Someone was shaking him awake. He opened his eyes and saw Cora beside him, gibbering something, her face pale. He looked to their side where he saw Marcus taking watch on the open hole on a wall, his back to them.
Everything was deathly still. Past the open hole, the air was cloudy with dust and smoke, rolling through the plain undisturbed, seeping in through the broken walls and fallen roofs. There were dull reports of gunfire somewhere beyond it, but he did not startle. His mind was clouded as the scene before him, with only one thing clear.
The bombing was over and they were alive.
He slowly uncurled, feeling as if it was ages since he last used his limbs. They felt heavy like they were made of lead but oddly weak, like jelly.
"Finally, you're awake," Marcus said without turning around, his eyes scanning alertly for enemies. "I was afraid you'd given yourself a heart attack."
"Sorry," Scott stammered. He must have been yelling his head off.
"S'okay. Keeping it in would've killed you. Besides, no one would have heard it from the bombs. The Angara sure were very thorough," he said and then gestured for them to join him. "Come, take a look."
He crouched toward him with wobbly legs and peeked through the hole. The landscape was unrecognizable from the last time they have seen it. What was supposed to be a base with snow-covered buildings sprouting like mushrooms now looked like a wasteland, with the ground dark with soot and uneven due to the craters. There were fires burning on buildings that survived and the air was thick with smoke. In the distance, they heard gunfire from Angaran ships hovering in the air, hunting survivors. Then, they heard a dull beating of the air above them. They shrank back deep to the shadows, but the clouds above them parted and revealed that they had nothing to worry about.
He smiled at the sweet sight of the Tempest coming towards them.
The ship descended on the clear ground before them and swerved so its bow faced them. Then its landing gear touched the ground, followed by the cargo bay doors opening.
They smiled at each other and emerged from their hiding place, walking towards the ship where their companions disembarked and gave them a hug. Jaal came by, beaming with pride and when he reached him, he put his forearm in front of him. He grinned and gestured the same way, elated at being permitted to use their greeting.
They dropped their arms. "What happened at the ship…you falling into the air without a thought….it was amazing," the Angara said, the stars bright in his eyes.
Scott grinned at him. Until now, it seems the Angara just couldn't get over what happened. "Yes, isn't it? I never forget the times when we do that."
Jaal chuckled. "Who would've thought throwing yourselves from the sky would work?"
He shrugged. "It's standard procedure for us back at our galaxy."
Drack came over and lightly punched him in the chest. He laughed heartily at each of them and said, "Well done, you bunch of grunts. You've proved you've got quads on you."
"I'm female," Cora piped up.
Drack turned to her. "Honorary balls," he said with a tip of his head and continued. "I've done a lot of crazy shit back in the day but not this crazy."
"You should have come with us, big guy," Marcus said to him with a grin.
"What? To make a bigger crater?" Scott quipped, gesturing at the nearby depression. He wasn't just trying to be witty; he was pointing out that this sort of tactic required finesse, not force, something even a veteran Krogan lacked.
They all laughed, Drack as well. "Haha. I'll let this pass this time, you uppity runt," he said.
Commander Heckt's ship arrived at their location. The commander disembarked and walked towards them with some of her crew. She dressed in her battle suit with a wickedly sharp crest on her helmet and boots that let her walk easily over the flat ground. She spoke to them with a warmer tone than they have heard her last. "I am glad you survived."
No shit, Scott thought. Not after you've tried to bomb the shit out of us. "Glad to see you too. I take it you won the battle up there?"
She nodded. "The Kett fleet had retreated. But they will be back. For now, Commander Do Xeel will keep watch and warn us should they return." She nodded to the main facility, which was untouched. "But this is not over yet. The Moshae is still captive and the Kett on the way. We must hurry."
"Right," Scott said, clutching his gun. His teams' support brought back his feelings once again and his whole body was working perfectly, pumped and ready to fulfill their mission. He looked at his companions and asked if Cora and Marcus were still up for it. They nodded.
The Angara provided them with the picture of the Moshae and a vid of Commander Heckt telling her to trust whoever was bearing it. That done, they followed the commander up the snowy hill.
