Vanguard of Vengeance: Chapter 23
Driven
The steady thumping of mortar fire rolled languidly through the moisture-soaked air, underlined by the sound of the Normandy's singular heavy machine gun. Chief Williams had been insistent on dragging the heavy tripod mounted weapon through the jungle and was now putting it to use with a will. She would need it. From the sound of roaring Krogan that rolled in on the tales of its heavy rattle, Saren's arrayed forces were giving as good as they were getting. Shepard tried to banish the thought of the monstrous casualties piling up on both sides. There was only room for the mission. Ahead of her, Nihlus and Javik pushed forwards, stepping over the bodies of two disabled geth platforms. Neat holes punched in the back of their flexible head trunks leaked a pale white fluid onto the floor. Shepard held her breath for a one count. A two count. A five count. No alarms triggered. No additional Geth swooped down upon them. She felt her grip loosen on her trusty Storm-pattern shotgun.
"Nice overwatch, Vakarian. Very clean." Nihlus said over the tactical link, "Shepard, ten O'clock. Secure that side passage." Shepard moved smoothly out of the shade of one of the potted palm trees that lined the broad avenue of the base's outer terrace. Below, the wind ruffled the fronds of the over growth that grew between them and Virmire's massive ocean. Small fires burned in the foliage, set by the fusion detonation of the Geth drone refueling station. The smoke will draw attention, there will be reinforcements soon, the nagging voice of Kaidan whispered in her head, lending speed to her feet. Rapidly, she stormed up the shallow ramp and gained the cover of the closed doorway that Nihlus had signaled her towards. She waited, listened for the telltale buzzing of the Geth, and opened the door. It led to a set of stairs down into a white clad courtyard ringed by a banistered mezzanine. And, down below the level of the mezzanine...
"Nihlus, we've got some Salarians down here," she reported, hazarding another peek around the door frame. Behind a slat of thick paned glass set in the wall, the grey skinned aliens stood in small packs, or else sat listlessly, eyes glassy. Some of the sharper looking ones stood at the corners of the glass sided chamber, alert, as if on watch.
"Members of the diversion team?" Nihlus' reply cracked back.
"Negative, Spectre. They're in some kind of holding cell. Could be captives. The scouts Kirrahe sent in before we arrived?" Shepard watched the on-guard Salarians twitch at the sound of distant guns. "Most of them look like they're in pretty bad shape. Three or four effectives between them, maybe a dozen otherwise."
"The frog men have been here how long?" Javik asked.
"Less than a week at most," Nihlus responded shortly, "Hang tight, Commander. We're coming to you."
"Turian, these captives should be put down," Javik said, "They are likely indoctrinated, under the Reaper's control. Letting them loose will only be a repeat of the action on Noveria."
Shepard shivered in memory of Port Hanshan, the fingers of the ice cold still making themselves felt even under the oppressive heat of Virmire. She started as the rest of the infiltration team clomped up the ramp behind her. She motioned towards the prisoners with her chin, directing Nihlus' attention forward. The Turian peered down at them.
"These are not animals, to be put down," he responded shortly, "These are STG operators, allies. We cannot just leave them behind and we certainly won't simply execute them for the crime of being captured." The Spectre moved past Shepard, descending the stairs into the courtyard below. Behind him, Javik bristled.
"Spectre! You once again fail to see what is right before your face. Or perhaps you refuse to see. These creatures are lost. The Reaper will have put its hooks deep into their brains and twisted them against you. No matter how keen they may look, they will slide a knife in your back at the earliest opportunity. But you seem set on this course of self-destruction. I will not stop you, if that is your wish. There is too much at stake to raise our hands to one another. But nor will I follow you into oblivion. Go to them, if you must. I will travel my own path." And with that, the ancient alien warrior turned his back on them and hefted his slate gray particle rifle. Shepard watched him go, torn. Her feet were locked to the floor as tides of indecision buffeted her. Javik turned a corner and disappeared deeper into the facility. The commander steeled herself, forced herself to look away. As she did, she thought she caught a flash of movement on a rooftop far across the avenue they'd just passed. Her shotgun was up before the motion registered in her conscious mind, but the rooftop was clear, still.
