Peak fifteen was quiet as a tomb.
For a tomb it was.
Ashley watched through the screens in the Normandy's cockpit as the four of the ground team slowly advanced into the quiet installation, their cameras and drawn weapons panning left and right as they went, yet finding no opposition.
The emergency lights were the only source of illumination in the large room they were currently ghosting through, the dark red light creating ominous shadows in every corner. Judging by the benches and tools by the walls it had been some sort of workshop, perhaps for shuttles landing...but since the ceiling above was cast in darkness there was no way to tell if it could open. What Ashley did know however was that such a place was supposed to be filled with noise, clanging and shouting...
Not...silent.
Not that it wasn't painfully clear as to why it was silent...the dark stains on the floor were pitch black in the red light...pools of stagnant blood.
There were no bodies though, only more dark marks, more blood.
"Tram station two rooms away." Michael spoke, voice cold and calm...and Ashley found her shoulders drop with a tension she hadn't even noticed.
He's in control...don't worry.
Just to be sure she checked the screen below his camera's...and indeed his heartbeat was calm and regular, as if he was doing nothing but taking a stroll.
Next to his Kaidan's was slightly more elevated, though far less the Liara's, whose heartbeat was like a drum...though Michael's words seemed to calm it, if only a little.
Surprisingly Wrex's heart rate had increased, the Krogan's camera panning left and right as the mercenary glared at every dark corner, a sniffing sound escaping him. "Do you smell that?"
"What is it?" Kaidan muttered, on Liara's screen the soldier walked tensely just behind Michael, pistol raised and ready, a hint of biotic power around his arms, ready.
"Something..." Wrex growled. "...it stinks...makes me...angry."
"Control yourself." Michael glanced back, cold blue eyes meeting Wrex's camera...
The Krogan snorted: "Don't worry, I'm no pup fresh from the teat." Ashley grimaced at the mental image. Wrex as a pup...eugh. "But there is something here...something I want dead..."
"There is a surprise."
Next to her Garrus snorted at Ashley's words, arms crossed over his chest and shaking his head in amusement, she shot him a smirk...a smirk dying as she once more noticed Tali on the other side of the cockpit, the Quarian demonstratively ignoring her as she looked up at the screens, eyes narrowed.
Why is she still around anyway? She should just leave if she now despises Michael... Ashley glared at the helmeted head. Fucking liar...
Michael's head turned back forward, towards the closed door ahead. "Hold formation and stay alert."
A levelled rifle...and he advanced.
They had almost reached the door when Kaidan's head turned: "Commander...over there."
Watching Kaidan's screen Ashley saw his hand point out towards a dark shadow to the left of the door...a shadow not soft or ominous, but sharp and...shaped.
Michael was there a moment later, the man crouching down as the flashlight in his helmet was turned on to illuminate...
God...
Ashley grimaced as next to her Garrus shifted in uncomfortable silence, Tali mirroring it. From the screens Ashley could hear Liara gasp in fright even as Kaidan muttered under his breath.
In his seat Joker looked away. "And there went my appetite..."
"Dead human." Michael noted, tone calm as always, not a hint of worry in it as he continued: "Head missing, one arm missing, ribcage opened, several organs missing, torn apart, still fresh."
"Something has been eating him..." Wrex growled, the Krogan's heart-rate increasing along with the hint of anger in his voice. "...something..."
Liara shook her head, the Asari pale in the red emergency lights as she hugged her shoulders. "Whatever it is-"
Then she shrieked, jumping back and face turning upwards.
Michael rolled forward, came up to one knee and levelled his rifle upon the thing suddenly dropping from the dark ceiling and onto where he had just stood.
What is that!
Michael fired...and the thing twitched with an alien shriek of pain as it spun to swing at him-
Only to falter as Wrex stomped a heavy foot down on its body, pinning it against the floor...and fired off a heavy shotgun round into it, spraying green gore everywhere.
Silence.
Michael slid to his feet, the camera becoming cocked with his head as he approached the corpse.
Even sprayed with its own blood the creature was easily discerned as some sort of big insect, with four legs and another two acting as arms the creature had a curved body that went upwards and then forward, ending in a five thick claws that hid a small mouth. Two tentacles atop its ridged body now lay slack on the floor, both ending in three flat blade-like claws.
It looks like a shrimp. A big, alien, vicious...shrimp.
"What is that?" Kaidan asked, giving voice to the thoughts of everyone.
Except for Wrex, the Krogan breathing out a snarl: "That is a Rachni, the creatures the Krogan fought for the Council until we were no longer needed."
Liara, now calmer than she'd been before the appearance of the creature or even them entering the facility, approached it, curiosity in her tone as she prodded the fallen creature with a foot: "I thought the Rachni were extinct."
"Apparently not." Wrex growled, anger in his voice as it went low: "They sent us to destroy those creatures, then destroyed us with their science, and now they want to use their science to bring the Rachni back? It's an insult to every Krogan that died..."
"We'll stop them." Michael stated, interrupting Wrex's heated growling with his cold calm. "If Saren wants Rachni we'll destroy them, if they are infesting this facility, we'll destroy it."
Silence.
Wrex's camera moved, the Krogan looking down at the dead insect...then back up at Michael. In Michael's camera the blood red eyes shone, but his voice was ever the calm rumble: "Damn right we will."
A nod...and Michael moved to the door: "Move out."
It thumped open, revealing a long corridor ahead, the red emergency lights above making the blood covering the floor look like a black river...
