Chapter 32
"Kar'Welkas. . ."
Kar woke up to the sounds of a seemingly infinite number of voices whispering his name. These weren't audible whispers, strangely. He somehow knew that these voices were all in his head. He just knew it. Was he going crazy? Had the injection exhausted him so badly that he was hearing his own disjointed thoughts as they woke him up? Either way, it sure made concentrating on opening his eyes to figure out what was going on a lot harder. Everything in his body burned, but it was disconnected. He knew it should've hurt, but it didn't. It was difficult to comprehend, but he found it easier to blame his captain for poisoning him. After some effort, he was able to bring his thoughts together enough to focus on his situation. He was messed up, but he was a Migrant Fleet Marine, and he wasn't about to simply lay down and die.
His eyes creaked open. The light from the haptic adaptive interface screens from the bridge seemed far brighter than he was used to. It pointed out to him that he was experiencing a significant headache. Nevertheless, he forced his eyes open wide to get an idea of how things had changed since his blackout. His first thought was that he was thankful to be alive. His second was that the figure that had attacked him was still on the bridge manipulating the controls of the Kellius. Curiously, the external blue glow from FTL travel was absent. He wondered if they were even moving, since the view outside of the viewports was nothing but empty blackness.
"Kar'Welkas. . ."
He reached for his shotgun, first discovering that moving his arms felt. . . Unusual. It was tight, as if his arms had swelled up to the limit that his suit would allow. Not only that, it felt remarkably stiff. Something was keeping his arm from moving the way his brain was accustomed to, as though something was inside it. Lastly, he realized his shotgun was missing, likely removed by his assailant. If he wanted to take the Kellius back, he would have to improvise.
He made his first attempt to stand up as quietly as possible. His advantage of being ignored would be wasted if he brought undue attention. The problem was that most of his body, not just his arms, were similarly stiff and difficult to move. This resulted in his footing not lining up in time, which caused him to lose balance and tilt sideways against the nearest bulkhead. There was a light klank as his helmet tapped the metal, which was more than enough to sound off his presence to the captain. Kar knew he had lost his advantage and he charged her the very moment his footing was sure.
As expected, the being turned her head to observe what had caused the noise and immediately pulled a familiar pistol to defend herself. Fortunately, Kar was already close enough to do something about it before proper aim could be taken. He batted the pistol out of the would-be quarian's hand with surprising strength, but suffered an opposite knee to the chest. A very solid knee to the chest. His natural response was to curl from the impact, but he stepped back into the neck of the ship to prevent it from happening a second time. All the while, he made an effort to keep his eye on his opponent. The time he spent learning hand-to-hand combat training with Arla wasn't a waste after all.
He had a slight moment to notice a change in the way his body behaved. When he first woke, he was stiff and couldn't move very well. Now that he was in a flight or fight situation, things seemed to move faster and with more precision than ever before – even to the point where it was as unnerving as it was refreshing. Unfortunately, his training had been focus on learning the ways of civilized combat, and he was pretty sure that this imposter wasn't going to simply go for the win. This was a fight to the death, and he had to pull from military training for this if he wanted to come out alive.
"Kar'Welkas. . ."
Those pestering voices were going to get to him. Eventually. Right now, he had focus, and he wasn't letting go of it. The 'captain' charged him to follow up on his reeling from the knee to the chest, so Kar ducked left behind one of the chairs facing the terminals on the side of the hall. The assaulter had to halt her charge due to the sudden introduction of an obstruction. Since the captain had played right into his strategy, Kar lunged out and swung a fist right at one of the areas not protected by armor – the low abdomen. This is where things got a bit more strange - where he expected a fleshy and soft impact that would send the attacker to the floor, he instead experienced the disconnected pain of cracking his knuckles against what seemed to be segmented metal plating. The captain fell to the floor a couple meters away, sure, but he wasn't going to be punching with that hand again any time soon. While Kar was busy wrapping his head around the fact that he just punched someone nearly two meters clear down the hall, the captain got back up, completely unphased at the dent in her chest. Well, that was just a little disheartening.
Kar needed a new plan. Simply punching it to death wasn't going to work, even if he had absurdly enhanced strength. It clearly didn't respond to pain, either. He needed to put it down in one shot somehow. For now, though he tapped wildly on his omni-tool and threw out his combat drone to buy some time to think. For a while, it worked. The combat drone drew the captain's attention long enough for Kar to look for his shotgun, but it was nowhere to be seen. He studied the being for a second as she attempted to fight off the combat drone. Its movement was stiff as well, but not in the sense that it was having trouble moving. That was about all the time he had to study it for, though. After the captain realized that trying to swipe the drone out of the air wasn't working, it unleashed an omni-tool based electrical overload on the little bot. In a blinding flash of arcing electricity and frying hardware, the combat drone fell to pieces on the floor on the spot.
That immediately gave Kar an idea. If the attacker under the guise of his captain was made of – or at least lined with – metal alloys or other conductive materials, an overload would do more than just fry systems and force a suit reboot. During the time it took him to figure this out, however, the captain made a mad dash for the bridge. Kar wondered why the assailant would suddenly retreat. Unless. . .
"Kar'Welkas. . . The pistol."
