Zhu's Hope - Feros

"No wonder they holed up here", Amari commented as they stood before the sturdy gate to the administrative complex. The bluish glow of a powerful hardlight shield blocked the path. "Nothing short of an artillery strike could breach this shield. They must have one hell of a generator up and running."

"You can't build underground shelters on the hundredth floor of a tower, so…" Astrid's voice trailed off.

"The shield will be powered down briefly to let you through", Symmetra spoke over the radio. "Please stand by. It will take a while."

The Quarians hung together uncomfortably in a knot around Shilu'Vael. "She sounds like Agleia", Tali said.

"Symmetra has always been like that", Tracer answered. Her voice grew wistful. "Lúcio and I would talk about her. He thought she had some kind of autism. Or at least some obsessive disorder."

"Your friend and her never got along to begin with", Genji remembered.

"What became of him?" Anika asked.

"He raised so much hell that Vishkar pulled out of most of Latin America. Then he retired. Had a family with some Asian girls, friends of D-Va's."

"'Friends'?" Martinsson asked with a small grin. "How many are we talking about?"

"Four. He met them at a concert in Japan. They were part of some idol group or another." A long sigh. Tracer's melancholy deepened. "Lúcio was the best man I've ever met, period. He had charisma in megaton quantities, and a huge heart to go with it. Everyone loved him."

Shepard did not know what to make of it. For some reason she found herself looking at Reyes, who studiously evaded her gaze. "That sounds like…"

Lena slightly shook her head. "No. I'd have dated him if I liked men." She stared at the door with a vacant expression on her face. "I haven't had a partner for decades. They all move on. I don't."

No one failed to notice the pain on Tracer's features, reason for which Aaliyah gave her a friendly squeeze on a shoulder and a warm look —come talk to me later, okay?— and walked away, towards the Quarians and Sombra. "I suppose you're managing well."

Jaenna was reticent and gruff as usual. "We're doing fine", she allowed. "Your agent has a lot of talent. She learns quickly."

A look at the brown-skinned hacker. "I'm surprised you did not indulge in your shenanigans."

Sombra shuffled her weight between her feet uneasily. "Sí, bueno… I think it's better to just sit back and learn how these chicks do it for now", she argued, discomfort seeping into her voice. After a second's pause, she felt the need to expand on the issue: "I know Alliance and Citadel hardware inside out. There are patterns. If I come across something I haven't seen before, I know enough to improvise. Now, Geth stuff…"

"She's afraid she'll get counter-hacked", Reyes said hoarsely.

"Gabriel!" The hacker shot him a withering glare.

"How's that?" Garrus asked.

The former Talon agents exchanged looks. Sombra was coldly angry. Shepard saw this, and understood Reyes had purposefully hinted about something on the hacker she would have preferred to keep obscured.

"Sombra, you're entitled to your secrets", she said slowly. "You wouldn't like your weaknesses exposed, I get it. You couldn't have stayed off the radar if people knew those. But considering what we're up against, if you do have weaknesses, we have to know. At least, doctors Palukhina, Ziegler and T'Soni should."

Sombra smiled a cold, sharp-edged smile. "Buen intento, coronel."

Reyes stepped forward and stood next to Shepard to support her, his eyes boring into the brown-skinned hacker's. Aaliyah noticed this, but did not take her eyes off Sombra either. Miranda and Valena also saw the confrontation now and kept their distance.

The hacker evaluated the opposition arrayed against her, judged it formidable, and scowled: "¡Okey, está bien!" She glared at Gabriel coldly. "He knows all you need to know", she said sharply, then stalked off to join the trio of Quarians that had been watching in puzzlement.

Shepard turned to Reyes. "Thank you."

Gabriel dismissed it with a shrug. He then tapped a few commands on his own omni-tool to jam any listening devices Symmetra could have around, and explained: "Sombra is made out of nanites, like me. Hers are in a league of their own compared to mine, but she's been experimenting with them ever since Moira stole the original project from—from Angela. But they're still machines. When she connects to something to hack it, the link makes her vulnerable to being hacked in turn. There's firewalls and who knows how many barriers to stop it, but something with enough processing power could do it. I mean, maybe."

