Out For Karma: Mass Effect

[Book One] Chapter 19: Virmire

Chapter 19: Virmire

Everyone was in the cargo bay, geared up for the mission. They needed to rescue a team of Salarian stuck in a bad situation. The problem at hand, was that they couldn’t land the Normandy as she would be shot down by the A.A. guns of the facility. It was decided that a small team in the mako would be dropped to the ground and make their way to the STG team; destroying geths and disabling those AA guns on the way.

Shepard had decided to bring the big guns with her. Namely, Ashley, Garrus and Rick. All three of them were able to use a sniper rifle with ease. Meanwhile, the rest of the ground team would stay on the Normandy.

Joker had dropped them as close as he could without taking fire. Close enough that it only took one hour for the mako team to clean up everything on their way Rick’s ability to hack geths for a short time was a blessing when they had to get out of the mako to find the console opening the gates blocking their advance. The free spirit of the team had been right: there was a fuck ton of geths.

With the AA guns disabled the Normandy was able to land near the STG camp. Only a dozen, perhaps less of the Salarian team was left and they were distressed when they understood that the Normandy and the crew was all the help they could get. They were expecting the council to send a fleet. Unfortunately the message they sent had been scrambled and the only information intact that was audible was that they needed help and that it concerned Saren. Not like the council would have sent a fleet in the first place. Virmire was at the border of the Terminus systems. despite how luxuriant and favorable the planet was, colonization was impossible because of its position. They could not protect it from pirates and any negotiations with pirates fell flat because the leadership tended to change a lot, meaning the council would have had to renegotiate with the new leaders. In the end they gave up.

The STG wanted to destroy the base as it was some laboratory Saren use to produce mindless Krogans and to study indoctrination. To Shepard that was an instant reason to remove the place from existence. That didn’t go well with Wrex. That was understandable, his species was on the verge of extinction because of the genophage and here people were talking about destroying everything to do about a possible cure. To say he was pissed was an understatement if shooting angrily at the sea was any indication of his anger. Everyone was worried about him snapping, or worse changing sides. If saren was offering the krogans a cure in exchange for their service that would be bad. Shepard went to talk to him and was followed by Rick.

“Worried for me?” she asked with a corner of her mouth raised.

“This conversation again? Really?”

“I know you care.”

“You’re right, I care so much I wouldn’t even go to your funeral. Who I’m worried about is Wrex, because he may do something stupid that will get him killed. I like the guy so…”

“Right.” Shepard replied, clearly not convinced. That was the second time she heard him lie, or caught him in a lie. Both times were about him caring for her. He was still cold, but was not sassy anymore. The only thing negative he did towards her was calling her with those offensive nicknames. Yet again, she didn’t care one bit, she was a redhead and was used to it, besides  gingey, or gingerbread wasn’t that offensive, unlike fire crotch or any other name referring to a lack of soul. He never used those, not even once, making her think he didn’t consider the nicknames he called her as insults, which in truth were, and let it go.

Coming up to Wrex, he was the first to speak.

“This isn’t right Shepard! If there is a cure for the genophage there, we can’t destroy it! My people need it!”

“I know and I understand but Saren is the enemy here, we can’t let him have his own krogan indoctrinated army, Wrex. He’s the enemy here.”

“Yeah, okay. Your time is up red. If you want him to change sides you’re doing a good job. Now, if you don’t mind.” Rick intervened walking in front of her to be face to face with the Krogan.

“I was for a second chance for the rachnis on Noveria, I’m for a second chance for the krogan too. The problem here, Wrex, is that the cure would make your people puppets. Is that what you want for them? For the krogans to be used just like the salarians and the turians used them during the rachni wars? Canon fodder?” said Rick making Wrex growled.

“Rick you…”

“Let’s say you do. The krogan would serve a turian, himself serving a species of AI whose whole purpose is to reap every organic life. How long do you think they would live before the reapers wipe the krogan once they’re done with the other species?”

“Perhaps longer than without the cure!”

