Chapter 38

Debris was falling all around her and even though she was in a very high tech suit and helmet that could probably take a small rock or two, Shepard still protected her head with one of her arms.

"And the reason to why you couldn't use hacking or omni-gel charges was because?..." She asked Holt who was standing next to her with a recently fired rocket launcher.

"Because this might be my last chance on the mission to use this." He said while motioning towards the weapon in question. Shepard had asked him to get the locked door open and had expected him to silently get it open with his omni-tool but he had quickly brought out the rocket launcher and blown the door open.

"To be fair, Commander. You never said how you wanted it opened." Ashley said as she apparently sided with Holt on this. Wrex also made an approving grunt which told Shepard that she was outnumbered. Sighing in defeat, she began walking towards the now destroyed doors of the Cerberus base they had located.

"Had hoped we could be a bit stealthy on this mission."

"Element of surprise only works against groups that have poor communication and aren't run by a paranoid madman." Holt said as he jogged up to walk beside her. Ashley and Wrex brought up the rear. "Cerberus was probably well aware of us as soon as we landed on the planet. The only valuable info that can be gotten here will be here in a physical form. All the data is without a doubt already purged." Shepard didn't mind as it was a person they were searching for anyway. Admiral Kahoku was going after Cerberus but there had been no signs of fighting from before Shepard's group arrived. ow there was plenty of signs as Cerberus was stupid enough to go against a team of highly trained soldiers. And a krogan, can't forget the krogan.

"You sound like you've dealt with Cerberus before?" Ashley asked Holt as they got close to the doors. Shepard motioned for them to stack up.

"Only like once or twice. They don't care for me that much since I can look at an other species without being filled with blood lust." Shepard glanced around the corner and didn't see any enemies. She gave a nod towards Wrex who took point. "Also the fact that I was tasked with finding out info about one of their officers was something that didn't improve our relationship."

"What did you learn?" Shepard quietly asked as they made their way through the halls. She was kind of curious as Holt's stories from his work were always interesting to hear about. He'd told her stories about politicians that she would never again be able to see without bursting out in laughter.

"Not much and certainly not what the contractor wanted to find out. Some of the things I managed to dig up on her felt like it was... Let's just say that everything I wasn't asked to find out I ended up keeping a secret."

"Are you agents even allowed to do that?" Ashley asked as they scanned another room which turned out to be empty. Shepard wondered if Cerberus had already escaped through some secret exit. "Wouldn't your boss be pretty mad over you keeping information from him or her?"

"If they find out, sure. Even then you can just feign ignorance. A good agent finds out and keeps secrets from the other information brokers. the best agents finds out and keeps secrets from their own information broker."

"Couldn't you become one if you felt like it?"

"Too much paperwork involved." Shepard slightly chuckled at that before she turned towards Holt as they found yet another empty room.

"See if you can hack one of these terminals and find anything of use to us, Holt." The man in question threw her a hasty salute.

"By your orders, ma'am." He said as he made his way over to a couple of terminals that seemed to have been used not too long ago. On the other side of the room there were open cages which seems to have contained animals of some sort.

"Can you smell that?" Wrex suddenly asked. Shepard checked her omni-tool to see if it was safe to remove the helmet. The readings told her it was so she did and took a sniff of the air. She didn't notice anything but guessed that krogan had better sense of smell than humans did. She threw Wrex a questioning glance to urge him to continue. "Smells like something has been burned. It's coming from down the corridor." He answered as he motioned towards the door they had yet to enter.

"Alright, let's go check it out. How long till you're done, Holt?"

"Anything from one minute to an hour."

"Any chance of getting a more exact time?"

"Nope."

"I like how professional you're being about this." Ashley chuckled.

"Yes, well. I feel a bit free-spirited after being able to blow a large hole in something. Last time I was able to do that was against that thresher maw on Edolus."

