. . .
Human Space (Fala's Story) (II)
. . .
Fala Tyrani
Uncharted Space
. . .
It was almost two days later that Hannah Shepard entered the Kilimanjaro's Conservatory in search of her newest associate. Like all ships of her standard design, the Kilimanjaro possessed a designated section of the ship for meditation and psionic recreation and relaxation. That later purpose was especially important. All human crew members – unlike their servitors – needed engagement and entertainment. This often came from the comradery of their friends and fellows, elsewise in individual pursuits or ship-sponsored activities.
XCOM regulations were identical to Martian ones, resulting in a 'tight ship.' Alcohol was not permitted or gambling or other activities that were deemed counter-productive to the functioning of the ship. These were age old military traditions but still far from universal in human space, or at least to XCOM's degree. At the same time, the XCOM community that originally settled Mars to guard Cydonia set the bar for understanding and integrating psionics in times of both war and peace and the creation of Conservatories was one of their contributions.
As psionic creatures, almost all humans inherently craved psionic contact with other sapients – other humans most of the time and less commonly ethereals and sectoids. To go without that contact was to choose to live alone. It was common for psionics, especially powerful ones, to begin to lose contact or even interest in reality when their sixth sense was left untended. All in all, this was actually a need that was easily met. There were plenty of other people's minds to echo and meld and ping and touch, to share sensations with and to join in community.
Conversely, humans, unlike ethereals, also enjoyed moments of solitude and contact with non-sapients: the background noise of existence created by flickering fields of bioelectricity and the gentle murmur of instinct compared to the structured roars of conscious thought. Thus, Conservatories were places were humans could go to literally relax their minds. This was the 'meditation' that was now so common among psionics across human space, similar to the old-world meditation therapies of the distant past but different as well. The one-ness with the world that ancient mystics and monks had long aspired to was now something Martians taught their children in kindergarten. Hannah remembered well how John had picked it up even earlier than that, showing great promise in passive psionics even as a pre-schooler.
The Kilimanjaro's Conservatory took the form of large enclosed garden area spanning two levels.
On the bottom level, where Hannah entered, a gently flowing stream of water fell from the upper level into a trio of crystal clear pools. Racks of hydroponics set in white terraces supported a number of Earth-derived plant life, broad leaves and tiny flowers providing all the color needed in an ample and diverse menagerie. In the interests of simplicity and efficiency, it was far from a true ecosystem – there were no insects or annelids, for example – and everything was maintained by drones and servitors. Nor were any of the plants simple transplants from Earth. All were genetically engineered to be hardier, less dependent on symbiotic relationships with other flora or fauna, to grow and fruit and flower quickly and vigorously and heedless of the season, for there were no seasons here. It was an idyllic artificial garden to soothe the mind and please the senses. It existed only for that purpose.
Hannah passed a trio of humans – members of the marine detachment on board – sitting with their backs to one another, eyes closed and legs crossed. In her mind, Hannah could sense that they had isolated themselves off from the rest of the ship. Even without touching their minds, though, her eyes identified them on her Integrated Reality Display.
Just like her, the three marines wore a second skin but theirs was patterned in speckled shades of green from olive to forest. One was a MEC in a four-armed humanoid chassis. The conversion into a MEC drastically altered the functioning of one's psionics due to the alterations done to the nervous system, taking away some powers while cultivating new ones, but it didn't make a MEC mind-blind or dull their sensitivity. They, too, could enjoy the peace that came from a visit to the Conservatory… just not in a body that weighed two tons and would crush everything it touched.
Not far from the trio, another marine and an ensign from Ops were engaged in a friendly wrestling match. The marine definitely seemed to be at an advantage in the little contest; easily maneuvering his opponent into an arm lock and forcing him face-down into the grass. Both men were barefoot and bare-handed, their second skins retracted away from their extremities. They were sure to work up a sweat, but it would all be wiped away, collected and recycled by their skins. Neither paid Hannah much attention as she strolled by.
Willing it, the second skin around her feet also folded away, rolling back to expose her toes, the soles detaching and locking into place above her inside-facing ankle. Stepping over a small plastic divider, she felt grass between her toes and smiled slightly. This was a nice spot, a place that may have been both alien but familiar as well. Not that it being a pleasant place to relax was all the reason her associate had chosen to set up camp here.
Fala Tyrani didn't even bother to turn around and greet her.
The asari was sitting with her legs under her, her feet and body bare except for some modest underclothes. Spread out on the grass around here were e-pads… as she had no omni-tool, Fala had adapted rapidly to the human fashion.
The pads themselves were paper-thin sheets that connected to the ship's databases. They were functional computers, too, in their own right, but mostly used for interacting with larger systems. Two of them were projecting holograms, one of the Citadel itself floating serenely in space and the other of a human in full battle dress. That later holo was interesting. It wasn't just a reproduction of one of the ship's marines, but the standard genderless marine attire right out of the ship's database. The marine stood, almost still, in a suit of assault-spec powered armor – the Colossus Model, Hannah was familiar with it – with a particle carbine in hand.
After a few seconds, the image of the marine faded away, replaced by cycled footage of a practice firefight between humans and mutons. Hannah watched for a while. At certain points in the recording, Fala had paused the video and jotted down notes to herself. The recording would wait a few seconds for her to add or modify anything she had put down and then resume until it got to the next point of interest.
