Paarchero was second to only Hyperion in terms of functionality. Natanus had been a cobbled together tragedy of ship debris, sprayed across the entire Remav System like shrapnel and the Leusinia had been a downed vessel that miraculously limped back to the Nexus.
Paarchero was untouched by the scourge. Paarchero was in one piece. Paarchero was an eerie, silent tomb.
"Tempest, we're in."
The docking bay looked like a docking bay. While it was a good thing they weren't greeted by any alarms or security (or kett,) it somehow made the experience that much more unsettling.
At least the radio frequency was loud and clear. Kallo could have been standing next to Sara with how crisply his voice reverberated inside her helmet. "So far, no unusual activity from the kett ship."
She nodded. "Let's hope it stays that way."
The strange black spires placed arbitrarily throughout corridors appeared to be the only kett alteration. Sara had no idea what their purpose was, but there was no way they could let this ark just zip back to the Nexus even if they did manage to free it. What they needed was a kett-free pocket in Heleus somewhere to scrub the ark of any possible subterfuge before it could be allowed to return to Initiative space.
"Let's get to a command console," she told her group.
Cora nodded and after creeping forward, waved them down a corridor.
Immediately from the docking bay, the ark opened to the Habitation Deck. Promised as a central hub of business and commerce to put the Citadel's promenade to shame, the emergency lighting cast everything in a red glow. The main console in the center of the deck functioned as an information kiosk and connected to a screen the entire span of the wall behind it. The moment Sara accessed it, the system flashed an error and demanded a password to bypass the additional data encryption.
"That's not regulation," she murmured. "Did the salarians do that?"
It didn't look like the Remnant script, but she couldn't identify the symbols as any obvious Milky Way language, either. SAM was already sifting through his database for a match and pinged her with the result. It was a cryptography key associated with the salarian Special Tasks Group. First mystery solved, hopefully more would unravel as soon as they cleared the encryption.
As SAM announced his success, they were greeted with the disappointingly chipper clip of the information VI, "At present, Ark Paarchero has arrived in the Heleus Cluster. Location of Nexus is unknown-"
Almost as soon as the introduction began, it cut out abruptly. Whatever prerecorded pleasantries the Avina VI had for them was replaced with a harried, breathy whisper, "This is Captain Hayjer of Ark Paarchero. If you are receiving this message, hostile aliens have captured our ship. Please look for our Pathfinder, Zevin Raeka. Situation urgent."
"Well, that was clear enough," Cora said. "Let's find them."
"Pathfinder Raeka?" Sara muttered. "That's their actual Pathfinder, right?"
"As opposed to what?" Cora asked.
Thankfully Drack barked a laugh, so Sara didn't have to elaborate. If their objective was to find a salarian, they needed to make their way to the cryo facilities.
The further in, the more deserted it appeared. Not a single kett in sight, although perhaps being surrounded by an entire armada meant excessive supervision wasn't warranted. It just looked like a ship; as far as Sara strained her gaze, she couldn't see any carbon scoring or bullet holes, not even a kicked over trash can.
Drack must have noticed, too. "Damn salarians didn't even put up a fight," he scoffed. "How do you suppose we're going to get an ark full of popsicles away from the kett?"
"It's flight-ready." Sara shrugged as they continued their trek. "Easiest way to save everyone is to take the whole ark with us."
"Easy isn't the word I'd use," Cora murmured.
"If the right salarians are onboard, it might work." The calculations were there, spinning in Sara's head. The odds certainly seemed better than, say, pinging the kett and politely asking permission. They didn't need to hear that, of course, so instead, she muttered the noncommittal, "Let's hope their Pathfinder can make sense of it."
Perhaps it was a bit dramatic to say it all came crashing down the moment the doors to the cryo facilities opened, but it certainly felt that way. One perfect, flight-ready ark. Sara should have known it was too good to be true.
Cora put words to what they were all thinking. "...Seeing a lot of empty pods."
It was more than pods. Entire blocks of the civilian population were just missing. How long had the salarians been there? How long had the kett had them?
How many were left?
"We have to find Raeka's pod," was the only thing Sara could muster.
For ease of reawakening, the stasis blocks had been organized by hierarchy. Important officials, the Pathfinder, pilots, doctors, scientists had all been clumped together separate from the civilian pods. On account of Alec Ryder's ever present paranoia, however, he split those officials up further into smaller blocks scattered throughout the facilities. It made any potential losses less devastating should the ark suffer power outages or damage that could compromise the integrity of the stasis pods.
Sara wondered if he considered a hostile alien force deliberately selecting pods. The more she looked at the rows, the more evident their situation became. The civilian pods still accounted for were untouched. The ones missing were removed one clean row at a time, taken based on location and not any priority to the individual inside. The block of officials, however, was an entirely different story.
The pods were still there, and that almost made it worse. They'd been cracked open and smashed, their inhabitants discarded like unwanted toys. Summarily executed, hopefully never having woken up to know what was happening.
"And there's Raeka," Sara muttered, throwing a hand in the direction of the shattered pods.
"That's her?" Cora asked. "You're sure?"
"Of course it is," Sara snapped. "Because why wouldn't it be? Why would we make it to Andromeda with a single Pathfinder alive?"
