As a general rule, Nick tried to only worry about practical things.
Usually, that wasn't difficult—the typical tour of duty in a war zone offered an abundance of very real things to worry about, and as a corpsman it was unavoidable that he found himself worrying about every member of his platoon every moment of every day. So, it was fair to say he did a lot more worrying than most.
As a result, he liked to imagine that it had become a skill of sorts; he could shape worry into nigh-unshakable focus in dire moments, did his best not to let it keep him up at night, and tried to keep the list of things he worried about reasonably short.
Mines were high on that list, of course. Snipers, as well, albeit less so. A few more unusual things sometimes snuck in—capture had always been something of a personal fear of his, for instance—but they generally didn't get any more exotic than that.
However, peering carefully over a rusty guardrail into the massive, black void of the mine, Vandas quietly wondered if he wouldn't have to add 'giant, bottomless pits' to that list. And this was from someone who didn't consider themselves to have any particular aversion to heights.
With the power back on, the facility had been far easier to navigate—if only slightly less eerie—and they'd quickly found the top of site's mineshaft, an enormous hole twelve feet across situated in the heart of the facility. The drop-off was protected by little more than a simple metal guardrail with a hinged gate to allow miners to step into the elevator, and Nick couldn't help but feel his guts clench just being around the thing. A dozen thick cables stretched down from the latticework of scaffolds and support beams overhead into the darkness below, thier creases filled with a dark red mixture of rust and chalky soil.
When they'd first searched the room, Shepard had found a bundle of glowsticks while poking through a crate of supplies and had tossed it down the shaft out of curiosity, the sticks casting a yellow glow on the rough stone walls as they fell. Peering over the railing with the others to watch, Nick had felt his stomach drop as he watched the light gradually disappear into the depths with no sign of hitting the bottom any time soon, accompanied by a momentary sense of vertigo that tugged at the edges of his vision and threatened his balance. After that, the marine had given the shaft a wide berth.
From the control panel near the rusty gate, Alenko gave a triumphant shout as the lights dimmed momentarily, and the groan of a straining engine somewhere overhead sent worried eyes darting upward as the web of cables began to stir.
Gradually, the reluctant trundle of wheels climbing the cables could be heard from the depths, a familiar yellow glow slowly growing nearer. As a precaution, the team readied their weapons and edged towards the closest object that would provide hard cover, prepared to greet anything making an unannounced return trip from the bottom of the mine.
Shepard carefully took cover beside railing, her pistol at the ready and a grenade clutched in the other hand as she peered down the shaft with the light of her omni-tool. After navigating the inexplicably abandoned processing plant in the darkness, the prospect of something horrifying and murderous leaping out of the elevator was a very definitely something that had crossed their minds.
Fortunately, the beam of her flashlight found only an empty mining cage straining up the shaft, the light glimmering faintly on the spots where its bright yellow paint hadn't flaked off the steel mesh that enclosed the passenger area. A few metal sheets beginning to show signs of rust had been laid across the floor of the cab to reinforce it, the thin plates warped and worn by the continual tread of miner's boots. A bundle of glowsticks dangled from the protective mesh on top, caught in the bars meant to protect riders from falling rocks.
The car halted at the top of the shaft with a resounding clunk, and the mesh door clattered open nosily, inviting the squad aboard. There was a long silence as the team seemed to be collectively preparing themselves to climb in, willingly trusting that the rusty deathtrap could safely convey them into the depths of the mine and back.
At least the trip down might be quick, Nick mused darkly.
"Any volunteers?" Jane asked, and the rest of the team seemed uncertain if she was making a bad joke or legitimately requesting that someone else to go first into the obvious hazard for a change. Regardless, no one laughed and no one stepped forward, so the commander ventured forth with a quiet grumble.
Pulling open the gate, she carefully stepped across the small gap into the elevator and grabbed one of the metal bars to steady herself, the cab swaying concerningly with her added weight. When it stopped, the commander turned and waved the others aboard. The rest of the team shared wary glances, but reluctantly followed her aboard.
