Chapter 20

"Can you shut these things off EDI?" Garrus yelled as we shot our way through three more LOKI mechs that had been activated when the alarms were triggered.

"I cannot. The systems appear to have been recently patched with code specifically designed to counter my hacking efforts. I can only conclude that this facility is run by a Cerberus subsidiary that is aware of my recent activities."

"Damnit, I thought we checked for that," Garrus cursed.

"We did verify that the company that owns the prison is not a suspected Cerberus affiliate. Unfortunately, not all of their holdings are known."

"So what hell do we do now?" Parasini asked with a quiver in her voice. I stared at her like she was off her head.

"We finish the mission," I replied without hesitation.

"That won't be easy. Anoleis will be in the heart of the compound and now that the alarms have been activated Cerberus will likely be scrambling all their on world assets to this location," Garrus pointed out.

"Now that Cerberus has been alerted this could be our only chance to get the information. I'm not prepared to walk away from this mission empty-handed."

"Damnit. Okay, let's get moving then. The longer we delay the more time Cerberus will have to mobilize," he groaned reluctantly. Activating the communicator on his omnitool he then sent out a team wide broadcast.

"Breaking radio silence. All teams, we are aware the alarms have been activated and will be continuing with the mission as planned. Hold position and await further instructions."

"OK let's go."

We moved out, but I could sense a certain disapproval coming from the rest of the team as we pushed deeper into the prison complex. Garrus didn't really want to be doing this given the change in circumstances, but I knew that he wouldn't argue either. He understood that this was something I needed to do so he was prepared to have my back however this went. I doubted Parasini was even half as keen but she too seemed to be holding firm for the time being.

We moved fast to try and break through the layered security before Cerberus agents would have a chance to arrive on the scene. The outer defenses of the complex took the form of a number of small enclosed rooms and tight corridors that offered the guards endless choke points and ambush opportunities. The rooms themselves were bare and empty, clearly put in place simply to allow the garrison to spread out and confront us in small groups. This periodic resistance quickly slowed our progress through the base to a crawl as we were forced to consider each of the countless number of doors we passed through as yet another potential trap.

Part of me couldn't help but be impressed by the unusually effective design, but as the minutes ticked by it was eaten away by the nagging fear that we wouldn't reach our objective in time before reinforcements arrived. A fear exacerbated by Garrus' insistence that we avoiding killing as much as possible. After all the guards were ultimately just prison wardens doing their job, no matter how shady their employers might be.

I had supported the sentiment when we agreed the parameters of the mission, but now they were starting to grate with me. Not least because the 'simple prison wardens' were proving to be a lot tougher to put down than we had anticipated. Still there was nothing to be done but grit our teeth and press on. As long as nothing else went wrong the plan shouldn't be affected but it seemed today wasn't the day for things to go our way.

"You seem to be lagging behind more than usual on the fights EDI," Garrus noted.

"This unit became infected with a virus when I attempted to interface with the prison computers. My processes are currently divided between combat and preventing it's spread through my software," she explained.

"A virus? Are you going to be alright?"

"I have successfully halted its progress but the processing capabilities of this mech are too limited for me to fully purge it from my operating system. As soon as we return to the Normandy I should be able to complete the process with minimal difficulty."

"Do you want us to turn back?"

"That will not be necessary, despite its persistence the virus is in many ways antiquated when compared with my own technology. I believe I will be able to continue the mission with only a mild impact on my combat effectiveness."

This time we were all forced to exchange dubious looks, but there was little time to voice any objections. Before we knew it the next wave of guards was ambushing us and we were forced to end our discussion as the attacks grew more aggressive.

Room after room after room were slowly conquered one by one while the ambushes became steadily more frequent and aggressive. And as they threw themselves at us more and more, the stress started to tell on my squadmates. Parasini was hurt, a shot taken to the shoulder where she hadn't managed to get out of the way in time, EDI was starting to lag behind and I could sense the growing discomfort from Garrus. He wasn't happy about leading his people into this place anymore.

Even I was beginning to wonder when this nightmare scenario would end when we finally broke through into the inner sanctum of the prison. The contrast from the maze we had just fought through couldn't have been more stark. The opulence on display here was like nothing I had ever seen since the days of childhood under my father's roof.

