Chapter 28: Noveria part 4
'Finally, I was getting sick of the cold,' John thought. After a long trek across the Aleutsk Valley, they made it to Peak 15. The research facility was mess, from the burning Grizzly out in the front to the wall and floor full of bullet holes and burn marks, it looked like a war zone, and however there were no bodies that litter base. Which begged the question, what were they fighting? John and the team looked around the corner of the entrance; the garage was full of Krogan and Geth.
"That's a lot of enemies, we're going to have to be careful," John and the team nodded at Ash.
"Then we strike first, Liara lift that cyro canister," Liara lifted the canister near the Geth juggernaut. John then sabotaged the canister causing it to freeze the juggernaut and any allies near it. That caught the attention of the Krogan and the Geth.
"Krogan incoming," Ash looked at John, who threw two grenades, one to stun the Krogan and the other to thin out the herd. John then sabotaged the Krogan's gun and make him fall back, but all it did was make the Krogan charge at them. Wrex got up and counter charged at the Krogan. "Go get him," Ash was amazed how Wrex just rammed the Krogan into the wall and broke all the bones thus killing it because of the bones came out of the body. "Gross."
"We got this, Liara throw on my mark, and… NOW!" Liara and John both launched throw fields at one of the Krogan that was covering the Geth, causing him to crash on the crates. "Ash aim for the head."
Garrus shot one of the Krogan and Ash shot the Krogan that was on the crates. Tali then hacked into a Geth unit and made it self-destruct. "I think that's all of them," Wrex commented. "Those Krogan are weak pyjaks."
John wondered the labs looking for clues. Dim, reddish light fell from some few sources on the ceiling. Crates created shadows everywhere; an eerie atmosphere covered the labs, it felt like something or someone could jump out against them."
"Dammit! I can barely get anything from these terminals, before it shut off," Ash then struck and idea. The places her fingers on her helmet, "Ragan, I'm sending some information to you. See if you can hack into it and get it before it shuts off."
"Copy that," Ragan's voice was not very happy but he had to do the job. Ashley sends the data to him and gets a message. "Found something but it's not good. It looks like the rumors of the Rachni are true. Saren and Benezia were working on trying to work on a Rachni but I'm not sure. It's hard because most of it was gibberish. I'm trying to see if anything else can be gotten in that facility. I'll keep in contact."
"So you sent the data to him," Laira realized. "The labs must be on emergency power."
John nodded. "Yeah but why?"
"Could it be because of the storm," Ash wasn't sure but it sound like it could have been it.
"I don't think so, even with the storm the labs should have plenty of backups in place," Ragan's voice was clear. "Could be someone trying to hack into the system before you got there. I'm no genius but that could be it."
"Well we aren't going to find out here, come on," John said. As the team made their way through peak 15, they were met with an unsettling sight.
"Why are the turrets facing inwards," Liara didn't think something was right. After all, Ragan did say something about Rachni.
"They want to keep their people in as much as they want to keep other people out," darkly explained by Ash.
"No wonder their labs are out here, no witnesses leave here alive and they can hide the evidence of wrongdoing. Goddamn mega corps. They're all the same." They took the elevator up and then went through the door.
"Okay, I'm sending an arrest warrant to the Council to get the mega corps terminated," Ragan was serious about this next part, "They have something that everything should fear. I'm not sure but if it is something that I think it is, then the mega corps will be going to prison for Hostage and Attempt of Murder. I think it had to deal with the Rachni. Be careful."
Inside was a cafeteria area for the facility, the damage was worse than the team thought, the walls and windows were destroyed allowing, the planet's cold wind to blow into the building. Because of that almost all of the room was snowed in, burying broking metal beams, exposed electrical wiring, and the tables and chairs of the mess hall. Unfortunately, the team couldn't take in more of the environment as it had some guests, Geth. There are some shock troopers, regular troopers, and a few rocket troopers. The team got to cover as the geth fired at them. John threw a grenade at the machines to thin the herd. Liara used her singularity field to send them flying.
As the battled continued, a loud thud came from nowhere and the fight was temporarily stopped as everyone was looking around for the source of the noise. The squad came closer together, at the bottom of the staircase, standing back to back, watching their surroundings nervously. A loud inhuman shriek could be heard, and several large, very familiar insect creatures came in and attacked. Their first target was the Geth, the team watched in awe as the machines desperately tried to fight them off. The battle was short and brutal but the insect creatures were not done, they had their sights on the team.
"Fuck, Rachni…" John growled. They then came down the stairs with their giant tentacles primed and ready.
"What are they," Liara asked in alarmed.
"Focus Liara, you can wonder after we stay alive."
"Skipper, bugs incoming," Ash then looked at Wrex and Garrus. They saw a Rachni soldier charge at them but was shot in the head.
