Liara's voice came through the intercom, crisp and clear, "Arius, I might have a lead on that intercepted shipment."
In the midst of a task, Arius immediately set it aside, his attention fully captured. "Talk to me, Liara. What did you uncover?"
"We've pinpointed a potential location of the hijacked shipping frigate," Liara began, her tone businesslike. "I directed some of my agents to deploy decoy comm buoys to a few strategic spots within the Terminus Systems. We managed to intercept a series of encrypted transmissions. While I can't break the encryption just yet, Traynor has successfully triangulated the source. The sector we're looking at should be devoid of any activity, which makes it suspicious."
Arius's fingers drummed on the console, absorbing Liara's intel. "Time is of the essence. How soon can we move on this?"
Liara hesitated for a fraction of a second, a hint of concern in her voice. "We need to be cautious. If they've gone to these lengths, they may expect someone to follow. We could be walking into an ambush." A soft beep interrupted their conversation. "Ah, one moment, Arius, I have Specialist Traynor here."
The Specialist was patched in. "Sorry to interrupt," Traynor began. "But I think there's more to it. That location isn't just suspicious, it's historically been a hub for mercenary activity, particularly the Eclipse."
Arius frowned, remembering their history with the group. "Eclipse? Are we sure? After the leadership shuffle, I thought they'd abandoned most of their Terminus hideouts."
"Most, yes, but this location was within their territories in their heyday. It's been quiet recently, but..."
Arius interjected, "But maybe not abandoned. Hmm. Understood." He sighed, his determination evident. "Thank you both. I'll ask Shepard if we can spare some flight time for this. Please keep an eye on those transmissions. Any hint of their intentions could give us an advantage."
"Understood, Arius. I'll coordinate with Traynor and let you know if I find out anything."
.
The sleek contours of the Normandy slid through the vacuum invisibly as it approached a marked sector of the Terminus Systems. The ship's stealth systems ensured it remained undetected, invisible to all but optics. Refraining from active pings that would give away their location in the wider system, the Normandy's advanced passive scanners worked tirelessly, mapping out every inch of the suspected location.
In the cockpit, Joker's deft fingers danced across the controls. "Approaching the coordinates, Commander," he announced to Shepard, who stood at his side. The ambient lighting of the cockpit bathed them in a gentle azure glow.
"Any sign of the frigate?" Shepard asked.
"Scanning," replied the voice of EDI, manipulating some controls in the co-pilot's chair while simultaneously functioning as the Normandy's sensors itself. "Jeff, please adjust the approach vector to my recommendation," she stated, sending some across the cockpit console. "I have limited visibility behind the belt."
"Roger, adjusting approach vector," replied the Alliance pilot.
In the hangar, Arius was geared up, ready to undertake his solo mission. The Kodiak shuttle, designed for stealth insertions, awaited him. Its pilot, Steve, had already run through the pre-flight checks and waited in the pilot's chair.
Their radios crackled. "We've detected the frigate," Liara relayed to them from her place in the ship, sending a waypoint to their shared navigators. "It's anchored in a dormant asteroid field—clearly trying to avoid attention. There are minimal patrols this far out, but I'd still exercise caution."
Arius nodded, taking in the information. "The Normandy's improved scanners are a blessing. Do we have a boarding point?"
A holographic image of the shipping frigate sprang to life on the shuttle's pilot console. "Here," an airlock was highlighted, "It seems to be a maintenance entrance. It will need a manual override. EDI's also run a scan on the frigate's engines; they appear to be cold and haven't moved in some time."
Arius checked his omni-tool, ensuring it was up to the task. "I've got it covered."
As he boarded the Kodiak, he noticed Shepard approach them in the hangar, her face displaying a mix of seriousness and concern. "Be careful in there. If you run into any trouble, signal immediately. We'll have your back."
With a nod of gratitude, Arius replied, "I'll be in and out before they know it." He gave a small salute, then gave the signal to Cortez to disembark. The shuttle bay doors of the Normandy opened a moment later, revealing the vast expanse of space dotted with asteroids. The Kodiak lifted from its place and detached silently, its own stealth systems harmonizing with the backdrop.
Navigating the dormant asteroid field required precision, and Cortez maneuvered the shuttle expertly. They soon approached the parked frigate. Utilizing the Kodiak's exterior cameras, he identified the maintenance airlock Liara had pointed out.
"Alright, I'm going in," he radioed to Steve. "Keep an eye out for the bay doors on the frigate. Assuming my packages are still onboard, we'll be extracting them to the Normandy."
"Understood. Standing by."
