Unexpected Help
The Normandy had made its escape and Joker had us enroute to the Omega system again after having jumped to a far-reaching system on the outskirts of the galaxy. I had debriefed the team; commending them for their exemplary discipline and perfect team-work. I had sent everyone to rest and recuperate while I stood in the comm room waiting on the Illusive Man to answer my hails. The crews' spirits were exceptionally high and being around them made me feel happy and comfortable, but now that I was by myself, I began to dwell on the betrayal by Cerberus' master. The Illusive Man knew it was a trap and he sent us in anyway. My temper was rising with every passing second that he did not answer. My jaw grew tight and my sore, tired muscles flexed repeatedly and I was about ready to storm out of the comm room and find some menial tasks to vent my frustration on when the figure of the Illusive Man finally appeared.
"I knew I couldn't trust you!" I went straight on the offensive, "You knew the Collectors had lain that trap and you sent us in anyway!"
"We needed that data, and you retrieved it with no losses," Illusive Man replied coldly, "I fail to see what's wrong."
"What's wrong is that we're supposed to be on the same side and I can't trust you!"
Illusive Man stood silently, watching me as I paced back and forward.
"You risked my life and the life of my friends and allies," I said darkly, "what's next? How long before we lose someone because you send us into another death-trap?"
"I took a calculated risk, Commander," Illusive Man said, unmoved by my anger, "I believed in the abilities of you and your crew. And don't forget EDI; the Collectors could never have anticipated her. And now, as far as I can tell, we have the data telling us how to get through the Omega 4 Relay."
I stopped pacing and looked straight at the Cerberus tyrant, wishing I was next to him in person so I could wrap my hands around his throat.
"It was a trap, I know," Illusive Man said, "but if I told you beforehand then the Collectors could have been tipped off in any number of ways and we'd have lost this opportunity. As it happens, you succeeded and now we will shortly be able to strike hard at our enemy and defeat them. For all the risks involved, we're one step closer to victory!"
The Illusive Man was right. I hated him for it, but he was right. If we had known of the Collector's plans then I would have taken extra precautions, no doubt. But then the enemy would have realised that their game was up early and EDI would never have pulled the vital data from their systems.
"So the gamble paid off," I said, "but next time we do things my way: I don't risk people's lives so willingly."
"Have it your way, Commander," Illusive Man finished, "but the facts are with me. In the meantime, I suggest that you tell your team that I didn't risk their lives needlessly; it was a chance that had to be taken."
"I will," I agreed, hoping it would help to settle the team down after their rage at the Illusive Man's deceitful ways, "so what do you have for me?"
"The data that EDI retrieved from the Collector ship has confirmed my suspicions that they use a highly advanced Identify Friend Foe system that allows them safe passage through the Omega 4 Relay."
"I was just on the Collector ship," I complained, "why didn't you tell us to get it while were there? Even if it was just a suspicion."
"There was no way you would have been able to find and extract the IFF in time, but I have another way for you to get one."
The Illusive Man activated a galaxy map next to him and had it beamed to my end of the conversation. He homed in on a particular cluster, then a system and then a single planet. It was an arid, rocky planet with a huge canyon running right the way across most of the Southern hemisphere of the planet. I recognised what I was looking at,
"That's Klendagon, with the Great Rift along it."
"Correct," Illusive Man replied, "an Alliance Science Team recently determined that the Great Rift was not a creation of nature. They found evidence suggesting that it is in fact an impact crater made by a mass accelerator weapon. A very old mass accelerator weapon."
"Must have been incredibly powerful to make a scar like that," I mused.
"The Great Rift is just the result of a mere deflection. One of my teams used the information gathered to extrapolate the source of the shot or the intended target. They found both; the target was a thirty-seven-million-year-old, derelict Reaper."
"How is that possible?"
"There's no trace of the species that fired the weapon. It could have been their one last act of defiance. But they found their intended target and destroyed it; I've had a science team investigating the Reaper corpse for some time," he took a deep draw of his cigarette, "but they stopped checking in several weeks ago, and we need that IFF."
My shoulders sagged as I realised where the Illusive Man was going,
"And you want me to go and find out what happened to the team and get the IFF. If the Reaper was "derelict" then what happened to the team?"
"There's no way to know without going there," Illusive Man responded, "I'm sending the coordinates to you now. I know you're angry with me, but remember what we're fighting for: The survival of the Human race."
"The survival of all races," I corrected him. The Illusive Man ended the conversation and I summoned the entire team to the comm room.
"So the Illusive Man didn't sell us out," Jacob sounded relieved, "could've fooled me."
"Lied to us. Used us," Mordin added as he walked to and fro, "but necessary considering mission."
"EDI's information confirmed that the Reapers and the Collectors use an advanced IFF to pass through the Omega 4 Relay. The Illusive Man is sending us to find one that we can use," I explained to everyone.
"From where?" Sophie asked.
"From the corpse of a Reaper that was destroyed back when Mammals were taking their first footsteps on Earth; over thirty-seven-million years ago."
