Hello there,
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If you like how Shepard is a total genius badass, you should check Arrival : Ruptures to enjoy more of the same.
—
Illium
"Commander, mercs are flooding the port. The team's already out and took positions." Joker informed him as they rode to the docking bay.
"Take off; I don't want the paint scratched." Then again, it had the logo of Cerberus, and it would be a shame if a stray shot scorched it.
"Shepard."
"Tela."
Her men at standby, Tela had one question in her mind. "When did you figure it out?"
"You were waiting for me in Liara's house because you needed someone to figure out where she went." She could have taken over the investigation any time, and instead, chose to wait for Shepard, knowing he was on Illium.
Tela, resigned to her fate, pulled out her weapon. "There is only one way this ends."
"Yeah, me mopping the floor with you and your buddies." There was a tense standoff, both sides watching each other, ready to act, and Tela acted first, jumping into cover while the mercs opened fire.
The rest of Shepard's team, hiding around the docking area, encircled the mercs, forcing them to take cover behind the carriers that had landed in the middle of the area. Shepard, Garrus, and Hailey took cover as well, joining the fray.
Outmaneuvered and outpowered, it was an unfavorable situation for the mercs, and they retreated, leaving the dead behind.
"Shepard, do we chase them?" Garrus asked, firing one last shot that got through the cockpit and caused one of the carriers to crash.
Nice.
"Nah, forget it. Our target is the Shadow Broker." Once their boss was dead, Tela would back off.
She wasn't stupid enough to fight for an already dead person.
"Joker, pick us up; the Shadow Broker's ass has a date with my boot."
"Aye, aye, Commander."
—
Hourglass Nebula
Sowilo System
Hagalaz
"I want three teams. Liara and Hailey are with me; we are going first. Garrus, take Grunt and Jack; you are the second team. Samara, you are with Zaeed and Thane. We are taking the ship if it's possible, destroying it if it's not. Watch out for prisoners, especially a drell named Feron." Shepard ordered now that they were in Hagalaz's atmosphere. The advantage of having a stealth ship was that no one was able to track them, and the blockades were useless as long as Joker was careful.
"Got it."
"Understood, Shepard."
"Let's move, people."
—
"It's quite smart, hiding in Hagalaz. The oceans boil during the day and snap freeze ten minutes after sundown." Liara admitted it while the shuttle was riding to the Shadow Broker's ship.
"A place no one would think to search."
"Exactly. His ship is completely undetectable in the storm, unless you know where to look." Which they did know.
Getting up now that they were on approach velocity, Liara read the scans relayed from the shuttle's scanners. "The shuttle bay is locked down. We'll need to land on the ship and hunt for a hatch."
"But we can't stay outside for long. There's a constant lightning storm where the hot and cold air collide." She warned, and Shepard wasn't dying to stay out in a storm anyway.
Jumping down from the shuttle, their magboots activated to give them the necessary grip to not get flung in the storm.
Still scanning the exterior, Liara found what might be their chance to enter the ship. "It's hard to pinpoint it in this lightning, but I'm picking up signals from a communications array near the back of the ship. There's nothing below but maintenance equipment. We need to find an entrance near the back shielding."
Down the left side, they proceeded forward through the catwalk, but maintenance drones activated, targeting the team.
"Hailey, take out those drones." He ordered, and the latest member of the team opened fire, the laser bolts of her rifle cutting through the drones with ease.
Climbing up to the spine of the ship, they came across Shadow Broker's forces, several guards moving up together rather than spreading and taking cover.
"Target those capacitors. If they are stupid enough to play near lightning, they deserve to be fried." Shepard's orders were not necessary, as two bolts struck the capacitors, overloading them, resulting in a much more violent energy burst that burned through the enemy soldiers.
Moving left again, from where the guards came, LOKI mechs came out of small hatches, but they were never a threat and were scrapped in short order.
Turning right again, Shepard grumbled. Why did they have to make the damn ship's exterior so complex? Did Shadow Broker enjoy the maze-like appearance?
Liara shot the capacitor ahead, frying the salarian and the soldiers following him. Pulling out the module, Shepard lowered the platform on the right, with a capacitor in the middle. Guards climbed it up first, and Shepard let them, waiting until they were near the capacitor.
He was feeling insulted, being assailed by amateurs.
