Chapter 32
Shepard and Liara ran close to the ground out from the overhang of the parking garage.
"There they are," Shepard said.
Kaidan, James, and Miranda hunched over a metal hatch cleared of the rubble. Liara and Shepard slid down beside them. The white of their eyes seemed bright in the darkness as they turned to Shepard. Well, James and Miranda's eyes anyway. Kaidan had the hatch cracked open peering inside. A slit of blue light flickered across his face. Shepard grabbed his shoulder. He looked up and dropped the hatch closed.
"What's happening?" Liara asked ducking low as a beam of lights bounced overhead.
Armored men swarmed passed them toward the tower.
"Those men are going to load the train," Kaidan snapped motioning at them, then turned to Shepard. "Shepard, let me do this. Please. It has to be now."
"They're already entering the tower, Kaidan."
"Garrus and Tali need more time. If they get caught … They're under the city, Shepard! Terra Firma has nothing to lose in detonating them if they realize the Alliance is involved."
James watched her with a hard gleam in his eye but didn't say anything. Shepard looked to Miranda, but she picked absently at the chips of rubble by her feet and didn't look up. Shepard's eyes shifted back to Kaidan. He stared at her unblinking and waiting.
"Fine," Shepard hissed.
Kaidan lifted the hatch. Light blazed out, and James scrambled to block it. His hand snared the corner of the hatch and prevented it from banging closed as Kaidan dropped down inside. In the distance, the mass of armored men disappeared into through the tower's front doors. The hatch creaked as James lowered it. Shepard caught the edge.
"Keep it cracked. If a train comes, we'll need out fast."
Shepard threw the hatch open in a burst of light.
Miranda grabbed her arm. "Shepard, no."
Shepard wrenched her arm away, and Liara scrambled over.
"I'll go," she said.
"Stay here. If something happens, finish the mission."
Shepard lowered the hatch and hurried down the ladder. Her skin prickled, blue light blinding her, as her feet finally hit the ledge. She staggered against the wall grabbing for hand holds that weren't there. Her blood pulsed with the roar of the rail. It burned down the center of the tunnel, suspending above the tunnel floor, and level with her feet. Shepard pressed against the wall and steadied her footing on the narrow outcropping. A light moved along the wall to her left in the direction of the tower. The control panel he needed to access was much further from the ladder than she expected.
She shuffled forward, one foot at a time on the narrow ledge. The other side of the tunnel didn't even have that much space. The outcrop must only exist for the maintenance workers accessing the rail then. Her hand found a thin metal railing along the wall as she moved ahead.
The light in front of her stopped. It flashed her direction. It only blinded her for a moment before it lowered. A metal sheet caught the light as it flew out and clattered against the rail in a shower of sparks - the rail's control panel cover, no doubt. It spun on the gravel under the rail line, metal and not vaporized. Kaidan hunched over an open panel. His boots barely fit sideways on an indented space in the wall.
"Shepard. What are you doing?" He glanced up as she neared.
She shuffled into the indent beside him and crouched down. Light from her Omni-Tool shined into the control panel.
"Keep going," she said.
Kaidan's eyebrows pinched deeper above a sharp-eyed frown, but he cut his eyes away and grappled with wires inside the panel. Hair rose on Shepard's arm as gravel clicked and rolled beneath the track. Shepard leaned in closer beside him. Kaidan's eyes darted over his shoulder at the track and breath hissed through his teeth. He tore through his Omni-Tool screens. Static brushed over them like a chill. A crackling wind came down the dark tunnel. Shepard squinted in the direction of the tower as strands of hair lifted around her face. She spun back to Kaidan.
"What can I do?" she asked.
"Nothing."
His boots scrapped to keep on the ledge as he reached into the panel up to his shoulder. His face scrunched manipulating something inside. The rail flared behind a surge of energy whooshing down the track. It passed them leaving the tunnel ablaze with wild blue flames crackling on the rail line. A voice spoke in Shepard's comm through a burning static. She touched her ear.
"What?" she said.
Kaidan glanced down the line. He exhaled sharply and spun back to his Omni-Tool screen. His hair swayed on his head like being underwater.
"James?" Shepard said.
"Shep—" It broke up. Interference from the rail.
Gravel shook across the tunnel floor. The tunnel burst with light as the rail glowed brighter.