Garrus narrowed his eyes. "And the Geth, while not truly sentient, can synergize and put out enough raw power to stand a chance."

"We don't know", Reyes pointed out. "But the idea scares her."

Astrid arched her eyebrows and shrugged. "Well, it's only logical."

"But-but your own AIs can't hack her?" Liara asked.

"Alliance military-grade armor come outfitted with AIs to manage them, assist the wearer and conduct jamming and electronic defense. I wore one such armor when I first met her. She bypassed everything like it just wasn't there", Shepard related. "So no, I don't think they can. At least, not individually. They'd have to act in concert. But the Geth, given their distributed nature, probably are much better at it."

The shield dissipated. "Everything is clear. You can come in now."

The gates slid open. Cream walls, brown ceilings, dark blue floors and dry lights greeted them, the worn masonry of the original tower dressed up to make for the typical sterile furnishings of offices. The furniture itself had been hastily clustered into barricades and further fortified by hardlight screens deployed by the Vishkar engineers; lightly armed colonists and omnics manned them, backed up by the huge and threatening shapes of two mechs similar to —but not as sophisticated or well armed as— their Bulwarks deployed in sentry configuration, ready to give any assaulters a harsh welcome.

A heavyset woman lowered the rifle on her hands. "About time some help arrived! Took you long enough."

"Arcelia, please!" A middle-aged man of Asian features strode forward to meet them. "Welcome to Zhu's Hope", he said awkwardly. "I'm-I'm sorry about my fellow here… it's been very tense here. We were isolated. Nobody answered our distress calls—the Geth have been jamming our communications." Only then he seemed to notice there were non-humans present: "Wait… who are you people?"

"We're the Compact", Shepard answered. "A joint Alliance-Citadel task force set up to investigate the Elysium incident and the activities of the rogue Spectre Saren Arterius." She raised an eyebrow. "You don't read the news often, sir, don't you?"

"Oh, well, no, not really…" Then he saw who Tracer was and his eyes lit up: "Oh my God… Oxton? The Lena Oxton? Tracer?"

Tracer blushed at the sudden attention, to Genji's delight. "Yes, that's me", she said quietly.

"I'm-I'm sorry, I don't mean to impose, but… you were my childhood idol. You know, 'the world could always use more heroes'…"

Lena felt an overwhelming urge to dismiss the man but she could not. She was reminded of two boys in a museum, and how the courage of one and the enthusiasm of the other had touched her heart that day. She smiled sheepishly. "I'm never living it down, am I."

The man beamed at her. "If the cavalry's here, then all is well now." He gestured behind himself: "Supervisor Vaswani is waiting for you. Please, take the stairs up."

"Is there anyone in need of medical attention?" Anika asked, her eyes surveying the people she saw. The only thing she noticed on them now was the exhaustion that followed the release of days of accumulated stress.

"No, thankfully no one is injured here. The supervisor ordered everyone around in here when the attack started." He beckoned them to move on. "She knows all you need to know."

Shepard nodded at the man. "Park, you stay here with our Bulwark, I'll keep you posted."

"Roger, ma'am."

She was already leading the Compact crew into the offices when she realized that, in the same fashion Tracer had been recognised, someone could also tell who Reyes was — except that the mask that would have marked him as the dreaded Reaper lay within a box next to her most cherished mementos, her mind told her the next moment. And Lacroix — had cloaked and was concealed from view, while Sombra had assumed her Silthea identity and looked the part of a gruff Asari veteran with no difficulty.

"I don't like this", Amari muttered roughly. "A minute spent here is a minute for the Geth to build up their strength and box us in."

"Shilu?" Aaliyah asked.

The Quarian girl shook her head. Agleia informed: "They are consolidating alright, but not around here."

"Wonderful", the jumpjet trooper growled.

I agree, the Starwatch colonel was thinking, suddenly irritated by Amari's line of thinking. "Then let's hurry up and get this over with."

A pair of atmospheric hatch doors separated Symmetra's quarters from the rest of the offices, a fact that caused them to exchange glances. The resulting room was spacious enough to accommodate all of them, and as the rear door slid closed behind their backs, there were a series of pneumatic hisses. A synthesized female voice warned: "Decontamination process initiated. Please stand by."

