Having missions go pear-shaped halfway through was simply part of the soldier's life. No plan ever survived contact with the enemy, and that of course included any plans Shepard ever made. She was, however, starting to think the Universe had it in for her somehow. When it came to shit hitting the fan, she usually excelled.
"Go, go, go!" she called over the comms, her sniper rifle barking with deadly accuracy to cover her team.
Nihlus, Wrex, and Alenko led the charge, with Shepard and Garrus laying down the covering fire. Much as she'd have liked to be at the front of the charge, they really needed to thin the herd of geth raining down fire on them, and for that, accurate sniper rifle was what they needed. She was still wondering where all those geth had come from, the scans showed a few guard posts but nothing like that.
Meanwhile, the comms chatter coming from Williams' team was not encouraging at all. The salarians had taken casualties, and it seemed that her team of marines was the only thing keeping the assault group from collapsing. But she couldn't let herself get distracted by that. She had to keep her faith in Williams. She was a good officer; if someone could lead the others to the other side of the attack, it was her.
"Contacts!" Nihlus called.
"I see them," Shepard replied, swapping targets. Two shots later she lost the angle. Dammit. "I'm moving in!"
"Right behind you," Garrus replied, falling into step as she rushed out of cover.
Some stray rounds peppered their position as they ran over the platforms, but the geth didn't seem to be paying much attention to them. It was a different story for the other half of her team. Even Wrex was keeping to cover behind a large concrete pillar, and the geth were advancing to their position with deadly accuracy. Several dozen units were leapfrogging from cover to cover, half each time laying down covering fire for the others. She saw all three of her team come out of cover at once when the geth started their rush, and half a dozen units went down, a mix of grenades and mass accelerated fire ending their approach. The return fire was intense, and they only managed a couple of seconds before they had to dive back in cover.
Two of the markers on her HUD showed damage.
"Alenko! Wrex!" Shepard called. Curse her human legs for not being fast enough. She was coming over the bridge, but had to skid to a stop and get to the nearest cover when she ran into range of the geth units. Behind her, Garrus had to do the same.
"I'm fine," Wrex rumbled.
"Alenko?" Shepard insisted.
"It's not bad," the lieutenant said. "A little medi-gel-"
Whatever he was going to say next was drowned under the roar of an RPG, the explosion rocking their cover. Fortunately, there was no new damage reported on her HUD.
Well fuck this!
"All right, Wrex! Blow it up!"
She concentrated, a throbbing flare of pain already pushing behind her eye. She felt the dark energy swirling around her, and in a single, fluid motion, she stood up and pushed it away with her arm. Her only biotic ability, the singularity, coalesced in the middle of the advancing group of geth, pulling them off their feet in an instant.
As she dropped back in cover, clutching her helmet in pain, the sound of the battle outside intensified. Every single one of her companions had come out of cover, to lay down as much fire as they could on the helpless floating geth. Only after all weapons teetered towards overheating did Wrex blow her singularity. The resounding boom was accentuated by the grinding and snapping of metal coming from the geth units being torn to shreds.
"Shepard?" Nihlus called.
"Coming..." she muttered. She tried to get to her feet, but she didn't have to exert herself. A taloned hand pulled her up, and practically dragged her as they ran over the bridge.
"Hell of a party trick, Shepard," Garrus said. His voice sounded amused despite the obvious stress, as they rushed under a rain of geth fire.
"I try," she muttered.
Garrus dropped her rather unceremoniously, and without even a warning, but she had barely a chance to catch her breath before Nihlus appeared next to her. Like a genie out of a bottle, he had moved so fast Shepard had to wonder if he was secretly a wizard.
The fact that she was chuckling when Nihlus got to her probably confused him to no end, which only made her mirth more pronounced. All despite the enemy fire coming their way, which was noticeably less intense. If nothing else, she had given the geth something to think about.
"Shepard, are you okay?" Nihlus said.
"Just peachy," she grunted. "Got an aspirin?"
"No," he deadpanned. He came out of cover, his assault rifle spitting rounds in fast but short bursts. "We're stuck."
"What-" she stopped talking when Nihlus dropped right on top of her, an instant before a rocket exploded against the wall behind them. "Is this really the time?"
"Spirits," he muttered, pushing himself up. "They're not coming out now, you've spooked them."
"Good."
"Not really, we're stuck," Nihlus insisted. "Can you make another?"
The mere idea made Shepard's incipient migraine that much worse, but she could see Nihlus' point. Garrus and Wrex had taken point on opposite sides of the platform, right in front of the back door to the facility, but there were too many geth standing between them and the entrance. The geth were not trying to push forward, though. That singularity had set them back. It was almost a stalemate, except that they couldn't afford a delay. The synthetics, on the other hand, could wait forever. Shepard was in a strict timetable. If they didn't get in there and start taking the facility apart from the inside, it was only a matter of time before they were overrun.
"Shepard?" Nihlus insisted.
"I'm going to need a minute," she said.
"Don't take too long."
