Chapter 10

"Shepard, we need to talk," Garrus said as the Commander angrily slammed his locker shut.

"About what?" he snapped.

"You know what about," the turian answered evenly.

Shepard took a deep breath. "Sorry, Garrus. I'm just a bit on edge after everything on that asteroid."

Garrus nodded; he understood. They had been preparing to go to Feros when an emergency call had come in from Alliance Command: someone had taken over the massive asteroid X57 in the Asgard system, and was aiming it straight at Terra Nova, one of humanity's most important colonies. The Normandy had responded, and with Shepard, Garrus, Ashley, and Kaidan as the ground team, discovered that batarian terrorists had been responsible.

With the aid of an engineer named Kate Bowman, they had shut down the three fusion torches propelling X57 towards Terra Nova, but things had gone sideways after that. The batarian lieutenant had tried to cut a deal, claiming he didn't want to go along with the plan and had only signed on for a slave grab. The moment the words 'slave grab' left his mouth, Shepard had stepped in and slashed his throat with his combat knife, snarling about batarian slavers and their atrocities as he opened fire on the rest of the batarian squad. They had gone to the main facility to confront the batarian leader, a psychopath named Balak. Unfortunately, Balak had had enough time to prepare for them, and had offered a sadistic choice: Shepard could attempt to kill Balak, but Balak would detonate bombs in a room with the surviving engineers from the asteroid, including Bowman, as soon as Shepard attacked. If Shepard let Balak walk, he could deactivate the bombs and save the civilians.

One look at the commander's face told Garrus that Shepard wanted nothing more than to rip Balak apart with his bare hands, but Shepard had allowed the terrorist to go in favor of saving the civilians. Other than during short talks with Bowman and the lead engineer, he'd been in a foul mood since, snapping pickup orders to the Normandy, and otherwise mostly silent.

"I know I acted all confident with the supervisor, Garrus, but I'm really not sure I did the right thing."

Garrus was quiet. "I was actually going to ask you something related to that, Shepard. I…this whole thing reminded me of a particular case back in C-Sec. A salarian geneticist named Dr. Saleon. He was a sick bastard, growing organs for black market sale in his employees' own bodies."

"I hope he got what he deserved," Shepard said, his anger turned to disgust at the doctor's actions.

"That's the worst part. We never caught him," Garrus sighed.

"What? Why not?" Shepard exclaimed.

"He ran. Blew his lab, grabbed some employees, and headed for the nearest space dock. By the time I found out, his ship was already leaving. He threatened to kill the hostages if we tried to stop him."

Shepard saw where this was going. "So what happened?"

"I ordered Citadel Defense to shoot him down, but C-Sec HQ countermanded my order. They were worried about the hostages, and potential civilian casualties so close to the Citadel. I told them those hostages were dead anyways; he would just use them to make more organs. But they wouldn't listen." He looked expectantly at Shepard.

"Best case would be to pursue and disable the vessel," Shepard answered.

"They sent the military after him, but he still got away. I almost quit over that incident. All they had to do was disable that ship. Maybe the hostages die, maybe they don't, but either way you take out the bastard responsible."

Shepard smiled ruefully. "And you're wondering, after what I did with Balak, what I would do in your place, huh? Well, I wish there was an easy answer, Garrus. I can say that you had a lot more justification to go after Saleon than I had to go after Balak, though. There was a chance to get both the bastard and the innocent lives, but this time it was a pretty clear-cut choice. And in general, tough as it is to swallow, I think your superiors were more or less right, at least as far as shooting down the ship. You devalue the lives of the civilians who might be hurt from the debris, or even those hostages, bad as their outlook was, and pretty soon you're no better than Balak or Saleon. Only difference is you've got a badge." Garrus looked like he was about to speak, but Shepard had something more to add. "Just remember, I knew all that today, but god damn did I want to kill that bastard. Sometimes the difference is making the right choice, not the one you want to make. I think that's what I did today. At least, I hope it is."

Garrus was silent for a moment, looking down. He'd hoped to hear Shepard tell him what he tried to do was right or wrong, not a little of both. But after this mission, and the conversation they had just had, he knew that both he and Shepard had been faced with similar difficult decisions. Maybe he and Shepard were more alike than he thought. The idea made Garrus smile. "I think you did, Shepard. Thanks for talking with me."

"Wrex."

"Shepard."

