Hey guy, sorry for the long wait. Hope this Chapter gets rid of some quarantine boredom and enjoy.
With the skybridge cleared, or at the very least the entrance to Zuh's hope, Shepard and her team took stock on the situation. Out manned, and out gunned they still fought despite the odds. At least half of the troopers were demi-humans which helped their defence. Company security were either former military or had basic military training. The former was preferable to the latter, and it showed that the tactics in use were military. That was what saved them, if they tried anything else, they would have likely fallen by now.
As she wondered around, she noticed another taura talking to one of the harpies. She decided to get an idea about the situation. She walked up to her but let her finish talking with the demi-human. As soon as the taura stood Shepard walked up to her.
"Are you the one in charge here?" she asked getting the taura's attention.
As she turned Shepard's eyes widened slightly. She looked almost like her, but there were a few things different about her. For one, she had a softer appearance and her horns were shorter. The two just looked at each other for a few moments before one of them spoke.
"Clan?" Zenna asked.
"Unknown, orphan," she replied. "You?"
"Orphan as well," Shepard confirmed. "Chimera?" the taura nodded in response.
"Strange isn't it?" the taura asked with a slight smile. "We might be sisters,"
"Indeed, but at the moment let's leave that right now. What's the current situation?" she then asked changing the subject as it can wait until later.
"Bad," the taura muttered. "The geth come in waves, every time they try to penetrate our defences. While we've managed to hold them off, each time we lose someone and part of the barricades go down. We cannot hold on for much longer,"
Shepard just nodded at that. Normally there would be supply runs and rotating resources in order to keep the gate open, but in this case, they were running out of supplies and people. Even with the mind of both an engineer and soldier, it was pretty clear that they could only hold out for a few more days.
"Where do the geth come from?" Zenna then asked.
The taura lead Shepard to the gate entrance and pointed at the far tower. "That is where they have their base set up, but they do have a lookout post at the centre tower. Take that out, and we can breathe easier,"
"Any idea what they are here for?"
The taura shrugged. "I have an idea, but I'm not sure. Scuttlebutt and all that, but what I have heard is that they are after some kind of experiment under Zhu's hope. But like I said, scuttlebutt. I have no idea if it's true,"
"Thanks anyway," Zenna said as she walked over to her team who ere setting up a mako tank. "All good?" she asked.
"Yes, but I refuse to get in if you are driving," Ashley said staring at the minotaur who looked back at the huhoud with slightly wide eyes.
"Why?" she asked.
"You are a very, very bad driver," Garrus added. "If you owed a car, I swear you'd lose your licence in a heartbeat,"
"So, you two would rather be left here, with the duty of triple latrine duty rather than join me on my mission?" Zenna asked with and evil smile and her brow raised. "Or do you want me to make the punishment worse?"
That shut the two up quickly knowing that with the commander, any threat you got from her she meant it and just climbed into the Mako. The commander soon followed and made the team regret not taking the punishment.
OOOOO
The drive was terrible what was only made worse by the combat on the bridges. Thankfully they did have a break at the middle tower talking to a group of survivors who managed to hide from the geth. One of them, Juliana, was worried about her daughter and asked the team to take a look out. But if she lasted this long, then she was either a soldier or a very good person who can hide.
After clearing the area around the final tower and they exited. Still alert they looked around and kept their eyes open for any more geth staying in cover. As they moved in Ashley kicked one of the geth bodies.
"The geth don't need much of an invitation, do they?" she asked.
"No, they don't, let's evict them," Garrus said with a smile.
With the area clear, the team moved up a ramp and spotted a force field around a door to their left. Zenna approached it and hit it with her fist. Pulling back, she shook her hand while the other two walked up to her.
"Not getting though this with our equipment," she muttered before looking around.
Her eyes then fell on a gap in the middle of the room. Walking over to it she looked down with the others following. There was a bit of a drop, but if that force field was any indication there is another way back up.
"One way drop commander," Ashley said.
"Let's go then," Zenna said and dropped down followed by the other two.
The small drop leads out into an open area that looked to be some form of converted hanger. Rubble at both ends indicated that this place had seen better days. As they walked in Ashley noticed a dead verren and walked up to it.
"Dead," she muttered as Zenna and Garrus followed.
Just then a round whizzed past then followed by a 'damn it'.
"I'm so sorry," the shooter said coming out of cover.
She was a human with the uniform of one of the science teams. But her uniform was a little worse for wear. Dirt, muck and tears covered the suit, she had been here a while. She approached lowing her weapon.
"I'm so sorry," she said. "I thought you were one of those geth, or verren," she defended making Ash scowl a bit.
"It's ok, your safe now," Zenna said. "But why are you here in the first place?"
"It's my own fault," the scientist admitted. "I stayed behind to back up data while everyone else was running. Next thing I knew a geth ship latched on and the power went out,"
"Don't worry, well get you out but first we need to know what the geth are after," Garrus said.
"It's not the geth, it's the energy field they put up," the woman explained. "They don't want anyone…." she began to trail off stopping herself before she said anything wrong.
"Look, I'm here for the geth. If there's anything you need to say it even if it's classified. I cannot do my job and help if you hold anything back," Shepard with a clam tone which had an underline threat.
