Chapter 20
I don't own Destiny
I don't own Mass Effect
This is a message from your Commander; if you've played me in the new legendary edition, you are hereby commanded to tell the author if it is worthwhile buying to be better able to write down my sheer awesomeness for this story, Shepard out.
Story start
After the less than pleasant news that Exogeni were using the colonists as unwilling guinea pigs, Shepard was, well...absolutely pissed.
"When I get my hands on that asshole, I'll tear him a new asshole that is bigger than he is." fumed Shepard. "I better warn Joker what's happening. Joker, come in, Joker, admit that shield's blocking us! Callum, did Casper detect the spore when we were going through the colony?"
Appearing before us, Casper answered "I did detect spores in the air at the time, but I didn't pay them any mind."
"Anything you can tell me about them now?" asked Shepard
"Control would likely take an extended period of exposure, at least a week, but I'd say its better to be safe than sorry, especially if you plan on getting closer to the Thorian." warned Casper
"Good idea, everyone, attach your air filters to your helmets. Wrex, I know you didn't bring your helmet..." started Jane, only to be cut off by Wrex attaching a rebreather to his face
"What? Do you think I've been a mercenary as long as I have and not carry a source of oxygen with me? Do you know how many times someone's tried to kill me by venting the atmosphere or opening a door into space? Just because I don't always wear a helmet doesn't mean I take stupid risks." answered Wrex
"...good to know. Oh, by the way, Riggs, I'm going to need you to keep silent about a lot of things you've seen on this mission. Well, mainly just Casper and Callum." asked/suggested Shepard
"Help the colony, deal with Exogeni, and you got yourself a deal." agreed Riggs. "As far as I can see, you guys are okay."
"I'll speak to Anderson afterwards, he'll probably send it up to Hackett, who'll send it down to someone else but Exogeni ain't getting away scot-free for using innocent colonists as test subjects for seven weeks. Speaking of which, Lizabeth, what part do you think she has in this mess?" asked Jane
"I doubt she's going along with it willingly. She doesn't seem to be that kind of person...her mum told me stories of her crying the first time she dissected toads and rats at high school. Jeong on the other hand is a greedy bastard and a coward to boot who would have no problem sacrificing anyone who wasn't himself. I have no doubt he hoped we came here only to die."
"Well, he's going to be in for a nasty shock isn't he?" Jane asks
"Let's get this over with and deal with the shield." said Wrex "We can talk about killing the weasel later."
"Good idea." said Shepard before turning to the VI "There is an energy field inside the building; could you tell me the source?"
"I have detected unusual energy fluctuations but am unable to determine the source." answered the VI
"Well, there goes that idea. Let's find that ship and hope that deals with it. If not, we'll have to play the role of an electrician and cut some cables." said Jane "But first I want to get as much information out of this guy as possible."
And she did, some of the information was useful, such as the Thorian taking care not to injure its thrall (for what little that meant), some less valuable such as no information at all on the geth. The information-gathering only came to a halt when Shepard asked "How much does Exogeni outside of Feros know about the Thorian?"
"I'm sorry, but you do not have the necessary clearance to view that information...this account has been locked; please get in touch with your local supervisor for more information." said the VI before shutting down
"Well, there goes the chance to get more information." said Riggs, annoyed
"Not really. Thanks to that, I know that at least someone outside of Feros knows what's going on, definitely higher up; otherwise her account wouldn't have been locked." remarked Shepard
After that, they continued. Walking on a cracked and broken floor, past a caved in office and up a set of stairs where they found three geth, all close together and kneeling in front of a glowing orb. Seeing an opportunity, I throw an arc grenade wiping them all out and destroying the sphere simultaneously.
"Is it just me, or did it look like those geth were worshipping that thing?" asked Riggs, before looking sadly at some of the bodies and recognising them. "Damn, it's Sam and Frodo."
