Beginnings of a Hero Chapter 7
==Virmire=
Aura shook her head as the Mako came to a stop once more for repairs. This time it was near the Salarian base camp. The past week and a half had been relatively busy for the crew of the ship as they used the down time before this mission was given to mine for ore, and wrap up loose ends in other places about the galaxy. They had made some friends, and some enemies, but Aura reflected it had bonded the crew ever further in the fires of battle and had let her come more to terms with her new choices she was making in life.
Where before most of her choices were to better herself or her crew in the cause of the mission. Now she found herself at times actually enjoying helping others for no other reason then that they needed help. It felt alien to her at times, but a larger and larger part these days found it made her feel good and less embarrassed from her shadier past.
She was still not sure if this new side of her was something she would continue with, after all the universe needed a hero right now. But that did not mean she would always be needed. She was broken from her thoughts as she approached the camp with Ashley and Tali. Alenko was commenting about trouble, and the Salarian Kirahee was replying on how every AA gun was tracking the skies now with their arrival.
Slowly the truth of what was going on came to light and Aura felt her pulse increase. At last she could confront Saren! But then the details of the Krogan's genophage cure came to light. "..Oh boy.." she thought as Wrex heard this bit.
Arguing ensued and after Aura stepped in to cool things down, she saw Wrex storm off drawing his shotgun and started to shoot up fish. "..Well least we'll have fresh meat.." she idly thought.
After a quick talk with Alenko and Ashley, Aura took a breath. "..Ok just in case watch my back. But less he is about to pull that trigger don't shoot ok? I want to try to talk him down." She said
Both nodded and moved off to a concealed position. Heading over Wrex turned to her. "..This isn't right Shepard. If Saren has a cure we can't destroy it" He said.
"..I understand your upset Wrex, but we both know that Saren is the enemy here." She said. "..He's the one you should direct your anger towards, not me."
"..Really? Saren created a cure for my people, you want to destroy it." He spat back, "the lines between friend and foe are getting a little blurry from where I am standing."
"..You can't be serious Wrex! Saren will kill all life in the galaxy if he succeeds!" Aura protested.
"..That's a risk we should be willing to take Shepard! This is the fate of my entire species here! I've been loyal to you so far, hell you have done more for me then my family ever did. But if I am to remain loyal to you then I have to know we are doing this for the right reasons." He said striding closer then drew his shotgun and aimed it right at her stomach. Aura replied in kind with hers at his head.
"..Damnit Mexican standoff." She thought taking in a slow breath to ease her hand off the tension of the trigger and slowly eased her gun down out of his line of sight, later Aura would find humor that she had lowered her weapon in a stance to seem less threatening but still had it aimed at his quads. "..Wrex, these aren't your people, there slaves, tools for Saren to sacrifice at his whim. Is that what you want for your people? Where is the honor in that? The Krogran pride? You can make a difference here work with me here, and I promise to you that Saren will pay no matter what I have to do." She said.
Silence ruled as out of the corner of her eyes she noticed the entire camp watching the stand off. "..No.." he started. "..We were tools for the council once, and they thanked us for wiping out the Rachni by neutering us. I doubt Saren will be as rewarding." He said easing off. "..Alright, Shepard I'll follow you, but you better pull through with your promise or else we'll be back where we started here." He said walking off.
Aura let out her breath and fell to her knees in relief. "..Damn Shepard that was some smooth talking." Ashley said coming over.
"..Doubt I'll ever top that one." She softly laughed, standing back up.
"..What to put a bet on it?" Ashley smirked, "..You got a way with word's Commander when the chips come down." She said.
"..A bet? Sure why not, no way is something that important going to come up again." Aura said challenging the Marine to rifle maintainer duty if she lost, and if Ashley lost she would be cleaning Aura's armor. In hindsight after the shake it seemed Ashley somehow knew this would come up but Aura put it out of her mind for now. "..After all what's the chances." She thought.
Eventually the Salarian and mixed race teams put together a plan of attack. Aura would take Wrex and Tali with her on a flanking maneuver, while Ashley and Liara would aide Kiarhe's teams in the main attack. Alenko meanwhile would set up the bomb and deliver it on site once things were clear. "..Seems straight forward enough." Aura thought.
As she listened to the Salarian's speech she had to admit it was quite inspiring, and wondered if she would ever do any better then she had now. She reflected that she had brought Wrex along to let him cool off his anger, and in the off chance Saren showed up was sure the angry Krogan would prove useful in the fight. Tali naturally came along as she was the best engineer they had and machine hacker.