Even through the filters in his helmet, the corpsman could smell the stink of machine oil and rust as the four armored occupants packed elbow-to-elbow into the car. After a bit of blind groping in the crowded elevator and a startled protest from Kaidan, Shepard found the controls on the wall and smashed the button with the side of her fist. The elevator lurched concerningly as the brake disengaged with a loud groan before finally beginning its slow descent into the mine.
Under most circumstances, it would've been an opportunity for someone to awkwardly make small talk, but since everyone seemed preoccupied with thoughts of plummeting to their deaths, nobody was very conversational. Even Garrus was uncharacteristically mum.
The rough-hewn walls of the shaft were illuminated through the steel mesh by the sickly light of the glowsticks, the featureless stone interrupted by large, rusty anchor bolts driven into the sheer rock at regular intervals.
As the lift descended, Nick looked upward through the bars, watching the light at the top of the shaft gradually shrink, and in only a few minutes it was little more than a faint pinprick he had to strain make out. He'd never been underground before, and the medic couldn't exactly claim he relished the experience. Standing in a cramped metal cage being lowered into a dark mine with only one way out felt an awful lot like being trapped.
"You know, Commander, you're two for two on creepy, abandoned tunnels." Nick commented ruefully, unpleasant memories of Feros still fresh in his mind.
Shepard managed a chuckle. "Don't tell me you're nervous."
Given that their last foray had turned up a veritable nightmare factory of reanimated corpses and an ancient, malevolent hivemind, Vandas didn't think his concern was unreasonable. "Maybe a hair."
The spectre gave a grunt, but didn't reply.
Eventually growing bored of staring at the walls, Nick let his focus wander, listening to the faint whirl and hiss of the fans and pumps built into his armor, noting the pungent sting of disinfectant in his nose and stale stink of sweat that permeated the padding in his helmet. Even with the temperature regulation system in his bodysuit turned up almost as high as it would go, he could still feel sweat running down the back of his neck and soaking into the woven material, making for a soggy, uncomfortable experience inside the skintight undersuit.
If he was honest, acclimating to his new weapons and armor was the most disruptive change that had come with his radically new situation. He could adjust to living aboard a starship and all the changes that came with his new position as Chakwas' medical clerk, but there was nothing he could do to adapt overnight to a century and a half of weapons and armor development. Williams was training with him regularly, but it still wasn't necessarily a smooth process.
Putting on his kit was slow and laborious. Armor plates shifted or pinched in unexpected places when he sidestepped or crouched. The once practiced and certain motion of pulling a fresh rifle magazine from his chest rig was now redundant and ridiculous.
While the feeling would likely fade with time, it still meant the medic didn't like the new gear.
More than a few niggling gripes over bothersome differences, he hated how uncertain they made him. He was fully aware that his new equipment was superior in every capacity, but he couldn't help but miss the familiarity of his old gear—from the heft of a weathered M4 carbine he knew ever intricacy of, to an open face helmet thoroughly stained with dirt and salt. Hell, he even missed his worn to shit boots and his desert cammies with the crotch tearing out.
The elevator jolting noisily to a stop shook Nick from his thoughts, the corpsman realizing they'd finally reached their destination as a section of metal grating mounted on a set of rails clattered aside to let them out.
Shepard had squeezed to the front to exit first, leading them forward into a cramped chamber about the size of the Normandy's galley that the miners seemed to use as both a break area and a machine shop, metal tables and storage lockers squeezed between workbenches and pieces of mining equipment in various stages of disassembly.
Strings of bare light bulbs ran along the ceiling, wires and ventilation ducts meandering along the cracks and crevices of the dark volcanic rock. Despite being a reasonably large area, the low ceiling—barely high enough for Garrus to navigate without stooping—and the rough, bare stone all around gave the space a distinct sense of claustrophobia. Even being accustomed to the spartan conditions of frontline outposts, Vandas couldn't help but think that it made for a somewhat hellish environment to work in.
He stole a glance at his omni-tool and was unpleasantly surprised to find it was actually slightly hotter in the mine than on the surface, the just as air stifling and mercilessly dry down in the mines.
