Disclaimer: I do no own Mass Effect, I do not claim to own Mass Effect, I am only doing this for fun.
Author Notes: Well, a month late, but here is the next episode. I do hope you enjoy it, better late than never, maybe.
Episode 43: Persepolis [Part I]
It took a good twelve hours for Shepard to get right on top of all the upkeep tasks she inevitably had to do after every major mission. She had routine reports to read, mostly the after-action routine stuff from the away team, but also status updates from Adams. After that she had letters to read over and finalize, then send to the admiral. So she was putting in the finishing touches on the paperwork when the Normandy left Arcturus Station for the fuel depot. Most of the crew were still on Arcturus Station, as refueling was hardly a major mission. After docking, the ship went into lockdown as the engineers began the antimatter transfer procedure.
It was that an hour later, with the letters transmitted that Shepard found herself wandering down to deck three. She was unsurprised to see the main battery doors open as Garrus tinkered at the control console just on the other side. Matthews was reading something or other while keeping an eye on the three pots on the stove. The biggest one was for the human crew, the medium one for Garrus and Nihlus, and the smallest for Tali.
"Soup today, Matthews?" She asked.
"Yes, ma'am. Pesto and chicken minestrone for us, and a meat soup-stew for our dextro crewmembers. Of course, I've made Tali's less thick and cut it with vegetables."
"Sounds good." Shepard was hardly picky about food. "Well, carry on."
"Will do," the cook replied, smiling all the while.
Shepard turned and made her way toward the main battery. As soon as she stepped over the door railing Garrus' fingers stopped, then he part-turned and looked at her.
"Good morning, Commander, need me for something?"
"In a manner," Shepard sighed. "Got a moment? I wanted to fill you in on some things. I could use your opinion."
"Sure, just let me finish this one part…" he turned back to the console and his fingers went back to typing.
Shepard reached over to the door console and tapped the command to close, then she moved to perch on the railing surrounding the Thanix guns. The space was remarkably warm despite the fact that the only thing separating them from the void of space were two thin panels and an atmosphere-retaining mass effect field. Garrus was unbothered by this though, wearing his casuals. She waited, letting him finish whatever that last bit of code he was putting in. It was about five minutes before his hands left the console and he looked at her again.
"Sorry about that." He sounded a bit sheepish. "You closed the door. This is something serious, is it not?"
Shepard sighed and nodded. "I've had a doozy meeting with Admiral Hackett, and I've already mentioned all this to Nihlus…" with that pre-amble out of the way she launched into the topic of the Heretics. Garrus listened without interrupting while, but by the time Shepard was done, his brow plates had drawn down, shadowing his eyes. Then he hummed a long flat note pensively, and for some reason it reminded her of the rumble of very distant thunder.
"If you are right…" Garrus began, "If Harbinger is looking for a way to convince all the Geth to obey it, the galaxy will be in deep trouble. We know very little about what the Geth can do. And yes, there is very little we can do on our end at the moment. Have you talked with Legion about this?"
"No, not yet." Shepard replied. The thought of Legion becoming a murderous monster bothered her immensely. She felt a certain deal of urgency to act, to try and do something to prevent that nightmare scenario. For Legion's own sake, if nothing else.
"Not yet, huh?" Garrus echoed.
"Not yet. But I will." Especially if she ever wanted to have the right to say she trusted Legion at all. Moreover it was their right to know that she suspected anything of this sort. Forewarning was the only way to ensure the outcome could be changed. Maybe the thought had even occurred to the Geth already, but it would still matter that she did tell them. The Geth had nothing but horrible experiences with organics who only expected the worst from them, it was time to break that chain.
Garrus hummed, "If I may be bold, Commander… I do not think the Heretic situation is the thing that is truly bothering you at the moment. They are an outside enemy, the sort you... have no problem destroying utterly."
It still amazed her just how perceptive Garrus was. Had she robbed C-sec of one of their greatest in the making?
"What I am saying is that… you have never worried about those enemies. Something is making you worry. That means there was more to your conversation with Admiral Hackett. Whatever it is… you do not have to keep it inside. Now I have probably overstepped my boundaries, so I will say no more."
"It is alright, Garrus. No boundaries were overstepped. You know me too well." Shepard sighed, "You're right about the Heretics, they're an external enemy. There is also that whole mess on the Citadel. Just general bad feeling about everything. With all the evidence we have there is no way to see things as anything other than a conspiracy. Cerberus are an enemy within. Anyone and everyone could be their sympathizer, agent, or sleeper. I feel like a total rube worrying about it this much, but I can't help it, and it's exhausting." She stopped before she could actually say just how exhausting all this stress was. She tried to keep it under wraps, to not think about it. However for someone like her, that was near impossible. Her mind would inevitably drift right back there and the stress would start again. There was just no way she could block reality itself from her psyche.
"I understand, and you have every right to be worried. No one will hold that against you." Garrus replied, his tone taking on a warm undernote. "I said it before, but I will say it again... and I will keep saying it as long as it helps. Trust my father. He will get to the bottom of this. Cerberus will not be able to frame you easily."
"Thanks Garrus," Shepard nodded.
"You are welcome." He turned back to the console, staring at the screen.
Shepard noted the way his mandibles flicked right then. Was Garrus being bashful? Why? If anyone should have felt embarrassed right then, it should have been her. It felt almost wrong to be seeking assurances like this. No, not wrong, just off. It was unusual for her to seek repeated assurance like this, and that in itself was what felt off. Normally Shepard was perfectly happy dealing with her problems on her own, that was how it always was. But now? Now she found herself opening up to Nihlus and Garrus in particular. That felt off. Every instinct within her said not to. Yet, she could not help it.
Nihlus was one thing, he was her partner and the one she had some yet amorphous feelings for. He had showed her his vulnerable side on Taetrus, it made sense to balance that equation. Garrus was a bit different though. Yes, he was her effortless best friend, and yes she knew something about what made him tick. After Saleon she got to see just how much he cared about what was right on the deep, personal level. Perhaps it made sense that she balance out that equation as well. However balancing out these equations still went up against every self-protecting instinct she had. "I think I'll go find Legion now. I need to make sure that they know about the potential danger." She pushed off the railing and moved toward the door.
