A/N: Reviews are the fuel that power this starship. Also, though I do have a long-suffering military advisor (who will not let me call the Mako a tank-we considered AFV and LAV and settled on IFV, though technically it qualifies for all of them), let me know when enough becomes too much.
Absolute Magnitude
-Chapter Ten-
Tear Down the Towers (Part I)
The residents of Earth a hundred years ago-or at least those in a position to appreciate the interior of a dropship-would likely be surprised at how little the technology had changed in what seemed a vast interval in what had been an aggressively evolving field.
But no more.
Just as nuclear weapons had once been regulated and sanctioned by the power of the United Nations, humanity had discovered to its surprise that it wasn't due to luck or God or some strange manifest destiny that had seen near technological parity with the turians during the Relay 314 incident. All credit for what might elsewise had been a crushing defeat-Palavan had been in the stars when Nebuchadnezzar II had been building the hanging gardens of Babylon and sacking the city of Jerusalem-belonged to the strange document the asari called the Matriarch's Accord.
The asari had been wanderers by nature long before they'd left the skies of their homeworld for the vast stretches of the galaxy. Humanity's first written laws had codified vengeance with the stele of Hammurabi; the asari had engraved instead a series of teachings about reciprocal hospitality so deep-rooted they were almost more religion than anything else. When they'd left Thessia, those laws had followed them and while their evolved form might not at first glance appear related, they served the same purpose-the Matriarch's Accord protected asari wayfarers by defining the limits of technology acceptable for use in warfare.
It kept the salarians from developing biological weapons of nightmare capabilities and the turians from building more of their übermensch-class ships (the designation given by the Systems Alliance when they'd encountered a ship that had been preserved as a museum rather than permanently dry-docked or recycled; the turian term could be translated as "world devourer" though they'd only ever been used in ship-to-ship combat).
And humans, understanding that they couldn't withstand the combined might of the Council races, had grudgingly transitioned their weapons development programs into theoretical exercises.
While the foresight of the asari matriarchs had limited the destruction done in inter- and intraplanetary squabbles-which Shepard regarded as a good thing-she understood that some people resented being forced to use what was essentially the technology of their ancestors with a holoface upgrade and modern design aesthetics. It was almost a traditional grumble in the armed forces, like the taunting between branches.
Years of familiarity and refinement had their advantages, however, in that everyone knew exactly what their equipment was capable of.
"We did a scan when we passed over the area of Therum where Dr. T'Soni's dig site was registered with her university," Lt. Bram reported to her as they faced a topographic layout of Therum projecting itself up from the table in the mission readiness room. Red blips obligingly appeared as he spoke, marking out their enemies. "The Normandy picked up geth readings and from the size, they're not footsoldiers. We've designated them colossuses-"
"Colossi," Shepard murmured.
"Yes, ma'am," Bram said. "We've designated them colossi and while we'd probably be able to take them out with the S-14s provided they don't turn out to be ground-to-air specialists, initial readings indicate that they're emitting a jamming frequency-we might have to target them manually. Normally that wouldn't be a problem because this mining site suspended operations for the duration of the dig, but we couldn't make contact with Dr. T'Soni, though we got some strange readings from something other than the geth. When we pulled the topo studies from the university's archives, they shoved significant subterranean excavation."
Mapped tunnels and underground rooms defined themselves in lighter blue beneath the darker blue surface. "While by all reports they're in pretty impressive shape considering their age, they are fifty thousand years old and this area of Therum has become considerably more seismically active in the last three hundred years. There's a chance that stray missile fire might destabilize the mining operation above and if the surface buildings collapse, depending on how well shored-up those tunnels are, they might go too. And since we were unable to establish contact with Dr. T'Soni..."
"We can't know where she's sheltering in them and it would be just our luck to bring it down on her head," Nihlus finished his thought with a disgruntled rumble. "It's unusual that she'd travel alone, though. I don't know much about archeology, but Prothean ruins usually attract more than a lone asari."
It was Kaidan who answered. "Apparently, there was trouble with their grant-the rest of the team was waiting to travel, but Dr. T'Soni went ahead to do some non-invasive study on her own."
"Did the university have a geological survey of the area?" Shepard asked Bram.
