While they waited for Shepard to finish retrieving the missing krogan females, Wrex and Revan had very little to do besides finding ways to keep themselves occupied.

  Revan was busy fielding the dozens of questions a Salarian technician was assaulting her with about the shield system being delivered elsewhere, and mostly just deflecting them by pointing out relevant sections of the installation and maintenance manual some of her quarian engineers had insisted on.

  Wrex, on the other hand, was taking the time they spent waiting as an opportunity to terrorize the guards surrounding them.

  While she was glad Wrex was finding something to keep himself occupied, she really did wish he chose something other than listing off the different parts of a Salarian he was planning on eating if they tried to pull something.

  It had been amusing seeing the agents around them twitch and shuffle uncomfortably at first, but now it was just starting to get distracting. Especially when she was starting to feel uneasy and noticed several whispered conversations happening around them. Listening in was somewhat of a challenge, though. Directional microphones only did so much around loud Krogan.

  A worried looking technician power-walking towards one of the officers drew the Sith’s attention and she did her best to listen in.

  “Another incursion?”

  “Air defenses report unidentified craft skirting our inbound approach vectors.”

  “It’s like someone’s testing our defenses.”

  “Seems that way, sir.”

  “I don’t like it. Not with–”

  The rest of the conversation was lost under Wrex’s booming laugh as he finally got one of the STG agents to react and unfortunately the two she was listening in on had moved before he was done. It was confirmation that something was going on though.

  An attack? The Reapers hadn’t been sighted in this system yet, but there was nothing stopping them from having Indoctrinated agents infiltrate ahead of their main forces and destabilize important locations. An important STG base would certainly be a valuable target.

  It could also be the Asari Jedi. If a few of them happened to be on Sur’Kesh or nearby enough to get there before the Normandy did, Revan could see them risking an attack to try and assassinate her now that she was away from her flagship.

  Or perhaps a betrayal? The Dalatrass certainly wasn’t pleased about getting pressured into releasing the Krogan females. If she decided destroying any chance of a Genophage cure was important enough, Revan could easily see the Salarian ordering an attack on her own planet. It was unlikely though, since the only way the Dalatrass wouldn’t be immediately implicated was if the attack was done by a different species and capable of overcoming an STG base. Not something easy to arrange in the short time between the agreement and their arrival.

  There was also the possibility that it was simply coincidence and nothing would come from the disturbance.

  Revan huffed a laugh and stood.

  She wasn’t that lucky.

  Ignoring her STG minder, the Sith moved to the edge of the balcony overlooking the valley the base was settled in and focused on another conversation happening nearby.

  “–outbound comm traffic twenty minutes ago from inside the base.” One Salarian was saying. “A burst transmission, fully encoded, with no identity signature.”

  “No signature? That's against protocol.”

  “I know. Someone’s passing a message.” The soldier said gravely. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

  Inside the base was it? Suddenly the betrayal option was looking a lot more plausible than Revan would have expected.

  Shepard was already heading down into the lower levels so there was no point contacting her. At this point the best thing would be to collect the females and evacuate the base as quickly as possible. After that–

  Revan’s train of thought was derailed as a klaxon started blaring throughout the base.

  “Alert! Threat condition two has been declared. Scramble readiness teams.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Suddenly there were soldiers running all over and even a few VTOL aircraft taking off from the base. It was an impressive response time, even if the STG agents had already been suspicious from earlier activity.

  The Sith felt Wrex step up behind her, “What’s going on?”

  “Someone’s been probing the base's defenses.” She replied. “I overheard it from some of the soldiers. And I think we are going to find out who in just a moment.” She pointed at several dots that had appeared on the skyline.

  Enemy aircraft. And a lot of them.

  Wrex snarled angrily as several ships simply blew by the STG fighters, using their numbers to slip through easily while a few lagged behind to engage the defenders. Soon enough the entire base was being swarmed by shuttles dropping off squads of soldiers. Human soldiers. In fairly recognizable armor.

  “Wrex, call Shepard and let her know our timetable just got accelerated.” Revan ordered, focusing all her attention on one of the incoming shuttle pilots. There was a sort of haze around his mind, similar to the Asari she had met when Shepard had gone to recruit Okeer, yet different. Less subtle. But more than enough to prevent the Sith from influencing his mind without more effort and focus than she could afford at the moment.

  She didn’t need to though, a sharp tug using the Force and the pilot’s neck suddenly snapped, allowing the dropship to nosedive into the valley below. One group down dozens to go. And unfortunately, it looked like she wasn’t going to have time to focus on repeating her last trick. Too many Cerberus soldiers had landed at the base and Revan couldn’t afford to stand still focusing on the pilots without risking one of them hitting her with a high explosive.

  “We have a problem.” Wrex growled as he stalked back over to the Sith. “Only one of the females survived. We need to get her out of here before Cerberus or one of the Salarian bastards manages to kill her.”

  And if she died, so did the hopes of a Genophage cure.

  “Then we need to leave.” Revan decided. “How long until Shepard is done in the lower levels?”

  “They already have the female moving through the quarantine procedure.” Wrex said. “But the elevator was trapped – a bomb. They’re leaving through an emergency exit and won’t be able to meet up with us.”

  A bomb in a secure base. Either Cerberus had some of the best infiltrators around to sneak that in before their attack or it was another sign they had been betrayed. Though the question by who remained. A deniable attack by the Daltrass or an Indoctrinated agent of the Reapers?

