Voeld was cold. Rationally, Sara knew it would be cold, but it was another thing entirely to feel a cold so intense that the tips of her fingers began to tingle and burn. So cold the angara set heat lights along their supply routes so they wouldn't literally freeze to death.
"Glad you could join us," Cora said like Sara hadn't initially been one of the first to arrive. She didn't dignify that with a response and simply sat at the head of the table in the Meeting Room. Cora waited until both Sara and Jaal were seated comfortably before she continued. "I'd like to head out with Vetra and Peebee to track down the Periphona. I figure that as Pathfinder, you would be needed at Voeld's vault, unless the angara are adamant about hitting that facility, first."
"We are on Voeld to rescue the Moshae." Jaal spoke quietly, but any hint of his previous humor had drained from his face. "She's been a prisoner of the kett for too long, already."
"That does seem more time sensitive," Sara agreed. "But Evfra will make the final call when we get to the base."
"Why do I need to hunt down a ship with you?" Peebee's voice was loud enough to pop over the intercom. "I've been in every vault so far, I think that makes me the closest thing you have to an expert."
Cora unclasped her hands from behind her back and pressed her fingers along the edge of the table. "Was I wrong to assume you had a vested interest in finding the asari ark?"
"You were wrong." Peebee matched the other woman tone for tone vexingly well.
"Regardless," Cora insisted. "We need to start recognizing a chain of command on this ship. We need to have people who will follow orders."
"I have to be at the base and I have to be at the vault," Sara interrupted. "SAM is needed for both. If we go to the facility first, I'm sure you'll have more than enough time to help Cora before we reactivate the vault, right, Peebee?"
"Makes sense," Peebee chirped.
"Right. So Vetra, Peebee and I will locate the Periphona." Cora stood back up and tucked her hands behind her, again. "Ryder, you can handle that facility with Jaal and-"
"Drack," Sara was quick to volunteer.
That garnered a chuckle from the krogan.
"And me?" Liam demanded. "Am I supposed to just sit here and knit while my whole team is possibly getting killed?"
"You can accompany Ryder," Cora told him. "I can only imagine what kind of defenses a kett facility would have."
What she said made sense, even SAM agreed. Still, Sara felt compelled to add something to the decision. "Are you sure you'll be okay, just the three of you out there?" she asked. "The whole planet is swarming with kett. I'll have the Resistance to back me up."
Her second's face softened. Cora's round cheeks and spray of freckles across her nose made her appear younger than she was, and it occurred to Sara then, that she actually didn't know how old Cora Harper was. "I'm hoping for a stealth mission," Cora said. "With luck, you'll keep them so preoccupied, they won't even know we were there."
Outside, they were greeted with excited chatter as they approached the Resistance outpost. Inside the retrofitted cave was marginally warmer than the blustery storm that raged along the cliffs. In a normal world, Sara would still find it freezing, but it was a welcome change to the unforgiving numb of Voeld's surface. Every hair on her body seemingly stood erect, desperate to cling to any iota of heat and just stepping indoors fogged her helmet instantly before her suit could compensate.
There was an absurd thought to urinate just to momentarily warm her legs. SAM advised against it, because the moisture would quickly freeze and leave her with even more problems than before.
"Pathfinder Ryder!" An angara rushed up to her and clapped a hand on her shoulder. "Evfra told us of what you did on Havarl. We could certainly use your help once you're done with your mission."
"Yeah, sure."
"Commander Heckt has a shuttle waiting to take you to the rendezvous point." She gestured for Sara to follow. "Space is limited, because we need to transport our strike team with yours."
Jaal was adamant about coming and Sara's anxiety told her that she needed Drack to save her. Liam seemed to understand her line of thinking based on the way those full lips of his twisted as he turned away.
"I need you to stay here," she said as she combed her brain for something that would placate him. "With Cora gone, I know you'll be able to mobilize the Initiative if this op goes south."
There. Liam's grin was halfhearted, but his shoulders relaxed. "I guess I could start to network with our new allies, exchange information." If he was looking for a reaction by insinuating Sara would return to him surrounded by a gaggle of naked angarans, she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. A part of her hoped he'd do it, and then experience the full magnitude of Voeld's ice. For now, Liam looked content to sulk while he attended to his consolatory duties instead of starting a full blown argument in front of mixed company, so she felt no need to prod.
Is this what her father would do as a leader? Coddle, babysit and bullshit his way to pacification while relying on a machine in his head far more intelligent than he could ever hope to be to do all the heavy lifting? For every good thing Sara accomplished, it felt like she spent more time arguing and attempting to wrangle pyjacks.
