James

It neither alarmed nor surprised Jim that Sarah absconded with his turian guest – the woman always had her own agenda, and she knew turians far better than he did. He could only hazard a guess on what she exactly intended, but the results … the results he could never have anticipated.

"Don't look at me like that," said Sarah as she strolled up the boarding ramp of Hyperion, shaking off some of the dust caked on her boots with each step. Jim, arms already folded, just shrugged, waiting for the explanation. "Yeah, I have a good one. Pretty sure we're allies with the zerg now. They're sending over their scientist."

Jim glanced at Tarquin, the son of Adrien Victus, expecting some manner of contradiction. The turian gave him a glance as tired as it was grim. No contradiction was forthcoming.

"Okay. Zerg. Allies. Scientist." Jim paused. "I feel like I'm missing some steps, here. Pretty sure zerg don't have allies, they just keep people in the pantry."

"Liara's the real deal, Jim," said Sarah. She nodded to Tarquin, who sighed.

"I don't know terrans and I don't know zerg. But I do know we are out of options, and we stepped in and out of a zerg hive cluster without incident."

"That's … not sure that's happened before." Jim ran a thumb through the coarse hair on his chin. "Huh. Well, I know Sarah by character and Tarquin by reputation. You sure this is on the level?"

Something let off a muffled boom in the distance. Pebbles of concrete shifted across the surface of Tuchanka. Jim thought he heard an indignant grunt, followed by a reluctant and slow shifting of mass.

"That'll be the scientist." Sarah glanced behind her, down the ramp. She bit her lip. "Yeah, I think they're on the level. Crossing my little telepath heart." She wrinkled her nose. "Damn, he's ugly."

Ugly might have been an understatement. What gradually slithered to the base of Hyperion's combined the worst elements of anything that Jim had seen of the zerg. A vertically slit mouth, continually drooling some manner of foul substance. Four tendrils ribbed with blades at their tips spread from the rear of his slug-like "torso" which also left behind a trail of foul substance. Four arms, shorter than the clawed tendrils, jutted from its chest, its fingers unnaturally long and prone to twitching. Yet, when it stared up the ramp at the three of them, it somehow put Jim in mind of an old bloodhound that had just been forced to get up from its owner's bed.

"Terrans. Turian." Its voice came low and gurgling, and Jim instantly felt the urge to draw his pistol. Its gaze felt equally hostile, condescending, yet also assessing. It turned to Sarah, ignoring Tarquin and Jim. "Queen of Ruins requests assistance with cure. Told come aboard." It did not sound remotely happy with this chain of events. "Am Abathur. Spinner of strands." It paused before speaking with surprising venom. "Told not to infest krogan."

"Yeah, we've got enough infested krogan," said Jim, trying to keep his voice steady. Abathur turned to face him, looking down on him as if he were the bug. "Uhh, I'm just trying to keep up with recent events. You sure we're not going to have a problem?"

"Queen of Ruins demands obedience," muttered Abathur. "Happy to not help. Prefer leviathan. Prefer to rain zerg from skies on Reapers. Told not to. Refused?"

Jim gritted his teeth before feeling for his earpiece. "Matt?"

"Yeah? Are the two runaways on board?"

"Yeah." Jim shut his eyes tight. "Matt, they brought back a guest. I think you need to see this. It's your ship after all." He paused, thinking. "Uh, bring the docs, too."

If waiting on the ramp with a giant slug monster felt awkward, it was nothing compared to seeing Matt's expression upon reaching the ramp. The younger man always had a certain steadiness about him – seeing his eyes practically burst from his head couldn't help but make Jim grin a little.

"Jesus Christ!"

"No. Abathur." The zerg immediately turned its attention to the other two figures at the top of the ramp. Its gaze fixed on Mordin, and it hissed.

"Emissary of Death!"

"You really are respected in all quarters, doctor," remarked Tarquin. Mordin ignored this, waving a gloved hand.

"Yes, quite. Familiar with title. Charming. Spoke with vorcha back at camp. Abathur? Fascinating. Never witnessed morphology before." Mordin hummed to himself for a moment. "If have time, would like to run tests."

"Will stay away from Abathur!" roared the beast, retreating down the ramp with a squelch. Jim glanced at Matt, whose jaw still stood an inch from the floor. "No tests. Was not informed of Emissary. Prefer not to board."

"Tough," growled Okeer, clearly affronted to be overlooked. He stepped forward, glowering. "You're the missing puzzle piece. We need a cure, and we need it now. How well do you know krogan DNA?"

