Chapter Thirty-Seven
Eden Prime was nothing like Shepard remembered.
The platform where she had been caught in the thrall of the first Prothean beacon was still there, left untouched like some shrine to a moment she would rather forget, but the tram station had been completely demolished. It had been replaced by a deep excavation lined with scaffolding, makeshift stairs and access ladders snaking between nodes of activity. Tall, sharply angled structures of Prothean design were visible in places, having been gradually revealed by the painstakingly slow work of dedicated archaeologists. Said archaeologists were dotted along the steep sides of the massive pit, clinging to scaffolding attached to the exposed rock as they studied the treasures they had unearthed.
It seemed Liara had been right – they had been standing, or more accurately, fighting geth, on top of a Prothean treasure trove the whole time. Shepard wondered if Saren had known about it.
The shuttle touched down in a makeshift landing zone, which was little more than a crudely delineated circle in the dirt a couple hundred metres from the prefab site office. Shepard strode from the shuttle in full armour, followed by Nathan, Garrus and the four marines from Nathan's old team. Between them they were carrying enough firepower to take out a small, fortified army. She wasn't precisely expecting trouble, but she knew information about the Catalyst was something many different factions in the galaxy would like to get their hands on. There was no way she was going to let them do that.
She was particularly conscious of the fact that they had yet to find the mole in her crew, the person who had leaked information about the Palaven attack to the Reapers. So it was highly possible – even likely – that they would have a fight on their hands today.
"Beautiful here," Dangerfield commented cheerfully as they walked across the open field between the landing zone and the site office, heavy armoured boots trampling the gently swaying green grass.
"It's a bit hot," Ngandu grumbled, fidgeting in his armour, which was already the lightest of the group. The thin, reedy man seemed to always find something to complain about.
"Stop whinging, mate. Enjoy the sunshine," Jarvis told him as she skirted around a clump of flowering shrubs. He made a face at her in response and deliberately stepped on the stalk of a tall, purple flower, sending it flopping to the ground.
"What exactly are we looking for here?" Garrus asked Shepard, drawing up beside her.
"I don't know. Liara wasn't able to give me too many details. Another beacon, perhaps?" She shrugged. "Something that'll tell us what the Catalyst is, I hope. Apparently when Liara spoke to the head of the expedition here he didn't want to give away too many specifics over a comm channel." Garrus grunted in response, keeping pace with her as they approached the office.
The head of the expedition was a short, rotund human man who could almost be mistaken for a volus at distance if it weren't for the lack of a pressure suit. He darted out of the site office and hurried over to them as soon as they came within waddling distance. "Commander Shepard!" he called excitedly. To his credit, he seemed completely unintimidated by the squad of heavily armed and armoured marines striding across the field toward him.
Shepard extended a gloved hand. "Doctor Felishaw I presume?"
His grip was firm as he shook her hand. "Correct. You'll have to excuse my enthusiasm, Commander. When Doctor T'Soni informed me you were coming it made my day – no, my week! My year!"
"You've been keeping up with news of the war out here, then?" Garrus queried.
Felishaw glanced over at him, a flicker of confusion crossing his face, replaced quickly by understanding. "Oh! Oh, no. I mean yes, it's an honour to meet you for those reasons too, Commander, but I must say I'm far more interested in your ability to read and understand the Prothean language." He stopped himself abruptly, eyes widening. "I mean, oh heavens, defeating the Reapers is certainly the more important endeavour—"
Shepard raised a hand to stop him, impatient to get moving even as she was warming to the man. Nathan, who had come up on her other side, shifted his weight enough to cause his armour to creak in response. She wasn't sure if he was sympathising or uncomfortable with her abruptness. She supposed she wasn't normally so rushed, but they were on a timer here. Doctor Felishaw hadn't meant to give offense, he was clearly just so dedicated to his work that everything else came a distant second. He reminded her of Liara's naive enthusiasm, back when they had first met. "Doctor, please, I understand. It's all right. Show me what you found."