Sitting down, Hannah picked up one of the other paper-sized and paper-thin data pads. This one was currently saved to the founding documents of the Systems Confederation, in particular Article Eight of the Confederation Constitution respecting member rights and freedoms when it came to governance and cultural preservation. There were notes here, too, etched with an asari finger in neat Thessian cursive. A few parts of the Constitution were marked for cross referencing, others with arrows and comments, others with text highlighted or in one case an entire article was circled in neon yellow.
"You've been busy," Hannah said, finally breaking the silence.
Fala glanced back at her over her bare shoulder before turning back to what she was studying.
"I understand you came here to get away from me," Hannah continued, scooting backwards to give the asari more space. "A natural reaction, but-"
"I feel drawn to you," Fala admitted, quite abruptly. She huffed, rather like a human would in the same situation, annoyed with herself and with her situation. "The tether, I know," she quickly added, waving a hand dismissively. "I am an extension of your will. You've said it before. I get it."
Fala growled under her breath, having one other thing to say. Hannah waited.
"Who was the other asari you reanimated earlier today?" she asked, back to the human. "I felt something… another presence, another tether… but only for a few hours. Then it was gone."
"Hora Rikovani."
"Hora?" Fala looked over her shoulder again, as if to read Hannah's expression for some lie. "You mean Captain Rikovani? Of the Vengeful Mother?"
"You didn't know her," Hannah answered, simply.
"I didn't," Fala admitted, scooting with her hands to turn around enough to face the human reanimator. "We never met… but I knew the name. The Vengeful Mother was still fighting when the Splendid Huntress went down."
"It was hit amidships a short time after you died," Hannah explained, exhaling and relaxing her mind in the peace of the Conservatory. "The bridge of her ship was flooded by radiation and fire. Her mind was a mess, her body too damaged; her death too violent and traumatic."
Fala frowned. "So you let her die. Again. After you took the information you needed, of course."
"Animation is not resurrection," Hannah reminded her, returning the frown. "Nor am I a miracle worker."
Fala turned away again, picking up one of the e-pads. She brushed her finger over it, scrolling between pages. Hannah sat silently and let her work through her thoughts. She shared in enough of them that it wasn't hard to know what was on the asari's mind. The trick was in getting her to accept and not reject her condition. In a way, it was almost like dealing with John… Fala had been two hundred and sixty when she died and that had been more than a thousand years ago, yet in some ways, she was still like a teenager. Or at least like a stubborn college student.
"I tried eating something earlier today," Fala said, still pretending to be engrossed in her work and her research. She winced, betraying what she thought before she said it. "I wasn't hungry, but I thought: I'm alive, right? I should eat. So I ate this spag-etti thing… and I could taste it… but the tastes didn't mean anything. I didn't feel anything."
Her right hand clenched, the fingers wrinkling the e-pad for a moment.
"The last two nights, I slept, but didn't dream. That was even worse." She put the pad down on her lap and lowered her eyes. "I can live without really enjoying food, but without being able to dream…?"
"Most likely, you'll dream when I dream," Hannah interrupted when the asari trailed off.
Fala looked up at her hopefully. "Really? How do you know?"
"Your situation is rare but not unique," Hannah answered and shrugged. "I've read about it though it'll be my first time. Normally, I never reanimate anything for more than a day. No one does. Humans don't deal well with being tethered to other humans. It is a technique meant to get someone to a hospital for treatment… or to re-use corpses on the battlefield."
"Raising the enemy's dead to fight them… it actually reminds me of stories my mother would tell me about the Rachni. Old matron's tales," Fala said and sighed. Here, she turned to her e-pad again. "I've been reading all I can about your species."
"Obviously."
"I'm surprised no-one's stopped me…" the asari gunnery chief rolled her eyes. "Then again, 'you're part of Lieutenant Commander Shepard' means I'm treated like one of your sectoids or mutons."
Hannah could see where this was heading. "You're concerned about your free will-"
"A little, but not as much as I was before," Fala quickly explained. "I think what I want and do what I want… but there's no guarantee that no one will stop me. The only difference is instead of one of those huge monsters stopping my body you'll just stop me with your mind."
Hannah nodded. "You understand, then."
"I don't actually!" Fala exclaimed, turning around to face Hannah fully, shifting her legs again to get comfortable on the soft green grass. "Humans… you value privacy but share your minds with one another. You value the freedom of thought above all else but mind control your enemies. You're clearly paranoid about letting the Citadel species interact with you so you spy on them and manipulate them, but what you're doing is exactly what you're afraid of others doing to you! This isn't even news to you… you're not blind to the irony, you just don't care."
Taking a deep breath and shaking her head, Fala reached up to nervously rub her left shoulder.
"With all due respect… and not to sound ungrateful…" She looked up and met Hannah's amber eyes. "But your species terrifies me."
"I can feel that," Hannah replied, though really, how else could one respond to that? With an assurance not to be afraid? With platitudes and explanations that, surely, humans would never do this or that to the asari or any other civilized Citadel species? They already had. It was decades too late to make those sorts of promises.
"These ethereals you warred with… do you realize how similar you are to them now?" Fala asked the woman who literally held her life in her hands.
"The Ethereals are the only race like us in the galaxy," Hannah answered, after a moment's pause and reflection. "For better or for worse… just as the asari were shaped by the protheans, were we shaped by the ethereals. But that does not make us-ethereal or you-prothean. We are not shaped by our environment… we are shaped by overcoming our environment. That's what I think."
Fala turned her eyes towards the e-paper in her hand, thinking over what Hannah had just said. Her brows creased in thought. It was yet another human gesture they shared with the asari, their faces, features, mannerisms, all so uncannily and impossibly similar in the span of cosmic coincidence. Eventually, though, Fala began to nod in agreement.