More concerning, however, was the buildup of gases just below the threshold for being dangerously unbreathable. While the faint thrum and rattle of the mine's ventilation system meant conditions would gradually improve, if the power failed or they entered a section of the mine where it wasn't working, the team would only have a few hours of breathable air from their armor. If the idea worried anyone else as much as it concerned the corpsman, no one said anything aloud.
"Temperature reads fifty-two centigrade down here." Vandas announced, pulling his rifle from his back and letting it unfold in his arms. His tone carried the familiar authority of a medic addressing his charges. "I want everybody taking a drink of water at least every fifteen minutes, thirsty or not. If you turn into a heat casualty, you and I are going to get intimately familiar—that includes you, Vakarian."
Alenko glanced at the corpsman, a look bordering horror on what little of his face was visible behind his breather mask, while Shepard simply laughed quietly, turning to the confused turian. "Were you able to pull a map of the tunnels, Garrus?"
"Partially, but no sign of the ruins—this mine links directly into a natural tunnel system that I don't think has ever been fully explored. However," The detective gestured to a self-driving mining cart sitting on the far side of the chamber. "the miners probably laid down rails to the old face before they shut it down, so we should be able to follow them most of the way to the ruins. Give them some space, though—the automatic haulers won't detect us walking along the tracks."
Jane chuckled. "Sounds like you missed your true calling as a mining engineer, Garrus."
The sharpshooter snorted. "Somehow, I don't think so. Back when I was still in the army, we'd see a lot of these old mines taken over by pirates. Usually, we preferred just hitting them from orbit to cave in the entrance—they usually suffocated before they could dig themselves out—but occasionally we had to go in and root them out the hard way." He shook his head, the past missions apparently not making for fond memories. "They're never any fun to fight in, but at least this operation is fairly spacious. The worst are the ones you can't even stand up all the way and you're constantly scraping your fringe on everything."
"Well, we'll watch our heads, then. Come on."
After a short delay while the rest of the team waited for Shepard to finish poking around the collection of cabinets and broken equipment, the team finally set off into the tunnels.
Shepard had naturally taken point, quickly stuffing a couple tubes of medi-gel pilfered from an aid station into a pouch on her belt and pulling out her rifle as they set out. Garrus fell in behind her with a raised brow, exchanging looks with Alenko who shrugged helplessly and began to follow with Nick bringing up the rear.
While no one had directly questioned the commander on her... acquisitive tendencies in so far as Nickeli was aware, it certainly hadn't gone unnoticed by her team. While out on missions, Jane had a habit of filling her pockets with credits, equipment, anything not nailed down, and—with the assistance of her omni-tool's micro plasma cutter—some things that were. It was a subject that was sometimes quietly brought up amongst the rest of the squad with equal measures concern and bewilderment. The medic had initially been inclined to believe that perhaps it stemmed from her time serving in an N-Corp strike team—operating covertly far from lines of resupply, the ability to gather supplies on the fly would've been a valuable skilled—but more and more, he was beginning to wonder if the spectre was just something of a magpie.
Granted, the things Shepard grabbed tended to useful or at least valuable, but since there were still times it blurred the line between commandeering and looting, it was probably best that she wrote most of the after-action reports. Moreover, it was also undeniably strange.
The commander was the ranking officer of an advanced warship in the service of the most powerful professional military force in the history of mankind, operating under the direct authority of the most influential government body in existence. With the right requisition forms signed off, the Alliance would ship a main battle tank halfway across the galaxy and deposit it in the Normandy's hangar—why exactly she felt the need to rummage through storage containers looking for curios remained something of a mystery.
The team trooped deeper into the mine with their weapons kept low but at the ready, their boots drumming steadily across the heavy metal plates that ran parallel to the track. In a bizarre way, Nick almost would've preferred that the team had found the geth occupying the site when they'd landed and been forced to fight thier way through the tunnels. The utter, inexplicable emptiness of the place was unnerving, and the thought that they might find an explanation somewhere deeper in the mine failed to reassure him.