The crew went silent, certain that they had heard me wrong. However, before any of them could form a suitable question in their heads, EDI's voice was heard,
"From the navigational data that I downloaded from the Collector vessel, I have been able to formulate a likely location for their homeworld."
A map of the Milky Way appeared and a cursor roamed from our current position towards the galactic core. I thought that the cursor would keep moving to show that the Collectors originated from somewhere on the opposite side of the galaxy, but when EDI reached the core, she suddenly stopped.
My team and I all stood for a moment, waiting for EDI to home in on another spot, but when the cursor stayed still on the core Miranda exclaimed,
"That can't be right. The galactic core is just a mess of black holes and exploding suns."
"Could be artificial construct protected by powerful Mass Effect fields and radiation shields," Mordin said very convincingly. In my mind it suddenly made absolute sense to me,
"That's why no ship has ever returned from the Omega 4 Relay, they would have just been ripped apart and disintegrated instantly. The IFF must allow the Reapers to make a precision jump to a safe zone that must exist on the other side. It's the only explanation!"
"What are we expecting to find on the derelict Reaper?" Samara asked.
"All we know is that the Cerberus science team that was working on the Reaper went silent and hasn't checked in for a good while. So that means standard procedure, we're going in ready for a fight."
"Some things never change on this ship," Garrus joked.
When all was said and done, Joker informed me that it would be a couple of days travelling time to where the dead Reaper was trapped in the orbit of a brown dwarf. Still frustrated and angry with the Illusive Man, not to mention my rage and hatred of the Collectors, I retreated to my cabin on the top floor to cool down and set my mind straight again. I stepped into the shower and stood idly as the water covered my body, washing away the dark feelings and bringing a greater sense of calm. I must have been standing there for quite a while, and when I finally switched the water off and stepped out my fingers and toes were wrinkled. I dried myself slowly and I heard a knock at the door,
"Who is it?" I called from within my washroom.
"Tali," the soft voice called back.
"In you come Tali, I'll be out in a couple of minutes."
I heard the doors of my cabin open and Tali came in and stood by the door,
"Are you alright Scott?"
"I'm… ok," I struggled, "just drying off. I'll be out soon. Was there something you needed?"
There was a pause before Tali replied,
"I was wondering if you wanted to do something? Take your mind off things for a little while?"
I smiled and felt my heart rise in my chest,
"That sounds perfect," I told her, "what did you have in mind?"
"Lord of the Rings?" she said back happily.
Having left my clothes out on my bed, I had no choice but to step out from the washroom with only a towel around me, but inside I secretly did not mind. I opened the door and when Tali looked around, I could tell instantly that she had a broad smile on her face, and she suddenly became shy,
"Like we used to watch," I said fondly, "did you ever watch the third one?"
"Um… I…" the bashful young Quarian woman struggled to concentrate, "I never watched The Return of the King, so I was thinking we could watch that?"
"How did you never get around to watching it?"
"I… couldn't," she eventually said, "it was our thing. Ours. I've watched the first two dozens of times over the last two years, but whenever I thought of watching the end… it didn't seem right."
To put Tali more at ease, and sensing that this was a deeply personal moment for her, I slipped my shirt and trousers back on,
"I never knew…"
"I never told you," she said, "but now; I want to know what happens. I want to see how all of it plays out."
Part of me wondered if she was still talking about the movies. I certainly wanted to see how it all played out for Tali and I, but she was still not ready and I held my tongue. Instead, I motioned for her to get comfy on the bed and I set up my console and started the movie.
After the four-hour long film finished, Tali was snuggled up next to me with her eyes wide in amazement. I rolled over to face her. Her arms slipped around my waist and I ran my hand up and down her arm, feeling the smooth fabric of the suit beneath my fingers and remembering our night together before we landed on Virmire to chase down and defeat Saren.
"So what d'you think? Everything you thought it would be?" I asked Tali.
"Everything and more," my Love replied, "Humans really come up with the best stories. But I was thinking…"
"What?" I said softly as I lay my head as close to hers as possible, my nose barely a centimetre from her helmet.
"I was thinking if all this will end the same way for us?" Tali said.
"How do mean? Will we have a happy ending?"
Tali's eyes flickered between my own and I knew that that was exactly what she was asking.
"We're going to win Tali," I told her, "just like in the movies. The enemy have superior numbers and technology. But we have more heart, more to live for, too much in our lives for us to give up on. The Collectors are like Saruman and his Uruk-Hai: They had all the advantages and they lost. The Reapers are Sauron and his legions of Orcs, all powerful and sure of victory; but they were still destroyed! Their own hubris and arrogance led to their own demise."
Tali giggled and ran a finger across my lips,
"So that makes us the Fellowship, and you're our Aragorn."
I laughed and held her close, jumping in on the joke,
"What… I'm not pretty enough to be Legolas? You know… the sniper?"
"Hmm," Tali said teasingly, "too rugged to be an Elf, definitely Aragorn for you."
