Feros: Part 3

Tali looked back at the human they'd picked up back at the ExoGeni HQ. Her neck was bent, her eyes were unfocused, and her were hands were clasped over her knees. No doubt she was thinking about her role in the plight of the colonists. As she should have been, but at least she had the sense to notice her company was doing something wrong, and had the will to try and do something about it.

Tali herself wasn't sure what she'd have done in the human's situation. If her people were running unethical tests on unknowing subjects…if her father was involved…She just hoped she'd never be forced into a situation like that.

A feminine voice spluttered through the speakers, "…anybody. Is there anyone picking this up?"

Elizabeth perked up as soon as she heard it.

"Get away from that radio!" another, distinctly male, voice yelled. It sounded like that man from before…Jeong.

"What was that all about?" Elizabeth asked.

"Sounds like a hostile takeover," Shepard said.

The research assistant didn't respond, but Tali saw the encroaching nervousness. She had no doubt she recognized both voices.

"I'm driving as fast as I can," Shepard said. The Mako shuddered as it was hit by what was most likely a geth rocket. "As you can tell."

Tali glanced over the shield monitors, they were fine. Shepard and Garrus were still taking out any geth they saw, but at no point was the commander actually stopping the rover. Looking back at Elizabeth, Tali saw that her face was whiter than before. She herself had limited experience with humans, and that gave her little input into what the changing skin colors meant. For a quarian it meant a multitude of things, and none of them positive, but they all boiled down to stress. Maybe it was the same for humans? Given the situation, it wouldn't be surprising. "We'll make it," she said.

Elizabeth gave her a small, nervous smile. "Yeah."

Tali felt for the human. She seemed like she was at the point of trying not to think about the negative outcomes, so as not to be consumed by them, but utterly failing…She herself had been there a few times, most recently when she'd been shot on the Citadel. But she survived. As the human would.

"Tali, could you reroute a bit more power to the forward shields?" Shepard asked.

She turned back to her monitors, "Yes, on it."

OOO

Shepard steered the Mako down the last hill before the scientist's refuge. A familiar voice broke through the comms again. "[Static]…this is Juliana Baynham of Feros colony. Please help us…[static]"

"That's my mom!" Elizabeth said.

"We're almost there," Shepard said. He pulled the rover around the path to the refuge.

"Stop! Stop the rover!" Elizabeth said, already trying to manipulate the mechanism for the door. Shepard found it reassuring that the doors only unlocked when the wheels were stopped. He'd have hated himself if he'd accidentally run her over.

As soon as the machine stopped, the door did what it was made for, and Elizabeth darted for the opening. With a nod to his companions, he pulled out his pistol and followed her. Elizabeth was crouched down near the opening of the path.

Joined her, bumped her elbow, and then motioned forward. As one, he, Elizabeth, and his squad moved down the path, careful to stay low. Everyone that he could see was focused on two people, one was pacing with a gun, Jeong, he assumed, and the other was standing still trying to talk to him, he was pretty sure it was Juliana.

"You can't do this Jeong," he heard the woman say.

"Everyone shut up! Let me think!" the man said. It was definitely Jeong.

"What's going on?" Shepard heard Elizabeth whisper, peeking over a nearby crate.

Shepard looked over at her and mouthed, "Hostile takeover?" with what he hoped was a shrug that told her he had no clue. Tali was crouched down next to her. That meant Garrus was by him. He stepped back in his mind for half a second as he realized he could safely assume that.

"You won't get away with this!" he heard Juliana say.

"Get her out of here!" Jeong ordered. Two men with guns started approaching.

It was at this point that Elizabeth stood up and shouted, "Get away from her, you son of a b****!" Shepard didn't waste his time trying to stop her as she rushed to her mother.

"Lizbeth!" Juliana said, hugging her daughter. They were immediately surrounded by what little security there was.

"Damn it!" Jeong said, turning and pointing his gun in the direction of the squad. "Come out where I can see you! All of you!" Shepard let out a breath, shook his head, and stood up. Tali and Garrus followed suit. "Hah, Shepard. Damn it! I knew it was too much to hope the geth would kill you." Shepard never took his eyes off of the Asian man as he led his squad to him. "I found some interesting facts about you in the ExoGeni database. I know what you did during the Blitz, but your heroics aren't needed here."

"Irrelevant data given the nature of the situation," Shepard said. "You need to back down and let them go. Put the gun down."

Jeong lowered his weapon, but didn't drop it. "You don't understand. It's not that easy."

"You can start by ordering your men back," he cut in. He already noticed the security around the scientists backing up.

"Communications are back up," Jeong continued. "ExoGeni wants this place purged."

"This is a human colony, Jeong," Elizabeth said. "You can't just re-purpose us."

Jeong looked back at her, "It's not just you. There's something here far more valuable than a few colonists."

