Author's Note: I hope people didn't think I had forgotten about Benezia and Liara, so most of this is to make up for their absence. Thane will appear, probably next chapter, as will Aethyta in the next one after that, maybe. It's not like I have an outline for this stuff. As always, I love reviews, and I love my fans!
Shepard walked back on board the ship, and straight down to the med bay. Chakwas looked up, nodding respectfully as she scanned a medical journal of some kind. Benezia, still restrained, was currently asleep, and so was Liara, passed out in a chair leaning against the wall. "Sitrep, doc," she said quietly, and Chakwas closed out the terminal before turning around.
"I've been studying Benezia for a month now, along with several of my counterparts and superiors while we were docked at Arcturus," she said. "When she's awake, things seem to progress in almost the exact same fashion on an eight hour cycle. She awakens lucid, responding to all questions and appearing to all indications completely normal. By the third hour, she begins to grow increasingly erratic. Starting around the fourth hour, she can break free of the indoctrination for a few minutes at a time, depending on who is present and what is happening around her. Ironically, Liara's presence is a damper to this; my professional guess is that the real Benezia doesn't want her daughter to know how much she's trapped inside her own mind.
"By the seventh hour, she's wildly bipolar, switching from elation to despair in a matter of minutes, and would be attempting to harm herself if I didn't keep her restrained. We've had to move to feeding her mostly intravenously, because of those tendencies. By hour eight, I have to apply sedatives or she'll hurt herself against the restraints. Despite biotic-dampening drugs, she's still attempting to use her biotics to free herself, and I'm starting to worry about the long term effects of those drugs."
Shepard nodded, still studying the sleeping matriarch. "Shepard, I know you're wanting to play things close to the vest, but despite my studying and recent experience, I am not qualified for this kind of care." Chakwas crossed her arms angrily. "I'm not sure there are any asari doctors qualified, either, but they'd be better qualified to treat the symptoms."
"I know, and I agree." She sighed. "I could leave her here, turn her over to doctors on the Citadel, or I could take her to Illium, our next stop, it's an asari colony. Mostly, anyway." Shepard scrubbed at her face with one hand. "I sent messages to a couple of other asari matriarchs who might be able to help." Her gaze drifted to Liara, still asleep in the chair. "Or, help Liara, even if they can't help Benezia. God, this is all kinds of fucked up," she sighed. "Almost makes me wish I'd just shot her again."
"Again?" Chakwas asked, confused. "Shepard, I know there's something going on, and for whatever reason, you've taken your squad into your confidence, even Garrus and Tali, and you don't feel ready to share it with me." Shepard turned, blinking in confusion.
"Wait, what?" She held up a hand, closing her eyes and running over conversations in her mind. No, I really haven't told Chakwas. I haven't told Joker, either, but he hardly leaves the pilot chair except to piss and eat. "I'm sorry, doctor. I've been running myself so ragged, I forgot that I hadn't told you." Hopping up onto the other bed, she laid out the short version of the story, explaining everything with time travel, and especially everything she could remember on Reaper indoctrination. "I'm really sorry, Karin."
"Well, that explains quite a bit," Chakwas said. She hesitated a moment, then opened a drawer of her desk, pulling out a bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy. "Here's to cheating fate."
Soberly, Shepard took the offered glass, staring into the liquid. "I didn't cheat everyone's," she sad quietly. "Pressly, Waaberi, Greico – they're still dead. All those people on Altakiril and Dekunna. Plus whatever the hell is happening on Omega."
Sternly, the doctor slugged back her drink, and pointed a stern finger into Jane's face. "You listen here, Shepard," she ordered firmly. "Pull your head out of your ass and stop feeling sorry for yourself. You stopped Nazara, even if not in the way you thought. You rescued that VI, and got the Council to shut down the Citadel relay. You got three races, soon to be five, to work building that Crucible thing so that we can stop the Reapers, once and for all. You are not a failure," she admonished. "Now drink up. Doctor's orders."
