Leviathan – Ann Bryson
The message icon blinked on my computer in my cabin and when I opened it up, I was relieved to read that Alliance transports had been dispatched to pick up the workers from the T-GES facility. For ten years those people had been slaves to Leviathan, all of their families and friends will have moved on thinking that their loved one was dead or had disappeared. It made me think more deeply about how my family had dealt with the news of my death after the Collector attack, and how they had tried to battle on with their lives only to have me miraculously turn up again out of the blue.
Even to me, it was completely bewildering, so I could scarcely imagine how the situation must have affected their minds. What we had seen down on that asteroid had made everyone on my crew see that we could be up against a very dangerous foe, and the worst kind at that. One that did not want to be found, and would commit all sorts of atrocities to hide any evidence of its existence. Here I was, considering Leviathan a foe already when my mission had now become to track it down and convince it to help us against the Reapers. My mind spinning, I detached myself from the computer and went to do my rounds of the ship.
"Imagine what it must be like," James mused when I went to see him down in the hanger, "you leave to go to work when your kids just started high school and you come back and they're graduating from college or have kids and a family of their own… it's messed up man!"
I agreed and stood in silent contemplation, an activity many on the ship had undertaken since our last mission.
"What was it like for you, Loco?" James asked me, "when Cerberus brought you back after two years? Was it hard to get used to or…"
"It was, at first. Everyone I knew didn't believe it was really me, and couldn't trust me because they knew I was working with Cerberus. When I died, I was the Human Spectre who had defeated Saren and Sovereign, my team all respected me and knew me as both their Commander and their friend… and when I returned, I was this ghost from the past, working for an enemy that everyone knew to be dangerous and traitorous."
"What about your family?" James said, listening closely to my tale. I thought about finding Sophie on Horizon and how she had seemed so angry with me when I reappeared.
"I didn't even tell them I was alive," I told the burly marine, "I didn't know how I could break news like that… "Hi mum, it's your lost son, Scott. I'm back!""
James laughed and even I had to grin at the ridiculousness of it all.
"But two years compared to ten?" I thought out loud, "that's enough time for family to nearly forget about you."
"The Alliance won't let that happen," James said encouragingly, "they can't. I know we're not family, but after the first Normandy went down, I always wore a pin on my uniform with "Normandy forever" written on it."
"I didn't know that," I said, feeling very touched.
"It's true," the big man smiled, but then he seemed sheepish, "just don't tell anyone that… it might ruin my cool you know?"
Talking with James always made me feel a bit brighter, he always had a way to spin a sad situation or story and find that crucial silver lining. I left him to his work in good spirits and decided that I was going to see Tali in Engineering. However, when I stepped off the lift, I stopped and looked at the door to the port side storage room, closed to everyone as always. I stepped inside to see Javik sitting with his hands clasped together and in very deep thought. So deep in his trance was the Prothean that he did not even notice me enter and stop to look at him.
"Something bothering you, Javik?" I said. Four eyes flickered in my direction but immediately went away again,
"What I saw in that mine has made me think, Commander," he replied, "In my time we found a group of Densorin scientists locked away in a very remote outpost. They were studying things that even we did not understand. Celestial mechanics, morphological simulations of galactic language. At the time we thought they were simply crazy. But after Mahavid… I wonder."
"You think Leviathan might have been controlling them?" I could envisage what he was thinking.
"We did not look too closely, and we found no artefact like the one on that asteroid. But if it was Leviathan…"
"How could an organic being live for so long? Fifty thousand years?"
The Prothean's eyes gave me another look and I realised how dumb I must have sounded considering how Javik came to be with us.
"So they'll have powerful stasis technology then?" I said, "but where could they hide something that needs so much power for so long? Someone would eventually pick it up on sensors or find them like Cerberus found your bunker on Eden Prime…"
"You are assuming that Leviathan is organic," Javik stopped me, "what if this is false? Synthetics do not need to worry about the passing of ages."
I knew what Javik was implying, but I did not think it remotely possible.
