Chapter 58. Leap of Faith
14. January 2415 AD, Feros
"What do you think will happen first? This thing getting to where it wants to go or the geth bringing down the whole tower?" one of the two Blackwatch operatives flanking General Arterius and Lieutenant Callius wondered while simultaneously jabbing what looked like a standard-issue stimpack into a slot on his leg armor and discarding the empty package onto black ground below their feet mid-run, ignoring the shaking of yet another explosion chipping away at the vine-covered exterior of the prothean skyscraper. As another muffled plasma detonation chipped against the towers exterior somewhere below them, the turian went on. "I'm thinking it'll be the tower going down."
"Please don't tempt fate, Galviat," the other turian soldier replied. "I'd rather not be buried alive alongside you. Again." Although she couldn't claim to understand what it was that they were talking about, their brief conversation gave Shepard something else to focus on than the strange feeling she had been getting in the back of her mind ever since they had entered the tower almost ten minutes ago. Between the sense of deja-vu that seemed to hit her randomly every other minute or so and the weird tension that was building up all over her body, she was glad for the little banter.
"It is highly unlikely," the asari archeologist, who seemed to have already all but recovered from her inital shock at having encountered the asari-like alien they were following, began to say between her somewhat ragged breaths, "that the geth will be able," she continued before pulling in more air, the strain of what was little more than an easy jog for the trained soldiers accompanying her getting to her, "to compromize the tower's structural integrity in any meaningful way," she finished quickly before trying to catch her breath again all the while doing her best to keep up with the pace of her companions.
"Great. So the plants will get us after all," the turian soldier complained but continued to follow the 'asari' nonetheless.
For another minute or two the Normandy's team and their turian allies kept moving through the tower, the number of destroyed geth platforms and 'dead' creatures similar to those they had fought in the Condor corvette still resting on one of the tower's landing platforms increasing surprisingly quickly once they had reached what Doctor T'Soni had described as the tower's 'most interior layer', the part of the structure that had been meant to supply the arcology built around with everything from power to water and basic goods to luxuries.
"Oh, spirits," Lieutenant Callius cursed before stopping just as the group passed a geth construct with an eerily purple taint to its design. Deciding not to think too hard about how it reminded her of the large spikes she had seen used on Eden Prime if they had been turned upside-down or what the meaning of the tubes drilled into one of the large vines running all over the walls of this section of the tower was, Shepard was ready to move on right until Arterius and the 'asari' stopped as well. "Is this what I think it is, General?" the turian biotic muttered.
"Another kind of artifact? You have to be kidding me," the fourth turian soldier, who seemed to be very intend of keeping his distance, replied.
"It definitely shares a resemblance, Lieutenant," General Arterius said as he observed the tubes and pale blue plant matter around them for a few moments before turning to the asari and then back to Emily and the rest of the squad, muting the speakers of his armor which he had been using to communicate with the 'asari' in the process. "I think that Old Growth of hers might already be beyond saving. Depending on what we find, we might have to blow this entire place up to ensure its destruction."
"You want to destroy the entire tower because of this?" the asari archeologist replied. To her that probably sounded like a terrible overreaction. Especially considering they were standing inside of a prothean tower.
"No. I'd like to destroy the entire block. But we don't have the fire power to do it. So I'll settle for the tower."
Although the asari was visibly shocked by it, Emily could see the logic behind such a strategy.
They had no idea how big this Thorian was and how many more devices like this were spread around their immediate vicinity. Although the HSA hadn't put much faith in indiscriminate orbital bombardment ever since the Fringe Wars and the Siege of Horizon, a radical step may become necessary unless they wanted to leave behind a minefield of these artifacts. A scenario that despite the repercussions of blowing up a chunk of Feros would have still seemed preferable.
"Don't you thi-"
"We can't waste anymore time on the constructs of the cold ones. The Old Growth is in terrible danger!" the Thorian's creation suddenly roared, prompting the Blackwatch leader to unmute his speakers again.
"We know. But we will only move on when this thing is gone. No discussion," he barked with a sense and tone of authority that few officers managed to hit without sounding full of themselves. Judging by the lack of a hostile reaction, it worked. "Veltax, get rid of this thing for me," he then ordered, causing the forth turian soldier to pull three grey metal cylinders from a large pouch embedded in the chest-piece of his black armour.
"Hold on. Don't you think that's a bit of overkill?" Vakarian injected after standing behind the Blackwatch operative and watching him get to work, most likely familiar with the power of the explosives.
"Trust me, Palavani, with these things you want overkill," Veltax replied while kneeling down and stuffing the charges into a small opening of the device's armor, taking incredible care not to touch it. "Done, Sir. Since I can't be sure that the tower won't start messing with a remote trigger as we move up, I a timer for five minutes," he added far too caImly considering he was standing right next to what would soon be a very large explosion. "So," he shrugged, dragging out the word far beyond its normal length. "I suggest we get moving again now."
"Understood," the general nodded before turning back to the green 'asari'. "Now we go," he instructed as if she was just another subordinate and to Emily's surprise, the figure simply complied in silence and returned the task of leading them to their destination.
As they continued their jog after the increasingly faster going alien, Shepard began to pick up on the by now familiar sound of geth weapons being fired off in the distance, the echoes of what sounded like enough sustained fire to cover an entire city block finding their way to them through the labyrinth of black, vine-covered corridors. Figuring that whatever it was that was fighting them would at least keep the synthetics occupied long enough for her team and their allies to slip by, the N7 for dismissed it as a secondary concern for now and kept her focus on their guide. Despite having been in favour of following her, she didn't trust her.
"Whatever it is that they're shooting," Wrex mumbled as they passed a broken piece of prothean tech that sent a tingle down Emily's spine not quite unlike the one she had felt after waking up in the wake of her encounter with the beacon on Eden Prime. "It sure seems to be hard to kill."
