Chapter 40: The Archangel
March 19th, 2211, 2241 hours — City of New Thebes — Special Facility LV-427, formerly known as Misthaven Maximum-Security Penitentiary
Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…
(Field Commander Morder Zakiah – Project Transcendence)
6 seconds after Subject C26 was successfully revived
Subject C26 let out a roar, its eyes burning with synthetic red light.
It had many of the characteristics of the average Corpser, though with certain, subtle differences. Its skin was a robust shade of blue rather than the pale, putrid-blue coloring that most Corpsers had. Notably, its flesh was significantly more intact. Whereas Corpsers had decomposing flesh that looked like it was sloughing off of their bodies, this one looked almost normal. It only had a series of short metal scythes extending from its forearms. Finally, whereas Corpsers had gaping, split maws filled with a mix of organic and metal teeth, this one had normal, human teeth.
Beautiful… absolutely beautiful…. Zakiah thought.
Subject C26 strained at the restraints keeping him strapped to the operating table, its red eyes darted furiously between the three, terrified project staff members currently pressed against the walls of the operating room.
Suddenly the subject spoke, "Marè amarä ni? Manè amare nore?"
Locke's eyes grew wide. The N7 moved closer to the observation window and placed his hand on it, absolutely in awe at what he was witnessing. "It's trying to communicate with us."
Alice continued to type furiously on her omni-tool but her eyes were focused on the being in the room beyond them. Zakiah could see a mixture of emotions reflected within them — wonder, happiness, pride... but also hope. The Project's latest iteration of the Cerberus revival strain had worked. There was no doubt in any of their minds what this creature was. There was only one thing it could be.
A living Cris'paii… back from the dead.
The scientist opened up a comm. link to the project members still in the room. "Cordira, proceed. You can take off your hazmat suit, our scans don't show any contaminants."
"Ye-Yes, Mordred," one of the project members in the operating room replied.
An asari project staff member removed her hazmat helmet, and then her gloves. As she did so the subject warily tracked her movements, clearly on edge. Zakiah marveled at how composed it was despite the undoubtedly disorienting situation it was currently in.
The asari raised her hands in a non-threatening gesture, placative gesture. She then slowly picked up a tablet and held it up to the subject. She turned it on and a short movie began to play.
The movie showed two beings – a salarian and an asari, speaking to each other in different languages. The asari then placed her hands on the salarian's head and initiated a mind-meld. After a few minutes, the asari stopped, and both the salarian and asari were able to speak and understand each other's languages. The movie repeated again, this time with a turian and an asari.
The subject gave the asari project member a long look, then jerked its head at her. The red light in his eyes dimmed just a bit. He closed his eyes and lay back down onto the operating table.
The asari swallowed nervously and approached the subject. Gently, she placed her hands on his head.
"Are we sure this will work?" Locke asked. Beside the N7, Severus shifted nervously. The young turian's hands stayed close to the pistol holstered at this waist and his eyes never left the subject.
"The asari can transfer and receive knowledge through the mind-meld, that we know," Alice replied. She continued to tap notes into her omni-tool as she spoke. "We also know that this works with languages – though perhaps not completely. The real question is whether or not his mind is compatible or receptive to this aspect of asari physiology. If we cannot establish communication, our mission gets a lot more complicated."
Zakiah pressed his face and hands up against the glass, enraptured by the display before him. With any luck, the asari would be able to transfer her knowledge of Thessian to him, perhaps even learn bits of the subject's own language. In an even bigger stroke of luck, the creature's mouth looked capable of producing the sounds required to speak most galactic languages. If they could establish communication, they would be one step closer to finding their homeworld and unlocking the technology that these creatures used to grant themselves eternal, repeating life.
The asari mind-meld went on for a good ten minutes. Suddenly the subject's eyes flared open and he gave a great, heaving gasp. The asari gasped as well and instantly pulled away.
"Where am I? Who are you people?" he said in coarse, accented Thessian, which their translators managed to pick up.
"It worked!" Locke whispered. Severus' hands fell away from his pistol. There was a look of sheer amazement on the young turian's face. Years of fighting and finally they had something to show for it beyond tens of thousands of lost, innocent lives and a host of creatures out of the depths of their worst nightmares.
Alice instantly opened up a channel to the room. "Hello, my name is Alice Anders and I am a scientist. We mean you no harm. No harm. Do you understand me?"
The creature sat up again. The red light in his eyes had completely faded, to be replaced with a glowing, almost benevolent blue one. Beneath the light, Zakiah could faintly see a set of pupils and irises.
Alice pressed another button and the one-way window separating them from the room reverted back into a regular one. Alice waved her hand at the subject.
"Yes… I understand," he rasped. The tone of the subject's voice was surprisingly lyrical and pleasant. The Thessian sounded almost barbaric compared to the sounds that this creature sounded capable of producing.
"Good, I'm glad," Alice replied. "I repeat, we mean you no harm. If you understand this, I see no reason to keep you restrained. Can one of my staff approach you to remove the restraints?"
"Staff…restraint?" the subject asked.
Locke shifted in place. "Clearly not all the Thessian got through," he mused.
"Nothing a few more mind-meld sessions can't fix," Alice replied. "The important thing is we build as much trust as we can right now. We need to keep him separate from the other test subjects, at least until we have the information we need from him. Remember, he's just a piece of the puzzle, not the entire puzzle itself."
"I'll defer to your expertise," the N7 replied. His hand moved from the window to a spot on his chestplate.
Alice nodded and reopened the channel. "Friend, can my friend approach you to free you? She means no harm."
The subject turned and looked at the asari project member. "Yes," he nodded.
"Cordira, undo his bindings," Alice ordered over the channel.
The asari project member nodded. She carefully approached the operating table and pressed a button. The restraints undid themselves with a snap.
The subject sat fully up and shifted his body so that he was facing the asari. He then placed his hand roughly over where his heart would be before bringing it up and outwards, almost as if he was proffering his heart.
"Must be a cultural hand gesture," Alice mused.
The subject turned his head to the observation window. "My people do this to show gratitude," he explained, almost as if he could read their minds.
Alice turned the mic back on. "My gratitude for the explanation. May my friends check your health?"
"Yes," the subject replied.
The four leaders of Project Transcendence watched as the subject acquiesced to a number of diagnostics from the project members. It sat there unperturbed as they took blood samples, buccal swabs, and performed numerous scans.
"He's very relaxed despite being dead all these years and suddenly waking up in a lab he's never seen before," Locke pointed out. He watched as the creature calmly allowed the asari to take a blood sample from him.