"Something the matter, Shepard?" Garrus asked. The other Turian looked conflicted, his mandibles quivered uncertainty.
"Just thought I saw... never mind. This place gives me the creeps."
"In more ways than one, I agree." Garrus nodded. His fingers tightened around the grip of his rifle. "Come on, the diversion team can only buy us so long."
The two of them descended to find Nihlus standing in front of the glass walled holding cells, apparently in conversation with one of the standing Salarians. As they approached, the black-scaled Turian nodded.
"I understand, Private Avos. You've done well resisting their interrogations this long. You say some of the others have been experimented on?"
"Yes," The mottled STG private responded, nodding grimly, "They take a couple away every day, they come back like this." He pointed to one of the quivering Salarians squatting on the floor. "Me and the others who can still stand do our best to stand watch. They only seem to come when we sleep. But," he let out a deep sigh, "there are fewer of us now. It is hard to be ever vigilant, and we are unarmed. I have feared for the last day or so that soon enough they will simply force the issue."
"Well, the Spectres are here now. They won't take another of you," Nihlus' voice was warm, soothing. "Garrus, get these doors open. There should be a clear path behind us, Avos. Get your men out and then back to your base camp. From there we'll get you evac'd off world."
"If it's all the same to you, Spectre, some of my men can still fight, if you can get us some weapons. Two or three of us should be sufficient to escort the wounded out. From the sound of fighting on the air, I assume that Captain Kirrahe is leading a diversionary raid and that you are more than a rescue team? Well, let us do the same, only within the compound. An infiltration team to act as a decoy for the true infiltration."
"You have already made enough sacrifices, Operative," Nihlus responded, shaking his head.
"No," Avos replied firmly, "The STG does not make sacrifices in vain. When the objective is complete, that is when our losses will have meant enough to rest. Please. There is a security office just above these cells. Retrieve any weapons that remain there, and we will keep any stragglers off your backs."
Nihlus still seemed uncertain, but eventually he relented. "Alright. Commander Shepard, you're on the security station. See what you can find."
Shepard nodded and turned for the ramp up to the mezzanine level. The armorglass door to the security station was graciously unlocked. The small room was cramped, containing little more than a small desk that held a live terminal along one wall, hunched below a bank of vidscreens. Along the adjoining way were a row of curved metal lockers. Three stood open and empty, causing Shepard to swear through her teeth. That left the two at the end. Shepard hurried other and stowed her shotgun. The opening key burned red on the side of each locker and bleated harshly under the press of her fingers. More bad luck. Shepard eyed her omni-tool. A standard omnigel worm might be enough to crack the security on the gun lockers if she let it loose on autopilot, but it would take time. The fighting in the distance was growing more insistent by the minute. Shepard bitterly wished she'd paid more attention during tech school. A manual hack would have been much faster. She wracked her brain. Then it clicked.
"Come on, Shepard, are you a biotic or not?" she asked the air. She slammed her palm against the locker and marshalled her biotic power, reaching forward with invisible fingers for the locking mechanism. She made a fist and pulled. The metal screamed under the sudden gravitic shear, its delicate circuitry and locking hasp tore and knotted. Shepard redirected the energies. With a horrid shriek, the lock rocketed out of its weakened moorings. The locker sprang open. The harsh light of the security office fell on two rows of metal oblongs. Shepard's dour expression turned upwards. She reached in and pulled the weapons form their racks, filling her arms.
In the courtyard below, the Salarians were marshalling, the healthy corralling their wounded comrades into a line. Private Avos looked up as Shepard lowered her loot on a cushion of crackling biotic energy.
"Thank you, Commander," the frog-like alien said with a look of relief, "We'll put these to good use." With a sharp nod of the head and some unfamiliar hand signals, the STG operative set his wounded in motion up the stairs and on their way out of the compound. The remaining half dozen checked their new weapons with grim determination. The blocky, Krogan made submachine guns looked oversized in their wiry arms, yet they hefted them with apparent ease. "Special Tactics Group, move out!" Avos ordered. The white clad Salarians ran past with bouncing steps, disappearing after their wounded. Shepard looked to the Spectre with a question in the quirk of her eyebrow.
