Mass Effect™: Ascension

by Drew Karpyshyn

  “Son-of-a-bitch looks worse than ever,” the security chief said, taking the cup from her hand. “Might be high right now.”

  “You’re too hard on him,” she said with a sigh, settling into the seat across from Hendel. “He’s not the first parent of a biotic child to experiment with red sand. It’s a way for us ordinary people to understand what it’s like to be biotic.”

  “No,” he said sharply. “Getting high and flinging paper clips around with your mind for a few hours isn’t anything like being a biotic.”

  “But it’s the closest someone like Grayson can ever get. Put yourself in his shoes. He’s just trying to connect with his daughter.”

  “Then maybe he should come see her more than twice a year.”

  “This can’t be easy on him,” she reminded Hendel. “His wife died during childbirth. His daughter has a mental condition that makes her emotionally distant. And then he finds out she has this incredible ability, and he has to send her away to a private school.

  “He’s probably on an emotional roller coaster every time he sees her: love, guilt, loneliness. He knows he’s doing what’s best for her, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy on him.”

  “I just get a bad vibe off him. And I’ve learned to trust my gut.”

  Rather than answer, Kahlee took a long drink from her cup. The coffee was nice and hot, but it had a mildly bitter aftertaste.

  “We need to petition the board for better coffee,” she muttered, hoping to change the subject.

  “How long have you and Jiro been together?” Hendel asked her.

  “How long have you known?”

  “A couple months.”

  “Then it took you about two months to find out.”

  “Be careful with that kid, Kahlee.”

  She laughed. “I’ll make sure I don’t break him.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said, his voice serious. “There’s something I don’t trust about him. He’s too slick. Too smooth.”

  “Your gut again?” she asked, holding her cup up close to her face to hide the smile on her lips. Apparently Hendel wasn’t just protective of the students.

  “You saw how he reacted when I mentioned your history with Anderson.”

  “Thank you very much for that, by the way,” she said, arching her eyebrows.

  “It didn’t seem to rattle him,” Hendel continued, ignoring her verbal jab. “Like he already knew.”

  “So what if he did?”

  “Well, it was pretty obvious you didn’t tell him. So how’d he find out? The records from that mission were sealed. Hell, even I only know because you told me.”

  “People talk. Maybe I mentioned it to someone on staff who mentioned it to him. You’re making too much of this.”

  “Maybe,” he conceded. “Just be careful. I’ve learned to trust my instincts.”

  Grayson spent the next four hours with Gillian. He let her do most of the talking, cycling between extended bursts of eager, almost frantic conversation and long stretches of silent withdrawal where she almost seemed to forget he was there. He liked listening to her voice, but he didn’t mind the silences, either. It was good just to see her again.

  When she did talk, it was mostly about school and the Academy: which teachers she liked and which ones she didn’t; her favorite subjects; new things she’d learned in her courses. Grayson noticed that she never mentioned the other students, or anything to do with her biotic training. He decided not to push her. He’d get all the information he needed soon enough.

  It was almost time for him to go. He’d learned the longer he stayed the harder it was to leave. So he always set himself a limit for each visit; having a mission parameter made it easier to do what he had to do.

  “Gigi?” he said softly.

  Gillian was staring at the wall, lost inside herself again.

  “Gigi?” he said a little louder. “Daddy has to go. Okay?”

  Last time he had left, she hadn’t even acknowledged him when he said good-bye. This time, however, she turned her head slightly and nodded. He didn’t know which was worse.

  He stood up from her bedside and leaned in to kiss her on the top of her head.

  “Get into bed, honey. Under the covers. Try to sleep.”

  Moving slowly, like some kind of automaton powered by his words, she did as instructed. Once she was settled and had closed her eyes, he crossed the room and opened the door.

  “Lights—off,” he whispered. The room went dark as he closed the door behind him.

  Jiro was waiting for him out in the hall.

