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Chapter Twenty-Six – Infamy
There were days, Shepard thought, when you really knew that everything had already gone to shit. And today – with her comm systems blanked out, two nice smoking dents in her armour already, and Hackett's deep cover operative proving to be a little too attached to her project – was distinctly one of those.
Five hours ago, she'd inched her way through the grimy prison complex and stupidly, she'd assumed the tough part was over once she'd hauled Doctor Kenson onto the shuttle and punched the autopilot.
"Okay." Shepard turned, still breathing hard. "You're alright?"
Doctor Kenson nodded. She was wide-eyed and sweating and Shepard could see the shadows of exhaustion in her face.
"Sit down," Shepard said, gentler. "I'll dig up some medi-gel, and maybe you can tell me about this artifact of yours."
"Object Rho," Kenson said quietly. She sank onto the bench, her shoulders slackening. "It was…I don't know what it was. What it used to be. Or why it was there. We found it buried under the surface and it sang."
"Sang?" Deliberately casually, Shepard knelt and flicked one of the supply lockers open. She reached in and asked, "Can you elaborate, Doctor?"
"We cut the rock away from around it and it seemed to, I don't know. It seemed to start."
"Go on."
"It showed me things," Kenson said.
Flames in engulfing waves and the terrible, shuddering sound of too much death all at once and filling her head and Shepard understood. She'd found herself too close to that damn beacon on Eden Prime, God knew how long ago now. She'd stood in front of the beacon and it had opened itself up and spilled its searing, awful knowledge straight into her skull until her thoughts had drowned beneath the weight of it.
"What kind of things?" Shepard asked carefully. She hooked up a packet of medi-gel and turned.
"The Reapers," Kenson said, in the same soft tone. "The Reapers as they get here."
"You're saying," Shepard said, and swallowed.
"I'm saying that this is where it will start. This is where they will come through."
"You're certain?"
"I've seen it." Kenson's head lifted, her eyes wide and too bright. "I've seen it so many times."
"Here," Shepard said, and pressed the medi-gel into Kenson's hand. "You're worn out and you look like you took a hell of a beating before I got there."
Kenson's fingers snapped tight over the packet. "You believe me, don't you, Commander?"
"Of course I do."
Kenson's whole frame shivered as she exhaled. "Good. I knew you would, Commander. I hoped you would. You were there at the Citadel."
"Yes, I was. Doctor," Shepard said, as delicately as she could. "How exactly have you and your team been studying this artifact?"
"We've been careful," Kenson replied, and this time, her voice was slightly edged. "We've been as careful as we've needed to be. The artifact wasn't going to be useful if we'd just left it sitting there."
"No, and I understand that. Can you tell me about any results you may have had?"
Kenson smiled. "Yes, Commander. And that's very much why you're here now."
"What do you mean?"
"The batarians flagged our shipments to the asteroid. Maybe they even knew something about the artifact."
"Doctor," Shepard said. She leaned forward, her hands flat on her knees. "I'm sorry. I know you've had a hell of a time down there. But you're jumping all over the place, and I'm only up to speed on what Hackett told me."
"Of course, Commander. I'm sorry." Kenson's smile softened. "Come down to the asteroid base with me, and I'll show you our research."
"Okay." Shepard nodded slowly. She was aware of the tight, sharp confines of the shuttle, and Kenson's unwavering gaze, and the needling knowledge that she wanted the doctor's research to be perfect proof.
She wanted evidence of past Reaper presence and coming Reaper presence and she knew that she was hurtling into it too quickly. She needed to settle her thoughts and the prickling, sour suspicion that Kenson's smile was still a little too fixed and start thinking her way through it properly.
"You show me what your team has done, then," Shepard said. "And we'll talk about where to go from there."
"Thank you, Commander."
Shepard nodded again. She straightened up and turned towards the main console. She had both hands nearly to the glowing keyboard before Kenson asked, "Commander, what are you doing?"
"Updating Hackett," Shepard answered blandly.
"Is that necessary?"
"Old habits." Briskly, she tapped out the co-ordinates for Kenson's research base, another two hurried lines, and a final mention that she herself was still breathing. As fast, she copied the message to Joker before sending it off to Hackett.
