Disclaimer: I do not own the Mass Effect games. This story is written with no profit in mind. It isn't for sale or rent.


Chapter10

=DC=

Part 5

=DC=


6.05.2183 GS

Feros

Thesus system, Attican Beta cluster

From Shepard's position, the end of the fighting for the hangar bay was anti-climatic. With the Geth fire teams neutralized, he and most marines had to deal only with waves of swarming Creepers. Air support managed to nail some of them before they could reach the catwalks, while the rest were manageable as long as you could keep the range open. That is not to say that neutralizing the threat came without casualties. If one of those things came into range, its claws were sharp enough and had sufficient power behind them to breach hardsuits. Anyone hit that way was potentially compromised and thus a medical casualty, even if they were otherwise intact. Shepard had five soldiers that way and had to deal with them. At the same time, Sergeant Taylor got him a complete casualty list and policed the battlefield for any Geth or Creepers playing dead.

"Put the wounded under quarantine. We'll use a proper defensive position that can't be easily swarmed. I want them disarmed—weapons, explosives, tools, comms… and put under guard. We will need a long-term holding facility until medical can clear them out. That will be either one of our ships in orbit or a local building well away from the active combat zone."

Shepard didn't have to see people's faces to figure out that no one was pleased with his orders, though save for some expected grumbling, there were no signs of protest. It was a good thing that everyone was briefed on the kind of mess they willingly walked into.

"Sergeant Taylor, walk with me and report," Shepard ordered, heading for the hangar control facilities. Behind them, combat engineers went salvaging Geth data cores for intelligence while marines made sure the platforms wouldn't be able to rise again without a complete rebuild. Others ensured the Creepers were really dead, all acting in a way that would be considered war crimes if they were dealing with a proper military or even criminal organization.

Unless it was pirates or slavers, most 'civilized' people agreed that the old-school methods of killing them all, unless you needed information, were for the best. If you were nice about it, you could give any prisoners you bothered to take a military tribunal, where the outcome was usually guaranteed.

"Two shuttles gone with everyone on board, eighteen dead there. Four fighters were shot down, and one pilot might be recoverable. A shuttle is going to check on their crashed site. We have two dead, thrown, or fallen from the catwalks and five wounded, presumably compromised. The butcher's bill about the assault on the locals' defenses is still in the air, sir."

Shepard was glad his helmet hid his grimace. If the locals weren't compromised or simply insane, then the casualties would be a fraction of what they suffered. Ideally, heads would be rolling for this on the Corpo side, yet if they were all brainwashed… Shepard cursed in his mind before shoving those thoughts away for later.

"Sergeant, we have guards covering the catwalks and possible infiltration sites. If we can do anything about it, we can't be swarmed by the Creepers again."

"I'll see it done, sir," Taylor nodded and jogged back, shouting orders.

Shepard climbed two flights of stairs and carefully walked through an area blasted by air power. The smoking remains of turrets rose above him like demented smoke stacks. A makeshift barricade made of crates had been blocking the path before missiles blew it apart, defenders and all. There were pieces of people in dark-green hardsuits – the colors of the local militia and ExoGeni's private security.

The Spectre passed more destroyed strongpoints, taken out by air strikes, or stormed by Biotic specialists. The former left pieces of people everywhere, and the latter was arguably worse, considering the twisted, deformed, and broken bodies they left behind. At least those would be easier for the medics to examine, so as morbid as it sounded, that was a silver lining.

"Shepard, you're intact, good!" Vasir's boisterous voice made John's head snap up in its direction.

The Asari Spectre sat on a crate near what appeared to be a fortified building or perhaps standard Prothean construction. While the place had windows, they were covered by shutters, which were slabs of dark metal. Engineers were busy cutting their way through the door, and it wasn't happening very fast if the Salarians' curses and sharp gestures were anything to go by.

"Prothean engineering at its finest," Vasir waved at the hangar's presumed control center. Blowing ourselves a way in will require enough ordnance that any computers inside will be destroyed, which will be counterproductive. The docks seem sealed except for this access point. We're stuck here for the moment.

"Alternative insertion points?" Shepard suggested.

"I just got a report from your Sergeant. We suffered three more dead and four wounded, taking apart the militia and corpo mercs. They didn't falter or show any trace of fear even as we took the last of them out. They were all fighting with the discipline and determination of veterans, Shepard. Some of them are kids who couldn't have much training or experience."