"The Cris'paii were a highly-advanced civilization. Their grasp of science was hundreds if not thousands of years ahead of ours. Whoever he was before he died and whatever Cris'paii medical facilities or procedures may have looked like, I suspect he is capable of drawing on his old memories to shape his understanding of what is currently happening to him now," Alice said.
Zakiah was feeling a lot of things at this moment. He felt hope – hope that they would discover the means by which this species had managed to create a sort of eternal life and used it not only to extend their own life spans, but to bring back those the Reapers had taken. He also felt wonder, for here was an individual who had once lived hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions of years ago.
Zakiah recalled the feeling of amazement and wonder he had felt when he had first seen the last surviving prothean while it had been visiting the Citadel, back when Zakiah was still a young STG member. He had been in awe at the sight of a legend made flesh. The protheans had been wiped out by the Reapers fifty thousand years ago, and yet Zakiah had witnessed one walk the Citadel.
"What's next then?" Zakiah asked. "When do we leave this planet?"
"Patience, Zakiah," admonished Alice. "We still need to improve on our ability to communicate with him. We also don't know if he has the information we need. It's possible that he is not well-versed in the technology that the Cris'paii used to preserve and restore themselves. We may need to seek out more test subjects, and the revival strain could use some further minor adjustments."
The salarian snarled. They didn't have the luxury of patience, not when the odds had shifted so far from their favor. In the other room, the subject glanced over at the Project leaders.
"Patience? We've lost the planetary cannons! We're cut off from Octavian's fleet and those damned Spectres come closer and closer to finding us every single day!
"Our transport ships will be able to slip through the cannon network, and we still have the SAMs to keep them from launching anything but a ground assault on our position," Locke replied.
Zakiah spun towards the N7. "You think that will stop them? They're not fools, Locke! They know they can't attack us with the strength they currently have! They will seek help and when they have it, we best not be here!"
He then pointed a finger at Severus. "And they likely have their hands on someone who knows where were hiding and what we're doing because of the failure of this child and his band of incompetent, toy soldiers!"
Severus growled at the rebuke and took a step towards the salarian, but Locke held the turian back.
"Zakiah, calm yourself!" Alice admonished sternly.
The salarian let out a loud shriek and kicked over a chair standing nearby. All of the stimulus and the excitement caused the chronic pain from his biotic burns to suddenly flare up badly, prompting him to press the switch on his armor that kept his body flooded with painkillers. The salarian then flung the door open and stomped away. Damn them all to hell and back.
Zakiah wiped fresh tears from his eyes and grit his teeth together in frustration. He could feel his own mortality dogging his every step, its whispering growing louder and louder as he neared the end of his natural life. He just had to hold on for just a bit longer. Soon, he wouldn't have to fear death ever again.
But until then, Zakiah had to survive. Survival, however, would require eliminating anything and anyone that posed a threat to him and to the Project.
First and foremost were those damned Spectres currently taking refuge at the Alexandria spaceport. They'd set up fortifications and had rallied the remaining local military forces. The Project currently didn't have the numbers nor the firepower planet-side to root them out.
Or did they.
Zakiah suddenly stopped in his tracks. His eyes darted back and forth as his mind began to make a series of rapid calculations. Project members passing him in the hall gave him a wide berth upon seeing the scarred salarian frozen in place, eyes flickering in the dim light of the lamps that lined the prison's winding corridors.
Once his calculations were complete, Zakiah began to cackle. He began to laugh and laugh and laugh until he was out of breath. In one fell swoop he'd arrange for the destruction of not only the Spectre's makeshift stronghold but also the evidence of what the Project had been trying to accomplish here within the prison.
Zakiah wiped a pair of tears from his bulbous black eyes and then turned towards the Project's makeshift hangar.
March 29th, 2211, 1323 hours — Alexandria Spaceport — Outskirts of the City of Alexandria
Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…
(Spectre Operative 10082181-Elektra)
Elektra watched as another pair of transports took off from the tarmac, carrying with it another load of survivors.
In another part of the tarmac, a line of survivors were waiting to board a third transport. Armed guards — surviving members from the Anhurian Military – stood watch on makeshift barricades atop the wall the defenders had erected around the spaceport. A few Blue Suns mercenaries were also on duty atop the wall at a nearby heavy gun emplacement, keeping a wary, watchful eye out towards the city limits.
"It's felt like a life-time, hasn't it?"
Elektra turned around. "I'm sorry?"
It was Cloud. Her friend was fully-armored and yet Elektra hadn't even heard him approach.
He moved to stand beside her. The two were standing before a giant glass window that looked out onto the tarmac. Behind them survivors went about their daily routines within the Spaceport as they waited for their turn to get evacuated, trying their best to hold on to some semblance of a normal life.
"It's felt like a life-time since we first set foot on this planet," Cloud repeated. Her friend stared out the window, arms crossed with an almost wistful expression on his face.
"You're telling me. I can't believe it's been only sixteen days either. In that time I've fought space zombies, fanatics with guns, and I've quite nearly died," she replied glibly. "The bastard who shot me is lucky you got to him first."
Cloud jerked his head at her. "How do you feel?" he asked.
Elektra shrugged. "The blood transfusion to get my tainted blood out wasn't too bad. I've got constant aching, a ton of tightness and my range of motion still hasn't fully recovered, but I swear the lung they cloned for me was better than my old one. I for one cannot believe that they would shoot a lady in the back."
Cloud gave a light laugh. "Well, maybe this time around you'll do more cardio for that lung."
"First of all, cardio is mainly for your heart. Second of all I don't recall anyone in the history of ever being capable of outrunning mass-effect slugs," Elektra grumbled.
"I can't believe how you can be so bad at running considering we did so much of it as children."
Elektra laughed. They had done a lot of running as children. Angry shopkeepers, security guards, police…
"I don't run often in my spare time because I'm not a masochist," Elektra retorted. She jerked her head at Cloud's arm. "Besides, how about you? How's your arm?"
Cloud gingerly rotated his left arm, giving a slight grimace as he did so. He'd had it badly dislocated during that same mission by a turian commando they had been fighting – the very one that had shot Elektra.
"Still not one-hundred percent. Rentea said I needed at least one more week. Don't think I'll be throwing too many biotics or doing any hand-to-hand combat until then," he replied.
Elektra gave a tired sigh. She began to rub her temples with the balls of her thumb. "I don't think either of us have ever been hurt this badly on a mission before."
