The end of the Noveria Mission. Unlike in the games, I made Benezia a genuine badass instead of a static biotic turret spamming spells.
Enjoy!
Chapter Thirteen
Noveria, Peak 15
Pandemonium reigned. Liara's biotic pulse waves cleared the walkways of geth at unpredictable intervals, sending the combat platforms flying into the air. Kaidan and Garrus dragged her over to the far end, limiting the approach vectors, and then using their cover to set up a firing position that allowed them to eliminate the geth that magnetized themselves to the grates with impunity. The geth platforms that fell back on the walkways attempted to rise only to be pierced with deadly accurate counterfire.
From the wrecked doorway however, a third turian exoskeleton rushed forward at high speed, carrying a large piece of metal in front as a battering ram, intent on crushing the three against the wall.
Garrus swore, preparing a modified pulse grenade shot while Liara's eyes narrowed. She focused on the walkway directly in front, and reached out with her biotics. The grate suddenly shot up, turning the walkway into a ramp that the rapidly moving hijacked exoskeleton cleared before the geth controlling it could stop it. As it smashed itself into a nearby wall, Garrus fired. The modified pulse grenade pierced the exoskeleton's armor and detonated inside, completely frying every system and overloading the mass effect generator on the back. Hardwired safety systems reacted, disabling its power feed and preventing the generator from going supercritical.
"Good thing they don't self-destruct!" Kaidan called as he lobbed a grenade into the hole in the walkway before cringing as white-hot light erupted from down below. An acrid smell trailed up, letting all present know that the geth units that had been climbing up had been all but immolated.
"Please don't give the geth ideas…" Garrus replied as he butt-stroked a freshly uncloaked commando who'd leapt behind their position.
Liara took her attention away from the battle and directed it at the stunned woman on the floor. "Why are you doing this?!" she shrieked. "Why is mother siding with Saren?"
The asari commando's eyes cleared just as Garrus aimed his rifle at her face. "…it is the will of Sovereign…" she answered distantly before her face exploded in a rain of blue blood, tissue and cartilage.
Liara flinched, involuntarily jerking her biotics so that the grate she ripped from the walkway slammed down across what was left of the ruined doorway.
Meanwhile, Shepard had been contemptuously brute forcing her way through Benezia's guard and completely ignoring the woman's biotic attacks. Two commandos fired waves in unison while a third fired with a mass effect sniper rifle. The waves of biotic force unified into a roaring pulse that threatened to overwhelm the commando until it mysteriously parted around her and tore apart the catwalk railing behind her. The rifle shot slammed into the left pauldron of Shepard's armor, doing nothing to slow her down as she grabbed a commando's gun and twisted it sideways so that the gun fired into her comrade. The gunfire distracted the other enough to let Shepard fire off an uppercut that sent the unfortunate woman sailing into the ceiling, forming a crater around the woman's broken body. The second commando recovered from flinching enough to clap her hands together, creating an omnidirectional wave of biotic energy that propelled her and the Alliance supersoldier in opposite directions.
Or it should have. Shepard's left arm lashed out and grabbed the woman's right, resulting in the asari's own attack ripping her arm off. Once again, the wave of energy parted around the woman like a curtain, leaving Shepard unmoved against her will.
Benezia watched in horror as Shepard quickly pulled out her laser carbine and fired one-handed at the asari sniper, nonchalantly ignoring the second shot and slagging the faceplate. The unfortunate asari screamed in agony, dropped her rifle and clawed at her face, which was now encased in a much more form-fitting alloy mass than before. Shepard switched her aim to the crippled commando in front of her and burned a hole through her torso. Meanwhile, the sniper dropped to her knees, blindly and uselessly clutching at her throat while still red-hot material oozed downward, before crumpling on her side. As Shepard caught her breath, the body twitched in the final throws of asphyxia before becoming still.
"Looks like your guards don't cut it, Benezia," Shepard called up, mockingly extending the severed limb. "Need a hand?"
Benezia's horror coalesced into fury. Kaidan suddenly staggered as he psionically heard a single raging scream in his head, far different from the voices before.
"Saren really was right about you humans," Benezia spat. "You are the monsters of the galaxy."
"The worst," Shepard shot back, glowing purple eyes narrowed in determination. "And if Saren thinks he's going to wipe us out, he's got another think coming."
