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Of all the things that Cassandra Shepard had done in her life, many of them impressive and more than a handful downright historic even amongst the long histories of the Citadel races, destroying a warship on foot was still a remarkable first. Oh, it hadn't been the quickest or easiest thing to do, and Cassandra was pretty sure that the number of geth she had killed now counted somewhere in the triple digits, but she and her fire-team had still succeeded.
Mostly in the most Marine of ways possible: 'superior firepower' and 'sufficient explosives'. And, it must be said, quite a bit of very impressive hacking from the increasingly-impressive and valuable Tali'zorah. In fact, the young quarian had arguably been the one to deal the fatal blows to the dropship, with the rather clever solution of using the massive hydraulic shutters meant to defend the Exo-Geni headquarters from attack to crush it's landing claws, severing two of the three.
A thunderous boom shook her to the bones as the sky was painted some rather spectacular colors by the explosion of the geth ship exploding on impact with the ground, several miles below.
"That's a nice sight. Lovely, even." Williams sighed from where she was propped against a wall, watching with eyes that were simultaneously bright from satisfaction and dulled from pain and medigel, as Tali prodded at the rather spectacular, bloodstained scorch mark that showed where a Shock Trooper's shotgun blast had caught the white-and-pink armored woman's side. A glancing blow, compared to what it could have been, that had been caught mostly by her tattered shields and her armor, and she'd been able to fight on despite the injury, but Cassandra's new priority was getting her into the hands of a medical professional to make sure that 'glancing blow' hadn't dealt some sort of unseen damage. She hissed out a wince and shied away from a particularly painful touch of Tali's questing fingers.
"Sorry!" the girl squeaked in dismay, getting a tired hand-wave of forgiveness, before she turned to look at Cassandra. "I think the damage is mostly superficial, Commander, but I'm not a doctor, or even all that familiar with human biology. She could have burns, though, given the pseudo-plasmic nature of geth weaponry. We should get her back to the Mako immediately, and return to the Normandy as soon as we can so that Doctor Chakwas can take a look at it."
"Commander, I'm fine…" Ashley started to protest, quite predictably to be honest, only to fall silent as Cassandra shook her head sharply.
"Maybe you are, and maybe you aren't, but you're injured and you're one of mine. And none of mine get to skimp out on medical attention, Ash." she said firmly, missing the way the marine's cheeks pinkened at her words as she turned away from the window to look back the way that they came. "We'll head back to those Exo-Geni folks, get them to check Ash out and patch her up a bit. Then," her tone grew noticeably colder. "I'll have frank discussion with them about the Thorian and the experiments that they've been deliberately allowing and encouraging using the colonists as their guinea pigs."
Her companions shuddered lightly and exchanged glances with one another at the sound of their leader's voice. She was very obviously not happy, and judging by the carnage that she had unleashed on the geth, a 'not happy' Cassandra Shepard was even more dangerous than 'regular' Cassandra Shepard.
"Commander," Tali said quietly, her voice modulated through her suit's speakers. "what they did... using the colonists as test subjects without their knowledge..." She trailed off, her hands clenching into fists at her sides.
"It's monstrous, is what it is." Ashley finished, pushing herself up straighter against the wall despite the obvious discomfort the movement caused her, a dark scowl of agreement on her face. "Those people trusted ExoGeni to help establish their colony. Instead, they got turned into lab rats for some ancient mind-controlling plant. We're supposed to be better than that."
"Yeah. Every time we think that we moved past this sort of shit, it turns out we haven't." Cassandra sighed in response, shaking her head as she re-drew her SMGs and started walking. "There shouldn't be anything left, but I'll take point just in case. Tali, help Ash. If there is a fucking mind-control plant around here, I want us…"
"Commander! Commander, come in!" a voice, Joker's voice, broke in a moment later, sounding harried but not quite panicked. "I think the interference is clearing up. Commander, can you hear me?"
"I have you Joker, what's going on?"