"You know who that makes you then," I said, suddenly realising that I may have crossed a line.
Fortunately, Tali took my hand and guided it to her heart, the beat of which was masked by her suit. She looked straight at me so intently that I thought I could even make out the pupils of her eyes underneath the visor of her helmet,
"Yours," she said, nuzzling into my neck and shifting herself that bit closer to me so that our bodies were touching all the way from head to toe.
"Scott," she said, "I need to tell you something."
"You can tell me anything Tali," I replied, full of apprehension.
"I don't know why I had doubts about you before. I could tell that you were the man I knew from before back on Freedom's Progress. You are still the same man who I fell in love with and I want to be with you again. You're everything to me."
I understood her reasons for doubting me. Being involved with Cerberus in any measure was a sure way to be despised all across the galaxy, and leaving her for two years after I had died filled me with guilt.
"I love you Tali," I said without even the tiniest hesitation. I meant it with every breath that I took, "I always have since we were after Saren. The first few times that I regained consciousness when Miranda was… rebuilding me… I dreamed of seeing you again. I dreamed about our time together, your laugh, that little dance you do when you get excited…"
"I do not," she giggled, looking back up at me.
"You do, you sort of bounce up and down on you're the balls of your feet; it's cute."
Tali settled back into my chest again and spoke in a dreamy voice, as if in a far-off place,
"When I made it back to the Migrant Fleet after the SR1 was destroyed I was so lost, I had no hope or dreams anymore. My Auntie Raan, well she's not my real Auntie but she is very close to my family… she tried to help me so much. And my father…" she sounded sad when she mentioned her father, also one of the Admirals of the Migrant Fleet, "I never told anyone about you and I; no one. My father kept trying to pair me up with some brave Marine or ship's Captain. But I could never bring myself to even make the time to see them."
I was shocked to hear what Tali was saying. To think that the Admiral would just try to marry off his own daughter and think that that would make her happy was completely alien to me,
"I didn't know that," I said feeling nothing but sorrow for Tali, "did he ever ask why?"
"Of course he did," Tali responded, "but I never told him. He doesn't really like Humans. I just told him that I was suffering from shock from being on the Normandy when it went down and losing some of my friends on board. He knew that you had died but I told him that you were just a good friend, someone I trusted and respected."
Tali had endured great pain and suffering for the last two years and had not been able to trust anyone with the real reason why, bottling it all up for all that time. I swore to myself that this time was going to be different.
"Tali," I said to her, "I will never put you through that ever again. If we're going to truly be together again then I swear to you that I will do everything in my power not to leave you. We are going to survive this mission and, if the galaxy lets us, we can be with each other: We can have a life together."
Tali propped her head up and gently removed her mask, the first time she had done so since we were last together. As I looked lovingly upon every beautiful detail of her face and was stricken by those luscious lilac eyes, Tali whispered,
"That's all I ever wanted."
I kissed her. All the feelings and passion that had been building up in me again since I had brought her back aboard the Normandy went into the kiss and life seemed so complete in that moment. The same was true for Tali, and when we finally drew apart there were tears of joy running down her cheeks, and I sure as hell felt my own eyes watering up. Tali put her mask back on and lay close to me again and there we lay for hours, my hand stroking her arm or following the graceful curvature of her hips. We just talked softly to each other until we passed into the best sleeps of our lives. All we knew was the blissful feeling of warmth off each other's bodies as we slept through the night.
Reluctantly, I had to force myself out of bed when it was time to go back on duty. Tali and I, with our relationship reignited and both of us in exuberant moods, touched foreheads and went down to the crew deck for the crews' breakfast meal. As tradition dictated, I usually ate alone in my quarters, but I had noticed that Thane never seemed to be present around the crew at any time. Meal-times were the main bonding time for my squad when on board the ship. But even then, Thane was conspicuously absent. I sent Tali off to the mess hall to sit with the rest of the team, smiling after her as she went, before I headed to the Life Support room where Thane had set up his residence.
The doors slid open and I stepped inside to a silent room. With Thane being what he was, I always half expected him to be in the shadows right next to me or in the far corner of the room. Anywhere that I could not immediately see him. However, he was sitting at his desk with his hands clasped and his eyes closed.
"Thane?" I said quietly, "I'm not disturbing you, am I?"
The Drell's eyes opened and he beckoned me over,
"Not at all Commander. We haven't had a lot of time to talk since I came on board."
"I've just been noticing that you're never around the rest of the crew. Problems?"
"I live a solitary life given the nature of my occupation. I find it hard to socialise with others. I have many skills, but that is not one of them."
I sat down opposite Thane,
"The rest of us lose out as much as you do when you hold yourself apart, Thane. You've fought alongside my team, you're one of us. They won't make it difficult on you, and neither will I."
"I appreciate the thought Commander. In truth, the Quarian, Tali'Zorah, made the effort to speak with me, but my conversation was a little… dry. I have spent the last ten years before now alone."
