We slowly but surely made our way through the ruins, down, down, all the time down. My eyes kept stealing looks at my grey turian team member as we pressed on, took defensive positions, fired down the attacking Geth and moved on again. I tried to keep focus on the mission, I really did. But now when the thought had found root in my mind it kept discovering new things it liked about him. The way his hips shifted slightly just before he took a shoot, how his shoulders moved when he raised his rifle. I wanted to see it without all that armor on. See his muscles stretch and contract as they took the blow of the recoiling gun. The thought of his naked skin cradling his Equalizer in strong taut arms made a shiver run down my spine. Spirits, did I have some weird kinks.
Yes, very professional, Nihlus, I thought as we made our way through another corridor. Shepard took point and I made myself deliberately bring up the rear. This is the perfect opportunity to check him out. Not like you have anything better to focus on. But I couldn't help myself as my eyes drifted downwards over his body, noticing how the light armor stretched over his buttocks when he jogged ahead.
A chorus of surprised curses met me as I sidled into a room, making sure we weren't followed and closed the door behind us.
"Keelah, what is that?" Zhora's voice sparked through her suit speakers.
"We're gonna need bigger guns..." Shepard muttered.
When I turned around I had to agree with her. What I assumed couldn't be anything less than the Thorian started to convulse and spasms rolled through it. The large pod like entity dripping slime from hidden pockets and crevices.
"It's moving," Vakarian commented and the deep dislike in his voice vibrated through me.
The creature let out one last violent spasm and spat out a sickly green asari. I had been through a lot of things during my years as a Spectre. But this took the price on the creepy scale. I couldn't other than stare when the asari slowly raised her head and straightened her back.
"Invaders! Your every step is a transgression. A thousand feelers appraise you as meat, good only to dig or decompose," she said, the vehemence clear in her voice. "I speak for the Old Growth, as I did for Saren. You are within and before the Thorian. It commands that you be in awe!"
I wasn't sure 'awe' was the word I would use to describe it exactly, but some kind of respect I could definitely admit. It was thousands upon thousands of years old according to the data we had gathered so far. It had perhaps even been on this planet long before the Protheans. I had this need to preserve the creature. If it indeed was the only entity left of it's species we didn't have the right to simply wipe it out. In the end it didn't give us any choice however. It seemed hellbent on destroying any who would oppose it.
The battle that followed was chaotic to say the least. Steep stairways and long corridors without any cover wasn't the best defensive position imaginable. It started out with the asari lighting up in blue biotic fire and before any of us had a chance to react my feet left the ground. I felt the air leave my lungs when my back hit the wall further down the room. The sound of my armor scraping the stone filled my ears and I caught myself on hands and knees as I slid down, gasping for air. My lungs burned but I didn't waste any time getting to my feet. Just as I reached for my assault rifle I heard Shepard cry out.
"Holy..." her voice cut short by a disgusting gurgle. "He just puked on me!" He? What?
I turned around, scanning the battlefield. Several human shaped creatures was advancing on our location. They had the same green hue as the asari, looking more like organic husks than anything else. When miss Zhora's shotgun blast one of its head off it dissolved into fine compost.
I threw myself into the fight and hurriedly made my way over to my charge. Her armor was sizzling from the acidic fluids sprayed over her and I could smell melting plastics in the air. Covering her while she went over her armor, a low string of curses slipping past her lips, I tried keeping the organic husks at a distance.
"You okay Shepard?" I asked and tried to keep my voice from showing the concern I was feeling. We hadn't reached that part of our mentor-student relationship yet that allowed the showing of emotion. It didn't mean I didn't care. I believed she could make a great Spectre one day if she only learned some self-preservation. Apart from that she was a great woman already. A hero to her people despite her young age.
"Yeah," she answered. "Most of it didn't make it through my armor. But Chakwas is going to have a field day scolding me for my burns."
There was pain in her voice, but also humor, so it couldn't be that bad. Shepard could take it in any case. She had been through worse before.
I let an easy chuckle escape to ease up the situation. Who knew what that acid could do if it made it inside her body. No, couldn't think of that now. I just had to keep an eye on her in case she started to show any bad symptoms.
"Don't let them get close," I ordered the squad. "The... goo... will penetrate your shields and armor if you're not careful."
"Not a problem," came Vakarian's voice over the intercom.
"Easy for you to say," Zhora grumbled and I heard the blast of her shotgun nearby.
Shepard and I took together down the asari as the others covered our backs. Then the quarian's voice was heard again.
"Over here, Spectre! Definitely something different in this area."
When we reached the others through the crowd of plant people one of the Thorian's tentacles seemed to go into and through the wall. I hesitated. I didn't want to kill the ageless creature, but what choice did we really have at this point? Not to mention the people up above who counted on us to free them of it's grasp. A heavy sigh rolled out from my lungs. Yeah, we didn't have a choice. I took aim and started spraying the tentacle with bullets.
