Disclaimer: I do no own Mass Effect, I do not claim to own Mass Effect, I am only doing this for fun.
Author Notes: Here we go; we are beginning the next arc. This is another twist on something straight out of the game, but extensively re-conceptualized because it required it.
Episode 14: Lost
Over the hours they stayed at Afterlife, Shepard stopped after sipping her way through one more Mikon, while Nihlus had five drinks, not all of them the same. They spent the time in relative silence, just drinking and watching the people mill. Much to Shepard's amusement, she noted that after drink three Nihlus' eyes started to drift toward the pole dancers. She did not comment on the matter. After all, what the Spectre did on his off time was his prerogative.
For her, the crowd was more interesting than the gyrating asari. Afterlife was in essence a pageant of Omega's finest denizens. If what she saw in that club was reflective, something of the station's politics could be understood just watching who talked with whom, and who could clear a space just by arriving.
They returned to the Normandy very late in the evening when the night shift had taken over. Shepard thanked Nihlus for paying the tab, and they went their separate ways at the elevator. She truthfully felt a little bit better. Maybe not exactly relaxed, she could not relax in a crowded nightclub, but it had been a quiet few hours nevertheless. For a brief moment it allowed her to throttle back, process things. She knew it would not last.
She dragged herself out of bed an hour earlier than normal, because she had to get the paperwork in order if Wrex was going to show up. She was just finishing with that when Adams appeared, Tali in tow, to tell her that they finished with the couplings, the Normandy could depart Omega. Shepard thanked them both and left it at that. It was hard to miss the fact that Tali seemed to have become Adams' shadow, and the chief engineer seemed to enjoy having a protégé as well.
Not long after that EDI announced Wrex had arrived. The AI did not sound all that surprised, and Shepard understood why when she spotted Nihlus leaning on the bulkhead separating the bridge from the rest of the CIC. Nihlus had probably tipped EDI off to keep an eye out for a krogan, and sure as hell he seemed to have gotten EDI to tell him when said krogan arrived, even before EDI told her.
An hour later she got Wrex signed on formally. There was a bit of a space crunch, but in the end Wrex set up his sleeping pallet in the very corner of the shuttle bay. It was not ideal, but Shepard had the impression he was not a fan of tight spaces and small rooms. Making him hot-bunk with the crew was out of the question, it just would not work. As it was, the crew had to take five minutes to collect their jaws off the floor when Shepard introduced him. Though it looked like after two turians and a quarian, the krogan outraged no one. Matthews broke the silence with a comment about needing a bigger pot. Shepard thought he would probably have to cook for Wrex in a pot all his own, because Wrex was a biotic krogan, but she figured it best not to point that out in front of everyone.
With matters settled, and breakfast packed away, Shepard put Joker on getting the Normandy off Omega, with their destination nominally pointed at the Citadel. Nihlus still needed to see someone about his armor. Meanwhile she went to the OD to get started on the paperwork, mostly try to think of a way to sugar-coat Wrex to Admiral Hackett. She had a feeling that a krogan might just test the line, but in her defense, Wrex was not a typical krogan. Sure he was efficient –the term she would use– in combat, but he was also intelligent and clearly experienced. He also provided her with a lovely little piece of the puzzle. Hopefully that would be enough to convince her CO that she was not taking too big a leap here. She had a good feeling about him, and her feelings were rarely wrong.
She was just finishing up her report when Nihlus and Garrus came up to the OD so they could have their delayed debrief and then get into that report. Most of the work was on Nihlus, given that the job with Eclipse had been his longer than she knew him. Still, he wanted their impressions on the matters to tack on as an appendix to his report. They hashed out the details quickly, and by unanimous decision decided to keep Wrex's name off the records. It was much easier to say that the cooperation with said krogan had been temporary, and none involved cared much for formalities when all was said and done. The fact was that Wrex was hired by a third party to handle the same target. They decided to work together as a matter of convenience, because fighting over who put a bullet through the target was redundant. It was only later on that Wrex decided to offer his paid services. The Council definitely did not need to know that he was now working for her.
They were on the Citadel in a matter of hours. The Normandy was barely docked when Nihlus announced he was going on his business of procuring replacement parts for his armor. Out of the necessity the Spectre requisition office never closed for the night or weekend. Meantime, Shepard was left with the task of figuring out more logistical woes.
Thus an hour later EDI was helping her with the ship inventory logs when the AI suddenly paused. Shepard looked up from her terminal.
"My apologies, Commander. Rear Admiral Kahoku is on the communicator for you. The request comes marked as priority," EDI said.
"No rest for the weary," Shepard mumbled as she got up from her seat at her desk and made her way across to the COMCON. Along the way she checked to make sure her fatigues were presentable. Contact like this meant Admiral Hackett had authorized it. For security reasons few people in this galaxy could contact the Normandy via COMCON. The ship's communicator frequencies were classified and then whatever attempt was made, had to go through EDI and her security protocols. "Put it through, EDI." Shepard said as she stepped in front of the communicator.
The communicator holo-projector buzzed and clicked for a few moments before the hologram materialized over the conference table. Shepard snapped to attention and saluted, "Rear Admiral Kahoku."
"Commander Shepard, at ease," the rear admiral replied.
Shepard slipped into her parade rest smoothly as she appraised the man in front of her. He was in his fifties, probably, with noticeable graying hair as well as beard and mustache. His dark eyes locked on her like guiding lasers. Shepard could see the evaluation cogs spinning. She was not the only one perpetually alert and measuring.
"It is good that I have caught you on the Citadel, between assignments. I assume we are on a secure line?" he asked.
"Of course, Admiral. The most secure there is, short of the QEC." Shepard replied.
"Good. I have something I would like you to pursue, Commander. Something… sensitive."
In other words, this was another one of those dirty jobs that ought to fly under the radar.
"I dispatched a marine unit to investigate strange activity in the Artemis Tau cluster, but as of two days ago I lost contact with the unit. Their last daily status report indicated they entered the Sparta system, and after that, nothing."
Shepard did not need to be told how unusual it was for a whole unit of marines to fail that sort of thing without a reason. There was always a chain of command in place. Even if the officers were put out of commission due injuries or death, there ought to have been a status report from the next in line. Unless the whole unit was put out of commission, that is.
