Disclaimer: I do no own Mass Effect, I do not claim to own Mass Effect, I am only doing this for fun.
Author Notes: This is the most delayed episode to date, and once again, I can only offer my apologies. I fell really ill in May. I don't even know with what, a bad cold/flu, or something worse. It knackered me. Then, I was kept busy with real life things. I do hope that you enjoy this much delayed continuation.
Episode 76: Die Another Day [Part II]
Within five minutes of setting foot on the surface of Ilos Shepard had a list of reasons to hate the place. Aside from the radiation that would likely make her sick once all of this was said and done, there was also a very slow but perceptible wind blowing along the upper edges of the floor slabs, generating a rumble that filtered through her external microphone and into her ears. Even if she did not have her own personal aversion to the sound of air moving across her helmet seals, that hum could masquerade other, fainter noises, like debris skittering, or the whirs of enemies lurking in the gloom.
Then there was the sand. Walking through it felt more like wading through a bog, and the added resistance quickly accelerated her heartbeat and breathing rate, which would affect her aim. It also got into every crevasse and gap in her gear, increasing wear and possibly her exposure. It also covered many larger chunks of debris, the sort that rolled underfoot, presenting a very real trip or sprain hazard.
Nihlus and Saren were likewise slowed down by the sand. Though admittedly none of them had it as bad as Legion, as the geth sank into it almost up to their knees. Javik on the other hand only took one step on the surface before his whole body began flickering with his biotics. It did not take much to figure out that he was reducing his apparent mass, allowing him to walk with the sand barely covering his feet.
The final reason Shepard had to resent this whole job was entirely functional. Even with all the lights they had, both suit and weapon, they could only illuminate narrow slices of the space around them. Anywhere else that would have been merely an annoyance, but here, it was an actual issue. Finding navigable gaps in the floor slabs was going to take longer than initially assumed, and their lights would give away their positions. The worst part was that there was nothing any of them could do about that. They could only rely on their combined skills and reflexes to prevent becoming the victims of an enemy ambush.
By the time Shepard got close enough to the floor slab in which she had seen a large crack from Kodiak, and cast her helmet lights down along its length, she was plenty frustrated with this whole mission. Fortunately there was no missing this particular crack. She set her left hand on the wall and started on her way toward it.
Legion followed closely behind, appearing utterly unbothered by the sand around their shins and feet, with their sensor suite light dimmed, but still causing the sand to glimmer where the beam hit it. This reminded Shepard that if she was going to experiment with the flashbang grenades, she would have to warn Legion. She did not know how resistant to overexposure damage their infrared sensory was.
When they got to the gap Shepard turned and pressed her back to the crack's edge and glanced toward the others. If she kept her hand on the wall merely as a precaution, Saren and Nihlus needed it as support. It was probably a good thing that she could not see Saren's expression due to his helmet. He would not be pleased right then. Javik appeared perfectly unbothered, walking with his arms crossed over his chest.
Before she could say a word, Legion stepped past her and peered into the dark crevasse in the floor slab. Shepard almost stopped them but bit that impulse back. Of all of them, Legion could probably take the most bullets, so it was logical for them to be the one to make the first entry. Still, some part of her worried.
Then Legion stepped back and looked right at her, "Shepard-Commander, there are no enemy units within our detection range."
"I need you to continue keeping watch," Shepard replied.
"Acknowledged." Legion replied and then stepped right through the gap.
Shepard followed silently, and once through immediately looked around. They were now inside a relatively intact floor, no more than six meters wide from slab to slab. The building's massive core block, which contained the elevators and stairwells, and a number of pillars had survived in recognizable shape, still spanning the gap from slab to slab, though cracked and running with rust.
As the others stepped through the gap behind her, Shepard turned to look toward her left, down the gap between the floors. Though it was obvious that the passage here was blocked. The very edge of her helmet light beams encountered a towering mound formed out of the remains of interior elements that had come down. From what she could see, it already had too many protruding metal bars, ready to gore the unwary, and looked unstable overall. "Our left is a no-go, passage is blocked."
"That is obvious," Saren replied sounding less than impressed.
A choice comment sprung to the tip of her tongue, but then Shepard realized that Saren was not even looking in her direction. She blew her breath out through her mouth and decided to let it go. Now that she was facing that way, she could see a rectangle of color that indicated where the building's floor slabs stopped, with the sand immediately at the edge glimmering in the wan sunlight. Beyond that was an open space strewn with large chunks of other towers and a sliver of the sky high overhead.
The veteran Spectre turned and started on his way toward that sliver of sky, but stopped halfway there when his weapon light illuminated a large crack in the slab in front of him. It arced diagonally high and well back toward the debris pile behind them, widest right where the building hit the ground and narrowing as it disappeared overhead and out of reach of their light beams, and ringed with exposed metal armature thrust out at different angles.
"This will do," Saren stated.
Shepard hummed her assent as she drew close to the gap.
"Yes, but one wrong trip and you are meat on a skewer," Nihlus replied.
"Then do not trip," Javik replied blandly.
Shepard heard the intake of breath coming from Nihlus across the comm link and knew what was coming. "Let's not waste time, shall we? Legion, you're up." She cut in, putting an authoritative bite into her tone.
"Acknowledged." The geth moved past them toward the gap.
As far as she was concerned, Nihlus brought up a perfectly valid concern, but Javik was just being himself. She did not need the two clashing and starting an argument. She watched in silence as the geth crab-stepped through the gap and disappeared from view on the other side.
As they waited for Legion to return, Shepard spent the moments inspecting the damage done to the floor slabs. Right then, she wished Gino was with them. His previous work with the Alliance Corps of Engineers gave him plenty of background knowledge that she lacked. He might have been able to figure out how much more abuse these ruins could take without coming down on them. Such information was useful in the interest of operational safety.
The only thing Shepard knew was what she could see. Fact was that the ruins were still remarkably well preserved, despite the nuclear blasts, collapsing, and fifty thousand years exposed to the elements. That implied things about the materials and-or construction methods used. How were they different from what the galaxy used at the present? Would it be possible to reverse-engineer them? She was no engineer, architect, or material scientist, but she was not oblivious to the possibilities.
