Rameses: The pharaoh of the Exodus story central to Judeo-Christian tradition is popularly identified with Rameses, also spelled Ramses or Ramesses. In the Exodus story, the pharaoh held the Hebrew people in bondage until God delivered them from Egypt.
XXXVII
Exodus: Rameses
After their spat in the shuttle bay, Garrus didn't really get to talk to Shepard for days. She called him out on routine team-building missions just like she always did—to take down pirates, fight batarian terrorists, or rescue colonies near the Perseus Veil from random geth attacks—but the way she set up the missions had changed. Now, Shepard was experimenting with fire teams—splitting up the squad like she'd done on Horizon and assigning one team to circle the enemy, to scout ahead or to clean up behind. And now, every time, Garrus was on the other team—a familiar contact point that every other person on the squad had fought beside at one time or another, easing them into working independently from Shepard.
Garrus's presence in the other fire team was pretty much the only constant. Shepard experimented with the setup of the fire teams too. She used different leaders. Massani, Grunt, Samara, Taylor, and Lawson all got their chance to call the shots, communicating over the radio with Shepard's team at all times. Never the people they all knew would be support—Jack, Tali, Goto, Solus, Krios—but everyone who might think they could lead or anyone else might expect to. This part of the setup, Garrus thought, was less of an experiment on Shepard's part than the rest of it. Instead, Shepard was letting the entire squad feel what she had already observed—letting them work out for themselves, on lower priority missions, who they could trust to keep everyone together and who they couldn't.
Not that any mission was ever easy or without risk. Shepard argued with Chakwas in the medical bay about a brief uptick in minor injuries. At the end of six days and eight missions deep in the heart of the Terminus, the squad was exhausted. But they were also working together better than ever, and it was clear that no matter who Shepard formally put in charge of a second team and no matter who made it up, by the time everyone went home, the second team was listening to either Garrus or Miranda.
Garrus would have been happy to defer to Lawson completely. She was a more conservative commander than he was. That mattered—both to Shepard and to their mission. And Lawson wanted it. But no matter what his brain said on the Normandy, when he saw something in the field, with Shepard leading another team, he found he slipped back into giving orders without thinking about it. And the squad listened. They knew him now—better than anyone but Shepard. They trusted him. It made him uncomfortable, but he knew that if he ever stopped listening to Lawson's orders, spoke out just a little bit more, they would all fall in behind him. Jack was the only one that was vocal about not wanting to work with Lawson, but Garrus knew she wasn't the only one to dislike or distrust the Cerberus operative.
But Garrus also knew that when they made it past the Omega-4 Relay, Shepard would need more than one person equipped to lead a second team. If the Collectors blew the Normandy up again or one of Harbinger's minions took Garrus out before the mission was complete, there had to be someone else capable of taking charge and completing a secondary objective for Shepard. And frankly, he would just as soon not have been the go-to lieutenant. Every time any of them looked at him for orders, he wondered what he was missing, how much pressure he was putting on them, how he could get them killed where Shepard wouldn't. Jack sprained her ankle one day. Another day, Tali was too close to an enemy incendiary. Both injuries weren't serious. Doctor Chakwas had them patched up and ready for duty again within two days each. Both times someone else had technically been supposed to give the orders. But Garrus wondered if he could have saved them, could have spared Shepard the lecture about reckless live training tactics. He wondered if he would have ended up giving orders to the rest of the squad at all if Shepard hadn't pushed him like she had. If he had had less ground time, would the squad have looked more to Lawson, or to Taylor instead?
Garrus kept his doubts to himself. The team didn't have time for his crisis of confidence. He did what made sense in the field, made decisions when he needed to, and tried to be satisfied that when he let Lawson take the lead, the others would too. Usually. But the pressure was building. He could feel it. And it didn't help that every day since Pragia, on her daily rounds, Shepard had only stopped by the battery long enough to say "hello," "good work today," and "carry on."
It was about what everyone else got on a normal day, unless someone had news from home or a report about onboard processes. But ever since the SR-1 days, Shepard had come by his station last, right before she went off official duty for the evening. Often enough, and more and more as time had gone on, she would stay past the end of her shift. Maybe it wasn't fair, but he had gotten used to the attention.
He needed to talk to her. He knew the answers to a lot of what he might say about the new training regimen and how, once again, he was inadvertently finding himself in charge.
"I don't think I can do what you want me to do on this crew."
He knew he could, and probably better than anyone else.
"I don't deserve this."
True. But Shepard needed it, and so did the team.
"What if I screw up?"
People could die, and all Shepard's dreams of coming back from the Omega-4 Relay could die too. If they didn't fight smart to begin with, though, their chances would be worse.
There were a couple of other things he might talk to Shepard about too, Garrus thought, and he was running out of time to do it. But when it came to other things, he didn't even know how to start articulating them in his head, let alone work out what Shepard might say in response. Garrus guessed he knew her about as well as anyone did, but she was still reluctant to get personal. The last thing he wanted was to make her uncomfortable or ruin what was already the best relationship of his life by making it awkward.
