[Book One] Chapter 11: The worst mission ever

[Book One] Chapter 11: The worst mission ever

Chapter 11: The worst mission ever

Rick was making his way towards the sewers. He was there for half an hour and was already done with his tasks. Figuratively. The pack of varrens he encountered had been a pain to deal with. For one because there were a lot of them and two, the alpha was twice their size. It was a short fight but a very intense one. By the end of it, his shotgun had overloaded thrice making him choose to go with his fists instead. The result was gruesome; he was covered in blood from head to toe with a bit of varren here and there. The silver lining was that there was food for the colony a plenty now and he found power cells from the wreck of a M29 grizzly near their nest. The only thing missing was the drinkable water. He had repaired two of the water pumps he found on the way and was searching for more. He also found a colonist behaving strangely. Anyone else would have said that his place was in an asylum with all the bouts of violent headache, and maniacal laughter at his own pain but the swords he spoke had worried Rick. Apparently the geths were not the true threat. Speaking of geths there weren’t supposed to be any, yet the bodies, courtesy of himself, he walked over proved the contrary. Which begged to ask: why? There was no reason for the geths to be down there and yet... Here. They. Were.

Passing through a door he entered a new part of the sewers with, without surprise, more geths. This time though, a Krogan battle master was leading them. He quickly, from behind a cover, hacked one of the synthetic to attack the Krogan while he dealt with the other geth. That wasn’t hard; the geth didn’t have a powerful shield. A biotic charge and two shots later; the geth was done. Not wasting time, he threw a warp on the battlemaster, completely depleting what was left of his shield and made him defenseless. As defenseless as a krogan can be, which is not much actually. Switching to his sniper rifle he quickly aimed from its head and fired. It did the job. The only enemy left was the geth he hacked and it was practically keeling over. Not much of a fight, really.

From there he took a break, he’s been going at it non-stop since he got here and honestly he deserved it. Once rested, he explored the area. The krogan and the geths were there for a reason and he intended to find out what it was. The search was short lived as behind a wall at the end of the wall was a transmitter. A good use of his shotgun later and the transmitter was no more. Being at a dead end, he backtracked beyond the door that led him there. Walking around he finally found the last water pump. All his tasks complete, he made his way back to Zhu’s hope.

____________________________________________________________

Shepard, Tali and Ashley were done with geths. Literally. There was no synthetics left in Exo-geni’s buildings. They had also destroyed their ship’s hook, making it fall toward the ground, and deactivated the comm jammer. Zhu’s hope was not dark anymore. Finally, they had rescued the scientist they had been asked to save from the makeshift camp the runaway Exo-Geni employees had built along with important data.

What they had learned about the company’s experiment was chilling. They had discovered a very old sentient plant, and by very old it meant prothean old, that could manipulate the mind of people. Exo-geni were using with no remorse the unsuspected colonists as test subjects with the objective to reproduce those effects. From what Dr. Lizbeth Braynham, their rescuee, had said; the lifeform, named Thorian, nested just under the colony. That worried the team as Rick was now all alone surrounded by mind controlled colonists.

As quickly as they could they reached the mako, they had found and used to get here and exited the building. As the garage door lowered they were blocked by a M29 Grizzly. Front bumper to front bumper. A M29 Grizzly that was not there when they had come. Shepard was about to signal Ashley to get ready to fire the turret when Rick showed his head out of the hatch.

“What the hell is he doing here?” whispered Shepard but a bit relieved that he was not at the colony anymore.

Getting back inside the Grizzly he drove backward to give some room to the Mako. Once done, he left the former, his appearance horrifying the passengers of the latter as he got on.

“Well if this isn’t the dream. Surrounded by three pretty women.” he said as he took a seat in the back.

“Three?” asked the commander.

“Oh! You’re here too?”

“And any worry I had concerning you is now gone.” she replied in a flat tone, starting the vehicle again and driving back to the Exo-geni employees’ camp.

“As if you were worried.” he muttered so low that only Tali by his side heard it.

“What happened?” asked Ash.

“Lots and lots of shit. Both figuratively and literally. First thing I do back on the ship is take a very long shower.” he answered, resting his back and head against the wall of the Mako.

“How did you get here in the first place? I mean, I recognize this grizzly, it’s the one that was abandoned further down the road.”

“Well, there were geths on the road, so I charged until I found that old thing.”

“You’re kidding right?” asked Shepard.

“Nope.”

“But that’s more than two thirds of the way!” Tali exclaimed to which Rick just shrugged.

