CHAPTER 38 - THE THORIAN
The squad fought their way up a staircase to get to the colony proper, encountering two more waves of creepers in the narrow confines.
Shepard reached the top, followed by Wrex, then Alenko. The commander swept the area continuously with her biotics and shotgun, looking and listening for any noise, any motion, any indication that creepers were nearby. She wondered where these creepers could be, given they had been suddenly appearing since the return from the researchers.
The answer to her question came just a few moments later when she heard a growl and scuffling feet. She started to turn around when she realized that the noise was coming from behind her, in the stairwell.
Ashley confirmed that fact just a second later with a yell. "They're behind us!"
Shepard didn't waste any time, biotically jumping down to the landing below, firing her shotgun at a thrall that was advancing on Emerson. The thrall was cut down, along with two more from the marine's accurate shotgun blasts, but the fourth one swiped at him just as he jumped back and fired his weapon.
The shotgun shell blew the creeper apart, but it managed to swipe Emerson's shoulder with its claws. "Shit!" the marine yelled in pain as he hunched over, subconsciously dropping his shotgun as he clutched at his injured shoulder.
Shepard jumped next to him, quickly sweeping the area before appraising his wound. There wasn't much blood, and it looked worse than it was, though it would probably render his left arm essentially useless until it healed.
"I'm okay. Just a flesh wound," the marine rasped through gritted teeth.
She heard shotgun fire below her… "Tali, cover Emerson!" The Spectre biotically jumped down another flight of stairs to see creeper parts everywhere, but several of them advancing on Ashley and Garrus, and her teammates were too close for her to use biotics…
She fired her shotgun as Ashley and Garrus did the same, blasting the creepers apart in a disgusting shower of gore. The last one, however, slashed at Garrus.
The turian yelled as the claws ripped into his abdomen. He doubled over in pain, staggering back until he hit the wall. "Garrus!" Shepard shouted in horror as she rushed to his side.
The creeper growled and lunged at him again. Shepard placed the creeper in stasis just as it raised its claws, but another took its place, lurching forward to finish the turian off.
Shepard charged her biotics, but using and holding a stasis used a significant amount of dark energy. She couldn't charge in time, and even if she could, any biotic attack would probably seriously hurt the turian too. So she did the next thing she thought of as she sprinted towards Garrus. She tackled the creeper.
Her shoulder slammed into the creeper's side. Despite her low mass, the impact sent the creeper sprawling on the floor with its oversized limbs spread eagled. The force of the impact smeared a long streak of creeper gore along her left shoulder and arm. It sent her flying and she completed two full revolutions on the ground before finally coming to a stop on her back.
The creeper half crawled, half scampered to its feet as it jumped on Shepard, who turned just in time to see the creeper's perpetually grinning face leaping at her, its claws raised to strike. She tried to raise her shotgun, tried to charge her biotics, but the creeper moved too fast –
A loud boom echoed through the narrow stairwell as the creeper's chest burst apart, showering Shepard's torso and legs with goop. The legs, arm, and head continued further, splattering on the ground a mater away. She looked to see Garrus one-handedly pointing a shotgun at the location a meter away where the creeper's chest had just been. She wasn't the best at reading turian facial expressions, but she knew a wince when she saw one. He dropped the shotgun and doubled over, nearly collapsing.
The stairwell fell silent after one last biotic blast to finish off the thrall in stasis. "All clear," Williams said.
"Garrus!" Shepard exclaimed as she saw the blood dripping from his abdomen wound.
The turian barely lifted his head to look at her. "Uh…" he grunted in pain.
"Alenko, Wrex, Liara, get down here! Garrus and Emerson are hit!" she shouted as she quickly began to apply medigel to Garrus' much more severe wounds. The turian cringed as the frigid substance got to work stemming the bleeding, numbing the wound, and killing bacteria. She silently thanked Chief Edwards for his very strict N-training on treating wounds on other species as she removed the first aid kit and quickly got to work. She kept up her awareness of the surroundings, feeling relief when Wrex stopped several meters away, covering her while she provided immediate aid to Garrus.
"Comm-mma – " Garrus slurred.
"Ssshh," she told him softly. "Just relax. I'll get you patched up. Ashley, go look at Emerson," she ordered.
"I'm okay, ma'am," the marine replied through clenched teeth, his tone raspy.
"Thaak…" Garrus started to tell her.
She forced a tight smile; this wound was worse than she thought. "You saved me too, Garrus," she said softly. "Just relax."
She worked quickly, taking a minute to complete the emergency first aid. While his wound wasn't life threatening if he got to a medbay in a few hours, he would certainly be out of action. Her omni-tool showed he had toxins in his bloodstream.
She patted him gently on the shoulder. "Good job today, Garrus." She then rushed up the flight of stairs to see Williams tending to Emerson.
"Seen worse, skipper," the chief said. "But you're headed back to the Normandy, Corporal."
Shepard nodded, glancing to see Alenko and Liara covering them, dark energy swirling around both biotics. The commander inspected the corporal's wounds. Not nearly as bad as Garrus', and there was little more that her first aid skills could do after the chief's competent work.
"I can still fight, ma'am," Emerson rasped.
Shepard shook her head. "You did great today, Emerson," she said softly, gently patting him on the shoulder. She then stood and spoke into her comm. "Ghostrider, Shepard."
"Copy you, Commander," the crewwoman at the comm station said.
