CHAPTER EIGHT
Ruins
Kara ran her fingers through her hair, and stretched briefly. Interstellar travel through the relay network was amazingly fast, in that they had crossed some eighty thousand light years in eight days, in the journey to the Knossis system. It had been more than enough time to study up for the mission, and to spend time amongst the crew. That was why she had chosen to do her final review in the CIC, at one of the information stations, arrayed around the tactical map, rather than in her quarters.
Therum was a mineral-rich, tectonically active world, well outside Council or Alliance jurisdiction. Limited mining had been attempted by the turians, and more recently by an alliance between the human-controlled corporations Eldfell-Ashland Mining and Energy, and ExoGeni, which specialized in for-profit archeology and 'sponsored colonies'. Planetary conditions and pirate raids on their shipping lines made the operation too costly to continue. Their abandoned, boxy prefabs still dotted the landscape around the preliminary site.
The Council had supplied her with copies of Eldfell-Ashland's geographical scans, which showed their excavations, the prothean ruins, and the major tectonic faults. From the limited extent of the ruins, it was clear that the world had not hosted a major prothean colony. The archeological consensus was that they too had attempted to extract Therum's resources, and refined them on-site. The facilities had never been extensive, and less than a quarter had survived the millennia intact. The rest had been torn apart by tectonic stress, or flooded with magma. What remained did not hold any technological secrets that anyone had discovered, or hold any cultural significance, that would cause anyone to risk traveling a dangerous section of the sparsely populated Attican Traverse.
Except for Liara. Nothing in the asari's publish works suggested a reason for the visit. Maybe Saren had sent her there? The geth ships in orbit, already visible to the Normandy's infrared sensors from a hundred and fifty million kilometers distance, could be there to protect her. The facts so far supported that conclusion, but they were still too sparse for certainty. At the least, she needed to plan for a hostile extraction.
Kara sighed, and switched off her console. This would be her first mission on her own, without the benefit of outside support. If it were just her, it wouldn't make much difference, but now the Normandy was her responsibility as well, and its safety had to be included in her plans. Keyx, as her second in command, had proven competent at the administrative aspects of the job. That didn't make him right for command in a combat situation, though.
He was on duty now, standing opposite her, at the command station. Noticing her scrutiny, he looked up. "Ma'am?" he asked in his smooth, lightly accented voice.
"Are you ready for this?" she asked, bluntly. He had, like any graduate of the Alliance's naval academy, studied space combat and tactics, and he had seen action. Those were basic requirements for the post, but they did not make a person prepared.
"Uh… ma'am?"
She had mostly certainly not been ready for her first combat leadership experience—if one could call it that—which had been well before she earned her officer's bars. She had gotten through it on instinct and adrenaline, so she did understand. "Command."
"Yeah." His focus, if not his attention, returned to his console. Thinking, she imagined, and she didn't press. Even though the Normandy approached Therum under full stealth, he must have considered the possibility of it being discovered and attacked. It was a very real possibility. "Does it matter?"
She took that as a no. "I could put Adams in charge, while I'm away."
His jaw tightened, though his expression remained blank. "That's not necessary, ma'am. I know better than to try fighting a geth fleet in an infiltration frigate. If we're spotted, escape and evade."
She did not need him to recite basic tactics. He could do that in his sleep, and it would still mean nothing. Her doubts were about his ability to translate that knowledge into useful action during a combat situation. A great deal of that was instinct, to quickly turn an overwhelming amount of incoming data into a plan. Where did one escape to? How quickly could he return and retrieve a ground team that might also be under overwhelming attack?
"There's an asteroid belt less than thirty million kilometers away," he said, climbing onto the platform that overlooked the tactical map. "If we come out of FTL occluded by one of the larger asteroids, we should be able to disappear. Then we change course, and return to Therum from a different angle."
That could be effective, if the geth behaved in a specific manner. While ships were invisible when traveling faster than light, the transition caused a radiation burst visible from halfway across a star system. The Normandy's stealth systems did not prevent it, the reason for their slow approach.
"Alright," she decided. The issue was as settled as it would get, and she could not afford to waste more thought on it. It was time she began prep, anyway.
Kara stood with her back to the main projector, looking over her assembled teams in the mostly-empty circle of chairs. Nearest to her, Garrus waited, his posture firm and attentive, the legacy of his time with the turian military. Next to him sat Sayuri, more relaxed, but just as focused. They arrived together, chatting amiable, which seemed like a good sign. Opposite them, Kaidan waited with practiced patience. Wrex filled one of the seats towards the front of the ship his dour presence, and behind him, Keyx stood at ease beside the door.
