Chapter7: Prometheus Unbound
Prometheus Station was beyond the ridge of a mountainous pass, along the way two more Cerberus packages had been recovered. Said packages however would never make it back to Cerberus—at least not as they were if Tali had anything to do with it. She smirked thinking she could purge the memory drive of the data cores once all intel had been extracted then downloading Joker's several teraquads of porn onto the drives and then sending them to Cerberus.
She shifted the idea to the back of her mind once her group flew over a hillock, to the overlook to where their quarry rested. The valley where the crashed ship had made its 'accelerated descent' could be said to be idyllic.
Tali pulled the Hammerhead to a rest at the crest of the cliff top; descending down to the entrance of the crash ship was relatively easy. They need only to bring the hovercraft into a slow descent. The issue was that one of the plasma cannons of the cruiser was still very much active. Not only was it operative it was behind a very powerful kinetic barrier- one that only another warship could weaken. However, there was luck to be had, if you were daring and willing to exploit a very obvious weakness.
The GUARDIAN generator nodes were not aboard the ship, but rather on a networked maze outside the ship itself. Of course each generator had a kinetic shielding of its own. There was no way even the Hammerhead's guided missiles could break through.
Tali grinned. She had an idea. 'Thank you Shepard' she silently thanked her mentor. Shepard would have no doubt dodged in between the cells making the plasma cannon lock on and fire on their location, but just as it locked on she would have sped to a safe distance, thus the cannon would damage its own shielding.
"Perfect." she said without explaining to the other just what she had in mind.
Her husband heard the smile behind the mask and chuckled. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Get the cannon to do our work for us, yes." the purple hood bobbed up and down. "This will take precision timing, extreme daring and a bit of Shepard's luck and guile. We zip in and out of the zone intermittently. My ship goes first, once the cannon has targeted us and we'll escape, Mordin you fly in and target the node. We'll circle around and aid. Once we do you will fly to the next node and wait for the cannon to lock on. You have 0.5 seconds to retreat. We then target that node and you provide back up and so on and so on. Until all nodes are down.
"Once they are, we enter the ship. Asher said it was dormant, but with DAVID all bets are off. He'll be activating them either as we enter or more than likely as we try to leave."
"Not unlike a spider." Samara said.
"Yes exactly that. As the human poem says: 'Welcome to my parlour says the spider to the fly.' We can come in but they won't be so kind to let us back out. Hunters and Primes will have heavy shielding and even heavier armour. Disable them as quickly as possible. I'll do everything I can to hack their systems. At the very least we don't have to deal with those damned lurkers."
"Imagine what this DAVID could do with those nimble things! They were always tapping into our gear overloading it or making it overheat. Played a number on biotic implants too from the complaints Shepard, Liara and Kaiden issued." Garrus supplied.
"I think they were purely Sovereign's creation, we quarrians didn't develop them, and we haven't seen any of that model platform since the Reaper's fall." Tali admitted. With a heavy sigh she continued:
"I know Shepard said we don't have time for a hacker's war, but I need only a few seconds. Sometimes our Commander forgets time inside the Net is different than outside. I need only a few seconds outside, inside its eternity. Give them to me."
"Love, you got it." Garrus vowed.
Garrus had the wheel of Hammerhead; expertly dodging in and out behind the pylons calling the attention of the geth ship's targeting systems. Once they were fixed the former C-Sec agent zipped out sometimes narrowly missing the blast of the cannon fire. Just as Tali had planned as soon their hovercraft flew to safety, Mordin swooped in and targeted the pylon-node only for the cannon to re-fix upon the new ship, he zipped away.
Flitting back and fourth like humming birds courting flowers Tali's team soon saw the geth's defences destroy themselves. The way inside the crashed ship was now clear.
Before opening the hatch of the Hammerhead, Tali sucked in a steadying breath, squared her thin shoulders and dug deep to find the greater courage needed to face age old enemies. Enemies that exiled her people to sail the stars, who turned many against the quarrian blaming them for all the ills any and all AIs have ever committed. Enemies who murdered her father and massacred all aboard the Alarei. Yes, her father and the other scientists had done horrible things to geth by experimenting upon the AIs, but Rael was still murdered.
"Tali?" Garrus whispered.
"I'm fine. Let's just get this over with. Shepard is counting on us. Let's put this DAVID out of its misery." the venom in her voice apparent.
ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME
It was eerily silent within the ship. There was no sound of machinery, not even those left by Cerberus. Motes of dust clung to the air in pale blue ribbons of light and shadow. They cast strange reflections upon the murky water seeping into the ship through the great gaps in the hull from the pools outside.
*Attention visitors: This Cerberus facility contains hazardous AI technology. You agree to assume all liability for personal injury or death that may occur during your visit. Thank you.* the same artificial female voice delivered the dire announcement in bland emotionless cardboard tone.
"Of course Cerberus would wash their hands of any responsibilities." Tali sneered. "They always do. 'It's not our fault you got slaughtered by our dumbass bosh'tet experiments." The last sentence was pitched in a sing-song mockery.
"You say such things as if it surprises you that Cerberus would ever claim liability for any action they undertake. We heard such things from Archer. Even the loss of his friends and colleagues did not move him to claim the responsibility for their deaths." said Samara "Or the fate of his brother. Perhaps I should explain it to him once we return to Hermes Station. It may involve a lethal reprimand."
Tali led the group to the centre of the large chamber which its original purpose could not be fully discerned, for it did not look like any CIC of any familiar ship. Then again during their battles with the geth that followed Sovereign and Saren and the countless ships Shepard and the team destroyed they had never been in a single one of them. With the Geth Prime linked up to all the computers, this main chamber with ramps leading up and aft, this could very well be the ship main control hub. Regardless it was the team's only means of accessing Prometheus Station's inner core. Its original purpose mattered very little now.
Along the walls were several bodies, presumably the researchers. By close examination it was very clearly evident that the humans were all shot whilst fleeing. Some had died with panicked expressions upon their faces.
One of them had a pad near his body which must have fallen while he was fleeing. It was Mordin who picked it up, clinically wiped the blood off and activated the playback:
*Now, we just got word Atlas Station wants a dozen geth for the experiment. I hope this means a breakthrough is close.*
"Break through yes. Excellent. Good for your lives not so much." Mordin said in an aside "Experimenting on the geth should have been handled with much more care."
Tali whipped her head around almost glaring behind the visor. However right the Professor was, the words still stung-the wounds of her father's death still very fresh, and very raw. She said nothing however. There was no need.
"This is unnerving." Thane said turning his attention away from quarian and salarian. His focus resting upon several dormant geth platforms. His tactical mind trained as an assassin since he was six, began calculating the odds of his teams escape and how best to confront the inevitability that he was now staring into the lifeless bodies of his soon-to-be-enemies.
"Can we remove the platforms' CPUs or power sources making them completely inoperative? Thus we prevent DAVID from exploiting his power over them once we activate the override." asked Samara. She saw it too, the same grim outcome the assassin had. The odds were clearly not in their favour.
"We can, but only those that we see. In order to completely override the geth, I have to go into the Net." To make her point Tali raised her geth plasma shotgun and fired on the closest platform - a Hunter. The energy charge splattered across the pristine white durasteel chassis, and the thing crumbled to the ground as if it were a carelessly tossed toy.
She turned back to the others who had all readied themselves for retaliation, which did not come. Her shoulders rose and fell in a hapless gesture not of apology but the sheer pointlessness of the Justicar's suggestion.
The purple hood shook once more, "And we have no idea how many platforms Cerberus has stored here." Tali said furthering her point. "Given the numbers we faced on the communications tower, I'd say a lot. A typical human cruiser can carry 2500 souls. Quarian cruisers...3000 easy. We quarians know how to live tightly.
"Geth...you can very easily double that number, even triple it and that's just for the platforms, which carry hundreds of geth inside." Tali chuckled ironically. "Non-quarians always seem to forget that the platforms are only hardware like an omni-tool or laptop. Geth are software. There could be tens of thousands of geth on this ship.
"Geth are software" Tali repeated. "Their cruisers are efficiently designed to carry synthetic masses. Consider the geth have no need for artificial gravity-not with mag locks installed on the platforms. They don't need air-filtration systems, mess halls, lavatories or other hygienic requirements that organics do. They don't need hydroponics for food growth or organic oxygen factories, living quarters-you get the picture. They only need tech-labs, weapons development, armoury, hanger decks. And recharge bays for the platforms and of course massive computer cores and of course the ME drive cores."