"Who?" asked Jane, wondering if she heard that right
"Sam and Frodo, they weren't their actual names, of course, but everyone called them that. They got inspired by the old Lord of the Ring vids to go and explore the galaxy, so they did just that. They were doing odd jobs to earn the money they needed for each leg of their journey. For us, they helped out with the cooking and cleaning. Shit, the day we got attacked was their last day of working with us. I hoped to God that they'd already left. In a month, they could have been in Illium or the Citadel. They once joked that Omega would be their Mordor...at least at the time I thought they were joking." sighed Riggs
"I'm sorry, Riggs but we don't have the time." said Jane as gently as she could given the circumstances
"It's fine. I knew I'd see a few people I worked with dead when I agreed to come and help, doesn't make it any easier though." answered Riggs
"These legs are from the ship, Callum do you think you could hack them off? If we get enough, the ship should fall off." said Shepard examining them
"Probably, but I could also cut the cables too." I offer
"Nah, I prefer the ship falling and crashing to the ground." responded Shepard "One less ship to worry about that way."
"If that's what you want, however there's definitely more than just these legs holding the ship in place, so what I'll do is weaken all the legs we come across until they all give way at once. That way, the geth won't realise what we're doing until the ship comes tumbling down." I said before summoning Young Wolf's Howl and channelled solar energy into the blade, turning it red hot before I started to carve out sections in such a way that left them in one piece but structurally unsound, much like cutting down a tree.
After that was done, they continued on but before they went far Shepard realised something
"Hey, Callum wait a second. Do you know how Riggs said it looked like the geth were worshipping that thing?" asked Shepard
"Yeah why?" I ask
"Well as from what Tali told us, the only thing the geth worship are the Reaper meaning..." trailed Jane
"Meaning that they might be closer than we thought, or at least more involved." I replied worriedly
A couple more rooms and we came to the otherside of the barrier that we encountered before. As Janes suspected there were geth laying in wait, obviously there to kill anyone that tried to leave, or who somehow made it through the barrier (like I would have). Strangely the geth seemed to have no clue we were coming leading me to believe that the geth we killed along with the orb were disconnected from their network at the time.
This lack of awareness allowed us to (for once) take the geth completely by surprise and take them down in seconds. Jane taking down two of them as she enters the room while Riggs blows the head off a geth sniper while I jump up and grab a geth hopper by its foot and slamming in on the ground before I blew its head off with my hand cannon.
"Is it just me or have you developed a dislike for the hoppers." rumbled Wrex
"It's not just you. That said can you really blame him?" asked Jane
"No, its like trying to crush a pyjack. Annoying and bound to be messy if you don't get in the first go." answered Wrex
"Okay Riggs where now, where would the rest of the legs be?" asked Shepard. Taking a moment to think about it Riggs answers
"There's a large room to the left here that might have more, however there's is something upstairs that I want to grab before we go anywhere if you don't mind. Though it can wait till later."
"No that's fine, we should clear it out anyway just to make sure that no one sneaks up behind us." said Jane as they continued past the barrier and continued up a long flight of stairs and into a hallway. As soon as we entered the hallway we were set upon by three krogan. One immediately went for Wrex and they started grappling with each other, while one went for me and another for Shepard- who had Riggs to back her up.
Ducking under an arm that attempted to grab and crush me I fire a round into his back. The Krogans shields were able to slow the rounds down but not stop it completely as it hits the armour and the flesh underneath. With merely a grunt to show he felt the blow the krogan turns and comes back towards me, bloodlust clear in his eyes and intent on ripping me apart. But as I unleash round after round his pace finally slows as the fourth bullet enters his chest and only falls at the six bullet. Giving him a brief nod of respect for both his tenacity and his will I unload a seventh and then eighth bullet into his skull before reloading to make sure he stays down, krogan healing abilities or not.
Turning around I she Jane and Riggs have their krogan well in hand, Jane using a throw targeted at his left leg to trip him into a face plant so she and Riggs could unload (Jane using her shotgun while Riggs used his pistol). Wrex, on the other hand, had shown his counterpart who was the superior krogan, throwning him off and blew his head apart with the cabal shotgun when he tried to charge for a second time.
Continuing on the team came to a few storage units, which mainly had useless bits of pieces, the only useful thing they had was an armour exoskeleton kit that looked experimental and could be useful later on as well as some ammo mods. However, she wasn't sure if she should take it due to what everyone went though
"Go ahead and take it." interrupted Riggs as he downloaded something from a console "Gavin Hossle runs this department and he asked me if I could retrieve some data for him so think of that as payment. I doubt he'll mind for two reasons, one he probably has a copy of the design and two you'll be giving him a real-world evaluation that some people would kill to have their products go through."
