Disclaimer: I do no own Mass Effect, I do not claim to own Mass Effect, I am only doing this for fun.
Author Notes: Here it is, the long-awaited part three of this arc. Life once again gets in the way of me having more time to write. But enjoy!
Episode 45: Persepolis [Part III]
The silence on this new floor was so absolute that it almost made it possible to forget that there might be enemies around every turn. Shepard was the first to duck into each room and check its corners. The first couple of offices she encountered had been turned to storage spaces for all manner of supplies. According to the labels the crates in them contained everything from backup equipment to electrical hardware and even a stash of emergency non-perishable food.
What jumped at Shepard was that there was one whole floor-to-ceiling stack that contained just laboratory glass-ware. As far as she knew, ExoGeni's typical fare was evaluating planets for potential as colonies. Their goal was to find and evaluate resource deposits. That was easily done by a team made up of surveyors, geologists, and mineralogists. None of whom would require so much glass-ware.
The quantity of beakers and test-tubes hinted that someone was conducting some serious chemical or biological work. Her gut told her that it could not be above board. It was not ExoGeni's standard fare, and the Council would not have allowed them to set up, or sell setup rights for labs. Feros would never be allowed to become a second Noveria. This was just one more question to add to the pile of questions Shepard already had.
All in all, it did not take very long to sweep things. Before long they were approaching the ninety-degree bend that would take them across the long side furthest away from the stairs. Quite suddenly Legion stopped cold. Shepard noticed it instantly, simply because Legion could not walk silently. When she turned, she saw that their emotive plates had drawn into that pensive look they got when they were figuring something out. "What is it, Legion?" She whispered.
"Shepard-Commander, we have detected Heretic signals." Legion replied, voice barely lowered at all.
"How many?" Shepard asked instantly.
Legion said nothing for a long moment, long enough for Shepard to begin feeling some apprehension.
"We are uncertain." Legion replied. "We are attempting to isolate and ascertain the quantity of individual signals. Stand by."
"Stay behind me, Doctor T'Soni." Myrix stated coolly.
Shepard hummed as she pressed her back to the nearest wall. Legion did not need to say anything, she could make a few safe assumptions. Either the heretics were too numerous for a quick count, or they were adapting to Legion's presence, trying to negate the tactical disadvantage. There was also a small possibility that it was a combination of the two.
Shepard glanced back. Tali had ducked behind her. Myrix and Liara had taken position on the other side of the hallway. The commando drew her pistol even as she edged her charge toward one of the open doorways of a room they had already secured.
"Commander, we have visual on heretics on our side." Kaidan said.
"How many, Lieutenant?" Shepard asked.
"There-"
The rest of Kaidan's report was cut off by a staccato she recognized instantly as a heretic rifle. A split of a second later two alliance automatics barked back. The exchange reverberated through the hallway. Shepard ground her teeth together.
"There are a good six of them here, Commander." Ashley announced. "Oh and the LT is fine. He just can't talk while channeling his biotics. We have cover in the offices on this side."
"Got it," Shepard replied. She allowed herself the luxury of exhaling the breath that had hitched in her chest. It was indeed best to let Kaidan concentrate right then. She turned to her team, "The heretics are between us and Bravo. We can hit the enemy from behind." She announced.
"Acknowledged." Legion reached behind their back for their own rifle.
Shepard reached behind her back for Nike, took a deep breath, and slid around the corner. Instantly her eyes landed on the six units at the far side of the corridor. It was straight as a ruler, and therefore little more than a shooting gallery. Before Shepard could raise her gun there was a pop, and one of the heretics jerked as its head whipped back, spraying white fluid everywhere. It collapsed to the floor and did not move.
Then there was a loud whomp and a second heretic went flying into the wall, followed by a spray of automatic fire, which only caused its shields to flare. Yet the unit hit the wall with so much force that its antenna dislodged. It slid down the wall without moving another millimeter.
Shepard raised Nike against her shoulder and peered down the scope.
The yet-functional heretics were surprisingly still not aware of the pincher they were in. Their attention remained wholly on Bravo. The marines had apparently ducked back into cover for the moment, as there was no more fire from that side. Shepard slid a finger onto Nike's trigger, except Legion beat her to the punch. Shepard was unable to stop her reflex flinch at the sudden sound. It forced her to raise her finger off Nike's trigger. Still, one of the heretics went down, its head obliterated.
"Hold you positions for the moment, Williams. You too Jenkins." Kaidan ordered.
"Roger that," Williams replied.
The other three finally took notice, and two rounded on them. Shepard dropped her finger back onto Nike's trigger as her first target pretty much picked itself. She would take down the unit that was still aiming at where Bravo was.
"Wouldn't dream of getting in front of Legion's gun." Jenkins added.
A quick inhale and exhale and Shepard slowly squeezed the trigger. Nike bucked and the shot ripped past the heretic's shields, shattering its face-light. The machine emitted a loud, comically startled chatter as it went down.
"Allow me to dispose of the remaining two." Myrix stated calmly.
Shepard turned to look back at the commando.
"Hold your fire!" Kaidan called.
It was as if Myrix had been waiting for an acknowledgement, as the next instant there was a biotic whine and she vanished, leaving behind a glowing periwinkle streak shooting right down the corridor. Shepard whipped her head to follow the flash.
The asari materialized right between the last two heretics. As she turned on the spot, her periwinkle corona flared even brighter. The two units turned their rifles on the commando. Then suddenly Myrix threw out her arms, hands palm-down, and slowly began to raise them. The two units lifted right off their feet and continued to float up until they hit the ceiling.
The machines twisted to and fro, trying to point their guns down at the asari, but looked more like they were flailing. The biotic field was preventing them from using the ceiling as leverage of any sort.
Their flight was over as suddenly as it begun as the commando swung both arms down as fast as she could, closing both fists as she did. Her timing was brutal and flawless. She drove the heretics into the floor head-first. The thud of impact echoed down the halls, and Shepard some vibration under her feet. The force shattered their heads into a thousand tiny pieces that went flying every which way. The rest hit the floor, crumpling into inglorious heaps. Myrix brought her hands together, palm against palm, one on top of the other, and the biotic energy around her simply fizzled out.
"Keelah," Tali breathed.