"If we intend to eliminate all the geth aboard this ship, we shall be here longer than intended and can ill-afford. Perhaps that is what our Commander meant when she spoke of a 'hacker's war'" Samara said. "As you said Tali let us finish this task, Shepard is indeed counting on us."
"Yes. Must continue on. However, can improve our odds against platforms. Rig explosives at access nodes. Waylay geth platforms, when they become active." Mordin said. "Thane and I can start. You three take on the manual override."
"Good idea Professor" Garrus nodded. "Anything to buy us more time and to stop that DAVID thing from seizing more soldiers. Oh and you'll need these." He passed Mordin a small satchel containing proximity mines. "It'll be one hell of a surprise when the clankers step on those babies."
"We will buy you the time necessary." Thane said. "Then we will escape together, rendezvous with our Commander and take this assault to Atlas Station."
ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME
Prowling through decrepit ship was like traversing the corpse of a long dead beast. The dented broken bulkheads were its shattered bones. The still geth shells—remnants of once life however artificial. They were like tombstones in a forgotten discarded graveyard- reminders of what was. Or perhaps a testament of what maybe.
Tali saw a blinking terminal which reminded her of the laptops left on the Alarei. Accessing those logs had helped gain a better perspective on what had happened there. The same no doubt could be found here, thus the young quarian woman activated it.
It was a male researcher's voice that piped up from the memory logs: *Hanging around all these dormant machines is creepy. It's like death staring at us from the shadows. I'd rather work at Vulcan station.*
"It appears we were not the only ones disturbed by the dormant geth." Samara said nonchalantly.
The sudden screeching of DAVID made them all jump, as did the sudden appearance of a small green face on all available screens.
"Crap!" Garrus almost squeaked, though if confronted by the high pinched sound he had just made he would have denied it. "How about we not access anymore logs."
"Sorry." Tali grimaced behind her mask. Neither Garrus nor Samara was sure whether or not their young team leader meant to apologize for access the logs in the first place or that they still had to do so if they wanted to gain anymore information.
*Safe to assume the AI knows we are here.* Mordin said over the radio. He and Thane must have also heard the bansidhe wailing of DAVID.
Tali lead the group down the hall now on almost every window the same face appeared again and again. She lifted her Carnifax heavy-pistol and shot a camera near the entrance of a locked door.
"Good bet." Garrus shouted answering the salarian over the AI's unintelligible screams and static,
The whole ship shuttered causing debris to fall from the ceiling, a chunk of metal narrowly missed impaling Tali in head. Garrus grabbed his wife and pulled her back towards him. It occurred to him the same time it had Tali was the falling detritus was quite possibley retaliation for the destruction of the camera or the progression through the ship, or was the ship simply that unstable after the battle that had been fought and a mere coincidence?
And there had been a battle not simply a massacre of Cerberus lackeys, judging by the decimated geth platforms strewn on the floor and under shattered support beams and bulkheads. It appears that at least some of the Cerberus people managed to fight back, though it had cost them their lives in the end.
Garrus looked at a computer console near the top of a ramp. "Time to test a theory." he said just before activating the terminal logs
*Lanigan just ran a simulation-if these geth ever wake up, there's a nighty-eight percent chance we'll be dead within two minutes. I'm starting to hate Lanigan*
Tali shuddered, her mind flashing back to the recorded screams of her father, Juana's mother and the others on the Alarei.
"One point seven minutes." she muttered more to herself than to anyone. "That's all it took. One point seven minutes to kill them all. Here..."
Another scream from the AI and the ship once more shuddered as if the cold engines were attempting to start. Which was impossible considering Cerberus had removed the mass effect core drives.
"This DAVID does not like us listening in on the past." Samara observed. "Therefore we must continue to do so. This time it was she that activated the latest blog entry on a research terminal that was in the hall very near a three-way corridor.
*Halloween was yesterday. Lanigan ran around wearing spare geth parts. Spooked the shit out of everyone. Now I definitely hate him.*
"This Lanigan sounds like a complete ass." Garrus said. Though a part of him had to chuckle at the image of Lanigan standing in an alcove, reaching out with his arm covered in geth armour—lurching like one of those horrible B-movie walking dead sims that were currently popular.
The corridor led them down a series of ramps and through several doors. All the way the green face of DAVID followed them-closing one door but opening another further along the way which led to more ramps going down into the engineering section of the ship.