“There’s been a development.” the commander announced.

“It’s about the colonists, I assume.”

“HOW?!” she yelled in disbelief. There was no way he would know. Joker had contacted her radio to tell her the colonists had turned crazy.

“Too... tired...” he replied in a low voice, letting his head fall on Tali’s shoulder.

“Did he just go to sleep on me?!” the redhead mustered all the willpower to not hurt him.

“Come on, skipper. Give him some slack, he joined us on foot and with his biotics, that’s quite a workout.”

“And let’s not forget whatever he did in the sewer that made him look like that. It must not have been a walk in the park.” Tali added, trying to push him away, not wanting to have her suit all bloody from contact with him.

Shepard quieted down as the both of them were right. Especially the part about the sewers. She was the one to send him there alone. And while at the time it was the best solution they could come up with, with the information they had, she felt a bit guilty seeing him like that.

I guess I can let him sleep a bit. We have time before reaching the colony.

The way back took even more time than the first trip. They were everywhere. From shock troopers to armatures. Between the geths and Shepard’s driving it was a miracle Rick stayed asleep. Thirty minutes later they arrived at the scientists camp. They had caught on the radio some trouble there. It was a dispute between the leader of the Exogeni’s facilities and the lead researcher. The former didn’t expect Shepard and her team to survive and was now panicking with reasons. Exogeni’s doings were highly illegal and if it were to be known, could lead to bankruptcy, so the one in charge was trying to cover it all up. It didn’t help that the scientist the team had rescued had been reprimanded many times for trying to put an end to it, not comfortable one bit with using the colonists as test subjects without their knowledge. Thankfully Shepard resolved the situation by appealing to the man’s loyalty towards the company, spinning around the story and using it as a good publicity campaign by blaming the geths.

That little crisis over, the lead researcher who was about to get killed, finally got reunited with her daughter.

“Thank you, commander.”

“Don’t thank me yet. We’ve still a colony to save. Can you tell me anything about the Thorian? How to break his hold on the colonists?”

“Except killing it? I do not know, I’m sorry. I can, however, help you with the colonists, themselves.”

“How?”

“The thorian is using spores to infect and control them; that’s why we created an agent to neutralize them. It’s temporary though, but it would render unconscious anyone infected.”

“I can work with that. What do you need?”

“Time. We have everything to make the compound, we just need to produce it and make it usable.

“How long?”

“Considering the equipment we have here? I don’t know... fifteen minutes at least?”

Shepard nodded and told her to call for her when everything was ready. In the meantime, she’d check with her team. Getting back to the mako, she shared the latest development with Tali and Ashley.

“Are you sure it was a good idea to let that man go?” asked Rick familiar’s synthetic voice.

“You’re awake?! Since when?” Tali exclaimed. She had given up on trying to make his body stop falling on her and in the end just put his head on her lap. Her suit was already ruined anyway.

“Since this morning, why?”

“Then why... What was the point in...”

“You’re comfortable and I needed to lay down on something or someone. “

“You could have asked!”

“Considering my appearance, you would have said, no. And I really was too tired to deal with anything.” Was his answer. That didn’t go well with the quarian who just pushed him down from her lap to the floor in a loud thud sound.

“Ouch, not nice.”

“You deserved it! You ruined my suit!”

“There are two more in the cargo bay.”

“That’s not the point!

Ashley was trying her best not to laugh at her lover’s antics, and feeling a bit sorry for Tali. Meanwhile Sheapard was doing her best to hold herself back. She wanted nothing more than to grab him and shake him to oblivion while yelling his ears off. She knew it wouldn’t have changed a thing but it would have felt good to vent.

“So... How did you know there was a problem with the colonists?” Shepard asked.

“Well... They were all acting a bit strangely. There was that guy at the dock, not the weirdest of the bunch but close, then in the sewer, I met another guy and he was... off his rocker? He was making no sense, but from what I understood there is a bigger threat than the geths.”

“The Thorian.”Ashley stated.

“The what?”

“It’s a mind controlling plant from the prothean era. Exogeni was using the colonists as guinea pigs. With them not knowing of course.” Shepard explained.

“...That explains that guy’s behavior. Everytime he tried to talk about that threat he suddenly had a massive headache and screamed in pain. The harder he tried the less sense he made. He must have been resisting Thorian's control. Anyway, when I came back from the sewers, I had a talk with Fai Dan who was very dismissive and evasive about the whole ordeal. That rang plenty of alarm bells in my head, so I left.”

