Chapter Seven
The Galactic Zoo
2183 CE
SSV Normandy
Death is supposed to be a marine's constant companion. With every drop. Each time boots strike the soil of yet another planet. Hovering just over a hard-plated shoulder. Every hostile engagement. Any fire fight could be the last. After all, it's what keeps a marine sharp and provides that killer instinct.
Prior to the geth attack on Eden Prime, Ashley Williams believed that her most likely cause of death would be boredom. Not that she had any real desire to die, she just wanted to experience the possibility that it might happen. The gut-churning fear of live combat. The knowledge that she was actually carrying out the job she had been trained for. Instead her life stretched out in front of her, nothing but an endless stint of garrison duty. Her career tainted by events that had unfolded before she had even been born.
It's less than two months later and the tedium of garrison life seems like a distant memory. Ash is caught in the vortex that surrounds Shepard, being dragged towards the confrontation that will either save the Galaxy or doom it. The only certainly that Ash has, regardless of the outcome, is that she's not going to come out the other side. She already feels as though she's living on borrowed time. Her death should have come on Virmire. Instead Shepard chose to save her over Alenko. What makes it even worse is that Shepard can't even give her a straight answer as to why. Kaidan had been the better marine, the better person.
The Normandy is in transit to their final destination. The crew are supposed to be resting, preparing themselves. Ash sent her messages to her mother and sisters over an hour earlier. Since then she's been hunched over the weapons bench, intent on cleaning her already spotless Kovalyov.
"Williams, what the fuck are you doing?"
The sudden question startles Ash to the point where the rifle slips in her hands. Even though her reactions are fast enough to recover, her cheeks burn with embarrassment. Ash doesn't want to turn and look at Shepard. Things are still tense between the two of them after Virmire. Mostly Ash is confused. She used to think Shepard was an open book – a soldier like her, focused only on the mission at hand. Instead she's starting to realise that Shepard is an enigma.
"Mission prep, ma'am." Ash keeps her voice tight. "Making sure everything's ship shape for the drop."
"Except that we're not dropping for another twelve hours. Haven't you got somewhere else to be?"
Ash doesn't like where this conversation is going. "Are you telling me to hit my rack?"
"Not exactly."
Ash's focus narrows to the rifle in her hands, scrubbing as though her life depends on it. She knows Shepard isn't going to leave it at that. The woman is persistent.
A few moments later Shepard makes her move. The Commander steps forward to take the weight of the Kovalyov, deftly prising it from Ash's hands. Without the rifle as her shield, Ash is forced to look up and meet Shepard's gaze. She does so reluctantly, unsure of what she will find.
Nothing mysterious. Shepard simply looks tired and drawn, even more so than everyone else. Ash can't comprehend the task that sits on the Commander's shoulders. Despite everything – the nightmarish visions, holding together a disparate crew, defying the Council – Shepard is remarkably composed. Ash wishes she could be half the marine that Shepard is.
"Skipper, about Virmire-"
"Ash." Green eyes harden for a moment. "What's done is done. I made the choice." The rest goes unspoken. I have to live with it. Not you. Shepard's face softens. "You can't tell me that standing here cleaning this rifle is what you want to be doing right now. I can already see my reflection in it for fuck's sake."
Realisation doesn't need to happen. Ash knows exactly what...or whom, she is avoiding. Apparently Shepard knows too. Her stomach twists into a knot of anticipation - part pleasure, part pain. Mostly she's embarrassed that she hasn't been able to keep her personal feelings under control.
Ash squares her shoulders. "I'm sorry. I can assure you it's not going to affect my performance-"
"It is going to affect your performance if you don't do something about it," Shepard interrupts in a firm voice. "So why aren't you?"
"Is that an order?"
"No, Ash, it's not an order." Shepard's voice carries a hint of exasperation. "In this moment, I'm not your CO. I'm your friend. And I'm telling you that it's okay to be in love. Even at a time like this…especially at a time like this."