"You think Leviathan is another machine?" I asked.
"I think it may be another Reaper," Javik said, assessing me for my reaction. As he watched me, I paced back and forward, thinking about what he had said. It made a certain kind of sense, Leviathan's ability to indoctrinate through the artefacts definitely supported Javik's claim, but it just seemed too far-fetched.
"Why would a Reaper turn against the rest of its kind?" I speculated.
"I have read your reports on your conversation with Sovereign on your mission to Virmire," Javik said, "the Reaper said "we are each a nation", perhaps one made up its own mind and defected."
"To what end?" I asked, "and if you're right, then maybe Leviathan should stay hidden."
"If I am right, then this Reaper is a traitor," Javik growled, "the worst kind of enemy. If it can betray its own kind, imagine what it is capable of doing to ours. Do we want that kind of help?"
Conversations with Javik tended to leave me in a very contemplative state of mind. For a man who professed to only be a soldier, he approached many things in a very philosophical manner. I asked EDI if what Javik had said could feasibly be possible, seeing as how she was herself an AI creation that had turned against her Cerberus creators of her own free will. Her answer was characteristically in-depth and backed up by her own evidence, but she too admitted to having no real idea as to what Leviathan could actually be, never mind a Reaper-gone-rogue. The theories did not stop with EDI and Javik. Everybody on board had their own thoughts on Leviathan and whether or not we should be treating it as a potential ally, or a threat that we should remove for our own sakes. Having much to think about, the journey back to the Citadel and Bryson's office seemed to take forever.
Once we were back in Doctor Garret Bryson's office, I headed straight to the artefact and checked around to see if it could be shielded somehow. The incident with Hadley playing in my mind again, I could not have that happen to one of us. Fortunately, Bryson and his team were aware that an unknown entity such as this could come with a degree of risk and so had a shielding system in place. Once I activated it, I suddenly felt a whole lot better, the shimmer coming from within the artefact slowly but definitely fading.
"This thing's been here the whole time, why weren't we affected?" I voiced out loud.
"Perhaps the amount of time spent near the artefact is key," EDI said, "after a certain amount of time, it affords Leviathan an impressive mind control capability."
"Too dangerous," I said, "It made Bryson's assistant try to kill me."
"Perhaps Leviathan is trying to protect itself, divert people away from its trail," EDI told me. EDI made sense, but right now I felt like we had borrowed some time back and decided that we needed to crack on.
With my mind at ease, I now told the team what had to be done. Find Ann Bryson so we could find and extract her from wherever in the galaxy she was. I was ready to rely heavily on EDI, Garrus and Tali on this, but it was actually Ashley who had the thought of checking Garret's personal comm. To our delight, she had found that there were a few missed calls from Ann herself and when we played them, she kept mentioning not being able to raise Doctor Garneau and her increasing concern.
"Well founded, as it turns out," Garrus commented. I silenced him and continued listening to Ann's message.
"Our work on Project Scarab in the Pylos Nebula has paid off, we found another artefact like the one that Garneau found. But… I think it could be affecting people's behaviour. You need to shield the one in your office. I tried to warn Garneau but I can't get through to him. I have to go, we've got Reaper scouts heading in towards the main site, so I'm going back to a secondary base to grab what research I can."
The message ended and I waited for more, but it seemed that that was the last contact she had had with the lab.
"We need to reach her before the Reapers do," James said.
"Ok everyone," I headed back downstairs, "find anything you can about the Pylos Nebula and Project Scarab. Check papers, computers, lockers, anything. We need to find out what system and planet Ann is on!"
It became tiring as we searched through the lab once again, each time looking for different things. But working as a team, and compiling whatever information we found, we were able to quickly locate Ann Bryson. The breakthrough came when Tali found what ship Ann's team had chartered to get them to their destination, a ship called the Icarus. The freighter was equipped with long range fuel cells which told us that the planet was not in the system with the Mass Relay. That left only two other possible systems. When we checked the requisitions order for Project Scarab, we deduced that the planet we were looking for was arid but habitable. The team had taken water-making equipment and wind protection gear, yet they had not needed breathing masks or environmental suits. EDI put our search filters into the galaxy map and we soon had the name of our strongest contender, Namakli in the Zaherin system.