They continued that way for the better part of half an hour, pausing periodically to rest and cool down or to examine a smaller tunnel that branched off from the main one, but failed to encounter anything beyond mothballed equipment and a few abandoned terminals they couldn't get to power up. Bringing up the rear of the formation, Vandas was constantly checking over his shoulder, and he kept thinking he saw the machinery they'd passed flickering to life out of the corner of his eye, but found the controls dark and dead whenever he turned to look. With a frown, he'd pressed on, deciding the uneven lighting of the tunnel and the glassy, volcanic rock must be playing tricks on him. He couldn't explain away the disquieting sense that something was watching them, though.
While the group was briefly halted in a long, gentle bend, the tunnel was suddenly plunged into utter darkness with the distant but distinct crack of a breaker tripping somewhere in the mine, and the entire team started in unison. In the darkness, there was the hollow thunk of a half-full canteen being dropped and the clamor of a startled, blind effort to assume defensive positions. After a few moments, portions of the passage were illuminated by a few white flashlight beams as the team activated their tactical lights, quickly scanning their surroundings in expectation of an ambush.
Fortunately, no attack came from the darkness, and after a few tense moments Nick managed a relieved, breathy laugh, a sentiment echoed by the rest of the team.
Given the state of the facility and the ad hoc repairs Alenko had performed on the power system, a sudden blackout in the mines was probably to be expected. While it would complicate their plans somewhat, Vandas expected that the team could probably be excused for being a bit on...
Wait, what the hellwas that noise?
"Hey, do you hear that?" Nick paused and turned, leveling his rifle at the black expanse of passage behind them. From somewhere in the tunnel came the distant sound of metal grinding harshly against metal, accompanied by an alternating high-low cry like the wail of some sort of odd siren.
The rest of the team fell quiet, standing in absolutely silence and straining to listen as they cradled their weapons apprehensively. With widening eyes, Vandas realized it sounded like it was getting closer.
"It's a hauler! Take cover against the wall!" Garrus ordered, alarm ringing in his voice.
The others obeyed without question, pressing themselves against the rough stone and huddling low, lights turned in the direction of the approaching rumble.
The hauler—a boxy, clumsy looking thing like a cargo container on four wheels—rounded the bend and came into sight barely thirty yards behind them, an orange warning light whirling atop it and a wailing siren announcing its approach. The noise of its wheels echoed like rolling thunder, and the flash of its orange warning light in the darkness illuminated the enormous cloud of dust that billowed behind it like an advancing wall of fire, making it seem as though some sort of hellish ghost train were bearing down on them.
Before the corpsman had a chance to fully comprehend the sight, the machine roared by at a frightful clip, wheels clattering unevenly down the track and the rush of air that accompanied its passing enough to buffet Vandas as he steadied himself against the wall. Even wearing a sealed helmet, the medic found himself shutting his eyes against the assault of blinding light and deafening noise.
And then it was gone—leaving nothing more than the retreating wail of a siren that grew increasingly faint and a massive cloud of choking dust from the tunnel walls left in its wake.
...
After a long few moments, the team groggily began to peel themselves off the walls, glancing around uncertainly in the haze and darkness. Aside from sound of their grumbles and the tread of their unsteady footsteps on the metal walkway, the mine was silent once again.
"That sucked." Nick stated flatly, his voice coming from somewhere amidst the swirling dust that their flashlights struggled to pierce.
While she knew she couldn't be seen, Shepard couldn't help but bob her head in agreement. That did seem a rather neat summary of their situation.
"Everyone okay?" The commander asked, getting a chorus of unenthusiastic but vaguely affirmative grumbles in reply. Nobody was injured, but the team certainly wasn't enjoying themselves either, which was probably understandable. It was stiflingly hot, claustrophobic, and the entire squad had just narrowly avoided being pasted against the tunnel walls by runaway mining equipment. Whether or not this was worse than the mission on Feros with its dilapidated towers full of geth and walking corpses, Jane wasn't certain, but if nothing else it was certainly a close second.
