Chapter Three: Into the Fire
Through the door they found the security room, along with more bodies of Alliance personnel. Several of them had been executed, though others appeared to have been gunned down by the Cerberus forces.
Liara ignored the bodies, though it was clear to Shepard that it took her some effort. She strode into the security room and went to the main desk. "We'll need access to the pedway." She accessed a few screens before it flared red with a lockout. "Dammit, security's been tampered with."
A submachine gun was on a small table as she walked in. Shepard grabbed it and double checked it was still working on her way to the desk.
"Can you get access to the pedway?"
Shepard bent down to access the computer, but whoever had locked it down had done a masterful job of shutting off any possible backdoors and redundancies. "I can't seem to unlock the live feeds, but…" She lay down on her back and reached under the desk to fiddle with the wires directly. Someone had already beaten her to it though, ripping out a handful of them and frying several others. She reconnected several of them and linked the output to her omni-tool.
"Hey." Ashley's voice brought her back out from under the desk. "Did you see that?" They looked to the screens to see a woman walk up to the desk and tap something into the computer before racing away. "Who's that woman in the vid?"
Liara pushed away from the desk, standing and glaring at the screen. "That's Doctor Eva Core, she got here about a week ago. Any luck?"
Shepard tried the console again, but it was still completely shut down. "Pedway's been locked out."
Liara sighed. "All right. Look's like there's construction nearby. We can get out on the roof and find a way around from there."
Shepard pulled her pistol and nodded. "Great, let's move."
They hurried over to the door, stepping inside and fixing their helmets back on as they waited for the airlock to cycle. It opened to admit a rush of wind that threatened to knock them back. Shepard braced herself and fought out onto the roof, where ahead she could see the roiling clouds ahead.
"Storm's getting closer!" Ashely said.
Thanks for the observation.
She moved to the left, where a ladder led her down to another section of the roof. As her boots touched down she turned to sweep the area, and across the chasm saw that one of the tramways was moving. The flash of weapons fire caught her attention and she squinted to see through the dust.
"What the hell?" Ashley said behind her.
"Looks like the Alliance is still putting up a fight," Shepard said, watching as a second tram chased after the first.
Liara had joined them. "That tram leads to the archives, once Cerberus gets across, they're at the final security checkpoint."
"Then that's where we're headed."
Their route took them to the left, skirting along the outside of the complex. As they tramped along her comm unit buzzed and she heard Vega's voice. "Captain, you read me?"
"Barely, storm's causing interference."
"Tell me about it. I've lost contact with the Normandy, what's your…" The transmission cut entirely, replaced only with static.
"I didn't read that Vega, repeat?"
"I said…" And he was gone, this time only a hiss of an open commline.
"Dammit." They had reached another ladder at the end of the walkway.
"That storm's going to be in here very soon," Liara said as they began to climb.
"Yeah I think it's already here," Ashley drawled as she followed.
Up the ladder they had to leap across to the next shelter, where at once Shepard saw that the airlock had been left open.
"This airlock shouldn't be open," Liara confirmed the fairly obvious worry.
"Doesn't look like it was forced."
"No. You'd have to override security protocols."
The area beyond was entirely without power or lighting. Shepard activated the torch on the end of her rifle, still not entirely comfortable with letting Cerberus' ocular implants take over in low level lighting.
They came across the first body barely a few steps inside the door. Dressed in alliance colours and clearly dead from decompression.
"Someone vented the air from this room while they were still here."
"Looks like they died trying to claw their way out."
"This is brutal, even by Cerberus' standards."
Shepard wasn't so sure about that observation, but she said nothing, leading them around the edge of the upper walkway. There was a set of stairs leading down, and everywhere the torch beams touched she saw more bodies. They passed by a smaller seating area with some vending machines, then hit the lowest level.
