Shepard looked at the screen and squinted, trying to make the details of the figure sitting in the holding cell. The quarian was pretty small, and it was impossible to see any of her features through the holographic image. All she had was body language, no eyes behind the fuzzy mask. And she was very tense. Couldn't blame her. As far as Shepard knew, that quarian was the reason they couldn't find Roy anywhere.
She didn't know why they had left her in there to stew for half an hour, but Garrus thought it was the thing to do.
"Garrus," Shepard said, her tone mildly disapproving.
"Shepard, leave the detective work to me," Garrus said.
"What, you think she's some sort of criminal mastermind?"
Garrus just shook his head and grabbed a datapad, stepping into the cell with a face full of frown. Shepard didn't get it, but she suspected it had something to do with how Roy had given them all the runaround. If the info Garrus had on her was correct, she was the reason C-Sec has ended up looking like fools.
As soon as Garrus stepped in, the quarian tensed, and a couple of seconds later she seemed to finally relax.
"A-Are you Garrus… um… Varkaran?"
"Garrus Vakarian," the turian replied, slamming the datapad down on the table and sitting down.
The quarian made a little jump back when Garrus dropped the datapad. Damn, but the turian was overdoing it. She didn't have him pegged as the one to kick the puppy like that. He let the silence drag for a while, leisurely reading the datapad on the table.
"So, um, Roy told me to speak with you…" she offered.
"Uh-huh," Garrus said, not looking up. "Where is he?"
"I don't know," she said, shrinking in the seat.
"Really. We found two dead turians in the workshop, we combed the sewers looking for him and-"
"I don't know where he went!" Mika snapped. "I don't get why he told me to talk to you, you're a jerk."
Shepard sniggered. Oh the girl had a bite after all. Garrus had gotten the wrong end of the stick, and for more reasons that she could count. With a shake of her head, she opened the door and walked into the cell.
"What the- commander?"
"Relax Garrus, she's on our side," she said, and turned to Mika. "It's so nice to meet you at last!"
"Uh… hi?" Mika offered.
"Yeah," Shepard said, her cheerfulness confusing to the other two in the room. "Just spent two hours of drudgery through the sewers chasing after you two, and failing. Very impressive work!"
Mika looked at Shepard with big eyes, but didn't say a word. If she had to guess, the quarian had no idea what she was on about. The effect of the mismatch between the voice tone and the content of the message always amused her.
"Thank you?" she finally offered.
"I'm commander Shepard, I work with Garrus here," she said, and tapped the turian's shoulder. "And he's a big softie, you just caught him on a bad day."
Garrus grunted something, but it wasn't loud enough for the translators to pick up. Or maybe it wasn't actual words. Shepard didn't say anything else, letting the silence drag.
"Yes?" Mika said, still guarded.
"So, let's start from the beginning. Why did Roy tell you to come talk to him?"
"He… said I could trust him." Mika said.
Garrus and Shepard looked at each other, and the commander couldn't help a little laugh escaping.
"Sorry, sorry, wrong question," Shepard said. "Or badly phrased. What happened that Roy told you to come here and talk to Garrus?"
"Oh." She started fidgeting, and avoiding Shepard's gaze. "Well…"
"Just start from the beginning," Garrus said. "The two dead turians we found in the workshop."
With a deep breath, Mika started her explanations. The call from Roy, how the two turians broke in, how they ran away through the sewers, and how they ended up under the wards on their way to the docks. She spoke in a slow, halting way. Breaking eye contact constantly. It was clear that she wasn't giving them everything, but Shepard didn't think she was exactly lying. Garrus kept interrupting with questions, trying to get her off track, but he didn't manage to trip her into giving anything other than exactly what she wanted to give.
"So, after that I came here. Roy told me not to speak to anyone until I found Garrus Vakarian, and we split up." she said, and gave the turian the evil eye.
"And you two gave us the runaround through the sewers," Garrus said dryly.
"Yes?"
"Us, C-Sec, Saren's people, and the other group of humans. All of us. Quite amazing."
"Who's Saren?" Mika said.
Shepard laughed at that, getting an annoyed look from Garrus. The quarian was a really curious case. She was flighty and insecure, she even avoided eye contact, one of the few things quarians were able to use for non-verbal communication. But sometimes, she'd bite back. Or just go undeterred on a tangent without even flinching, throwing Garrus completely off.
"It's hard to believe," Shepard said. "Come on, how did you do it?" she added, her tone low and conspiratorial.
"I've spent two years down there," Mika said. She looked like she was going to say something else, but she just quieted down and sat back, crossing her arms and looking away.
"Two years?" Shepard said. Mika made a gesture like she was wincing.
"That's-" Garrus spoke, but was quickly interrupted by Shepard.
"Nevermind. You avoided all the crazy people and went to the docks… where?"
"I dunno. Roy sent me away before we got there. He… he said the less I knew, the better."
"So he knew who's after him."
Mika shrugged helplessly. "I don't know."
"Did he do anything out of the ordinary recently?" Garrus said.
"N-No. Don't know. I haven't known him so long. Just a week."
Shepard looked at her and grinned. "Aw, that's so sweet. Love at first sight."
"W-What?" Mika said, jumping so suddenly she nearly fell off the chair.
"Really! I mean, look at you two! Barely know each other for a week, and here you are, helping him escape a whole lot of bad guys and C-Sec officers," Shepard's grin reached Cheshire cat levels. "Was he good? Because I've seen him naked, and he didn't look all that."
Mika was making noises, but they weren't words. Not for lack of trying, though.
"Shepard?" Garrus said.
"Oh my, you did see him naked!" Shepard said.
"No!" Mika replied, far too quickly. "Yes! I mean, not all! Ach! Why does it matter!"
"I'm just wondering," Shepard said, her voice now back to normal. "Why go through all this trouble for someone you barely know?"
Mika fidgeted again, looking to the side. Shepard waited her out, until she finally spoke, her voice low and thin.
"He was nice to me…" she said.