A flicker of light out of the corner of her eye caused Shepard to snap out of her thoughts. Legion had reappeared at the gap again.
"Are we clear?" She asked.
"Affirmative," the geth replied.
Without saying another word, Shepard moved toward the gap.
The rest of the time spent traversing the building went about the same way. The whole collapsed section was compromised with cracks and gaps of various sizes and lengths, radiating outward from the point of impact with the ground. These structural breaches proved more than adequate for quick, relatively safe traversal, even if it involved some finesse and ducking. Legion also never detected a single heretic in their vicinity.
To Shepard the lack of enemies hinted that Harbinger really had not expected the Normandy to survive its encounter with the ships in the asteroid belt. Whatever estimate of their abilities that Harbinger had, clearly underestimated them. It clearly did not put enough stock in the advantage of flexibility and just bull-like determination to succeed. It might have actually put the mad machine on its back foot, metaphorically speaking. She could use that to her advantage.
Still, it took almost forty-five minutes to reach the point where they could not get any closer to the administrative building without leaving the safety of cover. The tower shard's bottommost floor, the breaking point, was the worst damaged. A full half of it was just gone, hinting at what had caused the building to fold and break apart in the first place. Fragments of the other half hung precariously overhead, clinging to the edges of the central block and any pillar that managed to somehow stay in place.
The floor above the breaking point had fared only slightly better, but it still had massive cracks and whole chunks of floor slab outright ripped out when it hit the ground. The size of the gaps made darting across them incredibly dangerous.
Thus they chose to avoid the worst broken floors, and stopped at the one above them. Here the cracks were still plentiful, but in a greater variety of sizes and the slab was still intact enough to offer them shelter from high-caliber hyper-sonic bullets. Due to the way the building broke up, and where the worst of the damage was, there were also plenty of cracks, slits, and gaps that offered perfectly serviceable lines of sight on the administrative building beyond.
When she peeked through one of the small gaps, she realized that she had no problems spotting the heretics on the lowest two floors inside the administrative building, as none of the ten of them bothered to dim their sensor suites. Furthermore, she could not see a single set of red or yellow lights. That, combined with the myriad of arrow-slit like cracks, gave Shepard a dastardly idea that she was all too happy to run with.
"We'll stop here." She announced as she looked back at the others. "Legion, you and I will shoot out whatever heretics we can see through the cracks."
"Acknowledged."
"The rest of you, stay in cover," Shepard finished without losing a second. She knew that Nihlus would protest if given half a chance. She kneeled in front of one of the narrowest crack in the wall, he own silent signal to everyone that she would not be swayed away from this course of action. As the seconds slipped by, she saw Legion's light drift across the polycrete as the geth moved toward another gap about five meters to her current left.
"How many platforms did you see?" Saren asked.
"Ten."
"Shepard-Commander, we can confirm your count, there are ten enemy platforms," Legion stated.
"Thanks," Shepard replied. It went without saying that some, or even all of them could have the same type of gun that Legion used. This was going to be a little tricky.
"Ten against the two of you, those are not good odds," Nihlus stated.
Shepard sighed. "We haven't got a better alternative. At least this way, we have cover and we don't have to run across sand while being shot at."
Nihlus made a sound in the back of his throat that was all frustration.
Shepard clenched her fists, to stop herself from reaching over and putting a hand on his arm. If it was just Legion witnessing, she would not have cared. But she did not trust Saren and Javik enough to let them witness a moment like that.
When the impulse passed, she took a deep breath, and reached behind her back for Strix. As the rifle powered up and unfolded, she set it across her lap. Then she reached behind her back an additional thermal clip, and set it on a rock right next to her feet. "Legion, I want you to start with the targets from your left, work from the outside toward the middle. I intend to do the same from my side."
"Acknowledged."
Shepard carefully fitted the muzzle of her rifle through the gap, which was barely wide enough for it and the scope. Then, she took another deep breath and peered through the scope. Now came the sensitive part, zeroing the rifle for Ilos' conditions. She had memorized the calibration tables she had created for Strix, so it took her only a few seconds to recall the ratios and adjust the crosshairs accordingly. Ilos' higher gravity and thicker atmosphere was going to create additional drag on the bullets, but the wind was also a factor, as right then it was blowing nearly perpendicular to her line of fire. These were not the worst conditions she had ever faced, but they were definitely far from ideal.
"Shepard-Commander, we are in position and awaiting your signal to proceed," Legion stated.
"Got it. Stand by," Shepard murmured, without looking away from the scope.
"Acknowledged."
The heretics were standing perfectly still, but their lights moved as the platforms scanned their surroundings. That sweeping motion made them look like miniature lighthouses, which amused her more than it should have. Still, the presence of light told her that they likely were not using their infrared sight just yet, so she had a momentary element of surprise.
She shifted the rifle toward the right-most light. This heretic was on the second floor, standing rather close to the edge, part in and part out of the shadows cast by the building's detailing. Shepard slid her finger over the ammo selector to switch Strix to disruptor mode, took a deep breath, and ground her support foot into the sand, to anchor herself as best she could in anticipation for recoil.
The heretic continued to sweep its surroundings with its sensor suite, unaware of its imminent termination.
Shepard began her exhale, made a final angle adjustment, aiming right for the sensor suite, and began to apply pressure to the trigger. As her lungs emptied, Strix emitted a thunderous crack that reverberated off the polycrete around them. Shepard jolted back with the recoil and had to catch herself, lest she lose balance completely, but in doing so she had to look away from the scope.
When she could look again, moments later, the light she had been aiming for was gone. But had she hit it, or had the heretic ducked into the shadows? The momentary loss of balance had cost her the ability to confirm the kill. Shepard turned her head as she thought to ask Legion for a confirmation. She found Legion was once again shooting straight, but before she could as, its rifle cracked, even louder than Strix.
"First target terminated, Shepard-Commander." They announced as they ejected the spent clip and reached hind their back for the next.