The pistol! The young quarian's swollen eyes opened wide. He only had enough time to set up the overload, but the imposter would likely get enough shots off to pierce his shields and armor before he could execute it. In a desperate move, he charged the distracted opponent while setting up the overload. As the captain brought the pistol around to fire at him, he ducked under her aim and shoved the heavy body as hard as he could. The tackled quarian staggered backwards until she smacked hard into the back of the helmsman's chair. Like a machine, it recovered again with almost no trouble and brought the pistol to aim on Kar's helmet. . . But it was too late. Kar had bought enough time to finish out an exceptionally overpowered electrical overload command and execute it on the imposter. Electricity burst forth from his omni-tool and then in all directions from the entity as it jerked uncontrollably in place. After the split second lightshow had died off, the scorched quarian fell limp onto the floor with a metallic thud.
"Kar'Welkas. . ."
The battle was over. Kar's omni-tool was fried, but the Kellius had been retaken. Kar needed to get it back to the geth structure before he blacked out again. Now that the fight was done, he felt the stiffness returning. The whispers in his head were violently increasing in number the more the Kellius continued to head into dark space. He had to summon extra willpower to get himself into the bridge in order to effect its return to the edge of the galaxy.
"Your companions are irrelevant. Leave them."
"Shut up!" Kar yelled as he struggled to make his way forward.
"They will be obliterated."
"It cannot be averted."
"The imminence of their eradication is beyond your ability to control."
"Don't tell me what I can't do! Get out of my head!" Kar had finally reached the bridge while smacking a fist against the side of his helmet. He looked out of the viewports into the abyss of dark space to see if there was someone messing with his comms, but there was nothing to see. Despite this, he felt a pull – an indescribable and involuntary pull at his left hand. Without his conscious permission, his left hand began to waver over the controls on the haptic interface that would shut down the engines. Terrified, he used the injured right hand he still had control over to bring it back to his side. His thoughts were swirling in an ocean of commands and whispers that went against everything he was trying to accomplish. Just entering the proper commands for the Kellius to backtrack to the structure and settle where it had been sitting was a monumental battle of wills.
"What are you?" Kar cried out to the blackness.
"We are."
"What? That doesn't even make sense!"
"We simply are."
Kar didn't have time for this. He could almost tangibly feel his sanity being ripped away, and he still had to finish out the flight commands and find some way to keep himself from stopping said commands against his will. A few remaining strained taps secured the Kellius's new direction; all there was left to do now was secure himself. He fought wave after wave of incredibly compelling, yet indecipherable suggestions and forced himself out of the bridge.
His steps were heavy. Something was weighing him down, yet there was no equipment on his person that he didn't normally carry. His mind was reduced to one-track thinking, as it was all he was able to maintain. He focused on that to battle this losing fight and make his way to an area where he thought he could do the least harm – the port observation lounge. Once inside, he made the door shut and he called upon Terra to handle the rest.
"Terra! Terra!"
"Yes, Kar'Welkas?"
"Lock this door! Seal it! Lock it so that nothing I could possibly do can open it!"
"Acknowledged. Locking Port Observation Lounge door."
Kar fell down into a sitting position with his knees to his chest against the back of the couch. He wasn't done fighting – not yet. He had to do all he could to make sure that if there was anyone still alive in the geth structure that they'd be notified the moment the Kellius pulled into position. He had to fight, but at least the hardest part was over. He drew in an unsteady breath and prayed to Keelah that he could hold out long enough to see his squadmates again.
-Elsewhere. . .-
The rising doors of the opening containers forced the team to back up against each other perpendicular to the aisle in order to keep enough eyes on all sides. Weapons trained down each half bounced back and forth between the left and right sides, vying for a threatening target to unleash their fury at. The problem was, no one knew exactly what they were up against. This whole situation was on the completely messed up end of the spectrum, and that left them with very little insight as to how to handle it. What made matters worse, they began to notice that as the container covers in their particular aisle were nearly fully opened, they could see the containers in other aisles were nearly opened as well. Now they were not only in a screwed up, foreign situation, now they were absurdly outnumbered. They were starting to hope these things didn't have weapons.
"Orders?" Riik nervously barked.
"Hold your fire," Tyr stated all to calmly. "Let's not give them a reason to attack us."
"Are you kidding me?" Riik shot back. Nevertheless, he followed his orders.
In rhythmic sequence, quarian bodies stepped out of their respective holding cells and turned to face the interlopers like programmed mechs. They paused like that, simply staring at the mildly frightened team of organics for at least a minute. Just when Kevin and company were starting to wonder if they might be able to slip out, the zombified collective of supposedly dead quarians emitted the most horrific sound to ever come out of an exo-suit.
The geth stutter.
Just like that, the entire menagerie of bodies began a charge on the compressed group. They didn't hobble, limp, or sway like Kevin had expected, however. They seemed like fully able-bodied quarians charging to punch him in the face. This detail was soon lost over the panic of being completely surrounded by closing hostiles as the ambient noise of hundreds upon hundreds of heavy-footed quarians echoed about the room.
"To the door!" Tyr shouted as he opened fire in the opposite direction Kevin was facing.
Chaos broke free and reigned over the area. All at once, the team lit up the aisle in front of them with small arms fire, doing their best to clear enough of a path to make it to the entrance of that God-forsaken room. Fortunately, the hostile quarians still fell 'dead' if one put enough shots into them, so there was still a chance for them to make it out alive. They had to coordinate volleys so that they wouldn't all have to dump heatsinks at the same time since even the slightest lull in their fire would give way to an unstoppable wave of angry once-dead attackers. The team's forward pace had to be maintained, lest they might have fallen prey to the living wall of hostiles behind them. No one even thought about whether or not they were shooting down their fellow quarians or not. This was a kill or be killed situation as far as they knew, and there was no room for any level of emotional or political input.
