She felt bad about keeping her remaining crew in the dark. It was one of those rare times where there were no answers, just 'go here and wait.' The Normandy was out there somewhere, loitering in the system, waiting for her to call in for them to come meet her. She knew EDI had more information than most, but the AI had, to Shepard's knowledge, kept silent. It showed in Joker's concern and dislike of being out here, in the middle of nowhere—a very hostile middle of nowhere if Shepard was seen and recognized—without any idea why they were there…and with her on a solo mission.
It was the last thought she could afford to give to her crew and her ship: she'd arrived at her insertion point. It had to be all business now.
She took a deep breath and slipped out of the Kodiak. She had to walk from the shuttle to the facility's insertion point so as not to call attention to her arrival. It was one of the few times she'd wished for a Mako drop, but she didn't let herself dwell on it.
The landscape was not hostile, but definitely contrary: it rained heavily, turning the ground and grasses into soppy, pulpy soup. Lightning forked in the sky and thunder rumbled like an orchestra's kettle drums nearby. The whole place smelled dank, and the air clung close, like the breath of a drunkard trying to hit on her.
The facility where Dr. Kenson was being detained proved to be an old, solid, redoubtable-looking facility whose original function was unknown but which looked like a hodgepodge of military surplus cobbled together around a series of basic, permanent dwellings. It had heavy defense cannons and movable revetments, portable shield generators and lots of guards…
…but the power junction boxes were easy to find and undefended. Shepard didn't even need to break out her tools to get it open. She might have taken this as a good sign, but training didn't permit the optimism. Nor did she feel pessimistic: she was back to doing what she'd been trained to do, infiltrate an enemy-held location, cause a little trouble, don't get caught.
Nerves vanished when training took over, and Shepard knew she was superbly trained.
She also had a stealth generator and, while it caused a distortion in the air, someone who didn't know to look for the distortion would miss it altogether. Stealth technology was not readily available to the public yet, so it never occurred to people who hadn't spent time fighting geth to look for the 'wobble' in a landscape.
Then again, she wasn't geth.
The building was solid, built to last, depressing—almost something she would have expected to see on Tuchanka, only with more undamaged walls. She drew her pistol, checked the draw of her knife. For these kinds of missions, where little noise was essential, it usually boiled down to a pistol and a knife. Some N7s specialized in more exotic silent tools, but she preferred to stick to the basics. Fewer things could go wrong.
They had guard varren in the guts of the building, but this did not trouble Shepard. The pattern of 'see, shoot, suspend' (see the enemy, shoot the enemy, suspend action to check for detection) served her flawlessly.
The place was grim, the pipes and electrical workings corroded or half-dead. She would have liked to set up something to keep the occupants busy, but she couldn't risk Kenson being moved. It was possible she would be left to burn to death if a fire alarm sounded, but it was possible she wouldn't.
Shepard stopped beside a stairwell, took a moment to check herself. It didn't take long—the practice of 'think between the seconds' was second nature. She'd done it almost every time she set foot off the Normandy over the past few months, and more in the past few weeks than at any other time in her life.
She crept up the stairs, her ears pricked for any kind of sound that might tell her something about what she could expect to find on the other side of the door at the top. She heard nothing, so she turned on her stealth generator, waited for the odd shiver to pass (she hated the way the shiver got into her ears), then proceeded forward.
Communications hub, or maybe the full security office. Whatever it was, the workspace was sheltered enough that—as long as no one walked over to have a look at it—she could work in peace. She fabricated a few proximity mines, synched them to her omnitool, and tossed them into the corridor. Their little red lights blinked once, then turned off. She would have enough time to turn her stealth generator on in case anyone came this way.
The terminal was not heavily protected—apparently no one was supposed to make it this far in. It took her a moment to filter the text through her omnitool so she could understand what it said. Within minutes, she knew why Kenson was here and where Kenson actually was.
She was not sure she believed the charges, but it did not make sense to make something like that up when, supposedly, no one knew where Kenson was. She'd ask about it when the time came. That sort of action was…drastic.
There was no shiver of fear, not 'but if the Reapers…', nothing. She was on a very specific mission and, like a good operative, blocked the nonessentials. Reapers didn't exist until the mission was over.
Something tripped one of her proximity mines. Her hand shot down and turned her generator back on. She waited in silent stillness as a guard trudged up the corridor, took a cursory look around, then stumped away again.
She paused, then began working furiously at the console.
Within minutes she permitted herself the smallest of smug smiles: when the time of stealth finally passed, things would get very interesting.