"I want you to find out what happened to them," the admiral continued. "But I hope you understand that the fact we are speaking is a favor from Hackett. I attempted to launch my own investigation, but was unable to get authorization. Hackett volunteered the Normandy for this operation under the proverbial table. I need it done quietly, and your report is to be sent to me, not Hackett. Your communications officer will receive a data packet with the relevant information."
"Understood, Admiral." Shepard replied. This was the reason why the Alliance admiralty was compared to a Byzantine court half the time. There was much internal politicking and favors passed about. Still, if a unit of marines vanished, she understood why Admiral Hackett charged her with the job. He saw the same thing as she did, and though he had his politics, he would not let a unit of marines slip through the cracks because of said politics. The Normandy was in a gray area; at the very least it could go there, undetected, off the record, and check things out.
Some part of her was automatically curious about what said marines had been investigating in the Artemis Tau cluster of all places. It was Alliance space, but hardly the most visited nook of the woods. There were no colonies in the cluster, and the majority of the charted planets were some sort of wasteland, either frozen, or blazing, or some other kind of unpleasant variation.
"One more thing, Commander. I only want to know what happened to my men. In fact, if it could be arranged, the involvement the Normandy's Spectre Liaison would be appreciated."
Shepard blinked; he wanted her to involve Nihlus? "It will be done, Admiral." That is to say, Nihlus had her ticket for getting out of hot water if things went sideways and it got out that whatever stone wall erected in the way of his own investigation was circumvented. "The Normandy will depart the Citadel in a few hours." She finished. No rest for the weary indeed.
"Good. I look forward to any news, Commander."
The communicator shut off a few seconds after that, restoring the solemn silence of the COMCON, leaving Shepard to her thoughts. There was something happening, something big enough to warrant this sort of stealth request. Rear Admiral Kahoku was desperate to know what happened if he was pulling this sort of favor, especially reaching out, however tenuously, to the only Spectre the Alliance had access to.
Spectres as a rule could pursue their own investigations, if they deemed something important enough for their involvement. In reality that meant that sometimes the upper echelons of the Council races, be they Hierarchy officials, Asari Matriarchs, or some Dalatrass could and did request a Spectre look into matters for them. Strictly speaking all Citadel races would not be in the wrong curry a Spectre's involvement in some matter, it was just the fact that the Turians, Asari, and Salarians had all the Spectres between them, so they had the quickest route.
Nihlus would be thrilled to know that he was now on the brass' radar. She grinned to herself, thinking that now he had a reason to make her Spectre. If only so that sort of duty would naturally and automatically pass to her.
"Commander, I received a data package from Rear Admiral Kahoku containing the personnel files of the missing marines as well as contact information," EDI announced.
"Thanks, EDI." Shepard knew what that meant. Odds were something befell the marines, but the information would be necessary if there were bodies to identify. She would look over it later and make the relevant information available to her away team. Well, once she decided who would be on the away team. "Oh and could you tell me when Nihlus returns?"
"Of course, Commander."
Shepard turned and breezed out of the COMCON, intent on returning to her inventories. Wishing for the umpteenth time that she had an actual XO to do that menial, mind-numbing job, but that was life, duty called, in all its inglorious facets.
It was a good few hours before Nihlus came back. Shepard had not sent him a message requesting he return as soon as possible. She caught up to him in the shuttle bay as he was unpacking, just beginning the process of synchronizing the new components with the undamaged components of the rest of his suit.
One glance into what was now Wrex' corner confirmed the krogan was not within ear shot. Shepard did not need everyone on board to know the details of what was going on. Nihlus was a bit of a special exception for obvious reasons.
She turned back to watching the turian work. It took a moment for her to note that the new plates would stand apart from all the others, because the old ones were covered in minute scratches and paint flaws, the hallmarks of armor that had seen things. Well, odds were, the new ceramics would wear in rapidly. He did not lead the easy life by any stretch.
"Shepard." Nihlus said after some time in silence.
"Nihlus." Shepard replied with a grin, though it faded quickly. "I got new orders."
"Already?" he asked as he looked up from his work.
"No surprise there. Well… the Normandy is heading to the Artemis Tau cluster, Sparta system. I was tasked by Rear Admiral Kahoku with finding out what happened to a unit of his marines that went missing somewhere there."
"Your admirals have you running such simple jobs?"
"Seemingly, but it gets complicated and curious. Yes, by all accounts this is a simple job, it ought to be simple. But, someone is stone-walling what ought to be routine. Now why would someone do that?" she asked as she folded her arms, her hands on her elbows. It was a rhetorical question. Shepard saw between the lines. Anyone would read between the lines. Someone somewhere is concealing something, and Rear Admiral Kahoku is digging where they did not want him to dig. "The only reason I'm getting the job is because I have the one ship that can slip in, investigate, and get out without being seen. Strictly speaking I only take orders from Admiral Hackett, but this is a bit of a special circumstance."
"Hackett must want you to investigate deeper, past the missing soldiers."
"Yes, that's the obvious take-away from this." Shepard murmured, why else would the Normandy be mobilized? Admiral Hackett did not hand out assignments lightly and on a whim. She only got the job because it could not be done with the usual, open approach of sending in Captain Anderson or the sledgehammer approach of sending the Titanium Lady.
"This is an Alliance matter. Do you need me to stay out of it?" Nihlus wondered.
"That's the thing; Rear Admiral Kahoku wanted me to request your assistance." Her arms dropped to her sides as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. This was the part where things got a little awkward for her.
He hummed thoughtfully. "If I were to take this on as a Spectre investigation, you would have deniability; you can say I co-opted the Normandy." Still, Shepard caught a flicker of his mandibles, a hint of amusement. "Most parties involved get deniability, save perhaps this Rear Admiral Kahoku."
"I honestly think he's already in too deep for deniability and he knows it." Shepard mused; it truly was just one more political iceberg, and she had to dive in and try to find the bottom. She caught Nihlus' gaze and held it, never one to outwardly ask whether he was in or out. First, she did not want him to think that her ability to investigate hinged on his involvement in any capacity. Second, there was also the potential blowback. The involvement of a turian Spectre in Alliance fleet politics would go over about as well as a lead balloon. Admiral Kahoku must be desperate if he was going this far. That meant that the iceberg was a big one.
