Disclaimer: I do no own Mass Effect, I do not claim to own Mass Effect, I am only doing this for fun.
Author Notes: The second part of the Twelfth Labor arc, enjoy!
Episode 19: The Twelfth Labor [Part II]
The Normandy moved out almost as soon as Joker had the destination. The Voyager Cluster's Columbia system had no relay of its own either, so they were in for a twenty-four hour FTL hop, and carried just enough fuel to last them until they could make a return Amazon and through its relay. This gave Shepard time to consider the angles.
Further reading of material revealed some invoices and other otherwise inane clerical remnants that hinted at what they were looking at on Nepheron. The installation had to be quite large judging by the deliveries it took, and the fact that all three labs from Binthu had been evacuated there. Shepard reasoned there would be at least ten scientists with an unknown number of hired guns to protect them.
The scientists were also not very security minded. The Binthu lab computers ended up invariably choked with bits of other information, proverbial digital footprints that EDI was able to see and collate, enough that they could begin to construct a list of names. Many of the Cerberus workers had families. Some even kept communication recordings; well-wishes by spouses, their children talking about what they learned in school, and other comforts from home when one was away for long stretches of time. It was a way to stave off the loneliness, and perhaps in some twisted way remind them why they were working in those labs to begin with. It put a face to the men and women who worked there. But it baffled her at the same time. How could these loving fathers and mothers care for their families, all the while conducting barbaric experiments on other sapient beings, beings that also had families? Shepard just could not disconnect one from the other.
To some degree, it made her ponder the balance of her actions. Strictly speaking every life she took, including those on Elysium, had a family. Was she different? She wanted to think that she was. Her hands were not sullied by torture of innocents in the name of macabre science. Each life she took, she sought to take as quickly and as painlessly as possible, her own form of mercy for those who had none for others.
Shepard also wanted to think those who died by her hand were different. Her one mistake, the one time she killed an innocent, would forever stay her arm from rashness. After that all her kills were on criminals who had no regard for others, Elanos Haliat being a fine example. Shepard well and truly wanted to believe she gave him exactly what he deserved, even without her personal reasons factored in. She would not lose a minute of sleep over Haliat, but she was still running with that train of thought. Did any of that make her actually different, or was she merely justifying things in order to sleep at night? She had always thought that every death she wrought saved at least a dozen others. But it was at times like these that her consciousness fought against the cold, efficient killer within.
When it came to Cerberus, the rationale seemed clear. If she let them go there would be no telling what they would do. What they had already done was beyond tolerance. They were guilty of murder in many different ways. The experiments they conducted were monstrous. Anyone capable of doing that kind of work could never be called an innocent, no matter the reason or justification they used. If they were not innocent, then she did need to feel guilty about carrying out her duty.
The OD door opened and brought Shepard out of her thoughts. She looked up from her terminal and was surprised when Legion padded in. The geth was unarmed and seemed to scan its surroundings as it walked at a leisurely pace.
"Legion." She greeted as it drew near her desk.
"Shepard-Commander. We did not intent to interfere with your tasks."
"Was there something you wanted?" she wondered.
"Negative. We are charting this vessel for navigational efficiency."
"You're exploring?" Shepard asked.
"Affirmative."
That surprised her, but maybe it should not have. Legion was merely very overt in doing an obvious thing. She could not tell it no either, it was not a prisoner. "Well, by all means, carry on. Except… the lab on the other side of the CIC is still sealed, and I would prefer you do not go in there. Ask EDI to show you a security camera feed if you want to see in there."
"Acknowledged. We will not enter the laboratory on deck two."
"How are you exploring, top to bottom, or bottom to top?"
"We started on deck five and proceeded up. We chart areas deemed common and then request admittance into areas deemed private. Corporal-Jenkins suggested we request admittance."
Shepard raised an eyebrow, Richard telling Legion to ask if it wanted to enter some space might have prevented an incident or two, "Hopefully the crew did not give you grief."
"Grief…" It repeated and paused, as if pondering the term, "human colloquial term for trouble. Negative. The crew permitted our exploration. Only Spectre-Kryik refused our request to scan the cabin on deck three."
Shepard hummed; she was not surprised; Nihlus treated that cabin as his keep. She would take the fact that nobody lodged complaints about Legion being nosy as a good sign.
"Shepard-Commander, we request to see deck one."
Now Shepard laughed; she should have seen that coming light-years away. Legion's flaps flared into that surprised expression it seemed to give. Shepard took a deep breath to quiet her laughter, lest that expression send her into a paroxysm. "I'm sorry; I shouldn't laugh. Sure Legion, you can see deck one, just give me five minutes, I'll give you a tour." She had no reason to outright refuse; after all, there was an open-door policy. The only reason none used it was because she had the far more accessible OD. Legion was a crewmate as much as any organic; in the interest of fairness she would keep the door open to it as well.
"Acknowledged."
The Normandy entered the orbit of Nepheron thirty hours after they left Binthu, already rigged silent and drifting. It did not take much for EDI to find a lab on the planet's surface; as such places typically had comm traffic chatter that could be back-tracked.
Nepheron itself was just another backwater rock with an average temperature at 37°C, and an atmosphere of 0.73 atm with a high content of carbon dioxide and krypton. Gravity was a comfortable 0.88g. The high content of sodium and magnesium in the planet's crust gave it the appearance of endless salt flats. No one in their right mind would think of coming to Nepheron, so it made a rather good place to tuck away a lab that violated every code of ethics ever written.
One look at EDI's passive imaging made Shepard reconsider her initial plans. The installation seemed quite a bit larger than anything they encountered before. All the same, Cerberus had a pattern. They seemed fond of natural defenses, of setting up in a location best accessible by air. This base was set right in the middle of a low plain, surrounded by mountains on three sides. The majority of the facility was clearly underground; the above ground section was little more than just a sort of fortress, complete with a perimeter fence, sniper towers, light pre-fab shelters for on-duty guards, and a landing zone for the corvette-type craft present. EDI had her passive scanners trained on the surface, weather permitting, but initial scans showed at least seven people top-side at all times.
Shepard pushed aside the data and slumped into the OD's sofa. Some small part of her still dithered, even though the course of action she needed to take was obvious. She knew she could not let one failure rattle her otherwise proven method. Still, she could not help but doubt. Excess planning had cost them once. The old saying went that haste made waste. Nowhere was that truer than in the execution of black ops missions. She was drilled to never rush planning unless there was genuinely no time for it. She had time here.
