Vanguard of Vengeance: Chapter 22

Infiltration


Everything on Virmire dripped water. At least, that is how it seemed as Commander Evangeline Shepard crept forward through the thick jungle plants. The broad-leafed trees, rough like palm but with thick, knotted branches that grew all the way down the central trunk, were slick with the same humidity that plastered her hair to her scalp under her helmet. They filled the air with a heavy, earthy smell that piled atop the scent of salt and of the furry moss that strangled everything beneath the palms' lower branches. The tropical thicket created an effective barricade between the interior of the archipelago and the outskirts of Saren's compound. Virtually impassable, it turned out. But that was what Nihlus' madcap plan was relying on. The Geth were creatures of logic, thinking machines. How many security platforms would they commit to defending a stretch of jungle that was more of a living green wall than it was a rainforest? Shepard wouldn't have posted more than a tripwire defense if she was in charge, and she was a flesh and blood being capable of paranoia and all its wacky cousins. The Krogan of Clan Udun were another matter. Nobody ever accused the Krogan of strategic genius, hell, the few that Shepard had met in her career could be summed up with the term 'blunt instrument.' They did, however, possess a frightening cunning when it came to matters of coming to blows with those that pissed them off. For instance, those coming to blow up the lab they were using to breed new warriors. But Nihlus had a plan for them, too.

Which left only Saren himself. Shepard shivered despite the planet wide sauna she was working her way through. The image of the rogue Spectre's distended turian head, the alien wires and cabling that wound their way through his body floated before her eyes. Shepard's eyes flicked over to the black-armored Turian who pushed through the jungle beside her. Nihlus' own gaze was fixed ahead as if his glare could burn a hole through the foliage in his way, his head bobbing as if magnetically drawn towards his 'friend.' Not for the first time, Shepard had the slithering feeling that she was being led to her doom. She shook her head. She had come to far to lose herself to doubts now. She needed her head cleared for battle. She went through the usual ritual, one last time. She checked the batteries of her armor, noting the full charge on her omni-tool and biotic amp readouts, the topped-up reservoirs of slick gray STG issue medigel and a fresh canister of omni-gel to go alongside it. She checked the indicator lights on the flattened, octagonal barrel shroud of her Storm pattern shotgun and on the dulled red hull of the Devlon Stinger in her thigh holster. She flexed invisible muscles, calling into existence a skin tight, shimmering barrier that wrapped her in protective planes of shear gravity. She was ready for battle.

"I see the outer curtain wall of the compound," Garrus whispered over the link they shared. Shepard peered ahead, looking for a sign of their forward scout, but the former C-Sec officer had disappeared into the foliage, the carefully applied mud and broken branches disguising his usually blue armored shell completely. "No signs of Geth... wait, there they are. A handful of those hopping models. They're slick, but they can't hide that whining sound they make. I count a half dozen, four up in the buildings, two moving through the trees at the edge of the jungle. Handful of Krogan, too. Big ones. Same black armor as the ones we met on Therum. Thing they hold a grudge?"

"If all goes to plan, we won't have to," Nihlus replied, "Maintain your position, we're moving up to the starting line. Phase two launches in seven minutes."

Their advance became slower, more careful, as silent as could be managed in the thick foliage. It wouldn't do to tip their foe off before the second stage of their plan could be put into effect. Up ahead, the growth thinned, the way ahead no longer obscured completely. Shepard could catch glimpses of the oily, purple metal of Geth construction enmeshed in brutalist concrete. To each flank, pillars of pale sandstone thrust up from the sandy soil, closing in as they advanced until they pushed through the entrance to a narrow canyon.

"That's as far as you want to go," Garrus whispered. His voice came not through the radio, but out loud. Shepard resisted the urge to startle and swept the thicket. Her eyes found Garrus tucked into the hollow of a thick stump of a felled tree the size of a terran redwood. Shepard found her own hiding place behind the half-rotted remains of a section of the mighty trunk. Nihlus and Javik slipped in beside her, completing the small infiltrating fire team. "Three minutes." Nihlus nodded. From this distance, Shepard could see the compound itself. The buildings rose out of the thinning jungle, thick, grey concrete disks raised up on sturdy pilings of the same. Heavy looking metallic plates covered the disks in a coat of armor and stretched out between them to create narrow bridges. She could pick out two of the five geth stalkers that Garrus had spotted. They blended into the shadows of the rocky promontories, their sinuous shapes plastered into gaps in the stone, their grey skin almost a shadow itself. The Krogan were much easier to spot. Ten of them stood clustered on one of the platforms, a dozen marched back and forth across the bridges. They were huge, black armored, and carrying what looked like heavy machine guns that would have been crewed by a pair of human marines. Off to her side, Garrus was counting down. "Seven... six... five..."

