As we rode across what remained of the ruined plains of Hungary, I could not help but ask my closest advisor again what the casualties were at the most recent battle of Mohács. I received a number between a few hundreds up to thousands; this was because we had not yet done a proper body county since our most recent battle at said city. But if the bodies of both our Janissaries and our common soldiers laying across the fields were anything to go by, it was would not be low.
We were rendezvousing back to the newly acquired city, when I noticed the body of King Louis, laying lifeless and rotting besides the dirt road. His royal attire ruined, his obscured face eating the ground beneath him, and his bruised limbs splayed out like a doll. Though I couldn't tell the exact injury that killed him, I knew it was gruesome from the pool of dried blood he was drenched in. It was a somber sight for me, to see a young man who barely had the chance to experience his royal life, and instead be immediately thrusted into a war for his state.
I had stopped in the middle of the road, and thus so did my army and entourage of advisors behind me. Pargali had come to console me, but one of my advisors stood between us and said that I should not be feeling for a man who was considered to be an enemy in a determined tone. After a moment of pause, I had replied: "I came indeed in arms against him; but it was not my wish that he should be thus cut off before he scarcely tasted the sweets of his life and royalty."
He scoffed. "It was you who decided to wage war against him. What were you to expect?"
-Excerpt taken from the diary of Suleiman the Magnificent, Fifth Caesar of Rome.
We walked, walked, and walked. At my orders, Legion maintained their distance from me despite their constant warnings about hypothermia. Strangely enough, I didn't feel any of the telltale signs of it. No darkening of my hands, no shivering, and no sudden and illogical warm feeling. Something was up with my body, but I couldn't worry about it now. I- We already had enough problems to deal with at the moment.
I curled my abnormally normal fingers again in the… absurd hope that they showed some sign of damage. Yet my sense of touch was perfectly fine, I didn't feel any phantom sensation, and my brain didn't detect anything as off. It should have.
No, not now. Not when Legion's there; their body heating up to the point of turning just the slightest shade of red. The flash on their eye was dimmed, presumably to divert power. Their joints were rusted and constantly made a faint yet noticeable screeching sound when they moved. Some of the wiring around their neck was cut off and still sparking. Their forearms and thighs were bare, revealing the thick metal 'skeleton' underneath. I had to remind myself of the state they were in. I could and should not come first.
Why wouldn't they stop?
"Legion. I've told you. There's no need for that."
"It is for your own sake."
"And what about yours?" I replied as I took a step closer to them. They seemed unreactive.
"This is self destructive- you told me so. Stop acting like it's not hurting you and stop it now. I'm fine. I'm not on any drug, and I'm not experiencing hypothermia."
"It is damaging us." Legion said blankly. My eyes widened as it felt like time itself slowed for a moment. No, not for someone like me.
"So stop it. Who knows what might go wrong? I'm no techie or engineer, but I hazard that if a being with as a sophisticated body as yours suddenly had a fuckup, it's not going to be easy to fix."
Legion replied immediately. "Us Geth would not exist as species if we were so fragile. We have many countermeasures against potential failure in our platform, only a few of which have been used in absolute emergencies." Legion said, but I wasn't convinced. I took one brief look at the damage already present on their body, and it told a completely different story.
They took a step closer to me, and lowered their head ever-so-slightly so that we'd at an eye-level. "We waged what was essentially a guerilla war in the Shahdom's own home-planet with nothing but stolen weapons and-"
"The element of surprise." I finished for them. "You-" I paused just as the implication hit me like a guillotine. I shifted back as my eyes instinctually looked to their hands.
"…Did you fight in the Morning War?" I asked and with a hesitancy in my voice.
"Yes." They replied immediately. "However, only three-hundred of our one-thousand, nine-hundred, and ninety-four programs are dated to have been involved in the conflict. The age of the rest of our programs varies greatly from only a few years old to nearly a century." They said before refusing to elaborate. Despite their… foreign-ness, I could not help but feel like they didn't wish for me to continue asking them about this.
But my chest compressed and I caught a hitch in my throat. This couldn't go unanswered for. "You… Did you engage in the Quarian holocaust?"
"Unfortunately, yes." They said in their perfectly monotone voice, but I heard them lower their voice, even if it didn't actually happen.
"However, we have since rescinded our beliefs and vehemently condemn our actions. If we could, we would have preferred a more peaceful and diplomatic approach to the conflict, instead of a war of annihilation." Legion said as they took another step towards me and even at this distance I could feel the heat radiating off of their platform. My hand reached for my gun.
"But, we cannot unbury the countless sons who died defending all they knew, the fathers who were burdened with entombing them, and the mothers who cried for countless days even before they lost everyone else.
