Disclaimer: I don't own Mass Effect

A/N - Thank you to everyone who took time out to review my last chapter. Your reviews mean the world to me and I love hearing from you. I know I say it each chapter, but it doesn't make it any less true!

I'm back at work now so updates may come every week and a half instead of weekly. Sorry about that - I'm just super busy. I'll still try to stick to my weekly deadline! Enjoy this chapter!


Thessia, once the crown jewel of the galaxy, was burning.

Flames danced through the city, orange tongues that spiralled hungrily into a cloudless grey sky, while red lasers cut through the buildings with hellish flashes of light. Smoke from the fires filled the air with billowing clouds that seemed to dance with the movement of reapers, their dark shapes casting long shadows on what was left of Thessia's largest city.

Shepard crouched behind a toppled wall and wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of one hand. The heat on Thessia was incredible and it beat against her skin like the hot breath of a monster, reeking of blood, death and burned flesh. Since their hot drop into the city a few hours ago, Shepard, Garrus and Liara had done nothing but fight, and the humid air and high temperatures were taking their toll.

They'd started out fighting alongside a team of asari commandos, but they'd been recalled and redistributed over an hour ago to assist in the evacuation of civilians. Shepard couldn't blame them; Thessia was falling apart, and the Normandy team was making progress without them. The commandos were probably better off helping their own people anyway, because even with their advanced biotics and their technological superiority, the reapers were ripping the asari apart at the seams.

"Watch your five, Shepard!" Garrus' voice sounded in her earpiece. "You've got a swarm of husks heading your way."

Grunting, Rennah pushed herself to her feet and spied the husks crawling through the rubble, their blue eyes glowing like beacons in the gloom. She gathered her biotics and unleashed a shockwave, not at the husks, but at a huge slab of cement which toppled over onto the swarm, squishing several of them flat. Garrus sniped the remainder of them with well-placed rounds to their heads, and silence returned to their little corner of hell.

Shepard scanned the area for more reapers troops and, finding none, she sank back down behind cover. Her hands trembled as she tore open an energy gel and sucked it down, desperate to replenish her waning energy levels. The gel tasted of chemicals and sugar, but she swallowed it anyway. Her biotics were taking a hammering and a bone-deep ache of weariness had settled inside of her body. The gel would help, but she longed for real food. Even one of James' tasteless protein bars would have gone down good right about now.

She tossed the crumpled wrapper on the ground and pressed her hand to the transceiver in her ear. "Okay kids, break time's over. Let's move out."

"Roger that, Shepard."

Garrus and Liara appeared from inside the burnt-out shell of a building, both of them splattered with the remains of a banshee that Shepard had taken out with a Hydra Missile. How long ago had she killed that hideous shrieking thing? An hour? Fifteen minutes? Time seemed to have no place in the middle of a fight, though Rennah knew they'd been planet side for a few hours at least. Garrus was holding up fine, but Liara looked to be in shock as well as completely exhausted.

Bringing her with was a mistake, Shepard reflected as she watched her friends pick their way through the rubble. Seeing her beloved home world in ruins was taking a heavy toll on the young asari, and her luminous blue eyes were heavy with grief. Part of Rennah wanted to comfort her, but both she and Garrus knew that Liara needed some time to process.

Besides, they didn't have time to stop and hold Liara's hand. They were here to retrieve a mystery artefact from the Temple of Athame. An artefact that Tevos thought might help them discover the missing component from the Crucible; the mysterious Catalyst.

"How far to the temple?" Shepard checked her thermal clip as she spoke, trying to ignore the faint throbbing from her missing eye.

Her socket always ached, sometimes so badly that she thought her eye was still there, but when she used her biotics the pain got worse, and today was the hardest she'd pushed herself since the injury. The pain, normally manageable, had built up and now sharp needles of agony were stabbing at her socket. On the plus side, Miranda's VI was working well and her depth perception and focusing was infinitely better than it had been. The biggest problem she had was the blind spot on her right; it felt as though a third of her visual range was gone.

"Not far." Rage and pain burned like twin infernos in Liara's normally gentle eyes. "The temple is beyond these buildings."