She took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and slowly let it out. She needed to find her center, to disconnect from that part of her mind that ran on emotion, and reconnect to cold logic. She knew her method worked dozens of times before. Binthu was merely an error in the math brought on by a variable that she had not accounted for, could not have accounted for. Nothing more than the uncertainty principle at work. As cold as it sounded, she needed to move past her emotional hang-up. If she stayed emotional, she might make more mistakes.
Shepard sighed, "EDI, can you summon Nihlus, Garrus, Kaidan, Ashley, and Richard to the OD within about half an hour." Wrex would not be happy, but Shepard needed more control over the situation. Wrex tended to cut through everything in his path with only a casual note. She needed Garrus' investigative expertise on this.
"Right away, Commander," EDI replied.
She would not let her emotions get the best of her. This job was going down like clockwork. She would not let Cerberus have any more wins, no matter how small.
In twenty-five minutes the OD door opened and the away team filed in. Shepard was still seated on her couch so she was caught by surprise when she saw Legion trail behind the group. The marines found their usual seats while Nihlus and Garrus remained standing. The geth stood behind them, its light focused on her.
"Shepard-Commander, we overheard EDI summon Corporal-Jenkins. We wish to aid you on your current mission," the geth said.
Jenkins looked like he wanted to melt into the flooring, but Shepard was not going to lecture the corporal for something he had no blame in. "Alright. But I won't recap everything from the beginning right now. Legion, I want you to stay after the brief, we'll recap then." It went without saying that they could use the extra set of hands for this operation.
"Acknowledged."
With that out of the way, she launched into the usual briefing, beginning with planetary conditions and ending with the intelligence that EDI provided.
Throughout it all, she could not be more aware of how much attention she got from Legion. The geth's light never wavered off her, and the plates on its head never seemed fully still. Still, she would not be thrown off her stride by just that. It took all of ten minutes to thread over what they had, before she opened the floor to input as the holo-projector on the coffee table still showed the layout of their target.
Garrus was first to move. "We can soften the external defenses by eliminating the snipers at long range," he said as he motioned to the towers.
"Definitely." Shepard agreed. "Then if we make insertion correctly, we can put their perimeter fence at our back and proceed from there."
"First though, EDI, you will have to jam their communication equipment so they cannot call for backup." Nihlus added.
"It will be done, Spectre Kryik," EDI said calmly.
Shepard blinked; surprised that Nihlus would take up issuing orders. She would have told EDI to jam the communication equipment too. Well it really did not matter, and she was not going to fuss those details now. "Also, a reminder that their agents may have cyanide crowns. Knock them out cold if you wish to capture any of them alive. I would very much like to interrogate someone," she said calmly.
The meeting did not run long after that. There was little to discuss other than very basic details. They had to insert, secure the perimeter, then get inside and get control of everything. The meeting was more about getting everyone playing the same game-plan. Still, keeping an eye on the big picture was useful. It was so easy to get bogged down in the tiny details. Even for someone detail-centered like her, too much detail would prevent her from seeing the forest because of the trees.
When she dismissed everyone, Legion remained standing where it was. Shepard got to her feet and approached the side-board to get her tea going. As she waited for the water to boil she lapsed into the recap.
The geth's plates danced throughout the whole exchange, and when she finished it tipped its head to side and its light narrowed. "We will assist with the task of eliminating long-range units within the tower fortifications," it announced.
"Legion, you can see in the infrared, right?" After the material she obtained from the library on the Citadel, the question of whether the geth could see thermal was an issue. She did not use her cloak around them out of the supposition that it would not be of any use.
"Affirmative. Our accuracy will not be impaired by limited electromagnetic radiation in the range organics perceive as visible light."
"Thank you, I wanted to know because if I am planning a night time mission and I need your aid, I want to know what I can count on. For us that usually requires a night vision or thermal scope, but you…" She needed to know what her team was capable of.
"We acknowledge Shepard-Commander's necessity to know the capabilities of the Normandy team in order to maximize operational efficiency."
"Well I wouldn't put in those words, but yea." Still, she would not count on Legion for much infiltration. The unit's finish was rather pretty, but also woefully impractical, because it would glow with the least bit of light, like a white shirt under a black-light. "Well thank you, Legion. Between you, Garrus, and me… getting rid of the snipers ought to be the easiest part of the job."
The geth turned toward the door and walked most of the way there before it paused. Shepard turned to the window, through which she could see the planet below them. She heard the door open and shut. Yet despite everything and all the planning, some part of her still fretted. This was going to be an unpleasant mission, she just knew it.
Shepard decided to run a night time mission because they would have the advantage in the dark. However Nepheron's rotation period was 56.2 earth hours, and they had to wait twelve hours so that Columbia would set at their destination. The long cycle gave them a long window to work with and it brought the temperatures down, as Nepheron's daytime temperatures reached into the sixties.
Their shuttle made approach from the west, where the cloud cover did not exist. Shepard made the call hoping the pin-pricks of light that were the Kodiak's thrusters might go a little less observed against a clear, starry sky. EDI directed them toward a hill about a kilometer west from the base, somewhere elevated enough to give them a good angle on the towers and create a nice disconnect between the sound of gunshots and the impact of bullets.
The shuttle landed and they all sealed up in order to be able to exit the vehicle. Shepard exited first and immediately scrambled up onto the shuttle's roof, where she could get a few more meters off the ground to do a bit of reconnaissance via HUD high magnification. The Cerberus compound was well lit, which was another advantage for her. Floodlights meant no guard would be able to peer into the darkness to see small flashes of light; their pupils would not be dilated enough for it. All the same, it allowed her to do recon effortlessly. "Six towers, all six staffed, nine hundred meters to the furthest, eight hundred to the nearest." Shepard rattled as she made mental notes. "Garrus, that works for you?"
"I have firing solutions already," Garrus replied.
Shepard hummed; she was not going to comment about Garrus' visor. She still needed to run the mental math and calm herself to fire at this range. Did Turians need a similar ritual? That was one of those questions never to ask. Still, the king of unfair advantages would probably be Legion. The geth did not breathe at all and could run the math far faster and with more precision than either her or Garrus. Then there was its rifle, when Legion drew and extended it to full length Shepard realized she had been eerily right. That thing was in-fact an anti-materiel caliber monster. Using it on soft targets was messy overkill, but at least death would be instantaneous.
"Alright, so I think we need to get into position. Nihlus, you ready for phase two?" She wondered. Most of the team was still inside the shuttle, waiting for the three of them to handle the snipers.
"I am always ready," Nihlus replied.
"And always cocky," Shepard murmured in reply as she drew Vincent and lowered herself into a prone position on the shuttle's roof. Once down she tapped at the side of her helmet, "Normandy, come in. EDI do you read me?"
"Of course, Commander."
"Proceed with phase one, bring down their comms."
"Right away, Commander."
