This is the longest chapter of SASI so far, so enjoy it.

Some notes:

-I actually tried to drive in the lava the first time I played the game.

-#SuperAwesomeSelfInsert is the new divider and hashtag.

-This is the longest chapter of SASI so far.

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14: Therum of a Trapped Asari

Shepard

"That's really a stretch."

"Yeah, it's like, a really bad pun."

"And it's not even funny."

"Seriously, that doesn't work."

"Okay, maybe the opening bit isn't perfect material," I relented, throwing my hands into the air. "I'm naval special forces, not a stand-up comedian. But come on, you've got to admit the part with the-"

"No," the four people from the alternate reality snapped in unison. I know that's an awkward designation, but what do you call them, other than crazy weirdos?

"Fine, forget it," I replied. "I'm just going to be serious from now on."

I flicked my hand upward, bringing up a hologram of a cat jumping over a fence.

"Oops, wrong one," I covered as the four laughed at me. Well, I'm glad they found this funny. A few swipes over and I had the right hologram up.

"Is that Noveria?" Aleks asked.

Kevin shook his head. "Nope, it's Therum. Look at all the lava."

"You're right. It's Therum," I confirmed, leaning back in my chair. "A possible location of our missing asari archaeologist, Benezia's daughter. So, is she there or not?"

"Yes."

"Definitely."

"Sure."

"Yeah."

"I'll take that as a yes," I acknowledged. Honestly, the extremely casual attitude they're taking was putting me off a little bit. This is some serious stuff... but I guess it isn't to them. It's just a game that they're now stuck in.

Which would actually kind of suck, given the gravity of this mission. They'll learn soon enough. And then I'm going to have to find a good pshrink.

"Okay, tell me what's going to happen." I hadn't actually grilled them for information yet, and I had no idea how much they had or how accurate it was. No matter how much confidence they had, I reminded myself, I would not trust their information to be accurate. That kind of assumption would get people killed.

I knew these people could resolve a situation, but that doesn't mean they're the real deal. Maybe they have some skills, maybe they were just lucky. Doesn't mean they know what's going to happen.

Kevin was the first to explain. "You'll be dropped off in the Mako on some red rocky stuff. There's a twisty path of rocky ground with lava in between, making kind of like a maze. Don't drive in the lava."

"You don't fucking say," Jason interrupted.

"Hey, the first time I played it I didn't know that stuff was lethal and I tried to drive across it!" Kevin retorted. He turned back to me. "So don't drive in the lava, okay?"

"Noted." My dry sarcasm seemed to be lost on him. "So, don't drive in the lava, go down the maze. Anything I should know."

"Yeah, there's geth periodically," Aleks told me.

"And you didn't think this was important?"

"I was getting to it," Kevin replied. Well, it goes without saying that they probably should have said that first. "Okay, it's just a few groups of geth troopers, sometimes with an armature. Some of them have rockets, but other than that, it should be no problem with the Mako. Use the jump jets to avoid rockets and armature blasts. I like to run over the troopers and repeatedly back over the armatures to kill them."

"You do what?" Melia shrieked.

"I ram and repeatedly back over the armatures to kill them. It's more fun that way."

"This is not a game!" My sister waved her hands in the air.

"Actually, from my point of view, this is very much a game."

"That's crazy!"

"Settle down, both of you," I intervene. "Okay, so we've got geth on the path. Troopers backed up by armatures. I don't like it, but we can handle it."

Wait... "We can handle it, right?"

"Yeah, no problem," Kevin replied.

"Wait!" Sandra interrupted. She spoke quickly. "There's like a base thingy that you have to go around. It's like, a thing with a bunch of turrets. I think it's Garrus that says there's too many guns and you'll have to find a way around. Then there's this path in the cliff and you can flank them and shoot only a few turrets and then you go through and open the gate."

I nodded. "Path around the turrets. Check."

"Then there's this part where you can't go through with the Mako-"

"Bullshit," Kevin snapped.

Sandra shot him a look. "What?"

"Bullshit," Kevin repeated. "If you manoeuvre just right, you can get the Mako through the rocks. I don't think it does much good, though. If I recall correctly, there's a hill on the other side that you can't go up."

"I'll figure that out on the ground," I replied. "But to be clear, at some point we'll have to go on foot?"

"That's correct," Kevin replied. "I don't really remember where, but at some point you'll come to a mining colony kind of thing. You'll have to fight a geth colossus. I used to die a lot in this part, but then I figured out I could keep Shepard behind cover and use my squad to soak up bullets."

"Damn it, Kevin, this is not a game!" I shouted. Using people as bullet shields is where I draw the line.

