"What in the abyss are you doing?"
The voice had been Tela Vasir's. It was roughly lunchtime, although everyone's internal clock was probably a bit scrambled at the moment, thanks to all the travel, so we had all made our way to the station's cafeteria. The ground team had taken one of the long tables, with Jack sitting alone at the very end and opposite of everyone else, and I had made my way to a free spot in between, next to Tela and in front of Kasumi.
And everyone was looking at me.
"What?" I said.
"What is that?"
I looked down at the foil pack in front of me. "That's a hard ration bar."
Confused looks were exchanged all around. The cafeteria was well stocked, and everyone had a tray loaded with decent-looking food. And with so many biotics in the team, when I say loaded, I do mean loaded. Jack had a pile of bacon in front of her that made me say a prayer for all the little piggies slaughtered for their deliciousness.
"Why are you eating that?" Kasumi said.
"Because," I paused to open the pack, and then pointed at her tray, "any time I try to have a decent meal when there seems to be a chance that nothing will interrupt it, something does interrupt it and bad shit goes down. Except for the times when I ate thresher maw, but I don't think that qualifies."
"Thresher maw?!" Kasumi squeaked.
Tela, meanwhile, was giving me a wide-eyed stare. "That has to be the most ridiculous thing-"
"Hey, the kid says hard ration bars are good luck, I'd listen to him," Zaeed said.
"Seriously?" Tela replied, looking at the mercenary in confusion.
"Yeah. Knew a guy a few years ago; tough son of a bitch too. He had this thing where he always sat on the second seat behind the airlock whenever we used a shuttle for a drop. Said it was good luck. One day we dropped a carton of broken eggs on it, still he sat down on the same seat, stank during the whole op." He paused to have a drink, which looked to be either water or vodka. Or nitroglycerin, who knows. "Till one day we removed the seat. Had a fucking meltdown at that. Next thing we know, shuttle's under fire and we crash in a shithole of a planet with no backup. I managed to get out right before it exploded and killed my whole damn unit."
"So are you saying he's right? Nonsense."
"Don't argue with luck sweetcheeks," Zaeed said. "Man says it's bad luck, let him eat his bar in peace."
"Well I for one think superstitions like those are just self-fulfilling prophecies," Kasumi replied. When I looked at her I realized she had gone to the line, gotten a tray full of food, and was holding it in front of me. "So here, eat up," she said.
"Kasumi," I rumbled.
"I'm serious!" She dropped the tray a bit roughly, pushing the foil pack with it and dropping it on my lap. "Eat! By the time you-"
Her speech was interrupted by a loud whistle and the sound of Miranda's voice over the PA. "Attention Hibiscus personnel," she said. "All leave is cancelled, everyone to the ship on the double. We have no time to waste."
Every. Single. Head. Every single one. They all turned to look at me. I pointed at Kasumi.
"Told ya."
Most people took a moment to either shove a big last bite in their mouths, or plaster some food between their slices of bread to have something to eat on the go. Biotics; they really burn calories with their superpowers. Jack walked off with the biggest bacon butty I had ever seen.
Decon was disabled, which of course meant a ship-wide decon cycle once we took off, but there was no time to wait for ten full cycles of it, apparently. I rushed in at the front, took a moment to check Miranda's office and, getting no response, managed to squeeze my way in between the incoming personnel and get to CIC. Joker was already at the helm, and both the captain and Miranda were chatting while looking at one of the consoles. There was a map on it, and a report of some sort I didn't even bother to read.
"What's going on? Have we-"
"Not the Collectors," Miranda said, reading my mind without even looking away from the console. "I just received a report that a potential recruit will need extraction if we want to catch him, so we need to leave immediately."
"Oh."
"Don't sound so disappointed," Miranda said. "The dreadnought has arrived to the Omega-4 Relay. It is now well and truly locked." She looked at me and smiled. "See? I give some good news with the bad."
I head a crash and some clattering sounds behind me, and saw that Talitha had made it to CIC right before tripping and dropping several pieces of her hardsuit all over the floor. She cursed loudly and started to pick them up, so I decided to go give her a hand, picking up errant pieces as well.
"Give," I said, extending my arms.
