Vanguard of Vengeance: Chapter 19


The black iron, cuttlefish shape of the ancient enemy of all sentients buoyed slightly in the updraft of its own rain of destruction. Shepard could almost hear the screams as the ruby red rays of its main guns peeled back the stark white architecture of the corporate outpost of Port Hanshan. Fragile looking lattices peeled back like the papery skin of an onion held to a blowtorch as oily black smoke boiled up in a smoldering holocaust. Shepard could only watch as the last supports blew out, causing the entire structure to start sliding down into the storm wreathed valley below.

"By the Goddess," Liara moaned, choking a sob with her balled fist. Shepard shared her sentiments. The Normandy, her crew, her friends. Nothing could have survived the touch of the Reaper. "What do we do?"

"Everybody stay calm," Nihlus uttered forcefully. "We need to assess our options. Vakarian, see if you can't get our Mako started back up again. I don't think we'll ever get that gun firing again, so focus on the kinetic barriers. T'soni…"

The turian's barked orders disappeared as Shepard found herself drifting away from the group. She set the still form of Javik almost tenderly on the smoke greyed snow and allowed herself to drop down beside him. She drew her knees up to her chest and shivered slightly in the gripping fingers of Noveria's permanent blizzard. Foggy breath billowed in a thin stream from the cracks and rents in her suit seals. Her neck itched where her biotic amp had blown itself free from her skull to avoid parboiling her brain. Somewhere far away, someone was calling her name.

"Commander…"

Shepard smiled, creating fresh cracks in already abused lips. "Kaidan."

"Commander?" The faraway voice called again, this time with an edge that drove a wedge into the warm fuzziness bubbling up within her helmet. "Commander, this is the Normandy. Please respond." Shepard shot up out of her seated position as if hit by an electric shock. The fugue was gone, shattered in an instant.

"Normandy, this is Shepard. What's the situation? Are you still inside Port Hanshan?"

A long, relieved sigh followed her reply, now clearly in the voice of Joker. "Negative, Commander. Everything's gone straight to hell over there. Barely made it out ourselves." The radio crackled, smudging his words. "I'll tell you this, Commander, I've seen a lot of messed up stuff as a combat pilot, but I've never seen something do that much damage up close. Not even a dreadnaught could take apart a settlement like that."

"Focus, Joker," Shepard snapped, more harshly than she had intended. She looked around self-consciously. Around her, the members of the ground team were all looking her way. She pushed their stares out of her mind and focused on the thin and tenuous lifeline that spooled out through the antenna on her helmet. "We're stuck outside the entrance to the Peak 15 facility. We're exposed, and we have wounded. Over."

"Yeah, yeah… I mean, affirmative, Commander. I've got the Normandy hull down in the canyon. We can make our way to you, but it's going to take some time if you don't want to bring that party back there down on your heads."

"Just do the best you can. I'm not sure how long we can hold out over here. Something got loose in the labs and I'm not sure whether we got it contained or not."

"I'll try, Commander." Joker's voice was tight, strained. Shepard grimaced as the channel cut out. She looked around, looking each of the ground team in the eye. They stared back. They had gathered together in a tight ring, their backs to the howling wind. Nihlus' mandibles quivered below the cracked glass faceplate of his helmet, but his beady eyes were critical, searching. Garrus stood close at his right hand. The former member of C-SEC gripped his acid scarred marksman's rifle to his chest with grasping claws and kept shooting glances back towards the shuttered garage doors. Liara wept openly.

"The Mako is fried," Garrus intoned dully. "Reactor's gone cold. No way we're getting her started up outside of an Alliance military grade maintenance shop."

"Matsuo?" Shepard choked out. Her fingers found the ragged edges of her biotic amp's exit wound. Frozen blood crackled.

"Didn't make it," Nihlus replied. "Froze up. Like somebody cut all her strings. Took a bullet from one of Benezia's commandos."

The wind continued to scream about them, hungrily plucking at the battered party. They shivered together silently while the muted booms of Port Hanshan's destruction echoed up the glacial canyon. Shepard swept tired eyes over the flurries of obscuring snowflakes that danced just before the ice shelf's drop off. The storm was growing in intensity, roiling out of the hidden bottom of the valley below like an uncaged beast. It came on in waves, driven by the fires of the Reaper, which continued to hang in the air above the kicked over nest of Noveria's corporate elite. The harsh shrieking of the gale force winds rang in Shepard's helmet. Only now the sound was coming from the wrong direction. Shepard turned slowly towards the closed garage doors of Peak 15. They rattled under some massive blow. Shepard shook her head; it had to be the wind knocking it about in its bent runnels. The tortured sound of something scraping against metal sounded again. The door bent outwards, pushed from within. Definitely not the wind. Shepard tried to force a warning through chattering teeth. She raised a pointing finger, but couldn't find the words to raise the alarm.

