Vanguard of Vengeance: Chapter 18
The world swam, blurry and indistinct just out of Shepard's reach. Her memories were a muddled mess, the last few hours a hazy hash of cold and fear and pain. Something both red hot and cold as ice pierced her abdomen and she took a shuddering, ragged breath. She fell back into her body so fast she almost felt the impact on the floor. There was a sound of choked breathing, her breathing she realized. Then came her heartbeat, thudding in her chest like a wild animal trying to get out, but at least she was alive. But where? Shepard tried to blink focus back into the world, but the world was being stubborn, content to dance away from her grasp like oil floating on water.
Alright Shepard, focus.
There were shapes, people hovering around her. Wearing black. Shepard looked blearily up at the nearest man. "Kaidan" she mumbled, choking slightly on her words. The shape shook its head. He spoke with a voice that echoed in Shepard's battered head.
"No, Commander. Sergeant Kent, ECRS assigned to the Peak 15 facility. Do you know where you are?" The nearest face floated into clarity. Sergeant Kent was a narrow faced man, dark haired and pale skinned. His eyes had the cautious, slightly jumpy look of a soldier who'd stood far too many watches at the barricade and taken far too few rests in between. His grip on Shepard's shoulder was strong though as he helped ease her into sitting. "Commander?"
"Mm sorry, I… Noveria." Shepard stumpled over her words as she tried to crawl her way back to alertness. "I was, the reactor. Shut down. Got it started. Had to fight through Geth and the cold." She shivered at the memory of it. Wherever it was, it was not the frozen tomb of Peak 15's entrance, but it wasn't exactly at home by a roaring fire. "My squad?"
"Dragged you here. You were suffering extreme hypothermia when they brought you in. I'm afraid I'm the closest this little outpost has to a combat medic, the docs down below don't want anything to do with someone who might have been tainted by the Rachni." Sergeant Kent gave an apologetic shrug. "You seem to have made it out the other side in one piece though, eh?" Before the man could continue, he was interrupted by a gruff voice from somewhere behind him,
"Kent! Get back to the barricade; the bugs are amassing for another attack!" Another ERCS man in heavier, white armour pushed past the gaggle of gathered guardsmen. "The rest of you too, unless you want to end up eaten!"
Shepard rose unsteadily to her feet and started looking about for a weapon. A grave look crossed this new man's face.
"And just where do you think you're going? Why don't you sit yourself back down? I don't want some Spectre's heroics putting a weak spot in my firing line."
Shepard shook her head. "Don't have time to wait this out," She managed. "Need my squad."
"Well I'll be sure to send them back to you," The older man said, not unpleasantly. "Now, sit. Down."
"But I…" Shepard didn't get to finish her sentence, as the heavy doors behind the gruff guardsmen opened with the shriek of poorly maintained hydraulics. Standing in the doorway was an asari with skin so deep a blue it almost appeared purple in the unstable lighting of the room. She was draped in something black, a dress, Shepard realized with a dash of incredulity. Revealing despite the pervading cold and matched by an equally elaborate headdress of some kind. When she spoke, it was with a rich, smoky voice that brooked no disagreements. Something about it struck a chord of familiarity in Shepard's ears.
"Captain Ventralis, would you be so kind as to leave our guest be? She has clearly had a day full of trials on her way to us, and does not deserve to be troubled further by your worrying." The voice, like the asari woman, was draped in sophisticated finery and ornamental formality, but it was clear that for all their diplomatic overtones they held a command.
"Yes. Of course," the Captain said, his face napping into a rigid picture of discipline. "My apologies, Matriarch Benezia."
The name set Shepard's mind racing. This was the Matriarch Benezia? The commander tried to find common features between this powerful woman and the meek and mindful doctor of archaeology she had been travelling with and came up wanting.
"And you, Commander Evangeline Shepard. I'm sure you are aware of the tactical implications our isolation constrains us with. Surely you can allow the good Captain the use of your team members for just a little while?"
"I… yes?" Shepard found herself agreeing with the asari matriarch almost as if by instinct. She was tempted to shake her head to clear it, but she was certain that that would be some kind of breach of decorum.
"Very good," the Captain said brusquely. He turned without another word and marched off through another door. The distant sound of fighting echoed from up a long ramp as he passed beyond her sight. Sergeant Kent followed after him, turning to give Shepard one last look over his shoulder as the doors grated shut behind him. Shepard was now alone with Benezia.
"You'll have to forgive the Captain," the matriarch said in a tone saturated with mirth. "He's very good at his job, which is security, though his people skills are somewhat lacking. He takes his job very seriously." Benezia's eyes bored into Shepard's own, leaving her feel more than a little disoriented.
