They emerged from the Ilos end of the mass relay to find that they had lost the race. Heat signatures bloomed from Ilos orbit, and given the possibilities, it wasn't hard to determine just who had beat them there.
Joker informed the rest of the quite crowded cockpit of the dilemma while Jorge concentrated on the operations console to Joker's right, attempting to pick out what he could. There were multiple ships that were immediately identified as Geth, but there weren't many- no more than half a dozen signatures were on his screen, all identified as troopships as well. Of the gigantic dreadnought, there was no sign. The Normandy was still outmatched, but with so few ships protecting the planet they might just be able to slip past the Geth using their thermal cloaking.
"Picking up erratic signatures on the planet's surface," XO Pressley called out on his own console. That immediately got Shepard's attention.
"That has to be Saren. Take us down, Joker. Lock in on the coordinates," she ordered.
Pressley shook his head. "Negative on that, Commander. The nearest landing zone is two klicks away."
"We'll never make it in time on foot. Get us somewhere closer!" Williams demanded.
"There is nowhere closer! I've looked!" Pressly shot back.
"Then drop us in the Mako," Shepard ordered.
"You need at least a hundred meters of open terrain to pull off a drop like that. The most I can find near Saren is twenty," Pressly replied.
"Twenty? No way we can make that," Garrus mused.
"We have to try!" Liara.
"Find us another landing zone!" Williams demanded again.
"There is no other landing zone!" Pressly said in frustration.
"Then we go in the twenty meter zone," Jorge said.
"We can't. The descent angles too steep, the Mako will hit the ground too hard, or worse, the Normandy," Tali refuted.
"Then we ride the Mako and use it to cushion our fall," Jorge replied. "A two kilometer drive is an unacceptable loss of time. We need to get to Saren now."
"Getting to Saren won't matter if we get smashed to pieces!" Tali protested.
More voices raised themselves in argument and counterargument, filling the cockpit with noise before a single voice cut through them all.
"I can do it," Joker said quietly.
Everyone turned to stare at the pilot.
"Joker?" Shepard asked, conveying the wealth of questions that were on everyone's mind.
"I can do it," he repeated. Confident and assured, not a trace of doubt in his voice.
"Everyone gear up and get to the Mako, now. Joker, drop us right on top of that bastard," Shepard commanded.
The rest of the ground team who had come to the cockpit ran down the hallway in a mad scramble. Jorge waited for a moment, then stood, coming up behind the pilot.
"Give him one from me, Juggernaut. That is assuming I don't manage to drop the Mako on him like the Wicked Witch of the West."
"You got it, Joker."
-{[]}-
The Mako was, if anything, more cramped than it had been back on Noveria. With the entire ground team stuffed into the IFV, there wasn't much room left anywhere. Tali was the unlucky one this time, and braced her slim alien body between the massive forms of both Jorge and Wrex in the cargo section.
Jorge could feel the descent angle despite the artificial gravity when Joker began the drop run. Ship-made gravity could only do so much to counter the much stronger pull of a planet. From what he could tell, Joker's approach was damn near vertical. From what he could see out the front windows… well, it was all stone and greenery, not so much as a trace of blue sky present.
Jorge had survived many crashes before, in all sorts of vehicles, including Pelican transports. That being said, he would prefer if this landing didn't end in flames like most of those had.
The ground got closer… closer… and then, with a lurch, the Mako leapt free of the bay. For a moment, everyone held on to what they could as the Mako went into free-fall. Then, the nose tipped up and the thrusters fired, slamming everyone back to the floor as the thrusters desperately tried to slow their fall.
The next ten seconds were hairy. With the lone forward windows pointed skywards, there was no way to know how quickly the ground was approaching without an instrument panel; no way to know if they were lined up with the landing zone, without instruments. With Shepard concentrating on piloting, no one was willing to ask; their fate was in her hands.
They hit the ground hard, even with the suspension soaking most of the energy, and then braked. Hard. Jorge had to grab onto Wrex and to the cargo straps to prevent the two most massive team members from sliding forward. Tali did slide forward even as a stone door loomed ever closer through the front windows, catching herself on William's leg on her way to the cockpit.
The brakes squealed one last time as the Mako came to an abrupt halt before rocking back on the suspension. Outside the front window, Jorge would have guessed they had no more than a half dozen feet before a very solid looking door.
"Shit," Shepard swore as she unbuckled. "That bastard Saren just went inside."