"The colonists have gone completely crazy! Doc Chakwas was able to sedate most of them, but the rest caught on to what was happening and attacked! The rest of the squad is trying to subdue them with stun-guns and biotics, but it's like they're on some sort of drugs! The stun-guns aren't having much of an effect!" the pilot reported promptly, and Cassandra scowled.
"It must be the effects of thorian spores." Cassandra growled to herself, running a hand briefly through her hair, before keying her comms back on. "Alright, Joker. We're headed back to the Mako. Hopefully the Exo-Geni guys have a solution of some kind for what's going on. If necessary, the squad should withdraw into the Normandy and you should seal the airlock until we can come up with a solution."
"Understood, Commander. Stay safe out there. You've got plenty of geth headed your way. Normandy, out."
"Of course we do, why wouldn't we. Shepard, out."
Cassandra gestured for Tali to help Ashley walk and stepped through the door, her eyes scanning the corridor ahead for any sign of movement. The quarian slipped her arm around the marine's waist, careful to avoid the wounded area as she took what of the other woman's weight that she could.
"I can walk, I'm fine!" Ashley insisted, though she couldn't quite hide her wince as she pushed herself away from the wall and started to walk unsteadily forward.
"Just accept the help, Ashley, and let's beat feet." Cassandra said, her tone leaving no room for argument, though there was an edge of fondness at William's stubborn self-reliance. "We need to move fast, and you bleeding out won't help anyone. Nor," she said, sensing in more than one way her fellow marine's intentions to respond. "Am I inclined to leave you behind and come back for you. I don't make a habit of leaving my people behind."
Ashley fell silent at that, her expression softening momentarily into something very different from begrudging obedience, before she nodded and allowed Tali to support her properly. "Understood, Commander. I…thank you, ma'am."
"Don't thank me for being a decent human being and a good CO, Ash." Cassandra flashed her a brief, genuine -if tight- smile, before moving out properly.
The trio moved quickly through the corridors, Cassandra's senses heightened as she swept each junction and waved her companions through with a lifetime of hard-earned experience, wishing briefly that she was dealing with organic enemies instead of synthetics. When your enemy didn't have to breath, didn't possess the concept of 'impatience', and couldn't get restless, they tended to be just a little bit more deadly in potential ambushes. It certainly didn't help that the Exo-Geni facility had an eerie quality to it now, even creepier than it had been before. The geth might be gone, but somehow the place felt tainted and shadowed by what they'd discovered about the corporation's activities.
"I've been thinking," Tali said quietly as they navigated around a fallen support beam and some rubble, grimacing slightly at the bloodstain beneath it all. "If the thorian uses spores to control the colonists, perhaps there's a way to neutralize them. Some kind of anti-fungal agent or targeted nerve blocker that would disrupt the connection without harming the hosts."
"Not a bad idea, I agree." Cassandra replied, pausing at a corner to check that it was clear before she continued. "I'm hoping that, once Exo-Geni figured out that the thorian existed, they did exactly that. They wouldn't want to risk their own scientists getting enthralled, after all, so we'll just persuade them to give us the formula."
"Somehow, I don't think they're going to enjoy that 'persuasion' very much." Tali muttered softly to herself, but unfortunately for her, she had forgotten to mute her external microphone, and she blushed horribly beneath her helmet and started stammering as the words echoed off of the stone walls around them. To her surprise, Cassandra didn't get angry, only grinned and gave her a firm pat on the shoulder.
"Right you are, Tali, right you are. And if they didn't want me to yell at them a bit, they should have tried being decent human beings." Cassandra reassured her quite happily, before looking in the direction of the colony and sighing softly to herself. If the thorian was already having it's slaves attack the Normandy and the rest of her people, there was no point in trying to stay under it's radar any longer. Slowly but surely the leash she kept wrapped around her psionic presence was loosened, her mind blossoming like a flower to flow across the surface of the world, and she felt the foreign mind -the thorian, it had to be- react to her presence once again. She felt it's recognition, it's arrogant confidence…and beneath it all, a thread of hesitation and fear.
