Chapter 24: chapter 24
Alright people I want to get this over with as quickly as possible," John said as everyone waited for the decontamination sequence to finalize, "the sooner we find Benezia, the sooner we can get some answers about Saren's whereabouts."
Everyone acknowledged him before they finished checking their equipment and weapons, though Liara was the only one staring vacantly ahead instead of checking her pistol and grenade loadout. No doubt she was thinking about the situation ahead, though she wasn't going to like how it would turn out, Jason mentally sighed and continued with his own weapons and equipment check.
His Brawler Mk VI pistol with both the burst firing and Overcharge setting complete with a Shocker Mk II mod stashed on his right thigh, Armageddon Mk V shotgun complete with the Carnage feature and an Inferno MK IV ammo mod. Stowed over his left shoulder was his newest addition to his collection, an Equalizer Mk III sniper rifle with the Overcharge option installed for that overkill shot feature and next to that was his original assault rifle/shotgun combination, but with different weapons used in the building, namely a Banshee Mk VII and Punisher Mk IV respectively.
On top of that he had a dozen grenades, four EMP and eight high explosive, six demo charges, nearly a hundred feet of det cord, his machete, three knives and Maximus to top everything off.
Jackson was also packing his massive rifle complete with a shotgun successfully mounted underneath it, a generic pistol complete with the latest upgrades and if Jason ventured a guess, maybe thrice the number of hand grenades he was carrying, although he had four demo charges and his collection of sharp pointy things to bring along as well.
Tali still had her new shotgun and pistol, her drone that could kick some serious ass, half a dozen grenades and two demo charges as she checked her omni-tool for something before deactivating it and standing by nervously.
With that the doors finally slid open to let them out, Jason was glad he brought along his fully enclosed helmet for this mission because it was cold as everyone trooped out after John and Jane, Jackson bringing up the rear with Liara in front of him.
"Welcoming committee," Jane announced over the com channel for all to hear, "and they don't look friendly."
Once they were halted by the group of overpaid thugs with guns and badges, that triggered the whole 'hand over the weapons or prepare to die' scene which resulted in every single member of the ground pulling a favored weapon of choice as Jason lit up with a biotic aura, which caused a rather unexpected resulted.
"Holy shit it's him!" The blonde guy on the right exclaimed as he dropped the muzzle of his assault rifle while What's-Her-Beef scowled at him and didn't flinch.
"Him who? Your lover or something?" Jason shifted his aim over to her face and activated the toggle switch to Overcharge as the other security guard shook his head.
"No, he is the Thresher Maw Rider and the same guy who took down a bunch of asari commandoes," the guard glanced nervously back and forth between her and Jason, "the guy from that video that's been going around?"
"Thresher Maw Rider?" Jackson scoffed as he took another step closer to the uptight and crooked security officer, "What the Hell am I? Chopped liver?"
"I don't care who you claim to be," Miss Corrupt snarled as she tried to look even more intimidating when she was faced with an entire squad of badass motherfuckers by her lonesome because her flunkies had wisely put their weapons down, "you will drop those guns and proceed with standard visa admittance immediately or else we will have no choice but to terminate you all with extreme prejudice."
"Here I was thinking it was going to be boring," Jackson sighed as he stowed his rifle over his shoulder and glanced over at both Shepard's, "can I take her out already?"
Before either one of them could give him the go ahead to engage in hand-to-hand combat with multiple armed individuals, a new arrival stepped out from the security airlock and took in the scene with a careful eye.
"You will stand down or my officers will detained you and your ship until a proper investigation can be conducted," Captain Maeko Matsuo said carefully as the remaining members of the security detail snapped out of whatever dreamland they were in and pointed their weapons back at the squad.
Well as it turned out, all of them were pointing their weapons at Jason for some reason as Jane started to hash it out with Matsuo before she began that inevitable countdown.
Jason even held down on the trigger as his rifle began to whine before Gianna defused the whole situation by simply announcing over the intercom that they were who they said they were and Spectre agents were in fact allowed to carry weapons, which also included everyone on the ground team as well as they walked past the security officers toward the elevator.
