard shrugged, pointing a finger towards the continuing trail of blood.
"Perhaps..." I replied in Liara's stead. Her eyes glazed over the blood for the umpteenth time that day and suddenly, both of them went wide like a lightbulb just clicked in her brain.
"Wait, I've seen this. In a history book on Thessia, they mentioned something about this." She struggled to recall.
"And...?" Shepard persisted.
"This looks like blood. Rachni blood..." Liara said to us. I had to imitate Shepard's disbelieving face quick, lest I give up the game early in the field.
"Liara, that is impossible. The Rachni were wiped out years ago. There's no way the Krogan would dare miss any." Shepard counter-pointed her.
"That's what I want to know too." Liara said in both confusion and curiosity.
"Well, we won't find any answers here... We should... Wait, did you hear that?" Shepard began only to spin about without warning, weapon trained at the ready yet again.
"I didn't hear anything." I rebounded the question.
"Shh..." she ordered. There was a brief entrail of peace and quiet, the calm before the eventual shit-storm. And then out of nowhere, a hint of a shadow, just a tiny hint leaped out of its hiding spot and scampered away right in front of us, a low insect-like hiss accompanying its grand departure. "There..." she pointed it out. I raced to the doorway, eager to cap the Rachni scout right in its organic tush. Nothing... Just nothing...
"That thing moved like it's hopped up on dust!" I exclaimed loudly, shuffling back to the group.
"Keep on your toes from here on out, people. Let's go..." Shepard handed us our orders and took point yet again. Here we go back into the bowels of the beast itself...
Let me be clear, my mental fortitude wasn't that strong to begin with and the last time I saw an actual dead body, not sheared wires on legs, I puked my guts out into a potted plant. So when we rounded the umpteenth corner and came across the scene of a complete massacre, I surprised myself with that tiny tinge of indifference at the asari, salarian and human remains shredded like cotton candy all over the erstwhile pristine tapestry. Had I really gotten so used to it in a matter of hours? I would have done anything just to get that feeling of disgust back in me, like trying to rebottle a genie in its lamp.
"By the Goddess..." Liara gapsed in horror, doing her best not to recoil in fear. I could see out of the corner of my eye that her body was urging her to flee like a young schoolgirl after that awkward first kiss.
"Seems like you might be on the money, Doctor." I grimly answered, my eyes flinching when the pile of blood just swallowed my mental fortitude like Ahab against Moby Dick.
"I don't understand that." She responded in confusion.
"He means that you may be right about the Rachni." Shepard clarified, keeping an eagle eye on our flanks for us.
"Oh..." she replied, her head bowed in silence.
"Sigh... Let's check them. Maybe they left something behind." I proposed to the group. Not one peep from them emerged, just a silent nod and the brushing of feet edging closer to the bodies. I had the unenviable task of rummaging through one poor sod, whose partial was Lad... something. There were no eyes to close in respect for the Rachni just ripped them out of him, the entrails connecting the nerves to the brain still intact like something out of a horror show. Hands had been held in self-defence, which got him nothing but two sharp talons piercing bone, sinew and flesh in split-seconds. His coat was practically torn cloth at this point, the contents of his pockets strewn around his body like a wake. I found one paper note, etched in the salarian language and stamped with an important looking seal.
"Any of you guys know how to read salarian?" I asked them in the midst of their own scavenging.
"Nope..." Shepard got straight to the point, continuing to look through her corpse.
"Sorry, Isaac... I don't either..." Liara shot back as well. Well, that kinda sucks. A world in which every species can understand one another through embedded translators and yet we can't even read one lousy scrap of paper... That's progressive. 'Guess I'd better keep this. Someone might know what it is.' I contemplated, pushing the paper into my own pocket.
Shepard or Allison if you prefer was on her second one at this point and this one just so happened to be an asari. Not that you could tell by face, cause there wasn't any. Not even a head. She did her prediction merely by looking at the colour of her skin, morbid as that may sound. The nametag however drew her attention as did another partial video recording in her front-left pocket.
"Hey, this is the assistant that Dr. Kessel was talking about. Nira, I believe. And she's got a recording." Shepard exclaimed, brandishing the data packet in her hand like a round baton. What was she, some rent-a-cop with an axe to grind?