Relieved, the short man led them up onto the platform overlooking the excavation below. Shepard cast a sideways glance at the housing that had once contained the Prothean beacon as they moved past. It had been severely warped and rusted with weather and time. "As I told Doctor T'Soni," Felishaw explained, "I believe we may have discovered something that could lead us to this Catalyst she has been telling me about. What I wasn't able to tell her is that it appears to be some sort of interface, a beacon or a VI or… or something. We don't know. We haven't been able to get it to work."
"And that's where I come in." Shepard nodded. "All right. Take us to it."
Felishaw blinked at her abruptness. "I—of course." He eyed the heavy weapons strapped to each marine's back. "Uh… is all that heavy weaponry necessary? The excavation is quite… delicate."
Dangerfield twitched, a hand straying protectively toward her meticulously maintained Mantis sniper rifle. Shepard smiled grimly. "I'm afraid so, Doctor," she replied. "The moment we landed here, this place became a target. I recommend you pull your team out and have them standing by ready to evacuate, should it become necessary."
"Oh… oh my." Fear momentarily clouded the doctor's eyes. He appeared to be reassessing his excitement at her presence. He raised a hand to his ear. "Give me a few moments to give the order, Commander."
She nodded and turned to face her team, grateful Captain Thuy had released the four marines from Nathan's old squad to accompany her while Thuy himself continued on to Terra Nova with the rest. Thuy leaving meant they wouldn't have the early warning an orbiting frigate could provide if hostile forces appeared, but Shepard was just glad the Captain had given her the extra firepower these marines represented. "Jarvis, back to the shuttle," she ordered. "Park it somewhere other than the middle of the compound. I want an early warning if we do get unwanted visitors, and a clear escape route." The older woman saluted, somehow managing to seem both respectful and casual at the same time, then strode away. "Garrus, Dangerfield, find yourselves some good positions up here and be ready to provide sniper cover if needed. Give yourselves a good line of sight to the landing zone but make sure you coordinate with Jarvis to keep your paths to the shuttle clear." Dangerfield saluted eagerly and left with Garrus, already firing questions at the more experienced turian as they walked. "The rest of you, with me."
Nathan gave her a nod and held her eyes for a moment, searching. Something was bothering him. She wondered what it was, but now certainly wasn't the place to ask. Ngandu nodded and pulled out an energy bar, chewing as they walked. Sporritt tossed her a quick but by-the-book salute and followed.
Dr Felishaw led them down a steep metal staircase attached to the side of the pit, switching back and forth and descending at least fifteen storeys into the cooler earth below. As they moved down, stepping carefully against the slight swaying of the stairs, Shepard noticed the archaeologists were moving up, obeying Felishaw's order to prepare to evacuate. By the time they reached the bottom, it was silent and empty. Even the sounds of their boots were slightly muffled. It felt like… a tomb. She suppressed a shiver and kept her hand hovering near her sidearm, muscles tensed and ready for any surprises.
Felishaw indicated a partially revealed doorway, greenish-black Prothean architecture peeking out from under moist, greyish sand. "Through here," he said, voice hushed with a touch of what could be awe, pride, or both.
They passed through a short entrance hallway, then emerged into very familiar surroundings.
The walls stretched up over their heads to almost the same height of the excavation itself, and they were lined with sleeper pods. The room they had stepped into seemed cut from some sort of black stone, although Shepard didn't remember seeing any of the same stone on the surface. The floor and walls were lined with the same eerie green lighting she recalled from Ilos, leaving shadows lurking at every sharp corner.
Another chill ran down between Shepard's shoulder blades. It was a sleeper facility, just like the one on Ilos. But Ilos had been a secret, and a last resort, activated only when it appeared the scientists working on creating a mass relay would not survive the inevitable razing of the planet. What was the purpose of this place?
"Is it just me or does anyone else expect ravagers to start jumping out at us?" Nathan murmured at her side. She ignored him.
Felishaw cast him a curious glance, but spoke to her instead. "The interface is over here." He indicated a wide terminal housing set into one of the walls.