"We need a shuttle medevac. We have two injured, Emerson with moderate and Vakarian with serious. Lacerations and toxins. Over."
"Copy, Commander, two injured."
"We'll carry them up to the top of the tower near the colony. Lock in on my signal for location. What's the shuttle's ETA to our position?"
"Stand by, Commander…ETA will be one-two minutes. Over."
"Copy that, one-two minutes on the medevac. Tell Singh we'll see him on the roof. Tell him to be careful, too."
"Copy, ma'am."
"Wait one before shuttle departure, Ghostrider." Shepard looked to her squad. "Which do you all think were more effective? Incendiary or concussive?" Everyone answered the latter. "Concur, thank you." She returned to her comm. "Ghostrider, Shepard. Also bring down six shotgun concussive ammo kits and one-two rifle/pistol concussive kits. Bring four-zero extra frag grenades. Over."
"Copy that, Commander. One-two rifle/pistol concussive kits, six shotgun concussive kits, four-zero extra frag grenades. Shuttle will depart in two minutes. Anything else you need down there? Over."
"Yeah, a long shower," she said without keying the mic. "Negative, Ghostrider."
"Did you say lacerations and toxins, Commander?"
"That's affirm, Ghostrider."
"Copy that, Commander. We'll have several kits aboard the shuttle with the medics. Over."
"Sounds good, Ghostrider. We'll be looking for the shuttle arrival in about one-two minutes. Out." She shut down the comm link.
"You know, next time you need to say 'over and out' just to screw with the COMMO," Emerson said in a raspy voice.
Shepard laughed, her spirits buoyed by the fact the wounded marine was joking.
"The damn vids never get that right," the injured marine continued.
"That's where we come in. Get paid the big bucks on consulting for the vids up front, then deliberately get it wrong again so they keep having to re-hire us on future vids to get it quote, 'right'," Williams chuckled.
Shepard glanced down to see Wrex helping Garrus up the stairs, with one of the krogan's arms underneath the turian's shoulder. "Stubborn bastard refused to be carried," Wrex grumbled.
"I'm…NOT being…arried," Garrus said, followed by a raspy breath. "By a…kroan."
Shepard shrugged at him. "Well Garrus, I could try to carry you, but that would end up with both of us falling down the stairs the moment I even tried to pick you up. And lifting you with biotics is out of the question with those wounds, so you're stuck with Wrex."
Garrus mumbled something in a turian language that Shepard didn't understand, which could have been anything from an acknowledgement to a curse. But it was probably a curse. Her partial knowledge of several other species' languages did not extend to profanities. Though given what we've encountered, she thought, it probably should.
"Let's get you both up to the roof," Shepard said. "The shuttle will be here in about nine minutes. Alenko, you carry Emerson. I don't think any of the creepers should be above us in this tower. Ashley, you take point with Liara. I'll bring up the rear. Tali, you're with me, but I'm at the bottom. Always stay a few steps above me, Tali," Shepard ordered.
Alenko picked up Emerson, gently lifting him over his shoulder. The squad started making their way up the stairwell, keeping a bit of distance between each two-person team.
No creepers waited for them at the top, and none followed them up. Wrex and Kaidan set Garrus and Emerson on the ground. Williams already had her sniper rifle at her side, using her eyes to scan the colony. Satisfied that her injured teammates were stable and safe, Shepard joined the gunnery chief.
"I count one-seven creepers visible. Three colonists. None alerted to our presence," Ashley said.
"They will when the shuttle lands," Shepard muttered. "And you can bet there's a lot more that we can't see. I don't want them all swarming up the stairs once they learn we're up here." She paused for several seconds while she considered her options. "Kaidan, Ashley, you two take the snipers with the explosive or incendiary kits. Start dropping the creepers. I'll head down to the base of the tower to make sure none of them start charging up the stairs. And I'll use the gas grenades on any colonists I see. Liara, stay behind Wrex and I. Use your biotics in support. Tali, use tech attacks on the colonists' weapons, and shotgun any creepers that get close. Ash, Kaidan, wait until we are in position, then open fire on the creepers. Warn us if any colonists approach."
A minute later the fireteam reached the bottom of the tower and got into position, no creepers in sight except for their gruesome remnants. The commander then radioed, "Open up."
Two cracks followed a split second later, followed by several screeches. The marines' rifles spoke again and again as the screeches continued.
"The creepers aren't very bright," Williams said between shots.
"Colonists took cover," Alenko added.
"The creepers are just…" the chief paused as she fired again "running around. I don't think they know where we're at."
"Only got eight so far," the lieutenant said, pausing for a moment to shoot. "Takes a few shots to drop one."
"That's fine," the commander replied. "Slow and steady, especially since they don't know we're in the tower."
Only a moment passed before Alenko said, "I think they know we're in the tower."
"You had to say something, skipper," Williams said.
"Ten, no probably twenty are heading our way." He fired again, the unleashed a biotic attack. "More, many more, intermixed with a few colonists," he said urgently.
"Great," Shepard muttered. "Get ready."
The screeches got continuously closer, and a moment later a trio of creepers rounded the corner. A lift from the commander sent them several meters into the air as they tumbled forward. A colonist came next, but a gas grenade from Wrex dropped her before she got more than a trio of pistol shots off at the fireteam. The colonist collapsed to the ground.
