Chapter 88. Ghosts of Tuchanka
One Hour Later, 3. April 2417 AD, Tuchanka, Bone Desert, Near Shroud Eighty-Five
Riding in a Mako driven by Williams and then a Tomkah driven by one of Wrex' warriors were theoretically similar experiences. Both were armored vehicles designed to transport infantry, both had wheels, guns, and stabilizers and both could get a little bumpy depending on the terrain. So it really shouldn't have bene all that different.
In theory.
Practically, Shepard felt worse riding in the Tomkah than she had ever felt before. The aged APC's stabilizers didn't seem to work, so every time they hit a crater in the road, which were plenty on Tuchanka, the vehicle got rocked terribly and everyone in the crew compartment had the pleasure of feeling it. Furthermore whereas Williams had always driven in a straight line and as fast as the situation allowed it, their krogan driver insisted on swirling left and right regularly and flooring it no matter what condition their road was in. According to Wrex this was a tactic to avoid bombs and rockets, which were also a common occurrence on Tuchanka and that a harmless crash wouldn't be nearly as bad as being blown up. And while she got the basic principle of it, Emily also wondered if anyone had ever bothered to consider that half of the people inside this particular Tomkah weren't krogan and probably wouldn't survive what Wrex considered to be a 'harmless crash'.
From what she'd gathered from her team's conversations and their body language, everyone felt pretty much the same.
Well, everyone except for Mordin.
Whereas two turian allies were barely keeping their breakfast inside and Leng and Jack had also complained how much worse than a Mako ride, the normally talkative salarian had turned deadly silent and stoically sat in his seat. He was staring at the krogan opposite to him and by the looks of it, holding onto the harness like he was trying his hardest to break the bars. She hadn't worked with STG often and only ever seen Mordin in action twice, Omega and Freedom's Progress.
Maybe this was normal for someone like him and every STG operative behaved like this when the expected fighting.
Or maybe, which she was far more inclined to believe, this was Mordin thinking about the possibility of Maelon already being dead and making up his mind regarding what he'd do to the Weyrloc clan for the transgression. They had all considered that a possibility. Salarians in krogan captivity usually didn't last very long. Yet no one had dared to suggest that possibility due to the fact that everyone had a suspicion that Mordin's cheerful excitement about anything related to science and his unstoppable desire to work and make conversation at the same time hid a far more sinister side. The scars and bits and pieces of things he said to the crew painted a clear story. As had the discussion Emily had had with him regarding the Genophage.
The archives might be sealed and the missions had never officially occurred. But the people Mordin had killed were very real and very plentiful.
He might be working as a scientist right now, but the majority of his life had been spent as an STG mission specialist. Those were the same people that the creation of the Spectres had been inspired by and the same people who were the reason that STG could brag about having brought down nations with a single bullet.
About thirty years.
That's how long Mordin had said he'd been with STG. It was longer than just about everyone on the Normandy had been in service and longer than Emily herself and some of the others had even been alive. Furthermore, barring the krogan and Lieutenant Callius, no one could claim to have that kind of combat experience. So while he might not look the part, something that a couple of Wrex' warriors had already pointed out before the former bounty hunter had shot them a lethal stare, Mordin might just be the deadliest person in this Tomkah with the exception of Wrex himself.
That almost made her feel sorry for their enemies.
Speaking of.
The breaks screamed and the Tomkah rocked as it came to a sudden stop. First she expected this to be a bad sign, maybe of the road being blocked to the point where even this driver wouldn't think about breaking through, but then they got an explanation.
"We're there!" the krogan driver roared from up-front before what sounded like rain hit the armor of their vehicle. "And it sounds like Weyrloc noticed!"
Great.
That was something she'd halfway expected.
Whereas a human unit might've tried to get in undetected, krogan strategy seemed to boil down to 'drive as close as possible so we can get into shotgun range quicker' and paid no attention to avoiding detection or drawing fire.
After all, what were a couple of bullets if you had a redundant nervous system?
"Alright everyone!" Wrex shouted before getting up and half-way kicking down the side-facing ramp of the Tomkah. This action revealed ruins and debris covered in rust-brown sand and a huge spiral tower in the distance. "Time to kill some Weyrloc!"
With that, he jumped off the vehicle and cracked a smirk before eagerly turning his head to where the gunfire was coming from, which was the side that the ramp wasn't facing. Then he ran out of sight, prompting the N7 to jump out after him.
This wasn't good.
For a second she thought back to the talk they'd had after Therum. After seeing the krogan charge off into the unknown, she'd told him that he'd either have to learn to be part of a unit or get off the Normandy. Back then he'd said he'd do things their way until he found his people. And since that was now over, he was clearly falling back into old habits.
Or so it seemed.
"-bring your men around to the left and get ready to flag down the Nakmor reinforcements! They should be here any minute. Tell them to extend our Tomkah line with their vehicles and have their snipers set up by that broken-down control tower over there!" she heard Wrex shout right as her feet hit the dirt. Then she realized that they were about five hundred meters away from the hospital within a dried-up canal and that their armored transports had been set up so that they shielded the dismounting infantry and that only their gun turrets poked out of the canal bed. An effective use of terrain.
"The flank? I want to be in the fighting!" one of the krogan assembled in a circle around Wrex protested. Immediately Emily couldn't shake just how much like Wrex this one looked.
"There'll be plenty of fighting on the flank when the attack starts!"
"But Wrex-"
"This isn't the time for arguing Wreav. Do as I say!"
Wait. Wreav? She'd heard that name before.
"Right away brother!" the krogan growled. A second later, he sprinted off. That reply explained a lot of things. Then the large red bounty hunter turned to another.
"Grot, deploy the mortars and start shelling the hospital with fragmentation rounds to cover our approach. Aim for the higher levels first, that's where their snipers will be hiding. When the barrage starts hitting, bring out the rocket launchers and search for weak spots in the structure. Weyrloc's base is an old piece of pyjak shit. If we poke it right, it might just come down altogether. Just make sure that you stay low and keep your heads attached to the rest of your body. I don't want to train any new rocketeers."
Emily took a step left to free up the ramp and took a knee so she wouldn't poke out her head and then she simply stared at the strange sight in front of her. This was not only not what she had expected, it was the exact opposite of what she'd expected.
"Yes, Battle Master!"
"Tar, I need you and your medics to establish a casualty collection point. Our lead Tomkah already reports injured. Idiots didn't stop soon enough. Make sure they don't bleed out. Once you're done with that, make sure that the Tomkah's keep up their suppressive fire. We don't Weyrloc to get any ideas."
"At once!"
"Krogan medics, Casualty collection points, suppressive fire and cover," she heard Garrus mutter as he kneeled down next to him. "Those are actual battle strategies. What's going on here and when did we link up with krogan imposters?"
"Seems like Wrex didn't just talk about changing things," the N7 figured before their krogan ally looked at the last of the assembled warriors.
He'd come a long way in two years, hadn't he?
"Dagg!" This one was nearly as big as Wrex and had just about as many scars as him.