"The Thorian," Shepard cut in again, "The one unique thing Feros has."

"The what?" Juliana asked.

"It's a telepathic life-form living under Zhu's Hope," Elizabeth explained, she sounded like the little girl who broke her mother's expensive glass figurines. "It's taking control of the colonists there." Her eyes hardened and she looked over at Jeong. "ExoGeni knew it was happening from the beginning."

Juliana's gaze matched her daughter's. "You won't get away with this Jeong."

Jeong's face split into an ironic grin. "So you keep saying. But nobody's going to miss a few colonists."

That comment was one step too far. Shepard pointed his own pistol at the Asian man. "This ends now, Jeong. Put the gun down, put your hands on the crate."

Jeong brought his own gun up and pointed it at the Commander. "Are you arresting me?"

"That's the intent," he said.

"If that's the way it has to be, then try it!" Shepard's shoulder moved back as Jeong's gun discharged into the shield covering it. Shepard looked at the fizzling spot while the nodes refreshed. His head slowly returned his gaze to Jeong. Then in one quick motion, he brought his gun up and shot the man in the shoulder of the hand holding the gun. The gun clattered to the ground, and Jeong followed it with a scream, clutching at the new hole.

Shepard approached the fallen man. Jeong turned his head up, pure hatred twisting his face. Shepard waited a beat, then brought his pistol down on the side of the man's head. As he watched Jeong meet the floor, he only vaguely hoped he was careful enough to avoid the spots that would kill him.

He heard the clicking of weapons behind him, likely security. But when he looked up, he saw them backing away. Tali and Garrus had his back.

"As if we didn't have enough problems," Juliana said. "Now we're shooting each other in the back."

Shepard grabbed the hands of the knocked out man and bound them with omni-cuffs. He was alive…

"It's my fault," Elizabeth said. "I knew what was going on and I didn't do anything."

"Don't you start," Juliana said, putting an arm around her daughter. "You do good work and you know it."

Shepard holstered his pistol, "Elizabeth, you tried, it didn't quite work, but it's more than this man did." He looked over at her.

"So what now, Commander?" Juliana asked.

He looked in a general direction, "Someone patch him up and put an unfriendly guard on him." Then to Juliana he said, "I need to find out why the geth are after the Thorian."

"The colonists won't let you near it," she said. "They'd die first. They're under its control."

He shrugged, "I would really prefer not to kill them."

"There's got to be another way," Elizabeth said.

Juliana put a hand up to her chin, then after a moment said, "I think there is. You could probably use a nerve agent to neutralize them."

"Like a gas grenade!" Elizabeth said.

Shepard grimaced, "Releasing clouds of nerve gas doesn't seem like a particularly good idea…mostly on our side." The downfalls of gas grenades and a bit of air movement had been pounded into his head back before N-School.

"It's not like it's weapons-grade," Juliana said. "The insecticide we use in the gro-labs contains trace amounts of Tetraclopine. A neuromuscular degenerator. If their nervous systems are already weakened, it may act as a paralyzing agent."

"We might be able to adapt a concussion grenade to deploy it," Tali said.

Shepard looked back at her, then nodded, "Then that might work." He looked back at Juliana and Elizabeth. "Alright, let's rig something up, and I promise you I'll do what I can."

Juliana let out a breath, "Excellent. Thank you so much, Commander." She brought out her omni-tool and sent out a message. A few seconds later, someone brought up a couple of jugs of insecticide. Shepard did find it somewhat odd that it was one of the things they thought to grab when they were running and hiding. But yet again, there's no telling what this area was used for otherwise.

Shepard generated and dipped a nozzle into one of the jugs and drained it. When he was done, Elizabeth said, "We will stay out of your way until you clear a path, Commander. Good luck."

Shepard turned back to his squad. "Alright, guys. Let's finish this."

OOO

"Wrex? I wanted to thank you for the part you played in getting me and Kaidan back on the Normandy."

Wrex fired off a couple more rounds towards a target on the other side of the cargo hold. He did nod once, but didn't look at Liara. "How's the human? Drooling in a sleeper pod?"

"Uh…yes." She sounded a little taken aback. "Although I am not sure about the…drooling part. Chakwas reminded him of the limitations of his biotic amp and sent him to the pods."

Somehow he felt that reminded was putting it mildly. "You have a pistol?" he asked.

"Not on me right now," Liara replied. "But I can get one. I can only use my right hand for now."

Wrex finally looked over at the Asari. Her clothes were fresh, and her left arm was in a sling. She looked no worse for wear after the evac. Tough kid, he thought. "Want to learn something?"

Liara smiled, "Sure."

As she went to get her gun, Wrex couldn't help but notice Ashley watching him out of the corner of her eye. Besides the time she was spending repairing the hole in Liara's armor, she looked amused. He glared at her. With a smile and a shake of her head, the Chief went back to her work.

