With Chase
I could easily say the passed few hours for me had been a bit of a drag, with taking care of Megan, the talk with Wrex and Tali, and the fact that I'm still dealing with the aftermath of Cayde's death things could definitely be better over all. The silver lining though was that the Normandy had finally arrived in the Artemis Tau cluster and we were now nearing the planet Therum where T'soni is supposedly located.
So far she was the only lead we had to the whereabouts of Saren due to the fact that the good doctors mother was apparently working for the Turian bastard. If nothing else her knowledge of the Prothean's could help us with finding the Conduit, whatever that was.
Shepard had decided that the entire team was going down as she didn't want to take any chances in case Saren's Geth were already here, of course by 'whole team' she apparently meant everyone except for myself and my fireteam, which is what lead to the current situation in the middle of the hangar bay.
"What do you mean we're 'not needed' Shepard? You said the whole team was going down so why are we being sidelined?" I demanded as Cal and Lexi stood behind me while the rest of the ground team was standing by the six wheeled Mako tank watching the argument between myself and the Commander go down.
"As I said you and your friends aren't needed for this mission, we're already gonna be cramped in the Mako so there isn't any room for the three of you anyway." explained Shepard but I knew there was more to her reasoning than there simply not having enough room.
"We don't need to be in the Mako to make it planet side Shepard, plus we have our own means of transportation." I threw back and I saw her jaw clench for a second before she expertly schooled her features.
"Even so we have more than enough personnel to complete the mission, bringing your team along would just be overkill."
I paused for a moment as I observed the red haired Commander, it was plainly obvious that she was trying to keep me and the others out of the mission for whatever reason but news for her, there are only three people, well two now really, in the cosmos I would ever take orders from and she is not one of them. She may have been given the mission to hunt down Saren by the Council but the Council doesn't command my team and at the end of the day, neither does she.
"We're still going Shepard and you can't stop us, so we'll see you ground side." I said with finality and turned back towards my team so we could prepare to transmat down to the planet since it would be faster then using our ships and we were close enough to do so.
I was stopped when an armored hand clasped itself on my shoulder, following the appendage it was no surprise to see it connected to a very irate looking Commander Shepard. She looked so angry that I swore if she was a Guardian the amount of Sol energy that would be coming off of her would rival the sun in intensity.
"I said we have it handled Chase, I'm ordering you and your team to stay here." she practically growled.
Slapping her hand away I spun back around to face her with my face now set in a scowl as I glared right into her green colored eyes, "you seem to be under the impression that I have to follow your orders Shepard. My team, nor I are a part of the Alliance or anything Council related so don't even try and pull rank on me. We are with you on this mission to take down Saren and that is it. Now I don't know what crawled up your ass thats making you act like this but if you've got a problem with me and my team then spit it out right now or forever shut the fuck up."
With my ultimatum laid out Shepard and I held gazes just waiting for the other to break. I could feel the looks from the others in the background but my focus was squarely on the woman before me. I had no idea why she was being this way towards my team and I, back on the Citadel she acted fairly cordial and damn near friendly to my fellow Guardian's and I, then just a few hours after starting the mission to hunt down the rogue spectre she's treating us with suspicion and thinly veiled distrust.
Something must have happened in that time to make her act like this but nothing came to mind. Whether she answered me or not was irrelevant as my team was going to be a part of this mission whether she liked it or not. The fact of the matter was that Shepard needed my team more than we needed her. With the hacking abilities of our Ghost we could more than likely get quite a few leads on Saren, but something in my gut was telling me that sticking with the Normandy would be more helpful than just going out on our own. The solo option was always available however, and if things on the Normandy became unbearable Fireteam Rogue could leave anytime that we wished it.
After a few minutes of silence I finally broke eye contact and turned back to my team, "we'll meet up with you at the ruins Shepard," were my final words to the Commander as my helmet materialized just before team and I transmatted to Therum's surface with the last sight being the Commander's stunned face.
With Shepard
The surprise of seeing Chase and his team vanish in a flash of light was quickly lost and replaced with irritation. I had hoped to keep Fireteam Rogue out of this operation as much as possible after what I saw near the med bay.
When I first encountered Fireteam Rogue on Eden Prime I knew instantly that they weren't normal soldiers, or even merc's. Yet I was forced to trust them in the moment due to the situation with the Geth and Saren invading and the Prothean Beacon so I didn't really have much of a choice to refuse help if I wanted to complete my mission. Regardless, they had proven they could be trusted after helping on Eden Prime, and they really grew on me with how they reacted towards the Council and their obvious bullshit.
They even had Anderson's trust, which would usually be more than enough for me to trust them! Still, when I saw them with Chase walking out of the med bay with Wrex and Tali I was a little suspicious on what they could have been doing in there. Not to mention I had also noticed that for a little over an hour Fireteam Rogue had been in the comms room doing god knows what so that didn't help ease my suspicions.