She wouldn't think of the mess Liam could make unsupervised. She wouldn't think about the percentage likelihood of Cora and her team freezing to death even if they were successful in locating the Periphona. Sara was just going to follow Jaal onto the shuttle and hope there was a plan slightly more involved than everyone uses their shooty-shooters to go bang-bang.
The transport was cramped and left Sara wedged between the door and Drack's shoulders. Aside from her group and the pilot, there was just enough room for Commander Heckt and two others. She took it upon herself to start talking, if only to ignore how the metal panels of the tiny ship would groan and creak against the wintery squall.
"So..." Sara began. "No one has ever seen the inside of one of these places? Really?"
"None who lived to tell," Jaal replied. "Prisoners who go in are never seen again. They are, 'the disappeared'."
"Figure," Drack grunted and Sara was instantly thankful for how securely shut the transport's door was when she was practically nudged her from her seat as he shifted. "What about the slaves you've freed?"
"Sure, we've liberated kett work camps," Commander Heckt spoke. "But never these facilities. We lost so many fighters trying. The price was too high."
So they weren't particularly sparkling conversationists. As Heckt's words trailed off and were swallowed by the rattling of the door's sensors, Sara tried again.
"Moshae Sjefa," she said. "Is she just important to the Resistance, or to you, too?"
"Both," Jaal answered. "She's our greatest mind on the Remnant. I was her student."
"You studied the Remnant, too?" It made sense. Of course they would. This was their home. It suddenly became very obvious to Sara how egotistical it must have appeared to show up out of nowhere and to act as if she had all the answers to the vaults and tech the angara had years to research.
Jaal sounded amused, with a soft laugh nearly swallowed in the back of his throat. "A little," he said. "I was terrible. I quit. Or she threw me out. One of those. We're still very close."
"Close?"
"Yes."
That told her nothing. Not that it was any of Sara's business what kind of relationship Jaal had with the Moshae, but it would be smart to anticipate any reaction he might have if they weren't successful in rescuing her. If she wasn't there, if she was already dead, or the endless other possibilities that didn't end with happily ever after.
Her thoughts were cut short by the pilot. "We're here," he announced. "Try to be quick. This storm's getting worse, but I'll stay as long as I can."
The kett facility stood out brazenly atop a hill. Safe within a massive, electric, blue domed shield, the blocky, metal structure was untouched by the elements. It was time to see if SAM was as good as Sara claimed.
"Our intel says there's a system node to hack on an interface point near here somewhere," one of Commander Heckt's team supplied.
So, Sara was up. "Please don't embarrass me in front of our new friends," she muttered to SAM as she scanned the area with her omni tool. There was a faint, muted signal throughout, that spiked just a smidge stronger on the far side.
"Run angaran shield disable program." As SAM worked his magic, she turned to the two teams. "Do we even know what kind of force we can expect?"
"Not a clue," an angaran chirped, almost pleased by that prospect.
"Stay close," Sara said, because it sounded better than the string of expletives that immediately came to mind. "Once we're through the shield, Jaal, you take point. We'll look for Moshae Sjefa."
On SAM's signal, her attention was pulled to a small section of the electric dome. Barely large enough to squeeze Drack through, it could have easily missed as a blip in the sensors. If surveillance cameras had even picked it up in the first place. Sara pointed a hand at the small hole and everyone slipped through one by one.
Inside the dome, it was eerily quiet. The building wasn't a military structure and perhaps the kett had gotten bold and lazy with their impervious shielding. Commander Heckt set to work quickly with a gesture to him crew.
"My team on me," he ordered as he darted along the side of the building. His strike team immediately followed suit and they soon vanished from Sara's sight.
"SAM, by the time we're done here, I want to know everything about this place," she breathed. "Okay. Let's do this."
Since walking up directly and knocking on the door seemed like a bad idea, they looked for other options. Based on the comm chatter from Heckt's team, there were several massive exhaust vents that sounded promising. Sure enough, to the far left of what looked like the main entrance, there was a huge shute with soft clouds of smoke billowing out from its metal lipped rim.
There were no abnormal spikes in temperature. The smoke was mostly steamed H2O. There were worse entrances to be made than emerging from ducts in a foggy haze.
The vent blades were meant to withstand air only, so they crumpled beneath Drack's biotic enhanced grip as easily as paper. So far, they were looking good on the not-dead front. Heckt's frequency noted sparse security patrols, nothing invincible. It made her feel an excited flutter. Maybe they wouldn't have to get into a firefight. Maybe they'd rescue the Moshae and anyone else by slinking through the shadows along the hall, after all.
