Note: Awful period of nothing from me for almost a year. Yuck. Let's just blame it on horrendous writer's block and RL.
Sorry y'all. :(
They stopped at the breadth of the next door, their silhouettes still as they prepared to clear the next room.
With Tali's hand on his shoulder and gun raised, the three of them gracefully entered what looked to be a break room (a poorly furnished one at that) to clear it.
"Clear." John murmured, dropping his gun and relaxing.
"Clear." Tali said after sweeping her vectors.
"Legion," John breathed quietly, "Keep security."
"Understood."
He turned to face Tali. "Start looking."
Giving him a nod, they split up.
John let his weapon dangle on his sling as he scattered the papers sitting atop a table next to a soiled ceramic plate littered with stale crumbs.
His eyes strained to make out what little he could under the dim light and he grimaced when he realized he could search and stare at these papers for hours and not draw himself any closer to what it even said.
"Anything?" She asked, only glancing at him.
"Can't understand any of it." He said with a quick shrug, "And it doesn't look important anyways."
She grumbled. "Then how are we supposed to find our way around if they don't even have internet to break into?"
"Pretty smart of them—" He mumbled, scanning the ceiling in for cameras, no matter how unlikely, "—not having WiFi."
"Sure, John. We'll call it being smart."
He shrugged.
With only one place to look, Tali opened the company fridge and skimmed over what was inside. It made him raise a brow.
"...Looking for something to eat?"
"No." She said, only glancing at him with a smirk, "You ever accidentally leave your tablet in a fridge? I've seen someone do it before."
"Yeah. Maybe you."
There was a small laugh there. "If I ever had anything to put in it."
To no surprise, a tablet in the fridge was nowhere to be found.
"No tablet." He said before standing next to her, eyes wary, "It was a good try."
She closed the door.
Just as he was about to call it to head off further into this hell of a batarian prison, John caught, from the corner of his eye, a bulletin board with a map tacked onto it.
"Hmph. Well. This'll do it."
He brushed aside the old ads and torn announcements so they could get a better look of the whole thing.
She came up from behind him. "Keelah. How did we miss that." She lamented, surprised it hadn't been the first thing they'd noticed. It made her sigh at how this place managed to even operate.
"Just be glad we didn't."
She studied it with him.
"Hopefully it's accurate." He said, snapping a picture. "EDI?"
"Standing-by, Shepard."
"Can you cross reference this thing to see if it resembles that MGRS you scrambled together for us?"
"It does." She answered, "Though the other floor plans appear to be underground. I cannot verify what lays under the surface without penetrating scans."
"Copy all, over."
"We have something to go on at least." Tali sighed, "But this still isn't going to tell us where Kenson is."
"No. It won't." He intoned, eyes still locked on the map.
She looked harder and began to try and trace a route to where their prisoner could probably be with a finger.
"Uhm...Well— judging by the way these rooms are oriented, I'm guessing this down here is cells and interrogation. I mean, I think...—the translation's a little scribbled." She said, noncommittal. God, this just did not feel right. She was just throwing out a guess. A hunch. A shit one at that.
"What do you think, EDI?"
"The lettering is illegible." EDI agreed, "This map appears to be several numbers down from a copy of a copy. Though I do concur with Ms. Zorah."
"Jesus Christ." John actually managed to grin, "Security's so shit it's actually working."
"Alright," Tali said with another indecisive grumble, "That means we have to take two flights of stairs down with a long hallway to cross. And then we enter the west wing to get there. Via a..." She squinted, "uhm— a security gate?" She shook her head as she tried to piece together how they were even going to go about doing this without getting into a losing firefight. "John, that's... We don't even know where she is and going through that looks like the point of no return. How are we going to do that?"
He clenched his teeth and the gears in his head cranked. She was right. This wasn't looking promising. "Don't know yet. We'll figure it out." He stared down at his gear to check over his things and think for another moment. "We're just gonna have to trust our cloaks to keep us concealed long enough. You get that all, Legion?"
"Yes."
"Alright. Let's go." He gave the safety on his rifle a once over. "Cloaks on. Move."
Their silhouettes broke like glass and they disappeared. Legion took the lead with Shepard just behind and Tali following their rear.
As per the map's instructions, they took the stairs down, crossed the hallway and made it to the security gate.
What they saw shouldn't have been surprising. But once again, they were amazed at how piss poor the security was.