"That sounds like something Dilinaga would say," she finally replied and looked back up. "Wise words…" She cracked a smile. "From someone so young."
Hannah chuckled and smiled back, winking. "You see, that's a compliment in human culture, not an insult."
"Is it? I haven't looked up human insults yet." Fala tapped her thin thoughtfully. "I'll have to look into that tomorrow. Understanding a language and people is impossible without understanding how they insult one another."
"That…" Hannah paused and considered it. "That makes a strange sort of sense, actually."
Human and asari, the two sat in comfortable silence for a few seconds. It was actually quite remarkable just how quickly Fala had begun to deal with and acclimate to her situation. Confusion had quickly given way to curiosity and fear to a desire to know and understand. She had reportedly yelped the first time she saw a muton – one of the marine detachment of servitors – but instead of running away she had jogged right up to the hulk and started examining it, head to toe. According to chatter among the crew the muton was the one to be confused and afraid of this strange 'blue human' and her unexpected interest.
"Look at this," Fala said, handing over the e-pad in her hands.
Hannah accepted the sheet, and the display on it reoriented to the new handler. "This is…"
"The Citadel account of the Dilinaga Expedition," Fala spoke up, anger in her voice. "Can you believe this? They're writing about us like we're the bad ones! Like we wanted exile! Not one mention of the Citadel sending us out to fight! Not one mention of the Warlords we were told to hunt down! Instead, according to that… that varren-crap, we 'rejected the call to peace' and flew out into deep space because we were all 'warmongers' who refused to give up our warships!"
Fala's hands balled up into fists and Hannah could feel her indignation and outrage through their tether, bright and hot like a fire. The asari huntress calmed but still slammed a fist against her though with a tiny burst of biotic power.
"I guess I shouldn't be surprised like some blushing maiden!" Fala went on to say, hanging her head. "We all knew what we were getting into. Just… seeing it… seeing how those bitches back home re-wrote history… how my sisters and friends died in the cold of space for nothing… it really makes me want to hit someone!"
That someone was herself as she hit her thigh again with a muttered, 'damnit.'
"We're still two days away from the next nav-point, right?" she asked, and Hannah nodded.
"Forty-three of our hours."
"Forty-three human hours is about thirty one of our hours." Fala ran a hand through her head-tentacles, having already done the mental math and just having Hannah confirm it. Thessia had a twenty-hour daily cycle instead of twenty-four, and each asari-hour was one point three eight Earth ones long. "By the Goddess, that's fast. I know your cores aren't any larger than ours when it comes to volume, but your power generation is off the charts… and those gravity engines…"
Her eyes narrowed as she gave voice to another, darker thought that had taken root in her mind.
"You know, if we had had this kind of tech during The War, we'd have crushed the krogan like eggshells," Fala's voice was low and conspiratorial, as if she hated admitting to her darker fantasies. "Our fleets could've bypassed the Wreve Line and hit them from behind… flattened their staging points, their shipyards, their fuel depots and munitions facilities… it wouldn't have even been a war! A slaughter more like it. The rebellion could've been over in a few years once the mines were down and the blockades in place, blockades that actually worked this time. This technology would've changed everything!"
She shook her head. "But I guess that doesn't matter anymore."
Fala turned and scooped up her papers off the grass. "You humans might scare me but I think you're honest about what you want and what you'll do. You aren't going out picking up thralls from primitive planets or taking over worlds. You're not going to eat us or enslave us. It looks like you mostly just want to be left alone… in a control-freak sort of way… but still, and frankly, if there are monsters out there in deep space then I'd rather we be on your side than left to our own devices."
"I see. So you're not worried about being in some human version of the Citadel?" Hannah asked, curiously.
"Look: the problem we had with the Citadel was exchanging one group of dedicated-defenders for another, replacing the krogan whole-cloth with the Turians." Fala finished gathering up her e-pads and folded them up together. "What we wanted was for the Citadel armed forces to be fully integrated: asari, salarians, turians, hanar, volus, everyone... under Asari leadership, yes, but only because we had been fighting the longest! Just like this ship and your XCOM are the spearhead of the different national military units in your Confederation. We wanted a supranational force under our Matriarch."
She gestured towards the marine trio some distance away in the Conservatory. "I can see how your species use those mutons… how you fight alongside them and use them to compliment your own warriors. That makes sense. What our leaders did was to offload almost all responsibility for security to a new species we just met. It wasn't us fighting together, united, stronger together than we are apart! It is the asari, our people, passing on our responsibility and hiding behind the shields and skirts of another race! Again!"
"If you truly wish to be our partners, if you will give us our due, then I believe my sisters will be willing." Fala started to rise up onto her feet. "Or their grandchildren will be. Everyasari of my generation's dead and buried so who knows? But that's why we have to find them… if any of them exist at all."
"Exactly so," Hannah agreed, and also began to stand. "Come on. We'll eat something and then you can sleep when I sleep."
"And you think I'll dream?" Fala asked, having not read about that.
"We'll see, won't we?" Hannah asked, and the asari opposite her nodded.
"Yes, we'll see," Fala agreed and followed the human lieutenant commander through the garden, tucking her e-papers under her arm. "And… umm, this may sound strange, but…"
"Hm?"
"Could I ask you something?"
"I don't see why not."
"Can I… touch your hair?"
"My hair."
"It looks so soft! I just want to feel what it's like. Or brush it? Can I brush it?"
"Maybe… but not in public… n-not in public I said!"