  “Is it safe here?” Grayson asked him, his voice gruffer than he’d intended.

  “Should be,” the young man answered, speaking quietly. “Everyone’s still in bed. We can go back to my room if it’s going to take awhile.”

  “Let’s just get it over with so I can get the hell off this station,” Grayson said, dropping to one knee and laying his briefcase on the floor.

  He released the lock, opened the false bottom, and removed the vial Pel had given him. Then he stood up and handed it to Jiro. The scientist took it from him, holding it up to the lights in the corridor ceiling.

  “Looks like they switched compounds again. The Man must want to try something different.” He slipped the vial into his pocket. “This isn’t going to show up on any of her medicals, is it? I mean, it’s untraceable, right?”

  “What do you think?” Grayson asked him coolly.

  “Yeah, okay. Same doses as before?”

  “They didn’t give me any new instructions,” Grayson replied.

  “Any idea what this new stuff is supposed to do to her?”

  “I don’t ask questions like that,” Grayson answered sharply. “Neither will you, if you’re smart.”

  Christ, he thought, as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Now I sound like Pel. He honestly didn’t know if that was good or bad, though he figured his old partner would find something humorous about it.

  “They’re not going to do anything to harm her,” Grayson added, though he wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince Jiro or himself. “She’s too valuable.”

  Jiro nodded. “Here are the latest results on all the students in the Ascension Project,” he said, pulling an optical storage disk from the pocket of his lab coat and handing it to Grayson. “Plus my private research on our star pupil in there.” He nodded his head toward Gillian’s door.

  Grayson took the OSD without a word and hid it away inside his briefcase.

  “Are you sleeping with Sanders?” he asked once the disk was secured.

  “Figured it fell within my mission parameters,” Jiro answered with a grin. “I’m supposed to pump her for info, so I’m pumping her every chance I get.”

  “Just watch you don’t get emotionally involved,” Grayson warned him. “It makes things messy.”

  “I’ve got it under control,” the kid assured him with an infuriatingly cocky grin.

  Somewhere Grayson imagined Pel was laughing his ass off.

  EIGHT

  Feda’Gazu vas Idenna adjusted the pistol hanging from her belt as she climbed down from the land rover. She never wore a weapon back on the flotilla, but every quarian who left the safety of the Migrant Fleet was armed at all times.

  Lige and Anwa, the two members of her crew she had picked to accompany her to this meeting, climbed out of the vehicle to stand on either side of her. She could sense their nervousness. It mirrored her own.

  She didn’t trust Golo. He was a fellow quarian, but he was also a criminal so vile and dangerous he had been exiled from the Fleet. That was why she had refused to meet with him at Omega: too many places for an ambush. He had objected at first, but in the end he’d agreed to meet her here on Shelba, a desolate, uninhabited world in the nearby Vinoss System.

  The atmosphere on Shelba was breathable—barely—but the temperature was always well below freezing, making it unsuitable for habitation or farming. And the crust consisted of only common, low-v
alue metals and minerals, making it uneconomical for mining. The world was ignored—undeveloped and empty. If Golo was going to try and double-cross her, setting up their exchange here might make him reconsider whether it was worth the trouble.

  Feda shivered, despite the fact that her enviro-suit protected her against the worst of the chill. Part of her wanted to forget this deal; just turn around and leave. But Golo had promised to sell her a shipment of air-filtration coils and reaction catalyzers, and several of the ships in the flotilla were in desperate need of replacement parts. Despite her personal reservations, she couldn’t in good conscience turn his offer down.

  “There,” one of her companions called out, pointing across the vast, open expanse of blue plain and glittering green rock formations that made up the barren planet’s surface.

  A small rover was approaching in the distance, throwing up clouds of turquoise dust as it sped toward them. Feda took another look at their surroundings, scanning the horizon for signs of other vehicles. To her relief, she saw nothing.

