18 – Back In Action

"Arcelia?" Gorman spoke into the orange display on his forearm.

"We're on our own again, captain," Saal'Inor sighed.

The situation would have been ten times more frustrating if this hadn't been foreseen before they had gotten on the elevator. One of the main reasons why the geth were still a priority problem was their jamming technology in place on these upper levels. Despite some reservations from the Commander, Arcelia seemed confident that splitting up was a good idea in the face of 'radios, cameras and radars' going offline. She had at least agreed to hook up her omni-tool to Gorman's own before her team swept and cleared the level underneath them – and now there was nothing but static coming through.

Illuminated by cracks in the wall, the floor the Commander's crew stood on looked to be a maze of concrete walls and burned out electrics. Some holes to the outside told them just how far the elevator had climbed, with strong winds pushing Gorman's sunglasses to his face and flapping the quarian's cowl.

Rifle in hand, eyes darting all around, Gorman led them into what appeared to be an office space. An orange logo and the word 'ExoGeni' could be barely made out on the sparking terminals, not to mention the desks and chairs. Gorman gave one chair a little push, rolling it on its wheels into a wall. Not nailed down, as it turned out. Then there was a noise. It cut through the wind and sparks, and it was unlike anything they'd yet heard on this planet. Gorman's heart stopped. It sounded like a rotor quickly spinning up.

The three of them swerved around, weapons in hand, scanning their surroundings. Dust, broken electronic devices, more dust…

Then the Commander glanced down, saw a faint shadow that wasn't there before, and turned just in time to see a red light peering down at him from the high ceiling. An area around it was straining his eyes, it seemed…rippled somehow. In the same time it took him to flick the M16's safety off, the light and distortion whizzed away.

"Did you see that?" he whispered.

"See what?" Zaz whispered back.

The room fell silent, save for the whistling wind and dying breaths of the ExoGeni terminals.

Gorman looked at his team. Zaz was peeking over the office's inner walls gun-barrel-first, while Saal'Inor was checking her own omni-tool every couple seconds.

"Jamming's getting stronger," the quarian warbled, "Remind me to do a full suit diagnostic once I'm back in safety again."

"Noted," Gorman noted.

The Commander beckoned the crew to follow him past the office and to a rundown corridor. At his request the three of them stacked up at a doorway. Trying to keep the slimmest profile possible, he leaned across. Unlike the office, there was a severe lack of furniture in the rest of the tower's floor beyond. The ceiling rose higher, allowing a decent gap between it and the walls of the complex. Breaking off from a central hall divided by lower, chest-high walls were empty rooms and rusty open doors. They looked like holding cells if anything – natural light still only coming from cracks in the tower's shell. Something caught Gorman's eye in one such room. He held his vision…and when a ripple in the light flickered by, he quickly held his breath and withdrew back into cover.

"On me," he ordered, drawing his rifle forward and swerving around the doorway into the hall. To their great surprise, inside the cell opposite were two metallic, human-sized figures facing each other. All three dove behind the middle wall, making far too much noise. Three sets of eyes cautiously rose over it. To their greater surprise, the geth hadn't moved.

"They're just…standing there!" Zaz exclaimed as quietly as she could.

"Sally, analysis!" Gorman attempted to direct.

"Keelah, I've never seen one up close…" the quarian instead confided.

The Commander had only seen them far enough away, and always through the sight of whatever gun he was holding. Now mere meters away, he might have been tempted to reply to Saal'Inor 'Just look in the mirror'. The resemblances between a geth and its creator were creepily visible. Same height, same bend of the legs, even the 'head', a curved pipe with an armored layer and round flashlight for a face, reminded him of the quarian's hood and breather. There was no denying that they were robots – there would be no mistaken identity nor friendly-fire today – as evidenced by the intermesh of lilac plate armor and steel skin. Long, sleek weapons were in their hands. Gorman took another deep breath and hoisted his own rifle up, resting it on the top of the wall and dialing it in on one of the geth. A Lancer rifle and an Alliance standard handgun joined it shortly. Saal'Inor's grip was especially shaky.

"On my mark, we'll take 'em out," Gorman tried to come up with a some sort of plan. "Zaz, you take the one on the right, Sally, the one on the left. I'll go for both."

