Refilling the available grenades with tetraclopine was an annoyingly repetitive but easy work. It proceeded quickly, as Garrus had predicted. The team had sequestrated a table in the survivors' shelter for that purpose, and now he, Tali and Liara were busy creating hopefully non-lethal weapons against the infected colonists. The human survivors were dispersed in the room, and most had nothing better to do than to watch them. Especially the guards. Tali and Liara had taken their weapons away, and now they were eyeing the non-humans with anger and suspicion. Liara was visibly affected by that, but to Tali it didn't matter. The crammed conditions aboard the Flotilla ships had immunised her from feeling awkward under the eyes of others, even of former hostiles. She fully focused on doing her work.
However, those events had not left her totally unmoved. There was the strike they had landed against the geth, lifting the siege and destroying an entire ship. Both had been greatly satisfying, making Feros a more pleasant trip than she originally anticipated. And there was the issue of ExoGeni and the Thorian. Tali had seen how the Commander had descended into a righteous fury upon hearing the facts, and in dealing with ExoGeni. The corporation, as she had found out from the downloaded data, was one of the largest in human space, making it also one of the most powerful human groups in general. Furthermore, they truly seemed instrumental and necessary for further human expansion. Yet Shepard seemed to have little qualms going against them.
Apparently he did not believe, like she did, in an inevitably hostile and unfair universe, but rather would move heaven and hell to change that. A part of her found that stubborn and wasteful, given the low odds of success. But it also appealed to another part of her. It was a grand idea, unconstrained by such things as the necessities of the Fleet or the doctrines of her father, the little details she had had to observe all her life so far. And if somebody could pull it off, it was Shepard. She had seen him in battle, shooting and tossing aside geth platforms.
He may not have much of a sense of duty, but he has an inspiring sense of justice. I wonder if this will work out.
She was still cross with him about how he had attacked quarian traditions. However, she began to suspect that, contrary to what she had assumed at first, it had not been a way to target specifically her species and their traditions. Rather, Shepard seemed to go against everybody and everything. Even the Council, as she had witnessed.
Wrex approached the table. He had previously carried away the injured Ethan Jeong, who had been shot in the leg and arrested by Shepard. Now, he took one of the grenades into his hands, and contemplated it.
"A new challenge in combat," he commented, "Might be fun. It'll certainly give the battle a new flavour."
"How is Jeong?" Liara asked. She had been the only one in the team to have been truly shocked by the Commander's actions.
"Bound and gagged," Wrex replied "Got him some medigel, too. Shepard had already shown him more mercy than I would have, but he insisted on it. Even though our reserves are stretched."
"That's good to hear" Liara said visibly relieved.
"Too bad the Commander got to have all the action," Wrex continued, "He made a great show out of it, though."
"I don't think policing procedures should be turned into a show," Garrus commented, with some hostility in his voice "and I think Commander Shepard agrees. Given the circumstances, he kept it to a minimum."
"But it was fun watching him shout," Wrex said.
That it was indeed. There was something about Shepard in all his righteous fury and glory – it was indeed a spectacle to watch. "Where is the Commander?" she asked.
"Outside," Wrex answered, "Pacing around. Thinking, I assume, but I don't know about what."
Tali wondered what could occupy Shepard's mind. He's the commanding officer in a mission against an unknown, planet spanning and maybe sentient plant. And yet he wants to save the plant's thralls. That's quite a bit to think about.
After they were finished, Garrus, Wrex, Liara and Tali equipped themselves with as many grenades as they could carry, and transported the rest to the Mako. They could understand now why Jeong had been gagged, even so he constantly tried to gain their attention by subdued sounds. Shepard ignored him, and started the vehicle again.
Compared to their crossing of the skyway in the opposite direction, it was a very uneventful ride. Still, a tangible nervousness was in the air. Nobody cherished the thought that they would have to fight against the colonists of Zhu's Hope. Shepard looked especially grim, as Tali noticed, his face almost as if set in stone. She knew he cared deeply about saving as many people as possible. Now he would fight for the lost.
