Chapter 32 - Virmire

'And when it all goes sideways, when it all goes wrong, when it all goes to the Warp, I just want you to remember one thing. By Khaine's gore drenched sword, I told you it would.' - Ranger Arlas

Arlas stared at the relay from behind the pilot's station, cursing himself in the privacy of his own head. Two useless, wasted weeks hunting down geth outposts and bases, and all he had to show for it was the growing derision from his fellow eldar. His omnitool chimed, interrupting his thoughts. "Arlas, the asari vessel for Benezia and Vasir is here. We are moving her down to the hangar. They have requested your presence."

Arlas sighed in the privacy of his helmet, before turning and heading to the hangar. He had no idea why Vasir had interrupted him after he had informed the twins that he had finished removing the majority of the mental infection, and would start working on ensuring the memories were intact. Even worse, she had forbidden him from trying to assist Benezia again.

He had ignored the asari's order, of course, using his jump pack to revisit the older asari and link his mind with hers. He had been curious if she could continue healing on her own if provided instructions, and to see if he could find out what Benezia knew that was so concerning to Vasir. She had only forbidden his interaction when he had mentioned sharing thoughts. All he had seen was several intimate moments involving another asari, a couple memories with a infant or child asari, one of repose in front of a statue of a green asari, a handful of battlefields, a memory of standing in front of a covered and still form surrounded by other asari and a handful of salarians, and a memory of meeting with Saren. Nothing of real importance before his link with Benezia had been interrupted by Vasir bursting in, and while he had not been impressed by her threats, she had taken to spending all her time in the room with the older asari. The twins hadn't gotten involved beyond informing him that he was no longer required to assist the asari, despite Liara's desperate pleas.

The eldar roused himself from his contemplations as he arrived at the hangar, looking over the interior. The lander was in its usual spot off to his left, the human landing vehicle off to the right, and a cleared area in the center was occupied by Joannis, Chakwas and Vasir, with Benezia resting on a floating bed in the center of the group. As the door opened, Vasir looked up, her expression tightening as she moved to place herself between him and Benezia, one hand on her shotgun. Joannis glanced at him, her expression neutral but her emotions shifted to pleased before moving back to annoyed. Chakwas didn't bother noticing his presence, too busy inputting data on the datapad she carried.

Arlas looked around the bay, debating simply leaving, but was stopped as an alarm klaxon began blaring. A moment later the hangar opened, and a large, ornate shuttle floated into the bay. It was a rounded ovaloid with a flat bottom and no obvious thrusters, unlike the box with thrusters the humans and turians used. It had barely touched the ground before the side hatch opened, and a half dozen black leather clad asari jumped out, their only decorations being a single shoulder pad of green and gold on their left shoulders. Arlas ignored the guards, and focused on the real problem, the older asari stepping out of the shuttle after her guards had pronounced it clear, ignoring the feeling of indignation from the humans and the disdain from the asari spectre.

The asari was clearly a matriarch, and Arlas took a moment to examine the second example of 'prime' asari power. She was thin and her body gaunt, almost without an ounce of unnecessary body weight, like some inner fire had burned away everything that she did not approve of. Her eyes were a brilliant lavender, and he might have even been impressed to see an asari that didn't look like a Slaanesh follower if she wasn't putting off so much disdain he almost mistook it for the biotic barrier she kept wrapped around her. She looked over the hangar, her eyes flickering to the three spectres, then to Chakwas and Benezia, before finally scanning the rest of the hangar. "Where is the eldar?"

Arlas finished typing a request on his omnitool and sent it to Tali, before stepping out from around the weapon workbench. He was in his tabard and carrying his pistol and sword today, and strode up to the asari. He looked at the matriarch for a moment, then at her guards, then deliberately turned his back on her to address Vasir. "You said they were sending a matriarch to pick up Benezia."

Vasir's mouth twitched in amusement, before she tilted her head behind him to the fuming asari. Arlas glanced back at her, letting himself frown slightly, before turning back. "I said matriarch, not uncivilized, spoiled child."

There was an impressive clatter of weapons as the six guards leveled their weapons at him, and a less obvious hiss and whine as Yol'Pvera activated and deployed her scatter laser turret, orienting it to point at the clustered guards. Arlas ignored it all, focusing on Vasir, who still had some shreds of respect from him; or more accurately, he still saw some uses for her despite her best attempts to get him to shoot her. He kept talking like he had not heard anything behind him. "Clearly she is not, because it is customary among mon-keigh to introduce themselves when meeting someone."

There was a moment of silence, before one of the guards behind him softly asked one of the others, "Did he just call the matriarch a monkey?"

Arlas turned, and stared at the guard. "No, what is a monkey?"

Sadly his attempt to finally get an answer was thwarted by the matriarch. "I am Matriarch Nianaes T'daza, holder of the seventy sixth seat on the Asari Council of Matriarchs."

