Chapter 17
Gone Dark
Kevin woke with a start to Maela's tongue in his mouth and her lips on his. It took him a few seconds to bring his thoughts in line, but he finally remembered to push her away—a move that she did not resist. Instead she just took a step back and licked her lips, smirking.
"Five minutes of trying to wake you the fuck up and that's what does it? Figures."
Kevin wiped his saliva-laden lips with the back of a suit-covered hand, only now realizing with a start that his visor had been removed while asleep. "You're never going to give it a rest, are you?"
Maela turned to walk away, seemingly putting extra effort into keeping her hands from wandering. "You even need to ask? Get up already, we're about to board that quarian ship." She stepped outside of the room, her hips swaying with a determined intent to arouse. The door closed behind her before Kevin could frame a reply, breaking line of sight to the ass that his eyes couldn't help but watch.
Kevin sat upright and let his legs dangle over the edge of the medical bed. He felt surprisingly refreshed, as if just a few hours of sleep and a full meal were all he needed for his body to forget the immense stress of Taetrus. He wiped his lips once more as he looked towards the door Maela had exited through. He couldn't deny that it was arousing to be so doggedly pursued by a ridiculously attractive woman whose mere presence caused his body to stir. Indeed, all it took was for her to actually try to be sexually enticing once in a while and the response was… evident. He also knew, however, that it would be a point of contention. Not just in his relationship with Arla, but as a team. He was pretty sure that Maela wouldn't hesitate to find some subtle way to off his quarian lover given the chance.
As much as Maela's sleek body and increasing sexual intensity distracted him, she wasn't at the forefront of his thoughts. What bothered him more was Arla's reaction to the news that the quarian Homeship Ulansal had fallen behind and gone dark. Not that her reaction was anything unexpected, as news of a Homeship going dark would be enough to knock the wind out of any quarian. Those were the most precious of ships in the entire fleet. Not for their technology, but for what they carried.
Quarian young. New mothers. Budding families. Teachers. Students.
But something was off. Even with such news, Arla normally would have stayed her emotions on the matter until a later time when she was either alone or alone with him. It was not good for a captain to appear that worried in front of her crewmates, no matter how close. He could tell she was struggling.
Kevin sighed and picked his visor up off of a nearby medical monitor as he stood from the bed. At least the medi-gel and the nap had done their job—he could only feel the ache in his leg if he put all his weight on it, and even then it was bearable. He didn't have any time to give it any more tests than that, however. He was going to be late for the boarding party if he didn't get his ass in gear. He latched his visor securely into place as he headed out of the med-bay, trying his best to ignore the sea of red flags surrounding them.
"Doors aren't responding," said Lan'Karthal, squad leader of one of Arla's fireteams, as his squad of six pressed up against either side of the Ulansal's outer airlock door. The Peravaash's secondary boarding corridor had been proving quite useful in getting to the Ulansal's airlock.
Arla drew a Tempest from her waist and flicked her head at said door. A sniper rifle wouldn't be much use in such close quarters, after all. "Cut it. Kevin, do you think your big friend there could give us a hand with providing us an entrance?" She didn't need to explain the lack of proper tools to open it. They were quarians, elite or not.
"Without a doubt," Kevin said as he turned to Targold, bemused.
Two from the squad began using military grade laser cutters from their omni-tools to slice the locks holding the two massive slabs of metal together. Sparks flew everywhere and the boarding corridor that Cerberus had once used to assault the Kellius with became a chaotic light show of flashes and dancing specks. It took a couple minutes to cut through all the necessary locks down the center of the door, and when the cutters had finished their job, they immediately picked up and moved aside.
Targold stepped up to the airlock door rubbing his hands and laughing slowly to himself. He wedged his armored fingers into the newly created space between the two halves and he pulled apart. He growled at first, then began to yell in classic krogan fashion as his huge muscles strained. Slowly, the doors began to part. It was a fitful endeavor as the doors did not open smoothly, but rather came apart with a back-and-forth mix of sudden, quick progress and strained, steady effort. These doors had not been used in a long, long time.
Kevin got a look through the growing aperture. Inside the Ulansal, alarms raged. The outer airlock had been opened against protocol, so the warnings were expected. Once Targold was able to hold the door open enough, all four fireteams—each commanded by either Arla'Tavval, Tyr'Garloh, Lan'Karthal, or Kevin Folner—quickly moved through in single file. After everyone had slipped in, Targold stepped inside and let the doors slam shut. The noisier, more critical-sounding alarms died off while others silently continued to protest this violation of its purpose.
The airlock was only one of many potential entry points on the Homeship. Kevin had since learned, however, that the team had found the ship in lockdown—a sure sign that something had gone wrong. And yet, only a tiny fraction of the ship's lifepods had ejected. This prompted the captain to choose a single, small entry point where a few select fireteams would board. Not only did this allow them to enter more quietly, but it also prevented them accidentally venting the ship or killing any quarians with their entry. This was, after all, where a great deal of quarian children were housed before they acquired their first suit. That fact alone made this entire mission incredibly fragile and high tensions were the result—Kevin and his friends included. He had no reason to believe the tensions for the few left to man the Peravaash were any softer.
Now inside the sizable airlock of the Ulansal, Arla was able to call for a full cycle of the airlock to have the inner doors open naturally. With no alarms raised after the lengthy decontamination of the crowded room, the doors granted access. Kevin fully expected a squad of marines to have guns trained on them the moment that door opened, as did everyone else. All held their guns down and off to the side, an easily interpreted sign of 'armed, but not hostile'.
What they found just inside was much, much worse. Curses parted from nearly every mouth and guns flew up in immediate alert.
"Keelah, is that blood?" Lan'Karthal exclaimed as everyone took in the stomach-churning sight.
The power seemed to be out inside the ship, or at least the illumination systems had failed or been shut down. Some of the alarms in the airlock were apparently attributed to a critical power failure, but some systems were still running. Even still, enough light flooded out of the airlock to reveal the closest half of a large lobby-type room. On the floor just outside the airlock doors was a morbid flesh carpet painted in red quarian blood. It was if there had been a massacre there, yet no whole bodies remained to be found. Instead, a dismembered arm, hand, or leg sat forgotten here or there, still wrapped in the suit that had once been part of a larger whole and cut—or more accurately, torn—from the rest.