Not like she wanted to take too long, but she knew better than anyone what could happen if she tried to use her biotics too often. Brain swelling isn't fun for anyone. She pulled her assault rifle and got out of cover, struggling against the pain and taking aim with a reversed grip, gun against her left shoulder so she could aim with her left eye. She wasn't as accurate that way, but she could barely see out of her right one. The combat scanner was lousy with red marks, but it was merely geth troopers. Lots of them, but hardly anywhere near as dangerous as other, bigger units.
Where...
A shimmer caught her eye, and she followed it with her rifle. It took her a moment to really place it, but it was there. A ripple in the air. Almost as if...
Shit.
"Alenko! Behind you!" she called, pressing the trigger of her rifle. A deluge of rounds sprayed out of her gun, hitting the cloaked figure and producing the blue flashing of a kinetic barrier deflecting shots.
Alenko reacted fast, turning in the direction Shepard was shooting and throwing a biotic push at it. The field finally went down, and a big geth unit came into view. More shots were directed at it, but not before its shotgun barked twice, once hitting Alenko's barrier, the second breaking through and taking him down. A second geth hunter came up behind Wrex, but he fared a lot worse. The shotgun hit the battlemaster dead to rights, but instead of going down, Wrex just roared, his biotic barrier wrapping itself around his body, and hit the geth with a headbutt that had it staggering several steps back. In the back of her mind, Shepard found it odd that the geth hadn't prepared for that, given how Saren was getting himself a krogan army. In the front of her mind, what she had were two things. One, make sure the cloaked geth were all down. Two, get to Alenko.
The first one was done by the rest of her team, so she rushed to the lieutenant less than a heartbeat later.
"Alenko!"
She fell to her knees by the marine, pulling him behind cover. He was moving, which was good, and there wasn't a lot of blood there. The armor had definitely taken a hit, the plates along the torso pockmarked and bent out of shape.
"I'm okay..." Alenko muttered.
"Like hell you are," Shepard replied. Her omni-tool was already scanning him. Multiple lacerations, a piece of ammo lodged against one of his ribs, but nothing truly major.
Best damn investment I've ever made, she thought absently. Those Colossus hardsuits were the real deal.
"Incoming!" Garrus called.
"Shepard, now!" Nihlus yelled, the turians already putting a hard front against the incoming geth.
"Dammit, I can't-"
"I'm fine," Alenko insisted, his voice firmer. "Go!"
Shepard spent a fraction of a second to consider the situation. Geth coming out of cover and trying to rush them, taking advantage of the disruption caused by the hunters. There was no guarantee there weren't any more of those. And she hadn't finished checking Alenko, who had taken a full blast from a huge geth shotgun to the chest.
Incoming geth army won. She concentrated, the pain so sharp that she nearly lost her balance, and collapsed the dark energies into a singularity. Which was followed by her collapsing to the ground.
Two in a row always sucks, she thought as the battle resumed in earnest.
Then the biotic explosion. Followed by grenades, it sounded like. No kill like overkill.
However, the explosions continued, hard enough that they rocked the ground under her. She grabbed the edge of the barrier she had been using for cover and pulled herself up to look. And what she saw was that everyone was as confused as she was, geth included. Another explosion rocked the ground, and this time she could tell it had come from the loading bay inside.
"Is that us?" Shepard said.
"I don't think so!" Garrus replied.
"Don't waste time," Wrex said. The krogan battlemaster had walked out of his cover, and was methodically unloading his shotgun on every geth unit he came across.
He wasn't wrong. Whatever was going on inside had the geth completely distracted. The units closer to the garage doors were already turning around, heading for the inside of the building, and the remaining ones were not as focused. As Tali said, the less geth there were around, the less smart they became.
With an uneasy step, Shepard got to her feet and started shooting. The sooner they were done, the sooner she could find out what the hell was going on in there.
"Felawa! The ones back!" Ashley called.
Immediately, the marine's sniper rifle boomed, taking aim at the geth responsible for the barrage of heavy ordinance raining on them. There seemed to be no end to the synthetics, and they were hitting them hard. Kirrahe's men were a lot tougher than she had given the salarians credit for, but when it came to trading blows in close quarters, her marines and her were the ones who had to hold the front.
Which meant Grieco and her were staring at a charging krogan right in the face.
"My turn," Grieco said.
Ashley didn't need to answer, because he always claimed it was his turn. As he spoke, Grieco got out of cover, shotgun in hand, already unloading on the krogan. It was clear that these krogan were not particularly smart, because they were as predictable as a metronome. Seeing a large challenger in front of them, specially someone the size of Grieco, was like waving a red cloth in front of one of those bulls of old. They charged right away. Too tempting a challenge. Grieco kept the shotgun on the krogan, well aware that it wouldn't stop him. That wasn't the point. The point was to give him target fixation. So far, they had taken down half a dozen of those krogan, but it had taken heavy ordinance.
