Chapter 15

She nearly slipped a few times, which forced her to slow down, much to her chagrin. The new tunnel was both nearly pitch dark and damp, the completely exposed rock under her boots now slick with what could have been water, though she was not all too sure as to what it was-nor too keen to investigate. It also seemed to spiral further downwards, which was not an appealing prospect, especially in the near complete darkness. Shepard fumbled with her rifle light, managing to increase the light output a little; not as much as she would have liked, she thought, stepping forward carefully once more. The gunfire had come from this direction, of that much she was at least sure and since she was down here already, well, she might as well check it out.

A strange smell rose up to meet her on her way down; she was almost glad she could not see too much around her, she decided, watching her every step. The smell was pungent, unpleasant and familiar; and she'd really rather not encounter its owner. She paused a few times, noting the filmy substance coating the earthen walls as she descended; it caught the light and glinted as if the rock had been polished to a high sheen, casting reflections of her own meager light about her, though it did little to actually illuminate more.

She was beginning to wonder just how big this damned place was, when she paused, blinking ahead. A faint, bobbing light appeared a short way off, though she couldn't accurately tell how far that was. She was sure of one thing though: that was the light of an assault rifle, much like her own. She picked up her pace, keeping it in her sights. A second, smaller light joined it, as she was presumably noticed as well.

"Who goes there?" a voice called out, barely louder than a whisper; the sound carried and she easily recognized Feron, the raspy drell tone unmistakable.

"Shepard," she replied drily, keeping her own voice instinctively low as she approached.

The two small lights converged on her; with all three lights, close together by now, she could see Feron and Garrus stare at her, neither really believing their eyes.

"Why am I not surprised to see you down here, Commander?"Garrus asked after a short silence, giving her a small, somewhat strained smile.

"You didn't exactly leave me much choice, Garrus; you know I hate it when people don't answer their comms," she replied with a faint smile of her own.

Garrus chuckled but he made a face as the sound seemed to echo in the chamber beyond the point they stood, shaking his head a moment later. "Damn it, Shepard, this is not a safe place; you should be topside by now, preferably evacuating everyone to the Normandy."

"And leave an old friend down here to die or get stranded in the middle of nowhere in a collapsing compound?" Shepard snorted. "I think not; I've lost my share of people over the years, Garrus. Not adding you to that list." She glanced at Feron, as well. "Or you, for that matter."

The drell shrugged, his weapon light bobbing for a moment as he did so. "I didn't say anything; I'm rather glad you came after us, we got turned around in these tunnels and with the omni-tools failing, it was next to impossible to find our way back up. Not to mention, it was a bad idea to come down here to begin with," he said darkly, glancing over his shoulder.

Shepard followed his look, aiming her rifle and its light over Feron's shoulder. A large cavern opened up behind the drell, so large her light cast its light no further than a few paces across, on a floor that had clearly never been carved by human hands.

"Careful," Garrus breathed, his voice a faint whisper, as he too, aimed his light at the same place. "No sudden moves, Shepard; this is bad," he added in warning.

Shepard was about to ask more when she saw it; a glimpse of motion, right at the edge of their flimsy lights. She could not be sure, but it had seemed as if the rock itself had somehow moved, either too fast or too slowly to be clearly noticeable. She peered more closely towards the spot the lights reached, using her rifle to scan the adjacent area as well.

The cavern was not empty, as far as she could tell. There were what seemed like massive tubular-like rocks cluttering the floor where she could see, piled rocks that had something odd about them..."Bloody hell!" she hissed as the reality of what she was looking at sank in. One of the rocks visibly moved at the sound of her somewhat raised voice. She turned her light back towards the other two.

"That's…" she started, though she didn't need to utter the question-or hear the answer.

"Yes, it is," Garrus replied regardless. "That's what's causing the tremors; might be as big as the one in Tuchanka, as far as we can tell," he groaned.

"Is it only one? Why on earth were you shooting at it?" Shepard asked with a huff. "And where's…the head?"

"We weren't; it moved as we came to this room from a tunnel over there,"Feron pointed to their left and to a spot invisible in the dark. "Caused a rain of rocks to fall onto itself; sounded a bit like gunfire." He paused with a heavy sigh. "As for your first question…we've no idea if it's just one; we can hope, though."

"And we don't have a clue where its head is, but it doesn't seem aware of us; I'd like to keep it that way," Garrus picked up with a huff.

"No kidding," Shepard muttered, glancing back towards the now pitch dark cavern. "Let's get out of here."

She led the way back to the previous passage, Feron and Garrus close at her heels. "It's not too far up to the surface, reasonably, though it certainly feels as if it might be," the commander said under her breath as she retraced her steps the way she had come. With the added lights, she could see deep holes into the higher parts of the walls, gaping tunnels not made by any human hands; routes the thresher maw had apparently made for itself. No wonder the compound was collapsing, its deep underground infra-structure was badly compromised.

"Very glad we didn't see those coming down," Feron spoke her own thought too, the drell frowning deeply at the openings, as they kept moving as fast as they could manage. Garrus nodded.

