Chapter 25: Bring down the Sky
Liara quickly realized that Kaidan and Ashley were not lying about Shepard's driving skills, Liara was kind of worried as well as Kaidan had told her Logan treated the Mako like an amusement park ride, but right now he was silent and gritting his teeth the whole time.
The trip out of the cargo bay followed by a drop of several hundred feet before the anti-grav boosters kicked in was terrifying, and Liara almost screamed but was afraid that if she did she would lose control of her lunch, only thinking of trying to impress him and what would happen to Terra Nova stopped her vomiting inside her helmet.
Garrus on the other hand was fine for the trip out of the cargo bay; he knew what was coming after all. He was just glad to be off the ship and doing something that meant something.
"Whoever is receiving this message, you have to shut down the fusion torches" the woman's voice says, she sounds like she is hiding "they attacked the asteroid and put it on a collision course with Terra Nova, please shut off the torches" she signs off.
Garrus focusing on what he just heard "Whoever has done this, this is terrorism, dropping an asteroid on a garden world is seen as an act of war, the Council cannot ignore this" he said
Liara closed her eyes and tried to focus on something other than the Mako bouncing around and driving up almost vertical hills "We have to hurry, we only have four hours" she said, Liara was in shock that someone would be willing to kill millions; she knew that she had to help stop them.
Logan stopped the Mako near an engineer's shack where he quickly gets out and investigates quickly finding some equipment and a dead engineer. Shepard was still silent as he took the dog tags off and got back in the Mako before heading off towards the first torch.
Once they got closer, they got another call from the woman "You're heading in the right direction; I don't know who you are but I'm….damn it" she said and the line went dead
"Whoever did this was listening in" Logan said glancing at Garrus "hope they didn't find her" he said more to himself
The two aliens stayed quiet, while the Commander wasn't driving like the Mako was amusement park ride, he was pushing it to its limits, it made for a bumpy ride.
As they approached the torch, six turrets emerged from the ground: one high on the cliff to the right, four around the fusion torch, and one far to the left of the fusion torch. Unlike turrets encountered in before on Therum, these only emerged from the ground when they got close to one of them, making their rockets much more difficult to dodge and largely eliminating the tactic of sniping them from a distance.
Logan worked carefully and focused on one turret at a time, and fired on the turrets out from a distance driving slowly backwards and forwards to avoid the rockets and using the boosters when needed. It was slow going but thankfully Garrus was just as good with the Mako's cannon as he said he was with a sniper rifle.
There were a lot of turrets though, although Logan tried to keep the amount of damage to a minimal, they still took a lot of fire.
"Come one baby hold together" Logan said almost willing the Mako, not to blow up
Jumping over the rockets that made their way towards them, taking heavy fire and the cabin of the Mako starting to fill with smoke but slowly but surely took out one turret at a time
After they had taken down all the turrets, they stopped for a moment; the Mako was spewing black smoke and had a few fires
"Garrus patch up the Mako for us" Logan ordered "Liara, help me put these fires out"
Once the Mako was repaired they made their way inside where Logan looked around and opened the door on the opposite end of the hallway.
As Logan rounded the corner he saw them "Batarians" he said with a snarl
Liara looked over to Shepard then and saw a different look on his face, one of pure malice, but she didn't have time to think about that when she heard.
"Harak, Chekz!, Chekz!" The batarian called out and two varren came running towards them
"Pull back" Shepard yelled as the varren closed in, taking aim with his shotgun he fired twice into the chest and face of one.
Garrus had started backing up and unloaded a dozen rounds into the other varren which kept coming.
Liara knew how tough varren were so she threw the both of them and with a splat they hit the wall, while Garrus and Logan made sure they stayed down. Liara went to move out into the next room before Logan moved next to Liara and gently pushed her back against the wall before holding up a hand to her telling her to wait
"Release the varren!"
