Collecting Betrayals

She stood behind Joker and watched as they drew closer to the Collector base.

"I don't see any turian ships around..." Joker says, his eyes scanning the panels that light up along his console.

"I don't either, I wondered how a turian ship was able to disable it but..."

"But it tore through the Normandy like wet tissue?" Joker grunted.

"Yeah..." Emily said with disgust.

She turns quickly, taking a small hurried steps to the elevator to wait in the shuttle car with Garrus and Thane.

She gestured Garrus to take the pilot seat, "Take us in, nice and easy..."

They jump down into the base, the area seemed awfully inactive.

"It's too quiet..." Emily looked around the structure.

"Shepard, I compared the ship's EM signature to known Collector profiles. It's the vessel you encountered on Horizon." EDI's voice drifted into their comms.

"Figures..." Emily mumbles walking foward to the first set of pods. "They're empty...shit..."

Down the hall she is hit immediately with the disgusting scent of rotten decaying meat.

"Over here..." Garrus stood over a pile of decaying bodies.

"Fuck fucking fuck..." Emily growled out angrily.

"They were just thrown away..."

"Better to be test subjects for crazy aliens..." Emily muttered.

She spotted lab equipment up head, pulling out her omni-tool scanning it.

"That's a...Collector? Were they experimenting on one of their own?" Garrus leaned towards the open pod studying the decomposed body.

Emily connected to the terminal, "EDI, I'm uploading the data from the terminal, see if you can figure out what they were up to."

"Data received, analyzing...The Collectors were running baseline genetic comparisons between their species and humanity. A quad strand genetic structure identical to traces collected from ancient ruins. Our database only have one race known to have this structure: the Protheans."

"You saying that the Collectors are Protheans?!"

"It would appear so."

"Well now we know what happened to them...they mutated," Garrus reached into a pile of weapons pulling out a sniper rifle.

"Is that the M-98 Widow?!" Emily gushes as before scouring the weapons crate, "Niiiice, an M-3000 Claymore!"

After double checking their weapons they move farther into the ship. Shivers rolled down Emily's back as the tension gripped her into high alert.

"Look - on the ceiling, more of those strange pods," Garrus eyed the pods lining above. .

Thane's eyes gazed on the vast amount, "Hundreds...how many are full?"

"Too many..." Emily muttered.

"I detect no signs of life in these pods, Shepard. It is probable the victims inside died when the ship lost primary power," EDI informed.

"That...that's not a good thought to have..." Garrus shifted his stance steadying his pace with Emily's.

"I don't like the feel of this place," Emily shifted her shoulders in a vain attempt to shake off the place.

"It is eerie indeed..." Thane treaded cautiously.

"Commander, you gotta hear this. On a hunch, I asked EDI to run an analysis on this ship." Joker whispered into the comm. "I compared the EM profile against data recorded by the original Normandy two years ago, they are an exact match."

"So you're saying...the ship that destroyed the original Normandy is this same one we're on?"

"Something doesn't add up, Commander. Watch your back..." Joker responds nervously.

The group entered a vast room filled with Collector pods.

"There...theres so many..." Thane's eyes darted around the room.

"They could take every human in the Terminus Systems and still not have enough to fill these pods...They're going to target Earth..." Garrus's subharmonics whistled lightly.

"Not if we stop them," Emily pointed ahead, "There - on the platform. Looks like some kind of control panel."

"Should be dead Collectors. Somethings...wrong," Thane surveyed the control panel.

"EDI, I'm setting up a bridge between you and the Collector ship. See if you can get anything useful from the data banks." Emily activated the uplink.

"Data mine in progress Shepard."

Emily rolled her shoulders impatiently, beads of sweat peaking down her back. Suddenly, off in the distance the soft rumbling of machines...

"Uh...Joker?" Emily readied her shotgun.

"Everything went dark, but we're back up now. I dunno what happened," Joker bite his lip staring at the monitor.

"So let me guess, we activated their defense mechanism," Garrus snarled as footsteps rushed towards them.

"Look's like it..." Emily activated her biotic shield. .

With another rumble the platform goes up, spinning unstably into the air.

"Take cover!" Thane yelled as another set of platforms fly towards them.

Emily ducks behind the console as Collectors began their assault.

"This hurt you..." A Collector suppressed Emily's hiding spot.

"Fuck! EDI! get us out of here!" Emily leaped out of cover charging into the Harbringer.

