Chapter Thirteen
Revelation On Virmire
"Hope and pray that you'll never need me,
But rest assured I will not let you down.
I'll walk beside you but you may not see me,
The strongest among you may not wear a crown!"
3 Doors Down: "Citizen/Soldier"
It took nearly four days of circumventing the hostile territory of the Terminus Systems to reach Virmire. The Mass Relay got them most of the way there, but it was necessary to take a more circuitous route from the local relay point under silent running than it would have under normal conditions. This had been partially due to speed restrictions while the IES system was running to keep the Normandy's EM signature down, as well as a detour to vent the heat sinks without risking detection.
Since resuming her post, Hastings had spent much of her off-duty time during this period in the Med-bay and after her release, talking to Tali, where the two of them quickly discovered that – despite their wildly different species' and cultures - they shared a lot of things in common. Both were the children of high ranking military officers, not to mention similar tastes in movie genres and literature. Hastings continued to share her love for Richard Rodgers novels - neither of them suspecting that they served with the author himself – and twentieth century blockbusters. Tali, in turn turned Hastings on to her favorite vids "Fleet and Flotilla" and the "Blasto the Jellyfish" series of action films.
Though neither of them could say exactly when it happened, they had inexplicably become friends, spending much of their time in the galley talking books, literature, poetry and commenting on how cute a couple Captain Beckett and Chief Castle would be if only the two of them would admit it to themselves - the regs about officers and enlisted personnel, notwithstanding. Even speculating – in very hushed tones – how adorable their potential offspring might be.
As the Normandy slipped stealthily into orbit over Virmire, Hastings was once again at her post at the LIDAR station.
"Detecting multiple active GUARDIAN defense towers on the surface," Hastings reported. "None are in acquisition mode or tracking us, but once we hit atmo we'll be detected."
"I'm reading a signal on Citadel channels," Pressly added, "must be the salarian infiltration team."
"Prepare the Mako for orbital drop," Beckett ordered. "We'll go in hot and take out the AA towers at their location. Castle, suit up and have Wrex and Garrus meet us in the cargo bay bearing full arms."
Shortly thereafter, the Mako made planet-fall on Virmire, less than a kilometer from the their target without incident in a well executed combat drop, clean and by the numbers.
"Stay in orbit on silent running until we bring the AA towers down, then make for the salarian camp," Kate ordered. "We'll evac them and find out what they've learned that was so vital to bring us here."
"Aye, Aye, Captain," Pressly replied, "good hunting."
The AA tower control station was not terribly well-guarded. It was clear that secrecy had been the base's most powerful defense. The AA towers and minimal geth patrols might have been enough to repel an attack by disorganized raiders, but not a surgical strike by an organized fire team.
They managed to disable the AA towers with relative ease. Garrus had even managed to make it appear as if the defense tower had been taken down for emergency maintenance due to an incursion by local fauna. It would seem that every species had their version of a "squirrel in the wiring" issue, even the geth.
The Normandy dropped out of orbit and descended into the sector and slid into the zone that should have been covered by the AA tower in question.
"Captain, we've landed at the Salarian base camp," XO Pressly reported over the comms, "but it seems we've been grounded. The salarian captain will explain when you get here."
Upon their arrival at the salarian camp, set up near their small scout ship under camouflage netting, one of them approached with a military bearing that spoke of his position even though his hard-suit bore no insignia. They both snapped to attention and saluted.
"Captain Kate Beckett, SSV Normandy," Kate stated dryly. "What's your status?"
"Captain Kirrahe, Third Infiltration Regiment, STG," Kirrahe replied formally, "You and your crew have just landed in a hot zone. When your ship landed, every anti-aircraft battery within ten kilometers was alerted to your presence."
"What do you suggest we do about it?" Kate asked.
"We stay put until the council sends the reinforcements I requested." Kirrahe replied.
"We are the reinforcements," Castle interjected.
"What?" Kirrahe choked. "You're all they sent? I told the Council to send a fleet!"
"The Council couldn't understand your transmission," Kate added, "they sent me to investigate."
"That would be an unnecessary repetition of our task," Kirrahe stated darkly, "I lost half my men investigating this place."
"What have you found?" Kate asked.
"This is Saren's base of operations," Kirrahe noted. "He's got a research facility set up here, heavily fortified and crawling with geth. I watched as one of the local pirate gangs came to throw their weight around and they were torn to pieces."
"Is he here?" Kate asked, "Have you seen him?"
"Not in person," Kirrahe replied, "but we've intercepted comms referring to him by name. This is Saren's facility all right, there's no doubt about it. He's using it to breed an army of krogan.
"How's that possible?" Wrex rumbled, butting in to the conversation.
"Apparently Saren's discovered a cure for the genophage." Kirrahe stated coldly.
"The genophage was the cure for the krogan problem,"Wrex stated, glaring at Kirrahe, his anger clearly rising.
"We introduced the genophage into the krogan population near the end of their uprising centuries ago to quell their numbers. Without it, the krogan would have quickly overrun the galaxy. Making the situation even worse, these krogan follow Saren. The geth are a big enough threat, but with a nearly unlimited army of krogan... he'd be unstoppable! We must ensure that this base and its secrets are destroyed."
"Destroyed?" Wrex rumbled louder, leaning dangerously into Kirrahe's personal space – whom to his credit didn't flinch. - "I don't think so. My people are dying and this cure could save them."
"If the genophage cure leaves this planet," Kirrahe stated with equal conviction, not bothering to even look at Wrex, "krogan numbers will swell unchecked. We ignored first contact protocols and uplifted them to fight a war we couldn't win, then unleashed them on the galaxy. We can't make the same mistake again."