"Perhaps she can shed light on this... May the Goddess protect her..." Liara prayed yet again, bowing her head in solemn silence. I did the same out of respect. If I was going to end up like a slab of meat on the morgue table, I'd much rather be doing in the company of respectful people rather than grave-diggers and spittoons. Shepard nodded with a slight and proceeded to inserting the packet into her own omni-tool. A few moments of defragmentation and virus scanning went along before the VI chirped up.
"Playing video. Warning. Data severely damaged." It rang. 'Gee, no kidding. With our luck, it'd be rare to find anything in one piece.' I remembered responding in a dry manner to myself.
"Nira, log 19. Just met Matriarch Benezia for the first time! She's so wonderful! All that knowledge she kept spouting, from years of experience even! She even seemed interested in our find! Oh, I can't wait to show her the new offspring! That queen must be really busy. I..." The chipper and enthusiastic voice was cut off by the same thunderous boom as was the last one. She expected more to show and when it didn't, you could tell from the look on her face that she fulfilled her disappointment quota for the day.
"That same explosion..." I heard her lips whisper, not as hushed as she'd like to think.
"Must have freed the Rachni from their pens..." I mused, piecing together what could be gleaned thus far.
"Do you think...?"
"If Saren gets ahold of the Rachni, he'd be unstoppable. Not even the Council would be able to stop him." Shepard mentioned what was on everyone's mind. Obviously, I knew better than that. But come to think of it, it was a nifty little side benefit to this whole enterprise. "We need to..." Shepard began to bark out fresh orders when she halted in her tracks. As if by instinct, I too whipped around as my eyes darted to meet whatever phantom threat she had foreseen.
"What?" I bellowed, too late to catch it in my throat. With that, my insolence was rewarded when a lone Rachni worker leapt out from nowhere and tackled me to the ground with shocking brutality, pinning me under its body weight. My hands held onto its claws in a brave attempt to delay the inevitable.
"Look out!" I heard Liara scream as the howls of the Rachni's signature 'song' came flying out of their mouths. As I lay there struggling with the clingy bastard, my ears were flooded with the rhythmic sound of gunfire and the burning sensation when an expended thermal clip hissed right next to my cheek. Let me tell you, my brain told me to cover my ears and wait for the noise to drone out. My body knew better than to do that with a killing machine still above me like some kink gone horribly wrong. Adrenaline pumped my veins with miraculous abundance, most of it expelled when I nabbed that same thermal clip and jammed it up the Rachni's eyeball as far as I could, sod that it was melting the skin off my palm. For a few seconds, it howled in pain and so did I till silence greeted him and I relinquished my grip on the clip with pained expression.
"Come on, get up." Shepard's cool and calm demeanor looked down upon me. Meekly, I pushed the warm cadaver off my chest, the slick blood dripping on my nice clothes like saliva on a dog owner's feet.
"Don't need to tell me twice..." I sarcastically corresponded. I had the urge to dust myself off, one I silenced instantly without fail.
"How many do you think there are?" Liara's questioning never ceased to irritate. I get that she's supposed to naive from the outset and let the character build during an arc but this was just plain stupid to watch her nitpick on the most basic concepts. Both thankfully and unfortunately, a high pitch growl drew attention from the conversation at hand.
"More than us, Liara. Go!" Shepard barked. We raced past the corridor, hot on our heels the very same killing machines reminiscent of classic 80's from the Western lands. If that sentence didn't tip you off that I'm not a Western fellow, you've been chugging down the bleach too long, pal... Anyway, a literal heads over heels moment occurred running down the dreaded corridor. Drops of thick green slime splattered onto us and we realized that the walls were just wall-to-wall Rachni. Guns raised and fired countless times did little to dent their numbers to which they bolstered tenfold with each fallen comrade.
"Almost there!" I heard Allison exclaim rapturously, her feet pushing her just that bit further. I strained, painfully goading my body to go further, to reach relative sanctuary. For a while, I hadn't even noticed that I was past the archway. All my brain could comprehend was run and run till my feet gave way. The only point I realized was when I heard the door creak shut with a snap and the pounding of a thousand of those talons beating down upon it. Dazed as I was with exhaustion, two shadows that barely resembled Liara and Shepard raced to the door, pushing back on it with all the might they could muster.
