Citadel
After checking the readings on the medical monitor once more, Chakwas nodded to the asari medic. With gentle economical movements, they shifted Hannah Shepard to rest on her left side. They waited until the medbed morphed to the new position before plumping the pillows. A quick inaudible consultation and the medic left to tend to other patients. Calling up Hannah's file on the console at the end of the bed, Chakwas typed rapidly. She didn't look up when Liara moved beside the bed.
"How is she?" asked Liara as she regarded the familiar face in repose. So like her bondmate's and yet not. Sometimes, when Shepard slept, she would lay awake and watch her. When she wasn't troubled by nightmares, there was an aura of innocence about her bondmate that she could savor for hours.
"The good news is her staff were quick to seal the tears in her suit when they realised the lifepod was decompressing. She's also fortunate she's fully suited up when she received that blow to the head on the Madrid, it would have killed her straight away."
Liara heard the trace of worry and turned. "The impact was too hard?"
Chakwas nodded. "There was some slow bleeding. They got her into surgery quickly when they found the lifepod but her brain was compressed for a length of time. It's hard to say what kind of long term damage there will be or if any. We'll have to wait until she wakes up and re-assess her condition."
"But she will wake up," Liara said with some relief.
"The brain swelling has gone down-," Chakwas frowned in concentration as she updated Hannah's medical file, "and she's in good physical condition so yes, she'll wake up. It's a matter of when."
"So she could possibly regain consciousness before Shepard gets back," Liara said hopefully.
Liara's placid manner didn't fool Chakwas, she could sense the tension in her. "Still no word from Shepard?"
"No but you know as well as I do that despite mission planning, execution and direction can be extremely dynamic in the field," said Liara as she adjusted the blanket over Hannah with finicky movements.
"Never a straight path but many loops," Chakwas agreed. "You're worried over this amour from the past," she guessed.
"I know Shepard but this man from the past, it is no small matter that he must want the same thing you are looking for."
Astonished, Chakwas opened her mouth to refute the assumption that anyone other than herself and Miranda knew the change in Shepard. She closed it as she reconsidered. The attempt to break into the mainframe at Antarctica Base did not specifically targeted the medical division or Shepard's medical file. The intrusion was extensive, leaving no files untouched. Yet she could not be certain. Shepard's file was sealed four years ago. Anyone could have secretly broken in and accessed it before that. There was enough premise to go on if one knew what to look for. If this Greenacres knew of the plausible potential in Shepard, connected as he was to Cerberus, then Liara was right, he would want to get his hands on her.
"You think he'll go through any lengths to get it," she asked anxiously, wishing she acted faster to speak to Shepard before she left but still, she was absolutely confident that Shepard would return despite her misgivings.
"He sent people after me and tried to break into your private files." Liara turned and leaned against the medbed cabinet. "Everyone knows Shepard was on inactive status. The odds were against her leading any mission but he made sure she will lead the push to remove Cerberus. His actions are tenacious. I am afraid that he intends to detain her."
"I don't think there's anyone out there who's capable of changing her mind once she decides on a course and letting this man detained her?" Chakwas snorted at the idea. "Not even a Reaper could stand in her way. When the going gets tough, she gets tougher."
Liara attempted to smile but failed. "I will feel easier to know she is on the way back."
Chakwas returned to her console. "Knowing Shepard, she's probably making life extremely interesting for the other party."
Avernus Station
The first thing Shepard saw was the floor rushing up at her when her legs gave out. As dismay and anger crowded in on her, she felt Miona knelt beside her and felt the tinge of a biotic shield the asari cast around them. She was thankful Miona did not attempt to help her to stand. At the moment, she did not think she could. Miona kept watch for the oculus that were presently still preoccupied with the barrage directed at them from the other side of the chamber. As Shepard used her arms to prop herself up, Hiaras and Cy pounded up. She looked behind them. No oculus in sight.
"Shepard, where're you hit?" Hiaras asked anxiously after giving Miona a quick glance. Though it was clear whatever had overtaken the younger asari was no longer in control, she was not certain she could trust her to remain align with them.