Docking discreetly, Arius initiated the manual override on the airlock using his omni-tool. The tense minute that followed felt stretched into an eternity before the door hissed open, permitting his entry into the frigate. He half expected an ambush, as the ship's monitoring systems should have recorded the breach, but eerie silence met him instead.
Apprehensive, he moved silently through the frigate's dim corridors, looking for any movement. His omni-tool still relayed a green status from the Normandy, indicating no immediate threats. EDI's sensors, too, confirmed the frigate's steady bearing.
Out of the corner of his eye, a fleeting shadow crossed an intersecting hallway, and the sounds of heavy panting followed. Slowly, he advanced, pistol poised. It was a heavily modified HMWP Master Pistol X, once a prized item of the Spectre Master gear catalogue. Its limited production run ended two years ago with the advancement of modern heat sink technology. He had retrofitted the assembly to accept heat sinks and remove the legacy heat dissipator, reducing its size considerably while still packing the borderline-mythical damage it was famous for delivering.
Under his feet led a trail of bright orange blood. Cautiously rounding the hallway, the sounds of crunching mingled with guttural growls reverberated through the cold silence. The bloody streaks he followed to a far, shadow-covered corner, where the tail of a large varren swung back and forth.
The varren turned from its feast, sensing him and growling. Without hesitating, it leapt toward him, jaws agape. In one fluid motion, Arius drew his sleek, modern monomolecular blade, sidestepping and delivering a deadly strike. The creature writhed momentarily on the ground before succumbing to its wounds.
Arius enabled his light source and peered into the corner to see what the varren had been eating. It was unmistakably a vorcha, remnants of the Blood Pack mercenary insignia still clinging to its tattered garb.
Suddenly, a door behind him hissed open. A massive krogan, armour emblazoned with the Blood Pack's signature skull, staggered forth. Before surprise could register, Arius' pistol was pressed against the krogan's only unarmored body part, its face, and it was cratered instantly by the point-blank savagery of the HMWP Master Pistol X. The krogan crumpled heavily to the deck, life extinguished.
Arius took a deep breath, scanning the corridor the krogan had arrived from quickly before deactivating his light. The ambiance of the interior seemed too dark, the quiet punctuated only by distant, soft muttering and the occasional clatter in the corridor's direction. He strained his ears, trying to discern any pattern in the noises, but all he could ascertain was that these weren't the coordinated sounds of speech or music.
Moving forward, Arius noticed a door to his right slightly ajar, the light from the room beyond faintly illuminating the corridor. Peeking through, he saw several vorcha sitting or standing, heads tilted upward towards the steady overhead light and murmuring among themselves. Not wanting to cause a scene, he tossed a potent gas grenade into the small room and closed the thick door as quietly as he could, trapping the releasing gas and vorcha within. He counted and held the door shut while he heard the sounds of limbs banging on the interior of the door, trying to escape the noxious fumes. After the banging ceased, he opened the door and beheld the unconscious bodies on the floor. Quietly slipping inside, he used his blade to ensure their demise.
He continued onward, eventually arriving at the small frigate's bridge. He pressed himself against the wall next to the door, using his omni-tool to tap into the room's surveillance feed. The display showed a single krogan, who seemed to match the description of Grirgal Crego, with his hand on the console, staring vacantly into space.
Seizing the opportunity, Arius swiftly entered the room, taking advantage of the krogan's distracted state. His blade's work was quick and precise, and in mere moments, the krogan leader crumpled with a strangled gasp.
The bridge's unsettling stillness gnawed at him. This mission had been eerily straightforward.
He quickly interfaced with the ship's systems, aiming to block all external communications to the Blood Pack. Scanning the onboard cameras, a nagging suspicion grew: were there truly so few mercenaries aboard? And what of the ship's original crew? Switching the feed to the storage area, shadowed outlines of shipping containers became visible. His assets had to be among them.
Summoning his omni-tool, Arius began downloading the ship's data to the Normandy. "Arius to Normandy. Bridge is mine. I'm sending the logs now. Check their last communication; it might clue us into their employers."
Shepard's voice, a reassuring presence, came through, "That was quick."
"I know. I feel… uneasy. It's too silent," Arius whispered, his eyes darting to the lifeless form nearby. "Few guards. It's like they weren't expecting a threat."
"Or they were already dealing with one. Did you find what you were looking for?"
"I'm pulling up the shipping manifest now…" he said, cycling through the ship's files and scrolling down the serial numbers of the containers it was transporting. He found matches. "Yes. Everything should be here. Cortez, I'm heading to the hangar. Once I open the doors, have the tether ready, and I'll get them linked to the—" From afar, a muffled, rhythmic pounding. Arius strained his ears, but then it stopped. "—shuttle."
