Disclaimer: I do no own Mass Effect, I do not claim to own Mass Effect, I am only doing this for fun.
Author Notes: Despite knowing about what I want to do with this arc, it is still resting me tooth and nail. All those details to consider. I have no idea why this arc is giving me this much grief. Oh well, please enjoy!
Episode 46: Persepolis [Part IV]
The silence that settled was near absolute, broken only by the faint clicking of the heretic still working on the vault door mechanism, but right then, the vault was the least of Shepard's concerns. Her mind was busy trying to wrap around the new information. The thought of Nazara joining forces with Harbinger had occurred to her, but she had never entertained it with any seriousness. Except now, it seemed so basic. There were no sightings of the Impera since Nazara ran off with it, where else could it go?
A few other things suddenly made sense. During this whole operation they had never seen more than a handful of heretics at a time. Harbinger had not given Nazara as many resources as it could have. Her research on the Citadel had revealed that the Geth, and by extension Heretics, did not have access to their source-code. They could not create new runtimes. An intentional choice by the Quarians, meant to keep their servants from replicating out of control. The mad machine would withhold precious resources from someone it barely trusted.
Ultimately she had a more immediate concern: Nazara's proxy displayed a pronounced absence of lag. She could only think of one method to eliminate signal lag; quantum entanglement communication. But that could not be it, right?
"Is this another Prothean AI?" Garrus asked.
"Yes," Shepard breathed. There was no use mincing words. If Nazara was anything like Harbinger, it would not give her anything except bluster and posturing. "Nazara, I expect you are in communication with the other one. Well you can send it my regards."
The machine chattered briefly, and the other geth units all around them reached for their weapons. Nazara took one step toward her. "I will, after I tell it that I killed you."
Shepard heard multiple weapon slings jingle followed by more than one weapon cock. She gave the machine the flattest, most bored look she could muster. "Another one for posthumous admittance into the club of those who tried that."
Nazara began to raise its machine guns.
It was like the opening bell for round one. "Scatter!" Shepard shouted, hoping that the rest of the team had picked up on the absence of lag.
There was an explosion of movement and hurried footsteps as the team broke up. The heretics raised their weapons and opened fire. The same instant Ashley laid into her rifle's trigger, spraying down a prime at close range. Legion stepped right behind her, pulse rifle beating a ferocious staccato at the other. Jenkins opened suppression spray on the regular geth as he strafed toward the closest furniture that could offer him a semblance of cover. Garrus' assault rifle beat its own tempo, covering the corporal's maneuver.
Suddenly there was a loud whomp, and Shepard saw a streak of periwinkle fly across the room. The streak stopped and there was a loud thud. Myrix had charged one of the primes right into the wall. It slid down, limp, and its face-lamp flickering. Liara and Shiala were on the side, staying out of the crossfire. The huntress was shooting carefully-aimed shots at the other prime while Liara had thrown out her arms, shielding them both with her barrier. The look in the archeologist's eyes was full of fiery determination.
There was a loud, rather unfamiliar crack followed by a thud, Shepard flicked her gaze over to her left. Tali stood over the now-headless heretic that had once been working on the vault mechanisms. The quarian's shotgun was still aimed at it. A pair of thuds on her other side announced the demise of two other units.
"Shepard!" Nazara shouted.
The shout brought her back to the moment. The proxy's machine were now waist-high. Shepard did not think about it, she bolted. She would run a circle around the machine, get it to turn, and get herself out of the line of fire for her team. Harbinger was hardly graceful with those arm-canons. They had to weigh quite a bit, and likely required sure footing to fire. An absence of lag could not fix that. Once she was behind it, she whirled, raised Sin, aimed, and fired. The proxy's shields flared and held. Shepard briefly glanced over its shoulder at the others, but then her gaze snapped back to Nazara. The proxy aligned its guns right at her, and the barrels unfolded.
"Commander!" Kaidan shouted.
There was a biotic whomp and all the hair at the back of Shepard's neck rose as Kaidan' barrier materialized, just large enough to envelop her suit's shields without interfering with them. The proxy's machine guns erupted with a thunderous staccato. Kaidan's bubble began rippling like a puddle in the rain. The lieutenant turned on the proxy, his expression absolutely frigid as the glow around his body intensified and his hands began to flicker with Saint Elmo's fire.
Nazara turned one machine gun off her, and onto him. However all that did was spread the firepower across the bubble. In the next split of a second her entire team rounded on the proxy with everything they had. Shepard pulled Sin's trigger again, and again, as fast the recoil allowed her.
In less than a second Nazara's guns cut out as it looked to the downed primes, and then the regular units. A moment later it must have realized that it had no underlings left. It turned back on her, Shepard saw the machine's face-light iris widen. The next instant its shields gave way, and the bullets began ripping into it. Shepard waited a split of a second, let the damage mount, before she raised her fist for a cease fire. All weapons ceased cycling almost immediately. Shepard ejected the spent clip from Sin.
The proxy crumbled to the floor, its form perforated in more places than Shepard would care to count. Still, its face-light flickered, and judging from the slow oozing of white liquid, the circulator pump had not shut down. Shepard moved to stand over it and stared into the flickering face-light. The proxy tried to raise its gun, but that only caused more fluids to spurt out of a whole bunch of holes. In a few seconds Nazara would give up and sever the connection. It was still long enough to have her words edgewise. "What was it that you said about killing me?" She asked, not even bothering to hide amusement. Sure it was goading it, but right then Shepard simply did not care. Nazara did not reply, the lights turned off and the oozing stopped.
"Commander, are you alright?" Garrus asked.
"Yes, I'm fine." Shepard replied automatically as she turned to Kaidan. Just one look told her that the Lieutenant had done what she had warned him not to, and now he looked pale. "Kaidan?"
"I'm alright… just give me a moment. Also, Commander… don't tell me I shouldn't have done that." Kaidan replied.
"Alright." She said. Maybe she could not say it, but she would think it. The rest of the team had handled Nazara just fine, as she knew they would. Nazara had woefully miscalculated just how long its troops could last in close quarters, and even its own shields could not withstand that much firepower. She would not be surprised if Harbinger had thrown Nazara at her with nary a warning about whom it would be facing. It was more evidence of trouble in their camp. Until she had evidence to the contrary, she would run on the assumption that the two still had trust issues to iron out.
