Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
"Think that's clean enough?"
It took me a moment or two to process that someone was talking to me. I stopped scratching the plate and looked up. Alenko was standing in front of me, naked but for a towel around his waist. And bloody hell, the guy could have been an extra for a Conan the Barbarian film. What the hell are humans made of in the future?
"What?"
"The armor piece," he said, pointing at the half glove in my hand. "You were scrubbing it when I went in the shower," he pointed at the stall behind him, "and you're still at it."
So that's why he's half naked.
I looked at the piece and the rag in my hand. Yeah, it really was spotless. Maybe I'd dig through the ceramic plate if I kept at it. I tossed it in the pile of clean parts, and grabbed another. I hadn't even gone through half of them.
Without another word, I started polishing.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.
"What's on your mind? You came out of the Captain's office like you'd left your soul in there."
I looked up again, and to my surprise, Alenko was full dressed.
What the fuck?
"When did you get dressed?"
"… five minutes ago?" he replied, and furrowed his brow. "Are you okay Roy?"
The piece in my hand looked shiny and clean. I must have been polishing it for a while, how did that happen?
"Right," I said. I tossed the piece, and kept going.
As I did that, Alenko came to sit on the bench next to me. The shower room of the Normandy doubled as the chemical cleaning station, which wasn't surprising given the tight spaces inside the small frigate. The bench at the back was where I was sitting, next to one of the chemical sinks.
"Man, what's happening?" he said. "You need to talk to someone, this isn't normal."
I chuckled at that. "Yeah. Normal. That's me." With a hard throw, I smashed the piece in my hand on top of the clean pile and took the next one. "Nothing but a fucking disaster after another."
"Don't beat yourself up, man. Garrus was out of line there, if he had a problem he should have brought it with the captain."
"No," I replied, putting another piece down, and taking one one the large chest plates. "He had every right to be pissed."
"There's a difference between being pissed and punching you in the face."
There was a dent on the plate. I rubbed my finger over it, digging with my thumb. It wasn't too deep, but it was noticeable to the touch. I tried to think back and figure out how it had happened. It wasn't a bullet, that was for sure. It must have happened during the training with Nihlus. Yet I couldn't figure out what I had hit with it.
"There's also a difference between screwing up and getting someone killed," I finally replied.
"Killed? Who?"
"The doctor at the clinic," I said. It took me a while to find my voice and say it, and even then, I couldn't say her name. "Got in the way, got her killed while I was running around like and idiot."
Alenko furrowed his brow again, thinking. "Back when you rescued them? Garrus and the quarian?"
"Tali," I reflexively corrected him. "Yeah, that."
"… how is that your fault?"
I left the plate aside, making a note to go ask the chief about it. If the plate got dented by a bump, it may be too damaged to stop a bullet. I wondered whether these ceramic plates were actually better than good old fashioned kevlar. The extranet may know, but I'd be damned if I was going to try searching for anything there again.
"I got in the way. If I had done nothing, they'd all be okay."
"That's... Roy. Could have, should have, that's the kind of thing that can kill you. Don't go there. You can't know what would have happened."
The last piece was a shoulder pad. I had finally managed to work my way through them, which really wasn't surprising. To remove dust and sweat it should take no more than ten, fifteen minutes to clean. I had been at it for two whole hours.
"What if I did?" I said in a low voice.
"You can't-"
"But what if I did? What if I knew what would happen? And what if every time I try to fix things, I end up breaking more? What if-" I caught myself mid-rant, because I wasn't even sure what I was saying anymore. Probably something the AI would yank me off for, or something that would get me sent into an asylum.
The silence that followed was pretty dense. I finished polishing that last piece, and started sorting them into the case. I remembered to keep the dented one out, still wondering how it had gotten like that.
"You know what?" Alenko finally said, standing up and putting his hand on my shoulder. "If I really knew something bad was going to happen, I'd still try to stop it."
"And damn the consequences," I deadpanned.
"It is something I've had time to think about," Alenko said. "Good or bad, the only thing I wouldn't be able to live with myself is doing nothing."
What's that supposed to- Oh. Oooh, damn.
I just realized I had been talking to Alenko without remembering what he had been through with that freaking training facility and the biotic mishap. If crushing a trainer to a pulp can be considered a mishap. For him to say something like that, it was quite a statement.
"Really?" I said. Maybe a bit too intense.
"Yeah."
He gave me a slap on the shoulder and filed out, leaving me to finish packing. That was interesting. He'd rather have crushed that guy to death than done nothing about brain camp. I knew from the games it was something he had to work hard to come to terms with, but even so.