"I take my job very seriously too," she said, and immediately regretted how simple she must have sounded. If Benezia noticed, she didn't give any outward sign. Instead she smiled warmly.
"I don't doubt that you do. And what job is that, which takes such an impressive collection of individuals?"
It wasn't until she sat down in a nearby chair that Shepard realized that the matriarch had been gently guiding her by the elbow. It made the human commander feel uncomfortably like a young child in the presence of a school teacher. "I was, that is, we were looking for you. To protect you, SPECTRE Nihlus thought that you might be under the threat of the Reapers." Benezia's face remained warmly open, but it was clear Shepard had said something that caught her attention.
"I'm sorry; these Reapers are not known to me. Tell me, what do you know of them?" The matriarch leaned in towards the battered commando. A niggling sense of suspicion arose in the back of Shepard's mind, but Benezia's powerful presence washed such thoughts away, leaving only a slightly tingly warmth that danced at the back of her neck.
"We know, things," Shepard managed. The warm feeling tugged at her thoughts, muddying her mind as she tried to form coherent sentences. "Machines. They're ancient machines that hate all organic life, want to wipe us all out. Javik says…"
Benezia cut her off. "Javik?"
"We met him. He's a Prothean." Shepard said, happy that she could finally provide something of use to the venerable asari. "He was alive when the Reapers last came. It's like a circle. A… a cycle. He saw it, they destroyed everything. They're going to try to do it again. But don't worry we're going to try and stop them." It felt very important to her to make sure that Benezia knew how much effort they had been putting into keeping the galaxy safe.
"That sounds like a tall order," Benezia said warmly. She stood again, a gentle touch at Shepard's arm encouraging her to follow. Shepard stumbled to her feet and allowed herself to be led away, down towards the door marked, 'Hot Labs.' "How do you plan to stand against such a monolithic threat? Such a thing sounds impossible."
"It is," Shepard admitted. She held her hand to her lip in shock. She looked to the asari matriarch with a pleading look, hoping she'd forgive her transgression. "I mean, it's not impossible. Well, fighting the Reapers head to head might be. But we're not going to have to. At least, that's what we're trying to do. Javik says the majority of them sleep out in deep space. We can keep them there if we can take out their vanguard." She nodded to herself. Yes, that was right. "And his traitorous patsy."
"A patsy?" Benezia asked as they passed beyond the lab doors. The two were in another rock tunnel, this one descending steeply into the rock of the mountain. After the coolness of the upper levels, it was uncomfortably warm and humid. "Tell me more."
"This vanguard, it calls itself Sovereign, it's gotten control of one of the Council's SPECTREs. Saren. Javik says that he's likely been indoctrinated." That word. Indoctrinated. It felt oddly heavy in Shepard's head, it sparked a muted panic reflex. Shepard looked over to Benezia with eyes wide. Benezia's handsome smile banished the fear. "Either way, Saren is key to their plans. If we can take him out, we can disrupt the plans of the Reapers, we just have to find him. Until we can do that, we can still get in the way of Saren's plans, slow him down, foil the Reapers." Shepard set her jaw. The fuzzy feeling in the back of her head became a steady buzzing as they continued down into the depths of Peak 15. A tiny voice inside her told her that she should be fighting it. Shepard shushed the voice, Benezia was speaking again.
"No one can foil the Reapers," the asari said with blunt finality. The words shattered the bubble that had settled about Shepard's mind. For the first time she came back to herself. She looked around blearily. Benezia had brought her down to a massive cavern carved directly from the rock. The stone walls were covered in twisting tangles of metal tubes and piping that seemed to thrum with barely held energy. Darkness cloaked the roof and far corners, reaching down towards the suspended platform the pair were now standing on. The floor below them was coated with a thick coating of shattered glass, like the autumn carpet of a forest grown from crystal. Despite the wide openness of the chamber, the air felt unnaturally close. Water dripped from the shadowed ceiling like droplets of foul smelling rain.
"Where… where are we?" Shepard asked. With a thrill of fright, she realized that she was completely unarmed.
"The heart of it all," Matriarch Benezia said with a hard smile. Gone was the warmth. Something cold, dark, powerful, had replaced it. "This is where everything changes. Would you like to see it?" Something crunched under the matriarch's foot. She looked down and shifted her boot, sending a large shard of broken glass skating across the floor. It came to rest at Shepard's feet. In the gloom, Shepard saw her own face reflected in the murky glass.
"What will I see?" Shepard asked. She swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry despite the strange humidity of the chamber. A runnel of cold sweat ran down her back.