Across from the stairs shutters began to open and she heard commands being barked out. They switched their lights off without even needing instruction and got behind what cover they could find. Beyond the glass they were talking about searching the room, and apparently they weren't able to see. She activated the tactical cloak and slipped out from her cover, creeping to the window and crouching low beneath it. There were two guards right on the other side of it, standing shoulder to shoulder with their guns pointing ahead. Perfect targets.
She crashed through the glass and grabbed one of them as Ashley opened fire on the other. Even as Shepard slammed her man onto the ground and fired a bullet up under his chin Liara smashed the furthest one into the far wall, the crack of his armour audible even over the cries of the others.
After the last of the bodies had dropped they climbed through the broken window and followed Liara to the right, where she was entering a small security booth.
"We need to pressurise the room first," she was mostly talking to herself, triggering the environmental controls and waiting as gas vented back into the room and the pressure stabilised. "There we go, we have access to the labs, they'll take us right to the tram station."
Ashley was inspecting the security console itself. "Hey. Looks like there's a recording of what happened here."
She piped it through to the main screens and they watched as the familiar security images came up, this one of a man in guard uniform sitting at the desk. Shepard glanced to her right to where the same man's body was now slumped on the ground, most of the upper portion of his head missing. There was another guard in the video, at the back of the room. Right where another headless body now lay.
"Security station, come in. We're seeing some odd activity down here." He frowned and leaned in. "Our security protocols just kicked in, everything's locked down." The same woman from the earlier recording stepped into the back of the frame and the guard turned. "Doctor, I'll get you a report as…"
She moved in a blur. One moment she was standing by the door, in the next a pistol had appeared in her hands and both men were dead. The precision of the shots, especially at that speed, was impressive. Shepard raised an eyebrow as the woman moved to the console and activated it, the feeds changing to show the atmosphere being sucked out.
Shepard shut down the recording. They'd seen more than enough. "Guess we know how Cerberus got in."
"I should've realised it when I met her." Liara pushed away from the desk and walked to the door. "I was just so focused on finding a way to stop the Reapers."
"Stopping the Reapers is what you should have been focused on. It's not your fault."
Liara turned to her, her arms folded tight across her chest. "But what if we're wrong? What if there is no way to stop them? What if these are our last days and we spend them scurrying around trying to solve a problem we can't fix?"
Shepard reached out to touch her shoulder. "Liara…"
"I know, I shouldn't think that way." A faint smile appeared on her face. "I don't know how you do it. You've always stayed focused, even in the worst situations."
"That's easy." Shepard moved her hand up to stroke Liara's jaw. "I just think about what I'd lose if I failed." She dropped her hand, very aware of Ashley standing next to them, looking uncomfortable. "We'll stop them Liara, together."
"I believe you. Or I believe that you believe. Maybe that's enough." She marched back to the console and hit a few commands. "Ok. Doors open. We can get to the labs and tram station through there."
"Let's move."
It was beginning to feel just like old times again, as she sent Liara and Ashley ahead to scout the way. There was a stairwell leading up, and through the door they came across another small detachment of Cerberus troops. She loaded another incendiary grenade and fired it into the middle of them, blasting them to bits before they could even respond. She was about to move forwards when another two troops came into view, bearing heavy blast shields before them. Liara and Ashley lit them up, but the rounds deflected uselessly away. Shepard took her rifle off her back and sighted on them, finding the small slits that enabled the troops to see.
Her first shot knocked the first trooper off his feet, most of his head disappearing into a dark crimson cloud as the shield clattered to the floor. His friend looked down to see what had happened and she let loose with her second shot. The shield stayed upright and she wondered for a second if she had missed, but then the man's body slumped into view and the shield toppled forwards.
Down the next hallway were another half dozen Cerberus troopers, fleeing desperately down the hallway and sparing only a cursory few shots to try and keep them back. They stayed at range, picking off the ones they could take safely. The last man disappeared through a door at the end of the hallway and even as they ran up to catch him the door was being burned shut from the other side.
"Damn," Shepard hissed. "We'll have to take the long way round."