"Yes, Battle Master?"
"You'll coordinate things out here while I'm gone," he put a hand on the krogan's armored shoulder and leaned in to whisper something that she could only hear due to the HSA radio Wrex had been given to tap them into their squad intercom. "Keep an eye on Wreav. Make sure he doesn't screw this up again."
"Understood, Battle Master," the krogan nodded. Then Wrex turned to Shepard and the rest of her team, who'd left the Tomkah by now and also taken cover. The audible thumping of mortars started to echo above the firing machine guns of their vehicles just as Wrex opened his mouth.
"You ready to do some sneaking, Shepard?" he asked. Frankly it was a small miracle they could hear him over the squad intercom, considering that he wasn't wearing a helmet to shield his microphone from the sound of fighting.
"You're coming along?"
"Wouldn't have given Dagg command if I didn't plan on it. So. Sneak-ready or not?"
For a second she wondered if Wrex meant sneaking across the battlefield, but then she noticed that he was looking at a gridded canal entrance by his feet.
"This leads to the hospital?" she asked.
"Yes. This should bring us up right underneath their stupid Weyrloc snouts."
"Should?"
"Well. There's always the possibility that my scouts broke and spilled their entrance before Weyrloc killed them," the krogan said right as a round wheezed passed his head. He seemed strangely unconcerned by it. "But considering how badly they cut them up before chopping their heads of, I don't think any of them spilled their secret. They're too loyal for that," he paused for a second and then shrugged. "Or rather were too loyal for that. They're dead now, obviously. Even blood rage won't save you from getting your head cut off."
Right. Blood rage. She'd forgot all about that part of fighting an army of krogan. She looked at the grid. If it was their best shot, then they'd take it.
"Okay. Might as well try out luck," she nodded. "Lead the way, Wrex."
The krogan nodded and did just that. He walked over to the grid and opened it up with one hand. Then he gestured for them to jump down. She looked at the pitch-black hole and then back at Wrex. She'd rather not start this op by breaking both her legs.
"Don't mind the smell. That's just dead bodies," he said, clearly misinterpreting her hesitation.
"How deep is this, Wrex?"
"It'll hurt but it won't kill you," the krogan began before shaking his head. "No. Wait. My bad. Haven't worked with non-krogan in two years," he laughed. "Haha! Good think you said something. I think you guys might actually want to use a rope or something like that. I don't think non-krogan can handle that kind of drop," then he shrugged at the hatch. "Although I guess you probably didn't bring a rope that long," he scratched his face and then started to glow purple. "You mind being lifted down?"
Emily sighed and then nodded, not thinking about how deep the drop was if Wrex assumed they didn't bring a rope that long.
"No, no, go ahead," she said before a purple glow engulfed her. She'd done this maybe once or twice before and it didn't get less weird. But it was their best and fastest option to get down there, so this was how they'd do it. "Ready?" she asked while getting ready herself.
"Whenever you are," Wrex replied. So, just like with jumping out of an aircraft, Emily didn't think about it again and just took the step forward. At first the fall into the dark didn't feel slower than usual, but then the night vision in her helmet kicked in and she saw that she was descending relatively slowly. She decided to use that opportunity to look around. It looked like they were dropping into an ancient cistern that was easily twenty-five meters deep. The walls were crumbling and there wasn't a drop of water in sight. If she were to guess, the room itself expended hundreds of meters into each direction and it looked like there were dozens of junctions and platforms into every direction, which were situated above where she suspected the cistern ended. The entire thing itself was supported by huge beams of old, perfectly carved stone and all in all, the entire place looked disturbingly out of place on a planet like Tuchanka.
She felt her feet touch the ground and looked down again. She was now standing on a heavy stone platform halfway down the depth of the cistern. As a glance below confirmed, the actual room was even deeper than that. Her eyes widened a little bit in surprise. To think that Tuchanka used to have enough rain to fill something like that.
Then she remembered why she was here and gave Wrex the all clear over the squad intercom. One after another, her team started to follow. The next ones to take the jump were Garrus, then Leng and then Mordin. She heard Lieutenant Nader say that she didn't need Wrex's help and then saw a bright light descend down the hole on its own accord. In a similar fashion, Callius also declined the krogan's help. While her landing wasn't nearly as graceful as Nader's, it didn't look like it hurt either. When they were all down, Wrex addressed them through the intercom.
"Might want to take a step back down there," he said. Before anyone could ask why, the krogan jumped down the hole and impacted with the force of a nearly four-hundred-kilogram heavy projectile. The stone cracked, Wrex grunted and at first Emily was sure that the krogan had shattered every bone in his legs.
But then he laughed, got up and rubbed the dirt of his armor.
"Hah! Never gets old!" he exclaimed.
"I could've lowered you, you know?" Jack said while Wrex rolled his head and produced loud cracks.
"Wouldn't have been nearly as fun as this," the krogan retorted before pointing west and unfolding his shotgun. "The hospital entrance should be this way. If you hear barking, it's probably just sewer varrens. When you see their eyes glowing, shoot them," he advised before stomping forward. "Same goes for anyone wearing Weyrloc armor or anything that smells like lavender."
"Lavender?"
"That's how Grimworms smell."
"What's a Grimworm?"
"Mutated, carsized worms with a ton of muscles, a thousand teeth that'll shred heavy armor and a habit of dropping down from the ceiling and breaking your bones with the fall before eating you alive. Trust me. You don't want to run into a pack of those," Wrex replied before letting out another cheerful laugh. "Although I guess fighting a Grimworm hive with you could be fun, Shepard."
"This guy's fucking crazy, isn't he?" Leng muttered.
"Yes. And you haven't seen half of it," Garrus returned before cautiously pointing his Phaeston at the ceiling, prompting her fellow N7 to look at her for confirmation.
"You really haven't," she confirmed before falling in line with Wrex and Mordin, who had already turned into the krogan's shadow. They walked for a few meters and then Shepard noticed another drop in the cistern.
"Damn this place is massive," Jack observed while glancing over the stone railing.
"And just one of a thousand," Callius added.
"Seriously?" the younger biotic asked.
"Yes, seriously. Tuchanka's full of cisterns like this one. They were meant to keep the underground cities from flooding during monsoon season and served as water storage for the increasing population."
"Hold up. There are underground cities on Tuchanka?" Shepard injected.
"There used to be," the turian corrected. "Before they bombed themselves back to the medieval ages, a lot of Tuchanka's population lived under the surface level. It started as cave dwelling, then they began to build artificial rooms like this. After a thousand years of expansion, it became this," Callius said as they passed the remnants of a huge wall mural that showed what Shepard assumed was the cistern they were in and an adjacent maze of chambers and hollowed out rooms, which if they were to scale dwarfed the cistern by several magnitudes. "The only things they didn't build down here were farms and temples."
"Huh. Didn't realise krogan are a bunch of cave dwellers," Leng said abruptly, which prompted Wrex to turn his head.