"Ryder, I get it, but let's focus-"
"Thanks a fucking lot, Dad- great planning!"
"You said Raeka's a her?" Drack interrupted. He had his head cocked as he circled the Pathfinder's corpse folded over the side of the stasis pod.
"She's not much of anything beyond week-old meat!" Sara continued. "The best and brightest! Best at what?"
"This salarian's a male," Drack said.
"What?" Cora pushed past Sara to get to Drack's side. "You sure about that?"
The krogan grunted. "I'm sure. When you've killed as many of them as I have, you learn a thing or two."
"They're a mostly androgynous species," Cora insisted.
"Mostly," Drack agreed. "But for everything else, that's a boy."
"What?" That pulled Sara back to reality. "Then who is this really?" She scrambled over to the pod, her omni tool extended.
Drack was right; base scans pointed to a male. With his DNA signature literally at her fingertips, Sara booted up the nearest console to input the data. She stood there and urged herself to breathe as SAM scrolled through twenty thousand names in search of a single match. Finally, one name popped up in green amid the endless list of gray.
Jeks Arlan. A school teacher in the Pathfinder's stasis pod.
"They switched them," Sara realized. "Trying to hide their Pathfinder."
"Typical salarians," Drack scoffed. "All smoke and mirrors."
Maybe, but it renewed a flicker of hope. Sara looked at her team. "Let's check this colonist's stasis pod. See if anyone's there."
Jeks Arlan was purportedly in central block M, pod number 375. Dead center of a civilian block in the dead center of the entire facility. Sara supposed it was the safest gamble, regardless of which side of the pods the kett chose to chip away from. By all accounts, it was a gamble that paid off. The pod wasn't empty.
"I think we found our Pathfinder," Sara said, pointing to the stasis pod. "Let's get her out."
Cora was at the nearest console, hastily inputting the release procedure. Power lit up the pod and a hiss escaped the seam where the door met the base. As the pod opened, a petite salarian was revealed. The sheen of cryo stasis began to evaporate as her skin came into contact with the air, returning her to a deep, natural green. Sara was at her side as the salarian's black eyes popped open and she gasped a frantic breath.
"Hey there," Sara urged. "Take it slow."
Hearing Common Trade seemed to calm her. Zevin Raeka blinked hard and then her eyes focused on Sara. "No need," she said, sliding out of the pod. "I'm fine. Salarian stasis recovery is almost immediate." She continued to take even breaths until a healthy, orange flush returned to her cheeks. "Who are you?"
"Sara Ryder, Pathfinder for the human ark."
Raeka cocked her head at Sara. "Where's Alec?"
"Dead." Perhaps Sara should have said it with a bit more compassion for Raeka's sake, but it was becoming rote by this point.
The salarian stared at Sara and her team before taking a few stumbling steps backwards. "This is madness." Raeka hurried to the console Cora used to wake her. "Stasis was a mistake. I should never have agreed to it."
"You okay?" Sara asked. As she peered over the shoulder of the last original Pathfinder, she could see Raeka pulling up specific names from the general population. It seemed a fair assumption that there were more crucial personnel hiding in swapped stasis pods.
"A leader leads," Raeka said matter-of-factly, not bothering to look up from the console. "She doesn't go to sleep."
"Why did you go back into cryostasis?" Sara asked.
"A hostile species- an armada- set upon us. Our captain saw no choice but surrender." Raeka shook her head. "Said we'd live to fight another day. He convinced me to hide in the general population and to dismantle my SAM so it wouldn't fall into enemy hands. But we're still in their grasp, I see."
"You dismantled your SAM?" Sara could feel her own SAM springing to attention in a way she could only call fear.
The other Pathfinder offered her a flat look and resumed activating select pods.
"I wish I could say we were specifically here to rescue you," Sara told her. "But we didn't even know where your ark was. We're heading into the kett ship to gather intelligence. Wake up a flight crew and ready the ark for escape. On my signal."
"That'll be no trouble," Raeka replied. She gestured to the console. "And then I'll work on freeing the ark so you can focus on your objective."
Sara just knew Cora was frowning beneath her helmet. "But your people have been through so much. Are you sure they'll be equipped to deal with this right out of stasis-?"
"Great." Sara cut in. She held up her omni tool. "I'm keying you into our comms. We'll stay in touch."
As their frequencies synced, Raeka was privy to Drack, Cora and even Kallo onboard the Tempest. Sara's SAM greeted their newest addition on the shared radio wave as obtusely as if he were a simple VI, but privately, the AI chittered, outraged at the thought of being dismantled.
If Raeka was aware, she gave no outward sign. Instead, she smiled warmly. "Ah. A SAM in my head again. I'm back in the game." She turned and addressed Sara directly, "We'll be ready, Ryder."
"I'm counting on it," Sara replied. Easy part done, the mission only became more and more complicated from that leg onward. Sara's one bit of solace was that if she and her team critically screwed up their objective, hopefully it would create enough of a diversion for Raeka and Paarchero to safely flee. SAM checked Sara's oxygen levels and the seals to her suit as she nodded to Cora and Drack. "Let's go."