Mass Effect: The Complete Novels 4-Book Bundle (48 page)

For example, she realized that there should have been more people around. She had hazy, incomplete memories of crowds moving in and among the cubicles. She could recall the buzz of chatter; it had circled around her head like a swarm of angry bees. Now, however, the cubicles were empty. Everything was still and silent.

Again, she knew this was wrong. She just couldn’t quite figure out why.

Kahlee said hide in Seeto’s room,
she thought, as she reached out and pulled the curtain aside. The room didn’t look as she remembered it. The sleeping mat had been moved half a foot to the side of where it had originally been placed, and someone had turned the cooking stove ninety degrees since the last time she was here.

Gillian knew that people moved things around sometimes. But she didn’t like it. Things should always be put back in the same place.

I don’t like it here. I want to go back to the shuttle.

She let the curtain fall from her hand and turned away from the cubicle. Walking with slow, uncertain steps she began to make her way back through the crisscrossing aisles toward the stairs leading to the deck below, taking a long, meandering route far different from the one that had brought her here originally.

Kahlee fell back up the stairs, knowing all hell would break loose when Cerberus followed them and the fight spilled over into the cubicle grids. Even with all the civilians cleared out, the battle would become a run-and-gun skirmish up and down the crisscrossing aisles, giving Cerberus and their superior weaponry an even greater advantage.

While several of Mal’s people took up positions around the corners of cubicles near the staircase, aiming their weapons at the door Cerberus would have to come through, Kahlee made her way straight to Seeto’s room to grab Gillian.

By the time she got there, she could already hear steady bursts of gunfire being thrown back and forth. She knew she didn’t have long; as easy as it had been for Cerberus to break through the quarian defenses on the lower deck, it would be even harder to hold position up here. There were simply too many options; the quarians would have no hope of pinning an enemy down when they could simply double back to one of the other aisles and come at them from the opposite side.

She pulled the orange curtain back, only to discover an empty room staring back at her.

Gillian was still wandering up and down the halls when the loud noises her mind had refused to identify earlier began to ring out even louder. She saw a quarian run across the far end of the aisle she was standing in, and the gun in his hand forced her to recognize the sounds as gunfire.

I don’t want to be here,
her mind screamed at her.
Go back to the ship.

Gillian intended to do just that. She could hear the gunfire all around her now, sporadic bursts coming from in front, behind, and off to either side. But her overwrought mind simply blocked it out and she continued to make her way toward the stairs.

She took a left turn and came face-to-face with a man and a woman. She could tell right away they weren’t quarian—they had no environmental suits. They were wearing helmets, but the visors only covered the first three quarters of their faces, and they had big, bulky vests that hid their chests, shoulders, and arms. Each was carrying a gun, and when they saw her they raised their weapons up and pointed them in her direction.

Gillian simply continued to walk toward them, as if oblivious of their presence.

“Hold fire!” the woman shouted, lowering her gun as the girl approached. “It’s her! Grayson’s daughter!”

The man lowered his weapon and rushed forward, reaching out to grab her. Without even thinking about it, Gillian made a fist and snapped her hand out, just like Hendel had taught her. The man hurtled away from her, slamming his back against the edge of one of the cubicle walls. There was a sharp crack and he bent in a funny way.

“Holy mother—” the woman gasped, but Gillian cut her words off. Moving on pure instinct, she reached out with an open hand, palm upward, and flicked her wrist. The woman launched up to the ceiling, smashing against it so hard her helmet cracked. She dropped down at Gillian’s feet, her eyes rolling back into her head and blood trickling from her nose, mouth, and ears. Her leg twitched once, her boot kicking against the side of a nearby cubicle, then went still.

The girl simply stepped over her and continued on her way. She reached the staircase without running into anyone else, then went down to the lower deck.

She could still hear the gunfire from up above, but it was quieter down here. Feeling a little better, she began to hum a tuneless song as she headed toward the shuttle.

Kahlee was in a near panic as she raced up and down the aisles, desperately searching for Gillian. Fortunately, her training allowed her to keep her wits together just enough not to do anything stupid, and instead of dashing blindly around corners, she would poke her head out at each intersection, taking a quick peek for enemy combatants.