  Perched atop a tall outcropping of emerald-hued rock over a mile away, Pel watched the quarians arrive through the scope of his Volkov sniper rifle. He’d had his doubts about whether they’d even show up, given Golo’s reputation among his own kind. But the quarian had assured him they’d be there.

  Looks like the little bastard was right.

  The quarians stepped down from their vehicle. “We have three targets,” a voice said over the headset built into the helmet of his enviro-suit.

  “Alpha squad take the one on the right,” he responded flatly. “Beta squad take the one on the left. Leave the one in the middle to me.”

  “Alpha squad—target acquired,” the voice answered back.

  “Beta squad—target acquired,” a second voice confirmed, this one female.

  Peering through the scope, he was confident his team could hit their targets, even from this range. But the quarians were all wearing armor, and the odds of a round penetrating the kinetic barriers of their shields before they could make it back into the safety of the vehicle were low. Golo still had to do his part if the plan was going to work.

  “Hold fire until my signal,” he ordered, taking a bead on the quarian in the center.

  The quarians waited patiently as their contact approached. Soon Feda could hear the whine of the rover’s engine and the crunching of its tires over the rough, uneven terrain, the thin atmosphere giving everything a sharp, brittle sound.

  Once the rover had come within fifty meters, Feda held up her hand, palm forward. The vehicle rolled to a stop. A few seconds later a quarian emerged and began to walk slowly toward them, hands held above his head. He stopped ten meters away, just as she had instructed when setting up the details of the meeting. Lige and Anwa had drawn their assault rifles, pointing them at the newcomer.

  “Golo?” she asked, confirming the identity of the man behind the mask.

  “Are you here to rob me?” he said by way of reply, nodding toward the weapons pointed at his chest. He kept his hands high. Unlike Feda and her crew, he wasn’t wearing any armor.

  “I’m not taking any chances,” she answered. “Not with you.”

  There were several crimes that could result in exile from the Fleet: murder, repeated violent offenses, vandalism or sabotage directed at the Liveships or the food supplies. But Golo’s offense—attempting to sell quarians to the Collectors—seemed particularly heinous. Loyalty was a cornerstone of quarian culture; survival on the Migrant Fleet required every member of the community to work together. Trying to sell another quarian for personal profit was a betrayal of everything Feda believed in; an unforgivable sin.

  “You came alone?” she asked.

  Golo nodded. “The parts are in the back of the truck, if you want to see.”

  Feda pulled her pistol and used it to cover Golo, nodding at Lige to go check out the vehicle. He approached slowly, weapon still drawn. The rover was a simple cargo carrier, with a small two-person cab and a freight trailer on the back. The trailer was little more than a rectangular box, with a vertical sliding door for loading and unloading.

  Lige pressed the panel on the side of the trailer, but instead of the door rising up the panel beeped sharply and flashed red.

  “It’s locked.”

  “What’s the access code?” Feda demanded, waving her pistol menacingly in Golo’s direction.

  “Seven two six nine,” he answered, and Lige punched the numbers in.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  “Get ready,” Pel muttered into his transmitter as one of the quarians approached Golo’s vehicle.

  An instant later there was a bright flash as the bomb inside the back of Golo’s rover exploded. The blast threw the quarian standing beside the vehicle through the air and knocked the others, including Golo, to the ground.

  “Fire,” he said, his voice calm as he pulled the trigger of his sniper rifle with a smooth, even pressure.

  Feda was thrown from her feet by the explosion. She hit the ground with a jarring thump, but quickly rolled to her feet and brought her pistol up to fire at Golo, who was still on the ground, cowering with his hands over his head.

  She squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened. Glancing down, she saw the status indicator on her weapon flashing red—the automated targeting system had overloaded. Cursing, she slapped the manual override on the handle, knowing full well the pulse that had disabled her weapon had probably scrambled her kinetic shields as well.

