Chapter 37: Blue news
"Liara said I could stay," was the first sentence Shepard heard when she entered the room that had been Miranda's office, then Liara's and now Javik's. It was good hearing the prothean calling Liara by her name, instead of 'asari' or 'Liara-asari'. He added however, in his usual derisive tone, "Does it mean I could be kicked out of my room? How many people will call you using this QEC, Commander?"
"Don't worry, Javik," said Shepard shaking her head. "Not many people even know about this node. Most will use the one in the Alliance's base."
She stepped forward to stand in front of the flickering image of her blue friend. The QEC was in the same place where Liara used to have her Intel Terminal and Glyph. Next to it, where the Shadow Broker's servers used to be, there was one of the rectangular sinks filled with water that the prothean had in his old room. It seemed that he had resumed his obsession with cleanliness. In front of it, where Liara used to have monitors and normally stood to work, there was a large desk with a terminal, and a single chair. Shepard noticed that Javik didn't change the bedroom at the back of the room at all.
"I'm sorry I used this comm, Shepard," said Liara lowering her head a bit to one side, as she usually did when she was embarrassed. "Using the Alliance's would have risen too many questions that I'm not ready to answer just yet. In fact, there's no one around me. All researchers already went home. Fairuza Yousif gave me a pass code."
"What's so urgent and secret, Liara?" asked the Commander crossing her arms over her chest. She was leaning slightly back, her head tilted to one side, her blue eyes fixed on the translucent image.
"Like I told you during the ceremony," said the asari raising her gaze to look directly at the human, "I have new information regarding the Salarian Union. I happen to have an agent on Sur'Kesh, highly connected with the people making the decisions right now. Just as you said, there's a research project, government funded, seeking for a virus that could kill all krogan."
"That's bad," commented Shepard, but she didn't sound surprised at all.
"There's more," continued Liara gesturing with her hands. "It appears that the project isn't new at all, they just intensified their research when you cured the genophage. Now they already have an airborne virus that killed a hundred percent of the exposed krogan. They're now researching how to make the virus live longer."
"And they dare say that we should be afraid of the krogan?" said Shepard outraged. She dropped her arms to her sides and her hands involuntarily clenched into fists. She took a step forward towards the comm. "But this means they had 'test subjects' on Sur'Kesh."
"Indeed," replied Liara lowering her head just slightly so that the image of her eyes in the QEC shone. "Captured mercenaries, probably lured with the promise of a big reward. They keep them in secret facilities. The average population of Sur'Kesh don't know about this. But there's more, Shepard."
"Tell me," requested the Commander, trying to keep her anger on hold. Her breathing was faster than usual.
"The Dalatrass has recently ordered to start similar projects with turian and human tissues," said the asari directly, in her calm and harmonic voice. "Luckily they don't have any living turians or humans to experiment with, but..."
"But they could extrapolate what they've already learned from the krogan," completed Javik looking at them both, calm and cynical. "I told you, Commander, salarian liver was a delicacy in my cycle. Now that you know about this, you shouldn't withhold from trying such an exquisite plate."
"Not all salarians are like this, Javik," said Shepard harshly. "Many would be just as furious and homicidal as I feel right now, if they knew about this."
"That's why I needed to talk to you, Shepard," said Liara, "I could stop this just by manipulating information. If the average salarian knew what's going on, they'd stop the Dalatrass and her people themselves. But it could lead to civil war..." the asari paused and put a hand on her own forehead. "I have so much power, and right now, I really fear it. Remember when I told you I could start a war in ten minutes? I... Shepard, I could..." she sounded too distressed to continue.
"You're too soft," said Javik before Shepard could speak, cutting the air with a sharp movement of his arm and extended hand. "Now it's krogan, then turians, then humans and next thing you know they're killing asari. You can't be weak now, Liara, it's you or them."
"No, Javik, I don't think so," said Shepard shifting all her hostility to the prothean, in lack of a real enemy in front of her that she could punch. She turned to face him directly, her eyes shining with a frightening intensity. "They're just afraid, scared to death if you will, and I get it. Suddenly all military strong species band together, and they include the krogan, of all people," she stopped to take a long breath. "I mean, Javik! Fucking get your head out of your ass for a second and think about it. Turians have the strongest fleet and they're disciplined right from the cradle. Quarians have the largest fleet. Geth? We had to face them as enemies already, we know how deadly they are. And humans? They never trusted us. Hell, not even I trust a lot of humans myself. So for one minute just put yourself in their shoes, think why they're reacting like this and what could you do to make them believe peace is possible. You keep saying how primitive we all are compared to the great Prothean Empire, but damn, you're the most primitive of us all!"
For a moment, the air inside the room was so dense that it could be cut with a knife. Nobody dared say a word in front of angry Commander Shepard, not even Liara that wasn't physically inside the Normandy. After a couple minutes that felt like hours, Javik opened his mouth.
