A/N: So, reading back over my previous chapter, besides the fact that the site cut off my final line to just 'Shepard' (that's been fixed now, btw), I realized I put Javik in both Team Mako and Team Fuzzy Kittens. So, Javik is in Mako. Team Fuzzy Kittens is just Del, Liara, and Garrus.
You know, the sweet adorable ones!
On we go.
When Garrus had said the Archives were big, Del had pictured something the size of a typical warehouse. As they finally passed through and stepped into the actual Archives themselves, her gut sank a little.
Jesus fuck, it must run the entire length of the Presidium, with the Wards thrown in for good luck. It'd take weeks to find a damned Elcor in here!
Walkways, lifts, and stairs zig-zagged everywhere, forming a cobweb of foot paths that vanished into the distance. Lining the walls and the distant ceiling were thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of cylindrical vaults. Each was the size of a New York subway car.
"Holy cow," Vega said, similarly stunned by the sight. "This is loco. Finding her in here will be like finding a dalmatian a zebra convention."
"What's a 'dalmation'?" Tali asked.
"What's a 'zebra?'" Garrus asked, almost at the same instance.
"All right," Shepard said, as she gave them a glare, then looked at Williams. "Ash, take Hammerhead to the left. Wrex and Mako on the right. We'll go up the middle. Constant radio contact, understood?"
As the other two groups started off Del looked over at Glyph, still hovering nearby. "Li, how long a range does that thing have?"
"Unrestricted," she said.
"Good. Glyph, I want you to go and find the target, report back to us where she is."
"Understood. What is the target?"
"She looks like Del," Liara said.
"Then I have-"
"Another Del, Glyph," Liara replied. "Elsewhere in this facility."
"Acknowledged."
As the little orb zipped off into the depths of the vault, Del, Liara and Garrus headed out along the walkways directly in front of them.
"It must be incredibly strange, seeing a duplicate of yourself," Garrus said after a few minutes.
"I don't want to talk about it," Del said.
{I would think that your kind would be used to it,} Javik said over the comm. {All you primitives look alike to me.}
{What? That's ridiculous. Four eyes and you still can't see for shit! We don't all look alike,} Ashley.
{Actually, I'm with the Prothean,} Wrex.
{We look alike?} Vega asked. {Other than your scars and face paint, you krogan are cut from the same mold. And asari-}
Wrex laughed as Liara said "What was that about the asari?"
{Uh, nothing Doc. I'm getting some static on this line…} Vega started to make rasping sounds in his throat, and Shepard rolled her eyes.
"I really can't wait to get shot at again," she said. "Anything is better than this shit."
An open vault lay in front of them. The only way to the next set of stairs was to pass through it. Del quickly cleared its corners, and was about to walk through and to the stairs when something in the vault caught her eye. Moving over, she picked up a rifle that was laying on one of the scan tables.
"That rifle is from the first Contact War," Liara said.
"2157," Garrus said with a low whistle, as Del looked it over. "The first time we turians met you. Naturally, bullets were involved."
{Humans, or Shepard?} Jack asked.
"Yes," Garrus replied dryly.
{Bullets are how Lola says hi,} Vega said.
{How does she say good-bye?} Tali asked, and immediately everyone on the comms, including Tali and Del herself, said the same thing.
"Explosions."
Del couldn't help the laugh at that. They were a bunch of rude, crude, annoying smart-asses, and damn if she didn't love every single fucking one of them.
"Here, a gift," she said, handing the rifle to Garrus. He looked at her coyly.
"That's not exactly yours to give," he said.
"I won't tell if you don't," she said, then grinned when he took the rifle with a grateful bob of his head.
As they started on again Javik spoke up. {Commander, I still do not understand why you are so disturbed that you have a clone. Clones are useful. Just send her in to do the things you do not want to do.}
"Javik, I don't want to talk about it."
{So let your clone do it,} Tali said.
