Chapter 16: Merc Captains and Biotic Gods
The lift took them upper levels of a warehouse. No sooner had the squad exited the elevator when they were set upon by a mech. Fortunately Shepard had quick hand-eye coordination and assessment skills and the surprise hadn't lasted longer than a nanosecond. She shot two rounds from the Eagle into the clanker's head causing it to blow-up and crumple into a pile of slag. She singled for the squad to take the next room, this time they were all at ready for immediate assault.
The doors opened. One of the Eclipse Sisters shouted out their arrival but she was unable to finish her sentence as Shepard flung a flare into her body causing her and two of her companions to erupt in dark energy. Garrus held back in the drag taking swift but carefully aimed head shots. Tali and Miranda flanked Shepard, one using her sabotage tech skills to lower the shields in the emery hardsuits while the other deployed overloads and shockwaves. It was quite clear Shepard's team had taken the mercenaries by surprise since the asari's counter-resistance was sporadic at best.
Stacked crates scattered about made for adequate defences both for Shepard's team and the asari mercs. One of the Sisters flung a barrel at Shepard but she ducked just in time. The container smashed into the far wall with a high enough impact that its contents spewed forth in a cloud of pink-red dust.
Shepard's hardsuit immediately bleeped toxin warning, her lungs breathed in smatterings of the dust before the environmental locks on in her armor sealed. She ignored the burning sensation in her lungs, but she couldn't pass off the sudden spike of dark energy. It was like the feeling she gained when she summoned the power of the tsunami—just after the reave before she lashed out. Or...oddly compared yet more aptly akin to a sneeze contained in the nasal cavity before it broke free.
Shepard spun around to her right, her body primed rushed forth in a biotic charge that crushed two of the asari and sent another flying helplessly into the open air loading area. The Eclipse Sister screamed all the way down.
The Spectre had little time to recover because across the platform several more mercs shot off quick sequences of cover fire. Shepard managed to duck behind one of the shipping crates, but not before her armor took three hits lowering her shields.
*My scans indicate that the chemical compound will boost biotic powers. However, concentrated exposure will cause extreme tissue damage. I recommend limited exposure,* EDI's voice suddenly piped though their helmet radios.
"Yeah, great EDI. I got that. Tell me something I don't know," Shepard snapped.
*There are over 140 crates containing the compound in the immediate area. The storage units are not entirely stable and are vulnerable to both firepower and biotics.*
Miranda, like Shepard, was a biotic and her body roared with new power. Barely managing to contain the new flood of energy, the operative brought her arms up then swiftly down. Her targets were two Sisters, their bodies rose into the air only to slam down with such force their internal organ burst with the sudden impact.
One of the Sisters had created a barrier bubble around her fellow mercs making gunshots ineffective. After multiple of her shots were ineffective, Shepard quickly grew tired of it. Once more she summoned the power for a charge and zipped across the chasm into the enemy. Bold, but it left her completely open for retaliatory reactions.
An Eclipse elite vanguard took exception to the merciless deaths of her sisters and she caused her tech-armor to disengage causing a minuscule explosion, shredding the rest of the Spectre's shields. A toxic cloud swirled around them, fuelling their biotics but poisoning them all the same. Her armor's shields now gone, it made the Commander vulnerable to the poison.
Cold anger rose in the Spectre. She drew back her fist empowered by her chemically-enhanced biotics and slammed the asari in the face, cracking the jaw but only causing the asari to shake her head. The poison was affecting her as well and making her own biotics all the more potent. She used a warp field on the Commander but it was blocked with Shepard's own warp power and for a moment they were at a standstill, then suddenly - shockingly - Shepard was covered in purple blood. She whipped her head around behind her to see that Garrus had taken a head shot.
The toxin was now steadily leaking into her suit. With it damaged from the tech-explosion she was unable to protect herself from the effects. Her HUD bleeped in warning, the scale was now in the red-zone.
"Shepard get out of there!" Tali cried out. She could no longer see the Commander in the cloying cloud of poison. It had swallowed the older woman whole.
"Roger that," her voice echoed from out of the red mist.
The Spectre moved for the adjacent door, which opened while admitting a trio of mechs. The Spectre shoulder rolled backwards into a smaller dust cloud before taking cover behind another set of crates. On the ground at her feet lay five Eclipse Sisters, all of them sporting a variety of gunshot wounds from sniper rifles to shotguns.
Tali hacked one of the clanker's IFF chips causing it to turn on the others. Even as it did this both Shepard and Miranda ganged up on the remaining two and used a slam on them both. Their proximity indicators within their helmets singled an all clear allowing the four to enter the room the mechs had come from.
It was some sort of office that was no doubt used by the dock foreman. Wouldn't she be surprised come the morning to fine the area littered in Eclipse corpses. Even if she worked for the syndicate it would be a shock to find so many dead.
Tali walked over to one of the desks nearest the two watercoolers. It wasn't the computer that drew her but the abandoned shotgun. It was a 5-27b Scimitar assault shotgun. Left by one the mercs perhaps? Regardless she picked it up and placed it on the clip on her small of her back that usually held her shotgun as she was still holding onto the one she favoured. The others looked to her but the quarian only shrugged.
Other than the newly found weapon the office was relatively empty. It was highly doubtful this Captain Wasea held her shipping information is such a vulnerable location. Her private lair had to be further in.
They passed through pausing by one of the doors. Shepard might have passed it by if not for the mutterings coming from within. By the sound of it, it sounded as if someone was actually praying. The aforementioned foreman? Doubtful.
"Oh Goddess. Oh Goddess don't let them see me. If they see me don't let them kill me. What am I doing here?"
Shepard nodded to Miranda and Tali to take either side of the door as she and Garrus prepared to open it.
