The further into the Exogeni headquarters they went, the more fierce the geth resistance became.
It must have been pretty obvious what their objective was, as every single room and corridor was now a running battle with hordes of synthetics that seemed to crawl out from every crack and shadow in the building. Time and time again, Shepard found herself forced to resort to her pistol as her rifle overheated. Time and time again she went to use her biotics only to stop herself at the last minute. The pain in her head had rescinded to a dull throbbing but the memory of it was going to endure a lot longer. It was not a pleasant sensation. What made it worse was that she had grown used to her biotics over her military career and using them had become second nature. To have that suddenly taken away from her felt like she had had an arm amputated. It was worse than that...when she thought about when she had first discovered them...it was like losing her oldest friend.
"Shepard! Roll!" She heard the warning and instinctively rolled away from her cover as a geth juggernaut crashed down on top of the fallen rock, grinding it to paste under it's vast bulk. Before the impressive behemoth could so much as look up, it was caught in the impressive crossfire of three assault rifles. Garrus, Wrex and Ashley -the latter of whom had shouted the warning- were now far too smart to be caught out by the orbital drops any more. The geth who had tried that particular trick had found out to their cost that it was very much a one-use move.
As the smoking, silver-strained remains of the juggernaut fell heavily against the ground, the other geth attacking them pulled back. Shepard's gaze whipped around to the points where each had disappeared and her hands went for her rifle, anticipating another surprise. None came, "maybe they're tired of throwing themselves in front of our rifles?" Tali suggested hopefully.
"More likely they're preparing for another ambush." was the gruff reply from Wrex. The Commander was inclined to agree. Everyone badly needed a breather but this was not the time to do what people wanted.
"Come on, they'll pin us if we stop. Ashley, you take point and give Wrex a chance to catch his breath. Garrus, you take over from Kaidan at the rear. Tali, how long will it be until you get into their comms?"
"I'm nearly through Shepard. It'll be another five minutes. I'll upload the file when I have it.
"Alright, Tali's hack is going to give us their locations. It should stop them jumping us at every turn. Everyone ready?" Her weapon was still hot in her hands, even through the armour, but it had cooled enough to fire again. That was all she needed, "let's move out."
As the formation began to move again, she caught sight of Liara, nestled in the middle of the group. The asari was blowing hard, her pistol wavering in her hands, "You okay?" She asked.
"I am fine. I am just not used to the exercise," the Archaeologist answered with deep and steadying breaths, "...or the shooting...or the explosions..."
"You're doing great, Liara. This would test even a veteran and you're handling it well."
"Thank you, it means a lot coming from you, Commander," She seemed genuinely pleased with the encouragement though the smile lingered for all of an instant. "How are you? Any more pain?"
"None but then I have just crippled myself," the Commander sighed. Her temples were throbbing but it was nothing serious and certainly not compared to the blinding pain of when she had tried to use her biotics. She was worried about it, massively so, but it would be a cold day in hell before she would let the asari see that.
As it was, Liara did not look overly convinced by her assurances but was not willing to force the issue. They moved in silence, the threat of a geth providing the perfect excuse to avoid speaking on the matter further. The first voice to speak up again was Ashley reporting from the front of the group.
"Ma'am, you might want to see this."
Shepard eased her way past Liara without looking, dodged past the bulky form of Wrex and slipped in beside Ashley. The human was kneeling behind cover and glancing around at what appeared to be a massive metallic claw that had embedded itself in the wall. It was clearly geth and clearly fastened securely to the wall.
Convening the squad she explained what she had seen and opened up the floor to suggestions on how to destroy it.
Silence followed as everyone considered the problem.
"Explosives?" Garrus suggested.
"Wouldn't that bring the building down around our ears?"
"...maybe...worth a try still?"
"No."
"It's ship armour. We don't carry anything that could dent it." Tali sighed, "maybe we can convince the ship to detach itself?"
"How? Ask it nicely?" Ashley scoffed.
"How long would that take?" Shepard looked into that translucent mask.
"Not long. I already have access to their communication protocols. In theory, one flick of a button and it's done."
"'In theory'?" Ashley did not look convinced.
"Okay, maybe it's a little bit more complicated than that but I can do it!" Tali went from flustered to determined in the same sentence. "Just give me a few minutes."