Nodding to her team the trio set out, and after a quick comm check settled into their routine of fights. Along the way Aura found various ways to assist the assault team, though she almost fell over laughing when Liara commented over an unknown open comm. "..By the goddess all this sand keeps getting stuck in my…uh..nevermind." she said before the line closed.
Aura shook her head and moved on after they had dealt with the Geth flyers. The group continued forward easily handling the few Geth and Krogan they encountered before finding the security locale panels. "..We can either send them over towards the assault teams or else just disable the local alarms here Commander." Tali said.
Aura considered given they had taken no losses they should be able to handle the extra stresses, but then again they were not trained up front fighters like her teams were. "..Just the alarms Tali, the STG has enough trouble to handle." She said.
"..Aye Commander." She said.
The group continued onwards then killing anything that moved along the way. They stopped twice to free some Salarian prisoners from the terrible indoctrinations going on, and then allowed an asari doctor to run free. Finally they entered Saren's personal lab area, and found another working beacon. "..Joy of joys, more brain probes." Aura sighed. "..Dont suppose anyone else wants to handle this?" she asked half serious.
"..No.." Came the simple twin replies.
"..Gee thanks.." She muttered stepping forward and reaching out carefully the tendrils of the probe cascaded through her mind once more, but prepared as she was plus having the understanding that she had built up the pain was not as intense as it had been before.
Eventually the probing ended and Aura understood now, as Liara had suspected it was a distress call that came too late about the Reapers. She would naturally want to confirm this with the asari scientist but it was her own best guess for now. Above her she saw a shimmer of red and a figure take shape. "..What the hell?" she said moving to return with her companions to see what was happening.
"..You are not Saren.." The strange image stated.
"..No shit Sherlock." Aura replied. "..What are you a VI?" she said.
"..Virtual Intelligence, a rudimentary status, we are far beyond your ability to understand." It replied.
"..This isn't even an AI Shepard! I..I think it's a Reaper!" Tali chimed in.
"..Reaper a name given by the Protheans to give sustenance to their destructors. I am Sovereign, the herald of your destruction." It said.
"..There's a whole galaxy ready for you this time! What happened to the Protheans won't happen to us! I'll make sure of it!" She spat back.
"..Emotional outbursts, you can not fathom what safety we bring you, we can not be stopped. This exchange is over." It said fading from view.
Suddenly a shockwave impacted the glass showering the trio in its wake. Joker quickly informed them of the Reaper ship coming this way plus more Geth and Krogan. "..Alright people let's move!" She said drawing her assault rifle again.
The trio moved swiftly through the reinforcements and soon had a landing zone cleared for the Normandy, Aura taking the extra time to blow up a few fuel containers where the ship would land. As Alenko and two others carried the bomb off the ship and began setup. Aura wondered where Ashley, Liara and the STG teams were. "..Come on…come on.." she thought willing something to show they were still alive.
"..Commander come in!" Ashley said.
"..We're here Chief where are you? The bombs almost setup!" She replied.
"..We're pinned down, we can't disengage." She stated.
"..Hold tight I'm on my way." She said shutting off the comm from any further protests.
Alenko assured her that there was still time to rescue the teams while he did final setup. Aura nodded and signaled Wrex and Garrus to follow her while the rest boarded the Normandy. "..Double time it!" She said heading off at a run. The trio soon ran into a hopeful ambush party but with rifles blazing death they soon emerged out of a elevator to see a pair of Geth drop ships sail by overhead. "..Ah crap, reinforcements inbound." Garrus said taking cover, but instead of them off loading troops on top of them they went past to the bomb site.
"..Alenko report!" she said.
"..Geth dropping in all around us ma'am! There's too many I'm arming the bomb!" he said Aura hearing a faint click in the background.
"..Now hold on a minute there!" she protested but already knew it was too late
"..It's done Commander, go get Ashley and get off this rock!" he said.
"..Screw that we can handle ourselves, go back for the Lt!" Ashley protested over the comm.
Aura paced knowing all eyes were on her now. This was a situation they tried to prepare you for in boot camp officer's training but when it really hit you nothing could staunch the feeling of sickness that came with it. "..Ashley we're coming for you, hold tight." She said. "..Joker get inbound on the Salarian's position." She ordered then to the ship
"..But…aye aye Commander we'll be ready." She replied.
"..I have no regrets Commander." Alenko said then.
"..I'm sorry, I had to make a choice." She said shaking her head, then took a deep breath and let it out burying the guilt under the piles she had slowly been building up through out the mission of mistakes and errors. But this was the hardest she had yet to deal with.
"..Let's move!" she said anger in her voice.
