"How is he?" Shepard reloaded her pistol, slotting the heat sink into it. Her shotgun was ruined, discolouration marring the barrel where rachni spit had splashed onto it.
Alenko glanced at her from where he knelt over Lance Corporal Ki-tae. "I believe I've flushed all of the acid." The floor of the elevator was covered in a sheen of water from Alenko and Ki-tae's canteens. "And I've applied medigel which should prevent infection, but he's in a lot of pain. I don't think he'll be able to walk far, let alone fight."
The Marine in question had his eyes closed and was breathing shallowly. His vitals on her HUD showed he was conscious, but his heart rate and respiration rate were both elevated. She swallowed. She wouldn't wish acid burns on anyone. Her shoulder tingled in sympathy, and she resisted the urge to rub it.
The door dinged open. The defensive positions the Binary Helix guards had been utilising were empty. Shepard's mouth pressed into a thin line.
She grabbed Ki-tae's good arm and hefted him across her shoulders. He groaned in pain, his visor thunking against her back. "Sorry, kid."
"No problem, ma'am," he managed.
She carried him over to the corner of the room and set him down as carefully as she could, gesturing for Dubyansky to come over to her. "Ventralis was trying to get us killed, I think. We need to deal with him. I want you to stay here with Nick until we can secure the trams, okay?"
"Aye aye, ma'am."
Leaving the two Marines, they pushed into the barrack, moving tactically. Slicing the pie, clearing each room.
Ventralis was waiting for them.
"I'm sorry, Shepard. We've got orders from Benezia. Put down your weapons."
She clicked her assault rifle from single shot mode to burst, pressed behind the scant cover of the doorway. "Listen to me, Ventralis. I'm getting to Benezia, even if I have to go through you to do so. But it doesn't have to be like that. Saren and Benezia attacked Eden Prime. They've killed tens of thousands of people. They were going to unleash the rachni on the galaxy again! Is that the sort of person you want to die for?"
She could feel, more than see, Liara flinching behind her. In the opposite corner of the doorway, Ashley had pulled a flashbang free of her webbing.
"Step aside, and I swear to you that I'll get you and yours out of here."
Ventralis was silent for a long moment, and cautious hope flickered to life in her chest. But then he shook his head. "I'm sorry but I can't."
"Damnit Ventralis!" she burst out, her voice a snarl of frustration. "Don't get in my way! We'll both regret it."
His answer was gunfire raking the doorway, sparking fragments of blue light off her shields. She nodded sharply to Williams, who flung the flashbang into the room. It went off with a discordant whine and a burn of blinding white light, wrenching pained shouts from the guards.
Shepard stepped out of cover and threw out a thudding wave of biotic power. Tables, chairs, boxes, and Binary Helix guards tangled up in that wave with the crunch of breaking metal and the snap of bone. She raised her rifle, surrounded by the roar of gunfire as her people joined the attack, and pulled the trigger. The first burst tore open Ventralis' shields. The second cut the ceramic plates covering his chest in half. Blood pooled in the cracks.
And like that, it was over. The combined firepower of her squad cut down the exhausted guards like weeds before the scythe.
Shepard let the muzzle of her rifle fall to the ground.
"Fucking waste," she muttered. "Williams, take Vakarian, Tali, and Wrex and clear the rest of the barracks, then get the survivors to the tram."
"Roger."
Seconds after the four of them had moved out, she heard the muffled retort of weapons fire.
Waste.
Sometimes the galaxy could try and trick you into thinking you understood the depths sentients would sink to, the depravities they'd inflict on each other. But if you let yourself think that, the galaxy would prove you wrong in short order.
Trusting that her people could look after themselves, she returned to Dubyansky and Ki-tae, gesturing for the Corporal to help her carry the young Marine. She gritted her teeth as he gasped in pain, hauling him onto the tram and laying him across some seats.
"How do you feel, son?"
His teeth were very white in his young face. "Hurts, ma'am, but I'll be okay."
"Good man." She squeezed his hand.
Ten minutes later, Williams and the others returned, a gaggle of scientists tugged along in their wake. A patch of medigel had been plastered across Vakarian's arm. At her glance, the turian explained, "Commando was trying to kill Han Olar."