It had been a while since they had had any heavy ordinance. The last one of the salarians carrying heavy weapons had been left on the other side of the second perimeter gate. At least half of him. The other half had been turned to paste. And the weapon was unrecoverable.
Which meant they were closer to joining that salarian than she'd have liked.
She kept her aim away from the pair, Grieco and the krogan, trying to lay down some cover fire. Wrex had rubbed off on Grieco far too much. The marine had been only too happy to take on the charging krogan whenever they came barrelling through. Perhaps not exactly happy, but certainly willing to rise to the challenge. Ashley preferred to take them down before they could get closer.
The clash between the krogan and Grieco never happened. The marine sidestepped at the last second, right when the krogan hunkered down for the last step, head held low with the headplate at the front. It was a narrow margin, but Grieco waltzed right through like he had been doing it all his life. This time, he used a grenade. Looking down, the krogan never saw the hand that planted the sticky explosive on his back as the marine fell down. The explosion blew the armor and half of the krogan's spine right off, and a barrage from at least three different people put the massive enemy out of his misery.
"Grieco?" Ashley called.
"I'm..." Grieco had to stop to cough, rolling painfully behind cover. "I'm fine. Fucker kicked me as he passed."
Ashley was about to bolt out of cover to check on her marine when a distant booming sound caught her ear. An explosion. Several more soon followed. She exchanged confused looks with the nearest salarians, and hit the comms.
"Commander! Tell me that was you," she said.
"I was about to say the same thing," Shepard's answer came through the comms. With a background of heavy fighting. "You have eyes on it?"
"No," Ashley said.
The geth had noticed, too, and the forces that were hitting them seemed to waver. Kirrahe didn't waste any time, and as soon as the break happened, he was already issuing orders, making the rest of the unit push forward. Ashley bolted out, rifle in hands and rounds spitting out as she advanced.
"Felawa, get a move on!" she said.
"Copy that," she heard the marine reply.
"Grieco, get your ass together!"
It didn't take long for the geth to respond. Ashley and her unit took several units down while the confusion lasted, but as soon as they were close enough, they became a threat bigger than whatever was going on inside the base. The return volley forced everyone into cover, Ashley the last one to go in as her barrier started to deplete under the impacts.
Another explosion. And this time, it was close. Glass flew from the top floor of the base, the flash of the explosion followed by an outpouring of thick smoke. Ashley swapped her gun, pulling the sniper rifle out and scanning the windows. Nothing. Smoke, geth...
Wait, what's that?
She zoomed in and looked closely. There were people in there. And given how they were shooting geth, they weren't with Saren. It was hard to tell, some sort of black and white armor, half of them wearing full mask helmets with red circular visors over their eyes.
Her examination was cut short when Kirrahe shouted for her. One of the salarians was down, and they were trying to drag him away into cover.
"Boys, cover fire!" she called. Sniper rifle wasn't the best gun for that, but she made it work. With three headshots. "Commander, are you there?"
"Right here chief," Shepard called after a couple of seconds.
"I have eyes on the explosions. Uninvited guests. Black and white armor, heavily armed. They're inside the base."
"Roger that. We're moving in, how are you doing?"
"We're managing," Ashley replied. "But we can't hold much longer."
"Got it."
Having a third party involved made everything... unpredictable. Shepard couldn't be sure whether it'd be good or bad. On the one hand, it looked like the alarm had been triggered by that third party. Smart buggers, they had used both front and back assault teams as a distraction. With attacks coming from both sides, the geth troops had to split to defend the base. It put them on the line, and left this third party free to do as they pleased.
But now that this third party was on the move, the distraction was giving both Williams and Shepard a chance to move ahead. If they were going to blow that place up, now was the time to do it.
"Whoever these people are, they're good," Nihlus rumbled.
Shepard stepped over the remains of a geth prime and scanned ahead, rifle against her shoulder. "That's not reassuring, who the hell is also after Saren?"
"I'm not sure it's Saren they're after," Garrus said. "They could be after his work."
"Too damn convenient for them to show up now," Shepard said.
"Way too convenient," Garrus agreed.
They had come to a detention block, with several cells lined up along the ground level. The radar wasn't showing any signs of life anywhere. No geth, no indoctrinated agents, and no prisoners. It wasn't until the third cell that they found something. A group of six salarians.
Dead. There was blood everywhere, and bullet marks all over the walls. They had ben taken down with extreme prejudice.
"Spirits..." Garrus muttered.
"Blood's still warm," Nihlus said, looking at the scan on his omni-tool.
"They executed the prisoners, just like that," Alenko said, his voice clipped and angry.
"Whoever these people are, they aren't friendlies," Shepard said. "Come on, let's move. We can't help them."
In total they found four cells with dead captives, all of them recently executed. The contents of the fifth non-empty cell were more confusing. There was a single chair in the middle of the cell, with restrains on the armrests and the legs. And there was a lot of blood all over it.
"This wasn't a salarian," Wrex said, sniffing the chair closely. "Asari."