"Shep—" The comm cut with static. "I think—Shep—" Shepard pressed the comm tighter into her ear. "Train."
A pinprick of light appeared down the tunnel. Kaidan's head whipped to Shepard.
"Shepard! Run!"
His fingers flew across the screen. Shadows lengthened as the cement wall shivered with a growing light. Shepard knelt in closer to see the screen. Kaidan tore down the scrolling screen and jammed the last button. The rail's blue light flashed and went out.
Metal on metal screamed from down the tunnel as a distant blue light grew bright. The rail was off, but the train still had momentum. Mass effect fields flared beneath it. Kaidan shoved Shepard toward the ledge walkway. The train slowed losing momentum, but not fast enough. The manhole was too far away. He had to know that.
Shepard spun, grabbing Kaidan's shoulders, and pulled him after her onto the dead metal tracks. A blue barrier wrapped out around them, and she drove him down under the rail. A familiar energy wove through her barrier as she pressed him into the gravel. It fused and hardened as she panted into this face. Lights glinted in the white of his eyes, and he gave her a weak smile. She touched his jaw and ran a thumb down his cheek. His breath caught. And it hit them.
Energy slammed into them. It punched her breath out, burned her eyesight, and exploded through her head. An inferno roared overhead. The barrier ripped and tore sending shivers through her bones. Her teeth clenched as she tried to draw air against the weight and roar. The barrier fractured, strands breaking and snapping under the strain. Fire burned into her skin, and her core exploded with lightening. Kaidan shivered beneath her, and she rose against his chest as he drew in a deep breath. The barrier brightened, and the fire left her skin scalded and stinging. She sucked at the vacuum, lungs expanding, and finally gulped air.
The train was grinding to a stop overhead, and their barrier dimmed against the storm of energy. Shepard's teeth chattered, and she clenched down on her breath. Her energy flared through the barrier, and Kaidan took another deep breath beneath her. Strands of his energy strained to reach hers. They curled and knit together but snapped just as quickly. His threats frayed and started to dim away. She grasped for them as the barrier corroded around them. His body trembled, breathing slowed.
Shepard squeezed her eyes shut, drew sharp breath, and shoved back with the barrier. Hard. The barrier snapped outward. The storm lifted from the rail like the leap in a skip. A long shriek screamed over their heads and the ground heaved under them. Air churned and exploded around them, metal bursting and grinding. The blue fire overhead lifted and pressure released with thunderous ripping, snapping, popping, exploding. Then it stilled.
Shepard gasped and opened her eyes into swirling dust. The rail above their heads curled up like a snapped ribbon. The underside of a train car sparked and hissed with blue flashes as it teetered above. It ground against the wall bearing down on them as the rail slowly twisted aside with a screech. Kaidan's head lulled to the side. His eyes cracked open, and he sucked in a breath.
"Kaidan, we need to get up!"
The rail groaned. Flecks of cement sprinkled down on them from the wall as the train car slipped. Shepard squeezed Kaidan's shoulder, but his eyes strayed closed.
"Kaidan."
She got to her knees. The back of her armor snapped and broke. A piece cut into her shoulder as her back straightened. The train was derailed. Train cars toppled over each other, broken and tossed, and sending sparks into the air. A fire burned down the line toward the train station. The car creaked overhead and skipped against the wall in a burst of cement chips.
Shepard grabbed Kaidan's face between her hands. He blinked up at her with hooded eyes as if trying to focus. His throat moved in a swallow, and he released a slow breath.
"Are you okay?" he said.
"This car is pushing the rail aside. It'll pin us. Let's go."
Gravel fell off his skin as he struggled to sit up with shaky arms. The train dropped against the wall a space. Shepard grabbed his arm and hauled him up into a crouch. The rail protested with a low whine and the train car slipped. Shepard pushed Kaidan forward as the metal shivered above. It smashed down in with a loud clap as they scuttled out from underneath.
The unbroken rail ahead was doing a much better job of keeping the train cars settled. Shepard got to her feet in the empty space opposite a leaning train car. Kaidan sat on his knees and pinched the bridge of his nose. Shepard put down a wavery hand and hauled him up. They stumbled against each other.
"I was afraid I'd pass out," he said. "Drop the barrier."
"Let's get back from this split rail." Shepard weaved down the rail line the other direction from the burning cars. "Grenades or something must have started that fire at the head of the train. We need to—"
A loud metal pop and voices came from ahead. They ducked to the side around the cover of an overturned car. They were near the end of the train.