An unnatural scream forced its way from the big creature in the middle of the room and its creepers seemed to grow even more agitated.
"We've stung it, I'm sure of that. We need to find more of these... things," Vakarian yelled over the sound of gunfire and grunting husks.
We did find more of them, and a lot more of creepers too. If that wasn't bad enough the Thorian kept spewing out that damn asari over and over again.
"I'm not sure I will ever look at an asari quite the same way again," Vakarian muttered as me and him met up on a chance in one of the walkways that lined the walls. We had just killed the third asari clone. The grey turian had eventually been forced to holster his beloved sniper rifle and pick up a pistol. Back to back we stood as the green husks crept closer. "Not after seeing one get spewed out of that thing."
I chuckled. The adrenalin of the fight made all my nerve endings tingle and I felt alive for the first time since Saren had betrayed me on Eden Prime. This, well not only this, but a big part of it, was why I loved my job.
"I'm sure we can find you some alternatives," I yelled back at him, the suggestive tone easily discernible in my voice.
"Incoming throw!" Shepard's voice yelled over the communicator. On one side of the tight corridor the creepers was pulled along as if a strong wind had gripped them. I could feel the edge of the biotic force when it passed us.
"Cutting it a little close, don't you think?" I quipped to her as the four of us took advantage of the newly made space and started to advance.
She huffed.
"Stop complaining and start using that peashooter of yours!" she laughed her shotgun making a big hole in a dark green stomach. Not that I knew what a peashooter was, but I suspected it was something akin to an insult. But I let it slide when I saw the almost euphoric look in her eyes. I knew I had made a good choice to pick her as my protege. She was just as crazy as I was. Hope for a few good years together started to flame in my chest. If we managed to stop my former mentor and friend that was. Spirits, what a situation events had put us in.
A few tentacles and about thousand creepers later the Thorian took its last breath. Or whatever it was a creature as such did. We had only sustained minimal damages thanks to the competence of the team and the mindlessness of the organic enemies. There had been a heart freezing episode were Zhora's shields went down. A shield going down for me or Shepard meant a buckled armor plate or in worst case scenario a flesh wound. For a quarian in light armor it meant a nasty infection or in this case, given what we were up against, death, their immune system being what it was. But as the brave soldier she was, my human charge had put upon any close enemy the wrath of a vanguard. When I and Vakarian caught up to them Zhora had gotten the time to raise her shields once again.
A sound was heard deeper into the corridor. One of the pods that littered the walls around us heaved and out fell the same asari we had killed over and over again during our hard earned trip up here. This time however her skin was a natural hue of lilac blue and that insane look her clones had was missing in her eyes.
"I'm free! I..." she said and looked down on her own body incredulously. "I suppose I should tank you for releasing me." She smiled towards us.
"Is everything all right?" I asked as we approached. "Are you hurt?"
"I am fine, or will be, in time," she answered. Yes, time. I couldn't even start to comprehend what she had been through, being locked up in that pod and somehow connected with the big plant creature. "My name is Shiala. I serve... I served Matriarch Benezia. When she allied herself with Saren, so did I. Benezia foresaw the influence Saren would have. She joined him to guide him down a gentler path. But Saren is compelling, Benezia lost her way."
The euphoria of the fight took a sharp turn and my stomach twisted inside me. Saren... so he had been here.
"Are you saying Saren can control minds?" Shepard asked. I caught the sidelong look she shot me just as she turned her eyes towards Shiala. Was I really that obvious? I was thankful for her picking up the conversation in any case.
"Benezia underestimated Saren. As I did," the purple asari answered. "We came to believe in his cause and his goals. The strength of his influence is troubling."
"She tried to manipulate Saren. But in the end, her plan backfired," miss Zhora clarified.
This didn't make any sense. As such I guess it fit with the rest of what was going on. There was no such thing as mind control. If you didn't count the Thorian and Saren didn't seem to have the power to make it do anything, especially not anymore. Had he found some other way to make people follow him? He had always been a great man and had never had trouble making people do as he pleased in the past. Even though he had a reputation for being merciless he had always had an aura of power around him. People tended to be drawn towards it and he knew how to take advantage of that. But in this case, his goals were simply insane. Bringing in the Reapers into the galaxy, jeopardizing millions upon millions of lives. Beside, I had met Matriarch Benezia on several occasions. She was an old friend of Saren's and one of the most powerful women I knew. She didn't seem like the type of person to be swayed easily.
"Asari Matriarchs are among the most intelligent and powerful beings in the galaxy," I objected. "How could one fall under Saren's control?"
