Death. She had seen it numerous times before. Because of medical technology, soldiers on the battlefield usually died in an instant because of the application of medigel to what would have been debilitating wounds. However, there were those occasions where a soldier ran out of the precious fluid and could only wait out an agonizing eternity until either a field medic was able to patch them up or the angel of death became their final guest.
And now, because the medical interfaces in their armor were fried, there was no way for her to apply medigel to her wound. Shanata was slowly bleeding to death and this could have easily been avoided if only the simple electronics in her suit weren't dead.
The Asari was starting to feel its effects. Her fingers were numb and she felt her arms growing cold. She could hear the life giving thump of her heart pound in her head as it became desperately confused as to why it was having less and less blood to work with.
She saw Filara still crying in pain. Grenade shrapnel is a brutal way to go. The poor Asari wasn't spared with a quick, lethal cut. In seemed that she too was slowly dying because of the not immediately fatal wounds.
In her quickly swimming vision, she saw her commander stare into the firefight, his assault rifle streaming anger into the air. Her sight flickered for a moment. The noise was just quickly melding into a fading requiem. She was almost certain she could hear her mother's lullaby. How many years ago had that been? She felt a tinge of sadness. Here she was, a matron and she had did not have a child of her own. She had always been too busy fighting some conflict or another. The battlefield had become her offspring and now it would see that she would find her eternal rest.
Shanata did what she could to grind her teeth. She told herself she wasn't going to give up just yet. She did not know how much good her resolve would be in the face of her lifeblood spilling out under her but she was still going to try.
Death was patiently waiting close by. Today was going to be a mass appointment and most of the party members would be coming from this particular area within a few moments. What was the rush? He had the time, he had been doing this since time immemorial and it didn't look like he would be retiring anytime soon.
--
Dalora could not be too sure on what exactly to do. Several bodies were lying at her feet, she could feel her biotic barrier beginning to wane and there were still too many hostiles in the room. The man who she gathered was the leader of the group was still confidently giving out orders behind a counter in the center. He brandished a scoped pistol but otherwise did nothing with it. His weapon was his mercenaries and he knew what he was doing.
She was a former mercenary herself. She knew they were ruthless. They did everything they could to make a quick and brutal kill, anything to ensure that they themselves would walk out of a fight alive. Dalora knew she was running out of tricks she could pull and they were on their last leg. The two Asari were down, possibly mortally wounded. Julland had pulled them behind cover and was now making sure no one got any closer but still the pirates kept coming. They had no shields, they could not heal themselves from the disabled electronics in their armor and now they were hopelessly outnumbered.
While Dalora doggedly fought on, her shotgun screaming in sync with the hostile blue of her biotic powers, a quiet part of her mind silently apologized to Lucas. It was the greatest sadness she ever felt. All this time she was worrying about him and now she had gotten herself into trouble.
--
There had to be better ways to conduct a search and rescue mission in a cave. Especially one that has a lot of hostile creatures in the ground. Something told Lucas that despite hearing a very human and very agonized scream in the cave, it was folly to go blindly running after it. Granted, he doubted there were any traps to worry about, the ones he grew an instinct to be careful of in infiltration situation, but who knew what these animals were capable of. Besides, if the animals didn't get them, the plants certainly seemed to be willing to. He also felt naked because he couldn't use his sniper rifle here in the closed in areas of the caverns.
Harrvok tried to keep his mind focused. It was one thing to be dedicated to the mission and keeping your wits about you. You almost had to will the mission into a success. Of course, that could just apply to him personally, but he had a feeling that things were about to hit a climax. Or the crap was about to hit the fan. Either one. He pondered whether to go with the assault rifle or shotgun. He also wondered just what kind of nightmare would await them. You just did not hear screams like that on a regular basis. He had heard the cries of the wounded and the dying before but this one was different altogether. He decided it was the scream of the terrified and tormented.
Chroso from his earliest days believed in the traditional Salarian understanding of a cycle of life, death and re-birth. It was for this reason that he did not stock up too much on the mostly human understanding of Hell. However, being dragged through these caves, he was starting to reconsider it.
Eventually the initial urgency of the scream died off and gave way to the overwhelming fact that confronted all three of the men. Not only had they not found the source of the scream and only heavens knew if they got any closer to it, they were now deep within the caves and possibly very lost.
"We may have a slight problem..." Lucas murmured as slowed down to a halt, his pistol held firmly with both hands.
"I agree, Lieutenant." Harrvok answered, reading the soldier's thoughts.
"And now there's no way I'm getting out of here in thirty minutes. Perhaps this is all the more reason we should turn back now." Chroso mumbled.
"We can't now, not while we're this close." Lucas replied.
"We don't know that for sure." Chroso retorted. Granted, a part of him truly sympathized with the human ranger. Unfortunately, the rest of him wanted to get out. In all honesty, this was probably what happened to the last away team. They must have went in, got lost and then became hellhound snacks.
"Oh, you are close, more than you really should want to be."
All three of them jumped at the voice, their weapons drawn in the proper direction.
"Who is there?" Harrvok demanded over his assault rifle.