"I'm sorry, Commander," said the prothean, and perhaps for the first time since they awakened him from his chamber, he sounded sincere. "Would you feel better if you punched me?"
"No," replied Shepard, letting her hands get open and adopting a little more relaxed posture, "but thank whatever high entity you pray to, that I'm not a biotic. I believe I wouldn't have been able to control myself if I was."
"You raised some very interesting points however, Shepard," commented Liara, her expression more relaxed, her active eyes shining with intelligence. "I think I could work with that. The only thing that worries me is if we have enough time."
"Don't you have agents that could sabotage the research facilities?" asked the Commander, crossing her arms again.
"Unfortunately, no," informed the asari shaking her head slowly. "I have very few agents on the salarian home planet, and they aren't the combat type."
"But they still have live krogan, right?" asked Javik taking a step forward. It was a surprise for Shepard that the prothean actually showed some interest in solving a 'primitive' problem, but perhaps he did listen to her for once. "And your agents obviously can spy without being seen. They could free the krogan and tell them to destroy whatever needs to be destroyed."
"No," said Shepard categorically, shaking her head. "Something like that would further the image of the krogan as mindless brutes, assuming they're lucky enough to destroy the facility without getting infected with the lethal virus."
"Still you're right about one thing, Javik," said Liara in her soft velvet voice. "Freeing the remaining krogan is a priority. I think I can arrange that right away. Perhaps I could create a secret group later, something like 'The friends of Mordin'. I don't have agents that could sabotage a research facility now, but that doesn't mean I can't get them. Thank you, Shepard, if I hadn't talked to you I could have created a lot of unnecessary pain."
"Glad I could help," said the Commander nodding and dropping her arms to her sides.
"There is one more thing," said the asari, her image through the QEC gesturing with her hand, "but don't worry, it's not that urgent. It's just a little scientific mystery I wanted to discuss with you."
"If you think I could be of any assistance..." said the Commander in a tone of clear disbelief.
"This information crossed my desk," continued Liara tilting her head slightly, ignoring the human's tone, "and I went to check it with Fairuza. She confirmed that some colleagues of her made similar findings."
"What did they find?" asked Shepard, intrigued.
"Ah, it's about..." the asari hesitated on the words, "You see, scientists have a way to measure distance between galaxies, that they call the 'redshift'. The more distant a galaxy is from us, the more the light it emits shifts to the red part of the spectrum."
"OK, following you so far," said the Commander nodding. "More distant, redder. Got it."
"Correct," continued Liara smiling. She took a hand to her chin. "That's how astronomers made a map of the universe around us. We know that the universe is expanding, but it's a very slow process. You don't expect to see changes in the spectrum of other galaxies over the course of a few years, not even a few centuries," she made a pause. "Only that, ever since the attack of Sovereign to the Citadel, some astronomers reported that a couple galaxies were... slightly closer to us. The spectrum of those galaxies was a little more blue. At first nobody believed them. Other scientists dismissed their claims as error in their instruments, and that was plausible because the change was barely noticeable. The thing is that as years passed by, more and more scientists are getting the same readings, and it's happening with more galaxies. Fairuza told me that a group of astronomers focused their telescope on one particular galaxy that hadn't changed its redshift from its registered value. Then it shifted to blue over the course of a month, until the spectrum stabilized and hadn't shown any other changes since."
"That's... strange," commented Shepard massaging the back of her neck. "Do they have an explanation for that?"
"Not at the moment," replied Liara gesturing with her hands.
"You think it's the Reapers?" speculated the Commander. "I mean, I don't know how could something like that be their fault, but at this point..."
"Shepard, I know this sounds strange because it started happening when Sovereign attacked," said the asari shaking her head, "but I believe that not every mystery in the universe has 'Reapers' as the answer."
"I know, I know..." said the human frustrated, gesturing with her hands. Seconds later she added, "Wait, are the galaxies... colliding?"
"No, don't worry," replied Liara hastily, shaking her hands. "The redshift change was very minor and it's stable at a different value. Even if the rest of the galaxies were to approach more, they're too far away to be concerned about it. Plus the color is still red. That means the galaxies are still getting away from us," she paused. "Anyway, I thought I should tell you. You know a lot of people and you're always asking questions. You could come up with something people aren't asking themselves."
"I'll keep an eye open," Shepard said with one short nod.
"I don't have anything else to inform you, Shepard," said the asari, "and again, I'm sorry that I was mad at you and Garrus."
"It's fine, Liara," said the Commander gesturing with one hand. "I don't know how Garrus feels about the incident though. You'll have to speak with him. And Liara... do you miss the Normandy? We'll be back on Earth in a few weeks, and I could arrange..."
"She'll have to find a new room," interrupted Javik.