"Getting attention from their favorite organic would make them happy too."
The door opened, but Shepard paused and glanced back, "Has Joker been spreading around the rumor that I mother Legion?"
"With all due respect, Commander… you do mother Legion." Garrus said, mandibles flicking in amusement.
Shepard had to contain her urge to face-palm. "I am going to cut his rations, I swear," she mumbled as she stepped out of the main battery. Garrus chuckled, but the sound was cut off when the doors closed between them. Maybe she was being needlessly protective over the geth, but they had few people in their corner, willing to understand, let alone fight for them. Shepard would not let the Geth take the blame for something they had not done, nor be victimized by some megalomaniacal ancient AI.
"EDI, is Legion in the AI core?" she asked as she made her way toward the mess tables.
"Legion is currently in the shuttle bay, Commander."
"Oh, thanks." Shepard replied as she altered her path toward the elevator.
"You are welcome, Commander."
The elevator was still on deck three, so it did not take Shepard long to make her way to the shuttle bay. As the doors opened it took even less time to spot Legion. The geth was at the weapon maintenance worktable, intently working at the terminal on the side. Shepard glanced about the space, and was utterly unsurprised to see that the only being here was the geth, but they did not seem to acknowledge her, which was a touch peculiar.
"Morning, Legion." Shepard said as she stepped off the elevator.
The geth looked up and turned around, "Good morning, Shepard-Commander."
There was a stiffness to their greeting, as if they were just echoing her words right back at her.
Shepard drew near and glanced at the weapon they were working on, and then she was momentarily taken aback. It was a HVR of a similar design to Legion's own. However, the casing was still just a matte, chalky grey, as of yet only primed for painting. The geth's fingers were fast at work typing code into the console.
"Is this the weapon you were welding before?" She asked.
"Affirmative, Shepard-Commander. We are programming its control protocols."
"You built it from blueprints and now you're programming it too?" Shepard asked, surprised.
"Affirmative."
"Wow." It slipped from her mouth before Shepard could come up with anything better. "May I pick it up?" She asked. Curiosity was a bit of a vice of hers, she knew she really ought to tell Legion what she needed to tell them, but right now that seemed less urgent, like it could wait five minutes for her to finish gawping.
"You may inspect it, Commander. However, be aware that at the present time we have not installed the ammunition block, energy pack, or thermal clip."
In other words it would not turn on, fold, or fire. Shepard reached down and lifted the weapon. "Well… it's as heavy as it looks." She murmured as she rotated the weapon in her arms.
"We have attempted to use lighter polymers in all parts that are not vital to the weapon's operation." Legion explained.
Shepard hummed, her trained eye quickly spotted the gun's finer features. There was a triple-setting ammo selector, and the thermal clip bolt was manually operated. The rifle's stock was curiously soft, and shiny. Was it a rigid core coated in a shock-absorbing synthetic polymer rubber? With that one could easily think that the weapon was designed to be fired by an organic, not Legion. Well, it could be that Legion had scaled down their overpowered rifle into an anti-personnel weapon that could potentially be fired by an organic, but it was not going to be. Maybe this was closer to an old Quarian design?
She rolled the weapon in her hands and stepped back before slipping it against her shoulder to peer down the scope. What shocked her was that even the scope had been built from scratch. The lenses were meticulously polished, her trained eye could not discern a single optical flaw or change is apparent coloration. The focus was off, but that was because the rifle did not have its control software, and Legion had not bothered to focus the optics manually.
"Legion… this is artistry!" How long did this take to make? It boggled the mind. Sure the gun was a touch heavy, and it was unbelievably long and potentially unwieldy, but everything she saw indicated that it was tooled and fitted with extreme precision and attention to detail. It was not a mass produced, pattern-cut, machine-welded model. It was an artisanal, lovingly-crafted weapon.
"Thank you, Shepard-Commander." The geth bowed their head as their emotive flaps rippled.
Shepard gingerly set the weapon back down on the table, right how she found it. She was officially blown away. Most people would not think that a synthetic could do artisanal work, yet right there was proof to the contrary. "I suppose that after you are done testing the software and the fit of the parts, you will finish on the paint, right?"
"Affirmative. We acquired the requisite paint already."
Shepard nodded. "Well I would like to see it when you are finished."
Legion turned their head to look at her as their emotive flaps rose in a facsimile of surprise. Then just as quickly they turned away. "Acknowledged. We will notify you when the construction process is complete."
She smiled, but the expression was brief. Now came the much less pleasant part. "Legion, I did not come down here just to admire your craftsmanship… I wanted to talk to you regarding something that occurred to me earlier. Do you have a moment?"
The geth's fingers paused over the console and then it was like some sort of switch had been tripped. They made one step back and turned to face her fully. "Our analysis of your voice pattern indicates the topic you wish to discuss has been deemed uncomfortable. Shepard-Commander should know that we cannot experience discomfort."
Shepard could not help but grin wanly, "You're right. I have a certain… theory about what the god-king may be up to. It pertains the Geth, so I wanted to share it."
Legion's emotive flaps shifted again, drawing up at the back and down at the front, as if they were furrowing a brow. Then they reset and the geth seemed to glance down at the floor for just a split of a moment. When they looked up, the iris widened as the lighting element within dimmed. On some level Shepard could appreciate that, the facial-lamp was uncomfortable to look into. "Shepard-Commander, you can proceed with data transfer."
That was the geth-speak way of telling her to go on, she should have known that Legion would not bother with the pleasantries, she could have very well started on the info dump right out the gate. She shifted her weight from foot to foot and began talking, starting from the point of what the Alliance had on Harbinger's previous actions and targets. Legion listened intently, tipping their head from side to side rather amusingly to some rhythm she could not begin discerning.