This time the two wrestlers from before looked up when Hannah rushed by, their attention straying from their contest. Marine or navy, neither one could quite miss the fact that their ship's XO had an asari close behind her, mesmerized by her dark red hair and feeling it between her fingers like it was some alien fabric. Which is actually was, in a way. They were halfway to the exit when Fala yanked a bit too hard at a strand of hair prompting her escort to yank away her hand and lead her off.
"Huh." Fala didn't resist as Hannah dragged her off by her hand. "I felt that."
Hannah shook her head, pulling her new associate out the exit. "That's enough hands-on fun for today."
. . .
A forceful "ka" escaped Fala's lips as she parried her opponent's thrust, pivoted into his guard and struck with her elbow. In a smooth move that she had practiced what had to be thousands of times, her left hand swung around, palm-flat, and slammed into her larger opponent's head. In a real fight it was meant to be a killing move: a precise biotic strike that would enter the ear canal and scramble the vulnerable brain and central nervous system. Fala surprised herself by only partly holding back. Against one of her warrior sisters a strike of that magnitude would have left them disoriented and coughing blood from a cascade of ruptured blood vessels.
Humans, however, occupied a hardy middle ground between asari and krogan when it came to their resilience. Fala stepped back and away, hands raised in defense. Hunched over slightly, her opponent and sparring partner dazedly shook his head and ran a hand through his close-cropped mane of curiously curly black hair.
"Hell of a strike," the human male complimented, standing to his full height (a rather intimidating head and a half higher than herself) and bringing his hands together. A quick learner, Fala understood the gesture and reciprocated. The two bowed. The fight was over for now. They were out of time anyway.
"I take it this is the first time your people have seen Krogat Sae?" Fala asked, feeling no fatigue from the long sparring match with her human… associate? Friend? Comrade? Human friend seemed the best for now.
"Asari martial arts weren't a major subject of study when I went through basic," David Anderson, her human sparring partner, craned his neck and stretched out his right arm eliciting a faint cracking sound.
"Yet you studied how to fight asari commandos," Fala knew. Hannah, which was to say Commander Shepard, had said as much.
"At range and in close," David replied with a nod. "What we trained at were just basic anti-biotic techniques. I've never seen vids of asari fighting like… like that."
"Krogat Sae must have fallen out of fashion," Fala reasoned, cupping her chin and adopting a thoughtful pose. "I've seen some stock footage of this generation's commandos. The styles are derivative of Yueisat Sae and Baesat Sae. Very flashy. 'Big Movement' styles we used to call them. Krogat Sae is a 'Small Movement' style designed from the ground up to combat enraged krogan in boarding actions. It is just coincidence that you humans are rather krogan-like in terms of strength and, with the males, size."
"Are you saying fighting me is like fighting a krogan?" Anderson asked with a chuckle. He motioned with his head and they began to walk to the showers.
"No! Much more difficult!" Fala answered with a smile. "Particularly when it comes to striking the head. Yours is much too small! Your arms are also longer and you have a superior range of movement… if you ever fight a krogan, David, you must strike for the brain or where the two nervous systems branch out. They will go down with a single hit, I promise you."
Anderson's second skin adjusted around his body, smoothing out its appearance and adding in some pockets for his hands just above his hips. "Sounds like you have some experience?"
"I do!" Fala gave a mental command for her clothes to add pockets of her own, but around her waist and over her stomach. She rested her hands in them, mimicking the human style she had seen before, the one that seemed most comfortable. "At the Second Battle of Sigurd's Cradle, after the Terminus forces finally rallied and took to space, the fighting devolved into a wild melee. The krogans became… 'stuck in' is that the term?" Fala asked, shook her head and continued, "Anyway, there were boarding actions that overwhelmed the exhausted GARDIAN arrays. I was on the Splendid at the time and we had to repel no less than three assault pods."
Fala closed her eyes, recalling much of the battle as a blur. The fleet movements and maneuvers had been organized enough: a joint asari-salarian expedition under Dilinaga had been sent to rally the Terminus warlords openly allied with the Citadel. This was during the phase of the krogan wars when both sides had proxies fighting to flank one another in the Terminus.
They had skirmished for five hours in open space before giving decisive battle, a constant trickle of allied reinforcements for one side or the other arriving all throughout the day. Once the assault pods bit into the hull, though, everything had become a mad scramble. A quarter day reduced to a blur of barked orders and frantic gunfire, of leading squads of desperate commandos trying to repel the boarders and protect the bridge and engine rooms. What had struck her the most was the smell of battle: a sundry something fleet battles spared you from… the literal stink of it all. The smell of dying animals, except those animals were sapients with hopes and dreams and families and loved ones.
"I killed two krogan in that battle, one in hand to hand," Fala recalled, her eyes open but downcast. "The other was wounded, trying to hold in his insides with one hand, the other cradling his rifle like an infant. I… killed him, too."
"Hmm." David's only response was noncommittal.
"I was not censured for it," Fala added, casting a quick glance at the dark-skinned male.
"Do you regret it?" he asked, a few seconds later. "As you said, it was war."
Fala frowned as she considered it, and not for the first time. In the end, though, she knew how she felt.
"That krogan boarded my ship," she stressed 'my ship.' "My sisters would be dead if the fates had smiled on him. He was not forced to fight. All krogan in the war were volunteers. The sages say the Goddess gives all her children a life, like a path with many branches. At each branch in the path, this krogan made a choice: to join a war band, to serve a warlord, to wage war on the Citadel and enslave my people. His choice lead him to his death… just like my choices led to my death."