The dam breaks. The interminable confusion and anguish that Ash has been struggling to suppress now come to the fore. All the moments of stunted, awkward interaction. Brief touches, the memories of which Ash has savoured over and over. A shiver courses down her spine. The mere possibility that she might be able to act on her desires terrifies her.
When her bottom lip starts quivering, Ash has to turn away from Shepard. Moments later, she feels a firm hand on her shoulder turning her back around.
"Go to her without any expectations. Just be honest. And…" Shepard cracks a small smile. "And that's it. I'll shut up about it and leave you alone, because I've probably embarrassed you and myself in the process."
Shepard lets her hand fall. Moments later, she walks away. There's a lump stuck in Ash's throat, preventing her from even saying thank you.
Ash feels as though some other entity has taken over her body as she makes her way to the medbay. Mercifully, Chakwas isn't there and Ash is free to knock on the door to the store room without answering awkward questions first.
It isn't until the door opens that Ash realises she hasn't thought of anything remotely intelligent to say.
"Chief Williams-"
It might be Ash's imagination, but Liara's voice sounds breathy, nervous. Her legs feel like jelly as she studies Liara's face, finally unafraid to drink in every detail without reservation.
"Ashley…or Ash….please." The correction is the extent of Ash's conversation. There are half a dozen things she wants to say, but none seem to be quite right.
Thankfully Liara breaks the silence before it extends into discomfort.
"I was hoping…but I did not think that you would actually come…" The asari pauses, her vibrant gaze fixes on Ash as she struggles to express herself. A moment later her eyes dart to her feet. "I-I am sorry, Chief…Ashley, I should not make presumptions as to why you are here."
Ash brings her hand up. She's trembling as she presses a finger below Liara's chin and applies gentle upwards pressure. After all this time of tiptoeing around one another it's the most intimate contact they've shared, or at least it is until Ash dips her head and presses her lips to Liara's. The kiss is brief and tentative, but it offers up the promise of so much more to come. When they part, they're both grinning like idiots.
The grin and the purple flush to Liara's cheeks emboldens Ash. She steps forward into Liara's space, wrapping an arm around the small of her back. Liara makes no protest when Ash draws her close. "Presume whatever you want, Liara….as long as it leads to us spending the next twelve hours together."
2208 CE
The Zephyr Coast, Thessia
After over two decades of living on Thessia, Ash still had difficulty reconciling herself with the fact that the planet was her home. It had always felt foreign in a way that Sirona, or even Earth, never had. Part of this was because of Thessia's perfect fusion of natural and artificial beauty. It was all too perfect, in a way that human worlds never were. Ash should have felt at peace, instead she felt like an outsider.
Her boots crunched on the soft purple glass as she made her way through the estate's painstakingly landscaped gardens – purposefully ignoring the path just a few feet to her left. Often as Ash walked, she wished that someone would allow a bush or a tree to simply grow as opposed to cultivating it into unnatural symmetry.
Behind her, the house nestled into its surrounds as though it too had been grown there several millennia ago.
The garden sloped downwards towards the sea, offering a spectacular view of the Zephyr Coast. Today it did not live up to its name. The breeze was barely there, carrying only a hint of salt and the nearby sounds of children's voices. It was warm, too warm for the clothes Ash had chosen that morning, but she'd been anxious to hide the mottled bruising that covered her arms and legs.
Ash heard the familiar sounds of an argument. It was an all too common an occurrence. While only Theda possessed a fiery temper, Alice was resolute and rarely backed down when she thought she was right – which was most of the time. It was a lethal combination. Both children stood over a petalida set – a traditional asari game designed to teach hand-eye coordination before the development of biotic abilities. One of their tutors was patiently trying to settle the dispute as Ash drew nearer. Two more were hovering nearby. Ash still couldn't understand why there were more tutors than children.
"Dad!"
As soon as Theda's shout went up, the argument was forgotten. Ash couldn't help but grin as both girls ran towards her, Alice's longer legs carrying her faster than her sister. She knelt to receive them. Despite bracing herself, Ash winced as Alice slammed into her for a fierce hug. It was repeated a few moments later with Theda, but Ash stubbornly ignored the pain of small bodies pressing against her bruised limbs. She swept both kids off the ground, whirling them about before another sharper stab of pain reminded her that lifting weights was currently off the agenda.