I had tried to talk to Tali and Wrex about what went on in that room but both had refused to answer, saying that it was a 'secret' between themselves and the Guardians and only the Guardians could tell her if they wanted to. This solidified the fact that something was going on in my ship that I didn't know about and I didn't like it one bit. I felt like I may have just jumped the gun in trusting the Guardian's so much right now and until I figured out if I could truly trust them I didn't want them watching my back where they could potentially put a bullet in it.
My moment of thought was broken by Kaiden as he spoke up with concern, "you okay Commander?"
Was I okay? Not really, but my concerns weren't worth dwelling on at the moment. I still had a mission to complete after all, and a doctor to retrieve.
"I'm fine Lieutenant, lets just get going." I said turning towards the Mako.
"So we're not gonna talk about the fact the those three apparently just teleported? I'm not sure about the rest of you but that seems like a pretty important thing to discuss right now." commented Garrus and I shot him a look.
"We can question them on how they did it after we have recovered Dr. T'soni Vakarian. Until then, get your ass in the tank." I replied and there were no more questions as the whole team started to pile into the Mako.
As I was getting ready to hop into the drivers seat I couldn't help but glance at Wrex and Tali. Whatever was going on with them and the Guardian's was my biggest concern at the moment and I couldn't help but feel bit angry at the two for withholding information from me on the matter. From my interactions with the two I knew that Wrex was the bigger threat with him being a veteran merc and all and more in it for the pay than anything else. Tali on the other hand didn't seem like much of a threat and Adam's seemed to love having her in engineering.
I just couldn't help but wonder what was so important between themselves and the Guardian's that they wouldn't tell me. All I could really do at the moment was pray it wasn't as bad as I was making it out to be, but until I was proven otherwise they would be kept at arms length. Making it this far in my career didn't happen with me just trusting random people for no reason after all.
With the Guardians
After the Guardian's had transmatted to the planet Lexi promptly smacked Chase upside the head with a little Arc energy thrown in just to make it hurt a little more.
"Ow! What in the Speaker's name was that for!?"
"That was for transmatting us in plain view of everyone you moron! We need to keep as much of our abilities a secret for as long as possible, yet here you are basically showing off for no reason! You couldn't' have at least waited until they were gone before pulling that stunt?" responded the Warlock with crossed arms and a vexed expression beneath her helm.
The other two Guardian's understood Lexi's frustration with the stunt they just pulled, especially Caleb. After their talk with Hackett on future plans for the Vanguard group and such Lexi had asked about what Cerberus was since Anderson had questioned them on being operatives back on the Normandy and she had become curious about them. The picture Hackett painted was a pretty bad one, the thought of a pro-human rogue black op's group was definitely something to worry about. Just hearing about some of the 'instances' in which they were involved just served to disgust the Guardian's more. If a group like their's ever got their hands on Guardian tech then it could spell trouble for a lot of people and that was the last thing Fireteam Rogue wanted at the moment.
Before Chase could reply to Lexi's rhetorical question with a snarky comment Caleb had stepped up to get them back on track, cause if he left them to argue then they would be at it for hours.
"Okay you two break it up, we got a job to do remember?" reminded the Titan with a firm tone.
The Titan's words stopped whatever argument that was about to be had cold, but the two Guardian's still glared at each other until Cal's ghost Lex appeared drawing the trios attention, "well while you all were having your moment I have managed to pick up Geth signal's currently northeast of our current position. So if you hope to beat the Commander to the Doctor we really should be getting a move on."
Not another word was said as they didn't need to be. Summoning their sparrow's the Guardian's took off at breakneck speeds towards the location where the Geth and, presumably, Dr. Tsoni were. Unlike the other vehicles of this universe, the Guardian's sparrows had no need to go around the large lava pools that dotted Therum's surface and simply cruised over them. The shields for the sparrows, while minimal, made it so they wouldn't melt from the heat and whatever damage they got could easily be fixed with a quick application of glimmer.
The ride was quiet so far, until they spotted a small Geth outpost in their way. The front gate was guarded by four large rocket turrets that immediately started firing as soon as the Guardian's were in range, and due to the narrow trail leading up to it there wasn't much room to maneuver.
Spotting a small turnoff Chase directed his teammates into it and found themselves staring down only a single turret in comparison to the four out front. The situation wasn't good but it was far better than before. Using the superior speed and small size of the sparrow's, Fireteam Rogue easily evaded the turrets attempts to blow them to bits until they were right up on it.
Holding up one of her hands, Lexi's palm glowed with gathered Sol energy as she formed a fusion grenade. Taking careful aim she lobbed it into the barrel of the turret right before it could release another missile. The resulting explosion turned the turret into nothing more than a patch of scorched earth with the remain's being burned away thanks to the lingering Sol energies.
Not long after that the trio was assaulted by Geth troops manning the outpost. A majority of the Geth were just regular troopers with two being larger then the others, but nowhere near as large as a Geth Prime meaning these were the Juggernaut class Geth.
