"Thanks for the understatement, chief."
"Okay, Commander, just one question." Davisson asked over the noise of the shuttle thrusters. He pointed his rifle at Harbinger. "Why is he here?"
"Two reasons." Shepard explained. "First, I want to keep an eye on him personally. Second, if we're going up against Reaper forces, I want someone with intimate knowledge of how to put them down."
"Long as I get ta blow something's head off!" Lokkan growled cheerfully.
"There will be blood, Shepard, and you are still weakened." Harbinger said, voice booming as always, even with background noise.
"No shit, Sherlock." Davisson commented. "Here I thought we were going to have a picnic."
"Are you prepared for what you will face?" Harbinger continued, ignoring the marine.
"Is that concern I hear, Harbinger?" Shepard asked wryly.
"My survival is not guaranteed if you should fall." He hastily amended.
"Riiiiight." Davisson strapped his helmet on. "You sound like a krogan with a crush after someone kicked their ass. Might want to keep an eye on that."
"Silence. Your prattle is an annoyance at best."
"Ah, bite me. Oh wait! Your genius reconfiguration of the entirety of the prothean organic structure means you don't HAVE a mouth! Asshole."
"Both of you lock it down." Shepard said wearily. "We're at five minutes ETA, and I need to think of something…quietly. EDI, have those surface scans picked up anything?"
The familiar blue orb appeared over Shepard's omni-tool instantly. "Affirmative. The entrance appears to be guarded by seven bipedal organisms. They show signs of Reaper tampering. Based on size, my assumption is six Cannibals and one Marauder."
"Walk in the park." Shepard nodded. "We can skip the training wheels. Harbinger, I already know what you can do. Colonel, Engineer, sound off. Capabilities, keep it short."
"Cloaking system, quantum entanglement device, anti-synthetic rounds, hard-compact single-shell sniper round." Davisson listed off.
"Turn off guns, turn off 'bots, blow things tae bits and EMP firing dampener." Lokkan slid his omni-tool along the side of his shotgun. A small blue image of a sparking bullet appeared next to his thermal clip slot.
"Davisson, go over that again." Shepard said. "Quantum entanglement?"
Davisson hesitated slightly, like it wasn't his favorite subject. "Yes, I can technically teleport, and yes, it has limits. It's really more like an instantaneous biotic charge, if you don't mind nausea."
"What kind of limits?" Shepard pressed.
"It relies on a three-dimensional image of the location I'm going to. If I can see the place, my HUD does it automatically, but otherwise I have to have already been there to place a marker, which kind of defeats the purpose." He explained. "There are range factors, too. Fifty meters is pushing it, and more than one hundred and twenty five will probably kill me."
"Th' fuck did ya get tha'?" Lokkan asked.
"It's experimental. My design. The Alliance basically told me that at least if it screws up it's my ass, not a valuable soldier." Shepard could practically see his grimace.
"We go in hard and fast." Shepard said, easing him off the moment. "I'll draw in a cluster of cannibals, then detonate. Lokkan, overload the Marauder's shields. Davisson, 'teleport' next to it and stab it. Preferably between the eyes."
"Will do, Commander."
"Harbinger, you're on cleanup duty. If any Ca-…technologically-altered-batarians survive my biotics, bring them down."
"They will burn, Shepard."
The shuttle bounced in midair as weapons fire from the ground below hit the shields. None of their armaments could so much as pierce the hull, but the turbulence threw them off-balance.
"On the ground in fifteen!" Shepard shouted, putting on her helmet. The processors connected to the rest of her new armor and her omni-tool, woefully out of date as it was. First thing when we get back, She thought ruefully. Get new tech. The edges of her vision flashed white in confirmation that everything was working. Harbinger's, Davisson's, and Lokkan's faces appeared in white circles at the bottom. The scanners read their shields at maximum.
Tiny red blips representing her trauma status filled out just above them, and the purple bar that was her barrier curtain expanded to full length above it. She noticed that light blue lines were enrapturing the barrier representation, and she realized that those were her armor's shields. I can use both of them without a short circuit? She thought. Nice.
She drew her pistol, and four small lines converged in the center of her HUD. The targeting reticule. All systems green. She was ready to go.
"Comms check." She said, deactivating her external vocal emitters. Only the other members of the squad and anyone with a connection over the links could hear her now.
"Check." Davisson said.
"Check." Lokkan replied.