"As crazy as it sounds…isn't that just what they want us to do?" immediately Zaz wasn't convinced by the plan. "Why don't I lift you over that gap to the ceiling?" she snarked, showing off her free hand and a subtle blue glow. "They definitely won't expect that."

"I'd rather keep my head intact," was the Commander's reply. Coming within spitting distance of a metal monster had a way of making him feel rather squishy.

"I'm shooting the…one on the left, right? …Left?" the quarian's nerves were getting to her.

Suddenly the sound of gunshots filled the air.

Any methodical ambush was instantly ditched in favor of ducking for cover. Several bangs were heard, but after a second it became clear that they weren't coming from in front of them, but underneath them. Arcelia's floor. There were two distinct sounds, two types of fire, which meant the geth were actually fighting back down a level. Up here, however, there were no gunshots but footsteps. As Gorman and company held their heads low, two sets of heavy metal boots clanged out of the cell and down the hallway.

The Commander bounced up to his feet just in time to catch two figures breaking off into a large chamber at the end of the corridor. The geth weren't fleeing the gunfire – they must be heading to reinforce the lower level. Gorman quickly considered his options. They had no means of reconnaissance, no special SWAT team tools like riot shields, smoke grenades or battering rams, he didn't even have a proper helmet. What else could he do but give chase?

His arms rose with the rifle, he put the stock to his shoulder and pulled the trigger.

Proficiency took over. His M16 model had no burst-fire option, instead semi or fully automatic, but years of training gave him the muscle memory of how long to hold down to do a perfect three round burst. A new sound of gunfire, one perhaps unheard in a century or more, filled the air. Three direct hits on target – normally enough to seriously ruin a bad guy's day – but instead blue shields reverberated around the fleeing robot. He gave a look down to his crew, who seemed content to cower and watch not only the Commander's weapon in action, but the 'strange' brass casings that fell to the ground as a result.

"What're you waiting for? Let's get after them!" Gorman threw a pointing finger down the hall, rousing the two of them up and starting a dash after the geth. With each step, the sound of battle from down below picked up volume.

The clearing was bright yet dreary. Overturned cabinets, tables and crates were littered around, but the main attractions were two massive holes, one in the ceiling and one directly below it. One geth leapt down the hole, impacting something with a loud thump. The other made to do the same, but Zaz had other ideas. With a pull of her hand, the robot was yanked to the side, knocking over the last cabinet standing. Along this wall was a red light. Gorman swung his head around and his sudden fear was confirmed – another light on the opposite wall. They were being surrounded. This time, the rippled effect was too late. A geth figure with a red light for a head was clinging to the wall by its almost webbed hands and feet. Gorman watched in real time as its texture changed like a chameleon's from metallic grey to almost completely transparent.

The team's reactions were heightened by adrenaline but nowhere near robotic. A dazzling red laserbeam shot out from the concealed geth. It bounced off Zaz's shield with a high-pitch screaming sound. Expending the laser cut out its camouflage – and Gorman wasted no time in returning fire. That's when more red lights started to appear.

Gorman, Zaz and Saal'Inor split and slid into whatever cover they could find, shooting whatever they could see. One red light smashed and sparked – an ExoGeni security camera, but to their dazed minds a mighty foe vanquished. A laser brushed past the Commander's head, probably singeing the tips of his hair. He popped the M16 up over a cabinet and rained down bullets across the hole and into shifting targets. An orange glow came from his right. The quarian's omni-tool was out, and in one swift motion she pulled her arm towards the enemy. An electrical jolt revealed a geth trooper in a corner. It sizzled away with monotone indignation. Gorman wished he knew how to do something like that, glancing at his own forearm. At least he could tell the geth what time it was on Earth.

One more look at the big holes gave him an idea. He let loose a volley of bullets not at the geth, but their hiding spots. The loose concrete gave way, cracking apart under fire to reveal fading daylight. An especially shaky part outright collapsed onto one unlucky red light, dimming it for good.