"Watch your biotic power," Shepard warned. "It won't take much to deal with the creepers. Use lifts if at all possible." She reached out with a biotic pull to get the unconscious colonist out of the way.
"Several more creepers," Alenko radioed. "You're clear to hit them hard." Shepard did, the powerful wave of dark energy splattering a pair creepers against a far wall. Three creepers then rounded the corner, which Wrex quickly dispatched with an equally powerful throw.
"Two colonists with three creepers are next." A very well-placed grenade from Wrex dealt with all five of them, knocking the colonists out while disintegrating enough of the creepers to render them combat ineffective. Shepard pulled the colonists out of the way. She instinctively cringed as the relatively gentle biotic pull dragged them through the remnants of creeper goop.
The fighting continued, with the two marines calling out the approaching hostiles, and the fireteam using gas or biotics to eliminate the threat. After one last wave of creepers, the screeching ended.
"No contacts in sight, Commander," Ashley said.
Shepard glanced uneasily at their handiwork. Seven unconscious colonists lay off to the side, and fully forty creepers had met a messy end, having been disintegrated from either gas or biotic attacks. "Just be glad they didn't all attack at once."
Wrex nodded. "Or that the colonists weren't mixed better with the zombies."
Shepard checked her omni-tool; the shuttle was three minutes out, rapidly slowing prior to hitting atmosphere. The commander looked to her fireteam. She didn't want to have an odd number of people in her squad, but… "Tali," Layla said softly. "We can't risk our geth expert getting a suit breach around these thralls."
"Commander, you don't need to send me back!" Tali protested. "I can still overload the colonist's weapons. And there's still more geth on the planet that we may have to deal with."
Shepard sighed. She really worried about Tali now, having no idea how many thralls this thorian had. While the goop didn't seem to be toxic, their claws certainly contained some sort of poison. "Tali, while we certainly need your help, a suit breach with those toxins in their claws could be a serious problem. Even if we have the shuttle stay on Feros, we don't know how long it would take to get you out of the ruins."
"Commander, I can handle myself! You'll need my help to infiltrate the remaining geth!" Tali pleaded. "And we may need to breach another database!"
The commander sighed again as she reviewed her remaining teammates, coming to a decision several seconds later. "Tali," she replied. "Stay as far away as possible from the creepers. Don't do anything to risk a suit breach. Understood?"
The quarian nodded quickly. "Of course, Commander."
"Wrex, keep an eye on her."
The krogan gave a quick nod, patting Tali on the shoulder.
"Be careful, all of you. Stay behind me."
The shuttle arrived a couple minutes later. The door opened and the medics immediately covered their noses. "God, what is that smell?"
"Yeah, it's bad. Worse when it's on your armor. Long story," Shepard said. The medics quickly got the wounded secured and the commander watched the shuttle depart back to orbit.
Shepard rounded a corner, followed quickly by Wrex, to see Fai Dan holding a pistol at his side. "We know about the thorian!" she shouted.
"It-it wants me to kill you!" the colonist's leader screamed in pain.
The commander had her biotics primed and pistol leveled back. Wrex held his shotgun in one hand, a primed grenade in the other.
"But…I…can't!" Dan's pistol started coming up. Both Spectre and battlemaster tensed. "I…WON'T!"
Shepard realized that Dan intended to use the pistol on himself. She placed him in a stasis while his pistol pointed at the sky. She rushed towards him, letting the stasis collapse around his head and torso. "Your people are safe for now," Shepard told him softly. "We knocked them all out."
"Thank…Commander," Dan stammered out. "Not safe…have to...same for me." Shepard nodded sadly as she walked behind Dan. "Finish…thorian."
"I will," she promised. She hit him with a biotic attack on his shoulders. The man went limp in the partial stasis, and he crumpled to the ground when it collapsed.
The commander recalled from memory the number and faces of the colonists at Zhu's Hope. She believed the squad had knocked out nearly all of them. She glanced around, looking and listening for any more signs of hostiles. Nothing, but…
"Wrex…does it look like they moved those crates? I don't remember crates there before."
"They did," he confirmed.
She looked around, noticing and remembering the console that the woman had been studiously monitoring and guarding several hours earlier. "That console…a woman was there it when we arrived."
"Yeah," Alenko agreed.
"She got agitated when I asked her what she was doing."
Tali hurried over, and it only took the tech expert several seconds to unlock it. "These are crane controls. They moved those crates about a half-hour ago to cover a stairwell to the lower level of the ruins."
"Something the thorian doesn't want us to get to," Shepard muttered. "Move the crates, Tali."
The crane creaked and groaned as it slowly moved into position, and Shepard had the squad step away.
The visions from the beacon suddenly returned HIDE she hid in the ruined structure, trying to control her breathing so she wouldn't be heard. She couldn't be heard couldn't let the monsters find her they would
She winced as she staggered forward, nearly falling down the stairs. Alenko had quickly reached out and grabbed her so she wouldn't fall. "Commander," he said with concern.
The grip around her waist from the lieutenant snapped her out of the sudden vision. She shook her head clear of the vision as Alenko suddenly released her. "It's-it's the beacon's visions," she replied quietly, looking down at the steps. "It feels like…it's something about this place." Something wrong, she didn't add.
Liara had hurried up to them. "Feros was a major prothean world. It…it is possible some of the memory fragments you saw are of this planet."