"The university didn't, but the mining company did." He obligingly overlaid another map, the bluescale shifting to reflect the relative hardness of surrounding rock deposits. "Only near the dig site though," he warned, "the company apparently shared our concerns about destabilization."
Shepard frowned thoughtfully at the map. "What about secondary entrances?"
"None, ma'am. Because they were working suited, the ventilation isn't big enough to shove a salarian down, let alone a human or asari. The mining company stopped excavation when they encountered the ruins, so the only official entry is the one we're aware of. And part of the reason the university was excited is that the preliminary survey showed minimal looting, so we don't have any scavenger tunnels on record."
Shepard studied the holomap for a moment longer before dragged her finger across the screen embedded in table at the commander's seat. Her movement was echoed on the larger holoface, a flat area on the map sheltered by a small ridge flushing green. "Then we'll have the S-14s drop the ground team here. Judging by the elevation readings, this ridge should provide enough shelter to land the Lammergeiers. How long to get them back off the ground?"
"We can be airborne in seconds," Bram promised. "The S-14s have excellent vertical thrust."
"Good. Once you've dropped us, give us enough time round this rock formation and then get back up in the air. I'll need you to run interference. Draw fire from us until we've taken down the colossi. Keep as close as you can for a quick extraction, but don't tempt fate if their dropships make an appearance."
"We'll play it careful," Bram agreed. "Nothing like an enemy who doesn't play by the rules to have a nasty surprise waiting."
They spent another ten minutes discussing ground tactics-which involved a discussion of the surface lava flows and the associated breathing hazards, which meant full masks-until Shepard was satisfied.
"Well, we have an asari to find and extract. Let's not keep her waiting any longer," Nihlus said, shoving himself away from the workstation where he'd been ensconced.
Training made the deployment run as smoothly as a clock mechanism and it seemed like hardly any time at all passed between laying the foundation and the S-14s smoothly setting down behind her chosen ridgeline, the external audio feeds picking up the impact of missiles against the rocky fortification Shepard had chosen to put them down behind. It seemed the colossi had ground-to-air capabilities after all, but their own jamming suite had thwarted the autotargeting capabilities of the enemy.
She was seated in the passenger seat of one of the MARS-designated Beelze according to the 66th's habit of naming their vehicles after demons or monsters-as it rolled off the ramp, Nihlus and Vakarian behind their gunner. Kaidan echoed her position in the second MARS-designated Ninki-with Wrex and one of their comm specialists. The slower, more heavily armored Makos were soon sandwiched between the more lightly armored and maneuverable MARS. Each Mako had a designated crew of three, Goddard in one with their other comm specialist and three marines, while Williams and another three marines occupied the other.
The Mako which hadn't needed a designation until now and which Williams occupied had become Az; the other was Susan. From what she understood, the mother of Susan's mechanic had visited the platoon precisely once and left such a lasting impression that the IFV had been renamed immediately.
"Dropship incoming," Bram's voice warned.
"Devil One and Two, Tango's in the air, engage!" came Goddard's voice on the comms. The deep, heavy treads of their tires kicked dust into the air as the two IFVs swung clear of the shadow of the S-14s, their turrets swinging around to track the hovering dropship.
Eezo was used to dampen the recoil on starships, but it was too precious a resource to waste for AFVs, so she watched as even six wheels and independent suspension couldn't keep the vehicles from sliding back that half-inch as their cannons fired in almost perfect synchronicity. Recoil, however, was just another fact of life for Marines, like the need to breathe or eat. Their second shots struck as true as the first, exploding against the dropship's shields without the power to breach them.
"We have hostiles on the ground!"
"Be a shame to miss the party," Shepard said to her driver, who obligingly gunned the engine and put them into range, the other MARS mirroring their movements. Her gunner-Wilson, Earthborn out of Oklahoma-put on display skills that wouldn't have shamed an N-school graduate, the speed of the vehicle not offsetting the accuracy of the bullets that hammered into new geth-forms. If their foot soldiers mocked the upright, bipedal form of their creators, Shepard could only imagine that these quadrupeds existed in some flesh-and-blood form as well, simply without cannons fused into their necks.