"Wrex threw her into a wall," Ash said with satisfaction.
Shepard turned to the scientists. "The tram will take you back to the main station, along with my wounded Marine. A relief force from Hanshan will meet you there and ferry you back to the city." A relief force including the rest of her Marines, her medical staff, and her Masters-At-Arms. ERCS hadn't been pleased with her request, but she'd stayed firm. Her MAs and medical staff would make sure the civilians and Ki-tae got back safely. Shepard didn't trust any of the corporations on this planet, not a damned one. "You're safe now."
Someone sobbed in relief.
Her gaze slid to Liara, whose normally bright blue eyes were dull and fixed. There were times for mercy and there were times for ruthlessness. She didn't know which one this was.
The tunnel Shepard led them through was cold and blue, maintenance access carved out of rock and ice. Liara was tugged along in her wake, fingers wrapped around her pistol. The Commander had interrogated the scientists, leveraging their relief and gratitude for information, and that's how they'd found out about the tunnel - and the pass one of the project leads still had.
Sometimes, these humans were much like asari commandos, if so fleeting in comparison. Where they couldn't use shock and overwhelming firepower, they slipped away and found a weakness.
She wasn't entirely certain this was one of Benezia's weaknesses, but they had only run into a single rachni, easily dispatched by Wrex and Garrus. She stepped over the shattered remains and wondered when violence had begun to seem normal to her.
There was no going back, she realised, eyes fixed on the smooth black back in front of her, human armour like a beetle's carapace. Sometimes she thought events slid off Shepard like snow off her hardsuit, but Liara had been in her mind - and Commander Shepard was a woman who carried her ghosts inside her and hid them from others. Liara had only had a brief glimpse of those ghosts, tangled up like they were with the Protheans, but she remembered the taste of iron and the thud-thud of the rescue shuttle like she'd been there. Shepard's mind had been alien - as alien as the Prothean whispers entangled with human thought - but she'd felt that pain, deeper than the burn of acid.
The door slid open, and they entered a large cavern dug out of the rock and ice, covered in a lattice of steel walkways and platforms - and there, an enormous tank of some kind. The Rachni Queen. But there-
The point of no return had come and passed, and part of her had still clung to hope, she now realised. That her mother could be reasoned with. That they could go back to the time under the trees, with dirt under her fingernails and a book in Benezia's hands.
A stranger stood on the platform overlooking the queen's cage. When she turned, Liara saw only cold grey eyes and the dark gown - rent here and there with flashes of white medigel. Even a matriarch hadn't gotten through all those rachni unscathed. She'd always worn yellow.
"Mother."
There was only hollow light in those familiar eyes. Benezia had been many things - ruthless when she needed to be. But she'd never been cold, never been cruel.
"Liara." Grey eyes slid over her, to Commander Shepard. "I had never thought you would betray me to a stranger."
Liara felt it - the shift and shudder of the gravity well, just outside the doors to the lab. Benezia would never be alone. She knew Shepard had felt it too, by the way she twitched as if to bring up a biotic barrier.
"I want to talk, Matriarch Benezia."
"There is nothing to speak of. I will not be moved by sympathy, regardless of who you bring to this confrontation."
Shepard took a step forward. "Liara is here because she wanted to be. Because she needed - because we both needed to know why you're doing this."
She felt transfixed, stabbed right through, by the pitiless stare the Matriarch levelled at her. It was the same stare she'd seen levelled at those who got in the way of Thessia's progress. "What have you told her about me, Liara?"
I will not cry, she'd told herself. Now she felt the pinprick of tears. Her voice rose and throbbed with betrayal. "What could I say, mother? Try to justify what you've done? Tell them that you've gone insane? Should I explain how to kill you?"
Each word felt like a jagged wound. Shepard's hand twitched as if to touch her arm, but in the end stayed on her rifle. Liara realised that she could no longer see Sergeant Williams.
Benezia turned from her. "You do not know the privilege of being a mother. To shape life. Turn it towards happiness or despair. Her children were to be ours. The galaxy resists Saren's plans - as you do - but that would be overcome with the help of the rachni."