"How well…" Now it was the zerg's turn to be affronted. It stood to its full (impressive) height and stared up the ramp at Okeer. "Have dissected, skewered, reassembled. Viscerator design, my design. Infested elcor, krogan, vorcha, asari…" It paused. "Turian, terran, yes. Few species worth effort. Krogan worth effort. Know krogan DNA? Know it down to smell and taste. How well does krogan know own DNA?"

"Hnngh." Okeer turned to Mordin. "This thing's dangerous. I'd rather have it as a trophy than a colleague. We take it out, we might actually do some lasting damage to the Zerg Swarm."

"Not time nor place!" Mordin shook his head vigorously. "Need zerg, need Abathur. Happy to accept as colleague, even without test samples." He glanced down to Abathur, and smiled. "Love to work with zerg, perhaps gain cultural perspective? Only ask – no infestation."

"Only ask, no experimentation." Abathur did seem to relent, however. "Infestation beneficial. Salarian nearing end of life. Zerg do not age." Abathur paused. "Also, could add wings."

"Wings! Marvelous!" Mordin's omnitool snapped out, and he began frantically tapping out notes. "Will have to go over benefits of horrific hyper-evolutionary virus later. For now, must undo damage of UED cure, come up with real cure. Proceed?" Mordin sniffed. "Slime trail corroding ramp."

"Yes. On ramp too long." Abathur finally fixed its gaze on the man ostensibly in charge, Matt Horner. "Need come aboard. Grant permission."

"Jim…" began Matt through gritted teeth. "Sarah…"

Jim lifted his hands. "Hey man, I got nothing to do with this."

"Sorry, Matt." Sarah looked down, brow furrowed in apparent contrition.

"Permission granted." Matt brought out his own omnitool and began a ship wide broadcast, fingers skating across the haptic interface. "Attention, please. This is your captain speaking. A giant slug monster is entering Hyperion. Please do not be alarmed and do not open fire…" He gritted his teeth. "…it has permission to be here."

Abathur paid the gawking crew members little mind as he slithered his way through Hyperion, pursued by a growing and increasingly irate crowd of folks on custodian duty who followed its passage. It would only pause to remark at any crew member who was a member of species it had not seen before.

"Batarian. Good eyes. Small brain. Worthless to Swarm."

"Asari. Impressive biotics. Always worth infesting."

"Elcor. Worthy addition to Swarm. Heavy worlders produce superior results."

"No vorcha? Ship is lacking."

"Zerg perspective fascinating, if narrow," said Mordin, who had never once put away his omnitool after initially producing it. He alone had the courage to remain in arm's reach of Abathur, something the zerg clearly did not appreciate. Damn, the one thing on this ship Abathur's afraid of and he just wants to study it. Actually … never mind, Abathur's right to be afraid.

Egon Stettman had already grumbled at Jim regarding the intrusion of the two alien doctors, but Mordin's chattiness and Okeer's, well, size convinced him to keep his mouth shut. Said mouth now hung open as Abathur squeezed into Hyperion's science lab, followed closely by the salarian and krogan.

"Uhh," said Egon, hands flapping up and down between his pockets and his mouth. "Uhh, Jim?"

"They're uh, they're gonna need to borrow the lab for a while." Jim did his best to sound apologetic, but at this point, the entire situation was just kinda funny. He tried to furrow his brow and look serious. "That all right with you?"

"Yes!" The word came high pitched and sudden, like a tea kettle finally reaching boiling. "Yes, absolutely! Krogans, salarians, um, whatever that-"

"Abathur."

"Abathurs, absolutely!" Egon began frantically backing out of the room, almost tripping over a stool as he did so. "Please, let me know when you gents are all done! Let me know, would you, Jim?"

"You'll get your lab back, Egon." Jim turned to Hyperion's newly formed science corps. He pointed at Mordin. "No experimenting on coworkers." Okeer. "No bloodraging." And Abathur. "No infesting. And try not to cover the place in ooze."

"Terran does not understand importance of oozing. Unsurprising." Abathur nonetheless inclined its head. "Eager to work. Bring us the strand sequences."

"You can work the computer, Mordin," grunted Okeer, staring Abathur down. "I want to keep an eye on this thing, to start at least."

"No hostility. Only cooperation." Abathur paused. "Amend. Hostile cooperation. Emissary of Death present."

"Present and delighted to be here!" called back Mordin. "Jim – presence no longer necessary. Will handle from here. Interested to see zerg mind at work!"

"Right. And I'll just be standing here," grumbled Okeer. He glared at Jim. "That thing gets out of line, I'll squish it."

"Why're you so nervous, doc? Thought infesting krogan was what you were all about."

The krogan doctor bared his teeth. "I've got a lot of reasons to crush every terran skull I come across, Raynor. Try not to give me any more. I've got work to do."

