Samara stood on the edge of the water power plant, looking out over the jungle. It had been nearly two days since her last sighting of Nihlus, though she had seen evidence that he was still out there. She also had all nearby towns on alert for the turian, which was easy since he was still wanted for questioning regarding the civilian's death. Her frown deepened as she considered how much time she was wasting here. It had been just shy of two weeks when this whole thing started. The trail on her primary target was going colder and colder. It was because of that, and her desire to finish this quickly, to why she had given up the pursuit of the turian in the jungle. The decision had proven to be fruitful. The last encounter with him was in a maintenance tunnel inside the power plant, where she was fairly sure that she had broken his right arm. Soon the endurance of the shorter lived species would give out, and her patience would be rewarded. So she waited, watching the sun set in the distance.
An hour after it set, once the day crew was gone and only the skeleton night crew remained the calm atmosphere ended. The dam under her shook. Sirens started blaring. Red emergency lights went on and started spinning their beamed light across the area. Around her the crew spun into action, running for door to get into the corridor that would lead them to the control room. As she watched two asari came stumbling out, one of them supporting the other who had blood seeping out of a wound on the side of her head.
"It was that turian," the healthier of the two said, turning to the justicar. "Do something!"
She didn't need to plead, Samara was already walking inside the door and down towards the control room. It was hot, she noticed, hotter than it should be, and the heat increased the closer she got to the control room. She tried the door and found it locked.
"There you are," Nihlus' voice said when she pressed the red lock symbol on the door. "So, Samara, as fun as this has all been, I need to get back to my friends."
"The code will not allow that," she said calmly, noting that the air around her was still getting hotter.
"Yeah, I figured," Nihlus sighed. "So you have a choice, you can either keep pursuing me, and I'll blow up this dam. All the workers will die, you will likely die, and then the towns before will be destroyed and all of them will die."
"If you blow up the dam, you'll die too," she pointed out calmly, but inside her mind was turning over how to get out of this situation. "Besides, the dam would have safety protocols to stop an explosion."
"Well, yeah… it did, took me all this time by-passing them," Nihlus chuckled. "How's the temperature out there by the way? With the turbines not having a way to ventilate it should be getting pretty hot." He paused and Samara said nothing. "The way I see it, any attempt that I try to get a shuttle will result in me getting shot down, or have you rip it apart… again. So you are going to let me go."
Samara looked over at a small group of asari that came up. They pulled off the panel to the door's wiring and one of them started going to work trying to get past Nihlus' lock out.
"Oh look, you got help," Nihlus said once they were in the wiring. "I give them… maybe ten minutes to crack my coding. Which will give them just enough time to get half way before the turbines go boom."
Samara looked at the other asari, "Can you manually vent the turbines?" she asked.
The power plant manager shook her head, "No, there were cave-ins in the tunnels to them, a blast in the maintenance tunnels."
Samara bit back a cursed, that is what he had been up to the day she caught him.
"Four minutes left, Samara," Nihlus sang over the intercom. "Are you ready to see all of these people die?" Samara didn't reply, and as the silence went on Nihlus broke it again. "Two minutes."
"Go faster," the plant manager said to the asari who was working the decoding software.
"I'm trying," she pleaded, "but I have never seen encryption like this. Who is this guy?"
The plant manager turned back to Samara, "Tell him you'll let him go."
"I cannot," Samara said coldly.
"If you don't, thousands will die," the plant manager begged. "My wife and daughters are down in one of those towns."
Samara looked at her for a long second. She closed her eyes slowly. Given the circumstances she could justify it to her code to let Nihlus go if it meant saving so many. "Okay, Nihlus," she said finally. "Shut off the turbines and I will let you leave this planet."
Nihlus didn't response for a second, then said "Thirty seconds to go, are you really this heartless?"
Her brow creased, that was odd. "I said that I would let you go," she restated.
Nihlus didn't speak again and as the group of workers beside her counted down the seconds on their omni-tool they started shaking and weeping, realizing this was the end. This monster was going to kill all of them regardless.
And then the sirens turned off, the normal lights came back on, even the air around them seemed to get cooler. Finally the door to the control room opened to reveal… nothing. Nihlus wasn't there, the room was empty. Then his voice ran out again from the building's intercom, sourceless.
"It was a good game Samara, but in the end I won. As you probably assumed this is a recording, and as you may be starting to realize, this whole thing was a rouse. The turbines where never going to explode, I just turned up the heat as high as I could, you'd be surprised how much their furnace model can put out. But I am gone, I used this mass hysteria to steal one of their shuttles. By now I should be out of the planet's atmosphere."
