CHAPTER TWO: "DREAD"
January 12th
Nihlus opened his eyes and groaned as his eyes adjusted to the harsh lights above; after a moment, his eyes recovered and he winced as he became aware of the fact that his skull felt like it'd been beaten with hammers for hours. He tried to get up and was halfway to a seated position when somebody propped him up from behind; two doctors, an asari and a binary with a fully-featured face, appeared in front of him and helped sit him up.
"Where am I?" he asked. blinking a few times.
"You're aboard the Broadshield, the binary said, smiling. "Take it easy, alright? You've been out cold for a while now. I'm Doctor Idris, and this is Doctor Nossia."
Nihlus groaned again and rubbed at his fringe, feeling several spots where spots were either dented, replaced with prosthetic ones, or outright gone. "Oh, spirits," he mumbled, clearing his thoughts. "Larix, Jane, are they alright?"
Doctor Nossia shook her head and sighed. "Soldiers. Never concerned about themselves." She gestured to the bed opposite the one Nihlus was in; he recognized Jane, laying in bed with some sort of device attached to her head. "She's suffered some serious injuries, but we're estimating she'll make a full recovery, in time. We had to induce a coma; she was, ah, less than cooperative when she was brought in. Dr. Idris can explain better, I think."
"Mmm. I'm working off conjecture and eyewitness reports, but it sounds like the device you interfaced with attempted to send information into your mind; by the medical staff's estimate, we think your brain was spending all that time trying to sort through and manage your new knowledge. The device Jane interfaced with was more...aggressive, but we think her brain patterns indicate that she's doing much the same thing your body was."
The asari doctor smiled. "If all goes according to schedule, she'll be woken up later today, in fact. As for Mr. Quentis? He isn't in the best of shape - we had to patch him in over two dozen spots - but he will make a full recovery in time."
"Spirits. Could have gone a lot worse," he said quietly, shaking his head. "So? What happened to me? How long was I out for?"
"It's been just over a week," the binary said, expression neutral. "You were half-conscious when the prothean device let go of you; according to your squadmates you seemed unaware of your surroundings and kept on talking about how you had to warn everyone about something. With Jane reacting far worse to her ancient alien relic of the day, your squad figured it would be prudent to get you up here for treatment as fast as possible."
"Makes sense," he said.
"In any case, you were unconscious by the time you were placed in our care. Your brain activity was consistent with that of someone in REM sleep, so for the time being we figured it'd be best to see if you would wake up on your own," Doctor Idris continued. "Thankfully, you did."
"Mmm. So, am I cleared to be up now?"
"You are," Doctor Nossia said, her expression stern. "Commodore Rix wanted you to head straight to the CIC for a debrief, but he soon saw the error of his ways and now wishes for you to take a few hours to eat, rest, and recover. I would hate for you to disobey an order," the asari said, leaning in close.
"Okay, okay, I got it."
"That's good. There's a terminal over by the door there; feel free to download a map. Your gear was sent back to the Lightspear, which is docked in hangar two; I believe your crew is there." Doctor Nossia nodded at Doctor Idris; the binary reached into the satchel he was carrying and stuffed a bottle full of a thick, dull-blue liquid into Nihlus' hands.
"Drink all of this before you eat anything and finish it within the next hour," the binary said, tapping the cap. "When you're done, just toss the cap in any of the bio containers and recycle the bottle."
"Alright. Thanks, doctors." Nihlus got up and stretched his arms; he scratched his legs, which itched slightly under the hospital tunic he'd been provided, before walking over to Jane. "Hang in there, Pilot," he said quietly, before taking a look around the medbay; it was nearly full, although most of the injured seemed to be recovering from minor wounds. Leaving the Broadshield's medical bay, he slowly made his way over to the nearest elevator, pausing several times to drink from the bottle he'd been given. The taste was odd, and reminded him of the "juice drinks" he'd occasionally scrounge up enough pocket change for as a kid - vaguely fruit-tasting with a strong, sickly-sweet aftertaste. By the time he was in the elevator, he'd finished half the bottle, and thanked the spirits that the cab was empty. The doors opened to reveal hangar two; a second frigate in Alliance colours with the iconic skull-and-knife emblem that he didn't recognize was parked in the bay next to the one which housed the Lightspear, and as he made his way onto the hangar floor he noticed several of the Alliance ship's crew hanging out on top of the ship.
"Oi! You Nihlus?" shouted one of the human soldiers, waving.
"Yeah, who's asking?"
"We're from Jane's combat team," another shouted. "Heard you did our Pilot a solid, and fucked a bunch of Cerbies up! We owe you drinks next time you're free!"
