Dahtaric - The highest rank of the Prothean Scientific Authority
Regulikar: The Prothean central government.
Morumplacus - Restless spirit, undead, ghoul. From ancient turian folklore. The souls of those slain by dishonourable means were believed to wander after death to exact justice. They were believed to torment the living by taking the form of whatever the victim feared most.
Arate - Prothean rank comparable to captain
Binav - Prothean rank comparable to private
59 Days ASR Horizon
The tunnels leading to the underground prothean base teemed with life and noise, Horizon's survivors walking that thin line between grief for the lost and relief at their own survival. Kind words and busy work soothed the former amidst the excited, nervous chatter of the latter. To Shepard's ears, the noise, even the grief, amounted to life, and it eased the weight of days of silence and crackling flame … of the roar of fire suppression equipment and agonized moans … of screams and fists hammering against the lids of pods even as the fires cooked the poor bastards trapped inside.
Yes, life—even in all its shit, tear, and blood-stained horror—lightened the impossible burden of the past three days, and she felt its absence keenly as the walls closed around her, pressing tighter with every step that carried her down into the Senarium base. Unlike the other prothean ruins she'd walked through, even Ilos, the silence and emptiness of those corridors bled, a constant drip that she felt on the back of her neck and in the center of her chest. Because, unlike those other ruins, she remembered what those corridors sounded like filled with the bustle of life: the laughter of children, the intellectual arguments, the whispered affections. She remembered it as a living organism, some great and precious creature that now lay dead and buried, its corpse formed of nothing but dust and regret.
"Vindication?" Shepard called, walking up to the closest computer access point. She pressed her hand to the interface. "Confirm and recognize imprint of Commander Tashac Jacar." When the base's VI didn't answer, she nodded, not expecting any different. Indoctrination tainted Tashac's imprint and her own. "Nihlus?" She glanced back, a weary smile brushing her swollen, still-bleeding face when he nodded and stepped up. Heels dragging through the thick dust and debris on the featureless, grey floor, Shepard backed up to give him access to the panel.
The Spectre's hand ghosted over her chin as he stepped past, the soft, fleeting touch comforting. He peeled off his glove and pressed his talons to the interface. "Vindication, recognize imprint of Dahtaric Merol Natil, and provide access to base systems."
As Shepard waited for the VI to respond, each breath took more effort to draw in and did less to feed her body. Ten seconds ticked over into twenty and then thirty. She activated her omnitool, scanning the air once more to be sure that carbon dioxide or worse hadn't settled close to the floor. Oxygen levels read within normal range, even richer than Earth norm.
It's all in your head, Janey. You're just overtired and starting to hallucinate a little.
Overtired, she couldn't argue with. For three days, she'd searched the wreckage of the Collector ship, pausing to sleep for a few hours only when Nihlus or Garrus witnessed her falling over, or she fell asleep sitting or leaning somewhere while she paused to eat or drink. Even then, she'd only agreed to lie down if they did as well. Needless to say between the three of them, the levels of sheer stubbornness ensured they only slept for two or three hours at a time. The rest of the time, they ran off stims and caffeine.
Finally, she'd quite literally fallen asleep on her feet and fell forward, bashing her face on a piece of wreckage, thus the swollen, split lip. Oddly enough, no matter how hard she tried to convince Garrus and Nihlus that she was fine, the fountain of blood pouring down her chin had made them somewhat intransigent on the whole 'seeing the doc and getting some sleep' issue.
By the time she got to the point of standing there, waiting for the base's VI to respond to one of them, Shepard couldn't make the 'I'm all right' claim any longer. Her face felt as if someone sculpted it from putty, the entire thing numb and cold except her lip. Well, and her eyelids. They felt lined with sandpaper. Not to mention that, judging by the crunching sounds and pain emanating from her joints, some bastard had dumped handfuls of ground glass into them.
All in all, Horizon had quickly lost any tiny amount of appeal it once held.
