She was lost to sleep when those words found her.
"Shepard, we're picking up a distress call."
This was what she did. There was nothing for it but to climb free of Thane's arms and attend to her duty.
The moment Shepard arrived in the cock pit Joker and EDI started talking at her, screens flickering into life as the message played on a loop. The human voice in the midst of it was distorted by heavy static, and something that sounded like one long electronic howl.
"What the hell am I listening to?" Shepard asked.
"EDI picked it up," Joker told her. "From what we can tell it's coming from a Cerberus facility on Aite, but the message is garbled to shit. Someone doesn't want us to hear this. I'd bet my ass it's Cerberus."
"I would not be so quick to make assumptions, Jeff," EDI said. "I have all known detection protocols and codes on file. This message contains none of them."
"Then who did?" Shepard looked at the read out and tried to make sense of it. If Cerberus were calling for help then she could only guess that something had gone badly wrong. Then again, it could be another elaborate trap.
"The message has been deliberately scrambled at source using very sophisticated software. My software is better," EDI said. "Although the facility has kept its operations secret, this software indicates the presence of a VI. I am unable to discern anything more."
"A VI? Perfect," Shepard muttered. She'd dealt with this kind of trouble before. "We'd better go in there, see if there's anything we can do. How long until we arrive?"
"An hour at the most. Shepard, are you sure this is somewhere you want to go?" Joker turned his chair, and stared out at her from beneath the brim of his cap. "I don't want to be the one that said I told you so, but this is Cerberus. Look what happened last time."
"I know, but this is a distress call. We can't ignore it."
"We could."
"We could. That's what Cerberus would do, ignore a cry for help. Let me know when we're close."
She had yet to leave a cry for help unanswered. That was who she was, not what Cerberus had made her to be.
-0-0-0-0-
The base looked undamaged. All was still as Shepard brought them to an abrupt halt before the heavy blast door.
"It is quiet around here," Garrus said, unstrapping the harness that he had diligently slipped into the moment he climbed aboard the Hammerhead. "Think there's anyone left to let us in?"
"Hah, like we need letting in," Tali scoffed. Her omni-tool shivered orange light across her visor.
"Let's go knock." Shepard drew her visor down, waited for Garrus and Tali to grab their guns, then opened the door and stepped out onto the surface.
The air was fresh on her tongue after the confines of the Normandy. Far off she could see the purple tops of mountains, ringed by clouds. It would have been pleasant if it weren't for the silence.
There was no call of birds. No whispering of wind in the trees. The building remained, immaculate and voiceless.
The comm burst into life with a screech of static, making all three of them start.
"Thank god you came. My name is Doctor Gavin Archer. The situation is urgent—we're facing a catastrophic VI breakout. I'll explain the details later, but you must retract the transmission dish! The controls aren't far from your position. I've sent you the co-ordinates. Now please, you must hurry!"
"Here we go again," Garrus muttered.
The door drew open, and they stepped in out of the brightness.
It was silent. Usually in large facilities of this type there were voices, security guards and announcements, but in there all sound had been chased away.
Gunshots marked the walls, and as they tracked round the corner they found their first corpses. There was no mistaking the blood stained Cerberus logo adorning their uniforms.
"Looks like it happened fast," Shepard said, kneeling down beside them. "There's no sign of resistance."
"There's only one way a VI could have done this. It must have had help," Tali told them. She scanned the area with her omni-tool before summoning Chiktikka. "As I suspected. This looks like the work of the Geth."
Shepard blinked down at the bodies. "What is Cerberus doing with Geth? EDI, if we establish a remote link could you mine their data?"
"That would not be unwise. If a VI is involved there is a possibility that my systems could be compromised." EDI responded. "I would suggest extreme caution."
Tali sent Chiktikka off and started scanning the area with her omni-tool as they picked forwards over the wreckage. There were still small fires burning here and there. The smell told them that it wasn't just the building that was burning.
Shepard felt her stomach lurch, threatening to bring her meagre breakfast back up. "Since when did Geth help VI?"
"They might not have had any choice," Tali replied. Her omni-tool flickered out. She unholstered the light pistol she favoured.
"You mean they were hacked. That doesn't fill me with confidence," Garrus said. He kicked a piece of chair across the room.
A nearby screen flickered into life, and a man's face swam into view.
"Ah, there you are. I've locked myself in a computer room on the far side of the base. There are Geth on the loose. A rogue VI program has seized control and…I've lost a lot of friends today, I'd hate to see you join them. Please, watch yourself. Now you must hurry, the dish controls aren't far."
"Doctor, do you have access to the security cameras? Doctor?"
The screen flashed green and died. Shepard blinked, the after image filling her eyes with its green haze. Another rogue VI. She'd fought one VI and was working with another. There was also the geth. Something must have caused them to turn.
"We'd better get the dish retracted, unless we want the Normandy hacked."
She led the way to the control room, and stopped in the doorway. There was nothing but screens and panels covered in buttons.
Garrus and Shepard could do nothing but stare. "You try that one," Shepard said, nodding to her left. "I'll give this one a go."
Garrus shrugged. "I could shoot it."
"Move out of the way," Tali said as she shoved past them and started working over the controls. "There, that should do it."
Shepard shrugged at Garrus, and he shrugged back.
Every screen blazed into life, green eyes staring down at them as a scream filled the air. It was the same one she'd heard back on the ship, and Shepard couldn't help raising her gun in a useless gesture that Garrus copied.