The main door of the facility was clamped shut and one group of Angara were trying to open it by a cutting torch while gunships whirled around it. There were great blast marks on its surface. They must have used the gunships to blow a hole through, but the doors were stronger than they thought. She led them past the group and onto a great pentagonal tunnel at the side of the facility which opened into a vent with giant grills. Her people worked on the edges of the grills and cut them silently away until the hole was big enough for them to squeeze through. They emerged onto a dark tunnel with surface green and dark as poison. The walls curved in the ceiling in segments, widening in the middle like the inside of entrails, then narrowing into supports ribbed like a spine. Pipes ran on the side of the walls, sinuous and overlapping, just like the passages wounding through the base.
As they walked swiftly but silently through the tunnels, they felt as if they were delving deeper into the belly of a beast.
They stalked deeper into the base, alert at every corner and watching each other's back until they saw a light at one end of the corridors. Commander Heckt pointed at it and they moved into position silently. She was at one side of the vent and gestured to him. He positioned himself at the other side and peeked in.
The passage opened into a wide room full of consoles with Kett working over them, barking at each other while a large projection of a Kett loomed over it. There were two levels, the top with curved railings on the edges and partitions on the walls and up the sloped ceiling which looked like gills. The alarms were on and the Kett was alert for any covert attack, patrolling the area with their disfigured dogs. This might be their command center.
Commander Heckt silently surveyed the area, marking the positions of the Kett and observing their patterns then signaled him to move back and her team to get closer. She tapped at one and nodded, then one by one, they vanished.
Not completely. There were distortions on the edges of their outline that made them still visible in close range, but imperceptible at long ones. He saw them drop silently down the room, their commander keeping watch as they moved into position.
Then one of the dogs raised its head to their direction and growled.
Commander Heckt raised her gun and fired at the most important one in the room. It toppled then the room erupted in pandemonium. The Angara who managed to sneak closer immediately stabbed their prey from behind while the others leaped out the tunnel, guns blazing. The Kett was too shocked at the sight of a beefy Angara firing in mid-air and so did not fire back until it was too late; the Angara have taken cover before the Kett could react.
Scott and his team waited until the Angara below them caught the Kett's attention, then dropped out the vent and into cover. They covered the group as the Angara leaped over consoles and crates, lunging from position to position. One of them was below the second level with a Kett firing from the cover above him, shooting those trying to come up the stairs. He leaped up, then holding onto the curved ridge at the bottom with his feet to hold himself up, stretched up and snatched the barrel peeking out the railing and pulled its owner over it and down onto the floor. They turned over in mid-air until the Kett ended up on its stomach with a foot over its face while the Angara above him wrenched its gun free of its grasp and threw it away. The gun clattered over the floor while the Angara used his own gun to shoot it dead.
When it was over, the commander walked among her group. "Status!" she shouted. None of them were killed though some are wounded but not badly. Satisfied, she turned to Scott. "We'll stay here and coordinate taking control of the base. Some of our people will pour in from the hole we just created, while Anno brings down the barrier and open the main doors. We'll search the base in teams." She looked at Anno, who gave a signal that he was finished hacking the network. A door opened and some Angara waved goodbye to the commander then went through. Another one opened and she pointed at it. "Your way lies there."
Scott nodded. "Stay in contact. And good luck." He then led his team into the opened passage. SAM guided them to paths with few Kett about and away from the ones with Kett rushing through to counter the Angara pouring in from the outside. They pushed forward until they arrived at a chamber with a viewing window at one side of the wall. They crept across the dark floor covered in bumps like ringworm infested skin to take cover on the other side.
"Decontaminating. Standby," SAM said as it hacked the doors.
"Decontamination? What for?" Scott asked them, his back to the wall, his head turned to watch the room through the window.
"Maybe the Kett are germaphobes," Marcus suggested, standing before the door, his back to the wall, similarly hiding from anyone in the next room.
"I sure hope so," Scott answered. If they were, maybe they could scare them easily simply by threatening to breathe on them.