"Get something to hold it! Now!" she shouted. My head snapped to attention. I looked around, visibly distraught and stress building like clockwork. Finally, I spied a loose pipe large enough to bolt between the automatic systems. Prying it loose with an audible snap, I thrust it straight into Shepard's awaiting hands.
"Here! Use this!" I exclaimed as I did so.
"Haargghh!" she grunted, shoving it as hard as she could. The door held and we all took a step back. For a few seconds, the pounding never stopped. Thump! Thump! Thump! You should have seen my face pale like a peeled apple, all colour draining out of my cheeks. So you could imagine my relief when the creatures abandoned the chase, enraged and still just as hungry as they were minutes ago.
"Huff... Huff... Pant... That should... that... that should hold them for a while." Shepard remarked, looking back at our handiwork. We were so focused on the front door that we neglected the side door. It wheezed open and out came a loud clack noise, the kind that signalled the bolt of a gun being pulled back.
"Who the hell are you?!" The tonally bland yet authorative voice barked. Shocked, we all spun around hands above our heads. To our relative surprise (barring me), a turian guard was standing dead center in the middle of the door frame.
"Easy. Friendlies... Commander Shepard of the Spectres. This is Liara T'soni and Isaac." Shepard introduced herself, then us in turn. I was a bit bemused when she did not identify me in full. But then again, I didn't exactly provide her with that tidbit of info to begin with.
"A human Spectre? Next, you'll be telling me pigs can fly." The turian lowered his weapon but kept at the ready, his sarcastic tone clear as day. His facial features however indicated his devastation at the supposed meagre aid that was sent their way, meaning no-one knew of their predicament.
"Believe me, I'm as shocked as you are. What's the situation?" She went right back to it. Even as I write this, I still find it incredible how this woman managed to surprise me at every turn.
"Royally screwed, as you humans call it. If you're all the backup we're getting then I don't see our situation improving." The turian replied with wit, shrugging his shoulders. His posture relaxed and the zealous nature of our interruption faded.
"Survivors?" she continued unfazed.
"Three of us, including me. They're in the room next door." The turian pointed a stubby finger towards the small reactor room on his left. Escorted there by our esteemed arrival, we came upon the same scenario that happened in the game. Seeing as how things changed at the drop of a hat, the scenario was just a tad bit different. Coming up to the room, a small pile of corpses was messily tossed outside, the stench starting to kick in. Where once I would have believed it to be an ambush of unfortunate circumstances by the Rachni, I see a failed insurrection with fresh eyes.
"What happened here?" Shepard queried, jabbing a finger to the pile of limbs intersecting one another.
"Bunch of idiots. When we picked up your chatter, these fools rushed us. All they kept yelling was 'In the service of Matriarch Benezia' or whatever. Needless to say, me and my boys took care of them before they took care of us." The turian guard explained plainly. 'Jeez, these people were nuts if they thought they could take on three fully armed guards with... with bare fists.' I found myself pondering. Had they gone liberally insane from the indoctrination or was this just plain suicide?
"Seems odd. Standard protocol for infiltration would be to keep a low profile." Liara verbalized my thought process for me, which was nice of her, I have to admit.
"I don't really give a damn. I just want to get out of here with my head still on my neck." The turian spoke matter-of-factly.
"I hear you. But you'll have to stay put. We're after Matriarch Benezia." Shepard apologized demurely and bluntly at the same time. The turian's beak like head just shook back and forth with a modicum of respect along with a dash of questioning just how sane his backup was.
"Good luck with that. She and her entourage were last seen at the main research lab. That place's crawling with Rachni about now." One of his friends decided to finish the conversation for him.
"Then I guess we'd better get to exterminating then." Shepard chirped with a smirk, brandishing her guns (both of them if you get what I mean...) and leading us away back out into the main corridor.
"We'll be here..." The turian meekly replied behind me as we turned a corner and fell in line. In just mere moments, our squad dynamic was back on track, hopefully to a swift and survivable conclusion. At least, that's what I envisioned. I still felt sick thinking about what was on my armour, looking down to see hardened green puke on my chestplate. Blerggh...
As we were just a few blocks from the research labs, adjoined to the rest of the facility by walkways across a deep gorge, the expected occurred. Damn things just knew when to set upon us, huh? Just like every bad action flick... Anyway, I heard the others shift into high gear, prompting me to do the same across a hallway of glass down potential doom with monstrous aliens on my hide. Great, I feel like peeing in my pants right now when I just think about it.