In fact, the utter misery of the whole situation loaned itself to a bizarre brand of companionable levity. There was a sort of macabre, absurdist humor buried somewhere in the notion of being flattened by a mine cart, and even without discussing it aloud, all four of them seemed to agree it was hilarious.
Someone giggled.
Shepard had no idea who started it, but before she knew it, the entire team was giggling like schoolchildren, the strange, tinny noise filling the darkness of the tunnel. It was an airy, relieved sound that seemed to build in thier chests until they were howling with laughter, and Jane found herself blinking back warm tears. For a short time, the cramped confines of the mine suddenly became a little easier to bear.
The jovial mood lasted a bit longer as they started walking again, but the reality of their mission gradually returned when they found a new obstacle in their path a few hundred meters farther along.
In front of them, an imposing wall of dark metal blocked the way, anchored deep into the surrounding rock. In the darkness, Shepard almost thought the miners had somehow managed to completely seal the tunnel before she spotted a set of monstrous hinges and realized it was a door. The imposing gate wouldn't have looked out of place at the entrance of a reinforced bunker, but its purpose in the mine was somewhat questionable. One section of the door had a smaller entry for personnel built into it, but without power, it would still be difficult to get through.
A low whistle from Shepard. "Big door."
"And here they told me humans couldn't see in the dark." Garrus quipped from behind her, dry amusement in his voice. The other three-quarters of the team shot unamused looks his way, but the party's lone turian seemed pleased with himself all the same, and the concentrated light of their helmet lamps had the unusual effect of making his blue armor glow dully in the darkness of the tunnel.
Seemingly glad for the extra light, the detective consulted his omni-tool, manipulating the three-dimensional map of the mine.
While mining sites in Alliance space were required by industry regulations to keep an up-to-date map of the mines readily available, the almost complete lack of oversight away from larger colonies meant such minor rules were observed half-heartedly at best. As a result, the copy he'd downloaded from the plant's network was months old and would become increasingly unreliable the farther along they went, but it was better than endeavoring blindly into the tunnels.
"These doors lead into the system of volcanic tunnels the miners have been following." The turian noted, though the hint of consternation in his tone caught Shepard's attention. "But they shouldn't be closed—shutters like these are electromagnetically sealed to avoid trapping the workers in the event of a power failure."
"That's because it's still getting power." Alenko announced, glancing up from his own omni-tool. Its orange glow across the visor of his helmet gave him a strangely grim appearance. "It's being supplied by a power source deeper in the mines, and I doubt I can shut it down remotely. We'd have to physically sever the connection to disengage the lock."
Power from inside the mines, Shepard pondered, lost in thought as she stared at the impressive bulkhead. A backup generator, perhaps? Maybe it was just some sort of automated system that had kicked in when the power had been cut above ground? Or had the miners locked themselves inside? And if they had, what was it they were afraid would get in, or worried about what might get out?
With a thoughtful hum, Shepard unclipped one of the disk-shaped devices from her belt and tested its heft.
At the moment, such concerns were academic—for now, they had a door to get through. While that wasn't a problem in of itself, there was also the somewhat delicate matter of doing so without dropping the roof of the tunnel on top of them all.
"Nick, how much saline are you carrying?"
"Six one-thousand milliliter bags," he answered suspiciously. "Why?"
"Give me two."
From the rear of the formation came a knowing and unhappy grumble, quickly followed by the shuffling of equipment as Vandas began fishing through the bulky medical back that hung along the small of his back.
Garrus glanced over, head tilted slightly. "What're you up—"
"She's making a bomb. Again." Nick groused, not sounding especially impressed as he appeared at her side. With an outstretched hand, the corpsman offered a pair of sealed bags of translucent fluid he was positive he wouldn't be seeing again. "Why am I always an accessory to this?"
Coiling a length of dark grey detcord around her hand, Jane flashed a guilty smile.
During her career as a simple fleet marine, she had—for a brief time—led a platoon of combat engineers, so the commander had been acquainted with explosives since some of her earliest days as a commissioned officer, even if it felt like a lifetime ago.
So, while she'd never had any formal training on the same level as Sergeant Scarpasky until she'd entered the ICT program, Shepard had first learned the delicate art of demolitions on the floor of a squad bay, under the tutelage of the sappers she commanded.
