Uttuku
On the topic of Wrex, I remembered that Admiral Hackett had forwarded us a priority message from the Krogan Warlord and asked him about it. With all my team still present, Admiral Hackett and Garrus explained that the team that Wrex had sent to investigate the Rachni Relay after their discovery in the battle for Tuchanka, had landed on a planet called Uttuku to continue their search, and had suddenly dropped completely off the radar.
"The scout team sent a message to Wrex immediately after landing," Garrus said, "then less than a minute later a distress signal went out and nothing's been heard since. Wrex wanted to talk to you anyway, Scott, you'll hear it from him yourself."
I dismissed the team and they all went back to their duties. I placed a call to Wrex and a smile came to my face when the holographic form of the big brute appeared before me.
"Commander Gardner," he chuckled, "you look good after having a long nap."
"I'm getting old these days, Wrex," I smirked back, "these missions really take it out of me. But I hear you've got another one for me?"
"Remember when we found those Rachni creatures back on Tuchanka, the ones the Alliance called Ravagers? I sent a scout party to check out the Rachni Relay to see if they were crawling out from under some rock. They checked a few planets and found nothing, then they landed on this one," he brought up an image of the target planet, "Uttuku, and disappeared straight away. I told you I'd tell you if we found something. I'll have my best unit, Aralakh Company, waiting to meet you there. I don't want another invasion of those things."
"Understood," I said, "how are things on Palaven and Tuchanka?"
"Great!" Wrex laughed heartily. "Everywhere you go you get into massive fights. I haven't had this much fun since running around the galaxy with you. The Reapers have been quiet on Tuchanka since Kalros ate one of them and the Genophage was cured, but the Turians still need our help here."
Wrex did become a little more sombre,
"We're giving the Reapers a hell of a fight down here, the Turians, Krogan, Quarians and the Geth as well. But these machines are tough bastards, we're only slowing them down. I hope your super weapon is almost ready, Scott."
"Work on the Crucible is being done around the clock, Wrex. Believe me. And we're still on the hunt for the Catalyst. We haven't forgotten about you guys on the ground!"
Wrex grunted in approval,
"Good to know. Let me know when you reach Uttuku and I'll signal Aralakh Company that you're coming."
"Will do, Wrex. Be careful mate."
"That's no fun," Wrex grinned before signing off.
The Normandy had been on its way to Uttuku since before I had woken up and so it would not be too long before we arrived there. I was geared up and doing final weapons checks in the hanger when Garrus came over to me,
"Glad I'm not having to take the lead here, Scott. I thought I was going to have to take your place if you didn't wake up."
"I think you'd do a fine job, Garrus," I said.
"Oh, I'm not doubting that," he laughed, "I just don't have your plain luck that gets you through, that's all."
"It has served me well," I grinned, "who needs skill when you've got luck like mine. What do you think we'll find down on Uttuku?"
"Who knows," Garrus said, "but I really hope it's not Rachni. I still get the creeps when I think of Noveria. You let the Queen go as long as she promised to stay hidden, and then they turn up three years later with Reaper tech stuck onto them. I can't say that makes me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside."
"Me neither," I agreed.
"We're in orbit around Uttuku, Commander," Cortez said as he jumped into the shuttle's cockpit, "Aralakh Company is waiting for us at the scout party's LZ."
I gave Garrus a friendly thump on the shoulder and the ground team boarded the Kodiak.
"Rachni… this should be fun," James smiled. Garrus, Tali, Liara, Ashley and I all looked at him with slight amusement.
"You'll change your tone soon enough, big guy," Ashley teased.
After a short flight down to the surface of Uttuku, Cortez dropped us off about a hundred metres from where Aralakh Company had established their camp and I could see a few dozen Krogan Commandos patrolling around, waiting for the signal to start the mission. Uttuku was a very barren planet. Dusty and rocky with very, very little in the way of plant life. On the flight down I had seen some bodies of water on the planet, but they were very small and I supposed only primitive life forms would exist on such a place, if any. My team gathered and we proceeded down to the camp where a couple of Krogan guards met us, their armour jet-black and their guns ready.
"Commander Gardner of the SSV Normandy," I told them, "who's in command here?"