Shepard's heart bumped inside her chest. "Liara?" she muttered.
"Can't tell," Wrex said. "Blood's dry, if it was her, she's long gone."
"Dammit," Shepard said, kicking the chair and sending it crashing against the wall.
"We should go," Nihlus said.
"Yeah. Garrus, get into the security console, try to get whatever you can," Shepard said.
"Sure," the turian replied.
"Everyone else, let's move, we have to catch these people. I want answers," Shepard said, cocking her rifle and gesturing ahead.
She took point and the rest of the team fell in. Garrus stayed behind, with Nihlus taking position on the corridor between the security office and the lab ahead. The corridor opened up to a larger area, with a long row of medical bays lined up against the lengthwise wall. The signs of battle were very intense there, with several dead krogan, husks, and a couple of spots where a pile of charred remains seemed to indicate a body that had been burned beyond recognition.
A surprise shot hit Shepard square on the chest, breaking through her barriers and cracking one of her chest plates. She fell to the ground rolling, tumbling without control from the powerful sniper rifle round.
"Contacts!" Alenko yelled.
Wrex took a moment to toss Shepard behind a wall, and rushed ahead to join the Lieutenant in the fray. Nihlus wasn't far behind, and the three of them started returning fire against the enemies on the opposite side of the room. When the world stopped spinning, Shepard took a moment to catch her breath and check for damage. The plate over her heart had been completely ruined, but it had caught the bullet destined to end her life. It had gone right through her barriers, that had to be one hell of a powerful rifle. She peeked out of cover and fell in a moment later, having taken stock of the situation. Six targets ahead, all clad in white and black armor, and four of them with full face mask helmets, just as Williams had described. The other two were an asari and a salarian, neither of them with helmets.
They were fighting with professional ferocity, bullets concentrating on anything peeking out of cover. One of the six was hunkered behind one of the consoles, and wasn't coming out for air at all.
The asari came out of cover, biotic energy surrounding her as she prepared an attack. She didn't get far enough, as soon as she did, both she and Nihlus turned to her, their combined assault rifle fire throwing her completely out of balance, and killing her before she had a chance to go back into cover. Shepard would have said something to her team at that point, to swap targets or to use the chance to move ahead, but what happned next caught her completely by surprise. As soon as the asari hit the ground, her entire body was covered in flames in a very sudden flash of ignition, and mere seconds late the body was reduced to an unrecognisable charred husk.
Son of a bitch.
"Did you see that?" Shepard said, falling into cover as the incoming fire redoubled.
"Yeah," Nihlus replied. "Whoever sent these people doesn't want to be found."
"Take them down!"
Shepard came out of cover, and for the third time in a single mission, she had to summon a singularity in the middle of an enemy group. The pain was almost unbearable, but she couldn't allow herself to dwell on it. These people were too dangerous for her to fall down like a damsel in distress. Rifle held against her left shoulder this time, she kept shooting, aiming at the three helpless figures floating up in the air. Wrex, too, took the chance to lay down the hurt, a carnage shot from his shotgun turning one of the floaters into red paste. It didn't prevent his broken remains from igniting and turning into soot. When Alenko threw a biotic push at her singularity, the explosion did the rest of the work, and reduced the enemy numbers to just one.
The one behind the console.
"S'kak!" Nihlus shouted, bolting out and running at full speed. "He's wiping it!"
"Wait!" Shepard yelled.
It was for naught. Nihlus was too late. The terminal popped and crackled with energy and went dead, and a moment later the soldier behind it came out of cover, guns blazing and rushing in with complete disregard to his own safety. Nihlus caught several bullets as he, too kept running, but his speed let him close in before the enemy could do any damage. The turian made a swipe with his gun at his opponent's face, missed when he ducked, but as if he had been expecting it, caught him with a knee to his chest as he passed. The two of them fell in a mess of flailing limbs.
"Dammit, Nihlus!" Shepard yelled, standing on uneasy feet and stumbling towards the fight.
She hadn't taken three steps and Nihlus already had the upper hand. He smashed the soldier's helmeted head on the ground repeatedly, not so much for the damage but just to disorient his opponent, and soon he had him pinned down, one arm twisted behind his back and face down on the concrete.
"Who are you people?" he demanded.
He twisted the arm a fraction further, and while the man twisted on the ground in pain, not a single sound came out of his mouth. Nihlus reached with his free hand to the man's helmet, but as soon as he undid the clasps, a hissing sound alerted everyone that something bad was about to happen. The spectre barely had to mutter a curse and jump back, then the man burst into flames, followed by an explosion that sent flaming bits flying everywhere. They all dropped to the ground, but Shepard was the first one up, rushing towards Nihlus.
"Nihlus! Are you okay?"
"Curse this..." he was muttering, his arms wrapped around his chest and curled up in pain.
"Come on big guy, easy," Shepard said, kneeling by him and running her omni-tool. "Let me check you out."
"...is this really the time?" he muttered.
Shepard couldn't help a chuckle at the turian's response. "Any time is a good time," she said.
