Secretary's Geth shields deflect the enemy rounds without serious strain. Swivelling, Secretary sprays another torrent of energy through the doorway. His shots walk across two groups of husks, ending up by the right side of the door.
Your teams brings down two more cannibals. YC7 gets on his hands and knees and opens his mouth. The body of his former comrade disappears as more bone plates grow on his skin. When one dies the living consume their body and gain their strength. The rest of the cannibals start moving towards the party now that the sphere is out of the way. 4 enter the door way and they start attacking Brutvus and Dredd.
Ayr takes 6 ranged damaged.
Secretary doesn't take any shots.
Brutvus takes two melee attacks dealing: 12 and 12
Dread takes two melee tacks dealing: 8 and 20
Awyr detonates her Dark Sphere and takes a deep breath, attempting to rally her strength.
'I AM INVINCIBLE!' Brutvus roars as the melee blows fall short of damaging his shield. He takes a step back,
He continues firing his beam, this time targeting YC0.
Secretary activates advanced targeting systems as the cannibals begin to close. Rapidly ejecting its mostly-spent thermal clip, Secretary drops in a new one and unleashes a deadly spray of energy into the doorway.
"Haha HA!" Dredd roars with laughter as the cannibal's claws rake against him. "Who's ready to bring the PAIN?!" he yells as his fist becomes surrounded by hard-light panels, growing a foot long blade in front of his knuckles. He slams the omni-blade into the face of the cannibal in front of him in a vicious uppercut.
The dark sphere explosion kills YC4 and YC5. YC7 is hit but stays standing. It is now primed. Brutvus's beam cuts YC0 in half. YC8 and YC9 are still standing but injured after the auto fire. Dredd's uppercut slams the cannibal's head into the roof and it falls back down dead.
The remaining Cannibals try to shoot at the party but all there attacks missed. YC8 and YC9 bend over and consume the bodies of their fallen brothers. New bone plates grow over their bodies.
Awyr channels her biotic prowess into recharging her barriers, filling them completely. Then, she hucks a Warp at one of the Cannibals in the doorway.
Secretary continues his barrage, firing dozens of rounds into the cannibals in the doorway.
Without a word, Brutvus unleashes hell upon his next target.
The fighting last a couple more rounds but the party kills everyone else in the room. The buffed up guys were harder to take down but nothing you couldn't handle. There still lies the pumping heart at the back of the room. It's rhythmic sounds are starting to drone in your head. It is starting to become a loud white noise.
"Baso; Secretary; Blast it!" Awyr barks shortly, glaring at the mechanical organ.
Secretary spends a few milliseconds to give the 'heart' a cursory optical scan to make sure that blasting it is the correct choice.
The large mechanical "heart" appears the serve the same function as an organic one. It is not purely mechanical and also not organic. It is somewhere in-between like most Reapers. It is pumping the same liquid that was traveling through the tubes earlier. It is connected to the "alter" and it is kinda floating over it. There are 4 clear tubes that are sending the liquid and then many other smaller cables that also appear to also be connected. Because you are trained in mechanics you can recognize some of these cables as power cables and others that send information. Fiver optics cables maybe? It is connected to the rest of the ship and it is possible that it serves as a heart/brain hybrid. Destroying it would effect the rest of the ship but what what extent is unknown. Maybe it serves the same function as a control panel? That is your best guess. There doesn't appear to be any way for you to input commands.
Secretary reaches a rapid consensus and holds his fire, weapon still pointed at the 'heart'. "Taranau-Commander, this device may be integral to analysis of the Old Machine takeover of this ship. It seems to serve as both a power source and information hub. There is no telling what effects its destruction will have."
'Sorry buddy,' Brutvus speaks to Secretary as he fires a single shot from his assault rifle at the heart.
"Well, seeing as Batarian ships don't normally have Giant Mechanical Hearts I think we can safely assume that it doesn't belong here. Dredd, why don't you help Brutvus. You seem bored."
Awyr frowns at Secretary from behind her helmet. Analysis of Cthulhuan horrors never ends well. We do not want to understand madness, you foolish machine.
"Well, seeing as Batarian ships don't normally have Giant Mechanical Hearts I think we can safely assume that it doesn't belong here."
Secretary lowers its weapon and tilts its head, looking at Awyr. Its expression panels ripple to indicate slight confusion, but no trace of anger or disappointment.
"Taranau-Commander, that fact is not in question. We are under the impression that this mission is an attempt to understand the reasons why the Old Machines have taken an existing ship and modified it. We believe that understanding the scope and methods of said modifications will provide valuable insight. Is there additional information that would require this viewpoint to be updated?"
Kaboom!
The heart begins to crack from the Striker's round. It looks like cracks forming on ice or a window from stress. It starts small and then slowly gets larger and large. Over the course of the conversation the cracks cover the entire heart. Soon it cracks and glass shards fall slowly to the floor. Such a small sound as it shatters. Nothing happened for a brief moment before the shards begin to scream. A shockwave of sound and light roll over the party. Sounds hit like massive rain drops during a storm and each one sends your senses crazy. The whole experience last about as long as a flash grenade but hits so much harder.
Brutvus:
To you the experience was like a stun grenade. Loud, annoying, bright and ultimately pointless. You are fine after a couple of seconds. The rest of your party however was hit much harder.
