Hope Y'all enjoy the chapter. Shout out to Prime Cronos and SAK-96 for the engaging conversations. Helps make the story better and that's what I want. To bring the best stroy possible to y'all.
POV: Aedon Torchbearer)
We had been in The Kepler Verge for closing in on a week now. We were following some leads here and there but there was nothing clear cut for us to follow. I could have just told them to go to Ontarom and get this over with but that would raise a lot of questions. Too many questions in the long run.
Shepards Spectre status made just about everything easier for us for there was nothing quite solid for us to do anything with. The first thing we had done was to check all the previous scientists place of death. Of the three two were killed in their homes but their families were left alone. This was a bit confusing to Garrus who had thought that this was a pure revenge quest. People on those usually killed everyone having to do with the target.
That being said it would've made this whole investigation a bit harder and easier at the same time. Harder because we wouldn't have a rough description of the attack and we wouldn't have known that they weren't alone. A group of mercs were apparently helping them on their killing spree. Now we had at least somewhat solid intel and all security checkpoints and cameras in the Kepler Verge had a rough look of Toombs and the Mercs with him.
Now, if Toombs had just killed everyone it would've made some of this easier. Sounds weird that I'd rather have the families die I know but the second family said the wrong thing. When we asked them about the perp (Toombs) they said he was raving about some Black Ops group. Shepard asked them to elaborate and they said that the perp called them Cerberus. Shepard wasn't good after that.
It set him off for obvious reasons. No longer rational in his investigation, everyone was a suspect and everyone was now on his suspect list. Not to mention that every corner we went around now held enemies.
Wrex and I shared looks after a moment when Shepard shoved a lab tech at the third body into a wall and put a gun against his head. I had to pull the gun out of Shepards hand and away from the scared techy. We had a quick and extremely heated talk afterwards in which he relented and went back to the ship. He wasn't happy about it but knew that he was at least partially compromised. Gave operational command of the investigation to Garrus after that.
Garrus wasn't much better with the clear to do just about anything he wanted from Shepard but he wasn't doing anything crazy. Just some illegal shakedowns and interrogations in a back alley. All of which he only ever brought myself and Wrex along for, a smart move on his part.
All things considered it did actually pay dividends for us in the end. One of those back alley interrogations ended up being on one of the Mercs who had been injured. Strapped the guy down in his own hospital bed and went to town on him. He broke after one punch from Wrex and told us everything except for the perp's name. Guy said he didn't even know it himself and they were being paid through what they found at the houses and lab. Checking the inventory for what they had stolen they were probably being overpaid for the job. The total estimated cost was well over several million.
After that interrogation we had the system on where it was going to happen but nothing beyond that. That's more than we had before though and now we were currently sitting in the middle of the Newton System waiting and listening. Tali had hacked all outgoing communications from the system and was currently just sitting and listening to them all waiting for the right one. Garrus was going over the investigation notes to try and find a motive but wasn't having much luck. Shepard was waiting in his room and last I checked methodically cleaning his armor.
As for the rest of us we were just waiting. Doing normal chores and everything else that would be expected of a normal soldier on a ship.
Kaiden was going over paperwork that Shepard had passed onto him plus his own. Wrex, well Wrex wasn't doing anything besides sitting in his corner and people watching. Liara was in her room doing research on the Protheans and anything indicating the Reapers. Ashley and myself were sitting at the desk near the lockers cleaning all the guns. I do literally mean, all the guns; except for Wrex's.
All the guns were in good condition as most of us were damn near religious about taking care of them. The ones in the worst state were Liara's and Tali's. Both because they were so often busy with other things and didn't really have time to clean their weapons. Acceptable for what they do.
Finishing that up I went to the mess and grabbed a Taco MRE. As usual, the Taco MRE slapped and I even got jalapeno cheese with my crackers. It was a very good meal. One that was too good to be left alone and just had to be interrupted. I was just about halfway through the meal when the interruption came over the intercom.
