Disclaimer: I do no own Mass Effect, I do not claim to own Mass Effect, I am only doing this for fun.
Author Notes: Things are about to get a little heavy with this new arc… and I'm mostly back on schedule. Enjoy!
Episode 38: Armageddon [Part I]
The Normandy docked with the Citadel at what had become their usual spot on Zakera Ward. Wrex did not wait for docking, he had squirreled away two bottles of ryncol in the Normandy's mini-bar, and Shepard made do with a bit of whiskey. The act of sharing a drink was ritual; neither of them intended to get drunk. It was an unspoken agreement that they were both too busy to party. There was also very little to celebrate. She promised Wrex a much bigger shin-dig once he was chief of Clan Urdnot.
After that they went their separate ways. Right then Wrex was probably in the shuttle bay, packing up his things. He said he did not need much of a farewell as prolonged goodbyes merely annoyed him. Shepard could certainly understand that, but she still passed the news along the grapevine. She knew Tali would want to say goodbye, they seemed to get along quite well.
Shepard returned to the OD. She had to work through the procedures to make sure this furlough on the Citadel went smoothly. Even as she worked on the schedules, some paranoid part of her wondered if coming to the Citadel was a good idea. Half her mind was on trying to remember who had first leave rotation last time, as they would accept second or third rotation this time. The other half was on the murders. The killer was clearly timing her deeds to the times the Normandy on the Citadel. Shepard could not help but dread coming back to the station, yet Wrex needed to be here, because this was a good place for getting in touch with his contacts.
She was so distracted with her conflicting thinking patterns that it took nearly an hour to finish the schedule. As she brought up commands to pass it along to EDI, the door behind her opened. The sound was the first bit of noise Shepard had heard in the whole time she had been working on the schedules. She paused and glanced back.
"Shepard, I am done packing." Wrex announced as he walked into the room.
"You got where you can stay on the Citadel?" Shepard asked.
"Sure. There are hotels down on the lower wards that take your credits and don't ask questions."
Shepard nodded. She knew how reputable such places would be, but this was Wrex. He could handle a few opportunistic criminals and other unsavory types. "Just remember Wrex," Shepard pointed out. "You will no longer have Spectre-grade immunity. So if half the Citadel burns down-"
"Don't worry. I'll make sure all of it burns down. I know you like thoroughness." Wrex rumbled, practically laughing.
Shepard grinned, but said nothing. She would definitely miss these sorts of exchanges.
"Commander?" EDI spoke up, cutting in between them.
"Yes, EDI?"
"Admiral Hackett is on the QEC. A priority one call." The AI replied.
"Emergency orders…" Shepard breathed. Priority one was only ever really used for the direst of emergencies, times when forces had to scramble at top speed. Even the mess on Solcrum had not been dire enough. She was on her feet in an instant, but then turned to look at Wrex.
"Go," Wrex said as he turned toward the CIC door. "I know how you are, nothing personal."
"Thanks Wrex," Shepard replied as the door leading to the corridor connecting the OD to the COMCON opened. His footsteps thudded out of the OD and were only cut off when the connecting door closed behind her.
"EDI, bring it up." Shepard said as soon as she was in front of the COMCON's conference table.
"Right away, Commander." EDI replied.
The holographic communicator at the center of the COMCON table lit up, buzzing and cracking. When the admiral's seated image finally stabilized, Shepard snapped to attention and saluted. "Admiral Hackett, sir."
"At ease Commander," he replied, calmly as he raised a data pad into view of the communication equipment's camera. "We have no time for formalities. Half an hour ago we received a message from Terra Nova. Scott's governing council has declared a state of emergency. An asteroid under tow, meant to enter geosynchronous orbit around Terra Nova has reignited its fusion torch propulsion and is accelerating out of control toward the planet."
"Crap… erm, pardon my language, Sir."
"You are pardoned, this situation can be summarized as such." The admiral's expression remained placid, but Shepard knew he was making light of her gut reaction. "I want the Normandy there on the double. I hope this is nothing more than a bad case of tech gremlins, and by the time you get there the torches are already out, but my gut tells me we are not so lucky. I want this handled by whatever means possible. That rock is not to hit Terra Nova. Millions of lives are at stake."
Almost five million lives, if Shepard was right. She snapped another salute, "It will be done, sir!"
"I know. Good luck, Commander. Hackett out." The admiral reached over to turn off the communication equipment on his side. Shepard waited only long enough for the holographic projector to stop buzzing before she turned around and jogged back into the OD.
"EDI, is Joker still on the bridge?" Shepard asked.
"Yes, Commander."
"And Wrex?" Shepard asked.
"In the Shuttle Bay."
"Alright, patch me through on the ship-wide comm." She felt rather bad about how suddenly she had to ask Wrex to disembark. She hoped he would understand that she had no time for pleasantries.
"The link is open." EDI stated.
"Attention all hands, we just received priority one orders from command. The Normandy is to report to the Asgard system on the double. We have a runaway space rock to wrangle." Maybe that was an understatement or oversimplification, but it was not outright a lie. With luck everything would indeed come down to just a really bad case of technology gremlins working in cahoots with good old Murphy. Still, she knew that the Admiral had been right to be worried. The engineers working on that rock could not have bungled an asteroid move this badly, even if their main controls were compromised.
Her omni-tool buzzed, and Shepard glanced down to see a quick little text message from Wrex. A simple 'I am off. Go chase down that rock and crack some heads for me, – Wrex.' She smiled. It would figure that Wrex' instinct would tell him that someone was in for it.
The OD's door opened and Nihlus stepped in with all the urgency of someone who had gotten personal emergency orders. "Shepard, what is going on?"
Shepard took a deep breath; she needed to swallow that initial reaction of hers to fret. There was procedure to these things, and she would carry it out. Had Nihlus been on the CIC? She highly doubted the elevator would have gotten him up here this quick. She looked up into his eyes, "Nihlus, I need you to clear the Normandy for immediate departure. I was just going to send out a summons for an emergency briefing of the ground team, but leaving can't wait for that to be over. Believe me when I say we have to go, and now."
"Alright. I want the details though." He replied, turned around, to left the OD.
"Naturally." She replied. Her mind was instantly full of all manner of nightmare scenarios that she had to toss aside. "EDI, summon the away team to the OD, please."
"Right away, Commander."
The console at her desk beeped, indicating that a data package from Admiral Hackett had cleared EDI's security protocols. Shepard eased into her chair and pulled a largely empty data pad toward her. On the terminal's desktop the emergency data transfer was marked with a bright red ribbon indicating priority one. She dumped the file straight onto the datapad. Then, while waiting for the team to gather, she brought it up and started reading.
A few minutes later the Normandy gave a little shudder that Shepard recognized as a shift in her engine status. Suddenly her mass effect field was not merely keeping her afloat. A moment later there were familiar clangs as the docking arms decoupled. At that moment the OD door opened and Garrus stepped in. Trailing behind him was the whole of Team Bravo, Legion, and Tali. Shepard nodded in their direction as her vague greeting. "We are waiting on Nihlus."
