Chapter 26

"I have a bad feeling about this."

"Same here, Holt."

"I mean that I have a really bad feeling about this, Shepard."

"Good job jinxing us there." Ashley chuckled.

"You sure you wanna split the team up, Shepard?" Garrus asked as they were walking towards the rest of the team. The people at Zhu's Hope turned out to be... strange.

"Yeah, who will be forced to keep an eye on these nut jobs?" Shepard gave Holt a warning look. Even though his choice of words were not far from what she would've used they were still more than rude.

"There must be a reason to why they're acting like... I don't know, like they're puppets. The team who remains will investigate while my team visits ExoGeni for answers to why Saren is interested in this place.

"Who stays?" Kaidan asked as he took a look around. The people who lived here gave them a wide berth as they made their way through the colony.

"You'll be in charge." Shepard answered and thought for a moment if she was about to make the correct decision. "Keep Holt, Wrex and Liara to help you keep an eye on the colonists."

"You sure that's a good idea, Shepard?" He quickly asked while throwing a glance towards Holt. Before Shepard had a chance to answer, the man in question was already on it.

"Shepard probably just wants us to get along." Holt said with a cheery tone. "We can play 20 questions in order to get to know one another better. I'll start, who put that iron pipe up your ass?" Holt asked with a smirk. Sighing, Shepard turned towards the remaining members of the ground team who they now had reached.

"Can I trust you to deal with these two while I'm gone, Wrex?" She asked, motioning towards the two human males.

"I'll make sure they sort out their problems with their fists rather than with their words, don't you worry, Shepard."

"Can I trust you to keep them in check while I'm gone, Liara?" She immediately asked the asari.

"I- I'll do what I can, Shepard." Liara nervously answered.

"We'll contact you if we're in need of backup." Shepard said to Kaidan and ignored Holt's correction of 'when in need of backup'.

"Roger that, Commander." The lieutenant said with a salute and Shepard motioned for the rest of her squad to follow her. ExoGeni wasn't that far away but considering the geth being here they would delay the journey by quite a bit. That's if they don't launch a full-out attack on Zhu's Hope. But what is Saren doing here to begin with? Shepard hoped that ExoGeni would have the answer to that.

"I sure am glad I don't have to stay around this place any longer..." Garrus whispered to Shepard as they were making their way out of the colony.

"What do you think has happened to them?" Tali joined in, keeping her voice low as well so that the colonists wouldn't hear them.

"It's weird. They're not acting like mindless drones and the few I spoke to almost acted... 'normal'." Shepard said, more to herself than anyone else.

"Brainwashed maybe?" Ashley suggested.

"I will go with Holt's choice of words and call them nut jobs. I'll be the first to admit that I don't understand much about you humans but even I could tell that those people back there were... different."

"I'm not worried. If the colonists snaps then they'll be up against Kaidan, an Alliance lieutenant and biotic. Holt, a guy who's combat skills rival the best of Alliance from what I've seen. Liara, another biotic. And lastly, Wrex. A fucking krogan battlemaster." Ashley said in a normal tone now that they had left the colony.

"Good points, shouldn't we be worried about ourselves, Shepard?" The turian chuckled. "I mean, you did leave all the biotics behind."

"Doubting your own skills, are you Garrus?" Shepard smirked. Before he could answered Shepard felt a familiar tingling sensation in the back of her head and shouted out on pure reflex. "Take cover!" She screamed and the others didn't waste any time questioning her and just as they jumped behind the nearest wall they could find, bullets started raining down upon them.

"Geth this close to the colony!?" Ashley yelled from her cover so that she would be heard over the sound of gunfire.

"Were they about to attack the colonists?" Tali asked, hands working away on her omni-tool. Probably preparing some sort of hacking program against the geth, Shepard didn't exactly know.

"Their current positions suggest that they were waiting for us." Garrus said as he peeked around the corner. His head darted back behind the wall shortly after as bullets started flying by. "If anything they are making sure the colonists stay at the colony."

"Or that they wanted to make sure no one gets close to ExoGeni..." Shepard muttered as she listened for an opportunity to run out from cover to return the fire. "Do you see any good sniping spots, Garrus?" The turian quickly looked around and then nodded to Shepard.

"See one, but will be impossible to get to unless you cover me."

"Alright then, me and Ashley will lay down some fire of our own and Tali will use that window to do what she does best. Should give you enough time to get to your spot."

"Roger that, Shepard." Shepard once again listened to the geth fire while keeping eye-contact with Ashley. As soon as she noticed the fire-rate slowing down she nodded and swung around the corner. Ashley did the same and together the two of them managed to hold the geth off while Garrus made a dash for his new cover. Tali aimed her omni-tool towards a cluster of geth and they suddenly started shaking uncontrollably. They were easy pickings for the two human women. Once Garrus got to his sniping spot the rest of the fight were easy enough.

"See that? We don't need any biotics to still kick ass." Ashley said as they grouped up again.

"Wait and see until we meet a geth destroyer or something equally deadly." Garrus answered. "Then we'll see if we can still kick this much ass."

"Let's try to avoid all the more deadly confrontations if we can, shall we?" Shepard chuckled as they began moving towards the large building in the distance. Shepard prayed that there would be some good elevators in there because she sure as hell wasn't gonna walk up that amount of stairs.

"Spoilsport." Ashley giggled and if you just ignored the hundreds of geth that were probably waiting to ambush them, Shepard was having quite a good time.