Chapter 49
Tali, Shepard, and Garrus continued to work their way through the prothean ruins, eliminating clusters of geth along the way. By the time they reached an active elevator, some twenty minutes later, Shepard was the only member of the team who bore any sign of the succession of skirmishes the trio had just been through. The left side of the commander's green-camouflaged chest plate was scorched and pitted, courtesy of a particularly intelligent geth ghost that had lain in wait until the conclusion of a firefight before unleashing a full-powered assassination attack on Shepard. Luckily, Spike's Medium Predator M X armor was up to the task - mostly. The offending geth ghost, on the other hand, died a quick and ignominious death at the business end of Garrus's AR and Tali's shotgun.
As the three Normandy commandos piled into the elevator, Tali activated her omni-tool and triggered the elevator's movement. Unwilling to allow the silence to percolate, Garrus fell back on his preferred elevator soundtrack: poking fun at his friends.
"You must be getting slow, Commander. After all, you let that geth nearly kill you back there."
"Pshaw." Shepard responded. "I just felt bad for the geth; they hadn't managed to hit any of us yet. I didn't want them to feel bad about themselves, you know? Besides, I was giving you a chance to catch up. I've killed a half-dozen more geth than you already, Mr. 'Stuck In Third Place.'"
"Please, Commander. Lie to yourself if you must, but don't spread your vile tales aloud. Tali has young, innocent ears and does not need to be tainted by your words."
"Hey!" Tali yelled out. "You two bosh'tets can pick on each other, but leave me out of it." She trailed off then, muttering something about "a couple of fre'egs" before she was speaking too quietly for either of her companions to hear.
Shepard and Garrus looked at each other, and then shrugged and decided to pass the time by giving their armor and gear a quick visual once-over. Seeing no problems, they decided to stand by quietly so as not to incur Tali's wrath.
Mere moments later, the elevator slowed to a stop and the door slid open, revealing a dark, narrow passageway. To the left, the passage dead-ended. To the right, it continued down for 50 meters before the hallway opened up into a much larger room.
"Weapons out, and stay quiet." Shepard said, before pulling his pistol and slowly moving down the corridor. When the team reached a statue of a prothean that appeared to be guarding the passageway, their motion sensors lit up and they immediately took cover behind some nearby masonry. "What do you see?" Shepard asked.
Garrus answered first, as he always did. "One geth prime, two destroyers, six troopers, and four powered-down armatures."
Tali added on her observations next. "The armatures are connected to physical terminals though. You and I should be able to permanently hack the friend-or-foe protocols of the terminal itself, and then the armatures can take the brunt of the offensive fire."
"I like it." Shepard said with a nod, as he put together a plan. "Garrus, you're gonna take up overwatch with your sniper rifle on this bridge or whatever that's right above us. Tali, you'll go to the first armature on the left hand side and hack it. I'll take the first one on the right. As soon as your geth's hacked, fall back to Garrus's position. I'll fall back and join Garrus in sniping. Tali, keep an eye on the locals while we're looking downrange. If anybody gets close, introduce 'em to your shotgun. Everybody got it?"
Two statements of affirmation greeted Shepard's question, and on his quiet command of "Go!" the three members of the team took off. They made it about three steps before the geth noticed their presence, and bullets began peppering their paths. Shepard immediately activated his omni-tool's marksman ability, and began pulling his pistol's trigger as fast as he could. This course of action succeeded in drawing both the attention, and the fire, of the enemy geth. Unfortunately, this had predictable and unpleasant results for Spike's shields. The commander took a brief break from firing his pistol to activate shield boost and immunity; overclocking his armor's shield regenerator and stiffening the armor's minor flex points, like wrists, torso, and ankles.
Across the room, Tali immediately knew what Shepard was doing when he commenced his rapid-fire attack upon the geth. That stupid, noble, adorable bosh'tet. If anybody should be drawing their fire, it's Garrus. He's got the most defensible position right now, his armor is still in perfect condition (unlike a certain human Spectre's I could mention) and a lucky shot that penetrates his armor doesn't necessarily carry the threat of imminent death (like it would for me). I'm going to have to give my boyfriend (my boyfriend!) a stern talking-to and remind him that neither Garrus nor myself are overly fragile. At that point, she reached her assigned armature's terminal. I expected better protection of this terminal from the geth. There's hardly any electronic security here at all! Perhaps they never expected anyone to get this far? No, that doesn't explain the destroyers or prime. The more likely explanation is probably that the prothean infrastructure was rejecting some of the more stringent geth security programs, and so they are compensating for the lack of electronic protections with an excess of physical force. Yes, that seems more like it. Aaaand, done! With her assigned task completed, she ran back towards Garrus.