Nihlus followed her gesture and shivered in alarm. "Team, cover the door!" He raised his weapon. The door continued to shiver under repeated blows, its individual lames buckling outwards as smoking acid burns began to show through. The rest of the team rose to action sluggishly, their halfhearted footfalls dragging in the shin deep snowdrift. Weapons were raised to shoulders slowly, barrels tracking listlessly across the rapidly disintegrating barrier. "We're going to have to hold them here," Nihlus said, slowly and calmly. Even under the icy, penetrating cold he kept his focus razor sharp. "The good news is, the cold out here is going to give us a few more shots before we have to dump heat, but don't let that make you cocky. What comes out of those doors is going to be doing its very best to close ground, so prioritize targets up front. If we can trip up the leaders, we might buy ourselves some time. But don't go for leg shots if you don't think you can swing it. Missed rounds don't do us any good."

There was a chain of affirmatives as the team stumbled into a ragged skirmish line. They shuffled backwards as the rachni continued to break through to them. Shepard turned her eyes back towards the canyon below. Ice and snow fell from the narrow ledge, crashing into the obscuration below. Shepard's stomach flip-flopped within her at the sight. She forced herself to look up, away from the gut churning abyss. That was when she saw it. Below the gale force winds, something surged towards them, half hidden by the wall of driven snow. Shepard's heart leapt as she recognized the needle nosed profile.

"They're here," she croaked through cold chapped lips and a smoke parched throat. The party spun around, some half-heartedly clutching at weapons, others merely looking on in stunned slowness. Shepard herself managed to put on a painful grin which widened as the high pitched whine of ion thrusters slowly built above the roaring sounds of the winds. The smile faltered somewhat as the obvious signs of battle damage became evident on the sharply pointed hull. Twisting silvery scars and black sooty pockmarks told a tale of small arms fire, underlined by patches of what looked worryingly like blood splattered up the sides of the ship. On the upper decks, dark holes wrote of heavier fire from above. The engines themselves sputtered a little from cracks in the exterior cowling. The Normandy launched from the enveloping snowstorm.

At the same time, the doors to Peak 15 gave up the ghost. They fell apart with an almighty crash, spilling a chittering wave out onto the narrow ledge upon which the ground party perched. The dull green-grey stood out starkly on the white snow as the rachni rushed out in an endless wave.

"Fire!" Nihlus ordered, but it was not the guns of the tired, cold, and weakened ground team that answered. Above, the Normandy's GUARDIANs spun up, splitting the sky with ruby fire. A thunderous roar built as anti-missile lasers did the grim work of scouring the path back towards the infested laboratory.

"Everyone hop aboard!" Joker's voice crackled over the sound of the laser bombardment. "I don't know how long I can loiter here before the light show attracts Mr. Doombot over there's attention."

"You heard the man!" Nihlus broke in. "Fall back by sections! Shepard, you…" But the party was already running pell-mell for the open cargo bay of the stealth frigate. Shepard loped after them, pausing just long enough to send Nihlus a defeated shrug. The turian Spectre offered on in return and sent a desultory burst of fire towards the advancing Rachni before turning his back on the facility. He bowed his head as the team clattered up the frost trimmed boarding ramp to collapse amongst the detritus of the marine squad's barricade. Battered crates, burnt out ammo blocks, and spilled blood dotted the inside of Normandy's belly. Shepard noted places that the deck had been hastily patched, ringed by the telltale signs of grenade detonations. Chief Williams was leant against one of the more severely damaged crates, her helmet beside her. Sweat had plastered her dark hair to her face. Chakwas hovered at her shoulder, clucking over a series of deep gashes on her exposed arms. The marine ignored her, for the most part, only wincing very occasionally.

"Commander," she said. Her voice thick was with fatigue. "We held them as long as we could…" the marine flexed her balled fist reflexively as the ship's doctor probed her wounds with an omni-tool.

"You did your best, Chief." Shepard almost collapsed as she lowered herself against the side of the stacked crates. Chakwas didn't look up from her patient.

"I know I did, Commander," Williams said bitterly. "Not that it was enough for Garner and Fletchly." She grimaced. "Had to pull back out of the hallway when those indoctrinated scientists broke through the vents to flank us. That's when Garner bought it. Then that thing in the Supervisor's office started sending ERCS troopers after us. Shot up the hull pretty bad. One of them got on board, lit itself up. Grenades set on short fuses. Tore apart Corporal Fletchly." Ashley deflated as Doctor Chakwas slapped a medigel patch on her arm.

