Shepard couldn't help his smile at the conversation he'd just overheard. Silently, he closed the bay window, left open to admit fresh cool air, and walked back to the bed to sit down stiffly.
He was glad the dam had finally broken between the two sisters. That was one thing off his mind. The next step was to get back on his feet as soon as possible. The pain that'd been plaguing him for the past two weeks was mostly gone except for the occasional twinge. Twinges that happened when he overexerted himself, which was what Miranda walked into just now.
The torso brace he now had to wear on top of bandages hampered movement, but he'd promised her not to remove it. The distance between them had all but disappeared in recent days, and she'd been genuinely solicitous about his welfare. But they hadn't broached the issue of their relationship. He'd actually felt sheepish when Oriana laughed. There was no denying the slant of his thoughts as discomfort abated with every passing day. The months of—it wasn't exactly teasing, but it had that effect—had left him deeply aware of how much he wanted Miranda, and he knew the time would come soon when that mutual tension would rear its head again.
But there wasn't anything to do until they talked about it. The fact was there was a lot they had to talk about. At the top of that list was his most recent brush with death. On his part, Shepard couldn't help but mentally side-step the issue of his personal mortality. It wasn't fey bravado. Mostly, he felt numbed to death, along with his dealing of it. He'd been accused of being blood gutted, of losing his sense of perspective in what constituted acceptable casualties during the war.
The murmurs of discontent had begun before he made the choice to win the war at the cost of five billion human lives. The strike against the Reaper stronghold in the dark of intergalactic space had been the lynchpin, a move touted as instrumental in ending the war of wars. Twenty-two men and women pledged their lives to the mission, three survived to tell the tale—a tale that even one year later contained glaring holes in its account and abject silence on the part of the participants...
-~o~-
2194 CE, Somewhere in Intergalactic Space
The blink of an eye was all it took to traverse the millions of light years between the Citadel in the heart of the Milky Way and the far reaches of intergalactic space. And it was a deeply alien landscape the prototypical stealth frigate slowly found itself drifting through, an alien landscape by any measure, unlike anything in the history of the galaxy for the past several million years.
The frigate, based on the Normandy SR design, was running on zero engine activity and total radio silence, its cockpit filled to the brim with officers. Viewports on the lower decks were similarly occupied as everyone on the team drank in the sight of their final destination.
That destination was the Reaper base, located in a darkness so deep and so far away from any stellar bodies that to the visible eye, the only indication of its shape and size were the millions of cold blinking lights that defied imagination as they stretched into what seemed like infinity.
Passive scanners took over where biological senses failed, revealing a shape like a torus, but with contours along the lines of a blood corpuscle. One that stretched at least a thousand kilometres in diameter, leaving a hole in the middle that housed a relay which took up about one percent of that space, a space they were currently drifting through. The deep silence of systems on standby played counterpoint to the stupefying awe that permeated the tiny, inhabited space that was the frigate.
"We're in. All systems nominal. Drift is...nonexistent, too minute to detect." Their pilot's faint voice finally broke the silence. "Sensors indicate no hostiles in the immediate vicinity."
Shepard shook himself out of his stupor.
"Keep stealth up, do a slow pass of the space we're in. Make it look like we're on a dead drift and divert all remaining power to scanners. I want precise telemetry numbers, configuration readings, x-rays of the damn place—everything we can cough up before we go in."
"Aye, aye, sir."
With that, the spell broke for the rest of the deck. Quiet murmurs and shuffling began as people gathered into small groups to discuss the latest findings among themselves.
"No drift at all?"
Jacob, a member of the Alliance team and Shepard's personal aide, naturally approached to ask the pertinent question.
"Makes sense that they can control the drift in relays." Shepard said quietly. "Any degree here would risk ships colliding with that superstructure, or hostiles appearing out beyond in dark space. This way, they know exactly where everything is."
"So where's the welcoming party?"
"I'm guessing no Reaper wanted to miss the once per fifty-thousand-year eat-all-you-can buffet."
The journey to the derelict Citadel, given up as lost after the battle of 2188, had been a surrealistic experience. The lights that had given the behemoth station its legendary allure and reputation as the centre of galactic civilisation were uniformly dark, and the structure now drifted in an unstable orbit around the Widow star. Two of its famed wards hung at yawning angles, tethered to the presidium ring by strips of twisted metal. One of the arms, Tayseri Ward, had already torn off and spun into the star's burning atmosphere.
Husks now populated the Citadel, the gristly fate of those left to fend for themselves when the station was abandoned to the Reapers once the relay system switch was destroyed. Entering through gaping holes made where ward arms tore away, they'd fought their brief way to the one remaining bulkhead that blocked access to the massive mass effect core used to power the station.
They saw the remains of the SR2 strewn along the way, a sobering relic from that last battle, but gave it little more than a passing glance. Priority now laid elsewhere. Access to the core had finally been possible with intel gathered from studying Reaper technology. And it was with bated breath they watched as the mobile geth platform known as Legion opened up the core to flip another switch, one that transformed the still-intact presidium ring into a live relay leading to the Reaper base.
Special provision had been made to allow Legion to directly interface with the frigate's systems. And the geth's single focal eye calibrated and recalibrated as it drank in information from the ship's sensors and scanners.
