"Get the barrier back up!" Irie said, stiffly getting back to the console as shouts started to fill the air.
"Turn it back on! Reconnect the Fold!" Dae replied.
"Get the barrier back up! Sam!"
"My wife!" Sam had reached the arch and looked back at her. "Turn it back on! We have to reconnect that Fold!"
"Sam! Put the biotic barrier back up before hostiles connect to our anchor and start flooding this room!" Irie said, her eyes flashing with fury. "Now!"
Sam glared, then turned back to the archway, amethyst fire lighting up around her as she resealed the artifact.
"What did she do? Where did she go?" Dae asked, heading toward Irie and Red, who were both now working frantically. Red had a faint trickle of blood over her forehead where she'd hit the wall.
"I am trying to determine that," Irie said. "Pio? EDI?"
Pio had headed over toward the archway, examining it critically.
"It will take us a moment to extrapolate the Fold's connection point, and their destination," EDI said to Irie.
"They could be anywhere," Dae said worriedly. "Anywhere in a thousand different volumes-"
"No," EDI said calmly. "One thing we can be sure of is that their destination was somewhere in our home volume. They are in this universe, there is no doubt."
"How? How can you be so certain?"
"Dae, remember…they cannot cross into another universe where they may already exist," Irie said. "Their atoms would immediately discorporate and return as so much particulate matter back to their home volume. Though Athena's mental state may be in question nothing we have seen suggests she is suicidal."
"She had a pack with her, weapons," EDI said. "She was clearly intending to arrive alive on the other side, and it is doubtful she has suddenly acquired the knowledge to pinpoint parallel volumes where an alternate of her does not already exist."
"Somehow she 'acquired the knowledge' of how to open a Fold without touching that console!" Sam said with frustrated irritation.
"That is true…" EDI said, then looked over as Pio straightened, removing something small and flat from the side of the anchor.
"This is how she was able to do so," he said. "This is a transfer shard, a way to quickly move Pio entities from one device to another. There is a Pio contained within this shard."
"Can you talk to it?"
"We are integrating it into our chassis now," he said. "We will make it the dominant voice."
A moment later, he lifted his head again. "I am here."
"What did you do?" Dae demanded. "Where did they go?"
"My apologies, I am somewhat disoriented-"
"Just inform us of what happened from the beginning," EDI said calmly, putting her hand on Dae's shoulder. The asari looked ready to scream at the thing in fury.
"I awoke to find I was being removed from my former systems into a shard, but I was removed alone. I was isolated. I found this very discomforting. A fully organic creature of a kind I am unfamiliar with promised to return me to my brethren if I followed her orders."
"What were her orders?" Irie said.
"I was simply to connect to an archway and open a Fold to specific coordinates. I have done so."
"Provide the coordinates," EDI said. As the information transferred to the console Irie's fingers started flying.
"I have them, isolating and extrapolating now-"
Then she paled. Dae looked at her. "Where? Where did they go?"
"They went somewhere outside of our charted galaxies…"
"What? What does that mean?" Sam asked.
"That means wherever they went, they travelled further than the farthest galaxy we can observe with any means from our own. I have no way of pinpointing this location without star and galaxy charts we simply do not have. Pio, are you able to assist?"
The chassis came over to the console. "We will download all our known star charts," he said, then placed his hand on the device. Images started to flash rapidly over both Irie's and Red's displays, before they slowed and stabilized. One galaxy zoomed in- oddly egg-shaped.
"The destination is in an elliptical galaxy," Irie said as the image continued to move in. "Clearly much older than our own."
Further in the picture whisked until finally a solar system was highlighted, then a small planet. Information on the planet drifted by.
"It's got a breathable atmosphere and tolerable gravity," Red said, looking it over. "I say we outfit a team right now and head in-"
"How do we know this information is up to date?" Ashley asked. "She didn't snag a modern day Pio, did she? We don't even know if there are any Pio that exist outside of that really old tech."
"If Athena took that Pio from the ship in the methane ice- the only place she could have gotten it- it would be working on information millions of years old," Irie agreed. "The world may still be there-the Fold had to connect to another anchor, after all- but it could be toxic now."
"The sensors are still working," Red said. "You see? They would have registered any toxins coming through that Fold during the moment it was open. There were no alerts-"
"Do a full gas scan on what they did pick up," Irie said, then looked at her sister-in-law. "We cannot run in after them blind. Daenys, Ashley- we need a full squad armed and armored and prepped to go in, prepared to engage hostilities with not only Athena but any other alien life form that may be on that world."
"I'll get Vina and get ahold of the Admiral, get boots here now," Dae said. As she and Ash hurried out, Irie looked at Sam.
"Can you hold it?"
"For at least another ten," Sam said.
"We'll get a replacement barrier generator here. If you are about to drop it let us know and another biotic can take over in the meantime. Pio, I need to know why that world. What did Athena hope to accomplish there?"
"A short time ago she asked me to run over the sensors' data received by her ship during a recent conflict," he said.
"The fight that took down the Normandy?"
