Interloper Rewrite: Chapter 6

The Asari


I leaned back to admire my efforts. The wet, black paint glistened under the cargo bay lighting. I scratched at my cheek, doubtless leaving a tacky smudge behind. I dabbed at the edge of the decal carefully. It wouldn't do to disturb the fresh coat of white paint on the newly rewired Mako. I scraped the paintbrush into the small pot and gingerly placed it down. I almost tipped it into the grating as a voice sounded from close behind me.

"Nice Job, Deputy. Really captured how gross that thing's mouth is." Ashley stepped around me to squint at the Thresher Maw kill marker. "Not so tough slapped on the side of our tank, huh, buddy?"

"Well, I'd hope so," I replied with a chuckle. "I got a close enough look at it on my way in. Some would say too close."

"Tell me about it. I don't think the engineering crew has finished cursing your name yet." She stepped back. "You want ten cents of free advice; I'd recommend not running it into anything for a while the heat dies down. And maybe next time you're ordered to pull a daring rescue, pick up the squad getting rescued first."

I looked at my feet. My 'bold and daring rescue' had been far from well received outside of the small circle that Jenkins had invited me into. 'Glory Boy' and 'Crash' had joined my other nickname in the muttered conversations that flitted between tables in the mess hall and around the barracks. At least Garrus had been happy to hear the retelling, and even Wrex had managed a not entirely sarcastic compliment on the maneuver.

"Liddle, Suit up. We're about to insert into orbit around Therum," Commander Shepard ordered. I jumped, while Ashley spun on her heel to snap a smart salute. The Commander had already suited up herself, the yellow dust of Edolus still clung to the boots like a dusting of pollen. "Looks like the Geth are active in the AO, so we'll be combat dropping in the Mako."

"Understood." I snapped my own salute and scurried to shrug into the dark green plated armor. The buckles clicked closed with a snap. I pulled my rifle and sidearm from the small locker and rushed to join the gathering around Shepard. Ashley had disappeared, but Kaidan had taken her place over by the Mako. Garrus and Wrex had gathered as well, along with a quartet of marines I didn't recognize.

"Okay people, listen up." Shepard called the group to order. "The target dig site is inaccessible from the air, so we'll be dropping in a short distance away and driving in. Lieutenant Alenko, you'll take your fire team and secure our landing zone. I'll take the other team to find and extract Dr. T'Soni."

"And if she doesn't want to come?" Garrus asked from the back of the group.

"Then we'll be forced to capture her. Wrex, you think your biotics can match an Asari's?" Shepard looked over to the krogan mercenary.

"You can count on it," he replied. The massive alien grinned, his expression reminiscent of a hungry shark.

"Good, you and Garrus will accompany me to the digsite. You too, Private Felawa. Liddle, start up the Mako, everyone else, finish with your gear. Let's do this, people."


The blistering heat of Therum sent waves shimmering off the Mako's hull. Inside the cramped crew compartment, it remained temperate, though with Wrex stuffed into the tight space it was far from comfortable. I rolled out onto the scorched earth as marines in sealed hardsuits fanned out around me. Kaiden gave us the thumbs up, and we sped off towards the spot marked on the map.

"Looks like the ground's a little unstable in parts, keep us away from those edges." Shepard said from over my shoulder.

"Avoid the lakes of molten rock, got it." I shot back.

"Watch it, Deputy, one Joker's enough for this crew."

"Yes, Commander." The compartment grew quiet as we continued over the black landscape. The path was wider than in the game, but the searing lava made it hard to see where we were going. I spent half the time looking at the map, which incorporated the Normandy's aerial photography. A red blip appeared at the edge of the radar screen. "Uh, Commander, we've got company." More dots joined the first. Suddenly, the air was filled with a shrieking hum as a Geth dropship rocketed overhead.

"Garrus, get on the turret!" the Commander ordered as the first shots began pinging off of the kinetic barriers. "Keep us moving; don't let them draw a bead on us!"