"They're sentients," Shepard said lowly., "You tried to turn them into slaves and they fought back."
"All will serve, or all will die."
"Is this what it is?" Liara burst out. "You've perverted your life's work for one man's ambition for power?"
"You do not understand," said Benezia, almost sadly, eyes unblinking. "But you will." Her head turned towards Shepard and her mouth curled in a cruel smile. "Have you ever faced an asari commando before? Few humans have."
The sense of gravity around her bent, and she opened her mouth - but too late. Her mother's hand flashed, and a ball of blue energy struck Shepard in the chest, knocking the human head over heels - and nearly off the walkway - in a clatter of metal and dull ceramic. The side door opened and in charged Benezia's commandos.
"Barrier!" Kaidan yelled without pausing, and Liara felt him and Wrex beside her, as they wove flashing blue into a barrier - just in time to catch a cascade of gunfire from the commandos.
"Back up," Shepard snapped, already struggling to her feet despite the nausea and disorientation Liara knew she had to be feeling.
The commandos were still advancing, and Liara felt the deep cold of dread settle in her gut. She'd heard of it before - the flash of biotics, of shotgun blasts, a commando squad taking apart their enemy with methodical precision at close range.
Then - gunfire from above. Accurate bursts from a machine gun, forcing the commandos to take cover.
"Williams?" Liara gasped out the question as they found their own cover on another platform, Dubyansky throwing himself onto his stomach and firing his machine gun to keep the commandos from moving.
"Yes," Shepard said distractedly, her hands flickering with blue.
"No sniper rifle?" asked Garrus.
"Machine gun is better at this range. We need to keep them pinned until Draven arrives to flank them, but watch your ammunition! And keep an eye on the Matriarch."
Alenko's fingers found a tech grenade at his belt as Shepard's found her own webbing. The two humans threw them in concert. The first went off with a flash and a whine, and then the second cut through a commando's biotics like a knife severing a loose thread. Dubyansky shifted his fire in concert with Tali and Garrus -
But then another two commandos were thrusting fields of swirling light at them, and Liara was forced to join Shepard in a defensive effort, shielding their squad from the effects. A box went sailing over the railing.
Shepard was panting. The hours of fighting - against mercenaries, against geth, against rachni, and now against asari - were beginning to take their toll, reflected in the strain in the Commander's voice, in the slight tremble of Alenko's fingers on his rifle. "Damn, they're good."
"They've been soldiers for hundreds of years," Liara said sharply. Above them, she could see her mother watching. Unmoving, like some dark statue dedicated to a demonic god.
"Wonderful," remarked Dubyansky. He winced as a return bullet snapped overhead like a whip, ducking so quickly his visor smacked against the metal walkway.
Stalemate. The commandos couldn't move while Dubyansky and Williams kept up their fire with the two LMGs. But Liara knew that they had only a limited supply of ammunition, particularly after the fighting they'd already done, and they would tire out before the commandos did.
"Lance 3," Shepard said as she fired a burst with her Valkyrie, "ETA, over."
"Two mikes. We ran into a few leftover security guards, over." Draven's voice was a relief to hear crackling over the comm net.
"Copy that. Lance Actual out."
Wrex roared as Liara felt gravity twist and tear. One large hand slapped against his bicep.
"Wrex?"
"Bitch hit me with a warp field." He bared his teeth. Orange blood trickled from where his suit, skin, and layers of muscle had torn open, as he returned his grip to his shotgun, firing at the commando responsible. Tali popped up, flinging a tech grenade to land at her feet. It went off with the stink of burnt ozone and Wrex grinned fiercely in victory as his next blast tore right through her light armour.
"Nice one, kid."
"Alenko," Shepard called, not taking her eyes off the commando squad, but the krogan shrugged the Lieutenant off.
"Stop babysitting me, Shepard! I'm fine."
That was when the room seemed to stretch, distort, a wave of flickering blue rushing over them. Liara found herself on her back, only her instinctive barrier saving her from the various boxes and lab equipment that bounced along the deck. She pushed herself back to her feet, finding her pistol. Mother. Only Benezia had the strength for such a huge show of biotic power.