"So, Doctor," she said, over her shoulder. "What did you mean about batarians flagging your shipments?"
"I can explain better when we get there. When you see the base. But," Kenson added. "Now that we know where they'll come from, the Reapers. Now that we know, don't you think we should have a plan to stop them?"
Shepard jerked back behind the corner again and swore. She gritted her teeth through the dull thud of another grenade going off, far too near.
She had four of Kenson's lackeys on the other side of the corner, at least three more on the far side of the high-roofed room, and the huge thrumming thing that was Kenson's Object Rho. It pulsed and crackled and every time its silvery light flared, Shepard wrestled with herself.
She wanted to watch it. She wanted to watch it as it flickered into life, each lancing burst of light coming closer and closer together and measuring the distance to the Reapers.
The Reapers on the other side of the relay, and Kenson had called it the Alpha Relay, the gateway.
Shepard eased herself far enough out so that she could fire another volley. It was a distraction, most of it, the rattle and spread of the bullets enough to send the two men closest lurching back. She noted their weapons and their distance and others further behind, half-crouched.
Of course, Kenson had also been talking through the bullshit veil of indoctrination.
She counted herself through another four heartbeats and then she was moving again, leaning around and firing. Her first shot sent one of the men sprawling, his face a bleeding mess. The second drove into another, and he dropped lifeless, his hands loosening on his rifle. She waited an instance longer before launching forward again, clearing the space past the corner. Another desperate sprint took her further, sliding to her knees again beneath the rise of a console bank.
"I'm sorry, Commander," Kenson said, still smiling. Still smiling that icy smile and suddenly Shepard knew she'd been right, she'd been right since she'd wondered at Kenson's strange stillness in the shuttle.
"So," Shepard said. "I'm guessing that this isn't going to be easy after all?"
"Commander, I can't let you stop them."
"No," Shepard said. "I guess you can't."
She saw the pistol in Kenson's hand, rising and unerringly steady, and she flung herself away. She reached up for her rifle in the same motion, clearing it from its harness and settling it against her shoulder.
Shepard yanked a grenade from her belt – almost the last, she noted, since she'd used three already, wildly and too fast – and it arced up and across the room. Instinctively, she turned away from the rippling shudder as it hit the ground. As quickly, she rolled upright and fired, terse bursts that sent another two of them staggering. A follow-up shot ploughed through the second man's knees, and another toppled the first.
Desperately, she kept moving, vaulting past another glittering array of consoles. She was one target, horribly hemmed in by the room and the towering artifact, and she knew she needed to keep running.
Keep to the walls, she knew. Keep to the walls and the gaps between couches and desks and console screens and use anything to ruin their sightlines. Every hurried, half-shielded step lent her the tiny, frantic instants she needed to gauge Kenson's guards.
One by one, she thought. Reduce them all to single objectives that could be taken down and she pushed off again, pelting past the last corner and back out into the open. Another grenade cleared the floor ahead of her. She bolted across, her shields soaking up the impact when one of Kenson's guards got off a shot that landed far too close. She crashed into the wall on the far side, dropping to her knees and glaring at her omni-tool.
New signals, too damn many of them, lighting up her screen and pouring into the room. She heard Kenson howling for more reinforcements, more, as many as they had, and Shepard wondered just where the hell they were coming from.
She flattened herself against the wall for a long, impatient moment. A spray of bullets bit into the wall on her left side, edging closer. She waited as long as she dared, aware of the salty taste of her own sweat, clinging to her lips. She rolled clear, unhooking her last grenade as she tumbled. Halfway to upright, she threw it. She turned, her shoulders already locked, and fired.
Her volley raked through three of the guards, and before they sprawled, she was already rushing past them. The shot she expected slammed hard against her back and she stumbled. Her shields buzzed out and she threw herself the last three steps until she was half-hidden behind the curve of a couch.
Skidding footsteps and the juddering flare of her omni-tool were her only warning before one of them lurched around the edge of the couch after her. She uncoiled to her feet and rammed the butt of her rifle against the guard's head. When he swayed, she cracked the weapon hard against his chin. Part of her registered the sharp sound of bone breaking, and the guard's whistling breaths, before she curled down onto her knees again.