The further half of the lobby room was swathed in darkness. A few smaller lights from terminals or other pieces of equipment could be seen, but they seemed crushed by the consuming dark they sat in. The bloody mess at their feet continued on into that darkness as if the quarians that had collected here had been backed into a corner and were slaughtered mercilessly before being dragged away.
"By the ancestors…" Kevin heard more than a few quarians mutter.
"No way in hell these were geth," Tyr said, possibly just to break the cloud of fear that had already began to creep into the ranks. Though in hindsight, that probably wasn't the best way to go about it. "In all our years fighting them, they've never done anything so…"
"Krogan," Targold said to punctuate the message. There was an oddness to his tone that Kevin rarely heard. That oddness, Kevin had once learned, was that Targold was bothered.
Arla turned on her omni-tool. "Tira'Sehl, disconnect the Peravaash." The order caused some of the other quarians to look at their captain as if she'd lost her mind.
Arla continued. "Move away a short distance. Things are far worse here than we thought. Keep alert and be ready to move on any of my commands." Acknowledgement came from Tira'Sehl and she shut her omni-tool off. She then swallowed hard, a motion barely visible, but quite profound to Kevin's eyes. Arla was bothered too.
That sea of red flags stormed angrily inside Kevin's head. We shouldn't be here.
"Understood," came the reply. The ship rocked gently as the Peravaash disconnected from the front of the Ulansal and a deep metallic set of clunks announced the separation. After a few seconds, the seemingly endless resonance of the clunks faded to silence.
That was when Targold grumbled, "Anyone hear that?" as he hefted his shotgun up a little higher.
No one said anything, but heads shook. Kevin agreed with the others, as he'd heard nothing, but he'd never known Targold to lie about these sorts of things.
Arla hefted up her Tempest and flicked her head forward. "Let's find out what the hell happened here."
No one stirred at first. Kevin pulled out the pistol he hadn't used in a surprisingly long time; his modified Kassa Fabrication M-5 Phalanx. He still had the Phaeston he took from Taetrus with him, but he preferred the agility of a handgun in the expectedly tight confines of a quarian ship. He brushed his fingers along the handle of his monomolecular blade again to assure himself it was where it should be. It always gave him comfort, like the backup of a close friend. His CQC expertise would serve him better here. Taking in a deep breath to steady his focus, he started moving out of the airlock.
"It's so quiet," one of the other quarians mentioned as one by one they all began to follow Kevin out.
"Engines have been cut," Tyr'Garloh said in response as he flicked a hand at a few other Xelvas'taersh to have them sweep up one side of the room with him. "Keep alert but don't waste too much time. We don't even know if whatever did this is still on this ship."
Ralik was looking at a downloaded schematic of the Ulansal. "It looks like the most defensible room was the bridge at the bow, or possibly engineering at the stern. We could send a team there to see if anyone's left alive."
"We'll split up into two teams," Arla ordered. "One goes fore and one goes aft."
"Kevin and I will go for the bridge," Tyr said just a little too quickly.
Arla paused, looking back and forth between Kevin and Tyr. She let out a brief sigh—almost a sigh of relief—before nodding. "Alright. Lan'Karthal, you and your team are with me and mine. Keep comms up and guns ready. Report any findings or changes." She flicked her head towards the back of the ship and Lan'Karthal's team began to move out. Her team followed suit, and before she followed them, she leaned close to Kevin. "Please be careful."
"You too," Kevin replied as his visor lightly bumped against hers with a klink as if touching foreheads. Some of the other quarians in the group shifted uncomfortably for a moment before Arla bolted off after her team.
"Room is clear," called out one of the men Tyr ordered to sweep the room as they approached from the dark. "Messy, but nothing else of note. Trails of… the trails lead up the stairs over there to the upper deck."
"That's where we're headed," Ralik pointed out as he shut down the schematic.
"Joy," Kevin said with a shrug as he waved Targold and Maela over. "Keep tight, no solo searches. Not until we know what the hell happened here." Tyr's marines and Kevin's group gathered into an infantry formation Kevin loosely recognized as typically used for urban structure sweeps and they headed for the stairs. Up in front, Tyr moved close to Kevin to talk in low tones.
"Kevin, there are some things you should know. It pertains to Arla and a connection to the Ulansal."
"Let me guess," Kevin said as he stepped carefully to avoid the half-congealed blood on the steps. "She grew up here."
"Yes, but there's more." Tyr paused so the team could quickly sweep the pitch black room at the top of the stairs. They found more of the same mess, a few more body parts, and even a suit removed of its owner. Otherwise, it was clear. When they regrouped to continue towards the bridge, he resumed. "Arla did grow up on this Homeship, yes, but not just because she was sent here when her mother was ready to give birth. Her parents were already here."
Kevin raised a brow. "Teachers? Or maybe caretakers?"
Tyr shook his head. "Arla's mother is Captain Niris'Tavval vas Ulansal."
"Her mom is the captain?" Kevin said, doing his best to hide his surprise. He must not have done a good job, as a few eyes turned to glance at him. Arla's earlier apprehension quickly became apparent. "What about her father?"
"Seht'Tavval vas Ulansal is the ship's chief engineer."
He's saying is, not was, Kevin noted. He must believe there's a chance that people are alive in here, despite the grisly evidence. "So… We're checking on her mother and she's checking on her father." Kevin was starting to feel a headache forming from all of this, his whole head already throbbing away.
"More or less. She was never really close with her father, from what I can tell. She did tell me, however, that she dreaded finding her mother dead."
"Hence the quick choice to go fore." And Arla's subsequent sigh.
Tyr'Garloh nodded.
The conversation lapsed after that as the new stakes set in on Kevin. They continued onward, omni-lights leading the way down dark, empty, and still slightly bloody corridors. The smears and splatters were far less frequent now, but every now and then a dark red streak lined the floor. Despite the diminished horror on the walls, however, Kevin could practically feel just how tense everyone was. It was only a matter of time before somebody vocalized it.
"Something is very wrong here," one of Tyr's men said.
