Second Life

Chapter Twenty-Six – The Tuchankan Desert Part 2

Four fully armed and armored desert travelers lay on their stomachs on top of a small sand crest under a pewter sky in the first light of the morning. Over the small dune, a pack of varren circled three female krogans who had ensconced themselves in a slight ditch at the base of a gentle slope. One of the females held up a small pistol aimed at the varren that was pacing back and forth not far from her while another female huddled on top of the third one who looked larger than the others. Shepard whispered to her companions through the comm. "There're five varren, if we each take one out you think the female krogan with a pistol can take the fifth one out before it attacks?"

Aethyta replied in a low voice. "Only if she shoots it right between the eyes, but she doesn't look much like a sharpshooter the way she's holding that pistol."

Of the group, Shepard was the only one who carried a sniper rifle. She gave the order, "I'll take out the one on the far right. Aethyta, Liara, use your biotics to keep the beasts away from the females. Grunt, you charge for the one on the very far end. Our first priority is to protect the krogans. Let's hope we can scare off the varren with our attack, if not, I'll try to pick them off."

Aethyta muttered, "Trust me, they won't run away from their prey."

On Shepard's signal, her three companions took off down the hill. Aethyta and Liara's bodies flared brightly as they moved, the energy about them crackled in the quiet desert morning. Grunt pounded his large feet into the sand, faster than everyone else, shotgun bobbled in his large hand like a toy. Shepard pulled the trigger. An agonizing cry from the beast pierced the air as it dropped on its side. The other four varren turned and faced the newcomers but kept their krogan prey behind them. Aethyta stopped her dash and extended her arm. With a thick column of biotic energy, she pulled the large varren's body, like plucking a bug from a leaf, and threw it overhead behind her; then she resumed her dash to stand next to the krogans and turned around while pulling the trigger on her shotgun that was aimed at the dazed varren.

Liara didn't stop. She dashed pass the varren and reached the female krogans first, then she turned around and sent out a large singularity field that jerked the varren's body into the air. It landed between them and the hill where Shepard took her second shot and the varren never had a chance to stand up again.

Grunt didn't stop either. He charged into the kill zone head first while shouting to the female krogans, "Get Down!" With his downhill momentum, Grunt stepped on the dead varren's body that Shepard sniped first and leapt over the huddling krogans as he opened his arms wide and embraced the varren who had launched its attack at the female krogans. Two large bodies collided in the air and the pair rolled off sideways from the impact, tumbling as one, the krogan's deep war cry and the varren's higher pitched shriek accompanied the movement. When they finally stopped rolling, the krogan was on top, his newly minted shell armor embedded its tips in the varren's neck.

The last varren hurled its body at the female krogans, eyes glimmering in the dark and its large canines pointed out. Both Aethyta and Liara instinctively erected a barrier in synchronization, waiting for the heavy body to impact the shield. A different sounding sniper rifle came from behind them and the large caliber shell ripped apart the leaping body of the last varren, and it landed a couple of feet away from the group.

With all the beasts dead, the desert returned to its usual quietness just before dawn. Shepard docked her sniper rifle and hurried down the hill. "Is everyone alright?"

Both Aethyta and Liara gave Shepard a nod and Grunt stood up, picking off pieces of varren skin and flesh from his artificial shell with a big grin on his face. "The weaponsmaster was right, this thing is great for head butting."

Shepard turned around and faced the bodies of the beasts again, checking for any sign of movement. Seeing none, she turned to Liara and Aethyta, "Who took out the last one?"

"That'd be me." A voice came from behind the female krogans. A much slimmer female krogan in green head cover and matching veil walked briskly down the small hill on the other side of the ditch. Without looking at the strangers, the green veiled krogan docked her sniper rifle and went straight to the oversized krogan in a red head cover and red veil. "Are you hurt?"

As the other two females who stood guard for their red veiled companion made way for the sniper, Shepard's party saw a female krogan lay on her side in the sand, a hand holding her stomach and her body, almost twice the size of her green veiled companion, was trembling. "I'm not hurt. I'm okay, sister." Her voice was low and weak.

The green veiled krogan knelt down next to her large companion, "You shouldn't just wander off like that. You should've woken us up if you wanted to take a walk in the desert." Seeing her sister struggle to sit up, the green veiled sniper slid her arm under her sister's body. "Let's get you back to the camp." With a loud grunt, she helped the krogan in red into a sitting position while supporting her weight with noticeable effort.

Aethyta gasped. "You're pregnant!" She grabbed the large female's free arm and tried to lend some help to get her up, but the krogan's trembling legs gave in and she slipped down again.