They arrived at Zhu's Hope's garage with little trouble. However, the garage door would not open for them. Shepard brought the vehicle to a halt.
"This seems like the work of the Thorian," Liara commented. "The colonists are trying to keep us outside."
"We should be able to override the close order," Garrus assured.
Taking it as a cue for her, as the technology proficient member of the team besides the turian, Tali dismounted from the Mako and made her way to the terminal outside the garage door, together with Garrus. Something caught the ex-agent's attention, though, and he turned around. Following his gaze, Tali could see something moving. At first she thought it was a stone, but rather it was a creature unfolding itself and coming to its feet. It looked very distantly similar to a human, or rather like a cruel caricature of a human. It seemed to consist only of stone-grey and brown muscles, all wrangled and dried up. The creature's eye sockets were empty, and its fingers were fused into hideous, long claws. It also seemed to have more joints than a human, making it move in unnatural ways.
"Commander, do you see that?" Garrus asked. He obviously tried to keep his voice even, but could not hide a certain trembling.
The creature came running forwards, charging right towards Tali and Garrus.
"It's hostile!" Tali shouted.
Both the turian and the quarian let themselves fall back some steps and began firing. Both were nervous, and their accuracy suffered under it. Only a few shots hit the creature – but that was enough that it splattered in the most spectacular fashion, releasing a sickly yellow liquid, and leaving behind yellow dust in the air.
Shepard came running out of the Mako. "What the hell is that?" he asked.
While Tali was still recovering from her shock, attempting to formulate an answer, Liara joined the group and said: "It looked distantly human."
"It wasn't," Garrus replied certainly "When we last were here most colonists were already infected. This isn't a result of infection, and I doubt anything could change human biochemistry so quickly that they'd bleed yellow."
"The Thorian has brought in reinforcements," Shepard concluded.
"Yes," Garrus agreed, "We don't know what they are, but they're not the infected colonists."
"Good," Shepard said, while turning to the team "That means we can shoot those creepy things down. But no hitting the colonists! Even if they open fire on us. That's what the gas grenades are for. Remember, it's not the colonists' fault."
Bad things often happen to people who aren't at fault. That was how the universe worked, according to Tali. Still, she was glad Shepard had maintained his decision not to harm the colonists, if possible. They were not at fault, unwilling thralls of an alien lifeform. She would have shot them if Shepard had given the order, but she would not have liked it. Her father might have dismissed the efforts to save the colonists as wasteful and self-destructive, and part of her still believed it might be foolish – but if it was foolery, it was of the heroic sort, and again she found that thought to be inspiring. In a way, it went against everything she had been told in her life so far, but that made it almost liberating.
The garage door terminal had no electronic security to speak of, and Garrus had the override command entered within mere seconds. Everybody returned to the Mako, the garage door opened – and the team had a free view of over a dozen of those creatures, those 'creepy things' as the Commander had called them.
"Damn!" Shepard exclaimed – and hit acceleration. The Mako charged into several of the creatures, and their disgusting yellow liquid splashed to the walls. The vehicle's machine gun began to rattle as the creatures started to try to claw their way inside. While they were no real threat, it was rather scary: A dozen of them surrounding the car, lightly shaking it back and forth, making strange, muffled sounds.
Additionally, the Mako came under fire from above. The colonists had built up a two man outpost overlooking the garage, to ward the way against the geth. Now, it opened fire on Shepard's team, which was still preoccupied with the creatures. When they all were downed, the Mako and its surroundings were covered in yellow dust and liquid.
Shepard did not pause, though. He jumped into the organic mess and went down into a crouching position, bullets flying above his head. He ran upwards the ramp in a cowered position. Several bullets still hit him, but he did not draw his weapon in response. Rather when he was just near enough he threw one of the grenades. Tali heard a bang, and a green substance dispersed in the air. Soon afterwards, the two human guards went down. Shepard came to a halt, based his arms on his upper legs, and panted. His entire front side was covered in yellow. The rest of the team caught up to him.
