The fireteam moved quick and steady into the station, but Cole's gut was clenched tight. He stayed on his mark, rifle shouldered and ready. He kept his breathing steady despite the way his heart hammered, and his eyes and armor system alike scanned for any familiar sign of a glowing geth eye. Only when they found one, it wasn't exactly ready to fight. It wasn't ready to do anything. As Reese inspected it Calypso moved up to the front, gently nudging Talyet aside as she took point. "Not going to be able to take that ride you keep promising if you get that cute, slightly dumb ass shot, honey," she quipped over the radio, scanning the empty hallways ahead with a floodlight mounted on her helmet.<br/><br/>"Artemis, how likely is it that a non-quarian could disable a geth that effectively without triggering its failsafe?"<br/><br/><i>Exceptionally unlikely. Statistically only quarians have ever succeeded and even then only 1 in every 12<br/>
</i><br/>"One in twelve isn't awful."<br/><br/><i>000.<br/>
</i><br/>"One in twelve thousand?"<br/><br/><i>Affirmative.<br/>
</i><br/>He switched to external comms and glanced her way, then shook his head. "Something isn't right, boss. Quarians struggle to disable geth that efficiently. Whatever we're dealing with is either efficient to a degree we aren't prepared to handle, or the Fleet was closer than we thought at some point." He glanced around. "I mean, I don't need to explain geth failsafes, right? We all fought these fuckers for months. How many times have any of us seen one<i>dismantled?</i>"<br/><br/>Faust nodded. "He's got a point, Commander. We may want to consider deploying some deep probes, analyzing the station for more instances of dismantled units."<br/><br/>"To hell with that, doc," Calypso shot back. "We ARE the probes--besides, Suni and Pol aren't going to want to stick around long enough for all that mess."<br/><br/>"Can't help agreeing, boss," Cole said, shifting to stand next to Calypso. His optics highlighted the terrain, displaying glowing lines along the unnaturally straight angles that the geth had built. What struck him as strange was that the geth had built a station with hallways at all. To an extent it made sense, of course; individual platforms were likely more effective at small-scale maintenance that a station would require. But why not use floating drones? Why bother with gravity, hallways, walkways? His best guess was that it was some kind of programming holdover from when the quarians had been their masters.<br/><br/>His attention snapped back to the present at the first inkling of movement. Within the span of a single nanosecond Artemis had scanned and identified the motion, outlining the smooth shapes and design of a pair of geth troopers. "Contact!" he hissed, rifle snapping up. His omni-tool flared blue in the dark, illuminating a secondary rod installed beneath the barrel of his rifle. There wasn't time to take two shots before the geth got into position, not with an old-model rifle that needed to cool down between discharges, so he'd designed his own workaround. With a small hum of electric energy a blue spark launched from the tube, arcing through the air toward one of the troops. At the same instant he adjusted his aim and pulled the trigger.<br/><br/>The rifle thumped against his shoulder and a slug of metal designed to punch through armor launched from his weapon at 1/10th the speed of light. The first geth froze in place, a glowing blue field crackling against the barrier projected from its armor and holding it in place. The second's head snapped sideways violently, spewing oil in the vacuum as it collapsed into an unmoving heap on the floor.<br/><br/>He slung the rifle back across his shoulder as steam hissed from the glowing red vents, instead drawing the pistol at his hip. The silenced weapon unfolded as he brought it up and he finished off the second hostile with another clean headshot, then allowed the modified stasis field to disperse and dropped it next to its fellow. "Commander, it would appear this station is still operational. Recommend we infil deeper and find a terminal, some kind of access point. My onboard VI is designed to break down geth security, ma'am, I can hack in and find out who--or what--dismantled that platform."