The silence that followed was eloquent enough that Shepard didn't have to say anything. Nice. Roy. How the hell had he managed that with the quarian? One week. She tried to put herself in the quarian's shoes, and she couldn't imagine surviving one week down there locked with him. She suspected the one who was too nice was the quarian. For starters, to be nice, one would have to interact with people. Talk to them.
"So, she doesn't really know anything," Shepard said.
"Of course she does!" Garrus snapped.
"Garrus, you really think we can get something from her that won't put her in danger and help us?"
Garrus looked at Shepard, at Mika, then gave a reluctant growl of assent. "Fine. That'll be all, you're free to go."
Mika looked at them in surprise, but for several seconds she didn't look like she was going anywhere.
"Is there anything else?" Shepard prompted.
"Um…" Mika glanced at Garrus before talking. "Are you… the captain of Roy's ship?"
That came out of nowhere.
"No, that'll be Captain Anderson. Why?"
"Why did he… kick Roy?"
"Kick Roy?"
"Out of his ship. He wouldn't tell me, and… Well… I shouldn't ask, sorry," she stood up and walked off quickly, but Shepard stopped her.
"I didn't kick him out, Mika. He walked away."
"That's… not what he told me…"
Before Shepard could say anything else, Mika apologized again and walked off, accompanied by the C-Sec officer posted at the door.
"The hell…" Shepard muttered.
"Shepard, she knows more than that. Why didn't you let me do my job?"
"What, and let you sit there and growl at the puppy?"
"The what?" Garrus said. "She's not an innocent bystander. The reason she's working in the sewers is to pay off an eight million credit debt, which she got after stealing those credits from a trader on Illium."
"Garrus," Shepard said, her tone conveying that she didn't care about all that. "She doesn't know anything important." She took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Besides, it doesn't matter."
"What? You were on this like a varren on a fresh kill," Garrus said. "Now it doesn't matter?"
"No. Roy got away, and if we don't know where he is, you think Saren will?" Shepard said.
Not that she wasn't annoyed. Yeah, the wild goose chase hadn't really endeared him to Roy, but the bottom line was that the information was safe. Whether she really cared about keeping Roy safe or not was a different question, but the fact that he was nearly captured by Saren had been a definite worry. She still didn't know all he knew, but there was something she did know. If Saren got his hands on him, he was not going to be able to keep his secrets for long.
But, as she had said, it didn't matter. Waste of time, and little else. Roy had managed to avoid everyone and make a clean getaway. Dammit, she was pissed. If he had kept his damn omni-tool, all that would have been avoided, what the hell was he thinking? All he'd have had to do was sit tight and wait for them.
"Is that all you were interested in?" Garrus said, dragging her out of her thoughts.
"That, and give him a smack upside the head. The whole problem was that we couldn't let Saren get his claws on him and what he knew." She took a deep breath and rubbed her face. "One thing at a time, Garrus. He's safe enough, his info is too. Let's just keep our ear open for him. Also, he wanted to stay in the Citadel, there's got to be a reason. But in the meantime, we've got a rogue Spectre to catch."
Garrus grunted and nodded at that. "You won't hear me complain about that."
"The two humans we caught?" Shepard inquired.
"Tight-lipped. They probably didn't even know who had employed them, but C-Sec will keep pressing them. We'll keep our eyes open."
"Good. Nihlus and I are going to talk to the Council regarding Shiala. In the meantime, grab whatever C-Sec has on Saren's and Benezia's assets."
"That's going to be two very big lists."
"Can't be worse than calibrating the Mako, can it?"
Calibrating the Mako was more Art than Science. The unwieldy beast was not easy to handle, and calibrating it depended as much on the planet where it was going to be used, as it did on who was driving it. And with Shepard driving it, calibrating it bordered on impossible.
Garrus would still rather do that than comb through the list in front of him. Saren had a long service record as a Spectre, and had accumulated considerable assets. Benezia's list was even worse. It was too much even for a VI, the lists overlapped in so many places it was impossible to tell a good lead from a red herring. Some were obvious, like Armax Arsenal, it was a solid investment with fantastic returns and a regular dividend. Others were more puzzling, such as their co-ownership of a high end wine bar on the Citadel.
And so many of them turned out to be dead ends, or shell companies holding other assets, which made the list even longer and more complicated.
Just looking at the overlap wasn't going to do any good. There had to be a connection with what Saren was doing now. Prothean research? Technology development?
"Spirits, it never ends!" Nihlus shouted, slamming a datapad down.
Garrus gave the Spectre an amused look. "Dead end?"
"Trail ends in Illium. Money laundering, Saren shut it down two years ago, but never bothered to de-list it from his Spectre assets. Benezia was just one of the parties the owner ripped off."
They were both sitting at Garrus' old desk in C-Sec, datapads piled high around them. They had been at it for three days now, digging through reams and reams of data. As a Spectre, Nihlus had much more access than C-Sec had, which he had hoped would give them a clue, but there was just so much that had been kept out of C-Sec, all it added was a whole lot more dead ends.
"Well, well, handsome and sexy, still here!" Shepard's voice called, grabbing the attention of the two turians and half the resident C-Sec detectives.
She was pushing a cart, of all things, and had two foil packages in her hand. She stopped the cart, looked at them with a big smile on her face, and threw the packs, one for each. They caught it deftly, and both smiled at that.
"Snappers," Garrus said. "Good choice."
"I wouldn't know," Shepard said, shrugging. "I just asked for something that two hungry turians trapped in prison would like. This was the second thing the shopkeeper suggested."
Garrus laughed in response, while Nihlus dove in and took a big bite off the bar. It was blue, mostly dried meat and bone marrow, all the good stuff turians liked.
"So, who's handsome and who's sexy?" Garrus said, opening his own pack.
"Oh, Nihlus is both. You're just grumpy," Shepard replied, making Garrus laugh and Nihlus choke on his food.
"Spirits," Nihlus said, coughing. "Shepard…"
"What do you have anyway?" Garrus said, mouth slightly open in a turian grin. "You didn't just come here to feed us, did you?"
"Can't I just miss you guys?" Shepard said, getting amused glares from both of them. "Fine, fine. I've got an angry Gunnery Chief and two angry marines, because all three are going to be staying here."