"The colonists will have established several such defence points by now," Wrex pointed out. "Can we really take them all down that way?"
Shepard shook his head and straightened his back again. "We have to try," he said, "we have to try." He paused and the went on: "We should contact the Marines. The colonists now know we're coming, so it's not like we'll give away any information." Utilising his comm unit he spoke: "Ground Team One to Ground Team Two, are you still there, Lieutenant Alenko?"
"Right here, Commander," came the answer after just some seconds. "We took some bad hits. Two of the team are badly injured and combat incapable. So far we could avoid shooting down colonists, but I don't know for how much longer we can hold that up."
"Don't worry," Shepard reassured him, while stepping onto the elevator leading down to the colony proper, "we're back at Zhu's Hope, and are equipped to neutralise the colonists without killing them. Don't support us, still hold fire, let us do our work. We'll soon be at your location."
"Ah, okay. Aye-aye, Commander," Alenko confirmed. "Until then. Good luck."
The elevator reached its bottom destination, and the team stepped outside – only to be greeted by a greyish wave of twisted creatures. Surely a dozen or more came running towards them, claws held outwards. It was a grotesque, fear inducing sight. The team had to fall back several meters, but no matter how much they shot, how much they overheated their weapons, there were always creatures still up and alive and running towards them. Several times they came close enough to hit team members, which made the fight a single purpose exercise to keep them at bay. Liara, Wrex and Shepard all used their biotic powers, to throw the creatures backwards, or to lift them into the air where they would hang helplessly. Only that thinned out the enemy numbers enough that the wave could be stopped. In the end, all creatures were dead, painting the ground, parts of the wall and also armour and body parts of the team yellow.
Shepard waved his arm in disgust to throw off some liquid. "Goddamn creepers," he muttered.
"Finally a name for them," Wrex commented in his usual dead-pan voice.
Shepard looked at the krogan, and laughed. "Better than calling them zombies, I guess. That would be unscientific, after all."
If the Commander had intended a joke it fell flat. Liara, Garrus and Tali looked at each other confused, as neither had any idea what a 'zombie' was. Probably something from human biology or culture. Wrex looked like he was grinning, even though it was difficult to tell with him, so maybe he had understood Shepard.
There were worse things than the Creepers. Even if they hit one in waves, one could at least fire at will at them. Having to deal with the infected colonists was a greater problem. Having to deal with both at once was just horrible.
Immediately as the team stepped outside, into the colony proper, they were hit from all sides by enemy crossfire, while 'Creepers' came charging at them. Soon, Zhu's Hope was a chaotic maelstrom of bullets, Creepers, their yellow 'blood' everywhere and biotic powers. Yet Tali kept up Shepard's order, only ever directing her weapon against those creatures, never against the colonists. Somehow the Commander seemed to retain a good enough grasp of the confusion battle situation, shouting orders, structuring the chaos. He appeared to have a keen eye for good covers and good firing positions. His orders were an anchor in all the mess.
And he was always at the forefront. Tali saw him running right into enemy fire, so that he could take out the colonists with the tetraclopine grenades. Sometimes, he would even go into physical combat, striking them unconscious with his rifle butt. And that all the while they were still firing on them. However, the Commander did not fire back. Not once, as far as Tali was able to see.
This took his toll on him. Several times, Shepard's shields faltered, and after a while he appeared to bleed from several wounds. Yet, he urged the team on, and did not spare himself, either, doing his utmost to neutralise the colonists without killing them.
When the pace of battle had slowed a bit, Shepard ran to the door of one of the prefabs and waved the team inside. This is where the marines are Tali thought, looking at her sensors. It was one of few prefabs with two levels, and the marines were in the upper one, easily defended with only one way leading up to them.