Smiling despite herself, she did as ordered, handing back the glass. "Thanks, doctor." She stood up, stretching a little bit, and turning for the door. "We're going to head for Illium. I have some new messages to send, and hopefully you'll get your help with Benezia while Jondam and I are busy."
"I'll do my best to keep her stable, Commander, but it's not easy." Nodding in understanding, Shepard strode back out of medbay, and over to her cabin.
She paced back and forth in front of her terminal for several minutes, trying to organize her thoughts. Finally deciding, she turned it on, recording an audio message. "Matriarch Aethyta, my name is Commander Shepard. I know you received my last message, and chose not to respond for whatever reason. I am on my way to Illium with Benezia, in hopes of finding someone there who can help treat her. Please, meet us there. If not for Benezia, then for Liara, your daughter."
She cut it off, and paced back and forth to try and phrase another message. She hadn't actually sent a message to Samara, who she knew was still trying to hunt down Morinth. But at the same time, an indoctrinated matriarch, and an unknown number of her disciples, was a big deal for the justicars. Still, she had no idea how this Samara would react – Shepard had, basically, taken asari supremacy and given it a shot to the gut, by revealing their hidden Prothean beacon.
Growling at herself, she turned off the terminal, pushing it off for the moment. She'd talk to Samara after she'd killed the yahg and put Miranda as the Shadow Broker, and could use those resources to track down Morinth. She opened the door to her cabin, intending to head up to the CIC and supervise the supply loading, and instead ran smack into Garrus' chest. "Oh, uh, sorry about that, Shepard," he apologized.
"It's okay," she said, fighting the urge to rub her nose. "What did you need?"
"I got in touch with some of those people you mentioned," he said. "I was just coming down here to give you an update."
She grinned, glad to have some good news. "That's excellent! I knew you were good for it." His mandibles shifted slightly into "embarrassed pride," if she was reading them right. "Come in and give me an update." Grabbing his hand, she pulled him into her cabin, sitting them both down at the table. "Alright, hit me," she said.
He made a little flanging whine, the turian equivalent of throat clearing. "Jack, aka Subject Zero, was turned over to the Purgatory prison two weeks ago. Noveria paid the bounty to keep her locked up for the next ten years, after she trashed a Binary Helix facility." He looked up at her. "Unless your admiral is going to forward you twenty million credits, we're not likely to get her out of there."
She sighed miserably. "Probably not. I don't suppose you can hack into Cerberus funding and have them pay for it?" He looked at her, obviously trying to decide if that was a joke, and she sighed. "I guess not."
"I'm not a hacker, Shepard. I'm good with security systems, but not that good. Next on your list was Thane Krios, who is actually on Illium." She perked up a little bit at that. "He's been working as a bouncer at a turian nightclub, but his last job before that was a failed stint as a bodyguard." His face pulled tight in disapproval. "A batarian merchant he was guarding was poisoned under his watch."
She put the pieces together fairly quickly. "Probably that merchant was one of the people responsible for torturing his wife to death." The disapproval morphed very quickly to anger. "Have you contacted him yet?"
Garrus shrugged. "I sent him a message about a job opening, but haven't gotten a response." He clicked his pad to the next name. "Zaeed Massani is on a contract training merc recruits for a new outfit called 'Mooney's Marauders.' He's on contract for another three months, but expressed interest in being hired, as long as we pay his travel fare to discuss it." He clicked over to the last name. "Kasumi Goto I actually asked Jondam about. Apparently he's spent the last three years tracking her in his spare time. He thinks she's on Terra Nova right now."
"Alright. She's not quite as important right now, but I'd like to get her and," she hesitated, What the hell was her boyfriend's name again? "Keiji? Is that her partner?" Garrus nodded. "They'd be useful if we have to infiltrate Omega."
"Shepard? Are you sure you can still trust all of these people? I mean, you knew them in your future," he hesitated, "but everything has changed from what you knew. How sure are you that they'll still work with you? Not to mention, getting them into the chain of command."