"Everything that is to come." Matriarch said in little more than a whisper, though to Shepard it might have well have been as loud as a blast of indoor thunder. "I will show you the future of the galaxy and, should you see what I have seen, your place in it and mine." The asari began pacing back and forth. In the darkened chamber, it made her look like a stalking jungle cat.
"How can you say that?" Shepard replied. "You can't tell the future, not even with your asari biotics. No one can."
Benezia laughed melodiously. "Do you think me some kind of archaic fortune teller? No, Commander, I am not some primitive soothsayer casting bones and reading the winding skeins of fate. I am simply uniquely graced with the experience of what is past, the insight of what is present, and the vision to extrapolate what is to be. It is not magic that gives me this, but science. It is," She paused, staring Shepard full in the face. The Commander felt her heart leap up into her throat. "Inevitable. My logic is undeniable."
"I don't think anyone can know enough to really know what's going to happen. Not to the entire galaxy." Shepard said. The nervous energy that had been building within her screamed to be released, it brimmed and roiled in the back of her mind. But still, she stood transfixed before the queenly alien.
"Allow me to convince you," Benezia said with a smirk. "It began with the arrival of Sovereign, it will end with the destruction of everything you and I hold dear. It will start at the galaxy's heart. The Reapers will swarm in their multitudes, destroying our combined fleets in a single apocalyptic hammer blow. Then they will spread throughout the galaxy, burning everything. The Reapers will cut us from the mass relay network and burn us out of our homes at their leisure. Nothing will save us as we cower in our caves, our people staring up at the skies. It will simply be a long wait, a fearful vigil, ended only when their shapes descend from the sky to begin their harvest. Do you see?"
Shepard stared into the smoky glass at her feet. For a split second, she saw it all. The flames reflected in the curved mirror of the shard, silhouetting dark iron hands descending from blood red clouds. Civilians turned to pillars of ash while hopeless soldiers bleed to death in cored out bunkers, waiting to be dragged away. Unless…"
"Unless?" Shepard asked hoarsely. She already half knew what the answer would be, but something compelled her to ask, something forced her to bring the asari's plans out into the air between them and make them real.
"Unless we join with the Reapers, not as slaves but under our own terms. This was what Saren planned when he signed away his soul to the Reaper, Sovereign. He believed that if he made his case to them, if he could convince then that we organics could serve a purpose in their dark plans, that perhaps a few chosen species could be spared. He assumed that the first to be accepted would be the Turians, prideful as he was."
"How can you know this?" Shepard asked. "You've been trapped here for almost the entire conflict. Nihlus was certain of it."
Matriarch Benezia laughed. "Your Spectre handler is certain only of what he wants to believe. His type are so easy to mislead. No, I have not spent my time in hiding. I have been working, toiling in the shadows to save our future. When I first learned of what Saren had done, I went to him aboard Sovereign. I was naïve at the time; I still believed that he could be turned from his course, that he should be turned from his course. I was wrong, of course, but so was he. Saren is a fool. He would consign us to eternal servitude in an attempt to grasp at fragile hope of survival. He thinks he is being bold, making the hard choice for us in order to save us all. But he is a short-minded coward. He has caught sight of the easy solution and refuses to take the risk required to grasp a greater prize."
Benezia was now circling Shepard. He voice rose with every sentence. Frantic excitement clawed its way into her words and dripped out onto the floor.
"I though, I know the way forward. The Reapers do not want slaves. Slaves they have in great multitudes, with many more just waiting to join the embrace of their serfdom. No. What the Reapers want, what they need, is an ally. Someone who can govern the worlds that they could only hope to destroy, those that will not just take planets, but hold them in their name. We will not be mere serfs, mindlessly scraping in the dirt for them, but loyal vassals imbued with their authority. We shall be glorious, and terrible. And the species of the galaxy will be safe under our umbrella for as long as we maintain our strength."
"You're not making any sense." Shepard spat back. She was backing up now, keeping her eyes on the circling asari Matriarch. There was a crunch underfoot and with a shock she realized that she had come across the edge of the suspended platform. She gulped as she contemplated the fall onto dagger sharp shards of glass below. "What makes you think you have that kind of power. The Reaper's aren't going to be impressed by your fancy title!"
"I have not been toiling in this arctic wasteland for naught, you petulant child!" Benezia cut back across Shepard's words with acid of her own. "I have found something here, something that will tip the balance just enough to gain a seat at the table when the Reapers come calling. Something ancient enough that not even the Reaper's will expect…"
The sound of metal on metal rang in the high chambered room. Both Shepard's and Benezia's heads snapped upwards and eyes searched for the source of the sound. A black helmet bounced across the grated floor, ringing like a bell with every bounce. It rolled from the darkness of the open tunnel leading upwards.