The room was as décor-less as everything in the colony. Even the Flotilla took more effort to look like a home. At least they had tapestries there, and sometimes also other decorations. It was rare for Tali to see people living in environments even more bleak and utilitarian than the Migrant Fleet. Between the barren steel walls were only two beds, a table, and two chairs, all minimalist in design and crammed together. The marines were standing or sitting in the room; two of them lay on the beds, obviously wounded and only provisionally patched up.
Chief Williams stood leaning against a wall, while Lieutenant Alenko was at the room's entrance, visibly relieved to see Shepard and his team.
"Good to see you made it, Commander," he said. It would have been impossible not to notice the yellow dirt on everybody, but he seemed to ignore it. "What's the situation out there?"
"We have used some kind of, what was the word, neuromuscular degenerator, in gas form, to paralyse most colonists," Shepard answered. He looked at the injured marines and continued: "It should be safe to move the wounded to the Normandy now."
"And what do you plan to do, sir?" Alenko asked.
"Kill the creature who enthralled the colony," Shepard stated, "It appears it's right below us, below that stranded freighter."
"If anybody else had told us, sir, I'd never have bought this story of a mind enslaving alien out here," Williams said, straightening herself from her leaning position. "But as it was you – that creature needs a kick in the butt. Or cloaca. Or whatever it has. And that hard and quickly. No alien enslaves humans without consequence. None."
"I think both of the wounded can walk, with support," Alenko stated, earning some mumbled confirmations, "That would leave two of us to support you."
"Private Ramirez," Shepard called on of the un-injured Marines to him, "I will take Lieutenant Alenko and Chief Williams with me. This means it falls into your responsibility to get the rest of your team to the Normandy."
"Aye-aye," Ramirez answered. Tali noticed it was one of the Marines who had sat at the mess table together with her after the battle on Edolus, the one who had cracked several jokes. The other uninjured marine was Private Bethlen, the one who had shown a rather unfavourable opinion about quarians. Together, the two began to move their wounded comrades outside.
Meanwhile, Shepard briefed Alenko and Williams about the situation, about the Thorian, its Creepers, its spores, and the freighter parked above it. He also told them, in less detail, about the geth, their downed ship, ExoGeni and the arrest of Jeong.
"I've seen that freighter," Alenko said, "it's modular, and held in a repair frame. We can easily lift single parts of it, so finding anything beneath it shouldn't be a problem."
After leaving the prefab, it was Shepard who reached the terminal of the construction frame first, but he did not stay there. Instead, he gave a little shout and ran towards the freighter itself. Worried, Tali hastened after him.
She found the Commander looking down on a human corpse, its head surrounded by blood. The quarian recognised it: It was Fai Dan, the colony's leader. He held a pistol in his right hand, still pointed towards his head, but there also was a slash wound on his chest, going through his clothes. Most strikingly, above him words were written on the freighter's wall, written most likely in his own blood. In crude capital letters "IWONTOBEY" was written there, in crimson slowly fading to brown. And then Tali saw the device in Fai Dan's left hand, partly buried by his body.
"A heavy load mine," she said, digging it out. It had not been activated. Yet her mind raced. If it had been activated...
"If Fai Dan had obeyed..." Shepard began, not ending the sentence.
"As soon as we had come near the freighter we would've been blown to kingdom come," Williams commented more bluntly.
"A silent hero," Alenko said, "may he rest in peace."
Solemnly the crew waited while Garrus was at the console, lifting the module Fai Dan had marked for them in such a gruesome, yet heroic way. A rectangular hole in the ground appeared, and concrete stairs leading downwards. Yet more Prothean tunnels, and somewhere down there was the Thorian's central nerve bundle, or so Lizbeth Baynham had claimed.
It were lots of stairs. The Thorian seemed to be far, far down, underneath Feros' surface. A shaft was taking them so far down, which held stairs after stairs after stairs, with no interruptions. It was a long walk until finally there were no further stairs leading downwards.
"At last!" Williams complained, just as the team was entering a corridor, walking purely horizontally the first time for what appeared like ages. "Do you think we're finally on the Thorian's level?"