Nihlus chuckled, and shook his head. "I'll take you up on that offer some other time, alright? I've been asleep for a week and really need to eat something."
The group of soldiers responded with cheers and went back to what Nihlus realized was some sort of impromptu picnic on top of the ship. That's actually a nice idea, he thought to himself. Maybe Valtha would be okay with it? The Lightspear's ramp was already up, and he walked up it and entered his ship's hangar; Raetor and Itok were busy constructing some sort of device, and Larix (who was propped up on a portable futon), Ultina and Valtha were playing a card game in the corner.
"Hey! The hero returns," Itok said, getting up from his work and running over to Nihlus. The salarian hugged him tightly, and pointed to the corner the two turians and asari were sitting at. "Lord Nihlus, your retainer Itok has procured for you a throne befitting your noble deeds." Nihlhus looked at the expressions of his crew - relieved and happy - then looked over to where Itok was pointing at. The area, which was were the crew kept their supply crates stowed, now housed an Alliance-style couch that simultaneously looked comfy and as if it had seen better centuries.
"Spirits take me, I take a week-long nap and you find a damn couch?"
"Bartered for it," Itok said proudly. "The Diligent, one of the Alliance ships that came with the fleet? Was talking shop with an engineer, turns out one of their guys smuggled a couch into the hangar. Captain got pissed that the guy didn't ask for permission and wanted it gone, and, well, I thought the ol' Spear could use a, ahem, monument to cross-cultural cooperation."
"How long did it take you to come up with that?" Raetor asked, laughing.
Larix chuckled, stopping for a moment to cough, before waving Nihlus over. "Come on, just sit in the damn thing. Hell, I was laying there but figured you deserved to sit on it for a bit."
Nihlus clasped arms with Raetor, Larix, Ultina and Valtha before walking over to the couch and sinking into it.
"Okay," he said after a moment, "this is a comfy couch. Do I want to know what critical ship component we traded for this?"
"One double-flat of Paragrade, one case of Chanka Tuff bars, and six bags of rojek, flake-cut."
Nihlus groaned and rubbed at his head. "Does the captain of the Diligent know you've just supplied their crew with a narcotic substance?"
"I looked this up. That coffee stuff they drink all the time? Way worse for you. Caf-fiene," he said, stumbling over the foreign word, "gives you the shakes and makes you all jacked up, can't sleep right if you get enough of it. Super addicting. Rojek? Totally safe, can't get addicted, just makes you a little more alert. Perfectly safe."
"It also gives you the worst spirits-damned shits if you chew too much of it. Please tell me you warned the poor saps you gave it to."
"Says on the bag, man. Right there. Bold letters. Not my fault if they can't read."
The next half-hour passed by quickly; Nihlus was content to snack on a ration pack (raka stew with an extra helping of hot sauce), finished off his bottle of medicine and dozed off for a minute or two; with everyone already in the hangar, he decided that they could just hold their briefing in the hangar.
"Alright. I'd say we did okay," Nihlus said, expression sombre.
"Speak for yourself, boss," Larix said, grinning.
"I'm being serious." Nihlus sighed, and closed his eyes. "Look, we did real good - first people from the Citadel to fight Pilots and win. But I think we all know those Pilots weren't fighting at the same level as, say, Jane or Zaeed. Almost as fast, yes, but they barely used their ordnance, didn't work together and came damn close to killing Larix. If that fight had gone on much longer, or if we were engaging them out in the open quarry? I'm not sure we would have all made it out alive," Nihlus said quietly. "Valtha, seal the secondary hatch, and as usual, contribute if you have any thoughts."
Itok cursed before raising his hand, and spoke after the ship's hatch closed. "I gotta agree with the boss on this one. Raetor and I got lucky - that cave was perfect for setting traps and getting good angles with the turrets, but out in the open we'd have been cut to pieces in no time. I do think our baseline tactics have merit to them - I mean, we're here and those Cerberus guys aren't - but we're gonna need more practice to pull wins off consistently."
"I wonder if the way our shields work acted against us," Larix said thoughtfully. "Our doctrine runs off of push-stop-recharge-push, right? While theirs is using mobility and their fast recharge times to never lose momentum. When our KBs are down, we're vulnerable since we rely heavily on 'em, but Pilots - feels to me like the shields are a secondary line of defense. Not sure how exactly we'll deal with that, but it's something to think about."
