The shuttle was a bit more cramped than usual. Six soldiers plus a rather large bomb Sorono had thrown together with some parts from the single Cain they'd been able to requisition and a spare drive core for the shuttle.
They descended on the tiny colony, a collection of houses of various shape and sizes, mostly old prefabs developed in the twenty-first century, but a few more modern ones were scattered around the edge of the settlement. The town itself was spread out over a wide area of plains, but the center square was fairly built up, and that was where they were going.
"Take us over once before you land, Steve," Shepard said gently. "We want them to notice us."
"Aye aye, ma'am," Cortez replied, guiding the shuttle slowly over the small crowd that had already begun to form, making an unnecessarily wide turn before setting her down directly in the center of the small town square.
"Vega, stay here." She forced a grin. "You and your bomb are intimidating."
He was too tense to laugh, but tried his best. "Sure are, Lola."
After the passenger bay doors opened fully, Shepard slowly climbed out. Men, women, and children, most wearing clothes that had been fashionable over a hundred years ago, gathered around the edge of the town square. They murmured between themselves as Kaidan and Sawyer stepped out behind her.
She stood stock still and waited. Eventually, an older man, middle aged and balding, worked his way through the crowd and stepped forward. He kept his chin up and peered at her through a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.
"Alliance?" he asked.
She nodded. "Commander Shepard, SSV Normandy."
He seemed to relax a little, adjusting his glasses. "Been a while since we've had Alliance visitors. And there hasn't been any comm traffic in almost a year. Thought you might have forgotten about us again."
"There was a war," she said curtly. "Long story."
His eyebrows shot up. "Did we win?"
She nodded and smiled, a bit grimly. "We won."
The man blinked, then smiled a little. "Well. That's good."
Shepard let the smile fall from her face. "We're actually here on business, Mr...?"
"Alderman," he said, clasping his hands together. "Ironic, I know."
She furrowed her brow and was about to ask what he meant by that, but thought better of it and shook her head. "Have there been any... disturbances, lately?"
"Disturbances?" he asked. "What kind of disturbances?"
"I mean..." Now that she was here, she really didn't know to explain this quickly. "Has anyone found anything? Anything strange? Or started acting strange?"
He stared at her. "No. Nothing like that."
She started to relax, hope against hope that they hadn't found anything. "No disappearances?"
Alderman blinked. "Actually, we haven't heard from a group of settlers in a few days now. We have short range comms, but they haven't checked in."
Her heart sank into her stomach. "Settlers?"
"Yes, a whole group volunteered to head north almost a month ago, search for a way to expand the colony, maybe find more fertile farmland."
"How many?"
He pondered for a moment, pursing his lips. "Sixty or seventy."
A muscle in her jaw jumped. "Seventy people?"
Alderman shook his head. "Seventy families, Commander."
The shuttle sped over the massive trees. Shepard sat in the rear, elbows on her knees and hands clasped together, bouncing her foot anxiously. Sawyer was checking and rechecking his armor seals, Vega was slapping heat sinks to the belt of his hardsuit, and Kaidan was calibrating his omni-tool for the third time that day.
Seventy families. Children.
She shook her head. Don't think. Just work. Keep it together.
"Commander?" Cortez piped up from the cockpit. "You'll want to see this."
Shepard jumped up and ran into the cockpit. Cortez had pulled up one of the exterior cameras on a separate screen, expanding the image.
There was debris scattered all around. Supplies, crates abandoned or broken into, tools staked into the ground, small personal vehicles overturned and wrecked. It looked like it had been a camp once.
"It looks like there's a trail of it that leads northwest," Cortez said, expanding another screen showing a map. "Into this small mountain range."
"Can you find where it leads?" she asked.
"Already scanning," he said.
Shepard steadied herself against the back of Cortez's seat as the shuttle shifted in the air, heading northwest. The lieutenant's eyes flicked across his console.
"Far as I can tell, there's a trail of the same kind of metal leading this way-" He brought up a map and drew a line around two of the smaller mountains and toward a larger one, adjacent to a canyon. "-and ending here."
"Then take us in, Cortez," she said grimly. "Right on top of where it ends."
The trail ended at a cave.
The air inside was hot and stale. As they moved deeper, it only got worse. Shepard had to fight to keep her breathing steady. Kaidan and Sawyer stuck close behind her, while the two marines carrying the bomb followed further behind, and Vega brought up the rear, keeping an eye behind.