"I'm fine, just tired. What's the sitrep?"
Tired? What had occurred in the last half hour that the human couldn't stand? Rather than peppered her with questions, Hiaras said instead, "Claw pulled both groups over to the other side of the room, we have a clear path to the entrance we came in by."
"Cy, check out our EP (exit point) and see if it's still available." As the geth hurried off, Shepard toggled her com. "Claw1, how's the action?"
"Seeker1, heard you took a detour," Garrus drawled, glad to hear to her voice. "Action's an over statement when the other side just won't play ball."
"Nailing you good?"
"They seem to be shooting blanks but we could be too close to their nerves."
Ducking back behind his cover, Garrus eyed the oculus with disgust. Small, nimble, with so much space to dodge, most of the oculus had managed to evade the barrage. Their return fire landed several shots too close for comfort to his men. He noted not a single pillar they were taking cover behind was chipped which probably meant there wasn't much bite in the oculus but that could be due to a reluctance to inflict damage so close to the central core. He was pleased his targets hit the deck with a satisfying splatter. They couldn't clear the swarm and since the oculus didn't seem eager to rush them recklessly, they were held to a stalemate. It was going to be tough to evacuate the chamber.
"How's your EP?"
Eyeing the door of the second ante-chamber, Garrus said with distaste, "I've a feeling our host repaired the three firewalls we had to hack through. I ordered GT2 to bail."
"Hang on, we're checking our end."
Feeling her head began to swim again, Shepard ended the call before slumping to the floor. Both asari turned to her with concern. She wished she wasn't in a critical situation. She hadn't felt this drained since that last push to the transport beam in the final battle of the Reaper War. She was grateful there was none of the searing agony that dogged her every step in the struggle towards the beam. Then, she had wished she had died. Right now, she wished there was a safe comfortable bed nearby that she could roll into and sleep for a whole day.
"This is no normal fatigue," Hiaras noted. She placed a hand between Shepard's shoulder blades and sensed the fluctuating energies within the body. "What happened?" she finally asked the question, flinging it accusingly at Miona.
"It's not her doing," Shepard said before Miona could answer. "We don't have time for this." She rolled over with some difficulty. "Help me up."
Grabbing her arm, Hiaras pulled her to her feet, draped the arm across her shoulder and held on to her. Miona took the rifle that Shepard was still holding and clipped it to the human's weapon mount. She also picked up the geth probes that had stayed with them all the while and attached them to her weapons mount.
When Shepard's legs couldn't seem to support her, Hiaras thought of carrying her but withheld the suggestion when Shepard made a strenuous effort to pull her weight.
"Let's get to the entrance," said Shepard.
"Shall I break the conduits?" Miona pointed her rifle at the floor in reminder.
"Leave it. If they want us incapacitated, they would have already taken Claw out the minute they started their attack."
Leaning heavily on Hiaras, Shepard started for the entrance as Miona kept an eye for oculus behind them.
"If the oculus are nothing more than to force us in a direction, they'll not hinder us too much from leaving," continued Shepard.
"He got what he wanted," said Hiaras.
"I don't think so." Shepard eyed the oculus doubtfully. Miona would not have made a mistake when she said she saw the tissue extractor and shot it up. Would the oculus let them leave if Lance's objective was thwarted? "I felt the station moving when Lance said something to it."
"Moving?" Hiaras glanced at her feet. She felt nothing. Not the slightest tremor.
Shepard toggled her comm, a rather awkward maneuver when Hiaras was holding on to her right arm, and tried to raise the other teams. When that failed, she tried the Normandy. "Still jammed," she muttered.
"Shepard, the XP is open," said Cy.
"We're on the way." Shepard raised Garrus. "We got an exit, not sure how long it'll stay that way. Link up."
"Copy that."