With everything silent, it was reminiscent of an abandoned hospital or a school after hours. Empty, but teeming with a strange, uncertain potential.
"A lot of old belongings," Heckt noted over the radio. "Our people were here, but I don't see anyone."
"Let's keep going," was the only thing Sara could think to say. Deeper and deeper, until it made sense. Hopefully, while being able to adhere to a straight and easy to exit path.
The closer they ventured toward the building's interior, she could hear something softly playing over the intercom. Like an audio book, or some kind of training.
"...you are the Archon's Chosen. Fortunate are we for Exaltation. Your true life begins now."
Cool, cool. Not creepy at all. "Who's the Archon?" Sara asked.
"The kett leader," Jaal replied, his lip pulled back in a sneer.
"And Exaltation?"
"I don't know," he said.
"You keep going slow and steady," Heckt decided. "Your AI has the best chance at overriding any controls. We'll keep your frequency on and offer support. Cause a distraction if you need it. Make some noise."
"Right," Sara agreed. "Only if we need it. No unnecessary risks."
There were plenty of necessary ones already that could end disastrously. Like hacking into a control panel to open yet another door. Once inside the next room, the door shut and immediately created a seal. She shot a questioning look to Jaal and Drack as they were bathed in lights and sensors.
"A decontamination chamber, maybe?" Sara concluded. Why, was anyone's guess.
Jaal had turned his scowl to the massive picture window covered in fog. She walked up and wiped the window clear with an open palm.
"What? What is this?" he murmured.
Beyond the window, a room away stood a line of angara. They huddled shoulder to shoulder before a single kett at a dais. This kett looked different. Still boney, still ugly, but cloaked in red cloth, instead of the typical body armor.
"Is that the Archon?" she asked.
"No," Jaal said. "But I do not like this."
"Fortunate welcome," the kett greeted its angaran audience. "Step forward."
They wore no shackles, there were no guards. In unison, the group of angara marched toward the kett in red.
"I am humbled before you," it continued, "you who are the Chosen. Chosen by the Archon. Chosen to be Exalted."
"Chosen to be Exalted!"
Sara said what everyone was thinking. "What the hell?"
"Are you sure they're prisoners, here?" Drack muttered.
"Yes!" Jaal insisted. "They are not acting like themselves- they would not do this!"
The angara flooded past the kett and disappeared into individual stasis pods along the back wall.
"Mind control?" Sara shrugged.
"I'm going to blow the window," Drack decided. He hefted up the butt of his rifle.
Why not? She peered over at Jaal who was still frozen in horror at what he was watching. "The Moshae?" Sara asked.
"Not among them," he replied.
Drack went to work, beating his rifle against the pane of glass. When that didn't work, he aimed and fired, the resultant ricochet nearly shaving the tip of Sara's nose. She threw her arms defensively around her head approximately 1.43 seconds too late to be useful.
It was then, SAM informed them that the glass was impenetrable by traditional weaponry and they would just have to wait until the decontamination protocol had completed. But all of their banging and shooting had called attention to their location. All Sara could do was wave sheepishly as the kett gestured at them and alarms sounded.
"Hey, Commander Heckt?" she spoke into her comm. "You have that distraction worked out, yet?"
The radio popped with his chuckle. "I thought you'd never ask."
Her request was met with a loud crashing boom. Chunks of mortar and twisted steel burst through the room before them in a fiery explosion. The kett's look of anger turned to shock and it abruptly changed direction, from marching toward Sara to scrambling through a backdoor, deeper into the compound. And with that, Sara, Drack and Jaal were thoroughly decontaminated and their door slid open with a hiss.
Jaal immediately dashed toward a pod and searched for a release switch. "We need to help them!" he insisted.
"Jaal..?"
Heckt and his crew emerged from the hole they'd made in the wall and began to scan the pods. "We'll secure the area," he said. "You push forward."
Jaal didn't move from the pod. "Heckt?"
"That's their job, now." Sara walked over to him and clapped a hand to his shoulder. "Come on, let's go find the Moshae."
They followed the path toward the back room the kett had fled into. It was long gone by the time they got there, but there were more pods, all filled with angara. They lined the walls and disappeared high up into the arching ceiling. How many were in there? A quick scan of the pod directly in front of her told her it was a male in his thirties. There was no way they could scan every one to locate a single female angara over one hundred years old.
"Console... console..." Sara hopped to the center dais in the room. She pretended to ignore the massive, garish statue of a kett that loomed behind her. "Come on SAM, can you override this? Drack? Jaal? Can you start cracking open pods?"
