Hello again. Today's thanks go out to commentors Kudara and Pinkstranger. In other news, happy birthday to me! You know what I want for my birthday? That's right, comments and reviews. Thanks! Enjoy!
Ch. 11 This Is The End Of The Chase
Kaiden glanced over at Tali's omni-tool, keeping the tunnel lit with his own. "We getting close?" Working their way through the dark tunnel was unnerving. They were swimming through ink, unable to tell if the tunnel would make a sudden turn or drop.
"Nearly there, Commander." She looked over at him. "And it still feels strange calling you that."
He smiled a little, "From what I hear, I should be calling you Tali'zorah vas Normandy."
Tali shook her head, eyes rolling behind her mask, "Have you heard that whole story? Shepard was brilliant."
"She usually is."
"Back on the first Normandy, I remember thinking that all humans must be like her." Tali shrugged, glancing over at Kaidan. "And I couldn't understand why no one liked humanity. Sometimes I still don't, after all she's done. Always sweeping in at the last moment to save the galaxy."
Kaidan looked back at Tali, watching her a moment. He nodded at last, "Yeah. In her way she may constitute an entire second front."
"Shh!" Bester said suddenly, holding up her rifle. "Did you hear that?"
They froze in the dark, putting their backs to one another and listening. Then they all heard it. A low moan echoing off the dead walls.
"Husks!" Tali hissed, her light darting to the sound.
It was human in shape, crawling up through a chute. It was blacker in the dark, grotesque under the dancing beam of the flashlight. Its eyes were blue and illuminated, tendons and muscles flexing with faint blue lights coursing through its veins. It moaned again, pulling itself out of the opening completely. There was another husk right behind it.
"Shoot it, shoot it!" Kaidan shouted, pushing his arm out to sweep the husks back with his biotics. The husks tumbled backwards into the dark, and the passage was lit up with gunfire as both women unloaded their weapons into the crawling creatures.
"Nine o'clock!" Bester called out, spinning to fire in another direction. There was another narrow chute in the ground, and another steady stream of husks was pouring out.
"Shhhit," Kaidan spun, firing at the second wave of husks.
Tali danced backwards, tapping her omni-tool and releasing a brilliant ball of light towards the husks. The combat drone rolled towards the creatures, pulling them towards it like moths to a flame. The husks groaned, turning to follow the drone, punching at it angrily.
The long narrow corridor had zero cover, and Kaidan was in no rush to crouch behind a dead Collector. "Good, Tali!" he called out. Perfect distraction. These things didn't try to dodge bullets; they ran right into them and into you until you dropped them. "Keep it up!"
He heard Bester scream in the darkness, and he spun to the sound, pointing his light in her direction. She had been knocked to the ground, four husks over her, beating her mercilessly. He cursed, sweeping his arm and sending the husks floating into the air with his biotics. Huffing, Bester picked up her SMG and picked off the floating creatures.
"It's too dark, I can't see where they are coming from!" Tali yelled over the gunfire, watching her drone blink out of existence and leave that end of the tunnel pitch black again.
"Keep sending those drones, Tali. Bester, keep closer to us. Back to back!" Kaidan stepped back, closer to Tali as Bester scrambled to her feet, popping her thermal clip. When she put her shoulder against his, Kaidan could feel her trembling. "Keep firing, Lieutenant!" he shouted.
Tali grunted, shoving away a husk with the butt of her shotgun, kicking at it angrily. "I hate these things, I hate these things…" She fired another blast, then blinked as she peered down the tunnel. Something was lit down there, an orange glow around the corner growing brighter as it came closer. "Keelah!"
"What?"
"The blow-up ones!"
"They have blow-up ones now?"
The glowing, flaming husk had rounded the corner now and Tali let out a shriek, "Yes! Shoot it, shoot it! Kill it!"
Kaidan punched a husk off him, and rounded towards the glowing abomination, gritting his teeth as he unloaded his pistol into it. He was popping his thermal clip when he felt another husk slam into him, grabbing at his gun and pushing him back into Bester. "God damn it!" He threw down the pistol, kicking the husk away as he pulled out his shotgun, blasting the husk into black gooey chunks.
The abomination was still advancing, moving faster now that it had spotted them. Tali was screeching, "Back up, back up!" Bester was firing wildly at it, scrambling backwards.
It continued to close in on them, running and spitting flames. Kaidan rounded back on the advancing abomination and fired. He was blinded and thrown to the floor with the force of the husk's blast as it exploded, throwing sticky wet bits of itself in all directions. He felt someone or something land limply on top of him, and for a terrifying moment he was certain it was Bester or Tali. He blinked, wiping at the visor of his helmet, waiting for his vision to clear. "Sound off!"
"Bester!"
"What? Oh. Tali'zorah. Ugh." He heard a wet impact, then another shotgun blast. "Keelah… I think that's all of them."
Kaidan shut his eyes tightly, pushing himself back to his feet, feeling what had to be a dead husk roll off him. The exploding husk had actually worked to their advantage, taking out the last of the husks with it. He opened his eyes, lifting his light and squinting down the tunnel. "Injuries?"
"Singed," Bester said, running a hand over her helmet, checking for damage. "Otherwise fine."
"Tali?"
Tali shook her head, looking over herself, turning a dial at her hip. "Minor breach in the suit. Nothing to worry about."
Kaidan felt sweat dripping over his ear and shook his head to shake it off. He was surprised to spot blood droplets on the corner of his visor. He grimaced and turned to look down the tunnel. "Okay. Worst might be over. Let's move out."
The elevator down to Vigil opened to reveal a Collector corpse. Shepard stepped back in surprise. "Shit," she whispered, then bent down to inspect it. No gunshot wounds. No wounds of any kind. It was lying here with its legs and arms tucked into its chest like a dead spider.
