Vanguard of Vengeance: Chapter 16

The doors to the Peak 15 facility groaned open, metal creaking in the frozen cold. Inside was dark, a self-contained nightscape black even against the dim grey light of the flurrying blizzard. The team stood huddled in the doorway, weapons at the ready. Nihlus was the first to break the silence.

"Squad, lights." Five, wide beams of light flickered on from shoulder mounted torches and stabbed out onto the darkness. They shone weakly in the cavernous space of the Peak's loading dock, glinting occasionally off of some metallic structure or patch of ice. The team's breath steamed in the open air. "Cold in here," The turian SPECTRE gestured with his rifle, "Someone must have cut the power." He stepped into the room ahead of the squad, which fanned out behind him. Shepard stayed close by his side, playing her torchlight up into the rafters. Chains hung from the clusters of cranes there like the drooping bows of a great industrial willow tree. The chains rattled softly in an unseen breeze, their lengths rimed with ice.

"Why would someone do that?" Liara asked; a nervous edge to her voice. "Shutting down the power on a place like Noveria is as good as signing your own death sentence." The asari doctor startled as something rattled in the back of the hanger. "Unless…"

"Yes, Doctor?" Nihlus stopped and peered about.

"Well, I was just thinking, Binary Helix is a biological research company and this is their top secret remote lab. What if… what if something got out? Shutting down the power would freeze the whole base, killing anything inside after enough time. They might even have it set up as some kind of automated response to a contagion leak. Goddess, if Benezia was here during some kind of breakout, she could be…"

"Calm yourself, Asari," Javik cut in, "if your progenitor is truly of the calibre denoted by the title, Matriarch, she will certainly have survived a mere industrial accident. Even if she is a primitive."

"Thank you, I suppose," Liara answered.

"Look, either way, our objective remains the same," Nihlus said. "We're here to extract the Matriarch. Any further investigation is secondary to that mission. Now, whether there was a containment breach or not, our first step should be getting the power back on, maybe get some computers running. For safety's sake, though, we'll seal up before advancing any further, plus I want someone sweeping for any detectable toxins, spores, what have you at all times, clear?"

A chorus of 'clears' answered, followed by the swooshing of helmet visors lowering and locking into place and mass effect face shields engaging. Javik remained uncovered, sneering at the thought. "Even at the height of the Reaper War the Great Enemy themselves could not poison us. Your simple biological warfare will not harm me."

"Right. Well then, advance by teams. Vakarian, T'Soni, you're with me. Shepard, you, Matsuo, and Javik are team two. It's about to get real chilly in here, so let's make this quick. Move out."


Shepard's shoulder lamp flickered, sending a faltering spear of light down the dark corridor. She slapped at it distractedly until the beam stabilized. The deck plates creaked underfoot as she advanced carefully, boots scuffing against the rime of frost that wound its way across the corrugated surface. The lamp light shivered again. Shepard slapped at it with a frustrated grunt. The light failed to correct its bad behavior, earning it a hard rap from her knuckles. The lamp light shivered again, more severely this time, and accompanied by a strange chattering sound. With a start, Shepard realized it was her own teeth making the noise. She was freezing. Her eyes fell on the popped cuff seals of her elbow joint where the buckled metal revealed shredded insulation fibres and the pale skin beneath, bloodless in the arctic cold. They had to get the power up soon.

"Commander?"

"This way," Shepard replied to the question she'd only half heard. She motioned with the overbuilt handgun.

"What makes you think this path will lead us more truly than the other?" Javik asked coldly.

"Just call it a hunch," Shepard said. "Besides, it's not like every hallway in this place can be a dead end." Inwardly, Shepard had almost begun to doubt that fact. The arrivals side of Peak 15 had turned out to be a labyrinthine warren of offices, warehouses, and other rooms of seemingly arcane purpose, made all the worse by the lack of power and doors that had frozen shut. Shepard pushed ahead down her newly chosen course. By the echo of boots clattering on the deck behind her, it sounded like at least she hadn't lost anyone. She just needed this one to be the one…