All around her she could hear the sounds of fighting, but she didn’t encounter any Cerberus troops until she came across two dead soldiers lying in the middle of one of the aisles. For an instant she thought she’d found proof that Hendel had survived being thrown twenty feet through the air: it was obvious the soldiers had been killed by a biotic attack. Then another thought occurred to her.

Gillian.

Since coming to the
Idenna
Hendel had worked closely with the girl, teaching her to develop and control her biotic abilities. But despite the remarkable improvement in her condition over the past few weeks, she was still an emotionally fragile, easily disturbed little girl. Something had set her off in the cafeteria back at the Academy, unleashing a storm of biotic powers. Now Kahlee had clear evidence that the storm had been unleashed yet again.

She’s scared,
Kahlee thought to herself.
Confused. She’s going to want to go somewhere she feels safe.
An instant later she had it.

She’s heading back to the shuttle.

Leaving the two dead soldiers where they lay, Kahlee continued to work her way carefully through the aisles back toward the stairs.

Golo was thoroughly enjoying the battle against his former people. While he hadn’t been a crew member of the
Idenna,
he had no trouble imagining the quarians he gunned down as being the ones who had banished him from the
Usela,
his old ship.

Heavily armed and armored, he had already notched six kills during the battle—two on the trading deck and four more hunting through the cubicles up above. Given the superior weaponry Cerberus had provided him, it wasn’t even a fair fight … which was exactly how Golo liked it. In fact, he was enjoying himself so much that he nearly lost track of the time.

It was only when the timer in his helmet began beeping softly that he realized they had only ten minutes left. They hadn’t found the girl yet, but that didn’t really matter to him. It was time to head back to Grayson’s shuttle and get off the
Idenna.

He knew the rest of the team would keep fighting and searching for Gillian for another five minutes before pulling back, but he didn’t like cutting it that close.

With a sigh of regret he abandoned his hunt among the cubicle maze, and made his way quickly and cautiously back toward the stairs leading to the deck below.

Inside the passenger cabin of the nameless shuttle that had been stolen from him on Omega, Grayson paced anxiously. Checking his watch, he realized they were down to just under ten minutes.

“You and you,” he said, pointing at two of the three soldiers left behind to help him secure the shuttle. “Get out there and find the controls to release the docking clamps.”

He intended to wait to the last possible second before leaving, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have everything ready beforehand.

The two soldiers rushed out to the airlock, while Grayson and the other man—the pilot who had flown the quarian vessel in—waited in silence.

He heard a loud, heavy thump coming from outside the ship. Curious, he made his way cautiously toward the airlock and saw a small, female figure covered head to toe in an enviro-suit standing in the center of the landing bay.

“Daddy?” the figure said. Though the voice was partially obscured by the mask and breathing apparatus, he recognized it instantly.

“Gigi,” he said, dropping to one knee and holding out his hand to her.

She approached him in her familiar, stiff-legged walk until she was close enough for him to touch. Knowing her condition well, he dropped his hand without making contact. And then, to his great surprise, she lurched forward another step and hugged him.

Only when he was clasping his daughter to his chest did he notice the two soldiers he’d sent out only moments before—they were pinned beneath an overturned forklift the quarians would have used to load and unload cargo vessels. It looked as if the six-ton vehicle had somehow been picked up and dropped on them, crushing them like ants and killing them instantly.

Their private reunion was broken an instant later when he heard the copilot speaking behind him.

“S-s-sir,” he said in a stuttering, trembling voice, staring at the mangled bodies of the two dead soldiers peeking out from beneath the forklift. “What happened to them?”

“Never mind,” Grayson said sharply, releasing his hold on his daughter and standing up. “Just get on board and fire up the engines. It’s time to go.”

“We can’t go yet,” Gillian said. Grayson was surprised to hear real emotion in her voice, rather than the flat monotone he was used to. “We have to wait for my friends.”

“Your friends?” he asked, humoring her.

“Hendel and Kahlee and Lemm,” she answered. “Lemm’s a quarian.”

“We can’t wait for them, honey,” he told her gently.

She crossed her arms and stepped away from him—a gesture he’d never seen her use before.

“I’m not going without them,” she said defiantly.

Grayson blinked in surprise, then nodded. “Okay, honey, we’ll go find them.”

As she turned away to head back toward the
Idenna
’s interior, he stepped up behind her and drew a small stunner from his belt. One quick shot between the shoulder blades and she slouched over into her father’s waiting arms.