Garrus gestured to his squad. They broke cover on his signal and threw the grenades they held in readiness when the oculus began to swoop down on them. The blast caught several of the globes that were closer and could not break away in time. They raced for the entrance, hearing the hiss of slugs behind and around them. A few staggered when they were hit, the soldier in front of Garrus dropped and then hobbled up again, holding his side. Arming another grenade, Garrus turned and flung it high into the air behind him before grabbing the soldier's arm. They came up to a pillar. He pulled the soldier behind it.
"How bad?" He fired at several oculus, as if sensing they had drawn blood, homed in on them. The rest of the squad pulled up behind their own covers and added their efforts to his, buying time for those injured to heal up as best they could.
"Just a scratch, sir." The soldier gasped when the medical protocol of his undersuit kicked in, temporarily closing and soothing the wound he could not see with medigel. "Ready sir."
At Garrus's signal, more grenades flew into the air. They took off again, dodging behind pillars, heading towards the beckoning exit they could now see. The geth and the asari, Garrus presumed was Hiaras, were at the door, firing high into the air behind them. Where was Shepard? His breath was coming faster now but he did not doubt he would reach the safety of the door. He made sure he was the last to go through. The door closed behind him. He paused for a moment to count heads and recover from his exertions. He froze when he spotted Shepard sitting propped against the wall, Hiaras next to her.
"Shepard!" He crouched beside her, hastily checking her anxiously for wounds before lifting the drooping head. There was no response. "What happened?" He checked the bio-readings of the hardsuit and was slightly reassured when they showed green. Hiaras looked at Miona instead of replying.
"She was struck twice by lightning," said Miona.
"Lightning?" Suspicion and incredulity was ripe in Hiaras's voice.
Miona did not take umbrage at the commando's tone and explained further. "I'm not sure what it was but it could not be ordinary lightning. It saps energy."
Garrus looked at her up and down. If she could describe the effects, then she had experienced it herself. "How do you feel?"
"I didn't receive the full blunt. Shepard absorbed two strikes directed at her before we destroyed the source hidden beneath the floor. They looked like the conduits in the core chamber, that's why she initially told me to shoot up the floor."
"Directed at her-." Garrus peered into Shepard's helmet visor and saw her eyes were closed. "Do we have comm to the other teams or the ships?"
"Shepard tried before she lost consciousness," said Hiaras. "This entire level could be blocked off. She said something's happening with the station."
"The others should have started bailing once they realised they're cut off. Any movement, Cy?" Garrus looked towards the geth standing at the exit doors.
"None I can detect at the moment. I will take point." The geth stepped out into the corridor, scanned the passage again and nodded to Garrus; all was clear.
Hiaras pulled Shepard into a fireman's lift as Garrus detailed his squad to cover the rear. It was then he noticed the cryo tanks. The sight of the contents froze him. The turian squad said nothing, having noticed the cryo tanks long before he did. Puzzled by his sudden silence, Hiaras turned and understood his shock.
"Nothing can be done for them. They're dying."
Garrus's head whipped to her in disbelief. "Dying?"
"They were experimented on. Even if they could be saved, we don't have the time right now." She turned slightly, indicating her burden.
Pulling himself together with visible effort, Garrus nodded. Questions could wait. Forming a wedge with Miona and Cy, they moved out into the corridor. The geth started in the direction of the lift shaft at a quick pace. The turian squad kept a stringent watch for any oculus that might break out after them but none appeared.
After several minutes, the geth began to double its pace as it warned, "General Vakarian, the geth squad reinforcing Seeker have engaged ramparts near the elevator shaft. We must hurry."
"Double time it people." Garrus ordered and threw a glance over his shoulder at Hiaras behind him.
"Not a problem," she said to his unasked question. She tightened her grip on Shepard as they jogged down the passage, concentrating on pacing herself and the goal of getting her charge to safety.
As they jogged along the corridor, Garrus kept trying to make contact with their ships without success. At first there were only the sounds of running feet before the rumble of gunfire came to them. It soon grew into a continuous thunder of a furious exchange as they approached the lift. The doors were already jammed open.