"We aren't," Wrex said with a growl and narrowed eyes. "But even before Tuchanka became an irradiated wasteland, it was dangerous to be out on the surface. There used to be predators the size of a battle tank and birds the size of fighter jets. Not much point in building houses or putting up walls to stop creatures like that. When my ancestors got tired of dying, they adapted. Hid underground where those animals couldn't reach them," Wrex looked around. "But that obviously meant that the Thresher Maws became a problem, so we had to build the hammers to keep them at bay. I think we all know how that turned out," the echo of his voice changed as they reached a corridor with a lower ceiling than the cistern where sunlight shone in through a gaping hole in the ceiling. In response, the night vision of her HUD turned off. "Shame they didn't have the foresight to build these places to withstand thermonuclear warheads. If they had, we might not be standing in ruins right now," he added with a sadder tune to his voice.
"Wait. What do you mean? What hammers? What did they do to start a war?" Shepard asked. Although she had been born after First Contact, she couldn't exactly claim to have been part of the generation of humans who'd learned all about alien history in school. That wasn't even ordinary now that the HSA was a full-fledged Council member.
"You don't know?" Wrex asked, surprised.
"I'm afraid I haven't been catching up on my krogan history, sorry," she admitted.
"The hammers could lure Thresher maws to certain areas. They're one of the main reasons the nuclear war started, other than general hostilities of course," Callius injected after a few seconds of Wrex being silent. "After the krogan built the hammers to keep the maws out of the city, they realized that they could also weaponize Tresher Maws against hostile cities with them. It worked exactly as terrific as you'd expect it to. The krogan wreaked havoc on each other with the maws for decades. But eventually one nation got tired of its neighbors tearing down its cities. They retaliated with something worse and well. As you humans say, the rest is history," the Blackwatch lieutenant explained.
"How come you know so much about my people, cabal? I mean, I expected STG over here to know this world and the krogan on it by heart. But you? I can't make sense of why you'd become an expert on krogan."
Callius stayed silent.
"You've been here before, haven't you?" he figured next.
"No," the turian replied very quickly. "I just believe that it's good to know your enemies, even if they're in the past."
"So that's how it is. A thousand years later and you still treat us like we're foes," Wrex shook his head. "And they say krogan hold a grudge."
"That's not what I said," Callius countered. "And besides, I'm not here to talk about the war, or grudges."
"Yet you've already said plenty about both," Wrex replied before pushing his shoulders back and stopping in front of a crack in a wall. "This gap leads to the hospital's basement. I know I'll have trouble fitting through, so I'll go last. You should probably wait too, Blue," he said before looking at Garrus. While the turian wasn't as big or as tall as Wrex, he was still larger than anyone else on the team, so the call made sense. "The rest of you should be able to squeeze through."
Emily looked at the gap and Lieutenant Nader. Both could go first but being the commander and all, she wanted to lead by example.
"I'll go first," she said before folding her rifle on her back, pulling out her handgun in case something jumped her and easily squeezing through the opening within ten seconds or so. She looked around the room to make sure there weren't any traps, switched back to her rifle and focused on the door she could see.
"All clear in here," she stated over the squad intercom. Then, just like with the hole before, her team went through one at a time. First there was Nader, then Leng, then Mordin and then Callius. They all made the transit relatively easily, with the taller Callius struggling only a little bit. Then it was Garrus' turn. As the turian squeezed through, pieces of the gap started to come loose and fall to the ground. He paused immediately.
"Oh that's not good, is it?"
"Come on, you're almost there, stop being a such a volus about it!" Wrex called from behind him.
Garrus sighed and with a final shove, he too cleared the gap. He looked back the way he'd come.
"I don't think this is a good idea, Wrex. Don't take this the wrong way, but you definitely won't fit," he informed the krogan.
"Two years of silence and then on the first day you show your face, you call me fat," the krogan chuckled before taking a step into the gap. "Where are your manners, Blue? Count yourself lucky I'm not an asari. Trust me when I tell you that they don't take well to that kind of reunion." he said after letting out a breath, as if that would make the fit any less tight.
"Think I lost them somewhere on Omega."
"So that's where you left half your face?" Wrex grunted.
"More of a quarter really," the turian replied.
Then the krogan stopped and looked at him.
"What's wrong? Stuck after all?" Garrus asked with a chuckle.
"Void be damned," the krogan laughed. "You're Archangel, aren't you, Blue?"
"Uhm," Garrus mumbled before Wrex shoved himself through the gap.
"You are!" the krogan repeated before the wall they'd squeezed through collapsed audibly.
"Wrex?" Shepard began.
"Don't worry, Shepard. I won't tell the others. I just want to hear Blue say it. Even Tuchanka wasn't safe from the kind of scare stories he produced!"
"Wrex,"she said again while looking at their now closed way out.
He realized the meaning of the looks on him and shrugged. "Oh. That?"
"Yes. That," she nodded.
"Ah, don't worry about it," the large krogan said with a wave of his hand. "When we walk out of here, it'll be the through the main gate and on a stream of Weyrloc blood. Might even kick Guld's head in front of my feet if we're lucky enough to run into him while looking for your friend's friend," he walked over to the door. "The morgue should be this way. If we don't find the salarian in there, he might just be alive," Wrex stated before again kicking down the door. Not that anyone would've noticed with the sound of the battle going on above. "Well either that or it means they ate him. Only one way to find out. Come on." Again Mordin was right behind him.
"What the-" the krogan muttered right as he entered to morgue. When Shepard followed, she realized what he meant.
The morgue, which was a large, cooled room with green walls and blue, partially working lights, was filled with krogan bodies to the point where the silver slabs had been overcrowded and corpses had been placed on the floor. Judging by the look on Wrex's uncovered face, it smelled exactly as horrible as she'd picture it.
"These are all females," Wrex muttered. "And not just Weyrloc either," he walked over to one of the slabs and hung his head. "I know some of them. This one's from an Urdnot camp."
"Seem to be only recently deceased," Mordin said while bringing up his omni-tool and walking to one of the bodies. "Impossible to tell without detailed scans, but don't appear to have met violent demise. Incisions made post mortem, autopsies most likely," he reached for the arm of the dead krogan, but Wrex intercepted it.
"What are you doing?" he demanded to know. His voice sounded angry.
"Trying to determine cause of death," Mordin replied while looking at his hand. "Request that you let go."
"Touch her and you lose your hand."
"Determining cause of death requires touching. Hurting my hand. Please let go now."
"Or what?" Wrex muttered. "One squeeze from me and it's broken. What are you going to do then?
"Killed plenty of krogan in my time. Some even bigger than you. Wouldn't want to add you to the list. Require your assistance in finding Maelon and recognize that Shepard values your friendship. But won't hesitate if you force my hand," Mordin replied coldly and quicker than Emily or anyone else could react, a blue-white pistol of salarian design appeared underneath Wrex' chin, right where krogan skin was the thinnest and where the bullet would travel past the barriers and straight into his brain. There he was, the thirty-year STG veteran Mordin had only shown glimpses of up to now.