"This way, Commander," the first guard said and they both led us further into the camp. I could see along the gully beyond the camp and saw that there was a massive gaping hole in the ground with debris and equipment scattered around the edges.
"What happened there?" James asked.
"That's what we think happened to the scout party," a guard replied, "something dropped their camp down a sinkhole. They lost their shuttle the same way, they weren't going anywhere."
We were nearly at the sinkhole when the guards left us and went to fetch their commander who burst free of his soldiers and stormed over to me, bursting with life and excitement.
"Scott!" he bellowed and I jumped forward to greet my old friend.
"Grunt! You sneaky bastard. I remember Wrex saying you were leading these guys. It's good to see you again."
"You too, Scott. Glad you're here to knock some heads around."
The Pure-breed Krogan still had his youthful manner about him as he chuckled and laughed away. But at the same time, he had collected a few more scars since I had last seen him on Illium a year ago and had more wisdom in his eyes. His experiences of living on his home world among his own people having matured him well.
"So those idiots in the Alliance finally decided it was a bad idea to lock you up," Grunt laughed.
"It was complicated," I shrugged. "We didn't detect any movement or lifeforms on our approach."
"Agreed," Grunt said, "but this planet smells wrong, like a bad wound. Ground-penetrating scans show a huge network of tunnels that all lead to a central point. If we're lucky, it's a nest!"
The very thought was extremely exciting to the young Krogan, and when Tali questioned his happiness at the situation, he simply laughed all the harder.
"We don't know if the Rachni are actually involved here," I said.
"My blood tells me that they are! Seems crazy," Grunt growled, "a chance to face the old enemy. Impossible to resist."
Now Javik took a curious interest in my former Krogan crew member as he approached him.
"Yes, you are the one."
"What?" Grunt said, unsure of this strange new alien coming up to him in this manner.
"You are the Krogan who inhabited my quarters on the Normandy, you left your mark on the ship."
"Who is this, Scott?" Grunt asked. I just stood back and chuckled to myself as I enjoyed the show and Garrus gave me an approving look as he watched on with great amusement.
"You should not be so eager to fight the Rachni," Javik told Grunt, "they were a dangerous enemy even to my people. We had to burn over two hundred worlds to destroy them, and we thought we had exterminated them. They are a species built for survival, it seems."
"We're not burning any worlds, Javik," Ashley said.
"Perhaps we should continue with the mission at hand?" Liara said. Grunt shrugged and walked away from Javik and headed to the sinkhole.
"So Wrex obviously trusted you to put you in charge of his best guys," I said to Grunt as I checked over his soldiers, every one of them armed to the teeth and wearing armour that looked heavy, even by Krogan standards.
"Wrex handpicked every one of us from different clans to show a united Krogan, and named us after the fierce Tuchanka sun. Aralakh means "Eye of Wrath". And I was chosen because I am the strongest."
I had little doubt of that. I fondly remembered all the times that I saw him charging groups of enemies, whether mercenaries or Collectors, and when he was done, the enemies would simply be blood-covered piles of flesh.
"You deserve it, Grunt. If your soldiers are half the Krogan you are, then we should get out of here fine."
"It's thanks to you as well," Grunt then admitted, "if you had not taken me to Tuchanka to complete my rite of passage, then I could not have done this. Just as well you're crazy too," he laughed.
"I hope to fuck we're not going to be fighting Thresher Maws again down here," I retorted.
"Why not?" Tali spoke up, "it was fun watching it last time."
"Well if you want to join in this time then be my guest," I gave her a playful wink.
Suddenly, it was like I was floating as my feet did not seem to connect with anything as I walked and the rumble and groaning of the earth around me was deafening. I heard other voices shout my name as I fell through empty air and slammed into the ground before I knew what was going on.
"Scott!" Tali called out.
"Scott! You in one piece?" Grunt's low voice followed. I rolled onto my back and waved at them, still not knowing what the hell had just happened. I was now at least forty metres below the ledge that I had been closing to when talking to Grunt. The ground had completely given way under my footfall and sent me clattering down onto the stony, uneven ground down here with rocks still falling on me. I rolled to the side quickly to avoid a boulder as big as a house crushing me and watched as it rolled on down the slight gradient to the opening nearby. An opening? The large gap in the earth lay not far from me, and no light could be seen coming from within. Just before the cave entrance, I could see a body lying motionless, it was a Krogan.