Shepard froze. There was something… a sound drifting down the long, frost-choked hallway. It rose and fell in fits and starts of static, each beat ending in a short electronic trill. Shepard motioned the rest of the party forward, flashing the signals for "follow at a distance" and "use caution." Captain Matsuo clicked her comms. in acknowledgment while Javik merely fell into formation silently. Shepard crept down the hall with her pistol out front. In her helmet, the combined rush of her breathing and the sharp hiss of air out of her broken seals seemed impossibly loud, only matched by what must be the booming footfalls of her steel shod boots. The noise became clearer as she followed it through the twisted maze of Peak 15. As her feet chased the sound, her mind was busy chasing a million theories round her skull. An alarm? Not likely, these corporate types usually traded subtlety for heavily armed response thugs, and an audible alarm only gave would-be trespassers forewarning of their oncoming curb stomping. A recording? Someone leaving a distress signal? But why wouldn't they just call out, why use a synthetic voice? A horrible image of a geth drone lying in ambush flashed through the Commander's head, but she quickly dismissed it. No, an ambusher wouldn't broadcast its position, and a distress call as a trap would have to be clearer to better draw in prey.

Shepard switched off her lamp, motioning for her fellows to do the same. The hallway was plunged into darkness. The sound came again. Static. Triple beep. Silence. With the fall of quiet, pale blue light flooded from a side passage. Shepard slipped her pistol from her holster, pressing the handgrip against numb fingers. She flexed the aching digits with a quiet groan, trying to force a little feeling back into her frozen hands as she began to creep forward down the hall. The light from the side passage flickered in time with the cyclic sound, playing in a swirling pattern splashed across the far wall. Her breath caught in her throat as she drew close to the open side passage and she made ready to turn the corner. A quick glance confirmed that her companions had fallen in behind her. Captain Matsuo gave her a nervous yet determined nod and checked her own weapon. Javik was impassive as ever.

Shepard flung herself around the corner, her sidearm already up and ready to fire, her eyes zig-zagging across the hallway in search of targets. She found none. For a second, the commander stood blinking in the empty passage. A slight warmth grazed her cheeks, even past the icy cold. Her embarrassment redoubled as the rest of her squad came barreling into the hallway behind her. The lonely data terminal in front of her continued its attempted startup, the trilling beeps filling the shocked silence.

"It's a… computer?" Shepard asked tentatively.

"Excellent," Javik snapped, "a broken computer. It is good that we were able to hunt it down instead of pursuing our mission. Surely this is the true menace here, not the servants of the Eons old genocidal machines."

"It's not a computer. Well, not exactly," Captain Matsuo said. She shouldered past the truculent Prothean and stowed her weapon. "It's a terminal to Peak 15s mainframe, likely a VI operated core module. With the power out, it doesn't have the juice to complete its startup cycle. That explains the sound it was making. I thought it sounded familiar."

"Do you have access to these terminals?" Shepard asked as she slipped her sidearm back into its holster. "I mean, you're head of security, right?"

"These corporate labs are notoriously paranoid. Half of their systems don't even talk to each other, let alone allow direct access by the central Port Authority. I do, however, have limited surface access as security chief. Not that it will do us much good unless we can get some sort of power to this terminal." Captain Matsuo traced a finger over the flickering sigils and pressed one, seemingly at random. The stuttering, beeping halted suddenly. The half formed holographic display dissolved before snapping back in stark monochrome. The chief of security stared unblinking at the screen and shivered lightly.

"You alright, Captain?" Shepard asked. Matsuo waved her off, grasping at her head. Unsteadily, she wavered on her feet before leaning heavily against the wall. Shepard shared a worried glance with the Prothean Avatar. Javik readied his weapon but the Commander raised a warning hand, warding him away. "Captain?"

"Just… a headache. The cold, you know. It gets to you." She straightened up pressed her hand against the wall beside the terminal. "With the power out, we're going to have to juice this terminal up manually." She activated her Omni-tool and ran it over the wall panel. She clenched a fist and wrenched it back. The wall beneath her fingers shifted, a seam opening. Matsuo wedged her fingertips into the gap and tore the panel open. "Hah. See, a manual priming level. The corporations fought tooth and nail against these things. Guess they wanted their 'slash and burn' option to be a little more permanent. Aha, here we are." The screen brightened and steadied. "Hmm, this doesn't look good."

