Jack's face burned with the overbearing heat of the fiery pillar. She'd watched the Ritual respectfully, having been advised she was the first alien to see it, but truth be told she tuned the shit out pretty quickly once Bakara made her tribute and the shamans started monologuing. The pyre reminded her of London, and the Ryncol brought back all the faces.
The detachment was new, though. Maybe it was just getting lost looking into the flames or the hypnotic drumming and chanting all around her, but the memories didn't hurt so much anymore. Almost felt guilty for it for a hot second; the idea that you only mattered to someone until they shrugged it off and judged it a fucking improvement. So she said their names to herself and pictured them firmly in her head, one by one, swearing to the same Void the Krogan invoked over and over that they meant something. That they weren't lost.
By the time the ceremonies ended and she was good and drunk she figured she'd atoned, so she lifted her wildly shifting gaze to Grunt who'd found his way beside her. He had the same thousand mile stare going and she briefly considered stumbling back to his quarters to pass out and leave him in peace; but her mission and his earlier words made her reach out to give his mounded shoulder a shake.
"Hey," she slurred, then repeated it louder, shoving hard enough against his weight to throw herself off balance, "Don't we gotta leave?"
Grunt nodded and looked up at the aging flame one last time before turning toward the Urdnot compound. He was silent until they were about to enter; then he paused and looked at Jack. "Stay here. Wanna say goodbye."
"Alright," she said quietly, sniffing from the dust and ash and running the back of her wrist over her nose to scratch it while trying not to imagine Grunt and his mate actually kissing. Eugh.
She leaned back against the warm concrete wall and turned to watch Bakara speaking in a low rumble to those who came to offer their support. There was a crowd of Krogan around and near her and she made sure to say something to each of them even though Jack got the feeling she wanted to be anywhere else. As much as Wrex might have been the strong leader that the Krogan wanted, with a clever mind and a vision for the future, and as much as Shepard might have given him the one thing he needed to turn his enemies into friends, she suspected that Bakara's slow and steady wisdom kept the wheels turning after all the dust had settled.
When Grunt came out with both of their packs, the chieftess turned to look at them with sadness and determination mixed on her face. Grunt nodded once before heading off in the direction Jack had originally come and she fell into step, still watching Bakara until she was well behind.
The Krogan 'spaceport' was just a really big stretch of nothing with few enough broken buildings and boulders to let their ships land without causing damage. That being said, there were a butt-ton of ships there, separated by strips of road big enough to allow refueling and repair trucks. It took them half an hour, but they finally reached a frigate with Krogan wearing Aralakh badges milling around the lowered access ramp.
The walk had cleared her head, thankfully, and she was eager to get underway; so she was surprised when two armored Krogan blocked her way to the stairs.
"You wanna clear a fucking path?" Jack growled, only to have Grunt put a clawed hand on her shoulder.
"We're not taking that ship, Jack. This way," Grunt said.
Jack turned to look around for another ship that looked ready to depart and only saw small craft scattered about. "Where?" she asked in confusion.
They walked around behind the frigate sized ship until she could see light spilling from the entrance of a small freighter. It was completely nondescript except for some hastily painted Krogan letters in Urdnot colors on her side.
Jack stopped in her tracks with a knit brow. "You gotta be…." she started before looking at her friend.
"What?" he said with a sardonic smile, "She'll get us there. No guns means no threat. You too good to travel coach?"
"No..I mean…" Jack looked around and lifted her hands incredulously. "Why aren't we riding with Aralakh?"
Grunt grunted, "Aralakh's not coming." Then walked over to disappear inside while she stood there, flummoxed. Another Krogan walked past her toward the gangway, dressed in a Shaman's robes. He turned to look at her with a hideously scarred face and laughed loudly at her expression before he too boarded the freighter.
Jack took a deep breath and sighed, looking longingly at the frigate with the nice brutal pulse-cannons on its wings before shifting her pack on her shoulders and following the pair.
"Do you know how many ways this isn't a good idea?" Jack snarled as she slung her belongings under a bench in the back. When she stalked to the cockpit she spat, "Did you even bring a fucking gun? You're not fucking Gandhi."
