Neither the commander nor the lieutenant were sleeping as dawn rose above the tainted paradise that was Virmire. Inside the Normandy, the payload was secure; Pressly had the deck and Joker had begun the liftoff sequence. Outside, a stern Shepard surveyed her seven finest crew members, Williams included.
Pacing a long line, the commander began her speech in cadence with the echoes of the salarian captain's words across the field.
You all know the mission and what is at stake.
"You've all come here for different reasons. You each see this mission with different eyes..." For a moment, Shepard stopped pacing. Her determined eyes met Ashley, Tali, and Wrex's in turn, punctuating each of the last three words with a pause. "a chance for vengeance... redemption... salvation."
The gleam in Ash's eyes seemed to turn razor sharp in return. Tali stood just a little prouder and Wrex looked as though he was ready to bulldoze an entire army with his will alone.
The commander's eyes softened when they fell on Kaidan. Memories seemed to steep her voice in quiet reverence. "Those lost on Eden Prime can't remember us for what we are about to do."
We would be legends, but the records are sealed.
The lieutenant bowed his head quietly as Shepard began pacing once more. "Those living the colonies now won't remember us beyond tonight's news vid."
Think of our heroes...
By the time the Commander had reached Garrus, her voice was again thick with cold tenacity. "We'll bear these scars anyway so they can go on living -" The turian nodded his firm agreement. Shepard continued on. "whether it's safe in their beds or safe in our memory."
But they are not all that we are.
Taking a step back, the commander stood before her crew. As the anger of so many wasted lives rose within her, her gestures turned harsh, accenting each word with absolute resolution. "We fight today to free all of our people from those who would destroy entire colonies..."
For a moment, the softness returned as Shepard's eyes touched upon Liara's. Her voice was quiet, steady, maternal. "Because we got in their way. Before soldiers there were mothers..." The small asari looked up to her commander with wide, resolute eyes.
Shepard continued. "On Feros, Saren brought his geth down upon Zhu's Hope." There was a pause on both sides of the field as each leader added punch to their simple point.
We held the line.
"We set them free. On Noveria, he bred a new army of rachni."
We held the line.
"We set them free." Shepard's broad gaze again swept across her crew, silently asking each of them more than she had before - maybe all. Today he again seeks to grow both his army and his thralls."
A wave of tension rushed across the field as each commanding officer brought everything they were asking to a single, powerful point. Shepard lifted her chin as her hand came up before her.
In the battle today -
"For the 212, for free krogan children..."
We will Hold the Line!
The commander held her final words until the wake of celebration across the field had passed. Her words, when they came, held all the cold edge of a deep space glacier.
"Let's kill the bastard."
A collective yell arose from the line of crewmen. It was part "Hooyah!", part "Yeah!, Hell Yeah!" and part wordless grunt, but all battle cry.
As a geth rocket whirred over his head, Kaidan found he dearly missed the Williams' rifle, Wrex's shotgun, and Garrus' precision shots. The three pistols wielded by Shepard, Liara, and himself simply did not have the punch needed to fell the geth rocket trooper before it had fired several explosive shots.
The team had begun their assault using a variety of biotic tactics and AI hacks, but wave upon wave of geth soldiers had worn Kaidan to the bitter edge of his ability, forcing him to rely on his sidearm. Shepard's omni-tool was faring even worse than the lieutenant's over-worked amp after a low dive out of the line of fire slammed it into into the hard concrete of the facility floor.
Despite the dozens of crackling, twitching, fallen corpses, the geth seemed as refreshed as they day they were born - or made. At present, three shiny, new rocket troopers and an array of crisp drones had the team pinned behind several cells in what looked to be a medical lab. Two rows of sleeping pod-like holding tubes lined the walls to the East and West, providing cover for T'soni and Alenko. Between them, their commander crouched behind a low, metallic counter.
"Cryo fire in the hole!" Shepard's voice over the comm was strained as she briefly ducked out of cover to hurl a primed grenade at the rocket trooper before them. Kaidan and Liara pulled further behind their respective shields of opportunity, but there was nothing that would fully keep the cold from seeping into their suits as it burst across the room.
The expected explosion was followed by a series of eerie cracks rather than usual silent ringing. Shivering behind an empty holding tube, Kaidan could see a round beam of light fracture into a prism of shadowy shards, radiating outward along the tube's reflective cover as a trooper's eye went dead. In a fair semblance of panic, the second synthetic beast quickly rotated its neck, severing several over-stressed cords in the process with a final crack.
With the sudden absence of two minds from their collective consciousness, the drones hovered aimlessly for a moment, firing at random. Seizing the moment, Liara aimed a wave of charged gravity at the closest drone. Like some sort of bizarre game, it crashed backward into the remaining two, sending them flying in opposite directions.
"Pull," Shepard chuckled to herself as she aimed her pistol at the flying discs. Her shots were echoed by Kaidan's as he fired upon the remaining trooper.
By the time the final drone fell, Kaidan's pistol was hot in his hand. The last geth stood, raining showers of sparks from multiple damage points, but it wasn't enough. The long, cylindrical head craned toward Shepard as his rifle began to glow with power. Later, he'd wonder where Liara's cover fire was. Later, he'd wonder why Shepard had left herself exposed, but for now no thought but action filled Kaidan's head.
He slammed into the trooper at full force, driving his shoulder into its synthetic chest as though the hardened creature was no more than a wooden door and he, no more than a old school cop. Metal and man toppled over in a clamorous mess of oil and blood. Sparks were everywhere - dancing on Kaidan's skin, spinning tales of a fuzzy, new reality behind his eyes.