There was nothing else to it, she needed to get back on task. With the immediate threat removed from the equation, Shepard could assess her surroundings. It was patently clear that the office only took up a quarter of space available in the central block, the vault took up the rest. The immediate goal became finding a way to open the vault door.
"Skipper, it is good that you were not hurt, but with all due respect… what the hell was that?" Ashley asked, breaking the silence.
Shepard had to restrain herself from freezing up right then. Ashley officially got the cat to start ripping at the metaphorical bag. Shepard was not in the habit of openly lying to her team, so the cat would have to be let out. However, she had issues with doing it right then and there. "There's an explanation…" Shepard began. She heard Nihlus sigh across her comm. Did he think she would drop that information now? "Much of it is need-to-know privilege only, and we are in… mixed company." It was not a total lie, the dubious part was that it was her decision whether Liara and the huntresses needed to know, and she decided they did not.
Ashley glanced at Liara, and shifted her weight from foot to foot.
Shepard gave her the littlest of nods, just to make sure the woman knew she was right with that shifty look. Now was a good time for a topic change. "Alright. Back to the task at hand… I need someone to keep an eye out for unexpected arrivals."
"That's our job, Jenkins." Ashley announced without hesitation.
"Right." The corporal replied.
The two drew their weapons and stepped out of the room.
Shepard watched them go for a moment, but then turned to face Tali. "Tali, could you take a quick look at that proxy? It wasn't lagging, and that's important. I can think of two possibilities. The first is… we know the Geth have some capacity for quantum communications… if that thing has a QEC, I want to know." She would not mention the other possibility just yet, no point in worrying people needlessly.
"Of course. I'll get right on it," Tali replied as she brought up her omni-tool.
"Now… there's only this." Shepard continued as she motioned at the vault door. "We need to get in there."
"Shepard, start by figuring out what type of locking mechanism it is." Nihlus said.
Shepard hummed, it was as good a first step toward making it up as they went along as any. "Alright, let's see…" she approached the door. It was positively massive, with hinges to match. This was not a door that some actuators could readily move around. The damage was not heavy either, the heretics had drilled a number of exploratory holes both into the door and the frame, but that was about it. Shepard doubted a few holes would do anything to the door mechanism. Still, she wondered, what had they been looking for?
She raised her left hand and passed it over the seam where the vault's door and frame met. About a third of the way down from the ceiling, and a third of the way above the floor she felt two weak tugs on the metal parts of her exo-frame under her forearm ceramics. Shepard hummed, "There are large permanent magnets in the door. Likely neodymium, the only kind strong enough for this." She announced as she turned around. "It's a physical magnetic lock. Door closes, mechanism pushes the magnets into position to grab on to the frame, and they don't let go, unless retracted, or demagnetized. Not even if the power cuts out. We need to get into the control mechanism to retract the magnets."
"The administrator would have the passcode." Liara said.
"And he won't cough it up, because he's in trouble as it is, and wouldn't want to make it worse." Shepard countered without a moment pause. She knew there was only one way to make the administrator sing, and it was not something she would do, never mind being unethical to begin with. Shepard was officially out of her depth. Vaults were different from the mass-produced locks meant to fend off the average burglar. What more, this was a fifty-thousand-year old vault.
"Commander, the administrator's terminal still boots up," Garrus announced.
Shepard whirled and saw that Garrus had drifted to the back of the room, where there was a desk with a very comfortable-looking chair. Much of what had been on the desk was now strewn on the floor around it, but the terminal had managed to avoid that fate.
"Let me try something." The former detective added as he fiddled with his omni-tool momentarily before reaching for the terminal's keyboard.
"We may be able to assist," Legion stated.
"Next time, and only if you think of it first, Legion." Garrus fired back, sparing the geth a grin.
"Acknowledged." Legion replied.
Legion had either missed the subtle dig, or chose to ignore it. Shepard honestly could not say which. She stood by and watched Garrus work.
A good couple of minutes passed before the former detective sat back in the chair and looked up at her. "I looked through the recently-accessed files. All of them are administrative paperwork, to be expected, but I found a weekly security protocol update. It includes a nine-digit numeric code labeled as this week's server room access key."
"You think it's the vault's passcode?"
"Could be."
"Someone did call it a server vault," Kaidan offered quietly.
"Lieutenant Alenko is seeing it too, but more than that, the update went out to five people, among them the head of security." Garrus replied as he brought up his omni-tool.
"Would not hurt to try," Shepard murmured. She could see the logic in there. Security had to be able to open the vault if someone accidently got locked inside. It made sense that the memo would come from the administrator's desk too, as Jeong would have had to sign off on the rotation.
To think that Nazara had the passcode within reach, and never bothered to snoop around. She would not be surprised if it thought that work was below it. As for the heretics, if their numbers were low enough they would not have thought of it on their own. Even Legion, who had almost ten times as may runtimes as an average unit, had not thought of it faster than Garrus. Then again, maybe that was commentary on Garrus' skill and inclination, rather than Legion's.
"There, I sent you the passcode." Garrus finished.
Her omni-tool vibrated. "Thanks," Shepard replied as she glanced down at the screen. Then she turned to the keypad mounted on the doorframe. The buttons had symbols she did not recognize, likely Prothean, but the layout was similar to a standard numerical keypad. She would assume that ExoGeni had used universal key conventions, with one on the bottom left, two on its right, four above it, seven above four, and so on. She began to type in the code. Above the keypad was a small screen which displayed the symbols she hit, but if she was right then ExoGeni had ignored them. As soon as her finger left the last key the screen flashed and cleared, a moment later there was a loud whine as the electronics inside the doorframe stirred to life.
"I was right," Garrus said, not bothering to cover up his smugness.
"Did it really work?" Ashley asked, incredulity right there in her tone.
"Seems like it." Shepard replied. Trust civilians to leave important memos lying around without any security. Then again, perhaps just this once she should be thankful for that.
The mechanism emitted a racket of clanking, grinding, and other ominous noises. Most physical magnetic locks used high-torque motors connected to gears and bars to brute-force the magnets away from the doorjamb. Shepard counted eight magnets in all by the thuds as each actually detached. When the last magnet pulled off, the mechanism went absolutely silent. Shepard grabbed the door's massive bar handle, braced her feet, and pulled. Even with an exo-frame, the door felt like it weighed a metric ton. In the next instant Legion had grabbed the bar handle as well, adding their mass and strength.