"Don't sound so disappointed. The more they shoot at it, the less they shoot at us," the turian detective offered in return as Shepard did her best to dismiss the unexplainable pull she felt towards the unfinished skeleton of what looked like it had been intended to become another prothean beacon, only managing to do so after a far too long moment of zoning out and a brief series of jumbled images that could've been anything from a part of the beacon's vision to her own vivid imagination.
What was wrong with her? This wasn't the place to lose focus. She had to concentrate on the mission, nothing more, nothing less. Telling herself to get a grip, Emily continued her jog, only realising that the unfinished beacon was already out of sight when she noticed that brown vines had now replaced the black metallic walls from earlier and the partially melted remains of a somewhat larger, yellow geth drone.
Since she had just had one hell of a black-out, the N7 drew a short consequence out of the experience.
She'd have to get that looked into once she got back to the Normandy and Doctor Chakwas.
"I'd watch the fuel tank on that one, Shepard," Wrex offered as he passed it behind her, probably not liking how unconcerned she had stepped past it. "If the acid melts the right bits, that pyro's a ticking bo-" when the muffled sound of the turian demolition charges exploding below them cut off his sentence, the bounty hunter let out a frustrated growl. "A ticking bomb," he finished.
"Tangled with the geth before, Wrex?" Alenko asked, probably trying to confirm whether or not the krogan was one of the few people who had fought against the geth ever since their war with their creators had turned the quarians into a race of refugees and galactic pariahs and survived to tell the story.
"I've lived nine hundred years and I was a mercenary for most of that time," the krogan explained. "Of course I fought the geth before."
"Hold up. You're really nine hundred years old?" a flanging voice injected.
"I am. Surprised, Blue?"
"Well, yes. I always figured C-SEC messed up your birthday," the turian detective admitted. "No offense but someone with your life style usually doesn't make it past three hundred. Or hundred at all."
The krogan only laughed at that as he followed Shepard and company through a field of geth drones and Thorian creatures which by the look of it had torn into each other in a very brutal fight. "Turns out I'm also hard to kill," he finally said as he passed a large red platform covered in brown, twisted bodies and half-way dried, green acid that had almost entire melted a weapon as big as the N7 herself.
If there ever had been an appropriate time to tell someone not to 'jinx it', it would've been now. But before Shepard could offer her own contribution to the banter between the two, she very suddenly stopped dead in her tracks to avoid running into the turian lieutenant who had done the same thing at the next bend of the web of corridors they had been following.
"Damn," she heard Williams mutter while looking at the large, brownish creature that was suspended over a very steep drop and thrashing like someone had set it on fire, the vines and tendrils hanging from it lashing into the air around it and creating a hauntinly alien sound.
"That thing is the Thorian?" General Arterius asked as he looked at the positively awestruck 'asari' that had frozen in place the moment they had reached their destination.
"Beold! The untained kin has arrived to best the cold ones!" the green figure exclaimed in return, ignoring the debris that a plasma detonation had just sent falling down from a higher level, only barely missing them and the Thorian alike and pointing to a larger version of the device they had just blown up that seemed to be embedded in the 'back' of the creature. "When he removes their shakles, the key shall be his!"
"Sir, I think it's already too late," Lieutenant Callius noted quietly over the squad intercom muted to the outside world, before placing a small marker over the pale blue flesh that was spreading out from the device and had already managed to cover a huge chunk of the Thorian that was now starting to calm down despite of the bluish lights that were running underneath a good two-thirds of its skin.
"I know," he replied. "But it doesn't have to," he added quickly while shouldering his Phaeston and aiming the scope at the machine. When he was done with his inspection, the general pressed the button that folded the weapon into a smaller box and stored it on the magnetic lock on his back "How do we know you won't turn on us once we free your master?"
"You oppose the cold ones that sought to slave the Thorian to their Harbinger," the figure replied as Shepard noticed the plant visibly move with every word, confirming her growing suspicion that this wasn't an individual being with an own free will that happened to be loyal to the creature but rather a mouth-piece created solely for the purpose of communication. "With the key in your hands," it went on while pointing at Emily herself, something she wasn't ready to call a good thing at this point,"you will carry the Old Growth's wrath beyond this world," it certainly seemed to have faith in that statement. "You will punish them for their insolent actions. You will take from them what they tried to take from the Old Growth. You will stop the shadow following their every step."
"Think we can trust it to keep its word, Sir?" Galviat wondered over the squad intercom.
"Only one way of finding that out," the general replied. "Lieutenant Callius, I need a boost, " he added with a nod that caused the junior officer to also fold up her Phaeston, a purple glow engulfing her hands. As Shepard watched him take a couple of steps back, the realisation of what he was going to do dawned on her right as his left foot pushed his armored figure over the long gap between the floor they were standing on and one of the large vines leading to the central 'body' of the Thorian. Not even having enough time to think about what would happen if he wouldn't have made the jump or being horrified by the possibility of the vine not supporting his weight, the commander shook some clarity into her head as her turian ally began climbing towards the geth machine at a brisk pace.
"Should he really be the one doing that?" Williams wondered out loud as the mixed squad watched their de-facto leader navigate across the vines with a grace at least Emily hadn't expected of a turian who at the very least had to be well into his fifties, or even his sixties considering the rank he held.
"Blackwatch started out as a mountaineer legion," Garrus Vakarian replied when it became evident that the other Blackwatch soldiers wouldn't offer an explanation. "There's not a part of their training that doesn't include some kind of climbing."
"How come you know about our training, Palavani?" the demolition's specialist of the all-turian united muttered as Shepard herself came to realise that they probably should focus less on the general and more on the upper levels from where he could potentially be shot at, something even his honorguard seemed to forget until they watched her do it.
"Call it family relations," the C-SEC officer said with a shrug before returning to silence right as Arterius reached the device on the Thorian's back and began prying and pulling on the tubes of the device when the N7 spotted a small white reflection on a level above them. Without thinking and only taking a second or two to undo her safety, she found her aim on what appeared to be the top of the head of a geth about to expose itself to her Valkyrie rifle and pressed her finger against the trigger right until she was just a squeeze away from firing of a shot.
