Disclaimer: I do no own Mass Effect, I do not claim to own Mass Effect, I am only doing this for fun.
Author Notes: I am sorry about this taking way too long. Real life is just being all sorts of busy, and stressful. Half the time I come home from work basically mentally exhausted, and recently even my weekends are no longer entirely my own.
Episode 75: Die Another Day [Part I]
The hours ticked by painfully slowly, and with each passing one Shepard became more nervous. She could no longer shake the thought that they were missing the Heretics, and that Harbinger had somehow managed to fly under the radar. That the Normandy's sensors were damaged, and they were not seeing what was right under their nose. Each time down that loop of thought, she had to remind herself that EDI would have noticed it if the sensors were on the fritz.
The wait continued into the night shift, as much as was possible while maintaining yellow alert readiness. Yet even before that, Shepard was made aware of some issues on board. About an hour before the change-over Adams pulled her aside to say that he was beginning to worry.
He had recalculated their remaining stealth time, and it did not look good. They had already done as much possible to extend the ship's ability to remain sensor-invisible, but the internal heat would start seeping out through her hull in less than twelve hours. Once their armor gained a few degrees that could not be cooled off, the Normandy would lose stealth.
This led into a discussion between Adams and Joker about what they could do to solve the problem. Making entry and hiding in the most sunbaked locale of Ilos was discussed, but quickly deemed the most dangerous solution, to be used as an absolute last resort. The most obvious solution was to pull the Normandy out of Ilos' orbit and make their way to the system's gas giant, Zafe, on their last stealth legs, where they could vent the IES and be back in a few hours. However, that would mean they would lose surveillance of the planet's surface during that time, giving Harbinger a carte blanche to act without being spotted.
Joker theorized that he could drop them into Ilos' ionosphere with minimal atmospheric friction by first shifting the Normandy into a geo-stationary orbit, and then slowly dropping the altitude. The gasses within the ionosphere were warmed by sunlight and would cover the Normandy while they vented the IES at a trickle rate. A carefully calculated and coordinated slow vent with a velocity that put them ahead of Ilos' rotation would prevent a hot-pocket from forming around them. This would reduce their ability to surveil Ilos, and would run both him and the engineers exhausted, but it was doable.
Adams hummed and said that while he agreed with Joker's opinion that such a thing was possible, he wanted it to be known that it was not exactly recommended. The ionosphere was subject to excitation by the planet's magnetic field and the solar wind. Lingering in the area would allow free-flying charged particles to sap their shields, and should they penetrate the hull, their kinetic energy was no less dangerous to organics than exposure to gamma radiation. The trickle-vent would also take hours longer than a safer maneuver over Zafe. But, he was going to give it some thought and calculate just how big an effect the exposure would have on the shields. In the end it became another option.
Shepard walked away from that meeting suspecting that Adams would want to play it safe, recommending a vent over Zafe. It was not like the Normandy would be much help to the team once they were ground-side. She was perfectly happy to give Adams a carte blanche there. The chief engineer knew his job, and took it seriously. He was willing to explore alternatives, but ultimately, one part of his job was to keep the Normandy safe. He would assess Joker's suggestion simply because it was an engineering quandary, a puzzle, but ultimately he had the overriding voice. Shepard only commented that this was one more area where the Heretics had it easier.
After that discussion, and shift changeover, Ashley came up to the CIC to take over Kaidan's watch while the lieutenant got a few hours of shut-eye. Shepard hoped that Saren would not question the interchangeability of officers on watch. Everyone else knew that regardless, the Normandy was in good hands. EDI would know if anyone was sneaking up on them from the gloom. Soon after that, Shepard too went up to her loft to clock in a few more hours of sleep.
When Shepard jolted awake, it felt like she had just fallen asleep. The sleep inertia she felt hinted that she had definitely not gotten enough shut-eye. She groaned, perfectly aware that her body needed more REM time.
"I apologize, Commander, but you did ask me to wake you the moment I had anything." EDI announced.
That very well chased the sleep inertia away in an instant. Shepard rolled onto her back and glanced at the time-piece on her nightstand. She had been asleep for about four hours. "You're good, EDI," She said as she swung her legs over the edge and forced herself into a sitting position. "What's going on?"
"Half an hour ago I detected Heretic activity in the largest city on Ilos, outside the immediate zones of total destruction."
Shepard rose to her feet and passed a hand back through her hair. "Taking their sweet time getting started on that," she muttered as she grabbed the discarded parts of her fatigues. The Heretics could afford to take their sweet time, she could not. So now was as good a time as any for a brief, and hopefully they could avoid having to go through some of these motions again. "Do you have any idea of what's… at that part of the city?"
"I cannot be certain, but it appears to be the remains of a large structure set on an open plaza with an area roughly half a square kilometer in total. It is covered by fallen debris from the surrounding towers, so I cannot ascertain its original layout with passive imagery alone. However, it is possible that it had a public or civic function, possibly an administrative center," EDI replied.
Shepard hummed under her breath, as she made her way toward the bathroom. Assuming Harbinger was looking for the Ark, an administrative center would be a good first place to start. Construction records of the facility would have been made, even if they had been top secret, but would they have survived fifty thousand years? How much, in general, could have survived anywhere in the vicinity of such massive nuclear blasts? That much, EDI would not know, so there was no point asking. She turned to the parts that EDI would know. "What's the radiation level down there?"
"Based on my readings from orbit, I calculated the rate of radiation absorption and thus exposure to be thirty centigray per hour," EDI replied.
Shepard stopped dead just outside her bathroom, "Is that with armor, or without? And is that just for me, or including Nihlus and Javik?" EDI would not have the data on Saren's armor, and he would probably never surrender it willingly. Even Nihlus and Javik likely would not have told EDI that. Her own suit was not specifically designed for radiation protection, though by dint of needing to function in the void it offered a rudimentary level of protection.
"Spectres Kryik and Arterius have not provided me with the exact resistance rating of their armors. Then, when I asked Javik for that information, he was rather forthright in telling me it was none of my business. As such, I could only factor in your armor, Commander."