"You are eager to get into this mess," Nihlus stated, blunt as a hammer.
"Getting into these messes is why I got command. Welcome to the Normandy. Otherwise known as the posting where careers go to die. Our mission is simple, we get to risk our lives doing the sort of jobs that no one else will or wants to, and they get to deny knowing anything about it." Shepard said as she idly wondered if Nihlus ever looked into the backgrounds of her marines. As macabre as it was to think of it like that, she could not think of any other way. The Normandy was a glorified terminus posting for a whole lot of people.
"When you put like that," Nihlus chuckled. "Who am I to say no? I will give you whatever aid I can."
"Thank you," She said calmly.
"I assume you received some form of additional information," he went on.
"Personnel files on the missing marines. Our immediate objective is to locate them. The rest… we're going in blind. I think Rear Admiral Kahoku was worried about communication security." It went without saying that some part of it had to be old fashioned information compartmentalization as well. The good old need to know basis.
"I want to look through them once I am done with my armor."
"Done. They'll be in the OD."
Nihlus nodded his head but said nothing more as he turned back to his gear. Shepard took it as discussion over and turned on her heel to the elevator. She had a pilot to order about; someone had to get them off the Citadel and on their way.
The Normandy was on its way in a matter of hours. In the interest of not attracting attention by seeming to be in a rush Shepard prevented Nihlus from using his clearances to expedite the ship's departure. They had to wait an hour just for the final clearances, it was a little annoying, but Shepard figured that for this she wanted to look like things were routine. Spectre clearances or not, odds were their comings and goings were still logged, and right now, Nihlus was between official assignments.
True to his words, Nihlus was on the OD couch, a datapad in hand, skimming over the materials Shepard got on the missing marines. She was at her terminal, going over routine reports. No matter how small, a ship generated routine department reports; the Normandy was running at peak efficiency from the engine room to the galley. It was a mundane task, but these sorts of things needed her attention and signature, part of the job of being the commanding officer.
The first part of the job was largely up to Joker and EDI. They were slated to arrive at Artemis Tau, Sparta system in the middle of the night cycle. The passage required jumping from the Serpent Nebula to the Exodus Cluster, then Hades Gamma, and finally to Artemis Tau. The cluster's systems each had one of the smaller, single-destination mass relays that could send and receive only from the Hades Gamma cluster. It was effectively a backwater system. The Sparta system was even more backwater than that, a quick look through the star charts told Shepard enough. It was a medium sized system with five planets and two asteroid belts. None of its planets came even vaguely close to garden class and even the system's gas giant was a dodo, no good even as a helium-3 source. With a gravity well that choked its orbit with constantly colliding debris, just going near it was a hazard.
Shepard ordered Joker to rig the ship silent as soon as it was clear of the relay, not to link up with the local comm buys, and then put the ship in a drift in the system's outer asteroid belt while he got some shut eye. They would hide amidst the rocks and trust the ship's kinetic barriers to prevent a catastrophic collision while EDI kept passive sensor watch.
The reality of the small crew was coming to the fore. Shepard saw no need to run people on stims instead of sleep for this. She had suspicions about the marines. Their profiles indicated a hard working, loyal bunch, commanded by someone with a clean record. If they had failed to check in by now, odds were they would never check in. This mission was more recovery than search and rescue.
In the morning the Normandy emerged from the asteroid field set between Sparta's fourth and fifth planets and begun routine search patterns. EDI did not pick up anyone coming or going overnight, so they had nothing to go on other than a few simple suppositions. The Normandy's internal emission sinks were at about ten percent after a night of drifting, but they would begin to warm now that the ship was actually using the Tantalus drive.
Shepard decided to focus the search on the terrestrial planets, deeming the system's gas giant, Ontamalca, a terminus option. If the marines went down in its gravity well, amidst its rings of debris and hundreds of satellites, their ship would be either pounded to pieces by impact with debris, or crushed in the gas giant's thick atmosphere. There was little to do in either case, and even less evidence to collect. Any remains of a ship destroyed by repeated impacts would become nearly indistinguishable from the debris itself.
Thus Shepard just entered the OD after lunch when the Normandy entered orbit around Edolus, the system's second planet. Nihlus was still lounging on the couch, poking at a datapad in a manner that told Shepard he might be busting boredom with a game rather than doing any sort of work. As she sat down at her desk, she heard an intercom scratch.
"Ugh, Commander, I think we have something," Joker announced.
"What is it, Joker?" Shepard asked. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Nihlus set aside his datapad and sit up.
"EDI is picking up a faint signal from the surface. It broadcasts like a distress beacon, but it's kind of… fuzzy."
"Define 'fuzzy', Joker." Shepard said, glancing at Nihlus.
"Fuzzy, as in, it's not clear. If that's a distress beacon, it's weird. EDI is triangulating it," Joker replied.
"Good. Joker, when you have it, move into synchronous orbit, EDI, perform a quick high resolution scan of the ten kilometer radius around the source."
"Will do," Joker said.
"Of course, Commander." EDI replied.
There was another scratch as the link closed. Shepard drummed her fingers on the surface of her desk as she pondered.
"What now?" Nihlus asked.
"We go and look around." She replied.
"I am coming with you."
His tone left no room for argument, even if Shepard wanted to argue. They had an agreement of sorts now, on paper this was something he took up, a trifle assignment answering a request. "I think now's the time to bring the others in on what we're doing here," she said after a good long moment of thought.
Shepard summoned her away team to the OD. Aside from Nihlus, who was injecting himself into the job, she figured it best to involve the marines alone. This was not an assignment to take Tali on, and last she was aware, Garrus was busy with that self-chosen assignment regarding the main battery's power draw in engineering. However she was not surprised when Wrex drifted in after the marines, wearing his full armor, and though it was cleaned and maintained, it made the krogan look positively enormous and intimidating in the confines of the small room.
"What's going on, Skipper?" Ashley asked.
