I would like to make something known, and I know this might loose me a few followers, however it needs to be said. I am not and never will be a smut writer. All of my stories are written with a T rating for suggestive content, violence, and language.
Now that that is out of the way. Here is the next installment. Please R&R. Thanks to those of you who have sent me reviews and suggestions. If you have questions about the story (other than spoilers), put them in a review and I will try to answer them as quickly as possible. Thanks and enjoy!
The Normandy was rather quiet as they searched through the systems of the Argos Rho cluster. Ashley was recovering in the med bay from the acid burns to her shoulder. Luke had wanted to stay with her but she had asked him to leave so that she could rest.
Garrus and Luke were working on the Mako and tweaking the power of the main cannon trying to give the rounds enough power to pierce shields of geth armatures and thresher maw plates. Of course their first attempt ended with them nearly blowing a hole in the Normandy's hull.
"You two are not going to blow any more holes in my ship are you?" Claire asked as the two former officers turned to face her.
"Oh, come on Claire. The Normandy is tough. She can take a few hits." Luke said raising his fists pretending to box.
"Yeah, yeah, just no more live ammo tests okay."
"Claire, I had a question about the last mission." Garrus said resting his weight on his knee.
"What's on your mind?"
"Well, that facility was essentially a ship, right? Why didn't we just fall back to the Normandy once we knew the rachni were there and destroy it with the main guns?" Claire nodded.
"I considered that. The shields on the ship were still active and it would have taken time to break through them. It would have taken too long and given the rachni time to jump to FTL if they could operate the ship. I'm not really sure if I would have risked that. Besides, the bomb we set off was wired to the drive core. I'm no engineer but an explosion of that yield would obliterate anything caught in the blast. Personally, I think it was worth the risk." Claire said sitting down on some crates.
"I can see that. I guess we really don't know just how capable the rachni are do we?" Garrus answered.
"And I don't ever want to make the same mistake as those Cerberus guys did by under estimating them." Claire added.
"Rachni…the things just give me the creeps." Luke said shuddering and turning back to his work.
Claire smiled and gave Garrus a small wave before continuing her rounds. She enjoyed getting to walk around to ship when everyone was working or resting. There was a peace that she had come to enjoy about being on a ship in space. She smiled wondering if this was how the captains that sailed Earth's oceans felt in the 16th century. A massive abyss before them with nothing but sky in every direction. A solid crew, sturdy ship, and a mission to guide them was a simple existence and Claire thrived in it.
As she made her way into the engine room she say Tali snoozing propped up against the wall. The commander smiled and sat down next to her and gave her a soft nudge.
"Oh, Shepard, is there something wrong?" Tali said starting to get to her feet. Claire set her hand on the quarian keeping her from standing.
"Just wanted to see how you were doing. You're sleeping better it looks like." Claire said.
"I think I am getting use to how quiet everything is here. I still miss everyone back on the flotilla but I have found comfort here. It is like a second home to me now." Claire put her arm around Tali and gave her a friendly squeeze.
"I really am going to miss you when you go back to your people Tali. Make sure you stay in touch okay?" Tali looked up at her commander and nodded. Claire did not know it but under that purple visor of hers, she was smiling. She had not had a sister but Claire was close enough.
"I will. Keelah, I can't imagine not talking to any of you again. I have learned so much out here and gotten to know everyone on the ship like they were part of the fleet." Tali said.
"Does that make me an honorary quarian?" Tali looked up at Claire giggling slightly.
"I suppose. My father would like you simply because we blow up geth. He is always looking for advantages that we could use in retaking our homeworld." Tali slowly stood and helped Shepard to her feet. "I bet he would love to unleash you on them."
"I might enjoy that a little too much. With Saren trying to bring back the Reapers, I think the geth need to be put down fast." Tali nodded.
"Well, thanks for stopping by Shepard. I have some tests that Engineer Adams wanted to run before we arrive at our next destination. I'll see you later."
Claire gave her a pat on the back and made her way back out into the cargo bay. Wrex was standing against the wall with his arms crossed looking rather tired, or maybe it was distracted. She had a hard time reading Krogan facial expressions.
"Shepard." The krogan acknowledged with a nod.