"Is Wrex really leaving us, Commander?" Jenkins asked.
"Yes. I hope you wished him well, Richard."
"We all wished him the best, even the chief."
Shepard nodded.
The Normandy shuddered and began to drift backward. There was a scratch over the intercom. "We're on our way to the Asgard system. The Spook is coming your way too." Joker announced.
"Thanks Joker."
The OD's door opened again, and Nihlus stepped in. Shepard nodded his way, picked up her prepared datapad, and moved to the couch. That was the fall-to order everyone else needed. The marines assumed their usual position on the couch extension while Legion slipped into their corner. Tali stood on the other side of the sideboard table from them. This left Shepard, Nihlus, and Garrus to take the main couch.
"What's going on, Skipper?" Ashley asked.
"What Williams probably wants to know is, since when do we wrangle space rocks?" Joker cut in. "Yes, we have some big damn guns, but so does every dreadnought and cruiser in the eight fleets. Couldn't they send someone else to grind the rock into powder?"
Shepard knew that question was forthcoming. Under normal circumstances rogue asteroids would be well within the purview of some passing-by cruiser.
"I think the situation is self-evident, Lieutenant. This is not just any asteroid knocked into the path of a planet. Foul play is suspected and I would surmise that the Commander is expected to handle the situation without destroying the rock," Garrus stepped in.
"That's exactly it," Shepard said as she tapped at the datapad and then reached down to turn on the table projector. A three-dimension model of a solar system appeared over the table. "This is our destination, the Asgard system of the Exodus Cluster. This chart is accurate in terms of where the planets are in their orbits at the present time. That dot is our target, asteroid X57. A couple days ago it was accelerated from the L5 point of Borr…" Shepard pointed to the second planet in the system, "on a trajectory that set it to fall into geosynchronous orbit around Terra Nova." Here she pointed to the first planet. "The initial acceleration went without incident and the fusion torches were turned off once target velocity was achieved. The rock was meant to coast along, and then fall into place, gentle like a tournament golf putt. However as of about one hour ago, the main torches have reignited. At its present velocity it is already going too fast for capture, it will make atmospheric entry instead."
"Well… shit." Joker said. "I should have known you were understating."
"With all due respect ma'am… that might have been an understatement taken too far." Ashley added.
Shepard would let them have that one. They had a leg to stand on.
"Erm… Terra Nova is an Alliance colony, right?" Tali asked, slipping in quietly.
"Yes. Current population estimates stand at around four and a half million." Shepard replied.
"What about getting everyone out of there?" Jenkins wondered.
"No go. Not enough ships and not enough time. Moving people away from the projected impact zone will not do either. X57 is over fifteen kilometers in diameter; any surface impact will trigger an endless winter that will ruin the planet's ecology. While we could bring in all the Alliance dreadnoughts to batter the rock apart, it would mean giving up on the crew in charge, as well as the rock itself."
"Whoever is doing this… is a mad-man." Kaidan said. "This sort of thing starts wars, and for once I don't see the Council saying anything. Terra Nova is a garden world and this is genocide."
Nihlus nodded, "Alenko is right. Shepard, the Council will not ask any questions if you have to resort to extreme force in order to prevent planetary impact."
"We don't need the Council's permission to handle this. Whoever is doing this… they're going to become a cautionary tale and a statistic." Ashley said.
Shepard nodded; she knew that much on her own, still, getting Nihlus' green light on those terms was a boon. As it looked, she had a carte blanche to deal with the situation as she saw fit. There would be a problem only if she failed to stop the rock. "Suffice to say… failure is not an option. That rock must be stopped. As such, I'm calling all hands on deck. I want everyone ready to put boots on the surface. I expect that I will require every single one of your unique talents on this."
"Aye, Aye, ma'am!" the marines chorused in a single voice.
"You got it, Commander." Tali said.
"Acknowledged," Legion added quietly.
Nihlus and Garrus only nodded. Shepard did not need to hear them say anything, she knew they were in her corner come what may, and on shadier things than this.
"I'm just curious, why even bother moving the rock?" Tali asked.
"Ah, that. It is full of minerals. The plan is to mine it out, which will pay for the move and the construction of Terra Nova's new spaceport in its hollow shell. This is humanity's earliest colony, established in 2152. Ten years ago they found huge platinum deposits which the colony has cashed in on. The capital, Scott, has rapidly developed into a metropolis of around three million residents. It is booming with platinum fortunes, tourism, ship construction, and movie production."
"The deserts at the equator suck, as they're only a little cooler than Intai'sei on the bad days. But the upper latitudes are pleasant like the Mediterranean and Northern Europe on Earth. Lake Nova Geneva even has this stretch of beach with white sand…" Joker added. "And before anyone asks, everyone's been there."
Shepard glanced about the room. A silence seemed to settle over the OD then. She would guess that reality was hitting people like it had hit her. This whole situation was incredibly nasty.
"I guess the last question would be… who would do something like this?" Tali mumbled.
"Who is normally doing something like this?" Ashley asked rhetorically, though her voice dripped with sarcasm. "This got batarian handiwork written all over."
As much as Shepard loathed the act of throwing accusations, she could not think of any other possibility. Sometimes what sounded like a baseless accusation was actually not entirely baseless. Shepard had to restrain herself from showing any outward sign of the fact that she was instantly incensed at the very idea that the batarians would do this. But she would be lying if she said she was surprised; this was just the sort of escalation terrorists eventually sank to, when their delusions about the viability of their causes began to crumble. The angrier they got, the worse the atrocities, and the less likely their victory, but they would not be half as stupid if they could see that. There really could not be anyone else. Who else would not give two thoughts about the inevitable? It had to be the radical incensed sociopathic rabble, also known as the terrorist. If she thought about it that way, it even made sense why Admiral Hackett chose to send her. The involvement of the White Death, the protector of innocents from batarian extremism, would poll well. The fact that she had a multi-species crew was a happy bonus. "Whoever is responsible -and to me it does not matter who they are- will pay regardless. That's that." She tried to keep neutral, but could not be bothered to keep the chill out of her tone.
"Just so everyone knows… we have four light-years to cover between the Exodus Cluster's relay at Utopia, and our destination, Asgard. At our top speed of zero-point-five-four light-years an hour, that's going to be about eight hours." Joker added.
"Eight hours? Do we even have that sort of time?" Kaidan asked.
"Fortunately, we do. The asteroid was meant to take nearly two weeks to traverse the distance between Borr and Terra Nova. At its present rate of acceleration, and even with our travel, my information says we have the time. Our hurry is more about getting there before the torches run out of fuel. If they do, there will be no altering the rock's trajectory." Shepard replied. "Start prep now, and then rest as much as possible. Boots hit the ground as soon as we're in range."