A minute ticked over into two. "Sweet baby Jesus, if I stand here any longer, I'm going to grow roots and turn into the glowing tree of the Enkindlers' blessed firmament. Then, once every six years, the hanar will festoon my branches with flower garlands and gather around me to dance and throw small, shucked clams and half-eaten minnows at one another." She shuddered. "Well, at least, until someone accidentally starts the mating rituals, then things will get crazy … and nobody wants that."
She bit down on the inside corner of her bottom lip as both Nihlus and Garrus gaped at her, their brow plates canted at the same angle, their mandibles doing little, helpless flails of incredulity. She flinched as her wound complained, releasing her lip but waiting for them to comment. Before they could say anything, the VI responded.
"Indoctrination free imprints recognized for Dahtaric Merol Natil and Commander Tashac Jacar," Vindication said. A holographic representation of a prothean appeared before them. "Welcome back, Dahtaric … Commander. System scanning and updating. Please wait."
Impatience born of exhaustion stabbed needles into Shepard's spine, sending her back to the interface rather than waiting as requested. They needed to assess the damage to the base, see if anything could be salvaged, particularly information, and then get the hell off Horizon. The ground under her feet felt as though it burned through her boots, poisoned by the threat hanging over their heads, the thousands upon thousands of dead and wounded, even the base itself.
"According to scans," Vindication stated, "20,458,319 days have passed since my program was deactivated. Base structure remains 97% intact. Damage is restricted to the north and east entrance tunnels where the exterior of the base was compromised."
Shepard's hope began to dissolve when the VI didn't mention the souls they'd left to sleep within the base. "And the personnel? Did any make it to their sleeper pods?" Weariness pressed down, bowing her shoulders as it pulled her down into a thick layer of dry quicksand.
"Negative," Vindication replied. "Enemy forces penetrated the base prior to the security systems activating the lock down. Arate Giran Jacar called all personnel to the defense lines while the neutron purge was primed and detonated. As soon as the base defenses locked down, Arate Jacar ordered the purge. All lifesigns within the base ceased .672 setixs after detonation."
Shepard reached out a hand, buttressing herself against the wall as the coffin lid slammed down on the base, sucking the air from her lungs. Tashac remained silent in her cell despite the flood of grief that rushed out under the door. Reaching out, Shepard took Nihlus's hand, squeezing his talons when she felt them trembling. He'd never managed—nor even particularly wanted to—control his passenger very well. Nihlus nodded and tugged free of her grip to replace his glove.
"All right," Shepard said, declaring the brief mourning period at an end as she pushed off the wall. "Vindication, please release the seal on this door and on all interior doors. Leave all exterior entrances locked down except for the south." She pressed her hand to the interface. "Also, sync your systems to our mobile devices, and provide a map to the important hubs within the base. Continue your projection as your emitters allow throughout the base."
"Confirmed."
Shepard punched the door control the moment the lock indicated that the seal was disengaged. A map appeared on her omnitool, the computer core and labs all indicated. At the far end of the base the map showed a series of elevator shafts that dropped … . "This can't be right," she said, a soft mutter of bewilderment. She held the map out so Garrus and Nihlus could see it. "This says, they've got a series of cargo elevators that go down nearly five klicks into a network of huge labs or bays … or something. There's an entire other base down there, living quarters, the works … but it's marked as nothing being there."
"You don't engineer something that massive unless you need it," Nihlus agreed. The scowl that had settled onto his face a couple of days before deepened, his gaze darkening enough that she guessed Merol's involvement. A soft growl rumbled through his subvocals. "They were hiding something down there."
Shepard nodded and held his stare despite his trying to duck hers, as if he didn't want to admit to being locked out of Merol's memories. She reached out to press her hand against his chest. "This place … " She looked around the hangar stretching out before them, the cement barren but for the dust, disturbed here and there by insect tracks. "... it's a blank in my head. Tashac usually has something to offer me, but other than evacuating and leaving Giran … everything else is locked down."
He pressed his hand over hers. "Merol as well." Taking a deep breath, he let out another growling sigh. "Whatever is down there, they don't want anyone knowing about it."
"Yeah," she agreed. "Maybe not even the two of us." That thought sent a jolt of dread through her unlike anything she'd felt since facing down Nazara on Virmire and realizing that the damned thing had been stalling in order to trap them. Remembering how well that fuck up had turned out for them … well, she needed to proceed with previously unmatched caution.