As a result, even after the rigors of training in the Brazilian jungle, her methods had never exactly been scientific. Now, that was perfectly fine when the commander was handling preprepared charges, but when left to her devices there tended to be some wiggle room on how long fuses burned and the typical unit of measurement for explosive filler was "probably enough."
And, in her defense, it was dark in the tunnel anyway.
Placing the charge against the smaller personnel door and making a final check of the remote detonator, Shepard and the rest of team retreated back down the passage.
With no offshoot tunnels in sight, the corridor offered relatively little in the way of cover, forcing them to conceal themselves as best they could behind the narrow metal support columns along the walls.
Shepard and Kaidan crouched behind one beam while Garrus sat behind the one opposite them. It took a moment for Jane to find Nickeli in the darkness, and the spectre couldn't help but feel a twinge of annoyance when she did. The medic was a few yards back at the next set of columns, lying on his belly and doing a remarkably good job of pressing himself behind a steel column that couldn't have been more than eight inches wide.
Granted, his only experience with Shepard's demolition work so far hadn't exactly inspired confidence, but she still thought it seemed a bit excessive.
Jane pulled the detonator from her belt and—with a bit of a flourish—disengaged the safety with her thumb and hit the button.
At the end of the other end of the tunnel, the charge detonated with a sharp crack that was muffled and distorted by the dampeners in her helmet, though in the confines of the mine shaft the shockwave still felt like a firm punch in the chest through a couple inches of padding and armor. In a few spots, pieces of small chunks of loose rock broke off the ceiling and fell, shattering noisily across the metal deck plates and hauler rails. The hatch vanished in a vibrant orange flash, leaving behind an efficient little hole in the imposing industrial gate, and Shepard couldn't help but feel a small measure of satisfaction.
But then the blast got brighter. And closer.
"Shit."
An enormous, billowing orange column of fire roared up the tunnel towards them, coiling and flowing along the rough stone walls. The entire team threw themselves to the ground, and Jane could feel the immense heat of the blast on the back of her neck as the flames rolled across the ceiling. For an instant, it felt as though they'd opened a portal into the very core of the volcanic planet.
And then, with the same suddenness that it had begun, it was over, leaving behind nothing but the cry of her armor's environmental oxygen alarm and the lingering smell of lightly scorched armor paint.
Shepard coughed and, after making certain there wasn't another fireball coming their way, gingerly began picking herself up off the floor. "What the hell was that?!"
"Methane explosion." Garrus answered with a grunt as he rose to his knees. The turian sounded incredibly calm for someone who'd just narrowly avoided being scorched to death. "There must've been a build-up on the other side of the doors. We're probably lucky it didn't cause a cave it."
With a grumble, Jane massaged the back of her neck. "Lucky" didn't exactly describe how she felt at present.
Nick was already back on his feet and at Shepard's side, the dim beam of his helmet light darting between the other members of the team. "Is everyone alright?"
The question was met with a familiar mix of mumbled complaints and groans. Miraculously, the mine hadn't managed to kill them all yet, but the team seemed to generally agree it was welcome to quit trying.
The corpsman moved to help Alenko up but was waved away, the lieutenant looking momentarily disoriented as he climbed to his feet. As a relatively green officer aboard the Normandy, the biotic was one of the few members of the little team that Shepard had assembled with no combat experience to speak of, aside from Tali. Even Williams had seen a little bit of action during anti-piracy sweeps out in the Traverse on garrison duty, while Nic—nearly a decade the lieutenant's junior—could boast two tours of duty in a combat zone. So, as the relative greenhorn, only time would tell how well Kaidan could adapt.
Fortunately, the entire team seemed to have survived the fireball with little more than some light scorching and a few frayed nerves. However, the sudden and stark reminder of their mission had dispelled any sense of humor about the situation and signaled a return of the same discomfort they'd entered the plant with, and the four trooped forwards in worried silence, the tumbling of the stones they kicked across the metal deck reverberating through the darkness.
