Chapter 15

Alone in the Dark

Finn woke up feeling more than a little confused. This was partly because he was surrounded by darkness, which in his current state made it difficult to tell if he had actually woken up. A sharp pain in his head as he slowly sat up helped him answer that particular question.

"Eesh." He muttered, massaging his head in a vain attempt to make the pain go away. "What happened?"

There was no answer. In truth, he hadn't expected one, but something in the back of his mind insisted that this was a cause for alarm. Still rubbing his head, he tried to remember the events preceding his little visit to the dream realm. It was all a bit hazy, but he remembered wandering around a krogan ruin in search of … something. There was a long tunnel, a loud click, and then Azure and Violet shouting as the ground gave way under him.

He sat bolt upright, the haze around his thoughts vanishing in a single panicked instant. "Azure! Violet!"

He glanced around, a useless gesture seeing as he was still in complete darkness. Shaking his sore head, he activated his omni tool and adjusted the brightness settings to maximum. It didn't provide much extra light, but it was enough to see a distinct lack of Violet and Azure. While it was relieving to know they hadn't been caught in the trap, it still left him in a nasty spot.

"Hang on." He muttered to himself, tapping at his omni-tool.

A small orb of light appeared in front of him moments later. He rarely used his repair drone, even though it was standard equipment for an engineer's omni-tool; he preferred to do the fixing himself, and not through a proxy. Still, it had its uses; he sent it straight up as far as it could go, but even the drone's night vision filter couldn't spot the tunnel from which he had fallen. His omni-tool recorded his path, however, and a quick examination showed a staircase just down the passage that seemed to lead back to the floor above.

Thanking whatever benevolent deity had allowed him to land more or less unharmed, He opened his mouth to call out when his ears picked up the sound of footsteps, and not the faint graceful tapping of quarian footsteps. No, these footsteps sounded much heavier.

Swearing beneath his breath, he looked around for a place to hide before squeezing between a large chunk of rock and a nearby wall. It was a tight fit, but a little shifting enabled him to find a position that allowed him to breath.

The glimmer of light made him realize he had forgotten about his drone. He started to dismiss it when it occurred to him that it might be just what he needed. With a bit of tweaking, he manipulated the drone's holographic matrix into the form of a rough piece of stone and sent it to the other end of the hallway.

He didn't have to wait long for the source of the footsteps: three armor-clad krogans. Two carried a large fearsome-looking creature of some sort on a spit between them, while the third seemed to be checking an extremely battered-looking datapad.

Finn had seen a few krogan before, but rarely so close. They were downright massive as compared to the other species Finn had met, with the possible exception of the Trusk Neukaraans and the Elcor. Humanoid in build but much stronger, their most noteable characteristic were the stone-like ridges that formed above their faces. Finn didn't know if the ridge plates were bone, cartilidge, or some manner of naturally produced metal plating, but he had once seen an angry krogan smash a solid sheet of Titanium allow with enough force to leave a sizeable dent, something Finn couldn't accomplish with a high-grav sledge. What little skin was visible appeared tough and leathery.

The krogan with the datapad raised his hand, causing the other two to stop. Beads of sweat began to form on Finn's forehead as the lead krogan stared around the tunnel, occasionally glancing at his datapad.

"This grendel isn't getting any lighter, Jax." One of the krogan carrying the beast rumbled.

The krogan presumably named Jax sneered. "Getting tired already, Krom?"

Krom let out a laugh. "Not even close. I just don't want to spend all damn day in this festering ruin."

"This festering ruin is going to be the capital of the new Krogan Empire." Jax said sharply. "Now shut up; I'm trying to concentrate here."

"Concentrate faster." Complained the other krogan. "I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry, Sam."

Finn had to struggle not to break his silence to ask how a krogan came to be named Sam. It wasn't easy.

After a few minutes, Jax pointed at one of the tunnels branching off from where they stood. "That way."

"Are you sure?" Krom asked tiredly. "Or are you just guessing again?"

"Of course I'm sure!" Jax said, sounding irritable.

"'Cause if I have to spend another hour hefting this carcass around because you screwed up reading the map again-"

"I said I'm sure!" Jax snapped. "Get moving!"

Still snickering, Krom gestured to Sam and the two picked up the spit. Seeing they were heading in the opposite direction of the stairwell, Finn realized they must be fairly close to some sort of settlement. Jax had mentioned that the ruin was to be the seat of an empire; there could be an army of krogan all around them working to rebuild and fortify the ruins.

Scarlet needed more information, and although Finn was still a bit worried about Azure and Violet, he sent the drone ahead to follow the krogans while he followed as far back as he could without losing his connection. It was slow going; the krogans appeared to be in no hurry.

"I don't suppose you're still listening in, Hikari." Finn breathed as he carefully crept through the ancient passage.

There was no response. Finn could only guess why; perhaps she was otherwise occupied. Perhaps she was just messing with him. Shaking his head, he continued onward.

The krogans stopped a few times, presumably for Jax to check his datapad for directions. They didn't talk much, other than to bicker amongst themselves, though Finn noticed that the one named Krom seemed to be a bit kinder to the one named Sam, sometimes resulting in an argument with Jax.

It was during one of these arguments that Sam, obviously trying his best to stay out of the argument, looked straight at the drone. Finn felt his heart freeze as an umistakable look of suspicion fell across the krogan's face.

"What's wrong?" Krom asked once the argument abated.

Sam shook his head and muttered, "Nothing."

