"They're here! Get to the shelters!"
But they didn't listen. Oh, a few people, here and there, took off running toward the underground bunkers near the center of the colony, the scars of their hasty excavation still raw in the reddish soil. But more ran toward their homes, or into the thick forests just beyond the outlying buildings, or in no particular direction at all. Others stood frozen to the ground and screamed, their voices blending into the howls of the air-raid sirens, or stared mutely at the gigantic many-legged black things hanging low in the midday sky, more and more of them descending every moment.
They never listened. And now it was too late.
She sprinted for the comm shack, the door squealing open as she slapped the control. Her eyes needed a moment to adjust to the darkness inside, lit only by the huge array of screens on one wall. The comm officer sat staring at them, his mouth open slightly, his face white and taut.
"Get on the speakers. Tell the colonists to get into the shelters. And get a signal out to the fleet." Her voice was sharp, not from fear - though she was afraid - but from long experience at cutting through the fear and rage of other men and women fighting for their lives.
As they did here.
The comm officer didn't even twitch. He had headphones on, but that wouldn't keep him from hearing her. She grabbed his shoulders and spun him in his chair, shaking him with calculated roughness. She looked at his glazed eyes and then tore the headphones from his head and shoved him aside. She turned to the console as she clapped the headphones on. She'd had the basic training with -
"-TION HAS BEEN DESTROYED, ALL SHIPS THIS SECT" - a burst of static - "LAN BRAVO TWO UNTIL CENTRAL COMMAND IS RE-"
"-ousands of them they came in over New Seville and Jesus there's nothing but fires and they're heading -"
"- hear me, this is Commander John Taylor, SSV Challenger, I am in an escape pod, coordinates 033-1-"
"- on you sons of bitches, you want some of this, come on, I - NNNNGGGG...I...I - "
She worked the controls, her fingers calm and assured, trying to find either the public-address system or the interstellar channels, whichever came up first -
The explosion in the closed space made her jump, her pistol in her hand and aimed before her feet came back to the ground. The comm officer toppled from his chair, his eyes rolling up to the ceiling, a smoking pistol in his right hand and his blood already beginning to trickle down the wall behind him.
"Jesus." She turned back to the console, already shoving it from her mind, then glanced up at the screens.
Every one was filled with them. Hundreds of them, some so large that she could see the lights that crisscrossed them, like flying cities.
(our numbers will darken the sky of every world)
And in her mind's eye, she could see them, endless oceans of black locusts, blotting out the suns of Thessia, of Palaven, of Earth. Leaving nothing in their wake.
As they did here.
High overhead, the four ships assigned to patrol this sector - it was an important one - were already wreckage, their funeral pyres flickering silently into the empty night. One of them - she couldn't tell which at this distance - was the Normandy. The attack had caught Shepard planetside, on a routine inspection tour, and there hadn't even been time to call the ship. Joker, Chakwas, Williams, all of them were gone, then.
Another explosion rocked the ground under her feet. On one screen, the colony's main defense battery vanished in a pillar of white flame, engulfing the ten-thousand-year-old trees encircling it and adding to the shroud of black smoke that seemed to billow to the horizons.
On another screen, she watched an elderly lady herding a double file of children toward one of the shelters. None of them was older than six - they must have been her kindergarten class - but they trooped along together, just as they'd been taught, even as adults ran screaming around them. One little girl clutched what looked like a teddy bear to her chest. The first of them were almost to the huge open permafab door of the shelter when a vast black shadow swept over them. The screen abruptly winked out and the shrieks stopped.
One by one, the others followed it.
She took the headphones from her head and set them down. There was no point in calling for help - there was no world left out there to send it. She closed her eyes for a moment. She was the only one who knew - really knew - about the Reapers. The Protheans, even as everything they knew was collapsing around them, had managed to send a warning. That must have been the one cold comfort they took to their deaths - that, millenia later, some species they had never seen, from some planet they had never charted, might find a way to break the cycle of genocide, and give thanks they would never hear.
And she was the one. And she had failed to make the galaxy listen. And condemned everything and everyone.
Her mouth set in a flat line. There was one thing she could still do. One thing she still had left. Only duty had kept her away this long.
Outside, the world had turned red and dark. She ran one way, then another, trying to look everywhere at once among the hurricane of flames and debris.
"Liara!"
She shouted it until her throat was raw. The stinking black smoke enveloped her. Her eyes streamed and her lungs fought for air. A tremendous blast picked her up and slammed her to the ground. Clumps of dirt and tiny chunks of rock pattered over her, around her. She was on her feet again in an instant, tasting blood. The screaming and the explosions had receded into the far distance. She shouted Liara's name again, but she couldn't hear herself.
And every person running or staggering or crawling had a blue skin that shone even through the fiery haze. And every time Kate got close to one of them, the woman would turn out to have the wrong face - too old, too young, with markings... For the first time since the attack had started, panic began to engulf her. She lost track of where she had been already, and kept coming back to the same places, finding the same people - the wrong people - again and again.
Then she tripped over something and sprawled in the dirt. Crawling, she turned to look. Relief swept her as she saw it wasn't Liara. The corpse wore a black beret. The face was somehow undimmed, exuberant. Then the blue eyes moved.
"I was young," he said.
"I'm sorry, Jenkins," she whispered. She closed his eyes and got back on her feet. "But I can't help you now. I can still help her."
As she turned away, he said, "I understand, Commander." The voice was different now. "I don't regret a thing."
Then the huge glowing white eyes, dozens of them, blazed out of the fog in front of her, bathing her in blinding light, and she knew it was over. She'd have unslung her rifle and emptied it into them - if she'd thought it would do any good. To her surprise, she felt no fear at all. There was only the crushing sadness that she would never see her love, her Liara, again. She held her hands out, filthy and bloody. "Please, just a little more time, just give me more time to - "
"Kate. Kate!" Liara shook her awake.
