Chapter 112 - Powerpuff Girls vs. Cerberus
Shepard stands on the Normandy bridge, behind Lia'Vael in the pilot's seat, watching the view opening up before her. "This is the place, I remember it now, the background during our vid conferences with Timmy," she says, staring at the massive cold and dying star of Anadius, the visual of the dark space station against the backdrop of red and orange light emanating from the star. The Fifth Fleet is already here, beginning to thin the ranks of Cerberus cruisers and fighters, but staying a little clear of the station itself, its defense grid having put two frigates out of the commission already.
"Garrus, I'm leaving you in charge of the ship," she turns around and addresses her turian friend when he finally catches up with them on the bridge. He nods and quickly swaps seats with EDI, the synthetic getting out of the co-pilot's seat and letting Garrus take place next to Lia'Vael. "We have been assigned to the Fifth Fleet, under direct command of Admiral Hackett. You are to take any orders from him without questioning, is that clear?"
"Of course, Commander!" Lia'Vael snaps off a small salute while remaining seated. "Our first order is to thin out those fighters guarding the launch bays so we can let you and the other ground teams deploy. Right now it's a bit too hot!"
"Right, so..." Garrus begins to catch up with all the feeds coming in from the fleet command. "Teams Alpha to Zeta are in charge of disabling the defense grid of the station. While, uh... your orders are to track down and recover the Catalyst. Pretty clear, huh?"
"Yeah, smash and grab, exactly what we do best," Shepard nods. "What's our squad designation, by the way? That's kind of important to know, Garrus."
"Yes, just a moment... huh... hmm." The turian checks the feeds again and again, just to make sure he hasn't gotten it wrong. "Err... Powerpuff Girls? What does that even mean?"
Shepard blinks. "Uh, I don't get it. Someone's idea of fun?" She turns to EDI then, for a moment thinking she has seen their synthetic friend grinning. "And we should probably get Liara and Aria."
"They have arrived," EDI says, pointing behind her and Shepard turns to see the two asari approaching them, walking side by side with a sensual sway of their hips, a... remarkably fascinating image that Morgan feels like capturing and engraving in her memories. Liara is in her blue and white combat suit, as always, looking deadly serious, but with an echo of a supportive smile on her lips as Shepard faces her. Beside her, Aria sports a predatory grin in anticipation of slaughter, dressed in her commando leathers, twin pistols strapped to her hips, so heavily modded that they are probably breaking at least dozen Council rules, Morgan having no chance to tell what model it is, or has been.
Damn, this is like some kind of juvenile fantasy or having a sexy asari commando squad of my own, Morgan chuckles inwardly, watching the cruel and twisting sneer on Aria's lips as she surveys the carnage outside the Normandy. Of course, I only need Liara, but still, I could get used to this, I think! And the name is starting to fit, too... "Okay, Powerpuff Girls, we should probably get to the shuttle and ready ourselves..."
"Commander, I advise you to hurry!" Lia'Vael informs them urgently. "We're about to break through Cerberus ranks, and you will only have a narrow window to get to the launch bays before the defense grid is reactivated!"
"Shepard, it seems you have your own individuals callsigns for this mission, too!" Garrus shouts after them as they dash for the elevator. "You're supposed to end all your communications by saying 'Blossom out!'."
"Someone's going to suffer for that joke," Shepard grumbles, then grinning as Garrus sends the rest of the message through to her omni-tool, starting to laugh as she reads Liara and Aria's callsigns.
"What's so funny, Shepard?" Aria glares at her.
"Oh nothing... nothing at all, Buttercup," Shepard snickers at the incensed Pirate Queen.
"I don't understand, why did you just call Aria 'Buttercup'?" Liara asks, puzzled.
"I'll explain later, Bubbles," Shepard returns merrily and jumps out of the elevator to dash towards the Kodiak, Steve already in the pilot's seat, ready to take off at her orders. She throws herself in the co-pilot's seat, waiting for EDI, Liara and Aria to get in, then quickly closing the cargo space doors. "And now we just wait for Lia to give us the green light... ah, there it is! Steve? Go go go!"