"You'll live, Williams. These wounds aren't too deep. As your doctor, I do recommend you drop by my office later to talk, though." The elder officer intoned. Chakwas began to pack away her medical supplies before looking up. "Oh, Commander…" her face grew ashen as her eyes fell on the damage to Shepard's neck. Her voice grew stern. "I've been standing here patching scratches while you've sustained a biotic amp blowout? Are you making a concerted effort to subvert my triage procedures? To the medbay, immediately."

"I…" Shepard started, but she was already fading fast. Chakwas caught her under one arm, Ashley grabbed her other. Shepard hadn't even realized that she was falling. The dimming lights of the cargo bay winked at her in tune to the thrumming sound in her ear.


"There, that's the last connection made." Doctor Chakwas said, withdrawing the medical probe. "Try it now."

Shepard shivered slightly in the light hospital gown. Her neck itched where freshly healed skin joined in a bright pink scar. She could trace with her mind the two data leads that bored into the back of her skull, interfacing directly with the factory fresh biotic amplifier. After years working together with her Aldrin Labs Solaris amp, the blue and grey disk shaped device lurking in the back of her skull felt alien. And it was. The Armax Arsenal Gemini, Nihlus had told her as she had lain in recovery from the ordeal on Noveria. Very expensive and completely unavailable outside of elite turian military channels, he had said. But to Shepard, it was just another signal of an old friend lost to this conflict with the Reapers.

"Yeah. Okay," She replied half-heartedly. She focused on the plate of hospital food on the tray in front of her. She visualized the soft protein nuggets, the unidentifiable pile of mush that came out a package almost sarcastically labeled 'mashed potatoes,' and the timeless cup of bright green gelatin. She saw in her mind's eye the blunted plastic knife, the soft tined fork, and the rounded spoon. She saw, and she reached out. The tray rattled under light biotic force, fuzzy purple fire skittering across the outside. Shepard fought to focus the energies, zoning in on the fork. The fire drew in on itself, like candlelight forced through a lens. It looped in on itself and jumped to the eating utensils neatly lined up along one side of the tray. The fork hopped up off the tray, floating in mid-air.

"Good," Chakwas clucked. She smiled warmly, despite her cold professional demeanor. She motioned with her hand. "Go on to the next step. If you feel ready."

Shepard nodded and began to turn the fork. A rush of nostalgia overtook her as she dipped it towards the nuggets. She had performed this exact test countless times back in boot camp. Feeding oneself solely through application of biotic force was a tried and true delicate control test. The trainers had said it was because of all the different motions required but the dark mutterings of the trainees had always agreed that it was because the embarrassment of flinging food down your front was a powerful motivational tool. Shepard smiled grimly as she speared a piece of the yielding 'chicken.' It wobbled as she pulled it back into the air and towards her mouth. Last week she could perform this simple task with her eyes closed, reading a book, hanging upside down from her bunk. Today it was taking all of her concentration to muddle her way through it. She doubled down on her concentration as she moved on to the starchy mass. The fork stabilized somewhat. Chakwas continued to make notes on a datapad.

Shepard worked quickly, scooping the food from plate to mouth as fast as she could. The alien device in her head felt off, its mechanisms set her teeth on edge. And it buzzed. It was like having a turian's flanged humming in her ears constantly. She grit her teeth as she gently set down the fork and took up the spoon. All that was left was the gelatin. The floppy, green, hard to balance gelatin that every trainee dreaded. Shepard dipped the spoon downwards. It dropped too fast. Shepard forced more effort through her amplifier to compensate, but only managed to set the thing spinning. She grimaced and tried to hold it still. The spoon jerked in her biotic grip frustrating her efforts. She bore down on it, willing it to hold steady. For a second, it did. Shepard grinned. It was a short lived expression. There was a squeal of stressed plastic, followed immediately by a sharp snapping sound as the disposable spoon turned into a tight corkscrew and then turned outwards on itself like a petal of a wilting flower. It shattered, spraying the safety plastic in every direction. Shepard pushed the tray away from herself in disgust.

"Hmmph," Chakwas made a noise and tapped in a last batch of notes before closing down the pad. "Looks like we still need to work on fine control and force application. Don't worry about your results on this test, Commander. After all, it's your first attempt on new hardware. Give it some time. We'll continue this tomorrow. Until then, get some rest."