"Staying?" Garrus said.
"Yeah. Fredricks is still not a hundred percent, Felawa has a dud arm, and Williams needs a few more re-growth treatments and rehab before the acid damage is repaired. So, they're staying here. For the next few days at least."
"What about Liara? She was in even worse shape," Nihlus said.
"Still aboard the ship," Shepard said. "I can do the extra shooting, but not the extra prothean archeologisting."
"Ar- what? I think my translator glitched," Nihlus said.
"Nah, it just isn't a real word."
"So, if you're leaving them, where are we going?" Garrus said.
"There's the C-Sec detective," Shepard said. "The captain got tired of waiting, and since we have no clues, he decided to find some straws to clutch at. Some missing people, patrol reports, and other fun stuff. So," she tapped the cart, "collect your datapads, we've got places to be."
"Anywhere better than here," Nihlus said, standing up and piling the datapads in real quick.
Garrus just let a rumbling laugh and helped with the packing. To think that Spectres had so little patience for detective work.
Anderson's office was very small, and felt even more cramped when visitors were in. Nihlus and Shepard were both standing around the terminal, with the captain sitting on his chair.
"So, we have a distress call from an alliance patrol in Argos Rho, possible pirate attack on the Horse Head Nebula, Kahoku has lost some marines in Sparta, a lost ship on the Maroon Sea system, and a follow-up from ExoGeni selling information to some scientists that have gone missing on the Newton system."
Anderson read the list slowly, as details of the different assignments appeared on the screen. There were more, but other reports already had Alliance resources assigned to them.
"We looking for Saren, or for something to do while the detective and his sidekick do their thing?" Shepard said, pointing at Nihlus with her thumb.
Nihlus gave a rumbling laugh, and shook his head.
"Ideally, both," Anderson said.
"By distance then?" Shepard offered.
"I'd start with this," Nihlus said, pointing at Admiral Kahoku's assignment.
"Why?"
"He's been stonewalled by the Council." Anderson and Shepard both turned to look at him. "It is suspicious. Saren is... was their top Spectre. It makes me wonder what he might have known the Council would have rather kept quiet."
Anderson nodded and brought the details up, while Shepard gave Nihlus a narrow eyed look. The meeting about Shiala hadn't gone too well, the Council had insisted on keeping her prisoner and interrogating her, under charges of treason. She knew he wanted to lead this task, and it felt like the Council had taken her out of his hands. It wasn't the first time, but this had been the most flagrant. He was losing confidence in the Council, she was sure of that.
She only hoped it wasn't just a side effect of having to chase Saren. They had been at it for a while, but she knew he was still struggling with it. She made a mental shrug and tabled it for now, turning to the report.
"What the hell was the patrol doing out there anyway?" Shepard said, looking at the text.
"I'll find out. In the meantime..." Anderson hit the comms. "Pressly, set course for Artemis Tau, we're heading for Sparta."
"Aye aye, sir," Pressly replied. "ETA... three hours and twenty minutes."
"I'll go back to help Garrus," Nihlus said.
"No, tell him to meet me downstairs, we've got to prepare the Mako," Shepard said, grinning widely.
"Like a kid with new shoes," Anderson muttered, making Nihlus laugh as he left.
"I'll take care of it!" Shepard protested.
"No you won't."
She made a fake pout, and hit the comms. "Ground team, we'll be hitting ground side in just over three hours. Make sure you check all your new gear before we do!" She looked at Anderson pointedly as she spoke, and the captain couldn't hold a chuckle back.
Shepard loved the smell of new seats. The Mako wasn't just a hands-me-down from some other frigate that happened to be at the Citadel. It was brand new, she had even had to remove the covers from the seats and the terminals.
Garrus had made a few comments about how some of the parts he always had to work on were actually different on this model. Like how the transmission had actually a single straight shaft with proper seals. And the shocking lack of geth parts jammed in between the cracks of the underside.
Smartass.
"Ready for launch, commander," Alenko said.
"Everyone ready back there?" Shepard said, looking back.
Grieco was wedged in the middle, with Wrex on the back seat and Nihlus by the turret. It was funnier because the marine was going to be the one on the turret, he just didn't dare contradict Nihlus. He sure knew how to look grumpy. With a big smile, she revved the Mako. Twice. Damn the machine sounded smooth. The new tyres skidded on the floor for just a fraction of a second before the traction control kicked in, and the beast lurched into the air with a kick.
She hummed in a very inappropriate way, getting looks from Alenko and Grieco.
The jets kicked in and the Mako landed with a jolt, making everything rattle inside for the first time. Shepard went immediately to her instruments, and so did Alenko.
"Everything's green," Alenko announced.
"And no bad guys. Griego, get in the turret."
"Aye, aye!" the marine replied.
Shepard took off at a good clip, the Mako flying over the sandy soil with ease. There was nothing out there. The part of the planet they were on was completely deserted, nothing to see. The sky was a different thing. There was a constant rain of meteors streaking across the sky, few of them landing but many of them brightening up the tempestuous horizon.
It was easy to get distracted there.
"Commander, I'm picking up something," Alenko said. He flicked the audio of the comms, and a beeping signal went through.
"What's that?" Wrex said.
"Alliance distress beacon. Automated one," Shepard said. "Grieco, anything?"
"All clear."
"Keep your eyes open."
She turned the Mako towards the signal, and reduced to a medium speed. What nagged at her was the desolate landscape. What on Earth could the marines have been doing out there? There was absolutely nothing there.
"Got something," Grieco said, making Shepard skid to a stop. "There's... I think it's a Grizzly. Two kays out."
"Anything else?"
"Nothing."
"All right, keep them peeled."
She heard Nihlus choke out a laugh, and shook her head in amusement. Translators. An unending source of amusement for the galaxy.
There was nothing on the approach. She stopped the Mako ten meters away from the Grizzly, and the squad filed out. A thin wisp of smoke was still rising from the remains, the oxygen deprived atmosphere slowing the burn of the electronics to a dull smoulder. There were corpses all around the vehicle, two of them sticking out of the broken Mako.