"I remember it as a game!" Kevin replied, accentuating every syllable. "Sorry. Look, the colossus is powerful and hard to kill, but you can take it down."

"How powerful?" Melia asked.

"It's basically a bigger, nastier armature," Jason said succinctly.

"Right. I knew I should have bought that grenade launcher." I sighed. "Okay, we take down the Colossus, somehow. Then what?"

"There's an entrance to the archaeology mining place," Sandra explained. "There's some geth, and then an elevator that you take down, and then you meet Liara. She trapped herself in this Prothean security forcefield and you'll have to use a mining laser to get to the other side. Then you can talk to her, but the place starts to cave in and you take an elevator up. Then there's some krogan that you have to fight-"

"Have to fight?" Melia asked. I'm not sure what she's getting at.

"Yeah, no matter what you say you can't convince him to back off," Sandra added. "After you kill him there's a cutscene where you run out of there and the Normandy comes to pick you up."

"A cutscene. Brilliant," I muttered.

Kevin heard me. He replied honestly, "We're just saying it as we saw it."

"Aleks, anything to add?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I haven't played the first game, so I don't really know a whole lot about it."

"What about you, Jason?"

He shrugged. "What Kevin and Sandra said sounds right."

"So, when do we leave?" Aleks asked, standing up.

"I leave with my team as quickly as we can after we drop out, which should be in-" I checked my watch- "about five hours. You stay here."

"But Commander-"

"No," I said forcefully. "Not yet. Today, I want to verify your information. At this time, your job is intelligence. It remains to be seen whether you'll succeed at it. If you do, then we can go further."

"Uh, Commander, I'm picking up some weird readings. Like, off the damn charts. It's coming from a compound a few clicks from where you are now."

I keyed the comm. "Copy that, Joker."

I had decided to take Garrus, Williams, and Alenko on this mission. I don't have anything against aliens- hell, was sure those guys were reliable- but they were an unknown quantity. I decided to take one of them on each mission along with Williams and Alenko until I got a feel for them.

Garrus was a natural choice for this mission, with these wide open areas and his sniper rifle. I let him take the gun, because he can't be any worse than Jason. He told me that the Mako was a little different from what they had in the turian military, but not too dissimilar overall.

"Grey skies, red rocks," Williams remarked quietly. "Reminds me of Mars, kinda."

I hit the accelerator and the vehicle bumped over the rough terrain. The suspension in the Mako always was a little too floaty for my tastes.

"Should we really be going this fast, Commander?" Alenko objected, bounding around in the seat behind me.

"It's fine." I will admit I'm kind of rough on vehicles. But this is a military vehicle. It's built to take abuse.

The way the rocks were formed made a twisty, maze-like path, with several segments obscured from the others by hills. As we rounded a corner, a geth dropship came over the rise and dropped a pair of armatures.

"Damn it!" I swore. Nobody mentioned the dropship! "Garrus-"

"Already on it, Commander!" I felt the thump of the main cannon and saw a bright flash in front of us. I was actually... kind of impressed. Garrus managed to get a perfect hit on the first armature, first try, from a moving vehicle.

The second armature shot one of its energy balls at us. Remembering what Kevin had said, I hit the jump jets. The energy ball flew underneath us, and as soon as we landed Garrus fired again. This shot went wide, hitting the ground short of the target.

I slammed my foot down, speeding up the Mako and bringing us in closer. Garrus switched to the machinegun, little impacts peppering the geth armature's shields. A few seconds later, there was another thump, another flash, and the armature was reduced to bits of scrap metal.

"Two out of three. Not too bad, Garrus," I commented lightly.

"I could have got three out of three if this gun was properly calibrated." the turian replied. I couldn't tell if he was joking or actually disappointed.

It was an uneventful few kilometres before what looked like some kind of gatehouse appeared in the distance. I activated the zoom function, and sure enough there was a pair of missile turrets defending it. So this is that strongpoint we're supposed to go around.

Oddly, the only resistance we'd encountered up to that point was the pair of armatures. No troopers at all. So they weren't quite right... but I wasn't going to argue with what we got. I'd rather deal with two armatures than several groups of armatures and troopers.

"Anyone see a way around?" I asked, looking around.

"Right side, between the rocks," Williams pointed out. A red indicator appeared over the exterior view.

"Got it." The rocket turrets fired on us as we zipped through the exposed area between where we were and the rock outcropping, but the rockets flew harmlessly behind us. Pretty awful targeting software if they do that.

"Turret, left side!" Garrus shouted as we emerged into a small open area. Above us was some kind of work platform, and to our right... yep, turret, and firing a rocket straight toward us.