There was a thunderous explosion in the distance, on the far side of the compound. A blizzard of brightly covered birds took flight as the sky was split by two more thunderstrokes. Up on the annular skyway, death masked heads whipped around towards the triplet of blasts. The Krogan were clearly agitated, but they obstinately kept their position. Go on you bloodthirsty bastards, Shepard hissed to herself, willing with every fiber of her being for the mountains of muscle and ceramic armor plating to rush to the sound of the guns. Another blast rent the air, this one closer, close enough to send tremors through the sand. Kirrahe was deploying the reserve charges, meant to cover his element's retreat. If those Salarians were caught flat foot, before they could draw the foe into the teeth of Chief Williams ambush...

A fifth blast shook pebbles from the surrounding gorge. The Salarians would now be retreating without protection, their narrow asses out in the wind. God, but they showed more bravery than she thought the slippery alien spooks had in them. But their sacrifice was not made in vain. At the detonation of the fifth charge, the Krogan on the wall lost the battle between discipline and the thrill of battle and charged off into the compound, leaving the forest wall unprotected save for the tripwire of Geth still slinking through the trees. The networked AI was alert, their cyclopean heads swept the jungle edge for intruders. It would take more than an explosion on the far side of the compound to lure them from their perches. Fortunately for Nihlus' plan, the strike team had more than STG shaped charges on hand. They had a Quarian.

"Tali'zorah. We are go for Phase three," called Nihlus.

"Transmitting now!" the young Quarian replied. She did a good job of hiding the nerves that writhed under her words, though a slight quavering crept in around the edges. "Transmitter active, falling back and heading to the rendezvous."

The effect of Tali's little party trick was much more immediate than the explosive lure. It had long been held in the Alliance intelligence community and across the wider galaxy that the Geth were unhackable. But the Quarians knew better, as it turned out. Certainly, the way their platforms operated as shells holding amalgamations of individual programs, each a single drop in the sea that made up their local area network made inserting your standard array of trojan programs and viral worms mostly futile, corrupted files replaced from backups and individual platforms quarantined faster than they could spread, making the Geth essentially immune to direct cyber-attack. However, for all their advancement, the Geth were still machines, and they followed machine logic dictated by underlying code kernels ancient and, as evident when seven of the sinuous Geth infiltration platforms leapt as one into the jungle, unchanging. The force of robotic watch dogs tore into the foliage, leaping right over the place the strike team had hunkered down, hot on the trail of the active transmitter that squawked a single alert signal on a broad band. Fire in the Nursery. Quarian younglings in danger.

"Looks like your transmitter worked, excellent work," Nihlus signalled.

"Can't talk, running," came Tali's out of breath reply, "You've got about ten minutes until those hoppers stop looking for the burning babies and get really, really mad."

"You know, in some more civilized corners of the galaxy, impersonating a burning orphan might be considered a war crime," Garrus said wryly. Tali's response was bitter, savage.

"War crimes happen to people."

"Enough. The way is clear. If we are locked to this fool's errand, let us be about it and have it done," Javik cut in. He set actions to word, rising from the cover of the hollowed trunk with angular particle rifle raised. He vaulted the spongey wood effortlessly. Before Nihlus could countermand his solo charge into the dark heart of Saren's operation, Shepard herself stood and leapt atop the corpse of the once-mighty tree.

"Come on, Nihlus. This is your party, ain't it?" She was filled with a feral, savage glee as she sprinted after the prothean, clearing the open ground between the trees and the base of the nearest pillar with biotically augmented strides. She suppressed a wild laugh as she rushed forwards, perhaps to her doom. But then, she'd been slouching towards this moment since the timers ticked away their last seconds on Eden Prime, hadn't she. If Virmire was where she was to meet her end, then she would, then she would do so on the bounce, sprinting to stick her shotgun barrel so far down its throat as to take it with her. Her footsteps were light, not just from the wreath of eezo-fueled power, but from the weight of the heavy mantle of sorrow she'd woven herself, now cast aside. For the first time in a long time, she relished the upcoming fight, the clash of foes locked in battle. She would be with Kaidan soon, and she'd bring enough friends to the party to avenge his fall. She stared up at the heavy concrete ring high above. It was smooth, still young enough to be bone white under the slight patina of grey corrosion, though not so new as to have avoided the reaching tendrils of verdant growth. The ring was crowned by a thick metal railing. "Enough for a magnetic grapnel, do you think?" She said, casting an aside glance to Javik.

