AN: So this might be the last update for a while. As part of my new job, I'm being sent to London for a month and I have no idea what sort of time I'll get to work on this. Effectively, it has to be put on hold for the forseeable future. I though, rather than leave it on a cliffhangar for now, that I would update this last part so at least there's something to enjoy in my absence.
The Hot Lab was, ironically, as frigidly cold as everywhere else in Peak 15. So cold, in fact, that a permanent freezing frost seemed to hang in the air and cling to every still surface. The walls were made from glass, part of large, reinforced cages which were empty. In the centre was a raised platform held up by four spindly legs and dotted with computer consoles and laboratory equipment. Beneath it was another platform that seemed shrunken through the floor and was marked to hold empty canisters. There were two raised walkways that ran parallel down the length of the Lab to the other exit across from them. It was dimly lit like the rest of the Facility, filled with a sort of inherit melancholy while the cold seemed to freeze any positive or warm thought instantly. It was hard not to feel the spirit being sapped by the entirety of Peak 15 but the Hot Labs seemed to be the epicentre of it all, the place that dragged the soul deepest of all, the one point at which happiness seemed to be an unreachable luxury.
That sensation could have been magnified by the obvious devastation that had been wrought here by the Rachni. There were bodies everywhere; human, salarian, asari...some looked as though they were just asleep but others seemed to have been attacked with a meat cleaver with splatters and pools of frozen blood dotted across the floor. To Shepard, it looked like a battlefield, with only the smell lacking in the minefield of her memories. Of course, it was a hard thing to forget, the smell of battle. She shook her head, bringing her weapon up. Benezia was here.
There she was, standing on one of the walkways and looking into the only occupied cell. It was a Rachni, larger than the others and strangely quiet, as if cowed by the presence of her observer. Even if Shepard had not known what the Matriarch had looked like, she could have told this was her target. She looked strikingly like Liara, with the same eyes and the same nose though with a piece of skin decoration at the bottom of her chin. She looked like a more refined Liara, a regal figure for whom authority was not a dress or a skin but an effortless gift that came as naturally as breathing. She wore an ornate head piece that looked part religious and part helmet while her dress was cut to be revealing at the top and restrained at the bottom. She did not seem to have noticed the team as they approached her, spreading out with weapons raised.
"Do you know the privilege of motherhood, Commander Shepard?" She asked, her voice deep and full of gravitas, "there is power in creating life, in shaping it's destiny, bending it towards happiness or despair." she did not turn.
"Matriarch Benezia," Shepard chose to ignore her rather cryptic declaration, peering down her scope, "on behalf of the Citadel Council, you are under arrest for treason. You may come quietly but any attempts to resist arrest will be dealt with accordingly."
"Treason," the Matriarch snorted, seemingly unconcerned with Shepard's words, "what is treason? Is it treason to have seen the future? Is it treason to know the destiny of the galaxy?" she was still looking at the Rachni, "her children were to be ours, an army to crush all before them, to turn the oncoming tide." she shook her head, "but you do not understand that, do you Commander? You will never understand."
She finally turned to look on Shepard's party and her eyes went to Liara. The Commander was waiting to see a flicker, some sign of recognition but there was nothing. Benezia may as well have been looking at Garrus for all the impact her daughter's presence had,
"I will not be swayed from my task, no matter who you dragged here with you."
"I came because I wanted to," Liara spoke up before Shepard could say the same thing, the hurt so clear in her voice it made the human wince, "I came because...because I had to know...to see..."
"To see what, Liara? Did you think that I had gone mad? Did you think me evil? Where you expecting to see a monster maybe? What were you looking for? Did you hope to turn me from my path? Save me from my destiny?"
"I..." Liara's bottom lip was quivering, "I don't..."
"I will not be turned by anyone, not even you, Liara." Benezia's words were final, "you have made your decision as I have made mine. I will take no pleasure from necessity." She raised her arms, "you must die."
