CHAPTER 21: BENEZIA
Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams pulled the Mako into one of the Peak 15 garages. "That storm wasn't so bad," the chief muttered to herself. She opened the hatch and Liara climbed out first, followed awkwardly by Shepard, followed soon by the others, though not without a couple banged elbows and knees in the process. "Do you think Benezia is expecting us?"
"Yes, but probably not this soon. Communications have been essentially cut off with Port Hanshan; it's a testament to Tali's skill that she was able to remotely recover anything at all. And that agent she left behind is…well, is in no position to make any calls. They might figure out what happened to their agent after a while, but probably not yet, so traps shouldn't be too much of a problem. There will be geth or Saren's mercs waiting in the main garage, you can bet on that. But I'm most worried about the breach of containment," the commander responded, gesturing to the second garage door that led to the facility. "Once we open that door, we need to eliminate the guards and move quickly." The squad drew their weapons as Shepard opened the door. "We need to keep our omni-tools scanning for any biological or chemical agents."
To their collective surprise, the garage was entirely devoid of anyone. "The fact that you're wrong about no garage guards doesn't exactly make me feel better," the chief said quietly.
"It doesn't make me feel better either. I would have hidden a geth fireteam or even a squad in the garage, to keep an eye on things," the commander agreed, looking around the garage warily. No vehicles or shuttles, other than their own Mako, had been parked at the facility, making Shepard wonder just how Benezia and the geth arrived at Peak 15. The room was cold, and judging by the size of the snow drifts near the exterior hatches and doors, Shepard figured that the doors had been open for a good while.
"Found dead geth. Looks to be three of them, judging by the pieces," Wrex said.
"Two more dead geth here," Garrus added.
The commander noticed that several turrets had been set up, but all aimed towards the single door that led deeper into the facility. A chill went down Shepard's spine; not from the cold, but from one of the conclusions of the observations. "Huh. Those turrets are facing the wrong way," Williams commented. "They've been activated, but they didn't turn to fire on us."
"Or they want to keep whatever is inside here inside here, and we don't match their targeting parameters," Shepard responded quietly as she glanced to the chief. "Let's get them disabled," Shepard said after a pause. "Just in case they start shooting at us."
A minute later, the two Alliance officers and Garrus had shut down every turret in the garage before slowly proceeding into the next room. The small security office they looked to be in had a myriad of monitors for cameras, all but five offline. Three were of the garage they just entered from. A fourth looked to be broken, or entirely covered by a blue film, but the fifth…
"Oh God, what happened?" Williams asked, aghast, her face pale.
Shepard looked at the last operational screen as impassively as she could. Blood of several colors had been splattered across the entire part of the room that the camera viewed, with small chunks of flesh littering the formerly white floors. All of the furniture had been strewn about the room, with every visible desk and chair overturned. No bodies could be seen, just the remnants of a very gory massacre. The commander checked the feed from the camera; it was live, and she rewound the video to the start…nothing.
"Alenko, see if you can recover any footage of what caused the slaughter. Garrus, check for any other stored video feeds," she ordered. She looked around for another network terminal that wasn't…there. She strode over, booted the terminal, and called back to the Normandy. "Tali, see if you can infiltrate this network."
"Got it, Commander. It's very secure; it may take a while to find an exploit," the quarian replied.
Wrex looked at Shepard. "What did you say about bombing this place from orbit before we left the ship? If it had something…xinofs?"
She looked puzzled for a moment. "Bombing this place from orbit – oh. Xenomorphs and facehuggers. You don't want to know," she finished with a shake of her head. "They're from a human horror vid remake from a few years ago. Bombing this place from orbit doesn't seem like that bad of an idea just after seeing the aftermath of whatever went through that room," she said quietly.
"The camera footage is just from the past hour. Nothing moving on any of the feeds, except when we entered the garage a few minutes ago," Alenko told her.
"Couldn't recover anything from the disabled cameras," Garrus added.
Shepard sighed. "Disconnect and wipe the storage for the garage cameras. Regardless of who or what came through here, I'd prefer Benezia not know we arrived. If she's even still alive." She brought up a map of the facility. "This is the only entrance to the facility, other than a freight elevator that leads to a deactivated tram. There's an actual security office a few rooms down that should have more accesses. I want to get there to see just what happened here."
"And get the hell out of dodge," Williams added.
"Agreed. If we can figure out just what caused the slaughter and the breach of containment…I wonder if it's related to Benezia's arrival. Depending on what happened when, Benezia might not be an issue anymore."
"Neither will we if we linger too long," Garrus muttered.
After a minute, the squad slowly advanced into the welcoming foyer, weapons, tech, and biotics at the ready. The area stood in stark contrast to the rest of the facility's utilitarian and Spartan appearance. Bright, colorful murals adorned each of the walls, with mood lighting set to mimic dawn or dusk on a serene planet. Several holoprojectors and vid screens showed several company initiatives; a grinning child running through a field, an attractive young woman stepping out of a medical cot to smiles and hugs from presumed family members; an elderly man looking through a holoprojector with a woman. Stereotypical advertisements for a giant genetics corporation, Shepard thought. The scene would have been calming except for the silence; none of the looped content had any audio, and the commander listened for any sounds at all in the room or the facility. Nothing. Ordinarily she would have heard something; the slight whir from HVAC fans, or the deep thrum of turbopumps. But only an unnerving absence of sound hung over the facility.
She glanced at another one of the murals, drawn momentarily to the contrasting colors of the fields depicted, before realizing what caused her unease. The field wasn't red; it had been splattered with human blood. "It came through here," Shepard said quietly, gesturing to the wall stain.
"Lord," Williams muttered.
Wrex strode towards the door that led them deeper into the facility, biotics charged and shotgun leveled. The door slid silently open, and he slowly moved into the narrow corridor. "Three dead geth here." he said.
The commander followed him, and the two covered the rest of the team's entrance, Alenko and Williams watching the rear. Shepard looked at the dead geth troopers, two sliced apart and a third smashed against a wall, their white processing fluid splattered throughout most of the room. She felt her heart pound in her chest, the only sound she could hear in the freezing facility, her breath forming fog. She hadn't felt this apprehensive since Eden Prime. Something had clearly been released in the facility, something she'd rather not encounter. Something that only left bloodstains everywhere, but no organic bodies.
Shepard jumped at the screech, a blood-curdling shriek coming from a wall panel, her hair trigger biotics flaring as she spun to face the sound.
"What the hell was that!?" Williams yelled.
"I don't – " Garrus' reply was cut short by a loud crash and a yell from the commander.
Shepard spun to face the crash as a wall panel suddenly filled her vision. She discharged her biotics to deflect it, partially succeeding, but the panel still struck her arms and sent her sprawling to the floor. She rolled to her side, and let out an instinctive gasp at the creature that lunged at her.
The creature stood taller on six legs than she did on two. It possessed several flaying tentacles that whipped around in the air, each perhaps four meters long, each ending in fifteen centimeter serrated blades. A three-jawed mouth gaped wide open, wet with saliva and drool, and a disgustingly phallic tongue lapped out of the mouth, then in. The six insectoid legs prepared to launch the monstrosity at her.
Shepard discharged her biotics again, sending a rippling wave of dark energy towards the abomination. The attack swept up the creature and splattered it against the now-exposed segment of the wall. The panel flipped over in the biotic blast, and it sliced into the creature a split second later, nearly bisecting the monster in two. The creature shrieked and spasmed for an instant, then fell silent and motionless.
More muffled shrieks echoed through the walls. A wall panel crumpled inward, but a combined biotic attack from Shepard and Wrex sent spurts of brown goop out of the wall before a creature could even emerge. She stowed her pistol, focusing solely on biotics.
Another panel burst from the wall, but the monster barely got a chance to emerge before a massive shockwave from Alenko killed it. Wrex dispatched another creature as it tried to leap from an overhead ventilation shaft. A fifth creature tried to follow through the shaft, but Shepard's next biotic attack crumpled both the horror and the shaft into a bloody heap of metal and gore.