Astrid and her commander exchanged another knowing look. Someone is a full-blown neat freak, eh?

The process turned out to be much longer than expected. A combination of disinfectant sprays, high-powered electron-beam sterilizers, hot air blowers and a vacuum device made it as close to impossible as it could get for a foreign contaminant to survive it.

Then, at last, the hatch door in front of them slid open, and they were treated to a veritable light show. The walls, ceilings and floors were combinations of chrome and blue, but instead of traditional appliances, strategically placed projectors were used to create constructs of solid light to be used as furniture.

As one, all non-humans were awestruck. Garrus was frozen still into place. "Wow…"

"By the Goddess!" Liara gaped at the sight. "This is so beautiful!"

Even the stoic Valena was stunned. "Impressive…"

"If our people only got to see this!" Tali exclaimed. "How much power does it take to maintain all of this?"

"Less than you'd think." A woman strode into the hall from a side room. Her outfit was, for lack of better terms, both exotic and breathtaking at the same time, a delicate combination of gold, silver, turquoise and white, its bright folds a striking contrast to her brown skin and highlighting her long legs. A tall, silvery helmet like contraption with golden sides covered most of her head, leaving only her nose and mouth exposed, long blue-greenish veils sprouting like hair from its backside.

"Greetings, Vaswani-sama", Genji addressed her respectfully. "It is an odd twist of fate that has brought about this meeting."

Symmetra's eyes were concealed, but that did not dispel the feeling of being intensely scrutinized as the woman slightly turned to face each of them, one by one.

"You can't hide in here", she said in the direction of the invisible Widowmaker. "You're needlessly depleting your power supply by maintaining your cloak."

Shepard cut in then: "Mistress Vaswani, time is of the essence. Please allow my operative her methods and let us focus on the issue at hand. We came here hoping to anticipate Saren's next move. Regrettably, we were too late to stop the Geth from raiding your settlement, but how late?"

"Forty hours, nineteen minutes", was the dry response. "Are these all the forces at your disposal?"

Garrus answered that: "Two Bulwark mechs and a fast destroyer with thirty drone fighters in orbit. A hardsuit, a full complement of highly skilled biotics, a Krogan battlemaster, a trio of Quarian specialists in Geth technology, a platoon of omnic troopers, a selection of Starwatch's finest, and two adjutants to the Council Spectres." He stared at the woman in annoyance.

"The Geth are here in overwhelming strength, mister Vakarian", Symmetra replied, unmoved by Garrus' defiance. "Realistically speaking, a lot more firepower will be required to remove them from Feros." With that said, the woman held her left hand in front of her, palm upwards. The projector embedded in it glowed fiercely, and produced a single mote of blinding light that hovered over it. Symmetra plucked it with her right hand, and after a series of weaving gestures, she transformed the mote into a real-time, three-dimensional map of the surrounding environs — thoroughly impressing Liara, Garrus, Valena and the Quarians as she did.

"Shit." Shepard was more concerned with the information on the map itself. There were clusters of Geth signals spread more or less evenly on their tower and on the adjacent ones.

"They've spread their forces around", Wrex observed, then snorted. "Dumb."

"If we did it, it would be unwise", Valena argued. "But our enemy has perfect coordination and communication capabilities. As they are deployed, they can quickly divert forces to concentrate firepower wherever it's needed."

"Yeah, I heard that already on the briefing", the Krogan retorted. "But they didn't put up that much of a fight. That psychotic biotic of yours only needed seconds to trash their biggest mech."

"And you would believe they didn't notice it?" The brown-skinned Viskhar officer gave Wrex a haughty glance. "What interesting ways your mind works."

The hulking, ancient Krogan returned Symmetra's dismissive look with a cold grin full of sharp teeth. "You got a sharp tongue, girl. I hope you also have fourteen hundred years ahead of you to catch up." The challenge was obvious: Wrex did not have the advantages of a synthetic body and superior technology, but he was twenty times older than the Vishkar engineer — and had survived through a life full of dangers.

