Inside the small tank, it was apparent why they said this was only sure fire way to push through the blizzard. My eyes glanced out the window, eyes locking on the blinding snow. Xawin was not dissimilar to this, the whiteout thick as the snow rained down, on top of us. Mat'al sat in the cockpit, navigating as an employee of this research company we partnered with drove this prototype tank through the snow. Soon, we would be neck deep in geth, most likely within the next 10 minutes. The omni-tool highlighted the mission briefing.
A commander of Saren's, an asari named Matriarch Benezia, had come here to check the assets that Saren had here. Whatever those assets were. Our job was to find the geth we knew she had smuggled in and gather their cores for analysis. Sounded simple on paper, but the whole plan hinged on a knife edge. It was all fine and dandy to say the geth would be around, but how many? What kinds? Were Primes here? My moan rumbled in my throat. There was no way to know, Mat'al would be my key to survival here.
Through the haze before me, a shadow loomed from the mountain hollow. An angular shape rose to the sky, like a diamond with a rectangle poking out the top. Red lights poked through the blizzard. Another shape soon formed, a familiar oblong brick. A Mako. Mat'al ignored my constant stares. The tank didn't go to the front door, but rather curled down the valley to reach an escape hatch lower down the mountain. The salarians around me pulled on helmets and unfurled their guns. My onyx helmet yanked on, the Predator pulled from my hip.
"We have a Level 1 Cold Hazard in the area. So we enter the building pronto," Mat'al called. My body quivered as the tank came to a halt. The door opened. We dropped to the snow.
The snow sank me to my knees, legs stinging from the chill, despite the armour. The small door before us was our sanctuary from the cold. A numbness in my feet provided the encouragement to push through, catching up to the salarians who hacked the door open. We piled inside, finding ourselves in a narrow stairwell. The temperature was not much of an improvement, but the warning lights on my suit faded. We pulled our helmets off, folding them until they were the size of a CD case. We slipped them into our belts.
A team progressed up the stairs, Mat'al and I in the middle, guns armed in hands. My ears drummed with the sound of half a dozen feet on metal stairs, echoing off the narrow tube. My breath erupted in white billows of air. The salarians tested every door they approached, but a lack of power disabled many of them. We found one door frozen solid, but ajar. The salarians squeezed in, as a less lithe human, my attempt was more difficult, but nothing some yanking didn't solve. I landed on the cold metal floor, shivering as my legs scrambled to clear the doorway.
We entered a larger room, the silence crawling on the floor as torches were lit, piercing through the shadows. The building had no, or at least little, power, which explained the lack of climate control. The large room exposed the frozen world beyond, although most of the windows were deep in snow. A few tables on end of the room held a few dead computers and little else. Who knew what the room's use was aside from some spare offices or meeting rooms. My head shook hard, kicking my mind into gear and pushing onwards as the salarians started down another narrow hallway.
The first inklings of trouble swept through the team. As we walked down the hall, the vent over our heads rumbled, as if something large had moved through it. My eyes flew to Mat'al. He frowned, scanning the roof. He grabbed the back of my armour, dragging me closer. My eyes popped, throat drying, pressing onwards as the ring of salarians tightened. What the hell could make even Mat'al worry? My eyes glanced over my shoulder. The floor rattled as something scurried past. The guns clicked and pointed down. A tremble shook me, whimpering. Was this a place in Alien? A screech filled the air.
The vents above us exploded, a large insect like creature with long tentacles that opened like flowers on the end. It screamed, a brilliant blue mouth flashing before me. Fear froze me, pinned to the floor. The salarians raised their weapons, bullets flying. The creature charged, grabbing one of the salarians. His omni-tool lit up, a blade forming as he jammed it into its head. Mat'al jammed the butt of his gun into my side, jerking me awake. The Locust raised and fired a full clip into another beast pouncing behind us. A shotgun blast the head put it down.