"What the hell happened?" Alenko said.
Wrex grunted something, leaning close to the Grizzly. Shepard didn't like it, there was something familiar about it. The empty space, and the...
She looked at the vehicle. It was ripped in several places, but more strange, there were several spots where the hull had been melted.
"Shepard..." Wrex grunted.
"Shit. Back! Back to the Mako!" she yelled.
"What the-" Alenko said, but didn't finish the phrase.
A roar filled the air as a thresher maw broke through the ground, right under the Mako. It sent the tank tumbling through the air, and crashing onto the ground several meters away. Shepard would have been upset at her brand new Mako being so roughly handled by someone other than herself, but she was too distracted.
"Move, move!" Shepard shouted, raising her assault rifle and opening fire.
The maw roared, and a moment later spat a gob of acid towards Shepard. She moved automatically, movements learned during the night of her worst nightmare, and dove behind the Grizzly, rolling away from the splash and coming up for shooting again.
The rest of her team had spread out, and were shooting at the thing with real relish. She took a quick glance, and saw that Grieco was having the worst of it. He was spraying almost blindly, and taking uncertain steps backwards as he did. Wrex yelled at him to shape up, and pushed him out of the path of another gob of spit. He avoided the direct hit, but she saw him tumble away in the splash.
Fuck, fuck!
She came out of cover again, her assault rifle in semi-automatic shooting deadly accurate bursts into the beast's head. They were on foot behind the remains of a broken Grizzly, and surrounded by dead marines. Shit on toast.
Another gob of spit hit the Grizzly right over where Alenko was taking cover, and the Lieutenant had to roll away to avoid the acid.
"Keep firing!" Shepard said. "Spread out!"
"No!" Wrex yelled. "Don't-"
Too late. As the team spread, the thresher maw screeched, and dove underground.
"They dive when they feel threatened," Wrex said, absently pulling Grieco to his feet. The marine looked shocked, tense from head to toe. "You have to let it think it has the upper hand."
The group came together more closely, walking carefully as they looked for solid ground.
"It has the upper hand!" Grieco yelled.
Wrex rumbled in annoyance, but didn't say anything. After a few more seconds, the maw bolted out of the ground, and the attacks started again.
"Alenko, push on my mark!" Shepard called.
The maw's mouth opened, and it retracted its tongue, preparing to spit.
"Now!" Shepard yelled.
Alenko glowed bright blue as the dark energy swirled around him, and he hit the maw's head with all the strength he could muster. It hit the maw like a punch, throwing it off and making the gob of spit fly out wildly away from them.
"Nice!" Shepard called.
"Did you just punch a thresher maw on the face?" Grieco said.
Wrex laughter cut through the comms like a rumbling thunderstorm. His shotgun was barking angrily at the beast, until it once again dove underground.
"Wrex?" Shepard said. She took a chance to look at her team, but everyone was still all green. Both Alenko and Grieco had been hit by acid splash, but their armours had held. She was damn glad she had blown her entire budget on new gear for them.
"This is going to take forever," the krogan complained.
"I'm open to suggestions!" Shepard replied.
"Commander, I'm still up here," she heard Garrus over the comms.
"And so am I!" Tali added.
"We're- Look out!"
The maw came out a third time, so close that it went straight to claw at them. Shepard saw the beast's arms come down, hitting Wrex and-
"Nihlus!" Shepard shouted. The turian dove away, and rolled on the ground as he did. She saw something fly off, and the turian put his hand to his chest, blue blood pouring out. "Shit!"
She grabbed one of her grenades and threw it with all her strength, and it flew straight to the maw's roaring mouth. It stuck on the side, and as it exploded, a piece of its mandibles went flying. Shepard was already shooting, aiming at the wound but rushing towards Nihlus.
The turian was struggling on his feet, and Shepard nearly crashed on him as he pulled him away, firing wildly with her assault rifle in one hand.
"Cover her!" Alenko shouted, coming out of his cover to grab the maw's attention. It had had enough of that exchange, and dove down into the ground.
"How is he?" Grieco called.
Shepard laid Nihlus down by the Grizzly and checked his chest. The armour had been ripped, and the wound was bleeding hard. A quick scan with the omni-tool, however, showed that it was better than it looked. It hadn't gone deeper than scratching his ribs.
"Spirits," Nihlus muttered.
"Shut up, I don't need your sexy voice distracting me," Shepard said, applying medi-gel to the wound. She grunted when Nihlus started laughing. "And stop laughing too."
"That's your... fault..." Nihlus grunted.
A tremor of the ground warned her the maw was back. Shit, this was all going downhill fast.
"Cover me!" Grieco shouted.
WHAT?!
She turned in shock to see the marine running straight for the maw.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU-"
The maw lunged at the marine, two claws coming down at full speed, and he rolled out of the way right in the nick of time. The strength of the maw's attack kicked up a cloud of dust and debris, but Grieco managed to roll to his feet and throw something at the maw. It didn't as much stick to the maw as it just snagged on one of the head's spikes. The maw turned to follow him, preparing a gob of spit, and Shepard was yelling her head out while shooting her assault rifle, already seeing the marine burning in a pile of acid in her mind, but a blast of blue biotic energy punched the maw on the face again.
Just in time. It all happened quickly. The head snapped to the side, the acid missed Grieco, and then an enormous explosion blew half the maw's head off.
Wrex and Alenko bolted out as one, their weapons barking angrily as the maw trashed about, until, with a gurgling, choking roar, it fell to the ground for the last time. Nobody moved, or said a word, after that. Shepard looked at the scene like a frozen statue, a million thoughts colliding in her head and drowning in the sea of emotion. The thing was dead. The thing was dead, her people were alive. Her people were alive. Alive, and they had killed the maw.
"Is it... is it dead?" Grieco called over the comms.
For an answer, Wrex shot it again with his shotgun. When the maw didn't move, he started laughing, and gave Grieco a smack on the back that sent the marine tumbling.
"Tell me that wasn't fun!" he bellowed. "Hey Shepard, your kid's got a quad!"
The relief Shepard felt almost made her knees buckle.
