Author's Note: While trying to look up the navigator's first name, I realized I had been spelling it wrong. Don't I feel dumb now. Also, check out my new fic, Garrus versus Garrus, pitting our favorite vigilante against a master thief.
Shepard stepped into the CIC, nodding respectfully to Pressly. She'd passed the night shift watches on the stairs, and her XO's steaming coffee told her how long he'd been on the bridge. "How are we?"
"We're about half a light year from the relay, Commander," he said, switching the holo display left-handed while he sipped gingerly at his drink. "Should arrive in the next thirty minutes or so."
She nodded, taking in the local landscape, or more like the lack thereof. The relay itself was still cruising along at around 0.1% of lightspeed, courtesy of a nova several centuries back, so matching velocity with it just long enough to jump would be tricky. Then again, that's why she had the best pilot in the fleet. "Thanks, Pressly. I'm going down to the cargo bay to check on Tali and Liara." He nodded, already pulling up the morning ship reports, and she headed back down the stairs and the elevator.
Down below, she found what looked like someone had taken a geth orgy and then blown it up. Tali was standing in the tangle of wires, desperately trying to trace something out, while Liara and Garrus were arguing inside the Mako over how to make something fit properly. Wrex was watching everything with clear humor, and Ashley was desperately trying to ignore them while simultaneously keeping it all away from her weapons station. "What the hell?" Shepard asked loudly, disapproval clear in her voice.
Garrus pulled his head out of the Mako's door, followed quickly by Liara sticking hers out, flushing almost royal blue. Tali, already flustered, tried to turn around and only managed to succeed in sending herself crashing to the floor. "I know you guys need equipment to salvage the VI, but I didn't think you had to rewire the whole Mako to do so." She glanced around, arms crossed, and settled on Liara first. "Well?"
The archaeologist flushed deeper, started to stammer, and took hold of herself in a noticeable effort. "We have a back-up generator inside the Mako already. But we can't get it to fit right in the seats."
Next she turned to Garrus. "I was trying to help find alternate solutions, like strapping it to the outside, or removing some of the seats." The last made even Shepard wince, despite usually being the driver. "Some of us will have to stay behind to take this equipment down."
She nodded, and moved her gaze to Tali, who had at least untangled herself enough to stand up. "I'm trying to find the cables with the right connections. These things have been stored so tight for so long I can't separate them!" With this, she turned to look at the quartermaster's assistant, who started trembling.
"Find your boss, help Tali get the cables she needs onto the Mako, and then get the rest of this stowed. Now." The poor petty officer dashed into the elevator. "He's got five minutes!" She moved over to the cables. "Tell me what we need."
With the assistance of the quartermaster, arrived holding a piece of toast in his teeth, they quickly had the supplies loaded onto the Mako. Shepard slid inside herself just to judge the space, before climbing back out to face her squad. "Tali and Liara have to go, obviously. I've got room for two more, but no way are we fitting everyone in there."
"We can't all fit in there anyway," Wrex grumbled. "I'll stay behind."
Kaidan volunteered right away, and after a moment of staring at each other, Ash made a 'go ahead' gesture to Garrus. "Alright, everyone arm up and be ready to go in thirty. I'm going to check with Joker, then I'll be back down here." They all split up to grab their gear, and she went through the CIC up to the pilot chair. "Ready for this, Joker?"
"Sure, Commander. I mean, what pilot in the Alliance wouldn't want to jump through a missing rachni-controlled relay to a dead Prothean world where we may or may not end up attacked by the geth?" He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. "Uh, no offence, Ma'am."
She grinned, flicking his cap lightly. "None taken. Besides, I've got nothing to worry about, I've got the best pilot in the Alliance." She watched the mass relay swell through the window, and felt the tingle as it reached out to grab her ship and fling them hundreds of light years in an instant, arriving in a system that hadn't seen intelligent life in at least two thousand years. "Sensors, do we detect any geth in system?" she called down the neck of the ship.
It took several seconds before a negative reply came back, and she heard Pressly's footsteps come up behind her. "There's several good landing fields," he started, before she pulled up the coordinates of the door they'd entered through before. "Commander, there's no landing zones within a couple klicks of here," he protested.
"I know, we're going to land here," she highlighted the landing zone, barely larger than the Mako itself. "I've got the best pilot. He can do this."
Joker glanced at the data, and nodded grimly. "I can do that," he said. "You might want to go get ready, Commander. Leave the flyboy antics to me."