"On it," came the reply.
Arius paused for a moment more, listening for the sound, but heard none. Emerging from the bridge, he made his way to the frigate's hangar.
Shepard's voice crackled. "So, care to reveal what you had us hopping across the galaxy for?"
"Engine components," he answered.
"Just engine components?"
"They aren't ordinary. They're not something I can build or buy because the master craftspersons who designed and built them have been dead for a cycle or more."
"Oh. So, how'd you locate them?"
"They're from the only location in the galaxy the Reapers have not scrubbed - beyond the Omega Four Relay." Arius descended the stairs to the hangar, his footsteps echoing in the metallic corridor. "Amidst the remains of the Collector Base is a graveyard of ships from every cycle that tried passing through. I recognized some designs from EDI's scans during your assault. I stole a fabricated Reaper IFF module from the salarians and gave it to a salvage team to recover what they could. This ship was en route to a shipyard with those parts, but circumstances had other plans."
"Well, it's a good thing you intercepted the shipment when you did."
Reaching the hangar entrance, the dim lights cast long, flickering shadows across the room. Finding the light switch next to the door, he flicked it on.
The sight that met his eyes was grotesque. A scene of unbridled violence sprawled out, bathed in the garish light. Blue krogan blood formed grim patterns with the lurid orange of vorcha. Bodies were strewn haphazardly. Some vorcha lay contorted, their once agile forms now lifeless, the result of brutal tooth-and-nail fighting. Krogan, clad in their Blood Pack armour, were among the fallen. It was apparent they had dealt significant damage before succumbing; many vorcha bodies lay close to the fallen krogan, indicating they had been taken down by final retaliatory strikes. Shattered crates and weaponry littered the space, testifying to the chaos. Scorch marks from gunfire punctuated the walls, while the signs of biotic and tech detonations were evident in the deep gouges and burns on the floor. Brutal infighting had occurred here.
From the center of the hangar, in front of one of the large shipping containers, a lone krogan body stood out. Its pose was one of final defiance; even in death, its jaws were set in a grimace, one hand clutching the broken neck of a vorcha, the other still gripping a bloodied knife.
He activated his comm, his voice low, "Normandy, you seeing this?"
"That's a gruesome sight," he heard Shepard mutter. "Might be why you encountered so few mercenaries inside. There might have been a mutiny once they realized the value of the goods they had. Any survivors?"
"None that I can see," Arius replied, sweeping his gaze across the carnage once more, inspecting the wounds and the state of the dried blood strewn everywhere. "They've been dead for at least a day or two, looks like."
Wanting to investigate further but aware of his primary objective, he turned away from the unsettling carnage and peered at the numbers affixed to the sides of the shipping containers. It was with some relief that the ones he was looking for were near the hangar doors. Checking the condition of the containers, Arius found them disturbed but unbreached. The pirates had attempted opening them, but the mechanism had a sophisticated lock, and the container itself was specially constructed from iridium, requiring a lot more firepower than what was to be found aboard to breach.
Finding the hangar door controls, he activated them. The doors slowly slid open, meeting the vast, silent expanse and the waiting Kodiak shuttle. "There. CTNU5467892 and CTNU5467907," he pointed out, directing Cortez to where they sat.
The tether from the shuttle descended, ready to haul the precious cargo off the ship. "Connecting the tether now," Arius relayed, his omni-tool glowing against the dim lighting as he worked swiftly to secure the cargo.
"Copy that," Cortez's voice sounded over the radio. "Prepare for transfer on your signal."
He checked the tension. "You're good to go."
"On route with the first container, Normandy." The shuttle lifted, its oversized mass effect core generating enough lift to carry itself and the large container, and departed.
Waiting for Cortez to return, Arius turned back toward the grim scene of self-annihilation, pondering what had happened. He checked his omni-tool for signs of life or updates from the ship monitoring system but found none. He glanced at the other containers, wondering what they had found to fight to the death over. He was sifting through the bodies when Cortez returned from the short trip, ready to accept the second payload.
Arius repeated the hookup of the tether to the second container, but just as the last clasp was locked into place, that once-faint rhythmic thudding arrived again, much louder, piercing the silence like a slow-beating heart. "Do you hear that?" Arius breathed, the sound barely escaping his lips. He checked his omni-tool for the local audio levels, confirming the sound. He hadn't imagined it.
"Arius," Liara's voice came over the comm, laden with urgency, "We've been going through the frigate's transmissions. They become increasingly unintelligible as time goes on."
"Encrypted? Or some sort of coded message?" Arius tried to maintain his focus, turning his ear towards the direction of the thudding, trying to pinpoint its source.