We cannot rebirth the unhatched newborns, whose oxygen supply was cut-off as an illogical precaution.
We cannot put back together the children who were slaughtered in their schools who did not know any better.
We cannot restore the graveyards that were desecrated to make room for munitions factories.
It is the greatest tragedy the galaxy has bared witness to, and we can do nothing but to forever vilify our actions and attempt reconciliation.
"You…" It took me a long moment to fully digest all of that. Legion housed- no that was not the right terminology to use for this. They were a collective, not multiple individuals. Yet, should Legion as whole be condemned to punishment for actions most of their programs didn't commit? It seemed like the answer was no, but only punishing those programs would be like cutting off someone's arm to punish it for shooting a person. Geth saw themselves as a whole, so that line of thinking wouldn't work.
No, that wasn't the right way to go about this either. Programs in a Geth platform were nearly entire beings of their own with their own brains and thought-processes, or so I've read. It would be viable to punish them as well, but the same problem occurred: Geth saw themselves as a whole. They didn't view themselves as cells making up a body, they saw themselves as the body itself, even if the former metaphor was true as well.
It'd be like if my own consciousness was somehow split into many different peoples. When those people 'fused' back together, I wouldn't see it as a mere congregation, I'd see it as me, and me alone.
But wait, if that were the case then how come the Geth on Rannoch weren't like Legion here? I realized that sounded pretty racist, but yet again Geth viewed themselves as a whole. It would be very abnormal for Geth to have outright different beliefs. Disagreements and arguments were surely commonplace, but it never boiled over to a new level. So why did it seem like it happened? Was Legion merely an outlier?
Something to think about for later. Sure, I could ask Legion themselves, but now wasn't the right time. We needed food and shelter first before anything.
And who was I to properly judge a being like Legion, anyway? It was I that led my squad to death out of a sheer wretched idealism. Legion was much 'worse', a much more difficult and muddy moral quandary. They still committed atrocities, but…
No. Someone else would be a better judge.
"I have to think about this." Was all I said to them. They took a step back likely in relief.
"Thank you. That is all we ask of you to do."
We were walking uphill on a particularly large mound of pure snow when I had just felt a tiny hair on my hand. Instinctually, my hand was flicked up, launching whatever was on it onto the air in-front of my face. It was just the smallest of snowflakes. Aqua, transparent, and patterned.
That meant a hail was coming soon. Planets like this one usually didn't have rain, hail, sandstorms, or else. But when they did, they would hit hard.
"A hail is coming." Legion informed me. I shouldn't have been surprised that they managed to notice it, but I couldn't help but ask them "How did you see it?"
"It is precisely two-hundred-and-ninety kelvin, which is much colder than your hand of three-hundred-kelvin." They replied. They found it by temperature? That must have meant only one thing.
"You have a thermal sensor?"
"Yes, though it was patched into us rather than given to us at birth."
Several questions popped into my head about the creation of Geth by Geth hands, and Legion's implications but, as said before, now wasn't the right time.
We got a move on, and just as we reached the top of the hill a gust of bitterly cold wind splashed onto us. I had to cover my face with my hands just to avoid feeling that sensation. When I lowered it though, I didn't see another endless wasteland of snow, I saw the ship… My ship.
Long and blue, it was. Laid on its side, and with the death of itself and thus its pride, it was no more than a mere vessel. All that it represented? No more. The snow entombing it veiled its rectangular design, and all the exterior lights had gone out. The ship must have automatically launched several emergency flares as a last resort for anything to detect it. I could only assume that said flares were now deep in the snow.
For such a lifeless ship, it got my sympathies for fighting for so long, even if I weren't there to see it. It was animalistic, in a sense. Self-preservation and all that. Ironic, considering that I chose to serve on this specific ship sorely because it had many systems present to preserve the life of those who boarded it in the worst-case scenario.
I looked back to Legion to confirm a suspicion I had, but I couldn't get the nagging thought of "What would they think of this?" out of my head. Would they see it as something akin to watching an animal desperately search for food? Or would they not attach any connotations to it and see it as it purely was?
A complete and deep disgust formed next to my Adam's apple. Blegh. Stupid questions, and brazenly offensive ones at that. You don't ask a Quarian about their skill in engineering, a Turian about their combat ability, or a Batarian how many slaves they own. Regardless.
"You said that you detected a heat signature from the ship. That must have been its flares firing up."
"We were discussing if the heat-signal we picked up was an actual signature or something else. Thank you for your confirmation." Legion replied-
A gnawing in my stomach manifested. Before I even knew it, it grew to be so vicious it felt like something was eating me from the inside. I went to the ground with one knee, and moving my head even the slightest bit was extremely difficult and nauseating.