"Someone's opening that train car's door," Kaidan whispered.
Shepard narrowed her eyes against the gathering smoke and heavy dust. The last train car's side door moaned and burst open. Men pulled piled out dressed in mismatched armor, helmeted, with rifles slung across their backs. Shepard's armor creaked and snapped as she hunched counting them. It was a whole company dropping to the gravel.
"Should we go back for the others?" Kaidan whispered and looked behind them, down the way they'd come.
"There's no going that direction with the fire still burning. We need to get to the tower."
"Still? It'll be too late."
"I've been to enough meetings to have some faith in just how long they can be."
"Even with your train being derailed and your warheads taken?"
"It's the unreconstructed part of the city. Until they've investigated it, what do they know? Untimely rail failure."
"Very untimely," Kaidan said. "They're searching the wreckage, not paying attention. Let's get a jump on them."
"How're you feeling?"
His eyes flicked to hers. "Honestly? Not a hundred percent here, Shepard."
"Yeah, me neither."
"I'm ready though." He drew his pistol. "What do you want to do?"
Shepard checked the clip on her pistol and popped it back in. Her armor belt had extra clips, and she handed him one with a smile.
"Our train wreck's missing a few casualties, don't you think?"
Kaidan tucked the clip away. "Let's beat the morning news then."
Shepard peeked around the corner of the train car. Smoky shapes argued by the far car while others picked around the wreckage.
"Okay," Shepard turned back to Kaidan. "We get a little closer, you'll overload their weapons."
"Not a dozen at a time."
"Yeah, I know that. Listen," Shepard said. "I'll provide cover. Get to the end of that car. You see there?"
Kaidan leaned past her. "Yeah."
"Okay. It's angled enough, it should provide cover. Close enough for overload. We use weapons and tech."
"You?"
"I'll draw their fire. Just be quick, get around the corner, and down the line. Barriers are probably out for us. But I have armor and you don't, so be careful."
"Don't count on that armor, Shepard. It's crumbling, and you don't have a helmet."
"Just a little broken in. Now, get ready."
Shepard gripped her pistol with both hands to keep it steady and held it up to her chest. The gravel scrunched under Kaidan's boots as he readied himself in a runner's stance.
"Ready?" Shepard looked around the corner. "Go!"
She spun out. Kaidan dashed her and hugged close to the underside of the tipped over train cars. Helmets whipped toward her, and she fired. They raised their rifles as she closed in dodged side to side. A bullet glanced off her side with a crack. She fired a return volley, and snapping in a new clip, darted after Kaidan as he scrambled up behind the train car. He reached out, Omni-Tool glowing, while still returning fire. Rifle shots slowed mixing with empty clicks, heat alerts, and cursing. Metal flakes sprayed at the edge of the train car. The gravel burst under bullet fire. Shepard shuffled up against him tamping down the jittery weak feeling in her legs.
"Ready?" she said.
He nodded. They spun around the corner. Guards shook their rifles trying the triggers, and a few pulled pistols instead. One near the back dropped his rifle and turned on his Omni-Tool. Shepard shot him. Two more with jammed guns seemed to get the same idea and apparently had tech training. They reached out with glowing Omni-Tools, and Shepard's pistol jammed. She looped up to them through the debris. Bullets glanced off the train cars as she darted to the side.
A guard swung from around the corner of a train car. His Omni-blade just missed her face as she stumbled back and stamped him in the chest with her boot. A gun reached over her shoulder pointed at the man and fired. His helmet split, and Kaidan pulled the trigger again before shoving him over.
"Grenade!" Shepard flashed a biotic shield.
Her vision burst with white light, ear ringing, and she tripped to her knees. She dug into the gravel and scrambled to her feet still seeing spots. She followed Kaidan to the cover of another train car. He grabbed her shoulder and wrenched her to face him.
"Don't push the biotics, Shepard. You'll pass out."
"Better than dying, right?" She pulled away.
They ducked under a hail of gunfire and pressed back against the train car. Flashes of light still colored her vision, and when she looked over, Kaidan was staring at her. His fingertips brushed the skin above her lips, and he held them out for her to see. Red. She touched her nose. He gave her a significant look and a nod before firing around the corner. Shepard clutched the underside of the train car, blinking fast, and trying to clear the dizzying swirl of lights.
