Kaidan slammed the door so hard that a hydraulic line broke free and splattered him with blue fluid. Shepard and Ashley put their backs to the wall, their guns trained on the door to the next room. The trio held their breath, listening for signs of hostiles, but there was no sound save the hiss of acidic water dripping off their armour onto the metal floor. The broken door control sputtered and fizzled; Shepard had been forced to blast it from the outside. It wasn't a smart idea to fiddle with a lock in an acidic thunderstorm.
"Same drill as before," Shepard instructed. "I'll sneak into the observation room and disable the containment field while you two wait by the door." Wisps of vapour drifted up from her wet shotgun barrel. She tried to wipe it clean with her gloved hands, but rivulets of corrosive water ran down her sleeves and soaked her gloves.
"Do you think this plan will work a third time?" Kaidan asked. He dug around in his pockets and found an oily rag. He tore it and gave pieces to Shepard and Ash, and they all dried their guns as best they could.
"There is a chance everything could go pear-shaped," Shepard admitted. "That's why you and Ash will be ready to cover my retreat.
"This time, let's not kill everyone," she added. "I have some questions that need answering."
She stowed her heavy shotgun – her favourite firearm – and retrieved a lightweight pistol. The significance of this wasn't lost on Kaidan.
"You're tired, Ma'am. I should be the one to go in."
"No. Stay here." Shepard inched her way to the door, hugging the wall, and then disappeared from view.
Kaidan saw Ash staring at him with eyes like saucers. For a moment he thought his suit might be melting, but then he realised what had shocked the Chief: he had disputed an order from his commanding officer.
He grimaced. He shouldn't have spoken out. Still, as misdemeanours went it was fairly minor. There were far worse transgressions, such as, oh… fraternisation.
Hell. What was he going to do next? Start punching admirals?
He took up his position next to Ash. "Shepard's not at full strength," he explained. "I'm just trying to keep her alive." He risked a look into the observation room. In the space of a heartbeat his trained eye took in five scientists, six commandos, a containment field and very little cover. He couldn't see Shepard. Dammit, where was she?
"Don't stress," Ash soothed. "She's not made of glass."
They were silent then, listening to the calm murmurs of the scientists. Kaidan wished, not for the first time, that Garrus was there instead of Ashley. Kaidan and Garrus worked in perfect tandem, a result of countless hours on the field together. Ash was an excellent soldier and a good friend, but Kaidan had had little field time with her.
In fact, he realised, the Cerberus assignments were the only time Shepard had paired him with Ashley. He wondered why. Perhaps Shepard had thought an all-human squad would provide better negotiating power with the Cerberus operatives. If that had been the case she was sorely mistaken.
The hush suddenly exploded into a cacophony of gunfire and sharp cries. Shepard ran through the doorway, nearly bowling Ashley over in the process, and shut the door behind her.
"Rachni workers," Shepard gasped, leaning on the door.
"No rachni soldiers?"
"None that I could see."
They waited and listened. At the previous two labs the plan had gone like clockwork: turn the field off, wait a few minutes for the hostiles to kill each other, then pick off the survivors.
This time, however, the sounds of battle quickly subsided, replaced by an eerie silence. Kaidan looked at Shepard, who was watching her scanner, frowning.
"Those bastards have switched the containment field back on," she said. "They're clustered in front of this door, waiting to mow us down."
"Dammit," Ashley whispered. "What do we do now?"
"Both of you move well back and get behind cover," Shepard said. "I'll take the edge off them. Follow me in when I've kicked down the door."
Kaidan stepped back. "Yes, Ma'am."
What was going on? Why did she want to kick down the door? What made her think she was capable of kicking down a steel door? And how did she plan to 'take the edge off' a score of commandos by herself?
From his protected vantage point Kaidan watched Shepard retrieve a grenade from her belt and pull the pin with the ease of long practice. However, instead of opening the door and lobbing the grenade, she simply stood there, holding it.
With a start, Kaidan realised she was waiting for the fuse to burn down so the commandos wouldn't have time to escape the explosion.
He felt beads of sweat break out on his forehead as he watched her silently count the seconds. After what seemed an eternity, she opened the door a couple of inches, threw the grenade through the gap and let the door slide shut.
There was a deafening blast and the door shuddered and came loose from its tracks. Shepard kicked it down and ran inside, and Kaidan followed her with Ash hot on his heels.
