A/N: Sorry no chapter yesterday, I was caught up in the good news with SCOTUS! Yay, happy!

Again, changed a bit with the krogan and certain…relationships. Glory be to the AU! Now, back to your regularly scheduled program!


Despite the small shuttle's stabilizers, every hefty gust of wind could be felt by those aboard, the hull shuddering or swaying beneath their feet like the deck of a ship on choppy seas. Shepard hoped her discomfort was not terribly obvious, taking heart in the fact that Liara, Jura, Williams and Feris all seemed relatively relaxed.

Sihra was another story. Though the rakir would never admit it- and though her expression was hidden beneath the ominous face mask she was once again wearing- Del saw the tense way she was standing and holding on to the edge of the partition. Flight was still an incredibly foreign concept to the rakir, as were great amounts of speed. The fastest they could go on her home world, after all, was as quickly as they could run. They had no domestic riding animals, and while they possessed the wheel they used it for hauling purposes, not for individual travel.

Knowing that any gesture of comfort would be extremely unwelcome, Del did her best to ignore the rakir and focus over Liara's shoulder at the windscreen. Even then, the billowing and endless curtain of sand did little to quell her nerves.

The shuttle gave another rather strong shudder, and her own fingers tightened on the strut she was gripping. Jura remained unconcerned, guiding the vessel expertly by her instruments, before she suddenly reached out and pressed a flashing light on her interface.

"This is Jura of the Aswa shuttle," she said.

{This is Devarik shuttle one. We are in position on your starboard flank.}

"I have you on my instruments. We have clearance on the ground?"

{That's affirmative. I pulled some strings with the krogan Urdnot clan leader- he's an old friend, and understandably eager to get some help for his people. We'll be landing just outside the plague quarantine area. The clan leader will have an escort on site but remember…the krogan don't like visitors-especially turian ones. This plague will have them especially on edge.}

"Understood. We will follow you down."

Shepard caught a distant flash through the wind as the turian shuttle passed them and took point. A few minutes later, the wind and blowing sand cut down drastically as ragged stone walls lifted up and surrounded them.

"Underground?" Sihra asked.

"Much of Tuchanka's surface is hostile, even without a raging sandstorm," Liara told her. "Temperatures are extreme, radiation can be a concern, and there is very little water. The krogan tend to make their clan settlements underground, in the ruins of their old cities."

They passed into a much larger area and the shuttle settled. After the noise from the sandstorm everything seemed almost ominously still and quiet…a sensation that passed almost instantly upon Williams hitting the exit release.

The rumble of hundreds of voices and the din of activity swept in as the door opened. The two N7s exited first, followed by Shepard and Sihra, and then Liara. Though all were armed none made any motion toward their weapons.

Nearby, the other shuttle had already disgorged a compliment of turians in full hard-suits. One of them broke away from the group of about a dozen, walking over and extending his hand to Liara.

"Captain T'Soni, Lt. Commander Garrus Vakarian."

"Good to meet you face to face, Vakarian," she said, taking his hand, then indicated the others in turn. "Commander Ashley Williams and Commander Samantha Feris of the Alliance; Dr. Delilah Shepard; Prilekk Utchibahna Sihra of Nakira."

If Garrus was intimidated by Sihra- the glowering face mask with its luminous eyes a good three inches above his own gaze- he made no sign. He greeted her just as politely as the others, then looked at Del.

"Dr. Shepard, I would have thought you'd go directly to the black ship?"

"I will, but I wanted to take some samples from the infected krogan first. This plague affects every species slightly differently…the krogan may have some resistances or even some susceptibilities that may help to fine-tune or even hasten the development of the PMD vaccine."

"I see," he replied, before Liara touched his arm. At a far archway, several krogan were entering. More than one carried a rifle in their hands.

The largest- a scarred and craggy old soldier- gestured to his men to stand guard, then continued on himself. Shepard saw his eyes measure each of them quickly as he walked, and fought not to take a step back.

Krogan…were big.

Then he grinned, opening his arms wide. "Garrus!"

"Wrex, good to see you," the turian said, enduring a friendly slap to the shoulder that would have knocked most men flying. "Captain T'Soni, this is Wrex, Chief of clan Urdnot."

"Wrex, thank you for allowing us to land."

"We've had two hundred deaths just this morning," he replied. "The first ones to go were the doctors. This thing doesn't stop and the krogan are done for. If you can stop it, damn right I let you land."

"The infected are being kept quarantined, aren't they?" Shepard asked. Wrex looked at her.