"Stop it!" the N7 shouted before rushing over, ignoring how Callius had already trained her weapon on Wrex' head or how Garrus seemed to be eying the muzzle of her Phaeston or how his own weapon was just an inch off of Mordin's torso.
"Choice to turn simple examination into fight entirely yours, Urdnot Wrex," Mordin stated. "Don't wish to harm or disrespect anyone. Only want to examine."
"I said stop!" Emily repeated before placing her hand on Mordin's gun. It didn't do anything to alter the salarian's stance.
"Fine. Examine all you want," Wrex growled before letting go of the salarian's hand and turning away from that particular krogan female. Instantly, Mordin lowered his weapon as well. "Just not her."
"Understood," the STG veteran stated before walking on to the next slab and looking at something on the female's wrist. After a few seconds of observation, he moved on to another body and then another. When he was done with the row, he placed his hand on his helmet as if he was trying to cover his mouth like he usually did in the labs. Next Mordin knelt next to one of the krogan on the floor and turned her head to reveal a strange green skin taint and a tumor-like bulge on her neck.
"Weyrloc known for medical experimentation?" he asked quickly.
"Not since Guld quartered their last doctor for costing him half his quad during a botched transplant, no," Wrex retorted while looking at a door adjacent to the morgue. It was cracked halfway open and from what Shepard could tell, it led to a room that looked exactly like this one. "Why?"
"Deceased krogan show signs of medical procedure conducted by physician experienced with krogan physiology. Puncture wounds consistent with injections, tissue mutation consistent with forced cell reproduction, signs of invasive medical procedures, restrain marks," he got up. "Certain that Weyrloc not in possession of krogan medical professional?"
"You can count krogan doctors in this part of Tuchanka on two hands and they all work for Urdnot now," Wrex replied.
Mordin inspected his gun and then looked to the ceiling. He let out an audible breath, manipulated something on the weapon that extended it stock and barrel, effectively turning it into a submachinegun, and then looked at the team.
"Problematic hypothesis. Need to find Maelon immediately."
"What's going on, Mordin?" Shepard asked.
He looked at the bodies and then to Wrex.
"Initial suspicion was correct. Experimentation consistent with theoretical attempts to rectify Genophage," he exhaled again. "Loss of life likely to exceed this scale if not stopped immediately. Corpses indicate deeply flawed premise. Lethality of curing attempts likely to be close to one hundred percent."
Wrex turned to Shepard. The fury and grief was written on his face as clear as daylight.
"Can't believe I'm saying this, but the salarian's right. I want a cure for the Genophage just as bad as Guld does. But not like this," he looked at the bodies and suddenly smashed his fist into the wall hard enough to crack it. "Damn it Weyrloc! What's the point of a future if no one's alive to see it? I'll carve his skull out for this."
While the outburst seemed unprofessional considering how relatively calm the rest of her unit was taking this, Emily assumed that most of them would be a lot more unnerved if this were not dead krogan but rather dead asari, turians or humans, some of which they actually knew and recognized. Needless to say, that realization made her understand Wrex reaction perfectly. Judging by the shift in their postures and general silence, she wasn't the only one who was starting to realise how this looked like from his perspective. Out of the seasoned team of soldiers only one seemed to be able to set this sight aside entirely and keep his head focused solely on why they had come here.
Mordin.
"Understand anger at experimentation. Unacceptable barbarism. Needs to be stopped," he exhaled and then looked to the other door, which was leading out of the morgue. "Understand if its too much to bear for any of you. Only ask that you point me the right direction. Can finish this mission on my own. Weyrloc forces distracted with Urdnot assault, can sneak in, extract Maelon and be back before they know it," he suggested.
"Do you take me for a weakling, salarian?" Wrex was the first to speak up.
"Don't know you. Don't take you for anything. Simply offering suggestion based on observations. Don't need to be licensed xeno-psychotherapist to recognize how deeply this affects you," Mordin commented before looking at the team. "Or you. No shame in admitting impact of seeing civilian population massacred in medical experimentation. Can hardly prepare for situation like this."
"We'll be fine, Mordin," Shepard stated quickly before shaking her head at the idea that this might not be the only morgue in the hospital. For now she'd soldier on and focus on the lives she could still save, not the people who were already dead. "What about you, Wrex?" she asked more carefully, even if she could already guess the answer considering the reason he had joined the first Normandy.
"This ends today," he walked to the door of the morgue and ripped it open with one powerful pull. He looked at the stairway and began climbing upwards. "If he's still alive, your friend's either on the upper levels where the old labs are or chained up somewhere near Guld's war room. Let's go."
The team followed the krogan up from the basement of the hospital. They climbed through the staircase one level at a time, expecting to run into Weyrloc forces along the way, yet never actually seeing any. If Shepard were to guess, most of the clan's forces were likely occupied with Clan Urdnot and their allies outside and whatever token guards their enemy had posted likely were stationed at important locations and not one of the many staircases of this krogan hospital.
Speaking of.
"Is it just me or is this place build like a prison?" Nader wondered as they reached yet another door that had been placed to separate this part of the stairway from the next segment. Unlike the waist-high side railings, which barely protected against falling down the roughly three meter wide chute around which the staircase was build, the actual way up was blocked by heavy doors on every level. As before, they stopped and waited for the salarian to work his tech magic.
"Krogan hospitals required to contain blood rage patients. Have to be resilient," Mordin replied quickly while waving his omni-tool over the lock and turning the orange hologram green within seconds. The door began to pull open. "Additionally required to be build to avoid hostile takeov-"
Mordin cut his sentence off as soon as the face of a beige vorcha holding a shotgun greeted them on the other end of the door. Its ugly eyes seemed to widen and it hissed at them while bearing teeth.
"Die intru-" it snarled before being cut off within a second by Mordin. While the team lifted their guns and Wrex began to glow purple, the salarian simply turned his omni-tool into an omni-blade and slashed the flash-forged construct across the alien's throat with enough force to cut half its head off clean. The vorcha fell to the ground, gurgled on its blood and, in true vorcha fashion, refused to die in face of a fatal injury. Although it was a part of the spine that was still connected to the body, the vorcha was still capable of action. "Argh. Die, die, die," it tried to lift its shotgun at the salarian but the only thing it got for the effort was a burst out of Mordin's submachinegun. The former STG operative looked at the dead vorcha for a second and tilted his head.
"Weyrloc affiliated with Blood Pack?" he asked Wrex just as Emily saw what the vorcha was wearing and what kind of tattoos marked its leathery skin. Evidently the HSA hadn't been as thorough with their Blood Pack elimination as it liked to say.
"Of course. The Blood Pack was founded by a Weyrloc," the former bounty hunter replied before looking at the dead vorcha and then back at the N7. "You think someone heard that?"
A chorus of snarls from further up the stairs was all the answer Wrex needed to spring into action. A smirk crossed his face. "Heh. Seems like they did. Real shame," he took a step forward. "What do you say, Shepard, just like old times?"