We stood in silence, guns aimed in all directions as we waited for more creatures to crawl up from the depths of the building. The air was silent, no more vibrations shook below my feet. My lungs dragged air in, metal and damp overcoming my senses. Mat'al as he lowered the shotgun. He nodded his head, two salarians scurrying off to investigate the corpses. My tense muscles shook the air that rattled in to my lungs. Mat'al pinned me with a stare, but it refused to calm the muscles. The salarians straightened, frowning.
"They… they look like rachni," one said. Mat'al frowned.
"That isn't possible," he marched over, kneeling down before the corpse. He turned it over, poked and prodded it. He clucked his tongue. "Looks like rachni… well, this is something we must investigate why rachni slipped the net," he straightened, a frown on his face. "The mission has not changed, but we're taking one of these for further investigation,"
"Yes sir," the salarians responded. Mat'al returned to my side. He clicked the shotgun.
"What… are rachni?" I asked.
"What do they teach humans in school these days," Mat'al tutted. A blush burned my cheeks "The rachni are intelligent and aggressive insect-based aliens we wiped out two thousand years ago during the Rachni wars. The whole reason we uplifted the krogan was to kill these things," Mat'al regarded a corpse with cold eyes. "Wheel weave, this is just a one off," he turned to the salarians and me. "Let's move, we still need to locate geth,"
We pressed on, every sense keen to the sound of rattling ventilation shafts. My feet clipped a step behind Mat'al at all times, listening to the metal echo and creak with the crush of the mountain around it. We then entered a new room from a walkway above the main room. It was a cafeteria filled with abandoned tables and chairs. Where were the staff of this place? There would be someone or had the geth herded them somewhere? Or was it the rachni… fuck it, too many possibilities.
The walkway creaked. Every hair stood on end. The floor panel a pale yellow salarian and I stood on collapsed, plunging us into the floor below. My jaw clamped down on the scream, landing hard on my back. The salarian wasn't much better. We rolled onto our knees, my muscles wincing as every movement burned down my back. We shared a look. The vent behind him exploded. My cries drowned me, hands reaching for him as tentacles ensnared him, dragging him into the vent. My hands found air. They grabbed a gun, fumbling with it, but he vanished by the time it lined up. The screams from the vent held me frozen, muscles refusing to function.
"Move it, Shaik!" Mat'al snapped. My muscles jolted, scrambling to my feet. The grappling hook on my gauntlet clicked, aiming to clamp onto a support bar above the walkway. The hook released, sticking fast to the wall. It wheeled me up.
A rachni burst out of the window on the walkway, screeching at Mat'al and the other salarians. A second joined it, spotting me and pounced. My scream pierced the air, the winch cable snapping and slamming us to the ground, rachni clawing at me. Frantic, my fist raised and punched the damn thing until the Predator secured in my other hand. A hail of bullets flew into the head. It screeched, tore the gun from my hand and threw out of reach. With pistol gone and no time, the omni-blade whipped out. It screamed as it sliced through flesh, clambering off me and scurrying into the vents. My knees shook once back on my feet.
What awaited me was a sea of small, green rachni, streaming towards me. My hand grabbed the Locust, but they were everywhere. Mat'al and his team was gone when my eyes raised, retreating further in with the sounds of screeching rachni leaking from the doorway. With little else left, an Incinerate flew from my hand, praying it hit something and ran. Alone, my legs sprinted for nearby door with a green hologram beside it. The door parted, muscles jolting when the little green bugs exploded as they got near.
As I ran, my hand reached for the bag of my back, pulling out the Carnifex. It snapped to my hip. As the bag slipped back over my shoulders, tentacles from ceiling rained down, trying to grab anything. They grabbed my bag. Instinct slammed the top of a heat-sink with the omni-blade as my legs flailed in the air. My arms pulled free from the bag, landing on my stomach. My legs pushed me away from the area as the bag continued up. The heat sink exploded. One trick Mat'al taught me when you need a grenade quick. A blocked door met me as my feet skidded around a corner. My jaw tightened, scuttling echoing down the hall. A vent caught my attention. My foot kicked it open, slipping a torch free from my pocket. It lit up the dark vent, empty. The dark space was small enough to crawl on hands and knees. My limbs pushed me under the door, kicking the vent on the other side. It didn't move.