The recording paused, and then he started speaking again, "And let me make something clear," he said, previous humor gone in his voice. "I am a good person, the woman I killed wasn't, and she was a disease on this planet. Likewise, I would never kill innocents, certainly not thousands of them in towns… parents… children… The fact that this ploy worked proves what you think of me, and it is wrong." There was a click as the audio finished.
Samara stood shocked for several seconds at the discovery of the information. And then, slowly, a faint smile crept onto her face. Well played Nihlus.
As for Nihlus, he was on a ship, just breaking out of the atmosphere. He shifted in the pilot's seat of the small craft and a rumble of pain escaped from his chest as his broken arm bumped into the armrest from inside its sling. He let out a sigh as he communicated to the mass relay, telling it to send him to the Serpent Nebula and back to the Citadel.
The journey took him a day and a half, and several hours explaining to the Citadel that he was a Spectre and they needed to let him dock, even if he was in a stolen space craft. Once that headache was resolved and he was allowed to dock he tracked down the docking bay's manager and told him to figure out where his ship was docked.
The dock manager, a batarian, looked at him confused, pointing back to the craft he had just existed. Nihlus let out a long, clearly frustrated sigh. "No, not that ship, the Vereclaw."
"That… that is a Spectre's ship, I can't reveal information regarding—"
"I am the Spectre," Nihlus snapped, groaning as his broken arm throbbed in its sling. "It is my ship, I sent some people back here on it while I finished up some business. Where is it?" He assumed that he would look back on this conversation later and regret being to coarse with the man, but right now he was in pain and all he wanted was to see Sam.
Realization hit the batarian's face and he quickly searched for the ship on his datapad, frowning at the result. "That ship isn't docked here, it hasn't been in weeks."
Nihlus snatched the datapad out of his hands, wanting to see the information himself.
Search: Vereclaw
Owner: Nihlus Kryik
Last docking: 17 days ago
He slammed the datapad against the batarian's chest and started towards the elevator, hitting the button for the presidium.
Biting back his discomfort, he stormed into the turian councilor's office. "Sparatus," he snapped.
"Nihlus?" the older turian said, clearly surprised. "Where have you been? You've been off the grid for weeks."
Nihlus cradled his broken arm to reduce the pain he was feeling from it. "Where is Shepard and my ship?" he growled, ignoring his question.
Sparatus stood, "She did this to you?" he asked, but the question almost trailed itself off as he took in other points of the man's body language. Mainly the low, keening noise emitting from him. His mandibles twitched as he processed the information. It wasn't just any sound, it was one that turians made when in pain, a deep pain that only came from being separated and fearing for one's mate. "You… and the human…" he breathed, but shook it off. "She hasn't been here, as far as I know both she and your ship went off the grid at the same time you did," his voice wasn't judgmental, like Nihlus had expected it would be, now that he knew what Shepard was to him, it was gentle, understanding. Sparatus looked at the young turian in front of him, most of his armor gone, covered in cuts and bruises, a broken arm and probably ribs, and knew that the worst pain the man was feeling right now was that deep ache for his mate. "You need medical attention," he said, firm, but not unkind.
Nihlus shook his head, slamming his uninjured left hand down on the table. "I need to find her-them," he growled.
"Let's tend to your wounds. While the doctors have a look at you I will personally look into her whereabouts." Sparatus persuaded.
A tremble of pain went through him as he was reminded of his injuries. With a painful sigh, his shoulders slumped and he gave in. "Okay," he said quietly. He was tired, and sore, and hungry. So he let Sparatus put his uninjured left arm over his shoulders and help him walk down to the Spectres' office.
He deposited Nihlus on a couch, murmuring a sub-harmonic apology as the man let out a small groan of pain. "Stay here, I'll send for a doctor, less publicity that way."
Nihlus let out a dry chuckle, "They 'don't do house calls,'" he tried to mimic the asari who refused to let a doctor go back to his ship for Shepard, so long ago.
Sparatus paused at the door, looking over his shoulder back at the man. "Maybe not when a mere Spectre orders them, but I… I am a Council member." His mandibles flared slightly into a grin before he stepped out.
Nihlus laid sprawled out on a couch in the Spectre's lounge. It was only him at the moment, and Sparticus had informed him that he was the only Spectre currently on the Citadel. Did he fully believe that? Not really. But it meant that he was the only Spectre officially on the Citadel.
"Thanks for coming by, Mordin," he said to the salarian as he packed up.
"Was surprised to have you as my patient, thought it would have been Shepard again," Mordin commented. "Is she adjusting to her implants then?"