"All the evidence suggests that we'll find Liara in or near this central structure," she said, continuing her briefing "Kaidan, Garrus, you're with me. We'll be going in through this emergency tunnel. The Normandy will drop us off outside. Garrus, your job is to locate Liara."
"If I can access the facility's VI, I should be able to track her down," the turian suggested. "If the geth don't lead us to her first."
"We are going to have to improvise," Kara agreed. "Sayuri, that's why you and Wrex will be standing by in the Mako. We'll try to retrace our steps, after we find Liara, but that may not be possible. If not, I'll signal the ship. Keyx, you'll have them dropped as close to the main entrance as possible."
She indicated a point nearly a kilometer away from the emergency tunnel, where geth activity was concentrated. The entrance was a small structure, just big enough to cover a tunnel that curved back to the shaft, under the refinery.
"You know I love a challenge, sir, but just the two of us?" Sayuri asked. "I'd feel better with a full team, or at least sniper coverage."
"The Mako can only hold six, and I need room for my team and Liara."
Sayuri nodded. "That makes sense, but we won't be able to hold the geth off for long."
"You're not meant to," Wrex grunted. "Keep moving, and keep them off guard. Aren't you supposed to be some sort of officer?"
"What are you suggesting—"
"Enough," Kara interrupted sharply. The marine and the krogan continued to glare at each other in silence. "Sayuri, your goal is to distract the geth, not destroy them."
The marine's grin mirrored her expression while running simulations in the Mako. "Now that, I can do."
"I'm sure," Kara said, smiling faintly. "Any other questions?"
She surveyed the room. Sayuri shook her head, and no one else spoke up. "Good," Kara nodded. "I want everyone suited up in half an hour. Dismissed."
Kara closed her eyes, and listened as they prepared to depart. The clank of the hatch unsealing, followed by the faint vibration of the motor as it slid open, and Keyx's hasty footsteps. Alenko followed, his footsteps light and slow in his officer's boots. Garrus' long turian gate; Wrex's heavy clomping. The hatch slid closed behind them. Someone had remained behind. "Sayuri?"
The marine stood, her pacing slow, opposite her usual enthusiastic rush. "Sir, about Wrex. Do you trust him?"
Kara breathed in, as she opened her eyes. She would have preferred to avoid the question. Her answer remained complicated, but favored a yes. She believed that he was a competent fighter, who had no interest in betraying her. "I do."
Sayuri's round face remained concerned. "I don't get why he's here. I mean, Garrus wants to kick some bad guy ass, and I think he's got some grudge against Saren. He says the quarian is on some sort of right of passage, so she's got something to prove. Wrex… is he just in it for the fight?"
"That's part of it," Kara replied. It was certainly the krogan way, at least in principle. In reality, they frequently devolved into sadistic thugs. She did not sense that in Wrex, or she would not have taken him on, need or no.
"Wait, I get it," Sayuri said, a smirk twisting her wide mouth, and her grey eyes narrowing. "It's all you. He's seen you in action, and now he's all hot for you. Careful, sir—he's, like, a thousand years old and real smooth."
Kara glared at the marine, to no effect. Actually, Wrex was nearly six hundred, on the late side of middle age for a krogan, whose natural lifespan reached about eight hundred and twenty years. "He's not my type," she stated, flatly, as if the younger woman didn't know. "You're right, though. He is impressed by me."
Sayuri actually giggled. "Kara Shepard, Mighty Warrior."
"Shouldn't you be suiting up?"
"Yes, cap'n," the marine said, adding a teasing salute to her words. As she let her hand drop, the expression on her round face became serious again. "You say you trust him, but you don't really like him, do you?"
If only she had more resources at her disposal, but she had made her choice. "No, and I wish I didn't need him. Don't let him bully you into following his orders, Sayuri. You're in charge of the Mako."
"I understand, I think," the marine nodded. After a moment, she stood. "I guess I should let you get ready."
"Yes," Kara agreed.
"Hey," Sayuri added, turning back at the door. "When it goes wrong down there, watch your back."
Kara nodded, briefly, and turned back to the display. "You, too."
Therum's hot, dry air tasted bitter even through her mask, as Kara descended the Normandy's loading ramp. The outside temperature was well beyond human tolerance, maintained by geothermal heat, which bubbled upwards through pools of thick mud. There was sparse vegetation and no animal life, according to the survey, which maintained the atmosphere in a barely breathable state. The scenery confirmed it, all bare stone and ash, with patches of lichen-like growths, and some stunted grasses.