Yeah, that's right, asshole. I know you're here. And now you've gone and pissed me off by enslaving people. she thought viciously in it's direction, a somewhat-dark smile creasing her lips, a smile that broadened and sharpened as she felt it sense her rage. Oh, she hated slavers, and part of her wanted to just kill the damn thing and be done with it, but…she would meet it first. Find out of it's enslavement of the colonists was a defensive measure of some kind, an involuntary biological response, or a deliberate and malicious act. Then she would decide what to do from there. Everything got one chance at life, after all.
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The Old Growth, That-Which-The-Ones-Known-As-Protheans-Called-Thorian, felt frustration as yet another of it's flesh-that-serves was rendered unconscious by the plate-covered-flesh that had invaded it's cultivation grounds. It had taken far too long to understand what trickery the white-covered-flesh had been performing with the sustenance that it was providing to the flesh-that-serves, and many of those very servants had been rendered unbreakably unconscious as a result. Fortunately, the metal-that-serves-betrayal were focused on fighting the-one-that-travels, meaning that it's servants weren't being killed or starved anymore, but it still had to contend with the plate-covered-flesh.
Something that was proving difficult. Even with the greater numbers of servants and the weapons that they carried that it possessed, the plate-covered-flesh had not yet been defeated. Though at least they had been forced to retreat from it's servants, fleeing the heart of it's cultivation grounds. Soon, they would be surrounded and overwhelmed, or else return to their strange metal-that-soars and leave The Old Growth and it's world alone.
The Old Growth paused its musings as it felt something change in the fabric of it's world. A presence, a mind unlike any it had encountered in cycles beyond count, unfurled across its domain. This was not the simple consciousness of the flesh-that-serves, nor the cold emptiness of the metal-that-serves-betrayal. This was something... powerful. Dangerous. The same mind it had brushed against earlier, the one that it had sensed when…when the metal-that-soars arrived.
The mind-that-reaches belonged to the-one-that-travels, the destroyer of the metal-that-serves-betrayal. It carried anger, determination, and something else—understanding. This one knew of The Old Growth's existence, had discovered its purpose, and now approached with deliberate intent. It was angry, tasted of wrath and danger, and it knew where The Old Growth was.
The Old Growth had existed for countless millennia. It had watched civilizations rise and fall, had tasted the thoughts of species long extinct, seen them all consumed by the corruption-star-minds. It was ancient beyond measure, patient beyond comprehension, experienced millennia in a way that flesh-that-serves could never grasp. Yet something about this new presence made its ancient consciousness... hesitate, at it's very core.
Was this fear? The Old Growth did not fear. It endured. It consumed. It controlled. It did not experience emotions the way that lesser minds did, for such ephemeral and temporary things were beneath it.
And yet...
And yet the mind-that-reaches stirred something primal within The Old Growth. The sensation was unfamiliar, uncomfortable. This was not merely another consciousness to be subsumed or controlled. This was something...other. Something that could potentially challenge The Old Growth in ways that it had never before been challenged, for none that it had ever harvested nor sensed had ever possessed a mind such as it's own. The foreign mind's consciousness that flowed like water around The Old Growth's barriers, washed around the consciousness-of-self that separated The Old Growth from it's flesh-that-serves, but despite it's movement like water, it seared like flames, hot and unforgiving and consuming, a song of eons that The Old Growth sensed was far older than even it was.
It reacted, withdrew slightly from this strange, this new and unexpected threat. It called to its servants, sand the song of summoning, and commanded them to converge on the area where the-one-that-travels would emerge. It would not flee—The Old Growth did not flee—but it would prepare. It's servants would give all to defend it, as they were meant to, and it would wait for the-one-that-travels to be engaged in battle before it would bring it's full might to bear, strike at the foreign mind when it was distracted and vulnerable.
The Old Growth had survived for a long, long time, and would continue to survive for longer still, no matter what minds came to it's garden.
So it had decided, and so it would be.
But somewhere, in the depth of The Old Growth's mind, a small and thin voice whispered: death comes for all things, in the end.
