Chapter 24
I don't own Mass Effect
Amerikhan786...first off bit rude calling my story trash right out the front gate, second of all with my character and his background how could I form my own faction? Who will want to listen a farm boy? I need experience, credits and credibility. There is a story called a very terran (re)solution that you might like and it's quite good.
500 followers...sweet. I hope that one day I'll reach the number of the big dogs like vfsnake and justbored in number of followers.
Also I suddenly realised why the master chief always dies when he touches water...he cant swim. Did you know there is a mutation that causes your bones be 8/10 times denser and enables you to walk away from car crashes (or at least makes your bones much harder to break) the trade off is your too dense to float or swim. Spartan 2's have metal grafted to their bones plus 2 tons of armour aka he'll sink like a rock. I guess this also means Logan aka wolverine can't swim either, or at least its very difficult for him.
This chapter got a bit big and since I haven't updated in some time and the end of the chapter needs some work I split it in two. Novera the conclusion shouldn't take much longer.
Story Start
When everyone had rejoined us we headed to the garage which was guarded by a very nervous-looking ERC, not that I could blame her considering the size of our group and how well we were armed. It would actually be commendable if she tried to stop us at all.
"Sorry b-but access to the garage is prohibited." said the woman shakily
"That's fine we have a pass." said Shepard, showing the pass that Gianna gave us. The ERC officer nearly collapsed in relief.
"Thank good- thank you for your compliance ma'am." said the officer catching herself mid-sentence
"Relax we're a big group, it's okay to be a bit nervous." said Shepard trying to calm her down
"Thank you for saying so ma'am but could you not mention it to anyone else? It's my first week here." requested the officer
"Mention what?" asked Shepard in false cluelessness
Walking through the door we instantly started to scan our surroundings. There were geth here, the question was where?
As we continued to walk deeper into the garage nothing happened. It was only when we were halfway inside the garage, right next to a couple of grizzlies that parked in the middle of the room with a few shuttles and some other ground lining the side did Garrus spot something.
"Shepard get down!" Garrus barked suddenly before shoving Shepard to the side
A second later a red beam hits the air where she just was. Near the back of the garage, I could just hear the sounds of what could be a door or hatch sliding open.
Garrus lines up a shot but before he could pull the trigger the geth hopper springs away.
"How many are we dealing with?" asked Shepard after she finds cover as do the rest of us. Some of us hid behind a crate, a pillar or even one of the nearby vehicles. I myself was crouched behind a crate with my settler rifle, on my direct left was Shepard and Garrus. On my right near the pillars was Gamora and Tali
"I'm seeing one, no two hoppers hiding on the ceiling." said Garrus taking a shot at another hopper
"According to the scanners, there's about four, no six geth troopers coming our way." said Tali "I don't think they expected to face this number of people in the garage at once."
"Well let's make things even more to our favour, Tali think you can hack the guns of the grizzlies and have them open fire?" asked Shepard
"I should be able to." answered Tali already getting to work
"Good do it, Garrus and Ash deal with those hoppers." started Shepard "Kaiden if you can nail one of them with a lift do it. As for everyone else I want you to focus on the geth in front of us, if you're a biotic I want a wall of singularities. No point letting them get close if we don't have to."
As Shepard ordered, I lay down a singularity. So did many others, including Wrex, Shepard herself, Liara and Gamora. With a literal wall of singularities between us, the geth weren't able to get close. Those geth included two large, heavy geth platforms painted black and four standard units.
Stuck at a distance, the geth fired a range of rockets and carnage shots at us, trying to take some of us down while they wait for the singularities to dissipate. However, with the amount of cover we had access to, it was no problem avoiding the shots. That said there were going to be a lot of repairs needed afterwards. If Anoleis was still in charge he was going to throw a fit.
On the other side of the grizzlies, I can see Wrex out in the open, not caring for cover, levelling his shotgun at one of the distant geth. After pumping it, it released a deafening boom that stripped away the shields of one of the geth, a second pump removed them completely, and a third put a fist-sized hole through their chest, he was grinning the entire time. After that he switched to another target as for me I aimed my settler at one of the heavy geth and started to take its shields down.
With the odds clearly in our favour for once we were happy to merely stand our ground and let the geth come to us. That and the knowledge that Tali would soon have the guns of the grizzlies firing meant that the only two concerns of most of the group were stripping the geth shields away to make them easy targets and maintain their own kinetic barriers.