"Well… crap." Shepard muttered as the realization fully sank in. Doctor Chakwas strongly warned her to keep exposure amounts, per twenty-four hours, to under one gray. Anything above that would begin giving her increasingly-severe radiation sickness, with no way to prevent the physical symptoms of it.
Thirty centigray per hour would mean that she would run through her daily limit in three hours and twenty minutes. That was not a whole lot of time, and not a whole lot of certainty either. They could also encounter pocket of different levels, both higher and lower. Though, with her luck, Shepard would not count on the latter. "Remind me to correct Javik's assumption later please… and you should know the specs on our shuttles, will staying aboard the Kodiaks be safe?"
"Reminder made. The radiation shielding of the Kodiak will not be penetrated at those levels, so you will not be in danger on board," EDI replied.
Shepard wanted to be petulant, just this once. Why did it have to be radiation? But she had more important things to worry about. If she was going to incur thirty centigray per hour, just how would it affect Nihlus, Saren, or Javik? She was less worried about Legion, as they would probably shrug it off. Electronics, on the whole, tended to be resistant, and ultimately synthetics did not have DNA for the radiation to mess with. The worst thing Legion had in their future was a mandatory full-platform decontamination with relatively high-pressure water and scrubbing when all was said and done.
It was then, while thinking of decontamination that Shepard realized there was an important detail to square away now, lest she forget. "EDI, we'll need decontamination equipment in the shuttle bay for when we return." The water used would have to be jettisoned due to a potential contamination with radioactive isotopes, which would run down their reserves, but the Normandy was heading for Arcturus after this anyways.
"I will ensure that the equipment is ready," EDI replied.
That covered, Shepard stepped into the bathroom. She still needed to do a basic routine, if nothing else then to wake up fully. "One last thing, EDI. Where is Spectre Arterius at the present moment?"
"Spectre Arterius and Spectre Kryik are in the Shuttle Bay."
"Thanks," she replied. It was none too surprising that the two had already started on preparing for the mission, and it was probably Saren's idea at that, but Nihlus would go with it only because it would get Saren off the CIC. They indeed did not have to spend any more time on going through the motions of a meeting.
Her next course of action was clear as daylight. Get ready, then go down to the shuttle bay, pretend like she had been briefed, assess where the situation stood, and then go from there. It was time to regain some semblance of control over this whole ugly mess.
By the time Shepard donned her armor and descended to the Shuttle bay, that area of the ship had become an invariable center of activity. The enlisted were already setting up the decontamination equipment off in the corner. Then, one of their Kodiaks was lowered down onto the deck, and the hatch was open. Saren was just on the inside of the craft, and so it was a safe to assume that Nihlus was in the cockpit, running a pre-flight system checks. Javik had already found a seat, clad in his full armor, with helmet, his weapon laid across his lap. Both the Spectre and the Prothean met her gaze without saying a word, and Shepard turned toward the weapon lockers.
She was under no delusions, with the Heretics having a propensity toward excess force, and a timer running against them, they could not afford to dally about. As such, aside from the twins and Nike, she also slipped Strix behind her back. It was not a comfortable fit by any stretch of the imagination. Nike was already quite a bit of mass hanging off her back, but Strix doubled it, effectively tripling the load on her shoulders and back. She was not exactly used to operating with such a burden under normal mission parameters. Then again, nothing about this mission was at all normal. So she mutely adjusted the tension in the articulation of her exo-frame, to take some of the strain off. It would help with Ilos' higher gravity as well.
After closing her armory locker, Shepard picked up her helmet, made an about-face, and approached the shuttle. With the change of angle she noted that Legion was already inside. They were seated in the far corner, as far away as possible from both Saren and Javik. It was likely a display of thoughtfulness, Legion choosing to keep away from two individuals who did not like them. It rankled her sensibilities that they felt the need to do that.
As she stepped aboard the Kodiak, she took a moment to run her gaze over the interior, performing a last-moment visual check. Everything seemed in place and how she arranged for it to be. Standing room had become a bit of a premium as there was netting slung from the ceiling, filled to the brim to containers of rations and water bottles. On the wall were boxes of thermal clips, ammo blocks, and enough medical supplies to care for a small army, never mind four organics.
"Are we ready enough?" Javik asked blandly.
Shepard spared him a look, had he been reading her all along? "Mostly." She needed to know where they all stood. "I know where we are heading. The radiation on the surface is going to be a major factor. I need to know how long everyone got before risking illness. Except, obviously in your case Legion, as I assume you are the most resistant member of this team."
"Affirmative. The radiation levels at our destination and well within the tolerance limit of our platform."
In other words, the only limit Legion had was how much energy they had in their power cells. "I have three hours and twenty minutes before I cross the threshold of incurring radiation sickness symptoms."
"Saren and I have a bit longer than that." Nihlus stated over the shuttle's internal communicator from the cockpit.
"Four and a half of your Terran hours," Saren added blandly.
"That is the difference of our armor models, Saren. I have only four hours," Nihlus stated.
Saren made a sound in the back of his throat, but otherwise remained silent.
Shepard filed that tidbit of information away in the back of her mind. She was also glad to know that Nihlus was not going to be running into the danger zone just because Saren could go longer. The rest was down to their origins. Palaven had a weaker magnetic field compared to Earth. As a result, all life on the planet had to adapt to it in order to survive and thrive.
"I am much more resistant than any of you primitives," Javik stated blandly.
Shepard turned to look him in the eye, he was being vague, and she was not going to take it. The wavelengths of ionizing radiation were shorter than the width cells, and could interfere with their function. It could even accelerate the electrons within atoms enough for them to fly off, thereby ionizing them. DNA was made of atoms same as all other matter. "Somehow I doubt you have Legion beat there… and you can't be immune to the physical symptoms."
Javik smiled, "I have six hours of active time."
Shepard could not help but feel a twang of annoyance. That would mean she was the weakest link of this operation. She hated being the weakest link of anything. "You had better not be lying."