Logan peeked around the corner and fired a shot off at the end of the other room which set off an explosion before looked at Liara and told her "Take care of the varren, don't let them get close" he said
"Garrus, switch to sniper rifle" he ordered "teach that sniper of theirs how it is done" Logan said
Garrus planted himself against the wall and switched from his assault rifle to his sniper rifle "with pleasure" he replied "cover me" he said
Logan noticed one varren getting closer so he threw it backwards, while Liara did the same to the other one. Once the varren hit the ground Liara fired off dozens of shots into their prone bodies
Logan then looked at Liara and said "You're with me, we go side by side" he told her "we do everything together from now on" he said before moving ready to go
Liara nodded "I'll follow you" she said as she killed one varren with a singularity and took aim at the other as Logan began to move into the room, where Logan fired a blast at the remaining varren killing it while it floated helplessly in the air
Logan and Liara moved out into the next room and just like Shepard told her to do stayed close to Shepard's hip as she threw two pirates back, before aiming her pistol at another, as she fired she noticed that the pirate was also hit with a shotgun blast.
"Good job" he told her as he used his biotics to lift a pirate and shoot him with his shotgun
"Sniper down" Garrus called out
Logan and Liara made short work of the remaining troopers and Logan called out "All clear" as he used medi-gel to deal with a few shots that got though "everyone ok?" he asked
Liara and Garrus both answered that they were fine
Once they had cleared all the batarians out, Logan and the two aliens moved headed up stairs and though the door where he found find the controls to shut down the fusion torch station. Once it shut down, they got another call over the radio from that woman again
"I'm reading that one of the torches is offline" The woman said "was that you?" she asked
Logan looked at Garrus and Liara to make sure they could hear it too "Yes that us, what's going on? Who are you?" he asked
"My name is Kate Bowman, I'm an engineer, I was part of the team assigned to bring the asteroid to Terra Nova" Kate said, Logan could hear the fear in her voice "we were attacked yesterday by batarian extremists, I have been hiding from them since they arrived" Kate told him, Logan while listening took out a drink, Garrus and Liara took the opportunity to do the same "I think they know the torch went out"
"Why are they doing this?" Logan asked putting his water back on his belt
"I don't know. But if this asteroid isn't slowed millions of people on Terra Nova will die" Kate said fearfully "If I find out anything I'll let you know, I…I have to go, Good luck" she said and signed off.
"Well that answers a lot" Logan said looking at Garrus and Liara
Garrus spoke up at that point "I can't believe the Hegemony would do something like this" he said "it has to be extremists not the government themselves"
Logan looked at him "Why not?" he asked "batarians hate humans and have been looking for a reason for a long time now, maybe they got sick of playing around with proxy wars" he said to the turian.
As they walked back down, Liara answered Logan's question "because if they did the Council would see it as an act of war, something like this? Crashing an asteroid into a garden world, would make every Council race sit up and take notice" Liara said looking at Logan
Garrus nodded "Turians might not get along with humans but something like this would remind them of the krogan rebellions"
Logan cracked his neck as he walked past all the dead batarians and came close to where they first entered when Logan saw a man standing there with a gun looking around
"Hey" Logan said to him
The man snapped his head round and fired without looking; Logan's shields flared up as a round bounced off, Logan had his gun out into his hands in second
"Oh god, I didn't mean to..., Are you hurt?" the man asked
"What the hell are you thinking?" Logan snapped as he lowered the gun
"Sorry I thought you were one of them" the man answered "guess I'm not much of a soldier"
Logan sighed "I'll give you a hint two eyes human, four eyes batarian" Logan said angrily
"I'll keep that in mind" The man replied
"Well you might not be a soldier but I am" Logan said putting his pistol away 'I'm Commander Shepard, with the Alliance and for that matter the Council" Logan said before adding "I'm a Spectre"
"Simon, Simon Arwell, I'm the Chief engineer on this rock" he said offering his hand to Shepard who shook it "Listen...We don't have much time, the batarians fired up the fusion torches you have got to shut them down before we hit Terra Nova" Simon said as he looked at Garrus and Liara behind Shepard "There are four million people down the Shepard, I..My family they live in Aronax, my kids and grandkids. Nice community. Good schools"
"Well batarians everywhere and I need to shut down the torches. Anything else I should know?" Logan asked
