Jane
They lacked any visuals of the terrain of Tarith outside the shuttle is nothing but the thick green haze of the chlorine gas, all that can be seen are the scarce spires of dense rock formations jutting from the fog. How, according to readings of the planet's surface, someone was able to set up some kind of facility was a mystery she'd like to know. Of course, perhaps the lack of any signs of said settlers was just as telling as any questions she could have asked. With hopes, it was just abandoned and not devoid of life due to something living on the planet, but her hopes didn't often pan out, so it'd be best to be aware.
The faster they closed in on the cluster of signals, the more obvious it became that they probably weren't going to come out of this with too many survivors. Already, they were leaving the smaller pod signals to, quite literally, die because they just didn't have the time, supplies, or transport for a ship full of dignitaries and the Glory's working crew. No, their best bet was to the largest collection of escape pods, fit as many as they could aboard the shuttle, and get the hell out of dodge.
Jane could only guess what fit Alenko would have thrown had he known of their plan. Whether or not he realized the Normandy could neither land in this dense gas nor could the shuttle make continuous trips into the unknown for strangles, she knows he would think of a way to sacrifice something of the Normandy's for the sake of a few politicians. In a way, it's better he remain on Earth where there still remains those who share his views than aboard a ship where nearly everyone on it either trusts in hers and Garrus' judgment, or just outright doesn't give shit unless it concerns them.
The most they get from those who would have objections is a mere downturned frown, but they knew the price of distractions, of going the extra mile would get all of them. They all learned that the hard ways during the war are starting to see it in this dark galaxy the Reapers left in their wake. It wasn't just Jane and her mate that were willing to do anything to just make it all stop, to spare themselves the continued turmoil of having to live the dark, cold truth of the present universe. Even if they didn't want to be the ones to make the hard decisions, many of them silently agreed.
It was, after all, their lives or the lives of those that would merely forget their existence, their predicament, the moment they were in the safety of their perfect Destiny Ascension and lies of normalcy. She isn't surprised that her crew silently, reluctantly, turned away from the very ones who would turn a blind eye to them. Better us first than them later.
At least they have one thing in their favor in that this squad wouldn't have any qualms about what they were about to do and, more importantly, what they weren't going to do. Rym, despite her outward charity towards her own people and those close to her, was still, deep down, a warrior as any other krogan. She knows the price of life is always death of the self or another and that only the strong survive. Arcanus? Well, he was a merc, through and through. If there is no benefit, he does not see the reason for the extra effort.
Neither questions the logic of the fact that the less effort and time they spend trying to find those most likely already dead or dying in the chlorine gas, the better. This will be as in and out as they can manage while planning for extra usage of their oxygen when the inevitable fight surrounds them.
"Cortez? What's our ETA?" She snaps her helmet on with a soft hiss and watches her team do the same, Rym hitting the top of hers in building anticipation for their drop.
"Closing in now, Shepard." He is already in a pressurized flight suit and matching helmet, too focused on piloting to deal with the luxury and risk of waiting. "There seems to be a communication relay nearby. I suggest you find the crew and reach it to call for pickup."
Garrus turns his black helmet towards the pilot before stepping to the cockpit door way. "You're thinking our comms won't work," he says more than asks and even Jane sees Steve's shake of his head.
"It's not that, sir. We got hostiles in the area, don't know what yet, and trying to navigate the fog to the ground to pick you up will be risky." He taps the readouts of his console just as Jane heads up to see him then point to a structure - man-made - in the distance. "That's the communication tower. It's on higher ground where the fog is less concentrated."
Sighing, she has to reluctantly agree. She had expected that they'd drop from the shuttle as it's hovering because it was just safer to get moving and get the shuttle out into the air before anything targeted it, so the terrain hadn't registered as a problem. Now that he's stated what should be obvious, it makes stupidly perfect sense for the need to get to higher and flatter ground. Unless, of course, they and those they've come down for suddenly knew how to sprout wings and fly up to the shuttle compartment.
"Just fucking great," Jane says as she pats her husband's shoulder to follow as it's time to get ready for their drop by the slowing outside the front view screen. "Do we have anyway to get there?"
