Miranda looked outside of the Normandy at the old Cerberus HQ station. Her fists tightened as her mind went back to when she was there. She tried to convince TIM to leave when the Reapers came, but the dumb bastard refused. After that, what was meant to be a simple evacuation turned into a civil war. The ones with Miranda tried to escape seeing the greater threat, while the ones with TIM tried to prevent them. It didn't go well for both groups as it turned into a stalemate until the Reapers truly arrived.
At that point, it was life or death forcing both groups to just leave. It was a good day or two of chaos that still haunted her for not seeing TIM's corruption earlier. With what Balak told her, and the other Warlords, TIM found something that allowed him to see the 'truth' of the universe. But to her and the others, that just told them that whatever he saw was similar to what Saren saw. A brainwashing technique that makes it seem to the brainwashed that their position is reasonable.
She sighed and wondered how she managed to miss what TIM was becoming. But now, there was another focus. It was a long shot, but this was her idea. She hoped that some of the servers and data caches in the base would still be intact and would show where Harbinger is. Take him down, take the Reapers down. She looked over to Ash and Garrus who were preparing their own weapons. Her mind began to wonder again what to expect, and not for the first time.
This base was one of the main research hubs for Cerberus. Even with her own knowledge about research projects, she didn't know half about what TIM had authorised to be looked into. Jack was evidence of that. Taking a deep sigh, she slid in a thermal clip and coked her weapon. Regardless of her feelings, she needed to focus, now wasn't the time to hesitate.
"We'll be docking soon," EDI then said.
"Good," Ash said as she looked to the boarding group. "Ok people, remember we are here to find the main server. Now Miranda, isn't 100% sure where it is so we're going to be splitting into four groups. I'm Alpha, Miranda is Bravo, Garrus is Charlie and EDI is Delta. 3 people per group, if you find the server ping the others and we'll regroup. But otherwise, unless outnumbered maintain radio silence. We cannot have the Reapers, or what's left of Cerberus know what we are doing here. Clear?"
"Yes sir," the members of the honour guard said.
After getting paired up, the airlock opened and the groups moved out. The Honour guard was something that John didn't much see a reason to have around. But Miranda argued that they couldn't guard themselves 24/7, so he relented and just accepted their existence. But he did have some say with their training and selection. Both of which were made to be extremely difficult to the point were only a few could even get though.
Currently there were 100 members of the Honour guard. Each one selected and trained to the point that taking one on would be a bad idea.
Once in the base, the four groups split and moved in different directions. Miranda and her team headed towards the engineering section of the base. They moved quickly, not taking the time to check down the corridors. With the Reapers on the move, they didn't have time to waste with being careful. Ashley had picked out four squads of three for the reason that they would be fast moving and had the right amount of firepower to back it up.
As they moved a sound met Miranda's ear and she stopped with her group. "EDI, did your sensors pick up any life?" she asked.
"Negative," EDI responded. "There's a sensor dampening field preventing me from detecting anything,"
"Understood, all groups head up, we may not be alone," she said before running again.
She knew she broke the no contact rule, but something about this place gave her the creeps. The lights and most of the power was down, that didn't bode well. If there were no scavengers here, that would be fine. But it's what was they didn't know about that made her on edge.
Even within Cerberus, there was talk about all kinds of experiments. Unethical, immoral, some were even compared to the Nazi's experiments during World War 2. That kind of talk didn't inspire confidence in anyone, which was why it was dismissed as talk. But sometimes, that talk is more real then anyone expected.
Miranda and her team then ran into a large room. Their lights could only illuminate so much, but what they saw made them sick. Bodies of all races lay on beds in various states of surgery. All of them were in cryo, but with the power down that meant they were dead. It still wasn't a pretty sight though.
"Look around, see if you can find anything useful," she ordered and the two guards nodded.
She moved off to look at a hanar in a stage of bisection. Its tentacles were cut off and most of its organs were out of its main body. The purpose and reasoning, lost to time. Sighing she moved on getting a good look at the horror of what she was once apart of. A part of her wished she could go back and change all of this, kill TIM during the evacuation, tell people. But one couldn't change the past.
"Commander," one of the guard's yelled and Miranda ran up next to him.
"What did you find?" she asked looking over his shoulder.
"Plenty," he answered. "Look at this," he pulled up a file. "It's mostly corrupted, but it shows what they were trying to do here,"
"Genocide virus?" she read making him nod.
"According to this, they were trying to find a way to make a virus that made all races sterile and die within a year. It was meant to be a multi-race virus, but they had problems trying. It just couldn't be bound to different DNA types," Miranda looked around at the bodies.
"I don't think that this place was used for virus testing," she said making the Guard look up at her. "Most everyone here has been cut up, organs pulled out, bisection,"
The Guard nodded. "Unless they were test subjects," he thought.
"Viruses aren't made by taking the guts out of people," she countered, but shook her head. "Purge the data, we cannot have anyone get any ideas,"
The Guard nodded and purged the data of the virus. But he saved the rest of the data from the other projects he found.
"Did you find where the main server room is?" she asked, but the guard shook his head.
"Afraid not," he admitted.
"Let's keep moving then," she said.
The three ran out of the room and into the maze of corridors. As they moved, the sound of gunfire met their ears. They stopped and looked around weapons up.