Up the platform and down, LOKI mechs showed themselves again to no effect. Shadow Broker's defenses were repetitive, which also meant boring.
"Incoming." Garrus called out on the comms, he, Jack, and Grunt jumping down where the mechs used to be.
"Shuttle pilot, can you make the next run?"
"I wouldn't want to try it, Commander. The winds are getting really bad up there."
"Alright, fall back to Normandy."
"Samara, your team is on standby; the weather down here is getting worse."
"We will wait for your orders, Shepard."
Guards jumped down to the catwalk, and mechs were activated. Grunt charged ahead, slamming into one of the poor sods so hard he flew into the storm, screaming in terror.
Jack, having liked what she saw, did the same to another guard with her biotics. The rest of the guards and the mechs faced a less terrifying end by laser bolts.
"Not bad for a human that is not Shepard." Grunt praised Jack, watching the guard flail as he was dragged away by the winds.
Jack scoffed, pulling a guard and shooting him at close range with her shotgun. "Beat it, you overgrown toad."
"Heh, you have the spirit of a krogan."
"Thank fuck not the looks of one." That earned a laugh from Grunt, pleased to fight together with a warrior like Jack.
Moving up the stairs, they did not face any opposition, entering a small internal area, giving them a brief respite from the howling winds and the lightning.
"This ship is incredible. It must have taken decades to build in secret."
"I wonder what happened to the contractors." Hailey asked, still in awe. This was much better than the boot camp.
Except for the parts where Shepard and Vakarian were up to no good.
"I think we can guess."
All too soon, they left the bay, once again in the storm. Several guards, having wisened up, had laid in ambush, though not wise enough to not do it near the capacitors.
Shadow Broker must finally be taking them seriously, because asari vanguards and rocket troopers began to show themselves, still not a challenge for the six of them.
Pulling out another module, Shepard lowered several panels, and the team moved forward, coming across hatches, with agents coming out of them like idiots, making themselves sitting ducks.
Shepard guessed being in total anonymity meant those guys didn't feel they needed to train.
"On the left." Garrus warned, turning his attention to the guards, who, once again, were taking cover near the capacitors.
"Not bad, Vakarian." Hailey grunted as the turian timed a shot to go through two agents before hitting the capacitor.
"You haven't seen anything yet."
Blitzing through the remaining forces and moving a capacitor on the rails away, they found the hatch that led to the communications signals, with Liara using a bypass shunt to hack it.
"How long is this going to take?" Shepard asked, taking cover as the scanners read enemy signatures.
"I don't know, Shepard. I've never broken into the Shadow Broker's base before. Well, not this one anyway."
Shepard chuckled. Liara was growing up, breaking into secret bases and what not.
Desperation must have settled in, because the Shadow Broker's forces came en masse from all sides.
"Are you sure it's going to work?" Shepard teased Liara. They could always find another way to open the door.
"It's illegal even on Illium. It didn't come with a warranty."
Garrus snorted, carefully rolling a grenade behind enemy cover. "You heard that, Shepard? Something's illegal on Illium."
"First time for me."
"Shepard, we are approaching your position." Samara's serene voice informed them, and they could see the shuttle approach.
"Good timing, take the left side." The shuttle dropped them right on top of the enemy. Samara landed with her biotics, helping Zaeed and Thane down, who were giving her cover fire.
The fight was tough because they had to protect the shunt and couldn't afford to use their usual destructive means to kill the enemy for fear of damaging the ship and sending themselves to a horrible death.
"Their attacks are disorganized. They'd be more effective if they attacked all at once." Liara suggested, as she shot a rocket drone, causing it to go haywire and explode near enemy soldiers, taking two more out.
Shepard pointed to Liara, pleased with the idea. "Hmm, good idea. Garrus, see if you can ring their comms."
"Are you out of your mind? Don't do that, Vakarian." Hailey, however, decided to be a party pooper.
Shooting three guards without even looking, Shepard mockingly scolded his sister. "Hey, I am your commander; you have to do what I say."
"Not if you are acting insane." She shot back, taking cover from a rocket trooper, tossing a grenade overhead.
Garrus cut down several guards levitated by Samara as a laser beam bisected the enemy. "Shepard, your sister is whining too much. Maybe we should have brought Mordin along? He could calculate the time it takes for us to kill them all."
That earned a round of laughter, but Hailey did not find it funny. "Fuck you, birdbrain."