"Hey, rascals!" It wasn't difficult for Ash to inject the necessary enthusiasm into her voice.
She set Alice and Theda down and was immediately bombarded with a barrage of questions and comments from both kids. Meanwhile the three asari were looking at Ash as some sort of interloper who was rendering their services redundant.
Ash looked up at the tutors with a grin on her face. It wasn't returned. "I'll take over from here."
After a few moments the trio had still made no attempt to move away, as though wondering how one human could possibly look after two asari children.
"Seriously. Thanks," Ash said with an air of finality. Anyone would think they aren't my kids.
They moved away without a further word. Ash didn't bother to watch them go. She turned her attention back to Alice and Theda. Her youngest was still clinging to her leg, while Alice was tugging her towards the petalida set. It was exactly the kind of dilemma she wanting to be in the midst of...as opposed to the life-threatening, catastrophic kind.
"Please play a round with us!"
"Don't wanna play," Theda protested. "Alice cheats."
"Do not!" Alice replied in an indignant voice. She stopped tugging on Ash's hand. Instead she propped her hands on her hips as she glared down at Theda. "You weren't doing it properly. I was trying to show you the right way to do it."
"You're too mean!"
"Hey." Ash hunkered down onto her knees, drawing both kids in close. Theda had a fierce glare fixed on her face. In response, Alice rolled her eyes and looked thoroughly bored with proceedings. "T, listen up, Alice is your big sister. It's her job to teach you how to do stuff. Alice, you need to show some patience. What I don't want to hear is the two of you arguing. You're sisters, not a pair of squabbling pyjaks."
Theda giggled while Alice nodded sagely. Moments later Ash wrapped an arm around each of their small shoulders, squeezing as hard as she dared, to remind herself that everything was just as real as it felt. Though the resulting pain was still very much present, the hours she'd spent on Aite seemed like a distant memory.
"So you'll play?" Alice repeated, trying to wriggle free from the embrace.
"Slow down, monkey." Ash held them both at arm's length. "Just let me look at you for a bit."
Alice grinned. "But we're exactly the same."
"I just want to check. You never know, you might have started growing ears or something."
"We don't have ears!" Theda pointed out as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. She reached up to touch one of Ash's ears. "Ears are silly."
Alice was right of course. Both of her kids were exactly the same. With asari children developing at a far slower rate than human children, any changes were so gradual as to be almost unnoticeable. Ash would occasionally look at them and wonder if she was imagining Alice's crests to be slightly longer, or Theda's freckles to be more pronounced.
"We missed you," Alice said softly, pressing her cheek against her father's. "And not just 'cos it's boring without you. I think mother is nicer when you're here."
Ash frowned. "Your Mum is always nice."
"She's not," Theda piped up, shaking her head. "She's meaner than Alice."
"It doesn't matter." Oddly, Alice wasn't riled by her Theda's comment. The two sisters shared a look, something unspoken passing between them before Theda pursed her lips shut in an obvious manner. Alice was left to continue. "She's always working anyway. You're here now and you're not going away again."
With that comment both sisters looked up at Ash wearing almost identical expressions of hope.
"Are you?" Alice prodded tentatively.
"It depends," Ash replied. As concerning as it was, she didn't want to waste precious time trying to draw further information out of the kids. She'd clearly been away too long. The serious conversations could take place between the adults. At that moment in time her only concern was enjoying the fresh air and the undivided attention of her kids. They were both looking at her expectantly. "If the two of you can play without fighting, then I might consider hanging around long enough to kick your butts."
Alice pulled free and darted away with a laugh, calling out over her shoulder as she ran, "You're even worse than Theda!"
There was no retort Ash could offer in the face of the truth. It hardly mattered as the three of them started playing. With each of Ash's terrible attempts, Alice and Theda bonded over their mutual amusement. And it was fun. There was nothing at stake other than fatherly pride, and Ash was more than prepared to give that up for the simple joy of watching her kids play.