OOO

Tali felt that her opinion of the Commander changed a little, well, maybe not so much changed as she learned something new: there's a hard line with him that you do not cross. After Jeong shot him, she would've swore that she saw flames rising from his eyes. She was pretty sure that that was the first time she'd actually seen him angry. Really angry. It actually scared her a bit. But interestingly enough, nearly as quickly as the anger appeared, it did its bit and left.

Now that she thought back to the time they spent together trading stories, she realized that all of the anger he spoke about was short, quick, and often used as little more than a stepping stone to something else. That was, of course, if he didn't glaze over it with humor.

She felt the Mako pull to a stop. She looked out the front and saw that they were outside of the big doors of what passed for Zhu's Hope's garage. Interestingly enough, they weren't opening automatically. That was good for the moment as it gave them a chance to figure out how they were going to proceed. Tali followed Shepard out of the Mako, Garrus was behind her.

"That look familiar to you, Tali?" Shepard asked.

He was referring to a vaguely egg-shaped green blob on the ground. She could see small plant-like tendrils writhing and moving over the surface. "It looks like…but different," she said.

In a second, every motion on the surface of the blob stopped, the whole mass pulsed once, and then something started to rise on two legs, morphing into a humanoid form.

"It's a creeper!" Shepard shouted, opening fire with his pistol. His shots made the thing lurch unnaturally backwards. Tali blasted a hole through its chest before it had a chance to right itself, and it crumpled into a mass of plant matter.

"What was that creature?" Garrus asked. He sounded shaken. "It certainly wasn't human."

"Not anymore," Shepard said. "We came across these when we were searching for Kahoku. This must be where Cerberus got them from. Creepers, we called them."

"You think…" Tali started. "You think the colonists will start looking like that?"

"Maybe. Eventually. I don't know. I hope not," Shepard said.

"They said that the Thorian was telepathic. Maybe it can choose who it turns and doesn't?" She said.

Shepard nodded. "We'll let the scientists figure it out. As it is, no hitting the colonists, even if the Thorian makes them fire on us. We have these grenades for a reason."

"What of the creepers?" Garrus asked.

Shepard looked over the now sunken blob of plant matter. "Look how it fell, there's no body under that mass anymore. And Tali, we saw what happened when those things get close."

Tali felt herself nodding, "Yes, they puke something on you. I should be fine, but you guys…" She let her voice trail off.

"We don't have helmets," Shepard finished. They left their helmets on the ship as, even in their collapsed form on the armor, they still cause a decent amount unnecessary weight, and armor shielding is usually enough to protect the head in a firefight. They always take them when they're exploring unknown planets. "My order is to put them down."

Tali nodded again, he was protecting them. If some form of cure was figured out after their mission was complete, he basically said he'd take any fall that came.

"Very well, Commander," Garrus said. "Let's go."

OOO

The watcher gave its signal. The walkers moved to get the returning hard ones. The walkers failed. The first flesh that tended no longer responded, no matter the force exerted. It sensed the hard ones in the moving box. "Did you see those guys' faces?" one of them said.

"I hope it's not too late for them," the one with no breath responded.

When the side of the box opened once more, it felt the first inklings of a feeling that was last felt when last the world shuddered…fear.

OOO

Garrus would never openly admit it, but he was terrified. It wasn't the fact that they were being shot at without the option of shooting back, orders are orders, and it wasn't the fact that the colonists had strange fibers coming out of their skin. Well, not entirely that last one. But it was the very knowledge that he was breathing the very same air that likely infected these people with whatever the Thorian did to them. On some level, he hoped that his dextro physiology would protect him, but he wasn't about to get his hopes up. He resolved to ask Dr. Chakwas to give his lungs a good once-over when he got back.

He crouched down behind one of the barricades that his allies had helped to put together just a short time ago, of course he was on the wrong side. He glanced up as Shepard unleashed another modified grenade. "Creepers," the Commander said.

Garrus popped up and headshot one of the bumbling knots of grass. It wasn't a pretty sight. Shepard followed up by hitting another creeper in the neck with a round from his own sniper rifle. The explosion made the remainder of the head fly up into the air. The thought crossed Garrus's mind that he could probably hit it if he tried, but he pushed it down. Tali blasted a final creeper through the chest.

Fully standing, the turian looked over the prone bodies on the ground. The fibers covering their skin were writhing and twisting, no doubt trying to force a response from their hosts.

He shook it off and followed the Commander over a path that led around the modular housing. They took out two more creepers and knocked out two more colonists. Shepard accidentally nicked one of the colonists with a round from his pistol when the round passed through one of the creepers.