To her relief, there wasn't a lot of damage, but he was sporting some new burns on his upper arms and chest. As she worked the medi-gel in, Alenko moved to check the terminal, but it didn't take him long to report his findings.
"They wiped all storage clean," Alenko said. "I've run a low level recovery, but there wasn't much. We'll have to check it later, but I think I know what it was."
"What?" Shepard said.
"The genophage research," Alenko said.
Shepard glanced at Wrex, and the krogan returned the favour. "Give Wrex a copy."
"Not very useful as it is, but okay," Alenko said, his voice somewhat apologetic, but nonetheless he complied.
Shepard's omni-tool beeped. Medi-gel was applied, all they needed was to wait for a minute or two for it to set. She raised her hand to her ear and hit the comms.
"Garrus, how is it going?"
"Pretty much done," the turian replied. "You were right. It was Liara in there."
"Where is she?" Shepard demanded, not missing a step.
"Not sure, the footage has been altered. Tali can probably recover it, but it'll take time. I don't think she's in the facility anymore."
"All right. Get your ass here, we've got to move."
"On my way," Garrus replied.
After the fight in the cloning lab, they hadn't found a single enemy. Wiped terminals, destroyed geth, and a single dead asari who looked completely out of place there. She looked like a secretary more than a commando, and for what Garrus was saying, she had been shot in the back of the head while she was on her knees. Execution style.
No, those people were definitely not friendly. And they had managed to keep one step ahead of them. The upside was that the geth were in complete disarray, with an attack coming from three directions, and every single front worse than the next. But they were using it to their advantage.
How are they going to get away? That's really the question.
"Shepard to Normandy," she called.
"Go ahead," Anderson's voice replied.
"Captain, whoever these people are, they're getting their hands on anything that's not bolted down. Keep your eyes peeled, they must have an escape plan. Any ships in the area?"
"Nothing out of place. We'll keep our eyes open."
They moved past the dead secretary onto a lift, the five of them fitting easily into the large platform. Like most lifts, it was slow to a fault, but it didn't have to move far to drop them at the next level. A large room with a platform overseeing a computer terminal. Like before, the place had been ransacked, and the windows on the opposite side had been blown open. At the bottom was what looked like a computer terminal, but there was something odd about it.
"Shepard, you see this?" Nihlus said.
"Yes?" she offered.
"I think this terminal was made to read prothean beacons," the turian said. He stepped in closer to the computer, examining it closely. "I'm sure of it."
"You think this is where Saren wanted to bring the Eden Prime beacon?"
"Could be."
The comms crackled into life, catching Shepard's attention. It was Kirrahe.
"That's it, we're moving in to set the charges," he said. "Shadow team, we're almost ready."
"Copy that," Shepard replied. "On our way."
They moved up the stairs towards the lift, when the holoprojector at the end of the top platform came to life. They all stopped dead on their tracks to look at it, and a small eternity passed before they exchanged nervous glances. It looked like the projection of Saren's ship.
"You are not Saren," a metallic, synthetic voice boomed.
"Observant," Shepard said, getting a glare from Nihlus.
"Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh, hiding your ignorance behind a façade. You touch my mind, and fumble, incapable of understanding," the deep voice said.
"This isn't a VI..." Garrus muttered.
"There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own you cannot even imagine it. I am beyond your comprehension. I am Sovereign."
"Spirits," Nihlus muttered. "Sovereign. It isn't a reaper ship. It is a reaper. A reaper!"
"Reaper?" Sovereign said, its flat voice not betraying the slightest hint of feeling. Contempt. Amusement. Nothing. "A label created by the Protheans to give voice to their destruction. In the end, what they choose to call us is irrelevant. We simply are."
"What do you want from us?" Nihlus said. "Why is Saren leading the geth against us?"
"The cycle. The cycle cannot be broken. The protheans but delayed the inevitable."
"Cycle?" Shepard said. "What cycle?"
"The pattern has repeated itself more times than you can fathom. Organic civilizations rise, evolve, advance. And at the apex of their glory, they are extinguished," Sovereign said. "The Protheans were not the first. They did not create the Citadel. They did not forge the mass relays. They merely found them, the legacy of my kind."
"Why would you create all that for us to find, only to destroy us?"
"Your civilization is based on the technology of the mass relays, our technology. By using it, your society develops along the paths we desire. We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it. And you will end because we demand it."
A chill descended on all of them. The complete lack of life in his voice, the coldness beyond all feeling. For the reaper, they were nothing. Shepard had met all kinds of people in her life, some of them showing what she thought was nothing but utter contempt for other people's life. This was nothing like it. This was the real deal. Organics were nothing to them.
"They're... harvesting us," Alenko muttered. "Like cattle. They let us grow, then destroy us when we reach the level they need."
"That's what you want? Slaves? Resources? What?!" Nihlus shouted.
"My kind transcends your very understanding. We are each a nation. Independent, free of all weakness. You cannot even grasp the nature of our existence."