Feeling guilty over using the weapon on her, but knowing they had precious little time to spare, he scooped her up and carried her aboard the shuttle. Once inside, he took her to the bedroom, setting her gently down on the bed. He removed the enviro-suit helmet, and for a long moment he just stared at her face, only glancing up when he heard the pilot addressing him again.

“Sir?” he said, standing at the door. “The docking clamps are still attached.”

“Go release them,” Grayson ordered. “I’m not leaving my daughter’s side.”

The man nodded, then turned and left them alone.

“Don’t worry, Gigi,” he whispered. “I’ll make sure they take good care of you from now on.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Kahlee ran through the deserted trading deck, heading for the shuttle Gillian now thought of as her home. She was so focused on finding the girl before something happened to her that she didn’t even think to check on Hendel behind the desk.

She slowed down as she moved through the hall separating the trading deck and the landing bays, moving quietly in case any of the Cerberus troops were waiting for her. Her caution proved well founded; there was a single guard just outside the shuttle. He was standing with his back to her, one hand punching at a control panel to disengage the docking clamps on the vessel while his other hung at his side, casually gripping his assault rifle.

Gunfire might alert anyone else nearby, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t use her assault rifle as a weapon. She knew his armor was equipped with kinetic barriers, but they were programmed to respond specifically to speed. If you sat down or slapped someone on the back they didn’t activate; it took a high-velocity round to trigger them. A sharp incoming blow to the head wouldn’t be fast enough to set them off.

Moving quickly, Kahlee crept up behind him, wrapping her arms around the end of the barrel and holding the gun like a baseball bat. As soon as she got within range she took three quick running steps to build up momentum, then swung her makeshift club as hard as she could.

The sound of her feet clanging against the metal floor of the landing bay during her quick charge gave the soldier just enough warning to react. He half-turned toward her, bringing one arm up and ducking his head so that the blow landed on his shoulder rather than the side of his helmet. The force of the impact knocked his assault rifle from his grasp, and it clattered to the floor as he was knocked sideways, staggering to keep his balance.

Kahlee swung again, but she was in too close to get the leverage she needed. The blow struck him on the side of his helmet, but not hard enough to knock him out. Dazed, the soldier stumbled away from her, his hands fumbling for the pistol on his hip.

Spinning the assault rifle in her hands, Kahlee repositioned her grip so that she could jab forward with the heavy butt of the gun. She came in low, just beneath the edge of the three-quarter visor, smashing in the front teeth of his lower jaw. His head snapped back and he fell over. Kahlee leaped on top of him, driving the butt of the rifle down on his head with both hands.

Even his helmet couldn’t protect him from the savage force of repeated impacts. After six consecutive blows Kahlee was certain he would never get up again. She gave him two more shots just to make sure.

Rising to her feet, she saw the assault rifle had been bent out of alignment by the attack.

Useless piece of volus crap,
she thought as she grabbed the pistol from the dead soldier’s belt.

With her enemy down, she took a quick glance around the rest of the landing bay. When she saw the bodies of the two Cerberus troopers beneath the forklift, she knew the girl had been by.

She crept into the shuttle, moving as quietly as possible. The passenger cabin was empty so she headed up to the cockpit, only to discover it was deserted as well. When she made her way to the sleeping quarters in the back, she was only mildly surprised to find Gillian lying on the bed, her father protectively sitting over her.

Raising the soldier’s pistol, she pointed it at Grayson. “Get away from her, you son-of-a-bitch.”

He glanced up at the sound of her voice, and his eyes widened in shock. It took him a moment to recognize her behind the enviro-suit and mask.

“Kahlee?” he muttered.

She nodded and gestured with the pistol, and Grayson slowly stood up and backed away from the bed.

Kahlee glanced down at Gillian and realized she was unconscious. “What did you do? Drug her again?” she demanded.

“Stunner,” Grayson whispered, and Kahlee thought he actually sounded ashamed of himself. She realized that, despite everything he had done, he truly cared for his daughter. Somehow it made his devotion to Cereberus seem both more terrifying and more pathetic.

Then she felt the hard jab of a pistol digging into the side of her ribs.

“Drop the gun,” a voice from behind her said.