The commander froze as she studied the creature for a moment. She had seen this creature before, but never alive, only in history texts and holos. Her mouth hung open, speechless for several moments, before she quietly asked in disbelief, "Wrex…those…that…is that what it looks like?"
"What are these fuckers doing here?" Wrex growled. He fired his shotgun at the remnants of one of the creatures.
"But…t-t-the…rachni are extinct," Liara stammered. "They've been extinct for two thousand years."
"Clearly not," Garrus muttered.
Shepard continued to look between the corpses in the room, trying to think if they could be anything else. But nothing else fit the description of the remains of the creature that lay before her. "Tali," she said finally, "any luck getting into the Binary Helix networks?"
"No, Commander," came the reply over the comm.
"Wrex…could these be anything other than rachni?"
"No," Wrex growled, firing his shotgun into two of the corpses again.
"What's the best way to fight them?"
"Use biotics. Switch all your weapons to shredder or incendiary ammo. Then shoot and flay them until they're a puddle of blood," the battlemaster responded.
Shepard paused before looking to her left to the security office. "Let's pull the security logs. I want to figure out just why in God's name are rachni here." She approached the door cautiously, but Wrex took the lead, biotics charged and shotgun aimed. He opened the door, and Shepard's breath hitched as she expected him to get jumped by one of the monstrosities…but nothing happened.
The large krogan took a step inside, scanning the room. "No rachni, no bodies." A brief pause. "And it doesn't look like they can break out from these wall panels."
"That would defeat the point of a security office being, you know, secure," Garrus muttered.
Shepard quickly followed him into the larger room, filled with a myriad of displays and cameras. Most haptic interfaces flashed red; fortunately all were in English, courtesy of Binary Helix being a human company. She searched for and found an admin terminal. She removed a large OSD from her hip and plugged it into the interface. "Tali, I just plugged an OSD with Spectre infiltration routines into to an admin terminal. See what kind of access you can get with this."
"On it, Commander."
Shepard began scanning through the logs. "Okay…it looks like the breach of containment occurred about three hours ago. Let's see what the vids show," she muttered. She brought up the cameras for the research labs. The system conveniently had a time stamp on all cameras for the exact time the breach of containment occurred, presumably for easy review later. She rewound thirty seconds and hit play.
A half dozen cameras each showed a different angle of a series of containment cells. Each cell had a dark energy barrier and a hardened door. Over a dozen rachni lurked within each cell. The commander's eyes widened at the count. Two other cameras showed a trio of guards with an asari commando in another security office. The latter suddenly hit two guards with a biotic attack, shooting the third with a pistol, wounding but not killing him. She quickly strode to a security panel, rapidly typing in a series of commands. Overhead lights in that room flashed yellow, and the injured man screamed at her to stop. The asari ignored the pleas, dragging the crippled man and holding his eyes to a retinal scanner, then pulled his glove off and put his hand on a palm and DNA reader. She shoved the dying guard back to the ground, typing in another series of commands. An audible siren echoed through the recording, and the asari commando pressed one last button.
Instantly the doors containing the rachni slid open, and the dark energy barriers vanished. A series of sirens began wailing, and lights from every camera on playback began flashing red. Shepard watched in mute horror as the rachni swarmed from the cells. In seconds they were in the security office, ripping apart the barely-living guard and dragging off the two dead corpses. The commander paused to bring more cameras into the playback, and she watched as the rachni horde quickly overwhelmed both the guards and the scientists. She watched the asari commando effortlessly dispatch a pair of rachni in her way as she disappeared deeper into the facility.
She paused the playback, taking a deep breath. A screech from the room outside caused her to jump. Her biotics immediately flared and she rushed out to support the squad. She heard the sound of rifle fire and two quick biotic attacks followed by a pair of screeches. By the time she entered the foyer, her own biotics charged, the room was silent once again. She saw coronas dissipate around Alenko and Liara as two rachni corpses slid to a stop at the far end of the room perhaps twenty meters away.
"Two more rachni," Alenko told her. "Biotics did the trick."
"Keep shooting them," Wrex growled. "Make sure they're dead."
Garrus and Ashley obliged, firing into each until their weapons nearly overheated and brown blood freely flowed from the remains of the rachni.
Silence fell in the foyer again except for the squad's breathing. Shepard paused a moment before speaking. "One of the asari commandos deliberately released the rachni," she said quietly.
"What?" Liara exclaimed.
"You can't be serious," Williams said incredulously.
"The containment breach occurred about three hours ago," Shepard continued. "The commando killed the guards, then used the staff credentials and what looked to be a hacking program to disable the cell doors. The rachni…well…they killed every member of the staff that I saw and dragged off the corpses."
Alenko voiced the question on everyone's mind. "Just why would one of Benezia's commandos release the rachni?"
"I don't know, but…we need to find out, despite the rachni," Shepard said. "It's something that was important enough for Benezia and crew to make an unplanned arrival." She resumed reviewing the security logs and footage over the next few minutes, twice being interrupted by rachni that were dead by the time she even took the ten steps back to the foyer.
"Six came this last time, Skipper," Williams said. "Not gonna lie, I wouldn't want to face these things without biotics."
"They're easy in small numbers. Not when a hundred attack at once," Wrex said.
"The logs show that at the time of containment breach, BH had one hundred thirty three rachni," Tali told them over the comm.
"We've killed nearly thirty. How many did the commandos and geth kill?" Garrus asked Shepard.
"From what I've seen so far by quickly scanning these logs, a couple dozen," the commander answered.
"Wait, hold on…" Tali said. "It looks like BH has a system for monitoring and tracking rachni if they escape. It doesn't give precise positions or numbers, it's more of a heat map for where they've been detected."
"How are they distributed?" Shepard asked immediately.
"There look to be two main clusters, both close to the other end of the facility. A few look to be spread out, with maybe three or four individuals close to you," Tali replied.
"Anything that tracks them visually on cameras?" Shepard asked.
"Working on setting that up, Commander."
"Do you see Matriarch Benezia, any commandos, or geth?"
"None of them show up on any of the archived feeds."
"Start transferring the archived footage, Tali. Warn us if any of those rachni look to be close to our position." Shepard sighed, heading back into the security room. She looked at logs for a couple minutes, finding corresponding footage of Benezia entering the facility with her party. The Peak 15 staff helped the asari move a dozen crates deeper into the facility, a location called the "hot labs" that did not have any cameras listed…odd. The commander suddenly switched back to live feeds –
There they were. Benezia, two commandos, and over a dozen geth.
"I found Benezia," Shepard exclaimed.
"Where?" Alenko asked from the foyer.
"Someplace called the hot labs. We can only get live feeds in there, but that's definitely her," the commander replied.
"Strange…those cameras aren't being archived," Tali added.
"Tali, keep searching for any rachni and geth. And as we move through the facility, wipe the archived footage that shows us in the area. I'd like to keep the element of surprise." Shepard had Tali link the Peak 15 security feeds directly into their omni-tools. "We need to find out just how Binary Helix ended up with a few dozen rachni, and just why Benezia decided to release them."
The squad encountered and quickly dispatched two small groups of rachni. Shepard found herself thankful that they only fought a few at a time. In small numbers, the hive soldiers were easily dealt with. She didn't want to imagine taking on large numbers, even with biotics, without vehicle or ship support.
The next two rooms had been utterly destroyed. Every desk, computer, and table had been overturned and thrown around. Perhaps thirty corpses lay across the floor, with two dozen Binary Helix staff and a few rachni. Shepard sighed sadly, closing her eyes and shaking her head.
They approached the hot labs, with the cameras showing no sign of geth or commandos. While all were alert, none seemed to be aware of Shepard and her squad approaching.
"Tali," Shepard asked quietly. "Has there been any change in Benezia's position?"