She was damned if a room full of guards with their heads all one fire with Reaper thoughts was going to be the last battlefield she ever saw.
The artifact surged again, blindingly bright. Shepard ducked away from the punishing glare. Bullets ripped into the wall above her head and she lunged further. She jolted upright too quickly, and a ragged burst of fire toppled one of the guards. As wildly, she back-stepped and lined up a shot on the next.
A shot cracked into the back of her shoulder and she swayed. Her shields fluttered, and furiously, she thought, not now, not fucking now.
Another hail rattled over her head and she dropped, whirling herself around in the same motion. A roughly-aimed round took one of the guards off his feet, and another tore into the floor between the next two. She hurtled into the gap and spun, driving her elbow into a guard's throat. He swayed, and she turned her attention to the other. A solid kick scythed the guard's ankles out from under him, and when he collapsed, a burst from her rifle tore his throat open.
She turned, and staggered when one of the guards ploughed full-force into her shoulder. Fiercely, she wrestled to salvage her balance. From far too close behind, she heard the click and hiss of a pistol.
The bullet punched into the back of her calf, and the sudden, wrenching pressure of it made her cry out. Someone else's hands were scrabbling at her wrist, yanking at her rifle. Shepard snarled something and tried to lash out, but there were too fucking many of them and she knew damn well that if her knees hit the floor, they'd have her pinioned and useless.
She heard Kenson's voice again, cutting through the thunder of her pulse. Madly, she lunged for the pistol at her hip. Something cracked hard against the nape of her neck and she had time to swear before the darkness welled up and drowned her.
Garrus leaned over the back of Joker's chair and glared at the main console. "That was it? No other updates?"
"No." Tersely, Joker gestured at the screen. "It came in four hours ago, and there's been nothing since."
"I saw the mission briefing she thrashed out with Hackett," Garrus said. "It was meant to be a quick infiltration drop, then leave Doctor Kenson back with her people at the research base."
"Yeah, and I know that," Joker snapped. He rubbed one hand over the slightly crumpled back of his cap. "Sorry. It's just, you know. Not like her."
"Yeah," Garrus answered. His thoughts were darting madly, and he wondered if it'd be something stupid – shuttle ran dry of fuel, power outage at the research base, maybe Shepard's omni-tool had finally breathed its last – but he'd seen that first message. Concise and brisk and mentioning nothing more than Shepard's planned ETA at the asteroid, that she wasn't hurt, and that Doctor Kenson was either damn smart or damn strange.
"And, yes," Joker added. "I keep trying to get through. Nothing."
"Did you hail the base itself?"
"Yeah, twice. First time I got some guy saying there'd been no shuttle arrivals he was aware of. Second time I got a bunch of static."
"Yeah, and that's not suspicious at all," Garrus muttered.
"Could be nothing."
"Which is why you're as prickly as I am right now," he said, pointedly. He straightened up, his gaze still pinned on the screen. "Take us in to the research base."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure," Garrus said fiercely.
"Good, then you can be the one to argue with the XO about making decisions when the Commander's off-ship."
Garrus barked out a laugh. "Happily."
"Okay," Joker said. "EDI?"
"Yes, Jeff?"
"Can you try and get through to Shepard again? Try and dig your way around whatever they're scrambling the base comms with?"
"Of course."
EDI's blue sphere winked out again, and for a long moment, Garrus stared at the console, still unhelpfully unchanging. Joker was still looking at him – hopefully, Garrus noticed, with the tension at the corners of his eyes slackening slightly – but all his mind uselessly served up was Omega.
Corridors heavy with silence and one more mistake after another and again until his hands were shaking and his mouth tasted like it was full of copper.
"Okay," Garrus said, and forced himself to unlatch his hands from the side of the chair.
"Next step?"
"Next step, I'm going to go hunt down some volunteers," he said, and flared his mandibles into a grin. "Ask everyone into the briefing room for me."
"Whatever you need," Joker said. Slightly awkwardly, he stood, his hands sliding against the console. "Hey, Garrus?"
"Yeah?"
"Go find her."
"Soon as you can fly us there," he flung over his shoulder. He strode out into the main walkway and a handful of anxious minutes took him through the far corridor and into the briefing room. He waited, his fingers drumming at the edge of the table, until the others filed in.