For a split second Kahlee considered shooting Grayson. But killing her father wouldn’t save Gillian, and it would almost certainly get Kahlee killed. Instead, she let the pistol fall from her hands.

“Lay facedown on the ground, hands behind your head,” the voice ordered, jabbing her again with the pistol.

She did as ordered, and then she heard the sound of her unknown assailant walking past her over toward the bed.

“Don’t touch her, Golo,” Grayson warned, the cold anger in his voice causing the footsteps to stop.

Flat on her belly, Kahlee dared to tilt her head to look up. She was stunned to see he was speaking with a quarian.

The world came back to Hendel in a wave of pain. Every bone and muscle in his body ached from being slammed into the wall, and as consciousness slowly returned, he just lay there, trying to get his bearings. After a few seconds, it all started to come back to him. He was on the trading deck, where the quarians had been battling Cerberus.

He could still hear gunfire, but it was coming from far away.

The fight moved to the deck above.

Ignoring his protesting muscles, he forced himself to stand up. There were a few seconds of vertigo before he steadied himself. Looking around, he located his assault rifle where it had fallen on the floor and picked it up.

Gotta go help Kahlee and the others.

Before he could clamber out from behind the desk, however, he heard heavy footsteps running down the stairs. Two Cerberus guards burst into view from the deck above, their attention not focused on Hendel, but rather on the quarians pursuing them.

They’re retreating!
Hendel realized.
We’ve won!

Biotics were out of the question. His head was still spinning slightly from being thrown, and he suspected he had a mild concussion. But he was feeling well enough to use his assault rifle.

Relying on the weapon’s autotargeting systems to overcome any lingering unsteadiness he might be feeling, he lined up the nearest Cerberus soldier and opened fire.

From this range, the bullets made short work of his shields. They lasted just long enough for him to turn toward Hendel, but not long enough for him to bring his weapon up and return fire.

The second soldier wheeled on him as the first fell to the ground, and Hendel had to duck behind the heavy desk for cover. The first burst from his enemy chewed away huge chunks of hardwood, but the cover held together in time for Hendel to dart into the safety of the stockroom.

He poked his head through the door to return fire, only to see that the Cerberus soldier was about to be caught in a crossfire. Hendel opened fire, as did several quarians coming down the stairs from the deck above. With enemies both in front and behind, the soldier didn’t last more than three seconds.

“It’s me, Hendel!” he shouted out from the stockroom, not wanting to suddenly pop into view and get accidentally shot.

“Hendel!” he heard Lemm shout. “You’re alive!”

He walked out from the storeroom and climbed gingerly over the desk. Lemm, Mal, and four other quarians were gathered at the foot of the stairs.

“Is that the last of them?” Hendel asked, nodding toward the dead Cerberus troopers on the ground. He figured the fight was over, as he didn’t hear anymore gunfire.

“There might be one or two left,” the captain answered, “falling back to the
Cyniad.
”

“They had us on the run, when all of a sudden they broke into a full retreat,” Lemm added.

“Why would they—” Hendel began, then stopped short. “Where’s Kahlee? Where’s Gillian?”

Nobody answered.

“Cerberus has her!” Hendel shouted. “That’s why they’re pulling out!”

As a group, they broke into a run, heading for the landing bays.

“Should I shoot her?” Golo asked.

Grayson looked at Kahlee, still lying facedown on the ground in her enviro-suit. The quarian had his pistol pointed at the back of her head.

“No,” Grayson said. “Keep her alive. She’s an expert in biotic amp configurations. Cerberus might want her to help with Gillian’s new training.”

“I’ll never help you with your sick experiments,” Kahlee spat out from the floor.

“Quiet,” Golo warned, kicking her hard in the ribs. Grayson winced.

Kahlee grunted and rolled over onto her back, her hands clutching at her side. “Gillian will hate you for this,” she gasped, trying to catch her breath. “She’ll never forgive you.”

The quarian hauled off and kicked her again, causing her to pull her knees up into a fetal position to try and protect herself.

“Enough!” Grayson snapped.

“How can you let them do this to your own daughter?” Kahlee asked through gritted teeth, still balled up from the pain.

“Did you see the forklift out there?” Grayson demanded. “Do you see what Gillian is capable of? That’s because of what Cerberus did!”

