-All hands, this is Shepard. We've encountered a ship adrift in this system, the IFF identifies it as the MSV Cornucopia. There is no distress call, but the ship is registered to ExSolar Shipping and was listed as missing nearly three months ago on a run near the Purseus Veil. I'm assuming the worst case here, and that the ship was attacked and boarded by the Geth. Ground team, prepare for boarding operations, all hands to battlestations in one hour. That is all.-
Maroon Sea, the Caspian system. One of three explored systems linked to the relay connecting them together. Jorge was not certain why they were here at all. In his mind, they should be searching for Saren.
Unfortunately, the trail had gone cold. There was no trace of the rogue SPECTRE. After dealing with the Alliance situation on the Moon, they had found themselves adrift in terms of objectives, and as much as Jorge would simply love to hunt down Saren, without information on where he was, it would be nothing more than a waste of time. Worse, they couldn't do anything about it- the task of sniffing out Saren was a problem for Intelligence, not Shepard.
So, with nowhere to go and nothing to do, the Commander had decided to utilize her newfound freedom as a SPECTRE to check out some interesting tidbits she had found during the attack on Feros. Jorge and the rest of the ground team had been given the info, and he had to admit it was both vague and potentially terrifying.
Samples. Samples had been sent by Exo-Geni to two separate locations within the Maroon Sea cluster. One seemed more official company business, like sending samples out to a lab. The other seemed more clandestine. The real question was... samples of what?
Given what they had found on Feros, and what Exo-Geni had been so interested in hiding... the answer was 'nothing good'.
Personally, Jorge liked this turn of events. He felt invested in the mission, having been a part of the team that discovered it. All too often with the UNSC, the report would simply vanish into thin air. For some of the more important concerns that he, and later Noble Team, turned up, he was certain others had been sent to take care of the issue he had brought up. Other times, he doubted anything had been done- one had to prioritize during wartime, after all. Either way, Jorge never got to see such things again, not even through heresay.
This time, though, it looked like he would be able to see something through, start to finish. It gave him a certain amount of pride. He could look back, and see the fruits of his labors, and smile, because he knew he had done his best and something meaningful had come from it.
He didn't get to do that very often.
Jorge got off his bunk and went to his armor locker, pulling out the pieces of his Mjolnir. It looked much better with a good coating of paint on it; the Alliance had sent along matches to his original colors, and with a little help from Williams, Alenko, Garrus and Tali, they had finished the job that the Alliance had started. The result was that if Jorge didn't know better, he would have said it was brand new. It wasn't, of course, but it mostly looked the part now.
Pulling out the undersuit, he began the arduous process of getting the most advanced and powerful armor in the galaxy on.
-{[]}-
"You know, much as I like having all you guys in my cockpit, it's getting kind of crowded in here," Joker commented.
"How long 'till we dock, Joker?" Shepard asked.
"Docking in thirty seconds, Commander," he replied. "Not like its hard. Is it wrong for me to ask for a bit of a challenge every now and then?"
"Joker, as talented as you are, I'm not sure I ever want to see you 'challenged'," Shepard replied. "Alright people, helmets on, seal up!"
"C'mon Shepard, is it too much to ask for a little bit of excitement in your workplace every now and then?"
"That's exactly what I'm worried about, Joker. The problem is, your workplace is my home too, and I don't define excitement the way you do," she shot back wryly.
Everyone shared a chuckle at that while Joker grumbled good naturedly. A slight thud signalled the dock was completed.
"All right people, we don't know what we're going to find. All hails have gone unanswered, and the craft is drifting. Assume nothing. Jorge, Williams, you're first through, clear the airlock, keep an eye out for civilians and hostiles."
"Yes ma'am."
"Yes ma'am!"
Jorge and Williams stepped into the Normandy airlock and it sealed behind them-Shepard was taking no chances.