The shuttle all but jumps out of the docking bay, speeding through the deadly battlefield, still plenty of Cerberus ships surrounding the station itself, hiding in the protection of the deadly defense grid, keeping the Fifth and Sixth Fleets from overwhelming them. There are other shuttles hurrying towards the fighter launch bays of the Cronos Station, teams Alpha to Zeta trying to gain foothold, but not all of the shuttles manage to escape the incoming fire of Cerberus fighters. Normandy's Thanix cannon clears some of the fighters in their way, but still Cortez decided against choosing a scenic route to bring them in, the shuttle heading straight for the launch bay and crashing heavily into a stack of crates and several troopers hiding behind them, leaving red spots on the ground, remains of flattened Cerberus soldiers.
"Not one of your best landings, Steve. This was more Vega style," Shepard grumbles, gently massaging her temples, having been tossed around the cabin like a rag doll until the shuttle came to a screeching halt. Cortez looks very apologetic, so she immediately softens her expression. "You alright?" Steve nods, and she turns to the others in the back, watching them all gingerly get up, a little winded, but otherwise no worse for wear.
"Just go, Commander, I'll have repairs to make here!" Cortez shouts, as they both see a stream of Cerberus reinforcements flooding into the hangar bay, accompanied by an Atlas mech.
"Get to safety until we clear them out, don't sit here, because that Atlas might decide to take a shot at the shuttle," Shepard orders, jumping out of the vehicle, the others following her as they spread throughout the hangar bay, Liara follows her to the right flank, Aria and EDI moving to cover the left.
"Shepard, this is a fighter launch bay," Liara tells her as they drop in the cover behind crates, watching a Cerberus ship slowly being brought up by a moving platform from the hangars below, the fighter quickly getting prepped for deployment. "Watch out, everyone, fighter incoming!" she hears her bondmate yelling on the comms, breathing a sigh of relief when the fighter zooms by the Kodiak shuttle, missing it by maybe a foot, not more.
"If we could stop them from launching any more fighters, that would be very helpful," Shepard muses, leaning out of the cover and shooting a centurion in the head after EDI has disabled their shields.
"Why don't we deal with other problems first!" she can hear Aria shouting on the comms, the Pirate Queen busy launching her biotics at the Cerberus mech, slowly inching forward. "A little help here, T'Soni!"
"Help her, Bubbles," Shepard orders, chuckling at herself from Liara's indignant expression, as she moves to lay down a few singularities for Aria to detonate, and shortly after the Cerberus mech together with several troopers explode in a mass of gore and metal parts.
"That did it, yeah!" Aria exclaims, pleased, but then swearing explicitly, Shepard watching with worry across the room to see the Pirate Queen grabbing at her neck, the bullet having just barely grazed the skin. "Fucking sniper!"
"I see her," Shepard tells Aria, her eyes scanning the balcony above, the slim shape of nemesis hiding behind the railing. "Aria, stay exposed. Trust me. I'll cover you." There is no response, but Morgan can see Aria remaining upright, the asari looking around, pretending to be searching for the illusive sniper, deliberately avoiding staring towards the upper level, encouraging the nemesis to lean just slightly out of cover to deliver the killing shot. Just as the Cerberus agent leaves her cover, however, Morgan takes her perfectly lined up shot from the far side of the docking bay, single bullet entering the nemesis' head through the eye and killing her instantly.
"Good one, Shepard," Aria says approvingly, as they quickly catch up after the remaining Cerberus stragglers have been eliminated.
Before Shepard can turn to EDI and ask what to do next, she hears a Cerberus message broadcasting on the loudspeakers across the launch bay. "Security breach in Hangar 16. Initiating Achilles Protocol," the female voice says.
"What the fuck is Achilles Protocol?" Aria looks unimpressed.
"Cerberus intends to vent the hangar bay," EDI replies quickly. "I need access to an active console to stop them." They quickly look around the hangar bay, but at first, nothing useful presents itself. "Let us try the upper level," EDI speaks then, before Shepard has started to become nervous.
Aria is the first to get up the stairs leading to the upper level, deliberately stepping on the face of the nemesis that had nearly managed to put a bullet through her throat. "Hangar 16 secured," the voice on the loudspeakers informs them. "Initiating the Achilles protocol," but EDI is already at one of the active consoles located on this floor, working to disable the lockdown and trying to stop Cerberus from killing them all.
"Goddess," Liara breathes out, pale and frightened from the close call, as the doors leading to another room of the upper level open and yet more Cerberus reinforcements throw themselves at Shepard and her crew, this one led by the mildly irritating guardians.
