A/N: Not much to say up here. The big comment's at the bottom.
Wait, what are you doing? It's at the bottom for a reason! There are spoilers for this chapter in it!
Yeesh. The nerve of some people...
"So... there's a fifty thousand year old plant that has the colonists mind controlled?" Joker said over the Mako's raid, skepticism clear in his voice.
"That's about the size of it," Shepard confirmed, swerving the Mako around the still-burning wreckage of a geth construct.
"And you're going to go try to talk to it to find out what it knows," he continued.
"Specifically, what, if anything, it told to Saren and his geth."
She could hear him throwing his arms in the air. "You know what? I'm not even surprised any more. Let us know if there's anything you need," he said.
"Just hold position for now and keep an eye out for geth," she ordered.
"Aye aye, ma'am. I've got a freshly calibrated nose gun that I've been itching to play with."
"Try not to have too much fun," she said. "Shore party clear."
Hanging up the microphone, she called over her head to the back of the Mako. "How are those grenades coming, Tali? We're almost to Zhu's Hope."
"This would be much easier," the quarian grumbled, "if you'd consider avoiding potholes instead of aiming for them!"
Liara rubbed the back of her neck. "I am reasonably certain that the portion of this causeway that could be considered 'pothole' exceeds the portion that could be credibly called 'road surface,'" she said, a shade testily.
There was a small click of a part sliding home. "Ah! Got you, you little boosh-" Tali cut herself off. "Ah... sorry, Shepard."
"I should have a word with the creators of my translator," Shepard said mildly. "They seem to have left some things out. How are the grenades coming?"
"Done, now," Tali said, clamoring forward with surprising grace. I suppose it makes sense, given how they live, but it never fails to surprise me how nimble the quarians are in those suits, she thought while Tali handed out the slightly bulkier grenades.
"Nice," Shepard said, and meant it. There weren't many human soldiers – or technicians, for that matter – that could repack a set of grenades like that in the back of what really was a bumpy ride. Especially without prefabricated parts or plans. "What kind of yield do you think they have?"
The quarian shrugged. "It depends on wind and required dosage, but each grenade will probably cover at least ten cubic meters. Probably more. It won't stay airborne long, though."
"So we save them until we've got a lot of people at a choke point," Shepard said, clipping two of the grenades to her utility belt. "Are either of you trained in hand-to-hand combat?"
Tali shook her head. "Too dangerous for us. We're taught how to escape it, but that's it."
Liara made a shrugging motion. "The asari teach self-defense courses as part of their physical education programs, and I had several tutors in my early childhood, but... no, nothing recent, and definitely not on this... scale."
Shepard let out a long breath. "This is going to be rough, then. I'm going to ask you a question, and I need you to answer it as truthfully as you can."
Liara nodded, and Tali copied the motion. "Of course, Shepard."
"I need you to think long and hard about what we're getting in to, and whether or not you'd be willing to shoot one of these colonists if you had to."
She slowed the Mako to a stop before the gate to the Zhu Hope and turned in her chair to face both of them. "I need you. Both of you, for your skills, your expertise, and your support in our mission to track down Saren. It may sound cold, but your life is worth more than the lives of these colonists. I need to know you're willing to do what's necessary, that when you're out of grenades, your biotics are exhausted, and a controlled colonist is leveling a shotgun at you that you won't hesitate to pull the trigger first."
Silence filled the Mako, broken only by the buffeting of the wind from the causeway and the gentle thrum of the Mako's power plant.
It was Tali who answered first. "I can do it," she said. "Keelah, I won't like it, but if they're trying to kill me..." she shuddered, taking a deep breath and looking down, "then I can kill them first."
"Liara?"
The asari's eyes were closed. "I... I do not know," she whispered. "I would like to say yes, that I will not be a burden to you, but... I cannot be certain. I have never... that is, to kill somebody..." she shuddered.
"Do you want to stay with the Mako?" Shepard asked.
Do you want to stay with the Mako?
It was such a simple question!
Yet, it carried so much more meaning than the words might indicate at first glance. There was no condemnation in them, no scorn or disapproval of weakness. Shepard wasn't insinuating that she was less for not being willing to kill people she knew were just victims, nor was she implying it was a good thing. It was, Liara felt, simply a pragmatic question: Can you do what is needed for this part of the mission?
Liara owed this woman a great deal. Her life, and – she shuddered slightly in revulsion – quite possibly more. She had taken her in when every other avenue had been closed, seen to her needs, helped her feel safe and at home in a way that she hadn't felt in years, despite being in a completely foreign environment with no other members of her own kind.
And now the Commander was asking for a return on what was owed. No. Not what was owed. Liara had never gotten the feeling of any kind of debt, no obligation to help beyond what she, Liara, had freely offered.
The only debt in mind here is my debt to myself, she thought. I promised to help, to do everything in my power to assist the Commander in her mission. If that means... doing this... then I will not shy away.
She opened her eyes and smiled. Was it a choice that might lead her down what others might call a bad path? Perhaps. But it would be her choice, done because she believed in it, not because anybody else had ordered her to do it, told her to do it, or insinuated it might be beneficial for her to do it.
I am me, and I am free, she thought viciously, and I choose this. I will become this, if it helps her achieve her goals.
"No," she said softly, but with a confidence that – even now – surprised her, "I will accompany you."
Shepard raised an eyebrow. That wasn't quite the answer she had honestly been expecting, but the level gaze the asari gave her spoke volumes in her belief in her answer to the question. Whether or not said belief is well-founded is another question entirely, but she certainly seems to think so at the moment, Shepard mused. Besides, a second biotic would be helpful. It's rather easy to knock people out while they're floating in midair.
"Okay," Shepard said. "Now, a quick lesson on human physiology: A hard, sharp blow to the temple-" she tapped the side of her head to indicate, "-or the the jawline can trigger a sudden reflexive tightening of one of our main arteries that supplies blood to the brain, in addition to the usual possibility of short-term cerebral trauma. Basically, it's a great way to render us unconscious. Don't try it on soldiers or professional fighters, though – many of us have genetic modifications that makes it much harder to knock us out like that."
"Aside from that, these people are colonists and technicians, not soldiers. They're also worn out from fighting the geth, and likely not in the best of shape thanks to the Thorian. I don't expect a hard fight individually, but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy, and remember that they outnumber us by about a hundred and fifty to one. Be careful and don't let them mob you."
Shepard sighed, and began wrapping some adhesive medical tape over the small metal nubs on the gauntlet she wore on her right hand. "Tali, I want you focusing on knocking their weapons offline. Don't worry about their shields; civilian models don't hold up to military arms even if we were planning on shooting them. Liara, keep them off balance – lifts, pulls, throws, you name it, I want them off their feet. Our gear is good, but our shielding won't last forever if they start shooting."