"We may not find any alive," Samara murmured, lifting the dead creature with her biotics and floating it out of the elevator.
Shepard frowned, stepping into the elevator. She first pressed the controls, then the comm in her ear. "Kaidan, how are things going up there?"
His response was breathless, "Ran into some husks. Found one half dead Collector. Otherwise this place looks empty. Still making our way to the ship's controls."
"Be careful. We're descending towards Vigil now."
"Always, Commander."
Shepard closed her eyes and let out an exhale as the elevator lumbered slowly down the tunnel into the depths of Ilos.
"Liara came here last with you, did she not?" Samara asked quietly, leaning to the side to peer out the narrow slats in the elevator. Outside a huge room could be seen, lined with oval pods containing long dead Protheans. The life support units had turned into sarcophaguses long ago.
"She did, yes." Shepard glanced over at the asari. "She actually wished that we could have stayed longer so that she could study the ruins."
"Perhaps we will have time to bring her something back?" Samara's brows lifted questioningly as she glanced back at the Commander.
Shepard studied her a long moment. Samara had latched onto Liara after Morinth's death. The Justicar was an expert at suppressing her own emotions. She was only a tool of her Code, and strove to be nothing more. But being forced to kill her own daughter was no easy task, and it must have weighed more heavily on her mind than she would ever let on. Her other two daughters, from what Shepard could gather, were estranged.
Liara T'Soni had lost her own mother only two short years ago, and was no doubt equally eager to find a maternal figure in her life. Shepard often caught Samara at the extranet terminals these days, communicating frequently with the young asari. Both were searching without even being fully aware of the fact, and they had found each other. Shepard nodded to the Justicar, "After we're done here. We can try, sure. And take plant samples," she added, catching Mordin's frown.
The elevator stopped, and the doors opened like a hungry mouth to reveal a huge, cavernous room, the tall walls lined with more circular pods. There was a long narrow platform running down the middle of the room that was filled with Collectors. There were at least fifteen of them here; standing or sitting slumped with postures of complete exhaustion. Two Collectors were on the far end of the platform, hammering at the ancient VI controls with their fists. The VI calling itself Vigil had stopped working two years ago, and Shepard was the last one to activate it.
A few of the Collectors turned to look at Shepard's team, and then casually looked back at the front of the platform. They all moved sluggishly, yellow eyes dim, and the pink flesh that could be seen under their exoskeleton was pale. Shepard had her rifle at the ready as soon as the doors had opened, but when no attack came, she stepped back and raised a brow. "Why aren't they shooting?" she asked Mordin in a whisper.
"Don't know," Mordin responded, his own pistol held at the ready. "Perhaps no strength for a fight."
"What should we do, Commander?" Samara asked in a low voice, her body crackling with biotic energy.
Shepard wetted her lips, eyes narrowed. She sucked in a breath and called out, "There is nothing here for you anymore. These people are dead."
Half the Collectors looked at them again. Some sat, wings sagging, chests rising and falling with labored breaths. The two at the front went on fiddling fruitlessly with the VI.
Shepard stepped forward, pointing her gun at the ground, "Do you hear me? Do you understand?" There was another recording on Ilos, badly damaged. It had spoken the Prothean language that Shepard had been able to understand. She couldn't exactly speak the dead tongue on command, however. "These people are dead, there is nothing here." The Collectors gave no sign of understanding and went on ignoring her.
"Pointless," Mordin muttered almost sadly.
Shepard took another step forward, and finally one of the healthier looking Collectors reacted. It stepped forward and pushed her back, quickly lifting its particle beam and fired at her. Shepard heard her kinetic shield shatter as she was thrown back.
Mordin let out a shout of alarm, lifting his pistol and firing at the Collectors. The sickly creatures had no barriers up to deflect the shots, and his blasts ripped through them as if he were firing at rotten fruit.
Samara, meanwhile, swept her arms. A biotic wave rolled from her, knocking the Collectors, one after another, off the platform and into the air before plummeting down to the ground far below. Only the two at the far end of the platform remained.
Shepard grunted in pain, rolling back to her feet. That was a stupid thing for her to do, wasn't it? There were going to be bruises. Mordin was jogging ahead, aiming at the remaining Collectors while Samara stopped to help Shepard up. She heard gunfire as the salarian executed one, and then he turned to the other.
"What would the Code say about this?" Shepard murmured, resting a hand on her stomach as her gaze found the last Collector. She couldn't bring herself to kill off the last rachni queen in that laboratory on Noveria, even with the possibility of her attacking, or creating an army and striking back. The queen had begged for mercy. Here was the last of the Collectors, sitting a few feet away, just looking back at them, not fighting, not even attempting to protect itself as Mordin held his pistol to its head.
"A Justicar who is all merciful is a Justicar who is unjust."
"Killing them is merciful." Mordin said in a low voice, his pistol held firm at the last Collector. "Not Protheans. Not anything. Slaves. Dying. Doomed. Killing is most merciful option."
Samara watched him before asking in cool, calm tones, "Then why aren't you shooting it?"
The salarian flicked his gaze to her, then back at the Collector, his lips pulled back in a grimace. Finally, he exhaled, his shoulders sagging.
"I've got this, Mordin," Shepard said, hand resting on his shoulder a moment, gently guiding him back. She couldn't let Mordin kill the creature, not when he still struggled with his part in the krogan genophage. She stepped forward, lifting her own pistol at the last Collector. Its head rolled to the side, gaze focusing on the rows upon rows of pods, only a handful of the thousands of dead Protheans that filled the ancient ruins. Shepard let out a long exhale and pulled the trigger. The creature shuddered briefly, then slumped over dead.
And that was when she heard the screaming.