Garrus took cover behind the Commander when he moved to the edge of one of the freighter's cargo blocks. When the Commander popped out to throw out a modified grenade, Garrus dashed over to some cover opposite the commander. In that time, he managed to look over the situation: There were seven creepers, all crouched down in their blob forms, three colonists were hiding behind cover, across a larger open area where most of the creepers were, and one of the colonists was reaching out to try and catch Shepard's grenade, attempting to stop it from hitting the freighter. Shepard detonated the grenade, however, when it was about a foot from the colonist's hand. The other two colonists somehow managed to be within its blast radius as well.

Garrus got behind his cover and shouted back, "They are definitely protecting the ship, Commander! We've got to move one of those cargo blocks!"

"That's been established!" Shepard replied.

Freighters themselves were actually very long and thin ships, and while their designs varied from time to time, depending on what they were carrying and their class, their basic, unburdened structure was usually most analogous to that of a long hallway. Each door in the hallway would lead to a particular room, which was more often than not a cargo hold. Each hold was modular, however, meaning that they could be detached and swapped out with other things like a bio-lab, or larger crew quarters, or whatever else could be designed to attach to the ship. The attachment sites themselves used a combination of electromagnetism and hard latches.

The colonists were only a part of the equation. Even before the grenade exploded, the creepers were already rising. Shepard stepped out into the opening between where he had been, and where Garrus was behind cover. Garrus stepped out with his assault rifle to the Commander's right, and Tali stepped out to the Commander's left. As a team, Garrus shot the creepers at a distance, Shepard took the creepers at mid-range with a two hand grip on his pistol, and Tali took down any stragglers at close range with her shotgun.

When the last creeper fell, Garrus looked over at the Commander. He looked like he just had a thought, but didn't voice it. Instead he said, "Watch your step."

Garrus was the first to arrive at the crane's control unit. But what was there could only be described as a monstrosity of UI design. "Here's the crane, Commander," he said. "Can you make sense of these controls?"

Shepard walked up next to him. "Good…," he cut himself off. "Someone's modified these, I think." He pursed his lips. "Simple fix. Core programming is still the same." He brought up his omni-tool and pressed a few buttons. A few seconds later, the crane lifted the cargo block it was attached to, revealing a stairwell going down through the floor.

"Witness the power of Spectre overrides," Garrus heard the Commander mumble.

"Commander! It's Fai Dan!" Tali said.

Garrus looked to where she was referring. The Colonist leader was walking around from the way they came. "I tried to fight it," he said, "but it gets in your head." His face looked almost entirely green with all the tendrils twisting, bending, and sliding across its surface.

"Fai Dan!" Shepard said.

"You can't imagine the pain," he continued. His hand was pulling his gun from his holster. "I was supposed to be a leader. These people trusted me." His face screwed up in pain.

Garrus saw Shepard attempting to bring up a grenade, "I'm out," he said.

Fai Dan pointed his gun towards them, every fiber of his being looked like it was trying to fight it. "It wants me to stop you…"

Shepard started running for the colonist leader, "Fai Dan!"

Fai Dan forced the gun to his own head. "But I…I won't. I WON'T!" The gun discharged and Fai Dan's body fell to the ground.

Shepard stopped just before the corpse. "Dammit," he said. "Damn it all." He just stood there, standing over the body.

Garrus saw Tali walk up behind him and say, "He believed in you, Commander, in us. He believed that we could save his people. So he refused to fight us."

Tali never touched him, but Shepard nodded and turned away from the body, "I know." He closed his eyes for a moment and whispered something short, but practiced, like a prayer. When he opened his eyes, he said, "Let's finish this."

OOO

Joker sat in his seat watching the three blips of the ground team move around his map. They were still alive, so that was good.

"Joker!" Shepard's voice came over the comm.

He leaned forward. "Here, Commander."

"I'm putting this port under quarantine. Contact the alliance and request that they send a couple of medical teams and possibly a science team. Quarantine gear."

"Will do, Commander. Anything else?" He was already typing the message up.

"Normandy's under quarantine until I'm confident things are safe. All crewmembers are also ordered to undergo a full examination for unknown compounds."

"Great," Joker responded. "At least the door locks. That it?"

"Far as I know. We're going into an area where connection may be spotty. If we're not back in an hour, and we have no contact, leave port and wait for the Alliance."

"Will do, Commander."

"Shepard out."

Joker finished up the message for the Alliance and sent it off. When he sent the message to the crew, he heard one of the crewmen behind him groan. A full quarantine procedure meant the scrubbing down of everything on the ship, save for the outer hull. Any clothing that had potential to be exposed had to be bagged and sanitized, and bodies would have to be run through a total decontamination. Fortunately the clean room worked for that. No doubt blood would have to be drawn in order to see if there was any form of infection. They would hold off on the ship cleaning until all hands were aboard. At least in the CIC and mess; the ground team had to get from the airlock to the medical bay somehow, and if they were already infected, there was no point cleaning twice.