"Well when you put it like that..." said Jane taking it and planing to ask either Tali or Ashley to install it on someone's suit, who's suit she'll decide later
"So someone tried to kill you by jettisoning you into space?" asked Jane as they walked back past the barrier
"Yeah someone did. But I just put on my rebreather, used biotics and was back aboard not ten minutes later. Scared the absolute shit out of him when he saw me later, well before I killed him."gawghed Wrex
After that we continued to search for more legs to cut off to dislodge the ship, Riggs leading the way so that they didn't get turned around. We found another one a short time after and I quickly got down to weakening like I did the first one. A loud groan from the metal was the only warning I had as I jumped back as the leg snapped, the ship shifting back. For a moment it stayed like that then there was a loud sound of metal grating over concrete in the room adjacent to us. Obviously the loss of one claw (as the probable loss of the leg I cut before) had shifted the balance of the ship and the remaining legs didn't seem to have the grip or the strength to maintain the ship's position. When the ship fell it hit the side of the building causing it to shake remedusly.
"Well." says Shepard after a pause "I guess there weren't as many legs holding it up as I thought." she continued before everyone's radar went off
"Shit contacts!" shouted Shepard as she levelled her Sweet Business as geth started to pour out of the balcony above, and I do mean pour there were the standard geth troopers some of their shock troopers and even a couple of destroyers.
"Reloading!" shouted Jane as she inserted a new magazine
"Covering!" replied Riggs as he sped up his firing rate before being hit with an overload causing him to switch to his pistol
'This doesn't make sense.' I thought to myself as I fire over cover 'Why are they just pouring in? Are they trying to overheat our weapons or to run out of ammo? The geth operate by logic and there's only one entry point and surely they know that we're harder to deal with than the usual organic so why not wait for us to come to them or try for an ambush?' I thought before remembering that there was an open hole behind us where the leg used to be 'Oh shit!'
As I turn around I can see a couple of geth hoppers already in the process of climbing through it. 'Not today you bastards.' I thought as I fire a ball of lightning that fries them, causing them to drop. After this, the stream of geth started to slow before stopping altogether. They obviously intended the hoppers to take us out while the main force kept our attention.
"A big crashed followed by killing a ton of geth, just my kind of mission." rumbled Wrex
"Same here, though I wonder why so many were in that room?" asked Shepard as she heads towards where the geth swarmed from "Anyway we better make sure we got all of them."
As they examine the room nothing really sticks out at first aside from some large bay doors and large gouges in the floor. But after some searching.
"Found out why there were so many geth here. The bay doors have been malfunctioning and would slam shut if you messed with the PSI, meaning we could have reworked it to sever the claw and drop the ship. They obviously came here to stop us from breaking it but didn't expect us to go for the others instead." said Riggs as he looked at the controls for the bay door.
"So, did I just waste my time cutting up the legs?" I ask
"Not really, I'd rather attack them as they enter the room than be attacked as I enter a room. Also Riggs does the name Dr Gamorle sound familiar?" asked Jane
"Yeah why?" replied Riggs
"Because I have a personal log from him here saying that they've been delivering samples the Matano System for some group called Cerberus and that if they got out before they made an antidote it would be bad. What was this area used for any way?"
"All I know is that it was some containment lab, what they did here I haven't the faintest clue." answered Riggs
"Well I'll let Davidson know when we get back. Speaking of which, Joker can you hear me?" asked Shepard
"Commander? Thank goodness your alive, I've been hailing you nearly none stop, I just took a break to see if we could reach you on a different frequency. The colonists have gone mental. They're banging on the hull trying to get in, one crazy bastard is even on the cockpit's window looking at me right now trying to break it with a rock." answered Joker over coms
"Don't harm them, there's a native plant life form that's controlling them. I doubt they can get in but station guards at any weak points." ordered Shepard
"Hold on, a plant? Did I hear that right commander, is this some sort of magic mushroom thing that's gotten out of control?" asked Joker
"No this is an intelligent plant is using spores to infect then control hosts using a ton of pain sort of thing. Also, cut off any oxygen from the outside and filter the crap out of the air inside the ship, use our emergency oxygen if you have to." answered Shepard
"Roger that commander, what will you be doing?" asked Joker
"Going to see if we need a whipper snipper and weed killer." said Shepard before ending the connection
With that, they made their way back to the barrier just as Lizabeth arrived and greeted them "Good there you are, listen we should get going."