The cries bounced down the vents. My eyes flew round the vent, finding light leaking from before a little further on. My arms dragged me to it, praying for salvation from this hell. The light was a roof vent for another room. My legs kicked it. It creaked but didn't cave, so they kicked it again. My eyes looked up, torch in mouth as a rachni turned the corner. It screamed as it charged. My leg kicked for all it was worth, pushing the vent free. My seating failed, falling down the hole, falling a story to the floor below. I pulled myself up, already running with torch forgotten. My eye snapped up.
Shepard appeared before me, the man's jaw on the floor as the assault rifle in his hands slackened. Beside him, Wrex and Liara could only gawk. My legs refused to stop. Not him, not him. Anything but him! The rachni were better than him! Speaking of which, the scream behind me reminded. My legs pushed me past the group, jumping up on a knee high support for a curved beam. A tall computer bank loomed before me, leaping the distance to the nearby upper walkway.
"Shaik!" Shepard cried, the rachni charging them as Wrex charged to meet it.
My brain refused to acknowledge him, my legs forcing me through the open door. Back in the narrow corridors, my heart thundered. Rachni poured from the woodwork, every vent was a threat, every doorway a new possible place of confrontation. A rachni took me by surprise and charged from an interconnecting hallway, knocking me to the floor. My legs kicked out, trying to keep the mouth away from my chest. My hands reached for a gun, for anything. The Carnifex popped out. 3 rounds fired into it. The gun kicked back hard, the sound deafened me but the rachni flopped on top of me, dead. My arms pulled me out from under it, gasping for breath as my feet scrambled under me. My ribs ached and each breath only made it worse. Was it broken or just aching? Regardless, staying here was certain death. The Carnifex reloaded, legs hobbling hurrying down another corridor.
Another rachni attacked, screaming as it slammed me into a wall. My scream never escaped, cut off by the pain in my chest. The omni-blade cut me free, lungs dragging air in. The Carnifex pointed to shoot it, but it fled back into the vents. My teeth clenched as my legs now limped down the halls, hoping to find salvation around the corner. I didn't, geth found me instead. A bullet soared overhead, forcing me into cover. The Locust pressed into my hands, poking my head around my cover. There were 2 of them in the room. Both had clocked me and both were approaching. The geth whined as a clip of bullets unleashed on them, but it took another clip to fell it. An overload to one, praying electricity would kill it. It stumbled, but the assault rifle raised a fired. My shields failed and my leg burned from the bullets. Tears tried to smother me, but geth had to be killed or they would kill me. It took another 2 clips of bug bites to kill the geth.
With the geth dead, my mission to collect the geth ores was remembered. Given the circumstances, the mission parameters had changed. Now wasn't the time to worry about it. Survival was more important. Further down the hall, my leg struggling to hold my weight. The ache worsened with each step. I made a promise to never step foot on a frozen world again. Xawin and now Noveria. Every time these frozen bastards screwed with me. Everything was going so wrong! Find Mat'al, my survival depended on finding that damn salarian before the situation got worse.
The corridor ended with a door, opening out into a large room with walkways around the edges. A large tank with a larger rachni dominated the middle of the room, raised up off the ground. My eyes scanned the room, horror dawning on me as the occupants noticed me. The rachni wasn't the problem. It was the multitude of asari, wearing dark armour. All held powerful assault rifles aimed at me. Behind them, by the large rachni, an older asari stood contemplating in her black dress and strange black headdress. And behind them? Geth. And they weren't shooting the asari. That brought me to my conclusion.
Oh fuck...