At the base of the ramp that led to the hallway, the path cleared out. There were no hostiles that far away from the containers, so they were able to focus on getting out of dodge. That was all well and fine until a small squad of armed geth appeared in the threshold. They were immediately and violently gunned down on the spot as the team of terrified organics fled the room with all haste. They didn't even bother with proper tactical coverage of the hallway once they made it out. They just wanted to get far, far away from those containers. They took a left and sprinted up the hallway they had just finished backtracking through.
Kevin looked back at the door surrounded by shot-up geth bits. A small number of quarians emerged from inside the room and looted the geth of all their weapons and thermal clips. Interestingly, only enough quarians emerged from the room to replace the number of geth that had been shot. This showed that they had some form of intelligence – they knew that pursuing an armed squad without weapons was absolutely illogical. So much for the zombie theory.
They continued down the hall in full tilt, only pausing long enough to eradicate the small groups of geth troops that showed up to combat them. Flying sparks and muzzle flashes illuminated the still dark hallways, causing fierce visual and audio noise that only added to the tension. After a few frantic minutes of getting as far from the center room as possible, the squad realized that they had finally evaded the swarming amalgam of undead quarians. Unfortunately, their position was now compromised, and the hurried firefights in the hallways were becoming alarmingly frequent. They decided that they needed to find a space to bunker down for a couple minutes to get some solid footing and a chance to rebuff their resolve. This need was conveniently filled after a turn of a corner revealed that the hallway opened up into an open room with most of the usable space off to the left. It was loaded with well-spaced unused equipment, likely stored for future use.
Seizing the opportunity, they moved in and rearranged the equipment to function as walls to serve as an on-the-fly bunker. It wasn't perfect, but it was far better than standing in an empty hallway using pipes for cover. There were two directions that they would have to defend from: the corner they rounded to get there and the continuation of the hallway on the opposite side. Riik and Ralik set up on the hallway side to defend, and Kevin and Tosh set up on the corner side. Bela, Tyr, and Arla crouched in the middle to assess their situation.
"Where are we at?" Arla asked Tyr, her voice nearly cracking as she strained to overcome the sounds of combat.
"Not as close as we'd like," Tyr replied likewise volume. "We've got some ways to go to reach the hangar, both assuming that it's not sealed off and that it's in a relatively straight line."
"How long can we withstand these waves?" Bela yelled. Her answer was delayed by the fact that some shots passed over their makeshift barrier, causing falling sparks and flinching all around.
"At the rate they're increasing?" Tyr said after the external combatants were downed. "Half an hour, maybe one. It's only a matter of time before that new biotic class and the prime class get involved."
The combat picked up quickly once more, again reducing the three's conversation to shouting matches. "Merni!" Arla called out. "Go cover for Rolush! Tell him we need his map!"
Bela simply nodded and moved back to tap Tosh on the back. She explained it over the sounds of repeating gunfire while numerous geth pulse rifle shots blasted their temporary walls. Within a few seconds, Tosh turned around and took Bela's spot in the middle. Without being asked, he knelt down, set down his shotgun, and activated his omni-tool map program. A screen appeared for all to see detailing their progress through the structure.
Tosh pointed to some lines and some gaps as he started to explain, "We've covered more than sixty percent of the distance to the hangar, but there's a lot of unknown variables here! We might have to elude these constant geth attacks if we want any chance to close the distance without casualties!"
Casualties. That's not a word they were looking forward to hearing. Unfortunately, no one had time to mull over that.
Kevin could hear the conversation unfolding behind him. He frowned at mention of casualties, but had to concentrate on the waves of hostile synthetic bodies bearing down on them. As he bounced back an forth between targets, occasionally raining blistering hot heat sinks all around the bunker, he could feel an ominous warmth enveloping his mind. Within a few seconds, his peripheral vision was overtaken by non-existent flashing dots and his head was racked with extreme pain. He knew right away what was happening, and it filled him with dread – he was about to have a neural episode. Not now. . . He thought to himself. Not here! With no way to stave off the disabling attack, he could no longer stay in the fight and he fell to the ground writhing and clutching his helmet.
Tyr shook his head. "Either way, we need to pull out of here! We're going to get boxed in-" He was interrupted by cries of help from behind Tosh.
"I need help up here!" Bela shouted. "Kevin's down!"
"Tosh! Cover!" Arla ordered as she rushed over to Kevin. He was down, but he didn't appear hit. His shields were still displaying as up, yet he was curled up as though he had just taken a devastating blow. She could hear him groaning in pain even over the gunfire, but she had absolutely no idea what was wrong. She knelt beside him and placed her gun down on the ground. She tugged him aside so that Tosh could properly set up while she continued to search for the problem. "Kevin! Kevin! Are you hit? What's wrong?"
There was no reply other the sounds of agony. She still couldn't see any actual damage, yet he was clearly in excruciating pain. She didn't know what to do. She felt. . . She felt entirely helpless. It was one thing to be aware someone was in pain, but it was entirely another to have them completely disabled right in front of her because of it. It brought a lump to her throat, because she knew that there was nothing she could do to ease whatever was ruining him. It got to the point that others were peering over their shoulders at her and Kevin because they were distracted by the disturbing intensity of his pain.