"What is it?" Shepard stepped beside the other woman and scanned the screen. "I see what you mean. Look, they've cut the fuel to the reactor and the hardlines to the labs. We won't be getting any further until we reconnect those."

"Also, we will be frozen to death," Javik added helpfully.

"Yes, that too," Shepard said distractedly. Her radio squawked. "Commander Shepard, go."

"Commander," Nihlus' fluted tones answered, "Report your status."

"It's not looking good, sir. The Captain's found us a way into the Peak's computer systems. They've cut the hardlines and the He3 pumps have been disconnected. And…" She looked over the list of damaged systems. "Something's burned its way through the VI core. We're not going to get any help from that direction."

"That is, troubling," Nihlus said after a long pause. "Do we have a map of the facility? Ah, yes. This is… very basic."

"Best I can offer you, Spectre Nihlus," Captain Matsuo replied, "All I have available are the original construction blueprints. As you can see though, the tram station, data hardlines, and reactor chamber are all marked here. Overlaying our current positions now."

"I see," Nihlus said. The words had the impression of being spoken by one scratching his chin thoughtfully, "yes. Two objectives, two teams. If this is my team here…"

"If I may, Spectre, wouldn't it make more sense if we joined up before moving on to fixing these pumps?" Doctor T'Soni's voice broke in over the radio channel. Commander Shepard raised her voice in agreement.

"T'Soni might be right, Nihlus. With whatever caused this shutdown still unaccounted for and a possible Geth presence…" she allowed her voice to trail off.

"In case you hadn't noticed, Commander, it's getting awfully cold in here. Under normal circumstances, I would agree with your assessment. Frankly, this whole place crawls. However, by the time both teams backtracked, we'd only be further from both our goals, with the clock still ticking. As it stands, both of us have a short hop to one of the objectives."

Shepard wanted to disagree. Every fibre of her military training cried for the consolidation of forces, for the careful, room by room movement called for when operating in unknown and hostile territory. All of those thoughts were driven away by the cold ache in her fingers and the dullness with which she had reacted to it. None of them had been at optimum fighting strength for a while now, and it was only going to get worse. Shepard realized she had been nodding to silent airwaves.

"Solid copy, sir. We'll proceed to the reactor chamber immediately."


The reactor chamber for Peak 15 was a cavernous place, dark and yawning before the small party. The ceiling was lost in shadow, only thick cabling and solid looking piping occasionally dipping down into the pale light offered by the emergency illumination. In the center of the room, surrounded by scaffolding, lay the dark heart of the mountain research station. The central bulb must have been wider around than Shepard was tall. All about the chamber, everything glistened ever so slightly under a thin rime of ice.

"Those must be the pumps," Captain Matsuo said as she pointed out across the expanse of the room. "There, behind the core."

Shepard saw them. Four great pipes jutted from the far wall, each running into a blocky machine that looked like an old wellhead built to a grand scale. Each had a red painted emergency gate almost a foot thick slotted in through the top. All four gates had been slammed shut.

"No controls," Javik noted. "They must be placed elsewhere."

"There," Matsuo stepped into the room. "Up on the catwalk. There's a control console that should have access to the pumps."

Shepard made to follow. The world lit up around her. Through the fog of cold dulled senses, it took a second to resolve the sudden fluttering of bright lights in the gloom into anything resembling a coherent picture. When the first actinic lance screamed out of the darkness, she was almost too slow. She dove, grabbing Matsuo around the waist. The security chief gave a strangled yell as Shepard pulled them both from their feet and down onto the frosted deck plates. The hypervelocity round buzzed through the air over her shoulder and burrowed into the wall behind. Shepard bounced and skittered across the floor as shrapnel rained down from the ruined door frame. Javik was nowhere to be seen.

"Contact! Contact!" a voice yelled from somewhere nearby. It took a second for Shepard to realize that it was her own. She took a deep, halting breath, tried to drive the shaking from her voice, and reopened the radio channel. "Taking fire. Unknown number of assailants. Definitely Geth." Another round spanged of the thin shelter provided by the metal safety rail. Her eyes darted left and right, trying to count the flash sources. At least a half dozen, maybe more. They kept moving, dancing tauntingly. She snapped a shot off at the nearest and weighed her options. She could break right, cut under the catwalk and loop around behind the core. It was the longer path, but it sheltered her from the Geth on the far side of the room. Breaking left would give her enemies less time to catch her, flank her, but it would expose the team to plunging fire from the balconies and alcoves that studded the upper reaches of the chamber.