Then, as the first cable was pulled and the Thorian began thrashing again, almost throwing off the turian trying to liberate it, the geth made its move and exposed enough of its head to give her a clean shot. Four short taps later, way before it had risen to its full height and aimed its rifle, a burst of blue static signified the failure of its shield and an explosion of white cooling fluid marked its destruction.
"Alright people," she frowned as she began hearing both the roaring of the creatures from earlier and the metallic noises of geth moving about the place in the wake of her four shots. "Here they come." Watching as a purple shape was tackled from an even higher level, tumbling down the reactor shaft with a clawing brown monster still clinging to its frame, Emily started counting on the pragmatic hope that the Thorian would exhaust his forces just as much as he would exhaust the geth. Because judging by the wailing, clicking and gunfire now rising like an orchestra around them, there were dozens of potential enemies for every one of her allies, including the asari doctor who she at this point wasn't ready to call a combatant and the turian general who had already clawed his way back to the device embedded in the Thorian.
However despite the numbers involved in the fight around them, Shepard soon began to realise that the Thorian's plant monsters were either very incapable of fighting the geth or very much irrelevant to the synthetics. As the squad began trading fire with synthetic soldiers lining the levels above them and also streaming towards them from somewhere below them, a few of the nimble ones she had already seen on Therum even crawling up the insides of the reactor shaft and trying to take shots at them from exposed angles, it became evident where the priority of the geth was at.
Keeping the Thorian, who was now down to the final three cables, shackled.
"They won't stop coming, will they?" Vakarian complained as he fired the one long weapon he had left, his sniper rifle, at a geth and taking its head clean of its synthetic shoulders before again ducking behind the dark metallic frame of a prothean wall that was proving to be very resilient.
"Not as long as they think they've got a chance of taking down the general," the turian lieutenant to Shepard's right replied while sending off a Phaeston burst and taking down one of the geth that had been forcing Arterius to stop his prying on one of the three cables.
"At the rate they're going," Wrex muttered while shrugging of a series of geth pulse fire and biotically tossing the shooter to its doom, "they might just manage to do that before your general pulls the last plug."
"Not if they can't hit him," the N7 said to herself after twisting back into cover and looking at the asari of her team. "Doctor T'Soni," she called to the archeologist that had as far away from the battle as possible, remaining besides Williams and Alenko who she had sent to cover their back.
"Y-yes?" the asari replied, somewhat unsure at firts. "What is it?"
"How long can you hold a biotic barrier?" Due to needing all the guns available to her, she hadn't even thought about giving the task to the turian lieutenant or her own XO on the ground. They were already outnumbered enough as things were, there was no way they could afford occupying one of their shooters to fortify the general's position.
What she wouldn't give to have her former N7 platoon to be with her right now. WIth them she never had to worry about being down a rifle or two.
"Long," the asari replied quickly and confident. "Very long," she repeated while rising to her feet and summoning a ball of purple biotic energy to the palms of her white gauntlets.
"Even if its being shot?" she asked.
"Even if its being shot," T'Soni replied.
With a human or turian she would've been skeptical but the doctor was an asari and Shepard had seen asari use their biotics in combat before. Even the 'weakest' among them possessed a level of control and power few others could match. And even with only a little training, just about all of them outclassed just about all non-asari biotic in the galaxy, their natural, evolutionary affinity giving them an unparalleled advantage over others.
"Time to get ready then," the N7 ordered as she waved for her to come and stand next to her.
Time would tell if her faith would be justified or not.
Meanwhile
As he pulled on the cord stuck inside the Thorian's hide while pulse rifle fire bounced of his shields, Desolas wondered how far his desperation had come that he was putting his life on the line for an indoctrinated alien that had tried to kill them not half an hour ago.
Was this really what this situation was doing to him?
Making him take this kind of ridiculously stupid risk at becoming indoctrinated on the off-chance that it'd help stop the Harbinger's plan for Saren?
No point in thinking about it now, was there?
He had already taken the leap. Might as well make the most out of its consequences.
Feeling the cord come loose right as his HUD began flashing a bright, warning red with the news that he'd soon be out of a kinetic barrier, the Blackwatch officer ducked back down, counting on the geth's evident unwillingness to risk hitting the implant he was hunkering behind to keep him safe. Just like before that tactic seemed to work well enough for his shields to have some time to recharge.
Or rather it would've if not for the geth hopper he was now seeing climb up the reactor on his exposed left flank. Feeling time slow down as the hand that wasn't holding onto the Thorian reached for his sidearm, Desolas came to a grim realisation while watching the weapon installed in the head of the synthetic light up.
He wouldn't be fast enough and his armor might not stand up to that shot.
Nonetheless, he continued the practiced motion of aligning the Carnifex with his eyes and pulling the trigger of the pistol., barely registering the purple bubble that began engulfing him moments before a beam of light blue plasma could incinerated him. Only when the geth dropped and he kept standing, or rather hanging, did he understand that he now owned his life to Doctor T'Soni and that he could still try and fix the mess he had literally jumped into thanks to her barrier. After returning the weapon to its magnetic holster on his hip, Desolas didn't waste a single second before going on about his task and removing another connection between the cybernetic implant and its unwilling host, leaving the device and himself hanging by thread in the process. Only managing to stop himself from falling by digging his knife and the ends of his other three limbs into the Thorian's skin, Desolas decided to ignore the kind of anxiety he was putting his honorguard through right now. He had to be the one to do this. Having someone else take a jump aimed at fixing what was arguably a situation caused by his own decisions wouldn't have been right.
"Almost there," he grunted as he pulled himself up, the countless small servo-motors in his armor helping him lift his increased weight. Staying low and crawling to where the implant was now hanging, Desolas heard the Thorian shriek as his knife dug into the pale blue skin in an attempt to keep himself from nearly falling to his death again. Beyond saving or not, in a way he felt sorry for the agony he was putting the thing through. No one and nothing deserved what had happened to it. After he got as close to the geth device as he could, Desolas oncea gain took a stupid risk to cover the good arm lenght that he was short of finally pulling it out once and for all. With a move that was equal parts calculated as it was lucky, he jumped on another one of the vines holding the Thorian in place. Then, in another moment of luck, the general sliced the curved Mexta-style blade through the grey cord mid-air with as much force as he could muster before being forced to let go of the blade so that he could use both of his arms to grab the thick vine and keep himself from following the long fall that was now ahead of both the implant and the black knife that had served him faithfully for most of his service in the legion.
