A/N: Well, the main Tuchanka mission predictably became a two-parter. I'll try to put up the resolution in a few days. :) Don't expect super many changes for this, because this was one of the missions I thought were excellently done in the game. But hopefully there will be enough small tweaks and original dialogue to keep you entertained. :)
Chapter 69 - Rewriting Ancient History
"Wrex, it's Wreav! The Reapers are already at the Hollows! Come out with guns blazing!" the message on the comms reaches them with the LZ approximately five minutes out, and interrupting Morgan just as she is about to reveal the Shroud sabotage to Mordin and the two krogan.
The sacred meeting place looks extremely despoiled with husk remains by the time they reach it and land, Eve remaining in the shuttle, just in case. Down in the Hollows, the husks are still pressing on, but the krogan are rejoicing in the challenge, tearing through the waves of enemies easily, not leaving much for Shepard and her companions to mop up. Eventually the waves of reinforcements stop, the krogan emerging with only one or two dead, while the sacred floors of the Hollows are literally covered with a carpet of husk bodies.
"Husks? Do they seek to insult us?" Wrex roars, throwing a Reaper limb across the sacred halls of Hollows in disgust.
"Don't worry Wrex, we start small with husks, then work our way up to the destroyer," Morgan grins, as her squad all as one climb down the ancient stairway to join the gathered krogan clans on the floor below.
"Damn right," Wrex nods. "Shepard, they will sing battle-songs about this someday, I promise you that!"
"Hopefully good ones-... oh, wait, someone's on the comms," she stops on the stairs, the others halting with her. The signal is coming from the Normandy, Primarch Victus informing her that the airstrike is already on its way. "Damn it, I wish you had arranged that with me before giving them the order to engage!" she exclaims angrily in the comms. What is he thinking of, trying to humble the krogan and steal all the glory for himself? I didn't think he was the type!
"Complications, Shepard?" Mordin asks, standing next to her.
"Hopefully not, but the airstrike is on the way and we're behind schedule," she sighs, turning towards Wrex. "We need to wrap things up here quickly and get a move on."
Wrex nods, but as they climb down the stairs, several angry looking krogan approach them swiftly, making threatening gestures, particularly towards Mordin. "What's a salarian doing here?" one of them roars. "Nobody said anything about this!"
"Multiple krogan. Problematic," Mordin states, looking a little worried.
"Not problematic," Morgan shakes her head. "Merely loud and tiresome."
"About time you showed up, Wreav," Wrex growls at the greeting committee, before turning to Shepard. "My brood brother. We share the same mother, and nothing else."
"Ah, I see," Shepard nods. "The proverbial rotten apple of the family."
"And it's a good thing we share nothing else but our mother. At least I still remember what it means to be a true krogan!" Wreav shouts, buoyed by the cheers of his supporters, of which Morgan remarks, there are rather many. "We flay our enemies alive and drown them in a geyser of their own blood. We don't invite them into our home!"
"Well, you need him, so tough," Shepard says, folding her hands across her chest and facing Wreav with a challenging stare. "You look too stupid to cure the genophage yourself, so I suggest you make good on this opportunity."
"His kind gave us the genophage!" Wreav shouts, stepping closer to Mordin, who much to his credit neither moves back nor flinches.
"Yeah, and there's pretty much nothing he can do to make it any worse for you krogan," Shepard steps a little closer, just in case Wreav decides to try anything with Mordin. "He can only make it better. Let him try."
"But why should we trust him?" Wreav doesn't let go.
His reward for his insistence is an incredibly painful looking head-butt from Wrex. "Because I do," he says simply. "And so will you, Wreav!"
Wreav isn't about to let such an insult drop. The shotgun comes out immediately, and some of his lackeys follow his example. The sacred grounds of Hollows are about to become another shooting gallery, when suddenly there comes a loud, imperious voice. "Enough!" it speaks, and Morgan turns to see the recognizable figure of Eve standing at the top of the stairs and slowly descending as she addresses all the gathered clans, watching her like enraptured and for once staying silent.
"You can stay here and let old wounds fester, as krogan have always done," Eve tells the clans, and Morgan can't do anything else but to admire the passion in her voice, and her sheer charisma, forcing all the gathered krogan to listen. "Or you can fight the enemy you were born to destroy, and win a new future for our children. I... I choose to fight!" She stops and raises her arms to the sky. "Who will join me?"