Some stupid young asari maiden went out and joined a merc group to make herself seem tougher than she really was. Cool. Like that one talking to the salarian she and Liara had overheard talking about joining up with the Eclipse. She had the weapons, the gumption and the longing to seem superior to her peers, even gain a few lovers along the way. What a bloody waste. If you wanted to be someone, do something like join the military, not some criminal organization. Personally, the Spectre never saw the appeal of a mercenary life. Too many dark dealings, dark corners and rotten deals. Then you get stuck in a room praying to your deities you won't get killed...
It was said Illium was just Omega with better style. Maybe this immature little maiden didn't see any other alterative or prospects in her future. Whatever her reasons were it mattered little now. Shepard opened the door and saw that it was another office with no place to hide except for a rather large display monitor.
The other three entered the room; their own assessments matched that of Shepard. Whoever was hiding in here had to be behind the desk, it was the only possible place.
"Come out with your hands where I can see them. Now!" The order was given in a clear, demanding voice, her gun pointed towards the concealed corner of the desk. "I'm Commander Shepard of the Normandy. Spectre. Surrender now and you will live."
"Wait, Stop!" a young maiden popped up from behind the desk. Her light blue features became even more pale in her obvious anxiety. Her white marking and large green eyes made her seem even younger. "I didn't fire my weapon once! I pretended too because the other Eclipse Sisters were watching, but I didn't really shoot." She was trembling. "I'm not one of them! I'm new! I thought being Elnora the mercenary would be cool...but I didn't really know what they were like."
Shepard could smell the lies. Her eyes narrowed. "Both hands up, now. You won't get another warning." The Spectre didn't take her eyes off the maiden. Tali and Miranda shifted their positions so their firing lines were not at cross purposes. The only other one truly experienced with the apprehension of criminals was Garrus. Being in C-Sec he knew instinctively what needed to be done. Without being asked he moved towards the captive, mindful not to block his team mates' shots. He kicked the SMG still lying on the deck over to Tali and made swift work of securing the maiden's assault shotgun and omni tool.
Of course there was no way to nullify the maiden's biotics without a neurocollar but she'd have to be suicidal to make the attempt. Even now Miranda was glowing in blue ready to send a stasis field around the asari if needed. Completely surrounded and unarmed the nervousness oozed out of the asari in small puddles.
Shepard allowed herself to relax her hold on the pistol which she lowered but did not secure, her finger flagging the trigger, her cerulean eyes boring into the maiden's. "So what do they do here you don't like, Elnora?"
Elnora looked around her; there was no way out now. Only now did she notice the Spectre insignia on the pauldrons of the one speaking to her. A Spectre was nearly as bad as a Justicar. They wouldn't let her go. The only way out now was to talk her way out. Sound as innocent as possible.
"I thought we'd be flying around the galaxy shooting up bad guys and stuff, right? But no, they just sell read sand and smuggle illegal weapons tech. They even smuggled an ardat-yakshi off-world."
Despite having heard the word several times, Shepard wanted to know just exactly what this taboo subject was. And how much little Elnora was going to lie about it. "What does that mean, ardat-yakshi?
Elnora seemed to hesitate for a moment before she answered. "It's an ancient asari word for something that means...what I thought was just a superstition until now. It means demon of the night winds. I didn't think they were real, but the boss said, this scary lady was one "
Truth at last. Elnora wasn't as guilelesss as she tired to make herself be perceived. "What ship did they use for the smuggling?" Shepard pressed her next question.
For a brief moment the young looked to the side unwilling to meet the human's pricing blue gaze. "Wow! I have no idea! It was a few days ago and like I said I'm new here. They didn't tell me anything."
Lies again. Shepard puffed a breath of air. The maiden's stance, in fact her entire body language, her deliberate choice of words, the cadence of her voice, changed once more, going back to the blindly naive little maiden. The act was appallingly shallow and ill-preformed. Shepard wasn't buying it. She sounded a lot like the maiden in charge of the Gateway Personal Defence kiosk who had tried to swindle Shepard into helping squire the deed to the Eternity Lounge. Both foolishly assuming humans were pliable and gullible, falling easily to a pretty asari face and an innocent sounding voice. It galled the Spectre to played by such aloof superiority.
"You actually expect me to buy that Elnora? You're lying."
"No! But...I...!"
"Oh I get that you're new, that was no lie. But you are no innocent. Eclipse Sisters earn their armor one way. I have no proof as of yet as to who you murdered to gain it but if you think I'll let you go with just a simple warning about so much as jaywalking you are sadly mistaken. I can't bring you with me and I don't have time to take you back. Not yet."
"What...what are you going to do to me?" Elnora mumbled mutedly. Once more showing her true side. "You're not going to kill me?"
Shepard shook her head. That wasn't the way she operated. She needed hard proof not just circumstantial evidence "Not unless you give me a reason to. Are you?"
The maiden fervently shook her head.
"Tali take out that computer; we can't have her making an S.O.S to her fellow mercs or warning 'the Boss', the good Captain Wasea, we're coming. We'll seal the door after we leave, but don't worry, we're not going to abandon you to fate or let you starve to death. Your location will be given to the local police. I'm sure Detective Anaya will send her people in ASAP."
Elnora didn't seem all that reassured at all, in fact she seemed down right perturbed at the prospect.
Shepard smirked. Gianna was right...there was a certain satisfaction in nailing smug asari. "I believe the Goddess answered your prayers Elnora-at least we didn't kill you."
"The computer's disabled, Commander," Tali announced.
The Spectre nodded, "Excellent. We should go." She lingered at the threshold of the office and waited until her people vacated the it before she left, but not before tossing over her shoulder, "You just sit tight." She then sealed the doors behind her with a Spectre's encryption code that she sent to the good detective along with what little details they had on Elnora. Which admittedly wasn't much, but despite the maiden's continued pretence of being an innocent, she had a new set of shinny yellow and black armor which meant she had killed to gain it in some dark-sisterhood ritual.
