7. Infiltrator

At the bottom of the ladder was a small balcony with an automated door. It was locked, but Tali's omnitool made light work of the rudimentary encryption and the red circle on the plasti-steel soon became green.

Beyond the door was a basic access tunnel, a grill mesh gangway running between hollowed out cavern rock, illuminated every twenty meters or so by a white strip-light held by cable. There was no sign of anyone yet as far as they could see. They set off at a brisk pace, no words spoken, hoping their approach would remain similarly anonymous.

They were lucky. The gangway ran further than expected, or so it seemed, but no-one appeared to try and stop them, and Shepard was glad to reach the faculty entrance proper undetected.

This time the encryption was several levels higher, but it was still no match for Tali, and the door slid back after a few seconds. They kept their bodies down and their heads up. Again they were lucky. There was no guard, and they emerged into a sub-basement, among crates and containers and assorted industrial clutter. A single white floodlight stood in one corner of the room, most of its light reflecting off the centre of the blue-steel floor, casting shadows everywhere. The intruders used their cover and progressed on to the next door. Tali hacked it. They were in it for keeps now.

This time they emerged into the heart of the dome. They were at the bottom of a ramp, with the green glass visible high overhead, and they could hear the hubbub of activity. The outline of single-storey buildings stood out at the top of the ramp, as did the silhouette of an armed guard. He must have been looking the other way because he did not react to their appearance.

They flattened into the pillared side-wall, Shepard to the fore, sneaking another peek and considering their next move.

She looked at Cornwell. "I want you to take us in."

Cornwell blinked. "As prisoners? He'll tell Arturus. Arturus thinks I'm dead. Even if he didn't, he tried to kill me. I doubt he'll react any different if he sees me."

Shepard put a hand on his shoulder. "Relax. You just need to distract him for a second."

Cornwell understood. "Oh, right. Okay. Stay behind me, then, I guess."

"Sound a bit more Cerberus, Cornwell," Tali said. "Like the arrogant man you used to be."

Cornwell nodded. "You better hand over your weapons. Won't look too good if I haven't disarmed you."

Shepard and Tali glanced at each other, then agreed and presented their weapons. Cornwell slung Shepard's rifle over his shoulder and holstered Tali's pistol. Then he walked behind them and told them to start walking.

Shepard hoped she hadn't misjudged the man.

When they reached the guard, Cornwell coughed. He turned sharply.

The man was a clean-cut young soldier with a typical buzz-cut and aggressive eyes. He looked surprised, brought his rifle to bear, then spotted Cornwell's Cerberus uniform, re-made since the damage it had taken previously. "Who goes there?" he snapped.

"Navigator second class Nathan Cornwell, private. I've got two infiltrators here. Landed some distance out and sneaked in via the maintenance shaft."

"We got 3rd Engineers on the H-36 today, they would've seen them. Sir."

Cornwell kept his face as hard as he could. "Not any more. These two are Alliance SPECTRE's. They took them out before I found them."

The soldier's eyes flinched. "You, sir? On your own, sir? I... a Quarian SPECTRE? I didn't think Quarians were involved with the Alliance like that."

"Yeah, well, humanity is being diluted by aliens more and more these days. Anyway, you wouldn't have access to SPECTRE identity status just like that, would you?"

The soldier looked uneasy, though. Then he began to fix his stare on Shepard's face, her distinctive hair, the razor of red hanging across her left eye. "Who is she?" he asked. "Looks familiar."

"Damned if I know. Look, could you take us to holding, we can settle all this later."

The soldier hesitated. He didn't trust Cornwell. Why would a Nav officer be out there? How could this weasel have stopped these two, anyway? He started to put a finger to his collar-com.

Shepard jumped past Cornwell and knocked the shocked man to the ground. They grappled, rolled over a couple of times. He was strong. Shepard was stronger, though, and had kept a knife in her boot. As soon as she got a hand free of him it went down and grabbed the hilt, drew it. The man tried to bat the blade away but she head butted him and he slapped back flat on the floor. His eyes were wide open as the knife plunged down through his chest plate, straight through the Cerberus symbol, into his heart. He went slack and still. Shepard withdrew the blade and pulled him back down the ramp. After a couple of minutes she had changed into the dead man's uniform and taken his armour. It wasn't N7 quality and she was sad to have to abandon her own, but for the sake of the mission it was important. She also had the guy's collar-com, and used it to call in the fact they had located a Quarian spy. After a few seconds an answering voice told them to come to security in sector 3.

Mata was awash with scientists and soldiers. The scientists worked in open-plan labs on multiple computers and sometimes on digital models of varying size and design, and complexity. A vast holo-map of Vana and of Eagles Nest was projected over the whole area, ranging from one side of the dome to the other. Here and there someone could be seen studying it, making notes for some purpose or other. There were also the cabin-like buildings, clustered in one central huddle, all in white, all without windowless, all with the Cerberus logo beside their doors. They each had a soldier stationed either side, and one or two would patrol every wall, back and forth, then around and around. Fortunately, the sector numbers were well signed and it did not take long to find 3. They did receive some suspicious looks on the passing of Tali, but with the two soldiers pressing guns into her back no one stopped them.

The entrance to security slid aside, the guards acknowledging them with a nod. As they hissed shut again behind them they found themselves approaching a large desk, full of data pads and holographic charts. A man and a woman were engrossed in their labours there, but they looked up after a moment.

The man's eyes rested on Tali. "A Quarian?"

Cornwell nodded. "Yes. A spy. On a mission to complete her Pilgrimage, she says."

The woman spoke up, also homing in on her visor, checking Tali's hands were behind her back. "Hm. Right. She won't be completing anything."