Shepard shouted over to Grunt, "Grunt, could you give them a little help here?"

Both Aethyta and the krogan sniper responded immediately. "No!" And the sniper followed up with, "No male is allowed to touch a pregnant female."

Aethyta gave the green veiled sister a disapproving look, "Why is she traveling with your younglings? Where's her surrogate?"

Aethyta's knowledge of the krogan female tribe calmed the suspicious bordering on hostile look from the sniper. "We had some difficulties in our tribe. Me and the twins are the only capable bodies for traveling right now." She pointed her head at her other two companions who wore no veils, only head covers. Their attention had shifted from protecting their clan sister to staring at Grunt.

Aethyta motioned for Liara and Shepard to help. It took all four of them to help the pregnant krogan to stand up and it took another good long moment for her to feel steady on her feet. Finally, the red veiled krogan spoke in a more solid voice. "I'm Cyga. My clan sisters are escorting me to the burial ground not far from the rite of passage arena. My baby is due soon."

Her clan sister's hard stare returned. "Why did you tell strangers your name?"

Cyga put her hand on her sister's shoulder to seek support for her heavy burden. "Sister, they rescued us from the beasts. When desert gives us a gift, we have to accept it graciously. It's a good omen." The well composed words and clear mind behind them persuaded her companion.

Shepard looked at Cyga, "You're going to delivery a baby at the burial ground?" She shifted her gaze to Aethyta. Aethyta only lowered her head and docked her shotgun. What a gruesome idea for such joyous event! But Aethyta knew only too well that joyous outcome rarely materialized, most krogans' babies were stillborn, this way at least you were at the right place to send off the dead.

The green veiled krogan conceded once again to her companion. "Fine. Maybe they'll become useful if we run into the Blades Brothers again." Noticing the newcomers' inquisitive stares, the sniper explained. "The Blades Brothers are frequent travelers on this road, always ready to attend some challenge at the burial ground. They camped where you are a day ago."

"How did you know where we camped?" Shepard asked.

Cyga shook her head slightly. "There's very little she doesn't know about the desert."

The two traveling parties merged for the day's journey towards their destinations. Shepard's party had decided to escort the female krogans to the burial ground first. The young twin sisters who knew the way to the burial ground walked with Grunt in the front, asking him why his shell looked different from other krogans' and where he sported the sleek head armor. Shepard and Liara guarded their rear while Aethyta and the krogan female sniper walked beside Cyga.

In the mid-day, they entered the ruins of the ancient city Falcon. Roads were covered in sand but on top of the steps the party stopped at a courtyard where stone benches and giant stone fountain structures still stood. The krogan sniper and Aethyta helped Cyga find a comfortable spot on a bench to sit and rest. Aethyta took out her dry water canister and handed it to the pregnant krogan who accepted it graciously. The sniper in green took off without saying a word, but both Cyga and Aethyta understood that she'd stand watch for any sign of trouble. After the slim krogan disappeared behind a large stone column, Aethyta struck a conversation. "She's very protective of you."

Cyga nodded. "She's a good clan sister. Wasn't raised in the tribe though. She was picked up at a young age by a turian when we used to offer varren hunting tours. She was the guide and he fell for her. He took her to Palaven and taught her how to shoot and live in colder air."

Watching the twin sisters trying to climb a defaced building while Grunt supported their feet with his shoulders, Aethyta smiled. "Your clan sisters, they look like they're having a good time."

Cyga chuckled. "Yes. They're still young."

"So are you." Judging from the shape of her shell, Aethyta put Cyga's age at younger than a hundred.

Cyga looked at the asari, surprised again by how much she knew about krogans. Then she turned her gaze back at her sisters and the young krogan male. "When I first got pregnant I begrudged every minute of my sisters' play time that wasn't on my dance card. They were my playmates, but since the baby has been growing inside of me, feeling his heartbeat in sync with mine, I'm no longer interested in the game they play."

Aethyta shook her head. "I still don't think it's a good idea to give birth without a surrogate. Who will summon the ancient spirit? Your sniper sister?" Cyga had told Aethyta that an illness swept through their tribe and the midwives who usually accompanied soon-to-be mothers as their surrogate were too sick to travel.

Cyga nodded again. "Yes, she has claimed that task. Even though she doesn't have the experience, I trust her spirit and her heart. I know I'll be scared, but the shaman of my tribe told me that if I let fear travel through my most inner defense, and let it reveal what it sees along the path, I shall see it clearly within myself, fear will no longer be there, only I remain. I'll remember that at the scariest moments."