Silence fell suddenly. Shepard lowered her gun, fear giving way to a sense of foolishness.
"What the hell was that?"
"Damn it." Archer appeared on the screens, his face distorted. "The VI's overridden the controls. We have to stop him. He's trying to upload his programme off planet. Destroy the antennae inside the dish. There's a tram on the lower level, get there as fast as you can."
"I'm tired of being ordered around by a screen," Garrus said, starting towards the door.
"Did you notice that?"
"What?"
Shepard stared at the blank screen where those faces had been a moment ago. "The VI just became a him."
"You call EDI a she," Tali pointed out, keeping pace with Shepard as she sped towards the tram.
Bodies lined their path, their faces fixed in expressions of pain and fear. The only sound was the scream of the VI as it echoed through the base's comm system, rolling through each speaker in turn. It gave a voice to the dead.
Shepard focussed straight ahead. She'd seen death before. This was nothing new.
It wasn't until she smelt the reek of spoilt food that Shepard realized they'd entered the canteen. Plates of rancid food lay tossed on the floor, blood and food streaked across the walls near corpses that lay splattered with their last meal.
This was no way to go out.
Garrus surveyed the area with a shake of his head. "Just when I think I've seen it all—"
"Get down," Shepard ordered, springing into cover as she caught sight of movement.
She felt no satisfaction in killing the geth that swarmed out towards them. Even as she watched them fall, blasted sideways by her biotics and picked off by Garrus, there was something unsavoury about the empty slaughter. They weren't responsible. The VI was.
They needed to get to the dish. Archer contacted them again the moment they stepped onto the rattling contraption. His voice was barely audible over the screeching of metal.
"Damn it all—he's aligning the dish to a new upload target! He'll have a clear line of sight to our satellite."
To the satellite, and to EDI.
Shepard wasted no time in enjoying the view, running over the exposed walkways at breakneck pace. By the time she arrived at the satellite dish, the extent of the geth infestation had become depressingly clear.
There was no time to plan. She had to trust Garrus and Tali to follow her lead.
Shepard brought her barriers up and ploughed into the first geth she found, using herself as a diversion so that Garrus and Tali could take up position and go to work.
Geth moved on her from every direction, and Shepard changed position using one massive biotic leap. It took her closer to the control panel in the centre. She gave the geth a run around, blasted a couple with her SMG, and then moved on the centre at speed.
Garrus covered her as she crouched by the control panel and went to work.
"Archer, I'm at the control panel."
"Ah, I'm afraid he's already overridden that. Your best plan would be to destroy the capacitors, and take down the dish's support struts."
"You got that Garrus?"
"Loud and clear. I'll keep them off you."
She identified the closest capacitor and bounded over to it, narrowly avoiding a Prime that was waiting nearby. It fired rapidly, swotting Garrus' bullets aside, and closed on Shepard with long strides.
She heard it approaching, moved quickly to press a sticky grenade onto the capacitor, then with a cry she threw herself directly at the Prime. The impact drove it backwards, knocking it off balance, and behind her the grenade blew. That was all she needed to escape.
Shepard powered away, running to let her biotics recover. Shots pinged at her feet. A rocket trooper dropped metres from her. She saw another looming next to her, and punched it through the eyepiece with one glowing hand.
She jumped easily over its fizzing corpse and dashed for the next capacitor. A rocket screamed past her, and Shepard felt the heat singe her hair as the explosion rocked the ground beneath her feet.
It felt flimsy. Before she could think anything else Garrus yelled a warning in her ear, and Shepard hit the floor. Another rocket trooper had found her. The rockets were raining in with alarming frequency.
There was a crack of metal, and when Shepard looked up through the smoke she saw that they had blown the cover off the second capacitor. Perfect. She took out a sticky grenade, rolled and threw it with help from her biotics before crawling clear.
"One more to go," she shouted breathlessly, propelling herself into a high jump over a bunch of geth that had taken cover. She fired with her SMG and took them down before they'd even tracked her upwards. As they fell she stared out over the bowl of the dish.
There were less geth now, but the remainders were closing on the third capacitor. Her technique of blasting through them would be useless against three Primes.
"Change of plan." She dropped, rolled and took out her missile launcher. "How about we make them explode, and do our work for us."
"Ha," Garrus laughed. "You know, I'm almost starting to think you know what you're doing."
Shepard took aim, and fired. The first missile caught a Prime square in the chest. The second took the head straight off a hunter before ploughing straight into the capacitor casing. Not one of the Primes had exploded.
"Garrus could you—"
There was a bright splash of flame as one of them went up. Survivors scrambled out of the ensuing fireball that engulfed the base of the support strut.
"Nice. Very nice," Shepard said as the capacitor finally gave in. "Maybe I should find you something more difficult to do…"
The words died in her throat as she looked up. The explosion had done more damage than she'd expected. Bits of metal started to drop, and as she watched the support struts started to shear off in great disjointed chunks.
Beneath her feet the ground gave one small shudder.
Shepard started running. "Garrus, Tali, get the hell out of here. The whole thing is coming down."
She caught sight of them, blue and purple figures, haring across the open ground as the metal started to buckle, folding in on her with dull metal thuds that she felt through her boots.
One leap forward took her past the middle. Her second leap brought her achingly close to the edge. She gathered for her third leap, every part of her body tingling as the power surged through her.
The floor dropped away. She was falling.