Chapter 29
Ashley and her team had been battling through a sea of husks for several hours, a grim and tiring task. She'd never fought beside rachni before, and rarely done anything with vorcha except fire at them. The efficiency with which these two forces dispatched Remnant was...disconcerting. Even EDI was taken aback, looking upon the killing field with an overly stoic expression on her (still turian looking) face.
Liara arched an eyebrow, throwing out a singularity to gather several Husks on their flank. Three vorcha surrounded the floating Remnant, engulfing the gathered cluster in flame, before turning to slash their way through more.
EDI gestured with her omnitool, freezing solid a batallion of Cannibals, before two rachni scouts charged in, lashing out with their tendrils, leaving nothing of the Remnant but shards.
Ashley shook her head, this had been far too easy. Something wasn't right.
Vash, the leader of the vorcha, caught her look, and laughed, "no worries! We scatter them like flies!"
As if on cue, she heard a series of angry roars echo throughout the hallway. The other Remnant actually stopped moving, falling silent as well. A deep rumble shook through the catacombs, scattering rachni, vorcha, and Remnant alike. Ashley placed her back to Liara, as "turian EDI" drew beside Vash, the leader of the vorcha.
"The stragglers are fleeing," whispered Liara.
Ashley saw what she meant, and turned to the nearest rachni scout, "don't let the Husks escape, we'll take care of whatever this is!"
The rachni turned to her, seeming to dip its head slightly, before issuing a trill and heading after the nearest fleeing Remnant. The rest of the "space spiders" followed.
Ashley shuddered, "now there's a fight I don't care to see."
Before anyone could reply, an entire section of wall came hurtling down. Out of the dust, a hulking monstrosity strode forward. Ashley first heard the hissing growls, then saw the glowing eyes. She then noted the armored bulk and clawed arms. It took her a moment, but she finally realized what she was seeing.
"Well," she mused, "we know what happened to your people...I'm sorry Vash."
The vorcha calmly strode forward, cocking his head to the side.
Glancing back at the SPECTRE, he flashed teeth, "you right, Matron Ash-lee, this a much better fight!"
The other vorcha scattered about them replied with their own war-cries.
Slowly, EDI turned. Ashley glanced at the AI's affected turian face, noticing a twitch about the android's lips.
"Don't-"
"That was a joke," quipped EDI, dropping the gravel in her voice slightly.
Liara stared at them, shook her head, and started to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Ashley closed her eyes, taking a deep breath before glaring at the Berserker before her.
"Remind me to instruct you later in proper humor," she grunted at EDI.
Ashley stormed towards the Berserker, sending round after round into the beast. She loaded the Mattock with armor piercing rounds as she emptied the first thermal clip. Vash's grin spread from ear to ear, the bloodlust sparking in his eyes, as he rushed to Ashley's side...
In orbit outside Feros...
Chaarn cleared the sweat from his brow. He had escaped the planet opposite where the Normandy was stationed. The last thing he needed was a face to face with THAT accursed ship. The batarian allowed himself to stop shuddering before he placed the call from his shuttle. Almost immediately, the two figures from before were on holo-display.
"The Dark Energy weapon is lost," cursed Garmok, "it would have been a great boon..."
Chaarn had to look twice at the batarian on the screen. If he didn't know any better, he could have sworn the eyes seemed to glow with a red hue. He shook his head, as the static flickered across the screen. His mind was playing tricks on him… he hoped…
"It is of no consequence," replied Atrayus, "send me the Thorian tissue samples, and leave those ants to scurry about..."
"But the Dampening Field research-"
"Will pale in comparison to what we have planned for those samples," said the Collector, "as will what I do to you, if you fail."
Ever since the loss of their Haestrom facility, the Collector had seemed increasingly enraged, "previous attempts to revive the sleepers on Ilos have met with failure. However, the Thorian samples offer a unique alternative, a potential for success."
Chaarn didn't know what that meant, but the idea left a cold chill in the pit of this stomach. He shuddered, trying in vain to forget the horrid experiments done on Feros to transferred slaves from Haestrom.
Garmok sensed the misgiving in his subordinate, and sniffed. It wouldn't do to let the riffraff forget who they answered to, "get out of there, we don't need any other mishaps."
"Yes, my lord," grunted Chaarn, as he cut the communication, preparing for his jump through the relay.
As the galaxy began to blue shift around his shuttle, Chaarn prepared himself. Trips to the Hegemony had once brought him peace. It was a chance to see the homeworld, and the powerful fleet that protected her. Now, it brought only pain and shame, Shepard had seen to that. Still, it was better than the Hell he had left behind...
Vash snarled in fury as he thrashed toe to toe against one of the Berserkers. The juggernaut had managed to fell two of his comrades. They lay on the floor behind him, unconscious or dying. Vash didn't know. What he knew was that the Remnant wouldn't claim him, not this day. He ducked under a swipe from the Berserker, charging his omnitool to capacity. This was an attack few tech-users attempted.
