Moving through the barely lit corridors of Peak 15 was a nightmare. They ran into more than one Rachni on their way and all the while the chattering in the walls and under the floor never stopped. It sounded like it was coming from every vent, as if they were being followed by a horde that would not show itself except as spectres in their minds. The corridors were wide enough for only one person to have free movement so they were forced into single file. Wrex was in front, because he would accept no one else there while Shepard kept rotating who was behind between Garrus, Kaidan and Ashley, due to the stress that it was putting on them. It was effectively a death trap, easy to ambush and easy to trap. Shepard knew she was not the only one who felt like she was being herded and hunted by these supposedly dead creatures. They had come across a few open areas, in which it was quite apparent that there were a lot of dead Rachni and a lot of dead scientists and guards. Where there were no bodies -or body parts more accurately- there were pools and trails of blood, testament to the vicious conflict which had occurred here. Well, given the amount of red blood to green, it seemed more like a massacre.
"The hot labs should not be much further ahead," Shepard reported into her radio. A few Rachni had popped up here and there but Wrex had them under control, blowing them away with a combination of biotics and heavy firepower. She really did not envy him and given how this mission -indeed all the missions- had gone, she should not have been surprised by their appearance. She could barely remember a time before the Normandy, a time when stuff just went the way it was supposed to. Go to Eden Prime to pick up a beacon? Discover a race of omnicidal killing machines. Go to Therum to pick up a Doctor? Find Geth. Go to Feros to fight Geth? Discover ancient mind-controlling rosebud. Noveria to find a Matriarch? First a coup and then Rachni for dessert. Now Wrex had gone into some sort of primal killing mode in which he was talking to no one and no one wanted to go near him to go with Liara sucking the atmosphere from around her. Shepard hoped Benezia was not hiding too far into this place. The sooner she found the Matriarch, the sooner they could be off this frozen crap hole. Except of course now that she knew there were Rachni here, she would have to deal with that too.
Always something in the way...
As the door at the end of the corridor opened up and they found themselves in what appeared to be a lounge of some sort, a glass, rectangular room supported by two rows of steel pillars. It was filled with long pots of flowers, chairs and tables with a kitchen in one corner and a wide walkway running around the entire room seven feet off the ground. The walls were glass, clear and blue with still water on the other side in a pool formed from ice. There were personal effects scattered on all the surfaces and a few on the floor but there was no blood. It was if this room had simply been swept over without pause. Shepard glanced up at the walkways, then across the room. She could see the sign for the Hot Labs at the other end, just like that. It didn't sit right with her at all, something was not right.
"Cover," she hissed to the team and they began to spread out from their vulnerable single file and take up positions behind the pots. They were easily big enough for the squad to shelter behind. After a moment, Shepard popped her head over the top suspiciously, eyes sweeping every surface. Even the sound of the Rachni had dropped away, as if they were avoiding this room as much as she wanted to. She had no idea what it was that had set off her paranoia alarm so abruptly, she could feel a tingle running down the back of her spine, through her arms and legs a sense of anticipation.
She was not sure what it was made her turn and look up, except maybe the little voice that had seen her through so many battles in her life, the voice that had helped her survive where many of her friends had not. Yet, turn she did and when her eyes went up to the walkway above them, she could see a face looking at them, a pale-blue, almost human visage. The eyes were green but hollow, devoid of emotion while her armour was a dark blue. She was peering down the sights of a rifle.
Shepard threw herself out of the way just as she felt the heat of rifle particles stream past her head and shatter the bed behind which she had been sheltering. A split second later, the sound of the burst reached her ears, about the same time as someone called out the obvious, "Commandos! Ambush!"
Three more figures had appeared around the top of the walkway and two more near the entrance to the Labs. In seconds the air was filled with Asari rifle fire as Shepard's team found their cover dismantled. Shepard fired up at where she had seen the first face but it had disappeared and her shots went through the solid wall of the walkway to crack the glass in the ceiling with no effect. She swept her gaze wildly over the walkway while bits of pottery plinked off her shields and she scrambled for more cover. She saw the face again, this time twenty feet to the left of where she had first spotted her. The figure fired a single burst which tore up the ground in front of the human and threw Shepard off to one side and behind one of the steel pillars. When she looked again, the Commando had vanished once more.
"They're too damn quick!" Garrus called as he flung himself behind another pillar, "we can't suppress them!"
The team had gone their separate ways in a desperate attempt to find cover. Ashley was lying prone under a table, it's surface riddled with bullet holes while Kaidan had Liara and Tali hiding behind another ceramic flower bed. Wrex was walking forward into the room slowly, his shotgun in his hands, firing round after round towards the two Asari guarding the door. One wisely ducked out of the way but the other was too slow and she was caught by a full burst from the big weapon. She was thrown bodily against the wall behind, leaving a flower of blood on the surface as she slumped down. Wrex's shields were flaring wildly as the Commandos focused their fire on him but the krogan shrugged it off until he was nearly on top of the surviving ground-floor soldier. Shepard fired a wild burst up at the second floor, not even knowing what she was aiming for or really caring. She had to give Wrex covering fire, to shield him in any way she could.