"Let's go!" I ordered triumphantly. My team rushed back out to the shuttle buzzing with energy and glad to be heading back out to the field rather than a stuffy lab. We had to find Ann Bryson, or our last chance to find Leviathan would disappear.
This race with the Reapers was beginning to take a toll on me. Even with my cybernetics enabling me to go longer without sleep I felt exhaustion slowly creeping over me. Whether it was because of the great deal of mystery that surrounded our current assignment that was tiring me out, or just that I could not help thinking of all the people being slaughtered and worlds being burned out there. All of this while I chased down what could well turn out to be just an empty rumour.
Joker had the Normandy enroute to the Mass Relay and I had gone to grab a quick nap, hoping to destress. But it did not work. Callum was back in my head again and watching him burn and turn to ash before my eyes made sleep impossible. Tali was on duty down in engineering so I should have had my cabin to myself, but the Quarian could read me like a book and had known that I was feeling troubled even before I tried to slip away to bed alone. Sitting at the end of the bed with my head in my hands, a thin layer of sweat making my clothes stick to me slightly, I heard the doors open and looked up to see my wife approaching.
"You, ok?" Tali asked, her voice quiet as if not wanting to startle me.
"Yeah," I replied, "just the usual. Damn nightmares won't go away. But don't worry Tali, you know this is how I operate."
I was trying to keep to the promise that I had made to myself, to be stronger in front of all the others so they never felt like they should doubt my leadership or abilities. But it could be difficult and ended up stressing me out even more sometimes.
Tali moved onto the bed and sat around behind me, putting her gloved hands on my shoulders and began to massage my tense back.
"You should tell me when you're feeling like this," Tali said softly, her hand moving down my arm to rest on my Promising Band, "when we gave each other these, when we promised ourselves to each other, we were agreeing to share everything, good or bad."
"I know," I turned around and gently touched my forehead to her helmet, "and I couldn't have found anybody better to promise myself to. But this is just me being tired and my brain punishing me for it. I'll be fine, if I can get some sleep."
"Then let me help," Tali said and turned me back around so my back was facing her. She took off my shirt and firmly, but comfortably, worked her hands across every inch of my back and shoulders. Her fingers eased up the back of my neck and back down again. I felt my whole body crying out for the same treatment as the muscles of my back were soothed and relaxed by Tali's kind hands.
"That feels incredible, Tali," I half spoke, half moaned, "I didn't know you were this good at massages."
"I've picked up a lot of talents since we got together," she giggled. I laughed,
"That you have, Miss Vas Normandy."
With my back feeling much better and my mood vastly improved, Tali and I lay together for just a short while longer before she had to report back to Engineering. I did remind her that I was in charge of the ship and she did not have to leave so soon, but to this she simply said,
"If you're wanting more then you'll just have to wait until next time… it'll be worth it!"
She winked and was gone. Returning to duty, I spent the remainder of the two-day journey checking up on everyone as well as trying to gather more intelligence with what we might be dealing with if we found Leviathan. All of the crew had their own thoughts and theories about our mission, and hearing and discussing them actually turned out to be quite fun as we guessed or fantasised about what we would encounter. The stories some of my crew came up with were definitely worthy of being made into vids.
Eventually, Namakli was approaching and I gathered my team to brief them all.
"Normandy's scans of the target area have found the secondary base that Ann Bryson said she was falling back to, and the Reapers have followed her. This is a search and rescue mission now. Find Ann and extract her ASAP."
"And if the woman is dead?" Javik asked.
"We find her data and take it. We have to find out where we are going with this investigation and Ann is the last lead we have, otherwise we will have failed our mission. Something I refuse to let happen. We save other personnel if we can but Ann is of paramount importance!"
