//------------------------------// // Sur'Kesh // Story: Mass Effect: Element of Kindness // by CommanderApplejack //------------------------------// Chapter 180 Sur'Kesh Fluttershy, Garrus, Shepard, Liara, and Wrex were all crammed into the shuttle as it made its way over the jungles of Sur'Kesh towards the location of the STG base where the krogan females were being held. Despite getting things to go his way, Wrex's mood hadn't lightened by much. “If these damn pyjacks have hurt those females...” “We'll get them back Wrex, don't worry,” Liars said with a smile, checking her heavy pistol and placing it on its mag holster. “Let diplomacy play out, you'll get what you want,” Shepard agreed. “Besides, we'll grab the females and get the hell out of Dodge before anyone can change their mind.” “Ha! Thanks you two, wouldn't want anyone else along for the ride,” Wrex laughed, prompting Garrus to clear his throat. Fluttershy smirked and stood next to him. “I suppose I can make room for a turian and pegasus with krogan sensibilities too.” Wrex chuckled with a deep rumble. “I'll have you know my people value peace and friendship very highly,” Fluttershy playfully jabbed back. “That why you have those scars?” Fluttershy stuck out her tongue at him as the shuttle flew over to the base's landing pads. Alarms started blaring around the entire facility as the shuttle came in on its final approach. “Commander, salarian ground control says we so not have clearance to land.” “The lying bastards,” Wrex growled, walking up to the shuttle door, opening it and jumped the final distance to the ground as the shuttle waited in a hover. Fluttershy also lept from the shuttle in case things got nasty. “Who authorised you to hold my race hostage!” Wrex thundered in response to the call of unauthorized landing, armed salarians rushing to the landing pads. Red laser dots appeared on Wrex's forehead as snipers took aim. Fluttershy too found one at the centre of her chest, the pegasus immediately went into a set of manoeuvres and pulled out her rifle, keeping it fixed on the head of the offending sniper while keeping up her erratic flight patterns. “Hold your fire!” A salarian in black armour came running towards them as Shepard, Garrus, and Liars too left the shuttle. “Commander Shepard, Captain Fluttershy, restrain your colleague! We only found out about the transfer moments ago!” Fluttershy huffed, if they had only just found out then the dalatrass must have waited until the last moment to inform them... That meant she was angling to incite an incident. That bastard. Fluttershy thought as she lowered her weapon and landed. “Avoiding a diplomatic incident would be preferable in our current situation,” she said, clamping the rifle to her side. “But you have something valuable to my friend here.” "Something worth dying over," Wrex growled. "Please, this matter can be resolved peacefully but I must insist for the krogan to remain under guard," the salarian commander pleaded. Shepard looked back at the krogan. "We'll get the females, Wrex, we can handle this," commander Shepard told him, his eyes narrowed at the salarian but eventually he stashed away his shotgun. "If anything goes wrong, all bets are off," he agreed, allowing a group of salarians to lead him down into the base itself. Behind them, the shuttle finally set down properly and let its engines whir down. Salarians were walking all over the place, transporting various other alien specimens across roof tracked cranes in large containment chambers. Liara scowled as she noticed the occupant of one. "I would have liked to never see one of those ever again," she grumbled as a yahg in one of the chambers. Wrex was made to sit down fairly close near where they had entered, a squad of security personnel assigned to him to make sure he stayed in place. Shepard went over to make sure he'd behave himself, Garrus and Liara following the commander there to assure the krogan as well. Fluttershy though noticed a salarian she thought she recognised and went over to him to check instead. "Captain Kirrahe?" The salarian looked up and turned around. "Miss Fluttershy, pleasure to see you again." "Same here captain," Fluttershy smiled as she had indeed been right. "My men owe you a great personal debt, more of us would not have made it if it were not for your medical treatment after we reached the Normandy," he thanked the pegasus. "Also, it is major now." "Captain for me," Fluttershy chuckled. "Seems like we are both moving up in the world." "Hmm, I heard about your homeworld. Fascinating how your kind is capable of shielding your entire planet, and then there is that dreadnaught of yours. Remarkable." "Honestly, I was astonished too when I saw either of them. Seems like my kind were not so new at space travel as I originally thought," Fluttershy admitted. "Though I am glad too, it seems like we will need it against the reapers in more ways than just as a warship." "I take that to be a story for later, the commander seems to be ready to retrieve the krogan females," Kirrahe pointed out, seeing the commander talking with the salarian base commander to get access to the lower levels. "So it seems. It was good seeing a friendly face again, major," Fluttershy smiled. "Agreed. And