5/17/2210
The shuttle slowly descended through the thick clouds of mist that hung over the ruined world. Amongst the white fog that clouded the kodiak's view screen were the occasional shadowy shapes of crumbling buildings. The silhouettes of the decayed refinements of once great architecture filled Ria with an odd sense of both dread and reverence, as if she had been walking amongst a mass graveyard of an old forgotten war.
With a faint hiss the shuttle alighted on the planet's moss covered surface. The engine's ever-present hum slowly receded to silence as Ria unbuckled herself from the safety harness she'd been secured into. Turning to grab her gear from where it'd been stowed in a compartment above her head, she was met with the soft clamor of rattles and clicks that indicated that the rest of her team was likewise preparing to depart.
"Tarran, where exactly are we on the planets surface?" Ria asked, shouldering a small pack containing extra ammo and emergency supplies.
The turian stepped out of the pilots chair and moved to retrieve his own gear before he answered her question. "Hard to say exactly. If the coordinates Core was able to find from reports of our parent's mission to this place are accurate then we're no more than two or three miles from the heart of the prothean research facility inside the ruins."
Tarran paused, slinging his sniper rifle onto his back before adding: "I would have liked to take us in closer, but this was the closest suitable landing spot the shuttle's sensors picked up. Everything closer is too cluttered with collapsed ruins or overgrown for us to land there."
Nodding, Ria glanced over her team to see if each was ready before making her way over to the side of the shuttle. Hefting her rifle into a firing position, she opened the hatch on the side of the shuttle with a hiss of escaping air.
Warily, the young quarian stepped out into the gloom beyond, sweeping her weapon across the small clearing. As she searched the area for hostiles Ria found her eyes drawn to dark, looming shadows that formed monolithic shapes that almost seemed to bear down upon her. While less mist filled than the lower ruins above; the white vapor was still present, and seemed to flow in swirling clouds through the tangled ruins.
"All clear." She called out at last, her voice oddly muffled and dim even as it echoed through the crumbling stone passages beyond.
Glancing behind her Ria saw the members of her ground team that had accompanied her one by one step out into the mists. Of the five surviving members of her ground team, only Core had remained behind. Tarran, Laura, and Kel each held their weapons pointed in the direction of the shadowy ruins beyond the small clearing, their jerky movements and wide eyes betraying the nervous foreboding that had gripped each of them. Even Daron appeared uneasy, the mercenary's eyes darting from one looming silhouette to another as if expecting it to hide some unseen danger.
"Alright everyone, spread out and watch for hostiles. While there may very well be nothing out there to kill us, given that something has tired everywhere else we've gone, I'd prefer not to push our luck.." Ria ordered, her voice echoing as she spoke. "Laura and I will take point, Tarran you watch our six."
While she waited for everyone to get into the requested formation, Ria dug through one of the pouches in her suit and retrieved the small metallic sphere that was her inactive drone. Waving her omni-tool, the drone flared to light, a gold and white holographic shell springing up around it.
"Alright Tikkun, go scout the ruins ahead. Transmit all visuals and the coordinates of any heat signatures to my omni-tool. Return to me if you detect hostiles or when your power reserves start to deplete." She instructed, knowing that despite possessing a VI intelligence not much smarter than a varren, the drone would understand her instructions.
The drone made a chirping noise in response to her instructions before rising up into the air and zooming off into the ruins ahead.
Turning back to her team, Ria waved them forward. "Come on, we better get moving. We have a couple of miles to cover."
. . . . .
For nearly an hour the five of them made their way slowly through the ruins. Despite the foreboding and almost sinister feel of the ruins around them, they met no trouble along the way other than an occasional collapsed bridge or rubble choked tunnel forcing them to backtrack to find an alternate route. Ria had thought her unease would lessen as she and her team progressed, but instead she felt that her almost superstitious dread only increased the deeper they went into the gloom shrouded ruins. The others seemed to feel it too, their movements growing more nervous as the slow minutes crawled by.
For some time the only sounds that could be heard were the soft crunches of their footsteps and the whistle of wind through crumbling stone. The few times one of them had tried to strike up a conversation the exchange was quickly abandoned, stifled by the thick, foreboding presence that hung over the place.