"Ready?" she asked, and Liara and Tali nodded solemnly. "Then let's go."
They left the Mako outside the now-closed entrance to Zhu's Hope. The main cannon or mounted heavy machine gun wasn't exactly the ideal weapon for nonlethal takedowns, and besides, the only thing on the other side of the door was the parking garage.
"Okay, Tali, let's have you open up that- wait." Shepard held up her left fist, peering intently at a hunched over form next to the door's access panel.
She holstered her shotgun slowly, advancing cautiously on the the gently rocking figure. "Hello?" she called out. If it's a colonist that's fighting off the infection...
Upon hearing her voice, the figure slowly rose. It didn't stand like people normally did, but rather unfurled gradually, like a flower might before the sun.
Liara scowled and took a step forward. "Can you understand-" she began, only for the figure to stagger to face them.
The trio froze at the sight.
It wasn't a colonist at all, or, at least, Shepard hoped it wasn't. The figure was, at best, a crude facsimile of a person: Two arms, two legs, torso, and a head, yes, but the similarities ended there. Its entire body appeared to be fashioned out of some kind of slimy vine, its eyes sunken and hollow, sockets empty of anything save a vaguely yellow mush.
The creature let out a low moan and the wooden piece that served as its jaw fell off its face, hanging loosely from a few lengths of vine attached to it.
"Keelah, what in-" Tali managed to exclaim before it proceeded to hurl a gout of noxious green liquid at them out of its unhinged mouth.
"Get back!" Shepard yelled, diving sideways out of the path of whatever the creature had just spewed at them. "Take it down!" she barked, drawing her pistol and aiming it at the thing.
Whatever it was, it clearly did not possess shielding, and between Shepard's explosive pistol fire and the armor-piercing ammunition carried by the other two members of the team, the creature was quickly blown to literal pieces of the causeway.
"What was that thing?" Tali asked as they peered at it's shredded corpse.
Liara rubbed the toe of her boot in some of the slime it had left on the ground and winced when there was a faint hissing sound from it. "I do not believe it was a colonist," she said. "I suspect the thorian may have created them as guards of some kind, but this is far too extensive a transformation to have ever been human."
"You haven't seen husks yet," Shepard said, mind flashing back briefly to the animated corpses on Eden Prime.
"Husks?" Liara asked.
Shepard shook her head. "One horror at a time, Doctor," she said. "Although I am both surprised and grateful that we haven't seen any here. In the meantime, though, we need a plan to deal with these."
Liara lifted her shoe to look at the bottom of it. "The... whatever it is... that they spew appears to be highly acidic," she said. "My boot is now free of organic detritus, but the armor appears to be unaffected."
"Most good armors are," Shepard said. "Okay. Shields obviously won't stop this stuff, so do whatever you can to keep these things at a distance. If these things are interspersed with the colonists..." Shepard shook her head grimly. "Then the body count for this operation just went way up."
"What about the herbicide grenades?" Tali asked. "These are plants, right? They should work especially well on these... things."
"Hopefully they will," Shepard replied, "and I suspect we'll find out soon. Go ahead and get the door open."
Tali nodded and, after pushing the creature's corpse away from the door panel with a piece of rusted debris, set to work on the access panel. "Won't take long, Shepard, this is pretty straightforward stuff. Just give me a moment... ah! Got it," she said, pulling a wire out and stripping it quickly. "Ready when you are, Shepard."
Shepard readied her shotgun and nodded at Liara, who unholstered her pistol. A brief scowl and a clenched fist raised a shimmering blue barrier in front of them, and she aimed down the sights of her shotgun. "Hit it," she ordered.
The garage was packed.
On the main floor area were at least fifteen of the plant creatures they had encountered outside, while taking cover near the hallway were a small group of gun-toting colonists staring vacantly ahead.
"Oh, shit," Shepard swore. "Liara! Keep them back!"
"I can do better," Liara said through gritted teeth, dropping her pistol on the floor to raise both hands in a surge of blue-black power.
The middle of the room distorted, like somebody had placed a giant camera lens over the entire scene, and Shepard wobbled slightly on her feet as the edge of the field shifted her balance slightly. Closer in the effects were far more pronounced, as everything that wasn't firmly bolted to the floor flew toward the center of the distortion. The plant creatures, the colonists, the temporary cover, various firearms, the bumper of one of the trucks that had been taken apart for service, several wrenches, a trash bin... all of it flew to a spot a few meters above the floor and hung there.
Shepard quickly pulled out one of Tali's grenades, hit the activation button, and gently lobbed it into the field.
The effect was as immediate as it was pronounced. After a short delay, there was a small pop, followed by the ball in the room becoming completely obscured by a sickly pale green mist. Several shrieks and a chorus of inhuman moans met their ears before silence overtook the room.
Liara dropped the field with a gasp, and a loud clatter heralded the return of normalcy to the laws of the universe in their local area.
"Nice work," Shepard told the panting asari, and meant it. Singularities – technically a misnomer, as it wasn't really a singularity at all, but the name had stuck – weren't easy to create. Shepard could make them – it had been practice singularities from the Adept instructors or do extra training with assault rifles, and Shepard vastly preferred biotics – but she was by no means an expert, and to make one that large and that quickly was no mean feat.
"Catch your breath, Tali and I will go make sure everything's safe," she continued, leaving Liara to catch a breather while they carefully approached the giant cluster of junk that was now strewn in a rough circle in the center of the room.
The gas grenades had performed to specification, insofar as there was a specification to adhere to. The colonists were, while not strictly speaking unconscious, at least unable to move or fight back. They seemed to be breathing well enough, at least, which was a concern Shepard had opted not to raise earlier. There was a fine line between paralyzing some muscles and paralyzing all muscles, and breathing was a rather important function to retain.
The plant creatures hadn't fared anywhere near as well. The herbicide did a number on them, and they were obviously wilting and disintegrating before their eyes in the pile. Shepard and Tali spent several minutes hauling the colonists out of the mess, on the good suggestion from Liara that just because they were dead didn't mean their stomachs stopped containing corrosive acid.
"Okay," Shepard said, wiping the sweat from her brow. "These colonists are down for the count, we've appropriated their weapons, and the plants are dispatched. Are we missing anything?"
"What about Varren?" Tali asked. "We ran into some earlier, and they're scavengers..."
"Point," Shepard said, and keyed her commlink. "Shore party to Normandy, Joker, do you read?"
"Loud and clear," Joker's concerned voice came back immediately. "Ash says that she and Wrex took out a couple colonies in the lower levels, so they should be pretty well distracted for a while."
"Copy that," Shepard said, then smiled. "And snooping on my helmet camera is bad for your blood pressure, you know."
"I'll be sure to speak to my physician about that," he replied. "Tell Liara nice work, by the way,"
Shepard glanced over to the now-blushing asari. "She's on the channel, Joker," she reminded him.
