We entered the complex’s territory, and I quickly looked around.
Off to the side stood an asari commando, who tensed slightly when we entered.
Representatives from various corporations were also there, and they noticed us.
“You’ve come to save us!”
Representatives from three corporations immediately rushed toward us, but when I made a brief gesture and the soldiers in exoskeletons aimed their weapons at them, they froze in place.
“You have to save us!”
One lady decided to throw her weight around, and I just shook my head mentally — in my humble opinion, this was idiocy.
“We’re not here to save you.
This is a Spectre Corps operation.
Don’t interfere, and your lives won’t be in danger.
Any attempt to obstruct will result in you being declared an accomplice of the terrorist Saren, whose Spectre status has been revoked due to his crimes.”
The beings fell silent, processing the information.
“Move aside!”
Surprisingly, they listened and immediately cleared the way.
“Wrex, ensure the safety of Specialist vas Normandy — she needs to figure out where we’re heading next from any terminal she finds convenient.
If anyone tries to interfere…”
“Got it, boss.”
I could hear him smirking under his helmet as he said it.
“Th-that’s industrial espionage…”
The salarian who tried to squeak that out shut up when Garrus’s sniper rifle was aimed his way.
Meanwhile, Tali and Wrex approached the nearest terminal, and she immediately plugged into it.
“Here…”
“Just break it.
I don’t care about the security of their systems — I’m only concerned with Saren and his accomplices, and if…”
At that moment, the asari commando lunged toward Tali, but she hadn’t even taken three steps and was fully coated in biotics when she froze in midair, and then fire was opened on her.
And by who?!
It was Williams!
I can say that the girl earned herself a few points by not arguing, not asking questions, and flawlessly engaging the enemy in the front lines.
Panic and screaming — that’s what surrounded us now.
Though they were more running away from us than trying to attack, so it didn’t bother me much.
“Specialist vas Normandy?”
I addressed Tali, who — I could tell from her body movements — was very grateful that I was publicly identifying her as part of the ship’s crew.
“I’ve figured everything out…
and sir, they were also developing biological weapons here…”
I frowned slightly and quickly looked around, but there was no one left in the hall.
The guard who’d let us through peeked inside, saw only one corpse, and did nothing.
He understood perfectly well that if I’d wanted to, we could’ve wiped out both them and everyone else here — but we’d let them all flee safely.
“Send the weapon data to the Normandy.
Let Chakwas dig into it while we deal with Saren’s lab.”
“On it!”
The girl immediately carried out my order, then pointed in the right direction.
“We need to go that way.
But we’ll encounter Rachni there — a lot of Rachni.”
“Good.
Move out, and don’t take unnecessary risks.”
“Of course.”
She nodded, and we continued on, passing through several sealed airlocks to end up in a corridor swarming with Rachni.
They immediately detected our presence.
“Barriers!”
Jane gave the order, and the twins immediately created barriers — one from below, the other from above, leaving a small gap between them to fire through with the monstrous weapons the soldiers in exoskeletons were carrying.
“Damn, this isn’t even fun…”
Wrex sounded almost offended.
“…buddy, tell me honestly — why did you even hire me?”
“Wrex…”
I shot a quick glance at the krogan, which was nearly impossible to read through my helmet.
“…it’s better to have a specialist of your level bored than to not have one and need one.
Besides, this is only our second deployment, and it’s not even over yet.
And something tells me that when we get close to capturing or eliminating Saren, your skills will come in very handy.”
“Eh…
no, it’s your call.
I’ve got nothing to complain about, really — our contract is more than profitable for me…
it’s just…
I’m not used to this somehow…”
At that moment, he raised his shotgun and emptied a blast into the gap between the barriers at a bug that had gotten too close.
“See?
“Yeah, yeah…
that thing wouldn’t have gotten through the barrier anyway.”
The Rachni were done, and we looked around.
“Shepard, should I hack that terminal?”
Tali pointed at a small terminal near the next airlock.
“Well, if you think it’s necessary.”
“Yes.”
She nodded, and seeing my nod, she hurried to the terminal, with Wrex following her.
He readjusted his grip on his shotgun, and it came in handy soon enough, as another bug dropped from the vent in the ceiling.
Wrex emptied his first shot into it.
His shotgun was powerful enough at that close range to simply tear the Rachni’s body apart, after which he raised the shotgun and fired a couple more rounds into the vent opening, but nothing else came out.
“Thanks.”
Tali was clearly very grateful to Wrex, and he could feel it from the tone of her voice.
I shot Wrex an annoyed look — not because he’d saved Tali, but because of the warmth in her gratitude.
“Anytime, little one.
Anytime.”
“Oh!”
Tali quickly hacked the terminal and took a step back from the door, clearly having seen something on the terminal.
“Something wrong?”
I walked up to her, placed my hand on her shoulder with slight concern, and looked into the terminal myself.
There was something to see.
The airlock was absolutely teeming with Rachni.
So many that they seemed to have turned into a single, writhing mass.
“Blya-a-a-a-a…”
“M-hm…”
Wrex shook his head.
“Maybe I’ll be needed sooner than you thought.”
“Quite possible…”
I peered more closely at the screen.