That said I still kept an eye on my barriers and everyone else's, ready to throw up a barrier or switch targets. Just because things were in our favour for once didn't mean that we could make risks without reason, there were two hoppers and numerous other geth after all. If they all suddenly switched targets and focused entirely on a single individual, no amount of reflexes or medi-gel would be able to help them should they be stuck out of cover with compromised barriers.
Not that that happened, by the time Wrex had fired his fifth shot Tali had control of both grizzly's turrets and had them open fire, tearing the remaining geth apart within a seconds. After that however, Tali was forced to turn them off soon after as they tried to focus on the geth hoppers. Unfortunately, thanks to their maneuverability all they were hitting were the areas where they had just vacated, causing nothing but holes in the ceilings and floors and damage to numerous crates that got in the way as the turrets tried and failed to keep up, forcing her to disconnect them before their fire became any more sporadic and hit one of us by accident.
Not that they were really needed by that point as all that remained was a single hopper that Kaiden was able to snag with a lift as it tried to dodge one of Wrex's shotgun blasts.
All in all the battle lasted less than a minute.
"You know." grubbled Wrex "I came here expecting a fight, so far my shotgun hasn't even overheated yet."
"Don't worry big guy plenty of fighting left. If it makes you feel better you can be on the grizzly's guns." offered Shepard
"What is going on here!" demanded a voice from behind suddenly
Turning around we saw an angry Captain Matsuo, the turian Bruclea and the very nervous ERC officer who was guarding the garage door before.
"Just your everyday firefight with your typical geth." answered Shepard casually
"Geth here? How? Why?" asked Captain Matsuo "Does this have anything to do with the attack on Eden Prime?"
"It does." answered Shepard "As for how, we believe they were in the crates that Matriarch Benezia brought with her. As for why? I believe they have some interest in Peak 15, but what? I do not know."
"But we did a detailed scan of those crates! No eezo, no weapon signatures, nothing that caused cause for alarm. Listen we need to do a detailed check of the surroundings, make sure there aren't any more hiding. Commander Shepard, would you be willing to assist? We can use all the backup we can get until more ERC officers arrived." requested Captain Matsuo
"We have about thirty minutes before we head to Peak 15, I'm more than happy to assist until then." answered Shepard
"E-excuse me but there were other groups in here before Commander Shepard. They had permission to be here!" added the officer quickly "They just needed to retrieve some cargo."
"If that's the case why didn't the geth attack them?" asked Bruclea
"Because they weren't interested in them. If I'm correct then only active geth here were the hoppers. Hiding and providing a watch out while the other geth remained hidden. Once they saw us they probably realised what we were here for and while they definitely knew of the others coming into the garage I doubt they were interested unless they thought they were heading for Peak 15 or were going to be an issue later. That said if someone caught a glimpse of one of the hoppers or started poking around the geths hiding places I'm sure they would have been taken out." theorised Garrus
"Private have you personally witnessed everyone enter and leave?" asked Captain to the nervous ERC officer
"Yes ma'am, whenever anyone accessed the garage, even the Chief Engineer I was here the entire time until they left. I didn't even leave to go the bathroom." said the nervous private
"Bruclea I want you to check with every single person that's guarded this door since Benezia arrived, make sure that everyone who entered during one shift also exited in that shift or the next one." ordered Captain Matsuo
As Bruclea left to do just that Captain Matsuo turned to us "Now Commander can we move forward and make sure there aren't any other geth in hiding?"
"Agreed, everyone split up but don't wander too far from everyone else. If there are geth I don't them taking someone out because they didn't have anyone covering them." ordered Shepard
With that we gave the garage a detailed search but didn't find any more geth, not that I expected to find any. What we did find was an empty and open crate that Captain Matsuo confirmed matched the crates that Benezia brought with her. As Garrus suggested the ones here were only to stop anyone from trying to get to Peak 15 and alert the rest of the geth on any attempts. The rest of the geth were either on the road to Peak 15 or at the facility.
Speaking of geth I'm sure I remember seeing a lot more than could have possibly been hiding in half a dozen crates or more, maybe more geth were airdropped? While I'm sure Noveria could detect shuttles approaching the planet but man-sized objects falling from an incoming ship might be harder to detect. I better bring it to Shepards attention after we leave the garage.