Targold chuckled. "You mean aside from the evidence of death in every direction, the silence, and the darkness?"
The quarian in question gave Targold a look, but continued anyway. "Yes. This is a Homeship. It should be just as crowded, if not moreso, than standard vessels in the flotilla. Where is everyone?"
"'Hiding' would be the most logical answer to that, given what we've seen," Maela offered.
"It would be, but we've gone by several rooms already, all of them empty. Empty. I've never seen so much… open space in a quarian ship before. You didn't grow up here, asari. There should at least be some bodies here if there was some kind of massacre like we think." The tone in his voice made it very clear just how uncomfortable all this was making him.
"More empty rooms ahead," said a quarian from a pair that Kevin didn't notice leave to scout ahead. "Some of them have ample evidence that there was a struggle, as well as evidence that the marines stationed here fought something. Discarded heat sinks and projectile impacts are everywhere. But… no people. No bodies or anyone left behind."
"Everyone form up," Tyr ordered. "We're heading straight for the bridge. If no one is there, we'll use it as a staging point and continue sweeping the ship in blocks until we meet up with the other team."
"Understood," came the universal reply and everyone moved just a little faster.
As they passed rooms, they only took enough time to ensure there were no surprises or survivors before moving on. This process did end up slowing them down due to the sizable number of rooms along the way and the continued emptiness only served to raise everyone's hackles a little more. Even Targold seemed a bit more on edge, watching as if they might get attacked any moment. Kevin had never seen the krogan's eyes so focused without a fight already in progress.
As they neared the bridge, evidence of firefights increased dramatically. There was also something else mixed in with the quarian blood here, which seemed much more fresh and slick. Some kind of new fluid, gray-ish in color, and as thick as the blood. Kevin looked it over. "The hell…?"
There was a howl from somewhere deep in the ship. It was feral, frenzied, and perhaps even a bit mechanical. It was no quarian howl. That was for certain. It echoed through the tight, cramped corridors, making it impossible to locate—except perhaps the direction of where in the ship it had to be.
Everyone spun, their guns reflexively taking aim down the hallway the sound seemed to travel from. Adrenaline fueled every move now. Tyr'Garloh was the first to break the ominous silence that followed. "Tepka keelah. What was that?" A hint of nervousness began creeping into his voice.
"I've killed a lot of things," Targold growled, "but even I've never heard anything quite like that before.
"Tyr, Ralik, Kevin, are you there?" Arla frantically asked over the comms.
"We're here," Kevin said in response. "I take it you heard it too."
"Any visual?"
"None. It's somewhere deeper into the ship. We're almost at the bridge."
"We're having trouble getting into engineering. There's a mountain of incredibly heavy ship parts piled in front of the doors. The howl sounded like it came from your direction."
"We're at opposite ends of the Ulansal right now, so that could be anywhere." Ralik noted.
"We're setting some sentries and seeing if we can't get passed this blockade somehow. It looks like some of the crew might have made a last stand here. We haven't seen any bodies, so they might have made it out or found places to hide."
"Likewise up here—no bodies. We'll keep you informed," Kevin told her before shutting down the comms in his suit. "I guess maybe it would have been prudent to send a biotic with each team."
"Hindsight's a bitch," Targold said with a smirk. "And she likes to nag."
Tyr'Garloh never lowered his weapon, but he did start heading towards the bridge once more. "Come on, we need to get that bridge secured. If this all goes to hell, it's at least a defensible position."
A round of nods were had and they resumed their increasingly cautious march.
The rest of the trip was made in silence. Only the sounds of their footfalls on the metal floor echoed about. Or at least, that's what everyone was hoping. In truth, Kevin could hear what sounded like some kind of skittering in the dark distance, like something was following them by traversing air ducts. It was a faint, almost indistinguishable tick tick tick tick; more echo and imagination than actual sound. It made his heart beat fast and his face break out in a sweat barely contained by the helmet's humidity control. He saw that Targold and Maela heard it too, as they—and a couple of Tyr's men—were walking backwards and aiming their weapons down the corridor behind them.
Another nerve-rattling roar sounded from somewhere deep in the ship, though Kevin swore it sounded closer this time. I hate this shit, he thought to himself. I'm used to being the hunter, not the hunted. If I knew more about what it was, I might go hunt it myself, but…
Right around that time, Tyr called for a halt right in front of a huge set of double-wide doors, shut tight on lockdown. He scanned the console next to the door and took a step back. "Yeah, that's a full lockdown. I could override it, but there's almost no power to the console here. Either something in the ship is pulling it all elsewhere, or the generators have all gone to hell."
"Ralik and I will run a power transfer," Kevin offered as he holstered his Phalanx to get his omni-tool out.
The salarian looked at the ceiling. "He's back for a couple days and already I have to suffer his oppressive orders."
"Just get over here, damnit." I suppose trying to lighten moods isn't such a bad idea. Missed that chance. I blame this headache.
Ralik gave Tyr'Garloh what Kevin assumed was an amused glance and moved over to help his oppressor with the transfer to the console. Within seconds, the console screen came to life and Tyr was quickly at work on his omni-tool. He cancelled the lockdown on this particular door and opened it.
The two halves of the massive door separated, sliding into the walls on the left and right side of the bulkhead. Inside the bridge, more darkness awaited.
Darkness… and something else.
Kevin heard it before he saw it, but neither he nor anyone else had the reaction time to stop what had happened. A quarian fist shot out and punched Kevin square in the chest. The hit had more weight to it than Kevin could give the quarian credit for, and the best he could manage was to violently stumble backwards against Maela, gasping for breath. So much for CQC expertise.
Guns went up, but so did the quarian's hands. "Oh shit! You have guns! You're not one of them! Sorry sorry!"
Everyone exchanged glances. Some lowered their weapons, some didn't. Kevin just gasped more. One of Tyr's men tilted his head and asked, "One of who? Wait, is that you Herj'Mokett?"
The quarian in the doorway froze, as if the question seemed to shock him somehow. He quickly snapped out of it, however. "Y-yes, that's me. I don't recognize any of you, though. You're not from this ship, are you? Sorry again, I… I just… Well it's not been a good few days…" He took a few steps out of the dark room. His clan cloths had been removed or lost at some point, but Tyr's marine seemed to recognize him anyway.