Captain, regardless of what the politicians say, STG knows the score. The commander and you can count on us when it comes down to it." He added the assurance in nothing more than a whisper so only Fluttershy would hear. That got an even brighter smile to the pegasus' face, giving a nod to the salarian and turning for the commander. Garrus and Liara had already joined him while Wrex had to remain behind. "Find someone interesting?" Garrus asked as she joined up. "Kirrahe's here too. Thought I'd say hi," Fluttershy quickly explained, not mentioning his pledge to help the war effort as she couldn't know who was listening. "Interesting, would've been good to see him again but we're on a schedule," Shepard said as he motioned for them to follow to an elevator. "The salarians have been getting weird readings at their perimeter, I want to get the females and then get out as fas-" Shepard didn't even get to finish his sentence as an explosion rocked the facility and alarms started blaring, announcing that the perimeter had been breached. "Alright, we get the females and get out!" he called as he drew his assault rifle, Fluttershy and the others doing the same with their weapon of preference and stepping into the elevator. The doors closed as more explosions rocked the facility, the sound becoming muffled as they lowered down below where they stepped out again. Salarians were rushing all over the place but there was a sort of structure to it as they were all performing some task of sorts. "Shepard, Fluttershy, excellent timing! Good to see you after the news from Earth." "Mordin?!" Garrus exclaimed with a laugh as he recognised the crazy salarian. "Vakarian, equally good to see you considering Palven." The professor motioned for them to follow. "You're back with STG?" Shepard inquired as he stuck close on Mordin's heels. "Yes. Surprise understandable, was not expecting to. Special consultant role. Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong," He said, stopping before a glass window looking into a room with krogan corpses covered up by tarps. "Females had weakened immune systems, side effect of Maelon's cure. These... didn't make it." "I'm sure you did everything you could Mordin," Fluttershy comforted him as she too somberly looked at the bodies. Mordin huffed, something between annoyance and anger. "Arrived too late. Cannot delay further. Have one survivor, completely immune to genophage. Can syntithise cure from tissue, Maelon's research has been invaluable." Mordin was walking again, this time towards a containment cell like the one they'd seen on the crane above. "Surviving female last hope for krogan. She dies, cure becomes... problematic." "We won't let that happen," Liara immediately stated, coming to a stop at the cell where the final krogan female was being held in place by some cart of sorts. "Careful, krogan slow to trust," Mordin warned as Shepard and Fluttershy stepped forward. "My name's commander Shepard, alliance navy, and this here is captain Fluttershy, we're council Spectres." "Have you come to kill me then?" she said with a very smooth voice, surprising Fluttershy who really had only heard the gruff males of the species. I really never ran into a female krogan, have I? "We are here to take you home," the commander told her. "Why? What am I to you?" "The future of the krogan race and an end to an old, ongoing, crime," Fluttershy answered. "We're going to make sure you see Tuchanka again." she turned to the salarian at the controls. "Release her." "I can't. Protocol states that- hngggg!" Mordin had his arm up and omni-tool activated, the device crackling with electricity. "Objection noted. Release the female krogan." The salarian at the controls did not object further. "I will monitor the pod as it progresses up, monitor quarantine procedures. May require help at checkpoints." "Understood," Shepard acknowledged. "Fluttershy, we got this. Once you see open air go check where Wrex is and create an exit for us." "Will do," Fluttershy agreed, she and Shepard may have been of equal authority now but Shepard's experience was still vastly superior compared to hers. They sprinted back to the elevator to get back up to the next floor to get the pod through the first checkpoint, though the moment it opened each and every single member of the squad let out a curse. Fluttershy immediately jumped forward and put a biotic barrier up in the portal of the elevator doors. The bomb that lay in there exploded in a bright flash, its flames licking up against the shield didn't get through but instead went up and down the shaft, ripping apart the elevator instead of harming the people outside of the door. "There's another emergency exit on the other side of the lab, commander!" one of the salarians called out. "I'll open it up for you!" "You good, Shy?!" Garrus called out as Fluttershy dropped the barrier and allowed smoke from the blast to enter the lab. "I'm fine, we need to get up there and find out who's attacking!" Shy replied, already on the move to the alternative exit. "I'd say Cerberus, that bomb did not look like it was manufactured by the reapers. Though the difference between the two are most likely going to decrease as time goes on." Liara observed as they got to the