It got to the woman who nodded in response. "I don't know for certain, but I think that they are here for the Thorian,"
"What's a Thorian?" Ashley asked not liking the sound of this.
"It's an indigenous life form, Exo-geni was studying it," she said with a fearful tone in her voice.
"What are the details?" Zenna asked interested in where this would lead.
However, she just shook her head. "I may not be able to with all the geth," she said calmly but something in her voice told the three she was worried about something. "Look we need to get out of here past the field,"
"Is that geth ship still latched on?" the commander asked as her mind began to formulate a plan.
"Yes, it's been here since the first attack," the woman confirmed.
"The it's likely that it's powering the field, we take that out we take out the filed," the minotaur said as her engineer mind began to buzz.
"I've noticed the geth placing power lines everywhere," the woman added. "You could follow them to the ship,"
"Will do," Zenna said but before they moved, she then noticed the small coming from the woman. "What's your name?"
"Lizabeth Baynham," she said before her eyes widened. "Did my mother ask you to find me?"
"She did," Ashley added. "She wanted us to make sure you are safe. She's still alive with a group of survivors,"
"Thank god," Lizabeth muttered.
"We'll clear the area then head back," Zenna added. "Stay here until we give you a call,"
"Oh wait," she said before the three took off.
Liz pulled out her ID tag that was strapped to her belt and handed it to Shepard. "Here take my ID, it will get you past most of the doors,"
"Thanks, it will speed this mission up," Zenna smiled taking the ID and moved off. "Get back into your hiding spot and wait for us to call you,"
Liz nodded and got back into her hiding spot while Shepard opened up her omni-tool and map. She then pointed to a door at the opposite far end of the room. Leading the way, the team went through the door only to be met with the sounds of an argument.
"Damn machine, access encrypted files," the unmistakeable sounds of a korgan yelled.
"Sounds like someone's having trouble," Garrus smiled as they team moved up fight of stairs.
As expected from the sounds they spotted a krogan arguing with a VI and was getting very, very annoyed. The team just smiled at this as the hulking mass of muscle didn't even notice them.
"Ashley, if you'd do the honours," Zenna offered.
"With pleasure," the hu-hound said as she readied herself for an attack.
She then moved like lightning and pounced on the krogan who was too busy to notice. While Ashley lacked the claws of the nekomata she had the jaws to compensate. She growled and used her teeth to rip one of his eyes out. He yelled out on pain before she jumped off allowing him to thrash about a bit more before jumping with knife in hand and drove it into his other eye blinding him. But she managed to drive it in deep enough to reach the brain and killed him. He fell down dead as Ash got off and unloaded a few rounds into him making sure he was dead.
The other two soon joined her as she wiped her mouth and spitting out krogan blood. "Good work," Zenna said.
"Every time I see demi-humans in action, the more I become more convinced that we would have lost the war," Garrus said as he looked at the krogan. "You are just so unreal that even if we could counter you, it wouldn't last long,"
"Welcome back, Research assistant Elisabeth Baynham. What can I do for you?" the VI then asked.
'It must be due to the ID tag,' Zenna thought as she walked up next to the VI. "What information was the former user trying to access?" she asked seeing this as the best time to get some answers.
"The pervious user was attempting to access details on the study of subject species 37, the Throrian," it said making the other straighten up.
"Tell me everything you told the previous user," Zenna then demanded.
"I was unable to provide the previous user with any relevant data. Aside from lacking the necessary clearance, there has been no new available data on species 37," that was a little concerning to Zenna and her team as she looked at the others. "All sensors monitoring the observation post at Zhu's hope have been inactive for several cycles,"
"What?" Ashley said with alarm.
"It's under Zhu's hope," Zenna muttered. "That's why the geth are attacking. They want the Thorian. Tell me everything you know," she then demanded.
"The Thorian is a simple plant life-form that exhibits sentient behaviour with other flora. Through dispersion and eventual inhalation of spores, it can infect and control other species, including humans," the three looked at each other with a combination of surprise and fear. "However, the spores cannot control the minotaur demi-humans," Zenna looked at the VI.
"Why?" she asked slowly.
Demi-humans are humans, but they did have major differences between them. Fundamentally they are human, but each one shared both genetic and physical traits that made them different. Things like disease, environment and some foods negatively effects one group on a grander, more major scale but not others. If something wasn't going to affect her, Zenna needed to know why.
"Chemical imbalance, due to the minotaur demi-human size and muscular mass there is a chemical imbalance that causes the spores to degrade and die," he VI said. "Left over growth hormones stay within the minotaur's body even after death, these hormones are needed to maintain a balance between the size and mass of the minotaur. However, this creates a hormone imbalance that the spores cannot deal with. This is based off the Zhu's hope control group with has yielded some interesting results. Before sensors went offline almost 85% of test subjects of all tests were infected,"
"Exo-Geni knew it's employees were getting infected?" Garrus asked with a mixture of shock and anger.
"It was deemed necessary by Exo-geni to assess the true potential of species 37," the VI clarified.
"That explains why they were a little trigger happy," Ashley said.
"Better call Joker," Zenna said as she it her comm. "Joker do you read?"
But all she got was static.