Rebirth The Mass Effect is old. part 11

Chapter 11: The Tau of Artemis: Therum

Eight days later, the Normandy emerged from a jump over the plane of the ecliptic of Knossos near the repeater.

The flight was uneventful, except for the constant clashes between Ashley and Garrus. To my deep annoyance, the ship's crew also joined in these skirmishes, quickly dividing into two camps: the former simply ignored the outsiders and did not get into conflicts, but the latter, with Ashley at their head, were unhappy with the presence of non-humans on board and demonstrated this in every possible way. But our small international team quickly rallied.

Tali found a common language with Greg Adams, the chief engineer of Normandy. The engineer was filled with pure, uncluttered delight at the young Quarian's skills and knowledge. Professionally, the two worked well together, and Tali quickly gained credibility with the ship's technical staff. Rex didn't give a damn about people's troubles, and he spent most of his time sleeping in the cabin, ruining food supplies and refining the weapons I had given him. Garrus was more difficult. The Turian took the crew's attitude quite painfully and quickly closed himself off, preferring to spend time in the company of his kinsman in the infirmary. I also spent almost all my free time there, because I enjoyed talking with Naylus and Garrus, and I didn't see the faces of the crew. Fortunately, direct work could be done on an instrumentron anywhere. From time to time, Jeff would join us, leaving the ship for Kayden. Pressley watched all this with a degree of equanimity and displeasure, but did not say anything.

Nihlus terrible wound was healing rapidly: I increased my energy output, since these days there were no stresses on the body. I slept, ate, and occasionally walked around the ship, and I gave all the excess energy to Nihlus. By the time he left the repeater channel, Spektr was already calmly getting up and moving around the ship, even though the loads were contraindicated to him.

To my surprise, Naylus was able to find a common language with the scruffy pilot. To do this, it was necessary to praise his professional skills and thoughtfully talk about the topic of ships and the specifics of their piloting. Spectrum turned out to be a good pilot, and the Joker soon recognized this. The two spent the five-hour flight from the repeater to the Terminal very productively. True, their communication sometimes shook the ship, but no one was in a hurry to be indignant, and I wasn't going to. It's in my best interest if Jeff and Nihlus find a common language and become friends, which the demons are not joking about. They shared the duties of the navigator amicably among themselves, completely excommunicating Pressley from laying the ship's course. However, the XO didn't mind, even giving up some of the work with some relief. He had enough problems with the crew, which I safely unloaded on him.

* * *

Half an hour before arriving at Terum, I gave the order to prepare for the landing, and our motley squad occupied the arsenal. I left a disgruntled and offended Ashley on board. Maybe her brain will turn on, otherwise she must have decided that I was joking about being excluded from the landing party.

We'll be dropped onto the planet in a Mako that could hold six sentients. The team consisted of me, Garrus, Rex, Kayden and Tali. One place for Liara.

"Rir, five minutes to reset!" Jeff's voice came through the headset. The rifle folded, coming out in a non-combat position.

"Understood. Garrus, what's with the Mako?"

"Ready."

"Finish it. Rex, if you want to, take another cassette of grenades with you and stop hypnotizing them with your eyes!"

The Krogan snorted, but Box scooped it up.

We armed ourselves thoroughly, and carried even more into the conveyor. I warned you directly that there might be problems. We boarded a couple of minutes before the deadline, secured the boxes with grenades, panacelin and weapons, checked the armor and ammunition.

"Joker, we're ready."

"Okay, I'm dropping it! Hold on tight!"

The Mako rocked and fell out of the Normandy's hold, falling like a stone to the ground. Kayden was driving. The brake engines roared, slowing down, we were shaken, hit, the car got on its wheels, the running engine rumbled. Garrus slipped to the gun turret.

"All systems are working properly. We can go now." Alenko reported calmly.

The Mako shuddered and rolled smoothly over the rocky surface of an almost dead world.

* * *

Terum looked... strange. A heavy, gloomy sky covered with dense blue-steel clouds, heat, lifeless reddish rocks corroded by corrosion and time, dimly glowing lava lakes that give the planet the appearance of one of the branches of the Underworld, and the buildings of a processing plant towering on the horizon.

"It's a nasty place." Tali whispered. "We would never colonize such a planet."