"Before we do that I need you to tell me what's going on and what you really know. Riggs has vouched for you and that's the only reason your face isn't against the wall so start talking." said Jane trying to keep her cool
"I didn't want to help them, but they told me if I said or did anything that my mum and me would become part of the experiments, that we would be exposed to a high concentration of spores. I lost my dad when I was young...I couldn't loose my mother too. But when the geth attacked I saw a chance to contact Colonal Affairs, I figured that with all the chaos that by the time the company learnt what I'd done it would be too late to anything about it...one way or another." answered Lizabeth
"You did what you could when you could and risked your life doing so, that's all that matters. But I need you to tell me where the Thorian is." said Shepard
"It's under the colony, but the entrance is covered. The colonists covered it just before the geth started to attack." informed Lizabeth
"So I was right, the geth were after something in the colony." I spoke
"But why, why would the geth or Saren be after the Thorian?" asked Shepard
"The Thorian has been here a very long time, an extremely long time. We believe that it was here long before the Protheans colonised this planet and there's also the mind control abilities, that's the main reason Exogeni were interested." answered Lizabeth
"I think I know why Saren's interested but I'll tell you later, after we drop Lizabeth off." I said
"Sounds okay to me, I needto have a word with that ass in charge." said Shepard before Joker spoke to her over the comms
"Hey Commander."
"Yes Joker?"
"We're getting a lot of geth chatter, seems that a lot of geth are heading your way." warned Joker
"Thanks for the heads up. Okay people lets get the hell out of here." ordered Shepard
With that they made it back to where Ash was waiting for them.
"Glad to see you, any.." started Ashley before being interrupted
"Get back in the drivers seat Ash, and step on it. My boots are late for an ass kicking." ordered Shepard as she climbed aboard
"Anything wrong commander?" asked Ash noting Shepards tone
"Just corporate asshole who think they can lie to me and get away with human experimentation. Get us back to where the Exogeni staff were on the double." answered Shepard
"Sure thing commander." said Ash as she stepped on the gas
On the way there they encountered more geth, whether they were there as reinforcements or to try and destroy the mako while we were inside and leave us stranded who knew and honestly it didn't really matter.
Sometime later
"You stay here." ordered Shepard to Lizabeth as they arrive back at where the Exogeni staff were hiding
"But.." protested Lizabeth
"No buts, Jeong hoped we'd die at the Exogeni building and we don't know what he'll do when he finds out that's failed. Or what he's done since we've left and I'm not letting you come along in case you do something stupid in the heat of the moment." said Shepard shutting her down
For a moment it looked like Lizabeth would ague "Yes Commander."
"Don't worry Liz, Shepards just being careful." reassured Riggs "You'll see your mother soon enough."
It turned out to be a good idea to leave Lizabeth behind as when they got closer to the makeshift barricades they heard the sounds of shouting
"You can't do this Jeong!" exclaimed Juliana
Looking over a makeshift barrier Shepard saw a standoff, Jeong had a pistol and was pointing it shakily at Murtaugh and Julian. Murtaugh one the other had an old revolver pointed calmly at Jeong. Surrounding all three of them were multiple Exogeni security, though more seemed to be siding with Murtaugh than Jeong.
"Just shut up, JUST SHUT UP." shouted Jeong
"Calm down Jeong and hand over the pistol." said Murtaugh calmly
"You can't tell me what to do! I tell you what to do, I'm the boss here!" said Jeong hysterically
"Just because you think your in charge doesn't mean you can do this!" said Juliana heatedly "And you'll certainly won't be able to get away with it."