Arlas gave her an insultingly long, elaborate, and deep bow, one leg forward, his weight entirely on the other, dipping so deep the back of his hand trailed across the ground, and held it for nearly a half minute before straightening, casually displaying his exquisite muscle control. "I am Arlas, Pathfinder of the eldar Craftworld Ae'Imedra. Now that we have gotten the introductions complete, what?"

Thankfully, the matriarch had the mental capacity to keep up with the eldar. "You were… 'assisting' Benezia's recovery, yes?"

Arlas blinked, his tone getting slightly frosty as the asari guards finally started to relax, though Yol'Pvera kept her turret deployed. "Matriarch Benezia T'Soni, but yes."

The asari glared at him. "What did you see when you melded with her?"

Arlas let his frown deepen slightly, before deliberately shrugging with nonchalance. "I saw many thing, Asari Matriarch T'daza. I am afraid you will have to be more specific. I saw everything from her first battlefield to a board meeting with Saren. I think the one I found most amusing was Liara digging in the house garden for Prothean artifacts."

A despondent groan from behind him indicated that Liara had arrived just in time to hear his announcement. The matriarch, however, was showing small flares of biotic power around her shoulder and eyes at him making light of her question, and being insulting. He almost felt sorry for her, but then again, she was a mon-keigh that hadn't earned his respect. He let her rant and bluster for nearly fifteen minutes, before finally interrupting her rather than letting her finish. "Enough. You make threats for me not answering to your expectations when you fail to ask the correct questions. I am done talking to you."

As he turned and walked toward the lander, he nodded to the Twins, and gave a smaller nod to Vasir, before glancing at Benezia. His steps stopped as he met her brilliant, almost electric blue eyes, and saw her mouth moving, trying to say something. Chakwas was talking quietly with Liara, until he spoke. "She's awake. Healer, get over here."

He watched her mouth move, and after a moment, realized she was desperately trying to say something. It took a moment, but he eventually read her lips enough to repeat it back to her. "Saren? Virmire?"

Arlas watched the matriarch's face relax, no longer straining against her own mind to say something, even as Chakwas and Liara both arrived. Benezia spotted her daughter, and tried to mouth something, but quickly passed out before he could get more than a couple words.

Arlas stepped back as Matriarch T'daza shouted something in an asari tongue at the guards, before Vasir pulled Chakwas and Liara away from the stretcher, letting the guards load Benezia into the shuttle. The asari didn't bother to wait after Vasir and the matriarch got in, leaving in spite of the Twins demanding answers. As the shuttle flew off, the Pathfinder went over the last two words, Little Wing, trying to discern their meaning. After a moment, he dismissed the thought and headed for his lander, intending to meditate and try to relax.

Then his omnitool chimed, and he glared at the message that had arrived from Tali, revealing she had gotten into the asari's databanks and found their plans, before tapping a few keys. A moment later, an asari face appeared above his omnitool, looking surprised. Arlas nodded to her slightly before speaking even as he sent the files Tali had found. "Lyla, might I trouble you for a small favor?"

Arlas stood in the CiC watching the humans scramble about, having just arrived in the Hoc system of the Senty Omega cluster. The screen near him displayed the locations of five planets and the sun, but nothing else. Jaclyn stalked from station to station, while Joannis directed everything from the command podium, looking over what little they knew already. "Joker, status?"

"We came out far enough that they missed our deceleration back to normal space. We are about half an hour out. Fifteen to twenty minutes before our cameras and passive sensors can start giving us decent… hold one."

Jaclyn looked up from the tech station showing the status of the heat sink system that kept them from showing up on every sensor in the galaxy, a frown on her face as the pilot interrupted himself. After a moment, Joker spoke up. "Councilors on the QEC, ma'am. They are not willing to leave a message or talk to anyone else. And they don't want anyone in the room but Spectres."

Arlas frowned, curious now as to what they wanted to discuss, but wasn't going to push his forces after the confrontation in the hangar bay. So he simply waited, knowing his listening device would give him the whole interchange, though he was a bit surprised that, barely a minute after Joannis entered the comm room, she walked right back out, projecting so much vicious amusement that he wandered over to her. He didn't ask, simply looked at her with a raised eyebrow. She glanced at him, and her amusement only grew as he waited, though after a moment she answered his unspoken question. "They called to tell us about a salarian team sending a garbled message while investigating Saren. I asked if the salarians had been dispatched to Virmire. The councilors were quite curious as to how I knew that. I informed them that Benezia had been removed from our care by the Asari Council of Matriarchs with Tevos' authority, before we could get anything from her, which caused the other two councilors to glance at her. I related what she managed to tell us, at which point the other two councilors informed me that I was correct, and then dismissed me."

Arlas hummed in amusement, before turning back to the stations and resuming his place on the wall. He could check the listening device later, just to make sure, but it did sound like something the mon-keigh would do. Done with the only thing he could distract himself with, he returned his attention to the system map, which already had updated to include a blinking red dot above the planet labeled Virmire.