The MARS were equipped with heavy machine guns and were more quick and maneuverable than the more heavily armored Makos, but it wasn't until the Lammergeiers got into the sky that the fight really started. Equipped for outings without further air support, they carried a rocket pod mounted on one wing and a missile bracket on the other.
"Screamers"-that was the popular nickname for the Banshee rockets that shrieked through the air, twisted metal fins producing a rifling effect as well as the noise that had scattered innumerable Batarian mercenaries. Those twisted fins not only increased the range and speed of the rockets, but once the initial volleys had disrupted the kinetic barriers, those tips could pierce all but the hardest of metals. Shepard watched with a grim sort of satisfaction as they latched onto the hull of the withdrawing dropship, their payloads erupting like flowers blooming in a timelapse photo.
Unfortunately it seemed that the geth took structural integrity seriously, because despite the two gaping holes that marred the sleek, insectoid shape of their ship, it was able to re-establish its shields and retreat. Shepard's eyes flickered back to the fight on the ground, but the Makos had dug their teeth deep into their new, smaller prey, opening up with both cannons and their coaxial guns until the geth shields were a memory and the geth steel was a twisted, smoking ruin.
"Should we pursue, Commander?" Bram asked as the last one's hydraulic system was failing, those thick, spider-like legs collapsing beneath its bulk.
"Negative," she retorted. "Let the Normandy deal with it, if she can. We still need to clear the colossi before we find the good doctor. "
"Then we'll go and give 'em hell when you give the word," Bram acknowledged, the S-14s remaining safely below the ridgeline.
Shepard pulled up the map on her omnitool as the vehicles fell into a convoy, the MARS fore and aft with the Makos snugged in between. She'd put them down close to the ruins of the Prothean city and with the guidance of recent satellite imaging, they were able to avoid any open lava flows, though the narrow, rocky valleys made for a rough journey through a desolate landscape. It was only in the population centers that there was an attempt to reintroduce the native plants and animals in controlled biospheres; otherwise the human settlers of the planet were content to enrich themselves by selling the plentiful metals offworld. The severe volcanic activity of the last three hundred years had thrown up ash clouds that had caused a mass extinction event, leaving them with bare, ugly basalt rolling by outside the windows.
And then they were in the mining operation-cum-archeological dig site, but it was filled with the quarian's AI attempt to make themselves obsolete. Just as the name implied, the colossi were colossal and would have presented enough of an obstacle on their own as they were scrambling the targeting systems aboard the S-14s, but they were well-supported by shock and rocket troops.
Funding apparently isn't an issue for a machine race, Shepard thought with a grim sort of amusement.
Her driver described the situation far more colorfully and vocally, demonstrating a particularly apt ability to use four-letter words as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. There was a clicking noise from the turians in the back-she couldn't interpret whether that was approval or disapproval and at the moment she didn't have space enough to care.
"There," she said sharply, activating her comm so that her orders would reach the other vehicles. "Entrance to the mine at three o'clock, heads up, lots of lovelies looking to spoil our day. Beelze, Ninki, let's say hello loud enough to clear the park so we can get out, stretch our legs. Once my team and Alenko's are in, let's get a citadel up, Williams. Devil One and Two, priority is the colossi shields-we wouldn't want to keep them from discovering whether or not geth go to hell when they die."
Confirmation came from all the feeds even as the four AFVs began evasive maneuvers to avoid the fire of the three colossi, accelerating and breaking out of formation as the advantage of overwhelming firepower belonged to the geth offensive. Unfortunately, the layout of the mining operation was against them-all the buildings and struts they could have used for additional cover were in the opposite direction of their entry point.
Moon-her driver-jerked the wheel sharply, the reinforced bar on the front of the MARS clipping a passing geth hard enough to sheer a huge chunk out of its torso. She had a feeling, judging by the teeth-baring smile on his face, that if they'd been equipped with tracks instead of tires she'd have been treated to a demonstration of vehicular slaughter.
Az and Susan had been hammering the Colossus closest to the mine entrance with everything they had and as Shepard caught the slight flicker of failing shields on the part of the mechanical behemoth, she watched as the reactive shielding on Susan consolidated itself into a nearly opaque barrier in the front of the vehicle.