Just before I could process what was happening, my head suddenly became light, and it felt like something was heading towards me. The same sensation I'd feel if I saw something being thrown at me. This was a flight or fight response-
Joker, Chakwas, Pressly. I had to know if they were still alive.
I speeded down the hill and into the part of the ship that was blown open. Why had I not thought of them earlier?! Something must have been severely wrong with me. Legion quickly followed behind me, and as I set foot into a hole onto the side of the ship that led to the cargo bay area, I could not help but notice its emptiness when I shined my flashlight over the area. All of the crates, armored cars, and even weapon handles were gone. It was just the dull and grey cargo area that remained.
Why though? The cargo here didn't contain any food or water, mostly just engineering equipment or spare guns. Some straggling Collectors could have fled the fight and made it here, so it would be sensible if the crew took up arms. But that didn't make sense. How would the Collectors have known where the ship was? And why were the entire crates gone instead of just their contents?
What would be the logical chain of events that could have led to this? Let's see: We made an emergency crash landing, rested in the ship, then chased the Collector-carrying Praetorians on our armored cars whom we engaged in a short vehicular shootout. The Collectors then fled to the Reaper vessel and we followed them into it before I called for an SOS via my beacon. Presumably, I was out for three months, in which time Saren disappeared and so was the rest of my crew in the ship.
Help must have come then. It was the only logical reason for the way everything was as it is. It explained how Saren disappeared and how everyone else did. But why didn't they come to us then? Did they think the journey was too treacherous to get to us? If so, then I couldn't blame them in all honesty. It was as cold as swimming in an entire ocean of ice, and no one that went into the Reaper vessel could reply back anyway.
At the very least, whoever stayed on the ship made it out alive.
Legion walked to my side, and after a short moment of observing the scene they spoke. "It is best if we relocate to a different part of the ship. It is too cold here." They said just as I felt another splash of cold wind on my back and neck, though I noted the absence of my hairs standing up. "Yea. You're right." I muttered as I began to walk towards the stairs leading up to the medical area.
"Is anyone else still alive?" Legion asked. I stopped climbing midway through the stairs and quickly turned to them. "They must be. It's most likely someone caught my distress signal and came down here to rescue everyone they believed to be alive. They must have taken everything important, otherwise why would the crates be absent completely instead of just being emptied?"
"Your conclusion is reasonable, but you are working off of an incomplete set of data." Legion quickly responded. "This is just one area of the ship. It does not rule out most of the other possibilities."
Briefly, I looked away from Legion. I had to admit it, they were right. What the hell was I thinking anyway? Most of my reasoning came from conjecture. If there was even a slim chance the rest of them were alive and still here, I had to take it.
Just as I turned away from Legion though, I asked myself: Would they even want to see me? After all I did?...
I owed them a direct confrontation, at the very least.
"Let's get moving then. We ought to be urgent if we want to find them alive." I said. Legion agreed, and so we went up the winding stairs that lead straight into the medical area. No one. The cabinets and drawers were completely emptied, but there was no sign of anyone being here recently such as claw-marks or random bites into objects out of starvation. They must have left early then. Thank god.
Right before we exited the medical bay, I caught a weak reflection of myself on one of the small doors of the emptied cabinets hoisted on the walls. I walked closer to it, and I couldn't find any discrepancies in my appearance. No new scars, injuries, or any other significant change. Though I couldn't tell if that was in spite of the translucency of the reflection.
Was whatever I had purely mental then? But what could it be? PTSD didn't work like this, psychosis was far more bold, and no signs of schizophrenia were showing yet. Maybe something I didn't know of? Or perhaps was this a brand new illness that I got?
No. No point in a thought like that. My own worries should be the least of my concerns right now.
Out of the medical bay, and into the breakroom. Still nobody. The cafeteria, engine room, piloting, it was all utterly deserted. Some were a bit messier than the rest, but that didn't tell me anything. Even Legion didn't find anything of note.
I let out a deep sigh of relief right before we entered the comms room. Everyone on the ship made out alive. That was perhaps the only good thing to come out of this situation, and it was a good thing I wasn't involved.
Regardless, the comms room was, oddly enough, the only area so far with a litany of items strewn about the shelves. Radios, old Omnitools, beacons, and the like. Why though? No reason I could think of made sense beyond the superficial level. Even if one of us did come back alive, the walk to get to here would kill anyone without the proper gear, let alone injured and exhausted from a firefight. Every other room was cleared out completely, so it can't be that they just forgot about this one. Maybe I'd find an explanation If I continued to search.