"Thanks… but be careful, there are massive magnets in the door." Shepard warned.
"We are aware. Our hardware is sufficiently shielded." Legion replied bluntly.
The gap between the door and frame was about twenty centimeters wide when Shepard heard two assault rifles cock behind her. She looked up and found herself facing the assault rifle barrel poking out, wielded by a man wearing a hard-suit.
Shepard raised her hands and stepped back. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Legion let go of the door and duck out of sight behind the door. At any other time she would have found that amusing. However right then she could not take her eyes off the gun. "Easy there. I am Commander Shepard, SSV Normandy, and Council Spectre in Training. My team and I are here to help," she announced calmly.
The guard lowered the rifle slowly. "I'll welcome anyone who is not one of those machines. We heard the drilling and the shooting. You'll have to pardon me for being overly-cautious," he said.
"No harm, no foul," Shepard replied. Now that she was not facing a gun, she could afford to peer into the vault. Her eyes landed on the other two surviving guards, though one of them was stripped from the waist up, his torso bandaged with strips of what might have been his own shirt. Then her gaze moved past them to the woman at the back. She wore white and mocha laboratory coveralls which were badly smudged with dirt, but she looked unharmed.
"Lizbeth?" Shepard asked.
The woman turned sharply at being called by name, "That's me. Yes."
"Sorry about the abruptness of that..." Shepard smiled. "I've met and talked with your mother. She's fine with some of the others in the parking garages below. She told me you might be here."
"Oh! Thank you!" Lizbeth beamed.
"I believe that's the first good thing we heard all day." The lead guard said.
"There's more. We came up from the parking garages and flushed all the enemies as we went. If you're feeling up to it, you can probably rejoin the others." Shepard went on. It would be best to get these people away from the vault.
"Alex, can you walk?" the man asked as he glanced back at the injured guard sitting on the floor.
"The Medi-Gel did its job, I'll take my chances." The injured guard replied as he grabbed hold of the wall to haul himself to his feet.
"I have a field medic on my team, if you'd like someone to take a look," Shepard volunteered. Kaidan would not protest, she knew that much.
"I think I'm fine. Hell, I'm lucky, or… just quick. When those tin cans arrived, my partner took the brunt of their opening salvo. I moved, and took a gouger that did not embed. Two centimeters to the left and it would have missed me entirely. Hurts like a bitch when I lean in any direction, but I can manage." Alex said.
"Alright," Shepard replied. She could not force any of them to do anything they did not want to. She shifted her weight from foot to foot. "In the interest of avoiding a situation, I should mention that when you step out of the vault, you'll see one more of 'those machines', as you called them. Brushed metal finish, blue light, moving plates around the head. Their name is Legion. Don't shoot my teammate." Shepard said. Legion's shields could take it, but Shepard did not want to go there.
All four of them turned to look at her as if she grew a second head.
"I would ask… but you did say you were a Spectre in training." The man closest to the door replied.
Shepard grinned, so someone had enough common sense to know the details were well above his paygrade.
He turned to address the others, "C'mon then, let's get the hell out of here while the getting is good. Tim, help me get Alex back into his armor. I know it'll hurt, but you can't walk down there like that."
"Yea, yea," Alex grumbled under his breath.
The third guard, Tim, moved to collect the discarded armor plates. The leader slipped his rifle behind his back and made his way over to help him. Lizbeth watched them for a long moment, but then she skirted around and stepped out of the vault, where she stopped dead as she saw Legion.
Legion tipped their head to the side, and the emotive flaps rose a few centimeters. "We mean you no harm," they stated calmly.
"Alright," Lizbeth replied, sounding rather numb. Still, she let go of the vault door, glance over her shoulder at the guards. When she turned back, she drew as close to Shepard as she likely felt comfortable, "Commander, can we talk?"
"Sure," Shepard replied, "What about?"
"ExoGeni," Lizbeth whispered.
Shepard glanced toward the guards, but they seemed occupied enough with getting Alex back into his full armor. Still, it did not take much to notice that Lizbeth was worried about being overheard. "Come," Shepard said as she stepped back, away from the vault. Lizbeth followed without saying a word. "Is something wrong?" Shepard asked, her way of getting the woman back on track.
"Commander, have you seen Doctor Renaud's lab?" Lizbeth asked, still whispering.
"Yes," Shepard replied.
"Good. I am a bio-medical researcher… well, still a research assistant, really. My mother got me this job, my first, to assess Feros' few remaining indigenous plant species for their properties. However, I was re-assigned to assist Doctor Renaud when we discovered the… Thorian." Her voice dipped even lower at the last word.
Shepard blinked, so Lizbeth worked with the good doctor? This was definitely going somewhere interesting. "The what?" She repeated, intentionally faking cluelessness. It would not do to show her hand right then.
Lizbeth glanced back toward the vault again. "The Thorian… it's a plant that's growing into the tower under Zhu's Hope. The colony was set up before we knew it was there. The problem is that… the spores and pollen it emits allow it to… influence the victims. They actually do things that indirectly assist or protect the Thorian. ExoGeni hasn't reported any of that to Colonial Affairs. Worse… they had Doctor Renaud study the mechanism, as well as its long-term effects on the victims."
Shepard blinked. She would have been more incredulous if it were not for Tali's suit flagging the vast quantities of alien pollen and spores to begin with. The pieces slid into place, and Shepard definitely did not like the bigger picture. "Without consent?" She asked, she needed to confirm it.
"Yes! It is unethical. When I learned the truth, I protested, and they put me on probation… I signed a non-disclosure contract. But you, Commander, are not restrained. You can inform Colonial Affairs." Lizbeth went on.
Shepard hummed her assent. Suddenly it made sense why Jeong had not wanted her to go looking for Lizbeth. He would have known that she would blow the whistle. He probably would have been perfectly happy to cry crocodile tears if Lizbeth had died. So did she want to send the woman down there? Were the guards with her complicit? There was no way of knowing, but Lizbeth sure seemed wary of them.
"You did the right thing, Doctor." Nihlus spoke up. "We will handle things."