Before any of the gathered krogan can reply, Shepard dashes up a few steps of the stairs towards Eve before turning back towards the clans. "This outsider will join you, for it seems that some of these krogan are missing a quad!" she shouts, with glee noticing the angry roars and growls meeting her exclamation.
"Not all of them!" Wrex roars. "I will stand with you! Everyone, now is the time to hold your heads high like true krogan! There's a Reaper that needs killing out there!" he points towards the Shroud. Now the crowd is almost fully on the side of Wrex and Eve with the slight exception of Wreav and a few of his followers, but in the face of increasing pressure, Wrex's half-brother is forced to nod sourly, giving his approval.
"Back towards the trucks!" Wrex commands. "We move in five!"
"Krogan ground convoy, this is turian wing Artimec. Our flight vector to the Shroud is locked. We're ten minutes out and counting." Shepard curses as she receives the update, sitting inside one of the trucks, together with Wrex, Eve, Mordin, Liara and Garrus, a tight squeeze inside the heavily armored vehicle.
"Can we get there in ten minutes?" she asks Wrex, watching the tall needle of the Shroud in the distance, covered in a mist of dispersed particles.
"It's going to be tight," Wrex admits, looking a little annoyed. "Should have known that idiot Wreav will start something."
"He's not the only krogan who wants revenge for the genophage, Wrex," Eve says. "You will have to placate them somehow."
"I'll just demand that the Council return some of our old territory," Wrex shrugs. "We will need room to expand. Recapture the glory of the ancients."
"'Glory of the ancients' led to the Krogan Rebellions," Mordin pipes up, shaking his head. "Countless deaths. Creation of genophage. Expansion plan... problematic."
"Perhaps not problematic, Mordin. With the rate at which the galactic population is being wiped out, there'll be a lot of free elbow room," Morgan says thoughtfully. "Hell... you can have the entire batarian space to yourselves, Wrex. I put my own helping hand in clearing them out, after all..." at those words, she feels a hand squeezing her shoulder supportively, and looking up her eyes meet with Liara's soft blue orbs.
"Hmm, I was hoping for something closer to the asari space," Wrex mutters. "But we'll see... we might need a lot of planets, Shepard. You haven't seen how fast we can pop them out!"
"Wrex!" Eve berates him sternly.
"What?" Wrex replies with a grin. "With the genophage cured, we'll have a lot of catching up to do."
"There's a mental image I didn't need," Garrus grumbles, looking a little unhappy.
"Right..." Shepard sighs, then remembering that she is yet to tell them about Linron's offer. "Listen, everybody, there's something you need to know. Before we left, I got a call from the Dalatrass. She tried to cut a secret deal with me."
"Deal? What deal?" Wrex immediately looks pissed off.
"She said that the STG sabotaged the Shroud years ago," Morgan explains. "The cure won't work, unless we fix it. She promised me full salarian support if I made sure that the cure would be rendered useless. The krogan would be none the wiser and I would have the support of both them and the salarians."
"A sound plan," Mordin admits. "Would have likely fooled tests. Ensured krogan support at least until Reapers defeated."
"And then they would have found out eventually and we'd have another war on our hands," Liara says, looking a little rattled. "Goddess, I can hardly believe the treachery she was considering!"
"Well, I guess she figured that without the advantage in numbers provided by the genophage cure, the krogan would be easier to put down, this time for good," Garrus muses thoughtfully, ignoring the dark glare Wrex sends him.
"She said you would be able to counter it, Mordin," Shepard says.
The salarian nods confidently. "Familiar with STG work. Can adjust. Did not come this far for nothing," he adds more proudly.
To Shepard's surprise, Eve reaches out and grabs her hand in a firm and grateful handshake. "You just spared our race another genocide, Commander," she says, moved expression in her eyes.
"And I'm proud you denied the Dalatrass," Liara speaks softly, offering a quick hug. "I... I can imagine it was tempting to have both salarians and krogan onboard..."
"I told you we could count on Shepard," Wrex says, looking at Eve, as the convoy suddenly comes to a grinding halt. "What the hell, why are we stopping?"
"This is not good," Shepard sighs. "I'll head out to check what's going on. The rest of you stay put."
"I'm going too," Liara says in a voice that discourages any potential protests.
"Could do with stretching my legs as well," Garrus nods, jumping out behind them, Wrex, Eve and Mordin remaining inside. The entire procession of twenty or so tomkah's is standing still for some reason, and Morgan leads the others to the front of the convoy.