A message popped up on Joker's monitor. The subject was, Pilot's next. "Dammit," he said.

OOO

Shepard powered down his omni-tool. He was carefully balancing his weight on the remains of the stairwell that hopefully led down to the creature, or general thing, that was the root of all the problems in the port.

"I take it that message means you're confident we'll make it back up the stairs when this is all over?" Garrus said.

Shepard shrugged and matched Tali's footfalls. She was leading as she was the lightest, then it was him, and then it was Garrus. "At least two of us will."

"Are you calling me heavy again?" Garrus asked.

"Only top heavy. It means you can run faster."

"Uh huh."

Shepard smiled, but didn't look back at the turian. "I'm confident we'll all make it back."

Tali reached the bottom of the stairwell, and waited for the others. When they were with her, she led them forward through a fissure that looked like it was once a massive boulder blocking a door. It appeared to have been forced open.

"All right," she said, leading them forward. "We just need to find this creature and determine what it…what it…" Shepard walked up beside her and saw what she saw. "Keelah, what is that?" she said.

"That…" Shepard said, "is a plant…a very…very large plant."

Plant was the only term that Shepard could place on the creature. That assumption was based entirely on the fact that it released spores, had long, thick tendrils piercing through what appeared to be solid stone, and the fact that it appeared to be entirely immobile, save for a sort of bounciness that passed through its body, as if tendrils were squirming and twisting inside of the coat, or skin, as one could describe it. The thing itself, hung from the center of a web of tendrils, like a spider in a chaotic web, if the web was also a part of the spider's body, and the body was as large as the Normandy. It looked like a big sack of tentacles, with something that could only be described as a face, but only in the sense that it was different from the rest of the body. It was suspended over what looked to be a massive pit, potentially going all the way down to the planet's surface.

The face was interesting to look at. It looked to be a solid plate, with a design that only something that was naturally growing could produce. Shepard wouldn't have been surprised if it was a material similar to wood, with bark and all. It was attached to the body by a massive, stubby tube. Tendrils, or tentacles, bout long and short hung from below that fascinating mask of the face. The slime, or saliva of the creature, rolling down the tendrils suggested the existence of an opening at their base.

Garrus looked up at the creature. "And we only have an hour?"

Smarta**, Shepard thought. He pursed his lips and took a couple of steps forward. The sickly-sweet scent of the creature was almost overpowering, like rotting compost.

The massive bag of tentacles twitched when the Commander came closer, and then motion started happening all over the body of the creature. It let out what could only be described as a groan. Then the last thing any of the squad expected happened: feet appeared from between the tentacles. Not bare feet, but feet with shoes.

In less than a few seconds, the feet resolved into an asari rising from being dropped…a green asari. "Invaders!" The asari said. There was a certain power in her voice, a raw anger that Shepard could only describe as a storm through a woods, or as a deep hatred that only one that was truly ancient could know. "Your every step is a transgression! A thousand feelers appraise you as meat, good only to dig or decompose." Her face softened a little, but still held the hard edge of resentment. "I speak for the Old Growth, as I did for Saren. You are within and before the Thorian. It commands that you be in awe!" She brought her hands out, as if to frame the giant mass between them.

"You had that about thirty seconds ago," Shepard muttered to himself. The asari herself looked nothing like the colonists had, with the tendrils coming out of their skin, nor like the creepers, entirely made out of plant. She looked like an asari, skin and all, with the only odd thing being that she was green. She was wearing what he recognized to be the practical and efficient clothing of the Asari Commandos, like those they fought when they were going up against Matriarch Benezia. A thought tickled at the back of his mind, but he couldn't quite nail it down. Out loud, he said, "You gave something to Saren. Something I need."

"Saren sought knowledge of those who are gone," the green asari boomed. "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 be the next cycle. Flesh fairly given! The Old Growth sees the air you push as lies! It will listen no more!"

Another thought tickled at the back of the Commander's mind, a half-formed thought of it talking to them. "Release your thralls! Now!" he said. Somewhere he realized that he was in fact trying to order around something that had been stuck in its ways for at least the last couple millennia.

The asari started glowing with the particular electrical blue of a biotic. "No more will the Thorian listen to those that scurry. Your lives are short, but have gone on too long." She raised her arms for a biotic attack. "Your blood will feed the ground and new growth!"

Shepard knew her chances of missing him were second to nil at the range he was at. If he jumped back or rolled to the side, she'd hit him. He had just enough time to think, A biotic too! Before he felt himself rushing forward and planting a boot right in the middle of her chest. The kick made her stumble back and fall down. It also broke her concentration. But in a motion that he deemed faster than lightning, the tendrils she fell out from wrapped around his leg with a grip that he didn't doubt would have broken it in enough places to where Dr. Chakwas would've shaken her head when looking at the scans, but fortunately he was wearing armor.