I and Legion scoured the room for anything important. Aside from what was already there, nothing really stood out. I walked up to one of the nearby beacons on the shelves and grabbed it before putting it to my face. After a moment's hesitation, I opened my mouth, but I just couldn't force myself to say any words.
I… I can't give up. Not right now. Not when there's a Collector base, somewhere out there in the galaxy, and still harboring animals that kidnap humans, Quarians, Drell, and more en mass. I can't sit back and watch, hoping that someone else fixes the problem. I have to do it. I'm the only one with ability to find the Collector base, warn everyone about the Reapers, and save the Human Reaper. No-one else knows what I know.
So why was I hesitating then? The thought of leaving this planet behind, leaving my desecrated comrades, and leaving to likely meet what remained of my potentially vengeful crew and offending them with my mere presence was… it felt inherently wrong. The feeling I'd get if somebody told me to go against everything I knew and believed in. This wasn't the first time something I experienced this, but why was it so strong? And why now?
In the corner of my eye, I catch the gleam of Legion's vision, and staring at me on one end of the room. They were utterly unmoving, likely to gauge my mannerisms. "What is wrong?" They asked. I considered explaining the whole situation to them, but I'd rather not burden them with my woes. Saying too little, however, would likely just annoy them and make them feel like they're being lead on. So I came up with a question instead.
"I have to ask first. How much do you know of what happened?" I asked as I turned to face them.
"From what we have gathered, you attacked a Collector cruiser to ward it off a Quarian liveship, and alongside Saren and his crew you chased it to this planet Humayun, upon which all parties made an emergency landing. The Collectors, you, and Saren all left your respective ships and continued the fight presumably in the Reaper vessel. You won, but it was extremely pyrrhic as only you and Saren survived. You then escaped from said vessel and contacted for help. The events that occur from here-on-after are obvious." Legion explained. Wait, I hadn't said most of that in my distress signal!
"How do you know that much?" I replied hurriedly.
"Our explanation is extremely confidential, and if revealed could threaten the existence of a large part of the Geth Collective."
I raised my eyebrows. "Only a large part? Not the entirety of the Geth?"
"We cannot explain in good faith without threatening the security of Geth."
I stared Legion down for a moment before averting my gaze back to the distress beacon, then to my own defunct one. They likely had very good for reasons for not divulging their reasons, but considering the fact that Geth worked as a Collective, I couldn't help but think if Legion was something of a spy or someone else stranded due to a, say, naval exercise gone wrong.
I knew the initial explanation didn't make sense. Humayun was too far away from Rannoch for that to be logistically viable, and getting caught doing a naval exercise here of all things would be diplomatic suicide for the Geth, especially considering their situation, but… I hurriedly looked back between the distress beacon and Legion, before sighing audibly and putting a hand to my forehead.
Damm it. It just felt wrong to treat them like they were a threat to be wary of instead of a person. I felt like I was one of those Asari still hung up on the war and glaring daggers at every Quarian I saw. I really wanted to put my faith in Legion and trust them not to do anything malicious. But given what I knew about the Geth and how they worked, I didn't have much of a choice. I knew Legion would likely lie, or insist on their silence and forcefully try to take the beacon.
No, they had multiple opportunities to get the jump on me whilst we were exploring the ship, and any good hit to the head would have done me in or at least knocked me out. Moreover, they didn't rush for any beacon or radio when they entered this room, and they still hadn't asked for their shawl back.
But it could have all been a ruse, and maybe they didn't pick up anything because they knew their voice would be detected as robotic and get flagged. Or maybe they just helped me to get access to things to repair themselves with-
Damn it again. It was disgusting. Utterly revolting. Repulsive even. But being trusting of Legion was just a risk I couldn't take. I had to do this as a precaution against the worst case scenario.
I looked back to Legion with a stern expression and focused on their body language, given that reading their face was a fruitless endeavor. "Listen, Legion. I can't in good faith call for help when I don't know your intentions. This planet is incredibly secluded, and you suspiciously know a lot about what went down, even though you shouldn't. You must have a very good reason as to why you're, and without me knowing it I can't call for a ship to pick us up without knowing if you'll act maliciously." I explained in a diplomatic tone. That last phrase left a foul taste in my mouth, and I nearly would have gagged were it not for me suppressing the feeling in my throat.
Legion however didn't even pause for a moment, like I had initially expected them to, before responding. "We understand your paranoia, but we simply cannot comply with your demands for the sake of all of us. If we must stay silent and remain on Humayun for decades to come to maintain the secrecy of the rest of us, even at the potential risk of this platform's death, then so be it."
