For a moment, Shepard wondered if she could actually cough hard enough for her lungs to fly out her mouth, but then the dust began to settle and the choking eased to a thin wheeze. On the up side, the laser had cut a clean hole through the corner of the cavern beneath the trapped asari and into a cross corridor.
"Very nice," she said and looked up, giving Kaidan the thumbs high. "Nice thinking, Sparky. I knew you were more than just a pretty face. We'll be joining you momentarily. Keep frosty."
"Aye, aye, ma'am."
She chuckled and shook her head, able to see him blushing even from there and through the settling dust.
Nihlus took the lead, picking his way down into the hole. Partway down, a slab of rock broke loose and slid, but the Spectre rode it like a pro surfer and just stepped off at the bottom. Shepard cocked an eyebrow and followed at a more reserved pace.
She paused next to a thick stream of steam escaping through a crack in the floor. "This could be bad." The chamber rumbled, trembling a little under her feet. "I think we nicked a pressure pocket, Kryik," she called, running and sliding the rest of the way down. "Judging by the amount of steam coming through that crack, it's not a small one. We better keep moving. This place could well come down around our ears."
He gave her a curt nod and stepped into the corridor. He paused a couple of steps in and looked around him. "We're standing in a hallway built more than fifty thousand years ago by an extinct people."
Shepard nodded, understanding the awe. She passed him, heading what she hoped was the right way. "Makes you wonder what this place was, who lived or worked here . . . what it looked like when protheans walked over these tiles." Twenty metres in, she stepped out into a massive cylindrical space that rose above her as far as she could see, presumably the surface. "Cargo elevator."
Nihlus nodded. "Looks like it." He hung up his rifle and strode over to the console at the center. He brought up the haptic interface.
Shepard prowled the perimeter of the elevator, watching the corridors that spread out from that central point. The vast space above her pressed down, making her skin prickle as if she were being watched. An itch down deep in her brain began to sound an alarm. Perfect place for an ambush, it hissed.
"What's the hold up?" she asked, passing by the Spectre a second time. "You asking yourself which button you'd be if you were the up button?"
"Not everyone uses your highly scientific methods, Shepard," he replied, "but essentially, yes. All the controls are in prothean."
She stepped up next to him, peering around his arm at the controls. "If I was the up button, I would be . . . that one." She pointed and went back to her patrol.
"Thank you, your assistance has been invaluable," he said, his tone practically chewing its way up her leg. "And what do you base that highly informed choice upon?"
The ground rumbled, with conviction that time. Shepard ducked closer to the center as chunks of the walls shook loose, tile raining down to explode into shards that bounced off the metal floor to sizzle against her shields. "Press it or don't, Nihlus. Let's just get moving before the place comes down on us."
A moment later, the elevator mechanisms began to grind, sounding like they hadn't been used since the prothean occupation. It heaved and shuddered enough for Shepard to wonder how far down the shaft went beneath them, but finally settled into a semi-steady climb.
"Baby Jesus, if you're listening," she whispered, "I really don't want to die flattened into a pancake fifty storeys down." Edging over closer to one of the large gears, Shepard eyed the long, notched vertical beams that the gear climbed and wondered if she'd be able to climb it.
"You afraid of heights, Shepard?" Nihlus asked, turning from the console.
She shook her head and squared her shoulders. He'd gotten to see more than his fair share of her weaknesses. When she gave him nothing, he turned back to the console, bringing their ride to a smooth stop just behind Dr. T'Soni's position.
Shepard strode off, setting her jaw. The console behind the scientist activated at her touch. Deactivating the kinetic barriers proved a simple matter. Deciphering the prothean control interface didn't give her as much of a challenge as she'd imagined. After all, all their current technology was based on prothean tech. The same went for all the races. Strange that they found so little in common despite that.
After a couple of false starts, Shepard found the right combination, and the stasis field vanished, dropping Dr. T'Soni to the floor.
The asari landed on her hands and knees. "Thank you," she said, her voice barely louder than a breath. Weakened by her long imprisonment, she tipped over onto one hip, her head hanging.