Also according to the survey, Therum was quite a young world. Both the turian and human geologists had estimated it at a billion years of less, and though it was not too soon for the possibility of primitive life, it could not have evolved into the complex forms they had found. They had theorized that the protheans had seeded it in an effort to create a more hospitable environment. The oxygen content of the atmosphere was evidence of a partial success.
Kara turned her attention to the nearby cliff, where, if the topography on her map was correct, they would find the tunnel entrance. It wasn't hidden, but not obvious either, a narrow crack that quickly disappeared into darkness. "Garrus, you take point," she ordered.
"Got it," he acknowledged, switching on his headset. The opening was just wide enough for him to walk through. She switched on her headset's IR filter, and followed him.
The hazy daylight faded quickly as they moved deeper underground, winding slightly as they descended. The passage was round, and rough-cut, never entering any natural caves, but she recalled reading that such formations were usually cut by water from soft stone strata.
"Captain, the survey said this planet was unstable," Kaidan asked, as they slowed to navigate a partial collapse, which came close to forcing them to turn around. "What do we do if we can't get through?"
"There were other tunnels, but we don't have time to try them all."
"Fuck. You mean we'll have to blast our way in through the front door," Alenko muttered.
Ironically, that would be much safer than walking into a geth ambush at the end of the tunnel. If the Normandy had been detected as it landed… but reason suggested that it hadn't. The geth were collectivist by nature, and would naturally regard the ship as a greater danger than an individual. They would be right.
They continued to move at cautious speed, and made good progress. After another half a kilometers, and another two partial collapses, Garrus motioned for them to stop. "The tunnel ends just around that corner, Shepard, about fifty meters. I can't detect any Geth, though. There's some sort of massive EM field that's jamming my scanner."
"Our doctor?" Kaidan asked. "Activating some sort of weapon for Saren to use?"
The ruins had been picked over enough times that she found it unlikely that anything capable of producing a power signature like Garrus showed her had survived fifty thousand years of neglect, and centuries of scavenging. Then again, Liara must have had some reason for coming. "Maybe. The distortion patterns suggest a mass effect field. It's a good place to start. Let's go."
Garrus took point again, carrying his rifle at the ready. The tunnel opened out into a narrow shaft, a part of the far wall a smooth, synthetic white. Metal scaffolding was bolted to the stone, and what appeared to be a lift. A single geth was looking down, over the edge of the platform.
They paused in the shadows. Garrus aimed his weapon, and turned to await her order.
Kara hesitated, but she knew there was no other choice. She gestured for him to fire. His first burst took out its shields, the second sending it over the rail with an electronic squeal. She cringed as it hit the ground below with an echoing crash. Of course, the geth did not need the noise to tell them they were under attack. With networked consciousness, they had all felt it.
Garrus shouldered his weapon, and turned his attention to his omnitool. "The power source is below us," he said. "The map shows an entrance to the prothean complex, down there. We can use the lift."
Kaidan pressed the access control. The door grated partway open, and jammed. "Are there any stairs?"
Kara sidestepped through the door. She couldn't recall any other way. Kaidan followed her, and Garrus after him. The turian pressed the down button.
The mechanism rattled ominously, and they began a rough descent. Either Liara knew a safer route, or the archeologist was oblivious to her surroundings.
She unclipped her breath mask, and closed her eyes, attempting to generate a biotic field to reduce the mass of lift, and the stress on the mechanism. It didn't help, but distracted her enough that she didn't notice as something gave way. She shouted in shock as the lift entered free fall.
Kara picked herself up with a groan. The fall had been more annoyance than anything, a short drop even in Therum's heavier than standard gravity, and her suit had protected her from injury. She could safely guess that they would need to find some other way out, though.
"I knew we should've taken the stairs," Kaidan muttered. Better prepared for the impact, he and Garrus had managed to keep their feet. "You alright, sir?"
"Yes," Kara grated. "Let's go."
The impact of the lift had broken several support beams, so that the level they were on had partially collapsed, forming a steep and unstable ramp. Garrus went first, struggling to maintain his balance as the metal floor panels shifted beneath his weight. Kara waited until he had reached the solidity of the lower floor before following.
"Hello?"
Kara paused, gesturing that Kaidan should remain in position, to watch for geth activity. The voice had spoken loudly, and in Thessíe, which she could hear through the english translation.
"Hello? I'm over here."
The voice carried a mixture of excitement and fear, and she tried to locate its source. Further on, the metal platform ran up against the white prothean structure, about six centimeters below a large gap in the wall. As she approached, she noticed the telltale distortions of a mass effect field—similar to that of light passing through a zone of hot air, but less linear—that stretched across the opening. Beyond it, an asari in dusty clothes hung in mid-air surrounded by more distortions.