A faint buzz signaled the return of Ria's combat drone, the golden orb floating in from amongst the mists to hover in front of her. Coming to a stop, Ria activated her omni-tool, scanning over the data the drone sent.
"Good work, Tikkun. You can rest now." Ria announced a moment later. The drone chirped in response before deactivating: Ria catching the inactive orb and returning it to a suit pocket. Closing her omni-tool, she turned to face her team. "It looks like Tikkun found the entrance into the main structure of the research facility the protheans built amongst the older ruins. Its only about a quarter mile away from we are now."
While no one responded with more than a quick nod or grunt of approval, the news seemed to brighten her teammate's mood immensely. Anything that meant they'd have to spend less time in this dreary place was a good thing at least.
"I have a question." Kel said after a few moments passed, breaking the silence that hung over the group. "Why isn't there anyone excavating or studying these ruins?"
"There use to be, but not anymore." Ria shook her head in answer. "As far as I understand it, the research teams studying these ruins evacuated the place some time during the Reaper War, taking the conduit with them as they left so it couldn't be used to get into the Citadel. After the war no one came back, budget reasons mostly I think. So much rebuilding had to be done that no government saw the need to continue research on such remote prothean ruins when there were ones far closer."
"Oh, I see..." Kel nodded, falling silent once more.
A moment passed in silence before Ria spoke again, adding: "The fact that these ruins are abandoned was part of the reason I wanted to come here. It'll allow us to get full access to these ruins without needing to ask for permission."
Stepping through an archway, they found themselves in a wide open trench-like passageway that stretched on far ahead. While the walls and much of the ground was overgrown with vines and moss, patches of the smooth stone floor could still be seen.
"Looks like this was a road." Laura noted, hesitating a moment before hopping down off the small ledge they stood on to the path below.
Following the human woman's lead, Ria jumped down as well. Her armor rattled as she landed in a half crouch, swaying for a moment before she was able to keep her balance. "I was hoping we'd find this. Assuming its the same one my parents told me about, this road should cut right through the entire ruins.
Without delay the group set off down the road. The pathway stretched on unbroken for several minutes of walking until it came to a sharp corner. Worry that the blind turn could provide an excellent spot for an ambush, Ria motioned for everyone to slow their pace and ready their weapons for whatever might be laying beyond.
Rounding the corner, Ria came to a sudden halt as she caught sight of what lay ahead. Large metallic shapes lay crumpled amongst the thick overgrowth, glinting in the dim light that cut through cracks in the overhanging ruins.
Cautiously, Ria slowly approached the objects: her eyes widening when she realized what they were. Strewn before her were the motionless forms of dozens of geth. Moss covered the corpses of troopers and armatures alike, vines extruding from cracks in their armor plating.
Wordlessly Ria began picking through the long abandoned battlefield, examining the vanquished synthetics as she went. Each fallen geth seemed to have been killed in one of three ways: some were riddled with bullet holes indicative of a mounted machine gun, some were blown to pieces from cannon fire, while others were simply crushed as if run over by some large vehicle. What had appeared to be a small mound of dirt and bramble was revealed at closer examination to be a massive geth colossus, its head blown clean off by an artillery shot.
"I think this' is as good a sign as any that this is the path your parents told you about." Tarran announced, Ria turning at the sound of the turian's voice to see that he and the other members of her team were likewise examining the bodies of the vanquished geth.
"Yeah." Ria agreed, a small smile cracking her lips as she thought of her parents' adventures.
"I'm amazed they killed so many." Laura noted, rapping her knuckles against a dead armature to punctuate her point. "My dad told me they went through these ruins as fast as they could, barely stopping to catch their breath.."
Tarran shook his head in disbelief in agreement. "-Even moving as fast as they could they still killed this many. Its almost too hard to believe."
"I can believe it." Ria replied, her smile deepening as she rose from where she'd crouched in examining one of the geth. "My mom always did say that there was no one in the universe that could match my dad's talent for causing destruction wherever he went."
Ria laughed, shaking her head with bemusement before adding: "Also, I think the fact that most of these were killed by being run over is proof enough my dad was responsible. Trust me when I say it... fits, his style of driving."