"That's because we've never fought against an enemy like this before," he replied. "We've spent our entire careers fighting bandits, pirates, and ill-trained mercenaries. Some of the guys fighting on the other side are highly-trained and have had several decades of fighting experience over us."
Elektra sighed again and resumed her starring out the window. She watched as more survivors began to board a new transport. A quarian mother was rocking her child to sleep as she stepped on board. Behind her followed a pair of batarians who kept repeatedly glancing over at the direction that Alexandria was in, as if they were expecting an attack from the city at any minute.
"Besides," Cloud continued. "These guys are… they're fighting differently. They're fighting for something. We might not know what it is but we do know that they're willing to do anything – even condemn an entire planet to death – to achieve it. That makes them especially dangerous."
Cloud gazed up into the sky, his eyes fixated on one of Anhur's neighboring planets. Elektra screwed her eyes shut for a moment and shuddered. Her body fought against opening them again. She wished that she could just fall asleep right now and wake up after this nightmare had passed.
"How did you do it? How did you manage to survive aboard the Hippocrates?" she whispered.
Elektra felt a hand on her shoulder and she opened her eyes. Cloud turned to her. Many people found his gaze rather cold but to Elektra, his blue eyes had always been cool and comforting.
"With the help of my friends," he replied. "I wasn't alone, and neither are you. We're going to make it through this."
Cloud gestured at the survivors outside on the tarmac and in the spaceport. "Besides, they're counting on us."
Elektra gave him a smile. If there was one small blessing to be had from this nightmare it was the fact that it had brought her friend back to her. Prior to this, they hadn't really talked over the years. His apathy towards her had hurt Elektra more than she had cared to admit.
Cloud removed his hand. "Cade should be back in a few hours, hopefully with an entire fleet behind him. With turian firepower we can move into New Thebes on foot, find their base and blow that core to hell."
"It'd be nice to roll into New Thebes with an armored division or two behind us," Elektra agreed. "Too bad we can't just bombard the planet from orbit."
"I know," Cloud agreed. "Except a dreadnought's cannon is going to take out the entire city and any survivors still inside, and that's not something we're willing to do just yet. We'll take a small neutron bomb into the downed freighter and detonate it. Jaelen thinks that it should do the trick, given that the Reaper cores are partially organic. The turian military is going to have to quarantine and purge the city the old fashioned way afterwards."
Elektra pursed her lips. "I still don't fancy a ground assault, we'd be trading hundreds or thousands of lives on the off-chance that there are still a decent amount of survivors in the city."
"It's the right thing to do," sighed Cloud. He ran a hand through his hair. "We signed up for this, those civilians didn't."
The two Spectres stood silently together for a few more moments, watching the evacuation continue, when Cloud's omni-tool suddenly beeped.
He glanced down at it. "Damn, I've got to go," he said.
"What have you got?"
"They've picked up some odd transmission bursts in New Thebes coming from the area that tech said he escaped from. I'm taking some Jaegers out on a recon mission."
Cloud turned and began to head towards the exit. A small APC pulled up onto the tarmac below them, with a Jaeger manning the turret.
"Want me to tag along?" Elektra called out.
He shook his head. "I'll be fine. You stay here and take care of them Elektra. I'm counting on you."
"I promise," Elektra smiled. "Stay safe."
"I always am," Cloud smiled back.
March 29th, 2211, 1823 hours — Alexandra Spaceport — Outskirts of the City of Alexandria
(Spectre Operative – 10082181-Elektra)
Six hours later…
Elektra spent the next several hours wandering restlessly throughout the spaceport. After Cloud had left she had tried to catch a quick nap before it was her turn to patrol the wall tonight. Rentea had yet to clear her for anything more strenuous than that.
But Elektra hadn't been able to fall asleep. Every time she started to drift off she found herself back in that tower fighting a black-armored turian. Every time, she was woken up by sharp, lancing pain shooting up her back. She gave up trying to sleep quickly after that, and the Spectre soon found herself walking a beat around the spaceport.
Her legs kept carrying her back and forth and back and forth throughout the makeshift sanctuary. Surviving citizens from New Thebes and Alexandria did their best to maintain some semblance of a normal life but Elektra could see that the fear was there. Children continued to play with one another but they did so under the continuous, watchful gaze of their mothers. Their fathers would joke and chat but Elektra could see makeshift weapons stacked nearby.
Everywhere she looked, Elektra could see fear and uncertainty running like an undercurrent beneath the actions of every man, woman and child in this spaceport. Each of them had seen what those monsters out there were capable of doing. Each of them had watched as friends and family and neighbors were torn apart. Each of them had then seen them rise back to life and begin hunting those they once held dear.
A few Blue Suns mercenaries whistled at her as she walked by. Elektra reflexively flashed them a dead smile and batted her eyelashes a bit. She hated playing that card but it was almost a survival instinct at this point. Early on in her career as a Spectre and even as an orphan, Elektra had learned that she needed to leverage every last strength of hers to stay alive. Men had an amazing propensity for stupidity, and they had a tendency to become even dumber around someone pretty. Maybe she'd find herself fighting with these mercenaries in the next battle.
Besides, if they started anything with her Elektra knew she could have kicked the shit out of the lot of them with one hand tied around her back.
An unexpected sound suddenly caused the Spectre to halt in her tracks. It was coming from a room off to the side. The electronic sign poised above the door advertised it as one of the spaceport's VIP lounges.
Elektra stepped inside. The room was filled with comfortable-looking chairs and it had a bar off to one side of the wall. Pictures in frames decorated the walls and a large pair of windows let in tons of natural light.
In the middle of the room was a piano, and seated at the piano was a small, asari girl – one that Elektra recognized. She had on a stained, yellow dress and she was pressing on random keys, producing random sounds. It was Nat, the mute asari child that they had found back in the tower.
Elektra moved towards the piano. Upon hearing her approach, Nat looked up with big eyes. When she recognized Elektra she gave her a small smile and a wave.
The Spectre took a seat on the bench beside her. Do you know how to play? She signed.
Nat gave her another smile and shook her head. Elektra smiled back and played a chord on the piano. She then took Nat's hand and positioned her fingers over the same key. Nat pressed down, reproducing the same chord.
"Good, now try this," Elektra said. She then played another chord.
Nat copied her again.
"Very good! Now try this," she said again. This time, Elektra played a short blues riff that the child had no hope of reproducing. Nat giggled at that.
Who taught you? Nat signed.
Elektra pursed her lips and thought back. "Do you know what the Citadel is?" she asked.
No, Nat signed.