The breached wall loomed ahead of them, and as it came into sight through the dust there was the sound of shifting equipment as the team tensed and steeled themselves for whatever lay ahead of them. As the approached the door, their spacing decreased until they'd formed a loose stack, Shepard and Nick at the front with their rifles trained on open entryway while Kaidan brought up the rear and watched the tunnel behind them. Vandas gave her two quick pats on the shoulder. Ready.
Jane's voice was a harsh whisper over the radio. "Go."
Her rifle at the ready, Shepard rushed through the door in quick, measured steps with the medic right behind her, scanning the darkness ahead of as the stone walls of the tunnel gave way to the battered metal paneling of a sealed workshop area.
Jane's fingers tightened around the trigger but stopped just short of firing as her light fell upon something in the darkness.
Nearly two dozen figures lined the narrow corridor, a dusting of soot and red dirt settled on their dark orange coveralls and obscuring the faces of the handful that wore sealed helmets. If not for the deathly pallor visible on a few faces, one could've been forgiven for thinking they were merely sleeping. They were small, huddled bodies tucked against the walls, and they still sat with the same, unnerving calm that they had awaited their deaths with.
They'd found the miners.
When she took a step forward, her boot met something solid and glanced down to find a collection of worn hand tools laying at her feet. A prybar with the tip of one claw broken off. A sledgehammer with a splintered composite handle. Nearly a dozen in total—all broken.
They'd been scattered slightly by the explosion, but it was obvious that they'd been sitting in a neat pile somewhere near the door.
At some point, the miners had been forced to accept the reality of their situation and had set aside their tools. More than a dozen of them in all, they'd sat down and waited calmly for a rescue at least some of them knew was never coming.
A heavy silence fell over the party as they slowly advanced, carefully stepping between outstretched legs and grasping hands. Whatever unknown disaster that had befallen the mine before the Normandy's arrival had turned the workshop into the mausoleum of two dozen strangers.
Doting fathers, dutiful sons, cherished daughters. Shepard had come to appreciate the cold, perfect indifference of the universe a long time ago—it threw the good and the decent under the same grinding wheel as they rest, but it was still trying to see up close like this.
As someone who found herself coming across the broken pieces left behind afterwards more often than she'd have liked, the spectre couldn't but help wonder what it had been in those last moments. Had it come down to blind luck who'd gotten the masks, or had someone decided? Had they amounted to anything, in the end, aside from a few more hours trapped in the darkness, listening to their friends breathe their last as the air grew thin?
Shepard knelt carefully, picking up a breathing mask from the lap of the man who'd thrown aside the useless thing, inspecting it with care. The apparatus' dying battery had just enough power left to flash a red light on the oxygen meter. Under such circumstances, were a few more hours a mercy, or cruelty? At least they'd known they weren't alone in the end, as twisted a consolation it may be.
A hand fell on her shoulder.
"Commander," Nick called quietly. There was no shock in his voice, just a sort of grim acceptance. "We need to move on."
The medic gave a slight, comforting pat that she could barely feel through her armor. Not now, it said. When they were safely back on the Normandy, they could all wonder about the miners while telling themselves it didn't bother them, but not right now.
Privately, Jane wondered at him. In an instant, the corpsman was no longer the warm, companionable young marine she'd come to know. A familiar stranger had taken his place—one that seemed able to perceive the loss of human life as nothing more than something to be stepped around and categorized later. It was an appearance of consummate detachment that the spectre couldn't help but wonder if such a thing was to be envied or pitied.
It hurt, in a way, to know that Vandas was right, though. She could ensure the miners' families were informed when the team filed the mission report, but there was nothing they could do for them now—only for themselves. Somewhere in this mine was the asari archeologist they were looking for, and until they found her—alive or dead—they still had a mission to complete.
Jane released a slow, measured breath, rising to her feet. "Let's go."
A/N: Honestly, I was intending to neatly conclude Therum in two chapters, but when I hit almost twenty pages with a lot more ground still to cover I realized I'd have to break off the latter half of this chapter into a third. It's not my first choice, but at least it means I get to finally release something for you all.