I swung the Mako into a series of veering s-turns. My teeth ground against each other as I came dangerously close to the edge. Temperature alarms screamed as the Mako tottered, the tires dancing along the blackened gravel as it was sprayed out into the molten lake. I popped the clutch and slammed us into low gear. The Mako roared and bucked, kicking us back onto the path. My heart hammered in time to the gun as Garrus laid down fire on something up ahead. My eyes flicked up and off the road for a second to peek out of the forward periscope. My heart almost leapt out of my throat. Up ahead, a pair of four-legged metallic walkers were striding towards us. They towered above my charging IVF. The cyclopean armatures turned their dinosaur like heads in our direction. The bright flare of their single eyes grew in brightness. Garrus landed a line of tracers up the nearest walker's long curved neck and the long cannon thrummed. The streak of our mass accelerator round slammed into the assembly's head with a harsh flash and the sound of a thunderclap. The unreleased energies of the geth's weapon exploded, sending bright arc of plasma to flare and sizzle against the purple metal of its back.

The other walker got its shot off. The blue-purple light of the siege pulse rippled through the air. I jerked the steering column sharply, just far enough to dodge the projectile. The Mako shook from the near miss, the cabin lights dimming as the kinetic barriers fuzzed at the passing weapon's aroura. I slammed down on the accelerator as we came out of the swerve. We passed the second armature to the left, Garrus firing as we went. The walker turned, but too slowly. Garrus sent another cannon round through the geth's failing barriers and cracked it open at the point the legs met the carapace. The geth continued to attempt its turn, putting more strain on its compromised hindquarters. The cracks in its carapace widened until with a sudden shriek of metal it shattered. The legs splayed, suddenly disconnected from the walker they held up. The geth armature slewed to the ground like a broken toy.

The path narrowed as we entered the broken terrain of the Therum hills. The way up was dotted with geth foot troopers, but at least no more armatures lumbered into view.

"Keep pushing, Deputy, we're almost there!" Shepard ordered as I ran down one of the Geth troopers. The Mako rocketed down the path through steadily thickening resistance. The stutter of the machine gun became constant. "Turn here; the dig should be just past the next clearing!"

"You got it, Commander," I pulled us into a tight turn and jetted up a fork in the path through the jagged terrain. We burst into an opening in the valley, a rough crater that looked like it had been blown out of the surrounding rock by some kind of explosion or meteor impact. The difference was academic. The geth platforms that surrounded us provided a much more pressing and concrete concern. Bright blue rifle rounds flickered in the ash choked air, converging on the Mako. Bright lights lit up, warning us of an impending barrier failure. What was worse, the path out of the hostile caldera had been blocked by a rockslide. "Commander?"

"I see it, keep us moving." Shepard said, and disappeared back into the crew compartment. I weaved through the rocky arena, skidding over another geth. Garrus made the turret dance, stitching the advancing geth with tungsten. The geth returned fire, sending rockets back on dirty white contrails. They slammed into the ground around us, rocking the Mako on its frame. The last missile in the salvo landed, hitting the Mako in the back corner and spinning us around. We were forced into a flat spin. I swore as the engine snarled, and then died. The Mako had stalled. I jabbed at the engine starter, missing in my haste.

Behind me, Shepard swore. "Come on, looks like we're going to have to step outside. Wrex, take point, find us some cover. Go go go!" The Mako's hatch hissed open and the team slipped out onto the crunching gravel. In the cabin, I slammed my fist down on the starter. The engine roared back to life. It was just in time. A fresh salvo came in, splashing on the kinetic barriers. Garrus returned fire, sending the geth rocket troops scattering. I stomped on the gas, getting us back in the fight. I circled the crater again, dodging another of the striding armatures. The Mako's gun barked again, lancing up into the walker's belly. I looped us around as Garrus kept up the pressure. From their position behind fallen pillars of stone, Shepard's fireteam was reaping a rich harvest on the geth, whose attention seemed locked on the threat of the tank. Behind us, the final armature fell, exploding as it crashed into the ground. Enemy fire slackened and died, leaving us alone in a crater full of sparking synthetic corpses. I trundled up to Shepard's cover and slowed to a halt.

"So where do we go from here?" Garrus asked over the radio. The turian sat sprawled in the gunner's chair back in the crew compartment, breathing heavily. "We're not getting this thing through that rockfall."

"Too high to jump, too," I added.

"We'll have to proceed on foot," Shepard responded, "There. Looks like a crack in the rock. Liddle, hold the door open for us. If we need out in a hurry, I want the engines hot and ready to roll."