Wrex violently slapped the Spartan's arm away, grumbling all the while. Jorge merely hit the door for the door release, allowing them and the rest of the team easy exit from the vehicle. Being the closest to the door, Jorge was the first out.
He found himself in a stone causeway, overrun by greenery. To either side were stone barricades, made from whatever type of concrete the Protheans used, covered in mosses and grasses. Behind, two massive stone blocked the path of the Mako, fallen from wherever they had originally been, and leaving only enough room for people to squeeze between. And of course, in front, was a large stone irising doorway, the mosses and vines scraped off from when Saren had shut them mere moments ago.
Damn Joker was good. This place was only a few meters wider than the Mako itself and the pilot had put them dead center in it.
With his motion tracker clear, Jorge dangled his gun from one arm and examined the door in front of them, looking for some way to open it as the rest of the team dismounted. A few moments later, he wasn't alone in examining the door.
"Amazing!" Liara breathed, touching the surface of the stone with something akin to awe. "Functioning Prothean technology, preserved for nearly fifty thousand years! I could learn so much! If only I had my research equipment..."
"Focus, Liara," Shepard said, coming up beside the two of them. "Our priority is Saren. You can come back later and study until your hearts content, but right now we need to open this door. Jorge?"
Jorge shook his head. "No mechanism I can see to open it, Commander," he replied over his helmet's speakers.
"So we blow it open," Williams threw out.
"Chief Williams!" Liara exclaimed, scandalized.
"Sorry Liara, but all options are on the table here. Jorge?" Shepard asked.
"Not sure, Commander. How thick are these doors, Doctor?" he asked Liara.
"Shepard, you cannot seriously be considering-" she protested.
"Liara, focus. End of galactic civilization as we know it. We need to stop Saren no matter the cost. How thick-"
A shotgun boomed behind them, followed by the rapid chatter of an assault rifle. Everyone whirled, guns at the ready, to see Wrex and Garrus at the far end of the narrow corridor, standing over the metallic bodies of two Geth.
"Hostiles over here!" Garrus shouted.
"Hold position for now! Williams, get up there and help them!" Shepard turned back to Liara. "Focus. How thick are the doors? Can we blow through? We don't have much time."
Liara swallowed, then took a moment to compose herself before answering. "The only Prothean technology that has survived in working order to date has been military technology. It stands to reason that this is therefore a reinforced military door typical with other Prothean doors of this size. Based on the size and other similar ruins, these doors are likely slightly more than a meter thick."
Under his helmet, Jorge grimaced. "I don't have enough explosives to blast a hole the size of the Mako through something like that, Commander."
"What about person sized?" Shepard asked.
It was Liara who answered. "The Protheans would not have built a door this size if it was not meant to fit a Mako-sized vehicle. We can be assured that whatever lies beyond, we will need transportation to get there."
"Then we need to open it."
"Shepard, there is likely a security station with a door control nearby," Liara spoke up. "That is no doubt how Saren gained access in the first place."
"It's not able to be opened from here?" Jorge asked.
"No. All of the dig sites I have been on have never had door controls next to the door, likely as a security precaution."
"Right then," Shepard grumbled. She activated her comm system. "Liara, Tali, and Wrex with me. We're going to go find the door controls here and open this thing. The rest of you, secure the immediate area and keep the Mako safe till we get back. Jorge, you're in charge."
"Aye, Commander."
Jorge set the remainder of the team up in defensive positions as Shepard and her picked team headed out. With Alenko gone, he was left with Williams and Garrus; he was quick to set Williams on guard duty the way that Shepard had left while sending Garrus into the Mako, allowing him to be overwatch (for what little area in a concrete tub could be covered), but more importantly, allowing him access to the superior power of the Mako's motion trackers. They would know instantly if anyone was attempting to sneak up on them. As for Jorge himself, he settled on drifting between-
The high-pitched whine of a Geth armature discharging its anti-tank vehicle weapon was clearly heard over the near silence of the area. A second or so later, his radio hissed to life.
*Jorge, get your team and get up here-*
A thunderous crash sounded over the comm, and he caught the same more distant sound from where Shepard was, not far away.
*We need your help against a pair of armatures.*
Jorge and Williams shared a look through their helmet visors. He gestured for her to head up to Shepard's location; a moment later, Garrus was out of the Mako, and he followed the turian to the sounds of battle.
It wasn't particularly far, maybe thirty meters beyond the pillars that blocked the Mako in. There Jorge found Shepard and the rest of the team hiding behind fallen stone, periodically leaning out to take potshots at the two armatures. Shepard saw him, and grinned.