"Hmm, well it's a big city of sorts. Anyways, there's a place on the Citadel called the lower wards where a lot of the children who did not have any family spent a lot of their time."
Memories rose up within the Spectre, memories that had been buried for a long time. "There was a man – a human – who used to set up this tiny piano outside the entrance to one of the trams that ran across the lower wards. He'd play it, and people would give him money. He taught me."
Elektra thought back to those simpler days. She had perhaps been just a year or two older than Nat had been at the time. She remembered the first time she'd heard a piano being played. The notes and tones had awoken something inside her and from that moment on Elektra had fallen in love with the instrument. She'd spent every day for the next two months learning from that man and a few days out of every week for the following year. She had practiced whenever she could. Cloud had even stolen a small, toy keyboard for her on her birthday.
Her teacher had been a kind old man who, like countless others, had lost his family and his job following the Reaper War. Like many others, he'd never found new work.
One day he stopped coming to the entrance of the tram station. Elektra had never seen him again.
Nat sat thoughtfully and quietly beside her on the bench for a few moments. My family is gone, will I have to live there? the child finally signed.
Elektra's heart broke a bit. Perhaps the worst thing that these fanatics had done was create a whole new generation of orphans – orphans like her and Cloud.
Elektra made a choice then and there. No, you will live with me. Would you like that? Elektra signed.
Nat nodded her head and smiled.
The two were interrupted when the door to the lounge suddenly opened. A large man in black Jaeger armor walked in. He had stickers of cars and pin-up girls on various spots on his armor and a large modified Revenant was slung over his back. The man removed his helmet, revealing a strong jaw, rough, angular features and a shaved head.
"Sorry Spectre, didn't think you'd be in here!" the man apologized.
Elektra flashed him a warm smile. "No problem, Gunnery Chief – and please, call me Elektra."
He smiled back at her. "Only if you call me Sean… or Teewin."
"Sure," Elektra laughed. "What can I do for you?"
"You? Oh, nothing," he replied. He then pointed at the bar. "I'm just here for that."
The Systems Alliance marine walked across the lounge and grabbed a bottle of scotch from behind the bar. "A few of us are having an early pow-wow before nighttime patrol. I saw that you're on schedule tonight. Do you and the little bugger want to join?"
Elektra looked at Nat. The child nodded.
"Sure, we'd love that."
"Great," he replied. Teewin pointed a finger at the bottle and then at Nat. "Don't you ever touch this stuff, kid, it's terrible for you."
Nat giggled.
The trio made their way out of the lounge and back into the spaceport. Eventually they came upon a group seated at a table in one of the spaceport's various restaurants.
Rayla and Galen were seated beside one another. Both the asari commando and the turian marine were already fully armored. Elektra had noticed that they'd rarely spent a minute apart from each other since this entire fiasco had started. The boys hadn't picked up on it just yet, but Elektra suspected that they would soon enough. Even a moron like Cade Kitiarian had to see the budding relationship between the grizzled asari commando and his little protégé. Personally, Elektra thought they'd be great together.
Seated at the other end were Jay and Rake, two other Jaegers in Teewin's squad. Across from them sat Garm, the adoptive father of the tech that Cloud and Cade had saved aboard the Hippocrates. The grizzled krogan gave a grunt of acknowledgement to the Spectre and gave Nat a small, wry smile. The asari child waved back.
"Hey, I like the new hair El!" greeted Rake. The marine pulled out a chair and gestured for the Spectre to sit down.
"Thanks," Elektra smiled. "It was just too much to handle, especially if I'm wearing a helmet all the time."
Rayla scoffed. "You don't know how good you've got it, girl. I've always envied the way your species can grow out their hair," she said. She then tweaked her own fringe. "Asari sure as hell can't."
Elektra grabbed a seat while Teewin poured each of them a glass from the bottle of scotch he'd taken from the lounge. Before he could fill Garm's cup however, the krogan grabbed the cup and tossed it aside and grabbed the entire bottle from the marine's hands with a low growl.
"So," Teewin began, taking a sip from his cup. "I'm guessing Kitiarian returns tonight with what is hopefully the entire turian navy behind his scaly ass."
"The 32nd is one of the Hierarchy's best," Galen quietly said. "Rapid reaction fleets are mostly wolf-pack frigate flotillas and maybe a few cruisers. The 32nd also has two dreadnoughts – the THV Art of Retribution and the THV Crimson Talons."
"You think they can take on the 9th Fleet and the other defectors from the asari and salarian navies?" Jay asked. Meanwhile Nat had climbed up onto the marine's lap and had begun to peer curiously at the Jaeger's tattoos poking out from beneath his armor. The marine pinched her cheek and gave her a pat on the head.
The young turian mulled it over, scratching at a scale on his chin. "Perhaps. The 32nd has around three hundred ships while the defectors number in at just under five hundred, but I doubt all five hundred are as combat-capable as the ships in the 32nd. They do have one more dreadnought, but turian dreadnoughts are magnitudes more powerful than asari and salarian ones. Factor in the planetary cannons and I'd still be betting on the turians."
"You are such a nerd," chuckled Rayla.
Galen's mandibles twitched. "In any event, the 32nd has one of Hierarchy's best unit of turian havoc troopers."
"They come with any heavy tanks and shit?" Rake asked.
Galen shook his head. "The fleet will count with fast-movers and some light-armored infantry vehicles, but seeing as they don't have any carriers you won't be looking at anything bigger than your equivalent of a M44 Hammerhead, unless Cade figured something out."
The marine sighed. "Great, so we're going to be walking into a city full of mecha-zombies."
Teewin slapped his friend on the shoulder. "Those things aren't too bad out in the open. Beats fighting them in a bloody starship."
Elektra watched as the group chatted for a few more moments. She'd worked alone for so long that it felt strange to be surrounded by so many people that she knew were on her team. It was a strange feeling. Strange, but nice in some way. She was glad she didn't have to go through this nightmare alone.
A siren suddenly blared to life. People everywhere in the terminal around them started to look around in confusion.
Nat buried her face into Jay's chestplate. The marine hugged her close and began to look around. "Gunny, what's going on?" he asked.
Teewin had a finger over his earpiece. "Captain says a ship just took off from New Thebes… transport ship, headed right for the spaceport! He wants us at our battle stations!"
Garm gave a growl and downed the rest of the scotch before grabbing his Geth Spitfire. Rayla and Galen grabbed their weapons and got up from their chairs.
Elektra did the same and then opened up her own channel. "Percival, it's Elektra. What's happening?!"