“They want to make her into a weapon,” Kahlee countered, panting behind her mask. Grayson guessed several of her ribs were broken. “They’re turning her into some kind of monster.”

“They’re transforming her into a savior of the human race,” he countered.

“We don’t have time for this,” Golo warned.

“They’re destroying her,” Kahlee snarled, her words filled with pain and anger. “Those drugs made her condition worse. Without them, she has a chance to be almost normal!”

Unbidden, the memory of Gillian actually hugging him outside the airlock filled Grayson’s mind. He remembered her words, and her surprising defiance.

We have to wait for my friends. I’m not leaving without them.

“Gillian was happy here,” Kahlee continued. “Have you ever seen that before? She was actually happy!”

“Shut up!” Golo shouted, kicking her again.

This time he didn’t stop, but continued to beat on her until Grayson snapped, “No more! That’s enough. It’s over.”

Golo looked over at him, panting slightly from the exertion, and shrugged. On the ground Kahlee was rolling feebly from side to side, moaning and whimpering from behind her mask.

Grayson’s eyes flicked away from her and over to Gillian on the bed. She looked so small, vulnerable and helpless.

Salvation comes with a cost,
he seemed to hear the Illusive Man saying in his head. His mind flashed back to the mutilated quarian in the cellar of Pel’s warehouse.

Judge us not by our methods, but by what we seek to accomplish.

“We’re almost out of time,” Golo reminded him. “We have to leave now. We can’t wait for the others.”

Grayson was suddenly struck by the similarities between the quarian and his former partner. Both were sadistic and cruel. Both had no compunction about torturing or killing others for personal gain.

And both were traitors to their own people. It sickened him to think about the kind of individuals he had allied himself with.

We take terrible burdens on ourselves for the greater good. This is the price we must pay for the cause.

“Get the engines fired up and get us out of here,” Grayson ordered.

As the quarian turned to leave, Grayson calmly bent over and picked up the pistol Kahlee had let fall to the floor. He stepped up behind the quarian and jammed the barrel against the back of his helmet, too close for the kinetic barriers to save him. And then he shot Golo once through the head, the bullet exiting through the front of his mask and lodging itself in the shuttle’s bulkhead.

As the quarian toppled forward, Grayson let the pistol fall from his hand. He turned and looked down at Kahlee, but he couldn’t tell what she was thinking behind her mask.

“The ship we arrived on is filled with explosives,” he told her. “We have about two minutes before they detonate and rip a hole in the side of the
Idenna.
I’ll need your help if we want to stop it.

“Can you walk?” he asked, reaching down and offering a hand to help her to her feet.

She hesitated for a split second before grabbing it and hauling herself up with a groan.

“I can damn well try,” she answered.

Hendel and the quarians were running at a full sprint as they burst into the loading docks. The
Cyniad
was in bay seven, on the far end past all the other ships. The former security chief’s long strides had pulled him slightly ahead of the others, but they caught up when he stopped to stare in amazement at the two figures coming out of the airlock in bay three.

Kahlee, still in her enviro-suit, and Grayson, wearing Cerberus armor, were exiting the shuttle. She had one arm wrapped around Grayson’s neck, and he appeared to be holding her up, as if she couldn’t stand on her own. Neither one of them was armed.

“Hendel!” Kahlee shouted, but her voice was cut off in a gasp of pain and her free hand clutched at her side.

“The
Cyniad,
” Grayson called out to them. “The ship in bay seven. It’s filled with explosives!”

Hendel, bewildered by the scene before him, could only shake his head. “What’s going on? Where’s Gillian?”

“She’s safe,” Grayson answered, speaking quickly. “But you have to get to the
Cyniad.
Disarm the bomb before it detonates!”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Cerberus. We never intended to escape on the
Cyniad.
We were going to take my shuttle. The
Cyniad
is filled with explosives and set to go off on a timer to provide a distraction as we escaped.”

“How many explosives, and how much time?” Hendel demanded.

“Two minutes, and enough to rip a hole in the
Idenna
’s hull.”

“Watch him!” Hendel said, pointing at Grayson as he turned to go.

“Wait!” Grayson shouted, freezing him in his tracks. “It’s a dual sync arming system. You need two people to enter the code simultaneously or it’ll detonate.”

“What’s the code?” Mal demanded.

“Six two three two one two.”