"One of the torches is surrounded by live blasting caps, we were set up to excavate when we arrived at Terra Nova. I rigged them with proximity detectors" Simon explained "That tank of your will set them off for sure, so you will have to go in on foot, even then you could still set them off if you get to close. So just go slow and easy and you should be fine"
Logan sighed "Can I requisition a cow to walk in front of me?" Logan joked
Simon laughed and shook his head "Sorry but I can't shut them off from here either" Simon said before adding "There are manual controls by the entrance to the torch facility, inside the blast zone. You can disable the caps there" Simon explained and quickly held up a hand "One last thing I had a crew working outside when the attack hit, I'm worried about them" Simon said looking as if he was remembering something disturbing "These batarians are ruthless I saw them smash the faceplates of guys working vacuum. And those varren, I don't think they wait for a corpse before eating"
Logan nodded "At least one of them is dead, I'll keep a look out for the rest, but the torches are my priority" Logan said handing over a dog tag "And Kate Bowman has been talking to us over the comms"
Simon took the tag and slowly nodded "Yeah saving Terra Nova is more important than saving my team and thank you" he said before adding "There was a group of engineers over at the main facility, but they are probably all dead. That or being held hostage by the batarians" Simon said before adding "I glad Kate is ok, she's one of my best engineers; her and her brother Aaron signed up together, I hope she won't do anything stupid"
"Time is running short, I should get going" Logan said
Simon nodded "Yeah, I should make myself scarce in case any batarians come back, good luck Shepard"
Logan walked away and headed back outside he waited for Liara and Garrus to get into the Mako before heading off, Logan was silent the whole time, Liara could tell he was in a foul mood, Garrus didn't seem to notice but seemed a little more serious...if that was even possible. Liara and Garrus however both had the same problem, Shepard's driving. While Liara was glad he wasn't driving like it was amusement park ride instead he was driving the Mako as if it had wronged him somehow, Liara looked over at Garrus and noticed that he was not enjoying the ride either.
"Can you hear me?" Kate voice sounded though their comms "I'm getting all kinds of interference" she said as feedback could clearly be heard "Damn this thing. Sorry there is a lot of feedback"
Logan shook his head "yeah no kidding" he said and quickly put a finger into his ear and tried to clean his ear out.
"I'll try and fix it. In the meantime, just keep doing what you are doing" Kate told them
Logan looked at Garrus "Don't you just love it when people tell you something you clearly already know?" he asked not really expecting an answer.
The sights of the torch station surrounded by those blasting caps quickly came into view
Garrus just chuckled and looked out the scope "We have turrets" he said and took aim while the Normandy VI told them proceed on foot. The Mako jumped a rocket and as it landed Garrus fired on the turret and quickly ripped through its shields, destroying it. Logan then drove closer to another one and started to fire the machine guns at it while Garrus worked the main cannon. After all the turrets were down, Logan drove to where he could see where they could enter the station and ordered them out of the tank and started walking slowly towards it.
"Watch your step guys" Logan warned "Nice and easy"
As they got closer batarians came out to greet them and opened fire on them "Garrus sniper rifle now" Logan called out "Liara open them up with biotics" he ordered
The whole time they were getting shot at the proximity sensor kept telling them every time they got too close. A rocket flew past Logan "They have rockets" he called out as they made their way across; Logan even managed to throw one batarian into a blasting cap.
Garrus used his sniper rifle with deadly effect, while Liara threw biotics at them seemingly every few seconds, before they were finally close enough to the station they didn't have to worry about the blasting caps, the last remaining batarian was shot in the back as he tried to run away, Logan calmly walked up behind the batarian and removed his mask while Liara and Garrus to caught up before he looked at them. Liara couldn't help herself she looked at the batarian trying to breathe in the cold vacuum of space before she snapped out of it and looked at Logan.
"Right same deal as before, Garrus if there is a sniper take him out first otherwise you're with us" Logan ordered, Garrus only nodded before all three made their way inside.
Inside was a similar layout to the previous torch station, except this time there were rocket drones and a engineer. Logan stood beside the door and threw a grenade in, once it exploded Logan moved in, using his biotics on the nearest batarian. The three of them worked closely together while dodging rockets, Garrus was focusing on the rocket drones but every time he destroyed one another replaced it. One rocket landed near Liara the blast taking down her shields, she could feel the heat on her skin but a moment later Logan had moved her out of harm's way before next rocket landed right where she was just a moment before.
