As Mission and Zaalbaar swiftly navigated the sewers with a sense of finesse and urgency, Tali began to notice how archaic and old the architecture had gotten, the locks and electronics were primitive by her standards and she would have been trapped if it weren't for Mission and her gadget that could slice these locks.
The three of them stepped into a large room with multiple doors coming off of it, it seemed more like a large hall rather than a section of the sewers and the architecture had changed. On the other side of the room was a very large durasteel door that looked as though it was designed to handle detonations.
"The forcefield is just through here." Mission uttered as she approached the door and started to engage a hacking protocol, "This will take a while, search those rooms you might find something interesting."
"If this is a back entrance," Tali said as she opened a nearby storage room by hacking the interface through her omni-tool "How come there are no guards?" She added after the door slid open with a whir.
Mission chuckled slightly "They don't need guards..." She trailed off as she thought about the extra layer of security that the Vulkars had. Mission could almost imagine the Quarian whipping around to question her. "They have a rancor guarding the back entrance, the Vulkars think it will stop anyone."
"Rancor?" Tali asked as she whipped around to question Mission who was smiling while facing away from her.
"Giant beast, armour strong enough to withstand rockets. Only an idiot would go head on with one." Mission said as she turned her head enough for Tali to spot the grin on her face. Tali stepped back and started to examine the room she had just opened, contrary to what she had previously though, it was not a storage room but another entrance into the sewers. There was a corpse slumped against the ladder, as she inspected the ladder she noticed that there was absolutely no light coming in and the top of the ladder was shrouded in darkness. She hastily began to examine the body in front of her.
It was a human female, she was dressed in similar rags to the outcasts in the village they had visited earlier, however this outcast was armed with a blaster and a sword she had and she had a backpack full of useful items and three data pads. As Tali read the entries she quickly remembered what the old man at the village had told her about his apprentice and the Promised Land, the data pads she was holding made several references to him and the fable. She had almost completely forgotten about the promise she had made, the fight with the bounty hunter was more important in her mind. While she didn't understand what the former apprentice had been looking for, she took the data pads so that she could give them to the man later.
"Hey Tali!" Mission called out to the Quarian who had disappeared out of sight, Tali quickly emerged from the room to a battle ready Zaalbaar and Mission. "I've got the lock open, the forcefield is this way." She motioned with her hands as Zaalbaar walked past her and took point. "Hey, your armour's not looking too good, we should get you a replacement soon." She started rummaging through her pockets; Tali seriously doubted she was going to pull out an armour vest. Mission pulled out a small white object and handed it to Tali.
"What is it?" Tali asked as she started to scan it with her omni-tool which left Mission looking on with interest.
"Um... it's an energy shield, attach it to your arm and it will cast a field around you that will absorb energy..." Mission trailed off as she watched Tali make her omni-tool disappear and she attached the shield to her arm. "What was that?" Mission quickly added, regarding Tali's omni-tool.
"You mean my omni-tool?" Tali asked, Mission nodded and Tali continued to explain the purpose of it. "It's basically an all-purpose tool that can be used for hacking, scanning and drone control."
Mission continued to look on in surprise as a pink orb materialized in front of her, and began erratically moving around. Mission put out her hand to touch the orb, but to her surprise her hand went straight through. "It's a hologram?" She quickly questioned.
"Not quite." Tali said as the drone retreated back to her and disappeared, "It's a small device that projects light around it and is able to fire electric shocks to do damage."
"Huh, anyway we got to get moving." Mission turned around and motioned for Tali to follow close behind, "Forcefield is this way, should be clear all the way."
The forcefield was glowing a pleasing purple colour that reflected nicely off Tali's faceplate, Mission was busy working a panel to the right of the field that no doubt opened it. "Yes!" Mission said in triumph as the field slowly blinked off and left nothing but the rusty corridor ahead. The Twi'lek turned and gave a cocky smile; Tali shook her head and started walking down the corridor, rifle held and ready for anything.
They came to a large durasteel door with a severed arm lying in front of it, Mission crouched down and examined it. The arm was tightly clutching onto a datapad with a hole blown through it like it had been shot. Tali winced as Mission pried the datapad from the dead arm and let it fall back onto the floor with a clunk, she imagined it must smell terrible.
"It says that they tried sneaking past the rancor and that they were carrying the scent of common rancor prey." Mission said, answering the question that Tali was just about to ask. They entered the next room and found a backpack containing a few syringes containing the scent and an armour vest. "Here, take this." Mission said as she passed the vest to Tali who was undoing the straps on her much lighter armour vest. She noticed quite a significant burn on her suit where a bolt had melted through the vest – no breaches though. She put on the new vest which was heavier but had thicker plating in a dark blue colour, a nice contrast from the ugly brown vest she had earlier.
Mission opened the door and peaked around the corner, her face told it all as she turned back to face Zaalbaar and Tali. "What is it?" Tali asked the dumbfounded Mission as she pushed past and peaked around the corner. The sight that greeted Tali was unlike anything she had ever seen before, chills ran down her spine as she stared up at the giant creature who had its back to them. She turned around speechless. "Is… is that the-"
"Rancor… yes." Mission interrupted the Quarian as she backed up behind Zaalbaar. "I'll set a charge on one of the corpses in the centre and coat it in the scent. Once the rancor eats it we can detonate it from the inside."
"What corpses…" Tali said as she suddenly saw the mountain of bodies in the centre if the hall, she imagined there must be a foul stench and was almost sick herself. She was reminded of the piles of human corpses aboard the Collector Base… "Wait!" Tali quickly jumped back to her senses "What if it spots you? What then?" She added with a slightly worried tone of voice.
"Don't worry" she pushed a button on her belt and she disappeared into thin air, "It will never spot me."
Tali wasn't as surprised as she could have been, the technology that Mission was using wasn't that different to the stealth technology that she was familiar with. What did have her interested was the fact that Mission didn't rematerialize a few seconds later, as far as she could tell, the effect was almost limitless.
"Back in a minute" Mission said as she darted off, a few seconds later the rancor was startled by something and rushed towards the back of the giant hall, Mission rematerialized in front of Tali, causing her to jump slightly. The beast dug through the pile of corpses and lifted a particularly fresh one and shoved it into its mouth. The sound of the body being crushed was excruciating for the whole group and Mission in particular reeled from the sound. She was still only a teenager after all.
However the beast did not have the last laugh, as it swallowed the remains of the corpse the rancor began convulsing violently as if it was choking on something. Mission pulled out a detonator and pushed the button on top causing a charge to explode in the creatures throat, a large hole sprung forth from the neck of the creature and viscera was thrown all over the floor in front of the beast as it gurgled loudly with blackish blood spewing out of the large hole in its throat. After a few seconds the beast stopped gurgling and toppled over forwards, hitting the metal floor with a loud clang and landing in a puddle of its own blood – a puddle that was expanding as the blackish liquid continued to flow out of the gaping hole in the rancor's throat.
"Keelah…" Tali muttered as she watched the towering beast fall to the floor and twitch violently, her indentured friend gave a loud growl, whether it was approval or disgust, Tali had no idea. What she did know however, was that a major obstacle had been cleared from their path.
"Come on!" Mission excitedly exclaimed as Tali continued staring in awe at the downed beast, as she snapped back to her senses she skirted around the growing pool of blood to a small alcove at the back of the hall with a door that presumably led to the Vulkar base.