Grunt and the shaman looked back at her from their seats. "Who is Gandhi and why would I fuck him?" he asked.
"Answer the damn question!" she cried.
Grunt shook his head. "No, I didn't bring a fucking gun. I brought him," he said, gesturing to the shaman with a thumb.
The shaman lifted a hand in greeting, smiling with misshapen lips on a face that looked like hamburger. "I am Charl," he gurgled.
Jack guessed his tongue was as mangled as the rest of him and recoiled an inch before retorting, "You're ugly is what you are. You got a bomb hidden on you or something?"
"No," he said simply, shaking his head.
"Then what good are you?" she shouted in his face before turning to Grunt. "Grunt," she said in an angry voice, "Talk to me, man. What the fuck are we doing?"
Grunt murmured a flight checklist to himself as he flipped switches and pressed buttons. "Charl is a Holy Man," he said when the whine of the engines became audible. "He knows the laws and the rites and will be overseeing our talks. If they kill us, he'll take our bodies back here and report what happened."
"He'll….oh that's just great! At least they'll know we got murdered like good little morons," she protested. "And what if they kill him too?"
"If they kill me," Hamburgerface added calmly, "The Krogan will rain fire upon Dulak until they are nothing but ash."
Jack ran a hand over her face trying to maintain some semblance of calm. "Perfect!" she growled before kicking a rusty bulkhead hard enough to leave a dent. "I know I feel better!"
"Shut up and get some sleep!" Grunted called loudly over his shoulder. "You're relieving me in 4 hours."
"Uh-uh," Jack said while leaning in between the pilot seats, "This is a shit plan and we're gonna talk about it right now." When Grunt shook his head, she pressed anyway. "Why are we even meeting these people on their own turf? Can't we find a nice comfortable place for everyone to point guns at each other?"
In answer, the Krogan lifted the freighter off the ground and headed toward orbit.
"I'm waiting!" Jack insisted.
Grunt pounded a side panel full of buttons with his left fist, then cursed and pressed some of them to silence the responding alarms. After, he turned..or tried to with that stump of a neck...to growl aggressively at her. "I've just spent 6 days trying to hold off a rebellion that could kill my family and my clan. I need some goddamned QUIET!"
The Shaman said nothing, but he didn't need to. The silent resignation in his eyes said plenty. She may not know why, but it was clear they didn't have a choice in this.
She forcibly relaxed and lowered her hands, watching the reddish brown of the Tuchankan atmosphere turn inky black outside the front viewport. "Allright," she said calmly. "4 hours, then I want some answers." Just to make sure she was clear, though, she pointed a finger at Grunt's nose. "This isn't just your life you're risking here, FYI, and I didn't sign up for another suicide run."
"Fine," he said with an alarmingly despondent sigh.
Jack withdrew to the cargo area and picked the lowest, darkest corner she could find.
With her back against the bulkhead and the thrum of the engines vibrating through her limbs she could pretend she was somewhere safe and boring. Didn't mean shit, of course, but she'd take any calm she could find against the adrenaline coursing uselessly through her fingers and toes. Fuck , she swore inwardly as she began cracking each joint in turn.
Waiting sucks .
"You have intruded on Lystheni Confederation Property," A clipped voice intruded on speakers outside the heavily armed compound on the surface of Bekke. "This is a violation of sovereign territory and reinforcements are inbound. Surrender. You will be treated fairly."
"As fair as sniping for my head the moment I stepped off the ship?" Ashley muttered while reloading, back rounded against the stacked canisters behind her to duck the pair of automated turrets near the entrance of the facility. She bent around the edge to shout, "I'm a Spectre, God dammit! Stand down!" After being answered with more weapons fire, she looked to her left and right, meeting Abercrombie's dark eyes and EDI's passive silver orbs.
"Looks like we're gonna have to do this the hard way," Mitch growled, a blue aura springing into being around him. Williams didn't get the feeling he minded all that much, his inevitable implant headaches given no more mind than a hangover the next day.
"Captain," EDI intoned calmly, "A strafing run by the Normandy should provide us cover to approach. I will disable the security systems through the access panel."