"Keep alert for return fire," She replied. In that moment she decided that it was unlikely that Legion would have seen whether her shot made contact. She turned back to her rifle and peered through the scope again. The light that she had aimed for had not returned, and the number of lights had not grown. But the other lights were moving more now, the heretics knew that they had snipers picking them off. The surprise card had been played, now came the most dangerous part of the game.
Shepard turned her rifle to the next light, a platform standing on the first level, though still in the shadows. It had drawn its pulse rifle, but at that distance, Shepard knew that she was out of that gun's effective range. She inhaled deeply, held at the apex for a split of a second, and began to exhale, slowly applying pressure to the trigger as she did. As her lungs emptied, Strix emitted another reverberating crack. This time Shepard had braced for the recoil correctly. She saw her target's sensor suite and a portion of its cranium outright disintegrate with a spray of white liquid.
Then Legion's rifle cracked, seemingly in a delayed echo.
Shepard tried her best not to jump like a cat on a scalding hot roof. Surrounded by hard, bare polycrete, the sound their guns produced was nearly explosive. It managed to register on both the external and even the internal microphones in her suit, creating a faint feedback that threatened to give her temporary tinnitus. She would not be surprised if Nihlus and Saren had muted their externals, as their hearing was even more sensitive.
"We terminated our second target," Legion announced with their usual calm.
Shepard turned to her third intended target. It was another unit on the second floor, except two windows to the left from where the first had been, and completely shrouded in the shadows. The only indication of it being there was its sensor suite light. As she leveled her crosshairs on it, the glow dimmed, then outright disappeared, only to reappear slightly washed out with a note of halation. Shepard instantly realized the danger, and rolled onto her back, pulling Strix from the gap and drawing it to her chest.
Barely a split of a second later there was a loud ping on the other side of the polycrete followed by a thunderous, rolling crack.
"Shepard!" Nihlus called in alarm.
"I'm fine, I saw that shot coming, and I was ready for it!" Shepard replied. "That's four down before they returned fire." It was slower than she would have expected. The Heretics were synthetic, they should have had better response times than that.
Legion fired back.
Shepard outright jumped and reflexively turned her head. The geth had moved closer to her, using a different opening for a different angle, their emotive plates flared at the back and furrowed at the front.
As if sensing her gaze, the plates reset and the geth turned their head to face the group. "The unit that had fired at Shepard-Commander has been terminated."
Shepard nodded, surprised at the intensity of that reaction. Somehow, Legion had looked genuinely angry, or was that merely a projection on her part? "Five down," She said quietly, pushing herself up into a sitting position.
The geth pulled their rifle from the slit and ejected the spent thermal clip before reaching for a fresh one, the picture of nonchalance.
"They know where you will fire from," Saren stated.
"Oh, I'm counting on it," Shepard replied as she rolled onto her knees, and from there pushed off to regain her footing. "Let them all stare at that particular hole all they want." Such tunnel vision would only help her. "And by the time I'm done, there will be a few more. In them."
"That was horrible," Javik stated.
"Maybe. But it's going to be true, too," Shepard replied as she turned back to the wall and inspected the holes, evaluating her options for a new firing position. Having taken out the right-most frames, she could move more to the left and still have a good vantage. However, she could not stand too close to Legion without going deaf.
Then there were other factors to consider. She could not use a low gap while shooting prone, as she needed to be able to move quickly if another heretic had a sniper rifle. She also could not fire standing, as Strix kicked, and the distance between her hiding spot and the targets was not so small that the recoil would not be a factor. She was not Legion, whose platform seemed to mock Newton's Third Law for the fun of it.
In the end she grabbed the two spare clips she had set out and stepped around the geth, toward a gap that was about a meter to their left.
Legion watched her for a split second, but then went for the slit that she had used previously, slipping their rifle's muzzle through it without saying a word.
Shepard kneeled, grinding her support foot into the sand, set the spare clip on another chunk of debris, and then slipped Strix into firing position. After a long second like that she took a deep breath and peered through the scope. The first thing to do was to recount the visible lights. "Still five targets."
"Five targets, confirmed," Legion replied.
Shepard found her next target and turned Strix in its direction. "Since we've traded positions, we're trading targeting sides as well."
"Acknowledged. We will fire on your signal."
Shepard took a deep breath and shifted the crosshairs onto the unit's head. It stood on the ground level, its sensor suite an oblong shape, hinting that its attention was on her previous position. She slipped her finger onto the trigger and began her slow exhale while applying pressure. Just as her lungs emptied, Strix fired, bucking into her shoulder. The heretic's sensor suite and a portion of its cranium shattered, sending coolant splashing into the air. She raked the receiver bolt to eject the overheated thermal clip, and reached for the next, "Target six, down."
Legion's own rifle cracked, seemingly in affirmation. "Target seven, terminated."
"The last three will have realized that you changed locations," Saren stated bluntly.
Shepard stuck a fresh thermal clip into Strix, the receiver closed and the rifle emitted a whine as it charged the next slug. Saren was right, but she would not be caught dead admitting it to him. "I've faced worse odds," she said as she looked over her shoulder.
Saren hummed but did not say anything.
Shepard turned back away, but caught sight of Nihlus. He was kneeling in cover some distance away, and although she could not see his expression, his posture was telling. His hands balled into fists, and he positively radiated tension and displeasure. She had to ignore that and turn back to the gap in the wall.
"Standing by," Legion announced.
Shepard turned to her next target and inhaled as deeply as she could. This particular heretic had stepped out into the open where its finish caught the sunlight, but its sensor suite iris was open to the maximum and the light dimmed almost to nothing as it swept the ruins with its gaze. Then, quite suddenly it stopped, staring right at her, and reached behind its back.
Shepard adjusted her crosshairs on to the Heretic's head and began her exhale as she slowly applied pressure to the trigger. The heretic pulled out a familiar massive hyper-velocity rifle, and it just began to unfold when Strix emitted another thunderous crack. The Heretic's sensor suite disintegrated, and the frame stumbled back, rendered unable to see.
Suddenly there was a second, even louder crack as Legion fired. This time the Heretic's head exploded into pieces, sending coolant flying through the air. A moment later it simply toppled, like cut timber, trapping the rifle under its mass, and ceased moving.