"Thank you, Shepard," said the asari smiling and shaking her head slowly, "but I don't think I want to move all my equipment again. I like Earth, and having an actual sky over me. I'm not like you."
"Then I'll keep finding your deepest secrets," said the prothean, and was he... smiling? "from the dead cells you left all over the room."
"Be my guest, Javik," said the asari softly, with a hint of a smile on her face.
"And Liara?" said the Commander in a relaxed tone, with half a smile, "Next time, contact me with good news, will you? Or we could just talk for no reason at all."
"I will, Shepard," she replied nodding. "I should go back to my work now."
As the image of Liara faded in the QEC circle, Javik moved to stand in front of Shepard.
"Commander," the prothean said moving his head, "I know that I still have to learn a lot about this cycle, but please don't call me a primitive again."
"Yeah," she said nodding, a half smile shaping her lips, "sorry 'bout that, but you were being impossible. I agreed with you about Liara's attitude on Thessia, but killing an entire species is never the answer unless you have no choice. Killing should always be the last option."
"I'll think about it," promised Javik with a short nod and an undecipherable shine on his multiple eyes.
"I leave you to it," said the Commander heading for the door.
The thing about Javik – she thought as she was heading for her cabin – was that she never knew if the alien was developing true empathy, or if he just said the kind of things that were expected from him so that people would leave him alone. Shepard tried for a minute to imagine herself frozen for fifty thousand years, just to awake and be surrounded by evolved monkeys or dolphins. Then she realized she didn't make a good example, because she already cared about any kind of sentient beings. She couldn't imagine how it felt being born in a society defined by war, that had to trade empathy for survival.
She was lost in those thoughts when she opened her door. For that reason she almost tripped with Garrus, who was sitting on the floor with his legs stretched. The turian was drawing marks on a gigantic three dimensional holographic image of the pirate base, floating right in between her private terminal and the bathroom's door.
"Look at this, Melody," he said from the floor, signaling a red mark on the map. She sat beside him and looked where he was indicating. "This building is labeled 'Armory'," he explained signaling a large structure. "But this small square over here," he pointed at another building, significantly smaller, "is 'Food storage'. Now consider the months since the war ended, the size of this warehouse and the number of pirates Pazness says we'll find. Run a simple algorithm based on the volume of the 'Food storage' and you'll find that they all starved, no matter how high the building is. There has to be something else on the map that Pazness isn't showing us. Not to mention, the layout of this base is the least efficient you could come up with. But let's forget about that for a minute. For all we know, batarians could be stupid when it came to designing a base. It's the food thing that intrigues me. In his message, Pazness seems to be sure we'll find alive and robust guys, not a pile of starved corpses."
"Perhaps they have a farm outside the perimeter or something?" Shepard guessed shrugging.
"A farm? On a pirate base?" he said using his ironic tone of voice.
"Well, if you plan to keep people living there guarding the place," she said not sounding very sure of herself, "it'd make sense..."
"Yes," the turian said nodding, "but a farm needs farmers. When was the last time you saw a pirate growing veggies? Nobody could anticipate that the mass relays would stop working. It makes more sense to just ship food to your pirate base on regular intervals."
"I don't know, Garrus," she said shaking her head and staring at the square labeled 'food storage' on the map. "Batarians use slaves for everything. Perhaps they shipped a few to keep a farm in the base."
"Which again makes the place a little too organized," commented Vakarian gesturing with his hands, "if it wasn't for the shitty layout."
For a moment they didn't speak, each concentrated on the shiny holographic map. Finally, the Commander spoke.
"We'll know when we get there," she said getting up from the floor in one jump. She extended her hand to help him stand, and he took it. "Right now we can only speculate. I'll tell EDI to run more analysis in the morning."
The turian nodded and walked to the holographic projector to turn it off. The map vanished, leaving only the regular lights in the cabin.
"I spoke with Liara," Shepard commented, walking down the stairs that led to the sofas and their bed.
"What did she say?" asked Garrus intrigued. He followed her and placed a hand on her waist when he reached her.
"I'll tell you in the morning," said the Commander turning to face the turian, with a partial smile on her face. "Right now, think we could just lay on the bed and talk about something else? Something that doesn't involve the things that could kill us, or the things we could kill?"
"I think I could manage to do that," he said taking her hand and leading her to the bed.
They cuddled on the bed, looking up at the window above them and the stars. A comfortable silence set between them. They didn't need to speak, they just needed each other.
"Garrus?" said Shepard after a long while, looking up at the infinite universe through the ceiling window.
"Huh?" asked Vakarian, a little startled by her voice because the silence had been too deep and lengthy.
"Tell me about the spirits," she requested in a soft tone, swiveling her head a little so she could meet his eyes.
"I thought you weren't interested in religion," he commented, pulling her a little closer.
"Normally I wasn't, but a religion with a bar in heaven?" the Commander said smiling. "I think I'm in. Tell me more."