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Tali'zorah nar Rayya watched, alongside Ashley Williams -who was a very strange person, even by human standards, constantly seeming to switch from treating her kindly as a sister might, to looking at her with suspicion and being cool and quiet. Tali didn't know much about humans, but that looked a lot like someone struggling with some internal issue to her- as Shepard tore the geth in front of them apart in a whirlwind of gunfire and biotics, laying waste in a way that she hadn't quite grasped that the fire-haired woman was capable of. Oh, she'd known that The Dragon of Elysium was a dangerous fighter, anyone who'd ever heard of her knew that, never mind seen footage of her in action or read reports of her deeds, but this was something different. Part of it might be seeing it in person, of course, but to her it seemed almost as if the human had a personal stake in the issues at hand.
"She probably does." Ashley agreed, sounding a bit short of breath, as they carefully made their way through the debris field of yet another geth squad that had earned Shepard's ire. "And I don't just mean because it's humans being hurt. Shepard would care if it was anyone, I promise you that. I just think that it has more to do with the slavery thing, you know? After Mindoir, Anhur, and Elysium, she's gained something of a reputation for hating slavers with a passion."
"Oh…I suppose that makes sense. What the thorian is doing is definitely slavery, even if it is a little different from the batarian kind." Tali bobbed her head in understanding. Then a thought occurred, and she made a soft sound of consideration. "Ah, actually, it's probably worse than the batarian kind. At least the batarians cannot directly affect someone's mind, but this thorian seems able to do so. Even a batarian slave has the sanctity of their own mind being their own. The colonists don't even have that."
"Exactly. It's controlling them against their will, forcing them to act for its benefit, hurting them when they disobey. That's slavery, plain and simple." Ashley winced as they navigated around a fallen geth platform, large enough that avoiding it aggravated her injuries. "And if there's one thing the Commander won't abide, it's slavery."
Tali nodded, watching as Shepard executed a perfect biotic charge into the last remaining Geth, a Prime. The synthetic shattered against the far wall in a spray of white fluid, alloy, and mechanical parts. There was something almost artistic about the way Shepard fought, a deadly precision that spoke of years of training and combat experience. It was beautiful, in a way that she had never imagined violence could possibly be, and elegant, like an asari dancer.
The thought had her blushing, though she wasn't entirely sure why.
Shepard turned back toward them, her SMGs hissing softly as they vented heat from their ammunition block. "Area's clear. We should reach the Mako in another ten minutes if we don't run into any more resistance." Her eyes swept over Ashley's form, and Tali noticed the way her expression softened with concern. "How are you holding up, Williams?"
"Still breathing, ma'am," Ashley replied with a weak smile that didn't quite hide the pain lines around her eyes. "Though I'll admit I'm looking forward to sitting down for more than thirty seconds." she paused for a moment, her smile getting a little bit stronger as she ventured in a hesitantly teasing tone. "Even with your driving, ma'am."
Cassandra actually laughed at that, a genuine sound of amusement that echoed off the metal walls around them. "My driving isn't that bad, Williams. I've only rolled a Mako, oh, a dozen times or so. It's not so bad once you get used to it."
"A dozen?" Tali squeaked, her voice climbing an octave through her suit's vocoder, as she looked at Shepard with a not-so-faint air of horror. "Get used to it?!"
"She's joking," Ashley quickly reassured her, though there was a hint of uncertainty in her voice, eyeing the other woman with a faint air of suspicion. "Right, ma'am? You're joking?"
Cassandra's grin turned decidedly wicked. "Well, I suppose it depends on how you define 'rolled.' Does bouncing off a cliff face count if all six wheels stay in contact with something solid? And what if I go off a cliff and we rotated in midair, but when we hit the ground again it was wheels first? Because technically a vehicle only counts as a rollover if the roof of the car hits the ground at least once…"
The horrified silence that followed was broken only by the distant sound of settling debris and the soft hum of their equipment. Tali made a small whimpering noise while Ashley gaped, genuinely gaped, at their commanding officer, visibly scrabbling for some manner of response.