A peripheral thought occurred to Shepard that if the Geth had been built no bigger than a meter in height, the less intimidating size combined with adorable mannerisms and those emotive flaps would have put them in position to take over the galaxy with sheer cuteness. Not that she would ever tell Legion that, mostly because the cuteness only worked for household robots, and Legion was no one's servant. She felt wrong just for having thought it. Right then, Garrus and Joker thinking she mothered Legion was positively preferable.
"For obvious reasons, Legion, I'm concerned. No one will win if the god-king comes to control the Geth and then stirs up a war between organics and synthetics. It will not be a short, easy war. Even the winners will suffer tremendous casualties." Shepard finished. As far as she was concerned, the Geth would lose something important either way. If they lost, they would be annihilated. However if they won, they would once again be subjects and servants to someone else, losing their individuality. In her opinion, the latter was worse than the former.
"Affirmative." Legion's tone lowered. "Shepard-Commander's hypothesis merits consideration."
Shepard could just imagine what was going on in their collective consciousness right then. How many runtimes would be accepting this theory, how many against? Could they even come to a consensus? She would not be surprised if the geth had consult their collective after this. Important decisions like these could not be made by a scant one thousand or so runtimes within one platform. "Legion, if you need time to mull this over, you can take as long as it takes. I am in no rush for anything. There is very little we can do about this right now. Acting on impulse will not help either. So take your time and get back to me at your convenience."
"Acknowledged. Shepard-Commander, you have our gratitude."
"You're welcome," Shepard replied.
Then Legion turned back to their work, and that seemed to be that.
She turned and made her way back to the elevator.
It was afternoon on the ship's chronometer by the time the engineers completed taking up antimatter. With the three of them taking a belated lunch, Shepard ordered Joker to return them to Arcturus station. Then, having left the CIC under the watchful eye of both Kaidan and Joker, Shepard moved to the OD, intent on checking for messages.
She had just approached her desk and moved the chair back so she could sit down when there was a familiar telltale scratch from the ceiling. "Commander," EDI cut in. "Admiral Hackett is on the communicator. He wishes to speak with you. It is urgent."
Shepard straightened, turned, and moved straight toward the COMCON. The Admiral contacting them like this meant that there was a new fire to put out. She was of two minds about it, while it was unpleasant that someone somewhere might be in danger, some part of her was perfectly happy to jump headlong into it. Anything to get away from Arcturus Station, the reporters, and all the scrutiny. Maybe the Admiral even knew that, and this was his way of giving her what she wanted. Once in the COMCON she stopped in front of the desk and glanced up, "Patch it through, EDI."
"Right away, Commander." The AI replied.
The room lights dimmed and the holographic communicator came to life with a loud humming which settled down as the image hovering over the desk stabilized. Shepard snapped to attention and saluted.
The admiral nodded and turned to the datapad in his hands. "Commander, I think we can do without the formalities. We have a developing situation on the research colony of Zhu's Hope, on Feros."
"Is the colony under attack, Admiral?" Shepard asked.
"Yes… and no. The alarm, such as it is, came from the colony's administration office. They sent us a photograph of what they called an unidentified vessel that had latched onto one of the arcologies. The ship had done nothing else in the twelve hours between when it arrived and when the message was sent out."
"Whose ship is it?" Shepard asked. The admiral was being a touch too dramatic for her tastes right then.
"The vessel in question in most definitely Geth-built, and if your friends are honest about staying within the Veil, then it is Heretic."
"Harbinger." Shepard said, voice dipping low. "This is just like the old adage goes. Speak of the devil, and he will appear."
"So it would seem."
"And there was no attack? No shots fired?" Shepard asked without missing a beat.
"None. The ship is just latched to the side of an arcology." Hackett replied.
The natural question asked itself, what was Harbinger doing there? Why would it arrive and just sit in place? And on Feros? "How many of our people are on Feros?"
"The current population on the whole planet is never above three hundred total. I know what you will ask next, and the answer is that they have no permanent garrison, only some security personnel hired by ExoGeni administration." Hackett listed.
"Ah." Shepard replied before she could stop herself. How much could one rely on private security once the shooting started and there were geth involved? Most had never seen a geth up close, let alone know of their weaknesses. Going by previous experience, as well observations of Legion, the average geth frame ran the gamut from competent to ruthlessly dangerous. Of course Legion obfuscated being both with ample affable daffiness. The Heretics would not be so amiable. "I will handle this, Sir." She said coolly.
"I know you will." Hackett replied. "No one wants a repeat of Solcrum. You have my permission to do whatever it takes. I want the Heretics removed from Feros."
"Yes, sir. It will be done." Shepard replied.
"Good. Hackett out."
The image blinked and the humming died, leaving Shepard staring out over the empty desk. Her mind still dwelling on the question of why. Why would Harbinger go to Feros and just sit there? Well, now was not the time for spit-balling. "EDI, send out the emergency recalls, please. Also, would you tell Nihlus I want to see him in the OD?"
"Right away, Commander." EDI replied.
Shepard turned around and breezed out of the COMCON and back into the OD. She knew that EDI would take care of everything she could. EDI knew the drill with these sorts of emergency events. She plopped onto her seat at the terminal and waited. She was not disappointed, as barely a minute later the console pinged with the arrival a data package. She hastily pulled up the image the admiral mentioned. Whatever doubts she could have entertained vanished in an instant. It was impossible to mistake the silvery, vaguely insect-like ship latched onto the side of a building. After that she turned to take a look where they were going.
Pretty quickly the data painted quite a picture. Feros was the second planet of the Theseus system, within the Attican Beta cluster. From the Arcturus Stream that would take them three relay jumps, to the Hercules system, and an additional fourteen hours in FTL to cross the gap between systems. The planet itself was larger than Earth by about two thousand kilometers in radius. Its atmosphere was nearly five and a half times thicker than Earth's at the surface. Finally, at two astronomical units away from Theseus, a star not much bigger and brighter than Sol, it was perpetually gloomy.