She looked at me, made a small embarrassed giggle, and gave me the pieces she was carrying. Her hair was wet and a complete mess, and given the strong scent of shampoo, she was probably caught in the middle of a real, honest-to-goodness shower. Back aboard the Normandy, the first thing everyone did was about fifty-fifty between a shower and food when it came to docking with a space station.
"Thanks." She made for her station, sat down, and started going over launch procedures with Joker while I dropped the pieces on the console next to her. "Do we know what's happening?"
"Apparently we're recruiting someone," I said. "No Shepard yet."
Her eyes didn't leave the screen as she nodded. Shortly afterwards, Miranda's voice filled the air.
"Ground personnel prepare for op. ETA is..."
"Four hours!" Joker called.
"Four hours," Miranda echoed. "Team assignments will come once we are closer to the objective. Expect heavy combat, so load up."
"That's my cue," I said, and gave Talitha a friendly slap on the shoulder. "Check that you have all the pieces."
"Will do!" she called as I ran away.
The armory was quite packed, given how many of us were and how small the ship itself was. Tela was nowhere to be found, she was always in armor for some reason and she probably had her own guns. I made my way to my locker, and started getting into my Predator M armor.
"Turian armor?" Jacob said, looking at the pieces in my locker.
"Yeah. I was surprised they had it in stock, you'd think they would have only human made stuff."
"Eh, they are pretty good, except yours looks a bit thin."
"I'm not really comfortable with the heavier hardsuits. I need to optimize my squishy organic platform to improve efficiency first."
He gave me this weirded out look for a moment, then laughed. "You're one weird cat, you know that?"
"It's been said, yes."
It took us about twenty minutes for all to be ready. I was pretty sure we could have done it faster, but nobody was in a hurry, as we had four hours to go. Soon after we were sitting in the main mess area, all geared with nowhere to go. Kasumi was sitting in a corner, patiently folding pieces of paper into origami figures. She was not wearing any visible armor, but I wasn't sure if she was wearing something under her clothes.
Wait. I mean some protection.
Like a light hardsuit of sorts.
Yeah.
Jack had chosen the Way of the Iron Tattoo and decided she was too good for a hardsuit. I could see a pistol and a rather sizeable shotgun. Tela and Tasha both had identical full loadouts, with assault rifle, shotgun, pistol, and sniper rifle. Zaeed was in his big fucking armor again, and had an assault rifle and what looked like a freaking grenade launcher. Jacob was sticking to a shotgun and a pistol, and wearing a very heavy looking set of armor. Julia? Lighter armor, shotgun, pistol.
I looked down at myself. Armor, shotgun, pistol. Okay, so maybe we had a problem. I considered going to get an assault rifle from the armory, but I dropped the thought. The stupid rifle I had used during the attack on Hock's estate had bruised my shoulder down to the fucking bone, and it still hurt. I found out later it was a Mattock, pre-heatsink standard issue. Yeah, it punched hard, but the kick was painful as hell.
No assault rifle. Stick to what you know. Unless it was a geth pulse rifle, but Cerberus didn't have any of those. I could have asked Gee, but probably best to minimize contact. And asking the broker for a geth pulse rifle would be hard enough to explain if the message got caught, I was out of the hard encryption keys. I could still send messages to the network of course, and they would be quite secure, but not as strongly encrypted, and they wouldn't go directly to Gee.
"All right," Miranda said, addressing all present in the room. A holodisplay was behind her. "This is our objective." The display switched images to show an overhead picture of some sort of containment facility, with an overlay highlighting the internal structure under the dome. "Our target is a Cerberus operative currently working inside this facility. According to the communique I got from his cell, this is a hot lab being run by a batarian group, where they are working on developing biological weapons. Nothing too lethal, I'm told, just strains of viruses and bacteria with high virulence and resilience for which they have also developed treatments. Their business model is to infect small colonies, then hold the treatment for ransom."
I think Jacob and I were the only ones who truly had a strong reaction at that. I had a feeling that the rest not so much didn't care, more likely they just weren't surprised anymore.
"So, how are we going to avoid catching something?" I said.
"Full armor," Miranda replied. I noticed she said that but, much like Jack, she was not wearing a hardsuit. Catsuit for her, thank you very much. "The plan is to recover all data and plans for the pathogens, so that countermeasures can be prepared."