The hot wind picked up a swirl of sand at the corner of the ruins, Cyga sighed. "I used to think being in the desert is being free, the infinity gives you untouchable sense of freedom."

"You don't think that way anymore?" Aethyta asked.

"Not since I started on this journey. Now the desert means either a life of joy or a bundle of doom. But the shaman in my tribe said my pregnancy is different from others and my baby is the strongest she'd seen in a long time." She shifted her gaze from the twins and Grunt to the sky. "But still I shall miss the desert. The hot wind and simmering horizon."

The timbre in her voice made Aethyta's heart ache and she remained silent. Cyga saw the sadness Aethyta was trying to conceal and she closed her eyes. "As soon as he can hold a gun they will take him away from me, kick him into chaos whether he's ready or not. I will be back to breeding again." Krogans valued the females whose offspring lived as prized commodities and only the biggest clans could afford to keep these females as breeding mothers in temperature controlled compounds. Cyga offered Aethyta a big smile, "But I'll have something most of my clan members don't, a son and he will make me proud."

Not long after Aethyta helped the tired mother-to-be lie down on the bench to take a nap, the green veiled sniper raced back to the courtyard. "Hurry, we have to hide her. The Blades Brothers are coming!"

Shepard's party helped move Cyga to a small alcove below the steps on the back of the courtyard, and when they came back to the front, several fully armed krogans stood on the steps with their weapons drawn. Their armor looked dusty and some had fresh bloodstains on them. "They must've won the challenge at the burial ground," Aethyta muttered under her breath. "This is just great. They're looking for more trouble to get into."

As the krogans moved slowly up the steps, surrounding the traveling party, a guy with a gray shell yelled at his companion, "Hey look, the outlanders are enjoying the shade here in our sacred city."

The large krogan with a speckled shell who acted like the leader of the pack nodded to his friend in an agreement. Then he turned to the group they'd surrounded. "You haven't heard? The varren hunting tours are canceled. If anyone hunts the varren in this desert it's us, the natives."

The gray shell looked at Shepard and licked his upper lip. "This one looks tasty. I've never had a human before."

Grunt pumped his shotgun, "You touch her and you die."

The krogans with dusty armor let out a round of laughter. The leader with the speckled shell tilted his head at Liara and said to his friends, "I prefer asari, they are tender when they're young. And this one looks very young."

It was Shepard's turn to cock her gun. "You touch her you die too."

Not to be outdone by her companions, Aethyta pumped her ancient shotgun; the large gear was the loudest without the modern weapon's smoother mods. "If you lay a hand on any of my kids, you all gonna die!"

The speckled shell unsheathed his large knife from his back and held in front of him while his friends watched and laughed. The sound of a sniper rifle went off, and the big knife in the large krogan's hand was ripped out and it flew into the nearby stone column, its blade shattered.

The female krogan in green walked onto the courtyard with her gun aiming at the speckled shell. "Bough, you leave these people alone. They're our friends."

Bough's angry face turned soft as he picked up the hilt of his broken sword. "Alright, we won't bother them anymore. But do you have to break my favorite sword? I just won it at the last challenge."

His friend with the gray shell docked his shotgun. "Not you again. We're just about to have some fun."

The female krogan pointed her gun at the gray shelled krogan, but Bough positioned himself in front of the female. "Wow, calm down. He didn't mean anything by it. Put your gun down, okay?"

The gray shell muttered behind his leader. "I don't know why you're so scared of a female."

"Because she knows this desert the way you know your own quad. She can summon a thresher maw if she wants to. So no messing with her alright?"

"Hmm! Females!" The gray shell muttered again and turned to join his other brothers who had gathered at the base of the stone fountain.

Bough waited until the female lowered her gun and he let out a sigh of relief. "I thought I smelled your scent. Why didn't you come to the burial ground and find me? Didn't you see the dagger of varren's tooth I left you?"

The green veiled krogan reached into a strap on her leg and took out a knife and tossed it to the male krogan. "Stopping sending me advances, Bough. I already had a mate and I don't need another one."

"Had is the operative word here." The male krogan argued as he strapped the dagger to his leg armor, but before he continued, a loud scream came from behind the courtyard. The female krogan turned around and broke into a run.

Cyga sat in the alcove with the twin sisters supporting her back and Aethyta kneeling next to her. The pregnant krogan held her stomach and screamed in pain. The sniper got down next to her. "What's wrong? Is the baby coming?"

Cyga screamed once more and then she tried to regain her normal breathing. "No, not yet."

Aethyta put her hand on the pregnant krogan's belly. "It must be the stress. At this stage when baby gets irritated and does his power kicks in the womb, it's excruciating for the mother."

