Alright, and now it's time to begin the next chapter involving the Quarian Ark. I know things have been mostly buildup at this point, but trust me, we're going to get a lot more action going forward in this one. But let's dive right in, shall we?
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars or Mass Effect: Andromeda.
Scott was growing more and more frustrated. The way they had to go to get to the AI core was chalk full of the undead, who burbled forth from hidden spots as the team made their way through the halls of the Ark.
Annoyingly, these zombies didn't seem as vulnerable to headshots as entertainment would have indicated, and it became much more expedient to switch to incendiary rounds to burn the corpses to ash. In addition, they made sure to keep the zombies at arm's length, knowing better than to let themselves be bitten.
Despite these precautions, it was still an unpleasant experience. Blood and body parts flew everywhere, the zombies were relentless, all the directions seemed to take them through more, and worst of all, the bodies were all from people who'd been on the Ark.
Scott didn't know what the hell caused this, but he was still furious that it happened at all. Something caused this nightmare to happen, and the Pathfinder was determined to find out what, and more importantly, intended to end this as a threat before it could spread further. Of course, first they needed to get where they needed.
"SAM, how much further?" Scott asked in frustration as he biotically hurled a zombie into the wall, crushing the body with ease.
"We're almost there." The AI reported. "My apologies for the delay, Pathfinder. It seems that all systems are being locked down."
"In other words, we're being forced to wade through a mess of zombies." Liam said, barely hidden hysteria in his voice as he unloaded more rounds than necessary into a zombie he just knocked to the floor. "That's just fucking great!"
"Quit your whining." Drack said, even as he bodyslammed a Quarian zombie and shotgunned another. "It's not like this is the first nightmare we've had to deal with here."
"Still, the sooner we get to the AI core, the better." Cora interjected, while combining her biotics with Ryder's and creating an explosion of dark energy amongst a large grouping. "Hopefully we can at least learn what the hell happened here."
"And finish off the Sith in the process." Vetra commented sourly as they finally defeated the group of zombies that had been trying to swarm them. "Though I doubt we'll be that lucky."
"Speaking of which." Ryder activated his comm and signalled to Ahsoka's own link. "Guys, how's it going?" A clash of lightsabers answered him.
"We're a little busy at the moment!"
...
Back in the reactor room, the Sith and the Jedi had already engaged in a duel, with six blades clashing as the two Jedi and two Sith fought each other once more. Kota took on Zhaff this time while Ahsoka fought Xianne, dual blades vs dual blades clashing in through the room.
Despite its size, the reactor room was also fairly cramped, and the Sith exploited the lack of breathing room. It didn't help that the Jedi were attempting to limit any collateral damage that might occur to the reactor, hoping to avoid causing any more catastrophic failures to the Ark.
This was something the Sith had expected and accounted for, choosing the location because they knew that the compassion of the Jedi would be to their detriment, and would be all too happy to use that against them.
"Typical Jedi compassion." Xianne said spitefully, even as her dual blades were locked with Ahsoka's own. "You care too much about all these poor innocents getting hurt." She broke the bladelock and spun around with her momentum, aiming to cut the Togruta in half. "It will be your downfall."
Ahsoka backflipped away from the blades and landed on top of a console, before using the leverage and jumping up, aiming to bring her blades down on Xianne's head. The Sith just laughed as she blocked the next strike, before blasting her across the room with Force lightning.
Ahsoka hit the wall in pain, and quickly brought up her lightsabers again just before Xianne could take her head off. Meanwhile, on an upper catwalk, Kota kept up his duel with Zhaff, who was being driven back by the experienced Jedi Master. Despite this, the Theelin kept smirking.
"You know, once we're done with you, we'll turn Ark into our own personal hunting grounds." Zhaff said, grinning evilly with the thought. "Release the colonists from stasis, then hunt them down for slaughter. Or maybe we'll just let them be devoured by the undead."
This time, Kota caught Zhaff in a bladelock before reacting with his other hand and Force pushing the Sith into one of the consoles. Zhaff brought his lightsaber up as Kota brought his down, pushing the red blade closer towards Zhaff's neck.
"Careful now." The Sith warned in spite of himself. "Wouldn't want to damage the precious Ark, now would you?" He spared a quick glance at the console. "I believe this one actually controls life support for the pods. Wouldn't want to damage that, would you?"
The words had the desired effect. Kota's efforts at pushing down Zhaff's blade slackened, just a bit, enough that the Sith could kick the Jedi Master in the chest, and with a Force augmented kick, knocked Kota across the catwalk.
Down below, the Togruta and Zeltron continued their duel, with Ahsoka still putting up a fight and blocking out Xianne's attempts to taunt her. As she blocked one red blade with both of hers, she figured that maybe it was time to get some information of her own.
"How did you find this ship?" The Jedi asked, even as she blocked Xianne's blade with one of her own while simultaneously trying to catch the Sith with the other.
"Perhaps it was the will of the Force." The Zeltron said sardonically, breaking the blade block and moving to intercept Ahsoka's second blade with the other end of her lightsaber. "Or perhaps the Initiative told us." The Sith all but cackled as she started to push Ahsoka back. "Do you really think your precious alliance will last? Sooner or later, it will fall, just as the Republic did and just as the Jedi did."
Ahsoka's eyes narrowed at what she was saying, even as the Jedi countered blade strike after blade strike. The implication was clear: These Sith knew about the rise of the Empire and the destruction of the Jedi.
While they could have gotten it from interrogating Sarissa or stealing some datapads or omni-tools, the mention of someone in the Initiative suggested there was more going on than they knew.