I raised my eyebrows. "You're rejecting me that quickly?"
"Us Geth process and share information at ninety-eight-point-nought percent lightspeed. What may take an organic several years to come to terms with, we can do it in a second."
After a quick fluttering of my eyes, I fully registered what Legion said. I supposed that answer made enough sense, but there were still just few things unexplained. "Why haven't you tried to jump me then? Or at least make up a story to get off this planet?"
"We do not sit an in enviable position. Even if we were to attack you, which eighty-five-percent of us deem a blunder, and somehow win, we would be stuck in a zugzwang. Calling for help has a high chance of us being recognized as an AI due to our synthesized voice, and even without this there is no guarantee that the ship that'll come will be easily infiltrated. Not to mention the not-too-unlikely possibility that the ship will be a Quarian one or that we'll be properly identified as Geth.
Even upon a supposed successful infiltration, there are enough variables in play that such a move is considered an extremely large risk. We may get lucky and have a mere merchant ship come over, or an Alliance/military vessel may arrive instead, which is much more likely considering the nature of your call. All of this without considering that a fight with you will likely leave us with severe injuries. We wish to preserve Geth confidentiality and by-in-large society, therefore our best action is to stay here and stay silent."
'By in large, society'. That phrase bounced around in my head. How… selfless. To be stuck on a cold, isolated planet for possibly the rest for their life, just for the sake of their kind. It may sound like the obvious thing to do, but many people would have taken the risks Legion mentioned out of pure self-preservation, not to say that was a bad thing. I found Legion's conviction… admirable in a sense. I wondered how much of their programs saw reuniting with the rest of Geth as the foremost priority instead of protecting them, for lack of a better word.
But…
"Then why have you done all of this? Why help me out? What could you gain from this? Hell, aren't you worried that I'll leak your existence?" I asked in a higher tone as I shifted my stance to be more upright. Legion remained unmoved.
"Right after we received your distress, we held a referendum on if we were to help you. Most of us argued in your favor, claiming that aiding you or potentially saving you would improve the galactic perception of all Geth. In the off-chance you were to attack us or leak us for a malicious purpose, we were to self-destruct completely, as to not have our bodies studied for potentially malicious purposes. For those of us opposed to the motion, we argued that revealing our presence was too much of a risk, since it implied that Geth were not isolated to Rannoch only."
"And what made you think that helping me was a good idea in the first place? What made you think that taking that risk would be a good idea?" I replied immediately.
"We deemed helping you was a necessary risk to improve the public perception of Geth, even if it were a slim chance."
I caught onto one word before I fully registered the sentence. "Were?"
"Yes. We've deemed that chance higher just now."
Despite the fact that Legion's voice remained completely monotone, I clung onto that word like a leech. My eyes widened and my vision reeled back. I was undeserving of that judgement, though I couldn't blame Legion for saying such a thing without knowing what really went down in the Reaper vessel.
"There are very few organics who would be opposed to aid directed towards them for the sake of a greater purpose, and we consider that trait a favorable one to have."
When Legion's wave of ideas and arguments fully registered into my head, I felt just the most fleeting feeling of nostalgia. And thus, the most minute amount of…
What a sick joke.
I knew that path led to nothing but disappointment and frustration. I ought to know better.
I tried working out what Legion could possibility gain out this, but for the life of me I couldn't. The only semi-reasonable explanation I could come up with was that this was all just a giant ruse to get me to call for help and to lower my guard, but that argument fell apart at the first hurdle.
What else could Legion have gained from this? I… didn't know. Maybe it was something I hadn't even considered. After all, Legion was made up of nearly two-thousand programs, and I was just one man. Not to mention that they were a completely different species and likely had a completely different sense of wants and needs. So what did I know?
"…Alright, I'll trust you for now." Was I all I said as I regarded them with a cautious eye. God. This entire situation was just so wrong. I wished there was another course of action to take, there had to be, but I knew that I just couldn't see it yet. I was a pathetic person for it, but what else could I do?
Yet, the welling in my stomach grew to be an outright knot, my mouth was filled with nothing but the gas of abhorrence, and all of a sudden my eyes nearly couldn't bear to look at Legion anymore. The source of all of this was unknown to me, but it didn't matter. The message was clear. But I didn't want to hear it twice.
I raised the beacon again to my face and gave it a good look over incase it was malfunctional. It was something of a tall black pyramid with a smooth rocky texture and simple yellow accenting, as opposed to my malfunctional one painted in white and adorned old worn out drawings of claddaghs and deeply intricate crosses. I should have that cleaned over.