"Rear Admiral Kahoku ordered the Normandy to look for a unit of marines that went missing somewhere in this system. Earlier, EDI picked up what could be a distress beacon on the surface of the planet we are orbiting now."
There was a moment of silence in which the marines exchanged glances.
"There is something going on here," Shepard continued. "We're getting this job because someone up high is stone-walling routine procedure. That alone is curious. Rear Admiral Kahoku also requested Nihlus' involvement in the matter. Suffice to say, we are to keep quiet on the fact that we're here at all." She glanced at Wrex as she said that, because right then, that went double for him. She was only letting him sit in on this meeting because she assumed he was not pulling her leg when he said he was a professional. She expected a modicum of sensitivity for employer's secrets from him; it was a clause in his contract.
"Why would someone stone-wall this?" Jenkins wondered aloud. "This is just a search and rescue, right?"
Shepard envied Jenkins' optimism. Search and rescue parameters were only employed when one expected to find survivors. Shepard had mentally moved this operation straight into recovery. "The missing marines were investigating something out here. It is reasonable to assume that's connected." She said, right now they did not need to know that Admiral Hackett would want her to look into exactly what the marines were investigating to begin with. There was something for doing jobs one step at a time.
She reached to the center of the coffee table and tapped the holo-projector there. A topographic map of the planet surface appeared in the air, with a red marker indicating the location of the beacon at the bottom of a flat plain. "Edolus, ladies and gentlemen. A barely-above-freezing wasteland, nearly no oxygen in its atmosphere and plenty of silicate dust to choke up everything. The gas giant of this system also pulls junk inward, so Edolus enjoys unremitting orbital bombardment. This is a topographic scan of the area around the signal in question, courtesy EDI. As you can see, there are no artificial structures to be had anywhere near the signal, save for this anomalous blip." She paused there for a long moment, ostensibly to gather breath, but really, she wanted to see that initial reaction. "I am going out on a limb here and assume this is a vehicle, the blip is about the right shape."
"Is the asteroid bombardment intense enough to bring down a Kodiak?" Ashley wondered.
Shepard leaned back into the couch. That was actually a pretty damn good question, especially considering a Kodiak is all they had to make entry themselves. If the marines had gone down on Edolus, what exactly brought and kept them down? "That's one more piece of the puzzle that does not add up. The kinetic barriers on armored personnel carriers and shuttles ought to be enough to protect them from everything but a bumpy ride."
"Seems to me that there is definitely foul play involved," Wrex grumbled. "I don't like the look of that." He flicked a finger at the holographic projection.
"Why is that, Wrex?"
The krogan made a huffing noise, Shepard had the impression that he was not keen on talking more than he had to, but if he had input, she would get it out of him. At the end of the day, he was centuries old, and Shepard thought that if something bothered someone like that, one ought to take notice.
"A low plain, surrounded by crags, and filled with silicates; prime location for a thresher nest."
Shepard saw the marines freeze in place, she herself merely blinked. A thresher maw? "How certain are you, Wrex?"
"I'd bet a big jug of the finest ryncol on it." The krogan replied. "The maws burrow non-stop. As older tunnels collapse and they go deeper, the terrain sinks. Look at the surrounding ground levels."
Shepard hummed as she turned the projected hologram and checked the elevation readings EDI got. To her surprise, Wrex was right. The signal was coming from a plain that was considerably lower than any open expanse surrounding it. While such depression could be caused by a large meteor impact, the surrounding crags did not look like the walls of an impact crater. Even a weathered impact crater would still maintain something of a caldera-like appearance. "That complicates things," she said.
Wrex snorted. "It will know we're there the second we land by the ground vibrations, and it will attack, so we kill it, that's not complicated."
Shepard contained her urge to glare at Wrex. He made it sound like killing a thresher maw was like swatting a fly. "We do not have the numbers and materiel for that." She replied. "Alliance protocol calls for armored vehicles and heavier weaponry than what we got. It's been the way to handle maws since Akuze." Shepard looked over the marines; she imagined they must be feeling more than a little nervous now. How did one go about killing a giant, territorial, aggressive burrowing worm that could spit acid without at least a Mako or two? Death by a thousand gunshots was hardly practical against something that nasty. On Akuze, three of those things obliterated a whole nascent colony and then the fifty marines sent in as backup.
"Maws are lithotrophs," Nihlus slipped in casually.
Shepard spared him a look only to catch the tail end of the teeth-baring smirk gave her. Did Nihlus have some idea of what to do? Probably had, but she would not ask openly. Turians had to have a way of handling maws, the creatures were ubiquitous enough. Thus, it was likely that Turians had to put a few down. She would guess their approach likewise involved heavy ordnance if not explosives. Suddenly Shepard froze in her seat. Explosives! They had quite a bit of that on board. "I just had a thought. If it eats inorganic substances, we bait it with a crate full of explosives on a remote detonator. What are the odds of it surviving that?" She announced.
Wrex chuckled, "Who's walking the explosives onto the field?"
"No one. We have a Kodiak. We suspend the crate from the shuttle, fly overhead, bait the maw out with a few smaller demolition charges, and drop the bait. Even if it just lands on its head, the explosion ought to do the trick. Now if the maw eats it…" All Shepard knew of maws was what most knew. They had a tough outer carapace evolved for burrowing and extreme conditions. Their spores could cling to the outside of a ship, be carried through the freezing vacuum of outer space, and still produce a maw larva the next time the ship landed. Nevertheless, they were living entities, meaning their insides were a lot squishier.
"Assuming there is only one maw here," Nihlus said.
"In a nest this size? Probably one." Wrex replied. "Pack them too tight and they will turn on each other."
"Alright then. Barring any more ideas, the explosives seem to be our best bet." Shepard stepped in. "Now we ought to decide our team composition."
"I am flying the shuttle," Nihlus said with a tone of finality.
Shepard nodded; she was not going to argue with that.
"You are not leaving me on this ship while hunting a thresher maw," Wrex added.
Shepard looked from one to the other and wondered if she really ought to involve any more people in this one. This was essentially a highly dangerous scouting run, she needed to go down and have a look at the beacon. Nihlus flying the shuttle was given; he was a qualified small craft pilot. Wrex acted like he would not take being left on board sitting down, and he was powerful, a biotic on top, she could use that sort of power.