Javik glared at her as if she had promised to do something unspeakable to him. "Unlike your simple double helix-" he switched languages on the fly, "Protheans have a quad-strand genetic structure. And we were also not as attached to the… vaunted purity of our genetic heritage." His lips contorted into what could very well be his trademark sneer. "Nature gave us an advantage, but we refined it further."
Shepard could not miss the unmistakable disdain dripping off his tone as he uttered the words 'purity of our genetic heritage', nor the feeling that he used those words with intent. "The Protheans… modified themselves on a species-wide level?" She would have loved to use English, but she just was not so petty as to deny him privacy.
"Yes," Javik replied.
Well, that was certainly something. Shepard knew what would happen if someone proposed something like that on Earth. The neo-luddites, genetic purists, and the religious fundamentalists would mobilize their ignorant flocks using the worst nonsensical conspiracies they could concoct. But at the end of the day, they would only live to be about a hundred, but she would easily reach one-fifty, and only hit a mid-life slowdown at seventy. If the removal the genetic components that predisposed one to age-related degenerative conditions could affect such a quality of life change, she could see why a species might want to modify themselves on a larger scale.
However, the Protheans were also colonialists and imperialists, and therein lay her one misgiving. Did they stop short of thinking they could tweak the genetics of other species? Did she even want to ask? No. Probably not. Javik would tell her that they did, with a smile on his face, even if that was a lie, just because he would know it would unnerve her. She did not enjoy being on the receiving end of something like that.
"I suggest you move on with the mission on hand," Javik switched back to English, giving her a sneering smile.
Shepard glared, she hated being dismissed like that, she hated his blatant lack of respect, but what could she do about it? Nothing. Now was not the time to pick a fight with the cantankerous old man, and she wanted him to read that thought.
Saren made a noise, "So it is true, you can converse with him without needing a translator."
Shepard shifted her helmet under her arm, a split second delay so she would not explode. She did not like Saren's tone right then. When she met his gaze, she felt a bit calmer, though not by much. "Spectre Arterius, you should know better than that. That type of thing would inevitably come to light, and while there is at least a decade between us, my experience with the subtle arts is certainly not lacking." She smirked, let him take it as a dig at his own vast experience with half-truths and omissions, because it was. She turned toward the cockpit door, intent on getting away from them, for their own good.
"Her accent is atrocious though," Javik stated quietly.
Shepard froze. Was Javik really finding common cause with Saren, and at her expense? That simply would not do. "For the record, Javik, you have an accent too. But here's where I surpass you… I don't judge." She hoped that would at least sting, and flashed him a smirk over her shoulder for good measure, even as she raised her hand to the door. As the panel opened, she could have sworn she heard Nihlus chuckle. She slipped inside and stopped just far enough to let the door close behind her.
"We are good to go," Nihlus announced, as if nothing had happened.
"Good." Shepard replied as she stepped around the back of the pilot's seat, toward the co-pilot's seat.
"You are not taking any prisoners today, huh?"
Shepard snorted as she eased onto the seat, "Let's just say I'm not happy with exposing myself to radiation. That means I'm just not in the mood to let Saren and Javik get the last word." With that said she slipped her helmet on, though without sealing up.
"I can understand that," Nihlus replied.
Shepard reached across the space between them and laid her hand on his forearm.
Nihlus turned to face her.
She opened her mouth to speak, but the words would not come out. How to admit that radiation was one of those things that scared her? It was not something she could control, nor something that a bullet could stop, and that made for the worst sort of fear. No, she was not even entirely comfortable admitting something like that to anyone, even those closest to her. She slipped her hand off and reached to the console in front of her to re-activate the internal communication links. "Alright, Nihlus tells me we are ready to fly, so strap in."
"Relax Shepard, we have this," Nihlus all but whispered.
With no protests from the back, Shepard switched bands. "Shuttle One to the CIC."
"Reading you loud and clear, Skipper." Ashley replied.
"We are ready to go," Shepard went on.
"Roger that."
"Kryik, you had better not let anything happen to the Commander down there," Garrus added across the link.
"Vakarian, focus on not letting anything happen to the Normandy up here. Shepard is in the best of hands, mi-"
Shepard put her hand on Nihlus' forearm, cutting him off. "Garrus, I'll be fine. Legion is coming as well." She knew full well where Nihlus was angling, and she did not want them starting a verbal fight now.
"Good. At least someone will be looking out for you," Garrus murmured, amusement dripping from his tone.
Nihlus gave her the worst glare she had ever seen coming from him.
Shepard grinned back at him in reply. She was not taking prisoners after all. "We'll be out of contact. Garrus, Joker, this is my last order to you two. Don't start anything, but if anything comes for you, give them no quarter."
"You bet." Joker replied. He was calmer than normal, which just said he was running on stims and conserving his energy. "Now, just a reminder to Nihlus… we will use the standard no-contact recovery protocol. The Normandy will maintain a five-hour orbital period over Ilos. Relaying our current course heading to your navigation computer now."
"Good, thanks Kaidan," Shepard replied. The standard no-contact shuttle recovery protocol required the ship to maintain a single heading, passing over the same locations at regular, pre-arranged intervals. This meant that the navigational computer on the away craft knew where the parent ship would be at all times. Joker would have calculated the period to give them ample time to go down, do what needed to be done, and come back with minimum need to chase the Normandy.
The console in front of her pinged as the coordinates came up, Nihlus tapped at the controls to record the heading and speed in the navigation system. "Got them."
"If you need an emergency pick up, ascend into our orbital path ahead of our position and ping your IFF beacon once, we won't miss you."
"Understood." Nihlus replied.
Shepard did not say a word. She knew that was the best that could be jury-rigged right then. Yes, it would run the chance of the Impera spotting the ping, if it happened to be on the same side of Ilos at that moment. But the Kodiak would continue maintaining its own stealth, and could maneuver along the Normandy's course.
After that, it became a chess exchange. Nazara would realize that the shuttle had pinged for pickup, and that the Normandy had to be on the same side of the planet to spot the ping. If it went to attack the shuttle, the second it started emitting heat, it would be spotted, giving the Normandy a clear shot. Shepard willing to bet that Nazara would not risk attacking, but it was a contingency to cover. "One last thing- if we do have to do an emergency pickup, and you spot the Impera coming for the shuttle… don't waste the chance. Blow that nuisance to a billion bits."