As the ship approached, Arlas watched the mon-keigh add more and more information to the system map, including a red dot near each of the other planets, before finally removing the rest of the system to focus on Virmire. There were a handful of red dots that vanished with the rest of the system, but they were far enough away that the Normandy would be done and gone before they could get to Virmire even with FTL. As Joannis looked over the incoming data, she nodded to herself before activating the ship speakers. "This is the captain speaking, all specialists to the briefing room. All specialists to the briefing rooms. All others, remain at condition one, general quarters, until further notice. Carry on."

Arlas looked up from the main display and his examination of the dozen geth troop ships and a couple frigates. At Joannis' nod, he headed to the room, and took his usual spot on the wall, watching as the usuals all came in, before Joannis stepped forward. "Alright people, we are currently drifting near Virmire, where we suspect Saren has a base. We have a dozen geth troop ships in orbit, with what look like geth dropships and shuttles moving to and from a base on the planet, guarded by a pair of frigates. In a few minutes we will be close enough to start getting accurate images of the area, and we can start planning how to put our foot up Saren's ass."

Her comment got a weak chuckle from the group, but then the screen behind her beeped to life, and images began filling it. Everyone else waved their omnitools at it, but Arlas just watched the feed, relying on his memory to not miss details. He listened as the others pointed out structures the camera had detected during their pass, noting the locations of the 'geth' base and several outlying structures, but Arlas focused on what they didn't see. The cameras had been focused on trying to get images of the base, but hadn't picked up anything outside of a five kilometer radius of the base. He frowned as Wrex spoke, "Those look like Batarian anti-air guns, likely from the black market, which means they are basically broadside cannons from a frigate put on a tower and set for rapid fire. And while most Batarian goods are utter crap, their anti-air is actually pretty good. If we try to leave those outposts intact, the Normandy isn't going to last two minutes in the air. We have to hit at least three of them to give the ship a way in, probably the southern ones."

Arlas spoke up. "What about further out? Just one ring of anti-air outside the base doesn't make sense, not for a machine or for the one we hunt. I would expect two or even three, especially from a turian."

Icivia suddenly frowned, before slowly nodding. "Arlas is correct. Turian doctrine dictates anti-air coverage out to a minimum of five kilometers, but that is the minimum for permanent outposts. For bases, they could have dozens if not hundreds of anti-air emplacements. If this really is Saren's base, he wouldn't just have… the fifteen we can see here."

Jaclyn nodded. "A fair point, and we only have one chance to get in and out before the geth fix the hole. And if Saren is still thinking like a turian, that means the base is hardened enough we can't just fire on it to destroy it. Especially if his dreadnaught is loitering nearby."

Joannis tapped away, and nodded. "Right, Joker is making a wider pass at the base, lets see how bad the situation is."

Five minutes later, Garrus was running a hand along his head fringes. "That is… a significant number of anti-air turrets."

Jaclyn was still swearing under her breath as she glared at the seventy anti-air turrets. Joannis spoke up. "And the only weak point is that area Wrex originally selected."

Arlas admitted she was right, as there were supports for two more turrets beyond the indicated area, but they had clearly been damaged to the point of dropping the turrets into the ocean. Sabotage by salarians that had gone in ahead or weather, the eldar didn't know, but it did give the group a way in. Getting out, however, was a sticking point. After a moment, he mentally reached out to Yol'Pvera. *Yol'Pvera, is the lander capable of operating submerged for extended periods of time?*

*Indefinitely for fifty atmospheres of external pressure, and it can handle pressure spikes up to one hundred atmospheres for a time.*

Arlas sent back vicious amusement, and his idea, even as he informed the others. "My lander can linger outside the anti-air web underwater to avoid detection. It can wait until we are ready to leave, or it can slip inside if we require the heavier weapons."

The twins looked over at him, and then at the arranged anti-air towers, before Joannis slowly nodded. "This will be over quickly, but best to hedge our bets. Joker, drop a cold probe or two so we can see what is up here while we are on the planet. Yol'Pvera may engage AA towers and defenses at her own discretion once we need to evac, but we will not linger long if Yol decides to keep playing once we are out."

Arlas' head snapped around, anger suddenly suffusing his thoughts. "Never do that again."

Everyone froze, turning to face him as he glared at Joannis. After a moment, the saner twin sighed and rubbed her face. "Alright, I will bite. What and why not?"

Arlas' disdain was joined by confusion, but he visibly shook his question off, focusing on the issue. "Using anything less than the given name of an eldar is a terrible insult, and they will attack you immediately for it. Our names have meaning, and some names are given. Using less says the individual is unworthy of the name, just like addressing an asari matriarch with only her family name, but it is especially insulting to those who have names for great achievements."