"We ought to take both shuttles, and two teams." Kaidan spoke up for the first time in the whole conversation. "Maws spray acid. What if it damages the drop shuttle?"
"Valid point, Kaidan." Shepard conceded.
"We can also prepare more charges and keep them on the second shuttle if the first drop fails, or if there is more than one maw." He went on.
"Okay. That's what we'll do. Bravo team will handle our backup shuttle. It should not be as dangerous if you stay on the crags. Any questions?"
There was silence in the room; Shepard could see that Jenkins was trying his best not to fidget, but if Shepard had her way, he would not see any action. She intended to have her way. A thresher maw was hardly something she wanted to face on foot, ever. "Well… that's that then, we have a plan. I need time to prepare the explosives." She announced.
Shepard was in the shuttle bay in half an hour. She had to pull out the entire supply of explosives on board, something that should have lasted her for a good number of missions. Still, she figured if this worked, no one would bat an eye. In fact, it might be something to brag about. Thresher maws required more than just good aim to take down, even she knew that.
Wrex was at the armory table with Ashley, checking up on his shotgun, while the woman prepared their weapons. The krogan looked pleased for someone who was going into the heat of battle with uncertain odds.
Kaidan was with the shuttles. All Kodiaks had anchorage hooks at the bottom, normally used to secure the shuttles, but at times also used to carry light loads. Thus Kaidan was fast at work putting together a four point cable harness and a quick release switch that would allow her to drop the explosives at will.
Shepard was layering packets of demolition grade plastic explosives into packing crates. She had already prepared a honeycomb-cell, padded crate with a whole bunch of concussive charges that would be dropped to try and flush the maw to the surface. After that, they still had enough explosives on board to make three bomb crates. For those, she figured leaving gaps in a tesseract-like shape would protect the explosives from contact with the maw's acid long enough for detonation, ideally in the maw's esophagus, or wherever else the maw swallowed things into.
Nihlus stood nearby, watching her work. He did not offer his own input into the matter, but he was definitely in supervisor mode. Shepard paid him little attention as she was not the type to become distracted if someone was watching her work.
After packing all three crates, she moved on to assembling the detonators. As a matter of safety, she would not arm the explosives now. The plastic explosives were inert, requiring heat and a current to pass through them for detonation. No bump, or even a direct hit from a weapon could make them go off accidently, but still Shepard took no chances. These explosives were powerful, as powerful as could be, short of thermobaric charges, which would fizzle in a low-oxygen environment.
An hour later, Shepard was in her armor, complete with a harness, and in the shuttle, double checking gear. On the ceiling inside the Kodiak there was a rail, she made sure to inspect it. Normally used to for parachute deploying static lines during low altitude infantry inserts and cargo drops, it would have to bear her whole weight as she leaned out over the edge of the shuttle to drop the bomb. Magnetic grip boots were well and nice, but in this case they would be awkward, and Shepard was all for redundant backups.
The atmosphere in the shuttle bay was palpably tense when they finally gathered in their gear, helmets on, to depart. As planned, Shepard, Nihlus, and Wrex took one shuttle, while Kaidan, Ashley, and Jenkins took the other. All the explosives were loaded onto the second, to be kept as far away from the maw as possible, until needed. The VI pilot would fly them to a large escarpment that EDI picked, where they would be safe from the maw, but close enough that if need be, the drop shuttle could land for a box swap.
"I still think this is a round-about way of doing things, but… I want to see if it actually works." Wrex announced as he stepped onto the shuttle behind her. "If it doesn't, we do things my way."
Shepard did not need to ask what his way entailed.
Edolus' atmosphere was a sickly dark yellow tinged with brown that skewed one's vision by altering the colors of everything. Meteors streaked across the sky in regular intervals, and the shuttle shook practically the whole way down. When they descended down to the cloud layers things only became more unpleasant. The clouds themselves were made of fine dust whipped up by ever-present winds, not water vapor. Everything was partly shrouded in a silicate haze.
Shepard was on her feet even before the shuttle reached what she deemed operational altitude. Wrex was on his feet a moment later, the magnetic pads in the soles of his boots holding him tight to the deck, even if it gave him a somewhat goofy manner of walking. Shepard hooked herself to the overhead rail, double checked the D-rings on her harness, and triggered the hatch release. There was an instant blast of wind and silicate dust to the visor of her helmet. It howled across the external microphone and in her ear, but she ignored it.
Nihlus put the Kodiak into a relatively leisurely oblong holding pattern over their destination so they could do some aerial scouting. Shepard tugged at her line one more time before she dared to let it take her weight so she could peer down.
"I was right about the thing EDI picked up," She announced after a moment. "That there is an M-29A Grizzly- well… the remains of one." She did not need her HUD magnification to recognize the monstrous and quite ugly gray vehicle. This particular Grizzly had been ripped apart and charred in places. Its wedge-shaped nose section lay upside-down a few meters in front of the wheeled aft section, and one of the six solid barrel tires was reduced to scant chunks of black material clinging to bare hub. The vehicle's turret and gun lay some distance away from the body; the gun's barrel looked to have been bent by impact. Amidst the wreckage was cylindrical tower construct sticking out of the sand.
"Shuttle A to Shuttle B, status report."
"This is shuttle B; we're in position, Commander, awaiting further instructions." Kaidan replied.
"Stand by, Shuttle B. We're coming in." Shepard tapped at the comm link, switching channels, "Nihlus, Shuttle B is in position. Move us there. We'll mount a crate and go fishing."
"Got it."
The shuttle moved with a graceful fluidity characteristic of the VI guidance system, but Shepard knew that it was not flying by wire right then. She pulled herself back in and shut the hatch.
Shuttle B was waiting for them when they landed, and Kaidan had the cable harness already laid out, ready for attachment. Ashley had one of the bomb crates out, holding her rifle in one hand, and a detonator in the other. While Kaidan attached the cables to the drop shuttle, Jenkins brought the flush charges over, and Ashley helped Shepard put a bomb crate into its sling. Once there, Shepard popped the crate open, attached the detonator, and made sure it was synched to her omni-tool. A test of the quick release switch and its synch mechanism later and the bomb sling was in place.