"Which you didn't kill." Wrex quickly added. Sighing, Shepard made up a plan so that they would get through this place today.

"Alright, since something has recently been burned we need to move quickly in the chance of catching up with whoever it was that did the burning up part. Me, Wrex and Ashley will continue down the corridor, will you be fine here on your own?" She asked Holt.

"Hmm, I don't know. It might be difficult with all the resistance we've met so far in here." He said with some heavy sarcasm.

"I believe in you. You can do it. Etc etc." Shepard said as she fell in behind Wrex who was already on his way. Following Wrex's nose they scouted out several rooms along the way but found it just as abandoned as the other ones. They had only killed off around twenty Cerberus personnel outside the facility and Shepard refused to believe that had been all of them.

"I can smell it now as well." Ashley suddenly said. Shepard sniffed the air again and could this time also smell the distinct smell of burned... flesh? The smell made her feel slightly sick and hoped that they wouldn't walk into a massacre.

"It's coming from that room." Wrex said as he readied his shotgun and started moving towards one of the side rooms. The room was filled with boxes and a large oven of some sorts. 'An oven large enough to fit a large creature in it.' Shepard thought as she walked with reluctant steps towards it. Holding her breath she slowly opened it and was met with nothing but ash.

"Oh my fucking god." Ashley said as she covered her mouth and moved away from it. Shepard had to do the same as the smell hit her. Only Wrex didn't budge but Shepard thought that it was from pure willpower that he didn't look affected by the smell.

"It's not human." He calmly said. "Also doesn't smell like any other of the species I know of."

"I'm not gonna ask you how you know what different species smell like when burned to ash." Shepard said as she scanned the ashes in hope for something but her omni-tool couldn't place it. She closed the oven and made her way out of the room so that she could breathe properly again.

"They must've researching some really rare creatures here or something." Ashley said as Shepard decided to contact Holt. Now that they had found the source of the burning smell they should group up again.

"You could say that again." Holt's voice suddenly sounded from where they had come from earlier. "Did Wrex fart or something?" He laughed as he waved away the air in front of him.

"Did you manage to find out what kind of creatures they were? Or more importantly, did you find out anything about Admiral Kahoku?"

"Nothing about the admiral, sadly." He said as they continued to walk down the hall. "The creatures are... or well I guess were called rachni." Shepard stopped and spun around to look at the man to see if he was trying to make a joke of some sorts. His expression was serious enough though.

"Rachni as in the race that was wiped out ages ago by the krogan?" She asked, noticing that Wrex was also very interested in what Holt had to say.

"Not completely wiped out it seems. Couldn't find out where they got them from, sadly."

"What does Cerberus want to do with the rachni?" Ashley asked.

"Build an army? And before you ask me 'how are they meant to control them?'." Holt said as he looked towards Shepard who silently cursed him for being able to read her so well. "I found faint traces of the same data that ExoGeni have about the thorian." Shepard lowered her brows as she heard the name of the corporation that had decided to sacrifice a whole colony in their quest for knowledge and power.

"They were trying control the rachni using the thorian..." She said in a low voice. She hoped that they had somehow managed to cause a big dent in that operation. "Did this base have any research data concerning thresher maws?" She asked Holt. Hoping that they had no accidentally walked into a Cerberus base that had nothing to do with what happened on Edolus.

"They did. But as I said, just about all the data is gone. Think of it like an empty warehouse, we can see what kind of boxes that had been there recently but we can't be sure what they contained."

"Well, this is a lot to take in." Shepard said as she rubbed her forehead. She had hoped for a quick search and rescue mission but had somehow walked into a research facility that had somehow managed to revive a violent race believed to be extinct. "Let's find the Admiral and we'll sort all this out back on the Normandy."

"Uhm, Commander?" Ashley said with an uneasy voice from her position over by one of the doors further down. "I think we've found him." She said with a quiet voice. Shepard didn't have to guess twice that what Ashley was trying to say is that they were too late.