She'd been lucky, but not everyone had been. Tali was helping Garrus push a box off his legs. Dubyansky was still. She started to move - but then Shepard's hand was on her shoulder.
"Fight first," she ordered.
"I-yes, Commander."
The commandos were moving she realised. Trying to close the distance. Liara raised her pistol as Shepard lifted her rifle. They opened fire together, joined soon by a limping, bleeding Garrus and a snarling Wrex.
Liara breathed in, out, raised her hand. She focused on a point in the rippling, disturbed gravity of the room. Collapsed it into itself. Two commandos were caught in the resulting singularity field.
Garrus' rifle ripped into one, punching holes through the sleek hardsuit. Shepard flowed into a mnemonic and the room filled with the shuddering boom as the resulting biotic explosion tore the asari apart.
Goddess, no. Another wave of pure energy, sweeping them aside like toys before a child's hand. This time, it was followed by gunfire, and Liara gasped in fear, in rage, as Garrus collapsed again - and this time did not rise.
But above, she could see her mother stagger, pressing a hand to the rachni queen's cage, heedless of the queen's talons smashing again and again upon the glass. Benezia was wounded, tired. She couldn't keep this up. Otherwise, this battle would have already been decided.
"Garrus!" shouted Tali fearfully.
Shepard was struggling back to her feet, wreathed in dark energy. Only the roar of Ashley's covering fire from her perch somewhere above them saved them from the advancing asari.
Then the door on the opposite side of the lab slid open again, and five black-clad figures swept into the room, rifles up and sparking as they fired.
The Marines!
A commando fell, hardsuit cracked open by Draven's fire.
And then-
"Watch out-" Liara hit her head as she went down again before Benezia's power, hard enough to daze even though the helmet.
This has to end.
She pictured her mother's face. The gentle smiles. Her mother's fingers, gentle on her crest. The frowns of disappointment. The love and the anger and the gifts and the arguments.
She rose to her feet.
"Liara, what are you doing?" Shepard called after her.
A commando reached her as she moved forward, drawing biotic power around her. A burst of machine gun fire crawled across the other asari's barrier, weakening it. She spared a thought to thank Sergeant Williams and then struck out, hard, throwing the commando off her feet. Another burst from the Marine on overwatch ended her life.
Liara climbed the stairs, heart pounding hard enough she was almost nauseous.
"Mother!"
Benezia stared at her, eyes like a wounded animal, leaning heavily against the glass.
The last of the commandos fell, caught between Draven and Shepard's teams.
"Mother, please! I love you, and I know you love me!"
Benezia's hands rose, curled into claws on either side of her face. "I will not betray him- you-"
"Whatever this is, you're stronger!" she insisted, stepping closer. She felt Shepard's presence at her back, moving warily forward.
Benezia shook like a leaf and then when she opened her eyes again, they were clear - pained, but clear. "You must listen. Both of you."
"It's okay," Liara insisted, "wWe'll get you out of here. We'll help you! Won't we, Shepard?"
She cast a frantic look at the human. Her expression was hidden behind her visor.
Benezia smiled sadly. "I'm afraid not, Little Wing. Saren still whispers in my mind. I can resist the compulsions - but only for a time. He is too strong."
"No," she shook her head, "tell us what's wrong and we'll fix it."
"There's not much time."
"How are you able to break free now?" Shepard, her voice flat and practical.
"I sealed myself away," Benezia murmured, "waiting for the time when I could help destroy him. The pain helps. Like a knife through the whispers."
"So you could turn on us again?"
"Yes, but it would not be my will, Shepard. I thought...I could guide him on less destructive paths. Help him. But I was a fool. His ship is the key." Her hands tangled with Liara's.
"His ship? The black dreadnought?"
"Yes. You've seen it. Its technology is far beyond anything I have ever seen; I know that the geth did not build it. Your thoughts echo strangely within it. They become twisted, malformed. You come to worship Saren, idolise him. The longer you stay aboard, the more you come to believe in his will, no matter how terrible. I became a willing tool of his murderous plans." Benezia's face twisted in pain. "I am - sorry. About Eden Prime."
Liara squeezed her hands. "Why did he send you here?"