"Don't give me a reason to stop you." Jim gave Mordin a quick wave goodbye and departed, half tempted to remain behind and watch what would almost certainly be a madhouse within twenty minutes. Well, maybe between the three of them they could come up with something. God knows we could use a win.

As Jim exited the (ooze-covered) door of the science lab, he found the two runaways waiting for him. Sarah had her arms folded; Tarquin held a metal object in his hand.

"Your psi-screen. Sarah borrowed it."

"Matt's the captain. Technically it's his." Well, it is Raynor's Raiders, but this still ain't my ship. He still pocketed it, filing a mental note to return it later … maybe. He didn't know who he might be running into today. "Ya'll are looking at me like you got more craziness in store. Spill it."

Tarquin shook his head. "Need a general command meeting. With the Shroud gone, we need a way to rapidly disperse the cure. I have an idea."

"It's a good idea, Jim," said Sarah, glancing nervously at Tarquin. "Just … extreme. I can see Wrex not liking it."

"Tell you the truth, Sarah, I don't think Wrex is gonna like anything coming out of a terran or turian's mouth right now." Jim shrugged. "The hell with it, may as well update them on the zerg situation anyway." He reached for his earpiece. "Matt, buddy. We need to get Wrex and Shepard on the horn. Tarquin's got a plan on replacing the Shroud, or something."

"Replacing…" Tarquin sounded almost embarrassed. "No, this, this is about as far from replacement as one can get."

"You want Fenix on the line, too?" Matt's weary tone made Jim suspect he knew what he was about to say.

"Uhh, no. No, that's about a big a negatory as I can give you, man. Very bad idea."

"We'll need Liara, too," added Sarah. "I'll handle that, don't worry."

"I'm choosing to worry, darlin'." Jim took a glance back at the ooze covered doorway. From beyond, he could hear Okeer yelling angrily about something. Fortunately, it didn't sound like they were approaching violence just yet. "Yeah, I'm firmly on the side of "worrying," here."

Jim, it turned out, was far from the only one stuck on worrying when they reached the bridge's operations center. Matt Horner's eyes sported a few more crinkles at the edges than Jim was used to, and Tarquin, of all people, seemed to be getting increasingly agitated. By the time Wrex's image showed up on top of the table alongside Shepard's, Jim couldn't help but feel relief that the two of them seemed in (relatively) decent spirits. Wrex hadn't even smeared Shepard's skull against the floor! She gave him a little shimmering wave of the hand, which Jim returned.

"Not happy cutting the protoss out of this," muttered Matt to Jim as Jim sat down next to him.

"And yet that would be best." A voice, the same that had contacted before, emerging from the shadows. She was little more than a purple silhouette – probably some kind of psionic projection. She left no shadow and her footsteps made no sound. The image was blurry – whatever Liara was, she was content to only leave the general shape and eyes intact. But whatever she was, she was not really an asari, anymore. "I am the Queen of Ruins."

"Hmph. So we gathered." Wrex's image did not seem impressed, but it was easy to be dismissive of the zerg queen from such a safe distance. "I don't suppose you could get the viscerators the hell off our planet? They're stealing all the thresher maws."

"It is a work in progress." Liara waved the vague image of a clawed hand. "The question of a krogan cure. Do we have an answer?"

"That's still in progress," replied Matt Horner. "Your uh, scientist, is now onboard."

"Good. See that he is treated well." There was an awkward pause. "What is our purpose here?"

"Tarquin?" Sarah, nudging the turian forward. Tarquin heaved a heavy sigh and stood. All eyes were on him. He's young. A lot to live up to. Jim could understand that. But this wasn't the time to be shy nor humble. You got an idea, think it'll work? Let's hear it, Junior. Ideas are all we have to go on right now.

"The Shroud's gone. Such was our best method of mass distribution of a cure." Tarquin waited for a general acknowledgement of this. "My understanding that the Genophage was in fact originally distributed through it, so it was tried and tested. My solution … is not." He gave Wrex a long look, mandibles twitching. Come on, son. Let it out.

"There is a turian bomb under the Kelphic Valley. Planted after the krogan rebellions. Old, but with an approximate blast yield of 200 megatons."

If Jim had been sipping coffee, he might have spat it. Even Sarah had paled a little at the mention, and she had to have been reading Tarquin's mind. Wrex fixed Tarquin with a stare.

"A bomb. Two hundred megatons. Under the single greatest population center on the planet." Wrex issued a low rumble. "Turians…"

"We were sent here to dispose of it. It had long since outlived its purpose – but I think we can give it a new life, so to speak." Tarquin flicked his omnitool, now trying to outrun the growing sense of outrage in the room. "Fit the cure to it. Detonation in the high atmosphere – let the jet streams carry it across Tuchanka."