“This isn’t a cure! It’s a weapon that will not help anyone, not even the krogans.” Shepard chimed in.

“Submission or extinction. Personally I would choose the latter, because the former… That’s no life.” Rick simplified the problem and getting closer to Wrex he whispered “ if the opportunity arises I could hack their database and copy anything regarding the cure.”.

Wrex looked up to him, then to Shepard who nodded . He thought for a moment before nodding in agreement too. With the salarians around hell bent on destroying the cure it would not go well if they had heard that part.

Going back to the camp, the salarian came up with a plan. They would launch an offensive openly on one side of the base while a very small team would infiltrate it from another side with the purpose to weaken the defenses  and allow the Normandy to bring a nuke. The salarian in command, Major Kirahe, told Shepard that he would need a small squad to buff his strength as they will face most of the geths. The commander agreed. She, Tali and Rick would be the infiltration team, while everyone else would join the salarians.

Taking Rick aside, she shared her concerns. She didn’t like the plan one bit, as it relied on a good bit of luck, and wanted his opinion. She had a feeling he thought the same but couldn’t come up with anything better hence why he stayed silent during the explanation.

“Is there really no other way?”

“A few. None as good though. The STG is known to be highly efficient for a reason, red.”

“Can’t you think of something to increase the odds? I don’t like how much we’re relying on luck here.”

“I did.”

“And?”

“It’s a very big risk.”

“I’m listening.” she said, hopeful. Rick sighed and talked.

“The part that worries me the most is the nuke and that we’re separated into two teams that are in now way close. When, not if, when the geths reinforcements come, one team will have to be lost.”

“How so?”

“The nuke countdown has to be short otherwise the geths could disarm it. From there, we either stay with it to protect it and let the assault team get decimated by the ungodly amount of geths or we go help them but the reduced team we left behind will get slaughtered. The Normandy will not have the time to save both teams.”

“What’s your idea to avoid that then?”

“As I said, it’s a big risk but we could activate the bomb remotely.”

“I thought it was impossible because of the geths jamming?”

“Not impossible, just difficult. Tali and I could work on a signal amplifier but it may not be enough. The sure way would be to find the source of the jamming, which is probably the control room, and turn it off. The problem is…”

“We don’t know where it is because we don’t know the layout of the facility.”

“Yes. Our team needs to move fast to clear the bombing site. Every second we waste and the odds of completing the mission drops drastically. If we take too long, the assault team would, probably will, be overwhelmed. Afterwards every geths would converge on us.”

“It’s really a very big risk.” she murmured.

“The optimum solution would be to join the assault team once the team is planted.”

“Is it because Ashley is there?” she said with a knowing grin, trying to lighten the heavy mood.

“No, because baby blue is.”

“Liara?!” the redhead exclaimed in shock. She didn’t think Rick would be interested in her while having the relationship he had with Ashley and that wasn’t even taking into account his rather fresh widowing status. It’s been four months but it was still a short time.

“You should have seen your face. It was hilarious.” he said in a flat tone.

“I fell for that you motherfucker!” She yelled and brought a hand to her mouth realizing what she had just said.”

“It’s alright, my mom is hot. She has an ass that could rival centerfold's.”

“You’re disgusting.”

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“We’re not blood related.”

“Then she’s not your mom.”

“She raised me, of course she is. She earned it. A woman giving birth, doesn’t automatically become a mother, she’s just a birth giver or an egg donor. God knows mine was no mother.”

That made her think about her family situation.

In a way he’s right. I was more of a mother to John than she ever was. I wonder if he would have called me mom? Probably not, we were too close in age.

“Wait, you said that you left when you were a kid; why would you if you had a mom?”

“My birth giver was a neglectful, racist whore, it was after I left that I met my mom.”

“I see.” That was a new tidbit of information she didn’t know about.

“Anyway, back on topic. Our whole ground team is on the assault team and saving the STG platoon would do good in interspecies relations. That bombshell and baby blue are in it is just a bonus. Were it up to me I would leave the latter on the Normandy, she’s too important with her protheans knowledge. The nuke team on the other hand is composed of no-name grunts that would not be missed.”