"No, Commander. She's spent nearly all of her time at a terminal next to a disabled tram. She's brought up a star cluster map four times. The resolution isn't good enough to identify it, but she appears to be searching through star maps."
"Thanks, Tali," Shepard replied. The commander looked at the room's layout through the cameras. The room had two entrances, the main entrance and a sealed off back entrance. Entering through the former would immediately expose them to fire from the two commandos and nearly a dozen geth, not to mention Benezia. There was a well-concealed gangway at the top that would serve as a surprisingly good sniper perch; its location in the corner offered nearly a view of the entire room. It could be reached by ventilation tunnels, but the doors were electronically sealed… "Tali, can you unlock both the back entrance and the ventilation shaft? Also, set all of the cameras in the area to loop so they don't show us approaching. I want surprise when entering the hot labs."
"On it, Commander." A moment passed. "Cameras are…done."
"If Tali can get those doors unlocked, I want Ashley and Garrus up here," she highlighted on her omni tool. "Sneak in first, and don't start shooting until the rest of us are ready to breach. Alenko, Wrex, enter through this maintenance door. Liara and I will go in through the front."
"Unlocked the maintenance shaft," Tali said.
"Great work, Tali. Williams, Garrus, we'll breach the moment you shoot at the most powerful target you can find. Commandos, large geth, drop them before they get a chance to charge their barriers or fully energize their shields."
"And if we have a shot at Benezia?" Garrus asked quietly, looking directly at the commander.
Shepard sighed, nodding slightly. "Take it." Liara didn't react, stoically observing.
The commander outlined the rest of her thoughts, asking the squad if they had any inputs. They made a couple minor tweaks to the plan while Tali unlocked the back entrance.
"Good luck, everyone," Shepard said.
A minute later, Ashley and Garrus found themselves crawling through the vents. Garrus went first, his awkward movements due to his biology setting the pace for both of them. The chief snorted, muttering quietly, "Crawling through HVAC vents. That's never been used in a B-movie plot."
They reached their position a minute later, silently drawing their rifles and taking aim at targets. Neither could see Benezia or one of the commandos, so both took aim at the commando they could see and charged their rifles to max power, waiting for the signal on their HUDs that the other four squadmates were in position.
The geth suddenly turned as one towards the main entrance and drew their weapons, making a series of mechanical screeches. One of the commandos shouted "Heat signature! Someone's there!" A moment later the door suddenly swished open, revealing Shepard and Liara in partial cover on either side of the door. Neither had expected it; neither had their biotics charged since they wanted to be silent.
Benezia immediately charged her biotics, turning to face her daughter and the Spectre. Neither was ready for anything approaching an attack from an asari matriarch.
Kaidan saw and heard the commotion on his omni-tool; he didn't wait for orders. He immediately opened the door and charged into the room right behind Wrex just as Benezia unleashed her biotic attack. Shepard didn't have time to defend herself, even to get behind cover. She was completely helpless.
The lieutenant recognized Benezia's attack just as it formed; a stasis. Saren wanted Shepard alive, and unless he and Wrex could counter three powerful asari biotics while vastly outnumbered, Shepard would be dragged off to God knows what fate. His mind started to race through options in the upcoming fight. He charged his own biotics, pushing far past his normal level of control; he would need every bit of power he had. Benezia unleashed her attack –
Kaidan froze for a split second in disbelief at what he saw. The momentary pause and distraction caused the commandos' biotics to fade. Even Wrex stopped, staring momentarily at Shepard and Liara after the biotic attack.
Liara became instantly trapped by the stasis, her entire body encased in a thin, semi-transparent sheet of dark energy. Shepard, however, was entirely unaffected by the attack. Ripples of dark energy surrounded her, the remnants of the failed stasis. The commander's biotics charged, and the dark energy from Benezia's attack merged with her own, so much that anyone looking directly at her was blinded. A second later, Shepard returned the favor with her own stasis.
The matriarch became encased in a thin blue sheet of energy. One of the commandos glanced to her leader, then to the Spectre, then quickly aimed her weapon at the Shepard. The room then exploded into chaos.
The second commando didn't have much of a chance to attack anyone; her barrier, not fully charged, took two high powered shots from Garrus and Ashley, followed quickly by a biotic attack by Wrex that slammed her against the wall. She tried to stagger back to her feet, but two high-powered rifle shots from above put her down for good.
Alenko threw a geth into the wall, the impact causing its chest to explode violently in a shower of sparks. He looked back towards Shepard just in time to see her charge her biotics again and Liara's stasis drop. The commander pulled the asari into cover behind a low wall as she lifted a pair of geth into the air. Benezia broke free after only a couple seconds, and the matriarch pulled a large rifle to her and opened fire on the commander. Shepard took a couple shots from Benezia, then suddenly jumped back down to cover behind the wall.
The lieutenant's proximity alarm blared, indicating a threat directly behind him. Wrex heard the same, and the krogan scarcely had time to turn around before being hit with a biotic attack that slammed him into a wall three meters away. Alenko immediately responded with his own throw towards the hallway behind them, watching the asari commando be lifted off her feet and land four meters back. Normally his attack would have launched the target into a door more than ten meters down the hall, but the asari's training and inherent biotic resistance prevented it. The events of several seconds ago briefly flashed into his mind; how did a human simply shrug off a biotic attack from an asari matriarch?
He pushed the errant thought from his mind as Wrex jumped back to his feet, and the two of them sprinted back to more defensible positions away from their point of entry into the hot labs that had suddenly become a point of entry for hostiles. "Get clear!" Shepard shouted at them, dark energy swirling around her. She dropped a compact, powerful singularity at the entrance just as the commando and a pair of geth sprinted through the doorway. The singularity detonated a moment later with a boom that shook the entire hot labs, and when the dark energy faded, the commando and the fireteam of geth were nowhere to be found.
Benezia hurled a biotic attack at the pillar Shepard hid behind. The biotics did nothing to the commander, but they did rip away the wall she was hiding behind. Suddenly exposed, her barrier took immediate fire from a pair of geth and the matriarch's rifle. She jumped and leapt into cover behind a tall, sturdy pillar, but her barrier broke three steps before she reached it.
Liara did not need more prompting to get in the fight. Her singularity picked up the two geth firing on Shepard; the shock troopers crumpled into scrap metal a moment later, courtesy of the asari scientist's powerful biotics. The attacks gave Shepard just enough time to reach cover. Her kinetic barriers flared brightly as they deflected the shots, but she had scarcely made it into cover before her shields dropped. Her corona flared brightly from behind the pillar as she quickly recharged her barrier. Liara charged into a more defensible position out of sight from Benezia, and Shepard followed a second later as geth came up behind them through the entrance they had used not fifteen seconds before.
The commander's mind raced as she evaluated what she could from the chaos, watching a pair of geth enter the room. She continued charging her biotics as two more entered the room, followed quickly by a commando. The moment the asari entered the room, the commander's massive, rippling wave of dark energy launched her into the wall. The asari's armor and bones shattered from the devastating impact; she screamed in pain for a moment before a shot from either Garrus or Ashley above put the commando out of her misery.
Because OF COURSE geth and commandos would pour from the hallways that we entered through, Shepard thought as she saw Kaidan and Wrex take good cover to her right, the pair quickly dropping a geth destroyer and two troopers with biotics and accurate shooting. Even though we had cameras that viewed practically everything. Just where were all these guys hiding, that we never saw them and they never saw us? she thought as her biotics charged once again, ready to be unleashed on the next unfortunate target that appeared.
That target was a destroyer that nearly disintegrated over the next second, taking biotic attacks from both Liara and Shepard, as well as rifle fire from Ashley and an overload from Garrus. A dozen more geth and another pair of commandos entered the room. Just where are these goons coming from!? Shepard thought.