He heard Tali's shotgun boom, and felt a very turian arm wrap itself around his chest and pull, while the other hand released round after round into the mass of tentacles. Shepard reached for his own pistol and joined the turian in trying to release his leg. "Don't blow off my leg, Garrus," he said. "You won't want to know me if you blow off my leg."

"Don't worry, Commander," he said. "My main gun's a sniper rifle."

Shepard smiled, "That's what worries me!" He felt the tendrils loosening their iron grip. Tali's shotgun boomed a second time. She was shooting at the asari. With a few more blasts from him and Garrus, his leg finally fell free.

"She's down, Commander," Tali said.

Shepard rose in a low crouch on the balls of his feet and took down a creeper with three shots, one to the torso, one to the neck, and one to the head. "Still creepers," he said.

As a team, they took down five more creepers that were rushing at them through an opening to the right of the fissure they entered the chamber through, their left relative to the direction they were shooting. Garrus headshot one with his pistol, and Tali dropped her shotgun and switched to her own pistol, joining in the ranged fighting.

When all the creepers were down, Shepard grabbed Tali's shotgun and handed it back to her, looking back at the dead asari. "A few more feet and I could've yelled Sparta."

Tali reattached her pistol to its electromagnetic strip. "Solar system?"

"Human solar system," Garrus said. "Discovered by them. Named after a place from human history." He looked at the Commander. "Although I don't get the reference."

Shepard just shook his head. "Wasted. Totally wasted." He examined the body of the asari and noted that, from looking into the holes that Tali's shotgun made, what he originally likened to clothing actually, while still appearing to be clothing on the surface, was actually much closer to an exoskeleton given as it looked to be connected to the innards of the body.

He looked up and examined the structure of the massive creature. What he could only describe as three massive anchor points, that he could see, held the creature where it was. The relative chaos of the smaller tendrils seemed only slightly more dense around those points. "Those look important," he said.

OOO

It felt the virus of the hard ones overcoming it. No more could it feel the dens of the four legged eaters. No more could it feel the cold reaches of the land, where not even its spores could survive. All that was left was its sanctuary and pain. Horrible, cutting pain. The hordes walkers could not stop it. The few manipulators could not slow it.

A flash of pain! "It is hurting, Commander Shepard. We're on the right track," the one with no breath said.

It woke up everything it still had power over, pushing them to save their master. The walkers from the low reaches, where the dust scattered the spores. The walkers from the upper reaches, where the winds carried spores far. It would send everything to beat this infection.

But it knew it was too late. It felt them at its last connection to the land. The world shook, and it survived. The fires came, and it survived. The virus came, it knew it had nothing more.

Its last connection snapped. It fell.

She felt herself again. The fluids around her were suffocating, so she fought. She pushed with tired limbs, clawed with labored hands. She pushed, bent, flexed…and fell.

OOO

"Shepard!" Garrus shouted. "We've got something over here!"

Shepard spun around toward the turian's voice, drawing his pistol in the process. He had been looking down into the hole that the thorian had dropped into. The turian was pointing his assault rifle at a brownish-orange moving sack on the wall. They had seen a few of them while they were taking out the thorian, but none of them had been moving.

"Hold fire!" Shepard said.

The turian was slowly walking backward, keeping his gun trained on the bubble-like blob. Tali was between him and Shepard with her shotgun drawn, but not aiming it at anything. First, the distinct shape of a five-fingered hand appeared, then another. They looked to be scratching at the side of the sack, trying to get out. A moment later, the sack tore and a very recognizable asari fell out. Only this time she was blue.

"I'm free," she rasped, then she coughed what Shepard could only describe as green slime. "I'm free!" she said louder, sitting up.

Shepard holstered his gun and crouched down next to her. His team emulated him, but slower.

The asari looked at the Commander, taking his offered hand so she could stand up. "I—I suppose I should thank you for releasing me."

Shepard made sure to hold onto her wrist and her shoulder. He had a feeling she was probably rather disoriented. "Is everything all right? Are you hurt?"

Garrus moved to hold her other side, but she waved both him and the Commander off. "I am fine. Or I will be, in time." She took a steadying breath and said, "My name is Shiala. I serve—I served," she corrected herself, "Matriarch Benezia. When she allied herself with Saren, so did I. She foresaw the influence Saren would have. She joined him to guide him down a gentler path, but Saren is compelling. Benezia lost her way."

Shepard was watching every relevant motion of her body, ready to jump in and catch her if she stumbled. "Are you saying Saren can control minds?"

Shiala put her hand against the wall behind her, easing the Commander's mind a little. "Matriarch Benezia underestimated Saren. As I did. We came to believe in his cause and his goals. The strength of his influence is troubling."

"She tried to manipulate Saren," Tali said. "But in the end, her plan backfired."

