Chapter Twenty – The Freighter
Suiting up for a mission when all the ship's supplies were still boxed up in the cargo bay – a cargo bay that was currently being mobbed by the rest of the crew as they all tried to find whatever it was they needed – was proving to be far from fun.
From the moment Kyla entered she was met by a babble of voices and chaos as people climbed over each other – sometimes literally – to dig through the numerous crates that had been pulled out and opened, so that their contents could be strewn across the floor. It wasn't helping that none of the crates had been labelled and there seemed to be no logic in the way they had been packed.
She had taken one look the noise and the confusion and had nearly turned on her heel and headed right back out again, back to her tiny room and her surprisingly comfortable bed. But she didn't, instead she gritted her teeth and stepped into the fray.
"Hey," she caught one of the crew by the waist as she hurried by, "armour? Weapons?" she asked hopefully.
"Er…" the asari paused for a second then gestured vaguely to the far corner of the hold, "try over there."
"Thanks," Kyla grunted and began to pick her way across the deck. Over the sea of blue, a shock of red gave Shepard away - apparently having been held up here too. Beside her, Barbet's tall frame towered over the crowd and Kyla made for them, figuring that if anyone was going to be next to the guns it would be them.
Sure enough, she reached them just as Shepard was fishing a gold-plated shotgun out from one of the boxes. It was an impressive piece of kit, as powerful as it was shiny and Kyla whistled as she approached.
"Do we all get guns as fancy as that?"
Shepard tossed her a crooked grin, turquoise eyes shining in startling contrast to her scarlet hair, "Sorry, this was a present from Grunt."
"Just the standard ones for us, kid," Barbet added as he threw her a more basic model. She caught it neatly in both hands and weighed it up with a shrug. It wasn't as flashy as Shepard's but she was willing to bet it was just as good at blowing a man's brains out at close range.
"Armour's in that one," Barbet added, jerking his thumb to another crate behind him. The batarian was already kitted out in his armour but she noted that Shepard wasn't. Instead the human was clad mostly in leather with leather boots, trousers and a jacket that was zipped up to her neck. It wasn't unusual for biotics not to bother with armour, many of them preferred the freedom of movement lighter clothes gave them and instead relied on their barriers for protection.
Kyla's biotics were so weak that it wasn't a luxury she could afford.
She also noticed Shepard's hair, which was being kept out of her eyes in a neat but complicated mass of braids and knots that Kyla considered to be needlessly intricate. She'd always been fascinated by the patterns and designs that humans and quarians could manipulate their hair into. Impractical as it may have seemed, it was certainly pretty – not something many soldiers could boast when kitted out for battle.
Kyla had a feeling that Shepard's long and complicated life had made her a bit unconventional. Or just crazy. Either way, she could still wield a shotgun just fine and launch biotic attacks that made matriarchs quiver and that was all Kyla cared about.
Once they were suited up and ready, Shepard led them out of the cargo hold, which was harder than it sounded considering how crowded it was.
"C'mon," she muttered as she eyed the disorder, "hopefully all this'll be sorted by the time we get back."
Kyla snorted, "How long are we going to be away?" when they broke out into the quiet of the corridor she followed the question up with: "Where are we going anyway?"
"Abandoned freighter," Shepard replied casually, "recently attacked, no life signs."
"What are we hoping to find?" Barbet asked.
Shepard shrugged, "Where it came from, where it was going, what it was carrying, what happened to it. If we're going to learn this system's secrets we need to start questioning everything we find."
"What if its owners come back for it while we're still on board?" Kyla asked.
Another shrug, "Maybe we'll make some new friends."
"Hmph, you're very naïve for being two hundred years old."
"No. Just optimistic."
"That's what I said."
Shepard turned to give her a look before shaking her head and continuing down the corridor with an unnecessary skip in her step. She was far too chirpy for Kyla's liking; then again, in the short time she'd known Shepard she had noticed that she seemed to switch between childlike optimism and cynical pessimism with startling unpredictability even by human standards. Perhaps it was another symptom of her lengthened lifespan, it was hard to tell.
Liara was lingering by the airlock when they arrived, as always she had a datapad in her hand and was tapping away at it with the diligence of a scholar. Kyla had to look away to keep from rolling her eyes. She'd always hated academic types, particularly ones who were too stuck up to bother with other people; she could probably count on one hand how many times Liara had actually engaged with any other members of the crew since joining the project.