"We'll be rip-roaring to go," Ashley said.
Kaidan nodded quietly.
Shepard did not protest when most took that as a sort of dismissal. The marines were first to breeze out of the room. Ashley walked as if her whole spinal column had been braced with a ram-rod. Jenkins clasped his fists, though probably without even realizing it. Kaidan was largely himself, but Shepard felt a slight tell-tale prickle of energy in the room. Kaidan was a powerful biotic, and normally in perfect control of his abilities, but even he could not entirely shut off the tiny trickle of dark energy that inevitably manifested around powerful biotics when they displayed strong emotions. Anger just happened to be one of the strongest. Tali left after them and Legion drifted off after her. Garrus moved to the couch extension, now that there was room on it.
"Shepard, are you alright?" Nihlus asked.
"Truthfully?" Shepard replied as she glanced at him. "No. I'm not so oblivious that I would not see what will happen if we fail. That thought scares me. This isn't Elysium where I protected a hundred people… I don't know why but those numbers seemed manageable. This is Terra Nova, over four million lives, I… it's hard to wrap my head around the amount of evil here."
"It will not happen. We will stop that rock." Nihlus said as his hand settled on her shoulder, warm and comforting.
"Kryik is right. It will not happen. We will not let it happen." Garrus added.
"I will retire as a Spectre in shame if I let these terrorists win."
"I will retire to a cave in shame if I let them win." Garrus countered. "Whoever is behind this actually thinks this sort of plan will work. They probably thought no one would detect them the whole way to Terra Nova. They are clearly very stupid."
Shepard took a deep relaxing breath. They were right of course; there was no way that this sort of plan could possibly work for whoever came up with it. She should not be thinking about failure. At the end of the day there was going to be only so many enemies on that rock. The solution was simple. If she shot them all dead, there would be no one left to stop her. "Thank you," she said.
Nihlus squeezed her shoulder ever so lightly, and Shepard had an inordinate urge to reach over to the both of them and pull them into a hug. Somehow their unwavering confidence was about the ticket she needed. If Nihlus and Garrus had no doubts about their odds of success, she figured she should try to bury some of hers. After all, those sorts of doubts had a horrible habit of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"You will be alright? Commander?" Garrus wondered.
"Yes. I need to think of our strategy, but I will be alright." Shepard replied.
"Good. Well I have some gear to prepare, and I think I will go and help Tali with her drone, if she wants me to."
"Good idea. I have my own gear to prepare." Nihlus said as his hand finally slipped off her shoulder and he rose to his feet.
Garrus followed him, but paused to spare Shepard a glance. She met his gaze with a smile. Nihlus was halfway to the OD door by the time Garrus caught up to him. Soon enough Shepard was left alone with her thoughts.
Shepard was on the CIC when the Normandy arrived at the Asgard System. It was standard procedure to drop out of FTL at the outer edge of a solar system, a precaution as no one wanted to hit a rogue planetoid at superluminal velocities while flying sensor-blind. However in this instance it was entirely possible and it saved them almost an hour of travel. The difference was in that the Asgard system was one of the rarer clean systems, having formed with a shockingly scant number of leftover rocks. Then the few junk rocks that there were, ended up swept up into Borr's orbital plain, and eventually into its orbit. The gas giant's mass, six times that of Jupiter, made it act like a giant vacuum for anything and everything smaller than a planet. What more, Asgard having been colonized over thirty years prior, it was heavily surveyed and scanned. The up-to-the-moment positional chart allowed Joker to drop out of FTL outside Borr's orbit.
Borr was blood red due to the ionization of hydrogen in the upper layers of its atmosphere. The giant also had over ninety satellites of various sizes and countless helium-3 skimmers in its orbit. Shepard ordered Joker to put the gas giant behind them on approach, that way their forward-looking sensors would not be overwhelmed by radiation buzz. That was another delightful feature of the giant. For a planet, it produced an unusually large amount of EM chatter due to its very high atmospheric temperature. That combination made some scientists think Borr was actually a failed brown dwarf star. That it just missed accruing enough mass and heat to begin fusion.
It was not difficult to spot X57 on sensors, it was impossible to miss the heat-producing fusion torches on passive infrared imagery. "Three torches," Shepard said, mostly to herself, yet breaking the silence that had settled on the CIC since the moment they rounded Borr and began looking for the rock.
"We might have to disable them one at a time." Nihlus said.
"Commander," EDI spoke up. "I am picking up a transmission originating from the asteroid."
Shepard blinked, surprised. "Can you put on the loud speakers?"
"Of course, but the signal is fairly weak and distorted by emissions from the fusion torches." EDI replied. "Patching it through." A moment later there was a blast of static across the CIC's integrated overhead speakers.
Shepard momentarily cringed and closed her eyes; the static was grating. Yet there was definitely something to it, what she heard was not the natural flat buzz of cosmic background radiation.
"Please stand by, I will attempt to filter out the distortions in the signal," EDI announced. The static faded momentarily before kicking back in, though this time its volume was reduced and different. EDI had pulled out some frequencies, which changed the tones in the static. It allowed some suppressed, quieter frequencies to come through. Shepard's eyes flew open in shock when she recognized a melody buried in the buzz. "Music! They installed a radio station on the rock!"
"That's a problem," Kaidan stated.
"Indeed." Nihlus agreed.
"EDI you can turn it off." Shepard finished. At their present distance the signal was too garbled for enjoyment.
EDI obeyed the request without saying a word.
"That broadcast would have announced to passing ships that someone was on that rock. They exposed themselves long before the torches came on the first time. I would not be surprised if the batarians saw an opportunity, and they got the time to plan accordingly." Nihlus said quietly.
Shepard sighed, Nihlus was right of course. He was also playing the devil's advocate in saying what she thought. If the engineers had indeed set up their station before the move, it would have been the dead giveaway to their location. The batarians were opportunistic; their attacks on places like Elysium's mountainous resorts and Mindoir farming communities showed that they preferred soft targets where little resistance was to be expected.
Draw their attention to what was essentially a rock with thrusters, and it did not take much to see it as a weapon of mass destruction. The civilians probably thought that being this deep within Alliance space they would be safe, but unfortunately that was not always the case. It was not like they could install IFF protocols on the relays, to bar batarians from using them. This whole situation looked to be the perfect storm of disaster brought on by civilian naïveté.
"Well it does not matter now. EDI tell the ground team to get ready." Shepard said.
"Right away, Commander." EDI said.
"Joker, we will be taking the Kodiaks, they're less conspicuous. Get us close enough that EDI can do detailed scans. After that, I want the Normandy following the rock stealthily. Do not land on the surface. I don't want the Batarians thinking they can try and jack my ship." She added as she turned toward the elevator.
"Aye, aye, ma'am. Kick extra ass, for me." The pilot replied.
Shepard called the elevator and waited. She knew that if those bastards so much as saw the Normandy, shiny as it was, they would try to get on board, whether to blackmail her, or abscond with it. Shepard did not want to put her crew at risk.