Garrus peered down the shaft as the turian soldiers split up to add their barrage to keep back the ramparts. The walls and floor near the intersection were soaked with pools of red hot residue of downed mechs. Over the the piles of hissing metal, more ramparts could be seen approaching. Garrus knew they would soon be overwhelmed by numbers despite the precision of the geth. He looked down the lift shaft again and could just make out the roof of the lift nestled far below at the fifth deck.
"Claw1 to any ES (evac shuttle), come in." He waited hopefully. His eyes gleamed when someone answered though the voice sounded faint. There was still some interference with the comm signal.
"This is ES Three," said the pilot. "We've been trying to get hold of you. FO (field of operation) is mobile, repeat mobile. EWS picked up multiple inbound. No contact with Seeker."
"I've Seeker and GT3 with me. What's the current status?"
"It's RR (red run), sir. Storm, Sit, Orb, Break and GT2 are presently active. All ES are heading back to GCD (geth cruiser Dynius)."
"What's the ETA for the next catch?"
"Estimate ten on round trip. GC1 advise FES (facilitate evacuation speed)-" the pilot paused. Garrus could hear someone speaking in the background. "Claw1, be advised all XPs via D2, D3 and D5 are no longer viable."
"Claw copy."
Biting back a curse, Garrus thought rapidly. If airlocks on deck two, three and five were no longer usable, they would have to try either deck four or one. He grew even more unhappy when he found there was no deck four schematics on file. Either the krogans did not bother to release their geth probes or the probes were destroyed. The former was all too likely. He'd wagered too that the krogans left their probes at the docking level. Their exit would have to be the docks on deck one. Taking out his grapple pistol, he attached a line to the roof of the lift shaft before turning to Hiaras.
"All XPs are out, can you make it to deck one docks?"
"With Miona's help, yes," said Hiaras when Shepard stirred. "Shepard, stay still," she said when the human tried to move her arm.
"What's going on?" Shepard muttered with some confusion. Her head felt heavy. She blinked blurry eyes. Was she upside down? Or was it horizontal? The thunder in her ears, she slowly realised, was not in her head but from the battle close by.
"We're evacuating." Garrus put a hand on Shepard's shoulder to assure her while bending nearer so she could see him. "You're in no shape to move, let Hiaras help you."
"What's the sitrep?" She lifted her head and saw out of the corner of her eye, the barrage the geth and turians were laying down to keep the ramparts back. Damn. With her effectiveness cut, she was becoming a liability to her team.
"We got it under control," Garrus said firmly before calling Miona over. His eyes flicked down the corridor rapidly getting choked with broken mechs. They had to get off the level fast. "We have to go."
He turned to see Hiaras fastening the grapple line to Shepard's belt while she stood propped next to the lift doors with Miona's help. After a final check, Hiaras stepped onto the maintenance ladder, climbed down a few steps, grabbed the rest of the grapple line, attached it to her own belt and waited as Miona "lifted" Shepard across the threshold.
It felt odd and unsettling to be floated out across the yawning chasm so Shepard grabbed hold of the rungs of the ladder when she could. Except grabbed was hardly the word for it, more like held on to. The brief interval of unconsciousness enabled her to regain some strength but without Miona's biotic lift, she wouldn't have made it to the ladder so quickly. The tap on her lower leg drew her attention to Hiaras who beckoned to her to move. Hiaras kept in step below her as she climbed down. With Miona maintaining biotic lift on her, she only had to make certain of her grasp on the rungs.
Between deck twelve and eleven, the sounds of battle above became louder. Shepard looked up with concern, especially Miona leaning dangerously forward. Just as she was about to tell the young asari to release the biotic hold on her, a deafening explosion went off in the corridor. Hot metal and debris erupted into the lift shaft. The walls shook.
Off balanced and pushed by the shock wave behind her, Miona lost her grip on the door frame and fell. Shepard threw out a hand as she plummeted past and caught her outstretched arm. Their combined weight would have dragged her off except for Hiaras's fast reaction to throw a biotic lift on Miona. It gave the young asari enough time to recover and grabbed hold of a rung of the ladder with her other hand. Wedging her feet onto the ladder, she nodded to Shepard to let go.