"He wants to know where the Mu Relay is," she murmured, shuddering. "It was lost, thousands of years ago."
"How do you lose a Relay?" Shepard asked.
"Four thousand years ago, a star nearby went supernova. The shockwave propelled the relay out of its system but did not damage it. As millennia passed, the nebula created by the nova enveloped the relay. It is difficult to find any cold object in interstellar space, as you would know. Particularly something swathed in hot dust and radiation."
"What does this have to do with the rachni?"
"The Mu Relay was in rachni space," she said simply. "Rachni queens share the memories of their mothers. I...took the knowledge from the queen's mind. I was not gentle. I...I violated her, a crime against everything I have ever believed! I put it on that OSD, over there. Take it. It's too late for me - I pay the price for my arrogance - but you can still stop him."
"That's not enough!" Liara cried. "The Relay could lead anywhere. Where does he mean to go?"
"I'm sorry. I don't know. He was looking for Prothean artifacts. That is all I know."
"There has to be a way we can help you," Liara pleaded.
" You have to stop- me. I can't- His teeth are at my ear. Fingers on my spine. You should- Uh, you should-"
"Mother!"
Benezia straightened and the remorse, the love, it had all flowed out again, leaving only slate eyes behind. "My mind is clear. No one will stand in our way!"
"Shit," said Shepard and then the air rippled and tore. The biotic blast struck the human Commander in the chest and flung her back - and she hit the railing and tipped over, one hand seizing metal to keep herself from falling.
Liara was on her knees, head ringing. Benezia strode forward, tattered gown floating around her limbs, hands burning with light.
She raised a hand, eyes focused on the Commander.
"Shepard!" Her hand found her pistol. Her hand rose like in a dream. She squeezed the trigger. Once. Twice.
The first slug struck her mother in the leg. The knee collapsed in a spray of purple blood. The second struck her ribs with a shatter of bone.
Benezia collapsed.
The pistol fell from her suddenly numb fingers.
Shepard heaved herself back onto the walkway. "Liara-"
Liara didn't hear her. She tore off her helmet and dropped to her knees beside her mother, pulled that broken, bleeding form into her arms.
"Little Wing?" A soft palm pressed against the side of her face.
"I'm here, Mother," she whimpered.
Benezia smiled, beautiful with release. "You freed me. Thank you, my dearest of loves. I will see you again with the dawn."
Benezia went still and silent in her arms, and Liara T'Soni began to weep.
"Well, shit," was all Ashley could think to say as she came to stand beside Commander Shepard, LMG bumping her hip, helmet under her arm.
The officer tore her eyes from Liara, knelt over her dead mother. Her voice was rough-edged. "Casrep."
She scratched her jaw and counted them off. "Dubyansky is still unconscious. Head injury. We won't know if it's 'just' a concussion or if it's more serious until we can get him onto the ship. Garrus has some cracked plates. Wrex has several injuries but won't let Alenko look at them. Waaberi hurt her wrist."
Shepard nodded sharply and stepped past her to pick up an OSD, scanning it with her omnitool, before brusquely shoving it into Ash's hand. "You and Alenko make copies of this."
"Aye, ma'am." She scanned it onto her own omnitool and then turned to find Alenko as Wrex climbed the stairs to the platform. The krogan's eyes were fixed on the tank. The rachni queen had subsided from her earlier hammering against the glass.
"Rigged with acid," he said with satisfaction. "Press of the button and the rachni go back to the grave of history, as they should."
That was when of the commando bodies jerked and moved, like a marionette or some zombie out of an old vid.
"The fuck?" Williams snapped her rifle up, moving quickly in front of her Commander.
"This one. Serves as our voice. We cannot sing. Not in these low spaces. Your musics are colorless." Each word was slow, laboured.
"Music?" Shepard tilted her head in confusion.
"Your way of communicating is strange. Flat. It does not color the air. When we speak, one moves all."
"This is going to be a fun conversation," Ashley muttered.
"Rachni communicate telepathically," rumbled Wrex, taking a threatening step forward.
"Krogan. We know of you."
He snorted. "I damned well hope so."
"We are the mother. We sing for those left behind."
"Did you order your children to kill all those people?" Shepard demanded.
