Chapter 25

“That’s a collector ship alright…”

Shepard stood in the Normandy cockpit behind Joker and watched as the massive alien ship slowly turned in the void of space. With no power the entire thing looked just like a massive asteroid. Granted, one that someone had decided really needed a bunch of metal structures woven into it.

“EDI, what can you tell me?”

“Very low emissions. Passive infrared signatures suggest most systems are offline. Thrusters are cold.”

“That thing is massive.” Joker breathed, before smirking and looking at Shepard over his shoulder. “You think the turians hit an exhaust port?”

Shepard snorted but didn’t look away from the Collector ship. “Don’t start that argument again. Revan will feed you your legs.” The Sith had opinions about a design flaw like a straight shot to the main reactor in something the size of a moon.

“And she isn’t here right now, is she?”

“Ladar scans do not detect any hull breaches on the side facing us.” EDI cut in as the Normandy drifted closer, refocusing the conversation. “I detect no mass effect field distortions. It appears the drive core is offline.”

“Rendezvous in thirty seconds, Commander. Good luck.” Joker called as Shepard headed for the hanger.

-o-

A short time later, Shepard was in the Kodiak with the entire ground team minus Miranda, Mordin, and Kasumi.

Miranda was staying back to run the Normandy. Mordin was in the science bay ready to analyze everything the infiltration teams sent back. And Kasumi would be working with Tali remotely to develop infiltration programs for the Collector systems.

The rest of them would be boarding the Collector ship to scout out as much as possible.

“Alright guys, not going to lie. This is a risky mission.” She started. “We’re heading into hostile territory blind and with limited reinforcements. So our objectives are going to focus on speed. Get in, find what data we can on the Collector homeworld, and get out.

My team will take point. Grunt, Jack, you’re with me. Our goal is to find a terminal and kill anything in our way.

Revan’s team will trail us as backup and our tech specialists. Her, Tali, and Garrus will provide support and get EDI hooked in when my team finds an access point.

The rest of you have the most important job. Making sure we have a way back to the Normandy. Set a perimeter and make sure the Kodiak stays intact. Jacob, you’re in charge.

Now, questions?”

Garrus raised a hand. “What’s the plan if we get separated?”

“Get back to the Kodiak.” Shepard said bluntly. “I don’t care if you have to blow out a bulkhead to do it but no one gets left behind.”

“Sweet, permission to wreck shit. I can’t wait.” Jack snarked, elbowing Grunt at the same time. The young Krogan didn’t say anything but the bloodthirsty smile showed how eager he was to be on a mission with no worries about collateral damage.

“Orders if we’re about to be overrun?” Jacob asked.

“Pull back. We can try and find another LZ to exfil from but we’re screwed if we lose the craft.”

No one else spoke up as the Kodiak touched down.

“Alright, let’s go…”

-o-

’This ship is disgusting. Both physically and esoterically.’ Revan thought as she stalked through the halls of the Collector ship.

The metal structures were fine enough, they actually reminded Revan quite a bit of the ships from her own home, but all of that was slowly being swallowed up by some kind of light brown…stuff...that reminded her of an insect hive. The juxtaposition between the metal and organic structures made it seem like the Collector’s weren’t the ones to build this ship. They were just a swarm that had taken it over from its original owners.

It didn’t help that Revan could feel faint echoes of pain and horror lingering in the Force. But the impressions were so shallow that even she almost missed them.

It was like someone had managed to preserve a message in a recording that had grown so faded over time the original content was lost and only the briefest hints remained. Even then, the constant bombardment of negative emotions was annoying.

Shepard’s voice crackled over the communicator. ”Revan, bring your squad up. We found something.”

“I hope we aren’t heading to another pile of bodies.” Tali grumbled.

“I don’t think so, Shepard would’ve mentioned it if we were.” Garrus comforted her.

EDI had run a comparison on the Collector ship and discovered it was the same one they faced at Horizon. Which meant the colonists that had been taken were on this ship. The team had found some of them…and left them there when there was nothing that could be done for them. The team could only take cold comfort in the knowledge the colonists were no longer capable of feeling whatever experiments the Collectors had in store.

Shepard’s team hadn’t gone too far ahead, so they caught up quickly. The Spectre was poking around some kind of medical pod with a Collector corpse inside of it, but more concerningly, Jack was pacing the area angrily.

Tali wasted no time walking over to the control terminal and working to get EDI access.

“Something wrong?” Revan decided to ask.

“Basic translation on the terminal says they were running some kind of tests.” Shepard replied. “Not sure why they’d experiment on one of their own though.”

“Why the fuck wouldn’t they?” Jack snapped. “Humans do it. Krogans do it. Every other asshole in the galaxy does it. Who gives a fuck why the Collectors do it.”

Everyone was wearing full coverage suits in case they came across a hostile environment inside the ship or if they accidentally ended up in space, but Jack still subconsciously ran her hand over what Revan knew to be surgical scars.

The Convict was clearly not a fan of species experimenting on their own.

“Because it gives us an idea what they were up to.” Shepard stated. “EDI, got anything?”