"We give them a count of thirty, then we continue."
Two turns and another staircase later, the infiltration party's luck ran out. Shepard skated to a halt halfway around the corner as she spotted the hulking Krogan, too late. She locked eye to red-yellow eye. The Krogan began a harsh bark of alarm. Shepard shot him in the face. She didn't have time to see the damage she had done. She turned her run into a diving roll, throwing herself below the return fire of the Krogan's equally massive friends. Hot steel raked the air just over her heels as she tucked the roll in tighter, giving herself just enough of a biotic push to clear the T-junction and slide into the cover of the other side. Fire still flailed at her position, tearing deep furrows in the metal of the wall corner.
"Krogan, at least three. Packing AP," Shepard breathed into her helmet mic. She came back up to a crouch and tossed a grenade into the hallway. It detonated with a bright flash and Shepard followed it around the corner with her shot gun ready. Her unfortunate target stared at her, his thick alien blood dripping from painful looking facial wounds. He was still up and moving though, Something Shepard was quick to remedy with a quick double burst of shot. Her shotgun wailed its overheating alarm and she ducked back again. The two Krogan were advancing behind their downed companion. But Shepard had friends too. The two Turians moved up into position in corridor she had just leapt from. "You ever gone skeet shooting, Spectre?" She asked, forcing her breath back into an even rhythm. Nihlus responded with a look of incomprehension, but Garrus seemed to get the gist. "On three." Shepard counted down on her fingers.
When the last finger dropped, Shepard stooped and leant around the corner again, catching the nearest Krogan by surprise. She reached out once again, wreathing the black-scaled beast in crackling static electricity. The Krogan's charge became a stumble, then a floating scrape along the ground as the massive alien was plucked from his feet. He wobbled there, his momentum carrying him forward. Damn, but he's heavy. Shepard grit her teeth, ignoring the overload warning from her biotic amp. The Krogan drifted into view as he passed into the junction. Nihlus and Garrus pumped rounds into his unprotected flank, drawing gurgling screams. Shepard let him drop in a gore-soaked heap and drew her own pistol. Two shots silenced the anguished coughing and spluttering. It did not stop the third Krogan. With a bellow, the last of the enemy trio burst into the junction. He ignored the patter of mass accelerator fire against the hardened shell on his back and redirected his motion into a swinging attack at Shepard's head. She barely ducked under it, but his follow up with his other arm caught her in the midsection. The thunderous energy of the punch knocked the wing out of her lungs with a guttural whuff and sent her sprawling backwards.
Shepard recovered quickly, throwing a push of biotic force to give herself some room to breathe. She might have prided herself in coming top of her class in CQB training, but she wasn't about to wrestle a two-ton lizard. The Krogan apparently had other ideas. He pressed her closely, swinging his boxy weapon in a downwards chop that sought to stove her head in. Shepard dodged to the left and came back with a pistol shot that went wide as he batted it away with a crushing blow to her wrist. Shepard cried out, but she kept her weapon in an iron grip.
"Alright, so you want to dance." She sprung forward like a cobra, slithering past the Krogan's reach to grab a hold of the peaked shell of his armored collarbone and drew him in a vicious knee to the gut. The armor at her knee crunched against his stomach, drawing out a howl, but Shepard wasn't done with him yet. She slipped a knee against his knee and clambered up his back in an attempted take down that would leave him no choice but to drop his weapon or end up face first on the concrete. She gripped and thrust all of her weight against him. On a human target, he would be eating the ground. The Krogan did not budge. With a yell, he reached back and grabbed her by the chin. Shepard cried out as he plucked her from his back and hurled her away. She flew down the corridor, rolling through the air head over heels. She tucked in her knees, prepared for the inevitable impact with the ground. She landed roughly, sliding until she flipped over on her side. She slid to a stop. The Krogan gave a guttural laugh.