If there ever was an excuse to lose one's blade in battle, this was probably it.
Feeling the Thorian calm down the moment the invasive technology had been removed, Desolas didn't think about giving in to his increasing desire to rest. Instead of staying prone on the vine and being exposed to all of the geth now surely training their guns on him, the Blackwatch operative pushed himself to his feet and took another running leap without giving it much thought. But this time he didn't have the biotic assistance of his lieutenant. Only the slight height difference between his starting point and the spot he was aiming for was there to give him enough of a boost to close the long gap towards safe cover.
However before he could start calculating if he was going to make it or not, he had already jumped, fallen and grabbed onto the edge of the black metal floor. Feeling himself be pulled up a second later by another black-armored turian hand, Desolas rolled for cover as soon as he was on solid ground again, taking a single deep breath before unfolding his Phaeston and doing his part in the firefight that would last another ten minutes before the geth decided to pull back to cut their losses.
"I don't want to tempt fate but think they're done with us," the C-SEC officer that had joined Commander Shepard's crew muttered quietly over the squad intercom a minute after the last shot had been fired, his Mantis rifle still resting on top of his cover and aiming to one of the upper levels, the faded and hardly noticeable insignia in shape of a stylized turian eye that signified that this weapon had been handed out as part of the army's marksman school only now standing out to the general.
Interesting.
It took a lot to earn that particular honor.
He might've had a loose mouth but the Palavani certainly seemed to possess a self-discipline and dedication few of Desolas' people had in them.
"So what do we do now?" the krogan bounty hunter asked after another few moments of silence.
"Now we get what he came here for," Desolas spoke as he looked at the frozen figure of the asari-like avatar of the Thorian before figuring that it was time to go and face it's master directly. "We did our part, now it's time for you to keep your promise," he began while nodding for the human Spectre to join him. "The Cipher. Give it to her," the general went on, only turning back around when he heard that the Thorian's reply still came in form of its servant.
"The cold ones and the shackles they brought are removed. But the Old Growth was scathed in the fight," it spoke.
"We can't help you with that," he replied quickly, keeping his own assessment of the Thorian's 'health' and how it was beyond saving to himself.
"It was not expected of you," the avatar replied before quickly stepping up to Shepard and extending her hands in a way that visibly unnerved the N7 to the point where her rifle was again pointing at the creature. "Do not be alarmed. The Thorian means you no harm. As promised you will deliver it's wrath."
"What's that thing doing?" one of the human soldiers, the woman, wondered.
"I think," Doctor T'Soni muttered before her voice was filled with strange fascination, "Goddess, I think it's trying to mindmeld. I didn't think it could replicate that part of our biology. Truly fasc-"
"Is it a threat?" the human lieutenant asked a moment later.
"A bit too late for that question now, is it?" Commander Shepard offered herself before lowering her gun and nodding at the asari. "Do what you have to do."
In an instant the hands of the green asari touched the onyx armor of the Spectre's helmet, both of them seemingly freezing in time for the better part of a minute.
"Now you see as they saw," the Thorian's avatar declared as it pulled its hands back from the human who took a step back. "Now you understand what they understood before you."
"Are you alright, Commander?" the human officer, Alenko if he wasn't mistaken, asked as he slowly walked up to the silent N7 who took another step back. "Commander?"
"I-I-," the human stuttered in a manner completely uncharacteristic of the kind of person she seemed to be. "I don't really know," she finally replied.
"What do you mean, Ma'am?" the biotic inquired before extending a hand to keep his superior from walking into him.
"They're all gone," she muttered before stumbling backwards and falling against the lieutenant. "All gone," she repeated, sending the worry that he had just given an order that had destroyed her mind through Desolas.
"What's wrong with her, Doctor?" Alenko asked as her rifle slipped out of the N7's hands, now dangling only by the sling it was attached to, likely just as confused as the rest of them.
"It's possible that the beacon's message combined with the means to decrypt it are overexerting her brain. We should get her back to the Normandy," as the human soldier looked at the asari, she reinforced her tone. "Right now."
"You heard her," Desolas ordered. "Get your commander out of here. We'll be right behind you," he added before looking at the Thorian and the visible signs of indoctrination spread out over its alien figure.
It might've been willing to help them but it was still too dangerous to be left like this. He'd remain true to his plan from earlier.
"What do you mean right behind you?" the krogan bounty hunter asked while he picked up Commander Shepard with an ease no other member of their squad could've mustered.
"Exactly what I said," he countered as he looked upwards and saw the thin opening of the unfinished tower that led straight down towards them. Although narrow considering the scale of the structure they were in, it wouldn't be a problem for the gunnery officer of the Parnack and the advanced weapons systems of the ship. In a way he figured it'd be more of a mercy than a betrayal really. The agony the Harbinger would subject onto the Thorian if he left it behind like this was far bigger than that a precise shot of the Parnack aimed right at its heart could ever create.
"Let's get moving," the general ordered while looking at the frozen asari-like figure before subetly tossing a target marker to the ground and following the rest of the tower and towards the landing platform they had come from where they ran into the Normandy's recovery team that was now finishing up its work on the old human ship they had found there.
"Jesus Christ, is she?" one of the human marines that had headed for them as soon as they spotted them leaving the tower asked.
"Fine," Desolas assured him. "You're in charge, here?"
"Yes, Sir," the man in black and grey armor nodded as the team of the Normandy walked past him and the corpsman rushing towards them.
"Good," he returned the gesture. "Gather your men, collect whatever you managed to salvage and get ready to leave. We're moving out now. An orbital strike will level this place once we're in the clear."