Although Ash was rottenly terrible, she could appreciate that Alice was naturally gifted. Theda was still too small, her chubby limbs often wildly uncoordinated. However her elder sister hit the targets with her throws more often than not. Already Ash could see the resemblance to Liara in Alice's graceful movements. One day her daughter would be a force to be reckoned with. This thought was tainted by the thought that Ash had all too often - even if she stopped trying to get herself killed at every opportunity, she would not be around to see her daughters reach their full potential. It was the price she'd accepted when deciding to have children with Liara, the reason that she needed to make the most of her time with them.
"Dad's turn!" Theda handed one of the coloured balls to Ash.
Alice darted in front, already lining up another shot. "I've still got one more throw!"
Ash paused, an indulgent smile on her face while she waited. Her stomach was rumbling and she was regretting her decision to abstain from taking any painkillers, but she hadn't felt so content in a long time. Alice stood poised to throw. Ash was still smiling when her daughter's body was suddenly encased in a biotic corona. It took a few moments for Alice to realise what had happened, but everything came into focus as the biotically charged ball slammed into the target. The flare lasted only a matter of seconds, but not before Alice had started to panic.
"Dad!" Frightened tears streamed down Alice's face.
"You're okay, monkey," Ash said as she swiftly knelt in front of her daughter. She pressed her thumbs against Alice's cheeks and swiped away the tears with a gentle movement. "Take a couple of deep breaths."
Alice's lips were quivering, but she managed to do as asked - with a couple of hiccups in between.
"See, you're perfectly okay," Ash continued.
Accompanied by another hiccup, Alice nodded. As her panic subsided, a small smile tugged at her lips. As soon as that happened, Ash knew that everything was alright. At the same time, she also knew that life wouldn't quite be the same again. When it came to biotic training, she was of next to no use to her own daughter. Theda was staring at her sister, a star-struck expression on her face.
"That was amazing," Alice whispered, completely forgetting her panic attack even though the tears hadn't even dried on her face.
"It was certainly something." Ash said as she stood, extending a hand towards each of her daughters. "C'mon, my biotic goddesses, next stop is lunch...before anything else unexpected happens."
In an all honesty, Ash was pleased she had something to take her mind off the talk she knew she needed to have with Liara. She had a feeling that it wasn't going to end well.
Shepard Station, Utopia System
Rear Admiral Samantha Traynor finally gave into the yawn that had been threatening to erupt for the past five minutes, although not without discreetly turning her back first. The yawn felt damn good, although it did little to restore her flagging energy.
If I'm in charge then why can't I give myself more than a measly twelve hours of downtime? Sam asked herself irritably. This was the first time that it had been apparent that she couldn't pull an all-nighter and expect to turn up at work without feeling the consequences. Still, Sam allowed herself a tiny grin, the fucking had been pretty amazing. With the twins on an overnight school excursion, she and Robin had made the most of an empty house. Sam couldn't remember the last time she'd been fucked on a kitchen table. Clearly it had been too long.
"Ma'am?"
With a residual heat lingering in her cheeks, Sam banished the pleasant but entirely unproductive thoughts to the back of her mind. She fixed an attentive expression on her face and turned to face her Yeoman.
"Major Vega is here, ma'am."
"Right, thank you, Gordano."
She picked out Vega effortlessly. The marine had never suited shore life. He stood awkwardly, his bulk shoehorned in between the crowded consoles in the command centre. Vega's expression however said that he was clearly fascinated as he tried to take everything in.
As she offered up a wave, Sam couldn't remember a time when she'd worn a similar expression. This had been her work for over two decades. There were times when she thought about little else…even sex on the kitchen table. For someone who absolutely needed to know the answers to everything, the Reapers were the Galaxy's most frustrating puzzle.
Sam remembered the end of the war as though it had been yesterday. The moment at which the Reapers suddenly stopped slaughtering everything in their path and retreated. In the early days few had been concerned with asking themselves why. There were far more pressing matters – burying the dead, and finding ways to ensure that the living didn't join them.