"I think you had some fun there," Garrus' lionian muzzle and mandibles flexed in a turian smile.
Shepard pinched the air. "Just a little." She was still smirking.
From behind the door there was a boisterous screech of frustration followed by an angry metallic thumb of someone kicking something very solid. Then a whimper of pain as that 'someone ' realized that even a biotically fuelled kick to durasteel walls was not exactly an intelligent decision.
The four continued their way through the Eclipse base, the fighting at each lag intensifying. While small, the Sisters' patches of resistance seemed more competent and more seasoned the higher the Normandy team went. Wasea must have sent in low-level grunts lead only by an experienced sergeant in the begriming to slow Shepard's progress. One such team Elnora had deserted in hopes of not coming to the same fatal destiny as those of her Sisters. No doubt the asari mercenaries assumed two humans, a single scared turian and a small quarian were no match for their commandos, even ones who lacked the proficient training in biotics. Only now did it seem they understood the price of underestimating their opponents.
The teams they were facing now had better training, weapons and discipline. Their superior strategy and tactics were proving to be more of a challenge. One that was met with the determination and tenacity that had seen Shepard and her squad through their battles with Saren and his geth minions and every battle set upon them since then. Even Miranda was quickly adapting to the Spectre's unit with the skills honed in her years as a high level Cerberus operative.
Confident the immediate perimeter was clear, the Spectre turned her attention to the inner complex that opened up before them. More data terminals and computer banks lined the right wall; it was less of an office and more of a security station. There was an off-chance the information Shepard was seeking lay in the computer's memory banks, but doubtful. Even if it wasn't, the security system would at least give them access to the camera feeds allowing the team to locate where the highest concentration of mercenaries were dug in.
"See if you can't pull anything from those other computers," Shepard ordered in general as she went to one of the security stations and logged into the terminal using a simple override code within her omni tool.
"Well it's official-little baby Elnora is finally a full-fledge Eclipse merc. I earned my uniform last night when I killed that ridiculous volus. Up close, exploding rounds! Blew that little bastard's suit wide open! Hah!" Shepard frowned when she heard the maiden's gloating. She knew the young asari had been lying; Elnora had killed to get her uniform and now the Spectre knew who. This unintentional confession just nailed the lid to her coffin. "I can't wait to see some real action. Next time I go home, my friends are going to be sooo jealous."
"So she's the one who killed Dakni Kur," Garrus said. "Good thing we didn't let her walk away. The good detective will want to hear this."
"And I imagine Pitne For as well. Her confession exonerates him," Miranda added.
"We still don't know why Dakni Kur was back here. This isn't exactly a back alley thoroughfare like our little merchant friend wanted us to believe. His partner wasn't in this area using it as some kind of shortcut. He was taken here deliberately," Shepard commented dryly. "My hunch is Kur's death was a retaliatory hit. When the Eclipse found out Pitne For's trade group sold them dirty chems they wanted payback. Wasea sent out the rookie initiates to take out the mark and earn their armor. These warehouses become the staging ground for their hunt. "
"That's a pretty solid guess," Garrus agreed. "That's my take too. But this doesn't get us any closer to learning that ship's name for Samara. And seriously, what does it matter? Let the two groups take each other out. We took several of their kind out on Omega, there is no difference here."
Shepard frowned. Her own private war with the mercenary guilds had spiralled Garrus back to where he was when she had first met the rash young turian. She had no one but herself to blame for his reactionary outburst. Despite the fact he had a more tempered demeanor, Garrus still tended to go for the more expedient route when it came to confrontations.
"But what if it doesn't stop here?" the raven haired woman shook her head. "Minagen-X3 is an abomination. You felt the toxin entering your suits but you're not a biotic. I felt my powers spike and for a brief moment if felt good. Garrus if this shit hits the broader stream, if Wasea or Pitne For get it out on the streets...a lot of people are going to suffer. A lot of innocent people. We can't let that happen. I won't. It ends here! Samara wants that ship's name and we'll find it. But we're also going to find the evidence we need to send that little bastered Pitne For to prison for a very long time."
"What about Captain Wasea?" Tali asked hesitantly as if she already knew the answer to the question.
It was Miranda, not Shepard, who answered the young woman. "I highly doubt she will surrender or let herself be taken like 'little baby Elnora'."
"No she won't. She'll see us as beneath her. We can use that if we're smart," the Spectre agreed. "Keep your eyes open people." The Spectre turned to the computers Tali had been hacking and saw the quarian had managed to splice into the CCVid camera feeds which in turn gave the assault team a layout of the whole structure.
"Best guess. Wasea and the rest of the Sisters' veterans are bunkered here." Shepard pointed to a large rectangular space further up the warehouse block. The next command she typed into the orange holographic keyboard uploaded the nav point to each team member's omni tool.
"It will have heavy fortifications and stockpiled with that crap." She meant of course the poisonous Minagen-X3. Since they'd been talking, the internal computer of the Spectre's hardsuit had repaired the damage it had taken thus far, but even the seals were proving ineffective against the red haze. "It's not going to be easy. Keep your barriers up and keep the exposure to that fracking dust to a minimum. The only thing we have in our favor is the toxin hurts them as much as it does us. But it also means their biotics are widely potent and equally unstable.
"As soon as we hit their inner-bunker, Garrus I want you to use those proximity mines of yours, keep them boxed in and continue with the headshots. Tali, deploy both your drones and keep up with hijacking their mechs. The more confusion we distribute into their ranks the better for us. Miranda you and I will lay down singularities opposite of each other. The opposing gravity wells will pull them apart. As soon as you lay one down, reach out with a lash. If we time it just right we'll have a few biotic explosions of our own. Any questions?"