"Elektra, we've got a transport on approach from New Thebes. It's moving real fast!" Her fellow Spectre replied.
Elektra checked the charge on her shotgun and her predator pistol. She gestured for Nat to climb off Jay and to stay close to her. "Crap, okay. I'm going to head to the east side of the spaceport then. I'll bring Galen, Rayla and Garm!" she replied.
"Do it. We don't know if it has any weapons. We also don't have the guns to knock it out."
"So be prepared for anything then, got it. You get word out to Cloud?"
"Tried, but I can't raise him on any channels!"
A dull ache began to form in Elektra's chest. "I'm sure he's fine."
"Cloud will find a way," he assured her, but despite the Spectre's apparent confidence Elektra could nonetheless hear the fear in his voice. "Look, I need to stay here in the command room and coordinate the defense. I need you out there to deal with whatever we come up against."
Elektra gestured for the other specialists to form up on her. "You can count on me. Elektra out."
"What do we do about the child?" Jay asked.
"The safest place is with us. Trust me," grunted Garm. The krogan hefted his Geth Spitfire up onto one shoulder and Nat onto the other.
"We'll get her on a transport as soon as we can," Elektra promised. The marine nodded.
Teewin, Rake and Jay splintered off from the group towards one of the other terminals while Elektra led her group east. Civilians called out to them as they ran past them, begging for answers.
Soon they had reached the easternmost part of the airport. It was a large, atrium-like room with a fountain in the middle. Several boarding gates lined the perimeter, rows upon rows of seats around them. A giant glass window dominated an entire side of the room, looking out onto the tarmac and in the direction of New Thebes.
The sun was already starting to set. The sky was a brilliant shade of orange streaked with red. Outside, Elektra could also see troops out on the tarmac rushing to defend the wall. Blue Suns mercenaries were already manning the make-shift battlements, and the few transports scheduled to depart were doing their best to get as many survivors as they could on board and take off before all hell broke loose.
Galen raised a talon and point towards the city. "There!"
A large personnel transport was hurtling on a downward approach towards the spaceport. The Blue Suns manning the walls turned what heavy weapons they had, but Elektra knew that they had nothing that could bring it down in time.
Elektra reopened the channel. "Percival, it looks like they're trying to crash it into the spaceport!"
A general warning suddenly sounded across the spaceport's PA systems warning everyone to seek shelter. Soldiers from the Anhurian military began to gather in the atrium as well. Elektra directed them to take up what cover they could.
Galen and Rayla already had their rifles up and ready. Elektra could hear nothing but slow and steady breathing from Garm as the krogan starred at the approaching ship. Nat was hiding behind the krogan, eyes wide.
A bloom of light appeared on the transport's flank. By some miracle the Blue Suns had managed to destroy one of the ship's thrusters. The transport began to dip perilously towards the ground. Elektra prayed that it'd miss the spaceport entirely.
But whoever was piloting the ship had other plans. Elektra's breath hitched up in her chest when she saw the transport level out at the very last second.
Its nose slammed into the makeshift wall surrounding the spaceport, scattering the mercenaries guarding it and creating a massive breach.
The transport then began to slide across the tarmac. People in its path were frantically trying to get out of its way. It was headed straight for the atrium,
"Everyone brace for impact!" Elektra called out. She and the rest of her team took up cover behind the fountain as the downed ship continued to hurtle towards them.
The nose of the ship breached the glass wall with a large crack, sending thousands of shards flying in every direction. Rayla quickly erected a barrier around the group. In spite of the biotic protective field, Garm pulled Nat closer to his chest.
The ship finally slid to a complete halt. Elektra let out a sigh of relief but kept her pistol trained on the ship nonetheless.
She gestured for four of the Anhurian troopers to open the doors to the ship. The troopers nervously approached the downed transport.
One of them turned the latch and pulled open the heavy door. The ship was pitch-black inside.
The trooper was instantly pulled inside before he could even scream by something Elektra couldn't see. His three friends cried out in alarm and began to fire their weapons past the door.
A Corpser launched itself from out of the darkness and impaled one of the troopers with its talons, bringing him to the ground. It roared in the dying man's face, sickly red light emitting from its maw of razor-sharp teeth. Its stomach opened up and Crawlers began to burrow their way into the dead man's corpse.
Elektra fired four shots into the creature, striking it in its chest and shoulders. The red light died out and it flopped onto its back.
A pair of cables suddenly shot out from the blackness of the ship and impaled the two remaining troopers.
The troopers began to writhe in agony as their flesh began to slough off to reveal a growing mechanical endoskeleton beneath. Within seconds they had been changed into Corpsers. Its grisly task complete, the cables pulled out of their victims and retreated back into the ship. The two Corpsers rose and began to run towards the other surviving troopers.
A Changer pulled itself out of the ship. It looked to have once been human. Thick, irregularly-shaped metal plates covered it from head to toe, but beneath it all Elektra could see rotting flesh that oozed blue-ish fluid. One arm was more thickly-armored and a mass of thick cables protruded from it like metal serpents.
Its limbs were thick and muscled and it had a number of long, sharp talons on its other arm. Elektra watched as the Changer scanned the room, glowing mechanical eyes tracking the various locations that the Anhurian defense force were hiding.
It raised a talon and pointed towards a group of troopers. One of the trooper had a set of lieutenant's bars on his pauldron.
A dozen Corpsers suddenly poured out of the ship towards the batarian, snarling and howling. They were on them in seconds, rending and tearing.
"This one's different! It's smarter!" Galen hissed.
"Cloud said Jaelen said they might be evolving! What do we do?!" Rayla asked.
Garm grunted and rose up from behind cover. He shouldered his Geth Spitfire and began to unleash a hail of plasma at the behemoth. The plates on the Changer began to glow bright red under the fire.
Galen leapt over the fountain and began to fire his Mattock at the Changer as well. The Changer lashed out with its cables but the young turian leapt deftly aside. He whipped a grenade at the feet of the Changer as he did so.
The Changer buckled as the grenade went off. A number of its metal plates were blown off, exposing the flesh within.
Elektra slammed her palm into the ground and unleashed a Shockwave that slammed into the stumbling creature and coated it in biotic fire. Rayla followed up with a Warp. The ensuing biotic explosion blew off its cable-arm.
The team then fired what they had at the Changer and it finally toppled over with a low groan. However, more Corpsers began to pour from the ship, hurling themselves at the defenders. Others began to run off to other parts of the spaceport.
