As soon as the husk lurched towards them, everyone except Kara opened fire, tearing the creature apart before it could come any closer. When the sound of gunfire ceased, it was replaced by even more howls and screams. The chorus of the dead echoed throughout the Reaper, signaling to Shepard's team that they no longer had stealth on their side.
The scaffolding under their feet began to rattle and tremble while the as of yet unseen hordes of the creatures descended upon them. Kara scowled, and turned her head to face the others. "Tali, grab a lantern, we need to move now!" She barked.
Tali didn't waste time responding, she quickly holstered her shotgun and bolted for the nearest light source. Kara began to fire as she moved, illuminating the path ahead for fractions of seconds at a time, briefly revealing scores of the husks. Tali reached for the lantern with her left hand while drawing her sidearm with her right, and as soon as her fingers wrapped around the handle, an arm lurched out from the dark to her left.
She let out a yelp of surprise and bolted backwards, lantern in hand, as the husk clambered over the safety railing. Tali gave it a bullet in the head for its troubles.
The Quarian scrambled back to the rest of the team as Kara pushed forward. The Hunter growled, and switched her rifle to full-auto, seeing as how she didn't need to worry about taking the time to be precise with her shots.
Tali, Shepard and Garrus stuck as close as they possibly could (in that order). Tali leaned past Kara's right side, while Shepard leaned left, and the two of them (as well as Rocket atop Kara's shoulder) fired into the oncoming horde, while Garrus covered the rear, but it did little to stop the machines.
The tide of husks crashed into Kara, who flipped her rifle sideways, and used her mass as a shield between the horde of screaming, squirming husks and the rest of her team. The husks were little threat to Kara, doing little more than slamming their fists into her like children. Tali and Shepard continued to fire into the husks that tried to force their way past Kara, their mutilated limbs grasping for them, while Rocket shot any that tried to climb up her body as she pushed forward.
"How many flarkin' people did they have stationed here?" Rocket shouted as his weapon overheated from overuse, forcing him to wait as he glared down in anger at the teeming mass mere feet below him.
"Too many." Kara snorted, before something else caught her attention. Approximately ten meters ahead of them, the path took a sharp left turn into a corridor. And emerging from this corridor, was a much larger amalgamation of husks, as large as Kara.
The creature turned, and raised its right… arm wasn't quite the right word to describe the mass of mangled flesh, bone and metal that made up the limb, and Biotic energy began to build up inside what Kara now knew was a weapon.
The creature fired, creating multiple biotic explosions on the walkway, sending the husks in front of Kara flying in every direction as the detonations advanced.
Kara stumbled backwards, barely managing to maintain her footing as she felt as though a truck had slammed into her, and Shepard and Tali were caught in the blast. Shepard was sent careening into Garrus, while Tali was flung into a nearby railing.
The Quarian struggled to grasp onto the railing as her momentum flung her up and over, and she let out a panicked curse as her world spun upside down, giving her a terrifying view of the abyss below her.
Before Tali could fall to her death, she felt something grasp onto her ankle, hard. Hard enough that she felt the bones crack from the pressure. She screamed in pain as she was flung like a ragdoll back onto the walkway, landing with a thud.
After the shock subsided, Tali spun around to see Kara let go of her leg. "You couldn't have been any gentler?" Tali asked, realizing her ankle was broken.
"No." Kara said tersely as she turned to confront the only remaining hostile.
The creature's attack had killed the rest of the husks on the walkway, and Rocket and Kara quickly opened fire, targeting the monster's weapon, and legs. It buckled and fell as its legs melted, rendering it immobile, but not dead.
The plasma fire melted and cooked the creature's flesh, and had disabled its weapon, but couldn't cause any further damage. So Kara swapped to her spear, and skewered the husk, the searing blade of plasma easily burning through the monsters chitinous hide.
As Kara wrenched her weapon from the corpse, she could feel more husks approaching. She regrouped with the rest of the team, and hefted Tali over her shoulders in a fireman's carry, while Rocket moved down to under Kara's ribs, hanging onto a fistful of fur. "We need to move quickly, before we're overrun." Kara said matter of factly as she drew her sidearm.
"Don't need to tell us twice." Shepard responded. "Let's go." With Tali down, Garrus picked up the lantern, and they advanced down the corridor the amalgamation had come through, following the signal to its source.
They made exceptional progress, making it nearly all the way to the IFF before the next wave caught up with them at the end of the corridor. Shepard and Garrus set up on either side of the hallway, while Rocket knelt in the center. Shepard opened the door, and the husks charged.