"If we go through everything on this map, we're going to be here a couple more days," Garrus said, pressing up behind her left shoulder. "Want me to call the science team in? Now that the colonists are secure, Mordin and Miranda could take the computer core." A heavy hand rested on the back of her neck, gentle talons massaging the base of her skull, easing the tension sending splinters of pain jetting up into her head. "If you can get Javik clearance, he and Martin could go through with them."
Shepard leaned back into him a little, glad for his broader view. She nodded and reached up to swipe at her bottom lip, the damned thing still allowing spit to escape from nearly everywhere. Pressing her fingertips to her aural implant, she opened the team channel.
"Operative Lawson, status report."
"We've got the colonists settled into the tunnels. Medical facilities are up and running. We located a doctor and three nurses among the colonists, and Lt. Cortez is retrieving four doctors and a dozen nursing personnel from other settlements. The camp here should be able to take care of their own as soon as the medical team arrives."
Shepard nodded, giving the operative credit for organizational skills second to none. "Excellent news. If the science team can leave, we need your help go through the Senarium base. There's too much here for us to do alone. I'm going to make sure Javik has clearance to get you access, and I'll send you the map to the computer core and the main labs. Martin and Sparky both have tech savvy, so they'll be able to help as well as provide security."
"Understood, Captain. I'll have the team to your current position within ten minutes."
"Excellent, Javik and Martin will be waiting. Shepard, out." The captain glanced over at Javik even as she spoke to Vindication. "Vin, recognize Commander Javik's imprint and allow him access to all base systems." She nodded to the prothean commander. "You know the drill, just touch the interface."
Giving her a stiff nod, Javik approached the terminal and pressed his hand to it.
"Commander Javik recognized as possessing Regulikar Black Level security clearance. Access to Senarium systems granted."
Shepard met the prothean's haughty stare, nonplussed by his clearance. He'd been left behind to rebuild the empire, after all. He'd need to be able to access systems galaxy wide. "Get the team through the computers as quickly as possible," she told him. "If they were working on anything here that might help us in fighting the Collectors or Reapers, we need to know about it."
She turned to Garrus and Nihlus. "Let's go check out this blacked-out section of nothing down here at the bottom of the base." A bitter laugh escaped as she shook her head. "Nothing says hiding something like a big 'nothing to see here' sticker plastered over a spot on the map."
Garrus reached around her to tap the sync control on her tool, sending the map to his visor. "Nothing says walking into something that's going to try to kill us—"
"Or scare the tarc out of us," Nihlus interjected, activating his omnitool to grab the map as well.
"... or scare the tarc out of us like blacked-out sections of secret bases," Garrus finished, flicking his mandibles at his fratrin. He turned a slow circle, then nodded toward a glowing control on the far wall. "That looks like our exit."
Shepard nodded for them to go ahead and turned to Javik and Martin. "Stay in touch, and Javik, keep an eye on Miranda. I don't trust her not to hide some of her finds."
The prothean merely nodded, but Shepard knew that he maintained his professional front with Cerberus only out of respect for her via her link to Tashac. He wouldn't let Miranda do anything that would hurt the war effort.
"Any orders for me, Shepard?" Martin asked, a cocky but exhausted grin tugging at one corner of his mouth.
Turning to follow her torins across the hangar, Shepard called back, "This planet breeds really huge insects. Make sure no one gets carried off." A wide grin answered his groan.
"You going to be okay?" Nihlus asked as she stopped at the threshold to the base.
Shepard nodded, twisting a little to step between them. "Dying seems to have abolished a lot of my fears." She shuddered at the thought of diving that deep beneath the surface with only one way back up, but then shoved her shoulders together. "None of the elevators are longer than 500 metres, and there are living areas and labs on the way to provide some breathing room. I'll be fine."
They crossed the base, Merol and Tashac imparting a self of familiarity that helped them navigate the labyrinth, although the sense of loss that greeted all the empty labs and dark sleeper pods made Shepard wish that they'd be forced to use the map.