"Our situation is this," he said, and stared at the blank white of the wall between Taylor and Jack. "Shepard's dropped out of communication."
"Yeah," Jack said, and for once, Garrus was damn glad she'd opened her mouth. "That part we know. What's your issue?"
"They've got a Reaper artifact down there," he answered. "I think I'm going to go right ahead and decide that something's gone horribly wrong."
Lawson's blue eyes narrowed and fixed on him. "Perhaps."
"The research base is blocking incoming communication."
"Blocking it, or unable to talk from their end either?"
"You really want to debate this?" Garrus demanded. "It's simple. She went down there on a solo infiltration assignment. She's hours overdue and I am not letting this ship sit here while we wait for her to do all the work from her side of this."
"Alright," Tali said, and stepped forward. She rested her hands on the table and added, "We can work on the comm problem on our way in."
"Yeah. We've got EDI thinking her way through that as we speak."
"Then," Tali said, and he thought he could hear her smiling. "I guess I'll be most use down by the drive core. I'll keep up with EDI's progress and we can go from there."
"Yeah. Thanks," Garrus said, and the sharp, wary heat of something very like exhilaration curled through him. "I need a couple of volunteers."
"Knew that part was coming," Jack remarked, and grinned.
"Yeah, well. I have no intention of turning a rescue into a complete screw-up unless I really have to."
Jack laughed. "A rescue, huh. I'll pay you to say that to Shepard's face."
"Whatever it takes," Garrus retorted. "You in?"
"Yeah, okay, Vakarian. I'll be there."
Garrus opened his mouth to say something sardonic in response, but Taylor shifted, unfolding his arms.
"Okay," Taylor said, and shrugged. "I'm pretty sure I didn't have anything else planned for today."
"Good." Garrus straightened up. He was aware of the sped beat of his own heart, and the strange charged silence that caught his voice. "Get yourselves geared up. XO?"
"Yes?" Lawson responded, icily bland.
"I'll be updating Admiral Hackett as to our movements."
"Meaning you'll be wanting me to do the same from here," she said, in the same unreadable tone.
"Yes."
"So this is an Alliance mission," she said, and for the briefest, angry instant, Garrus wished he knew how the hell he could get beneath the blank mask of her expression.
"It's Hackett's info, and Hackett's operative," he said. "He came to Shepard with this, so he needs in on our progress."
"Alright," Lawson said. She tilted her head to one side. "Be careful with the ship."
"If this goes right, it's not the ship that's going to be shot at."
"You never know," Lawson muttered, and surprised him when she smiled. "Keep me informed, Vakarian."
The Normandy swung around the side of the asteroid, tiny and uneven and with the research base spreading silver and bare across the ochre rock. Beneath Garrus' feet, he felt the thrum as the engines settled.
"You know," Joker said, and he didn't look away from the open cockpit screens. "Is it just me, or is this thing moving? And I mean moving like it shouldn't be."
"Yeah," Garrus answered, and frowned. "It's not just you."
"And you know what else is really weird?"
Garrus thought of half a dozen things, shoved back the instinctive need to snarl something, and shrugged. "You tell me."
"That's the system relay," Joker said, and gestured. "Or it should be, if it wasn't hidden by this pretty little asteroid."
"Oh," Garrus said, and swallowed. Sudden, awful certainty hooked itself in his gut, painful and impatient. "Shit."
"Yeah, I was kind of thinking the same thing."
"ETA?"
"Us or the asteroid?"
"Funny, Joker. Really funny."
"You see me laughing?" Joker scrubbed a hand across his face. "Few minutes. I'm going to take you over that big nice open area near the edge."
"Okay." Mechanically, Garrus checked his weapon harness, and the buckles on his chestplate, and the comms inside his helmet. "Stay in touch."
"Officer Vakarian?" EDI asked, and the blue globe snapped into life above the console.
"Yeah, EDI?"
"The connection is poor, but I believe I have found Commander Shepard."
"Put us through," Garrus snapped. Awkwardly, he added, "Sorry."
"Putting you through, Garrus," EDI said, mildly admonishing.
The comm unit crackled uselessly for a long, dragging moment. He wanted to shout at it, at EDI, at the unhelpful silence of the cockpit, anything.