“They’re not! They are part of the crew! They have names, families and…” she began to protest in a loud voice, clearly angry.

“And they signed up for that when they joined the alliance. Face it, none of them could replace any member of the team. They are canon fodder.”

“That’s heartless!”

“Yes, but that’s the truth. Don’t think that because I don’t know them or like them much, I’m happy at the thought of them dead. Life matters red but it is what it is. You can’t change that, no matter how much you wish you could.”

He left her alone at that point and went to grab Tali to work on the amplifier for the nuke. It may not be used or do the job but just in case. It’s always better to have something and not need it than need it and not have it.

Using some of the salarian unused tech Tali had worked wonders. Rick on his end was very satisfied with the program he made for it and, since he still had time left, worked on the arming software of the nuke making it harder for the geths to neutralize it. It won’t stop them but delayed them for a bit which was all they needed.

Going back to Shepard, they were ready.

“The amplifier is ready. I hope it can bypass the jamming.”

“Really?” she asked in a sour tone.

“I told you, life matters.”

“Eeerr… Is everything alright?” Tali asked, feeling the tension between the two.

“She’ll be fine.” replied Rick.

“One thing is bothering me. We can be in radio contact with the other team and the Normandy, how come those communications aren’t jammed?”

“Because we’re using short wave frequencies. Beyond a certain distance the Normandy will have to switch to long range.” Tali explained.

“I don’t get why we can’t…”

“If the amplifier works then no one is left behind. The Normandy would be fast enough to not get caught in the blast. However if it doesn’t then we’re depending on the countdown and you know what happens.”

“I think I’m missing something here.” Tali said.

“If we depend on the countdown, the nuke team will be left to die. We won’t have the time to save both teams.” he explained to the quarian.

“Oh!”

“It sucks, I know. That’s why red is… whatever she is right now.”

The said redhead gave him a murderous look. That was the only thing she could do in that shitty situation they were in.

“Then let’s hope that it works.”

____________________________________________________________

The infiltration has not been easy but was successful. They had helped the assault team as much as they could by disrupting the communications, destroying the uplink to the satellite, the flyers drones and disabled the alarms. There was nothing else they could do for them, aside suddenly finding out how to deactivate all geths in an instant.

Entering the base they had found the jackpot for Wrex. a Krogan battlemaster and apparently scientist was working on the indoctrination and the genophage. Once he was properly dealt with along with his asari assistant and the numerous husks they had released, Rick hacked their database and took everything. They encountered salarian scientists and indoctrinated salarian prisoners. All were put down. They couldn’t take the risk to save them or let them go especially after seeing one prisoner switching from normally sane to insanity and killing himself in a fit of rage by running head first into his cell door trying to escape. It seemed more than likely that Benezia’s case was an exception.

When they encountered the chief of the cure’s project, an asari, Shepard hesitated and let her go.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” Rick commented.

“She gave us access to everything and didn’t seem to know anything about Saren’s plan. She was just working on the cure.”

“Me say, she’s indoctrinated and played you.”

“It’s too late now. In fact, I’m surprised you didn’t kill her.”

“She’s not the only one.” Tali gave her two credits.

“I did tell you that I was trying.”

Shepard nodded in appreciation and walked through the door that the asari opened for them.

“There is a prothean beacon. You were right.”

“When am I not?”

“Careful Rick, your head won’t fit through the door anymore.”

“She has a point.” the quarian commented.

“Give me one time I wasn’t.” He challenged his teammates.

“...”

“...”

“Shepard 1, Rick 1. It’s a draw.” Tali announced.

“Let’s go then.” the redhead said to the man with her.

Both went to the beacon and suddenly found themselves levitating above the ground. Immediately information began to flood their brain at a very fast speed. It only lasted a few seconds before it stopped, letting the both of them fall onto the ground on their knees.

“Argh!”

“Fuck I hate that!” Rick said more eloquently than Shepard.

Tali wanted to come closer but didn’t want to risk being caught by the beacon, so she stayed afar and called out her friends.