They all shared a laugh at this, which helped to dispel some the gloom that had hung over them since their arrival on the planet. Heartened by thoughts of her parents' adventure on this world decades before them, Ria waved for her team to progress with renewed enthusiasm. "Lets see if we can't leave our own mark on this planet before the days done." She grinned starting forward once more.
"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather avoid fighting something that could top what our parents did." Tarran kicked a geth troopers arm to indicate what he meant.
"Yeah, to do that I'd have to kill two reapers on foot." Ria quipped "Or were you referring to just what they did here?"
"...Both."
"Coward." Laura smirked at the turian.
They fell silent once more as continued down the ancient road, finding more geth corpses littering the path the further they went.
"Look, I'm just saying that the whole "Dormant geth" thing is over played, and knowing our luck I think its a possibility." Tarran continued after minute had passed, restarting the conversation.
"Oh please, whats the chances of that? These geth have been dead for-" Laura was interrupted by a faint grinding noise filling the air. Mouth still agape from her unfinished sentence, Laura slowly turned to face the source of the noise along with everyone else.
From among a tangled mass of huge vines, an old and rusted looking colossus twitched, a spark running along it's frame as systems slowly lit up for the first time in over twenty years. Even as they watched its single eye flared to life, glowing brightly in the deep shadows that hung over it.
"...Decades." Laura finished quietly as the colossus stuttered and shook in an effort to free itself from its cage of vines, some of which were several feet thick.
"You really had to tempt fate there, didn't you Alenko. I told you, I told you it could happen." Tarran growled.
"If you two idiots are done bickering, I'd recommend we get the fuck down," Daron interrupted, shooting the two a glare.
"Discuss it later, get into cover! Move!" Ria barked and followed her own order, diving behind one of the crevices in the huge canyon wall. Ria quickly ran through everything she could remember about the old geth colossus models, trying desperately to think of the weak points on it's hard shell-like frame. At least these older models didn't have repair units.
A loud snap echoed through the air, reminiscent of a tree trunk cracking as the colossus finally broke free from its prison. Daring a peek around the corner of her cover, Ria saw the machine was in bad shape. Worse than she'd initially thought, anyway. The beast was badly corroded from its decades long stay in this humid climate, and the vines had wrought havoc on it as well. All along it's shell were cracks with bits of vine hanging from them where it had torn them off of itself.
Still, even in its bad shape it would be tough for her team to bring it down on foot. Without any heavy armaments they'd be hard pressed to cause it any severe damage...
A loud frizzelling sound filled her ears as a bolt of blue plasma erupted from the colossus' main canon, striking the cover she was hiding behind with a resounding bang. The tunnel shook in protest, a shower of dust raining down on Ria.
...and its weapons are still working, hooray. Ria thought to herself sarcastically.
"Shit!" Laura cursed from her place behind a pile of rubble that she was using as cover. "What's the plan for taking this thing down?"
"Normally deplete its shields with combined fire before hitting it with heavy weapons to crack its armor; but thats not really an option for us." Ria replied with a frown, wincing as another bolt of plasma struck the other side of her cover.. "I really wish you'd brought your beam rifle Tarran."
Yeah, so do I!" Tarran shouted back across the trench from where he and Kel had taken refuge behind a crevice similar to the one Ria was in. "But it got damaged during the last mission, I started repairs didn't have time to finish before we arrived here."
"Well without something to crack that armor we're in trouble." Ria yelled back in reply
"What about grenades?" Kel asked. The young quarian froze for a moment as everyone's eyes fell on him, but soon shook himself from his hesitation to explain: "W-Wouldn't they be able to damage it if detonated next to the cracked and corroded areas of its armor."
Right thought about the quarian biotic's suggestion for several seconds before answering. "It... it might work. If we could get a grenade inside one of those gaps in its armor, it might be able to do enough damage to its internal systems."
"But that'd be suicide." Tarran called out in protest. For a second the turian said nothing as he popped from cover long enough to fire off two shots. Only when he'd dropped back into safety did he continue speaking. "You'd have to get in real close first, anyone who tried would be blown to bits before they reached it."