But he couldn't help it. He wanted to know. Every time he saw her in the mess, every time she dropped by the battery for another half a minute of nothing, he wanted to ask: Am I crazy? She had said that he was important to her, that she always liked his company. At times, he thought she had been attracted to him. No idea why she would be.
He didn't ask. Even setting aside human regulations that he wasn't entirely sure she followed, in all the records, Shepard was his commanding officer. In the field and on the ship, things had become a little more complicated than that. That was down to her. But if someone was going to change things between them, he knew it should be her move again. But spirits, he wanted to ask. Near a week out from Pragia, when she still hadn't said more than two consecutive sentences directly to him, Garrus was close to insane.
So, when he got pinged for a smaller mission in the Alpha Draconis system of the Rosetta Nebula, Garrus felt like a vice that had been squeezing his chest had suddenly loosened. Looking down at the orders on his omni-tool, Garrus breathed a sigh of relief. Shepard had only sent them to him, to Taylor, and to Lawson. They were doing this old school.
His first thought, based on recent patterns, was specialty training—that Shepard was going to drill the three of them in communications, give them special instructions for the fight against the Collectors, maybe. But when he made his way down to the shuttle bay and saw Taylor's face, he knew that this was personal again, that they were going to deal with whatever it was that had been eating the armory officer. He glanced at Lawson and saw she was watching Taylor out of the corner of her eyes. She's worried, and she's here now for the same reason Shepard brought Taylor to help us secure Oriana.
Niels hadn't made it to the shuttle bay yet, and neither had Shepard, so Garrus went to lean on the Kodiak next to Taylor. "You want to tell me our objective?"
"My father went missing ten years ago," Taylor told him. His voice was even, but his fingers tapped a fast rhythm on the Kodiak. "A few weeks ago, a source inside Cerberus that I can't trace alerted me that the ship he was on sent out a beacon from this world. We're going to find out what happened."
Garrus's mandibles tightened. "You up for this?"
Taylor grimaced. "Have to put it to rest, Garrus. I'd made my peace. I thought. But now I know his ship was here . . ." he shrugged. "I have to know."
Garrus hummed. He unhooked the Mantis and started examining the mods he had on it. "Let me see," a voice said. High-grade ceramic-and-mesh gauntlets reached for his gun. Garrus turned to look into Shepard's face, less than a meter away.
He handed her his rifle. "If you've started using your tactical cloak like Kasumi, I may have to resign."
Shepard rolled her eyes and started examining the tech on the Mantis. "As much as I love that tactical cloak, I haven't gone that far yet. You're preoccupied and didn't see me coming. You're slipping, Vakarian."
"You want to have a skulking contest sometime, Shepard?" he challenged her.
"Hah!" She said expressively. "With Thane or Kasumi maybe. Anyone could spot your broody, self-important butt at two hundred meters. In a crowd."
"At least I don't wear armor that glows in the dark," Garrus retorted, eyeing Shepard's hardsuit, which was an iridescent purple today. Every few days she got bored and repainted it with the fabrication program in her cabin. There was almost always an Alliance blue detail on it somewhere, usually in the stripe, but the rest of it was subject to change without notice.
"And that's a disappointment to all of us," Shepard shot back. She tapped the barrel extension he'd fitted to the Mantis. "You know, with the armor-piercing applications you have on this thing, the high-velocity barrel here's redundant. It adds weight to the gun without a real upgrade to the penetration. You could use a simpler barrel extension. Make the gun easier to carry without a decrease in performance."
Garrus shook his head, taking the gun back. "I could tell you I designed it that way on purpose. A heavier gun's better for clubbing husks." Shepard looked at him, and he chuckled once, giving up. "Truth is, the armor-piercing app's new. Hadn't thought that the mod's designed to do the same thing. Thanks." He looked across the shuttle bay, but they were still waiting for Niels. Taylor, down the side of the shuttle, was lost in his head somewhere, and Lawson had moved to sit next to him, offering silent support.
Garrus cocked his head at Shepard. "So, fair's fair. Hand over the Widow." He extended his own hand, curling his fingers in to prompt her.
Shepard raised an eyebrow. "You've been waiting for this chance for a while."
"Or the Locust. I'm not picky, really."
She laughed then, unclipped the Locust from her belt, and gave it to him handle first. "Actually, if you know some good mods for this one, I'd be grateful. It's the best range SMG we've found, but it is an older model. Partially retrofitted to make room for a thermal clip configuration, but not a lot of current gen mods are compatible with it."
"I haven't used Kassa equipment too much myself," Garrus mused. "Just sporadically on the SR-1, really, but they make some quality gear. I've been a little jealous. Almost everyone but me seems to have one of these babies."
Taylor finally came back to the conversation. "I don't," he said. "Over half of us don't. The Locust is a nice gun at range. Less good in close quarters. Slower fire rate too, compared to some."