The green veiled female held Cyga's hands as she continued her cries of pain, but finally the pregnant krogan calm down and slipped into a restful sleep in the twin sisters' arms. The sniper walked back to Bough whose face fell when he saw a pregnant krogan who was about to give birth. "Why didn't you tell me your clan sister was headed to the burial ground to have a baby?"

"Why? So you can call in others to claim her?"

"No, I'd have called in the tanks and take her there instead of having her walk all this way." Bough's voice was sincere, but he saw the doubts on the sniper's face. "What? You don't trust me?"

"How could I? You males only bring us suffering. You want us to mate, fight each other for us, but when you've had us, we are either tossed to the desert when we don't produce babies or into the dungeon to serve as nurses for our children and then only to watch them killed in some meaningless war or a stupid challenge." She saw the deflated look on Bough's face, and she sighed. "If you really want to help, call in those tanks of yours. I don't think she's up to walking much longer."

That brought a wide smile on Bough's face.

With Cyga struggling with unsettling baby, the group decided to spend the night at the ruins while waiting for Bough's tanks to get here the next morning. It was a lot easier to set up tents and start a fire with old buildings and broken columns blocking the desert wind and swiping sand. Shepard's party took a corner of the quad courtyard, and Aethyta sat on a corner stone bench by the fire. Grunt wanted to hang out with the male krogans who camped on the other side of the courtyard and show off his shell armor.

Liara sat down next to Aethyta and dragged Shepard to sit next to her. "This seems such a sad affair. It doesn't seem fair that she has all this hope and the odds of her baby surviving…" The young asari shook her head.

"It's an oppression is what it is. I don't like any form of oppression, and this is the most atrocious one I've witnessed." The day's events had taken Aethyta's mind away from Liara. Now with everyone settled in for the night, she turned her attention back to her daughter. "You know, this is how your mother and I met, discussing genophage."

Liara's eyes widened. "Where was that?"

"At an asinine party for politicians on the Citadel. That was when I still bothered wasting my breath on politics. This salarian was pitching a science project for funding to the Council, curing some rare disease that led to infertile eggs. I brought up the krogan genophage and he just blew a gasket, saying salarians were worth the trouble and krogans weren't. So we started arguing and it got so heated that everyone who was in the discussion just left. Your mother came over and slipped something in his drink that made him giggle like an idiot."

"My mother drugged someone in broad daylight?" Liara didn't know if she should laugh or gasp. "I find that unbelievable and extremely amusing."

"The idiot started giggling and talking about some salarian opera and started singing at the top of his lungs. He was good at it too. People who didn't know him thought he was hired to sing at the party and kept asking for more."

Liara broke out in laughter that stopped Aethyta's heart for a beat. That laugh sounded so much like Nezzy's sometimes. After the salarian started singing, Benezia had slipped a hand through Aethyta's arm and led her to the small adjacent lounge next to the party hall. "You can't argue about genophage with a salarian conservative party member. He would have forsaken a whole roost of eggs just so nobody would insult the salarian's brilliance at solving the Krogan Rebellion problem."

At the time, Aethyta didn't see the humor in Benezia's rescue, she had whole-heartedly prepared herself for a head butt with that salarian and his bodyguards. Aethyta knew Benezia very little, she'd seen the other Matriarch many times across the aisle at meetings and heard her speeches, but they traveled in very different political circuits. Benezia interfaced more with foreign affairs while Aethyta focused on solving Thessia's problems: building a stronger military, researching Mass Relay and even building their own relays. When Benezia pulled her arm and practically dragged her into the small lounge by force, Aethyta shook her arm out of Benezia's grasp once they entered the small but richly furnished room. "That idiot needed a lesson and I was going to give it to him." She made a milder motion of a head butt.

Benezia only smiled faintly and walked over to the table by the wall and picked up a glass. She walked back to Aethyta and took her hand and dragged her to a settee. "Sit and drink." No room left for argument in that voice.

A waft of air came from the small glass in Aethyta's hand. She was surprised that the drink Benezia handed her was ryncol. How did she know that was her drink? And she was even more surprised at herself for following orders so willingly from a stranger. It wasn't usually an easy task to talk Aethyta out of a fight especially one that was for a worthy cause. Aethyta looked up as Benezia turned around and fetched herself a tall flute of sweet wine from the same table and sat down next to her, their knees almost touching. The floating dress on Benezia looked weightless, trailing behind her as she glided about. Her movement brought a scent that reminded Aethyta of a warm breeze perfumed by spring blossoms from her mother's garden, those deep and rich plum colored flowers, delicate yet spreading the persistent sweet and hunger inducing smell. Benezia's hand held the flute gently and the lips that touched glass were delicate like those deep purple flower petals. Benezia closed her eyes briefly as she swallowed a sip of her drink and she let out a pleasant sigh and then she focused her eyes on Aethyta.