It was about forty minutes before everyone was geared up and gathered in the shuttle bay for departure. Seeing everyone ready and in most cases rip-roaring to go, Shepard took a moment to weigh her options when it came to group assignments. In the end she split things up relatively evenly. Team Bravo and Tali were taking one shuttle. Nihlus, Garrus, and Legion would go with her in the other. It was a bit of a conscious decision to keep Tali and Legion separate as much as possible. At the same time, there was the issue that while Tali could work within Bravo just fine, because she was on friendly terms with them, Legion would be an untested variable.
As they were getting ready, the Normandy drew close enough to X57 for EDI to do her scans. The first thing the AI spotted was the enemy ship. It was parked on what was the apparent underside of the rock, anchored in place with a mass effect field. EDI found a match in her database, confirming the vessel to be a small cargo hauler of Batarian make. The Alliance had a list of reporting names for Batarian craft, used to identify ship types. That particular craft was dubbed a 'Dachau'. They were commonly seen taking part in slaver raids. Seeing one on X57 made Shepard just shy of livid. It was almost a confirmation to her theory. The bastards were skulking about, looking for victims of opportunity when then they spotted the rock.
She had to restrain herself from ordering Joker to shoot the ship apart with the Thanix. First, that would tell the batarians that someone had arrived, and there was also the possibility that there were innocents on that ship. Furthermore, she also did not want to make the batarians desperate. They would not fight as hard if they thought they still had a viable exit strategy. Shepard was perfectly fine letting them keep that delusion as she systematically hunted down and killed every single one of them. Ultimately though, with the Normandy trailing the rock, if they did force her hand, she could always comm and order Joker to shoot them down at take off. There was no way a Dachau could withstand the Normandy's main guns. Letting an enemy keep some hope, only to snatch it away, was sadistic. But these were Batarian slavers; so as far as she was concerned they deserved nothing less.
In another half hour they touched down on the surface of X57, and the operation was officially on. The view that greeted them was something to admire, were it not for the dire circumstances. The asteroid's rocky, irregular surface was mottled in shades of grey of various stages of radiation bleaching. There was no shortage of impact craters, hills, ridges, and even mountains. Terra Nova rose over everything like a blue-green gem, very Earth-like, until one saw the difference in the shapes of its landmasses.
X57's three major propelling fusion torches were arranged in a belt formation, with one torch on the apparent top, and two on the sides. Each released a brilliant but utterly silent plume of extremely hot plasma. The charged particles formed a faintly glowing reddish ghostly halo around the torches, giving them a rather ominous glow.
The Kodiaks landed at a location of EDI's choosing. The AI picked a small, relatively flat patch next to a relatively low hill, on the other side of which was a larger open plain, and across it, set into a ridge, was the first torch. EDI's explained that what caught her attention was the small EVA rover at the base of the hill, as well as the communication relay tower and pre-fabricated structure on top. There was a heat signature emanating from the structure, though no life signs. Shepard agreed that they could check it out.
Thus she was the first to step outside the Kodiak. Garrus and Legion followed shortly behind her. A minute later the marines and Tali were at her side as well. Even from some meters away she could see the first signs of foul play. The rover's hood cover was just jagged chunks sticking up, as if someone lifted it, placed a plasma grenade on the battery block, closed it, and stood back.
The first signs of foul play were enough to rule out the mother of all cases of tech gremlins. "We'll check the structure on the hill first." Shepard announced. "It will give us a good vantage point on the torch too." With that said she turned and made her way toward the hill. Whoever had decided to use the hill for a structure had blasted rough sloping steps up to the crest.
Due to the reduced gravity Shepard did not feel any strain going up the steps. A quick cursory glance was enough to assess the location. The very summit had been flattened, but it was not all that big to begin with, only about a fifty meters across. Just enough to place a short range relay tower and a small pre-fabricated shack that undoubtedly contained the operating machinery.
Then her eyes landed on the body lying prone at the base of the comm tower. It was a man wearing a white civilian-grade EVA suit marked with patch bearing a company logo and the silhouette of X57 along with the words "Engineering Team" arching around it. There was an empty gap where the man's face-shield should have been, and tell-tale smattering of footprints and disturbed surface dust all around. "As if I did not have a reason to want to kill them already," Shepard murmured. "They smashed his face-shield. I say smashed, because the shield is gone entirely, it's not breached by a bullet. Then they probably stood back and watched."
"Unfortunately there is one more here, Commander." Garrus said.
Shepard looked over to where the former detective had stopped. Lying in front of the prefabricated structure was indeed another man in another white EVA suit with a similar patch on his shoulder. He was likewise face-down, but this time the damage was at the back of his helmet, a single gunshot that left the helmet barely intact, there was no mistaking that spider-web pattern of cracks.
"There is a major disturbance pattern in the dust around the body and some of his suit ceramics are cracked. He was beaten, but the cause of death is the shot to the back of the head, angled from above. They executed him once they had their… fun." Garrus announced.
"Fucking monsters," Ashley hissed.
"These were sadistic displays of power by at least two individuals. There are too many tracks to tell without a full analysis."
"I do not think the batarians are taking slaves." Nihlus mused.
"No, they are not." Garrus agreed.
"Then we're not taking prisoners." Shepard replied flatly. She thought that was an obvious enough reply to such acts of brutality against unarmed civilians.
Garrus nodded, "Understood."
"Garrus can you take notes on this location? I want to make sure I do not forget a single victim in my report." Shepard asked, she knew this report would be a long one. Even her memory and attention to detail could still lose something. She did not want that to be an innocent victim whose body is only re-discovered a couple years later while the rock was being mined. That would be the epitome of cruelty to the victim's family, and an unforgivable sort of lapse.
"I will get right on it," Garrus replied as he brought up his omni-tool.
"Thank you," Shepard said as she moved toward the prefabricated structure. On inspection she found that the door had been shot through with a powerful shotgun, disabling the electromagnetic lock plate. Someone then pried it open. Shepard could almost see the chain of events that happened here. "These monsters showed up while these two were working up here. They disabled the vehicle first; the explosion would've been silent. Then they came up the steps, caught victim number one still working at the tower." Smashing his face-shield could only have been a blitz attack on an unwary victim. She would not be surprised if that murder weapon was the butt of the same shotgun they then used on the door.
She stepped into the booth and frowned. The terminal was still on and glowing, signed on and ready for commands it would never receive. That must have been the heat signature EDI picked up. The chair in front of the terminal was overturned. "Victim number two was inside, working on the terminal. He must have heard victim number one shout, and had time to lock himself in."
"They beat him because he made them work..." Kaidan mumbled.
"Indeed." Shepard approached the console and peered at the screen. "The tower is offline. They were running a diagnostic on the high-gain array." She knew how to read a status indicator.
"The Batarians came here first for obvious reasons." Garrus rumbled.