It wasn't until almost a year later that governments began to wake up to the fact that real stability could not be achieved with the Reapers remaining as unknown entities. The need became very real when Reapers began to venture back into populated space, bringing with them widespread panic even without any hostile actions. While Sam had always thought of herself as someone who operated very much in the background, it had been her idea to establish the Galaxy-wide tracking network. It was a fact that she needed to remind herself of often – her lack of quality family time was entirely her own fault.
"You found us, Major."
"Right now I'm kind of wishing I hadn't," Vega replied, shaking his head.
"It's a lot to take in," Sam said wryly. "I'd advise against trying to do it all at once."
Sam simply viewed the command centre as her office. She supposed that it was an impressive space. Situated near the centre of Shepard Stations's hub, the whole facility was spread over four floors. However the real heart of the operation was the impressive room in which Sam and Vega now stood. It was laid out in a similar fashion to the bridge of a capital ship, with various consoles all facing towards the dominating presence of a massive wallscreen encircling half the room. The screen was currently in its default mode, depicting a stylised galaxy map covered in a myriad of dots. Sam didn't keep as close an eye on the duty roster as she once did, but at any one time there were upwards of two hundred personnel in the room. Most were Alliance, but there were also representatives from governments across the Galaxy.
"So you track tens of thousands of Reapers?"
Sam offered up a nod, as though it was that simple. "Yes. Just under sixteen thousand Sovereign-class entities. Around four hundred and fifty thousand Destroyers. We're not doing all of the work ourselves of course, there are much smaller hubs in each system that keep track of their local numbers, but we oversee the big picture."
"Dios." Vega let out a low whistle. "You're like Rangers at a galaxy-sized zoo."
"Except that our charges are millennia-old lifeforms who have continuously wiped out advanced civilisations cycle after cycle…until this one." There was no trace of mirth in Sam's voice. "A lion's behaviour is easy to predict based on its needs. We still have no idea what the Reapers want – if they even want anything at all." Sam walked up to an empty console and keyed it into life. She continued talking as she tapped away. "We have a system that codes the Reapers according to movement. It analyses patterns, changes in behaviour, anything out of the ordinary. For example-" Sam randomly selected a system, zooming in several layers until she could hover over several serial numbers. She scanned the information for a moment. "-this cluster of Destroyers here have all spent the last decade mining palladium on Ansuz. They travel the same flight path to Ilium, unload their cargo and back, without deviation."
Several more rapid taps. The map with its serial numbers disappeared, replaced by a patchwork of real-time quantum video feeds. Each one showed a stationary Reaper. Sam enlarged one - a Reaper perched above St James' Park in London, tiny figures moving about in the shadows beneath its legs.
"I don't need to tell you about the thousands of Reapers that have barely moved since the War," Sam continued. "They simply sit...like sentinels...benevolent or otherwise in the midst of our cities and life continues around them. Most people barely even notice them anymore."
"I still get a shiver every now and then," Vega admitted readily. "Can't help it. When you spent as much time running from them as we did on the Normandy...well, even now I expect them to open fire with one of their damn lasers. Es estúpido."
"It's not stupid. Over two decades later and I can't stop thinking about what they represent," Sam said quietly. "The almost limitless potential for destruction in our midst. They still terrify me."
"You work with them every day and you feel like that?" Vega asked incredulously.
Sam nodded. "Yes...so everyone else doesn't have to. The work we do here and throughout the Galaxy, it offers a sense of security. People think that because the Reapers are being tracked that they are some sort of benign servants - here only to help." As Sam continued, she lowered her voice. "And that's exactly how we want them to think. We don't want them to realise that their security blanket is illusory. All the surveillance in the Galaxy wouldn't help us if each and every one of those Reapers suddenly decided to pick up where they left off at the end of the War."
Another few taps and the screen changed again. Most of the serial numbers disappeared, leaving just a handful of red dots scattered across a map of the entire galaxy.