The interest in Feros was no great mystery. Everyone knew about the vast Prothean megacity covering two thirds of its surface. In the 2170s, when the Alliance had expanded out far enough, Attican Beta had become a bit of a problem. The Council had not wanted a full colony there, they deemed the planet too valuable as a research resource. The Council's demands caused many companies who were in position to fund a colonial venture to pull out. Few wanted to deal with both the Alliance and the Council proverbially breathing down their necks, for obvious reasons. Then in 2177, ExoGeni made a bid for a small research station, and they accepted the contract with the Council's stipulations. Zhu's Hope was established in early 2178. As a result of the limitations, its population was never higher than three hundred, primarily researchers across a number of fields. It was no Terra Nova, Eden Prime, or Horizon, where families could settle down.
Shepard looked away from the material when she heard the door open behind her back.
"Shepard," Nihlus greeted as he stepped into the room without breaking his stride. "What is wrong?" He asked. "Wait… is that a Heretic ship?" Nihlus asked as he stopped cold a few steps away from her.
Of course he would see the picture. "It is. This is from Feros. That mechanical maniac decided to just pop in, park his ship, and wait." Shepard explained.
"What do you mean wait?" Nihlus echoed.
"Exactly that. Wait. Doing nothing. The bigwigs on Feros waited twelve hours of that to send out this picture. As far as we know, right now, the Heretics haven't actually attacked anyone." Saying it like that made the whole thing sound even more preposterous than it actually was.
Nihlus hummed low in his throat, as if he was mulling over. "I do not like this."
"To say the least. The only way this sitting around makes sense is if it is waiting for something."
"Or someone." Nihlus commented.
Shepard blinked.
"I assume you told EDI to recall those on leave." Nihlus continued as if he had not just dropped a metaphorical bomb.
"Of course," Shepard replied. She was not going to linger on whom he could mean by someone. It was rather obvious, but thinking about it was acknowledging it, and that would give her a sinking feeling in her stomach. She had enough of that. As petty as it might sound, she sincerely and fervently hoped Nihlus was wrong. The last thing she wanted was to have Harbinger declare a personal vendetta on her. Harbinger would not make a distinction between those affiliated with her and everyone else. The Alliance as a whole would be on the receiving end of it.
"Shepard, there is one other thing we have to worry about. If Harbinger openly attacks Feros… it will not be just Alliance civilians in danger." Nihlus shifted tracks again. "I know at least three Thessian universities that view Feros as the first place to send their Prothean Studies graduates for field experience. Feros is considered a safe location to start with."
"Harbinger is goading everyone," Shepard muttered. The Council would not do much as long as the problem was not their concern, in that sense they were typical politicians. However that ought not to mistaken for weakness per se. If Harbinger stepped on the wrong tail too hard, the Council would act. Still, right then the onus to act was on the Alliance. "How should we go about notifying the Council though?" She asked, even though her mind was on the other obvious possibility. The message was hours old, and it would be even longer before the Normandy could get there. For all they knew Harbinger would grow tired of waiting and mount an attack. Would the Normandy arrive to find Zhu's Hope razed to the ground?
"Leave that to me." Nihlus replied bluntly.
"Thanks," Shepard replied numbly. Small mercies there. One day it would be her job to negotiate this sort of thing, and make those reports on her own. Shepard was not looking forward to that day. "I hate to say it, but this might turn into another all-hands-on-deck situation."
"That is alright. You will be hard-pressed to find a single individual on board who would not happily put a firearm to Harbinger's case and pull the trigger." Nihlus replied.
Shepard nodded, but said nothing else. There was no need to say anything more.
"Do what you need, we can have a general meeting when that is done. I need to go place a few calls."
Shepard watched him turn around and march right back to the door. When it closed she turned back to the data package she needed to finish reviewing.
The Normandy was on its way within an hour. The Attican Beta cluster was almost right on the other side of Alliance Space, on the border with the Attican Traverse. Their final relay jump saw them emerge in the Hercules system in good time, only for Joker to turn the Normandy onto a new heading and jump into FTL for the fourteen hour leg to the Theseus system.
With all the message, processing, and travel delays and travel times they arrived at Theseus' heliopause about three days after the Heretics had first arrived. Shepard ordered Joker to rig the Normandy for silent running as soon as they emerged from FTL. She did not want Harbinger to know they had arrived, just on the off-chance that it was waiting for that to launch an attack.
Two hours after that the Normandy made orbit around Feros, with Shepard on the CIC along with most of the away team. At the moment Zhu's Hope was on the planet's night side. They could not and would not wait for dawn, doubly so since Feros' rotation period was slightly over thirty Earth hours long. Night was definitely not a problem for EDI's work. Soon there was processed IR imaging telemetry projected over the main tactical console for all to see. A quick analysis was enough to confirm that the research colony was still there. The heat signature was active and if EDI focused her scanner down tight she could see people moving about. On the other hand the Heretic ship's heat signature showed that the engines were cool, it had not budged since it docked. The arcology the Heretics were latched onto also showed traces of heat within. EDI could not tell what was going on, but it was definitely activity of some kind.
This reconnaissance foremost confirmed that Harbinger had sent in just one ship. That meant they could keep the Normandy in orbit and use their shuttles to get around. The Normandy would be their ace in the hole, as Harbinger would have no way of knowing from where it might pop up. After that, Shepard now knew what had to happen. Harbinger had been clever in his choice of mooring. If they had not attached to the side of an arcology then Shepard would have shot them out of the sky with extreme prejudice. Firing even the disruptor torpedoes might just bring the arcology down, and the Council would have her head. Then, if she chose to fire on what might have been her own people, then the brass would fight the Council for her head. That meant there was only one way of handling the situation. "We have to get that ship to detach. Somehow." She announced bluntly. Once Harbinger was not clutching a building, the odds would tip. "This asks the obvious question," she would not look at Legion right then. "How are they attached? Mooring claws? I doubt the building façade would withstand magnetic pads."