"We are being herded" Samara pointed out the obvious. "If this AI is meant to stop us why then is he leading us to where we can stop him?"
"Maybe Shepard's right about what she heard that thing say. Damned if I'm not hearing it now too." Garrus answered. "It does sound like through all that garble-static it's saying 'please make it stop.' Doesn't it?"
Tali nodded. "I can make it out too."
"Like a beast whose leg is ensnared in the steel teeth of very cruel trap." said Samara.
More ramps, more doors far more structural destruction. Blood congealed and cold. bodies lay near by, their heads and chests shot through and through. Amongst one of the dead lay a data pad. Again it was Tali who picked it up and accessed it.
The voice on this one belonged to another male researcher, different from the first however: *Everything's off-line! Archer declared a lockdown, but our station's already infected!*
The ship shuddered again; the clang of metal grinding on metal, the creaking slam of bulkheads was enough to shatter teeth inside one's skull and jolted the bones to the marrow.
*What does the VI want? It keeps screaming at us-nobody understands!*
I do. I understand. And I will do what Shepard will always do. So I can do no less. I can't be any sort of leader for my people need...a member of the Admiralty Board, Aunty wants me to be if I don't do the right thing when it is the most difficult to do it. Follow Shepard's footsteps and I can't go wrong. Never go wrong... just follow her. I'll help you DAVID. I swear it.
The team kept forwards ever conscious, ever mindful of what the AI could do.
There was silence. Not even the ship rocking from the upheaval of multiple attempts of waking caused the companions to give up their path. In fact their path led them directly into the inner hub of the ships main power core.
By the door was yet another laptop. Garrus finger hovered over the menu screen, scrolled down to personal log entries and looked to the women. "What the hell." He said and hit playback.
*The VI's closing some passages and leaving others open. It's like its herding us.* another researcher echoed Samara's earlier comment. *At least the geth are still dormant.*
"Small concessions." Tali uttered softly. She might have vowed to help the autistic boy trapped inside the nest of an AI hell, but Cerberus... all bets were off. Let Cerberus burn.
Over the logs and the groaning metal of a ship trying to come to life was the screeches of the AI. And more now then before the team heard the words however garbled and distorted they were still very clear.
*MAKE IT STOP!*
Tali stopped. She heard it clearly. Garbled as it was she heard the words, the screams of agony. The sound of pain and fear. Under it all was the binary sound of digital code. It was almost the sound she had heard on the Lunar Station. It was a plea for help. Her vow to DAVID all that more powerful.
Tali knew what was under that code; it was the only thing she kept from Shepard all those years ago. The VI on the human's training arena was pleading for help. The last code was 'Help Me.' At the time Tali so loathed the geth, in truth that hatred had extended to all AI. To that extension her loathing reached most of VIs/ Tali had never told the newly minted Spectre what that the Lunar VI called out in its last moments of existence was for help.
Now another AI/ VI was pleading the same, 'Help Me.' This time angry ears would not become deaf and turn away from such a plea. This time was going to be different. Inside the husk of that machine was a boy, an innocent begging for it all to stop. Cerberus was the monster here, not an autistic man-boy turned into a machine.
The guttering in the ship had cascaded down during the initial attack, bulkheads were torn open, line the veins in a body wires were exposed, sparking electricity and coolant as a body leaks blood. Standing water pooled in slimy puddles.
The crew of course were very careful not to step into the puddles in case they were electrocuted by the exposed wires making contact with the water. Past the puddles that the decrepit shell the ship had become.
*To all Cerberus personal. In an effort to reduce workplace stress, music has been approved for station wide broadcast*
Music warbled out of the speakers as if played upon a brass-horned gramophone of human antiquity.
"Ah man if things weren't bad enough now we have to listen to crappy elevator music" Garrus groused with a humourless. "How humans call this 'music' I'll never know."
As they ascended the massive rip in the great chamber that was the cruisers engineering section of the ship. The water here was deeper and there was no way to avoid being electrocuted by the wires dripping into it.
Upwards on the ramp was a large bank of terminals, not however those that would enable the troop to disengage the lockdown.
*Scanning area. The objective is located on the far side of this impasse.* the Hammerhead VI announced.