Then Xianne nearly took her head off, and Ahsoka knew that those questions would have to wait for later. In response, the Jedi Knight redoubled her own attack, putting the Zeltron on the back foot for a moment before the Sith threw a Force push in her direction.
"Is that really the best you can do?" Ahsoka turned the momentum into a backflip and landed on top of a console. "If this is the best Sith in your time could do, no wonder you lost to the Republic."
"And that's why you always lose." Ahsoka pointed her lightsaber. "Because the Sith stand alone. We don't."
"Ah yes, your pathetic little friends." Xianne grinned as she realized the implications. "Did you really think we would forget about them?"
...
They were in trouble. With Ahsoka and Kota distracting the Sith, the plan for Sara, Peebee and Jaal was to circle around the reactor room and use one of the other entrances to take them by surprise.
Unfortunately, the locks weren't easily bypassed, and it seemed a lot of the zombies congregaed around the area, as every hall they went through was just filled with more of these undead who were hindering their progress.
And now, when they finally reached their destination, the door was locked down tight. They couldn't get through into the reactor room through the door that led to the lower levels, which was problematic.
"SAM." Sara called, even as Jaal shot one of the surviving undead in the head and it toppled over. "Can you get this door open?"
"Done." The AI said after a moment, as the light on the lock went from red to green. "Be advised, I'm detecting movement on the other side."
"Shouldn't that be expected?" Peebee asked as they stacked up next to the door. "It's the reactor room and we have two sets of Force users fighting in there."
"That's not the movement I'm detecting." SAM replied as the door opened. It was dark in the lower levels, but even in the darkness, they could see what was there.
"Oh... shit..."
...
Meanwhile, the rest of the Pathfinder team had made it to the AI server room with minimal resistance, and with no time to waste, Scott and SAM immediately got to work repairing the damaged Node's connection.
There were already so many questions about what happened burning in Ryder's mind: what happened to the Ark to cause this damage? Where was the Ark's Pathfinder? Why weren't there any still living crew? How did all these zombies get onboard? What happened to the escape pods that ejected?
Every single one of those questions were ones that needed to be answered, and once SAM was finally able to bring his counterpart back to some semblance of awareness, it was time to get those answers.
"Did it work?" Liam asked as the lights came back on in the room.
"Does this mean the Ark's SAM is back online?" Vetra added.
"Indeed." Their own SAM replied. "There is some damage remaining, but I managed to retrieve some of the data logs. This Ark had a much more eventful journey than the others, to say the least."
"Considering how the others have fared, that's pretty telling." Drack snarked.
"We'll go over the details later." Scott focused. "Let's start with something simple: how did this... zombie outbreak happen?"
"An anomaly." SAM replied. "According to the logs, some form of disturbance appeared near the Ark. A team was woken up to investigate, and discovered some debris nearby, with no indication of how it got there."
"Let me guess: The anomaly in question is the same one that brought our Jedi and Imperial friends here?" Cora guessed.
"Affirmative." The AI replied before continuing. "Among that debris was a strange vial, one which was brought onboard. But it seems it was damaged beforehand, as it started leaking as soon as it was brought onboard."
"Then it was a really good thing we all wore environmental suits when we came onboard." Vetra noted, tapping her sealed helmet as she said that.
"Indeed." SAM affirmed. "However, it seems that the airborne element has been removed from the ship. This SAM managed to isolate that element before it could become too virulent."
"So... the air's safe to breathe?" Scott asked.
"In theory." The AI stressed. "I would nevertheless advise against removing your environmental protection gear unless absolutely necessary. Without confirmation, I cannot guarantee that the air is entirely safe. Indeed, from what data I have recovered from the initial outbreak, it seems that even envirosuits were ineffective at the start."
"That's comforting." Drack drawled. "Though I guess not surprising. Between that and this plague jumping across species, whoever made this clearly wanted an effective bioweapon."
"I believe that would be an understatement. The virus reanimated already dead tissue as well." SAM said. "Bodies in the morgue woke up on their own."
"I'm afraid to ask why they were already bodies onboard." Cora sighed. "Either way, the makers of this just left us a mess to deal with."
"Fifty creds says it was Imperials." Vetra called out.
"Not taking that one." Liam replied before Ryder cut them off.
"And the escape pods?" Scott asked. "What happened with them?"
"Unknown." SAM answered. "Much of the data is still corrupted. I can potentially track their trajectories, but that will take time."
"We'll deal with that after we deal with this." Scott shook his head. "First things first; can we make a cure for this?"
"Those already undead are beyond saving." SAM replied. "However, it should be possible to produce a vaccine to at least ensure the airborne virus is ineffective, provided we find the original vial and sample of the virus."
"And do we know where that is?" Cora asked. In response, a map of the Ark appeared and highlighted a blue pinprick of light in the depths of the ship.
"It's not too far." Liam noted, before realizing something. "Wait, SAM... can you track where the zombies are using the internal sensors?"
"Good thinking, Liam." Scott agreed as the AI did as requested, highlighting clusters of red dots all over the map of the Ark. Five sets of eyes widened as they saw where the largest mass of dots were. The bulk of the undead were in the reactor room.
"Call the others."
And I think I'm going to end it here. I know these last few chapters have been shorter than the earlier ones, and I won't lie, that pattern will probably continue on for the forseeable future.
It will at least ensure that I have a fairly steady supply of chapters going forward. But yeah, you're going to have to wait a bit for the resolution to this, which will hopefully be finished in the next chapter, but no promises.
With all that said, I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter and reviews are always welcome.