AN:- A nice long chapter to return to writing again.
Chapter Eleven: Mordin Solus
They found the clinic easily enough. Someone had been kind enough to put out neon signposts that led them the rest of the way. They passed a guard and some mechs, which focused guns on them until they had holstered their weapons. The guard gave them a smile which didn't reach his eyes, "No fighting while you're in there." She nodded to him and they went in, the smell of antiseptic and blood mingling to assault her nostrils.
There were dozens of aliens inside, some of them stretched out on benches, or huddling in corners, while others managed to stay upright, leaning on the walls or supported by companions. Everywhere she saw the effects of the plague, open sores and smears of blood on their skin and their clothes. "Where's Doctor Solus?" She asked a flustered looking man at the desk.
"He's in the back working on a patient," His eyes were fixed on the pistol at her hip as he answered, but he didn't try and stop her. Apparently he had enough faith in the doctor that not even three heavily armed soldiers worried him.
She crossed the room and found herself looking into a dimly lit surgery; a salarian with an injured horn was working feverishly over the body of a batarian on the table. He was rattling off instructions to his aide at such speed that Shepard marvelled that the assistant was able to keep up.
"Mordin Solus?" She asked cautiously.
The salarian spun and cast an eye over their party, ignoring her and going straight over to Kasumi, running a bioscanner up and down her body, "Fracture of the tibia, internal bruising, nothing too serious, she can rest over there," He indicated a space, and Taylor took her over to it.
He turned his attention to her, "Human, curious don't recognise you from area, too well armed to be refugees, no mercenaries uniform, quarantine still in effect. Here for something else? Vorcha, crew to clean them out? Unlikely. Vorcha a symptom not a cause the plague investigating possible use as bioweapon, no no no no no," He didn't seem to be stopping for breath, "Too many guns, not enough data equipment,. Soldiers, not scientists, yes, yes..."
"Relax Mordin." She held up a hand and he froze, mouth still open, staring at her, "I'm Commander Shepard and I'm here to find you, I'm on a critical mission and I need your help."
"Mission? What mission? No, no, no, no, too busy, clinic understaffed, plague spreading too fast, who sent you?"
"Ever heard of an organisation called Cerberus?"
"Crossed paths on occasion, thought they only worked with humans, alien involvement surprising, racial tension with humans unlikely to help a human-centric organisation."
"You'd be surprised, we have a turian on board right now." She stepped closer, trying to ignore the batarian's laboured breathing. Presumably Solus wouldn't be talking to her if it was essential to keep working. "Human colonies have been disappearing, attacked, we think, by the Collectors."
"Collectors? Interesting. Plague hitting the slums is engineered, Collectors one of few groups with technology to design it," She hadn't even thought of it that way, but then he had been working in the slums for weeks. "Our goals may be similar, but must stop plague first." He considered her, and she got the impression he was about to ask her to do something for her. Almost everyone she met seemed to want that. "Already have a cure need to distribute it at environmental control centre, vorcha guarding it, need to kill them."
She resisted the urge to sigh. Less than a week awake and already she was about to start on the same nonsense as last time, 'of course I can help you get into the garage Commander, just a little job I need to finish first… She shuddered with the memory of Noveria. "I'll get in and deal with the vorcha."
He nodded and went to retrieve his cure, but before he could complete the journey there was a sudden whirring and then silence. Shepard wondered why that worried her so much, and then realised a second before Solus spoke what was wrong.
"Vorcha have shut down environmental systems," The constant whirring had been the sound of air filters working to keep the air around Omega clean enough to breathe, "Trying to kill everyone need to get district back on before everyone suffocates here take plague cure, also bonus in good faith," He drew a gun from off his back, and held it out to her. "Weapon from dead blue suns mercs, may come in handy."
Shepard took the gun and waited a moment while her memory modifications told her that it was a Carnifax, commonly referred to as the 'Hand Cannon.' She nodded to Solus and led her team out through the back of the clinic.
"One moment," She stopped and turned, "Have assistant, Daniel, left clinic and haven't heard from him. If you would..."
She nodded, "If I see him, I'll send him back."
They were barely out of the clinic before they heard shots ringing out and the Blood Pack were on them. A big krogan stood behind them, directing the battle. Shepard swore and skidded into cover, trusting her team to do the same. If the vorcha were being directed, then it was going to be a much harder fight than usual.