"Alright, standing by. Legion, I want you to handle the furthest pair of towers, but I also want you to fire after Garrus and me. Your gun will crack loudest and flash brightest." She did not say it, but she thought it, the furthest towers were also behind the bunker entrance to the base. No one wanted to see the gore Legion was about to leave.
"Acknowledged."
"Garrus, the closest pair is yours. I will handle the middle."
"Yes, Commander."
Shepard shifted her attention to her HUD's environmental data, mentally running it against Vincent's tables. Gravity, atmospheric pressure, humidity, wind speed, over distance, the math was complex but she could do it, and had her rote-memorized tables as help. She did not rely on technology that glowed and gave away positions. All it took was a quick series of taps to adjust her scope, and then she peered through it.
Shepard scanned the yard, watching for any sign of disturbance or unease as she counted the men milling about, seven in total, not counting the six snipers. There was comm tower right in the middle of the yard. Right now EDI was working to disable the uplinks. Shepard slipped into her cycle; deep inhale, hold, then exhale, pause, and repeat. The guards continued to mill about, moving in patterns, their rifles at a ready, but they were utterly oblivious.
Shepard moved her crosshairs onto the head of the first sniper she would take out. He was sitting up in his tower, rifle resting on his shoulder, playing something on his omni-tool, completely unaware that his life was one trigger pull away from ending.
"I almost feel bad for them," Garrus said calmly.
"I choose to think they knew the risks and decided to take them." Shepard replied. She was ready; she would show no remorse. Whoever provided security for Cerberus was in some way, albeit indirectly, condoning their unethical activities. Any qualms she had about killing tended to melt away when she thought about it like that. Hell, some of those mercenaries could very well be fanatics, the sort that had a suicide pill ready to go. There was little reasoning with them.
"Commander, communication links have been severed." EDI announced.
"Thank you EDI." Shepard replied as she peered through her scope, "Phase one's a go!"
"After you, Commander," Garrus said.
Shepard watched the soldier she had been aiming at, he was fussing with his omni-tool now, having lost his extranet uplink. Shepard adjusted her sights to his temple and her finger slipped down to the trigger. She took a deep breath, held it, and slowly let it out. As her lungs emptied, she slowly squeezed the trigger. The Mantis barked and she raked the receiver bolt before reaching for the next clip she would need. Somewhere below and on her right she heard a second rifle crack.
Shepard slid a fresh clip into Vincent and the receiver shut. Peering through the scope, she saw the first man she shot was indeed down.
"My first target down," Garrus announced.
A quick scan around the yard told her the guards had not heard the shots, so they did not know two of their own were already dead. She turned her rifle on the middle tower on the other side of the yard, leveled her crosshairs on the sniper's chest, took her deep breath, paused, and as she began to exhale, slowly squeezed the trigger. When her lungs emptied, the rifle gave another crack. Garrus' rifle echoed barely a split second later.
"My second target is down," Garrus said.
Before Shepard could say anything there was another crack, loudest yet, Legion took the first shot.
"They saw that one. Watch out for the last sniper, Legion," Garrus murmured.
"Acknowledged."
Shepard slid off the roof of the shuttle and to her feet. She was not surprised to see that Legion was on their feet. Then they slipped a fresh thermal clip into the receiver of that monstrous rifle and peered through the scope. "Target acquired." A split second later they squeezed the trigger. The gun's recoil still made the geth's two hundred kilogram frame jerk, and the rifle's crack was loud enough to cut through her fully closed suit.
The geth looked away from their scope and turned to her, "Targets eliminated, Shepard-Commander."
"Good." Shepard turned and stepped back aboard the shuttle, "Phase two!"
Almost as soon as she said it, the Kodiak gave a shudder as its thrusters pulsed. Shepard was already in her seat when Garrus and Legion stepped aboard and the hatch closed. The seals were yet to latch when the craft took off and turned on the spot to face the compound.
"Alright, fire team, rifles at a ready."
All around her assault rifles were drawn and cocked. Nihlus would have to stay with the shuttle to set it down safely, and she did not count herself as more than just a supporting marksman. It would have to be all Kaidan, Ashley, Richard, Garrus, and Legion.
The kilometer of distance was nothing for a Kodiak. They were over the base in what felt like seconds. Nihlus angled the Kodiak to land with the perimeter fence on one side and the yard on the other, so they could use the fence-facing side as an exit while the shuttle's kinetic barriers and armor soaked up any fire the guards tossed their way.
The yard guards predictably streamed toward the shuttle's landing like ants. Shepard triggered the door release before the craft even fully touched down. The thrusters kicked up a vast cloud of dust, but she waited for the craft to touch down before she stepped off and drew her guns. Garrus followed with the marines and Legion brought up the rear.
"Bravo, round the back. Garrus, Legion, you're with me." She ordered as she moved to the front of the shuttle, her fingers slid over the ammo select switches as she shifted the twins to disruptor mode. As she peeked around the Kodiak's nose the closest trooper instantly opened fire. The spray of bullets hit the Kodiak's shield envelope, but Shepard ducked back around all the same. A second assault rifle replied in kind from the other side of the craft. Shepard peeked around just in time to see the offending guard backing away while firing toward the rear of the Kodiak. Shepard whirled around fully, leveled her gun, and fired. His shields gave way and the bullets cut through his armor and into flesh, he collapsed.
A second trooper whirled at her, and Shepard fired on him, which caused him to break tempo as his shields flared, and then Legion was at her side. The guard saw the geth and made a half step back. Legion's assault rifle came to life, so rapid Shepard could not discern one bullet from the next. The trooper's shields failed and he performed a macabre dance as the bullets pierced armor and entered flesh. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Other rifles began to beat their tempos all around. Shepard could only track her marines by their individual firing styles. Kaidan had a very controlled way of shooting; uniform bursts, each about the same number of bullets, just enough to cut down shields and bite into flesh. Ashley preferred to lay into the trigger with longer, more aggressive bursts that suppressed as well as cut down her enemies. Richard varied from burst to burst; sometimes a short staccato, something spraying, as if he was still working up the feel for Kaidan's muscle memory ease while trying to hit as hard as Ashley.
Shepard did not wait for more troopers and bolted for the closest prefab on her right to use as cover. As she pressed her back to the construct she saw another guard, driven back by the marines, appear on her right. She turned her guns and fired in turn, his shields flared, collapsed, and he followed, oblivious that he had been backing up practically to her.
Suddenly there was movement out of the corner of her eye, another guard on her left; she turned Sin and pulled the trigger, before she could turn Dex on him, there was a crack, the guard's faceplate shattered, and he dropped to the ground like a ragdoll.
"I have your back, Commander," Garrus said calmly.