"Did anyone else hear that?" Garrus asked over the radio.
"EDI, can you still not detect anything?" Ashley asked.
"Scans are still being blocked," the AI apologised. "But based of the sound, Miranda's group is the closest,"
"Understood, send a nav marker and we'll investigate," she said.
An indicator popped up on her eyepiece and the group moved towards it. As they got close, they slowed and moved more carefully trying not to make too much sound. A burst of gunfire light up a room ahead followed by some chatter. With a jerk of the head, the two guards moved up to the room's main door pressing their backs the wall next to it. Miranda moved over to another door and did the same as the others. She then moved in weapon raised looking for a target.
A woman was bent over a terminal typing something. Three dead mechs lay around the floor, which she carefully avoided and aimed her rifle at the woman's head.
"Push the pistol away, and raise your hands," Miranda ordered.
The woman carefully raised her hands and looked towards the gun next to her, but her eyes fell onto the Guards who just entered. Her eyes turned away from the gun as Miranda turned her light on.
"Turn around," she ordered and the woman turned, but tried to keep her eyes out of Miranda's flashlight. "Who are you?" she demanded before a click behind her made her stop.
"Lower your weapon," a male voice ordered.
Miranda didn't hesitate and kicked the man in the gut sending him to the floor. She didn't turn but drew a pistol and pointed them at him before looking. Her eye's widened as she looked at the man who shared the same look.
"Jacob?" she asked in surprised.
"Miranda? What are you doing here?" he asked as Miranda lowered her weapons and he stood.
"I could ask you the same thing," she said as she indicated for the guards to lower their weapons.
"We're here looking for a vaccine," he said making Miranda look between the woman and him.
"'We,'" she slowly muttered. "Who else did you come with?"
"James, Brooks, the woman standing behind you, and my wife Brynn," he answered.
"James?" Miranda asked looking at him. "You mean James Vega?"
"Yeah, we found him after the Crucible fired," before Miranda could answer that, Garrus came on over the radio.
"Found the server room," he announced. "Pining the location now,"
"Ashley, I got Jacob here," Miranda announced, there was a moment's silence before the commander answered.
"Wh… never mind once we regroup, we'll talk get them to the server room," Ashley said.
Miranda looked to them. "Where's James?"
"He's in storage with Brynn, they're getting supplies," Jacob answered.
"Call him, we need to get to the servers and quickly," the marine nodded and Miranda turned to books. "How quickly do you need?"
"Another minute," Brooks said. "I got the data, just need to download," she turned and typed in a few keys. "Ok got it,"
"I just pinged James," Jacob then added. "He'll meet us on the way,"
"Ok let's move," Miranda said and the group of five moved.
OOOOO
The main server room was the almost the size of two frigate hangers with data pillars reaching all the way to the top. EDI sat at the main console accessing the data inside the servers trying to look for what they needed. While she was doing that the others caught up with what they were doing.
"Wait let me get this straight," Garrus said. "You guys are councillors of a system of planets, but made sure to keep them hidden?"
"More or less," Jacob shrugged. "Technology is largely banded outside of medical and supply transports. Other than that, it's very limited. But we do use stuff like solar powered trains,"
"So not outright banned," Ash added. "More like highly limited,"
"Yeah, hard to argue with that," James nodded.
"But why?" Miranda asked trying to figure out the reason.
"You," Maya said before noticing their looks. "Not 'you' specifically, more like 'you' as in Warlords. When the Crucible fired, we found ourselves on several worlds that didn't want to be apart that kind of war. So, they limited tech and got to wok on trying to keep our worlds off the radar,"
"Given what's happened that makes sense," Ashley shrugged. "But with the Reapers back you are going to need protection. I can send a fleet to your area and say it's under my protection. You can rule your little kingdom yourselves, but if someone attacks you, you have little means of defending yourself,"
James Jacob, Maya and Brynn looked to one another. "We talked about this extensively and…" Jacob started.
"It's a touchy subject," Brynn said. "Don't get me wrong, we apricate the thought but… well,"
"Having you under my protection would place eyes on you," Ashley said with the four nodding. "How about a discussion with the leaders of your respective worlds?"
"We'll mention it to them," Jacob promised as EDI finished up.
"Got the…." she tried to say, but then her eye black out and her body spasmed while falling to the floor.
"EDI," practically everyone yelled as they moved up to her body.
"I'm ok," EDI said over the radio. "But I've been infected with something, cutting all access to the rest of the ship,"
"Well that was unfortunate," a voice said.
Everyone stood before turning around and firing their weapons until they ran dry. TIM stood before them, a hologram and not really there.
"That was unnecessary," he said as he took a puff on his cigarette.
"Oh, believe me it was," Ash hissed wanting to pounce on the man who killed John's killer. "Very cathartic, now come out of your hole so I can rip into you,"
"I think not," he said before his attention turned to his former subordinates. "Miranda, Jacob, Maya, I feel obliged to offer you one last chance in joining me. Refuse, there will not be a third time,"
Miranda just fired a round that went though the hologram's head. "Fuck you,"
Maya and Jacob did something similar.
"Very well," TIM said before disappearing. "You will regret not joining me…"