XXX
"Pretty swanky place they got here," Jackson whistled after they exited the elevator and reached the main lobby, "so where too first Bossman?"
"Director Anoleis would be the first stop," John grumbled as he motioned towards the rest of them, "you guys stay here and watch for any hostile activity such as security teams or rouge operatives while we go have a chat with the Director."
"Somehow I have a feeling that chat is either gonna turn into a fistfight or end with someone in a body bag," Jackson sighed as he took a seat on a nearby bench, "want to play I Spy?"
"I fail to see how a child's game is appropriate during a situation like this," Liara replied even though she took a seat as well, "with the altercation between us and the security force of Port Hanshan earlier I have serious misgivings about finding answers here."
"Eh, could be worse." Jackson answered as Jason simply took a seat on another bench a few feet away so he had a clear line of sight in the other direction, not that anyone would be sneaking up on them here, it didn't hurt to act prepared for anything.
Tali chose to plop down next to him and fidget, "How are you feeling?"
"Edgy, something isn't right about this place and it makes me nervous that we have to sit here and wait," Jason said before he glanced around the massive room again, "and I would like it very much for people to stop acting like I'm about to lose my sanity."
"It wasn't that," Tali assured as she turned to face him, "I just noticed that you were sleeping in your bunk instead of underneath the table again."
Jackson arched an eyebrow in her direction, "Some people would call watching other people in their sleep a sure sign of stalking Tali."
"I didn't mean to intrude," Tali waved her hands defensively, "I just noticed that this morning on my way to the mess for something to eat."
"Speaking of sleep," Jason decided to turn the tables, "how have you been doing?"
"Good, the bed is wonderful," Tali sighed, no doubt at the pleasant memory, "it is very comfortable."
"Glad to hear that," Jackson chuckled, "maybe you'll invite Jason over here to try it out for himself one day hhmmm?"
Tali opted to squirm around in her seat with each hand fighting for dominance as Jason leveled a rather sinister look towards his twin.
"What?" Jackson was starting to become nervous, "Why do you have that look on your face?"
"Just wondering," Jason answered cryptically as he examined the side of his rifle.
"Okay, now I am worried," Jackson turned to face Liara, "are you worried? Because I know for a fact that nothing good is going to come from him when he has that smirk on his face."
Liara merely tilted her head in confusion, "I do not understand your anxiety, your brother is just sitting there."
Jackson lifted a hand to display a single finger pointed at her face, "Ah ha, that's what he wants you to think, in reality he is scheming up a plan in order to unleash his vengeance upon those unsuspecting."
Jason shrugged as Jackson went off on another rant before he turned to Tali, "Want to go check out that vendor we passed on our way in, might be something worth getting."
"Sure." Tali chirped in reply as they both stood up and walked over to the sole Hanar vendor on the whole planet and began browsing his wares while waiting for John and Jane to return from the little chat they would be having with the crooked director.
As much as Jason wanted to grab the black market goods from the vendor and march it into the director's office so they could get a stinking garage pass so they could get a move on already, he figured that wrapping the director up for the legal authorities to arrest would have to do, even though it required jumping through a lot of hoops. It was also irritating that Jane stopped to talk with every single person she happened to run into, asking them for the life story and the details for a secret recipe they been protecting since the dawn of time. While John on the other hand simply opted for the shoot first, then shoot again and leave before the questions could be answered mentality, which could mean the difference between a rather long and boring mission or a short and to the next firefight type of mission.
"You are frowning again," Jason was taken from his thoughts at Tali's voice as he turned to look at her, "it is making the owner of this store rather uncomfortable when you do that."
"This one is correct," Jason glanced over at the Hanar that was doing a wonderful impression of a mood ring, a jellyfish hovering off the floor mood ring, as it bobbed a few times, "it would like to imply that such a distinguished guest would find a better selection in the weapons' catalog than in the armor section."