"I'm tired of resting," Shepard muttered mutinously behind the doctor's back as she retreated. She finished her food by hand, angrily scooping the dessert up with the blade of the knife. Since the airlift from Noveria she hadn't seen the outside of the medbay. What was worse, apart from the slowly recovering Javik in the bed across from her, she hadn't seen any other members of the crew either. She'd been told she'd had visitors as she'd been coming out from under the effects of the reconstructive surgery required to replace her damaged wetware, but everything beyond the last few days remained a blur to her. Now everyone was far too busy planning the Normandy's next step in the brewing galactic extermination that was apparently imminent. And Shepard was being held here on enforced bed rest, completely apart from the planning process. It was starting to get on her nerves, perhaps even more than her glitchy biotics.

Shepard peeked over at were the good doctor was sitting at her desk, bent over some manner of paperwork. More importantly, she was facing away from her patients. The Commander shuffled up against her pillows and gripped the tray in her hands. Once again she focused on the remnants of her broken spoon. Dark fire rimed the edges of the shattered plastic as she tried to gently manipulate the pieces back towards each other. The pieces rattled slightly under the barest brush of her power. She pushed a little harder, sending them skittering across the shining metal of the food tray.

"Did the Doctor Chakwas not say to rest and wait until tomorrow until attempting the test again?" A voice boomed almost impossibly loud. Shepard startled, sending plastic fragments rippling across her bed covers. The commander turned on the source of the sound.

"I see you're back amongst the living, Javik." Shepard groused. "Didn't take you for a teacher's pet. Or does failing to follow Doctor's Orders carry the death penalty in the coming empire?"

"I am no one's pet," The prothean muttered darkly. "But the advice of the Chirurgeon does and should carry the full weight of law. She plays an almost vital role in the carrying out in the art of war." Javik lay very still; his eyes stared unfocused at some point on the ceiling. Shepard recognized the subtle flashes of the prothean's memory fugue.

"Even when they're doing their very best to keep you out of the action?" Now it was Shepard's turn for dark mutterings. "Even when you could help pitch in, if only they let you out of this prison they call a medbay?" Shepard twirled a lazy finger over the scattered fragments of the plastic fork, stirring them into a directionless biotic tornado in her lap. "I'd think a civilization on the edge would recognize the need to get soldiers back into the field where they can actually do some good."

"Can you?" Javik sneered.

Shepard whirled on him. "What?" she hissed.

"Can you do some good? In your state, do you really think that the Spectre, this ship, this crew, need your insights? Are your skills so vital that you need to compromise your recovery to employ them?" Before Shepard could respond and vent the bile building up behind her rictus scowl, the alien went on. "The Reaper War was brutal, unrelenting. Many good lives were spent and many more were squandered in hopeless offensive and doomed defense. But we did not do so mindlessly. A sacrifice of soldiers always had a purpose. To throw wounded men and women back into the line serves no purpose. A soldier who is not ready to fight to the fullest of her abilities is worse than an empty space on the front. You are not ready to fight to the fullest of your abilities, Commander Shepard." The Avatar of Vengeance turned over in his bed and fixed his four double pupiled eyes on her face.

Shepard looked back, aghast. She'd taken some flak for flaunting the advice of a medic before, but she'd never taken a sandblasting for wanting to fight. "I…" she started, but the alien was right. Her head still hurt, her focus was shot, and her biotics had a mind of their own. She choked back a bitter retort. "So what do you do, while you're recovering?" She asked instead, suddenly feeling sheepish.

"We plan. So that once we are released back into the fight we hit the ground running." Javik's bifurcated lips bent upwards in a vicious grin.

"Right, a plan…" Shepard pushed aside her meal tray.


"What are we looking at?" Shepard asked as she pulled her fresh tunic taut. The back of her skull itched, but she refused to scratch. Doctor's orders. She looked across the holographic display at Javik, sharing a significant look with the alien. Javik nodded and turned to mutter something to the asari at his side. Doctor T'soni continued to stare blankly ahead, not seeming to acknowledge the Avatar's words. Shepard felt a pang of regret flood through her. Though she hadn't fired the shot that had killed the asari archeologist's matriarch mother, she felt at least partially responsible for the situation that had led to her death. And Liara had not taken the loss well at all. She'd spent most of the short time since the Noveria incident locked up in the small medbay space she'd been allotted. She came out only to take quick bites to eat, or otherwise sit soundlessly at the Prothean's bedside. Here, at this strategy meeting, she just looked hollow.

"Virmire." Nihlus said. The word had a certain finality to it. The turian stepped to the side of the wall mounted projector, revealing the image of a blue-green world that was surprisingly Earth-like. Ashley made appreciative sounds as the planet rotated, revealing a tangled mass of archipelagos.

"A whole lot of beach front property down there, eh Commander?" the other woman asked under her breath. Shepard couldn't help but smile at the usually strictly professional career marine.

