Chapter 11: Cerberus
February 21st, 2183
SSV Normandy SR1
I set down my drink on my table and leaned back on the couch. I sighed, closed my eyes, and began thinking. We left the Citadel yesterday, and hopefully we'll get some more things done. Just as I began slowly drifting off to sleep, I heard my terminal ping over on my desk. I raised myself up, stretched, and walked over to see what was up.
Apparently, the Council just sent me some intel on some potential missions for me. The message containing the files didn't mention much. I clicked on the first file, and it turned out to be a news clip. "ExoGeni Corp. Denies Reports of Missing Survey Team". Interesting enough. I scrolled down to continue reading. "ExoGeni Corp. is still denying reports that one of their survey teams has gone missing in the Hades Gamma cluster. When asked why communication with the survey team was suddenly cut off last week, company officials refused to comment." Great. Time to find a lost survey team, I guess.
I downloaded the files onto my omnitool, and clicked on the next file in the message. Great, another news clip. I didn't bother reading the headline. The moment I saw "Breaking News", I knew it was going to be bad. "Chairman Burns of the Parliament Subcommittee on Transhuman Studies has been kidnapped by biotic extremists." I knew it. "The biotics commandeered a freighter and were last seen in the Hades Gamma cluster. No demands have yet been made." Jesus, another thing going wrong in the Hades Gamma cluster. I downloaded the file onto my omnitool and closed my terminal. Well, at least this gives me something to do. Not many other developments on Saren and the Geth besides Noveria and Feros. I still have to pick up Dr. T'Soni, too. Great. I knew that being a Spectre would make me busy and all, but not to this point.
I grabbed my drink from the table, opened the door, and walked out to the Mess. I left the unfinished drink on the counter, grabbed a cigarette from my pocket, and began smoking it. Man. All of this is just so stressful. I've forgotten how relieving just having a smoke every now and then is. Just as I was about to go down to the cargo bay, Joker called down over the ship comms. "Commander, I've got a message for you. Just came in over a secure channel." I sighed. Great. "Send it through to my omnitool." I heard him press a few buttons in the background. "Alright Commander, it's been transferred." I opened my omnitool and opened the sound file. The voice I heard was Kahoku's. "Shepard, this is Admiral Kahoku. I found out who set that trap for my men, the ones killed by those thresher maws." He sounded really panicked. What happened? "Damn, I hope you get this message." There was a moment of silence. I heard him breathing heavily in the background. "It was a group called Cerberus. Some sort of human black ops organization. Extremely secretive, only the highest-level brass have intel on it." He took another moment to breathe. "Even Alliance Intelligence lost track of them a few months ago. They dropped right off the grid. Now, nobody has any idea where they went or what they were up to." He paused for a moment. "They're up to no good, Shepard. They're conducting illegal genetic experiments. They're trying to create some kind of super soldier." He was getting more panicked. "I don't have any proof, but I found the coordinates for one of their research worlds. I'm uploading them with the message. They're completely out of control. Somebody needs to stop them. I've done my part. Now, it's up to you." He paused again, and when he began talking, his voice was softer. "This is... this is the last you'll hear from me. Cerberus is after me now. I need to disappear before they find me." The message cut off abruptly following what sounded like yelling. I opened the file with the coordinates, and sent them to Joker. "Joker, take us to those coordinates ASAP. We've gotta see what this is all about." I heard Joker punch in the coordinates, and I felt the ship begin moving faster. "Aye-aye, sir. We'll be there ETA 3 hours."
3 hours later
Binthu
The Mako landed roughly on the surface of the planet. The sky was cloudy, and the atmosphere of the place just seemed... off. Garrus was looking around in the turret. "Negative contacts, Commander. We're free to move." Wrex was checking the map for the locations of the bases. "I've got the first place marked out, Shepard. We should probably get moving. Can't miss the action, am I right?" I chuckled, began driving towards the first location, which was a little less than a kilometer away.
After a rough drive over hills and a small mountain, we reached the first facility. The moment we approached the entrance to the bunker with the Mako, we came under fire from heavy defenses nearby. After a bit of shooting and driving, both turrets had been destroyed. We pulled up to the entrance, and climbed out. We drew our weapons. "Alright. Be prepared to encounter the unknown in here. They're doing some pretty shady stuff, so be careful." I pressed the button, and we entered into the bunker.