"Ten years? There must be someone out there that you care about, you must have a trusted friend. And what about before the ten years?"
Thane sat thoughtfully but was unable to meet my eyes, hiding something personal within himself,
"I used to have a close rapport with several of my contacts; but then… I simply drifted away from everyone."
"Did something happen?" I asked.
"Yes," Thane replied, but remained silent afterwards.
I did not want to upset him so I moved away from that touchy subject and returned to the original issue,
"The squad's full of good people, Thane. Most of them would like to meet you and get to know you."
The Drell's eyes flickered up to mine for a moment and I continued,
"You've spent a lot of your life alone but that doesn't need to be the case. I'm not going to ask you to go out and sit with them now, but don't hole yourself up in here either. It'll be good for you, I think. And not just the crew but me as well. If you have anything you want to talk about or just want some company, I'll be around."
"Thank you, Commander," Thane said graciously, "when I am ready, I shall get to know everyone. I never thought anyone would want to know me. I am simply a weapon."
"No, you're not," I said immediately, "you're a person and I want to get to know that person. I like to know the men and women who fight alongside me. And besides, Tali's already tried to speak to you and, given half a chance, I bet most of the rest would as well."
Thane nodded and smiled but said nothing. I stood up and took respectful leave of the assassin and went back into the mess hall. I stood at the door and watched the rest of my team as they chatted with each other about themselves or their homes, the mission and the Collectors, about me and the Normandy. Garrus was reliving his old C-Sec days before I whisked him away to battle Saren and Samara listened in quiet wonder. The thousand-year-old Justicar had seen and done almost everything that the galaxy had to offer, but even for her the Reapers were something new and unheard of.
Samara took in Garrus and Tali's accounts of what we had gone through on Therum, Feros, Noveria, Virmire, Ilos and eventually the Citadel itself. That was when I heard Samara begin to tell of an encounter with the Collectors in her younger days, several centuries ago. I joined my group and sat down next to the Asari and she welcomed me,
"Commander, I am glad to see you. There has not been much time to talk."
"I know, and I regret that. You and Thane have come on the Normandy just as we're rushing around. I heard you say that you'd bumped into the Collectors before? What happened?"
"I did not fight with them Commander," Samara answered, "and I cannot offer you any information that will aid us on our noble crusade."
"Even so, I'd like to hear it."
When Samara began, the rest of the team went quiet and listened in to her well-spoken voice and confident tone,
"I was just a young maiden and had joined a mercenary group a few years earlier. We received a job to escort some valuable cargo of an unknown nature to a meeting place out in space in the Terminus Systems. We knew nothing of the cargo or who we were supposed to be meeting."
Samara was now the centre of attention and some of the regular crew had stopped to hear the tale for themselves as well.
"By accident," Samara said, "I discovered that the cargo that we were transporting were slaves, and that they were due to be handed over to the Collectors."
"What did the rest of your group do when you told them?" Sophie asked.
"Some were unsure of what to think, but unfortunately most did not care. They were there to get paid for doing their job. But I could not be so callous. I told them to turn the ship around and abandon the mission, for it was wrong on all levels of morality. When they refused," Samara paused, "I killed the rest of my mercenary group and released the prisoners. I gave them the weapons, armour and credits of my supposed friends and took control of the ship. However, the Collector ship was already arriving and I had to flee."
"Wow," Zaeed said, "that took some guts."
"Indeed. The Collectors were closing in on me, but I was near to the Mass Relay and was able to escape."
"What happened to the prisoners?" I asked, impressed by Samara's will to stand up for what was right.
"I lectured them on the virtues of protecting one's self before I reached the Citadel and released them to follow their own paths. That is the one time I have ever been in a situation involving the Collectors. However, I continued to listen for news regarding them for many years afterwards, but I never heard anything."
It was apparent that the Collectors were active even hundreds of years ago. Considering that Humans had never encountered or been encountered by any alien species until twenty-eight years ago, it was impossible that they were harvesting us back then. What did they, and by extension the Reapers, want with the slaves back then? What did they want with us now? Like the Illusive Man, I could find no discernible motive for what the Collectors were doing; abducting hundreds of thousands rather than just killing them. I put the thoughts to the back of my head for the moment and simply enjoyed the company of my friends and crew. We were about to go on board a derelict Reaper, a daunting task to say the least. So I was going to take the time to relax when I could get it.
The Normandy arrived in the system where the Reaper corpse was located and I gathered everyone together, already suited up and ready to go.
"We're going to make this mission as fast as we possibly can. According to the Illusive Man, the science team had already found the IFF before they went dark. We get on board, grab the IFF and get off again. We kill anything that tries to stop us. No diversions, no distractions and we'll all get back just fine."
"Commander," Grunt said, "do we know if there'll be anything to fight us on a dead ship?"
"I don't know. It's a dead Reaper, but it's still a Reaper and with them anything's possible. We keep our guard up and there'll be no nasty surprises like on the Collector ship."