-Equalizing interior pressure with exterior atmosphere-
The door slid upwards, and Jorge prepared himself for the worst possible thing he could think of- an Elite with a sword just waiting on the other side of the door, as it happened. Beside him, he saw Williams readying her shotgun.
Thankfully, the door opened to nothing. Jorge and Williams moved out smartly, covering corners as they entered the freighter proper. It opened to a large room with some of the ever present crates, but there was not a soul to be seen, living or dead.
Jorge checked his omni tool as Williams continued to check corners. Breathable air, Earth standard with no toxins present.
"Commander, Kadar. Entrance is clear, air is breathable. No sign of anyone yet, friendly or hostile," he reported over the comm. He recieved a nod from Williams- area clear.
+Good, we're coming over.+
The Normandy airlock opened, allowing the rest of the team off the ship. Shepard made a beeline for him.
"Right. Manifests indicated a large amount of vacuum sensitive cargo onboard, and the next chamber is the pressurized cargo hold. That means close quarters, everyone, so be prepared. Jorge, you stay here secure the airlock, everyone else, with me!"
Jorge watched the rest of the team file through the next doorway to cargo hold. Internally, he shrugged. It was times like these he really needed armor and a gun that weren't so big and bulky. He'd had it once, long ago, back when the Spartans had been essentially a black ops unit, and the Spartans had been able to use their preferred weapons. Personally, he had always been a fan of the MA5 series. That old bullpup rifle had a deep clip, hit like a brick and was tough enough to be used like a club when necessary. A good, solid assault rifle, so much so that the design had only received minor modifications over the course of the war.
Still, that had gone away with his inclusion into Noble Team as a heavy weapons expert. Given the bulky yet powerful upgraded Mark IV and a machine gun to match, he was no longer as efficient at CQB as he once was. The gun was heavy and awkward, the armor so large that he was not surprised Shepard hadn't asked him to go- hell, he may well not fit between containers without compromising his combat effectiveness. Getting stuck wouldn't be very helpfu-
+Shit, husks!+ Shepard called out over the intercom.
+Don't let them get close!+
+Biotics, keep them the hell away from us, whatever it takes! Tali *grunt* get behind us! Soldiers up front, biotics behind and techs do whatever the hell you ca-+
Jorge heard the telltale sound of an electrical discharge in the background. For a few moments after, only the hissing of an open comm channel sounded.
+-Shit. Is that all of them?+
+Yes, Shepard.+
+Good. Move out, we have to make it to the cockpit. Keep your eyes peeled for more husks everyone.+
"Ma'am. You need me?" Jorge asked over the radio.
Shepard laughed bitterly. +Jorge, these crates are packed so tight that in some places we can't walk side by side and Wrex is just barely squeezing through. No way you'd make it through without some major restacking. Keep the Normandy safe, we'll be back soon enough.+
"Yes ma'am."
Jorge listened over the radio as the team was ambushed a second time. He heard them fight off the husks, no casualties yet. Having three biotics along appeared to be helping matters considerably, allowing the team to cut the husks down with relative impunity, but everyone knew it would only take one mistake and it could be all over.
They had just been ambushed a third time, with Jorge unable to do anything but listen in, when the cargo doors slid open to admit three very familiar figures.
Husks. They had clearly once been human, just like their counterparts on Eden Prime. Now they were a twisted mockery of life, eyes glowing a lifeless cybernetic blue as tubes and other pieces of metal jutted from their blackened bodies.
Jorge, alert, wasted no time. He opened fire just as the door finished sliding open. The shields on the cyborgs were strong though, and all three took half a dozen steps before they failed. The front one took a bullet to the skull and was knocked down, yet still moved on the ground.
Still, Jorge focused fire on the new frontcomer. The Legacy spat round after round, and one second and ten rounds later the cyborg was blasted off course when a round hit something particularly dense within the chest area instead of going straight through.