Spike, on the other hand, was having a great deal more difficulty hacking the geth armature than his quarian counterpart. Part of that extra difficulty was probably due to the sheer levels of Tali's engineering and technological genius; however, the greater driver of Shepard's troubles was most likely the never-ending rain of high-velocity metal that was quickly destroying the ancient stone bench that he was using for cover, and filling the immediate area with a cloud of dust. Finally, and with a great sigh of relief, Shepard finished hacking the armature and the large geth quadruped unfolded itself and began glowing with the deep blue of an impending siege pulse. Under the cover of the armature's initial attack, the commander beat a hasty retreat back to high ground, where he and Inara could begin repaying the geth for their kindness.
By the time he reached the bridge's railing next to Garrus, Shepard had already stowed his pistol and expanded his beloved sniper rifle to its full size. A quick glance at the battlefield showed that the team from the Normandy, nicely assisted by the hacked geth armatures, now had the upper hand. One of the geth destroyers and all but two of the troopers had already succumbed to the invaders' fire, and all of the remaining geth platforms, including the massive prime, were hiding behind prothean stonework in much the same manner as Shepard had been doing only a few moments before. A shark-like grin crept over Spike's face as he activated his radio. "I'll start at the right."
Garrus quickly answered. "I'll take the left."
Then together they said "Winner gets the prime." As the last syllable passed their lips, both men opened fire. Shepard's first shot dropped the geth destroyer that was holding down the right-hand side of the enemy line. Garrus's first shot decapitated one of the two remaining geth troopers, who had been guarding the left flank.
This was the point where the difference between Garrus's sniper rifle and Shepard's "Inara" came into play. The two sniper rifles had similar "shots before overheat" ratings, however Garrus's Volkov X rating, for a stock weapon, was slightly lower than Shepard's HMWSR. From there, though, the two snipers had gone in vastly different directions in modifying their weapons. Garrus had gone for precision and rate of fire, whereas Shepard preferred the ability to kill anything, from a pyjak to a geth colossus, with a single shot. Garrus had opted for Frictionless Materials X and a level X Kinetic Coil, teamed with his usual snowblind ammo mod. Spike had had his HMWSR equipped with a Scram Rail X and High Explosive ammo mods, along with a Kinetic Coil X similar to Garrus. This resulted in Inara overheating on every shot, whereas Garrus had managed to squeeze out an almost 40% increase in shots before overheating. Shepard swore that at least half of that increase was due solely to Garrus's skills at fine-tuning his weapons to eke out every scintilla of improvement, whether those improvements were supposed to be possible or not.
So it was that Garrus took his next shot without a corresponding explosion from Shepard's position. That shot struck the sole remaining geth destroyer, but only succeeded in stripping the geth's shields. His next shot struck the destroyer in the head, obliterating a sizeable portion of the metal cranium but not extinguishing the flashlight-like "face." Garrus squeezed off one more shot that did finish off the destroyer milliseconds before Shepard fired, but at the cost of overheating his sniper rifle. Shepard's shot blew the upper half of his geth trooper into unrecognizable scrap metal. The two shooters then sighted down on the geth prime. Garrus took full advantage of his earlier advantage, once again firing barely ahead of the massive report of Shepard's rifle. The near simultaneous impact of the two slugs obliterated the prime's shields, and enough of the explosive force of Shepard's attack bled through to send the geth platform falling over backwards.
Garrus did some quick thinking while his sniper rifle cooled again. My next shot will be unable to penetrate the prime's armor and still retain enough kinetic force to be a kill shot. The commander's following shot would undoubtedly be enough to kill the geth. On the other hand, if Shepard shoots first, that shot will probably clear the path for my bullet, meaning I should shoot second. There's always the possibility, though, that Shepard's H.E. round will carry enough force to finish the geth. If that happens, I lose anyway. I lose for certain with the first option, so I only have one choice: shoot second.