  A flash of agonizing fire erupted in her shoulder as a hyperaccelerated projectile no bigger than a pin sheared effortlessly through the ablative plates of her body armor before exploding in the flesh and bone underneath. The impact spun her around and sent the pistol flying from her hand. She felt her kneecap disintegrate and she collapsed to the ground, her scream rising up to meet the unmistakable zip-zip-zip of high-powered rounds slicing through the thin air.

  She could see Lige’s body, laying where the blast had thrown it. His mask had been shattered by the close range impact of the detonation, turning his face into a bloody mess. She could see one eye clearly; it stared at her, lifeless and unblinking. The body jerked and jumped as it was struck by enemy bullets, rounds wasted on a corpse.

  Get to the vehicle! her mind screamed at her, and in response she began to crawl on her belly toward the rover. She never felt the round that entered the back of her skull and ended her life.

  Pel continued firing, pumping round after round into the motionless body until he heard Golo’s voice in his helmet.

  “I think you can stop now. They’re all dead.”

  Standing up, Pel collapsed his weapon and snapped it into the quick-release clasp on his back.

  “Beta squad, meet me down at the rendezvous point. Alpha squad, keep an eye out for reinforcements.”

  The gravity on Shelba was .92 Earth standard, so he was able to make good time, even with the restrictions of the enviro-suit. It took him just over five minutes to get down to the scene of the massacre. Golo was there waiting for him, as were the two women from Beta squad. They were already stripping the clothes and gear from the dead quarians. The dark clothes were torn with bullet holes and stained with blood, but it was unlikely anyone would notice these details until it was too late.

  Pel was too big to pass as a quarian, but the women were about the right height and build. With their faces obscured by helmets and bundled up in cloth and rags, it would be difficult to tell them apart from their victims.

  “Did you locate their ship?” Golo asked him as he approached. Like the women, he was using strips of clothing from one of the bodies to obscure his identity.

  “We spotted them when they touched down,” Pel told him. “Maybe ten clicks from here.”

  “Probably three or four more on board,” the quarian informed him. “They’ll most likely be armed, but they won’t be wearing combat suits. Remember, you want to take one of them alive. The pilot, if possible.”

  Hilo’Jaa
vas Idenna, the pilot of the scout ship Cyniad of the fleet ship Idenna, was surprised to see Feda’s rover coming toward them from over the edge of the horizon.

  He reached out and flicked the transmit button on the radio.

  “Feda? This is Hilo. Do you read me?”

  A second later the reply came through, but it was obscured by static so thick he couldn’t make anything out.

  “I can’t hear you, Feda. Is everything okay?”

  This time the answer was a piercing shriek of radio feedback that made Hilo wince as he shut off the transmitter.

  “Get ready,” Hilo said over the shipboard intercom. “Feda’s on her way back.”

  “Why didn’t she call ahead?” a voice responded over the speaker a few seconds later.

  “Sounds like the rover’s got some radio trouble.”

  “I just fixed it last week!” the voice objected.

  “Guess you need to fix it again,” Hilo replied with a smile. “Be alert, just in case.”

  It wasn’t uncommon for things to break down on the Cyniad. Like all ships, vessels, and vehicles associated with the Migrant Fleet, their rover had seen better days. Most species would have decommissioned it long ago, or relegated it to the scrap heap. The quarians, short of materials and resources, had no such luxury.

  Hilo wondered how much longer their makeshift repairs could keep the rover running before they’d finally have to admit defeat and strip it down for parts. Hopefully a few more months at least. Maybe another year if they were lucky.

  Lucky’s not a concept usually associated with us quarians, he thought as the rover rolled to a stop beneath the loading doors.

  Three figures jumped out. One was using hand gestures, signaling to the ship to open the loading bay doors so they could drive the cargo container inside. Hilo got up from his chair and made his way down to the hold so he could help get everything stored away. He was halfway there, squeezing his way past the table and chairs of their tiny mess hall, when he heard the sounds of gunfire and screaming.