Garrus abruptly felt a chill run down his back. Something was about to go down, and he didn't think Shepard taunting the thousand-year-old biotic witch was helping.
"I think that I've tolerated your impudence LONG ENOUGH!" Benezia declared as her hands erupted in barely-controlled biotic energy, which swirled up her arms. Her black dress began burning away, revealing much more practical wear in the form of thin cloth armor. The asari levitated off the walkway and curled up as the biotic energy intensified. The room began to shake as pulsing waves of biotic energy emanated from the angry asari.
"MOVE!" Garrus yelled as he yanked both Kaidan and Liara to their feet and pushed them out of the corner just as a metal plate from the ceiling detached above them. The plate plummeted down, crashing through the walkway and folding it up like clam.
"YAAH!" Liara screamed as she and Garrus tumbled down into the room below. Kaidan scrambled forward, clawing his way back onto the catwalk before Benezia convulsed and straightened herself out, unleashing a massive wave that picked him up and slammed him against the grate in the doorway.
"Nnngh!" Shepard braced herself, forearms crossed in front of herself as the wave billowed over her. As the light faded, she was about to lower her arms when a jarring impact sent her sideways to land spine first on the console Benezia had been messing with in the beginning.
Instinctively, she grasped the console and leveraged her feet up and lashed out, kicking the matriarch out of her lunge. Benezia rebounded off the far wall in such a way that she rolled down to land feet first on the catwalk, leaving behind a large dent in the wall. As Shepard pushed off the console, she noted that Benezia should have been lying flat on the floor with a crushed ribcage, in complete contrast to her guarded position at the moment.
"It's time I ended your worthless existence," Benezia whispered as biotic lightning crackled around her fingers.
Shepard curled her own fingers into fists as she surrounded herself in a subdued purple glow. She slowly shifted her foot backward, sinking into a ready stance. "My thoughts exactly!"
Citadel, Council Chambers
Tevos found herself pacing anxiously as Valern approached her and Sparatus.
"Credit for your thoughts, Tevos?"
"Just thinking about Matriarch Benezia," she replied, eyes locked on something in the distance only she could see. "I remember sitting in her lectures as she told us all about the will of the Goddess Athame, the need to be open and respectful of other races, and how we can all learn and build a brighter future with one another. She was my idol. I went into politics because I wanted to live up to her ideals. And now we find out she's joined with Saren on some revenge plot against the Alliance. Why?"
"Motivation is usually something we only learn in the aftermath," Sparatus noted. "And we aren't there yet."
"We also may never know why she turned against her ideals," Valern added. "The enemy is always rational by their standards, but not necessarily by yours. You can try to comprehend her actions, but only by understanding her mindset. And given how far she's fallen from those ideals she used to espouse, you may wish to be ignorant of that."
Tevos threw up her hands. "It's just…argh! It doesn't feel right! Maybe Saren is controlling her somehow! The Benezia I knew as a maiden would never do this!"
"Benezia is hardly weak enough for a Batarian Slave Implant to affect her," Sparatus noted dryly, ignoring Tevos's angry glare. "and I doubt even the Alliance has mastered mind control techniques to the point of dramatically changing someone's personality."
"There's no point in speculation until Spectre Vakarian reports in from Noveria," Valern cautioned warningly. "We will find the truth, one way or another."
Tevos sighed. "I hope so," she whispered.
Sparatus coughed. "Well I'm sure you didn't call us here to play the shrink. What's happened?"
"A scout group of STG operatives has tracked geth sightings to the planet Virmire," Valern revealed. "In the interest of remaining undetected, they've pulled back and reported in. When the geth ships in orbit leave the system, they'll move in to investigate."
"Should we send someone with them who knows what to look for?" Tevos asked.
"I've taken the liberty of briefing one of our agents and sending them off already," the salarian councilor replied.
Unknown location
The asari laid back in her seat, scanning the briefing file and idly wondering what awaited her on arrival. She glanced at the clock on the console. Twenty hours left to kill. She got up and stretched in the confines of her ship. Might as well limber up. No telling what she'd be dealing with later.
Citadel, Council Chambers
"Also, the Hypathian Institute of Prothean Studies has lost contact with one of its research outposts on Feros. I wouldn't have considered it interesting except…"
"Dr. T'Soni is under contract with them," Sparatus finished.