Hooking an arm on a rung, Shepard tried not to groan from the pain of her wrenched arm muscles. She looked up instead. "Garrus?" She slumped with relief when he poked his head over the threshold.
"I recalled our probes. They took out a pile of junk. No casualties, we're coming down," he said.
Shepard nodded and resumed her descent with Hiaras's help. When she reached the top of the lift, Hiaras released the grapple line. The turians attached more lines to the ceiling of the shaft. A touch on her shoulder. Miona pointed to the open access hatch of the lift. Shepard glanced up again to see the turians beginning to rappel down so she dropped down the hatch with Hiaras catching hold of her before her legs gave out again. Miona dropped down, went to work on the lift doors and got them open just as the first turian soldier came down.
The corridors were empty when they stepped out. Shepard decided not to risk waving a rifle or a pistol about as she waited with the asari. The last thing she wanted to do was to accidentally shoot one of her own. She did a count of the turians and geth as they exited the lift. No one was missing.
"I got hold of Break," said Garrus as he came up beside her. "They pulled Sit and Orb out before they were outflanked by ramparts. They will meet us at the docking bay with GT2."
"What about Storm and the rest of the GTs?"
"They have evacuated. No word from Storm themselves but their geth attachment managed to get a squirt out that they went to butt heads with some mechs."
"The idiots..," began Shepard.
"The update from one of the ES says this station is moving closer to the accretion disc and we have inbound," Garrus interrupted. "We have to get to the airlocks at the docking bay."
"All right, we'll head for the docking bay but keep trying to get hold of Storm."
She knew she was consigning the krogans to oblivion but she had no choice. They knew the risks in coming along on the mission. If they were not going to obey and carry out the parameters of the mission, they were on their own. No one could be spared to look for them. She couldn't.
Garrus nodded. "I'll see if they left their probes on deck one."
The geth sent the elevator up one deck. They climbed down to deck one. The geth led the way with the turians bringing up the rear. Shepard was grateful the two asari didn't try to carry her between them but supported her weight and let her sort of jog along. Nothing leaped out to stop them. The docking bays were bare of any welcoming party except a gaggle of forlorn looking geth probes and three Athabasca freighters. The geth troopers picked up the probes. A pair peeled off to check the nearby airlock.
"Garrus, send someone to check if those freighters can maneuver," said Shepard.
Just as two turian soldiers ran to the nearest freighter, one of the geth reported movement at the far end of the docking bay. Shepard's comm beeped.
"Break to Seeker, we see you," said Miranda.
"I think that's the rest of our people." Shepard drew Garrus's attention to the group she could see running towards them in the distance. "Break, is the airlock at your side clear?"
"We have a mob of mechs coming our way. Heard them coming down in the cargo lift. They'll be on us in less than five."
Going through the airlocks was out of the question. "Make for the freighter at our end."
The geth at the airlock were recalled. They reached the freighter just as the first ramparts appeared behind Miranda's group. Osinae and her squad threw up a barrier against the ensuing fusillade, allowing the salarians and the geth to return fire as they slowly retreated to the freighter. The turians lay down support fire from their elevated positions on the boarding ramp. From the cover of the cargo bay doors Hiaras pushed her to, Shepard watched as she listened to Garrus who had gone ahead to the cockpit.
"We have the board up," he said as he stood in the cockpit behind the turian soldiers who were sent to check the freighter. "She's fully fueled and ready to go, except-," he paused as the soldier in the pilot seat murmured something. "We have a problem, thruster controls are locked down."
"Code locked?"
"It doesn't look like it's accessible here. I'm going to check engineering." He turned and clattered down the access ladder to the lower decks. "It could be a hard lock. It's going to take time to find it. I'm open to ideas."
Shepard knew who to ask. "Break1," she said as she visually located Miranda among the geth. "You have the lowdown to helm hard locks on Cerberus ships?"
