Mass Effect Abridged
Chapter Fifty Two: Saren's Base
The aerial Geth drones were no match for the firepower of the custom Mako tank, and were quickly brought down. More of them were launched as reinforcements, but all that did was give them a trail of destroyed drones to follow all the way back to the landing pads. There were reserve fuel tanks all over the place, so it barely took any time at all before a well-placed shot with a missile hit one of them, and the landing pads were completely destroyed in a massive explosion.
"I love it when a plan comes together!" Presley yelled while doing a high-five with the others. "To the base, Wrex, it's time to take the fight to them!"
The Krogan stomped down on the gas as hard as he could, and the tank continued tearing down the trail until the base was in sight. Again, Kaiden fired missiles at the door, but the walls of this place appeared to be made of the same stuff as the blast door had been at the guard wall. This gave them no choice but to bring the Mako tank to a screeching halt right before they would have hit the door.
"Okay, boys, change of plan." Presley continued as he got out. "Kaiden, you're with me, Wrex, you keep driving around, and keep the outer perimeter of the base clear for when we're ready to escape."
Kaiden got out, and Wrex switched control of the turret to the driver's seat before taking off to resume the distraction strategy. Meanwhile, Presley and Kaiden had no trouble getting the small door open that was next to the blast door. Inside, there were a dozen cloned Krogan guards waiting for them, so Presley took cover and began to shoot at half of them with his rifle, while Kaiden let out a high-pitch karate yell as he leapt toward the others. The first Krogan was caught completely off guard by the air kick that floored him, and Kaiden stopped the nearest one from reacting by throwing his elbow backwards right between the guard's eyes.
Some of the others were about to shoot him, but then Kaiden did a cartwheel out of the way, hitting another guard with his feet while Presley shot the ones who had been aiming their rifles. This kind of thing continued on until the guards were all dead, and the two of them stood victorious. But the mission didn't end there, and Presley just knew that Shepard was going to get into some kind of trouble, even with her man there to control her.
"All right, Kaiden, let's split up." He ordered. "I want you to kill every clone that you come across, steal anything of value that's not nailed down, and destroy anything else that looks important. Ready, go."
"Rape, kill, pillage, and burn!" Kaiden screamed as he ran toward the nearest door. "Must be shady, must be slick! Must be slippery, must be slick!"
For a moment Presley shed a tear for how proud he was of the awesome man that Kaiden had become, but then it was back to business as he turned and ran for the door in the other direction.
Meanwhile, in another part of the base.
"According to intelligence." Captain Kirrahe said as the team moved down the hall. "The prisoners should be held somewhere right around – here."
But there was nothing, just a big empty room with a couple of broken boxes in the corner. It didn't make sense to Ashley that everything in their intelligence had been right so far, only to have the most important part be completely wrong, so there had to be another answer. Maybe there was a secret passage, or maybe there was something obvious that they missed.
"I've got it." She said while pointing up. "Your map was only drawn for one floor, but this base has two, so the prison has to be upstairs."
"My God, you're right!" Kirrahe exclaimed. "Good work team!"
He then smacked Ashley on the rear as hard as he could, making her yelp and jump a little as he ran for the stairs they had passed in the other room. The rest of the Salarians did the same thing as well, so she figured that it must just have something to do with their culture, kind of like when sports players did the same thing.
"Uh, yeah." She said unenthusiastically. "Good job team."
So she followed them back a couple rooms to the staircase, and it turns out that she was right, because once up the stairs and walking the same distance, they found themselves in a room that couldn't have been anything else but a prison. There were more than a dozen force field cages, most containing a Salarian, but there were also a couple humans, and even a Krogan. From the way Kirrahe and the others gasped upon seeing them, Ashley had to assume that the Salarians were the missing STG team members, but who were the other guys?
"Corporal Harant!" Kirrahe exclaimed as he ran to the first cage. "What have they done to you?!"
"Nothing!" The jittery Salarian inside replied. "I'm fine! Let me out! You're all my friends!"
Ashley cringed a little as she looked at the Salarian, and of all the things he was, fine was not one of them. His black eyes were glazed over, his teeth were chattering loudly, and he kept jittering around so much that it looked like he was about to have a seizure.