"Precisely." Valern continued. "Any lead, no matter how thin, is something that can keep the Alliance pacified. Also the Hypathian Institute's chairwoman told me that they'd recently come across something very interesting that led them to call in a contract with an Alliance company, ExoGeni, to study new life forms. They chose the Alliance company because they wanted the best expertise."
"But that's not enough to send Vakarian and the Normandy over there to investigate," Tevos objected. "There's no connection to Saren."
"Not until very recently. Our best technical experts examined traffic records through the relay network recently, and they've found a number of unknown ships with a distinct similarity to the geth cruiser the Normandy destroyed above Therum. Guess which direction those unknowns appeared to be heading through the network."
"I see," Sparatus commented. "Then I assume we'll be sending the Normandy that way once they finish with Noveria?"
"Yes. I intend to give the STG more time to investigate Virmire. If Saren is doing something there, I want them to be able to catalogue the place without Alliance interference."
"Sounds like a plan."
Noveria, Peak 15
Shepard leapt away from the blast of biotic lightning as the chaotic stream of energy warped and curled the metal walkway in interesting and lethal ways. Using her enhanced leg musculature, she found purchase against the wall and shot forward at the biotic only to bounce off a blue dome similar to what Liara used.
Benezia turned and heaved another bolt of lightning at the commander, whose eyes flared purple as she brought up her right forearm. Inexplicably, the lightning shattered six inches away, dispersing off to the side. Benezia's eyes narrowed. It seemed ranged attacks as a whole were useless against the commander.
Shepard snagged a twisted section of railing and effortlessly straightened it out before twirling it experimentally. Then she bounded forward, thrusting the shaft like a sword. Benezia swatted it off to the left, which Shepard turned into a sideways slash that threatened to cut the asari in half.
Benezia swiftly brought up her own right arm and flared her biotics. The metal rail audibly rebounded off of a bluish cloud, air molecules crushed together by her own mass effect fields to form a solid shield, before Shepard grabbed the far end of the pole and aimed the "hilt" at Benezia's head. Benezia reacted by imbuing her fist with a biotic shockwave, forming another "pad" of solid air in front, and punched Shepard right in the ribs.
Shepard flew sideways into the wall, shattering the panel and embedding herself in it. She pulled herself out and thrust out her psionic shield just as Benezia used both her hands to fire another stream of biotic lightning. The energy was deflected away from Shepard's hands and into the walls, shredding even more metal and destroying the Alliance supersoldier's footing. As she dropped to the severely damaged catwalk, she noted Benezia was breathing heavily. The biotics were beginning to take a toll on her.
"Why won't you die?!"
Shepard spat to the side, noting the bloody tint. "You're not strong enough to kill me!"
Kaidan had been jarred back to consciousness by the commander's impact with the wall. He raised his pounding head and looked up just in time to see Benezia ready another attack. "Commander!" he shouted, and some instinct drove him to reach out with his mind.
Benezia suddenly staggered, her biotic attack fizzling out, and she clutched at her head. "AAUGH!"
Shepard jerked in surprise, before looking over at Kaidan, who'd had his arm out. She could faintly feel the signature of a psi-bolt in the air.
The asari dropped to one knee, her left hand holding her temple and her right steadying herself on the catwalk. She raised her head, and Shepard could see her eyes flashing blue, black and white in a random sequence. "LET GO OF ME!"
The woman seemed to be fighting with herself. Shepard stood poised to move while Benezia's spasms slowly died down. Then the asari looked up at her. "…I…I'm free…" she managed to whisper before collapsing onto her back.
Shepard tentatively moved forward. "Matriarch Benezia?"
Benezia looked at her as if for the first time. "…you're…after…Saren?" she asked slowly.
"Yes," Shepard answered, bewildered.
"…It's not…Saren…you should fear…ngh!" The asari convulsed again before focusing once more, a trickle of blood coming from her nose. "…beware…Sovereign…his Reaper…"
"Is that his dreadnought?" Shepard questioned.
"…not a ship…" she gasped. "…Reaper…Saren…controlled by it…controlled me…couldn't…couldn't fight…"
"What do you mean 'controlled?' "
"…the voices…Sovereign…it spoke…my head…trapped in my mind…couldn't stop...stop him…"
Shepard was becoming more and more uneasy by the second. What Benezia was saying made it sound like Saren was just a pawn. And if he was controlled by this…Reaper, what did it want?