Even now, as she looked up, it was Shepard her eyes fell on and she seemed to ignore Kyla and Barbet completely.
"These are all the scans Ereba's managed to get of the freighter," she said, holding out the datapad. Shepard didn't take it but instead gave it a cursory glance and sharp nod that left Kyla pretty certain she hadn't even read the first line.
"Good. Any luck with those satellites yet?"
"No," Liara replied, "but Ereba and I are working on it."
"Satellites?" Kyla queried. Liara blinked, looking at her like she was surprised she could speak, but it was Shepard who answered.
"There's a network of satellites in orbit around Thessia that's blocking all of our scans. The planet's practically invisible to our sensors."
"Why the fuck would anybody want to do that?"
Shepard shrugged helplessly and turned back to Liara.
"Keep working on it. Oh! By the way, Barbet here was worried that the bed in our cabin might be too small for us," she threw the batarian a sly smile and then leaned in to whisper something only Liara could hear. Whatever it was, Liara just failed to hide a smile and then cleared her throat. Kyla had to give them credit, it was impressive that Shepard could still make her blush after two centuries.
"Stay in contact," Liara said, "and good luck."
…
The inner airlock of the freighter shunted open with an unhealthy clunk and a rush of cool air greeted them as they stepped into a shadowy cargo bay. It was three times the size of the Janiri's cargo hold and in an even bigger mess.
Kyla could tell it had been piled high with crates, most of which were now gone, making the room feel vast and eerily empty. Some had been left though, overturned or smashed open and strewn across the floor. In amongst them, bodies of all races lay battered and broken, necks twisted, limbs shattered – or missing – faces contorted in pain or rage, a fixed imprint of their last seconds alive. In the dim light, blood stains of various colours could be seen smeared up the walls and across the wreckage.
Shepard visibly shuddered and for a moment Kyla actually thought the old human had lost her nerve, until she commented: "It's cold in here. Power must be low."
"Main power's out," Barbet confirmed from a nearby console, "backup generator's online, emergency power only."
"Hmm," Shepard unholstered her shotgun from her back and rested it casually on her shoulder. There was obviously nothing alive in the room so Kyla assumed she just wanted the comforting feel of a gun in her hands. It was a feeling she understood all too well as she drew her own weapon and let her finger rest gently on the trigger.
"So what do we think?" Shepard asked, "The cargo's gone, was it just a random raid?"
"Maybe," Barbet shrugged, "none of these crates are labelled, can't tell what they were carrying."
"Can we access the computer? Bring up a manifest?"
"Not with main power down, we might be able to do more from the command centre."
Kyla was only half listening; she had wandered over to the wall where the body of a turian man was chained, arms and legs spread wide like a star. He'd been stripped naked and mutilated and – judging by the number of bullet holes in him – used for target practice long after his death.
As she scanned the room she saw other bodies in similar states; some hung from the ceiling by chains, or were impaled on pipes that had been ripped from the walls. Numerous decapitated heads lay amongst the bodies, like they had been tossed about for sport.
This had been more than just a raid and Kyla grimaced as she realised the scene was a grimly familiar one for her.
"What's on your mind?" Shepard had appeared at her side, casting the turian a calm glance before settling her gaze back on Kyla.
Kyla nodded about the room, "Whoever did this had some fun before they left."
"Yeah," Shepard agreed, "these sort of sick games tend to be the work of bandits rather than professional thieves."
Kyla shook her head softly, "Nah. I saw this sort of thing a lot when I was younger, mostly in the Terminus. They wanted this crew humiliated. It screams gang war to me."
Shepard eyed her thoughtfully, her bright eyes were piercing even in the din. Then, without comment, she turned away.
"C'mon, let's get to the command centre."
They found more bodies as they moved through the ship but not many and these ones had been left where they fell. The bulk of the fighting had clearly been in the cargo hold. At one point they encountered a whole section of corridor that had been blown open, leaving a huge hole in the hull with only an unnervingly invisible force field to keep the vacuum of space at bay. Shepard whistled softly as they edged around it.
"This attack wasn't subtle, was it?" she muttered, as though that much wasn't blindingly obvious already.
"What do gangs usually trade in?" she asked when they were near the command centre. Kyla was sure she wasn't asking because she didn't know the answer, but she played along anyway.
"Guns, drugs, slaves. Whatever's expensive, illegal and worth killing for."