"Hold the line! Keep them here!" Elektra yelled at the defenders. She switched to her shotgun and began to fire at any Corpser who got close, leaving the farther targets to her team with the longer-ranged weapons. She didn't dare use her biotics here. A charge would likely leave her stranded in a horde of the monsters with no way out.
But they were slowly getting overwhelmed. More and more of the creatures were starting to slip away.
Elektra opened up a channel. "Percival, we can't contain them here any longer!"
"Shit," he replied. "We're getting reports of attacks happening all over the spaceport. These creatures are spreading everywhere!"
Garm slammed his overheating Spitfire into a Corpser's face, breaking its neck and sending it to the ground. The krogan then lifted a massive boot and sent it hurtling down onto its stomach, crushing the Crawlers inside it.
Nat huddled fearfully beside Elektra. The Spectre cursed at her decision to keep the child by her side. Elektra tossed a lift grenade at a group of Corpsers, sending them up into the air and allowing Rayla to detonate them with another well-placed Warp.
Galen was a smoky shadow, weaving among the Corpsers and bringing them down with a mixture of well-placed shots. The young turian dipped and dodged, always seeming to be only inches away from being caught by a Corpser's talons or fangs.
"What's the plan, Percival!?"
"The Jaegers and some of the Suns are evacuating as many people as they can out on the western tarmac! We're getting all the evac birds we can to come down and get as many people out of here as we can! You need to buy us as much time as possible!"
"We need to get the kid out of here!" Garm called out. The krogan slung his overheating Spitfire onto his back and pulled out a pair of Katana shotguns.
A fresh cacophony of howls suddenly echoed out from across the eastern tarmac. Outside, Elektra saw a new horde of creatures making for the breach created by the ship. The soldiers still up on the wall and around the eastern tarmac soon found themselves fighting for their lives.
Meanwhile the number of defenders in the atrium were dwindling and with every fallen soldier rose another nightmarish monstrosity. They couldn't hold this part of the spaceport forever.
In that moment, one single thought overwhelmed every other instinct of Elektra's, and that was to get the child out of here. In that moment, nothing she had done or would ever do seemed more important than ensuring that the child lived.
"Garm, take Galen, Rayla, get Nat to the evac ships!" Elektra ordered. She gritted her teeth and tossed another Shockwave into a pack of Corpsers. Her amp started to burn in the back of her skull.
"You can't hold them off alone!" Rayla shouted back. The asari commando ducked beneath a set of claws. "Those things will tear you apart!"
"I'll be fine! Just go!"
Garm holstered his shotguns and grabbed the child, slinging her over his shoulder. The krogan had his Spitfire back in his other hand and began to slowly move back, firing at the horde of monsters around them.
Galen was the next to go. He tossed one more pair of frag grenades and then turned to cover Garm. Rayla snarled and tossed out one last Singularity, followed by a Warp. The violet corona erupted, coating the atrium in purple light and annihilating several Corpsers caught in its wake. She too then turned to follow her two comrades.
Elektra watched as Nat wordlessly stretched out a hand towards her. Her eyes were filled with fear and confusion. The Spectre gave her a small wink.
It was just Elektra and a few surviving troopers now. The Spectre took a deep breath to push down the fear that threatened to overwhelm and resolved to buy them as much time as she could.
In front of her a horde of Corpsers approached, slavering and snarling.
Elektra tossed the last of her lift grenades among the horde. They detonated with a flash, lifting up more than a dozen of them.
She initiated a biotic charge and slammed into the group, triggering a massive biotic detonation. Once among them, the Spectre began to shoot as many of them as she could. Her shotgun barked again and again as it tore apart any Corpser that got in her crosshairs. More than a score of bodies had hit the floor before the last of the biotic flames had even died out.
But there were too many. The last of the defenders had fallen and the Corpsers were on the verge of surrounding her again. Elektra slammed a fist into the ground and activated a Nova, dropping the Corpsers immediately around her and buying her a few more precious moments.
She turned to run when something suddenly slammed into her chest, knocking her to the ground.
A Chaser suddenly appeared ontop of her, de-stealthing. The hound-like beast roared at Elektra, its slavering fangs just a few inches away from her face. With one forearm pressed against its neck, the Spectre tried to grab her pistol with her other hand but the creature's hands had grabbed hold of her wrist with a surprising amount of strength.
The creature's teeth inched closer and closer to her face as Elektra felt her strength starting to fade. This is it, Elektra thought to herself. There's no one left.
At least Elektra had tried. She hoped that Cloud wouldn't miss her too terribly.
All around her the Corpsers she had knocked down were starting to get back up. The Spectre starred at the teeth-filled maw above her. She wouldn't be going out with her eyes closed.
Elektra braced herself for the feel of those rending fangs against her flesh, but instead of pain, Elektra suddenly felt a rush of heat.
A wall of fire suddenly erupted around her. The Corpsers surrounding her began to howl in agony as the flames chewed away at their rotting flesh.
A large figure stepped through the flames to stand above both Elektra and the Chaser.
The figure bent down and wrapped its hands beneath the Chaser's head. He pressed his boot against the creatures back and pulled.
The Chaser howled in agony. It removed its hands from Elektra's wrists and tried desperately to scrabble at the large, armored fingers currently wrapped around its face.
After a few more moments of resistance, the head came off in a shower of blue fluid. The armored figure tossed the ghastly appendage into the fire and kicked the Chaser's body off of the stunned Spectre. He then extended a bloody hand to Elektra.
"Get up, Drak'Takai, this is no place to die!" Revak Ghar'aran growled.
Elektra grabbed his hand and the Blue Suns captain pulled her to her feet.
Another figure stepped through the flames. It was Malan. Jets of bright red flame spewed forth from the M-451 Firestorm he was wielding, keeping the creatures at bay.
"Brother, is she okay!?"
Revak glanced at Elektra. "Can you fight?" he asked. The Spectre nodded.
Together they stepped back through the flames. Elektra saw a dozen Blue Suns mercenaries as well, firing at the creatures.
"Come! Your friend asked us to find you. We need to finish evacuating the spaceport," Revak told her. The batarian signaled to his men and the group began to head back into the spaceport.
Elektra nodded and slipped a new ammunition block into her M-23 Katana. "Where is Percival? Is he still in the control room?"
Revak shook his head. "The control room has been evacuated, he is out on the eastern tarmac now, fending off a horde of creatures coming from the city with Lieutenant Navarrian."
"Navarrian managed to hold the wall, but he said something blew past him and his men and made its way into the spaceport. Something big," Malan told her.
"What was it?"