"Yes," Wrex simply answered.
"Now we just need to find this creature," Tali said, while they were nearing the corridor's exit, "and determine what it... what it..."
They had found the creature. The corridor had led to a further shaft, bathed in sunlight from above. And in the middle of the shaft, hanging from tendrils reaching to all sides, hung an enormous blob, pink coloured in the back and sickly brownish at the front. In fact, the front looked almost animal in nature. Something like a mouth was at the end of it, surrounded by tentacles.
"Keelah," Tali continued, "what is this thing?"
It was meant as a rhetorical question, yet Shepard answered it, with a quiet yet determined voice: "The enemy."
He began to walk nearer the creature, slowly drawing his shotgun. He seemed to ready to fire when there was movement among the tentacles. A liquid that looked like saliva came in masses from it, giving Shepard pause.
And then, an asari fell from the creature's mouth.
She was fully grown, naked and of green skin, and her face looked angry and determined.
"She's like no asari I've ever seen," Garrus commented.
"This is... She's... green." Shepard said stumblingly and not very helpfully.
Tali was shocked, too. What was a green asari doing inside the creature? Or had the Thorian created it, like the Creepers? The fact that she presented herself in full-frontal nudity did not exactly help the feeling of weirdness. Tali had to admit she looked somewhat attractive, despite her unnatural skin colour. In any case it did not clear anything up: Few asari did truly have hang-ups about such issues. And organic constructs would not, either.
"Shiala!" Liara exclaimed when she saw the asari, as if knowing her.
The green asari spoke.
"Invaders!" she said, "Your every step is a transgression. A thousand feelers appraise you as meet, good only to dig and decompose."
"It... communicates," Shepard muttered, surprised. "Through her."
"I speak for the Old Growth as I did for Saren," the asari continued, "You are within and before the Thorian. It commands that you be in awe."
Tali had to admit that, while not being in awe, she was somewhat troubled by what was happening around her, this giant alien plant creature, the mysterious asari, and now the communication with said alien plant through the asari.
However, Shepard seemed less affected. He walked a step forwards and asked with clear voice: "What did Saren want here?"
"Saren sought knowledge of those who are gone," the asari answered. "The Old Growth listened to flesh for the first time in the Long Cycle. Trades were made. Then cold ones began killing the flesh that would tend the next cycle. Flesh fairly given! The Old Growth sees the air you push as deceitful. It will listen no more!"
"It doesn't need to," Shepard replied, teeth clinched. "This 'flesh' were human colonists, people. You destroyed their minds, enslaved the colony. Whatever Saren wanted with you, I want you dead!"
He held a hand behind his back and gave the signal to wait for his signal to attack. Tali grinned behind her mask. She knew how this would go.
"The Thorian is a piece of this world," the green asari proclaimed, "extending across the land and back through..."
Shepard gave the signal to attack, and seven different weapons fired on the asari, making short work of her.
"I love your style!" Williams exclaimed, only to then add a meek: "Uh... Commander."
Shots were also fired on the Thorian. However, no effect was readily visible. Any holes the bullets pierced were minimal and quickly closed, a regeneration so fast it even surpassed that of krogan.
Creepers came rushing from all sides to defend their plant master, wave after wave. Soon the team had to stop firing on the Thorian and concentrate on those twisted creatures. Standing back to back, they managed to keep the Creepers from reaching them, yet always even more came, from all sides, with little pause inbetween. During one such rare break, Shepard waved the squad into a sideroom, to end this encirclement.
With the wave of Creepers now being channelled through an entrance frame, it eventually could be defeated. Most squadmates stayed to catch breath, but Tali's gaze wandered to a further door frame at the back of the room. She walked to there and noticed pinkish-brownish mass having attached itself to the walls of the next room. One of the Thorian tendrils.
"Over here, Commander," she called, "Definitely something different in this area."