"Hostile! Take her down!" Shepard called, squeezing the trigger on her rifle. The Lab shuddered to the staggered volley of weapons fire as four rifles and two shotguns opened up on the Asari. In the blink of an eye, a wall of pure light appeared between them and their target, shots absorbed harmlessly into the energy field.
"Barrier!" Shepard called, "Flank her, flank her!"
Garrus and Kaidan went to move to the other walkway but Benezia threw out another arm. She caught them in a sheath of biotic power and threw them against the glass wall, cracking it on their impact.
Wrex roared and charged forward. He managed a single shot before he too was encased in energy, only he had frozen as surely as water in this place, like a monument to the aggression of his race. Shepard caught Liara by the arm as the biotics flew, throwing the shell-shocked scientist behind a crate as a blue orb caught Ashley and had her slowly ascend helplessly towards the ceiling.
Shepard leant around the crate and fired another burst but found a barrier appear to take the blows in place of her target. The human swore and ducked back into cover, going to her radio, "Report, who's still with me."
"I'm here ma'am," Garrus groaned, his voice heavy, "Kaidan's here too. He's out cold but he's fine. We're pinned here."
"I'm here too Shepard," Tali gulped, "what are we going to do? We can't past her biotics-" there was a yelp down the radio preceded by the splintering of wood before Shepard barely caught sight of Tali hurtling in mid-air across the room. Without thinking, Shepard stepped out of cover and caught her in her own biotic bubble, letting the Quarian down gently.
In that moment, she felt herself shrouded in the sort of warmth one normally only got from sinking into a hot bath, the sense of being surrounded by liquid heat. Shepard cursed as she recognised the sensation of being biotically lifted. She closed her eyes and concentrated, focusing hard on her lessons, ignoring the weightlessness;
'Remember Lauren, biotics will negate one another in contact. If you are ever attacked by a biotic, remember to use your own to get free. All you need to do is concentrate.'
Shepard emptied her mind of all thoughts, focusing on nothing but her hands, on channelling her strength to them, as if she could direct her very blood to her fingertips. She was floating, she knew she was hovering in mid air but she shook that from her mind. She focused on creating a bubble around herself, opening her palms to give a physical context to something that existed only in her mind. She started to shiver. This bubble she was trying to create was taking a lot of effort.
'Her biotics are negating mine...' She thought with a little twitch of panic. She had never fought a Matriarch before but she had heard of their gifts. That she could be outmatched...
Concentrate...
She was moving. She ignored it. She focused on the bubble. There was a spark from her fingers.
Come on...you can do it...
No bubble came from her palms, it was not what she had imagined, but instead it was more like a firework. A single burst of biotic energy to neutralise Benezia's field. She fell. She fell for longer than she had been expecting too and hit the ground with a thud. Her head was spinning, her arms felt like lead. Damn, she had not needed to channel her power like that for a very long time. She was drained. She struggled to her knees, hand scrambling for her pistol. She had lost her rifle somewhere...she needed a gun. She felt vulnerable without one.
She could feel the tingle again as she slumped onto her side, feeling like she was back in heavy gravity training after having run a marathon. She looked up to see one of the crates above her head, held by Benezia in one hand while she used the other to block a shotgun blast from Tali. She raised a hand to try and repel the incoming crate but she couldn't...it was too much energy...too much after fighting off a Matriarch's anger.
The box lurched down towards her and stopped. Shepard looked over to see Liara standing with her arm outstretched, expression grim. It was her eyes that the human noticed most of all; they were not dead as they had been for so long, devoid of expression or emotion but filled with a wild, untameable rage. The crate that had been aimed for Shepard instead flew for Benezia, forcing a quick swipe from the Matriarch as she threw it against the wall, shattering another cage.