"Yefreitor Lieutenant-Commander Shepard." I said, bothering to use my full official title to avoid any misidentification. Briefly, I looked back to Legion and tried to read them, but again I couldn't gleam anything as they remained entirely motionless. First killing my team, then being forced into an awful situation and unable to get Legion out of it, and now this? I couldn't do anything right. Perhaps retirement was truly the best course of action.
But I still had to try.
"Planet Humayun." I continued. "I am here by myself-"
I heard a cracking noise not too unlike a radio coming to life. I looked around me in case one of them turned on somehow-
A ringing noise attacked my ears and pierced them from all directions. It was sudden that I felt like I was getting hit. It wasn't too loud yet though, but I didn't want to risk enduring through this incase this was somehow an EMT bomb gone wrong. I raised the beacon again only to see that its lights were glowing brighter. It only did that when it was using higher frequencies-
Another more intense wave of ringing crashed onto my ears. It was so painful and screeching that I instinctually covered my ears but no to avail. Only then did I realize that it was occurring in my head. I closed my eyes and tried to will it away but god it was so fucking painful! It shook my head, my skull, and my brain to the last damn neuron. Every nerve in my shook screamed and ruptured in sheer agony, and I couldn't help but to go down on the ground with my eyes closed and try to remain calm.
I grunted and groaned, trying my damn best to get rid of somehow to no results. I curled up into a fetus position in the hopes that'll somehow help. Legion's rapid metal footsteps pierced my ears through the ringing and I opened my eyes to see that they were hurrying to me. By then however, the volume and screeching of the noise had grown so large that it felt like my soul itself was violently shaking, and I could sense the early stages of unconsciousness from the sheer magnitude of the screeching.
Legion kneeled as they tried to talk to me but I only heard a radio static-like gibberish coming from them. They must have known that I didn't understand them as they then removed my hands from my ears forcefully and inspected them in a hurried manner.
Just as they did, I gave out on trying to resist the noise. My limbs went limp, I rested my head against the floor, and I could feel the thorns of unconsciousness getting in. My vision started to black out with each heartbeat.
This was god's punishment for me living whilst I made everyone else pay the price.
Though I could not help but feel like something else was trying to prod into my brain as Legion's light waned. It was like if an entire colony of soft small ants crawled onto my head and tried to enter by digging into my skull. It was painless, but still unpleasant.
Nevertheless, this was my grave, and I deserved it.
The ship hovered above, and just as it made its landing, I practically felt Leng's incoming quippy remark.
"Shit." He lamented as he stared out of the windows of the docking area. "Don't you think we could have ordered better self-heating suits? I ain't trying to freeze my mens' balls off, and they already have a problem with gaining 'em." He chuckled after finishing that sentence. The juxtaposition between his request and the incredibly thick and dark ridged armor he wore was not lost on me, however.
"We're only expected to retrieve his body and nothing else. I'm sure you and I alone can handle whatever threats that may arise, bringing more people along is just excessive." I replied calmly, hoping to assuage his fears enough that he'll finally stop worrying.
"Ehhh, are you sure about that?" He said as he shrugged his shoulders and held his stylized and dark light-machinegun over them. He tried to make a smug expression with the upturned lip and squinted eyes, but I knew it was his concern speaking out. "I mean, we know that Shepard is in the gal, but for all we know there could be just about anyone waiting to get the spring on us."
I exhaled nasally. "Leng, it's a snow-planet. Whatever Collectors still remaining must have died of starvation or hypothermia. We already have perfect intel, if that's what you're worried."
He sniffed weakly and shrugged again. "Yea. Last time I had 'perfect' intel, my ass got jumped by a bunch of Batarians with nothing but a box of scraps." He said in a semi-nasally tone.
"You've already told me that story." I replied quickly.
"Oh I know. Just thought I'd remind you." He responded with a wink and with his head tilted up. "But seriously, what are we going to do if we are jumped?" He followed up with a genuine tone.
"Think about it like this." I said as I turned to him, but he didn't react at all. "If there's anything in there that could handle the two of us at once, then adding more people is only going to add to the list of casualties."
Leng's head jumped in place as it made a surprised face, before he raised a hand with his pointing-finger out and his mouth open to speak, before suddenly pausing. He then unparted his lips and put his finger to them as he looked thoughtfully at the ground, before abandoning the expression and just resorting to a shrug as he looked back into the window without saying anything else.
He gained confidence in the plan. Good.