On Shepard's instructions, they were now drifting slowly through the giant space that housed the relay exit towards the main body of superstructure. It was made of the strange black metallic substance used in Reaper structures, except what would normally be a smooth surface was infected with mysterious bulbous protrusions, like an organic creature suffering from hives, or a blood corpuscle losing its cellular integrity under a viral attack.
"What do you think those are for, Legion?"
Shepard asked as he came up beside the geth. Several others followed suit.
"We cannot ascertain definitively. The bigger extensions are statistically likely to be docking stations, Reaper repair and installation platforms. The smaller gun placements, vents and maintenance outlets."
Colonel Silus Thracius, head of the turian delegation, breathed disbelief. "That's thousands of platforms we're talking about here..."
"Yes. We think there is one for every Reaper in existence."
"What's the likelihood any of these are monitored?"
"Geth do not know this territory, Shepard-Admiral. We find it impossible to apply pure-synthetic reasoning to Old Machines. All inlets will be monitored with a probability approaching certainty if monitoring exists. Ship emissions will betray our presence but man-sized intruders may pass undetected."
Shepard crossed his arms, a deep frown etched across his forehead.
"We have to assume we can slip in on foot. There's no way to carry out this mission otherwise. And against all that we don't know, trying to infiltrating via the vents or maintenance outlets will only compound our problems."
"I find the simple notion of walking in through the front door refreshing, but what about the ship? How long can it hide its emissions?" That pragmatic question came from Matriarch Indira who oversaw the asari commando unit.
"We've discharged our drive core and heatsinks before making our way here. On low power, the ship can stay stealthed for the next two months or so. I won't risk it docking with the base. It'll tether outside via a hard line which we'll use to grapple our way in and out."
Indira nodded sagely. "Just so long we don't endanger our means of getting back."
He smiled grimly at her. "I suspect that may be the least of our problems. None of which we can anticipate until we step into the base itself. Anyone else with concerns to voice?"
Shepard levelled his gaze at the various representatives, key members of a team hastily cobbled together from various species, and waited perfunctorily for further objections. There were none. And he was glad he didn't have to deal with any.
They were closing in on the seventh year of the Reaper War. The now-uninhabited wastelands that were the Terminus systems and the Attican Traverse stood as stark testimony to the might of the Reapers. No species was spared, no planet unravaged. The guerrilla tactic of crippling one long enough to disable its mass effect core worked, but in the last four years, the tally of kills numbered in mere hundreds. Thousands of Reapers remained, an unstoppable onslaught that was, even now, moving in on the various home worlds.
Weeks were all they had to accomplish the task at hand—destroy the Reaper comm-network and the base if possible—before there was nothing left of the galaxy to save.
And that was why the next few days as the team inched slowly but inexorably through the behemoth of a base began to eat into morale. There was no resistance, no detectable lifeforms even, husks or otherwise. The ease which they were allowed to walk the vast and darkened corridors only dug deeper into Shepard's disquiet. The sense of safety was altogether deceptive. And he couldn't help the feeling that it wasn't so much that the whole place was abandoned, but more like they were considered gnats, not even worth any attention.
Shepard raised his hand, signalling a break. He'd ordered near-total electronic silence, to reduce the likelihood of giving away their presence to an enemy that wielded technology far beyond their comprehension. The only other means of communication was a mechanical device that amplified their voices through the sparse atmosphere within a tightly limited range. Even so, no one felt inclined to conversation.
All members of the team wore specially-designed suits that would sustain them independently for up to a month. Chemical scrubbers supplied breathable air and bodily wastes were removed through an efficient but otherwise uncomfortable interface. All the safeguards were in place to prevent the ubiquitous indoctrination nanites from infecting them. Which meant there was absolutely nothing to distract their minds with, not even food, since that, along with water, was fed into their bodies intravenously.
It gave ample opportunity for the alien configuration of the place to work on nerves, human and non-human alike. Despite the assured integrity of his suit, Shepard had the strangest feeling that the walls throbbed. The black surfaces drank light with an intensity that was unsettling, confounding planes where walls and floors began. Absolute darkness crouched mere metres away, and sparse running lights of the base only materialise when they were up close. It was as if all the empty space was clogged with something that didn't register to visible sight.
That general sense of dread was compounded by the latest computer-generated projections on the progress of the war being waged back in the galaxy. As recent as yesterday, Reaper fleets were predicted to reach Palaven and Sur'kesh within one week. In two weeks, Thessia would join them. Earth was already in the process of being harvested, with projections that ran casualty numbers tallying to millions daily. That had prompted Shepard to enforce double shifts, compelling them to range further and longer away from the ship.
Dully, he watched as one of the asari commandos dropped an empty protein paste pack on the floor and listened to the sound of his own breathing until he couldn't bear it any longer. Legion had once again took the opportunity of a break to scrutinise their surroundings. Not willing to stew in thoughts that grew darker with every second, Shepard made a beeline for the geth.
"Initial scanning indicates the walls are more biological than synthetic in nature." The geth's brow plates drew back engagingly as he approached.
"So my mind wasn't playing tricks on me when I thought I saw them move?"