Liara was in full swing now, flinging item after item towards her. Crates, tool-kits, shards of glass and even her companion's dropped weapons, were used as ammunition. Benezia was deflecting them but her moves were becoming increasingly hectic and undisciplined. She was trying to block the projectiles thrown at her, keep the bullets from striking her, keeping Ashley in the air and Wrex frozen. Even thinking of the energy needed to do that made the Shepard's stomach churn. Even a Matriarch could only keep all that up for so long. She stumbled back as Shepard made it to her feet, inhaled deeply and moved forward. Liara was approaching too, her hands held up, ready to react, eyes narrowed. Abruptly, Ashley fell to the ground and Wrex stumbled forward and tripped. Benezia's power was broken.
She looked up as the pair approached, the hatred so raw in her features that Shepard nearly pulled the trigger there. Only the presence of the Archaeologist beside her stayed her finger. With Liara at her side, she felt safe,
"This is not over!" Benezia said, her voice heavy with exertion, completely drained, "Saren is unstoppable. His word is divine. You cannot make me betray him I..." she stopped with a deep breath. In that second, it was as if they were speaking to a whole other person. The visage of cruelty lifted and in its place was something soft, something warm and welcoming. It was the face of someone wise, someone willing to listen as much as speak.
"M-mother?" Liara asked hesitantly.
"You must listen to me," her voice was urgent, "I have broken his control but it is only for a brief time. Saren's control is strong and absolute. His ship, that is the source of his power. With it, he can bend others to his will, make them do anything and everything. It is more than this, it is a Dreadnought of tremendous firepower, more than the geth could ever hope to manage. He sent me here to find the Mu Relay. It will lead him to the Conduit..."
"The Mu Relay...lost in the heart of Rachni territory," Liara murmured so softly that Shepard barely heard it.
Benezia nodded with a ghost of a smile, "yes. Rachni Queen's pass their memories down to their children. I took the location from the mind of this Queen...I was not gentle..."
"Where is it? Matriarch, we need that location to stop him." Shepard asked, her own voice taking on urgency as Benezia's became slower and weaker, as if every word as a herculean effort.
"You will need more than this..." she handed over a data chip, "...but it will help. Before you go...I ask one favour..."
"Anything," Shepard nodded, Liara leant forward too.
"Kill me."
"What?" Shepard recoiled.
"Mother no! You can fight him! You can win! For me!" Liara lunged forward as if to catch Benezia but the woman threw her off.
"Let me go, Liara! My mind has been corrupted! I am not myself and I never will be again! If you do not, then I will fight you! I may kill one of you! That would be Saren's will. This choice I make for myself. I would rather die as myself than live as his puppet any longer. Please! I beg you..."
"Benezia...I..." Shepard looked at Liara as tears began to steam down the young asari's face, "I can't..."
"Please Commander. From one soldier to another. Grant me a warrior's death." Benezia gave a loud gasp, "Hurry! I can feel him...returning...stronger than ever!"
"Mother..." Liara went to hold her but again, Benezia stopped her.
"I'm so proud of you Liara, my Little Wing" The woman smiled, "Let my last memory be of the most precious thing in the galaxy to me. Shepard, do it now."
The human hesitated a second longer, having forgotten about the pistol in her hand. Slowly, she brought it up. It felt like she was trying to lift a building in one hand. Benezia was looking right at her, expression filled only with contentment. Liara had turned away, her head buried in her hands.
"I'm sorry," Shepard whispered to the Matriarch.
"I am not." was the frank reply, eyes going to Liara's back, "Look after her for me."
"I will." Shepard squeezed gently on the trigger, slowly. Painfully slowly. She closed her eyes as the sound of the shot rang out in the confined space.
Liara howled.
In seconds, Ashley and Tali were there, pulling her away, preventing her from turning around. Shepard stared after her, then at the gun in her hand. She dropped it, as if it had just burnt her flesh through her gauntlet. God. She felt sick. She tried not to look at Benezia's form but one glance was all it took for it to be scarred forever into her mind's eye.
"Hmmm," Wrex had joined her, weapon in his hands, "at least she went out the right way."