"What is the meaning of this?" Benezia hissed. A body followed the helmet out of the door. An asari in a black bodysuit that slumped slowly out of the shadows, revealing Javik. His split-lipped face was pulled askance by an ugly sneer. Dark blue blood was splattered across his face. "You!"
"Your bodyguards are inadequate," Javik said, leveling his particle rifle. "Their ambush was poorly disguised."
"What have you done?" Benezia asked. For the first time she seemed on the back foot. Now it was her turn to back away. Javik stepped over the down asari commando with his weapon raised to his shoulder. Behind him, more shapes moved, resolving into the similarly ichor stained forms of Nihlus, Liara, and Garrus. Shepard searched for Matsuo, but no one else walked out into the chamber. Nihlus took the fore, walking past Javik to address Benezia directly.
"Matriarch Benezia, under the authority of the Citadel Council, you are under arrest for the crimes of treason, murder, and assault of a Council agent. Drop any weapons you may be carrying and come with me." He punctuated his command with his shotgun.
"You small minded fool!" Benezia spat. "Do you have any idea what you have done? The seed that I am about to plant here could have grown into a great tree large enough to shelter us all, but you… you want to pull it out by the roots while it is not yet a sapling. You'll doom us all with your foolishness!"
"No tree can stand against the inferno that is the Reapers," Javik said. "An entire forest would be nothing but fuel to them. You have done nothing but deliver yourself and whatever weapon you have found into their hands."
"Mother, please," Liara pleaded. The pale asari was still at the back of the formation. Her weapon shook in her hands. "This is going too far. There is still time for you to turn yourself in."
"No!" Benezia yelled. She gathered up her powerful biotics until it swirled around her in destructive waves. Her eyes glowed and she pointed at her own daughter. Liara's eyes went wide as she divined her mother's intent. There was a flash of green light and Benezia grunted harshly. Her biotics faded and she slumped to the ground.
"Mother! No!" Liara burst from the pack and ran to her mother's side. Javik stood stoically, his particle rifle smoking slightly. As Shepard caught his eye, he shook his head slightly. Shepard hung her head and walked back to the edge of the platform. The rest of the small group gathered around as Liara wept openly over the limp form of the elder asari. "Why? You could have just come with us. We could have fought the Reapers together."
Benezia gurgled. "There is no future in fighting the Reapers. And now, there is no future for you."
Shepard looked down at her feet. Another of the broken shards, this one particularly large, glinted in the gloomy light of the room. Shepard knelt down to lift it, catching her reflection in the curved surface. Her face was a web of bruises and cracked skin, a real mess. Soething foul smelling dripped past her head, splattering on the glass and hiding her face. She gripped the glass in her fist, tilting it until it reflected the shadow covered ceiling. Something detached itself from the murky rafters, descending until its sharpened insectile face loomed from the shadow. By the time Shepard's rational brain had caught up with what she was seeing, her long honed training and instinct had already thrown her sideways. A strangled warning escaped her lips.
The rest of the party was slow to react. The floor shook as the sharp beak of the ceiling creature drove through the steel plates of the platform. Garrus was thrown through the air onto his back as plates around the impact site. A baleful yellow eye regarded the party before the thing shrieked and disappeared back into the murk above. Everyone sprung to their feet, their weapons pointed up at the roof. Javik let loose a burst of poisonous green light that only briefly illuminated the darkness there. Through the eye searing brightness, Shepard could barely perceive a massive shape hanging from pipes as thick as an IFV. It shrieked again, fleeing from the probing particle beams. Darkness fell again as Javik's weapon overheated. Garrus and Nihlus added their weight of fire to the storm, but the light of their weapons were unable to penetrate the darkness. Shepard cursed her lack of weapons and called upon her biotics. She winced as her implants sizzled.
Nihlus carefully moved around the room, his shotgun pointed upwards. He signaled for the team to spread out around the circumference of the platform. "When that thing descends again, aim for the eyes. If we can blind it, it might retreat."
"That is no mere thing," Benezia taunted, her words burbling past pools of her own blood. "That is the Queen of the Rachni! None of you will leave this chamber alive!"
"In that case, we can't let it leave. If something like this got out into the galaxy at large…" Nihlus let his words drop away as a slithering noise filled the room. Out of the darkness, two large cephalopodan tentacles descended, searching for them. The party scattered as the slithering creepers struck like lightning, barely missing Liara and Garrus. The clatter of mass accelerator fire stormed across the platform again, this time chasing the whip-fast feelers. None seemed able to find them, even the strobing torrent of Javik's particle rifle seemed meters short of its target. As the battle raged around her, Shepard could do little more than stumble through the din of battle. Everything seemed to be moving so quickly, while she herself was stuck apart from them. Her eyes were drawn to the prone form of Liara's mother, who was staring at her sightlessly. Shepard took a step towards her.
