Mass Effect Abridged
Chapter Fifty Three: Sovereign
There wasn't much of anything in the area known as Saren's private room, it was just a metal walkway that encircled a smaller lower level. The walkway also extended to a small platform at the center that contained what looked like a large communications console, and this was also where the stairway to get to the lower level was located. This made it really easy to search the room, and they were just about to move on, when Shepard stopped after looking down at the lower level.
"No fucking way!" Commander Shepard exclaimed as she started down the stairs. "You guys, come look at this!"
She was already at the bottom by the time the others got there, and once Garrus and Liara were with her, they also gasped when they saw it. It was something that Shepard had only ever seen once before in her life on Eden Prime, and what had originally started this whole mission. It was a Prothean beacon, only this one looked almost brand new whereas the one she had seen before had been cracked and broken looking.
"I can't believe it." Liara replied after looking at it. "This is – this is exactly what we have bene looking for. What are the odds of that, huh?"
Knowing that somehow this would be the key to finding the Conduit and stopping Saren, Shepard was not afraid to step up to the beacon. The first one on Eden Prime had nearly killed her, but after reliving it with Liara on Therum, and then again after the Thorian on Feros, it had been getting progressively easier to handle. So she stepped up to it, and as before, it lifted her up into the air, and then the usual images were beamed into her head. Liara was right about the fact that they were slower this time, and now she could see alien figures and explosions, as well as the surface of a planet she wasn't familiar with. The final image was of a great black circle in space, and then a bunch of strange red and black figures rushing out before she came back to reality.
At least this time she was gently lowered to the ground as the beacon deactivated, instead of getting thrown across the landscape when the last one exploded, but this still didn't help her find the conduit. So now it was time to relive the images yet again so that maybe Liara could see something that she didn't spot. The whole embrace eternity thing was still a little hard to get used to, with the Asari's eyes getting all black and scary, but then it was over, and now all Shepard could do was hope.
"I think I know that planet, but I'm not sure." The Asari said once it was finished. "Maybe once we're back on the ship, I'll be able to relax and figure it out."
"All right, well it's better than nothing." Shepard replied. "So, let's go get Saren, and then we can find the Conduit and make sure no one can ever use it again."
Running back up the stairs, she was about to turn toward the door to the cloning area, when the large communications console on the platform started beeping. It then made a clicking sound as a huge red hologram of what looked like a really scary giant squid appeared. The image was so large that it took up most of the room, and Shepard felt a nameless fear slam into her stomach as it seemed to look at her. There was also a strange music in the background that she swore that she had heard somewhere before, and before she news it, she and her team were nodding their heads to the beat.
"Hold the phone." A deep and scary voice said. "Ya'll ain't Saren."
"What is this?" Garrus asked. "Some new, scary kind of VI interface?"
"Maybe it's a game of some kind." Liara suggested. "After all, this is Saren's private room, right? So let's see if it does any tricks. Can you control the lights, or maybe compute the final digit of pi?"
"The last digit of pi is seven, you ignorant ho." The image continued. "But thank you for helping me decide which species will be the first to get curb-stomped when my kind arrive."
"Something tells me this isn't a VI." Garrus said.
"No, it isn't." Shepard replied. "I think this is Sovereign, but – it's not just some old Reaper ship that Saren found – I think it's an actual Reaper."
Suddenly thunder crashed outside, and for a moment the background music changed to a dramatic chord before going back to the addictive beat.
"Reaper?" Sovereign scoffed. "Those weak and sorry Protheans called us that, but they were a bunch of punks in the end, so bitch, you better get your mother fucking mind right, I go by the name of Gangsta Sovereign. And when my squad rolls up in here, we're gonna fuck ya'll in the ass, for sure."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Liara asked as she stepped forward. "I've been studying the Protheans, and they vanished more than fifty-thousand years ago. How could you have been there? It's impossible."
"I'm starting to think this thing's been around a lot longer than we believe." Shepard said. "Where are the others of your kind, are you the last one?"
"My squad rolls deep." Sovereign continued. "So deep that when we roll up on the galaxy, we will darken the skies of every world."
"Then we'll fight in the shade." Garrus interrupted as he stepped forward. "I don't care if you've been around even longer than the Protheans, because we've got a whole galaxy filled with hundreds of species that are just waiting for you to try something."
"Garrus is right." Shepard said. "We don't have to sit here and listen to your threats. We're tough, and we're advanced, and you're just a machine. So just try and do something to us, and we'll be more than happy to turn you into the galaxy's biggest slushy machine."