Within five minutes the drop shuttle's thrusters fired and the vehicle rose into the air again. The box ended up suspended some ten meters below the shuttle, out of the way of the intense heat of the ventral take-off-and-landing thrusters. So far, so good, Shepard thought to herself. The ventral thrusters had been a concern, but Kaidan had chosen the cable length well. Now their concern was having a long pendulum affecting the aerodynamics of the shuttle in windy conditions. Though she doubted the box would act like a sail, it had little surface area.
"Nihlus, fly us at forty meters." Shepard murmured when the shuttle resumed a holding pattern over the plain.
"Will do. Now this is probably a bad time to ask, but… can this thing take the acid spit?" he wondered.
Shepard hooked herself onto the overhead rail, "We're about to find out, aren't we?" she said as she opened the hatch. She was acutely aware that the Grizzly below them seemingly lost its fight with the maw. Then again, the Grizzly was an older generation vehicle. The Kodiak was state of the art, tested in and able to withstand the conditions on Venus. "Take us over to those jutting rocks; I don't want to flush the maw too close to the beacon or the remains."
Nihlus did not bother to reply, but as the shuttle turned Shepard reached for the flushing charges and armed two. They were designed to explode on impact, so she just needed to drop them in a timely manner. "Time to go fishing," she murmured.
"Throw them at those rocks." Wrex offered, though he sounded vaguely bored.
"Good idea," Shepard replied. The porous sandy surface would probably absorb the vibrations more than transfer them. Some part of Shepard even doubted the flushing charges would work, but she had to try the easy way, before she went for the dangerous.
The shuttle passed over the rocks and Shepard dropped the first charge, waited two seconds, and dropped the second. Seconds later the first exploded in the sand with enough force to send a plume into the air. The second hit some meters away, creating another sand geyser, but both missed the rocks. Shepard hummed; the wind was pretty bad here. "I've rung the doorbell. Now let's see if anything's home."
She watched the sand as the shuttle's thrusters hummed below them. There was nothing for a good thirty seconds. Then, quite suddenly a faint ripple passed through the dunes. The level of the sand rose and fell in a wave-like motion.
"There's definitely a thresher down there," Wrex mumbled.
Shepard reached into the box for another flushing charge, armed it, and threw. The small bomb took a few seconds to free-fall, but it exploded, sending another sand geyser into the air. Instantly the sand churned, writhing, and the maw erupted to the surface, tendrils flailing, front claw-limbs raised, blue phosphorescent tongue-like tentacle twisting through the air. Shepard wondered if maws made a sound and if they could be heard. Right then, there was none, but they were dozens of meters in the air, in air-tight suits, with thrusters vibrating below them, and the wind howling across their microphones.
Then the maw stretched out, pulled its head back and spat. The shuttle veered to avoid the spray. Shepard grabbed the hand-railing by the hatch, though it quickly became apparent that it was an unnecessary maneuver. The spray of acid lost the fight to gravity and fell without reaching them. Shepard glanced down; it had not hit the bomb crate either.
"Dip us a little lower, five meters or so, let's see if we can get this thing to bite." she ordered into her comm link.
The shuttle turned and the pitch of the thrusters changed as it slowly descended. The maw dipped below the sand again, and a moment later erupted some meters elsewhere, reared its head, and spat again, throwing a spray of acid into the air. The shuttle jerked, the crate below swung hard on its tether. Shepard noticed that the maw's head followed their movement. She raised her hand and brought up her omni-tool, the quick release switch's signal was nice and strong.
The maw dove under the sand again, and came up a third time, near where it had first emerged. Shepard could not be sure it was aware of the crate, but it seemed aware that they were here, above it, just out of reach. It clearly did not like them being there either.
She glanced down. The crate had started to swing on its cables like a pendulum, so maybe she could use its momentum to hit the maw in the head. Then the idea was tossed out the window, if she missed it, or if the maw went under, they would have to reload. Instead she reached into the box and pulled out another of the small flushing charges. A moment of contemplation later, she armed it, wound up, and threw.
This time the charge fell faster and hit the worm in the neck, where it exploded. The maw flailed as black gunk and acid splashed into the air.
"I am going five meters lower," Nihlus announced.
The shuttle descended as the maw reeled. Then the beast swung its head as if hocking the mother of all loogies and unleashed another spray of acid. Shepard pulled herself into the shuttle with a jerk as the green liquid flew right past their side, narrowly missing them.
"You made it mad," Wrex said calmly.
"I'm going to make it dead," Shepard replied.
Wrex chuckled.
The crate swung, the shuttle turned ninety degrees, to pass over the maw. Shepard saw the beast's head move side to side, like a demented cobra measuring distance for a strike, or more likely measuring where to hock its next wad of acid. The crate swung again, she raised her other hand to the omni-tool. Would she have a moment? The maw flicked its tendrils, jerked its head, and spat.
The shuttle jerked, Shepard did not see any spit fly past them. The thrusters kicked and for a split of a second she felt her stomach rise into her throat in that tell-tale sensation of zero-g. She stuck her head out over the side and looked down. The maw was right below them, blue phosphorescent tentacle flailing, was it a tongue? Did it use that thing like a snake used its? The crate swung. Shepard hit the switch. The quick-release sprung open, the sling cables unhooked, and the crate tumbled free. The maw jerked its head, tongue-tendril flicking through the air.
Then suddenly its head dipped, vicious front limbs angling apart, its maw opened wide, and it snatched the free-falling crate from the air with deft ease before it dove into the sand.
"Nihlus, it swallowed the bomb! Bring us up!" Shepard called.
Wrex ducked back in, heading for the closest seat and harnesses. The thrusters roared as the shuttle's nose pitched up. Shepard switched over controls on her omni-tool. The bomb signal was green, but how long it would stay that way, she was not sure. She glanced down, measuring the elevation they had on the sands below. She did not want to be too close to that much demolition grade plastic when it went off. The signal indicator shifted yellow. She jammed her thumb into the firing key before she lost it entirely.