Kate groaned and closed her eyes again. The crisp blue bed sheet was wrapped about her naked body and soaked with sweat.
"It is all right. I am here." Liara was already sitting up, propped against a couple of pillows. The diffuse light of the Presidium's early day cast shadows of her on the wall. Her hand rested on Kate's bare shoulder and squeezed. "I am here."
A smile tugged at Kate's gently pouting mouth. "And I'm glad you are."
Liara's lips, a shade darker than the rest of her, and her eyes, a shade lighter, smiled back. It was a smile of innocent happiness that had been hidden away for too long, a smile without cynicism or world-weariness. Kate had seen a lot of it over the past few weeks, and she liked it more every time.
Kate blew a strand of reddish-brown hair out of one wide, almond-shaped blue eye. "I must look great." She was still a little self-conscious about the fact that she woke up with her hair either flat against her head or going every which way, and her skin seeming even fairer than usual, whereas Liara had the kind of fresh beauty that never needed makeup.
Liara's long, slim fingers reached out and combed through Kate's hair, down to the back of her neck, where it ended. Kate closed her eyes and smiled, her skin prickling with pleasure at the feel of Liara's fingernails. "You always do. But that is not why I care for you," Liara's voice said, and again, Kate knew there was no artifice in it. She relaxed into Liara's touch as if sinking into a warm bath.
"It was the dream again," Liara said.
Kate's eyes opened a little. "Yeah."
"I felt it." Liara said. "I can see why it comes today."
Her fingers were still running through Kate's hair and it took a moment for Kate to understand. "Wait...you felt it? Like we were melding?"
Liara's fingers froze. "Shepard. Have I done something wrong? I know humans consider it impolite to pry into their - "
Kate took Liara's face in her hands. "Li. My name is Kate. And you can pry any time you want. I'm just curious, that's all. I want to understand you. All about you."
Liara smiled again, though more hesitantly. Kate would never say so, but she found Liara's shyness more than a little endearing. Though Liara probably knew that already.
"And I, you." Liara said. Her eyes unfocused slightly, as they always did when she talked about herself. "When an Asari bonds with someone, we feel what they feel. Even when we are not melding. But the feeling is especially strong when they are dreaming. Often, we can see their dreams."
"So you saw..."
Liara nodded. "I, too, have seen your vision, the first times we melded. I have the dreams as well."
Kate let out a long breath. "A dream always loses something when you try to tell it to someone. And this..." Her lips pressed together. Despite what she'd just said, it felt good to put it into words. "Nightmare doesn't describe it. Fear I can deal with. That's part of my job. If I die, hopefully I do it so someone else gets to go on."
"Like your Lieutenant Alenko."
"Yes. And he goes on, too, in our memories. But this is the end of everything. No one left to remember."
They lay together in silence for a few minutes.
Kate went on, "It's selfish of me. Here you are, only a hundred and six, and - "
Now it was Liara who stopped her, with a finger over her lips. "Kate. You have been protecting me since we first met. From the Geth. From Saren. And now from the Reapers. Some of it, as you say, is your job. But..." Her eyes flicked away, then back to Kate's. "I want to protect you, too."
"You do. Anyone who's seen your biotics knows that."
"Not like that. I mean - "
Kate's hand closed over Liara's and their fingers interlaced. "I know, Li." She squeezed. "I know."
They were quiet for another few minutes. Then Kate said, "So you feel what I feel..."
"Yes."
Kate smiled slowly. "Humans have a word for that."
"Then see to it that we don't lose her."
"Easier said than done for someone who likes running right at trouble. We have operatives aboard the Normandy, of course, but there are limits to what they can do."
The boss rubbed his forehead. "Can we get the orders changed?"
"If they came from the Admiralty, yes. But these come straight from the Council - over Anderson's objections, of course. Obviously, we don't have anybody on the Council itself." She lifted a dark eyebrow at him. "Unless you know otherwise."
He swirled the drink in his glass as he considered. "The orders likely originated with the Turian. We know some things that might help bring him around. But I don't think this is the time."
"What about Shepard? Get her to leave the Alliance - or have them give her a hero's retirement - and then bring her in? It'll take more than a little pressure, but..."
She thought his ice-blue eyes glowed a bit brighter. "Her relationship with the Asari does present...possibilities."
"You've seen the vids?"
"For informational purposes only." His tone was mildly reproving. "There's a very strong bond between them. Shepard saved T'Soni from the Geth. She took her out of an arid academic life and into a world of discovery and danger, where her talents are no doubt being truly appreciated for the first time. That would have quite an effect on anyone, and T'Soni is young, for an Asari. And she's clearly smitten with Shepard. I'm told this is the first time she's bonded with anyone, human or otherwise, and the vids tend to support that."
He downed the remains of his drink and lit a cigar. If his subordinate felt like washing her hands after his dissection of Shepard's romantic life, she kept it to herself.
"However," he went on, "that might help us with T'Soni, but I doubt it will cut any ice with Shepard. The woman who left one of her best friends to die on Virmire isn't going to come work for us just because we put a gun to the Asari's head."
"So we leave Shepard where she is?"
He slowly exhaled a thick cloud of cigar smoke. "For now."
She began to pace, blind to the spectacular view outside. "There must be something else we can do."
His eyes narrowed to blue slits. "I know that tone of voice. Out with it."
She turned to face him. "I read the reports from Project Aquinas."
His expression didn't change. "You're not cleared for that. We'll discuss your liberal interpretation of security protocol later." He blew out more smoke. "For now, what about it?"
As she talked, she began pacing again. Occasionally she glanced at him. The burning end of his cigar and the faint twin glow of his eyes were all she could see, but she knew she was convincing him.