Shepard shook his head with a smile. Greeting each other in that fashion, using only each other's names, had simply been done by accident the first time they spoke, but now it seemed to simply be their thing. "I was hoping you might tell me a little more about your people."

Wrex scowled. "Well, there was that time the turians nearly exterminated us. That was fun."

Shepard sensed he'd trod on dangerous ground, and tried to extricate himself with a commiseration. "They nearly did the same to us, or at least would have without Council intervention."

Wrex looked down condescendingly. "Oh? So they gave your species a genetic virus that leaves only one pregnancy in a thousand as anything but a stillbirth? They destroyed what culture you still had and left you to slowly dwindle into extinction as nothing but mercenaries and thugs?"

Shepard raised his arms in apology. "I suppose that is a fair bit different. Didn't mean to offend."

Wrex snorted. "Of course not. No one tries to offend a krogan. No one smart, anyways. Let me tell you something, Shepard: there are only two kinds of people we'll be fighting. The first kind is on Saren's payroll. Killing them is business. The other kind is just plain stupid. Killing them is a favor to the galaxy."

Shepard chuckled despite himself. He tried not to take killing lightly, but Wrex was so cavalier about it, and so dryly humorous, it was hard not to laugh about it around him. "So is it hard to work with a turian on the team?"

Wrex shrugged. "Not too hard. You just get used to working with all kinds as a mercenary. Hell, I'd still probably take Garrus over another krogan."

Shepard was surprised. ""Not a fan of your own people?"

"Long story," Wrex said absently. "But most krogan don't care about trying to recover from the genophage. They only want to fight. They've turned their back on everything, even their own traditions. My own father, besides trying to kill me, sold my grandfather's ancestral armor after the Rebellions. When we turn our back on our own history and family, it's hard to imagine us ever recovering."

"What happened to your father?" Shepard asked, though he had a guess.

"Killed him when he tried to murder me. We were in the damn Hollows, a sacred place if our people have one, and he didn't even care. Didn't feel too bad about killing him. Hell, I feel worse about my family armor."

Shepard shook his head. Wrex's life had apparently been even more difficult than he let on. "Any idea what happened after your father sold the armor?"

"Heard some scumbag turian 'legitimate collector' has it now. He's just a pirate, in truth. Steals krogan artifacts just to lord it over us that he has 'em."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "I see. So you'd want to see your grandfather's armor back in krogan hands?"

"Of course, but that's not something either of us can just do with a wave of our hands, Shepard."

Shepard shook his head. "That's where you're wrong, Wrex. Antiquities crimes are heavily punished. I can't say it would be immediate, but if we've got time or it's on our route, I'd be happy to stop by explain the laws to him—if you know where he is."

Wrex smiled a toothy grin. "I like your style, Shepard. I'll let you know what I find."

"Shepard. It's Admiral Kahoku," Tali said quietly as they lowered the containment shields in the Cerberus base. The rear admiral had become acquainted with them when Shepard discovered one of his marine platoons massacred by a thresher maw, apparently lured there. It was all too reminiscent of the Alliance's first encounter with the massive, 100-meter-long predatory worms, when an entire frontier team had disappeared. A detachment of marines had gone to investigate, and they had stumbled upon not one but several of the beasts, wiping out the squad. Kahoku's men had fared no better.

Kahoku had managed to discover that an organization called Cerberus was responsible by contacting the Shadow Broker. Kahoku had contacted the Normandy to tell them what he had discovered: Cerberus was a former Alliance black op that had gone rogue some time ago. Even when it was technically legitimate, it had an unsavory reputation among those in the know, with a reputation for preferring radically pro-human agents. That seemed to have only increased after Cerberus split with the Alliance. The dossier Admiral Kahoku had sent listed a number of assassinations and terrorist actions as well as more unusual things, like highly unethical but cutting-edge scientific research, as having been linked to Cerberus, but the Admiral had said the information he was able to afford was only the tip of the iceberg. He had been on the run when he contacted them, with Cerberus agents in hot pursuit. Kahoku had only been able to give them the location of a Cerberus base before their agents had caught up with him. He lay on the floor, not harmed by any of the horrific genetic abominations Cerberus had kept penned there but rather by the profusion of needle marks on his skin. Cerberus' interest in science seemed to leave their enemies to face a grim fate—experimented to death. Shepard turned to Tali. "Any info on that console?"

The quarian nodded. "Locations for several other bases."