Lawson shrugged. "I suppose that matters, if you can't hit a target the first couple times you shoot it."
"Hey now," Taylor said mildly. "You know I don't use automatic weapons at all. I don't hit anything without raw skill."
Garrus handed the Locust back to Shepard. "I'll do some research. Keep an eye out. I have a few contacts that might have some ideas for you." Garrus thought of Solana, who had built a gun from scrap for her final marksmanship in secondary school before basic that had outperformed the fancy Armax Arsenal rifle another student's mother had bought her for the test. Sol probably knew a few things about modding older-model guns, from any relatively well-known manufacturer in Council space. Whether she'll share them is the question.
The elevator across the bay opened, and Niels hurried out. "Sorry I'm late, Commander," he said. "I was on a call with Carla and Matty. Carla knew I had to fly, but we couldn't get Matty off the line."
Shepard stood. "You're not late, Caleb. Be a couple minutes before we're in the drop zone. How's your family?"
"Beautiful," Niels smiled. "Worried, but I told them, 'Commander Shepard's put together the best team you've ever seen. Legendary biotics, genius-level engineers, a giant krogan, you'll see. We'll stop the Collectors, and I'll have leave to see you real soon.'"
"You're the unsung hero here, Niels," Shepard told him. "Every time we go down to the ground, every time we come back safe, it's thanks to you. We couldn't do any of this without you."
Niels shook his head, grinning. "I'm a glorified truck driver, and I know it, Commander. But at least I'm your truck driver. Come on. Everybody in."
He unlocked the shuttle and opened the doors just as the Normandy began to slow in its orbit around the planet to drop the shuttle. Taylor swung in first, and Lawson followed him like a shadow. Garrus climbed in afterward and sat opposite the two of them. Shepard sat beside him as usual. He could feel her proximity, like a prickling through his armor. Was she as aware of him? Humans didn't have subvocals, silent or speaking. Her face showed nothing.
"This planet was only charted ten years ago," Niels observed from the cockpit of the shuttle as they flew out of the Normandy bay and began to drop down through the atmosphere.
"Right," Taylor told him. "The Hugo Gernsback disappeared on a survey mission. Until now, we never knew if they arrived at all. Initial findings suggested it could be suitable for human colonization, but obviously, the final report never arrived either."
Garrus refocused, directing his attention to conversation about the planet and the mission at hand. "What do you expect to find?" Shepard asked.
"Wreckage? Bones?" Taylor speculated. "It's been ten years. But the beacon didn't go up until last year. Something strange happened here, Shepard."
"I'm picking up something metallic down there where the probe landed," Niels said. "Could be a crash site."
As the shuttle descended, Niels eventually got a visual. "There's a lot of the ship left," he reported. "I'll put you down close by."
"Be ready," Shepard advised. "We don't know what happened here or what kind of lifeforms may live on this planet."
Niels came to a hovering halt, and the four of them got off the shuttle. Garrus felt rich earth beneath his boots. Birds cried out in the skies, and in the distance, an ocean crashed. The temperature was cool, but well within the comfort range for humans—and not at all outside his own. Tall trees and thick ferns grew all around. Garrus breathed in oxygen-rich air and felt a sea breeze on his face.
The world seemed a perfect colony prospect, a wonderful change from planet after planet landing in stormy jungles or rocky wastes or burning deserts. But you've been spacing long enough to know that things aren't always as they seem. Garrus had seen worlds as beautiful as this one where everything was deadly poison, and it was always a possibility that a new world might contain a predator as deadly as the thresher maw that no one had seen before.
The wreck of the Hugo Gernsback cast a shadow over the treeline, less than a klick away. Black against the sun, Garrus could see moss growing from the jagged metal skeleton of the ship.
EDI's voice came over the radio. "I have run a scan of the ship," she reported. "I detect no life signs, but there may be useful technology or information still inside."
Aside from the birds and the constant sound of the surf against the rocks close by, there was no sound as they walked along the rocks and through trees that looked like Earthen Arecaceae. The wreck came into view. As Niels had said, there was a lot of it left. The hulk soared up into the sky. Garrus saw complete bulkheads and decks sticking up out of the ground, full white letters on the side that translated to Hugo Gernsback through his implant.
Garrus frowned, and Taylor spoke his thought aloud. "There it is, and mostly intact. They could have survived impact, but it's been years."
And if it had been years, why were they just now hearing about the wreck? Just eyeballing the wreckage of the Hugo Gernsback, Garrus could see two or three places where small groups of people could have clustered together and braced themselves against the crash. But there were bird nests in the crevices of the broken rebar that jutted toward the sky. There were places the bulkhead, exposed to air and weather and untended for years on end, had begun to rust through. The white letters of the ship's name, on closer examination, had begun to wear away. This wreck had lay unattended for at least five years, probably closer to the ten it had been missing. Why?