Harbinger was a problem, as both Shepard and EDI had noticed. They had considered simply equipping him with a two-way communications headset, but he would have to keep quiet during infiltrations due to his voice being external…and loud. They could fix that problem later. For now, the Reaper had a rather primitive one-way headset. They could hear him normally through the auditory filtering systems of the suits, anyway.
It wasn't as though he needed armor.
Fifteen seconds passed like an eternity, waiting for the shuttle to get close enough to land. Eventually, Shepard's omni-tool bleeped, and she nodded. "Lokkan." She said. "Kick the door."
The turian slammed a fist into the panel, and with a hiss of atmosphere, the desert of Tuchanka opened up before them. The lab looked like an average building, if an isolated one. A small flight of stairs led up to a double-door. The whole place looked fairly clean and well-kept.
The seven Reaper drones shooting at them kind of ruined the view, though.
Lokkan leaned his arm out of cover and deployed a short-circuit device at the Marauder. The creature stumbled backwards as its shields failed, directly on top of Davisson's omni-blade. Two clean swipes later, and it was dead before it hit the ground.
During the time it took for it to fall, Shepard threw a swirling ball of biotic energy into a cluster of Cannibals, and they lost grip on the ground. Four of them flew in a dizzying circle in midair, only stopping when a follow-up blast detonated the field, blasting pieces off of the foes and throwing them mercilessly into the dirt.
Two remained. One of them exploded in short order, courtesy of Lokkan's well timed cluster blast. Shepard could recall Wrex and Vega having used that effect before. If she remembered right, it was essentially taking the spread of a normal shotgun, forming it into one projectile, and then making it explosive. Damned if it didn't work.
The last Cannibal managed to fire one shot - one single shot - at Shepard before Harbinger threw a projectile at it. It looked like a fizzling orb of energy, and it produced a massive explosion that tore the Cannibal limb from limb. Then it set the remains on fire.
As for Shepard, the infinitesimal piece of her shields that had been shaved off regenerated immediately.
"Dammi'!" Lokkan growled. "I thought this was going ta be a figh', nae shootin' tha wings off some faeries!"
Shepard briefly wondered how a turian weapons engineer knew about faeries. "Great, thanks." Davisson said, drawing his…what was that? It wasn't any weapon she recognized. It looked vaguely like a shotgun and yet…not. Too advanced. "Now Murphy's gonna start shoving grenades up our asses." He continued.
"Better ya burn steel than waste a razor." Lokkan countered.
"Aren't those essentially the same outcome? And what the hell does that even mean?"
Shepard, for her part, was already adding another few mental entries to her personal list of who not to put on teams together. Then she remembered that argument was supposed to be endearing or something.
"How often does this occur?" Harbinger asked her.
"You have no idea." She muttered.
"Correct. That is why I inquired."
"Why don't you go salvage a weapons system or something." She waved him off and approached the others.
"Well why couldn't you have said something like 'better you prepare for an avalanche and get one than waste the time'? Or something that, y'know, made sense?" Davisson was saying.
"Th' fuck is your fascination with this 'bad luck' nonsense?" Lokkan was apparently hitting his stride. "This is comin' from a turian, remember. The ones who worship bloody invisible energy auras? An' you sound barking mad!"
"Do I look dead? No? Then obviously it's working!"
"You might not be dead yet, Colonel, but unless the two of you focus we might be getting there." Shepard's voice was tinged with her small scowl. They were wasting too much time already.
They paused, looking at her.
"Er, yes ma'am." Davisson at least had the good sense to sound apologetic. Lokkan just nodded silently.
"Good." She thumbed behind her. "You take the rear guard. It'll give you distance and prevent surprises. Lokkan, take point. Harbinger, with me."
She honestly wanted to say something inspirationally catchy, but she couldn't really find it in her. She gave a mental shrug. Plenty of time in the day.
The main door to the lab opened smoothly and silently. The interior of the entry room was white and empty. In Shepard's opinion it was a little too clean. Almost unnatural. The door closed behind them, and a cheerful feminine voice greeted them over the hissing of various regulator systems.
"Balancing exterior conditions with interior atmosphere." It chimed happily. "Notification: The environment will be sterile in ten point three seconds."
"Doc likes his cleaners, huh?" Davisson commented.
Shepard nodded silent assent. Then again, it made sense. Any outside contaminants could screw patients and data on a normal planet, never mind a still-recovering deathtrap like Tuchanka.
"Blood." Harbinger said simply. Shepard was about to ask what he meant when the second door opened. The lobby, if that's what it could be called, was filled with mangled corpses. Most of them were krogan, but she noticed that some of the assaulting forces had fallen as well. With a grim sort of realization she saw pools of blood out of place, like the bodies had been dragged away. She could guess fairly accurately for what purpose.