Fifteen minutes later, she was crowded in the Mako, more than usual. Garrus was pressed up against the back of her seat, Liara and Tali were somehow sharing the gunner's position in the turret, and Kaidan was sitting on top of the cables. True to form, Joker's delivery of the Mako was flawless, and far less bouncing than she remembered, probably because they weren't under fire from the geth this time.
"Pressly, do you read?" she sent over the radio as she started driving down the tunnel.
"Comms are good, Shepard," he said back. "Need something?"
"I want to know where the Council moved the other end of the Conduit, just in case. I don't want us to be stuck down here after we power up Vigil." The tunnel seemed disappointingly empty with no geth to stand in her way.
"I'll find out immediately. Pressly out," and the radio turned off. The rest of the drive was rather disappointing, reminding Shepard of a bad commute rather than a desperate fight for survival. Huh, never thought I'd miss Saren, she thought briefly.
They reached the long hallway where the energy field had sprung up to bar her passage, only this time nothing happened. She was pretty sure the opening in the wall had been right about there. On a hunch, she activated the external speakers. "Vigil, Prothean VI, my name is Commander Shepard. I'm here to restore power for you." Kaidan glanced at her doubtfully, and she could tell Garrus was flexing his mandibles in the bad kind of nervousness. A moment later, a doorway opened in the wall. I was only off by four meters, she grumbled mentally. "Everybody out," she declared.
It took several minutes to get the cables and generator out of the Mako, though carrying them to the hidden elevator was fairly easy with three biotics. The elevator reminded her of the aggravatingly slow ones on the Citadel, and they stepped out onto the walkway facing the intact beacon and its VI. Vigil slowly coalesced in the air before it. "How did you know my identity and location?" it asked.
"I've encountered a beacon before," Shepard said. "We have a generator, cables, and we want to improve your power supply enough to move you to a secure location. Reaper-indoctrinated servants will come to this planet soon."
It considered this information, fuzzy parts of the damaged hologram spinning and sliding. "In that case, the Conduit must be deactivated. With it they can reach the Citadel."
"The other end has already been removed. They might go through, but they will not be arriving on the Citadel," she countered. "Where should we attach the power cables?"
It directed Tali and Liara where to hook up the power supply, and they started the generator running its quiet hum. As Liara started to question it about the Protheans, Shepard's omni-tool tried to push through a communication, broadcasting only garbled static. "That must be Pressly," Kaidan reasoned. "We should head back up, Commander."
She hesitated for only a moment, but called everyone to her side, jogging for the elevator. Liara was the last, obviously unwilling to abandon this trove of knowledge, sprinting to catch up. At the top, Shepard tried contacting the Normandy again as they piled into the Mako. "Shepard, geth have arrived in force! Nazara is with them!"
She gunned the motor, glancing aside to see the doorway had already vanished. I hope Vigil can stay hidden, or it's screwed. "Understood! Where is the other end of the Conduit?" The reply came back right as the Mako jounced heavily over one of the giant tree roots. "Anyone else catch that?"
"Sounded like he said Thessia," Garrus hazarded, clinging to the handholds in the gunner's station.
"Let's hope it's somewhere friendly. Just in case, helmets on for everyone!" She raced the Mako right off the cliff, splashing through the water and spraying a large wake behind them. "For all I know it's in orbit of Thessia." She slowed down at the top of the hill facing it, open to the sky, seeing Nazara swooping in above it. "Hang on and get ready for combat, everyone!"
They shot down the hill, the machine gun chattering away as Garrus took out one geth drop pod after another. Still far too many of them were reaching the ground, and she did not like their chances. Two geth preparing rocket launchers were ground under the wheels, and she goosed the thrusters to pop over an energy blast from an armature. "Tali, do you think you can activate that thing with your omni-tool?"
"Probably," the quarian replied, already flicking the hologram with her wrist. "How much does the Mako mass?"
"Not the Mako, just us!" She had to stop talking for a moment as they reached the bottom, slewing around the armature for Garrus to blow the head apart with the cannon. "We stop right in front of us, set it to self-destruct, and zip out before the timer's up."
"I wish you'd communicated this plan earlier," Garrus complained, pausing to blow another armature to falling pieces before it could land. "I could have stocked up on explosives."
"Commander, are you sure about this plan?" Kaidan asked grimly.
She jinked the Mako in a tight curve right around the Conduit, trusting the geth would hold back any shots that might damage it. "Would you rather stay here?" she pointed out crossly. "Tali!"
"Give me fifteen seconds!" she cried, fingers twitching through commands madly.