"I think I see one of the missing scouts," I said over the radio.
"We'll be down in a minute," Grunt replied, "barely been here five minutes and everything's already gone to shit with you."
"Some things never change, Grunt," Garrus laughed.
Aralakh Company and my team rappelled down the rock face and joined me at the corpse of the scout. I picked up his data pad and read through the orders that the scouts had all received.
"He's been dead a few days. It seems they came under attack straight away and their captain ordered them to counter attack and push into the caves as far as they could, taking all their heavy weapons with them…"
"They sacrificed themselves to help whoever would come looking for them," Tali said sadly as she gazed at the dead Krogan.
"An intelligent move," Javik approved, "if there are Rachni here, they will not be in small numbers."
"Then I guess we need to start searching," I said, "Grunt, bring up your scans of the tunnels and we'll plan a route through them."
"We should split into a few different squads to cover more ground," Grunt suggested.
"Done," I said, "we head for the central point and find out what's going on. Everyone ready?"
Tali readied her shotgun as did Grunt, Garrus sighed and put his sniper rifle away and brought out his Vindicator. He knew that there was not going to be much in the way of long-range engagements. My friends were formed up behind me and I headed forward into the darkness.
"Lights on guys," I said. Heading into the blackness before me, my mind kept going back to my chilling encounter with Leviathan. Cold and dark.
It was like the darkness had become a living being and we had walked straight into its arms, enshrouding us in complete nothingness. Even with our lights on, they could not penetrate the depth of the dark, and the caves around us were quite large and spacious at parts which meant that the walls would disappear from view and we would be left alone with nothing physically around us, a very disorientating experience. We constantly ended up getting caught in some kind of sticky webbing that clung to me so tightly they were almost crushing. Omni blades were able to cut us a way through, but they made our progress unbearably slow.
All was quiet as I strained my ears to listen for anything. There was a distant rush of water and I imagined there to be a web of underground streams running all around us. My heart nearly stopped when I cast my light on the ground ahead of me, just to see that there was no longer any ground there and I halted the company.
"We need to look at those scans again or we're going to be lost very shortly," I told Grunt.
"I'll upload them to your Omni tool," Grunt said, "these lights are useless."
I agreed, and I even turned off my visor's night vision because all I saw was the same unrelenting black in front of me. Thermal imaging was worthless, and so the only option was to have the holographic readings from the scans held up in front of me on my Omni tool. I hated not being able to see a foot in front of me and I ordered Tali to fire an incineration attack in the direction of the path I wanted to take according to the scans. There was an incessant drip, drip, drip echoing around us as well which added to the eerie, unsettling aura of this place. And there was something else too.
"Anyone else feel like there's eyes on us?" Garrus whispered. Tali's fire shot along the path ahead of us, illuminating the area briefly and revealing the way we were taking.
"Definitely," I said.
The path through the caves is winding and full of surprise endings and plummeting drops that creep up on us suddenly. Two squads of Krogan have so far been sent down separate paths to search their own sectors and the third was just breaking away from the main company. Every gingerly taken step is carefully considered and I had taken to constantly sweeping the ground before me with my light. I was following the scans as best I could, but they had not picked up on everything and occasionally a surprise drop or wall blocked our way. Then I heard Ashley grunt as she nearly fell,
"I tripped on something," she said. Ashley lit up what had caused her topple and another Krogan corpse was displayed for us.
"Look there," Grunt barked as he moved past the body, stooping to pick something up. "It's his weapon."
He pushed a button to activate the weapon and a small flame appeared just below the muzzle of the gun,
"The Firestorm," Grunt chuckled, "gotta love a flamethrower!"
"Should help deal with those fucking webs!" I grumbled as I took the weapon. "Has anyone actually seen anything yet?"
"Negative, "EDI replied. The others told me the same and I could only order everyone to keep going. There was undoubtedly something down in these infernal caverns, but we had no idea what.
Just then Tali wailed out and made everyone jump out of their skin,
"Something just scuttled over my foot!"