She drew the pistol Solus had given her and leant out from the cover, one of the vorcha had left himself half exposed, and she had a perfect shot right into the back of his spine. The gun kicked like a mule, and a massive hole appeared in his back. She reeled back into cover and shrugged her shoulder to relieve some of the tension. Most guns hadn't had recoil since the introduction of mass effect fields into the field of weaponry. To have an actual kick the gun must have been loaded for bear.
Her squad was doing their part, cutting down the numbers bit by bit, but she wanted the krogan for herself. Sliding herself carefully to the end of her cover and slid slowly towards the krogan, who was paying too much attention to the battle to notice her. Leaning out to make sure he was in range, she drew her pistol, followed by the knife she always kept tucked into her boot.
Now or never Shepard.
She threw herself round the corner and sprinted the few feet to the enemy, leaping into the air and bringing her right hand down with full force, the knife sliding easily into the krogan's eye. Her momentum carried her further round until she was spread eagled across the ganger's back as he roared in anger and tried to throw her off. She held on with sheer determination, the knife caught in the krogan's skull, holding her in place.
Growling, she managed to get her pistol into position, sitting a little way behind the krogan's left eye. She pulled the trigger and felt herself pushed off as the recoil of the pistol broke her precarious grip. She came rolling to a stop and raised her gun again; relaxing a hair as a full ton of armoured came crashing to the floor in front of her. She spun on her heel to see that her team had already mopped up the vorcha.
She felt a grim smile tugging the corners of her mouth up. "Come on."
xxx
They raced up some stairs and found a short corridor, two doors leading off it. She pushed herself against the wall next to the door on the left and motioned for Miranda to get on the other side and open it. The moment the door slid open she heard a batarian yelling at someone about the clinic. I suppose this would be Daniel.
She made sure they heard her as she approached. "Hello boys," They whipped round, and half a dozen guns were trained on her in a second. Behind her she heard Miranda and Taylor ready their own, but she waved a hand and they dropped them again. "What exactly is going on here?"
"He works for the doctor, and he's a human." The leader of the group stepped forwards, "He knows about this plague."
"Really? Every human must know about the plague because they don't get it? And working for a doctor who's been curing people en masse is clearly a bad idea." She crossed her arms, "The vorcha don't get it either, are you going after them?"
"The vorcha aren't smart enough." The batarian looked like he wanted to lower his weapon, which was at least some improvement on the tension. "Why do you care anyway?"
"Oh I just don't like bullying. Or killing." She nodded to the others, "My teammates however, are a lot more trigger happy, especially in the presence of non-humans, so unless you want them to start getting worried, we have two options. Either you leave this man alone, then get out of here, or..." Behind her she heard Taylor shift his aim, and thought it was probably emphatic enough.
"I'm sure human," He had been staring at her ever since she had walked in, trying to make out her face, which was half in shadow. She didn't like interacting with batarians, she was too well known among them. Ever since she had survived the raid on Mindoir, a number of batarians she had met seemed to think she was determined to hunt them down.
Recognition flickered in his face and he stepped back, his pistol raised again, "So, Shepard," The others tensed at the name, "You'd just let us go?"
She chuckled, "I'm hardly the killer you think I am. Let him go, and you get to walk out of here."
They kept the guns raised, the leader eyeing her as only a batarian could. She kept herself as relaxed as she could manage, trying to ignore what the array of weapons pointing at her could do if things went south. Focusing on the leader, she tried to keep eye contact.
He grunted, and his elbow relaxed, the gun slowly raising, "I don't wanna die. Guns down." The others glanced at him, and he barked again, "Guns down." They complied, and behind her Miranda and Taylor lowered theirs. "So what now? We just go?"
She nodded, "You might want to think about staying out of this area. Get back to Mordin Solus' clinic. We're going to be clearing out everything from here to the environment control centre."
The leader nodded, then waved at his gang. "Come on boys, let's get out of here."
Miranda waited until they were gone, then stepped up next to her, "We could well run into them in the very next room."
"Yeah, well, at least we gave them the chance."
The assistant was standing, "Thank you, so much."
"Solus is waiting for you back at the clinic."
"Yeah…" He looked sheepish, "Thanks again."
He scurried out.
"Now can we please get on with our mission?" Taylor growled.
xxx
Through door number two they found a two layer plaza, with a walkway opposite them and a team of Blood Pack armed with rocket launchers. Once more Shepard found herself sliding in behind a low wall to get out of the way as a trio of rockets blasted apart an artistically placed flower box.