"Geth vessels use six hydraulically-driven gripping struts. Each will have a claw that can pierce into a building," Tali said as she glanced toward Legion who stood by the elevator.
The geth looked back right at her without saying a word.
Garrus hummed low in his throat, "Those would be some hydraulics. I assume boarding the Heretic ship is out of the question, yes?"
"Definitely out of the question," Shepard replied. That would be going right into the lion's den, the Heretics will have hundreds of platforms on board that ship. She would not be surprised if Harbinger self-destructed the ship with her on board, just because the opportunity was there. So yes, as far as she was concerned, boarding was out of the question.
"We will not be overriding the claws from outside, so our best bet becomes shaped charges. Those will cut through enough material to weaken the limbs without doing a lot of damage to the building itself. We also do not need to attack all six, unless you want a clean separation." Garrus went on.
"I would like a clean separation, all six claws cut with simultaneous detonations. That way the ship plunges straight down." Shepard replied. "However, I fully expect something to get in the way, so we might have to go after four and hope it… rips off without taking half the structure and us with it." Shepard did not like the pressure inherent in this whole plan. They only had one go to get it right, and she could not afford to botch it. "Needless to say, what happens after that is easy. Hopefully the ship plunges down and hits the surface, but if it manages to remain airborne… Joker, that'll be your cue, wait for it to get clear, and torpedo it."
"Got it," the pilot replied. "I know not to aim for the core. I can probably split it if I hit the narrowest point. That'll likely make it tumble out of the air in two mostly intact pieces."
"Sounds like a plan." Shepard affirmed. "However, before we can do that, and before we even get to the claws, we go see Zhu's Hope. Show the colonists that we are here. It'll be a comfort. Maybe they also know something or other about the enemy's movement. The enemy deployed troops into the structure they moored to. I would bet the Heretics ran recon of some sort as well."
"Safe assumption," Nihlus mused.
Shepard nodded. It was a bit of a no-brainer really. Start with the fundamentals, and improvise where needed. "We need to prepare the shaped charges, and we'll keep them on the Kodiak until needed."
"I can help you with that, Commander. Four hands are better than two." Garrus volunteered.
"Thanks, Garrus. I appreciate it."
"Just another day in this office," Garrus said, rueful amusement in his tone.
"Truer words have never been spoken," Ashley said. "I should be alarmed that these sorts of operations have become something we discuss so casually… but I'm not."
A beat of silence passed all around, no one seemed keen on saying anything to that. Shepard grinned, "Difficult done daily. The impossible takes just a little longer." That was practically one of the unofficial mottos for the ICT graduates. "I guess it should be said, but I want the whole team on this. We do not have the numbers to storm that tower, so we will have to infiltrate it as a black ops. That said, need I remind everyone that we handled Balak? I should think the repercussions of failure were higher with him. We'll handle this too." If she thought about it, what was one badly damaged tower compared to over three million lives?
"Damn right we will!" Ashley chorused.
"Alright. EDI, Joker… you're monitor duty. Keep an eye out for anything else making orbit. If anything pings on the IR scanner, I want to know."
"You got it, Shepard," Joker replied.
"Of course, Commander." EDI added.
Shepard turned to the ex-detective, "Garrus, we will go and get those charges set up."
"Right behind you, as always," Garrus nodded.
"The rest of you, get ready. I want to deploy as soon as possible."
"Aye, aye, ma'am," the marines chorused in a single voice.
Within three hours her team gathered beside the Kodiak. Every single individual there looked like they were ready to wage war. Jenkins was sporting his thermal clip bandoleer, Tali's drone was packed in its charging cradle, Kaidan had his full med-kit, and Legion's emotive plates were already furrowed. There was a tension in the air, and Shepard could not blame anyone for feeling it. Yes Balak threatened over three million people, but he had finite numbers. The Heretics hardly offered the same courtesy. Who knew how many platforms there were on board that ship. The runtimes could swap platforms like the fashion-obsessed swapped outfits.
She mutely watched as Garrus and Nihlus carried the crate of explosives aboard the Kodiak. The charges were too oversized for her comfort, but there was no way to make devices of that yield particularly small. This was officially not so much sabotage as controlled demolition. What bothered Shepard was the logistics of things. Could they actually move at any decent speed toting that crate around? It took two to move it, as Shepard would not risk a localized mass effect field, even though the explosives were inert and the detonators were not actually connected to the explosives or anything that could set them off.
Shepard was last to step aboard the Kodiak, and once her left foot was on its deck plates, it was op time. "Alright, last moment check… make sure everyone got everything. I know it is a little awkward to be packed onto a single Kodiak, but we can't risk flying the second, tandem. Not for this."
"We will manage," Garrus replied.
A number of heads nodded in agreement, but no one said anything else. That seemed to end the conversation as the team moved on their own to take their seats. Nihlus spared her a brief touch on the shoulder before he turned and stepped into the cockpit. Shepard lingered only for ten seconds and then followed.
Shepard was in the cockpit with Nihlus as the Kodiak made its descent. Feros was a case study for many things, up to and including what happened when a heavily settled planet was abandoned. The Protheans had covered two thirds of its surface with a single city made up of impossibly tall arcologies connected by elevated roadways. In the intervening fifty thousand years the decaying structures had released enough greenhouse substances that the planet's climate grew slightly warmer, which was enough to increase activity within the troposphere, making the wind stronger. The arcologies were forced to take the brunt of this, and it was not rare for things of various sizes to come crashing down. This process then produced extreme quantities of pulverized dust kept aloft by the wind. Feros' surface was unpleasant without light pressure regulation under the best of times, but the dust made it health-damaging at long exposures.
As soon as the Kodiak got past the tropopause it too began to feel the turbulence. Nihlus found his hands full trying to keep the shuttle from heaving while also avoiding the arcologies and roadways. These materialized out of the gloom, jutting out of the sea of dark clouds like chipped fangs. Here and there Shepard spotted scattered glows, though it was impossible to tell what caused them. She would not discount the possibility of fires sparked by lightning. Tall structures of this sort, surrounded by a dusty, writhing atmosphere, became a prime target for the lightning generated by the dynamo currents and dust within the troposphere.