The passage stretched to several meters wide, then contracted down to a small crevice that they had to widen carefully with kinetic drills on their omni-tools before the bomb could fit through. There were other paths, large and small, branching off at fairly regular intervals, but they kept going forward, keeping to the one path they knew had a decent chance of leading where they wanted to go.
It was so dark that the lights from their hardsuit flashlights pierced the black like tunnels of light, illuminating only thin strips of the environment around them. A few chambers were large enough that they needed to coordinate their lights to get a sense of the size, but none contained anything more than lichen and the occasional bioluminescent fungi.
At one point midway through their trek, Kaidan grabbed her shoulder. "Did you feel that?" he asked.
She shook her head. Everyone went still for a long moment, listening intently. There was only the crushing silence of the mountain bearing down on them.
Kaidan removed his hand and shook his shoulders. "Sorry. Just jumpy I guess."
"Understandable," Shepard said, taking point and marching forward again.
They descended deeper, no one saying a word, until Shepard felt... something. She froze and everyone behind her did the same.
"Tell me you felt that," Kaidan said quietly.
"What was it?"
"Tremor, maybe?" Sawyer asked.
She shook her head. "Region's seismologically dead. There shouldn't be any tremors."
"Well, it wasn't just a stiff breeze," Vega drawled behind them.
Shepard shifted her shoulders, eager to draw her rifle, for all the good it would do. "We should keep moving."
The tremors, or pulses, or whatever they were only got worse as they descended deeper into the cavern. Gradually increasing in intensity until they were just strong enough to knock loose dust from the ceiling. They were on regular intervals, she realized, but minutes apart. She couldn't figure what the source could be, since none of the colonists had any mining equipment.
When she stepped out into a chamber more massive than any they had seen before, Shepard got her answer.
The floor looked bare and relatively smooth, with no stalagmites to speak of. Their lights could barely reach the other side, but they revealed another passage as big as the one Shepard had just emerged from, and still more besides, at regular intervals along the wall of the strangely circular cave.
"Think this is as good as we're going to get, Shepard," Kaidan said, looking around. "We plant the bomb here, it should level the whole mountain."
She nodded. "Yeah, alright. Vega, set it up and we'll-"
Another tremor interrupted her, the strongest yet, and this time accompanied by a sound – a low, deep, resounding thud from somewhere above them.
Shepard looked up, as did the rest of her squad. Their flashlights combined were enough to give a rough picture of the entirety of the thing.
It was hundred times the size of the artifact in the research installation. It hung above them, suspended in the air, anchored to the ceiling of the chamber. Or embedded, as though the mountain had formed around it. It was a shiny ebony and covered in the same sharply reflective patterns of wear, but it was broken and cracked in places, revealing a dull and brownish-red interior. As they slowly traced their lights over it, they came to the center, where the black shell was almost entirely absent, revealing a giant bulbous mass which stretched with something like tendons and muscles. It moved and flexed, very slowly, its bulk shifting and pulsing, sending ripples into the black shell surrounding it.
"Oh god," Kaidan said from somewhere to her left. "What is it?"
"It's a heart." Sawyer's voice, sounding shell-shocked. "It's a giant god damn heart."
Shepard found her voice. "Plant the bomb. We need to go."
The two marines dropped the circular core on the floor, the sound echoing across the chamber, and Kaidan tore his attention away from the thing looming above them and went to arm the bomb.
He was halfway done when all hell broke loose.
The ground seemed to pitch beneath her and she fell to her knees. She knew this song and dance, and fought not to close her eyes, but something in the back of her mind seemed to pinch and she almost passed out.
As she closed her eyes, she saw them die. Sixty or seventy families, tearing each other apart and piecing themselves back together again beneath a monstrous heart that drove them further into madness with every beat. And in that heart, for just one moment, she saw the goal, the motivation, the instinct, the thing that it had once in life embodied and even in death could not be sated.
Communion.
Glorious, everlasting communion.
Shepard's eyes flew open and she gasped for breath, then struck herself full on the face with her fist. Her nose started bleeding, and the pain brought her back to reality long enough to pull her weapon and take a single shot at Kaidan.