"Good." Garrus switched his rounds over to cryo and stretched, his ligaments cracking. "I'm getting sick of wading through husks, and I'm curious about what it is that Tevos sent us down to get."

Rennah nodded and followed Liara as she chose a path between the crumbling buildings and piles of twisted metal. "I'm curious about that myself. She was pretty evasive about it on the Citadel, and just spouted some crap about every race having secrets, and how in the wrong hands this artefact could tip the balance of power. The usual kind of holy-than-thou Tevos shit."

"Shepard, please." Liara glanced over her shoulder with a frown. "I know she may come across as being selfish, but she's only looking after her people. My people."

If she wanted to look after her people, she should have come to the war summit and joined forces with the rest of the council earlier. Instead of hiding away on the Citadel and acting as though the reapers were Earth's problem alone …

"Maybe," Shepard agreed reluctantly, keeping her thoughts to herself. "But by holding out on us, Tevos may have doomed Thessia and her people."

The asari sighed unhappily. "I hope you're wrong about that."

"So do I, Liara. Believe me."

The path widened and Shepard moved forward to take point as they left the relative safety of the rubble and crossed into exposed ground. She crouched reflectively as a harvester flew over, roaring and letting out piercing shrieks as a gunship followed it, firing relentlessly. Once it vanished she hurried on at a jog, determined to reach the temple and find the artefact so she could get back to the ship and away from this planet.

Her eyes narrowed and she glanced upwards, wondering how the Normandy was faring high above them.

As soon as they'd entered the system they'd been besieged by half a dozen ships ferrying refugees off the planet, all of them asking for assistance. Joker had wanted to go in guns blazing and distract the reapers to buy the rescue ships some time, but Shepard had forbidden it. Kaidan had the bridge while she was gone, and he had strict instructions to stay out of the fighting. It hurt to give the orders when so many asari were dying, but she couldn't risk the Normandy being damaged, or worse, destroyed

Rennah's thoughts lingered on James as she moved from cover to cover, alert for danger. Even the thought of him made her heart beat faster and her breath catch in her throat. Their evening together the night before had been like nothing she'd ever experienced, and the memories sent a rush of heat rolling through her body. She'd slept soundly in his arms, and in the morning, after they'd made love again, they'd slipped back into their respective roles as Commander and Lieutenant.

It was one of the things that she respected about James the most; that he could take a step back from their relationship and become a soldier again with ease. He understood her abilities and her leadership, and he in turn respected the boundaries of their relationship. It didn't mean that he liked watching her go off on dangerous missions without him, hell, she knew he hated it, but he knew better than to try to use their relationship to manipulate her.

He'd been down in the shuttle bay working on upgrading their weapons when they left, and one glance from him had been enough for her to know that he was going to worry about her until she got back. Nor could she blame him, one look at Thessia had been enough to worry her too, though she had every confidence in her own ability to get the job done and get out alive.

"Commander!" Garrus pulled up sharply behind a barricade, his mandibles flaring angrily as he peered around the corner. "We have two brutes up ahead."

"Is there another way?" She hated sneaking around, but brutes were dangerous and so far they'd managed to elude any they'd come across.

"No."

Shepard holstered her handgun and drew her shotgun. "Shit."

"My thoughts exactly."

"Liara? Are we good?" Shepard glanced at the asari, her blue eyes were focused on the distant shape of a huge Sovereign-class reaper destroying the city. "Liara?"

"Sorry, yes. We're good." Liara nodded and tore her eyes away. "The sooner we get past them, the sooner we can stop this slaughter."

"Okay. I'll take the brute on the right, you two take the one on the left." Rennah switched her shotgun to incendiary rounds and glanced around the corner at their targets. "Let's go."

She swung out from cover fast, focusing her biotics and hurling herself forward as she charged on a wave of energy. Charging always sent tingles of power thrumming through her body; it was as close to flying as a human could come. The power swelled within her as she closed in on the brute, and Shepard spared a thought for biotics like Kaidan, who would never know what it was like to gather all their energy up and expend it in one big burst of speed and power.