"Our passive sensors are necessarily limited. Minute oscillations of surface areas would require more sophisticated instruments to detect."
"Don't think knowing that will help me sleep easier at night," Shepard muttered, as he crossed his arms. "I want to talk about that sealed-off area we passed by earlier actually. That was the second similar setup we saw in as many days. They look like reinforced housing to encase an energy source of some sort to me."
"Yes. We believe the Old Machines use anti-matter reactions as their primary source of energy. The emission signatures we detect behind those areas support that hypothesis. These will be placed at regular intervals around the torus for maximum efficiency."
Thoughts raced furiously through Shepard's mind as the geth said this. Identifying the Reaper comm-network as the link they had to break to stop the cycle of extinction was the reason for their mission. But he'd already made up his mind that given the chance to destroy the base, he would take it. Except after seeing firsthand the size of the place, he wasn't sure there was enough firepower in the galaxy to do that. Until now.
"Any chance we can trigger a chain reaction to those cores, overload them to cripple the base, if not outright destroy it?"
"We do not rule out the possibility." It took Shepard awhile to realise that uncertainty coloured Legion's mechanical voice here. "It will depend on our ability to interface with the base systems."
He frowned, and then remembered to keep his voice low.
"Is there something I should know about, Legion?"
"Shepard-Admiral, we remain unable to interface with the base systems. It is uncertain if we can send out the signal to incapacitate all Old Machines when we reach the communication centre."
Shepard winced as the geth, failing to catch his cue, announced all of that at a decibel that raised murmurs from everyone within earshot.
"How long were you going to hide this from us?"
Colonel Thracinus growled his displeasure as he came up.
It was impossible not to notice his hostile attitude echoed in the ugly expressions behind many faceplates. Legion was immune to the mental and physical fatigue that plagued the team. And in the past few days, Shepard knew he wasn't imagining the growing sense of resentment and distrust towards the geth. Being synthetic, geth couldn't be harvested, and so far, the Reapers had shown no interest in them. From that, it was easy to construe that the geth simply didn't care as much as the rest of the galaxy in eliminating the Reaper threat.
Legion's brow plates flapped in bewildered confusion.
"We do not understand. It was not our intention to obfuscate news on our inability to breach the language of the Old Machines."
"You sure weren't forthcoming either. Did you take us for fools?"
The next logical step would be to suspect the geth in cahoots with the Reapers.
"Stop it, both of you!" Shepard growled. "I won't tolerate discord, especially now!"
Behind his faceplate, Thracinus clacked his mandibles in a grinding fashion. Finally, he took one perfunctory step back, but his predator-like beady eyes never left the geth. With an inward sigh, Shepard realised the usual approach of getting both parties to stand down before taking them aside for a separate conference wasn't going to work this time. He moved to interpose his body in between, and looked the turian colonel in the eye.
"Your attitude is unjust and uncalled for, Colonel." He schooled his voice to neutrality, but pitched it for the benefit of the entire team. "The geth were instrumental in discovering the real purpose of indoctrination. Because of them, we know it's the means of communication between the Reapers and their minions. Without all of that, we would never know where to strike within the base."
Once he knew he had everyone's attention, he spoke more quietly.
"Legion and the geth have no reason to sabotage this mission. Waiting a few more weeks would achieve the same effect. Weeks we do not have. This has stopped being a war long ago. We're fighting against our extinction. Every moment we spend in here is paid for with the lives of millions, lives we have no right to squander bickering amongst ourselves."
Grudgingly, Thracinus stepped back and then turned away. At that sign, the rest of the team slowly clambered to their feet, tightening harnesses in preparation to move on. Shepard gave Legion an absent-minded pat on the shoulder.
"We'll talk later, Legion. In the meantime, see if you can figure out between all your programs how to communicate with the base. That's priority."
The quiet reassurance Shepard projected into his voice rang false even to his ears. Mentally, he had to wonder how long more was he able to keep at it, presenting the stoic face of calm and confidence to those under his command. It'd stopped being a war for him years ago. He could no longer recall a time where he didn't live or breathe battle plans, or a day where his mind wasn't full of casualty numbers.
Tiredly, he moved forward to take lead, nodding at the designated scout to check the route ahead.
"Touchy bunch of paranoids, huh?"
Shepard looked up as Jacob took the place at his right side.
"Can't say I blame them." he murmured for the other man's benefit. "This place eats into minds, even without indoctrination."
Jacob snorted.
"Don't deny that. But I've got no use for people who pick fights out on the lawn when the house is burning."
Shepard gave a puff of a laugh as he adjusted the settings of his shotgun.
"Glad you haven't lost sight of the bigger picture."
"Some of us have to. Only way to keep the circus running."
Despite breaking away from Cerberus, Jacob's return to the Alliance hadn't been well-received. Vagaries of war had whittled down the list of people Shepard counted as friends to a mere handful, and he'd done his best to keep track of the remaining few. By all accounts, Jacob had suffered the same treatment he'd undergone himself at the start of the war—distrust at his Cerberus connection, scepticism about his allegiance—all without the buffer of a higher rank.
Both men knew very well he was here now solely on Shepard's request. The bright-eyed lieutenant Shepard had known from before was now a stranger to him, cynical and frustrated with the cards he'd been dealt with.