"Okay, fan out and establish a perimeter. Protect Tali while she works. They'll be all over us the minute they work out what's happening so stay sharp." the team nodded and broke up with each moving to cover a different part of the hallway or the ceiling. Shepard checked her Lancer to make sure it had fully cooled before checking the sights. She hated the quiet before a fight. It gave too much time to think. She was almost praying for geth to appear when she picked up the familiar chattering of machine language.
Garrus' call of 'geth! Twelve o'clock' was barely needed as the redhead had fired a burst the moment the synthetic had turned the corner. It was blown against the wall in a shower of silver blood with the rest taking cover behind the corner.
From that second on, there was no time to think at all.
Shepard had expected the geth to respond to their hacking attempts but she had not believed they would come in the numbers they did. It seemed like there was a flood of synthetics pouring from every crack in the building like ants swarming to protect their nest. All the concentrated fire from the squad was barely slowing them down while the return bursts grew thicker and thicker until it was like a barrage of hail striking their cover. The noise was biblical, with so many guns going off in such a confined space, mixed with Wrex's battle-cries and the screams of dying drones, it sounded like the very planet itself was roaring in anger. The air was saturated with thick, choking brown dust so that only the sinister white eyes of the geth ranks and the flashes of their rifles were visible.
Shepard's squad fired burst after burst into the cloud without the need to even aim such were the numbers against them. Above them, geth hoppers attempted to climb through a hole in the ceiling, only to be repelled time and time again by Garrus' well aimed sniper fire. Kaidan had abandoned his biotics for an assault rifle, as exposing himself for even a second risked perforation with geth energy fire. Liara had likewise realised the folly of biotic attacks so she was just firing her pistol blindly over her cover without care where the shots ended up.
"How long Tali?" Shepard barked into her radio as another sweep of rifle fire brought down an entire rank of geth, only to have them to replaced in moments by yet more attackers, "getting a bit tricky here."
"Just another thirty seconds Shepard!" The quarian replied hotly, her long, slender fingers a blur as they shot over her omni-tool.
"Oh shit...Commander, we've got a problem up top!"
Shepard looked up and, without even realising she had done it, swore at the top of her voice.
The hole through which the hoppers had been crawling was now empty. Empty, but not abandoned. Chunks of it were breaking off, the ceiling cracking and breaking as if subject to a heavy weight. Though the gap peered the great, bulbous head of a geth Prime.
Before Shepard could move, before she could warn her squad, the ceiling gave way. The Prime fell to ground like an asteroid striking the earth beside Tali, throwing her off her feet. The quarian backed away, scrambling on her hands and feet from the massive geth lumbering over her with Garrus' shots pinging off its shields. The tank wasn't even going to shoot her. It wanted to crush its creator with a great fist, one more act of vengeance against the slender girl three hundreds too young for blame.
Shepard did not think. There was no time to think. All she could do was listen to her instinct as she leapt towards Tali. She could see the victorious Prime drawing back its fist, fingers clenched in a surprisingly human gesture. She could see Tali raise her arms in a futile effort to protect herself. As the synthetic punch came down, Shepard threw out a hand of her own, sliding between the geth and her squad mate. The last thing she saw was a blue curtain of energy between her and the Prime before her vision exploded in stars, a knife-like pain ripping through her mind as if it were a roast ham. She was faintly aware of a big blurry shape jumping over her form and colliding with the Prime but then it all faded to black.
When she came to, Kaidan was kneeling over her. It was only when she looked into his eyes that she realised she was lying on her back with the rest of the team around her. To a man, they looked shaken. Kaidan's face in particular was paper-white as he reached out a hand. Her entire body hurt, with even her muscle throbbing. There was also a distant ringing in her ears that made it hard to focus her gaze on anything for more than a few seconds before her vision began to swim.
"Commander, how do you feel?" Kaidan asked as he stretched out a hand to touch her. There was a blue spark and he quickly pulled his hand away as if he had been shocked, "your biotics are going mad..."
"Mmm'kay..." she tried to say, speech slurring a little as her tongue stubbornly refused to kick into gear. She waited for a couple of seconds, eyes closed, then tried again, "I'm okay. It's nothing serious." She felt like she was going to be sick but she wouldn't let them see that. "Where's the Prime? Where's Tali?" Her eyes swung around as she sought the Quarian. The young woman was standing towards the back of the group, fingers playing nervously with one another. Liara stood with a hand on her shoulder though it looked like she was trying to stop the Engineer from fainting. The Prime was beside them, riddled with bullet holes, scorched by tech attacks, torn by biotics and, strangest of all, dented and broken by what looked like fists.