She paused for a half breath outside the first of the elevators. The door control remained stubbornly locked down. Glancing over at the VI, Shepard shrugged and said, "What's the deal here, Vin?"
"Locks in this section require individual ID and indoctrination verification imprint," it supplied.
"Right, so super top secret." Shepard blew a noisy breath out her nose. "Not that it's unexpected, but certainly not comforting." Without thinking about it, she pressed her hand to the interface.
"Imprint accepted," Vin replied and the doors opened.
Shepard waited for the other two to enter so that she'd be standing at the exit, old habits dying hard. Still, as the doors shut in front of her, her heartbeat remained steady. Nice. She might even get used to her new lack of phobias. Stepping back, she pushed into Garrus's space a little. Although she didn't think she'd ever tell the big guy it was okay to turn the lights all the way off. She loved that little act of caretaker-ey-ness.
"Shepard," Garrus said. In her peripherals, Nihlus turned in tandem to face the general, something in Garrus's tone hooking them both. The general's mandibles raised and spread as he lifted a hand to cup Shepard's ear. "Did you hear what the VI said when he recognized Tashac and Merol's imprints? Do you realize, this elevator just opened at Tashac's imprint?"
Again, out of the corner of her eye, Shepard saw Nihlus match her, this time frown for frown. What had Vin said? Something about recognizing the unindoctrinated imprints of Tashac and Merol. Oh! She turned to look at one, then the other. "Unindoctrinated imprints," she whispered. Hope flipped inside her chest like a fish hauled up onto the rocks. "And me too."
Shepard nodded then, her frown fixed in place, but thoughtful. "I assumed Vin meant that it sensed them both in Nihlus." Intense, confused, and hopeful, she looked from Garrus to meet Nihlus's stare, then back. "He's always been our source of indoctrination-free imprints."
"Merol's, yes, but not Tashac's," Garrus countered. "On Ilos, Vigil activated the elevator and comms based on Merol's clean imprint." Talons clamping down on Shepard's shoulders, Garrus looked to Nihlus for confirmation.
A surge of relief burst through Shepard's dread as she registered the notion that whatever had been done to herself and Tashac could be reversed or hidden completely, but then the implications began to register, turning felicity to ash. "Well, it's got the be the suzerain since they're hanging over our heads." She bit down on the inside corner of her bottom lip, the old habit eliciting a soft curse. "So, they can do something to either completely reverse or mask Reaper indoctrination," she said, "but they haven't bothered until now." Numb fingers reached up to scratch at the scar on the back of her head. "And they've withdrawn from my mind completely for the first time since the Citadel. So, why now?"
Shepard closed her eyes and let her head loll back against her armour, but then the elevator doors opened, depositing them on the first sublevel. That floor consisted merely of a security station to pass through on the way to the next elevator. Spinning on her heel, Shepard turned to lead them through. "Whatever is down here," she said as the light dawned, her words clipped. "Whatever it is, they want to get me close to it, and they know that I couldn't get access with even the slightest trace of indoctrination."
A sudden flush of rage snapped her straight and stiff. "Who gives a shit?" she hollered, throwing her arms up, lashing out at the universe. "Seriously? I am so done with playing this game as a pawn." She palmed the interface. "With our luck, we'll find five thousand protheans down here, and they'll try to mow over us and run the war too."
As the second elevator swept them down another half-kilometre into Horizon's crust, a storm formed of converging fronts of sardonic amusement, anger, dread, and defeat began to boil in Shepard's gut. Every day the face of the war shifted, less about digging in and whittling down an impossibly strong enemy through applied ingenuity, tactics, and guts, becoming more and more about being shuffled around, the most current pieces on the board in an ancient game.
The first she could win ... maybe. The second? They needed to take out the Collectors, which she felt certain they'd be allowed to do, but then came the Reapers. The fact that the suzerain and their impossible dreadnoughts didn't want their servants killed, just hobbled … that posed a very real problem. Trying to take out the dreadnoughts built around the ancient monsters? She let out a grumble that felt a lot like a retch. How in the name of the Enkindlers' glowing grabass was she supposed to pull that off?