Arla kept frantically searching for a cause while becoming increasingly distressed. "Oh Keelah. . . Kevin! Get up! Come on, I don't know. . . I don't know how to help you!" More loud cracks caused sparks to rain down on them as shots flew wide over the makeshift walls.
"We need another gunner over here!" Riik desperately shouted above the audible chaos.
Arla looked up from Kevin to see that Tyr had joined the firing line with Tosh and Bela while Riik and Ralik's position was in danger of being overrun. This wave was far more intense than the last few, it seemed, and she could hear distortion rockets combusting against the increasingly frail bunker walls. She suddenly felt inconveniently conflicted. She had to go assist Ralik and Riik, but. . . She couldn't bring herself to leave Kevin's side. Assist the squad or. . . Assist the one?
She looked back down to Kevin to see that he had rolled over onto his knees with the face of his visor planted on the floor and hands on his head. He was attempting to get up, but his motions looked strained in a way she had never seen from him before. She laid her right hand on top of his as they continued to grasp at his helmet, and she gave a slight squeeze to reassure him that she was still around. She drew in a deep breath and grabbed her rifle so that she could do what must be done and assist the firing lines to preserve the squad. After all, if the firing lines fell, so too would he."Kevin, please stay down. I'm going to help the others." After one final hesitation, she finally let go of his hands and rose to assist Riik and Ralik.
Kevin could hear everything – all of it caused him torment. He was conscious, though, and he was at least aware of the crippling situation he was putting the squad in; they couldn't move out until he was combat effective. Arla must have figured that they would have no idea how long he'd be in this condition, so they were essentially committing themselves to a battle destined to fail. He wasn't about to let that happen, but he couldn't even move right now, much less assist in the fight. It was depressing, knowing that you were the weakest link in an efficiency-focused squad, even if it was only temporary. He couldn't think about that right now, however. Thinking hurt as much as anything else. There was something, though, that snapped his brain out of its useless state. It broke through the noise of the surrounding battle by going straight through the comms.
"K-Kellius to. . . To. . . Kellius to the shore party! Co-come in!" It was Kar'Welkas, much to Kevin's surprise. He sounded injured, though. As if he was losing sanity due to a loss of blood. And there was heavy breathing as well. Something was wrong. "Sh-ore party, do you. . . Read. . . Do you read?"
Kevin's eyes snapped open. The blurry world was sluggishly coming into focus as the immense pain in his head began to recede. "Kevin. . . Kevin to Kellius. Augh. Good God, Kar, we thought you were dead. Where are you?" Kevin noticed the others speedily looking at each other in surprise. It was clear they were listening in.
"I programmed the. . . Kellius. . . Augh. . . I-"
"Kar, what's going on? Respond!" Arla said.
"The ship will dock. . . where it was before! You guys need to hurry, I'm. . . powerless to halt the unavoidable. . ."
"What. . ." Kevin wondered aloud. It was almost as if he was forced to say that last line.
"We're only going to be swept away, like cosmic dust-" The comms cut out at that point.
Kevin's head hurt, but he wasn't incognizant. He knew the Kellius was back in its place and he knew they had to move now if they wanted any chance of making it there before something else went wrong. Thanks to Kar's shocking, yet welcome announcement of his arrival, Kevin's neural episode had ended and was receding. He got up, assault rifle in hand, and moved over to stand between Bela and Tyr while gathering dark energy to himself. It was one of the most messed up feelings he had ever experienced, drawing up dark energy during the downward slope of a neural episode. It felt like he was being cooked from the inside out. Painful, unpleasant, and extremely necessary.
"Cover me!" Kevin barked as his side of the bunker cleared out the last few visible geth from view.
While everyone was surprised to see Kevin up and combat effective this quickly, it didn't stun them enough to keep them from laying down suppressive fire anywhere geth were present. This pressed the remaining geth into cover, allowing Kevin to jump over the bunker wall and sprint towards the corner they themselves rounded not too long ago. Around the corner he saw a whole hallway full of approaching synthetics of various make, each with hostile red-lit lenses and weapons drawn. He was expecting this, however, and didn't even give them the time to take aim before he unleashed the full fury of his dark energy in the form of a powerful biotic shockwave wide enough to fill the hall. Row by row the metal beings were violently undone and sent back down the way they came. When several of his squadmates finally rounded the corner behind him to see his fate, they looked upon a hallway whose floor was coated in a chaotic mess of geth parts and displaced outcroppings from the structure.
"Keelah. How many were there?" Tyr asked.
"Not important," Riik urgently stated, running past everyone. "We're going to be followed the entire way, let's get a move on!"
"Right!" several voices chimed at once. Within the second, the entire team was barreling down the corridor. They held their weapons close to their chests as they ran, getting as much speed as they could without holstering their weapons.
Kevin's vision wasn't done tunneling, and he was constantly fighting his body. He could only guess that the crazy amount of adrenaline coursing through his veins was the only thing keeping him moving. He knew full well that the long, final stretch of hallway was going to be a bloody mess since they didn't have time to take cover, so even as he still fought to push back the final remnants of his neural attack, he prepared more dark energy for use. Luckily, despite his vigorous use of his biotics, it didn't seem to be exacerbating the attack in any way. This was good news for him, as he had never dared experiment with it in the past to find out if such was the case.