"Well. That was easier than I expected." John murmured, seeing as how the gate was devoid of anyone save for a batarian sitting idly in a chair smoking something that didn't at all look like a cigarette.
"Keep going, Legion."
"Acknowledged."
Without incident, they crossed the gate and went deeper into what John could only describe as a dilapidated catacomb of crumbling rocks and walls. They passed by a carcass. Whether it was animal or not, none of them could tell.
"Christ." John uttered.
"Prisoner?" She decided to ask as they kept walking.
He shrugged even though she couldn't see it. "Maybe."
They continued, rotting corpse left behind.
A minute passed.
"How you feelin', Tals?" He said. He looked behind himself to try and get a glance of that face of hers behind the visor, but remembered they were both invisible.
"Alright." She said, looking up at the holes in the ceiling and the light percolating through, "Place is a bit creepy."
He couldn't deny the atmosphere definitely had a dark aura to it. But it wasn't all that bad when you drew to memory their recent visit to the Haratar, or even worse, the derelict reaper. He was actually just shy of mentioning how boarding the reaper was worse, but he realized that they both didn't need to be dwelling on stuff like that. Tali's upbraiding of Shepard's demands to have her leave him for dead on that falling reaper had been forefront of his mind since it happened. It had definitely been a brief hiccup in their relationship. And mentioning anything that could even relate to that right now wasn't a good idea. Especially since they were in the prime of probably making another bad memory here.
"Shepard, this is Thane. What's your status?"
John got a look at what was behind him before answering. "We just pushed past security to enter what we think is the west wing. And... we think we're on our way to cells and interrogation."
"I believe you're heading in the right direction." Thane said.
"Why's that?"
"I've had time to interrogate a guard." Thane said, "Kenson is alive, is injured, and is located there. I'm going to need help. Designating new nav points. EDI's been updated with a better map."
"Excellent work." Shepard answered, relieved Thane had managed to pull up better intel, "We'll meet you at your rendezvous. Keep us posted of any more developments."
"Understood."
Legion stopped the three of them and let a pair of guards pass.
Tali's eyes, thankfully hidden away by their cloaks, darted between the two dark and tall men. Staring just past them was a number of guards scattered about the area casually smoking or standing watch.
Her unease began to grow.
"We good?" Shepard asked the geth, "Can we move?"
It observed the area for a moment. "Negative. Guard presence is higher than what was anticipated. We do not believe we have enough power remaining in our cloaks for us to reach the designated rendezvous with Krios. Not without activating our reserves."
"Thane's not going to be able to get her out alone, Legion."
"Understood. Awaiting orders, Shepard-Commander."
"Use reserve power. We need to get there."
"Acknowledged."
Tali harbored herself a moment to breathe deeply before activating reserve power and pushing forward.
Crossing the entire courtyard, the three of them entered into the gate of some large garage or holding area. Passing through the doors, they made it about a dozen paces before a shot rang out through the hallway. Tali and John, after having jumped in surprise, turned to face the gunshot and saw, from the other end of the room they were in, an execution of what appeared to be two kneeling prisoners in fouled white and orange garb. One cried and screamed until they ended her life as well.
Tali exhaled and tried to turn herself away from the senseless murder.
"What's happening? I heard gunfire." Thane asked over the radio.
"They're executing prisoners here." Shepard reported flatly.
A long pause. "Understood."
"Alright, bring the next ones in." A guard said plainly, the same way one would say as if he were shuffling paperwork to stamp.
Two more bound in ropes were shuffled out and forced to kneel.
The batarian aimed idly at the head of their first prisoner. "Don't move and we'll make sure it's clean, alright?"
Legion stopped them again and took shelter in the safety of a dark shadow. Their cloaks were shut down to conserve power.
"They keep going in and out of the door we need to get through." Shepard said. He winced when another shot rang out.
"Keelah," She couldn't help but feel her chest tighten. "John. They're slaughtering them."
Another split head and body fell to the floor.
"I know." There was a palpable pause, "But we're not here for them."
She knew that was the only answer he could give. But it didn't make her feel any better.
"Come on. Hurry up," The batarian who'd just finished killing three men and a woman waved casually to the two other guards hauling off bodies, "Lunch was an hour ago. I'm hungry."
"Marpo, don't know why you're so excited to eat all the time. Only thing here worth stomaching is the liquor."
"Maybe if you took the time to diet, you'd feel hungry more often too."
Tow other prisoners were pulled from the hallway and forced to kneel in the spreading red pool.