As they passed into the shadow of the wreck, Garrus saw other places where tech and wiring had been cut away from the ship's interior, mechanical parts that had been dragged away from the crash site and lay dismantled to the side. "Looks like it was stripped after the crash," Taylor said. "They'd have tried to get a beacon up as soon as possible."
The crew had forced their way out of the crashed hull, it looked like, torching and bending their way out of the impact site. Taylor stooped to enter the improvised exit. "Shepard," he called.
The three of them crowded around him. There was a live terminal in the jury-rigged doorway, flickering with low power and covered in moss and dust. But there was a log preserved there, and Taylor played it back.
It was only a partial, the audio decayed by time and neglect, but Garrus could make out a staticky, corrupted male voice, sounding worried. ". . . along with this anymore. We've done horrible things to the crew . . ." The sound cut out for a moment. ". . . conditions they're in; they don't understand what we're doing to them. Distract them for two seconds and they forget wha-wha-what you did before the bruises show. I-i-i-it's got to stop. I'm talking to the others as soon—" The recording cut out in a hiss of static. The rest proved unsalvageable.
Garrus went cold, and to the side, Shepard's face had gone hard. It was far from a complete picture of what had happened here, but it was dark enough. Taking the lead back from Taylor, who looked troubled, Shepard moved further into the wreck of the Gernsback.
There was an overhang where they found a few empty cans of food, evidence of a long-abandoned camp, and an electronic diary. Like the deliberately preserved log, it was badly corrupted, but the fragment they were able to recover sounded just as bad as the first. Another male voice, different from the first, sounding smug and furtive: ". . . always said no. She even threatened to report if I didn't stop sending messages. But now she's so innocent. They all are. And the look she has when she smiles—" the recording skipped— ". . . it's sure easier now. What's the harm? We're stuck here any—"
"What happened here?" Garrus asked. On each human face around him, he saw the same fury and disgust he felt at the implications. Abuse of incapacitated crew members by the officers, it sounded like—physical and otherwise. But how had the crew been incapacitated?
There were no more answers to be had from the diary, so they kept looking. On the other side of the old camp, they found a little more. Deeper in the recesses of the ship, there was a datapad assigned to one Teresa Varness, Medical Officer. Examining this datapad, Shepard found some corrupted medical records; prescriptions, allergies, a record of appointments some ten years ago. And a few audio logs. There was one dated a few weeks after the Gernsback had gone missing. The medical officer's datapad had been better protected from the elements, and the recording came through with a clearer sound, but in it, Teresa Varness sounded confused, and she stammered. "What? What was her name? Sarah? S-Suzanne?" Her voice grew higher, panicked-sounding. "My God, I can't remember! I can't remember her face! We need to get out. So I can remember—can-can think straight. They have to hurry."
"There's something wrong here," Lawson said suddenly, looking out of the Gernsback at the planet outside. "Either these people were drugged, or something in the environment affected their minds. We should put on our helmets until we learn what it was."
"Agreed," Shepard said. Once all of them had put on their helmets and sealed their suits, they kept searching the wreck.
But the Hugo Gernsback had been picked clean a decade ago. There were no remaining food stores, blankets, or evidence that the wreck was in any way still used as a basecamp, and no signs telling where the crew had gone. There was one more log, near the back of the wreck, older than any of the others, and just as corroded. When Shepard played it, another woman spoke, sounding more lucid than Teresa had but almost as worried as the first man. ". . . can't expect the luxury of d-d-due process," Garrus made out through the corruption, "but this i-i-isn't a military ship. Just bumping the command line up a notch doesn't work. Cap-cap-captain Fairchild knew this crew. His replacement doesn't command the same level of respect. I'm hoping the man has it in him, but I do—" The recording cut out after that, but the woman's tone had said it all. She had doubted that whoever had replaced Captain Fairchild could care for the crew as well.
Shepard led the four of them back out into the sun and along the outside of the ship. Near the end of the wreckage, they found something more promising. A beacon was still running. The VI attached was speaking the message it would also be beaming out to space.
"Repeat: Toxology alert: Danger of rapid neural decay. Local flora chemically incompatible with human physiology. Override. Beacon resumed. Pause time: 8 years, 237 days, 7 hours."
At the beacon's base, Garrus saw moss and rust there, grass and weeds that had grown over the wires running to a humming generator sheltered in the shadow of the shipwreck. The beacon itself had been set up years ago, but for some reason, it hadn't been active long.
Shepard echoed his analysis. "From the look of it, this beacon's been here a while. Why would they wait years to signal?"
The VI went silent. It flickered, then interacted as programmed with the presumed rescuer or investigator. "Pause in beacon protocol: 8 years, 237 days, 7 hours," it intoned. "Pause is recorded as: record deleted by Acting Captain Ronald Taylor."
Jacob shook his head, stepping back. "That's not right. My father was first officer." Garrus glanced at him. Ronald Taylor was the successor that female survivor was skeptical of. Whatever happened here, he was in charge when it did.