The asari matron who had sent him here, Aria, could detonate a biotic attack beyond that of others...an attack which she had dubbed "Flare."
As Vash continued to sidestep the Berserker's attacks, he continued to build the charge in his omnitool, the burn started to sizzle through his armor. Only disciplined vorcha could do this, burn themselves to the brink of death...in order to rain destruction on the enemy.
As Vash brought his fist before him, the vorcha unleashed an Overload powerful enough to blind him, a Tech Flare that consumed his senses. Vash staggered, unable to move, certain that the Berserker would make him pay with death. But as the vorcha's vision cleared, he noticed the Berserker lay still, as if frozen. The chitinous armor had burned off in several places, arcs of electricity still blazing on its body. Vash smiled his death-head's grin, as he rushed in with tooth and claw...
Liara gestured to the second Berserker, her arms in front of her, holding two full Singularity fields before her, both larger than any she had created before. Blue blood flowed from her eyes and nose, but she heeded it no mind. She ignored Ashley's protests, forcing the enemy before her into torpor through sheer force of will.
"Get the bastard!" she screamed.
Ashley shook her head, loading her assault rifle with incendiary rounds, as she ran towards the Berserker. Her senses grew more acute, time slowing down as the adrenaline kicked in. She sent round after round into the same place on the Berserker's skull. The twin singularities fed off the impacts, drawing the armor away from the chips blown aside by the bullets.
With her final volley, Ashley charged the shot with the assistance of her omnitool, sending forth a fiery blast of Carnage into the beast's maw. The Berserker shrieked in fury, as the biotic pools beside it turned the flames into a dancing typhoon of fire.
Ashley holstered the rifle as the thermal chamber emptied. She engaged the servos in her omniblade. Ashley leapt into the air, using the same protocols as a Concussive Blast, and rammed her fist through the hole made by her bullets. The attack shattered the Berserker's skull cavity, as the biotic singularities began to cave, shattering the newly made Remnant corpse in twain.
A glistening orb fell from the Berserker's spinal cord, slick with blood and pus. Ashley took one look, and recognition dawned on her face. She drew out a proximity mine, sticking it to the side of the globe, before kicking it away. Quickly drawing her pistol, Ashley fired her weapon into the glowing orb until her heat sinks blared. The orb exploded and shattered, and the Berserker's body parts finally stopped twitching.
She turned to EDI, who was still rising to her feet from a previous attack, "they're weak at base of the neck, help Vash quick!"
The AI turned upon the first Berserker, shouting at the vorcha fighting it to stand aside. As Vash cleared out, EDI sent a stream out of the omnitools in either arm to Snap Freeze her target, before nodding to the vorcha again.
"Take it's neck!" she yelled, her voice and form still turian.
Vash climbed onto the frozen statue's back, slashing away with his claws. Piece by piece, the chitinous armor chipped away, until the vorcha commander saw a glimmering ball. Grasping the orb with both hands, Vash wrenched the globe from the base of the Berserker's spine. He leapt into the air, slamming his fist down in a Biotic Nova blast, turning the orb to powder in his fist.
EDI drew up beside him tossing several trip mines onto the Berserker's bulk, before rushing away from the ensuing blast. Ashley collapsed as the final Berserker went down, leaning against a bulkhead for support.
Vash glanced at her nodding, before turning to tend to his comrades. The SPECTRE nodded dully, her mind so numb after the ordeal; she barely heard the chatter over her comms.
"Lt. Commander Williams, are you there?!" said Juliana Baynham.
Ashley blinked several times, shaking her head to clear her thoughts, "what is it?"
"Liz told me that Shepard took down the Dampening Field. The rachni and the other vorcha are routing the Remnant forces."
She nodded, sighing in reply, "so, do we know what they were doing here?"
"Well, the old Thorian caves are down there," replied Bayhnam, "and before the Remnant attacked, we were excavating what seemed to be Prothean ruins."
"Not Prothean," said Liara, "I know Prothean, none of my dig sites resembled this. It's...older..."
"Then what was it?" asked Juliana, "I didn't think anything predated them."
"That's because it isn't Prothean," said Liara, glaring at Ashley, "did those orbs seem familiar to you?"
"Of course!" reflected the SPECTRE, "this is Leviathan tech!"
"The Leviathans vanished into Dark Space at the end of the Reaper War," offered EDI, "it couldn't be them."
Indeed, the ancient race had been present when the Reaper Cycle had started, so many eons ago. They had been the first race to fall to the original Reaper...Harbinger. Shepard's discovery of living Leviathans had been a startling revelation. The last of that ancient race had left, after the Reaper War, to claim the void beyond Dark Space...
The Council had been just as happy to see the Leviathans go. With the galaxy in a state of flux, nobody could have accounted for such far-reaching ramifications, had the Leviathans chosen to remain.
"Well," said Ashley, "it seems like someone's familiar with the tech, and using it to play God."
Liara shook her head, groaning, "something tells me this isn't going to get any easier."
"Why would it?" griped Ashley, "contact Shepard, tell him we're on our way..."