The final husk had begun to spark blue, no doubt charging up the electrical attack that he had encountered on Eden Prime, when it too became a victim of Jorge's gun. The Legacy shredded the upper torso and cybernetics this time, and the husk collapsed to the floor without an upper body.
The charge taken care of, the other two husks were easily dispatched with a few accurate bursts. Jorge watched dispassionately as the bodies began to break down before his very eyes. Almost like the creepers. Perhaps they were related?
"Kadar here ma'am. I just repelled a husk attack on the airlock," he reported over the radio.
+Good job Jorge. We've made it to the cockpit, the techs are poking around the computers but so far it's not looking good. We'll be back to the Normandy in ten, keep your guard up.+
Ten minutes later found the group trudging into the Normandy decontamination chamber. They couldn't all fit at once, so Jorge, Shepard, Tali and Williams waited while the rest of the team entered the ship.
"What happened, Commander?" he found himself asking. She shook her head angrily.
"Can't tell for certain, but the logs say the crew found an artifact of some sort. Right before they piloted the ship directly into the Veil. But with the three husks you killed added to the ones we encountered, that accounts for the bodies of the entire crew," she grimaced.
"The Geth must have seized the vessel, huskified the crew, then set it adrift as a trap after it came into their space," Tali theorized.
"Might have worked if we hadn't been the first ship to get here," Williams chimed in. "I mean, normal civvie vessel, they pull alongside to help, don't take precautions and have no weapons... bam, husks kill everyone and take over two ships. Scary stuff."
Machines using scare tactics? He knew a fair few AI's that would do such a thing, and a fair few others that wouldn't- an illogical waste of resources, one with no guarantee for results, they would have evaluated. Resources that could have been better spent on other avenues of attack. True, the Geth were AIs and thus had their own personality, but this didn't really seem their style...
"Have they ever done this before?" he asked aloud.
Tali snorted. "Yes. My people keep a close eye on the Veil, and it seems that every few years some ship will get too close and will never be heard from again."
"But most don't get set adrift as a floating trap, right?"
"...No. Now that I think about it, I have never heard of a ship captured by Geth being released before," Tali murmured.
"They've changed," Shepard said. "I guess the Geth aren't content with leaving us alone anymore."
The ground team entertained that sobering thought as they entered the decontamination chamber.
-{[]}-
Cerberus.
The three-headed dog, guardian of the underworld from Greek mythology.
More recently, the name of a human-supremacist group under the control of 'The Illusive Man'. Classified as a terrorist group by the Alliance military.
Most recently of all, responsible for the slaughter of a human research outpost in the Matano system in the Maroon Sea Cluster.
Jorge hadn't been a part of the ground team, but he had heard every word thanks to his position next to Joker, monitoring them. A whole research team. Thirty scientists, turned into husks by Dragon's Teeth- more than likely the 'samples' that had been shipped to Cerberus by someone in Exo-Geni.
If this had been his home, the UNSC, whoever this was would be found, then executed on the spot. With the Covenant bearing down on them, the UNSC did not have time or energy to spare on people who killed their fellow humans. As it was, they would likely never be found, never held responsible, and all Exo-Geni would get was a slap on the wrist. Personally, Jorge preferred the UNSC method.
After that rude surprise, Shepard was taking no chances with the next target. Especially not with a vague and generic distress signal that was coming from the location of the Exo-Geni research facility. That's why Jorge found himself stuffed into the Mako with Liara and Alenko.
Shepard was, for once, using common sense in her driving. The Exo-Geni base was set on a high valley, and from the ground floor it was a very steep climb. He had been expecting for her to simply ignore the incline and ram straight up it, but instead he found himself sedately climbing up a convenient winding road. Which was nice, because that meant he wasn't hanging on to the cargo straps to prevent himself from becoming a wrecking ball.
He knew it wouldn't last, so he enjoyed it while he could.
They crested the hill and successfully found the research facility. And a little something else as well.