Shepard glanced back; he was still at the shuttle, rifle drawn. The guard had been so focused on her that he failed to look past her.
Ashley's assault rifle gave another long burst before Shepard could say a word. She expected a retort, but suddenly there was only silence, the rasp of her breathing apparatus, and the slight whisper of air moving across her seals. "Status report," she ordered via the comm.
"I think that was the last of the guards, skipper." Ashley said as she and Kaidan appeared from the other side of the shuttle.
"We detect no hostile units in immediate proximity," Legion affirmed.
"We call that as 'all clear'," Jenkins said as stopped next to the geth.
"Acknowledged."
Shepard smiled, was it just her or did Jenkins take it upon himself to teach Legion? First he told the geth to ask for permissions, now he was explaining Alliance code. She shook her head and moved to regroup with the team.
It was then that Nihlus finally joined them with his assault rifle in his hands. Shepard raised one hand to her communicator as she led the group past the prefabs toward the entrance to the underground main facilities, "Shepard to Normandy."
"Reading you loud and clear, Commander." Joker replied.
"How are the sensors?" Shepard asked.
"All quiet on the orbital front. EDI's hack is working. They can't look up a search engine, let alone send out a distress signal."
"Good. EDI we have the surface secured. Begin phase three."
"Right away, Commander," the AI replied.
"Good, Shepard out." She tapped the comm line shut and dropped her hand to Sin and glanced over her shoulders at the others.
It would take even EDI a few moments to get into the security camera feeds. The comm hack prevented the compound from contacting anyone outside, but in all likelihood the men inside knew that they were under siege, they would be mustering some sort of defense. Shepard wanted to know how many more armed men they were looking at, and whether they ought to mind where they fired or stepped, who knows how much more desperate these Cerberus goons could get.
They were inside within five minutes. The airlock's security was no match for a military-grade decryption program and a very determined black ops agent. The main airlock led into a small antechamber, which looked a lot like a hospital out of some horror vid. Plain white walls and semi-glossy flooring that reflected the lowered ceiling lights. There were rows of large EVA lockers along the back wall. Shepard counted ten, but all of them stood open. The armed guards would have their hard suits on; these EVA suits were there for the non-combatant lab workers. An absence of suits was worrying.
She moved toward the door leading deeper in.
"Smile, you're on camera," Joker said over the comm.
Shepard glared at her side, where a small black box hung from the corner, the camera in question. She knew Joker would not see it, not with her helmet, but she wished he would. "Alright let's do this." She said as she brought up her decryption program.
"That locked door leads to a corridor; at the end of that is the main lab. I'm seeing ten goons; they're kind of all over the place."
"Any lab workers?" The lock turned green and Shepard slapped a palm on it. The door parted open with a loud hiss, and Shepard was through as soon as it was wide enough for her.
For a long moment there was silence. Shepard imagined Joker was checking all the cameras. "No one that I can see."
Her decryption program locked on to the next door as soon as she was within range. Shepard hummed. "Alright, we take these guards first, and then worry about where the lab-rats might be hiding." She flicked a few keys, and the panel turned green, then Shepard powered down her omni-tool and reached for her guns.
"Team Bravo, work from the right side of the room. Garrus, Nihlus, Legion, left side."
"Aye, Aye, ma'am." Kaidan replied.
"Right behind you, Shepard." Nihlus replied. She heard him cock his gun.
"Sorry, not this time, Nihlus." She slapped her hand on the door panel, causing the door to begin opening. "Going Geist!" The cloak settled and Shepard moved through the panels, down the center of the room.
"Door!" Someone shouted.
"They're here!" another echoed.
Shepard heard footsteps scatter about the room and then weapons began to bark. The guards did the predictable thing, they split to take the flankers, but she saw two that stayed in the center of the room, hiding behind some cabinets, ready to ambush anyone who came up the middle of the room. Clever, but Shepard had seen them, but they did not see her. There would be no surprising her, but she could get the drop on them.
The shooting around her was back and forth, intense and unremitting. On her right she could hear Ashley's aggressive bursts and Kaidan's controlled volleys drive the guards back, their returns were moving deeper into the room, backing up. From time to time a thud indicated the marines scored a kill. On her left, Garrus' rifle led, with Nihlus' providing a precise and controlled accompaniment. The guards fired back, but they seemed disorganized. There was a curious absence of Legion's rapid-fire rifle, but she heard bodies hit the floor; the strength of the familiar pitches was all the surety she needed.
"Shit, a geth!" Someone shouted.
An instant later there was Legion's rapport and a thud indicating that a body had hit the ground.
Shepard smiled; she would let the others handle these bastards. She had another target in mind. The two men in front of her were staying out of the fight. As she drew ever closer, she noticed that both huddled behind their cabinets, neither looked eager to stick their heads out of cover. Then, one turned to the other, "Boss said to expect Alliance… but there are birds and a geth. Who the hell are these guys?"
"Weren't you listening?" The other replied. "Boss said to expect Shepard. She keeps a proverbial menagerie: two birds, a suit-rat, and a krogan! Guess that includes one of those murderous tin cans."
Shepard was not amused. Racist epithets aside, these imbeciles did not even realize what they were leaking. They were briefed on who was coming, and the intelligence was actually good. This indicated there was a leak somewhere that she needed to find and plug. "And, pray tell, what else did boss tell you?" She hissed.
They jumped, but Shepard pressed the muzzles of her guns to their helmets, and both froze in place instantly. She was still cloaked; standing between them, shooting at her would mean they would have to turn their rifles at each other.
She saw the one on her left inch his rifle slightly up and pressed the muzzle of Sin harder into his helmet, "Uh-uh. I'll shoot sooner than you can bring it up. Now here's a deal. You answer a few questions... and you walk out of here." She was willing to let these two run if she could get something out of them.
"Boss would kill us if we walked," the one on the right murmured.
"Shut up!" The other hissed.
"So your boss is not here. Very good. That's one question off the list." Shepard murmured. They would not be afraid of someone who was likely to die soon given a chance to be the ones to walk out. Knowing their superior was not present also indicated another location. That was frustrating, but good to know. She wanted to excise this cancer thoroughly.
The gunfire around them begun to fade, Shepard shifted her weight. "Moving on. Are there scientists here?" She asked.
They remained mute.
Shepard prodded them again, "Are there scientists here?" she asked again, slower this time.
The two exchanged looks through her. The cloak was really a beauty that way. The optical camouflage essentially made her transparent. They knew she was there but they could still look through her.
The guns around her went silent.
"Commander, our side is all clear," Kaidan announced.
"This side is all clear too," Garrus echoed.