"You ok?" he asked to which she nodded
Liara came back around and hit three batarians with a singularity lifting them up and shot them while they were suspended helplessly in the air, While Logan finished off two batarians with a combination of biotics and close range shotgun blasts. All three of them then focused on the remaining rocket drones, which a few moments later were all dead.
Logan moved near Liara "Hold on" he said, as she waited she could feel a slight cooling sensation on her back before she could ask what it was he told her "Medi-gel" he said with a smile "Congrats Dr T'soni, you have your first war wound" he said smiling slightly "You are a lot tougher than you look" She looked at him and noticed he had a slight cut above his eye with that strange bright red blood humans had.
"You're bleeding!" Liara exclaimed to which Logan just waved her off
"I'm fine" he said "just a scratch" he told her as he walked over to Garrus "Any wounds?" he asked looking Garrus over
Garrus lifted his arm up to reveal a burn from a rocket on his ribs, or where his ribs would have been if he weren't a turian "Just that" he said while trying to place his own medi-gel on it
Logan shook his head "relax" he said and helped Garrus with the medi-gel since Garrus couldn't reach it without being in pain "good job guys" he said once finished "let's shut this torch off"
Logan looked at his squad and was pleased with the way they were handling themselves, he never thought Liara would be so powerful with her biotics and as for Garrus, Logan hadn't seen anyone shoot so well. He was still thinking about this and their chances against the batarians in the main facility while shutting down the torch and the blasting caps when Kate started talking again.
"Are you there? You have got to hurry, you have really pissed them off" she said sounding slightly panicked "Their leader's setting charges everywhere. I think he is going to blow up the whole facility"
Logan could hear another voice suddenly in the background "Get away from that human" Logan took out his energy drink that the Alliance gave to all biotics so they could keep their energy levels up before he offered one to Liara who only frowned at it.
"It's for energy, biotics are given it" he told her handing it to her
Kate could still be heard, she was now begging for the batarian not to shoot her, when another voice could be heard
'Who is shutting down the torches?" the batarian asked
Logan looked at Garrus "Must be the leader" he said to which Garrus nodded agreeing with him.
"I won't ask you again" the leader warned and a moment later Logan could hear a gunshot followed by "Find the problem and deal with it"
Logan turned to look at the others "Ok we have incoming let's go introduce ourselves" Logan said
"Get her out of here" The leader could be heard over the comms
"They must of shot someone else" Garrus said while following Logan and Liara
Once back outside they headed back to the Mako, Logan was clearly angry but didn't say a word as he drove towards the third torch station.
'I 'm proud of you guys" he said suddenly "We just keep doing what we have been doing and we will stop these assholes" he told them
Garrus nodded "thank you sir"
Liara studied him for a moment before answering "Thank you Commander, but are you alright?"
Logan chuckled a little at that "I'm fine Liara. Anytime you think I am being too harsh to these batarians I want you imagine Terra Nova is an asari colony" he told her
Liara realized he must of noticed her staring at that batarian that Shepard removed the helmet off "I understand, Shepard. I don't have to like it but I understand" she said quietly
Logan looked at her while the Mako went over another incline "Good" he said before adding "If you did like it that would make you a psychopath" he said smiling "I do this so no one else has too" he explained
Liara nodded and thought about what he said and realized he was right. Asari would be just as vicious to any race that was doing something like this, but she was glad to hear that he didn't enjoy doing it "If you don't mind me asking, if you don't enjoy doing it then why do it?' she asked
Logan chuckled as the Mako went over another hill "We humans have a saying 'an eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life' do you understand Liara?"
Liara thought about it before nodding "You removed his helmet because batarians had done that to the people working here" she said
Logan nodded "That's right, the punishment must fit the crime" he said looking over at Garrus who was just listening.