"And what about the science team that disappeared?" Jacob asked, "how big was it? If it was just a few people then we could assume that a couple of Husks would be able to take them out. But if it was more…"
The Illusive Man had not given me numbers on the team, but I suspected that he would devote major resources and manpower to such a study,
"I don't know for sure, but I have a feeling that the team was big. Could have easily been a hundred personnel."
"I'd suspect more," Miranda added. Given her far greater knowledge of how Cerberus operations were run I was fully prepared to believe her.
"Whatever's waiting for us, we'll be ready. Joker will have us there in less than an hour so check your weapons and assemble in the shuttle bay."
I was running final checks on my weapons in the armoury when I suddenly felt the Normandy lurch violently. Steadying myself, I stood back up before the Normandy was hit by a wave that shook the entire ship without pause. In a moment of worry I remembered similar feelings back when the Collectors ambushed and destroyed the first Normandy, and I was horrified to think that they had got the jump on us again. I raced through to the bridge and spoke to Joker,
"What the fuck is going on?"
"We're close enough to the brown dwarf that its atmosphere's hitting us! Winds are gusting at five-hundred KPH."
As if to prove a point, my ship took a blast of wind on the broadside and I was lifted off of the deck for a moment before slamming back down. I looked out at the brown dwarf, the star that did not quite make it, that the Reaper was orbiting. The entire atmosphere around the failed star was a permanent storm, raging without mercy and buffeting our frigate with all its hate. Against the dull glow of the dwarf, I saw silhouetted against it the dark shape of a Reaper, floating harmlessly ahead of us, but Jeff's screens soon began blinking with a warning,
"Sir, there's another ship alongside the Reaper. No energy signatures coming from it, but LADAR points its silhouette as Geth."
"Then I guess we know what happened to the science team," I grumbled.
As quickly as the storm had hit us, it suddenly stopped and my ship glided through the air as easily as a fish through water.
"What just happened?" I asked.
"The Reaper's Mass Effect field is still active," EDI told us, "we are now within its envelope."
"Ok. Joker, get us alongside that thing and we'll board immediately. I'll see you when we get back."
"If you feel the urge to hurry, I won't complain," Jeff said. I emerged from the elevator in the hanger and informed my team about the likely Geth presence before we boarded our shuttles and made the short trip to the enormous Reaper hulk.
"That is a Reaper?" Grunt asked as he gazed with a mixture of admiration and wonder at the massive metal construct.
"That's a Reaper," I told my Krogan friend, "and that's what we're up against. Worthy enough enemy for you?"
"Oh yeah," Grunt chuckled.
"I never wanted to see one of these again after what happened on the Citadel," Sophie said.
"Well if all goes well, we'll only have to see one now to prevent thousands more coming in the future."
"And hopefully we'll only be here a short time," Tali added, voicing what we were all thinking.
The Cerberus team that had been here months before us had built a series of pressurised chambers and walkways heading deeper into the Reaper, filled with computers and research equipment. However, as soon as we stepped off of the shuttles, the first thing that we saw were bodies. Three Human corpses lay together, mangled, burned and rotted.
"Did the Geth do that?" Miranda asked, "they were never one to torture and mutilate their enemies."
"For once," Tali said, "I have to say that is a good thing about the Geth."
"Agreed," I said, "we won't know unless we press on."
I made to move on and lead my team into what I could almost call the heart of darkness, but Mordin called me back with an urgent voice,
"Commander," he said as he knelt beside the bodies, inspecting them thoroughly, "corpses have evidence of ripping and tearing marks. Parts of them have been eaten, by other Humans."
"With all the shit Cerberus is into, I wouldn't put them above cannibalism," Jack said.
"There must be Husks," Miranda immediately countered, "they would have tried to defend themselves against them and been bitten and torn in the process."
"Geth and Husks," I sighed, "make sure those guns are primed people!"
We walked along the path in silence for a while, seeing or hearing no signs of life, until we came to a larger chamber with a number of computers set up along the far wall,
"Looks like the project lead's station," Jacob told me, "maybe we could find out what happened here, Commander."
Looking along the row of terminals, I saw one with a far greater amount of paperwork and collated data next to it and switched it on. EDI immediately spoke into my ear,
"Commander, there is a video from Dr Chandana's private log that you may find interesting."
The AI guided me to the video and I played it while the rest of the team stood around me and listened. An older man appeared wearing a Cerberus uniform and spoke with an educated voice. However, he seemed rather distraught and distracted; he was sweating, his hair was badly ruffled and it appeared that he had not washed or changed clothes for at least several days. The doctor leaned in close to the screen and spoke in a quiet but shaky voice,
"Something is very wrong with this place! I try to tell the team that everything is going fine and that we're progressing along quite nicely. But… but the walls of this place seem to press down on you. I find myself clenching my teeth. I'm seeing things, shadows moving all around us. And voices, they're all around like thousands of phantoms are talking to me, trying to give me a message. Are they warning me? Are they telling me that I should leave? Or are they welcoming me to join them? This Reaper is still alive, and it wants us to stay with it!"