"Yes, Commander," Garrus replied calmly. "I will not miss again."
Shepard smiled, though they would not see it. She glanced toward Nihlus, only to see that he was watching her keenly. "I think that's all then," she stated. There was little else that the Normandy would be able to do for them once they were out of contact. "Begin the launch procedure."
"Yes ma'am," Ashley stated calmly.
"Sealing hatches," Nihlus stated.
A few seconds later Shepard saw the shuttle bay's lights dim almost to non-existence, sending the crewmen that have been working on the decontamination station scrambling to get clear of the folded ramp. Warning beacon lights on the walls began to pulse and the atmosphere retaining field flickered for a moment. Then the ramp clanged and began to move.
Joker had undoubtedly already put the Normandy onto her course for the duration of the mission. Ilos glowed on their right, and right then they were passing over its brilliantly lit day side. This offered a rather magnificent view of the thick cloud layers that blanketed almost the entire planet. Some were white, others were grayer in color, and some in between, as some of them carried more than just water vapor. There was soot, ash, and other contaminants rising off the numerous forest fires.
The Kodiak's stand-by hum changed pitch as its mass effect core powered up to operational levels.
"We are taking off," Nihlus stated into the comm.
"Acknowledged. I'd wish you luck but-" Ashley cut off.
Shepard chuckled, "Yea, no need to tempt fate now. We'll be back in a few hours." Ashley was the most spiritual member of her crew, so it was not entirely surprising that she obeyed that old rule of thumb. Shepard was not going to fault her for that.
Nihlus input a few more commands and the Kodiak lifted off the deck and began to glide toward the opened shuttle bay door. As soon as they cleared the atmosphere retaining field, the communication link with the CIC fuzzed out. Shepard reached to the controls and disconnected their external transmitter. It would not be needed for the rest of the mission, and disconnecting it would actually enhance the shuttle's stealth.
As soon as the shuttle cleared the ship, Nihlus turned them toward Ilos. Shepard watched as the Normandy slipped past overhead, momentarily casting its massive shadow over them. Somehow that did nothing to dispel her rapidly increasing feeling of unease tinged with foreboding. She had to force herself to turn away and focus on their destination. The largest city on the planet's surface was almost impossible to miss, it was a giant blob of sun-bleached greys that even the cloud cover could not fully obstruct.
"Beginning to decelerate to match orbital velocity," Nihlus announced as his fingers danced over the Kodiak's controls. "We will make a shallow entry, it will keep the entry friction from exposing us."
Shepard hummed her assent. She was not a pilot, this part was going to be Nihlus' show to put on.
It was almost forty before the shuttle slipped safely underneath Ilos' nearly-complete cloud cover. This shifted the dangerous game of hide and seek to a game of chase. This close to the surface they could fly on main power, to conserve the shuttle's much shorter IES uptime. The cloud cover and the lightning activity effectively screened them against detection from orbit. That said, flying amidst the clouds was hardly a pleasure cruise. The airflows were unstable, generating a constant turbulence that shook and rocked the shuttle at random intervals and with random intensity.
Shepard reasoned that the Impera would not be maintaining geosynchronous orbit. So its odds of being on this side of the planet were fifty-fifty at best, but the odds of it being exactly overhead at any given time were much lower. Then, even if it did spot them, Shepard had her eyes on Kodiak's sensors. At the first sign of a strong heat signature from orbit, Nihlus would fly them in zig-zagging pattern that would wreak havoc on Nazara's ability to actually hit anything with a linear gun. Finally, at worst, it would get only two attempts, as it would expose itself to the Normandy.
She had every reason to suspect that while Nazara was a brazen opportunist, it was hardly suicidal. If anything, based on the precedent of behavior it had already established, Shepard suspected the machine was actually quite the coward. That would prevent it from accepting the necessity of taking such a risk. After all, it had waited for Saren to be off elsewhere before it pitched a rebellion, likely because it knew that Saren would destroy it for the thought alone, much less the attempt. It also used the Heretics as a delaying tactic, so it could vanish into stealth, after one little graze from the Normandy's main gun. No, it would not expose itself unnecessary, unless it was properly incensed. That understanding of its behavior was an ace up her sleeve. It would be a while yet before Harbinger and Nazara realized that she was beginning to read them like she could read any other blowhard narcissistic egomaniac who had the misfortune of earning her ire.
Right then the Kodiak was approaching the planet's largest city from the east at about two hundred kilometers per hour. The wasteland that had once been a thriving metropolis stretched out along the entire horizon. One long smear of greys, reds, browns, and blacks that could almost be called picturesque, if one was into the aesthetics of desolation and hair-raising horror. From orbit it lacked any real detail, offering only the highlighting relief of long shadows, but from this new angle Shepard could see much more detail.
The city's once had many tall towers, with the densest areas of development at the shoreline toward the center of the city. None of them were whole now. Some of the strongest had broken and snapped, coming down in sections to the streets below. Others collapsed on themselves, creating tangled of undiscernible debris. The surviving bases jutted out of the metallic pulverized sand as jagged, broken bits of various heights. All of the glass that once covered these edifices was gone, likewise pulverized, leaving behind gaping holes, exposed interiors and plenty of total darkness.
From what bits of architecture that survived, seemed consistent with towers on Feros, at least as far as her untrained eye could tell. There were also the elevated roadways, but none of them were usable. Here or there a support pillar, or the base of one, that had once held them up remained, and in places she saw a slab of the road that had dropped to the street level and remained in pieces. The sheer quantity of collapse debris created hill-high piles of material, obscuring the actual surface features and creating a nightmarish warren of twisted metal and elongated shadows.