A foul stench was reaching her even as she said it, and she looked to the side to see a laboratory of some kind, the decontamination beams sweeping back and forth. With a sickening swoop of her stomach she realised what the smell was. Burning human flesh. Cerberus must have activated the protocols with the staff inside.
They shut down the protocol and the door pinged open, the smell increasingly horrifically as they did so. They hurried through the lab, trying to avoid the charred remains as best they could.
"This is where they studied the various relics unearthed here," Liara said, probably trying to keep her mind off what was around them.
Thankfully Shepard needed the distraction too. "What did they find?"
"More than I could describe in a short conversation And they'd only scratched the surface. There are vaults filed with Prothean data troves that have never been studied."
And we're going to lose all of them. All that knowledge, gone.
They came through the labs and Liara pointed ahead through the window. "That's the tram line, takes us right to the archives. No doubt Cerberus has it locked down. Hopefully we can override it at the security station." She led them down the hall to the left. "It's just through here."
As they moved along a dead soldier caught Shepard's eye. She still had his shotgun clenched tightly in his grip. She pried it loose and handed it over to Ashley, who took it with a nod. There was no sense in wasting functioning weapons.
Liara opened the door ahead of them and at once a hail of gunfire rained through, peppering her shields. Shepard tackled her out of the way and they took cover behind the wall. The turret kept up its fire.
"Is that the only way in?" Ashley shouted over the noise.
"It's the only way I know of," Liara called back.
"We'll have to skirt around it, stay out of its sights."
Ashley nodded. "I'll move up first."
Thankfully the turret seemed to have fixated on Shepard and Liara, while Ashley was on the other side of the door. When she moved the turret paused as it tried to acquire the new target, but she was already in cover before it started firing again.
"Simple enough," Liara said.
"On my signal. On, two…"
They broke together on three, sprinting for the next bit of cover. Thankfully the walls had multiple partitions, and they were fairly well protected. Ashley moved again, and they mirrored her a moment later, criss-crossing down the hallway until they had reached the cargo bay the turret was in.
"We'll have to use the crates for cover," Ashley shouted, making her move for one.
"Split up," Shepard said to Liara. "The more of us there are the more confused it gets."
It was a perilous run. The turret was getting faster at targeting them now they were closer, and the crates offered much less protection than the walls. Shepard's kinetic shield flickered and flared, even though her body was entirely behind cover. If they stayed still for too long it would bring their shields down just from indirect attacks.
At last they came round the side of it, and it couldn't twist any further, firing impotently next to them.
"It can't get us here," Ashley said, letting out a long breath.
The door behind her opened and another unit stepped through. Shepard grabbed her pistol and shoved Ashley down with her other hand, firing over her back and taking out the leader of the Cerberus squad with a single headshot. Liara took the other one at the knee, then the faceplate, and Ashley shot the final one through the chest.
"Watch your six," Shepard said mildly as they hurried into the next room.
There was one last Cerberus commando waiting for them, a hulking brute pressed up behind a box. As he jumped up to fire on them they opened up in unison and half a dozen bullets caught him in the chest, pushing him back and dropping him.
There was another security console spanning almost an entire wall, and Liara went straight for it, bringing up another security feed which showed Dr Eva marching in the midst of Cerberus troops.
"Set up a perimeter, no one else comes across."
"We still have teams on the other side," the soldier protested.
"No one!" She snapped, drawing her pistol. "And shut down those cameras!" She took aim and the security feed blinked off.
"Looks like they've made it to the Archives," Liara said.
"And it looks like they won't be sending a tram anytime soon."
"Can you override it?" Shepard asked.
Liara shook her head, moving to sit in front of the console. "The Archives are on a separate network, we're completely locked out."
"Not completely," Ashley said. "What if we could find a short-range transmitter, helmet to helmet?"
Shepard didn't see where she was heading. "And?"
"And then we convince them that we're with them, and that the Alliance forces have been taken care of."