The warm color on Benezia's cheek and her sparkling eyes that seemed to be searching for something when she looked at Aethyta made the half krogan suddenly felt exposed, naked from her thick hide and tough shell, her mind was stripped blank by the flicker of those long eye lashes and the faint smile that seemed barely hidden under a graceful composure. She wanted to say, "You're beautiful", but instead Aethyta gulped down the ryncol in one swig and put the empty glass on the small end table next to the settee, buying time to collect what was left of her composure. Aethyta who usually favored terse words that expressed her feelings much more directly suddenly wished she could say something elegant so that she could bring that faint smile into full blossom. The salarian's singing voice still rang in the background and he was indeed quite good. Aethyta cracked a smile. "He'd make a much better singer than a politician."

Benezia's face turned into a full smile and her large blue eyes turned into half moons like the one Aethyta used to watch on a summer night as a child when her mother told her huntress stories and her own old battles during the Rebellion, with the same smell of the purple flowers at the background. Aethyta didn't know how long she'd been staring at those clear blue eyes until Benezia put a hand on hers and only then had Aethyta realized her hands had turned sweaty and fisted her dress so tightly that her knuckles had turned pale. For fuck's sake! Why am I nervous?

"He's indeed a droll fellow, isn't he? But why are you so interested in the genophage issue? It's not on anybody's docket nor in anyone's heart."

"Someone has to be. Isn't it supposed to be our job to bring voice to those who have none?" After clearing her dry throat, Aethyta found her voice.

Benezia took her hand away from Aethyta and tilted her head to give the issue a moment of thought. "But they don't have a unified body to organize and negotiate their interests even if the Council budged on the issue."

Aethyta relaxed her hands and responded. "It's not hopeless, you know. Sometimes all it takes is just one person to make a difference. I'm not saying it's me, but we all have to try to do things we believe in."

"Even one that's as far fetched as curing the genophage?"

Beauty wasn't something that attracted Aethyta often, but Benezia had something else, something deep within her. And it wasn't just those captivating eyes and graceful steps, but a strong mind that commanded your desire to seek her approval when you thought you needed none. Had those almost challenging words come from someone else, Aethyta would had served up a volatile response, but Benezia's eyes seemed to peer below her skin with an infinite curiosity, transmitting something Aethyta wasn't conditioned for. She suddenly had a desire to win this Matriarch's support. "Have you been to the DMZ?" Aethyta asked.

"Yes, I have."

"Have you met a female krogan who had a stillborn baby?" Aethyta's voice added a bit of edge.

Benezia was silent this time, the tightening jaw and staring eyes on Aethyta's face told her everything she needed to know and she was wise enough to realize that she couldn't imagine the suffering this brutish asari had witnessed in person - the raw power of the torment must've been overwhelming for the second hand suffering to manifest this strongly.

Aethyta simmered down, easy, this isn't your enemy. The image of a female krogan begging her father to end her baby's life was something Aethyta's father had never recovered from. Most krogan babies were stillborn, but this particular one was a fighter. Even with his fate already been decided before birth, he fought to breathe, in the amount of agony no one could imagine in that deformed body. He'd die only a couple of torturous hours later and Aethyta's father was asked to end his suffering with kind of mercy only a divinity should possess. But he did it for the wailing mother who first cried for the fate of the baby, then for the brief life it lived and then for the death of what others wouldn't pay any cursory attention to. Aethyta's eyes welled up at the memory and once again her hands fisted unconsciously.

The slight upturn of Benezia's painted brows and the warmth in her eyes said she understood the suffering. Aethyta was surprised again at how quickly Benezia, a stranger only moments ago, could calm her inner turmoil with marked ease. Those blue eyes and flower shaped lips were already distracting enough for a serious political conversation, now Aethyta could add an increasing rhythm of her own heartbeat to the list. Removing her gaze from Benezia's face, Aethyta looked down at her own fists. "They view their suffering as their own burden to carry. But my father had helped in many ways, I could do no less."

The range of emotions displayed on Aethyta's face and in her body language struck Benezia at her basic self, the part of her she guarded from people around her, people who often debated moralities or amoralities glibly, sycophants who whispered words in her ears like whispering to goddess, and those aristocrats by birth who flattered themselves with labels of noble purposes. Yet here sat someone whom she had never paid any attention to, who never laid any claim of noble doing, whose rough edges were laid bare for everyone to see and judge, she possessed something far more superior than those who Benezia had spent her long career to ally. In the presence of true nobility and raw emotions, Benezia felt suddenly naked and it was deliciously liberating.