"Wrex."
"I have a favor to ask."
"What's on your mind?" Wrex never asked for favors. This was definitely going to be interesting.
"We're going to be passing through the Pheonix system and I was hoping we could stop at a planet called Tuntau. There is someone there that took something very dear to my family." Claire pondered this for a moment. They had gone out of their way to get Saleon for Garrus and Luke and she had copied the geth data for Tali, what was a small side mission to reclaim something for Wrex.
"Alright Wrex, but on the way back alright?" Wrex nodded. He understood the need to eradicate the feral rachni as quickly as possible, although he questioned Claire's decision to let the queen go back on Noveria.
000
The Mako jolted as the massive wheels crushed one of the rachni as Claire drove the tank right between the Alliance defenders and the oncoming swarm of rachni warriors. Kaidan mowed through several lines of the beasts with the machine gun as Luke fired the main cannon tearing massive holes in the horde's body. Tali and Mallory fidgeted in the back anxious to get at the creatures.
"That looks like the last of them. Tali, use the Mako's drive system and see if you can get the outpost's defenses up and running. Luke, give her a hand. Mallory and Kaidan, you two are with me. Let's find out what's going on here." Claire said switching spots with Luke as the Alliance officers piled out.
"Oh if we were not in the middle of a mission I would so take this thing for a joy ride." Luke said pulling the Mako over to the outpost's generator. The equipment seemed in working condition but it had been over worked.
Tali and Luke climbed out and opened up the Mako's engine. Tali quickly scanned the generator and patched a few wires that had gotten fried from the heat the machine was putting out. "Okay, that should do it for the generator, but the power source if completely drained. We'll need to link the Mako's drive core to the intake conduit to power the defenses." Luke nodded and climbed down into the engine compartment. Tali climbed up as well and sat on the edge of the opening.
"Okay, I think that will be a solid enough connection of power the generator."Luke said handing Tali a large wire.
"How is that new hacking program working for you?" Tali asked as she climbed down with the wire.
"Considering that I hacked into the Normady CIC in two minutes, it works like a charm." Luke said sliding down the side.
"Two minutes? Really? I thought it would be faster." Tali said patching the power line into the generator.
"It was probably my fault, I got hung up on the fire wall on the fifth level with the mutating algorithm." Luke said watching Tali work.
"You got out without anyone noticing?" Luke smiled. They were going to notice that he had been there at some point. He had inserted a single planet into the Sol system to be on the opposite side of the sun from Earth following the same orbital path and named it 'Made You Look.' He figured Claire would get a kick out of it. Mallory would have a cow if she ever found out, but that was part of the fun.
"I think they will notice at some point…or I'll just show them what I did." Tali looked over at her friend and giggled. Luke had a decent sense of humor that was never really malicious. It made him truly likable and approachable. She had really come to treasure him as a friend.
"Luke, Tali, sensors are showing another massive wave of rachni coming at us. We need you two up here." Claire said over the radio. Luke looked over at Tali. The quarian pulled her shotgun and raced across the compound. Luke glanced over at some of the storage buildings and slipped into one. Inside he found that the outpost was stocked on rations, but ammunition and explosives, they were nearly out. He gathered up a few odds and ends before sprinting out of the storage building with his arms full of seemingly harmless supplies.
"What are you doing? We have maybe a minute before the rachni are here." Mallory said as Luke jogged up and knelt down with all his new found supplies.
"I just need 40 seconds and you will thank me for this." Luke said staring to combine some of the metallic pieces.
Tali watched him for a few seconds and nodded. She understood. "Shepard, he is building a rolling claymore. It is like a combat drone but not anywhere near as expensive. You control it with your omni-tool and when it is in position, you can detonate it." She turned to Luke. "What are you using for the explosive?"
Luke smirked and pulled every grenade he had from his pouch. "If I set these to fragmentation grade that should give it the same amount of power as a Hellion missile." Luke said inserting the grenades and punching a few codes into his omni-tool. "Alright, which tunnels do the most of the rachni come out of?" Luke asked turning to the tired alliance soldiers.
The few men and women left of the unit laughed. "Take your pick sir. We have scans showing a massive area underneath us where all the tunnels converge."