"Hm. Let's see if maybe those things are more vulnerable," Shepard said once he had reached her.
The tendril proved to be less resilient than the Thorian's main body. It took some time, but finally it succumbed under a hail of gunfire. It's thickened main part, directly at the wall, splattered, releasing the same yellow liquid as the Creepers. A scream could be heard coming from the Thorian's main body.
"That got his attention," Williams said with a vicious smile, "Has to be more of those around."
"Then let's go," Shepard said, but then froze. Another sound came from the Thorian, a splurge. Something had left its 'mouth' again. "Be careful!" the Commander ordered.
Sure enough the next wave of Creepers came running into the room – accompanied by a further nude, green asari, glowing blue. A biotic wave hit Shepard and lifted him into the air, while Creepers came charging at the rest of the squad.
A vicious battle ensued. Tali would have liked nothing more than to focus on the green asari, but it was not possible – the squad was busy enough with keeping the creepers at bay. Several times the quarian had one or two directly in front of her visor, claws ready to strike. It was a panicked defence battle.
At least some squadmates retained some overview. When Shepard was falling from his lift into the air, Liara used her own biotic powers to catch him, leading him gently down to the ground again. And at last the wave of Creepers stopped, allowing the squad to deal with the green asari.
"The Thorian seems to... produce them," Alenko commented with disgust in his voice. "They're like clones."
Shepard made an exhausted laugh. "Well then," he said, "Why do we want to kill it, again? A plant producing fully grown, nude asari? We should cultivate it!"
Wrex laughed, but he was the only one. Alenko at least chuckled unsurly. Williams rolled her eyes, Garrus looked surprised, and Liara outright shocked. Tali raised her hand to cover her visor. His humour is pretty bad at times. No wonder Wrex laughed, Shepard is the only one who finds him funny, too. The two deserve each other's jokes.
"Commander!" Liara exclaimed, not even attempting to mask her shock..
At least Shepard had the good sense to look abashed. "Sorry," he said with an apologetic half-smile, "It was... It was a bad joke. Didn't mean... to offend anybody. Just me being stupid."
"I guess I can't blame you, sir" Williams said, "at least they look like women." Both Shepard and Liara responded with unsure glances towards her. The comment probably had crossed the border into insolence, but at the moment the Commander still seemed to embarrassed to act against that.
"Liara," Tali chimed in, "back at the Thorian you sounded like you knew the... clone."
"Ah, yes, so it appeared to me" Liara answered, "those clones all look like Shiala. Except for the green skin. She's a a follower of Benezia, a former commando, and had a hand in my own biotic training."
"Just one more mystery along the way, it seems," Shepard commented. "Let's go on."
Their way send them upwards, circling along the shaft, around the Thorian. Which ensured that they would encounter the rest of the Thorian's tendrils. It was not an easy path, however. It was littered with Creepers, folded together and awaiting their arrival. They had to fight their way through. At times, further asari clones joined the creepers.
Tali found it terrible. It was nothing like the ExoGeni headquarters, where the squad had moved silently between the combat phases, allowing to hit the geth by surprise most times. This here was one constant battle, deep down below the ground, with Creepers everywhere, and wave after wave of new ones arriving, often enough with biotic support. And a monstrous and utterly alien thing loomed at the centre of it all.
She had to concentrate at all times, to make sure no Creeper came to close. The constant attacks began to take a toll on her nerves. Others showed sign of stress, too. With people like Williams or Shepard it was simply a grimmer look, less talk and an exhausted face. Alenko periodically rubbed his forehead and flinched quite often; Tali assumed his L2 implant was acting up again, probably due to overuse. However, he held out, and displayed no further sign of exhaustion. On the other hand, Liara at times looked to be close her to breaking point. Tali noticed that she never used her biotic powers directly against the asari clones, only ever against the Creepers. She could not blame her. If Liara had really known this 'Shiala' then this surely was an even bigger nightmare for her.