"The Prime's gone Commander," Ashley answered, her own face pale, "Wrex held it down while we finished it off." Wrex was watching the human keenly, a new and freshly-patched wound below his left eye.
"And the ship?" Shepard sighed, bringing a hand to her own forehead and batting away Kaidan's.
"Tali's hack worked. The landing gear detached before the geth could warm their engines up. We just heard the thud. The geth all dropped dead. They're completely non-functiona-"
"Hello Commander."
She jumped at the voice, hand dropping to the holster at her side as she heard the deep and rumbling voice of her enemy in the air, amused. The rest of the squad looked around wildly, trying to locate the source of the voice.
"Ma'am," Ashley indicated to a nearby console screen, where the full, half robotic face stared, blue eyes fixed on her,
"You were too slow Commander. I must say I am disappointed. If I had known you would stop at Zhu's Hope and Weigh Station, I might have made more of an effort to wipe them out. As you can no doubt tell, I am long gone from Feros. Your fleet made a nice effort but sadly for them, no luck."
"I'll catch up with you yet Saren, if it's the last thing I do." She snarled at him, not particularly interested in snarky talk or banter.
"I highly doubt that Commander. My mission is far too important to be stopped."
"Oh yeah, and what is that mission?"
"You show your ignorance, Shepard. Even after what you have seen from the beacon, you still don't understand."
"What don't I understand, Saren?"
"That what I'm doing is the only way to save this galaxy."
"Attacking human colonies is saving the galaxy?"
"Humanity is just one of the species that my actions will save, little as they deserve it."
"Oh save it? Shall I tell the orphans and widows of Eden Prime that you were on an act of mercy?"
"Spectres need to make sacrifices, Shepard. I did what was needed."
"Justify it how you will Saren, you're nothing but a cold-blooded murderer and I am going to see you pay for it."
"We will see Commander. We will see." The connection was cut, leaving only a blank screen.
"Get me a radio." Was the Commander's immediate response, her hand automatically going to her ear only to find her helmet had been removed, "now!"
Her helmet appeared very quickly. She grabbed it and slipped it on, blowing aside a strand of auburn hear that had slipped down into her face. It was the work of a few moments for her to get the radio working, the buzz of the geth jammer gone.
"Normandy, this is Commander Shepard. Are you reading me?"
"Commander? It's Pressly. The geth fleet is pulling back. Admiral Hackett is about to land forces-"
"-no, stop him Pressly!" Shepard urged into the mic, "something's happened to the colonists. If he lands his men, it'll be a slaughter."
Pressly hesitated, "I'll try to convince him to hold off ma'am. I won't be able to keep him long."
"Thanks Charles, I owe you one." She really wanted to stop talking as she could feel her stomach turning over, "try to buy us half an hou-"
"-is there anyone on this frequency?! Hello, are you there Commander Shepard?" The desperate voice cut across her transmission. The voice of Juliana Baynham echoed in her ear, every bit as desperate as her own had been. "We need your help! Jeong has gone mad, he's going to destroy the colony at Zhu's Hope and-" the transmission was cut.
Lumbering to her feet, Shepard wished her stomach would stop bouncing up and down and her hands would stop shaking. Her rifle was on the ground nearby and she grabbed it. The very motion made her head swim. She stumbled a little.
Kaidan caught her, "Ma'am, you're not well. I request permission to take control of the squa-"
"-Permission denied," She sighed breathlessly, breaking out of his hold. "I'll be okay."
"Ma'am, I-"
"-fall in, Lieutenant. Now." her nostrils flared.
"You're not capable of command-"
"I am perfectly capable of command, Lieutenant Alenko!" She snarled at him, "I am fine. I am an Alliance Officer, I am a Council Spectre, I am charge of this mission and I am not too injured to do my job. Do I make myself clear soldier?"
"Aye, ma'am." The Sentinel replied stiffly, stepping back. The others had been watching wearily, like friends caught in a fight between two siblings. Only now did they come forward, but they looked no less worried than Kaidan did.
Shepard could feel the regret blooming inside her as soon as he had stepped back but she was running on adrenaline and the fear of what was slowly destroying her body. The loss of her biotics and the embarrassment of what had happened were just a little too much. Instead she turned on her heel and headed back the way they had came.
"Shepard," it was Liara, her voice low and worried, "perhaps you should step down..."
"I can't Liara," She sighed, "I just...can't..." there were too many reasons why she couldn't step down, most of whom she couldn't even really put into words. Rather than try, she just pressed on.
She still had a colony to save.