Luke accepted the file and opened it on his own omni-tool. He studied the layout of the tunnels for a moment before showing it to Claire and Mallory. "Does that look like a decent chokepoint to you?" Luke asked pointing to the massive spider web of tunnels. Claire considered the scan for a moment before turning to her brother.
"So you want to send your claymore down this tunnel and detonate it when the bulk of the rachni are in its blast radius?" Luke nodded.
"What if we sent it deeper? Try to get the source?" Mallory asked. "I'm pretty sure we can handle a wave of these things again."
"If that is what we want to do, then I'm going to need more grenades. Look at the scan of that central chamber." Luke said scrolling across the scan and showing the dimensions of the massive cavern. Claire studied it for a moment before taking out all of her grenades.
"Everyone give Luke your grenades. Then prepare for an attack." Glanced down at her own omni-tool. "Thirty six seconds!" The team placed their grenades in front of Luke as he took cover and started working on fitting and linking all the grenades into on massive explosive charge.
Tali knelt beside him and scanned his creation. "You know, if we set a layer of grenades along the outside of the claymore to concussion, the force inside that cavern would be doubled and they would give the shrapnel from the fragmentation grenades a boost in velocity." Luke considered it for a moment as the area around them began to roar with rifle fire.
"I think that will work. There is also one more thing I want to try. Is there a way that you could rig something up that was like a drive core small enough to fit inside here?" He motioned to the center of the claymore and looked over at her.
"Why would you…" Tali cocked her head to the side and looked at the claymore before straightening up in a sudden realization. "You want to have it float in up into the middle of the cavern before it detonates." Luke smirked and nodded. Tali sprinted over to the Mako and opened the compartment for the drive core and began working of separating a small amount of element zero from the core while Luke cleared a space at the center of his rolling bomb.
000
The continuous waves of rachni soldiers had exhausted everyone, but they finally had a lull in the action. Lt. Durant had been wounded and Mallory was patching her up on one of the buildings as Luke approached one of the tunnels with Claire, Tali, and Kaidan covering him. The scans had been clear but there was still some movement in the deeper chambers. The rachni were getting ready for an assault that would finish the outpost off.
"Alright, it should take the claymore about ten minutes to reach the main chamber, but when it does, the detonation will likely cause cave ins but it could also cause fire to back blast out of all the tunnels." Claire nodded and signaled for Luke to drop the bomb in to the rachni's lair.
Luke released the rolling claymore and guided it down the tunnels toward the main chamber with his omni-tool. He used the scan to navigate the small explosive down into the depths of the rachni infested tunnels.
"I hold this thing works." Kaidan said watching the claymore's progress on the screen.
Luke sighed and wet his lips as the drone moved in to the main chamber. They saw it get moved and nudged as the rachni in the chamber probed it to try and figure out what it was. Luke flipped on Tali's addition asn watched the reading for the elevation rise slightly. Tali had fixed the small mass effect field to cause it to hover precisely between the floor and ceiling of the chamber.
"Everyone brace." Luke said touching the detonate command. For a few seconds, they felt and heard nothing, but in the distance they could see a land side begin.
"That's close to the old abandon mine. It was a turian mining operation before First Contact." A soldier said as the Normandy team watched the mountain crumble. A rumble came from the tunnels and a cloud of hot dust erupted like a geyser shooting several yards into the sky.
Claire radioed the Normandy. "Joker, bring the Normandy in low and do a life sign scan of the area that has just collapsed. Look for any signs of rachni."
"You break a planet this time, Shepard." Joker responded.
"Just a mountain and a rachni nest." Joker laughed and the ground team watched as the Normandy came into to hover over the smoking ruin that was once the rachni's lair.
After a few minutes, Joker's voice came back on the radio. "No sign of any rachni left commander. I did find something though. There are carcasses of Brood Warriors. Accroding to Wrex and Liara, they only come out to defend the nest it they run out of soldiers. Liara says that with them dead, if there are any remaining rachni, they will die off very quickly."
"Good to hear Joker. Come land at the outpost here and were will load up the Mako and leave some supplies for the troops here. Send a message to Admiral Hackett that the unit here needs extraction."
"You got it commander." Joker responded.