"Everyone that has a shotgun, use it. Liara singularity," John then heard another shriek. Wrex and Tali blasted the rachni back and Liara's singularity lifted up the soldiers. John threw a few grenades at the rachni, but they kept coming, with smaller rachni workers joining the fight. Ash then shot a grenade before it landed and Garrus then shot like a soldier with his assault rifle.
"There's too many of them," Liara used warped on the singularity field and made it explode. Send rachni behind the them but dead.
"Shit, fall back to the door behind us," John was covering everyone. Wrex grabbed a Rachni by the tentacle and threw it up in the air followed by a throw field to make it hit the ceiling. The team made a run for the door unfortunately the bugs were quiet fast, and quite capable of firing acidic projectiles. Each time the team had to dodge, only let the Rachni catch up more and more.
"They're catching up," John emptied his grenade pod and threw it back at the charging Rachni. The multiple explosions stunned them, allowing the team to make it to the door and lock it on the other side. As they caught their breaths, they could only hear the sound of something scurrying away, they were safe, for now.
"Rachni, I can't believe it. I thought Ragan was playing a sick joke on us but they are suppose…" John lifted his hands, Liara stopped talking.
"Dead, I know. We saw them on Bindhu, while we were taking out Cerberus."
"But what are those bugs doing here," Ash was confused.
"Want to bet this is where Cerberus got their Rachni from," John then heard Ragan voice.
"I saw everything. And I did a quick analyze on them. Those are pure blood Rachni. But the last queen was dead. Something is not right," Ragan cut the comm link.
"But for what reason," Liara asked.
"Super soldiers under their control, I'm guessing. After all, what's more super than a pissed off Rachni under your control," John looked over his shoulder.
"And my mother came here? For what reason?"
"Another reason we need to find her," Garrus said. "We can take that elevator behind us."
The team went down the elevator only to meet soldiers with weapons drawn and aimed for them. At the same time the team was also in combat mode, John and Laira flared up their biotics, and the rest had their weapons primed and ready. Their opponents were Human security guards, all in white armor. The tension was thick until someone spoke up. "Stop! Calm down! We want no conflict."
The guards lowered their weapons as a dark-skinned bald man came up to meet the team. The team looked at each other and calmed down, while watching the guards carefully. "Sorry, the man spoke again. "We didn't mean to threaten you. We just didn't know who was on the elevator."
Ash raised her brow, "So you really thought giant space spiders could work an elevator? I think you give them too much credit."
"Trust me, those giant space spiders are smarter than they look," the man pointed at a man that was half-eaten by the Rachni. "One of them popped out of the floor grates and took him down before we could react. By the time we reacted, it was too late."
"Who are you," John looked at the man.
"Captain Ventralis, Binary Helix Corporate Security. My team and I have ran on stims for days now. So we're a bit jumping."
"I'm John Shepard, Council Spectre and Alliance Navy Commander. How long have you been down here?"
"Over a week. The aliens had broken out of the hot labs and next thing we know they were clawing into my command post. Lost a lot of good people to those… things." John looked at Ventralis' team, they looked absolutely demoralized, the Spectre had nothing but sympathy for them for having to face this nightmare for that long. "An Asari was here to deal with the problem, but we haven't heard anything."
John nodded, "Do you know how to get to the hot lab?"
Ventralis nodded, "Yes, speak to a Salarian named Palon, he's trying to restart Mira, the main VI." He then gave the Spectre a key card. "Just use this card and the tram should take you to the labs."
The team nodded and made their way to Dr. Palon. As they were walking, they saw people look up and watch them, their eyes held the same demoralized look as Ventalis' men. They then see a red Salarian working on the large terminal. "Doc," John then saw the Salarian jumped.
"Don't do that," he said. John looked back at the team and they shrugged.
"I heard that you can get us to the hot labs."
Palon blinked. "Ah yes, I am almost through, I just need to connect this and…" The lights came on and the machines came alive. A hologram of a Human woman appeared.
"All system restored," VI said. John took out the key card and the VI scanned it. They headed down into the maintenance area and took the tram into the hot labs. They came out expecting a fight, but there was none. The trip to the hot labs was too easy. John didn't like it.
As they entered the hot labs, they heard a cold female voice. "You do not know the privilege of being a mother." Surprised, they swung around weapons ready and faced an older Asari. They Asari wore a dark blue gown that shows a modest amount of cleavage and a headdress of the same color. By the looks of her, you wouldn't be able to tell that she was several centuries old. She stood at a comfortable distance, up a small case of stairs on a raised platform; she looked down on them with cold eyes full of murderous intent.
John looked back at Liara, she looked downtrodden. "Mother…," she said sadly.