"We are not a mistake!" Wrex roared, before storming off angrily.
"Is he going to be a problem, Captain?" Kirrahe asked, "we already have enough angry krogan to deal with."
"Don't worry about it captain," Kate replied, already not liking where this was going. She'd heard about the Rachni Wars earlier, then looked into the the history. Apparently after the rachni had been exterminated the krogan – who hailed from a planet deadly enough to keep their rapid breeding in check – had been granted colony worlds surrounding their native planet of Tuchanka. Which they promptly overpopulated then began forcibly expanding into outlying worlds. The Krogan rebellions had been long and bloody, until first contact with the turians put a stop to their expansion plans.
Clearly there were things that had been left out of the records, and this genophage was one of them.
"I do worry," Kirrahe noted. "That's why I'm still alive. You should talk to the krogan, while I come up with a plan to attack the facility. In the meantime, feel free to speak with Commander Rentola, my executive officer if you have any questions."
"What a goddamn mess," Castle muttered, once he was sure Kirrahe was out of earshot, "as if things couldn't get any worse. Wrex looks like he's gonna blow a gasket."
"I should go talk to him," Kate said. "See if I can reason with him."
"Wouldn't hurt to try," Castle noted, then thought better of it. "On second thought, it might, so be careful okay? You might not realize it, but most krogan are a little touchy about the subject. The one time I asked Wrex about it he looked like he was gonna tear my head off... literally and metaphorically."
"I'll try to tread lightly," Kate affirmed, "but watch my back, Castle... just in case."
"Always," Castle replied, his hand brushing hers lightly as they stared into each others eyes... before the booming report of Wrex's shotgun broke the silence and ruined the moment.
"I think I should go," Kate muttered as she jerked her hand away and nodded toward Wrex, "over there... talk to Wrex."
"Yeah... uhm... yeah," Castle replied, equally effected, "I'll be right here... ummm watching your back."
Feeling just a little bit buoyed by the fact he was just as effected by her as she by him, Kate put just a little extra sway in her hips as she sauntered away. She knew her conversation With Wrex was going to be deadly serious, but that didn't mean she could resist having a just a tiny fraction of harmless fun.
Castle stopped and stared for just a moment, as Kate sauntered away from him, before he shook off the cobwebs and drew his shotgun, ready to back Kate's play if Wrex went too far off the rails. He didn't want to kill Wrex, but he would if he had to, to protect Kate.
Wrex noticeably stiffened when he saw Beckett approach him. She could see that he was both troubled by the recent turn of events and angered by the way Kirrahe had brushed him off and talked about him and his people as if the eight foot tall Krogan wasn't standing right there. Seemingly dismissing the krogan as nothing more than tools to be used and discarded when they wore out their welcome. Wrex didn't seem to understand that this was precisely the fate Saren had in store for them as well. She didn't know Captain Kirrahe well enough to know if that's what he meant, or if he was merely trying to reason with her because he believed Wrex wouldn't listen to him no matter what he said.
Either or both could be true. Two thousand years of animosity had been at play between Kirrahe and Wrex right before her eyes. A gulf she was going to have to find a way to cross if this mission was going to be salvaged.
"This isn't right, Beckett," Wrex rumbled loudly, not caring who heard him. His shotgun still in hand, making both Castle and Beckett uneasy. "If there's really a cure for the genophage here... we can't destroy it."
"I'm not the enemy here, Wrex," Kate stated, trying to calm him, "Saren's the one we're after."
"Really?" Wrex asked rhetorically, "Saren discovered a cure for the genophage and you want to destroy it. Help me out here, the line between friend and foe is getting a little blurry from where I stand."
"Saren didn't find a cure for the genophage to help your people," Kate countered, her own blood up, "he wants to use them as a weapon. If we let him, you won't be around to reap the benefits. None of us will."
"That's a chance we should be willing to take," Wrex shot back, his fingers twitching as he brought his shotgun up, sending Kate's hand to her pistol butt. "This is the fate of my entire species we're talking about! I've been loyal to you until now, even to the point of working with a turian, but if I'm gonna keep following you, I need to know it's for the right reasons."
"Wrex, these krogan are not your people," Kate implored him, "They're tank bred, indoctrinated slaves, nothing more than tools. Is that what you want for the rest of your species?"
"No," Wrex rumbled before lowering his shotgun. "We were tools for the salarians and the council once. To thank us for wiping out the rachni, they neutered us all. I doubt Saren would be nearly as generous."
Wrex stood still for a moment, before putting his shotgun away.
"All right, you've made your point," he rumbled darkly, "I still don't like it, but I guess I trust you enough to to follow your lead."
Kate smiled, glad she didn't have to kill Wrex. She'd grown to like him and so had Castle. Behind that angry facade was a being who longed deeply for the mantle of fatherhood the way only someone born with a"sterility plague" could. He'd even "adopted" Tali - after a fashion. After she had been released from the med bay, she'd spied him teaching the young quarian how to modify her shotgun so she could fire it one-handed. He'd even told Tali and Hastings stories of his exploits as a mercenary which she was certain Castle would have been jealous not to have heard.
She was sure he would deny saying it later but she'd also overheard him saying that - to his people - all offspring were a gift from the universe – even those of an otherwise annihilated enemy were spared and adopted into their clan - and it was criminal that the quarians simply sent theirs out into the galaxy so poorly prepared for what dangers were out there. For a krogan, he was an old softie.
When she caught up with Kirrahe not long after her conversation with Wrex, she found him just as irritating, but on point as before.
"Thank you for speaking with the krogan..." he'd begun, but Kate cut him off.