"Jal'Keras vas Peravaash nar Thensul. We trained for the marines in the same division, under Sergeant Yon'Annaes vas Neema."
Herj'Mokett froze again for a few seconds before nodding vigorously. "Damn. Good to see you're still alive, Keras. Forgive me, but I haven't got time to catch up with you right now. I was… on my way to the captain. Our last report was that she was here at the bridge."
"Our?" Kevin said, having gained enough of his breath back to speak with a bit of a wheeze. He was still slightly hunched over, held by Maela. "Where's the rest of your crew? Your squad?"
"I… I don't know. Dead is my best guess. There's something here on the ship. It's been hunting us, taking people that get separated or end up in small groups. I started my way to the bridge with a team of six and they've disappeared one at a time. When I heard you all coming behind me, I thought I was next."
"And the vast emptiness?" Ralik asked. "We've not seen a soul since we arrived, save yourself."
"I… I don't know. There should be thousands of us here. Tens of thousands of us. It's been quiet for almost a full day cycle. I don't really know what to think about it. I think it frightens me."
"Let's not waste any more time, then," Tyr'Garloh said, flicking his gun towards the dark room ahead. "Lead the way, Herj'Mokett."
"You good?" Maela asked Kevin as she patted him firmly on the back.
Kevin nodded and took one more deep breath to stretch out the remaining strain from the all-too-powerful punch of that quarian. The weight of it still baffled him, but he shrugged it off as he straightened up and brought his pistol back out. Once again, they were on the march.
The light their omni-tools shed on the room indicated that the bridge was quite large by quarian standards. It was still cramped and full of crates, storage, and gear, but it was more sparsely placed than anywhere else they'd been thus far. Terminals flickered and pulsed inconsistently, the very power they should be getting seemingly unavailable. More low power alarms like they saw in the airlock blinked here and there.
The first thing they'd noticed was that the bridge was empty. No marines came to greet them, no lights were on to indicate safe harbor, and no sounds indicated movement. The second thing they noticed were the massive metal spikes jutting from various places on the bridge. Silvery-white in color, they were long enough to go from floor to ceiling and vice-versa. They were numerous, but hardly blocked the way.
"The hell are those things?" one of Tyr's marines asked. "Doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before."
"Goddess," Maela gasped. "Dragon's teeth, as the humans called them. I'd done research on them and their ability to modify genetics at an impossible rate."
"These things?" Targold asked, stepping up close to one. The spike suddenly retracted into its base leaving about a meter of spike remaining. The sudden motion and sound brought guns up again.
"We logged them as geth tech. They were commonly found in geth clusters on worlds they had landed on when they'd been causing trouble a couple years ago before the attack on the Citadel. Whenever a person was found impaled on the spike, they turned into a husk within a day."
"But husks are created by reaper tech," Tyr noted.
"I don't like where this is going, guys," Kevin commented. It seemed no one else did either, judging by the several nods in agreement.
A series of wet coughs got everyone's immediate attention. It came from somewhere further in the bridge. Kevin looked to Tyr and Targold, flicking his head in the direction of the sound. Guns up, the trio fanned out while others followed at a distance, all closing in on the origin of the noise. Unceremoniously left behind a half-toppled stack of crates containing dextro-amino food, they found a quarian impaled on one of the geth spikes face-up.
"Keelah!" Tyr'Garloh exclaimed under his breath as he, Kevin, and Targold all moved closer. There didn't appear to be any other threats, so they lowered guns in an immediate attempt to find a way to get her down.
The quarian's head moved to look at the newcomers, though her world would have been upside-down. She coughed again—a wet, bloody cough. Red blood stained the deep purple, dark blue, and forest green clan cloths and was lightly seeping from around the silvery metal spike lodged through her abdomen.
I recognize those colors, Kevin thought. I know that clan. Shit, this is not good.
Kevin stopped his frantic attempts to find a way to get her down, instead looking into the quarian's faintly glowing eyes. "Captain Niris'Tavval vas Ulansal, I presume?"
"Who… who are you?" she asked breathily before coughing again.
Tyr stepped up to answer that in a way most formal. "First Lieutenant Tyr'Garloh vas Peravaash of Xelvas'taersh squad zero. With me here is Kevin Folner vas Peravaash of Xelvas'taersh squad zero and Ralik Dolannus of squad zero is over there. Some of squad one is with us as well."
"Xelvas…" She paused, seeming slow of thought. Given how much blood she'd lost, it was a wonder she was alive at all. "Arla… Where is Arla?"
Tyr paused a moment as he stood up straight to look at Kevin. His body language read 'should we?'
"We need to," Kevin replied.
"Alright," Tyr said, nodding in resignation.
As Tyr moved off to contact Arla on the comms, the captain of the Ulansal looked up at Kevin. "Kevin… Yes, I remember that name. You were Arla's vaali. A human." Her words seemed to be coming a little faster now, as if she were strengthened by talking about Arla.
Kevin knelt down on one knee next to the captain. "Yes ma'am. Well, I don't know what vaali means, but I was—er I AM her lover, yes. And yes, a human."
Niris'Tavval didn't seem inclined to educate Kevin on that new quarian word. She stared at him quite a bit though. "Ah. So not just her vaali, but her tas'vaali. I don't know humans very well. You're the first I've met. This is… embarrassing. I don't normally introduce myself in this… fashion." Her tone was impossibly casual, even as she used a hand to gesture at the spike of metal running her through. "Is my daughter here, Kevin'Folner vas Peravaash?"
Kevin nodded. "She is checking on another part of the ship, but we're calling her up."
She sighed. "Good." A moment of silence fell between them as Tyr checked in with his men. "You must be a strong bosh'tet for a human," she finally said.
"I like to think so, but such judgements are more accurately made by others." He heard the ticking sounds in the darkness that surrounded them once more and he eyed the barely-lit ceiling, unnerved and headache pounding away.
"I know my tes'mii, my little one. She didn't have eyes for anyone that couldn't kick her ass in more ways than one." She started to laugh but it quickly devolved into a bloody cough and a few fresh specks of red spattered the inside of her visor. Most of that visor was red now.