Shepard walked over and knelt, pulling out her water bottle. "Here, drink this, slowly. We need you able to move." Withdrawing a dried fruit bar, she gave it to the asari as well. "Quick energy. Eat while we move, yeah?"
"Thank you, again." The archeologist opened the bottle and took a couple of swallows. "It's been a long few days trapped in there."
The cavern demanded Shepard's attention again. It shook hard enough that Shepard had to brace herself. Beyond the ruined elevator, large chunks of ceiling dropped, exploding on the floor.
Shepard stood and bent down. "Come on, Doc, we need to get out of here before the whole place lands on our heads." She slipped a hand under the asari's arm to help her up, not wanting the female draped around her shoulders if fighting broke out. It wasn't enough. The doctor couldn't make her limbs behave enough to climb to her feet.
Shepard heaved a couple of times, ending up with the asari draped over one shoulder. She looked up at her squad. "I understand that this is probably highly entertaining, gentlemen, but let's spare the lady as much indignity as possible, shall we? Sparky, a little help?"
Between the two of them they got Dr. T'Soni upright on her feet and moving toward the elevator. The asari stank like an outhouse, sweat and who knew what else soaking her from the skin out, but Shepard swallowed her gag reflex and kept them moving. They could hose her down later.
"Sorry about that," Shepard said as they made their way to the elevator. "Men." She cut a teasing scowl across at Kaidan. "They really have no clue."
The asari shot furtive glances at Shepard, seeming afraid of her, not that the captain could blame her after their introduction. "I wouldn't have thought you'd be concerned about my feelings after you intimated that my only use aboard your vessel would be . . .." She cleared her throat delicately. ". . . adult entertainment."
"I'm an enigma." Shepard paused and looked back. "C-Sec, you keeping an eye on our six back there?" The itch in her brain grew into a twitch, and she pulled her pistol, every nerve on high alert. "I smell an ambush."
"Yes, ma'am." Garrus followed them, his assault rifle sitting easily in his hands as he swept the area, alert for threats. "Just so I can identify it next time, what does an ambush smell like?"
Shepard chuckled. "Sweaty feet, gun oil, swamp gas, and belly-button lint."
"Are you certain you're not just smelling me?" the doctor asked, one delicate brow marking raised.
"Ha!" Shepard laughed, caught off guard. She and Kaidan lifted the asari down onto the elevator. "Nice one, Doc. You're going to fit right in."
As soon as Garrus stepped down onto the elevator, Nihlus started it shuddering its way to the surface. Another tremor rocked the cavern, making the elevator shimmy and grind. At least until a chunk of tile and rock fell into one of the gears, and it let out a horrific death screech, shook hard enough to send them all crashing to the floor, and tilted hard to that side.
"Sweet baby Jesus, I don't want to die here." Shepard looked in front of the asari at Kaidan. "You got her, Sparky?" When Kaidan answered to the affirmative, Shepard slipped out from under the doctor's arm and ran over to the gear.
Hammering at it with the butt of her assault rifle, she chipped away in aggravatingly small bites. Each blow felt like a varren grinding the bones of her hands between its jaws. She disguised the yelps of pain under an imaginative bouquet of curses. Finally, after reaching the point she felt certain that amputation became both inevitable and desirable, enough of the rubble broke away that the gear chewed through the rest. The elevator began to climb again, although it didn't quite correct the lean.
"Glory hallelujah, praise the divine work of the Enkindlers." Shepard spun around to help the doctor, but before she took a step or two, bodies dropped onto the elevator from above. Well armed bodies.
"Thanks for getting the doctor out from behind that barrier for us," a huge krogan spoke up, stepping toward the asari. "We tried everything, but didn't think of using that laser. Guess that's what you get for working with machines and vat-grown muscle."
Shepard stepped between him and the doctor, eyes moving, trying to find some cover for the doctor and some room to fight for them. "Which of those are you, handsome?" she asked, playing for time.
The behemoth laughed. "You've got a quad, Shepard. You and Kryik teaming up has Saren as close to a blood rage as I've ever seen a turian. Hand the doctor over and this can end in a quick death."
Shepard nodded. "I accept. Drop your shields, and I'll take care of that quick death for you." Glancing over at Nihlus, she jerked her head toward the elevator controls. They needed to get to the next floor at the very least, or the elevator would prove a circular death trap.