Shepard did not say anything, there was no need to. She saw a datapad lying on the floor near the overturned chair and bent down to pick it up. "I found the maintenance log. The last entry is written by one G. Mendel, dated and time-stamped to a few hours before the alarm went out." She paused there as she skimmed over the short entry. "He notes that this is not the first time this month that the tower has malfunctioned; apparently there is a flaw in the radiation shielding. His warnings to replace it are going unheeded. He and someone named Slajs agreed come here off hours to get it running again."
"Those must be our victims, I will log the names," Garrus said.
"Please do," Shepard replied. She did not want to have to turn the victims over to check for name tags. The sight of someone who had died of exposure to the void would haunt her. The log said Mendel and Slajs were here, and there was no reason for it to be lying. The situation with the tower sounded like typical corporate cost-cutting, the people in charge probably thought it was a luxury that allowed the engineers to access the extranet and contact their families. Go tell them that it would have also picked up and logged the transponder of any approaching ship. Had the tower been operational, the colonists might have gotten a warning that there were batarians skulking about. Had they evacuated everyone to the main facility, initialized remote lock down of the controls on the torches, and barred the doors, none of this might have happened. Of course those in charge probably did not think that the danger was real. The illusion of safety this close to Terra Nova was proving itself dangerous.
Shepard set the pad down on the table and turned back toward the door. Garrus stood there, fingers fast at work on his omni-tool. "Let's run recon toward the torch. I am not above putting down some monsters from here."
"I will finish the notes," Garrus replied.
She stepped past him and reached behind her back for Nike. From up here there was a clear line of sight across the plain and right to the base of the first torch.
"Shepard-Commander, we detected the presence of four individuals at the base of the torch control facility. Their helmet configuration is consistent with Batarians." Legion announced.
"Thanks, but I still need to see them with my own eyes," Shepard replied, utterly unsurprised that the geth only needed to take one look across the plain to tell her that, despite the fact that to her the figures looked to be humanoid blobs with no concrete details.
"Understood," Legion replied.
Shepard kneeled even as Nike unfolded in her hands. A moment later she peered through the scope. Sure enough there were four figures patrolling outside the doors to the torch control facility. Moreover, their helmets reflected Asgard's light in that particular way that indicated their face-shields went higher up the forehead than any other species in the galaxy. "I didn't doubt you, Legion." Shepard murmured.
"Acknowledged."
The distance from here to there was around five hundred meters. Shooting that in a perfect vacuum with little gravity was elementary. There was no wind, drag, nor sound. Silence reigned, with only the rasp of her breathing apparatus and the faint background crackling of a synched group comm link preventing it from being absolute. She eased herself onto her front, and once settled, brought Nike into position and shifted it into disruptor mode.
"Williams, Jenkins, back to the Kodiak, we will be moving toward the torch facility soon." Kaidan said calmly, breaking the silence.
"Hey, wait for me! I'm on your team too!" Tali called after them.
"I know, Tali. I'm not telling you what you should and shouldn't do," Kaidan explained.
"I will go warm up our shuttle," Nihlus said.
Shepard could not hear them move, but she knew that this left her up here with Garrus and Legion.
"Shepard-Commander, do you want our assistance?" Legion asked plainly.
Just then she saw one of the batarians turn in her direction, and he must have seen something because he did a double-take. Shepard figured it must have been her armor or weapon lights against the void. She turned her crosshairs right at him. Were it not for the distance, the void, and the helmets; she knew their eyes would have locked. Her finger slipped onto the trigger, "No, but thank you Legion. This is my hunt."
"Understood." Legion replied.
Shepard inhaled as she placed her crosshairs right between all four of the batarian's soulless eyes. He turned ninety degrees and suddenly the other three stopped their circuitous meanderings. Shepard held her breath. He raised his hand to point right at her. Shepard adjusted her sights to hit him just above the ear and began her exhale as her finger tightened on the trigger. His finger had just straightened when Nike bucked against her shoulder. There was no crack, but the batarian recoiled, his hand dropped as he toppled. A quick death was a mercy these bastards did not deserve, but she would not allow herself to descend to their level.
The other three scattered, but there was absolutely no cover on the plain. Shepard turned her crosshairs on the closer of the three, inhaled, held, and began to exhale as her finger tightened on the trigger. Nike kicked, and he went down face-first into the dirt, halfway to the door leading into the torch facilities. Shepard moved her sights again, targeting the one who had ducked around the corner of the structure. Unfortunately for him, he miscalculated the angles, his helmet was still partly visible from her vantage, but he had a hand up to his comm, likely alerting his friends inside. Shepard was not against serving a slaver some poetic justice after the atrocity they committed up here. She inhaled and moved her crosshairs for an oblique shot at his visor. She held for moment and then began another smooth exhale. Nike kicked and the slaver's face-shield shattered, starting the clock on the last ten seconds of his miserable life. Shepard raked the receiver to eject the overheated thermal clip and reached behind her back for a new one.
The fourth batarian had made it to the door leading into the torch control structure. She inhaled slowly and held at the apex, watching him enter the code into the keypad by the door. Then the lock panel turned green and she began her exhale as her finger tightened on the trigger. The door was open by about twenty centimeters when Nike kicked and the batarian's hope for safety was snatched away. Shepard closed her eyes and sighed, "I saw the last one enter the door code, it's nine-three-six-three-three-three."
"Code noted." Legion stated.
Shepard powered down Nike and opened the receiver bolt part-way so that the thermal clip could dump its heat before she rose to her feet and slipped the rifle behind her back. Then she scooped up the hot clip as well, rolling it in her fingers. The little cylinder was already glowing less. Not only was the void easy to shoot in, but it was good for cooling off clips rapidly.
"The Kodiaks are ready to go." Nihlus stated calmly over their comm link.
Shepard wordlessly turned toward the steps and motioned Garrus and Legion to follow. When she got to the bottom, she saw that the others were already inside their shuttles. The lead Kodiak was online; its mass effect field and trickling ventral thrusters caused the ground to vibrate faintly. As soon as the three of them were aboard Nihlus triggered the door to close and took them up. From there the flight could barely be described as such; the shuttle took off, flew over the hill and the couple hundred meters to the torch facility, and landed as close as physically possible.
Shepard was once again the first to exit. When she turned toward the door she found that it could not close, thus she did not even need the code. The batarian that she shot against it fell in such a way that his neck ended up lying across the door's rail. The door would close until it hit his neck and then spring open, only to try and close again, making for a rather macabre sight. Fortunately since he was now exposed to the vacuum, the carnage had been effectively boiled away. Not that much would have been visible, as most of the mess would have been on the exit side, and her shot had not gone through to shatter his face-shield. The Valiant simply did not have enough power to put a slug through a skull twice.
"I expect they will have a welcoming committee for us inside," Garrus stated as he stopped next to her.