Shepard's eyes narrowed. "Send them to Hackett. Tell him to use orbital bombardment. I don't even want ashes left for these bastards."

The Normandy sat in orbit around Feros as Shepard briefed the team. What had initially been put on the back burner as a lower-priority mission thanks to the infrequent reports of occasional geth sightings had shot up to emergency level when all contact with the colony had been cut off following a message about a massive number of geth. "There's a dock here, so we won't need the Mako. That means everyone goes ashore. We may split up once we're down there. We don't know much other than that they reported geth shortly before dropping out of contact."

Wrex smacked his chest. "Let's get down there, Shepard. I'm ready for some real action."

Shepard smirked. "Not wearing your family armor, Wrex? After all the work I went through to get it?"

"Ha!" Wrex roared with laughter. "That pile of scrap didn't even have shield emitters! And I was there, too. Those mercs weren't much of a challenge, Shepard, so don't whine about how much work it was!" In truth, Wrex was hardly lying. The artifact thieves had opened fire on sight, and Shepard and his squad had responded in kind, to far greater effect. The turian thief had gone down fighting, and Wrex had retrieved his family armor while Shepard alerted Council authorities to the location of the stash.

Shepard smiled and shook his head. His chats with Wrex had proved that the krogan was far from a simplistic brute. He was cunning, thought ahead, and knew a lot more about any situation than he let on.

The approach revealed that the colony of Zhu's Hope was built in the ruins of an ancient Prothean skyscraper, its "ground" above the low-lying clouds of Feros. The Normandy docked, and as soon as the airlock cycled, someone was waiting for them. "We saw your ship," he said. "Fai Dan wants to speak with you immediately."

"Who's Fai Dan?" Shepard asked, eyes narrowing at the strange hitches in the man's speech.

"He's our leader. He wants your help to prepare for the geth. They're making another push. Please. Up the stairs, past the freighter."

He signaled over his shoulder, drawing Shepard's eyes that way. They widened as he saw a geth aiming a rocket launcher at them. ""Get down!" Shepard yelled as the team dove for cover, but the colonist wasn't fast enough. The rocket exploded as it struck him, blasting his corpse to the end of the dock. Shepard leaned out of cover and fired his pistol, blasting the geth rocket trooper down.

More geth swarmed around the corner, and the squad gunned them down, advancing to the corner, turning it to find geth shock troopers deploying energy shields. Tali, Kaidan and Garrus attacked with overloads while everyone else fired at any exposed geth, and soon the synthetic welcoming party was destroyed. They climbed some stairs and came around a corner to find sunlight streaming through an opening. Several frightened colonists popped out of cover, guns aimed at them, but they lowered them when they realized that Shepard and his squad were not geth. Strangely, though, they did not express gratitude or even seem to really react to the team's arrival. Shepard's eyebrows came together in confusion. He'd never seen people so completely ignore a rescue. He signaled the team to huddle up. "Something's off here. That guy who greeted us sounded weird, and these people should be begging us to get them off planet or get rid of the geth."

"Their body language doesn't indicate that they noticed us any more than to notice that we weren't geth," Tali added.

"My first thought was stims, since they've been having to be on guard around the clock, but they're too relaxed. I've seen people on stims; this is different," Garrus supplied.

"So whaddya want us to do, Shepard?" Wrex inquired.

"Just keep your eyes on these guys. Until we figure out what's going on, they're a potential threat, but we're not going to just assault them because of a suspicion."

They moved cautiously through the remains of the freighter that sat in the middle of the colony and headed towards a man who stood with an armed and armored woman. The man turned to them and signaled them over. His face, as much as his name, marked him as being of Chinese descent. "Oh, Commander. I'm glad they finally sent someone to help us."

"You're a bit late, aren't you?" The woman said bluntly, her voice hitching even more noticeably than the now-dead greeter's had.

"Arcelia!" Fai Dan scolded. "Sorry, Commander. Everyone's on edge since—"

"Watch out!" the woman yelled, gesturing with her assault rifle. A group of geth were coming through the doorway into the ancient tower. "We've got geth in the tower!"

"Protect the heart of the colony!" Fai Dan yelled. Eerily, every colonist, even the token salarian they'd seen, responded in the same moment with mechanical efficiency, readying weapons and moving to cover that blocked any approach to the downed freighter.