Nihlus let out a sub-harmonic whine at the reminder of Shepard. "No," he said, reflecting back on the hemorrhaging she had during her scuffle with Samara. Mordin looked at him curiously so he continued, his mandibles held close to his face in a subconscious sign that this was a difficult topic to discuss. "She is missing, we got separated after rescuing the other humans. I had to send them off to be picked up by the ship while I distracted a Justicar," he summarized.
Mordin had noticed the body language and did not press the issue. Nihlus was grateful. "Her species appears to be a resourceful, stubborn one," he commented "Jeff is surviving despite his disease, and both Shepard and Kaidan are in good physical condition."
Nihlus nodded, knowing that was the only consoling that Mordin would give. He wouldn't try to promise that they would return, there were too many variables for the scientist to dismiss. But he was right, if something did prevent their return it would be in for one hell of a fight.
Nihlus sat up, careful not to bend his mid-section too much and ruin the work Mordin did setting his ribs and sealing the cracks in his plating. "I guess it is good that if I had to be without my ship for awhile that it is when I'm on bed rest," he joked, sliding his broken arm into a sling hanging around his neck.
And bedrest is, more or less, what Nihlus did for the next month. He didn't have housing on the Citadel, never having a desire to stay on the station longer than he couldn't just stay on his ship for, so he rented a fairly nice hotel room. The hotel was thrilled to have one of the most well-known Spectres staying with them, and when they found out the extent of his bedrest they made sure to go out of their way to tend to his needs. It irritated him. Not just the pampered care, but the idol state he was forced to be in. He was a man of action, and to be forced to sit patently while his body took its sweet time to heal was just… infuriating.
More often than not he found himself thinking "If Shepard was here we could…" or "Shepard and I could…" And it wasn't just a physical need, though that was there too, he just missed her company. He missed waking up and having her beside him. He missed the way she would drum her fingers on the table to a beat in her head. He missed her smile, her scowl.
After a month his cast was taken off, the bone still weak, but healed enough to function. And he took that as a sign that he was healed enough for legwork. From the doctor's office, he headed down to C-Sec headquarters. He went straight Venari Pallin's office and raised his hand to hit the green open button on the door when the voices inside made him hesitate.
"If your father wasn't a personal friend I would have your badge for this, Vakarian." That was Pallin, Nihlus was fairly certain.
"No one innocent got hurt," he heard a familiar, younger voice reply.
"No one, but a five month sting operation, completely ruined because of you."
"You should be thanking me, it took your other officers five months to do what I did in a few weeks. The bad guys are in jail and…"
"The lackies are in jail, you stirring things up allowed their new ring leader to walk right out."
"He wouldn't have if the other officers hadn't restrained me."
"They stopped you from shooting down a transit over a housing district."
"A mostly deserted housing district, few if any people would have been hurt. Instead they let a murder and drug dealer 'walk right out.'"
Nihlus chuckled at the use of Pallin's own words against him and hit the button on the door, figuring he should save the young turian from Pallin's wrath.
Said turian was letting out a low, menacing sub-harmonic growl that Nihlus could hear as soon as he opened the door. His mandibles were flared, teeth bared. "Hey Pallin, any word from the Vereclaw Mark Two?" he asked causally.
Pallin turned to him, caught off guard for a second. "No, and if there is any I will contact you. Now get out of my office, I'm in a meeting," he gritted.
Nihlus looked at Vakarian, acting like he only just now noticed him. "Oh… Garrus right?" he asked, holding out his hand.
"Um…" Garrus paused, also caught off guard by the sudden appearance. "Yes," he said finally, taking Nihlus' hand in his and shaking it.
"So," Nihlus said, turning back on Pallin. "I know you said there is no news, but could you check again?"
Pallin said and started clicking keys on his terminal.
"Actually…" Nihlus said, lifting up his omni-tool and with two clicks he smiled, "I can just check myself." Pallin cursed as his computer started acting on its own accord, files opening and closing with comprehendible speed.
"You can't just hack C-Sec," Pallin barked at him.
"You say that, but then you make it so easy," Nihlus mumbled, uninterested as he read through the condensed information his omni-tool was presenting him with. He frowned, "So the report from Sanves came in of the whole incident. I assume that it didn't reach the news thanks to a bunch of cover ups. But it is hardly nothing… 'Suspect ship took direct hit before escaping via the mass relay,'" he read outload. "Direct hit to what? Was it enough to disable the ship? What record do we have of where the mass relay sent them?"