Suddenly, being the glowing tree at the center of a hanar orgy sounded like the best of her options, because no matter which side managed to succeed in indoctrinating and using the galaxy's population, the pawns ended up screwed.
The elevator opened onto the second sublevel: housing primarily. She swept down the hundred-metre-long corridor, quickly palming the interface to open the elevator. Unlike the others, the door didn't immediately slide open, so it had to be called. She frowned, wondering if that meant anything, but then Nihlus broke through the angry flurry of her thoughts.
"The Collectors came for the people," Nihlus said, jogging up to Shepard. Garrus followed just behind the Spectre, his mandibles pulled in tight, his stare locked on Shepard and concerned. Nihlus stopped next to her and shook his head. "So, the Collectors came to harvest the colonists, but the suzerain didn't come here for the people."
"No. They didn't come for the Collectors either," Shepard agreed. "Taking them out was just about getting them out of our way. If it really was about stopping the bastards, they would have interfered with the other colony abductions. They've got the means, just not the will." She turned when the door opened and stepped aside to allow them to enter. Following them in, she pressed her back to the wall and looked up into Nihlus's eyes, her gaze fixed inward. "This place is the reason they came. This place and the fact that we're here."
"They paved the way to get you both in here," Garrus said, his subvocals uneasy enough that the hair along the back of her neck prickled. "But they can't control either of you, not having withdrawn their presence completely from your minds." His mandibles flicked in a tight smile. "Not that they could even before, you're both so stubborn. So why?"
Shepard let out a long breath and met the general's eyes, the thickness of her tone answering his worry. "I can't even begin to guess, but keep your eyes open, Callor. If either of us starts acting strangely …." She left the rest of that thought unsaid, but he nodded.
The elevator chimed, the door opening behind her, but before she could even get turned around, the power died, plunging them into absolute darkness.
"Fuck!" She yelped the curse as her heart jumped into her throat. Similar oaths from either side told her that her torins' pulse rates had hit FTL right along with hers. Shepard turned on the flashlight attached to her Mattock. "Vin? You still there?" she called. "Why did we lose power?" Garrus and Nihlus's flashlights filled the carriage with light, allowing her to release the breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
"Investigating," the VI answered. "Please stand by."
"Please stand by," Shepard grumbled. "Not like we have much choice." Wincing a little, she turned to look out the open door. A wide corridor opened before them, the deck plating reflecting blue into the broad expanse of black. Opening the map on her omnitool, Shepard ventured out, something telling her that Horizon's prize awaited them on sublevel three.
Moving silently, Shepard took a handful of steps straight ahead, but then stopped. "I hear breathing," she whispered. "There are …" She closed her eyes and reached up to turn up her aural implants, listening to the movement of the air out in the darkness. "... three or four other people within twenty metres." She returned her implants to default and gripped her Mattock in both hands, the flashlight sweeping the hallway ahead. The level felt like a haunted house, ghosts hanging thick and suffocating in the air, their corpse fingers tracing tracks through the dust.
Dust … . She took another step, the sole of her boot ringing clear and unmuffled against the tile. She aimed her light at the floor. Nothing. Not a trace of dust. The floor looked so clean she'd swear the janitorial staff had just gone through. Sounds of life. Signs of upkeep. But if the damned place was inhabited, why was the power out? She backed up a step, retreating toward the elevator. At least until she remembered that it had lost power upon opening on that level.
Trapped. They'd been lured down into the dark, buried under a kilometer of planet in a giant trap, and locked in. Sweet baby Jesus. She lifted her wrist, hating the way her breath wheezed through her words as she spoke, addressing the chia. "Are the suzerain behind us being stuck down here?"
"We sense no trace of their energy. Nothing in our memory indicates that they would be able to control anyone this far beneath the surface."
"That's why they needed to get me down here." Shepard's lungs began to clamber for oxygen again. Not enough air. She reached up to tug at the collar of her armour. "Where the hell are we? What the fuck is this place?" she asked, feeling the icy, skeletal fingers crawling between her lips. Their points scraped over the torn flesh and caressed the blood that still trickled into her mouth on their way into her throat where they wrapped a strangling grip around the base of her tongue. Panic set her heart racing, her calm finally shattering. Her breathing drowned out the subtle sounds of life around them.