Ashley jerked her head left to get a look at the entrance before she was forced back into cover. "What access panel? I don't see anything."
"The access panel is 1.5 meters southwest of the entrance doors," she said, her expressionless face providing a valuable bit of reassurance. "Trust me," the android added when she hesitated.
Williams licked her lips then keyed her comms, "Joker? You get that?"
"Just give the word, Ma'am," came his response. "Haven't blown anything up for at least a week. Trigger's rusty and everything!"
"Knock on the door, Joker," Ashley panted irritably, "Leave the rest to me."
"Aye-aye!" he said enthusiastically, "ETA 30 ticks."
30 seconds later they were rushing the front, the covered doors silhouetted in an explosion while the turrets aimed uselessly overhead at the massive streak that was the Normandy SR-2. Williams and Abercrombie hunkered to either side of the locked metal door. EDI, however, had disappeared at some point during the mad rush.
When the doors opened, they waited for EDI to join them, only to be advised over their communicators, "Please proceed, Captain. I've found another entrance and will rendezvous with you in approximately 2 minutes."
Ashley's brow furrowed, her instincts telling her to stay together. Before she could say anything, though, EDI cut into comms again. "There appear to be sentry mechs posted throughout the facility. I will attempt to neutralize them."
She was right, Ashley discovered as they made their way inward. There were a lot of them. Each room they entered had half a dozen or more, throwing a variety of ordnance their way including flamethrowers and different types of grenades designed to exploit vulnerabilities in their armor and tech. Each time, their pace slowed to a crawl while they adjusted their strategies and each time the leftover sentries were eventually disabled by EDI, slumping or falling where they were along with turrets and mobile shields.
In the third such room, with Mitch and Ashley pinned down yet again, she keyed her comms. "EDI, are you able to globally disable these systems? This is taking forever."
As if to confirm her statement, Joker broke in. "Uh…yeah...half a dozen ships are loading up on the back side. Want me to engage?"
Ash started swearing, but any orders died on her lips as EDI burst into the room from the left, energy pistol blazing in her right hand. The android didn't even focus on the nearest mechs, her aim directed at targets across the room who fell with each well placed shot. At the same time, she was running past the original pair and after the last burst from her pistol rang loud, her left forearm shot out and clotheslined one of the duo. She stopped at that point, form curling into a clockwise spin and the struggling body of the clumsy defense mech becoming a bludgeon against the last of them, sparks filling the air on contact. It was all over in seconds, a brute display of strength and precision.
But Ashley's blood curdled in her veins at the sight, an unbidden but very vivid memory of EDI as Dr. Eva Core grabbing her by the faceplate and smashing the back of her head over and over flooding her senses. No, she reminded herself with several deep breaths. This was the EDI she had come to know...and trust.
The android turned and gave a curt nod to them both, adding, "Apologies for the delay. The bay doors are unlocked."
The Lystheni ships, however, were lifting off as the team streamed into the landing area. "Ok, Joker," she sighed into her suit mic, admitting defeat after regaining firm control on her emotions. "Convince them to hang around. We need to have a chat."
As the firing began above them, lifting away quickly towards orbit, Williams looked around. "Well," she said finally to the pair watching her patiently (while definitely not staring overlong at EDI), "Let's search this place and see what we can find for now."
Outside of the security area and administration wing they found empty labs and medical bays, the beds and tables all with worn restraints. They stayed quiet throughout, moving through each area with caution and hoping someone had been left behind that might provide some answers.
"Um," came Joker's voice while they were re-clearing what appeared to be the Command Center, "That could've gone better."
Ashley motioned her companions to defensible positions, just in case, then keyed her comms. "Sitrep?" she asked.
"5 ships down and 1 escaped through the relay," he sighed. "Orders?" he asked, clearly disappointed with himself.
"Did you identify yourself?" Ashley snapped.
"Yes, Ma'am," he replied. "Seemed hell bent on dying, if you ask me. I even told 'em all we wanted to do was talk but we had no choice but to defend ourselves."