"Try me," Nihlus said. "The entire galaxy will stand up to you. You're but a single ship. Geth or not, we will end you."
"I am but the vanguard. We are legion. The time of our return is coming. Our numbers will darken the sky of every world. You cannot escape your doom."
"We will stand against you. You're just a machine," Shepard said. "And machines can be broken."
"Your words are as empty as your future. I am the vanguard of your destruction. This exchange is over."
With that ominous warning, Sovereign's transmission was cut, leaving Shepard's team in complete silence. A moment later the comms crackled to life, Joker's voice following. He sounded stressed.
"Commander! I don't know what you're doing down there, but that dreadnought just turned tail and is heading straight for the planet! You need to wrap things up or we're screwed!"
"Got it!" Shepard replied. "Come on, let's go! Any news on the visitors?"
"Nothing, but if they have a ship, they won't be able to do anything with the AA turrets are up. Same as us," Joker said.
"All right, I want them found because we're taking them down!"
The way to the central courtyard was packed with enemies. Geth, mostly, with the occasional krogan thrown in. Wrex was making short work of the fake bred krogans, as he called them, and getting angrier and angrier every time they killed one. For what he was saying, they weren't real krogan. Brainless idiots, worse than the regular brainless idiots from the lower clans of Tuchanka. He seemed insulted by the krogans Saren had cloned, not so much because of the cloning itself, but rather because of how badly he had done it, it seemed.
Still, they couldn't just waltz around to take the views in. They were on the clock, and had to get to the AA tower control as soon as possible. They got through a small army of geth, collecting a few injuries but nothing major to worry about. At least as long as the stims held. After all was said and done, Shepard was sure they were all going to need a few days of downtime to detox and recover.
If that's all we have to do, I'll consider myself damn lucky.
It still bothered her that there was so much resistance. Where had the third party army go?
"Wrex, take point! Alenko, behind him!"
The battlemaster and the lieutenant followed the orders without a word, moving like a well-oiled machine. Wrex charged at the approaching geth destroyer, and a fraction of a second before impact, the synthetic was caught in a biotic field, courtesy of Alenko. The combination of the impact and the geth's reduced mass had it flying off to its death at breakneck speed.
As that happened, Nihlus, Garrus, and Shepard took care of the last two geth, a couple of snipers perched at the opposite end of the courtyard. For a moment, nobody spoke. All eyes focused on scanning the courtyard for any hostiles that might have been missed. But there was nothing.
"All targets down," Garrus called.
"Excellent. Alenko, get those turrets offline," Shepard said, her hand already flying over her omni-tool. "Normandy, get ready to move. Chief, what's your status?"
"We've moved into the AA tower, taking the last one down," William's voice came through the comms.
"Good, get ready to move to the extraction point."
The noise of the approaching Normandy put a spring into Shepard's heartbeat. It had been a hard fought battle, but they were damn close to the end now. Just a little longer.
She gripped her rifle tightly, eyes wide open and scanning for threats. This is when she had to be the most alert.
"Commander," Talitha's voice called over the comms. "We've just spotted an inbound shuttle. It might be the-"
"There they are!" Shepard snapped, interrupting the ensign. "Where is it going?"
"It's heading for the lower level on the east side."
"Drop me a marker," Shepard said. "Alenko! Stay here and make sure that bomb's put in place. When you're done, get to the Normandy and rendezvous with Williams."
"Aye aye, commander," the lieutenant replied.
"Everyone else, let's go!"
Shepard took off at a run, heading for the eastward exit of the courtyard. The marker was less than two hundred metres away, and she could see why now. The lower level ended up on an open platform right by the beach. It was the perfect place for a small team pickup. She led the charge at a good clip, finding only light resistance along the way. And a large pile of geth scrap to go with it. Either the third party was numerous, or they were even better armed than the team they had taken down.
Slightly worrying, that.
The first signs of battle came about when they were some fifty metres from the marker. A geth dropship had landed in front, and geth were pouring out by the bucketload. They could actually see the shuttle on the opposite side of the platform, and the group of soldiers in that white and black armor trying to fend them off.
She fell into cover, assault rifle in hand, and started opening fire. It was tempting to let the geth just overrun the enemy and then pick the synthetics apart, but they really didn't have much time. Whoever those people were, they were about to make an escape with who knew what information recovered from Saren's base. Reaper tech, indoctrination information, even the genophage cure. It wasn't even a case of Shepard needing the information, it was a case of that information being too dangerous to be left in anyone's hands.
The question of who those people were or how they had found out about the base was better left for later. Focus. She needed to focus.
Despite their best efforts, they couldn't break through the veritable wall of synthetics. The geth hand entrenched themselves pretty good, and now Shepard and her team could barely do anything other than stay in cover, throwing the occasional potshot at the enemy. Everyone was out of explosives, and omni-tool tech abilities could only do so much against the numbers they had to overcome. There were enough enemies that geth could keep cycling in and out of cover to recharge shields and never leave a gap for them to take advantage of it.