"You have a painful candor we seldom see in politics." Benezia's praise had a weight only lifelong politicians could fathom, those who spent their time perfecting the art of concealment in many forms and appearances.

Aethyta wasn't one of them. She looked up briefly at Benezia and then returned her eyes back on her own hands, and whispered in an almost deflated tone. "It's painful, huh?"

"All the more attractive." Once again, Benezia's hand covered Aethyta's. "The krogans couldn't have found a better voice than yours."

Liara's warm voice startled Aethyta back to the present. "Is that how you fell in love with my mother?"

Aethyta couldn't stop a chuckle, "You think your dad was that easy? Of course not. It was much, much later, after your mother was caught in a singularity field and barfed like a sick dog."

Liara moved closer to Aethyta on the bench, and looked at her intently. Aethyta stared at Liara's face, so many of Nezzy's features hidden there and when she looked closely by the dancing fire, so much was revealed in an unexpected way. Aethyta looked up at the moon, "You know that scarf you seem to treasure so much? Well, it was mine. I gave it to Nezzy before she left me. She never told you how she got it, did she?"

Liara shook her head.

"It was on a planet in the Silean Nebula after we colonized it. Some of the locals hired a merc army to wage a war against the asari colonists and the natives who supported us. Your mother was sent to negotiate a peace treaty and Malayne thought it was a good idea for me to tag along since your mother and I met at that party. Maybe Nezzy had been talking to her about me or I don't know, maybe Malayne sensed danger. But when we were waiting at the temple to meet with the leaders we were ambushed by the merc army. They overwhelmed us by number and took out the commandos who escorted us. Thank the goddess there is a head on Shiala's shoulders and she called for reinforcements to go after us when we didn't come back as scheduled, or your mother and I would have bought it right there."

"What happened in the temple? And what did that have anything to do with the scarf?" Liara's eyes glittered reflecting the fire. A melancholy rose within Aethyta as she moved her gaze from Liara's face to the fire. She had thought she was going to die, and the only thing she regretted while laying on the cold stone floor was not to kiss Benezia.

After their commando escorts gave their lives to protect the Matriarchs, Benezia and Aethyta were left on their own with no more medi-gels and a small clip of ammo in each of their pistols. Aethyta's leg had been shot through by a rifle bullet and in desperation Benezia smashed the glass that displayed a shroud that was believed to have covered their goddess, and used it to bandage Aethyta's wounded leg.

Aethyta joked, "You've become one of the looters now." They could hear the mercs smashing glasses and toppling cases to loot the temple.

Benezia gave her a nervous laugh, "Either that or watch you bleed to death. I'll take my punishment. We're going to need a miracle to survive this, Thyta. Perhaps the goddess' grace will shine upon us now that you're wearing her sacred shroud."

Based on the knowledge they had of the place, the two Matriarchs decided to move into the inner sanctum where priestesses used for small meetings. It had more secured doors and reinforced wall for sound proof. The temple occupants were sent on a field trip to give the Matriarchs the space for the negotiation.

Benezia pulled Aethyta up and they started moving towards the back of the temple. A small group of mercs reached the room they were hiding in, two batarians and a krogan with biotics power. The krogan saw the Matriarchs trying to escape, he threw a singularity field at them. Benezia pushed Aethyta down, but got caught on the edge of it and her body went flying. When she landed on the floor, she tried to get up but doubled over, holding her stomach. Aethyta saw Benezia holding her stomach with one hand and pushing another hand on the floor. She knew her companion would start throwing up. A singularity field had a way of rearranging your insides, Aethyta knew, she'd been caught in one before. Aethyta gritted her teeth at the pain from her leg, she readied herself, and when the krogan raised his gun aiming at Benezia, Aethyta charged. She threw her body into the krogan, and as they both went down on the ground, Aethyta opened fire on the two batarians who were behind the krogan. When they both dropped on the ground, Aethyta jumped up and aimed her pistol at the krogan. The trouble was the krogan had his pistol aimed at her as well. Aethyta lowered her gun and challenged him, "Want to fight like a krogan?"

The krogan docked his pistol with a smirky smile on his face. Before he said anything, Aethyta launched her surprise attack with her head connecting with the krogan's right eye and then a kick in the quad. The krogan went down without a whimper. Aethyta quickly stumbled towards Benezia who was still heaving on her knees. Aethyta grabbed Benezia's arm and threw it over her shoulders and dragged her into the sanctum. "Come on! We've got to move before more of them show up."