"Incoming!" Kaidan yelled
Shepard's back snapped straight, and she raised her pistol. Three guards spun around the corner, Kaidan shot one in the neck and frosted the other with his Omni-Tool. The third dodged Shepard's wobbly shot and raised a pistol at her chest. Blue flashed as the gun shot echoed in her ears. Kaidan dropped his hand, blue fading off his skin, and kicked the man back. Shepard steadied her gun and fired. The man cartwheeled back. Shepard shot him twice more. Kaidan shot the last man as he broke free from the frost. Kaidan turned back to Shepard whipping his nose.
"We can't stay here," he said. "They're setting up a turret. The ones in the back took off toward the tower."
Blood smeared the side of his finger. He frowned down at it and shook his head.
"You're the only one I've ever seen do that, Kaidan."
Hundreds of biotics, years in the military, time with asari matriarchs and justicars - no one else batted aside bullets when their biotics got strained. You have to be as faster than the trigger. He sagged against the train car, and she leaned around him. A turret raised its head, and she fired at it. An engineer raised his rifle and fired. Shepard ducked back.
"We're going to be pinned," Shepard said. "You all right?"
He nodded, eyes still a little unfocused, but color returning to his face. He pushed away from the train car on wobbly feet. Hers didn't feel much better. The turret clicked on.
"Let's go!"
Shepard dashed back the way they'd come. Smoke thickened as rushed away under a rhythmic hail of bullets. Shepard shoved Kaidan out of the way of a grenade, and they fell down around a train car as gravel and shrapnel exploded into the air. They continued back toward the front of the train, and Shepard twisted to check but Kaidan was still on her heels. The fire was dying down in the cars far ahead. Shepard covered her face against the smoke and slowed as they reached the broken rail. Just past the indented platform, it curled up on each side across a gap.
"Kaidan, the control panel!" She pointed at the indent in the wall.
They climbed up onto a turned over train car. Their feet banged across its metal side toward the indent in the wall with the control panel. Kaidan leaped onto the indented platform in the wall and pulled up his Omni-Tool.
"Turn it back on," she said jumping onto the ledge next to him.
Kaidan smiled. "Thought so."
He hunched down and reached into the panel. No one appeared to be pursuing them. The smoke was too thick to make much out. Probably all on their way back to the tower. Once the rail turned back on, no one was getting back to pick she and Kaidan out of a line-up. Shepard tapped her pistol against her thigh and kept her eyes fixed in their direction.
Gravel scattered against cement and voices behind her. She whipped around, stepped over Kaidan, and raised her pistol shakily in both hands. It sounded like running footsteps, a group. Guards from the train station had finally made it past the fire at the head of the train then. Voices echoed louder. Indistinct.
Kaidan flipped a switch inside the panel. Static crackled through the air. He held his Omni-Tool up and scrolled down the screen.
"Almost there," Kaidan muttered.
Movement caught Shepard's eye. Silhouettes ran toward them around the smoldering train cars. Shepard squinted. It wasn't a company of guards. They were unarmored. Three figures …
Shepard spun around. "Kaidan, stop! NO!"
Blue flashed in a static explosion on the rail beside her. It burned in her eyes up the length of the tunnel as her skin stung and prickled with the roar. She staggered sideways against the wall covering her mouth. Blue flames crackled on the rails behind Kaidan as he stood with a pinched brow.
"Shepard?"
She gasped into her hand, shaking her head, and squeezing her eyes shut. Hands tightened on her shoulders, and his breath stirred the air against her face.
"What's going on?" he said, his voice close to her face. "Is it biotic fatigue?"
She squeezed her eyes tighter and shook her head again.
"Shepard?" he repeated.
"Shepard?" another voice said.
Shepard's eyes sprung open. Someone touched her ankle, and she looked down. Kaidan's hands fell away as Shepard spun around. Liara pulled herself up onto the narrow ledge and put a hand on Shepard's arm as she stood frozen staring at them. Miranda and James jogged up along the dark, dead metal rail. She followed it with her eyes to where it curled up in a dead metal loop across from the curled end of the burning blue rail. In the side of her vision, she could see Kaidan watching her and following her eyes. He put a hand on her back.
"It's all right," he said in a low voice.