She looked up the stairs.
They'd take a lot of fire if the vorcha were smart about it.
If.
"Wrex, Garrus, you lead the way. Mordin and me will come in behind you. Leng, you're covering our back. Callius, Nader, you're on barrier duty. Weapons free, obviously," she ordered before beginning to lightly push the krogan in front of her to signal their start. "Go."
"Great. And here I thought we might actually get in and out without a firefight for once," Garrus added dryly before climbing up the stairs next to Wrex.
"Ah come on, Blue, don't give me that. You live for this just as much as I do."
"Yes. But I'm also a lot less bulletproof then you are, Wrex," the turian responded.
"Good thing vorcha are terrible shots then," the krogan countered right before the first stray shotgun rounds flew down the stairway to their left and their biotic barrier went up.
"Kill! Kill! Kill! For Guld!" one screeched before jumping right in front of them. Its skin was brown, its hands held a large, krogan-made shotgun and, within a second, it was sent flying against the wall thanks to Wrex blasting it with his own krogan-made shotgun. A few seconds later, another came running down the stairs and also died at the hands of Wrex.
"Two for me, zero for you. Time to catch up," he stated before nudging Garrus with his elbow.
"You really want to turn shooting vorcha into a competition?" the turian replied as they spun around the next corner of the doorway and found an already open door.
"Thought I'd bring up some of Omega's best drinking games to make you feel right at home. Loser has to drink the winner's number. How does that sound?" the large krogan replied while they moved forward.
"You see, Wrex, I appreciate the idea. But the problem with that is that I didn't bring any dextro drinks. Afraid I'll have to pass, sorry," Garrus replied before Emily heard three quick shots leave a Valykrie and then saw a vorcha body fall over the low railing of the stairs and down the way they'd come.
"Don't worry about it. Ryncol's poison no matter who drinks it," Wrex glanced over the railing and down the stairs to where the body had landed with a bloody smear. "You're playing as well, human?"
"Hell no. I drank Ryncol once and it put me down for a week," Leng replied before another burst of his rifle send another vorcha falling. Emily glanced up quickly. Were they climbing across the railing and trying to get a shot at them? It sounded like something a vorcha would do. "I'm not doing that again."
"Guess its just us then, Blue."
"Wait. He gets to pass but I don't?"
"You got that right, detective," Wrex replied before they spun the corner and both of them shot the same vorcha. They paused and looked at the body for a second.
"Three zero," Wrex said.
"Definitely not. That one goes on my score board."
"Fine. Two one then."
"Hold," Leng suddenly said. The formation froze.
"What's going on?" Shepard asked before looking at the N7. He was clearly taking his time to aim. A few seconds of silence passed and then a lone shot rang through the staircase. First she just heard what sounded like air hissing but then a loud explosion rocked the staircase and several burning and screaming vorcha fell down from somewhere up above them alongside a bit of debris. A few moments later, a pair of the burning aliens stumbled down the stairs and were shot by Garrus.
"Maybe I'm playing after all," the asian N7 said with a chuckle.
"Heh. No re-entries possible, sorry," Wrex smirked before taking a step over the charred pair of vorcha. "And for the record, flamers and collaterals only count as one and everyone that's burning goes on the count of the guy who shot the tank."
"See now you're just making up rules that mean you win," Garrus injected as they spun yet another corner and climbed up to level eight.
"Of course I am. I want to see you get drunk off of Ryncol," the krogan retorted when they reached level nine and saw a scorched spot, a blown apart railing and burned bits and pieces of at least another five vorcha.
"I think you should've joined in, Petty Officer," Callius observed. "Your vorcha-killing skills are impressive."
"Yeah. I'm getting that feeling as well," Leng muttered as they passed the sight of his latest hit.
"Maybe you should try the slots back in the dock later and see if your luck holds up for other games too. You could always spend your winnings to buy us drinks at the bar we passed on the way from the shuttle. It looked decent, at least for a place on Tuchanka."
"Are you encouraging me to gamble and drink? Did I just hear that right?"
"It might surprise you, but even us turians have to cut loose once in a while," the cabal replied while holding up the barrier. Although the strain was audible in her voice, Shepard got the impression that Lieutenant Nader helping her was doing wonders for the turian's stamina.
"LT, I've been to the turian parts of Eden Prime around the time the yearly maneuvers end. I know exactly how you turians cut loose," Leng replied. "But considering you ordered a water when I invited you for drinks the last time, I just didn't expect you to partake," Leng stated before the formation rolled around a corner and Wrex came to a halt.
"Win the big slot and I might just upgrade to dextro-beer or two the next time you ask."
"You know that I'll hold you to that offer, right?" Emily looked at Leng with a raised eyebrow underneath her helmet. She'd heard that before and she was sure that she was misinterpreting it. He wouldn't, would he? When he noticed her eyes on him, the N7 only gave her a casual shrug in return.
"This is it," the krogan stated before smashing his hand against the door's opening mechanism. "If your friend's still alive, he's somewhere on this level.
Mordin looked down the opened door.
"Taking point from here."
Two Minutes Later, 2158 CE, Tuchanka, Bone Desert, Clan Weyrloc Headquarters
"Welp, go secure the salarian. The grownups will handle Urdnot and his pets," the huge krogan in white and red armor stated before reaching behind his back and pulling out a large biotic hammer, a weapon that dated back all the way to the Rebellions.
While the squad split up and dove for cover, Mordin did three things in six seconds.
First, he modified his weapon so that it would turn into a sticky grenade launcher. That way he'd be better equipped to fight this kind of enemy. Second, he marked the red gas tanks situated on the bridge above Guld so that the squad would recognize his intentions. If they were hit at the right time, the debris might just crush the krogan. Third, he took a breath an considered the order of the krogan.
Secure the salarian.
For a split-second he'd rejoiced. It meant that Maelon was alive and well. Otherwise there'd be no need to secure him.
Then he'd noticed the choice of phrasing.
Not prisoner.
Not slave.
Not dinner.
Not captive.
Salarian.
This worried him.
Mordin heard a faint biotic thump and then a much louder explosion and looked up from his cover. Urdnot Wrex had launched himself at Weyrloc Guld and the two enormous krogan were now battling for the hammer. This rendered his plan irrelevant.
Time to adapt.
While the struggle was going on, a pair of krogan was trying to flank the team on his side. With the rest of the squad occupied with Guld or the rest of the krogan, it was up to him to take on these two.
This would not be an issue.