Fala felt… rather at ease with it all, actually. Even if she had cheated death in a strange sort of way. Days after Sigurd's Cradle she had thought of the two krogan she had killed, the only two lives she had ever taken outside ship-to-ship combat. She had learned to live with it and to accept what she had done. By the time of her death in battle it was a part of her life she hadn't thought of even in passing. Anyway, it was war. What more was there to say?
"Regardless," she mused, "with the genophage and the passing of time, I guess there was little reason to teach much less master Krogat Sae. It was never a pretty martial art to begin with."
"Still, those strikes…"
"Precision biotics and an understanding of anatomy is the key." As they neared the showers, Fala considered something else as well. "Also…"
David cocked his head slightly, an expression humans and asari shared. "What?"
"I've noticed I don't feel fatigue or pain like I used to." She clenched a fist and send a probing biotic pulse up her arm and into her clenched fingers. "In this body I feel like I can run for hours, fight for hours… and your blows never seemed to really register. I could feel the force, but no pain. It is another reminder that this body isn't really alive… what's that human word?"
"Eerie." Anderson nodded, understanding. Though Fala wondered how he could. "Off putting. Unsettling?"
"Unsettling, yes, like I'm a biological robot. I wonder if this is how Keepers feel, if Keepers feel at all?" Fala forced a smile and shrugged. "No matter. We should get ready. I can feel Hannah in my head, reminding me to get going."
"Of course," David said, always the amiable gentlehuman. "Drop a line if you want another practice match."
"I will," Fala replied, and stepped into the showers. On this human warship, aside from the individual showers in officers' quarters, there was one main facility near the training rooms. In a way, it was much like on an asari ship, where there was an egalitarian communal shower and bath. For the humans, though, it was more regimented and less communal.
Fala pressed her hand to a pad in one of the delineated stalls and privacy screens sprang up around her, forming a little box. Water blasted down from up above along with a sterilizing foam especially tailored for second skins. The stream was strong and short-lived and the foam quickly slouched off what passed for her 'clothes' at the moment. For many humans, this would be all they needed to rinse off. It went without saying that no human sisters came by to help her clean and groom her tentacles or anything else. Humans considered such things too physically intimate. Hannah had explained this much when Fala had asked her to join her in the shower and help with her leku.
'I'll have to do it all myself. Humans. Go figure. With such lovely hair, you would think they would groom each other more often?'
Her second skin detached at will and Fala hung it by a small circular knot that protruded from the wall. It quickly flattened and spread out there. She then indicated for a shower on natural skin, which was longer and much more refreshing. Fala took a little extra time to lather up the new scented foam into her tentacles and run her fingers through the gaps in her leku. The stream of water brought back pleasurable memories, and the truth was that it was much easier to experience pleasure from memory than it was through bodily sensation. That required Hannah to basically be doing the same thing… another reason why it would've been nice to share a shower. Fala quietly resolved herself to just keep pestering her human handler until she gave in. That strategy in general actually seemed to work exceptionally well with humans. Human resilience indeed.
Eventually pulling herself away from the water, and taking her second skin with her, Fala narrowed her eyes and indulged a bit of natural asari curiosity. For the most part, all the other humans on the ship ignored her, just like their 'servitor' alien allies. That was true here as well.
Trying to be both nonchalant and clandestine, Fala stole a few looks at her mysterious benefactors in the flesh. One was a human female with a golden mane. As expected, she looked positively asari-like. It had to be the weirdest instance of parallel evolution ever. All you had to do was change the skin color and add some tentacles and Fala could imagine half the galaxy being fooled! By the Goddess, it was likely some humans were probably doing just that! Goddess knew she would have done it in their place.
The human males, though… Fala was rather glad she couldn't blush in her current body. They were so… similar… but so different! Was it wrong to ogle them just a bit? Their features were so asari-like, but they were more massive in size and stature, and of course they had the usual male equipment below the belt. Despite what some believed, asari didn't experience pleasure only from melding. Physical intimacy was something they understood well and all maidens were expected to at least try and get a non-asari mate at least once. Fala was no exception, though a millennium behind the times in everything else. Humans, both male and female, were very appealing, and with the war on Fala had never had the luxury of spending a century fooling around with alien mates.
'And, by the Goddess, it has been a thousand years since I got lucky! Surely I am entitled to look and imagine, at least a little.'
Ah, but now wasn't really the time for flights of fancy… or fornication. Goddess willing, not too far in the future, but probably no time soon. As much as she sometimes thought of herself as a robot, Fala Tyrani sure as hells wasn't one. In this or any body, she was still asari and still a woman.
Putting her naughtier and more self-indulgent thoughts aside, Fala slipped back into her second skin and sealed it in place. While at first it had felt a little strange, she had very quickly gotten used to the practical skin-tight uniform. It switched to her preferred pre-set design and then added in the small customizations she had been allowed, mostly to try and better reflect her old navy hardsuit. There was little doubt now that the fleet in which she had served was dead and gone, but even if she was the last one to wear the colors and the symbols of the expedition, she would gladly do so.
Stepping into the hall and up to an elevator Fala waited patiently. However, when the door opened… she hesitated at what she saw. Waiting in the elevator was a man with a dark-gold mane and face-scruff, looking bored. He wasn't the problem. The problem was floating next to the man, partly obscured by a crimson robe.
An Ethereal.
No alien on the humans' ship so terrified her as the enigmatic and silent ethereal. Fala had only seen it twice before and always with the comforting presence of Hannah close by. The great mutons and the scuttling sectoids were easy enough to get used to, but the ethereal always seemed to radiate what Fala could only describe as a palpable menace.