He turned his gaze to Invicia, his eyes burning, daring her to ask the question he knew she was dying to. So he was mildly surprised when Liara spoke up. "So an eldar only gives these 'use' names to outsiders? Or would they be called public names? And one that gives all of their names is likely subtly telling us that they don't want to talk to us? But then why did you keep addressing the matriarch that collected Vasir and my mother with only her family name?"

He paused, before nodding, it was close enough. "Because I was being deliberately insulting to one that interrupted my work on your mother, and my deal with the twins. I will not make an issue of it, nor inform Yol'Pvera, but avoid repeating your mistake again. I will inform the others of their mission, I will accompany you directly in my hovercraft."

He turned and left the room without another word, needing to get away from the mon-keigh. He had a hovercraft to inspect, and needed to let Quel'Nayrae and Kap'Eiyl know about the mission.

A half hour later, Arlas was inside the Vyper, and quietly and smoothly coming to a halt behind the mako. Joannis spoke through the communicator. "Ground team is down, moving to neutralize the turrets."

Long range comms were kept to a minimum to keep the geth unaware of the group's presence as long as possible. Yol'Pvera lurked under fifty meters of water twenty five kilometers out, right at the edge of the anti-air tower web, ready to boost in and engage at a moment's notice. Both Kap'Eiyl and Quel'Nayrae were with her, not trusting the mon-keigh to stay on the larger ship. Arlas hadn't needed Kap'Eiyl's snide comment to point out that, by staying with the others, they also didn't trust him either.

The mako's cannon boomed ahead of him, announcing that, despite only being on the ground for a minute and supposedly trying to avoid contact with the geth, the humans had managed to get in a fight with something. Or Wrex was on the cannon again and bored, either option was likely. At least until the mako suddenly activated its jump jets, hopping into the air just in time for a glob of energy to sail through the spot where the mako had just been, to slam into the cliffside beyond. A flicker of a thought boosted the Vyper around the corner, bringing the geth armature into view, along with nearly a dozen geth infantry.

Fighting their way through a half dozen different geth patrols and three anti-air towers took a suspiciously small time to the eldar, almost like they were being let into the base. There was no way the geth didn't know the group was here, machines had reflexes measured in milliseconds at most, and that concerned Arlas. He watched the Normandy sail overhead, as Joker spoke. "Alright commander, setting down in the salarian camp momentarily. The marines, Ashley, and Kaidan are ready to disembark to help them deass the camp ASAP."

The group continued forward, mako leading with the hovercraft behind and to one side, but they had barely a half moment before Joker spoke again. "Ah, commander, the Normandy touched down at the base, but it looks like we're grounded. The salarian captain can explain when you get here."

Luckily no one was surprised at the announcement, half expecting the salarians would resist the order, especially considering the comprehensive AA coverage, though Wrex did make a comment about pyjaks yapping at varren. Once there, the mako drifted to a halt in the shallows next to the camp; the Normandy resting in a blocked off section of another nearby shallows, only the landing ramp extending into the camp. Arlas stayed in his hovercraft, not seeing a good spot to land it without putting it down either in water, mud, or silt. As the others walked up, the salarian captain ran up to the humans, pausing only to glance at Arlas' Vyper. "I'm Captain Kirrahe, STG Third Infiltration Regiment. Commander, you and your men just landed in the middle of a hot zone, surrounded by twenty five kilometers of AA."

Joannis nodded as collapsed her helmet, taking a second to run a hand along her scalp. "We know, the Council sent us. Your message was only static, and they wanted to know what was going on. Report."

Captain Kirrahe looked like he wanted to say something vile, but instead shook his head. "That is a repetition of our task, I lost half my men investigating Saren's base."

Arlas jumped out of the lander, wondering why the salarian base just felt odd to him, leaving the Vyper floating as he moved closer to the discussion. Jaclyn frowned, before nodding. "So this IS Saren's base. Looks like Benezia was right. Tell us about the base."

Kirrahe shrugged, before glancing around the perimeter. "Its his main base of operations and a research facility. Heavily fortified and crawling with geth and krogan."

Joannis frowned, her head tilting slightly to one side. "Research facility? What is he researching?"

Kirrahe blinked. "Possibly a cure for the genophage, judging from the numbers of krogan weapons and armor that he is shipping in."

Arlas cursed in his head, seeing Wrex off to one side suddenly snap his head up and around to stare at the salarian. None of the others seemed to have noticed, Jaclyn blithely carrying on. "Krogan and geth? That would make him nearly unstoppable in ground combat."

Kirrahe nodded. "Exactly my thoughts, hence why I need your help to destroy this facility and that cure."

Arlas spoke up as Wrex stalked over, remarkably quiet for something that weighed at least four hundred kilograms and likely in a near rage. "Where are the breeding females located then? I doubt that it can be anywhere hidden, as our krogan battlemaster informed us that krogan females lay hundreds, if not thousands, of eggs at a time. There should be a few hundred infant and young krogan running around that base, so where are they? And that isn't even getting into the supplies needed to feed that many growing bodies."