"That's eight." Shepard announced even as she turned her rifle toward the next target.
"Did Legion shoot the same target as you?" Nihlus asked.
"Yes," Shepard murmured as she angled the gun up. Her next target was hiding deep within the shadows on the upper floor. "By the way, Legion, it was overkill. I hit that unit just fine."
"We are aware, Shepard-Commander, however, we reached a consensus that it would be efficient to ensure the swift termination of that platform, as the risk it posed had exceeded tolerable limits."
"How is using an extra thermal clip more efficient?" She asked blandly as she glanced at them from the corner of her eye.
The geth's emotive plates shifted, undulating in a slow rhythm for a few moments before stilling again. "Our consensus has not changed. Resource inefficiency is preferable to all other probable outcomes."
Shepard rolled her eyes. She should have known that they would say something like that. "We'll discuss it later, Legion." She said, and turned back to her rifle before taking a deep breath, to start her next shot cycle.
"Affirmative. We calculated a high probability of such a meeting being necessary. Having it is also preferable to the alternatives."
"Shepard, just for the record, I think they learned that from you." Nihlus said, as bluntly as he could muster.
Shepard did not dignify that comment with a response, even though she knew he was probably right. Instead, she adjusted her crosshairs on her target and began her exhale as she applied pressure to the trigger. As if sensing that its end was nigh, her target backed away, edging even deeper into the shadows. Shepard gave Strix a slight final adjustment and as her lungs emptied, the gun fired. The Heretic's light blinked out of existence. "Target nine, eliminated."
Shepard turned to the tenth, final platform some windows away. This one was slinking in the shadows as well, but it appeared taller, with a larger sensor suite, though its light was still white-blue rather than red or yellow.
Legion's gun fired, reverberating across the floor slab, and the final platform's sensor suite blinked out of existence. "Target ten, terminated."
Shepard pulled her rifle free of the firing slit and looked toward Legion.
They stood motionless for a few seconds, but then pulled their rifle free from their firing slit and stepped away from the wall. Then turned toward her with a languid calm. "We are not detecting any more enemy units in the vicinity of the target building's façade."
"Good." Shepard replied as she folded Strix, slipped it behind her back and rose to her feet. Then she took a deep breath and momentarily closed her eyes to bury the stirring sensation in her gut.
"What now?" Nihlus asked as he rose to his feet.
"Yes, how do you plan to cover that final distance?" Saren asked blandly.
Shepard opened her eyes and glanced through the closest hole toward the administrative building. "Once we come out into the open, we will have to keep an eye on the building as we move from cover to cover. It's not rocket science. The heretics will give themselves away. Never seen one that could sneak around successfully. Present company included."
"Affirmative. Geth do not infiltrate," Legion stated.
Shepard nodded but chose to change tack. "Once we're there… our goal is what must be underground. That's the only place where anything could have survived the nukes. The Heretics wouldn't have come here without a reason."
"Indeed. The administrative nexus would have had a central mainframe, which would have been sheltered underground," Javik stated.
"What are the odds of it surviving?" Nihlus asked.
"If the correct procedures for an attack on the city were followed, the mainframe level would have been sealed."
"If the correct procedures were followed," Saren repeated.
Shepard hummed. "If the basement wasn't properly sealed- well, it rains on Ilos. The water would collect on the lowest points, and carry radioactive materials as well. We could be heading toward a hot spot. Mind your radiation readouts."
"Sounds fun," Nihlus mumbled.
Shepard hummed to herself as she stared at the spent thermal clips scattered about.
"Shepard, you got something else?" Nihlus asked.
She jolted, but then shook her head. "Oh no. I was just running the minutia, figuring out if I overlooked anything." That was only a half-truth, but it would do. "I think we're good to go." With that said she turned to her left and started on her way toward the large, navigable crack she had seen earlier.
A moment later Legion caught up to her, and by the swaying of a light beam at her feet she knew that Nihlus was not far behind.
When Shepard got to the crack, she pressed her back to its edge and glanced at the others. Nihlus slipped into position on her other side, but Legion stood right in the middle of the space between the slabs.
As Javik stepped around Saren, his hand went back to the butt of his rifle. "What are we waiting for?" He asked.
"Give me a moment to take one good peek," Shepard replied. She wanted some idea of where and how to move. She turned her head just enough so she could see what was around the wall, and when she did not see any lights in the building, she turned further, so she could use both of her eyes.
"Well?" Javik asked, impatience right in his tone.
Shepard purposefully waited another couple seconds before replying, "No new lights." Then she dropped her gaze to the steps that led up to the building. "And none that I can see in the ruins either. It's about two hundred meters in a straight line to the steps, then another… fifty for the steps and to the front doors. Still, I wouldn't dismiss the possibility of an ambush just yet. So no relaxing or letting down our guards." They could not afford to go back to the Normandy due to an injury.
Shepard turned down to the sand itself. The wind had swept it up into low dunes with well-defined troughs between them, creating a labyrinthine surface which would create an added challenge. "I see a mostly-straight course from here to the steps. Keep to the cover of the building fragments and move as quickly as possible. Avoid the dunes and use the low sections between them as paths." Running would be exceeding challenging even if they used the troughs, but it had to be pointed out. "Legion, I want you in the rear now, cover fire duty, if you spot a light, I want that platform terminated."
"Acknowledged," the geth replied, reaching behind their back for their rifle again.
"Shepard, stay with Legion, let me take the vanguard," Nihlus said. "That way both of you can provide cover fire."
Shepard turned to look at Nihlus.
"I know I can trust you to watch my back," Nihlus offered, his tone dipping lower, and warmer.
Shepard blew her breath out through her mouth and metaphorically threw in the towel. "Alright, but take the lay of the land first."
"Got it."
Without another word Shepard traded places with her partner at the edge of the opening and drew Strix again.
Nihlus shifted right to the corner and partly turned so he too could peek around the slab at the open space beyond.
Meanwhile, Shepard ejected the part-spent thermal clip out of her rifle and slipped in a fresh one, just to make sure she was ready to for anything.