She felt the weight of it now as she did then.
Asari. It seemed to whisper in her ear. Insect. Begone.
'No,' Fala thought back, knowing the creature was psionic just like Hannah and the humans. Whether it was trying to unsettle her on purpose or if that was just a dark aura it carried with it by nature, Fala refused to be intimidated. Besides, she had places to be and every right to go there.
The ethereal didn't even deign to look at her or gesture towards her. It simply looked forward, expressionless behind the strangely floating fragments of its electrum helmet. In place of eyes it had glowing red embers, like something out of a horror vid, and its skin was clammy looking, wrinkled and mottled purple. It looked like it had the texture of wet leather. Any other details of the face was impossible to discern save one last detail: the strange throbbing orange hue that split the back of the skull. The more Fala dared to look at the creature out of the corner of her eye, the more foreboding she felt pressing down on her like a smothering, suffocating shroud.
Finally, it seemed as if she had simply had enough.
"Do you have some sort of problem with me?" Shooting a glare at the floating, imposing alien, Fala defiantly crossed her arms and all but dared it to make a move. Or at least to explain itself. There was no way it wasn't singling her out somehow.
The Ethereal scarcely moved except to angle its head just enough to glare down at her with those two glowing eyes. Deep down, some primal part of her tried to jump out of her own skin just to get away… but Fala herself stayed resolute. It could probably read her mind as easily as opening an extranet website but at least on the surface she could try and remain unflappable. The ethereal's pulsing orange membrane glowed and burned like fire, thoughts like a funeral pyre, and Fala felt a lance of something incomprehensible shoot through her brain like a needle.
"An asari threw a spear at him once," the human in the elevator explained. "Apparently you look like her. I don't see what the big deal is myself."
"W-what?" Fala cradled her head in her hands though it did little to ease the pressure within her skull. "A… a spear?"
"Lay off it already," the human grumbled, swatting the ethereal overlord in the chest. "Or do you want to piss off the XO?"
The pressure vanished, leaving a stream of conscious thought in its wake to echo in Fala's mind.
Primitive. Failure. Servitor.
"You've been to Thessia," Fala realized, not just because the human had translated the ethereal's demonic thoughts for her, but because of the impressions seared forcefully into her mind. In dim recollection, she saw a blurred blue form backed into a corner, trying to ward something away with a bronze-tipped spear. With a biotic enhanced lunge, it cried out and-
And the doors opened and the memory slipped away between her mental fingers.
"Impatient Observer. Good of you to join us," Hannah spoke up as they passed through a security screen and onto the ship's bridge. On a psionic level Fala could listen in on but not speak through, she seemed to add, 'Please remember that I feel everything Fala feels.'
Apologies.
'No harm done,' Hannah smiled and motioned Fala over. "Fala. We have a few minutes before we leave the mass effect corridor."
"'No harm done' my ass," the undead asari quipped. "You humans have some disturbing friends."
Hannah chuckled in her mind. 'You should see our enemies.'
Feeling more relaxed now, in better company, Fala took a good look around the human command center while she walked over to Hannah. It was different from the raised "inner island" style setup in Citadel ship designs. The entire room was circular with the front half occupied by projection-walls, similar to the "big screen" projections in Citadel space but much larger. Individual sections of the ship overseen by different sections were partitioned off to different areas but, this way, any and all information could also be perused at a glance by those in command. On a Citadel ship, Fala would have considered it a classic example of information overload. For humans, though, she knew the command staff were all patched into their strange psionic-network, offloading and sharing information-handling across the entire bridge crew. The Captain and XO were hubs in the psi-network were most of the actual information was exchanged at high speed.
Sectoids manned the navigation and control systems from domed enclosures near the front of the bridge along with two other humans (a navigator and helmsman). The enclosures were of particular note for Fala. They were specialized psionic interfaces between the sapient crew and the ship itself but they were also designed as little life-boats within the already armored bridge. The strange blue fields were some sort of alien 'hard light' or 'force field' … like a biotic barrier in some ways. In case of an emergency, there was no need for the crew to ever leave the bridge itself. They were already wrapped up in cocoons of metal and energy, as ready as any to weather the storm of a ship's break-up.
Just as striking to see was how small the bridge crew were here. On an asari ship, like the Splendid Huntress, there were stations for navigation (helm, front of island), weapons (left of island), engineering (behind island, facing rear), communications (right of island) and control (island proper). Each station was then often broken down into two sub-sections, like weapons into gunnery and guardian, and engineering into reactor and damage-control. The larger the ship the more dedicated crew were assigned to critical sub-systems. On Dilinaga's dreadnaught, the Iron Crown, the bridge crew and attached CIC were no less than forty asari strong. There were separate officers for communications, detection and range-finding, surface-search and operations, data integration and satellite systems. Five separate guardian officers oversaw the point defenses for the forward-port, forward starboard, port-arc, starboard-arc, and rear-engine areas.
Hannah's ship had only five human bridge crew and four sectoid servitors. It was in keeping with the fact that human ships were lightly crewed in general and as much as possible was offloaded onto psionic servitors. In the center of the bridge sat the Captain and XO, the former off to the left and the latter off to the right though currently Hannah was standing. Captain Aydogan was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, thumbing the hair of his human 'beard.' Apparently only the males grew them. Fala recalled with a chuckle how Hannah had sputtered when asked by the Captain had one and she didn't.