The log closed and Miranda spoke first,
"They were all being indoctrinated. Whether they're alive or dead, they'll still be here."
"If they are alive," I said, "what form will it be in?"
"What do you mean?" Samara asked.
"It adds up," I explained, "we see Human corpses that have had bits bitten off of them. That's a clear indication of Husks. The Reaper was indoctrinating them all. What if the Reaper was making them turn members of their team into Husks? I'm thinking that any Husks we encounter here will be what remains of the science team. It will be the science team that we're fighting."
"It's a shame we couldn't save them," Jacob said.
"Let's keep going," I ordered, keen not to linger too long, "and keep an eye out for Dragon's Teeth while we're going."
"What are they?" Tali asked.
"They're what the Reapers use to turn Humans into Husks. Simply large spikes that the Human bodies are impaled on and left for a short amount of time," Jacob explained, "when the Husk is fully formed, the spike retracts and the creature's set loose."
"I think we're going to see some soon," Garrus suddenly uttered as he gazed ahead into the grand chamber which we were now approaching.
The walkway ended and revealed to us what must have been the main Cerberus "lab". There were power units along both sides of the chamber and cables twisted and coiled all over the floor running to various computers, equipment and medical facilities. Just as Garrus had stated, the centre of the room was filled with at least thirty or more of the Husk-creating spikes, and many of them still had corpses on them. I could see that they had been turned into Husks and I proceeded warily around the other side of the cluster of dragon's teeth. At the edge of the platform on which the "lab" had been put together I looked out to what lay beyond: A vast, cavernous space that must have been the inner-most cavity of the Reaper. We were effectively in the heart of a Reaper.
I could not help but be mesmerised by the whole experience, no matter what the corpse represented. We were standing inside a being, a sentient creature, that was older than Humanity itself. If this particular one was over thirty-seven-million years old, how far back did their bloody legacy go? How far back throughout the endless years of the galaxy's existence did the Reapers' campaign of extermination extend? Which race were their first victims? How did they fight back? They would not have had the benefit of knowledge from previous cycles like we did with the information we received from the Prothean beacon alerting us to the Reapers' existence.
I was hunched over another ruined corpse of a Cerberus scientist when Thane spoke to me,
"Commander, It appears that this room has been set up as an altar."
"What?"
"The spikes are set up in such a way that those Cerberus men that were indoctrinated turned to worshipping the Reapers, and sacrificed their people on the dragon's teeth as tribute."
I looked at the assemblage of spikes, arranged in perfect concentric circles, and saw exactly what Thane meant,
"Good eyes, Thane," I said to the observant assassin. I told the rest of the team, "Don't expect any survivors. The Cerberus team will all be gone…"
Two shots rang out from further along the Cerberus walkways and we all raised our weapons and closed in on the door leading out of the research centre.
"Maybe not all gone," Kasumi muttered.
"Everyone on me and keep your eyes peeled," I said and marched off through the doorway and along the steel-grated path, my annoyance at the rising number of unknowns greatly increasing.
Not far along the walkways we saw the bodies of two Husks, both of them with holes through their heads.
"Pretty good shot for a Cerberus scientist," Tali commented with doubt dripping from her voice.
"That leaves the bloody Geth I guess," Zaeed said and we all agreed. Up ahead was another large chamber, but there was no presence of Cerberus equipment or anything of the sort. What awaited was an open square leading further through the Reaper's body and away around a corner at the far side. To our right my team and I looked out of the massive breach in the Reaper's hull that the ancient mass accelerator had made. The impact must have been at a level of violence that we could hardly imagined. The metal was bent and warped in ways I had never seen before, and from the damage around us it was evident that internal explosions had been caused by the shot and ripped throughout the two-kilometre-tall machine.
"We need one of those weapons!" Garrus said with admiration.
"We'll get the illusive Man on it when we get back, I'm sure he's got the cash for it," I replied dryly.
I stopped abruptly when I was walking along and taking in my surroundings. I shut my eyes and listened, certain that I had heard a noise. A metallic "clunk" was heard and everybody stopped to check every corner and dark patch around us when suddenly I heard a scream from one of my team. My squad dashed to help Sophie as she was violently dragged over the side of the walkway, a cruel, mutated Human hand around her ankle. I grabbed hold of both of Sophie's wrists and pulled with all my strength, barely able to match that of the Husk's until Zaeed and Jacob jumped in to help. When my sister was back up with us and the Husk came after her, Grunt picked the beast up and threw it back down into the empty dark void below us. Then the grunting and howling started as more Husks, dozens of them, started jumping down at us from above and climbing up from underneath the walkway.
At once thirteen different weapons started blaring away and Husks fell dead all around us, but many more were still rushing towards us. Miranda was crushed underneath the weight of one and was only able to get up again when Jack had crushed the Husk's head together with a biotic field. Jack's shotgun blasted another creature while Thane brought one down with a flurry of punches, kicks and throws that all happened almost too quickly for me to see. His body moved like water and he fought almost telepathically, knowing exactly what his enemy was going to do before the Husk even moved. Dancing around each Husks' clumsy swings and evading their clutches, Thane used his biotics and his pistol to great effect and killed many of the monsters.
