Chapter 11: First Contact
ExoGeni Building, Feros
It was quick getting back to the place where Lizbeth was hiding. Not that she was really hiding anymore, as she stood in front of the door that had been blocked by the prothean security system. Standing next to her, Kaidan explained, was the security guard Robertson.
"Thank god, you made it," Lizbeth said as they began to make their way back to the Makos. "You even managed to find the new guy, too."
Nate, along with several others, looked over at Robertson. "I've only been planetside for about a week," he explained. "Can't say that I was expecting this."
"Well," Garrus remarked as they arrived at the idling vehicles, "you managed to take down a krogan all by yourself. Tall order for just security."
"Don't I know it," Robertson replied wearily.
The squad once again split up, Robertson electing to go with Kaidan and the human contingent while Lizbeth climbed into Nate's Mako. Then, once again, they were off.
"Did you find info on the Thorian?" Lizbeth asked as she peeked over Wrex's bulk.
"Yes," Nate said, a slight grimace on his face. "We need to find a way into the chamber with the Thorian. We didn't see an obvious one inside the colony."
"It's under the central structure of the colony," Lizbeth replied. "The colonists covered the entrance with it using a crane that was still up last our sensors saw."
"How many people know about this creature?" Liara asked.
"Chief Researcher Jeong, and about half a dozen other people close to him," Lizbeth said. "Including me."
"You were close to that weirdo?" Daniel said somewhat incredulously.
"I think he had a thing for me," Lizbeth replied, the distaste in her voice now completely evident. "He kept my mother in the dark about that and the Thorian. Had her researching plant samples under another labeling."
Before she could continue, the long-range comms came to life. "This is a general distress call to any friendly ships listening. My name is Doctor Juliana Baynham. We were… damn it, Ethan!"
"Get away from that transmitter!" they heard Jeong shout.
"What the hell?" Lizbeth said as she heard it. "Jeong's alive?"
"Ethan, we need…" Juliana began, likely not meaning to transmit the words she spoke before pausing for a moment.
"What the fuck?" she nearly shouted. "Ethan, put the gun down! We can talk about this!"
"Shut that damn thing off!" Ethan shouted, his voice almost shrill.
It clicked off just as they came to the entrance of the scientists' little hideaway, the Makos screeching to a halt.
Nate was out the door in seconds after Wrex extracted himself, waiting only a few moments for the others to exit before readying his rifle.
He was quick, but unencumbered by armor, Lizbeth was quicker, sprinting past the startled guards toward the tense scene. Nate analyzed the field quickly, training and instinct giving him all the info that he needed. Juliana was being held at gunpoint by Ethan, the scene around them clear save for a few security guards that stood behind Ethan somewhat hesitantly.
One threat. Easy. He could try and talk him down from something stupid. An entire squad would have been a much harder task.
Ethan looked over at Lizbeth, somewhat startled as she joined her mother's side, then looked over at Nate, and the near dozen people that were behind him.
"Damn it!" Ethan said. "I guess it was too much to hope that the great Commander Shepard would have been killed by the geth. I did some reading once communications came back online. This is a company affair. We don't need any of your brand of heroics here."
"A company affair?" Lizbeth asked incredulously. "This stopped being a 'company affair' when we started playing with people's free will."
Ethan glanced back at Lizbeth. "That's enough," he said through gritted teeth, pointing the gun at her. "I won't let you risk company secrets, even with-"
"I'm the only reason that there's anyone here looking for us!" Lizbeth said forcefully. "I won't let the Thorian control Zhu's Hope any longer."
Ethan's face went slack, and Juliana's expression became confused. "The what?"
"Species 0037," Nate said. "It's a massive, intelligent plant that's controlling the colony."
"Those plant samples you were working on…" Lizbeth said. "They fed into the main team's research. I'm sorry. I should have told you sooner."
"It doesn't matter," Ethan said, sweeping the pistol across the gathered group. "It doesn't fucking matter anymore!"
"Mr. Jeong," Nate said, slightly lowering his rifle, "calm down. No one needs to get hurt here."
"Get hurt." Ethan laughed softly, a sound that teetered on the edge of maniacal. "The board's liquidating this whole place, and no one's going to 'get hurt'."
"What?" Juliana said incredulously, her voice joined by the shock of the other workers. "There are innocent people here!"
"What's here is a net loss!" Ethan shouted. "The board needs to sweep this place under the rug, or the investors start pulling out! You wouldn't understand!"
Nate considered the situation for a moment. "Robertson," he said calmly, "go ahead and disarm him. We'll figure this out once the colonists are safe."