Kevin nearly chuckled at that, remembering their days sparring in the dance room on the Kellius. "All I can say to that is… she started it."
Niris sighed; a quick breath that Kevin had to assume was in place of otherwise impossible laughter. "Well, I'm glad to have met the one creature in the galaxy that could tame her. Certainly none of these suit-wetters could do that." She looked around, seemingly expecting her crew to be standing around. The exhale that was followed was full of agony that had little to do with her impalement.
Kevin didn't think he could call Arla tame by any means but he nodded. "And I am honored to have met the mother of one of the most fearless women I have ever known," he replied. He hoped that Arla would be quick—his omni-tool was telling him that Niris'Tavval's fluctuating vitals were getting increasingly unstable.
"Arla's group is on the way," Tyr said as he stepped up to Niris and Kevin. "Herj'Mokett is on his way to meet them."
"Unarmed?" Kevin asked, incredulous.
"We found a rifle for him; its owner, missing. He knows the ship. He'll fare better without our noise."
"Mokett is still alive?" Niris asked, her voice growing weak again. She sounded more like a grandmother than a strong captain now. "I could swear I saw him collapse hours ago."
Kevin and Tyr shared another look and Kevin stood. They both took a few steps away from Niris to talk in low tones. "She's not going to last much longer," Kevin said.
"The team is securing the bridge now," Tyr noted. "Whatever time Arla will need, she will have it."
The bridge brightened by a small margin as some emergency lights were pulled from storage and lit. The illumination revealed a messy scene akin to what they had walked in on when boarding the ship, but strangely only Captain Niris'Tavval was present. All the other dragon's teeth were bare. A disturbingly large number of them, however, were smeared with red blood. Kevin felt even more red flags popping up in the back of his mind like the hackles on the back of a hound's neck.
That damn ticking again, Arla thought as she listened to the echoes of something in the darkness. It made her skin crawl under her suit, feeling like hundreds of worms slithering between her suit and her body. She could feel eyes on her back, and those eyes loved her not.
"Any idea what the hell that is?" Lan'Karthal asked as he kept steady watch on the dark hallways behind them, gun up and omni-light forward.
"Don't know, don't care," replied Nahl'Hen, one of Lan's marines. He grunted as he again attempted to move an engine part that had no right to be in the hallway. He failed to budge it an inch. Frustrated, he kicked it. "It's not helping us through this shit, that's for sure."
Only Lan'Karthal and two other marines watched the halls for movement. The rest of the two six-man squads were trying to clear the way to engineering. They'd seen no one so far, and according to what they'd heard from the bridge team, they hadn't either. There was something about the extreme emptiness of this Homeship that unnerved everyone more than the darkness and what it might hide.
Arla tried to pull a loose metal plate free in tandem with two of her own marines, but all they managed to do was get it to rattle. The sounds echoed off into the halls until they mixed with the ticking that no one could ignore. This was the only way into engineering she was willing to try, at least until they could get the power restored to the ship. The frustration of the effectiveness of this blockade was making her head pound; a throbbing headache that bloomed in the back of her skull and slowly pervaded like thick ink spilled on a table.
"Damnit. This isn't working," Arla finally muttered as she stopped to take a breath. "We need a new plan."
"We could cut our way through," replied Gaal'Meshiir, one of Arla's own men. "We'd lose all the salvage though."
"No," Arla said curtly. "Not worth it and it would take too long. We might be better off just heading up to the bridge and pulling Kevin back here to use his biotics."
"Better than staring at this mess," Gaal'Meshiir said with a nod.
"Anything to be with your vaali," Lan'Karthal quipped in a pointedly mirthless fashion.
"Do you want to start pulling forty-five year old capacitors out of there?" Arla shot back, having no patience for Lan's mood.
After a brief silence Lan said, "No ma'am."
Arla walked up next to Lan and stared him right in the visor. She spoke slow and to the point. "Then let's get my tas'vaali." She started down the hallway before any more irritating remarks could be made. Her temper was getting short.
Not more than thirty seconds after they began to backtrack, Tyr'Garloh popped up on the comms again. "Captain, we need you up front at the bridge. We found a few survivors." Normally he was flat and to the point in his reports. That wasn't flat, it was downright deadpan.
"Thank the ancestors," noted another of Arla's men, Perit'Valas. "Maybe we'll finally get some answers."
Arla nodded. "We're on our way. We can't get through this blockade and I'm not willing to try the unpredictable nature of the mechanics' ducts. We'll need Kevin or the asari." She reflexively looked up as the ticks echoed down from an air vent. Damn noises have me skittish like a—
"Good. Herj'Mokett, one of the survivors, is on his way to you now. Arla… Captain Niris'Tavval is here. She's… She's been asking for you."
And there it was. Arla's heart fluttered in her chest and she had to force herself to keep up her brisk pace. Her mother… Alive. When all others vanished, her mother endured. She hadn't seen Niris since she left for the Neema to become a marine, after a disagreement about choice of interests. She had so much to catch up on, so much to tell, so much to apologize for. Sure, they'd kept up some measure of contact by sending intra-fleet messages every now and again—her mother was one of the few people she confided in about Kevin after the Melkanis relay incident in order to keep her sanity—but… face to face?
"N-noted. We'll be there shortly." She shut off the comms went to rest her hand on her Tempest, and in doing so her omni-light cone tracked sideways along the wall. She was passing a side corridor just then, and the light illuminated something down the hallway. Something that absolutely should not have been there. Her gaze darted to the abnormality and saw something thin and grey down near the end of the long corridor. It was hunched over forward like a quarian whose spine had snapped. She drew in a sharp breath and stopped dead in her tracks, subsequently causing the other marines to nearly crash into her. She immediately swung her light back around to get another look down the dark corridor. The ticks seemed to be coming out of the walls everywhere around them. Were they getting louder?
"What?!" Lan'Karthal asked in hushed alarm as everyone focused their light down that same hallway. It was empty. "What did you see?"
