Drew Karpyshyn - Retribution

Approaching potential allies right now was too dangerous; the solution lay elsewhere.

To bring Grayson down, he would have to look outside the human race, and even outside Council space. For the sake of humanity’s future, he would have to swallow his pride and beg for help from those who represented everything Cerberus despised about alien cultures.

This all began on Omega. And if he wanted to end it, he would have to send Kai Leng back.

Kahlee and Anderson exited from the shuttle via the boarding ramp, falling into step behind the turian soldier who had been sent to greet them and take them to the lab. The half-dozen scientists Orinia had sent with them on the shuttle disembarked and followed close behind.

The docking bay of the Cerberus station was large enough to accommodate not only their own vessel, but also those of the turian assault teams that had originally secured the station. Yet even with all the ships, there was still plenty of room for the bodies.

The turians still hadn’t finished cleaning up from the assault. A handful of their people were laid out respectfully in one corner of the bay, their arms folded across their breasts, their weapons lying beside them.

In stark contrast, the human casualties had been dumped haphazardly in the middle of the docking bay’s cargo floor. They were being systematically stripped of anything of value by a team of turians. As they finished with each body, two of them would pick it up — one at the wrists, the other at the ankles — then carry it over and toss it onto the growing pile against the far wall.

Cerberus was the enemy, but Kahlee still felt a natural revulsion watching the aliens loot the bodies of her own kind. She glanced over at Anderson and noticed he was pointedly looking the other way.

“Thought they’d have more respect for the dead,” she whispered, speaking softly so the turian guide a few steps in front of them wouldn’t overhear.

“The turians show no quarter for an enemy,” Anderson reminded her in a similarly low voice. “Look what they did to the krogan.”

Kahlee nodded, remembering how the turians had released the genophage on the krogan homeworld — a biological weapon that effectively sterilized 99.9 percent of the population. Cerberus had brought this on themselves by openly declaring their intention to see humans eliminate or dominate every other species in the galaxy. As far as the turians were concerned, they were in a war for their very survival.

And it wasn’t like they were going to jettison the bodies into space; all the dead would be sent back to the Alliance for identification. That was what bothered Kahlee the most — she couldn’t help thinking about those who would be tasked with notifying the families of the dead. Breaking the news to a parent or spouse was hard enough; it would be even more difficult having to tell the bereaved that the person they loved had been a traitor to the Alliance.

Fortunately their guide was setting a brisk pace, and they soon left the horrors of the docking bay behind. He wove his way down the corridors and halls of the Cerberus space station. The signs of battle — bloodstains on the walls and floor, scorch marks and scoring from the ammo — were still clearly visible.

Passing by an open door, Kahlee caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye.

“Wait,” she called. “Hold on a second. What’s that room back there?”

Their guide stopped and turned around slowly. It was clear he didn’t like taking orders from a human.

But Orinia had promised Anderson the turians on the station would cooperate with them, and he wasn’t about to disobey his superior.

“It’s some kind of operating theater,” he answered.

“I want to see it.”

The guide nodded, and Kahlee and Anderson went into the room. The turian scientists followed them, their own curiosity piqued as well.

The room was stark and utilitarian. A bright lamp hung down from the ceiling in the center. Beneath it was a gurney fitted with leather restraints. The straps and the gurney were stained with dried blood, as was the floor around it.

“They didn’t use an anesthetic,” Kahlee muttered, feeling sick to her stomach.

Medical equipment on wheels had been pushed up against the far wall. Some of it Kahlee recognized from her work with the Ascension program: an EEG monitor; an endoscope; a cranial drill. Other, more sinister-looking machines she could only guess the purpose of.

She gave each piece a quick examination, trying to get a feel for what it might have been used for. At the same time she struggled not to picture Grayson screaming as he was subjected to the bizarre medical tortures.

Once she was done, she and the rest of the group went back out into the hall, where the guide was waiting.

“I need to see where Grayson was being held,” she said.

“We have to go through the lab,” he told her. “Follow me.”

They continued through the station until they reached what was obviously the station’s primary research lab. There was a large bank of computer terminals in the center of the room. Several of the terminals had turians sitting at them, doing their best to hack through the layers of security on the system.

The process of analyzing what Cerberus had been up to was threefold. First the encrypted data had to be carefully extracted from the databases. Then it had to be decrypted. Finally, it would be analyzed by Kahlee and the other scientists.

One of the techs was walking around the room from terminal to terminal, coordinating the work of the data extraction team.

“You must be Dr. Sanders,” he said, extending his hand. “My name is Sato Davaria.”

Kahlee shook his hand, as did Anderson.

“Admiral David Anderson,” he said by way of introduction.

“An honor to meet you, sir,” the turian replied with genuine sincerity.

The turians were a military society; it wasn’t surprising that someone with as distinguished a service career as Anderson would be known by reputation.

“I need to see where Grayson was held,” Kahlee said.

Sato looked over at their guide, who nodded to indicate he should comply with her request.

“This way,” he said, taking them through a small door at the rear of the lab. The other scientists promptly fell in line behind them; at some point they had obviously decided to defer to Kahlee, at least for now.

The door led into an observation room. There was a large window in the far wall — probably one-way glass — overlooking a sparsely furnished prison cell below. The only other exit from the observation room was a small spiraling staircase leading down.

Sato led them down the stairs and into a small hall that terminated at the door to the cell. Kahlee pushed it open and stepped inside.

An unpleasant smell lingered in the stale air — a mixture of sweat, urine, and excrement. There was a small cot in one corner and a toilet in another. A shelf of bottled water and rations had been built into one of the walls. Several of the ration kits were scattered about the floor.

“No sink. No mirror. No shower,” Kahlee noted. “They were treating him like an animal. Trying to dehumanize him.”

“He was naked when he was discovered,” Sato confirmed.

“Let’s go back upstairs,” Kahlee said. “I want to see what you’ve pulled from the data banks so far.”

“We’re making progress,” Sato explained as they climbed the stairs, “but it’s slow going.

“So far it looks like there was only one test subject in the whole facility. We’ve decrypted what could be preliminary results from the experiment. But our job is just to pull it out. You’re the ones who have to determine what it all means.”

When they reached the lab again, Sato took a seat at one of the open terminals. He started flipping through screens until he found the files he was looking for. Reaching out, he tapped the haptic interface, causing the data to balloon up so that all the hovering screens were suddenly filled with an assortment of charts, graphs, and raw numerical data.