A choice had befallen the commander. He could sit and watch them continue to murder prisoners in cold blood or seize his chance to stop this without seriously risking their operation.
"Legion. Tali. Stay here. Both of you. Until I say so."
She gave him an answer only her eyes could give and he left, disappearing from existence. As he approached the men, he recalled briefly that moment on Zorya when Tali had confessed to giving up her handgun to a starving slave. The lines were hardly there to draw any similarities with, but the premise was largely the same. Sitting idly by and witnessing the trespasses of evil was a hard, near impossible, thing for Shepard and Tali to do.
John slowed his pace, his steps stilled with silence. He closed the distance between him and the executioner until he was standing only a breath-on-the-neck away. Unsheathing his kabar, John waited for his moment.
"These the last ones for the day, right?" The batarian asked, raising his handgun.
"Nope. Six more." A guard answered, turning his back to help his partner drag the dead.
John took the man's hand and gun into his own before thrusting the knife deeply into his neck. With backs still facing John and his kill, he fired the gun twice and killed the two guards hauling the dead.
The last guard just realizing what had transpired didn't get much to think about after. Scrambled gray matter was sucked through the back of his head and he dropped like crumpled paper.
"Tali. Legion. On me." Shepard muttered, dropping the handgun and the man in his clutch. The batarian whose throat had been sliced open gasped emptily for air. For a few short seconds after, he finally stopped.
John reappeared as a pair of footsteps came up from behind him. The prisoners, knees soaked in blood, quietly whimpered, their blindfolds doing them no favors.
"Shepard Commander," Legion stared at the dead, "Leaving bodies will compromise our objective. What do you propose?"
He pointed at the man and his slit throat. "Stuff 'em all in a box." He searched for a pouch on his chest rig and fished out a padlock. "Use this too. Maybe it'll buy us enough time to get to Kenson and Thane."
Legion wasted no time doing exactly as instructed.
"And the prisoners?" Tali asked, thankful she could even ask that question.
"Let em' free." Shepard uttered, glancing down at them, "Be quick."
She went to them and frowned. They were in much worse shape than she had realized. In the state they were in, it didn't look like they could get very far by themselves, let alone even escape. But their chances obviously were a lot better now then it was just a few moments ago.
Tali got on her knees to meet them at eye level.
"Hey. Listen," She cooed carefully, making sure her next words were as reassuring as possible, "You're safe."
She nearly winced when she said that. That was stretching the truth. Realizing it only now; saving them from their immediate execution felt more like they'd only delayed an inevitability. In it's own twisted way, she thought that maybe part of the reason for saving these two poor souls was more of saving themselves of their own sanity as opposed to just saving their lives for the sake of it.
A cynical take, Tali supposed. A thought she'd prefer not to ponder right now.
She removed the head-sized tarp from her head as delicately as possible and tossed it aside.
The four-eyed woman gazed up at the quarian since she had nothing else to stare at. "...Where do we go?" She said, desperation so evident and deep, it made Tali take a second to blink away a coming tear, "...W—what do we do?"
She removed the second covering from the other prisoner and stared at the blood she'd been kneeling in. She didn't have an answer.
"I... I don't know."
"You have to help us," The woman pleaded, staring between Shepard and Tali and outright ignoring Legion's existence, "Please."
She stood from her place and began to undo the bindings that held their wrists together.
"John. What do you want me to tell them?" She asked over the radio, "I can't just tell them they're on their own."
When he didn't reply, she frowned and turned to face him, only to see that posture she'd seen many times before. He did it a lot when he'd made it to a crossroad.
He pulled away from his sight-line and took a knee next to two they'd just saved.
"Stay here. We'll come back. Hide. Your lives are depending on it."
"Promise me you'll come back." She murmured weakly.
He stared at them both, his visor gleaming in the glow of the harsh lamp above them. "I promise."
Having no choice but to accept John's stalwart answer, the woman helped guide her fellow inmate and limped into darkness to stay out of sight.
"Come on," John ordered, "We're falling behind."
Stacking back up into their three man line, they entered the hallway and continued to the next nav marker Thane had placed for them.
"You know how the game works, Dr. Kenson." The interrogator said before explaining what was to soon occur, "We will ask you six times. When you fail to provide us with the truth, you will be encouraged to tell the truth. When that does not work, we will move on to the next instrument. We will repeat this process as many times as we require."
Kenson stared warily at the cart adorned with it's clean white sheet and its six common household tools sitting atop it. She snuffed what was about to be a long sigh. This was going to be their third session together like this.