She put her face in her hands, leaning on the table. "I know. But damnit, without these people, I would have failed before. I know they can help me, whether they're with me on the Normandy or not. I'm not even out to recruit Thane right away, not until he can at least try to square things with his son."
He hesitated a long moment, then awkwardly patted her on the shoulder, going still when she reached up and caught his hand, squeezing it tightly. "You're here to back me up, right?"
"Of course, Shepard." His voice was quiet, flanging almost absent. "We're going to save the galaxy, and then get rich off the royalties."
Her smile was a mix of happy and scared. "No Shepard without Vakarian, right?"
Unsure quite how to take it, he tried to defuse it with a jest. "Does that mean we need to hook up your mom and my sister?"
Shepard looked up, quietly horrified, only to start snickering once she caught sight of his face. "Somehow, I don't think that would work out well for your sister," she managed to get out between giggles.
"Hey, at least it got you to smile. You need to do that more often," he chided her.
"Come see me more often, and I will," she said quietly, leaning forward to kiss each mandible softly before pressing her forehead to his. Though still nervous, he didn't move away. "Now, unless you've got something more for me, I need to supervise our resupply so we can get on our way to Illium."
"Nope, nothing else right now," Garrus said softly, pulling away from her and standing up. Somewhat reluctantly, she followed him out, splitting off as he headed back to the cargo bay and she took the stairs up.
It took until the next day before they departed the Citadel and arrived on Illium, a fairly short two hour transit. Jondam had spent the entire transit time in the CIC with her, going over the data that Legion had collated from the geth infiltration of Illium networks. "So this is the last known location," Bau finally covered. "A shielded, separate network on a corporate skyscraper. I must say, having geth as backup is not unwelcome."
"We are pleased to assist," Legion said.
"What did you have in mind?" Shepard asked. "My style is usually to take a few people, no more than six, and shoot anyone that gets in the way."
"That serves well for assaulting mercenary bases, Commander, but that's not going to work well on this building." He pulled up a holographic display of the building. "I'm completely sure it no longer matches the original blueprints, if in fact it ever did, so this is my estimate of the current state of the building."
Shields strong enough to shield a Mako appeared at numerous parts inside the skyscraper, along with concealed firing slits, cannons, turrets, and movable armor plating. She studied it all for several minutes before nodding. "The most secure part of the building seems to be the nineteenth floor."
"Indeed," Bau said, pleased. "No assault by air, as the defenses are, if you include the anti-air guns, more formidable than attacking from the ground. The exterior of the building is armored glass supplemented by mobile shield generators. We're not going to brute force our way inside."
An idea struck her, and she smiled. "I don't suppose you know any drell?" He frowned at the non-sequitur. "There's an assassin, named Thane Krios. He's supposed to be on the planet. And he has experience sneaking into heavily armed fortresses, and more importantly, walking out again."
"Despite not stating a time limit for us, previous experience tells me the Council wants this settled as quickly as possible." He shrugged. "Contact him, see if he'll assist us, or at least advise us. I'm assuming that Vakarian, Legion, and Williams will also be with us on this mission?"
"That was my idea," she agreed. "Vakarian and Legion are both sniper trained, though Garrus is no slouch with an assault rifle. My biotics to counter theirs, if there are any present."
Bau looked at her like she was an idiot. "We're landing on a planet full of asari. There will definitely be biotics present."
She shrugged. "Good thing I'm a trained adept then. How much independence is expected of synthetic assistants on Illium?" They both turned to look at Legion. "Because if we can get away with it, we can have Legion scout the outside of the building, and not risk the chance that we'll be recognized."
"Sounds like a good plan. The Normandy is already berthed at the nearest spaceport, and I made hotel reservations for us near the building." He turned off his omni-tool. "Ten minute transit time by aircar between here and there. Are we prepared to depart?"
"Let me finalize the liberty plans with Alenko, and then yes." She took a deep breath, putting her game face on. "Let's go kill Saren again."