Heights were never my strong suit nor did I do well under pressure, very few do. So you could imagine the perspiration that beaded my entire body upon seeing that vast horde tumble across the same glass hallway as we were, barrelling like a mass of organic clump. Any horror movie fan or Aliens fan will get the gist of it, though it can't compare to the adrenaline high of witnessing it firsthand. And we couldn't even hope to thin the herd since Shepard barked behind to hold fire until we were all across, lest we tumble into the ravine below with the rest of them. My moment to shine was made abundantly clear as well as my need to survive. Each step was another inch closer to relative safety. I watched Shepard clear the gap, followed closely by Liara, her flailing doctor coat whipping in my field of vision. My hands flung wildly by its side, my bones ached from... something but victory was at hand.
One shot, just one shot and the whole floor underneath me gave way in an instant, panes of glass shattering and showering me in its aftermath. It was soon followed by a cascade of bullets fired in our general direction. Reacting instinctively, I grabbed ahold of one of the support beams as my body fell down to earth. Doing so treated me to a bird's eye view of the carnage up above my head. All those Rachni tumbled as the glass under their feet cracked, sending scores of them down to the ground. The screeches that followed was ear-piercing, dangerously so for I had the urge to slacken my grip and tighten it around my earlobes instead. All that time below, I had to wonder, 'Who the hell started opening fire?'
As it turns out, there were still one or two of Benezia's crazed psychopaths still roaming the halls and in their impatience with their subjects' killing frenzy, opted to take a more hands-on approach. So there I was hanging from a thread while four combatants duked it out above me in a hail of blazing glory. Gunfire erupted on both sides, more so from the opposing side in an attempt to pin them down and draw a bead on me. My eyes stared in horror as the tiny red beam narrowed its distance, culminating in its blinding light slapping onto my cheekbone. Then suddenly, a trick shot. One round and a scream of pain sharpened my senses. I heard a corpse tumble, though I did not anticipate it tumbling right out of view in front of my eyes. The second one I did not see, save for a bloody hand hanging precariously over the edge of the battered corridor.
"How's it hanging down there?" Shepard joked as her beautiful face stared gigglingly at my predicament. Just how did I have the time to give her compliments in the middle of a life or death situation?
"Pull me up before I show you!" I remember exclaiming sarcastically. Shepard chuckled once more as she extended her arm down for me to grab onto. With my remaining free hand, I gripped her armoured glove as tightly as my muscles would let me, feeling her body pull upwards to compensate.
"Come on..." she grunted, struggling to do so. I heard her call out to Liara, who in turn added her own momentum to the mixture. That combination finally dragged me out of my death trap and back onto sweet holy ground.
"Uffff..." they both groaned, collapsing in kind right next to my body.
"You weigh a ton, Isaac." Shepard gasped in exhaustion, still grinning at her ill-advised joke.
"Ha-ha." I played along, swearing petty vengeance in my head. Oh, she was going to pay for that insult...
"Hopefully that's the last of them. We can worry about getting back across later." Liara mused depressingly. I had a feeling the confrontation with her mother was weighing heavily on her conscience, something I could not blame against her.
"Onwards then..." Shepard readily agreed to the notion and without so much as a break or a lull of complacency, we were back on track to a violent fight with Matriarch Benezia. How bloody wonderful...
For the next hour or so, we traversed the catacombs that counted as a research station in near pitch darkness. Each step further into the maze brought even fiercer resistance from both the insane psychopaths Benezia counts among her followers and more Rachni than I wanted to count. Speaking of count, the janitors might need a lot more bleach to keep up with our bodycount.
One of the tougher fights would most certainly have to be the asari commando unit dispatched to 'deal with the intruders with extreme prejudice.' As so said by their head honcho before all hell devolved into even greater hell. For people known to flay enemies alive with their minds, they were pretty much on course with those rumours. One of them spotted me diving for cover, lifting the waist high barrier off the ground and leaving me dangerously exposed. Her arm coolly swept in a turnspike motion, hurtling the rubble across the battlefield, landing mere feet from Liara's trembling body. Our expected response, which is entirely justified by the way was a simultaneous bullet barrage into her body. An acrobat she turned out to be, cartwheeling out of the majority of the rounds, the remainder bouncing off her personal kinetic shields. Liara and I cursed furiously, just as another barrage zinged past our own shocked faces. Me, ever the opportunist barely slipped back into relative safety.