I saw Jacob nod approvingly. I wondered for a moment whether Miranda meant the countermeasures would be prepared for anyone, or just Cerberus.
"We torching the place afterwards?" Jacob said.
"If you want to, don't let me stop you," Miranda replied. "The point is for us to get there before our operative leaves, or he'll go deep into his next assignment and we won't have a chance to catch up with him for another month. So," she started adding markers to the screen, "there are three entries to the compound, and only one of them has a kinetic curtain. The other two are exposed to the outside, which is a level two heat hazard planet."
She looked straight at me when she said that.
"You could have told me earlier," I grumbled, tapping the chest piece of my Predator M.
"I could have," she agreed, suppressing - badly - a grin, "but I'm glad to see you took the new suit. They won't be expecting much of an attack from those entries, specially as we'll be dropping you ten clicks out, so you'll be deployed first. Place demo charges on the two entrances, and make your way in. Also, take a full loadout. You'll be going in alone, so better be prepared. Did you repaint your envirosuit?"
I sighed. "Yes ma'am."
After that, Miranda went through the plant in a lot more detail. The key was distracting everyone enough to allow the main team to make their way through the kinetic curtain with a small drop pod. That was my job. If I couldn't make it in, I was to be as distracting as possible. The main team would be Miranda, Kasumi, Zaeed, and Tasha. Backup would be Tela, Jacob, and Julia. Jack got to sit on her ass by virtue of refusing to put a harsuit on. And then she finally told us who it was we were going to extract.
Randall Ezno.
The planet we landed on was as much of a hot mess as Miranda had promised. It was hot enough that one could probably cook a steak by dangling it out the window for a couple of minutes, the terrain was jagged and rocky, and the atmosphere had a permanent haze to it courtesy of a notably noxious atmosphere. Atmospheric pressure wasn't much of an issue, luckily, at just under two atmos. The reason for the heat wasn't a super thick atmosphere, like, say, Venus, but rather the incredibly potent blue star in the center of the system. The Hibiscus had dropped me then legged it to the shade of the planet, otherwise her stealth systems wouldn't have lasted two hours. Way too much radiation out there. As soon as I was in place they'd do the drop maneuvers, which would give about eight minutes before the team arrived.
Eight minutes was a very long time to be doing combat alone, but as Miranda said, I didn't have to necessarily put myself at risk. Just be distracting.
The readout from my hazard suit was telling me I had about six hours left in that nightmare place. It would probably last for longer if push came to shove, but it was better not to push it past its recommended specs. I had re-painted it with a dark grey and bronze pattern, and put the lambda logo from Half-Life right on the chest plate. It was now the Lambda Suit. Of course, technically it should have been the HEV Suit, but eff that.
Nobody got the reference. The only thing Miranda said was that it was still distinctive, though at least it wasn't as garishly visible. And right now, I have to say it probably did the trick. Everything had an orange haze, and much of the environment was clearly volcanic rocks, dull and dark. There was no atmospheric oxidation, so the colors were unfamiliar in general, but if I took cover, I didn't stand out as completely out of place.
I made my way up the steep incline, finding hand and footholds with ease. The facility was on a flat area right on the side of a steep, rocky hill. No easy access from the outside other than dropping in. I found a larger ledge on my way up, and sat down for a moment to catch my breath and have a drink of water.
"Stupid squishy organic platform," I muttered between deep breaths. Being loaded down as I was wasn't exactly helping.
"You all right?" Jacob called through the like during ground missions with Shepard, the rest of the team was on comms at all times, following our - or in this case, my - progress through that and the headcams.
"Yeah, just need a minute."
"Roy," Talitha called. "We've just finished going over the scan data we got when we dropped you. There are six turrets around the compound. I'm sending you the data package now."
"Oh great," I said. I brought my omni-tool up and looked at the map. Six red markers had been added to the display. Two around the landing zone, two larger ones on top of the dome, and one on each of the fortified airlocks I was going for.
"Can you handle it?" Miranda called.
"It'll depend on their range," I said. "Six turrets only for me sounds like an awful lot of firepower."
"The two on top are likely to be AA batteries. I don't think the two on the landing zone will turn around to shoot your way. If they do, then concentrate on just distracting them and we'll have to land as is."