"No lights, no sign of movement in the ruins, but I know where we need to go," Nihlus announced. Then he turned to look at the veteran Spectre in the group. "Saren, our first cover is a big chunk of debris, thirty meters, just to the right as you come out. Like Shepard said, the sand is piled into dunes, but there are tracts where it drops down almost to the original surface. We can use that as pathways to maintain speed."
Saren made a non-committal noise in the back of this throat but reached behind his back for his own rifle.
"Shepard, are you ready?" Nihlus asked, without missing a beat.
"Ready as I'll ever be," Shepard replied.
Nihlus glanced at Saren one last time, but did not say anything. Then he turned back to the gap and slid about five centimeters closer to the very lip. "Here I go." Just like that he rounded the wall and was off.
Saren did not wait long to follow Nihlus, but much to Shepard's surprise, Javik joined without much of a pause either.
"So far… we are… clear… no lights," Nihlus announced over the communicator in her ear, his breathing had become much more noticeable due to the exertion.
"Good," Shepard replied.
Legion stepped through the gap after that.
That was as good as a signal for her, so Shepard followed the geth without saying another word. Once she was more in the open, she moved a step to her right and put the wall at her back. Then she swept the building looming ahead for lights, but there were none.
"We reached the first cover, I have our next picked out," Nihlus announced.
"Still no heretics in sight," Shepard replied, "Proceed to your next stopping point. Legion and I will follow when you're there." The leapfrogging would add time to covering the distance, but it was the safest option for this sort of thing.
"Got it," Nihlus replied.
Shepard smiled to herself, suddenly she was glad that Nihlus had stepped in. This way, with a bit of delegation, this whole thing did not feel like she was climbing a mountain with no proper gear.
A second later she saw Nihlus emerge from the cover with Saren at his heels and Javik almost immediately behind them. She focused her gaze on the building, but as the seconds ticked, even with the others momentarily right out in the open, there was no new sign of activity coming from the ruins. "Legion, are you detecting anything?" she asked.
"Negative. Furthermore, the probability of there being enemy units within our vicinity is decreasing at a steady rate per set interval of time."
"Yes…" Shepard paused there. She did not need to know what interval of time Legion was using, but it did not matter much. "Harbinger wouldn't hesitate throwing the Heretics at us if it had any left here to throw."
"Affirmative."
She scanned over the building facade one more time, but like all times prior, there were no new lights. Still, as much as she trusted Legion, some paranoid part of her could not settle down. To her, this was still the calm of the storm, an illusion that lulled the unwary to forget that there was still half of the storm left to weather.
"Shepard, we reached our destination," Nihlus announced.
"Got it," Shepard replied. "Legion, it's our turn to move."
"Acknowledged."
"We will keep an eye on the building while you do that," Nihlus said.
"Alright," Shepard replied as she slipped her gun behind her back. A glance at Legion out of the corner of her eye confirmed that they had followed suit. Shepard quickly found the beginning of the trail of disturbed sand that Nihlus, Saren, and Javik left in their wake. Then, a moment later, she was out of cover entirely.
She took the first couple meters at a jog, just getting the feel for the material at her feet. The sand shifted around noticeably, but overall it was not the worst thing she had ever had to run on. Still, as her heart rate accelerated and her breathing became heavier, it became obvious just how quickly the shifting surface sapped stamina. Yet, knowing that the only safety was in the shadow of the rubble, she pushed herself to keep going.
It took maybe thirty seconds to cover the distance to the first shelter and press her back to it. Legion was about five seconds behind her, plowing through the sand like a dune buggy, stirring a cloud of fine particulates up into the air with every step. "We're safe. In cover." The clipped speech was her attempt to disguise the fact that she had not fully caught her breath yet.
She slid to the edge of her cover and peeked out to glance at the building ahead even as her hand went over her shoulder toward Strix's stock. There were no new lights. Her hand stopped on her rifle's stock. Given that she had exposed herself once already, if Harbinger was gunning for her specifically, it had wasted the first opportunity. Legion's calculations were still holding. "Proceed to your next destination."
"Got it," Nihlus replied.
Shepard saw Nihlus step out into the open, followed closely by Saren, and then Javik. A moment later he off, running toward the next cover. She suspected that he would go for the debris almost right at the foot of the steps leading up to the building's main entrance.
After a moment she turned back to the building's countless windows. All of them were still dark, with no signs of movement or life. Yet her internal danger alarms were still blaring. Her gut was not calming either. Everything about this situation was making her paranoia about a hundred times worse than it normally was.
"We are in cover," Nihlus announced, almost twenty seconds later.
He sounded particularly winded to Shepard.
"Be careful with that last section. The sand is deeper there."
"Thanks, Nihlus. Legion and I will move now."
"We are ready to proceed on your signal, Shepard-Commander," Legion confirmed calmly.
Shepard took a deep breath, let it saturate her lungs, and as she began to exhale, pushed off the debris and accelerated into a run. Now was not the time to denounce her instincts, which had never failed her yet. No, she would not take the risk of falling into some sort of long con game.
She glanced down and saw Legion's light swaying rhythmically across the sand on her right, causing it to glimmer. The geth seemed to be at most only about two meters behind her, and she could not hear a single thing from them. Her own breathing might as well have been the howling wind in her own ears.
"Still nothing in the building," Nihlus said.
"Roger," Shepard replied in between breaths. The second bit of cover was coming up, just a few more meters. She did not bother to slow down before she was in its shadow, but came to a half with a half-skid, only to turn around and slam her back into the debris pile with an audible thud. Right then, her lungs burned, so she could only concentrate on gulping down as much air as was needed to stop the sensation.
Legion slowed down a few meters short of the cover and casually strolled up to the hiding spot, looking utterly unbothered by it all.
"We're safe." Shepard announced in between gulps of air.
"So final part. The three of us will go up to the main entryway, and you will watch our back," Nihlus asked.
"Got it." Shepard tried not to sound like she was biting it out. Nihlus seemed better able to handle the exertion, but was struggling to normalize her respiration rate. The thick air and the higher gravity sapped her stamina far faster than normal, so it stood to reason that it would take her longer to regain equilibrium. But that logical explanation did nothing for the personal annoyance. She was not used to dealing with something so poorly, and that rankled her sensibilities.