When our mako did arrive we split into two teams, Shepard, Garrus, Gamora, Tali and myself were in the mako. Shepard being the driver, something that had me remembering her driving on Therium and how the road will be literally covered if not made of ice and snow while Garrus acted as a gunner with Tali on comms and radar. In the Grizzly there was Ash, Wrex, Liara, Kaiden and Solana. Ash was going to be the driver and as promised Wrex was going to be the gunner.
Before we left though Captain Matsuo made sure that we understood that even though Shepard was a spectre we'd still be privy to a standard search and check after we came back from Peak 15 to make sure we weren't smuggling anything off-world. I could only hope that whatever changes Garrus made passed inspection and since he was one of the people who knows the mako the best plus his previous experience as a cop hopefully gave him plenty of ideas on smuggling locations.
As we left the garage I turned to Shepard
"Shepard I just realised something, the geth in the crates might not be all we have to deal with. Benezia or even a geth ship could have dropped off a number of troops out of sensor range to make their way here." I said
"Just like how Kaiden reported geth falling from orbit on Virmire?" asked Shepard
"Exactly like that." I responded
"Then in that case they may have never been in the crates at all. It would certainly explain why the security checks never picked anything up, then on the way to Peak 15 they could fill them with geth and sneak them in. Since they had already been checked by security when they arrived they never would have thought that there might be anything in them." remarked Shepard before opening comms.
"Attention everyone, Callum has just pointed something out. While Benezia only brought in half a dozen crates more geth could have easily been dropped elsewhere on Noveria and made there way here, for all we know all the crates were empty and were just a way to smuggle them into Peak 15 and not the planet itself."
"Shit that means there could be a literal army between us and Peak 15." swore Ash "Is there anyway I to be sure?"
"We'll need to speak to some about Noveria's defence grid in order to be sure Commander." said Tali speaking up.
"I know just the person." said Shepard taking one of her hands off the proverbial wheel (in this case one of the joysticks that controlled the mako) and activated her omni-tool and pressed a couple buttons.
"Hey, Captain Matsuo I was wondering if I could ask a favour?"
"Not to be rude Commander but I'm quite busy. Not only do I have to deal with getting rid of and replace a large number of my officers but now I have to deal with geth as well." answered Captain Matsuo in a no-nonsense tone
"I need to ask you some questions about the defence grid." responded Shepard
"That's classified commander."
"What about a hypothetical scenario?" asked Shepard
"...go on." offered Captain Matsuo after some hesitation
"Let's say, hypothetically of course that the crates brought in were empty the whole time." offered Shepard
"...and?"
"Would the geth hypothetically, be able to drop from orbit or say from an incoming ship without being detected?"
"Hypothetically they could...especially if there was some sort of disturbance present. Say a particularly bad snowstorm? But even then they would have to be quite small, anything the size of a shuttle would still be detected." answered Captain Matsuo
"Thanks for discussing all these hypotheticals with me." said Shepard before ending the call and returning to team comms "It seems that we might have more than a few geth to deal with, turns out the geth could drop themselves down without being detected."
"Good." interrupted Wrex "I was getting bored."
"On the plus side, it sounds like they wouldn't have been able to get many of their heavy platforms in, armatures and the like." continued Shepard, ignoring the interruption and making Wrex grumble about it being too easy.
As we drove on, it wasn't until 45 minutes later, after we left the main road and onto the path that would take us to Peak 15 we saw the first evidence of more geth on Noveria. On the side of the road, we found a half-destroyed grizzly. Coming to a stop we exited the mako and our own grizzly...unfortunately, there weren't any survivors. Not that we expected any, not only were the geth under Saren's command precise and ruthless, but even if they survived the initial attack Noveria was even colder than the Artic and had its own share of predators. I couldn't remember what it was, but I was getting 'ice monster' out of star wars type of vibe whenever I looked out at the endless ice, snow and mountains.
After we did an internal check of the grizzly as well as looking for any signs of someone making it out...not that there were any. When we climbed back into our respective vehicles Shepard once again got into contact with Captain Matsuo.
"Captain I'm afraid I have some bad news, we just came across a burned-out grizzly. No survivors." said Shepard apologetically "Sending you their coordinates now."
