Chapter 25: The Beginning of the End
Joker's eyes narrowed as they came close to Illos. Ilos was afar different kind of planet then any other. So much so, that despite having a breathable atmosphere, her surface was the color of rust and looked as if it had been burned if viewed from the blackness of space. However, unlike the other worlds, Ilos was surrounded by a legion of Geth ships protecting her orbit.
"Activate the stealth systems Joker." Shepard ordered in that emotionless and official tone of voice while standing behind the pilot's chair.
"Aye Commander." Joker nodded as he turned his attention back to his screens.
Shepard looked over her shoulder when she heard approaching boot falls, seeing Garrus as he walked up next to her with his shoulders slumped and his head hung low like he didn't have the energy to hold it , the most definite sign of his tiredness was the soft, but dark circles underneath his usually alert eyes. She sent him an apologetic smile, knowing that he understood her meaning as she crossed her arms over her chest to keep from touching him before she looked back out of the view ports at the closing Geth ships.
"That's Saren's fleet." he said in aquiet voice, drawing in a deep breath to ward off a threatening yawn.
"Yep." she said, slowly shaking her head as the ships in the distance drew ever closer.
They fell into silence after that, as they were too tired to carry on with their conversation for obvious reasons. They opted to just stare out the view ports, watching as Joker carefully and cautiously began to fly the ship through the fleet of geth still orbiting Ilos.
After a few quiet and tense moments, boot falls began to draw closer, grabbing Shepard's attention and causing her to look over her shoulder again to see Koylet and Grim walking up to the bridge. They both looked like they had just woken up from a brief nap.
"How's Serena?" Shepard asked
"Chakwas got something to counter the drug," Koylet sighed with a quick rub to his left eye."That it?" he asked, finally glancing outside.
"Yeah...That's it."Shepard simply answered with a nod.
"I hope we get to Saren in time." Kal said, folding his arms over his chest to find that his shoulder was still complaining against the movement, but not so much as to cause him great agony.
"Believe me, I'm hoping that too," Shepard sighed, holding her breath as the Normandy passed by Geth drop ships. "Joker...Scan," she ordered.
Joker nodded, checking his course before looking at his scanners, his vibrant green eyes bouncing around like balls in his head as he looked for any signs that would pinpoint Saren's location. After a few moments he smirked. "Got it, and I have an LZ point three clicks away. You're practically onto of him."
"Nice." she said smirking as she headed down to their Mako's.
Nobody said a thing as they realized just how steep an angle they were coming in at. The ship was nose down as Joker elegantly wove the Normandy through the towering skyscrapers until the sight of small, ant sized people came into view. As the ship ceased its weaving, Shepard immediately knew that the small people were most likely Saren and his band of geth as they were walking into some sort of tunnel. The ship's angle steepened and her speed seemed to pick up, telling Shepard that it was nearly time for their risky drop and it was confirmed by the countdown from Joker, coming through the comm.
"Drop in three...Two...One...Mako's go!"
The moment Joker said his cue, Shepard jammed the throttle forward, thrusting the Mako nearly immediately out of the Cargo Bay and into the open air. The ship instantly vanished from Shepard's screens, far quicker then any other drop Joker had ever done. She wanted to know if the ship was alright but it was going to have to wait until they were on the ground because it was quickly coming at them and they were nose down.
Shepard jammed her fist down onto the thrusters, effectively slowing their decent, but if she couldn't get their nose up, they were going to plow head first into the ground. With the thrusters blaring, the Mako self adjusted their power output, easily lifting the nose to put her stern down before she hit the ground with a harsh bang that jarred everyone inside violently.
"Ow." Garrus groaned as he gently rubbed his head from its impact with the main cannon's interface.
"That was graceful," Shepard smirked as she shook her head free of the rough landing, taking a quick glance over to Garrus whom was leaning back into his seat. "You alright Taylor?"
"Yeah...Just smack my forehead on the console." he answered as he rubbed said spot that was sure to bruise.
Shepard let a small laugh go as she reached for her comm and flicked it on, "Joker...We're dirt side and in one piece. How's the ship?"