Jason glanced up from the terminal he was browsing, "How am I a distinguished guest?"
The Hanar, Olog or something along those lines answered, "This one has seen the achievements and accomplishments that the guest before them has done, through the Extranet, this one has learned of the exploits involving the famous Asari Matriarch battle and the fight against the Great Evil Serpent."
"I think he means the videos about you going round," Tali offered as Jason sighed deeply, "where you and Jackson got in that fight and the Thresher Maw you took down."
This was the second time he'd been recognized for his apparent heroic exploits on the same planet so far and it was already getting annoying before he shut down the terminal he had been browsing and stepped away, "I think I'll go see if my idiot brother has annoyed Liara to the point of warping his head."
Tali giggled as she followed after him, waving at the vendor, who managed to appear relieved even though it had no face whatsoever to speak of.
Both John and Jane had arrived, the former looking close to the verge of strangling a Krogan with his bare hands as the latter had a look of determination on her face.
"Alright gang, looks like we got a Turain to persuade…"
XXX
AAACCCHHHOOOOO!
"That was strange," a light grey Turain spoke as he dabbled a napkin near his nose, "hope this weather hasn't gotten me sick."
Said Turain also failed to notice the elevator depositing four humans, an Asari and a Quarian as he went back to his drink about fifteen minutes after he verified that he did not have a cold.
XXX
"You know I get the feeling that someone clearly doesn't want us snooping around this place." Jackson sighed as he watched over the others hacking into various containers, terminals and caches scattered around the inside of Synthetic Insights labs.
"They cleared everyone out of here in order to make sure nobody contaminated the evidence," Jane answered as she slipped a couple medi-gel capsules and a stack of credit chits into an empty pouch, "or at least that was the official story."
"Cover up by the director," John deadpanned as he stowed a brand new sniper rifle over his shoulder next to his current one after handing a monstrous Kraken MK IV shotgun over to Jackson.
"I doubt they'll notice the missing weapons, biotic amps, credits, omni-gel, various omni-tools and the surprisingly high number of medi-gel capsules they got laying around," Jackson replied cheerfully before an alarmed look crossed over his face, "oh no I just jinxed us."
Jason simply shook his head while he was too busy cramming a couple extra blocks of high explosives into his backpack, a modular armor compartment on his back in other words that didn't take up any of his weapon slots because they were on the outside of the backpack. It was something he had built a few days ago, lining it with layers of shielding interfaces and pressurizing it so he could take it into zero-g if he wanted too.
His backpack also allowed him to carry extra gear they managed to scavenge, which was really handy considering the sheer volume of stuff he found locked up inside this lab, all of it would come in handy for when they ran into the Rachni later on.
Liara managed to hack open a door leading into a posh office type suite, "Shepard, I think I found the computer terminal we are looking for."
"Tali, Jason," Jane pointed over at the terminal in question before making a shooing motion with her hands, "work your magic."
Even though there was no point in keeping any of the data for themselves, it was just a useless list of administrative mumbo jumbo that had nothing to do with Saren, the Geth or even the Rachni, there was still the point where they needed it in order to nail Director Anoleis to the wall so they could get the garage pass they needed.
Tali started on hacking into the actual terminal files itself while Jason began splicing into random wires (always the last one) in order to block any incoming signals sent from an outside source that could potentially purge the computer and erase all of the data.
With an expert technician and an engineer working on it, there wasn't much of a chance anyway.
"Got it Shepard," Tali said as she unplugged the OSD from the slowly smoldering computer as Jason appeared from under the desk with a handful of severed wires.
"Let's head on back," Jane said while Jackson could be seen dumping the contents of a flower pot onto the burning terminal in a futile attempt to smother the raging inferno in the background as John took point with Liara on his heels.
Right into the most cliché of ambushes.
Well it wasn't really an ambush, but there was still the whole monologue speech to deal with before they got to the actual ambush.
(If you want a word for word dialogue speech, then play the game already.)
"OPEN FIRE!" Miss Corrupt bellowed as she launched a biotic throw towards them as everyone else scattered.