"Normandy? Joker, can you hear me? Tell me you can fucking hear me?"
"We hear you," Garrus replied, and the relief surged through him. She was alive, and sounded damn furious, and still had time to swear, which he guessed meant she might've hidden herself somewhere. "Shepard?"
"God almighty, Garrus," came the uneven, ragged response. The static swirled up again before he heard, "Good to hear your voice."
"You too," he said. "You okay?"
"One hell of a fucking headache."
"What happened?"
"They knocked me out and sedated me."
"What?"
"Yeah, this is going to be one of those things where you're going to have to just listen and I'll explain everything later."
"You mean like usual," he said before he could think better of it.
She laughed, and it sounded breathless and half wrung through. "Kenson's dead. The asteroid's heading towards the fucking relay." She said something else, swallowed by static and the gulping, rough sound of her breathing. "Warn the colony. Aratoht. Throw them repeat messages, wave flags at them, I don't care."
"Okay," Joker said. "And if they won't listen?"
"Don't care, keep talking. If you get even half a ship-load of them away in time," Shepard said, and the rest of the words crackled apart.
"Shepard?" Garrus snarled. "Shepard?"
"Still here."
"We're coming," he said, fast enough that his tongue slipped awkwardly against his teeth. "Stay breathing. We're coming."
"You'd better," she answered, and the roar of the static engulfed her voice again.
The sudden, empty silence from the comm unit slammed into him, and angrily, he shoved away from the console. "Heading into the CIC," he said. "We'll be in the airlock on your mark."
"Yeah," Joker answered, and his gaze was fixed on his own hands as they darted across the glow of the screens. "I'll keep you updated."
"Good," Garrus said. He made himself clip Joker's shoulder – very gently, gently enough that he saw Joker's expression soften slightly – and then he was turning away and striding down the walkway.
He made it through the first archway fast enough to kick his pulse-rate a fraction higher. He paced around the side of the constellation charts and discovered Taylor and Jack, both of them already poised and waiting.
"You heard?" Garrus asked.
"Yeah," Taylor replied. "Sounds like it just got interesting."
Garrus snorted. "Of course it did. So," he said, and looked up in time to meet Jack's questioning gaze. "What's persuaded you to come out and play? The goodness of your heart?"
"That and the fact that you'd be a damn sad sight to see, turian. You know, if you never got laid again."
Garrus coughed, and it turned into a desperate, gasping kind of laugh. "Yeah, that too."
Shepard dropped to her knees, gritting her teeth as she felt the thump of the explosion, rippling through the ground. The dreadful screeching sound of the mech as it fell followed, and when she checked the wide plaza behind, nothing moved. She waited through another terse, dragging instant, her eyes on her omni-tool.
A handful of grenades yanked off a dying guard and the blissfully open space of the base's open-air level and she'd worked her way through them.
She straightened up a little too gracelessly, and checked the distance to the main comm station. Beneath her armour she was a mess of bruises and more than a few long scrapes from a brief, bitter scrap in the medbay on her way back out. The hole in the back of her calf was half-patched, but she could feel the sting of it, and she was aware of the uneasy knowledge that her whole leg was giving too much when she ran.
She crossed the last few empty metres and slammed both hands against the comm station. The screen unfolded and desperately, she thumped it again.
She was almost surprised when the holo-display uncoiled and kept uncoiling until it was above her, framing something that was all slanted hull and claws and clustered yellow lights.
"Well," Shepard muttered. "Shit."
The thing above her paused – not really there, she thought frantically, not really there, the bastard was somewhere else and it wasn't here – and she could have sworn it was studying her.
"Shepard," the thing said. "You have become an annoyance."
"Good," she snapped. "And fuck you too."
"You fight against inevitability," the Reaper said, in heavy, precise tones that hit her like a punch to the throat. As slow and as patient as Sovereign had been, and some awful part of her wondered what this one had seen before it had retreated back into dark space.
How many years it had existed, watching the turning of the stars.
"Dust struggling against cosmic winds," the Reaper said. "That is all that you are."
"Do you all sit around planning which poetic scary thing to say? Or is more of a spur-of-the-moment thing?"