"No. We were locked away here. The children are beyond our songs."
"That's what the scientist in the Hot Labs said, skipper."
Wrex huffed. "Push the damned button already, Shepard. Don't know why we're wasting time talking to bugs."
"I killed your children," Shepard ignored him, speaking to the queen instead.
"We know. It was necessary. They were lost to the silence. You sing a different song to those who tried to use us. A different harmony. We are the last. What will you sing? Will you release us? Are we to fade away once more?"
Wrex snarled. "Millions of my ancestors died to put these things down, to end the war they began."
The asari drooped like a wilting flower. "We do not want more silence. More oily shadows. We wish only to teach harmony to our children."
Liara's voice was trembling but strong. "If we kill her on the basis of what she might do, how are we any different to Saren?"
Shepard looked at Ashley, a faint, bitter smile on her face. "What do you think, Sergeant?"
What do I think? That this is miles above my security clearance. I'm a grunt, not some philosopher.
"If we let her go, there's a chance that we end up with a second war on our heads," she said slowly. "But if we kill her, we commit genocide. No easy way around that, skipper. Not sure I want that on my conscience when I go to the final judgement."
"Are you stupid?" Wrex turned to her, blood still dripping from his wounds. "Your people didn't fight them, so maybe you don't get it! They burned a hundred worlds!"
"I am many things Wrex," Shepard gritted out, "but I won't be party to genocide."
"You will give us a chance to compose anew?" Something like hope swelled a dead voice.
Shepard pushed past the dead asari to glare at the queen. "Don't make me regret it. If you even start a skirmish with anyone, I'll hunt you down myself."
"We will remember. We will sing of your forgiveness to our children."
The asari slumped to the ground as Shepard stepped forward, tapping a command into the control console. Something released in the tank and the rachni screeched a song of victory and was gone.
"Great," said Wrex coldly. "Bugs are composing songs for you. I'm sure that'll be a comfort to you when they infest your worlds."
The krogan stomped off, snarling under his breath to himself.
Williams stepped closer to the Spectre and lowered her voice. "You already had your mind made up, didn't you?"
Shepard stared straight ahead at the now empty tank. There was a bruise starting to form in dark purples along her jaw and cheek. "Yeah. My ancestors knew genocide, Ashley, too well for me to be party to one."
"Then why ask me?"
She shrugged. "Maybe I wanted to know I had your support before I pissed off the krogan."
Ashley rocked back on her heels, stung. "Doesn't matter if I'd agreed with you or not, skipper. I woulda had your back either way."
"So you would have helped me commit genocide?" There was something sharp in Shepard's tone.
Ash's jaw clenched. She knew herself better than people might think. She was a straight puncher - if someone had an issue, she'd rather have it out than dance around it. But she knew, suddenly, that if she stayed in this conversation, things wouldn't end well. "Commander. With your permission, I'll go help Lieutenant Alenko get the wounded ready to move."
Shepard closed her eyes and then nodded. "Granted, Sergeant. Get Matriarch Benezia's body ready for transport as well."
"Aye aye, ma'am."
Ashley spun on her heel and stalked away.
CODEX
Asari Commandos: Asari commandos are the elite soldiers of the various asari Republican militaries and among the finest individual warriors in the galaxy, often seen as equivalent to a krogan the unified special forces commands of the turian Hierarchy and the Systems Alliance, each Republic equips and trains its own commando cadre, albeit able to integrate into the asari High Command as required.
Commandos are selected from those soldiers that have completed an initial twenty year service period with their Republican unit, and undergo extensive training in linguistics, philosophy, biotic combat, weapons handling and who successfully complete this long and arduous process become some of the most respected soldiers in the galaxy. Many asari Spectres were originally commandos.
Compared to both the Alliance and the Hierarchy, asari High Command prefers to deploy these commando groups over conventional forces. This has led to a comparatively high casualty and deployment rate amongst commando units when contrasted to regular Republican units.
After completing their service, many commandos choose to use their skills in the private sector, whether serving the Matriarchs or joining mercenary groups such as the infamous Eclipse group. Others become the commanders of military units, Spectres, security consultants, and trainers.