Now Shepard knew why O'Rafferty had practically sung a paean to the commando's prowess. Could anyone survive something like that?
"What happened?" Nihlus asked, his tone every bit worried.
Shepard did not blame him. This weird stunned silence could really be only one of two things, and Nihlus was not an unbridled optimist. He would assume the worst. She would have thought the same.
"Everything is… under control." Shepard replied, hesitant to tempt Murphy's Law, but knowing that she needed to assuage the Spectre's concern.
"Yea, I'd say. Two heretics got pile-driven into the floor. Head-first." Jenkins explained.
"Jenkins…" Kaidan said, tone full of warning.
"Sorry."
Shepard was not going to comment, still was waiting, but as the seconds ticked away and no additional heretics came out of the woodwork she dared to be cautiously optimistic. "I think we got every unit on this floor… and the heretics would know that. Nihlus, Garrus, keep your eyes on that stairway. Would be the perfect time for more to show up."
"Do not worry. We have this." Garrus said.
"Good. The rest of us need to finish the sweep."
"You got it, Commander." Ashley voiced.
"Acknowledged." Legion replied.
Shepard tucked Nike back behind her back and went back to the task at hand. Some part of her said they could do away with some of the room sweeps now, because the heretics were unlikely to be lying in wait in some room. In many ways they were like children playing war-games, learning the tactics one mistake at a time. On the other hand, she could not allow herself to get overconfident. Murphy's Law had worked with less before. She drew Sin as she ducked into the first doorway on her left to sweep the room. It was empty save for more storage crates.
"LT are you alright?" Ashley asked.
"Thanks for the concern, Gunny, but I'm alright." Kaidan replied calmly.
"Don't overdo it Lieutenant." Shepard said calmly.
"Trust me, Commander, I know my limits. I've only had to go past them once in recent memory." Kaidan replied.
Shepard suspected he was referring to what happened on Solcrum. "Alright." Kaidan would not appreciate any more undue attention of that sort.
She exited the current room, and turned to make her way toward the next. Legion stuck to her side like a stalwart guardian. Liara walked a step behind her with Tali. Chatika floated ahead of them, bobbing up and down as it turned every which way as it scanned their surroundings. The storage spaces ended then, turning to offices and work spaces.
Shepard had gotten through one more office, and stepped outside, when she saw Jenkins appear from the other passage, still carrying his rifle at a ready. Ashley followed a split of a second later.
"Our side is clear, Skipper," The gunny announced calmly.
"Great, thanks." Shepard replied.
Jenkins, never one to stand around doing nothing for very long moved toward the closest open doorway he could see. He paused short of the door and stared down at the fallen heretics in front of it. "Here's a thought, did anyone notice how they were clustering around this doorway?" he asked as he motioned to the door. "To me it looked like they were guarding it."
Shepard ducked into another office, sweeping the corners. "Good eye, Jenkins. They were in that corner for a reason, alright." She dully checked the corners of the office, sweeping them with her gun. As expected the office was empty save for the furniture.
"Well… ugh… the room they were guarding is a lab. And… there's one more victim here." Jenkins continued.
Shepard blinked, mildly surprised. Now Jenkins was getting over-eager. She stepped out of the office just in time to see Ashley and Kaidan duck into the office at the far end of the corridor.
"That would be the office and lab of Doctor Renaud," Liara said.
"Can you tell me more about him?" Shepard asked. She had a feeling that Jenkins had just found the ultimate destination for the glassware.
"I've… not talked to Doctor Renaud much. I did not see him often. He was always in his lab... well, someone would often take his food up to him." Liara explained.
That meant this Doctor Renaud was either an absent-minded workaholic who forgot to eat, or up to things he wanted to finish as soon as physically possible or would not leave unattended. Given the reception she got from the ExoGeni administrative staff, the latter possibility seemed likelier.
"I'm looking at ID right now. It is Doctor Renaud." Ashley announced. "There are fridges and an incubator. Whatever Renaud was working with… it wasn't rocks. Rocks don't require culture maturation, unless they're looking for life in them. He was studying something biological here."
Shepard blinked, the mystery just deepened. The planet's ecology had been nearly obliterated when the Protheans had first moved in. Then the city was abandoned and its decay started a chain reaction of environmental change. It seemed dubious to think that some part of the planet's ecology had survived the double whammy. Then again, life was more resilient than common sense would dictate. Shepard could not discount the possibility of there still being something to study. "Let me get there, Gunny. Don't spoil my fun." She said. Ultimately, she needed to see things for herself.
"I figured you'd say that, Skipper." Ashley replied. "No problem. The rest of this is all yours."
"I am curious as well." Garrus announced.
"Alright… hang on. I'll come over there and we can trade positions." Ashley said. Her running boot-falls echoed across her comm link.
"Thank you, Williams." The detective replied.
"Jenkins, we still have the bisecting section, come on." Kaidan said.
"Ah, that's right!" Jenkins replied.
Shepard was not going to comment, she largely tuned out the radio chatter. She had good reasons to doubt there were any more heretics on this level. However, if she was to be proven wrong, Kaidan and Jenkins could more than handle a straggler or two. She needed to finish these rooms.
It took them a few more minutes but she made her way toward the laboratory and stepped inside. Then stopped a meter past the doorjamb as she took in the room. She did not need her eyes to tell her there was a body here, her nose would suffice. Ashley had saved her the task of identity confirmation, and she would be thankful for that. Instead she focused on the rest of the room.
The room was a rectangle, with the door set on the long side. There was a laboratory work counter and sink on her right, with an office desk and terminal on the left. The doctor's body was near his desk, indicating that the heretics had caught him utterly by surprise. The small island counter in the center of the room was covered with equipment, with a complex microscope rig right in the midst. The back wall was dominated by yet more work counters, three large refrigerators with no clear doors. There was also the large incubator in the corner. At that point she decided to wait, and it was not long before Garrus stepped into the room.
"Commander, sorry for holding things up." Garrus greeted, sounding a bit sheepish.
"No matter, this evidence won't grow legs and run," Shepard replied.
"Yes… it would be quite something if it did." Garrus mused.
Shepard grinned, but she was not going to comment. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing? This lab is definitely rigged for work with biological material."
Garrus hummed, "We… do not have a comfortable record with those."