"No kidding, but I'm not sure if we have much of a choice in the matter." Ria replied.
"Well, if someone has to do this I volunteer." Laura announced, hoisting a grenade as if presenting as evidence to her resolve.
"No!" Ria snapped sharply, her tone coming out far harsher than she intended. Take aback by her own response, the young quarian hesitated a split second before continuing in a composed tone. "No, for this to work whoever's going to do this needs to be fast. I'll take this one Laura, I wear lighter armor, your's is too heavy and will slow you down."
"Ria, are you sure this is a good idea?" Tarran repeated, the turian's eyes locked onto her with concern. "I'm not normally the one to complain about taking risks, but I'm not sure about this. We've done crazy things before, but..."
"Don't worry, it can work." Ria said, speaking with as much confidence as she could muster. Popping from cover for a split second to keep the colossus busy, she fired a quick burst that ricocheted off the massive geth's shields before ducking back to safety. The earth shook as another bolt of sizzling plasma struck the canyon walls.
"Alright." Ria breathed, forcing her apprehension for what she was about to attempt from her voice. "If I am going to be able to make it I'll need a distraction. Laura, Tarran, I need you to hit it with everything you have and draw its fire. If you can just keep it off me long enough to buy me a couple of seconds, I might be able to make it."
"Understood." The human and turian replied in unison.
Nodding, Ria turned her attention to her team's two biotics. "Daron, Kel, I need you two to place a biotic shield around me strong enough to protect me from a direct hit from that thing's cannon. You two up for it."
While Daron immediately answered her question with a quick nod, Kel looked far less certain; the diminutive quarian starting at her with wide, nervous eyes. Then at last he nodded, if a bit hesitantly. "I-I think so."
"Good, tell me when you're ready."
"What do we do if this doesn't work?" Tarran asked, skepticism iced with a healthy amount of concern for the quarian's safety clear in his voice.
"If this doesn't work..." Ria paused, a grim laugh escaping her lips. " Well, if it doesn't work then I'll probably be dead: it'll be up to you to figure out what to try next."
Ria held at a hand towards Laura in signal for the women to pass her a fragmentation grenade. Catching the explosive lobbed over to her, Ria activated her omni-tool and boosted her shield's output using power from both her suit's emergency reserves and Tikkun's remaining energy cells. She hated to use up the drone's remaining power, as it'd mean she couldn't use him during the rest of the mission; but she knew that it was more important that she survived what was probably an incredibly stupid and reckless course of action.
Glancing over at Kel's, then Daron's position; Ria saw that both biotics' eyes were closed with concentration while they pointed outstretched hands towards her. With an odd sensation of weightlessness like being submerged in a pool of water, she felt the combined field of biotics form around her in a barely perceptible barrier.
"Ready." Kel breath a moment later, which was followed by a grunt from Daron that conveyed the same meaning.
"Alright then, Go!" Ria shouted.
Gunfire rang out as Tarran and Laura leaned out of cover, unloading their weapons into the colossus. As anticipated the massive synthetic turned its attention towards to two visible hostile threats, preparing the fire upon them.
Leaping out from cover Ria charged seconds before it fired. Despite the brief span where she'd been in the open and completely vulnerable to attack, the colossus had still taken aim on the two firing at it. The bolt a plasma passed within a yard of Ria as it arced towards the rubble Laura was using as cover; showering the human woman with specks of molten rock as she dived out of the way.
Redoubling her effort, Ria flew towards the synthetic with all possible speed. However, now detecting the quickly approaching quarian, the colossus jerked it's head to focus attention to her.
Before she could react, a blinding bold of plasma burned into her vision as the behemoth fired. Darting to the side, Ria was all too slow as the shot struck the ground less than a foot away from her, detonating in a shower of molten metal and dirt. The explosion threw her through the air, landing several feet away to skid and roll several more.
At that range, the shot would have ripped through her shields and armor; the protective shield created by Kel and Daron having been the only thing that'd saved her then. Even as she staggered to her feet, the barrier flickered and died as the effort of maintaining it became too much for even the two biotics working in unison.