Lights from every head or Omni tool searched everywhere around us, but still we found nothing. It was then that Javik joined me on point and whispered,
"I see something up ahead, Commander. Some kind of pods at the turn in the passage."
How he could see them was beyond me, though I was sure that he would delight in telling me how his four eyes were superior to my meagre two.
"There's some kind of wiring running alongside us now too," a Krogan Commando added. Following the ray of his light, I saw the cables that ran along the path towards the pods that Javik had mentioned. Their appearance was dreadfully familiar by now.
"Reaper tech," I said to everyone. Trigger fingers on all weapons were now a little tenser as the confirmation of Reaper presence here made everyone nervous. I felt the sweat start to build up under my armour as I started to feel like there were not only a few sets of eyes on me, but hundreds of them. The fourth squad of Krogan soldiers left us to follow a path that we found off to the side, and that left just my team and Grunt. As I listened to the loud, ungraceful plodding of the Krogan soldiers, I could have sworn that I heard a slight rattle of scuttling just behind them.
I was checking all around my feet as I led the team further along a downwards sloping path, feeling very claustrophobic as I imagined the walls of the cave slowly moving in to squish us to death. The walls themselves became slick with a slimy substance and our footsteps seemed to echo for miles.
"The path becomes really narrow ahead and then opens up into a wide cavern," I informed the rest of the team, "when we get there, we need to find a new route because we've come up to too many dead ends."
A couple of the team had started shining their lights above us as well. Now and again, we saw holes in the ceiling and it was easy to think of whatever was shadowing us dropping out of holes such as these to attack us in a sudden ambush. This place truly chilled me to the bone.
"I actually wish that whatever's down here would just attack us already," James said, "this waiting is worse than anything else."
"I hear that," Ashley agreed.
"From what I recall," Liara started, "The Rachni thrived on toxic worlds. Yet, this planet's atmosphere is breathable."
"I bet they're breeding a whole army down here where no one can see it, or where no one would think to look," James answered. I did not cherish the thought of an entire army of those things waiting for us up ahead, and I knew that those of us that had met the Rachni before were having vivid, nightmarish flashbacks.
We came to the point where the tiny path fed into the cavern and that was when I heard the first crack. There was a rumble above my head and a hellishly loud crack as the cave ceiling gave way. I hurried everyone through as quick as I could go, but I saw Liara was still in danger and threw myself at her, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her towards me as the rocks clattered down on where she had just been standing. Clutching her on the ground, I flashed my light back at the path and saw the pile of rubble that now blocked our way back. The pile of rocks completely sealed the exit and I did a quick head count,
"Garrus, Tali, Liara, Ashley, EDI, Javik… James! Where's James? Where's Grunt?"
I rushed back to the cave in and frantically checked to see if either of my missing squad mates were under all the debris or not, but I could not see anything.
"James! Grunt," I called out, digging away at the looser rocks with the help of Garrus and Ashley.
"We can hear you, Commander," I finally heard over my comm, "we're alright."
"No one's hurt?" I asked Vega.
"No, but there's no way we're getting through that to reach you," James said.
"We'll fall back and link up with my men," Grunt told me, "we'll see you at the central point!"
"Scott!" EDI warned, "there are lifeforms approaching us. And they are not friendly."
I ordered all eyes forward and our lights lit up the patch of ground just ahead of us. I could see a small stream of water flowing across our path and a range of stalagmites just beyond. They would give us some cover and I told everyone to take up position behind them. I knew from meeting Ravagers in the past that some of them had cannons attached that could do a lot of damage. Whereas others rushed in for close combat to rip enemies apart with their teeth and spear-like talons.
"Spiders, spiders, spiders!" Tali squealed as the first Rachni came into view, dozens of the little ones. They shuffled menacingly towards us, but Liara unleashed a biotic wave that either destroyed their frail bodies entirely or threw them to the other side of the cavern. From out of the darkness, a shot came bolting past us and I knew that a Ravager had us zeroed.
"Watch for the shot and return fire until that thing is gone!" I shouted over the wailing and roaring that was now going on all around us.