Shepard thought that was putting it mildly. Their past experience with biological research and the people who ran it had been nothing but simply shady to outright immoral. Just once she would have loved to stumble across the work of someone who was guilty of nothing more than stashing a bottle of booze in the back of the sample fridge, despite the contamination hazard that would pose. But fact remained that she was never sent somewhere to have tea and crumpets.
She moved toward the refrigerators, as they would invariably contain the evidence. She opened the door to the one closest to her and its internal lighting flicked on. Inside, sitting on one of the middle shelves were at least four racks of test tubes, all concisely labeled, and all containing various quantities of preserved blood. There was no way of mistaking the liquid for anything else. "Chalk one more under the shady column, Garrus." Shepard did not particularly care to cover up just how blasé she was right then.
"What did you find, Shepard?" Nihlus asked.
Shepard sighed, she was going to have to narrate this through huh? Not that she would blame Nihlus for wanting to know. "Blood samples. Three racks of twenty-four test tubes to be precise." She leaned in to peer at the labels. "Each set of tubes is dated a month apart. And… they're labeled with numbers rather than names. The codes definitely repeat." Doctor Renaud was meticulous about order. The sample from source zero-one was always in the corner, followed by zero-two to its left, and so on.
"A comparison study of blood chemistry over time? Curious." Liara said.
That was an easy assumption to make, as far as Shepard was concerned.
"Makes me wonder." Tali mumbled. "Commander, back on the other tower, my suit flagged the air as contaminated with excess micro-particles. The saturation level was almost five times what it is here."
"How can the air be that dirty over there, but not here?" Ashley asked.
"Normally, it shouldn't be. But there… it got to be the containment dome! It's the only thing I can think of." Tali replied slowly, as if she was second-guessing every word out of her own mouth.
"Tali, what is the contaminant in the air, though? Can your suit tell?" Shepard asked. Quarian environmental suits were some very complex hardware. Far more complex than her armor. Hers could read atmospheric conditions, because she needed that to be able to shoot accurately. But it made sense why Tali's would delve much deeper. The quarians had very little immune system to speak of, knowing what was in the air around them could be a matter of life and death, literally. "I figure some part of it will be atmospheric dust. But… if this tower has a saturation level so much lower, there has to be something else over there."
"Right! I'll look at my suit logs. Please give me a moment." Tali replied.
"Sure." Shepard replied as she closed the refrigerator.
"Shepard, think about it. How can a mostly-abandoned, likely structurally-compromised tower be air-tight enough to concentrate contaminants inside itself? The containment field only covers the roof, and… it is there more to control the wind. You saw the Kodiak's wind gauge." Nihlus asked.
Shepard blinked once or twice as she pondered that. The realization slammed her in the gut all at once. The whole thing was outright impossible. The logistics involved in keeping an entire structure hermetically sealed via mass effect containment fields were unfeasible here. She had been told repeatedly that the power grid in these buildings was patchy. Where was the power even coming from? Was there enough to maintain the required fields? Somehow she figured the answer to the last one would be a quick no.
That meant the field only worked on the exposed rooftop. But then, the wind would not allow for particle concentration like this. It did not make sense for the air inside the dome to be so heavily contaminated. That is, unless the source of the contamination was inside the building. Her thinking train ground to a halt with all wheels screeching. "The source of contamination is in the building and is still active." Shepard asked.
Garrus hummed thoughtfully, "That is a possibility."
"It would be the only thing that makes sense." Nihlus replied.
Shepard hummed. Then a single thought sent a metaphorical bucket of cold water down her back. "Blood samples in the fridge, and now this… run with it. Ask yourself, why else would ExoGeni want to keep outsiders from going there?" She paused as the possibilities crystalized. Then, she plucked out the likeliest of the lot, simply taking into account whom they were dealing with. "Whatever that contaminant is… Doctor Renaud had been studying its long-term effects on a sample population. Zhu's Hope is the sample population!"
Nihlus hummed in agreement.
"Definitely one more scientist with… questionable ethics," Garrus mused ruefully.
"Jeong knew, too." Ashley added.
Shepard closed the refrigerator with an audible thud and stepped away from it. The way she saw it, this certainly explained the administrator's cagey, confrontational behavior when faced with Alliance personnel and a Spectre. He was probably one step below pure panic, thinking the Spectre would assume the studies were conducted on everyone, including non-humans. If so much as a whiff of that got back to the Council, it would embarrass the Alliance, and ExoGeni would be in the sort of trouble no one ever dug themselves out of. They would suddenly lose all protection, as politicians dealt with that sort of embarrassment in a singularly predictable way. The blame would cascade down as everyone sought to avoid responsibility. The politicians would disown ExoGeni, likely for going rogue, and if need be, make scapegoats of the individuals who negotiated ExoGeni's contract, whether they knew about the shady dealings or not. Then ExoGeni's executives would axe Jeong just to try and keep face with the investors. That is, if ExoGeni did not go belly-up overnight. Some blame would inevitable be tossed her way, because the whistle-blower was the easiest to blame.
Still, she would have to blow that whistle. Fact remained that ExoGeni were running dubious human experiments. Did anyone on Zhu's Hope agree to take part, or even knew about them? She paused then. Suddenly Fai Dan's peculiar behavior made eerie sense. He did not want outsiders lingering around, where they would be exposed. He knew, it rankled him enough, but he would not expose it. She would have to figure out his motivation and involvement later. She would deal with ExoGeni and their loose ethical standards after dealing with Harbinger. A quick QEC call to Admiral Hackett and ExoGeni would find themselves in the middle of an internal review. The Alliance would still sweep it all under the rug in the effort of pretending nothing had happened, but it would be on their terms. "To think, were it not for Harbinger, ExoGeni would have continued to get away with this. You know… I think I actually owe that mad machine some gratitude." She said ruefully.
"We can thank it by blowing up that ship nice and quick," Ashley said blandly.
Shepard tried not to grin too much, it would not do for anyone to notice that she was amused by that. "Goes without saying, Gunny." She turned to look at Garrus and nodded, before making her way toward the office door. She needed to switch mental tracks, get back to the immediate situation, not future things. "How's that center area, Kaidan?" She asked. In all the thinking she had missed whether or not the lieutenant and corporal had finished their sweep.