"Spit it out, already."

Sam glanced at Finn's drone again. "That rock … that one right there."

"It's a rock, Sam. Lot of 'em in this place."

"Yeah, but that rock in particular …" to Finn's horror, Sam walked up to the drone and squatted down beside it. "I'm sure I've seen it before."

"How can you tell?" Despite his tone, Krom was now looking at the rock with interest. "I mean, it's just a rock, right?"

Sam stared wordlessly for a long moment, his leathery face looming large in Finn's camera feed. Finn started to panic as Sam reached out a massive hand to grab the disguised drone.

"Hey!" Everyone jumped (none more so than Finn) at the sudden shout from Jax. He was looking at Krom and Sam with obvious annoyance. "Stop goofing around! We're almost there!"

"Thank Kalros!" Krom slapped Sam on the back. "C'mon! Let's get outta here already!"

Sam nodded, his eyes still on the rock. After a few tense moments, he slowly stood and followed Krom.

Finn breathed a sigh of relief, both at the close shave and at the prospect of being out of the ruins. As he started to round the corner, however, the sound of quickly approaching krogan footsteps made him freeze. It was Sam; despite shouts from the hall behind him, the krogan ran through the room to where the drone was resting, lifted one massive foot, and brought it down with enough force to shatter the ancient tile. The only saving grace was that his large foot obscured the brief flash of light that marked Finn's drone being summarily deactivated.

"Sam!"

"Yeah, I'm coming!" With a satisfied nod, the krogan known as Sam jogged back from whence he came.

Finn hurried around the corner as fast as he dared, but he had a nasty feeling that it was too late. He was, unfortunately, correct; a short ways down the corridor, the path led into a chamber that split in four directions. There was a large smooth hole in the center of the ceiling that seemed to go up forever to some distant point of light that Finn hoped was the surface, even if he had no way of climbing the smooth passage. He checked the floor, but there was nothing on any of the paths to indicate through which the krogans had departed. It was a ruin, after all.

"Perfect." He muttered, running a hand through his hair. "Now what?"

He stared at the paths for a long time, hoping in vain to notice some tiny clue as to the krogan's destination. Sighing, he turned up the light of his amp a little, picked a direction at random, and started walking.

The ruins were really impressive, considering the source. Had Finn been in a less dire situation (and on a less dire planet), he would've loved to spend some time looking at the ancient carvings. As it was, he had enough on his plate just keeping himself from falling into a blind panic, especially after he ended up into another room with the strange ceiling hole. If it weren't for the pathfinding function of his omni-tool, he would've thought he had gone in a massive circle.

With a sigh, he sat down on a chunk of rock and considered his options; he was in the middle of a krogan ruin with no way to contact anyone he cared to alert to his presence, no certain way back to the Meridia and most importantly, he was getting really annoyed by whoever was humming that annoying tune.

He sat bolt upright when the impact of that final thought fully hit him. For a few moments, he was sure he was just imagining the sound. As he moved towards the passage on his left, however, he realized that it was real. He grew even more excited when a couple corridors later, he saw a light; it was shabby and looked like it would fall off the wall at any moment, but it was light.

"Thank god." Finn muttered. "At this point, I'll take the damn krogans over this place."

As he continued down the lighted corridor, he realized the humming was growing louder. It was deep, and surprisingly jaunty. He supposed it was krogan, but it was hard to be sure; they weren't exactly the jaunty type. Whatever was making this particular krogan so happy was surely something he wanted no part of, and yet Finn found himself curious.

Eventually, the tunnel led to a chamber filled with hanging corpses of various Tuchanka wildlife, many little more than skeletons. Fresh blood dripped from one of the dead beasts; with some satisfaction, Finn recognized it as the beast that the two krogan had carried. Still, a room full of dead bodies more than a bit disconcerting. There were some stained sacks lining the far wall, most right beside the single door that led from the room.

He was just wondering why someone had hung the carcasses there when he passed through some kind of energy field, startling him in no small way.

"Well, that answers that." He muttered, shivering in the suddenly cold air. "It's a freezer!"

He tried to go back through the field, but some invisible force blocked his path.

As he stood there in the cold, his mind raced. A repulser field? Why? Did someone really think one of the monsters would just pull itself off its meat hook and escape? He stared at the hanging corpses a moment, a horrifying thought entering his head: Unless there's something invisible in here.

Groaning, Finn muttered, "Thanks, imagination. I really needed that."

Unfortunately, with the way back blocked, he had no option but the door and whatever humming entity lay beyond. Wondering not for the first time how his day had ended up this way, he activated the door's control panel.

A blast of warmth washed over him as the door slid open. He stepped forward, savoring the feeling as the freezer door slid shut behind him. He was now in a much larger room filled with stone slabs that were covered with what appeared to be food, mostly hunks of charbroiled meat. To his amazement, Finn noticed one table filled with earth vegetables; he tried to imagine a krogan eating a salad, but his mind rebelled.

He picked up an apple and gave it a sniff before taking a bite. It was surprisingly fresh.

"I wonder where they get fresh vegetables on Tuchanka?" He wondered, tossing the apple into the air. He intended to catch it before it fell, but a massive three-fingered hand reached out from behind him and snatched it out of the air. He instinctively tried to run, but a blue glow seemed to suffuse his body, holding him fast.

He watched in horror as the massive form of a krogan slowly walked into his field of vision, tossing the apple up and catching it several times. "I grow 'em myself, thank you very much."