“Why not go back to the Normandy?”

“Who would have warned you with the comms down?”

“Fair point.”

“But to make your way on foot....” Ashley interjected.

“I didn’t have much of a choice. It was good training for my biotics though, plenty of geths to charge at.”

“Can you still fight?”

“Yes. I won’t be at my best but I've got more than enough left in the tank. I guess we’re fighting that Thorian then?”

“You guessed right, there is a problem though.”

“The colonists mind controlled by the mind controlling plants are in the way?” he rhetorically asked and when Sheaprd nodded in affirmation he punctuated with a sigh “What a surprise... So... How do we deal with them? I’m not keen on the lethal approach but there are a lot of them.”

“The mother of that scientist we had with us? She’s working on something non-lethal. She’d be done in...five minutes?” she said looking at her omni-tool for the time.

Rick began to think out loud without noticing?

“Yes, so?”

“So plants burn quite nicely. That’s why I went to their infirmary to take alcohol and a sheet.”

He posed the box down and picked up from it the said objects.

“Anyone up for some molotov cocktail, it’s on the house.”

Shepard’s jaw lowered a bit. She didn’t even think of that yet it was very simple. Without saying anything she went to the box and picked up an empty bottle.

“Let’s get to work.”

There was enough alcohol and empty bottles to make six of those incendiary bombs. The difficult part was finding a way to light them. It was Tali who built something from the stun glove that Rick had left. It could generate enough electricity to light the cloth part.

Once ready they finally made their way towards the thorian. They didn’t encounter any husks or as Ashley had decided to call them “creeper”. She argued that since they were organic, unlike the husks, they were not the same so shouldn’t be called husks. Nobody even tried to argue with her.

When the stair finally stopped, the only way left was through a corridor from which sunlight could be seen. Getting closer they readied themselves.

“Alright, we just need to find this creature and determine what it... What it... Keelah, what is that?”

They all stopped in their tracks and raised their heads slowly to have a better look at the entire thing. It was huge.

“We’re going to need bigger bombs.” Rick commented.

Suddenly, the thorian seemed to have acknowledged their presence and began to do something that sounded like a cough. A few moments later from his mouth, surrounded by disgusting tentacles, was regurgitated a green skinned asari.

“Too bad Liara isn’t here, I’d have questions for her.”

“Intruders! Your every step is a transgression! A thousand feelers...”

Rick stopped listening at that point. He cared not for that thing’s monologue, not interested in hearing how they were inferior beings and evil and plenty of other things quite cliché. Instead he looked around to see if the thorian had any weaknesses.

“... will feed the ground and the new growth!” yelled the asari, pulling out a shotgun.

Rick was brought out of his observation at her yell and on reflex pulled the trigger of his shotgun, blasting the thing a few feet back making her fall in the abyss below.

“Ok what now?” Ashley asked.

“See those big tentacles up there?” Rick said pointing with his finger towards the ceiling.”

“We cut enough of them and it falls.”Shepard stated.

“Yes, but how to get there is the problem.” the man replied.

The thorian began to cough again and another asari was vomited, this time it was Tali and her shotgun that sent her flying just like the previous one.

“We need to move,”Shepard said, trying to find an access to the upper level. She found one on the right with slime creepers inside. They were dealt with promptly.

“Look! That’s one of his... support thingy.” Tali pointed out.

“Time to test those molotovs.”

Rick pulled one of the bottles he had with him and lit up the cloth. Once the fire had taken he threw it on the gigantic tentacle exploding on impact. The thorian let out some kind of scream indicating that it was hurting him though if they had to wait for it to burn down they’d still be there tomorrow. In the end Tali and Rick shot at it until it broke.

“So much for burning it.” Ashley muttered.

They made their way to the upper level, killing any creepers or asari clones they met, and destroying every support. The gas grenades were very helpful as one could clean a room immediately. Rick, annoyed that his idea had been useless, threw a molotov every chance he got right onto the thorian in an act of pettiness. It was effective as it burnt but it did nothing that could kill it quickly. The rest of the team didn’t know what was worse. The creepers’ screams, the thorian’s or Rick’s singing which was particularly bad thanks to his synthetic filter.

“Burn! Baby burn! Burn that mother down!

Burn! Baby burn! Disco inferno!

Burn! Baby burn! Burn that mother down!”

“RICK I SWEAR I’M GOING TO KILL YOU IF YOU DON’T STOP SINGING!!” Yelled Shepard as she shot down another the last support, making the thorian fall to its death. The results were instantaneous. The creepers all dropped dead and Rick grew quiet.