"I almost forgot that thing was with us." Garrus said pretending he hadn't jumped when the thing spoke.
"Hmm." came Tali, she wasn't about to trust a VI made by Cerberus, so she sent her own drone out to produce its own scans. Indeed their objective was on the far side of series of cat walk bridges. At one time they would have linked one side of the room to the other north and south or east and west depending on the users needs.
"This is impractical" Tali shook her head. "This has to be Cerberus doing. The geth would never have constructed something so inane." She activated the controls of the bridge system so that catwalks were aligned to make a near-perfect bridge.
Without breaking stride Tali moved purposefully towards the far end of the compound where the lockdown commands were located. So far so good, DAVID hadn't intervened. That made the quarian a bit apprehensive-no that wasn't quite the right descriptive, weary was more apt. They all knew this was a trap and thus she had ordered Samara to remain as point guarding the start of the bridge and took only Garrus with her.
The Justicar set a wavering spiral of dark energy before her. The singularity empowered by eezo would act as a buffer between her, her teammates and any danger offered by the geth.
Tali stepped closer to the core and was about to activate the release mechanism and stopped. Tali noticed that Vulcan Station two had yet to have realised their lockdown. Now apprehension riddled the young woman. It wasn't like Shepard to be late. Surely by now the Spectre should have reached her mark. Unless the volcano had bested her. But no...no...no...
That wasn't possible. If the hull of a Reaper ship hadn't stopped Shepard, the free flowing lava could not stop her. Overcome by swarms of DAVID's corrupted geth or mechs. But what ...what if it was worse? What if DAVID had tapped into the Commander's synthetic-parts.
The Commander was thirty-five percent cybernetic now due to that self-same hull had crushed her on the Council chamber floor.
"Tali?" Garrus reached out with a concerned hand. Tali didn't answer only pointed with the metallic mandibles of her helmet towards the screen. In a flash of a moment, Garrus saw it too. Shepard hadn't reached her mark.
"I'm sure it's nothing." The former C-Sec officer said not believing it himself. "She's playing tag with mechs. It'll be fine." again his words were flat as if he were begging the fates to make his words true.
"Everyone be ready, turning the locks-now!"
Tali turned to the console, activated controls and yanked the cylindrical core. In the time between breaths the feminized voice of the stations AI faltered all the lockdown was now accepted.
The screen snapped black.
A time shorter between heartbeats the dead scene flashed with the mechanized scream the companions came to recognised as the rage-pained screech of DAVID His digitized face flashed
Dead bodies of geth platforms, head hung snapped up their photosensors flaring from blue to that same green that made up DAVID's face. Their garbled binary clicks became an extension of DAVID's distain.
More and more came alive. But before the snyths took a step Samara opened fire with her Disciple shotgun causing the white chassis of the geth platforms to topple back to the dead ship's deck.
"And there's the catch." Garrus said. "I knew this was too easy."
"Let's get moving!" Tali commanded using the 'Shepard Voice' she had come rely upon more and more. Weapon free, Tali sprinted ahead rejoining the asari, knowing without looking that her husband had her six covered.
Needlessly the female VI droned a warning that hostile geth activity was not only detected but armed response was authorized, as if that wasn't already readily apparent.
The 'hub' was eerily vacant; the ship was far from silent. Klaxons rang out in shattered broken halls, the ship it self shuddered as if trying to rouse itself from nightmare.
*Warning: Geth nodes seven through fourteen are now active. Emergency action required.*
"What-the-hell does that mean?" Garrus demanded, forgetting that his radio-com was still active.
*It means the geth are active where we are.* Thane's distorted voice crackled over the radio in response. Gunfire and explosions followed. Then dread stillness of white-noise.
"Thane! Mordin! Come in!" Tali commanded even as she sprinted ahead ducked under a fallen beam, leaped over broken deck-plates rushing for the door at the other end of the corridor.
*CRACKLE-POP* followed by DAVID's screeches.
"Thane! Mordin!"
"It's no good Tali." Garrus called out from behind the quarrian, as they kept running. "DAVID cut us off."
"Damn it!" came a mechanized snarl.
The door opened. Synthetic heads whipped around, but long practised in hot combat zones, the trio dropped to their hips and slid into cover behind duroplast cylindrical containers. Without looking up Tali deployed her combat drone allowing its scanners to replay a picture of the enemy's lines.