Kaidan's heart jumped on the instrument for just a moment: "I think the Rachni caught up with a lot of fleeing people here..."
Ashley found herself nodding in agreement, her lips feeling dry as she stared at the group moving down the corridor, each step followed by a wet sound as the blood stuck to their boots.
Annoyingly Liara almost seemed calmer than Kaidan now as she said: "At least we now know what we're facing."
Wrex shot a glare back at her: "That would be good if it wasn't Rachni."
"She's right, Urdnot." Michael retorted, the marine on point as they moved towards the door at the other end. "And I want you focused."
"Of course." Wrex retorted with a scoff, but still shot Liara another glare.
Suddenly Garrus was taking a step forward in the cockpit, his plates moving as he crunched up his face in worry: "Commander, if you take the tram to the main labs any reinforcement from us would take hours to arrive, perhaps you should wait so we can come in to assist?"
A pause, Michael stopping for the briefest of moments, and then a shake of his head. "No time to wait, situation clearly critical, numbers meaningless in cramped spaces anyway."
A grumble...and Garrus stepped back. "Yes, Commander."
Forcing a smirk Ashley thumped an elbow into the Turian's side: "He just wants all the kills for himself, you know him."
Garrus' smile was alien and one of fangs...but honest. "That does sound like him, always unprofessional..." The smile turned to an alien smirk.
Michael's tone was as cold as it was ignoring their joke: "Keep the line clear."
A small laugh bubbled out of Ashley...and then Garrus as he with a shaking head looked back to the screens: "Yes Commander, complying."
Their shared grin died as the door before the ground team opened.
The dozen Rachni before them hadn't yet noticed the new arrivals, the creatures busy tearing apart the already broken remains of a number of people on the small waiting hall before the parked tram.
Most of the benches had been bowled over, the once clean floor covered in dark blood...and now being splattered with fresh gore as the creatures, with frenzied shrieks, tore the remains of whoever had left the tram into pieces.
They're mad...
Ashley watched in horrified fascination. The creatures tearing bites and shearing claws sent blood flying, pieces of flesh and even limbs along with it...the monstrous insects seemed to revel in the destruction...leaving as much of their prey in torn pieces as they were eating of it...
Even as Ashley watched one of them scampered after a shorn arm, clawed arm spearing the limb in front of it with a shrill cry bit the hand off, its bites frenzied as it began to chew...
Then it staggered, Michael's shotgun tearing its head off in an explosion of green gore and broken exoskeleton.
The others looked up...shrieked...and were sent flying to all side as Wrex with a roar thundered into the crowded group, his heavy bulk crushing two to a pulp as his shotgun gutted a third one.
One leapt at Michael...only to be pulled away from him with a snap of breaking bones as Kaidan, still aglow with his used biotics, stomped it into the floor and poured five shots into its shuddering body.
The remaining seven whirled to face Wrex as the gore-covered Krogan spun to face them, eyes narrowed in rage...
Only for all seven to cry out in shrill shrieks as an orb of dark blue energy appearing above them pulled them upwards, gravity no longer applying to them as Liara, covered in purple fire, levelled her pistol and riddled one of them with shots.
Shrieking in defiance the remaining six aimed their tentacles towards the Asari, their clawed ends opening...revealing small holes at the bottom.
The green streams shooting forth made Liara jump aside with a cry, her spinning camera showing a brief image of the floor where she had stood bubbling as the hits ate away at it... before she with a gasp rolled onto her back and aimed up at the still flying Rachni. "Acid!"
Instantly all four of the ground team opened up...and the six Rachni were torn apart in a brutal cross-fire.
Silence.
The corpses lazily spinning in the air, their lifeblood pouring out like leaking balloons...and then they dropped to the floor with a wet thud as Liara's singularity faded.
Michael was instantly by Liara's side, hands reaching down to help her up, making Ashley grit her teeth even as she shot Tali a look, but the visored helmet offered no reaction. "Injured?"
"No...missed me." Liara replied, the Asari's voice shaking, then a shrug as she got to her feet. "I believe the Rachni are worse off."
"Did you just..." Michael blinked, a hint of amusement in his cold face all of a sudden. "...say 'you should see the other guy'?"
A small chuckle escaped Wrex, the Krogan stomping down on the head of a Rachni, breaking it into a pulp even as he smirked at Liara. "Heh, maybe she's tougher then I thought."
On Michael's screen there was a hint of a blush on Liara's cheeks. "I am not a violent person..."
"Yeah, tell it to the Rachni." Wrex retorted, the smirk widening a little.
A dutiful chuckle escaped Kaidan, but his tone remained serious: "I wouldn't be so confident, who knows how many Rachni they've made? And if they've taken over the station Benezia might already be dead."
Liara's heart-rate doubled instantly, the Asari's hands closing into fists on Michael's camera...as the man's own heart-rate made a little jump. "Primary mission objectives is to secure Benezia and any information she has, secondary survivors, we are running out of time. Alenko, that tram looks damaged..." He gestured towards the tram...whose insides did looked trashed...most likely the work of a frenzied Rachni. "...can you get it operational?"
The Lieutenant cocked his head to the side and took a step towards the tram...and nodded. "Yes, Commander, the damage looks superficial, give me two minutes and the computer will be operational."
Michael's heart-rate dropped, his voice calm: "Good, get to it."
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Thanks to Abydos Jackson.