"Regardless", Miranda said, implicitly cautioning them not to wander off topic, "they will take us much more seriously the next time around."

"Also, honestly, would you fight her?" Aaliyah asked rhetorically while Jacqueline contemplated the exchange with an amused glint in her eyes.

"I'm also a biotic, you know", Wrex argued, but he did not seem as confident. Then he reluctantly admitted: "Only if I could get the drop on her. Heads on? No way."

"Rest assured, the Geth will find an answer to her", Symmetra posited. "I've evaluated the recordings of your skirmish with them. It's readily apparent that they sacrificed the forces they lost to gauge your capabilities."

Shepard and Miranda studied the map intently. "In close quarters, mobility will be key", Aaliyah pointed out. "We have to quickly dispose of enemy groups before they get reinforced."

Miranda was going to add something, but she was interrupted by a deep rumble as the floor noticeably quivered. Everyone listened and tensed up, suddenly expecting the worst, but as quickly as it came, it went away.

"What was that?" Martinsson asked keenly.

The Vishkar officer was reading the report of the AI running the settlement. "The Geth have collapsed a series of passageways", she informed. "The main access points to the skyway, the aqueduct and a dig site have been blocked."

"We've spent enough time here." And for nothing, Aaliyah thought bitterly. She addressed Symmetra dryly: "What did you have to tell us that you couldn't share on the radio?"

The map hovering over Vaswani's left hand vanished. Again Symmetra spun a mote of hardlight, this time into… some sort of scan or microphotography of a bacteria or some other microscopic lifeform. "There is an organic contaminant of some kind on the local atmosphere", she informed. "These chambers are kept sterile through stringent measures."

Anika was shocked: "But… but the people downstairs… and us! We've all been exposed!" She almost turned in shock to Reyes and Sombra and asked them why they had not said anything about it, but held herself back just in time. Nobody had said they could trust Symmetra with their secrets.

Shepard held onto her temper, but if looks could kill, the Viskhar officer would be dead by now. "You have some explaining to do. Fast."

"We're still trying to determine the effects of exposure. So far, there have been only two cases of adverse reactions; I can forward the reports to your medic."

"Do it", she ordered at once. "Everyone, break out the respirators. The last thing we need is someone coming down with some unknown disease."

"Can I check on these two patients?" Ziegler asked.

Symmetra shook her head. "One of them was shipped off-world. The other one is our hydraulics technician and tends to the Prothean aqueduct. He has set up his quarters there — he claimed the humidity helped keep the seizures at bay."

"So he's not here… The Geth surely have gotten to him by now", Garrus said worriedly.

"Too much damage to the aqueducts would seriously imperil the continuity of this colony", the Vishkar engineer informed in an almost inhumanly detached tone.

Layali Amari did not take her eyes off the map. "That is fairly evident, but why cut us off from the skyway and this dig site? What did you find there?"

"Nothing just yet", Symmetra answered. "The teams working there had begun to uncover some tunnels buried beneath the debris. Scans show that they lead into intact chambers. As to the skyway, I can only conjecture. Other than some exploratory forays, we haven't yet conducted any kind of work on the adjacent towers."

Shepard's gut told her that the dig site was the place to go, but she had a colony to protect. "We must clear them from the aqueduct first, and see if this technician is still alive. Move it, people!" she barked. One last look at the Vishkar officer: "Anything else you need to tell us—"

"I'll stay in touch."

Once they were again on the street, immediately they went back into the square and took the northernmost exit, which led to the aqueducts. It did not take long for them to run into the tons of debris blocking the way.

"They're in force on the other side of this barrier", Shilu warned.

"Can you clear it?" Garrus asked their biotics.

Jacqueline smirked. "In my sleep."

"Then get it done. The rest of you, keep her covered."

"Can you tell what do they have on the other side?" Aaliyah asked the Quarians.

"I can find that out." That said, Reyes shifted into his signature smoky form and slipped past the obstruction through holes and cracks. Seconds went by without a word from him:

"Should we wait?" Vakarian asked Shepard.

"No. We have to get through this junction in any case. Jacqueline, you're up."

"How do you want it done? Piece by piece or quickly?"