Something exploded in the wall ahead of them suddenly, forcing them a few paces back the way they had come, dust and pebbles assaulting them like hail. "Thresher!" Garrus said quietly, despite the situation. There was nothing to be seen though, save for another massive hole, poking a new gouge into the wall that crossed the main one along their path. Happily enough, there was only loose debris blocking their path; they moved around them carefully and as fast as could be managed.

"I don't think it knows we're down here," Garrus remarked, as they resumed their hasty retreat. "Else we'd be drowning in acid by now".

"Well, let's hope our luck holds, then; not much further to go. Once we hit the main tunnel, we'll be reasonably safe; the sonic scramblers will keep the thing down here," Shepard remarked quietly.

"Our luck? Hold?" Garrus asked almost amusedly, but he smirked a moment later. "Ahh, well, can't really complain, can I? We're still alive and breathing after all the crap that's come our way over the years, after all," he shrugged.

"Really bad time to go reminiscing, I think," Feron commented, sounding preoccupied.

"Banter keeps the edge off," Garrus replied airily.

A viscous, heavy odour wafted towards them from somewhere up ahead. The half-flooded room, Shepard thought, coughing a bit as the smell caught in her throat. The air seemed pungent and well nigh unbreathable now, she thought, as they drew closer to the visibly ravaged bulkhead that marked the large, unstable-looking cavern. "Well, that can't be good," Garrus huffed, giving Shepard a reprimanding look when she coughed again. "You left your helmet behind; you really do know better," he said, not entirely joking.

"I wasn't expecting having to come down here to save your neck, you know," she retorted coolly, pausing right before the bulkhead to cough again. "What is that smell?" she asked tersely. "It wasn't here when I was coming down."

Feron had walked a bit ahead, trying his own best to keep from gagging-his lungs hurt, he thought to himself, he could pretty much understand what the commander must be feeling- and he uttered a curse, forgetting to keep his voice low.

"You two need to see this," he called out dismally.

"You need to keep your voice down…" Garrus started, walking over to the drell, but he stopped dead in his tracks, eyes wide at the sight before him. He grunted a loud curse of his own, as Shepard as well caught up with them.

There was no more water in the room she had passed through not too very long ago. The dark liquid that now flooded the semi-natural chamber was seething, giving off a glimmer of an eerie, foreboding green now and then where it lapped against what was left of the various debris that littered the room before. Not much of that remained, Shepard thought grimly, a metal plate disintegrating a short way from where they stood, the sharp scent of burning metal adding to the suffocating air.

"This is the only way back up, isn't it?" she asked with an almost exasperated sigh.

"Unless you want to go back to where the thresher maw is stretching out and look for another tunnel," Garrus shrugged.

"Not really, no," Shepard confirmed, though there was really no need for an answer there. "We need to get across this…Will our shields hold?"

"I don't have any," Feron put in with a sigh.

"Wouldn't help if you did," Garrus nodded to him, before turning back to Shepard herself. "Our shields would be no good against this," he gestured to the bubbling liquid. Shepard pointed her omni-tool towards the acid, frowning at the readings.

"Well, this is not pure thresher maw acid; there was water in here before and it seems it's diluted the toxicity somewhat," she said thoughtfully. "Not a place we want to take a stroll through, granted, but we'll need to find a way."

The ground started shaking while they argued, barely noticeable at first, but picking up momentum with each passing moment. Shepard swore as the next tremor hit, the most violent so far easily, knocking all three of them off their feet. A booming sound echoed somewhere disturbingly nearby-under their feet, more or less, though no one got the chance to point that out-the entire cavern shaking so violently it seemed it was meaning to come down around them.

"Take cover!" Shepard called out, nodding towards what was left of the bulkhead behind them. Rocks tumbled down from the roof, as well as what was left of the chamber's once upon a time metal plating; a metal plate, bigger than Shepard herself landed right next to her, the woman dodging it just in the nick of time.

Just when it seemed as if the room would shake itself to rubble, the tremor stopped. The three huddling under the bulkhead's casing stood up, with a collective sigh of relief. "That was too damn close; I think the thresher is right beneath us; the head, at least," Garrus remarked, dusting himself off as best he could. The shields had held off the worst of the falling rocks and he and Shepard both had used their own bodies to cover Feron, who had no body armor to speak of, so none of them was the worse for wear…which was a feat to consider, given the circumstances.

"I think you're right," Feron huffed, getting to his feet, as well. "And we're sitting ducks," Shepard added grimly, walking back towards the forbidding acid-filled room ahead.

New pieces of debris had added to the chamber's air of disarray; big chunks of rock and twisted remains of the last few metal plates half-floated in the viscous liquid that seemed to bubble even more violently than before, hard at work dissolving the new materials. Shepard spent a few moments examining this new condition, her eyes darting across the room almost fervently.

"You're not thinking of what I think you are, are you?" Garrus sighed resignedly, shaking his head as he and Feron joined her near the very edge of the acid pool. "You know turians are not built for balance, right?" he continued, when the commander didn't answer.

"You'll need to rely on your flexibility, then," Shepard finally responded to that. "That debris is pretty much our only chance of getting across and we'd better move fast, before the acid works its way through; unless you'd rather wait for either the next massive earthquake of the thresher maw to come our way, that is."