Kirrahe's mouth opened and closed, before frowning. "I hadn't considered that. You might be right… But we do know he is shipping in large amounts of modest quality armor and weapons for krogan, so he is getting krogan from somewhere."

Joannis slashed her hand, still somehow missing the massive krogan nearby. "We can figure out where if we have time. Regardless of how he is getting more krogan, whether it is recruitment or breeding, this base needs to be destroyed. What are your thoughts on that?"

Kirrahe sighed, before rubbing one of his horns. "Give me a list of the supplies and troops on board your vessel, and a few minutes with a couple of my men, and I will get back to you."

Wrex had wandered off to one corner of the encampment, angrily kicking a rock around, before suddenly pulling out his shotgun and blasting something in the water. Arlas sighed, before looking around, noting the entire camp had froze, before heading toward the krogan with a sigh. The krogan was fairly close to his hovercraft, after all.

He maneuvered the hovercraft closer to Wrex, before heading to the krogan. "You are… hmmm, upset is the word I will use."

The krogan turned and glared at the eldar. "No, I am fucking happy as a varren in a pyjak burrow. Why would I be anything other than happy? The salarians are, once again, trying to ensure my people's extinction. Maybe there isn't a genophage cure in there, but there might be. And everyone seems happy to just go with it. Not like anything important is being lost or anything."

Arlas took a seat on the nose of the hovercraft, letting one leg dangle as he just listened to the krogan rant. Once he was certain Wrex had done more than pause for breath, he spoke. "Considering your previous comments about Saren, I am curious as to why you are so ready to believe this could help your people. Did you already forget what he did to Dusk's mother?"

Wrex snorted. "Benezia? Hardly, may never forget that, but I fail to see what that has to do with the possible cure?"

Arlas gave an exaggerated sigh, before shaking his head. "And you were supposed to be the smart one of the group. Why would he bother to have a cure when he has indoctrination? Would it not be better to claim he has a cure, get krogan mercs to come where he can enslave them while they try to see if the cure is real? Or what about creating mindless copies of krogan? Is that beyond your people's technology?"

Wrex frowned, before slowly nodding, suddenly looking and feeling old. "You mean cloning? Yeah, it can be done, but cloning krogan is hard. All our redundancies mean that if something is wrong during the adolescent phase, we likely won't make it to adult. But you raise good points, I guess. I just…"

Wrex stopped, before shaking his head. After a moment of staring at his weapon for a moment, he put it back on his back, and stomped over to the Normandy's bay where he leaned against one of the pistons for the ramp, and just glared at the salarian camp. Arlas shrugged, and then guided his hovercraft over to where the salarian captain was talking with the twins. As he approached he frowned, sensing Joannis' worry and Jaclyn's annoyance, but it took him a few seconds to realize that he couldn't feel the emotions of the salarian.

He focused his psyker abilities, and even then could only dimly feel the salarian captain, his emotions feeling more like a very distant sentient rather than one that was within a few dozen meters of him. It was modestly disturbing to realize both that it had taken him this long to notice the salarian's lack of psyker imprint on their surroundings, and that the race most likely to try and assassinate eldar had also naturally evolved a method for avoiding the best way for an eldar to detect hostiles.

The Pathfinder quickly joined the group, not ready to meditate on the best way to deal with the information. Thankfully, Kirrahe was just starting his plan for taking out the base. "The plan is to convert our ship's drive into a twenty kiloton ordnance. Crude, but effective. Using your ship, we can place that bomb at the location to ensure the base doesn't survive."

Jaclyn looked up from the salarian's omnitool. "Place, not drop?"

Kirrahe shook his head. "No, too heavily fortified, and whatever guidance system we improvised wouldn't have the precision needed to guide it to exactly the right spot. Also, the drop might damage the drive enough to crack the shielding, resulting in a sub-optimal discharge, rather than a detonation, as it tumbled through the air."

Jaclyn winced at the description of the drive simply venting its eezo, rather than exploding, as Joannis nodded. "Where is the location?"

Kirrahe pointed to a spot on the base, directly under one tower and with another one nearby. "Here, the south side of the base, near the geothermal plant that supplies power to the entire base."

Jaclyn frowned at the location. "And I assume you don't intend for our ship to blast those AA towers."

Kirrahe sighed. "Correct, we need to infiltrate the base on foot, disable those AA towers at least, and pacify any ground troops trying to reactivate the towers."

Joannis looked up, concern in her voice. "You don't have the men for that. You have, what, maybe twenty salarians?"

Kirrahe simply nodded, his voice and expression firm. "Which makes what I am about to ask that much harder. I need one of your soldiers to come with us, ensure we have smooth communications with your team, a shadow team, that goes in the back and completes the real objectives."