A breathless heartbeat later the whole shuttle bucked and she was thrown back into the hold with the force of the explosion shockwave. Her tether stretched like the string on an instrument, but the rings and the rail held. Then the craft leveled out. Shepard rolled onto her hands and feet and scrambled to the edge.
The sand dune the worm had been burrowing through had turned into a crater. There were bits of black chitin scattered about, and some way off to the side was the unmistakable, spike-like appendage that should frame a maw's bulbous head, the other spike lay in a completely opposite direction. Right in the middle of the devastation was the maw's body. It lay motionless, part-buried in the sand, bulbous head gone; all that remained was a gory stump of ripped chitin and raw meat that oozed black fluids onto the sand around it.
"It worked." Wrex muttered.
Shepard looked up at him. "You sound surprised."
"A little. I did not think you could get it to just swallow the bomb."
"We have a problem," Nihlus announced from the cockpit.
"What is it?" Shepard asked.
"Remember that jerk, before you blew the maw? The acid hit us. Now the explosion knocked some thermal plating off."
"Well that just means we can't make atmospheric entry with this shuttle until we get the plates replaced." Shepard replied.
"Some of the acid is still there; the sensors are showing continuing deterioration in the underlying armor. We do not want the mass effect field collapsing if the acid reaches something vital."
Shepard froze; yes she could see the problem. The Kodiak was counter-gravitic in its truest sense; it had enough eezo to negate the entirety of its mass. Yet its thrusters were only strong enough to move it with the eezo core doing its job. If the mass effect field failed, the shuttle would tumble out of the sky like an anvil. "Alright, set us down. The sand ought to wick away, if not neutralize the acid."
"Got it," Nihlus replied.
"That answers that question then, doesn't it?" Wrex asked.
"The explosion did more damage than the acid." Shepard replied. She had to detonate when she did, because if she allowed signal loss, even for an instant, she risked never reacquiring it. The maw's acid might wear through the crate, cross the gap, and go to work on the explosives and detonator. There had been no other choice, and all considering, a bit of damage to the shuttle was no problem; they had a spare for a reason.
They were on the ground in minutes, and a quick call got the other shuttle to come down and join them. Shepard was honestly glad that this planet had no breathable atmosphere; she did not want to know how ungodly bad the maw's carcass must smell right now.
They managed to lure it well enough away from the destroyed Grizzly that the explosion merely shifted the sand and the loose debris a little. The beacon had tipped a little, looking like the leaning tower of Pisa, but it was still upright and still operational. All considering the job was a total success.
Wrex was out of the shuttle the second it touched down and made his way toward what remained of the maw. Shepard emerged at a slightly more leisurely pace. Her first order of business was investigating the wreck of the Grizzly. Nihlus remained in the cockpit, and when she cleared the immediate landing area she felt the shuttle come back to life. The ventral thrusters pulsed with the mass effect field turned low, effectively churning the sand below the shuttle.
"Commander, that was… something," Ashley said as they approached the destroyed infantry vehicle.
Shepard had no doubts what the woman meant. "I'm glad there was just one. The Kodiak took some damage."
Ashley glanced back toward the shuttle. "Is that why the Spectre is whipping up a sandstorm?"
"The maw's acid hit us. I think Nihlus is trying to get the sand into the nooks, to wick it away."
"Ah. Well… I don't envy whoever has to fix it then."
"We'll probably have to go back to Arcturus," Shepard replied as she circled the nose section of the destroyed Grizzly. Despite the fact that it had landed upside-down, she quickly found out that the hatch that once connected the forward and aft sections was largely intact, the vehicle suffered a catastrophic, but clean split.
The bottom of the section, now on top, was coated with a thickened goop that a cursory scan with her omni-tool identified as a mix of maw acid and omni-gel. The crew clearly attempted to neutralize the acid after the first hit, though it did not work, the acidity reading of the goop was a zero on the pH scale.
She made sure to get a real good scan of the hatch before trying the lock. It took some effort, and laying some weight into it, but the door finally gave way. What greeted her was rather ugly. There were bodies here, the driver, and whom she assumed to be the commanding officer. Both hung upside-down, still strapped into their seats. A cursory pass of her omni-tool merely confirmed what her eyes already saw, both of them were dead. She glanced back toward the aft section.
"Oh God, they're…"
"Unfortunately." Shepard replied as she spared Ashley a glance. When she turned back to the bodies, she went straight for the small compartments in their armor that ought to contain their dog tags. With both sets in hand, she brought up a list of the missing marines. It took forty seconds to confirm that the bodies belonged to the unit's commanding officer and subordinate. "We've found them." She announced, as she slipped the dog tags back into their proper compartments. It was not her right to remove them.
"Did the maw destroy the Grizzly?" Kaidan wondered.
"The acid says so. We need to count the bodies, for that we need to get into the aft section."
"On it," Kaidan turned around and Shepard watched him make his way across the sand.
Shepard turned back to the cockpit, it was awkward, and standing on what ought to have been the top, moving around the seats and the odds bits of tech underfoot. A quick poke told her that despite the power units being in the front, and theoretically still able to power the nose section, there was no power to be had, the consoles were dead.
That meant she would have to dig for the black box, and right then that meant some climbing, as it was under a panel at the driver's feet. She did not want to go at the other hatch, which was probably covered in acid.
She was trying to work the bright orange metal box free of its moorings five minutes later when she heard the communication link scratch.
"Commander, there are more bodies in the aft section, two more individuals on the list of missing marines," Kaidan announced. "The gunner and vehicle engineer."
Shepard hummed, "Good work. This is interesting. We have the CO, the driver, the gunner, and engineer. This vehicle was in combat when it was hit. The others must be nearby." Shepard paused then. They must have engaged the maw on foot, with the vehicle as support. The bodies would at best be buried in the sand. A desert was a moving entity; the wind constantly shifted the dunes. At worst? They might never recover all the bodies, doubly so after her stunt with the explosives and Nihlus' churning up a sandstorm, to say nothing of the maw. Shepard grimaced at the thought.
"Did the maw…" Jenkins cut in, his voice quivering, unable to finish his question.