When they rounded the final corner and started down the long hallway, they spotted the 'quarians' who had armed themselves with geth weaponry earlier making their way towards the unfinished room where the Kellius supposedly sat. Arla wasted no time whatsoever getting their attention by taking a couple shots with her sniper rifle. One shot was deflected by surprisingly functional shielding and the second placed itself in the side of the head of her target. By the time the rest of them could turn around to take aim with their geth pulse rifles, they were already facing several volleys of fire from the rest of the team. Without any significant cover to block the numerous shots, they were torn to pieces in a matter of seconds amongst showers of sparks and smoke.
Around them, Kevin's hunch was proving true. The many holes along the floor on either side of the corridor were being used as doorways which geth jumped or crawled through. Any unfortunate enough to do so in front of the hustling team was immediately shot down, though any that appeared behind were more or less ignored. As rear-side incoming fire began to threaten the integrity of the squad's various kinetic barriers, Kevin turned around and threw up a sizable and powerful biotic barrier linked to his momentum. True to its nature, the barrier deflected incoming pulse blasts enough to provide the escaping group some mobile cover, enabling them to focus on getting the heck out.
Finally, their destination was close. The squad crowded around the lone door keeping them from their desperate escape. Each turned around and laid down covering fire to give Tosh some time to run his powercycling program. Kevin reinforced his failing barrier with more dark energy – just enough to give them time to make it out the door. This task was made progressively more difficult due to the heightened number of distortion rockets bombarding the other side. Luckily, the door was open in less than a minute and the team backed into the empty, space-exposed room beyond.
Or what they thought empty. Before anyone could even breathe a sigh of relief, they spotted four purple-sheened geth turning to face them, all standing in a row between them and the beautiful, beautiful Kellius. Kevin recognized how bad this situation was instantly, and something in his brain clicked. The disastrous situation around them slowed down substantially, and Kevin watched as his squadmates sluggishly brought their weapons up to fire. Kevin knew from the get-go that this wasn't going to cut it. Even though Bela was prepping her launcher, the squad wouldn't be able to break the geth's shimmering biotic barriers before the ominous synthetics could unleash their dark energy on the escaping team. That would spell certain disaster for sure – based upon what he saw in the research room, four of them could ultimately kill his entire team in one fell swoop by splattering their fragile bodies against the unyielding metal wall behind them.
Kevin had an advantage in thinking time over his squadmates, but not over the geth. He had to act right now if he wanted any chance to survive. Even as he thought that, he could see the lenses in their heads spinning counterclockwise and back, calculating the perfect distance with which to launch a biotic attack. The memories of cabs full of Eclipse soldiers colliding together in a brilliant flash of sparks blinked in his head for a fraction of a second, reminding him of how to handle a situation like this. He threw his right hand out diagonally from him and away from the right side of the geth, launching a powerful and concentrated biotic throw. With his left hand preparing its own dark energy manipulation, he created a miniscule well of energy to curve the biotic throw around so that it would ultimately hit the rightmost geth square in the side.
The hit was dead on, and the impacted geth – whose barrier could not withstand the full biotic force in a concentrated area – violently collided with his comrades one after the other. The four of them skidded away, shooting flickers of heated metal around as the scraped against the floor. Only one of them was actually disabled; the other three were simply knocked down quite messily. This bought the squad more than enough time, however, to rain fire down upon them and deplete their barriers. Bela finished the encounter with an over-the-top explosive let loose from her launcher. The synthetic bodies erupted in a mixture of concussive force and temporary fire, which was quickly snuffed out by the vacuum of space.
Weary of this place, the squad hurried over to the airlock, hoping it wasn't still locked out. Tosh made quick work of accessing the door's controls, and to his relief, was able to open it. Everyone filed inside without a moment's hesitation, and the door shut behind them as geth started to pour through the door on the far side of the room. Tosh overrode the decontamination sequence in favor of getting into their precious ship sooner. Inside, the team fanned out to search for intruder, fearing that it was still around.
It didn't take long. Several quarians visibly and audibly recoiled as they saw the remnants of their captain on the floor, stone still and charred from electrical current. Kevin could see that the shock of actually seeing their captain's fried suit would delay them from keeping up, so he pulled Ralik along with him to find Kar. Time was short, and something was clearly wrong with Kar earlier. Just as the two left the briefing room, Tosh caught up to them with a nod that he had their back.
"Terra, locate Kar'Welkas," Kevin called out.
Terra's tone was as oblivious as ever, "Kar'Welkas is currently sealed in the port observation lounge."
"Sealed?" Tosh asked. "Sealed by whom?"
"Kar'Welkas has ordered his own lockdown for reasons unknown."
Kevin flicked his head toward the stairwell and Ralik took point. He began to prep some dark energy just in case – his military training always had him prepping before any potentially nasty conflict since it could be dissipated without consequence. Tosh referred to his omni-tool, as always, and looked up some information.
"Welkas's vitals are still up, but the readings are all over the place. Additionally, he's got numerous warnings that he's just ignoring, like foreign entity and infection."
Bela showed up behind hem just as they got to the door. "What's going on?"
"We found Kar," Ralik stated with an unusual seriousness. "His situation is unknown. Be ready for anything."