At first no one spoke. The plan was straight forward enough and easy enough to care out with favourable results. But it was contingent on the fact Captain Wasea and the rest of her crew had taken refuge within the confined space the Spectre had indicated inside the warehouse proper.
Then Miranda spoke up. "What about between here and there?" Her storm-blue eyes trailed along a split level gantry area as several more pocket sized rooms like the one they were in that separated the squad from their final objective.
It was a fare question. "We continue as we were. Staggered approach. We light them up-biotics and tech explosions. Use overload and sabotage on their shields and deploy shockwaves and warp fields whenever you see the opportunity, same goes for the mechs. Watch out for crossfire. Especially here," the Commander gestured to the gantry that linked the two buildings. "If you see a perfect place for it, it's a sure bet they have one set up. They know we're coming and they could easily rabbit us in bottleneck corners. Don't let them. We take the high route when possible."
The Spectre gained a chorus of 'aye-ayes' from her crew. Amp, ammo and shield checks having already been done the four abandoned the security station and proceed further into the Eclipse base.
The team swept through levels methodically taking out the pockets of resistance and fortifications. The Sisters were proving to be a greater threat; some were even armed with rocket and grenade launchers. The Normandy crew retaliated with concentrated firepower and biotics: always firing, popping in new thermo clips and re-firing, meeting shockwave with shockwave, cancelling out each other's warp-fields and using defensive barriers against lifts and pulls.
Garrus, Tali and Miranda drew the majority of the Sisters attention and Shepard seized the open opportunity to activate her omni-blade and unsheathe her katana. The targets: the Sisters with the rocket launchers. The Spectre charged them, zipping in behind the mercenaries with a shadow strike scissoring the blades into their spines. She spun around with a butterfly kick-dancing the echo game she targeted another opponent. The asari's scream cut suddenly short as her head rolled off her neck and tumbled like a lost soccer ball into a darkened corner of a building, bumping to a rest up against the body of another downed Sister.
Area secure the four rushed the stairs to the upper balconies. The bridge was a made-to-order choke point for anyone to order an ambush. There wasn't a hell of a lot of choices, though, so they marched down to the point where the remaining span was anchored and stared across. They hadn't gone more then five paces before the roar of engines blasted overhead.
"Gunship! Oh crap," Garrus yelped out. "Now they bring out the heavy artillery."
"Find cover!" Shepard ordered then dove behind several crates.
The four scattered, dodging between struts, crates and anything that offered even a of modicum of shelter from the ship's guns and rockets.
"If you so much as poke your spiky head out Garrus I will shoot you!" Tali snapped at her boyfriend. "You are not putting me through that again!"
"Yes, ma'am," the turian answered half joking half very serious.
"I mean it, Vakarian, no more rockets to that face." There was an open gangrenous wound of pain and fear in the young woman's voice. One Garrus felt swell inside him, making him feel humbler and yet at the same time more loved than he had ever felt before.
He wished he had the ability to share the words of his heart the way Shepard and Liara were able to do. But alas such a gift wasn't to be. Instead he relied on a secondary connection his lovely quarian had set up between their two omni tools. Using a pre-existing short-hand he texted: 'I love you too.'
"Damn, I knew we should of policed those launchers those mercs had downstairs," Shepard said kicking herself for not having the foresight to do just that. It was a sloppy mistake only a cadet would have made. She was so intent on her goal to get her team out of the next murder-hole she hadn't taken the time to assess valuable assets.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Alright, Shepard, think.
Without sufficient firepower, taking down the armaments of the gunship was going to be tough. She doubted a biotic flare or slash would bring it down, damage it yes, but destroy it... It was an unknown variable. The last time they had faced a gunship was on Omega and the team had at least two rocket launchers as well as one for grenades. The cryo-blast was going to be useless against the gunship.
There was a secondary whine. Familiar.
"We got mechs coming in fast." Tali whirled around aiming her shotgun at the swiftly approaching clankers. She waited for the optimal firing solution before pulling the trigger.
"Good." Shepard's brain lit up with an idea and hope. "Hack their systems and have them target-"
"Not that kind of mech!" Tali interrupted, dashing Shepard's quickly building plan. "They're Loki's. No good at chasing down a gunship." Her targeting computer bleeped when the contact came into range. She fired a direct hit into its central core, the robot bursting apart in electrical flames.
"I hate those tin dogs," Miranda added from the side. Granted, mechanical K-9s were very vulnerable to overloads but they also exploded in a rain of shrapnel when hit by such, making their demise just as dangerous as when they were active. As if to prove her point the overload tossed into the mech burst wide open taking the unit at its side along with it.
The gunship tore into the avenue with heavy turrets making it nearly impossible to move out from the crates the team had ducked behind.
Garrus took aim but the punctuated shots of his high powered Widow were not enough to fully penetrate the gunship's shields as they had been Eclipse hardsuits. Even Shepard's concentrated fire from the Hurricane was creating very few dents. They needed a better plan, something that would bring that bird down then pepper it with small pot-shots. The gunship had them pinned down.
"It's coming around for another pass," Shepard said. "We don't have a lot of time."
Glancing over to Shepard, the former C-Sec officer spotted a gleam of inspiration sparkling in her blue eyes. Shepard had an idea. That was good because he didn't have any that wouldn't piss Tali or Shepard off if he used it.
Shepard turned her attention to Miranda, "I need your helmet," she said, taking hers off as well.
Miranda of course had been ordered to wear one of the Commander's spare hardsuits because the jumpsuit, despite its upgraded polymer, was no substitute for real armor. Reluctantly the operative had obeyed, mainly because she was adamant in proving to Shepard she wasn't some girly-girl terrified of messing up her perfect hair with helmet-head.