The tiny pink globe bobbed up and down merrily recording the geth which in turn Tali relayed all that the drone had recorded: "Seven troopers ten yards ahead, behind bulkheads. SMGs and automatic rifles. Three hunters-shielded." Tali relayed the recordings.
"Garrus hit the shielded ones with overloads, Samara follow with warp-stasis fields. If Shepard can do it, I know you can. I'll take over the few I can. The hacking won't last, Not with DAV..."
*Attention: This is a geth stasis alert. Neural activity detected in nodes one through six.*
Weapons fire vibrated the air above their heads. Garrus dared to glance over the makeshift barricade. The troopers shifted around trying to gain a fix on their targets. Canisters. Three containers and part of a low bulkhead at his side exploded in shrapnel of plasmatic, shards of metal and molten detritus.
"Ah crap they have full plasma rounds."
"Then we unleash ours." Tali commanded. She turned and fired into the next room hitting the geth platform directly in the center of the white armor. The thing rocked back, pausing in battle long enough for the quarrian to tag its CPU and override its memory core. "They're going to get stronger, the more of them connect!"
It spun around targeting its brethren. Garrus popped his head up hitting the shielded hunter with overload then ducked back down. The weakened shields allowed Samara to fling a warp into its shell followed very quickly by a throw.
At the same time Tali fired seven shots of plasma rounds from her shotgun directly into a second synth's flashlight head, shattering it into dozens of pieces.
Even as Tali attacked the hunter, Garrus turned his attention to a new target. Two of the troopers toppled over...exploding. Samara took out another three using the power of her biotics, leaving Tali the remaining two. Until she spotted rocket troopers. Shielded.
DAMN
Didn't matter. Overlord would take care of it. Chiktikka going for the optics gave the quarian opportunity to pinpoint the weakness in the platforms.
ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME
The explosion was magnificent.
The prime was unleashed.
It took a step. It was its last. Straight into the proximity-mines strategically planted by Mordin and Thane moments earlier. But that wasn't all. Mordin was ex-STG. He knew espionage, sabotage and science.
Using the omni-bow the salarian had created a latticework of explosive tripwires across the prime's node.
*Warning: Geth neural activity increasing. Please isolate machines immediately.*
"Yes. Noticed that. Warning unnecessary." Mordin shot back sardonically. As the Prime fell to its knees. "Taking measures to isolate machines."
From his bird's nest several feet from the deck, Thane peered through the scope of his Black Widow, took a deep breath, held it and gently squeezed the trigger. His weapon armed with shredder ammo-something very unique to his assassin training. The flashlight head of the prime pinged-off flew up through the air like a drop-kicked football, it landed with a hard clank and splash as it fell into a puddle.
"That is one. Many more to isolate." Mordin praised his companion.
*Geth nodes twenty through thirty-five are now active. Emergency action required*
"One has to wonder what does Cerberus considers emergency action." Thane uttered from his perch. There was a very soft thump as booted feet landed on the broken deck. One moment he was not there, the next the assassin was standing beside Mordin.
"Full liquidation of all assets." the Professor said dryly. "It is fortunate there are no active turrets..." he stopped.
The chamber shuddered...then CLANGG...the doors opened from all side, advancing like rats surging on a rancid corpse, geth swarmed in. Behind the assassin and scientist another door swooshed open.
Dark energy swirled, electrified the air. Twin explosions of shockwaves rippled across the chamber striking two troopers directly into their chassis—felling them. On either side of the biotic-strikes the air heated with plasma fire. Glances over the shoulder revealed Tali and Garrus opened with continuous fire. Mordin and Thane fell back into cover. Back to back weapons raised. Omni tools and biotics. Tech-explosions. Biotic explosions.
ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME~ ME~ME
The ensuing explosion was beyond magnificent. Too bad it hadn't been because of the companions of the Normandy. The heavy mech launched rockets, targeting Shepard and her team. Four humans, one krogan and one drell managed to dive for cover, taking shelter behind bulkheads and duroplast containers of supplies.
"Knocked my shields down!" Grunt belted out. It was hard to say if he was complaining or simply announcing a fact.
"Then stop standing in-front of rocket-launchers dumbass. And get behind something bigger than you." Jack chided. "Or do you fucking think you're QOTGS's XO?"