The large water body did not escape being affected either. It appeared ominously dark and turbulent, and the shallows were densely strewn with massive debris, the collapsed upper portions of the towers closest to the shore. This debris was even more jagged and in a worse shape, the rust having eaten away at large sections, aided by the action of wind and wave. To make matters worse still, everything appeared dyed in ominous burnt-orange hues by the meager sunlight that managed to filter through the clouds and pollution haze.
"Feros looked cozy compared to this," Shepard murmured. It still had structures with functional power, water, and roofs. Furthermore, the environment was still within the classification of a Garden world, even with the strong winds and high quantity of dust in the air, with none of the planet's problems, outright excluding the possibility for redevelopment and revival. There was little to no hope for that on Ilos. It was impossible to imagine that anything could remain functional amidst this devastation, and even if there was something, the environment was nightmarish. If re-settling Feros would cost unknown sums that few would want to pay, Ilos would cost much, much more, and even fewer could be induced to go for it.
Then Shepard saw it, the beginning of one of the zones of total destruction peeking out from amidst the ruins. It was like someone had taken a round cookie cutter to the city ruins and excised a whole circular chunk, leaving behind a flat plain covered with mottled, unnaturally glimmering sand that still set the Kodiak's radiation sensors off. The pinging started practically just as the Kodiak entered the outer perimeter of the city, but when pointed at a zone of total destruction, the readout showed a red warning banner. The radiation was within the Kodiak's armor tolerance, but the warning was unequivocal, no one organic should enter that zone without protection specifically designed to block radiation.
Shepard looked up from the readout and turned toward Nihlus, "Let's not fly directly over that." For no other reason than the fact that she did not want to overwhelm the sensors. Gamma radiation and heat were basically the same thing, differing merely by the wavelengths and frequencies of it. She did not want the antenna swamped to the point of not being able to pick up less energetic heat emissions from above.
"Adjusting our course," Nihlus replied.
Shepard hummed but said nothing.
The Kodiak turned gracefully to skirt the blasted out wasteland. The chance of course would add time to their flight, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Shepard turned back toward the sensors. Even though EDI had not detected a single additional Heretic vessel anywhere in the system, she wanted to be sure rather than sorry.
She reasoned that in all likelihood the Heretics had set up a staging area of some sort on the surface. It could not be as large as the installation on Solcrum had been, and clearly they had learned not to put it somewhere easily visible from orbit, but there had to be something. It just made more sense to keep the Impera in orbit, and not acting like a glorified troop transport.
"You can see the crater in the center rather well now," Nihlus murmured quietly.
Shepard looked up, jarred from her thoughts, and turned back to the display. True enough, just on the edge of the camera's field of view there was an unmistakable glimmer of red sunlight reflected off the faintly-rippling surface of an otherwise nearly pitch-black circular lake.
Shepard felt a faint shudder run down her spine. That water with only some meager sunlight scattering across its surface reminded her of how Harbinger's proxies, as their black paint took on an oil-smeared prismatic sheen in direct sunlight. Except the red was more emblematic of the Impera. On Noveria Nihlus had joked about the purported disconcerting effect of staring into that ship's paint. Could staring into something actually cause such a reaction? Or was the unnerving effect rather caused by her knowledge that this lake was actually a massive blast crater? She looked away and bit back her urge to shake her head. She did not want Nihlus noticing that, and worse, asking about it.
Suddenly the Kodiak crossed some sort of invisible boundary and resumed shivering at random intervals and intensities.
"More turbulence," Nihlus announced as his hands began moving at the controls, adjusting their thrusters as necessary to counter the craft's shivers.
Shepard glanced to the sensors, the Kodiak's wind direction and speed gauges had begun moving much more erratically. They were now flying through areas of increasing tower density as they approached the inner reaches. The destination was east of the very central zone of total destruction, in a location where the towers grew densest, largest in side lengths, and presumably had once been the tallest in the city itself. However, the structures around them right then were smaller, and probably had not been as tall.
She reached for the communicator controls and opened the internal channel to the back. "The shuddering is just some harmless turbulence. The ruins are creating erratic wind patterns." She figured she owed the rest of the team some explanation.
"We are about ten minutes out from our destination," Nihlus added on the same link.
"And, naturally, I expect a welcoming committee," Shepard finished.
The Kodiak gave a particularly powerful shudder as they passed another tower. This one had broken in half, and its collapsed section had fallen on top the tower across the street, forming a slope of sorts that redirected the wind upward with particular ferocity.
Nihlus muttered something under his breath, low enough that her translator did not pick up on the meaning, even as he adjusted the thrusters.
"What are you planning, Shepard?" Saren asked.
Shepard smiled, not that he would see that. "For once, Spectre Arterius, I am taking a page from your tactical book. Any Heretics that stand in our way… will be taken down with no parlay."
Saren made a sound that sounded vaguely amused.
"Good. I refuse to let that traitorous machine into the Ark," Javik all but growled.
"On that we can agree. I'm not in a… charitable mood either." Not with her own health on the line, never mind the various possibilities of why would Harbinger would want access to that Ark.
The Kodiak gave another shudder, but Nihlus countered it and levelled the craft out. They had cleared the perimeter of the zone of total destruction, so he brought their altitude down to a fifty meters above the artificial sea of debris, fully amidst the tower remnants, which made the light levels flicker in pulses as the craft slipped in and out of the shadows they cast. Their air speed gauge indicated an almost casual hundred kilometers an hour. Shepard noted that the space between the towers had widened as well, which meant there was likely a central avenue buried below them.
Shepard reached over to the shuttle's controls and hit the override to turn off the Kodiak's outboard lights. There was nothing on this planet that would fly into them, and the environment was not so bad that having no lights presented a navigation hazard. The worst there was, were the long, deep shadows cast by the tower fragments, which combined with the muted, red-hued lighting partially obscure details, but the general shapes of debris emerged clearly and with sufficient advance warning.
"It is clearing up ahead," Nihlus stated.
Shepard hummed but remained silent. She could see the clearing ahead, the ruined towers simply stopped around it, and resumed on the other side.
Nihlus slowed the Kodiak down even more as they passed amidst the last buildings, and then put it into hover within the shadow of the final tower.
"We're here," Shepard stated into the internal comm, for the benefit of the rest of the team.