At that moment, Garrus's rifle's "Overheat" warning went dark, allowing the turian to fire. Secure in his course of action, though, he readied himself to fire as soon as he heard the unmistakable eruption of noise from Inara. A half of a second later, Shepard fired, and Garrus followed suit. With a sad smile, he turned towards the commander after observing the carnage downrange. "You win again, Shepard."
Spike chuckled and clapped his turian brother on the shoulder. "Don't I always? Just kidding, Garrus. That was probably our closest one yet."
Garrus nodded his assent. "I agree. But one of these days, I will get you."
"I know, buddy. I know. Now let's catch up with Tali."
The two male members of the team quickly made their way to the quarian, who had started walking away shortly after the last enemy geth had fallen. Together, the trio made their way across the room, stopping briefly to split up in order to hack the two remaining deactivated geth armatures.
"Probably doesn't hurt to leave them here as a housewarming gift for any geth reinforcements, right?" Shepard said with a smirk when they had regrouped in the center of the room.
"Probably not." Tali answered with a grin of her own.
Garrus just nodded his head, staying quiet since he hadn't actually done anything to help with the hacking.
The three person team continued to make their way towards the control room. They walked in silence, engrossed with taking in the surroundings. Their thoughts were in an odd sort of synchronicity, as they were each considering the fact that they were the first living, breathing people to view the carvings on the wall for millennia. And that Liara would likely sell her firstborn child to be here with them. That thought brought a chuckle from every member of the team.
Finally they reached the control room. Shepard immediately went up to the control panel and started typing away. Garrus and Tali looked at him strangely for a moment, before Tali gave voice to their shared question.
"Um, Shepard?"
"What is it, Tali?" Shepard responded, without looking away from the console.
"How do you know what you're doing?" When he looked up at her, clearly questioning her sanity, she elaborated. "I, I mean, uh, how can you be sure you're removing the lockdown, and not, oh, I don't know, changing the air purity in the chamber below or something?"
Shepard stopped working completely. "What do you mean, Tal? I'm just following along with what it says to do. Same way I use my omni-tool, or private terminal, or anything else. Are you feeling okay?"
Garrus mentally catalogued the fact that the commander apparently had a nickname for his quarian teammate, adding it to the growing pile of evidence that indicated that the relationship between Tali and Shepard was more than it appeared.
Tali ignored Spike's use of the familiar form of her name, and addressed the thrust of the commander's statement. "But Shepard, the program's in prothean!"
"Huh?" Shepard struggled to come up with an adequate response. "No it's not. It's in english. I can't read prothean."
"I believe you can, Commander." Garrus spoke up, to take the pressure off of Tali. It appears that between the prothean beacons on Eden Prime and Virmire, and the Cipher from Feros, you've gained the ability to read written prothean. I'd be sure to lock your door at night if Liara finds out; or she'll be 'embracing eternity' with you before you can say 'hello.'"
Tali visibly stiffened at that notion. If that Usl'sa yze tabb thinks that she's going anywhere near Shepard's quarters at night, she's in for a rude awakening! The only one who's allowed to embrace Spike at night is me! If she tries anything, I'll introduce her to a world of pain faster than a, what was it Spike said? I remember: a speeding bullet! He's mine, Liara!
Oblivious to the angry thoughts running through his girlfriend's mind, Shepard had responded to Garrus with a generic shrug of the shoulders and continued deactivating the lockdown. A few moments later, he finished, and turned to leave. Upon the completion of his task, however, a hologram appeared next to the console he was working on. The quality of the visual and audio of the recording was terrible, but Spike was able to pick out a few words.
"Another warning about the Reapers. I wonder if this is the initial source for the message I got on Eden Prime? It certainly seems similar. Maybe we're just only getting sound from this recording and only got pictures from the beacon." At his companion's silence, Shepard put things together rather quickly. "Oh. So this is probably speaking in prothean, right? And your translators aren't equipped to deal with a 50,000 year old dead language?"
Garrus and Tali both nodded. "You have to admit, it is pretty impressive, Commander." Garrus said. "You're probably one of the only living beings in the galaxy who's fluent in both written and spoken prothean. And you didn't even have to study to achieve such a mastery."
Shepard nodded, seeing the turian's point. "And while it does come in handy, perhaps we can leave the academic aspects of it for later. Because at the moment, my boot is late for a very important date with Saren's ass." With that as his parting comment, the human Spectre turned away from the hologram and headed back to the elevator.