That meant they'd have to go in without me having made a mess on the opposite side of the compound. Not great. But on the other hand, I did appreciate that Miranda wasn't just content to let me dangle out there like bait on a hook.
"Will the AA be a problem?"
"Not for the pod," Miranda said. "At least I don't think so. We'll mask our electronic signature and will be dropping at an angle like space debris and away from the compound. We'll only turn to it at the last moment."
"I hope you're right," I replied. "Okay, I'll see if I can nail the two turrets over the airlocks."
"Be careful," both Miranda and Talitha said at the exact same time.
The silence that followed felt supremely awkward, but I decided not to say anything and just resume my climb. I took one of the alternative paths that would bring me closer to the airlock furthest away from the landing zone, already planning in my head how to tackle the turrets. The initial idea had been to plant the charges and take the people inside by surprise, when the team was close to finishing their drop. As it was, I'd have to first take the turrets, and that'd warn the base about potential intruders. I would have to stay outside.
"Miranda. Once I take on the turrets you'll have to start the descent."
"Eight minutes," Miranda reminded me. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah. I just hope the Mantis is as easy to use as you claim."
"Just let the targeting VI do the work, don't try to be clever. It's a big static target."
"Copy that."
There was good cover at the top, luckily, and it looked like the turrets hadn't acquired me as a target. An advantage of the temperature outside was that heat tracking would be useless. My suit got as hot on the outer layers as the ambient temperature, so I just looked like the rest of the scenery. I unfolded the Mantis, settled down on one knee with the gun resting on a large rock, and tried to steady my breathing.
I had done some drills with a sniper rifle, courtesy of Ash, and I knew damn well I wasn't good with it. Not completely useless - after shooting so much at all kinds of targets with every gun I could get my hands on, some of it had rubbed off - but not good. However, the turret was pretty big, and it wasn't moving. I had a good angle at the one above the farther airlock, and I had cover from the one close to me.
"On your mark Miranda," I said.
"We're dropping, go!"
And with that, I squeezed the trigger and the gun barked angrily, throwing itself against my shoulder with real fury and putting a round right through the turret. And immediately, both turrets turned to shoot at me.
"Shit!"
I dove into cover and pulled the lever hard, making the spent heatsink go flying. While I was in good cover, I didn't have a lot of room to maneuver, unless I went down the cliff face and climbed a different way up. I got out of cover trying to line up another shot at the far turret, letting it fly as fast as I could.
And missed.
With my shields blaring at me that they were running low, I slid down the side of the mountain to try and find a better angle, giving the capacitors a chance to recharge. Bullets stopped tracking me for a moment, and I took the chance to get out of cover again, standing, put my arms down on the lip of the ridge I had walked down to, and aimed. A second shot rang, the two turrets turned again, but this time I saw out of the corner of my eye the far turret splutter and die, sending sparks and smoke all around. I dropped the sniper rifle on the ledge and quickly took out the Mattock, turned to the second turret, but movement from the far end caught my eye.
And just in time. The turrets on the far end of the base by the kinetic curtain had taken me as a target, and they didn't have a chaingun. They had rockets. I dove down, slipping down the side of the slope but catching myself a few meters down, and the rockets exploded against the ledge. I saw the remains of my Mantis flying high and away, and cursed loudly at myself for not having racked it properly.
"Morgan, you okay?" Jacob called.
"Yes!" I yelled. "The freaking turrets by the hangar have rockets! Miranda?"
"They've killed all electronics," Talitha reminded me. "Five minutes out, they're committed now."
Crap, crap, and more crap. I had to get up there and get rid of that last turret, set the demo charges, blow the airlocks, and get rid of the far turrets, all in the space of five minutes.
There was no way I could do that in five minutes.
Still holding the Mattock I scrambled up the slope, dislodging broken bits of rock and gravel as I did. I shot as I ran towards the rock I used earlier for cover, while rounds from the turret hit my shields repeatedly. Once I was in cover I gave myself a moment, but saw that one of the far turrets had let loose and rockets were flying my way. So I got out, shields only at half, and unloaded on the turret over and over, rushing towards the building as I did. Shields cracked as errant bullets hit, but the Mattock proved as good as its reputation and, right before overheating, managed to pierce through the turret three times. It exploded as it tried to keep firing, and I crashed on the wall of the building as rockets exploded behind me.