"This is Council Spectre Nihlus Kryik, my partner." Shepard introduced.
"Oh! Thank you." Lizbeth pressed an open palm over her heart. "It's a weight off my chest. Now I know that even if ExoGeni comes after me … they still won't get away with this."
"You're welcome, but for your own safety I suggest you don't tell anyone we talked." Shepard added.
Lizbeth nodded quickly.
Shepard grinned, but then looked over the woman's shoulder at the vault. "Thank you for telling me about the tower layout." She intentionally raised her voice a little. "But I got to ask, what were you doing in that vault?" Now a topic change to something more banal. Let the guards think that she had been drilling the woman for information about the enemy this whole time.
Lizbeth caught on to the subterfuge in an instant, judging from the twinkle in her eye. "Well… I was on my break in the break room on this level. When the attack started, I ran here because I knew there would be guards. Unfortunately we were wrong about who was attacking and why, and got cut off… we retreated where we could."
Shepard was not going to tell Lizbeth that their retreat was literally into the worst possible place given who was attacking. There was no need to ratchet the woman's anxiety, make her think about what could have happened. Whatever else she could have said became moot as the guards emerged from the vault.
"Are you ready to go, Doctor Baynham?" the leader of the group asked.
"Yes," Lizbeth replied, her tone the picture of innocence and calm.
Shepard saw the woman wringing her fingers behind her back, from that she knew that she needed to take over. "As I mentioned before, the others took shelter in the garage below the roadway level. We handled all the enemies from there to here, so you should be safe, but I suggest you make your way there as quickly and as quietly as possible. The geth have senses far superior to ours, and they can see in the infrared." Shepard figured if she scared them just enough, then they would not talk along the way. It would help Lizbeth not expose herself. "Williams, Jenkins, see they reach the stairs." She added.
"Yes, ma'am." Ashley replied.
This was hardly ideal, but Shepard could not send her marines to escort them all the way. She could only hope that these security guards were of the blissfully ignorant variety.
"Well, thank you Commander. I wish you and your team luck." The leader stated.
Shepard nodded, there was nothing else left to said.
"C'mon then, we best get on with it." He addressed the others. "Doctor Baynham, please walk in the middle."
"Yes, alright." Lizbeth mumbled.
Shepard watched as the four of them stepped out of the office. She waited a good thirty seconds before she turned to Garrus, who was still seated in front of the administrator's terminal. "Garrus, copy everything that looks important from that terminal. I will see ExoGeni burn for this."
"Understood." Garrus replied with a grin, and turned back to the terminal.
Shepard knew it would be done, Garrus hated corporate nonsense of this sort more than her. She made a mental note to buy some graham crackers, Swiss chocolate, and marshmallows.
"Erm… Commander?" Tali spoke up.
"Yes, Tali?" Shepard asked, switching tracks.
"I'm done with my scans, and I can tell you that there is definitely nothing even vaguely resembling a quantum communicator core inside this proxy." Tali stated simply. "The only difference between this unit and Harbinger's normal proxies is a simplified sensory suite."
Shepard sighed, "I was afraid of that." She turned to Nihlus, and their gazes locked.
"It is in orbit." The Spectre said.
Shepard nodded, it was an easy conclusion to reach. There were only two ways to eliminate lag. The first was to increase the signal's speed using a quantum entanglement communication device, which Tali had just ruled out. That left option two, reducing the distance the signal had to travel. Anything above half a light-second would still produce noticeable lag as the signals bounced back and forth. Nazara had been as close to real-time as she could discern, which meant it had to be in orbit. Shepard did not like that one little bit.
"Do the geth have a… second ship in orbit? A stealth ship?" Liara asked.
"So it would seem." Shepard replied, keeping her voice intentionally flat. A few more little details of this whole thing suddenly slid into place. In that moment, Shepard was absolutely certain that she understood the enemy's plan. Harbinger would have seen the Impera's armaments and capability as an opportunity. If she looked at the facts like that, then the enemy's behavior stopped being weird. The heretics had announced themselves and waited, why? It made sense if Nazara's goal had been to ambush them. However, neither it, nor Harbinger knew that the Normandy was a stealth ship itself. So when they arrived rigged for silent running, they accidently ruined the plan, forcing Nazara to ad-lib.
"Oh my God…" Ashley breathed.
"Shepard, warn the Normandy." Nihlus ordered.
Shepard shook her head. "Not possible. Right now, Nazara's odds of finding the Normandy are needle-in-haystack slim, but any attempt to communicate with the ship will change that." By now Nazara would have realized the Normandy was not producing heat. The AI would fall back on passively monitoring for electromagnetic communications. It was entirely possible on Feros, as the planet had no masking buzz from radio stations or a multitude of comm buoy links. "The Normandy's comm array will broadcast the instant Joker utters a reply. Those signals can be tracked." The Impera would also have to unknowingly be within line-of-sight on the Normandy, but the odds of a coincidence were not zero.
"So what can we do?" Kaidan wondered quietly.
"I… don't know." Shepard admitted. As far as she could see, there was no way around the problem.
"Shepard-Commander, we can contact the Normandy in an alternate manner."
Shepard whipped around and stared at Legion.
"This platform is equipped with an independent communication array capable of transmitting to orbit. Were we to access the Normandy, our transmission would not incur a reply. Addendum: our attempt would be intercepted by the Normandy's cybernetic warfare suite." Legion went on, not the least bit bothered by being the focal point of all attention.
"You want to hack the Normandy?" Tali wondered. "Even if you could do that, what will it get us?"
"No, Tali… I think they want to use it as a means of communication. They could easily transmit a message encoded in the code. The access attempt would draw the attention whoever is monitoring the ship's systems, they will find the message." Garrus explained, without even looking up from the terminal.
"Officer-Vakarian is correct." Legion announced.
"Keelah. That's…" Tali began.
"Brilliant?" Shepard finished, unable to stop her ear-to-ear grin. She knew Legion was wily, but this was a new sort of wily. "Do it, Legion. Embed the following message: The Normandy is to enter red alert and maintain absolute communication silence. High probability of enemy stealth vessel in orbit. High probability of enemy possessing offensive capabilities matching our own. The Normandy is to attack only if the enemy exposes their position. I authorize the use of the main battery."