Garrus eyed her in wonder. "What's the fastest you can do it?"

"Seconds."

"Get in position, everyone! The moment she clears this out we'll have a firefight in our hands."

"Hold it", Reyes' deep voice cut in at last. "You may want to have a look at what they have here."

The former Talon agent had somehow managed to put together a recording. The quality was lousy, but what they saw were some Geth they had not come upon yet: they were humanoid in shape alright, but much more elastic than their brethren, showing no visible weapons. They clung to walls and ceilings on all fours, crawling, hopping, running over them like they were on the ground.

"They're fast", Amari noted.

"And new", Tali chimed in. "We never saw those."

"Probably something the separatists came up with", Shepard mulled, remembering Zenyatta's words.

"How are they armed? I don't see any weapons", Astrid pointed out.

Reyes answered, "I can find that out very fast."

"Don't take your chances", Shepard ordered, noting the cluster of large and small mechs and the group of heavier platforms. "There's a lot of firepower there—"

"Shepard, they're on the move!" Shilu'Vael alerted.

"Where?"

The Quarian was about to answer when a thunderbolt roared on the tunnels as the ceiling on top of the Compact platoon gave way, thousands of tons of masonry collapsing as the explosive charges set by the Geth in anticipation went off.

Tracer had had a brush with death back on Illium, and she had learned from that. As such, she was the fastest to react, and slowed down time on the spot. She had precious seconds to get as many people to safety as she could.

Quickly she assessed the situation. The most valuable person there, right now, was Anika, their medic, and so was the first one to be whisked away.

Shepard, on top of being their commander, could shield others, and so could Astrid; if the enemy followed up with an assault after that sneak attack —and, if their places were swapped, she would—, they would be absolutely necessary, and she took care of them next.

A quick count. Widowmaker was safe, being as she was at their rear as usual. So was Amari. That left Garrus, Park, Sombra, the Quarians and their biotics specialists. Of those, Subject Zero could defuse the whole situation simply by using her skills to nullify gravity on the place, and instead of moving her, she snap-unfroze time, yelled in her ear—"ZERO G!"— and slowed time again.

That cost her two precious tenths of a second, and each time she hauled someone to safety, she had to relax her grip on the flow of time — and the cave in continued to unfold as she moved, slowly but inexorably. She would not be able to save everyone, and she knew it, so she did a triage of sorts: Park she could not help, as his hardsuit was simply too large and heavy for her to move. Sombra was like Reaper in her book; she could simply shift into a smoky form and float away. The next ones to go, then, were the Quarians, as they depended fully on the others for help.

As she whirled around, she caught sight of a gunflash: it was Lacroix, firing at something. There were Geth on the upper floor, right next to the collapsing ceiling — those strange hopping things. One of them was blown into so much debris by Widowmaker's shot; the others kept frozen still, their headlamps looking down at them—

"Shite!" It was lasers, she realized, the headlamps bigger than usual and focused on the Compact. She had to choose now, and hoped that Jacqueline had heard her because if they were not crushed by the collapsing roof, then these Geth would tear them to shreds. She drew her sidearms, powerful Locust submachine guns now instead of her auto pistols, and charged forward.

Jacqueline had immediately reacted to Lena's warning and unleashed her null gravity field. Valena had also reacted, deploying a bubble barrier large enough to stop the debris still falling towards them. Tracer took advantage of the reduced gravity and timed her jump upwards so it was enough for her to reach the floor where their attackers were—

—but her grip on time was loosening, and as she moved, so did their enemies. The hoppers fired, and the tunnel became a deadly jigsaw puzzle of zero-g suspended debris and blazing hot beams.

The heat pierced through Shepard's gut before she had time to feel ingravid. She gasped at the same time her onboard AI threw a tantrum of red warning signals and audio alerts. The burn was quickly extinguished by a flash of cold and numbness as the life support systems kicked in:

"Medic!" she heard Garrus call out. "Shepard is injured!"

"I'm fine!" she yelled angrily.