"Targets, twelve o'clock!" Shepard called out. From his space in the cargo section, Jorge couldn't see what was happening. The dialogue was enough though.
"Creepers! What are they doing here?" Alenko asked no one in particular as he shot something outside.
"I think we have found what Exo-Geni meant by 'samples'," Liara commented.
"Let's hope that was ALL they meant by 'samples'," Shepard muttered over the comm. "Alright everyone, seal up, shoot the creepers on sight."
With the creepers external to the structure taken care of, the team moved towards the research facility. Jorge went first through the airlock, followed by Liara.
"The air is breathable," Liara reported. "There could still be someone alive in here."
"You heard her, everyone keep a watch for survivors. Jorge, you have point, move."
They entered the first room to find creepers. No one was surprised. Jorge immediately opened fire- he had had Garrus uninstall the armor piercing mod before the mission had started, and the results were satisfactory. Especially when Liara conjured a singularity out of thin air, trapping the remaining creepers in midair and allowing Jorge and Shepard to shoot them with impunity.
"Was there any intel on how many samples got shipped here?" Jorge asked before they moved to the main room.
"Not that we have. And knowing Exo-Geni, they would deny it all if we asked them," Shepard said cynically. "I just hope there's some people left alive. Move out."
There were more creepers in the main room, once again to no one's surprise. Jorge was beginning to truly appreciate the power of biotics. Against a melee oriented enemy like these creepers, the simple ability to keep them at a range turned what could have been a disaster into shooting fish in a barrel. It wasn't even fair.
She may have picked this team to go against husks, but creepers were practically the same thing and so the team cut through them like a scythe through wheat, leaving nothing but piles of foul-smelling decomposing creepers in their wake.
"Beacon's this way, Commander," Alenko said, omni alight. All still had their helmets on and suits sealed despite the breathable air- the stench from the decomposing creepers was a powerful thing. There were no more marked hostiles, but no one knew if there truly were any more creepers lurking around, so caution was taken.
Alenko led the team to a hallway, then took a left at a junction and opened the door.
"Rescuers? Thank God!" came a feminine voice.
There were survivors. No more than a sixteen, half of which were in plainclothes and half with hardsuits and guns standing behind a very makeshift and desperate barricade. Shepard took off her helmet as she strode into the room with the rest of the team. Jorge followed, allowing the machiine gun to drop to a dangle at his hip.
"See? I told you somebody would come to investigate that signal," the woman told a man to her right. He grumbled but did nothing else.
"My name is Doctor Ross. Chief ExoGeni researcher at this facility," she introduced. "We've been trapped in this room for nearly a week now. We're almost out of food and water- you got here just in time!"
"Commander Shepard, Alliance military. I need to know what's going on here. Why is this place crawling with Thorian creepers?"
"How do you know about the Thorian?" she asked defensively. Jorge just let out a chuckle as he dropped his gun gently to the floor. Shepard may have been the one asking the questions, but most of the eyes in the room were on him. He knew the ones with guns and hardsuits were sizing him up, and most didn't like their odds. The other scientists simply stared with curiousity and perhaps a little awe- it wasn't often you saw someone of his stature after all.
In other words, everything was normal.
"We stopped by Feros. Found the Thorian. Killed the damn thing," Shepard summed up.
"Our secret's out, then," Ross replied warily. "No point in my lying now. You already know the worst.
"The creepers here were created using altered samples from the specimens on Feros. We discovered a way to turn them into docile, obedient servants," she said, pride in her voice. "Everything was going fine until nearly a week ago. Then, all the creepers suddenly went berserk! Only a handful of us made it back to the safety of this room!"
"Why the generic distress beacon?" Kaiden asked. "Shouldn't you have, you know, told someone there were hostiles down here?"
"That's all we had," she shrugged. "This is a closed-communications base. ExoGeni was worried about spies from rival corporations, or someone revealing our activities to the authorities. We have no direct communication to the outside. All we had was the emergency beacon- it sends a general distress signal to the ExoGeni site on Feros."