Shepard pondered it for several moments, now able to easily stand on her own. "I keep getting this feeling that there's something familiar about this place, that I've maybe been here before." She closed her eyes and sighed. "It's happened a few times on Feros, and…it happened on Therum, too. But…the ruins on this planet are extensive, and intact. Just how did the Reapers destroy the protheans on this planet?" she asked aloud, partially to herself. "And why didn't Saren bomb the place from orbit after he got what he wanted from the thorian?" She then glanced around to the squad, saying resolutely, "That was the first time in a while, but if it happens again, you take command Kaidan. We need to find this thorian, free the colonists, and find out just what Saren wanted with it."
Shepard took a deep breath, suppressed the growing urge to scream and run away as she began quickly moving down the stairs. Normally the prothean visions were only a few seconds, and affected her vision and hearing. This feeling was different; no visions or sounds, but strong urge to scream and flee. What had happened to the protheans that lived here? And why did a brief vision from a damaged beacon on a planet thousands of parsecs away give her the urge to flee Feros and never return?
She didn't realize that her heart rate had risen to the point where it had sent a caution to both Ashley and Kaidan. The surface light decreased enough that she had to turn on her armor's lamps.
"Layla," Kaidan said softly, startling her.
"It's like the visions are telling me to run, to leave now, but…it's…I don't know."
The ground slowly rumbled for several moments, and a low groan came from someplace in the dark depths below. She shared an apprehensive glance with the squad. Except for Tali's hidden mask, all of them shared varying levels of concern, with the exception of Wrex. The krogan's facial expression simply said "what other weird shit am I going to see today."
"It's…I think we need to find the thorian and leave as quickly as possible," the commander said quietly.
Their progress down the steps and ruins slowed as their environment continued to darken. Now the squad covered each other as they advanced. The air smelled stale and musty, as if this room never got any ventilation, with brief wafts of a scent that somehow was worse than creeper blood. Dust clogged the air, almost choking in its pervasiveness.
All in all, these lower levels of the structure felt uncomfortably claustrophobic to Shepard.
Layla turned a corner to enter a surprisingly open level, clear of debris and rubble – and thralls, most importantly. For some reason more light managed to enter this space, though it only seemed to highlight just how much dust floated in the air.
Then she looked up and gasped.
"What…is that!?" Kaidan exclaimed.
"Oh Keelah," Tali muttered.
"Goddess, is that – "
"Oh God…what are we going to do against that?" Williams exclaimed.
After beholding the creature for several moments in slack-jawed silence, Shepard finally regained the ability to speak. "That does not look like…like any plant I've ever seen. This may be…problematic," she said quietly. "Wrex?"
"We are going to need bigger guns," the krogan replied simply.
"I don't think our grenades are going to do the trick, Commander," Ashley agreed.
Shepard nodded mutely, staring at the grotesque form of the thorian. Forty meters away and above them hung a blob of bulging flesh, suspended by countless tendrils weaved around and through the ruins. The brown-red mass of flesh appeared roughly pear-shaped, with a mass of thin tendrils dangling from the bottom, next to several stretched marks of flesh that looked uncannily like a face of some long-dead species. From top to bottom it had to be nearly fifteen meters tall.
She appraised the thorian's full form, and though she didn't have any other thorians to compare it to, the creature in front of her had clearly been shot with many high-powered weapons. Holes and gashes crisscrossed its hide, with a disgusting fluid all too similar to creeper's blood seeping from the many wounds. A large section of skin had been charred and burned, and all of these wounds appeared to be recent.
Then the full force of the smell hit her, a disgusting scent of decomposing corpses in a latrine. The smell made her gag and briefly cough. She instinctively glanced towards the movement, and she let out a surprised gasp.
An asari had been ensnared from ankle to shoulders in the thorian's tendrils. A separate tendril snaked around the asari's neck and forehead. However, the most disturbing thing was her eyes. The eyes were not the normal white and blue for her species, but rather completely jet black. Shepard recalled her mandatory xenobiology courses, and she remembered only one thing that could cause…
"Liara…what does that asari…is that asari melding with the thorian!?" the commander asked in shock.
The prothean expert didn't respond, her mouth agape in an equal amount of shock as she continued to stare at the thorian. Shepard had to ask again to get the asari out of her trance. "I…it…yes, she is," Liara stammered. "But how…"
Shepard had heard many of the wild and false rumors about asari promiscuity, their melding process, but the Spectre knew that whatever was occurring here…it wasn't that.
"That's fucked up," Wrex muttered for all of them.
To everyone's surprise, the asari began to speak, her voice distorted and monotone. "Invaders! Your every step is a transgression! A thousand feelers appraise you as meat, good only to dig or decompose."
It wasn't the first time since being made a Spectre that Shepard didn't know what to do. She certainly hadn't expected a plant that used a melded asari to speak. She had also expected the plant to be smaller and less disgusting. She glanced uneasily to her squad.
"I speak for the old growth, as I did for Saren," the asari continued. "You are within and before the Thorian. It commands that you be in awe!"
"A plant with an ego. Now we've seen it all," Shepard muttered to her squad before facing the thorian. She had intended to free the colonists from the thorian's grip, but…she hadn't expected to be talking to the thorian. She had also noticed a couple dozen dead geth of several forms lying around the platform in front of them, intermixed with parts of creepers and their signature green-brown blood. Could…they learn from the thorian why Saren came here? She took several cautious steps toward the thorian. "We're...here to stop the geth. The machines that arrived. We want them gone."