I slammed the Mako into reverse and hammered the accelerator. The rocket just barely missed us. Garrus returned fire, hitting the turret with the cannon and taking down its shields but not destroying it.

I pushed the selector back to forward and stomped the accelerator again, pushing the wheel all the way to the left and taking us straight toward the turret. One more shot from Garrus finished the turret off.

"Hostiles ahead!" Alenko shouted, bouncing around in his seat again. Seriously, why is everyone bouncing around so much?

"Garrus-"

"On it, Commander!" A steady stream of machine gun fire ripped into the geth troopers as we charged toward them.

"Alenko, Williams, prepare to dismount! Garrus, cover us with the machine gun!"

"Yes, ma'am!" Alenko was nearly thrown out of his seat after undoing his harness.

"Gotta hold on tighter, Alenko!" I cautioned, engaging the park brake. I reached up with my left hand and popped the back hatch before undoing my own harness and climbing out of the seat.

There was only one geth trooper left by the time I exited the vehicle. A quick burst of fire from my assault rifle finished it off. "Clear forward."

"Clear right."

"Clear left."

"Area clear," I confirmed. "You can come out now, Garrus."

"On my way, Commander."

There was a building on each side of the gate. I had no idea which one had the controls, but I figured there couldn't be too many geth in each one. Damn it, why couldn't I get tactical details like that? "Alenko, Williams, stack up on the right building. Garrus, on me."

I ran up to the right side of the doorway of the left building and flattened myself to the wall. I motioned Garrus to the opposite side, and he did the same, rifle at the ready. I unholstered my shotgun.

"In position," Alenko reported.

"Move in on three. One, two, three! Move!" I raised my shotgun and spun through the doorway, dropping to a crouch in one fluid motion. Straight in front of us were what looked like mixing tanks, with a path around to the right.

A geth trooper came around the corner, and I put a load of pellets in it. That dropped its shields, but it kept coming. Then its head blew apart.

"Clear!" I shouted. "Alenko, report!"

"One geth down, all clear, Commander."

I turned to Garrus, who was stowing his sniper rifle. "Really, Garrus? A sniper rifle?"

"It worked, didn't it?" he replied lightly. "I can hit a moving target from a kilometre away. I can also hit one from five metres away."

There was a weapons locker in front of us. Well, nobody else is going to need those. "Garrus, can you get this open?"

He took a brief look at it. "Well, it's going to take a few minutes to decrypt-"

"Nevermind," I dismissed, "decrypting" the locker with the butt of my rifle. Inside was a pair of shotguns and a lone assault rifle. I unclipped a cloth bag from my hip, shook it in the air a few times to expand it, stuffed the guns inside, and clipped it back on.

Beside the locker was a window and a control panel. I mashed random buttons until the gate opened. "Regroup at the Mako," I ordered as we left.

Williams and Alenko joined up with us halfway. I noticed the chief had a bag similar to mine, and it also had something rattling around in it. We tossed the bags in the underseat bins before strapping in. I started the engine and we were off again.

There was a ramp on the gate and after driving over it we lingered in the air several seconds before crashing down. I could have made that longer with the jump jets, but just didn't feel the need at the time.

"Commander, with all due respect, slow down!" Williams shouted from the back.

"Never!" I shouted back, laughing. Maybe I'm enjoying this a little too much. It kind of runs in the family.

It's another windy path, this one kind of crescent shaped, blocked off on one side by hills and piping and blocked off on the other side by a lava lake.

"Geth ahead," Garrus reported, holding his fire.

I don't understand how Kevin could have thought that wasn't deadly. It glows bright orange. I couldn't feel anything through my climate-controlled suit in the climate-controlled cabin, but the external temperature sensors reported a significant increase from radiant heat.

"Fire at will," I ordered. As soon as I finished giving the order, the thump of the cannon firing reverberated through the vehicle. Garrus must have already layed the gun. It was another good shot, too, blowing the armature to pieces from a couple of hundred metres away.

As we drove along, I heard and felt another thump. Garrus called, "Got another one."

"Distance?" I asked conversationally.

"Four hundred metres," he replies in the same tone as we round the bend.

"Two more," Alenko called. "Ten o'clock, range five hundred."

"I'm on it," Garrus replied cooly. I stopped the vehicle, giving him a stable platform to fire from.

Thump. "Good hit. Both targets damaged."

Thump. "Good hit. One armature destroyed."

"Armature returning fire!" Williams shouted. I hit the accelerator, pulling

Thump. "Miss."

"That's Shepard's fault," Garrus pointed out.