"Acknowledged." Legion's emotive flaps rippled as their ocular iris narrowed down. "We must create unique code. Stand by."
"Sure." Shepard replied. She knew that EDI would take a look at any code she received, part of her adaptive subroutines, and find the message within. After that, it would be elementary to relay the orders to Joker and the CIC crew. Shepard also knew that Saren would not be happy if she destroyed his ship, but right then she did not care. The Impera was an enemy combatant. If the situations were reversed, Saren would have done the same. However, the odds of Nazara exposing itself were likely low. This was more about safeguarding her ship and crew.
"Creation complete. Compiling." Legion stated, their tone growing distant. They were off in their head-space, and giving her a courtesy message, like an on-screen status update.
Shepard took a deep breath and let it out from her mouth. She needed to tamp down her instinctual responses right then, and analyze what was going on. The only thing that mattered was that Nazara and Harbinger had actually cooked up a perfectly good plan between them. Had they had a ship with no stealth systems they would have never seen the Impera before it opened fire with its Thanix. Those two mad AIs might just be raging egomaniacs, but they were not dumb by any stretch of the imagination. This was an ominous new twist on things.
"Accessing Ship-Normandy." Legion continued as their emotive plates shifted into that furrowed brow look.
Shepard would have to put absolute trust in EDI.
"Access detected… transmitting compiled code." The emotive plates rose some couple centimeters. "Transmission complete. Access terminated." Legion finished, as the plates settled back down.
Shepard was not going to ask whether EDI got the message. EDI was the only one who could detect Legion's access and summarily shut the door. "Thanks Legion," Shepard said.
The geth cocked their head to the side and stared. Shepard was not going to pretend she understood what that iteration of the gesture was actually meant to convey.
"Are the explosives still in the plan?" Nihlus asked, effectively shifting tracks.
"Yes. We still need to detach that ship. If I'm right and this was Nazara's trap for us, then the only thing it can still do is use the heretics as bait. It will assume that I will call the Normandy to shoot the ship apart. But I will not." Shepard hated that part, but she would subvert Nazara's plans. Sure, the heretics had murdered people, but she would not risk more, she would not accept a pyrrhic victory. When the Normandy failed to reveal itself Nazara would have to cut its losses.
Shepard turned to the vault and made her way inside. While Garrus was busy with the terminal, she would poke around inside. Right then, the vault was probably not one of Nazara's priorities. The machine would want to salvage the ambush. It would take time to weigh its options. Except this had become a game of cards stacked in her favor. Nazara effectively sat with a mirror behind its back. She knew that the only option Nazara had left was to use the heretic ship as bait.
She stopped right in the middle and looked around. It was indeed every bit as large as it looked from outside. However, it had been largely stripped. The regularly-spaced holes and indents left in the floor were revealing. Shepard doubted it was done by ExoGeni. They had not been the first ones here. The Council had thrown them the leftovers. ExoGeni had actually added to the space, putting in their own network hardware along the wall on her right. Had Harbinger actually come here, it would have walked away entirely empty-handed. That made Shepard wonder whether it knew.
"It's… empty?" Liara's quizzing voice carried from somewhere behind her.
"Truthfully… I am not surprised." Shepard replied calmly.
"I wonder who did it." Liara mumbled, she sounded every bit disappointed. "I wonder if what they found was even operational."
Shepard paused, that was certainly perspective, especially coming from an individual who could reasonably expect to live to be one thousand. "It's possible. This vault was sealed for most of that time, and judging from the ceiling vents, it's supposed to be climate-controlled. There is no evidence of elemental exposure… no rust or water stains. Who knows?" She was hypothesizing, but suddenly there was time for that.
"You are surprisingly… optimistic about the possibility." Liara mumbled.
"Harbinger and Nazara survived." Shepard stated. Though she did wonder, was their madness due to degradation, or were they always maniacal?
"You know more than you let on, Commander." Liara stated in a tone of someone talking about the weather.
"Occupational hazard for a Spectre." Shepard replied, intentionally flippant. "Garrus how's the sleuthing coming along?" A change of topic was in order. The last thing Shepard wanted was to discuss sensitive matters with an outsider.
"I found what you need, Commander, but I want to be thorough here. I need more time." Garrus replied.
"Time is suddenly something we have quite a bit of." Shepard replied. Nazara would be very patient right now. It had little other choice. "That's why I'm already thinking ahead. I already have an idea about how to deal with the colony's problem." The Thorian had to go, simple as that. Such a plant, unique or not, simply could not be allowed to continue operating as it had been.
"Why am I not surprised?" Nihlus asked.
"Because you know me well?" Shepard replied.
"I know you too well, I think. Anyways… I will handle the details. Legion, come with me. We need to retrieve the explosives." Nihlus went on.
"Acknowledged," the geth replied.
Shepard did not say a word as she left the vault and made her way toward the administrator's desk. Right then she could afford a bit of a distraction. Nazara had to know it could not come to the tower, it had high fifty-fifty odds of being spotted. If the Normandy was on the same side of Feros as it, then EDI would spot the deorbit reverse-burn on the passive sensors in about an instant. Those were the sort of odds that she liked, as they put Nazara at a major disadvantage.
Nihlus and Legion returned fifteen minutes later with Ashley and Jenkins trailing behind them. Garrus took another five minutes to finish his search. ExoGeni's whole network was wired to the machinery in the vault, and accessible from the administrator's terminal. The ultimate prize were Doctor Renaud's research notes and reports. The sort of evidence that could not be silenced, even if the doctor was dead. It was more than enough to bury ExoGeni. Once the evidence was secured in triplicate on three omni-tools, the final phase of the job could begin. Shepard led the group back toward the stairway.
It took about another half an hour to ensure the level immediately above the vault was clear of heretic stragglers. The situation was complicated by the fact that the corridors there were completely unlit and the floor was strewn with a large quantity of loose debris. The offices were stripped bare of any valuables, leaving behind nothing but broken furniture and empty planters. ExoGeni had only tidied up spaces they used.
From there they continued onto the level above that. It did not look to be any better shape, as the stairway door onto the level outright gaped. Shepard stepped through with Ashley at her back, for that initial sweep of the corridor, and though they found no enemies to shoot, there was an unmistakable sensation of moving air over her whole body. "Some of the mooring claws have to be on this level." She announced. Only a major breach of the exterior wall would make the air inside move. Even if the tower's whole ventilation system was operational, it would not create an indoor breeze.
