Chapter 44b: The Geth Dreadnought pt2
Shepherd and Javik took cover on both sides of the door, while Tali unlocked the door. Things were tense; it would either be a free ride to the ops room, or another battle waiting on the other side. The team was really hoping for the former. The door opened, and Shepherd and Javik went in first, nothing was in there.
"Strange, I would have thought the machines would come in force to protect this room" Javik said.
"He's right, Wayne, the geth are not known for making mistakes" Tali said warily.
"Agreed, Tali get to the console, we'll watch your back" Tali nodded and made her way to the geth console, with Shepherd and Javik following closely behind. The Quarian then worked her fingers on the keyboard and a hologram of the dreadnought appeared in the middle of the room.
"Damn it!"
"What Rookie?"
"The geth have locked down the reaper signal, we can't shut it down from here" Tali said. The quarian then worked to find the location of signal; a beep was heard as the center of the dreadnought hologram lit up. "Found it...it's in the drive core" Then the team heard a shot, and got to cover, Javik looked over cover and didn't see anything. Another shot rang out this time it was much closer than before, Javik ducked back into cover.
"What was that?" Javik said.
"Geth hunters, they're cloaked, so it will be tough to see them" Shepherd said.
"Not with a strong electrical charge, the cloak can't handle that" Tali said. Shepherd smirked and took out his Arc Projector fired blindly, hoping to hit something, he did and the hunters were revealed, just in time for the other gerh to flood the room. Javik marked the geth in the back with his Dark channel and Shepherd threw his warp field and caused a biotic explosion, scattering the geth troops. Tali meanwhile hack the hunters from getting any closer to them; she then summoned her drone to lock them down. Shepherd overloaded the hunter and it jumped to the geth trying to get close.
Tali and Javik went down to deal with the geth further in the back; meanwhile Shepherd had his hand full of the hunters that dropped in near him. A hunter charged him and hit the spectre square in the jaw with the butt of its shotgun. Shepherd rolled away from the hunters and checked his jaw…nothing broken; though he would he would feel it in the morning. Another hunter flanked Shepherd and shot him with its shotgun, luckily his tech armor protected him…he countered with his Energy Drain and recharged his shield. He got out his Carbine and shot out a blue-white stream that fried the geth on contact.
"Hot damn…" Shepherd said. A rocket whizzed by Shepherd, as more geth dropped in. Tali charged her Arc Pistol and the rocket trooper fell with a thud. Javik pulled the geth towards him and blasted them with a stream of energy from his particle rifle. After a while, the battle was done but they would come back and soon. Tali went back to console to find a pathway.
"So how do we get to the center?" Shepherd asked.
"I don't know, the geth have sealed the bulkheads to block us…unless"
"You got a plan, Rookie?"
"We need a path that runs the length of the ship…The main battery!" Tali went to the console, and the halo changed. "It runs right by the drive core, only…"
"Only what?"
"They still have us locked in here; we'll need to get the doors open" Tali said. "They've locked high-level processes; we need basic, a ship-wide emergency"
"A fire would do that" Shepherd said. "What about the heat diffusion system?"
"Good idea, if I can fake a thermal warning, it would open all maintenance tubes for emergency venting, overriding the lockdown" She worked her fingers over the console and the hologram of the dreadnought disappeared. The whole room was lit with an ominous red.
"Er, is it supposed to that?" Shepherd asked.
"I think we should take cover" Tali said.
"Great…" The team took cover and the geth came in alerted to the signal. "Shit, Geth are dropping from the ceiling!" Javik armed his particle rifle and fired on the geth, before they could land. Shepherd threw out his lift grenades and sent out two throw fields, smashing them against the walls.
Tali spoke up. "Watch it, hunters!" Shepherd activated his tech armor and took out his Carbine and pulled the trigger, a stream of energy went out, frying the circuitry of the geth that touched it. Tali hacked the rocket troopers and summoned her drones. The geth moved to take care of the hacked rocket trooper; Tali and Chatikka flanked the distracted geth with shotgun and rocket fire respectively. Javik and Shepherd cleaned up the rest of the geth and the team moved to the next area. As they walked to the maintained, Tali looked around and noticed the ship. "This ship design is almost Quarian, but not quite, it's meant for Synthetics not organics" she said.
Javik scoffed. "As if machine would appreciate aesthetics" he said. "Especially organic ones"
"For all of our upgrades, I'll never understand integrating that completely into a system" Tali said. The team climbed down to the last floor, a few more doors and they would be in the main battery.
"The main battery shouldn't be far"
Tali placed a hand on Shepherd's shoulder. "Wayne, I never told you how much I appreciate you helping my people, you know with Earth and everything…"
"Don't mention it, Rookie; you would do the same for me" Shepherd then smirked. "Besides, I appreciate the Quarian people, especially their women…"
"Maybe you can show me after this is done…" Tali said in a sultry voice.
"Looking forward to it…"
"I believe we have more pressing things to worry about than you and the Quarian's plans to initiate a mating ritual" Javik said. Shepherd and Tali blushed and looked at Javik. "You didn't need to tell me, your pheromones were screaming at me"
Shepherd cleared his throat. "Right, sorry" The team went down to another area, a beep interrupted their walk. It was Tali's omni-tool, her eyes went wide.
"Oh Keelah…" Javik and Shepherd looked at her. She received a priority message from the fleet; a planetary defense weapon took down Admiral Koris's ship. Most of the survivors made it to the escape pods, but a lot of the crew including Koris was unaccounted for. The whole fleet was on alert for when the geth fired again. It was chaos, without Koris…the civilian ships were confused making it easy for the geth to try to pick them off. The Patrol fleet has gone in with the help of the Normandy, but geth cruisers were cutting them off. The com opened.