Zhu's Hope stuck out of all the turmoil like a lighthouse on a stormy night-time sea. It was impossible to miss the single spire with a golden crown of radiant floodlights illuminating a large hydroponic greenhouse. The colonists knew there was no hiding their position from the Heretics with the simple old trick of blacking out all light. The whole bubble also seemed to ripple a little, which hinted at a mass effect field containment dome. As Shepard glanced at the wind gage on the Kodiak's instruments, she saw the sixty kilometer per hour gusts. Suddenly the dome made sense, it was there to reduce atmospheric pressure and calm the wind.
Nihlus made a slow approach, as even the shuttle had been rigged for silent flying, using its mass effect fields as opposed to the blisteringly-hot thruster which would have lit up on any IR scanner. Once they were over the colony, he turned the Kodiak toward the open corner. Up here, beyond the retaining field, the air pressure was about four atmospheres. Assuming the other tower was not contained, it was something their suits would have to counter. Shepard knew that going from four atmospheres to one too quickly would was a hazard to their health. No wonder the colonists set up an atmosphere-retaining field. No one would want to work up here in an environmental suit.
As the Kodiak came down, Shepard could inspect their setup. The colonist had arrived by a Kowloon rigged for permanent settlement, and so, its detachable modules became fixed structures. The freighter itself was absent. Then the Kodiak crossed the atmosphere retaining field, the wind died down, and the pressure dropped to one point five atmospheres. The shuttle swung around as Nihlus turned it to be head-first into the prevailing wind while he also got a good view of the pad itself for landing.
From the new vantage Shepard could not miss the other tower and the dark hump attached to its side, the Heretic ship. The tower was not entirely dark, but not as backlit either. She could see hints of the elevated roadway connecting the two. The colonists had installed lighting elements along its length to mark the edges. Its immense suspension pylons were also marked and the cables almost looked like spider thread. It was a very good thing that they would not have to drive across that, as there was no better place to set up an ambush.
Shepard was thinking of the obvious again, why had Harbinger not attacked? This was not an issue of force. It would have hundreds of platforms on that ship. Surely that could overrun a place like Zhu's Hope. Everything came back to what Nihlus had alluded to. Was Harbinger essentially calling her out? Showing up somewhere it knew she could not ignore, planting down, and saying 'come at me'? If this was an ambush, and Harbinger came after them with a vengeance, Council desires be damned. She would order Joker to bring the Normandy down and destroy that ship. She would decapitate the enemy's forces before they could do any harm to her team. Harbinger would not be having its cake and eating it too, not on her watch.
Then the shuttle jolted as its bottom plates finally made contact with the landing pad, snapping Shepard out of her unblinking stare at the enemy ship. Without saying a word she unbuckled herself and rose to her feet. Nihlus would be busy with post-landing procedure. By the time she reached the back compartment the others were already on their feet.
"What's the plan?" Kaidan asked.
"We look around first." Shepard replied. "Perhaps the colonists know something about the enemy's position and movement. Anything of that sort would be useful. After that, we'll have to come up with the best way to get our payload in position. I'll be honest with you people, I have reasons to suspect that this is Harbinger calling us out."
"I think that's given," Ashley replied. "Why else would it come here, and just… sit around?"
"Affirmative. Shepard-Commander has thwarted the Old Machine's plans. Shepard-Commander has become an obstacle. It is logical for the Old Machine to seek to eliminate Shepard-Commander." Legion said.
Anyone else would have taken their tone and choice of words as an affront, but Shepard saw it differently. If Legion could see the logic in this thought, then maybe, just maybe there was something to it. She was still not entirely unpardonably paranoid.
"This could very well be a nice… warm up for when we inevitably have to engage the Heretics on their territory," Garrus added.
"There's definitely that," Ashley agreed.
That seemed to create the sort of consensus that ended the topic. Shepard moved toward the environmental controls and keyed in the sequence for the door to open. There was a tremendous whomp as the seals disconnected, followed by a quickly-vanishing whistling and a blast of air as Feros' atmosphere rushed into the Kodiak's lower-pressure cabin, equalizing them in a manner of moments.
When the door had moved entirely out of the way Shepard saw the curious faces standing just outside the landing pad's perimeter. It was then, likely seeing the shuttle open its door that one of the figures approached calmly. He was dressed in coveralls and carried a pistol. Shepard stepped off the shuttle, hands raised waist-high, just to show the man that she was not armed, or a threat. That seemed to calm him as he lowered the pistol and slipped it into a holster at his side.
"Welcome to Zhu's Hope, I am Fai Dan, support staff coordinator. You'll have to pardon us… we were not notified to expect an Alliance patrol."
Shepard smiled, "That would be my fault, I'm afraid I was not in the luxury of notifying you. Commander Shepard, SSV Normandy."
There was a gasp from behind Fai Dan, "Geth!" someone called. A split of a second later Shepard heard three weapons whining as the other men raised their pistols.
"Easy! Easy! That's Legion. He's friendly." Shepard called, raising her hands to take control of the situation. Still, this told her that the colonists had likely seen the Heretics. Otherwise Legion could have passed for some new, classified military synthetic unit of some sort.
"You are not a patrol," Fai Dan mused.
"No, we're better." Shepard replied. "We've encountered this enemy before." That was technically the truth. She would willingly omit that she thought it highly likely that the only reason the colonists even had a problem, was because it actually wanted to come at her. There was still something in the back of her mind that said it did not make sense for Harbinger to play things so overtly, laying such an obvious trap. But it was also likely that the machine suffered from the folly of all psychopaths, a touch of the megalomania that had it thinking it had the perfect plan. That and with Cerberus moving in the shadows, she was too used to looking in there for other issues. Maybe Harbinger was indeed just an obvious enemy, and this was an obvious challenge.
"I am never the one to look a gift horse in the mouth," Fai Dan said, but his tone hinted that he was less than impressed.