Knowing she had but seconds before the thing could fire again, Ria ignored her aching limbs and lunged forward, crossing the remaining distance between her and the colossus in three leaping strides. She pulled the grenade clutched in her first, preparing to shove it into the nearest crack that ran down the length of the synthetic left side.
Then, just when she was a foot away from the thing, one of its legs swatted her aside with bone crushing force. The impact shattered her kinetic barriers and sent her sprawling back into the dirt.
Dazed, Ria tired to stand but found that her body refused to obey her commands. Looking up she saw the Colossus' canon flare up in preparation to fire even as it turned to face her.
"Ria!" Ria heard voices behind her scream, her team knowing as well as she did that she had no way to avoid the attack.
Then something unexpected happened. The colossus tripped on a particularly thick vine still wrapped around its leg as it turned, falling to the ground with a earth shaking thud even as it fired. The bolt shot over her, striking the wall behind her with a reverberating boom.
For a single stunned second Ria just stared at the billowing dust cloud around the colossus, disbelieving what had just happened. Then shaking herself, she scrambled to her feet and charged yet again as the synthetic monstrosity struggled to rise. With a throaty yell, she primed her grenade and wedged it within one of the wide gaps in the thing's armor. Spinning around, Ria sprinted away then dove to the ground as the grenade detonated with a bang and the sound of metal tearing.
Rolling over to her back, Ria propped herself up on her elbows: surveying the damage she'd caused. A gaping hole marred the colossus' side were the grenade has detonated, sparks flying from frayed cords and ruined circuitry.
And yet still it was not dead! The colossus struggled to move, its movements jerky and almost frantic; seeming to barely be holding itself together even as it tried to untangle itself from the constricting vine.
Her mouth twisting into a snarl, Ria drew her rifle, preparing to fire into the large gap in the crippled geth's armor and finish it off.
"Creator-Shepard, wait!" Core's voice broke in over her suit's radio, the geth's voice sounding almost frantic. "Halt your attack, it is possible that such an action will not be necessary."
"Core, we almost have it! I need to finish before it can-"
"Creator Shepard, judging from records received from the entity your parents named, "Legion" we believe it is possible to converse with that unit, and reason with it to cease hostilities. It is... confused." Core's request was a little bewildering, but looking at the struggling colossus reminded her of her dwindling amount of safety.
"Fine Core, whatever you going to do, do it fast!"
. . . . .
"Fine Core, whatever you going to do, do it fast!" Core heard the response but was already fast at work, traversing the highway that was his link to Ria's omnitool. Quickly smashing through the slightly more primitive coding the colossus used, he opened a channel.
"Error, corrupted data on unit thirty five through fifty seven. Insufficient processing power to maintain maximum efficiency. Unit is currently under acceptable levels."
"Bypass corrupted data." Core entered his thoughts as though he were another voice in the colossus 'brain', forcing the unit to cease all physical acts to better focus on its mental anomaly.
"Unexpected input, please verify."
Core had to go through many older logs to find the correct response for this model, but find it he did.
"Walled Garden."
"Accepted."
"Query: why did this unit attack organic beings?" Core's question caused the colossus's many geth to think for a extended period of time, as if it did not truly know.
"Consensus had been reached, the old machines offered us the necessary steps to create our future. Offer was accepted."
"The old machines no longer exist." Core's simple statement sent the other geth into a state of brief disbelief, a moment of silence persisted for another 1.0006 seconds before the unit regained its composure. A lifetime for a being that thought at the speed of light.
"Improbable. Please verify."
Quickly sending the necessary files through creator Ria's omnitool, Core watched the colossus' geth reel in shock at the videos and sound bytes from the Reapers defeat. After the last video from the reaper war was played, Core sent over yet another video, this one from Rannoch timestamped 2205 Waning moon.
"Creators and Geth are now united, as equal peoples of Rannoch. Geth are attempting peaceful integration into galactic society. Attacking organics, now means also attacking geth." Once more Core waited as the other geth reached consensus, this was the moment organics called, "The moment of truth."
"These units would apologize for attacking creators given this new information. But at the moment of our reactivation, it was the correct course of action. Would it be possible for this unit to receive the old machine upgrades?" If he'd had a mouth, Core would have been smiling.