"They were in a trance," Jaal said. "Will it hurt them?"
"Don't know..." Sara sighed. Real encouraging, she knew. She made a note to SAM that if they survived this, she would not take up a career in motivational speaking.
Drack attempted to beat a pod open, but it appeared mostly to be pageantry on his part with no clearly visible clasp. Jaal hovered in obvious indecision, his distress palpable. Meanwhile, SAM continued to comb through the data provided in alien script at breakneck speed.
"A pod was just pulled moments ago," Sara shared. "Let me guess: female? Roughly over the age of one hundred? SAM, can you free these people? We've got to move."
There was a chorus of hissed, decompressed air as pods opened. The angara flopped, listlessly, but even as they began to stir, none moved for the exit. What a mess. "We have to move," she repeated. "Heckt will handle this."
That kett already had a headstart and from what she gathered at the console, the Moshae was just as valuable to the kett as she was to them. There was a landing pad at the back of the facility and that seemed to be where everyone was rushing and gathering. A good place for all of their security to hold out and delay while important personnel escaped.
SAM was running numbers. There were times when it made Sara feel like the smartest person in the galaxy, like she could somehow transcend all the childish, crunchy, day to day. Right now, Sara really wished that SAM would shut the fuck up.
"Disable locks and try to find a straight path," she growled at the AI as they hopped a lift that took them to the roof.
Shoulder to shoulder and crammed into a metal box with Jaal and Drack was surreal. She felt like they should have been running, fighting or otherwise making progress. Instead, they stood there and let the elevator raise them where they needed as they counted the seconds ticking away. A part of her wished there had been some kind of banal muzak playing as they twiddled their thumbs.
A light flickered green and the door slid open to a gust of frosty air. Outside, were a handful of kett and a scant three angara. They ignored Sara as she, Drack and Jaal hurried from the elevator. They didn't even flinch when Drack picked a few off with his rifle.
Instead, the angara stepped toward the kett and stood, unmoving, while the kett jammed two enormous syringes directly into the angara's exposed chest. The remaining kett began to scramble for cover as Jaal and Drack continued shoot at them.
The angara just stood there, oblivious to the chaos surrounding it. His brethren were limp and just as disaffected, if saved from whatever was in those syringes thanks to Drack's quick response. Jaal was racing to the angara and it occurred to Sara that it was a stupid move. The two floppy angara and their drugged friend, who was starting to twitch uncontrollably, reminded her of the kind of bait left by a sniper.
Not that Jaal would have slowed even if she had managed to call out to him. So, he ran out into the open space of the roof while Drack provided cover fire. Sara ducked behind a smokestack.
The angara in question continued to convulse, his mouth flapping open as his eyes glazed over. Whatever was draining from those vials poured into him and darkened his skin from blue to gray to black. His limbs jerked out like his bones were forcing their way to the surface and the halo of flesh around his skull visibly deflated and exposed stringy veins as if all the moisture had been sucked from him in an instant. SAM had no answers, only possibilities. Maybe it was poison, maybe they had turned him into a living bomb, maybe they were reducing him to his chemical components to utilize as a resource, maybe...
Maybe they were turning him into a fucking kett.
Jaal stared at the stranger in front of him. Somehow, over the length of a few paces, the angara he had gripped by the shoulders had transformed into the enemy. When Jaal didn't attack, the newly born kett didn't grant him the same hesitation.
"You have to protect him!" Jaal screamed as the kett threw him to the ground. "Save him!"
Later, Sara would wish she had the sense to do something. Anything besides just stand there gaping at the scene before her. Jaal laying on the ground dazed while the former angara beat on his chest and wrestled for his rifle. At least Drack did the right thing and put a quick end to it. The krogan aimed his rifle and fired two shots, just to be sure.
"I said save him!" Jaal roared as he came up swinging at Drack.
"I'm thinking I did," Drack replied.
Sara crept out from her cover. "Jaal..?"
"I didn't know," his voice cracked as he put a freshly charged clip into his rifle. "I didn't know!"
"Drack," Sara called. "Cover him!"
"On it," the krogan barked.
SAM wanted to know if this was typical. The short answer was no. No it was not. How did she go about explaining the emotional reaction to realizing that a kett's blue eyes were actually an angaran's blue eyes? That the missing people they were sent to save were now trying to kill them? That the very things that made the angara, angara, could be undone in moments courtesy of two large syringes?
Jaal did it for her.
He rushed the landing pad, tears falling alongside obscenities, all mingled with blood and dirt as he fired round after round. His direction was knife sharp, aimed at the red-cloaked kett on the landing pad who was frantically trying to direct a pod toward a shuttle. "How many?" Jaal raged. "How many have I killed? How many are dead because I didn't know?"