"Eat them?" Wrex offered.
"Not helping, Wrex." Shepard rebuffed.
"He is going to have to learn. You can't mother him, Shepard." The mercenary replied drily.
"I'm sorry I asked," Jenkins mumbled.
"We should walk the perimeter, see if we can pick up their armor locator signals," Kaidan offered.
Shepard had the distinct impression that Kaidan was once again doing what he could to divert attention away from a potential situation, this time Wrex' insensitivity.
"I'll help." Ashley added after a moment.
Shepard did not reply as she turned back to the task of getting the black box free. She was not happy right now, everything pointed to a rather grueling battle with the maw that the marines lost. So who had set up the distress beacon? The data recordings on the black box would help reconstruct the final hours of the vehicle's life, including where it had been, what it had scanned, and the conversations in the cockpit.
She finally pulled the box out and unplugged it from its cradle. The status on it was blinking; the box's own battery pack and beacon were still signaling its location, seeking someone to tell its tale to. She carefully made her way outside with the box under her arm. "I got the operations recorder. Once we analyze the data inside, we will know what happened in the last few hours of this Grizzly's life," she announced.
"So what now, Shepard?" Wrex asked.
"Now? I need to look at that beacon. Something is rubbing me wrong here. If all the marines died fighting the maw, who set it up? And most importantly… when?" Shepard did not say it, but she had a bad feeling.
The beacon's current form was already peculiar. The Grizzly's black box was pinging, already a beacon. The marines would have used the onboard beacons. The vehicle had to have been dropped off by a ship; one would assume there had been an agreement to come pick them up. A ship in orbit that had reasons to look for a vehicle's beacons would find them. So why bother with a long range column beacon like this one? One and one were adding up to three here, and she did not like it.
As she made her way toward the pillar and the console built into it, she let her train of thought run away a little. If the beacon was not set up by the marines, who did? When did they set it up? Why? Answering those question would determine just how much foul play was involved, and how much deeper this iceberg went.
She touched the beacon's console, and it unfolded, proffering its keyboard to her. The status display brought up the immediate data, the frequency, the message, the signal strength, and other options. Shepard hummed, the frequencies used were definitely Alliance, but she could see why Joker called the signal fuzzy. The cipher used was outdated. Still, on the surface the beacon looked, felt, and acted like a long-range Alliance distress beacon. The encryption error could be explained by an old model tower, one that operated on old firmware.
She switched screens again and accessed the operation log, it was a little less obvious place to look, but the device logged all the times it was broadcasting. Here she encountered a roadblock, the logs were password protected and encrypted. Shepard turned to her omni-tool, firing up her decryption program. Within minutes she identified the device's software, and thus what sort of encryption method it could have. It confirmed the tower had older firmware, but that made things a little easier for her. After that it was a matter of strong-arming through it, cracking the password. It took another ten minutes, but she got in. The screen flashed once, twice, and then opened its log.
"I knew it," she murmured to herself.
"Commander?" Kaidan asked.
Shepard froze, she forgot about the voice activated comm links in her moment of triumph. "I got into the beacon's logs. And well… there is a copious amount of foul play involved. This beacon was first activated seven days ago."
"It must have lured your men onto the nest," Nihlus said.
"Indeed, but wait, there's more, it was briefly disconnected two days ago, and reconfigured to broadcast a different signal."
"Luring… us here." Kaidan said.
"That's just fucked up." Ashley added.
"You said, it Gunny. Someone wanted these men, and whoever came looking for them, quite dead. They also wanted it to look like an unfortunate accident." The iceberg definitely looked to go down nice and deep. "This, the stone-walling on the Alliance side…" she glanced down at the orange device tucked under her arm. Would it elucidate this? She doubted. The marines probably did not realize they had walked onto a trap until it was simply too late.
She hummed; Rear Admiral Kahoku knew something. His desperation was suddenly much more ominous. Did he know that he was sending the Normandy straight into a trap? Did he know he sent his men into this trap? Someone definitely knew they would be here, knew there was a thresher nest here, and was pants-on-head crazy enough to walk out onto said nest to set this thing up. Well, she supposed they could have used a remote controlled vehicle carrying the active beacon, but that was beside the point.
"Commander, I got the armor locator signals." Kaidan announced. "I counted the individual pings. The numbers add up. The marines are here… all around us."
"Log their locations, Kaidan. The suits might lose power soon."
"Yes, ma'am." Kaidan replied.
Shepard clenched her fists; someone was going to pay for this. She would call for backup once back on the Normandy. Nihlus' involvement meant that now they had the right to say he called the Alliance to retrieve their dead. The bodies had to be retrieved and returned to their families. These marines deserved proper burial.
"I think we're about done here. I'm going to let EDI download everything inside this beacon, and then I'm going to shut it down." She announced as she brought up her omni-tool, and then reached to her helmet to switch frequencies, contact the Normandy. There was blood on these sands, the blood of good marines murdered for what they probably did not know. She would get to the bottom of it. Nothing and no one could hide the truth from her. The lost would not become the forgotten.
Author Notes: The lore squirrels out there will know where this will go. I only have to say that much thought was put into incorporating the relevant side mission material into something. ME1 really did not do much with some of its side missions, despite how much potential some of them had. They were flavoring. Well, I'm making a dish out of them. My own garnishes are coming, stick around!
General Notes:
None this time…
Chapter Notes:
Explosives – Conventional explosives are a mix of "fuel" chemicals, and an "oxidizer", i.e. source of oxygen, which is needed for the burn reaction. Thermobarics are all "fuel", and use oxygen from the surrounding environment. This makes them more powerful per equal mass compared to conventional explosives, but it also limits them. Furthermore, thermobarics kill two-fold in a confined space, if the shockwave/debris doesn't do it, the reaction will burn away the oxygen if the containment is not lost. Thermobarics would be absolutely nasty on a space station/ship.
pH Scale – For those not in the know, the pH scale measures the acidity or alkalinity of substances. It goes from 0 to 14, with 0 being very acidic and 14 being very alkaline, with neutral being in the 6.6 – 7.3 range. Bleach is 12, very alkaline, while tomato juice is a 4, considered acidic.