"Finally, I thought she would never stop talking." Jackson sighed in relief while he was busy introducing various henchmen to the business end of his weapon and they learned the hard way that flimsy space age tables had nothing on a massive assault.
With an Overcharge upgrade.
And a Carnage firing shotgun mounted underneath said rifle.
Not that it mattered anyway, because Jason was doing the same thing instead of launching biotic attacks left and right. Then again he also had his pouches stuffed with energy bars and a couple bottles of the most awful tasty energy supplement drinks this galaxy had to offer for the long and painful fight ahead once they reached Peak 15.
A few grenades, three Overload attacks and an unhealthy dose of gunfire in the general direction of the bad guys soon ended with Team Awesome: 1 and Corrupt Security Guards: Dead.
"That takes care of that," Jane smiled as everyone left cover and either made sure the opposing team was dead or took a leaf out of John's book and began looting them for weapons, intel and other such spoils of war, "I don't even know why I bother anymore."
From there it was a short walk back to the director's office after informing a certain Turain that all was good and the evidence was secured before by got to watch the secretary lead the understandably upset director away in handcuffs before they could finally have the coveted garage pass (Jason decided that it was best to not mention that he already hacked the lockdown protocols in this place) in order to head up to Peak 15 and have a little chat with one Matriarch Benezia.
Of course there were a couple of snags along the way.
"GETH INCOMING!" Jackson shouted as he tuck and rolled past the doors to avoid becoming a rather decent impression of a cheese grater while everyone else began shooting back at the surprise attack from what appeared to be fifty regular platforms, two Primes and the unmistakable hulk of a Destroyer in the back.
Jason summoned Maximus into existence and sent the drone on its way to attack something with a flashlight for a face after he watched Tali break out her drone, Jackson sent his after a rather irritating Hopper while everyone else got behind something that resembled cover and started shooting back.
"How the heck did these things get past security?" Jackson asked even though he was busy wasting a couple of Troopers that had moved into the open.
"They could have been shut down before being activated after they made it through the security checkpoints," Tali offered as she ducked in time to avoid a rocket to the face, "as long as no biometric or weapon readings could be detected, then anything can make it through."
"You're kidding," John grumbled as he sniped another Hopper, "didn't the director say something about several large crates coming through with Benezia?"
Jane's eyes got as large as the grenade she lobbed towards a pocket of Shock Troopers leap frogging from cover, "How many could fit inside one crate?"
"Geth were originally designed to be as compact as possible when not in use in order to take up less space," Tali narrated for everyone, "given the size of each crate, I would have to say that at least twenty units could fit inside one crate."
"How many did he say went through?" John was directing that question towards Jane because nobody else had been inside the office with them.
"Fifty-two crates and three dozen Asari commands as a personal bodyguard."
A chorus of groans answered.
"My Mother would have only the most seasoned and skilled commandos at her side," Liara said as she sent a nearby Hopper into the ceiling, "most of them would have a few centuries of combat at least."
"Well fuck," Jackson swore as he fired an Overcharge round at a Prime that knocked it on its ass, "unless we get some serious firepower we'll be stuck here dealing with these guys."
It was then that Jason had an epiphany.
"Tali!" Said Quarian turned to face him while he nodded towards something behind her, "Tank!"
It was about then that everyone realized that they were using a Grizzly main battle tank as cover, the same style of tank they had used to take down a particular Thresher Maw as everyone either blinked owlishly or performed a facepalm in the middle of a firefight.
"The interface panel is on the other side!" Tali shouted after a rocket impact uncomfortably close to her position, Jackson decided to return the favor to said Geth toting the rocket launcher with a grenade, "I'll need cover!"
"On me," Jason replied as he roadie ran around the back side of the tank and promptly blasted three Troopers that were about to flank them and sent out a singularity to catch another two inside the energy field.
"Hey! Is now a good time for the two of you to be running off for a quickie?" Jackson shouted as another trio of rockets either slammed into the floor or walls around him as Liara gave him a stunned look, "I mean we are getting shot at over here."