The kett's only response to that was feverish pounding on the the shuttle's door.
"SAM, is there an off switch to this horror show?" Sara demanded.
The AI had the audacity to ask for specifics. Off switch for the overhead shield? Off switch for the shuttle controls or off switch for the genetic modification unleashed on the angara?
"All? Any? Yes. Give me something to work with!"
And SAM did. Just like that, the front of the pod opened and dumped out an angaran woman. The Moshae seemed different than the others. Not the large baubles twisted into braids that adorned her neck, but the awareness in her eyes. She fell, exhausted. Not in a trance, not controlled. Moshae Sjefa struggled to push herself to her feet and faltered.
The kett in red apparently viewed risking death to retrieve the Moshae preferable to whatever fate would befall it if it were to return to the Archon empty handed. With a final, frustrated punch against the shuttle console, it ate several of Jaal's bullets as it raced over to the Moshae.
"You will not take it!" the kett exclaimed despite the numerous wounds that wracked its body. It pawed at Moshae Sjefa in an attempt to put itself between her and Jaal. "It is meant for the Archon himself."
"No one has ever returned from behind kett walls," the Moshae murmured, a hand pressed against her brow line.
Sara darted around the kett and extended a hand. "Yeah? Well, I don't know the rules, yet."
Jaal was, understandably, not in the mood for humor. "Villain!" He kicked the bleeding kett away from the Moshae and left it writhing and gasping for air on the concrete. "You snatch us, defile us, set us against each other- how many?"
"Arrogant simpletons." It crawled away from his boot. "This is a gift! Who are you to deny it? These Chosen join with us to become great beyond your ability to understand. Like them, I was once wretched and the exalted DNA of our great Archon entwines with mine. I stand on the shoulders of his greatness. As they do. As one day you will."
Jaal raised his rifle at the kett and it flinched. He held the rifle there, aimed at the creature and just as Sara had convinced herself that he was going to pull the trigger, Jaal dropped the it in favor of sobbing. What a mess.
Moshae Sjefa finally took Sara's hand and used it to stand. She walked over to Jaal and embraced him.
"We can't stay here," Drack muttered.
"Yup," Sara breathed in agreement.
"They are us," was the only clear phrase she could hear Jaal repeat over and over between his anguished cries. "They are us."
Sara was relieved they had located the Moshae intact. Mission aside, she knew she would have been too emotionally stunted to handle this all by herself. Jaal definitely needed more than an annoying shoulder pat and an uttered, "hey, buddy..." She never would have anticipated tears in the middle of a shootout, much less any of the farther reaching repercussions. Moshae Sjefa knew Jaal and could comfort him in ways that Sara couldn't even begin to try.
"You will all be exalted." And then there was still the matter of that asshole.
"Maybe so," Sara replied. "But not today." She brought her comm to her mouth. "Heckt, are you ready for a rendezvous?"
"This place must be destroyed," the Moshae decided.
"No!" Well, that cut through the kett's sermon of bullshit.
"There were hundreds and hundreds of pods filled," Sara murmured.
"Yeah, but realistically, could we open them all before reinforcements arrive anyhow?" Drack asked.
"I will see this place razed to the ground," Sjefa insisted. "Even if that means my own life. It can not remain standing."
That broke through Jaal's grief. He lifted his head from her chest and stared at her. "Our people are here. Scientists, engineers... You would knowingly sacrifice them?"
"Yes." She didn't hesitate, didn't even blink.
"No." The kett tried to stand and slipped on its own blood staining the concrete. "Don't. I will free all the Chosen, only leave this holy place."
"We can destroy it later," Jaal sounded like he was pleading.
"And if we don't?" Sjefa demanded of him. "I will not leave these pods intact so they can be filled again!"
SAM agreed. And pointed to numerous structures and power sources that could be overloaded to create explosions.
The longer they stayed there, the higher the likelihood of kett reinforcements. Sara never signed up for this. Not for ground wars, not for negotiations, certainly not for choosing to murder hundreds in an instant. Fuck.
"You'll free them if we don't blow this place?" Sara said. "All of them?"
The kett dragged itself to the console by the shuttle, leaving behind it a dark trail of viscera on the ground. It punched in some commands and true to its word, pods began to open as they were disabled. "Now go."
And they did go. Right after Drack, without provocation, kindly executed the kett for its assistance.
"She deserved far worse," Sjefa said, though Sara couldn't tell if it was meant to be an assurance or condemnation. All she knew was that she felt sick.