"You give good sport, little human," he guffawed in a voice as deep and booming as thunder, "the clan will enjoy taking their revenge for your murder of our Battlemaster. And then, when the new Warmaster launches his new Rebellion, we will mount you on the prow of our battlecruiser."
"I highly doubt that," Shepard shot back. She spat blood on the ground and pushed herself back up to her knees. In her right hand she held the detonation key for three magnetic grenades. The Krogan recognized the bright red button immediately and slapped at his back, at the spot he couldn't quite reach just behind his right arm. His lips tried to form a potent curse. Shepard pressed her thumb to the activation stud. The Clan Udun Krogan flew apart in cataclysmic fashion. Hot, steaming gobbets of meat fell in a gory shower before her. Shepard shivered, the display causing her gorge to rise. She fought it down as she pushed herself to her feet.
"Remind me again, Spectre, has she always been this insane?" Garrus asked. His avian eyes swept the area for further enemies, but none made themselves obvious.
"Garrus, for as long as I've known the Commander, I've known her to be little else than inventively destructive and self-destructively brave," Nihlus managed back. Shepard scooped her rifle back up, side-stepping the charred remains of her latest sparring partner. She fixed the Spectre with an apprising eye. The Turian wobbled slightly as he walked, favoring his injured side. Even now, the quickly patched wounds were weeping slightly. He was breathing heavily, more heavily than Shepard was, and she had just engaged a Krogan in CQB. The Spectre followed her gaze and protectively clutched at the burns on his side. But if his body was tired, his eyes were sharp and burned with a fire that challenged her to saw something about his condition. Shepard blinked first.
"If these Krogan were given orders to stick around with enough clout to keep them from giving chase when we dropped mortars on the hornet's nest, whatever's up ahead must be worth a hell of a lot to them," she said instead, motioning with a jerk of her already bruising chin towards the squat, heavily armored looking building that crouched at the end of the T-junction the Krogan had emerged from.
"I'd have to agree," Nihlus said, accepting the olive branch, "despite the ongoing holding action outside, perhaps from this point forward it might be wise to trade some speed for caution."
Deep in her breast, Shepard resented being asked to give the enemy even one more second to strike at her crew beyond the gate. On the other hand, if the ache developing in her neck was to be listened to, yet more encounters with angry Krogan would likely be terminal. She nodded reluctantly.
"Then we have no time to stand around, Saren could be in that building up ahead and bagging him might just end this war before it starts."
The door to the guarded facility grated open with a slow, painful scraping sound. A bent rail, the door had been forced before, but how long ago? Shepard's silent question was immediately answered as the door crunched to a stop and Shepard flicked on her suit lights. The inner foyer had been sprayed by thick gouts of dark Krogan blood, some still wet and dripping. The faintly glowing green tracks burnt into the walls made it obvious the source of the destruction. The lights flickered over two more corpses, each killed from behind. One had not even managed to drawer his weapon.
"Javik making his presence felt," Garrus quipped, "he's fast for an ancient mummy. Must have hit hard to take these guys out without alerting their friends outside."
"I'm more afraid of him alerting their potential friends inside," Nihlus replied, "if this is Saren's command center..."
"It doesn't look much like a command center," Shepard said. She moved past the smoking Krogan and played her rifle's flashlight over the interior of the room. It was plain, decorated only by a handful of small tables and chairs. The walls separating the foyer from the building within were made of frosted glass and a bank of small consoles were set in the far side of the room. "Looks more like the waiting room at a hospital."
"A hospital, or a lab," Garrus responded, "I've seen a place like this before, just like this. Ran by a guy called Saleon. A real piece of work." He cocked his head, thinking for a second. "You don't suppose this is where..."
The sound of shattering glass somewhere deeper in the facility cut him off. Shepard's Lancer whipped around, tracking the source of the noise.
"Upstairs, maybe twenty meters off the main stairwell," Garrus said in a hushed whisper. He tapped a fire map of the building placarded to a nearby wall. "If we head through that door and hook around, we can get in behind them."