"How'd you see tha' before th' doors opened?" Lokkan asked.
"This form's systems recognized an anomaly. Assassins are built to notice the smallest of details even when not under control."
"His meat puppet could smell it." Davisson translated.
"That's a Collector Assassin?" Shepard asked. In response, Harbinger raised a barrier and hefted the particle beam he'd lifted from the Marauder outside. She definitely recognized it now. Something that annoying to fight was hard to forget. And he was likely to have more tricks up his sleeve than even a normal tool.
"Righ'." Lokkan's weapon swiveled as he examined the room. "'Cept for th' chills up my spine, looks clear."
Davisson muttered something Shepard couldn't make out that sounded like a mention of 'jumping', 'argument', and 'creepy night space monsters'. She let him have his moment and motioned them forward.
"EDI." She said while they moved. "Are we close enough to contact Dr. Solus?"
There was no response.
"EDI." Shepard said urgently. "Normandy, respond."
Nothing.
"We're being blocked, people." She told the squad. "Keep on your toes."
Based on the surface scans, Shepard estimated that the lab itself couldn't have more than a half dozen rooms the size of the lobby. It struck her as odd that Kerrin would want such a small space to work with. Unless there were more levels beneath them.
She dismissed the thought until she saw the stairs.
"My kingdom for creepy overrun installations without stairs." Davisson announced.
"Everyone down." Shepard ordered. "We sho-"
"Warning." The VI announced happily. "Containment wing E has been breached. Please initiate security countermeasures. Warning: Security countermeasures are offline."
"Containment wing?" Lokkan asked incredulously.
"This can be anything aside from good." Shepard shook her head." Down, people, get a move on."
Their passage was brief and silent, leading several flights straight down until they hit an open hallway. Rooms covered by clear glass walls and doors lined it. They looked like dorm rooms built for observation. Beds, footlockers, and personal belongings were in different places with every one they passed. Several of the rooms contained copious amounts of blood and mutilated corpses. The ground in front of each was marked. Shepard saw phrases such as 'T-004' and 'A-007'. One in particular, 'Y-002', looked as though it had been the location of a pitched battle. The footlocker was tipped over, the bed in pieces.
"Were they prisoners?" Lokkan asked.
"No…" Shepard pointed to a closed door. "The doors are unlocked. They were volunteers. Maybe with medical conditions. And now they're dead."
"Right, mystery number one…" Lokkan motioned to room Y-002. "Why are th' Reapers taking some of 'em alive? Why not all?"
"Some are unfit. Incompatible for ascension." Harbinger answered with distaste.
"I don't know any sentient species with names like 'Y'," Shepard said. "Aside from Yahg, and that wouldn't make any sense. What-"
"They aren't marked by race." Davisson's voice alone sent chills down Shepard's spine. He sounded utterly terrified.
"The Storm approaches." Harbinger uttered quietly.
"What are you two talking about?" She asked.
Suddenly, the marine had his sniper rifle trained down the hallway opposite where they had come down. His entire body was shaking. "They're marked by condition."
Suddenly, it clicked. Not Yahg. Yakshi. Ardat-Yakshi. But that would mean…
A sound from behind her stopped her thoughts cold and froze her blood. The sound of a scream. A scream all too familiar.
"Ah, fuuuuuck." Lokkan summed up the situation admirably. Another scream tore through the underground area, echoing off the tight quarters. It was getting closer.
"We run, right?" Davisson's voice was a near whisper, almost pleading. "Please tell me we run."
"Screw THAT." Shepard glowed blue, pistol armed and ready. She had been finished running a long time ago. "Front and center. Shoot to kill. Take cover in the rooms, all of you."
At that moment, a gray figure turned the corner in front of them. It was tall, vaguely asari-shaped, with tubes and cybernetics running every which way on and under its skin. Hands had turned into wicked claws. The Banshee screamed again as it floated towards them, its hands already forming the motions for whatever biotics it had in mind.
Shepard was slightly faster.
A biotic force like a wrecking ball slammed into the creature at full force. It staggered backward, opening itself for a blast from Lokkan's weapon. A tracer shot by its head an instant after Davisson's weapon let out a sharp report. Shepard internalized quite the impressive set of curses. The sniper had missed. Perfect.
Harbinger raised an arm, and the lines across the body of his collector host flickered like a malfunctioning light.
"Assuming control."