"We had to dodge the armature's missiles," Alenko replied.

"We can take a hit or two," he replied.

"I'd rather not if I don't have to," I shouted back.

Thump. "Armature destroyed. All targets down."

"Good job," I complimented as we drove past the downed armatures.

"Troopers ahead!" Alenko shouted. Garrus immediately brought the turret around and opened fire with the machine gun. I adjusted the steering slightly and slammed the Mako right into one of them, breaking it into a bunch of much smaller pieces. The troopers quickly went down.

"Colossal armature, right side, fifty metres, firing!" Williams shouted frantically.

"Shit!" That thing is huge, easily twice the size of a normal armature. Garrus hits it with the main cannon, and though that did something to its shields, it didn't appear to be damaged at all.

I slam the Mako into reverse and pull back. The colossus fires, and its shot narrowly misses us, even still damaging our shields. I shouted, "Hit it with everything we've got!"

Garrus fires again, and that definitely weakens its shields, but it shows no sign of stopping. Fortunately, the colossus doesn't seem to be mobile- maybe it's diverted all power to shields. It fires again and I put the Mako into forward and swerve to avoid the projectile. One more hit takes down its shields, but the unit is still pretty well armoured.

Or not. Garrus puts the next round through the colossus's "eye", blowing its "head" to pieces.

"Damn," I muttered. Moving platform, tiny target, medium range. The Mako has a pretty good fire control system, but it still requires skill on the operator's part.

"I told you I was good." Obviously, Garrus had heard me. "Still, this gun could use some calibrations."

"Yeah, yeah. You're welcome to calibrate the gun once we're back aboard the Normandy," I replied. "Are we clear?"

"Area clear, Commander," Alenko replied.

There's only one way forward. It's a tunnel through the rock, with an entrance with a big building of some kind on top.

"Guess we're going through the tunnel." Which is something those people didn't mention. I wonder if they actually don't know, if they just forgot, or if they're actively trying to get me killed.

We've been driving for a while now. Couldn't Joker have dropped us closer? No, he didn't come up with the plan. I let those civvies figure out where to drop us. Figures they would pick the spot they remember instead of a better one. I'd have to have a word with them about that, too.

The tunnel is, thankfully, geth-free. The exit, on the other hand, isn't. Garrus takes out most of the geth troopers with a round from the main gun, then mops up the rest with the machine gun as we emerge.

"Negative contacts, Commander," Alenko reported.

There's another crescent-shaped path bordered by lava on one side and hills on the other. I guess this is how they build roads here. If this horrifically rough surface qualifies as a road. Then again, they might be using vehicles with better suspension here. We drive around and into another tunnel.

This one had geth in it. One geth. That I ran over.

"Geth at the exit," Alenko informed helpfully.

I slowed down, allowing Garrus to rip the geth to pieces with the machine gun. A few bullets peppered the Mako, but it was nothing the shields couldn't handle.

There was a lava lake to our left and a hill to our right, with a path going through straight ahead. Poking up above the hill was some kind of building. A volcano was smoking in the distance.

"Mars, you said?" I asked, recalling the Chief's earlier comments.

I could practically hear her shrugging. "It's the colours, Commander."

I guess I can see it. "Fair enough."

This must be where we can't continue in the Mako. Ahead of us, a bunch of rocks are piled up into some kind of barrier, with a narrow gap in the middle. I'm not sure if its natural, if the miners built it, or if the geth built it. It looks iffy to get the Mako over, but maybe...

"Garrus, do you think you could blow apart that barrier with the main gun?"

"Shouldn't be a problem, Commander." There was a thump and then a boom outside. Bits of rock flew everywhere, some of them impacting the Mako and only some of them fast enough to activate its shields.

The hole looked big enough to fit the Mako through, and we passed through with half a metre to spare on either side.

"Geth troopers ahead," Alenko called, pointing them out.

After two quick bursts of machine gun fire, Garrus replied, "No more geth troopers ahead."

"All targets down!" Alenko shouted. I slowly stopped the vehicle.

Kevin was right. We could only drive a little bit further before the canyon- it felt like a canyon- became too narrow to have any change of driving the Mako through.

"Well, it was worth a shot. We're going to have to dismount." I turned to Alenko. "Lieutenant, stay with the Mako and signal the Normandy for pickup."

It's better that we pick up the Normandy now, because if those... oracles are right then there won't be time to go back and retrieve it. The Mako can be replaced, but it's not cheap and the brass would chew me out for losing it.

"Aye, aye, Commander," he acknowledged, sliding into the driver's seat after I exited it.