"I saw… something. Thought it might have been Herj'Mokett." A lie. She had no idea what that thing was. Get a hold of yourself, girl. It's just the empty. Don't let it get to you. In her peripheral vision, something stood near them. It moved. She spun to look, her light illuminating the hallway they were travelling.
There was a girl. A quarian girl, perhaps five or six years of age. She was naked, as she was too young to wear an environmental suit, but… She should have been wearing clan cloths. She just stood there watching the marines, head cocked to the side. There was no fear in her eyes, no anxiety, not even a hint of stress. In fact, there was no emotion in the girl's eyes whatsoever.
"Holy shit, she scared the piss out of me," Nahl'Hen said under his breath.
"Where's your bubble, little one?" Arla cautiously asked, steadying her breath. She should have still had her protective bubble. All kids her age had one for another few years until they could get their first suit.
"Where are you going?" the girl asked with the endearing accent of words still being learned.
"We're looking for everyone," Lan'Karthal said to the girl, going down to one knee in front of her. "Can you tell us where they went?"
Several loud thumps followed by an eerily inorganic growl sounded up from the corridor where Arla thought she'd seen that figure. The thumps were loud and staggered. Those weren't footsteps. Several lights focused back down that corridor and it was still empty. Whatever it was, it was either behind one of the many closed doors or it was around a corner at the end of the hall. It seemed like the darkness that way swallowed the light of their omni-tools to a point where even the other marines noticed the incongruity. What the hell is going on?
The quarian girl didn't scream or run. She merely smiled and pointed down that very hallway. "They're okay. They're fixed now. Come see." With that, she took off down that hallway with perplexing speed.
Lan'Karthal reached for the child, but she twisted away too quickly. "Wait! Damnit, I'll get her."
"Lan, wait!" Arla yelled as the marine took off after the impossibly fast youngling. She growled in annoyance. "Nahl'Hen, Xes'Qaal, go after your squad leader. Everyone else, hold and keep this avenue clear."
The two both hesitated. The sounds that had just boomed from that dark intersection weren't exactly easy to shake off. They managed to steel themselves, straighten up, and nod to their captain. "Yes ma'am." Guns ready, they made a quick march after Lan and the girl, both of whom had turned right at the end of the corridor.
When the two marines got there, they took one look down the corridor that Lan'Karthal had gone down and jumped back in alarm. "Holy shit! What the hell is that?" They raised guns to fire, but something… no, some things appearing thin and grey flew at them from the unseen reaches around the corner. They were hit and knocked down out of sight behind the other side and their lights went out a second later.
"What the hell?" Gaal'Meshiir exclaimed as everyone took aim down the hall.
Arla's skin prickled with fight-or-flight energy. "Nahl'Hen! Xes'Qaal! Report, damnit! Lan'Karthal! Reply!"
There was no reply, no motions to tell them what had happened. The dark corridor had consumed them and gone dark.
"Should we go after them?" Gaal'Meshiir asked, looking to Arla for a quick answer.
Arla didn't hear him. The thumping in her chest was too loud. The ticking. The emptiness. Her own heartbeat in her ears was a repeating wave of distraction. We need to get out. Something isn't right here. She was trying to think, trying to pull a strategy together, but the damn whispers wouldn't let her concentrate. Wait… Whispers? When did those…
"Captain!" Gaal'Meshiir called urgently. "Orders?"
Arla shook from her state and looked back down that hallway. It was like the walls themselves were trying to break out from under the metal and choke the life out of the air. Somehow that made her headache worse. She looked back to her marines. "Something is very wrong. It's like the ship itself is trying to crush us… We need to get to the bridge. Whatever is back here… We need the others."
Her marines glanced at each other, uncertainty flowing from their stance.
The lack of motion finally snapped Arla's attention back into focus. "Move, marines! Go! To the bridge! Now!"
Almost startled by the sudden stern orders, the survivors quickly straightened and rushed for the bridge with rifles poised to fire at any unknown motion. The darkness followed closely and their omni-lights were the only things keeping the suffocation at bay. Arla ran with them; part terrified, part emotional wreck, and part captain. The entire way, one sound prevailed even above their footfalls.
Tick tick tick tick tick tick.
"They're back," Ralik announced as he and a few marines backed away from the door.
Kevin looked over from kneeling next to Niris and he saw Arla and the surviving eight marines plunge through the door in a full sprint—an action that caused everyone to raise weapons in alarm. The two halves of the large door were pushed shut the moment they all came through and Tyr'Garloh's squad took up counter-breach formation around it. Nothing seemed to follow them, but by now not a single one of them believed that there was 'nothing' there.
"What happened?" Tyr'Garloh asked immediately.
Arla's group was still catching their breath, but Targold took one look and his eyes narrowed. "That's the flight of prey," he commented, sniffing the air. "Wounded and chased."
Arla gave the krogan a baleful glance, but she was too out of breath to say otherwise.
"We're all thinking it," Targold added as he eyed the door, "I'm just saying it. Something made you lot wet your suits." For all his blunt words, the krogan markedly lacked his typical sarcastic tone.
"You're down three. Where's Lan?" Ralik asked.
"Gone," was the only word Arla could get out.
"Gone?" Ralik asked, hands coming up in question. "What do you mean 'gone'?"
"Where's… my mother?" Arla managed between her breaths, pointedly ignoring the question.
"Over here," Kevin called out while waving his hand. He didn't have time to warn Arla of Niris'Tavval's… state. Kevin winced as the captain visibly stumbled in her tracks upon sighting her mother while the other arrivals briefed the bridge team what had transpired.
"No… No, no, no!" Arla immediately went to one knee to bring her head level with her mother's.
"Arla… My tes'mii... It's okay, I'm alright."
"What? No, no you're not! You're…"
Niris'Tavval silenced her daughter by bringing a hand up to the side of Arla's helmet. "Breathe, girl. I thought I would die alone in the dark, surrounded by monsters and driven insane by the whispers. But now you're here and I can look upon my strength in my final moments."
Whispers, Kevin thought.
Arla didn't seem to know what to say to that, so she moved onto the burning question. "Mother… What happened here? Where are all of our people?"