{Hey,} Vega. {What do you call a frozen Shepard?}
She groaned. "Vega, seriously?"
{An ice cream clone!}
{That…that's just terrible.} Tali. {Unless it has sprinkles.}
"Fuck you all," Shepard said. "And if any of you ever call me 'Sprinkles', I'll shoot you myself."
"That goes for you too, Pain."
"Aww…"
{Shepard, I think I've managed to isolate the communication frequency that Cat6 is using,} Tali said, as they got down one more level. {Yes, I'm piping them in now. We'll be able to hear their comms, but they won't be able to hear us.}
"Tali, you're fucking brilliant."
{Oh, I know,} the quarian said. A moment later they heard unfamiliar voices.
{Eagle, this is Dagger. I think the other Shepard is still alive!}
{Jesus fucking Christ, what is wrong with you fucks? I need more time. Stop whining and go fucking take her out!}
{Shit, that clone sounds like a real asshole,} Ashley said.
{I thought that was our Shepard?} Tali said.
"You just lost your warm fuzzy points, Tali," Shepard said.
{Well, there's a reason I'm not on Team Fuzzy Kittens.}
"Can you make it so the mercs can hear us?" Del grumped. "Getting shot at really has to be better than this."
Just then her HUD lit up and she saw the glint of a sniper sight flash in the distance. As Liara threw up a barrier, Shepard grinned.
"Oh goody!"
Within moments, more Cat6 goons started to pour out of the damned woodwork and all three teams soon were hard pressed. Wrex sounded like he was having the time of his life, he and Garrus keeping a kill count and trying to one up each other. As Liara lifted a merc in her biotics and Shepard shot him out of the air, Wrex broke in again.
{That gun works a lot better if you uncover your eyes, Brooks.}
{You do things your way and I'll do them mine,} Brooks replied, sounding terrified.
{Skipper we got another squad hitting us hard and…shit!}
Del's head whipped around as she heard an explosion and a sudden ratchet of heavy gun fire echoing across the Archives.
"Ash!"
{We're pinned down! The second heavy-} She sounded breathless, breaking off as another rumble of gunfire crashed through the air.
Shepard immediately started running. "Everyone, converge on Hammerhead's coordinates, ma shang! Ash, we're coming!"
Liara and Garrus on her heels Shepard leapt down a set of stairs. Keeping up her momentum she vaulted over a railing, dropping six feet before landing on another catwalk, then rushing down another set of stairs. All the while, she could hear the stutter of a heavy mech's chain guns, the faint crackle of return fire.
Then something else exploded. Shepard was close enough now that she saw the flame and shrapnel bloom up in front of her. Nearly crashing into the last railing, she paused only a moment to take in the scene below her.
On a wide platform Ashley, Tali, Jack and Vega had found thin cover behind a low wall and a couple of consoles. The mech was right in front of them, sending an almost constant spray of heavy weapon's fire only just being deflected by Jack's biotic barricade and their own shields, but it looked like the biotic was wounded and she was clearly tiring.
To make matters worse, a couple of Cat6 were still on their feet and hitting them from the other side.
The drop from the catwalk to the floor below was a good fifteen feet, but Shepard leapt over the railing anyway, her rifle lighting up and shredding into the back of one of the mercs. She'd fallen only a foot or two when biotics caught her, Liara having caught up. Garrus leapt over the railing a moment later, Liara catching him as well and cushioning his fall.
As soon as Del and Garrus had both hit the ground Liara followed after them.
The first Cat6 fell under Del's initial shots, the second a moment later, mowed down by Garrus. Almost the moment she had touched down on the ground and the biotics had died around her Shepard was focusing her fire on the heavy and shouting.
"Move! Move! Move!"
Ash grabbed Tali, making a break for a ladder on the other side of the platform that climbed onto another catwalk, this one sheltered. Given the angle, once up there the Atlas would not easily be able to hit them. Jack and Vega sprinted after them. Ashley paused at the foot of the ladder as Tali and Jack started up, giving Vega a slap on the shoulder to send him up as well as he started to pause and turn.