The square in front of them was indeed perfectly rectangular, at least one kilometer on its long sides, and half that on the short. Seemingly every square meter was covered in a mix of collapse debris and metallic sand, obscuring its true appearance at street level.
At the northern end of the space there was a single, large structure. A hexagonal building of six levels crowned by the rusting metalwork of what must have been a glass and metal dome. It sat on rectangular platform, a full floor high, accessible from all sides by multiple sets of steps, bordered with stone railings. Clearly the load-bearing engineering had survived quite well, likely due to the sloping buttressing struts that flared out at the base and tapered inward toward the dome, seemingly supporting it from the building below. There was no glass in any of the many windows below either, leaving the interior entirely exposed to the elements. Much of the structure's finish fared far worse, leaving what appeared to be bare concrete, cracked and running with rust. Nevertheless here or there were hints of the magnificent glossy white slabs that once covered the building's façade.
Then Shepard saw pinpricks of light on the building's appear on the ground level, at the edge of where the glass had once been. Encouragingly, all of them were in shades of white and blue-tinged, no ominous red or white. "There's a welcoming committee alright, infantry units, no sign of proxies," she narrated for the benefit of the team.
"They could still be inside," Nihlus added.
Shepard nodded, that was kind of given. "They're also using the building as cover, so using the MACs is out of the question. I wouldn't want to accidentally take out the last of… whatever that's holding that building up." Of course, Prothean architecture was deceptively strong if Feros was anything to go by. Then again, Feros was decaying naturally, while Ilos' cities had been hit by multiple hundred-megaton nukes. So how good was that frame of reference? No, it would be better to err on the side of caution.
"I have no problems with fighting the machines on foot," Javik stated.
Shepard hummed a non-verbal assent. Engaging the enemy on foot was literally the only course of action left, and also the one she liked the least. "Fortunately they don't seem to have anything like those quadrupedal walkers we saw on Solcrum."
"That would have been fun," Nihlus murmured.
"For them," Shepard slipped in blandly. It took more power than infantry weapons to bring those down. Sure, the Kodiak could probably do it, but the building would have been in their line of fire. Shepard was hardly a structural engineer, but even she knew what would happen if one damaged a few too many load-bearing supports. "But this place would be a nightmare for them. Not a square meter of solid ground for limbs ending in points, enough said. Nihlus, move us in over the plaza… nice and easy. We need a landing spot."
"You are not worried they will shoot at us?" Nihlus replied as his hands began to move over the controls.
The Kodiak jolted as it accelerated out of the shadows and over the clearing.
"Not particularly. I doubt they will come into the open where the Kodiak can shoot them up."
"Point made," Nihlus murmured.
The Kodiak was now moving at a mere ten kilometers an hour over the square, tracing a roughly circular holding pattern, which allowed her to get a better look at what lay below them. Albeit the sheer quantity of pulverized metallic sand made it nearly impossible to discern what the real ground level actually looked like. Still, the size of the plaza and the presence of such a fancy building, so at odds with the bland square styling of everything else around it, made it obvious that this was an important space. It reminded her of some comparable arrangements on Earth, namely the United States Capitol building and its mall running west toward the Washington and Lincoln memorials. Except here the streets that butted into the mall's sides did continue through it, nor under it.
"Shepard, we might have a landing problem. I cannot see a single space clear enough for the Kodiak to land on," Nihlus stated.
Shepard blinked but scanned the viewscreen anew. Sure enough, the mix of collapse debris and pulverized matter offered nothing that could even vaguely constitute a landing pad. Everything looked too irregular, uneven, and packed together too tightly. The Kodiak needed a space of about twenty meters square, minimum. After that, one had to consider positioning. If they set down on sand, it would have to be near level, to prevent the shuttle from sliding and burying itself. Then, if they used a platform made from harder debris, a slight incline would do, though the space would need to be relatively clear from jutting sections, which would prevent the shuttle's bottom from making full contact. "We probably don't want to land too close to the building anyways."
Nihlus hummed thoughtfully, "Normally… true, but we are running a timer."
Shepard had to admit that he was right, but their wishes did not matter. Fact remained everything they were passing over was too irregular, uneven, and clustered.
As the Kodiak continued on its circular holding pattern, it turned slowly. Then about five seconds later she saw it. Halfway down the length of the plaza's long side there was a collapse section from one of the towers that had stood outside the plaza. The section had come down hard, splitting in two on impact, and its halves now lay well separated. After fifty thousand years the building's innards and façade were gone, and the separation between the two halves framed a gash right down to the plaza's actual ground level. The tower's massive floor slabs had turned into high walls on either side, creating a sheltered, if pitch black nook that was more than wide enough for the Kodiak to slide down into. Undoubtedly the bottom would be covered with more sand, but in all likelihood, the tower's collapse would have ensured that everything in it would be pulverized into being roughly even. "That! Move us over that gap between the building halves."
"You got it," Nihlus replied as his hands moved over the controls.
The shuttle turned and moved right over the gap, an as soon as they were in position, Nihlus put in hover. Shepard angled one of the Kodiak's cameras to look straight down, and what she saw looked highly encouraging. The camera was only picking up glimmering dunes of metallic sand and dull, but large chunks of the building itself. She glanced up to the main view and eyeballed the distance between the gap and their destination. It had to be about four hundred meters in a straight line. Not ideal given the timers, but not too bad either. "Seems like the best thing we'll get," Shepard stated.
"The only issue will be not getting lost in the ruins, but if you are satisfied with it then…" Nihlus trailed off.
Shepard hummed. Well, Legion could create a map of their path, using their own footsteps as the measuring stick. It was not like she could see any better landing option. "Ease us down, Nihlus. Slow and steady."
"Got it."
"About time," Javik grumbled from the back.
Shepard smiled to herself, "Javik, unless you can fly this thing-" She would give him one mercy by switching languages.
"I could learn to pilot it better than your turian," Javik cut in.
Shepard rolled her eyes. "Go ahead, I won't stop you. But right now, you can't, so no complaining."