"He sure does," Shepard said. "Wre- Hey! No, put that down, no trophies in the Normandy!"
After a few days doing this job, I was starting to get the hang of it. I wasn't doing any of the important bits, I was just moving the heavy shit around that couldn't be moved by the machinery. So, the shittier jobs. So far, we have set up shop on three different planets, found two good lodes of Iridium, and a meh one of silver.
The job involved getting there, digging the samples we needed to dig, mapping the structure of the lodes with our equipment, then setting up the initial digs, the refining station, and start the extraction. If it looked promising, we'd transmit the data to the mining company that had set up the contract (typically, the one that sent the probe in the first place), and move on, leaving the mining equipment behind. Eventually, we'd buy more equipment and start all over again, usually after half a dozed digs or so.
Twelve hours ago, we had gotten a contract for a possible deposit of eezo. The crew had gone insane, and we had stopped everything we were doing and gone straight for it. Eezo digs were very competitive, we had to be the first ones there, and that usually meant beating other crews to the punch.
"All right people, get ready!" Jake shouted.
He was our shift-boss, and in charge of pretty much making sure everything was working. He was also the one who cracked the whip. Metaphorical whip, though I could see him cracking a different one if someone looked at him the wrong way.
"Ready!"
"Ready!"
One by one all the stations called. First thing, get the digging team, next the mapping team, and finally the refining station. We usually took our time with that, setting the temporary camp at the same time, but this was different. There was another crew just minutes ahead of us, and we were going to have to work fast if we wanted to beat them. The first ones to transmit the mining report would win the contract, and a cut from an eezo op could mean a serious chunk of money.
The ship landed with a rough jolt, and we were off to the races. I was nearly run over as I stopped outside when I looked at the sky.
It was incredible.
I had no fucking idea where we were. All I could see was a huge gas giant dominating the horizon, a deep cobalt blue with lighter lines streaking across the surface.
Holy crap!
"Move it newass!" someone yelled, breaking the spell.
As we got the drilling equipment out, six people with scanners rushed out, looking for the best spot in the vicinity to dig.
"Twenty meters!" one called.
"Thirty!"
"Eight!"
Bullseye. We had a target. Ten of us moved out, carrying the gear and setting up the drill. Mining eezo was a pain, because normally it had no mass, so it couldn't be moved easily. Also, it was mixed with other shit, and it was rarely the same. We had to get a station to crush the ore, then use a polar gas to give it mass and pull it out.
That was the basics, which was all I needed. Once I knew the basics, I knew what equipment we had to set up.
Beam by beam we built the tower for the digger. The moon we were on was pulling about half a gee, so it wasn't as hard to do as it would be otherwise. But it was still hard fucking work. Not complicated, at least for the parts I was doing, but pretty fucking intense.
"Come on, move it newass! We're falling behind!"
"We started behind!" I protested.
I put the hand to my head, trying to wipe the sweat, and hit the helmet instead. Damn. The suit I was wearing cost me nearly five thousand credits, and it didn't even have a decent thermo-regulator. From the outside, it looked just like a very yellow regular hardsuit, but it was a hazardous environment suit. Kinetic barriers and hardened plates which weren't as good as the basic alliance armour, but absolutely outstanding when it came to environmental problems. Heat, cold, toxic, it was practically impervious to level one hazards, and able to withstand level two ones for hours. Add a CO2 scrubber that broke the molecules down to recycle oxygen, and a moisture recycler for the air, and it could provide air with a surprisingly small reserve for days at a time. All in all, with a bit of work it could be a very badass suit. Not as badass as the lambda suit, but I had it in my head to maybe upgrade it to get there.
Have I mention I'm a hoarder? Well, not really, but guns and armor in the future were too cool to pass up. I had the same problem in the games.
"Shit, they're drilling!"
"Move it! Get the ozone here!"
Polar gas to get the eezo out of the ore. It was organized chaos, and I was trying as hard as I could to move the heavy shit into place. Crap, they were ahead. We saw the lights pop as their drill came to life...
And was swiftly followed by an enormous fireball.
"Holy shit!" I yelled.
I was the only one. Everyone else paused for a moment to look, and then a chorus of laughter exploded. I looked around like I couldn't believe what I was hearing; because I couldn't.
"What the hell! They might have been hurt!" I yelled into the comms.
"Yeah, yeah. Wait, you might be right," one of the miners said, his voice amused. He brought his omni-tool up, and put a call through. "Hey guys, anyone hurt? You need some help?" he said, his voice derisive and mocking.
"Fuck you asshole," the response came, making everyone else crack up laughing again.
"What the fuck..."
"Ammonia and methane atmosphere with ozone gas, newass. Bad combo."
Well, fuck.
The explosion hadn't proved fatal to anyone – told ya the suits were pretty sweet – but it had destroyed their drilling gear and now they were behind. All in all, with the little accident from the other crew, we could finally take our time to make sure everything was in place, and not end up like overcooked turkeys ourselves. Another crew showed up when we were almost done, but all they did was take a flyby and leave, to the cheers of my own crew.
It was a massive hit. We spent over twenty hours mapping the vein, it was very large, and very rich.
Once the report was sent, and seemingly out of nowhere, a whole lot of booze made its way to the mess, and everyone started celebrating very loudly, and very drunkenly. Half the crew started gambling the money they still hadn't earned with Skyllian Five.
"Fookin' hell," my first acquaintance, grizzly man, said as he nearly dislocated my shoulder with a slap. "One fookin' week in the job and you've hit it big. Yer one lucky bastard!"
"Couldn't have made it without you," I replied, getting a peal of raspy laughter from him.
"Hey newass! Go out there and check the drill!" Jake shouted.
Yep, new guy gets to work while the rest celebrate. Meh, didn't matter. With this, I was sure we'd ship off and I could get back to the Citadel on the lowdown. With a nice pile of credits as a bonus, too.
I put my suit on, checked all the seals, then grabbed my shotgun and hanged it on my back. Force of habit, and I kinda wasn't sure whether I wanted to leave it somewhere where a whole lot of drunk miners were celebrating.