"Not so loud...it's just me..." a figure emerged from the inky shadows and walked into the illumination of their armors' search lights. Chroso spoke first.
"Haha, we found them. That's Eulias. I remember you pesky agents from anywhere." the older Salarian grinned.
"You gave us quite the scare there, Eulias." Lucas chided.
"Are you all right? Are you wounded in any way?" Harrvok asked urgently.
"I'm not wounded, but I'm not all right." Eulias answered horsely, just above a whisper.
"Its okay, we'll get you out of here and in a safe place quick-"
"No, that's not going to make me all right!" Eulias suddenly exploded, cutting off Lucas.
"I've been trapped here for three days with scarcely anything to eat but bits from those carnivorous roots which I'm sure you've already seen. I've been here in the dark with those, those things hunting me. And the worse part- the worse part..." Eulias started to stumble in his speech.
"Take your time, calm down." Lucas stated, hoping to quiet the traumatized Salarian.
"I lost her! She went down, there was nothing I could do! They got her!" Eulias blurted out. The others were immediately saddened to hear of Siera's untimely fate.
"It wasn't your fault, Eulias. I'm sure you did everything you could." Lucas soothed.
"No, I didn't do everything I could, I'm just too much of a coward. I've been stuck here, in fear, keeping myself alive and for three days I had to listen to her screaming!" Eulias hollered. Harrvok, Chroso and Lucas stared dumbfounded with shock eyes.
"Wait...you mean...all this time, she's been screaming like that...for three days?" Lucas asked.
--
Dorian McDowell watched the closing moves of a deadly chess game. Though his team had sustained multiple casualties, very costly considering the number of enemies they had, the noose was finally closing. Two of the enemy soldiers were either dead or very close to it. A final biotic was desperately holding her own and should go down any minute. She couldn't last forever. He scratched his chin with the fleeting curiosity on how she could continue without the use of her amp. Perhaps she was a natural biotic. Extremely rare, but he had heard rumors about them.
Then there was the Turian who he assumed was the commander of the operation. Yes, McDowell could spot a fellow tactician, even on the battlefield. The Turian did show gruff and he did seem to know what he was doing but he had bitten off more than he could chew. Yes, McDowell had simply out maneuvered him like he had done on so many others. He could see that the Turian had reserved himself to go down fighting but he wouldn't go down easily. He watched as the enemy mowed yet another technician down with assault rifle fire. Pity such a stubborn warrior would have to go down.
It was at that moment that the mercenary leader noticed something on a forgotten radar monitor. Approaching rapidly was a large contact, perhaps the size of a frigate class ship. McDowell's eyes narrowed. Was this reinforcements? Would someone breathe new life into this fight?
--
Since Dr. Jima had to leave unexpectedly another doctor had taken Pelona's lumbar puncture. That officially ended all the testing of the Citadel medical personnel. Now, all they could do was wait. Yes, a few probably were running test on the recently isolated pathogen. Prions were exceedingly difficult to work with. Like most prions, this particular one could not simply be washed off the instruments once they were done poking it. The protein molecules would still adhere to the surfaces and were rather hardy particles. The only way to neutralize them would be subject the large flat surfaces to highly caustic chemicals while the smaller tools would have to spend a dip in an autoclave, essentially an over-sized pressure cooker. If not caustic chemical could be found to destroy the prion, then those objects that couldn't fit in an autoclave would simply have to be incinerated. Extreme heat seemed to be the only surefire antidote to the problem.
Pelona wondered what her fellow researchers were feeling, at least the ones trying to run tests on the prion. For all they knew, the were poking and prodding the very mis-folded protein that could very well be currently gnawing and blowing up cells in their brains. It was hard to learn not to hate these things. After all, it wasn't as if these particles were hurtinghem out of maliciousness or hate. It was just the product of either something going wrong in biology of things or simply nature. A harmful bacteria that causes a sickness doesn't hate the organism it is in anymore than a civilization that wildly exploits the resources of a planet it is on. Both very much love the environment their living in. It's just a matter of that both are getting out of control in their behavior and at least in the bacteria's case, the victim organism is feeling most of the pain.
A prion was completely different. For all practical purposes, it wasn't really alive. It was like a rock on a runway. It has no real intent of destruction just sitting there on the runway. The problem occurs when a large aircraft going on high speed runs over it which causes it to fly up, pierce the hull of the aircraft and then cause highly destructive damage.
That was another reason why prions could be so scary. Viruses or bacteria usually caused symptoms within days, weeks or perhaps months of initial transmission. Yes, there were exceptions, but prions almost always took a very long time to show themselves. In fact, when they do start to trigger symptoms, they're usually mistaken for something else, some old age or other neural destroying disease. The people of the village were probably infected when they first started eating the plants here. According to records, that means they were first infected and lived off a steady diet of prion fortified vegetables for six years. Six years before anything started to show up.
And now they were all dead and there wasn't a single bloody thing to do for the dying, the living who would be dead in a couple of years by a malformed protein that dragged out the symptoms of the victim for another couple years before the coup de grace finally popped the poor creature's brain.