"Garrus how many mines do you have left?" Shepard now addressed the turian.
The new XO was about to answer when the gunship sent a new volley of rockets into their barricade. It caused the four them to scatter. As soon as they did the aircraft's turrets let lose a barrage of fire. Shepard and Lawson's barriers protected the other two as they scrambled for new cover.
"Garrus?!"
"Five. I have five left," he shouted back
The rattle of gunfire ripped along the new cover spots. Tali send out her drones to harass the pilot because they needed more time and the drones were the only way to buy it.
"Slide three to Lawson, the other two to me." She floated three grenades to the other side of their barricade towards the other biotic and nodded to the helmet. The intent was clear, but exactly what Shepard was going to do with two helmets full of explosives was not so clear. "Miranda, put them in your helmet. On my mark set a three second delay to detonation then send the package directly to the gunship's intake exhaust port. We're blowing that thing out of the sky."
The gunship tore back around, the drones had been dispatched and the pilot's attention drawn back to the Spectre and her team. Shepard and Miranda sprinted out from cover, activated the proximity mines within the helmets and tossed them biotically into the ship's exhaust ports. Just like the Spectre surmised the force from the ports pulled in the explosives, clogged the fans and a second later they screeched to a halt and exploded in furious gouts of flame. The gunship spiralled down out of control several floors below. A great mushroom cloud of smoke and fire belched out reaching back to the floor where the team had taken refuge, an effigy to its inevitable fate.
For a moment the companions had time to collect their breath and wits. For a moment Miranda stood back watching as Tali and Garrus congratulated Shepard on her ingenious solution to their dilemma. She was reminded of what had happened with the defective geth ship back on Ilos. The Spectre and Liara had used their biotics to 'fly' the ship directly into the Cerberus base. The move had been inspirational to say the least. Not only had the explosion that followed the crash of the dead ship taken out the base and its research on the Protheans, it had, for a short time, distracted Cerberus long enough for Shepard and her crew to clear out a trove of remarkable resources and recover many technologies unmolested.
"You know you're crazy, don't you?" Garrus commented with a smirk in his voice.
"Thank goodness for that or that plan would never have worked," the Spectre smiled back.
"I would never have thought of using a helmet full of explosive to take out a gunship," Miranda remarked. She didn't know if she was more amused or impressed by Shepard's improvisional thought process. But she was smiling regardless.
"That's why we're going to win against the Collectors and the Reapers. Because no one thinks like our Commander does," Tali said proudly. "Not even your precious Illusive Man."
The Spectre was half tempted to remind the younger woman about the dangers of hubris, but she kept mute because right now she had to build the squad's morale. It was teetering on the low side because of the disbanding of practically everyone on it: first Wrex, then Liara and Ash. With most of the crew now reassigned it left a gaping hole in those that remained. Morale was a very prized and precious commodity. It had to be rebuilt and it had to be made stronger. How that was going to happen with new faces in so short of time, Shepard had no idea, and that was something the Spectre had to keep to herself. Her team had to believe in her, just as they needed her to believe in them and they had to believe in each other just as much if not more so.
"Come on we still have work to do." Shepard turned from the trio, taking no glory for the complement paid to her by her chief engineer.
It was something Miranda was swift to take note of. No one may think as she does, but she didn't think like the Illusive Man. It was apparently something the members of the flagship team seemed to have forgotten. It was something floating around within the Spectre's mind. The operative saw it there when she met the other human's eyes.
The next area was mirror to the security station where Elnora had left her data log. It was here Shepard's attention was drawn to a data pad laying on one of the computer consoles. She picked it up and scanned its contents. "This looks like a shipping manifest. It shows that Pitne For sold two thousand units of Minagen-X3 to the Eclipse. Along with six hundred units of red sand."
"This isn't the information Samara needs but it shows the volus is a criminal," Garrus said reading the pad over Shepard's shoulder. "It mentions two others: Dakni Kur and some guy named Niftu Cal. Well we know what happened to Kur. I'd put stakes on what happened to Cal."
"You think some other newbie got her uniform by tagging him?" Shepard pondered aloud. "Nobody said anything about his death or going missing."
"Could be that he's still around," Miranda hypothesized. "Or perhaps he's not even in the area. Either way he's not our concern."
"I'm sure detective Anaya will be very interested in that pad just like Elnora's logs. You got your proof, Shepard," Tali ignored the operative's detached comment. "You can collar the little bosh'tet yourself, couldn't you?" Tali asked. "I mean, being a Spectre and all."
"Technically Illium isn't in the Terminus Systems. It's right on the boarder. No man's land, or rather space," Garrus suggested. "If you wanted to you could bust him, Shepard."
"I could but I'm going to leave it up to the detective," Shepard remarked. "He would be extradited back to Illium and face the courts here at any rate. I'm happy to let them have him. He will answer for his crimes; he meant to kill all these asari and many more biotics with his poisons. I'm not letting that go. We'll take the evidence to Anaya once we have what we need."
Garrus shook his head, he was missing something. "We waged war on Omega with the Eclipse, the Blood Pack and the Blue Suns, and we're tearing through their ranks now. What's the difference? They're dead either way."
His words were an echo of what he had said after the death of Dr. Saleon. Shepard had talked Garrus down into taking the salarian into custody. But the doctor had other plans; he resisted and ended up dead. Garrus turned to Shepard looking at the dead body asking her why they bothered taking him in at all.
'We can't predict how other people will react; we can only control how we respond.'
It was why her fall into the shadows of a renegade's detestation for everything and everyone around her struck her crew, especially Garrus, hard. In those dark months she had betrayed who she was, what she was. She betrayed Liara, her team and her dead child. Because she succumbed. Shepard wasn't going to allow that again. She had climbed back up, she had to return the integrity of the self. She had to prove it not only to herself but to her crew, to her friends, especially to the one who considered her a mentor.