"…must…must ngh!" Benezia shook her head and glared at Shepard with the eyes of an enemy. "You won't win!" she hissed as she readied a point blank biotic attack. Shepard was preparing a shield when Benezia suddenly jerked, the attack flying harmlessly to the side. Her eyes turned pale white and she froze.
Kaidan was standing against the grate, one arm hugging his side, the other outstretched. "…had to stop her ma'am…" he said with effort.
"Drop it, Kaidan."
The lieutenant obliged. Benezia's body dropped to the floor, unmoving except for the rise and fall of her chest.
"Spirits above!" Garrus's voice echoed through the room. The Alliance officers turned to look at him as he pulled himself up onto the catwalks by the collapsed grating. "You did a real number on the place, Shepard."
"Benezia helped with that," She retorted.
"Well speaking of her, I assume that since you're alive, she's at least incapacitated?"
Shepard eyed the prone body. "More or less."
Liara scrambled up and raced over. "M-mother!" she whispered in horror.
"She didn't really leave me much of a choice, Liara," Shepard told her.
Liara didn't answer. She knelt down and cradled her mother's head before breaking into tears.
"I know this isn't going to go over well," Garrus said as he walked up, eyeing the grieving woman. "but we still need to know what she was doing with the Rachni in this place."
"The old one sought our sight," a rumbling voice echoed from above. Garrus and Shepard looked up to see the asari she'd uppercutted into the ceiling, twitching oddly, the voice coming from her helmet.
"Who's there?!"
"The room beyond, I rest within," the voice answered. Shepard cocked an eyebrow and eyed the console she'd slammed into before. No way that thing was going to help.
"Tali, can you open all panels at our location?"
"Hold on, Shepard. Localizing." One minute later, a battered wall panel slid open to reveal a massive rachni peering in from a large containment chamber.
"Spirits above…" Garrus muttered in awe.
"Goddess…" Liara whispered.
"Who are you?" Shepard asked.
"I am the mother. You have fought my children. You released them from torment. They could not hear the song."
"Ma'am, she's the Queen," Kaidan clarified.
"What do you mean she wanted 'your sight?' " Shepard demanded.
"We remember the old times. Those who came before, who shared your gift of song. Those who led the last cycle. We carry the sights of old."
"I've seen some files," Liara spoke up. "The queen seems to be saying she remembers the history of her race. The last cycle, that might be the Protheans."
"What part of your 'sight' did she want?"
"Those of the last cycle. They created a light. A stream. A pathway. The sour note seeks it. The old one is its hand."
"The Protheans created something that Saren wants," Liara tentatively translated.
"We share. We wish to live free from the sour note. You are not its hands. Release us, and we share."
"You want to be free?" Shepard asked warily. "From what I've heard, you Rachni had a war with the Citadel races. If you were free, would you start that up again?"
"Many cycles, we have been sought out. Our children turned, lost to us. We desire peace and solace."
"So you just wanted us to leave you alone?" Garrus queried.
"Since our gift of song, we have been pursued. Many cycles have passed, but all have sought us as their hands. We tire of this."
"Well that I can understand," Shepard muttered. "If you can tell us what they were after from you, I don't have any problem letting you go if you'll keep to yourself."
"Uh, Shepard, how do we know she'll keep her word?" Garrus pointed out.
"Because I can tell," Kaidan answered. "I can tell she's sincere."
"How?"
"If Kaidan says that, I'll believe him."
"So you're just going off a hunch from him?"
"It's classified, Vakarian. I'll need clearance to explain, but for now, just trust us."
Garrus made to object, then reconsidered how the Alliance soldiers were in the position to call the shots. "Fine," he muttered. "But I'm going to want that explanation."
The Normandy
Liara held Benezia's hand as Doctor Chakwas ran her scans. The doctor eyed the results on her screen before shaking her head and turning to address the asari.
"I am sorry, but the damage she's suffered is irreparable here," she said. "I don't even know if our medical science can fix it."
Liara's face fell. "There's no way?"
"None that I know of yet," Karin answered. "Our brightest minds might be able to come up with something in the future, but that is a long shot. Considering how old your mother is, perhaps it might be best…" she trailed off, uncertain how the blue archaeologist would react.
"And if there was?"