"Maybe later." Garrus replied cheekily.
"The hatch is open; everyone inside." Shepard ordered. Garrus moved first with his team to secure the inside, followed by Samara, Zaeed, and Thane, with Shepard's team falling back last.
—
"They are afraid now; I can smell it." Grunt didn't have to smell it, because the soldiers came rushing with rocket launchers, now that Shepard and his team were inside.
Launching the rocket back with his biotics, it gave the team a smoke screen, allowing Garrus, Zaeed, and Hailey to nail the heavies.
Shepard, Grunt, Jack, Liara, and Samara took position, using their biotics and close-range weapons to draw attention, while the long rangers took easy shots.
Thane had disappeared out of sight.
The corridors were narrow, and the enemy was desperate, turning it into another grueling battle, but the guards couldn't get through the multiple biotic barriers and couldn't stop the laser fire, so the team pushed forward like a tank rolling over ill-equipped infantry.
"I found Feron. His condition is not good. I can't extract him from the chair he is tied to." Thane reported having already sneaked into the prison block.
"Understood, wait for us."
Pushing through one last section of guards, they entered the prison block, seeing corpses strewn around, with Thane standing next to another drell inside the cell.
"Feron."
"Liara."
—
Getting Feron out was not going to be easy, because the Shadow Broker had made the prison system extremely sensitive to tampering. Shepard could have broken through the system, but killing the Broker and shutting down the power was far easier. Leaving Thane to guard his fellow drell, Shepard entered the Broker's lair.
"A yahg? I'll admit, I did not see this coming." There, sitting on the chair and watching them, was a species uglier, stronger, and meaner than the krogan. Massive and muscular, the yahg had eight eyes that gave him a hyperalert look and jaws filled with ragged teeth. Covered with plates, the Shadow Broker's species were not supposed to leave their planet.
And seeing as the Shadow Broker existed before Parnack was discovered, he must have taken the old one's place.
"Commander Shepard." He said in a deep, rumbling voice, watching the eight of them with an unnatural calmness.
"I usually would ask you to surrender, but I have a feeling you won't, and I don't really want to ask." Shepard had never killed a yahg before, which made this a first, and the first impressions always mattered.
Aware of his precarious situation, the yahg suppressed his instincts to fight and dominate. "Indeed. Instead, I'll offer to negotiate."
"I assume you have something in your mind in case I refuse?" Because the Shadow Broker was not in a position to negotiate anything.
A screen appeared next to him, showing the ship's power core. "I overload this ship's fusion core and kill us all instantly."
Huh, guess that's why the Shadow Broker didn't escape, knowing it was futile, and negotiating was his only option. "I am listening."
"All previous evidence shows to me that I cannot kill you; in fact, nothing known across the galaxy can." He had thought Shepard met his end at the Collector attack on his vessel, but it was a false alarm.
"My offer is simple. I return to Parnack and leave the ship and my position to you. I'll be out of the way, with no chance to contact anyone, so you won't have to fear any leaks." The Shadow Broker, for all the intellect and intelligence he had access to, did not have an answer to the problem of Shepard.
"Not to Parnack. Somewhere isolated. You know too much, and if the rest of your kind learns what you know, I'll have to commit a xenocide. Can't have you guys running around the galaxy now, can I?" The yahg were obsessed with being the top dog as a species and individuals and had slaughtered the first contact delegation of the Council.
Shepard would have just annihilated them all for good measure.
The yahg snarled. "Unacceptable. I'll have to live the rest of my life with nothing to do."
Shepard shrugged; he didn't care if the yahg got bored. "A prefab house, farming equipment, and wildlife for you to hunt. Think of it like a vacation, one that lasts forever."
The Shadow Broker snarled, considering the counteroffer.
"Shepard, I have disabled the Shadow Broker's connection to engineering." EDI's voice came just in time.
He hadn't just sent Thane to find Feron but also to locate an access port to connect the AI to the Broker's ship.
And it had just paid off.
"Time's up." Shepard launched a biotic bitch slap, causing the yahg to fall over.
Leaping to his feet with a scream of fury, he slammed his fist on the screen, trying to blow up the ship as a final act of defiance.
Nothing happened, though, and the Shadow Broker's eyes widened in realization.
"Boy, you are about to be in a world of hurt." Shepard cracked his knuckles.
This would be fun.