Shepard unleashed an overload program, its electrical blast downing the two geth in the doorway. As the rest of the team engaged the geth, he dropped back next to Garrus. Since their discussion after the mission at Terra Nova, the turian had rapidly become his close friend and effectively his second-in-command on the ground team. "Garrus. Did you hear what Fai Dan said?"

The turian looked over and nodded. "Yeah. You thought it sounded odd too, huh?"

"Very. Why 'the heart of the colony?' Why not just 'the colony?' Hell, why not 'hold the line?' We've heard people yell that often enough."

Garrus chuckled dryly. "No kidding. It's like there's something within the colony that they're more interested in saving than even the colony itself."

Shepard glanced out of cover in time to see Ashley gun down the last geth at their level. He stepped forward. "Okay, we'll send a group in to clear them out at the source. Garrus, you, Ash, Liara, and Kaidan stay here and make sure no geth come up behind us or anything. Tali, Wrex, you're with me."

Tali nodded and clutched her shotgun tightly, while Wrex chuckled. "This'll be fun," he rumbled.

The trio headed through the doorway and up the stairs, where a colonist was pinned behind cover by waves of geth fire. "God, I don't wannna die…please don't let me die!" he moaned piteously.

Shepard made a quick hand signal to Tali, and they snuck up to the doorway at the top of the stairs, then jumped around the corner, both unleashing overloads. The nearest geth were overwhelmed, while the rest paused, apparently confused. Wrex rounded the corner and charged forward, his shotgun roaring as he blasted the geth. This assault took out the last of the geth, and Shepard signaled the colonist, who bolted down the stairs and back to the colony.

The three pressed on, coming to a large room with a raised area on one side. It was filled with geth, and through a hole in the roof, a dropship was visible. No doubt more platforms would be headed down soon. All three drew their shotguns and prepared to charge, Wrex and Shepard using their biotics to bring up barriers to supplement their shields. Tali set up a shortcut for her shield boost on her omni-tool, then they ran in. The geth were not expecting such a brazen assault, and took moments longer to respond than usual—moments that proved crucial, allowing the squad to reach cover before the geth could break through their shields.

They took a moment in cover to collect themselves, hearing the unmistakable sound of more geth dropping into the room. Shepard and Tali let loose with overloads on any geth standing too close together, while Wrex fired a overcharged blast from his shotgun, ripping apart a destroyer. Shepard popped out of cover and ran at the second destroyer, his shotgun firing. His shields flared to life as the geth's fire impacted, but held firm as Shepard continued to fire, not stopping until his shotgun's thermal clip hit capacity as the geth collapsed, countless holes ripped through its body. The dropship, courtesy of the geth neural network, was now aware that any further drops into the room would be met with heavily armed resistance. There was a roar of engines activating, and the ship lifted away.

They made their way back to Fai Dan and the rest of the squad, who appeared visibly relieved that they were all fine. Fai Dan bowed slightly. "The tower's secure. Thanks to you, Commander."

"I'm just glad your colony's still safe," Shepard replied.

"I appreciate your concern…and your efforts against the geth," Fai Dan said.

"They may have been slowed, but they'll be back. They always come back," Arcelia said, emotion making her voice more normal, but still with a strange quality to it.

Shepard chose to ask a question just prodding enough to potentially get some information. "Help me find out what the geth are after and you'll all get out of here alive."

Fai Dan, though, gave nothing away. "We don't know what they're after. They came, they attacked us, that's all we know." His voice sounded a bit more strained, though. "Their main base is at the ExoGeni headquarters. A good place to start looking if you want answers."

Shepard had heard about ExoGeni in the mission brief; a biotech company that had funded the colony of Zhu's Hope as part of its efforts to unearth Prothean secrets from Feros' skyscrapers. "The skyway leads directly to ExoGeni headquarters. You can't miss it," Arcelia explained.

"Of course, there's an army of geth between here and there," Fai Dan pointed out.

"I didn't expect this would be easy," Shepard said dryly.

"Then maybe I can get this colony operational again," Fai Dan said with a similarly wry smile. "We could use any help you can offer with that."

Shepard thought for a moment. "Okay, Kaidan and Wrex, switch places. Garrus, you're in charge of the squad here. I want you guys to help out with anything the colony needs to get back on its feet. Kaidan and Tali, I'm calling Joker to deliver the Mako onto that skyway. Let's see what ExoGeni has for us."

Garrus nodded. "Wish I was coming with you, but we'll do what we can here. Snipe one for me, will you?"

Shepard smirked. "You know it. Now let's move!"