“Thank you Shepard.” said Tali in relief.

“Rick, you’re not allowed to sing anymore.”Ashley said as she took his head in her head and looked at him intently.

“You all have bad hearing.” he replied, trying to hide his dejection.

“No, no we’don’t. You’re that bad. And Ashley is right, no more singing, not even in the shower and that’s an order.” Shepard stated, clearly at the end of her rope.

As they began to backtrack their way down they saw one of the giant red nodes on the wall open, releasing another asari. This one however, was blue. With a better look at her it was clear she was the one the clones were based on.

“I’m free. I’m free! I... I supposed I have to thank you for that.” said the asari.

Her name was Shiala and served under matriarch Benezia before she joined Saren. When the turian had come here to talk to the thorian he gave her up as an offering and a means of communication. She knew a lot more. For instance, Benezia followed Saren to turn him away from his path but was instead subtly influenced in return. That was a bit doubtful, as Asari matriarchs are the most intelligent and powerful beings in the galaxy but she explained that it was the fault of Saren’s ship, Sovereign. The enormous ship they had seen on Eden Prime.

“Why was Saren here to begin with? What did he need from the thorian?” Rick asked.

“The cipher.”

“Cipher?” Shepard inquired, lost.

“It’s a key to understand the cultural knowledge of the protheans. The thorian watched and assimilated protheans, gaining their knowledge. Archetypes, biological instincts, common experience universal to their race, basically it would allow you to understand the information you received from the beacon on Eden Prime.”

“How do you know about that?” Ashley asked.

“Saren, he knows you used the beacon and that you're searching the conduit too through his movements. He didn’t understand either as the beacons are made for a prothean mind. He needed me to meld with the thorian to gain it and give it to him. To stop you from getting the cipher he then attacked the thorian, leaving me behind.”

“So if I want to make sense about those visions I need this cipher. Cipher that you have and can share with melding, is that right?” Shepard asked.

“Yes.” was the simple reply from Shiala.

“Okay, let’s...” she began before being pulled back by the collar of her armor by Rick.

“You, don’t do shit. She could lie for all we know.”

“He got a point there, skipper.”

“We don’t have much of a choice.” the redhead retorted.

“Of course we have.” Rick replied and went himself in front of Shiala before justifying his actions.

“You’re an idiot, no need for you to become a drooling idiot if it’s a trap.”

She was about to protest on reflex but held herself back. That was a big sacrifice he was making if that was indeed a trap. She had forgotten that he too, got the beacon’s information imprinted in his mind. That he was the one testing the water was a cold but rational choice, as she was the leader of the expedition against Saren. She was the spectre charged to bring him down. If something happened to her the mission was a failure. On the other hand, Rick was expendable. However she couldn’t help but feel that his decision wasn’t made out of rationality and logic. Something was amiss but she didn’t know what. Instead she put a hand on Ashley’s shoulder for support as she was clearly worried sick.

“It will be useless, without the beacon’s...”

“She wasn’t the only one who got the imprint. In fact, we each got something, she got the images and unintelligible sound and I got the opposite. So do your thing.” He said as the visor from his helmet raised to his forehead.

Shiala did. It lasted only a few moments before Rick pulled his visor back down.

“Rick, are you alright?” Tali asked.

“Yes. Damn the protheans were ugly as hell and the reapers even more so.”

“Anything else? Something relevant?” Shepard inquired.

“Perhaps, I need to think about it.”

Seeing it wasn’t a trap the commander did the process too. Once over, she was quite disturbed.

“God, the sound... It’s awful.”

“What sounds?” Ashley wondered.

“The reapers, the protheans, their screams.” Rick commented simply, not bothering to describe further.

“I still... It still doesn’t make sense.” the redhead confessed.

“That’s normal. It will take time but it will happen gradually.” Shiala explained.

“Now what?” Asked Ashley, looking at the asari.

____________________________________________________________

Back on the Normandy, they immediately did a quick debriefing for the members of the team that stayed on the ship without even gearing down. Liara was fascinated with what she heard and got a promise from Rick to show her once he got some rest. They let Shepard deal with a call from the council while they went to do their own thing.

Tali and Rick went down to the cargo bay and began to gear down and put away the materials and components they salvaged on the geths, agreeing to work on their new tech tomorrow. Completely exhausted Rick just went to his corner, laid down and slept in his armor that he had been too tired to remove.