"Your mother might return to how she was before, and she might not. You have to decide whether or not you really want to try and bring her back, or remember her as she was."
Liara thought about how Benezia used to be, and then about her association with Saren, and wondered about the "sour note" and the "reaper" whose voice had twisted her, according to Shepard. "This was Saren's fault…" she growled, grief now giving way to anger. "He did this!"
"Yes he did," the doctor agreed. "And the Commander is going to do something about it. Don't worry."
"Karin, even if the Alliance can't bring her back, they can figure out what he did to her, can they?"
The doctor thought for a moment before answering. "Liara, if you want us to do that, you have to understand that our methods can be very…invasive. Are you sure you want your mother to go through that?"
Liara didn't answer. The doctor placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "This isn't a decision you should make in anger and grief. We're heading to the Citadel next. You have time to think about it."
The young asari didn't move as the doctor left the bay to give her report. Not at all, except to squeeze her mother's hand. And, so she imagined, her mother squeezed back.
Noveria
"This is Noveria Traffic Control. Identify yourself."
"This is Spectre Tela Vasir, following up on Spectre Vakarian's visit. I'm here to look at the facility for the Council and pick up after him. Sending authentication."
"Receiving. Authorized. You are cleared to enter the facility. Proceed to Peak 15 Access."
"Understood." Morinth, aka, Subject Zero settled back in her seat. This was just too easy.
Finally, what some people were waiting for. This demonstrates that there are, in fact, alien characters that can tango with Shepard one on one.
Poor Liara. She's really going through the wringer in this one, eh?
KhazintheDark - One thing that you're forgetting is that a carrier is more than just a transport for a fighter wing. It's also a mobile flight line for maintaining it. For every ONE hour of flight time for a modern fighter jet, there's 20 to 30 hours of maintenance. A Firestorm would be significantly more complex than an F-15, and thus would require more maintenance and equipment.
A Nimitz-class Carrier does not operate with a true flight line. It simply does not have enough room for all the equipment carts and tools and parts to perform full maintenance on its 90-unit air wing. And believe me, those carts take up HUGE amounts of room on a real flight line.
A Firestorm not only has an engine, the space equivalent of avionics equipment, a weapons bank and a fuel tank, but various other things as well. It has a shield generator that maintains structural integrity, heavy armor, communications equipment, heavy cooling equipment for the guns and drive core, and the necessary equipment to handle the antimatter generated by the Elerium Core. That is far more systems than a modern fighter jet. There will consequently be far more maintenance equipment needed for it. Along with maintainers to use it.
An Alliance Carrier only has 20 because it is meant to function indefinitely away from supply lines as a mobile supply base for its attached fleet. It carries fabricator units that can create parts using asteroids as raw material. It houses a fully functional flight line for those twenty instead of a minimized one for 106. That is why the capacity is much more limited. All that extra equipment takes up space. Rather than compromise their maintenance capacity, they go with less spacecraft and a fully functional flight line.
And finally, Firestorms may possess cruiser-class striking power, but they don't have the same firing rate. An Alliance Military Cruiser has a drive core two orders of magnitude more powerful to drive not just the weapons, but to propel a much larger ship and power its communications and other critical systems. A Firestorm is just a damage dealer. A Cruiser is a command ship for a unit when a battle group splits up into smaller units. Cruisers can fire their fusion lances once every 30 seconds. A Firestorm takes six minutes between shots to build up sufficient power. But if twenty Firestorms shoot sequentially over equal time, that means that a Carrier has an effective fire rate of one fusion lance round every twelve seconds. With rapid retargeting capability. A cruiser can't match that, but it doesn't have to. Cruisers serve as Naval Squadron command units, directing and commanding the destroyers, frigates, prowlers and other ships under them when the Group command or Fleet command ships aren't present. Cruisers are usually commanded by Captains and Commanders.
To everyone else, sorry for the long author note.
Can anyone figure out what the Queen was hinting at? Cookies if you do!
And sorry, but Jack won't be in the story. At least, not the CANON Jack. Psionics are flat out superior to biotics here. Biotics require active element zero in someone's biology. Psionics don't. Biotics require implants to control and direct the energy, and draw off the wielder's metabolism. Psionics don't. With that in mind, the Alliance (and more specifically, Cerberus) has no reason to experiment with producing human biotics.
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