"Alright, Liara, lift 'em!" she ordered.
The scientist stepped out before becoming wreathed in the telltale blue of biotics. Holding her pistol in one hand, she made an upwards gesture with her other, like tossing a softball. The next moment, not one, but both of the armatures began to float upward in a tangle of mechanical limbs, their mass negated.
Jorge wasted no time and opened fire on the nearest helpless armature. The rest of the team joined in with everything they had; tech attacks, biotics, and the various staccos of weapons fire, from the little pops of Liara's pistol to the booms of Wrex's shotgun all the way to the steady thunder of Jorge's machine gun.
Still, these were Geth Armatures, half the size of the Mako and more heavily armed and armored than a Geth Prime. Even with all the fire focused on the nearest armature, Liara's lift had run out and it was attempting to right itself when an armor piercing bullet in the right place finally put it down for good. The other, in the meantime, was mostly untouched, and managed to pick itself up off the ground with a bit of shields left.
The head swung around as its shields sparked under an overload, and Jorge saw it gathering energy for a blast… at him. He began preparing himself for a dodge even as he kept firing.
Such an event never occurred, as Tali hit the armature with a Sabotage tech attack. The armature seemed to sputter and cough before the gathering energy dissipated back into the subsystems from whence it came. It could do nothing but stare and attempt to look intimidating as the team picked away at its armor for the next few seconds. Jorge's gun, with the armor-piercing mod and the heavier capability did the most damage, but it was Shepard's assault rifle burst through a compromised ceramic armor plate that sent it tumbling back to the ground, twitching.
Not content to leave the machines twitching and sparking on the ground, Jorge calmly walked up to them, pried a piece of armor off the smoking machine, shoved the barrel of his machine gun into the torso, and pulled the trigger. First one, then the other, stopped moving completely.
"Good work everyone. My team with me, Jorge, secure the Mako and wait for us," Shepard commanded.
-{[]}-
"You think that was the worst?" Williams asked as Jorge and his little team headed back to the Mako.
"Saren's been here several hours from the looks of things. No telling how much they've dug in," Jorge replied simply.
Setting up his little squad in the same positions as before, it took a few minutes before he came back around to Williams.
"You think we're going to make it in time? Hell, can we even make it in time?" she asked quietly.
With a fifteen minute and counting head start, it was a legitimate question. Worse, no one currently had any idea of exactly what the conduit was. Most likely it was a weapon, which had unfortunate implications if Saren managed to retrieve it and leave, or use it, before they could get to him. Then again, from the visions Shepard and Liara shared, it seemed as though it potentially was a beacon of some sort, one that could summon hordes of these Reaper ships to descend upon the galaxy. The fact that such an event would be suicide may well be beyond Saren if he truly was Indoctrinated like Shepard claimed. If it was a beacon, they might be able to jam it or shut it down, but either way, they needed to get to Saren soon. Failure was not an option.
"We'll make it," Jorge told her confidently. "One way or another."
Williams fidgeted with her assault rifle nervously.
He was heading towards the Mako for a check in with Garrus a good ten minutes after losing radio contact with Shepard when the sound of stone cracking split the air. As he watched, the great door that Saren had closed on his arrival began to open, the ancient mechanisms grinding as they retreated out of the way.
To reveal a pair of Geth troopers and an armature.
To his credit, Garrus was nearly as quick as Jorge, the Mako cannon booming as he engaged the armature. Also fortunately, the armature decided to engage the Mako, as did both of the Geth, allowing him the precious few seconds he needed to turn both the troopers into useless hunks of metal. He turned his machine gun onto the armature just as the Mako's cannon boomed again, and together he and the Mako's machine gun finished it off.
"Commander, the doors are open," he tried over the comm. Static answered him; still out of range. Or jammed.
He resolved to wait a few more minutes before charging off into the Prothean bunker after Saren with only Williams and Vakarian. His patience was rewarded; no more than a minute later, Williams called out Shepard's arrival. A minute after that, and the team had piled into the Mako and was speeding down the ancient roads of the underground bunker.
"Look at all of them," Liara whispered breathlessly as she craned her neck out the front window. "There must be thousands, millions of those cryo-pods! If every wall has as many as this corridor… do you think one survived?"
"What? A Prothean?" Shepard asked distractedly as the cannon boomed.
"Of course! Imagine what could be learned from a live Prothean!" Liara replied excitedly.