They approached the third and final fusion torch station and were once again under fire by turrets. Logan fired with the machine gun on one turret while Garrus fired the cannon, as two rockets hit the Mako, Logan threw the Mako in reverse and kept firing. Jumping two more rockets, did his best to avoid the rocket fire, but there was too many rockets incoming so not all of them could be avoided. Garrus made short work of one turret and lined up another. It didn't take long before the Mako was filling with smoke again, Logan even drove away a short distance and the three of them patched up the Mako as best as the could before driving back in.
It was hard work but the turrets were finally taken care of . Logan jumped out of the Mako and headed towards the door "expect heavy resistance" he warned them as their made their way inside.
This station was different from the previous two, it seemed to be a U shape. Logan slowly and carefully made his way through when he saw three troopers standing there waiting for them and of course a varren. Once they opened fire Logan could hear "Release the varren!" being called out and another varren joined the fray. Garrus had overheated the weapon of one batarian, who was quickly thrown backwards by biotics by either Logan or Liara he couldn't see who didn't matter at this point, before he turned his attention towards another batarian and overloaded his shields and once the batarian shields were down he shot him in the face with his assault rifle quickly dropping him. Garrus then focused back onto the first batarian that was thrown and made sure he stayed down. Garrus knew that working with two biotics all he really had to do was take care of the ones that were lifted into the air or thrown, one trooper was lifted into the air at that point as if to prove what he was just thinking about. Garrus almost felt guilty about having such an easy target as he shot the trooper half a dozen times.
Liara helped Logan deal with the two varren by hitting them with a singularity. Liara also killed another batarian with the help of Garrus. Liara hit another with a warp field who was then taken care of by Garrus and Logan, before she was hit with a biotic field herself and went flying backwards into Logan who caught her knocking them both towards the ground, Liara opened her eyes and saw Logan underneath her with a pained expression on his face.
Garrus overloaded the weapon of the batarian shock trooper before dropping his shields. Garrus had shot the batarian with a dozen rounds but kept on coming. The batarian was close now so Garrus used the butt of his rifle to smash the batarians face in knocking him to the ground where he finished him off.
"As much as I like being this close to you" Logan said looking up at her, she smiled thinking what he could be trying to tell her "You're crushing my balls" he told her.
Liara quickly hopped off apologizing, hoping the human male wasn't hurt that much. Liara had heard how much it hurts males of other species, something about bundles of nerve endings that are very sensitive. She shook her head to get the image of what they would feel like out of her head and asked "Are you ok Commander, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to I.."
Logan slowly stood up hunched over "It's ok it happens" he told her while holding his groin, Liara noticed this and vowed to look at human male anatomy later. Logan stood up slowly and asked her if she had any new wounds she didn't and thought to ask Garrus if he was injured who shook his head.
"Come on, let's get this torch turned off" he told them as he walked off his pain. They headed upstairs and shut off the torch while they were heading back though Shepard saw a group of batarians casually waiting for them downstairs, almost as if they wanted to talk. Logan frowned before he turned to Garrus "Stay here, get your sniper rifle out and wait for my signal" he said
"What is your signal?" Garrus asked as Logan and Liara walked away
"You will know it when you see it" Logan answered.
Garrus just sighed "I get the feeling I will know when I see it"
On their way down Logan quietly said to Liara "Let me do the talking and be ready to make a move" he told her before walking out into the open where he could see twelve batarians and six varren waiting for them "What do you want?" Logan snapped "I assume you want to talk or you would have been shooting already"
One batarian stepped forward "Relax human I just want to talk. See if we can work out a peaceful solution" he said "I'm Charn and I know who you are, Commander Shepard"
Logan relaxed and reached into his pockets, the batarians got nervous "Relax" he said taking out a packet of cigarettes he shook a loose one out and placed it in his mouth before offering the packet to the batarians were very slowly moved forward and took the packet. Human cigarettes were preferred by batarians over their own something Logan never knew why, they just were.
Logan watched as they took turns in lighting up while he listened to Charn "This was just meant to be a simple slave grab but Balak is out of control. He hates humans, all this was his idea" Charn told him as the lighter came back to him "Balak is on a mission to destroy Terra Nova, and you're in the way Commander" Charn told him while lighting his cigarette and offering Logan the lighter.