"Looks fine to me." Kirrahe said. "Let's get you out of there."
He pushed the button, and the force field vanished, leaving no time before Corporal Harant screamed as he tackled Kirrahe to the floor. He slashed at him with his fingernails while continuing to scream until Kirrahe got his foot under Harant's chest and kicked him away. Harant landed on his back, but then started laughing as he ran across the room and hit a switch on the wall, deactivating all the other force fields.
"But, Harant, why?!" Kirrahe demanded as the other prisoners came out. "Why would you betray us?!"
"I have no choice, Captain." Harant replied as he and the others started walking slowly toward them. "We have all heard the funky beat, and all of its catchy rhythm with flawless timing drives us to murder."
All of the other prisoners looked the same as him, glazed eyes, jittery, teeth chattering, and now they were closing in on the team, slowly backing them into the corner. And it wasn't just the Salarians; the humans and the Krogan were in the exact same condition, which probably meant that they were going to attack soon.
"But what can we do?!" Captain Kirrahe asked. "Soon they will have us boxed in, and then they will attack, but – but we can't kill our own people!"
"You wanna fucking bet?!" Ashley replied as she aimed her rifle.
Meanwhile, in yet another part of the base.
Commander Shepard and her team had encountered surprisingly little resistance since entering the base through a side door, probably because of all the explosions and gunfire that was coming from the forest. She hated to admit it, but Presley's A-Team was doing a pretty good job, and the alarms hadn't gone off either, meaning that the team Ashley was on weren't a bunch of total fuck-up's either. The side door had opened into a stairwell, so they followed it up to the second floor, which opened up into a hallway.
"Okay, everyone, stay sharp." She said quietly as they advanced.
There were rooms on each side of the hall, and each looked like a mix between an animal testing laboratory and a dentist's office. There was a large chair for restraining something, as well as test tubes and other equipment, however there were no researchers around to ask about it. That is, until they came to the last room where an Asari in a white lab coat was working on something while facing away from them.
Shepard signaled for them to be quiet as they followed her into the lab, and then they all silently surrounded the Asari with weapons aimed before Liara tapped her on the shoulder. There was an annoyed look on the Asari's face as she turned around to see who it was, but then she gasped and dropped the glass tubes she was holding when she found herself looking down the barrel of their weapons.
"Hi there." Shepard said with a smile. "I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my Death Squad, Garrus and Liara. Don't mind us, we're just gonna do a quick search of your lab before we water-board your ass. Garrus, see if you can find anything useful."
Shepard kept the barrel of her pistol pressed into the Asari's forehead as Garrus started going through her desk. He pulled out the drawers and dumped them out before tossing them aside, threw around a bunch of papers, and then stopped when he came across a datapad. So, he turned it on, and gasped at what he found.
"My God." He said as he thumbed through the data. "Indoctrination – Resistance Breakdown – Slow Submission – Shepard, do you have any idea what this is?"
"The track list for a Disturbed album?" Liara asked hopefully.
"No, it's what Saren has us working on here." The captured Asari explained. "That ship of his sends out some kind of a signal that slowly brain-rapes people into doing what he wants, but I'll tell you where to find him if you promise not to kill me."
Shepard just glared at the Asari while putting her thumb on the pistol's hammer and very slowly pulling it down.
"Okay, he was heading toward the cloning area." The Asari quickly said. "Just keep heading down the hall, and Saren's private room is through the door at the end. Keep going through on the far side, and you'll reach the cloning area. Now please let me go, I'll do anything."
"Oh, I know you will." Shepard replied while lowering the pistol. "Well, I've got good news and bad news for you, sister. The good news is that I'm not gonna kill you. The bad news is that we're gonna nuke this place in about ten minutes, so if I were you, I'd run."
The Asari gasped and got all wide-eyed before running out of the room and back down the way the team came in. Shepard had no problem admitting that she enjoyed what had just happened, and now she was all smiles as her team returned to the hallway and followed it down to the end. As the Asari had said, there was a door, so on a silent three-count, she kicked open the door, allowing them to barge into Saren's private room.