There must have been hundreds of Rachni swarming towards us. I really wished that James and his trusty machinegun had made it through the cave in with us.
"Commander," Garrus yelled, "you can see them through the dark. The Reaper implants have a blueish light to them."
"Then shoot them!" I yelled right back. My team knew what to look for and fired at anything that could be a Rachni with Reaper tech stuck into it. Tali used an overload attack on the little swarmers, which I thought would not work but was very pleased when I saw the arc of electricity go from one to another a few times and kill the freaky little bugs outright.
I raised my Mattock at a possible Ravager and fired. The lights disappeared as the creature fell dead and I moved up to another position, standing on a swarmer as I did so. I unloaded bullets into another Rachni, and I was sure I was about to land the killing shot when another of the beasts leapt over my cover and tried to pierce a talon through me. I activated the Omni blade on my Mattock, swatted at the Rachni and severed its forward legs. I dodged to the side and rammed the burning blade right into its head and ripped the blade all the way down its back.
"We cannot stay locked down here," I said over the comm, "we will be outnumbered and overrun so we have to stay mobile. Follow me to the other side."
My squad dutifully fell in and moved as an elite unit toward the far side of the cave. EDI was jumped by a Rachni and the monster was right on top of her when Tali fired a well-aimed incineration attack. However, that was not enough to distract the Rachni and Tali bent over for a full-blown shoulder charge, finishing it off with a shotgun blast right to the side of the head. Javik ripped a Ravager right off of its raised perch with his biotics. While it hung in mid-air, he burned several holes right through it with his particle rifle.
"Other side! Other side!" I heard Ashley call out to everyone as their pace began to slow. I raced back to them, my Mattock blazing away, and grabbed Tali,
"Grab a hold of the person in front of you and follow me!"
I manually pulled my whole team along behind me, calling out if there was a dip or a step in the ground that could take us down. With my torch, I lit up the entrance to the next pathway and pushed everyone in front of me, covering them with my rifle as the Rachni gave chase. Then I was the one that bumped my foot off of something and went tumbling. Jumping back up immediately, I saw that the object was yet another dead Krogan, and with another look I saw his Firestorm cast by his side.
The jet of flame spurted out at the Rachni and the cavern erupted with the sounds of the bug/machine hybrids crying in pain and fear. I unleashed liquid tongues of fire at the nearest Ravager and set its whole body ablaze. The beast turned and ran from me, the fire catching anything it touched including other Rachni.
"Scott," I heard Grunt's voice in my ear, "a couple of my squads have been engaged, Rachni presence confirmed. You run into any trouble?"
"Yeah, they're all over us right now," I said, "keep pressing on!"
"Don't die in there, Gardner. I don't want to have to dig you out."
"That hurts my feelings Grunt," I jeered as I melted another wave of swarmers. My friends had made it far enough into the tunnels that I could retreat and sprint to catch up to them.
The path came to an end and there was a stream about five metres below us, which I jumped into and followed it until I saw another way out. Our feet went splashing along, but importantly I heard the Ravager closest behind us land in the water as well and burned it to ashes before it could attack us.
"Gardner!" Grunt roared over the comm, "the Rachni are hitting all squads hard, we know where we're going yet?"
"There's some kind of barrier up ahead," Tali joined the conversation, "but I can see the release right next to it."
"So?"
"That means that the Reapers didn't put the barriers there to keep enemies out," Tali said.
"It means that they put them there to keep something in," I finished.
I chucked the flamethrower to Ashley and told her and EDI to watch the rear of our squad while we made a break for the barrier release. The barrier itself was little more than a large gate, but it was definitely made from the same metallic/organic materials as the Reapers themselves.
"No way we would be able to blast through that," Garrus said aloud while turning his gun on the release and pulling the trigger. There was a whining noise that sounded through the caves and the barrier fell.
"Go go go!" I yelled and covered Ash and EDI as they caught up.
"Above, Commander!" Liara suddenly shouted and when I looked up, my light picked up Rachni crawling down the walls from gaps in the ceiling. I was stuck in one of my worst nightmares with monsters scuttling towards me from the pitch blackness in very claustrophobic surroundings. All that gave me comfort was my gun and my friends. Each of them was killing everything that they saw, including Husks and Cannibals that now started to attack us from past the barrier.