Shepard studied it carefully, looking for anything even vaguely familiar. She was surprised – although she supposed she shouldn't have been, thanks to the Prothean Cipher – to find that as she looked over the control panels the angular alien design actually made complete sense to her. Nodding to herself, she removed her gloves and laid her hands on the receptors, then flicked a switch and touched another control. The terminal immediately lit up with warm yellow lights and a holographic interface similar to a keyboard slid out before her.
"Oh, my word!" Felishaw was murmuring delightedly. "Brilliant!" She ignored him and brought up a description of the terminal's functions, reading quickly.
The terminal had no information on the Crucible or the Catalyst, but was instead full of data on the now long-dead Protheans lying in the pods. They had been primarily soldiers and political leaders, but also their families and support staff. The facility had been governed by a VI similar to Vigil, but try as she might, with her limited technical skills Shepard couldn't seem to get it to boot up. With a sick feeling she wondered when it had become damaged or gone dormant – she couldn't tell which – and how far into its programmed culling it had been. The facility did indeed seem to be similar to Ilos, but intended instead to be a last resort to save a dying species. She skimmed through the inhabitants manifest, shaking her head sadly at the rows and rows of red lights indicating a lack of life signs and low pod integrity ratings.
These soldiers had been the final defenders of the Prothean civilisation. They had voluntarily stepped into stasis pods with their families with just a sliver of hope that they would one day wake and revive their fallen species, but instead had died in vain. She supposed it was a better way to go than being captured by the Reapers, but—
She sucked in a breath and zoomed in. There was something… Yes! There was a green light!
"Shepard?" Nathan queried.
"There might be…" she trailed off distractedly, bringing up the pod designation and craning her neck to find it. There… ten metres above her head. A faint white light.
She turned back to the terminal, fingers flying over the interface, instinctively relying on the Prothean Cipher to translate. The marines and Doctor Felishaw jumped as the rows of pods began to move, hidden gears grinding with centuries of disuse as they lowered the one she had spotted to the ground.
The pod slotted into grooves in the floor and slid forward. A few more taps on the interface and she had confirmed what she hadn't dared to hope – there were life-signs coming from within. They were faint, but they were definitely there.
She hesitated before beginning the process that would attempt to bring the pod's occupant out of stasis. She wished she had a way to contact Dr Chakwas. She was no medic. She had no way to know if the process of waking from stasis would harm the occupant or not. It could even kill them.
Doctor Felishaw noticed her hesitating. "Commander… is that what I think it is?" he asked in an awed whisper.
"Yes. A survivor," she murmured, fingers hovering with indecision. "A Prothean, male, of later middle-age. Trying to wake him up without the proper medical support could kill him."
Felishaw took a deep, cautious breath, moving up beside her. "The Protheans knew the Reapers operated in fifty thousand year cycles. They programmed the VI on Ilos to cut the power to stasis pods gradually, over thousands of years, so as to preserve at least a few. I think we can conclude that they were aware the occupants of these pods may not be able to be revived for many years. I am confident they would have adjusted the revival process accordingly."
The reasoning was tenuous, but he was right, and in the circumstances it was the best assurance she would get. They didn't have time to call in medical and Prothean experts. And… the information a living Prothean could provide was definitely worth the risk. She set her teeth. Thinking about it that way felt… cold. But also unquestioningly necessary. Quickly, she entered the command to begin the revival process.
A puff of air whooshed out of hidden vents in the pod as it settled, internal life support mechanisms adjusting to the first taste of outside air in thousands of years. Shepard moved closer as the lid began to retract. Nathan stepped up beside her, although she barely noticed his presence, focussed as she was on the pod.
For a few moments, nothing happened. The clouds of gas dissipated, leaving wisps floating over the pod below. Then finally two thick, gloved fingers appeared, grasping the lip of the pod. The fingers shook, then stilled, as if by conscious effort, and a figure emerged. Shepard watched cautiously, hand straying unconsciously toward her sidearm. He looked like a Collector.