"He has a name," Kate snapped. "it's Urdnot Wrex. You would do well to learn it."
"Of course, my apologies," Kirrahe replied, "but still, the assault on Saren's facility will be dangerous enough as it is, without having to check six in my own encampment."
"I assume that means you've come up with a plan?" Kate asked icily.
"Of sorts," Kirrahe replied, "I've spoken with my chief engineer. We can convert our ship's drive core into a twenty kiloton thermonuclear device. Crude, but effective."
"Nice," Wrex rumbled. "Drop that from orbit and Saren can kiss his turian ass goodbye."
Before anyone else could speak, he turned to Garrus, who had somewhat earned his grudging respect. "No offense."
"None taken," Garrus replied.
"Unfortunately the facility is much too well-fortified for that method of delivery with a clumsy device cobbled together from a modified drive core. We'll need to position the bomb at a precise location to maximize its effectiveness."
"Where do we need to take it?" Castle asked.
"To the far side of the facility," Kirrahe explained, "directly aligned with the primary heat exchanger for the station's reactor. Between the blast, the radiation and the subsequent magnetic pulse all of the test subjects, their computer core and any nearby off-site copies will be completely wiped clean."
"Your ship can drop it off," Kirrahe continued once the basic tenets of the plan began to set in, "but we'll need to infiltrate the base, pacify any ground forces and disable the anti-aircraft batteries beforehand."
"We don't have the numbers to hit them head on," Kate noted.
"Definitely not," Kirrahe agreed, "but I think we can work around that. I'm going to divide my men into three teams, hit the front of the facility. While we demonstrate at the front, you can hit their back ranks and slip into the facility to secure the location to place the bomb. My team will take out the AA tower to clear the way for the Normandy."
"It's a simple, but solid plan," Kate remarked, impressed by the simple audacity of it, "but your people are gonna get slaughtered."
"We're tougher than we look, Captain," Kirrahe replied, "but you're right. I don't expect many of my troopers to make it out alive. That makes what I am about to ask you even more difficult. I need one of your Marines to accompany me to help coordinate the teams."
"You need me to commit one of my people to your command?" Kate asked, almost shocked at the request.
"We are all soldiers by trade in the STG," He explained, "I have plenty of troopers, but not enough experienced officers to lead them. One of my best squad commanders was lost on a recon mission only a few days ago."
"Gunnery Chief Hastings!" Kate bellowed. "Front and center!"
"Sir, yes sir!" Hastings stated, after she snapped to attention and saluted.
"I am temporarily placing you under Captain Kirrahe's command. You'll be leading one of his squads and handling communications between us and the salarians. Grab your gear and report to Commander Rentola for assignment. Keep it simple, Hastings, I want you back at your post when this is over."
"Aye, aye Captain," Hastings snapped back, "Semper Fi!"
"Oooo Rah," Kate muttered to her retreating back, hoping she wasn't signing Hastings' death warrant.
"Thank you, Captain," Kirrahe stated, "I will have the ordinance loaded onto the Normandy and brief your Lt. Alenko on its detonation sequencing. Do you have any questions?"
"How will your teams escape the blast?" Kate asked.
"We will engage the geth and attempt to keep them occupied as long as possible," Kirrahe replied, "Once the bomb is in place and activated, we'll fall back and rendezvous at our ship. On emergency batteries, it won't have enough power to lift off, but plenty to power up the barriers. The hull is hardened enough to handle the radiation fallout, so we should be able to escape with acceptable losses. If not, then our memories will live on as martyrs to a greater cause."
"You're talking like this is a suicide mission," Kate noted.
"I won't lie to you, Captain, there's a chance that none of us will survive this assault, including your team," Kirrahe noted. "But as soldiers we do what is necessary, including sacrifice our lives. Good luck Captain, I hope that we will meet again when this is over."
After Kate, Wrex, Castle and Garrus reached the stepping-off point for their infiltration of Saren's base and radioed in, the mission kicked off. Resistance was light as most of their attention was drawn to the front of the facility. From the comms it was clear that all three of the salarian teams were fully involved, but holding up well under fire.
They were supposed to avoid detection and slip quietly into the base, but no plan survives first contact with the enemy and Kate's conscience wouldn't allow her allies to be left flapping in the breeze if she could do something about it. During their incursion into the geth/krogan back ranks, they attacked and destroyed the hub of their communications network, scrambled their targeting by hitting a satellite networking antenna complex and cut off geth air support by destroying the refueling depot for their drones.
Wrex seemed to enjoy the fighting. He hated the idea of sneaking around and relished every opportunity to throw himself at the enemy - especially the tank-bred krogan. It particularly enraged him to see their relative lack of effectiveness under indoctrination and couldn't decide if killing them was an act of mercy, or a favor to the universe.
Once they'd reached the rear entrance of the facility, they cleared out a security substation and Garrus hacked into its operations console.
"I've got access to base security, Captain," He stated tersely. "I should be able to disable all security alarms from here to the target zone. I might even be able to trigger false alarms on the other side of the facility. It would clear out the guards for us."
"It might also overwhelm the salarian teams." Castle noted, to which Garrus nodded tersely.
"Just disable the alarms, Garrus," Kate ordered, "we can handle any guards we run into."
"I like your attitude," Wrex rumbled, chuckling as he switched out the heat sinks in his rifle and shotgun."
The guards inside that portion of the facility were inexplicably supplemented by a squad of salarians, likely some of the men Kirrahe had lost. Their tactics were poorly coordinated and they were rather easily dispatched – which Wrex seemed to enjoy doing just a little too much.
When they reached the stairs to the next level – which was curiously not guarded – they found a series of cells. Most were occupied by salarians who were barely there anymore, drooling and babbling incoherently. All but one, who tapped on the glass to get their attention the moment he saw them.