"On my way." Miranda threw a grenade with deadly accuracy under a couple of charging ramparts, dashed for the boarding ramp and vanished into the interior of the ship. "Garrus, meet me in engineering."
"I'm already on my way, what am I looking for?"
"Blue striated conduits under ship thruster control panels aft. Key in code to unlock. One pass only, don't make any mistakes," she emphasized as she ran through the cargo compartment. "Sending code now-," she tapped on her omni-tool.
"I've got port," he said.
"I'll take starboard." Miranda slapped at the door controls to engineering and dashed in.
Shepard turned back to the others. They would make it. Just another few more minutes and everyone would be onboard the freighter. Cy called out a warning, pointing to the ceiling. Mechs were dropping down behind the salarians and asari. Geth reaction was lightning fast. Vord whirled and kicked away a rampart behind it while Maxtine and Pisor blasted the heads off the approaching mechs. Someone else was also there, rapidly throwing off the mechs before they could lay into the asari and salarians at point blank range. The mechs were propelled in midair despite their high density shields. With a start, Shepard realised it was Miona.
Recovering quickly, she called over the comm, "Break for it!"
The commandos collapsed the barrier as the salarians threw their grenades into the advancing horde. They ran for the boarding ramp. As the group dashed into safety, Shepard kept her eye on Miona flattening the stream of mechs that seemed endless. When she made no move to join the rest, Shepard realised she was not trying to retreat. She had instead biotic charged into the horde and was in danger of being surrounded.
"Miona. Miona!"
Beside her, Cy pointed to another group emerging from the nearby cargo lift. Even with the asari's augmented abilities, she could not withstand the numbers for long.
"Damn it, Miona, you get your ass back here before I come and kick it for you," Shepard snapped. Both Cy and Hiaras began to fire on the new group. "You hear me?! It's not going to be just your blood on the deck."
If the asari would not move, she was going to go get her. That she meant what she said must have gotten through. Miona turned and leaped over the mechs behind her that left Shepard wide eye, and ran for the ramp. Shepard cast one final glance around, hoping to see some sign that the krogans would appear but there was nothing. As the hatch was closing, a geth trooper came out of nowhere and dived in before it closed completely.
"Where did you..," Hiaras began to say in astonishment.
The geth trooper stood up. "I was attached to Storm. They're all dead." It looked at Shepard. "Storm1 ordered me to report to you before he was overwhelmed."
"Damn it, those crazy krogans," Shepard muttered and kicked the nearest storage container in exasperation and wished she had not; the impact made her head swim. "Let's get up to the bridge."
They threaded their way through the narrow aisle of the fully loaded cargo compartment. With storage containers on either side to support her, Shepard easily made her way to the small lift at the far end and took it to the third deck with the asari while the rest took the stairs. She headed, stumbled really, for the cockpit.
"How's it going, Break1?" Shepard asked as she held on to the back of the pilot's chair, peering through the cockpit windows. The glimmer of the galactic core shone clear through the shimmering protective shield of the docking bay. "We'll have fleas on top of us soon." She fancied she could hear the mechs at the hatch of the cargo compartment.
"We just broke the hard lock. Helm should be free."
The turian pilot set to immediately when he heard that. "Docking clamps retracted. Helm responds," he said.
"Head for GCD," said Shepard and waited tensely as the freighter began to move. She relaxed slightly when they slipped through the shield. "Seeker1 to GCD, come in."
Her eyes widened when the ship cleared the overhang of the station for her to see the fight. Oculus and geth fighters milled around the Dynius like angry flitting insects. There was no sign of the Normandy but it could be on the flanks of the cruiser. Fortunately, because of the FES, the geth cruiser was very close. It shouldn't take them too long to reach it.
"Seeker1 to GCD," she repeated. They should be clear of any jamming field by now.
"GCD copy," Prime Ze responded. "We read your signal origin from the freighter. Affirm."
"That's a confirm. All remaining active teams are onboard," she paused as she evaluated the battlefield. "GCD, status of the relay."