The Mako crossed the ridge and rolled out onto the paved road. Jeff dropped us much closer to the factory, and we didn't have to go through the locked gates.

"It was not colonized in the usual sense." Kayden replied calmly. Mining and processing plants are located here. And a lot of Prothean ruins. The Mako rolled easily along the road, dodging between protruding rocks here and there, while I sat on pins and needles. Will there be Gethas or not?

Will be.

Garrus screamed gutturally in the tower, and the turret came to life and slid away.

"The Geth!" The Turian growled.

There was a roar overhead, and rockets leapt from their pylons and raced toward the cars that were getting to their feet.

"The Joker!"

"Rene, what happened?"

"The Geth! Their ship could be in orbit!"

"Understood."

The connection was interrupted. There was an explosion, the tank collapsed, and Alenko jerked the car away from the string of blue discharges.

"Keep driving. But be careful. If there are these, then there are more." I rubbed the bridge of my nose. "Saren is either on the planet now, or he was here."

"Or he sent someone." Garrus finished the thought.

The road for us sitting in the cabin was blurred into a kaleidoscope of gunshots, sudden jerks, unexpected braking and starting, Garrus' rasping curses and Kayden's curses. It wasn't difficult for a Turian to shoot Geth at long range, preventing them from even getting close to us, and Kayden did everything so that not a single shot hit us, so we got to the factory without any problems.

We found the entrance to the Prothean ruins based on pure intuition and my memory: it was located near a small processing plant consisting of three huge tanks with small scaffolding and a control room on struts, and it was no different from the many mines scattered around. Tellingly, there was no blockage preventing the armored car from passing.

Nevertheless, the station was working, the road to it was used by much more massive vehicles than our six-seater Mako, and was kept in order.

The Mako braked at a bend in the road. Kayden looked skeptically at the high tanks of the station, shifting his gaze to the map and back to the screen.

"Spectr, take a look. Could this be it?"

I checked the map and looked at the screen.

"Are there any other such stations near the entrance to the mine?"

"I don't see it in the neighborhood. There are bigger ones. There is a factory with three exits nearby."

"The factory is not suitable. Come on, little by little. If there are Gethas, then we guessed right."

The Geth were! As we pulled up to the station, Garrus noticed the geth ghost curled up on the strut, but he was a little late: the creature darted up somewhere, and heavy bullets knocked out sparks in the metal.

The Geth ambush collapsed under the roar of turrets and rocket explosions. Garrus had a good time, literally mowing down the unexpected synthetics. The tank rising from the landing position was shot and blown up before it could become a real threat. The last to kill were the nimble Geth ghosts. These creatures were too nimble and agile. And finally, Garrus' voice said:

"Clear!"

We're going out. Alenko, drive the Mako away. Terum greeted us affectionately with a powerful heat stroke, the smell of scorched flesh and the heat of a red-hot stone. Open lava bubbled near the station, stinking unbearably of chemicals and spewing a column of thick black smoke into the gloomy skies. A cargo truck was burning down near the rocks, half drowned in lava, gaping holes from missile hits.

While Kayden drove the vehicles to the sheer cliff, we quickly checked the station, but found only the charred corpses of the workers. Three nascent Huskies were blown up with a grenade launcher along with the stakes they were hanging from.

Alenko came up and took a pistol from his belt.

"Don't go ahead." I said. "If I find out that I've used an implant above the standard value, I'll send Karin to the infirmary for a decade. Your task is to put barriers on the group."

Alenko nodded slightly.

The entrance to the shaft was blocked by a massive locked round hatch. Tali darted to the terminal, the twilight was dispersed by the golden light of the instrumentation, and the door squeaked open, letting us into an inclined tunnel punched into the rocky soil of the planet. Powerful cables stretched to the left and right, and every ten meters there were massive arc-shaped supports with long lamps illuminating the tunnel going into the depths.

Rex came down first with a shotgun, followed by me and Kayden. A little behind — Garrus with a "Harpoon" in his hands and a hoist. The Turian periodically scanned the tunnel with optics, and it was he who first noticed the Geth.

A sniper rifle rumbled loudly, a reload squeak, a shot. Somewhere in the distance, something sparkled. A couple of seconds to cool the weapon, and again — a booming shot.

"Clear."

Rex just spat.