It didn't change the fact that I had gotten doctor Michel killed.
Fuck.
I closed the armor case and made for the showers. I'd have loved nothing more than to spend a couple of hours under the hot water, but now that we were undocked and away from the Citadel, water was limited, so showers were limited too.
So five minutes was all I got.
When I finally emerged from the showers, I saw that the activity around the cargo bay hadn't abated by much. Less chaos, perhaps, as most of the heavy lifting was already done, but supplies had to be sorted and put in their proper places. Garrus was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Wrex.
Ash was at her station, and going through a small pile of rifles with Fredricks. I dropped the case by my locker, and made my way to her workbench.
"Finally came for some air?" Ash said. "Were you jacking off in there or something?"
"Yeah," I replied absent-mindedly, looking at the ceramic plate in my hands. "Chief, I've got a dented plate on the armor, think it's still fine?"
She yanked the plate off my hands and tossed it on the bench. "Come on, I've got a job for you."
"Huh?"
"Fredricks, finish off for me here."
"Yes sir!" the marine replied.
"And check that plate too. Come on Roy."
She gave me a nudge out of the way, and led me to one of the small side rooms of the cargo bay. It was a small gym, which I hadn't used yet. She pulled a pair of goggles out of a rack at the wall, and gave me my pistol.
Huh.
"We may not be at the Citadel, but that doesn't mean you aren't training. Put those on."
She started fiddling with a terminal on the wall, and I put the goggles on. Immediately I was hit with a weird, three-dimensional view of a fake field in front of me. It was so unexpected I ripped them off in an instant.
"What the hell?"
Ash turned to look at me, looked at the goggles, and started chuckling. "I keep forgetting you're from the sticks," she said. "Nifty, isn't it?"
"Weird," I corrected her, and put it back on. "Very weird."
I looked down at my hands, and there was some sort of wireframe around them. Same for the pistol. I didn't know what the point of that was, but it made the whole thing feel a little surreal.
"All right kiddo, pay attention," Ash said.
She hit the terminal with a flourish, and pulled her own gun out. She was, too, made out of wireframe over her actual figure. A countdown started on the corner of my visor, and on zero, targets started appearing, simple round virtual spheres popping out of nowhere. With arrows, colours, the whole nine yards.
There was also a floating legend on the hud.
"Just follow the instructions," As continued, shooting targets, "hit what you have to hit, and avoid what you're supposed to avoid."
I did as she told, and we were off. It was nice to not have to worry about getting shot in the back, looking for cover, watching for nasty surprises, or having someone bark orders at me through the comms.
Which put me more on edge than if I had had to worry about all that.
"What's the point of this?" I finally asked. All I had were red targets I had to shoot, much too simple compared to what she had been putting me through.
"Work on your pistol aim, I don't want you shooting me in the back again."
…
That was just once dammit, and you walked in front of me!
Shooting multicolored targets on a fake screen wasn't a particularly difficult thing to do. The exercise changed over time, with different colours meaning different things, just to keep me on my toes. But overall it felt like a relaxed videogame session, things getting more and more difficult as time went on.
Ash left me at some point by myself, and it was much later that my omni-tool chimed with an incoming message.
"Roy," Ash called. "Get your ass to the meeting room, we're up."
"We are?" I replied, taking the goggles off. "Gear up?"
"Not yet, just come up here."
"On my way, it may be a couple of days."
"… we really need some stairs in this ship. Just hurry."
I stopped at the locker to stow my gear away first – including a shiny new ceramic plate – and stepped into the lift. If my memory didn't fail me, we were on that side mission where Hackett sent Shepard to hunt random geth outposts.
And because I had that kind of time, given that I was taking the lift, I tried to remember the details. It was four planets. I was pretty sure it was four planets. There was another point to that mission, but I couldn't put my finger on it.
The room was already packed when I got there. Ash, Alenko, Wrex, Fredricks, Garrus, two other marines I hadn't met yet, and... Tali.
Oh right! Now I remember. It's her mission.
"Glad you could join us," Shepard called, bringing attention to the fact that I had stopped in the middle of the door.
"Sorry," I muttered, making a hasty entrance and stepping to the side. No free seats, so I had to stand up.
Anderson had the centre of the room, with Nihlus and Shepard standing at the back. He waited until I shuffled behind the seats, and turned his attention to the rest of the room. Behind him, a projection of some random piece of space was on the holoscreen. I then spotted the legend at the bottom. Armstrong Cluster.