"Is he-?" Vakarian asked, but he didn't have time to finish the thought before the driver of the Mako used the thrusters for an extra burst of speed that put them in front of the missile that the Colossus had launched and into a direct collision course with its legs. There was the grinding crunch of metal as the shield slammed into a leg thick enough to be a steel girder-it was solid enough to act as a battering ram and circumvent the usual rules of kinetic shielding, though hugely power-inefficient and if they weren't careful they'd lose shielding entirely-and then seconds later, like an echo, it hit a second leg.
Shepard was already pulling the damage feeds for Susan, but the Colossus was collapsing, its own shields down, and one of the S-14s rose just far enough above the ridgeline that it could get a lock-and then everything was metal shrapnel and smoke and discharged electricity as the S-14 put three missiles into the belly of the beast.
But the satisfaction of bringing one down was tempered by the warning lights that burned ominous red on Susan's damage report-they'd overloaded the shielding systems, which mean that at this moment the IFV was protected by nothing more than metal. She twisted in her seat to keep an eye on them, tense with the knowledge that even if the automatic systems brought the shielding back online, there'd be long, vulnerable seconds before that happened.
"Devil One's showing bare skin, we could use some cover over here," Goddard barked into the comm, which meant the line was open when there were three distinct metallic tunks of something impacting the roof.
"Status?" Shepard demanded.
"Something new and exciting on the roof, ma'am," was Goddard's tense reply. "Rodriguez, are you waiting for an invitation?"
"No, ma'am!" A finely controlled blast of biotic power swept two of the new geth-forms from the roof of the Mako, while a second tore the third uninvited visitor from where it was clinging to the turret.
"They're in the mining superstructure like a bunch of fucking monkeys," Goddard reported, "dropped down on us when we passed beneath it."
Despite total shields failure, Susan and Az had turned their campaign of destruction on another of the colossi, while the heavy machine guns mounted atop the two MARS focused on thinning the ranks of the foot soldiers. She heard Nihlus hiss something too low for her to hear as they caught a rocket to one of the rear panels, making the vehicle fishtail wildly until Moon brought in back under control, sliding to a neat stop not ten feet from the mine entrance.
"Hope you've enjoyed your ride on the Beelzebub Express," Moon called after them as Shepard and the two turians made a quick exit. He gunned the engine as soon as the three of them were clear, the rhythmic discharge of the gun never faltering.
Vakarian automatically fell a step behind, turning to keep eyes on their 6 as she and Nihlus put down a few geth that hadn't quite realized they were dead yet. They'd crossed five feet of their ten-foot gap when Vakarian shouted, "Incoming!"
Shepard didn't glance behind her, because she could hear the distinctive whine of an incoming round. She pitched herself forward into a full sprint and when she met the incline that led down into the mine, which lacked most anything resembling cover, she pitched herself forward, one forearm in front of her face to keep her helmet from impacting the floor, the other tucking her rifle beneath her body moments after her chestpiece took the worst of the fall. Bruises faded, a damaged weapon in the field was death sentence.
It was a well-trained instinct, just as she'd guess Vakarian's was, because nanoseconds later his taller, heavier body was thrown partially over her own right before the impact of the missile against the slanted roof of the mine. It dislodged a few heavy chunks of whatever they'd used to reinforce the tunnel, along with detritus from the missile itself, and the in-suit comms caught Vakarian's huff of pain, but sometime between initial impact and then he'd taken most of his weight onto his arms, which were braced on either side of her body. That sound was the only indication he'd been hit.
They stayed prone for a few seconds longer, but this shaft had been reinforced with seismic activity in mind. There was no further shifting and Shepard quickly grew impatient and worried in equal measure. "Vakarian?"
"Sorry, ma'am," he wheezed, the auto-filter feature of the comm having made his distress inaudible until that point. "Caught me in the back and winded me."
A movement in her peripheral vision resolved itself into Nihlus, who offered a three-fingered hand to Vakarian. Grasping forearms, they soon had Vakarian safely upright, but a new worry had burrowed itself in Shepard's mind as she rose to her own feet. She was accustomed to working with mixed gender teams and she had a very clear idea of what her upper limit was when it came to carrying someone clear of a combat zone. If either Vakarian or Nihlus were injured, it was going to fall to the other turian to get the other out. If they were both injured-well, she would pray for now and run scenarios later.