The brute rose up ahead of her, growing larger and larger until its ugly twisted form filled her vision. She slammed into it hard, her shoulder charge knocking it headlong into some twisted metal pipes. It roared and shook its head as it clambered to its feet, but Rennah barely heard it as she gathered her remaining biotic power into a blindingly bright biotic attack and used a nova to fry it senseless.

The energy tore through her body like lightning, exploding into the brute and knocking it senseless, but it still didn't go down, and she backed away quickly. Damn, this brute is one tough bastard! When biotics failed there were always guns, and Rennah grimaced as she unloaded her shotgun into it, adrenaline surging through her veins.

Finally, it crashed to its knees and stared at her stupidly for a moment, its twisted turian features frozen into an almost mechanical snarl. Then it let out a small groan and sagged to the ground, its huge bulk going still as dark fluids leaked from its mouth.

She took a step towards it, intending to make sure it was down for good, when a roar of pain sounded from behind her. Shepard felt the air move around her a moment before a ten-ton shuttle car slammed into her. Or maybe it was a really pissed or krogan warlord. Or a brute. Whatever it was, it smashed into her like a wrecking ball and she was knocked though the air.

Shepard bit back a yelp of pain as she was slammed into chunks of cement and twisted steel, her vision spinning dangerously. She hit a metal beam sticking out of the ground and her armour did little to dull the pain of the high impact collision, as pain radiated through her hips and lower back. For a second she felt as though she was hanging suspended in the air, then she crumpled to the dusty ground in agony.

Confused, she stared dazedly up at the brute that had sent her flying, then her survival instincts kicked in and with a muffled curse of pain Shepard rolled to her feet. The brute roared and she ignoring the searing pain in her hips as she scrambled out of the way of its second charge. Get away! Run! Hide! Her brain screamed at her in primal terror; a terror that threatened to overwhelm her common sense as pain lanced through her body and she stumbled to the ground.

The brute turned and readied a third charge, its beady eyes focusing on her … then it's body snapped to the side and it roared as Garrus sniped it in the head with a concussive round. It screamed in agony and whirled to face the turian, but Liara caught it with a singularity and Garrus finished it off with another round to the head. It died like its brother had; twitching on the ground and bleeding black blood.

Relieved, Shepard slumped to the ground and heard the tell-tale hiss of her suit injecting her with a localised shot of medigel and anaesthetic. Her hip hurt badly enough that she knew she'd done something nasty to it. Maybe a fracture, or if she was lucky it might only be a pinched nerve, severe bruising or a pulled muscle.

All she knew was that it hurt.

"Spirits, Shepard!" Garrus made his way to her and offered her a hand as she climbed unsteadily to her feet. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Rennah stretched to one side and winced as a jolt of pain shot down her back. "What the hell happened?"

Liara met her eyes guiltily. "It was my fault. My stasis failed."

"Well, don't let it happen again. I've seen you hold brutes for much longer before …" Shepard bit off the end of her words with a grimace, and winced as her suit let out a second hiss and injected more localised pain killers into her.

If Liara responded, she never heard her.

They continued forward as soon as the pain faded to a bearable level. Her body ached terribly, but Shepard knew she could still move and fight, so she pushed on. They made it the rest of the way without anything more significant than a harvester flyby and a few rogue husks, who announced themselves with their ghoulish screams as they scampered towards them. Liara made short work of the husks, flinging them away with vicious biotic swats that sent them reeling into buildings with satisfying crunches.

When they reached the entrance, Shepard froze in surprise; the temple was one of the most beautiful buildings she had ever seen. It had been elegantly built, with graceful arches and clean lines that stretched high into the sky, as though reaching out towards the goddess Athame herself. The age of the building impressed her, though she was less impressed by the barrier blocking their way that, in her eyes, was military grade and overkill for temple security.

"You asari take your religion seriously." Garrus commented as Liara hacked the barrier down and they proceeded inside.

She nodded and frowned slightly. "It is … unusual. No other temple is guarded so heavily."

The inside of the temple was blissfully cold, and Shepard grinned in amusement as she thanked the goddess that the asari had climate control in their temples. The cool interior and dim lighting made the room seem cave-like as it stretched around them, though the cavernous space was dominated by a huge statue of Athame. Shepard let her vision adjust and peered around, expecting to see the team of scientists that Tevos had arranged to meet them here, but the temple was empty.