"All right, we're all here now." He pointed at the screen. "We are minutes away from the relay jump to the Armstrong Cluster. Our objective is to observe, and if possible intercept, a suspected geth incursion. Signals were detected sixteen hours ago on Vamshi and Tereshkova; fourteen hours ago on Hong, and six hours ago on Gagarin. They are clearly establishing a foothold."
That didn't sound right. It was just a handful of geth on random planets, just so that we could find Tali's thingaboo to bring back to the flotilla. Couldn't be that dangerous. As I contemplated, Shepard took over.
"We will start with a scan of Gagarin, and the ground team will land once we've made a stealth entry. Primary objective is to locate and observe the geth outpost. Secondary objective is to destroy them without alerting any other outposts." She cast a look around, looking at the rest of the ground team. I guessed she was trying to figure out what the team that'd join her down there was. Nah, she wouldn't start this without already knowing who was going with her. "Roy?"
Huh?
"Shepard?"
"Something wrong? You were shaking your head."
"Oh." Damn, again? I better stand like a statue next time dammit. "No, I was just thinking, you can't take a geth down without the others knowing."
"Really? Why?" She sounded genuinely surprised.
"They're a collective, you can't plug some of them out without the others noticing." Now everyone was looking at me. Damn. Think fast. "Isn't that right Tali?"
All eyes turned away. Great. Then Tali started squirming uncomfortably under the scrutiny. Um, not so great. Didn't think she was shy.
"The geth are a collective intelligence, but... They have not ventured outside the veil before. I do not know if they function as a single collective or as independent groups when they are spread out," she said, pointing at the map on the holoscreen as she talked.
"That could be a problem," Shepard said, and turned to look at Nihlus.
"It's your call, Shepard."
"Thanks big guy," she replied, shaking her head, and turned to look at the team. "All right, we'll stick to our plan. Secondary objective will depend on what the comms team can give us, but we're still scouting on the surface. We'll be taking the Mako. Questions?"
Nobody stirred, so I asked the obvious one. "Who's coming with you? Or do we all fit in the Mako?"
Shepard smiled at that. "Anything else?" she said, and when nobody replied, she turned to Tali. "Chakwas has given me the okay, but are you feeling up for it Tali?"
"I'm fine Shepard, I'll be ready."
"Good. You're coming with us, then. Alenko, Fredricks, you two as well. Tali's there for the tech support with the geth, you two do the heavy lifting."
"Yes sir," the two marines replied at once.
"Everyone else, gear up and be prepared. Backup team will be led by the Chief in case we need it. Dismissed."
"Yes sir!" a chorus of voices replied.
We all filed out, and last thing I heard was the Captain calling Joker and telling him to send the comms team so he could have a word with them. We went down to the mess level, then the lift ended up packed. I ended up squished right next to Wrex. Not pretty.
Ye gods but lift rides aboard the Normandy are awkward.
"Okay," Shepard called once we were out. "Garrus, double-check the Mako. Chief, weapons. My team, gear the hell up!"
We all scrambled, but I ended up at the back of the pack, letting Shepard's team gear up first. To be honest, I felt like a freaking elephant in a glass shop. It was organized chaos, everyone knew where they were going, except for me. Even Tali, she disappeared into one of the back rooms carrying a large bundle with her.
"Roy."
Shit.
"Shepard?" I said, turning around.
"Good call on the geth. Anything else you think we should know?"
"Err..."
So, yeah. Immediately on edge. Her relaxed stance and easy smile didn't settle me at all. Anything else? Like what? Something I shouldn't say? I must have looked like a freaking muppet, looking at her without saying a word, because she ended up giving up.
"Keep the comms open, and let me know if you think of anything," she said, giving me a slap on the shoulder and heading off towards Garrus and the Mako.
What the hell just happened?
The thing about the Mako is that it was, for all intents and purposes, the toughest fucking thing the Alliance had ever produced. Well, after Shepard maybe. No, scratch that maybe.
Point is, the Mako entered battle by basically being dropped from low orbit, enemies, atmosphere, or freaking volcanoes be damned. Thus, while getting ready for the drop, we had to vacate the cargo bay because it was about to get damn uncomfortable. Atmosphere being sucked out and back door being opened kind of uncomfortable. Ship personnel went to engineering, and the ground team piled up inside the gym.
Two reasons for that. One, the Chief didn't want us getting in the way of the engineers. Two, we could send the feed to the holographic terminal there. We were all in full gear there, which wasn't very comfy, but, well, Ash's orders. Guns were on the rack by the entrance, but full armor it was.
Between Ash, the two marines – Marcus Grieco and Robert Felawa, I finally got their names – Wrex, Garrus, and me, it was cozy in there. The screen had the cam feed from the whole ground team except for Nihlus'. He didn't like sharing.