Shepard assumed it was the size of the team. After all, there were not enough to be called a platoon. Most civilians assumed the more able bodies, the better. They knew nothing of the sort of force multiplication that good leadership and specialized training could achieve. Now if only Harbinger did her the courtesy of underestimating her, she would be set. "Alright, well… shall we get down to business. I would like to ask some questions regarding what happened since you sent that message."
"Alright… walk with me, Commander. Your team can look around if they want to." Fai Dan replied, and then motioned with his arm for her to follow. Shepard was only too glad to do so. Right then the distance from the landing pad to the tower where Heretics were was quite possibly within a sniper-shot. A couple kilometers were nothing for a shooter using a large caliber HVR, akin to the one wielded by Legion, doubly so if the shooter did not have to breathe and experienced no muscle twitches. She was going to err on the side of paranoid and seek cover, not to present Harbinger's soldiers an opportunity.
Fai Dan led her toward one of the structures at the center of the rooftop. Once inside he moved toward the desk and sat behind it. To Shepard it seemed like he decided to be as official as it got, including taking her into his office. "The message you are referring to must have been sent from the ExoGeni administration. At the time, we've had no sightings of the ship's occupants." He began.
Shepard knew what that sort of statement would usually preface. "I get the feeling that has since changed."
"Yes. Commander, pardon my asking… but you have one of them on your team? Do you trust it?" Fai Dan wondered.
"Their name is Legion." Shepard replied blandly, "As a gestalt consciousness, plural pronouns apply. And yes, I trust them. Legion has been part of my team for months now. The Geth have factions just like every other species. The ones who came here are one, a splinter faction. Legion is not affiliated with them."
"I see. That is… good. I suppose."
"Feel free to ask them questions," she added, knowing that Fai Dan was not convinced of what she said. "Now as to your situation, what is going on?"
"It is quite unpleasant. These other… Geth moored to the tower where ExoGeni set up their administrative headquarters."
Shepard contained her urge to groan, of course the situation would take a turn for the worst. If that other tower was the company's HQ then there would be people there, one more reason to be super careful with the explosives. "Do you still have contact? Were ExoGeni staff taken as hostages?" Hostage rescue and controlled demolition? This was becoming a bit of a tall order.
"Likely. We've not had contact with them for about ten hours now, and shortly after we spotted those lamp-faced robots on the Skyway… I think it is clear enough what is going on."
So the Heretics had made a move, admittedly a subtle and underhanded one. Still, she had to wonder why like this? Why would Harbinger order the Heretics to set up a blockade on the road? Did it think she would make approach in a wheeled vehicle? It had to know that she had a ship and shuttles, and it had no way of knowing when she would arrive. The blockade was pointless against her team. So why? Then, as she thought about it like that, she realized there was another possibility. The Heretics might not be interested in keeping someone out, as much as keeping people in. Did they fail to capture all the ExoGeni staff? Were they still hiding in the tower? Fai Dan could not possibly know that, but she would assume there were, and plan accordingly. "Alright… how many staff ought to have been in the tower?"
"ExoGeni staff is nominally around thirty, and they have just as many security staff."
Ah yes, the rental security staff. Shepard would expect a good many of them to be dead already. If the Heretics stormed the tower in force, the private sector security would not have been prepared for their ruthless pragmatism and lack of sentiment. Then there was Harbinger itself.
"Add to that, we have frequent off-world guests. Mostly Asari and Salarian researchers. Their temporary lodgings are in that tower as well. However, I could not tell you how many of them there were." Fai Dan went on.
Shepard would assume an upward of as many as ExoGeni staff. This was officially a logistical nightmare for her team. How were they supposed to extract that many civilians? She could reasonably expect them to have some injured as well. Shepard hated thinking it, but reality was that when it came to such emergencies, the only decisions civilians could make reliably, were stupid ones. She was going to let Fai Dan stay blissfully unaware of the fact that she had just put numbers to the odds of people's lives. That was the sort of ruthless calculus that civilians never approved of. "What about here? What's the situation on this side of the colony?"
"Everything here is… fine." Fai Dan's face drained of all emotions, it was as if a mental stone wall came up in a flash.
Shepard caught that weird pause, it was as if 'fine' was actually the last word he wanted to use.
"Commander, we've not seen a single geth in this tower. Yet. Though I expect had you arrived any later, that might have changed."
That she might argue, but chose not to. There was a tiny distinction there that Fai Dan would probably not appreciate. Harbinger already had a tower full of hostages. Why would it work harder than it needed to? It was not like these civilians could go anywhere. She would bet a month's salary that the colony's only functional shuttles were berthed in the other tower. If she thought about it like that, then it could be said that Harbinger took the entirely colony hostage just by taking the administrative tower.
"Alright, I think it would be best if you get your people out of the way as soon as possible."
"No!" Fai Dan jumped, rising from his seat for all of a split of a second, then slumping back down. "No, Commander. We have to… we will… stay put. We cannot leave the greenhouse unattended. Not even for a day."
Shepard tried her best not to show her flash of annoyance. There was that civilian poor decision making process kicking in. They would willingly choose to stay in danger over the greenhouse. Admittedly that could be their entire source of food, but surely that was not worth risking all their lives, right?
"Please understand… the livelihood of this colony depends on it. It is difficult to make anything grow with this star's sunlight. Even the lamps are unreliable. Just last week we had a power outage that took a whole day to diagnose. Moreover, our hydroponics depend on a constant water supply. If we lose power, we lose water, and if we lose water too often, and for too long… the whole growth cycle could be lost. ExoGeni… will have to ship in food."
Shepard suddenly saw the root of the problem. Zhu's Hope was in a highly precarious position. There was no wrangling with the corporates. ExoGeni would hate additional expenses on top of the regular expense they incurred. This place could not be making them a profit, it would be surprise if it was even self-sufficient. "Alright. But I want to know… is there somewhere in this tower where you can take non-essential personnel? Somewhere deep, ideally behind some heavy, locking door?"