Mordin narrowed his eyes, noticed the brittle ceiling above them, likely caused by the mortar shelling of the Urdnot forces, and stepped out of his cover. The krogan noticed him and aimed their shotguns at him. Mordin shot an overload into their direction that made their shields jump and interrupt their aiming attempts by stunning them for a few seconds. Next he fired a pair of sticky grenades at the ceiling above the krogan and detonated them with a press of a button on the grip of his modifiable weapon. As planned, the ceiling gave way and fell on top of them. While obviously not enough to kill either of the fully armored krogan, it bought the STG operative the time to take more actions. With a flick of his wrist, the overload program became an incendiary one. He pushed his palm into the direction of the pinned krogan and a ball of plasma flew their way. Meanwhile he also moved to a new cover and fired another pair of sticky grenades that would overload their shields entirely just before the impact of said plasma ball. The detonation came right when he commanded it and allowed the incendiary projectile to latch itself directly on them. It burned through their heavy armor suits and made the krogan who was still pinned by the debris stop his attempts to free himself. The freed one however only got angrier, despite the plasma visibly burning through the plates on his shoulder and into his bones.
Blood rage.
This would be a minor issue.
The krogan charged him and Mordin jumped out of the way. Mid-air, he fired a pair of grenades at the pinned krogan. They stuck to his head, detonated and stopped his struggle to free himself. Upon impact with the ground, the STG operative rolled out of the way of the krogan's next charge and jumped to his feet. He mustered his opponent and came up with a plan. The blazing alien roared and threatened. Meanwhile Mordin mapped out his surroundings in his mind. If he was moving at the average speed of an enraged krogan, his enemy was about three seconds away from him. Behind him was a waste-high railing that protected against a seven-story drop. It wouldn't kill a normal krogan, let alone one high on Blood Rage, but this one was already on the brink of the plasma finishing the job. He'd never get back up here before his spine was melted.
This would do.
He positioned himself accordingly and fired the last pair of sticky grenades that he still had in his weapon at the krogan but he didn't detonate them instantly. Instead he reached behind him to feel that he was really standing at the railing and then let the krogan charge at him again. The aliens intention was clear, he wanted to take Mordin out, no matter what. He'd use that to his advantage. An eyeblink before the dying krogan could make contact with him and send them both flying to their deaths, the STG veteran jumped sideways and rolled out of the way. As he'd hoped, the Weyrloc warrior had no spatial awareness and no more time to react to the abyss in front of him. He was going too fast to stop and fell over the railing. As soon as his body began to tip over, Mordin began counting in his head. A seven-story fall would take little more than two seconds and the blast radios of the grenades would become harmless within one second of falling.
The krogan started to fall.
One Sur-Kesh.
He pressed the button and heard the detonation.
Issue resolved.
He went for the quickest possible modification of his gun, turning it into a normal pistol, and turned around to where he'd seen the heads of the two krogan clans fight, ready to assist. He was just in time to see their ally Urdnot Wrex lift the hammer, mutter something and then bring it down onto the now cracked helmet of their enemy, Weyrloc Guld.
Mordin scanned his surroundings.
Clear.
Just after he'd come to that conclusion, Shepard gave the rallying call. He walked by the trapped krogan, fired a pair of shots through his burnt and blown apart cranium plate to make sure that he was really dead and jogged over to the rest of his team.
"What do you mean you're ahead? Since when do krogan count. I thought it's a vorcha killing game."
"Since now. Just look at him. He's bigger than I am. That's got to count for something."
"I don't care how big he was. Even if we count krogan, Guld's still just one point," Garrus Vakarian stated, still referencing the strange competition he and the krogan were locked in. In return, Wrex looked at the hammer in his hands and grunted.
"Fine. Either way, I'm still leading with two," he said before tossing it over the railing. It hit the floor right next to the remains of the krogan Mordin had dispatched.
Apparently the fall had been enough after all.
He'd consider that the next time he had to make such a calculation.
"For now. At least one's still on the run. I'll catch up to you."
As he was saying this, Mordin was already on his way to the door that the sole krogan that had been sent away from the fight had headed to. This was were Maelon was and were his answers would be waiting for him. Soon he'd know what was happening here and why his student wasn't being considered a prisoner.
Even if there was already an explanation lingering in his mind. Maelon had always been soft and impressionable. Maybe-
He internally shook his head.
No matter what happened, Maelon wouldn't come to the misguided conclusion that the Genophage needed to be cured. At his core, he understood that what they had done was necessary for galactic peace. Mordin had taught him that lesson himself. He wiped his hand over the door lock as soon as he was sure that Shepard and the rest were linked up with him and then barged into what looked like the laboratory section Wrex had talked about. As he'd feared, there were more dead female krogan and more signs of medical experimentation consistent with attempts to reverse the Genophage. Furthermore, he could hear two voices up ahead. One was clearly krogan and the other one-
He pulled in a breath.
The other one was clearly familiar.
Maelon.
"If you want a cure, then you need to delay them as long as you can. I still haven't secured all of it. I don't care how you do it, stop them."
He closed his eyes, exhaled and stepped into the lab to meet his student.
"Maelon," he called and the salarian turned around, away from the large data bank he was currently encrypting.
"Doctor Solus," he replied while his large eyes narrowed. "I was worried it would be you that they sent."
No signs of restraints.
No evidence of torture.
No guards other than the surprised krogan juvenile who'd been sent away from the earlier fight. He'd made an attempt to lift his weapon but stopped when six separate guns were trained on him.
This wasn't how you guarded a prisoner.
"Don't understand," he admitted, despite a suspicion clear in his mind.
"I think you do." Mordin exhaled and braced himself for what he'd feared to hear. "I am here because I wish to be here."
For the first time in years, Mordin hesitated.
"You didn't go missing, did you?" Shepard figured while stepping in for him.
"No. I left on my own accord," Maelon replied before folding his arms. "The krogan deserve a cure. I am here to deliver it."
On that cue, Mordin heard the krogan of their team stomp past him but did nothing to stop him from grabbing a hold of Maelon.
"You did this?" the Urdnot leader roared. "All those dead females are your doing?" he smashed Maelon against the console and tightened his grip on the salarian's heavy lab coat. "Ready or not, you'll die for this, salarian!" then the krogan glanced at him. "Any last words to your friend?"
"Don't understand," Mordin repeated while watching the scene. "Whole team agreed. Project necessary."
Maelon looked at him with pure content and shouted back at him.
"How was I supposed to disagree with the great Doctor Solus? I was your student! I looked up to you for all my life! We all did! Had you ordered us to poison their last wells or disable the Shroud so that they all suffocate for the sake of galactic peace, we would've only asked you to tell us when!" he shouted in defiance.
It snapped him out of his trance.
He walked over to where the krogan had pinned his student and shouted back at him.
"Experimentations performed here. Live subjects! Prisoners! Torture and executions!" he declared with fury. "Your doing. Unjustifiable. Unethical. Has to end today."
"We've already got the blood of millions on our hands, Doctor. If it takes a few thousand more to make things right, I can deal with that."
"Few thousand? Look at your results! Fatality rate near complete, success ratio non-existent," he lifted his pistol at the head of the student he'd seen hatch. "Not making things right. Only committing murder through medicine. Cannot let you continue. Will only cost more lives if you do."
The rogue STG operative only laughed in his face
"Look at that. Suddenly you care about krogan lives," he laughed. "Where was that empathy when you decided that we need to murder thousands of their unborn children so that ours get to live? When we made the modifications? When we rectified the decline?"