Niris tilted her head slightly. "Right to business. And you thought you were never captain material." She grunted in a satisfied manner and sighed again. "Dead would be my first guess, child. I can't imagine those creatures left our poor people alive."
"We haven't been able to tell," Kevin explained. "Between Mokett and yourself, we've not seen a single quarian—dead or otherwise—on the ship. I was beginning to wonder if your crew had managed some sort of mass exodus without the use of lifepods."
"What?" Niris asked in confusion and alarm. "The crew is just… gone?"
"Speaking of Herj'Mokett, where is he?" Tyr'Garloh asked. "He was supposed to meet you on the way."
"We never saw him," Arla slowly noted rather absent-mindedly, as though she had just recalled something very horrible. She quickly turned back to Niris. "Mother. I need to know what happened on this ship. Admiral Han'Gerrel sent us here to find out." Her tone was shaky, but she was doing a commendable job in keeping herself in control given the circumstances.
Niris'Tavval shook her head. "I don't know for certain. After the flotilla moved through the final relay in preparation to reach the Homeworld, some of the crew began reporting strange behaviors around the ship. Before long, there was chaos and the ship's power was shut down, comms were out, and our ship's internal defenses were nullified in one stroke. Our marines tried to contain the threat, whatever it was, but some of the crew had reportedly gone completely mad and were… murdering scores of innocents. Made it difficult to detect friend from foe. They spread too fast and too efficiently for our marines to contain and it turned into a slaughter." She stopped a moment to collect herself. "We had a holdout team here on the bridge watching the only door and we were planning on a way to get power back from engineering and restore communications to warn the fleet. But those…. things got in here somehow and either killed whoever they found or put them on these spikes they brought."
"A betrayal?" Kevin asked, looking to Arla.
"That was my first thought too, that someone who disagreed with our moving against the geth tried to sabotage the ship so that we would be unable to attend the assault. Such talk has been heard here and there throughout the Migrant Fleet. But then all the murder… On a Homeship? No. It couldn't be one of our own. The reports from the marines had me thinking that geth had somehow boarded and were killing our people, but… the attackers had quarian environmental suits on. Geth wearing exosuits to blend in and confuse our marines? That's unheard of. There would have to be thousands upon thousands linked up on the ship to make such a tactical decision and put it to effective use, and no such intrusion was detected in our networks."
Geth in quarian exosuits? Kevin's eyes went wide. "Oh shit." He immediately turned to look at Tyr'Garloh, Ralik, and the others.
Tyr'Garloh nodded gravely. "I heard. It's them again."
Ralik pressed a few armored fingers against the front of his helmet. "Well well. Aren't we just, what's the term you humans use…"
"We're proper fucked," Maela offered. "Well, and truly, fucked."
"Did I miss something here?" Targold asked with a shrug.
"What do you know? And why is there a krogan on my ship?" Niris asked.
"No wonder we couldn't find anyone," Kevin said with a troubled glance at Arla. "The entire ship might have been compromised."
"Keelah…" Tyr'Garloh uttered. "Not the children…"
Arla put her hands under her mother's helmet to help Niris get her focus back. "You said you needed to get power back from engineering. Why?"
Niris coughed again and more blood spattered the inside of her helmet. "Damnit…"
Arla leaned forward and began to undo the clasps to Niris'Tavval's visor. A few of the quarians in the room reflexively jumped forward at the sight, but Kevin held up a hand to forestall their kneejerk reactions. Underneath the bloody visor was an almost equally bloody face that distinctly showed where Arla's beauteous complexion had come from. Even bloodied and somewhat aged, Kevin could not help from remarking on how markedly stunning her visage was.
"Thank you, tes'mii." Niris seemed rather unconcerned with the potential dangers to being unmasked, but allowed herself to look around as if freed. No doubt this was because Niris had already accepted her fate. Another round of coughs forced her to catch her breath but she wasted no time the moment she was able to continue. "Before our last marines were silenced, they reported the creatures gathering in engineering to build something absolutely massive. Something that had to be drawing the Ulansal's entire energy grid by itself. We were never able to get more than that, but…"
Arla and Kevin glanced at each other before Niris continued.
"I hear whispers now, ever since… This." She gestured towards the spike. "I don't know what they say, but I can somehow understand some of it. Something about the device they're building in engineering. I think it's important to them somehow." Niris'Tavval began to drift off into thought, or perhaps shock. Her eyes lost all focus and she stared off into the distance.
"No, no, no, stay with me! Mother, stay with me! I… I need you!" Arla frantically tried to find a way to get her mother's focus back, to somehow jar her back to reality. She cupped her mother's head in her hands and pleaded, but to no avail.
Again with the whispers. "Arla…" Kevin said as he gently placed a hand on his lover's shoulder. "Arla, listen. She's not going—"
Niris'Tavval's head suddenly snapped up to look directly into Arla's eyes. "Keelah. It's them. They want my mind. They want what I know about the fleet!"
"W-what?" Arla asked, somewhat stunned by the urgency in her mother's strained voice.
Niris spoke in a flurry of words, serious, direct, and astonishingly well articulated. "Arla, tes'mii, my strength and life… The device in engineering is the single greatest threat to our people, even more than the geth. The fleet doesn't even know it's there. You need to take it out. You need to take it out for us all." She strained and shook visibly, as if being electrocuted.
"Damnit!" Kevin shouted as he tried in vain to help Niris. There was nothing he could do. Not even medi-gel would help her, he knew. This must have been how helpless Arla felt while I was having neural cascade incidents.
"You bosh'tet! You won't have it!" Niris yelled out suddenly as the shaking came to an abrupt end. She immediately looked to Arla as tears welled in her eyes and blood dribbled freely from her mouth. "Keelah, I can't ask you. Ancestors forgive me, I just can't…"
Arla seemed to visibly edge on an emotional breakdown. "Mother, what do you need? Whatever it is, I'll see it done."
Niris'Tavval's distress deepened quite visibly and she shook her head again. "Arla, the things, the whispers. They're in my head and they want my knowledge of the fleet. They want it so they can prepare attack vectors using that terrifying device in engineering. I can fight, delay them, but they'll have it before I pass. I can't win this battle, girl. I… need to deny them." She tried to force a motherly smile but it just wouldn't come.