"He couldn't tell, it was moving too quickly. Come! We must save as many as we can!"
The inside of spaceport was pure pandemonium. The sun had fully set now, leaving much of the spaceport in darkness. Survivors ran in every direction. Corpsers leapt from the shadows, their claws rending flesh while their ghastly passengers added new members to their ghoulish ranks.
The group gunned down a pack of Chasers who had just ran down a fleeing batarian and were in the midst of tearing him apart. They shot everything in sight, and soon they were joined by a number of surviving troopers and many survivors.
Elektra opened up a channel to Percival. "Perc, it's Elektra. The Suns found me, what do you need us to do?"
"Elektra thank god, it's damn good to hear your voice! Get whoever you can out to the evac ships on the western tarmac, then come to the other side and help me get our perimeter under control! We can't risk a prolonged fight in the spaceport, we need to draw them out!"
Elektra whirled and gunned down another trio of Corpsers. "You've got it. Any word from the specialists?"
"Yeah, they told me they got the kid onto one of the ships with Camilla. They're over here now."
Elektra breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank god. Any word from Cloud?"
"…. Nothing yet."
Hearing those words were like a knife in her heart. "He's okay, I can feel it."
"I hope so. Percival out."
Elektra and the Ghar'aran brothers continued to lead the group through the spaceport and out towards the exit. They began to pass through another large atrium with a domed glass ceiling. Moonlight shone through it, illuminating the area.
A large shadow suddenly passed over them. Elektra glanced up, but failed to spot anything.
The group approached the exit at the other end of the atrium. There sat a large, wide pair of glass doors that led out to the western tarmac.
The doors suddenly shattered as a massive shape hurled itself through. The creature had two large hind legs and four smaller, thinner forelegs – all of which ended in an unsettling pair of human-like hands. Its sinuous body was covered in plates and looked to be an amalgamation of several different species. Elektra could see several human and asari faces embedded in its sickly blue flesh.
Its head was an unseemly combination of a krogan's headplate and two large pincers or tusks flanking a very small, human-like mouth. A long, thickly-muscled tail with a large, jagged barb on its end lashed back and forth. The creature had to be almost forty feet long from head to tail.
"What in the devils is that?" Malan shouted.
"A Chimera…" Elektra whispered.
Revak roared a challenge and began to fire his Revenant at it. He advanced, uncowed by the sight of the unnatural monstrosity before him. His brother soon joined him, spewing fire and shouting in Khar'shani. Together the two butchers of Bahak confronted the monster.
The creature leapt up into the air with surprising agility, over the heads of the two mercenaries and landed among the group of survivors. Its tail swept from side-to-side, knocking down Blue Suns mercenaries and survivors alike.
It picked up an Anhurian trooper and hurled her violently at a nearby column. Her screams echoed throughout the atrium as she sailed through the air before ending suddenly with a large crack as she slammed into the hardened marble.
The Chimera gored another one with its pincers and used its tail to decapitate a third.
"Everyone make for the exit! Get to the evac ships!" Elektra roared. "Troopers, spread out! Bring it down!"
The survivors still standing ran for it. Elektra, the mercenaries, and whatever surviving anhurian troopers were still standing began to fire at the Chimera.
But small-arms fire didn't seem to phase it. Most of it bounced off of its plates and the few bullets that did penetrate its flesh seemed to serve no other purpose than to irritate it.
Only Malan's M-451 Firestorm seemed to have any effect on it. The batarian leapt forward with an angry shout and coated as much of the creature in oily fire as he dared. The Chimera chittered in anger and pain and directed its six-eyes at the rebellious batarian.
It lashed at him with its tail but Revak managed to pull his younger brother away just in the nick of time.
"How do we kill this thing?!" Revak groaned.
Elektra recalled what Cloud had told her about the one he had fought aboard the Hippocrates. It had survived a direct shot from an M-920 Cain.
"I don't think we can! Just keep fighting it!" Elektra replied.
Malan roared again and began to spit fire at the behemoth. The Chimera chittered loudly and began to shrink away from the weapon.
Eventually the pain was too much. The creature broke away from the group and began to run deeper into the spaceport.
"Should we pursue?" One of the mercenaries asked.
Elektra shook her head. "No, we need to get out onto the eastern tarmac and get our perimeter locked down! Everyone out the door!" the Spectre ordered.
Everyone nodded and exited the spaceport. The tarmac looked to be an absolute nightmare. Tents lay deflated and several transports were on fire. Corpsers and Chasers ran amok on the grounds, hunting and being hunted by Blue Suns mercenaries, anhurian troopers and even a few Jaegers. Off in the distance, Elektra could see several armored figures still manning the wall and holding the breach created by the trojan transport. One of them had red tech armor on.
Elektra saw several black-armored figures running for the eastern tarmac as well. She recognized one of them.
"Captain Murgen! What's the word?"
The Jaeger captain halted. Beside him was Lieutenant Burton and a few others that she didn't recognize.
"Spectre, I left half the platoon and as many surviving troopers we could spare to cover the rest of the evac! Lieutenant-Commander Percival says he needs more guns to clear the eastern tarmac!"
"We heard the same!" she replied. "Let's get out there!"
The Jaeger grinned at her and waved at his marines. "Let's go marines! Parties that way!"
The group charged out onto the tarmac with Elektra and the Ghar'arans leading the way. The two brothers fought with a sense of ferocity and coordination that amazed the Spectre. It was as if they could read each other's very thoughts in battle. Malan would lead with his Firestorm, causing carnage and sewing confusion among the creatures ranks, and Revak would then neutralize them with lethal precision. The older Ghar'aran killed as many with his bare hands as he did with his Revenant. He'd snap necks and tear off appendages with an ease that unsettled the Spectre. He must have been at least as strong as a krogan, but was perhaps three times as agile. He dodged their teeth and claws with ease and a surprising amount of grace.
Amidst the melee, Elektra spotted three more familiar figures. It was Garm, Rayla and Galen.
Rayla spotted her first. A look of relief was plastered all over the typically-aloof asari commando's face.
"You're crazy girl, almost as crazy as your boyfriend," Rayla said.
Elektra tossed another Shockwave at a group of the creatures. Rayla followed it up with another Warp.
"He is not my boyfriend," Elektra grunted. "You guys get Nat out?"
"Left the kid with Cam and Rentea. She'll be safe with them!" Garm replied. The krogan's red armor was almost completely covered in blue blood. His good eye gleamed in the moonlight as his Spitfire chewed through Corpser after Corpser.