"The one called Saren brought the machines, seeking knowledge of those long gone. The Old Growth listened to flesh for the first time in the long cycle. Trades were made. Then the Old Growth saw Saren's heart, and cold ones began killing the flesh that would tend the next cycle. Flesh fairly given! The Old Growth sees the air you push as lies! It will listen no more!"
"We're here to kill the geth…the cold ones!" Shepard shouted back. "If you tell us what knowledge you gave Saren, we will help you kill the cold ones!"
"Enough!" the asari shouted, and the entire mass of the thorian began to shudder. The commander found it impossible to not be squicked out as several flaps of skin peeled back, revealing several creepers in various states of growth. All five of the creepers slid to the ground, but the smallest one collapsed to the ground and splattered into several pieces.
Shepard prepared her biotics, looking for any more thralls. These four would not be much of a threat, but she saw a flash of grey and silver – "Geth!" she shouted. "Hit the geth! Don't hit the thorian! Maybe we can reason with it!"
Perhaps two dozen geth heavy units – rocket troopers, shock troopers, and destroyers – charged into the fray, all firing their weapons at the mass of plant tissue while a half-dozen troopers worked to gun down the thralls. The commander's squad had a few seconds of open season on the geth before the heavy units turned their attention the well-armed organics. Then things started going bad quickly.
It started when Tali had stepped out of cover to hack a destroyer. The three meter tall unit immediately went berserk, firing a carnage round at the nearest shock trooper. However, a rocket trooper had fired on Tali before she fully returned to cover. The quarian had screamed as the blast launched her into the wall, the fragments ripping into her shoulder. Dazed, she still managed to scramble back into low cover behind a pile of rubble.
Shepard's HUD showed that while Tali would certainly need to spend time in the medbay after this, she didn't need immediate medical attention. Which was good, because a wave of thralls entered the fight, splitting their attention between the geth and the organic "invaders."
In the cramped close quarters, there was little time to drop the creepers before they could slash at their quarry. Wrex had used his biotics to drop several, then he pushed Ashley into the air and out of the range of a trio of thralls. The thralls instead attacked him, and while they didn't last long against the massive krogan, they still managed to gouge out a piece of armor plating, removing a chunk of skin and muscle in the process.
With the thralls mostly dead, the commander had biotically charged into the center of the geth formation, dropping a massive nova before leaping behind a sturdy wall. This drew the geth's attention back to her, away from her squad. She saw motion out of the corner of her eye, and jumped to the side to avoid the worst of a thrall's claw. It still managed to cut clean through her armor and slice her skin before she splattered in on a nearby wall with her biotics.
She gasped in pain as her HUD flashed, indicating her armor had detected the presence of toxins. The same indicators had flashed moments ago for Wrex, though his wasn't as serious thanks to his tough skin. While the wound hurt like hell, it wasn't serious, at least for the moment. She rushed back into the fight, throwing a pair of thralls off of a ledge next to the thorian before returning her focus to the geth.
A sudden explosion lifted Shepard off of her feet, throwing her towards the thorian and the chasm next to it. She strengthened her barrier as she scampered to cover and away from the edge. She didn't make it. Another rocket detonated just a meter to her side. She felt herself go airborne again, and she saw the chasm approach and fill her vision. She tried to grip the side, but crumbling edge collapsed with the force of the explosion. She let out a scream as she tumbled over the side.
Layla tried to user her biotics to stop her tumble, and possibly even charge back up to the top, but her left thigh struck an outcropping that sent her spinning violently in the air, her limbs flailing in every direction. She used her biotics to stop the nauseous spinning. Her armor's lights automatically brightened to max power at the sudden darkness. The last thing she saw was a small outcropping of rubble, and she had time to register that her stomach would slam into it. She felt a searing pain in her abdomen for a split second before darkness suddenly and violently took her.
Kaidan had just finished a throw on a destroyer that had taken aim at Shepard. She had just finished placing an enormous nova in the center of a geth formation when a creeper had ambushed her, slicing through her armor. While his HUD reported her wounds weren't threatening at the moment, it did indicate the presence of toxins.
He blasted a pair of geth and a thrall off into the chasm near the thorian with his biotics. A carnage blast shook the room as he saw the commander flip over in the air, landing next to the chasm. Time seemed to slow to a crawl for the lieutenant as he saw the second rocket. He could do nothing as the explosion launched Shepard into the air. She tumbled over the side with a scream, and he was powerless to save her. A moment later, his HUD flashed a message.
LCDR Shepard Layla status: No lifesigns detected.
Miranda and Jacob reviewed what data they had been able to acquire on the neutron purge. The Alliance knew more than they had let on, but kept the information highly compartmentalized, and it seemed they had made a bit of a breakthrough on their own in figuring out xenotechnology.
"I don't know how much more we're going to get at this point," Jacob told her.
"I agree," Miranda replied. "We've questioned and interrogated everyone that had any knowledge of the neutron purge."
"The people who knew best died when the rachni escaped."
"Yeah." But something else was bothering her, something not related to the neutron purge.
In their current roles at AIA, they had access to a vast amount of information. But there was always something about their intelligence gathering capabilities that stood out to her enhanced mind. Anyone else would not have made the connection.