"Of course, and I saw one of them talk to someone before I shot him." Shepard said as she stepped over the body and through the door. She found herself in a room lined with EVA suit lockers. Most stood empty, but the few with contents had been shot open and ransacked. She looked up; the floor and ceiling were unusually thick, with tell-tale nozzles over her head. On the other side of the room was another similar door, though this one was locked and sealed. "This room is an airlock, and it will not cycle unless the outer door can close."
"Easy enough," Jenkins replied.
Shepard turned just in time to see the corporal bend down, grab the obstructing body by the ankles, and pull it clear of the door.
"Problem solved," Jenkins announced as he let go of the corpse's legs and stepped into the airlock before the door closed on him.
Shepard idly wondered what was making the corporal act so cold. He had moved that corpse as if it was just some piece of debris. She decided that it must have been the situation at hand. These things killed naïveté and innocence faster than anything else. The batarians owed the corporal an apology.
Kaidan was already at the inner door's controls. The computer registered the closure of the outer door, so he only needed to tap two keys for the system to start pressurizing the airlock. As the space quickly filled up with breathable air, the lieutenant drew his assault rifle. Jenkins and Williams followed his example.
Shepard motioned for everyone to take cover around the door. Soon three loud beeps indicated that the room had pressurized. Shepard drew Sin, shifted it into disruptor mode, put her back to the wall, and nodded to the lieutenant. Kaidan calmly triggered the inner door to open.
The panel barely slid aside when a spray of automatic tracer rounds flew right though, peppering the lockers immediately across from it, sending bullets ricocheting every which way. Shepard saw Ashley's and Tali's shields flare. The quarian girl jumped and pressed herself flat against the wall.
The foreign rifle went silent after what must have been its clip. "We're not stupid to step in there, humans!" A guttural, hissing voice shouted from inside.
"Picture that," Shepard murmured sarcastically.
"They think they are facing only Alliance." Nihlus said, sounding vaguely amused.
"I see how it is. Alright. You asked for it!" The batarian shouted.
There was a thud of metal hitting the floor deep within the room. An instant later the silence was broken by the growling and baying of at least three varren.
"Harak. Chekt! Chekt!" the guttural voice barked, the word failing to translate.
The varren started barking.
"Kill them as soon as they clear the door!" Nihlus ordered as he drew his shotgun.
Shepard had just drawn Sin when the first varren ran into the airlock, growling and gnashing its teeth, its claws digging into the floor. Nihlus' shotgun blast was loud like thunder in such a tiny space. The dog-like creature yelped, and brackish blood went flying as it collapsed, front right leg mangled beyond usability. Jenkins turned his assault rifle on the stricken creature and released a quick burst at its head, putting it out of its misery.
Then a second and third varren burst into the airlock. Nihlus' shotgun gave another crack, catching one in the head, killing it instantly. The other varren leapt into the air, jaws agape, right at Jenkins, who had the misfortune of standing closest to it. Garrus and Ashley raised their assault rifles, but before they could pull the triggers there was a crack of a shotgun, quieter than Nihlus' overpowered weapon. The blast caught the last beast in head and caused Jenkins' shields to flare, but they held. The varren dropped, dead before it hit the floor.
"Thanks, Tali." Jenkins said, automatically.
"No need. I hate varren. Too many teeth and salivary bacteria…" Tali replied.
"Good shot, Tali. But we need to make entry now, before they realize the mongrels failed." Shepard cut in.
"Bravo, with me! We'll head straight in. Williams, suppression fire… Jenkins I want lots of smoke!" Kaidan ordered.
"Roger." Ashley replied.
"On it!" Jenkins replied as he reached behind his back for the canisters dangling off his webbing.
"Go!" Shepard ordered as she nodded toward the lieutenant.
Just like that Kaidan's biotic barrier materialized in a flash of periwinkle energy and he rounded the doorjamb, raising his assault rifle into firing position. Ashley followed a step behind, slipping to his right. Jenkins followed on his left, yanking the ring off a smoke bomb with his teeth even before he cleared the door. A moment later the canister hit the floor and two assault rifles began to bark. The smoke bomb blew with a loud pop and began to pump its contents into the space with a whistling hiss.
Foreign low-pitched automatics opened up, but with the amount of echoing, it was hard to tell how many individual weapons there were. The marines scattered, taking cover behind whatever crates they found as the billowing smoke got to work obscuring everything.
Shepard turned to Nihlus, Garrus, Legion, and Tali, "Do I need to say this? I want this place purged. If it's batarian, it dies." Right then she was not willing to be mild-mannered in her speech. She did not issue kill orders often, but this situation just begged to be the exception that proved her rules.
"Curse this smoke. Shoot them, damn it!" A deep guttural voice shouted within the room.
"I see you," Ashley hissed in reply. An Alliance rifle opened fire, only to get a response from one of the foreign weapons. The exchange lasted a good five seconds, but then Shepard heard the unmistakable thud of a body in a hardsuit hitting the hard floor. "That's one." Ashley said coolly.
"There's one more behind the stack on your one o'clock." Kaidan said.
"I'm on it," Jenkins jumped in.
The automatics began to beat in tandem, but Shepard knew an opportunity when it presented itself. She doubted the batarians would be aiming at the door, not with smoke in the way. They would go for the nearest lights they could see, which would be Team Bravo's. She took a deep breath, raised Sin into position, and ducked around the jamb.
The space beyond was packed full of containers. Some had red warning labels that indicated that the contents were explosive. Half the room, closest to the door was completely filled with smoke. It told Shepard that the ventilation system was not operating. Then the assault rifles fell silent. She could just see a hint of familiar lighting elements and a periwinkle glimmer through the haze, the marines were moving deeper. Had they killed the second batarian? She pressed her back to the wall on her left and half-crab-walked-half-slid along, keeping as flat as possible, scanning for any movement in front and on the left.
Suddenly an enemy assault rifle came to life.
"Alenko!" Ashley shouted.
Shepard stopped in place.
"Shepard, on your left!" Nihlus called.
An Alliance assault rifle began to bark on the right side of the room, but Shepard had no time to worry about whose it was and what was going over there. As she turned, she spotted a batarian round a stack of crates right in front of her, leading a varren on a metal chain. The beast was growling and gnashing its teeth. Then he let go of the chain. The creature felt the slack and charged, barking, its claws scraping on the floor in its eagerness.
Shepard heard a loud whine behind her that indicated a weapon powering up. Nihlus was suddenly at her side. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side even as he raised his shotgun and fired. The varren yelped as the scattershot hit it right in the face and into its open mouth, sending brackish blood and gore into the air. Garrus' assault rifle opened up from her left, and the batarian's shields flared. The terrorist tried to side-step back into cover, yet just as he moved there was a loud low-pitched crack. The batarian's head whipped backward as his helmet disintegrated and gore splashed into the air. Then he tipped over and dropped to the floor like cut timber.
"Target eliminated," Legion stated coolly.
"Legion! Why did you do that?" Tali demanded.