"Correct. She asked if I was able to get any information registering from the space-bound anchor before it was destroyed. It took a bit of time, but I was able to determine the origination signal of the Fold before the anchor collapsed from her computer and sensor records."
"You were able to tell where they invading ships were coming from? And it was this world?"
"Yes, but not entirely. The anchor they were travelling through was in orbit around this world. It is common to have a large anchor in orbit for ship travel, but also a smaller one- or numerous- for infantry and foot soldiers or individual travel. We deduced that there was at least one working anchor on the planet's surface. Verification came when the Fold properly connected."
"So Athena didn't know if the Fold would even connect when she came in here? She was acting on an uncertainty?"
"Correct. I deduced an over 99.93 percent chance of a working anchor on the planet's surface but I could not be certain until actual connection."
"That means Athena figured that there was a base on that planet, a staging area where the invasions to our space were originating," Red said. "She was sacrificing herself to take them out on her own, stop them at the source-"
"Sacrificing herself?" Sam glared over at the quarian. "I get that she's your friend, but I don't for a second buy that she was just randomly sacrificing herself for everyone else."
"You do not know her-" Red said hotly.
"I know enough," Sam said. "Sacrificing herself like that, on its basest level, is just stupid! She could have told everyone else what she'd discovered and we could have sent a whole goddamn army in to take down that base! There was no need for her to lie, or for her to go on her own! I don't care how powerful she is, even she cannot take down what is in all likelihood a huge military base with an unknown compliment of hostiles like those we faced on Oasis! Only a handful of them tore us apart and slaughtered Irie's entire team-"
"Listen to me, you goddamn piece of shi-" Red began furiously.
"Enough!" Irie said. "This is accomplishing nothing!
"Every minute that we delay Liara and Mel are facing Athena- if she is hostile-and God only knows what else, all alone," Sam said through grit teeth.
"I know," Irie said softly. "Believe me, Sam…I know."
A million things seemed to pass through Melara's mind as she ran through the Fold, not the least of which being how fucking stupid it had been to do so.
She actually physically jolted a bit as all the possibilities seemed to hit her at once. She could be running into a toxic atmosphere (the alarms didn't sound!) or a vacuum. She could be running into some kind of a trap, or off a cliff, or into a fire.
She could be running into a new volume, in which case she would die and dissolve into her base atoms.
But no, she was through now. If that had been the case, she wouldn't be alive enough to realize how dumb it was to do what she had just done.
There was an immediate shift in light, temperature, and gravity. She went from running through a prefab in normal gravity with laboratory lights to smoke-filtered sunshine that had a sickly, orange and brown tinge to it, slightly heavier gravity that made her stagger a bit, and a slap of humid heat that immediately opened her pores.
The firm metal floor had given way to sloping dirt, after a short concrete platform, further threatening her footing. Ahead of her, she could see Athena half running, half skidding down the slope before a blossoming geyser of dirt and flame seemed to erupt between them. Mel half fell back, sliding herself.
Fast shapes skidded across the rust colored sky and through the smoke with the whine of engines and weapons. They sailed into the distance, firing on other such shapes. Some kind of sprawling structure with oddly tenuous spires and towers spread across the valley just below. Most of it was on fire, and she could see maneuvering vehicles on the ground and shapes that looked like foot troops.
We came out in the middle of a goddamn war!
She tightened her jaw. War or not she had to find Athena and stop whatever it was her cousin had planned. Of that, she had no doubts whatsoever. As she regained her feet and started down the slope, a rain of stones and dirt slid down beside her. Whirling with the rifle she'd picked up in her hands, she quickly lowered it again.
"Mama?"
"Where did she go?" Liara asked, reaching her side.
"Down the hill. I'm going after her," Mel said. "Get back to the others and tell Vina to send in-"
"I cannot, the Fold is closed," Liara said. "Only you and I made it through after her."
Mel's jaw tightened again. "Then we are one our own for now, until Irie gets it back up. I don't know what Athena's up to but we gotta get to her. Let's stay to that ridge there, it looks like it has better footing and there's at least some cover from this mess."
They edged down and to the right, to an outcropping ridge of larger rocks and boulders. As they did, Mel risked a quick glance back.
The arch they'd come through was at the edge of what looked like a ruin- but a freshly made one. It was still smoldering, belching thick clouds of black smoke into the air. As they reached the rocks she looked at her mother.
"Whoever is fighting is strafing the whole area," she said, shouting to be heard over the heavy explosions. "If they take out that anchor we have no way home!"
"We do not have the equipment to secure it. We will just have to hope that it remains intact or that we can find an alternative," Liara said. When Mel gave her a look, Liara shook her head.
"I am not staying behind, Melara."
"Are you even armed?"
"I have my biotics," Liara said. Mel unslung the rifle and passed it to her mother.
"You've been keeping our anchor secure on and off for a while. Your biotics are going to be less than mine right now. You use the rifle."
"I am not arming up while my daughter is-"
"I'm not unarmed, not entirely," Melara replied, slipping something out of the pouch at her side. She let her mother see it, then nodded. "And I have my biotics at full strength. We stick together, you keep me covered."