"Goddess, just look at that," Liara exclaims, pointing across the ruined landscape of Tuchanka towards the Shroud, still at least several miles away. The Reaper destroyer is slowly patrolling around it, its black metallic carapace shining threateningly, making it look like a gigantic, angry and deadly insect. "How are we supposed to fight that thing?" she asks, sounding a little desperate.
"There will be casualties," Morgan nods grimly, as they arrive at the front of the convoy, seeing a chasm in the middle of the road, several krogan staring at it and all as one shaking their shoulders. "Oh, for crying out loud," Shepard swears, activating her comms. "Turian wing Artimec?" she calls out. "This is Shepard. We've run into more delays, can you abort?"
"Negative, Commander," comes the predictable and exasperating answer. "Our approach vector is locked. The Reaper already knows we're here." As if on cue, the wing of nine fighters flies above them, heading straight for the Reaper.
"The airstrike alone won't do it," Garrus shakes his head, watching on in frustration as his people begin to wipe themselves out against the Reaper. "We need to get in that fight now!"
The turian fighters are failing to put any sort of pressure on the Reaper, in fact, it even refuses to move, simply sitting in one spot and almost lazily shooting one fighter after another out of the sky. One of the fighters is grazed by the red particle beam as it makes a loop and turns back in the direction of the convoy. Out of control, it is now spinning towards them, Shepard shouting a warning as she tackles both Garrus and Liara to the ground.
The fighter catches the first tomkah in the convoy, ripping through its roof and cleanly taking with it the heads of its krogan crew. Then it hits the second tomkah smack in the middle, killing everyone inside instantly and throwing the ball of metal and fire against the wall of an ancient stone compound at the side of the road. The next several tomkah's in the convoy are also buried by the burning wreckage and rubble from the collapsing wall, blocks of stone falling across the chasm to form a fortunate band-aid for the road, allowing them passage.
"What is going on out there, Shepard?" Wrex yells. "We can't stay put here and get slaughtered! Get back to the tomkah and let's move!"
"Just a moment, Wrex," Shepard says, slowly getting up from the ground, relieved to see Garrus and Liara also rising unharmed. She quickly tries to contact the others, praying they were not in the vehicles that just got destroyed. James is silent. Javik is silent. Only EDI responds to her calls.
"Shepard, James and Javik are badly injured," EDI replies, her voice broken up and distorted. "I am attempting to free them from the damaged vehicle, but this platform is close to becoming non-functional. Assistance might be required."
"That's a negative, Wrex," Shepard shouts back to her krogan friend. "Time is of essence, you go ahead, get Eve out of here! I'll find a way to join you at some point!"
"Understood," Wrex says grimly and the convoy roars again, vehicles quickly brushing past them, leaving the wounded and the dead behind.
"Cortez, I need a shuttle on my position for immediate extraction!" Shepard shouts, spotting EDI' silvery frame in one of the less damaged tomkah's and together with Liara and Garrus they race towards it, trying to carefully pull their injured comrades out.
"We have to abort, Commander!" one of the surviving turian fighter pilots reports in, as they pull James out first, blood oozing from his temples, left arm hanging in an awkward angle. "The Reaper's tearing us to pieces!"
"Great, now those idiots can abort!" Shepard swears in annoyance, reaching inside the tomkah to grab Javik's limp body, wondering if Dr. Chakwas or anyone actually possesses the necessary knowledge to treat injured Protheans. As Cortez finally lands the Kodiak, EDI is pulled out of the wreckage as last, her body badly shattered, and Shepard already can hear Joker's incessant whining in her head, complaining about scratching his most precious toy.
Liara and Garrus carry James to the Kodiak, Shepard gently deposits EDI's platform next to Vega before returning to pick up Javik. "Alert Chakwas and Adams as soon as you get out of here," Shepard tells Steve Cortez, receiving a swift nod in reply.
"So... now what?" Garrus asks, as the three of them stand still, watching the shuttle depart, remaining all alone amidst the burning wreckage on the road.
"Hmm... that's interesting," Liara remarks, turning around and pointing at a dark passageway that has opened up as a section of the wall collapsed from the impact with the turian fighter. "Some kind of tunnel... perhaps we can use it?"