Ashley and Garrus were dropping geth troopers as fast as they could, while the biotics on the team dealt with the new pair of commandos. Williams had an opportunity shot on a commando whose barrier had been nearly removed; she charged her sniper to full power and fired at the commando's skull, killing the asari as the back of the head exploded out onto the floor behind the lifeless body.
Garrus overloaded a geth destroyer's shields at the same time Ashley had dropped the commando. He did the same as Williams had done: charge his sniper to full power and fired a headshot. The destroyer crumpled to the ground, sparks arcing from its head. A shock trooper fired a carnage blast at Wrex; his barrier absorbed it, and he returned the favor a moment later. The shock trooper was not so lucky.
Alenko had been hit with biotic attacks before, but they had done little more than knock him off of his feet. Biotics naturally had some resistance to dark energy; the exact reason and details were still not entirely known, made entirely obvious by Shepard's immunity to biotic attacks. But the lieutenant had never been hit with any power of this magnitude before. The blast lifted off his feet and hurled into the wall with strength far exceeding anything he had felt before. He screamed in pain as he felt something in his left arm crack and he collapsed to the ground.
Shepard sprinted to his side, putting both arms around him and dragging him along as his feet staggered to support his own weight plus the 150 Newton armor. After a couple moments he ran on his own, his breathing coming in short, ragged breaths. Liara threw one of the commandos into a wall; the body slammed into the metal with a crack, but the commando jumped back to her feet. Liara ducked back into hiding as the commando charged Wrex. The young asari saw a pair of geth crumple under Williams' rifle fire. Two more geth collapsed to the ground in heaps from Garrus' skilled shots.
Shepard dropped a singularity to cover the corner around the tram, not detonating it, giving them a respite from that side for a few moments. She heard an asari scream; Wrex had gotten into close quarters with a commando and had nearly snapped the commando's arm off with a blow. He finished the asari with a shotgun blast to the head, but was immediately thrown off his feet with a yell as the commando biotic punched him into a wall just as her head disintegrated. He made a large, Wrex-shaped dent into the wall as he was slow to recover and reenter the fight.
Shepard charged the commando, then placed a dark energy explosion at her own feet, launching the asari into the air. It didn't kill the commando, but Garrus somehow managed to with a well-placed headshot on the airborne asari.
Brilliant light surrounded Liara as an enormous singularity pulled in several geth, followed soon by several cryo canisters used for fire suppression. Ashley and Garrus tossed a pair of grenades into the vortex; they detonated in a blinding flash as the canisters exploded as well, obliterating the hapless geth. Alenko dove to the ground as dark energy from the matriarch roared over his head; it left an enormous rip in the wall behind him.
Shepard sprinted to and slid behind a wall to peek around the tram; the matriarch saw her and opened fire with some sort of rifle. She hurled a blast of dark energy at Saren's lieutenant as the Spectre scrambled to better cover out of sight of the matriarch. The rifle rounds exploded upon contact with the wall, blowing shrapnel in every direction. Shepard didn't get a chance to move to better cover; she was subsequently thrown airborne by an exploding carnage blast right at her feet. She slammed into a wall and fell to the ground, nearly having the wind knocked out of her. She half-crawled, half-staggered to her feet as she scampered back to cover as another carnage blast nearly launched her airborne again. The asari and geth adjusted quick; the Spectre apparently couldn't be harmed by biotics, but she could be with other attacks.
An enormous wave of dark energy swept towards Ashley's and Garrus' hiding spot. Both of them had no choice; they had to jump over ten meters to the ground. Both did as the wave slammed into their former platform, crumpling it up like an empty can. Shepard caught her teammates with her biotics a meter off the ground to slow their fall, but took another carnage blast at her feet, spinning a full revolution in the air before landing hard on her thigh and side. Momentarily dazed, she struggled to regain her feet and find cover.
Another commando entered the fight, herding the squad into a corner of the room. Liara was swept off her feet a moment later by a biotic attack from the commandos. Shepard and Wrex responded by throwing the commando to the ground, while Alenko opened fire on the incapacitated asari. Wrex was once again thrown against the wall, yelling in what Shepard presumed were krogan curses, slow to get back up as he staggered away from the field of fire.
Several seconds later yet another squad of geth entered the fight. Shepard created another singularity at the center of their formation and detonated it a moment later, blowing most of the synthetics to pieces. Now only Benezia remained. Shepard felt a massive wave of dark energy pass around her; she was immune to the attack, but the rest of the squad wouldn't be, and all had to jump or dodge out of the way.
Liara was exposed, out of cover after the latest withering biotic attack, and Benezia took the opportunity to biotically charge her daughter.
"M-mother!" Liara screamed in panic. Shepard left cover and ran towards the two asari, hitting Benezia with every pistol shot she took, hoping to distract the matriarch. She couldn't use her biotics; the power required to stop Benezia would also hurt Liara. But she could…she shifted the dark energy from her barrier to offensive use. It would leave her completely defenseless, but she could save Liara –
Benezia froze inside the powerful stasis, staring coldly at her daughter. The stasis only lasted a couple seconds, but it was enough for Liara to scramble into cover. Upon fighting free, the matriarch let out a pained yell.
"I cannot betray Saren!" the matriarch screamed. "You will—you…" she clutched her head with her hands as she collapsed to the floor.
Surprised by the sudden outburst, Shepard checked her fire, but kept her biotics primed for an attack.
"You must listen. Saren still whispers in my mind," she exclaimed through gritted teeth as she convulsed on the floor. "I can fight his compulsions. But the indoctrination is strong."
Shepard had immediately drawn in as much dark energy as she could to now use against the matriarch now that Liara was out of the line of fire, but the Spectre held her powers back at the matriarch's words. "Wait what? He brainwashed you?" Shepard asked through the crackling of the dark energy surrounding her petite form. "So…you could turn on us again?" The commander remained highly suspicious of a ruse. She knew matriarchs were among the strongest willed people in the galaxy…but could Benezia be telling the truth?
"Yes. But it would not be my will, Commander," the matriarch said through ragged breaths. "I…managed to seal some of mind away from the indoctrination, away from Saren."
Liara had gotten to her feet and approached Benezia. "Mother!" she exclaimed.
Benezia's face turned into a warm smile. "Little Wing…you've always made me proud—NO!" the matriarch suddenly shouted, and Shepard couldn't stop a biotic flare from escaping from her own corona. "Keep your distance," the matriarch warned. "I…could turn again. I do not want to hurt you. People," she paused for close to three seconds, "are not themselves around Saren. You come to idolize and worship him. The key is Sovereign, his flagship. It is a dreadnought of incredible size and power."
"What's Sovereign? Wait…that's the ship that attacked Eden Prime! I didn't think anything that size could land on a planet," Shepard said.
The matriarch nodded. "It has a very powerful mass effect drive, far beyond anything any Council races have seen." She got back to a sitting position, and Shepard tensed, preparing to unleash the full force of her biotics on the asari matriarch. Instead, Benezia slowly picked up the barrel of her rifle, throwing it aside to put it out of her reach, repeating the same process a moment later with her sidearm.
"But that is not Sovereign's true power. Thoughts echo strangely within Sovereign. Its rooms are built at unsettling angles. The longer you stay aboard, the more Saren's will seems correct. You sit at his feet and smile as his words pour into you. It is subtle at first. I thought I was strong enough to resist, turn him back to the light." She shook her head with an expression that was a cross between sadness and disgust. "Instead, I became a willing tool, eager to serve."
"Where did Sovereign come from? Is it prothean?" Shepard asked. She recalled that it did seem to have the same metallic color that the protheans used for the mass relays and Citadel.
Benezia shook her head, and the commander could have sworn she did a slight shrug. "I do not know where it came from. It is ancient; neither the geth nor any current species built it. Its technology is far, far more advanced than that of any species we know."
"We learned that from seeing it take off from Eden Prime," Shepard said quietly. "What did Saren want on Noveria?" the Spectre asked.