Pelona nearly let out her frustrations verbally on the stoically immovable corpses in the morgue. They had finally given up their secrets. Unfortunately, the Asari pathologist realized that just as it was too late for them, it would still be too late for a great many of her colleagues. How many more would have to die because of this great accident that could have not so easily been avoided? How many? The Asari balled her fists and whimpered in petrified anger. Why did Harrvok have to be out there and why did her darn emotions want to be so attached to him?
Those that are eternally sleeping are bad comfort for they are completely at peace themselves.
--
"After I thought she was dead, I mean, they caught us off guard and overran her. She did her best to fire up her biotics but she was overpowered and the last I saw was her getting mauled and thrown down by a gang of them. I was able to back away. I hate to say it but them being preoccupied with her was what allowed me to get away." Eulias admitted. There was little to be said. As much as it seemed wrong, situations like that allowed other members of a team to get away and or survive the ordeal. No one wanted to see that come at the expense of a friend or comrade but the sad fact was that it happens.
But now the problem was that the downed friend and comrade was in fact still very much alive and sounded very much in torment. Of course, she wasn't the only one tormented by the looks of things.
"I couldn't just leave...but I couldn't get to her either. There's just too many of them to take on by myself and I don't have any of the combat multiplying effects that her biotics have." Eulias whimpered.
"No one's judging you, Eulias. You did what you could and now we have the means to get her out. Do you know how to get to her from here?" Lucas asked, trying to keep them all focused on a new objective. The torn Salarian thought for a moment.
"Yes...yes, I think I might know. I at least know the general direction from here." Eulias murmured.
"Good, better than nothing. Which way?" Lucas demanded.
"This way, the way you guys were going." Eulias replied. Lucas nodded before giving orders.
"All right, Harrvok, radio back and tell them the situation. Eulias, you take the rear. Chroso, I'm sorry but you're going to have to see the end of this with us. I'll take point. Follow my lead." the commando relayed. They all had little choice but to follow.
"Command base, this is away team two. We have located Eulias, I repeat, we have located Eulias. Siera is elsewhere. We are continuing the rescue mission, over." Harrvok informed over his radio. There was a moment of silence before the radio came back to life.
"This one reads you, away team two. Carry on. Over." Dolphos replied.
Lucas led them further in the darkness. The special forces ranger suddenly realized for the first time that he had been in command. Normally, he did not appreciate having lives in his hands like that. He had always worked alone but he trusted Harrvok could take care of himself and between the both of them, they could watch the two Salarians. However, Lucas was keeping the mentality that he was still doing this like he would have done any solo missions, except this time it came with a few liabilities.
Each step further in the cave was made with anxious hearts, adrenaline strangled throats and bated breath. However, they all started to notice an unexpected but subtle change in their surroundings as they made their way further into the cave. First, their feet no longer landed on the uneven and grainy cavern floor. Instead, it had become more solid, flat and a bit even. Eventually, they realized that they were walking on a brick network as the cave sides gave way to stone walls.
"Are we inside a ruin?" Harrvok asked cautiously.
"It would make sense. Remember the stray bricks we saw jutting out awhile back? This is probably all one large network." Chroso suggested.
"Is it just me or are you noticing it becoming more bright in here?" Lucas asked while they were discussing questions.
"What do you mean? There's nothing but blackness in here." Eulias muttered bitterly.
"I'm serious, I'm almost certain there may be another light source in here." Lucas defended.
As they made their way even deeper, Lucas' suspicions were confirmed. They started to notice the dancing and flickering light that is cast by a fire. The problem was where exactly was it coming from and where. They could only continue their journey.
"This is strange. I'm certain there's something more to this. It isn't all adding up." Harrvok grumbled, his assault rife never once lowered.
"We'll get the answers when we can. Right now we have to get Siera out of here." Lucas replied.
"If she's still alive." Eulias mumbled darkly. No one mentioned on how quiet it had been for the past few minutes and no one wanted to ask Eulias how long the intervals of silence normally were.
It was while they were slowly making their way to what they hoped would be the location of the Asari, Chroso noticed something on the walls. He could scarcely believe his eyes but they appeared to be writings, pictures. As hard as it was to believe, there were coherent if simple hieroglyphs etched into the walls. He knew he couldn't stop and examine them lest he fall behind. He also knew he couldn't interrupt the soldiers leading them so he tried to make out what little he could as they plodded quickly along. The Salarian archaeologist started to notice something that disturbed him.
At first he thought they were just a casual passing mention of them in the hieroglyphs but he could pick out the clear and obvious image of the hellhounds that lived in these caves. At first he thought that the original artists and stone workers that carved these had a semi-unhealthy obsession with these creatures, whatever they might have called them. It wasn't until later when the hellhounds became the central figures in the images that it hit him.
The hellhounds, whatever they were really called, were the ones that inscribed these hieroglyphs. The carvings not only depicted a lot of them, it depicted them upright, some of them carrying out everyday tasks or managing administrative roles. He did not want to believe it but something within hit gut told him that instead of this civilization growing up to achieve space flight, it devolved into a subterranean den of animals.