"Our system red flags any abnormal movement, escalating surveillance on that entity until we can confirm their intentions. Only on a handful of occasions, have Reapers actually attacked...the most recent being 2206 when-"
"The Kar'shan Uprising," Vega interrupted. "I was there. Three Reapers put down thousands of separatists in a matter of hours. If not for them, my team would've been wiped out in the chaos...along with innocent civilians caught in the crossfire. There were casualties, but nowhere near as many as there would have been had the situation escalated. How the hell did they know? Still makes my head spin thinking about it."
"In twenty four years, there hasn't been a single attack against innocents." Sam brought up another screen, this time showing just three locations - each one represented by a blinking red dot. "However over the past five months, Reapers appear to have been involved in three incidents - a mining operation in the Ismar Frontier, a small geological outpost on Nepheron...and, just two days ago, the colony on Aite. On each occasion the Reapers didn't attack, but their presence was undoubtedly the catalyst."
"Indoctrination?"
"Not as we knew it during the war," Sam replied in a weary voice. Her downtime now seemed like an eternity ago. "But a bastardised form of it at least. There's a second ground team landing on Aite within the next twenty-four hours. They'll have more data for us, but very few answers."
"Ma'am? Have you got a minute?"
Their attention switched from the screen to a comms specialist at one of the nearby consoles. The young man looked slightly nervous as the two ex-Normandy vets approached. Nevertheless, when he spoke it was in a crisp, clear voice.
"I've got a capital-class ship...Charlie-Foxtrot one-oh-nine-two Echo. I flagged it up with Lieutenant Kelsey yesterday, she said to monitor it, but it was probably just job hunting-"
"Job hunting?" Vega interrupted.
"It's what we call it when a Reaper has a change in mission objective. They move on from one task to another," Sam explained as she leant closer to the specialist's console, studying the flight path for herself. "Usually it's within the same system, but it's not unheard of for a Reaper to cross the Galaxy. What's our Charlie-Foxtrot doing now, Specialist Dax?"
"It's retracing it's steps. It went absolutely nowhere, the middle of the Aethon Cluster, then turned around. Currently it's on route back to the original location. Palaven." Dax brought up a second flight-path and overlaid it on the first. "It's behaviour is mimicking that of the Reaper involved in the Hades incident - erratic, almost confused."
"We're still not sure if that incident is related," Sam explained for Vega's benefit. "But up until five months ago I would have said that Reapers don't do anything without a purpose. Thank you for drawing it to my attention, Specialist, but I'm not sure we can do anything other than continue with what you've already been doing. Let me know the moment something changes."
"Aye, aye, ma'am."
Sam moved away from the console and Vega followed. Even though nothing had happened, she felt a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach.
"The Aethon Cluster...Apien Crest...those are heavily populated systems," Vega gave voice to Sam's fears. "You can't seriously tell me you're just going to monitor the situation?"
"I just did. It's what we've been doing for the past twenty-four years, Vega. Welcome to my private paranoia," Sam replied, a little harsher than she had intended. She sighed. "What else would you have me do? Warn the Turian hierarchy? Incite a system wide panic because one Reaper is behaving strangely? That's the real crux of our operation, whatever the hell is happening to these Reapers, no one can know. If it gets out..."
"You don't need to explain any further, Admiral," Vega said, chastened. He folded his arms across his chest. "But I can see why you need Ash...and what she can bring to the table."
"If we're to have any chance of averting a Galactic crisis, then we need her on our side," Sam hissed quietly, slapping her palm against a nearby console in frustration. She lowered her voice even further. "We need the bloody Shadow Broker."
Vega nodded. "As far as I know, Ash still counts me as a friend. I could try and talk her round? Y'know, over a beer, a little reminiscing about the time we took down a Harvester together on Tuchanka. Well, it was mostly me."
Despite her fears, Sam found the energy to offer up a small smirk. It vanished quickly. "Thanks, Major, but if Ashley Williams is going to come back into the fold, I have a feeling that it's going to be on her own terms. Or not at all."