"He sent me here to find the location of the Mu relay. Its position was lost four thousand years ago when a star nearby went supernova. The shockwave propelled the relay out of its system." Benezia winced and clutched her head with her hands again, and it was several moments before she spoke again. "Two thousand years ago, the rachni inhabited that region of our galaxy and rediscovered the relay. The rachni can share memories across generations. Queens inherit the knowledge of their mothers. I took the location of the relay from the queen's mind. I…was not gentle," the matriarch said repentantly.
"Why does Saren need the Mu relay?" Shepard asked.
"He believes it will lead him to the Conduit. I would tell you more if I could, but Saren did not share his counsel with me." She shook her head disgustedly. "I was merely a servant to his cause. I was not myself, but—I should have been stronger. I will try to make it right." Shepard tensed again as the matriarch reached onto her belt. Instead of a weapon, Benezia retrieved an OSD and handed it out towards the commander. The Spectre used her biotics to grab the drive and put it on her own belt, still wary of a trap.
"Thank you, Matriarch Benezia," she said. "But knowing the relay's coordinates is not enough. What is the Conduit?" Shepard asked.
"I…am not sure. But you must find out quickly. I transmitted the coordinates back to geth space before you arrived. But I cannot go on. You will have to stop him, Commander," the matriarch said. She then turned to Liara and her face broke into a motherly smile despite the wince and the pain of resistance surging through her body. "Liara, I wish…we could have more time together. I am…so proud of you."
"Mother!" Liara shouted, rushing her mother's side.
Benezia clutched her head and screamed in pain, and turned briefly to Shepard. She spoke through clenched teeth. "Thank you…for saving my daughter. Keep…her safe…from Saren."
The Spectre nodded in response. "I will," she said quietly.
"I…love you, Liara." Benezia shrieked in agony again. "I…cannot fight…it anymore! You…must…" A massive biotic flare enveloped the matriarch. While Shepard was unaffected, Liara was thrown against the wall. "DIE!" the matriarch screamed.
Shepard was about to unleash all of the energy she had gathered on the matriarch, but the sudden turn had startled her slightly, and she had slowly let her guard down over the course of the conversation, surprised by what she had heard. She had been pondering the maneuvering capabilities of the ship, and had begun to think about the apparent, and far more concerning, mind control capabilities that it possessed. Before the Spectre could react, the matriarch physically punched her hard in the stomach and knocked her against the wall. One of the asari's hands clamped tightly around the petite human's neck to hold her down, and Benezia's other arm reached out to immediately biotically pull the high powered rifle to her hand.
Shepard was momentarily stunned by the sudden attack from the tall asari, and the energy she had gathered began to dissipate. Despite the sudden, choking pain in her neck, she re-channeled all of the dark energy for a biotic punch. Just as the matriarch gripped her rifle and began aiming it one-handed at Shepard's abdomen, the Spectre punched Benezia as hard as her biotics could, sending the matriarch flying into the air, landing several meters away.
Shepard used the momentary respite to get to cover as another wave of geth, and a pair of commandos, entered the fight at the matriarch's call. And they conveniently show up NOW!? "Get the geth!" the commander shouted to the squad as she recharged her barrier.
Liara, however, was still stunned at her mother's sudden turn, and the matriarch turned to finish off her daughter. It was her eyes that were the most disturbing. They were so filled with hate, filled with rage, all directed at her only daughter…
Shepard's corona flared bright blue as she rushed from cover towards the matriarch, firing her pistol at the matriarch to distract Benezia, who turned to face the new threat. The commander staggered briefly as she took exploding rifle rounds from the matriarch. The shrapnel ripped through her barrier and bounced her armor's shields. Her barrier nearly depleted, the Spectre knew she would not be able to take much more before they tore into her own shields or armor.
The commander dove behind cover for a moment to recharge her barrier; whatever that rifle was, it tore through her barrier like nothing she had ever seen before. Fortunately her distraction had allowed Liara to scramble to safety. The commander's corona flared bright blue for a moment as her barrier began to recharge.
Shepard quickly jumped out from behind the wall. She used her omni-tool to overload the rifle at the same time Benezia fired just several more shots, completely draining her recharged barrier. The exploding shrapnel from the last round ping'ed off the Spectre's armor; the computer whined in protest as its shields were completely drained. Benezia responded by hurling a massive wave of dark energy towards Garrus, the most exposed member of the squad. Shepard raised her arm and unleashed her own biotic attack that slammed into the matriarch's; the two waves of dark energy slammed into each other, exploding "harmlessly" as the entire room shuddered in response. Shepard recharged her biotics, forcing Benezia to do the same in defense.
After several seconds had passed, the amount of dark energy in the space between the two powerful biotics had grown so large that the two masses they had created had merged into one. The Spectre and matriarch realized this, and attempted to use it against the other. Both slowly started to hover off of the ground, slowly rising from the grated floor. Both were surrounded by blinding blue coronas as dark energy crackled up and down their bodies. Both coronas glowed brighter and brighter as the two biotics fought for control over the mass of dark energy. The swirling maelstrom only got larger, but after several moments it began to slowly creep towards Benezia.
Alenko had just finished off a geth trooper, and turned to observe a sight that he never expected to see. Both biotics were hovering off of the ground and attempting to the enormous maelstrom of energy between them against their opponent. He could see both figures silhouetted against the swirling energy, but nothing more. While the swirling maelstrom of energy slid faster towards Benezia, he knew from experience on Eden Prime and Therum that Shepard would be much more fatigued by the effort of manipulating such a mass of dark energy.
The lieutenant quickly unclipped his shotgun and charged up a carnage shot, aiming and firing at Benezia. The impact on the matriarch's barrier seemed to disrupt her for a split second, and the commander took immediate advantage of the distraction.
A moment later there was a deafening, blinding biotic explosion knocked everyone to the ground. Alenko was sent airborne and landed painfully on his back. He looked up quickly to see that Benezia was just…gone. Vanished. The floor panels that she had been standing on were gone as well, launched into the wall in front of Shepard – the wall had completely crumpled into an unrecognizable heap of metal.
The two remaining asari commandos staggered to their feet and then froze, and it took a moment for the rest of the squad to act after the display of biotic power. Shepard was still hovering; her form could be made out amongst her blinding corona, hair swirling around her head. The commander then turned to face the remaining commandos; the two asari stared in disbelief at their leader's fate, and with fear towards the Spectre who had caused it. Wrex used their momentary inaction to charge one, finishing her off with his shotgun, while Garrus and Alenko finished off the second. After what seemed like an eternity to Kaidan, the fight was over.
Wrex was closest to where Benezia would have impacted the wall, so he went to investigate the destruction, noticeably limping. Liara stood, letting out a cry as the realization dawned on her; she started to rush towards where Benezia impacted the remnants of the wall, but Wrex gestured to Garrus to keep her back. There wasn't much left of the matriarch, just a few bits of clothing, a lot of purple blood, and red-purple flesh mixed in with the twisted, warped, and crunched metal. The biotic blast had literally ripped the matriarch apart, and the remains were splattered and crushed further by the impacting metal floor.
Shepard slowly lowered herself to the ground using her biotics. At first one small boot, then the other, softly clanked onto a section of floor that still had ground panels. The dark energy around her began to dissipate, and her hair fell back to behind her head. With the intense firefight ended, and the pain from his injured arm increasing, Alenko found himself staring at the commander, not sure what he should do, or even what he should think after witnessing a display of biotic power he would have thought to be impossible, for any member of any species. No one could overpower an asari matriarch in a biotic duel, he knew. Shepard took a deep breath and took two steps forward, but her legs collapsed. She dropped to her knees, then collapsed unceremoniously onto her side.
The sight of Shepard falling to the ground shook the lieutenant out of his momentary inaction. Limping to the commander's side, he ignored his own injuries as he knelt down and pulled out an energy injection as Shepard did the same. "I need…two," she said weakly, her eyes barely open. He stuck the injection into one of the commander's armor hardpoint, and he repeated the process a few moments later.