"Likely the rear-most pair. There will be two other pairs." Nihlus said.
"We shouldn't split up into three groups." Kaidan stated calmly.
"Ideally, no, but… we're going to have to." Shepard replied, barely able to tamp down the instantaneous flash of annoyance at Nazara and even herself. The idea of setting up six simultaneous detonations had always been a bit weak. Though now circumstances conspired to make the plan outright flimsy and dangerous.
First, the heretics gotten into the building from the roof, so the odds of stragglers up here were not zero. Second, ExoGeni had not bothered to restore the lighting on these floors, and that worked against them. Only an HVR could reliably pierce a heretic's shields, but aiming one in the absolute darkness, without an IR scope was hardly desirable. True, the heretics gave them a target, their face-light, but that meant at it looking through the double-convex lenses of a scope in a pitch-dark corridor when the eyes were trying to adjust to the gloom. It was a recipe for the mother of all burn-in, if not worse. Legion would be the only one who would not be bothered by that.
Still, she could not let the heretic ship tear down the tower, which meant they still needed to sever all six legs. The situation called for a slight shift of strategy. Shepard turned to the rest of the team, "We will proceed as planned, placing charges on all six of the claws. And we will split up, just differently. We will clear this floor and plant the charges, then I want volunteers to stay behind, to ensure no one tampers with them. This level will be the easiest. Once we clear it and start ascending, any reinforcements from the roof will have to get past the main team." She explained bluntly. Nazara would not get the best of her. She refused to let that thing win.
"That's simple enough," Ashley stated.
"Yes, and from those same considerations I think… it would be best if I stay here with Myrix and Shiala." Liara said.
Shepard turned in the direction where the Asari spoke from. She could just about make her out in the gloom of multiple weapon and helmet lights. "Are you sure?" She asked.
"Yes." Liara replied without hesitation.
"Alright." Shepard replied. That actually worked for her. It allowed her to keep her team intact until the very last moment. Furthermore, selfish or not, but Shepard really could do without irregulars. She needed freedom to act, without worrying about individuals who might not keep up.
"Commander, I am aware that you find my presence… inconvenient." Liara went on.
Shepard froze to the spot as her train of through ground to a sudden stop. Did the archeologist just call her out, after volunteering to play along to begin with? There was no way for Shepard to deny the substance of Liara's statement without lying. Thus, she chose to say nothing at all. The asari had actually called her out on her obfuscations. She had to respect that. "Occupational hazard. I'm a creature of habit." It was all the truth she could spare right then.
"Yes, I can understand that," Liara replied softly, though her tone also carried a peculiar edge.
Shepard knew that the Asari had allowed her to keep her pride on top. "Alright, now that that's settled… this wind is coming in from around the claws, so we can follow it where we need to be. That said, we still need to make sure this floor is clear of enemy units." She turned to her marines, "Kaidan, are you alright with going the other way?"
"No problems here." Kaidan replied.
Shepard would not say it out loud, but after what Kaidan did when they faced the proxy, she wanted to keep an eye on him. She wanted to keep him from taxing himself unnecessarily. The lieutenant had a horrible habit of overdoing it, a trait they shared in common. Not wanting to be a hypocrite precluded her from mentioning it, but she still worried.
"Bravo, with me." Kaidan went on.
"Legion, go with them." Shepard added. It was just a precaution on her part.
"Acknowledged." The geth replied.
Shepard watched them go for a moment, but then turned, "The rest with me," she announced as she started in the other direction. The darkness ahead was absolute right to the ninety degree turn she knew would be there. This meant either there were no heretics out in the open, or they had powered down their cranial sensor suite. Within moments Tali's drone floated ahead, casting the beam of its heretic-sourced sensory suite over the floor like a lantern.
The adrenaline from the fight in the vault room was gone, but her whole body still anticipated the mother of all unpleasant surprises. It was an unpleasant feeling that she could almost call dread, but she would not linger on it. She took a deep breath and let it out of her mouth, seeking to anchor herself. There was no use thinking about it at any length.
It took some minutes to reach the corner, checking every room along the way. Once there, Shepard pressed her back to the wall and edged towards the bend. Tali's drone floated over her head for a long moment, but then zipped right around, its assault rifle barrel extending as it went. Shepard started counting, but by the count of five she stopped. Any heretics present in the corridor would have opened fire by then.
"It's clear, Commander." Tali announced a moment later.
"Thanks, Tali." Shepard replied as she stepped around as well. Without the corner to act as a wind-break of sorts, the force of the rushing air was noticeably stronger here. "Bravo, how's your side?"
"All clear. Just very dark," Ashley replied.
"A lot of offices here." Kaidan added.
"Yes, we're getting the same here." Shepard replied as she stepped into the first office along her path, sweeping its corners with her gun.
"It's really bizarre. Some parts look like they were locked down one weekend, but no one ever came back Monday morning." Ashley mused.
"I get the feeling it was. For all we know… the Protheans abandoned the whole planet." Shepard replied as she stepped back outside, turned, and made her way toward the next office.
"They abandoned a lot of places." Liara slipped in.
"That just boggles the mind. I mean… why?" Ashley asked.
"My research points to Feros being a… commercial hub, a center of trade, exchange, and high-tech manufacturing. We believe there was a major war. Its impact shook the very foundation of Prothean society. The conflict would have damaged economic stability. I have a theory that Feros, being the hub of trade, was a prime target and rather indefensible. The Protheans were centralized enough to be able to move vast populations. It was an active decision to cease all activity here until peace could be restored. This was still an ordered event… they expected that everyone could come back." Liara explained.
"But they never did." Ashley finished.
"No, it does not look like they did." Liara conceded.
Shepard hummed as she stepped into the next office. Now was not the time to start on the topic of Kryptin-8. Liara would want the details. Shepard was not against sharing the information, just against doing so now. Still, now she thought about it. There was another reason for why Feros could have been shuttered. That toxin was designed to be delivered on the air. If it was indeed aimed at the Protheans, then a mega-city like Feros would have been a prime target. A few canisters attached to the central ventilation circulators would disperse the toxin to everyone inside. Then, by the time the symptoms manifested the toxin would be gone from the air. The psychological impact of multiple releases would have been similar to that of the Black Death on Europe.