"Go," Nihlus ordered. Garrus and Shepard moved in tandem, moving quietly deeper into the complex. Here, another body lay splayed against the wall below a halo of off-white hydraulic fluid. A geth storm trooper. Shepard didn't give it a second glance, following Garrus' hand signals through a set of shattered metal door. She took up position at the foot of a small set of cramped metal stairs that spiraled upwards. Nihlus leap frogged her, ascending the stairs two steps at a time. Garrus trailed him closely, his sniper rifle stowed in favor of a heavy framed pistol. Something moved in the foyer they'd just vacated. Shepard whirled and fired twice, punching two rounds through the thin door. The something didn't move again. "Shepard?" Nihlus cocked his head quizzically.
"Something behind us," Shepard responded curtly. Carefully she backtracked, one foot crossing in front of the other in a sidelong approach. She pressed her ear to the punctured door. Was that the sound of breathing, or just the open door to the outside of the compound? She shouldered open the door in a burst of sudden motion. The lobby was empty. "Shit, shooting at ghosts." Her eyes panned the room, looking for the pellet holes in the far wall. It remained smooth, unblemished. "I definitely hit something," she said, as much to reassure herself as to relay information back to her team. He knelt, brushing her fingers against a grey metallic dust on the ground. "Tungsten fragments, barriers."
"Shepard, we don't have time to play detective right now," Garrus said, calmly, enunciating. With a flash of irritation, Shepard recognized it as a voice you might use on an uncooperative collar, or a fussy child. "If there was someone there, obviously you've frightened them off. If they wanted to stop us, they would have come through that door guns blazing the second you drew on them."
"You're probably right," Shepard relented, though she could not shake the feeling of an animal being walked into a trap, "sorry. Let's press on." She pushed past the two Turians and climbed the stairs before they could stop her. As she gained the final step, she had to catch herself from slipping on something coating the tiled floor. She looked down to see a pool of purplish blood. Shepard stopped and dropped, covering the room with her weapon. It was dim, the overhead lighting flickered. The blood flowed from a puddle at the base of a shattered pane of glass. Shepard's eyes followed drag marks that led from the puddle. Someone had gone through the decorative glass hard, but they might not be down for the count. Shepard advanced into the room, broken glass crunching under her boots. She could hear Garrus and Nihlus coming up behind her, but something drew her forward regardless.
The room looked like a well-appointed laboratory, instruments of arcane purpose lined up on long steel tables and a small desk stacked high with blinking datapads made the wide room feel cramped. Shepard's quickening footfalls drove her onwards. The purple-black smear was getting thicker. Shepard turned the corner around a bench covered in some kind of centrifuge and... came face to face with a corpse. She was an asari, pale blue face drained to a thin, almost-white except for the dark dots of the scales that served as her brow. Her grey and yellow lab coat was rent through with shards of glass the size of daggers. The larger pieces still sparked with the eldritch green discharge of prothean biotics. Shepard felt her blood run cold. The corpse that was once an Asari appeared to have been unarmed. Behind her, Nihlus made a strangled sound.
"Shepard, you didn't..."
"No," Shepard replied, hotly, "Javik."
Nihlus shook his head and leaned heavily against the bench. His head dropped into one hand. "The Prothean has gone too far this time. War is war, but cold-blooded murder? When did being the Avatar of Vengeance give him the right to take the lives of unarmed civilians? When did we give up the right to decide who lives, who dies, who gets to be saved." The black scaled Turian stood again, fire in his eyes, "The mission is too dire to divert our efforts to stop him now, but mark my words. Once this Reaper crisis is averted and Saren is in custody, Javik will face justice. Are we in agreement?" He looked from Garrus to Shepard, catching their gazes. Garrus nodded in immediate agreement. Shepard found her assent caught in her throat. She tried to imagine the battles ahead without the aid of Javik and his burning strength. The battles they had already survived. Would they have been able to triumph without him? Would Shepard have even survived her long fall into the dark back on Eden Prime? Still, Shepard's eyes slid to the body on the floor. Echoes of Torfan reverberated in her slack jaw. Shepard wasn't prepared to take that path again.
"Agreed," she said. It felt like a betrayal.