  “The quarantine cells open at the landing pad.” Revan remembered from a conversation with one of their minders about the yahg being moved down into the base. “We’ll meet them there.”

  “I’ll get the shuttle. And do my best to make life miserable for Cerberus!”

  Revan nodded and ignited one of her sabers. “I’ll help clear the base then, draw as many of their soldiers away as possible.”

  -o-

  “Contact! More Cerberus just up ahead!” Garrus barked before opening up with his blaster rifle.

  Two Cerberus troops fell over with smoking holes in their armor before the others made it behind cover and returned fire.

  Shepard dove behind a metal support beam. “Liara, singularity!”

  “On it!”

  The sphere of biotic power dragged the remaining soldiers from behind their own cover before Shepard detonated the whole thing with a Shockwave. One explosion later and the squad was wiped out and her own team was moving on.

  This was the third squad they had run into and honestly the only reason Shepard and her team were able to cut through them so quickly is that the base’s layout and defenses basically forced Cerberus’s dropships to drop off one squad at a time. In areas with almost no cover too.

  The resulting shooting gallery was a godsend for now, but eventually enough squads would establish themselves that they would begin to converge and overrun the defenders.

  Shepard needed to get the Krogan female to safety before that happened, hopefully without getting the rest of them killed in the process since it seemed Cerberus somehow managed to sneak in a goddamned army.

  Thankfully she didn’t need to worry about all that entirely by herself. Wrex was going to meet them at the landing bay and Revan was apparently going to distract Cerberus. All Shepard and her team needed to focus on was getting the female there. She made a promise the krogan would make it back to Tuchanka. She intended to see it through.

  “Everyone good?” She called out, getting two positive responses. “Then let's keep moving.”

  Liara consulted a map on her omnitool. “There's a route to the next level through the labs. You should have access to enter those too. It will definitely save us time getting back to the containment unit.”

  “We better hurry too.” Garrus added. “The female isn’t going to last long against this much firepower.”

  “Mordin will let us know if there's any trouble.” Shepard said confidently.

  And wasn’t that a surprise.

  A nice one to be sure, but it had been a bit of a shock to realise the insider agent that had leaked the existence of the females in the first place was an old crewmember and the one scientist with the best chance of creating a cure. Shepard would love to hear the story of how he managed to pull that one off when they weren’t in the middle of a massive terrorist attack.

  The Spectre quickly found the entrance to the labs and after a quick check confirmed she actually did have clearance to enter, let her team through the connecting rooms. Most were empty save for some discarded equipment, but two had contained some living creatures in them. The first were several Varren that the Salarians had been trying to experiment on, something about chemical markers to make them easily controllable. They were also considered a failure and marked to be terminated since the treatment was going to kill them in a few days so Shepard had no qualms about releasing them just as a Cerberus squad passed by the cages.

  It was the other cages she had no intention of going near.

  Not one but two Yahg specimens were staring hatefully at the three of them from behind the forcefield. And considering the one she saw earlier and the empty active cage next to them meant there was a potential third somewhere on the base. A third that was potentially loose and wreaking havoc on both the Salarians and Cerberus.

  “Species 732 authorised for covert uplift.” Garrus read from the nearby terminal. “Apparently they are ideal candidates to expand Salarian influence with full deniability. They called it a minimal risk.”

  “Obviously they never had to fight a Yahg face-to-face.” Liara grumbled.

  “It looks like a third one might be missing. A few STG might be learning what that’s like right now.” Shepard pointed out.

  “As long as we don’t run into it, that’s fine by me. And if they decide to push forward with that project I know a few contacts that would be plenty happy to receive a tip from a concerned source about the Salarians breaking Citadel Law.”

  Shepard hid a smile at that. It was still a bit weird to see the sheltered archeologist turned Shadow Broker casually threaten things like that, but at the same time Liara had really grown into the role.

  That smile died a swift death when the team opened the door out of the labs and found a Cerberus squad waiting for them. That wasn’t the concerning part, though.

  No, that was because the previously missing Yahg made its appearance by tearing around a corner and ripping a soldier in half before grabbing a second and shoving him halfway through the wall and roaring out a challenge. The remaining two reflexively opened fire, but the soldier getting shoved through the wall must have ruptured some sort of gas pipe because a jet of fire suddenly filled the hallway, incinerating the remaining soldiers and blocking the Yahg from continuing forward. Whatever that gas was burned hot enough that the massive alien decided to run back the way it came. Gone just as quickly as it arrived.

  “...well, that happened.” Shepard muttered, trying to process the explosion of violence before attempting to inject a little levity into their situation. “Careful. There goes the next Shadow Broker.”

  “Yeah, could’ve sworn he was muttering ‘T’Soni’ the whole time.” Garrus added in, getting a full body shiver from their third.

  “Not funny.”

  “It’s a little funny.” The Turian disagreed.

  Liara narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll send Tali your extranet search history.”

  “Huh? I…wha-...why?” Garrus stuttered and as much as Shepard wanted to burst out laughing at the poor guy’s dumbstruck face, they were on the clock right now.

  “Alright, as fun as this is…let’s get moving. Mordin is waiting on us.”

  “Don’t think I don’t have something on you, Shepard!” Liara threatened as she followed after the Commander.