"Those three guilds didn't have to take Udina and Cerberus' offer. They chose it. They chose to hunt; they chose to go to war. I chose the grounds to where it was going to happen. Here the Sisters chose not to surrender the name of the ship to Samara. They choose to fight now. I have no quarrel with the Illium Sisters. If they committed themselves to fight the Reapers when they come I'd take their help in a heartbeat. It'd be lighting in a bottle. It boils down to intent. Pitne For isn't defending anyone, he isn't protecting anyone. He's dirty and he's selling dirty chems. You heard him; he wants to hit Omega next. Aria controls Omega, but do you actually think she cares what is sold on the black markets as long as she gets her cut?"
"You're right. As long as she gets her tribute T'Loak wouldn't interfere with the internal conflicts of her people. She sure as hell wouldn't stop something like this from hitting the streets. If people take red sand and kill themselves with an overdose that's one thing. But this chem..." Garrus shook his head. "I'm not doing this for the Sisters. They've chosen their side and it's the wrong one. If this crap gets weaponized," he cut a sharp glance to Miranda, or rather the organization she represented, "a lot of innocents could be caught up in the fall out."
Once more Shepard's mind filtered back to a conversation she had overheard in the lower markets between a trueborn and her friend who was a red sand dealer. At the time Shepard had dismissed her comments about 'you can sell something that dangerous?' to which her friend had said, 'as long as it was clearly labelled and the contracts were signed, there was no problem'. She said that if people were too stupid and ignored the warming labels it was their own fault. The conversation spiralled into how some people did stupid things because they had lost hope and fell into despair from the ridicule and torments of being called pureblood. Like how she (the one questioning about labels) might have been one of those stupid people trying to find some kind of escape, some kind of relief from the pain.
When she had heard the term pureblood spouted by the young maiden challenging her 'friend' because she was one, Shepard thought of Liara. How had her beloved survived the torments of her childhood? Had being Benezia's daughter softened or worsened the taunts? Was it any wonder Liara preferred to be alone? The Spectre briefly reflected on the dealer wondering if the asari wasn't in truth an Eclipse Sister and that it was Minagen-X3 she was hocking and not red sand. The theory fit and the pieces were there... but there was no proof of course.
Shepard shook her head, it had to be chem the two were talking about, not just red sand. "I'm ending that volus here. Today." Her voice became forceful.- determined. "That chem ends here. Today. No stockpile, no product on the street."
For a moment Miranda scorned the Commander. To her the younger woman had lost focus of the mission, the point as to why they were really back here in the god-forsaken warehouse in the first place. "This is all academic if we don't get to Wasea," she put out, drawing the attention of the other three. "Isn't that our main objective? Let Illium's police handle clean-up." She didn't add, 'it isn't our problem' as that would only exasperate the drama being played out.
"That's precisely what I had in mind." Shepard held up the data pad before tucking it away in a concealed pocket of her hardsuit.
They passed through the next doorway into a short corridor where they came to an abrupt halt. At the end of the hall standing at a vending machine was a volus with his back to them. He didn't exactly seem the steady sort. On drunken feet he turned and wobbled forward unseeing and stumbled directly into Shepard's legs. He literally bounced off of her, tumbled backwards and nearly landing on his backside. Only then did he seem to take notice that there were others in the room with him.
Shepard shook her head and folded her arms over her chest, dubiously watching the squat male recover his footing.
"Another member of Pitne For's trade group?" Tali asked. "Why is he still alive?"
"I am a biotic god!" he declared almost as if to answer the quarian's question. His body was now swimming in a mass effect field. "I think things and they happen." He took a few steps forward back towards Shepard and her crew. She moved swiftly out of the way since it was unpleasant enough the first time to have the male run into her and she didn't want a repeat of the experience. "Fear me, lesser creatures, for I am biotics made flesh!"
"Oh, brother," Shepard muttered under her breath.
"Now we know what Minagen-X3 does to a volus," Miranda said in a clinical voice as if she were making a scientific observation not merely commentary.
"You need help," Shepard said looking down at the bulbous little man. Self-consciously the raven-haired woman rubbed her forehead. This was just a headache waiting to happen.
The volus stabbed a finger in the air at Shepard, "You need help." It sounded like an accusation. "You stand before the mightiest biotic ever!" he proclaimed boldly, causing Shepard's eyebrows to skyrocket into her unruly forelocks. He was barely able to maintain a stable field of dark energy let alone make good on his proclamation. "Yes, the asari injecting so many drugs into me was terrifying. But then I began to smell my greatness."
"Smell my greatness?!" Tali whispered imprecisely to Garrus. "He can't be serious."
Garrus snickered, shrugging. "I think he meant 'feel my greatness'." Personally, he was finding the whole thing amusing. Shepard must be too, as she was struggling not to laugh out loud at the misstatement. Her face was alight with her own smile. There was even a hint of a smile on Miranda's frozen face.
The volus may have seen the looks of merriment on the squads face or he hadn't noticed it all as he continued his narrative. "They may laugh when I fall down, but they don't know what I know in my head—that I know I am amazingly powerful."
"An amazing fool more like," Miranda snorted.
Her words caught his attention. He stabbed a finger at her as he had with Shepard moments ago. "Fear me!"
"Are you part of Pitne For's trade group?" Shepard asked still struggling with her composure. "You're Niftu Cal right?"
Haughtily the volus turned back to Shepard, addressing her as a noble to a peasant. "When I was mortal I worked for Pitne. The poor soul must be terrified that I have not returned."
This time Garrus made no attempted to hide his mirth. "He hasn't reported your disappearance, probably so his departure wouldn't get delayed."
"Face it, Pitne will choose money over friendship every time," Tali said with disgust in her voice.