"No, it's... stranger than that," Liara hesitated, a touch of fear in her usually composed tone. "EDI's identified the voices, but the content... it's garbled, nonsensical. And the last transmission..." her voice wavered, "By the goddess."
The urgency in her voice jarred Arius from his concentration. "Liara, what? What did you hear?"
"It's just... screaming. Agonizing screaming. Over and over."
Her response sent an ice-cold shiver down his spine. As Arius fought to comprehend the chilling revelation, the thudding intensified, echoing in the large space. Drawn to it, he discovered a narrow crevice between the towering containers that, when navigated, led to the door of the hangar's maintenance closet. It was sealed, but a feeble, flickering light bled out from its single, grime-caked window. Arius looked through— not prepared for the sight. The frigate's lost crew members were arranged in an unnerving circle, each face turned to the faltering light above, same as the vorcha, only their once-human eyes were now hollow voids. The steady thudding came from the twisted display of a crew member whose face was torn beyond recognition, relentlessly battering the remnants of their skull against the metallic door. Suddenly, the figure froze, its one remaining eye meeting Arius'. Then, it screamed, a guttural wail so chilling and shrill it seemed to be the very scream of the void itself.
Recoiling in terror, Arius's pulse roared in his ears, the urge to flee overwhelming him. "I... I've found them," he choked out, trying to steady his trembling voice as he retreated to the main hangar.
"Goddess, what happened to the crew?"
Arius rasped, "The crew, they've been..." His horrified gaze was inexorably drawn to the brutal massacre of the Blood Pack, and then to the lone krogan, now a pale husk, slumped as if in final supplication against a container door. A gut-wrenching realization settled upon him. Desperately hoping he was wrong, Arius roughly pushed the krogan corpse, revealing the mangled seal of the container. He wrenched open the formidable doors, and what awaited him inside was his nightmare made manifest.
His immediate impulse had him reaching for the artifact on his back, but his hand grasped at nothing but air – he had left it aboard the Normandy. Panic gnawed at his gut, and cold sweat clung to him like a shroud. Retreating from the harrowing scene, he gasped, "Cortez, take the container and get out, now! You're in danger!"
Cortez's reply was lost to Arius as he sprinted from the hangar, frantically scrambling up the stairs toward the bridge. With fingers twitching, he fired up the frigate's engines. Beneath his feet, the ship awakened with a guttural roar as if in pain.
"Arius, report," Shepard's voice crackled through the comm, thick with alarm. "Why are the engines starting? What's happening?"
Taking a shuddering breath, Arius responded, "Shepard, there's a naked Reaper core aboard. I'm setting a course to plunge this frigate into the nearest star."
"You need to get out of there. I'll send Cortez to–"
"No, don't, it's too dangerous. Ensure Cortez is clear, then I'm delivering this cursed ship to hell."
"But–"
Shepard tried to interject, but Arius continued, "Once Cortez is clear, I'll eject in an escape pod. Joker can collect me."
Time stretched out, a malevolent entity on its own, every second agonizingly slow. Arius's hands moved over the console with frigid determination, keying in the sequence for a death plunge. The walls seemed to close in on him, whispering dark promises as the phantom cries of a doomed crew pierced the ship's hollow corridors.
Static burst from the comm system, "Arius, Cortez here. I've secured the container. We're in the clear."
Without a moment's pause, Arius slammed his palm onto the final command button. The frigate jolted, its trajectory locked towards its fiery end. Abandoning the bridge, he raced past the bodies and blood, madness and mayhem. As he bolted into the escape pod, he faintly heard, impossibly, the sickening thumping of head against wall, a sound that haunted him even after he sealed the pod's door and jettisoned into the vast, cold void, away from the frigate speeding to its blazing terminus.
.
Joker's piloting skills were legendary among the Alliance, and as the Normandy deftly maneuvered through the cosmic expanse, it aligned perfectly with the trajectory of the escape pod. With impeccable timing, the hangar doors opened like a gaping maw, catching the small pod with practiced precision. The instant the pod settled inside, its hatch hissed open, revealing a visibly shaken Arius.
He emerged, his gaze fixed and steely. Ignoring the worried calls from the crew, he made a beeline for the elevator, the doors sliding shut behind him, muffling the questions that followed. When the elevator doors parted on the engineering deck, he moved with a singular, hurried focus, his boots echoing against the cold metal. He entered his quarters with haste.
There, resting on a table where he had left it, lay the artifact. He reached for it, his fingers trembling as he clasped it tightly. A tangible wave of relief washed over him, the weight on his chest easing for the first time since his harrowing realization.