"Robertson?" Ethan said as Robertson approached, Ethan pointing his gun at the armored man. "There was someone else left alive in there?"
Robertson nodded, and Ethan's omni-tool flashed on. It gave a harsh tri-tone. "That explains it," he whispered as he stepped away. "Who the hell do you work for?"
"What?" Robertson asked.
"You aren't in any of our records!" Ethan shouted. "You work for some other company out to sabotage us! It's the only way you could have gotten in without noticing! You have classified, confidential data, you son of a bitch!"
The last word was punctuated by a gunshot, one that pinged uselessly off of Robertson's armor. That didn't stop him from raising his rifle and pulling the trigger, a stream of gunfire lashing through the unarmored, unshielded man.
Ethan Jeong's corpse fell to the ground, the impact sending up a plume of dust as everyone backed away from the exchange of fire, if it could even be called that. It was silent for a moment as Nate's jaw clenched. "What the hell was that?" he asked incredulously as he approached Robertson. "There was no reason to kill him! He may have been an asshole, but-"
Robertson turned to face him… and leveled his gun at Nate's neck.
Immediately, two powerful shots cracked through the man's shields, another cluster of shots going into the rifle and rendering it useless, and Nate responded by channeling biotic power into his arm, stepping forward and delivering a biotic-powered left hook across the man's face.
The impact site bloomed with a biotic explosion that was joined by fragments of the helmet's faceplate, sending the man's head flying to the side with such force that the crack of his spine was audible as he dropped like a sack of potatoes.
"What the hell is going on?" Juliana said incredulously as more than a few weapons remained pointed at the man's corpse.
"I don't know," Nate admitted. "There was no reason…"
He trailed off as, of all people, Daniel made his way over to the corpse, kneeling over it as his omni-tool activated.
"He's dead," Wrex said as everyone fully lowered their weapons. "You can't come back from that."
"I didn't survive Torfan by leaving it at that," Daniel replied as he scanned the ExoGeni security armor. "You ever hear about ghoul armatures?"
"Ghoul armatures?" Liara said incredulosuly.
"Some of the mercenaries dressed their dead in special powered armor that had a VI controlling the armor's joints, then left them in patrol routes," Daniel explained. "When a patrol passed by, the suits would coordinate to pick a target and activate. What were cold, harmless rifles would suddenly aim and gun down an unlucky bastard. They aren't overly common, but I'd rather be sure."
The words sent a shudder through the collected people as Daniel finished his scan. "But, this guy, unsurprisingly, doesn't have one," he said with a nod as he began to take the corpse's helmet off. "No explosives, either, so no need to dump him over the side."
The rather mangled helmet, white and pale green paint giving way to a crater of wires and unpainted metal, took a second to become unstuck, hissing softly as the surprisingly undamaged seal was broken. Then, it was off, revealing a rather pulpy face, pale skin under the blooming red patches framed by a head of brown hair. Daniel wasted no time reaching for just below the back of his neck, feeling down under the collar of the armor for where the most prominent — and easy-to-reach — biotic implant would be.
"No biotics, either," he said somewhat absentmindedly as he extracted his hand and studied the face for a moment. "Look's like this guy was just… wait a minute… what the hell?"
Nate walked over to Daniel's side, looking down at the corpse as Daniel opened the right eye. It was impressively bloodshot, but the now crimson color surrounding the irises couldn't hide their all-too-unique nature. Gray, with streaks of blue, green, and gold.
"Shit," Nate said. "Another one of these?"
"Another?" Nate said incredulously. "Where did you see him before?"
"Technically," Garrus interjected, "it wasn't a 'him'. The last one of these posed as a human female nurse at Huerta. She tried to kill Nihlus. I'm wondering if Shepard was one of her targets too."
Daniel was silent for a moment. Much longer than Nate would have expected. "We'll worry about that after the colonists," he finally said. "We'll probably need a way to give the colonists back their independence."
"I think there is something we can give you," Lizbeth said as she looked around, her gaze landing on several pallets of canisters. She walked over to them as her mother looked on with no small amount of confusion.
"So is this… Thorian thing why Jeong had us dragging out canisters of tetrotriclodizone gas?" Juliana asked as Lizbeth, with the help of one of the security personnel, hefted it over to them, along with a breather mask and hose.
"Yes," Lizbeth replied as she and the guard set the canister down. "This gas agent can neutralize the spores found in the colonist's bodies. It apparently is close enough to the pheromone signal that the Thorian would use to make the spores self-destruct. I'm guessing that Jeong wanted these as an insurance policy, just in case."