"Bah!" Niftu Cal waved his hand imperiously. "I will wreak a just revenge on his people! But first the leader of these mercenaries...is in the next room." He pointed with some grand gesture to the hallway to their right. "I will toss Wasea about like a rag doll!" he said with a self-deified declaration.
"Shepard, having this incapacitated volus running around the battlefield could compromise us," Miranda objected.
"She knows this guy can't tie his own shoelaces let alone fight," Garrus rebuked the operative. "Put a little more trust in her judgment, Lawson."
Niftu Cal ignored the 'disbelievers'. "I will tear her apart! My biotics are unstoppable!" he boasted.
"Wasea will tear you part." Shepard was still quite amused. Half joking half serious she offered up a suggestion. "Take a nap, you'll feel better."
"Are you mad?" Niftu Cal balked at the Spectre's suggestion. He teetered on the feet that apparently had yet to regain their sense of balance and looked through the door he had indicated where the captain was located. "I am unstoppable! Feasting on her biotic-rich blood will be the last step in my ascension of godhood."
"Well isn't that a lovely thought. Thanks for sharing," Shepard grimaced. Having lost interest in the situation she reached out and put a well-placed shove between the volus' thickly padded shoulders. The gentle thump caused Niftu Cal to topple forward face-first onto the deck
A moment later he stumbled back to his feet completely bewildered. "But a great wind...Biotic god! I am...I'm...what was I saying?" he turned to Shepard seeking answers from her.
She didn't resist the small snicker that rippled out of her throat, though she was mindful to keep it muted. "You're tired," she said quickly, taking advantage of his confusion.
"I'm tired," he repeated. "You may be right. Yes, I'm tired..." he titled from one foot to another like a pinball against the bumper-pads as he clashed into Garrus, then Tali. Miranda was swift enough to give him room to find his way unhindered. "I'll nap. Destroy the universe later." He waved off the 'unbelievers' and continued along his way down the hall the squad had come from. At least it was clear that way, or theoretically it was. If he was lucky he'd stumble into Detective Anaya's crew and they'd escorted the high volas back to the docks. If he was unlucky he'd tumble down a flight of stairs like a beach ball if he didn't find a corner to pass out in that is.
"So much for godhood," Tali dryly noted watching him totter off. "It didn't take long to fall from glory on high did it?"
That did it, the dam broke. Unable to stop the chuckles this time, Shepard burst out laughing. The whole thing was utterly ridiculous. Even Garrus smirked and Tali fell into the giggles—the mirth contagious, apparently Miranda was the only one who didn't find the situation nearly as amusing as the others.
After a few moments the small break in gayety drifted up and away, evaporating as swiftly as it had descended. Even without being told Miranda watched as Shepard's subordinates re-established their positions and reclaimed their professionalism almost as if the measure of the previous levity hadn't even transpired. Once more she had unwittingly underestimated Shepard's effectives and that of her team. The operative was too accustomed to the near emotionalises robotic efficiency in the Cerberus neo-soldiers she had practically forgotten what it was like to work with truly engaging personalities.
Shepard wordlessly led the way down the small hallway which had previously been preoccupied by Niftu Cal. The Spectre did not remind her team of the strict plans, she trusted them to each carryout their objectives with all possible precision.
They knew only that Captain Wasea was beyond the door at the end of the hall and the relative layout due to Tali's hacking expertise. They also knew the storage area was going to be stacked floor to ceiling with the illegal chem, quite possibly an ambush but hopefully containing the information Samara needed.
Hacking the door, Shepard led the way into the main storage facility. As suspected, it was filled with the stacked crates leaving a main walkway open. At the end of it was a large L-shaped desk and standing behind it was an asari in a violet hardsuit. It struck Shepard as very peculiar. Almost distractingly so. The Spectre was expecting the leader of the Sisters to be in the familiar yellow and black of the Eclipse uniform, maybe accented with an omni-tech armour shell but still Eclipse. It was almost as if Wasea was making some kind of point by not wearing it, but what? Surely she was not independent of Illium's mech guild.
Wasea barely acknowledged the intrusion in her lair as she deeply swallowed of her drink that was in a utilitarian glass tumbler and continued to read from a data pad she held in her left hand. Her seeming indifference gave Shepard only seconded to assess the other woman.
She noted the deep purple skin tone that reminded her vaguely of Aria's coloring but that was where the similarities ended. Wasea's facial markings were a bright flamingo pink, an almost garish choice against the violet flesh.
Wasea's head lifted from the pad in her hand to meet Shepard's. Whatever calm her body was showing did not reach the asari's baleful indigo eyes. They smouldered in loud rage despite the frozen words dripping like icicles from her purple lips. "Everything has gone to hell since we smuggled that filthy creature off-world," she spat, pacing around the opposite side of the desk, her fingers typing something into the pad she was holding. "First a justicar shows up, now you." Causally she put the pad down onto the surface of the desk, giving it no more thought. Her body swirled in dark energy. Unlike the poor excuse of a mass effect field Niftu Cal managed to generate, Wasea's burned magnanimously bright. "At least I can take pleasure in turning your head," she drew back her hand, one of the creates of Mitagen-X3 rose up within the expanded flow of element zero, "into a pulpy mass!" The crate propelled through the air, zinging to a crash into the now closed door behind the four.
Shepard expected the assault, hell she expected it much sooner. Tali, Garrus and Miranda dove for cover. Shepard merely side stepped the hurdling object's path, ignored the impact against the far wall behind her, her eyes never leaving the engaged huntresses before her even as the cloud of magenta mist coiled up and around her body.
It had to be some sort of signal. Almost immediately following exploding crate, asari and mechs that had been hiding in reserve rushed from the west wing of the store house. The Spectre's squad had no time to catch their breath. The only thing they had in their favor was to follow the plan. Stay frosty and wired-tight.