Park ignored her and stood right in the line of fire, shielding her and the others who had been caught in the kill zone. A purple-red bubble materialized around his hardsuit as he triggered the short-lasted particle barrier, and simultaneously stepped on the gas pedal to rocket-blast upwards towards their attackers. The hoppers scattered around, denying him a target, but however fast they were, Tracer hopelessly outclassed them, and zipped along the tunnel leaving piles of wreckage in her wake.

"I got your back", Lena heard Reyes say on his grim, deep voice.

"Thanks."

"I'm here!" Anika said out loud.

Aaliyah looked in irritation around her, noticing that, with the exception of Jacqueline, the rest of their biotics had all sustained hits. "Look after them!" she snarled, and struggled back to her feet, deploying her shield to cover them.

"Enemy is disengaging", Widowmaker reported.

"Tracer, Reyes and Park, give them chase", Astrid ordered.

"But don't stray far!" Garrus added. "Splitting us up would play for them now."

"This is bad." Ziegler was crouched next to Liara. She had been pierced all the way through by two beams and had dropped without a noise.

"Get her to safety, doctor." Sombra put a round-shaped beacon into her hands, shoved her next to the unconscious T'Soni, and pressed the big button in the middle. Immediately they vanished.

"Where did they go?" Garrus bellowed.

"Our shuttle", was the hacker's reply. "Safest place in this rock for them."

"I agree", Martinsson approved. "Good thinking, there." She noticed Lawson was applying a medi-gel syrette to a wound on her left breast. "Can you still fight?"

"Yes", Miranda answered, though pain flickered on her face with each breath. "It's just a flesh wound."

Wrex eyed her. The veteran Krogan had sustained multiple hits, but it would take a lot more than that to bring him down. Coolly he berated Miranda: "You're prancing around almost naked. Get some decent armor, woman." Both Martinsson and Amari grunted their agreement at Wrex's quip.

"I'll take that under advisement", was the dry answer.

"What about the Geth on the other side of this?" Astrid asked.

"They aren't moving in", Shilu'Vael answered. "They are deployed to hold their position should we break through."

"They are playing for time", Valena realized, then stared at Sombra. "If you can teleport people between places so easily, how come we didn't use your technique to simply get where we need to go?"

"You said 'so easily', and it's not that easy. Teleporting two people at a time is about the best I can do. It only seems simple, señorita."

The Asari did not let go. "I understand your reticence to share your knowledge with the Citadel, but why be so reluctant to do so with your own kin?"

Reyes answered that as he rejoined them, Park and Tracer behind him: "You're assuming they're Sombra's kin." The rest floated around unsaid: they're not.

The hacker scowled. "This secret did not come cheap. And there is nothing the Alliance could offer me."

"How about the survival of your culture, girl." Wrex was, yet again, very sharp.

"You can talk all you want. I'm on your side and all that, but I'm not sharing my methods. You don't like my reasons, your problem."

"Then let's get the most out of that." Shepard had almost been swamped by a surprising outburst of anxiety when she had heard that Liara had been seriously injured. Her determined self harshly reminded her that she could not afford that weakness now, so with an effort she boxed that concern away and stood straight with difficulty. Her injury was no small thing either: the laser beam had cut a clean hole through her lower gut. Medi-gel and nanites would restore her, but it would take the better part of an hour for that to heal that kind of wound, and it would Hurt with a capital H to move around. "You two", she pointed at the hacker and Reyes, "find a good place to set up a gate near this tec's place."

Gabriel raised a hand. "I can do something about your exposure to the thing Symmetra mentioned."

"And that is?"

"I scrub your insides."

Tracer scowled. "Bloody hell, no way."

Shepard first impulse also was to roundly refuse the proposal. Curing a disease —if that was what it was— by inviting another plague in did not sound wise in the least, but then she reasoned that if Reyes wanted to plant his nanites on them —whatever he could use it for— then he had had plenty of chances already, and Anika would warn her if she detected anything like that on the mandatory medical tests they had to undergo between missions — or she would be dead.

"Alright. I'll go first."

"Ma'am—!"

Sharply she cut Astrid short: "We can't go around incubating some kind of sickness! If something happens to me, Garrus is in charge. No 'buts', anyone." She stared at Reyes, hard. "Go on, do it."