It wasn't just the fully equipped personal gym, the pool, and spa, or the sauna. It was all that and the decor of a gaudy palace dripping in gold, the home theater, the indoor tennis courts, and so, so much more. Anoleis hadn't been sentenced to prison so much as accepted into paradise. Little wonder the outer corridors had been so endless if they had needed to surround all of this.

We found the Salarian himself sitting at the dining table, seemingly halfway through enjoying a bloated meal. Certainly not the first by the looks of it, the slender form of the profile I had been shown of him now hideously bulged and grotesquely swollen by years of gluttony and inactivity. He seemed calm enough when we burst in on him, intent on finishing his meal.

"Do you have time to join me, friends? The Hesklefish eggs are really very good," he asked, still facing away from us. It was only as we got closer that he finally bothered to notice who we were.

"Who are..? Wait what's that bitch doing here?" he demanded suddenly, upon noticing Parasini. He stood up immediately, his weight causing him to lurch slightly with the effort.

"Wishing to God that I didn't have to waste any more of my life listening to you whine Anoleis. To be honest, if I'd known the board would go this easy on you I'm not sure I would've agreed to take your case at all. Sure would've saved spared me the humiliation of pretending to be your assistant."

"Easy? I've spent years of my life rotting away in this hellhole thanks to you. I lost my freedom and all of my off-world accounts were frozen."

"I imagine it must have been a real hardship for you," I commented sarcastically, with one eye on the gilded cage that surrounded him.

His originally dark brown mottled skin had faded over the years of his imprisonment but now his cheeks flooded with color again as his anger boiled over.

"How dare you-"

"I take it," Garrus cut in impatiently "that we weren't the ones you were expecting to see here?"

He stopped himself mid-outrage at that observation and started looking Garrus up at down with a shrewd expression on his face.

"Vakarian isn't it? The C-Sec Officer?"

"Hmm. The very same. Surprised you still remember my face after our brief encounter though."

"Oh, I never forgot the day you strolled into my office with that Spectre. I looked up every detail I could find about you the moment you left. Tell me 'Garrus', what was an officer of Citadel security doing on Noveria in the company of the first Human Spectre?"

"He's stalling," I pointed out.

Garrus nodded slowly without bothering to answer either of us and then activated his comms device.

"This is Vakarian to all teams, breaking radio silence. Be advised to expect a third party on-site, possibly Cerberus."

"Cerberus?"

We all turned back towards Anoleis who was now up and walking around the table, pausing only to pick some presumably particularly delicious treat from the feat and stuff it into his mouth.

"Why would I be happily waiting at the dinner table if it was that group of vile racists that were coming for me?" As he spoke he shook his head sadly as if it was obvious.

"We know they were interested in capturing you. You helped them establish themselves up on Noveria while you were Administrator."

"Did I?" he replied, still moving and stuffing his face. "Well if that's true, why would they be after me now if all I did was do them a small favour?"

"You know too much about their operation and Cerberus isn't exactly known for its loyalty," I pointed out.

He sighed.

"You're right, though as least their money was as green as anyone else's, or however that quaint human phrase goes. And you're certainly right that they've tried, they even managed to sneak a few of their people into this facility, but we've always been one step ahead of them."

I was about to ask who he meant when EDI interrupted my thoughts with a more pressing concern.

"We should have had an acknowledgment from the teams outside the prison by now."

"Dammit, she's right," gripped Garrus. "Someone must have set up a jamming signal, to block our communications."

"Which means my friends have finally arrived. Goodbye," Anoleis sneered at us. We glanced at each other for a moment, wondering what the surrounded Salarian was on about until I noticed that the light fixture just next to him looked slightly different from all the other ones positioned around the room. Before I could act on this realization, he pulled the fixture downwards like an enormous switch, causing a section of the wall to swing open like a door.

Moving faster than you would expect for a man he rushed through this new exit and swung it closed behind him just as I was almost upon him. In frustration, I hurled a biotic warp at the door, but it succeeding in causing no more than simple cosmetic damage. A quick scan and analysis from EDI soon confirmed my worst fears.

"The door appears to be protected by a substantial kinetic barrier. It is unlikely that any of our weapons will be able to breach such a structure before more reinforcements arrive."

"She's right," Garrus confirmed. "There's no sense wasting any more time here but we know where Anoleis will be heading. We need to head back, get outside the range of this comms scrambler and warn the rest of the team that our target is headed their way."

"We're headed back into that?" Parasini indicated the way we had just come from, not sounding too excited about the prospect.