"See what you can find." Ashley headed off to search the bodies. Shepard turned back to Liara, who was giving her a look. "What?"
"The Lieutenant Commander has become very capable."
"Agreed." She was about to ask Liara about her reservations when Ashley's voice came from over by the dead commando.
"Commander, I found something."
"What have you got?" Shepard marched over to join her.
"He's got a transmitter in his helmet, if I can…" The helmet cracked open and Ashley recoiled. "Ugh!"
Inside the helmet the man no longer looked fully human. His eyes burned the electric blue-white of a husk, and there were tracks for cybernetics running along the outside of his skin, which was grey and mottled.
"Oh God, he looks like a husk."
"Not quite." The process wasn't complete. His skin wasn't fully grey, or the dried out consistency she was used to. "But they've definitely done something to him."
"Engineered by Cerberus." Ashley shook her head. "They claim to stand for humanity, and they do this to their own people." She hung her head, then stood up all of a sudden, facing away. "That could've been you Shepard. For all I knew that's what Cerberus had done to you."
They had finally got to the heart of it, what had been pressing on Ashley since Horizon. "How can you compare me to that thing?" She couldn't let her know about her own fears that ran the same way. The full extent of what Cerberus and Miranda might have done to her. She wasn't ready to face up to that yet.
"I don't know what you are, not since they got their hands on you." She finally turned back round, and in her face Shepard could see all the conflicting emotions, the need to trust her, but the wariness too. "Is it really you? Would you even know if they were controlling you somehow?"
"That's not fair Ash."
"I don't need you to answer. I doubt there's anything you could say to convince me." She sighed and knelt down by the body again. "I guess I just need some time to get to know you again."
"I'm the same person I always was, time won't change that. But if that's what you need, I understand."
"Thanks… for understanding."
She wrenched the transponder free and held it out for Shepard to take.
"Now let's see if we can get that tram sent over here." She clicked the comm open and held it up. "Hello." She winced at herself for that. "This is Delta Team. Anybody there?"
There was a moment's pause, then a heavily distorted voice came back over the line. "Where the hell have you been? Never mind, what's your status?"
She could only hope that her end of the conversation was being similarly distorted. They hadn't seen a single female operative since they came in. "We're at the tram station, waiting for extraction. All hostiles terminated."
"Roger that. Echo Team will ride over and secure the station."
The line cut and she dropped the transmitter. "Think they bought it?" Ashley asked.
"If they didn't we'll find out soon enough."
They moved away from the security console and into the tram station proper, where the light was blinking to indicate an incoming tram. "Positions, either side of the door," she told Ashley and Liara, I'll provide support from above."
They hurried off to carry out her orders and she took position with the submachine gun and her sniper rifle next to her. She wished they had any way to estimate Cerberus' numbers. The door opened and another four man squad stepped through, quickly put down by the combined fire from her team.
She vaulted down to join them and they got on the tram, activating it and affixing their helmets again to protect against the atmosphere.
As the doors opened ahead and the tram rattled out the wind immediately started to howl at the windows. The cloud was almost on top of the base now.
"We'd better wrap this up quickly," Shepard said.
"The Archives are right on the other side," Liara reassured her.
Almost on cue the doors at the other end of the line opened and a tram came out bearing even more soldiers.
AN:- Not a great deal to say about this one either.
Some minor changes, mostly to take out a lot of the Cerberus troops, which I did for two reasons.
1: Because as with all the books, too many gunfights gets boring.
2: Because I don't like just how many resources Cerberus has in ME3. It's established that it cost billions, maybe even trillions, to resurrect Shepard, along with the Normandy, outfitting all of the troops and soldiers and science experiments and on and on and on. Unless Cerberus has more money and resources than pretty much every single one of the good guys governments combined then it makes no sense. I get that in Mass Effect money and resources aren't exactly a concrete thing, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. So in my story Cerberus is working at a greatly reduced level of effectiveness.
That's all for now, see you at the next one.