They cleaned everything just to show her how much of a mess they could make out of her. Everything looked like a goddamn tie-dye shirt made by a color blind kid when they rolled it away for the day.
As another testament to their interrogative paradigm, they made you pick what they'd get to use on you that day. And you couldn't ever repeat a choice. Which meant, at some point if you didn't pop, they'd have their opportunity to use them all anyways.
But say you refused because you were trying to be a hard ass. Say you refused to pick because you thought for some weird reason it might buy you some time. Well, their solution to any delay would be to torture an inmate of their choosing with you as a witness before killing them.
It really wasn't much of a win for anyone. Save for maybe a psychopath who wanted someone to go down with them.
Somewhat regrettably, she, through her vanity or some-such, had picked some of the more sinister looking stuff to make a point of how futile it was going to be to get information from her.
The interrogator picked up the staple gun. "Who are you working for?"
"Big man in the sky."
"You joke, but it isn't far from what a lot of insane people do." He placed the gun over her eye. "Who do you work for?"
Her lip began to tremble. She stared brazenly at the metal prods inside the gun.
The camera mounted on the ceiling behind him shut off and it made her eyes flutter.
"Doctor. One more time. Who are you working for?"
Green hands enthralled the man's head and a knife split through the front of his neck.
Flecks of blood hit her face and she flinched.
With grace, Thane lay the man down in the chair beside him before working quickly to remove the restraints that bound Kenson to the elevated table she'd been strapped to.
"How badly are you injured?" Thane asked her simply.
She was going to flood him with thankfulness, but the drell's rushed tone told her the thanks could wait just a few moments more.
"I don't think I can walk. I'm confident they've broken my foot."
"Which one?"
She glanced downward at her feet for the first time in days since she finally had the chance to do so. "The left."
He released the last of the bindings before handing her his medical kit.
"I must hold watch. Please bandage yourself as best you can. Help is on the way."
"God bless you." Kenson murmured, sniffling and wiping away a budding tear as she dug into his kit, "You saved me."
"We are not out yet, Doctor. Please hurry. We are incredibly short on time and our discovery is imminent."
"Thane? Status? Chatter from prison guards is picking up and they sound spooked."
"Shepard. This is Thane." He stole himself a moment to get a quick look of her, "They were about to remove her eyes. I had to act. Cameras were disabled momentarily. It shouldn't have alerted anyone yet."
"Understood. Then it might be from our end, over. We had to kill some guards to reach your next Nav marker. We're almost there."
"Acknowledged. Do you have an ETA?"
There was distant rumble of automatic gunfire and Thane inhaled sharply.
"Negative on that! Negative on that! We're engaged!" There was more fumbling and John's voice grew distant, "Tali—! Move! Right side!—!"
"Shepard?"
"Thane," John's voice pierced the radio, "Exfil with asset at your soonest availability. Do not wait for us. Go now!"
"And... fifteen minutes." Sidonis passed a bag of dehydrated fruit mix to Garrus and tapped his watch, "Think this is going to take a little longer than you anticipated."
"Guess so." Garrus replied, accepting whatever was left over in the pouch. He chewed, but kept his eyes glued to the reticle on his scope.
"Stuff's pretty high in calories." Sidonis mumbled.
Garrus fumbled with the wrapper and read whatever he could of the nutritional facts.
"Lantar, if I hear you mumble on about the calories in trail mix again—"
"Everyone thinks it's healthy until they read the label. Just saying."
"Break, break, break, Shepard's team has been compromised and are engaged." EDI announced, "Immediate recourse of orders to follow."
The two turians gave each other looks. A distant, deep, and far-off sounding alarm; no doubt tripped by Shepard's discovery, began to echo across the landscape.
"Post-actual," Came Talukh's voice over the radio, "Acknowledge last. Standing-by for tasking, over."
Garrus felt his heart begin to skip and pace. A distinct lack of an immediate response from EDI wasn't helping.
"Post-1. Engage at discretion and survey additional opportunities. Execute with full response," EDI ordered, "Link up with Get'her team and provide immediate support if and when possible."
"Copy all. Engaging at discretion and providing ancillary support when feasible. Code four-zero-mike. Out."
"Acknowledged." EDI responded before giving Garrus his set of orders. "Tagger-1: maintain overwatch of current position. Cleared to prosecute. Delay and deny any and all approaching force multiplier at road. Ground team is to be reinforced. Lima Zulu. Sights six and two. ETA: four minutes."