"Ignore him," Jason offered as he sent a Shock Trooper and a Sniper respectively into the far wall with a single Throw and pulled another close enough to finish it off with his sidearm, "it's what I do."
It took all of fifteen seconds for Tali to hack through the security system on the tank and take over the firing controls, having to crawl up and into the turret on her hands and knees while rounds soared over her helmet. Though Jason had to admit he did freeze up and admire the way her shapely ass wiggled in order for her to slip inside the tank as she latched onto the controls and did her best at shooting fish in a barrel.
Not before looking back at him as Jason realized that he had been caught staring and there was a Prime ten feet away, which he flattened with a random biotic attack he honestly couldn't remember and got his head back in the fight.
Simply replace the concept of fish with AI robots that could shoot back with state of the art weaponry and instead of a barrel you had a large vehicle bay that provided no cover for the attacking forces and imagine that peashooter typically used for shooting fish replaced with a three hundred millimeter mass accelerator cannon on a tank. Toss in several canisters of explosive materials scattered around at random, a couple large fuel tanks against the back wall and have all of your targets simply bunch up in nice little groups.
In sort it was almost too easy.
"That was fun," Tali said as she scooted out of the turret backwards as Jason found himself captivated by her ass again, "we should do this again sometime."
"Uh huh," Jason answered as he helped her down as the rest of the team stepped around the tank, "nice shooting Tali."
"Oh please," Tali waved her hands dismissively, "growing up on the Flotilla I got really good at defense shooters, that and the controls are universal after all."
Jackson whistled as he surveyed the damage, taking in the smoldering heaps of Geth parts and crater holes where Tali had placed a round or two as Jane lifted her hand in the classic high five position towards Tali with a grin on her face.
Before realizing that a Quarian would have no idea what that meant as she instead clapped Tali on the shoulder, "Good job."
"It wasn't difficult Shepard," Tali squirmed again, "I couldn't have done it without Jason covering me."
John grunted, "Remind me to request a favor from Admiral Hackett and obtain a Grizzly."
"What the Hell happened here?" It was about then that everyone noticed the team of security guards (that weren't dead) had arrived in time to witness the aftermath as Jane walked over to deal with them as everyone else checked the rest of the vehicle bay for any surviving Geth units, supplies to scavenge and a mode of transportation.
Which they found in the form of a Mako tucked away next to the exit door while Jason was busy helping Tali loot a few rather important parts off a couple of Geth platforms, namely the Destroyer.
"If we don't mention it then we won't have to deal with Boss Lady driving us off a cliff," Jackson stage whispered even though John was standing right next to him, "uh no offense Bossman."
"None taken."
"We no longer have to deal with the security element anymore," Jane said as she stepped forward, "we've been given full rein over the situation as of right now and – oh look a Mako!"
"We're doomed," Jackson wept softly.
It was about then that Jason had yet another epiphany as he turned back around and looked at the tank with a careful eye, "I wonder if that thing runs?"
That got a reaction as everyone either stopped walking towards the Mako or silently praying to whatever deity of their choice, though Liara seemed confused by everyone's reaction.
"We can't all fit inside that monster," Jane replied even though she was following everyone else back to where the massive tank sat, "it looks like it was in the middle of repairs."
Tali was actually the one who discovered what was wrong with it while Jason was busy examining the treads, "It looks like they couldn't properly align the heating coil circuits in order for the power cells to charge correctly."
Everyone turned to face Jason who stood up and shook his hand sideways, "Give us ten minutes and we'll have a serious addition of firepower if you want Commander."
"Do it," the grin on John's face was almost savage, "if we got more Geth ahead of us then a real tank can be useful."
Jackson looked like he was about to cry tears of joy, "I can help breathe life back into this wonderful machine if you'll let me."
"Grab a wrench," Jason didn't really have to tell Jackson what to do because he had the same knowledge in his head as well, "and help Tali with the heavy lifting."
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone