The Road.
“You’re still here?”
Matriarch Benezia stepped out of the office and walked over to me with a slight smirk.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do here, so let’s sort things out quickly, and then you’ll be on your way while we get to work.”
“Excellent.”
I nodded.
“There’s a lot we need to discuss…”
Matriarch Benezia began, but Aria interrupted her.
“We’ll discuss it on the way.
First, let me ask Shepard something.”
“Go ahead.”
“The scientists at Peak 15…
we don’t know exactly what Saren is doing there, but we do know it involves some pretty serious research.
The base’s security has been heavily reinforced lately.
So be careful.”
“Got it.
Any advice?”
“Don’t trust anyone.
Noveria is…”
“There’s important information in Liara’s head that confirms our efforts weren’t in vain, so…”
“Later.”
Benezia waved dismissively.
“We’ve been doing what we must for a long time now, without expecting confirmation or refutation of anything.
Simply because having a goal makes life more interesting — it’s like going back to our Matron years, when the restlessness has faded but you’re still not comfortable sitting still.
And we do get our dividends from what we do.
So confirming the data can wait a dozen hours…”
“Then what do you need to do?”
“I’m taking almost all the assault troopers.
I’m leaving you only with the Lissi and Missi twins — they’re trained well enough to assist with various missions.
Does that work for you?”
“More than enough.”
I nodded calmly.
“And since you’re now holding the administrator over something I didn’t think he had, you can authorize the unloading of two Mako.
From what I understand, the anti-orbital defenses around the science complexes are much heavier than here, so we’d have little chance of breaking through with the Normandy.
We’ll have to go by ground.”
“Of course…”
She turned, opened the door to the office, and called out.
“Aria, get our boy clearance for Mako-class vehicles — better yet, for anything and everything possible.”
“One moment…”
Aria’s voice sounded slightly muffled, she clearly wasn’t bothering to raise her voice at all.
A couple of minutes later, I received the authorization, and the Mako was unloaded from the Normandy without any issue.
“I have a question…”
Williams decided to draw my attention.
“…why did we put on our exoskeletons immediately without asking anyone’s permission, but had to get authorization for the Mako?
Sir, doesn’t that seem a bit inconsistent?”
“Partially…”
I shrugged casually.
“…but there’s a big difference between a port being run by a hostile entity and one controlled by friendly forces.
If the administrator had cooperated from the start, I would have requested clearance from the Normandy for moving in armor, with weapons, in exoskeletons, and for the Mako.
However…”
“Bullshit…”
Williams shook her head.
“Williams, bite your tongue.”
Chifuyu decided to shut down the girl who was thinking a bit too highly of her own importance.
“You were only accepted because Jane took a liking to you, so you’d better think about how to keep her favor — or earn Captain Shepard’s favor — because you can still be kicked off, and with a recommendation like that…”
“So what am I supposed to do…
spread my legs for him?”
Williams had lowered her voice, but I still heard her perfectly.
“What a fool…”
Chifuyu shook her head.
“The captain won’t even look your way.
The whole crew already knows he’s interested in Jane, Tali, and Liara, so you don’t even have a chance at a casual hookup.”
Chifuyu said this even more quietly, but I still heard it, along with a quiet squeak from Tali, who had been listening in.
“That’s enough chatter!”
Jane decided to cut off the conversation, and from the tone of her voice, it wasn’t just about restoring order — the topic was making her uncomfortable too.
Soon we were in the garage, loading onto the Mako.
Onto it, because most of the squad was in exoskeletons and we simply couldn’t all fit inside.
The Mako pilots were the assault trooper girls, though they weren’t too happy about it, while the gunners were Liara and Wrex — I didn’t have an exoskeleton for him.
Let’s roll!
The moment the gates opened, we were met with a volley of fire, which I absorbed with a biotic barrier.
The gunners in the Mako didn’t hesitate, and neither did those riding on the hull — they opened extremely heavy fire on the geth, who were packed in a crowd beyond the gates.
Since geth weapons couldn’t penetrate my barrier and there were no Colossi in sight, we dealt with them quickly.
“So?
What are we waiting for?”
“Boss, before we set out…
while we’re not in combat…”
One of the troopers started to address me, but Liara’s disapproving voice cut through the comms. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
“Stand down.
Questions later.
I understand what you want to say, but now isn’t the time.
Just do what you were told.”
“Roger!”
The twins’ synchronized response made it clear they weren’t going to argue, and the Mako immediately started moving, rapidly picking up speed.
Not maximum, unfortunately — the exoskeletons were too heavy and prevented the Mako from using its full potential.
But we didn’t need that anyway; the speed we reached was sufficient.
“Enemy at ten o’clock!”
Jane spotted the geth platforms first, immediately alerted everyone, and opened fire.
A second later, Chifuyu and Rebecca joined in.
The rest held their fire — there weren’t many targets.
“Behind us!
Air support!”
Tali’s voice made us turn, and I immediately raised a barrier above us.
It crackled but held against several shots from a geth shuttle, while Tali and Garrus opened fire with their cannons, causing it to smoke and start falling.
But instead of crashing away from us, the geth decided it would be more advantageous to fall directly on top of us.
I had to reconfigure the shield, making the shuttle slide to the side.
Still, the impact of that mass made the ground shake.
“Well, shit…
geth kamikazes…
never thought I’d see that.”
Rebecca couldn’t hold her tongue.
“I never thought I’d be fighting geth at all…”
Jane decided to chime in.