"Not that I don't appreciate your candour, Jacob. But just remember to keep it between the both of us."
A grimace contorted Jacob's face.
"I'm not a fool, Shepard. I know who my friends and enemies are. Assuming we're still alive for me to count them as either after this is over."
That's not what I meant. Shepard wanted to clarify, but found it more trouble than was worth. He took a deep breath as he surveyed the throbbing blackness around them, and wished himself elsewhere for the thousandth time. Not long now, thank god.
"It'll be over soon, one way or another."
Jacob looked at him curiously, the strange interplay of light and shadow painting his expression with a stark sobriety.
"There's only one way this can end, Shepard. And that's with all the Reapers going down the galaxy's biggest black hole."
"That's what's going to happen here."
That did nothing to dispel the other man's doubtful look.
"Can't say I totally blame that ass Thracinus for getting all pissy with Legion not telling us he doesn't know how to communicate with the base. That doesn't worry you at all?"
Suddenly, Shepard felt too tired to explain himself further.
"What do you expect me to do? Rap him across the knuckles?" He let the note of finality creep into his voice. "Done is done, Jacob. Legion will figure out a way. And when he does, we'll need to find that comm-centre. Not pick fights out on the lawn."
Silence hung like a miasma between them. What friendship they'd shared had long since soured. How and when that process begun, Shepard had no idea. All he knew was talking to Jacob now often grated on his nerves and he had the suspicion the other man felt the same.
A mote of light suddenly materialised across the space in front of them. Soft curses filled the dead air until they realised it was their scout rounding a bend.
"Movement up ahead, twenty metres beyond this bend and closing in slowly."
"What is it, Sergeant?"
"Can't say," was the laconic reply. "It plays tricks on the eye. Didn't want to risk finding out."
Shepard nodded.
"Jacob, Thracinus, Legion—you three, come with me. Indira, lead everyone else to our last rest stop. Keep a safe distance and backtrack on our route if necessary. We'll regroup later."
They killed all lights and allowed their eyes to be accustomed to the faint illumination of the base for guidance. The strange darkness was more palpable than ever, almost a physical force that seemed to press down on them. Legion took point as they traversed the space, following the directions given by the scout.
The thing could be heard long before it came into view. It was as described—a darker patch of blackness against black, visible only when it moved. And it moved ponderously, accompanied by a keening moan like a sonic train. The outlines blurred and reassembled themselves in the dark, delineating into a hulking creature that wore metallic plates similar to a Reaper.
Except there was no way it could be a Reaper. They watched in fascination as the thing lumbered towards a panel of sorts, a silvery inclined surface placed at shoulder-height, nondescript in every other way. A vertical split separated into halves what would normally be the head—it was impossible to tell since the creature didn't seem to have eyes—and from that orifice emerged a slender stalk ending with a pulsating suction cup. The thing plunged its proboscis into the surface of the panel and then retracted it before lumbering off again, this time, in their direction.
Quickly, Shepard signalled to make a wide berth around it. The manoeuvre went unnoticed by the thing, but now they could only trail it from a distance, and pray that the rest of the squad was far away from here.
As they slowly tracked its progress, the unsettling impressions finally coalesced into a whole in Shepard's mind. It could only be a husk, one from a species he'd never seen before. Which meant the thing must date at least fifty-thousand years old, back to the last galactic harvest. It was likely as the organic parts failed, they were replaced by more and more synthetics until the creature began to resemble a mini Reaper. It wouldn't surprise him if it possessed the tenacity and the strength of one too.
He was wracking his mind on where its weak spots might be when the scenario he dreaded happened. Screams and gunfire erupted dead ahead. Before them, the creature lumbered onwards. Shepard gripped his gun convulsively with one hand, while his other darted out to stop Jacob's onward rush. He shook his head slowly but firmly at the other man's look of outrage.
Taking over the lead from Legion, Shepard inched his way forward, a deliberate stance to discourage anyone thinking to overtake him. He steeled himself to ignore the cries, now carrying more than a tinge of hysteria, and indiscriminate gunfire that grew louder and louder.
The husk rounded the corner and disappeared. It was one of the hardest things to do. Holding one hand up, Shepard halted their advance. It'd become increasingly clear the battle was lost. There was no other way to explain the lengthening bouts of silence and sporadic gunfire.
Finally, he took the chance and left the group to peer around the corner. Three survivors concentrated all their fire at one of the husk creatures as they beat a futile retreat. The other way was cut off by two similar-looking husks. Shepard looked on as his heavy-weapons specialist fired a rocket at the looming husk. The creature shrugged it off and advanced relentlessly.
There was nothing to do but watch as those things tore up what remained of the team. The last one standing was an asari commando who tried to make a break for it. A husk's extended proboscis glowed blue and biotically pulled her back into the fray. The hapless asari was torn into three portions by the creatures working in tandem.
They stood around, rocking back and forth as their high-pitched keening filled the air, and then as if on some unspoken order, began lumbering off—this time towards the other end of the chamber, back through where the squad had come from a mere hour ago.