"Saren has a vessel. An enormous warship unlike anything I've ever seen. He calls it Sovereign. It can dominate the minds of his followers. They become indoctrinated to Saren's will. The progress is subtle. It can take days, weeks. But in the end, it is absolute. I was a willing slave when Saren brought me to this world. He needed my biotics to communicate with the Thorian, to learn it secrets. Saren offered me in trade. I was sacrificed to secure an alliance between Saren and the Thorian."
This didn't surprise me in the least. My old mentor had always had a 'for the greater good' philosophy. I didn't doubt he would sacrifice anyone, even myself, if he thought the situation warranted it. I was the same, a trait I had picked up from him during my year in training. Even though I was perhaps not as careless as to not count the costs first. I did sometimes go out of my way to keep the civilians safe and only made them the price for galactic safety if there was no other options.
Then there were the ship, Sovereign. Was Saren immune to the influence of it, was he controlling it somehow, or was he infected as well? I wanted to believe that, that my friend didn't act on his own volition. In that case there were hope for him to return to his normal self. Somehow... Saren's newly acquired implants flew past in my mind. It seemed as though every time I had run into him in the past there were a new one. How long had that been going on? My mind reeled.
"Saren's pretty quick to betray his own people," Shepard muttered beside me before I had a chance to really go into depths of that question. Maybe just as well. I was pretty sure I wouldn't like what I found there. I could feel the disapproval ooze off her. A grumble to my left, a quick look, Vakarian had the same look on his face.
They didn't understand. Not yet. The responsibilities of a Spectre were great ones and I hoped I could make at least Shepard see that one day.
"He was quick to betray the Thorian, too," Shiala countered. "After Saren had what he needed, the Thorian became a liability. Saren knows you are searching for the Conduit. He knows you are following his steps. He attacked the Thorian so you could not gain the Cipher."
"What's the Cipher? And why did Saren need it?" I asked, trying to concentrate on what was important here.
"The beacon on Eden Prime gave Commander Shepard visions. But the visions are unclear, confusing. They were meant for a Prothean mind. To truly comprehend them, you must think like a Prothean. You must understand their culture, their history, their very existence. The Thorian was here long before the Protheans build this city. It watched and studied them. When they died it consumed them. They became part of it."
"So the Thorian taught Saren to think like a Prothean? How?" Shepard asked, her eyes lit up with hope. She'd had a hard time after Eden Prime. Headaches and nightmares. She wouldn't tell me, but I could see the signs. The shadows beneath her eyes, the late night strolls to the mess. How she rubbed her temples when she thought no one was looking. A chance to understand what had been put in her head must be a dream for her.
"The Chiper is the very essence of being a Prothean. It cannot be described or explained. It would be like describing color to a creature without eyes. To understand, you must have access to endemic ancestral memory. A viewpoint spanning thousands of Prothean generations. I sensed this ancestral memory, the Cipher, when I melded with the Thorian. Our identities merged, our minds intertwined. Such knowledge cannot be taught; it simply exists."
"You taught Sare. You can teach me," the human objected.
We all watched as Shiala's eyes opened to a blank black when she let her mind meld with Shepard. Beside me Vakarian shifted uncomfortably and Zhora kept jumping from one foot the other, her fingers interlocking, releasing and interlocking again. I had been through my fair share of mind melds, but I doubted they were anything like this.
With a start the asari let go of Shepard, taking a step back, her eyes returning to normal. I caught the human woman just as her legs gave out on her.
"I'm fine," she grumbled when I pulled one of her arms around my shoulders but she didn't pull away. I knew from experience the meld could be exhausting if you weren't used to it.
"I have given you the Cipher, just as it was given to Saren. The ancestral memories of the Protheans are a part of you now."
"What was that? Shepard, are you all right?" Zhora put a concerned hand on her other arm, peering through her helmet.
"I saw... something. It still didn't make any sense." She sounded tired and perhaps a bit despairing.
"You have been given a great gift: the experience of an entire people. It will take time for your mind to process this information," Shiala explained.
"We should get you back to the ship, Commander," Vakarian cut in. The concern also apparent on his face. "Medical needs to know about this." It was quite amazing how this human had won the trust and respect of her alien squad members already. But that was Shepard. It was hard not to like her, even tough she could drive you crazy at times.
"I am sorry if you have suffered, but there was no other way. You needed the Cipher. In time, it will help you understand the vision of the beacon." The asari did sound regretful.
"Now that you are free of the Thorian, what do you plan to do next?" I asked.
"If you allow it, I would like to stay here with the colonists. They have suffered greatly, and I played a role in their suffering. I would like to make amends."
It couldn't be better if I had suggested it myself. They needed someone who understood what they had been through.
"The colonists will need all the help they can get," I said. "They'll be happy to have you on their side." If they were back to their own selves that was.
"Thank you. May fortune smile upon you."