"They just dropped a geth colossus! You've got five!"
"Done!" The massive geth platform was right next to the Conduit, so Shepard slid the vehicle around in a tight slide that left the alien relay perfectly between them. "Self destruct set for ten seconds. Abandon tank!"
They piled out, weapons and biotics firing rapidly to keep the smaller platforms off of them as the Mako's VI took over blasting drop pods out of the sky. "Here goes," Tali said uncertainly. "Keelah Se'lai," she muttered, activating it. What normally felt like a barely perceptible tingle from inside the Normandy turned into the jarring harsh pain normally experienced from sticking metal objects into power outlets, and they all vanished in a tiny beam of light. Three seconds later, the Alliance tank exploded, decimating the geth already on the surface. More importantly, it cracked the ring on the relay. The resulting explosion from that was focused, thanks to the bowl-shaped depression, exterminating all the landed geth, all the drop pods, and reaching high enough to lap at Nazara's shields.
They all came tumbling out in a harsh, industrial room of some kind. It took Shepard several seconds before she could get her head to stop spinning enough to even think about sitting up. Before she could actually do so, however, she found herself looking at the barrel of a pistol, held by someone familiar. "Mordin? That you?" she asked carefully around a bitten tongue.
"Have heard of me? Worrying. Identify yourself." He showed no sign of lowering the pistol, and she had a fleeting moment's pity for Maelon.
"Commander Shepard, Spectre." Keeping her hands away from her weapons, she slowly sat up and removed her helmet. "I'm guessing this isn't Thessia."
A small smile graced his face, though the pistol didn't waver a millimeter. "Correct. Orbital station above Sur'Kesh. Evidence suggests you found the Conduit."
"You could say that," Kaidan muttered from behind her.
"Doctor Solus, we probably all need medical care after that. Nazara and its pet geth were literally right behind us. I set my Mako to self-destruct, but unless that relay is more fragile than I thought, all I did was slow them down." She put a hand to her temple, still dizzy as well as feeling the throb of a headache coming on. "Please?"
He hesitated for a moment, then holstered his pistol, snapping out orders to the other STG personnel. They had escaped mostly unscathed – Tali had a broken wrist, but no suit punctures, but otherwise they were merely battered and bruised.
It took the better part of two hours before she was able to corner Mordin again, out of earshot of everyone. "Mordin, can we talk for a moment?" The salarian looked up from his omni-tool, nodding. "I would like you to join my team, come work with me."
"Against the Reapers. Have seen evidence, data scans. Already sent automatic VI probes to Reaper corpse." He smiled that same confident smile. "Not retired yet. Still work to do."
She nodded, remembering watching the Shroud building on Tuchanka, burning with him still inside it, fighting to give hope back to the krogan people. "I need you on my team."
Aggravatingly, he shook his head. "Not looking to be Spectre. Looking to retire. Somewhere quiet. Omega, maybe."
She tried pulling out another piece of knowledge of him. "It has to be you. Someone else might get it wrong." He stilled at the words for a moment, large eyes searching her features for clues. "I need you to reverse the genophage. Maelon can't do it without killing as many krogan as he saves."
He frowned, obviously upset at her knowledge. "Improved genophage right decision. New krogan rebellion, otherwise."
"What about the Reapers?" she asked. Again he stilled for a moment. "That's a variable you hadn't considered. Couldn't consider, really, since the only one who knew about it – Saren – purposefully hid it from the Council."
Reluctantly, he shook his head. "Changes nothing. Krogan society unchanged. Battle prowess useful, perhaps, but ultimately still destructive to galactic society."
"Are you willing to come aboard the Normandy long enough to give me a chance to change your mind?" She watched him think it over. "Don't bring any of your data if you don't trust me."
"Want to trust you. Consequences too great to do so." He stared at her for a few more seconds, and slowly nodded. "Will travel with you for now. Make own evaluation." She tried not to break into a giant grin at that, and held out her hand, which he shook gravely. "No geth have arrived. Indicates destruction of other relay pair. Disappointing. Would have like to perform further study."
"Sorry, Mordin. I'll try not to destroy any more Prothean technology if I can avoid it." Rising to her feet from the clinic bed, she walked slowly out to rejoin the rest of her squad. Just because she could, as she walked out, she started humming a Gilbert and Sullivan song.
Behind her, it took several moments before Mordin started singing the same song under his breath. "Am the very model of … drat. Song stuck in head all day now."