"Told you I could do it."
"Reminded me never to doubt you again."
"Oh trust me Commander. I'm not going to let you live this down." Joker cut the link before Shepard could answer.
Once the link cut, that's when Shepard finally looked out of the drive screens to see that the large doors in front of them were closed up tight.
"Everyone out. We gotta get that door open." Shepard said coldly as she unbuckled herself and opened the rear hatch.
The three piled out into the open air, finding that it had a slight musk to it that was not at all unpleasant. The air itself was warm, but not to the point where it was miserable or tacky, it was mildly humid and had a light breeze that would be more at home on a beach, then in an ancient ruin. However, their admiration of the sight was short lived as Shepard jogged up to the set of large bunker doors that were sealed and she saw nothing to suggest that she was going to be able to open them.
"Dammit...We gotta get through these doors." Shepard growled, looking around for anything that would lead them in the right direction.
Taylor and Garrus walked up to Shepard and examined the door, noticing that it wasn't plain by any means, it was decorated with intricate carvings of an alien race that none of them had ever seen before. They could only assume that they were images of the long vanished Protheans.
"I don't see anything that will get us inside." Garrus said, scanning their surroundings when a soft shuffle reached his highly sensitive ears. Bah... It's probably just this breeze. He thought, taking a few short sniffs of the air, just in case there was something in the air.
"There has to be something," Shepard groaned. "Run a scan of the surrounding area and see if there's any residual signals from anything," she ordered, bringing up her omi-Tool.
Shepard took point with Taylor behind himher and Garrus taking up the rear as they started to make their way away from the door. They couldn't make out anything beyond where they had landed, due to the tall stone slabs that blocked off the open aired corridor.
Each one pressed their backs into the stone as they creeped around the slabs, carefully stepping over the growing shrubs that littered the ground and peered down the corridor on the other side to find that Saren hadn't taken everything he brought with him into the sealed bunker.
"We've got Geth. Stay sharp and take 'em out as quickly as you can." Shepard whispered with quick glances to both his squad mates for their nods of acknowledgement. "Kal, you better be finding those switches!" she yelled into her comm.
No one said anything as they just continued along an embankment until it opened up int
until it opened up into courtyard with more geth. The ground troops were easily taken care of, but the jumping geth were a bit harder to deal with. All three ducked behind some more support struts for cover as the high powered shots from the jumpers ricocheted off the aged stone. Grim took the time to prepare some disabling pulses that would give Kal and Koylet a few moments where the jumpers weren't bouncing around the entire area.
Grim leaned out first and targeted a jumper that clung to a strut on the other side of the courtyard and fired his pulse. His aim proved true as the jumper froze in place with random spurts of sparks flying from it's joints, giving Kal his cue to fire a sniper shot in its direction.
Kal's shot hammered straight through the Geth's head, instantly shutting the unit down to be nothing more then a giant paper weight.
Before the corpse even hit the ground, Koylet leaned out and targeted the last jumper with his omi-tool, but just at the last second, the jumper leapt to another strut. He didn't have the time to prepare another pulse so instead, his arm flared with Biotics and he Pulled it off its perch. With the jumper tumbling to the ground, Grim and Kal fired, blasting hole after hole through it's weak armor and spraying copious amounts of white liquid all over the stone pillars.
With the courtyard clear, Kal opened up his omi-tool once more to get his bearings, seeing that the rather weak signal they were heading too seemed to be behind the large and ancient structure. He waived for them to follow as they headed for the building, taking stock of the statues of a strange, bipedal alien they had seen all over the ruin until they noticed, that there was no way inside the building.
"There's no doors?" his brows drew together hard as he looked at the towering face of the structure.
Koylet looked around where he caught sight of a soft, glowing light of green, hidden in the shadows, "Reeger, looks like there's an elevator over there." he pointed, lightly wincing at the spike of pain that shot through his arm.
Kal turned and followed Koylet's finger, "Well, I'll be damned. Nice work Krios." he smirked as he made his way over to the ancient car that somehow, still had power.
"How does a run down, overgrown and beyond ancient contraption like this still have power?" he asked as he pushed the softly glowing button on the inside of the elevator car.