We had Shepard's view at the front, with the other three in smaller windows. It was my first view of the Mako, since I had kept clear of it – for good reason, Garrus practically lived in the thing – and it looked... cramped. That's all I could see. Cramped.
"Shepard," Anderson's coice cracked through the comms.
"Captain."
"Comms team has finished analysis of the transmissions. Geth are opening two-way transmissions at irregular intervals. Shortest they have recorded is forty-five minutes."
"Copy that. We go in as soon as a transmission ends?"
"Yes. One more thing, the transmissions don't seem to be heading for the Perseus Veil. They're still working on it."
"We'll poke around," Shepard replied. "Ground team ready!"
"Good hunting," Anderson replied.
A light inside the Mako flashed green, and then, the whole freaking ship lurched as it dislodged a several ton piece of crazy machinery high in the atmosphere. A weird, stormy, and very alien atmosphere I might add.
From Shepard's point of view, all we saw was a whole lot of shaking and motion through the red atmosphere, then she fixed on the Normandy as it shrunk rapidly in the distance.
The mere idea of being in that freaking thing made me sick in the stomach, and it was only the screen projection. Holy crap. After an interminable fall, the thrusters shot and the Mako shook and bounced as it landed.
I'm feeling sick.
I turned to look at the other faces, but nobody seemed bothered by the fall. Ash locked eyes with me and winked. A wicked, mischievous wink. She knew exactly how I felt, dammit.
"Well, now the boring part starts," Ash said.
She was so right.
It took hours until anything substantial happened. On their way to the geth position the ground team came across the burned remains of a team of scavengers, which really cooled the spirits in the room. Shepard put a marker at the location, and they moved on.
Now, they had been sitting behind a ridge, hiding away from the geth. A small research station with some markings I didn't recognize, but belonged to one of the smaller Earth tech-mining conglomerates. Tuskinsomething or other.
"Shepard," Anderson's voice called through the radio.
"Right here captain."
"Signal is away. Get your team ready."
"Ready and willing!" she replied cheerfully. "Fredricks, get in the turret."
I heard the marine mutter something, but he complied. His screen turned into the Mako's turret GUI, and as soon as Anderson gave the signal, they were off to the races.
Bloody hell!
Shepard didn't dilly-dally, let me tell you. While they were exploring the surface all she did was putter around, clearly driving carefully. Not this time she didn't, she gunned the freaking Mako like it was the starting flag for Le Mans. The Mako rocked and shook, and I could hear the roar of the gravel and dirt being torn by the fast revving tyres.
The geth didn't fail to notice her. Rockets were soon flying at them, and a big glowing ball of plasma joined after. Shepard didn't seem to mind, she kept her abso-fucking-lutely insane pace, riding the ridge around the research station like a crazy woman. Fredricks was sweating bullets at the turret, trying to take down the geth, while a freaking armature kept pelting them with plasma balls, and smaller units followed those up with rockets. It was hard to follow, because of course, Shepard didn't kept her gaze fixed on the front window. The best view was Fredricks', but when I changed the screen order, I was nearly mauled by the rest of the team.
Quietly.
Because that was another thing, nobody was saying a thing. Comms stayed open, so nobody talked, so as to not distract the ground team. It was weird.
"Dammit!" Fredricks shouted. The Mako had rocked at the wrong time, and his shot had gone wide, missing the geth armature. "Commander!"
"Suck it up marine, I'm trying to keep us alive here!"
"Why don't you-" he stopped his rant to let a second volley loose, and managed to land it square on the oversized mechanical horse. The shields protecting it shimmered, but didn't break, and according to the Mako's VI, he had only made a small dent on its power reserves. "Why don't you let the Lieutenant drive?"
"Do you want to go outside and fight that thing on foot, marine?" Shepard replied. "Because that's how you end up kicked out of my Mako and fighting that thing on foot!"
"…" Fredricks shot again, getting the heatsink close to overheating. "Don't tempt me!"
Shepard laughed at that, even in the middle of combat her marines never failed to amuse her. She never let them get away with too much insubordination, but they could get away with some if they were clever enough. It was a close edge they had to walk, and even when she chewed them up when they went too far, they came the next time and tried again.
"These humans are very strange," Nihlus said, shaking his head.
"I thought it was only me," Tali replied.
"Tali!" Shepard called. "Can you give grumpypants there some pointers?"
"Shepard?"
"How do we take that thing down?" Shepard insisted.
"The geth work as a network intelligence," Tali explained. "The more units that network in the same area-"
"Bottom line, Tali!" Shepard shouted as the Mako jumped up again.