"Yeah, I wonder what's worth killing for in this part of space."
The knowledge that there were no life signs aboard the freighter did surprisingly little to calm Kyla's nerves as they entered the shadowy command centre. Considering the size of the ship, this room was claustrophobically small; it was circular with a round console in the middle and others lining the wall. There was only room for around eight people and the chairs from the middle console couldn't be pushed back without hitting the chairs from the outside consoles. Most of those chairs looked to have been hurriedly vacated by the crew and were in disarray, adding to the cramped quarters. There were no windows here and the dull red of the backup lighting forced them to squint to make out anything in detail.
Shepard's opinion of the room was evident in the way she huffed irritably as she stepped inside, ducking under some loose wiring that hung down from the ceiling. She kicked a chair out of her way and scowled as she brushed some food packets off one of the consoles.
"Looks like they still have fast food in this part of the galaxy," she muttered before hitting a few of the controls. She seemed to have discarded her previous cheeriness quickly enough and reverted back to her irritable side. Kyla was quite glad, she found irritable people much easier to relate to.
Shepard was frowning down at the interface, trying to decipher whatever was on the screen, which was cracked, scratched and covered in smudgy fingerprints. Looking around, Kyla saw that most of the consoles were in similar condition.
"Do you reckon this ship's been around since the war?" she asked critically.
"Some of it," Shepard agreed, looks like it's several ships that have been welded together. This command centre looks salarian, but the cargo bay was like the old human ships. The computer seems to be running on old asari software."
Kyla was tempted to point out that two hundred years was not 'old' by asari standards but decided on balance that it was probably better to keep her mouth shut.
"The crew weren't big on organisation," she muttered with a frown, "I'm trying to find a cargo manifest but- ah, here we go," she leaned forward to squint at the screen, "seven-hundred-and-fifty crates loaded on board containing…" she trained off slightly before continuing, "refined element zero."
Kyla looked at Barbet, "So they are mining it… weird."
Barbet frowned, "Why weird? They'll need eezo to run their ships, it makes sense to mine it when you've got a prime source like Thessia on your doorstep."
"Yeah, but it makes you wonder why no one here has tried selling it to anyone outside asari space. There's more than enough eezo on Thessia to supply the whole galaxy and judging by the state of this freighter, it looks like they could use a decent trade deal to get some supplies."
Shepard stopped tapping at the console and looked thoughtful for a moment, "Rationing the eezo is how the HTA keeps control; they wouldn't want a steady supply coming in from asari space."
"What exactly are you suggesting?"
She shook her head, "I don't know. But I know they're interfering here somehow, we just need to find out what they're up to."
"Jules," Liara's voice crackled over the comm, the only one of the crew who called Shepard by her first name, "is everything alright? You haven't reported in yet."
"Needy, isn't she?" Kyla muttered. Barbet shot her a look.
Shepard either hadn't heard or chose to ignore the comment as she activated her omni-tool, "We're fine. It looks like this freighter was shipping eezo from Thessia, the crew were slaughtered and the cargo taken."
There was a pause, "Interesting. Do you know where the ship was headed?"
Shepard checked the screen, "Piares."
"We've detected a large population there, the planet isn't habitable but there's a network of domed cities that seem to have been built on the ruins of the old ones. There's more people living there now than there ever was before the war."
"How many?"
"Nearly two-point-five-billion. There are some planetary defences as well, might be difficult to get past them even with the stealth drive. Jules, wait a minute," there was a moment of indecipherable muttering as Liara seemed to quickly discuss something with Ereba, "Jules, there's a ship approaching, heading straight for you. Might be whoever was meant to get the eezo."
"We should get out of here," Barbet suggested.
"No," Shepard said decisively. She couldn't possibly have thought up a plan in the split second she'd had to think about it so Kyla could only assume her certainty was a show, the kind of false confidence that all leaders learned to display, "Liara, I'm sending a copy of all this ship's files to the Janiri, I want you see if there's anything in there about Thessia. We'll stay on board, I'm betting they're going to take the freighter back to Piares and I don't want to lose it while we try to get past their defences. Stay out of sight and follow us at a distance."
"Are you sure?"
"Do you need me to answer that?"
"No. Good luck Jules."
As the call shut off, Barbet unholstered his rifle, "We probably don't have long," he stated, "what are we going to do?"
"What any self-respecting stowaway would do," Shepard told him with a smile, as she calmly shut down the console and stood, "hide."