Shepard closed his eyes and finally gestured for the group to join him. But just as they made their approach into the carnage ground, the floor began undulating visibly. They stopped on their tracks and watched in stunned silence as the strewn bodies, all sixteen of them, along with pools of blood were slowly absorbed into the strange metallic surface. Slowly, the bodies became formless lumps, and then those lumps gradually subsided until like before, an empty chamber greeted their eyes.
A scraping sound echoed faintly across the space, and all four of them jerked to belated alertness. From the other exit on the far end, a pale human face and its salarian counterpart slowly emerged, wearing horrified expressions Shepard knew was echoed on their own faces.
Wordlessly, the two groups reunited. No one said anything as they left the area and pushed on until Legion located a ground-level vent sizeable enough to fit all six of them within. It was only then that they dared to stop.
"How the hell did the both of you get away?" Jacob demanded of the other two survivors in a harsh whisper.
"Matriarch Indira sent us to scout the back way," supplied Sabra, the salarian STG member in a small voice. "We spotted one of them and doubled back to warn the team, but they were already under attack."
"She did the right thing. And I'm glad the both of you survived." Shepard interrupted quietly. "We all saw what those things are capable of. Six of us wouldn't have changed the outcome."
"What in the name of the gods are they? And why didn't anyone say anything about the base being able to do that?" Thracinus growled as his eyes narrowed on Legion accusingly. "Don't tell us you know nothing about this, geth."
Picking fights out on the lawn indeed, Shepard sighed inwardly. The taste of fear remained coppery in his mouth. But he had to admit they'd screwed up. They'd been lulled into complacency and allowed paranoia to slip through their defences. The ambush simply completed what had begun the moment they took their first steps in this place.
"Let's not argue between ourselves." He said firmly. "I suspect those things are ancient husks, with their organic parts replaced by Reaper tech. And I think the base is alive. It's some kind of giant Reaper. There's no other way to explain what we saw."
"We agree with your assessments, Shepard-Admiral." Legion chimed in. "It is also likely the husks were alerted to our presence from organic waste packets discarded along the way. We advise against the practice for future reference."
Everyone apart from Legion looked at each other with deeply disturbed expressions.
"We should return to the ship." Thracinus muttered finally. "It—they know we're here now, and there's no way we can fight those things."
"No. If we do that, we may as well give up on the mission." Shepard took in the starkly sober looks from all around. "There's no guarantee we can come back in, and we'll lose days of progress. We have no choice but to keep going. The best course of action against those things was to avoid them, regardless of our numbers. And that's what we'll do from now on. What's the status of our supplies?"
Reluctantly, everyone ran a check and concluded they were good for at least a week. Stealth was the only thing that would save them now. Good thing it was far easier for six men to hide their presence, Shepard thought grimly.
Nonetheless, they continued to run into a number of close shaves over the next six days, each arguably closer than the one before. The vast corridors, once empty, became regularly patrolled by those husk creatures. Tempers grew frayed, with everyone jumping at shadows at one point or another. Sheer military discipline and desperation from the lack of alternatives were the only things that kept them going.
Bracing one leg against the other wall, Shepard winced from aching muscles as he checked the seals on his suit. They were now holed up in a vent, having called it a day. Vents were a misnomer. The ones they'd found comfortably fitted everyone with room for more. It was a sobering reminder that the corridors they'd traversed through in the first few days actually had roofs that stretch over a hundred metres above with only inadequate lighting imbuing them with that deceptively sense of smallness.
Such open places had become too dangerous. And the maze of shafts they now travelled through were disorienting to the point the team had to depend entirely on Legion to chart the way. There was, however, a glimmer of hope. The geth had identified an area of strange emissions and they were inexorably heading that direction no matter the bewildering route they took. The rest of the squad had gone to sleep with Legion watching one end. Assured of his suit integrity, Shepard rose and walked over to the other sentry point.
Jan de Silva, Alliance marine and their main scout plunged a stim shot into his arm via his suit system and sighed deeply. A man of few words in his fifties, he'd served in the First Contact War among other career highlights, but considered himself a grunt at heart. He was a soldier Shepard could trust to follow without question.
Not this time apparently. Jan glanced at his approach before turning back to survey the dim expanse beyond the shaft.
"How much longer we have to keep at this, sir?"
Their circumstances were special enough that Shepard found no way to fault him. Still, he sat down and surreptitiously replaced his urine bag to buy time to formulate an answer. No longer did they dare leave any item behind in case the base detected their presence again.
"As long as it takes," Shepard eventually conceded. "If this mission fails, it's only a matter of time before the Reapers wipe out the galaxy."
"Huh." Jan said simply. "Looks like we can't fail then."
For some reason, his admission grated Shepard far less than Jacob's. And it reminded him how surly he'd become recently. On that thought, he decided he ought to offer some insight even though he wasn't obliged to.
"Legion's found an area of high activity with emission patterns similar to Reaper beacons. There's a good chance it's the comm-centre. Or a husk barracks." His joke was reciprocated with a slow grin here. "Hopefully we'll find out tomorrow."
"Good. Like to get out of this shithole, go home."
Shepard chuckled at the understatement.
"You've got someone waiting back there for you, Sergeant?"