"All ground team members to the conference room immediately," I just sighed looked at my meal, realized there already weren't many Taco MRE's left and said fuck it. I made myself a walking taco out of 1 and a half tacos, a bunch of crackers, jalapeno cheese, pop tarts and hot sauce. Honestly, it wasn't half bad.
Walking into the conference room with said Walking Taco I stood in the corner as the others began to file in. Shepard and Tali were the first ones with myself being second. After that it was Liara, Kaiden, Garrus, Ashley and Wrex in that order. Once everyone was in and ready Tali took the floor.
"I intercepted a distress call from Ontarom about ten minutes ago," she clicked a button from the clicker in her hands and the message played.
"Please! Anyone. They're here, the killers are he-" it was just static after that. Cliche.
"Joker's already got us headed that way," Shepard started taking the floor. "We don't know their numbers or their equipment but from the info Garrus has gotten then we can assume they'll be decently equipped and trained. Everyone's going down on this, get ready. Drop in 15, dismissed."
All of us got up and hurried to our lockers. Got all of our armor on, Predator armor for me, and our weapons ready. It didn't take long for us to be ready and by the time everyone was we still had about 7 or 8 minutes before we got to the drop point. None of us bothered to wait for the signal to get in the Mako either and we were already all piled in. Usual positions inside as well.
While we waited I could see Shepard tapping the dash in anticipation from the back. I would have to look out for him, whether he liked it or not. He couldn't just go in there and kill that man, even though I wanted him too. We, the galaxy, needed this man to be better. To be the best of us. That was… no is our only hope.
Before I could contemplate it any more the bay doors opened and Shepard shot us out of the back immediately. The free fall this time around was unnaturally quiet as no one made a sound and collectively everyone's gazes drifted to Shepard. Except for mine.
As we shot out the back the coins in my pocket started heating up, uncomfortably so. Grabbing them out of my pocket I held them in my hand and just stared at them. There were no emotions coming off them like before but they burned with meaning. That this moment we were coming to was important, for the future of all of us. When I thought that they subsided in strength but still burned. Putting them away I steeled myself.
Once we landed we were already on the move. No slowing down or stopping to check the area, we were hauling ass to the lab where the signal came. It must've been about 3 or 4 clicks from where we landed but no one told Shepard that. We made it to the lab in about 5 minutes, it would normally take us about 10 minutes to go that far.
Not to mention when we pulled up to the lab. Shepard Tokyo drifted in front of it and stopped the car so the back was facing the door. Wrex and I came out first and stacked up on the door right away. The others followed suit with Shepard behind me.
He tapped me on the shoulder once everyone was ready and I nodded to Wrex. Nodding back to me I hacked the door open and he went in.
Going in Wrex went left while I went right and I came face to face with a Turian mercenary. Reacting on instinct I took my left hand off my gun and slapped him across the face before he could get his hands up. With the slap rattling him he stumbled back a foot or two but that's all I needed. Bringing my gun up I held down the trigger until his shields broke and his head went pop. Didn't take many shots, especially at a distance of only a few feet and my accuracy.
That pretty much told everyone that we were here and not taking prisoners. Swiveling my aim to the more open area of the lab I started firing at anyone I could to try and suppress them so I could get to cover. It didn't really work at first being very outnumbered by myself but once everyone got through the door they started helping to suppress them. That allowed me, along with everyone else, to get to cover easily.
As Shepard moved into my cover he tapped my shoulder and pointed to the right, the enemy's flank. Nodding my head I popped back up from my cover and fired off a few shots before going back down. I did this a few more times as I waited for Shepard to give me the signal to move.
It was after the fourth time I stood up and fired that Shepard tapped me on the shoulder. Feeling the tap I bolted for the cover on their flank and slid in behind the cover. Going into a popup slide I checked the corner and saw a Turian and Krogan closest to me. Grabbing a grenade off my belt I peaked again and saw they hadn't moved at all.
Coming out of the cover fully I hit them with a double Overload, overheating my omni-tool but completely draining their shields. Only once that had happened did I throw the grenade to devastating effect. The Turian was ripped to shreds and the Krogan was flung farther away from me.