"You have prisoners?" Shepard inquired. That was the first piece of good news he got today.

"All knocked out. No one was in a surrendering mood. They're under guard and sedated. As I said, some look to be seventeen or eighteen," Vasir grumbled. "We need to reevaluate the threat being compromised by these spores presents."

Shepard's mind raced with the implications, and he didn't like any conclusion he could think of.

"We need heavy reinforcements. There are two more waves for the shuttles to bring down. We can't rely on air support in the Arcology."

"Apparently, your people wanting to wait until they had a battalion ready with its logistics before sending you in was a good call. More troop transports and associated escorts should be assembled as we speak. We must hold a beachhead and ensure the Geth don't manage to shut down the barrier generators before we're reinforced," Vasir grumbled. "There's no chance of us securing this place ourselves if this engagement indicates what we will face going forward."

"We should fortify the hangar, then send in drones to find us either a source of intelligence worth securing, the generators, or a target worth hitting. Either way, going blind is not a good idea. We can get swarmed and torn to pieces or compromised," Shepard's voice sounded as frustrated as he felt.

"If it wasn't for the Geth being ready to blow up the place from orbit, I would say it would have been better if we had waited for more reinforcements before heading here," Vasir stretched as much as her heavy armor allowed. "Chin up, Shepard. If the mission was easy, they wouldn't have sent us. You are your people's first Spectre, and with our luck, we'll make you a legend in no time at all."

"Shepard, Presley," The XO's voice sounded in John's helmet. "It's good to hear you've secured the LZ. The shuttles are returning to pick up the next landing wave. So far, we've got no sign of enemy reinforcements in orbit. The only issue here is your pet Krogan is making a ruckus in the med-bay."

"Presley, Shepard. That's good to know. What's up with Wrex?"

"He wants to fight," Presley said in a flat tone, indicating he wasn't enjoying Krogan's temper tantrum.

"He always wants to fight. Isn't he still on medical leave?"

"Dr. Chakwas is still ensuring his plates and skin regenerate properly from all the Rachni acid he drenched in. She is still plucking bullets and shrapnel out of his hump that should have been removed years, if not decades, ago. Chakwas isn't letting him out of the medbay before she's done with him. Your Krogan disagrees."

"Tell him we'll be here for the long haul. He'll have enough time to have fun bashing heads before we're done with Feros," Shepard wondered when a babysitter became a part of his job description.


=DC=

Part 6

=DC=


6.05.2183 GS

Feros

Thesus system, Attican Beta cluster

"Mistakes were made," Vasir concluded in a voice drier than desert wind.

Shepard had to agree, and he didn't see this particular issue coming. The second reinforcement wave was already on its way; there was no sign of Geth naval reinforcements – so far, so good. On the other hand, they were still stuck in the hangar, with the engineers busy cutting through the damned door to its control center. By now, Shepard was sure that the locals held out until now, not just because they offered stiff resistance and the Creepers were aiding them. If the rest of the Arcology was locked down like this place, their progress would have been slowed to a crawl even without effective resistance unless the Geth brought the right tools for the job.

"We are almost through!" A Salarian engineer eagerly exclaimed.

Vasir pointed out, "We might have to cut or blow our way out of the command center, too…"

"Did ExoGeni set up in a military base instead of a regular city?" Shepard wondered aloud.

"I might be a few centuries old, but I am not a Prothean expert," Vasir shrugged. "We need a few of those here yesterday."

They requested such experts with any future reinforcements, though those would be at least a day or two away. It would take longer to reach them without a hastily assembled quick reaction force.

A piece of the thick, rugged armored door fell to the floor with a long clang, prompting ragged cheers of relief. The engineers scampered away to avoid potential nasty surprises and sent in drones.

"Clear! The computers are shot up but might be recoverable," One of the Salarians reported.

"And the door leading deeper into the city is locked down?" Vasir prompted.

"We'll begin cutting through it immediately. Get the computer specialists in here to assess the damage. If we're lucky, only the user interface is destroyed," The Salarian ordered and nimbly went through the still-glowing hole.

"Unless the recon drones and flight find us a better insertion point, we'll be stuck here for some time," Shepard concluded. There was the standard hurry-up-and-wait inherent to most military operations, but this was ridiculous!