The golden blaze of its eyes fixed on her – when had she started thinking that they had eyes? - and she clamped her fingers against her palms. It had the same damn voice, the voice that had been torn from the mouths of so many fucking Collectors, all of them wrapped in crackling shadow and all of them the same.
The Reaper said something else, something about numbers and death and her name again, but she was looking down at her omni-tool as it flashed. She edged away from the comm station, and the Reaper's voice drove into her.
"This is not a victory," the Reaper said. "This is only failure."
"Keep telling yourself that," Shepard snarled. She whirled, and when the Normandy swung into the emptiness above, she found herself grinning, too wide and almost painfully.
She pushed herself into a loping run, her gaze pinned on the airlock door as it slid open. The Normandy slowed, tilting elegantly to one side, rolling the airlock door closer. She noticed Garrus first, clad in blue, Taylor and Jack on his left side.
"Shepard," Jack shouted, her lips moving behind the clear panel of her mask. "You got company."
"I see them," she responded. Another desperate few steps carried her across the ground and behind the silver arch of a pipe. She crouched, her hands tightening on her rifle. "Clear me some room?"
A heartbeat later, she heard the whiplash surge of biotic energy. A hail of gunfire followed, and Garrus snapped, "Shepard, we're out of time here."
"Stay there and keep me covered," she told him firmly. "I'm coming to you."
"Got it."
She inched half a pace further and leaned as close to the far edge of the pipe as she dared. Another swirl of blue energy battered across the guards closest, and two behind dropped nervelessly, their helmets shattered. A scything volley swept another four to their knees, and Garrus shouted at her to move, and right now.
She launched upright and out of cover in the same motion. The sleek shape of the Normandy blocked the sky overhead, and she could see the edge of the airlock. Above her, Taylor crouched and fired, and the bullets tore past her.
"Garrus," Shepard said sharply, and drove one foot against the curve of the pipe. The impetus sent her into the suffocating, airless press of the sky. He dropped to his knees, leaning out of the airlock until Taylor caught his shoulder, steadying him. On his other side, Jack hurled a sputtering tangle of wild energy, white-edged and furious.
His hands closed and locked over her wrist and then he was hauling her up and over the edge and onto solid floor.
"Joker," Taylor snapped. "We're in. Get us moving."
"Gladly," Joker answered.
Shepard let herself sink uselessly against Garrus, half aware of the roar of the ship as it tipped level. The engines kicked into gear, and thankfully she knew it meant the asteroid was falling behind.
"Shepard," Garrus said, and jostled her upright. "Stay with me."
"The airlock trick," she replied, and fumbled for the back of her helmet. "Never fails."
"Came close," Jack muttered. "How many guards did you have on your ass?"
"Didn't stop to count them. Did you see my other visitor?"
"Yeah," Jack said, and her eyes flickered. "Sounded like that bastard who called himself Harbinger."
"The very same." Shepard wrestled her helmet off, too aware of the sweat that slicked her hair. She keyed the inner door open, and her next step turned into an ungainly stumble. "Oh, hell. That's not good."
"You're a wreck," Garrus said mildly, and caught her arm.
"Yeah, thanks," she responded, and couldn't even quite muster up the right sardonic tone.
"Let's get you into the medlab," he said. "And get your armour beaten back into shape. Or just burn it. Whichever."
Vaguely, she nodded. "Priorities."
"Yeah." He let go of her long enough to tug his own helmet off and suddenly, finally, she was looking up into his face, all angles and fierce blue eyes.
"The colony," she said, because she knew she had to. Because she knew the answer, and she knew it would be small numbers if any, and because she knew the asteroid was spinning its inexorable way towards the relay. "Did you get through?"
"We tried," Joker answered, slowly. "Sorry, Commander. I can give you a rundown later. I've still got numbers coming in. It doesn't look good."
"Okay. Okay, Joker. Thanks."
"Hey," Garrus said, very softly, almost as if they were alone. Almost as if they weren't standing in the archway to the CIC, with her armour stinking of blood and smoke and this clawing, stupid failure filling her thoughts.
Kenson and the asteroid and the fucking colony and why hadn't she seen through it sooner?
"No," she said, heavily. "I'm not okay. That really didn't go the way I thought it would."