I could tell he wasn't out of the fight so I grabbed another grenade and flung it at him. The grenade landed on his right and blew his arm and part of his side off. I don't know if he was dead because he was a Krogan but for now he was definitely out of the fight. Not being able to confirm the kill though as my position had been reveal and the Mercs on this side were now pushing me.
Seeing my only chance, being cut off, was not to fall back but attack. I did so. Diving forward to another set of crates where I saw a merc peek out from I grabbed my knife spun around the corner and slammed my knife into their neck. The Asari never even had the chance to gasp before they were in the process of bleeding out. All they could do was grab onto their neck and desperately hope help came. I didn't finish her off though, she was out of the fight.
My omni-tool had finally cooled down at that point and I readied a sabotage. As a Turian came around the corner gun raised it got hit with a sabotage and his gun was completely useless after the first shot. He wasn't happy but didn't live long enough for it to matter. Four shots directly to his face and he was out. Okay, now was definitely the time to bug the fuck out and regroup.
I was in the process of doing when a grenade landed somewhere behind me and went off. My world began spinning like a top as I was flung across the room slamming into a pillar; thank god for shields otherwise I would definitely be dead. Staring at the ceiling as the world slowly came into focus I was grabbed by the collar and pulled behind cover.
Reacting as quickly as my groggy body let me, I raised my weapon only to stop when I realized I had no weapon and realized who was in front of me. Garrus was kneeling in front of me and checking me over, as he did so the world finally stopped spinning and my senses were coming back. Ringing in was still there though. After a couple seconds of checking me over he looked at me and gave me a thumbs up, I returned it and got up.
Kneeling behind cover Ashley tossed me my weapon, apparently it had flown to her. With my weapon in hand I hit my pulse to get some info. We were still facing about 10 more mercs and they were starting to flank us. Seeing this over his HUD Shepard started barking out orders over the radio. Garrus and Kaiden went left, Ash and Wrex went right, everyone else stayed put.
Wrex and Ashley were the first to meet the attacks and from the sounds they didn't last long. Kaiden and Garrus killed their flankers next with a simple singularity and then a carnage round. As for the rest they came right at us and fell right into Liara's singularity. Tali, Shepard, and myself opened up on them.
As I was shooting my shoulder and ribs felt like they were being hammered by a jack hammer and it hurt bad. Ribs were definitely broken and my shoulder was damaged for sure. Dr. Chakwas was not going to be happy with me.
Switching shoulders to my left and continuing to fire didn't help much better but it was enough. At least it told me it was just my right shoulder and that ribs on both sides were screwy. At least everyone else was here to support me.
The final group of mercs, about 5 in total, threw down their arms and held up their hands. Walking into the open they stood there with their hands up and waited to be arrested. Shepard ordered Garrus to zip tie them all as we covered him and that's exactly what we did. Then we left Kaiden along with Garrus and Wrex to keep them in check. Kaiden was to be the medic and treat any surviving wounded he found and to call for a medic and the Alliance.
Leaving them behind the rest of us went to the door to the next room. Opening it we all rushed in only to stop dead in our tracks as we saw a scientist behind held at gunpoint by the perp. Who immediately got introduced to us, the others not me, by Shepard.
"Toombs?!" Toombs, who had been staring a whole into the scientist, blinked and then looked at Shepard.
"Shepard… I thought you died on Akuze?"
"I thought I was the only one to make it outta there."
"You were," there was bitterness in his voice and for the briefest of moments you could see the horror that he had gone through at the hands of Cerberus.
"What… What happened to you man?" Shepard stepped forward towards Toombs reaching out with his hands. Toombs jumped back wild eyed before refocusing again.
"They did," he gestured with his gun towards the scientist. "Cerberus. They set us up Shepard!" I could see Shepards whole demeanor change from behind him as he slowly turned around and glared at the scientist with fury emanating from him.
"What happened?" he asked as he continued to bore a whole into the scientist with only his eyes.