"That… that we can do." Fai Dan nodded. "We just need some technicians to stay… monitor the machinery…"
Not ideal, there would still be people in harm's way, but Shepard would take what she could get. "Alright, though I would have preferred if all of you went there, and waited for the all clear, just in case." Ultimately she did not have the troops to strong-arm the colonists into obeying her.
"I understand your concern, Commander. However this is how it… must be."
There was that peculiar pause again, as if he was choosing the word after the pause. It was a very curious, unnatural thing, but it was not like it would be tactful to ask about it. It might even be like asking a person with a speech impediment why they talked funny. She just did not think Fai Dan's peculiar pattern was a speech impediment of whatever sort.
"I suggest, Commander. You do not linger here… longer than you have to." Fai Dan went on.
"Alright," Shepard knew when the conversation was essentially moot. She watched as the man got to his feet, and noted a faint wince flash across his face, it was a micro-expression at best, but she saw it, and it was just one more thing to file away as peculiar. He came around the desk and Shepard followed him out of the structure without saying a word.
Shepard was none too surprised to see Nihlus leaning on the wall by the doorway, arms folded over his chest. It was his way of saying that he was assuming his normal routine of shadowing her wherever she went. She could see Kaidan and Ashley off in the distance, talking to a salarian by the greenhouse. Jenkins was openly gawping past the transparent panels at the cornucopia of growth within. Now that Shepard spared it a look, she noted that the greenhouse was most parts of a jungle. The colonists had rigged every available square centimeter in there with growth. Larger vegetables in the huge hydroponic vats, with smaller plants suspended from the ceiling in little tubs. There was a maze of hoses and lines everywhere. If the whole system ran off just one or two pumps, then Shepard could safely say that the colonists had their entire food supply in one basket, and the failure of those pumps would indeed be a disaster.
"As I said, Commander. Feel free to look around, but you do… not… want to linger here."
Shepard turned her head just in time to watch Fai Dan walk off. Right then the tone of his voice was outright ominous, and it caught her attention.
"What was that all about?" Nihlus asked.
"I'll tell you when I understand it myself." Shepard replied. Had the man been warning them about something? Why so cryptically? And about whom? ExoGeni could not possibly exercise that much control over the colonists, right? Was he simply eager to have the Heretics gone? Shepard would not blame him for that one. But then, if the warning had been about the Heretics, his general attitude did not match.
Kaidan and Ashley were suddenly back at her side, with Jenkins following a few steps behind them. Shepard glanced around again, but she could not spot Tali, Legion, or Garrus. Where had they gone off to?
"Skipper, there is something seriously wrong here, and I do not mean the Heretics." Ashley said, her voice dipping to a low whisper. "Have you noticed how calm everyone is?"
Kaidan was looking back over his shoulder at the salarian that the two had been talking to only moments before. It was then that Shepard noted his eyes never left them, and he did not blink either. The stare was singularly unnerving, unnatural even. Salarians did not stare like that normally, their minds worked at triple clock speed compared to everyone else and they had eidetic memory on top. For that matter, what was a salarian doing here of all places?
"Whatever it is, gunny, now is not the time to try and fix it." Kaidan said quietly.
"I get it, but I am just saying something isn't right here." Ashley replied.
"I know what you mean, Ash." Shepard said, and that was the truth. Her gut was telling her that something was not right, "But for now… Alenko is right too. We can poke around once we deal with the more pressing issue. Have any of you seen Tali, Legion, or Garrus?"
"Tali is in the shuttle. She said her suit's environmental sensory showed an excess quantity of particles in the air. The dust is making her scrubber filters fill up at triple rate." Ashley replied.
"Legion went after her, I don't think they like it here," Jenkins added.
The colonists had pulled guns on Legion, the geth had every right not to like being surrounded by potentially hostile individuals. This would not be the first time that they had just opted to avoid a confrontation by distancing themselves. Shepard would not blame them for it either.
"So what is our next course of action?" Nihlus asked.
"We regroup, I got some information from Fai Dan regarding the situation in the other tower. It is time to do our planning. We can do that in the shuttle. If Tali is worried about her scrubbers, then I do not want to run them down faster than we have to." With that said, she turned toward the shuttle, but her gaze invariably drifted up, past the craft, and toward the ExoGeni tower.
The Heretic ship really did look like some sort of unsightly swelling attached to the building's side. It had no apparent outboard lights, but its silvery finish caught faint refractions from surrounding light sources. Still, it looked dark and ominous. Not for the first time she wondered what their odds of success were on this one.
Then she had to toss that thought aside, whatever those odds were, they did not matter, they had to do, or die trying. There was nothing else to it. She took a deep, calming breath, and let it out. One step at a time, this was just another complicated, nigh impossible situation they trained people like her to handle. Still, Shepard could not help but feel exhaustion begin to creep up. These situations were too numerous, and too often, and she was not even a Spectre yet. She walked toward the shuttle as if nothing was bothering her, when in fact, Shepard felt the weight of everything on her shoulders.
Author Notes: I had a rough two months, just real life kept me completely busy and unmotivated. For a while it was also bitterly cold in Toronto, the sort of cold that just makes me want to sleep. Feros as an arc has been punted around all season, it's been in "production hell" that long. It just did not seem to want to "form". Even now I had to scrap and rewrite half this episode once.
General Notes:
Episode Name – Persepolis is the name of one of the most important cities of the ancient Persian Empire. For a very long time it was a "lost" city as well. Yet its ruins are quite majestic even to the present day. That and the history student in me sees something of the ancient Persian empire within the Protheans. I needed a name, and this one just popped up.
Chapter Notes:
Heliopause – The heliopause is the boundary of a star's heliosphere, the region covered by a star's magnetic field, where we can feel its solar wind. Beyond the heliopause, the star's magnetic field stops shielding the solar system, and the cosmic background radiation can be detected. Our solar system's heliopause is at 123 AU away from the Sun. For our interests, I'm using a star's heliopause as a convenient definition of the "edge" of its solar system.