"This should be our last stop on the trail of breadcrumbs," Hannah gave voice to Fala's own thoughts as she approached. She cupped her hands behind her back and fixed her eyes on the projection field that dominated the front half of the bridge. "Probes have already detected heat signatures and radio signals."
"So there are actual survivors?" Fala asked, always hopeful but well aware that it was still against the prevailing odds. "It isn't just another old distress signal?"
"We haven't penetrated the local data networks yet," Hannah cautioned. For some reason, her cupped hands clenched. "What we've gone through doesn't look good… that's why we're headed there now instead of taking it slow and being overly cautious."
"And the… ethereal? What was his name?"
"Ethereals don't have names. Just words they find amusing and agree to answer to." Hannah pointed off to where the floating demon had settled down, just to the left of Captain Aydogan. "That one is Impatient Observer. We took him along because he knows asari."
"He knows asari…?" Fala inquired, asking for a little more to go with.
"The Killing Road, the Temple Ship he came from, visited Thesssia shortly after the Protheans disappeared," without sounding terribly judgmental about the whole ancient aliens thing. "They checked for psionic potential, determined you had none worth pursuing, and left. Another Temple Ship, the Punishment Due, also visited your planet five thousand years prior to that… probably just to study the eezo-enriched ecosystem. We also found a prehistoric asari on the Reckoning Day so some of the original samples must have gotten traded around."
"That's…" Fala tried to think of a word that summed up captured the disgust she felt. "Terrible. What did they do to us?"
Hannah shrugged again. "Comparatively little. As I understand it, they were curious to see how the Prothean Experiment was developing."
"I don't understand…" Fala frowned. "In my time, more than a few asari liked to think that the Protheans may have visited Thessia. Or that they watched us from orbit, waiting for us to join them in the stars, but-"
"What the Protheans did to your species is another matter for another time," Shepard said, and that was the end of it.
"I want to know the truth of it… but I won't cry about having to wait. I've waited a thousand years already for this." Fala set her eyes on the screen and the countdown over the center window. "My sisters, did they really make it? Did they really find a place to survive out here? I have to see it with my own eyes. By the Goddess, even my youngest sisters in battle would be old matriarchs by now. Will anyone even remember my name or my ship?"
Thirty seconds became fifteen, then ten, then five, until finally…
"Switching to real-space!"
The screen flashed as the ship fully decelerated to below the speed of light, allowing real-space sensors to function again. The first thing Fala saw when they did was a black stretch of open space. Very far in the distance she could make out a small yellowish dot. Even with the naked eye, Fala could guess that it was a gas giant and not a rocky planet.
Not far from the Kilimanjaro her sister-ships began to also emerge into real-space. Fala knew the names of the ships and could read the English letters on the hulls, having learned much of The English: the ships were the BB-5041 Kosciuszko, the BB-5018 Yōtei, the BB-5007 Copahue and the BB-5005 Kilauea. Not far behind them, waiting as a reserve out-of-system, would be the Aconcagua, the Tambora and the Denali. The humans did not appear to have a great variety of ships but what they lacked in diversity they made up for in numbers. During the war, the Asari Republics had fielded a fleet centered around fifty two dreadnoughts, some dedicated designs and some up-jumped "super-heavy" cruisers. Anything approaching a kilometer could quality if it helped morale. None of the human ships here were as large but by all accounts the human Confederation could casually dispatch them by the dozen.
"Picking up comm traffic."
"Beginning survey of local space."
"Establishing connection with probes."
'I'm adding you to our surface level psi-net,' Shepard's thoughts entered Fala's own and she nodded in thanks. It would be frustratingly difficult to follow what was going on otherwise.
Despite their urgency, the human ships hung in space and rapidly, even rabidly, gathered data about the new star system. In his chair, Captain Aydogan continued to scratch his beard and give mental orders that were like whispers outside the range of Fala's hearing. Hannah, standing, handled more of the minutiae and prioritization, her thoughts clear and crystal to the asari she was keeping animated. Far on the periphery, though, Fala could sense the shadowy thoughts of the ethereal, incomprehensible and utterly alien. There was one species, Fala couldn't help but think with a certain dark amusement, which even the most reckless and meld-crazy maiden would hesitate to pursue.
Despite her growing anxiousness, Fala stood by Shepard's side and waited as information correlation began to assemble a picture of the star system. There was a gas giant close by on the outermost regular orbit… twelve moons... reports of orbital infrastructure, a helium refinery and depot, but much of it heavily damaged… a still shot of a dead ship, cruiser-sized and using the typical asari tri-hull design. There were a score of tiny planets circling around the sun, rocky but too small for life, and then one planet in the habitation zone! One planet that was the source of much of the radio and net traffic. One planet what was the hub of the FTL relays set up in-system!
Names appeared, mined from the local extranet and translated: the sun was Hoplos! The gas giant Aegis! The core planet Trident! And the original script and names, there was no doubt about it: asari! Blessed Athame, there were asari here!
It was not long before a ship exited FTL nearby, a scant twenty thousand kilometers away.
It was a quad-hull design that any asari would quickly recognize, built like a cross with a central oculus. On a screen, the human computers and servitors quickly scanned and identified four powerful mass drivers, one on each wing and close to the center of mass. Asari ships were unique in that. Even if half the ship were to be crippled, one or two guns would still be able to fire. They were designed for compartmentalization and redundancy rather than heavy armor or blistering speed. This ship, though, was a little different, and not just in minor changes to the design itself. There were sections of it that looked almost… incomplete… as if it had raced over right out of the shipyard.