"Yeah, but it doesn't hurt to say it in person. Godspeed, Commander."
She took her finger off the communicator activator and glanced at Liara. "I know I said it already, but that was good work," she said. "That could have been far messier than it was. Are you recovered?"
Liara nodded, her cheeks darkening to a near purple. "I'm good to go, Shepard," she said.
"Alright," Shepard said with a deep breath. "Let's go."
Liara was never going to be the same.
She knew it. Knew it like she knew her own name, that there were things one did that left a permanent mark on a soul, things that rendered one forever changed – for good or ill.
I did everything I could, she thought. It had been her mantra after the first one she'd had to kill. She'd repeated it in her head, over and over, reinforcing it every time she'd been forced to take aim at a person she knew wasn't responsible for what they were doing and pull the trigger. Every time her biotics had failed her, every time her arms were too tired to strike a gun-toting foe into unconsciousness, every time she'd been forced to end a life to save her own.
She thought back to the the corporate stooge, Jong, or Jeong, or whatever his name had been. She'd been appalled Shepard had simply killed him, without warning or appropriate... gravitas. Oh, she'd thought he was the scum of the galaxy, to be sure, but there was a good distance between thinking that and executing the man in cold blood!
But now, after seeing the sheer, horrifying consequences of what that man's greed, and the greed of those like him, had wrought... well, there was a small but growing part of her that thought perhaps he'd gotten off easy.
Thirty-seven. That was how many she'd personally had to kill, out of the hundreds they'd fought together. Thirty seven men and women (and thank the Goddess there had been no children!) that would never again greet their loved ones, or make a new discovery, or share the joys of life with one another thanks to her.
She fought back a sob and took a savage bite of the energy bar she'd been nibbling on.
Because they weren't done yet.
The Thorian had sent its vines throughout the entire colony, or perhaps they were there to begin with, just tucked out of sight. Regardless, the docking bay that the Normandy had left had been nearly covered in writhing tendrils. The crew of the Normandy were working on clearing it out now, but three marines had already been injured trying to clear the vines when those never sufficiently accursed things had spewed all over them from the thickest parts of the growth.
Which meant that the best course of action was for her, Shepard, and Tali to go into the belly of the beast and try to talk to it.
Speaking of which...
Liara took a glance over at Tali. The quarian had gone almost completely silent about halfway through their push through the colony, only speaking when directly asked a question. Now she sat alone on a concrete barrier, legs curled up to her chest with her head on her knees.
"Hey," Liara said gently, ignoring her protesting muscles to scoot next to the young quarian.
"Hrnh?" Tali mumbled, slowly, looking up in a daze. "Oh. Hey, Liara."
She reached around the shoulders of her environment suit and gave her a gentle squeeze. "How are you doing?" she asked, somewhat lamely. Of course she's doing awful. I know I'm one bad bump from going completely to pieces, and I'm five times her age!
Tali hiccuped and shook her head. "I think... I think I'm going to have nightmares about this place for a long time," she said in a weak attempt at levity. "Especially the end... that man, Fai Dan..."
Liara said nothing and gave the girl another hug.
"I just..." Tali said, shaking her head beneath her. "What kind of person does this, Liara? Who condemns children to this? How? How could they?" she sobbed, pounding the concrete ground weakly with her gloved fist.
"I don't know," Liara whispered.
"They have to pay," Tali said, an undercurrent of rage creeping in to her grief-wracked voice. "For this. They can't get away with it. It's not right."
The slow thud of armored boots heralded Shepard's return from the crane controls. "Crane's ready to go," she said tiredly. "How're you two holding up?" she asked, leaning on the wall and gulping down an energy drink.
"Exhausted," Liara said, and Tali nodded her agreement.
"I hear that," Shepard said. "The crane's ready to move when we are."
"Shepard," Liara said with a concerned glance at Tali. "I'm not sure how much longer we can keep going. You might be used to this, but..."
Shepard shook her head. "We're done fighting, I think. I spoke to Joker."
Liara blinked. "Joker? Was he able to dock?"
"No, the Thorian's still blocking access to the bay. We're going to go try to talk to the Thorian, but if it doesn't go well, I'm not going to go try to weed a plant that's likely infested the entire building out with my shotgun. If we can't come to agreement with the Thorian, then we'll have Joker do a couple passes with the Normandy's main guns."
"Isn't that dangerous? I mean, we'll be right next to it..." Liara said with a frown.
Shepard shrugged. "I'm not going to have him fire on us," she said. "Besides, he's a good shot. I've seen him work."
Tali hauled herself to her feet. "So we go down, we talk to this... plant... and if it doesn't do what we want, we shoot it. What if it does do what we want? What then?"
"We call the Council and the Systems Alliance, let them know what's down here, and have them evacuate the colony while we go after Saren. They can study or speak with the Thorian at their leisure from the comfort of hazmat suits once we're gone," Shepard said.
"I am somewhat surprised – and pleased – to hear you don't intend to kill it regardless," Liara said.
"It doesn't cost me anything to talk to it first, and I'd rather not kill a fifty thousand year old life form dating back to the time of the protheans without at least trying other options first," Shepard said. "Besides, if you think about it, it was here first."
Tali shuddered. "Still doesn't make me comfortable with mind controlling plants," she said.
"Truth be told, Tali? Neither am I," Shepard said. "Come on. Let's go meet a flower."
"Eugh," Liara said. "Goddess, it reeks down here."
"You do not want to know what's in the air right now," Tali said, peering at her omni-tool. "I'm not happy with it, and I'm in an environment suit!"
"Hold up," Shepard ordered. "Tali, is it going to cause permanent harm or impair our ability to do the mission?"
Tali hummed. "Probably not, unless you go licking the floor" she admitted, "but it's still awful."
"Awful I can cope with," Shepard said, "and somehow, I think I can restrain myself from licking the floor. Let's keep moving."
They slogged through the couple of inches of stagnant murky water deeper into the hallway.
"All right," Tali said, checking her omni-tool when they hit a fork in the passage. "Head right here. We just need to find this creature and determine what it... what it..."
She trailed off in shock as they emerged into a cavernous room, the result of many decades of slow intrusion by ponderous but inexorable plant growth. The creature – Shepard assumed it was the Thorian – was gigantic, towering a full three or four storeys from root system to its head, liquid cascading down it from cracks in the walls. The entire room was crisscrossed by a net of vines that writhed slowly as the main bulk of the creature shifted slightly in its chamber.
"Keelah," Tali whispered, staring up in awe. "What is that?"
Shepard looked up above the creature to the sunlight filtering down through an open spot in the roof. "I am really, really glad I brought bigger guns," she muttered under her breath before stepping forward to what she assumed was the creature's head.
