The Firefly (Mass Effect Andromeda)

Chapter 30

"Stopping your heart...now." SAM said. Scott felt nothing for a moment. Then there was a shooting pain through his chest, so sharp it made his eyes water. His eyes bulged for a second, his lungs straining to take a breath and failing. Black spots danced before his eyes and then there was nothing.

Scott's body dropped to the ground, his limbs banging limply against the floor. For a moment he stared with a glassy gaze at the ceiling and then his eyelids closed. "SAM?" Jaal growled in worry.

"Stimulating the cardiovascular core." SAM intoned. There was a pause. "Zero activity. Stimulating the cardiovascular core." He said again.

Scott gasped, his lungs filling with precious air, jerking into consciousness. He sat up, coughing, shaking his head. The world swung wildly. "That...that seemed to do the trick." He looked around dazedly. He'd felt like his entire life had flashed before his eyes, old memories he'd scarcely remembered up until that point at the forefront of his mind.

"Of course it did." If Scott didn't know better, he'd have said SAM sounded a little smug.

"Glad one of us was sure." He retorted, climbing unsteadily to his feet. "You two look comfortable." He joked, looking up at Drack and Jaal, floating in the air of the stasis field.

"Down. Now." Drck said, not amused. Scott hurried to the console, releasing the two of them.

"Let's find a way out this cage, huh?" Scott said, cocking his gun. They could hear Raeka over the coms, battling Kett and calling out the Archon. "Raeka what's going on?"

"Just a little diversion." She said brightly. "Captain Hayjer and Venro need time to set the EMP! I'll be in touch!"

"That is one brave Salarian." Jaal remarked.

The room was full of deceased Salarians, all strapped down and showing signs of significant torture. Scott listened to a few of the logs, hearing the screams of pain and the Archon's ranting voice, questioning them on Meridian. It was barbaric, he thought, sickened to his stomach.

They found interrogation logs of the Moshae being tortured. His anxiety turned to anger at what that proud woman had gone through at the hands of the Kett. These were the Archon's private torture rooms, he realised. They were filled with observations on various races.

It was then that they heard a noise.

After climbing through maintenance tunnels filled with further, stasis pods. They found themselves in the Archon's chambers. There were glowing green tanks lining the room, filled with floating salarians. And then, a hulking figure.

"Is that a Krogan?" Jaal asked.

"Not anymore, it isn't." Drack looked appalled, "Must be one of missing scouts. I can't tell which one." The creature looked somewhere between Krogan and Kett. The experimentation on him had been extensive, clearly.

"The DNA is Krogan, but drastically altered." SAM told them. "It's clear the Kett are closing in on successfully exalting the species."

"I'm beginning to hate these guys." Scott murmured.

"Get in line." Drack hissed. It was then that they heard a noise.

*

Slumped upon the ground amid the tanks of green gas, Olivia recalled the torture she'd gone through. She remembered some time earlier when the Archon had come in. "What do you want from me?" She had whimpered.

"It is time to see what this Firefly of yours can do, Olivia Taylor." The Archon was smiling. Two Kett scientists dragged her up onto her feet, one injecting a substance into the back of her neck. She barely registered the pain. "Just something to monitor you, to monitor what your brain does with this implant of yours."

She nodded, her head aching as they dragged her into the Archon's inner sanctum. Her memories were vague around that point. The inside of the chamber. She knew she'd been there and they'd made her use the artefact...the map. It had been what looked like a stone pillar, she remembered. Nothing happened.

Furious, the Archon and his scientists stormed out into the chamber before, leaving her on the ground. She remembered getting up onto her knees, putting out her hand. There was a glowing golden light before her face, the relic lifting into the air. She remembered the feeling of awe. Then a blue light radiated out, constellations danced before her eyes. She saw the map, releasing her hand right as the Archon stormed back into the room with a roar.

"Did we get anything?" The Archon asked his scientists, who were hovering around screens they had brought into the room. There was an odd silence. Olivia glanced at them in trepidation from where she sat. They had dragged her out after she had failed to activate the map again.

"Nothing. The human's implant appears to have destroyed the transmitter we placed inside of her." The Kett scientist said, a note of fear in his voice.

"You mean to tell me that we gathered no data on the location of Meridian?" The Archon's voice was quiet, deathly.

"We have never seen technology like that in the human's brain." Another scientist said. "The Remnant parts of it overpowered our own."

"Does the human know where Meridian is?" The Archon asked, ignoring Olivia herself completely.

"We're not sure. We think so."

The Archon turned his fanatical gaze upon her. "What did you see?"

"I saw nothing." She lied, her voice hoarse.

"It is futile to lie." He replied. "Sooner or later you will be made to tell the truth, so save yourself the agony to come and speak now."

"I saw nothing." She whispered again.

"Very well." The Archon gestured. "Take her. Bring her back when she's feeling more cooperative."

She'd said nothing, even under torture. Then again, she wasn't sure any more. She hardly knew who she was.