"Clear, Commander." Kaidan replied. "It is only some offices, there is another body here, one of the security staff. But that's about it."
"No sign of any survivors either?" She asked. His delayed report was a bit of a breach of protocol, but essentially harmless.
"None." Kaidan replied.
"Alright, thank you Kaidan. This means that we're done on this level. Our objective becomes the level above. Let's regroup at the stairs." She began to walk toward the stairway, this time taking the passage that Bravo had taken toward the lab.
"You will not gather evidence?" Nihlus asked.
Shepard sighed, "Normally I would. But for now, the mess ExoGeni made has to wait. We need to secure the building and get rid of the heretics first. We can toss our weight around later."
"Alright."
"I can't help but wonder exactly what they were studying. Is it some chemical compound unique to the dust here? Or…" Kaidan trailed off.
"That is the question. Worst part is… most of us have been unknowingly exposed to it by now. Tali and Legion being the only exceptions, for obvious reasons." Shepard did not like that, but she had to face reality.
"If it helps… I should think whatever it is… probably does not have an immediate effect." Liara volunteered, her voice calm and collected.
"Yes, that would be nice…" Shepard said. They would have to wait on Tali's input on the matter. Shepard was not going to rush whatever Tali happened to be doing. A brief silence settled then as she approached the final ninety-degree turn. A moment later she came around and her gaze landed on Nihlus, Ashley, and Shiala who stood by the stairway door. "I'll tell you what I saw. The colonists on Zhu's Hope seemed physically healthy. From that, I don't think it's a pathogen or poison. Still… if we go there again, we will have to close our breathing apparatus and hope our suit filters can handle it." It went without saying that she would order everyone, even Tali, to report to Doctor Chakwas just as soon as they were back on the Normandy. Legion would have to go through the deep decontamination procedures again.
"Erm… Commander? I finished checking and double-checking my suit logs." Tali announced suddenly.
"Please tell me you have something, Tali." Shepard replied, intentionally keeping her voice as neutral and calm as possible. She did not want Tali to think she would shoot the messenger. None of this could ever be Tali's fault.
"The air contained inside Zhu's Hope dome is heavily contaminated. Twenty-three percent of the non-gaseous particles is atmospheric dust. Twenty-nine percent identifies as a pollen of an unknown species. What worries me is the other forty-eight. That's all spores from an unknown species."
"Pollen and spores?" Shepard asked as she stopped dead in her tracks.
"Well I'll be damned, an alien allergen," Ashley said.
"I should add that… my suit can't discern how many unknown species. It could be more than two." Tali continued.
"Just great." Ashley replied.
"Also, the same mix is present here, though at one fifth the overall concentration and with shifted balances. The dust makes up more than eighty percent here." Tali finished, her voice had by now shifted into a timid mumble. The girl clearly did not want to be the bearer of bad news.
Shepard hummed as she resumed walking. Could it really be that simple? Were there flowering or pollinating plants on this planet? She had read something about Feros having some fungal plant-life, but little else. While a fungus might explain the spores, it would not cover the pollen. If she really thought about it, things just did not add up. For one, no one warned anyone about a potential allergen. Feros was hardly an unexplored planet. Others had been here before. Were it nothing more than a potential allergen, it would have been known. Yet it was not, and Shepard had no reason to doubt Tali's suit. That could only mean it was not some exotic allergen.
"A collection of allergens are certainly a possibility," she mused, putting up her act. She knew the topic had to die right then and there. Shepard was not going to lie, but she was not going to be entirely truthful. She would use Ashley's theory, simply because it happened to be the most convenient. Whatever else was going on, it had to be kept under wraps. They could not discuss matters any deeper right then. Liara and her commandos were not the type Shepard could convince to spin some details. This would not bite the Alliance in the rear. She had her loyalties, such as they were. The Council was not the boss of her, yet. She would not let anyone have a leg to stand on if they said she let this whole thing escalate out of control. Call it her own sense of self-preservation mixed with a healthy dose of selfishness.
When she looked up she saw that Nihlus was watching her, his head tipped ever so slightly. She stared right back, knowing he would see her eyes past her transparent visor. He would know that she was intentionally omitting again. They would discuss everything later. Then Kaidan and Richard appeared around the corner behind the Spectre. Shepard nodded in their direction. She heard Nihlus rumble low in the back of his throat. It was as if the silent communication between them had not happened at all. It seemed to silence the conversation too. Shepard was not surprised that the rest of the team knew to drop it.
It allowed her to focus on the immediate task at hand. How should she position her team on the level above? Liara had said it did not bisect, and her gut told her to expect stiffer resistance around the server vault. Normally she would have divided the team in two, hit the enemy from both sides simultaneously. But here and now, force division seemed almost dangerous. If she was to divide her team, where should she put Liara and the huntresses? Myrix clearly had no reservations about fighting, and she was powerful, and Shiala was likely on par with her. However, Liara was still a civilian. At this point Shepard did not know whether to trust the archeologist not to panic at the wrong moment. She did not want to burden Kaidan, but ideally, she would not have wanted to be distracted either.
The clinking of Jenkins' ammo bandoleer brought her out of her thoughts. Shepard thought that as much as she hated it, she would have to break up the team, and she would have to pull Liara through this. At the end of the day, her team would have to make up for any issues. "Alright, people, listen up. We know that the level above us does not bisect, so the heretics will have no way to avoid being pinched between two teams. As such, we will divide in two. Legion, you will work with Kaidan this time."
"Welcome to Bravo Squad, Legion." Kaidan said calmly.
"Acknowledged." The geth replied.
Shepard knew it was not ideal, but Legion was heavy artillery that Bravo would need, just in case. "Shiala, please go with them as well."
The commando merely nodded her head, her expression never once wavering from perfectly serene.
"Nihlus, Garrus, Tali, you're with me. Liara and Myrix, please come with us." Shepard went on. In her mind, it was the best breakdown of power she could figure out. Now both sides had at least one biotic, two infantry, and two precision shooters. That left only one detail to square away, what to do with the explosives? It would not do to take them into a big firefight.