It was nice outside. On my own, really. The view was fucking amazing, and I could finally get them in. The planet above was ten times more awesome than any other planet I had seen so far. Seriously, just breathtaking. I went to check the drill, and the VI gave me the all green. I took the time to swap some of the filled barrels, and put empty ones in place. We had stacks of eezo already, and the purifier was still working at full tilt.
Shit, we shouldn't sell this to anyone. Just mine a fuckload of eezo, fill the cargo ship with it, then sell it and call it a day. We'd probably get more than the small cut we'd have to share from the dig.
Well, whatever. I sat down on one of the equipment crates by the ship's airlock, and leaned back on my elbows, looking at the planet. I wondered where the hell we were. It didn't matter much, but I'd like to know. I brought my omni-tool up, and fired up the extranet.
Huh.
No access. Odd, we had dropped comm buoys on the way in, as you do when entering a system without them, and I was pretty sure they worked, because we had sent the mining report.
Then again, I wasn't sure how good those shitty buoys were.
With a mental shrug, I closed the app and went back to stargazing. The system's sun was far enough that the light was not particularly burning. Bright enough, specially with the reflection from the gas giant, but not so bright that it drowned all stars. It was weird not to recognize the sky. I always liked stargazing.
I saw something move, and had to do a doubletake. A spot on the planet? I got progressively bigger, until I realized it wasn't a spot.
It was a ship.
"SHIT!" I shouted, jumping to my feet. "Geth!"
Words were barely out of my mouth when the ship roared as it decelerated sharply, creating a tempest of dust and gravel that nearly threw me off to the ground. A dropship. I hesitated for a moment, whether I should run inside to warn the others or look for cover, but the ship made the decision for me. With a blue flash, its forward guns started shooting, and mercilessly tearing into our ship.
"Fuck, fuck!" I hit the comms, rushing to get behind one of the heavier crates of parts. "Geth attack! Everyone, geth! Get out!"
I could barely hear my own words over the roar of the dropship, even through the sound dampening my suit offered. I could guess they never heard me inside. I reached to my back for my shotgun, and looked over my cover at what was coming. An armature had dropped from the dropship, as well as a whole lot of geth troopers.
Shit.
My eyes drank the scene, and I dove back into cover the second I made "eye" contact with one of the geth. Shit, shit, shit! Had they seen me? The dropship was still shooting, but was working on demolishing the ship thoroughly. I had literally nowhere to run. Nowhere. And enough geth to give even Shepard trouble.
…
Maybe not, but it sure was a fucking awful place to be. My hands were shaking, mostly from fear, adrenalin pumping hard into my veins. Shit!
I brought up my omni-tool and tried to connect to the comm buoys. Nothing. Jammed or destroyed, I didn't know. I left the channel open and started shouting.
"Mayday! We are under attack! Geth are attacking us, we need help! Anyone listening, we need help!"
I left the message in a loop as the first shots started pinging my cover. My first instinct was to dive deeper into safety, but I could almost hear Ashley's voice yelling at me to get off my ass and shoot the damn targets. Staying in cover meant I'd get killed, and fuck me if I got killed because she wasn't going to train a clueless kid just so he could get killed again.
Yeah, all that raced through my head, and a few other things. I guess my life was flashing in front of my eyes. I wished for a moment that I hadn't given Mika the shield the AI gave me, but then again, I didn't want to leave her unprotected caught against Cerberus and Saren's people because of me, and I had bought myself a suit with kinetic barriers anyway. I'd have rather bought something more combat ready, but my options were limited out here.
Something I hadn't planned on, actually. I was hoping to get a good hardsuit, but, well, it hadn't quite worked so well.
A renewed barrage hit my cover, and I took a deep breath. Time to face the music. I got into a more comfortable crouch, and got out of cover to start shooting. Geth. Geth everywhere. The nearest one was close enough that I could get clean hits with my extended barrel shotgun, so I got right at it. One, two, I drew "blood" on the third, but had to go straight into cover again before I could go for the next one.
My shields sucked.
I went to the opposite side of the heavy crate, waited a moment for them to recharge, and went right at it again. Another geth down, about fifteen more to go, and getting a lot closer. I rushed into cover when a shot pinged on my helmet's faceplate, skidding along the surface but not cracking anything.
All of the geth were on me now. The crate was taking the shots like a champ, until the armature turned its evil eye to me. A plasma ball hit it square in the middle, rocking it dangerously and sending melted bits of plastic and metal flying with an almost muted explosion. The blast threw me off my feet, and I had to roll away to avoid the falling debris.
Which left me in cover behind a badly damaged crate with a huge hole in the middle.
"Fuck!" I yelled
I bolted to my feet and made the run towards better cover, another of our large pieces of machinery still in its crate. The geth were close now, and the run cost me my shields entirely, forcing me to wait for them to recharge. This wasn't good. The armature took some time between shots, but I wasn't using that time particularly well. As soon as the shields were up again, I looked out of my current cover...
And ran smack on a geth trooper. The synthetic didn't seem too surprised to see me, it just raised its assault rifle, which made me snap and start shooting it with my shotgun. One, two, I fired as quickly as I could, staggering the geth, until the third shot blew a hole through its chest and threw it to the ground.
I couldn't help but take a moment to take a deep breath, my heart was beating furiously in my chest, and my hands were shaking slightly. Fuck me sideways that had been close. A few rounds had hit my shields, taking most of them, but the shotgun had staggered the geth enough to throw its aim off, even so close.
Without a second thought, I grabbed its pulse rifle and gave it a try. Working.
Spray and Pray it is.
With emphasis on the pray part. I had to get out there and start shooting geth, and they were close. A second shot from the armature forced me into cover, and the crate once again exploded with extreme prejudice. It didn't hit it in the middle, it hit it on the half behind which I had taken cover, and made me scramble to get to safety. I dove into the surviving half and, peeking out of the corner, started shooting with the rifle, almost blindly. It didn't seem to do much, until I hit one of the barrels full of eezo, and it exploded spectacularly, taking the nearest two troopers with it.