"So, you're basically suggesting we make our way across that?" Feron shook his head, gesturing towards the room beyond. "I lead a pretty dangerous life myself, but you lot are positively crazy," he snorted, as Shepard herself rolled her eyes, taking a careful first step onto a stone slab that had conveniently landed so it formed a bridge from their side of the room to a cluster of boulders that created a sort of island a short way off.

"I'm suggesting nothing," she called out, swaying a bit as the rock shifted at her weight, "I'm telling you to get moving! Now!"

Garrus and Feron exchanged a look, then the turian stepped onto the rock clumsily after Shepard, the drell following with significantly more grace. Shepard nodded her satisfaction before taking the lead, stepping carefully forward, ignoring the sharp hissing noise the acid was making as it assaulted the unsteady ground beneath their feet.

She climbed over one of the island boulders carefully, though it slid downwards a little at her grip, the other two close at her heels. "This might well be our craziest stunt ever, you know," Garrus huffed as he, too, got past the treacherous boulder.

"Oh, I don't know; Ilos, the Collector Base…London, the Citadel; I'd say we've seen worse," Shepard replied coolly, focused at finding them a way across. She could hear the unusual strain in Garrus' voice; by all rights, he was right to be nervous, she thought, but she was not telling him that right now; there would be no point, after all, though she might well tease him about it later.

Garrus made a face as the boulder he was climbing over slid sideways, nearly dislodging him. "Well, we'd better move faster, if we can," Feron sighed from his place at the rearguard. "The acid's not waiting for us; it's already eaten almost clear through the slab of rock we used to get up here."

Shepard merely nodded her acknowledgement. Another ramp-like slab of metal this time led away from the boulders and towards another cluster of rocks; the metal was giving into the acid's effect much more speedily, however, she winced, noticing the tell-tale signs of corruption on the plate's sides deepen with each passing moment.

"If we get to those," she pointed to the boulders at the far side of the makeshift bridge, "we'll be relatively close to the other side of the room; but we'll need to run for it." She paused at the edge of the metal ramp, motioning the other two ahead. "You go first; I'll bring in the rear," she said coolly, her tone clearly taking no argument on the matter.

"Feron, you first," Garrus nodded to the drell, who nodded back, though he was giving the dubiously solid bridge a rather dismal look as he started to dash across is. Small puddles of acid sprang in places as he ran, the metal around them growing rapidly, menacingly black. "Garrus, go," Shepard ordered, when Feron was nearly across. The turian shot her a concerned look, but did as he was asked; he had to dodge some of the puddles, muttering a few curses that were surprisingly very audible even above the sizzling noise of the acid beneath their feet as he did so.

Shepard herself took a step back, preparing for a sprint; the metal ramp was nearly at the end of its durability, acid blossoming through more and more cracks as the supposedly high-endurance metal gave up the ghost. Her foot slipped in one of them, as it unexpectedly appeared right under it; she held her footing but barely, but it slowed her down. The ominous, deafening sound of metal wrenching apart filled her ears, echoing along the cavern walls, as the ramp began to buckle, sinking into the acid slowly.

Shepard jumped, as the bridge sank beneath her feet, wincing as her shields activated, the acid connecting with the invisible barrier-a fight the barrier couldn't survive, she knew that well. And then she collided bodily with the pile of boulders, the impact making her teeth chatter. She grappled for purchase on the rock instinctively, but then two arms grabbed hers, before she could slip towards the acid right beneath her soles by now.

"Reach saves the day once more," Garrus chuckled, as he and Feron pulled her up on the relative safety of the boulders. "You OK?" he asked once she was up, checking her over with the practiced ease of a soldier.

"I'm OK; a bit close there, our body armor was too heavy for that bridge," Shepard nodded back, already looking around for their next foothold. She could see the other side now, the tunnel opening up, and starting to curve upwards…to safety and the surface, she thought, sparing a thought for the others; she could hardly wait, for once, to be topside and out of trouble again…to be able to spend a moment with Thane-a lot more moments, really, she sighed, before dismissing these thoughts and refocusing, as a small tremor recalled her to the reality of their situation.

She drew in a deep breath despite the fact the air in this chamber was growing even heavier as more debris was dissolved and cursed when she started coughing again.

"We go round these boulders," she turned to the other two, as she already started moving, "and jump off the other side, to solid ground. It should be an easy run uphill after that."

It was a short time later when they finally found themselves on solid ground, the last pile of boulders behind them sinking like a stricken ship, small waves of sizzling acid rising up as the rocks were dissolved. Shepard stood still for a moment, both she and Feron unable to stop coughing for a few long moments. Garrus led the way back towards the passageway leading upwards slowly, already setting his own helmet up to help the others breathe, if briefly, as he went.

A short way up the corridor, the lights-undisturbed till then- flickered and went out, a massive earthquake following. The sound of something not quite unlike a train running at full speed or a spaceship, for that matter, assaulted their ears, making them stumble to the hard, metal-plated floor. "Watch out!" Shepard called out, though she could not see the others-and she was fairly sure there was no cover to be had in this area anyway.