"Commander, we finally got drones close to the thermal signature outside! You need to see this! I'm sending you a live feed!" Taylor's voice interrupted Shepard's mussing.

"Finally, something interesting…" Vasir trailed off as she stared at her omni-tool.

"That's a mech production line operated by the Geth…" At least they weren't building more Geth as reinforcement besides the Arcology, but this was bad enough. Apparently, it took a swarm of recon drones to push through enemy counter-measure and defensive emplacements to glimpse what looked like a brand-new production line and other assorted equipment with ExoGeni logos on them.

Before being destroyed, the drones that got farther could record just a few seconds of video and transmit it back, showing what might have been originally a cavernous warehouse before the ExoGeni and the Geth set up shop.

"Those are Lokis, state-of-the-art mechs you can find on the civilian market, complete with a production line. They've been in production for just a few months now and are still considered untested…" one of the drone operators explained what they were looking at. "They aren't very smart; you can consider them turrets on legs. They're supposed to be cheap, easy to produce, and maintain."

"That's one way to counter zombie swarms—unleash those things on them," Vasir hummed as if she were pondering the merits of the idea.
"I don't think we will have the time or resources to purge the software of that production line if we can take it intact…" Shepard thought aloud. "We might have to replace all drives, and even then, nasty surprises might be left in other parts of the hardware with its own controlling software."

"Then we take it out. The last thing we need to worry about is a synthetic army hitting us from behind. At the same time, we're busy with everything else," Vasir decided. "We're redirecting the second wave to neutralize that facility."

Doing so, unfortunately, meant that even if they found another good way into the Arcology, they would have to wait for the shuttles to complete their current flight. It was unfortunate they didn't have time to wait for a proper assault ship or two to join them – those had the landing assets to get their whole ground forces complement in one go. Instead, they went with what was available. They packed their ships with as much additional infantry as they could safely carry. That had apparent drawbacks as far as logistics were concerned….

"Why is it there, anyway?" Shepard asked. "It's not like there's a lack of space in a mostly empty Arcology…"

"The production line?" Vasir inquired. "The Corpos knew about the Creepers for some time."

"They set it up as a contingency or to keep them bottled down. The source of those things can be either below our feet or the nearby buildings with the mech fabricator in them," Shepard theorized. Either way, dealing with that infestation and its source would be a major undertaking, for they simply lacked the numbers. It was a good thing that doing so wasn't the key objective of their mission.

"Who says there's just one source of those Creeper things?" Vasir just had to point out how things can get even worse.


=DC=

Being forced to wait had a few unintended benefits. First, the engineers managed to splice a way into the shot-up computers in the control room, which netted them some valuable information.

"We've got a map of the nearby levels," A Turian combat engineer announced and sent everyone data packages. "The place is built like a fortress," he said with approval ringing in his voice. "Various corridors and junctions have been sealed, or otherwise blocked, with the few remaining paths heavily fortified."

"We'll have to advance down long corridors without any cover. If the walls are anywhere as tough as those doors, making our own entrances won't be viable," Vasir didn't sound happy. That kind of head-on assault was something even the best Asari Commandos avoided like the plague if they had a choice.

"It appears that all elevators have been locked down and the shafts sealed. They apparently have armored shutters at every floor, ensuring that any assault up or down the transit shafts would be a slow and loud process," The Turian continued. "The stairways lack such shutters on regular intervals, though every platform there has been built as a strong point," He pointed at red symbols identical to those present at various junctions along the available transit corridors.

"Unless all colonists and ExoGeni personnel have been compromised, I don't see how they could man all those locations even if using a lot of mechs. There are a couple hundred positions on these plans in our immediate vicinity alone…" Shepard grimaced. "We might have to re-evaluate everything we thought we knew about ExoGeni's operation here."

"We should be able to speak with a few of the prisoners soon," Vasir noted, clearly unhappy. "As things stand, going in blind might be an exercise in futility."

Shepard pointed out, "They're unlikely to talk," He said, " even if they want to."

"If it comes down to it, I will do my best to tear the knowledge from their minds," Vasir promised darkly.

"Forced mind-meld?" Shepard asked warily. "Isn't that ineffective unless the partner is willing?"

"It is extremely tiring under the best circumstances, not to mention a taboo. In combination with the right sedatives, it is possible to glimpse bits and pieces. It is not an effective interrogation tool," her frustration was evident in Vasir's voice. "However, it is not like we have many good options right now."