"I'm sorry to hear that, I'll send out a team to retrieve them and look for any survivors." replied Captain Matsuo
"I'd advise against that, I'm betting there's a lot more geth out here and your team isn't equipped to deal with them. At least let us put a dent in them before you do anything, as for survivors...you know more about this planet than I do but we can't tell how long the wreck's been there. At least a day for sure." suggested Shepard
"I can give you the time it takes to get my people ready Commander no more. Geth or no geth we still have a job to do and I want to retrieve the deceased before any nalark thinks they might make a nice snack. I only hope that they're too busy dealing with you to worry about us."
"In that case we'll do our best to clear as many as we can out." promised Shepard before hanging up
Continue on, it wasn't long before we encountered the geth themselves.
"Commander, Ash I'm picking up geth signals ahead, a lot of them." warned Tali
The next few minutes were tense, between the explosions from rockets and bullets hitting either the mako's shields or the ground around us. I could also feel the mako moving to avoid them, including going airborne a number of times making me hang on. But unlike the others, there wasn't I could do to help. I wasn't driving, shooting or even monitoring comms and radar like Tali was. The only thing I could do is be ready to exit the mako and provide cover should something go wrong with the mako.
Fortunately, nothing did go wrong, after a short firefight the battle was over and we continued our journey to Peak 15. It wasn't the only time we were engaged though, and for one of them we weren't so lucky.
"Commander we got some damage during that last engagement. We need to stop for some repairs." said Ash over comms
"There's a tunnel/sheltered area ahead, it won't be warm but it will keep most of wind and snow away." said Shepard
A short time later we came to a stop.
"Garrus, Tali I want you to help Ash with repairs on the grizzly. After that I want you to check up on the mako, make sure nothing's about to go wrong. Callum, Gamora I want you to take there spots. Callum on guns, Gamora you're on radar and comms." ordered Shepard
"What do I have to do?" questioned Gamora
"Just watch this screen here." said Tali showing Gamaro "Any unknown frequencies will be highlighted and any time the mako is hailed it will come up here."
As Tali talked Gamora through the basics, Garrus also showed me how to operate the turrent. Which was done via a joystick and some other controls.
"This fires the rounds while this fires the rockets. Be careful not to go overboard, while we aren't really limited in either, overheating can be a problem. If for some reason the guns stop working you can do a manual clearing of the barrels by pressing this button. If that doesn't fix it you can do a reset by holding these buttons down." said Garrus showing me
"You guys know what you are doing?" asked Shepard as she was having the mako do a manual service check to make sure nothing was going to go wrong internally.
"I think so." I said taking the joystick and testing moving the turret around.
"It seems simple enough." agreed Gamora
"Good enough, you're not going to be covering for them for long and Wrex is still on the grizzly's gun." said Shepard before Garrus and Tali left.
With Tali and Garrus plus anyone in the grizzly who knew how to help (probably at least Kaiden) whatever repairs on the grizzly only took eight minutes. After spending another two to make sure everything on the mako was working we resumed our journey to Peak 15.
"Okay people be ready." said Shepard over comms "Peak 15 is only 20 kms away. If the geth are going to hit us again before we get there it will be soon."
As if summoned by her words moments later Tali's console went off.
"What's the problem?" asked Shepard
Swiping the screen Tali answered "The sensors picked up a large explosion but it's nowhere near us."
"Where is it?" asked Shepard curiously
"Up the mountain." responded Tali making Shepard freeze "I'm also..."
"Ash ram into the wall!" shouted Shepard, interrupting Tali
"Commander?" asked Ash shocked
"The geth are trying to kill us with an avalanche." answered Shepard, already adjusting her course. "Everyone brace yourself."
"Avalanche?" questioned Tali, unfamiliar with that word. Or whatever it was translated into.
A second after Tali asked that we all slammed to a stop. While we weren't going exceedingly fast, we were going fast enough the we were all jerked around and I barely stopped myself from falling to the floor.
"It means a wall of snow is about to hit us." answered Shepard quickly getting to her feet "I want every biotic outside now."
"A wall of snow doesn't sound so bad." said Tali as Shepard walked past.
"It's like a building is going to hit us." I said as I get to my feet and headed for the door.
"Not to be negative Commander but I doubt a team of Matriachs could stop an avalanche." advised Kaiden over comms.