Pallin sighed, "This is why I didn't bother to tell you about it. We don't know what it hit exactly, the shot hit the ship as it made the jump. It also messed with the mass relay's navigation system for a second. We don't know where they meant to go, if they got there, or where they were sent." He paused, both C-Sec members observing the complete lack of sub-harmonics coming from Nihlus. "The council has been sending out search parties while you have been in recovery, but so far there is no sign of them."
"Maybe they found their way back to their home planet," Garrus suggested.
Nihlus shook his head, "It is possible, but it would be a very big coincidence. We have little idea where their home planet is. And even then, it wouldn't explain their lack of reappearance. No… they are in trouble and can't get back."
"Or they stole your ship and decided they didn't need you now that they have found the rest of their crew," Pallin jabbed.
Nihlus let out a deep growl, glaring at the man. "Shepard wouldn't do that. She wouldn't… she just wouldn't do that."
Pallin brushed him off, "Either way, I can not help you. So get out," he gritted out each word of the last sentence. He didn't like Spectres in general, and Nihlus' carefree attitude towards everything did not help.
"You're right," Nihlus conceded, "You can't help me." He turned back to Garrus, "So Vakarian, want to go get lunch? I have been in need of some company, bed rest void of it."
"No, we are in a meeting," Pallin protested as Nihlus whirled the younger, bewildered turian out of the head of C-Sec's office without another word.
"He is just going to make this whole situation worse," Garrus said as they walked down the hall.
Nihlus shrugged, "I'll put in a good word, but I wanted to ask you about this 'murderer and drug dealer.'"
Garrus' mandibles twitched and moved against his face. "It is Dr. Saleon…"
Nihlus stopped and stared at Garrus with a glare, his sub-harmonics letting out a deep, hatred filled rumble.
Without further prompting Garrus explained, "I was working on some case files and stumbled on an investigation of an increase of organ sales on the Citadel and other major Citadel space cities. So, I did a little digging, unofficially, and discovered that the organs were coming from people who were still alive and with all of their organs intact.
"After a couple more weeks of digging, I heard the name of the black-market ring's new leader, a salarian scientist who made it where they did not have to abduct their victims and harvest their organs. He was growing them in 'volunteers' and smuggling them into the cities inside of them. Then when it came time to sell he'd cut them open and take out the new organ.
"He wasn't making money though, all that of his profits he spent buying up red sand, element zero, and mechanical parts used in biotic implants... That is when I ran across your report of him." He paused and looked up at Nihlus, not sure when he submissively lowered his cast in response to the man's body language. "What he did to Commander Shepard… I went after him, but there was too much red tape." He sighed. "He got away."
"Give me the information," Nihlus said. "I can go after him where you can't, and I will see him dead," he snarled.
Garrus' mandibles flared into a grin at what Nihlus was suggesting. Garrus was held up by red tape, he couldn't proceed any further, but Nihlus was a spectre, there wasn't anywhere that Nihlus couldn't go. He raised his omni-tool and sent over the file. Nihlus' received a ping on his omni-tool.
"But aren't you on bed rest and without a ship?" he questioned.
Nihlus let out a bark of laughter, "I'll manage." And with that he left Garrus in the hallway, lunch forgotten, he had a goal to focus on.
xXx
Shepard groaned, her body feeling numb and heavy. Her head was throbbing, so she kept her eyes closed, enjoying the sensory deprivation that the darkness offered. She was just starting to recall the events from before the darkness when a pressure touched the back of her neck. She jolted away from it. There was a sensation of falling, then the pain of hitting the cold metal floor under her. She sat up and opened her eyes to find herself on the floor of the med-bay, surrounded by strange three fingered aliens completely concealed in suits, their faces lost in the reflective material that made up the faceplates of their helmets.
"Shepard, it's okay," a familiar voice called and she could see Kaidan as he pushed through the aliens. Some where in the back of her head she recalled what the aliens were called from an accurate description of them from Nihlus, but she couldn't bring it forward past the loud heartbeat in her ears. "They just want to take a look at your implant."
She groaned, wishing he hadn't brought it up. Drawing her attention to it allowed all the over sensory that had been blocked by the adrenaline to take over. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to ignore the cold floor pressing against her legs, butt, and hands. The door to the med-bay opened and she let out a whimper of pain as the resulting draft brushed around her shoulders and face. It was too much. Then there was a prick on her neck and everything started to fade. The relief was immense and with a slight smile she slumped sideways and let the darkness remove all the senses and left her with peace.
Kaidan looked at Chakwas who stood over the unconscious Shepard, needle in hand. With a nod of thanks, he turned back to their guests. "You can see why we need someone to take a look at it."