"Commander," Tali finally managed, her voice strained through her suit's speakers, "perhaps I could examine the Mako's drive systems before we left? Check the navigation computers? Maybe recalibrate the inertial dampeners?"
"The Mako doesn't have inertial dampeners, Tali." Cassandra replied cheerfully, clearly enjoying the quarian's mounting panic. "Just really good shock absorbers and the Alliance's faith in superior engineering."
"You know what?" Ashley said finally, her voice almost as strained as Tali's was. "I think I'll walk back to the ship. Injured or not."
"Oh, come on," Cassandra chuckled, patting the both of them on the shoulder one after the other. "The Mako's built to take punishment. And so are we. Besides, we need to get back to the Normandy quickly, and walking would take hours." She started moving again, gesturing for them to follow. "Trust me, you'll be fine."
"Famous last words…" Tali muttered under her breath, though she and Ashley dutifully followed all the same. It helped that she was reasonably sure that Shepard was just teasing them a bit. Even the humans wouldn't put a woman in charge of a vehicle that she couldn't actually drive, right? Especially not if she was supposed to be driving other people around in it.
Yeah, she was just lightening the mood after everything that had happened today, that's all.
It would be fine. They'd been fine getting here to begin with, after all, so it would probably be no different on the way back.
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Cassandra gently lowered the unconscious form of Fai Dan onto the cold stone ground of the colony's heart, a flex of biotically-enhanced fingers destroying the trigger mechanism of the pistol he had tried to take his own life with beyond use or repair before she tossed it aside, resisting the urge to growl in frustration. She'd been forced to be a bit rougher with the colonists than she would have preferred, given that she'd been forced to subdue them by herself. There was no way to get the Mako back into the Normandy as things were, and until Ashley got checked out by Doc Chakwas, she wasn't interested in putting the brunette at risk by trying to fight these folks.
And it would have been a fight for sure, even with the 'Anti-Thorian gas grenades' that the Exo-Geni people had given her at the director of the elder of the Baynham women. Which, as far as she could tell, was just some sort of benzodiazepine aerosol that caused the colonists to lose control of their central nervous system, rendering them both helpless and unconscious. Not that she was complaining, of course, even if the name was just a little pretentious or 'on the nose' for such a generic thing. The name could be as bizarre as they wanted it to be, if they worked, and worked is exactly what they did. It had taken her fire-team's entire stock of grenades, but every last colonist was alive and no longer a threat, which was a damn fine piece of work if you asked her.
"Normandy, Shepard. The last of the colonists are unconscious. Get out here and prep them for transfer to the cargo hold. And I need the doc out here too, Ash took a hit and I want her checked out." she ordered her not-so-distant command, a quick and only somewhat-snarky reply snapping back from Joker confirming receipt and obedience, and she hummed in satisfaction before considering what it was that Fai Dan had told her, and how it meshed with what her psionic senses were telling her.
The Thorian was definitely below the colony, that much was certain, or at least the main body of it was. Given it's apparent plant-like nature, which handily explained how she had felt a massive, but muted and weaker, network of nodes spread as far as her spiritual eyes could see, she was willing to bet that this 'hub' would be where it's consciousness resided. Hopefully, destroying it would kill the whole damn things. If not, they'd need to send in special teams to hunt down and destroy every single hub on the planet's surface before it could be safe to re-colonize.
Not that she intended to leave the original colonists here. She'd sponsor them plots on Mindoir or another frontier world herself if she had to, but she'd be damned if they were stuck in Zhu's Hope because they lacked the resources to start again anywhere else. And she would personally make sure that Exo-Geni regreted everything that happened here as much as the laws of man allowed.
"Shepard." a familiar and well-loved voice grunted, and she smiled and turned to face her old friend.
"Wrex, good to see you're in one piece. Here I was thinking that you might have picked up a new scar or two fending off the infected hordes." she teased lightly, and he gave a grunting scoff of amusement.
"Feh. You and your zombies, girl. Though between the 'husks' on Eden Prime and these…things," he prodded one of the…Creepers. She'd call them Creepers. They were creepy, so that fit, and 'Creepers' was actually a plant term, so it worked that way as well. Prodded one of the Creepers with to the toe of one armored boot. "You might be starting to get your wish. Hmph. Got your data-drop. So. Plan?"