"Who are you? Can you get me out of here?" the asari asked, strugglingly lightly against the field both physically and biotically, producing heavier distortions and some flashes of blue light. Even distorted by frustration and exhaustion, her soft features matched those in Liara's picture.
"My name is Kara. How can I do that?"
The asari stared at her, as though really noticing her for the first time, and not knowing what to make of her. "I'm sorry, I can't understand you."
"Can't understand—" Kara cut herself off. If Liara's translator had failed, then Garrus or Kaidan would have no better luck. It had been some time since she'd practiced her Thessíe, but it might be the only way they could communicate at all.
"I'm a friend," she began, slowly at first. "My name is Kara. How do we help you?"
"Ah," the asari breathed, surprise briefly taking over her expression. "I, uh, don't know. I was studying these ruins when I was attacked by a krogan warlord and these synthetics—"
"Geth," Kara stated.
"Really? They haven't been seen outside the Veil in over three hundred years!"
The asari's burst of interest wiped the exhaustion from her face. The reappearance of a potentially genocidal machine race seemed like an odd thing to get excited about, though Kara would have liked the opportunity to study their cultural development.
"The barrier," she said, softly. It occurred to her that it should not have been there; that the ruins were supposed to be dark. Liara must have found and activated a dormant generator, possibly thermoelectric. If she had anticipated the possibility, that might even explain her interest in the abandoned world.
"Uh, right," the asari muttered, her eyes dropping in brief embarrassment. "Well, I ran in here. I knew the screen would keep them out, if I could activate it, but I pressed something I shouldn't have, and…"
The archeologist's hand waved indistinctly, probably meant to indicate what looked like a control station, facing the barrier. "I've had several days to study the system, since then. I can tell you how to shut it down."
"Shepard, if the geth have been here for days, they've had plenty of time to get through that barrier. I don't see how we're going to get past it if they couldn't," Garrus said, though he was already scanning the chamber for any possibilities.
"There isn't much they didn't try," Liara agreed, oblivious to his suspicions. Then again, she had no idea why Kara and her team were there, unless the geth had told her.
"We'll get you out of there," Kara stated firmly. She raised her hand to the barrier, intending to test it with her biotics, when the realization struck her; Liara had understood Garrus. The asari's translator was working, unless she spoke his language.
"She hasn't updated her translation matrix," Kara said, almost laughing at the revelation. "I bet she's wondering what species I am."
"Only you would find that amusing, Shepard," Garrus said dryly.
Probably, but as interesting a diversion as it was, they had more important concerns. She raised her hand again, and pressed it against the barrier. Feedback buzzed lightly in the back of her mind, as its mass effect fields interacted with the eezo nodules in her hand. She pushed back with her biotics, distorting the field slightly, but the system countered her efforts immediately.
She stepped backwards. The Normandy's mass effect core might just put out a strong enough field to breach the barrier, but that was not a feasible solution. "We can't get through this way," she said, turning around. "We need an alternative."
"Sir, there's some mining equipment at the bottom of the cave," Alenko suggested, pointing over the edge of the platform. "Maybe something that could cut through those walls?"
"Maybe," Kara muttered. The structure's ability to withstand Therum's geological instability was part of its design, one which had succeeded for fifty thousand years. Mining drills were designed to cut through solid rock, not hardened synthetics. They geth had certainly tried explosives, and probably thermal cutting gear as well. She walked to the nearest surface, where they would likely made their attempt, examining it briefly. She saw heat damage, and some scoring, but nothing that suggested a chance of success. "No. We'll have to find another way."
"If we can't break through the structure or the barrier, what can we do?" Kaidan asked, carefully descending the makeshift ramp.
Kara switched on her omnitool's holographic interface, and brought up a 3D map of the area. This part of the ruins might have been main research facility, penetrating seven kilometers through Therum's thin crust, and into the upper layers of the mantle. The bottom portion had been shorn off and crushed, leaving about four and half kilometers. The rest had been flooded with magma, now cooled into solid rock, to about fifty meters below them. There were other entrances to the ruins higher up, which the geth had certainly tried, and presumably found blocked.
"There's another entrance about ten meters below us," she said. A close study would probably show a tunnel or cave had extended out from it, through which magma had flowed and hardened, covering the entrance and partly filling that level of the ruins, while never extending to the main shaft.
"Even if we can get through all that rock," Kaidan said, "there could be another barrier behind it."