"I thought …"
He gave a small half-smile and dropped his hand away. Shepard looked over her shoulder meeting Liara's big blue eyes. She squeezed Shepard's arm, and the armor crunched. A piece came away in Liara's hand. She stared wide eyed, mouth dropping open.
"Oh, Goddess. I'm so sorry."
She tried to pressed it back into place, but Shepard grabbed it and tossed it down on the rails.
"You're not that strong," Shepard said. "Just wish it had a warranty."
"Lola and L2. Alive." James put a hand against the tunnel wall and looked up at them.
"We heard gunshots," Liara said. "It let us hoped you were both still alive."
The air lifted with a static breeze and the rail flared brighter. Shepard snapped her head around to Kaidan.
"Turn the rail off. Quick."
He gave a sharp nod and dropped down next to the control panel. The screens on his Omni-Tool flashes fast under his darting fingers.
"They're sending another train?" Miranda asked moving around James to gaze down the tunnel.
"Hope not," James said. "We're on the speed bump."
"It feels like a train," Shepard said.
Kaidan moved through a screen on his Omni-Tool and glanced up. "There may have already been one the line behind this one."
"And it's rolling again?" Shepard asked putting a hand against the wall and staring down at him. "How long?"
He flipped something in the control panel, scrolled down his screen, and punched a button. The rail's blue light flashed out. A blue streak overlay the rest of her vision as she blinked in the tunnel's dim emergency lights.
"Fast," she said.
"Practiced," he said and stood.
Shepard bent and dropped off the ledge landing next to James.
"How was that tower looking?" she asked them. "Any drop in guard number? Shuttles leave?"
"Nada," James said.
"Then, if it's still worth getting to that tower," Shepard said, "we need to go now. Let's move out."
Kaidan and Liara hopped down from the ledge, and Shepard lead the way down the track toward the tower. They passed the last train car. The only evidence of their fight was the broken turret and some bits and pieces of armor, a few charred rifles crumbling apart.
"The guys you played with," James said, "they really get vaporized?"
"You don't see them, do you?" Shepard said.
"Uh, right."
They slowed as a gray outline appeared stopped on the tracks ahead.
"There was another train," Shepard said.
It stood silent and dark as they approached.
"Well, unless we're army crawling on our elbows under the rail, we're walking through it," Shepard said.
Shepard climbed up on the first car and broke through the side door.
"Where is everyone?" Liara asked.
"The train stopped the first time," Kaidan said, "they probably got out to check things out. Then the rail came back on."
James chuckled loading up into the first train car behind Kaidan. "Think the train ran over the ones hanging around in front?"
"More likely vaporized by the mass effect fields first," Liara said climbing up.
Shepard waited for everyone to get through the door then picked her way down the center aisle of the cars. She swung her gun back and forth through each new car, but nothing stirred. Benches lined the aisle, and Shepard ducked under the handholds looping down from the ceiling. She stepped over a pair of dead guards. They looked like wounded that the other train may have drug back and then left. She entered the last car and held up a hand.
"Get down! Back!"
Everyone ducked and scrambled back between the benches.
"Armed guards incoming," Shepard said. "Meters off. Less than a dozen."
"About time." James lifted his pistol.
Miranda scooted forward and drew her gun. "Action then."
In the back of the train car, Kaidan shifted and looked back down the aisle at something.
"Shepard," he whispered.
Shepard adjusted her shaky grip on the pistol. "What, Kaidan?"
"I have a different idea."
"What? No, hombre. Don't do this to me," James said. "You got some fun in, but I've got nothing."
Kaidan shot James a hard look. James fell silent. Kaidan turned back to Shepard.
"Shepard. Gunfire this close to the tower will only draw more. We'll never get there. James and Miranda aren't armored for this. We don't have the clips."
Miranada sighed and tapped the butt of her pistol on the commuter's bench but didn't say anything. Liara sat silently on her heels waiting.
"Your plan?" Shepard asked.
She darted a look over the rim of the back window. The guards were closer but still checking something on the rail. Maybe they were trying to figure out what happened. Shepard turned back to Kaidan.
He hunched over the two bodies Shepard had stepped over earlier. Shepard scuttled closer keeping low. A helmet seal clicked, and Kaidan twisted on his knee lofting up one of the guard's helmets. He tossed it to Shepard in a shallow arch. She caught it.
"You and me," Kaidan said turning back to the other body. "Sorry, James. Only two helmets."