"But I think we've got the definte edge in terms of weaponry - at least, ignoring the sorts of ordnance and tech Jane and co. have," Ultina said, nodding. "Stuff like that phase thing and cloaking? We still need to work on counters to that, and explosives are always a pain in the ass, but I'm surprised how well our pre-fire tactics worked. Especially the concs."
"Pilots are fast-attack units first and foremost," Raetor said, cocking his head slightly. "Take that away, they're still dangerous as shit, but not nearly as threatening. Doesn't matter if you're krogan or human, if you're stuck on the ground you're not fighting back."
"Wonder if we can rig up a rapid-fire conc system," Ultina continued. "Those kits of theirs can't handle major changes in direction - throws them off balance, forces them to change attack vectors. Throw up a wall of conc shots, that'd help us rely less on pre-firing and focus more on redirecting their movements."
"Oh, in that vein? Those warp mines were fucking great," Larix said. "Same with the twenty-salvo - I'm surprised how effective that was."
"Man, we need a combat biotic," Raetor said, shaking his head.
"I mean, I'm easily capable of fighting with you guys," Valtha said, frowning. "Could probably take everyone here except for Nihlus."
"Right, but you're also our pilot. Nobody flies the Spear like you do, and the last thing we need is Itok driving the damn ship," Nihlus said, chuckling.
"I drive great, fuck off. Still, it's a good point - really wanna see what a biotic throw does to a Pilot going at top speed," Itok replied. "And Raetor? That Pilot-killer thing you rigged up? Worked like a fucking charm."
"Yeah, I know you were working on it," Nihlus said, "but I was under the impression it was a shrapnel cannon."
"Last-minute adjustment," the quarian replied. "Given all the redundant systems Pilots have I figured it'd be better to go for explosives rather than risk turning the enemy Pilots into very angry pincushions."
"Point. Could you rig up a miniature version of that? An omni-mounted spray of that stuff would be a perfect backup for emergencies. Fast way to get a Pilot out of melee range."
"Yeah, I'll see what I can do. In the meantime I'm working on reducing the backblast and making reloading easier, though I'm torn between making it a fire-and-forget sort of deal I could give to all of you."
"Hrm. Think about it - we'll work on that moving forward." Nihlus sighed, and sank further into the couch. "We've got a lot of training to do, but like Itok said, I think the ideas we're working from have a lot of merit. I want AARs done, not right now, but as soon as you find the time. We're the only ones from the Citadel who've fought Pilots and won, so don't be afraid throw any crazy ideas out there - we're literally writing the book as we go."
"So? What's the plan? And what the fuck happened to you, anyways?" Larix asked, as Ultina helped him into a seated position.
"Yeah, that beacon got all intimate with you," Raetor said. "Jokes aside though, when we were getting you outta there you were babbling about having to warn us and screaming about stopping something."
"I honestly have no idea," Nihlus replied, frustrated. "Lots of images in my head, but I can barely sort'em out. Scenes of stuff on fire? Gah," he said, rubbing at his head. "Hurts just trying to think about it."
"Well, hopefully someone can help with that," Larix said, sighing. "Frankly I'm worried about Jane."
"No shit," Itok said, shuddering. "That prothean device was weird, but that Precursor stuff is scary as shit. Did you hear what Jane was saying after those...wire things got to her?"
"Something about 'prothean filth' and killing the infidels or something," Raetor said. "I, uh, get the feeling the two groups weren't exactly friends."
"Would explain why the Alliance's ships don't work with the mass relays," Valtha said, expression thoughtful. "Maybe the relays aren't scanning to check for eezo signatures - they're scanning to look for Precursor tech and shutting down the instant it thinks an enemy vessel is trying to use it?"
"That's...I really don't like the implications of that," Nihlus said, sighing. "Well, in any case we're supposed to do a briefing with Commodore Rix - lemme comm him and figure out what we're supposed to do now."
"We gotta get dressed all fancy?" asked Larix, who, like the rest of the crew, was in casual clothing.
"I'll request an informal event," Nihlus said, groaning as he got off the couch.
Commodore Rix was, thankfully, unusually accomodating; he gave Nihlus and his crew two hours before the meeting and, without prompting, mentioned that there was no need to dress formally. Nihlus took the opportunity to use the bathroom, take a long, hot shower, scarf down two more ration packs and pass out in his bunk for exactly forty minutes. He woke up to find that they had another half-hour before the meeting; grumbling as he got out of bed, he rooted through his locker, found a comfortable pair of pants and a plain grey shirt to wear. When he returned to the Lightspear's hangar, he found the rest of the crew waiting for him (save Larix, who was fast asleep and snoring on the Lighstpear's newly acquired couch); they were gathered around a makeshift table fashioned out of an empty shipping crate with two Alliance soldiers - part of the group Nihlus had seen previously - and were playing some sort of video game running off of a small projector which was plugged into a binary soldier.