"A what now?" Vakarian, who had formed the linking piece between the two units asked while suddenly coming to a stop.
"An orbital strike, Palavani," Desolas repeated. "The Thorian is indoctrinated. We need to make sure that the Harbinger doesn't cease full control of it."
"You just risked your life to try and save it, General," the detective pointed out as he folded up his rifle.
"I risked my life to get us the Cipher, Detective," he corrected. "The Thorian was just a means to an end."
"It helped us."
"That doesn't change a thing. It has to be destroyed. It's an asset our enemy can't have access to. I don't think I need to explain that to you, do I?"
"I understand the concept of asset denial but an orbital strike?"
"Hold up. What's this about an orbital strike, Blue?" the krogan bounty hunter, who had returned from bringing Shepard to the craft that was already waiting for them, asked the C-SEC officer-
"Turns out the general is going to bomb the Thorian."
"What?"
"Yes. Says its asset denial," Vakarian nodded before the krogan looked at him.
"It is asset denial," Lieutenant Callius suddenly threw in, somehow feeling obligated to justify the morality of his decision to a bounty hunter of all people. "It's indoctrinated. Destroying it is the only reasonable course of action."
"Is it? Because to me that sounds like a stab in the back."
"If you would've dealt with indoctrination before, you'd understand," the cabal argued.
"What about his brother then? You'll drop a bomb on his head too when we find him?" the bounty hunter spat as all turians, even the one from his team turned their heads to him in silence. "That'd be asset denial as well?" the krogan asked, intentionally trying to provoke him.
"If I were you, I'd stop talking now," Galviat warned from behind as he and Veltax joined into the argument as well.
"Because right now you're going down a road you don't want to be on," Veltax added before the Blackwatch commander decided that he had led this lack of discipline on both sides slide for long enough. There wasn't going to be a fight between allies, at least not while he was around.
"Stand down, Sergeants. Let him say what he wants to say. It won't change a thing," Desolas instructed before staring down the krogan's eyes, uninitiated by the angry glare in them. "Go on then."
"I already said everything I wanted to say, turian. Just didn't take you for the kind of coward that'd stab your allies in the back," the krogan muttered before saying something that did manage to hit as intended. "I guess that just runs in the family."
"What you take me for is none of my concern, bounty hunter. Get to your team."
"Is that an order?" the krogan said as he took a step closer and forcing Desolas to call onto every bit of discipline he had in him to not smash his helmet into the light-brown face in front of him.
"No," he replied calmly before side-stepping the krogan and heading for the shuttle, "It's a suggestion you should heed if you don't want to be incinerated alongside the tower."
Twenty Five Minutes Later
"-don't know what's wrong with her," she heard someone say faintly, the dizziness and exhaustion making it hard for her to focus on what exactly was being said, the fact that she was hearing something and thus had woken up again being more than enough for her right now. "-like the beacon all over agai-"
If she had gotten that correctly, which she really wasn't sure of given the state she was in, the N7 could only agree. Except for the fact that she was halfway conscious this time around, Emily did feel like she had gone through the Eden Prime mission all over again. Her entire body was hurting, her mind was all messed up, she wasn't entirely sure what had been done to her and the strange feeling that something horrible had happened just outside of her comprehension all seemed quite literally painfully familiar.
"May I sug-" a gentle voice she somehow managed to pinpoint as that of the asari archeologist quipped in, "an unconventional form of treatment?"
"What do you mea-"
Treatment?
Had she been injured?
Shot maybe?
No. She'd remember something like that, wouldn't s-
Suddenly it came back to her. The Thorian, the Cipher, the mind-meld with the Thorian's twisted version of an asari. Like a wave it all crashed down on her and just like big waves tended to, it hurt. A lot. With a jolt she felt her body tense up, the calm and collected instructions of Doctor Chakwas to hold her down and sedate her fading away with the numbness that was spreading through her body.
"-go ahead Doctor T'Soni-"
Go ahead with what?
What was an archeologist going to do if she got hurt in combat?
"-brace eternity, "she managed to catch before blackness washed over her.
For a few seconds, she wasn't sure what was going on. The only thing she was sure of was that this wasn't the work of sedatives. Only when she tried opening her eyes and succeeded ind oing it did Emily get what was going on.
"Commander," the asari scientist now standing in front of her spoke, her voice echoing through the indescribable emptiness that was surrounding the two of them.
"Liara," she whispered, unsure of why she suddenly felt like she had known the scientist for all her life. "What is this place? What's going on? What happened to me?"
"It's a mindmeld." Oh right. She had heard about that before. Heck, unless she was remembering Feros all wrong, she had just gone through one earlier. Or at least experienced the Thorian's poor imitation of one. "And the Cipher the Thorian gave to you overwhelmed you," the asari explained before suddenly rubbing her hands together and looking away from her, seemingly embarrassed. "So this was the only way I could think of to help you. I didn't mean to intrude on you."
"Intrude on me?" Emily asked before realising that the emptiness had been replaced by the familiar scenery of her home on Benning, the bright colours of the garden she had spent a good part of her teenage years in and the warm air of the planet's northern territories bringing back a lot of memories, good and bad alike. "Oh, I see," she muttered as she looked at the familiar glass door leading to her home and inspected her own reflection, finding herself to be wearing civilian attire in form of a yellow summer dress she didn't remember putting on once since enlisting with the HSAMC. "Mindmeld. Go figures it'd do something like this," she said as she tried to pick one of the leaves dangling from the tree to her left, finding them surprisingly tangibleand life-like.
"If I overstepped a line or did so-" the asari stuttered, "I apologize for doing this without your consent," she finally offered while Shepard watched the leave in her hand fade out of existence, its texture, weight and sun-heated warmth disappearing in the span of a few seconds and leaving nothing behind.
"Don't. You're fine," Shepard offered in return before looking up at the sky, finding it to suddenly be a starry night unobstructed by the trees of their garden. Looking back down, she also realised why. Although she was still on Benning, this wasn't her home anymore. It was a cemetery and in front of her was a grave she hadn't been to since the day it had been filled. "I have to ask. Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Is that how this works?"