"You, me, Ash, and Tali find the entrance to wherever this Thorian's brain is hiding, and we find out what kind of entity it is. If all of this," she sweeps her hand to indicate the colony, in particular the colonists that are being strapped onto stretchers and shuttled towards the waiting stealth frigate. "Was some sort of involuntary defensive reaction to protect itself, we let it live and bail out. If it wasn't, we kill it with fire."
"Heh. I can work with that. You sure you want to bring Williams along? You said she took a hit, and I can tell from here that her armor is fucked." he grunted in response, gesturing to where Chakwas was examining the wound in the young woman's side, her ruined breastplate discarded beside her and her under-suit rolled down to her waist, leaving her wearing only a sports bra. One that did nothing, Cassandra absently noted with some approval, to hide her muscular physique nor her not-insubstantial breasts.
Perhaps not the most professional thought to be having about one's subordinate, though, especially not mid-mission. She shook her head and refocused, ignoring the amused leer in Wrex's eyes as he glanced between the two human women.
"Yeah, once she gets into a new breastplate. The injury isn't too bad, and I don't want her to miss the opportunity to see this to the end. After coming this far, she deserves not to get benched. Besides, I think she's developing a complex about disappointing me. If I send her back to the Normandy, she'll take it as a personal failing." she sighed, running a (relatively) clean hand through her hair. "There's a time to force a stubborn Marine to rest and heal, and a time to let them finish the job. This is one of those. Besides, injured or not, she can still shoot just fine, so as long as we stay between her and any of these Creeper things, she'll be fine. It's not like they have guns, so as long as they can't punch her she'll be alright."
"Hmph. Alright, kid. Let's get to it, then." he gave a sharp, bobbing nod and slammed his fists together, grinning a little. "Gotta admit, kind of looking forward to this. Not every day you get to square off with an ancient mind-control plant as old as the Protheans. Heh heh heh."
"Yeah, yeah, keep a lid on it, old man." Cassandra rolled her eyes, before pointing at the controls for the large industrial crane that dominated one side of the main plaza. "Go use that thing to pick up the sections of the colony. Ten gets you one that the way to the Thorian is under that somewhere. I dunno which piece, but I'd guess the main hub, so start with that."
"Is this the sort of thing I should expect, huh? Babysitting colonists and operating construction equipment while you get to run around having all the fun flattening geth and blowing up frigates?" he grumbled a bit theatrically, and Cassandra laughed softly at his back as he trundled over to the console in question and started fiddling with it.
"Commander, Doctor Chakwas says that Williams should be good to go, as long as she visits medbay once we're done here. The injury isn't bad, second-degree burn and some minor lacerations. It's been wrapped and salved." Alenko reported dutifully, stepping up to her and saluting. "I brought her a spare suit of armor from the Normandy, she's changing it out now with Bhatia's help."
"Excellent, thank you Kaidan. Once she's ready, we'll be heading out." Cassandra smiled, even as the sound of squealing metal heralded Wrex successfully wrangling the crane controls and putting them to use. A quick glance was all she needed to confirm that her guess had been dead-on, with an all-too-visible staircase directly beneath where the main hub had just been standing. "I want the Normandy airborne once the colonists are loaded, and you keeping watch on this end of that staircase, just in case anything comes out once we go in."
"Don't worry, Commander, we'll keep the door clear for you." he assured, not that she had any doubts, and she gave him a grin and a clasp of the forearm before waving for Wrex and Tali to join her as she began making her way towards the freshly-revealed staircase.
Hopefully, the Thorian wouldn't have anything new to throw at their people, but if it did, she was confident her team could handle it. Especially with Wrex along. Her only real question was…
Could the Thorian make active use of it's psionic abilities? And if so, how much of a threat could it pose?
[1] https://www.patreon.com/c/astandupphilosopher
[2] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Fanfic/ShadowsAndDust