Then the pain hit me. Not just a hard jab followed by sharp pain, no. The back of my left leg exploded with blinding, excruciating burning pain. I screamed at the top of my lungs, falling to the ground. I grabbed my leg by instinct, and felt something hard that shouldn't be there.
"Roy! Morgan!" several voices called for me through the comms.
With trembling hands I swatted at my omni-tool, and a shot of stims hit my system. For a moment the pain became distant, and with the renewed energy of the adrenaline-analogue hitting me, I grabbed and yanked hard at the foreign object stuck in my leg. I pulled out a long piece of shrapnel, which only made the burning pain worse as the hot atmosphere found a way into my suit through the breach. The suit itself reacted immediately, sealing off the breached leg. And before the initial jolt from the stims left me, I had enough presence of mind to reach with my omni-tool and just drop a sheet of omni-gel all over the burning area. It set almost instantly due to the temperature, and immediate sizzling sensation stopped, replaced by the pulsating, intense pain of an untreated burn.
It took me a bit to get my bearings back, for the dark edges around my vision to fade and the ringing in my ears to subside. People were still yelling at me through the comms.
"I'm okay, I'm okay," I finally called. "Got hit by shrapnel. Contained."
"They're almost there! One minute out!" Talitha called.
I wasn't sure if she was spurring me on, or telling me to hurry up. Staying where I was, the turrets didn't have an angle, but I was being as useful as a pair of fluffy dice hanging from the rear view mirror of a car. Thanks to the stims I was able to function, but my leg was absolutely killing me. I stood, reached into the webbing of the suit, and placed the first demo charge. Timer for 30 seconds. Then, gritting my teeth and fighting the pain furiously, I started to run. OR hobble fast, really. I hugged the wall as I did, and when I was but a few steps from the second airlock, one of the turrets drew a bead on me and fired. I rushed to the airlock, demo charge already in my hand and set for five seconds, slapped it on the airlock, and without second thought, threw myself down the steep bank of the hill. rockets exploded behind me, and followed my trajectory as I scrambled down the slope, trying my best not to tumble down and potentially break something terminal.
Then the explosions rocked the entire area, and I caught a glimpse of a burning trail as the pod rushed through the air and crashed into the base hangar.
By then, I had dropped and rolled my way down to a larger, protruding rock on the slope. I crashed painfully on it, but managed not to keep falling.
"Roy! Are you okay?" Jacob called.
"I'm... ugh..." I took a moment to lay on my back, careful not to drop from my precarious hold. "I'm fine. Shit. Suit's not been breached. I'm fine. Did they make it?"
"A cacophony of shooting sounds was my answer. "We're in. Morgan, where are you?" Miranda said.
I looked up. "About two hundred yards down the slope," I replied, my voice coming harsh through my clenched teeth. Shit my leg was absolutely killing me with pain.
"Status?"
"Shrapnel through my leg," I said. I tried to swallow but my mouth was dry. "I patched it up. Might need a minute."
"We can manage," Miranda replied. "Nice distraction, they're in complete disarray. If you're safe, just wait; we'll extract you once we're done."
"Copy that, good luck," I replied, and concentrated hard on trying to ignore the burning pain.
I only got to follow the rest of the op through the comms. Which meant about twenty minutes of listening to Zaeed swear in every known language in the galaxy. At that point, I was pretty sure that some of the more colorful grunts he did were likely some vorcha swearwords. But what really stuck with me was the conversation they had when they finally met Ezno.
"Hold fire!" Miranda called. "Randall Ezno? I'm Miranda Lawson. We're with Cerberus, Lazarus cell."
"Sure you are," a deep masculine voice replied.
"I got your handler's authorization, Echo, Gamma, Sierra, four, seven, three, Alpha. Inali says hi, and asked me to check that you had your toothbrush with you."
There was a pause, then the sound of what appeared to be weapons being lowered. "All right Lawson, what are you doing here? Other than blowing my operation to hell."
"We're recruiting for a rescue mission," Miranda said. "Your dossier suggested you'd be perfect for the job."
"I have my own orders," Ezno said.
"Yeah, call your handler. She'll update you. This comes directly from the Illusive man."
Another long pause. There were sounds I couldn't identify, some electronics and things being thrown around.