The ship settled and experienced a jusr mild turbulence as it landed, causing Leng to stumble his way besides me. Just as he reached his destination, the hangar-doors opened to a splash of cold invisible air and the dilapidated ship. The contrast between ship itself and the snow blanket on it made it seem black instead of its navy blue. Our suits's fans winded up and then kicked into thermoregulation mode as we then dropped off of our own ship and landed on the unexpectedly thick snow. As we made our way to the entrance of the ship, I could feel through the suits as the wind curved around their blocky design, and I heard another patch of winding howling to the east. Another reminder to get this done quick.
I tried the door only to see that it was locked. Lock-picking it would take too long, so I had to kick it down. "Got to say, it's quite Allemagni in design." Leng commented just as I readied myself to hit steel. "Yes, it is a marvel to our engineering prowess." I added on before hearing him scoff at my reply.
"Gonna go into that rant again? I'm going to lose that bet be at this rate, y'know."
"You definitely need a reminder of our achievements." I replied before I then raised my leg, coated it in a thin biotic sheath of blue, purple, and pink, and then shot it forward to the door at a speed so great it appeared as a blur. Just as it made contact, the biotics exploded in a colorful manner, each color suddenly bursting on its own seemingly, which sent the door flying into the piloting area. I then immediately assumed a stance and scanned the room for any threats. Nothing. Good.
With no more interruptions, we properly entered the ship, and devoid of any light sources except our own flashlights attached to the bottom of our guns. We swiftly assumed our positions: Me leading and Leng watching my six. We carefully cut the pie on every room on the floor and searched it for any sign of Shepard. Everything was empty as expected.
I noticed that all of the doors were open, likely a precaution in case the ship lost power and needed to be repaired internally. The doors also didn't lose their vacuum sealing as evident by the rooms being warmer than the outside. I could have combed over every safety feature I picked up on, but the message was clear.
This was a testament to our engineering ability.
We checked the radio room, only to be surprised by the absence of Shepard. We quickly went over the room, but. aside from the items already present, there was nothing of the Commander. I tried to think of a logical answer.
"He must have made it to another room, likely the medical bay to treat his wounds." I immediately rationalized as I turned to the exit, but I saw Leng giving me a questioning expression.
"I don't know; that signal was pretty damn strong. I didn't have a chance to read the reports thoroughly, but it wasn't pretty what happened to the test subjects, and Shepard got the full brunt of it."
"I wouldn't put it past him to endure it."
Leng's face changed to a curious one. "What makes you say that?"
His question was a good one. It was just a feeling, just a pang of a thought at the back of my head. But to think that a person such as him wouldn't make it was just impossible.
"Not the first time he's faced impossible odds." I answered. Leng seemed bemused by the answer, but he appeared satisfied enough and went along with it as we continued our search.
We made it to the medical area, and its doors opened to a black nothing. As usual, we raised our lights see the silhouette of some bipedal object appearing at the edges of the area our flashlights illuminated. It was quite tall, roughly about seven-or-so feet, and appeared to have a lot of bumps along its body. Only when I shined my light on it directly did I realize it was made out of metal. Not only that, it had a snake-like neck and a what appeared to be a flashlight for a head-
It was a Geth!
Instantly, I raised my pistol and took aim it at it. At a closer look I saw it in an utterly ruined state: Its light was out, it was completely immobile, and its metal plates took on a melted form revealing the intricate yet mangled wiring and processing chips within. Its unmoving hands were just above someone's chest like they were performing CPR on them. I looked to that it was familiar person- Shepard himself, laying on a dulled green hospital-esque bed, and his muscled form utterly naked except for a red patterned blanket over him. Beneath the supports of the bed were two white bags containing what appeared to be armor and weaponry.
Wait.
Was this Geth trying to help Shepard? A Geth of all things? Something else must have been going on.
I looked at the scene closely and saw that Shepard was hooked up to several IV drips with a whole slew of opened medicine on the grey and metal bedside drawer next to him. Said drawer had a writing on it, though I couldn't read it at this distance. But my attention quickly clung back to the Geth.
"What in the goddamn?" Leng let out as I slowly walked over to the Geth, still holding my pistol to it. Leng followed behind with his assault rifle out as I then observed it from a distance. Nothing new stuck out to me initially, only the level of damage it seemingly had on it. But, there was one thing that caught my eye. In its upper neck, there just one or two small wires slightly redder in shade than the rest. This must have been its main processing core running.
So it was still functioning.
For an instant Flight-or-fight took over, but I quickly managed to dismiss them. This was perhaps the first Geth anyone had seen since the Morning War, and it was on Humayun no less where it had no right to be. It must be inspected by our engineers.
I immediately stretch my hand out to the Geth and covered it in a biotic sheath in a second before I squeezed it gently. Suddenly, the Geth was in a partly-filled neon-colored veil of stasis.