The areas around the tendrils were the worst. Those were littered each with dozens of Creepers, curled together and dormant, awakening one after the other as soon as the tendrils were hit. It was unsettling to see them enfold and running towards the squad. They were a real danger, especially every time they were reinforced by an asari clone. The squad managed to destroy one tendril after the next, but it the fight took its toll. After a while, everybody had bleeding wounds or at least bruises. Tali's own suit had been breached on two occasions. She hoped the suit mechanisms had closed off and isolated the breached areas quickly enough.
The screams of the Thorian became louder with every tendril killed. It's a question who will be worn down first – it, or us. She did not ponder the question. That would have been useless; all that was left to do now was to push forwards, together with the others, and keep fighting.
"It's hurting, Commander" she commented after a particularly shrill scream, "We're on the right track."
On their way they passed by several pink organic sacs. Tali assumed that they were somehow part of the Thorian, too, but couldn't guess their purpose. Her mind had a short horror vision of a sac opening and unleashing thousands of mind control spores, but she pushed that thought away. It was noticeable, though, that those sacs were more numerous around tendrils.
Like the one they were shooting at the moment.
This time, there were screams even as they hit the tendril, long before any yellow liquid oozed out. And when it finally crumbled among that liquid – it snapped from the wall, falling into the shaft. Having lost six tendrils, the weight of the Thorian, suspended in the shaft, became too great for the rest to carry. With a final shriek the Thorian fell down the shaft. It took quite a while until the squad heard a 'thump' from the bottom. Tali considered it unlikely that anything could survive such a fall.
We have done it. We have really done it! Relief and exhaustion washed over her. Amidst the horrible fighting conditions, battling against twisted monsters and cloned asari deep down under the earth, a small part of her had not believed that any more, as she could now admit to herself. The squad had simply went on despite all odds and in the end succeeded. It's a good team. Against that team, Saren has no chance.
Suddenly, Shepard whirled around. Something had caught his attention. Tali saw it now, too: A sac was rupturing. It isn't over yet. Quickly, the entire squad directed their weapons against the sac.
An asari emerged.
She landed gracefully on her feet, though the time it took for her to straighten herself to a standing position revealed how weakened she was. It was disconcerting how she looked exactly like the asari clones they had just fought, but her skin was purple, not green. She also still wore what looked like remnants of a Commando armour. It was tattered, full of holes, and some stripes of it came peeling off, the largest such case revealing her right breast. However, her clothing and skin colour made it clear this was not one of the clones, and she did not act aggressively, either.
Besides, Liara recognised her immediately.
"Shiala!" she shouted.
"I'm free..." the asari, Shiala presumably, muttered, and then turned to face the squad. "Liara?" she asked. "What are you doing here?"
"Look who's talking," Shepard intervened. "Who are you, and what are you doing here?"
"My name, as Liara has said, is Shiala," she answered. "Thank you for releasing me. I am finally myself again." Shepard merely raised an eyebrow in response, waiting for more information. Shiala went on: "I serve... I served Matriarch Benezia, Liara's mother. When she allied herself with Saren, so did I. She foresaw the influence Saren would have and joined him to lead him down a gentler path. But she has lost her way, and so have her followers. So had I."
"How is that possible?" Liara asked. Her voice's usual monotone was pierced by pleading subtone. "Benezia had strong convictions, but from all that I hear she bas become Saren's vassal. How could she so easily fall to him?"
"Saren has an enormous warship," Shiala answered. "It is unlike everything I have ever seen, large, invincible, destructive. He calls it Sovereign. There is more to it, though. He can use it to dominate the minds of his followers. They become indoctrinated to Saren's will. The process is subtle; it can take days, weeks, but in the end it is absolute."
"Can it be the ship we saw on Eden Prime, Commander?" Alenko asked. His voice was pressed. He still seemed to fight down pain, headaches most likely.
Shepard nodded, a pondering look on his face. "More than likely," he answered, "So, you want to tell me Saren has... mind control capabilities? And that by using a ship?"