That left me without a biotic, which I didn't like. Maybe I should have left Williams with the Mako, but I wasn't sure if she was qualified on it and I didn't really have time to check. "Garrus, Chief Williams, move out."

We headed through the narrow path, guns raised and at the ready. Around a slight bend was a downward slope, with sniper towers and several geth at the bottom. They immediately noticed us and opened fire.

"Williams, suppress those sniper towers! Garrus, take the snipers out!" I shouted, taking cover behind a large squarish rock. That meant I had to contend with the two white-painted troopers racing up the hill toward us.

I brought up my assault rifle and unleashed a long burst into one of them. It stumbled, but didn't go down. I fired another burst, careful to avoid overheating my rifle. It's nice to not worry about ammo, but sometimes I wish there was a quicker way to make the heat go away.

"Snipers down!" Garrus shouted. A second later, the other geth trooper that was running toward us dropped, a hole drilled nicely through its flashlight head.

"Move up," I ordered. We descended into the open area, blasting away a lone geth as we went.

Halfway into the open area, I felt something punch me in the side, and immediately dropped to the ground. Williams shouted, "Geth, right side high!"

I twisted around and lined up my rifle, but I wasn't able to get a single shot off before the trooper's head exploded.

"You okay, Commander?" Garrus asked, stowing his sniper rifle.

"I'm fine, didn't get past my shields," I replied dismissively, standing up.

"Good shot, Garrus," I said offhand.

"That was me," Williams corrected, annoyed. "I can handle a sniper too, you know."

"I know that, Chief," I replied, a bit embarrassed, before turning all business. "Area clear. Move out."

We headed up another slope, past some rocks that looked like they would make decent cover if necessary. There were no geth waiting for us, and I wondered if they'd set up the rocks or not.

"What's that?" Williams asked, pointing to a structure ahead of us. On the left was a bunch of large tanks and a small structure, connected to what looked like a large tunnel entrance on the right by a system of catwalks and pipes raised above the ground.

"Looks like a-" I began before a geth... thing jumped down from a catwalk and crawled around on the ground and jumped onto a wall.

I took a potshot at it, then dived into cover behind a crate as a dropship came up behind us. It dropped a trio of geth troopers behind the structure, followed by one of those colossus armatures.

"Oh, shit," Williams muttered from beside me. I pushed her ahead of me and dashed toward a rock outcropping as the crate exploded behind us, blown to pieces by the colossus' weapon.

"Focus on the troopers!" I shouted, dashing toward the large tanks on the right. "Stay out of that thing's firing arc!"

"Roger that, ma'am!" Williams shouted back, crouching against the building. She leaned around the edge and fired a burst. "One down."

I crouched down and ran along the edge of the building. It felt like running away, and leaving Williams and Garrus there just didn't sit right with me. But for this to work, I had to flank the colossus.

"I hope this works," I muttered, removing an awkward-looking, tape-covered device from a pouch on my right hip.

It was the best I could come up with. I knew we'd need more firepower, but we didn't have any heavy weapons aboard the Normandy- in retrospect, I probably should have handled that myself instead of assuming that requisitions idiot would get it done. Fire support from the Normandy wasn't an option, either, because of the risk of collapsing the dig site. And there was nowhere to put the Mako to provide fire support- not that I knew that at the time, but I couldn't assume we'd be able to use it.

The best I could come up with was taping several grenades together. They wouldn't fly worth a damn, but they'd make a much bigger boom. In the hopes of making it easier to throw, I stuck a metal pipe through the middle of the clump and taped that on.

The last time someone had done something like this was over two centuries ago. And I'm not sure if it worked then, either.

"Hey!" I shouted at the colossus, stepping out. It didn't respond. I pulled the pin out of one of the grenades and hurled the assembly at the colossus. It tumbled through the air, one of the grenades fell off, and then it landed directly, perfectly under the colossus.

I slid back behind the building, and there was a colossal bang and a wham I could feel. That was a big explosion.

"What in the hells was that, Commander?" a surprised Garrus shouted over the comm.

"A very dead colossus," I replied, running around the side of the building. There was still a pair of geth troopers alive, and I shot them both in the back. "Area clear."

Garrus and Chief Williams stepped out from behind cover and strode toward me. Their armour was dirty, but other than that they were unharmed.

"Nice explosion, ma'am," Williams said, surveying the damage. "Huh."

"What is it, Williams?" I asked, walking over to where she was standing.

"This isn't a colossus," she replied, kicking the machine's corpse. "It's just a normal armature. I guess it really does look a lot bigger from the ground, huh."

"It does, Williams, it does," I replied. "We're clear. Let's get that asari."