"You're not a geth..." he began, "and you aren't wearing a lab coat, so I guess I'm glad to see you. Lt Ganto Imness, Third Infiltration Regiment, STG. Captured during recon. I assume Captain Kirrahe was able to call in the fleet he wanted to destroy the base?"
"I'm afraid there's no fleet," Kate replied, "his transmission was little more than static."
"I see," Lt. Imness replied, "you must be the infiltration team, then. I've served with the Captain for years and I know how he works. Fleet or not, he'd want this facility destroyed."
Lt. Imness couldn't repress his shudder of revulsion as he nodded toward the cell next to his, holding five salarians shuffling mindlessly within its confines, moaning and grunting incoherently when they inevitably bumped into each other.
"Captain Kirrahe knew about the breeding facility, but this place is far more horrifying than even a legion of krogan clones. My team was captured three days ago. I was left in here to... watch... as my men were altered... experimented on. They took the last of my squad, Private Avot out of here yesterday and I imagine - once I no longer serve a purpose as their control group - it's only a matter of time before they come for me too. I watched good soldiers, men I trained and served with, reduced to mindless husks. There was nothing left. Those who were... euthanized and dissected early in the process were the lucky ones."
"Were you able to overhear anything about the experiments they were conducting?" Castle asked him.
"Yes," Imness replied readily. "They were studying something called "indoctrination." It's symptoms, progression, and cumulative effects on organic beings. Saren uses it to control his people, but I don't think he fully understands it. I don't know much else, only what it did to my men. I can't end up like that. Please... let me out."
"Okay, I'll open your cell door, but after that you're on your own. There's a weapons locker around the corner. Your people will be mustering at your ship to wait for evac."
"Don't look back, fight my way out and hope to survive, hmm?" Imness replied as the isolation cell door slid open. "Better odds than I had before you showed up. Thank you, human, if I see you again, I owe you one of your expensive intoxicating beverages. Good luck to you, you're going to need it."
"Everybody dies, salarian," Wrex rumbled at Imness. "Better to die standing up."
No sooner had Lt. Imness turned and fled back down the corridor from which they'd come, Castle, Beckett and Garrus turned around to find Wrex staring through the glass door into the cell with the lobotomized salarians and were perplexed by the one thing they would never have imagined Wrex to be feeling for a salarian. Compassion, or at least pity.
"Dammit, as much as I hate salarians, this is no way to treat a prisoner." Wrex grumbled. "Kill them, sure, but to leave them like this... its just not right."
"If this is what Saren has in mind, for his krogan army," Kate replied softly. "I think I'd rather be dead."
"I've never agreed with you more, Beckett," Wrex rumbled, as he keyed open the door and drew his pistol. "It's what I'd want if that were me in there."
Kate nodded, then turned away as Wrex stepped into the room and shot each of them in the back of the head, the only mercy he could offer them before they turned and continued on their way.
At the end of the corridor, they reached an elevator and took it to the next floor up. Once there they had to dispatch a small contingent of geth, which they easily swept aside, though it was unclear whether the geth were there to keep intruders out, or to keep the small office's single occupant in.
"Don't shoot!" a disembodied female voice said from under the single desk in the room, "I'm not armed! Please, I just want to get out of here before it's too late!"
They heard some rustling and then an asari rose from behind the desk with her hands in the air.
"Rana Thanoptis, Neurospecialist. I was brought here to study how indoctrination effects organic minds, at least that's what I was told when I arrived. I'm not sure what he's really after, but this damn job isn't worth dying for... or worse."
"You're helping him and you don't even know why?" Kate asked incredulously.
"I wasn't exactly given the option to decline this job," Rana snarked, "When a Spectre shows up at your door and says 'come with me if you want to live,' that doesn't really leave you a lot of room for negotiation!"
"What exactly were you studying here?" Kate asked sharply, in full interrogation mode.
"It's that ship, Sovereign." Rana replied. "It emits a signal. It's undetectable, but it's there, I've seen its effects first-hand. Saren uses it to influence and control his followers."
"We know that much," Kate interrupted, "it's called indoctrination."
"Direct exposure turns people into mindless slaves, like the salarian test subjects," Rana continued, "but there's collateral damage, too."
"Collateral damage?" Castle and Beckett reply at the same time.
"Sovereign's signal is too strong," Rana continued, unfazed by the Castle/Beckett mind meld. "I'm not even sure if signal's the right word. It's more like an energy field emanating from the ship that alters thought patterns. Spend too much time in close proximity with the thing and you begin to feel it, like a tingle at the back of your skull... a whisper you can't quite hear... you're compelled to do things, but you don't know why – you just obey."
"But, it's a degenerative condition. There's a balance between control and usefulness. The less freedom a subject maintains, the less capable it becomes. After prolonged exposure, people simply stop thinking for themselves entirely. It happens to everyone here eventually. My first test subject after I arrived... was the human I replaced. I just want to get out of here before it happens to me!"
"Why would Saren be researching indoctrination if he's the one who controls it?" Castle asked.
"The signal comes from the ship, but I don't think he controls it," Rana replied. "Indoctrination is subtle. By the time it's effects become noticeable, it's usually too late. I think he's worried that it might be effecting him too."
"You conducted brutal experiments on helpless test subjects, turning them into mindless zombies," Kate hissed angrily, "why the hell should I let you just walk away?"
"I only did what I was told!" Rana begged, "I wasn't given a choice! I'm sorry!"
Rana tossed a key card onto her desk and backed toward the door next to it leading deeper into the office and keyed it to unlock and open.