“…so let’s just accept that our lives will never be the same.”
“Yeah…
especially after what you saw from the beacon, right?”
Chifuyu’s tone was serious.
“And that’s just fucked.
No, seriously, I have no idea how to fight those things that wiped out the Protheans!”
Jane’s voice rose slightly.
“Incoming!
Three o’clock!”
But the new shuttle wasn’t heading our way, and it was too far for aimed fire, so we could only watch as it flew to a point ahead of us and, without slowing, dropped troops.
Among them was a Colossus and about ten geth.
“By the way, Tali, do you need new platforms?”
Last time we couldn’t stay on the planet long, so we just loaded a few geth platforms aboard, provided Tali would dismantle them and ensure the ship’s safety.
Now I decided to ask if she needed more material to study.
“No…
I still haven’t finished with the previous ones.
Thanks for the offer.”
“Always welcome.”
As I said that, we were close enough for the Colossus to open fire, but we didn’t stay idle either.
The Colossus itself wasn’t that difficult a target — the last fight with a similar platform had shown that — but the road was narrow, leaving almost no room for maneuvering.
I had to absorb several of its shots with my barrier.
They were significantly weaker than the shuttle’s fire, so my barrier held without any trouble.
Protected by the barrier, we took down the Colossus and the geth.
“Damn…
Jane, no offense, but I really wish I’d served under John before.
This feels like a walk in the park, not combat.”
“That’s because it really is a walk…”
Jane was clearly lost in her memories.
“I told you, during the defense of Elysium, I wasn’t far from where John was fighting.
And even he, as a biotic, could do a lot — but not everything.
Yet he and his subordinates always ended up in the deepest shit…”
“Like we are now?”
Garrus said it with a slight smirk.
“Hunting a rogue Spectre who got hold of a dreadnought belonging to the race that once wiped out the Protheans…
isn’t that the deepest shit?”
“No…”
I shook my head.
“…this is just the entrance to it.
The real deep shit will be if the Council and governments don’t prepare, and when the Reapers — the name is easier than ‘Reapers’ arrive, we’ll have to fly from planet to planet begging for mutual aid.”
“Fuck…”
Garrus’s voice carried pain.
“…and that’s probably exactly what will happen.”
“I hope not.
Because I don’t believe any of the currently advanced races can stand against the Reapers alone.
Some might not be worth destroying immediately — at least not until the others are gone — but…”
“So what do we do?”
“Prepare, obviously…”
“There’s a facility up ahead — looks like we’ve arrived.”
Lissi announced what we could already see, but when we reached the facility gates, they didn’t open — not automatically, not even when we entered the access code.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” This story is hosted at g.com.
Aria commed me at that moment.
“Let me guess — Peak 15 is down?”
“You’re already there?”
“Yeah, and the entrance gates won’t let us in.
Wasn’t hard to guess something was broken.”
“Got it.
End of line.”
The connection cut, and I looked at the gates.
“Lissi, plant charges around the gate perimeter.
Not much — just where the locks are likely located so I can use biotics to push the gates in afterward.”
“One moment…”
The girl quickly left the Mako and started laying charges.
It took her about ten minutes, and only because she wasn’t trying anything fancy — just set external charges.
“Everyone take cover!”
Her command was a formality, really — we were already behind the Mako, which had been deliberately positioned sideways.
“Blow it!”
A series of explosions followed, and a few dozen seconds later, when the dust settled, I pushed the gates down with a telekinetic burst, and we drove into the facility.
The facility’s garage was lit by emergency lighting, and a VI voice was repeating:
“Attention…
error…
communication system failure…
error, reactor malfunction…
error…
VI restart required…
underground monorail to Rift Station non-functional.
Attention…
error…
communication system failure…
error, reactor malfunction…
error…
VI restart required…
underground monorail to Rift Station non-functional.”
It kept repeating the same message.
It was a bit irritating.
“Well, we don’t need to go there, do we…
so it’s fine?”
Tali’s voice carried a hint of doubt.
“We’ll see.”
I shrugged vaguely.
“By the law of genre…”
Jane decided to enlighten Tali.
“We’ll end up needing that lab.
So we’ll probably have to fix the reactor and restore communications — though I wouldn’t bother with the latter.
The last thing we need is Saren, or rather his allies, finding out about our approach.”
“True…”
Tali nodded.
“…so what do we do next?”
“Next, we figure out the situation and try to talk to the VI.
That’s your job, little Gadget.”
“Gadget?”
“Heh-heh-heh…”
Rebecca laughed, but the others didn’t get the reference.
Liara and the aliens had no reason to, but the humans…
disappointing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Wait, are you serious?”
Rebecca looked at everyone and even made her helmet visor transparent so they could see her bewilderment.
“It’s an animation classic!
You people are so uncultured…”
She shook her head.
“Tali, all you need to know is that you’ve been compared to a very cute cartoon heroine who could build anything from whatever was lying around.
If you’re interested, when we’re back on the ship, I’ll help you find the cartoon and you can watch it.
There are a lot of episodes, but a few are enough to understand who she is.”
“Thanks…”
Tali nodded gratefully, and by then we’d reached the next door, which also refused to open.
“Blow it?”
Lissi’s voice was full of enthusiasm.
“Wait!”
Tali stopped me before I could answer.
“There’s a panel on our side.
I can just hack the system and open the door.
Five minutes, tops.”
“Fine, go ahead.”
I gave Tali the go-ahead for her technical shamanism, and she got to work immediately…
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