"I've heard of asari commandos as a kid. Never thought I'd be fighting them!" I exemplified, clicking another thermal clip from my SMG and watching hiss away into a corner.
"Neither did I!" Liara bellowed, firing off a couple of rounds after tossing one of her signature singularities. The wormhole barely sucked in any of the five or so hardened specialists, save for one we immediately dispatched cleanly. Still, it was a long way from victory.
"Is there anything we can do to even the odds!?" I screamed over the screeching wails of gunfire drumming in my ears towards our esteemed leader, awaiting a game plan I was sure in my head she had. She's Shepard, right? The one with a plan?
"Wait here!" She seemed to have a lightbulb moment, diving into an adjacent alcove and disappearing from the battlefield as Liara and I huddled in the same spot of cover. Both pairs of eyes locked with each other in confusion and fear, one afraid that Allison had abandoned and the other worried that her plan would not pan out. Guess which state of mind I was in?
"Son of a..." I cursed as bullets slapped the concrete block of masonry that once shielded the facility from the elements, chipping over a sizeable chunk and exposing the rebar used to mold it. Let me tell you, the sight of thick steel pipes jutting out with right next to my cowering head is not a pleasant idea to ponder when the next one could be right through the back of your skull. Liara threw biotic after biotic to keep them in cover and not firing at us, growing even more weary and tired with extended use. Soon, even she had little left to spare for our predicament, not counting the low ammo we were dealing with.
"Give it up! We have you surrounded!" What seemed like the leader of the pack commanded to us. Footsteps crunched shattered glass under their heels, the noise a verbal reminder of approaching doom. Perhaps... No... The count read orange. At most, I had three good shots in me before I blinked red. Liara meanwhile looked too exhausted to even lift her weapon steadily. And like an angel soaring from above to the aid of its creations, Shepard had the proverbial sense to butt in when required.
"What the...?!" A shrill voice hailed, only to be cut short as a steel cargo crate launched out of nowhere smashed headlong into the asari veteran, crushing her between a rock and a hard place, smooshing half the organs in her body. The rest of the unit reacted in kind, their ire drawn to the offending threat lingering in their midst.
"Get her!" I imagined was their unison cry. Not that I bothered to listen for another second. Getting the drop on them was far more important, as evidenced when I popped up and snapped to the nearest target, popping off a single shot. The shell clipped the side of her head, hitting what I presumed to be the earlobe section for asari, if they even had that. The impact tore sinew and blue tint flesh with brutality, sending her down but not out.
"Arggh!" she yelped, comrades frozen in time for a brief moment by the sudden realization of their being flanked, a rookie move when you consider their training. And the rest was as most people would say, history. After that one-two punch, most of the unit was down for the count and the few that were still able to stand fled under a hail of return fire. The kind of ending we would joyously celebrate if it actually had any brevity to it.
"Can I just say... that your people are making the rest of us look bad?" I grumbled, making note of several skin scratches dotting my left arm with waning interest. Seen one injury, seen them all...
"I... I didn't know. I'll try not to embarrass you in future." Liara muttered apologetically, misreading me completely by yards. Again, the misinformation was aggravating on some base level.
"No... Not you... I meant... never mind." I conceded, seeing no reason to waste more time. Shepard was of this same mind, eager to deal with this mess as soon as possible.
"Enough chit-chat... Let's get to the containment labs." She commanded tonally, taking point for the umpteenth time. I had to admit, being behind was a good way to take in the view. As long as she doesn't turn around... Great, now I sound like a sex offender...
So we get to the labs and of course, the tank holds the centrepiece of the decor all by itself. A massive metal holding cell with bulletproof glass coating its sides and dangling from multiple support beams firmly attached to a ceiling. In it was the crown jewel, the Rachni queen itself or herself if you're particular about that sort of thing. I won't get into descriptive poignancy about this particular beast for I had much better things to focus on, such as a large metal desk sailing for my head at light speeds.
"Isacc, get down!" I heard Shepard bark. My body crouched reactively and the projectile smashed into the wall with a slapping sound, denting both itself and the barrier protecting us from the harsh winter conditions. A narrow escape that could be wisely surmised...