Shepard's pistol involuntarily twitched towards him. That phrase evoked too many old wounds. But he couldn't just possess any reaper creation…could he?
The Banshee bent forward, tubing and lights flaring from blue to bright flaming orange. It paused, briefly, its limbs twisting and twitching as though it were making sure that it could move them all.
"You're shitting me." Davisson said numbly.
"How…?" Shepard asked.
"It is a matter of will." Both the Banshee and the Collector moved in unison as the voice echoed around them. "These new forms have none. Whoever created them knows little of the ascension process."
"Cerberus." Shepard's fears had been confirmed.
"Well now that we've established tha' th' team pet evolves tae be creepier by tha minute…" Lokkan sounded a little too calm.
"We're on a tight schedule, Harbinger. How many can you possess like that?" Shepard motioned unnecessarily to the Banshee.
"One is enough of a strain."
"What happened to being almighty?" Shepard snarked before she could stop herself.
Both bodies bristled in indignation. "My powers are beyond you. The forces that I bring to bear-"
"All right, all right." Shepard waved him off. "Don't get 'incomprehensible' on me. Just move the puppet ahead. At least it'll take most of the fire."
They moved forward again, passing more observation areas, more often than not stained with what was left of their previous occupants. It dawned on Shepard suddenly just how large this complex was, how many people had been here. How many hopefuls had died. Her grip on the Phalanx had turned her knuckles white. Minutes passed in silence. Once, hostile fire had torn through a closed door, but the possessed Banshee teleported inside and dealt with the Marauders immediately. Shepard was beginning to doubt that they would ever find Kerrin.
Naturally, not sixty seconds after she had the thought, they found him. More accurately, they found his aggressors. No less than two Banshees and five Marauders were placing suppressive fire on three survivors. One of them tried to pop up and return fire, but a rough female voice that Shepard recognized as the krogan from the message forced him back down.
"Try standing and I feed you your quad, Drak!"
Their Banshee (who Shepard had begun subconsciously referring to as 'Sean', for reasons even she wasn't entirely sure of) accelerated forward and removed the head of a hostile one of its kind. The second enemy Banshee turned, screaming. The two of them began teleporting around the room and throwing biotics, fighting to a standstill.
Three Marauders lost their shields to Lokkan, and Shepard wasted no time in putting them all in a singularity. The other two were soon reduced to one. Davisson had his aim back, and one of them fell, a hole the size of a fist drilled through its skull. Immediately thereafter, the sniper himself appeared over it, omni-blade plunging deep into the brain of the second.
A projectile from Harbinger, which apparently held the same biotic frequency as a warp, ended their side of the fight with an explosion. Lokkan loosed a hard-packed projectile at the enemy Banshee as it came out of another teleportation. It connected, and the creature staggered, if barely. That was all the opening Harbinger needed, and orange claws went through another head.
There was quiet, and then a deadpan remark from behind cover. "Doctor, you better treat me for hallucinations."
"Clear." Shepard said.
Kerrin rose, omni-tool still alight. His face broke into relief. "Commander. I was worried you hadn't received our message."
"I'm sorry I couldn't come sooner." She told him. "Your patients…"
"They're gone, then?" Kerrin looked away and closed his eyes. "I thought as much, but…"
To Shepard's surprise, the female krogan rose, sliding away her weapon, and put a hand on the salarian's shoulder. Her tone was among the most reverently assuring and soft that Shepard had heard from anyone, much less a krogan. "It wasn't your fault, Doctor. We'll get these bastards."
He nodded in return. "Thank you, Deshayla."
"Wait. Who?" Davisson stepped forward, rifle over one shoulder. "Heeeeeey. Didn't I drink you under the table once?"
The other krogan looked like he was about to speak, but Deshayla pointed at him. "One word and your ass is mine." He wisely shut up. "You do sound annoyingly familiar." She studied Davisson carefully. She sounded slightly cautious and even…sultry? "As I recall, I owe you a kick in the quad."
"Well, I'm a couple balls short."
"I can make do."
"Ahh…I'm guessing you two know each other?" Shepard asked awkwardly.
"Nope." Davisson said.
Deshayla shook her head. "Not in the slightest."
Shepard sighed. Davisson chuckled and elaborated. "We met briefly when the team was trying to get you back on your feet. Took a little killer batarian mix and additives, but she was real helpful. And now has a crush on me." He added playfully.
"Hey." Deshayla warned. "I am a battlemedic and warrior of clan Urdnot. The only things I crush are skulls."
"Uh-huh."