"Along with a hefty dose of radiation." Shepard looked more than a little worried. "There was a major nuclear meltdown back in the 20th century. Led to a lot of birth defects – jellyfish babies, they were called. Transparent skin and no bones. We're still tracking the particles as they move across the world – no realistic way to clean up. And that explosion wasn't even a kiloton…"

"We even got the launch facilities for that kind of thing?" asked Jim. "It's an old turian bomb. I don't think we can set up one of our silos at a command center and just, y'know, launch it…"

"I have its exact dimensions and weight," replied Tarquin. "I've thought about it. We just need to attach thrusters that will carry it upwards, and then detonate it remotely."

"This is literally rocket science, man," began Jim, but Sarah cut him off.

"What do you think, Wrex? It's your homeworld. Would you be comfortable setting off a nuke that large?"

"Well, the nuclear winter would certainly ruin the lovely nuclear winter we were already having." Wrex shrugged. "Prefer it out of the Kelphic Valley. And if some good can come of your turian bomb…"

"Yes, yes, mistakes were made," snapped Tarquin, finally finding conviction in his plan. "First we need to dig it up. Liara has offered her zerg for this purpose."

"I find it refreshing that we are being tasked with simple construction work instead of simply tearing things to shreds." It was tough to tell from the rough outline of her face, but Liara seemed to be smiling.

"We dig it up, we move it to solid ground – much of the Valley has been torn up by past wars and viscerators. We were hoping the terrans could lend a hand there."

"So they do need a launch platform, Jim," said Sarah, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Yeah. I'm sure Swann could rig something up and get some SCVs on it." Jim ran his hand through his beard. "Figure we can dig up enough thrusters to lift this thing?"

"The UED can handle that," said Shepard. "We still have a lot of know-how and supplies on Tuchanka. Nice to make good use of them, instead of … you know."

"Zerg, turians, and terrans," said Wrex, sounding more than a little bitter. "Finally coming together to save the krogan." Yeah. We've given the poor guy a lot of grief, collectively. Still, he would have to come to grips with it, one way or another. It wasn't like the Reapers were going to give them a timeout if they started scrapping with each other.

"Tarquin, if you give me the location of that bomb, we'll get a geo-surveying team going on an appropriate launch destination." Shepard, again. Good to hear her sound confident.

"I'm hoping it's not too far … no way in hell we're going to move something of that size without it attracting attention."

"Good. I'd be disappointed if the Reapers just laid down and took it." Wrex grinned, and even though it was just a display, Jim couldn't help but notice the sheer number of teeth krogan had. He turned to Shepard. "Get the surveys. Then we draw up the battle lines."

"Yes, sir." Shepard looked at the rest of them. "Just a guess, going to take about 48 hours for the GIS folks to do their thing." She glanced at Matt. "I'll need to work with you on strategy. I would suggest we keep the protoss far away from the zerg."

"Yeah, first line is protoss defense, last line is zerg," said Jim. "No way we can hide this from Fenix, guys, but I think so long as we, uh, just imply what's going on and let him know that the zerg are mostly here to absorb casualties and dig shit, it shouldn't be a problem."

Liara's silhouette shrugged. "I wish I could be offended."

"So long as we point his boys at the Reapers they'll be more than happy to shout "Adun toredas" and kill anything in front of them." Jim chuckled. "Guess they're a simple people, in a way." But they do know how to throw down with the best of them.

"So – you think this could work?" Tarquin sounded genuinely astonished.

"I think this is the latest stupid plan in a long line of stupid plans," growled Wrex. "But that's about par the course. We're out of options. And I want that nuke out of the ground."

"I'll have a better answer for you in about 48 hours, Captain." Shepard gave him a sad smile. "I'm not happy with this plan … but it's not my call to make. And I certainly don't have any other suggestions."

"I'd say it's the kinda out of the box solution your dad would've approved of," said Jim, knowing that this was an easy emotional out, but feeling the kid deserved it. "Kinda impressed you thought of it." That, at least, was true.

"This will produce a massive EMP," warned Tarquin. "All non-hardened structures-"

Wrex waved him off. "No such thing on Tuchanka. This isn't her first nuclear explosion." He looked at the others. "Think Okeer and Mordin will have a cure in forty-eight hours?"

"And Abathur," added Liara, but Wrex just grunted and waved her off again.

"Well," said Jim slowly, "I think there's good odds they'll have something by then. Assuming they don't kill each other."

Next Chapter: Amelia