The Alliance seemed to have surprisingly good information on fleet movements in parts of the galaxy where intelligence gathering was sparse. Nothing close to comprehensive, she thought, but in a few cases they seemed to be almost prescient about fleet movements. The source for this information was never mentioned, and the movements never made it into official reports. The source didn't frequently provide anything. But there were enough times where the Alliance was able to act on timely information about batarian and now geth movements. She wanted to figure it out where no one else could, wanted to solve the puzzle, more for her own satisfaction than for Cerberus. Besides, after a recent decision they made, she had started to lose trust in her actual employer.
"What's our next move?" Jacob asked.
Miranda remained silent for nearly a minute, weighing her (until recently) unwavering loyalty to Cerberus against the personality of their most recent recruit. She trusted Jacob, and he completely trusted her. She had recruited him into Cerberus years ago, and they had worked together ever since. An unusual situation for people in an organization such as theirs, but Miranda knew she was nearly impossible to deceive. "Jacob…do you ever wonder whether we're doing the right thing?"
The question utterly confused the male Cerberus operative. "What? What the hell makes you say that? We have to look after humanity. I'm not even sure if the Reapers are even real, but we have to prepare ourselves if they are. Other than Commander Shepard, the Alliance isn't doing anything."
Miranda shook her head. "It's not that. It's…Cerberus. It's something they did."
Jacob gave her a confused look. "I don't always agree with their methods, but their results speak for themselves." Miranda knew he had been given a very rosy picture of Cerberus, with his recruitment and contacts being very careful to avoid mention of any of the less than savory operations or methods of Cerberus. He certainly didn't, and could never, know about the myriad of operations and cells across the Traverse. "Why?"
She sighed, knowing that Cerberus ran some truly twisted experiments that made even her stomach churn. But all of those were for the greater good. All of those had a purpose. But what this man had done… "Cerberus recruited someone."
"Who?" Jacob asked with confusion.
Miranda told him, and what the man had done, and Jacob's confusion quickly turned to rage.
"That sick fuck," he snarled. A dark energy corona swirled slightly around his hands. "Why the hell did the Illusive Man not put a bullet in his brain?"
"I don't know," she replied. "I thought the Illusive Man would never - " she stopped, and sighed. "He will be using Leng for cleanup of loose ends."
"Send him to us. He won't be leaving alive," Jacob growled.
"I agree with you. But if you meet him, don't underestimate him." She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them, the doubt gone from her face…for now. Despite her reservations, they had a job to do. They were professionals. "That's not going to help us get more info on what the Alliance knows. I've been thinking about a couple of the geth movements, how the Alliance was able to react so quickly." She outlined her thoughts about the Alliance's capabilities to her fellow operative.
His target would return in a few minutes, the assassin knew. Until a couple months ago, the target had been a talented, yet otherwise ordinary, rear admiral, spending much of his career in special forces. This particular rear admiral lived in a remarkably unremarkable two bedroom apartment in London at the moment for his current assignment. The rear admiral's house on Terra Nova was currently rented out to some commander and his family, details that had nevertheless been reviewed by the assassin. He liked to know as much as possible about his targets. He felt that it made the actual act of ending their existence more…intimate.
To make this hit seem more like a random murder-mugging, the assassin had killed a random man at an apartment complex three kilometers away two nights before. That target had been a bank director, and had a very nice sum of credits stored on his omni-tool. After killing the banker, the assassin had taken the target's omni-tool to an ATM, withdrawing as many credit chits as possible from the 'tool before destroying it. He would repeat the same process here now. It might throw off the true motivation for the murder. The police might just think that these were random muggings, unfortunate souls that were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and targets that had money to steal.
Cerberus' newest operative watched for his target to return. Unbeknownst to the rear admiral, his omni-tool had been hacked, providing the operative with real time information on the admiral's location. This particular admiral was well-respected in the Alliance for his work in a bevy of different special assignments over his career.
However, the rear admiral had made a mistake. The O-7 had been digging too hard and too deep. Sooner or later, he would stumble across things that needed to stay buried. That would have to stop.
Or so Kai Leng had been told. Regardless, he didn't particularly care about the specifics of what his target had done, just that Rear Admiral Kahoku needed to stop asking questions. In the permanent fashion.
Kahoku's skycar approached, according to Leng's omni-tool – the 'tool was currently set to its lowest brightness. Kai Leng crept from his hiding spot, crouching inside a bush. He didn't really need his tactical cloak – while it made it easier for him to move undetected, over the years he had become a master at concealment. He had done his share of black bag jobs over the years, where the use of either a tactical cloak or biotics would arouse suspicion. To complete the "disguise," he wore ill-cut and shabby dark clothing, like something a street mugger might wear.
Leng saw the skycar arrive, and he shut down his omni-tool to watch the target approach visually. Kahoku did, taking brief notice of one of the electronic lights and the security camera that had been conveniently disabled in preparation. Every device was connected to the extranet, both a blessing and a curse. To the police, it would appear as if a minor power conduit failed a couple hours ago. The admiral didn't appear concerned, as this was a safe, normally well-lit apartment complex. That was about to change.
Anyone could kill, Leng knew. Amateur assassins could even kill their target without being killed in return, though they were sloppy. While skilled assassins could quickly eliminate a threat, it truly took a master to kill someone and make it look like the work of an amateur, to fool even the expert crime scene investigators. A skilled investigator could sometimes determine the order that the wounds occurred. It truly took practice and skill to mask one's work as an amateur, to make one look lucky, to quickly cripple someone while still making a sloppy kill.