"Go!" Shepard shouted at them. "I've got this!"
The heavy's fire whipped toward her and she dove behind the same console that Jack had used as cover. Spitting another blast of shot at the cockpit of the heavy, Shepard looked over at Garrus and Liara. The turian had taken cover where Ash had been, and Liara was putting up a biotic shield.
"No! Go! Get up the ladder!"
"Del, you-"
"Go!" Shepard shouted, then darted out of cover and hit the heavy again. As it turned toward her, giving Garrus and Liara a clear path to the ladder, she shouted again. "Go goddamn it!"
The heavy's chain gun chased her across the floor, pitting another console as she dove behind it. Tearing her last grenade from her belt, she risked a peek over really quick and was relieved to see Garrus and Liara were listening. Ash and the others had just reached the top of the ladder.
Then a spark snapped off the metal just in front of Garrus's hands, and he recoiled a little. Liara let go of the rungs with one hand, twisting and lifting the other, forming another biotic shield between them and the other side of the catwalk.
"Hey, that's not fair! We're on a ladder!" the asari cried out.
Del spotted the sniper and cursed under her breath. Rising from her cover she started to run, lobbing the grenade up at the sniper and then twisting around to fire at the heavy again. Ashley and Vega opened fire toward the mech as Javik sent a biotic shield down to cover Liara and Garrus, allowing the asari to drop her own so she could climb again.
The grenade ignited, the far catwalk tearing apart and sending the sniper flying off into the distance. Del let out an internal breath of relief as she saw Tali catch Liara's hands and pull her up to safety.
Shepard dropped into cover again, trying to catch her breath. She could feel the console shuddering as the chain-gun ate into it. She couldn't stay long. Any moment that concentrated fire would punch through and rip into her if she did.
Then the ground shuddered as the mech took a step toward her, the pilot suddenly remembering that he didn't have to stand in one place and shoot like a goddamned idiot.
He just had to grow a brain, Del thought, bracing herself to run again when suddenly roaring gunfire sang out of the air- gunfire that was not from the mech.
Risking a peek, Del blinked. Team Mako had reached them, and along with Hammerhead, Liara, and Garrus, had opened full on at the heavy from the top of the ladder.
The mech stumbled under the sheer force of the barrage, the pilot turning it and trying to crank his guns up high enough to return effective fire. Del surged up, fully intending on hitting the back of the thing when her crew's ordinance finally tore through the front of the cockpit and turned the pilot inside into mincemeat.
The mech's guns whined and whirred to a halt, the entire suit listing to one side, smoking a little. In the sudden quiet that fell, Del could only stand and stare up at them.
Garrus ratcheted out his thermal clip. "And that was the exact moment when the universe ran out of ammo."
Still out of breath, Del put her hands on her knees a moment, half laughing. "You…amazing…fuckers…"
Tali leaned over a little, calling down.
"Yeah, we love you too, Jie Jie."
Shaking her head, Del ran over to the ladder and climbed up, Liara and Vega catching her hands and hauling her the rest of the way. Wrex slammed a friendly hand into her back so hard she staggered a little.
"Everyone ok?" Del asked. "Jack?"
"I got the wind knocked out of me, it's nothing," Jack said. "Five-by."
"You know, I never understood that term," Brooks said. She still looked like her eyes were trying to monopolize her face but she wasn't shaking, which was good. "Five-by. They always said it in boot and I never-"
"It started out for radio communications," Vega told her. "Five-by meant good clear signal. Now it just means you're good, all parts pretty much where they belong."
"Oh! That makes a lot of sense," she said. "So what about 'shipping your'-"
"Brooks, we can give you a lingo update later," Shepard said, as she started through the knot of her crew. "Right now we have to-"
She broke off as she stepped past Wrex and came face to orb with Glyph.
"Hello," it said with its usual cheer. "I have been ordered to shoot you."