"Heat damage," Kara suggested. Magma typically had a temperature of seven to thirteen hundred degrees. That might do minimal damage to heat-resistant materials, but exposed circuits, such as those in another control panel, would be destroyed. "Get down there, and check out that equipment."
"Yes, sir," he said, probably thinking that he no experience with mining of any sort. None of them did.
Kara turned back to the barrier. Beyond it, Liara continued to study her carefully, appearing a little more relaxed, despite her invisible chains. The machine must also have suppressed the asari's natural biotics, to prevent her from effecting the controls.
None of the current species were capable of that. They used biotic suppressors that interfaced with a person's implant in much the same way as an amp, but with the opposite effect. Kara had brought one on along, but she no longer thought they would need it. "We've got a plan," she said, "but it may take a while."
"Hurry, please," Liara replied. "I don't mind being alone, but… not like this."
No. Kara turned to Garrus. "Wait here," she told him, before switching back to English. "Keep the conversation casual, and stay alert for geth."
"Got it, Shepard," he nodded.
She smiled confidently at Liara, before following Kaidan down the narrow stairs to the gave floor to the cave floor, to find him studying the controls of a mining robot, abandoned next to an unpowered charging station.
"The power cells are running low," he said, turning his head at her approach. "It might do the job, though."
"Can you get it started?"
He nodded. "I had it run a self-diagnostic. Everything checked out, so I just need to figure out how to program it."
She gestured for him to proceed. Like almost every piece of modern technology, the mining robot had a VI interface, which in theory made things easier. It often did, but limited VIs were not adept at responding to non-standard instructions, forcing the user to bypass them, a process that could be made easy or difficult, depending upon the programmers. She didn't expect it to come to that, but if it did, Kaidan lacked the training to handle it.
"So, Captain, you speak Asari?"
"Yes," Kara said brusquely. As much as she spoke Human. Study of alien languages remained the domain of 'experts', who were, in general, instruments of state propaganda, providing dubious analysis of alien cultures to the masses, which she was not; and since everyone else stuck mostly to Earth languages, that made her an exception.
"I didn't know that."
"No," she replied. As a multicultural organization, the Alliance preferred officers who were fluent in multiple languages, in addition to the simplified Mandarin, known in English as mil-speak, taught to all officers as a means of communicating should their translators fail. It wasn't really something that came up in casual conversation, though. "What about you?"
"A few of us picked up some turian mil-speak at BAaT," he said. "I kept on with it. The Alliance Intelligence Institute offered me a posting as an analyst, and they don't normally recruit biotics for office work."
Her, too. Electronic translations were reliable, but learning a language increased one's understanding of the culture that spoke it. Unfortunately for them, sitting in an office reading dry reports did not compare to the allure of space travel and adventures on alien worlds. "Good choice."
"Ready, Captain," he said, turning to her expectantly.
She nodded, and he activated the machine. It made an impressive amount of noise, as it lurched forward.
Kara sighed. Stay here, she signed to the marine. She could wait for it to finish just as well from the platform.
Nearly half an hour passed before the mining robot completed its task, and shut down. Kara breathed a sigh of relief. She knew the noise was not likely to draw in a geth horde that already knew where they were, but that did not stop her from worrying.
"Let's go, Garrus," she said, starting down the ladder.
"We're through, doc," she heard the turian explain to Liara. "Just a moment longer."
The robot had returned to its charging station, Kara noticed, after cutting a narrow passage through the dense rock using a combination of explosives and pneumatic-powered impacting. It had barely cleaned up the debris, leaving a substantial pile of rubble around the entrance, and littering the floor of the new tunnel, which descended at a sharp angle.
"It didn't report any obstruction," Kaidan reported. "I guess you were right about the barrier."
"Good," she said. Despite some effort while they waited, she had come up with no backup plan, no point on the exterior of the ruins that they could usefully apply force, and no way around. This despite her belief that there was always another way. "Let's go."
Kara led the way. She half-slid down the tunnel, coming to a halt in a dimly-lit room, with walls of the same off-white material that the rest of facility was made of. The magma flow appeared to have come in waves, with the earliest covering most of the floor in dark stone, and the last sealing the opening, so that only the topmost portion of its frame was visible. A console, similar to the one Liara had used, was partially buried near the center of the room, but completely inactive.
Straight ahead, a corridor led towards the facility's core column. She paused only to make sure that the rest of her team had joined her, before continuing onward. There was supposed to contain a lift platform, stalled in the upper levels by the lack of power. It could also be functioning, and they might find a way to summon it. If not, there was an emergency ladder to meet their needs.