"Who's taking point?" Tosh asked.
"I'll do it," Bela said before anyone else could get a single word in. "Just keep me covered."
Tosh looked to the ceiling, "Terra, unlock this door."
"Acknowledged, Tosh'Rolush. Lockdown removed."
Bela drew in a breath and aimed her gun down before turning into the room. Inside, no one saw Kar immediately, but Kevin noticed the all too familiar shimmer in the air behind the couch. He clenched his fist away from his gun, just in case.
Bela stepped slowly, cautious of the silence in the room."Kar, are you in here? It's alright to come out now. We've taken the Kellius."
"B-Bela? Is that. . . You? "I-I can't. . ." That was Kar's voice coming from behind the couch alright, but it sounded different. There was an extra layer of mechanized modulation in his voice. "I can't stop it!"
Suddenly, a figure that resembled a super-bulky Kar'Welkas jumped up from behind the couch and pushed forth a biotic shockwave right at Bela who in turn shrieked at the sudden ambush. Kevin was waiting for this, though. He focused all of his energy into solidifying a powerful biotic barrier that would absorb and neutralize the shockwave. The impact from the two invisible forces caused a concussive shockwave to explode outwards, knocking everyone off of their feet and reducing the couch to a compressed mess of parts. It wasn't the subtle neutralization Kevin was going for, but it was better than all of them getting blown to bits from the biotics themselves.
Surprisingly, the first back on his feet was Kar. He seemed to pulse with energy – even his face had more than two glowing dots about it. "Perish," Kar calmly demanded before ducking into a calculated charge towards Kevin. Kar wasn't that big of a quarian before, but he was easily nearly triple his normal girth now. Taking this hit as-is wasn't in his best interest, so he threw a strong negative mass effect field on the charging threat to make it harmless. Kar's mass was rendered so negligible, the gravity well ceased to have an effect on him and he started to float off of the floor. The moment he was in arm's reach of Kevin, the human fervently grasped the mad quarian and threw him to the floor. On cue, the rest of the squad laid weight on Kar to immobilize him.
"Don't kill me, please!" Kar shouted. "I. . . I can't control my body anymore! Ugh. . ."
Tosh immediately started running scans with his omni-tool as the rest of the squad finally showed up and rushed over.
"What's going on?" Arla demanded.
"Not now, Lieutenant," Tosh said.
Arla's clenched a fist at how out-of-line Tosh was just then. She was promptly calmed by Kevin's hand on her shoulder and a silent shake of his head.
"Keelah," Tosh muttered. "Millions of them. Little microscopic synthetics, rearranging his very DNA. He's hardly even quarian anymore. He's more a mix of machine and flesh than anything else."
"Make them stop!" Kar yelled as he attempted to thrash. "They're wrong! Make the voices stop, they're all wrong!"
"How do we stop them?" Bela nervously asked.
"Given how quickly they've done all this, there's no time for finesse or procedures," Tosh stated as he stood up and tapped his omni-tool a few more times. "There's only one efficient option." It was no secret what he was about to do – Overload Kar'Welkas.
Bela jumped up and violently pulled Tosh's left arm down. "No way! It's dangerous enough when he's just quarian, won't this kill him with the way he is now?"
"Probably," Ralik interjected. "It's either that or he becomes a thrall of an unknown force. Which would you rather choose for him?"
Bela let go of Tosh's arm, took a step back and shook her head. She trembled at the internal conflict waging within and she hugged herself as she looked away. "Just do it then. I'm not watching."
Tosh looked up at his comrades for a similar approval, even though he knew for a fact that the whole idea of approval in this state of affairs was artificial. Nevertheless, Kevin, Arla, and Ralik nodded in response. Tosh looked back down to poor Kar who was helplessly writhing either out of pain, struggle to be free, or just out of nerves. He stepped back and flicked his head to signal the others to let up. Kevin and the others quickly backed away from Kar, but he didn't get up right away. He looked up to the others with pleading eyes and got half-way up by way of supporting his upper body with his hands on the floor. "Guys, don't. Don't electrocute me! I'll die if you do! Just, please. . . Don't do it!" His voice matched the emotion welling in his eyes.
This caused a pause amongst the squad. The last thing they expected was for him to plead for his life while they were debating this potentially lethal move. Kevin could notice Bela hug herself tighter and Arla clenching fists. Suddenly, everyone was reevaluating the solution they were about to apply. Kevin grit his teeth. The last time he hesitated like this, the intruder got away and caused all this to happen. Not again. Kevin stood from a squat and began to address Tosh. This proved unnecessary, though, as Kar shook his head vehemently and leaned forward to pound his oversized fists on the floor. "No! Guys, that wasn't me! It was. . . Them! If you've got a plan, do it!"
"Tosh, do it!" Kevin shouted as the misshapen quarian stood angrily to his feet. Kar had no time to move, though, as a point-blank grazing blast from a modified pistol stripped him of his kinetic barriers and an arc of electricity connected with him from an omni-tool to his side.
Normally an overload from an omni-tool wasn't particularly life threatenting to organic material. It was no different than being hit by high powered law enforcement tazers through a suit. Kar, however, was no longer simply organics, and he screamed in agony. The arc of electricity danced from head to toe about three times in a second before it ceased, cutting his shriek short and leaving the oversized quarian to fall limp to the floor.