The thing's head – or, at least, she assumed it was its head – began to shudder at her approach, the tentacles hanging down from it wriggling as it swayed and began making a chuffing noise. Shepard frowned and reached out a hand, blue power yanking a loose wall panel off to stand between her and the monster.
If its minions can spew acid, I do not want to see what it personally can do!
But no attack came. The chuffing got more intense, and Shepard was given the distinct impression of somebody with a nasty chest cold before the creature's head spasmed, depositing a completely nude, and more alarmingly deep green assari before them.
Shepard stared warily while the asari slowly stood.
"Invaders!" she spat, after clearing some slime from her lungs. "Your every step is a transgression. A thousand feelers appraise you as meat, good only to dig or decompose."
"I believe she is a spokeswoman," Liara murmured from behind her.
"I think she figured htat out," Tali hissed.
The green asari scowled. "I speak for the Old Growth, as I once spoke for Saren. You are within and before the Thorian. It commands that you be in awe!"
"The Geth are here on behalf of Saren," Shepard said. "I need to know what it is he wanted here."
"Saren sought knowledge of those who are gone. The Old Growth listened to flesh for the first time in the Long Cycle. Trades... were made," she finished euphemistically before baring her teeth in a snarl. "Then cold ones began killing the flesh that would tend the next cycle! Flesh fairly given! The Old Growth sees the air you push as lies! It will listen no more!" she spat.
The asari twitched in time with the movements of the plant behind her, and her eyes narrowed. "No more will the Thorian listen to those that scurry. Your lives are short, but have gone on too long. "
The asari hauled her hand back, blue light gathering around it. "Your blood will feed the ground and the new growth!" she screamed, and Shepard felt the telltale buzz of an intensifying mass effect field.
"Too slow," she muttered, whipping her hand forward and clenching it into a fist. Just like with the old tenth street reds gang member back in Chora's Den, the asari barely had time to begin to scream before the fourth fundamental force of the universe shattered her body. A quick tossing motion bounced the asari's shattered corpse off the front of the Thorian, and Shepard followed it with a single round from her shotgun for good measure.
It didn't seem to phase the plant, but it definitely made a statement.
"That could have gone better," Shepard muttered as she stepped back from the Thorian, then keyed her commlink. "Joker, the plant's not keen on talking. I'm marking some coordinates, go ahead and get them lined up but do not fire until we call in that we're clear."
Her commlink crackled to life. "Aye aye, Commander, readying to fire on your beacon target and holding until ordered. Just give the word."
"Shepard!" Tali hissed. "The Thorian!"
Shepard glanced up at the plant, which was making another set of huffing and chuffing noises before spitting out another asari, identical to the previous one. "Okay," she grumbled, "one green asari I'll believe, but two identical ones?"
Shepard unwrapped the tape from her gauntlet and smashed the metal plate into the asari's skull while she was trying to stand, driving her to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
"Shepard, wait," Liara said, reaching out a hand before Shepard could pull the trigger on her shotgun. "Let me check something first."
Shepard lowered her weapon and stepped back with a nod. "Go ahead."
Liara quickly knelt by the prone asari and opened her medical bag, pulling out a small gauze pad and a medical mirror. Wiping away some of the leftover slime, she quickly inspected the asari's crest, then held the mirror up to peer at her own.
"Okay," Shepard said after a moment, "I'm sure you have a reason for doing this, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what it is."
"This isn't an asari!" Liara said. "Well, I mean, she is, but she's not from another world. I think she's a clone."
"A clone?" Shepard said skeptically. "How in the world is the Thorian making clones? And how can you tell?"
Liara tapped her crest. "Asari are often said to have scales. This isn't true – scales are a specific skin formation – but we do have subdermal mineral deposits that develop as we age to help reflect ultraviolet radiation."
She pointed at the green figure. "She doesn't have any, which means she's either spent her entire life in the dark... or she hasn't had time to grow them. Combine that with her identical copy you threw off the edge, and..."
"Clones," Shepard finished with a sigh. "Great."
Liara looked up at the creature wistfully. "I almost wish we didn't have to kill it," she said. "Such a rarity in a galaxy filled with unique and wondrous things."
Shepard patted Liara on the shoulder before drawing a communications beacon from her sparse kit. A quick thumb activated its small drive, and it gently floated up in the air in front of her. She tapped a couple buttons on her omni tool, and with a few gentle hisses the drone drifted up above the Thorian's main bulk.
"Beacon's set," she told the others. "Let's head back into the hallway a bit. I don't want to lose sight of the thing, but I'm not really in the mood to get any more gunk on me when Joker kills it."
"You think it's going to be messy?" Tali asked as they backpedaled away from the creature.
Shepard chuckled. "Joker's using weaponry that's designed to take out small military spacecraft on a plant. The only life form I know of that could survive one pass by those guns is a Thresher Maw, and I can guarantee it'd be hurting afterward."
Back in the hallway, she thumbed her communicator. "Joker, the beacon is lit, and we're clear for kinetic weaponry safe distance. You may fire at will."
"Aye aye, ma'am. I see a great big ugly green thing moving around down there, and a nice fat beacon signal sitting dead on top of it."
Shepard smiled. "That's your target, Joker. Take it out."
The guns on the Normandy were higher-end versions of a typical Alliance frigate's armament: A pair of torpedo launchers for punching holes through heavily shielded craft, a missile bay for taking out unshielded targets, and some lighter-weight kinetic weapons that would tear apart smaller vessels.
Outside of Tuchanka, however, there were no natural lifeforms with hides as tough as starship hulls, and the Thorian – while too big to easily dispatch with small arms – burst like a paint-filled balloon beneath the Normandy's guns.
From the perspective of the shore party, one moment the Thorian was there... and the next it was a rapidly expanding wave of green sludge and shredded plant tissue that covered the entire interior of the chamber, the larger chunks sending small waves through the murky water in the hallway as they fell.
More startling than the Thorian's sudden destruction, however, was the silence: The rustling of vines, the movement of plants, the creak of straining growth... all of it was gone. There was only the dripping of liquids as they settled and the distant rush of wind over the building.
"Keelah..." Tali whispered.
"Nice shot, Joker," Shepard said into her commlink. "I think you got it. Go ahead and see if the dock's clear, we'll come down and meet you after we make sure this thing's gone."
"Copy that," Joker replied. "We'll make sure the showers are hot for your return."
Shepard laughed. "You know me too well," she said. "Shepard clear."
She turned to Tali and Liara, gesturing them forward. "Come on, you two," she said. "Let's go make sure it's dead, then we can get out of here."
The Thorian was, at least as far as they could tell, well and truly dead.