An arm wrapped around her neck, stripping a thin shriek of terror from her lips before Garrus's scent broke through her fear, her husband pulling her in tight against him. From the other side, Nihlus slipped an arm around her waist.
"Just breathe, Kahri," Garrus whispered. He bent down to pull her in tighter. "Press your face in against my neck, and just breathe. You're okay."
She did as he said, his heat warming the chill that clung to her, his perfect scent of cloves and myrrh, gun oil and armour underlayer reaching straight down to ease panic's fist from her throat. She wrapped one arm around him, pressing as close as she could manage considering their armour. "I'm okay," she whispered, as much for her own benefit as theirs. "I'm okay. Just had a moment."
"Vin," Nihlus called, his talons stroking her hair. "Report in. Can you restore power to this level?"
"Unable to restore power. Controls have been physically locked down from the lab control booth." The green hologram appeared next to them, casting an extra little bit of light into the space.
The light wasn't much, but between it, and the close press of her two torins, Shepard's panic eased enough that she pulled back, standing under her own strength.
Warrior inside and out, Janey. Breathe through it.
"Vin, mark the location of that control booth," she commanded. When the marker appeared on her map, she set out, moving quickly.
In, two, three, four, five. Out, two, three, four, five.
The corridor proved too tall and too wide to orient herself reliably just using sight. Uniform darkness spread in every direction. Checking back and forth between the map of the level and the few landmarks she saw around them—mostly metal girders that at least allowed her to keep track of the distance—she made her way to the side tunnel marked as the next leg of their route.
"Sweet baby Jesus," she grumbled, "I'm turned around as hell." Moving toward a railing on her right, she shone her light out into a huge, open void. Tens of metres away, the light glinted off something, a pinprick of reflection too close to be the far wall. According to the map, the space was nearly two hundred and fifty metres across.
"This is insane. Who builds this large underground … and how? The whole fucking colony should collapse into this pit." She turned her flashlight to the wall, searching for a computer interface. Gritting her teeth, she pushed on, using the railing as her guide. According to the map it would end, another starting five metres further along, then their next turn awaited at the end of that one.
The third corridor pressed close on either side. On the right, another railing and the impossible expanse of the prothean-made cavern. Less than a metre to her left, a series of tall, blade-sharp projections stood out from the wall as if someone had formed a long line of ship prows. The ten-metre-deep alcoves between the blades clung to the dark, jealously guarding their deepest recesses. Shepard's flashlight turned into each one, despite her brain's insistence that she didn't need to look.
The base was empty. It had been empty for a very, very long time. Nothing hid down those narrow slips of space. They'd probably been built to form sound baffling for whatever construction took place on the other side of the—
Metal clanged, a sharp ring that made her jump, then chuckle as she let out a long, shaky breath. She was being an idiot … 'that' person on the paranormal investigation crew who screamed every time a coffeemaker light turned on or the heat ducts banged. Still, she pressed her hip to the railing, her flashlight checking each alcove as she passed.
In, two, three, four, five. Out, two, three, four, five.
Something darted across the foggy nimbus where the beam of Shepard's flashlight surrendered to the impossible darkness. She snapped the light around even as Nihlus did the same, apparently catching the same movement.
"Did you see it?" she demanded, hurrying forward, intrigue replacing her earlier panic. Dammit, something—someone—was down there. She'd been dragged more than a kilometre below the surface of the damned planet for a reason, and people meant finding out what that reason was. She swept the narrow space with her beam, finally settling on the Spectre who'd moved up to her nine o'clock.
Nihlus shrugged and scanned ahead before looking down at her. "I didn't see anything. You acted like you had, so I reacted." He squeezed her shoulder. "We're just about there. Once we've got some light, this place will seem a lot less like a morumplacus lair." He shuddered, a slight tremor down the back of his neck. He looked back to Garrus, who watched silently, his expression uncomfortable, almost as if he felt as though he didn't belong.