She jammed her shotgun into its shell blasting it apart.

"Affirmative Commander."

"You will know pain..." the Harbringer slowly manifests into another Collector Assassin.

"Emily, you make the most interesting friends," Garrus smirked taking off an exposed Collector's head.

Edi's voice echoed through their comm-link, "I've regained control of the platform Shepard."

"I knew you wouldn't let us down, EDI!" Emily tugged her helmet off before disconnecting from the terminal.

Instantly a shot whizzed by her as Garrus dove at her pulling her to the floor.

"Helmets on!" Garrus growled as he plucked the helmet from her hand and slammed it on her head.

"Ow! Ok, ok!" she pushed him off her adjusting her head. "Did you get what we needed EDI?"

"I found data that could help us successfully navigate the Omega 4 relay. I have also found the turian distress call that served as the lure for this trap. The Collectors were the source. It is...unusual."

"Seems logical to me, baiting us into a trap."

"No, it is unusual because turian emergency channels have a secondary encryption. It is corrupted in the message. It is not possible that the Illusive Man would believe the distress call was genuine."

"Why are you so sure?" Emily and the crew settled on the rising platform.

"I found the anomaly with Cerberus detection protocols, he wrote them."

"He knew it was a trap? Why would he send us into a trap?" Joker frantically drew up maps to the ground force.

"We don't have time to throw blame around. We'll question him when we're out," Emily refocused the group's attention.

"Uh...Commander, we've got another problem. The Collector ship...it's powering up," Joker's voice panicked. "You need to get out of there before their weapons come online. I'm not losing another Normandy!"

"Fuck, lets move!"

The force ran down the corridor disposing of any Collectors that swarmed slammed down behind a console aiming at the waves of drones rushing towards Emily's local. Garrus maneuvered to an alternate panel downing anything in his scope giving Emily cover fire as she broke their front grinned at their flow and consistency, like a well-oiled machine

"There!" Thane shouted as a door opened across the room.

"Oh look, husks!" Emily released a shockwave jettisoning the foes in front of her. "Look, Garrus, your friend is back!"

Garrus lets out a groan as he switched his ammo, "Just kill the damn thing! Focus fire!"

The giant mutated bug was showered in a hailstorm of bullets until they ripped through its shell shredding it into pieces.

"Come on!" Emily charged down the hall.

"Hey, down there," Thane pointed to a level below, "Isn't that where we came in?"

"We must be getting close to the end," Garrus reloaded his rifle.

In an instant a husk slammed down on top of Emily. Her body collapsed as her eyes lost focus feeling her biotic energy being drained.

"Emily!" Garrus frantically shoots the swarm of husks surrounding her.

Emily's quickly regained consciousness as she blasted the husk with shockwave, "I'm...I'm okay..." she slowly gets to her feet and stumbled against the wall, "Just...a little burnt out..."

Garrus reached to Emily slinging her arm around his neck gesturing for Thane to take her other side.

"I can walk...just fine..." she grunted as she pushed off their bodies.

Garrus stared at Emily's back, her barrier weakening quickly, "EDI, How much closer to the exit?!"

"Just through those doors," EDI said as a door slid open forming a tunnel up ahead.

A shiver goes down Garrus' spine as another wave of husks came charging at them. Panic filled his heart as he watched Emily's barrier blinked out.

"Tch, kill me once shame on me..." Emily gathered up her strength, her biotics flaring up around her. The throng of husk jumped at her as Garrus and Thane opened fire.

Emily's eyes glazed with an erratic blue, she rose her hand above her head as a plethora of biotic energy gathered and formed at her palm, "...killed me twice, now that's just rude." Emily forced her palm down into the ground covering the swarm in a veil of blue flame incinerating them completely.

"You...you got them..." Thane dropped his gun to his waist in awe.

Garrus rushed to Emily catching her falling body, "Will you ever stop doing such reckless things...?"

Emily gave a silent smile as the group trudged off towards the shuttle.

Once they arrived on the Normandy Joker quickly relayed the exit command to EDI.

"That...was too fucking close..." Garrus said as he followed up behind Emily.

"Oh, don't worry, I'll be talking to The Illusive Man to inquire about his methods of luring us into this little death trap." said Emily as she quickly made her way to the conference room.

A/N: Sorry for the short chapter yesterday, my editor was up late last night and fell asleep mid sweep. I'm trying not to over work him since he's also in the middle of his school work. Anyway, should be back on schedule soon~