Shepard heard a set of heavy, slow footsteps materialize somewhere behind her, followed with a familiar synthetic chatter noise, "Shepard-Commander is with two surviving security personnel in the center of this space. She is currently unable to reply."
Suddenly there were two sets of loud footsteps, Nihlus and Garrus appeared from amidst the work cubicles at the rear of the room. Both stopped in the middle, right in front of her, though she knew they would not see more than just a faint ripple.
"Legion, were you there the whole time?" Nihlus asked.
"Affirmative, Spectre-Kryik."
Shepard prodded the two guards in the head again, to remind them that she still had guns aimed point blank at their heads and no answers. She was going to have to discuss teamwork with Legion later. The geth probably took it upon itself to follow her, simply because it could. She ordered it to support Nihlus and Garrus for a reason. Right now it was also distracting these two. "We're not done here, boys." She said. "Are there scientists here?"
"Fine, fine… yea, we were assigned to guard some lab rats. Most are gone… but there's one tech left, hiding in the panic room. You can find it on your own. We want out!"
From they way the guard said the words, Shepard knew he was probably lying about the lab rat, but there was something they called a panic room. Shepard lowered her guns, "Alright. Leave your guns and go."
"Really?" The man on the right wondered.
"A deal's a deal." Shepard replied.
The two exchanged glances, then dropped their weapons to the floor, got up, and ran for the front door like the cowards that they were. Shepard holstered her guns and flicked open her omni-tool to disconnect her cloak.
"You really let them go?" Nihlus asked.
"I want them to go for the small craft out there." Shepard replied as she put a hand to her comm. "Shepard to the Normandy, come in."
"We're here, Commander." Joker replied instantly.
"Monitor and track the parked Cerberus craft, it'll be taking off rather soon. I want an extrapolation of its course."
"Yea, I'll let EDI do that." Joker replied.
"It will be done, Commander." EDI replied.
"Good, Shepard out." She turned back to Nihlus and grinned, "Everything's under control." She said she would let them go, she did not say she would let them go free. "I got a lot out of them, and with luck I'll get some more. First, they knew we were coming." Now was neither the time nor place to discuss the potential Alliance leak.
Nihlus hummed thoughtfully, "So they were briefed."
She shifted tracks back onto the matter at hand. "Their boss is also not here, so there's probably another location, so that's why I want EDI tracking runners while we find the panic room." The only way that could have been more one-sided, is if she had allowed herself to be tied to a chair to provide them with a false sense of security. This was her game, and a pair of idiots with very loose tongues was a very fortunate roll of the dice. "We have to find the panic room."
"See, Jenkins? That's the reason they teach us to only give name, rank, and service number." Ashley stated.
Shepard moved toward the back of the room and brought up her omni-tool scanner. First thing first, she would start at the back wall with a simple temperature scan. The planet was warm, but the buried base would have a cave effect. Outside walls that went into the planet's soil would be a little cooler than a hidden door that had a climate-controlled room behind it. If that did not work, she could inspect the floor for marks. Panic rooms usually had supplies in them; moving stuff in and out might result in scuffed flooring below the door. If the simplest observations yielded nothing, she had electronic means to fall back on.
Once she was clear of the rows of work stations, Shepard stopped and looked around. Standing there with no danger to her, she could shift attention to assessing her environment in detail. The work stations were clean, the terminals scattered about were inactive. She tapped at the side of her helmet to disengage her space seals and pulled her helmet off. It was then, taking the first deep breath of local air that her nose was assaulted by the overwhelming smell of cleaning chemicals.
"Is something wrong?" Garrus asked.
"No. I am merely observing," Shepard replied as she slipped her helmet back on, though without doing up her seals. "This place was cleaned recently; I can still smell the cleaning chemicals. Add the empty EVA suit lockers…" she trailed off. "The memo said they were moving sensitive research here… but something just does not add up."
Garrus hummed.
Shepard shook her head and turned to her omni-tool scanner. She did not want to voice the possibilities yet. There was nothing to substantiate her suspicions, but she was paranoid enough to make a few leaps of logic here. If Cerberus had yet another location, the fact that this one was scrubbed made sense. Those behind this whole thing had already created a tangled mess. The only lead she had to this location being a single memo, a suspiciously easy to find memo.
Her omni-tool scanner pinged, bringing Shepard out of her thoughts. One glance at the read-out showed that the wall at the left corner of the room registered a degree warmer than the rest. She turned off the scanner and inspected the wall. It was not hard to find the oddity; one of the panels was slightly recessed relative to the others, creating a seam and a lip. "Here," she said as she raised her hand. Her fingers encountered resistance and the panel shimmered in that periwinkle way indicative of a mass effect field even as her fingers went right through to the unmistakably smooth door concealed by a semi-tactile holographic projection.
Shepard withdrew her hand and brought up her omni-tool. A quick series of taps and she had the offensive components of her hacking tool up. As the system powered up, she put her hand to the hologram. When the overload pulse fired, the hologram flickered, warped, and dissolved, revealing the door itself. With its disguise gone, the red lock panel lit up like a prize.
Then, even before she could begin decrypting the locks, Garrus was at her side unbidden, his own omni-tool up, already working through the ciphers. Shepard let him and looked back at the others. She saw no obvious signs of injuries on any of them, which was a big source of relief.
The lock turned green in a few moments and the door opened. She stepped over the threshold and looked around. It was a relatively small room, maybe only a hundred meters square. Most of the space was taken up by computer hardware and servers. Most of the tech was already offline, no status light to be seen. At the far end was a work desk with a terminal on it. There were no scientists, alive or otherwise. The two guards had indeed lied to her face. Shepard would have been irritated, were it not for the fact that she knew it was coming.
She moved toward the terminal and tapped at it. The computer came online, immediately displaying an authorization interface, a log-in screen.
"Even this space isn't right," Garrus said.
"Definitely." Shepard replied as she brought up her omni-tool to run decryption on the console. "This lab is not where three other facilities were evacuated. It is scrubbed, but guarded, curious."
Her radio cracked at that moment, "Normandy to away team, come in."
Shepard reached up to tap at her helmet, "Shepard here, what's going on, Joker?"
"Just calling to say the Cerberus craft just took off," Joker announced, "EDI is tracking it."
"Thanks for the heads-up, Joker," Shepard replied, "Shepard out." She tapped at her comm again.
"They had guards on evacuated labs as well," Kaidan noted after a moment.
"These guards knew we were coming. Did they know the lab was abandoned?" Ashley wondered.
Shepard stopped, turned, and looked back her marines.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Kaidan wondered.
"I hope I'm wrong, because that's just wrong."
"Yea. Wait. What's wrong?" Jenkins asked.