"I have a tech expert if you need help," Miranda said.
"No thank you," Ezno replied, his voice flat. Given that the tech expert in the team was Kasumi, I imagined he was sharing whatever intel he was gathering whether he wanted - or realized it - or not. A few more minutes passed. "All right, I have all the data I needed."
"What about them?"
Them? What is she talking about?
"I don't really need them anymore."
And after he said that, several shots filled the comms, followed by a dense silence. Miranda's flat "let's go" didn't do much to fill it. Even though those were literal bioterrorists working on infectious diseases, and that I wasn't going to shed a single tear for them, the coldness in the voice of the man who had executed them had sent a chill down my damn soul.
I got one seriously hideous burn out of the whole ordeal, together with the deep wound the jagged piece of shrapnel had left behind. The flesh around the wound had burned, and damn near cauterized it, which explained why it hadn't bled too badly. Between the temperature of the shrapnel and the air that went into the suit, yeah, it hurt like hell. It was going to leave one ugly freaking scar, too. But what mattered was that it no longer hurt like I wanted to saw my leg at the knee.
Our onboard medical officer, doctor Keres, told me it had missed the artery by a fraction of an inch, which is always fun I suppose. Had to remove quite a bit of dead tissue, and while after two days it didn't hurt much, I was left with a limp that, according to him, wouldn't last much longer. The more I worked to recover, the faster it'd heal. Everything was "glued", so to speak, so it was a matter of letting the body realized it was on the mend.
So, over the next few days, I walked around the ship. A lot. It hurt. A lot. But hey, with my luck, I was sure that the Collector mission would come while I was still recovering.
I wasn't disappointed.
"I'm telling you, it's true!" Talitha said. We were sitting at the mess, or rather, Talitha was sitting while I stood, trying to flex muscles and keep the leg in motion. "Eight hours of that!" she added, laughing.
"Rosie? We're talking the same crazy woman who was laughing at mowing down hordes of heretic geth during the boarding?"
"The very same," Talitha said. "She must have taken me through half he shops in the Citadel. I've never seen her wear a dress so why in the devil does she buy so many?"
"Maybe she just likes having them," I said. "Like you didn't buy anything."
"Of course I did," Talitha replied with feigned offense. "Girls like to look pretty you know."
The conversation was interrupted when Tela walked in the room. "Morgan," she said, and gestured with her head for me to follow. She was heading straight for Miranda's office.
"What's going on?" Talitha said.
"Not sure, but it looks like time might be about to run out," I said. "I'll be right back."
Tela waited for me to get to her, and hit the door chime. A moment later it turned green and Miranda called us in.
"Yes?" she said. Tela walked in first, taking the chair and leaving me to stand.
Which I didn't mind this time.
"I have potentially good news," Tela said. "Of the Collector kind."
Miranda changed her posture noticeably, tensing up and leaning forward. "I'm listening," she said. So was I.
"In light of recently acquired information, I have been able to determine what, exactly, the Collectors were doing when they attacked the Normandy. Based on my sources, their primary target was the capture of Shepard."
"We knew that already," I said.
She looked at me and smiled. She was enjoying herself. "I know you knew," she added, entertaining herself before getting to the point. "Secondary objective was to kill her and retrieve the body. The reason they captured every pod before yours was that they were looking for Shepard. They pinged every pod as it left the Normandy, and when the last pod ejecting left the ship with no life signs, they assumed Shepard had escaped. Thus, they retraced their steps, looking for each pod, starting from the first one. Once they found Shepard's pod, they left."
Miranda looked at me. "So if Morgan had left Shepard for the last pod, there would have been no survivors to tell the tale."
"Precisely. You were very lucky."
"Either that or they might have killed Shepard before she got to the pod," I said.
"But then Shepard would be dead," Tela replied. "Even worse outcome."
"How do you know all this?" Miranda said.
"Oh this is just what I deduced based on the information I was given. It came from an exchange of information with the Collectors, they gave some limited intel on their attack, and I put together the rest."
"I see," Miranda said.
"Wait a minute, did you say exchange?"
"Indeed. They wanted information on you."
Tela looked at me again, and this time, her smile was such a Cheshire cat type of smile that even I got what was behind that deep amusement. Exchange. Who exchanges information like that? Who else but the Broker. Gee had given the freaking Collectors intel on me? What the hell?