SAM was finished and they entered into a corridor with many passages. They chose one and followed it to its end. They passed through rooms with beds and chambers full of pods which SAM identified as for stasis. There was also a room with desks facing the wall around the room and a table and chairs for a conference.
They arrived at a chamber with a big window beyond them with a raised platform before it, where the Kett was working on consoles. There were two doors on both sides of the room. When the door opened, the Kett looked up from their work and saw them. They yelled but Scott and his team had the advantage of surprise and they gunned them down before they could raise their guns. They left them slumped over their desks, green blood flowing over the pulsing interface and went to the window to see what made the Kett so preoccupied.
Below was a great hall, with a giant statue of a Kett at one end, still and serene as if in a chrysalis. There were pods hanging on a line around it snaking from an opening on the wall behind the statue, going down the floor and up into another opening. Below, a group of Kett was assembled with one ahead of the rest. It was clad in maroon armor with a stiff, big collar going up from the chest and around the back of its neck and coat split into two tails at the back.
The line snaked down until it reached the level and the lids of the pods opened like scarab wings. A group of five Angara emerged into view, walking towards the pods and then stopped in front of the Kett in maroon. As they walked, the Kett formed lines on both sides as if to give the Angara honor.
What the fuck is going on here? Scott thought as they moved on both sides of the window and peeked at the scene.
"Fortunate welcome", the Kett in maroon said to the Angara before it. "Step forward. I am humbled before you. You who are chosen. Chosen by the Archon. Chosen to be exalted."
"Chosen to be exalted," the Kett repeated, crossing their arms over their chest.
The Angara then walked past the Kett and entered the pods, the doors closing behind them.
"What is this?" Jaal hissed beside him as he also looked at the sight of his people submitting to their enemy without protest. "Why aren't they resisting?"
"They appear to be in some kind of trance," Marcus suggested, drawing from his experiences with rescues. "Or just disoriented. Sleep-deprived, maybe. Drugs could also make them stop resisting and obey mindlessly."
Jaal snarled at the scene but he calmed down. He peered down again at the group of Angara below and searched each face. "I know the Moshae, she isn't down there," he concluded. Jaal pointed behind the group at other pods. "Maybe in one of those pods. But we have to save those below ."
"We need to find the Moshae, quickly," Scott said. "She's our first priority."
Jaal stared at him then moved close. "Your priority," he hissed, his voice low, his eyes glittering.
Scott looked at him, slightly irritated. If they were to save them, it would slow them down and maybe the Kett will move the Moshae into a more secure area. He was about to answer and stare him down if need be when the Angara team piped in. "Alien, where are you?" the Angara team leader, Owwin, asked.
"We're at a room before a chamber with a gathering of your people and surrounded by Kett," he answered. I don't see any path we can use to get down there except breaking the glass in front of us and jumping down two floors up."
"I see. We are at a lower level just beside the room and seeing the same. We are going to save our people. Are you going to join us?"
"We don't know where the Moshae is and they might move her somewhere else after this," Scott answered, hoping hard Owwin was more prudent than Jaal.
There was a pause on the other line then Owwin answered. "Very well. We'll save the people here while you continue on and find the Moshae. We'll catch up later."
"Got it. Good luck," Scott said and closed the line. Without looking back to Jaal, he nodded to the door. They emerged into a corridor with doors on either side. They cautiously opened each but they all led to more passages with no identifications of the rooms they were leading to. Without a map to the base, they decided to randomly choose a path to follow.
The tunnel was dark and its twists and turns hid its end. They peeked around corners before moving forward, trying not to remember their hands touching the walls that felt like some malformed gullet. As time passed with the end nowhere in sight, the fear of having chosen the wrong door mounted and they started to consider that maybe they were lost.
They moved past the bend and saw they reached the other end. They moved quickly in relief and opened the door.
It seemed that they have arrived at some sort of medical bay. It was empty, except for a lone female Angara at one of the tables. Wires and tubes were wrapped around her body like a spider's web, connected to a console that beeped softly beside her. They cautiously approached her, sweeping the room. They reached the end of the room and saw nothing dangerous. Marcus stationed himself before the door at the other end while they inspect her. Scott reached her side and opened his omnitool to scan her.