Kahoku passed within five meters of Leng's spot. Between the assassin's camouflage, the admiral's eyes not adjusted to darkness, and the disabled light, not even a very alert and trained observer could have spotted Leng. As Kahoku passed him, Leng crept silently forward, his shoes making absolutely no sound on the concrete. When he approached within a meter, he jumped the admiral and plunged the knife into his back.
The admiral collapsed on his stomach as Leng savagely stabbed the admiral repeatedly, making sure to hit and damage the spine on the fourth blow in just such a way to make it seem like a lucky strike. He stabbed Kahoku three more times before rolling him over onto his back, stabbing him three more times to puncture both his lungs and cut his heart.
The damage to Kahoku's spine prevented him from running, and the shock from the sudden blood loss and spinal cord damage prevented him from striking back effectively with his fists. The admiral looked his assassin in the eyes, and despite his fatal injuries, he was able to recognize his murderer. His face settled into a defiant glare as he tried to speak.
Leng removed his mask. "Cerberus says hello," the assassin sneered. "And goodbye."
The admiral's face contorted into a look of pure hate for his assailant, and he managed to gurgle out a "fuck you" to Leng.
"What's the matter, Admiral?" Leng asked in mock concern. "You poked your head where you shouldn't, and you've paid the price." He changed his face to a twisted grin. "Just as your family will."
The admiral's face changed from hatred to one of wide-eyed horror before turning to rage.
"Yes, your wife, just inside your apartment," Leng grinned. "You were a lucky man to have her for so long. Your daughter is…twenty-eight, if I recall correctly. A beautiful woman, at least until I'm finished with her." He spent several moments describing in graphic detail what he planned to do to them.
The admiral began to frantically struggle, tried to punch his assailant, do anything to stop Leng's next target. He died several moments later, the expression on his face a mix of anger.
Feeling the rush of excitement as Kahoku expired, Leng stood and admired his work for several moments. He wasn't going to do what he said, of course, as much as he might like to, now that he was free of all the inhibitions of being in the Alliance. That would leave DNA, which could be traced back to him. Cerberus couldn't have that. If he learned one thing, it was that he couldn't leave his victims alive after he finished with them. But here, at least he could be satisfied that Kahoku's last thoughts were the fates in store for his wife and daughter.
He knelt down and removed the admiral's omni-tool, but then he felt an irresistible tug towards the apartment. Kahoku's wife was just inside, and given his daughter wouldn't be back for a couple hours, it would give Leng time to focus appropriate time on each of his victims. It would be so easy to, and his demented mind felt a sick rush at the thought. But that would attract much more attention, and besides, it wasn't the goal for tonight.
Leng sighed and stood, taking a longing look at the door to the apartment just several meters away. He turned away after a long moment, walking quickly back to the bushes and to cover. He made it a point to drop the unused drug needle several meters from Kahoku, a needle that he had taken from the corpse of a drug addict that he had also killed, whose body would never be found and whose disappearance would never be noticed. Having the needle near the crime scene might make the police think that this was just another druggie getting money for his fix.
Now the next task to throw the police off the trail. There was an ATM two hundred meters away that he could reach unseen, and he would withdraw all possible credits from the admiral's account into physical credit chits before completely destroying the omni-tool. The camera and light would flicker back on in a while, and having those off allowed Leng to torment his victim for a minute, something that would easily give away the fact that Kahoku was targeted.
The assassin finished with the ATM, stealing a healthy chunk of credits and causing damage to the machine. A small grin appeared on the operative's face as he contemplated his next assassination, and he vanished back into the shadows.
Lieutenant Commander Layla Shepard slowly heard something in her ears. A throbbing, pulsing sound. It took her several moments to realize that it was a heartbeat. Her heartbeat.
She opened her eyes, only to see that she couldn't actually see anything. She inhaled sharply through her nose, and was rewarded with a nauseating smell. The damp, cold air, permeated with the stench of rotting corpses, hung heavy in the room. No sounds echoed through wherever she was at.
She slowly pulled herself into a sitting position, then memories of where she was at suddenly returned to her. Feros…the thorian…thralls...
She leapt to her feet, charging her biotics. The bright blue corona lit up the surrounding void like a flare. She quickly spun around, searching for any hostiles, but…nothing. Nothing was nearby. She drew her rifle, silently and slowly getting to her feet. She looked up, and to her dismay she saw no hint of light. She flipped on her armor's lights and quickly charged her biotics, but found no hostiles as she quickly swept the area.
Her highly trained and practiced mind automatically catalogued her surroundings. She stood in a hallway perhaps five meters wide, with doors every ten or so meters, spaced unevenly. The ceiling stood about four meters above her head, and she was surprised at how remarkably well-preserved these ruins were. They almost seemed unaffected by fifty thousand years of neglect. Of eerie silence.
She swept her weapon as she slowly approached one of the doors, wondering if she could force it open and use it as a place to connect to the network, to contact her squadmates. To her continued surprise, the door opened of its own accord with barely a hiss. She quickly looked inside the room, and found nothing other than high chairs and standing desks, again all of which looked remarkably pristine after nearly a couple thousand generations of neglect.