"Hey! Boss! How you doing?" asked Itok, not looking away from the holo.
"Good, good. We headed up to the meeting?"
"Ah, that's not for another thirty minutes," Raetor replied. Nihlus couldn't quite see what was going on on the holo, but there was a series of beeps and Raetor swore as he stood up. "Fuck, Itok, how are you so good at this?"
"All skill." Itok turned to the binary, who nodded and deactivated the holo before retracting the cable and the attached projector into its shoulder. "Nihlus, these guys are from the Demeter - the ship next to ours."
"Nice to finally meet you," the binary said, clasping arms with Nihlus. "I'm Vadim, or VD, and this is Sarah Patel," he said, gesturing to the brown-skinned human woman next to him.
"A pleasure. You guys said you serve in Jane's combat team? I thought Jane and her people were posted on the Solar," Nihlus asked.
"We were, but the Solar got re-tasked - above our pay grade," Vadim said, shrugging. "We all got transferred - brand new ship and everything."
"Huh. Anyways, I figured it'd be a good idea to get to the meeting early," Nihlus continued.
"Why?"
"Itok, shut up. Someone wanna stay behind and watch Prince Snorefest over here?" he asked, gesturing at Larix. Nihlus glanced at his crew, and Valtha nodded.
"I'll take care of it - I got nothing to say about what happened on Kena besides the fact that I want absolutely nothing to do with it. Besides, I'll take watching this guy sleep over being in a meeting."
"Alright, let's go then." Nihlus turned Vadim and Sarah and made an inquistive noise. "Will KN be joining us for the debrief?"
"Yeah, and he said Jane'd be there - though she just got woken up, I think," Sarah said. "We'll get off your ship; we're supposed to be taking inventory or something anyways."
The group left the Lightspear and re-entered the hangar bay, and had barely set foot on the hangar floor when a dark-skinned human appeared at the foot of the Alliance ship's ramp - which Nihlus figured was Demeter - and whistled.
"VD, Patel, where the fuck have you two been? Inventory was supposed to be done five minutes ago and I've got the XO ten seconds away from planting a foot in my ass - so get over here and get to work!"
"Sir!" The two glanced at Nihlus, and despite only having an X-shaped light for a face Nihlus swore VD was grinning. "Pleasure meeting ya," VD said, giving a half-wave as the pair took off at a sprint towards the Demeter's belly hatch.
"I like the SAAF," Itok said, giving the air a dignified sniff. "They understand that formality has its place - specifically, nowhere."
"Uh-huh," Ultina said, unconvinced. "I'm sure the SUAF's Engineer Corps really appreciated that sort of thinking."
"Hey, I didn't get kicked out or nothing," Itok shot back. "Honourably discharged, Ultina. I got the certificate to prove it."
"Yeah, 'cause they were sick of dealing with your shit," Raetor replied, laughing.
Nihlus simply sighed as the four got into an elevator and rode it up to the Broadshield's CIC; they arrived to find the room full of both Alliance and Citadel Fleet personnel, all gathered around the central holo eagerly chatting with one another. A secretary notice the group, and waved them over to a side door. "This way, please; KN, Jane and the others arrived early - the meeting is free to start with your arrival." The turian woman waved her omnitool over a scanner, and the side door hissed open to reveal a small conference room. The four stepped inside; KN and Jane were seated with a binary woman on the left side of the table, while Commodore Ri and a human wearing a uniform much like the binary woman's but with a complement of medals on his chest sat on the other side. Jane smiled and KN lit up his faceplate at their arrival; Jane, Nihlus noted, had several patches stuck onto both of her exposed arms, and was drinking from a bottle filled with a thick black liquid.
"Ah, Spectre Kryik," Commdore Rix said, nodding at the empty seats next to Jane. "Please, have a seat. This," he continued, gesturing to the human, "is Rear Admiral Haukea Kahoku."
"Mmm. It's a pleasure," Haukea said, extending a massive hand to Nihlus across the table. "I understand I have you and your team to thank for getting Pilot Shepard out of some trouble. You have my thanks."
"Not a problem, Rear Admiral."
"Hmph. No need to be humble, I've read the reports," the man said, smiling. "I'll skip the rest of my planned pleasantries, though, and get to the heat of the matter. Captain ED here," he said, nodding at the binary woman sitting by Jane and KN, "tells me that Jane interfaced with the Precursor tablet somehow, and according to Commodore Rix, you interfaced with the Prothean device. Can you confirm this for the record?"