Her mind raced, every option played out in her head one after another after another.

Head left, rush for the button that would restart the generator. Geth came in from behind. Fire from both sides. Dead.

Head left, skirt the wall to avoid some of the fire from the balcony. Pinned down by snipers across the room. Surrounded. Dead.

Break right, clear the path and pop up on the other side of the room. Bogged down and cut off. Outmaneuvered. Dead.

Go to the right….

Someone grabbed Shepard by the shoulder and shook her violently. Her eyes snapped up. Captain Matsuo was shouting. Shepard tried to talk back. The words stuck in her throat. Her mind was still racing, but her body reacted as if every movement was being made through thick molasses. She was so cold.

There was a hiss of something just out of view and heat bloomed in her gut. The haze lifted a little.

"Shepard! I need you with us. Can you do that, Shepard?"

"I… yes." The railing behind her bent inwards as something heavy ricocheted off. "Was that a rocket?"

"Yes, the geth are firing rockets at us. That's why I need you to get us out of here. This plating isn't military grade; it's not going to hold out much longer." The other woman was right. Their shelter was deformed and twisted, its surface pockmarked by a hundred little divots. "We need to move."

"No argument here," Shepard said, "Where's Javik? Nevermind." She gave each path another once over. "We go right!" Shepard snatched her pistol from its holster and fired one-handed over the railing. "I'll cover you and follow once you reach the first turn." Another rocket explosion punctuated her order.

Captain Matsuo didn't hesitate. She racked her assault rifle and lunged out of cover. The Geth acquired her almost immediately. The chief of security swarmed across the metal deck as it exploded around her. Shepard popped over cover and hosed the nearest Geth unit down. The impossibly flexible thing dropped like a rock as Shepard's fire sheared it in half. Something hit her hard in the shoulder and threatened to bowl her over. Shepard rolled with the impact and was up and firing before the Geth could track her. Two aimed shots drove the stalker back into hiding. She flicked her eyes sideways, just in time to see Matsuo disappear around the corner.

"Now don't follow me," she told the air. Shepard stripped a trio of grenades from her combat webbing and primed two of them. She tossed them over the railing and counted to four. The room was rocked by a double concussion and Shepard dashed from her cover. Stray rounds snapped at her heels and splashed across her kinetic barriers as she put on a burst of speed. Ahead, the relative safety of the downward ramp loomed. Behind her, she heard the fizz of a launched rocket. With no time to think, her instinct hurled her forward in a biotic aided dive. Heat lapped at her back as the force of the explosion sent her careening into a stanchion. Her head filled with stars.

"No time to sit around, Shepard," she cursed to herself. The stanchion offered a firm handhold as she hauled herself to her feet. She slapped the last grenade onto the sturdy post and waited for its magnetic clamp to take hold. It beeped reassuringly and announced it had been set to proximity. Shepard pushed herself forward and out of the line of fire. She narrowly avoided pitching herself down the ramp as she scrambled to find some cover before her pursuers rounded the corner. When none were evident she turned around to see Matsuo standing stock still.

"Matsuo?" No response. The ERCS soldier remained motionless as if paused in mid stride. Her weapon pointed at nothing. "Matsuo? Captain!" Shepard reached out and clapped the other woman on the shoulder. Still no reaction. Then she felt the vibration. For the first time, her eyes focused past her squadmate. A great hulking something moved in the dark past the light of the firefight. Out of the shadows stomped a massive Geth construct, a crimson juggernaut armed with a cannon the size of Shepard's arm. Its torch-head swiveled as it focused down on her.

"Unexpected resistance. Big gun. Dead." Shepard croaked out.


Author's Note:

Hey there, readers. It's been a while since I've posted much of anything, a fact for which I must profusely apologize. Hopefully this addition is worth the wait. I originally hadn't intended Noveria to take up such a large segment, but the thing just keeps growing. Rest assured that it should be coming to a definite close sometime within the next few updates. I'd like to thank all of you who've stuck with me despite my spotty update schedule, and as always, appreciate any feedback you might have.

-Liddle Out