"She did," Shepard said quietly, numbly.
"So, you want to kill this thing and head back?" Wrex nodded to the Rachni Queen in the tank. She become much more animated since Benezia had gone, twitching, looking up at Shepard and Wrex as they gazed down upon her.
"Shepard, left!" Garrus called from somewhere else in the room.
Acting on instinct, Shepard spun, arm raised, to find herself staring at a dead asari scientist. She was quite clearly dead, judging from the massive cut that seemed to carved open her skull. That didn't stop Wrex putting a volley into her chest with no conceivable effect.
"This one serves as our voice. We cannot sing, not in these low spaces. Your musics are colourless..." The Asari's voice echoed...deep and heavy.
"What?" Shepard glanced between the Asari and the Queen, "is that you? Am I speaking to the Queen?"
"Yes...we sing for those you thought lost. We sing for the forgotten and our children. We are Rachni."
"Grrr, Shepard, we should be killing this thing, not speaking to it!" Wrex gripped his gun tighter.
"What do you want?" Shepard ignored him, "why are you attacking us?"
"Our children were taken from us, we did not sing to them. They lost their minds in the silence..."
"Makes sense," Garrus had joined the pair, "if no one had talked to me for all of my childhood, I wouldn't be quite sane."
"No one's talking to you now turian." Wrex warned, "we're finishing this."
"We do not wish harm upon you...the war...we remember only the songs of our mother...her screams...as our song become soured, every spectrum corrupted by the same, inky black note...and we sang no longer in our own melodies...we wish peace...a chance to rebuild...we ask...redemption..."
"Bullshit-" Wrex shouted.
"-and your children?" Shepard shouted over him, "what of them?"
"They cannot be saved. End their lives. It will be a mercy."
A mercy killing. She felt sick again as the infantile images of Benezia sprawled out before her came flooding back into her mind. More.
"Okay, w-we'll do it." Shepard hesitated, more than she meant to.
"And what...of us...?" The dead scientist asked, "...will you give us...a chance...to start a new...?"
"Shepard, you can't consider anything this monster says to be true!" Wrex urged, "my people spilled their blood across half the galaxy to end this threat! You can't let them come back!"
"The Krogan went too far," Garrus frowned, "total genocide cannot be excused."
"Stay out of this turian! What do you know of 'too far'!" Wrex took a step towards him. Shepard took a step back to separate them while hesitating.
To release the Rachni back into the galaxy? She knew all about what they had done during the wars, how they had nearly destroyed the Council races. What Wrex said was true. Millions of his people died to throw them back. Then again...Garrus made a very good point. Was total genocide ever the right course of action? Even to species considered monsters? Shepard looked back at Benezia's body, still. Are monsters always such? Or do they want to be better than they are?
"Shepard...you need to make a decision," Garrus whispered, "this button will release the Queen's cage into the ice. This one will release toxic gasses into the tank to kill her. It's your choice."
Shepard leant in, finger hovering over the control panel and, without really being aware of what was happening, she pressed one of the buttons. The cage whined loudly and with a buzzing alarm, began to rise.
"No! What have you done!" Wrex cried as he pushed Shepard out of the way, the Commander nearly losing her feet, as he frantically checking the control panel, but it was too late. The cage had reached maximum elevation and had slid open, granting the Queen her cherished freedom and survival. As she left, the dead asari uttered one final sentence before dropping to the ground like a sack of potatoes,
"We will sing of your forgiveness! We will return...when we are ready...to live...with you..."
Wrex wheeled on her, his expression like that of a feral animal, anger so hot in his eyes that Shepard almost melted there and then. He checked himself though, when he saw Kaidan beside her, rifle in his arms, expression steady and no doubt feeling Garrus behind him. With a noise somewhere between a snort and spit, he turned away and followed Liara, Ashley and Tali out of the room. Shepard felt drained as she watched him go, her justifications dying on her lips. She was pretty sure she had never felt so cold, empty and drained after a victory...