Kara walked right up to the edge. The core was fifteen meters in diameter, with a recessed rim, just wide enough to walk on. Tracks for the lift every ninety degrees along the exterior wall. Between then, columns of lights provided diffuse illumination. Looking downward, she could see where the synthetic walls met darker igneous rock. Above, nothing obstructed her view for as far as she could see.
"This place is pretty impressive for a ruin with no research value," Kaidan said, stopping a few meters back.
"It reminds me of the Citadel," Garrus noted. "All it needs are a few keepers."
Kaidan nodded. "I guess that makes sense, since the protheans designed them both."
Keepers were a cybernetic xenoinsectoid species, which performed maintenance on the Citadel's infrastructure. They did not speak, or acknowledge the station's other inhabitants, except as obstacles. Though they continued to do their work, they were no more alive than the protheans, which made them just as uninteresting in her opinion. None of the reports she'd read mentioned finding them on Therum.
"So how do we get to Doctor T'Soni?" Garrus asked. "It looks like there's a lift, if we can find the controls."
"They wouldn't be concealed," Kara said, turning back towards the corridor. The walls were bare, at first glance. "I don't see them, though."
Running his fingers along the synthetic material, Kaidan abruptly pounded his armored fist against the smooth surface. "What if the controls were on the console back there?" he scowled, pointing down the corridor.
For a private, security conscious facility, that some made sense. It also made them inaccessible. "We climb," she replied. Ladders were awkward in armor, which would make a lengthy climb impossible, but they could manage twenty meters. "Let's go."
Kara made her way around the rim, until she reached the nearest track. The steps were cut directly into the side of it, and at longer intervals than normal for human construction. She climbed at a steady pace, rather than pushing, but she could still feel the strain in her legs by the time she reached the next level.
As soon as Kaidan and Garrus had joined her, they set off down another short corridor, identical to the one below. At the end, Liara still hung, unmoving, inside the prothean security field. The asari strained at their approach, but could not even move her head. "Kara?" she asked uncertainly.
"Yes," she answered.
Liara relaxed, as much as she could. "You can shut down the field from the central console," she said. "Look for the control marked 'dissolve'."
That seemed odd choice of word, for the function they wanted, but the original prothean had passed through Thessíe, before being translated it to English. She approached the controls, setting her omnitool to translate the visual feed from her headset, and overlay the translation on its display.
"Careful, sir. That must be the same console that trapped her," Kaidan warned her.
Kara nodded faintly; there were no other controls in the area. Unfortunately, the panel was large and complex, with no helpful diagrams to direct her to the right section. It helped even less than the modern galaxy's understanding of the multiple prothean languages was incomplete, so that the overlay was a mass of odd phrases, lists of possible translations, and transliterations.
"Sir, are you sure we can even trust her? There's something… convenient about her story," the human marine continued, putting his hand on her arm when she ignored him.
The suggestion alone had annoyed her. She looked down at his hand, and then up, meeting his eyes. "What would you have me do, Alenko? Leave her here?"
He backed off, gesturing palm-outward, but wisely declined to say anything. So far, she had no reason to doubt the archeologist's story, and several reasons to believe it, not the least was the faint smell of asari urine that lingered in the air. She snarled faintly, and turned back to her work.
The omnitool had thrown up several attempted translations on its holographic overlay. If they were correct, it had narrowed her choice down to three controls, each of which began with the matrix '(disable/turn off/terminate)'. She had no doubt that the barrier emitters had enough power to crush a person, or tear them apart, which made the last suggestion troubling. One read '(wall/barrier/chains)'. It seemed like the best choice, so she pressed it.
Kara turned around just in time to catch Liara as her feet touched the ground, her legs buckling beneath her weight. Carefully, Kara lowered the asari to the ground, leaning her against the console.
She pulled an energy bar, the Alliance's standard combat supplement for biotics, from her armor's leg pocket. She took out her canteen, as well, and offered both to the asari.
Liara accepted them gratefully, tearing open the bar the biting into it, following it with a gulp of water. It wasn't much to break a long fast with, but she had clearly been caught away from her camp. As she ate, her striking blue eyes flitted to Kara's face, and back down to her food.
There was more than curiosity in them. The mysterious rescuing stranger could be an attractive figure, a fascination to which Liara was clearly not immune. The best response, in Kara's opinion, was to simply decline to notice.
"I'm ready," the Liara declared, struggling to stand. Kara offered her a hand, and she gained her feet.
She swayed, and once again Kara found the young asari in her arms. "I'll be fine," she insisted, extracting herself quickly. "There's a lift at the center of the complex. I should be able to activate it from here."