"Only you would think to suggest something crazy like that, T'Soni," Garrus shakes his head. "It doesn't even appear to lead towards the Shroud!"
"Well... I don't fancy crossing those plains trying to catch up with the convoy on foot," Shepard remarks, before deciding to contact Wrex. "We're moving again, Wrex," she speaks on the comms. "Trying to find a shortcut to meet up, do you know anything about strange underground tunnels here?"
"Commander," Eve replies instead. "Those tunnels lead into the City of the Ancients. No maps of the place exist. If you go in there, there's no telling where you'll come out."
"I don't suppose you can come back and pick us up?" Shepard sighs.
"Negative on that, Shepard," Wrex grunts. "The road ahead is even worse. We had to plug several chasms with our tomkah's to get through, and the rest were taken out by the Reapers. It's just us and Wreav left, so no, we're not coming back."
"Alright, we'll try the tunnels then and see where they take us. We'll keep up constant contact," Shepard reports back.
"Got it. Just crawl out somewhere and we'll find a way to pick you up, Shepard. With the turians pulling out, we no longer need to rush like crazy to the Shroud, we need a new plan anyway," Wrex says, strangely still managing to sound upbeat. "Shepard, we'll get this cure sorted, don't worry."
Morgan switches off the comms and turns to face Liara and Garrus. "We lost the turian air support and are down to two tomkah's, and he remains optimistic?" she asks, dismayed. "I have no idea how we'll get this done, people... but I guess we'll just have to try, there's no other way."
"You'll think of something," Liara smiles at her supportively. "You always do."
"And now I believe that as well," Morgan responds with a grin of her own, turning towards the dark tunnels leading below. "City of the Ancients, here we come. With a name like that... I'm sure nothing could go wrong down there!"
"So, nobody's been here for a thousand years, huh?" Shepard says after they have walked for a while, three concentrated beams from their flashlights cutting through the darkness ahead as they explore the dark tunnels of the City of the Ancients.
"Eve said so," Garrus replies. "If it wasn't so dark here, we'd probably see Liara drooling from so much history around us."
Liara manages a nervous laughter. "It is fascinating, yes, but I have not forgotten why we are here," she says.
"Well, then you've come a long way since Ilos," Garrus chuckles, the beam of his flashlight falling on the wall to their right, revealing another set of complicated drawings, reminding Morgan a little of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs.
"The discovery of the artistic side of the krogan is amazing in itself," Liara whispers in awe, taking a few shots with her omni-tool, her collection already including several such drawings and many stone statues of old krogan warlords.
"Just makes you realize how dangerous uplift process of a species really is," Morgan remarks. "The Protheans seemed to be doing things right, taking it slowly. The salarians... not so much. To have this kind of technological leap with everything else lagging behind is just insane... it defeats the purpose of evolution."
"Seems like you've been taking some lessons from Mordin," Garrus says. "Seeing Maelon's experiments on Tuchanka really changed him, didn't it?"
"For the better," Morgan nods. "I just feel that I agree with him so much more these days. There's a lot I can learn from him, too. I really look forward to having him back with us in full capacity after we're done with the cure here."
"Yes, I agree-" Liara starts, but then is rudely interrupted as rough tremors suddenly shake the whole complex around them, throwing the asari to the ground, Garrus and Morgan barely managing to remain on their feet. "What was that?" Liara asks, getting back to her feet, her flashlight broken in the fall and she reaches out to grab Morgan's hand. "Quake?"
"I hope not, I really wouldn't want this place to become our tomb," Shepard replies, pulling her along as they advance swiftly. "Let's see if we can get out of here fast."
The tunnels bring them to a sharp stairway leading downwards, and Shepard reluctantly follows along, fearing that the twisting passages are bringing them completely the wrong way. Midway along the stairs, the tremors knock them off their feet again, and they tumble downstairs to land in an undignified heap.
"I sincerely doubt that's a quake," Garrus says, gently pushing away Liara's legs from his back before rising again.
"Wrex, you guys feeling these tremors too?" Shepard calls out on the comms.
"What tremors?" Wrex sounds surprised.
"Careful, Commander," Eve warns them. "It is said that Kalros, the mother of all thresher maws, lives in this region."
"Uh... did I hear that right, Shepard?" Liara whispers quietly. "The mother of all thresher maws? That can't be good..."