Gabriel approached her. For a moment she was possessed of a horrible weakness as the memories of their closest encounter —deck 7, cargo hold 5 on the London— rushed into her mind. An astoundingly shocked voice within her questioned her sanity again.

"Open your mouth."

Shepard closed her eyes and committed herself.

"Take a deep breath."

She did as she was bid, expecting once again to experience the numbing, horrible cold she had felt back then, but no such thing happened — in fact, she did not feel anything out of the ordinary, and that caused her to wonder why Reyes did not radiate that aura of intense cold anymore. She had forgotten about it.

"That's it."

"What?"

A smirk appeared on the grim face. "I don't need that many nanites to get the job done. What? Disappointed?"

Aaliyah had no time for idle chat. "Then do it with the rest, and get going."

"Right." The smirk vanished. "One thing. I can tell already these spores aren't hard to clean up. The doc's stuff would be better at it than my own."

Shepard returned his look. "You mean…"

Valena understood before she did: "The Vishkar officer did not say whether the colonists had been told about this contaminant. The hydraulics technician requested to be allowed to set up his accommodations in more humid environments. Why would they allow it?"

"Because they're studying the effects of the spore on different environments, perhaps", Miranda suggested. "He would be a test subject. If it is indeed like that, then Vishkar is intentionally exposing the colonists to an unknown organism."

"But why?" Layali wondered. "What do they have to gain?"

"Vishkar has always been involved in less than ethical pursuits", Genji said grimly.

"We'll hold them accountable. After we clean this up. So let's get our job done first, people", Shepard spurred them. "Reyes, do your thing."

The Starwatch agents reluctantly submitted themselves to Gabriel's 'treatment'. When it was Tracer's turn, Genji looked on and quoted, "'I will just save your lame asses. No sweat'."

Reyes stopped at that. He had dismissively spoken those words to a wounded Lena two decades prior on the depths of Pokhara.

"You wouldn't have believed anything else I said." He turned to Tracer again. "Open your mouth."

She did. After it was done, though, she asked: "And what would you have said instead?"

Reyes did not answer. He turned around instead and walked away, towards Garrus and Valena.

The Citadel agents and Wrex, having witnessed the exchange and the reluctance of their Alliance colleagues, were even more distrustful of Reyes, but followed their lead. The Krogan threatened with a piercing stare, "If there's anything fishy about this I'll make sure people never forget about you."

The former Blackwatch commander smirked at that. "You wouldn't be the first to try."

Shepard stepped through the gate with a pained groan. Reyes and Sombra were waiting for her on the other side. "Well?"

"Clear here", Gabriel answered hoarsely. "Neither of us saw or heard a thing."

Next appeared Astrid, then the Quarians. At once they got to work. "We can detect no Geth signals in the immediate area", Shilu reported at once.

Aaliyah grunted in agreement. She was about to quip that they had not detected the hoppers either, but both former Talon agents were saying the same so she had to believe her. "Alright. Let's get moving."

"Colonel?" It was Anika. "I have an update on Liara. She's stable."

At once a huge weight tumbled off her shoulders. "Thank all gods", she breathed in relief with a sigh, and grimaced as pain lanced her belly. "How serious is it?"

"Right lung, small intestines and forearm. She will recover, but it will take a while."

"Thanks, doc."

"She doesn't need me here right now. Could you ask Sombra to come and fetch me?" Aaliyah signaled at the hacker, who nodded and vanished where she stood. "Oh, here she is. Thanks, ma'am."

Tali consulted their map. "The control room where the technician set up his quarters should be one hundred and fifteen meters that way." She pointed down the corridor to their south.

Shepard squared herself. "Then let's go."

They advanced warily, but, true to Reyes, Sombra and the Quarians, there were no Geth nearby, which struck everyone as odd. "Shouldn't they be, well, tearing apart this aqueduct or something?" Astrid asked out loud.

Valena was perturbed. "When they cut off the colony from it, we assumed they would be planning to destroy it. We were wrong. This was meant only as a distraction."

Wrex commented, "That leaves the skyway and the dig site. Which one will it be?"