"There's gotta be some kind of backup power supply or something somewhere in the complex." Grim said as he checked his sniper rifle and leaned up against an aged wall.
"That doesn't explain why it's still providing power after fifty thousand years however." Koylet added, popping a couple painkillers into his mouth and dry swallowing them. This'll take the edge off.
"It would if that power supply was solar or geothermal." Kal threw in with a smile.
"But if that's the case, then why does the rest of the complex look like it doesn't have power. Both those sources are inexhaustible." Koylet countered with a gentle tilt of his head to one side.
"Tech malfunction." Grim simply said.
Both raised their eyebrows as they glanced at each other, nodding their heads in agreement as the car finally slowed and came to a halt to let them out. The tunnel on the other side of the door was long, dark and covered with more of the same vines and foliage that had consumed the rest of the ruins. They jogged down the tunnel, weapons aimed at the ground with their keen eyes trained in the distance at what looked to be a large chamber.
They slowed their jog to a walk and pressed up against the plant covered walls as they drew closer to the chamber, slowly scanning the area for sure fire signs that there was anything laying in wait for them.
As they crouched near the edge of the tunnel, they got a real, unobscured look at the large room which was overgrown with plenty of spine tingling statues and surprisingly well lit. The light is what concerned Shepard the most, as it made it much more difficult to spot any Geth with their flashlight heads, not to mention it rendered any sort of secret approach out of the question.
Without saying a word, Kal told his squad to keep their eyes open as he started to step out into the open, but the moment he did, a rocket came sailing across the chamber from the other side to smack with explosive force into the wall of the tunnel.
"Duck!" he barked as he sprinted to a close by statue for cover.
Koylet and Grim crouched along the walls of the tunnel at opposite corners, keeping their eyes focused down range for the source of the rocket. They all saw the small grouping of Geth on the far side of the chamber and fired, Grim's sniper rifle picking off most of the Geth since it had the better sighting capabilities. After several bursts of fire from their pistols, Kal and Koylet both just decided to give up and let Grim finish off their opposition.
"Taking a breather?" he chuckled, pulling his taloned finger to fill the entire chamber with the boom of his sniper rifle.
"You're doing such a good job. I didn't wanna mess with perfection." Kal smirked as he happily stayed behind his cover.
Grim blew off one more high powered round to completely smash the last remaining Geth's glowing eye, effectively clearing the chamber for them to continue on. With Kal at point again, they quickly jogged across the room, but as soon they passed a second statue, another Geth unit came into view and it wasn't just a normal one either; it was a Geth Prime.
They immediately skidded to a halt and darted for the nearest cover as the Prime began to blow off it's extremely powerful weapon in their direction. As Kal regained his bearings, he finally noticed that Koylet wasn't near him, let alone behind any cover. As it turned out, Koylet was standing in front of the Geth Prime, Biotics aglow with power as he raised his arm, wrapping the Geth in an incandescent layer of blue and lifting it up into the air where it became useless. Kal could only watch as Koylet thrust his arms forward, sending the Prime crashing into what looked to be a second level observing area. Upon impact, the Geth broke apart and clattered to the ground in a downpour of white fluid and hardware.
Almost as quickly as Koylet's biotics appeared, they disappeared as he lowered his arms back to his sides and sucked in a deep breath, ignoring the steadily growing throb of pain in his shoulder from the widely arced movement.
"Clear." he said with a wince.
Kal stepped out from behind his cover, "Understood. We should be getting close." he said as he opened up his omi-tool to check their path.
"Are we?" Grim asked, taking a quick scan of the room to make sure there were no more surprises.
He nodded, "Yeah. Looks like it should be in that control room up there." he said as he started towards that way. They followed as he swung right, coming around the corner of a wall to see that a narrow ramp lead upwards into the second room. They all quickly jogged up to enter into a long control room with a thick bed of plants covering the floor.
Sitting in the center of the room was a console, not at all unlike the console they found on Therum all that time ago. Kal carefully stepped up to the terminal and holstered his weapon to place his hands on the device. After a few moments, the terminal produced a low groan and opened up, flickering to life a scattered array of coding and images that really didn't come together to form anything definitive.