"We're picking up anomalous readings from the station and the relay. ES on standby."
"GCD, negative on ES deployment. We're maneuvering for TCR (tow cable retrieval). Copy?"
"GCD copy. Standing by for TCR."
Shepard bent to the turian pilot. "All right, get this tin can under the cruiser and line up that airlock-," she jerked her thumb over her shoulder, "to the shuttle bay."
"Yes, sir."
Cy came up to her. "Shepard Captain, several ramparts have attached themselves to the hull and are making their way to this deck. Permission to deploy."
Great. Here comes the fleas.
"Permission granted. Just keep them away from the airlock," she said. Cy nodded. "Watch yourselves out there," she added as Vord, Maxtine and Pisor followed it to the airlock.
"Acknowledge." Cy gave her the thumbs up. Hiaras steadied her when she staggered slightly. "I'm all right," she muttered, wishing once more for a nice soft bed.
"I'm sure you are," said Hiaras, "but you're staying down once this is over."
To that, Shepard made no answer because she knew she would be out for the count.
The freighter was slow but due to the proximity of the cruiser, they ducked under its belly before the oculus could swarm it. By then, they had vented the cockpit and crew quarters. They held the airlock open as the pilot lined it up with the shuttle bay of the cruiser. He inched the ship as close as he dared. Tow cables were shot directly into the airlock, the heavy grapplers striking the inner bulkheads. One by one, everyone hooked up, including the turian pilots. Outside, the geth cleared the last ramparts on the hull and attached themselves to the cables. Once everyone checked in, Shepard gave the signal and the tow cables were drawn in.
They bobbled like a string of balloons, vulnerable to any stray shot. They were the front seat audience to the furious melee between oculus and geth fighters. The living wished they were not. The geth found it interesting. The geth fighters were keeping the oculus away but there were frightening moments when the exchanges threatened to sear across their path.
Hearts pounded, breath deafened the ears, sweat flow and invocations were muttered silently until they reached the cruiser. The force field of the shuttle bay slowed their speed when they crossed it but they still hit the deck with bruising impact. No one complained. The geth fighters were recalled and the crusier headed for the relay, flanked by the Normandy which picked off the oculus stubbornly pricking the hull. Behind them, the merchant freighter began to move, set on a programmed course for the galactic core.
Avernus Station
Inner Sanctum
When the holograms of the geth crusier and the frigate vanished from the holotank, Lance shut it off and crossed over to where the tissue extractor were thrown. Nothing could be seen except shattered pieces of metal. He smiled and murmured softly. The wall before him ejected a tissue extractor. The tip was green lit, the sterile field was active. Lifting it to eye level, he examined it. The tiniest bit of skin and the slightest tinge of red. It was enough. Pulling out a small container from his pocket, he sealed the extractor in it. Turning, he walked over to the man lying on the floor beneath the plasglass window. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead and his pale face. His eyes opened to meet dark grey eyes, so much like his own.
"Are they gone?" When the other didn't answer, he said, "You have what you wanted."
"Perhaps." Lance stood up and stared down at his clone with cold fury.
As if sensing his anger, the clone said defensively, "I think some of my ribs are broken, the arm too."
"It can be fixed." Lance drew his pistol.
The clone blinked in confusion. "Why?"
"Your orders were specific. You were not to hurt her. You could have waited."
The clone laughed. "You're a coward. Sending me instead of facing her yourself. A sentimental fool. You could have taken them all. Instead you let them go. You let her go. The key to our future."
"Shepard stepped into the trap willingly. Knowing what she is capable of, I need not risk everything."
"You're an idiot. She near broke my jaw, thinking I'm you."
"Are you the real Lance? That's what she said." Lance smiled when the clone scowled. "She smelled the clone stink on you."
"You're no better...hankering after ..."
Lance didn't bother to listen. He squeezed the trigger. The shot struck the clone in the middle of his forehead. He slumped. Turning away, Lance walked into the core chamber. There was much to be done and little time to do it.