Suddenly he felt the eyes of Urdnot Wrex on him.
"What are you talking about?"
"Oh. They didn't tell you?" Maelon laughed again. "Well then. May I introduce you to the great, infallible Doctor Mordin Solus! He's the reason your children continue to die before being born. He's the one who modified the Genophage when it lost its potency and to this day, he sees nothing wrong with that. I suggest you remember his name so that you can curse it when the last krogan enters the void because more than anyone else, he'll be responsible for your extinction."
The krogan dropped Maelon and instead focused on him now.
"Wrex wait-" Shepard began before Wrex kicked Maelon away hard enough to send him flying into the wall and knock him out upon impact.
"Is it true?" the krogan asked.
"Wrex-" Shepard tried again and this time the krogan turned to the human female.
"Did he really do what this pyjak claims he did?"
Before the N7 could answer, Mordin nodded.
"Yes. Modified the Genophage."
He hadn't hidden from his decisions ever before and he wouldn't do it now either, even if there was an enormous krogan standing right in front of him with murder in his eyes. He wasn't scared of consequence. Never had been, never would be.
He expected a lot of things to happen next and he was prepared to defend against all of them. An angry punch, an attack with biotics, a shotgun blast, any of those would've been predictable krogan reactions to this development
But what he really got not only surprised Mordin, it made him reevaluate his view of the people the salarians had uplifted, or at least of this particular krogan.
Urdnot Wrex hung his head and turned his back to the human commander.
"How could you bring him to my home, Shepard?" he asked in a low voice before folding up his shotgun. It was hard to tell, but he almost sounded hurt, something Mordin hadn't thought a krogan like him to be capable of. "What were you thinking?" he demanded, this time louder.
"Wrex, you don't understand-"
"No. You don't understand. This doctor of yours is the reason my people won't be around in another five hundred years because of something that happened over a thousand ago," the krogan retorted before walking towards the door. "I value you as a friend, Shepard and I still consider you one of my closest allies, even after what you just did. So I'll say this exactly once. Take him and his pupil, get off of Tuchanka and never bring them back here ever again. If you do, I can't promise that any of you are leaving again," he threw a glance at their Weyrloc captive, who'd been held at gunpoint and suddenly coiled his head forward hard enough to knock him out, but soft enough not to kill him. "That kid's Weryloc's heir now. Leave him here, he'll come to his senses when he wakes up," he told Vakarian, who'd been holding him at gunpoint up to now. Letting a rival live? How very un-krogan. "Considering who Shepard dragged here, I'm afraid we'll have to forget about the Ryncol bet, too," he punched his hand against the turians shoulder protector, which made Vakarian look at him in confusion. "So long, Blue. Try and keep your face together this time around, would you?"
They all looked after Wrex.
"So long," the turian muttered before the krogan vanished behind the door. Then he turned to Shepard. "Shepard, did Wrex just kick us off of Tuchanka?"
The N7 sighed.
"I think so," she glanced at Maelon and then Mordin himself. "What do we do with him? We can hardly leave him here. The krogan will tear him to pieces if they find him."
Mordin looked at his gun and walked over to Maelon.
He knew what needed to be done.
"Will only continue experimentation if left alive," he pointed the gun at his unconscious student's head. One clean shot and it'd all be over, just like he'd done a thousand times before. Why exactly was his hand trembling and his finger refusing to squeeze the trigger? This was an unexpected issue.
He tried to force himself to do it right now but his finger refused to obey. Years upon years of tutelage and training flashed past his eyes. Maelon was his pupil. By salarian definition, that meant that he was also family to Mordin. To slay ones family was an unforgivable action, one that not even STG had ever asked him to conduct.
Yet it needed to be done.
His hand got steadier and his finger relaxed.
This was a mercy.
A swift, clean kill.
Better than anything the krogan would ever give Maelon or Mordin himself if they got their hands on either.
"Mordin. I get that you're angry," Shepard said softly. He hadn't even noticed her walking up to him. "You're right. He can't continue this," she placed a hand on the barrel of his pistol as she'd done before, expecting it to work again, most likely. "But there's more than one way to do that. We detain him on the Normandy and deliver him to Council space. Then he can be trialed and locked up."
"Desertion from STG and treason to Union punishable by death," Mordin replied briefly while his finger inched closer to the point where his gun would fire a shot. "Sentence would sully memory of Maelon and discredit family for generations to come. All because of my failure to properly mentor him."
"You're not a murderer, Mordin and what Maelon did isn't on you," Shepard said while Mordin continued to squeeze. He knew how trials for traitors went and he knew the kind of interrogations that would wait for Maelon if they returned him to Council space.
Barring his last mistake, Maelon had never failed him.
He didn't deserve this.
A gunshot rang out.
"Not murder," he muttered before looking at the hole in Maelon's head and folding up the gun. "Mercy," he turned away from the sight, exhaled a breath he'd been holding for what felt like forever and then walked over to the console. Only one thing left to do. He'd make sure these krogan and Maelon hadn't died for nothing. Even if the data had been procured unethically, the results might still be useful when the Union had to adapt the Genophage again in a hundred years or so.
Shepard stayed silent. So did the rest of the team. He typed over the holographic screen. The data was stored, sorted and encrypted exactly like he'd taught Maelon when he'd entered STG service, so it was easy for him to make a copy and secure it. He pulled out the drive, wiped the data storage of the terminal in front of him and closed his eyes.
"Understand that I'm asking a lot, Shepard, but still have one personal request."
"What is it, Mordin?" the N7 asked, breaking her silence.
"Require transportation to Shroud Tower and moment of privacy."
No matter how he'd turned out, he couldn't leave Maelon to rot in a place like this.
Thirty Minutes Later, 2158 CE, Top Level of Shroud Eighty-Five
"Take all the time you need," Shepard said before Mordin jumped out of the Kodiak.
"Won't take long," he replied. Then he carried the body bag that held his late student to the tip of the exterior platform of the ancient salarian construct, zipped it open and removed the bag so that just the body was left. He tossed the bag over the railing and let it get carried away by the strong winds of Tuchanka. He exhaled, looked at the ruined surface of the planet and the smoke coming from the hospital and got on with what needed to be done.
Mordin wasn't religious.
Maelon hadn't been either.
He'd taught him that.
Hence there were no rites he had to conduct or procedures that he had to follow to make sure Maelon would arrive where he desired to go. There was only STG protocol to be followed. He reached into a pouch of his armor and retrieved a pair of incendiary grenades reserved precisely for this kind of occasion. If it cannot be retrieved, the body of an operative had to be destroyed and the associated personal file would enter the sealed archives. The protocol was clear on that part.
He looked at the setting sun and the way it shone through the ravaged skeleton of Tuchanka's surface, showing a world that had been and a world that could've been, if not for salarian intervention.
He shook his head. Maybe they never should've meddled to begin with.