"We don't know who… or why someone would even start such a conflict." Liara went on, "The Prothean Empire was in the midst of a thousand-year Golden Age… we have art, architecture, even bits of literature. Those are indicators of a stable, flourishing culture. We have all reason to believe that the Protheans ruled with an even hand, and yet…" Liara trailed off.
Shepard stepped back outside. Another office clear of enemy units. How did one go about disguising a war on that scale? Was fifty thousand years and a difference of species enough? If so, then it made Harbinger and Nazara's madness outright tragic. They had to know the truth, yet no one would get it out of them, and what more, she had just cause to destroy them.
The silence returned, but Shepard honestly would have liked more chatter. The wind was becoming stronger with every meter of distance that they closed. Just one more reminder of what was going on. Really, were the heretics utterly insane latching onto a building like that? Just because it was doable, did not mean it ought to be done.
As she approached the second bend, she pressed her back to the wall and glanced up at Tali's drone. The little machine seemed hesitant. "Bravo, status report," she asked.
"Still all clear, we are waiting at the bend to the back corridor." Kaidan replied.
"Same here." Shepard replied.
"I am sending my drone around, please don't shoot it." Tali announced.
"No problem, Tali. We know your drone from a geth, it flies higher and bobs." Ashley replied.
"Oh. Great then." Tali replied.
A moment later the drone zipped right around the corner. Then quite suddenly, even before Shepard could draw her next breath, a heretic pulse rifle came to life, beating a furious staccato, and the drone came flying right back around, shields flaring as the tracer rounds followed its path, and fell silent a few seconds later.
"There's four of them! Two regular, two primes." Tali announced, her voice rising in volume and pitch.
Shepard thought this was more of that same system Nazara had been using this whole time. These units were little more than a progress alarm. It would want to know when she got to the claws, as that would tell it when to expect the ship to come tumbling down, and ergo when to expect the Normandy to show itself.
"Tali, we'll handle them with no problems. You know that." Ashley assured.
"Yes, I know." Tali murmured.
Out of the corner of her eye, Shepard saw Garrus approach, his HVR at a ready. She reached behind her back for Nike. "Legion, I want you to take care the primes," she ordered. By now she figured she had a good handle on Nazara's MO, and she was done with it. "We'll stagger the shots, so we don't hit each other by accident."
"Acknowledged." The geth replied.
If she was not going to get to watch their ship be blown to bits, then she just wanted this whole thing over and done with. These units stood in her way, and they would not be standing for much longer. She switched Nike to disruptor mode.
"I am ready when you are," Garrus stated.
Shepard nodded, a gesture he would see because of the fact that her lights were on her helmet. "Legion, if you will," Shepard said.
The geth did not reply, but they must have moved as five seconds later the heretics opened fire again. Furious as it was, the fusillade was still overmatched by the subsequent crack of Legion's HVR. One of the enemy rifles cut out, and then the other three followed a moment later. Shepard did not hear the heretic drop, but she knew Legion would not miss. She might miss sooner, due to a miscalculation, but not Legion.
"First enemy unit terminated." Legion announced.
"Here, Legion, a fresh clip." Ashley said.
Legion did not reply, but a moment later the heretic guns were beating again, but this time the rebuff came quickly and sharply. One more heretic rifle cut out, and this time Shepard did hear a faint thud as something quite large hit the floor. "That's our cue, Garrus." She said.
"Ready when you are." Garrus replied.
Shepard rounded the corner and raised her rifle. She saw two lights facing where Legion had been, essentially focused on the enemy they knew was there. This meant the light from their sensory suite was facing away from her, but it refracted around their heads enough to give her a target. She raised her rifle, aimed at the faint glow, adjusted a few centimeters to the right in order to make sure the bullet actually went through the sensor suite, and squeezed the trigger. Nike kicked and cracked, and its slug caused the light she had been aiming at to blink out. An instant later, Garrus' own rifle gave a crack, and the second light went out. The runtimes discarded the frames a moment later, allowing them to drop the floor. Shepard passed Nike behind her back and sighed.
This corridor could only be described as an utter mess. A section of the wall on her right had been pushed out by the claws, whose tips were very much in the corridor, opening up two offices. The floor was strewn with debris, and the wind positively howled as it slipped in around the claws. What more, the ship had put all its mass right down, cracking the floor in a radiating pattern. "This whole side is a collapse hazard," she announced. "I need a moment to think. Garrus, Nihlus, you can set the crate down around the corner."
"Got it," Nihlus replied.
"Should we go around and catch up to you?" Kaidan asked.
"Yes, there's no point in you staying over there," Shepard replied.
"Roger that."
Shepard hummed. She was not lying when she said she needed to think. She had to re-evaluate the situation. This whole thing was becoming a morbid game of chess against Nazara. First and foremost, she could no longer be sure that a clean separation was possible. Furthermore, getting the charges on the claws was unsafe. Then, the AI now knew they were at the claws. One possibility was that it could pull the heretics out, seeing it as a way of denying her the victory it knew she wanted, hoping she would try counter it by calling down the Normandy, giving Nazara the chance to strike with the Impera. A classic piece exchange. She could easily make the exchange up to that point work for her. Sure the heretics would get away, but she would not have to approach the claws. So was there a way to encourage that gambit? Then she felt a weight settle on her shoulder. Shepard looked up, surprised.
"What are you thinking about?" Nihlus asked.
"I haven't decided what would be our best course of action right now." Shepard started, then paused, took a deep breath, held it, and let it out. "I am… not certain we can avoid damaging the tower."
"Forget the tower, Skipper. We know you tried, and we'll vouch if anyone says otherwise. They were not here to see those cracks." Ashley said.
"Indeed." Nihlus slipped in quietly.
Shepard was glad that others saw the writing on the wall. She could proceed with the job at hand. "Alright… that aside, I see two options. The first was discussed previously, involving charges on all the claws. But that one might cause damage either way. Either the charges damage the floor further, or the ship will, when it tumbles," she explained as she turned around and sought out the explosives crate.
"And option two?" Nihlus asked.