He took another step. One of the Asari leant out to hit him but she was caught by a burst from Kaidan, throwing the asari back in a spray of blood. Wrex took another step. There was a beeping sound at his feet. He was consumed in a fireball that blinded Shepard, even as the cry came to her lips, "Wrex!" A shot smacked into her shields, forcing her to take cover again. A sense of dread washed over her, a horrible feeling of emptiness as she replayed the image of Wrex disappearing into the searing heat of the explosion. A trap.
"Commander!" She heard Kaidan's voice on the radio, faint and disbelieving, "Wrex is still mobile!"
Numb, Shepard peered from around the corner to see that Kaidan was not seeing things. Wrex was standing at the entrance to the Hot Labs, his armour scorched and smoking like a barbecue with the limp body of an Asari commando held by the neck in one arm and his shotgun in the other. He threw her to one side with all the ease he would have had tossing aside a doll, then dropped to one knee.
"Wrex! Hold on!" the human glanced around, eyes narrowing as she waited for one of the three surviving asari to make their move. One popped up but by the time Shepard brought her gun to bear, she had seen the danger and vanished again. They were moving with the concealment of the walkway, no one able to track them or get a bead on them long enough to take them down. They weren't even appearing on damned sensors. Now Shepard understood why the Commandos were so feared. Just six of them were pinning her team where whole legions of geth had failed. Then there was Wrex.
Wrex...
"We need to get up to their level!" She called into the radio.
"How? There's no stairs!" Ashley replied before being forced to recoil back under her table a Commando put another neat hole through it.
"Then we make our own!" Shepard looked up at the walkway directly underneath her. It looked like a simple construction, plates of metal locked together and supported in place by two beams which were attached to the wall. An idea formed in her head, a risky and quite idiotic idea but then, if Wrex could survive a mine then she could pull it off.
She grabbed a grenade from her belt and armed it. She tossed the disk shaped device into one of the corners made by the supporting beam and the wall. As she heard the click of it attaching, she activated the grenade. It exploded in a hail of shrapnel, temporarily blinding the Commander. After the explosion though came the grinding and screeching sound of twisting and tormented metal as the support gave way. That end collapsed to the ground, creating a ramp up to the walkway. Shepard did not run up it, that was that they would be expecting, instead she hurled a grenade up. The explosion shattered the glass, sending a massive wave of freezing water onto the walkway. Using the distraction, she rushed up the ramp in two massive bounds. As she reached the top, she found her target lying on her back, armour opened by the grenade burst, the water pooling around her mixed with blood.
Shepard ignored the water around her ankles, weapon raised as she swept her gaze across the walkway. From this angle she could see Wrex, still on his knee but now the Asari were much more obvious in their positioning. Another Commando popped up, bringing her rifle to bear but she was too slow for the human, whose burst caught her right in the chest and threw the asari back, shattering the glass behind her and showering Garrus beneath in cold water.
One more left...
This one Asari was keeping her head down, but Shepard could see her moving through the gaps in the walkway, Shepard brought up her weapon and fired but the asari rolled forward to avoid the bullets, instead hitting the glass behind and spilling the water across the walkway, the deluge swept the Commando off her feet. As she struggled up, she walked right into a combined volley from Shepard, Ashley and Garrus. She had no chance.
Throwing her rifle onto her back, Shepard leapt over the railing and hit the ground on the run as she dashed over to Wrex. The Krogan was standing again, shaking and with the horrific smell of burnt flesh. He put his shotgun back on the small of his back and looked at his Commander. There were three deep scars running across his face, which were bleeding a dark yellow.
"Wrex, hold on. Let's get you some medigel," Shepard went fishing in her pack.
"Relax Shepard, you'd think I'd just gone up against a Maw or something," he pushed away the medi-gel she offered him. She was not to be denied though and after a stubborn little chase of him batting down her arm, she finally managed to smear it over his scars. The Mercenary did not even wince, "Asari aren't a problem. Push overs. I could beat them with my eyes closed."
"What about mines, are they pushovers?" She teased, despite not taking her eyes off the wound she was dressing.
"Unexpected, but designed to kill mice and flies. Need something with a bit more punch to beat a Krogan." he laughed gruffly.
"Tell me about it," She replied with a soft chuckle, "not easy to take down, you lot. Even so, remind me never to take you in a fight." She finished off with the medi-gel and added a few bandages just to hold it in place, "okay. All done." She turned to look at Garrus, whose armour was still dripping, "how about you Garrus? You okay."
"Nothing a nice warm fire won't fix." He shrugged, "Are you ready Wrex?" the turian asked dryly, unlike his armour, "not going to be head-butting any missiles?"
"Never did. Can't deflect them properly." Wrex's voice was entirely deadpan.
"Okay..." Garrus shot Shepard a bemused look. The human shrugged.
"Come on, the Matriarch is beyond this door. Be ready," she glanced at Liara, but the woman was fixated on her gun. Like it or not. This was it.