A second later, another geth collapsed to the floor and rolled into the hole – the one Zaz threw aside had risen back up for but a moment. An alarm rang, and a puff of steam ejected from her rifle. She swore and retreated back into cover, shaking her hand at the mist. Gorman heard a similar click, and procedure kicked in. Knee down, magazine let loose, new magazine pulled from his vest and pushed into the rifle, given a slap for good measure, and bolt released. Just like that, he was back in action, and enough of his bullets warped and bent a geth shield to its breaking point. A follow-up shot from Saal'Inor's handgun smashed the unit's headlight, and it crumpled away.

It was hard enough to focus on one geth as it was – but then smoke started to billow from the lower level, obscuring the crucial space between them and Gorman's crew. Poking one's head out was now looking too risky, a laser could easily cut through the smoke without warning right into one's face. Heavy footsteps were coming from the earlier hallway. The laser-heads were flinging themselves into every nook and cranny, firing off a beam and repositioning before any bullet could connect. The Shackleton's ground team were already surrounded, backed in against a wall, but now they were simply sitting ducks. There was only one thing they would have to eventually do, and their leader thought it best to get it over with.

"Into the hole! Go, I'll cover you!" Gorman commanded. He began unloading bursts into any glowing gap in the growing darkness. Zaz and Saal'Inor vaulted their cover, disappearing into the cloud. Once the Commander's magazine ran dry he leapt out, holding his breath and tumbling forward into a fall.

To his great surprise, his descent rapidly decelerated. There was even a brief moment where he was suspended in midair, before being unceremoniously dropped onto the concrete. A hazy blue field had engulfed him, giving him the reason why. He picked himself up, dusted himself off, gave a thankful nod to the waiting Zaz and joined her and Sally in inspecting their new surroundings.

The gunfire had died down on both levels. They were in a darker, slightly torched room with not a lot of furniture but a lot of open space. No sign of Arcelia's party, but a large pile of debris right underneath the big hole. It was quite some height up – in retrospect, not something the Commander may have walked away from without that helping hand. All three of them were still clutching their weapons tight, expecting the geth to either be everywhere on this level or making their own way down from the level above. Gorman knew nerves were high enough to possibly be frayed.

"How are we doing?" he gave the rest of the team his attention.

"I'm okay…I think," Sally nodded, visor twisting to check every corner twice, then thrice.

"Must've broken my shield five times," Zaz lamented. "You didn't get hit once?" She didn't seem impressed, but suspicious.

"Got lucky," Gorman tried to stay modest. He really wanted to believe that his 'old school' tactics were the difference-maker.

"Seriously? Don't tell me you didn't notice how they weren't targeting you."

"What?" Gorman recoiled, "They targeted me plenty. Sally, back me up here."

"She actually has a point, captain," admitted Saal'Inor. "Between your lack of armor, shields, and…unusual choice of gun, they might not have perceived you as a threat. With so few units, their combat processors change collective priorities to what they consider the greater danger."

What the Commander was considering an unscathed victory against the odds had now been somewhat ruined. It perhaps would explain how he'd been able to survive the encounters on Eden Prime as well without so much as a scrape. Here, the only part of Gorman that was hurt was his pride, and that part was getting flustered. No flimsy robots would emasculate him again, he'd show those glorified dishwashers what a real 'threat' looks like. He opened his mouth to declare phase two of an impromptu masterplan, but Saal'Inor did it for him.

"There!" the quarian exclaimed. She had again produced her omni-tool, but this time its scanning had found something worth getting excited about. "The geth jammer – it's here! If we bring it offline, they'll be completely exposed!" Gorman and Zaz did a full 360 spin, nothing that could safely be assumed to be a 'jammer' was in sight. Saal'Inor pointed in the one direction they hadn't looked – up. "Signal's coming from right there," she directed them to a nondescript spot in the ceiling with a burnt-out light fixture. There was no way they could have entered there from the higher floor, it had looked for all intents and purposes like a dead end. Before she could form a plan of her own on how to get back up a level, Gorman remembered the stunt he pulled earlier, and racked back the bolt on his rifle.

"Aim for the bulb," he ordered. Zaz shrugged and aimed her Lancer upward. The quarian's pistol followed. The sound of gunfire filled the dusty air once more.