"Best we can manage it, with a thousand cracks in the walls and stubborn old krogan bastards who don't want to admit they're sick. We've kept it out of the female clans so far but if enough men die that won't mean spit."

Sihra was all too familiar with that scenario. "You keep your females in separate clans?" she asked. Wrex looked at her, then stepped past Shepard to better size the newcomer up.

"Well, well. Haven't seen your kind before. You got some meat to you."

"Wrex, this is Prilekk Utchibahna Sihra of Nakira," Liara told him. "She is rakir, and is here to help us find the one behind the plague."

"And tear them apart, I'm betting," he said, still measuring the rakir.

"Into the tiniest pieces I can manage," Sihra answered him, dead serious. He grinned.

"That's what I like to hear. So. You think the ones who built this plague are on Tuchanka, eh?"

"We have reason to suspect they very well may be," Liara said. "While Dr. Shepard is working on her cure for the PMD, we will be hunting for its manufacturer."

"Not alone," he said, finally looking away from Sihra and fixing Liara with a glare. "Garrus aside, it's bad enough letting turians down here, I'm not going to let them just wander around as they want. I'll be coming along, with a group of my best men."

"As you desire," Liara said without hesitation. "However we need to verify that each is free of the plague."

"Already done. I can forward the results. We used varren blood for the comparisons, following the guidelines the Alliance sent when that missile first struck. I'll follow your lead on this, Spectre, but keep in mind…they're my men, and they follow my orders. Anything goes wrong and I won't hesitate to pull the lot of you apart."

"Oh?" Sihra asked, letting out a low growl as she stepped forward a pace. The other krogan tensed, lifting their rifles, but Wrex didn't even flinch. Instead, he took a step forward himself, glaring back at her just as hard.

"Yeah, rakir," he said. "This is our world. The turians already neutered us. They do anything to put my people in any more danger and I'll kill them…and skin you to wear as a hat if I have too."

She barked a laugh. "You don't have the bedochies, lizard," she said with a snarl.

"You better fight like you posture," Wrex said. "Tuchanka isn't a world for whining, milk-soft mewlings."

"If you are finished, people are dying," Liara said calmly. If she was alarmed by the budding confrontation, she hid it extremely well.

Wrex looked at her, then grunted, turning around and gesturing at one of the men. "Ferga here will take you into the quarantine area to get your samples," he said to Shepard.

"Dr. Shepard, when you are finished, our shuttle will take you to the black ship so that you can get to work," Garrus said. Shepard nodded, then looked at Liara.

"Be careful, ok? Remember…she'd be prepared for a full scale military invasion."

Liara nodded, then reached out and gently rested her hand on Del's shoulder pad. "Go with the Goddess, Del. Countless lives are in your hands."

"No pressure, right?" Shepard asked with a shaky smile, then reached up and caught hold of her hand, squeezing it momentarily before she let it go. Not letting herself pause, she turned and headed toward the waiting krogan, Ferga.

She had work to do, she had to keep her mind on that…and not on the horrible, sinking feeling that she'd just said goodbye to Liara for the very last time.


Wrex stood over the 2D map shimmering just an inch above a flat slab of stone that looked as if it had formed the base of an enormous pillar centuries before. Half glancing up at Liara who stood across the 'table', he swept his hand over the map.

"This is where we are," he said, then highlighted a point just north of them in red. "That is where the missile impacted."

"Shepard was confident that Osco was hiding on Tuchanka, detonating the missile here to help camouflage her location. She would want to stay fairly near the quarantine area but not too close- she is as susceptible to her plague as the rest of us."

"Well as you can see, it's all open and relatively flat ground for a hundred kilometers in every direction," he said. "These ruins are the only structures to be had, and no foreign ships have tripped our tracking systems."

"She has access to technology that is centuries in advance of our own," Liara told him. "Stealth technology, weapons technology-it seems she is even able to build entire biosynthetic human beings, not to mention the PMD. She would easily be able to slip past undetected."

"By our mechanics, maybe, but we're not fools. There are sentries posted all around, day and night. Unless she can turn invisible-"

"I wouldn't put it past her," Ashley said with a bitter shake of her head.

"We have to operate under the assumption that Osco is here and that she was able to land without detection," Garrus said. "If that is the case, where would be the best place for her to hide?"

"She'd need somewhere to park a rather sizable ship," Liara said. "Facilities-"

"I'm telling you, there's no structures anywhere for a hundred kilometers besides right here."

"Perhaps she's here, then," Garrus suggested.

"Impossible! We have all the ruins mapped and routinely patrolled. A goddamn runt pyjak couldn't hide here without us knowing about it."