"They set those Maws on us! On the colony! They wanted to see what would happen and how the acid would act… They… They were so excited when they found me Shepard. So excited to see how the acid would work on a live subject. They kept me locked up for years. Years! Experimenting on me and making me relive that night. Every. Single. One of them deserves to die," the venom and brokenness in his voice was heartbreaking. It truly hurt to see someone so broken, and for no other reason than experimentation made it worse.
"How long?"
"Years… I don't know. I only escaped less than a year ago," the fury in Shepard exploded then.
"8 FUCKING YEARS!" he roared at the scientist. "8 years you kept him locked up to experiment and torture him! You sick fucks!"
He raised his gun at the scientist with his finger on the trigger. This was the moment where it would make or break Shepard and my coins were damn near burning a whole in my pocket. Stepping forward, against damn near everything I stood for I made to stop him. Never got the chance.
"Shepard!" of all people of course it was Tali that moved. She jumped in front of Shepard, the barrel of his gun against her mask. She was unmoving though and stared into his wild eyes.
"Shepard. Stop. You have to be better; we have to be better. We can't just kill whoever we want."
"You know what he's done Tali. We all heard it," he gestured to all of us. "We can't just let this man walk. We can't"
"He won't! But we can't just kill him as we'd be no better than the criminals we've stopped. We must be better, we have to be."
"Nothing will happen to him if he lives!" Toombs growled. "Get out of the way, suit rat," Tali never flinched at being called that.
"Shepard. Please, be the man we chose to follow. Not a man of vengeance," again Tali never moved and just stood there.
"Sir. Listen to her," I finally got my voice. "Think about it. He dies here; he doesn't live through anything himself, a quick death is not one he deserves."
"And then what. He gets sent to jail and nothing happens to him there? I know he'll be out quick, that's how Cerberus works," Toombs stated standing next to Shepard. "Kill him sir. For Akuze, for everyone."
Shepard stood there with his gun still out and frozen. I could see a myriad of emotions going through his face and body. He was torn between doing everything his body was telling him to do and being the man we need. The man he knew he could be. That we knew he could be.
"Step aside Tali," shit.
"Shepard," I could hear the sadness in her and I was too.
"Move Tali," he stated again and she just hung her head. I walked forward and gently pulled her back.
"What's your name?" he asked the scientist gun still trained on him.
"Gran Mills," the scientist sputtered out.
"Gran Mills. You will die a horrible death and you will be alone but it won't be by me. You will die in a cell in the deepest, darkest corner we can find for you. There will be no trial but you will suffer and be alone until you finally die."
I breathed out a sigh of relief at that, as did Tali, and then Shepard cold clocked the scientist. Splaying him across the ground unconscious. There was total silence in the room.
"Shepard," Toombs got out with a shaky breath as he looked down at the scientist. "Does the screaming ever stop?" again total silence as we looked down at the scientist.
"It does Toombs. But you need help, let us help you."
Shepard reached out with his hand towards Toombs. I could see Toombs' hand with the gun flinch, I could see the contemplation in his eyes too. To take the easy way out or become better. His grip then tightened on the pistol and I made ready to try and shoot it out of his hands but he stopped and released the gun. Grabbing Shepard he began to sob against him, eventually falling to the ground as he continued to sob.
All of us just stared. Unable to do anything we just stared at the two as Toombs continued to sob and Shepard held him as closely as possible trying to console the man. A brother he had thought lost.
Not long after Toombs had stopped crying Shepard called Joker for the fifth fleet to come and pick up Toombs. The Police had, by that point, already taken the rest of the mercenaries into custody. They weren't exactly happy with Shepard stopping them from getting Toombs but once they found out he was a Spectre they backed off.
I would find out that the Asari I stabbed in the neck had survived long enough for the medics to get to her. I was surprised. Kaiden had apparently done enough to get her to live that long and according to the medics she'll survive. Nasty scar but she'll survive.