Shepard relaxed a bit; if there were thralls here, they would have been alerted by her biotics flaring earlier. She was in the clear, at least for the moment. She opened her omni-tool, the green interface flickering to life. She tried to bring up a holographic map, but nothing appeared, other than unintelligible static. So her armor's motion and velocity sensors had lost track of how far she had fallen. Maybe she could still contact her squad. Why did she want to connect to a network? Why hadn't she thought of contacting her team on the comm?
"Shepard to Alenko, come in," she radioed. No reply. Just static. She checked her comm system's channel. It was correct, and her radio appeared to be working properly. She tried calling both the ground team and the Normandy time and again, but neither responded. She set the radio to scan through every frequency, watching as it scanned through every frequency…but found nothing. She set the bandwidth to its maximum, setting the filters to allow anything on standard or emergency Alliance frequencies to pass through…but still nothing. Nothing on the Normandy's carrier frequency that would be used in an emergency to contact the ground team.
Now she was worried. She had fallen Lord knows how far and couldn't raise anyone on the comms. Then she remembered her order to the Normandy…retreat if Sovereign arrived. Had…that massive ship returned, and the Normandy been forced to retreat? Was the ground team keeping quiet because they were trying to hide? But...they would have probably sent a brief emergency ping, telling her to be quiet as well. Or…had Sovereign and Saren killed them? That thought sent a jolt of terror through her – her crew, slaughtered mercilessly –
She choked back a breath. No, she told herself. They were alive. They had to be. They were alive, and she had to get back to them.
Head Detective Jack Davenport had spent hours reviewing every minuscule detail about the two killings in London – photos, holographic recreations, preliminary reports from the coroner. He had reached a conclusion. He began to walk through the details of both murders that led him to the realization that would run contrary to everyone else in the precinct.
The wounds indicated that both killings had been sloppy, but there were subtle signs that this was the work of an assassin. The man who committed the murders – Davenport was certain that it was a man, judging by the exact layout of the crime scene – wanted his work to appear to be the work of an amateur.
The detective had looked up the unclassified portions of Kahoku's file. A skilled special forces officer in his younger days, and from all indications he hadn't softened with age. This was not a man who could be ambushed easily.
Davenport had pulled the records of the power and security company, a massive conglomerate that had countless billions of devices in operation. The nearby camera and light had been offline for updates, a routine occurrence. Even the longer-than-expected process for the updates was entirely normal. The timing and duration for these events was entirely automated, without any human intervention. The killer had likely somehow disabled the light and camera, and used that location by which he could ambush the rear admiral.
Both murder scenes had DNA of a violent drug addict that the overextended prison system had simply been unable to keep. Nearly every resource in the precinct was searching for the man, but Davenport didn't think he was the killer in this case.
Davenport had been in the military and still had a few friends serving. After pondering for a minute, he called up one of his old friends that was still enlisted. After catching up and exchanging pleasantries, Davenport got down do business. "An Alliance rear admiral has been murdered here in London. Kahoku," the detective said.
The senior operations chief pulled all of the information on Kahoku, telling Davenport a couple new tidbits about the admiral's record. "Why? What are you thinking?"
"Rear Admiral Kahoku was murdered. By a skilled assassin that tried to cover his tracks via another murder two nights before and leaving drug paraphernalia at each scene." Davenport stood, scratching his moustache, looking at the screens which displayed information about the deceased admiral. With his target dead, the assassin had already likely left the London area, and may have even departed earth. He had put in queries for everyone that had left London starting one hour after the murder. Probably nothing would come up, but maybe he might get a lead.
The detective didn't know the why of the murder, but he would find out.
Commander Shepard spent several minutes searching the room for a working terminal, something that she could try to get working, or link into her omni-tool. She checked her omni-tool's settings, and in the perverse curse of Murphy's Law, it had apparently reset itself, not displaying the time, or even the current date. It didn't even display the uptime of the system. That was even odder. As a result, she had no idea how long she had been unconscious. That worried her even more.
The air hung heavy with dust and vapor as she moved towards a computer terminal. She instinctively coughed to clear the drainage from her throat. Not a moment later, she heard the screech of nearby thralls.
She charged her biotics and aimed her rifle at the doorway. Where had they been hiding!? Why had they heard her just now, not a few minutes ago when she had radioed her squad!? The screeches somehow sounded more chilling. She suppressed a shudder as the shriek got louder and louder.
A blur of motion entered the room just a moment later, and Shepard momentarily froze as she got a good look at the thrall. This creature made all of the previous ones she had encountered seem like imposters. Its lanky form stood nearly three meters tall, with dark brown skin that oozed brown fluid from the joints. The truly fearsome claws dripped with venom. The head looked rotten, with folds of mottled skin hanging from the chin. The eyes sat wide on the face, with maroon irises and no visible pupils.
She fired her rifle once at the lead monstrosity; the thrall exploded in a shower of gore with a bright flash of light from the rifle. She used her biotics on the next two; the thralls made crunches against the back wall. She aimed her rifle again – wait, just what kind of rifle is this!? she suddenly asked herself.
She heard a thrall screech behind her, instinctively charging her nova to knock it back. Feeling the flow of dark energy around her, she still didn't understand how the thrall got behind her there was only one entrance to this room why had the cough alerted all of the thralls and she had fallen from above so why was there a ceiling above her –
Something slammed into her stomach as her world went black.