The narrow halls here are just perfect for Liara and Aria to work their biotics in sound unison, the biotic detonations covering the whole width of the hallway, and Cerberus soldiers have no way of protecting themselves from the deadly attacks. All Cerberus attempts to distract EDI from her task at the console prove fruitless, most of them killed by the biotics, Shepard putting several bullets from her sniper rifle through the narrow slits of the guardian shields to mop up the stragglers.
"Hangar bay procedure has been disabled," EDI reports shortly after, allowing them all to take a quick breath of relief. "However, I cannot remove the lockdown of the hangar. But I can access their fighter launch controls."
"Great, disable them, let's take the pressure off from our fleets," Shepard orders.
"Wait... maybe we can do better than that," Liara speaks hastily. "It should be possible to hack the platform controls and turn the fighter to face the wall instead of the launch bay exit."
"Use their own fighter to punch a way through to the heart of the base?" Aria chuckles, looking excited. "That's one hell of a sexy plan, T'Soni. You've got my approval."
"Yes, that would work," EDI nods. "The platform rotation controls are on the other side of the upper levels, and now that Cerberus are aware that the venting attempt failed, they are sending additional reinforcements."
"More and more good news," Aria grins salaciously. "I clearly have not killed enough of those bastards yet. Bring 'em on!"
Several Cerberus squads later, they reach the rotation controls and EDI hacks the safety protocols, allowing the prepped fighter to be turned towards the hangar doors, the Cerberus pilot inside the fighter looking mightily surprised not to be facing the open sky but the wall of the facility. The fighter launch controls themselves are located back down in the hangar bay, so Shepard and her friends waste no time in getting down there, EDI swiftly beginning the fighter launch procedure. The fighter pilot has by now realized that something is wrong and he is trying to crawl out of his seat, but as he is about to open the cover and throw himself out, the fighter suddenly takes off, crashing against the hangar doors with a deafening explosion that rocks the entire station, instantly killing the pilot and anyone in its path as the craft's carcass carves a way deep towards the inner sanctum of the base.
"That was... very impressive," Liara remarks, looking at the gaping hole where the hangar bay doors once stood.
"Can we find another hangar and do it again?" Aria asks in a husky voice, Shepard noticing that her eyes are slightly glassy as she observes the destruction.
"No time to get distracted, Buttercup," Shepard chuckles, seeing another Atlas appearing behind the gaping hole in the doors, accompanied by a large group of troopers. "We have more friends incoming!"
Aria snaps out of it, immediately running towards a small alcove at the side of the hangar bay, ignoring Shepard's shouting directed at her. "I saw an empty Atlas in there, Shepard!" she yells back, ducking into the alcove and just barely avoiding a rocket barrage that the enemy Atlas sends in her direction. "Oh yeah! Feast on this!" the Pirate Queen cheers, quickly getting into the empty mech and guiding it out of the alcove, immediately surprising the Cerberus squad by unleashing her own rocket barrage that makes an impact right in the middle of the attackers.
The destruction it causes is indescribable. Body parts are thrown all over the hangar in smaller and larger lumps, parts of someone's intestines fall at their feet and wrap around EDI's leg like a grotesque, bloody snake. The only thing left standing is the Cerberus Atlas, but it also is rocking and on its very last legs, succumbing when Shepard and EDI unload plasma charges into its frame, Liara augmenting the damage with her warp fields and finally sending the mech detonating in a fiery blast.
"Research personnel, lock all terminals and destroy all data below Classification Level Epsilon," the voice on the loudspeakers rings throughout the whole station, making Shepard quietly hope that the command does not apply to the Catalyst intel.
EDI informs Shepard that this has been the last Cerberus team in the area, and they swiftly proceed through the hole in the hangar bay doors. However, it soon becomes clear that following the direct path carved by the fighter will be impossible, a wall of fire in their way now forcing them to seek an alternative route, finding it in the shape of an access door to their left. As EDI begins to work on opening the door, needing more time to deal with the updated encryption used by Cerberus, Morgan manages to convince Aria to finally abandon the Atlas, simply because she would never be able to get the mech through some of the narrow passages, the Pirate Queen eventually agreeing with extreme reluctance.
"Just think if I had decided against bringing you along..." Shepard sighs, watching EDI work. Well, at least not ALL of my decisions prove to be moronic in the end.