"Not exactly. I figure it's about time we brought out the heavy guns. Wouldn't you agree Miss Lawson?"

"I would indeed, Vakarian."

"Do you have a map ready for us?"

"Affirmative," I replied, leading them towards the first detonation site. A few well-placed charges later and once the smoke had cleared we found ourselves looking at a hole in the wall that revealed a direct corridor forward.

"And the reason we couldn't have done this earlier was...?" Parasini asked.

"It was too early to risk so much attention. Besides the schematics we obtained from Director Qui'in weren't detailed enough to know where to place the explosives. I had to traverse the maze at least once to build up an adequate mental map of the area so I could plot the most efficient route back out."

"If you're quite done showing off Lawson, we do still have a Salarian to catch."

We hurried back out of the maze as quickly as possible. The explosions drew more of the guards to us than we had encountered during our arrival but for the most part, our newfound speed stopped them from being an issue. That is until Parasini took one in the side from a sniper we had overlooked (evidently there were sniper rifles in another weapons cache we hadn't seen).

With her shields at half strength, the shot went straight through them and punched a hole in her armor. I turned on the spot and put three shots through his faceplate, but it was too late to stop her screaming or falling to the ground. Garrus was over her instantly, doing his best to assess the damage and patch up the wound, and EDI was providing covering fire so it was me that noticed that our radios had crackled into life, Liara's voice coming through distorted, but clear enough to understand.

"...out of nowhere. Garrus we need reinforcements, there's too many of them. Jackson, Nalar, watch out on the left!"

There was more of the same, inter-spaced with the sounds of gunfire and heavy fighting, but Garrus was too preoccupied to notice. Between trying to stabilize his patient and hold off the growing number of enemy reinforcements he didn't have any attention left to spare. Running forward, I sent a powerful shockwave back along the corridor we'd created to buy us some time.

"We need to go," I pointed out.

The Turian didn't reply. He'd stopped even trying to exchange fire with the rest of the guards. His features were set in grim determination as he devoted all his efforts toward the task at hand.

"Garrus, we have to go right now, the others need us. Liara's calling for help..." I trailed off, holding up the radio, from which urgent requests were still coming, up to him as proof.

Something, either from me or the radio, managed to get through to him this time. Tossing his weapon aside, he knelt down further and picked Parasini up in his arms before slowly heading back towards the exit. We might've been faster, but by this stage EDI too was getting to be in a bad way, leaning on Garrus for support which forced me to hold back to provide a rearguard cover against any guards that wanted to follow us.

Not that they seemed particularly keen. By now they were just as beaten and bloody as were. Whereas we were leaving, and we hadn't managed to rescue a single prisoner. In the end, they just let us go. And once outside we found ourselves surrounded by a very different kind of nightmare. Only the attackers here weren't Cerberus, but Salarian.

The plaza around the exit was a muddled battleground. White smoke, though slowly dissipating still obscured the area, partially concealing the chaotic fighting between the crews of the Normandy and the Deceiver on the one side and a unit of elite Salarian commandos on the other.

Not that I could pin down exactly which unit it was. They wore top tier armor, but it bore no markings or insignia that I could see. Their fighting style was skilled, but I couldn't attribute it to any group I'd seen before, like the Eclipse or STG.

What was clear was that the Salarians must have caught our people by surprise and then slipped into their midst to keep them off balance. All lines or order of battle had quickly devolved into small personal duels for supremacy. I watch as Javik, roaring in anger lift up two assailants and slam them into the nearest wall with his biotics, only to be surprised by a disabling shock from a third cloaked enemy. He went down, but I don't think he was out of the fight yet, given the way he was cursing. The same story was playing out throughout much of the plaza. The Salarians had the element of surprise, but it was hard to say who outclassed who.

These thoughts were quickly shaken from my head when I spotted Anoleis, cowering behind a dumpster. He was being pinned down effectively by Jackson and Marie, but I could see already that they wouldn't be able to close on him without being attacked themselves along the way. Thinking that I might have better luck as no had seen me yet I ran towards him, skirting the edges of the battle as best I could. It was only because I heard a warning call (Nalar I think) that I avoided being cut in half.

I rolled fast, the blade passing over my head, and automatically turned and fired several shots at my assailant, but Kolvar's shields held up against them just fine. This time there were no words to describe my reaction to his sudden reappearance. Well, aside from one big, huge, incomprehensibly obvious question.