All the others were surprised that the scientist was still breathing. Wrex gave me a look as he found out but I just nodded to Tali. She deserved more credit than myself and Wrex seemed to agree. When he saw me nod to her he huffed and nodded back, the slightest hint of a smile on his face. Garrus wanted the man dead but relented when he saw Shepard and Toombs.
As it was we had to wait for a bit for the fifth fleet to get here. Almost two hours. When they finally did get here they gently took Toombs along with them; their admiral had been informed of the situation. As for Mills he was chained up and forced at gunpoint onto the ship.
Before we left I did a little looting and found a rather nice bottle of liquor. I took it with me on the Mako and all the way to the Normandy. I dropped it off at my locker before going to Dr. Chakwas on Shepard's order.
As predicted she wasn't happy when she saw the injuries. Four broken ribs, 8 fractured and cartilage damage in the shoulder. A healthy dose of medi-gel and time off would do the trick, she said. I'd be sidelined for 3 days as long as I didn't do anything stupid so it was fine with me. He then released me after giving me some excellent painkillers and injected medi-gel into my shoulder.
I grabbed a bucket on my way out. She gave me a weird look as I did so but I told her she'd get it back. She shrugged at that and just dismissed me without a second thought.
Leaving with said bucket I grabbed two cups from the mess. First going to the lockers I grabbed the liquor and then went to Shepard's room. Knocking on the door I waited for a few seconds before Shepard flung it open. He didn't look like he wanted to do anything at the moment but I didn't care.
Pushing past the taller man I walked to his bed and sat down. Putting the bucket on the ground in front of me I patted the spot next to me. He walked over to sit in the spot without complaint. Handing him his cup, already with liquor in it, he took it and held it in his hand.
"To the fallen," I toasted, holding out my cup.
"To the fallen," and then without having to tell him at all we both poured our glasses into the bucket.
"Now, shitfaced in silence or talk?" He contemplated it for a few seconds.
"Silence."
And so we proceeded to drink the whole bottle together in total silence. You know in the games they say that he has amazing tolerance, they weren't fucking around. That or he was just amazing at hiding it. My pride said it had to be the latter, he drank me under the table with no problem. I am a lightweight but still, it was annoying.
At least I didn't blackout until after we finished the bottle.
*POV: Ceelo'Nos
It's been about a week of around the clock 'torture' and these Cerberus fellows have absolutely nothing to show for it. With my suit insulated well the electricity hurts but does no overall damage to the suit and leaves me fine and dandy. Other than that they had really basic torture methods. Like keeping me up the entire time and playing the same song over and over again. The latter didn't work at all, external sound dampeners took care of it.
I gotta say, Cerberus is shoddy at torture. I expected them to at least have an idea of what to do but this is just pathetic. Though, it's probably because I'm Quarian and they don't want me getting an infection. Still, there's A LOT of other ways to torture a Quarian. You just had to be creative about it and Cerberus obviously wasn't creative.
They were getting frustrated with me too. Between me not breaking in even the slightest sense and the sassy spanish they were getting mad. Well, some of them, the milder ones, had started to find it a little funny. Miranda on the other hand just kept getting more and more incensed.
That being said today I may have overstepped and looking at Miranda right now she looked about ready to kill me and damn be the consequences. I held my hands at the side with my left near the button. With everyone else gone I had a decent shot of killing her and getting away but I didn't want to risk it yet.
"Why?" she growled out at my question. I just repeated the question.
"Why do you have such a hard on for the kid?" She did not like that question. Wreathed in blue light she just stared at me with angry eyes for a second before it was gone.
"My boss does."
"Timmy. Why?"
"That is none of your concern as you don't know him as you said."
"Fair. But when a supremacist organization takes interest in a person. All parties should have an idea as to why," I could see the little twinkle in her eyes at the logic. It seemed she liked to debate, at least partially.
"Cerberus is only for Humanities interest. So we aren't put on the backburner, not that we become superior," okay that's BS but it seemed she at least believed it.
"It's admirable you believe that. Convictions will only get you so far though."