"So, you have come this far..." A kind, motherly yet entirely warped voice breached the relative silence that mocked us from out of nowhere. On the catwalk approached Matriarch Benezia, spritely and looking crinkle free considering her age. Then again, asari always did like playing the long game when it came to everything. What's so different about beauty?
"Mother?" Liara responded as I expected, with tears begging to be let out of their ducts and out onto her face. Her nerves steeled, aware that she now had to consider family her new enemy. I still recall her on that day alone, pained in expression too raw to comment or even emote.
"My darling Liara... Must you interfere with work? Did I not send some friends to play with you?" Her mother crooned, putting on a smile that spoke degrees of plain evil right in our eyes. Liara was knocked down a peg even deeper yet optimism still glistened for now.
"Mother, please..." Liara begged right next to me, pleading for her mother to see reason.
"So, you must be the infamous Shepard. Been a rather... pesky thorn in our side." Matriarch Benezia coldly gave Liara the shoulder and focused her attention on Shepard.
"What does Saren want with... with that?" she put it bluntly, betraying naught but indifference in both tone and expression.
"Information... to the one thing that will set the Reapers free. The Mu Relay." Benezia put on an air of grandeur, which drew a painted frown of anger right down my forehead.
"Tell me where it is. Now." Shepard remained blunt in her dealings. Benezia burst out laughing, descending from the catwalk behind her and now inching closer to us with reckless abandon. My trigger finger was just about ready to deal with that itch immediately...
"Hahahaha... Tsk...Tsk...Tsk... You will understand in time and when you do, you will thank us for it." Benezia lapsed, smacking her lips with delight, rounding us in her high heels tapping in rhythm one by one. Inside, I was a nervous wreck, a gibbering pile of mulch waiting to be given just enough of a push to go screaming my head off like a scared little girl in the other direction. And yet somehow, I managed by no small feat to gain my voice and spell out something approaching threatening.
"The lady asked you a question. I suggest you answer it." I hoarsely challenged here, a look of contempt plastered across my face. Matriarch Benezia halted in her tracks, seemingly incredulous to the fact that an unknown guy had just pretty given her the equivalent of a middle finger. But her next words chilled me and terrified me for days on end...
"Bold spirit you have, boy. But let's face it... You have no place being here." She spoke plainly, smirking with those last few syllables. Instantly my head went, 'Does she know? Does Saren know? Hell, do the Reapers know? More importantly, do they have a way of getting me home?' Now don't read this as some kind of betrayal. I knew full well that their dealings would come at a hefty price. But if Shepard or any outstanding law enforcement agency were to stumble on it, I would stand a much better chance than with the Reapers. Because let's face it, Reapers are pretty much a trump card for danger, at least in this universe alone. Leaving no time to pull back from that reeling sensation in my stomach, Benezia decided the time for talk was over.
"Have you ever faced down an asari commando unit before? They enjoy... flaying... your mind... Eliminate them!" she barked with intent layered in her voice. Her pets set loose upon us, we hit the deck and flailed aimlessly for cover so frustratingly in short supply, especially when two vanguards closed the distance and started shearing bits of masonry from the walls. On Shepard's nod, I grabbed Liara who remained catatonic and dragged her into more relative safety behind a set of computers.
"Cover me!" I heard Shepard bark out loud. Orders were orders and my gun was eager to oblige. Leaping out of cover, I did my best Tony Montana impression and peppered the scene with round after round sizzling from my custom SMG. The heat sink started to smoke and the gun beeped just in the nick of time, diving back to see Shepard cover our flank with her shotgun.
"I see at least three on the catwalk, maybe one below them. You?" Shepard poked her head out of her cover spot and relayed the information back to me. With a curt shrug, I decided to have my own go at peeking. For just a split second, I spotted one of the vanguards and a companion of hers crouching behind cover, advancing like an actual police force. My efforts were repaid with lead, a buckshot laden one that nearly tore a hole in my skull had I not stumbled back from the sight of her barrel raising to meet me.
"Son of a..." I cursed, blind-firing to keep them at bay.
"Might have seen two... That makes seven including Benezia?" I barked back.
"No, I didn't see her. She's probably in the control room behind them." Shepard gave her honest opinion on the matter. 'Great, if she's right, we're dealing with a full unit here, no doubt with decades of experience.' I found myself thinking.