"We're not using biotics to stop the avalanche." replied Shepard exiting the mako "Tali I want you to reverse the mass effect fields that we use to jump, at the press of a button I want this thing to get as heavy as possible."
The last thing I saw Tali do was rush to the front of the mako.
"We don't have much time, I want everyone to focus on burying the vehicles as much as much as possible." said Shepard quickly "Garrus, Ash focus fire on the snow above us, I need you to make it slide."
With that we quickly got to work. Using biotic pulls to bring as much snow down or using singularities to loosen and detonating them to spread it out. While this was happening the guns were constantly going off. If it wasn't for my helmet I was sure I could get permanent hearing damage.
By the time we finished the mako was half covered and the grizzly was a third of the way done.
"Commander I'm picking up vibrations." warned Tali over comms
"That's it everyone back to the vehicles now!" shouted Shepard
Detonating one last singularity we run back to our respective vechiles. It was then when I heard the rumbling, low at first but quickly becoming deafening. Against my better judgement, I stop at the mako's hatch and look back.
There in the distance and getting ever closer was a rolling wall of white as far as the eye could see.
"Keelah." whispered a voice next to me.
Turning I see Tali, head out of the hatch and equally memorized by the incoming snow.
Regaining my senses I push her inside and after a quick glance to make sure there was no one else I closed the hatch.
"Everyone hold..." shouted Shepard only to be cut off midsentence as the avalanche hits us and something hits the side of mako with a massive bang throwing me, Tali and who know who else to the floor.
...
...
When I came to the first thing I noticed was a massive headache, I must have hit it on the floor as I went down. Thankfully my helmet stopped most of the damage so I should be fine latter.
Hearing a groan I turn to face the noise only to swear at what I saw.
"What's wrong?" asked Shepard from the front.
Unlike me and Tali, she and Garrus seemed to have been able to brace themselves in time.
Fully turning to face us Shepard couldn't help but swear as well.
"Shit Tali your helmet!"
Sure enough, starting at the top corner of Tali's helmet and going diagonally across her visor was a massive crack.
Reading what was wrong Tali activated her omni-tool and typed furiously before sagging in relief.
"It's fine, though it might look bad the damage is mostly superficial. There's no breach but I'll need help making sure it doesn't get any worse."
"Garrus give her a hand." ordered Shepard "Team grizzly are you okay?"
After a series of groans Ash answered "We're all fine commander what about you?"
"Same, Tali has a cracked visor but her suit isn't breached. Can get out of the Grizzly?" asked Shepard
"I don't think so Commander, we're pretty far under and we don't have thrusters or boosters like the mako does." answered Ash
"Stay where you are, we'll use the boosters to get ourselves clear and then we dig you out." said Shepard
"Not sure we have much choice." responded Ash
It took some doing but we were able to get clear, using the boosters and thrusters we were slowly able to work our way to the surface before the mako suddenly flew forward and landed on top of the snow.
Climbing out of the mako Shepard was quick to address everyone.
"Tali I want you to check the Mako, make sure the avalanche didn't break anything. Garrus I want you inside on the gun...after you make sure it works, we're vulnerable right now and it would be a perfect time for the geth to try and wipe us out. Gamora and Callum you're on me, lets dig out this grizzly."
With that we got to work, after a few minutes of scanning, we were able to find the grizzly. After a few more minutes thanks to our biotics we were able to clear the front of grizzly. Before coming to the Mass Effect universe I never would have thought biotics being used in such a way, attaching a cable from it to the back of the mako. With some difficulty we were able to pull it out, when we did something was immediately wrong.
Unlike the mako the grizzly had two sections the front which was one-third of the vehicle and the back half which was the remaining two-thirds. This was done to give the grizzly the smallest possible turning circle, as the grizzly was more than seven meters longer than the mako this was very important otherwise all it would take to defeat the grizzly was a sharp turn.
The parts joining the two sections were thick enough that usually it wasn't a structural weakness. Usually, anything strong enough to damage them was strong enough to take out the grizzly itself. Instead of coming out straight though, one section following the other they came out at an angle. The front section was wrenched to the side, one wheel was in the air and the other was dragging in the snow while the second part was on a complete right angle. It was like someone had grabbed one of plastic right angles that they gave to school kids and bent the shit out of it. In hindsight, the back end of the grizzly must have been what hit us.