"See?" Rana pleaded, her voice becoming increasingly jittery as she unlocked and opened the elevator inside. "I can get you in... full access! All of Saren's private files! Are we good? Can I go?"
"I'm gonna blow this whole facility straight to hell," Kate stated coldly, "If you want to make it out of here alive... start running!"
"What?" the Rana stuttered, her purple skin paling nearly to lilac as Kate's words set in and she began to panic.. "You can't... but I'll never... Ahhhhhhhh!"
Rana scrambled to flee the room as Castle looked at Beckett, his lips quirked in an evil grin.
"You enjoyed that just a little too much, Captain."
Putting all thoughts of Rana Thanoptis behind her, Kate led the rest of her team to the elevator, which the key card Rana had supplied unlocked and activated easily enough – though none of them felt particularly comfortable during the ride up in it.
Unsurprisingly - given Montgomery's assessment of Saren's ego – his office was a massive two-story affair complete with windows giving him a sweeping view of the complex and the lush vista of the garden world his facility inhabited like a blight on the face of Eden.
"Beckett!" Castle shouted, his features twisted between excitement and dread. "Over here! Another beacon like the one on Eden Prime!"
Before Kate could move to stoop him, Castle stepped forward into the security field of the beacon and keyed it's activation sequence. He was almost immediately enveloped in the green glow of the device's interface field and lifted off the ground.
The experience was much less jarring this time around – unlike his experience with the Eden Prime beacon and Shiala's equally traumatic transfer of the cipher – now that he had the necessary frames of reference to interpret the data and his brain was configured properly to receive it.
There was no jarring disconnect, such as there had been with the previous beacon, the complete message neatly dropped in the pieces of the puzzle that had been missing before. There were still portions he didn't quite understand - images of a world he had no name for orbiting a star he had never seen – among other pieces of information he still had no frame of reference for. Both Shiala and Liara had told him that might change once the cipher was fully incorporated into his consciousness.
Unlike the first time, the beacon didn't explode and instead set him gently back onto the deck relatively unaffected. He shook off the few lingering effects of accessing the beacon just as Kate stalked up to him.
"What the hell were you thinking, Castle!" she hissed at him. "don't ever scare me like that again! I can't lose you too!"
The two of them stared at each other for several minutes as both of them realized the implications of what Kate had just said. It looked like they were about to move closer when they were interrupted by Garrus up on the second level.
"I found something up here I think you need to see, Captain," Garrus said.
When they moved up the ramp to the second level of Saren's office, they were met by a digital framework rendering of his warship seen as if standing on the four fingered talon-like "legs".
"You are not Saren" A dark, ominous sounding mechanical voice stated.
"I get the feeling something bad is about to happen," Wrex rumbled.
"What is that, some sort of VI interface?" Castle asked.
"Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh," The cold synthetic voice stated. "You touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding."
"I don't think this is a VI..." Castle and Beckett said in complete sync.
"There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own, you cannot possibly imagine it. I am beyond your comprehension. I am Nazara."
"This thing isn't just a ship Saren found, it's an actual reaper!" Castle whispered in near awe.
"Reaper?" Nazara stated with a hint of cold, unfeeling contempt. "A label created by the Protheans to give voice to their annihilation. In the end, what they chose to call us is irrelevant. We simply... are."
"The Protheans vanished fifty thousand years ago!" Kate choked, the sudden knowledge that the reapers were real after all - and a genuine threat - shocked her to the core. "You... you... couldn't have been there. It's impossible!"
"Organic life is nothing more than a genetic mutation, an accident," Nazara stated. "Your lives are measured in years and decades. You wither and die. We are eternal, the pinnacle of synthetic evolution and existence. Before us, you are nothing. We are the end of everything, your extinction is inevitable."
"Whatever your plan is, it's gonna fail. I'll make sure of it." Kate stated defiantly.
"Confidence born of ignorance," Nazara replied. "The cycle cannot be broken."
"Cycle? What cycle?" Castle and Beckett stated again in perfect sync.
"The pattern has been repeated more times than you can fathom," Nazara explained without any trace of remorse, pity, or empathy. "Organic civilizations rise, evolve, advance and at the apex of their existence, they are extinguished. The Protheans were not the first to be harvested. They did not build the Citadel, nor did they forge the mass relays. They merely found them, the legacy of my kind."
"Why would you construct the mass relays and just leave them for someone else to find?" Castle asked.
"Your civilization's advancement – as in every cycle before you - is based upon the technology of the mass relays. Our technology. By using it, organic societies develops along the paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it and you will end, because we demand it."
"They're harvesting us!" Garrus choked out. "Letting us advance to the level they need, then wiping us out!"
"What do you want from us?" Kate asked.
"Slaves?" Castle asked.
"Resources?" the two of them asked together.
"We transcend your understanding." Nazara stated coldly, "We are each a nation. Independent. Free of all weakness."
"Where did you come from?" Kate asked.
"Who built you?" Castle asked at the same time.
"We have no beginning. We have no end. We are infinite. Millions of years after your civilization has been harvested and supplanted by another, we shall endure."
"Where are the rest of the reapers?" Kate asked. "Are you the last of your kind?"
"We are legion." Nazara replied. "The time of our return is coming. Our numbers will darken the skies of every civilized world. You cannot escape your doom."
"You're not even alive, not really." Kate stated defiantly, "You're just a machine and machines can be broken."
"Your words are as empty as your future." Nazara countered without inflection, like an ancient, emotionless oracle pronouncing their doom. "I am the vanguard of your destruction. This exchange is over. End of line."
Nazara's holographic interface exploded, blowing out the windows behind it, ending their exchange.