Shepard paused from a brief moment to contemplate her options, and then the thought hit her. Where do you hide a tree, if not in a forest? ExoGeni had whole rooms stacked with supplies in similar-looking crates. The heretics clearly did not think much of those. Furthermore, it would be largely out of enemy's reach. "Now for one last thing. Nihlus, Garrus, stow our payload in the back of some storage room. Safety considerations are a thing."
"Will do," Garrus said.
"Alright." Nihlus replied blandly.
Shepard watched them pick up the crate, and it carry off. It was not long before she lapsed into the familiar pattern of balancing the details again. It did not take Nihlus and Garrus very long to stash the crate, likely in the closest storage room they found. It was time to get moving. Shepard took a deep breath to calm her nerves. She would chalk her unusually frazzled nerves up to the fact that she had civilians to mind. "Alright. I think we're good here. We can go up." With that said, she drew Sin, turned, and made her way to the stairs.
With her whole system seemingly running at double time, the stairs seemed to take forever and a day, but she knew it was an illusion. Halfway up the smell of death re-appeared. Seeing as there were no bodies on the stairs themselves, the source had to be ahead.
When Shepard reached the top of the stairs, the source of the scent became apparent. Slumped into a macabre sitting position, in the angle between the wall and floor, was a body in a hardsuit. The man's pistol was still at his side, undisturbed. The door onto the floor beyond was open, and the silence on the landing was such that it appeared unguarded too. As the others crowded the landing, she glanced at Legion. The geth's emotive plates were perfectly neutral, relaxed. They would have called the alarm had there been any heretic unit in the immediate proximity. With that, Shepard holstered her pistol and moved toward the body. She owed the dead a final due, to listen to their last story.
"Oh… Keelah," Tali mumbled from somewhere behind her.
Shepard earnestly wished she could have spared Tali the sight, but she did not have the luxury of that. She crouched low to inspect the evidence. The security guard's helmet forehead guard had a single large hole, the bullet entry point. However, the back had been shattered. Blood and brain matter had splashed onto the wall along with minute fragments of ceramics and padding. Tellingly, the latter had been given enough kinetic energy for some ceramic shards to embed. Mercifully decomposition had long ago turned all the blood a dark brackish color.
There was a short central drag mark, from the body sliding down along the wall, but ringing the rounded central impact splatter was quite a bit of supremely fine stippled spray. Added to that, the shape of the individual drops was elongated and angled down the wall. The guard had been standing, and the shot came from the top of the stairs leading up.
Some said dead men told no tales. Shepard had learned to scoff at the notion. Most just could not hear the tale. "This is the work of a single-projectile weapon. Also… look, the guard's gun is still at his side, he never had the chance to draw it. The blood splatter tells me the shot came from above. The heretics definitely came from the roof." This was confirmation they did not necessarily need, but it was good to have. Shepard liked to operate on information slightly better than plain hearsay and civilian theories.
"I concur." Garrus said as he towered over the body.
Shepard rose to her feet and stepped away, even as she inhaled a long breath, paused, and exhaled. She should not let this bother her. She had to remind herself that in all likelihood the heretics did not hold actual malice and hate for those they had killed here. The guards had been a threat, a blip on some statistical calculation. They had been killed for no other reason than that. She was dealing with machines, not terrorists. Balak's goons had enjoyed brutality, the heretics did not. The appropriate response was to keep her cool head.
With that, stepped toward the doorway and drew her guns. As she pressed her back to the jamb on the left, she glanced around at the others. "Alright, this is where we assume our groups."
"You heard the Commander." Kaidan added calmly.
As the teams rearranged into their designated squads, Shepard turned to the door and what she could see beyond it. The heretics had wrenched the door open, warping the guide-railing. Still, the presence of a guard and a locking door meant ExoGeni had been dead-set on keeping outsiders off this floor. It made Shepard wonder, if the lab was on the level below, what worse things were they hiding up here? The corridor on the other side was lit, and empty, as if the building was entirely abandoned once again.
Shepard glanced at Kaidan who had pressed his back to the wall on the other side of the door from her. She raised Sin into position and nodded. Kaidan acknowledged her with his own nod. A heartbeat later Shepard rounded the doorjamb, rolling around it, and pointed Sin right down the corridor, ready for anything. Behind her, she heard Kaidan's rifle sling rings jingle as he made the same entrance, turning to the other side.
"Clear," Shepard announced.
"Clear." Kaidan echoed.
Shepard was honestly surprised, why were there no heretics guarding the door? It was such a picture perfect bottleneck for an ambush, albeit not a very clever one. The corridor in front of her was much the same as the one below them. However, the one difference was that there were no doors on her right. Was the central block a single, large space? How large was that server vault? Shepard turned back toward the door and watched as the whole team stepped into the corridor, dividing up according to the previous plan as they went. Nihlus was at her side in an instant. Garrus was a step behind him.
"Doctor T'Soni, where is the entrance to the central block?" Shepard asked.
"On the other side from here." Liara replied. "By what I was told, it is the main administrative office. There were normally four guards there too. I think it stands to reason that the vault is inside."
"Indeed." Shepard said. If the vault was not there, why would ExoGeni post so many, very likely armed guards? Well, it was a good thing they now knew what they might have to deal with. First, they would probably find the bodies of those guards at some point. Second, they would have to pincer the heretics between them, or inside the office itself. Shepard did not particularly care of the second option. Bottlenecks were only her friend when she had them in her crosshairs from a kilometer away and the enemy had no idea she was there. The heretics knew she was here, and there was no way to establish a kilometer-long line of sight. "Alright then, we'll round on the corridor from here. Kaidan, take Bravo on the other side."
"No problem." Kaidan replied.
"Yea, we're getting good at fighting around left-hand turns," Jenkins said, entirely too amused with himself.
Ashley choked back her chuckle, likely in an effort to maintain some propriety.
Shepard grinned a little herself. Someone else would have found Jenkins' jibe aimed at them unacceptable, but Shepard was not that petty. She was a creature of habit, and Jenkins picked up on it. She would give him the right for that sort of commentary. Jenkins was part of the team, enough said.
"Come on," Kaidan said calmly.
The team split up. Shepard noticed Legion dither for a moment before they turned and followed Kaidan. She knew she had upset them a little bit. They would say that protecting the team leader was only logical. However, she suspected that they used logical explanations as a coating on top of personal motives. There was just no point in arguing with Legion about it, as they would never admit to it, partly because they could not see it.