Javik made a noise that sounded vaguely disdaining but did not say anything.
Shepard chalked that one down on under petty small wins for her. When she looked back toward the viewscreen she saw that Nihlus had already shifted the Kodiak into a landing configuration, including powering up the shields. The large viewscreen showed the landing assistance interface meant to help a pilot ease the craft onto undersized or moving landing pads. The system took the feed from their bottom cameras and added a projected red box that showed the pilot where the Kodiak was coming down on. An information panel also collated the measurements of the clearances on all sides, altitude, the shuttle's level, heading, compass direction, along with wind speed, and direction all in one place.
Once the Kodiak slipped below the top edge of the ruined floor, the view plunged into near total darkness. Shepard reached to the controls and turned on all the outboard lights, as bright as they could go, to illuminate their surroundings.
The tower ruins had decayed down to the skeleton polycrete slabs and metal armatures. The anemic sunlight simply did not penetrate into the crevasse, it merely painted the upper edges, like the gilding at the rim of a teacup. The floor slab right in front of their forward-looking camera had looked whole from above, but closer up it was evident to see that the impact had been tremendous. It was cracked in multiple places and water had gotten into all the gaps, sending rust running down the grey material. At the bottom edge, which took the worst of the impact, was outright splintered in places, creating openings which joined this floor to the one that had been below it.
"With enough of those, and we might just make good speed through this section," she stated.
Nihlus hummed his assent, although his eyes never strayed from the landing assistance interface. About halfway down into the gap the shuttle stopped, hovering above the dunes, and began to turn on the spot, rotating their view.
Shepard instantly knew what was bothering Nihlus. The floor here was not as even as she thought it would be. The artificial sand covered everything like a carpet. The building's massive square pillars on this floor had been ripped out during the breakup of the sections. Their fragments, half-buried, jutted out of the sand like broken teeth. Even at their present elevation, some thirty meters off the top of the dunes, the Kodiak's ventral thrusters stirred up the dust, obscuring their exact orientation.
However, as the Kodiak continued to turn and the view on the main screen shifted by the second, Shepard spotted what appeared to be an almost perfect landing pad. At one side of the floor, five of the tower's pillars had collapsed roughly together in one place but without piling on top of each other. Their combined bulk formed a slightly inclined but relatively even surface. Shepard had a feeling that those would be the best they could get given the circumstances. "Nihlus, see that pile? Can you land on top of it?"
"I can try," Nihlus replied as his fingers moved across the controls.
The Kodiak began to turn, aligning with the pile as it did.
As the shu8ttle came down she scrutinized the pillars. Up close it became apparent that they were indeed cracked, with some deeper fissures going right to the armature, but overall the pieces were still in alignment, and seemed be holding together. That suggested that the armature inside had not rusted through in the intervening fifty millennia. It was not a guarantee of anything, but it seems encouraging. The Kodiak was not the so heavy that it required a reinforced landing pad. However, they would not definitively know whether the pillars would take its weight until they touched down. Then there was one last factor to consider, even if the pillars held, they could not afford to land right in the middle of a radioactive hotspot.
Thus, as Nihlus was focusing on choreographing the dance that landing would have to be, Shepard turned to the sensor controls to take a fresh, localized radiation level reading. The deposition and concentration of radioactive materials was tricky to predict. Sometimes, massive buildings could avoid contamination, forming a pocket of safety. At other times, if the radioactive material did get in, the building could slow down its natural decay. Half-lives were ultimately more expectations and probabilities rather than a hard and fast termination date. In that sense they had a lot more in common with food expiry dates printed on packaging than a deadline. It took the sensors a few seconds to count the pings, but what Shepard saw made her smile, "No hot spot. The levels here are holding steady."
"That is good news," Nihlus murmured without looking away from the controls.
"With that, and assuming the pillars hold, our only major concern is now whether there are Heretics hiding in these ruins," Shepard added. They would hardly be able to hide once their sensors lit up, but given the Geth could see in the infrared, there was no guarantee that they would even expose themselves like that. After all, even with the detail loss of infrared versus visible light, it would still be possible to tell a Heretic apart from an organic by the shape and minutia of the blobs. The Heretics were certainly intelligent enough to notice those sorts of details.
The only saving grace was the fact that Ilos was a pressurized hothouse. The air inside the ruins was around forty degrees centigrade. All of them, except perhaps Legion, would be register at that or slightly cooler than that, which would partly screen them against detection. Legion would, of course, pass off as a Heretic if they only straightened their frame and walked a little more rigidly. They would have an utterly perfect disguise.
Then, quite suddenly, Shepard's train of thought screeched to a halt as an interesting possibility dawned on her. The standard Alliance flashbang would actually work on the Heretics here! Under normal circumstances, synthetic were immune to disorientation caused bright flashes of light or loud bangs. But flashbangs generated that light and sound through a chemical reaction that also produced heat. Assuming that the Heretics would rely on their infrared vision exclusively, that flare would swamp the IR camera! The Heretics would have to recalibrate, which would take a few precious seconds during which they could not fire without possibly hitting each-other. Capitalizing on that opening would require coordination, but it was enough for this team. Shepard grinned to herself, but did not say anything. That theory merited testing, but if it worked, then it would address the one potential strength the Heretics had in these ruins.
As the Kodiak descended the final meters to touch-down, the pitch of its ventral thrusters changed and an explosion of dust blinded out all the cameras. Up close and floodlit by the Kodiak's outboard lights, the sand glimmered almost like scattered glitter floating in shafts of sunlight. Then the Kodiak made contact with the pillars with a soft thud and the thrusters died almost at the same moment, restoring the silence, and Ilos' gravity already begun to pull the dust back down.
"Wait for a few minutes before you lock it down, see if the pillars hold," Shepard said.
"I was already planning to do that," Nihlus replied.
Shepard nodded and reached for the harness keeping her in the co-pilot's seat. She was on her feet and at the cockpit door in a matter of seconds. Once foot in the rear compartment she stopped. The others were already on their feet, helmets on, but had yet sealed up. She stepped further in and allowed the cockpit door to shut behind her. "We have a trek through the ruins ahead of us, and the Heretics have a welcoming committee at our destination. They might have even more platforms in the ruins between here and there too."