"I am," Liara spoke with a sad expression her face, clearly looking at the grave herself.
"So you're also feeling what I'm feeling?" the N7 went on as she absent-mindedly tugged on the sleeves of the dress uniform she was now clad in.
"I am," the asari nodded again. "And I am so sorry for your loss," she added, the fact that she was projecting her fears in regards to losing her mother onto what Emily had already lost before her explaining the quiver in her voice.
How the Spectre knew that was the case?
Honestly she wasn't sure about it.
She just knew that it was.
"So am I," Emily sighed as she looked at the empty headstone, what had been written on it still being a mystery to her, before clutching her head as a series of familiar images, this time much slower than earlier, flashed in front of her eyes. Death, destruction, the twisted mockeries of organic life. It was both clear and messed up at the same time.
"Goddess," Liara whispered as she too fought against the impulse that was now assaulting their shared minds, fighting through the initial shock of it much quicker than Emily would've expected. "It's the beacon's message, isn't it?"
"I think so," Shepard frowned while shaking her own head. "But it's a lot worse than before," she added. "More intense, clearer. Real."
"The work of the Cipher, most likely," the archeologist figured as she rubbed her temple.
"Probably," the N7 replied with another groan before dropping to one of her knees, the unfamiliar but flawless interior of a large house overlooking a pristine silver skyline building up around her. "I take it this one is yours?" she asked through gritted teeth while looking at Liara who was now standing in front of her, her bright blue eyes looking down at her with sympathy.
"Yes," the archeologist briefly smiled while offering her a hand. "But I'm afraid it will only temporary distraction from the Cipher's attempt to translate the message," she added with a frown before her freckled face also twisted into an expression caused by suppressed pain.
"Well then," the N7 sighed as she rose to her feet, her now armored hand still linked with that of the asari even after getting up, the little height her armor gave her causing the former eye-level between the two to disappear. "No point in dragging out the inevitable then, is there?"
"I don't know what the translated message might do to us," the archeologist admitted, her fear making its way to Emily alongside a deep, haunting echo she recognized from Eden Prime that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, flooding every corner of the room and bringing with it an omni-present sense of dread.
"Then maybe you should get out of here," she suggested. Just like it was pointless to drag out the Cipher's impact, it would be pointless to risk both of their lives over it. She had survived the beacon's message on her own so Emily figured her odds of living through the translation where solid enough to not worry.
Right?
"I said that I'd join you on Feros to make sure no prothean device harms you," the asari said as her ice-blue eyes glinted with determination and the hand holding onto Emily's gauntlet tightened a little as an orange light started flooding through the windows, alien screams following it suitly. "I meant it. I'm not going anywhere."
"Are you sure about this?" the N7 asked, suddenly uncertain. As a shadow started to eclipse the orange light, laying itself over everything in the pristine home, Emily fought against the instincts screaming at her to get the hell out of here, knowing that she couldn't outrun a battle that would take place in her own head.
So instead of ducking down and hoping that it would pass, Emily opened herself to what was looming on the edge of the world Liara had created for them.
It was the dread of an entire people.
An unbelievable terror unlike anything she had ever felt.
A fear of death that sent a bone-chilling sensation through her body that caused her to grab a hold of the other hand as well in a futile gesture if only because it would've meant that she wasn't going to be alone in the end.
A fear of fighting a fight that was impossible to win and would only serve to drag out a fate that had been set in stone for longer than she could fathom.
A fear of failure. Of letting everyone down that was counting on her.
"You risked your life to save me on Therum," Liara offered with a brave smile that seemed to give her courage she didn't think she could have in her right now. "You trusted me enough to bring me to Feros. Now it's time that I stand with you, Emily."
"Thank you, Liara," she whispered before the full meaning of the beacon's vision hit them with a dark-red beam of light that seemed to burn her on the spot, far faster than she could ever hope to scream out in pain.
Their empty attempts of stopping an unstoppable harvest.
Their destruction at the hands of what they had called the Reapers.
A trillion deaths all etched into a single vision.
There was no way to describe how terrifying that was, especially once she realised that this was what Saren was trying to unleash on them as well. But there, in the horror that had been the fall of prothean civilization and all those who had lived in it, she saw a single ray of light that despite being miniscule compared to the darkness of the Reapers seemed to shine brighter than a thousand suns.
Ilos.
A world hidden from the onslaught of the Reapers' genocide, known only to a few souls who had died to keep its secret.
A world that had hidden the last protheans who had then sacrificed their own future to prevent the fate that had met them from ever returning and to give those who'd come after them the hint of a chance at breaking a pattern that had repeated itself time and again.
The Conduit.
The entrance Saren intended to use to unleash the Reapers for another harvest.
But also the entrance she could use to stop him from achieving that goal.
To give them more time.
To give them a chance.
Now all she needed was to know where it wa-
As quickly as the dark-red light had appeared, it vanished, the message and the terror attached to it coming to an apprupt end, leaving her question unanswered.
"-think they're finally waking up," the commander heard right when the full weight of everything that had happened crashed down on her.
"Right in time then," the voice of General Arterius offered before Shepard opened her eyes to the ceiling lamps.
Meanwhile, 16. January 2415 AD, Noveria, Port Hanshan
Feeling the dark fabric finally being pulled off his head, the specialist took a few seconds to adjust to the bright lighting of the room he had been sitting in for the last few hours and realised that it had indeed been a good decision to not break out of the pathetic excuse of a restraint that had been used to tie him to the by now very uncomfortable office chair. The guards present in the room would've complicated that. Looking around the white walls and tainted windows of the interrogation room, he noted the reflection of the door behind him that could serve as a quick exist if it had to.
"Start talking. Now," the turian in charge demanded of him as he noted the NDC security patch on her uniform clearly displaying her allegiance to the Noveria Development Corporation, the company that owned the colonialisation rights to the freezing ball of rock he was stuck on for the time being and had time and again declined the offer of HSA protection so many other independent worlds had taken following the Skyllian Blitz.