"Mother!" Liara weeped. The squad comforted the asari, making sure to keep her away from the remains of Benezia.
Shepard slowly sat up, with help from Alenko, after a minute of lying nearly motionless on her side. "I'm sorry, Liara," the commander whispered softly, not knowing anything else to say to a woman who had just seen her mother die.
The squad treated their injuries and comforted their asari teammate for a few minutes while the commander recovered. All searched for any additional data that could be retrieved, frequently asking Tali for input. The quarian first directed Shepard to a terminal that was connected to the Binary Helix network, but all of the connections had been severed by numerous biotic attacks. Tali then directed her to look at the terminal Benezia had been pulling star maps from, near a tram car. The commander began downloading the contents to an OSD, while Tali continued tearing through Benezia's files for more information.
Shepard then noticed something strange behind the fogged-over glass on the other side of the tram car; the Spectre walked closer, trying to peer inside. The fatigue from the extreme biotic exertion had dulled her senses, and she did not notice the fallen asari commando get to her feet just three meters behind her.
The commander stopped six inches from the glass, trying to peer inside for a moment. Suddenly a large suction cup mouth bigger than her head slammed itself to the other side of the glass, right in front of her face. Shepard gasped in surprise as she jumped back into the reanimated asari commando that had blood oozing from a wound to the abdomen. Layla screamed at the apparently undead commando, and charged her biotics as she staggered away from the tram car and commando. Liara jumped to her feet, jolted out of her grief, while Alenko and Ashley ran to the tram car with their weapons drawn at the sound of Shepard's alarm. "What the fuck…" Wrex said, with a quiet tone that belied his surprise.
"Whaaat…" Garrus started.
The six squad members looked uneasily to each other, none having a clue what was going on. The reanimated commando staggered, though made no hostile movements. Shepard took several steps back, dark energy swirling around her arms and torso as she uneasily shifted her focus between the tram car and the commando. "This one. Serves as our voice. We cannot sing. Not in these low spaces. Your musics are colorless," the commando said in a deep, resonant voice.
"What…just…who am I…speaking to here?" Shepard asked nervously as the squad traded uneasy looks, weapons and biotics sweeping from the commando to the tram car.
"Your way of communicating is strange. Flat. It does not color the air. When we speak, one moves all. We are the mother. We sing for those left behind. The children you thought silenced. We are rachni."
Shepard was speechless, remaining silent and slack-jawed as she processed that fact. "Rachni…um…okay," Shepard said quietly. She wondered how the rachni could communicate through a supposedly dead asari…she glanced around quickly to her squad, taking some small solace in finding each of them as surprised as she was. Only Wrex showed something other than surprise, his expression drawn into unfiltered anger. "I…get that you're speaking through the asari, though I have no idea how," she muttered.
"Other than it's fucked up," Wrex muttered. Garrus grunted agreement.
"What I don't understand is how you ended up on Noveria," Shepard said, her voice with only a slight amount of confidence.
"These needle-men. They stole our eggs from us. They sought to turn our children into beasts of war. Claws with no songs of their own. Our elders are comfortable with silence. Children know only fear if no one sings to them. Fear has shattered their minds."
It took the commander a few seconds to translate what the queen had said. "So…your children are attacking people because you're not able to communicate with them?" Shepard asked.
"Makes sense. A baby left alone in the closet until he's sixteen won't be sane," Alenko muttered.
"Yes. They will only cause harm as they are. It is lamentable. But necessary. They must be silenced."
"With pleasure," Wrex muttered.
The fog covering the container had lessened, and the queen's massive form came fully into view of the squad. Shepard's breath hitched in the cold, and she involuntarily took a step back at viewing the rachni queen. If the soldiers had been unpleasant to look at, the queen was terrifying, with a dozen bladed tendrils, each with a blade almost as long as her arms. The teeth that lined the vast maw could easily rip apart even a fully armored krogan.
"Before you deal with our children, we stand before you. What will you sing? Will you release us? Are we to fade away once more?" the queen asked.
Shepard didn't have a chance to even ponder the question before everyone in the squad quickly spoke up.
"Commander. Those tanks on her enclosure? They're acid. Strong enough to kill any living creature. They must have installed them for a reason," Williams said.
"They made a mistake. They let the krogan go too far. This is a chance for us to atone. She has done nothing to us," Liara responded.
"If you let them free, they will just attack us again," Garrus said.
"Your people were still playing with swords when these abominations scoured the galaxy. Our people had to deal with the aftermath. Don't. Release. It," Wrex growled forcefully, taking a menacing step closer to the commander, his eyes narrow slits as he glared at her before turning his anger to the queen.
"I can't make this decision. I have to take this to the Council," Shepard said emphatically, shaking her head.
"The Council will just order the queen to be killed immediately," Liara responded.
"If Binary Helix or Noveria security don't kill it first," Alenko added quietly.
Shepard sighed, saying nothing for several moments. They're right…but this decision is too big for just me to make…let the queen go now, kill her now myself, or do nothing and let other people kill her soon… The commander paused for perhaps half a minute before asking, slowly and quietly, "If I let you live, would you attack other races again?"
"No. We—I do not know what happened in the war. We heard only discordance, songs the color of oily shadows. We seek only harmony, forced into discord by the shadows."
"Wait," Shepard interjected, suddenly confused for some reason. "What do you mean 'forced into discord'?"
"Our kind does not seek discord. The oily shadows, the darkness, forced it upon us."
That made no sense to Shepard, but that seemed to be par for the course since being assigned to the Normandy.
"We would seek a hidden place to teach our children harmony, cooperation. If they understand, perhaps we would return in peace."
"Return to do what?"
"Cooperate."
Shepard paused. To be honest with herself, it took nearly all of her self control to prevent her from freaking out. She stood talking to a live rachni queen...through a dead asari. For some reason, however, she recalled the queen's words about the darkness forcing them into discord. And why did she have a sudden chill at the thought? No one will believe this happened, even with the armor cams. It's too fantastical… She pondered the rachni queen for over a minute in silence, every member of her squad looking at her between wary glances to ensure the room was still indeed secured. "I…I can't destroy your entire race. I…just can't. You'll go free," she finally said quietly, hesitantly.
"You…will give us the chance to compose again? What is your song?"
"Song?" she asked in confusion, staring blankly at the queen for several moments. "Oh, uh, name." She hesitated. "Layla…Shepard," she responded uneasily.
"Layla Shepard. We will remember. We will sing of your forgiveness to our children." The possessed asari commando dropped back to the ground as the doors to the tram opened, and the queen slowly crawled out, only fifteen meters away. Fully five meters long, and looking like it came straight out of a horror vid director's worst nightmare, it turned to look at Shepard for a few moments, and it took all of the commander's self-control to not to scream in panic and flee. Just why did she agree to release this terrifying creature again? The queen regarded the commander for several moments, then gave what looked to be a nodding expression with its grotesque head, before slowly making its way out of the room.
Wrex glared a look that could kill at Shepard, approaching her silently until he was just centimeters above her face. Neither the woman nor the krogan said anything, the commander looking up and holding her gaze on the massive battlemaster, keeping her face impassive and neutral, before he turned and stormed off.
Shepard paused, motionless for what seemed to be an eternity, before Alenko approached her said quietly, "Commander, given the circumstances…I'll stand behind you and your decision."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," she replied softly, nervously. He couldn't remember her being as unsure of herself before, even when being made a Spectre. "History was screaming at me that the rachni are dangerous, but…I can't do it. I just can't. I just can't commit cold-blooded genocide against a sentient species." She sighed. "The Council will just love this. Let's pull any data we can find here, go contain the rest of these feral rachni, and get out of here." The commander had taken all of the information from the terminal; the entire squad, save for Wrex, went around the room pulling all of the data they could find after giving themselves additional doses of medigel. She regarded Liara, concerned for her well-being, but the young asari seemed to be showing little feeling at the moment, her expression an emotionless mask. What could possibly be going through her mind? Her mother trying to kill her, watching her mother disintegrate from biotics? Shepard also worried about Wrex, who remained entirely silent, only following her squad when they left the room, his bootsteps echoing loudly throughout the narrow halls.