The animated plant creatures that tali had taken to calling "creepers" had all collapsed with the Thorian, and were already starting to fall to pieces on the floor of the Thorian's chamber. The vines covering the walls had gone limp, and occasionally one would lose its grip on the tough concrete and fall into the pool at the bottom of the room with a wet splat.
"I think they're all gone," Liara said while Tali poked a fallen creeper with her shotgun.
Tali kicked the disintegrating creeper with her boot. "I'm glad," she said, straightening up. "They're almost as bad as spiders."
"Husks are worse," Shepard said absently. "These are just acid-spitting plants that look sort of humanoid."
"You keep saying that," Tali said, putting her hands on her hips. "What is a husk?"
Shepard turned and raised an eyebrow at the quarian. "Geth technology. Some kind of synthetic parasite that invades corpses and reanimates them as shock troops. The few members of Eden Prime that weren't killed in the initial sweep were turned into them."
Tali covered her helmeted mouth in horror. "That's... we would never dream of building something like that," she said faintly.
"I never said you did," Shepard said, frowning.
"Ah... right. Sorry. I'm just used to everything the geth do getting blamed on quarians," Tali said, slightly sheepish.
Shepard shrugged. "Even if a quarian did think of the idea, it would have had to have been before the war with the geth, which was what... three hundred years ago, give or take? Three hundred years ago, humanity was still in the middle of enslaving, butchering, and raping people from different cultures while trying to figure out how electricity worked."
Liara and Tali stared at Shepard.
"What?" she said. "A common trait of civilized people is that one treat others in the same way one wishes to be treated, or so people keep telling me. I don't want to be judged for the actions of humans that came ten generations before me, so I don't judge others for what their distant ancestors did."
Tali shook her head. "Why can't the rest of the galaxy be more like you, Shepard?"
"No idea," Shepard said cheerfully. "You'd have to ask a psychologist."
"Well, personally, I think it's- wait," Liara said, holding a finger up to her lips. "Did you hear that?"
Shepard frowned. "Hear what?"
Liara looked around the empty chamber. "I thought I heard something moving."
Shepard unhooked her shotgun and flicked the safety off. "Where?"
"I don't know," Liara said. "Everything echoes in here so much, it is very difficult to-"
They were interrupted by a sudden ripping sound followed almost immediately by a wet thud and a gurgle of pain.
"I definitely heard that," Shepard said grimly. "Upper levels. Come on."
The source of the sound, much to their surprise, was an asari – and not one of the greenish copies spat out by the Thorian, but the genuine blue article.
"Stop," Shepard ordered when Liara start to rush toward the collapsed figure. "How many asari are there in this colony, Liara?"
"She needs help, Shepard!" Liara argued, trying to pull her arm free.
"I know," Shepard snapped, eyes hard. "Think, is a human colony. There weren't any asari listed on the roster Chakwas got from the colonists. The clones we fought were clones of an asari... and they mentioned having been in Saren's service."
Liara's eyes widened, and Shepard released her arm. "What are the odds that she's one of his?"
"I- I'm sorry, I didn't-" Liara began, gaze flickering from the prone asari to Shepard.
"It's fine," Shepard said, patting Liara on the shoulder. "Your intentions were good. I'm just more used to people trying to kill me than you are."
Shepard stepped carefully toward the shivering figure. "Can you hear me?" Shepard asked slowly.
The asari coughed, apparently unable to speak clearly, but nodded twice from the floor.
"Are you in need of assistance?" she asked, and the asari nodded again.
"Are you currently or were you previously an associate of Saren?"
There was a noticeable pause this time, but she nodded slowly. Behind Shepard, both Tali and Liara tensed.
"I am Commander Elle Shepard with the Council Special Tactics and Reconnaissance," Shepard introduced herself sternly. "I need to know information about Saren. Are you willing to cooperate?"
The asari's head nodded up and down so quickly, Shepard feared she might give herself whiplash.
"Good," Shepard said. "She's all yours, Doctor. Tali, cover the door, make sure nothing sneaks up on us."
Liara nearly dove down to the woman, unpacking her first aid kit as she went. "I am not a medical professional," she said quickly but calmly, "however, I am trained as a first responder. I'm going to help clear your airway and we'll then see about treating any other injuries you might have. Is that okay?"
The asari on the floor nodded again, and Liara carefully set to work.
"Tali," Shepard said, walking over to the quarian by the door and speaking softly, "keep an eye on things, but if she turns out to be hostile, I do not want her dead,"
"Because of what she knows?" Tali asked, her normally amplified voice muffled.
Shepard nodded. "She's the one chance we have at finding out what the geth wanted here. I cannot stress how valuable that is to us."
Tali took a deep breath. "Understood, Shepard."
Shepard smiled and patted her on the shoulder. "Thanks," she said.
It didn't take long for Liara's initial treatment of the woman to have a noticeable effect. She went from being gasping and unable to move to nearly strong enough to stand in the span of fifteen minutes. Shepard made good use of the time, beginning her report on the Thorian, and informing Joker that they'd found a possible associate of Saren's and were interrogating her.
"Okay," Liara said finally, "it looks like the swelling has started to lessen, and your airway sounds clearer. Can you try talking?"
"Yes," the asari croaked, then coughed, and tried again. "Yes," she said, much more clearly.
Shepard knelt down next to the asari while Liara began packing up her kit. "How are you feeling?" she asked.
"I am..." she thought for a moment, rubbing her temples absently, "...fine? Or I will be, in time," she said.
Shepard frowned slightly. She sounds almost... surprised? Like she was expecting something else.
"My name is Shiala," she continued. "I serve – served," she corrected, "Matriarch Benezia. When she allied herself with Saren, so did I."
Beside her, Liara went very still for a moment, then resumed packing her medical kit... but Shepard could see the tremble in her fingers while she did so.
"Benezia foresaw the influence Saren would have. She joined him to guide him down a..." she paused for a moment, searching for words, "gentler path. But Saren is compelling. Benezia... lost her way."
"Are you saying," Shepard said slowly, "that Saren can control minds?" Is that what he came here for? The ability to do that? No, that can't be right – Benezia joined him long before he arrived here.
Shiala shook her head. "Not precisely, no. Not at first. In time, however, we came to believe in his cause and his goals. The strength... and subtlety... of the influence he has is... troubling."
That's not exactly the phrase I would use. A rogue Spectre agent with the power to make people believe in your cause? That's even more terrifying than the ability to dominate minds like the Thorian possessed.
"Mother sought to turn the river and was swept away," Liara muttered with a sniffle.
Shiala turned a sympathetic gaze to Liara. "I thought you looked familiar," she said with the hint of a smile. "I am pleased that you escaped Therum. She spoke of you fondly in private, in the beginning."
"But not at the end," Liara said bitterly.
Shiala paused, again seeming to pick her words with care. "She never stopped," she said at last, "but Saren's touch... it turns even the fairest of things foul. It was... painful to witness, in the increasingly rare moments that I was mostly myself."