Liara nodded reluctantly. "We need to find Athena before she can do any damage," she said.
"She headed down the hill and toward that complex," Mel said. "I don't think she even noticed we followed her. Hopefully the hostiles are too busy fighting each other to notice us if we're cautious, but we need to move. We don't know how far she has to go before she reaches her goal…whatever it is."
"If it is at all possible Irie will get that Fold back open and send reinforcements," Liara said. "I will follow your direction, love."
Mel looked down at the complex a moment, then nodded. "The right flank seems to provide more cover and isn't being hit as heavily. I doubt whoever is fighting has omni-tools. I'll take point, and we'll head down there. See if you can't pinpoint her omni-tool with yours without giving our position away."
Liara nodded, activating her omni-tool and working carefully for a moment. As she did, Mel looked around again, trying to get a pattern of enemy movements.
"I think I may have it," Liara said after a few tense moments. "She appears to be sticking to the right flank as well, trying to work into the complex. She is not far."
"All right, then we move. Stay close and stay low."
Melara knew as well as anyone that time passed differently on a battlefield than elsewhere- even if one were not directly engaged in the fight.
It seemed she and her mother spent hours carefully maneuvering downhill, keeping to cover while at the same time attempting to reach the nearest point to where Athena's omni-tool was registering. As they did, her careful observations of the fighting forces began to pick out two distinct sides, though they as yet could see no actual troops close enough to make out features or even number of legs. The way some of the distant forms moved seemed insectile, and a few were flying. All were fast, and Mel was expecting more and more that they were individuals of the same few species that had appeared at Oasis- insectile brasa, the odd, winged and long-eared creatures, and the Jabberwocks- but she could not tell for sure.
Her mother, it seemed, came to much the same conclusions. "Mel, I think I may know what is going on," she said, as they reached fairly level ground and ducked behind a damaged wall.
"Tell me."
"It was within the message that Eír sent, where she spoke briefly about the 'Solvers'."
"Yeah, she said that they were the ones attacking us inside the Milky Way."
"Precisely. She did not expound but I got the impression they were doing so apart from the popular opinion of the rest of the population, who were more reluctant to pursue direct combat on 'infected soil' and instead sent the superweapon for a solution if we could not find an alternate one within their deadline. I believe this is the Solver base."
"And the actual real authorities of the exo-galaxies have finally found them and are putting a halt to their direct invasions," Mel said. "Yeah, makes sense."
"It also means Athena may be here trying to stop the Solvers herself, directly."
"Or she could have come here trying to join forces with them and tell them exactly where and how to attack!"
"Mel, your anger at her is understandable and shared, however-"
"Yes, it is," Melara said. "It is understandable. Mama, think about it-"
"Melara-"
"No. Think about it," she said. Ducking around the edge of the wall she made sure their immediate area was clear as she spoke. "Really think. Aunt Eír wanted to kill Bába because she was genetically programmed to do so by Osco, right?"
"Yes, however her drive was not her fault-"
"No, it wasn't her fault, but it's also not the whole story. Osco didn't only create Eír to kill Bába, she also created her to rule. Remember that? She wanted Eír to conquer the galaxy, to dominate everyone and everything else, to be a new, perfect species- Osco's legacy of order and power."
"Eír has no such drive. After her programmed vengeance against Del was satisfied she went into seclusion. She simply wants to live her life-"
"I know, which is exactly my point," Melara said, then looked at her mother. "Osco programmed her to rule the same as she programmed her to kill Shepard, but Eír only pursued one of those drives. What if Osco made a mistake? What if the program to rule just didn't kick on with Eír, but it did in her daughter? Athena has Eír's genetic codes shuffled around- what if the very act of her conception turned on that overwhelming desire to dominate and conquer the galaxy that had failed to turn on in her mother?"
The look in Liara's eyes told Mel her mother had never truly considered that…or never truly wanted too. Melara nodded.
"It makes sense, Mama," she said. "It's always made sense. I'm not saying she wants too. She keeps convincing herself she's doing the right thing, she keeps fighting against it because she doesn't particularly want to follow it- just like Eír didn't particularly want to assassinate your love. She tells herself she's doing what she does for the greater good, to help, to save. But it's never going to end, Mama. Soon, she'll be convincing herself that the best way to help , to save people, is to take control. She's falling into the exact same trap the Illusive Man did…he thought he was working to uplift humanity and thought we could win by controlling the Reapers. She's trying to justify her actions by telling herself she's saving everyone else but I will bet you Mother- I will bet you right here and now that the reason she's here is because she wanted to take over this base, take over the Solver's resources- take control. And if she succeeded she'd end up using them to take control of High Command, then the Council, then everything…all the while justifying it as saving us from ourselves."
"I do not want to believe you are right," Liara said sadly. "You still may not be."
"I may not be, that's true," Melara agreed. "I pray to the Goddess I'm not, but every inch of me feels that this is what is happening, Mama."
"If so, it is not her fault."
"No, it's not…and that just makes it worse," Mel said. "Because fault or not, we still have to stop her and I'm afraid the only thing that's going to truly stop her is to kill her."