"Cerberus discarded these guards. We finished clean-up for them." Nihlus said as casually as if he was talking about the weather.
"Wow. Monsters." Jenkins said.
"Yes, they are." Shepard said as she turned back to the console and prodded at her omni-tool.
"Whoever was in-charge here deserves a bullet between the eyes." Ashley went on.
Shepard hummed, she agreed with Ashley wholly. If the supposition was right, then they had just shot a bunch of sacrificial lambs, and though they may not be innocents entirely, it still put a sour taste in her mouth, it was as if Cerberus was trying to prove they were the worst monsters to have ever existed.
The console in front of her blinked past the authorization screen, the hack finished running. She let her omni-tool turn off and sat in the chair in front of the terminal. A few taps brought up statistics, which showed that the petabyte drives installed in these terminals were almost entirely empty. "The system was cleaned," Shepard said even as she ran a quick index search, to check for anything that might have been left behind. The search finished rapidly, and brought up only one file, a video, in a folder labeled Project Cadmus. Shepard knew that name from the memo on Binthu. If there was ever bait, this was clearly it. She opened the file and pressed play.
As the video rolled, Shepard instantly recognized that it was recorded in that very room. A man with short dark hair and dark eyes behind rectangular nearly frameless glasses sat in the same chair. He wore a black suit and an old-fashioned white lab coat. When he smiled, it did not reach his eyes; his gaze still held a disconcerting emotionless quality. Shepard could not help but think that if the eyes were the windows into the soul, his led onto an empty room. There was also the fact that she knew this man.
Nihlus was suddenly there, one hand on the table, leaning down to get a better look at the screen. "Banes?" he asked.
"So it would seem." Shepard replied. There was just no way to refute it. The man recording was the spitting image of Armistan Banes from the photo she saw in his employment record.
"I think that's long enough for the shock to wear off." He spoke very evenly, enunciating every syllable with a vague French accent. "Hello, Commander Shepard. Allow me to introduce myself; I am Armistan Banes."
"Wasn't this guy's body on some slab?" Ashley asked.
"Clearly not." Kaidan replied.
Banes went on, "I am sure you have many questions, and I shall answer a few. Consider it a prize for your hard work. First, I know you must be asking yourself, how? After all, the Alliance has my body! Well, be sure, I am Armistan Banes. Fooling a DNA test is a simple matter, doing so was a proof of concept, but that's all I can say now. I am sure you understand." The chair squeaked loudly in the video, moving back. A hint of a knee showed that Banes had crossed his legs, the lenses of his glasses flashed with glare from the overhead light.
"The body had to be a clone," Nihlus said.
Shepard nodded. Had Banes been planning to fake his death for a while? Having a clone handy sounded like it. Still, what exactly was a clone a proof of concept of? Cloning was hardly a new technology. Limbs and organs could be grown in hospital labs to replace what was lost to injury and disease. First Rachni and maws, now cloning, Shepard could not see a pattern. What were they trying to achieve?
"Second," Banes went on, but paused and hummed. "Ah yes. You must be curious how I knew my labs were compromised. Kahoku contacting the Shadow Broker to find me was inconvenient, but it just goes to show that desperation can make someone do the unlikeliest things. Still, I thank Kahoku for showing me the security flaws yet to be covered."
"Another maniac in a lab coat," Garrus said.
"And he's gloating." Ashley added.
Shepard hummed, but did not say anything. How did Banes get that info? Did he torture it out of Kahoku, or did he have a mole in the Shadow Broker's network? The former was deplorable. Just that warranted her putting a bullet through Banes' skull. However the latter was leverage, and an opportunity. Shepard did not want to deal with the Shadow Broker, she did not want to owe them any favor, but if the Shadow Broker's network could track down Cerberus, having information on a mole on the inside altered the math. The Shadow Broker would want to know, and Cerberus would be their mutual enemy, giving her information on said enemy would be quid pro quo.
"Shall we come to the heart of the matter, now? Intelligent as you are, you must realize that I surrendered Binthu and Nepheron. The fact that the Shadow Broker knew about these locations is reason enough. I do thank you for assisting me with… ah, tying up some loose ends."
Her hands curled into fists on the table. Banes was rubbing her face in the fact that she officially lost the battle. There was another Cerberus location, more men, and more experiments. Binthu and Nepheron had been burned by Admiral Kahoku's desperation and rash actions, and all that did was get the admiral killed. To make matters worse, now she ended up being a patsy. Banes' smile in that moment was a final kick to the gut. He orchestrated a tune and she unknowingly danced to it. He knew she would dance too, so he left this sort of message. Shepard closed her eyes and forced herself to take a deep slow breath, exploding now would not help anyone.
"It is inconvenient that our existence was exposed in this manner. But I suppose it was merely a matter of time until the Alliance found someone with enough intellect to figure it out, and not enough to leave it alone. I realize you will attempt to stop me; I look forward to the entertainment. Goodbye, Commander. I sincerely wish you the best, and by that, I hope our paths never cross." Banes uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. A tap of a key stopped the camera recording, ending the video.
"Miserable arrogant asshole," Ashley fumed.
"Easy, Gunny, he's going to get just deserts in time," Shepard said. "He may think that he won, but that video not only tells me exactly what sort of person we are dealing with, but a few other pieces in the midst."
"Egomaniacs like Banes want to crow their greatness from every rooftop, and that is their downfall," Kaidan said.
"Exactly." Shepard replied as she produced an OSD from her webbing. This time she had come to a lab prepared to copy everything. The system may seem to be wiped, but she was not going to fall for it, not with EDI in her corner. She would save a complete image, and let EDI work her magic on it. Maybe the AI could recover some of the data, maybe not. "Alright people, I want a sweep of this place. Let's see if we can find some bread-crumbs they did not realize they left."
She heard the footsteps scatter out of the room as she slipped the OSD into the drive and began on her task. A light flickering on the wall in front of her told her that Legion had not moved. The quietest member of the group, the geth seemed to observe things without taking part. Some part of her actually wondered what someone so detached from emotions and emotional valuations would make of this whole situation.
"Shepard-Commander, we do not understand the motivations of Cerberus," the geth said after a good long moment.
Shepard set the mirror image to write onto the OSD and turned to face the geth, "I'm afraid I do not understand them either, Legion. What were they doing here? What do they hope get out of it. We are still missing key information."
Legion inclined its head down as the flaps on the top shifted. Its light narrowed before it turned back to her. "Organics treat their own in ways deemed unethical and undesirable, yet they perceive benefits from such actions and expect to be rewarded. It has been said that the ends justify the means."