“Tali, why are there so many of them?
Can you try to find out?”
“Mhm…”
She nodded, approached the terminal, and started digging into it.
A couple of minutes later, she looked up at me.
“As far as I can tell, something was placed there that gathered the Rachni from almost the entire complex, and then the airlock was sealed.
There’s a special system in that room that would’ve just incinerated them, but for some reason it wasn’t activated.”
“Probably couldn’t activate it.
Can you do it from here?”
“If I had the clearance — easily, but I won’t be able to hack the system to activate it from here.
But we need to go over there…”
She pointed at an inconspicuous door.
“…through that door we’ll get to the security room, and from there we can activate the system.”
“Then let’s go.”
I waved my hand, and we walked to the door.
But we all understood that the soldiers in exoskeletons couldn’t fit through it.
“Lissi, Missi, stay here with me.
Liara, Wrex, Garrus, you’re going with John and Tali.”
I smirked under my helmet but didn’t challenge Jane’s decision.
We split up as she’d suggested and entered the security room.
“What the…”
Wrex’s voice carried bewilderment, because there were no Rachni inside — only bodies that had clearly been torn apart by them.
“They got out and we lost track of them?
Well, in that corridor…”
Garrus nodded toward the corridor we’d come from.
“Yeah…”
Wrex’s voice dripped with poorly concealed mockery.
“…and after leaving this room, they politely closed the door behind themselves.”
“Well…”
Garrus shrugged vaguely.
“…anything’s possible, right?”
“Pfft!”
“Tali, your turn.”
“Got it.” Visit g.com for the full chapter.
She nodded and went to the terminal.
As soon as she started digging into it, the screens on the wall activated, showing the mess of Rachni inside the sealed room.
“Damn…
how my hands itch…”
“They always itch — you just find different excuses…”
I decided to rib Wrex without any real malice.
“…sometimes to kill someone, sometimes to punch someone in the face, sometimes to drink.”
“Ha!
True enough!”
At that moment, the vent grates in the ceiling began to fall, and sections of the floor started rising, with Rachni crawling out from them.
“Rachni!”
Wrex shouted it, and we were already surrounded by a biotic barrier created by Liara, while the rest of us — myself included — opened fire on the Rachni, which were swarming in from everywhere like roaches.
“I’ll try to be quick!”
“Don’t rush.”
I answered the panicking girl in a completely calm voice, which made her freeze for a couple of seconds.
“Just work at your own pace — we’ll cover you.”
“Yes!”
This time, Tali’s voice, though still excited, sounded much more collected.
After about two minutes of shooting, during which we’d destroyed a good number of creatures, the flamethrowers in the room we needed to pass through activated — naturally, not ordinary ones, but extremely high-temperature models, which burned all the Rachni to ash in two minutes.
“I’ll never get tired of watching this…”
Wrex, having finished off the last Rachni — which had stopped attacking us as if on command — glanced at the black ash settling on the floor after the flamethrowers shut off.
“An incredible sight!”
I just shook my head, after which we left the security room.
Tali had locked the terminal before we left, so no one could burn us the same way we’d just burned the Rachni.
“Hey, that little one’s turned out to be one of the most effective fighters on this team…”
Wrex said with a hint of amusement as we approached the airlock.
“…destroying that many Rachni — not every krogan could do that!
And she did it in a matter of minutes!
Little one, if you ever have any trouble on the Fleet, you’ll always be a welcome guest in Clan Urdnot!”
“Thank you.”
Tali’s quiet squeak made it clear she was very embarrassed.
“Hold your horses, lizard…”
Wrex turned to me, but there was no aggression in the action, just as there was none in my voice.
“I don’t call Tali ‘vas Normandy’ for nothing.
No matter what happens, she can count on my protection and help.”
“Thank you!”
Her squeak became even quieter and more embarrassed.
“That’s enough embarrassing the girl!”
Jane raised her voice slightly, making Wrex and me stop, shrug, and cease our praise of Tali, who genuinely didn’t know where to look anymore.
“Back on the ship, you can do whatever you want, but here…”
“Fine, fine…
the big guy and I won’t embarrass Tali anymore…
at least for now.
But that doesn’t change the fact that we both meant what we said.”
“Agreed.”
Wrex nodded, and we continued moving.
After we’d burned the Rachni, we encountered far fewer of them, so we moved through the complex quite calmly.
“It’s gotten too quiet.”
Jane clearly wasn’t happy with the lull, and I understood her perfectly.
It was…
unsettling, especially when you know what’s supposed to happen next and don’t know what will happen now that things have changed a bit.
“Don’t jinx it…”
Chifuyu said this in an annoyed tone.
“…nothing’s happened yet, and you’re already frowning.”
We approached another airlock door, and when it opened, we saw a tank containing Rachni and an asari standing next to it, seemingly completely absorbed in the predatory beauty of a large Rachni specimen that didn’t resemble the ones we’d encountered before.
“A queen…”
“You’re right, krogan — that’s a Rachni queen.
But that’s the last thing you’ll learn, because your path ends here.
If I weren’t Matriarch Elysia…”
The asari turned her gaze to us, and I knew this fight wouldn’t be easy.
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