"LT, I say we put Richie on point." Ashley said.
"Sure. I'll take point. I'll take all your glory too." Jenkins replied.
"You can try."
"Don't goad him, Gunny." Kaidan stepped in.
"Oh alright."
Shepard cycled her breath again, "Alright, everyone, we meet on the other side. No taking chances, you see enemies, you bring them down."
"Aye, Aye ma'am." Kaidan replied.
"Alpha, with me!" Shepard ordered as she turned away.
"Legion, I want you in the vanguard with Williams. I'm going to put your shields to work. If anything happens my barrier will be there to back you two up." Kaidan went on.
"Acknowledged." Legion replied.
"Huntress, may I ask you to watch our backs?"
"You do not need to be so formal with me. I will gladly help." The commando replied.
"Thank you."
"Check every room. We don't want any heretics to get behind us." Shepard added.
"Yes, ma'am." Kaidan said.
Shepard barely made five steps down the corridor when she heard the quiet echoing of something whirring at a very high pitch, grinding metal into metal. "Please tell me I am not just hearing that." She said.
"You are not." Nihlus replied immediately.
"It is a drill working into metal," Garrus explained with an air of certainty.
As far as Shepard was concerned the list of possibilities of whom could be drilling into what was short. "They haven't breached the vault yet." She figured Harbinger would not want to use explosives, lest they damage what was in the vault. Right then, the working drill lit a metaphorical fuse. There was no way of knowing how much longer the vault could hold the heretics off. For all Shepard knew, they were drilling the last hole needed to get at the locking mechanism. It would be just her rotten luck.
Still, they could not rush in there blindly. It would not do to give Harbinger a tactical leg up on her. She still checked every office they passed, however after the second, it was evident that Nihlus had picked up on something of her hurry. He was right there behind her every time she entered an office. Garrus remained outside, watchful as ever. Both turians were practically prowling like jungle cats.
Shepard paused when they got to the first of the two ninety-degree corners they would have to take and pressed her back to the corner as she turned to look at the others. "Bravo, Status report."
"We've made it to the first turn." Kaidan replied.
"Same here. No enemies?" Shepard asked.
"None so far." Kaidan replied.
What was Harbinger hoping to accomplish with the way it was handling this situation? Were it up to her this whole floor would have been covered with enough units to fight anyone to attrition. Yet the heretics were too few and too far in between. If anything, they worked more lie checkpoints; an alarm of sorts, meant to track anyone who was coming for the vault, but not necessarily stop them. The more Shepard thought about it, the less sense everything made, and the more confused she felt.
There was a sudden thud, and the shrill shriek of the drill went silent.
"Did they cut through?" Kaidan asked.
Shepard did not know what to say. The question became would they start drilling again, or were they now working on the mechanism keeping the door shut? With each ticking second she could not help but tense up. She could not let the heretics open that vault, not with someone potentially inside it. The heretics would not think twice about shooting anyone they found inside. They would not suddenly grow a conscience.
The problem was that rushing in there would not solve the problem either. Shepard hated it, but she could not afford a mistake now. Harbinger would not make her dance to its flute. "We need to get to that room… but we are still not taking chances." She sincerely hoped that the vault would hold on for just a little longer.
"We're going to have to be quick, but thorough." Kaidan stopped there.
Shepard raised her gun into position and glanced at Nihlus. The Spectre nodded his head without saying a word. Shepard returned the gesture, and then rounded the corner, gun up and ready. She heard two sets of footsteps follow her, Nihlus and Garrus.
The short side's corridor stretched ruler-straight in front of her. There were still no doors on her right, confirming her suspicions that the whole central block here was given over to a single space. Then, just before Shepard could think of lowering her gun, two large heretic units materialized at the far end. They strolled around the corner as if nothing was going on, and this was their Sunday stroll. Both had pulse rifles in their hands, and their face-lamps turned and focused on her in an instant.
"Here comes trouble." Ashley said.
"Light them up!" Kaidan ordered.
Two Alliance-issue assault rifles erupted on the other side of the floor, their staccato reverberating and echoing down the corridors. A moment later two non-Alliance rifles replied in kind, which told Shepard enough about how many enemy units Bravo was facing. It looked like Harbinger had prepared a macabre valet service for them.
The gunfight caused the two primes on this side to turn in the other direction, but then the action was checked and they stopped mid-move. Still, Shepard knew an opportunity when she saw one. "Bring them down!" She ordered.
Garrus did not reply, but his assault rifle kicked into gear, spraying down the corridor at the heretic immediately in front of him. A moment later Nihlus' own automatic turned on the other. It took the two heretics a whole second to process that they were being shot at, and another to raise their pulse rifles. For Shepard these moments might have lasted forever, the adrenaline was doing a number on her system. She raised Sin at the head of the one Garrus was aiming at.
On the other side, the Alliance rifles went silent one after the other. The heretic guns followed a moment later. The timing told her that Ashley and Jenkins probably needed to reload and had ducked into cover. The primes they were facing had not gone down yet. It was only a matter of time though.
The two units in front of her were likewise holding on, seemingly unbothered by the bullets hitting their shields. They moved with a bizarre languidness, and so it was a moment before they finally fired back. Garrus rumbled something under his breath as his shields flared. Nihlus outright growled low in the back of his throat.
Suddenly there was a loud thunderous crack from the other side.
"First enemy unit terminated." Legion announced.
Shepard thought that Legion was as punctual as ever.
"Thanks, Legion!" Ashley called. The Alliance rifles kicked back in. This time the retort consisted of just one heretic pulse rifle. Shepard knew Bravo would gain control in a few more moments.
"Their shields are not going down fast enough!" Tali called in warning.
Shepard snapped back into the moment. She looked, and sure enough the two primes in front of her still had their shields. It really looked like only HVR rifles could get through.
"My shields just went down!" Garrus called in alarm as he let off the trigger.
"Pull back!" Nihlus hissed, the flange in his voice increasing noticeably.
The order had been unnecessary, Garrus had started moving the moment his shields broke. The heretic knew his advantage and turned its rifle to track Garrus. The spray slid sideways right across the corridor in the direction of Nihlus and her.