"Indeed," one of them said, a woman. "We agree that we will try to help her, but make no promises. The technology incorporated in the implant appears to be a cross of that of the geth with modern cybernetic technology."
"Thank you, for whatever help you can give. And I'll help your people move the cargo in trade onto your vessel," Kaidan assured them.
The woman motioned for two of the men with her to pick Shepard up. They did so and moved her out of the med-bay. The woman and the remaining man followed after them. They carried her down to the cargo-bay where another three aliens where waiting with a stretcher that was enclosed in a plastic bubble.
"Tali," the man said, moving to the noticeably shorter of the three aliens. "I told you to stay on our ship."
"I wanted to see the new aliens," a young girl's voice answered from under her mask. She moved past her father and over to the stretcher where they were working on putting Shepard inside. "Papa, she has hair like us!" she said excitedly.
Kaidan had made it down after them at this point and was taken aback by the youth in the girl's voice. The man saw this and sighed, "That is my daughter, Tali'Zorah, she was supposed to stay on our ship, but I fear she got over excited and didn't listen."
"How old is she?" Kaidan asked curiously.
"By the galactic calendar, fifteen."
Kaidan nodded, "And you are Rael'Zorah, right?" he asked. There was a lot of information that had flooded them with the Quarian fleet's appearance, and he wanted to make sure he didn't cause them offense later with something as simple as a wrong name."
The man nodded in return, "Admiral, if you don't mind." Kaidan gave a slight nod of apology for forgetting the title. "And this is Admiral Shala'Raan." He motioned to the woman beside him.
Raan nodded in acknowledgement of her name and Kaidan got the impression that this was a common gesture for their species to make up for the lack of facial exposure.
"Right, so…" Kaidan paused, trying to priorities all the things on his plate right now in his head. "Chakwas is a doctor and familiar with our anatomy. We'll get her in a containment suit and she can advise on Shepard's care. And uh…" he glanced over to the transport where a small group of quarians where gathering with Adams. "I'll go help with that."
Adams saw him coming over and intersected him, "Calm down," he said quietly. "You are doing fine, your call to hail that alien ship was the right call, Shepard is getting help and our ship is getting repairs."
Kaidan nodded, taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm himself. "I didn't think that my first chance at command would come like this," he admitted.
"You didn't foresee being lost in space, surrounded by aliens, and Shepard finally pushing herself too far?" Adams asked, mock shock on his face and in his tone.
"Definitely not the Shepard part, that woman always seems invincible," Kaidan joked back. They both shared a laugh and then joined the group of aliens—quarians, Kaidan corrected himself.
Together they got the cargo containers from the stolen shipping transport into the airlock. That was as far as they could go without suits. Quarians didn't have an immune system and exposing their ship to potential bacteria and infection could cause an epidemic.
"It's lucky that the shipping transport they escaped on had cargo these guys wanted. What was it again?" Adams asked.
Kaidan half shrugged, "Some sort of ventilation tech, honestly when tech talk starts I kinda glaze over, even if it wasn't full of non-translated words. No idea what it is worth, but its not like we have many options."
Adams nodded his ascent and wandered off towards the engine room. Kaidan went up to Shepard's room to find a spare set of armor that Chakwas could use as a containment suit.
Back with Shepard, she was brought to a clean room, all sealed off from the rest of the ship, and removed from her bubble. They placed her onto an examination table on her stomach, face turned off to the side. For their safety they strapped her down and set her up on an IV drip that would keep her sedated. Then Rael'Zorah and a team of quarians that consisted of a mixture of medical and biotech professionals set to work. The first step involved cutting and pealing back the skin that was over the implant down the length of her spin. Rael met his first surprise there when he saw that the implant continued down her ribs.
With a sign he set his scalpel down and turned to one of his attendants. "Go talk to the humans and ask if anyone has the same blood type as her, we are going to have to go deeper than we previously thought."
Without further prompting the quarrian went into the decontamination room.
Being careful, so that if there wasn't another with her blood type she wouldn't be in danger of blood loss, he started down one of her ribs. The implant extended down several inches and stopped right where they started to curve around to the front of her body. At least they weren't all the way down. He waved over one of the biotechnicians, not looking up at them as his other hand ran along the implant, looking for any port or weakness they could use to get more specific diagnostic data. There was also a pair that was working with the main port at the back of the neck, but it was clear from the slight cursing from the one at the monitor that the success was limited.
"Don't just spat words, what is wrong?" Rael asked, still not looking at them more than a sideways glance.