At this point Arlas felt he had heard enough, and stepped forward. "A suicide rush on the front of the base wouldn't even get inside. They have troopships in orbit, as well as a pair of frigates. And that is not counting the ships at other planets they can recall if they feel it necessary."

He pointed to the horizon, where a geth dropship could be seen ascending out of the atmosphere. "Those are going somewhere, and not out to the anti-air towers or some other base."

Kirrahe blinked twice rapidly, before sighing. "They have ships in orbit? Dammit, then that plan is untenable. I will need time to come up with a new one."

Arlas smirked. "Actually, why not let ME handle the base attack? I am fairly certain I can keep that many geth busy, especially if I don't have mon-keigh slowing me down. This shadow team can still go in the back, while I am demolishing the base, and take out the two guns we are truly concerned with."

Kirrahe frowned. "I read in reports you were a sniper. How do you plan to keep an entire base busy?"

Arlas reached into the canopy of his hovercraft, and pulled out a pack, before pulling a block of wraithwebbing as long and wide as his forearm. "The ways of the Eldar are mysterious and complex, not the be revealed to mere mon-keigh."

It took another hour of arguing before the others finally agreed with Arlas' plan, then half an hour to put together the plan with changes for what would happen if Arlas was 'forced to withdraw before completing his objectives.' He didn't bother correcting them, simply projecting amusement at the planning, and at how both Liara and Tali seemed to think he was placing himself in unnecessary danger trying to take on an entire geth and krogan base by himself. He silently admitted that, if he hadn't done something like this at least three times a century for the last four hundred years, he might have conceded their worry was justified.

An hour after that, he was finally done preparing for the attack, small packs of explosives had been placed near the base of all six AA guns on the exterior of the base. The amounts weren't enough to collapse the whole tower, but he used his jump pack to jump up to the base of the actual gun, and place the explosives where they were needed to destroy the guns and hopefully cause them to fall into the courtyard inside the main gate. It was otherwise barren of cover, and likely used by the geth to load troops into dropships.

Once he finished placing the explosives, Arlas crept up to the gate, which had four geth troopers outside it, and sent a specific code on an equally specific channel, then waited five minutes. Then he drew his fusion gun, and fired it three times. Once to his left, once to the right, to clear the geth outside the gate, and once straight ahead, giving him a path in. Then he stepped through the gate, and activated the charges on the nearest AA gun, causing its two rear supports to vaporize, dumping the gun into the courtyard exactly as predicted, giving Arlas somewhere to duck to if he needed to let his psy-shield or jump pack cool.

Then geth started swarming out of the buildings, firing at him, and he drew his long rifle, and the battle for the front of Saren's base began.

Joannis looked up as an explosion resounded in the distance, before turning to her team. Her sister, Wrex, Garrus, and Tali all looked back at her, everyone else left back at the Normandy to ensure the Salarians had enough firepower to secure the bomb site. She hefted her locust submachine, and nodded to the back door of the base, where three krogan and a half dozen geth stood guard. "Lets get inside. While Arlas might be able to hold their attention, lets see about pulling a little of it."

Captain Kirrahe had read the reports. He knew the eldar were a threat the likes of which the salarian union had yet to encounter. The helmet cameras of the two human spectres had captured him in combat, the video recorded at five hundred frames a second, to ensure nothing was missed.

There were still frames where the eldar was a blur as he moved. His reactions were measured to be so fast he was actually reacting to threats before they appeared. His weapons were calculated to put out so much force they should be crew served weapons or vehicle mounted, yet he fired them with an accuracy rating that rival some of the combat VIs. His tech surpassed the Union's by at least two orders of magnitude, if not more. The eldar sniper considered fighting rachnii and flamethrower equipped geth in small enclosed spaces to be enjoyable and challenging. Kirrahe even had his own video to add to the collection already, the 'sniper' walking up to an enraged krogan battlemaster without even a hint of fear.

And now they were relying on him to break through the front of a fortified geth base, with multiple troopships in orbit. And the eldar had been looking forward to it. Even if it was arrogance, it would be very enlightening; either he would fail, and prove it had all been a fluke and fakery, or he would succeed, and the Salarian Union would focus completely on the biggest threat they had ever come across. Only the Rachnii or Krogan would compare to the threat of a hostile Eldar Empire. They used technology that had no analogy to their own, and their primary building material might as well been stealthed, according to the techs that had tried to scan the hovercraft while it was in their presence.

He looked up at the screen in the Normandy's hangar showing the feeds from the cameras the salarians had set up around the geth base, as the first AA tower on the base perimeter collapsed inward, revealing that the 'sniper' had demolition training at very least. Then the geth surged out, the sniper pulled out his rifle, and Kirrahe began to revise his threat assessment of the eldar. Upwards.