"I saw movement," Shepard said to Nihlus even though her eyes remained fixed on Garrus. "And I know I can still hear breathing." The captain grumbled and turned, easing her way forward. The breathing she'd heard earlier, and heard again … it wasn't imagination. "It's not ghosts or ghouls down here, it's someone very much alive and sporting a roman nose with more than one break." Glancing back at Garrus, she gave him a wan smile and added, "And I'm not just hearing myself echoing back. Well, I am, but this is separate."
Moving down the long corridor once more, she stepped ahead of Nihlus. Living, breathing people she could deal with, either using words or bullets. She swept the darkness, counting the strides to the corridor that led to the control booth. Despite the fact that her fear truly had settled, her flashlight still dove into every alcove. She chuckled at herself and shook her head. Superstitious fear really was an insidious passenger.
Her flashlight glinted off the railing where it turned the corner, and she sped up, relief pulling extra oxygen into her lungs as her heart sped up, but from excitement rather than terror. Just before she reached the corner, she caught another flutter of movement. Spinning to search for it, she flashed her light into the last alcove, the brightness reflecting back off a large face, its mouth hanging open, its eyes wide and staring.
"Jesus! Fuck!" she cried out. Jumping back, she slammed her hip into the railing, sliding backwards down its length for a couple of metres as her heart crawled up her esophagus to escape out her mouth and run screaming back the other way. Garrus and Nihlus raced up next to her, their guns trained on the unmoving man. Focusing her Mattock on the intruder, Shepard sucked in long, shaky breaths that trembled with laughter.
"Holy crap, my friend, you scared the shit out of me," she said, shuffling a little closer. He didn't respond other than to look at her. Frowning, she stepped right up. "Are you all right there?" She lifted one hand from her weapon to wave it in front of his face. "Hello?" No response.
"He's human," Garrus whispered, stepping up close enough to press along the back of Shepard's arm.
And he was. A slightly overgrown crewcut and a strong, square jaw framed a broad face. Dark skin and deep, almost black eyes were accented by the broken nose she'd predicted. His mouth hung slack for another second, but then he swallowed, pressed his lips together, and looked away, sidling further into the alcove like an animal startled out of cover. Damn, what had happened to him? Curiosity warmed into compassion and she smiled, letting her rifle drift toward the ground, lowering the light glaring in his eyes.
"Don't worry, we won't hurt you. What are you doing down here?" Shepard asked, letting him retreat and find some comfort in the shadows. "How did you find your way down here? Was it the suzerain?"
"They started showing up about five cycles ago," a voice spoke out of the darkness. Its accent told Shepard that the speaker was both female and prothean. "We think they make their way in from the surface where the charges meant to seal the tunnels cracked them." Movement closed on them from the last corridor. "Binav Kavrah," the voice ordered, "the lights."
Banks of light flared to life down the corridor, then clusters further out until Shepard was forced to cover her eyes for a moment, letting her pupils adjust. A plain, utilitarian space awaited her when she dropped her hand, everything so much less sinister and gothic when illuminated that her pulse rate and blood pressure both dropped instantly to normal levels.
A small squad of protheans halted at the corner, their hands relaxed on beam weapons like Javik's, their armour the same style, but shades of blue, green, and black: almost like beetle carapaces. The one at the front lifted a hand, halting the rest as she strode forward. Shepard raised an eyebrow, surprised that Tashac's memories allowed her to identify a female prothean in full armour.
The female stopped a handful of metres away. "Vindication recognized the imprints of Tashac Jacar and Merol Natil," she said after staring at Shepard for a few seconds. Her shoulders squared. "You are neither."
Shepard nodded. "I interacted with a prothean beacon and had their imprints and memories downloaded into my head."
"You hold their imprints?" The soldier hesitated, but then stepped forward, closing to within a metre. She released her rifle with one hand and reached up to remove her helmet. For another second, she looked down, almost appearing nervous, but then she straightened and met Shepard's gaze.
"Giran!" Nihlus exclaimed, hurrying up beside Shepard. He slid to a halt when Giran Jacar drew back. "Vindication said you died."