The circular sanctum was small but had high ceilings with carvings of divine figures on the walls. As soon as the large door shut securely, Aethyta dropped Benezia's arm and fell on the floor herself.

Benezia had stopped heaving but still held her stomach. "We're in a bad shape."

Aethyta wanted to get up but she couldn't feel her legs. She replied through her chattering teeth, "Speak for yourself. I'm doing just fine." An attempted smile turned into a wince.

"You're cold. You've lost too much blood." Benezia pushed herself up and moved next to Aethyta. She took a deep breath to will her stomach to settle down and gathered Aethyta's shaking form into her arms. "Perhaps I can keep you warm." She tightened her arms, and took another deep breath as she shook with Aethyta's wracking body. "Stay with me, Thyta. Don't let go."

Through her tightening jaw, Aethyta blinked to fight the blurry vision. "Not going anywhere." She dug her hand into the back of Benezia's arm, and tried to keep that grip as the connection to the warm body as Nezzy's voice started to fade.

A loud boom shook the ground. Benezia instinctively raised the pistol at the heavy door and her other hand tightened the grip on Aethyta's shoulder. Aethyta reached for her own gun too, but the metal parts on the gun rattled when she tried to level it, it felt too heavy and her hand was trembling. She blinked again, this time at the door, and she was relieved that no intruders came. Two more booming sounds kept them alert.

"What in goddess's name is going on out there?" Benezia wondered out loud.

"Either our reinforcements are here and fighting their way back here or the mercs are going at each other for the loot. Let's hope your prayers for the miracle worked." Aethyta's energy for keeping her gun steady was spent but she refused to lower her shaky hand.

Benezia saw Aethyta struggle to keep her gun leveled, and she put her own gun down and took the gun from Aethyta's hand, "Lower your gun Aethyta before we hurt ourselves." As soon as Benezia took the weight away from her hand, Aethyta's arm dropped on the ground and her head started dipping into Benezia shoulder.

Benezia cupped her hand on Aethyta's face and shook it gently. "Thyta! Look at me. I know you must be tired. But try to stay with me for just a while longer."

Aethyta no long felt cold, in fact her body felt feathery light and her mind and vision were turning white. The warm hand Benezia put on her face felt like heavy weight that was dragging her consciousness back to the loud noise outside and to the sound of Benezia's voice that was drawing out, almost singsong like. She wanted to move her hand from the ground to Nezzy's hand that was holding her face, but she realized that it was quit impossible. It was difficult to draw breath or keep her eyes open. Aethyta wanted to grunt, grunting always made her feel better and it often fit in many occasions. With all her might, Aethyta let out a grunt, but she heard only a low whimper. She tried once again, this time it sounded much better. Pleased with herself, Aethyta tried to smile when her eyes focused on Nezzy's face. It was the most beautiful face Aethyta had ever seen. Nezzy was smiling back at her, her eyes turned into those damn alluring moon on a mid-summer night again! There were tears over the surface of those moons, but that only added the mystic power through the clear water. It was both open and bottomless. Aethyta wanted to walk through that silvery veil and immerse herself into clear water.

Benezia once again checked Aethyta's leg wound. Blood was still sipping through the make-shift bandage. Tears rolled down on her face, "Goddess, please!" She looked up at the temple's ceiling and murmured.

Aethyta heard the prayer and saw the tears changing the hues on Benezia's lilac lips, somewhere within her gave her the strength to say, "I should have kissed you the first time we met."

Aethyta's clear voice startled Benezia. She looked down at Aethyta's face, and saw a cocky smile. Benezia burst out laughing. "I wanted to fuck your brains out the first time we met."

It was Aethyta's turn to laugh, but her laughter sounded no more than small wheezing and it took all she had to stop herself from trembling again. Sensing Aethyta tensing up her body, Benezia stroked the wounded asari's face. "Shh... Take it easy."

It took Aethyta a minute to calm down again and she whispered, "So why didn't you?"

Benezia let out a nervous chuckle, "At our age, one mustn't appear too desperate." When she looked down again, Aethyta had passed out.

Help finally arrived and Aethyta woke up on the way to the hospital. Benezia was clutching Aethyta's free hand that wasn't stuck to an IV needle, the miracle shroud between their palms. Aethyta asked weakly, "Will I see you when I wake up again?"

"I'll be by your side."

Liara once again brought Aethyta back to the present with her question. "You fell in love after that?"