Shepard hit the thrusters a second time, and just managed to land on top of a geth sniper. She revved the engine hard, and the magical, musical sound of a geth being ripped apart by the tyres of the Mako, broken parts bouncing off the armor like a sprinkling of rain during Spring, soon followed.
She had been told before there was something wrong with her, but she loved driving that freaking beast through battlefields.
"If we kill the other geth, the armature will get dumber!" Tali replied, hanging onto the seat for dear life.
"Now we're talking! Hang on!"
She revved the engine again, and the Mako lurched forward, speeding towards the mass of geth trying to take the Mako down. Their shields were below half. Even though she had managed to avoid most of the heavier ordinance, there were ground units and snipers taking potshots at them. She had to change the pace, and she had the person to do it.
"Tali! Alenko! Heads up! Get ready to jump!"
"What?!" Tali shouted.
"On it!" Alenko replied, not even batting an eyelash. He unstrapped himself from the copilot seat, and holding onto the top handrail, made it to the door. "Come on Tali!"
"These humans are insane," she muttered, loud enough that the translator picked it up.
"Just Shepard," Alenko replied. As Alenko manoeuvred himself closer to the Mako's door, he caught a glimpse of Nihlus struggling to stand up in the shaking vehicle. "You coming Nihlus?"
"Can't be worse than in here," he replied sardonically.
"Aw, I love you too big guy," Shepard said.
"We're ready commander!" Alenko called.
"Good! Fredricks! Cover them!"
The machine gun of the Mako started spitting rounds, and after running a trooper down, Shepard skidded the Mako to a stop, turning it so that the bulk of the beast was between the enemies and her soon to disembark squad, right behind one of those strange armored sniper nests the geth had built.
"Go! Go! Go!" Shepard shouted.
She didn't really need to. On the first "go!", Alenko had already opened the door, and jumped out, with Tali following close. Nihlus was the last one out, and he even took a moment to slam the door of the Mako closed. Shepard kept a lazy eye on their progress as she gunned the Mako again, satisfied with the way Tali followed Alenko without a question or the hesitation.
Good girl.
Nihlus, on the other hand, split from the other two and headed straight for one of the sniper perches.
"Nihlus, don't get bogged down," she called over the comms. "If that thing puts the beams on you you're going to have to leg it fast."
"I suppose it's a good thing I have you to keep it occupied, isn't it?" the turian replied.
"Right, right," Shepard said, and switched comms. "I want that armature down, Fredricks!"
"And I want a pony!" the marine replied.
"Fredricks!" Shepard snapped. That was a step too far.
"Yes sir! On it!" Fredricks replied instantly, his tone clipped and professional. Playtime was over, the Mako was taking a beating, and now he had to cover the part of the team who were out on foot.
"We need that armature on us Fredricks!" Shepard shouted, her tone still sharp.
"Yes sir!" the marine said, and his response was punctuated by the booming sound of the Mako's cannon letting a volley loose again.
Yes, that's how it's supposed to go!
Shepard took only an instant to wonder where that thought had come from, but she didn't have time to dwell on it. She had maneouvred the Mako to line up several targets, and she needed that gun working in sync with her.
"Front! Now!"
"On it!"
The Mako's gun barked, and the impact was a direct hit to the nearest geth. Good shot. The blast took two other nearby units down, too, and the second shot hit another near unit, leaving one for Shepard to run over. The whole thing became a mess of hydraulic fluid and small bits of metal, and she had to hit the front wipers to clear the windshield.
Then the Mako shook when a plasma bolt hit it on the back, forcing her to counter-steer to keep the six-wheeled monstrosity on track. An alarm started beeping on the dash, letting her know the shields were getting dangerously low.
As long as the armor holds.
"Alenko, give me some good news!" Shepard barked.
"We're on it commander, Tali thinks she can hack some of the geth platforms but we need to get closer."
"Hurry up. And paint the targets so that Fredricks doesn't shoot them down!"
The mood in the gym became a lot more tense when that freaking alarm started beeping. I elbowed Felawa next to me, and gestured at my ear and the screen. He mouthed the word shield without really speaking, and shook his head.
Shit.
"Commander," Ash called. "My team's ready, we can drop and-"
"Negative chief," Shepard interrupted. "We've got this. Right Fredricks?"
"Yes sir!" the marine replied.
"… copy that," Ash replied.
We followed Shepard's antics on the screen, almost holding our breaths as the Mako moved around like a wild boar. The shields went, but Shepard didn't ease off. The Mako got pelted with rounds, but she kept the Armature on herself. She drove like a freaking lunatic, but as far as I could see, she did know what she was doing.