"Ronald Taylor was promoted under emergency command protocols," the beacon confirmed. "Other flagged issues: Unsafe deceleration. Local food and neural decay. Beacon activation protocols."
Shepard looked back at Lawson. "Local food impairs brain functions? What are the effects?"
"Impairment of mental function due to chemical imbalance begins within seven days of ingesting local flora, regardless of decontamination or preparation," the beacon answered. "Impact on higher cognitive abilities and long-term memory is cumulative, but significant within a standard month. It is not known if local decay is permanent. Data collection was not completed."
Shepard tilted her head at Lawson, and Miranda nodded. The four of them removed their helmets. As long as they didn't eat anything, they would be safe from the confusion and memory loss that had apparently affected the Gernsback's crew. "I assume 'unsafe deceleration' refers to the crash," Shepard guessed. "Give me the details."
"Following an unspecified impact and sublight drive failure, the Hugo Gernsback made an unscheduled descent at 465 percent of theoretical recommended suborbital velocity," the beacon recited. "The Hugo Gernsback then decelerated at 782 percent of theoretical recommended approach velocity, sustaining significant damage to investment and crew."
"Why are you comparing the crash to theoretical speeds?" Shepard asked.
"The Hugo Gernsback was constructed off-world," the beacon replied. "It is not rated for suborbital descent, and doing so exceeded operational parameters."
Shepard nodded, satisfied. "Who is in command of this ship?" she asked. "Where are the survivors?"
"Captain Harris Fairchild reported killed following unscheduled suborbital descent," answered the beacon. Died in the crash, Garrus translated in his head. "First Officer Ronald Taylor promoted in field to acting captain."
Taylor shook his head, impatient. "But where is he now?" he demanded.
"The location of the remaining crew of the Hugo Gernsback is unknown," the beacon informed them. "This beacon has been unattended for several maintenance cycles."
Shepard's eyes narrowed. "Why wasn't the beacon activated before now?"
"This emergency beacon became functional after 358 days, 12 hours, following the unscheduled suborbital descent of the Hugo Gernsback," the VI answered. "Activation was triggered remotely after 8 years, 237 days, 7 hours, on the authority of Acting Captain Ronald Taylor. Pause in beacon protocol is recorded as: record deleted."
It was clear they weren't going to get anything else out of the VI. Garrus could sketch together a broad picture of what had happened now. The Hugo Gernsback had crashed on the planet. The captain, Harris Fairchild, and an unspecified number of others had died on impact. At least four officers and members of the crew, probably more, and Jacob's father Ronald Taylor, had survived the crash. Ronald Taylor had become acting captain. The survivors had managed to get the beacon up in a little less than a year, but it was clear from the old logs at the crash site that the toxic food of this world had affected at least some. And during the interval, some of the officers had taken advantage of the affected crew.
"Come on," Shepard said quietly. "Let's get going."
Jacob looked confused. Disturbed. He stared at the dirt, and a muscle worked in his jaw. "My father had a working beacon but didn't signal for almost nine years," he said. He seemed to be talking to himself. "Maybe . . . that neural decay affected him."
Garrus frowned. "It must have, after so long."
Lawson tilted her head in hesitant agreement. "Avoiding it for a decade seems . . . unlikely."
But Shepard pursed her lips. "Jacob, I don't like this," she said.
Jacob looked at her. "Neither do I," he admitted.
They followed the trees around, moving toward the beach. There was a trail of discarded metal—parts from the Gernsback, either abandoned as useless or deliberately left as a trail, but it gave them a direction to go.
They didn't have to go very far. As the trees opened up, giving them a view of a stretch of sand and a short cliff ahead, a woman came running at them from among the rocks. She ran into Lawson's arms, and Lawson's hair stood up with alarmed biotics before she realized the woman wasn't attacking. Instead, she was beaming, clutching Lawson's forearms as if greeting family.
"You came?!" she cried. "From the sky?! The leader said someone would come! He delayed for so long, but he still has power!"
The woman was dressed in old, faded engineering coveralls, bleached by the sun; torn and stained. Although she was relatively healthy-looking, indicating she had had access to some sort of food and water, her hair hung in bedraggled, greasy locks across her forehead and cheeks, a mixture of dark brown and iron gray. It had been cut unevenly, level with her chin, as if with a knife. Her nails were long and ragged, and they dug into Miranda's forearms with sudden anxiety.
"Some have lost faith—the hunters!" she told Lawson. "They will have seen your star! They will not let you help him."
Shepard stepped forward, commanding the survivor's attention. "Who are you?" she rapped out. "What was your rank on the Gernsback?"