"Vakarian, as much as I appreciate the gesture, it's my prerogative to be crushed by my own rubble," Shepard told the turian, who flexed his mandibles sheepishly at her from behind his helmet.
"Habit, " he quipped. "You humans being so squishy and all."
Shepard snorted inelegantly as the other MARS offloaded its own cargo, Wrex bursting out of his door with a triumphant roar matched only by the blast of his shotgun. The Marine sliding out from the door opposite was wincing, so Shepard would guess that the krogan hadn't waited until the door was all the way open before displaying what the redundant lungs of a fully grown male krogan were capable of.
"Hearing still intact, Sokolov?"
"Dunno, ma'am. I'll let you know when the ringing stops."
Kaidan was fast on his heels as the MARS kicked up grit and ash when its driver gunned the vehicle back into the fight.
"I vote we leave the krogan behind," Nihlus murmured dryly. "It sounds like he's having fun and I'd hate to spoil that."
Shepard swallowed down her amusement. "Wrex, fall in!" she demanded sharply, which earned her an affirmative grunt in reply.
Kaidan and Nihlus took point, Wrex covering their rear, while she and Vakarian flanked Solokov, who periodically checked in with the surface team and the Normandy and tried to raise Dr. T'Soni on the common channels.
"I've never visited a Prothean ruin before," Vakarian commented as they swept the tunnels of the mining complex, Kaidan's barriers keeping them all relatively safe from the odd geth that they encountered. "Aside from the Citadel, I mean."
Shephard hummed her acknowledgment, but didn't pick up the conversational thread. She had no particular phobia of tunnels, but she'd hunted in enough of them to be leery of the lack of options if and when things started to go wrong. Their party reached the stairs without incident and made the moderate trek down to the lowest point-less than seventy feet, at an estimate.
"According to the mining company, we should be come out on a landing of sorts," Kaidan commented as they prepared to open the bottom set of doors. "They found a natural cavern and were preparing to use it as a kind of base camp for some deeper exploratory mining. That's when they stumbled onto the Prothean ruin. If Dr. T'Soni's down here, there are shelters in case of mining disasters. Food, water, air recycling systems, and walls designed to hold up against a mine collapse. If she made it to one of them and sealed herself in, she'll be fine."
"Sure," Wrex volunteered snidely. "All tucked up neat and tidy and eating little cakes while waiting for rescue. Because last time I checked, prescience wasn't something the asari had suddenly developed. No way does she get surprised by the geth and makes it back into this section of the mine."
"Gentlemen," Shepard said sharply, forestalling a brewing argument. "Sokolov, we still have contact?"
"Still coming in clear as day, ma'am," was his report. "No response to my hails either-Dr. T'Soni either has her omnitool off or we're going to enter a section of tunnels where we won't have reception."
"So it's not the rock," Shepard said thoughtfully. "She's in the Prothean section, then. Several of the researchers who worked in subterranean ruins reported the same phenomena; they hypothesized it had something to do with the coating on the walls. No incoming or outgoing signals."
"You could have mentioned this before," Nihlus observed with a sidelong glance.
"There was no guarantee it wasn't the mine. It's a natural property of some minerals."
Nihlus rumbled something back at her, but she couldn't sort out all the tones before they were entering the cavern and discovering that several geth had beaten them to it. Unlike the chaos above, these were more even odds, which made it a little unfair for the geth.
It was only when the sounds of gunfire were dying down that both her turians paused and tilted their heads in a very avian movement.
"Someone's shouting," Vakarian observed in the same moment that Nihlus took off in that ground-eating turian lope.
One day he's going to run into something he can't handle by himself, Shepard thought grimly as she signaled for her team to follow at a slightly more sedate pace.
Rough rock gave way to a manmade series of scaffolding that led to a wide service elevator on the left, which had seen the tromp of many dirty boots; to the right a newer series of scaffolding had been bolted into the rock. The featureless volcanic basalt of the surface had given way to striated layers of rock, but at the end of the walkway these gave way to gleaming tiled walls.
And it was in this tiled area that they discovered their target. One Dr. Liara T'Soni, who was suspended in a blue grav-shifted kinetic barrier like a dragonfly in amber.