"She's alive," he said, noticing at the woman's soft breathing through a respirator. But the light on her skin has an eerie steady glow unlike Jaal's softly blinking ones and her half-lidded eyes were staring at the ceiling, apparently oblivious to them.
Jaal went to her side. "Sister! Can you hear us?"
The woman did not answer. But she started blinking rapidly.
"Pathfinder, I'm detecting increased heartbeat and hormone levels from her. It is possible that she may have understood Jaal, but cannot reply," SAM said.
"Cannot reply?"
"Yes. From your scans, I can see surgical scarring in her brainstem. This would have stopped her vital functions and killed her, but the fact that she is still alive, although through mechanical means, shows that she may have lost conscious motor control."
"Lost conscious motor-you mean she's paralyzed?" Cora asked, moving closer and looked at her with her mouth parted in shock.
"Yes. Thus, she may not be able to speak. However, her neurological activity is monitored on the console beside her. I can scan it and interpret it for you."
"You mean if she can't speak, you can scan her brain and make her speak through you?" Scott asked.
"Correct. Shall I attempt it?"
"Then do it," he instructed.
"Connecting. Please stand by." They waited for SAM to finish.
"What is happening? Who are you?" the woman asked, speaking through SAM's voice. Jaal went forward and clasped her hand. "Your brother is here. You are safe now," he assured her.
Tears started dripping from her eyes. "It is too late for that now."
"Tell us what happened here," Scott asked gently.
At that, the monitors started beeping and the woman's eyes rolled up. SAM spoke in its normal pattern. "Pathfinder, I'm detecting elevated stress levels and increasing abnormal brain activity. If this continues, it may lead to a stroke."
"What should we do?" Scott said as he moved to the med console.
"I'll highlight the ones you need to get her vital signs to normal." Scott followed SAM's instructions and tapped the buttons to administer her medications. After a few minutes, she was breathing normally again.
Unable to ask her directly what happened, Scott signaled them to look around. Cora started scanning the medical equipment which SAM said was for in vitro fertilization. Then she scanned the woman herself. There were signs of trauma on her lower region. "Scott, the scans were telling me that the woman had given birth recently. And that she has extensive bed sores on her back." Cora stopped scanning when she put it all together. The equipment, her condition, and her injury…
"Oh shit," she cursed, looking at the Angara in horror as she realized what it all meant.
They also went silent when they discovered what they have done to her. Then Scott turned back to her. "SAM, is the damage to her reversible?"
"I am not certain. We have the technology and medical skills to reverse paralysis due to damage in the spinal cord but no one has attempted it on the brain stem."
"That's good enough. We'll take that chance." To the Angara, he said, "We're going to get you out of here."
"No."
Scott paused. "No?"
"No. Kill me instead."
Scott looked at the others for support. They too were unsure what to do, even Jaal. "It's alright. You're going to be fine," he tried to assure her. "We're taking you back to your home and family. We can heal you. You'll be able to talk and walk again."
"No. Kill me," she insisted, the monitors beeping louder again.
"I know what you've been through and I understand. It's not your fault. If the memories are too much to remember...we can help you forget. Forget it all. You can start a new life."
Her lids drooped. A tear beaded in a corner of her eye and slid. "No. You think merely forgetting will undo what had been done to me. You are wrong. There is nothing for me after this. I do not want to live after this." She blinked. "Help me. Please. I am tired; I have enough of living."
"I don't want to do that."
Tears welled up in her eyes. "Kill me." The tears fell, from her cheek down onto the table cold, hard table. "Please."
Scott looked at her, gazing deeply into those eyes which, without words, had made him understand the extent of her wish. The pain as she gave life, unable to scream, unable to move and know afterward where they would be sent for. How the Kett invaded her body and appropriated its gifts for their own foul use. They have done all that while she can only do nothing but wish for death. For release.
"As you wish," he said, drawing his pistol and pointing it at her temple. "I'm sorry," he said to her.
Her eyes glittered. "Thank you," she said, then Scott pulled the trigger.