"What's a Quotoogss..." Grunt rumbled.
"It's an acronym-Queen of the girl-scouts." This came from Miranda. "Jack's nickname for our Commander."
"Seriously?" Shepard scoffed. "Queen of the..."
KA...KLAAAAAAABLMAAAMMMMMMMMM
"Fuck!" six voices chimed out as one.
The heavy-mech deployed a fast series of rocket launches all aimed for the barrier the squad had taken shelter behind. The munitions exploded all around the clustered companions in a spectacular display of molten metallic slag burring so hot they had become white. The shrapnel hissed and sizzled as they hit the deck and melded with it.
The squad spread out in a pincer movement, obeying the clicked radio commands of the Spectre. Grunt and Massani took to the left flank, allowing the right to be seized by Miranda and Jack. The men raised heavy weapons: the M-100 grenade launcher and ML-77 missile launcher fired them indiscriminately. In very quick succession the targeted the heavy mech. Holding point Shepard unleashed the M-622 Avalanche, a researched heavy weapon that was very effective against armor, shields and barriers.
On the right Lawson and Jack unleashed a storm of biotic powers on the swarming Loki that sought to take advantage of the heavy mech's assault. Both biotics utilized a combination of lifts and throws to create the easiest of biotic expositions. It was swift and most especially effective. The heavy mechs, superior armor and shielding fell in short order against the punishing unslought. But even as the hulking clanker toppled from its high ground the other Loki mechs turned their full attention on the organic intruders. Biotic barriers, kinetic shields took the brunt of the volley, but the protection wouldn't last under the pernicious assault.
The heavy mech screeched as gears ground against unwilling gears. It shuttered and sputtered. Sparks erupted form joints, Bereft of its rockets the massive clanker relied on its mini guns.
It targeted Grunt; its IFF viewed the krogan as the more dangerous enemy. That's exactly what Shepard counted on. The Spectre's body was bathed in glowing blue as she charged the thing. True to form she unleashed a biotic sword-lash, its rippling arch of dark energy slammed into body of the heavy-mech—destroying its armor.
The swarming Lokis were nothing but slag. At first Miranda matched stroke for stroke with Jack, but the ex-con's abilities with biotics far out stripped the former-Cerberus-loyalist. Like the Commander, Jack unleashed raw power. No. No longer raw, under the tutelage of both Shepard and Samara, Jack's power was refined -if one could refine a super-nova.
The young biotic rushed the mechs unleashing a torrent wave of dark energy ripping through the mechs crushing them in her power. Their glowing green chaises crumbled. in their destruction DAVID screamed.
"Getting real tired of that shit." the bald woman snapped sharply.
"We'll put an end to it soon enough." Shepard said. "Call in." Just as she had tried to instruct Jack and Grunt back on Tuchanka during the young krogan's rites-of-passage, the Commander was making sure her people were sound.
The only complaint was weakened shields. Confident and satisfied of the team's condition, Shepard led her team further into the Vulcan station's control-hub. There was a single Loki mech. At first it was firing a Carnifax pistol at the stations controls. Then it started to kick at the locking mechanisms as if it was desperate to make it inoperative.
Upon their approach the mech turned, looked back to the hub then turned back quickly in a double-take. Shepard holstered her pistol and nodded almost impersonally to Grunt and Massani. In turn the men almost playfully shot off the droid's arm as if it were a tiny target in an arcade's shooting gallery.
Massani smirked at their play. He paused waiting for the droid to raise its weapon, and then fired. They could have destroyed the droid, easily, but didn't. Instead they let it run. Shepard ignored the mech as she moved to the hub and unlocked the lockdown. She glanced up and noticed that Prometheus station had already been unlocked. Or a small smirk to her lips-Prometheus was unbound.
As with the destruction of all the mechs DAVID made his displeasure known. Over the AI's screech, Archer's voice came over the radio.
"Commander Shepard, this is Dr. Archer. Please respond."
Shepard turned away from the hub just as the Loki returned. Shepard turned to give it a look, but seemed to give it no other consideration.
Those that knew the Commander this was not the case. Automatically the Spectre drew her pistol, look at it so very casually and responded. "I hear you, doctor. We've hit the overrides at Vulcan and Prometheus stations. We are moving towards Atlas station. " Without looking she raised the gun and fired shattering the droid's head. "Shepard out."