The group fought and fought, but more creatures were pouring through the breach than they could kill and the defenders soon found themselves pushed to the brink. The number of armored figures up on the wall were starting to dwindle. A squad of Blue Suns mercenaries fell to a pack of Corpsers and a Jaeger triggered a grenade just as he was about to be overwhelmed by a pack of Chasers.
The moon was out in full now, perhaps the last one any of them would ever see. The promise of dawn hung on a knife's edge.
The promise she'd made to Cloud? Elektra wasn't sure she'd be able to keep that promise either.
I tried my best, Cloud.
"Look! It's back!" Malan suddenly warned. The batarian pointed at a shattered nearby transport.
The Chimera crawled over the wreckage to stand atop flames that traced the transport's broken frame. The metal crackled beneath its weight. It looked utterly demonic in that ugly orange light. Ugly red patches covered its body and Elektra could hear its angry hissing despite the battle raging around them.
Revak looked at her. Elektra caught his gaze and nodded. There was a moment of understanding between the two.
"Bring that thing down! Everything you've got!" Elektra shouted. She began to fire at the creature. Galen, Rayla and Garm soon followed her.
"You heard the lady! Hit it!" Murgen echoed. Gunfire from the Jaegers joined in, hitting the creature.
"Suns! Kill it!" Revak roared. The surviving defenders all focused their fire on the beast.
It chittered in anger and sent its tail lashing forward. It speared another hapless mercenary and flung him into a group of troopers. The creature leapt off of the transport and crouched, ready to pounce.
A pair of missiles suddenly slammed into its side, followed by a long burst of heavy gunfire. The attack blew off several of the creatures limbs, sending a shower of blue blood spraying out onto the tarmac. The Chimera howled in pain.
A trio of attack ships suddenly blitzed over Elektra's head, the downdraft whipping her hair into her eyes.
Elektra looked up. In the sky, dozens of ships began to appear in the upper atmosphere. They began to trade fire with several of the vessels belonging to the defectors.
"The turians are here!" Galen cried out. Some of the surviving defenders cheered, others laughed uproariously at the sight of their newfound saviors.
A trio of large, turian ships led the charge. One of the ships was an absolutely massive dreadnought. It was nearly twice as large as the two ships beside it. It was painted blue and silver and sported a pair of thanix cannons.
"Never thought I'd be so happy to see the metal space turkeys," Rayla said with a laugh. "Which one is that big one? The Retribution or the Talon?"
"Neither," Galen replied. "The Retribution is the blue-gold one beside it, and the Talon is the red one. The large one in the middle is the Archangel's Wrath – the Primarch of Palaven's personal dreadnought."
Transport ships began to drop from the large ships in orbit. They descended rapidly down towards the spaceport and touched down.
Elektra also began to hear music. At first, the Spectre thought she was just imagining things, but as the transports came closer she realized that it was coming from their loudspeakers.
"Is that… Fire in the Courtyard?" Rayla asked, bewildered.
Their ramps opened and hordes of quarian and turian marines began to pour out of them, firing at the creatures out on the tarmac. Others began to head towards the spaceport.
Dozens of turians flew down alongside the transports. These didn't touch down but instead hovered in the air using a set of powerful thrusters embedded in their armor. These turians began to fire while mid-air, providing cover for their brethren on the ground.
"Havoc troopers from the 49th," whispered Galen.
And finally, one more transport came down to land just a few meters away from Elektra and her group. The ramp opened with a hiss.
A dozen turian soldiers stepped out of the darkness. Each of them were wearing and advanced-looking set of black and blue armor. They all had full-faced helmets with black visors and carried an assortment of weapons. Each of them had a symbol on their left pauldron – a black bird of prey on a field of silver, clutching a number of spears in one hand and a turian skull in the other. The insignia of the Turian Blackwatch.
Two more figures followed them. One was wearing a familiar set of blue, silver and grey ghost infiltrator armor. It was Cade. Her fellow Spectre recognized Elektra and gave her a cocky little wave.
The other was clad in a set of battered, heavy blue and silver armor. He wasn't wearing a helmet, instead he had on a simple one-piece visor. He looked to be an older turian, a bit taller than Cade and perhaps middle-aged if the gray scales at the base of his fringe was any indication, but he had a bit of a swagger in his gait that Elektra would have expected to belong to a much younger turian. He had simple blue clan-markings similar to the ones Cade had. One side of his face was heavily-scarred.
The turian pulled an old Mantis from his back and took aim at the Chimera. The creature hissed and began to limp towards the turian.
The turian's first shot hit it in one of its six mechanical eyes, blowing it off and causing the Chimera to rear its head back in pain. It opened its tiny human mouth, planted its remaining limbs and roared in anger and defiance at the turian.
The turian's second shot hit it in its open mouth. A spray of blue mist erupted out the back of the massive creature's skull.
The Chimera's cry halted abruptly. It gave a great big shudder before dropping to the ground with a crash. There it twitched a few times before growing still.
"Great shot, sir," Cade said to the other turian.
The turian slung the Mantis back across his back. "Scoped and dropped," he chuckled. "Captain, secure the body. I want to learn everything we can about these things."
One of the Blackwatch nodded and began to bark orders to the other members of her team. More and more turian and quarian marines were coming down in transports everywhere, clearing the area of the creatures.
A Havoc trooper landed and approached the turian. The turian spoke a few words with the Havoc trooper and the trooper moved away.
Cade tapped the turian on the shoulder and pointed to Elektra. The turian sauntered over, walking with a casualness more befitting a stroll in one of Palaven's legendary botanical gardens than a battlefield.
The two turians made their way over to Elektra. "Looks like we got here just in time," he said wryly. "Mind pointing me to the one in charge, Spectre?"
"That'd most likely be Operative Percival, sir. He's up on the wall over there," Elektra replied. She pointed to where Percival was still standing on the makeshift battlements, firing at what creatures remained.
Cade cocked an eyeplate and looked around for his friend. "Elektra, where's Cloud?"
Elektra turned to look at Cade. She then shook her head. "He went out to investigate a signal we picked up in New Thebes. We lost contact with him a few hours ago."
Cade's shoulder's dipped. The older turian grabbed Cade by the shoulder and gave him a light shake.
"We'll find him Kitiarian, don't get your plates all rattled. But first, I need to know more about what we're up against."
Elektra jerked her head towards the wall. "I'll take you to Operative Percival, Primarch."
The turian dipped his head. "Thank you Spectre. And please, Garrus is fine. Never was a big fan of the title. Always sounded a bit too pompous to me."