The door limited how many could attack at once, corralling the mindless creatures into a death funnel. Everyone yanked the triggers on their weapons, firing as fast as their weapons would allow, not needing to care for accuracy, and the howling husks dropped as quickly as they could come through the door.
The bodies threatened to block the door entirely before the last of them finally fell, and the sound of gunfire subsided.
Shepard and Garrus advanced through the door first, sweeping the exterior. Shepard moved along the right side of the door, coming to a stop in front of another railing. She relaxed when it became clear it was, for the moment at least, safe.
Shepard turned to face Garrus and Kara, who was trying to fit through the door without smacking Tali against the frame. Before she could do anything else, the thundering crack of a high powered rifle firing shook the air, and Shepard felt the pressure wave of a round pass mere centimeters by her head, in spite of the helmet she wore.
She felt something spatter against the back of her helmet, and she spun, just in time to see a husk fall from the railing behind her. When she turned back around, she saw the shooter reveal themselves.
Silhouetted in front of the light of their destination, was a lone Geth. "Shepard-Commander." Said the automaton, before it turned, and left the dumbfounded members of Shepards team behind.
"You guys all saw that right?" Garrus asked, keeping his weapon up, facing the direction the Geth disappeared.
"Affirmative." Kara said. "Be on the lookout for more. Geth don't operate alone."
Shepard shook her head, and readied her weapon. "C'mon, the IFF isn't that far from here."
Shepard's team advanced as fast as they could, not even stopping to engage the husks that yet again began to swarm them. If they did, they'd be overwhelmed in seconds.
She haphazardly fired a burst straight into the gut of a husk to her 11 o'clock, sending it screaming over the railing it climbed over mere moments ago. A second husk to her right took a plasma bolt to the head.
The team reached the end of the walkway, and took a sharp left, arriving at what appeared to be an airlock. A closed airlock.
Kara and Garrus spun on their heels, and fired into the swarm behind them, ripping the husks apart, and dropping corpses literally at their feet, while Shepard's omni-tool got to work opening the door. Garrus cursed as one of the husks lunged at him, grabbing his rifle. Rather than wrestle with the creature, Garrus placed his right foot behind him and twisted, using the creature's momentum to pin it against the door.
He forced the barrel of his rifle under the husk's chin and fired a burst, blowing its skull apart. Before Garrus could turn, he felt cold, metallic hands wrap around his head, jerking it back, hard.
But before the husk could do anything more, the pressure around Garrus's head disappeared. He turned, and saw that Rocket had blown its head off.
"Open the flarking door!" Rocket shouted at Shepard, as the husks threatened to overwhelm them.
"I'm trying!" Shepard shouted back, before her omni-tool finally cracked through the security to open the door. Shepard and Garrus moved through the door as soon as they could fit through the seam.
Kara was the last to enter the tube-like structure, swatting aside one last husk with the back of her fist, caving in its skull with a satisfying crunch.
Shepard slammed her fist into the button to close the door, and the airlock slammed shut, bisecting a husk that got caught in the way. She hunched over, struggling to catch her breath, when she noticed their objective inside the airlock.
A device roughly the size of her fist sat atop a nearby desk. As Shepard moved to pick it up, the ground beneath her shuddered, and the corpse of the Reaper groaned. Joker's voice crackled over the comms. "Commander? Come in Shepard!"
"Joker? What is it?" She answered promptly.
"I don't know if you guys pushed a button or something, but it's like the Reaper activated a security lock down. We had to take-off. Whatever you guys are doing, hurry it up!"
"Affirmative." Shepard said as she pocketed the IFF. She noticed a waypoint pop onto her HUD, indicating the new rendezvous point. "Alright, I've got the thing, now let's get out of here."
As Shepard moved to open the door to the other side of the airlock, she heard Kara speak behind her. "I can feel things moving behind that door, be ready." She warned.
Shepard nodded, and readied her rifle as she opened the door to reveal a bulletproof panel between her, and a half a dozen husks, and a lone Geth on the other side. Closer inspection revealed it was the same Geth they'd seen earlier. The room was comprised of a single large walkway in the center, with auxiliary scaffolding on both the left and right sides.
And looming over the room, was a large metal shell. The Geth was fiddling with a console on the other side of the room, seemingly unaware of the husks advancing towards it.
The Geth quickly finished whatever it was doing with the console and turned, only to be beaten by the creatures that surrounded it.