"There are no underground tunnels? Nothing unexplored?" Liara asked.

"There are tunnels but they've been fully mapped, as I said. Especially with this quarantine going on. She's not here-"

"What is this?" Sihra suddenly asked, pointing toward something on the far edge of the map, away from the ruins. Reaching out, Wrex selected the area and zoomed in on it, then snorted.

"It's a sink hole," he said. "Not uncommon. Probably a deep water table dried up and the ground above it just collapsed."

Still unused to holographs and unable to quantify scale, Sihra narrowed her eyes at it and asked, "How big is it?"

"Bout twenty meters across, thirty deep."

Sihra hummed, then looked at Liara. "I would like to go and check this sinkhole."

"It's just a hole," one of the other turians said. "It scans fully, there's no signs of life on the instruments, the bottom is completely visible and beyond a small, hollow space, there are six miles of solid rock beneath it-"

She looked at him, wrinkling her snout. She had taken off her face mask when they'd come inside, and they could clearly see the edges of her teeth past her lips as glared. "I do not know about your 'scans' or your 'instruments'," she said. "But do not talk to me as if I am a fool. I am Prilekk to the Ubuut, I am not a green recruit or a damned Stunted, detrak!"

"Sihra," Liara said, and the rakir looked at her.

"There is an animal on my world, a spirik. They do not hunt, they ambush…burrowing into the ground and covering themselves with dirt. A fool sees only a pit and thinks it harmless. They pass by or try and cross the pit and the spirik leaps out of hiding and tears them to shreds before they know it is there. This," she pointed firmly at the sinkhole, "is a spirik pit if I have ever seen one. Perhaps it is nothing, or maybe a spirik of a different kind hides in wait under the sand."

"What are you suggesting?" Garrus asked.

"Let me go to the pit. One smell and I can tell you if it really is just a hole in the ground."

Liara looked at Wrex. "Osco's technology may be able to interfere with your sensors, showing solid rock beneath that pit when in reality something else is there. Sihra's sense of smell is extremely acute, and not necessarily something that Gellian will take into account. She has no way of knowing that Sihra is alive and with us, and not dead back on that moon."

"All right. Better to know for sure," he said. "But she doesn't go alone."

"Sam and I will accompany her. Ashley, Garrus- the rest of you will remain here and help eliminate any other possible locations. The pit is only a few kilometers away, it should not take us long to reach and clear it. We will remain in contact."

"My boy will go with you," Wrex said, his tone brooking no argument. "You'll need to be fully locked down-that storm has calmed a little but it's far from gone. You'll have hard wind and limited visibility."

He gestured to one of the krogan lingering near the door, one that looked little more than an adolescent boy. He stepped forward and Wrex clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"This is my son, Grunt," he said. "He's young but he's strong. Grunt, they go straight to that pit and then straight back if they find nothing. Stay in contact."

The boy nodded and then measured Sihra much as Wrex had. "We'll go on foot. If there is something there, they'll see a tomkah coming a mile off."

"Chances are, they will see us coming regardless," Liara said, then nodded. "On foot it is."

"Good luck," Wrex said. "Hopefully this sinkhole isn't just a huge waste of time."


The wind moaned with a long and low howl, punctuated by the ever-present hiss of sand against their hard-suits. Though they had full radio contact, there was very little speaking done as they headed into the flat wasteland of Tuchanka, the broken stone bones of the ruins swiftly vanishing behind them, obscured by clouds of dirt.

Travelling by their instruments, moving as cautiously as they could and hindered by the storm, it took them over an hour at a trot before they closed in carefully on the sinkhole. The pit only materialized out of the gloom once they had gotten within ten yards of it. Wary the ground around it might be unstable, Liara halted the others, then nodded at Sihra.

Despite the blustering storm, Sihra reached up and took her face mask off, passing it to Liara before she continued forward. Dropping into a crouch, she stayed only a few feet away for several long seconds, before she edged forward on hands and feet, distributing her weight carefully.

A bit closer, she paused again. Liara could see her hair whipping about in the wind, the white colored rust and dun by sand, her ears flattened back to keep them protected.

Another shift forward, another stop. She got to the edge of the pit, practically laying on her belly now, and paused again. Then she rose, and gestured to Liara and the others.

"What did you find?" the asari asked as started cautiously forward.

"The ground is stable," Sihra said, and to prove her point she thumped one broad foot heavily down on the dirt. "The whole pit stinks of dhaka. She is here."