She took another deep breath until she felt like her lungs could not contain another cubic centimeter, and held it, even as she shifted toward the edge of her cover. One glance at the building confirmed what Nihlus had said, there was no sign of activity in sight.
She exhaled, paused, and inhaled deeply again. It was not comfortable by any stretch of the imagination, but it helped to bring her breathing back under control. She needed to bring it back under control. This was the best opportunity that harbinger would get. Nihlus, Saren, and Javik would be moving right into the effective range of every single weapon the Heretics might have. If Harbinger had held back, to lure them into a trap, this was the time to spring it. She reached behind her back and drew Strix again. "We're in position to provide cover."
"Affirmative."
"Got it," Nihlus replied.
Shepard never took her eyes off the building as she inhaled again, and held. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense for Harbinger to act now. It would be over her dead body that she would allow that maniac AI to hurt anyone on her team on her watch. She would not lose to that murderous bucket of bolts. She would not give him the satisfaction of watching her fail. She blew her breath from her mouth in a long blast.
A few moments later she heard the familiar rasps of accelerating breathing coming across her comm link. The others were out in the open and on the move. She kept her eyes on the building, scanning side to side, but there were still no lights to be seen. "Anything, Legion?"
"Negative."
Shepard hummed, "You're looking in visual and infrared?"
"Affirmative."
"We are at the base of the stairs, Shepard." Nihlus announced.
"You're clear to proceed," Shepard replied.
"Let us not draw this out more than it has to be," Saren stated.
"After you," Nihlus replied.
Saren made a rather inarticulate sound in the back of his throat but did not say anything.
Shepard scanned over the building one last time, just to confirm that there were still no new lights. Satisfied, she turned her gaze to the steps just in time to see Nihlus and Saren start their ascent side-by-side with their weapons drawn. Javik trailed a couple steps behind them, his own gun in his hands, and his whole body flickering with a green glow. At the top of the steps, all three of them accelerated into sprints, covering the last bit of open space between the steps and the main entryway in a manner of seconds.
Shepard glanced back up, inspecting the building's darkened windows all the way up, but once again there was no sign of activity in the shadows.
"We are in the main lobby," Nihlus announced.
"Excellent. I am still seeing no sign of activity," Shepard replied.
"I think you are clear to catch up to us."
Shepard hummed, "Yes… Harbinger had plenty of opportunities to spring a trap." However, if this was her ambush, she would have waited for her target to lower their guard on the final stretch. She slipped Strix back behind her back and turned to look over her shoulder. "Legion, we will move toward the next bit of cover, and take stock of the situation before we proceed up the steps." She would never let Harbinger get the better of her like that.
"Acknowledged." Legion replied, their sensor suite trained on the building, the light dimmed and the iris opened most of the way.
"Alright, here I go." With that said, Shepard slipped around the wall and ran, once again following the trail of disturbed sand that Nihlus left in his wake. Yet again, her heartrate and breathing accelerated, but she knew that she could not relax yet. But then she noted the slight burn blooming in her chest. She had not felt that sensation in years, not since basic when she forced herself through discomfort just so her body would build up endurance.
Back then it was caused by inefficient breathing and poorer lung capacity. Right now, it could be caused by her suit not giving her enough oxygen. The filtering it had to do on her air affected the production capacity, and she was using it up way too quickly. Or, it could be the first stages of radiation sickness. Shepard was not an idiot, she knew that radiation sickness would not set in all at once, like the flip of a switch. No, it would sneak up on her. They were already an hour into her alloted time. She would not be caught dead letting Nihlus know that she was beginning to feel the effects, he would get overprotective, but she knew they had to finish here as soon as possible.
Legion's sensor light swayed across the sand on her left. The rhythm was so even it could have been used as a pendulum. Legion appeared completely unbothered by the uneven terrain. Right then, she could only envy that.
She slowed down to a jog about five meters short of her destination. The discomfort in her lungs had gone past merely uncomfortable and straight into the territory of a painful. She inhaled sharply, let it saturate her lungs, and then held it for a long moment, vaguely hoping the action would assuage the feeling. A moment later she blew the breath out and turned to look at the building. There was still no obvious sign of activity to be seen.
"Shepard are you alright?"
She inhaled again, hoping that she could stabilize her breathing long enough to muster a straight, unbroken reply. "The atmospheric pressure is a nuisance, and you know it."
Nihlus hummed in the back of his throat, which carried across the communication link.
Shepard got the distinct feeling that he was not buying her excuse. She would not ask him about his status either, lest he connect the dots on his own, if he had not already.
"Shepard-Commander, we are not detecting any enemy units in our immediate range."
She idly thanked her lucky stars for Legion's occasional bouts of obliviousness. Even if she sometimes doubted if they were indeed actual obliviousness, as the geth was quite wily when it benefited them. Either way, this would allow her to redirect the attention.
"Alright then." Shepard said, still trying to appear as unbothered as she could, despite the fact that she could feel her heart beat against her sternum.
"Shepard, you are being too cautious." Saren stated.
Shepard blinked.
"Do you not trust your own team?" He added.
Shepard hated the goat in those words, but she would not rise to the taunting.
"Saren, that… over-caution is the only reason we are here, and you know it." Nihlus stated.
"We observed multiple instances where Shepard-Commander's tactical approach produced successes in circumstances where the probability of failure we calculated exceeded fifty percent. Shepard-Commander's calculations are superior," Legion stepped in.
Shepard smiled, Saren should know not to come after her in front of her crew. "Let's not argue," she said as calmly as she could muster. "Legion, we're moving on."
"Acknowledged."
Shepard took another deep breath. Her breathing and heart were calming, but she needed a moment longer to get back her equilibrium. The steps would knucker her if she was not ready for them.
A moment later she flicked her hand out, motioning Legion to follow as she stepped out of cover, and then accelerated into a comfortable, stamina-conserving jog. Then, as her foot hit the bottom step, she inhaled and applied her full explosive acceleration to fly up the steps.