"Ah." Shepard realized she misunderstood exactly what Legion did not understand. "Well, those individuals still see logic in their actions, they think they know better. The lens through which they view the world is different, and so we do not agree on what is right or wrong." She did not want to go into the argument over what constituted right or wrong, as those were fundamentally relative terms, veering into the realm of philosophy, which gave her headaches.
"You would consider them to have an inherent error which returns one plus one as other than two."
Shepard noted the chill with which it said the words, like it was stating a fact. Cold as it was, as a thought model it worked. "You could say that. In fact, I think I like the simplicity of that." She only wished it was actually that simple. One and one made two, but valuations of right and wrong were a lot more subjective. The core of Legion's point was right though; Cerberus did have something fundamentally wrong with the way they were thinking.
The geth tipped its head to the side a little, the lamp never wavering off her fact. "We observed that organics initially view all new perspectives with suspicion, yet with time these perspectives are either accepted by the majority or are finally discredited and become relegated to the realm of apocrypha. We do not understand what mechanism determines acceptance or rejection. The Geth build consensus through faster-than-light information exchange. We review all perspectives until the most efficient course of action becomes apparent. Organics do not build consensus. There is chaos in your process."
"That's…" Shepard stopped cold. That observation was surprisingly on-the-nose. How was she to explain this? "We… make decisions based on what works best for the immediate situation for the people involved. Sometimes we make mistakes, and only understand that during a later re-evaluation. What is accepted or rejected is very fluid, but there are trends. Also, I would not generalize, not all organics think alike. Species vary, individuals vary too. Though I suppose that's the chaos… No. I don't think I can explain it. I'm not a sociologist or a philosopher."
"Acknowledged."
More coolness, there was no way to know how the geth took her explanation. Shepard turned back to the terminal before the topic could go even further into the realm where she would be up a creek without a paddle. Still, there was no way for her to ignore what had just happened. She actually had this sort of conversation with Legion. Most wanted to say the geth had no sense of self, and yet here was at least one geth wrestling with fundamental questions. If that was not proof of some self-actualization, she did not know what would be. For good or bad it looked like the geth wanted to understand organics. The galaxy misunderstood them.
"Thank you, Shepard-Commander, for attempting to provide us with an explanation." Legion went on. "Perspective can be an answer as well."
Shepard looked back over her shoulder, was it just her, or did Legion just hint that they had their own take-away on the discussion? "You're welcome, Legion."
They were back on the Normandy two hours later, but whereas her away team could kick back and put up their feet, Shepard was no less busy once she was out of armor. She stopped only briefly for a sandwich and tea, as to quiet her distracting growling stomach, and then she was in the OD working on her preliminary report.
There were things about the whole situation that bothered her. Beginning with the fact that she had been made a patsy for Banes, failed to do anything, and now she was staring into the abyss of realization, Cerberus was in fact a real thing, and they would probably become a real problem. How did one put that into a report?
An hour later she was halfway through when the door opened. Shepard did not even look up, she could hear familiar footsteps.
"Shepard," Nihlus greeted as he stopped right next to the desk.
"Commander," Garrus echoed.
"Nihlus. Garrus." She replied as she looked up. Nihlus had that stern, somewhat frigid look in his eyes that told her he was not in the OD just for the quiet company, he wanted something. Garrus stood a step behind him, and as she looked his way, he shifted his weight from foot to foot. They really were rotten at putting up a poker face. "Something I can do for you?" she asked as a way to break the silence.
"We need to talk." Nihlus said.
Shepard nodded, she knew that was coming, but she was not looking forward to it. Between Binthu and Nepheron the situation had slated out contained and straight into devolving, it would require reassessment.
Nihlus moved across the room to the couch as if he owned the OD. Shepard contained the urge to roll her eyes but got up from her seat and followed. As the turians found their seats, Shepard moved to the sideboard, suddenly not keen on sitting between them for this conversation.
"You never mentioned what else those two you let off said, but you said they gave you something?" Nihlus begun.
"Yea, I already said they knew that the Normandy was coming. They actually knew about me by name, and about the composition of the crew. I'll spare you the exact terms they used to describe you two or Tali, but they knew about you, Tali, and Wrex. Now it is possible that they knew about Wrex from Binthu, some camera or something, but not about Tali. Their info is recent, though not hot off the press. I say that because Legion caught them by surprise."
Nihlus hummed, "A leak in the Alliance."
"More likely a mole." Shepard wanted to think it was a sleeper agent or mole. She wanted to think that no one in the Alliance had become so disillusioned as to flip. "And it's somewhere in Admiral Hackett's vicinity."
"Not the admiral himself?"
"No, can't be. Admiral Hackett has been a family friend for decades. Though admittedly my mother knows him better than I do-" Shepard stopped suddenly. There was very little she could say down this line, but she considered her mother, Admiral Hackett, and Captain Anderson above reproach and suspicion.
Shepard could not see them ever betraying the Alliance, there was too much integrity and loyalty, but more than that, she knew where they stood. Admiral Hackett and Captain Anderson fought in the First Contact War, but Shepard knew they understood what caused the conflict and held no real grudges. Both of them had been in the thick of it on the ground at Shanxi. Admiral Hackett had earned his commission there, and Captain Anderson earned medals and admittance into the ICT. Neither held views that reduced non-humans to "the other", something all fanatics did. Furthermore, Shepard thought that there was just no way for them to be crooked without her mother noticing something. None of those reasons were purely logical, but they were reasons nonetheless.
"You are going to have to give me something better than that."
She whirled sharply and leveled her gaze on the Spectre.
His mandibles drew against his face, but the look in his eyes was severe. "Your admiral has ready access to the reports you file. The Normandy is top secret, how many more people would have access?"
Shepard outright glared now, she was not going to back down. "I know the admiral, Nihlus. He would not do this."
"He knew about Kahoku, it would explain everything!" Nihlus argued.
"The Shadow Broker's agent knew about Kahoku too! It is likelier that Banes has a source in the broker's network, he hinted at it, you heard it!" Shepard retorted. "I'm sorry, Nihlus, but if you want me to consider Admiral Hackett to be a suspect, I need something a little more than just means and opportunity. The admiral has no motive. We establish guilt through looking for the means, motive, and opportunity. Even acts of passion have all three!" That was as far as she was willing to concede.
"The Commander is right on that. If she says Hackett lacks motive then we have to look at other possible suspects." Garrus voiced quietly.
Shepard nodded a silent thanks to Garrus.
"Alright, fair enough," Nihlus said, but Shepard heard the tone of resignation in his voice. Maybe he even realized that he had to take whatever he could get.