Liara crouched on the edge of the pit. Even from here, it just looked a sinkhole, a relatively shallow divot in the dirt, its broad sides weeping loose sand in the wake of the wind. Sam crouched beside her, and did a scan.

"Still reading nothing but dirt and solid rock beneath us."

"When Osco is involved I trust nothing," Liara said. "If she's hiding down there, she has to be aware of us by now. She probably has sensors all around this area."

"Then why are we not under some kind of attack?"

"Either because she knows there is no way we will ever reach her…or she wants us to come in."

"Neither option brings much comfort, does it?"

Liara touched her helmet. "This is T'Soni. Sihra is confident that we have located Osco's hiding place."

{What do you see?} Wrex asked. It was Grunt who answered.

"Nothing but a pit, just like on the scans…but I'm inclined to believe the rakir female. This place feels…wrong."

{Is there any chance you have been detected?} Garrus.

"I am positive we have been detected," Liara told him. "Only a fool would not guard a front door, no matter how well hidden- and Osco is no fool. She either considers us no threat, or she wants guests."

{We're on our way out now-}

"Small numbers. She is likely ready for an entire army and if there are casualties, I would like to limit them. As well-"

{Mayday mayday mayday!} A frantic voice broke in over the com. It was unfamiliar, but sounded turian. {We are under attack! …unknown enemy, extremely hostile…}

The shout vanished in a haze of static, before Garrus' voice replaced it. {Levv, this is Garrus, are you there?}

Silence.

{Levv, this is Garrus Vakarian, please respond!}

Liara felt cold. "Garrus, what is going on?"

{That was Levv Makkis, he's in command of the troops holding the black ship,} he replied, then tried to hail one of the other turian vessels. {Ekumbet, this is Garrus Vakarian. What is the status of the black ship?}

{Sir, Ekumbet- we received the distress call but the black ship is unchanged. It has not wavered or deviated from its course once since Dr. Shepard boarded-}

"She is already on board?" Liara asked.

{She gathered her samples and took the shuttle up nearly forty minutes ago. We have no more communication with the black ship but it is still holding pattern. We're preparing a boarding team now-}

"No, do not board!" Liara said. "Just observe for now, do not attempt to board or engage that ship."

{If the ship has been boarded by hostiles-} Garrus.

"If that ship has been boarded, there is only one way it could have happened. Ashley will fill you in. You need to gather your men and any willing krogan right now and prepare to board it only after she has fully debriefed you. "

{Understood, we are heading up now.}

"What's happened? How'd they get aboard?" Grunt asked.

"There is a portal, kind of a doorway, on board the black ship. We passed through it accidentally once before. It works on the principle of folding space, incredibly advanced. It linked to a sister portal on Osco's moonside base. That base is secure under the Alliance."

"So either something wiped out the Alliance presence on that moon and sent troops through that portal…"

"Or we were incorrect in thinking that was the only connection point, and Osco is using another at her current location to send hostiles up to the ship to retake it. Given the numbers and firepower of the Alliance troops we left on the moon base, I would say it is extremely unlikely she has commandeered that particular doorway."

"Ash knows what to expect, and knows about the door," Sam said. "The more we stand here without contest, the more I'm starting to suspect Osco doesn't know we are right here. She may be distracted by her attempts to retake the black ship, and acquire Dr. Shepard. If Ash and the others can thwart the takeover, they can use the portal to invade Osco's new base from that end…and we can find a way in here, take her by surprise from the rear."

Sihra, who had resumed poking around the edge of the pit, moving toward the far end, had half crawled down the sloped sides. Now she looked up.

"There is no pit," she said. Liara stepped past Feris and went over to the edge nearest her, crouching.

"No pit?"

"It looks like dirt, but I can smell air moving up from below…far below. The sides are real, but there is no bottom."

Liara picked up a nearby rock and tossed it in front of her. It passed through the center of the pit floor with as little resistance as passing through air, and they heard faint and distant clacks as it tumbled deeper and deeper.

"She has disguised a shaft with a highly sophisticated hologram," she said.

"Can't see through it but it sounds pretty deep," Sam said.

"Yes, but I have no doubts that Osco is at the bottom of it," Liara said, straightening. "Stay and guard the edge, I will see how deep it extends. I will stay in radio contact."

"Careful, Captain," Sam said, watching as Liara lit up with biotics. Hopping forward, her mass reduced to nearly zero thanks to the dark energy, Liara drifted as light as a feather toward the bottom of the pit…and then through it, sinking into seemingly solid ground without a grain of sand disturbed.

In moments, she'd completely vanished.