"We terminated an enemy unit that posed a threat to Shepard-Commander. Shepard-Commander's continuing safety is one of our primary objectives." The geth explained blandly.
"Yea, but you shouldn't fire that over people's shoulders!" Tali lectured.
"Creator-Zorah is mistaken; the trajectory of our shot was not over anyone's shoulder. Addendum, our reaction times and targeting accuracy surpass those of organics. There was no danger of what humans refer to as 'friendly fire'."
Shepard was afraid of this. "Now's not the time for this sort of argument, you two," she said as she stepped away from Nihlus. The Spectre's reluctance to move away was noted, but ignored for the time being. Legion turned their face-light to the floor, and somehow managed to look like a six-year-old who just got scolded.
"You're enabling it, Shepard." Tali said as she crossed her arms.
Shepard knew that Tali was right, but she would not admit to it out loud.
"Are you alright, Commander?" Kaidan asked quietly.
It was then that she realized that silence had fallen over the space around them. "I should ask you that," she replied.
The lieutenant hummed, "Bravo has cleared this side of the space, and we are moving along the back wall."
Shepard knew he was avoiding telling her what had happened over there. She would give him that. If any of Team Bravo had been hurt in any way, he would have said so. She suspected that they might have had to get a little rough themselves, and Kaidan avoided excess force under normal circumstances.
"We detect no additional enemy units in this location." Legion announced.
"No offense Legion, but we will finish our sweep, per protocol, just to be safe rather than sorry." Kaidan said.
"Understood, Lieutenant-Alenko." Legion replied calmly.
Shepard had no reason to doubt Legion. "So with those outside that makes what, seven or eight of them here?"
"We killed three on our side," Ashley said.
"And we killed one here. That makes eight." Shepard replied. "I'm assuming they divided their forces more or less evenly between the torches and the main facility. So there are probably around thirty to thirty-five batarians on this rock." That was a very rough estimate, and only good enough to tell her that she could not send Bravo to the third torch so they could hit two at the same time. Any split would tip the ratios of enemy combatants per person into unfavorable. "Alright. We need to get into the torch's control room and shut it down."
"It's back here," Ashley announced.
"Thanks, Ashley." Shepard replied as she turned to her right. The insides of the torch control facility were not terribly big, a token structure which the crew had taken to using for storage more than its intended purpose. The back wall had two doors set into it, one was larger than the other, locked and sealed, with the console announcing that it was unsafe to go down there. Shepard assumed this was the access-way that led to the torch reactor core. Fusion torches were basically a larger version of ship propulsion. At their root, each had a fusion core that processed helium-3 and hydrogen to produce the power and superheated plasma needed to propel the rock. The access tunnels were locked down as a safety precaution. Without proper ventilation the passages would turn into a sauna while the chamber around the core itself would be like a foundry floor around a full crucible.
The control room on the other hand was left unlocked. Shepard made a beeline to the console. By design triggering the emergency shutdown was a simple matter and worked by shutting off the fuel channels. With no fuel gasses, there would be no reaction, and no ejection of propulsive plasma. It took a whole minute for the external cameras to show that the plasma plume began to narrow and the core to register that it was beginning to cool. Once the reaction ceased, Shepard checked the fuel levels. "We're good. There's still thirty-seven percent of the fuel gas reserve left." She announced. It ought to be enough to slow the rock down. After that, it was a simple matter of locking out the controls with a password, which Shepard set to be her service number. A precaution in case the existing system clearances were only known to the deceased victims.
She had just finished locking down the controls when the console crackled and buzzed with static. "… Hello?" A female voice whispered through the distortions.
Shepard raised a hand, a silent command for everyone to be quiet. These stations had communicators built in? The link was gritty with static; did the structure have its own low-gain antenna? The communication tower outside was definitely offline.
"My sensors are telling me that one of the torches just shut down. Whoever you are, I hope you can hear me." The voice continued.
"I can hear you. Who are you?" Shepard asked.
"My name is Kate Bowman. I'm an engineer. Part of the team assigned to bring this asteroid to Terra Nova. We were attacked by batarian slavers… I've been hiding ever since. I wish to help you in any way I can. For now you should know that an emergency shut down alerted central control; they know one of the torches went out. You sound human… I hope you're with the Alliance."
"I am Commander Shepard, SSV Normandy."
"Yes! The silent alarm went through…" Kate sounded immensely relieved. The communicator link picked up some sort of noise some distance away from the microphone. "Oh no… I got to go. Sorry." Kate whispered urgently. Before Shepard could say a word, the static faded out as the communication link went dead.
"She shouldn't have done that. Not on an open channel like this." Shepard mused. Of course, go tell a civilian to be careful around unsecure comm links.
"Well at least now we know we no longer have the element of surprise," Nihlus mused.
Shepard nodded. "I'll give you that."
"Shepard-Commander, the door leading to the lower tunnels has just opened." Legion stated calmly.
Shepard whirled on the spot. The geth was standing in the doorway leading out of the control booth. She was across the control room in what felt like a heartbeat. However just as she rounded the doorjamb there was a pop and her shields flared.
"Oh, god! Sorry!" A voice called. A second later its owner emerged from behind one of the stacks, lowering a small, civilian-grade firearm. "I saw a light in the doorway… and, I didn't realize you were human. I did not hurt you, did I?"
"No. Takes more than one shot to bring down my shields." Shepard replied.
The man visibly relaxed, but he still looked about the space as if checking for assailants. He was in his fifties, with a neat salt-and-pepper goatee and dark eyes, clad in a sand-colored EVA hardsuit, his helmet on, but opened, allowing her to see his face. "I admit, I'm not much of a soldier." He said.
"You're scared, I understand that. I'm Commander Shepard, Systems Alliance." Shepard said. At that moment she heard a series of different footsteps and a faint chatter behind her. The man's eyes widened visibly. Shepard knew why. "My team's eclectic, but we're here to help."
"I- I'm Simon. Simon Atwell. Chief engineer on this rock. I was hiding in the tunnels… figured the varren would not go sniffing down there. I heard the gunfire up here and then the core begin emergency shut down. I figured it wasn't the batarians… so I'd come up and… listen, bringing down one of the torches is not enough. You need to turn off the other two. And before they run out of fuel. We did not stock much more than absolutely necessary for the initial acceleration and some control burns if necessary. Terra Nova can't take this hit."
"I'm aware of that," Shepard replied.
"There are four million people down there, Commander. I- my family. They live in Aronas. My kids and grandkids. Nice community, good schools..."
"I understand." Shepard drew closer and looked him right in the eye, "I promise you we will handle the situation before any harm comes to Terra Nova." She knew an anxiety attack waiting to happen when she saw one. "Now, please… is there anything else I should know about the torches? I could use your help if I'm going to help everyone." It was a calculated gambit. Distract the man with concrete things, and if she could get him to think he had a hand in helping everyone, it would calm him a little.