"I can," Nihlus said.
"Can you remember anything from the message the prothean device attempted to tell you?"
"It's hazy, but it's a series of images. A warning of some sort." Nihlus furrowed his brow and rubbed at his head before continuing. "I - I can't recall much, but I think I saw a city of some sort, on fire. Some sort of meat, or flesh, arranged in a pile. Everything other than that is just a blur, almost like there was too much information for me to handle."
"And you, Pilot Shepard? I know you've just woken up, but if you can, we'd appreciate if you could attempt to explain what you saw," Commodore Rix said.
"It's not good," Jane said after a moment. "When Nihlus interfaced with the beacon, from what I read, it lifted him up, and attempted to direct information into his head - like a recording, or message, right?" Nihlus nodded, and Jane continued. "The - I - I'm not sure what happened after I entered the artifact room, and Captain ED says the cam footage and combat logs weren't salvageable due to some sort of temporal or spatial instability corrupting the data," she said, not noticing Commodore Rix's barely-concealed discomfort. "I can't tell you what happened physically - Nihlus and his team are probably better equipped to explain that - but the mental, assault, for lack of a better word, was clear in intent if not in detail." Jane shuddered and took a deep breath before speaking again. "I felt anger, hate, disgust overwhelming my thoughts. All I knew was that the Protheans did something blasphemous, to use the words in my memory - something that was not their place to do. I felt furious, filled with this, this zealotry that commanded me to purge the, I think the message said heathen, or infidel?"
"Mmm. Any images?" asked Haukea.
"Nothing that makes sense. Lots of screaming, flashing static; I think I saw a picture of a giant stone tablet covered in wires, too. Maybe it's the one Nihlus found?"
"Plausible," Captain ED said. "I'm afraid our attempts to do a deep dive into Jane's memory centres won't be happening, as I mentioned we were thinking of doing earlier, Rear Admiral. Jane's only been able to remember any of this - coherently, I might add - because we transferred her memories post-interface to an external source before rolling her brain back to before she entered the room. If we hadn't, the corruption caused by the tablet - which wasn't dissimilar to some forms of neural-disruption viruses I've seen being used - Jane would be dead. We recovered as much data as we could, but even acting as fast as we did much of the data was simply too corrupt or garbled to make sense of. Jane's literally telling you everything we know," ED said, shaking her head.
The room went silent as Caelis and Haukea considered the information for a minute, when Caelis suddenly looked up. "Wait. The precursor tablet...device aggressively attempted to take over or corrupt your mind, Pilot Shepard, correct? But the prothean device simply transmitted a message. Could the Alliance perform this... 'deep dive' into Nihlus' memories to copy and extract the message? We might not be able to understand what the purpose of the precursor device was, but this would at least allow us to see the prothean side of things. Given the fact that one message appears to have been a warning, the other perhaps at threat, I think we can all agree getting to the bottom of this situation is a top priority."
"That's...possible," Captain ED said, looking at Nihlus. "We'd have to install a high-speed dataport into Nihlus, and it'd be the first surgery of its kind."
"Why not attempt to salvage the prothean device? Couldn't we try and get someone else to interface with it, say, while already wearing an external memory device?" KN asked.
"We've already tried that," Haukea replied, sighing. "The device is intact, but according to the archaeologists working on-site something's happened to the device - its power source appears to be broken, and we have no way of knowing how to fix it."
"Would the surgery be risky?" asked Nihlus.
"There's always risks," KN replied, "but as far as surgeries go it's not the most intrusive. Most of the work would be mapping turian brain connections and whatnot; the dataport install itself is mostly automated via a combination of nanites and your own brain impulses."
The room fell silent again, and this time it was Jane who broke the silence. "Would it be possible to send some medical staff to the Citadel to assist with the operation, or at least planning for it? The Alliance's been working with medical teams around the galaxy to figure out safe dataport installation on every race anyways," she offered. "This'd just be the same program, only accelerated."
ED nodded, her expression neutral. "I'll need to talk to some people, and with you in private," she said to Haukea. "But I don't foresee any major issues. If everything is greenlit, the final decision rests with Nihlus, of course. I'd think he gets a say in whether or not we implant brand-new-technology into his skull."
Nihlus simply sighed. "There's really not much of an option, is there?" he said, staring at the table. "Temporal anomalies, the threats, the messages - every part of my instincts is screaming that something nasty's coming, and I'm not going to ignore that just because I dislike needles and surgery." He looked up, eyes determined. "If we can make it happen, I'm all for it."