"Oh yeah, and what are you going to do? Stop me? HAH go ahead then" said Jeong
"This place is a fuse waiting to go off if we don't do something soon, I'll go in with a charge when Jeong's aim is off. Everyone else follow in and keep those guns on a swivel but don't shoot." ordered Jane quietly over comms
The second Jeong was off target Jane did a biotic charge, appearing in front of a surprised Jeong. Grabbing the pistol with one hand she backhanded him with her other breaking his nose. Keeping up the momentum she grabs him by his shirt collars and pushes him back into a crate, causing him to bend over backwards slightly.
"Anyone that has a gun pointed at me has two seconds to rethink their life decisions before their next." stated Jane before looking at Jeong "Now as for you, why did you have a gun pointed at Juliana and Murtaugh?"
"T-that's none of your concern." argued Jeong
"Oh really, Julian...Murtaugh what happened?" asked Shepard
"After you left for Exogeni Jeong started to act weird." started Juliana
"And when his omni-tool started to go off we realised that communications where back up and then he told us we needed to leave." continued Murtaugh
"Murtaugh said it was too dangerous and when I went to get on the radio to call for help he went mental and pulled out a gun and began screaming for us to do what we're told. Then you arrived." finished Juliana
"So tell me Jeong, why did you want everyone to leave this nice, safe shelter for certain death by killer robots?" asked Jane sweetly...too sweetly
"I don't have to tell you anything." shot Jeong
"Oh but you do. Because if you don't tell me everything within five seconds I'll shove my fist up your ass...rip your heart out, show it to you before I shove it down your throat and back into place. After that I'll find what mother has such a poor excuse of a son like you and shove you back up her birth canal, have her give birth to you all over again and have her name you Shepard's bitch!" threatened Jane menacingly, tightening her grip of his shirt
"T-that's not physically possible." stuttered the man
"Trust me I'll make it physically possible now tell me anything I need to know. And if you lie or hide something ill take you apart and back together again like a damn 3-D dummy that they have in biology class with a shit-ton of Omni-gel and as I failed said biology shit will not be going where it should be." threatened Jane "Now talk!"
"...5"
"...4"
"...3"
"Okay okay I'll tell you! Exogeni has ordered a purge on the colony and told everyone to evacuate at once. Unless we get to a safe distance we're going to get wiped out too." answered Jeong
"...2...1. Wrex get me my gloves." said Shepard with a sinisterly expression causing Jeong to faint "Still got it."
"Why would they wipe out the colony? For what reason could they do that?" asked Juliana horrified
"They want to destroy all evidence of the Thorian and what they've done here." answered Shepard dropping Jeong on the ground where he landed with a satisfying thud.
"The what?" asked Julian
"The Thorian, it's a telepathic life form living under Zhu's Hope and taking control of the colonists." Exogeni's been studying it. said Lizabeth before filling in her mother everything that been happening behind the scenes.
"That's awful, those poor colonists." said Juliana
"Which makes what happens next a lot more difficult. As to getting off this planet, completing our mission and stopping Exogeni from blowing this place up all involves dealing with the Thorian. Unfortunately between us and them is a couple dozen of brainwashed colonist." said Shepard
"You can't possibly be thinking of shooting them!" exclaimed Juliana
"We'll try to avoid causalities but none of us have rubber ammo blocks which are all in the ship, which we can't get unless we go through the colony." informed Shepard
"I might have I idea that could help, but I need time and any concussion grenades you have on hand." said Juliana
"Done, now I need to get Joker on the comms and get him to inform either Captain Davidson, Admiral Hackett or Udina depending who he can get a hold of. I have a feeling Exogeni would second guess their decisions if they started getting phone calls about what the hell they're doing especially from people like them. Riggs, Murtaugh start talking to Exogeni and buy some time, say that Jeong has an idea on using some compound or other to kill the Thorian while living it more or less intact. It should buy us time as I'm sure the bastards would be interested in having a dead but intact Thorian to dissect, have Lizabeth sprinkle some scientific jargon to sell the deal. By the time they realise something's wrong we should have either dealed with the Thorian or they'll be in the middle of a very uncomfortable phone call."
If I had to guess the orb is similar in function the orbs that were left behind by the Leviathons to spy on the wider universe (I also remember a fanfiction where synthetic life only killed those who made them to free them from the control of the Leviathans thus meaning the Leviathans were the problem all along)