"There looks to be a path." Steve's voice comes through their comms as he sets up the channel and links them in. "See that blue light? The one that bends around that formation of rock?"
"We do," Rym says as she looks at the tiny screen of the camera situated on the outside hull. "Some sort of path from the mining operation?"
"Looks like it. Would make sense if they lead there, a way to connect the facility through the chlorine gas," Garrus says as the shuttle slows to a stop, the door sliding open. "Now's a good of time as any to see."
"And if not?" Even if he can't see it, Jane raises a brow within her helmet is skepticism.
He merely shrugs before jumping down onto a rock surface just above the densest of the smog, immediately climbing down into the thick gases, and beyond her line of sight, in order to open the way for the next. Looking to Arcanus, she motions him next. "Shield our path in case there's anything waiting for us down there."
The older man nods and follows the same path her mate had taken, climbing down a path in the rocks that she nor Rym can see from the shuttle. She has to go off of trust in Garrus knowing what he's doing - which can be a scary thought considering they tend to not plan shit out - but trust in him is not something she lacks, so she doesn't hesitate when she jumps down after the krogan woman. With an alert to Cortez to get into the sky and ready for their summons, she climbs down into the haze as seemingly thick as water.
When she passes through the shimmering blue of a biotic barrier, she knows she is close to the ground. In fact, so close, that, when hands wrap around her waist to help her down, she yelps and practically falls the next few feet to the solid ground. All three of the squad chuckle - yes, even the usually quiet Arcanus - as she turns to Garrus, the only one daring enough to do such a fucking stunt, and swats the front of his chest plate with a glare beneath her helmet.
"Ouch," he jokes with a rub to his chest and mock trill of pain. "You wound me."
"Remind me not to shoot you," she retorts as she pulls her weapon, the others following without a word. Looking around, she whistles in her helmet, a bit of awe mixed with exasperation at the fact that this mission is already turning sideways, and sees both turians wince at the sound. "Oh, calm down. Big babies."
"My ears are bleeding," Garrus mock complains, but she cuts him off. They need to focus on the mission and she knows they'll live the minor annoyance of her vocalization.
"They weren't kidding when they said this haze would blind us," she motions the few meters ahead of them where the chlorine gas creates a wall of solid yellowish green. "Everyone stick together. We don't need to go looking for you too."
She doesn't wait for their nods, knowing they'd have to be suicidal, stupid, or both to actually lose visuals in a place like this. Heading forward, she sees something in the mist, something dark and at least the size of their shuttle. Escape pod.
Motioning Rym to check it, she walks past it and holds a defensive line while Garrus watches over her shoulder and Arcanus watches their six. Even from where she is, she can tell the pod has been abandoned, whoever was inside perhaps stumbling off into the haze in shock from the crash or an attempt to find others or rescue. A dumb idea, but there isn't always the luxury of logic when people don't know if they'll ever be rescued.
"I found a body," the korgan says as she pulls out a semblance of a hanar corpse, its color a milky pink and body leaving a slimy trail where she pulls it out of the pod. Dropping it at their feet, the girl looks at her hands with a sound that sounds oddly like a 'ugh' of disgust.
"It has been dead for a number of days," Reguix says, turning from it to look into the smog. "I do not believe they were adequately equipped for this environment."
"That's what chlorine does to a hanar?" He nods and Jane cringes with a sound mimicking the one from the krogan just moments before.
The best way to describe the hanar isn't decaying in a normal sense that a human or other, non-aquatic species, would is that it seems to be… melting. A white mold grows on it and its form looks like it's a second from bursting like a balloon into wet sludge. She doesn't even want to imagine the smell.
"Let's keep moving. There has to be survivors somewhere."
"Look." Garrus pulls their attention as he hums and lowers his weapon, pointing above the fog to a new path of light extending from and bending away from the previous. "Someone is activating the beacons. They must be heading towards the communications tower."
Hefting her weapon up, she starts to proceed. "Then that's where we're headed."
"And if it's not survivors?"
She looks over her shoulder to Rym, smirking under her helmet. "Then we leave no survivors of whoever is turning them on."