"A smart mouth won't get you out of this, human." He stalked toward her, his shot gun looking like a pistol compared to his mammoth size. If he charged, she'd end up a pancake with krogan tracks down the middle. "I've been stomping on roaches like you for more than a thousand cycles."
Looking up, she saw that Kaidan had already moved T'Soni into partial cover behind the far mechanism. She edged toward the opposite side of the center pillar to draw fire away from them.
"This place is crumbling. If you're smart, you'll make a run for the surface before you end up at the bottom of this shaft covered in fifty thousand years worth of butt-ugly tile." She backed toward one of the side corridors as the elevator reached the next level and stopped. Some luck. The mining company had left a large crate that she could use for cover, and the cross-corridor remained open, providing room to retreat.
"It's exhilarating isn't it?" the battlemaster bellowed, laughing. "Let's ride this thing to the bottom and see which one of us survives."
"Thanks for the offer, but no," she called, hitting one of the five geth with overload. It went down with a chattering shriek and spray of white fluid as Nihlus sniped it. "I've got a date with your boss and the business end of my rifle. Really can't miss that." She launched her drone.
"I'll take him your regrets." The krogan ducked around the center pillar, a shimmering blue warp field already flying from his hand. Shepard threw herself to the side, knocking the wind out of herself as she slammed into the floor.
"Need armour with a better biotic defense rating," she groaned. Scrambling up, she ran for the closest gear mechanism, ducking behind it just in time to catch a shotgun blast to the backside of her shields.
A rocket trooper waited for her on the other side. "Shit." She took partial cover halfway between the two.
"Too many of them, nowhere to get any damned cover," she gasped. Garrus took the rocket trooper's shields down with overload. The krogan stepped into firing range on her left, so she ran straight toward the geth, spraying bullets hoping to take it down.
The sharp bark of a sniper rifle sent it crumpling to the floor, just in time for the whole place to shake hard enough that the floor simply bucked her off like an ornery Shetland Pony. She tumbled down the incline, using her momentum to roll onto her feet just before hitting the far wall.
"We have to get out of here, Shepard." Nihlus circled the central pillar, glancing her way as he tried to keep it between him and two krogan.
"C-Sec, Sparky . . . overload and lift on the krogan in the green armour." She primed the overload, but didn't get a chance to use it before the battlemaster's warp snuck up on her and tossed her to the floor like a ragdoll.
"Shepard!" Garrus yelled. "Alenko, same plan, but the battlemaster." Garrus called. "Keep him off Shepard."
As soon as the warp wore off, Shepard wobbled up onto her hands and knees, immediately ducking her head and somersaulting off to the right as the krogan charged. He clipped her hard enough to send her sliding into the center pillar, but that distance gave her a chance to get up and organized again. She launched her drone, then hit him with overload before running back out to the edge.
"Too many krogan. Way too many krogan." She circled, staying wary, searching out the last couple of rocket troopers. She saw Sparky and Garrus take one down, that meant one left plus the four krogan.
On a pass by the corridor with the crate, she spotted a thin trickle of steam or smoke escaping through a crack in a floor tile.
A cold, hard, ghoul's grin stretched her lips thin. "C-Sec, Nihlus, you got eyes on me?"
"Roger that, Shepard."
"See that steam?" She jogged past the vent, able to feel the tile under her feet shaking as if the cavern were seized in a nightmare, hovering on the verge of waking. The slightest provocation would awake the giant in a torrent of fire and molten rock.
They both replied to the affirmative.
"Sparky, take the good doctor to the opposite side of the shaft, get her into cover." She pressed her back against the crate. "I'll try to pull the krogan over into this hallway. They seem most intent on me. I'll take cover around the corner, and you two put a couple of rounds into that tile."
"And then pray?" Kaidan asked as he moved the archeologist out of danger.
Shepard closed her eyes sending a silent prayer to the powers that be then boosted her shields and stepped out into the open. "Glory hallelujah, Brother Sparky." Spraying fire over the four krogan, Shepard backed down the corridor. "Glory hallelujah."