I seem to spend every fight these days crouching behind a chest high wall, waiting to pop my head up and knock some sense into a never ending stream of enemies. She mused as she waited for a lull in the opposing fire. Whatever happened to the days when personal shielding actually protected you from things? The pause she had been waiting for came, and she swung herself out of cover and stitched fire across the upper balcony.
"Miranda!" She saw the agent's hair whip round, "Get downstairs, we'll cover you." She waited another second then ducked out again and opened fire, taking out at least one of the rocket-wielding gangers. Taylor joined her, his assault rifle chattering loud enough to drown out the whoosh of another rocket.
Shepard saw it a second before it hit her and the entire world seemed to slow. The rocket filled her vision, and all she could see was the blinking blue light that signalled it was active, the cloud of smoke behind it, and the flicker of fire driving it on. Dimly she heard a shout, and the roar of gunfire, but it seemed to be coming from a long way off. She felt something inside her take over, some instinct she didn't even know she had, and almost felt the whir of the cybernetics that she now had instead of nerves and muscle. Her torso shifted, faster than she could think, and the rocket went zooming past, in slow motion to her, allowing her to see every detail, and read the serial number off the side as it blazed past.
The world returned to normal, and she was buffeted by a shockwave from behind as the rocket detonated a half foot away from her. Taylor was yelling at her, and her shield was beginning to spark dangerously under the combined firepower of the Blood Pack.
She ducked back behind cover, vaguely aware that Taylor was reprimanding her for being reckless, and slid her rifle off her back. While the world had gone into slow-motion, an event she had been wholly unprepared for by the way, she had gotten a pretty good look at the gunman, and where exactly he was hiding. She found him in the sight a second later, his helmeted head just visible above the railing. She fired and the entire top half exploded, sending him catapulting forwards where she had a clear shot right into his ribs.
"I need help down here Shepard," Miranda sounded calm, but when Shepard looked over the balcony she saw that the agent was in danger of being overrun.
"Taylor, move to assist."
The soldier nodded and threw himself over the edge, coming down hard on top of a vorcha and crushing it to the floor under his boots. Lovely. Shepard kept her rifle out and started to pick off some of the more exposed Blood Pack.
It seemed to take forever, but eventually the last of them fell to a combined assault from Miranda and Taylor, and they were free to go through the doors on the other side of the room and rush up the stairs, Shepard taking a split second to blow another vorcha in half.
She slid open the door and saw three massive fans straight ahead of her. I guess this would be the Environmental Control Centre. She didn't have long to admire it before a volley of shots went over her head. Here we go again. She found a suitable wall, cursing the new shielding systems which couldn't shield you from anything, and ducked behind it.
There weren't that many vorcha guarding the room, and Shepard simply sat back and let Miranda and Taylor do their thing. Once they had finished clearing up the foot soldiers Shepard raced to the first console and turned the environmental controls back on, the fans giving a disquieting rattle as they started, but soon settling into the quiet rumble that had been missing from the slums. She breathed a sigh of relief and took out the jar of antidote.
"This needs to go into the air intake filters, then it can get shoved out into the normal atmosphere." She indicated the two doors and tossed a vial each to Miranda and Taylor, "Let's just get this done and get the hell out of here."
"Understood."
xxx
She waited by the main control as her team rushed off to carry out her orders, taking some time to collect spare heat sinks from the bodies scattered round. I know I used to collect weapon mods from my enemies, but there is a big difference between that and scrounging for bullets when I should be secure in the knowledge that my guns will fire when I need them to. She resolved to stop whining about the ammo clips until she could find out the full story behind the conversion, but it was difficult as she found that once more her ridiculously small pouch was filled to capacity.
She turned, planning to head back to the central control unit, but a scraping noise stopped her. Crouching behind a box, she peered over the edge to see a team of vorcha coming in, actually taking the time to be stealthy instead of just barging in like she was used to seeing them do. After they had all entered a pair of krogan stomped in and started to direct them.
"Spread out, check the air intake filters, the cure will be distributed there." The vorcha split in two, each group going to a filter room. Shepard cursed softly and slid down to the ground, breathing hard.
The air filter rooms were tiny, little more than metal boxes filled with computers. No cover and no exit. If the vorcha cornered Miranda and Taylor in those rooms then it would be over in a matter of seconds. The only positive was that with the entire contingent of vorcha focusing on only two rooms, it would be child's play for her to sneak out behind the two krogan and get back to Mordin's clinic, job done and Omega saved.