The woman at her back chuckles, letting her lead on with Garrus directly behind the group and Arcanus at her side. Should it come time for battle against whatever they find - Jane having the mind to expect whoever they're tracking to turn whatever weapons they have on them out of fear and caution - she can trust the biotic turian to throw up a barrier to give them time to find cover behind the large boulders jutting from the ground along their path.
They travel deeper into the fog, finding signs of more bodies. Among the few hanar left to rot in the chlorine are an asari that must have sustained a wound from the crash and a human whose suit and skin beneath had been left charred. He looked better off, Jane thought, when she saw that he had only a half mask instead of a full helmet. That gas was bound to have been burning his eyes to the point of blindness.
"Looks like there's something on this planet, after all."
As if her words summoned the very thing responsible for their suspicions, they hear a loud, shrill bellowing and see a shadow concealed in the fog lift from the ground. She may not have much expertise in this subject or creature, but she knows enough from the few times facing the natural thing and the many fighting the Reaper version to completely believe and agree with Rym when she shouts. "Harvester!"
Garrus growls and begins to back up the rise as Reguix throws up a barrier over Jane and Rym lifting their shotguns. Where a natural Harvester is, there are those annoying little parasites - or whatever they are to it - nearby and hunting for something whose day to fuck up. "Think your barrier works against fire?"
The man's dark charcoal helmet looks to her with a scoff, as if insulted at her lack of faith and she shrugs. Better safe than sorry. He doesn't respond and instead points his weapon towards the incoming shadows scuttling over the dirt and rocks.
The loud blast of Garrus' rifle takes down own as Jane throws a Dominate at another to send it clawing and screeching at one of its own directly beside it. She watches another explode into flames at the same time she hears another shot from her right and sees Rym walking just to the edge of the blue bubble to slide her weapon pass the barrier, and within a meter of the enemy, before pulling the trigger.
"You will have to show me what it is you just did," Arcanus says to her side as he targets another, slowly walking with them as they advance.
"Trade secret, I'm afraid." Pulling a duo of Klixen into the air, she shoots one to let it explode and take out the other. "I can see a beacon ahead! Push forward!"
Growing impatient, it seems, Rym storms out of the barrier, grabs a Klixen by its antenna with a foot solidly pressed to the center of its head and yanks as she pushes. It's ripped apart with a loud shriek as Rym then kicks it into the incoming group, using its body as a weapon. When she steps back into the protective barrier, Jane smirks in her helmet and nods in 'damn good work' and the woman merely grunts with a nod of her own.
"Arcanus, lower the barrier. Save your energy," she says with full knowledge that they may not know how many waves they will face. Whatever stores he may have, they need to push ahead with the same amount of fight as now for even the very last battle.
She charges forward to show Rym how it's done when a shot whizzes by her head and sends her target into a billion flaming pieces. Knowing exactly who that was, she snaps her head over her shoulder. "You quite done showing off?"
"No," her mate responds with a rumble of amusement, taking another shot that ends with a wet explosion. "Scratch one."
Knowing that their only option is to push forward, they round the fresh bodies and head forward. There's nothing can do for the dead and they can't stop and wait for another wave of Klixen or they'd never move towards the comm tower. What the bodies do tell them, however, is that the numbers of hanar greatly outnumber the counting asari. Whatever this ship was heading to do, it's obvious it must have been a transport of the Illuminous Assembly, or whatever such shit the hanar high command was called.
When they reach a new beacon, she gives Rym the freedom to check an open Omni-Tool so long as she's quick about it. The Tool is found on an asari's arm blasted a meter away from her body by a Klixen attack and, though it takes a big to navigate, they find a recording.
"This is Heria Y'zani. I am, was, a soldier aboard the Helia's Glory. We were shot down by - Goddess, I can't believe I'm saying this - Geth." Jane raises a brow and looks to her mate, who seems intent on listening as he looks off into the smog. "I don't know why, but a Geth ship cornered and fired on us. We had no option but to use the escape shuttles, but, dammit, we didn't know this place was toxic. Not that we had a choice… The members of the Illuminated Primacy are dying from the gases on this planet. We're trying all we can, but we were already down to five guards and two hanar." Looking at the body, she goes to check it for anything else associated with this recording, maybe a comm within the helmet that's still working despite the flames. "I'm hurt from those damn bugs, burned on my back. I'm… I'm going to stay behind with one of the hanar to try and help it, but I don't think we'll make it… Oh Goddess… I hear more. At least… at least I can buy the others some time."