"Captain," EDI injected, "I have discerned a pattern in the Lystheni's behavior from both the defenses in this base as well as the tactics of the ships engaged with the Normandy."
Ashley turned to her with narrowed eyes, "You were able to monitor the battle up there as well as operate down here?"
"I possess more than enough processing power to multitask in such a fashion," was her equanimous response. She continued without pause, "I believe the ship that escaped was the only one with organic life-forms aboard. The others attacked the Normandy using methods highly similar to mechanized defense systems. Their coordination and adaptability to changing conditions was...uninspiring."
Williams processed that for a moment. "So what you're saying is...they were decoys." At EDI's nod she tilted her head back and forth to relieve the tension building in the back of her neck. "Seems like an awful lot of money spent to protect a handful of people. Whatever they were up to must've been important."
"You want me to go after them?" Joker asked again.
She shook her head quickly, "No, I don't think so. They've likely gone to ground somewhere that'll put up a better fight. Do a sweep of the wreckage and collect any intel you can find, then come pick us up."
"Aye, Aye, Cap," He said. "Normandy out."
Ashley looked meaningfully at Mitch. "We need to figure out what they were doing here, pronto."
Abercrombie's chiseled face screwed up in thought, his dark eyes flicking around the environs before returning to hers. "Clearly some kind of illegal medical experimentation given the gurneys with binds. The Lystheni are pro-augmentation, which pisses off the homeworld plenty."
Ashley nodded in approval, but her eyes were still cautious. "And?"
"And…." he continued with a deep breath, "That means some of the 'patients' here might not have been volunteers?"
Ashley tilted her head slightly, letting him know he was a bit off track.
The young biotic's eyes squinted in frustration but focused quickly. "Okay, no." His fingers flexed on the handle of his drawn Phalanx, lips whispering softly to himself as he ran through the angles. His face suddenly relaxed and brightened in realization. "The Salarian Councilor sent us on this mission because it was important to her," he said fervently, "That means she has something at stake. Something...personal? Maybe some of the patients are high profile…"
Mitch was smart. Smart, strong and dependable….and in her weaker moments he effortlessly broke her heart into a thousand pieces. Moments just like this one, when his thoughtful gaze looked off into the distance just like….
The Spectre nodded in satisfaction. "Good. Very good." Her next words were rote, "Nothing happens in a vacuum."
The Lieutenant nodded quietly, though his lips twitched with pleasure at her approval.
She set them to pace again with her practiced calmface, clearing spaces until they came to the aforementioned medical labs full of beds with odd stains, disheveled bedding, and limp restraints.
"Alright, look around," she ordered. "Logs, records, databases, drives….find anything you can."
There was nothing written to find, they found, and after some lengthy hacking attempts by EDI on their infoterms she turned to Ashley with a blank expression that was still somehow discernible as frustration from the Android.
"All the terminals as well as the central servers appear to have been wiped, Captain."
Ash sighed. Seemed to be 'that' kind of day. "Because of course it was," she said with a shrug and arched brow.
EDI shook her head demonstrably, however, which drew her gaze once again. "There are disturbing conclusions to be drawn from these events," she continued.
That brought Ash short. "Explain," she said sincerely.
"Uh, Captain?" Mitch said in a muffled voice from a side room.
"Just a sec," Ash said a bit loudly in response, her eyes never leaving the AI's orbs.
"There are several complex systems for data analysis on this network," EDI continued, "Even with the most advanced security protocols in place it is unlikely such an efficient scrubbing could have occurred in the short time between our arrival and their departure."
Williams' brow furrowed, "So what are you suggesting?"
Abercrombie appeared around the corner and stood with his arms limp at his sides...whitefaced. Ashley took note of his stance but looked back to EDI expectantly.
EDI noticed the officer as well and answered simply, "The pattern suggests that the Lystheni knew we were coming."
Ash's eyebrows lifted at the idea, but turned to attend Mitch's obvious distress. "What have you got, Lieutenant?"
"Um. You should see this," Was all he said, his right thumb jutting behind him.