"We barely managed to take on five of them last time. How are we going to cope with this?" I spoke incredulously.
"Just give me a second and let me think..." Shepard scrambled to come up with a good game plan. I actually had to goad her to think a little bit faster, considering that those shadows were painting a large picture above us at tension-level paces.
"Well, think faster! Cause they're closing in on us!" I demanded, flustered with fear and distraught. Maybe my luck will turn out well. Just like the last few times... Just as I turned my back to check on the duo, once again Shepard had pulled a disappearing act on us, leaving me with a muttering Liara barely clinging to the token pistol we thrusted into her hands. 'Damn it, Allison. Let me on the plan before you go full Rambo!' I recanted in my head.
As I saw the duo approach our position, weapons raised, I managed to spot the tip of the iceberg poking out from my spot. Reacting quickly, I firmly gripped ahold of the weapon with conviction and yanked it downwards, dragging the unlucky operative down. But I didn't let her freefall, instead opting to grab her and use her as an asari meat shield. Her partner seemed to tense up but laxed considerably, backing a good distance yet still raised and waiting for an opening. Right now, I imagined that their pals on the catwalk were picking out their scoped rifles off their backs and painting me in their sights. And to my credit, that's what they did at first.
All of a sudden, Shepard popped out of nowhere from the ventilation, the grating clanging and knocking unconscious one of the three snipers. With no time to waste, I put aside my ideals of non-violence and subsequent vomiting episode straight to the back of my head, taking a clean shot at the torso of the confused asari commando in my midst. She fell backwards, clutching her wound in pained misery while I kept silent the struggling shield with a simple pistol whip. Upstairs, Shepard had dealt with the last remaining members, though she was sporting a cut lip and frayed hair as her reward. Smiling at me, Allison failed to notice Benezia sneak up on her and prepare to give her the asari equivalent of a double whammy, which I'm prepared to bet involved a lot of biotics turning her entire nervous system into a pain factory.
"Shepard!" I yelled, snapping off a shot blindly. My shot rang true, striking Benezia's leg and nicking her femur. She cried out in pain and struggled to regain composure by which point Shepard had gotten wise on her scheme. Benezia found herself tossed against a filling cabinet, papers scattering her resting place. Her forehead suffered a minor concussion, bruising already starting to swell in mere seconds.
"Game's over, Matriarch. Now, tell me where the Relay is." Shepard coldly remarked, slinging her own firearm and putting a straight bead on her forehead. As I inched closer, Liara in tow, Shepard's expression seemed to soften all of a sudden and her gun went downwards weirdly enough. Just when I was all about ready to convince myself that the indoctrination theory was all but true, Allison numbly parted like the Red Sea, revealing a dazed and confused Benezia muttering incoherently, folded in a human wrap against the wall. Slap on a straightjacket and several leather binds and you could convince yourself you were seeing an asylum patient firsthand. Not that I would have any experience with it... Just saying...
"Wha... Why... Where... am I? What... have I done?" Benezia fearfully replied, shaking her head back and forth with fluidity. Liara, now brimming with newfound energy rushed to her mother's side and cradled like a baby would be cradled by her mother. How ironic did that sound in my head when I made that ill-advised joke...
"Mother!" she cried, grasping her mother tightly in her arms.
"My darling bluebird! Oh, I thought I would never see you again!" Benezia smiled warmly, genuinely at last, hugging her little angel with all her might.
"Mom, we're here. We can get you to a doctor, get you treated. You're going to be fine." Liara rattled off in record time, all of which one by one drew depression on my face. It was hard to watch the newborns comprehend the meaning of certain aspects concerning the Reapers. Certainly much harder seeing them grow in such harsh manner in reality rather than from the comfort of a living room.
"No, my daughter... I can feel it coming back for me. I don't have much time." Benezia mournfully and remorsefully responded, a trickle ebbing down her cheek as her last moments were spent reconnecting emotionally one last time.
"Just stay with me, Mom. You'll make it." I heard Liara whisper in her ear, trying desperately to convince herself.
"I'm sorry, Liara. I'm so sorry..." She apologized over and over. Shepard wistfully looked on, desensitized almost completely from her past to see this as an irregular occurrence. Allison looked like she wanted to leave, allow Liara some privacy to say her goodbyes.