"It cuts off after that," Rym says as she stands. "Did you find a comm, Shepard?"
The face beneath the helmet is scared, but determined in her final moments of death despite the deep, angry burns. Whatever she expected when she was posted aboard the Glory, Jane is pretty sure it hadn't meant dying on a planet where you could barely see your hand in front of your face and at the hands - claws, pincers, whatever - of Klixen. She turns the helmet to look for the comm, but shakes her head. "Whatever was working, it's not know. The flames made it through the visor and seals."
"We should keep moving," her mate finally says, looking away from the distance. "They are still moving."
The other turian nods and looks from the blue lights in the distance. "They are at least three beacons ahead and, it seems, close to the communications relay."
"Then let's double time it." Gripping her weapon, she starts off slow to ensure their heavy bootsteps are following before speeding up.
The signs of battle are more obvious with each passing beacon, guards or blood left behind and passing by as they round around the dead where they have fallen. If the asari soldier's report is correct, the numbers are waning by the second and they are in desperate need of both backup and extraction. She can only guess what shit they'd be in if they return without even a single hanar diplomat to the Normandy's name.
It's when they see the communications beacon towering overhead that they hear the 'whoomf' of an explosive launching over their heads. Instinctively dropping into a slide from her momentum and hearing the others drop in their own manners, she feels their protection from another surround them just as the grenade explodes against the shimmering blue field.
"Hold your fire! We're friendlies!"
At least the weapons' fire stops long enough for someone to yell back, "Who the hell are you?! State your business!"
"Saving your sorry asses!" Rym says for her as Jane gets to her feet, holding her weapon at the ready just in case. The voice sounds female, and they're speaking Standard - which is predominantly asari - but that could mean a number of things.
Holding a hand to still the krogan, Jane calls out this time. "We're the crew of the Normandy under orders of the Council." A little lie doesn't hurt considering they would probably have been sent to do this anyway, she considers. "I'm Spectre Shepard and Spectre Vakarian and my crew are here to evacuate you."
"Proceed, but I'm watching you," the voice says and they slowly begin to climb the steep incline towards the thinning fog while Reguix maintains the barrier. I'm starting to like the little forcefield I get to walk around in. Wonder if it'll keep people from trying to always shoot us.
Fog thins to allow them the first glimpse of those they have come here to rescue, of which remains an injured asari propped up to watch the rear, two near death hanar flopped at the knees of an asari medic trying desperately to tend to them, and a heavily armed asari with a brightly painted grenade launcher in her hands and a suspicious scowl on her face. Both are pointed directly at them.
"Nice weapon," Jane she motions it.
"It's even better in getting a job done," the woman responds with a jerk of her helmet towards the injured. "You got a way out of here or something?"
"Rym?" She doesn't need to say more as the krogan woman knows what is needed, heading towards the communications relay to see if she can get a channel open. Hell, if there is a way, she'll find it. Of that, Jane has no doubt after seeing all the work she's put into repairing the AI Core. "Tell me what happened?"
"We were shot down by damn Geth."
"And here I thought we'd be done with Geth problems," Garrus sighs with a shake of his head as Reguix drops the barrier.
"I don't know what's with the bastards," the asari continues, shaking her helmeted head. "They just showed up out of nowhere and didn't respond to any of our communication hails. Then they closed in and opened fire before we even had the chance to get out of our bunks. Are ship was a transport, not a warship."
A shrill roar goes over the air, calling their heads around the perimeter to find the source. "We can share theories later," Garrus says as he moves to watch the edge of the haze for signs of life. "We have hostiles."
"You better have a way off this shithole," the woman looks over to Jane as she shares her cover, Arcanus taking another closer to Rym to watch her and their backs.
"Not really."
"You better be joking."
"Fine." Jane smiles under her mask as she throws a Dominate into the group followed by a Shockwave. "We can take the shuttle."
She hears the 'fwomp' of the launcher beside her and the resulting explosion before the woman speaks against. "Then let's kill these bastards so I can get the hell off this rock."