The pair followed him down a short hallway and toward a room so cold that vapor could be seen trailing out the door. Williams pursed her lips before she even turned the corner, the sight of rows of unmoving corpses no longer the troubling vision it would have been just a few short years ago.
"Well," she said, hand on hip, "If they knew we were coming, this is a pretty big oversight. Poor bastards." She keyed her comms, "Joker, tell Dr. Chakwas we've got a bay full of bodies down here. We'll need her expertise."
"Aye, Captain," he said. "I've got the Normandy waiting in the landing area. Oh, and a certain Mister Williams-Vega is requesting a callback at your earliest convenience."
"Noted." Ashley looked sideways at EDI. "Let me know if you find anything else?"
"Of course," she replied before moving deeper into the room.
"Hey baby," Ashley purred, her lips curling into a coquettish smile at the sight of James through the vidcall.
"¿Qué tal amor?" Vega answered with a crooked grin.
Something was off, though, she could tell. A reduction in his voice volume, the smile not quite making it to his eyes...things she'd learned over the past few years as warning signs. Habit made her look at call origination and sure enough, he was off-world.
"Terra Nova, huh?" She said, and he nodded quietly….eyes sharpening. They'd played this game before.
Regulations put in place after the war tightened restrictions on what information could be passed between Alliance Officers and Council Spectres, locking down the 'Shepard Loophole' as it had come to be known. Cooperation with the Spectre Corps was 'standard procedure', of course, but the brass had been burned once by that too-close affiliation and inserted a few dozen layers of bureaucracy to protect themselves; which gave the first ever marriage between a Council Spectre and Alliance Officer its own unique hurdles to leap.
"How's the weather over there?" Ashley asked as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
James smiled again, seemingly pleased she'd picked up what he just dropped. "Been raining for days," he groaned. "I swear if I didn't know better I'd say there was a Monsoon coming."
"Glad I cancelled my vacation there, then," she crooned.
"Oh no, nonono," he said with outspread hands, "There's something beautiful about the angry waves. I can't stop watching them."
"Dangerous place to be, hon. You sure you wanna be that close?"
"Oh it's fine. We've got big walls here to keep the water back. Although...you know there was this strike of lightning the other day?" Vega said with a mix of awe and regret, "Even though you'd been told the weather was clear, it hit two tourists on a boat and took them out in an instant." He snapped his fingers with a loud sound. "Get this, though. Someone took a picture at the same time and it was the weirdest thing…."
Ashley was struggling to keep up, her eyes tightening and her mind spinning as he continued.
"The light from this thing lit up all the blue water underneath….and there were thousands of fish down there, all illuminated. Thousands and thousands."
They met eyes then, while she processed. When she finally made the connection between Terra Nova and Tyr, the newly appropriated Krogan world, she could feel the cold, sharp claw of fear raking the back of her neck.
"In the open water?" she asked numbly and propped her elbow on the arm of her chair. "That's unusual."
"Yep," he agreed. "Needless to say there's a lot of fishermen headed out this way now, for when the weather breaks. You should come too. Might break your own record if you put out a line."
"Yeah," she grunted, "I've got this deadline at work, though. Not sure if I can get the time off."
"Babe," He said seriously, "Take a sick day. You'll wanna be here for this." Then he added, his eyes softening for the first time, "And I sure would love to see ya."
"You're right," she said tenderly, tucking her chin in the palm of her propped hand and curling her nails against her cheek. "We do need to make up for lost time."
"Have you ever considered actually wearing them? Clothes, I mean."
The blue hologram that represented EDI in the cockpit pulsed in answer while her physical presence was still on the ground investigating the Lystheni objective. "Clothing is generally invented for the purpose of protecting vulnerable flesh from solar radiation, extremes in temperature and minor environmental injuries. My body is made from a combination of bulk metallic glass and carbon fiber nanotubing that renders such protection unnecessary."
Sam looked over the panel separating the two pilot chairs at Joker with a wry grin. "You forgot something very important about clothing, though. It's pretty."
"And it….covers things," Joker said before adding hastily. "Not that I think you need to cover anything, 'course." He grinned and tacked on again, "Please don't."