The woman's face scrunched up, and she released Lawson with one hand to hold her temple. "Uhh—Ah—I-I can't think," she tried to explain. "The leader thinks for us, and-and we serve, so-so we can go home." She stammered, her voice foggy, speaking as if from a memorized lesson book. The words she spoke sounded unnatural too—leader, delay, faith, star,and sky to refer to ships and space—like mythical terms from a story told to a child. "But—some want to fight him," the woman told them, looking at Shepard now. "They were cast out. He exiled them, so they hunt his machines and those who help him. They don't believe that rescue will come—"
Shepard had glanced toward the sea, and right as a gunshot sounded, she moved. "Watch out!" She lunged, shoving the woman to the ground and Lawson to the side.
Garrus whirled, drawing his rifle, to see several armed human men closing in from the beach. They were unshaven, in worn and bleached uniforms like the woman's, but with wild, uncomprehending eyes.
The woman curled up into a ball behind a large rock. "Hunters!" she whimpered. "They won't stop until the leader is dead!"
"Kill them!" one of the men snarled in an indistinct voice. "Agents of the liar! He will not escape!"
The men were as obviously impaired as the woman had been, but their neural degeneration was even more disturbing. They were like animals. They fired their weapons—heavy pistols and submachine guns—with bared, shining teeth, howling wordless war cries. Each man among them seemed completely sold on the spray-and-pray suppressing fire style of combat. Their aim was bad, but they held the triggers of those guns like their fingers were frozen. Bullets were everywhere.
The beach was a rocky one, with lots of cover, but that was something that bit both ways. As Garrus crouched behind a boulder, seeing rock dust and sparks fly up from the places where Shepard, Taylor, and Lawson were similarly situated, his visor also tracked the hunters moving, slinking from shadow to shadow up ahead so it was hard to tell how many of them there were, and firing all the way.
Someone's gun was blaring, overheated. These guns were older models, Garrus realized, without disposable heat sinks. Of course they are. They were all issued over a decade ago. That meant the hunters had unlimited ammo, but with their particular brand of the survivor neural degeneration—
Garrus swung out of cover and fired once—a headshot that hit directly in the center of the target's forehead and dropped him like a rock. But in that same split second, five wild shots evaporated his shields, and Garrus hit the dirt behind the boulder again in an instant, only to meet another man that had got around him.
His crazed eyes were blazing. His skin was like cracked leather, and his sparse gray hair was a tangled, matted mess. He brought his SMG, also blaring the old overheat warning, around like a bludgeon. Garrus almost reacted too late. He twisted away, taking the heavy blow on his armored shoulder instead of on his head. Garrus swept his leg around behind the human's, knocking him off his feet. Windmilling backward, the man clutched instinctively at Garrus's wrist with one hand. His fingernails were almost like turian talons—long, ragged, and wickedly sharp. He hauled up on Garrus's arm, mouth agape with the intention to bite.
Garrus kicked out at the man's stomach. He felt his boots tear the man's uniform, felt at least two of the man's ribs give way. The man yelped and released Garrus's arm, and Garrus clubbed him hard with the butt of his own rifle. Bone cracked again, and the human's wild eyes went glassy and empty.
At least three more overheat warnings were sounding, and Garrus heard the Locust and the Widow as Lawson and Shepard took advantage, along with the duller sound of Taylor's shotgun.
Looking out from over cover again, Garrus saw two more men charge Taylor, unarmed. They were like Reaper husks in their mindless violence. Unlike husks, there was no deadly electric charge when they died. They collapsed, helpless, to the beach, like varren.
"Surrender," Shepard yelled. "We don't want to fight you!"
She got no comprehensible answer, and the hunters did not surrender.
When it was over, Shepard went back to the woman that had spoken to them before, cowering behind her rock. But the woman wouldn't speak to them again. She whimpered gibberish about the leader and the hunters and didn't move. Lawson walked over to the corpses of the men, looking down at them with distaste. "That wasn't neural decay," she said. "They were feral."
Taylor shook his head. "My father wouldn't let this go on. Something is very wrong."
It was like something from a vid, Garrus mused, following Shepard and Taylor up the beach, around an apparent path into a canyon. Castaways lost for a decade, fighting a hostile world. Completely isolated from any sort of law, people became vulnerable to the worst natural impulses they possessed. What had happened here had all the makings of a horror story or a psychological thriller, but the crazed men with guns, the gibbering, insane victims of whatever had happened here were all around them. And Jacob's father was tied up in all of it.
Back on Illium, Taylor had joked with Garrus about family dysfunction. Poor bastard. He doesn't deserve this.
By the side of a path worn through years of use, Garrus saw one of the machines the woman on the beach had mentioned—a LOKI mech, shot down. Someone had cannibalized the remains to get at the wire and transformers inside. "Stripped for parts," Taylor noted. "Tech's wearing out. Those hunters must be laying on the pressure."
"Do you think these people would know what to do with the parts?" Garrus wondered aloud. "The woman on the beach couldn't tell us her name."
Shepard hummed. "Guess we'll find out. Look." She gestured with her rifle ahead, where through two rock walls, a plume of smoke and some cloth flapping in the breeze could be seen.
"Is that a settlement?" Jacob queried. "They'd better be friendlier than the beach group. I need answers."