Unlike her juniors, Wasea had the tactical foresight to focus on one primary target. Take down the Spectre. Crush the leader, crush the team.
Shepard shoulder rolled forward and tucked her body behind several more crates of the Mitagen-X3. Not the best of barricades, should, or rather when, they broke they would spew their poison—with no helmet, no environmental seals it would kill her within nine seconds. Her team if they drew no closer in seventeen, Wasea in eleven.
Battle is not static. It is not stationary. Seconds are lifetimes. Shepard wanted the chemical destroyed but not while they were in it.
The volley tore the crates apart, forcing Garrus and Tali to remain bunkered where they were, the turian taking careful aim, sniping those that came into focus. Mechs shuttered as their IFF's were seized by quarian ingenuity. Miranda used warp-field after warp-felid combining them with Shepard's biotic slashes. It was exhausting but it kept the enemy pinned down just as much as the ground team was.
"If you're helping the Justicar," the call came from Wasea above the staccato of weapons fire and the 'wharr-woumph' of biotics, "you're deep into something terrifying."
The words were not a challenge, they were not mocking. A warning then. About the ardat-yakshi? This criminal Samara was hunting not only frightened little baby Elnora; she terrified a seasoned mercenary like Wasea.
'You think I would betray her? She'd hurt me in ways you can't even imagine!' The dead lieutenant's words echoed on top of Wasea's
Death was preferable. Rather than give up the name, the Sisters were willing to die because the alterative petrified them. They helped not because the fugitive was a fellow criminal but to rid themselves of a...monster...a demon.
Demons would wait their turn just like biotic gods. More clouds of salmon colored dust wafted into the air as more creates of the toxic chemical were destroyed in the crossfire. If this didn't end soon it was going to become a very serious problem.
Shepard tapped her radio, "Now Miranda!" she spun out of her destroyed cover.
"Understood. Engaging target." The operative released a shockwave. The source power of biotic explosions as well as a detonator power for all types of power combinations. The small explosive impacts traveled upward in a single directory, the shielded Sisters stuck by it became stunned, losing most of their shields making them completely vulnerable to Tali and Garrus's weapons fire.
At the same time Shepard had amassed a pool of dark energy and released a flare. Its large blast radius meant it was highly effective against enemies in environments with large amounts of cover like the storage area. Even if the projectile stuck cover instead of an enemy, the size of the explosion produced massive damage, killing several of the asari who had escaped the shockwave.
Wasea screamed in rage as each of the Sisters fell or were torn apart by biotics. "You're not going to leave here, Spectre!" Wasea snarled. She sprang up, her body encased in the cyan glow of her biotics. "You're not the only one who knows how to flare!" She reached and pulled back, targeting Shepard. She lost sight of all others. Her face never even registered the surprise of being hit square between the eyes.
"Scoped and dropped," came the turian's well-earned boast.
Shepard didn't even look behind her. "Always the archangel, eh Vakarian?" She smiled gratefully for his perfect timing.
"Well I couldn't just stand by and let you have all the fun," he teased.
"Humph. Yeah well, can't have that can we?" This time she did turn to see the three approach her. They had waited back for only a moment after the mercenary captain was down to see if there were any more Sisters or mechs within the vicinity.
But it was dead silent. The only noise now was the occasional hiss from the last vestiges of the Mitagen-X3 escaping the containers and the footfalls of the flagship team approaching the area where Wasea had fallen.
"There's got to be a record of that ship around here somewhere," Tali commented going for the computer terminal behind the desk. She made an amused sound at the feeble coded locks on it.
Shepard agreed with her engineer's assent. Her first guess was the E.V.T.X data pad the asari had tossed on her desk when they had come in. Shepard opened it without a single problem and checked the recent-history index. She found one in asarian script tagged 'J / A-Y'
Fortunately the language both written and spoken had been one of the foreign languages she had taken up back in high school. Hell, she didn't even need her translator to speak it or hear it spoken. "'There's a Justicar here! Probably looking for the one we sent off on the AML Demeter. I was happy to see her go; she chilled me to the bone. I just hope that Justicar doesn't mess up my operations'," Shepard read aloud.
"That must be the ship Samara is looking for," Miranda added.
"Should we head back to the police station and give her the name or look around first?" asked Garrus. He knew his friend wanted to destroy the chems but short of tossing it all in the incinerator they had no way to safely dispose of the tainted substance.
"I want see if there are more files, anything dealing with Wasea's operations with the Mitagen-X3 or any other illegal transactions she was engaged in. See if there are any tracking numbers on those chems. Anaya is going to need them if she's going to recover any shipments."
"I'm on it," Tali responded. Her deft fingers having already made swift work at hacking into the encoded computer terminal behind the desk. "I think I have something here. It looks like a list of potential dealers sub-letting the franchise. Oohh look, three thousand e-credits in Wasea's soft-books from A-Y. Seems she was double-dealing her own sisters. Guess they're not into the whole sorority unity thing after all. Think Samara will mind if we do a little transferring of our own?"
"I doubt she cares about what this ardat-yakshi paid to get off-world, she seemed pretty intent on learning only the ship's name. If she mentions it, I'd give it to her, but if not...best not say anything," Shepard said. "And just so you know, technically that's evidence. But I'll leave it up to you if you want to take it." She turned her back on Tali allowing the younger woman make her own decision.
Garrus looked over the manifest his girlfriend had uncovered and nodded. "This will give the good detective solid evidence to make a case stick against any living Sisters on the station as well as Pitne-For. Even as an accessory to this and her self-admitted murder, little baby Elnora is going to prison for a very long time." He chuckled, "I wonder if her friends are going to be soooo jealous when they learn about the new 'uniform' she just earned."