"Ah," EDI intoned. "Sam, do you believe the wearing of clothing would aid my cultural integration?"
"Well I don't think it would hurt," Traynor said, examining her fingernails. "You could even experiment with outfits that fit with the culture of whomever you were talking with, you know? Make them feel more comfortable."
"Yeah but," Joker protested, "Then when she takes the clothes off, she'll be naked." When Sam gave him an impatient look, he tried again. "What I mean is, we all accept her for who she is now. If she starts wearing clothes and then just stops, all we'll see is that she's suddenly naked." He heard footsteps behind and turned his head to see the Captain approaching, so he lowered his voice to a harsh whisper before his eyes went back to his panel. "Like really naked. Is that what you want?"
"That is a fair point, Jeff. Taking on one cultural norm may imply an unintended acceptance of others, including the concept of modesty. I will think on it."
"Joker," Ashley said by way of greeting, "You find out anything about the Lystheni's potential destination?"
"Yeah…." he crooned doubtfully, "There's lots of pirate ports and mercenary bases around here, Cap. They could get lost pretty easy on Tortuga if they wanted. At the same time it's not like anyplace on that dirtball is tech central. There's been reports that the old Ahn'Kedar orbital platform may be in use again, though. That place was all about Batarian experimentation back in the day so it seems a good fit."
Ashley was nodding at the last. "Right, good. Open a channel to the ground team."
"Channel open," Sam reported professionally after a quick few button presses.
"Dr. Chakwas, status down there? How's it going?"
"I've performed a cursory examination of the deceased down here and an informal autopsy on one of the Salarian corpses," she said distractedly. "Captain, I'm no expert on Salarian physiology but it is very clear there have been chromosomal alterations in them all. Now that's not news, I know, given this group's particular beliefs about elective enhancements, but what's odd is that the alterations themselves don't appear to be the cause of death, at least on this one."
"Alright, then what was it?"
"Well, I'm collecting as much information as I can for analysis but there is significant necrosis around an injection site, similar to the other cadavers. The tissue in that area shows a reversal of the chromosomal alterations." Her voice trailed off as if she were still working and lost her train of thought.
Ashley chewed on that for a moment, before EDI spoke.
"What I believe she is saying, Captain, is that they may have died from an attempt to remove the enhancements previously made to their genetic code."
She shook her head, "Why would they want to do that? You think they might have been defectors from the Lystheni movement? Wanted to remove what made them distinct?" Then she shook her head again and outstretched a hand as she reasoned out loud. "No that makes no sense. If they were defectors, the Lystheni aren't going to help them."
"Maybe they were executed?" Joker offered. "They all got a shot and it killed them by making them normal again. Maybe it was a message."
Sam murmured, "They did leave the bodies behind."
"Nonsense," Chakwas blustered. "If you're going to execute people with an injection, you don't need to bring them all to the middle of nowhere to do it. I need some time to figure this out. In the meantime, let's not jump to conclusions."
"How much time do you need, Doctor?" Ashley asked.
"Oh, I can't do this here, Captain. I need a team of professionals with specializations in genetics as well as Salarian physiology. It could take weeks."
"That's the one thing we don't have," Ashley muttered. "Summarize your findings for my report to Councilor Esheel. She can decide what to do next."
"Aye, aye, Ma'am," Chakwas dutifully replied.
"I'll lay in a course for the orbital platform once we've packed up," Moreau said, but Ashley tapped her fingers on his headrest thoughtfully, making him pause.
If Joker was right and the Lystheni were holed up on Ahn'Kedar station it would take either a full out assault or a well planned infiltration to get what they needed. If Joker was wrong they had a long search ahead of them. With Chakwas needing weeks to pull together a conclusion from the bodies as well, the chances of getting back to help with the Krogan situation before the dust settled was looking pretty slim.
"Belay that," she said after a long moment of consideration. "We're going to Terra Nova."
Eyes widened all around and EDI queried, "That's a direct contradiction of our standing orders. Are you sure?"
"Oh I'm very sure," she said with a sparkle in her eyes, "I think Esheel wants us running around the Abyss for the next few weeks, and frankly? We've got more important things to do."