When Shepard arrived a moment later, she found him seated on the floor, back against the wall, the artifact gripped in both his hands. His eyes were closed, and his breaths were measured, as if he were drawing strength from it.
She knelt beside him, her concern etched across her face. "Arius," she began, her voice soft yet laced with the sharp edge of command, "talk to me. What happened back there?"
He looked up, the shadows in his eyes deepening. For a moment, he seemed to struggle with the words, as if they were lodged deep within, trapped by trauma and fear.
"Indoctrination," he eventually asked her, "have you ever wondered what it is?"
"Sure. Isn't it the Reapers' way of turning people into mindless puppets?"
"It's more...and less," he murmured cryptically.
She furrowed her brow. "Speak plainly."
"Indoctrination is a name for something else, something I don't know the word for, and it is not Reaper tech."
Shepard's eyes narrowed. "If not Reaper tech, then whose?"
"It's not tech. The Reapers have weaponized it, but it's only an application of the underlying phenomena. Like how we use eezo to power our weapons and propel our ships - they're different applications based on dark energy's properties. In the same way, the Reapers use it to bend organics toward obedience. The rachni queens use it to communicate with their brood. The Thorian used it to control its thralls. It took me a long time to realize it, but this artifact uses it too."
"You have proof?"
"No, only anecdotal evidence. Shiala was indoctrinated by the Reapers, and the Thorian could override it. Once the Thorian died, she was free from both. We know the Reapers cannot indoctrinate the rachni queens because the queens can perceive it somehow - they can hear it for what it is. Same as this artifact… it whispers the same tune. They're all interconnected."
With a pained expression, he told her a missing piece from his story. "A very long time ago, when I was much younger, I was dispatched to infiltrate a gargantuan enemy capital ship, to bring back intel on the species that built and operated it, and ultimately destroy it. When we broke in, we found that the enemy ship was empty. No species had built and operated it, for the ships themselves were the enemies. It was the first time we had ever encountered a Reaper. While we were in its head, trying to destroy it, it toyed with us. One by one, we went mad and turned against one another."
Shepard shook her head, not understanding. "Wait, what are you saying? You fell to indoctrination?"
He nodded, agony evident, "Utterly and completely."
There was a look of shock and confusion on Shepard's face, and the reaction of sudden rejection churned his stomach. She shook her head as if to clear it, straightening her thoughts. "Well, you're obviously not indoctrinated now. What happened afterwards? Did it… wear off over time?"
"No. I don't think so. This artifact… it dragged me out, countered the Reaper's song."
She swallowed hard, connecting this his story's puzzle. "So when you came to… those who eventually found you were…"
"The Protheans."
Shepard reeled from the torrent of revelations. She had taken Arius' initial story at face value, not asking how he had managed to skip his initial harvesting by the Reapers. The truth was, he hadn't. "Why keep this from me?"
"I was afraid of undue judgment. I wanted more information to present than just theories. I barely understand it myself." His voice trembled slightly, betraying the facade of strength he had maintained till now.
Shepard could see the fragments of terror that still clung to the sinews of his soul. She had regarded him as indestructible, but now she could see that although his physical body stood free from scars, he was deeply inflicted by the invisible, hidden sort.
Shepard ran a hand through her hair, exhaling deeply, thinking back to the Reapers and the cryptic warnings they had given her. "We still know so little, don't we?"
He didn't respond.
She sat down on the floor next to him, pressing her shoulders against him. Her hand found its way to his, offering a silent assurance. Arius' grip was firm yet shivering slightly as if he was desperately clinging onto something to anchor himself to reality amidst the past torments swirling in his mind.
Eventually, his other hand's grip on the artifact loosened. Arius rose from the floor, pulling Shepard up along with him. Confident enough to let go, he let the relic drop to its cloth on the table. The act seemed to alleviate some of the day's heaviness.
"Thank you," he said, letting go of her hand.
She smiled faintly. "I'm returning the favour. You okay?"
"Better, now. I'll head to the medbay, get checked out by Dr. Chakwas. Make sure everything's in order."
Shepard gave him a concerned look. "You sure?"
He nodded. "It's protocol, after all, isn't it?"
The ship's PA system chimed to life with EDI's voice. "Commander, you have an incoming message from Councillor Tevos."
"Go take care of business," he insisted, "I'll be there if you need me."
She touched his arm lightly and then departed, summoned by the asari councillor.
Before Arius left for the medbay, he opened his omni-tool to draft a quick message and sent it.
RE: Subject: Delivery Schedule Update
Engine components have been recovered and are on route.
Arius