"How did he accomplish this?" Shepard asked.
"Saren has a vessel," Shiala explained, "An enormous warship unlike anything I have ever seen. He calls it Sovereign. It can dominate the minds of his followers."
"Wait a minute," Tali said from the doorway. "His ship can do that? How could the geth have possibly learned how to do that? Unless they were far more subtle than we thought they were..." she trailed off, suddenly doubtful.
"I do not believe it is a geth creation," Shiala said. "The geth may have patterned some of their vessels after it, perhaps, but the vessel itself strikes me as far older than the geth."
"How does it work?" Shepard asked. "Does it function at a distance?"
Shiala shook his head. "I don't know. I don't believe so. It only happened to his crew that we saw. The process is subtle – it can take days, weeks, maybe even months. But in the end... it is absolute."
Shepard frowned. "How are you not subject to it, then? Does it wear off with time? Or does Saren want us to know this information?"
"It is.. complicated," Shiala said at last. "I was a willing slave when Saren brought me to this world. He needed my abilities to communicate with the Thorian, to learn its secrets."
Liara's eyes widened. "The meld," she whispered.
Shiala nodded at Liara. "You are correct. Saren offered the Thorian a trade: I would be sacrificed to the Thorian, so that it might pillage my mind for knowledge of the galaxy as it stands today, in exchange for the knowledge of the galaxy as it was that he needed."
"Goddess," Liara whispered.
"That fits with what we've seen of Saren so far," Shepard said with a sigh. "He's left behind a long trail of betrayed allies in his wake."
Shiala smiled, but it was an empty expression, devoid of any kind of happiness. "I would hesitate to describe our relationship as 'allies,'" she said. "Subordinates, then servants, then slaves and... toys... but never allies."
"Regardless of what he considered me, he was quick to betray the Thorian, as well. After he had what he wanted, he ordered the geth to destroy all evidence of its existence."
Liara shook her head. "And in doing so, only ensured in drawing our attention, as well as indirectly causing the destruction of one of the best possible sources of information about the prothean era," she said bitterly.
"Do not mourn it," Shiala said. "There are other troves of knowledge left behind that are far less dangerous than that one."
Liara nodded slowly, but Shepard could tell she was still skeptical.
"In any case," Shiala said, staring directly at Shepard, "Saren knows you are searching for the Conduit. He knows you are following in his footsteps. He attacked the Thorian so you could not gain access to the Cipher."
"The what?" Shepard asked, confusion plain on her face. She'd never heard of such a thing. "What is the Cipher? And why did Saren need it?"
"The beacon on Eden Prime left a message in your brain," Shiala said. "But it was unclear, disorganized, confusing. The messages were meant for a prothean mind."
Shepard nodded. "Our doctors figured as much. We were fortunate that there were as many similarities between prothean minds and our own for any of the message to make it through."
Shiala nodded. "And also fortunate that the protheans included some measure of adaptability in their communications network. It is somewhat unexpected, given that the protheans were the only active species at the time, but perhaps they considered the possibility of another race utilizing their tools."
"That adaptability only goes so far, however," she continued. "To truly comprehend the messages, you must think like a prothean. You must understand their culture, their idioms, their language, their history, the metaphors and elements that make up a sentient civilization's entire history."
"Wait a minute," Tali said. "The language I understand, but the rest? Is that really necessary to read their mail?"
Shepard and Liara both nodded. "It's-" they began, before looking at each other and laughing. "Go ahead, Commander," Liara said with a smile.
"It's because some things might not make any sense across cultural boundaries. Take the hanar, for example," Shepard explained. "There was a minor incident during first contact with the rest of the galaxy because they didn't recognize what an arrow was."
"An arrow?" Tali asked. "You mean, like the direction icon?"
Shepard nodded. "The hanar never worked with projectiles before first contact. Most projectiles are hard to utilize underwater. The arrow – a barbed projectile designed to pierce and remain stuck – was never something they had encountered before. They had no understanding of them."
Shiala smiled. "Precisely, Spectre," she said. "The Cipher is all of those little elements specific to prothean culture. It does not make the message fully clear – like you said, it was still designed for prothean minds – but it helps make sense of what parts of the message did make it."
"So the Thorian taught Saren this information," Shepard said. "How?"
"The Thorian predated the prothean settlement on this world," Shiala said. "When the protheans founded this city, it watched and studied them. When they died, it consumed them. They became a very real part of it. Saren, in his trade, had me receive this information from the Thorian in a meld and grant it to him. It was through me that he gained it."
Shit. So the only way to get it is to open my mind to her, Shepard thought to herself. Which means at the very least, Shiala will learn about me.
Contrary to popular belief, Shepard wasn't an expert in every subject under the sun. She simply... enjoyed learning, and always strove to be at least passingly familiar with every topic that might come up in the course of her life. Given her preferences for the female form, and the relative similarity that asari had with human women, she had taken it upon herself to find out what such liaisons entailed.
She was somewhat disappointed to learn that the meld would almost immediately give her would-be partner a very clear impression of both who and what she was, which sadly ruled out even passing relationships with them. It was a pity, really, as not only did Shepard admire their form, but also the grace, calm, and steady curiosity that most of the asari she met demonstrated. The feelings were not one-sided, as well – she had gotten several discreet offers from asari over her decade-long career, which she had to politely decline.
But that is neither here nor there, she thought, her mind whirling. She needed that information, and badly if she was going to stand any chance of stopping Saren from instituting his own mad view of the galaxy on everybody. And if the only way to get it was to give away what she was to Shiala...
Well, I can always claim that she was still an agent of Saren and was trying something. It won't be an easy lie to pull off, especially with how forthcoming she's been, but I think I that most of the rest of the crew will trust me when I tell them.
She took a deep breath. "Will you give it to me?" she asked.
Shiala nodded once, slowly, a faint smile on her face.
"Okay," Shepard said. "Tali, Liara, please keep watch. Shiala, whenever you are ready."
"Try to relax, Spectre. Slow, deep breaths. Let go of your physical shell. Reach out to grasp the threads that bind us, one to another."
Shepard was not one prone to meditating on a regular basis, but she had been taught the techniques by her biotic tutors. It was no great stretch for her to close her eyes and empty her mind, letting her thoughts drift aside until all that remained of Commander Shepard was a great, empty, placid lake in an endless mental field.
She barely heard the lines that followed, her eyes half lidded. She did hear the final words, however.
"Embrace eternity!"
"It is said that no two melds are the same, as the contact between something as unique and intimate as one's sense of self cannot possibly take the same form for different individuals."
"That is, of course, a load of bullshit."