The first room was relatively dark, and filled with smoothly cut rocks. For what, I don't know. We made our way across the room, and came to a door on the other side. I hit the button, and the door slammed open. We entered as silent as we could. A large portion of the center of the room had been walled off by a containment field, and we couldn't see what was inside. However, we could hear what sounded like scientists and Cerberus operatives on the other side of the room. We made our way around the side, and what do you know. Cerberus operatives. Wrex began throwing some of them around with his biotics while Garrus was picking them off with his sniper rifle. I tapped him on the shoulder. "Cover me, I'm moving across." He nodded, and kept firing. I peeked out and dashed behind a console nearby. I peeked out, but I saw something peeking out behind some crates. I squinted to see it better. A laser sight aimed on my head. I quickly ducked back behind cover, and saw a round knock over the crates behind me. Fuck, a sniper. I pointed out the sniper's location on my hud, and began firing in that general direction with my pistol. The sniper relocated eventually, and I saw Garrus pick him off as he was moving to a different cover. Eventually, Wrex smashed the last one's head against a wall, and we knew that the room was clear.
We came over to the console controlling the containment field and tried to find any information on what was inside. "Test Subjects 30, 31, 32: Failure". Jesus. I closed the containment field and we finally saw what had happened to the subjects. They had been completely transformed into something like zombies. Their hands had become like talons, and their faces were disfigured. There was blood all over them. They began charging us. It took way too many rounds to put them down. When they were on the ground, we had to put extra rounds in them to make sure that they were actually dead. We began inspecting the bodies, and found that none of them were of Admiral Kahoku. Garrus looked at me after nudging one of the bodies. "He has to be at one of the other labs. Let's keep searching."
It took another long drive and more destroyed turrets for us to reach the next lab. When we got inside, the first room was almost exactly like the first lab's. Why do they need all this stone? I don't know. We might find the answers later. When we came into the next room, it looked the same as the other lab. A containment field was up, and there were Cerberus operatives around the room. We immediately got to work, and the Cerberus operatives were decimated within minutes. I have to admit, these guys are good, but we're better. Wrex was laughing when he blasted the last guy with his shotgun. "This is my kind of mission, Shepard! Makes me feel great!" While Garrus and Wrex searched the bodies, I opened the containment field, expecting to find more of those zombie things. But this time, they were bugs. Rather large bugs. Like, the size of my foot large. They began charging towards me, so we all began firing on them. One of them kept dodging our fire, so Wrex stomped on it hard. Got slime all over his armor, too. Garrus looked around for a moment, and then turned to me. "Kahoku isn't here. Let's get to that next lab. Hopefully he's there."
Again, more driving and more turrets that we had to destroy to reach the last lab. Does Cerberus not even bother making their defenses somewhat unpredicatble? We entered the lab, and like the other two labs, the first room was filled with stone and was dimly lit. And just like the others, the next room had a massive containment field and large amounts of Cerberus operatives. Seriously. They need to change up their defenses every now and then.
We used the same tactics as before. Wrex and I up front, Garrus in the back providing covering fire. It worked as smoothly as before, with Cerberus operatives dropping left and right. I haven't had this much fun in a long time. Reminds me a lot of all the stuff I did back in Philly... anyway, I don't have time to think. I dropped one of the operatives with a headshot, and he fell onto the console controlling the containment field. What was inside was... a massive bug thing? I don't know. Wrex dropped another operative with a blast from his shotgun, and then he noticed the bug thing. It was like he recognized it. "Rachni?!" He charged it, and tackled it to the ground. He ripped off one of its legs, and stabbed it plenty of times with it. He got up, and he was covered in what seemed to be the bug's blood. Garrus and I came over to him. "Rachni? They shouldn't be here." Garrus nudged the corpse with his rifle. "Well, then again, none of us should be." He noticed something behind me. He pushed me aside, and began approaching it with his pistol drawn. "Hey, you! Come out!" I looked behind me. A scientist had hidden from us behind some crates. "Please, don't shoot! I'm unarmed!" Garrus grabbed him by the collar, and dragged him over to the corpse of the Rachni. "Why is this here?" The scientist shook his head. "I have no clue! Please! Don't hurt me!" Garrus raised his gun to strike him across the back of the head, but I shoved him aside. "Garrus, that's not how we go about things!" He sighed. "Commander, there's no other way to get him to talk!" I looked back at the scientist. He was praying to God for mercy. "Let me have a word with him." I knelt down beside him. "Listen, buddy. If you just tell us what's going on here, we'll let you go, ok?" He sniffled. "Ok, ok. We were testing the Rachni. Seeing their effects on humans." He pointed to a corpse nearby. "He was our test subject." I helped the scientist up, and pushed him towards the door. "Go, before we change our minds." He began running towards the exit.
We walked over to the body. He was face down, and wearing an Alliance officer uniform. There were needle marks all over his body. I turned him over, and... my God. It's Kahoku. I knelt down and checked him for a pulse. None. Garrus knelt down as well. "No signs of trauma. He wasn't killed by that Rachni, sir." We stood up, and began walking towards the exit. Wrex snorted. I looked over at him. "What?" "What if we got revenge?" He handed me a datapad. "This was on one of those eggheads. It's the location of another research facility." I took a look at it for a moment. Goddammit. "Just what we needed."