Shepard turned his head towards Tali a little, then to Shiala said, "Asari matriarchs are among the most intelligent and powerful beings in the galaxy. How could one fall under his control?"

Shiala's face darkened. "Saren has a vessel. An enormous warship unlike anything I've ever seen. He calls it Sovereign. It can dominate the minds of his followers." A chill seemed to run through her. "They become indoctrinated to his will. The process is subtle. It can take days, weeks. But in the end, it is absolute."

"Indoctrination?" Shepard said to himself, thinking.

"I was a willing slave when Saren brought me to this world," Shiala continued. "He needed my biotics to communicate with the Throian, to learn its secrets. Saren offered me in trade. I was sacrificed to secure an alliance between Saren and the Thorian."

"And then he turned on it?" Shepard asked.

Shiala removed her hand from the wall and stood in front of them. "After Saren had what he needed, the Thorian became a liability. He knows you are searching for the Conduit. He knows you are following his steps. He attacked the Thorian so you could not gain the Cipher."

Cipher, Shepard thought, encryption, cryptography. Out loud he said, "The Cipher? What is this? Why did Saren need it?"

"The beacon on Eden Prime gave you visions, did it not?" Shiala said. "But the visions are unclear, confusing. They were meant for a Prothean mind. To truly comprehend them, you must think like a Prothean. You must understand their culture, their history, their very existence. The Thorian was here long before they Protheans built this city. It watched and studied them. When they died, it consumed them. They became a part of it."

That actually made some sort of sense. Given how the Thorian was able to make clones and indoctrinate the greater majority of a colony, there was no reason to think that it didn't have the ability to study that of what it was controlling. "So the Throian taught Saren how to think like a Prothean?" Shepard said. "How?"

Shiala's eyes grew distant. "The Cipher is the very essence of being a Prothean." She looked back at the Commander, "It cannot be described or explained. It would be like describing color to a creature without eyes. To understand, you must have access to the endemic ancestral memory. A viewport spanning thousands of Prothean generations." She shrugged. "I sensed this ancestral memory—the Cipher—when I melded with the Thorian. Our identities merged, our minds intertwined. Such knowledge cannot be taught; it simply exists."

Shepard nodded, there was no words to explain it, but he understood what she was saying. "Is there a way I can get that Cipher?" he asked.

Shiala nodded. "There is a way. I can transfer the knowledge from my mind to yours, as I did with Saren."

He'd be lying if he said he wasn't uncomfortable with letting an asari, especially one he just met, access his mind. But he needed what she offered if he was going to complete his mission. "Do it," he said. "But don't turn me into a vegetable."

Shiala approached him and placed her hands on either side of his head. "Try to relax, Commander. Slow, deep breaths. Let go of your physical shell. Reach out to grasp the threads that bind us, one to another." He felt his body relaxing with her words, calming, and his mind going blank. "Every action sends ripples across the galaxy. Every idea must touch another mind to live." Her voice seemed to echo through his mind. "Each emotion must mark another's spirit. We are all connected. Every living being united in a single, glorious existence. Open yourself to the universe, Commander." Just before he closed his eyes, he saw her eyes turn black. "Embrace eternity!"

Shepard felt what could only be described as a knife being shoved through his mind. The visions of the beacon flashed before his eyes, machines, death, blood, fear. All broken, scattered, but no longer clouded. Technology, flesh, a star, a system, a planet, a ship. Shepard opened his eyes, Tali was holding his arm, but she released him when she saw he was okay.

"I have given you the Cipher," Shiala said, "just as it was given to Saren. The ancestral memories of the Protheans are a part of you now."

"What was that?" Tali said. "Shepard, are you alright?"

Shepard looked back at her and smiled. "I'm alright. I saw…something. It still didn't make any sense."

"You have been given a great gift," Shiala said. "The experience of an entire people. It will take time for your mind to process this information."

"We should get you back to the ship, Commander," Garrus said. "Medical needs to know about this."

"Yeah," Shepard agreed. "Yeah."

"I'm sorry if you have suffered," Shiala quickly said. "But there was no other way. You needed the Cipher. In time, it will help you understand the vision from the beacon."

"Do you know what the Conduit is?" Shepard asked. "Or where it is?"

Shiala shook her head, "No. I'm sorry. All I know is that Saren believes the Conduit was the key to the Prothean extinction."

Shepard looked back at his team. "Then whatever it is, we cannot let him have it."

"You have the Cipher," Shiala said. "In time, your visions will clear. They will lead you to the Conduit. I only pray you find it before Saren does."

Shepard nodded, and to his crew said, "Let's go make sure the colonists are okay." Shepard looked back at Shiala. "Let's go. You think you can walk?

Shepard nodded, "Then let's walk. Is there anything else you can tell me about the Thorian?"

Garrus and Tali were leading the way. Shiala and Shepard were behind them.