"I don't know where the Mu Relay is. Saren did not entrust me with that information. But the Queen may have the answers you seek." She rallied enough energy to point her wispy finger at the tank for Shepard, to which Allison gave a ready nod.
"Thank you, Matriarch." She said demurely.
"Please, Shepard. Keep my little bluebird safe." She asked of her as she looked longingly into her daughter's eyes, dreaming of moments that will never come to pass. My stomach churned from emotion. How could any normal human being not?
"I will. You have my word." She answered in the positive, bringing some form of alleviation to Benezia's spirits.
"I don't want to remain under its influence. I need you to do this..." She pleaded, practically begged for it to end and not to go back. Liara wouldn't let go, wouldn't give up so easily.
"No... No... You can't ask me to do this. I... I won't..." She cried in anguish.
"You have to. You're so strong now, my little bluebird. I love you. I will always love you." Benezia spoke with care and love coming out of every orifice. With failing will, she relented at last, moving in for one last kiss on her mother's cheek as her final farewell.
"I love you too, Mother." Liara cried out, sobbing as Shepard pulled her aside and held her shoulders with her palms, comforting for all the good it would do.
"I... I don't know if I can do this." Liara mumbled with deep sorrow and regret, her hands shaking rapidly back and forth with a numb sense in them. It wasn't hard to see why and I found myself looking at the scene several times over the course of my journey as the point where things really began to kick into high gear. It was the moment that I decided to invariably change just one tiny variable in the narrative, just to test the limits of believability the hard-coded story would allow and to remove any lingering doubts about living in this harsh environs.
"I'll do it." I replied plainly, stepping forward.
"Isaac..." Shepard tried to stop me dead in my tracks, shaking her head furiously.
"I'll do it. It's the least I can do." I defended myself, giving her a stern look I conjured from the land of bull (&!.
"I'll bring her outside. She doesn't have to see this." Shepard replied, cradling the fragile Liara in her clutches and helping her out the door and back into the main body of the lab. That just left me alone, in a room with a temporary sane Matriarch with insane biotics, though that can be said about most asari. The insane biotics part at the very most...
"What is your name, young man?" Benezia mumbled weakly, strength already waning fast. I leaned down closer to her, mixed feelings still burning in.
"It's Isaac." I responded with the same white lie since I've been here.
"You have my eternal gratitude, Isaac. Thank you." She nodded with a stout smile, strained as she was.
"Matriarch Benezia, I must ask if you have come across a purple crystal in your travels. It's called Kronostyl-2." My mouth went wide open. Instantly, I reprimanded myself for my selfishness. 'How could you ask such a thing when the woman's dying right in front of you?' I scolded in my head. Fortunately, Benezia did not see reason to deny my request, granting with her final bouts of energy.
"A few deposits exist on Tora Vali. But Saren has already strip-mined most of them. Last I heard, there was still one deposit left untouched." She told me in a hushed tone. I stood back, giving her a curt nod. Our eyes locked and her smile remained ever present. Second by second, her eyelids blinked rapidly, struggling to stay afloat till at last her body went limp and numb, her head slumped against the desk next to her and her eyes dripped open.
"Thank you." I muttered back, reaching out to her and tenderly folding her eyes down respectfully.
'Sigh... Am I really going to do this? I mean, I know the stakes. There's no coming back from indoctrination. I don't know whether to call it mercy or otherwise.' Distraught, I noticed that Benezia no longer stirred sanely, her lips starting to etch into that indistinguishable broken smile and crazed eyes that defined her indoctrinated state. So, it really did come down to that... Me in a room with a gun held high about to change myself. For better or worse, I had only myself to blame.
"So much for debating..." I mused hopelessly. A heavy heart on my shoulder fell silent and the gun just went off. It was clean. It was sanitary. It felt like giving a mental patient his last rites, poking a needle full of morphine right into his veins. But as I watched blood and brain matter pour like a faucet from Benezia's drooped head, my expression simply softened and I allowed a single shed tear to poke at my cheeks. I was a killer now... There could be no question about that aspect any longer...
Done and done... I decided to do one long chapter covering most of Noveria since I really want to get Act 1 or Mass Effect 1 out of the way. Next time, we move to somewhere original and fresh... Hopefully... Until then, see you next time.