"We can't get through!" Nihlus said.
"We have to!" Shepard replied. "Concentrate fire, I'll call the targets! One, two-"
"Commander!" Williams' voice cracked through the comms. "Do you read me?"
"Williams, what are you doing?" Shepard replied, biting back a curse and digging back into cover. "The nuke's almost in place, get to the rendezvous point!"
"Negative commander! The geth has us pinned down in the AA tower, we're taking heavy casualties!"
"Shit. Joker! Get them out of-"
"Negative!" Williams interrupted, the background noise of their battle getting even louder. "It's too hot! We can't risk it! We'll keep them busy, just- Felawa!"
A burst of static ended the transmission, and Shepard cursed with complete abandon in response.
"Shepard?" Garrus said.
"Move back, to the AA tower," Shepard said. "We'll have to leave these assholes to the geth."
She stood out of cover and laid down some suppressive fire, aided by the rest of her team. Their combined effort seemed to diminish the deluge of metal rounds flying their way, but didn't stop it completely. Wrex Concentrated his biotic energy and laid down a large area push, throwing half the geth facing them out of balance and opening a window for them to run away.
They made only about twenty metres. Nihlus came to a complete stop then, looking back with an expression of surprise, which soon turned into open rage.
"Saren!" he yelled.
"What?!" Shepard snapped.
She turned to look in the direction the Spectre was looking, and then she saw him. Grey, tall, he was glowing brightly, wreathed in dark energy and dropping biotic attacks on the defenders around the shuttle. The soldiers, to their credit, had responded with perfect order, closing ranks to respond to the attack and cover each other.
Then, and without any warning, Nihlus took off running towards the battle.
"Nihlus!" Shepard yelled. "Nihlus! It's too late! We have to go! NIHLUS!"
It had been just a second. One mere moment. For that fleeting instant, Anderson had thought they were actually going to pull it off. Then, it had all gone to hell. To absolute hell. If only they had been a few minutes faster. Now the ground team was split three ways, and all three of them were getting hammered.
"Lieutenant, can you hold them off?" Anderson said.
He was looking at the markers on the map while gripping the rail of his command post with all his strength. Almost as if he was trying to will that geth dropship out of existence. It had come flying over the AA tower, and Williams had been the first one to warn them. Reinforcements heading straight for the nuke site.
"Negative, there's too many of them!" Alenko replied. "I've got to arm the bomb now or this'll have been for nothing!"
"What the-"
"There, it's armed! Go get the others!"
"Lieutenant! What the hell do you think you're doing?" Shepard's voice came through the comms.
"Just making sure this place goes up, commander!"
"Shepard! What's your status? Can you make it back to Alenko?" Anderson said.
"Negative! We're-" she stopped talking when her voice was drowned by the distinctive boom of a biotic explosion. "We're engaged with Saren! Goddammit Lieutenant, what the-"
"Joker," Anderson called, ignoring the comms bickering. "Get us to Shepard's position, prepare to lay down covering fire. If Saren's there, it's our chance to end this."
"Aye, aye sir," Joker replied. "Thirty seconds."
"I'm sorry Lieutenant," Anderson said.
"It's fine Captain, I understand," the lieutenant said.
"Alenko..." Shepard said.
She didn't say anything else, she probably couldn't afford it. The battle she was engaged in sounded like the fiercest they had encountered so far. A stony silence had settled through CIC, only interrupted by the automated calls from the VI. Anderson pressed his hands into fists will all his strength, and switched the comms for the next call.
"Williams," he said. When no answer came, he tried again. "Chief."
"Captain," Grieco's voice called. The sound of battle on his end was no less intense than the one Shepard was in. He sounded desperately tired. "The Chief is down."
"I see. We're moving to pick up the commander. I'm sorry."
"I know. That's fine, I get the best seat to watch the fireworks," the marine replied.
"You've made me proud, marine," Anderson said.
"Thank you sir," Grieco said. The background noise of the battle intensified, then the line went dead. Whether he cut the comms himself or he went down, Anderson would never know.
"Wrex! Blow it!" Shepard shouted.
Another singularity. She had stopped counting. She was out of stims and painkillers, and quite frankly, she was sure she was going to regret abusing her amp like that. But compared to what had just happened, it seemed like a paltry price to pay. Anderson had made the call, but she knew it was her responsibility. The primary objective was to destroy that base, and if possible, take down Saren. Alenko had made sure the first one would happen no matter what. Now she had to try and make the second one happen.
Nihlus and Saren were trading blows on one side of the platform, and she had her hands full trying to keep the hotheaded turian alive - by way of destroying the geth army trying to take them down. And while they were so desperately trying to kill each other, Nihlus and Saren were having quite the conversation, which Shepard could only get Nihlus' half of.
"You coward!" Nihlus was yelling. "We're Spectres! You sold out the galaxy out of fear!"