It was, of course, theoretically possible. Cryo technology in the UNSC universe was not perfect, but it was capable of keeping people on ice for decades at a time, even centuries, though it had never been tested that long. The Protheans were an incredibly advanced race, and with evidence they had looked into cryogenic technology, it was possible they had advanced further than the UNSC. The real question was whether or not the technology around the cryo tube could survive the ages, and based on what he had seen so far, it was possible. So maybe, just maybe, there was one out there, in the potentially billions of cryo tubes, waiting for someone to awaken them.
That someone would have to be someone else, though. Liara, for example. After this mess with Saren was over.
"Shit," Shepard swore softly.
Looking out through the mass of bodies, Jorge saw a large white energy field in front of the Mako as Shepard slowed to a stop. He was out the door before the wheels stopped turning.
"Stay in the Mako!" he ordered immediately, slamming the hatch back shut. "Ambush!"
The corridor was easily ten stories high and wide enough to drive five Makos through, made of the nearly indestructible stone concrete the Protheans appeared to favor in their buildings across the galaxy. No more than five meters in front of the vehicle, a white barrier curtain shimmered, its purpose quite clear. What no one else had noticed, because they had yet to exit the vehicle, was that an identical barrier curtain had sprung up behind them, cutting them off from any retreat. Trapped as they were between two shields that were no doubt meant to stop a bombardment, with only twenty meters of space in which to move forwards or backwards, Jorge quickly assumed the worst.
The machine gun swung from side to side, searching for targets, as his eyes took in every detail, waiting for the inevitable. The walls were bare, but the potential for hidden murder holes existed. Beyond that, after a quick check around the Mako, there was only one other potential source of hostiles: a single door on the starboard side of the Mako.
*What's going on out there?* Shepard asked over the comm. *Scanners aren't showing any hostiles, detectable electronics, or even any living creatures beyond us in a fifty meter radius.*
"No hostiles or other action out here, ma'am. But this area was clearly meant to be a security checkpoint of some sort. Saren must have activated it on his way through," he relayed, relaxing his stance ever so slightly. The chances of this being an active ambush were quickly going down. Then again, they were in a race against Saren; he didn't need to destroy them, merely delay them long enough to get to the Conduit before they could stop him.
He straightened up, relaxing but not quite leaving battle readiness as the door of the Mako opened again to admit the rest of the team. Williams was commendably on edge, as was Vakarian, but the rest of the team, Shepard included, were more relaxed as they examined the trap they were in.
"There, Commander," he pointed towards the door.
Shepard stared at it for a moment, then nodded. "Same teams as before, let's see if this goes anywhere."
-{[]}-
The Mako lurched to a start as the barrier curtain fell, allowing them to resume the chase for Saren. In the back, Jorge was quiet. Thinking. What Jorge had initially thought was an ambush had turned into perhaps the greatest discovery in galactic history; a working, though damaged and failing, Prothean VI.
Shepard had left the comm on, and it had managed to penetrate whatever material the Protheans had used this time, allowing Jorge and his team to hear every word.
It was the end of galactic civilization, as Shepard was predicting. Tens of thousands, maybe millions of Sovereigns, massive AI dreadnoughts larger than any ship the galactic species possessed pouring through the Citadel, the secret relay to dark space, in the perfect decapitation strike. Not only would they have destroyed the top hundred thousand most politically important people in the galaxy, they would have everything they could ever want to wipe out entire species. Census numbers, defense strengths, tactical assessments… homeworld locations.
As the only member of the team that had faced down such threats before, Jorge knew just how important that last piece of seemingly innocuous information was. The sad fact of the matter was that the UNSC did not survive on the damage its fleet was capable of doing, nor the bravery of the Marines and the Army, not even the superhuman heroic feats that the Spartans were capable of; no, the only thing that slowed their enemies down over their conflict was that the Covenant never quite knew where to go next. The Cole Protocol, and the dedication of every man, woman, and child to its implementation, were the only reason the conflict dragged over decades instead of mere years. The only reason they hadn't already ended their religious genocide, because they never knew where Earth was. But the Alliance? They would have no such luxury.
And it would be a long, drawn out death as well. The VI had said it took centuries before the Reapers, as it called them, exterminated the Protheans and retreated back to dark space. Mechanical precision, ensuring total domination and victory before moving to the next target. After all, they were machines who had lived for at least fifty thousand years already, a few more centuries of waiting wouldn't hurt.