"Captain," XO Pressly stated over the comms, "we've got trouble."
"Lay it on me, Pressly, I love bad news," Beckett replied.
"That ship, Sovereign?" Pressly asked rhetorically. "I don't know what you did down there, but that thing just pulled a hard one-eighty in a gravity well that would shear even the Normandy in half. It's coming this way quick and in a hurry. You might want to wrap things up down there... fast!"
"This console's been disabled," Garrus reported. "Orders, Captain?"
"We head for the breeding facility," Beckett stated with cold finality. "Time to blow this place to hell."
"Acknowledged, Captain," Pressly stated. "We'll be on station to pick you up as soon as the AA guns are out of action."
As they moved back toward the elevator to return to the mission, Garrus nudged Wrex.
"Do you think they practice this stuff when we're not around?"
Wrex shrugged his massive shoulders and they continued back toward the elevator.
Ten Minutes Later
"Captain," Pressly cut in again, "the salarians were able to shut down the AA battery. We're secure and aweigh, moving to the target location now. Mr. Ryan will set us down as close as he can. ETA three minutes."
"Understood, Normandy," Beckett replied, "en-route to your location."
"The geth are turning from your position Jaeto," Kate heard Captain Kirrahe over the comms. "Looks like Shadow kicked a sensitive spot. Mannovi, take up a position on the AA tower and keep them pinned down while Shadow team completes the objective. Hold them as long as you can, then get to your exfiltration point."
"Aeghor six, this is Shadow six," Kate stated over the comms, "Good work with the AA tower, now it's our turn."
Kate stepped out into the empty causeway that drew water into the base for the coolant system of the facility's main reactor three sub-levels directly below her feet. She looked to the very spot where the water was funneled to – where the salarian's ad-hoc nuclear device would be planted for maximum effect. In the next instant she heard the whining drone of the Normandy's landing thrusters before the ship made the final turn and began to descend, her landing gear extending just before she came to rest in the shallow water and her cargo ramp swung down.
A reinforced squad of marines in full combat gear filed down and began taking up positions in the viaduct followed shortly thereafter by Lt. Kaiden Alenko and two engineers pushing an anti-gravity sled carrying the nuclear device that would be used to destroy the base.
The three of them placed the device in the precise location necessary to use the base's own reactor to quadruple it's effective yield. Obliterating the base was their top priority for this operation. Saren must be denied an unending supply of Krogan cannon fodder at all costs. When the three of them were finished moving the bomb into position, the two engineers walked crisply back up the ramp onto the ship and Lt. Alenko walked up to Kate and saluted.
"The bomb is in position and secured to the base of the water cooling system, Captain," Kaiden reported. "All I have to do is start the clock and fifteen minutes later this place will be a smoldering crater under a mushroom cloud."
Kate nodded as the Normandy lifted off from the viaduct to begin orbiting the facility. On the ground she was far to vulnerable to enemy fire. When she had moved clear, she returned her attention to the Lieutenant.
"Understood, Mr. Alenko," she replied, saluting back crisply.
"Mannovi to Aegohr, do you copy, over?" Came Hastings' shaky voice over the comms.
"Mannovi, this is Shadow six, nuke is in position," Kate called out over the comms, "break contact and get to your rendezvous coordinates for pickup, on the double!"
"Negative, Shadow six," Hastings replied, the sounds of small and heavy weapons fire nearly drowning her out, "geth units have us pinned down... taking heavy fire, half my squad is gone. We won't make the rendezvous point in time."
"Stand fast Marine," Kate commanded, "help is on the way."
"Negative, Shadow six," Hastings stated, "finish the mission, we'll hold... as long as we can."
Kate turned to the others, "Castle, Wrex, Garrus with me, everybody else hunker down here and wait for extraction. Keep that nuke safe, Alenko."
With that, Kate and her squad turned for the doors leading to the AA tower, not willing to leave Hastings and her salarian squad behind. It wasn't in her nature.
They had to fight their way through both geth and recently gestated and flash trained tank-bred krogan, which only slowed them down by a small measure. Between Wrex's battle rage, and the other's superior training, they burned through the troops sent at them.
No sooner had they reached the elevator to the tower that bad news came in the form of a geth troop ship screaming overhead moving back toward where they'd come from.
"Geth are sending in reinforcements," Wrex rumbled. It didn't look good.
"Alenko, we just spotted a troop ship inbound to your location," Kate reported over the comms.
"It's already here," Alenko replied, "It's dropping geth troopers and walkers all over the damn bomb site. The walkers are taking up flanking positions with heavy weapons. There's too many. I don't think we can hold them. I'm activating the nuke."
"What the hell are you doing, Alenko?" Kate asked over the comms.
"Making sure the nuke goes off, no matter what," Alenko stated calmly as if he had accepted his fate, "One of the walkers is a Colossus, Normandy will get creamed if she tries to land here to pick us up, go get Mannovi squad and get the hell out of here, sir."
Kate closed her eyes, knowing that no matter what she chose, people were going to die. There was no magical third option.
"Mannovi, radio the Normandy for dust-off at your location," she stated more calmly than she felt.
"Aye, Captain. I..." Hastings began but was cut off.
"It's the only choice Captain," Alenko interrupted, "the mission comes first and the living go before the dead."
"Give em hell, Lieutenant," Kate stated sadly.
"Aye, Aye, Captain, Semper Fi!" Lt. Alenko replied. "Left flank! Left flank! Suppressing fire! Suppre..."
The last words anyone would ever hear from Lt. Kaiden Alenko were interrupted by a burst of static as the comms cut out.