Shepard still thought it was the dig site, but just to be sure, she asked Amari: "Can you scout the skyway without exposing yourself?"

Layali took her time to answer. "Before meeting those hopping, climbing things, I would have said yes. I was counting that I could hide under the skyway and the Geth shouldn't be able to shoot at me there. But now… honestly, no, ma'am. I can't."

Garrus mused, "Who would have thought a bunch of tin cans would be this crafty…"

Reyes laughed grimly. It was a deep, unnerving sound. "Then you get a taste of what both Omnic Crisis were like."

The 'control room' was a metal shack built out of a cargo container reassembled next to the water treatment machinery installed on top of the aqueduct. Inside, it was a mess. The control panels and terminals were covered in dust. Discarded food packages and other trash were piled on a corner. Empty pill bottles were strewn all over the place.

Astrid took a deep breath. "Someone has a drug habit."

The man lying on the single dirty bunk was covered in sweat, his face livid red, teeth gritting, fists clenched tightly. Anika ran to him and started working on him at once.

Jacqueline picked up one of the bottles. "Painkillers." A snort. "Small stuff."

"Any syringes anywhere? Or an injector?" Ziegler asked. She got a bunch of negatives in response, and exclaimed: "This is criminal! It's not like a nanite shot is something so expensive!"

Reyes approached the bunk. "He's got the spores. Big time."

Garrus grunted. "They want to 'determine the effects of exposure'? Then they should look no further."

Anika pulled a nanite syrette out of a satchel, plugged it to a specific port on her omni-tool, programmed a few settings, removed it, and stabbed it on the man's neck. "That's going to take a few minutes."

Sombra was tapping commands on thin air next to the dusty terminals. Tali watched her work, and the hacker noticed her: "What?" she asked with a thin grin.

"Oh, nothing, excuse me." She shifted her weight between her feet and crossed her arms defensively. "I can't stop thinking about what your colleague said."

"He spilled the beans, didn't he?" 'Silthea' shrugged briefly. Her fingers did not stop their dance. "The good colonel made sense, though."

"If he hadn't said anything—"

"You wouldn't have imagined it?" Again a thin grin, this time a proud one. "That's the idea." She briefly glanced at the Quarian: "And it bothers you, ¿cierto?"

"I can't imagine what you'd want. The more I think about it, the less sense it makes to me. You can change your shape, hack through almost anything, become intangible and teleport. What could you possibly want that the Compact can offer you?"

Another shrug. "All these things cost a lot of materials and energy, señorita. Someone has to bankroll me", she answered evasively, very much aware of the looks she was starting to get from the rest.

Tali, however, was not, and continued her prodding. "It doesn't look to me like there's anything they can offer you that you couldn't just get by yourself elsewhere."

Sombra was silent for a while. Finally she said triumphantly: "Lo encontré."

Shepard had been listening to their conversation, silently praising Tali'Zorah for her candor. She promised herself to continue inquiring where she had left off, and asked: "What did you find?"

"This man has tried to report several times what was happening to him, but he never managed to send anything out. He always was in pain, and the more he tried to send his reports the worse he felt. I found all the drafts he wrote."

Anika was running diagnostics on the man; he had not relaxed one bit yet, but at least he had opened his eyes. They were bloodshot and feverish. "The spores… they are all over his brain. Especially around the areas that regulate pain intensity."

Valena turned towards Reyes. "It seems we owe you our thanks."

Suddenly, Symmetra's voice called out imperiously on the radio: "Colonel Shepard, your presence is badly needed in the colony square! My staff, guards and personnel are leaving their posts and ignoring my messages!"

Author's note: Apologies but the Feros mission is growing humongous and very challenging to write. I got sidetracked trying to put together a one-shot story I could submit along with my application for a writing position over at Blizzard but I didn't complete it on time. (I don't have any publishing experience, and no idea of where to get it either, so I figured this was the next best thing to try.) Better luck next time, I guess.

My thanks to BrokenLifeCycle and kyro2009 for putting up with me, and an apology to The core of justice - it was the story you requested that I tried to finish to submit to Blizzard. When I read the position had been already filled I kind of got disheartened. I still want to complete it so I have something solid to offer in the future.