Chapter 26

Dealing with it

After a few hours of restless dreams and half-remembered nightmares, Finn woke up to find Kyra staring at him through the glass of the sleep pod. With a sigh, he pressed the release.

"Sorry to wake you, but-"

"It's fine." He told her, rubbing his eyes. "I wasn't getting much rest anyway. What's up?"

"Liara's calling a meeting. She said you don't have to come if you don't want to, though ... y'know, if you want to keep trying with Jake."

"Jake's with Glenda." Finn told her. "She's going to try a few things on her own."

Kyra brightened at this news. "You think she'll bring Jake back?"

"I don't know." Finn confessed as he slipped on his jacket. "But I tried everything I could think of. With it being Glen ... well, it's a shot, right?"

"But no one's seen Glen." Kyra said, linking her arm in his as they walked away from the sleeping area. "Not since yesterday."

"Yeah, she left in a hurry. She's worried that something was following her, and wanted to get away before it turned on us."

"Something ... Cerberus?"

Finn shook his head. "I don't think so. She seemed pretty sure whatever it was would follow her."

Kyra frowned at this, but said nothing. They walked in silence to the elevator. Once the lift activated, Kyra kissed Finn on the cheek and asked, "Are you okay, sweetie?"

"Not really." He said, "But I'll manage. Cerbeus's new toy's a bit more critical at the moment."

"Not to you." Kyra said, rubbing his shoulder.

He squeezed her hand, giving her as reassuring a smile as he could manage as the lift doors opened.

They walked through the Normandy to the conferece room, where Finn was surprised to find he and Kyra weren't the last to arrive. Xyn was gone, as were Tuck and Hylia. Tuck's absense was understandable, however; he was the ship's cook, after all. In their place, however, was a still angry-looking Aria.

Liara stood at the foot of the table, a look of surprise on her face. "Good morning, Finn. I'm glad you could make it."

"Jake's in Glenda's hands now." He said, taking a seat between Kyra and Hylia. "Until then, I'm acting under the assumption that they're both just taking a little break. Where's Xyn?"

"Sleeping in." Eri said, sounding a little groggy himself. Sherle held her cup of coffee at him, earning a scowl from the turian who couldn't drink it.

Aria let out a snort. "Whatever. Can we get going already?"

"Yes, of course." Liara cleared her throat, and said, "Given the recent events, I thought it wise for us to have a meeting to discuss the OmniReaper ..."

"Sun-Cruncher. I mean, that's what Jake ..." Finn blushed and bowed his head to avoid seeing the stares the others present were now giving him. "Sorry. I guess it doesn't really matter."

"No," Liara said as Kyra put her hand over Finn's, "That's fine. It's not like we have a proper name for it anyway. Thanks to the efforts of you and your team, we've managed to piece together a very in-depth map of the, uh, Sun-Cruncher. Mirabelle?"

The walls of the room faded to the black star-filled expanse of space, an image of the Sun-Cruncher in the center of the room. It was all holograms, of course, as was the image of the young woman who appeared in one of the empty chairs.

"The Sun-Cruncher is impervious to outer assault." Liara said, "The hole through which Finn escaped required the detonation of almost a hundred mass effect drives."

"Even then, it was a tight fit." Finn said, leaning forward. "And that was from the inside."

"Correct; the outside is protected both by extremely thick armor plating, force fields, kinetic barriers, and missile interception systems. That's in addition to the fleet of ships the Sun-Cruncher is capable of launching."

"Tough nut to crack." Eri said.

Liara nodded. "Indeed. unfortunately, it only gets worse."

The Sun-Cruncher opened, revealing what looked like thousands of teeth lining the inside of the sphere. The image zoomed in, showing the teeth to be what Finn was already more than aware of; the 'teeth' were in fact Reapers.

"Preliminary analysis shows that they are not, in fact, Reapers." Liara said.

"What?" About half the table said, Finn and Kyra included.

Liara nodded, and gestured to the Sun-Cruncher as it grew larger. The computer extracted a single unit from the writhing mass, bringing up the image of a similar ship for comparison. Side-to-side, there was no question that they weren't the same; the real Reaper was a black, menacing thing with curved plating, whereas the Reapers of the Sun-Cruncher had straight segmented plating.

"You can see the difference." Liara said. "The materials of the Sun-Cruncher's 'Reapers' are conventional; we managed to get a partial scan from Noveria before it was, er, crunched, and nothing we detected is unusual. What's more, the power yield in the artificial Reapers is augmented, both in terms of attack and drawing energy from stars."

"Augmented?" Eri said, "You mean they're stronger than the original?"