Once she crested the steps, she found the others. They had gathered just inside building's entrance, a large open space that seemed to span multiple floors. Sunlight streamed inside at an angle, slanting across the floor just enough to navigate by. But their suit and weapon lights were still the only signs of activity to be seen. She covered the remaining distance at a slower jog and stopped right inside what had once been the main door.
"Finally," Saren mumbled.
Shepard moved deeper in, past Saren, without replying, intentionally casting her temple-level light beams around, pretending she had not heard him. The space immediately around them was roughly square, maybe thirty meters to its sides, and spanning three levels. The place looked every bit as if it had survived the end of the world. Every surface had been stripped to the barest structural elements, with rust running out of every crack and crevasse, down all the walls, and blooming across the floor.
At the very back of the hall were four long, narrow sections of wall that rose all the way up to the ceiling, where there were three perfectly square holes cut in the slab. At their base lay a mess of twisted, utterly rusted-out metal. These were the remains of the elevators, except all the transparent panels that must have been there, were long gone. The sheer quantity of rust on the ground on the wall and the floor around them made Shepard suspect that the tops of the shafts were open. This was how the rain got into the middle of the building.
The loss of the dome would have also exposed the building to the fallout of nuclear detonation, and four hundred megaton ground-burst detonations would have created a lot of that. No one who took shelter in this building would have survived for very long. She tried not to shudder at the thought of that, and instead turned to look around. At the sides of the hall there were additional double doors, though only their badly corroded frames and mounting remained.
At the very center of the floor was four-tier hexagonal fountain featuring a low main basin with three progressively smaller basins stacking on top of each other. The finish was long gone and the pipework in the top-most basin stuck out exposed. It was the only hint of the interior décor, as nothing else of the fittings and furnishings remained in recognizable shape.
Movement out of the corner of her eye, brought her out of the moment. Shepard instinctively turned her head, but the momentary alarm died as quick as it manifested. Javik had stopped right next to her, Shepard could not miss the tension that practically resonated off his frame. "Is there something wrong?" she asked.
"Commander, I do not want to linger here longer than we must. The traces here are…" he trailed off with an inarticulate sound that sounded very much like a grunt of discomfort.
Shepard waited for a few seconds, but when he did not finish that thought, she opted to do it for him, "Strong?" She would not dare ask him to actually read, unless necessary, not when his hackles were up just standing there.
"Not particularly, none of them are distinct… but this building is saturated with them. It is like standing in a crowded square. You cannot make sense of any what you hear, but the din is…"
"Loud and annoying." Shepard finished.
Javik nodded, but remained silent.
Shepard did not press him. There was no need to do so. The very fact that he could still feel something was horrifying to her, but to him? She would not be surprised if he became even more taciturn and moody. If a single individual could leave an impression on an object even without being in duress, then it stood to reason that what had transpired here, affecting so many, would leave insanely powerful echoes of a particularly terrifying sort. Shepard could not help but pity Javik right then. "Are you going to be alright?"
"There is no being… alright, Commander," Javik sneered. "But I will do what I must."
Shepard hummed her acquiescence and turned to glance back at the others. Saren lingered close to the entryway with his assault rifle at a ready, seemingly economizing his movements. Legion had followed her halfway inside, their temple-level status lights twinkling in the gloom even though their gaze lingered on the floor. Then her eyes landed on Nihlus. He had moved to stand by what used to be large double doors leading out of the hall, shotgun at a ready.
"Shepard-Commander, we detected a transmission emanating from below our present position."
Shepard all but whirled to face the geth as a realization slammed home. Legion had been staring at the floor for a reason! "A transmission?"
Legion looked up. "Affirmative. We noticed it when we first stepped into this structure, but the signal has ceased to transmit two seconds prior to our notification."
"Legion, why have you not mentioned that sooner?" Nihlus demanded, annoyance flashing through his tone as he moved toward them, abandoning his watch on the side door.
Shepard remained silent.
Legion turned to look at Nihlus, "We calculated a ninety-nine percent probability of Shepard-Commander asking us to intercept and decode the transmission."
"And?" Shepard stepped in, before Nihlus had time to react. She would not linger on the thought of what data Legion was using for their calculations. They were the sort to watch people like they were filming a nature documentary.
"We were able to intercept the transmission, however the encryption algorithms used to encode the data are unfamiliar to us. At the present time we are unable to decode it."
Shepard knew what that implied between the lines. "One of our erstwhile mechanical nemeses is down there, they found something, and they transmitted it out. They would know that Legion could decode Geth algorithms, so they used their own."
"Timing makes senses, as well. They would know that you shot apart the guards," Nihlus finished.
"Affirmative," Legion stated.
Shepard crossed her arms. "Legion, keep the transmission in your memory… I will have a professional look at it in good time." EDI might be familiar with the encryption method, and if not, might very well crack it. Right then, she would take whatever small victory she could get.
"Acknowledged."
"I want that data as well," Saren stated.
Shepard let her arms drop back to her sides. "Fine, although I cannot give you a time estimate on it." She would make Harbinger and Nazara rue letting her get her hands on such a thing. After all, having good information was truly half of winning any war. "But now, we need to find a way down there."
Javik stepped around her, past Nihlus, and started on his way toward the door out of the hall, without saying a single word. His whole frame was tense, to the point that his bioltics flickered from time to time, only noticeable because of the gloom.
Shepard blinked, but then followed him without saying another word. Nihlus fell in step behind her, and from the refraction of light on the wall, Shepard knew that Legion was somewhere behind him, leaving Saren to bring up the rear.
Sunlight did not reach the corridor that ran down the building's center, so the darkness was absolute, but the passage was wide enough for four people to walk shoulder to shoulder, with doorways evenly spaced apart on both sides. All in all, it was almost as barren and bleak as the rest of the building, save for the first signs of water inundation. In the darkest corners, where walls met ceiling, instead of reddish rust, there were black stains that looked like mold of some sort. There was one more reason to keep her helmet shut. None of them would know how Ilos' native mold species would have mutated in the presence of radiation.
Javik was some meters ahead, visible only due to the lit elements of his armor. He had stopped at a junction where the corridor took a slight bend to accommodate the building's hexagonal shape.