"What the hell are you doing here? Who are these people?"

In response, he just smirked and shook his head at me. The last time I had seen him he had been run ragged and focused to the point of desperation. Cordanoy had almost tossed him out the airlock on his appearance alone. Now he was presentable again, back in Cerberus fatigues with all signs of battle washed away. As a result, it seemed his arrogance had also returned. I couldn't really call it an improvement.

"They're just looking to settle a few old debts. I have to say that I can sympathize," he answered, pointing his sword at me.

"I don't have time for this," I shot back, noticing Anoleis trying to pick a route through the Plaza that would keep him out of the line of fire. I knew my gun would take too long to break through Kolvar's barriers but I had picked up an omniblade upgrade while aboard the Normandy. I charged straight for him, activating it at the last second, but despite catching him off guard the blade didn't strike home. We exchanged a few blows back and forth but it's clear he knew what he was doing better than I did. I'd always hated fencing lessons as a child.

I swung high, forcing him to lock swords with me but the exchange was going against me. With the enhancements he'd received, his strength surpassed even my own and I was beginning to find myself being pressed backwards, exactly as I'd intended. Picking my moment I abandoned my efforts to resist and instead ducked under his arm as his momentum pushed him past me. To keep him out of the way I spun round and kicked him hard against the wall of the compound, then ran.

Anoleis was getting away. A group of Salarians were engaging Marie and Jackson and three more were now clustering around him and leading him away from the battle. I sprinted towards them as fast as I could but I didn't get very far before I was grabbed from behind and slammed against the wall myself. It was Kolvar again and now I had no time left to waste on this fight anymore.

Forgetting the weapons I stuck out rapidly and without mercy, one elbow back into the gut, then again up into his face before swinging round to face him and bringing my other elbow up in an uppercut. That left him dazed and off-balance enough that my next attack (a wild and clumsy blow) was enough to knock him to the ground. Turning around I drew my submachine gun and tried to loose a burst of fire at Anoleis' legs before Kolvar brought me down again with a flying tackle.

We both went down hard. By the time I was able to look up, I could see that my shots had gone wide, taking down one of the Salarian guards. One of his friends had stopped to help him but that still left one more to hurry our target off toward the shuttle I could now see swooping in for a pick up. I tried to get up to pursue, but Alex's weight was pinning me down.

Then I spotted the Colonel, crouching behind a fountain that still lay in the path of Anoleis and his entourage. He had his gun to hand but didn't seem to be firing at anything that I could see. I yelled at him to stop them leaving, unsure if he would even be able to hear me over the noise of the fighting. Then, just as I thought I saw him shift his attention towards me, Kolvar started trying to smash my face into the cobblestones and I lost track of events for a few seconds.

We wrestled in our awkward position for some time but then I heard a sharp 'No' from my attacker and he gave me enough of a reprieve to look up again. The reason for his dismay was obvious. Now that Anoleis was being led away his team were pulling out, using cloaking technology to aid their escape. But if he was distressed at the abandonment of his allies, I had no less reason to be. Anoleis had reached the shuttle and the Colonel didn't appear to have done anything about it.

I would have shouted at him in rage if I hadn't picked up on the sound of Kolvar scrabbling to retrieve his knife. If he'd done it quietly I think there's a high possibility he might have ended it there and then, but he was panicked. So worried that his chance to kill me was once again slipping through his fingers that it became a self-defeating prophesy. I, on the other hand, was perfectly calm on the surface, despite the cold fury I felt rising within me.

A single biotic blast was all it took to dislodge him. He rolled with the fall and was on his feet, knife in hand in seconds, but even he could see that my allies had begun closing in on him on all sides. With yet another curse, he activated his own personal cloak (as good as any I had ever seen) and departed. I don't know if any of the wild shots fired after him, hit home, but we didn't find a body afterwards so I have to assume he got away.

After that we picked ourselves up, regrouped and I think Garrus summed it up best when he said this:

"Send word to the Normandy. I want all the wounded patched up as soon as possible, get EDI to Traynor as soon as possible to scrub her systems. And somebody find out if Miss Parasini had any family still out there. I'll have to contact them personally."

While the Normandy's support staff all busied themselves with everything that needed doing after the mission, I found some time to wash the paint off of EDI's new body while Traynor ferreted around the technical stuff. Suddenly the jokes from this morning didn't seem quite so funny.