"When the creature enveloped me," Shiala said, "I became part of it. But I still don't truly understand it. So alien. So ancient. Its exact age is impossible to know. It measured time differently. Ten thousand years of hibernation broken by a few frantic centuries of activity. Its mind was awesome. Magnificent. It transcended all classification…And now it's gone."

Shepard sidestepped a blob of plant matter, "You feel sorry for it."

Shiala gave a sad smile, "The Thorian was a unique life-form – a sentient being that lived for 50,000 years, maybe more. There's nothing even remotely like it in the known galaxy. I am grateful you saved me from a life of thralldom. Yet I cannot help but feel some sorrow for the loss of such a rare and remarkable creature."

Shepard nodded. "All life is precious, even when it must end." They walked in silence for a while. He happened to notice that all the bodies of Shiala's clones were also turning into blobs of plant matter. "What else can you tell me about Saren?" he asked.

The Asari walked a little longer before replying, "There is little I could tell you that you do not already know. He's powerful. He's charismatic. And he's dangerous. Once I followed him, blind to his true nature. But now I see he is leading the galaxy into an age of darkness and suffering."

Shepard nodded. "Why don't you tell us a bit about you then?"

Shiala smiled. "There is nothing remarkable about me. I was merely one of Matriarch Benezia's disciples."

"That in itself sounds like a story," Shepard said, looking over at her.

Shiala nodded. "For nearly two centuries, I followed her, learning at her feet. When Benezia revealed her plan to join Saren, she gave her desciples a choice: Only those who were willing had to follow her. Many felt her plan was too dangerous. But I believed in her. I thought she could turn Saren away from his insanity. Instead, we joined him in it."

"And now you're out," Shepard said. "As is Benezia." He caught Shiala's glance out of the corner of his eye. She looked shocked, surprised, yet concealed. "She's at peace now," he said.

Shiala's face sobered. "I understand. I wish good fortune upon you in your hunt for Saren. He must be stopped before he finds the Condit."

Shepard nodded, "That he does."

"As for me," Shiala continued, "I will stay here with the colonists. I feel great shame for my part in their suffering. As long as any of the colonists remain on this world, I will do whatever I can to aid and protect them."

Shepard looked over at her, eyes hard. "As you should."

OOO

The Normandy waited around for the Alliance teams to arrive. Before they did, Shepard finished up his business with Gavin Hossle and his OSD, checked on every colonist, and dealt with Fai Dan's body. With a thank you from all the colonists, Shepard and the Normandy left when the Alliance requested a berth.

So…it has been a while. But hey, my life is fast approaching something resembling stability, and that means that I may or may not have more time to focus on non-school-related activities. Like writing for instance. Hopefully you will see an improvement in my writing skills going forward. I think I have matured (especially looking over my previous chapters).

I assure you that I will try to get the next chapter out as quick as I can, but please understand that I have other projects and things that I work on in my free time. Namely: creating a video game (in Unreal Engine 4 [the new version of the engine that Mass Effect was created in, if I remember correctly]), I plan to start my own novel that I would actually make money on, and a social life…because that is a thing…Speaking of which, in the next chapter, you should see the first inklings of a sort of sub-story in my story (a story within a story of sorts). It's either going to make a lot of people facepalm or make me lose all validity. When you finally see stuff, I'll test out the waters and see if you all approve.

One more assurance: with all of the above I am NOT abandoning this story unless I die…physically die…as in brain dead…. In that case, I'd try to set things up so someone else could possibly take over…and no, this is not a cry for help…I'm just trying to get the point across that I have no intention of abandoning this.

I also wanted you all to know that through stories I've done for school over the past semester, I have figured out how I am going to handle both Samara and Edi's internal thoughts. I think a lot of you will like it. I want to tell you so much, but I don't want to give things away…Maybe I'll tell my Beta-ee if he's interested in something like that.

A final note: I glanced through a few things I had already written in the previous chapters and noticed that there were a few instances where I minced up ME1 and ME2 stuff. The major one of note that I saw was where I mentioned the med-bay having windows…the Normandy med-bay does not have windows in ME1…I'll have to change that before it drives me insane…well…more insane. With that, I ask that if you see something that is inaccurate in that sense that you please, P-L-E-A-S-E, tell me. If you don't want to leave a review, pm me. If you don't want to create an account, just leave an anonymous review and ask me to moderate the review out no one but me will see it, but you must tell me. I am open to your feedback…though I ask that you keep it friendly and constructive.

The last note: At some point on the relatively ME2 future, I am probably going to upgrade this story to the M rating. As much as I hate to, I think it will be necessary given how dark I think I can make some of my descriptions…certain swear words will still be censored, and pre last mission events will still be fade to black. I'm not sure if that matters much to you, but it does to me. Oh, and I apologize for those of you that had to read over things again…if you in fact had to…