secondary exit, a ladder leading up. Fluttershy spread her wings, and with barely a few flaps got herself to the top where she walked through another door out onto one of the facility's lower balconies. "Liara's correct, it's Cerberus," Fluttershy radioed in as she jumped into the air and started flying up to the landing platform and the facility's upper levels. She stuck close to the side of the plant-covered building, trying to avoid any stray and targeted fire, arriving just in time at the landing pad to see the Normandy's shuttle take off. "Shepard, Wrex here, I took the shuttle. Get the females up to the landing pad, I'll make Cerberus' life miserable up here!" Fluttershy, with a mighty flap, landed on top of the departing shuttle and magnetically locked her hooves to the top of the craft. "Wrex, I'm lifting along on top of the shuttle. Get me close to one of those gunships and I'll take it out." "Ha! I'll get you to your prey, kid!" Wrex laughed as he made a sharp turn and strafed a Cerberus squad with the shuttles guns before coursing towards one of the gunships that was assaulting salarian positions. "Go!" Fluttershy detached her hooves from the shuttle as it turned and broke off, using the momentum for the craft to launch herself at the gunship. Smacking into the craft, Fluttershy locked onto that thing as well, using her biotics to rip off a panel from the top of the gunship and exposing its innards. She followed up by lighting an omni-blade and slamming it into the ship's components thrice, causing the engines of the craft to cough and having it immediately lose altitude. "Got it!" Fluttershy called out with a laugh. "A fine kill!" Wrex roared over the radio with an equal laugh, passing by in the shuttle which was continuously firing at assaulting forces. "Hop on!" Fluttershy complied as Wrex brought the shuttle in close and latched herself to the roof of the shuttle again. "When did you get the tech to hang onto craft anyhow?" "It was useful when hanging walls or rooves when trying to find good sniping spots on Omega," Fluttershy replied as they returned to the section of the facility where Shepard's squad and Mordin were working on releasing the female krogan. Shepard's squad having been pinned down away from Mordin and the female Krogan. Both Fluttershy and Wrex opened up on the blocking forces, slaughtering them with the combination of heavy weapons fire and pinpoint accuracy. "Much appreciated!" Garrus called out as the way was opened for them to send the pod with Mordin and the Krogan up to the release point. "Wrex, get to the top and be ready to pick us up!" Shepard ordered after he sent the pod back on its way. Wrex complied but immediately pulled away from the roof as he got sight of it. "There's a mech up there Shepard! I can't land this damn thing as long as it's there!" the krogan roared. Fluttershy too had detached from the shuttle and gotten into cover on the roof, she could see from her brief observation the large mech seemed to have some unusual shielding shimmering around it. Jumping out from her cover Shy flung a biotic ball of energy at it, only for it to dissipate as it hit the walker's shielding. Shy's reward for this action was a barrage from the large cannon mounted to the right arm of the thing. "This thing may become a problem, Shepard, I can't breach it with my biotics!" Shy reported as concrete shards from the explosions pinged off her shielding. She did not want to get hit by one of those shells. "There's always the old way of taking them out!" Shepard called out as he, Garrus, and Liara arrived on the roof too, a hail of gunfire slamming into the mech's shield, forcing it to switch attention which then gave Fluttershy opportunities to fire. "Its shields aren't going down fast enough, Shepard! Give me an opening!" Liara called out from her cover as the mech focussed on her momentarily, its fire also being directed at the pod holding the female krogan in an attempt to take her out. "What are you thinking, Liara?" Shepard asked as he jumped from cover, making himself an obvious target to switch to. "My position does grant me one or two perks!" she called out as she charged at the mech. Fluttershy and Garrus both also jumped from cover, Shy using her biotics to throw up dust around the mech and impair its driver's ability to see conventionally while Garrus used his heavier slugs to really hit the shielding hard. As Liara got into touching distance of the mech she lit her omni-tool and placed her hand on the shielding, it instantly went out. "Some interesting tools you have there, Liara!" Garrus called out, impressed. Shy though immediately took advantage that she could use her biotics again and took a hold of the glass dome surrounding the driver and ripped it off, Shepard landing the killing blow with a burst of machinegun fire. "That thing really was tough..." the commander panted as he'd dodged one too many shots from the artillery piece the mech carried for comfort. Wrex was already bringing in the shuttle for a quick pickup as they released the female from the containment shield. "Get her on board Shepard, I don't want the salarians using this as an excuse to keep her here on this planet!" "Agreed, we'll do proper introductions later. Let's go."