The barrier lifted, and Shepard's team advanced into the room, dispatching the husks quickly. They looked for an exit, but the only other door was locked, leaving the only other option to be backtracking through the horde they'd only narrowly avoided.
But before that unpalatable idea could be considered for more than a few seconds, a blinding light began to shine above them. The shell that hung over the room had opened.
"What are we looking at Serina?" Kara asked.
"That would be a Reaper core. It's supplying power to the ship. Destroy it, and you'll lift the security lockdown."
"And disable the mass effect fields keeping this thing from falling into the sun." Tali grunted from atop Kara's shoulders.
"Any better ideas?" The AI responded.
None came, and Shepard clenched her jaw. "Light that thing up, then run like hell to the exfil-point." She ordered.
Reluctantly, the team carried out Shepard's order, firing into the Reaper's heart. The core ruptured under their assault, and the air was filled with a metallic groan. Kara and Rocket visibly relaxed somewhat, as the Reaper fell silent.
What little light was generated by the reactor core faded, and the magnetically sealed doors opened. Simultaneously, the floor beneath them shifted, threatening to topple them as the Reaper began its descent into the star.
"Doors open, let's get out of here!" Garrus shouted.
"What about the Geth?" Kara asked.
"Forget about it, let's go!" Shepard responded as she bolted through the door, Garrus close behind.
Kara however, hesitated. This Geth had spoken to them, and had killed a husk in defense of Shepard. Not to mention that this particular Geth appeared to be alone, which considering how their networked intelligence worked, meant it shouldn't be nearly as smart as it seemed to be.
Her curiosity winning her over, Kara quickly grabbed the Geth with her free hand, dragging it along as she followed Shepard and Garrus, catching up to, and overtaking them quickly.
The rendezvous point with the Normandy was at the largest hull breach, requiring EVA. Shepard and Garrus quickly donned their helmets, forming airtight seals before they entered vacuum.
Kara used her mass as a battering ram, crushing and tossing aside the creatures that got in her way, allowing her teammates to ignore the swarms of husks and other abominations that threatened to impede their progress, much to Tali's chagrin.
Before long, they arrived at the breach, the Normandy waiting for them, silhouetted in front of the star. Kara reached the point first, and while Rocket hopped off and provided cover for her and the rest of the team, Kara released her grip on the Geth, and threw Tali towards the Normandy, taking care to be as gentle as possible, followed shortly by the Geth.
"Rocket, move!" Kara said sternly as she leveled her own weapons, taking over for the ring-tail.
Rocket didn't respond, he simply grunted and made the leap. Shepard and Garrus arrived seconds later and followed Rocket, joined shortly by Kara.
Shepard landed inside the Normandy's portside dock, alongside the rest of her team. She barely registered the Geth that was also there before Kara landed. "Everyone's aboard Joker, get us out of here!" Shepard barked.
"Don't have to tell me twice!" Joker responded, eagerly pushing the Normandy's engines as hard as he could, leaving the fallen Reaper to its fate.
Once the Normandy was safely away, Kara quickly took Tali to the med-bay, and Shepard followed EDI's instructions to deal with the IFF.
Kara gently placed Tali on a bed, then secured the still inactive Geth in EDI's core, at the AI's suggestion. Word of the Geth spread quickly, and EDI had to lock the door to prevent Mordin from doing god knows what to the thing.
Once Shepard took care of the IFF, Miranda and Jacob joined her in the conference room.
"Do you really think it's a good idea to let that thing stay aboard Commander?" Jacob asked, clearly incensed at the idea.
"Cerberus has a bounty for any piece of Geth technology. We could learn a lot from this." Miranda countered.
Shepard sighed. She didn't disagree with Kara's decision. Her order to leave the Geth behind was more out of a sense of urgency than wanting to leave it behind. And, to make matters more interesting, the Geth was wearing a shoulder piece from Shepard's old armor, from before the destruction of the Normandy SR-1, and her subsequent death.
With no interest in speaking further, Shepard shut the conversation down quickly, eager to rest. "It stays." Jacob and Miranda were stunned at Shepard's bluntness as she left the room, but quickly recovered, and went back to their own business.
Garrus fiddled with the Normandy's weapons, making sure everything was calibrated properly before leaving, headed towards the med-bay. Tali's head popped up from the vid she was watching, and her mood improved substantially when she spotted the Turian (If her body language was anything to go by).
"How're you holding up?" He asked, pulling up a seat by her bed.
"Pretty well. It's not as bad as it feels." Tali said cheerfully.
"That's good to hear. So you'll recover soon?"
"The doctor thinks so."
Garrus nodded, performing the Turian equivalent of a smile, and gently took hold of Tali's hand, rubbing her thumb affectionately. "What're you watching?"
Tali suddenly looked away. "Erhm…" She stuttered. Garrus imagined her blushing furiously behind her mask. "F-fleet and flotilla."
"Isn't that the movie about a Quarian falling in love with a Turian?" Garrus asked, teasing the Quarian.
"Y-yeah…" Responded Tali, doing a poor job of hiding her embarrassment.
"I've got some spare time, why don't we watch it together?"
Tali's cheeks burned so fiercely, one could almost see them through her visor. "I'd… like that."
Rocket lay face down atop a crate in the cargo bay, panting uncontrollably beneath a smug Kara, a self-satisfied smile on her face. "Did you hear anything I was saying?"
"Not… really…" Rocket sputtered as Kara let go of his tail.
Kara huffed. "I said, I am going to reconvene the pack to make preparations while we wait for the IFF to be installed. In the meantime, I want you to stay on the Normandy and help install those upgrades you told me Tali and Garrus were talking about."
Rocket forced himself to sit up, feeling himself soften, and regain a measure of breath. "Alright. Don't take too long though."
"As you wish." Kara whispered softly, leaning down to plant a kiss on Rocket's head as he dressed himself.
After he pulled up the zipper on his jumpsuit, he donned the red scarf that drove Kara crazy, and took the elevator up to the CIC while Kara took her fighter. Once the elevator came to a stop, the doors opened to reveal Shepard and Kasumi speaking.
"Hey sheep-herder." He interjected, waiting until he heard a lull in the conversation.
"Rocket." Shepard said in response, while Kasumi smiled and waved at him.
"What're you two talkin' about?" He asked.
"Kasumi and I were talking about an op." Said Shepard.
"But this particular mission would have to be handled more delicately than the usual fare." Kasumi added.
"Boring, got it." Rocket commented dismissively. "Anyway, Kara was saying we should refit the Normandy while we got nothin' better to do."
Shepard nodded. "The rest of you can handle that while Kasumi and I are gone. We'll have Joker drop us off, then head to the Citadel."
Rocket watched from the hallway overlooking the cargo bay as Shepard and Kasumi took the shuttle, then joined Garrus and Tali, the latter of whom had grown tired of lying in bed, and was now using a pair of crutches until her ankle healed fully.
The three made the list of upgrades they needed: the Thanix cannon, multicore shielding, and heavy armor plating. Those three upgrades should allow the Normandy to handle whatever the Collectors through at them.
They paused as they listened to a shipwide alert from EDI stating they were approaching the Mass Relay, when her voice suddenly cut out, as well as the lights and ventilation.
For a brief moment, even Rocket couldn't see, until the backup power came online, and the emergency lighting and ventilation with it.
"The flark was that?" Rocket asked.
Before Garrus or Tali could respond, another shipwide alert was broadcast. "Alert alert, all hands initiate anti-boarding procedures. This is not a drill.
Rocket immediately drew his weapon as some Cerberus crew ran by the aliens, getting geared up. "Come on, let's set up in the mess hall. Grab whoever you can along the way!" Rocket barked as he moved. He spotted Jack bolting up the stairs as he neared the elevator. He didn't say anything, just jerked his head towards the elevator, and Jack nodded. Tali, Garrus, and Grunt crammed into the elevator with them just as the doors opened, Tali having ditched her crutches in favor of Garrus carrying her to a more defensible position. Jack hit the button for the third deck, and the doors closed agonizingly slowly.
The elevator came to a stop, and the doors opened to reveal more crew running towards the mess. Once Rocket's group arrived, he found that Samara, Miranda and Thane were already there. "Any a'you know what the flark is goin' on?"
"I have no fucking idea, but whatever or whoever it is, I'm gonna rip it apart." Jack snarled. Before anyone else could comment, they heard gunfire and screams echo from the decks above them, then almost as quickly as they had started, the sounds stopped.
Jacob and Mordin were the only ground crew members on that deck, and unfortunately for them, the heavy hitters were on the third and fourth.
Before anyone said anything, they heard the elevator descend, and Rocket had a sinking feeling in his gut that its occupants weren't friendly. The assembled Normandy crew leveled their weapons at the left and right entrances to the mess hall, and waited.