"What exactly are we looking for again?" Garrus stood beside her and sniffed at the earthy coolness in the air. "Everything in here seems like it could be an artefact."

"You're right about that." Shepard ran her eyes over row after row of display cases filled with strange and ancient looking objects. "Tevos never said what it was, so it could be anything."

"Most of these relate to the Goddess Athame." Liara blinked as she adjusted to the dim lighting. "I think we should look around and see if anything stands out."

Shepard nodded and moved off, glancing in each case as she moved past. Most of them seemed to be old statues or tattered pieces of parchment, a few of the statues looked suspiciously like Javik, though she kept her thoughts to herself. The asari were a proud people, and Liara was having a bad enough day without her pointing out that the Goddess Athame appeared to resemble a prothean. As she moved closer to the front of the temple her skin began to feel tight and itchy and something fluttered in the back of her mind, like a loose thread tickling her memories.

She edged forward and came to a stop at the sight of two bodies sprawled on the floor. The missing scientists? Their throats had been slit from ear to ear, and blood had pooled around them, fresh enough that it was still cherry red and uncoagulated. Reapers didn't do this. Shepard thought as she crouched next to them, checking for identification or other marks. The reapers will rip you to shreds, but they won't slit your throat.

"Over here." She waved to Liara and Garrus. "I think I've found our scientists."

Liara's mouth tightened angrily when she saw the bodies. "Goddess! Who could have done this?"

"Not reapers, that's for sure." Shepard glanced around, a creeping sensation dancing over her skin. "Keep your eyes open. Something tells me we're not alone in here."

The fluttering, tickling sensation pulled tightly inside of her head again and Shepard moved to the huge statue of Athame, looking up at it and frowning. She could hear something inside of her head, a sound almost like white noise, and it grew louder as she moved to the statue. Catching her lip between her teeth, she reached out a hand and gasped as energy, similar to a biotic jolt, ran down her arm and the statue began to glow.

"A beacon!" Liara exclaimed from behind her. "It's reacting to you, Shepard! Perhaps it's the cypher you got on Feros?"

"Could be." Shepard placed her hand more firmly on the console at the foot of the statue and the beacon activated fully, coming alive in a burst of energy that crashed over her in a tingling wave.

A glowing orb rose out of the beacon and scanned her, and Shepard repressed a shiver as the green light tingled over her. She could almost hear it inside of her head; a rushing chittering sound that reminded her of the white noise she'd heard on Horizon when she woke up Javik. The light passed over her painlessly and the orb changed into a prothean form, focusing on her with its holographic eyes.

"Post prothean cycle confirmed." It spoke in a hollow monotone voice and cast its gaze around the room, pausing to watch the destruction going on outside. "Reaper presence detected. System shutting down …"

"No!" Liara spoke before Shepard could, stepping forward with her hand outstretched. "We need answers! We need your help!"

Rennah stepped into the path of the holographic prothean. "Wait, we only need the answer to one question."

The projection paused and seemed to look at her, its eyes curious. "To what question?"

"I need to know what the catalyst is, so we can finish building the crucible." She held its gaze as it watched her, appearing to process her words.

It shook its head. "It is too late, the reapers are already here. Extinction is inevitable …"

"Screw that." Shepard glared at the projection as resentment burned through her. How dare this thing judge us as being beyond help! "We can still beat them, all we need is this one thing. Just because you couldn't stop them, doesn't mean that we can't."

It seemed to ponder her words again. "We failed because we were sabotaged from within. A splinter group argued for us to control the reapers rather than destroy them. In the end, our people waged war not only with the reapers, but with ourselves. We discovered too late that the separatists were already indoctrinated."

"Cerberus." Garrus growled and met her gaze meaningfully.

She nodded. "We face the same problem, which is why we need the catalyst. Trillions of lives are at risk …"

"That is unimportant. The reapers are already here, which means you are too late."

"Bullshit!" Rennah glared angrily at the glowing prothean. "We found your plans and the crucible is already being built. We just need the catalyst! If you don't tell me, then you're condemning every living being in our galaxy to death!"