“Are you alright?!”

“Yes.”

“No!”

Turning her head to look at him, Shepard wondered what was wrong, she was fine so he should be too.

“The missing piece was not here! I can’t find out the true purpose of the conduit.”

“It doesn’t matter as long as we stop Saren from getting to it.”

“That’s…  That’s… That’s right actually. Very insightful. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Ha Ha.” replied Shepard unamused at the jab.

“If you’re both good then let’s hurry, we still have a bomb to…”

She stopped talking when a big red hologram appeared. Raising up on their feet, both her teammates joined up and went to the upper level of the room where they could see better what was happening. With a better viewpoint, they saw that the hologram was a representation of Sovereign.

“You are not Saren.” came a deep synthetic voice.

“What is that?” Tali asked.

“Rudimentary creatures of blood and flesh. You touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding.”

“ A reaper.” Shepard answered.

“There is a realm of existence so far beyond your own. You cannot even imagine it. We are beyond your comprehension. The pinnacle of existence. Before us, you are nothing. Your lives are measured in years and decades. You wither and die. We are eternal.”

“And here is the superiority complex cliché of all villains.” Rick commented.

“Your extinction is inevitable. We are the end of everything.”

“We won’t let you! You will fail.”

“Confidence born of ignorance. The cycle cannot be broken. Civilizations will rise, evolve, advance and at the apex of their glory, they will be extinguished. The protheans were far from the first and will be far from the last. They did not create the Citadel. They did not forge the mass relay. They merely found them. The legacy of my kind.”

“Why build the mass relay and leave them for someone else to find?” Shepard, perplexed, inquired.

“So the species finding them could develop the way they want. Every advanced species capable of spacecraft learned by studying the mass relays. From the beginning we were prepared for extinction like a cook preparing his food.” Rick answered.

“Correct. We impose order on the chaos of organic evolution. You exist because we allow it. And you will end because we demand it.”

“We exist because life finds a way. We will survive because it’s our will.” the man declared, not happy at all with the conversation.

“Millions of species before yours tried and millions of species will try after yours. We are legion. We are infinite. The time of our return is coming. Our numbers will darken the sky of every world. You cannot escape your doom.”

“You’re just a machine, and machines can be broken!” Shepard declared in defiance.

“Your words are as empty as your future. I am the vanguard of your destruction. This exchange is over.”

The holographic representation of Sovereign vanished leaving the team alone.

“That’s not good.” Tali said.

“No, but we’ll think about it later. We have a bomb to plant.” Shepard replied, making her way out the door. Rick was silently pensive and followed her.

After disabling the AA gun of the base, which could have made serious damage to the Normandy, and destroying geths left and right, they reach the designated location. The ship came and the nuke was planted by a small squad of the crew. Shepard turned to look at Rick with hope in her eyes. The latter contacted Joker on the radio.

“Joker, were you able to determine the strength of the signal I sent you earlier?”

“Yes, there was no problem. The window will be tight but we can get out of there in time.” replied the man.

Turning to Shepard Rick nodded and she let out a sigh of relief.

“Alright! I want that nuke armed and all access to this location sealed, once done I want everyone on board the normandy. Tali, Rick and I would go on foot to support the assault team by flanking the geths. Once we reunited with them, Joker, you better be there to pick us up.”

“Understood commander.”

The trio left the crew to their orders and went to join the other team. Halfway, they saw a geth ship coming and dropping reinforcements to the assault team location then did the same to where they came from.

“So much for sealing access to the bomb.” Shepard said without a hint of worry in her voice. The remote signal was designed by Rick and Tali and she had faith in their skills.

“We still need to hurry. What I did may have delayed them by a few minutes at best.”

“What did you do exactly?” the commander asked.

“I created a second detonation sequence and hid it instead of just sticking the remote code on the existing one. They will go for the countdown first and realize the bomb is still armed once it’s disabled.”

“Instead of disabling one code nullifying both sequences, they would have to disable two, taking more time. Smart.” Tali explained.