Information exchange is primary purpose of Shadow-Broker. Appropriate exchange found acceptable. I bet he did something like that and didn't even realize... No, that can't be right, what the hell?
"You've been working with the Shadow Broker?" Miranda said.
Tela laughed. It was an airy, clear laugh, like that of a child who had never done anything wrong. "Oh please Miranda. I'm a Spectre. My sources might have been, but I don't ask. I pay them well enough as it is."
Miranda shrugged. Yeah, Tela even had me convinced for a moment there. That woman had an unbreakable facade. "So what did they want?"
"They were extremely disappointed that they had missed the chance to get their hands on Morgan because they, apparently, really want to pick his brain." Literally, I thought with a shudder. "They had no idea he was aboard the Normandy, and why would they?" She looked at me. "You left the ship in less than stellar circumstances before, why did you go back?"
"Just wanted to see things through," I said, which in a wide sense was true enough to let me get away with it in my head.
"And?" Miranda said.
"And," Tela added, "I have used that bit of leverage to arrange a little exchange between the Collectors and me. Funding Spectre operations isn't cheap, you know. I'll bring Morgan with me, they'll give me a crate full of tech, and everyone will be happy."
I looked at her in utter, stunned silence. She wanted to sell me? I looked at Miranda, and realized she had relaxed, sitting back on her chair and smiling.
"Where?"
"Where else could a dirty deal trading in lives go down? Illum of course. Two days from now. I'll have more details when the time comes."
"Err... I'm not for sale?" I offered.
Tela and Miranda both laughed, which did creep me out a bit. "Of course not," Tela said. "But they're interested, Roy. I say we use that."
And so, despite my reluctance, the plan was set in motion. We'd head over to Illum, meet the Collectors while pretending to sell me, and then ambush them and use them to figure out where their main ship is. Of course, that assumed that they didn't just drop the cruiser in the middle of Illum and dragged everyone to the ship, but given the size of the planet, I very much doubted that.
Or so I hoped.
I came out of Miranda's office with a serious pain in my leg, and caught a glimpse of Ezno sitting at one of the tables, tray of food piled high in front of me and eating in a calm, almost robotic fashion. He was a huge guy, towering above and around me in every direction. He had blonde hair slicked up, artificial-looking bright blue eyes, and half his neck was covered in circuitry from a whole mess of implants. He gave me a look as I walked past him, and a shudder ran up my spine. I had a seriously bad feeling about this whole thing.
Illum was actually a huge garden world, with over eighty million people on the surface housed on the polar region cities and the massive arcologies in the hot central areas of the planet. It also had several space staitons at the L4 and L5 points in orbit, and they housed more than eighty thousand people. They ranged from the practical and industrial to the decadent and luxurious.
Practical and industrial was where we were waiting. I was standing in my civvies without even a holdout pistol to my name, hands behind my back in shackles, and with Tela standing behind me with a pistol in her hand. The dock we were using was deserted, courtesy of the Spectre herself. I knew that other members of the team had taken position around the dock, and that the shackles were actually face, and would open as soon as I pulled them open - which I had tested, call me paranoid.
And after about twenty minutes of waiting, the Collectors arrived.
The ship was bigger than a regular Kodiak shuttle. I wasn't sure what kind of ship I was expecting, but definitely nothing like that. I expected something weird, semi-organic looking or something. This ship had a narrow delta shape, with a blunt nose and elegant, sleek lines. It flew in fast, pulled to a stop almost on a dime, and settled down softly and easily.
A few seconds later the door opened, and four Collectors stepped down from the ship. Another shiver ran up my spine as eight pairs of bright eyes fell on me, and the bad feeling I had been carrying just settled that much more firmly in my stomach. They were all carrying guns, which I recognized easily enough as the typical Collector design from the games.
They stopped for a moment, looked around, and resumed their walk towards us at the exact same moment. Creepy as all hell. They finally came to a stop about two meters from me, not saying a word.
"As promised," Tela said.
I tensed, gulped visibly, and said nothing. I was supposed to look tense and scared, and not say a word until Tela gave the signal. That was easy, because I was damn near shitting my pants. No armor, no guns, and a much bigger ship than I had expected. Who knew how many of there there were inside the shuttle. They may very well have seeker swarms in there, too. So I waited, just had to endure until Tela gave the go signal, which was "before you leave". Yeah, she wanted to say that just before she started shooting. Way too many action movies, Tela, way too many action movies.