"They are not our plans. Each cycle adds to it, but none have ever defeated the reapers with it." It spoke dispassionately, as though uninterested in her cycle's plight.

"We'll be the first then." Adrenaline surged though her as she stepped close, unwilling to give up and take no for an answer. "Just tell us what the catalyst is! Give us the chance to destroy them!"

"Please! We can do this." Liara added her voice to the argument, her eyes reflecting the green light of the hologram. "What do you have to lose?"

Finally, after what seemed like an age, the projection nodded. "Very well. If you have followed the plans for the crucible I will interface with your system and show you the …" It froze, spinning around to face the entrance of the temple. "Indoctrinated presence detected. Activating security protocol."

It vanished in a flash and Rennah swung around as a shadow fell over them, stretching the length of temple as someone stepped in front of the light. She knew the silhouette almost immediately; Kai Leng. They'd only met face to face once before when he'd tried to help Udina with the coup attempt, but the memory of that day was enough to send a wave of blistering hate burning through her veins.

He was the one who killed Thane!

"You!" She ground her teeth and drew her gun, ignoring the sound of the gunship hovering outside. "What do you want?"

Kai Leng smiled as he came closer, pleased to have taken them by surprise. "Your attention, of course. The Illusive Man would like to speak with you."

He flicked a holo-ball into the air and the Illusive Man's form slowly took shape, looking much the same as he had back on Mars when he appeared to her then. The sight of him fanned the flames of the anger inside of her, and when he flashed her a mocking smile she clenched her teeth so hard they creaked.

"Shepard." He purred her name, as though chastising a naughty child. "It's been too long. I was hoping to have had you back at my side months ago."

She ignored him. "What do you want?"

"Lots of things." He smiled. "But mostly I want to control the reapers and put humanity back on top."

"Not going to happen." Shepard spat on the ground in front of him, tightening her hold on her gun and wishing she could shoot him. "We're going to destroy them."

The Illusive Man shook his head. "Oh Shepard, when are you going to wake up? I tried to do the right thing and bring you back in so we could work together. You've a valuable asset and with you on our side the Alliance, humanity, and even the aliens would follow our lead."

"So that's why you've been after me." She scowled. "I'd never join you."

He chuckled and walked past her to look at the beacon. "You might be surprised. Our methods of persuasion are highly effective."

"You indoctrinate people." Liara was watching Kai Leng, but she glanced at the hologram quickly. "You make slaves out of them. You're no better than the reapers."

The Illusive Man glanced at Liara in amusement. "The reapers are destroying humans, I'm preserving them."

"Well, you're not going to be preserving me." Rennah focused her gun at the holo-ball, and flashed him a brittle smile. "I'm going to destroy the reapers."

"That will gain us nothing." He waved his hand dismissively. "The reapers could wipe out all organic life if they wanted to, but what they really want is to control us. Think about it, with the crucible we would be the ones in charge. We could control them."

"I think you've gotten a little too close to the enemy." Shepard glared at him. "I know the sound of indoctrination when I hear it."

The Illusive Man spun to face her, putting the beacon at his back as he gave her a patronising look. "Don't be stupid, Shepard. I see everything more clearly now, that's all. I was foolish to think you could ever understand something like this. You're a killer, a well-respected killer, but a killer nonetheless and the subtleties of control are lost on you."

"Probably." She sighted on the holo-ball and pulled the trigger. "I always did like destroying things."

Her shot hit the ball directly, and the hologram began to dissipate as it fell to the ground sparking. The Illusive Man's voice came out in a final broken statement. "Leng, get the data I need and bring it to me. If you can't persuade the commander to join us, then dispose of her."

"Gladly."

Rennah swung around to face the assassin, anger surging through her once more as he drew his sword and smiled at her creepily. The Illusive Man was a crazy son of a bitch, but he was right about one thing; she was a killer, and she'd be damned if she'd let herself get taken out by Kai Leng.

Not when she still owed him a knife to the chest for Thane.


A/N - I know this wasn't the most exciting chapter, but everything is building. The next chapter will be interesting.

I'd love to know what you thought! :)