It's just that she didn't seem to give a crap what happened to the poor, poor Mako.
By the time the Armature was down, the panel in front of Shepard looked like a Christmas tree. Lights, alerts, warnings, call them whatever. They were all lighting up. When the final shot from Fredricks blew the Armature's head up, the entire room, hell, every single voice on the comms, exploded into cheers.
"Nice shot, marine," Shepard shouted over the chaos.
"It was a pretty big target!" Fredricks replied. It sounded like he was trying to be nonchalant about it, but the relief in his voice was palpable.
And you did it with Shepard driving, too. Good man.
"All right team, converge at the base. Nihlus, cover us."
"Got it," the Spectre called.
As Shepard started issuing orders, the chatter on the comms died out. The fact that the outside was clear didn't mean the job was done. If it was geth in there, then they knew they were coming.
What worried me were the spikes outside.
"Shepard," I called over the radio. "Those spikes, there may be husks in the base."
"I know," she replied. "But thanks for the reminder."
Right.
The base itself was nothing like the reusable environments from the games. It did look like it had been put together by joining some cargo containers into a flat structure. A prefab, obviously. It was shaped like a weird double cross, one central beam with two cross arms of unequal length. And it was big.
"Fredricks," Shepard said. "Stay here and patch up the Mako."
"Commander?" Ash called.
"Don't get nervous, chief," Shepard replied, a whole conversation condensed into a single phrase. "Tali, the door. Alenko, on the left."
Shepard and Alenko took the two sides of the door, while Tali crouched by the lock. I didn't know where Nihlus was, because he wasn't sharing his cam view, but I hoped he was either legging it to them or covering them.
After some fiddling from Tali – which I tried unsuccessfully to follow, her omni-tool was in Kelish, and her fingers were flying over the thing – the lock of the door turned green, and she hit the release mechanism.
The door opening and a slug flying in from Nihlus' sniper rifle were all one. There was a veritable wall of husks right behind the door, and they looked hungry.
Shit!
I managed not to squeal like a schoolgirl, but it was a close thing. The marines reacted similarly, although less schoolgirlish, so to speak. Garrus didn't even twitch. Wrex... Wrex looked like he was itching to be down there shooting zombies.
But he wasn't. Shepard was, and so was Alenko. They were shouting something fierce, their shotguns belching rounds like there was no tomorrow.
Good choice, shotguns for zombies.
"Fredricks!" Shepard shouted. "Get on the turret! On the turret, right now!"
It was fucking incredible. I don't know how long it went on, I didn't even know there were that fucking many humans to make husks from in that research base.
…
Yeah, I realized halfway through they were killing the humans the geth had previously killed. The memories of Eden Prime were still fresh, and the fight right in front of me now was bringing it all back. They weren't just monsters rushing at my teammates. I could see the people they had been. And seeing them devoid of humanity like that, it was just sickening.
"Clear!"
Huh.
I didn't even see the end of the fight. There was this sea of... flesh, synthetic and human, mixed up in a mound of dead husks. They had piled up on each other, mindlessly charging at the living organics outside, not giving the slightest regard for the corpses they were trampling on. And they had been mercilessly mowed down on their way out, much of it thanks to Fredricks and the Mako.
They had literally shredded the wall, there were so many bullet holes the entrance was three times the size it had been when Tali had first opened it.
Unbelievable.
Shepard looked at the result of their handiwork, breathing a sigh of relief. She had thought more than once that there was not going to be an end to those things, they just kept coming. The gun in her hands hissed angrily, finally getting a break from the punishment it had taken. She was pretty sure she had gone through most of the ammo block on the shotgun.
"Good job everyone," she said, folding the shotgun to let it cool but not hanging it to her back just yet.
She kept her voice even and calm, her team would be looking up to her after the scene they had just caused. The pile of corpses was more than a little unsettling, more so when she thought about who exactly those people were. Or rather, had been. They were clearly not human anymore, but she knew they had been.
A research station so far at the edge of Alliance space... There was a better than even chance it was a rogue operation, or at the very least not on the open up. She had shut down more of those than she cared to remember, but they kept just popping up, working in uncharted worlds trying to avoid the reach of the Alliance. More often than not, they were Red Sand labs.
This one didn't look like one.
"Are... are they dead?" Tali said. The girl had definitely held her own, and even through she sounded rattled, she was still holding her shotgun firmly, aiming at the pile of dead zombies.
The quarian had guts.
"They were already dead," Alenko deadpanned, echoing her thoughts.