…
My cover gave out and I was forced to run again. Shields low, they broke before I could get to safety, and I was thrown to the ground with the impact of bullets. Pain didn't immediately hit me, there was a moment of shock when I looked down at myself and saw the holes, and the blood. Then the pain started. Burning, excruciating pain. I dragged myself painfully to cover, gasping for air. Shit. Shit.
I had enough presence of mind to use the little medi-gel I was carrying. My hands weighted a ton, and they were shaking. Shit. There was a hole on my chest, it burned and I kept coughing painfully. I plugged them until I ran out of medi-gel, the chemicals in the mixture giving me temporary relief. Not much time. I had to kill them before...
Before what?
Dropship, armature, and more geth than I could shake a stick at. What could I possibly do? I took a peek around, and saw the armature maneuvering around the drilling equipment, with the dropship directly overhead. It was done with our ship, and was turning to me.
Well, I may as well go out with a bang. I painfully rose my pulse rifle, aimed at the biggest pile of full barrels, and squeezed the trigger.
The ensuing explosion was so enormous I had to drop back in cover, as the heatwave engulfed everything in its path. My suit beeped angrily at me about the level 1 heat hazard, and I could feel the burn where bullets had pierced the protective layer. One massive explosion, followed by numerous secondary ones. I heard the sound of the geth dropship's engines firing, getting louder and louder, until they were silenced with a crash and another explosion.
I chuckled to myself, my head already swimming.
Suckers. Never saw what hit them.
I couldn't move. With some difficulty, I opened my omni-tool, and started babbling into it.
"Help... Geth attack. We... No, it's the heretics... I think it's the heretics. Geth don't attack others. Heh, funny thing, isn't it? Geth. Actually nice, it's the heretics... Shepard..." I stopped to cough painfully, and specks of blood hit the inside of my helmet's visor. "Commander. I could use some help..."
It all became fuzzy. I think I remember a flashlight head looking down at me at some point, and thinking that it was all over.
At least I didn't feel any pain.
"All clear," Garrus announced, although he didn't holster his shotgun.
"They're dead?" Tali said, her voice more unsteady than that of the C-Sec detective.
"Yeah," Shepard said, and nudged one of the husks with her boot. "Nihlus?"
"Pilot's cabin, you better come take a look."
Shepard racked her own shotgun and headed for the cabin, while Tali and Garrus took defensive positions at the entrance. They had followed one of the leads Anderson had collected all the way to the Caspian system. A freighter ship called the Cornucopia was drifting out there, on a long-period orbit around the star.
They had expected geth – that's what they had gotten when they had investigated the Sacred Angel distress call on Metgos – but they had gotten a ship full of husks.
It was very strange. The Cornucopia showed no signs of damage. No battle, not even a very one-sided one. Just dragon's teeth, and a whole lot of husks.
"What have you got?" Shepard said, coming to look over Nihlus' shoulder at the terminal.
The Spectre had had to miss the previous mission, but Chakwas had given him the OK for this one. The thresher maw's wound had not been deep enough to be life threatening, and the only problem was that it had cut through some of his chest plates. Chakwas had needed a bit of time to fuse them back, and the Spectre had really hated the downtime.
Of course, he didn't argue with Chakwas anymore.
"Look at this. Ship found something near the Perseus Veil, the captain calls it an artifact," Nihlus said, pointing at the right passage of the log entry.
"Geth space. What the hell were they doing there?"
"Beats me. Location... Ah, here we go. They found the artifact on a moon of Ishassara."
"Where's that?"
"The Phoenix Massing. Not the friendliest system out there."
"Was it the geth?" Shepard said.
"Doesn't say. Doesn't say anything after finding the artifact, actually."
"So why send the ship back? A trap?" Shepard mused.
"Or a warning," Nihlus added in a low voice.
"Wait, did you say the Phoenix Massing?" Garrus called over the comms.
"Yeah, you know something?" Shepard said.
"It's... I've seen something on Saren's data."
Shepard and Nihlus looked at each other, and Shepard smiled at that. "All right detective," she said. "Let's head back, there's nothing else here for us."
She downloaded the data from the terminal, and they left the now empty ship behind. Before leaving the system, they took the time to blow the Cornucopia up. Reaper tech was not something they liked messing around with.
Garrus didn't even bother stowing his guns away. As soon as the airlock decon was finished, he flied straight for the comms room, where they had set up temporarily for the investigation. A terminal and a pile of datapads, it probably felt like home to him. Without saying a word, he started digging through the datapads, until, with a sharp 'ah-hah!', he triumphantly lifted one above his head.
"Here it is!" he said.
"So, what is it?" Shepard prompted, as all three of them – Anderson, Nihlus, and Shepard herself – tried to look at the contents over the detective's shoulder.
"Saren had a substantial investment in a pioneering company doing surveys of new planets," he said, pointing at the relevant passage. "They had a large number of operations out in the Phoenix Massing. As you can see, they even went as far as the Far Rim."
"… so?" Shepard prompted.
"So," Garrus continued, getting another datapad. "The company received a substantial investment three years ago, from a holding company which I have traced back to an investment fund," he grabbed a third datapad, "the majority of which is owned by Benezia T'soni."
"That's... a bit of a stretch."
"You think?" Garrus said. "These kinds of companies are terrible investments, long odds of extremely high returns but credit sinks otherwise. Far from investing on any known leads, Benezia came with extensive capital to expand the operations all over the galaxy, while they kept their Far Rim presence. Like they're looking for something."
For a few seconds, nobody said anything. It was a tenuous connection, more derived from Garrus jumping to conclusions than anything else, but it was there. A possible lead.
"Where in the Phoenix Massing did they go before Benezia came onboard?"
"I'm... It'll take me a bit to get that information."
"Very well, you do that," Anderson said. "I'll set the course."
It was a long shot, and they all knew it. They had arrived at the Phoenix Massing through the Tassrah mass relay, and so far, nothing out of the ordinary had jumped at them. Other known systems were equally quiet.
"Approaching Charybdis," Pressly announced.
"Jump us out at the edge of the system, I want us running silent," Anderson said, staring at the map in front of him.
"Aye aye captain," Pressly said.