In the next instant the brief moment of combined fire was apparently enough and Nihlus' shields shattered. Shepard made her decision in the infinitesimal split of a second and stepped in front of the the Spectre. Her shields were fresher, so she would give him the moment to step back. "Nihlus, go!" Her shields flared and her HUD's shield indicator began to drop at an alarming two percent per bullet. Shepard wheeled, snapped Sin up as she closed her right eye, took aim, and squeezed the trigger, even as she backed away, following Nihlus. Sin barked, and the prime's shield flared again.
There was a second sharp crack from the other side.
"All enemy units have been terminated." Legion announced.
"Let me help, Commander." Tali called. Chatika flew right over Shepard's head and opened fire with its built-in rifle, spraying down the primes. Surprisingly, Shepard saw the machines' shields flare, the little drone's aim had improved, but it was still unstable. The drone seemed to struggle with stability when the recoil of full-auto fire was added to the equation.
Shepard squeezed the trigger a second time, the heretic's still held. Her own shields ended up down to twenty percent by the time she ducked around the corner and out of the line of fire. Once safe, she slipped Sin into its holster and let out a breath she did not even realize she had been holding. Chatika zoomed around the corner over her head.
"Chatika's gotten better, Tali." Shepard said, her way of giving herself a moment to think. She knew that the heretic shields would recharge quickly. The primes were not Harbinger's proxies, but their shields seem to have been reinforced. Shepard doubted those platforms we built for anything other than fighting. The energy draw of those shields would preclude utility. All the same, they were kinetic shields. If a slug was too massive, or too fast, it would punch through. Legion's rifle was a case both a more massive projectile, and flying faster. She would have to use Nike and hope the rifle could give a slug enough kinetic energy. The last thing she needed right then was to have to call Legion over to handle things.
"Commander, are you alright?" Tali asked.
"Yes… yes I'm fine. Thank you, Tali." Shepard replied.
"Shepard-Commander, do you require our assistance?" Legion wondered.
Shepard looked up, catching Garrus' gaze. The detective seemed to hold her stare for a long moment before he folded up his assault rifle, clipped it behind his back, and reached for his HVR. "I don't think so, Legion."
"Yes, we can handle two problematic machines." Garrus added.
"Acknowledged." Legion replied.
Shepard hoped what she was about to do would not come around to bite her on the rear. She really did not want to call Legion just because two of their errant brethren were in her way. Quite frankly, her pride, both personal and professional, chafed at the thought. She reached behind her back for Nike.
"I am ready when you are, Commander." Garrus announced.
She took a deep breath and ducked around the corner, raising Nike high, aiming at the heretic immediately in front of her. She still had two shots on the clip, she would have to make them count. The machine raised its own rifle and opened fire. Her shields lit up, but they were at a hundred percent. From the corner of her eye Shepard saw Garrus step out, his own rifle raised and aimed at the other unit. The second unit responded predictably, returning fire. Her finger slid over the ammo selector, switching the rifle into disruptor mode.
Nike hummed, charging the slug, and the moment the humming stopped Shepard squeezed the trigger. Nike gave a crack and kicked against her shoulder, the heretic's shield flared, but its face-lamp shattered. The machine stopped firing, but it did not stagger, the shields had sapped quite a bit of the slug's kinetic energy. Shepard grinned and squeezed the trigger again. This time the heretic's shields offered no resistance at all, the machine's whole sensory unit exploded, sending a spatter of cooling liquid into the air as the heretic emitted a loud chatter, even as it collapsed. Shepard ejected the spent thermal clip and reached behind her back for a fresh one.
The other unit registered what was going on, stopped firing, and turned toward cover. Unfortunately for it, Shepard had downed the first heretic between it and the corner, it would have to step over the remains. This would slow it down enough. Garrus chose the precise moment when it had slowed down to make that wide step to fire. The heretic's face-lamp shattered. The machine gave a vaguely-panicked chatter as it lost the ability to see anything. A moment later, it collapsed, like a macabre doll whose strings had been cut, and right on top of the unit Shepard had downed at that. The runtimes had uploaded and discarded the frame.
"Bonus points for neatness," the ex-detective said blandly.
Shepard could hear the grin he probably had right then. She hummed her sarcastic assent. What other response fit that?
"Ever the show-off, Vakarian," Nihlus mused.
"Let's stick to the mission at hand, shall we?" Shepard said, without missing a beat, to stop the forthcoming incident of Garrus snapping at Nihlus. This was neither the time nor place for that. It seemed to do the trick. Shepard opened her mouth to issue her next orders when something else registered. "It's silent." She announced.
"Well yes, that is-" Nihlus began.
"No, Nihlus. It's silent… as in, they've not resumed drilling!" Shepard cut in. She could not sure whether the heretics were done, or had simply shifted priorities. Either one could be likely, really, as Harbinger now knew that they were on the floor and coming. But what if they had actually finished drilling? Did she want to risk someone's life like that? Harbinger was forcing her hand like this, making her second-guess her standard approach. "We need to finish sweeping. Double time. Bravo you copy?"
"Yes, ma'am. I figured you would say that." Kaidan replied.
"We're on it," Ashley added.
"Good," Shepard replied. She had absolute confidence in Kaidan and his ability to get things done. "Garrus, Nihlus, how are your shields?" She wondered as she glanced at them.
"Recharged," the Spectre replied bluntly, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Garrus merely nodded in echo.
With that, Shepard turned and made her way towards the next closest unchecked office. Nihlus and Garrus followed. After the excitement of a firefight Shepard could not help but glaze over the rest of the rooms. She checked that there were no enemies, but what those rooms had been used for did not matter right then. In one room she found more of ExoGeni's staff. They tried to hide under some furniture behind a locked door, completely unaware of just how futile that was, given that practically all geth could see in the infrared.
The urgency of the silence fueled her body to dump adrenaline into her system. On the one hand this meant that it did not take long to complete the sweep. But on the other, it was taxing. Shepard could feel her heart beating up against her sternum. She hated that feeling, and there was nothing she could do about it right then. She did not have the luxury of breathing down, using a few training tricks to calm herself.
She stopped at the corner and pressed her back to the wall. This close to their destination she could hear something of the enemy movements. The heretics chattered audibly as they communicated. It revealed their presence, if not their positions and numbers. Still, some knowledge was better than none.