No, that wasn't it… Collectors looked like aged, desiccated versions of him.
He had the same prominent, triangular forehead plating and angular bone structure, with pale blue-grey skin. He had a set of forward-facing yellow eyes and what looked like a secondary pair set just back from the first. His mouth was set with rows of narrow teeth, lips currently drawn back in a grimace. Whether it was pain, confusion or anger, Shepard couldn't tell.
She wasn't sure if it was the Cipher at work, or simple empathy, but she felt a sudden kinship with this Prothean. Barely a year ago she had woken from what she had thought was sedation or anaesthetic to completely unfamiliar surroundings, only to find two years had passed and she had actually been dead. She couldn't hope to understand what it was like for him to wake after fifty thousand years to a group of armed strangers standing over him, but she probably came closer than anyone else could.
On a hunch, she reached out and laid a careful hand on his arm.
He reacted violently, yelling something in what she assumed was Prothean and flinging some sort of green energy field at her. The force of it knocked her off her feet, sending her sprawling back into Nathan, but didn't seem to do any other damage. Nathan caught her and she leaped back up quickly, raising her arms in a gesture he would hopefully understand to mean that she meant no harm. Peripherally she was aware of her squad pulling weapons and shouting, but for the moment her focus was solely on the Prothean.
He snarled, leaping up out of the pod and staggering on unsteady legs. She instinctively moved to help, only for him to surge up and grab her exposed wrists. His fingers clamped down tight, and a bright light seemed to flash before her eyes.
Collectors were pouring in through the heavy blast doors, firing strangely organic versions of particle beams and chittering madly as they advanced on the Prothean defenders. The sight of their transformed brethren returning to fight with the Reapers broke the morale of more than one defender. One by one the Protheans fell, and Shepard felt a choking, bone-crunching despair as she forced herself to retreat. Those were her brothers and sisters dying out there, all meant to accompany her through the long void and rise again to renew the glorious Prothean empire after the Reapers were long gone. Their lives were being utterly… wasted.
She gave the order to Victory, the VI governor of the facility, to close the blast doors. The words tasted bitter in her mouth. The Reapers were winning, as she had known they would, but they were winning at a much faster rate than anticipated. The pods were still being loaded and no more than half were fully activated.
"Alert. The north entrance has been damaged. I am unable to close the blast doors," Victory warned. "Reaper forces have breached primary defenses. Failsafe activated. I am firing the neutron charges in one minute. You must get to your pod, Commander Javik."
No, that wasn't enough time! Valuable soldiers still waited their turn to enter stasis. Every one of them would be needed for the new Empire. "Override!" she ordered, her voice sounding deeper and accented to her ears. "We'll keep them back ourselves. Just for a little longer."
"Negative. Neutron charge activation cannot be reversed. You have fifty-three seconds remaining. You must get to your pod, Commander Javik."
She wanted to curse against the feeling of utter helplessness coursing through her muscles, but knew that if the failsafe had been activated, the facility was about to be overrun. There was nothing more she could do. All their plans would be for naught if the Reapers managed to destroy the installation before the charges could sink it deep into the earth below.
She ran for her pod, set aside and left untouched as befitted her rank. She ran past soldiers and their families as they began to panic, adults forcing their children into their own pods while they themselves took up weapons and moved to meet the incoming Reaper forces. Inwardly she cursed her people's falling back on their baser instincts and saving their offspring instead of their more valuable selves, but… she could understand it.
She climbed into her pod and immediately felt herself beginning to grow drowsy as Victory activated the process that would place her body into stasis. The lid slid shut above her head, converting shouts and rifle fire to muffled wails and thuds. Once the neutron charges went off there would be nothing left. The facility would be cleansed, everything outside of the heavily shielded pods converted to dust and ash. She burned with anger at the thought of the wasted deaths of those of her brethren who had not managed to make it to a pod.
As she drifted off into uneasy slumber, she heard Victory's voice as if through a deep, heavy haze. "You will be the voice of our people in the next cycle, Commander Javik."
"I will be more than that…" she murmured.