"Move in, if there are any survivors they will be inside," Shepard said.
There weren't any. She knew it, but she still had to make sure. Sometimes she wondered whether she was just going through the motions, or if she really believed when she thought it. That she could still save people.
"Fredricks, stay here and work on the Mako," she said.
"Yes sir!"
"Alenko, behind me."
She traded weapons and, assault rifle up, she headed into the facility first, stepping carefully through the ruined door. The place had been absolutely shredded, walls and doors had been reduced to pock-marked rubble. But on the first turn, they came into the facility proper. A large cargo bay, with several of those large spikes scattered all over the place.
She was glad for the full helmet, because she could imagine the smell being anything but pleasant. The spikes were caked in blood, and there were clear signs of fighting all through the facility.
The scientists, whoever they were, hadn't gone quietly. But gone they were.
Alenko pointed at one of the terminals, and Shepard nodded in response, taking a defensive position and gesturing at Tali to do the same.
Seconds ticked by, and seconds became minutes. Alenko dutifully sawed away at the terminal, with the only sound coming for Tali's uneasy Alenko finally signalled for them to move on, the silence was oppressive enough it almost felt like a physical pressure on their shoulders.
It was all too familiar to her. Another place filled with death she was about to walk out of.
Nobody said a word while Shepard and the others explored the inside of the facility. It felt... eerie. Sure, the entrance, the dead husks, that looked like just another day in paradise in the Mass Effect universe. No, it was the rest of the research station. It looked, well, normal. As normal as things looked to me at least. Tables with food still on them, labs with benches set up like they were in the middle of an experiment, only no people at all were inside.
"It's clear," Shepard called after close to an hour combing the place. "No survivors."
"Copy that," Anderson replied. "Head back home, commander."
"On our way. Fredricks, prep the Mako."
"On it!"
And like that, the mood lifted, and the chatter started again. I had been racking my brains for the last hour trying to figure out what was going on, because the whole thing felt off for some reason. These missions took but a few minutes, yet here we were, two hours into it with a sprawling facility full of husks.
And not a single geth in sight – or, rather, inside. That didn't make sense, were they just stashing husks until they needed them?
…
That makes a lot more sense than I'd like it to.
But for now it was cleanup. Of course, if the games are anything to go by...
"Mind the dropship," I muttered.
"What was that?" Shepard called over the comms.
Before I could reply, the comms crackled with the harsh sound of a priority override. Followed by Joker's voice.
"Commander, incoming geth dropship!" he called, not panicking but with an edge to his voice. "Twenty seconds out!"
"Move it people!" Shepard replied, taking the lead and running through the deserted facility like a bat out of hell. "Fredricks!"
"I'm on it commander!" his reply was punctuated by the report of the Mako's cannon.
"Get on the wheel!" Shepard snapped.
"But you said nobody drives your-"
"That's an order!"
Scramble, scramble, there was method to the madness, but madness it was. The only one we couldn't see was Nihlus, and the others were running at such frantic pace that all I could see on the screens was motion blur.
"Attention all hands, prepare for atmospheric manoeuvre," a female voice called over the intercom.
"Shepard, we're moving to intercept. ETA is three minutes."
"How the hell did a dropship sneak past you Joker?" Shepard's response came.
"It took off from the ground, they've got a secondary base! It's not my fault!"
"I'm sure it isn't! Who was doing the scanning again?"
The bickering would have continued if it wasn't for Nihlus' interruption.
"Fredricks! Move! The geth ship just dropped an armature!"
"I'm trying!"
"MOVE!"
The shouts were punctuated by the horrible sound of metal grinding and screaming as bullets hit the Mako. Then a flash and a zap, and we lost Fredrick's feed.
"FREDRICKS!"
I watched from a distance as they hauled the Mako back to the Normandy. Last thing I wanted was to get in the way. The cargo bay had been cleared, the marines and I were at the very back trying to appear invisible, and the med team was on standby.
Things happened very fast. When the wreck was hauled up, I felt as if my heart had hit the ground, twenty meters below the Normandy. Pretty much all panels were torn, there was a huge scorchmark around a hole on the top front, and it was just... scrunched, like a discarded sheet of paper.
I couldn't imagine anyone walking out of that alive. Undeterred the med team and the engineers rushed at the wreck as soon as it was secure, while the rest of the ground team boarded at a slower pace. Shepard, Alenko, they both look tired as hell. Tali, I couldn't tell. And Nihlus came in last, that I could definitely not tell at all. He was standing stiff same as if he was at a parade.