"Understood. Holding position and denying any reinforcements from reaching Shepard. Over."
"Acknowledged. Out."
Talukh watched perimeter security scramble about running and shouting. He steadied his breath.
Trigger pull. Vapor trail. Target impact. Reassess. Reengage.
"You almost there, Darehk?" Talukh asked.
"Almost." Came a labored reply, "You actually hitting anything?"
"Two. Missed one. They're moving too fast."
Talukh watched a guard take cover behind some kind of box. Under the anticipation his rounds could penetrate what appeared to be soft cover, he fired. He was rewarded with a corona of blood. Good hit.
"Darehk, they're going to find out where I'm at soon. Hurry the fuck up."
"Almost to the wall." In a mad sprint, the quarian carried himself to the wall and slammed up against it. His cloak made him vanish and he vaulted. "Wish me luck, bro."
"Get in. Then we get Tali out, Darehk. I'll be right behind you."
"Yeah."
Grunt gripped the ceiling restraints and holstered his gun to his thigh. "They should have went in loud from the start. Would have saved everyone the trouble."
Jacob overheard just as he gave the pilot a pat on the shoulder. "Wow Grunt. Pretty surprised you aren't more excited."
"Was reading the war wiki. Witnessing the re-imagined battles of Juralthur." He eyes stared up, his imagination still awestruck, "One battle alone harbored over two million warriors. It was glorious." What was already always a frown on that face of his only grew two sizes. "And here we are. Off to battle batarians that don't even know how to fight." It was almost like watching a kid having to be pulled along by his mom to go clothes shopping. "This is boring."
"Comparison is the thief of joy, mate." Zaeed said from just outside the kodiak, "You're time will come. Will for all of us."
"Get settled," A crew member said as he passed by while performing his final checks, "You're off in 15."
Whoever remained outside that was a part of the ground team boarded the kodiaks.
Jacob stepped out, took to the safety of the yellow line, and sighed. When the kodiak doors closed, he did his best to try and make out what he could of the non-human ground team. He didn't know if they saw it, but he gave them a thumbs-up just as the barriers that would protect them from vacuum appeared.
For no other reason than being a human, he was barred from going. All of it because of geo-political sensitivity. Personally? To him? The commander dying and leaving them to handle this reaper shit was going to be way fucking worse than whatever the Alliance was going to have to deal with just because a couple humans happened to cross upon one of their fucking death-labor camps.
Miranda took a spot next to him.
"How's it looking down there, Miranda?"
"Not good." She said evenly, arms crossed and stare long. "They're alive. That's all I've got."
Another sigh.
"Both of you worry too much." Zaeed said, crutching his way past the two toward the elevator, "We all escaped a falling reaper. Blew up a goddamn geth's version of the death-star. God forbid they actually lose to a fuckin' batarian cesspit. They'll manage."
Juel watched them all recede from view as they slipped out into the blackness of space.
When the darkness encased them all, his foot began to bounce while his hands flexed around the barrel shroud of his rifle. It was a great way to help cope with the welt of anxiety that'd grow in his chest on their way to an op.
Calling this an operation was a stretch. They didn't really know much about what was going on. All they knew was that Get'her team needed QRF to pull them out and that their situation was deteriorating.
Some minutes pass by with the usual off-putting silence to keep everyone company.
Looking up to see Olasie, Juel wondered how she was faring insofar with the new and very immediate burden of having to lead everyone given her qualifications.
He decided to just ask her through private chat.
"You good?"
"Hm—?" She turned around. "Oh. Yeah." There was a hefty breath from her. "I'm good. Don't suppose you wanna trade spaces with me?"
"Leading all these guys? No thanks. You got this squad lead."
She scoffed. "Gee. Thanks."
"Hey. You're going to do just fine, O."
Her brow rose and there was a small grin. "New nickname? Never heard that one."
"Three syllable names are too long." Juel offered his explanation. "It's pretty. But it's long."
"Don't think I've had anyone complain about my name. Ever."
"Guess I'm your first." He said with a small grin and patting both his knees.
He could see her eyes squint at him. But it looked like a smile.
"Breaching atmo. Stand-by." The pilot announced.
Suddenly remembering the gravity of the situation, Juel's lighthearted smile vanished.
"God. I hope Tali's okay."
"She's okay," Olasie said, voice quiet and somber, "We'll get her out."
"Yeah." He cast his gaze back out into the void the window protected them from. "I know."