The man at the monitor sighed, "From what we are getting from this port the implant is a basic asari implant, but modified slightly. It does not even show us the parts down the ribs, we can see information being sent from there, but it isn't being sent to the main port. In fact, it seems to attempting to send the information out… somewhere."
Rael pondered this while he probed the slightly glowing technology. His thoughts didn't get too far, as the quarrian he had sent to fetch the humans came back with two of them, one of them limping. "Two have the same blood type?" he asked, but before they could answer he shook his head. "The woman is the doctor." It wasn't a question, but Chakwas nodded and stepped forward.
"Yes, and Jeff here has the same blood type."
"Is he healthy enough to transfuse blood?" Rael asked, looking back down at his work as he talked.
"I'm fine," Joker snapped a little harder than he needed to. "I have a bone thing, but my blood is fine."
Chakwas had stopped listening when she saw the sprawling tech that was exposed on Shepard's back. After hearing there was a blood donor Rael had started uncovering the other ribs with precise cuts. She moved up to the side of the examination table, Joker trailing behind her.
"What is that?" he asked, looking at the pulsing tech in his best friend.
"It is her implant, it is much more extens—"
"No it's not," Joker said, his heart pounding. "I'm not a scientist, but I saw the x-rays of her implant after Mordin fixed it, there wasn't anything on her ribs."
Rael paused and everyone there turned to stare at him. "Has she had any other procedures that could have put these in?" he asked.
Joker shook his head, "No," his voice trembled in worry. "What is going on?"
Rael grabbed a pair of scissors and clipped off a piece of the tech at the end of the rib's extensions. Chakwas and Joker were about to protest, but as the scissors cut through Shepard screamed, blue energy swirling around her, pushing everyone back and held against the wall.
"I thought you said her implant was off," he barked, not just at the humans, but his own biotechnicians.
"It was," the biotechnicians said back in chorus. One looked at the monitor, wide eyed under his helmet. "It still is… The implant is still off, but the extensions that were sending out information are sending out more information than our systems can register." As if to prove his words the monitor sparked and the cord connecting it to Shepard's port split apart into it's individual wires. The monitor went dead.
Only the biotechnician noticed the monitor, the rest were staring at Shepard's back. The whole implant was glowing a bright, eerie blue. The mass effect energy over the implant grew stronger and stronger, then with a bright light and one final force propelled out from her it went dark. They all fell to the ground, Joker with a choked back whimper as his bones tried to absorb the impact.
They all stood there in silence, wondering what exactly had that salarian scientist had put into Shepard.
For the next week Chakwas and the quarrian team worked to figure out the capabilities and purpose of the new formations of Shepard's implants where. One of the younger quarrians had an idea that it was alive, but Rael had told him not to be ridiculous, machines weren't alive. Chakwas wasn't so sure. The way that the tech pulsed made her think of a heartbeat and it was growing. During their observations the part that had been cut away had repaired itself and grown back. Granted it was only a small slice, but tech didn't repair itself, and it didn't grow back.
The piece that they had cut off had also been through numerous tests and close observations. To their shock, the materials it was made of were things that the human body produced or ingested naturally, in quantities proportionate to what you'd expect to find in a human.
Another team was set to focus on getting the extensions of the implant to register at the main port and to fix the issue of the implant being overloaded with excess use. A final team was also set to study how and to stop the implant from growing any larger. It could not be removed, as all biotic implants, it was a part of Shepard now. It didn't mean they hadn't tried to remove it, but the thing had adhered completely to Shepard's spine, and more little tendrils continued up into her brain. The latter of these was common for biotic implants as it allowed for better control. They still scanned her brain thoroughly. Nothing was out of expected norms in her brain, though, and the tendrils didn't show the same blue glow that the extensions had. They also were not emitting data that wasn't being reported to the main port. It was because of this that the last team was focused on the extensions at her ribs.
A few days in Chakwas had called for another team to be made after she noticed something startling. The area that they had exposed on her back was healing and much faster than a normal human should be able to. The quarians hadn't noticed it because they did not know what was outside the norms for humans. With it drawn to their attention more medial professional were called in and put under Chakwas.