Two hours after their surprise arrival in orbit above Sur'Kesh, the Normandy arrived. On board, she sat in the briefing room while Pressly showed her all the other sensor scans they had taken from Nazara as they fled, cloaked, back to the relay and out of the system. "Fortunately, you can get back from Ilos through the relay network without having to detour all the way out to Mu," he said. "I recognized a couple of the relay signatures."
"Good work, Pressly. Write up a commendation for yourself." She took another sip of lukewarm coffee. "Is Mordin settled in? Getting along alright with Chakwas?"
His lips thinned slightly in disapproval. "He's settled in. Liara's practically been chased out of the back room because of his experiment setups, though."
"He's good people, Charles," she admonished him. "They all are. Besides, you've seen these Reapers up close three times now. You really want humanity squaring off against them alone?"
He shuddered at that thought. "No way, ma'am. I wouldn't even wish that on the batarians." He fell silent for a moment. "Well, maybe the batarians." She chuckled lightly. "It just, it feels odd, walking around a human ship and bumping into aliens all the time."
"I recall my military history course at Arcturus Academy had similar quotes every time some minority group was integrated – biotics, gays, blacks, women – and yet, for all of it, we're stronger than ever." She grinned as he reluctantly nodded. "The more friends we can make among other races, the better we look, and the easier our job gets from having fewer enemies to look after."
"I suppose you're right, Shepard," he conceded. "Night shift already took over, so I'm going to get some shut-eye." Picking up his notepad, he left the room a few steps in front of her.
She went down the stairs slightly more leisurely than he, glancing in the windows of the med bay. Chakwas and Mordin were in the middle of a lively looking discussion, with many wild gestures and posturing that spoke of a friendly debate rather than an argument. Liara sat to one side, almost as though refereeing the verbal combat. She waved, and Shepard waved back, moving to her cabin.
She had almost made it when Mordin came out of the med bay. "Shepard! Would appreciate opportunity to talk. About subject raised on station." She paused briefly to glance at the time display on her omni-tool. 2137? I thought it was later than that.
"Sure, Mordin, as long as it's brief. We flabby humans need more sleep than you." She led the way, dropping into one of the chairs, the salarian swiftly sitting across from her. "The genophage that you did, adjusting for the slowly increasing rate of surviving children among the krogan. You want to know how I know about it."
"Yes." She waited a moment for more, quickly realizing he was being even more stingy with vocalization than she remembered.
"You're going to say it's impossible," she warned him, but he simply raised an eyebrow. "I watched you do it, running into the Shroud building on Tuchanka with a cure, started by Maelon but finished by you, deploying the cure even as the Reapers in orbit managed to blow up the operation room at the top with you inside."
He frowned. "Precognition widely disproven. Time travel impossible with known laws of physics. Alternate dimension possible, no evidence to support." He stared at her. "Which one?"
Damn, that was fast, she thought. "From my perspective, time travel. Four years into the past, only my consciousness and my memories."
He considered it for several minutes, occasionally mumbling to himself in salarian and looking up something on his omni-tool. "Still impossible," he finally declared. "Yet, actions recently indicate clear knowledge of future events. Knowledge of myself clear indication." He suddenly smiled that wide, happy grin. "Puzzling."
She nodded, stifling a yawn behind her hand. "There are two krogan that future-you believed capable of changing krogan culture enough to fit in with modern galactic society. One of them, Urdnot Wrex, is on board. I'd like you to talk with him tomorrow, and make up your own mind."
He nodded. "Of course. Still, genophage cure likely to cause significant upheaval in krogan society. Wrex on board, not placed for leadership."
"Before, you sent out an instant cure. But I've actually had a little time to think about it over the last few days." She pulled up the codex entry on krogans. "The problem with the genophage is that it leaves them with mounds of dead children and sterile adults. Is there a way to change it, to simply lower fertility without causing hundreds of stillborns or outright sterility?"
He tapped a finger on his chin, considering it. "Unless greater resources available, beyond my current abilities. But will consider, request input from friends in STG." His smile returned. "Ultimate challenge. My name in science history of Sur'Kesh. Also Tuchanka."
"Just think of all the little krogan children named after you," she dead-panned, enjoying the look of horror on his face at the thought. "See you tomorrow, Mordin, I need to sleep."
"Of course, Shepard. Will be in med bay if you need me." He strolled out, pausing in the doorway. "Additional piece of evidence: Gilbert and Sullivan."
She grinned, rising in a stretch. "I am the very model of a scientist salarian," she sang at him, and signaled the door closed.