"Brave words, from ignorant minds." Sovereign continued. "The Protheans talked the same shit, as did the bitch-ass Nereuns before then, and all other races that found our Citadel and Mass Relays. So long as you posers use our technology, we know what paths ya'll gonna try, so basically – you got nothing. This exchange is over."
The image faded, as did the music that came with it, but for almost a full minute, Shepard and her team still bobbed their heads to the beat. Yes, the whole thing with Sovereign was scary, as was the concept of it being old enough to see more races than the Protheans, but they still had a mission to accomplish. If they could stop Saren from finding the Conduit, than nothing bad would happen, so it was time to get moving.
"Commander Shepard." Tali's voice said on the comm. "We've finished the bomb, and it has been loaded onto the Normandy. It will be delivered to the target area in ten minutes, but we're going to need some cover."
"Got it, Tali, good work." She said into the comm. "Ashley, Presley, I need you to move your teams to the cloning areas to cover the Normandy when they deliver the bombs."
"We've kind of got our hands full, Commander." Ashley's voice replied. "We found the prisoners, but they're all crazy and attacking us, and, well – there's a lot of them. We'll have to take the long way around, but we'll be there as soon as we can."
"Don't worry, Shepard, I'll save you." Presley's voice added. "I'll have Wrex bring the tank around, and hopefully we'll be there about the same time as you. Just stay close to Garrus, and we'll have you girls back on the ship in time to make us dinner."
Shepard gritted her teeth in anger as the transmission ended, but she didn't have time to argue with him. So she ran to the other door, with the others following close behind, and they stepped through it into a strange area. They were outdoors, in a place that was divided into several giant sections, and each sections had a line of more than a hundred cloning pods on each side.
"There's so many." Garrus said as they looked around.
Shepard was about to say something back, but they were interrupted by gunfire, forcing them to take cover as dozens upon dozens of Krogan guards started approaching from all sides. They were completely surrounded, but then there was an explosion that threw a bunch of guards into the air as the custom Mako tank rolled in. The odds seemed a little bit better as Shepard and her team joined in the fight as Presley got out of the tank and started shooting. All of them, plus the tank's turret was enough to make the guards think twice, at least until there was a whooshing sound when the Normandy arrived.
"Finally." Shepard said as the cargo ramp opened.
The ship hovered about a foot off the ground as Tali and the Salarian engineers offloaded the modified core from the crashed STG ship, and now all they had to do was set the timer and get the hell out of there. But where was Ashley and Captain Kirrahe? And where was Kaiden? She looked around, but there was no sign of them.
"Ashley, where are you?" She demanded into the comm. "The bomb is here, we're ready to leave."
"Yeah, remember those prisoners we told you about?" Ashley's voice replied. "Well, there's more of them. They've got us pinned down in a guard tower in the upper level. Commander, we can't get to you."
"That didn't sound good, Shepard." Liara said. "What are we gonna do?"
The bomb couldn't just be left unattended while a rescue was done, and once the timer was set, there wouldn't be enough time to evacuate everyone and get Ashley's team. To make matters worse, all of the guards that had been distracted by their other operations were now coming back, and every once in a while another cloning pod would open, releasing another Krogan that somehow knew to attack them.
"Everyone stay here and protect the bomb." Shepard ordered. "I'm going after Ashley."
There was no time for argument, nor did she stay long enough to listen to any before running toward a ladder that went up to the upper levels. The ladder led to the upper levels of the cloning area, where even more pods were lined up in sections, and thankfully the sound of gunfire told her where to go in order to find Ashley. After running across two sections, and going up more stairs to an even higher area that turned out to be right above where everyone else was, she saw a large group of deranged looking people trying to force their way into a guard tower. It didn't seem to be as large of a group as Ashley described, so Shepard aimed her pistol and started shooting them in the back.
The deranged people were caught completely off guard, and between her and the people in the tower shooting, it didn't take long before it was all clear. A moment later Ashley and Captain Kirrahe came out along with the few Salarians who remained of the team. There was no time for talking, since they already knew the bomb was ready, so Ashley led the way, with all the Salarians following her closely as they made their way back down. Once Shepard was sure that everyone was accounted for, she also started running, but only got as far as the upper level cloning area. A large figure suddenly came out from behind a pod, grabbing her by the throat, and lifting her off her feet.
"Ah, Commander Shepard." Saren said as he tightened his grip. "I've been waiting for you."