Somewhere, there was an explosion. Somehow, the lieutenant staggered to his feet while the geth didn't. For a brief cloudy moment, Kaidan wondered about the dead weight he felt where his left arm normally was. Screaming agony came to answer him all too soon, but the pain, the pain was good. Through the pain, he could move his fingers. Through the pain, he could place his arm in position. Through the pain, he could plunge his shoulder back into its proper place.
"Garrhh..Ah!" Or maybe he couldn't.
Eyes like distant crystalline lakes danced within his vision. A beautiful voice asked, "Are you ready?"
The angel didn't wait for a reply before sliding the hot knife of agony into his shoulder. Kaidan coughed a few times as the racing pain returned to normal levels. There was even comfort in places... pleasure.
He opened the eyes he didn't remember closing to find Shepard still peering at him. Her hands still rested upon his body - one clasped around his arm, the other braced against his chest. His angel hadn't left him yet.
As was inevitable, the whole of the situation came flooding back in - the fall of the geth, the mission, the poor cov...
"Liara?" As the single word escaped Kaidan's lips, Shepard's eyes flickered with unknown emotion.
"Here, Lieutenant." The asari woman brought her somewhat less blue form into view as the blood dripping from her head fins washed her face in shades of red.
"Son of a..." Kaidan murmured as he reached for his med kit.
As the Normandy team licked their wounds and prepared to move onward, a half-crazed salarian voice called across the grates and tubes of the lab like a mirror illusion of itself. "Who-who's out there?"
An examination of the end of the room beyond the fallen troopers revealed a series of holding cells, broad rooms with transparent doors and a single conscious occupant.
That occupant, the owner of the beckoning voice, was no less frantic and hardly any more delighted to see his visitors than Kirrahe had been. "What do you want-I told you everything! Wait, no. You are Alliance - Ha! I knew someone would come. Tried to break me. Tried, but they couldn't. I shut it out!"
Shepard raised a cautious palm. "Slow down, I need to know where you came from - why you're here."
"Private Menos Avot of the 3rd Infiltration Regiment, STG, Ma'am! Captured while on reconnaissance six days ago. Glad to answer, Ma'am! Never and questions from these bastards - just whispers and poking and cutting. I'd say anything to get out and get some payback. That's not too much to ask is it? A little payback?" The poor private was all jitters. Each fiber of him seemed to strain for immediate release as he babbled answers.
Both of Shepard's hands were up in the air at this point. Behind them the commander raised a single brow, cocking her head toward this creature as she attempted to decipher the oddity before her. "Calm down. We need to-"
"Please, I need to get out. This room is too small and it keeps talking. Out! I need to get out! I need to do what it says. I have to. Let me out! Let me out! Let me out!!!" Before Shepard could utter another word, the salarian was charging full tilt toward the cell door. His final dash for freedom ended in a dull thonk and dim splatter, but somehow... he seemed to be at peace as the whispers finally found a place to leak out.
There was a moment's pause as the crew considered the situation. It was Shepard who first opened her mouth to break the silence, but it was her comm that actually did so as it crackled to life with Garrus' voice.
"Commander, we're taking heavy fire. Tali, watch your twel- look out! Wrex - wait! Dextromit, That's- " The turian's metallic voice broke off as a large explosion washed over the comm frequency in varying degrees of static.
When the voice returned, it bore a much darker sound. "Negative contacts, Commander. Wrex is down, but stable. Returning him to Normandy for further treatment."
A hard expression shadowed Shepard's face as she took in what news there was to have from the transmission fragments. "Understood. What is your status, Garrus?"
The turian's answer was accompanied by a grunt as he, presumably, began to undertake the task of making the incapacitated krogan mobile. "Flesh wounds only. Tal- nar Rayya also has no threatening injuries. May-urgh-may have achieved our objective before the battle-master surprised us. Will know for sure once decoded."
Another pause fell as a series of shifting sounds were heard then Vakarian's voice came again in much clearer tones. "Commander, there's something you should know. We spoke with a woman - Thanoptis - who was leading a particular area of research on this facility. It seems Saren's ship has a sort of indoctrination property. Those who remain in its presence too long experience.. persuasive whispers, too strong to resist. Their habits change to match the will of the ship - or so I am told."
Shepard's eye fixed on Liara as she bent to address the comm. It was as though the two were sharing a thought or rather, a memory. "That actually makes a lot of sense at the moment. Carry on, Vakarian."
Garrus seemed almost to grateful to offer a last few words to the signal. "Vakarian out."
Shepard moved to address Kaidan and Liara when the comms came to life again.
"Commander, there's more." Tali's voice rang this time, breathless as she rushed along. "I had a quick look at a room behind this lab. There may be another beacon."
Could there be good news in all of this? Shepard shook her head slowly as she clicked several glowing keys of her omni-tool. "I have your position. We will proceed there."
At last there was silence in the echoing chamber of lab tubes, silence enough for a breath at least though not for Shepard.
Her voice was a stern mask that leaked into her eyes, leaving little room for any thought but the mission. "The lab location is one hall down and one floor up from our current position. It is also along the only passage to the drop site from here. We look, but we make it brief. If for some reason, the beacon... If there is a repeat event then I expect you two to continue to the drop site without me. Is that understood?"
"Aye aye, Commander." Kaidan nodded reluctantly.
"Yes, Commander," Liara added in sync with the lieutenant's reply.
"Alright then. Let's finish this thing."
The crew marched down a hall of tempered metal grating. To Kaidan, it seemed footsteps should have alerted every geth within two klicks, but none came. The thought occurred to him that perhaps the bomb's proximity had somehow scattered away them like ants from a sonic pest repellent. Silently, he shifted his grip on his pistol. His crew did not have a habit of attracting such luck.