The light fixture shattered. The ceiling cracked, broke, and buckled. Something was definitely ready to come down – and come down it did. A large object fell and crashed into the floor, sending shockwaves reverberating underfoot. Choking dust sprang from its impact site – luckily not another hole through the next dozen floors – but it sufficiently cleared to reveal just what exactly a geth jammer looks like. It was a tall, bulbous, lilac contraption that had a spinning top and several blinking lights of several colors. Electronic sounds and visible light distortions pulsed from circles that looked like satellite dishes.

"And there it is! What do we do now?" Zaz asked. "Do we just throw it off the tower, or blow it up, or…"

"I'll disable it," Saal'Inor stated, waving away dust and giving the device a closeup scan with her tool. "Shouldn't take long, but the geth won't be happy about it. They'll probably try and stop me."

"Which means they'll come down through the hole," Zaz reasoned. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Commander?"

Gorman's eyes lit up.

"You two stay on this side. Since they won't focus on me, I'll go on the other side of the hole. Get some crossfire going, fighting on our own terms, perfect, perfect, perfect."

"No, Commander," Zaz shook her head, "They'll all be funneled in so I can hit them with a singularity."

"A what?"

"You'll see." Rumblings came from up above. Weapons were drawn. "You'll see very shortly." The sudden problem was that there was a lack of cover – at least Sally had the jammer itself to hide behind. "…What are you doing, Kevin?" Zaz continued. In another stroke of Gorman genius, he had located a mobile barricade with not only armor plating, but shields and a supplementary rifle. It also had blonde hair and a thoroughly unimpressed expression on its face.

"Here they come!" Gorman instead drew her attention to the incoming hostiles. A red light and translucent body crawled to the hole's ledge, dropping down. Within moments a comparatively opaque trooper descended with a thud. Fingers were itching on triggers, but the geth hadn't yet noticed the humans in the room somehow. The Commander could only guess that maybe this close to the jammer it wasn't just affecting friendly electronics. One more red light folded down…and this time it let loose a beam with a flash in their direction. A shield reverberated around Zaz – followed by a different kind of fiery blue energy.

She pulled her firing arm back, and with a yell thrust it forward, hand outstretched. A dazzlingly dark blue projectile emerged, flung towards the geth landing party. With the clench of a fist, it detonated in an energetic mid-air explosion.

Dumbstruck, Gorman watched as what he could only describe as a miniature black hole appeared, surrounded by swirling, pulsating spirals of blue. All of the geth suddenly fell limp, still holding onto their weaponry with mechanical strength but being dragged around the vortex like it was generating its own gravity out of nothing. Zaz regained her composure and opened fire, snapping the Commander back to this outrageous new reality where things like this were not only possible, but happening right in front of him. The helpless geth were like fish in a barrel. He stepped out from behind Zaz and unloaded the contents of his M16 into as many of them as he could. Sparks flew, electronic death rattles were heard, conductive fluid spurted, and the black hole dissipated after the longest fifteen seconds in Gorman's recent memory. Zaz confidently marched forward, waving away steam from her Lancer and watching the geth slowly retreat into themselves, disintegrating as they always did. Gorman felt stunned as per usual…and a little redundant. He had to ask the obvious question.

"That was something special. What's the point of guns when you can just do that?"

The question was answered, albeit in unorthodox fashion. Zaz started listing to her side, before going limp herself and falling over backwards. Gorman's reflexes snapped him forward just in time to stop her from hitting the ground. Her eyes opened wide, jumping from the Commander's grasp and onto her feet.

"Sorry about that, got, um, a little light headed," she stuttered, picking her dropped Lancer up as well. "Did you say something?"

"Got it!" came a happy shout from behind them. A whirring sound picked up speed and volume, before gradually fading down and out. Gorman and Zaz looked back to the jammer as its lights finally blinked off. A satisfied quarian rounded it, dusting off her gloved hands and taking in the sight of the frying wrecks in the hole's limelight. "Wow. I didn't even hear them get off a single shot!" She raised her arm and the orange display arose once more. "I've got my radar back, which is good, and I've got nothing on it, which is even better!"

"Oh, that reminds me," Gorman tried to remember how exactly he'd been told to operate his new built-in radio. Two fingers went up to his right ear and pressed down. Hopefully he wouldn't need to rein in the frequency again – it took most of the elevator ride up the first time. "Arcelia, come in, are you there?"