"Bravo, status report." She demanded, and grimaced at her own tone. She was practically barking.
"We finished our sweep on this side. Waiting for your command." Kaidan replied.
"Good." She turned to look at the rest of the team. Now was a good time to explain to their guests what they might end up facing. "This is probably going to be the most dangerous part of the whole thing. I fully expect one of Harbinger's proxies to darken our door."
"A proxy?" Liara asked.
"I think the best way to describe it is… it's a prosthetic body remotely controlled by Harbinger itself. It's as large as those," here Shepard pointed to the fallen heretics nearby. "All black with yellow lights, and two heavy-caliber machine guns instead of forearms." She was not going to mention the lag, she would not want anyone to get overconfident and be caught by those machine guns. It would be best if the huntresses assumed the thing had the reflexes of the other heretics. "Do not rely on your barriers in front of those machine guns."
"Understood." Myrix replied.
Liara said nothing, but given how she seemed to have frozen to the spot, made Shepard think that she might be realizing just what she unknowingly signed up for. Good, it would keep her alive.
"Shepard, what's your plan for it this time?" Nihlus asked.
"You know Harbinger tends to focus on me. Take your pick of how you want to bring it down. I'm perfectly fine if you get up behind it and blow its head off like you did on Daiwi."
"Can do." Nihlus replied with a grin. The difference of lighting would not change anything. In that mine on Daiwi, Harbinger had been able to see better than her in the gloom. The lag would still cost it here as much as it had cost it then.
"Any more questions?" Shepard asked.
"Just one. Do you want my barrier?" Kaidan asked with all the chill of a glacier.
Shepard knew what he was asking. "No, Kaidan. No repeats of Solcrum." With that said, she reached behind her back for Nike. Right then, there was nothing else to it, she could not count on Sin and Dex. "On my mark we round the corner. Check your targets, no friendly fire."
"Aye, aye, ma'am." Kaidan replied.
Shepard took a deep breath, the only thing she could allow herself. Even that might just bring her heartrate down a little. There was no time for anything more than that. She inched right to the corner and steeled her nerved, "Go!" she ordered and slid right around, raising Nike into position. Out of the corner of her eye she saw blue and black, which told her that Garrus had followed her. Down the hall she saw Ashley, Jenkins, and Legion step out into the open.
The corridor was clear of enemies, but it was quite the scene, though the appropriate term would be bloodbath. One of the guards Liara had mentioned had been caught out in the open. The heretics simply left him lying face-down in what had once been a pool of blood, now dried and darkened. A faint trail of footsteps revealed that one of the heretics had actually stepped into that pool when it had been fresh. There were more offices on the left, but it was probably safe to assume that they were empty. On the right though, there was a pair of doors. The heretics had either battered, or perhaps blasted them inward, as Shepard could only see the remaining stub of one panel, bent inward on its rail.
She took a deep breath and began to make her way toward that door. There was no point to stealth right then, but it was her familiar routine. In a way, that offered a semblance of comfort. She could hear Nihlus and Garrus behind her, followed by Tali's soft threading footsteps, as well as the swaying light of her drone. Ahead, Bravo was matching her pace.
She stopped just short of the door and slipped Nike behind her back. At the range she expected inside the office, Nike would not be convenient to use. She fully expected to have to go after Harbinger at knife-range.
From that angle she could already see hints of the office beyond. The heretics had turned what had been ExoGeni's administrative center into what looked very much like a warzone. The lighting was only partially-operational, likely due to damage to a number of fixtures. The door panels lay on the floor some distance away from where they ought to have been, and the scorching told her that they were blasted that way. The explosives caused quite a bit of damage to the room as well, upsetting the neat work spaces as well as the lights.
Shepard glanced at Nihlus, then Kaidan, and nodded. "This is it, be ready to light them all up. Nihlus, the black one will be all ours. Doctor T'Soni, you may stay outside with your bodyguards if you'd like."
"I… understand the risks, Commander, but… I would like to see the vault." Liara replied.
Shepard would give her credit where credit was due, Liara was not an easily-scared coward. She pressed on, despite all the warnings. Shepard just hoped it would not come to bite the asari in the rear. Harbinger was not someone to trifle with.
Shepard slid just a little closer to the edge of the doorway, drew Sin, and shifted it to disruptor mode. With a final nod aimed at her team, she rounded the door and raised her gun. The rest of the team did not bother to mute their footsteps as they flooded into the room behind her. Shepard aimed the gun at the back of the black unit's head. The room was not as heavily guarded as Shepard would have expected, all considering. But Harbinger had been light on the guards to begin with. She counted a total of seven units, one proxy, two primes, and three regular. One of the latter was fiddling with the exposed electronics of the vault door.
"Commander Shepard. I was looking forward to our meeting." The black unit turned then, smooth as butter, though its machine guns remained pointed at the floor. Its red face-lamp stopped right on her.
Shepard stopped cold. The voice did not belong to Harbinger. There was only one central face-light, and its glow was the wrong color. What more, the machine moved too quickly to be subject to signal lag. This unit was almost entirely one of Harbinger's proxies, but the entity animating it could not be Harbinger. "Who are you?" She demanded. There was no need to mince words.
The machine tipped its head in a perverse mockery of what Legion did when they were analyzing something. For a long moment it did not look like it would deign to reply. Then Shepard felt a hand on her shoulder, out of the corner of her eye she saw Nihlus step forward.
The machine turned to face him instead, "Spectre Kryik… I believe it would be proper for me to ask you to send my regards to our… mutual acquaintance, yes?" The machine said in a buttery smooth, mocking tone.
Shepard realized there was only one other entity who in theory could also puppeteer Harbinger's proxies and be a mutual acquaintance with Nihlus and Saren. She felt her shoulder guard move as Nihlus' fingers tightened on it.
"Nazara," Nihlus replied, his tone positively glacial.
Shepard had to suppress an unpleasant shiver. Nihlus sounded every bit like Saren right then. This whole situation just went from bad to straight up nightmare.
Author Notes: Excuse me while I cackle a little. Surprise! Harbinger will be back eventually, and I have a perfectly good reason why it's not him. Answers are coming, and there are quite a few questions that require answers here.
General Notes:
Nothing of particular note…
Chapter Notes:
Nothing of particular note…