"It may seem unlikely," Shiala replied, "But I experienced it. Its weird angles and odd forms make you lose touch with what you have experienced as reality so far. And it has an aura of compulsion about it, so once you begin doubting your mind, doubting yourself, you will become totally open to whatever Saren is telling you. It is a form of mind control, yes."
"And my... Benezia fell victim to it?" Liara asked, distressed. Shiala just nodded gravely and sadly.
"Yet you are free of it now?" Shepard asked.
"The Thorian also possessed a form of mind control, as you surely know by now," Shiala explained, "It is a less subtle process. The Thorian conditions its victims with utter pain. I was subjected to it, after Saren sacrificed me to the creature. All the thoughts he filled me up with went away under this pain. I ceased being Saren's slave, only to become the Thorian's thrall. Now I am free of both, thanks to you."
"Saren sacrificed you?" Shepard asked. "He seems pretty quick to betray his followers."
"And pretty quick to betray his allies, too," Shiala answered. "He had the geth attack the Thorian after he went, so that you could not make a deal with it as he had."
"But if Saren already has mind control capabilities, what did he need the Thorian for?" Shepard asked.
"Saren did not come for that," Shiala said, "What he wanted was knowledge. The Thorian was here long before the Protheans built this city. Over generations it watched them, studied them. When they died, it consumed them. They became a part of him. The Thorian knew what it meant to be a Prothean. Saren called this 'the Cipher' – the very essence of being a Prothean."
"Pretty big effort to get a cultural understanding program," Williams joked. "Normally people make such efforts to get excused from them."
Shepard gave Williams an annoyed look before turning to Shiala again. "What would he need this 'Cipher' for?"
"Both you and Saren used the beacon on Eden Prime," Shiala explained, "Both of you had visions. But they were unclear, confusing. They were meant for a Prothean mind. Saren wanted the Cipher, so he could think like a Prothean, in order for him to understand those visions."
"So as part of the trade between Saren and the Thorian, it taught him the Cipher?" Shepard asked. "Could it be taught to me as well?"
"It cannot be taught at all," Shiala stated, "no more than you can teach colour to a being without sight. It is more than their history or their society or their politics. It is, as I have said, the very essence of being a Prothean. It can only be... transmitted. That is what Saren needed me for." She paused for a moment, and then continued: "We asari can meld minds with almost any known species, merging our consciousnesses.. The Thorian transmitted the Cipher to me, and then I to Saren. Afterwards, he sacrificed me. I knew too much."
"That would fit his modus operandi," Shepard agreed, "I need to think about this... hm..."
"I could transfer the knowledge to your mind," Shiala offered, "in the same way as I transferred it to Saren's."
She walked some steps towards the Commander, but he raised his hand to stop her. "For now, you will come with us," he said. "To my ship. I don't think this is the right place or time for whatever you have planned."
"Maybe not," Shiala allowed, "but I would not like to be transported away. If you permit it, I would like to stay with the colonists. They have suffered greatly, and I played a role in their suffering. I would like to make amends."
"The colonists will need all the help they can get," Shepard agreed. "No worries. I think we'll stay docked here for a while to give them a hand, too, so there is no reason remove you from here. But I do need this... Cipher. And its 'transmission' is best done under medical care or something, in any case not here."
"As you wish, Commander," Shiala said, "A mind-link is something very common among asari, so I doubt medical supervision is necessary, but if you insist that it should be done this way, then it will."
With that she turned around, as did Shepard. The slow way back up began. The squad remained in a formation that allowed it to always have Shiala in a crossfire, if need be, or to block her way should she run away. Given her story, and given that Liara recognised her as the person she claimed to be, Tali doubted this was strictly speaking necessary, but it were simple precautions, a matter of military professionalism. She wondered what the Normandy crew would make of it, though, an exhausted team of humans and non-humans, covered in yellow liquid and dust, escorting a half-nude asari in their midst. She doubted that it would make for an image of military professionalism.