I brought down several enemies with my Mattock before engaging the Omni blade attachment and bayoneting every one of the Reaper troops that tried to get me. Tali's shotgun was making short work of the beasts and with Zaeed and Samara next to her she fought hard to kill as many of the Husks as possible. My team was holding their ground and soon the Husk numbers began to dwindle, I even noticed several of them retreating and scampering off further ahead, no doubt to attack us again later.
I slashed the Omni blade on my Mattock across the throat of a Husk and ripped its insides out with the Omni blade on my wrist. When the vile being dropped to its knees, I blasted its head off with a single shot from my rifle. Just as I was thinking that we had won that particular fight, a huge weight came crashing down on top of me and I was thrown to the ground. I managed to flip myself onto my back and block the Husk's repeated attempts to bust my head open or take a bite out of my neck. However, as quickly as the Husk had jumped down from the rafters above and landed on me, its face suddenly seemed to implode and I punched the body off of me. The rest of the team had finished off their own foes and I stood up to take a breather,
"Thanks!" I said between gulps of air, "whoever… shot that Husk… Good shot."
I was shocked to find that the team had their weapons raised in my direction, and when I turned to look ahead in the direction that the Husks had fled, I saw a single figure standing with a rifle in its hands at the furthest away point of the walkway.
"It was not any of us that took the shot, Commander," Samara informed me as she scoped in with her rifle on the one who had saved me.
"It was that Geth," Tali said scornfully.
The figure that had shot the Husk lowered its own rifle and the head-light of the Geth blinked at me. I had no idea what to do. Standard procedure with Geth had always been to shoot them on sight since the Saren days, but this one had just helped me. While I tried to work out how to react to this totally unprecedented state of affairs, I heard a synthesised voice come from the Geth,
"Scott-Gardner-Commander," it said before calmly turning and walking away around the corner and out of sight. Now I was not the only one who was dumbstruck and unable to think clearly. When I turned back to look at my team, I could have dropped to the floor laughing at the expressions on their faces if we were not in such a dangerous place.
"Did that Geth just… talk?" I said, focusing the question towards Tali but remaining open to an explanation from anyone.
"It shouldn't be able to do that," Tali said, "a single Geth has no more intelligence than a Varren."
"But it definitely just talked," Miranda said pointedly.
"Great," I said sardonically, "more mysteries to solve. We keep moving. Stay ready for the Husks and keep an eye out for that Geth, but don't shoot it. It just helped me and I want to know why."
With all speed, my team followed the walkway around and we hunted for the Geth but saw no sign of it. There were multiple walkways stretching off in different directions at this point and a few others above our heads as well. However, our search was not all in vain as I saw another research station just ahead with an intriguing piece of Reaper hardware contained in a glass box next to it. The Reaper tech was wired up to the computer, but as I scrolled through the detailed notes of the research team that had worked here it became clear that this was exactly what we were looking for,
"It's the IFF," I told everyone, "let's get it and get off this Reaper before the Husks turn up again."
"What about the Geth?" Miranda asked.
"If we don't see it on our way back, we'll just get Joker to destroy its ship, then it's not getting out of here and the Geth won't get any Intel or equipment that it might gather."
"What about finding out why it helped us?" Sophie asked.
"The mission has to come first," I responded.
I broke open the glass container and retrieved the IFF, a sophisticated piece of hardware about the size of my hand but surprisingly heavy. Just as I secured the IFF to my suit, I felt the Reaper hulk shudder viciously for a moment before all became still again.
"Joker," I went on the comm, "what's happening?"
"Don't know, Commander. The Reaper just put up its kinetic barriers and we're trapped inside."
"Trapped!" I repeated, not liking this situation one little bit.
"As curious as I am about Reapers," Tali started, "I'd rather not be stuck inside one."
"When the kinetic barriers activated, I detected a heat spike just ahead of your current position," EDI told us, "it is likely the Reaper's drive core. Destroying this should bring down the barrier and the Mass Effect field around us."
"Removing Mass Effect field will result in Reaper being drawn into brown dwarf," Mordin stated, "results for team… problematic."
"You hearing this Joker?" I said.
"Yeah, everyone's going to get crushed and die, I got it," came Joker's sharp reply.
"If there's any helmsman who can get us out of here it's you. We'll take down the core and be right out!"
My team and I charged along and followed EDI's directions to where the heat spike had originated from. The Husks had returned in force and were swarming all around us. Each of us blasted away with our weapons and the corpses of the Husks began to pile up everywhere. I saw an open door ahead of us with several Husk bodies scattered around it and I knew that the Geth had also come this way. However, though the open door itself, a force field had powered up and was blocking our way. Inside, I saw the light of the Geth's head moving around and it seemed to be having problems of its own with the Husks. My team reached the door, but unable to pass through we simply bunched up and covered all sectors with our weapons and slaughtered the enemy troops as they ran and leapt towards us, groaning and shrieking as they went like an army of the dead risen up to fight again.