"Yes, well there's a lot more to this planet than tourist attractions, Chief Williams," Nihlus snapped. Ashley jumped back to attention. "It's the end of the line. It's were all the loose threads and disparate strands tie themselves up into a little bow for us. It's where we're going to win." Text began to scrawl itself across the image of the placid world. Nihlus continued, choosing to ignore the derisive four eye roll from Javik. "As you can see, the sector local to Virmire has been quite busy as of late. Blue Sun Mercenaries, smugglers operating out of the Krogan Demilitarized Zone, even sketchy reports of Geth activity out on the rim." Red lined infographics filled in as he spoke, marking the suspicious traffic.

"Spectre, I can see why Saren might bring in the mercs, and we know he's working with the Geth, but what are the krogan doing here?" Ashley asked.

Nihlus almost seemed to wince at the mention of the rogue Spectre's name. "Sovereign," he replied, pointedly, "is a known collaborator with mercenaries and Geth, yes, but they are not his only allies."

"I guess now we know where all of Clan Udun retreated to," Garrus cut it. "But what's their stake in this mad scheme? Other than a chance to mix it up with the galaxy at large, I mean."

"That remains to be seen," Nihlus replied. "But it's got to be big to pull the entire clan off Tuchanka. Money and glory might soak up the males, but the clan females and the young too? It'll be first priority once we hit the ground to find out what, and to put a stop to it."

"Wait, we're going in now?" Ashley burst out. "Where's the intel?"

"The intel, Chief," Nihlus snapped, his eyes flashing dangerously, "is on site. An STG frigate has been dispatched for initial recon and intelligence. We'll meet up with them here." The turian motioned towards a stretch of beach to the north of the planet's central island chain. "I'd prefer more time to plan, believe me. But time is of the essence. Until then, it's full speed and radio silence. We don't know what exactly we'll be facing, but we can expect to see strong resistance. Prepare yourselves for some heavy action as soon as we touch down. I want stocks and munitions checked and double checked. All gear should be laid out and ready to go within the hour. After that, we're on high alert. Combat deployment formation in the cargo hold by 0800. Dismissed.

There was a general rustle of discontent as the mostly human crew filed out of the war room. Ashley shot the black clad turian a mutinous look as he turned to talk with Garrus. "This crawls, Commander. I've got a bad feeling about this Virmire place."

"You and me both, Chief." Shepard folded her arms across her chest. "And rushing in like this isn't Nihlus' style. This whole mission feels like charging into a trap."

"Ours is not to reason why," Ashley said wryly. "I'll talk to the men. You'll have a good squad at your back once we hit the surf. At least we'll have that going for us. You want to head down, say something inspirational?"

"I'll be right down," Shepard replied. "I need to talk with our fearless leader."

Ashley nodded and joined the exodus from the room. Shepard readjusted her tunic again and stepped up to where Nihlus stood in conversation with his fellow turian. Nearby, Javik and Liara lurked. "Ah, Commander," the dark scaled alien said as Nihlus noticed her approach. "It's good to see you out of the medbay. I'm told you've made a full recovery."

"Yes, sir." Shepard mumbled, suddenly self-conscious. "Doctor Chakwas says that the new implants are fully operational. But I didn't come over here to trade niceties."

"Of course not," Nihlus' mandibles quivered. "You have some grievances to air on this mission, yes? Perhaps on behalf of your marine friend."

"I do, Spectre." Shepard said almost at a rush. "The troops don't like going in on so little intelligence. Especially not if we're expecting to run into the enemy's main base of operation. We don't know what's in there. If we had more time…"

Nihlus cut her off. "There is no more time. We have to hit this facility now."

"Why?" Commander Shepard was almost shocked as the question slipped her lips. By the look skittering across the turian's face, so was he. She recovered quickly, fixing a professional mask across her face. "What I mean to say is, why the time constraint? We know where they are, we can gather the forces needed to smash them utterly. So why move in now?"

"The reason is simple, Commander." Nihlus replied. "Saren will be there."

"I'm… not sure I understand." Shepard felt the mask slipping again as a dubious look creased her features. "Are you'll worry he'll pull out if he realizes he's compromised? It seems like the opposition has invested pretty heavily in whatever they're building here. And even if he does do a runner, he'll be much less dangerous without his power base. We'll be able to take him out at our leisure."

"No, it's not that I'm worried about him running. And we're not going in to kill him. We're going to rescue him." Nihlus looked back towards the projection of Virmire hanging just above the back wall. "Now, prepare for our landing. Dismissed."

Shepard left the room with an open pit in the bottom of her stomach. A rescue?