Aethyta took a moment to focus her eyes on her daughter's face. "No, we fucked after that which was fine by me." Seeing the uncomfortable shift in Liara's posture, Aethyta snorted, "What? Can you blame me? After you see that rack!"

"Father!" It was the first time Liara had ever called Aethyta that, and she just wished it wasn't for stopping her from over sharing.

"Don't tell me you haven't noticed. You inherited them too. I'm sure Shepard enjoys…exercising them as much as I did Benezia's." Aethyta made a motion with two hands turning large knobs.

Shepard jumped up from the bench and made an attempt to leave, but Liara grabbed the sleeve on Shepard's underarmor and gave her a look that said, "Don't you think about leaving me with my father while she was on this topic". Shepard settled back down and shook off Liara's hand that was holding her sleeve and took it into her own hand.

"I don't understand why kids are so shy nowadays. It's those simstims' fault, hiding your feelings and making the other one figure it out on their own. What's wrong with just telling them how you feel?" Aethyta looked straight at Shepard, "Tell me you don't enjoy a beautiful rack!"

Shepard mummed without letting out any words. Liara's hand in her grip tightened enough to make Shepard's palm sweat. "Um…um…I do enjoy it. I mean, I enjoy hers." When she turned her head to look at Liara, she saw a flushed face looking back at her. "I mean, she has the most beautiful breasts I've even seen on an asari." Shepard's hand got dumped. "I mean, she is the most beautiful person I've seen." Her lover turned and moved away, "And she's so smart."

"Just like her mother." Aethyta watched the human with amusement. This human who seemed to have the power to move the entire fleets of the galaxy was lost for words when it came to describing her lover. Aethyta pointed at the small tent Liara disappeared into, "I think you mean to go after her."

Right! Shepard jumped up again and disappeared quickly into their small tent.

Liara was already unclasping her armor. She saw Shepard ducking into the tent but she returned to the task at hand, taking a piece of arm guard off.

Shepard wrapped her arms around Liara. "So, are we going straight to sleep or doing something else?"

"Don't expect something else after that display out there." Liara made a faint attempt to get free.

"What? You know how much I appreciate your body and I've told you how many times." Shepard played the innocent.

"But you shouldn't have discussed it with my father!"

"She put me on the spot. What was I supposed to say?"

Liara thought for a moment and stopped stripping her armor and sat on their sleeping pad. "I'm sorry, Shepard. I'm just a little tired these last couple of days."

Shepard sat down next to her. "I know. But you're doing great." As she started taking off Liara's armor for her, she said softly. "I wanted to tell her that I love the smell of your skin, the way you walk makes my stomach all tingly, how the sound of your voice melts my heart like you wouldn't believe, the way you bend your head and look up at me from the corners of your eyes when you want something from me, it turns my knees weak, and when you touch me, I want to shout to the whole galaxy that I'm the luckiest person that's ever lived. But those are private things I won't share with anyone but you." Half of Liara's body was now exposed and Shepard started kissing her favorite spots. Seeing Liara move to lie back, Shepard smiled a cocky smile. "Although I should also have mentioned how great your ass is in addition to your rack."

Liara slapped Shepard's face lightly. "Then wouldn't you want to kiss said ass to show your true appreciation?"

"Yes, but why rush when we've got all night?" It was handy that the Blades Brothers had offered to keep night watch.

The desert at sunrise was breathtaking. The hint of orange first stained the horizon as the sun started its journey, then the stronger color poured in and brightened the desert from darkness into light in a blink of an eye. Quickly the white heat followed and the orange horizon was gone, replaced by the silvery blue that drank your vision.

Aethyta ducked out of her tent and glanced at the small tent that was still tightly shut next to her. Shepard must have gotten her way with her daughter for them to sleep in. Aethyta smiled. Across the courtyard, the krogan female sniper approached her, "I wanted to tell you that Bough and his guys are going to take us to the burial ground in their tanks, and also thank you again for your help with the beasts yesterday."

Aethyta took her hand and shook it. "I wish you and Cyga good luck." Before the krogan in green turned around, Aethyta asked, "Can you really summon a thresher maw?"

The krogan in green laughed. "No, I let them think that way. There's a large control by the entrance that opens the underground gate that blocks the thresher maw's direct path. If you use that control to open the gate and get a few varren to make some noise above the ground, a thresher maw will likely hear you and come for you."

Aethyta was about to pack up her things when a loud scream came from the other side of the courtyard, "Cyga!" Aethyta and the rest of the people who heard the scream gathered to the female krogan's camp and heard one of the twin sisters shout, "The baby is coming now!"