Nathan leaped forward, reaching for Shepard as the Prothean grabbed hold of her wrists and held on tight. She went rigid, seemingly every muscle in her body tensing up all at once. He gripped her shoulders, but at the last second stopped himself from forcibly pulling her away. The look in her eyes was not one of fear. They were glued to the Prothean's, hard, piercing, as if she was looking through him. If he was trying to do something to her, she seemed to be doing something right back.
He let her go reluctantly, stepping back but hovering close by just in case. Slowly he raised his rifle again, keeping it pointed unwaveringly at the Prothean. Sporritt and Ngandu were poised with their own weapons raised, eyes nervously flicking back and forth between Shepard and Nathan. Ngandu was wreathed in a flickering blue corona. "LT?" Sporritt asked.
Instead of responding, Nathan looked to the diminutive Doctor Felishaw, who was peering out from behind Ngandu. "Doctor? What's going on?"
"I… don't know," Felishaw admitted, brow furrowed. "The Commander seems to have lost her awareness of her surroundings, but so does the, ah, Prothean. I've never heard about it before, but perhaps the Protheans had a method of mind-to-mind contact, similar to the asari—"
Shepard gasped, mouth falling open in a wordless scream.
Nathan reacted quickly, dropping his rifle and lunging forward, hauling her back away from the Prothean. Sporritt and Ngandu were barking at the alien to back off, while Felishaw had ducked back behind his chosen protector. The Prothean was cringing, almost doubled over in what looked like pain, but he didn't seem to be reacting to either the weapons or the angry marines.
Nathan didn't particularly care about that right now. He gave Shepard a quick onceover, paying particular attention to the look in her eyes. There was anger, fear, revulsion, and… understanding? "Shepard?"
"I'm fine," she snapped, gaze glued on the blue-grey alien as she shook him off impatiently. "Commander Javik," she called.
That caught the Prothean's attention. Javik studied her for a moment before responding. "Commander Shepard." Nathan was surprised to hear him speaking English – or at least, some language his translator was able to comprehend well enough to convert to English.
She took a step towards him. "Do we need to keep our weapons pointed at you?" she asked, and Nathan was certain she already knew the answer to that. She just wanted him to acknowledge it – and the others to hear it. Carefully he backed off, retrieving his rifle from where he had dropped it and positioning himself so… Javik… would be caught in a cross-fire if he tried anything.
Javik seemed to consider it for a moment. When he replied, it was with the kind of frank honesty found only in those who have nothing left to lose and therefore nothing to fear. "No, you do not. I saw… you are fighting the Reapers."
She nodded. "We are."
"Many have died. You are failing." Nathan bristled at the accusatory tone.
"No." Shepard's voice was hard. "We are fighting. We're not beaten yet."
Javik straightened, imperious in his impressive crimson armour. "You found this place. Did you find the beacons? Were you prepared?"
The bitterness and anger in Shepard's voice was raw to Nathan's ears. "We found them. I tried to warn the galaxy. I tried to prepare."
"They did not listen?" Nathan could hear the incredulity in his tone.
Before Shepard could reply, however, a quick burst of static came from the comm implant in Nathan's ear. "Commander, Jarvis here."
She lifted a finger to her ear without removing her gaze from Javik. "Go ahead."
"We have four incoming shuttles. No transponders but the paint jobs look like Cerberus colours."
As Sporritt and Ngandu exchanged surprised glances, Nathan couldn't help but admire Jarvis' professionalism. As far as the three of them were aware, Cerberus was a terrorist organisation Commander Shepard may or may not have been working with, and Jarvis sounded completely unfazed at their arrival. Then again, Jarvis never seemed fazed by anything. Nathan would have to remember to explain it to them all later.
Shepard seemed to take the knowledge in stride, as if she had been expecting this. "All right. Have they seen you?"
"I don't think so, ma'am."
"Stay hidden for now, then. Stand by."
Felishaw seemed confident enough to step out from behind Ngandu now, although he kept one wary eye on Javik. "'They'? What's happening?"