"Vakarian! You robbed me of fights at the Citadel, and now you won't let me do it here?"

A low rumbling chuckle.

"I'm not going to confiscate your guns this time, Rex."

The Krogan shook his head and growled an unintelligible expletive to the cheerful laughter of the former Citadel Security Officer. Garrus enjoyed our mission in a special way. His blue eyes sparkled with excitement, his movements were precise and economical, full of predatory grace and plasticity, there was none of the uncertainty and hopelessness that followed the Turian on the Citadel. It wasn't Garrus Vakarian who was with us now, but the one who would eventually be called the Archangel.

A rifle roared loudly: the geth in red armor jerked, hit the railing and flew down somewhere. The soft hiss of a cooling weapon, a barely audible satisfied rumble, and again:

"Clear."

Rex spat on the floor.

"Don't freak out, you'll have another chance to unwind." I tapped the disgruntled Krogan lightly on the shoulder. "There are many more Geth! Don't stop Garrus from having fun."

The Krogan grunted, gave the happy Turian an appraising look, and nodded slowly. The tunnel ended in a wide metal platform, leading us into a long cave, the far side of which was invitingly shimmering with an azure force barrier. The fighters dispersed along the platform, Rex rushed to the stairs: a shotgun rattled, a thin squeak of geth, a shot and a satisfied:

"Clear!"

Somewhere under the ramp that descended to a wide platform, three flights of red light flashed. Garrus jerked his rifle up, peering into the tangle of metal.

"Geth is downstairs." the Turian dropped to one knee, bent over, almost leaning over the edge of the ramp, barked loudly "Harpoon", and the reddish light disappeared. "I'm ready."

"Rex, Kayden, check the flight."

Garrus shifted slightly, so that he could see the curves of the ramp and the platforms leading to the ruins. Tali, clutching a heavy pistol tightly in her hands, walked a little behind, as the least protected member of our squad.

Before landing, we had to win a whole battle with this lovely girl, until we convinced her that her place was behind our backs near Garrus. We agreed that she is our technician, and her task is to clear the way from tightly locked doors, break into computers and locks on boxes with enemy weapons. Well, at the same time, to cover our sniper's back in the unlikely event that some enemy passes by us and the shooter himself. Garrus, armed to the crest, almost laughed then, despite all his tact, but, thank all the gods of this reality, he restrained himself. So now the Quarian was not trying to look for adventures on her ass and obediently sat behind Vakarian's broad back.

A long, winding ramp led us to an elevator shaft and a wide platform abutting against the blue film of a protective field that blocked the entrance to the Prothean structure. I couldn't bring myself to call an absolutely whole and fully functional tower ruins!

"Tali, check the elevator."

The Quarian quickly jumped off the platform and flew to the console. Garrus vaulted over the railing and ran lightly along the supports of the ramp to the cliff, gazing intently into the abyss gaping under our feet. The cave was VERY deep. By eye, it's a hundred meters, and maybe even deeper, as far as I could see by leaning over the railing. Kayden gurgled a muffled curse next to me, and I was pulled back in.

"Garrus, is there something?"

In response, a shake of the head.

"Too deep. I saw some movement, but I couldn't see it for sure."

The Turian folded the Harpoon and returned to us. Tali hacked the elevator's control panel, and the screen door obediently swung open.

The elevator took us deeper and deeper. Four-meter-high and seven-meter-long oval window sections swept by. Seven, eight, nine floors, by eye — seven or eight meters each. Some of the "windows" were blocked by an azure barrier, and some were not. The doors swung open, letting us out onto the same ramp as seventy meters above, but the ground was still not visible. A little further on, near the wall of the tower, another elevator was flashing invitingly at us with a red light on the console.

The ringing silence of the cave was broken only by our breathing and the barely audible hum of the protective barrier. For a moment, I thought I heard a soft whistle. She glanced at the tense Turian, caught his worried gaze, and touched her ear with her finger. In response, there was a short nod and the rustle of a rifle coming into firing position. So it wasn't my imagination. Rex picked up the shotgun and walked slowly forward, pointing the muzzle. Garrus knelt down, resting the barrel of the Harpoon on the edge of the metal shield, Tali crouched next to him, completely hiding behind dubious protection, Kayden was enveloped in a barely noticeable azure haze. I took off the Harpoon owl.