Castle, Beckett Wrex and Garrus burst dynamically out of the elevator onto the upper deck of the AA tower, wreaking havoc with the remaining geth and krogan troopers as they hit their back ranks. All four of them pouring out their pain at having to leave good men to die into the adversary before them. The enemy offered no quarter and were given none right back.
The fight didn't take long.
No sooner had the shooting stopped and Castle had bent down to check on Hastings, a hover sled popped up over the edge of the tower bearing a single turian on it... Saren! Rising behind him was the same geth drop-ship which had dropped troops into the bomb site, spilling geth onto the platform.
Saren went on the offensive as hie geth deployed, forcing Kate's team back with multiple warp pulse attacks and making them dive for cover. Saren dropped from the sled and approached, flanked by geth troopers.
Kate fired at him, hitting center mass squarely on his barriers with three well aimed shots, which bounced off and ricocheted harmlessly away from him. Saren just stood there, even waving his geth off as Kate took cover behind a support column.
"I applaud you, Captain Beckett," Saren stated without rancor, "My geth were utterly convinced that the salarians were the real threat. An impressive diversion. Of course it was all for nothing. I cannot allow you to disrupt my operations here. You cannot possibly comprehend what I am trying to accomplish"
"It's not that complicated," Kate shouted back, "You'll do anything to grab power, even join forces with that... thing!"
"You've spoken with Sovereign, your Chief Castle has experienced the Prothean vision," Saren replied without a hint of condescension. "The two of you - of all people - should be able to understand what the Reapers are capable of. Resistance is futile, the Protheans fought back and were utterly annihilated. Trillions dead, but what if they had surrendered? Is submission not preferable to extinction?"
"I'd rather die on my feet," Kate spat back at him with contempt, "than live on my knees, serving those damned machines!"
"If we work with the Reapers," Saren continued, unfazed. "If we make ourselves... useful, think of how many lives could be spared! Once I understood this, I joined Sovereign."
"Nazara is using you," Kate shouted, "it's influencing you, controlling your thoughts!"
"I've... studied indoctrination here," Saren replied, as much trying to convince himself than Kate, "The more control Sovereign exerts, the less effective the subject becomes. Sovereign needs me to find the conduit, so my mind is still my own for now.
"Tell me why it needs the Conduit so badly," Kate shouted, "What is it? Maybe we can find a way to stop the Reapers!"
"The Conduit is the key to your destruction and my salvation," Saren asserted. "Sovereign needs my help to find it! That's the only reason I have not been indoctrinated!"
"I'm not a coward like you!" Kate shouted defiantly, "I refuse to live as a slave!"
"I'm not doing this for myself!" Saren exclaimed, "Don't you see? Sovereign will succeed, it is inevitable. I am forging an alliance between us and the Reapers, between organics and machines! By doing so, I will save more lives than have ever existed! You would undo my work, doom our entire civilization to annihilation. For that, you must die!"
"NO!" Castle shouted, just before his biotics flared and he charged headlong into Saren, slamming him backward, destroying the rifle in Saren's hands but otherwise doing little damage. Saren shoved Castle back forcefully, sending him sprawling ten feet away. He dropped the useless weapon and advanced on Kate, who barely had time to set herself before the large Turian was on her.
Saren batted aside her punches and kicks then slowly, methodically began taking her apart. First with a punch to the sternum that despite her body armor drove the air from her lungs, followed by another punch to her stomach, then an elbow smash to the solar plexus to drive her face down into the deck.
He reached down, hauled Kate up by the neck, then lifted her until her feet flailed in the air. Kate struggled and kicked, but was unable to break the iron grip he had around her neck as he began choking the life out of her.
Just as Kate's vision began to gray out and her struggling began to weaken, Saren was distracted by a sudden alarm klaxon. Before he could turn back to his task, the heel of Castle's hand was driven into the side of his head, rocking him enough that he had to drop Kate spluttering and coughing to the deck to meet the new threat.
Castle came at him again with a solid left hook, trading biotics for the more down to earth, practical violence of Marine hand-to-hand. Saren drove Castle back with a series of blows, but he stood fast, unwilling to let the larger Turian get past him to harm Kate, his captain... the woman he loved. The nuclear ordinance detection alarm went off again, so Saren retreated to his hover-sled and fled.
By the time Kate began to rise to her knees with her pistol up, Saren was already moving off as the Normandy swung around, to evacuate them under fire. Castle helped her up, they fell back to help get Hastings and her squad aboard and the ramp swung closed.
Back at the bomb site, Alenko was the last organic still alive, but determined to keep the geth away from the bomb. He fired like a man possessed, a demon of vengeance with fangs out, his M8 Avenger assault rifle speaking death to any geth he saw in three round bursts.
"Let's go! Let's go!" Alenko shouted angrily. "Fuck you!" he bellowed as he fired a burst into one geth trooper's flashlight head, then spotted another lunging at him and wheeled around to fire again. "You want some of this, well fuck you too!"
The last thing Kaiden Alenko saw, before the round from a geth trooper took him down was the timer on the nuke.
3...2...1...
The Normandy had barely broken orbit when the nuke went up, it's own detonation dwarfed by the secondary explosion as the facility's own antimatter reactor went critical, bathing nearly the entire hemisphere in blinding white light. Taking Lieutenant Kaiden Alenko and a full squad of marines with it.
Nearly every cabin and corridor of the Normandy went silent. As if the ship herself stood in quiet mourning for eleven of her own in the line of duty. There were no words for that moment, nothing that could be said. There would be later, along with folded flags and a volley of rifle fire. Video letters to their loved ones for each of them from their CO along with words of condolence from Alliance Fleet Admiral Hackett on behalf of a grateful government. But in that moment, there was nothing but the whispered thrumming of the Tantalus drive core vibrating the deck-plates.