"Those words don't exactly fill me with confidence about ExoGeni's motives," Shepard said. Doctor Ross flinched as though struck.
"Look... I know what we did here was wrong. I'll admit that. But it's over now. There's no sense in reporting this to the authorities, right?"
"Doctor Ross, some would consider what ExoGeni has done treason. Given the nature of the experiments here and on Feros, this is going to the authorities, one way or another," Shepard said tightly.
"Be reasonable. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. How does it help anyone if I end up in jail?" She sighed bitterly. "Normally ExoGeni would have my back, but it sounds like they're going to have their hands full cleaning up the mess on Feros."
"But, I've got money. A nice little emergency fund I set up. It's yours if you let us go," she offered.
"I've heard enough," Jorge snapped behind his helmet. He brought the Legacy up to firing position at his hip, pointed right at this 'Doctor Ross', even as he tightened his stance.
THAT spurred some reactions throughout the room.
The scientists all stepped back, confusion and fear written upon their faces. The mercenaries were slow on the uptake, but eventually brought their weapons to bear on the team. Beside him, Alenko and Liara simply looked at him in shock- though Alenko was quick on the draw when the mercenaries managed to get their weapons up, and Liara flared her corona in preparation once she realized this could turn out ugly.
Shepard though...
"Jorge STAND DOWN!"
Her voice cracked like a whip. And Jorge obeyed like the soldier he had become. He yanked his gun off target and towards the ceiling, still prepared to lower it in case of hostilities but now not directly threatening the Doctor. The result was that, though most of the room still had their weapons drawn, they were lowered.
"What the HELL was that, soldier!?" Shepard demanded, stepping in front of him imperiously. He noticed she hadn't even drawn a single one of her weapons, not even a pistol.
"I refuse to participate in bribery, Commander," Jorge growled out. His eyes were still locked on the Doctor from behind his helmet, and even if she couldn't see them she quite clearly knew she was the focus of his anger given that his helmet was pointed straight at her.
"And what exactly do you propose I do about it, Operations Chief!?" she demanded of him.
Jorge grit his teeth and remained silent. He had already gotten into enough trouble here, he didn't need to add fuel to the fire by telling everyone his personal opinion that she should shoot the Doctor for her attempted bribery.
Shepard nodded at his silence. "Good. I don't want to hear another word out of you."
"Now," she turned around, facing the now very cautious scientists and mercenaries. "I am not here to arrest you, I am not here to accept your bribes, Doctor Ross," she said in a hard voice. The Doctor gulped at that.
"I am here to figure out just what the hell ExoGeni meant when they said they sent 'samples' to the base in this system. And now that I know what is going on around here, I am going to offer a solution."
She pointed a finger at the Doctor. "You, are going to turn evidence against ExoGeni."
"B-but ExoGeni-"
"Has. Abandoned. You! You said it yourself not one minute ago. Now, we have been to Feros, we know exactly what the hell was going on, and I will be damned if I don't see some recompense given to those colonists. But not from you. You aren't at fault here, as twisted and buried as your personal moral compass may be. So you are going to help me, by turning on ExoGeni, got it?"
"B-but the company, ah, liquidates its black sectors!" she protested desperately.
"This matter went all the way to the Council. They will give you protection. Now, are you going to sit there blubbing like a fish out of water or are you going to do the right thing like you should have been doing all along?" Shepard demanded.
It took several gulps for the Doctor to raise her head, but when she did, Jorge felt his opinion of her rise slightly- her eyes were hard and determined.
"I'll do it," she whispered.
Shepard smiled warmly as she clapped the woman on the shoulder. "You did the right thing."
-{[]}-
As you may or may not have noticed, I've slowed down quite a bit on this story. So, I'm going to be trying some new things to get my writing up, and more focused on Jorge.
I plan fun things for next chapter. See you then!