Shepard unloaded with her shotgun, all pretence of accuracy and finesse long lost. She knew she was brushing against her physical limits. Unless the Normandy got to them soon, she was going to collapse and die.
Well, it's about time.
It wasn't as much a morbid thought as just one of experience. A person could only cheat death so many times. Eventually it'd catch up to her.
"You thin the reapers want you to serve them? They'll destroy you!" Nihlus yelled.
Saren responded with a blast of dark energy, hitting the ground near Nihlus and throwing him off balance. He tried to roll with it, but he lost balance and fell. Dammit. Shepard turned her gun to Saren and started shooting, round after round until it hissed angrily at her. Overheated. She threw it away, unracking her assault rifle. It was as if her attacks weren't having any effect. They just bounced off Saren's biotic barrier like nothing.
She had to drop down into cover when Garrus yelled at her, several geth platforms having taken a liking for her.
Damn, we're so screwed.
Worst part was how the other soldiers had taken advantage of the situation to turn tail and run. Nihlus had done an admirable job of catching Saren's attention, unfortunately. Between those people escaping with whatever they had stolen, and killing Nihlus and her, it seemed like Saren didn't have to mull his choice for long.
A rumbling, whooshing sound started to raise in the background, Shepard recognizing it easily enough. Saren seemed to recognize it too, because he jumped back onto his hoverboard, and shot up in the air as the Normandy came into view. Without much warning, the smaller calibre guns on the ship started unloading on the geth, destroying synthetics by the bucket load and making the entire platform tremble under their feet. The ship overshot the platform, coming with the back bay door open. Some of the crew were standing on the ramp, guns blazing and laying covering fire down.
"Go, go, go!" Shepard shouted. "Nihlus!"
"Yes!" the Spectre replied.
One last burst of speed. Shepard made sure she was the last one, that at least the reminder of her team made it to the Normandy safe and sound. Her shields took round after round, then they broke and her armor took several more, but when she jumped into the ship, she was in one piece. Mostly.
As soon as she landed inside, the back door started closing, and the Normandy roared into the air. She didn't stop. She went straight for the lift, and hit the up direction. She didn't even look behind to see if anyone else wanted to go up.
She had to see it. She walked up the stairs to CIC, and then went straight to the cockpit. The entire place was dead silent. She knew all eyes were on her as she walked along, but she didn't care. She had to get to the cockpit. She had to see.
Shepard got to the cockpit just as the explosion on the planet's surface engulfed Saren's base.
Author's Notes: Well... That's Virmire. There's one way to sum it up: Everything's gone to shit.
A rather common trope of time travel/causality/butterfly effect stories is the idea that there's some kind of "cosmic balance" out there, where trying to fix one thing means screwing something else up. Well, in this case, the entire clusterfuck of changes have all conspired to make Virmire... Well, this.
Oh, and figured out who's been interfering yet? It might not be too obvious if you never got the right DLC.
Other than that, not much to say on this chapter. Just that this last week has been hell with work (the good kind of hell, hella busy but getting a lot of important stuff done), so it took me a while and I can't help but feel it's a bit dry, so to speak. Well, that, and also because believe it or not, I actually have a bit of a hard time making too many horrible things happen to the characters in my stories. Call me a softie.
Anyway, reviews! Lots of them, thanks!
eurodox59: Yeah, so I think it really went off the rails here. Hope it was worth the wait!
anon: You can always find a buyer for the conduit that you hate. Just imagine their faces when an army of geth comes pouring out!
general-joseph-dickson: Haha, that's right! :D
LordGhostStriker: Damn you, I went back to re-read that part of the chapter, and I actually heard that in the voice of the Super Friends narrator! :D
TkdVZ05UUWdObUlnTmpjZ05HVWdOVF: That's the plan, close the backdoor and hope Nazara splats against the front door!
BJ Hanssen: Well, the first chapter was as FUBAR as it gets.
Toothless is best: You know it!
SyntheticLegion: Thanks a lot! And yeah, you sound like you mean the threat! There'll be more Mika soon, ocne we go back to the Citadel and Roy :)
Uemei: You have to remember that one of the features of this fic is the reader's urge to smack Roy upside the head, hehe. Mordin? Well, step one is whether he'll survive ME2 or not... :)
Kira michi: Thanks a lot! Archive binges are so much fun, hehe. Yeah, Roy had a shitty family growing up, I'll probably touch on that at some point in the near future.
TMDFiction: Thanks! You've come at a good "shit's about to go down" point in the story, hehe :)
FluxBlade: I think this is possibly the worst Virmire any SI has managed to pull off, and Roy wasn't even there. Thanks!
spiral83, Zeru'Xil, bluemarlin, BrotherCaptainShepard, WindBear47, mikehike, thanks a lot for reviewing!
I think that after that clusterfuck we all need to catch our breaths. So next chapter we'll have a shift of focus, and possibly one massive argument. And something random that amused me when it came up in the reviews (if you've been paying attention, it won't surprise you too much despite its crack-like nature). Until then, thanks a lot for reading! Ta-ta!