"'Killer batarian mix'...and additives?" Kerrin eyed her suspiciously. "Is that why you nearly killed both of your livers?"
"Hey, he asked for it." She sounded like a child being scolded.
Honestly, Shepard was glad that everything hadn't gone completely to hell for once. Oh no, certainly not. First, Dr. Solus opened his mouth to say something. THEN everything went completely to hell.
He pointed back down the entrance hallway. "Take cover!" Then he dove. So did Deshayla. And Davisson. And Lokkan. And Harbinger. Shepard's reflexes, finely honed by years of combat, told her to stupidly turn around. Something like a battering ram the size of a skyscraper smashed into her stomach, sending her flying back into a wall. All of her advantages had to work overtime just to keep her alive. Her shields barely worked against blunt force, but her barrier deflected some of the damage. Her augmentations prevented internal trauma to a dire degree, and not all of her bones broke immediately.
It still hurt.
She vaguely heard Davisson screaming over the radio. "Shit! Thunderbeast! Move your asses!"
Somewhere between the pain and confusion, Shepard had time to wonder what the hell a Thunderbeast was.
Shepard raised her head to look at what hit her. A mass effect field shimmered around it, partially obscuring its numerous technological enhancements. It looked drained of life and vitality, and had a mask over its mouth area. It was huge, quadripedal, and looked horrifyingly like a husked elcor.
She didn't know much about the new time period, but if she had to guess, she would say that it was a Thunderbeast. Sure enough, her omni-tool alerted her to a new Codex entry. Not that she had time to look at it now.
She raised her pistol and fired. Two shots bounced off of its biotic field without leaving a scratch, but she had its undivided attention. Great. She dove to the right, launching a destabilizing field at it. She saw the barrier flicker, but not much else. She barely even saw it twitch and it wasn't there anymore. It had careened into the wall where she just was, forming the blue wavelength of a biotic charge behind it.
Sean screamed and then gurgled helplessly as the creature jumped again and splattered the innards of the Banshee across another wall. Deshayla, the krogan, Davisson and Lokkan all scattered, putting down sustained fire in the hope of disrupting its barrier. Nothing they did seemed to have any effect. Shepard heard someone shouting random expletives, but adrenaline hit her in full force and the world slowed down.
All sounds aside from her breathing and heartbeat were cut off, even the sounds of her biotics muted. It quickly became a fight of endurance and reflex as she rolled and jumped from side to side, avoiding the charging husk and throwing fields directly at it. After three times of the warps connecting, she misjudged the distance. It was bound to happen, but she wished she had prepared for it.
Rather than full contact, which would have completely broken her, the husk clipped her shoulder, which sent her spinning. She felt a leg on her back, pinning her down, and saw another rising through the air to smash through her skull out of the corner of her vision. Unfortunately for it, she was not a wet-behind-the-ears soldier, ready to give up at the first sign of defeat. On the contrary, it had no idea who it was dealing with.
She concentrated, drawing in not only the eezo she was producing, but that of the husk as well. She drew in power from its own barrier and spread her arms out, feeling the pulse rise from inside her and out. The pressure lifted off of her back and it slammed into a wall. She put her weight on her hands and flipped forward, landing on her feet. Her heel turned, she gathered momentum, and she slammed into the beast, using its own trick to push against it with bone-shattering force.
What made it even more devastating were the large crates she'd lifted into the air an instant previously. Now, she put one foot in front of the other and backflipped off its face. She pushed the crates forward with both hands, propelling them with as much force as she could muster. They ricocheted off of its barrier, but it was weakening. Shepard threw another warp, and its shield failed completely. It tried to saunter forward, but her foot struck the ground resolutely. A shockwave flew into all four of its legs, snapping them like twigs.
She stepped forward, brought up her pistol, and shot it in the head until she had no more rounds left over. Nineteen seconds after it hit her from behind, the Thunderbeast was dead.
"Everyone alright?" She asked, panting. "Sound off."
"I'm bruised by debris, but fine." Kerrin said.
"I'll live." Deshayla growled. The other krogan merely nodded.
Lokkan pushed a piece of wall off his legs. "I need a bloody drink."
Davisson's exclamation was more straightforward. He pointed at the Thunderbeast and shouted: "Holy shit!"
"Well well well." Lokkan snickered. "Looks like killin' something's enough ta shut him up. I'll remember tha'."
Something was still wrong, though. Shepard looked around for nigh on a minute before she realized what it was.
"Harbinger?"
No response. The Reaper was gone.