Kevin let go of a breath and holstered his pistol. There was a silent pause amongst them as they all stared at the motionless, deformed body wrapped in a quarian envirosuit stretched to its very limits. Kevin leaned over and nudged Ralik in the side. "Ralik, get us out of here before the geth find a way inside the ship. Our day's been ruined quite enough times already."
Ralik nodded solemnly and removed his helmet as he turned to leave the lounge.
Tosh squatted down next to Kar and looked up to the remaining observers. "Kevin, Riik, Tyr, could you all please help me bring him to the medical bay? His vitals are all flat, but that's likely because his suit needs to reboot. He may not be dead."
The four asked didn't even have to show agreement. They set to work hauling the big body up a deck to the med bay and laid him on the same bed Kevin woke up in after he was placed in his new suit. Tosh checked a few things on his omni-tool before exiting with the rest of the lifting team. Their next stop – the bridge. Bela and Arla remained in the lounge for the time being.
When they arrived, they found that Ralik had crudely shoved the shell of a suit to the side so he could get to the helmsman's chair. Outside the viewports, waves of various geth units were making way towards the ship as it started to crawl away from the edge of the floor. Ralik turned the Kellius to point the nose at the door they were coming through and a cruel smile flashed across his face while geth dodged left and right out of the way. With a few extra taps on the haptics, the Kellius's main cannon fired straight into the door they once exited through, causing a visually impressive collapse of the entire area surrounding the impact, going deep within the structure. The place rocked from additional explosions from within and the geth outside retreated back into the structure any way they could. Vengeance fulfilled, Ralik steered the ship back towards the planet, broke stealth, and blasted away at FTL speeds.
Meanwhile, Tosh, Kevin, Riik, and Tyr had hauled the body of the late captain into the briefing room and placed it on the table face up. Kevin, the person who was the closest to the body after it was laid down, inspected the charred suit intently. There were several areas where he poked or squeezed at the suit, causing the other quarians in the room to look at each other uncomfortably. After a couple minutes of this, Kevin reached for the front of the helmet. Reactions were immediate.
"Kevin, what in Keelah's name are you doing?" Riik asked furiously as he snatched Kevin's arm back from the suit.
"Yes, explain yourself," Tyr suggested.
"You wish to disrespect the fallen captain?" Tosh asked condescendingly.
"Everyone pipe down," Kevin spat back. "Something tells me that this isn't really the captain, if what we encountered on that geth base was anything to go by." Kevin had suspicions, but he couldn't confirm anything unless he was able to see under the suit in some fashion. "I need to know. We all deserve that much. If nothing is out of the ordinary, I'll leave it be. You have my word."
Arla and Bela stepped into the room at this point, and were visually shocked at the sight before them. Tyr raised a hand to them to let them know that there was nothing to worry about. They had to fight themselves to achieve concurrence, but they did. Tyr nodded to Kevin, and once more he reached for the head of the suit. Using the knowledge Arla passed on to him on how to open the front of his own helmet, he unlatched the captain's and slowly lifted it off. The visor was set aside as all eyes focused on what most expected to be a rotting quarian face.
What they found in its place was far more disturbing.
All remnants of quarian flesh were gone. The inside of the suit was clean and sterile. In place of the captain's body were the meager synthetic parts of the head of a geth unit. Wires and tubes ran here and there, all disappearing down the neck of the suit. There were small lights where a quarian's eyes would normally be, which simulated the slight glow typical of their race. An amalgam of cables ran to the chin of the helmet, which indicated that the geth repurposed the small light at the chin of the helmet to be used as their glowing lens-eye. The reactions of all the onlookers mirrored the same emotion – horrified disgust.
"Satisfied?" Kevin asked as he looked to Riik.
Riik wasn't looking. He had momentarily turned his head away. "Those. . . Those tepka bosh'tets! How? Why?"
Satisfied that his case had been confirmed, Kevin decided to continue. He needed to get the rest of the suit open, but he'd need some help. He certainly wasn't going to ask one of the quarians to do it right now. "Ralik, get back here! I need some help with something!"
After a minute or so, Ralik came trotting back, grumbling. ". . .Always needing something. Kevin, we're set to orbit the-" The salarian interrupted himself and recoiled. "What the. . .?"
"Ralik, I need an extra pair of of hands to help me open this suit more."
"Why not ask one of them? They're all standing right there," Ralik genuinely asked.
Kevin simply turned his head slowly and cocked it to the side to give his friend the most appalled and condemning stare he could possibly give through that helmet of his. Ralik quickly got the point. "Oh. Right. Sorry." The salarian quickly moved to Kevin's side and they spent the better part of ten minutes opening the suit from the neck down to the end of each limb. Meanwhile, the rest of the squad moved back to the medical bay to check on Kar.
What laid before them looked absolutely nothing like a quarian except in silhouette. The suit had been filled out with the entire structure of a barebones geth infiltrator with several modifications. Where the geth parts fell short of filling out the suit perfectly, small plates of metal risen off of the main body structure held the suit out. It was, by all accounts, a geth unit explicitly designed to fit into a deceased quarian's suit.
"Good God. . ." Kevin muttered. "Ralik, what do you make of it?"
"Perplexing in a large number of ways. I'm not keen on geth technology as much as the quarians are. Perhaps we should call one of them up?"