I had thought that getting past the barrier would have brought us to the main chamber. But upon taking another quick scan, I saw that we would still have to battle our way along more twisting, ascending and descending paths. They doubled back on themselves and trying to negotiate our way through them with gunfire and the screams of Rachni was next to impossible. Tali's shotgun was glowing red hot as she blasted her way through all of her enemies and the submachineguns and assault rifles of everyone else put down a wall of bullets that shredded every Reaper that got too close.
We came to a point where the path bent around to the left and a deep chasm was on our right side. However, across the other side I caught movement that looked like the lights of suits of armour, at least a dozen of them moving and fighting in tandem.
"Grunt," I got on the comm, my Mattock hammering a Cannibal as I did so, "is that you on the other side of that chasm?"
"What chasm… wow!" The Krogan warrior had sprinted from one bit of cover to another without even realising what lay next to him and when he turned and was faced with utter nothingness, even he could not hide his fright.
"Careful!" I shouted, so loud that I doubted Grunt needed the radio to hear me. "Our routes will link up in the next cave. I can see another barrier and then… I think we're at the nest!"
"Good," Grunt laughed back as he blew the head section of a Ravager off with his immensely powerful Claymore shotgun.
"Heard anything from the other teams?" I asked as Ashley landed a grenade in a cluster of Husks and Ravagers, blowing them all over the cavern walls and floor with a violent bang.
"They're all headed the same way," Grunt said, "taking a few casualties."
"We'll be there soon, Grunt!" I told him. He did not want to hear sympathy,
"It's fine! Krogan fight better angry."
A Ravager crawled down from the ceiling above Grunt and jumped on the massive Krogan, but my friend had seen it coming and was ready. He threw his hands up and caught it in mid-flight, holding it above his head like a war trophy and roaring with sheer delight as he threw it down the endless chasm that divided me from him.
"It is good that my people never had to fight the Krogan at their full power," I heard Javik say in admiration, "we may… may have lost."
We made it to the barrier at the same time that another squad of Krogan were just arriving.
"Have much trouble?" I asked the Krogan sergeant.
"Lost a couple of my men to the Rachni, and one to the path collapsing under him. Bad way to go!"
"we're nearly there," I told him, "we'll wait for Grunt to catch up, set up a defensive line here where the enemy numbers will count for less."
"And the nest?" the soldier asked.
"I'll handle that," I said. Grunt's men poured into the small space and took it in turns to watch the entrances with their high-powered shotguns and assault rifles. Grunt himself was the last to enter, taking great pleasure in blasting a Ravager to bits before joining us.
"It looks like the Reapers are backing off for now," he said, "but they can smell our wounds. Any worthy enemy will regroup and finish us off… soon."
"This barrier is the only thing blocking us from the main chamber, we'll get in and see what's going on. I need you to hold this position until I signal for us to leave," I ordered.
"Got it, Commander," Grunt said and organised his troops. I was glad to see James again. If I was honest, he seemed to have enjoyed fighting in the midst of these elite Krogan warriors, almost as if he wanted to show them that he could fight as tough as any of their kind.
"We ready?" I asked Tali who was ready to disable the barrier generator.
"Always," Tali replied.
The barrier came down and I was welcomed, against all expectations, by rays of light that lit up the vast opening before us. Far below a great, wide underground river was rushing past us, the rush of the water reverberating through the stone halls. Our way across was a natural bridge of stone that took us towards the centre of the cavern. There were peaks of jagged rocks jutting up from the ground in places which we would have to weave around, and along the way I saw more Krogan corpses. As we steadily moved past them, weapons ever ready and eyes watching every nook and cranny, it looked to me like the Krogan scouts had not been killed here. They had been slain at various stages through the caves and dragged here by their Reaper killers. Were they then to be food for whatever was down here? Then I realised that the answer as to what was down here had been in front of me the entire time. The Rachni were being bred down here, these Krogan corpses were to be food and the barriers had been put in place to keep something imprisoned in this cave.
"I know what's down here," I suddenly said as I processed my thoughts. However, I could not tell whether I was glad that I knew, nor how the next confrontation would turn out.