"I'll tell you what I think." Shepard began as she half-perched on the side-board next to the kettle. "There are ways for unauthorized individuals to access my reports to Admiral Hackett. I think Cerberus is more than just a small group of scientists with a very loose definition of what is ethical. If we take all the events where their name cropped up, we begin to see a pattern. They are closer to -as trite as this will sound- a shadow society. Our leak is probably no more than a sympathizer passing bits of information along. They may not even know the value of what they are leaking." In many ways that was how intelligence organizations worked. Bits of information ferreted from multiple sources put together into something different. 'Loose lips might sink ships', the old twentieth century war-time slogan applied here.
Nihlus hummed a quiet assent.
"Taking them down will not be easy, but it starts with recognizing they are there." Shepard finished.
"What was it that Banes said?" Garrus spoke up, amused, as his blue eyes fell on her.
Shepard smiled and nodded. "He said, in so many words… 'It is inconvenient that our existence was exposed in this manner.' Then he said my intellect was adequate to figure things out, but not adequate enough to leave it alone." Shepard said. "Banes is an egomaniac who is too busy gloating to realize he ought to keep his mouth shut." Loose lips, did indeed sink ships. Shepard now knew the Cerberus ship was out there somewhere. "They may have won the battle, but they haven't won the war."
"Speaking of the battle, do you think those two you let go will lead us to Banes?" Nihlus asked.
Shepard hummed, "At this point, I don't know. Their ship has a rather limited FTL drive; it will be on fumes by the time it reaches the relay. Where they go past that is anyone's guess. Ultimately, Banes did not tell those guards that the labs were burned. Would he tell them where he moved his operation? He left them there because he thought they were a security risk. The wise would not arm them with information with which to bargain. Then again, Banes is a curious case of intelligence and stupidity all in one. I can't make heads of tails of what he might think of and what will slip his attention."
"We also cannot be certain those two will run back to Banes even if they knew where. They would have to understand they were left to die." Garrus argued.
"They also seemed to fear Banes. So if they knew the location, they might not go because they wouldn't want to look like they ran. Then, maybe they'd think it wouldn't matter… I just don't know. We will have to wait and see." Thinking of them brought back the sour feeling. On the one hand, yes they provided muscle for Cerberus, and the two she had let go were racists and lied to her face, so she could not call them wholly innocent. On the other hand, they were pawns, sacrificial lambs, tossed to the lions. Lioness or not, she could not help but pity them.
Shepard could not help but be conflicted, should she feel guilty? Some part of her said yes. Life was never something to take lightly. Another part said she was following orders, no one with any authority over her would deem her actions wrong. These men were not like the batarian merchant all over again. The feeling just needed time to settle, she needed to stop thinking about it, as there was no clarity while exhausted.
The couch leather squeaked, which brought Shepard out of her thoughts, she looked up to see Nihlus on his feet again. "Alright, Shepard, you made your case. I will not consider Hackett a primary suspect, but that means we have no primary suspect."
"I know. I need to discuss this with Admiral Hackett himself. He would know who had access to the reports, who might have leaked, we can work from there. But for that I need to finish my report. I'll tell you when I have something." If she had something, Shepard was not holding her breath. The leaker would not have a proverbial neon sign overhead.
"You know I was just being thorough, right?" He asked. "I had to know whether you saw all possibilities."
"I know. That's why I didn't take your head off for raising that one. There are certainly some circumstantial indicators; I just think that it is supremely unlikely." If he was going to be blunt, she could be blunt too.
"Good. I will leave you to your work; I need to run maintenance on my weapons." He turned toward the OD's door.
Shepard watched him go until the door closed behind him, and then the turned to the former detective still in the room. A silence settled between them that lasted for a good half minute.
Garrus cleared his throat, "Commander, are you alright?" he asked.
Shepard sighed, "Truthfully? I'm tired," she replied. It was then, having articulated it, that she realized just how true it was. Still, it was not the full real reason she was tired. "There's too much to do, and to little time to do it in."
"Kryik is not helping with his… thoroughness." Garrus added.
"That? No." Cerberus took the wind out of her sails. Banes had rubbed her face in failure. She could ignore the egomaniac, but that did not change the fact that he pulled a fast one over her. "But he skates that narrow line of doing his job. I certainly can't blame him for raising that topic."
"Kryik has to learn to mind his timing. Suggesting your commanding officer is working against you now?" he stopped and shook his head.
"He is technically my superior too." Shepard argued.
"This makes it worse. I know it is not my place to tell you this, Commander, so pardon this minor act of insubordination, but… you should rest. We will be in FTL, so whether the report is done tonight or tomorrow... everyone is worried for you. After that close call with the grenade on Binthu, after this…"
"Everyone, huh?" Shepard murmured as she turned her eyes to the window, watching the blue-shift emissions streak across the panes like the aurora. When her ordnance officer cleared his throat, Shepard spared him an undisguised knowing grin, "Well thank you, Garrus. I appreciate your concern."
The turian actively avoided her eyes, and Shepard could practically see the gears in his head turn. She mentally began to count down from five.
Garrus got to his feet and cleared his throat, "You are welcome, now… ah- I believe I took up enough of your time, I have… calibrations to get back to."
She had only reached two, so he was a little ahead of schedule, still Shepard smiled. "By all means and… have a good night." That was an orderly retreat if there ever was one.
Garrus nodded and turned to the door.
Soon enough Shepard was left in the OD alone with her thoughts. One of them being that her ordnance officer really did wear his personal concerns for her wellbeing on his sleeve, and he was unspeakably awkward about it as he tried to navigate voicing his concern while not breaching protocol. It was rather touching, and kind of sweet. She pushed off the side-board and moved back toward her desk.
Author Notes: There you have it, the second and final part of the Twelfth Labor arc. More questions all around, but also some answers. Yep, Armistan Banes is not as dead as he led people to believe. When I was developing this idea for my canon, I needed a leader for the project, and I decided that Banes made a convenient figure.
General Notes:
Episode Title – This is an allusion to the twelfth and final labor of Heracles, fetching Cerberus from the Underworld. Heracles performed these for King Eurystheus of Tiryns and Mycenae in penance, as ordered by Apollo, for killing his wife and children in a fit of Hera-induced madness.
Cadmus – In Greek myth Cadmus was a prince from Phoenicia, who came to Greece seeking his sister Europa who has been abducted by Zeus. In the most famous myths surrounding Cadmus he was told by the Delphic oracle to seek a cow with a half moon mark on its flank, and it would lead him to a place where Cadmus should found a city. The city was Thebes, a foe of the democratic Athens. Cadmus was later instructed by Athena to sow a monster's (or a dragon's) teeth into the ground. From these came up the Spartoi ("sown"), these were new men from whom the noblest families of Thebes claimed to descend.
Chapter Notes:
None this time…