Secretary:
While the actual effect of a stun grenade mean little to a synthetic there was something else in the waves of sound and light. Fragments of information and pure junk data with no use flood passed your firewalls and drown your systems. Your try to select and clear you mainframe but the data is coming in too fast even for your systems to clear. You are forced to reset from the back up. This takes a couple of seconds but not too long. Like 5 seconds tops. While you were cleaning your system you find something interesting. Some of the fragments from the shard scream were Geth. You systems keep these bits of Geth code during the restart.
Dredd and Awyr
While it didn't effect Brutvus very much the shard scream hits you two the hardest. Both of you are knocked to the ground by crippling headaches. Your biotic amps burn in your skulls. Your mind feels like you are stuck on the edge of dreaming and awake. Your world spin as your minds tries to remember something. Something that was in the flood of light and sounds. Something that might be there. Something beneath all the pain. A vision of what the heart felt. Something that came in through your biotic implant. The pair of you are knocked out for around 10 seconds.
F--k. Next time I'll stand further away from the target. Damn Secretary for distracting me.
Secretary's reboot looks strange to Brutvus, who only manages to catch the last bit of it - Secretary's joints lock as his motive systems shut down, ensuring no damage to his frame. His sensor briefly goes dark then relights as his detection suite resets, his frame spasms almost undetectably as a diagnostic is run, then Secretary continues outwardly functioning as before.
It makes a quick sweep of the room, noticing Awyr and Dredd still unconscious while Brutvus is on his feet. Secretary walks over to Awyr's body, spending its cycles on the way over by partitioning and encrypting the Geth shards it seems to have picked up.
It quickly broadcasts a warning message to other Geth: Possibly contaminated by heretic programs. Isolating and storing. Infection seems unlikely, but possible. Code is Geth, but currently unidentified. Analysis later for safety.
Arriving at Awyr, Secretary focuses on her neck and chest to ensure her heart is beating and she is still breathing. Confirming she is only unconscious, Secretary performs the same check on Dredd. Satisfied that they are still alive, he rotates and gives the remains of the 'heart' another visual scan.
"Baso-Captain, Taranau-Commander and Urdnot Dredd are unconscious. The detonation may have scrambled their biotic implants, with potential for brain damage. Your profile indicates experience in field treatment. I suggest you examine them more thoroughly." Secretary vocalizes almost immediately after approaching the bodies.
The heart is in 15 large pieces. Kinda like stained glass. The pieces look stiff and not ver flexible. Each piece sparkles and looks like it is made with diamond dust. Looking closely you can see what looks like a nervous system running on the inside. It could be some kind of information transfer system at least. It broke along the cracks and looks like it could be put back tougher with glue. The heart was empty. No idea what was pumping the liquid in the tubes. There wasn't a pump inside. The liquid was pumping though. Much of the Reaper technology is known.
'Ow.' Brutvus slowly shakes his head to clear the stars from his eyes. When he has recovered, he lumbers over to Awyr and Dredd and checks them for injuries, in compliance with Secretary's request.
'They appear to be unconscious, Secretary. I cannot predict when they will awaken, if they awaken at all. Further injuries cannot be determined without significantly more advanced.........' His voice trails off as the unconscious pair begin to wake.
Dredd grumbles obscenities to himself as he comes to.
The while much of the vision was indescribable what you can understand is breaking images and feelings. You see a Reaper being ripped apart. It was scattered in many tiny and complete pieces. Those broken shards speed off to the smaller ships waiting around it. You follow the shards not the ships and see them drive int the heart like machine that once stood before you.
Since Awyr rolled so well she can understand that there were 3 hearts in total on board this ship and one larger special one. There are 2 heart left to destroy. By destroying the heart the ships security is now failing, making your journey now easy.
Still rubbing the stars out of his eyes, Dredd grumbles to the rest of the crew, "Huhh. Ever wonder if the universe is trying to tell you something, but not sure if it's just trying to piss you off?" Dredd doesn't wait for anyone to answer in particular. "I got the feeling like this wasn't the only one of these things on board this ship. Whatever they are, they emit a powerful biotic emission when destroyed, so I think it's safe to assume they are some sort of reaper control interface; allows the reapers to direct the ship as if it were a living thing, almost like a parasite. Probably want to knock out any other ones we find... but maybe stand a little further back next time?"
"Good idea," Awyr moans as she sits up.
Taking a moment to get her bearings, Awyr looks around at the mess.
"This is going to be a b**** to clean up, I just know it."
A deep breath to steady herself.
"Okay, let's move on to the next room."
"Stack up at the door, let's do this by the numbers." Awyr commands tersely.
The Spector team stacks up on the door and the one closest to it opens it. It would have been a security door but it is now disabled. Inside the room looks like an art studio. There is paintings and large prices of stone all over the place. You notice some of the stone statues look like the one from the other room. That, however isn't the important part. The large Reaper tripod that is sprinting toward the party is. In the middle of the art room was a force cage labeled "model." The cage, of course, was turned off with the rest of the security.
Secretary reacts quickly, activating tech powers to try and to slow down the charging tripod - first a bolt of force to knock it away, then a blast of cold to hamper its servomotors.
Awyr tosses a Warp at the charging monstrosity.
"Light it up!" Awyr commands harshly.
Brutvus lights up the f&%ker.
Dredd moves into position between the strange new reaper and the party, firing a salvo of razor sharp pain into the thing's "face."