The shot glanced harmlessly off his shields, but the sound of gunfire was enough to snap him out of his trance. He shook his head hard, and quelled the biotics that had been flaring and rippling wildly up and down his body. Then, with some difficulty, he rose and drew his gun, taking his own shots at the two marines while Shepard fired at Vega and Sawyer.
After a few moments, they were all lucid enough to know that they needed to get the hell out. Kaidan tried to arm the bomb, but the heart above them beat once again and they all nearly crumpled to the floor.
The screaming started, somewhere distant.
Shepard pulled Kaidan away from the bomb just as he armed the timer, heading back towards the way they came.
"Fifteen minutes," he said breathlessly beside her as they clambered gradually upward. "Five miles safe distance."
"Move!" Shepard shouted.
They were halfway to the entrance, at least she thought they were, when the colonists started to pour out of the walls around them. From tiny crevices they hadn't even noticed, to full paths that they had ignored, they rose screaming and wailing, the same as before – too many limbs bending the wrong way, tangles of flesh and bone, warped and twisted.
Shepard drew her Carnifex and despite the knives slicing into her mind, her aim was true more often than not. But it mattered little – shots just spilled blood and slowed them down. Any severed limbs, or the loss of a head, and the still flailing and screaming corpse was dragged back by more shrieking colonists back in the direction of the beating heart.
She keyed her comm. "Cortez! Cortez, do you read?!"
"-in, I - st-"
"Cortez!"
"- a- -ver -ey're e-rywher- - –ve to t-e off-"
The interference was much stronger this time, warbling and pitching until she could barely hear him. But she got enough to know that there were hostiles outside, and extraction might not be possible.
Vega led the charge out the entrance of the cave, blasting away with his Scimitar, flanked by his marine detail. Kaidan was next, using his biotics to fling whole groups of the taken colonists off the cliff and down into the forest canopy beneath them. Shepard burst out from the underground and Sawyer stuck close, drawing his rifle as soon as he got outside, firing quick and precise bursts.
She saw Cortez's shuttle hovering above them, several colonists hanging off the sides and trying to claw their way in with their spare arms, while still more literally piled beneath the shuttle, climbing atop one another in an effort to reach it.
She unhooked her Revenant from her hardsuit and held down the trigger until the gun vented steam, then she swapped in a new heat sink and did it again. The gun tore limbs from bodies and put holes the size of a fist in anything it hit, but they still kept coming, crawling after them while others picked them up or dragged them back into the mountain.
Her hand flew to her ear, aiming the Revenant and firing single shots with the other. "Cortez, do you read?!"
"- read you -"
"Get clear! We'll fight our way through and get to a safe distance!"
"- can't open the – turret -"
"Forget the turret! Just go!"
"- Shepard -"
"GO!"
The shuttle hung in the air, spun, then took off to the south, several bodies still clinging to the outside somehow.
"There goes our ride," Vega shouted over the din of screams and gunfire. "You got a plan now, Lola?"
A taken colonist got close, and Shepard bludgeoned the thing with her rifle until Kaidan shoved it away with a flare of biotics.
"Shoot our way through and run until we can't run anymore!" she shouted.
"Sounds good to me!" Vega charged forward, pausing only to swap in a new heat sink, then kept firing, trying to clear a path.
Shepard called for Kaidan, but he was already moving. He ran forward, threw out his arms, and biotic blue flared outward in a shockwave, knocking colonists left and right.
"Forward!" she shouted, and they ran.
It was a rough descent down the side of the mountain. There was no real path except what had been formed by rain and erosion; irregular gashes in the landscape with uncertain footing. The things were on their heels at every step, leaping down from higher ledges. They didn't tire, didn't let up for a second as Shepard and her team descended the gradual slope of the small mountain.
They got down into the trees soon enough, which provided its own obstacles. Spines extended from the alien bark. Long slim limbs held them back and slapped them in the face, scoring their skin and armor as they caught and tripped on deadfall.
Shepard led the way, though she didn't know where, beyond the vague idea of a clearing she thought she saw on the shuttle ride in. Sharp branches and softer ferns crunched under her boots as she ran, heart thundering in her chest.
After so many close calls, it was hard to fear death. But what was promised here was far, far worse. And that fear, more than anything, kept her moving. Her only solace was that if they were taken, the bomb would still destroy the heart and spare her crew and the rest of these colonists their suffering.