As Shepard drew nearer to him, her temple-level helmet lights caught on a door on the inside of the bend. It was a thick panel of rusted-through metal that still clung on to its frame on two of its four hinges. When she cast her lights through the biggest of the holes, she could peer into the stairwell beyond.
"This is an internal stairwell, and not a fire escape," Javik stated.
"It does not lead outside, so it could lead all the way to the lowest levels," Shepard replied, not bothering to switch over to Prothean, her petty way of telling him that if he used English, neither of them would have to repeat themselves.
"Correct."
Shepard took his reply as a silent acquiescence, but glanced back toward the geth with them. "Anything on your proximity sensors, Legion?"
"Negative."
"So no obvious ambush on the stairs, assuming they go deep enough."
Javik nodded, turned to the door and pushed. It resisted him for a few moments and when it finally moved, it emitted a loud, grinding screech that echoed across the walls.
Shepard tried her best not to cringe. There went their element of surprise, every synthetic for meters around would hear that cacophony. They had just tipped Harbinger and Nazara off to where they were coming from. She stepped through the door, touching Sin and Dex at her sides, but not drawing just yet.
The door opened onto a landing, and the two sets of stairs, one set in each direction. The steps themselves looked relatively intact, but the railings were gone. Shepard stared at them for a long moment, but if there was any sagging in the material, it was not obvious to the naked eye. The building had survived fifty thousand years, so the odds were good that the steps could still bear a load. "We'll take these single file, stick to the wall side, and thread lightly."
She started down the stairs, without waiting for acknowledgment, knowing that otherwise Nihlus or Legion would try to take point. Halfway down the first flight of steps she had not heard a single crack or snap, the stairs seemed to be holding up. She reached down, drew Sin, and pressed her back to the wall. One glance up told her that the others had followed her suggestion, but she was surprised at the order that they took. Saren was the one immediately behind her, with Nihlus and Javik behind him, and Legion last.
As she descended, it quickly became apparent that there were two flights of steps between each level. Halfway down to the second level, she noticed a very encouraging change in her suit's radiation readings, the strength had dropped almost twenty-five percent. Suddenly she had a little more time on her hands than previously expected.
When Shepard reached the landing for the basement's third level, she broke step. This landing was almost three times as large as the previous had been. There was a doorway on her left that led into the building's core, dark, ominous, and rust-strained. And on her right was an almost pristine metal-clad wall with a large, thick metal door, bisecting the landing. The door itself stood wide open, and beyond it, her helmet lights actually reflected off the metal cladding on the walls and the steps leading further down.
"I think we're heading in the right direction," Shepard said.
"Yes… just, what is in that direction?" Nihlus asked coolly.
"Answers, though we might have to pry them out of Harbinger or Nazara at gun-point." Shepard replied coolly as she stepped through that dividing doorway and glanced around. The walls had lost their paint, but were otherwise intact and free of rust. The stairs were likewise nearly flawless metal with intact handrails. The transition was jarring to say the least. "That door must have been opened recently, and it had one hell of a seal." It was the only thing that made sense considering the state of the rest of the building.
"We proceed with caution from here," Saren stated.
"Yes," Shepard replied. She was not going to argue with him over that.
"Legion?" She glanced back at the synthetic.
Their emotive plates shifted and danced about for a long moment. "We are not detecting any active heretic platforms in our vicinity."
"Good to hear." But she would not rule out a nasty surprise just yet.
"Addendum: we are detecting the uplink signal of a portable transmitter, the model is identical to the one we use to amplify communication signals."
Shepard bit back her correction. Legion was still not fully able to cut away the idea that the Heretics were different from the Geth, and it would sound quite damning to someone like Saren. "Well, now we know how they transmitted something past these walls, and I'd bet Harby needs it for its proxy." Shepard said.
"So we take out the transmitter. No signal, no proxy," Nihlus said.
Shepard had to admit that would have been the obvious thing to do, still, she was hesitant to actually do it. "I would've liked to talk to it. It likes to brag. I'm all for letting it." The bragging tended to be both quite entertaining and informative. "Also, if Harby was transmitting on a Heretic ship they hid somewhere on Ilos… Legion, you can access the transmitter's logs, correct?"
"Affirmative."
"There," Shepard smiled. "Suffice to say… no blowing up that transmitter. No matter how much you might be tempted to do so."
"No blowing it up does not mean we cannot shut it down," Saren stated bluntly.
Shepard had to admit, he got her there. "Alright. But that's another something likely only Legion could do- assuming of course that Harby isn't just standing right next to it, making the whole argument moot." Two could play the game that Saren was playing.
Saren turned on her, but remained quiet.
Shepard was glad for the helmets. Right then she could not see his glare, and he could not see her smile from ear to eat. Perhaps making that argument was a bit petty, but it was not entirely unreasonable. "Well, final descent. Be ready for anything." With that said, she turned the final one-eighty, pressed her side to the wall, and started down the next flight of steps.
She could hear her own footfalls, but there was no real point in muting them, as her helmet lights would give her away regardless. Shepard came down the first half and rounded the landing to the top of the second half, she paused and glanced at her radiation readout. "Verify your radiation readings. My levels dropped seventy-seven percent in comparison to the surface." She wanted to keep the team all on the same page.
"Same here," Nihlus replied.
Saren hummed his assent.
"So every hour we're down here, can be counted as fifteen minutes on the surface."
"We still should not linger," Nihlus replied.
"Goes without saying," Shepard smiled and started down the final flight of steps.
Once her feet were down on that final landing, her helmet lights revealed it was just as large as the one above. The walls were plated in the same metals, which appeared to be in even better shape, and there, on the end that pointed toward the building's core, was an enormous, safe-like door. Interestingly, the heretics had left it wide open, and as she inspected it, she did not see a single sign of damage or cutting. They had opened it as it was intended to open. That spoke plenty about the status of what was on the other side. She could not help but get a horrible sinking feeling right then.
Author Notes: Why did this take me over three months to write? I ask myself that. I do not know. Even with all the added research I had to do, I don't know. I shall not tempt Murphy's Law by saying anything more.
General Notes:
Nothing for right now...
Chapter Notes:
None for this chapter.