"And what do we have here?" the asari summoned, This had to be Benezia, who else could it be? My legs froze, locked in the doorway. The asari commandos kept hard eyes on me at all times, the assault rifles clicking as they armed. My hand held my hip, leg raised as a whimper broke free. My eyes skimmed around the room as a shuffled step hobbled back. Benezia strolled towards me, away from the rachni in the tank. "A scientist who strayed too far from their base? Or security scouting for damage?" She paused beside the commandos. "I don't believe you are, human," My voice hitched in my throat.
"You... are one of Commander Shepard's team? Yes, I recall your face upon the Feros reports. Always two steps behind, aren't you?" she smiled, although it held no warmth. Shit... oh shit, how to get out of this? "Shepard must be near," she turned to the geth. "Find him, stall him for as long as you can, kill him if you can," she said. Some of the geth left through a door behind them, a handful remained behind. My foot took another step backwards, but several bullets slammed into my shields an instant later. I wheeled around and hobbled away, seeking safety.
Or, well tried to. Benezia picked me up with a biotic field and hauled my sorry ass inside the room, dragging me closer to her. My teeth clenched together to stop me crying out when she slammed me against a wall, but the tears fell regardless. My elbows collapsed, preventing me from moving my sorry ass. Blood, sweat and tears rolled onto the floor. The matriarch approached me.
"Where is your commander?" she demanded. She lifted me, slamming me against the wall again. A pained wheeze droned. Was she going to torture me? Oh God, was there anything I could do? "Answer the question, girl, if you do not want your corpse to be a warning to him," My terror overcame my will.
"I-I don't k-know, I-I'm not with him anymore!" I squeaked. Great, that was a fantastic start! Her biotics were powerful, crushing me against the wall, my throat tight from her biotic grip. Benezia fell quiet, assessing my worth.
"Then Shepard may not as near as I thought. Perhaps I shall have time to gather the information that Saren could use..." she was going to torture me. Oh God... The asari dragged me to her eye level, her face blank of any emotion. Her hot breath brush my face as she pulled my closer. "Shepard wishes to stop us, what does he know?"
"I-I don't know!" I cried. The asari frowned and my ability to breathe ceased. A high pitched squeak of terror escaped, my body trembling, desperate for oxygen. "I-I swear, I-I do-don't know!" I wheezed. The thought of death passed through my thoughts more than once, my mind shut down. My back tingled, a warm tingle that radiated around my body. Shivers ran across my body.
"If you do not possess the answer then you are no longer use... ful," her face fell, words dying in her throat. Her eyes narrowed, studying my eyes. My eyes widened... "You're..." Something inside me, along my spine, shuddered, sending me twitching like a fit. The asari dropped me, the biotic field abandoning me to the crash landing. My lungs wheezed, sucking in my first proper breath. "You're a Saboteur... why have you not... your Shell must be..."
Saboteur? Shell? What the hell was going on?
My head turned to face her, gawking. She was nonsensical, nothing she said made any sense or triggered anything. What the hell were these terms, at least regarding me! She studied me, the commandos lowering their weapons as the regarded me. Benezia straightened her frame. What was she planning? Actually, that piece of information could stay hidden. My arm twitched, but my strength was gone. I sure as heck wasn't in any physical capable to do anything just now. The old asari turned to the remaining geth.
"Take her to Saren, to Sovereign," she frowned at me, her only expression thus far. "He will know what has happened..." They were... no, no, no, no, no! The geth approached me, my attempts to crawl away failed. My feet struggled to move let alone push. My strength vanished but terror drove me onwards. When a geth grabbed my uninjured arm, my body thrashed
"Let me go!" I yelled, reaching for a gun. The geth clicked, as if confused, turning to Benezia.
"It is the Shell, do what you must, but do not destroy it," she ordered. That was all I heard before a rifle butt to the head ended all conscious thought. It sent me tumbling into darkness with terror clawing at every cavity in my mind and soul.
The Timeline and Galaxy Map have been updated for this chapter. Please see profile for link to Archive.