"The melds are a biological process. A complicated and unusual one, to be sure, but a biological process nonetheless. Shared cultures, shared ideas, shared dreams... all can lead to a similar meld. The intent of the two involved can also shape the path a meld takes – is this what both people truly want? Is the meld for pleasure, or to convey information? The meld is a partially involuntary process, this is true, but it can be shaped and directed, and so it take the same form multiple times."
"Don't believe everything you read by asari mystics on the extranet, soldiers."
Shepard was fond of thinking in metaphor. There was something simply pleasant in finding connections between otherwise unlike things and noting their similarities... as well as their differences.
The same, it would seem, was true of her personal reaction to the touch of this asari's meld.
She could still feel the ache in her muscles, the soreness in her feet, the smell of rotting plant in her nose, but they were distant things, faraway and irrelevant to the here and now.
In her mind, she was sitting atop a throne of ice, stone, and salt amidst a perfectly still sea of silent and drifting icebergs. She peered more closely at one, and it slid toward her, close enough for her to see a memory buried in the ice: it was her, eating her first candy bar that her fellows in the Reds had stolen from a convenience store. She recalled the unusual taste, the cloying sweetness of the caramel, the odd sensation of her teeth sticking together, and their laughter at her expression when she couldn't open her jaw.
She leaned back from the memory, expressionless. As amusing as it was to wander down memory lane, that was not the purpose of this exercise. She was obviously in the meld, so where was the information the asari had promised?
A gentle bump shook the throne she was sitting on, and she turned to see where it came from.
Behind her, looming over the mental throne she had constructed, was a veritable tower of ice. In it she could see hundreds, thousands, millions of memories, snippets, fragments of people that had once lived, these broken and shattered half-whispers all that was left of their mark on the world. She saw the hopes and dreams of a civilization, the rise and fall of fortunes, and the inevitable end of it all in fire and dust.
Another person might have been overwhelmed. Shepard did not do overwhelmed. The task of going through everything here was, quite obviously, impossible to do all at once – she would obviously have to reflect upon it with time. Perhaps in sleep and dream, the time when the mind tended to its unfinished business, would she be able to sort out everything she needed to know.
She reached out to the iceberg and gently tapped it.
A soundless crack traced its way through the wall of memory and ice, sending shivers that could be felt but not heard racing through it, shattering it into countless fragments. It did not require force. This was, after all, her mind, and if she willed that something, then it would be so.
She noted a flailing figure, obviously surprised by the sudden disappearance of the solidity of the memory berg she was riding, fall down with a larger chunk into the sea around her. Her fall was the only thing to break the placid surface, as the memory-bergs cracked and fall, somehow slipping into the vast ocean without leaving so much as a ripple.
She floated out of the icy throne – again, her mind, her rules, and if she wanted to fly, then she would – and leaned over to peer at the thrashing figure in the cold, black waters.
It was, to Shepard's complete lack of surprise, Shiala. She peered down at the asari with something between idle curiosity and disdain. She was obviously having a hard time of things, as evidenced by her increasing inability to swim, and her head began bobbing beneath the ocean.
Shepard slipped quietly beneath the waters, accompanying the asari as she slowly stopped stuggling and sank beneath the surface, her blue form going slowly still.
Around her, the fragments of ancient memory continued to melt into the dark surface, the individual pieces that made up the giant mass slowly stilling and frosting up, ice entombing them for her later perusal.
Shepard reached out a hand to the still form of the asari, and her eyes fluttered open. She looked around with alarm, initially, then a weary acceptance, and then ice, too, began flowing over and around her.
The ice had nearly covered her, with only her neck and head exposed, when the asari began moving again, her lips forming silent words once more. This time, Shepard could clearly see what she said mouthed.
"I'm sorry..."
Then the ice covered her, and Shepard felt the real world rush back in.
She opened her eyes slowly. She knew she had planned to do so quickly, and in anger, but her mind was still... a bit off. Not surprising, she thought, given what I've just been given... even if I don't understand all of it. The urgency of what Shiala now knew, however, did a fairly good job of dragging her back into her more immediate problem.
She took a deep breath and stared at where Shiala was standing. She had expected fear, horror, trepidation, maybe even an attack.
She had not expected the asari to be staring at her, open-mouthed and with tears streaming down her face.
"I'm so sorry," Shiala whispered, not letting her gaze drop from Shepard's. "Goddess..." she managed with a shuddering gasp, and collapsed against the wall behind her.
Shepard shook her head at Shiala in confusion. This was definitely not what she had expected. Judging by the confused look on Liara's face and the familiar "I don't get it" cant to Tali's helmet, they didn't understand what was happening either.
Shiala pushed herself off the wall and took a hesitant step toward her. Shepard knew she should stop her, make her back off, but something stopped her, and besides... she really didn't seem hostile.
Shiala lifted a trembling hand to Shepard's cheek and stroked it gently, tears still falling from her eyes while Shepard stared levelly back. "They don't know, do they," she said, and it wasn't a question.
Shepard shook her head. "No."
Shiala finally broke eye contact with Shepard to turn to Tali and Liara. "Could... could you give us a moment in private, please?" she asked, her voice choked up.
"Shepard?" Tali asked. "Your call."
Shepard stared at the asari for a long moment. "Yeah," she said at last. "I think I'll be safe. You've got my bio-monitor linked into our tac-net, you'll be able to tell if anything happens. Go up and see if the Normandy's managed to break through the vines in the loading bay yet. I'll be up soon."
Liara paused, as if about to ask a question, then apparently thought better of it before following Tali out of the Thorian's chamber.
Shiala slumped to the slime-covered floor. Shepard, not wanting to get covered in any more slime than she already was, pulled the wall plate she'd used as a shield against the clone over and sat down on it. As an afterthought, she reached up and disabled the small camera mounted to her helmet. She didn't want what she suspected their conversation was going to be about to get out to the crew, let alone the rest of the galaxy.
They sat in silence for a long time.
"So," Shepard said at last, "you're sorry?"
Shiala smiled weakly. "For you."
Shepard shrugged. "My life hasn't been easy, I'll admit, but it's been interesting."
"Interesting," Shiala shook her head. "Heroic. Horrifying. Astounding. Monstrous. Those are words I would use to describe existence, were I in your shoes. But you... you merely call it interesting. You have never known love, or sorrow, or rage, or grief. At most... mild disappointment and frustration."
"It's not like I have another frame of reference to compare it to, you know," Shepard said.
"You could, if you spent more time with us," Shiala said. "While we asari have our fair share of judgmental individuals, there are many who are not, and I have no doubts that they would be willing to share something of themselves with you. I would have, were I less weary and not tasked with bestowing so much."
"I think I'd rather not," Shepard said. "But thank you for the knowledge."
"I understand," Shiala nodded, "and you are most welcome."
They sat in silence for a few more minutes, quietly listening to the remnants of the Thorian drip down into the pool below.