"You might want to be a little bit more specific than that," Daniel Morneau replied with a shrug and a roll of his neck that caused the stiff joints to crack. "Unless you just want me to tell you about my day or something like that," he added quickly. "Which by the way was going spectacular before you guys showed up and ruined it."
"Quit your mind games. We want answers," another member of the security force threathened as he pushed his chair back to the point where he almost fell over backwards.
These were amateur scare tactics. Besides telling him that they didn't know what they were doing, it also let the specialist know that they had no idea who they were actually dealing with. No one would expect a trained intelligence operative to fall for the good old chair tilt-trick.
"Fine," he groaned, playing along in his own way. "Start asking."
Why was it that he was always the one who got to be the bait? How come his partner never went into these situations and did the talking? Why did she always get to play the cavalry and save him when these things inevitably went south after they got what they wanted? Besides the very obvious and very logical answer that his biotic abilities made him 'harder' to disarm he really, really couldn't come up with a sound answer that didn't boil down to him always getting the bad half of these assignments because she was so good at talking him into things.
"You're working for the Shadow Broker," the turian security captain spoke, snapping him out of his half-serious internal complaint. "On Noveria of all places. Why? Corporate espionage?"
It was a bit more complicated than that.
No scratch that.
It was a lot more complicated than that.
Following their successful operation with Okuda in Milgrom, the Section 13 agents had followed their objective of 'guiding' the Broker's personal vendetta against the rogue Spectre in a way that would help them with stopping the turian from fulfilling whatever mission the Harbinger had entrusted onto him. Going from there, the data they had gotten from the backdoor into the Broker's network, something mostly owned to the information broker's very own arrogance, had been combined with the information they did have on Saren Arterius which in the end had led them to the conclusion that Noveria was where the Broker could hurt the rogue Spectre the most. Whatever it was that he was funding in the nearby research lab, it was worth enough for him to go out of his way to smuggle geth and krogan mercenaries onto Noveria, something that was sure to lose him whatever influence he still held over the NDC and their assets if it ever came out.
Hence it was also worth messing with.
"I'm not working for the Broker," he pointed out.
"Instead?"
Oh what the hell.
It might just do the trick.
"You see, I'm actually here to stop a rogue Spectre from ushering in the end of the world as we know," Morneau countered in as much of a sarcastic tone as he could muster so that no one would get the idea that he had just told them the truth. "But I don't wanna bore you with the details. So let's just say that the short version is this. I'm not a corporate spy and I'm not working for the Shadow Broker."
"He's messing with us," one of the guards said, pointing out what he thought was an obvious lie, before pulling out his baton and holding it up threateningly, an action that the specialist wouldn't allow to finish if he was forced to. "Why are we listening to this? We could just-" as he readied himself to break the cuffs with a burst of biotic power and fight it out, Morneau's muscles tensed up in anticipation.
"Lose our jobs over unnecessary use of force?" the one in charge said as her hand pulled down the blunt weapon quickly and pressed it into the fabric of the guard's with enough force to make him exhale in pain. "Put that thing away and go wait outside", she ordered while looking after him."Idiot," she added with a sigh.
"I take it they don't hire the best and brightest out here?" the specialist asked, hiding the obvious provocation behind a smirk.
"What are you doing here?" the security officer simply inquired in return.
"I just told you. I'm here to try and stop the end of the world."
"Cut the crap, human. We found a direct link to the Broker's network on your omni-tool," hadn't been his. That one was stored safely with Yo-yo, "So start talking before we start drugging you," drugs? Now they were finally moving out of amateur territory.
"Okay. Fine," he sighed, faking a defeated tone before beginning his reverse interrogation. "I guess you heard about Peak 15 ?" He certainly hadn't. He had no idea what was happening over there or what projects had resided in the facility prior to the incident. The only thing he had managed to catch before being, well, 'caught' was that something had happened in the most classified of the seventeen remote research facilities of the NDC and that the shippings of Arterius had arrived shortly before it, which was the one fact that made it interesting to Section 13 since it presented the hottest trail to the rogue Spectre as of now.
"The research lab that went dark yesterday?"
"Yes."
"What about it?"
"Well my boss-"
"The Shadow Broker?" the turian injected, causing Morneau to fake a sigh before using the angle for his own advantage.
"Since you're so set on that being the case, yes, the Shadow Broker," he nodded, "wanted me to figure out what happened to his source over there."
"The Broker snuck an informant into one of our remote sites?"
No.
He most certainly hadn't.
The only thing he had done on Noveria up to now was to mess with some of Arterius' financial assets and sow discord at the discretion of the 'intel' Morneau had fed him.
"Yes."
"Who?"
"Wouldn't you like to kno-"
"Who?" the turian demanded as her fist smashed on the table.
There it was, his opening. Putting as much defeat and resignation into his tone as possible, the specialist played his gambit to its intended end.
"A staff member of the company renting it," he replied vaguely while sounding completely sincere despite having no idea what was happening in Peak 15.
"Impossible. All the Binary Helix employees and their transmissions are under constant surveillance."
Perfect. Binary Helix. He could work with that. There was only so much a bio-engineering company could be doing for a rogue Spectre and he figured it if they could interfere with it, his efforts would be set back. A lot.
"Well, I guess your security's not as tight as you figured it was," he offered while activating the agreed upon signal with his watch and counting down in his head.
"We did manage to catch you," the turian pointed out before reaching for her weapon and instructing the guards to lift him from his chair, something he half heartedly fought to put up an illusion of things not going his way.
Twenty seconds.
"And the penalty for corporate espionage on Noveria, which you just confessed to, just happens to be exile from any NDC station on the planet," there really was something strange about how casually she announced the sentence of death by exposure.
Fifteen.
"The death penalty? A bit illegal in Council Space, isn't it?" he shrugged as he was being turned around, looking at the door he didn't want to be in front of right now if the small dot attached to it which the HUD of his glasses was showing him was anything to go by.