She went to respond to that but stopped as her omni-tool pinged. Seeing this as a possible opportunity I pressed the button twice and my mask booted up. With it on limited power mode I was only able to do exactly what I wanted. I put an untraceable pseudo virus on her omni-tool as she answered the call.
The virus wasn't debilitating or anything crazy but it was ingenious. It would piggy back on her omnitool until she got 1000km away from me. After that it would use her omni-tool to ping itself to the nearest message buoy. From there it would make itself to both the kid and Frank and once it found them it would ping all the way back to me.
Untraceable and undetectable. The perfect way to call for help and make sure no one knows about it. Once the virus was sent to her I thumbed the button twice again and my system turned off. Miranda was never the wiser and when she turned around her face was completely impassive.
"You'll be having a friend soon. I, however, am required elsewhere. Have fun with your new cellmate, they'll be here within the day," and with that she left and I couldnt't help but smile.
Miranda, as it turns out, did actually leave straight away and with her my pseudo virus. It would only be about a 30 minute wait after she left for the ping to appear on my facemask; didn't need to be active for it to work on receiving the signal. I gave no outward indication anything had transpired but on the inside I was planning on how to kill everyone here.
Once Miranda left the man with the Russian accent who first noticed when I woke up took over the operation. He was surprisingly lenient for the day that we waited for my soon to be prison buddy. They even let me sleep for the whole night!
The next morning, bright and early, my buddy arrived. Looked to be some high ranking Alliance type. As they dragged him in he was gagged rather thoroughly and he was shooting every Cerberus plebian the evil eye. It was rather entertaining all things considered.
The two guards escorting the man threw him into the cell quickly after taking off the gag. However, the man's hands were still bound so he couldn't stop himself from falling face first into the floor with a meaty thwack. Twisting himself on the ground he got into a sitting position with a groan and just stared at me for a few moments before speaking.
"Why are you here?" I had heard this accent before, Frank described it as Eastern European, whatever that means.
"Torchbearer," a look of recognition passed over his face followed by scrutiny.
"You know him?"
"They believe so," I gestured to the Cerberus goons who were just milling about now.
"Do you?" I didn't bother answering verbal and instead shrugged my shoulders.
POV: Frank
I sat at the bar in the Eternity Lounge with Juni snuggle up on my side, she always got touchy when she had wine. Volio was off somewhere in the bar hitting some Turian lass. As for me, I was just sipping on my drink and talking to the bartender, Aethyta. Knew her for a little bit before I retired and she was always nice and personable.
Militant too, big plus in my book. The Asari really needed to up their game military wise. Being the negotiator works well for only a time and that was all they had been doing for millennia. Never advancing, never evolving. They were a species in stagnation and contentedness and if there's one thing I hate above most things is being content. It promotes being lazy.
That was probably the reason I liked the kid so much. He was never content, always wanted to learn and be better. Almost insatiable that way. It was admirable.
"So, Aethyta. You find your kid yet?" insensitive yes but we had talked about this ages ago.
"No."
"Shame. I'm sure she's a great girl."
"Thanks Frank. Juni got you wrapped for a kid?"
"Fuck I don't know. Probably wouldn't be a good dad."
"I know for a fact you'd be a great dad," I didn't respond to that so she just continued. "You hear anything from the auction house yet?"
"Yeah, good haul for the antique weapons. About half a mil."
"Not bad."
I went to respond at that to continue the conversation but stopped as my omni-tool pinged. Seeing what it was I slammed my drink and tossed some credits to Aethyta and shot up from the bar. Juni looked immediately alert and had questions in her eyes and her hand instinctively went to her pistol.
"Volio!" I roared over the crowd and saw his head pop up from the other side of the place. "We got a ping, we are leaving!"
Neither of them needed to be told twice and both were immediately sober. We sprinted out of the bar to the dock. Hopped in and didn't waste any time. The most important pre-flight checks only and then we were gone and on our way to the Relay.
We're coming Ceelo.
Hope y'all enjoyed this chapter. It was interesting to write for me.
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Love y'all!