The gunshots from behind us ceased and the Geth walked over the dead Reaper troops to a console and its hands hovered over the panel, inputting commands digitally rather than physically. As it was transferring and processing information more Husks suddenly appeared and the Geth whipped out its pistol and started shooting again with one hand still attached to the console. Two then three and then four Husks were shot to the ground and the Geth managed to bypass and remove the force field blocking us from the drive core. Unfortunately, the number of Husks overwhelmed the Geth at the last second and its body crumbled to the ground after being struck numerous times its head-light flickering before fading away.
With Miranda, Jacob, Sophie, Jack and Thane covering the door, the rest of us moved inside and shot down all the Husks that came at us. The situation was getting forever more dire with the enemy and we needed to get out of here fast.
"Everyone fire on the core," I yelled out loud to the team, "Grunt, pick up that Geth. We're taking it with us."
"Scott, I'm not sure it's worth the risk," Tali said urgently, "it could hack the Normandy's systems…"
"There's no time to debate it Tali, we're taking it with us."
I holstered my Mattock and brought the Widow out and fired all my shots straight into the drive core, barely able to bear that heat coming off of the overloading energy core. Under the bombardment of bullets and tech attacks the core lit up so brightly that none of us could stand to look straight at it, like a miniature sun had appeared before us and rendered us blind. Then all went black.
The core shattered and everything went completely dead, making the threat of the Husks far deadlier. Grey, dead hands shot out of the darkness at us and only the flashes of the gunfire lit up the room and allowed us to momentarily see the hordes of enemies rushing us.
"Everyone form up tight and push back! Grunt, you're on point. Fight us a way out of here!"
We formed up like a unit of ancient Roman soldiers about to go into battle. The enormous Krogan, with the Geth's body slung over his broad shoulders, smashed his way through the significantly smaller bodies of the Husks and left many crushed and torn corpses behind him. Tali turned on the torch on her Omni tool and used it to light the way ahead, using her pistol in her other hand as best she could without shooting the thrashing and heaving Grunt in the back. We all had our fair share of close encounters with the Husks and had to have one of the team blast our attacker off of us at some point. By some miracle, and a great deal of luck and team-work, we made it back to the part of the Reaper where the hull had been ripped asunder and saw the Normandy flying alongside, keeping pace with the Reaper's descent towards the failed sun.
"We're running and jumping people!" I stated.
Grunt blasted a Husk in two with his shotgun and launched himself off of the walkway into the near zero-gravity atmosphere, gliding through the air and catching the side of the Normandy before shifting along to the open airlock door. One by one my team took running jumps and flew over to the ship while those that waited shot everything else that moved. In the dull light coming from the brown dwarf the Husks just kept on coming in waves and waves. With my Widow I shot one at the bottom of its neck and the head blasted off and fired away with no gravity to bring it back down.
Eventually, when all of my team were safely aboard the Normandy, I prepared to make my own jump, but as I ran a hand shot out from underneath and gripped tightly around my ankle. The face plate of my helmet hit the metal deck and I flipped around, severing the arm from the Husk's body with my Omni blade, but it still attacked regardless. From the airlock door of my frigate Jacob and Zaeed were covering me as best they could as I struggled away from the one-armed Husk. I swept its feet out from under it and when the creature went down I stamped down on its chest with all the force that I could. My foot went clean through the Husk and the blue blood spattered all up my leg, leaving a trail behind me as I ran and jumped the gap to safety. When I was aboard and the airlock was sealed, Joker turned the Normandy away from the Reaper and the engines roared into life and we shot away, leaving the cold corpse to fall ever nearer to crushing depth in the clutches of the brown dwarf.
When I had recovered my breath and was able to stand again, I made a point of telling Joker what a great job he had done holding the Normandy in perfect position for us and handed him the Reaper IFF.
"Run screening tests on it with EDI before you even try to install it. This thing could be as dangerous to my ship as any Reaper would be," I ordered Joker.
"The IFF is Reaper technology," EDI explained, "it may take some time to complete my analysis."
"Can you give me a rough time estimate? Hours? Days?"
EDI did not answer immediately which was cause enough to be concerned.
"I cannot provide any accurate estimations of how long screening and testing will take, Commander. The technology is… complex."
I was troubled by EDI's lack of information, not something she had become known for among the crew of the Normandy. Any delay in jumping through the Omega 4 Relay could result in the Collectors attacking another colony. Hundreds of thousands of Humans could be killed or kidnapped while we sailed aimlessly around the galaxy. The desire to end the Collectors was burning deep in my heart and it frustrated me that we were so close to completing our mission, and yet I did not want to risk the ship and my crew by rushing things in regard to the IFF. There were no ifs, buts or maybes with the Reapers: We had to get it perfect.