They were all ready to defend themselves if necessary, but as they entered into the canyon, no one attacked. There were several survivors here—a dozen at least, maybe more. One tended the fire. Two more washed clothes in a metal barrel of water, blank-eyed. Most sat around near open shelters, staring into the distance. As they entered, eyes turned toward them, but no one said anything.
Garrus looked at the faded uniforms, the Gernsback label on several crates supporting shelters and accoutrements. "Huh. They're from the same group as the ones that attacked us, but these are docile."
Shepard's eyes narrowed, and her jaw was tight. "There aren't any men here," she said. Her voice sounded clipped. "Maybe it affects sexes differently? Makes males get violent?"
Garrus took another look at the camp. She was right, he saw. Every survivor in sight was female, ranging from women that looked just a little older than Shepard to one with white hair clumsily plaited into a crown around her head and drawing with a gnarled finger in the sandy soil.
Lawson surveyed the campsite too. "Possibly," she answered Shepard, "but the woman on the beach said the leader exiled the hunters before they turned."
All the men exiled before they turned? Garrus frowned. He was liking this less and less.
Jacob was getting angrier. "It doesn't matter now," he said dismissively, striding forward toward the nearest cluster of women. "One of these people must know what my father has to do with this."
One of them, a younger woman with gray-blue eyes and flyaway light brown hair, backed away from Taylor as he approached. "You have his face!" she murmured, wrapping her arms around her body protectively. "He promised to call the sky, but he sends nothing!"
Another woman rose and stepped in front of the other. She was older, with skin a darker, richer brown than Shepard's—more like Jacob's—and tightly, wildly curling hair that grew out from her head in every direction. She extended her arm back, blocking off the younger woman from view, and pointed her other finger at Jacob angrily. "He forced us to eat, to . . . decay!" she said, finding the words with difficulty. "You are . . . cursed with his face!"
Jacob stepped back, face darkening. He lowered his shotgun and raised his free hand defensively. Shepard stepped in between Taylor and the women, raising her own hands. It's okay, her posture said. We're not going to hurt you.
The women retreated, huddling closer together and eyeing Jacob with suspicion.
"Not the best reaction to the family resemblance, Jacob," Shepard said lightly, but there was a dangerous tension to her now.
Jacob's brows were low over his eyes. His muscles had gone taut as well. "Why would my father force his crew to eat toxic food?" he muttered. "Whatever's happening here needs to stop."
They tried to talk with the other survivors, but they wouldn't—or couldn't—talk. Some mumbled about the hunters, or about what the leader might do to them, or shied away from Jacob into shelters. Some just couldn't seem to put the words together to say anything at all.
When they found a crate full of strange vegetables, berries, and nuts, Taylor kicked at the ground. "They've been eating only that toxic local food for who knows how long! Like that wasn't obvious enough."
At the center of the camp, there was a stack of crates from the Gernsback, wrapped in wires and rebar and structured into some kind of crude statue. When they walked closer to it, they saw the survivors had used the wire and rebar to make a sort of face at the top. Garrus frowned. "What the hell?" Jacob demanded. "Someone had to push them to make that. That's borderline . . . worship."
Just then, a mechanical voice spoke from the other side of the canyon. "Your leader demands obedience," it called in emotionless tones. "Weapons are forbidden." Automatic fire from a cheap submachine gun sounded, echoing off the rocks of the canyon.
The women in the camp screamed and dived into shelters, behind rocks, and Garrus turned to see three LOKIs marching in formation out of the other exit to the canyon, firing as they walked. He and Shepard took two out with tech bursts. Miranda gunned down the third, and Jacob walked over to the sparking chassises, nudging them with the toe of his boot.
"His mechs shoot without question?" Garrus wondered. "Not the best solution for long-term discipline."
Taylor nodded. "That would make them hate him. Maybe it was just for defense."
A woman had been standing near the canyon exit. She came out from behind a rock, clutching a datapad and walking toward them with short, shuffling, hesitant steps. She was fixated on Jacob, and there was a lingering intelligence in her dark brown eyes. "Please," she said diffidently, pushing the datapad at Taylor. Garrus glanced at her sharply. He recognized her voice. She was Teresa Varness, the medical officer whose log they had found at the crash site.
Taylor took the datapad, staring at her. "Here, you can end it," she told him. "You—have his face, but you fight his machines. You might stop this. This . . ." she gestured at the datapad. "I forget how to . . . read, but this was the start. What he promised, and what they did to us." She looked at Shepard, at all of them then, chin lifted. "We need the sky," she said. "Take us back to the sky."
Then Teresa Varness walked back to the other women. She wandered from shelter to shelter, talking with the others softly, drawing them out into the camp, hugging some, adjusting the disheveled hair and clothes of others. She's still a leader, Garrus thought. Like the others, her brain was clearly damaged by the toxic food that grew on this world, but she had retained enough intelligence to keep a record of what had happened here, maintain it was wrong, and ask for help when it came. She seemed superstitious, assigning Jacob the power to end things here through a perceived duality with the power she knew on this planet—like appearance but unlike actions—but Garrus was impressed by the level of coherency she had retained compared to the others.