No one would ever know the truth of today's events. He'd speak to Shepard about his intention and then he'd report Maelon's death as a krogan captive forced to work on a Genophage cure back to STG. Maelon wouldn't be buried as a hero and sully the memory of true heroes since he'd cracked and helped. But he also wouldn't be remembered as a traitor either. He'd just be listed as another casualty in an archive filled with redacted names of agents who'd paid the ultimate price for peace without anyone but them ever knowing.
Just another nameless number.
He placed the grenades on Maelon's chest, folded the now stiff hands of his pupil over the pair of incendiary explosives and pulled the pin. Only he and a select few would ever know of the one mistake his fallen pupil had made. And to him, Maelon would always stay just that.
His pupil.
He watched the body burn to ash and felt something shifted in him as Maelon's and Wrex's final words echoed through his mind. In time, that shift would cause change on a scale he couldn't image and forever alter the world he was standing on right now.
But for now, Mordin didn't know that.
Right now, he only knew that he had made a mistake.
Codex: Tuchanka's History Prior to its Global Nuclear War (Part of Entry Series 'Krogan History')
The earliest signs of krogan civilization date back approximately twenty thousand years, making it only slightly younger than asari civilization, slightly older than turian and salarian civilization and significantly older than the remaining civilizations of the currently spacefaring species, and particularly human civilization.
Although it developed early, conditions on Tuchanka prior to the discovery of advanced, gunpowder-based weaponry and explosives and steam engine technology led to krogan civilization also taking much longer to reach certain development stages. Although their longevity technically provided them the same advantages as asari, it needs to be noted that there are no records of krogan becoming older than seventy eight prior to the construction of the first major underground cities due to the now extinct, unproportionally high number of lethal surface predators on Tuchanka. As such their own longevity was unknown to the krogan for most of their history prior to the nuclear war, barring myths of an ancient cave dweller tribe rumored to live in in the northern parts of their planet with live spans of hundreds of hears.
With the discovery of gunpowder and steam engines in 4000 BCE (Before Council Era), krogan civilization began to expand rapidly across both the Tuchankan surface and the now mostly artificial subterranean layer of the jungle-world. Large predators that were responsible for killing a majority of the surface-dwelling krogan population were hunted to extinction over the course of two centuries and despite the necessity to continue to live underground being removed, krogan subterranean civilization flourished and adapted to predators like the infamous Thresher Maws by constructing the Maw Hammers and building large war machines designed to hunt them.
After the removal of the leading cause of death and limiter of how much food the krogan could produce on the surface, the krogan were introduced to another factor of their biology, their ability to produce hundreds of offspring at once. Despite being able to fully exploit the surface of their planet, by 3400 BCE, the krogan were facing a rapid overpopulation crisis. This eventually led to a series of wars that were concluded with the first incident of a krogan nuclear weapon being detonated within the underground city of Kortal. In addition to launching the krogan into the nuclear age, this detonation also revealed the fragility of the artificial subterranean layer. Although technically not strong enough to wipe out the entire city, the bomb that detonated in Kortal collapsed much of the artificial cave system and filled the rest with fire and smoke, killing a total of fifteen million krogan, half of which were unaffiliated with the war.
At this point it should be noticed that this weakness would later be exploited as part of an unused and underdeveloped turian invasion strategy of Tuchanka. This strategy called for the targeted collapse of Tuchanka's surface level with a number of well-placed explosives that would be delivered by the Blackwatch legion and detonated when necessary.
However in face of the Genophage, it should be noted that this plan never developed off the drawing board of the Engineering Corps, let alone reached the Hall of Primarchs.
Following the destruction of Kortal and the destructive potential it revealed regarding nuclear weapons, the nations of Tuchanka turned to another weapon of mass destruction; Thresher Maws.
For the following hundred years, conflicts on Tuchanka were not resolved by bombs, but by Maws. One nation in particular mastered the craft of commanding Thresher Maws and situated itself on the top of Tuchanka's pre-nuclear political landscape. This status quo was held until one fateful day when the nation, which's name is lost to history just as most of the details of the years leading up to the war, launched an attack on another nation, the remnants of which would become the ancestors of most of the currently living krogan clans. Under the usage of nearly sixty percent of Tuchanka's Thresher Maw population, which is estimated to have been up to fifty individual maws, the nation began an assault on its rival. Faced with annihilation at the hand of the maws, the rival nation, which is believed to have been the same one as the nation that previously destroyed Kortal, used its arsenal of thermonuclear weapons in retaliation, intending to only target the hostile capital and the region where largest concentration of maws were active at the time.
However due to an error believed to have been made as a direct result of a particularly large maw attacking the central command of its military, the nation accidentally targeted positions on the entire globe and fired off the entirety of its thermonuclear arsenal. Before they could rectify this mistake, the central command was destroyed by the maw attack.
This single, panic induced error triggered what the few krogan history books created during the age after the nuclear war call the 'Final Hour'. Within the span of eighty-five minutes, Tuchanka was engulfed with nuclear fire and ninety eight percent of its population were killed. The surface layer of the planet was burned off, its oceans evaporated and all plant and animal life living on it became extinct in an eyeblink.
If not for the extensive subterranean layer constructed over the course of centuries, it is believed that nothing but the Thresher Maws would've survived the war.
The few krogan holdouts that survived deep in the subterranean cities would only return to the surface nearly two and a half thousand years later, just in time to be observed by Union Navy probes.
A/N: So remember how I said I probably wouldn't update fast again?
Well, that was a fucking lie apparently.
So, what this is is basically a "proof of concept". When i went into ME2, I knew that I wouldn't write every loyalty mission and that the ones I'd write would be split pov between Shepard and the squad mate the mission belongs to. I also knew that I wouldn't just rehash the missions as they occur in canon (which goes hand in hand with what I said about trying to get away from writing an SV version of a canon mission and moving to writing a SV mission with a link to the canon version instead) Additionally I knew that the loyalty missions would have a connection to the events of the story and not just seem like Shepard doing people favors.
I can only speak for myself but I feel like I achieve that with Ghosts of Tuchanka/Mordin's Loyalty mission. As you can probably guess from that last line, Ghosts of Tuchanka is pretty much the moment we didn't really get to see for mordin (I am talking about him actually realising that he made a mistake and not just mentioning it.) To that end, ParagonShepard ended up with a renegade consequence of Maelon dying.
With that out of the way, I only really feel the need to say that Mordin got a really large loyalty mission chapter. I don't think all of them will be seperate chapters in their own right (although I might change my mind, which would technically 'bloat' SV past what I envision its scope to be ... but then again, why the hell sacrificie narrative value for a chapter number I set myself)
Op-next is the ASOC mission on Jasintho and after that, we get Morneau going to a party. (when you read it, its going to be more exicting than that description, I promise.)
Review and let me know what you think.
Due to my update pace, we obviously didn't crack the 1200/1100 treshhold, but whatever. Didn't want to keep you waiting just so I could write THAT into an A/N.
For the record we're at 705 reviews, 1098 favorites and 1196 follows.
Our time will come frontpage, just you wait.
See you around next time.