Mute testimony for the sacrifice of eleven Marines whose lives had been violently cut short.
The silence aboard was only broken by Kate's whispered order to retrieve the remaining salarians from their ship on the surface. Even Master Chief Richard Castle – whom the rest of the galaxy knew as best-selling author Richard Rodgers – could find no words equal to that moment. So he did the one thing he could do, he bowed his head and stood his post. SSV Normandy would carry on and take the fight to the enemy.
The group solemnly filed into the comm room for debriefing. Even Wrex seemed to realize the somber tenor and kept silent. It took a few moments before even Liara found the courage to speak, which she did without preamble.
"Captain, I am told there was another beacon, like the one on Eden Prime," she said, for once avoiding the social cue missteps she had made earlier, "Garrus informed me that Mr. Castle accessed it."
When Kate nodded, too strung out for even jealousy to rare it's head, Liara continued.
"It may have filled in the missing pieces from the Prothean message. I might be able to help him parse the last of the data. Perhaps we might be able to salvage something from this disaster."
At Kate's baleful expression, Castle rose from his seat.
"I'm willing to try, Captain," he whispered, "too may lives were lost on this one. I can't let it be for nothing... not if I can do something about it."
Kate indicated for Liara to proceed.
"Relax, Richard," Liara whispered quietly just before her eyes went black, "concentrate on the message from the beacon, open yourself to the universe... Embrace eternity!
Just as it had before, the vision from the beacon filled his mind as his consciousness merged with Liara's. The once disjointed images and voices now coalesced into a more organized, coherent, unbroken narrative of the Prothean annihilation by the Reapers, which was soon followed by a series of images and voices, saying they were going to use the conduit to effect the outcome of "this cycle or the next." Telling them to come to a set of coordinates a planet he didn't recognize orbiting a star he had never seen, but he could feel the recognition coming from Liara's end of the joining.
Ilos... the vision was telling them to go to Ilos!"
Shortly after Liara broke the connection, Castle could see Kate's arched eyebrow, neatly set off by the knot of her crinkled forehead as she glared at Liara, something he wasn't sure the young asari grasped the significance of. He thought it was cute... at least as long as the anger behind it wasn't directed at him.
"Did the vision make any more sense to you?" Kate asked, her patience clearly running short.
"There were clearly two messages in the vision, Liara began, "The first wass clearly a distress call, sent out across the Prothean Empire. A warning about the reapers that came too late."
"And the other one?" Kate asked. "What about the Conduit?"
"The second message was a little more vague, giving any Prothean who accessed the beacon network the coordinates to the second sender's location. Ilos, I recognize the images of the planet from my research! The Conduit is on Ilos! That is why Saren needed to find the Mu Relay, it's the only way to get there!"
"Why didn't you mention Ilos when we first heard about the Mu Relay?" Kate asked angrily.
"The Mu Relay links to dozens of systems and hundreds of worlds, Captain," Liara replied unsteadily. "Too many to be able to guess that Ilos was the one he wanted, and it would have taken years to search them all. Only when Castle had the cipher and the complete message from the beacons were the images clear enough for me to recognize them from my research as landmarks from Ilos.
"Then Ilos is where we need to be." Kate stated.
"Forget it," Esposito scoffed, "thanks to her mother, we know that the Mu Relay's deep inside the Terminus Systems, the most chaotic and lawless sector of the galaxy. Alliance ships aren't any more welcome there than Council ones. Your Spectre status won't mean shit either."
"The Conduit's on Ilos, Espo," Kate stated tersely, "That's where Saren's going and I want to be waiting for him when he gets there!"
"Saren will have an entire fleet of geth with him, Beckett," Esposito continued, he'd had just about enough of all the mystical Prothean mumbo jumbo that to him only existed in Castle's head. Crap he figured Kate only seemed interested in because she was infatuated with something the regs said she couldn't have, which blinded Espo to the dangerous territory he was crossing into. "They'll sweep us from the sky before we have a chance to make planet-fall."
"Lieutenant Esposito! That will be all!" Kate snapped at him, sending a ramrod up his spine. She'd never once had to resort to rank with him before and it shocked him back to reality. "We're done here, dismissed!"
"Beckett..." he tried again, but cut his plea short at the dangerous look in her eye.
"I said, dismissed, Mr. Esposito," Kate repeated, and the room cleared quickly after that.
"We're in range of a comm buoy," Pressly stated over the intercom, "It's dodgy but I can send out the report from Virmire."
"They aren't going to believe any of this," Kate replied, "Not without proof. They'll think this whole thing is a hallucination from Castle's head. I can't put him through that."
"Understood, Captain," Pressly agreed, "Saren will park that dreadnought of his right on top of the Citadel before those idiots will listen."
"Stand ready to deactivate the IES system for an FTL jump back to Citadel Space. Let me know when we clear the border then transmit our report from a secure location."
"Aye Aye, Captain," Pressly acknowledged.
As soon as the FTL jump brought the Normandy back to Citadel space, the Virmire report was transmitted to the Council. Even Pressly was surprised at the swiftness of the response.
"Captain, I just got a response to the Virmire report," Pressly announced. "I have confirmation about those reinforcements you requested. Ambassador Bracken wants us to report back to the Citadel. The Council is massing a joint-species fleet to deal with Saren and the geth."
"Took them long enough," Kate whispered under her breath, then spoke up to give Pressly his orders, "Best speed to the nearest Mass Relay. I want the Normandy at the head of that fleet, mister!"
"Aye, Captain!" Pressly replied.
Happy Castlefanfic Monday all.