"The Reapers never bothered upgrading their weapons." Aria said, lounging in her chair. "No need; they were big, they were bad, and nothin' we had came close."

"That was four-hundred years ago." Rico said grimly, trading looks with his wife. "Obviously, the Illusive Man's taken the opportunity to upgrade."

"But we know the Illusive Man's intelligence is in a real Reaper." Finn said. "Billy gave us proof."

"That's right; there's one real Reaper." Liara said, nodding. "Perhaps it's one in the mass; like I said, we only got a partial reading."

"I dunno." Kyra said, leaning forward. "This is the Illusive Man we're talking about. He's probably got it tucked away somewhere else in the base."

"Somewhere heavily shielded." Eri said, his voice dour.

"So how do we blow the bastard up?" Aria asked.

When there was no immediate response, she clapped her hands sharply and said, "Come on! You'r the Shadow Broker, Liara, you have to have some plan."

When she didn't respond, Aria turned her eyes to Finn. "What about you, Finn? You're a trouble-maker. Any ideas how to make the big bad Illusive Man go boom?"

Finn frowned. "What about the opening from the explosion? Could we use that to get back inside?"

"Sorry." Mirabelle said. "The Illusive Man has control of my skrievers; they'll have that mess patched up in a matter of hours."

"Which is less time than it'd take to get a proper demolition squad together." Liara said, shaking her head. "Even if we had the team, he's got an army in there; it's silly to think he wouldn't be watching that hole like a hawk."

After a few moments of silence, Katt snapped her fingers. "I've got it! Look, this thing feeds off of suns, right? What if we make a star go supernova while it's still wrapped around it?"

"Make a star go Supernova?" Eri asked. "How the hell do you plan to manage that?"

"Well, I've got a friend who works with Alliance Research and Development; she told me once about something called a Nova bomb. It screws with the gravity holding a star together, causing it to go into supernova, blowing up the whole system."

Even Aria seemed a little alarmed at the thought. "The Alliance is making this?"

"Er, no; the project's more about possible defenses against it. The bomb itself was an accidental byproduct of a failed terraforming project called 'Genesis' or something. Still, I'm sure if I explain the need, she can get us the specifications."

"Which still creates the problem of figuring out just where the Sun-Cruncher's heading for power." Eri said, only for Kyra to add, "Not to mention getting there first to plant the bomb."

"Or how we'd plant a bomb on a star in the first place." Liara agreed.

The room was silent for a few moments before Finn said, "Illium, Trident, and Neukara."

"Excuse me?" Liara asked.

"The Illusive Man mentioned them as possible targets for 'demonstrations'."

"So he might need to take power from a nearby star." Kyra said, nodding. "Which at least gives us a ball-park idea of where he might go."

"But if he can just crunch a star, why bother with the planet?" Rico asked, shaking his head. "I mean, you take away Trident's star, it's just an iceball, right?"

Finn shook his head. "Because he's not trying to destroy; he's trying to intimidate. He wants to show the galaxy what happens to those he views as corrupt. Taking apart a planet piece by piece, letting snippets of video feeds and transmissions escape ..."

"I think we get the idea." Liara said, looking a little sick. "We're still talking about destroying an entire system to take out the Illusive Man."

"So?" Aria said, rising to her feet. "Omega and Noveria are gone, T'soni. Even if you think my people were just a bunch of thugs and Noveria was just a bunch of corporate fatcats skirting the law, that thing's next meal is gonna be a world of civilians, according to Finn: Neukara, Trident, or Ilium. If you don't stop the Sun-Cruncher, one of them is gonna get carved up like a turkey."

Liara rubbed her eyes. Finn didn't envy her decision. As much as he hated to say it, he did have one other idea.

"There might be another way." Finn said. "If it's gonna be one of those three worlds, we could ..."

"Yes?" Liara asked.

Blushing, Finn said, "Aria, the attack on Omega; it was both the Reaper beams and ships, right?"

"Right." Aria said in the voice of someone suspecting they're being asked a trick question.

"So they must launch ships from the inner bays once the planet's surrounded." Finn sighed and said, "Which means we might be able to sneak a demolition crew inside."

"Maybe," Liara said, "But a demolition squad wouldn't be able to destroy the ship before the planet ..."

Her voice faded as she no doubt noticed the look on Finn's face. "Oh."

"It's not a perfect option." He admitted. "But with only three planets, the chances are much better than trying to guess which Star the Sun-Cruncher might go to next."

"Hey, it's something." Aria said, nodding at Finn in approval. "If a world's gonna fall, we make sure it's the last."

"Now hold on!" Kyra said before turning to Finn. "There's got to be an option that doesn't involve sacrificing a whole planet."