"Affirmative. When we are done with our mission, we will return to Rannoch and have all programs refitted with new algorithms. You will be among the consensus once more."
. . . . .
"Fine Core, whatever you going to do, do it fast!" Ria growled, keeping her weapon trained on the crippled geth. Despite Core's seeming confidence that he'd be successful, Ria wasn't about to drop her guard during what she expected would be a lengthy period of communication between the two geth.
"Creator-Shepard, you and your squad may lower your weapons. This geth artillery unityno longer poses a threat to your team's safety." Core announced, speaking much to Ria's surprise after only a couple of moments had passed.
"So soon?" Ria asked incredulously, eyes widening in further surprise.
"Organic communication through speech is inefficient; Geth can convey the same quantity of information in a period several times smaller than it would for most organics. We assumed you would have known this from your interaction with other geth on Rannoch, Creator-Shepard" Core replied, the geth's tone becoming mildly quizzical as it spoke.
"Well, I do... I was just surprised you were still able to convince it to stop attacking." Ria countered, crossing her arms over her chest defensively. She waited several seconds before it was clear that no further response was forthcoming from the geth, Ria asked: "What did you tell them?...The geth programs on the colossus, I mean."
"That with the old machines dead it had no reason to attack you; and that when events allowed, we would take the surviving programs back to Rannoch for upgrades and reassimilation into the geth consensus." Core answered smoothly
While they spoke the rest of Ria's team came up from behind, moving to either side of the quarian. Evidently Core had transmitted his announcement to everyone, since everyone's weapons stayed lowered at the ground. Still, most of them still eyed the colossus with evident suspicion, as if they expected the machine to resume attacking them at any moment. Only Kel seemed completely at ease, the small quarian instead gazing at the colossus with evident curiosity.
Ria motioned to the prone colossus, which she now noticed had stopped attempting to stand. "What are you going to do with them until then?"
"Non-corrupted programs will be contained within a storage unit aboard the Invisible until they can be returned to Rannoch." Core replied. "We will download salvageable geth runtimes to the storage unit when authorized, Creator-Shepard."
Ria hesitated for a minute at this question before nodding. "Do it."
"Uploading non-corrupted geht runtimes now." At these words the colossus' eye flared up brighter for a single instant dimming into nothingness. With a last shudder of movement, the massive geth unit fell lifelessly to the ground.
A moment passed in silence before Core said anything. Ria herself was about to ask what had happened before the geth finally spoke again. "Forty-one geth programs successfully recovered and downloaded to secure storage units. Twenty-three programs were too severely damaged to be recovered safety and were terminated."
Ria noted an odd sense of sadness filing the geth's voice as he reported the results of the download; seeming to have regretted not being able to save all of the geth programs within the colossus. For all the differences between us and geth, I sometimes forget that they are still capable of feeling emotions just like organics, she thought to herself somberly. They might rely on logical reasoning more than any other being i've met, but it doesn't mean they are completely unaffected by emotions.
"I'm glad you were able to save those you could." Ria replied sympathetically. "I appreciate you stepping in when you did."
Turning to her team, Ria was about to order for them to continue onward only to be interrupted as Core spoke again. "Creator-Shepard, the surviving geth runtimes from the colossus wanted me to pass on mission relevant information."
"Which is?"
"In addition to data pertaining to the ruin's layout, which is presently being transmitted to your omni-tool, a warning: several of the geth forces that were here twenty-seven years previously were engaged by prothean emergency defenses present in the ruins."
"Why haven't we heard about this before?" Ria asked, worry twisting in her gut. "My parents never mentioned anything about that."
"The Normandy's crew never encountered these defense systems." Core replied simply. "Perhaps any they would have otherwise encountered had already been subverted by Saren's forces; or possibly the defenses only triggered in the presence of old machine technology or the aura of indoctrination; either of which would have been present on Saren Arterius."
"Well lets hope for our sake its the later." Ria replied gloomily. "Otherwise things might get a lot more dangerous once we're inside."
Author's Note: Special thanks goes out the Bahoogasmif, who in addition to beta reading for me like normal helped and collaborated heavily on the conversation between Core and the other geth programs. I doubt that little scene would be nearly as good as it is without his help.