Arla's head recoiled. "N-no. No, I can't do that. I won't just give up on you! I need to get you back to the Peravaash for proper… for proper medical…" Her words trailed off sharply.
Niris cupped Arla's helmet in a weakening hand. "I know, tes'mii. That's why I wasn't going to ask you."
Niris'Tavval's strong, commanding, tearful eyes fell on Kevin.
Kevin's chest tightened up fast and air became scarce for a moment. He could still recall Bela'Merni in the grass singing him a song with her last breath and Rast crawling to his dead father trying to give him his rifle. He knew he wasn't exactly the best choice for this task. Not by a long shot. And yet, here it was placed on his shoulders anyway. He felt immensely nauseated.
"Please be swift," Niris firmly requested. "They're so damn loud..."
Kevin looked back to the others, but the only cue that gave was for Tyr to move in to console Arla. No time and no choice, Kevin stood up and drew his M-5 Phalanx. I need to get it done this time. For Arla.
Arla, having resigned to what must happen, ceremoniously placed the forehead of her helmet against her mother's. "Thank you. For everything."
"I love you dearly, tes'mii, and always will. And nothing could make me more proud than to see you fighting so hard for our people."
"I love you too. I'll save you a place on the Homeworld." A moment later, Arla stood up and stepped away to let Kevin handle the final task.
Kevin removed his visor so Niris and he could see eye to eye, pure and unhindered. It seemed the appropriate thing to do, and as the captain managed one last smile and stared deep into his eyes, he steadily brought the pistol to aim.
"Hmm. Strong indeed. Take care of her, Kevin'Folner vas Peravaash. Forever shield each other from the storm to come."
Kevin placed his finger on the trigger and nodded to the captain of the Ulansal. Just then, flashes of Bela'Merni invaded his mind again. The hypnotic song. The grass ripped from the ground. The flaming debris at her waist. Chaos and carnage all around them while he stood, whole and alive, listening to a quarian girl sing to him in her last breath at his request so he could grant her the gift of mercy. A gift he'd failed to give her, and others.
Niris'Tavval's face contorted again.
For Arla. Don't make her have to do it. You're supposed to be able to handle this. Take care of her, Kevin'Folner vas Peravaash. Don't make her do it because you couldn't. Take care of her. He could see her out of the corner of his eye. She was huddling into Tyr'Garloh's arms, her mind a dam holding back an emotional lake the depths of which a captain was not permitted to swim. Focus. Get it done. You've done worse things in your life than granting mercy. Memories of his prior failures continued to assault him, stealing his focus and violently thrusting his determination aside.
Arla glanced over at him. He could see the faintest shimmer reflecting off of her cheeks where the tiniest rivers were lit by beautiful and haunting violet-white eyes. Despite that, there was a deeper sense of thanks. A sincere and unspoken gratitude for taking on a burden she was not sure she could handle on her own. Kevin regarded her with pained, sorrowful eyes and he mouthed the words 'I'm so sorry.'
The bridge rang with a gunshot, and Captain Niris'Tavval vas Ulansal's struggle was over.
"Never thought I'd see a captain go down like that," muttered one of Arla's marines. Gaal'Meshiir, if Kevin remembered correctly.
Gaal'Meshiir and the other quarians were paying the late captain as formal respects as their morbid venue could afford. It took them less than five minutes to get Niris down from the spike, and they laid her across a few clan cloth-covered crates at the head of the bridge. Without any way to properly space her in a ceremonial casket, they had to make do—as quarians always have.
Maela, Ralik, and Targold were keeping watch through the main doors, which they had pried apart just enough to see down the hall. Things were quiet, for the moment, save for incessant ticking. The lack of silence in this drifting graveyard was anything but comforting.
"That was a hell of a thing you did," Gaal'Meshiir said, his voice barely audible.
Kevin, standing with the marines and hands clasped respectfully at his front, looked at Gaal through the edge of his replaced visor. "Didn't really have much of a choice. I'm sure I violated some kind of quarian precedent somewhere. Sorry."
"On the contrary. The captain choosing you to do it showed she had seen you as one of us. Seen you as family, almost." He paused for a while as Tyr'Garloh, Arla'Tavval, and a few other marines pulled a large, loose cloth over Niris'Tavval. "All my years in the marines and I've never seen one of our captains look on a human with that much favor. Must have seen something in those dark eyes of yours." He glanced at Arla as she reverently brought the last folds over her mother's face. "Her too."
"Yeah," Kevin replied as he watched Arla. "Yeah, I guess so."
As soon as the marines were done with their quickened ceremonial task, Arla immediately went to Kevin and buried her visor in his chest. Tyr and the others gave the two a quick glance then moved away to let them have a few additional minutes.
"How are you holding up?" He wrapped his arms around her to give her the emotional security he knew she couldn't get anywhere else.
"It hurts, Kevin." She drew in a shuddering breath and quickly released it. "I'm supposed to be prepared for anything. We survived several damn reapers… But this?" She shook her head. "Kevin, I wasn't ready for this."
"No one is ever ready to watch the death of their parents." As he spoke the words the images of Liam getting killed just seconds shy of rescue from Taetrus came unbidden. He immediately felt unjustified, as Liam was only a replacement figure. Arla grew up with a mother that had just been impaled in a manner most grotesque and shot in the head before her eyes. He did his best to suppress the sudden shiver that followed.
"I already miss her." She fell silent, but not for very long thanks to another quick inhale and exhale. "Thank the ancestors I have you. Keelah, if I lost you too…"
Kevin cut her off there. "You're stuck with me for life, Tavval. All of it. Best get used to that."
She seemed to loosen up just a little at that. "Sounds like a hell of a commitment."
"With me? Always. You know that pretty well by now."
She sighed once again, this time far more sure of herself. She turned to look at the covered body. "She died fighting to save the Migrant Fleet. Just like Siri'Kortel." She turned back to Kevin and looked up into his eyes. "I have a lot of catching up to do."
Kevin smiled. "That's my girl."
Arla turned her head to look at the meandering survivors. "Get your asses geared up and omni-lights ready," she commanded, arms still holding tight to her lover. "We're going to engineering."