"Do you mind if I ask you a personal question, Shepard?"
Shepard shrugged. "Seems redundant, after what we've just done."
Shiala smiled. "Perhaps, and perhaps not. Both individuals do not see the same thing in the meld, and the experiences are filtered through our own perceptions."
"Go ahead, then," Shepard said.
"Why do you do it?" Shiala asked. "Why fight for this? You do not love the people you're fighting for. You are not loyal to a cause. You are not fighting for individuality, or freedom, or your religion. Why do you fight so hard for us?"
Shepard paused for a moment, running the question around in her brain. "Because the universe is interesting," she said at last. "Because I enjoy discovering something new about the existence I find myself living in. Because Saren and his geth threaten a great deal of the things I have yet to experience, and if I don't stop him, he will eventually stop me. And... because I'm good at it."
Shiala laughed quietly. "So the civilized galaxy owes its existence to your intellectual curiosity and professional pride."
Shepard shrugged again. "I suppose that's one way to put it," she said.
Shiala shook her head, and the silence spread between them once more.
"Do you mind if I ask you another question?" Shiala asked.
"Go ahead," Shepard repeated.
"Are you going to kill me?" she asked simply.
Shepard paused. "By all rights, I should," she said finally. "I planned to. But now... I think it depends on what you're planning on doing," she looked over at the sitting asari.
Shiala peered up at the concrete ceiling. "I think... I think I would like to stay here with the colonists," she said at last. "They have suffered greatly, and I played a role in their suffering. I would like to make amends."
She gave Shepard a tired smile. "You may not know guilt, Spectre, but it most certainly knows me."
Shepard weighed her options. On one hand, the safest thing to do would be to simply kill the asari and move on. Had she reacted the way Shepard had expected, she would have already. But... Shiala genuinely seemed to feel bad for her, and Shepard wasn't really sure what to make of that. Over the course of her life she'd been feared, valued, loathed, hated, praised, and appraised... but never been the subject of another's sympathy, and not for something as much of a non-issue to her as her state of being.
It was confusing.
And new.
And if there was anything Shepard liked, it was discovering new things. Besides, as much as she couldn't take advantage of it now, the idea that others might be willing to teach her more about how people worked was quite appealing to her. While 'envy' wasn't quite the right word, she was always a little bit disappointed that she'd never really understand a lot of what made people function as they did. She knew the song and dance to perform, and could do it quite well, but it was one thing to understand what the dance was and another entirely to understand why it was.
And, last of all... Shepard wasn't sure why she needed to kill her.
That realization was probably the most alarming.
She had, for years, lived her life in such a way as to hide who and what she really was to the galaxy. At first it was out of self-preservation to hide from the law, but after that, it was out of a desire not to have a reputation as a monster, because being known as a monster closed far more doors than it opened.
But that was before she was a Spectre.
The Spectres managed to be both things at the same time: To some, they were saviors, swooping in to do impossible things and save the day. To others, they were heralds of doom, bringing wanton and indiscriminate death to everyone and everything they touched. Both reputations rode with the badge she now wore emblazoned above her left breast, and with the right approach, she could lever them both. She could really be both the monster and the shining knight, shifting as the situation required. And her crimes in the past, before the military? Far from the worst committed by a Spectre agent, and definitely far from the least understandable.
Besides, even if the Alliance wanted to prosecute her for them, she was a Spectre... and explicitly out of their grasp, in a way that hadn't managed to fully sink in until now.
I don't need to kill her. Even if she talks... I don't need to kill her. It's... actually quite refreshing.
"I think," she said at last, "that sounds like a fine plan."
Shiala looked at her and smiled.
Shepard stood up slowly, gently stretching the muscles that had started cramping after the long fight before extending a hand to the asari. "Come on," she said, hauling Shiala to her feet. "I have a galaxy to save, and you have a colony to rebuild."
They walked out of the Thorian's chamber side by side, climbing slowly back up into the light.
A/N: Okay, maybe I lied. Liara's meld will come later. This chapter's already getting too long to scroll through easily, and that's a decent breakpoint for now. Upcoming next: Liara, Shepard, melding, etc. We'll also probably head back to the citadel, do a brief touch on some of the more important sidequests, and then roll out for Noveria. That's totally going to be a happy family reunion! Just sunflowers and joy and ahahahaha I am literally cackling with glee over how miserable everyone is going to be.
Remember: Authors torment their characters to distract them from the pain of their real world lives.
Now, the stuff below is some authory commentary. You can skip this if you don't want to know about the sausage factory, or read it if you want an insight into some of the process for this chapter. I don't plan on doing this often, but sometimes when something really big happens I'll write a long commentary.
Still here? Very well!
I'll admit that I spent a lot of time thinking over whether or not Shepard would kill Shiala. The little voices in my head had some pretty convincing arguments for both sides, and when I sat down to write this chapter, I actually planned to have her end up dead by the end. I even wrote out several different scenes where she killed her, one where Shiala freaks out and is killed immediately after the meld, one where she is sad but still calm when Shepard announces she's going to kill her, and one where Shepard decided she needs to kill her after their private chat.
That last one was rough, and really drove home how inhuman – by our standards – Shepard is. Nasty stuff.
(Hm. Maybe I should make a "something blue cutting room floor" fic and post the polished scraps there. I've accumulated several good ones...)
Anyway.
As I was (re)writing this, I kept realizing that Shepard being a monster isn't really the point of the story – it's more incidental. Part of the setting. The point of the story, that's most fun to write and that drives the most tension, is everybody realizing that Shepard is a monster. Especially after Shepard seems so kind, nice, and agreeable. Although don't let something going right for the time being make you too comfortable - there's still plenty of atrocities to commit in the name of the greater good, and we need to deal with the aftermath of a bunch of dead colonists.
Not only that, but it really isn't necessary for Shepard to kill her, and Shepard isn't a sadistic monster – she's an amoral one. She doesn't like killing people. She doesn't dislike killing people. She is, as a general rule, neutral on the subject of killing in the same way that you or I would be neutral on the subject of getting lunch at a burger place versus the sandwich shop.
(Hint: Sandwiches. Mmm, sandwiches.)
One last fun fact before I sign off for the night (Morning? Oh gods, it's 5:56AM and I've been writing all night. Help): This entire fic was born from a discussion I had with a friend about a Let's Play he saw where the LPer would flip a coin for every paragon/renegade choice and go with that. And, because the voice acting is so well-done, Shepard would go from mounting a vehement defense of somebody's life only to shoot them with a cold comment the next minute. I mentioned that the only way somebody could do that would be if they were a very good actor, a psychopath, or both. Now, obviously there was a lot of stuff that happened between that casual discussion and this fanfic, but... that was the genesis of it all.
Catch you later, space cowboys / cowgirls / cowothers.