As the hologram settled somewhat, it began to produce a series of sounds and clicks that began to take on the voice of a different language.
"You guys can't understand it?" he asked after a few moments of listening to the heavily broken message.
They shook their heads no. He stayed quiet for another moment, listening to the device again to try and catch something else, "It's a message. It's hard to make anything out because it's broken up pretty bad, but I can make out most of it." he paused. "I understand it only because of Ann's translator she'd uploaded to my omi-tool.
"What does it say?" Grim asked.
"It's a warning about an impending invasion force," he silenced himself again to catch a few more words which peaked his interest. "It's about the Reaper invasion. Something about an In Between?" he pressed a few buttons and nodded when he hear something click. "Let's go!" he yelled and opened a comm. "Shepard!" he called out. "We're headed your way." he said as his group got onto an elevator. The car slowed and opened it's door, depositing them into the first courtyard they had traveled through which was only a quick run away from the Mako. They blasted out and at full sprints, ran towards the tall stone slabs that sectioned off the courtyard with their landing zone that hopefully still housed the Mako, upon which it did. They quickly climbed in and got seated, Shepard blasting the engines to life, shutting the door and taking off, all before they were even buckled into their seats.
Their drive remained silent, save for the cannon blasts as they came in contacted with a small contingent of Geth that stood guard in a large chamber. Shepard didn't even slow down as she rolled straight through them, blasting back into the corridor that had begun to develop a layer of standing water on its floor. They continued to drive until Kal spotted something off in the distance, appearing to be some kind of barrier, but he couldn't be sure, as it wasn't blue; it was orange.
Shepard ground the Mako to a halt, only a few meters away from the barrier and glared angrily out of his drive screens, "We're stuck." she growled, clenching her fists tightly around the controls.
"Maybe not Shepard. Looks like there's a passageway off to our right." Koylet said without even looking up from the screens.
"Worth a shot. Let's move people. We don't have time to waste."
Shepard popped the hatch and followed the other two out as they all headed for the passageway to discover that it wasn't a passageway at all, but an elevator. They pulled their weapons just in case as they rode it down into a massive chamber with a pattern of ovals along the walls. They went on as far as their eyes could see and all they could do was gape in awe at the sight. They walked down the catwalk towards another terminal that appeared to be more of a main hub then just there to leave a message.
As they stepped up, the terminal hummed and opened up, exactly like the other had with the scattering of data and symbols, but this time, the sound that came out was understandable.
"You are not Prothean, nor are you machine. This eventuality was one of many that was anticipated." the program spoke clearly.
"The holographic display doesn't work." Garrus said.
"I do not sense the taint of indoctrination upon any of you. Unlike the other that had passed through here recently. Perhaps there is still hope."
"How come we can understand you?" Koylet asked, his brows pulling together.
"I have been monitoring your communications since you arrived at this facility. I have translated my output into a form that you will be able to comprehend. My name is Vigil and you are safe for the moment, but that is likely to change if you do not hurry."
"I'm in a very big rush man. I need to get to the Conduit." Shepard urged, placing her hands on her hips.
"The Conduit is a device built by the Protheans, but you must understand what you are dealing with. The Citadel is the hub of your galactic civilization, as it was with us, but it is a trap. The Citadel itself is an enormous mass relay that links directly to dark space. When it is activated, the Reapers will fall through and all you know will be destroyed."
"Yeah, we know." this seemed to shock the AI. "We're not exactly from this...reality."
His eyes closed. "Then the fate of the your reality and ours depends on the one who goes through the In Between."
"The what?" all asked at the same time.
"The In Between is a fine demention between life and death. My creators tried to access it, but only one ever made it through, but unfortunately not with her body in tact. If you know of the In Between or one who has crossed it, only the reality she chooses will survive the oncoming apocalypse."
"Serena?" Ann whispered. "How does she get us back or whatever is needed to make things go right?"
It smiled. "All she needs to is wish it." with that the AI's holographic display vanished.
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