"Ah, yes… yes… there is." He seemed to take a deep breath.
Shepard smiled and stepped back quietly.
Atwell did not seem to notice it as his gaze slid to the floor, "The torch east of here is installed in a field where the miners wanted to begin excavating the first shaft just as soon as we were stable over Terra Nova. I helped them rig the field with live blasting caps, to pierce the hard surface layers. Their detonators are proximity-sensitive, and I would think the batarians would arm them. I suggest you do not attempt to cross the field in a vehicle."
"Is it possible to disarm them remotely?" Shepard asked. She could not believe some of the brilliant thinking going on here. Who thought of setting live blasting caps around a torch while the torch was still operational? Well, it was not like she could say that to Atwell. There were no quicker ways to get someone to shut down. She needed information from him, antagonizing him would be counter-productive.
"I'm afraid not. The arming mechanism would be in the control structure by now. The best you can do is go in slow and on foot."
Shepard sighed, "Well thanks for the warning."
"Oh and about the main facility… I heard some mixed reports but they're saying there are at least ten to fifteen batarians there. There were our people over there too. If you can do anything for them..."
"Of course," Shepard nodded. Mine fields and hostage situations; suffice to say the job was becoming complicated. "Someone named Kate Bowman contacted me at the control room. You know her?"
"Katie's on the loose? She's one of my best engineers. Smart as a whip. Signed on with her brother… Aaron? I think that's his name. He's part of the security detail… they were in the main facility when the attack began. If she is your contact on the inside, then you can trust her."
"Well, thank you. I suggest you find a good place to hide. For now. The batarians might still come around here."
"Yea. The tunnels will still be warm enough that I do not have to fear infrared sensors. I will reroute some feeds to my omni-tool and go back down. I will know when the other torches go offline. Take care. And good luck."
Shepard watched as Atwell turned toward the control room. She glanced at the others and grimaced. "We got our work cut out for us, don't we?" It was a rhetorical question.
"I swear if they kill more hostages, Skipper, I will kill every single one of them myself." Ashley said.
Shepard would not say it, but Ashley would have stiff competition in that, from her. "I get the feeling that they'll keep them alive, for now. Living hostages are excellent bargaining chips, and everyone knows it. They will have planned their exit strategy for this eventuality." Of course that was if Shepard had not been tipped off. This was her sort of high-stakes game. If she could pull the proverbial carpet out from under them, she would get to enjoy watching them flail. Nothing would make Shepard as happy as watching her foes slowly realize they have been outplayed. She would love to show these batarians that they really should have stayed under whatever rock they crawled out from.
"Where to, now?" Nihlus wondered.
"That's the million credit question, isn't it? I'm thinking… this is the torch that's on the apparent top of the rock. We have the side torches left-"
"Oh, Commander, wait a moment please!" Tali jumped in. "There is a slight problem here. After we turn off a second torch, the rock's propulsion will be out of balance for a time, before we disconnect the third torch. Simply put, the remaining torch will cause this asteroid to start turning. We have to consider what torch we disconnect carefully. First, we do not want the rock to turn at Terra Nova as it begins to spin. We want it to turn away, so the trajectory changes. After that, we want it to turn around entirely before we disconnect the third torch. That way the three torches can be used to stabilize the spin and then decelerate it."
"Your Quarian friend is right, Commander." Atwell said from the doorway. "Fortunately, I can tell you which torch to pull. You want number three first. It's the one on X57's proverbial east face. I caution you, it is also the one where the miners wanted to blast."
Shepard would not say she understood Tali's point entirely, though she had the general idea, but if the chief engineer understood it and suggested they pull a specific torch first, who was she to argue? "Well thank you, Tali, Mister Atwell."
She turned toward the airlock, her mind turning automatically to the problem at hand. Walking what amounted to a minefield was not her idea of a fun time. She would not ask anyone on her team to risk their lives like that, but at the same time, it had to be done. Still, there had to be something there for the fact that this was not an actual minefield. If the blasting caps were meant to start a shaft, she doubted they would have been seeded so close together that they would blow an enormous hole in the rock's face, there would be space between them.
"Commander," Garrus stepped next to her. "If I may offer a piece of advice?"
"Sure, Garrus. I'll take anything I can get right now." Shepard replied.
"Mining charges are rarely shielded against remote detection, unlike improvised explosives. They do not need such shielding. Then their proximity detectors are an electronic device. Perhaps if we isolate their signals we can configure a Kodiak's scanner to detect them."
Shepard paused mid-step. "Yea." It dawned on her almost too slowly, "That'd do." It was an elementary solution. "With a full scan of the whole field we may be able to piece together a map of where every cap is, before we even set foot on the ground. I'm perfectly fine skirting the field if there is a way around it."
"Naturally." Garrus nodded.
Shepard spared Garrus a smile just before she triggered her helmet to close. "Thanks Garrus, I would have taken too long to think about it that way." Shepard knew that in all likelihood, were it not for Garrus' input, she would have volunteered to walk that minefield herself, doing things the old-fashioned way, with an omni-tool.
Garrus nodded in reply, and that seemed to be the end of the discussion for now. Shepard turned her attention to the matter of hand. She needed to contact EDI, so that the AI would be ready to calculate exactly what the rock was going to do, once one more of its thrusters went offline. This was going to be a rather complicated show; she was not leaving such important calculations down to guesswork. EDI's position on board the Normandy would allow her to measure the rock's movements with more precision than anything they could muster on its surface.
It all amounted to some semblance of a plan. This in turn made Shepard feel better about their overall odds, and in turn made her feel a fair bit less anxious. From now on, they could only roll the dice for those chaotic factors, and hope for the best.
Author Notes: The title is an intentional call-back to the 1998 movie starring Bruce Willis. It wasn't a great movie, but it had to do with a giant space rock. I needed to disguise the plot (however thinly) from "episode title gives it away".
General Notes:
X57's Size – It is not mentioned in canon. I looked at Omega as a comparison, which is said to be 44.7km long. I assume that's from the top of the rock to the tip of the stem. Then I looked at proportions, and it seems to be half as wide as it is long, making the asteroid center around 20km across. X57 is smaller, but to still be a very dangerous rock and a very ambitious project. Fifteen kilometers is 1 km short of Deimos, the smaller of Mars' two moons.
Chapter Notes:
Reporting Names / Dachau – I based this concept on the "nicknames" assigned by the Allies to enemy aircraft during WWII, though the practice is not limited to WWII. For example the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M plane, the "Zero", were referred to as "Zeke". I chose the Alliance's pattern for Batarian craft to be places rather than proper names as a conscious decision to de-personalize. As for the actual name… well, Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp, established in 1933. It was designed for political prisoners, and only later enlarged to imprison Jews. It was a forced labor camp which ran "medical experiments" as well ("studying" the effects of hypothermia and pressure changes). The name is meant to evoke an association with what that type of ship is used for. I wish to treat Batarian slavery with some seriousness.