Kevin placed a fist over his chin in thought. He knew this would be particularly distressing to them, but he couldn't get any useful information about this anomaly without their expertise. "Alright." Kevin activated his comms, "Tosh'Rolush?"
"Yes, Kevin?"
He sobered up his tone. He wanted to make sure they knew he wasn't taking this lightly. "Could you come to the briefing room? We need your assistance."
There was a slight pause before he responded. "I'm on my way."
When he arrived, he started speaking before he was even through the door. "Just tell me that I won't have to handle parts of my old captain."
Kevin shook his head. "You won't. In fact, you'll find there aren't any parts of your old captain to worry about."
Tosh tilted his head at that information as he walked over to the table. "What. . . This is how you found it after opening?"
"Exactly as we found it," Ralik replied.
"It. . . It looks like this geth platform was designed for this suit. Even the smallest details about the shape of the original wearer are accounted for." He paused. "Look, here. Do you see this collection of large components all in the torso? This is extra hardware. It looks like this platform was equipped to house significantly more processes than your typical chassis. Possibly around a thousand."
"What does that mean?" Kevin inquired.
"It most likely means that these platforms were meant to be able to operate at a relatively efficient level of intelligence individually. Away from the geth clusters."
"So every single one of those quarians we encountered on that structure. . ." Kevin thought aloud. "It's like the geth are literally planning on infiltrating the Migrant Fleet. What better way to gain access to a race-exclusive armada than to become that race?"
Tosh frantically activated omni-tool to start some scans and, using his comms, called Tyr and Arla up to the briefing room. "This is bad. So very, very bad."
When Tyr and Arla arrived, Tosh showed them the geth and explained what had just been talked about. Tyr had to go sit down and rest his head in the palm of one of his hands. Arla had both of her hands on the side of her head as she wrapped her mind around this revelation.
"There's something else, too," Tosh said as he turned back to the synthetic on the table. "There are other new pieces here. See in the hands and forearm? This thin spike? It's hollow, like a syringe. It appears designed to dart out of the hand and inject something, like an insect's stinger. I'm still confirming the data with some redundant scans, but it looks like the substance it injects is actually a collection of millions and millions of microscopic machines. They're the very same ones that Kar'Welkas was infected with."
"Oh crap," Kevin let out. "So all that controlled behavior. . ."
"Someone or something is planning a nasty inside job for the Migrant Fleet," Ralik finalized.
"Oh Keelah. . ." Arla said with a shake of the head. "We need to get back and warn the Migrant Fleet! This is a serious threat to the entire flotilla!"
"We can't," Tyr stated, frustrated.
Arla looked straight at Tyr. "What? Why not?"
"There's no return relay, lieutenant. We have no way of getting back. Not to warn the flotilla, not to visit the Citadel, not even to get more fuel or food!"
Arla went completely silent.
"You didn't know?" Kevin asked calmly.
"I. . . I hadn't thought about it. There's always a return relay at the drop zone." Her voice continued to lose potency the more she spoke until it sounded downright depressed.
"What about the others?" Tyr asked.
"We'll just have to tell them outright," Tosh suggested.
"Get to it, private," Tyr ordered. The usual authoritative fire that made his orders so compelling had since abandoned him. Tosh nodded at hurried off nonetheless.
"What do we do about this thing?" Ralik said with a gesture towards the geth on the table.
"I'm not sure," Tyr said, leaning on the table with both hands. "The geth here are so. . . Different. It's almost like they're an entirely new data cluster only based off of the geth we're familiar with. Something's had a massive influence on how they think, strategize, and behave. We need to find out what did it and how for our own good."
Kevin stroked the chin of his helmet. "Let's focus on grounding our feet again, assuming that cluster of geth don't come to murder us in our sleep for putting their plans behind schedule for a year or so. Once we're settled again, we'll think about investigative recon."
"Good idea," Tyr said with a nod. He looked up and began to address everyone still around. "Go grab a meal and get some sleep, if you can. We'll land at the camp early in the morning to continue research and investigations on the surface."
Nods displayed unspoken agreement all around and the team left for the door to the hallway. In a fashion so typical that he himself was becoming aware of its predictability, Kevin hesitated on his way out to get another long look at the mess on the briefing table. He couldn't shake the feeling that Tyr was right – something was changing the geth out here on the edge of dark space. They almost seemed to enjoy how unsettled his team got when faced down with hundreds of deceased quarians. As far as he understood, synthetics shouldn't get enjoyment from such a thing. As he focused on the non-body, he heard a voice calling his name, but the words didn't really register in his mind the first time.
"Kevin, come to bed," Arla quietly implored. It seemed she found his behavior as predictable as he did. The nature of the request shook Kevin from his stupor.
"Wait, what?"
"I said, please go to bed. You used your biotics quite a bit today. I know you're exhausted."
Kevin shook his head to get his brain straight. He must have been exhausted in order to misinterpret a statement like that. "Right. Sleep." He paused and swayed. "I need a full belly first."
"The others are heading to the mess as well. I'll meet you there." She promptly exited and the door shut behind her. Faced again with the shrill silence of the briefing room, Kevin drew in a breath. It'd take a while for him to take in all that had happened today. On top of everything, his hatred for the geth was now supplemented by an urgent galactic need to be rid of these hellish synthetics. Easy there, man, Kevin thought. You'll get your chance. Kevin let go of that held breath and headed for the door. He couldn't fight anything while hungry and tired.