"Option two is a bit… round-about." Shepard explained as she kneeled in front of the crate. "I think that if we were to detach just one claw, we can mitigate the damage to the tower. Heretic ships are operated by geth runtimes, right? It will give them a metaphorical kick in the shin, they ought to detach on their own."
"But what's to prevent them for re-attaching elsewhere?" Jenkins asked.
Shepard unsealed the box and lifted the lid, "Damage, the principle of once bitten, twice shy, and Nazara. It is up there waiting to ambush the Normandy. If the heretic ship takes off, it becomes bait." She pulled out a charge and then reached for the smaller box that contained the fuses. "Nazara will expect the Normandy to attack the heretic ship, exposing itself. But when the Normandy does not, Nazara will know that I'm on to the scheme. It won't come after us here, because doing so will reveal itself. Retreat will be the only option it has left."
"That will be embarrassing." Garrus mused.
"Too bad it will not cause it to self-destruct," Ashley stated.
"We can't have everything." Shepard replied as she slipped a fuse into its slot on the shaped charge and screwed it in as tight as her fingers could go. As much as she loathed complete silence, right then she could use some of that. If she messed this up she would have to rig a second, and attach it to the other claw. It was the sort of process where one moment of distraction was all it took to make an error. Once her omni-tool reported a strong signal link with the charge, she pushed herself to her feet. "Alright, the charge is ready. Now I just need to attach it to the inside of the claw's joint." The charge would channel all its explosive force downward, hopefully either cutting clean through, or at least severely weakening the joint.
Shepard moved toward the corner and paused to inspect the cracks. There was no way of knowing whether they were merely on the surface, or down to the armature inside. While helmet and weapon lights created islands of brightness in the gloom, they were not enough to do anything past tracing the cracks. She took a deep breath and began to walk, putting her feet down as gently and as smoothly as possible, that way she might actually feel or hear something if the material decided depress.
She reached the closest claw without so much as feeling a tremor from the floor. Proximity allowed her to inspect what she had to work with. The claw's segments were heavily plated with thick, strong armor, but the joint between them was not, as it could not be. What more, the joint was hydraulically-actuated, with the next segment coming in from above. It made it look like the ship stood on its knuckles. Still, it also told her that those had to be some of the strongest hydraulics she had ever seen. The fluid inside would be under tremendous pressure, and it would not be something as simple as water. High pressure hydraulics tended to use something a little more viscous, doubling as lubrication for the moving parts. And that complicated the job.
If she doggedly pursued that clean separation, she would have had to plant three shaped charges on each claw. One for each of the major hydraulic pistons, and one for the joint itself. But then she also had to consider the pressure inside the pistons. All this drove the final nails in the coffin of that plan. There was just no way to guarantee an entirely clean separation when dealing with that many unpredictable variables. Well, that just meant her conscience could remain entirely clean now. Even she had to concede defeat when it came to this matter.
However, there was still the other matter. Shepard reached up and carefully placed the charge on top of the main beam at the center of the joint, pausing for a moment to make sure that the charge's shaped nozzle was centered properly before she engaged the magnetic grip. It would reduce the charge's battery life, but that was not a problem right then. "It's done," she announced, "Now the dangerous part, the detonation. There is no way to know how the ship will react." She passed a hand on the claw, as if stroking a very large animal.
She could not stop the gesture, simply because she still felt a note of sadness at having to do it. The heretics were as much a victim as anyone else that Harbinger had assaulted. She wanted to believe that were it not for Harbinger, they would still be with their people, and not out here killing and causing property damage. She wanted to blame Harbinger for turning the child-like geth into murder machines. It was a naïve way of thinking, all considering, but she would indulge in that bit of naiveté, just this once.
Suddenly the limb gave a faint shudder and began to vibrate, and she recoiled away, surprised. A thunderous roar erupted somewhere behind and overhead. The wind shifted, and its roar changed pitch, no longer blowing into the building, but past the lip, resonating against it.
"Shepard-Commander! The vessel has engaged its engines." Legion called. In that moment the geth managed to do what she hitherto thought impossible, they sounded almost panicked.
The claw jerked, pulled back toward the outside as the ship twitched and the roar got louder. The floor under her feet groaned and cracked, Shepard felt it shift under her feet. She turned and bolted back toward the corner. The heretics had decided to pull out after all. Nazara was playing into her hand! But the monster was too late, the charge was in place. She could still claim a partial win like this. If the heretics could not bring new runtimes online, and the geth had no intention of changing their opinions, then Harbinger's army was finite. Every single ship destroyed would weaken them. Destroying this ship would be a little victory.
She rounded the corner, skidding along with her own momentum even as she rolled her wrist to activate her omni-tool. If she destroyed that leg, and if the engines were not yet ready for flight, then the ship would plunge. "Get back!" she shouted even as she tapped keys to disengage the safety on the detonator.
There was a loud grinding noise, as if something heavy was dragged along the floor. Cracking followed, and then snapping.
"The ship is moving!" Garrus called.
"Oh yes, it's going straight down," Shepard replied as she jammed her thumb into the button to detonate.
The charge blew with a muted thud, a small fireball erupting from the point where the charge had been in contact with the beam. The shockwave did not spread, the shaped charge directed everything down into the metal of that central beam. Then, suddenly it cracked, the sound louder than Shepard would have anticipated. The other section of the claw came down hard, hitting the floor, and going right through. The cracked floor slabs began to give way in a cascade, tumbling to the level below. Shepard turned and shouted, "To the stairs! Run!"
Author Notes: That particular bit at the end with how to detach the ship gave me a lot of trouble. I had five or six different configurations in mind, starting from the canon, and going exotic from there, but for the longest time I could not decide on which. Well, I'm getting excited to finish up with Feros so I can move on to my long-planned season finale arc.
General Notes:
Legion's Communication Device – I'm pulling my own little head-canon here. Since the geth can upload their runtimes to a different location, abandoning damaged frames, I figure they have some seriously powerful transmitters. I decided to use Legion's transmitter for a different purpose here.
Chapter Notes:
Neodymium Magnets – Neodymium alloyed with iron and boron create the strongest permanent magnets known to us. A sugar-cube-sized magnet on either side of your palm will hold each-other in place. I will definitely warn you right now not to try that trick with larger ones, as they might actually crush your hand between them.