"Cerberus would have vented the hangar, yes," EDI nods, barely perceptibly.
"Glad you decided to join us, EDI," Morgan grins, watching Aria finally climbing out of the mech and approaching them, almost glowing from excitement. However, what Aria does next takes her completely by surprise, making her eyes widen with disbelief.
"Blowing Cerberus up with their own mech... damn, that makes me feel all hot and bothered," Aria purrs, wrapping her arms around Liara's midsection from behind, and reaching close to run her tongue across Liara's cheek, Shepard watching her lover becoming stiff and completely mortified in Aria's arms. "And your biotics are just such a turn-on, T'Soni. Damn, such a rush!" she exclaims, planting a sloppy, wet kiss on Liara's cheek, releasing the other asari, Liara almost toppling into Morgan's arms, eyes wide from shock.
"Maybe you... ah, shouldn't do that, Aria," Morgan remarks, feeling a little stunned. Okay, that was completely crazy. She's crazy... I should probably rant at her for licking my girlfriend and tell her to suck her own Tevos-shaped popsicle... but whoa, that look on Liara's face, that was worth a million credits! "I think you just gave Liara a heart attack, and we need her for the rest of the mission, too," she adds, doing her best to sound stern and reprimanding, but the Pirate Queen looks undeterred.
"No promises, Shepard," Aria grins, watching Liara slowly come back to her senses, blinking rapidly. "Sometimes, I just can't help myself. Maybe next time I'll assault you," before Shepard can react, Aria reaches out and pinches her cheek, leaving her blushing wildly and shaking her head as the Pirate Queen struts away, following EDI through the now open doors.
They arrive in a mostly burning hallway, EDI pointing at a shaft leading to the lower levels. "We must proceed through a sublevel to avoid Cerberus containment measures," the synthetic informs them as they approach the ladder pointing downwards. "It should lead us to the central lab at the heart of this facility. If the Catalyst is to be found here, that is where we must go."
"You just want to get us crawling through ominous and nasty looking ducts," Shepard grumbles, looking down in the access shaft, not seeing much in the darkness.
"It could be full of Cerberus troopers to kill, if we're lucky!" Aria grins, the first one to descend down the ladder, almost quivering in anticipation.
"That's not something a sane person should hope for!" Liara exclaims, shaking her head at Aria's antics, still flushing a little purple from the Pirate Queen's touch.
Aria's wish sadly comes true with Cerberus directing their forces to the sublevel as soon as they appear and soon the narrow spaces are swarming with troopers, centurions and the odd nemesis. But the circumstances are again perfect for the two biotics to work in a tandem, Aria and Liara cleaning the hallways with devastating efficiency, relegating Shepard to the mop-up duty as she spends most of the time in combat cloaked, now and then emerging behind a Cerberus soldier who thinks he has evaded the biotic attacks, only to see the tip of Shepard's omni-blade poking out of his chest.
"That log we found on Horizon indicated that hundreds and hundreds of indoctrinated refugees were sent here from Sanctuary," Liara speaks as they reach the end of the sublevel, looking at another access shaft that leads back towards the main hallways. "Some of them... could be the people we told to go there..."
Shepard swallows heavily at the implication. More innocents dead because of my decisions, just what I didn't want to know. Fuck the responsibility. Fuck the pain and the pressure that comes with it. "Yeah," she eventually replies hoarsely. "Can't let that thought stop us now, though. I am constantly reminding myself of what you told me last night." Liara looks at her curiously. "In success, redemption," Morgan speaks quietly.
Liara nods silently and follows Aria and EDI back upstairs, the others having already forged ahead. As Shepard climbs up the ladder, she emerges in a complex of tidy and clean labs that have seen only minimal damage from the Cerberus fighter carving its path through the station, and EDI is already working on getting them through the next set of doors. "Shepard, the console to your left has not been fully scrubbed. It contains data that you may find interesting," the synthetic says, having noticed that Shepard has joined them.
"Right, let's see..." Morgan walks towards the console and activates it. "Eh, just some video logs," she says, selecting the first one.
"It is leftover footage from Project Lazarus," EDI explains. "Do you require a reminder about the goal of that project, Commander?"