Seeing their opposition Fireteam Rogue split off with Lexi and Chase focusing on the Troopers, while Caleb went straight for the heavies of the outpost. The first one to reach their target's was Chase, who drifted his sparrow at the last moment so the back end slammed into the side of a Geth trooper and sent its body flying into one of the gatehouse walls where it was turned into a crumpled heap. Leaping from his seat the Hunter had already brought forth Crimson and unloaded a few bursts. He took note that while the Geth's kinetic shield's were pretty good, the metal that made up the Geth's body was fairly weak. Putting that thought onto the back burner for now he proceeded to fire his Hand Cannon with deadly accuracy at any Geth that found their way into his line of sight.
By that time the teams Titan had reached the Juggernaut's who had begun to hammer the Exo with rounds from their shotguns. These weapons actually made Caleb stumble a bit from the combined fire, but he quickly regained his balance and decided to fire back with his own Tractor Cannon. A single shot from this monster of a weapon was enough to blow one of the Juggernaut's to pieces and send it's companion stumbling. Using its distracted state, Cal rushed the machine with an Arc empowered shoulder charge. As soon as the Guardian made contact the Geth heavy unit was sent into the air where it was quickly erased due to the power of Caleb's light. Seeing that there were no more heavies around, and that his fellow Guardian's weren't having any problems dispatching the rest of the Geth stationed here, Cal decided to make his way into the gatehouses to open them up for when Shepard got there and to also clear the way for them to continue forward.
Lexi for her part wasn't as interested in destroying the Geth as she was in studying them, she had already made the same notes as Chase that they focus more on shielding then armor save for maybe their larger units. This was a stark contrast to their usual synthetic enemies the Vex, as while the lesser Vex unit's possessed no shields their armor was still strong enough to take quite a few shot's, unless you hit them in the abdominal area where the Vex milk container was. Even without a head a Vex could still function, it just charged you firing the whole way, but the Geth were no harder to kill then any other organic being. She had learned a few things about how the Geth operated and tried to compare them to what she knew of the Vex, but there simply was no comparison between the two as the Vex were just superior in nearly every way. So while the Geth may be a threat to the people of this universe they were a joke compared to the enemies of humanity that the Guardian's like her face back home on a daily basis. She thought all of this while using her Huckleberry smg to mow down any Geth that tried to attack her.
In no time at all the outpost had been cleared of hostile's with the Guardian's standing tall in the carnage they had made.
"So who wants to bet that Shepard will be pissed we didn't leave any for her and the others?" Joked Chase as he salvaged some pieces from the broken machine's to later tinker with.
"I think she'll still be more pissed at your little stunt in the hanger Chase, but either way we should really be moving on since the dig site is still a way's off and there will no doubt be many more Geth along the way." Pointed out Lexi as her Ghost was scanning some of the Geth remains and weapons to study for herself a bit later. She didn't have much time to do this back on Eden Prime so she was taking the opportunity presented to her.
And Just like that the Guardian's were off again, hoping to make a clear path for Shepard and the others to take and maybe just to show her up a little out of spite in the case of the Hunter.
With Shepard
Almost as soon as the Mako had landed the team had been assaulted by some Geth siege units called Armatures. The quadrupedal units were a big nuisance, but thanks to Shepards great (i.e crazy) driving and the marksmanship of Garrus they were able to literally blow away all the opposition. Even when the smaller, but no less deadly, rocket troopers came to try and stop them, they too were blow to bits thanks to the Mako's firepower.
With their progress Shepard was sure they would make it to T'soni's location before Fireteam Rogue, at least that was what she thought until they reached the Geth outpost. She almost had a heart attack when she saw the four rocket turrets when she turned the corner, but surprise quickly turned to confusion upon the fact they were't instantly being fired upon, even more so when she realized the gates were open. Being cautious still as they pulled in she was even more shocked to find the remains of what had no doubt once been the outpost's defenders.
She and her team quickly disembarked and began to check the area for any sign's of what may have happened here, though Jane already had a good idea of what, and more importantly who, came through but she wanted to be certain. It took a few minutes but eventually the team met back up to discuss their findings with Tali being the first to speak, "I checked the most recent logs for the gates and found out that the gates and turret's were opened and disabled at around the same time, also there appears to be a missing turret but I don't see any signs of it."
This is where Wrex came in, as he and Garrus had gone to check the side path that they figured connected to the other side path that was on the other side of the gates, "well me and the Turian found where a turret might have been, but all that's there now is a blackened crater."
Jane narrowed her eyes at that but after looking at Garrus, the Turian quickly confirmed the mercenary's words, "it's true Shepard. Whatever weapon had been there it was completely obliterated with not even scraps remaining. I've never known of any weapons that could do something like that."
As the group discussed their findings Shepard's mind was a whirl with possibilities but the only option that made sense was that Fireteam Rogue had passed through here and opened the path for them. Normally she would take an action like that as a polite gesture, but going by what she knew of the team's leader Chase, it was more than likely a taunt at how slow she was and how far ahead they were of her. Now with a competitive fire burning in her chest she quickly ordered everyone back into the Mako before taking off like a bat out of hell just to try and catch up to the Guardian's.
Oh she would be having words with Chase after they were all back on the Normandy, and she would not be taking no for an answer unless the Hunter wanted to be thrown out of an airlock.
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