As soon as the rear door and the Normandy pressurized, everyone went straight for their helmets. It was the only way to be able to speak withut broadcasting through the internal channels. Open at all times during ops, those were the orders.
With mine off, I could finally take a look at Shepard. Her face was like a statue, she was looking at the proceedings same way we were, staying out of the way and not saying a word. I had just seen them take on an armature on foot, and it had been pretty freaking impressive.
"I feel useless," I said, to no one in particular.
"Not much we can do kiddo, just wait till they get Fredricks out," Ash replied.
I looked at her, not daring to ask the question. Did she actually think he was alive? She didn't say anything, just turned to look at the proceedings. In just a few minutes they had the Mako open, and the med team rushed out. Not a clue if he was alive.
That seemed to be what everyone had been waiting for, and activity broke all over the deck. Me? I was dying to get out of the armor, and since Shepard didn't look like she was in a chatty mood, I headed for the shower room to get changed. By the looks of it, the Mako wasn't going anywhere in a hurry.
It took me about half an hour to finish. Even though the armor could regulate temperature, the tension of watching the ground team without being able to do a single damn thing to help had made me sweat like a pig. I washed my underarmor, polished the suit, and packed it all up.
Only to bump onto Shepard as we both came out at the same time. Our eyes met, and for a moment she looked as disoriented as I usually did.
How many people this time? How many?
Water wasn't something to be wasted when the ship was out of dock, but Shepard felt a powerful need for it. The feel of the high pressure jet hitting her skin felt like heaven.
Another botched mission. Another one. Oh, sure, they'd say "good job" and give her a slap on the back. They were all already dead when they had arrived.
Not Fredricks. That one was on her. Chakwas had just given her an update, he was alive but it was going to be touch and go. All she could do was hope.
It was a goddamn curse. She had half a mind to kick everyone out of the ship and finish the mission by herself. Maybe this time it would be her biting the bullet instead of everyone around her.
She slapped the water valve closed, an angry gesture the kinds of which she preferred not to indulge with too often. That line of thought was getting her nowhere. She couldn't finish the mission alone. She wished she could, but it was much too big for her alone. She had to trust others. Risk them, even.
I just wish I didn't have to risk them all.
With her armor clean and stored, she stepped out of the room already making plans for her next steps. And in doing so, didn't see Roy out there until she bumped into him.
When she looked at him, she had this weird feeling that he, of all people, shouldn't be there. She wondered if he'd be the next one.
"Shepard?"
She had to blink a couple of times to get her train of thought back on track. "Roy, what are you doing?"
"Just... going to store my gear," he replied, shaking his armor case.
"Why did you change? We're still on mission."
"With the Mako like that?" he replied, pointing over his shoulder.
"Yes. Well, nevermind, just sit back and relax," she said, and headed off for the lift.
"Wha- No! Shepard, I'll be ready for the mission!"
"Go help with the Mako, Roy," Shepard replied, and hit the lift up. She had to check on Fredricks.
Author's Notes: We're back! And now with 50% more geth! Yeah, this one's settig the tone for the fic. One of the things about the side missions of Mass Effect is how, well, small they feel. Lots of reusable environments and whatnot. I always thought that, with space being so big, there shoud be big things out there. A matter of scale. In the case of the geth signals, I figured that the bases on the Armstrong Cluster felt tiny in-game. I mean, a dozen geth perhaps? And that has the Alliance's army up in a frenzy? Come on!
So, geth, and Shepard managing to break the Mako. Now you know. Oh, and as you can see, Akuze did leave a mark on poor Shep.
Notes and reviews! Thanks all :D
pyrovortex: On the lasers issue: Plasma. Converging several lasers in one spot is how you make plasma, and plasma does hit kinetic barriers (according to wikia, which might be wrong). It'll only work with an atmosphere though, if there's no gas to superheat you can't get plasma pulses hitting the barriers :) The reason I went through all that trouble was that I figured something non-lethal would probably be better fitting for a training range, though there is still a sadistic twist to it.
Mizuki00: You're not wrong, Roy is acting immature here. Or, rather, pretty self-righteous about things he really doesn't have much context for. You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned others' points of view.
Toothless: Haha! Waters ahead are going to be very turbulent for that ship! :D
Archer83: I know right? Consequences, my friend, consequences. The AI mentioned it, it's all about that butterfly effect of unintended consequences. But then again, yould you simply sit idly due to fear of breaking things? (Oops, that may be slightly spoilerish - except if you've been paying attention!).
As always, thanks a lot dear readers! On our next chapter, geth, more geth, and maybe we'll add some blue to the Normandy crew. Stay tuned!