"Good. Then we press on."
"They're heading back your way, Spectre," the radio crackled to life. Captain Kirrahe's high pitched voice was tinged with exhaustion, underline in pain. "We're doing everything we can to shadow them, draw then back out, but something has enraged the Krogan. The Geth fight on, but the Clan Udun warriors are ignoring us even to their own detriment. Whatever you're doing, they don't like it."
"Javik hit their genophage curing lab," Nihlus said, his tone heavy, "Confirmed casualties are a couple of scientists and some kind of Krogan doctor. It's likely they had a silent alarm."
"It would seem our attempt at stealth is thoroughly defeated, our diversion spent. I'm bringing my forces in to close pursuit of the Krogan. I'll take as many off your back as I can, but you're likely in for some company."
"Your operatives aren't equipped for that; close pursuit will be dangerous."
"It is necessary," Kirrahe said firmly. The Salarian on the other side of the call drew in a resigned breath. "I have made my decision, and your Chief Williams agrees. May your enemies never hear you coming, Spectre."
"By the Spirits, give them hell." Nihlus responded. He closed the connection. "Well, this is it. I give the Krogan about ten minutes before they catch up to us. Now, if I was Saren, I'd be held up in there." He motioned towards the heavily built building up ahead. A heavy ring of concrete crowned with artificial waterfalls and surrounded in layered glass that refracted the light, it was a thing of beauty. But it would also be a nightmare to storm with a full platoon, and they had but three tired and wounded soldiers. "I feel we're coming to an endgame. The odds are long, the enemy numerous. But we have come far. Far further than anyone else could have hoped. But there is still a few more steps to take. A little further to go. And we will go there. Now, let's take that ground, storm those final meters. End this." The Spectre raised his clawed hand, pointing to the base of the curling ramp that coiled its way up the structure. "Follow me!"
And with that, the wounded Turian leapt from cover. And despite everything, despite the fatigue, the tangling web of doubts, the loss of Jenkins and Javik and Kaidan, despite the impossibility of their task and the likelihood of being gunned down before they crossed but half of the clearing between their position and the citadel of the enemy, despite all that, Shepard leapt out after him. She pumped her legs, driving forward with long, biotically fueled steps. Behind her, Garrus was hot on her heels. She marshalled the crackling energy of the eezo nodules imbedded along her spine, preparing to pull a deflecting cloak of force about herself should they come under fire.
But they did not.
The three ragged warriors pelted across the space utterly unmolested. No weapons fire rained down upon them all the way from the scant cover of the alley they had stepped from to the dubious protection of the base of the wall. Up close, the fortifications were even more formidable, the single file width, winding scaffolding overlooked by a great many firing ports and murder holes that would have made advancing under fire an exercise in suicide. But still, no fire came. Not even when the three turned the corner and started pounding up the ramp itself. Had Shepard not been flooded with enough adrenaline to set an elephant's heart quivering, she might have questioned the stroke of good luck, stopped their charge. But as it was, she was caught utterly in the pell-mell advance that carried them all the way up and into the nimbus of water mist that crowned the structure. And so, it was with heaving breaths that they burst through the open gates at the top of the fortress. The center of the structure was a thing of strange angles, concrete planes and raised blocks. Running water covered it all, pouring from pipes in the walls to rush in cascades under metal grating that formed a bridge to where a single figure stood, back to the open doors. They looked out upon the jungle arrayed below, a figure cut from a Romance painting. Wanderer over the Trees, crossed Shepard's mind unbidden. The figure turned.
Saren, in the flesh, was tall, and skeletally thin. His body was wrapped in an array of steely grey plates that flowed in such a way that it was hard to discern whether they were truly separate from him at all, or mere extensions of some grafted exoskeleton. And his eyes. His eyes burned with a piercing electric blue that spoke of deep and frosted depths far colder than the iciest nights on Noveria. They bored into Shepard, forming a near palpable conduit of the brittle, frozen hatred that lay beneath. Then the turned to meet Nihlus and the temperature of that glare approached the blistering intensity of absolute zero.
"Hello, Nihlus."