Shepard's little party slipped one after another through the cleft in the rockfall as I brought the Mako around to back up to the little passage. In the rear-view monitors, I saw the Commander give one look back. "And Liddle, no heroics!" She disappeared into the stone as her words were ripped away by the scorched wind.


Five. I added the dash to my open omni-tool. The dust settled around the impact site of the volcanic ejecta, merging with the ash choked air. That one was the closest yet. I checked the scopes. Clear, no hostiles. As it had been since Shepard and Co. had disappeared underground. I stifled a yawn and let myself sink back into the thinly padded seat of the Mako's gunner's bay. Tucked around the corner from the driver's position in the cramped troop bay, the remote-control uplinks and wide curved display was not comfortable, per se, but it was at least not quite as claustrophobic as the narrow cockpit. And it gave me access to the big gun up top. I idly shifted the control stick with a finger, causing matching whirs as the turret hurried to follow my commands. Besides that, and the low, thin whine of the idling engine, I was alone with the quiet. Just me, the engine, the wind outside, and the whoosh of another fiery rock launched into the air by a nearby active volcano. Six. My omni-tool bleeped to record the count.

I hadn't been given this much time alone with my thoughts since stepping aboard the Normandy, unless you counted the time I'd been passed out in the med bay. It was lonely. I drummed my fingers against the gunner's chair armrest to distract myself, but it proved insufficient to draw my mind away from other things.

What am I doing here? The question kept repeating. The answer was evasive. It didn't help that the question was multifaceted. What was I doing keeping the engine of a futuristic tank idling on a volcanic hell world while my new friends attempted to rescue a blue-skinned alien from killer robots? Until a week ago I had been attending lectures on traffic engineering and surveying techniques, hanging out in the concrete materials lab, mooning after the girl in my study group but failing to screw up the courage to ask her to the rec center for the weekly game night. What was I doing hanging out with a crew of galaxy saving badasses? I was just a student, not a soldier, no matter how many times I told the fiction. This was a dangerous place, filled with dangerous people. And Thresher Maws. I shivered slightly, even amongst the molten rivers of rock. What was I doing in the world of Mass Effect? Or a world so similar to it is defied coincidence. How did I get here? Was this even real, and if it wasn't, where was I, really? The questions cased themselves around and around my head, with no easy answer. And could answers even be found? I could hardly search 'Is this real life?' on the Normandy's extranet terminal. The only clue I really had was the buzzing sound that had heralded my slip onto Eden Prime. The same buzz that shrouded the Reaper, Sovereign. Something else was buzzing in the Mako's cockpit.

The Radio.

I jumped to alertness as a tremor ran through the tank. Therum. Recruit the asari scientist. The mission that ended with the entire dig site erupting into a new volcano in the planet's tectonically overeager surface. I scrambled from the gunner's seat and swarmed over the folded down driver's chair. A light blinked on the dash. I slapped at the radio's headset and pulled it down over my ears.

…stable, mining las… was all that squawked before it cut out. That meant Shepard had found Liara, and had triggered the explosion, but what had she been trying to tell me? I thumbed the radio over to the Normandy's channel, maybe they had better reception.

"Mako to Normandy, Joker, what's going on?" The seat flipped up and locked into place behind me. The seconds ticked away, each one ratcheting up the panic as Joker failed to answer.

"I'm on my way to pick you up, Mako, hold tight."

"What? But the party hasn't gotten back yet." I replied. My heart caught in my chest. Had something gone wrong? Was the entire group trapped down there?

"I know, Mako, orders are to pull you out and circle until we can make an extraction, Joker out." That left me alone in the rumbling Mako. The rush of the Normandy above was almost drowned by the rattling of the compartment. I gunned the engine, pulling out into the clearing.

"Joker, is there any way you can drop me closer? Maybe I can pick them up that way." I said hopefully.

"Negative, Mako, I put you down on that ground and you'll go right through it." The rumbling continued until I had driven all the way into the hold. The hatch hissed as I popped out into the ship. The new paint was blackened with soot and enemy fire. The ship rocked as we took a tight turn. Through the open doors I saw the collapsing ruins. My eyes gravitated to the tunnel that led down into the excavation. It was still closed.

Come on.

The hole in the ground opened up and four figures came pelting out. The Normandy swooped down towards the yawning cavern that was opening up all around them.