"I did not intend to climb, like some primitive ape ancestor, if that is what you mean," the ancient Prothean replied with a bifurcated smile that matched Shepard's in its violent delight. "I trust you have some device that will pull you to the heights. Or did you need to unpack your rope and winch."

At that, Shepard did laugh. It was a raw, wild sound. It felt a stranger to her vocal cords. She threw back her head and unhooked the miniaturized bundle of monofilament line form her belt, loading the magnetic catapult embedded in her gauntlet. "After you, my Pradhan."

Javik raised his own fist aloft. His green biotics flared and a spiraling string of silvery grey metal whipped up and away towards the towering platforms. Shepard followed him, thrusting out the glowing orange interface of her Omni-tool and sending forth the sharpened anchor of her monofilament ascension cable. It caught with a distant snap and the line went taut. As one, Shepard and Javik were hauled into the air. The hot wind of Virmire rushed through her raven hair as they rushed up to meet the aerial platform. Shepard mantled the parapet with a smooth motion that belied the fatigue of the day's battle. Her shotgun was up and around before her boots hit the floor. Javik drifted down behind her on a cushion of green biotics, wreathed in a tornado of emerald flame like a djinn out of myth. He alighted soundlessly.

"The battle is joined on the far side of the compound," he noted, inclining his head to the rattle and buzz of a firefight just now picking up in tempo as the press of Clan Udun Krogan met the STG skirmishers. "Let us hope there is enough spine in your amphibians to die bravely."

"They'll do more than die," Nihlus puffed as he hauled himself up and over the parapet behind them. Shepard turned to offer him a hand as Garrus began his own climb. The turian Spectre was breathing heavily, favoring his left. A trickle of dark blood stained the armor even from under the thickening medigel. His bright yellow eyes followed hers and he shook his head. "Captain Kirrahe and his men are solid. I won't hear them disrespected. Face your contempt towards the enemy, Javik." Even wounded and in obvious pain, Nihlus stood upright. He stared daggers from behind skull paint still bright. Javik stared right back, red-rimmed eyes locked on his counterpart, his hand on the butt of his particle rifle.

"As you say," the ancient alien relented after long seconds, "your Saren lies in wait, I'm sure."

The quartet moved swiftly across the concrete canopy, passing firing positions left empty, the fizzling orange mass effect fields humming to themselves regardless. Shepard stepped gingerly over an overturned ammunition crate covered in scattered cards and some kind of meat rapidly collecting flies. She couldn't help but do the mental math on the number of defenders that likely held them only shortly before. She paled as the number rapidly exceeded the surviving marines and STG agents both. In the distance, the firefight was intensifying, the full-throated roar of the shotguns and heavy weapons the Krogan favored completely swallowing the thrum of Salarian handgun and sniper fire. Shepard desperately hoped the faint sound of screaming was imagined as they rounded another of the circular platforms. There was a sudden uptick in fire weight and a series of rapid thumps. Chief William's ambush, she realized with a start. So, at least some of the Salarians had made it to their mark. There was another rush of sound, this one dead ahead of their advance.

"Drone launch," Nihlus whispered, "At least a dozen of them, heading your way, Chief Williams."

"Acknowledged, Spectre," Ashley responded. The sound of weapons fire was loud over the link. "We have them on our scopes. God, there's a lot of them."

"We'll see if we can shut them down form our end," Shepard broke in, earning herself a sharp look from Nihlus.

Ashley's reply was thick with relief. "Thank you, Commander. We'll keep making noise as long as we can."


Shepard slipped into the shelter of a strange Geth construction beside Garrus. Just up ahead, the landing pad for the Geth drones buzzed with activity as the dish-shaped Geth returned from their sortie. Hoses jumped from hidden panels to pump Helium-3 into onboard fuel tanks, steaming in the humid air as the ice-cold liquid flowed. Geth foot platforms loaded foot long munitions onto underslung racks and replaced worn ammunition blocks with fresh ingots of shining tungsten. The pit-stop dance lasted under three minutes and the Geth where back up in the air in squadron strength. The Geth platforms folded into resting positions, leaving the pad still. Nihlus peered out through his hand scope, head cocked in birdlike alertness.