Arlas carved his way through the fifth squad of geth, pleased to have finally pulled enough attention that he was finally getting more than simple infantry units. The last group had been led by a destroyer, and contained a pair of armored flamethrower units. Two minutes in, though, and they had only sent forty geth to counter him; no tanks, no titans, and no organics. He glanced about the clearing, before pulling out the detonator for the explosives, and pushed the second sequence, causing the next AA gun to collapse. This one landed on a building, crushing it before something inside exploded, setting the remains of the building and gun on fire.

A roar echoed across the grounds, and he turned to see a pair of krogan rushing him. Finally, something that bled when it was stabbed. With a grim smile inside his helmet, he counter charged the krogan, firing his double pistol as he swiftly advanced.

Joannis winced at the third explosion in less than five minutes, as they fought through indoctrinated salarians. They had already released one salarian from holding cells, and told him he had maybe ten minutes to get to where the camp had been a kilometer distant. It wouldn't be easy, but he was STG, he might be able to make. He had been grateful simply for the chance to escape, and paused only long enough to snag a pistol from one of the dead indoctrinated salarians.

The group moved to the next door, and paused as Tali subverted the lock on it, before nodding. With a quiet hiss, the door slid open, revealing a husk. Joannis nearly fired past Wrex, before realizing it was both not reacting to the team and was strapped to a medical bed, being scanned. Thankfully, everyone else was just as controlled, so the group made no noise beyond soft curses over the radio. They slipped into the room, and stalked toward the end, trying to avoid doing anything that would awaken the husks.

As they got to the middle of the room, they heard someone speaking. "Batch twenty four, notes as follows. Metabolism is above average but still acceptable. Regeneration is below average, need to check the gene sequences for degradation. Protein deterioration rate, higher than previous batch, making the estimated lifespan less than a year. Cancel checking gene sequences, finish this group then purge this particular gene sequence. Revert back to batch seventeen, begin resequencing from there."

The group had gotten close enough to see the speaker, a krogan examining a pair of krogan in tanks, talking to an asari. The asari was wearing a lab coat, but the krogan was wearing heavy armor. Joannis shot Wrex an amused look, which the krogan ignored, too busy staring at the krogan in the tanks in an absolute fury, but he didn't seem surprised by the revelation. Joannis, however, was surprised when Wrex suddenly sprinted around the medical table he had been using for cover, charging the krogan scientist. The asari glanced back, hearing Wrex despite his relatively quiet charge, and grabbed the pistol on her hip. "Doctor Droyas, intruders."

Wrex's shotgun barked once, blowing the asari away, as the krogan 'doctor' drew his shotgun and slapped his omnitool. The scanners suddenly beeped, and the restraints unhooked themselves from the husks, and Joannis cursed as the husks suddenly scrambled off their beds, lunging for the team in their midst.

In a darkened room in the center of the base, a turian snarled in frustration as the eldar literally danced through his forces with a spirits be damned sword. And that wasn't counting whatever had set off the alarm on perimeter of the south-eastern side of the base.

Then one of the geth embedded in a console turned toward him. "Saren-Chosen. Forward garrison forces are nearing exhaustion."

The turian snarled something under his breath about the uselessness of the geth, how they couldn't kill a couple humans and their entourage, and now how they couldn't kill a single target despite outnumbering it dozens if not hundreds to one. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm, before issuing orders. "Recall all geth troops in orbit, and move the remaining ground forces to figure out what that perimeter alarm was, since the krogan have apparently forgotten how to work a radio. Maybe you can crush him if you can't shoot him."

His cybernetic arm crushed the edge of the console he was standing behind as the fourth AA tower on the edge of his base came crashing down on the screen, enveloping the figure in dust and blocking him from view. "And active all the clones. I want that individual in the courtyard dead, and I want him dead NOW!"

Kirrahe looked up from the camera as one of his men called for his attention. The eldar had been attacking for nearly eight minutes now, expertly holding the geth's attention even the Shadow Team made its way through the back portions of the base. He blinked in surprise to see two of his soldiers escorting another up, one he had thought lost. "Lieutenant Imness. You survived?"

The lieutenant winced at the choice of words, before nodding. "Yes sir, despite my preferences otherwise."

The captain tilted his head, noticing the signs of extreme stress, fatigue, and outright fear on his subordinates face. "Report then, lieutenant, and did any of the others survive?"

Lieutenant Ganto Imness took a steadying breath before answering. "No sir, they were experimented on, altered, indoctrinated."

Kirrahe glanced down as another explosion rocked the screen, the fifth AA tower collapsing to block the advance of a geth colossi, but quickly turned over the screen to his sergeant to focus on his returning soldier. "What do you mean, indoctrinated?"

Arlas fired his fusion gun into the back of the geth colossi, vaporizing most of its processors and servos. He rode the collapsing titan to the ground, before jumping to the middle of a team of geth troops and a juggernaut that were backing away, trying to disengage. The fusion gun fired twice and with a quick bit of blade work, Arlas was finally the last surviving combatant in the courtyard after more than ten minutes of combat.