There was one, and only one, upside to all of this. The Protheans had been on the verge of recreating the relays, and had created a miniature one that would lead to the Citadel- the Conduit. Not a weapon, a backdoor to the Citadel. And when the Reapers had invaded, the top scientists had gone into cryosleep. Power supplies failed over the centuries, and in the end, there were not enough to ensure a stable population; but, they had vowed not to let the Reapers pull their trick again. They had studied, and found a way to block the signal that would open the relay by changing something about the keepers. Using the relay, they had made the change, and this time, when Sovereign had sent the signal… nothing had happened.
Which was why it had to use Saren to get into the Citadel, even Sovereign couldn't stand alone against the Citadel defense fleet that was on station at all times. Saren would access the Citadel, activate its defenses and allow Sovereign time, just enough time, to open the relay… and then everyone would be as good as dead.
"Look! That must be the Conduit!" Tali called out. After having been sandwiched between Wrex and Jorge for the first part of the ride, Tali had managed to secure a seat up closer to the forward windows, leaving Williams to put up with the irritable Wrex and stoic Jorge in the back.
Looking through the forward view ports, Jorge saw what looked like a relay, if one had shrunk one down and put it with the long prongs facing skywards. It was still at least a klick away though. The eezo core was also glowing blue, the rings spinning in a hypnotic pattern as they controlled the immense power that even this very small relay contained.
It also meant that it had already been used.
"Damn, Saren's already gone through," he commented.
"Then we'll just have to follow him," Shepard retorted. The Mako rocked as she gunned the engine.
Liara, who had practically fought Williams to take over the sensor station in the Mako, gulped audibly. "Shepard, sensors show that the Geth have dropped... four Colossi on the path to the Conduit."
Gazember. That amount of firepower in one place would be enough to destroy any single vehicle he knew in this universe, hell, even anything the UNSC could offer in terms of ground vehicles. The Mako would only have a limited amount of time before the shields and armor gave out, and then, Saren would win.
The cannon boomed as Garrus engaged them from the gunner's turret, not waiting for the order to fire as Shepard continued to accelerate. In the back, all Jorge could do was listen, and trust that Shepard had a plan.
The Mako threw itself to the right, squashing Williams between Wrex and himself; she made a very un-Williams like squeak as she was caught between the two heaviest teammates. The cannon crashed again, but now he could hear the hammering of heavy rounds against the shields
"Shields at ninety percent," Liara called out.
Another set of hammering blows added to the cacophony as another Colossi zeroed in on the IFV. The Mako swerved again, but the sounds didn't let up.
"Shields at sixty percent," Liara called out, a note of fear in her voice.
"Liara, calculate the mass of the Mako with us in it and prepare to transmit it to the Conduit," Shepard commanded.
To her credit, she hesitated for only a moment. It was, after all, an unusual command, though in hindsight, Jorge could not think of any other way to even use the Conduit. What were they going to do, get out and individually pass through the relays themselves? He personally had no intention of using a relay without at least some sort of vehicle around him, with or without the Geth shooting at him. Her fingers flew as she tapped furiously on her omni-tool, eschewing the on-board computer for now.
"Wrex, how much do you mass?" she asked, not looking up or losing concentration even as the fourth Colossi added its fire to the rest.
"Four hundred kilograms," he growled back. There was a crash against the shields, and suddenly the hammering became much louder- the shields were down, the only thing standing between them and the Geth now was their armor.
"Jorge, how much do you mass?" she shouted over the warning beeping of the shield indicator.
"Eight hundred fifty kilograms," he replied quickly.
"Liara..." Shepard warned.
She tapped her omni furiously for a moment, biting her lips, before transferring the rapid keystrokes to the Mako computer. In the cacophony that was the hammering of bullets on the hull and the beeping of various indicators as they showed the amount of damage they were taking, he heard a whispered, "Goddess, please let this be right." Then she hit the final button.
"Ready Shepard!" she called out.
"Everybody hang on!" Shepard shouted as the hull integrity indicator began to blare. Outside the front of the Mako, Jorge could see the spinning rings and the twin forks of the Conduit as they rushed towards it at an almost suicidal pace. A tongue of static electricity, as thick around as Jorge's arm, reached out to them, electrifying them to the same potential as they relay...
And then they were gone.
-{[]}-
Well, I am alive, I swear. To be honest, I've had this chapter ready for a few months now, but my beta reader (thank you as ever, NickKap) had some life issues and didn't get around to it for a while, and then I was halfway through the next chapter when he did get back to me and I thought I might want to try to release them at around the same time but it's taking me a long time to write the next chapter and... yea. Anyways, here it is.
Quickly approaching the flash finish of the story. Only a few more chapters to go.