The trio moved fast and hard killing anything in their path. Aura was pissed, she was angry, she was boiling almost red. Her rifle's heat did not even seem to register to her such was her anger. When a Krogan charged at her she charged back in kind and then dodged aside at the last moment to shot it in the back, the kicked it for good measure. Finally the last door parted and the trio entered the chaos of the battle. Aura signaled for everyone to take cover and threw three grenades at the fuel tanks which for some reason had yet to be targeted. The blast knocked her onto her ass, but all the remaining geth and krogan were killed or destroyed.
Aura was on her way over to check on Ashley, Liara, and the Salarians when there was a hum near her and several shots rang out. Diving for cover as her shields went down, her rifle skidded out of reach to her left so she drew her pistol. "..Saren.." She spat taking shots at him but found his barriers and shields too strong
"..I applaud you Shepard, my Geth were utterly convinced the Salarians were the real threat." He said. "..An impressive diversion."
"..Wasn't my plan was Kirahe's." she shouted back.
Ignoring her jibe, he continued. "..Of course it was all for nothing, I can't let you disrupt what I have started here. You can't possibly understand what is at stake." He said.
"..Why are you doing this?" she asked trying to buy for time.
"..You've seen the visions Shepard, you of all people should know how fruitless it is to resist the Reapers. Trillions of Protheans dead, thousands of worlds destroyed. All because they fought." He said. "..They simply can not be stopped. Do not mire yourself in simple revolt or petty freedoms. But what if the Protheans had bowed before the invaders? Would they still exist? Is submission not preferable to destruction?" he asked.
"..Do you honestly believe that, Saren? That the Reapers will let us live?" she replied.
"..Now you see why I never brought this forward to the council." He said going on to describe how organics worked.
Aura shook her head, "..He's so lost in what's going on he can't see his indoctrination is already happening." She thought.
"..I had hoped this facility would protect me." He finally said.
"..It's not quite working how you expected though isn't it?" she replied. "..You're afraid Sovereign is influencing you, afraid he is controlling you, that you're just a puppet."
"..I've studied the effects of indoctrination, Shepard. Far more to a degree then you would ever be aware. If Sovereign exerts too much will then it leaves one a broken shell. Sovereign needs me…for now." He stated though Aura could see she had hit a sensitive nerve.
"..Now time to push that last bit." She said softly.
"..Sovereigns already manipulating you and you don't even know it! You're already indoctrinated! Can't you see that!" she said.
"..NO! Sovereign needs me, if I find the Conduit I've been granted a reprieve from the inevitable"
"..You were a Spectre! You were sworn to defend the galaxy from threats. I know you think this is what your doing Saren but you're wrong! Stop this now; together we can stop the Reapers!" She said it was a long shot but she figured it couldn't hurt to try.
"..No! You don't understand, you would ruin my plans to save more lives then any have known before and for that you must die." He said.
The coming fight was fairly quick, then what Aura had expected. During their talks Saren had unknowingly moved near the last fuel tank and Aura had used the time to carefully line up her shot. The concussion sent him falling to the ground, but a secondary explosion knocked the wind out of her as well. Tossing aside his weapon he came at her and the next thing Aura knew was she was hanging over the edge of a drop. Saren glaring hatefully at her as he slowly started to choke the air from her. Then the Normandy's exterior docking horns blared and distracted the Turian just enough for her to draw back her fist and slug his smug face.
Dropping Aura scrambled for air and a grip on the ledge, pulling herself up as Saren ran for his little hover plate. She looked over seeing Ashley and Liara slowly getting to their feet but neither was in any shape to fight, nor were the Salarians. Saren hopped onto his hover board and started to float away. Aura drew her pistol aiming it at him. "..You're a fool Shepard, and when next we meet I will finish you." He said.
"..And you are indoctrinated! You just don't know it!" She shouted back lowering her pistol as he hovered out of range.
Grabbing Ashley in a fireman's carry the groups made their way to the Normandy as Joker came into range. Aura quickly boarded knowing that time was short. "..Punch it Joker!" she said into the comm.
"..Alright everyone hang on!" He cried as the sleek ship turned and made it's way out of orbit. Aura turned to watch the fading battle area where Alenko was making his last stand to defend the bomb. She had her sniper rifle readied but knew she was far to out for a shot. "..I'm sorry.." she said softly as she turned away from the flash of blinding light.
Aura did not leave that spot for the next hour, staring into the dark void out a portal. She knew she should call a meeting and then warns the Council but just this once she needed time alone to herself. They meeting could wait. Eventually the repression of emotions proved too much and she covered her face into her hands as she entered her cabin.