"We make our own laws around here, human. Should've read up on that before taking the job."
Ten.
"Yeah about that," he said. "I kind of lied."
"What?" the turian inquired before turning him around, her taloned hand grabbing his face and her Carnifex pressing against his chin, sending the HUD glasses falling to the ground.
Just five more.
"About everything really," he said before the audible noise of his restraints being broken by biotic energy caused shock to spread over her plated, unmarked face. As he jumped up, his weight still supported by the surprised guards holding onto him from either side, and kicked both his feet forward, the turian captain went flying, cracking against the glass and going limp right as his barriers flared up to protect him from the explosion that knocked out both of the guards standing next to him. Climbing to his feet right as two lone shots made their way into the heads of the guards, ending both their lives, he jumped to his feet and dusted off the sleeves of his jacket right as the turian captain's head exploded with a third bullet.
"You couldn't have picked something more quiet than a breaching charge?" he asked.
"You're complaining that I saved your butt again, Magic?" Yo-yo, who unlike him was wearing a combat hardsuit and a helmet, said as she handed him a pistol.
"Complaining about the way you did it," he corrected as he looked at the deceased guards in the corridor. "So much for staying subtle and moving under the radar."
"It's fine. While you were busy playing mind games all day, I sorted things out and got us a ride to Peak 15," Yo-yo shrugged.
"Fair point," Morneau replied as he looked at the dead guards. There'd be a lot of consequences to this. Most probably coming in the shape of mass accelerators rounds. "Whoever they are, they better bring something armored."
"I'm sure they got it covered."
"How so?"
"I got us the closest and fasted available HSA ship."
So much for plausible deniability.
Then again, if a situation ever warranted explaining why human forces touched down on an independent world that had refused their offers of protection, which was a rather self-explanatory mess, it was probably one that had the fate of the galaxy at stake.
"Which was?"
"The Normandy."
Codex: Asari Mindmeld
Often described as a remarkable product of the asari's unique evolutionary chain that led into a mono-gendered species, the exact origin behind their ability to 'meld minds', or rather tap into and share their nervous system with another organic being, are still poorly understood despite several millennia worth of study of both asari and non-asari scientist. Usually viewed as a side-effect of their reproduction methods, mindmelds can also be shared without sexual intend with their most famous usage being that of asari diplomats using their ability to accelerate the process of learning the salarian languages prior to the invention of the Translator Matrix and their most common usage occuring between friends and family as a means of an intimate farewell shortly before the death of one of the individuals invovled.
Although usually brief, some mindmelds may take hours, or in rare cases even days, to complete depending on the individuals involved in it. As such the subtle dangers of the act are taught to asari as young as forty, the time around which the ability first begins to manifest. In addition to potentially becoming a victim of physical exhaustion, a rare genetic defect found in a miniscule portion of 'pure-blooded' individuals, asari who's parents are also both asari, may lead to the death of one of the parties involved in the act.
While generally viewed as an intimate gesture, radical medical applications of the mindmeld are known to be used in the field of psychology and, much to the dismay of many non-Illium asari and law of Council space, also used as a means of solving crime through the forceful invasion of a mind and the memories within it, a process that is capable of permanently damaging the brain of the one being invaded should they resist and is known to be capable of leading to injury and death.
While a regular part of asari society and their everyday life, the initial culture shock another species may display upon learning that any asari may join their minds with someone else has been considered, the two occasions during which contact between a new species and the Council wasn't initiated by asari diplomats alone, the quarian and human first contact with salarian and turian forces respectively, remaining the only two times since the opening of relations between the volus and the Council where their ability to meld minds wasn't initially kept a secret.
A/N:
Here we are, the end of my version of Feros.
Only like... five weeks after the last chapter. Yay for not being late. At all or something like that.
Well, I don't actually have much to say to this chapter other than that we're closing in on Noveria and the 'end' of the middle part of Mass Effect 1, which was marked by me finally dropping the R-Bomb (reapers) for our good guys and will be followed up by the continuation of the Renegade's and Redford's story and Vermire... which is also going to be way different.
Now, a bit of a real life heads-up. Starting december, I'm going to be working... different hours. Not less, but different. I will have to wait and see how that affects my writing scheduel (which doesn't exist since I again pumped this chapter out in a couple of days after weeks of not doing anything other than writing down its general structure.)
Also, with the new Stellaris expansion coming up (hopefully soon), I also don't know how I'll use my free time :p
Also also, since I sinceriely doubt that I'll make it to that day, I'd like to point out that we are QUICKLY heading to our two year anniversary, which still seems so surreal. I've been doing this for two years and I JUST finished Feros.
Really speaks for how much bigger than originally planned Semper Vigilo became.
However what I am going to say now is this. Sometime after the anniversary, probably before Christmas, the first story of what I am now calling Semper Vigilo: Anthologies is going to be uploaded as a new story in its own. While I do picture a parallel release, meaning I'll bring you chapter 59 and "Hazard Pay", which is the title of the first chapter/short story of SV:A, the more likely scenario is that Hazard Pay will drop sometime around Christmas and the next chapter will drop either mid-december before it... or if I get really overwhelmed by working regular shifts, which is what I meant by different hours... in January.
Yeah.
I promise to try and get kind of 'quicker' again at the end of January, where I'll have three weeks of vacation followed by another half-year of shorter, theoretical 'school' stuff. ( I put that in quotes because well, it's still an academy and not really a school)
But I really don'T know if I'll make it. So we'Re just gonna hav eto wait and see.
Other than that? I only really want to thank everyone of you for following me over these last two years, whether you actually hit follow or not. It just means a lot to actually have people read what I put up and enjoy it all the while. It's amazing, really.
Thanks. For all of you.
Now. Enough of that.
For the record we're at 510 reviews, 791 favorites and 883 follows.
With these numbers, my hope is to hit 800 and 900 respectivley by the end of 2018. But even if we don't it's fine, because there's still so much more of you than I ever thought when I started outlining Semper Vigilo this time in 2016.
See you around next time.