“The Collectors were running baseline genetic comparisons between their species and humanity.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Could be several reasons.” Mordin added over the comms. ”Looking into mating possibilities, comparing evolutionary divergence, checking for allergens or biohazards. List is extensive.”

“Some of their technology seems to have a biological component.” Revan added. “They may be looking to see if it can be adapted for humans.”

Tali tilted her head. “What, like for cybernetics?”

“It’s possible. I’m unsure how likely that is though.”

“The data reveals no hints about their motivations.” EDI cut back in, “all I have are the preliminary results. They reveal something remarkable. A quad-strand genetic structure, identical to traces collected from ancient ruins. Only one race is known to have this structure: the Protheans.”

Heads snapped toward the Collector body.

“Oh my god. The Protheans didn’t vanish.” Shepard breathed, horror radiating out of her. “They’re just working for the Reapers now.”

“These are no longer Protheans, Shepard. Their genes show distinct signs of extensive genetic rewrite. The Reapers have repurposed them to suit their needs.”

“A slave species.” Revan muttered. She wasn’t unfamiliar with the concept. The original Sith did after all start off as slaves to their Force weilding masters before time and interbreeding made them one and the same. And they were far from the last to do such a thing.

“And they’re looking for a way to do the same to humanity.”

Shepard visibly collected herself. “Okay, that still doesn’t change what we came here to do. Let’s find the data we came here for, get out, and stop them. We can think about the Collectors being Protheans after the mission.”

Both squads moved on, Revan’s team hanging back just a bit, so Shepard’s group was the first to notice.

“Shepard, on the ceiling. More of those pods they were stuffing the colonists into.” Grunt rumbled.

“Fuck me, there have to be hundreds of them.” Jack cursed. “How many do you think are full?”

“Too many.”

Shepard began to run plans through her mind about possible ways to rescue the civilians. The Normandy wouldn’t be able to handle more than a couple dozen at most but…

“I detect no signs of life in the pods, Shepard.”

Ah.

“It is probable the victims inside died when the ship lost primary power.”

Shepard could only hope the civilians had been kept unconscious. Slowly choking to death in space was hell and it took a magical space elf from another galaxy for the Commander to even start getting over that trauma. She didn’t imagine suffocating inside the coffin-like pods was any more pleasant.

They moved in silence after that, only bothering to speak when giving the all clear for the others to move up or call out corners.

No one was seriously expecting to pull off a daring rescue, but finding out there was no one left to save had an impact.

“Commander. You gotta hear this.” Joker spoke rapidly into her ear. “On a hunch I asked EDI to run an analysis on this ship.”

“I compared the EM profile against data recorded by the original Normandy two years ago. They are an exact match.”

Shepard scowled at the AI’s report. “The same ship dogging me for two years? Way beyond coincidence.”

“Yeah, something doesn’t add up. Watch your back.” Joker warned before dropping the call.

“Sounds like you have some really shitty fans, Shepard.” Jack pointed out as they came up to another corner. They waited a bit to allow the other squad to join them.

“Can’t say I like the attention. But it's something to…keep…an…eye…on…” Shepard trailed off weakly as all six of them turned around the bend into a massive cavern that seemed to run the length of the Collector ship as far as the eye could see. Worse, every inch of the massive walls were covered in millions of pods just waiting to be filled.

“Keelah, this is unbelievable…”

“They could take every human in the Terminus Systems and not have enough to fill these pods…”

“But enough for a major world…”

“You think they’re going to target Earth?”

Shepard felt the last of her hesitation melt away and her resolve harden.

“Not if we stop them.” she declared. “Tali, I can see an access panel on the platform up ahead. Get ready to do your thing.”

The quarian nodded and began to march forward, but Garrus stopped her by placing a hand on her shoulder.

“Hold on, Shepard. Something doesn’t feel right. This ship suddenly lost power, right? So where are the bodies of the crew?”

Everyone stopped and realized the turian was right. They had only seen a single Collector so far and it had probably been dead long before the ship lost power. Something was indeed very wrong here.

“I got a bad feeling about this…”

Revan huffed at Jack’s comment and moved forward.

“Then this is almost certainly a trap but the fact remains we need the data in the ship’s databases. So we stay alert and spring it.” Sparks jumped between the Sith’s fingers. “And we show them just how much they underestimated us.”

It wasn’t the most unique or inspiring speech, but it lit a fire in the rest of the ground team.

Spines straightened and eyes sharpened and each of the five combat members took position around Tali as she began to make a connection between the terminal and the Normandy.

Things went smoothly until Shepard heard Joker say “Uh…that can’t be good.” Followed by a loud bang as the terminal shut off and the machines around them started coming to life.

“What was that?”

“Major power surge.” Joker reported. “Everything went dark, but we’re back up now.”

“I managed to divert the majority of the overload to non-critical systems.” EDI added. “Shepard, this was not a malfunction.”

Which meant the Collectors had sprung their trap. Something that was obvious when the platform the teams were on shuddered and rose into the air…