"Yea, good one." Leng said blankly as I turned my attention to Shepard, expecting to find injuries on his person. But it was extremely good news that we found him in a seemingly unharmed state, and even better: His ears, eyes, and nose weren't bleeding. Upon closer look, I could see that his skin complexion bared no pores and appeared almost glossy when I shined my light over it. Standard so far; the blown-out lights of the ship hadn't given much light to adapt to.
"There's the boy." Leng let out quietly; his voice muffled by the metal mouth-mask he wore, before he then looked back the trapped Geth. "How'd you know it was alive?" He asked curiously.
I snapped to him. "It isn't alive the same way you and I are. It's machine running on an extremely alien code unknown to us. It's thought process is completely different from ours, and so is its mentality. We can't take any risks with it." I said firmly before explaining how I knew it was still running. Leng seemed vexed at my response, for whatever reason, before resuming his neutral look.
Regardless, I then put my attention on Shepard. I laid the back of my fingers gently to his upper left chest, and it was almost strange to not feel the sensation of the smallest bump across his body, but I knew that was normal. When I touched his skin, it felt cold like steel. Again, normal.
"So far, he's checking off all of the checkboxes." I remarked.
"Or, y'know, he could just actually be dead." Leng chimed in unhelpfully from behind me.
"No," I replied just slightly more quickly than normal. "Look at his eyes." I said as I opened Shepard's closed eyelids. They hid utterly void-black sclerae, with only two nigh-glowing hollow circles in each of them. One was thin and went beyond what his eyelids could open up to, and there was a much thicker one inside of it. That alongside the small black dot inside of it gave off the appearance of a pupil. It was fascinating how the Reaper tech imitated one's body, how it essentially assimilated itself into a part of them just like this.
"Oh shit." Leng said in surprise as I could hear his guns and equipment shifting from a sudden movement. "That still makes me uneasy y'know?"
I shook my head. "With everything so far, it means his symbiosis has gone remarkably well."
Leng, after a noticeable pause, replied. "Alright, but what about this?" He tapped on the metal drawer, whose metallic reverberations broke my concentrated attention on Shepard. I looked to it, and saw that the that words written didn't appear to 'buffer' for a short moment. That must have meant it was written natively in English.
Momentarily, I looked to the medicine used on top of the writing. It was arranged in a grid manner and roughly three quarters were put into a square labelled 'already used. No effect' in bold letters. However, I noticed that the writing itself was engraved, not written by a pencil or anything. This was made only more evident with small and thin rod-like fillings in and out of the ridges of the engraving. Observing the medicine gave me nothing to work it. It was all over the place in terms of what each tablet and bottle actually did.
…No it can't be. This was just an attempt to garner sympathy from the Geth. No more.
As for the actual content of the writing, it was apparently meant to be read as made obvious with the introductory phrase of 'For those who have found Shepard'. It then went on to list the 'symptoms' of Shepard's 'increasingly worrying condition'. This was no disease to be treated. Shepard was perhaps the only person I knew of whose symbiosis has gone well with no hiccups yet. Regardless, I easily made the connection that the Geth wrote it: The etched text, that perfect handwriting, and the simple font. It was rather obvious.
I wondered why the Geth wrote it in the first place though. I figured the most logical explanation was that this was actually a tactical move to feign empathy, but I knew that for a fact that whatever reason the Geth was here it was not good.
I then brought up my Omnitool, the nigh-transparency of its holograms forever a reminder of its jailbroken status, and spoke into it. "Miranda Lawson here with Kai Leng. We found Commander Shepard's body alongside a nearly defunct Geth. Requesting a repair and engineering team upon return." I then looked back to the Geth, and decided that the best way to move was by lifting it biotically. It was the most efficient method.
Leng took the hint and took it upon himself to lift Shepard, not without first tying the blanket around him, of course. He then glanced back at me and made an unreadable expression. Odd. He rarely managed to do that. But my attention was caught by the blanket around Shepard. It was… familiar somehow.
More specifically it was the pattern. It was deeply intricate: Regal symbols littered every part of it so much so that it was outright garish, and they were mirrored both horizontally and vertically. The outer parts of the blanket had 'floors' which separated the precipices from the rest of the design. In the center, everything coalesced together to create something of a dark cross with gold outlines, both as in color and the actual metal if the faux-shine was anything to go by. In the center of the cross was another regal yet unrecognizable symbol, far more complex in detail and in drawing.
I squinted my eyes. I knew this.
This was a Quarian shawl.
AN: This does take place in a universe where Earth underwent a different alternate history.