"Do it," Kara told her. The upper level of the complex exited underground, into passages that led to the main entrance on the surface. She tapped the comm button on her headset. "Normandy, this is Shepard."
"Go ahead, Captain," Keyx's voice replied.
"Deploy the Mako. We're coming out, with Liara."
"Get us in the air, Joker. We're on our way, ma'am. Keyx out."
Liara's hand touched her arm. "I've called the lift. I think it's still working."
"Then let's go," Kara ordered. She gestured that Garrus should see to Liara, and took point herself, hoping to downplay her concern, and minimize the asari's infatuation. As they made their way down the short corridor, the lift platform, a disk that filled the whole of the open core, came down from above, its gears squealing in protest as it came to a halt.
At the center of the platform, a cylindrical pillar rose up, with what were presumably controls for the lift on its sides. About three meters above her head, it intersected with six beams, rising out of triangular half-walls spaced evenly around it, leaving space to move about at the center, and around the perimeter.
Liara immediately moved to operate the controls. These did have a graphical interface, a simple three-dimensional diagram of the core, with lines coming off at various points, each of them labelled. Their current position was highlighted in red.
"Take us all the way up."
Liara nodded, and pressed the topmost button. With another squeal of metal against metal, they began to move. They accelerated more rapidly than their change of momentum suggested, which indicated a mass effect field in use, the walls quickly becoming little more than a blur.
There was no chance of them escaping without a confrontation with the geth, which would be waiting for them above. Fortunately, Kara had equipped herself for the situation, and unhooked a personal barrier from her belt, offering it to Liara. The small box was capable of projecting a kinetic shield about the wearer, and though inferior to suit-integrated emitters, it was effective enough if used properly. "If there's any trouble, stay under cover," she said, offering her spare pistol, grip first, as the asari hooked the emitter about her waist. "We'll handle the fighting."
For a moment, Liara seemed about to object, her soft features briefly taking on a look of stubborn determination, but tired and hungry, and her limbs still stiff from lack of use, she thought better of it. "Fine."
They were close enough to see the exit now, the platform slowly rapidly as it approached. Behind the distortion of another barrier, stood the krogan, an impatient glower on his scarred snout. She had expect an ambush up the tunnel, or even outside, but he apparently prefered his species' stereotypical lack of subtlety. She gestured to Garrus and Kaidan to spread out, while she remained near the central column.
The barrier dropped when the platform settled into position, allowing the krogan to trudge forward, followed by six Geth. They were long odds, she thought, but she had faced worse. She watched him silently.
"So you found a way to get the asari out of her trap, human," he said, his voice a grating rumble, while his yellow eyes glared malevolently. "Great work. Now hand her over and I won't have to kill you."
Of course, she had no intention of giving up anyone without a fight, but it wasn't her choice. She turned to the young asari.
Doctor T'Soni shifted uncomfortably. From her point of view, it wasn't much more than a choice between someone she didn't trust, and someone she didn't know. Kara might have refused them both. "I'm not going anywhere with you," she declared loudly, though her voice still wavered uncertainly.
The Krogan made a rude gesture, before raising his rifle. "Saren will settle for your corpse. Kill them all."
Kara ducked behind the column. Liara had taken refuge behind one of the half-walls, where she would be safe from enemy fire. Garrus and Kaidan had found similar cover, but were pinned down. She focused her attention on the nearest geth, attempting to punch a hole in its barriers, but it resisted. A result of greater number than they had on Eden Prime?
She changed strategy, generating a field of intense gravity in the middle of the geth formation. Two lost their balance and fell, and the others turned their attention to her, leaving Garrus and Kaidan free to overwhelm one of the AI platforms, draining its barriers and tearing up its armor.
The geth seemed to take that as reason to change their strategy, retreating back toward the door. Kaidan caught the last in a biotic attack, throwing it to the ground. That was when she noticed that the krogan had disappeared. Unless he was already dead, his body slumped somewhere out of sight, she had to assume he'd gone after Liara. She turned her head, but though she could see the asari, still crouched behind the wall, he was out of sight.
One of the remaining geth attacked Kaidan from the side. He fell back quickly, leaping over the low end of the wall. It left her with a good angle, and Kara dragged harshly at the robot with a biotic field, sending it sprawling onto the very space Alenko had just vacated. He wasted no time in finishing it off.
"Kara!" Liara shouted from behind her; she turned to see the krogan, the asari sprawled at his feet, aiming his shotgun at in her direction.
She threw herself at him without thinking, knocking the weapon from his hands when she crashed into him. He roared and swung his fist at her, a slow, powerful blow that would have laid her out had it connected. She fell back into an asari combat stance.