"We'll take a tank of the stuff," Nate replied, watching as Wrex looked down at the canister and picked it up under his arm. "Anything else we need to know?"
"Not really," Juliana said. "We'll get things sorted out here. Please… keep the colonists safe."
"I'll do my best, ma'am," Nate replied, looking over at Kaidan as he walked back from Hossle. "Alright, let's move!"
With that, the group made their way swiftly back to the Makos, Wrex stowing the gas canister in the back of Kaidan's transport. They found themselves swiftly underway once again, blazing toward Zhu's Hope.
"Congratulations, Commander," Kaidan's voice picked up over the comm system, only slightly sarcastic in its tone, "we've all got Hossle's discount code at several dozen different kinds of vendors."
"Useful if the need arises," Nate replied. "But only if we can get off this planet to spend anything. Get ready."
The ride back was largely uneventful. It didn't keep the gunners from making sweeps of the terrain with the guns or watching the sensors for any sign of geth. The storm that they had seen as they were coming in had seemed to turn towards them, the inside of it lit up with lightning like a runaway generator, rain falling from it in sheets like the hair of avenging angels let down as it threatened to sweep over the colony.
Finally, the gate of the colony came into sight, the Makos slowing as they kept a greater vigil than before. Nate glanced over at Daniel as he peered into the gunner's sights. "Wait a minute… that wasn't there before."
Nate looked at what Daniel was focused on. It was… a growth of thick vines. Not unlike many of the other ones that they'd paid little heed to on the way to ExoGeni's headquarters. "Doesn't look like a great change to me," Nate said.
"Still," Wrex said pointedly, "we're dealing with a massive plant monster that controls minds. Doesn't hurt to be sure."
"Fair point," Nate replied, the Mako stopping, Kaidan's Mako stopping in turn.
"Something up, sir?" Kaidan asked.
"There might be," Nate replied as he set the Mako to idle, his eyes narrowed as he studied the strange patterns in the vines. "Send out a few soldiers. I want to investigate this plant growth."
"Yes, sir," Kaidan replied as Nate opened a driver-side hatch to get out. As he climbed down from the Mako, three of the soldiers, Ikari, Langley, and Kirishima, emerged from Kaidan's Mako, walking over to him rather leisurely.
"So," Langley said, "what's the deal with these plants? They don't look that weird to me."
"The fact that they seemed to appear out of nowhere," Nate said. "Check your filters, make sure they're working properly. The last thing I need is for scientists to be wrong right now."
The soldiers nodded, their rifles not leveled but still ready as they slowly approached.
As they slowly walked towards the vines, there was little movement. Then, there was a crackle as something… extracted itself from the tangle.
Dropping to the ground, it looked humanoid. That was about it, though, the being before them seemingly entirely composed of knotted and muscle-like vines, the space where any other humanoid's head might have been a mass of snake-like, writhing tendrils.
The mass split apart up the length of the 'face', a mass of thorns gaping like a toothy maw as it staggered with its arms out towards them, others beginning to pull themselves from the wall and joining their compatriot.
"Holy shit…" Nate said incredulously. "Open fire!"
With that, the squad let loose, bullets, biotic powers, and tech weapons slamming into the approaching creatures, shredding them and sending water and amber-colored ichor splashing to the pavement.
As the vines on the wall continued to peel off of the wall, two vehicle-mounted coaxial machine guns buzzed to life, the wall under the vine-people… things beginning to disintegrate as they fell from the crumbling concrete.
The squad began to move forward, Mana looking to their right and leveling her SMG at yet more plant creatures that began to crawl up over the side of the skyway. "They're under the skyway!" she shouted.
One of the machine guns pivoted smoothly, spraying down the clambering plant monsters that threatened to flank them. The bullets scythed through the approaching creatures, sending more than a few of them over the side and tumbling to the ground far below.
After long moments, the tide of green slackened, then stopped. Nate wasted no time stepping over the bodies at a sprint. "Come on! We need to link up with the others!"
He didn't bother getting back into the Mako, charging towards the garage with the others who had dismounted behind him, the path to the colony becoming increasingly choked with plant life.
The gathered squad streamed into the colony proper, guns at the ready and armor glowing with tech and biotics. The sight that they found waiting for them was something of a relief. Ashley, Korrapati, and another member of their newest squad, Wolf Sqauad if Nate recalled correctly, approached.
"Commander," Ashley began, "we've got the colonists gathered in the administration building waiting for you. Whatever solution you've got, you should probably do it quickly. They're almost feral at this point, and I'm not sure how long Chakwas will be safe here."