Inside there was chaos – swirling smoke, fire and maimed bodies. The floor was slick with blood, making footing treacherous.
The survivors were scattered and in disarray, and he realised they were mostly scientists, not trained commandos. They didn't hesitate to open fire on him, however, and he was forced to kill one of them before lifting another.
Shepard and Ashley dispatched the remaining scientists and came to stand beside him, watching the floating man. Kaidan noted that Shepard was pale and streaked with blood, but otherwise unharmed.
"Drop him," she said. Kaidan released the field and the man fell to the floor. He got to his knees and put his hands behind his head, glaring at his captors with cold ferocity.
"You're fools," he spat. "You've destroyed valuable research designed to protect humanity's interests. You're traitors to your race."
"Traitors, are we?" Shepard said, coolly. "We're not the ones turning innocent colonists into husks. We were there on Chasca, we saw your handiwork."
Kaidan remembered Chasca, though he wished he didn't. In his mind's eye he could see the rolling green hills, the crystal-clear skies, and the dragon's teeth glittering in the sunlight, beautiful and sick like doomed Benezia. Shepard had used incendiaries on the husks, and the smell of seared blue flesh and burning circuitry was a stench he'd never forget.
"We have no plans to continue transforming colonists," the man insisted. "We always planned to stop after the third colony outpost was transformed."
Shepard stepped closer and pressed the muzzle of her shotgun to his temple.
"You can't expect us to believe you were going to stop making husks," she growled. "I should shoot you right now."
"All right, all right," the man gasped. "We were going to keep making husks, but not from colonists, I swear. We were planning to use cheap prisoners from Purgatory, and older slaves who had become mentally impaired. People like that are no good for anything else."
Ashley turned pale at this cold admission. "I have never felt so ashamed of the human race as I do now," she murmured. Kaidan, feeling sick with disgust, was glad at least that Garrus wasn't there.
He turned away from the scientist and surveyed the centre of the room through the containment field. Something captured his eye amongst the rachni workers, something distinctly human shaped. If he didn't know better, he'd say the man was wearing an Alliance uniform. He moved slightly away from the group to get a better look. A rachni soldier tracked his movements, but didn't impede his line of sight. Through the haze of the containment field, he recognized who it was.
"Oh hell," Shepard said, bleakly. Her arms dropped to her sides.
"Just how well connected is this Cerberus organisation?" Ashley wondered. "I didn't think it was possible to find an Alliance admiral who didn't want to be found."
"I thought Kohoku was just being paranoid," Shepard said. "I had no idea Cerberus had the resources to track him down, but he knew all right and he still helped us."
She bowed her head and rubbed her forehead wearily. The scientist took this as his cue to creep away, but he had barely moved before Shepard planted her booted foot in front of him, blocking his path. He froze.
"Why did you kill Kohoku?" she yelled.
"You know why," the scientist said. "Humanity isn't ready to know the truth about what we're doing, even though it's for their own good."
"It would do humanity more good if I killed you," Shepard grated, "but today's your lucky day. I'm going to arrest you, kill the rachni, and then you'll face trial." She hauled him to his feat, grasped his wrists and retrieved a zip tie from her belt. "I'm warning you," she said, "I won't hesitate to knock you out if you give me any trouble."
"No! Don't kill the rachni!" the scientist cried. He began to struggle.
"That," Shepard said, "qualifies as trouble." She felled him with a solid right hook, and went to the controls to disable the field.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kaidan saw the prisoner drag himself up onto his hands and knees. "Don't kill the rachni," the man croaked. "They're too valuable."
Shepard ignored him, disabled the field and the trio began to pick off the crazed, acid-spitting workers. Kaidan killed two in quick succession, and then nearly shot the scientist when the man threw himself upon the last surviving worker.
"Don't kill it!" he wailed. "It's out of venom, it's helpless." He gasped as the rachni's acid started to burn his skin.
"Get off it, you fool!" Shepard shouted. "If it was out of venom it wouldn't be burning you."
The man clung on stubbornly for a few moments longer and then, with a howl of pain, he rolled off. In a heartbeat the rachni turned and spat a lethal dose of acid in the man's face before slumping to the floor, riddled with bullets.
"Looks like there won't be a trial after all," Ashley said, resignedly.
Shepard holstered her pistol. "What a mess."
"We came out of it unscathed, at least," Kaidan said.
It wasn't until they went to access the data terminal that he noticed Shepard's limp had returned, and the bloodstain on her thigh had grown larger.