Kara countered with a series of swift blows, assays against his defenses. He parried them clumsily, and swung again. This time she was prepared, subtly increasing the heft of his punch even as she dodged it. He barely kept his balance, taking a biotically augmented punch to his face before he recovered.
She realized he was hardly a match for her, parrying an attempt at a quicker blow before responding with another hard punch. He roared again. They traded more blows, his never quite connecting, until she was finally able to knock him unconscious.
Breathing heavily, she wiped sweat from her forehead as she turned to check on her squad. Between then, Kaidan and Garrus had managed to take out two more of the geth, leaving a single platform firing defensively from behind the doorframe. She took cover next to Liara before it could turn its attention to her, and opened a comm channel. "Sayuri, this is Shepard. We're five minutes from the surface. Be ready to pick us up."
"We're on our way, sir," the marine replied, her tone strictly professional. "No resistance yet."
"Good," Kara said. "Just get here in one piece. Shepard out."
The room shook. Therum was geologically unstable, she recalled, but couldn't it have waited until they had left? "Dammit, the whole complex is shaking," Garrus yelped.
"Into the tunnel," she shouted back, pulling Liara roughly to her feet, as she stood herself. The asari struggled to stay upright, her expression too exhausted even to show fear.
Garrus charged the last geth, getting the effective range of its barriers before it could respond, and fired several rounds into its head. He held position there, watching the tunnel as he waited for the rest of them.
Kara scooped Liara up, and followed, using her biotics to lighten the load. Garrus stayed in the lead, dodging debris as they raced through the tunnel, with Kaidan following behind her. The quakes stopped, and started again after fifty meters. They could see daylight ahead.
Garrus was the first outside, but retreated quickly, muttering curses. There were more geth, of course.
Kara deposited Doctor T'Soni, who had passed out, as close to the entrance as she dared. "Sayuri, we're ready for pickup. What's your position?"
"Half a click southeast," the marine responded. "Still no sign of geth."
"You'll hit them soon enough," Kara told her. "Just keep moving."
"Yes, sir."
Garrus and Alenko had taken up position on either side of the door. She crept closer, enough to see out in a narrow arc. Three geth had taken cover behind a large crate, within twenty meters of the door. She guessed that at least five times that had taken up positions outside her line of sight.
"There's one of those Armature units out there," Garrus informed her, from across the tunnel. That was a sort of tank, though a walker rather than using wheels or treads. "It'll make short work of the Mako."
"How close," Kara asked. She leaned out as far as she dared, but it wasn't enough.
Garrus paused to aim his rifle at it. "Twenty-one meters," he declared.
Just what they needed. "Fine. Alenko, we're going to try and put a hole in that thing's shields. Garrus, you'll finish it off."
"Sir, is that really-"
"Now," Kara ordered, leading him forward. The Armature, a four-legged mobile heavy weapons platform, had a commanding view of the battlefield from its position on the ridge. It aimed it's main cannon straight at her.
Thankfully, Sayuri chose that moment to arrive, side-swiping the crate Kara had noticed earlier and crushing the three geth. The Armature swung about, firing off a round that missed the Mako by half a meter.
Kara closed her mind to the distractions of the battlefield, focusing intently on the heavy platform. The easiest way to disrupt mass effect shielding was to throw a more powerful field against it. The result gap closed quickly, unlike more sophisticated techniques for penetrating barriers, but a second biotic could take advantage of the disruption to create a more stable hole. The vortex she sent crashing into the Armature opened a half-meter gap.
Wrex, controlling the Mako's turret, chose that moment to fire on what was obviously a priority target. It was sheer luck that the explosive-packed shell slipped through the hole, puncturing its armor before detonating. Scraps of twisted metal scattered over the area, as the remains of the walker toppled over. "That went better than expected," Kaidan remarked.
By the time Kara had collected the Liara, the Mako was parked outside. Garrus and Kaidan covered her as she ran to the open hatch. Sayuri helped her get the unconscious archeologist inside while Wrex continued to operate the turret. Soon they were all strapped in, and they were off.
"Normandy, this is Aoki. We've got the captain. Find us a pickup site," Sayuri yelled into the comm.
Kara leaned back and closed her eyes. It was done.
Note: Feels like ages since I posted anything, but I haven't been doing much writing. That said, this chapter was largely redone, and quite an improvement over the original(by three thousand words, if quantity is your preferred measure).
The review section has been awfully quiet, both here and on Interludes. Have I mentioned that writers thrive on feedback? Maybe that's why I haven't felt much like writing recently.