"Shepherd this is Rann. The Heavy Fleet is collapsing, we can't hold out much longer!" Rann said.
"We're almost there, Admiral, we'll have the signal deactivated shortly" Shepherd said. "Just hang on until then"
"We will try, but hurry!" The team made it to the main battery, when the stepped on the path a huge shockwave handing towards them. They went to cover as the shockwave passed over them.
"Whoa! What hell was that?"
"The discharge from the dreadnought's main gun, if we get hit by that, it's over" Tali said. They then heard the familiar beep of the geth. "Here they come…I think they know what we're doing!" The rocket troopers fired on the team, while the hunters tried to get close to flank them. Shepherd overloaded the hunter's shields revealing the synthetic for Javik and Tali to shoot. A horn sounded and another discharge rushed forward. The team went to cover; Shepherd noticed the geth was getting out-of-the-way to…some of the geth climbed up the walk way and some went to cover. The ones that were too slow weren't as lucky as the discharge passed over them, shorting them out…they fell leaving an empty shell.
"The discharge hurts them, keep them out of cover!" Tali nodded and summoned her drone near the geth, and the geth got out of cover, just in time for another discharge to hit geth, killing it instantly. The team scattered when the geth fired on them from the walkway, Javik threw lift grenades, and Shepherd shut them down with a throw field. The geth were gone, but there came another problem, discharges could fry them too.
"We need to shut it down!"
"There's a maintenance lock near the battery itself!" The team ran down the corridor, getting into cover when the discharge was about to fire, until they got to a console. Tali worked fast to deactivate the battery. The battery slowed and then stopped revealing a new path beside them.
"Nice work, Tali"
"The main gun is offline, maybe now my people will get some breathing room" Tali said. "It's just a straight shot, to the drive core" Shepherd and Javik nodded and the team made their way inside the maintenance lock, a long path way to the drive core. They begin walking the path, jumping across the gaps in their way. About halfway in, they felt rumbling…
"Rookie?"
"The geth are overriding the lock!"
"Shit, move!" The team ran down the path, as the lock was spinning more and more. They turned the corner, Javik was first, then the Tali and Shepherd was last as the lock was preparing to fire off another shockwave. The spectre jumped just as the shockwave was fired and the lock closed. "That was close…" Tali help him up.
"Too close" The screech of the geth sounded echoed in the battery as they dropped down to the ground. As it that wasn't bad enough, a horn sounded and both team and the geth went to cover as a discharge fired. Tali hacked the rocket troopers above to keep the heat off of them, while the other geth targeted the hacked rocket troopers Javik and Shepherd made their way to the top. Another discharge and Tali went to cover, afterwards she summoned Chatikka to distract the hunters meanwhile Javik wiped out the last geth above and fired on the geth from above, luckily the walkway was well insulated from the discharge. Shepherd tossed some lift grenades at the geth trying to flank Tali, allowing the quarian to shoot them in mid-air. The geth hunters used the corridors to bypass the discharges and closed distance with Javik. The prothean fell back and marked them with his Dark Channel, he tossed lift grenades at them causing a biotic burst knocking them off the ledges. The geth kept dropping in hoping to overwhelm the team; Shepherd overloaded the geth to stun them allowing the discharge to finish off the geth.
"They're boxing us in! Get to the next area!" Tali was closest to the door of the next room, she hacked the hunters to keep the other geth off Shepherd and Javik. Shepherd and Javik zigged-zagged from cover to cover; avoiding the discharge at regular intervals until they met Tali at the doorway. The quarian quickly shut the door behind them, the team was in a lift area…they went to the platform and Shepherd pressed the button. The elevator went up.
"We'll just ride the elevator up, and we'll be at the drive core" Tali said.
"Smooth sailings from here" They then heard the sound of a door opening behind them. They got their weapons out and saw one of the geth had a rocket launcher. "Ah, fuck…" The geth fired the rocket and the elevator was rocking, about to fall. Tali and Javik made to a ledge, leaving only Shepherd.
"Wayne! Grab my hand!" Shepherd ran forward and grabbed the ledge as the elevator fell with a great thud. Tali grabbed her boyfriend's hand and pulled him up on the ledge. Shepherd was breathing heavily and got off the floor, only to be pounced by Tali. "I thought I lost you…"
Shepherd smirked. "Ah, so you were worried…" he said slightly amused. Tali released him and blushed.
"O-of course not, I knew you would make it"
"Then why are you holding my hand like a vice-grip" Shepherd said with a smirk. "Yep, you were worried" Tali huffed.
"Bosh'tet…" she said. "Come on, the core shouldn't be far" The team went into the upper area, and then in core room. They looked around no signs of trouble, for now.
"Commander" Javik said. Shepherd went near the prothean and analyzed the tech.
"Without a doubt, reaper tech…Rookie, you're up"
"This will only be a second" Tali worked her fingers on the terminal. "What is this? I'm getting another reading"
"You mean other than reaper tech?"
Tali nodded. "Hold on, I'm opening it, get ready" Shepherd and Javik nodded and raised their weapon as the dome opened. Shepherd and Tali's eyes went wide when the dome was fully opened.
"What the…"
"Keelah…" It was none other than their old ally, Legion; it was held up by wires crucifix style. It looked at Shepherd and Tali with almost a relief.
"Shepherd-Commander, help us"
"Legion…"
Javik looked at them. "You know this machine?"
"An old friend, an old friend who have lots of explaining to do" Tali said crossing her arms. "But before that, the reapers signal, how is it that it's transmitting from you?" They then heard beeps around them.
"Rookie, questions later, we got a bigger problem on our plate"