"The sand will hamper our mobility," Saren stated.
Shepard nodded. She figured that need not be said, but since Saren was feeling generous, why not?
"Shepard-Commander, we will be able to detect operational Heretic platforms within our immediate proximity."
Shepard smiled, "That'll be a whole lot of help, Legion."
"The machine's willingness to betray its own kind is worrying." Javik stated.
Legion turned on the prothean as if electrocuted.
Shepard grinned, "The Heretics made a decision by allying with Harbinger, same as everyone else. Where I'm from, we'd say they dug themselves a grave and it would be rude to deny them the burial, it's such a simple request." She raised her hand and clapped Legion on the shoulder.
Their emotive flaps flared out comically.
Shepard smiled, she managed to forestall anything they might have said. Now was not the time for them to get into an argument with Javik. "Legion, you'll take point with me."
"Acknowledged." The flaps lowered slowly.
Shepard smiled and turned and made her way toward the crates containing her supply of tactical explosives. Nihlus would probably put himself on her other side, just because he could. It would leave Saren and Javik at her back, not exactly where she would have preferred them, but she had few to no other choices. Fact remained that she had no authority over Saren, and she was not exactly sure what Javik was capable of.
Conversation died then as they all turned to the task of preparing. Shepard grabbed a few explosives, just in case, but with Nike and Strix both, she was feeling burdened, and that it was not something she was used to. Her preferred operation method had always emphasized moving quietly but relatively quickly. Well, that would hardly be possible anyway, so her methods would have to shift. There was much about this whole operation that put her out of her plate, but there were no other options available to her.
After a few minutes, and with nothing audibly snapping or crumbling under the Kodiak's weight, Nihlus emerged from the cockpit, already wearing his helmet. There was no need to exchange words, they all sealed up, set their exposure timers, and Shepard triggered the shuttle to pressurize, so as to avoid a contaminating inward rush of air from the outside due to pressure differential.
As the air pressure equalized, Shepard began to feel the effects of it. Eleven atmospheres felt like an added weight pressing in on her whole body. Even if the abundance of sand was not an issue, this alone would slow down movement, affect balance, and exhaust the body much faster. It even seemed to affect Legion, as their emotive plates stopped shifting and as the pressure fully equalized, Shepard heard them chatter in their native language as they shifted about.
As the shuttle finished, she triggered the door to open and glanced down. The shuttle ended up coming to a rest about thirty centimeters above the dunes. She sighed, turned on her helmet lights, grabbed hold of the hatch's side, and jumped. The landing jarred her bones even as her feet sank into the sand up to mid-calf. However, because had been holding onto the doorframe, she managed to avoid toppling. Getting clear of the hatch was more akin to wading through syrup than walking, but she hurried nonetheless, and once some meters away, she turned to inspect her surroundings.
With the shuttle's outboard lamps off, the only light around them were her helmet lamps and the muted refraction of sunlight from the above. It was hardly adequate for any detail work, but it was at least enough to avoid walking into large chunks of debris or walls. Dust bits danced in the beams cast by her helmet lamps as Shepard tilted her head to look up the side of the great floor slab. There many irregularities in the material, areas where inner walls and pillars had once attached, but had sheared off in the collapse. The interior elements were also gone, leaving behind bare skeletal polycrete running with rust, but mercifully nothing remained of the people who died in the collapse either. The desolation of these ruins was eerie in a manner that even Feros could not muster.
A hand landed on her shoulder, "Shepard."
Shepard turned on the spot as Nihlus pulled her attention away from the wall. She noted that the others were down on the sand. But it was Javik who caught her attention, his eyes were cast down to the sand at his feet, and it made Shepard wonder. Could he still feel the remnant energies from what had happened here fifty thousand years ago? To her it seemed more merciful if he could not. If Protheans could read the events of the past through energies imprinted on objects, what sort of story would things on Ilos tell? She shuddered to think of all the deaths, chaos, and suffering that would have been passed down as traces. No, Ilos would have become nothing short of nightmare fuel for people sensitive to such things. She tried to suppress a shudder that Nihlus might feel. "Are we ready to go?"
"It seems like it," Nihlus replied.
Shepard nodded, "Alright folks, let's assume formation. Our destination is that way," she raised her arm, pointing a finger in the general direction of the administrative building, "Take a heading on your compasses. Legion, I need you to log our course, just in case we are turned around."
"Acknowledged."
"Let's move out!" She was assuming control, and Saren would probably comment on it later, but right now she did not care. She could contemplate the true scope of the horror all around her when she did not have a timer ticking against her.
Author Notes: This is the beginning of the Season Three Finale arc, despite starting as a duck-lining episode. My alterations to Ilos are also made in the spirits of creating a homage to the Fallout games, so atmosphere is kind of important.
General Notes:
Episode Title – As established with seasons one and two, the finale is always named after a James Bond movie. This one was a bit of tricky pick though, and I'm not entirely satisfied with it. Some references are easier than others.
Chapter Notes:
Radiation Units - The Gray (Gy) is a unit measuring the absorbed doze of ionizing radiation per unit of mass. It supplanted the rad in 1975, which is the unit used in Fallout. I use the Gray as it scientifically accurate, but for reference [1 Gy = 100 rads], and [1 cGy = 0.01 Gy].
Prothean DNA - The fact that the Protheans have a quad-strand DNA helix is canonical. This arrangement has been observed in nature. Basically Protheans have a very complex structure that encodes double the information that our DNA contains. Theoretically it could also be much more resistant to radiation damage.
Natural Decay – The role of environmental factors in the decay of radioactive material have been well-documented after Chernobyl. The exposed forest-land is healing, with plant growth and animals coming back. Here the flora and fauna "processed" the radioactive material, diffusing and scattering it. However, the gear used by the first responders to the accident, piled up in the basement of the Pripyat Hospital #126 where the men were treated, is still infamously contaminated even after nearly forty years!