"I'd show you her picture, 'cept it's in my back pocket. And from the feel of it, half way down my buttcrack by now." Jan gave a sly grin before clarifying. "Talking about my six-year old niece. You?"
He was taken aback from hearing the sergeant talk so candidly as much as having his own question thrown back at him. And for the umpteenth time, Shepard raised his hands to rub his face and its itchy beard growth only to remember the blasted helmet was in the way.
"There was this girl—a woman." He confessed finally and not without a hint of regret. "But we haven't seen each other in years. I don't even know if there's anything left between us." He shook his head at his sudden bout of sentimentality. "No family of your own?"
Jan shrugged and smiled wryly.
"Not the committing sort. Can't soldier well if I know my death's gonna cause hardship. Different folks, different strokes. My brother and his family give me the personal stake to see this through. That's good enough."
It brought to mind the countless of condolence letters he'd had to write to stricken families over the years, informing them of their loved one's death. Some of those had been people he'd known personally, others, just names and numbers on the roster. But what struck him about all of them had been the way they'd carried out their duties as if it'd counted for something.
What am I fighting for?
Shepard no longer knew the answer to that question. Ideals like freedom or right to exist were just causes, but rang empty ultimately. With every friend and the personal connection they represented gone, he'd stopped caring just that little bit more. And it was the first time in a long time he wondered when he had started functioning on autopilot, doing things because they were the right things to do. Thank god, he decided tiredly, everything would be over soon.
"Thanks for the chat, Sergeant. I should get some sleep. My turn for sentry duty tomorrow," he rose slowly to his feet and then allowed himself to say, "I'd like to see that picture of your niece by the way, but guess that'll have to wait till the day after."
Jan gave a soft bark of a laugh.
"Amen to that, sir."
It was scant hours later when they had to move out again. Shepard's rest had been fitful. It was impossible not to worry worry over how Legion still had no idea on interfacing with the system once they reach their destination. The one command they hoped to issue at the communication centre would permanently incapacitate all indoctrination nanites in existence. Years of painstaking research had revealed that it was the means by which the various entities and programs that formed a Reaper communicated. The most ironic thing had been the discovery that indoctrination was merely a side effect in that process. The nanites were simply programmed to convert organic bodies into biosnynthetic husks to facilitate a mental link between Reapers and their various minions.
The various governments had grudgingly concluded the best time to issue that killswitch was when most of the Reapers were concentrated on assaulting their homeworlds. Transmitting the signal at that point would incapacitate all Reapers, making it possible for armed forces to quickly board them in their immobilised states to destroy their cores, thus eliminating most of the galactic threat in one move.
Except that depended entirely on issuing the code before the mother planets became barren wastelands. Almost every species' homeworld was under attack by now, with Thessia completing the list in just a few days' time.
They were making a thankfully uneventful traverse of yet another vent shaft when Legion suddenly stopped dead on its tracks, its brow flaps contracting and expanding as its single eye adjusted furiously.
"What is it, Legion?"
"Shepard-Admiral, we have concluded our destination is up ahead. The next turn off will drop us into the communication centre."
Muted cheers of relief filled the space. But it was a wiser and more cautious team Shepard led now, especially knowing that the end was near and slowly, they inched their way towards the drop off.
They peered through the vent opening, and saw a giant room filled with the alien-looking machinery far below. Mysterious tubes sprouted like tentacles out of these contraptions. If it was the comm-centre, those tubes would be teeming with newly-manufactured nanites, waiting to be released. Inclined banks of empty panels surrounded the bases of these contraptions and Shepard had the feeling he'd seen them before, except he couldn't recall where.
Thracinus drank in the sight and grunted.
"Looks like it. Have you come up with a way to crack the system, geth?"
"He's working on it, same way he guided our steps this past week," Shepard said firmly. "We'll camp up here, catch a breather and figure out our next course of action."
Wordlessly, the squad dispersed to carry out his command. Despite its surly tone, Thracinus's question had been entirely reasonable and quietly, Shepard accosted Legion, knowing the rest of the squad wouldn't fail to notice the act.
"We're running out of time, Legion. Give me something to work with, even if it's some half-assed idea."
"We are facing a conundrum, Shepard-Admiral. Six-hundred and thirty-three programs have concluded insufficient data to make any judgement. Three-hundred and seventy-four assert no species wired for the interface exist in the galaxy. One-hundred and seventy-six programs have abstained from a decision."
"What's the reason for abstaining?"
Legion remained silent before finally saying, "Unable to process your question. This unit concludes a chance to study the communication room is necessary before the final verdict can be issued."
Being a self-contained and autonomous gestalt consciousness, Legion had, in the course of the past few years, picked up many ungeth-like characteristics. In layman's terms, they involved displays of sentiments much like empathy and other vestigial emotions. It was a puzzling state of being for a synthetic being that Legion's thousand over programs were often in conflict nowadays.
"We can grapple down for a closer look tomorrow."
"We are agreeable to that."
It turned out the less hectic pace did little to improve tempers. As the rest of the day wore on, inaction simply gave frustration a stronger foothold, although to everyone's credit, they restrained it the best they could. They were also closing on the last of their supplies, a point nobody wanted to mention. The room below continued to remain empty, as if beyond husk patrol routes. They could only take as indication what entity controlled the base still had no idea why they were here.