"We don't have long before those drones return. I could probably make it there and back to set charges in time," the Turian bobbed his head, uncertain, "it bears the risk of exposing our infiltration, but basically guarantees that the landing pad is taken out though. Might even take out the drones themselves if we can catch them on the ground."

"Why even risk touching the platform at all?" Garrus asked, "I can hit the readied missiles down there from here with old Laetus here." He slapped the side of his sniper rifle. "I've got thermal rounds, more than enough to light off the warheads. As long as they're primed, of course. Risk of exposure is much lower; we only have to worry about the flash."

"And if they're not?" Nihlus asked.

"It makes a lot of noise, but might not have enough energy to start a chain reaction." Garrus relented.

"Why do you not simply detonate the fuel stocks?" Javik asked. All heads turned towards where he stared grimly at the landing pad unaided.

"I don't know if physics worked differently in the great and powerful Prothean Empire," Garrus shot back, "but last time I checked, Helium is non-reactive. It doesn't burn. Otherwise, I'd just sever the lines and light that up instead of trying to crack the casing on the warheads."

"Detonate, not burn," Javik corrected, still watching the pad with four-eyed intensity, "nuclear fusion is not beyond your comprehension, yes? It can be initiated by biotic compression, if you have the strength."

"And you have the strength?" Nihlus asked, eyes narrowed.

"Not alone," Javik replied. All four eyes turned to lock on Shepard's. The rest of the small raiding party joined him. Shepard's stomach churned. Perhaps back before Noveria she could have had the raw strength to massage the Helium nuclei into hooking up with cataclysmic consequence. But with the unfamiliar, alien amplifier now buried in her skull...

"I can do it," she said. Armax Arsenal be damned, her biotics were hers, and hers alone. Her new amplifier was not going to take that away from her.

"Very well, you can try you plan, Javik, Commander. Garrus, I want you sighting in on those missiles in case it does not work." The orders came quickly, snappily, but Nihlus visibly sagged against the concrete he sheltered behind. The Turian Spectre was tough as nails, but even the hardest nail would bend under repeated hammer blows. Shepard nodded and shuffled towards Javik.

"So, how are we playing this?" she asked.

"Sever the fuel lines," Javik ordered, "I shall contain the flow as not to alert the idle synthetics, compress the Helium. You will focus on energizing it. Increase the local gravity as high as you are able."

"You got it," Shepard agreed. The objective was easy enough, bar the complication of range and her unfamiliar equipment. But Commander Evangeline Shepard did not get assigned to the Normandy because she bowed to unforeseen complications. She settled in beside the other alien, assuming the cross-legged position she had so many times before in training. Even as the battle raged on in the middle distance, Shepard created a tiny island of calm focus for herself there on the bare concrete. At Javik's gentle prodding, she reached out with invisible fingers of force. Javik had neatly sheared off the nearest fuel line. Already the hissing fuel plume grew as the Helium-3 boiled out of the tank to swirl in the pale green globe that the Prothean had built for them. Shepard's reach brushed the swirling fuel, sending ripples through the bubble. She tried to imagine the pale liquid compressed within her biotic fist, squeezed to the point that atom melted into the atom beside it and nuclear fire bloomed. The stubborn fuel slipped between her fingers, the nuclei resisting her grasp. She felt her human hands clench until the nails threatened to tear off against the inside of her gauntlets. Still, she poured every ounce of energy she could into the crushing ball of artificial gravity. Still, it frustrated her efforts. To her right, Javik hissed with the effort of keeping the fuel contained, to her right, Nihlus nodded meaningfully to Garrus, who responded by lining up his rifle. Shepard gritted her teeth. She wasn't going to lose this; her biotics weren't going to fail. She called up all of her reserves, until the amp in her skull grew hot, the flanged hum became a shriek. She wracked her brain for anything she remembered from that distant education, the section on fusion so faded by the distance of time. Something about activation energy. The size of the nucleus... That was it. She eased off on the compression and flipped the plane of the biotic effect. A shear plane warp effect, impossibly thin. She could see the helium nuclei coming apart, becoming...

The hydrogen fusion explosion tore apart the landing platform, bright, white light singeing the greenery that hung from the nearby platforms. The remains of the landing pad split in two and fell to the jungle floor below. Garrus whistled in response.

"Well, they're not going to refuel there for a while."

"Chief Williams, you should be free from aerial attack soon," Nihlus messaged, "Keep holding them."