The squad took the elevator to a lower level of the hot labs in near silence. Liara took everything in quietly, with the occasional sniffle. Wrex, meanwhile, ignored everyone and everything, and Shepard gave him a wide berth. "This is where the files had stated the 'purge' was located to remove the rest of these feral rachni," Shepard stated as the elevator dinged.
Upon the elevator doors opening, a man turned to face them, having been working on a wall terminal. "Who are you? Are you here secure situation?" he asked in English, albeit with a heavy Russian accent on seeing her.
"Um…sure," Layla replied, not sure if he was referring to the rachni or something else. Just go with it. "I'm a Spectre. Layla Shepard." And just why are you here all by yourself sitting at a console when everyone else is on another floor and has been slaughtered? She mentally shrugged, resigning herself to the weirdness of Peak 15.
"Yaroslev. Yaroslev Tartakovsky, operations director. You must listen to me. I try to restore communication with others."
Shepard sighed sadly, and paused before saying softly, "I'm sorry. The rachni got to them."
The man sighed, cursing in Russian, then his face took on a determined look. "Then we can begin purge process."
"What is this purge?" Shepard asked.
"I do not know detail of neutron purge, other than it kill all life in Peak 15."
"Including us."
"Da. Yes. Include us. There is timer we use to give time to escape. We can set thirty minute, that give us time to return Port Hanshan."
"Okay," Shepard said uneasily after a moment, trying to come up with an explanation for something that could kill all life in an area, her fatigued mind coming up blank. She absentmindedly wondered why in the age where English was the universally acceptable language among humans, he spoke it so poorly. "What do you need me to do?"
"Here, take key," he said, handing her the OSD activator. "Then I give Mira destruct co—UH!" the man screamed as a claw suddenly burst through his heart, splattering much of the organ onto Shepard's armor. She gasped as she jumped back away from the sight, charging her biotics. A rachni soldier burst from the bulkhead as it threw the man's body across the room. It lunged, swiping a tentacle at her. The commander was faster, and threw the bug into the wall, where several seconds of sustained gunfire from the squad turned the creature into a mound of dead flesh.
"Tali, we just got jumped by a rachni. Did it show up on the BH systems?"
"No, Commander. It seems to struggle detecting single rachni, and only succeeds in tracking larger groups," the quarian replied. "The two groups being tracked are close to your position. I wouldn't linger long," she advised.
Shepard sighed. Garrus leaned over and began whispering to Williams. "My ear translator had trouble with that. What did that man say?"
"There's a purge that will wipe out all life on Peak 15," she whispered back. "We can set a timer and escape."
"Huh? Wipe out life? I mean, how does that even work?" he whispered back.
The chief shrugged, wincing as she rolled her left shoulder slightly. "No idea. Anything that doesn't send a steady stream of rounds downrange is space magic to me."
Garrus grunted amusement and agreement. Meanwhile, Shepard removed the purge code from the man's corpse, then retrieved an odd-looking key. She stared suspiciously at the odd design for a moment, then she suddenly staggered. The fatigue from the near-constant use of biotics during the fight with Benezia was getting to her, she knew. She pulled out another energy injection and put it into her side.
"Commander?" Alenko asked quietly, concerned.
"We'll all be spending some time in the medbay when we get back, I think. The wonders of medigel. Let's just fire up this purge and get out of here." She glanced down to the datapad. "Apparently the system needs…only this key and a code to fire," she said in considerable surprise. "Not even something as simple as voice or retinal confirmation. Wow. That sounds very secure," she said dryly.
She inserted the key into the sole port on the control panel. A series of lights flickered on the panel as it hummed to life. A loud clank, followed by a jolt, caused Shepard to jump slightly, something she wouldn't have expected from a modern terminal. The humming ceased, and the system returned to silence. A display that had been oddly jury-rigged to a nearby panel printed out a very brief status. External connection established. System in standby. Awaiting voice input.
"Huh. Odd," she muttered, looking down at the datapad. "Activate the neutron purge," Shepard told it.
"System in standby," the machine responded. "Specify activation parameters.
Shepard looked at the datapad again. Below the vocal commands for the system, the pad had a list of ranges and times to fire, with the third column for each row listing "Omega." The purge range looked to max out at about 300 meters, and the timers ran from about four minutes up to nearly thirty. Oddly, the range and time numbers seemed to almost be plucked at random. She noticed that some range values seemed to be multiples of just under 2.9 meters, with times that were multiples of 0.37 seconds. She began to wonder how this purge worked, and why it seemed to have such random values for inputs, but they needed to fire it and get out of Peak 15 in case the two groups of rachni decided to pay them a visit. She looked through the codes to find the longest range, satisfied that it had a longer timer, and said to the VI, "Code input: 875-020-079. 1480 second timer. 287 meter range. Code…Omega local execution."
"Code verified. Code Omega local execution in 1480 seconds," the VI said.
The squad hurried to the elevator, each of them eager to put this planet behind them, each of them harboring their own questions, each of them keeping silent. Just one floor and fifty meters from the elevator that would take them back to the garage, each of the proximity alarms blared on their omni-tools. "Those two groups of rachni are incoming!" Tali shouted through their comms.
"Go!" Shepard yelled. The squad complied, though due to injuries, their speed had been reduced.
The squad barely made it up a staircase when a trio of rachni burst through a wall panel. The commander's wave of dark energy ripped apart the creatures. She then dropped a singularity, then detonated it, killing several of the rachni soldiers as more poured through the walls and ceilings. She stood her ground, using her biotics furiously to keep them at bay, but it was clear she would be overwhelmed in moments.
"Shepard! I'll cover you! Get back!" Alenko yelled to her so she could fall back. She turned and sprinted towards the rest of the squad, who was putting forth an incredible display of powers and gunfire that would have caused any sane opponent to seek terms and surrender. The feral rachni, though, were not one of those opponents.
Alenko unleashed his own wave of dark energy and fired his assault rifle at a rachni when a tentacle lashed out towards him from the side. He didn't have time to jump clear. "SHIT!" he screamed in pain as the blade sliced into his left arm, punching completely through the medium armor as it lacerated his skin and muscle.
"Alenko!" Shepard screamed as she ran to him. She wrapped her right arm around him and helped him to the elevator, unleashing biotic attacks with her left arm. "Cover us!" Liara and Wrex unleashed waves of dark energy at the rachni as Garrus and Williams fired their rifle in full automatic mode after throwing grenades as the rachni came dangerously close.
Alenko's head spun in circles, the pain causing him to grey out as his body tried to dull the pain in his arm. The commander pulled him into the elevator. "I got you, just hold on!" the commander said as she helped him against the wall, turning to face the approaching rachni.
Immediately after Shepard pulled Alenko into the elevator, Williams punched the button to close the door. That process took just under two seconds. Those couple seconds turned out to make the difference. Just as the doors closed, a tentacle lashed towards Shepard. Alenko saw it, knew what was about to happen, but could do nothing to stop it. The commander gasped in surprise as the bladed tentacle pierced her left side in the lower ribs, ripping into the bottom of her left lung.
Alenko saw the blade pierce her torso and nearly go all the way through to her back before it pulled out, and blood began gushing out of the commander's abdomen. She cried out in pain as her eyes widened and her body jolted. The doors slammed shut, slicing off the tentacle from the rachni. Shepard staggered back, gasping in shock, and started to fall backwards.