But not for long. Mere moments after the doors opened, a group of Collectors appeared. Three troopers, and one of the four legged monsters they'd encountered on Horizon.
The Normandy crew didn't hesitate. They unleashed all their considerable firepower on the intruders who dared set foot on their ship. Jack and Samara unleashed their biotic fury, and the rest of the crew fired round after round at the interlopers. In response, the Collector who appeared to be leading the force, raised its right hand.
In less than the blink of an eye, a biotic shield formed, effortlessly absorbing Jack and Samara's attacks, tossing aside the bullets fired at it, and dissipating the magnetic fields holding together Rocket's plasma bolts.
"Insects. I am the Harbinger of your doom." The creature's voice echoed, before it retaliated with its own biotic assault, tearing through the hastily constructed barrier Jack and Samara created, sending some of the most powerful people in this galaxy spinning head over heels with a simple gesture. Rocket landed with a bone cracking thud, and the last thing he saw before he blacked out, was the "harbinger" reaching towards him.
"Fuck. Fuck fuck shit, fuck!" Joker cursed, unable to verbalize any other response as he watched a Collector ship descend upon the Normandy. EDI's holographic projection appeared on his left, and he whirled to face her. "What the hell is wrong with the ship?"
"The Reaper IFF contained a virus. Most of the Normandy's systems have been locked down. You must give me control of the ship." Joker turned in his seat as he spotted a line of flashing red lights appear on the floor. "I will guide you through the process."
Unable to shake the feeling this was going to end horribly, Joker reluctantly followed EDI's instructions. As he followed the red lights to Mordin's lab, he saw the Salarian doctor, as well as Jacob take up positions in front of the elevator. Apparently, the Collectors had breached through Shepard's quarters on the first deck.
Joker hesitated as the doors opened, and one of the armored crab-like Collectors crawled out.
"Move it Joker, we'll handle this thing!" Jacob shouted, firing off a round from his grenade launcher.
Joker didn't stop to watch the fight, but the sounds of continuing gunfire behind him didn't inspire confidence. He spotted the ladder leading to the third deck, and mumbling a curse, descended.
Once he reached the bottom, EDI's voice greeted him as he stepped off the ladder. "There are still hostiles present on this deck. Do not proceed until I give the all clear."
"Whatever you say…" Joker mumbled. He didn't hear much of anything behind the door, but he wasn't about to risk it. "Where's everyone else?"
"The Collectors are much stronger than our previous encounters led us to believe. The area is clear, move now." EDI's voice stated coldly.
"Shit…" Joker growled as he opened the door, fighting to keep his imagination from terrifying him anymore than he already was. Much to his relief, the deck was as empty as EDI said it was, but he could hear gunfire and screams from the deck below him.
He followed the lights to the medical bay, then to the AI core beyond. The doors opened, and he spotted the Geth Kara had brought aboard. The barrier keeping it contained was down, but thankfully, it was still inactive.
"Alright, I'm at… you. What do I do?"
"Connect my core to the Normandy's primary control module."
Joker reluctantly input the commands, muttering to himself the entire time. "This is how it starts. Years from now, people are gonna be saying: "oh this is all Joker's fault, he's the moron who plugged in the overlord". He punched in the last key, and suddenly EDI's avatar disappeared.
It reappeared just as quickly, accompanied by her voice. "I now have control of the defense protocols. You must now reactivate the primary drive systems in Engineering."
"You want me to crawl through the ducts again?"
"I would do it, but I lack a body."
Joker was slightly taken aback by the more human response. "Fine, whatever." He muttered as he entered the maintenance shaft to deck four.
He exited the shaft at the bottom of the engineering bay, where Jack liked to skulk in her off time. He was about to proceed up the stairs, but stopped dead in his tracks as he spotted armed shadows crawling across the walls in front of him.
He heard a door above him open, then close. "The engineering deck is now clear. Please proceed immediately."
Joker did as he was told, and quickly reached the console EDI led him to. "Activate the drive systems, and I will open the airlocks. All remaining hostiles will be killed."
"What about the crew?" Joker asked.
"You are the only remaining crew member. They are gone, Jeff."
Joker felt a chill run down his spine. All the people Shepard spent that time recruiting, the deadliest warriors and killers in the galaxy, and they were all gone? "Joker, activate the drive."
As if acting of its own accord, Joker's hand entered the command as he stared at the console numbly. He heard the reactor spinning up in preparation for a jump, and the doors locked behind him as the Normandy escaped, with only two of her crew left.