He had been using his sword and fusion gun almost exclusively for the last five minutes, geth, krogan, and the vehicle analogs arriving piecemeal, giving him just enough battle to be fun and enjoyable without the feeling of being overwhelmed. He took a quick sip of water from the reservoir in the suit, before activating the last set of explosives, finishing the work of clearing the bases exterior AA defenses. The last two towers at the other end of the facility, where the salarians had decided were the best spot to place the bomb, were Shadow team's problem. He looked around, and frowned at the lack of further troops, before shrugging and heading for the nearest building, as far as he could tell, Shadow team was supposed to enter the base from the south west side of the base, so he could start clearing out the south east section. He frowned as he had a related thought, and cast his mind out to Yol'Pvera. *Yol'Pvera, go ahead and start clearing out the southern towers. Clear as many as you desire, the mon-keigh can deal with the rest.*

He frowned as no one answered him for a few seconds, pausing to snipe a geth trooper standing up from behind one of the further fallen AA towers, a small cloud of dust obscuring it slightly. *Yol'Pvera, can you hear me?*

It took another second before she finally answered, though her mental voice was oddly stilted. *Yes I… hear… you. What?*

He frowned as another geth trooper appeared behind another fallen turret, this one a sniper. It missed its first shot thanks to him dodging to one side, he didn't miss, but did wonder why it was just now engaging him. *Engage the outer towers until we recall you to rendezvous with us. Have Quel'Nayrae and Kap'Eiyl assist you.*

He was distracted by a sudden spike of danger, and a couple of soft whings to one side. A glance showed a pair of geth troopers rushing toward, firing as they charged, and a very particular individual in one window of a building across the way. He would recognize that sneer and those fringes on the sides of a turian's head anywhere. The sharp crack of a long rifle informed him of what the turian was using, and Arlas drew his own long rifle, firing it one handed as he brought it up, the shot slamming into the window frame above the turian's head. Saren flinched away from the shot slightly, before ducking back behind the wall.

Several more whings to either side alerted the Pathfinder that something was happening, but he was busy bringing his rifle up to his shoulder, and putting down both charging geth troopers. As he finished the troops, Saren stuck his head around the same window, lining up another sniper shot. Arlas was faster, and kinetic barriers did nothing to stop the shot from blowing Saren's unprotected head apart like an overripe fruit.

Arlas glanced around, feeling vicious, vindictive glee at the sight of an enemy reduced to a bloody smear, before suddenly he saw something impossible. His danger sense spiked, and he rolled to the side, as a familiar, unique silhouette finished setting up in the doorframe of a different nearby building, firing a powerful and accurate assault rifle at him. Saren sneered at him, not in the slightest inconvenienced by the fact that not even two seconds ago, his head had been obliterated in a completely different building. More whing noises distracted him as the sources slammed into the ground hard enough to leave a small crater in the packed dirt, before a dozen more geth unfolded in front of him, one torn to pieces by the Saren with the assault rifle.

A sniper shot connected with his shoulder but was turned aside by his armor, a third Saren firing from the top of the building the second Saren was in, and Arlas warp jumped behind one of the fallen anti-air guns, taking a moment to get his bearings and settle himself. It wasn't often he found he had to kill someone several times, at least not when Chaos wasn't involved. Then he was suddenly knocked back by something massive hitting the fallen gun he using for cover, causing it to rock and toss him off it even as a sudden cloud of dirt and dust washed over him.

He pushed himself to his feet, grabbing his rifle that he had dropped as he had landed. Then he cast about for whatever had hit the fallen gun, before suddenly looking up, following the elegant curve of white metal up to an optic nearly the size of his chest, hovering fifteen meters in the air. The geth colossi warbled something in their language, but his attention was suddenly past the colossi's camera as the dust cloud obscured it. The sky was burning, as hundreds of geth platforms descended into and around the base, united by the single objective to kill him. Then the cloud parted, and time seemed to slow, as he remembered the vision he had had, right after the sortie on Noveria. 'A sky filled with flames, a flash of white in a frozen cloud of brown, and the distant echo of hollow laughter.'

Then the world started moving again, and the geth colossi fired, and hundreds of geth platforms ranging from drones to colossi were deploying to try and kill him. And as Arlas danced and fought, he just wished he knew where that distant laughter was coming from, and why it sounded so familiar.

A/N - Sorry for the lateness of this chapter, but I wrote a chapter specifically for Tali's loyalty mission at least three times. And it never felt like anything other than a filler chapter to pad out my word count, or a direct copy from the games. So after a couple days of consideration, I axed it, and felt much better for it. Before I realized that I had nothing to post. And then real life got in the way, delaying this further.

*facepalm* So here it is, two months late, but better late than never, right? But the good news is I have a much more detailed outline and plan for the remaining parts of the story, so it should be written faster. In theory.

Also the Virmire poll is now closed. Thanks everyone for participating. What, who gets left behind? The geth and Saren, duh.