"Hold on, this is going to be close." Joker said over the intercom. The ground grew rapidly. The engines whined as the Normandy flared out, arresting its descent just above the four people. The ground team leapt up onto the open ramp. Marines rushed forward to pull them up, three of them having to grab a hold of the krogan. Beneath us, molten sulphur began to hiss and bubble up through cracks. The hatch closed and the Normandy rocketed back into the sky.


The comm room was quiet as we all filed in. Liara herself looked especially shaken. Garrus was nursing some minor burns and Wrex looked extremely satisfied. Shepard stood to start the meeting.

"Apart from the loss of the prothean ruin, I'd call this mission a resounding success. Dr. T'Soni has agreed to help us track down Saren and the Conduit."

"Commander, are you sure we can trust her?" Ashley asked, "I mean, her mother is working with the Geth."

"I am not my mother," Liara said forcefully, "in fact, Benezia and I haven't spoken in a long time." The archaeologist set her jaw firmly and speared Ashley with a mutinous look. "I do not know why she has apparently started working with this Saren, or his geth. It's... it's not like her." The defiance ebbed, replaced with a deep fatigue.

"And besides, if she was working with Saren, why would the Geth be attacking her?" I added.

"Liddle is right," Shepard said, "odds are, Saren wanted the doctor's knowledge of the protheans to help him find the Conduit, knowledge that T'Soni has offered to us."

"Yes, I am happy to help you in any way I can," Liara said, "I believe you mentioned that one of your crew received a message from a prothean beacon."

"Liddle, tell her what you saw, maybe she can make more sense of it." Shepard glanced over at me.

"I can do better than that, Commander. We Asari can directly link minds with other beings. Seeing the message first hand would prevent superior insight." Liara's eyes lit up at the prospect of taking a peek at the images in my head. The intensity of her stare as she looked eyes on me was slightly unnerving.

"Commander?" I asked.

"It's your brain, I'm not going to order you," the Commander offered, though the way she said it made it sound like she too was eager to get a second set of eyes on the chaotic flurry of nightmares buried in my skull.

Here goes nothing.

I stood face to face with the Asari. Up close, she looked nervous. With shy trepidation, she raised her hands until her fingertips brushed against my temples. Her skin was warm, though rough, like the skin of a stingray. There was the tingle I had come to associate with mass effect fields. Liara's pupils snapped to fill her eyes entirely. There was a feeling, a gentle push at the edge of my mind. It was as if warm water was being poured into my head. Then the images began to flow before my eyes. They were still just images, circuits, fear, fire, death.

The presence withdrew from my mind and I found myself leaning back against a strong pair of hands.

"You alright, Deputy?" Kaidan let me go as I got back on my own feet.

"I'm fine." I said dully. My head was pounding again. Liara herself was looking a little worse for wear.

"That was… intense," Liara said, "it's definitely a warning of some kind. Maybe information on their extinction event, I don't know, the images are so chaotic. I'm surprised you can stand it." She looked at me. The Commander spoke up.

"I want you both to report to Dr. Chakwas, everyone else is dismissed."

Liara and I walked out and made our way down to the medbay. Dr. Chakwas gave Liara a quick once over and declared her in perfect health, if a little dehydrated. She was less happy with my results. She ran tests and muttered things under her breath like, "unusual patterns" and "dangerous intrusions." I just let her do her work, lying back with a cool cloth over my forehead. The ceiling began to swim in and out of focus. At times I heard voices, the Commander, Liara, even Kaidan showed up to check on me. It was much later when the voices started making sense. Liara was talking to Shepard.

"I am sorry; I didn't know it would have this effect."

"Don't blame yourself, there's no way you could have known," Shepard said gently, "Dr. Chakwas says he'll recover, although I'm going to have him sit out the next few missions."

"Commander," I said.

"Hey Deputy, how you doing?" The two of them moved in closer. I couldn't see clearly enough to make out expressions, but her voice sounded much warmer than I was used to.

"I've been better, ma'am." I fumbled and tried to prop myself up.

"Woah there, rest for now, you can't lead us to the Conduit if your brain leaks out your ears," Shepard said. Liara looked horrified. "A joke, Dr. T'Soni, Liddle'll be fine."

"Where are we headed next?" I asked.

"Don't worry about it Deputy, you need to focus on getting well," Shepard said. That bugged me a little, but I was just so tired.