When the grizzly was dragged free the hatch opened up and everyone started climbing out, unlike us it seems the grizzly team didn't fair as well, Liara already had a particularly bad bruise blooming purple on her face while Kaiden was holding his side.
"Kaiden, Liara you two okay?" asked Shepard
Liara winced, rubbed her cheek and gave a nod.
"I'll need some pain killers but I'm still mission ready, gonna have one hell of a bruise later though." answered Kaiden "The bigger problem is the grizzly, I don't think it's going anywhere."
"I think you might be right about that, Ash head over to the mako and take over for Garrus. If he and Tali are finished there I want to see if they can get the grizzly going again. Liara, Chakwas's been teaching you some first aid right?" asked Shepard
"That's right." said Liara nodding
"Give Kaiden and everyone else a look over, make sure nothing is actually broken." ordered Shepard
After Tali's helmet was mended as much as possible, there was still a faint but noticeable crack but Tali assured us it would be fine she and Garrus got to work on fixing the vehicles. The mako was fine, only minor repairs needed, some minor damage to the current...the grizzly however.
"To be blunt the grizzly's toast." said Garrus after fifteen minutes of looking the grizzly over
"You can't use some omni-gel to fix it?" asked Shepard
"Omni-gel is good for most things but the steering column is completely twisted, the two parts jackknifed each other. To fix it I'll need to cut them and put them back together, not only will it take a lot of time we still have how much further to go?" asked Garrus
"About 20km, more or less." answered Shepard
"The omni-gel would only be able to hold the pieces together for one or two kilometres, three to five at most. On top of that the gun's also stuffed." said Garrus making Shepard rub her face.
"Shit." swore Shepard "Do you think we can all squeeze into the mako?"
"Maybe, it will be a tight fit and if we do run into anyone we'd be vulnerable." warned Garrus "You won't be able to use the boosters or thrusters with us all slamming into each other."
"I don't think we have a choice, everyone into the mako." ordered Shepard
It was an extremely tight fit, even worse than Virmire but we did it. Everyone was pressed into everyone else, I thought Gamora might have used the opportunity to press against me like she did then but instead, it was Ash, Kaiden and Wrex pressing me into a corner Wrex in particularly looked unhappy, though whether that was due to the cramped conditions or no longer being the gunner I didn't know... come to think of it something's been different with her for the last few days, I can't put my finger on it.
As we made the last leg of the journey to Peak 15 we were constantly jostling into each other but eventually, we made it there.
Red vs Blue
"I need to get to Peak 15 immediately." said Shepard to a salarian who...if she was being honest was starting to piss her off, next to her was Ash and Washington.
"I've been told by the Executive Board to assist you as much as I'm required to, letting you go to a high security facility such as Peak 15 goes far above that. Companies come here to get away from those that would try to bother them needlessly and slow their work down. If you really must meet so urgently with Matriach Benezia you can wait here until she comes back, I'm sure it won't be much longer before she comes back. Though whether she'll even decide she wishes to speak to you then is up to her." remarked a very annoying salarian called Anoleis
"Fine, but I'll need written permission to allow my ground crew to come port side for some R . They've been stuck onboard for the better side of 5 weeks." requested Shepard
"That won't be no problem, now if you don't mind I've got actual work to." said Anoleis without actually doing anything
"Actually my superiors will want that in writing...you know for records, who knows how long we'll have to wait here. Don't want them thinking I'm wasting their tax dollars you understand."
"Fine fine." said Anoleis quickly sending over a document via omni-tool "This is a document saying I Anolies give permission to you and your ground crew to wait at Port Hanshan."
Leaving the office and heading back to the front desk the secretary/assistant tried to engage in conversation.
"I would have thought that you wouldn't be taking no for an answer Commander, considering how eager you were to get to Peak 15 before. You can't just bulldoze through beurocracy." said the woman before quietly continuing "If you really want to get to Peak 15 there are others that can give you a garage pass, go see Lorik Qui'in. He should be at the bar."
"I'm good." said Shepard taking a seat "Ash, Wash tell the whole ground crew they're on temporary leave and can come port side to do what ever they want."
"Are you sure?" asked Wash with concern "You know what they're like."
"Oh that's what I'm counting on." said Shepard leaning back and closing her eyes "Wake me up when he cries chicken."