Williams caught her and lowered her gently to the ground. "Commander…" she said softly, knowing instantly the severity of the wound, far more serious than the lieutenant's. The chief pulled out medigel and applied it to the wound. "Stay with us, Commander."
Shepard said nothing, simply staring at them blankly in wide-eyed shock as she gasped for air, her damaged lung making a sickening gurgle as blood squirted from the wound with each breath.
Her breathing was literally killing her, and there was nothing the squad could do but get her back to the Normandy, and fast.
Joker sat at the helm of the first stealth frigate in the galaxy, trying to focus on anything other than how boring his job was right now. The ship drew electrical power from the port, and even then she needed very little of that at the moment. There was absolutely nothing to do while Shepard and Co. were frolicking about in the snowy wastes of Noveria, other than make bets about what other weird shit they could find on Noveria. Several of the crew took to monitoring Peak 15 systems for anything "unusual." As if the fucking rachni aren't unusual, the pilot thought to himself.
The rest of the awake crew ran checkups and diagnostics again to give them something to do rather than just sit around. Fortunately, there had been little need for maintenance and repairs, which was practically unheard of on military hardware, other than that glitch on the passive array. Normally military hardware required frequent maintenance, and broke down at the worst possible times. Which, of course, was exactly what happened with the passive array above Therum. Murphy's Law. Well, I guess those taxpayer dollars for building her went to good use. Normally there's a bunch of shit that needs fixing. He leaned back in his chair…
A series of beeps came over the comm console, snapping the pilot out of his musings. "What's that?" Joker asked the crewwoman at the console.
"Sir, that's a rachni swarm," she replied, her hands flying over the displays. Tali shouted into the comm to warn the ground team. "They're headed for the squad."
"Shit," Joker muttered. It only took a few seconds before Alenko's lifesigns flashed serious. Then Shepard's flashed critical, and the lieutenant's voice came over the comm a moment later.
"Ghostrider, we need immediate extraction from the Peak 15 complex. Lock in on our signal and get here ASAP," Alenko rasped.
"Stand by. Powering up," the pilot responded. His hands flew across the consoles, initializing emergency startup procedures for the eezo core, engines, and thrusters. "What the hell happened down there?"
"The commander's down." Those three words were enough to turn the pilot's blood to ice. Alenko's voice was filled with pain, making him wonder what the hell had happened down there. "Prep the medbay for toxin removal and organ laceration." That sounded even worse. "Engage the remote driving procedure for the Mako; we're not going to be able to retrieve it ourselves."
Pressly heard the transmission and was in CIC less than ten seconds after it came in. "Switch to internal power. The moment we can fly disengage the locks and get us out of here," he said.
"SSV Normandy, this is Noveria Control. Our sensors show reactor and engine power spikes. Explain your situation, over," a voice said over the comm.
"Damn it…" Pressly muttered. The request repeated itself several seconds later, and the XO waited a few more moments before responding. "Everything's under control here. Situation is nominal," he told them quickly.
"No it isn't," the voice responded forcefully. "Normandy, your drive core is powering up. You do not have current authorization to depart," the voice, now quite angry, stated.
"Huh?"
"Your reactor is powering up. You do not have permission to depart!" the voice yelled angrily.
"A reactor powerup…no, you must be mistaken. Our reactor is idling. Out," Pressly replied as he shut off the link.
"Normandy, your reactor power is surging!" the angry voice surged through the speaker. The XO waited several seconds before responding.
"Huh…maybe you're right…we are having a reactor issue…I'll see what's going on," he said with long pauses in between each phrase to buy the crew more time to complete the power up, then he shut off the link. This bought them about five seconds before the enraged voice asked again what they were doing. "We had some sort of electrical short; the drive core's powering up. Not sure what's going on here. We'll get back to you," the XO replied.
"Normandy, power down immediately!" the voice snapped.
"We're doing our best, trust me," Pressly replied with faux earnestness.
"Power down or you will be boarded!"
"Can you repeat? The last transmission was a little garbled. Over," Pressly said as he shut off the comm. "Adams?" he asked.
"Routing power to antigrav and engines."
"Joker?"
"Got enough power. Getting us the hell out of here," Joker replied. He disengaged the docking clamps and quickly pulled the ship out of dock. The moment he was clear, he pushed the throttles to the stops and the Normandy screamed towards Peak 15, not caring about going supersonic in the process.
"Stay with us, Commander," Kaidan said softly. He set the commander back down as Williams applied even more medigel. There was nothing more they could do here. His knowledge of the commander's dire state was enough to allow him to numb out the significant pain in his own arm. They had reached a freight elevator that would take them to the roof, but the Normandy needed to arrive, and fast. The past minute had seemed like an eternity to Kaidan, the throbbing reaching his shoulder, as he thought of something, anything, he could do.
Shepard whispered something unintelligable. Kaidan knelt next to her and said softly, "I'm here, Layla. The Normandy's on her way. Just hold a few more seconds."
"K…" she whispered, then choked.
"We're going to get you out of here." The look in Shepard's eyes told Alenko that she knew just what her odds were if she didn't get help quickly. "Just stay with us," he said, grasping her hand. To his surprise he felt a slight squeeze from her tiny hand before she slipped into unconsciousness. He gave her the last dose of medigel to try and stem the bleeding, but she had already lost so much blood...and there was nothing they could do about the poison that worked its way through her vital organs.
The Normandy engaged the stealth systems as she decelerated over the Peak 15 complex. "That's the freight elevator they'll be coming up," Joker said as he brought the frigate in low, stopping as close and low as he could. The service elevator stopped on a convenient plateau, and the pilot saw a degraded tram system that presumably headed towards Port Hanshan. He looked at the squad's current location; the elevator just started its ascent, then to the ground team's status. He wasn't a doctor, but Shepard's lifesigns were bad, real bad. Shit, he thought. Shit shit shitshit.
Oblivious to the furor around it, the Mako automatically drove up the hill to the plateau. It turned and drove up the ramp into the loading bay, and parked itself in the corner of the room. No one bothered to give it more than a cursory glance.
The elevator rose to a stop, ten meters away from the open loading bay. Several crewmembers, many only wearing their jumpsuits despite the blizzard, rushed to the elevator to assist the squad. Wrex led the way through the blizzard. Garrus ran forward, deftly leaping the half meter onto the bay, carrying the unconscious commander in one arm, his other hang limply at his side as he rushed to the elevator. Ashley and Liara helped Alenko forward, though he was able to stand and half-run, half-limp.
When everyone was inside the bay, the crewman counting heads radioed, "Everyone's in. Go." Joker closed up the loading bay and zoomed skyward. The defense grid had not been able to track them before; it was designed to engage approaching ships, not ones at the surface. Between the stealth system, the low readiness, the acceleration, and the storm, the guns could never have opened fire.
Alenko limped to the elevator, knowing the precious seconds it took to reach the crew deck was time Shepard didn't have. The damned thing moved too slowly for the lieutenant, who slammed his fist into the wall in anger as dark energy flared around him, ignoring the searing pain in his arm. "Goddamnit, can't this thing move any faster!?" Finally the elevator reached the crew deck, and the medical team could start to save Shepard.
He took the next elevator up as the crew began to treat the rest of the ground team for their relatively minor injuries, at least compared to the two human officers. Two crew helped Alenko to the medbay. He watched helplessly as the doctor and medics began to frantically work to save the commander's life. She was going into shock she was going to die he had failed her damn it his arm hurt he couldn't think clearly
"Sir," a crewman said to him. "There's nothing more you can do. You need to lie down…"
The rest of the words were a blur to the lieutenant as he slipped into unconsciousness.
A/N: OK, not really a cliffhanger. We all know Shepard and Kaidan will both be fine…for now.
So for readers that haven't noticed yet, Shepard is an insanely powerful biotic in this story. There is a reason for that, and the crew, along with others, are starting to think about just how powerful she is after the duel with Benezia. At some point, they may start asking questions, instead of keeping the questions mostly to themselves.