It was on the sixth day that they finally had a break through. One of the members of the team focused on the implant's growth noticed a small, barely noticeable thread of metal that went around Shepard's spine. They cut down and around the vertebra and on the other side there was an orb of metal that pulsed red, smaller than a marble. Its pulse matched that of the extension. With extreme caution after last time, they disconnected the thin band that connected the strange object from the rest of the implant. Once it was completely disconnected the pulsing in the extensions died and the tech went dark. The biotechnicians confirmed that the data from those areas had completely stopped. The orb was still glowing red and seemed to darken to a more sinister color. Several of the scientists wanted to study the object, Rael included, but the thing gave all of them such an uneasy feeling. They set it aside for now and went to work on figuring out if the extensions could be removed or incorporated with the rest of the implant. Before the day was out though one of the doctors that had been studying skin slices threw her microscope across the room and tried to grab a scalpel, murder in her stride. She was restrained and removed from the room. Minutes later she came back to herself and had let out some gibberish about how the orb kept staring at her, telling her that all she had to do to realize her dreams was to get rid of those in her ways. She also admitted that she had aspired to become an admiral one day, and it has all seemed so close, so long as a seat was suddenly open. At first there was an outcry against her attempt to murder Rael. But Rael knew the woman, had been something of a big sister to his daughter. Instead he ordered them to remove the orb and to lock it up far away from anyone. His will was carried out without question, outload at least. Nearly everyone questioned him inwardly, until they noticed that a weight of worries and darker ideas that had been increasing on them had disappeared. They looked around the room and one by one they realized that the woman who went crazy had been the one who had been the closest to the orb.
A little unnerved they all got back to work. Shepard had lost a lot of blood over the days, and Joker was about out of what he could safely donate. With time against them they figured out a way to bring the extensions back to life, but under control. They had ran synthetic veins full of blue element zero down the extensions, weaving them through the tech and giving it purpose.
Only two questions remained as they sealed Shepard back up. What was that orb? And why was she healing so fast?
Shepard woke up a few days later, sore and hungry, in a new clean room. She was on a bed on her side, her back bandaged up and wearing a simple white slip. With a groan she sat up. Her back felt like it was on fire, but to her relief that was the only thing she felt. The door on the other side of the room opened and three humanoids wearing suits came in. With a shock she realized that one of the suits was hers.
"Chakwas?" she asked, her voice raspy. She couldn't think of anyone else who would wear an armor of hers, seeing as they had noticeable areas for tits.
The humanoid nodded in affirmation. "How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Like shit," she croaked out. "But… normal levels of shit." She coughed. "Can I have some water? Throat feels like a desert." Another one of the humanoids moved to a sink in the corner of the room and filled a plastic cup sitting beside it. Shepard studied the creature. Three fingers and their lower legs had a noticeable arch backwards. That paired with how everyone was wearing a suit and the plastic bubble vibe on all the walls she blurted out "You're quarrians!" The two quarrians looked at her, somewhat shocked that she already knew about them, none of the other humans did. "Nihlus told me about you, but since there aren't many outside the flotilla I hadn't seen one before." She gratefully took the water, willing herself to start with small sips. "Wait, are we on the flotilla?" she asked once her throat didn't feel like sandpaper.
"Yes," one of the two said, a male by his voice. "I am Admiral Rael'Zorah. This," he gestured to the shorter quarrian who had given her the water "is my daughter, Tali'Zorah. One of our scout ships found your ship on an ice mass during a routine water harvesting trip. Your fellow human, Kaidan, flagged them down and had the drell translate that your people needed help. They brought you back and in exchange for our help with both your implant and your ship they gave us ventilation ship parts they had on a transport vehicle."
Shepard processed this, though not as quickly as she would have liked, the meds still wearing off. "So… what did you do to my implant? Feels like you flayed me like a fish." The two aliens looked at her without speaking and after a second she cursed under her breath. "Sorry, I'm still getting used to not using idioms. It feels like you cut my open pretty good."
"We did," Rael said simply. "Your implant was… extensive, and there were complications." He shared a glance with Chakwas. "I'll let your doctor go into more detail about them later, but we are fairly confident that once you heal the implant will work much better now with less chance of it overloading and giving you excessive neural feedback."
As he talked Shepard reached a back to the back of her neck and felt puffy, tender flesh over the site of the implant. Moving her hand down, she found that it went down the length of her spine to her tailbone. 'Getting real sick of being cut open,' she thought bitterly. The scars were already ugly looking, she didn't need to keep making them worse. With a sigh of resignation, she figured it was worth it if it meant the sensory overload would stop happening.
The two doctors took her silence as their opportunity to examine her implant and healing tissue. While they worked, muttering comparative notes to each other, Shepard watched the child in front of her.
"So…" she said a little awkward. "How old are you?"
"Sixteen," the little girl replied.
"Huh," Shepard considered, she was older than Kolyat.