She wasn't aware that she had drawn it but her pistol was in her hand, unfolded and ready for what she knew she had to do. She had tried to save the life of a genocidal madman who had been directly responsible for the deaths of one of her closest friends, she wasn't about to let two people who she at worst mildly disliked get gunned down.
She stepped up, letting the krogan see her fully, and put a shot right into the exposed neck of the one on the left. He staggered, blood gushing from the wound, but it took more than that to put down a krogan, and this one was huge. She fired again and ducked behind cover as the vorcha turned and opened up. Thankfully, the boxes in the room were stacked so closely together that she was able to move entirely undetected to behind one of the squads.
Drawing her submachine gun, she braced it in her left hand and readied the pistol in her right. Normally she wasn't a fan of such action movie tactics, but when it was one against thirty she needed firepower more than she needed accuracy. She clambered on top of the box and opened up, the recoil fierce enough to push her back a step, but it was effective. She saw nearly ten vorcha go down before they got their senses together.
She dropped back behind the box and slapped the heat sinks free, trying to get to new cover before they surrounded her, but she was rapidly running out of boxes to hide behind. She put the submachine gun back on her belt and drew the sniper rifle instead. Rolling out into the open for a moment she managed to get a look at their new positions, and to her delight saw that the big krogan was hanging back, obviously wounded.
Next target then.
She saw a gap underneath the cover and lay down on her stomach, the rifle held almost horizontal to the ground as she sighted on the krogan. She had a moment to wonder why holding it one handed wasn't exhausting her wrist, but then the krogan wandered right through her sight and she squeezed the trigger, the rifle jerking upwards into the boxes and giving away her cover as effectively as a flare.
She adopted a half-crouch, half-run as she tried to reach the other side of the room, but they had her dead to rights. Through a gap in the boxes she saw several vorcha clambering over so they could flank her, while the others kept her pinned down with continuous fire, and the second krogan was pushing his way to the front, a huge shotgun cradled in his arms.
If I die because of two Cerberus Operatives I'm going to be very upset. She thought morosely, sitting with her back against the cover and jacking a new heat sink into her pistol. She stayed where she was, watching closely for signs of the vorcha she knew would be coming from the side, when a massive explosion rocked the room.
She resisted the urge to stick her head right into the firing line, and instead found another gap to look through, but all she could see were billowing clouds of smoke, occasional gun flashes illuminating a human-shaped figure making his way through the crowd.
Another explosion and she looked to the other side of the room to see Miranda's unmistakeable profile rushing through, pistol in hand. She sighed in relief and pushed herself up, pistol raised and ready. Before she could move a meaty hand wrapped around her throat and she was thrown into the centre of the room. "Shepard," A voice growled from somewhere above her, and she rolled onto her back to see the krogan looming over her, his shotgun gone but his hands reaching for her throat.
She was hoisted into the air and found herself thrashing, trying desperately to kick him, just for the sensation of doing something. "I will squeeze the life from you," There were more gunshots and he flinched a few times, blood spurting from his back, but he didn't seem to care.
She managed to land a kick on his eye ridge, but he shrugged it off and threw her into a wall, stomping after her again. She hit the wall hard, the breath forced out of her and something in her back cracking audibly, but she had managed to get a hand to her submachine gun as well. Dragging it out she emptied it into his chest at close range, but he even shrugged that off, powering through to hoist her up again. "You are nothing more than a bug to me."
"Don't you ever shut up?" A volley of shots rang out, and the krogan's head jerked sideways as bullets slammed into it, bone and brain matter flying out. He managed to stay upright, dragging his mangled head back up to stare at her one more time, before Miranda appeared from one side and jammed the barrel of her gun into the open wound and fired again and again until the slip emptied.
The krogan swayed heavily, then keeled over, letting her drop to the ground as well. Loading a third clip, Miranda tipped him over and blew what was left of his head into bloody chunks. "Animal."
AN:- Sooner or later I'm going to have to start giving Taylor, Kasumi and the rest some cool moments soon.
Writing anything with Miranda in it while watching Chuck is very weird. Every so often Yvonne Strahovsky will just say something and I'll be like, 'Hey, its Miranda on the TV.'
Anywho, enough of my weird celebrity crushes (Michelle Trachtenberg is hot) hopefully there will be more coming soon. Next it's time to pick up Jack.