Shepard sucked in a slow, tremulous breath, trying to maintain her equilibrium in the face of the barrage of emotions that wailed from behind Tashac's locked door. Longing, joy, surprise, shame, terror … they tore through her, grabbing at the string's of Shepard's own emotions. She reached out, using Nihlus and Merol's reaction to help her wrestle hers back under control.
"Introductions seem to be a good idea at this point." She said, releasing Nihlus to gesture toward him. "Spectre Nihlus Kryik. As you have probably guessed, he and I shared the download from the beacon, so he also has your parent's imprints. He received more of Merol's memories whereas I received more of Tashac's." She stepped aside to let Garrus join them. "General Garrus Vakarian. He doesn't have any beacon imprints."
Giran closed her eyes and tilted her head. "No, but I still sense something there. A million million voices, all silenced."
Shepard nodded. "On the planet Feros, we were given something called the cipher from an ancient creature that called itself the thorian. It helped us decode the information from the beacons."
"And you?" Giran asked, cocking her head a little. "Who are you who smells and feels so much like Tashac Jacar, but looks at me with recognition from a stranger's eyes?"
"Captain Jane Shepard." She nodded and then looked toward the human. He'd completely withdrawn into the alcove, pressing himself as far into the sharp angle at the end as he could manage. She held out a hand and smiled. "You don't have to be afraid. We won't hurt you."
Giran let out a musical sort of sigh. "Henry does not retain enough of himself to understand." She touched her wrist, speaking into the small interface there. "Marcalin, could you come take Henry to the lounge, please. He's distressed." Turning her attention back to Shepard, Giran waved them further down the corridor, away from where the human cowered. "Do not be concerned. Henry trusts Marcalin. He'll calm down as soon as he's in familiar territory."
Shepard bristled, fury settling into a slow simmer in her gut. "What happened to him that he's like this?" she asked, struggling to keep the blades and barbs leashed. "How did he get down here?"
"As I said, they just appear," the prothean answered. "We cause them no harm, if that is what you fear. When they appear, we read them, to find out what their names are, who sent them, and how they reached this level of the base, but all they ever show us is dark and cold. A deep grey space."
"The suzerain," Nihlus grumbled. When Giran tilted her head, questioning and curious, he continued. "We're just starting to discover more about a very ancient race of beings that we know either by their title of suzerain, or by Leviathan."
"They control other being's minds," Shepard added. "And they want very much to know about what is hidden down here." Scrubbing a hand over her face, she just stared at the massive space, giving herself a moment to catch up with everything. Every scholar on every planet working together couldn't manage to create a scale to cover the amount of strange shit that intruded upon her life.
A turian hurried down the corridor from behind Giran and her people. She smiled and nodded to Shepard and Garrus, but paused when she spotted Nihlus. "Spectre Kryik?" she asked, extending a hand.
Nihlus clasped her wrist. "Hello. Marcalin, right?" He smiled then released her. "I'm sorry, have we met?"
The tarin chuckled and shook her head. "No. I've just seen you on the news." She shrugged, and lifted her hands to indicate the base. "Well, I had before I woke up down here six months ago. We don't get much news down here." She backed toward Henry. "It was a pleasure to meet you." Excusing herself with an awkward gesture toward the human, she turned away.
"Hey, Henry," Marcalin said, her voice gentle. "We're going to have some of that green pudding you like and watch a movie. Do you want to join us?" She held out her hands, the man hurrying forward to grip them. Pulling him in under her arm, Marcalin eased him out of the alcove and down the corridor.
Shepard swallowed the lump in her throat prompted by the tarin's gentleness with Henry. Apparently, whoever lived down here, they all cared about each other. "What in the name of the … ?" Shepard stopped herself short of glowing backsides, considering the company. Who knew how much of the galaxy they'd learned about down there. "She seems fine. Why is she still down here?"
Giran reached up, scrubbing her knuckles along the underside of her kepalar ridge. After a second, she waved them forward. "Come, we'll show you what it is that these suzerain want to see."
(A-N: New chapter. Yay! Hope you enjoy. *hugs and chocolate kittens*)