Nate nodded, looking at the rest of the squad. "Kaidan, Liara, Wrex, with me. The rest of you, get this central structure lifted off the entrance for when we're done."
Nate made his way to the administrative building with the others as the wind continued to pick up, thunder rumbling and crashing as the storm loomed over them. They entered the now packed building single-file past two of the other, Doctor Chakwas the only unarmed person in the building who wasn't restrained and sat down somewhere.
"Commander," Chakwas began, "I must admit, I'm at something of a loss. All of my medical scans, those that come through clearly at least, indicate that there's something neurological going on that I'm unable to pinpoint. If there's some sort of mental change being broadcast by this being, I can't find it."
"Tune your scans for fungal life," Nate replied as Wrex set down the rather hefty canister. "The Thorian is a massive plant."
Chakwas' eyes went wide as she tuned her omni-tool. "My god…"
She looked over to one of the colonists, a woman who was trying to break free with all her might, growling and shouting like an animal. "Someone hold her head still for me please."
Nate obliged her with a flare of biotic power, a plane of blue, purple, and green wrapping itself around the base of her skull and her neck and bracing it firmly in place as Chakwas conducted her scan.
It was over in a few moments, Nate releasing the biotic brace as Chakwas stood back and showed her screen to the others. "It's as remarkable as it is deeply disturbing," she said, showing an x-ray scan of the woman's brain, colored in a pale red, as ivory white lattice-works traced their way around the brain. "There's an entire mycelial network growing inside her cranium, working in harmony with her biology. Here, near her brain stem, there's a node of plant matter that might be acting as a transmitter/receiver."
Chakwas sighed. "Unless you have some solution that I'm thus far unaware of, I'm not sure what can be done. I don't even know if there's any chance these people can survive anything we might attempt."
"That's what we've got," Wrex said as he put a hand on the tank. "Special knockout gas."
Chakwas' confusion was apparent as Nate spoke. "Apparently, according to the ExoGeni researchers, tetrotriclodizone gas is similar enough to the Thorian's shutdown pheromones that it'll free the colonists from its control. Get on that quickly. I don't know how well they'll react to what we're going to do next."
"What you're going to do next?" Chakwas said incredulously.
Nate nodded. "The Throian, or at least a major part of it, is underneath this colony. We're going to go and at least try to negotiate with it."
Chakwas stared at Nate in open shock before nodding slightly. "Well… I suppose I should get started. Cheng, Hoffman, come help me with this gas tank."
As Nate began to turn away, Chakwas put a hand on his shoulder. "Is there any recommended dosage that you might be able to give me?"
Nate kicked himself silently for not getting what was honestly vital info. "Contact Doctor Juliana Baynham. Her daughter should be able to help you with that."
"Very well," Chakwas said as her omni-tool flashed to what was likely its communicator. "Good luck, Commander."
"Sounds like we might need it," Nate said, not really appreciating the rumble of thunder that punctuated his sentence.
"It sounds like that storm is almost on top of us," Liara said as they exited, the pattering of stray raindrops helping drive her point home. "We'll need to watch our step under the colony. Even with how resilient Prothean structures are, there are bound to be weak spots after all this time.
"Duly noted, Liara," Nate said as they approached the rest of the squad.
As they came to a stop in front of the controls for the crane, Kaidan nodded over at Nate. "Sounds like it might be tight quarters and shaky ground down there, sir. Who goes and who stays?"
Nate grimaced as he considered his options. "I'll take Liara, Alenko, Garrus, and Theisman. That should allow us to keep anyone from falling through any surprise renovations and have a sufficient knowledge base for any Prothean tech we might come across. Everyone else guards the colonists in case something happens and those plant creatures try something. Williams, you're in charge of the defense here. Watch our backs until we get back to you."
Ashley nodded before saluting sharply. "Yes, sir."
"Alright," Nate said, "let's open the door and let ourselves in."
Kaidan turned back to the crane controls as the rain picked up from a drizzle to a shower, the hiss of falling rain accompanying the buzz and hum of the crane moving and picking up the prefab building, slowly lifting it off the ground to reveal an inset stairway leading further down into the building. Garrus took one of the Bardiche launchers from Kirishima as they waited for the slow process to finish. "Figure we could use a little heavy firepower down there," he said. "I'll try not to break it too much."
"Well," Kirishima replied, "you break it, you've probably bought it anyway."
As Garrus shrugged, Nate looked down at the stairway, a flashing flicker of lightning followed by loud, grinding thunder several seconds later. "Let's see if we can talk to this thing first," he said as he slowly stepped towards the descent. "If not… well, we can put up a fight, at least."