More ships dropped out around it: two scarred looking cruisers and a pair of fresh-faced frigates. The former brought to mind the wreckage they had detected around the gas giant and the other signs of smashed orbital infrastructure. Fala's elation began to deflate. War. It would be war, wouldn't it? Even out here, in the middle of nowhere.
"We are receiving a first contact package."
"Package is clean."
"Reply. Use the Citadel friendly packet and the old IFF codes we recovered."
"Thoughts?" Hannah asked, permitting Fala to dip deeper into the psi-net as more than a read-only observer.
"They're fighting with someone," she reasoned. "The ships are new designs so they have drydocks and shipyards… or had them. The cruisers have battle damage… looks like missiles if I had to guess. Proximity detonations. I'd say that means they're probably not fighting amongst themselves. We don't use missiles much. They probably scrambled whatever they could to meet us and show a strong front given the circumstances. I'd hoped to find a thriving planet of my sisters, but I guess war never changes."
"Receiving a tight-beam request."
"Moving beaming pinpoint and opening up a lens."
"It must be some new race we offended somehow," Fala speculated, looking up at one of the data-mined extranet streams. A younger matron was reporting on some sort of bombardment near a sea-side instillation. A trawling feed on the side of the report indicated a further disturbance at the edge of the system.
'That's me. That's us,' Fala realized. 'They're afraid of us.'
A window in the screen expanded wide as the Kilimanjaro connected with the asari dreadnought. Protocols shook hands and soon Fala could see the bridge of the other ship: it looked so much like she remembered from before she died. In the center island of the bridge was an older matron with unusually long head-tentacles and a dark purple hue. A ragged line of scar tissue ran down the side of her face, marring her otherwise impeccable patrician appearance. The rank emblazoned on her hardsuit and around her collar identified her as an admiral. On the tier below her were the dreadnought's Captain and XO, darker blue in skin tone but again with longer tentacles. Like the admiral, they wore hardsuits in place of uniforms, a practicality adopted by the navy during the war with the krogan, but these suits were much larger and bulkier than war-era hardsuits… or the modern equivalents, from what she had seen.
'Full on powered armor?' she guessed, just by eye. All hardsuits were technically powered armor, but most to only a limited degree. 'It looks like an evolution of the ENHANCE gear from the war, except integrated into the hardsuit instead of fitting over it.'
"Patching in the Admiral and the Denali."
Another image appeared, this one of Admiral Kahoku – another human male Fala had seen once before but never met in person. He was on board one of the other ships out of system but the human 'hyperwave' allowed for easy FTL communication without the need for comm buoys. Much like Captain Aydogan he was one of the darker skinned sort of human, also sporting a bristly beard and a dark-blue high-peaked cap. A life-like and life-sized hologram of him projected out of a hovering drone next to the silently brooding ethereal.
"I am Admiral Tulia Edrema N'Vori of the Asari Third Republic," the matron in charge spoke in lightly accented formal Thessian. Though, Fala couldn't help but wonder, shouldn't she be a matriarch, commanding a dreadnought? It was easy to see, even with her heavy hardsuit on, that she hadn't undergone the changes to enter her matriarch stage.
"The system you have entered is the sovereign territory of the Third Republic," Tulia added, leaning forward in her command chair. "Please identify yourselves… are you from the Citadel? Who is that asari among you?"
The human admiral had the right so speak first and answer his counterpart. "My name is Rear-Admiral Samil Kahoku. I command the flotilla of ships sent to investigate the Citadel's Dilinaga Expedition but we are not here as representatives of the Citadel Council. My people are called humans and we lead the Systems Confederation."
Fala sensed it was here time to speak. She raised a fist to her chest and rested it over her heart in salute.
"Admiral!" she barked. "Fala Tyrani, naval registry seven-zero-six, eight-six-five-five, nine-zero-one-zero-two. My last posting was as Chief Gunnery Officer aboard the Splendid Huntress, registry Eli-zero-five-eight, Ata-two-four-one, under Captain Imrea Tilanta. We were lost in action during an exchange of fire with Warlord Brath of the Krogan Remnant."
Admiral Tulia seemed at a loss for words and her blue eyes darted off to the side, clearly indicating for her subordinates to double check not just the contact package but the claims of this thousand-year old matron claiming to be back form the dead. Fala held her breath while she waited… and remembered that breathing was also now largely an optional exercise, just like eating. So long as Shepard willed it, she would live. Goddess alone knew how she would explain her existence to her sisters; she was still struggling to understand it all herself.
"Your records check out, and facial recognition matches your profile," Admiral Tulia said, finally, looking awed. "By Athame, how can this be? Were you preserved somehow…?"
"Human medical technology is highly advanced," Fala answered as best she could, at least for now. "I was very lucky. Most of my sisters-in-battle could not be revived for more than a few hours. It was through their sacrifice that we were able to track down the expedition."
"If true… your story is remarkable…" Tulia shook her head and focused on Kahoku. "I take it you humans have sought us out for a reason." She frowned deeply, weighing her next few words carefully before committing to them. "To be forthright, you have not come at the best time for peaceful relations. We are under attack by a tenacious and remorseless enemy. One that threatens all life in this relay cluster."
"Krogan?" Fala asked, though out of turn. Shepard mentally pinched her in reprimand.
"No, not krogan," Tulia answered, looking down at what had to be a projection of the human bridge and then over to a holo of the human admiral. "Would that we had spared some of them, the irony is not lost on us. Our enemy in this cluster is none other than our oldest foe reborn: the damned Rachni."