"I hope someone can help these people," he murmured. "Whatever's happened here, these people didn't deserve this."
Jacob was busy reading the datapad Teresa had given them. "Jacob," Shepard prompted him, quietly. "What does it say?"
"It's a crew logbook," Taylor answered after a while. "Some of them thought the beacon repair was taking too long. They were afraid they'd run out of supplies and lose their minds to the decay. My father restricted the ship food for himself and the other officers so they wouldn't be affected. Everybody else had to eat the toxic food and hope for treatment later. The rest is a casualty list. A few mutinied over the decision. My father and his officers turned the mechs on them."
Maybe it wasn't as bad as it looked, Garrus thought. Ronald Taylor's actions, so far, made sense. Harsh, maybe, but it might have been the best way to save the most people. Shepard seemed to agree. "The beacon was fixed after a year, so the plan must have worked. Why no signal?"
But Jacob's face was hardening. His brown eyes seemed to turn flat and golden as he scrolled through the logbook. "Those weren't the last entries on the casualty list," he said. His voice had gone sharp and punctuated. Lawson looked more worried than Garrus had ever seen her as she watched her friend. "More incidents. Harsh punishments. It's like they're cattle . . . or toys. In a year, all the male crew members are flagged as 'exiled' or dead."
Garrus's fists clenched. The hunters.
"They separated out the women," Taylor went on. "Assigned them to officers like pets. And after the beacon is fixed, the officers appear in the casualties, too—after! My father took control and didn't stop it."
Garrus's stomach churned. His blood burned. He looked from Shepard to Lawson. Both of their faces were flat and expressionless, too carefully impassive. Both women were professionals, and Garrus could tell they were trying to keep a grip on their disgust and revulsion, for Jacob's sake. This was ten times worse for him, and they knew it.
The logs they had heard back at the crash site. The women here who cringed away from Jacob and his resemblance to Ronald Taylor but seemed more at ease with Shepard and Lawson. A record of exiled man, officer casualties. The implications here were sick, and they were ugly. If things here had gone down the way all the evidence suggested, Ronald Taylor deserved to die. But there couldn't be any misunderstanding about what had happened.
Garrus cleared his throat. "Does it say why he separated the men and women, or is it as bad as it seems?"
Taylor shook his head. "No, it turns to gibberish," he said. "Maybe the men got violent early on, but from the state of this place, I'd say the hunter thing is recent. What he allowed here—I don't see any justification."
"Anything in there about whether the effects of the toxic food can be treated?" That was Shepard, in the same controlled, clipped voice she had used when they had first heard what Garrus realized must have been officer logs by the wreck.
Jacob shook his head again. "Nothing. But it seems like the right call. If everyone gets it, who's left to fix the beacon? You'd never get out. But they did fix it, and the signal wasn't sent until now." He looked back at the camp, his face like stone. "I'm starting to see why."
Shepard was watching Teresa Varness. "We haven't seen any other officers," she said quietly. "He killed them?"
"There were five after the crash," Jacob replied. "Navigation, engineering, bridge staff. Should have had no problem fixing the beacon and keeping people safe. All killed within the same week, about a month after the beacon was repaired."
There was a long, weighty pause. "It's looking like he only activated the beacon because the men have come back ready to fight," Shepard said evenly.
There was nothing left to say. What had happened here was evil. Inexcusable. To his credit, Jacob didn't try to make an excuse. Instead, he carefully stowed the datapad in a pocket of his armor's cargo pants. His fingers shook. When he spoke, so did his voice, and his eyes were bright with righteous fury. "He let this happen, and now it's biting him in the ass. Nine years. Why didn't he set it right? I need to find this man."
Looking from Jacob to the women, Garrus didn't know what they would do when they got to Ronald Taylor. He didn't think any of the others knew either. But an unspoken understanding crackled between the four of them—one way or another, Ronald Taylor would pay.
A/N: Jacob's loyalty mission is one of the hardest for me to play Paragon. I can barely manage by focusing on compassion for Ronald Taylor's victims, but I wish there was an option to both express a desire to help them and shoot Ronald in the head. A rapist that became a murderer so he could be the only rapist around, and to keep everyone else from conveying knowledge of his crimes back to civilization? A weaselly coward that signaled for help only when planetary cycles and natural outrage finally came together and his crimes all backfired? Just sending the guy to prison, when his victims will have to deal with the years of trauma he put them through all the rest of their lives, has a bitterer taste than that Cerberus scientist involved with Akuze on Ontarom getting off. Being the good guy in the Mass Effect trilogy is often more rewarding in the long-term than the alternative. But sometimes it just isn't as satisfying.
Too bad Garrus has given up Archangel. The people on Aeia could use an avenging angel.
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