"You don't say, T'Soni. When the krogan name a thresher maw, you know you're in trouble. They don't think anyone's ever going to kill it," Garrus says. "I bet that explosion has managed to piss it off, Shepard. Now we've got a Reaper and a thresher maw to contend with. I'm running out of ideas how to make this any more fun."
"I'm sure something will pop up, Garrus. Once the gods or the universe itself have decided that they really hate you, there's no limit to their imagination," Shepard chuckles, then suddenly feeling herself step into something soft, squelchy and disgusting. "Fuck!" she exclaims, leaping back, pulling Liara with her and crashing into Garrus.
The turian quickly lowers his flashlight to illuminate a disgusting looking body of a creature they have not seen before. It looks like a giant insect, with large bulbous sacs all over its body. Couple of its limbs seem to have been mutated into powerful long-range cannons, leaving no room for interpretation as to the origins of this monstrosity. One of the bulbous sacs has been torn from Morgan stepping on it, and there are several disgusting small insects popping out of the sac, hovering towards them, but not getting far as Garrus opens fire with his assault rifle, riddling the dead foe with bullets and Shepard incinerates the corpse for good measure with a plasma blast from her omni-tool.
"Well done, Shepard," Garrus mock-applauds her. "Were you looking for ways to make this more fun?"
"What the hell was that thing?" Shepard asks, stepping over the corpse and moving away swiftly, the others following fast.
"It looked like rachni," Liara remarks, sounding a little disturbed from her own words. "Have the Reapers got to them too?"
"And now I'm left feeling incredibly stupid for my decision on Noveria," Shepard grumbles, before switching the comms on again. "Wrex, we've got some kind of mutated rachni here. Watch out."
"We saw them too, Shepard," comes the reply. "Lost a few trucks to their cannons. But it doesn't matter, just get out of there fast!"
"Looks like some luck at last," Shepard says, having taken a few steps past the rachni to reveal stairway leading up, with light shining in from above. "We have a way out."
The stairs lead them out into a larger complex of ruins, still impressive and majestic, tall columns covered with ancient inscriptions, every step in this place oozing history. "I would love to study a place like this... if not for this war, of course," Liara remarks as they walk.
"Well, let's just put it up on our things-to-do list after the war," Shepard smiles at her. "It'll be just us, sand, dirt and rubble, thousands of krogan, hardly any amenities.."
"I was convinced the moment you said that it will be just us," Liara whispers back at her, both of them chuckling when they hear Garrus sighing theatrically at their exchange.
"We're back outside, Wrex," Shepard speaks on the comms again, looking around the place they have emerged at. To her surprise, the old ruins are crawling with thick roots of some kind of plant that has also spawned a few large leaves here and there. "I don't know what this place is, looks like an old temple or mausoleum, or something. And it also has some flora, making it by far the most appealing place I've seen on Tuchanka."
"Except for the Reapers over there on the other side," Garrus spoils everything again, pointing ahead and then rolling into cover, Liara and Shepard following his example.
"Me and my big mouth strike again," Shepard complains, staring out of the cover to observe the enemy force. "I see eight cannibals and two of those rachni things. No idea about them, but they seem dangerous."
"If their cannons took out the krogan trucks, they should be our top priority," Garrus nods. "I suggest you and Liara take care of them, I'll thin out the cannibals."
The mutated batarians fall fairly quickly, especially after Liara has trapped four of them with her singularity, but leaving Shepard alone to deal with the rachni almost proves a mistake. At some point, Morgan is forced to change her position, and while crouching low and running for cover, one of the rachni manages to score a few hits, almost instantly tearing through her kinetic barriers and she literally leaps to safety in the last moment before the heavy cannon salvo has blown off a limb or two.
Once Liara switches back to aid against the rachni with her warp fields, they quickly manage to destroy one of them. They are about to start working on the last of the mutated monstrosities, when suddenly there is a particularly heavy tremor almost below them, and turning her head to the right, Morgan sees that the chasm that runs alongside the complex of ruins is filled with rising sand and dust, something massive having just torn through it. When she peers out of the cover to look for the last rachni, she no longer sees it there.
"It fell into one of those cracks," Garrus laughs. "Hah, thank you Kalros, I suppose!"
"Maybe it's on our side," Liara says hopefully, then blushing slightly at her naivety, hearing the cynical chuckles from Morgan and Garrus.
"I really doubt that, babe," Shepard says, quickly pulling Liara into a hug. "I don't think we are going to be that lucky..."