"Dropping out of FTL in three... two... one... We're out, stealth systems engaged," Joken announced.
"Start scanning," Anderson said.
Shepard looked at the map and bit her lip. They had gone through most of the systems now, and there was nothing. At least nothing obvious. If Saren had a base out there, he might not be in the known systems, or even more importantly, it might not be out in the open. They weren't going to do a detailed scan of every planet, moon, and rock in the systems, but they weren't looking for the small stuff.
"Sir," Talitha called. "I'm detecting... Wait..."
"What is it?"
"Good heavens," she gasped. "Captain, there's a fleet out there. Geth."
"A fleet?"
"Yes, hold on..."
The map on the holodisplay was replaced with a schematic of the solar system, and markers started appearing around one of the three gas giants. A few at first, then more and more.
"Shit, there's hundreds of them!" Shepard said.
"Talitha," Anderson demanded.
"Y-Yes! I'm reading three dreadnoughts, at least fifty cruisers, and well over a hundred frigates. Wait, no, four dreadnoughts. And... There's even more!"
"Is the reaper there?" Anderson said.
"I don't think so," Talitha replied.
"Get us closer, and open a comms channel to Arcturus. They need to know this." He looked at Shepard and smirked. "We found the geth fleet."
"Jackpot?"
"Saren's not there, but close enough."
"Captain, I'm picking up a distress call," Joker announced.
"Another one? Where's it coming from?"
"Chomos system," Pressly said. He fiddled with his console, and the message started playing.
"This is an automated message. Heretic attack. Immediate assistance required. Repeat."
Shepard and Anderson looked at each other.
"That's... odd," Shepard said.
"Very."
"Trap?"
"Possibly."
The laconic exchange was lost on the rest of the crew. Anderson and Shepard had the kind of understanding that could work with very few words when necessary, and now was such time. They weren't going to engage the fleet, what they wanted was just the intel, and the message sounded like a trap, so the best thing would be to ignore it and finish their job.
But Shepard was the kind of person who'd open Pandora's box, just to see what was inside.
"Are we done with the scans Talitha?" Anderson said.
"We'll need a few more minutes."
"All right. Pressly, set a course for Chomos, I want us out the second the ensign is done. And Talitha, make the data package as fast as you can once you've finished the scans. Fleet composition, specs, anything you can get. Joker, get us out the instant they even look like they have seen us."
Shepard nodded absently. "I'll go get my team ready."
Author's Notes: You know, the day will come when Roy can catch a break. But it is not this day! *Cough* Anyway, yeah. If you remember enough of ME1, you'll probably recognize the sidequests. I figured that looking for clues on Saren was a good way of going through a few of those, and then went off a tangent because Nihlus is aboard, and it's not just Shepard. Anyway, If you've done the maths you'll notice there isn't much time left until the start of the time window the AI gave Roy for the Citadel attack. What story would be complete without a proper race against the clock?
One thing I'm not sure about is whether I managed to pull Shepard's reaction off in the beginning. Basically, she's past the point of being annoyed, mostly frustrated that Roy just sneaked out, and she's decided there's no immediate danger and it's better to move on. I'm hoping it jives well enough with the previous chapter; frantic as it was, it was mostly heat of the moment. There's no urgency now.
By the way. For those who haven't noticed: Ian Shaw is the name of the Self-Insert character from Masses to Masses, which is arguably the most popular self-insert on this site. Starts a few years before the events of Mass Effect 1, with Ian joining Garrus as a C-Sec detective. Good times.
Loads of reviews from last chapter! Thanks! To answer questions and comments:
First, a few of you pointed out that it wasn't very logical for Roy to give away his shield when he probably needed it (and look at the result, he did need it). It is correct, it's not particularly logical. The train of thought from the character point of view was very simple and spur of the moment: Quarian can't get shot or will die, has no shields, give her the shield because we're going to avoid fighting as much as possible, just in case; if needed, I can get myself another shield because I'm no longer broke. Now, you can call this "thinking with the wrong head", or "catching the idiot ball", depending on how much it rubs you the wrong way. I was going for the former, but I might have oversold it.
Endrious: You weren't wrong, a lot of errors sneaked in last time, had to do quite a few corrections. Thanks!
Fanfiction Reviewer Man: I'm a sucker for the dramatic - or, in the case of the hostage scene, a bit of ham and cheese - in my stories. Thanks! Not done with Mika just yet :)
mogorath14, BJ Hanssen: Glad to see the escape scene worked! I love big confusions like that, writing from the "unreliable narrator" point of view can be immensely fun when the audience is in with the joke, so to speak.
Uemei: Thanks! Glad my ramblings are helping. Miranda will eventually show up more, but for now she was a big red herring to distract everyone :D
Mizuki00: I was channelling Roy's boss' inner Aethyta during that scene :D
Toothless, bdrivermp: That's because Liara's adorable! To be honest, I'm still half tempted on a Shep/Nihlus, but that pairing's still missing a "moment", so to speak. It might come.
BrotherCaptainShepard: When you mix waste from such different species as they live in the Citadel, the difference between plain waste and toxic waste becomes a matter of semantics :D
Bolondka: Thanks! Yeah, the idea was to have Roy be annoying and not particularly competent early on, but I don't think I hit the right balance at the time. It'll probably be worth going back and re-visiting the early chapters at some point :) Then again, if I told you what I have planned for the future...
And yeah, I've read all the reviews, repeatedly! Thanks so much for the support, really! A curious thing is that Divergence usually gets more hits than Convergence, which is reflected in the number of reviews/favs/etc. However, with the last few chapters, the balance has been tilting, and given that the numbers are telling me I'm not losing readers in Divergence, I can only conclude I'm starting to improve with Convergence. So thanks everyone for reading and supporting! And being patient with me too.
Next time, ships! As in actual ships, not shipping ships. Or maybe shipping ships, who knows! And a solution to the mysterious message that'll have you facepalming, but made me laugh when I thought of it (and which will have long term repercussions, and yet I went with it because screw my long-term planning, this is an adventure! Am I right or am I right?). Until then, ta-ta!