The Collector in front of me nodded, and a moment later two more collectors came out of the ship, carrying with them a big crate. They dropped it next to the four, and opened it. Inside were several guns, what looked to be shield generators, the works. I had reminded Tela that these guys were working with the Reapers, so as to be aware of possible indoctrination traps in whatever gifts they carried, but there didn't seem to be anything untoward in the crate.
Not that I took a very close look. I was there to not kick ass and shit my pants, and I was all out of ass.
"Oh, and one more thing," Tela said.
She was behind me, so I couldn't see, but suddenly the shackles holding my hands tensed, followed by the distinct tingle of biotics and the sound of a shockwave, together with reports of a gun. I reacted instantly by trying to pull my hands apart, but to my horror, the shackles stayed in place.
"Go! Take him!" Tela yelled.
"What the he-" I shouted and turned around.
I saw Tela rushing towards where Jacob had been in cover, biotics flaring and gun barking. I couldn't finish the phrase because something hit me on the chest and then my entire body suddenly... stopped. I couldn't move. Not my mouth, not my hands, not my head. Not even my eyelids. My eyes could move, and they darted around desperately trying to figure out what was going on. The Collectors themselves started shooting, and strong hands grabbed me and picked me up, dragging me towards the ship. I wanted to yell, fight back, something, but all I could do was watch as they took me inside the ship, dragged me to the back, and threw me into a closet. Except I quickly deduced it wasn't a closet, it was a collector stasis pod.
The door closed, and the last thing I heard was the distinct hiss of gas moving. Everything went dark.
Author's Notes: Ladies and gentlemen, it's back! Not sure if you missed it, but it's here and it's loud, and it's everything it's always been. It's the return of the... *drumroll* Cliffhanger!
*Cough*
Okay, I swear this will be the last time I use the hard bar ration joke, at least for a while. But the scene popped into my head while planning this chapter and I couldn't not use it.
Randall Ezno. If you don't remember who he is, he's the protagonist of the Mass Effect mobile game, a hyper-competent Cerberus operative loaded with tech and biotic abilities who managed to avoid indoctrination (ME3 timeline) and decides it's payback time. While Kasumi is the sneaky queen of sneaky thieves, a proper infiltrator never hurts!
And also, what the hell is Tela doing?! This wasn't the plan!
Or at least it wasn't Roy's plan.
Dun DUN DUN!
Reviews! You guys are amazing you know that?
Tom712: I have to admit that Tela is a great character, and fun to write too. Shipping? Not sure, but they'll be having some fun together haha!
Littter: Thanks! I have a couple of ideas on tackling Miranda's morality issues, but it's... complicated.
Uemei: Head canon tends to stay consistent except for plot-interesting moments. The fixed Cerberus base is one of them. I mean, I might be able to buy into the idea that it can move, maybe, with a lot of effort, but not every time an agent drops in for tea and crumpets. As far as Jack's concerned, well, we'll see. I don't even know who, if any, will survive the suicide mission :)
RIOSHO: Gee and the battle music does need to make a comeback at some point. It will even be plot relevant in the future.
BJ Hanssen: Good thoughts on Jack, thanks! I do have a few plans for her, so it helps. And I think it'll fit too.
Bolondka: You have unlocked a new outfit! :D And yeah, part of Roy's issue is that she's a lil' freaky, which weirds Roy out. He asked her twice what the hell happened to her after all.
Rainsfere: Thanks for all the thoughts as always! Kasumi is fun as hell to write, and I can tell you without it being much of a spoiler that we'll be seeing more of her. You were pretty close to spot on with the Collectors and why they were still around, except that it's not the whole story as we'll find out soon-ish (can't be helped, points of view limit the scope of what the reader knows, by design!) And as I mentioned earlier, while not talking shipping here, Tela and Roy should have some fun interactions down the line. Oh yeah.
jmeson75, Deepak Singh Chauhan, bluemarlin, thanks for the support!
Next chapter, it's payback time! Remember the Normandy! As always, thanks for reviewing, following, favouriting, and reading!