A wave of relief washed over as Arcelia's familiar voice broke through.

"Ah, good to hear you, Gorman! We're on the upper level – looking for you three coincidentally. Geth gave us a good scare but withdrew, their priority just changed from us to you as soon as we heard gunfire on your level. Our only casualties were a broken arm and Arnav's ego. What's your current situation? Sounded like you stirred the hornet's nest."

"Jammer's down, geth much the same."

"Music to my ears, Commander."

"Hold tight, we're on our way up." Gorman looked at the ceiling hole and wondered how exactly he was going to follow through on that.

"No need. We're going to head down the elevator. Meet you back at the Zhu's Hope level?"

"Sounds good. See you there," Gorman concluded with a smile that faded once he realized his team's actual current situation. "Now…which way to the elevator?"

Direction was a known quantity, but after a brief trek to the end of the open area they were once again greeted with corridors and wrecked office space. The smell of smoke and smoldering spots on every ExoGeni-labelled surface gave them a hint as to where Arcelia's team first encountered the enemy. Pushing aside another overturned chair, the Commander's combat high was fading, replaced by a bit of satisfaction at a job well done and excitement for fulfilling his end of the bargain with Jeong. A feeling was still lurking in the back of his mind that all of this might be completely and utterly pointless. For a planet covered in ruins and with a sample size of one tower's 'penthouse', there was a distinct lack of prothean anything, much less beacons. Gorman told himself to focus. Beacon or not, his actions just now had likely saved many human lives…and one salarian.

His focus was so great that it tricked him – after spotting a red glint in the corner of his eye he drew his rifle instantly, flicking himself around on the spot. He had his finger halfway down on the trigger before he realized it was a security camera, now operational without the jammer's presence. Saal'Inor and Zaz were jolted, raising their weapons and turning to face the imaginary assailant, and then to face Gorman.

"Sorry," Gorman's face also went red. "I, well, I thought I saw something."

Zaz sighed.

"Scanner's clear, Commander," she reassured. "Let's get moving."

Usually, and 'usually' by 2013 standards, Gorman was not easily startled. His ability to stay cool under pressure was something of a legend in the force, later the agency, but as he very much now knew, he's only human. The sensory overload he had gone under was probably starting to take its toll.

At least that's what he thought until he saw something just barely reflected in the quarian's visor of all places. There was a shimmer of light that didn't belong – and he just knew he had milliseconds to react.

He held his breath, planted the M16 to his shoulder, swerved around, and pulled the trigger.

A single shot fired.

A smashing sound was heard.

Two pieces of metal fell to the ground. A five-five-six millimeter casing, and a full-size geth trooper. Its camouflage fizzled out, and tiny glass shards spilled out from where its headlight used to be.

"Caralho!" Zaz's Brazilian quarter came through as she jumped aside in shock. The geth had landed right by her heels.

"Keelah!" Saal'Inor exclaimed. Gorman was starting to understand the meaning of that strange word she kept saying.

As quickly as it had been extinguished, the Commander's pride had returned. Not enough to hold the M16 barrel up and blow off the last gunsmoke, of course, but pride nonetheless. He now waited eagerly to hear his team scramble to explain how he still wasn't a threat even after that, but their priorities were elsewhere.

"Nothing on radar, huh?" Zaz flailed her arms up in anger.

"I…it shouldn't have…why didn't it…" Saal'Inor stammered, tapping futilely at her omni-tool.

"The suit diagnostic," Zaz redirected her frustration to Gorman. "You should have let her do it, Commander. Then her scanner would have shown it."

"Hey, hey, give me some credit here. I got it, didn't I?" Gorman defended himself.

"True, but you have to admit was a lucky shot. Poor thing didn't even have shields."

"What do you think the other twenty-nine bullets in my magazine were for?"

"Yeah, well…at least warn me next time."

Zaz grumbled some more Portuguese swear words, took off her helmet and wiped her brow. Gorman checked his magazine, weighing it out in his hand to make sure he had twenty-nine bullets left. Saal'Inor gave up running tests on her tool. Once the moment had passed, there was a gradually uneasy silence. All three heads slowly faced the geth trooper, on its side, on the cold hard concrete.

It just lay there…perfectly still.