The next day, Shepard grappled down into the control room with Legion and watched as the geth walked round and round the various machinery. Legion eventually stopped before a bank of inclined panels, its visual lenses calibrating furiously. Soon after, it plunged an arm through the surface. Nothing happened. But the sight finally caused the pieces to click resoundingly in Shepard's mind.
Oh god, no, no, no...
"Those hundred odd programs..." he said in a deathly voice. "They think it takes a husk to interface with the base, don't they?"
There was a long pause here.
"Yes."
"Have you reached a conclusion?"
"Yes... Someone in the team has to undergo indoctrination."
Shepard closed his eyes. He wanted to laugh, to cry, but nothing came out. It was as if he'd been emptied out, numbed to the point where he could no longer cough up the relevant emotions.
They rejoined the team in silence with Jan hoisting them back up at Shepard's command. In their absence, an altercation had taken place. The other three members of the team stood in confrontation before turning to the new arrivals.
"How long do you intend to wait, Admiral? Earth can't hold out forever." Jacob fired the opening question. His tone was cold and his expression formal. They hadn't spoken personally in the last few days, but Shepard realised he no longer cared anymore.
"Earth? What about Sur'Kesh? Or Palaven? Or even Thessia?" Sabra, the STG member bristled in response, obviously continuing the argument that'd taken place before.
There was no point prolonging the inevitable, Shepard decided.
"Legion and I have concluded one of us needs to undergo indoctrination to communicate with the base. Only biosynthetics are wired for the job. It will be a struggle to hold on to freewill once the nanites begin to invade the mind. That person needs to have the resolve to do that. It's a death warrant. But there's no other way."
Stunned silence greeted his revelation. But inevitably, the finger-pointing started again.
"If Earth is so important to the scheme of things, perhaps you'd be willing to sacrifice yourself, lieutenant?" Thracinus stared at Jacob even if the vitriol in his voice was muted.
"I'll do it."
All eyes swivelled to Jan who was methodically stowing away grappling equipment. The sergeant finally stopped what he was doing and looked at Shepard.
"I'm the expendable one here. I think I can hold out till the signal needs to be issued," he said, as though no one else existed in the space between them. Do you doubt I can do it? His even gaze seemed to ask.
Jan was right. In the order of things, he was the most expendable, given that there remained the remote chance the war might still drag on after this.
"I don't doubt your resolve, Sergeant," Shepard said softly after a while.
"Settled then."
Shepard swallowed against the lump in his throat, and found it near impossible. Jacob smashed a fist against the vent wall and then sat down in frustrated defeat.
"Thank you, Sergeant. Thank you for all of us."
There was no question every surface of the base would be teeming with indoctrination nanites. Any compromised seal would allow them into their suits. And it was almost ceremonious the way Jan removed his dogtags and handed them over to Shepard before he broke his seals. The rest of the team sat around mutely, heads bowed.
"Feels cold." He said conversationally before turning to Shepard. "Promise me you'll look at that picture, sir?"
"I will, Sergeant. I'll take it with me out of here."
Indoctrination rate had been sped up since the allied forces had embarked on their guerrilla tactics a few years back. And it didn't take long before the effects became visible. In less than a day, a bluish hue coloured Jan's skin even as it began to turn translucent, revealing the biosynthetic components that were rapidly transforming and taking over his biological systems.
As prelude for what was to come, they grappled down to the control panels the next day. With slow, jerky motions, Jan plunged his arm into one of the silvery surfaces.
"Oh god, I can understand it, I can feel the base." He whispered in distant horror. "It's talking to me..."
"Can you identify how to create the chain-reaction to blow up the anti-matter cores?"
"Yes... The killswitch too... Issue the signal now?"
"No, we wait." Shepard said tonelessly.
He spent as much time as he could talking to the sergeant, trying to help the man stay focused on fighting the indoctrination effect. He talked about his best hopes, his worst fears, anchoring them with deeply personal anecdotes until everything sounded hollow to his ears. It was delaying the inevitable, but every bit of connection would give Jan the strength to resist the mental takeover.
The day after, Jan asked to be tied up. Better to be safe than sorry, he stuttered almost incoherently in a distinctly metallic voice.
"How long more? God, how long more do we have to wait?" Jacob demanded in outright distraught.
Shepard gritted his teeth.
"One more day."
"In the name of—why? Those fucking things have done their work. Any second now, he's going to lose it. His mind is almost gone!"
"Tomorrow the Reapers will have reached Thessia. Over ninety-five percent of them will be in position for board-and-destroy tactics once the killswitch is issued. It's the only way to be sure we get them all." Shepard explained and then said more quietly. "Jan knows the stakes. He will last it out."
"Tomorrow, today, does it matter? Projections are just that—projections! How can you stand by and watch this horror show play out? At this rate, there wouldn't be a Earth left to save! Do you even give a damn anymore?"
With a growl of frustration, Jacob went over and began shaking Jan by the shoulders.
"Are you there, Sergeant? For your own sake, for Earth's sake, listen to me—issue that signal now!"