"Shepard, get yourself in gear!" Nihlus ordered as he sprinted past, aiming a blast of his shotgun at a reaching tentacle. He rolled out of the way as the pod at the end of the feeler opened up and let lose a gout of stringy acid thread. Shepard shook herself back to awareness. Benezia's body was looking away from her. Above her the Rachni queen loosed a warbling wail and descended once again, its writhing beak open, revealing a maw full of waving cilia. It struck at Javik, who was distracted by a questing tentacle. Shepard lost sight of him as the other pod swung at her. She hit the deck and rolled under the strike and came up in a crouch behind it.
"Nihlus, I'm going to hold it!" She yelled, trying to get the Spectre's attention. She gathered her biotics and lashed out at the acid bearing pod. Thin purple skeins wrapped around the insectile pod and bound it. Shepard yanked hard on it, focusing on reversing the gravity back towards her. The pod slowed and then stopped, though it felt like the full weight of it was hanging on her brutalized grey matter. Shepard gritted her teeth and tried to maintain concentration.
"You heard the Commander!" Nihlus barked from somewhere beyond the alien's lashing appendage. "Open fire!" From the far side, weapons blazed. The lightning fast monster, once bound, was helpless before the storm. Blazing pellets of hypervelocity metal flailed at the exposed limb, shredding into it and peeling back the leathery hide. The rachni yanked its wounded tentacle back out of Shepard's tenuous grip and swung it back towards her. Shepard dodged again, too slow this time. The rubbery flesh clipped her arm, sending her spinning across the grated floor. Shepard rose form the floor, an angry snarl on her lips.
The Rachni had descended fully from the ceiling, its crustacean-like legs scattering broken glass in waves. Its head was covered in glowing nodules that rose along a wide swept crest. Grasped in its separated beak, was Javik. The prothean avatar had his right hand held fast in the Rachni's grip. His particle rifle was on the ground, beyond his reach. With a lurch, the monster pulled his arm in up to the elbow. Javik grimaced, but his burning eyes were focused, keen. He punched the huge insect in the snout.
The move seemed almost comical to Shepard until she saw the bright point of light affixed to the queen's face. Javik smiled a cruel smile as he activated the grenade. A high pitched crack followed a harsh green glare as the explosive detonated. The Rachni queen wailed again, its face a bloody ruin. Javik's body was left on the ground as it jerked up and away, its eyes searching for a way out. But that was not to be. Nihlus and the others were hot on its heels, pouring on small arms fire until it bled from a hundred wounds. With a final keening note, the queen collapsed backwards, tipping over the edge of the platform and crashing in ruin to the floor below. Shepard drew a shuddering breath as her biotic amp finally gave up the ghost, popping and sparking just below her right ear. The gear ejected itself as the failsafes engaged.
Behind her, Nihlus regarded the ruined body of their vanquished foe. "You did well. But I think now it's time to leave. This place is about to be a very bad place to be." Around them, Shepard could already hear the skittering of thousands of running feet, ringing on the metal superstructure. "Grab the prothean." He gestured towards the prone shape of Javik. Already, Liara was limping along with Benezia in her arms. The elder asari was very still. Shepard nodded dully and stumbled over to their ancient ally. She heaved the comatose avatar up by one arm and carried him as the two turians scouted up the hallways up ahead. They passed dead scientists and ERCS guards both as they rushed; one step ahead of the swarm. The relentless skittering hounded them, even as they ran the tram with all safeties off. They were always heard, but never seen, a harrowing, all consuming rattling that seemed to come from all around them.
The group spilled out of the tram at a run, desperately searching through for the way out. The sound of running rachni drummed on the membrane of Shepard's mind. A front of chill air slammed into her as they turned a corner. Ahead, the yawning mouth of the Peak 15's garage lay open. The chill reinvigorated her as they slammed down slippery stairs and out into the stark white-toothed mountains of Noveria. The frosty air chilled Shepard's lungs but she gulped it regardless. Behind them, the garage door ground closed, cutting off their insectoid pursuers.
"What do we do now?" Garrus asked, casting his eyes about for their transport. Shepard spotted the abused Mako half covered in snow.
"What is that?!" Liara cried. Shepard followed her point and felt something dark writhe up inside her. On the far horizon, down the valley and in the direction of Port Hanshan, the sky was darkened with smoke and fires flashed in the clouds. Above it all, Sovereign hung in the air.