"She was after the artefact," Shepard said. "Wanted to know what it was, tells me it's some Prothean map. But probably trying to mess with me. Don't know why, I ain't letting her go. But spies do that kind of psych-shit, don't they?"

The man sat back, a little hesitant. "Uh, yeah, they do. Whatever we're doing is classified to most of us too though, soldier."

"Don't you know that?" the woman asked, frowning.

"Or do you know that? Soldier." The man's voice had an edge to it suddenly.

"Name and rank?" the woman asked.

Cornwell shot her in a flash, a silenced pistol sending her toppling out of her chair. He put two into the man before he could react and he slumped forward over his data-pads.

"Well, I suppose they made us," Shepard said, impressed by his reflexes. "Thanks, Cornwell."

"No problem." He threw Shepard her assault rifle but kept Tali's pistol.

"I'll see if I can find out where Arturus and his artefact are," Tali said, walking around to the man's position, activating a hologram and beginning to swipe at it with her hand. The screen blinked, then again with each fresh swipe. A few more seconds and she had it, however. The artefact was being kept in the large building to the left of the one they were in. And Arturus' office was inside it.

"What's the betting he's got it in his sock drawer?" Shepard said. Tali entered a blank loop-chip into the office-cam's operating system and wiped the previous five minutes clean. For now, nobody would know they had been in there. Until someone else came in, of course. They had to move on quickly. Then again, that was true anyway, so it didn't really concern them. Well, Cornwell, maybe, but he seemed to have settled into the task. The dead security officers were testament to that.

They left security with the door locked and strode with as much formality as they could over to the artefact building. Even as they did so, the two sentries were stepping forward to halt them, unfortunately.

"No entry, sir. Arturus gave very specific instructions."

Cornwell nodded to Tali. "Don't worry, he's going to want to see this."

The second soldier looked at his colleague and shook his head.

The first shrugged. "I'm sure he will. But later. He can't be disturbed." Then he appeared to double-take. "Hey, Lyle, I know that woman."

"The redhead?" The second man began to raise his rifle.

"Shepard!" shouted the first man, just before she blew his head off. A full Vindicator volley at almost point blank range did that. The bloody detritus covered the second guard and he staggered in his shock just long enough for Cornwell to drawer and fire a single fatal shot. Cornwell swore and gave Tali back her pistol, they were made.

As soon as the bodies hit the ground the alarm sounded. Shouts from the military and screams from some of the scientists joined the whine of a klaxon call to arms.

"Get us in, Tali," Shepard hissed quickly, turning and taking out the first pair of soldiers to appear. Cornwell noticed a scientist to their left pick up something from his white desk-top. He emptied his clip into the man, who span around and crumpled, pistol still in hand. Then Cornwell ducked, and a bullet thunked just wide of his shoulder. He stayed down, but there was no cover. Only the open-plan offices and labs with their simple glass partitions, and the bare, flat door of the building behind them. He fired again.

Shepard was doing likewise, rattling off thermal clips in pretty much every direction right now. Every now and then she actually killed someone, but most of her fire was simply a distraction, trying to buy them time, making as much mess of the place as possible. That was going pretty well, at least. More and more of the mini-rooms and their flimsy partitions were being reduced to so many pieces on the floor. Equipment, glass and tiling was splintering and skittering in multiple directions and puffs of smoke were joining the clouds of dust beginning to swirl inside the dome. Bodies were beginning to pile up, too. Blood splashed among the debris. Clips and shells dropped out of weapons. Casings jumped from rifles and rolled along the ground.

"Tali!" Shepard shouted, picking off another guard as he began to crawl from beneath a lab's broken bed some distance off to their right.

"We're in, Commander," she replied calmly, and the doors hissed apart. They ran inside and heard them close. The sound of fire slapping the doors behind them made their hearts skip. They skidded to a halt.

Shepard stared. A line of Cerberus troops with weapons levelled blocked their way to an elevator some distance beyond.

"Drop your weapons now, Commander," ordered a familiar voice, spoken from behind the line, from the gloom of the unlit elevator. Then came heavy booted footsteps, coming forward towards them, stopping just short of the line. "Please."

Shepard took a moment, biting her lip until she felt a sweet, salty drip of blood break onto the tip of her tongue. "Damn it," she muttered to herself. "Okay, Arturus. I presume you want us alive?"

"Yes, I want that chat, after all." He broke the line of the troops, black Turian armour stark amid all the white Cerberus livery.

Tali and Cornwell copied their Commander, set their arms down and stood either side of Shepard, awaiting the next move.

Arturus smiled, well satisfied. "Thank you." He drew his side-arm and emptied a clip into Cornwell. The Cerberus man had several shots burning in his chest even as he hit the metal floor, but Arturus kept firing, ripping the thin armour and clothing underneath apart and searing a black hole through him, until his flesh began to sizzle and then burst into flame. By the time Arturus' gun clicked empty Cornwell's midriff had been vaporised. Only a sticky black blast mark remained. His eyes remained open, staring cleanly at the white lamp above him. It was the only clean thing about the death. Tali looked away.

Shepard kept her attention on Arturus. "You didn't need to do that."

Arturus scratched his rugged, skeletal chin. "An example, to show these men not to cross me more than anything to do with you, Shepard." He did not smile as he spoke, did not make light of his work. But he did add, grudgingly, "Neither me nor the Illusive Man." He spoke the name with noticeable disdain.

"I thought you wanted to talk treachery," Shepard said, "Cornwell could've helped, you know."

Arturus sniffed. "Please, Shepard. He was not in the same class as us. Now, accompany me, both of you. Having come this far, I think I should at least show you what you were after."