"Uh... not really," Morgan says uneasily. The topic of her resurrection is still a bit of a mystery to her, Miranda never wanting to go into much detail over just what had been done to her, and Morgan is not entirely certain that she actually wants to know the full truth. Still, knowing that some of the information might be important, she forces herself to watch the footage, some Cerberus scientist arguing to Tim that Shepard's corpse is in too bad shape to even attempt resurrection. Tim clearly disagrees and the scientist in charge is immediately replaced with Miranda Lawson. "Exposure to vacuum... probably extensive damage when my body entered the atmosphere..." Morgan speaks, finding it extremely disturbing to be referring to her own corpse. "...ugh, there couldn't have been much left."
"I brought you to Cerberus in a box, Morgan. It... wasn't a very big box," Liara says, her voice barely a whisper. "Please... I don't want to remember those days..."
"Am I still really me if they rebuilt me from virtually nothing? I've always felt like myself, though," Morgan shrugs, remembering her initial doubts after waking up in that Cerberus lab almost a year ago. "And I'm sure you would have noticed if I'm merely a highly advanced AI when we melded, right?" she turns back to Liara.
"You are the same Commander Shepard I fell in love with, Morgan," Liara replies simply.
Morgan sighs theatrically. "You just stole my deep and emotional moment of pointless angst and self flagellation, where I agonize about the true nature of my existence. You ruin everything, T'Soni."
Liara steps closer to her and bonks her lightly on the back of her head. "In this case, I am happy to have ruined such foolishness," she says, making Morgan grin like a fool.
"Anyway, let's see what else is there," she says then, selecting the next log. Another scientist is arguing with Tim that Shepard will never work with Cerberus. The Illusive Man dismisses him, claiming that Shepard will do whatever it takes to stop the Collectors. The final log is from the time when Shepard was close to waking up and Tim is telling his operatives to put together a sympathetic crew to populate the Normandy with, in hopes that it will blind Shepard to the true nature of Cerberus. He mentions Kelly Chambers, Donnelly and Daniels, Chakwas and Joker, the openness with which he describes his manipulative plans making Shepard seethe in anger. "Well, I should thank him for that bottle of Thessia Red," she says, grinding her teeth. "As for the rest, his plan failed miserably. I never did come to see Cerberus as something other than evil, self-serving and manipulative bunch of bastards."
"I'm happy to let you have some fun with the Illusive Man before you kill him, as long as I can have Kai Leng all to myself," Aria allows magnanimously. "I am... reluctant to admit it, but the Illusive Man manipulated me as well, on several occasions. I should have known better than to trust his offers that clearly were too good to be true."
"We are clear to proceed," EDI informs them before anyone can say anything else, the group of four continuing to advance through the once sterile hallways stretching between the labs, now strewn with debris and damaged lab equipment, fire breaking out in many of the halls, some of the testing substances used having been violently explosive and inflammatory.
They begin to seek their way through the corridors, when suddenly Admiral Hackett decides that this would be a good time to demand an update. "Incursion team, what's your status?" he asks on the comms.
"We're making good progress through the base, sir," Shepard replies. "Not sure how far to reach the central lab, but so far so good. What about our fleets?"
"The defense grid has been disabled, all though we have lost all other ground teams. Something about vented hangars, as I understand," Hackett says grimly. Oh, so that's why he didn't use the designated name for our squad, we're the only ones left, Morgan realizes. "But Cerberus fleet is about to be destroyed down to the last ship. Not a single agent will flee this base, Cerberus becomes history as of today."
"That's great, sir. Just give us a bit of time to recover the intel before you blow this place to smithereens, alright? Don't pull a Gerrel on us, Admiral Hackett."
"Not to worry, we'll give you time," Hackett replies. "Do you want us to send in support teams?"
"Nah, we'll be fine, sir. No need to risk more good people, I think we can handle this," Shepard says, following the others as she talks with the admiral.
"Alright, we'll keep mopping up the Cerberus stragglers. Good luck in there," Hackett says, ready to terminate the connection.
"Understood. Blossom out," Shepard replies, remembering Garrus' insistence that she uses her callsign.
"...pardon?" Hackett asks, sounding surprised beyond description and Shepard begins to suspect that someone has played a horrible prank on her.
"Uh... err, I... you should probably ignore that, sir," she replies, blushing mightily, already grinding her teeth as she switches the comms off. "Once we're out of this place, a certain someone is going to get their ass kicked all the way to the Sol System..."