“Even more since any geth that tries to access my code will start a subroutine downloading a serious amount of information making their process slower.”

“What kind of information?” Shepard asked.

“A few zetabyte of porn. Some members of your crew really have a problem and need to get laid more.”

That made Tali snort while the commander did a double take on Rick to see any indication if he was joking or not. He clearly wasn’t and a realization hit her.

“You hacked the crew personnel terminal?!”

“Of course I did. I can’t believe you’re surprised.”

“We’ll have a long talk about what respect of privacy is.”

“I didn’t hack yours, if that’s what you’re scared of.”

“That’s slightly better but we will still have this talk.”

The conversation ended there as they arrived at the assault team’s location. The team was on its way to be overrun and the timely intervention of the trio saved their asses. First aid was quickly given to the one who needed it. Of their members Ashley took a nasty hit on the shoulder and Garrus on one leg. Everyone else seemed to be fine bar a few bruises. Joker arrived with the ship and the wounded began to be loaded, Karin being at the ready on the ramp.

Saren chose that moment to show up on a flying platform with at least two dozen geths of all kinds behind him. That was the hardest fight to date for the team as Saren was providing tactical support from the sky to his synthetics. Shepard tried to reason with him as around them geths fell but to no avail. When only half a dozen geths were left, Saren fled and with Kaidan telling them that every wounded were on the ship they made a quick retreat. 

Rick was at the ready when Joker yelled at him to detonate the bomb. He did so and the remote signal went through making the nuke explode. The normandy shook a bit but it was safe, with everyone inside of it.

Shepard looked around and was relieved to see her team was complete and that most of the salarian had made it out. Closing in on her unofficial XO, she thanked him for making it possible with a very bright smile.

“That’s new.” He replied after a few moments of silence where he just looked at her.

“Me, thanking you? It’s not! I thanked you plenty of times before.”

“Yes but it’s the first time I don’t feel sick or don’t want to vomit hearing it.”

“You… You… Asshole!” She said, trying to find her words. Her smile being long gone.

“That’s rude. I’m sharing my progress regarding how I feel about you and you’re insulting me. You know what? I’m too tired to deal with this, I’m leaving.” He replied and went for the elevator leaving a dumbfounded Shepard behind.

He’s the one indirectly insulting me and I’m the one who’s rude! WHAT. THE. HELL?!

She snapped out of it when she heard Garrus talking beside her.

“He’s not wrong. It is progress for him.”

“And you walked all over his feelings, commander.” Kaidan chimed in.

“That wasn’t a really nice thing to do, Shepard.” Liara added.

“I mean… He has been really trying, you know.” This time, it was Ashley’s turn.

“Well he’s lucky because I still feel that way with all of you.”

“You liar! You like us Wrex.” Tali retorted.

Shepard wondered for a moment if she hadn’t hit her head during the mission and was now delusional or if she wasn’t in some sort of coma. That would explain the situation that was completely unreal. Hearing them laugh was what made her realize they were just messing with her. Probably a way for them to release all the pressure the mission put them under.

Deciding to let it slide, she went stomping towards the elevator.

This will not end here, Rick Wald.

“Ten credits he ends up in the med-bay with the salarians.” bet the krogan.

“Oh, you got a deal!” Garrus agreed.

“Meh. Fifty they resolved that in bed.”

“ASHLEY!” Liara exclaimed, scandalized.

“I’m on that.”

“TALI!”

“What?”

“That’s not really appropriate.”

“Thank you, Kaidan.”

“But I don’t care. A hundred Shepard has difficulty walking tomorrow. I saw the result with you Williams.”

“You’re impossi … Wait! Ashley?”

“Oh boy…” Ash said, already feeling a headache coming from the long explanation she will have to have with the asari. No one had missed the crush she had on her friend. Apparently Liara hasn’t been aware of the kind of relationship she was sharing with Rick. It wasn’t a secret but it wasn’t well known either.

“Eh! You were right, I like you guys. You’re fun to be around.”

“I knew it!”