"We have incoming Cerberus troops," Shepard explained quickly. "We need to get out of here fast, and preferably not back the way we came. We're well-equipped, but I don't want to have to deal with four shuttles worth of troops unless I really can't help it."
"Cerberus?" Javik repeated, sounding supremely irritated that he was lacking knowledge of the situation he was now in.
Shepard turned to the Prothean. "Commander Javik, I don't have time to explain everything right now, but we need your help to defeat the Reapers. Will you come with us?"
Javik's glance back toward the remaining pods spoke volumes, although he clearly tried to conceal it. "You are the only one left alive," Shepard told him gently, but bluntly. They didn't have time for niceties, but Nathan got the impression Javik wasn't much for niceties anyway.
The Prothean's eyes blinked slowly, but his voice was hard when he spoke. "I will come with you. I will have my vengeance."
The raw certainty in that statement sent shivers down Nathan's spine. He cleared his throat. "Is there a back way out of here?" he asked, looking around at the pods lining the walls. The little room they stood in seemed isolated from the rest of the facility, with the only exit being the way they had come in.
"When our scientists designed this facility to be sunk into the ground they also ensured its inhabitants would have a way out when they awoke. I will show you." Javik eyed Doctor Felishaw coldly. "The small one is not a soldier. He will slow us down. He must be left behind."
Nathan raised an eyebrow at that, and Doctor Felishaw bristled indignantly. Before he could say anything, Shepard interrupted in a tone that left no room for disagreement. "No. No one is left behind. Show us this exit."
Javik eyed Shepard for a moment, then slowly inclined his head. Nathan was surprised at the respect he saw in that gesture. Javik reached into his pod and pulled out a sleek, alien-looking weapon. Instantly Nathan and the other two marines had their own weapons raised and pointed at him again, but all he did was attach the rifle to his belt. Ignoring them, Javik stalked over to an alcove and waved a hand over what Nathan had thought was rock. A doorway slid open to reveal a narrow passage behind. "This way," Javik said.
Taking a couple of steps closer and peering in, Nathan could see the passage ended almost as quickly as it began. A ladder climbed upward, disappearing into green-lit twilight. He kept his wince to himself. Unless Doctor Felishaw was hiding a lot of muscle under all that weight, Javik was right about him slowing them down.
He certainly wasn't right about leaving him behind, though. He clapped a hand on the doctor's shoulder. "I'll help you," he promised.
"Good. Let's go," Shepard prompted, indicating for Javik to take point and following close on his heels. As she walked she keyed her comm. "Garrus, Dangerfield, report."
"I see them, Commander," came Garrus' reply. "They're landing right where we did."
"What about the archaeologists' shuttles?"
"Gone."
"Good. I want you and Dangerfield to meet up with Jarvis. We've got another way out. I'm marking our location on your map, but it'll take us a while to get there. Don't try and extract us until I give the word."
"Got it. Hmm…"
Nathan could hear the frown in Shepard's voice even if he couldn't see her face from his position as rear guard. "What is it?" she asked.
"Might be nothing… but all four shuttles are down and none of them seem to be carrying their full complement of troops. Something's off."
Weird. Why would Cerberus send four shuttles when they didn't have the troops to fill them? Nathan frowned.
"Cloaked troops?" she asked.
"Maybe, but I don't see any signs of that. Normally I can spot a cloaked infiltrator from two klicks away."
"All right, keep an eye on them," Shepard ordered. "As soon as they spot the main entrance I want to know about it. There's no way they could know about this exit, so we'll have a bit of a head start."
"Will do. Garrus out."
Up ahead, Javik began to climb, followed shortly by Shepard. Sporritt and Ngandu holstered their weapons and went next, then Felishaw and finally Nathan. Shepard didn't have to say anything; even Doctor Felishaw seemed to understand he had to move as quickly as he could. Cerberus wouldn't have come unprepared. They had to have something up their sleeves. Their lead wouldn't last long, and they had to get the last Prothean out to where he could do some good.