With the conversational flood gate open Tali started the onslaught of questions that she had. Her father had kept her away from the new species for the most part, saying that they were all busy healing or repairing their ship. When she heard Shepard would be waking up today she begged her father to let her come. She asked every question that came to her mind. What was their home planet like, what evolutionary environment did they come from, how old was Shepard, how long humans lived for, why Shepard's hair was red when the other humans all had black or grey, what kind of government system did humans use, what was their leading source of technology, and more that Shepard couldn't keep track of. She answered all of them the best that she could, honestly happy for the distraction from the probing that was being done to her.
Finally the doctors were satisfied and Rael shooed Tali out of the way and into silence. "You should be well enough to return to your ship, but it will need more time before it is ready to make the jump back into Citadel space," Rael told them. He went over to the cupboard by the sink and when he opened it Shepard saw her primary suit of armor waiting for her. "If Spectre Nihlus told you of our species he likely mentioned our lack of immune system, yes?"
Shepard nodded, not missing how he knew Nihlus was a Spectre even though she had never said that he was. Maybe Kaidan told them, or maybe Nihlus' inability to do things subtle made him more well-known than she originally thought. There was a pain as she thought about him. The last time she had seen him he had been locked into combat with the justicar. She was fairly sure that he would at least be able to get away without having to worry about keeping them, keeping her, safe. She was still worried though. Without needing anymore prompting she stood off of the bed, a little wobbly, and changed into her armor with Chakwas and Tali helping. Rael didn't leave, but he was nice enough to turn around. It wasn't that needed, Shepard thought, as the man had probably seen plenty of her while she had been on the operating table.
They were stuck with the fleet for nearly a month. The term stuck wasn't the one that came to Shepard's mind because it was unhospitable, but she was worried about Nihlus and the fleet stayed out too far from anything she could connect to and get a message to him. If she was being honest, being out with only one alien species, one that hadn't been of the species of their abusers, was good for the newly rescued humans. Presley still refused to have an omni-tool, but everyone else enjoyed the quarrians' company. They were very mechanically inclined, something Adams loved. Several had chummed up with Joker when they found out the human loved ships as much as they did. Kaidan sparred regularly with some of their fighters and was improving more than he did when he just got his ass kicked by Shepard or Nihlus. Chakwas was fascinated with the medical advances that were common place in the galactic society and was spending time with the quarrian doctors learning all she could. Kolyat enjoyed having kids his age to talk to, he was mature for his age, but that didn't mean talking only adults was fun. Shepard, on the other hand, was fairly bored out of her mind. She was healed, enough at least, but everyone wanted her to take it easy. She had had enough of taking it easy, she needed to move, needed to distract herself. Her worry about Nihlus continued to grow and it was affecting and magnifying her night terrors. Chakwas was already starting to talk about putting her on something to help her sleep and deal with the PTSD of her kidnapping. Shepard hated those pills, they had tried to put her on them in the past and they made her feel weird.
Without the ability to spar with Kaidan and the other soldiers she had started dancing regularly, gaining back a lot of the flexibility that she had lost since she joined the military. She was still bendy before, but not where she had been before she quit gymnastics. Tali had seen her dancing one day and had started watching her in amazement. After a few days the little girl gathered the courage to ask Shepard to teach her a bit. So for the next few weeks Shepard kept herself busy teaching Tali and a growing crowd of quarrians, children and adults, how to dance.
When it was finally time for them to leave the event was somber and the crowd that showed up to see them off was significant in size. As Shepard waved a final goodbye and turned to get on the ship, Tali burst through the crowd, out of her father's grasp, and flung herself against Shepard. She blinked down at the shorter alien in surprise at the hug, then smiled and hugged Tali back.
"We'll see each other again," Shepard promised her with a smile.
With an audible sniffle Tali nodded and unwound herself from Shepard.
All the humans boarded their ship and Joker undocked them, slowly drawing them away from the fleet and towards the closest relay. A couple hours later and they jumped into a more populated system in the Terminus. There were still a few more jumps before they reached the Citadel, but there was an extranet bouy that they could ping a message off of to the Citadel, altering them of their location. Shepard ran up to Nihlus' room as soon as she got that news and sat down at his terminal.
She hit the buttons to bring up the messaging system, but before she could send one, she got one. "Garrus Vakarian…" she read the sender name and thought about it. "Isn't that the guy who shot me?" She shook off the thought and opened the message, curious. "Huh…" the message was information about an organ black market salesman operating out in the Terminus systems. Well she had been looking for a workout, and they weren't far away from the location in the message. "Joker," she called on the coms "change of plans, take us to these coordinates."
"Roger that, Commander," Joker replied and she felt a slight change in their course.