She flipped to the side, narrowly missing a krogan charge, but as she rolled onto her feet, the rocket trooper landed a solid hit. The rocket exploded against her shields, tearing them down even as it threw her flying. She slammed into the krogan, flipped over him and hit the floor, blind, deaf, and stunned.
Someone grabbed her and dragged her to her feet. Bringing Roger up, she shoved his barrel into her assailant's belly, but then the blindness faded enough to see it was Garrus. She tried to take a step, but her bad knee gave. Luckily, Garrus still had his arm around her, so she stumbled rather than fell.
"Pull back!" She hit her medigel as she hobbled toward the corner. "Come on, C-Sec. Work the plan."
He nodded and fought backwards, drawing three of the four krogan and the rocket trooper into corridor. She let him support her, keeping up fire to draw them over the broken tile. At the end of the corridor, the turian pushed her into cover.
Shepard leaned against the wall for a second, the maelstrom of battle beating like drums inside her head. She peeked around the corner in time to see that their marks had made it to the steam pocket.
"At your leisure, gentlemen," she called over the radio and leaned out to open fire. She overloaded the battlemaster, Garrus following suit right behind, then all three of them fired into the floor. For a moment, Shepard thought she'd been wrong about what lay under the tile, but then Nihlus threw in a grenade.
"C-Sec, fire in the hole!" She threw herself back and covered her head just as the grenade blew, the entire corridor erupting into a huge plume of steam. Shepard jumped up as the cloud boiled toward her, hobbling double-time away from a painful death.
Something hit her and she flew through the air. As her ribs slammed into the cowl of Garrus's armour, she realized that the turian had grabbed her with one arm, flipping her over his shoulder like she weighed no more than a towel.
"Ow, fortheloveofall . . . not a sack of potatoes, here, C-Sec," she cried, fairly sure she'd broken a rib on his armour.
"Saving your ass, Shepard," he yelled between breaths. "Complain later."
She started to form a retort, but he had a point, so she bit down on it.
"Shepard!" The krogan battlemaster stumbled out of the smoke and steam, his armour melted to him, his skin a scalded nightmare under his plates. He cast around, trying to find them, one eye gone, the other milky and bleeding.
Snatching her pistol off her hip, Shepard selected incendiary ammo and fired at his head, aiming to put him out of his misery as much as anything.
The brute lumbered after them, picking up momentum, if not coordination. Charging, he closed the distance far too quickly for comfort despite his flesh sloughing off his face and neck. Blood rage. Shepard almost told Garrus to put her down, but she'd just slow them down further. She braced her elbow inside the turian's cowl, sighted and fired.
Still the krogan closed. "Die, goddammit," she screamed. Her shots appeared to have no effect, despite tearing into his head, blowing off a chunk of his headplate and taking out his other eye. "What the hell?" Finger convulsive on the trigger, she overheated the gun, and still he closed.
Shepard squawked and jumped up, throwing Garrus off stride as the battlemaster leaped across the metres letting out an unearthly, demon howl of rage. One ruined, skeletal hand clawed at her, the flesh under his nostrils splitting like a second mouth as he tried to spit out what she was sure amounted to cursing her with his dying breath. "Sh . . . e . . . p . . .." At last he stumbled, his knees giving out. He slid, laying out along his front almost gracefully as his momentum carried him another ten metres.
"Hold up, C-Sec," she said, tapping her elbow against the back of Garrus's neck. "He's down, let's head back, see if we can't get across."
Garrus set her down much more carefully than he'd picked her up, then slipped an arm around her waist. Pausing to put a couple of bullets into the battlemaster's head, just in case, they returned the way they'd come. She limped down the corridor, slipping a little on the steam-slick tiles, but Garrus kept her steady with his arm around her waist.
"Oh crap," Garrus said, his voice low and void of humour as they turned the corner.
"Damn." Shepard stepped away from his arm, staring across the chasm of steam and lava that blocked the path back to the elevator. She glanced back at Garrus. "Could you jump that?"
He shook his head. "Even if I could, there's no way you're getting across it."
Nodding and letting out a long, grumbling sigh, Shepard looked up into his eyes. "Have I just trapped us inside an erupting volcano?"