"Back off, Jacob. That's an order." When Jacob ignored him, Shepard fired a warning shot. "I will shoot to kill if I have to, lieutenant." He said coldly.
"You are mad!"
"Perhaps. But while I'm in charge, you will obey my command."
He said all of this loudly for the convenience of Thracinus, Sabra and Legion who looked on wordlessly. Jacob stared at him as though he was a husk or a Reaper.
"Earth can't take more of this! Every day we wait, millions more die!" Jacob shouted in plaintive bewilderment. "And how can you keep Jan suffering like that? He's a fellow human being for god's sake!"
"Casualties are not the issue here," Shepard replied. "We'll have lost if we start second-guessing how everyone carries out their duty. I have to believe our fleets can hold off the Reapers according to the projections. The same way I believe Jan can do what he says he can."
Jacob stared at him lividly, his hands clenched in a supreme act of control.
"I won't go against you, not when every person counts right now," he finally growled with promised retribution in his eyes. "But if we survive, I will report this."
"You can do whatever you think is right after this."
The wait would've been impossible to bear if not for the fact that the attempt to care was so hard to muster. Despite the temptation to say fuck it all, Shepard found doubts surfacing. Were his actions justified? Did he have the right to wait? Mercilessly, he quashed them as they appeared. There was no room for second-guessing whatsoever. That way simply led to more madness.
"Not long now", he murmured at the sergeant who'd now lost the ability to talk. He had to believe that Jan still understood what he was saying, the same way he reassured himself with those words.
A glance at his omni-tool indicated the Reapers would be surrounding Thessia by now if the projections held true. Mere hours stood between now and the moment to deliver the killswitch. But as it turned out, it was hours they didn't have. Slowly at first and then becoming perceptible louder, familiar moaning sounds began to filter through the small space.
"Movement up ahead!" Thracinus yelled from the sentry point. "They look like regular husks!"
With a curse, Jacob rose and ran forward to reinforce the turian. Sabra followed immediately after. Wild gunfire began to light up the far end of the vent and Thracinus's screams at being overwhelmed followed soon after.
"There's too many of them!"
Will it ever end? Shepard wondered dully as he secured a rappelling line on autopilot.
"Into the chamber, now!"
He barked as he hooked up a harness around Jan and with Legion's help, eased the sergeant through the opening.
In frantic haste, the rest of the team slid down the hundred metres into the empty chamber. The last man, Sabra rappelled down as fast as he could with husks swarming down on top of him. Half-way down, he fired at the length to destroy the route. He screamed in pain as he landed with a bone-crunching crash.
The strategy ultimately didn't matter. The husks simply dropped down, breaking arms and legs in the process. They continued their advance, some of them crawling across the floor.
"Th—that's Indira!" Jacob cried in outrage as he hauled Sabra back towards the group. "They've turned our people into husks and sent them back at us!"
It made sickening sense. Their extended stay in one place had finally gave away their location. The vents were too small for the ancient husks to enter. What better way to flush the survivors out than use their former teammates against them?
Shepard worked to make every shot matter, and watched in numbed despair as the shadowy hulks of ancient husks began to materialise at the far back. It was now or never. They were close enough to the deadline that the difference in the number of Reapers they caught in the net would be negligible.
"Hold the line." He instructed before turning to grip Jan by the arms. All semblance of humanity had left the man. Staring into those glowing eyes and that gaping mouth, he willed the force of command into his voice, issuing the specific line they'd both agreed would be the password.
"Do it, Jan."
He looked on with desperate hope that his faith wasn't misplaced as the sergeant moaned incoherently and then rose to shamble towards a bank of consoles. With agonising slowness, Jan finally plunged his arms into one of the panels.
There was no indication that anything momentous had happened; the effect when it came began almost imperceptibly. Slight tremors that grew stronger and stronger were the first indication. Gradually, in the far distance, explosions began to rock the base as one by one, the anti-matter cores overloaded, taking the next in line along with it.
Right in front of them, the husks, both their former team-mates as well as the ancient versions, pressed on with the assault. Shepard watched spectator-like as Sabra's head exploded in a red display of gore from a biotic attack by one of the ancient husks.
Then just as suddenly, all of their assailants crumbled to the floor like marionettes with their strings cut. The three of them—Jacob, Legion and Shepard could only stared, shell-shocked, at the change in events.
That was it. With all the indoctrination nanites permanently out of commission, monstrosities such as husks could no longer exist. As final testimony to that, the thing that was Jan de Silva laid in a lifeless heap before the console.
The slow reverberation the base had been emitting nonstop throbbed frantically before slowing down like the death-throes of a mortally-wounded animal. Eventually, that also died out. The frigate had its contingency plans. Upon reaching a docking bay, all they had to do was fire off a flare and it would pick them up.
For the first time, Shepard became aware of the deep silence that had fallen throughout the place. He had no idea it could be so deafening and relieving at the same time.
Like in a dream, he walked over to Jan and began stripping away the man's suit to retrieve the photo with slow motions, as if performing a last rite. She was as lovely as the sergeant had described her.
And with that act, it was as if a great weight was lifted away at last. Incognizant of the tears that trickled down his face, Shepard finally latched onto one thought to repeat it again and again in his mind.
It's over. It's finally over.