"I'd love to hear it." Finn said.

Kyra opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

Liara sighed and said, "If nothing else, it's a good contingency plan. I'll see about sending teams with cloak-capable ships to those worlds. Until then, however, I ask that you all keep thinking of possible plans. I'm sure I don't have to stress that our goal is to stop the Illusive Man before he takes another world. Dismissed."

Kyra gave Finn a look that made him hesitate before following the others out of the room.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"I'm just surprised, that's all." She said, a slight frown on her face. "I didn't think you'd make a suggestion like that."

Sighing, Finn said, "Believe me, I'm no happier to make it. Still, having a backup plan in case of the worst is important."

"I know, but ..." Kyra sighed as well and sat down, Finn sitting down again as well. "After that mess with my sisters and the League of One, you found a way for everyone to get what they wanted: my sisters, the krogan, the Saints, even old general Mkrobi. All your plans are like that; I mean, they don't always work, but you always manage to twist it around so that everything works out for the best. I know life doesn't always work like that, but ..." She sighed again. "I dunno. Maybe I'm just overthinking it."

He leaned forward and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Tell you what; meet me up in the kitchen in two hours; we'll have Tuck whip up something for dinner and put our heads together to see if we can't think of something better."

He pressed his forehead to her, drawing a laugh from the woman he loved. "Okay. I'll see you then, sweetie."

She leaned the rest of the way forward and kissed him before rising from her chair and leaving the room. Finn moved to follow her, only to bump into Sherle.

"Whoa!" He said, catching her shoulders. "Easy there!'

"Oh! Sorry, Finn." She blushed and said, "I came to grab Eri."

"Eri?" Finn turned to see Eri was indeed still there; the turian let out a soft snore, his head resting on the table.

Chuckling, Finn leaned toward his friend's head and said, "ERI!"

Much to his disappointment, Eri stirred only slightly, slowly raising his head and fixing Finn with a bleary eye.

"Eri," Finn asked, concerned, "Are you okay?"

"Hmm? I'm fine." He started to droop back to the table, but Mannon caught him first.

"Come on!" She said as Finn helped the turian to his feet. "Seriously, Eri, if you were this tired, maybe you should've gotten more sleep last night."

"I did." Eri said with a yawn. "Slept perfectly."

"Not enough, apparently." Sherle said, reproach in her voice.

"It's all right." Finn said, "We've all been through a lot. Let's just get him back to bed."

They dragged the turian to the elevator and

"She's right, you know." said a voice Finn knew couldn't be there. "It ain't like you to just go for that kinda compromise."

Finn looked at Sherle, who returned his gaze with a curious look. It was clear from Sherle's expression that she hadn't heard Jake's voice.

"I mean, really? Your just gonna wait for one of the planets to get boned before doin' something, man? That's weak, and you know it."

Finn sighed and tried to ignore the sensation of a familiar metal leg brushing against his. "C'mon, man; think; we can do better than that."

"Yes, we could have." Finn said softly.

"What?" Sherle asked.

Finn shook his head. "It's nothing."

They rode up to the deck where Xyn was staying. Liara was kind enough to loan her quarters to the Neukaran. She even had a special bed of neukaran dirt on board just so Xyn could get her proper rest.

Xyn was, in fact, still asleep when they entered the room.

Sherle snorted. "Wish I could sleep all day."

"Now now." Finn chided as they carried Eri to the room's standard bed. "That's no way to talk about your wife."

"Oh, shut up." Sherle said, her cheeks red.

They lay Eri on the bed. The turian was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

"There." Sherle said, rubbing her shoulder. "Just looking at them makes me tired."

Glancing at Finn, Sherle said, "You think I should wake Xyn up?"

"Nah. I don't think I have the heart to tell her that her home planet's on Cerberus's chopping block."

"Yeah, you're right." She knelt beside Xyn and looked at her sleeping face for a moment before leaning forward and giving the neukaran a kiss on the cheek, only to frown a moment later.

"What's wrong?" Finn asked as Sherle felt Xyn's forehead.

"She's burning up." Mannon gently shook Xyn's shoulder. "Xyn? Xyn, wake up; it's Sherle."

Xyn didn't respond. She was breathing steadily, but her eyelids didn's so much as flicker.

Sherle looked to Finn, fear in her eyes. Nodding, Finn activated the comm by the door and said, "Requesting medical assistance to the captain's quarters."

"Oww!" Sherle pulled her hand back suddenly. "It burned me!"

"What?"

"The colander! It burned me!"

Finn paused for a moment before activating the comm again. "Hylia, please come to the captain's quarters asap."