Suddenly, Shepard burst through a stand of trees and found her clearing. And on the other side, a sheer drop of a hundred feet.
She glanced quickly from side to side. A rock formation on her left, blocking that route. More trees on her right, along the edge of the cliff. No quick way to descend, no way to climb, no one with a mass effect parachute... no way out.
Shepard turned as the rest of her squad entered the clearing, firing bursts at the taken she could see through the trees. As the rest of them took in the situation, they spun and started firing as well. There was little else to do.
She tried to comm Cortez again, but the interference was so heavy she couldn't hear a word. The taken were starting to move in, gradually encroaching on the clearing as wave after wave pushed forward from the mountain. They were trapped, and starting to run low on heat sinks.
"Where the hell's the damn shuttle!" Sawyer shouted, firing his Vindicator into the woods.
"He'll be here!" Vega shouted back. Then he glanced back at the cliff edge, at the orange sky of the coming dusk. "Don't make a liar out of me, Esteban!"
"Shepard," Kaidan said next to her, sounding like his voice was failing him. "I don't have a lot left."
"Then save it," she said, firing another burst. They were getting closer. "Only a few more minutes until the bomb goes off."
"We're not safe," he said, firing his pistol. "The blast wave."
"I know."
For a moment she turned to look at him. He looked exhausted, blown out, but as determined and stoic as ever.
"It's been an honor, Shepard," he said, and his eyes said more than that.
She couldn't speak. There wasn't enough time to find the words. She just ground her teeth and nodded and hoped that he understood.
They were backed up almost to the cliff's edge, down to their last heat sinks. Roughly three minutes left.
Suddenly, thunder filled the air and the ground shuddered, and the forest before them partially evaporated in a streak of blue light.
And the Normandy swooped in on the echoes, passing overhead and angling its nose above them. The forward hatch opened, revealing the cargo bay, Cortez's shuttle in its docking cradle, and a whole line of marines with rifles drawn.
At their center was Garrus, his Widow in his hands, already sighting down the scope.
She didn't have time to think – she shoved Kaidan back and covered him as best she could with the last remaining shots in her Revenant. The ship lowered enough for him to make the leap to the open hatch. Vega sent his two marines back before he made the leap himself. Only Sawyer and Shepard were left.
Shepard's rifle vented one last time. Sawyer signaled for her to move as he swapped in his last sink. Unable to do anything else, she relented, and ran to the edge, making the jump with some difficulty. Garrus hauled her up onto the open hatch. They had a dozen guns easy, plus Sawyer's, all firing at the advancing line of the taken, and the shot from the Thanix cannon had carved a deep ditch in the forest which hampered their advance, but there were still so many of them and they just would not stop coming...
Sawyer turned and made for the cliff, and the moment he did, the taken all charged as one towards him. He jumped, and was caught in midair by two of them, a small thing that had once been a child and a larger, more massive creature that might have once been its parents. Sawyer clutched at the hatch and Shepard dove for him, grasping at his arm. He lost his grip and fell, and she just barely caught him, hanging beneath the ship.
The rest of the crew were occupied with the taken leaping for the hatch, trying to crawl in – Din was throwing them off with one hand and blasting away with a shotgun in the other, Kaidan was hanging on the arm of another marine and firing his pistol almost blindly, Sorono was slicing limbs off taken with twin omni-blades. Garrus was at her side, trying to pull her up, and having little success.
Sawyer looked up into her eyes. She screwed her eyes shut and screamed as she pulled as hard as she could, but he was too heavy, they were too heavy, she couldn't hang on-
He fell away from her. Time seemed to slow as she watched him plummet.
And then he was enveloped by blue light, halted in midair. With a mighty roar from her left, he flew upwards, above the edge of the hatch, and into Korbin Vorek's arms.
The taken clinging to Sawyer were quickly dispatched and thrown off the edge. Garrus shouted into his comm for Joker to go. Less than a minute later, they broke atmo.
Shepard collapsed onto the deck, staring at Vorek. He was bleeding freely from his nose and trying to stifle the flow.
"Biotic?" was all she had the capacity to ask.
He looked at her and nodded. "L2," he said.
She heard Kaidan start laughing off to her right. She just grinned and fell back onto the deck, sighing heavily.
She'd picked a good crew.