Logan nodded and stepped closer, he was within arm's reach of Charn now, before taking the lighter "And you don't want that?" Logan asked having a quick look at the lighter
"Of course not, but Balak wants you dead" Charn told him "that's why he sent us, I am sick of his little crusade" Charn said while blowing out smoke
Logan nodded and put the lighter into his pocket and flicked the smoke away without lighting it "Thanks for the info" he said and in one quick movement had punched Charn in the throat before grabbing him by the shoulders and spinning him around, using him as a shield. Logan threw a grenade into the middle of the group of them dropping the shields of four of the batarians.
That was when Garrus had opened fire sniping two targets before they had begun to move, while Garrus was shocked at the speed in which the attack took place, he almost never saw it coming and he knew it was going to happen.
Garrus had to be impressed with the way the human Spectre had managed to get them to lower their guards before the attack and then used their numbers to his advantage, holding Charn close he moved in closer before he threw Charn into the group of them and using knife combat and powerful biotics Logan had managed to kill four of them in seconds. The batarians shields could not defend against a knife welding opponent and their armour couldn't protect their faces. Logan's blade was then hurled with biotics into a varren which got to close slowing it down. Logan then used his biotics to throw back two shock troops and finally pulled out his shotgun and opened fire, killing the varren with his knife sticking out of it first then focused on the two shock troops.
Garrus focused on the sniper they had bought with them, overheating his weapon and shooting him while he tried to get it working again. Garrus dropped the shields of the two shock troopers Logan was taking on, before turning his attention back to the sniper who Garrus had managed to keep pinned down.
Liara had already joined in at this stage, while she like Garrus was surprised at the method the Spectre used she quickly caught on. Firing a singularity into the group of varren once she saw Logan moving, she caught five of them in the field. Liara then aimed at the engineer they had and lifted him up as well, where she shot the varren and the engineer at her leisure, killing two varren. Liara was forced to boost her shields again, after which she shot the engineer four times while he was floating.
Logan was thrown backwards and as he slid across the floor he threw a grenade at the two shock troops sending one of them right into Liara's singularity field which soon shut off dropping all the three varren and the shock trooper to the floor. Garrus finally caught the sniper with his shields down and blew his head off, then turned his rifle scope onto the varren which were running towards Liara at that point.
Liara threw one varren back, watched another's head disappear from rifle fire, leaving one varren which tackled her to the ground and went to bite her face. Liara tried pushing the varren away but it was to strong that was when she saw a knife stab it in the back of the head and twist. Logan pushed the varren off her and helped her up, the two of them opened fire on the remaining varren then while Logan threw the engineer into the wall with biotics, where he didn't get up.
After that it was short work finishing the rest of them off. Logan walked up to Charn, who had choked to death. After searching them, Logan took back the packet of cigarettes and placed them into his pocket, he noticed Liara was staring at him "What? I don't smoke these" he told her with a smile.
Liara frowned for a moment, before she smiled "you mean you only carry them around so you can get close to your enemies while lowering their guards at the same time?" she asked before adding "Clever"
Garrus at that point had walked up alongside them "Everyone ok?" he said looking over his teammates. Garrus helped patch them up, a gunshot on Shepard and a few bruises as well a cut on his head that had opened up but he was fine. Garrus then checked over Liara who was a little worse for wear but still in one piece. Liara had a grazing gunshot as well as deep scratches from the varren on her legs and chest and what looked like to be a broken rib.
"Need medi-gel over here" Garrus said as Logan walked over and sat down near Liara
"Just relax, Liara this won't take long to fix" Logan said before looking up at Garrus "keep an eye out will you, make sure no one sneaks up on us"
Garrus nodded and moved closer to the door to the station. Logan had patched up Liara's wounds on her legs and her a grazing gun shot and then squirted some medi-gel onto her chest and took care of those wounds as well. Liara was surprised at how gentle he was, considering what she just saw him do.
Logan stood up and helped Liara up "those should hold until we get back, then Dr Chakwas can look at them, I can't do much about the rib sorry" he told her
Liara smiled softly "I can manage Commander" as they walked over to Garrus
"Let's go say hi to Balak" Logan said with a slight chuckle