"If the base is already getting hit by Reapers, are we landing away from the location?" James asked. I shook my head immediately,
"No. That would lose us precious time. Cortez takes us on the shuttle with the stealth system engaged and we drop right into the middle of the base. It's risky, but we don't have a choice."
"Understood, Loco," James grinned. My friends were ready and once we were down at the shuttle, I told Joker and EDI to keep trying to raise Doctor Ann Bryson to find her quickly, but to no avail.
Our shuttle zoomed low across the desert terrain of the planet towards the canyon where Ann's base was, built into the side of the deep recession in the land and made up of dozens of cabins all set up as of stacked on top of each other. The target zone was the picture of a chaotic nightmare as Reaper Harvesters prowled the skies and Reaper troops were rampaging through the facilities. From the Normandy to the shuttle, we had continued to try and reach Ann, or anyone, over the radio but had met with no more success.
Then, just as I was really starting to think we would find nothing but dead bodies, there was a bit of good news as Cortez suddenly received an incoming transmission from the base, and it was Ann.
"Sir," Cortez warned, "we have lots of hostiles coming for us. But Ann's there on the landing platform!"
I opened the side door of the shuttle and looked out to see a woman that definitely had to be Ann as well as a couple of other scientists coming out of an office to signal to us that they were there.
"Put us down so we can get her," I ordered. The shuttle was suddenly thrown to the side and nearly crashed into a pre-fab building below as a Harvester rammed us hard in the flank. Cortez managed to pull off an insane manoeuvre to escape a collision, but we could not land where Ann was and I got on the radio to her,
"Dr Bryson, this is Commander Gardner of the Alliance. Stay put in your office and we'll come and get you on foot. Stay in radio contact."
Avoiding Harvesters as they tried to slam us out of the sky, Cortez was able to get us close enough to a platform that we could all run and jump off the shuttle at once. My feet hit the ground and I combat-rolled forward to avoid planting my face on the ground,
"Cortez, shake those bastards off and get yourself safe! I'll be in touch."
"Yes Sir!"
The shuttle veered slightly and shot off at full speed with at least six Harvesters chasing after it. I hoped Steve could handle it, because we would all be doomed if we could not get off this base again. Reaper troops were crawling around everywhere and Ann's office was at least three levels above and another two hundred metres along from where we were. With so many of the buildings smashed to bits or on fire, there was no clear path to take and we had no choice but to climb where we could.
I rushed up a ladder only to find a Cannibal running at me from a short distance. Its hand reached out and grabbed me, and in a moment, I fought back with my Omni blade embedded in the beast's gut. Trying to get my feet up the rungs of the ladder with the Cannibal still coming for me, I lashed out and caught the Reaper troop's feet and brought it down, finishing it off by carving out its brain with my blade. Bringing my Mattock up, I shot at a few Husks that were scaling a wall ahead of us and brought some of them down.
"Scott, they're all around us," Tali shouted out as more Reaper troops appeared above and behind us.
"Keep moving," I shouted, covering my friends as they climbed up behind me. We found a few shelters that were relatively undamaged and caught our breath briefly before rushing out again.
Garrus sniped a Marauder and we all filed out to advance along the roofs of a few pre-fabs to try and reach an elevator that James had spotted. Everything we were doing was very rushed and tense as Husks, Marauders and Cannibals popped out of random doorways or attacked us from below and over our heads. More of the creatures that I had seen on Tuchanka that looked like Rachni were present, and their powerful guns kept us pinned down or slowed us severely, losing us time that we did not have. Harvesters swooped by and when we were near the edge it was all we could do not to be blown off down into the canyon.
We reached the elevator, but it did not work. We tried backtracking and climbed our way up through a few more of the wrecked shelters, fighting the Reapers the entire way. We emerged onto a rooftop and we confronted by a bunch of Husks, but Javik swept them all aside in one, brutal display of biotic power. As my team climbed back down onto a walkway and moved around an office block, I set my crosshairs on the head of a Cannibal and pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession. My Mattock took the monster down and I leapt down to join the others, just as a Harvester appeared next to us. It hovered menacingly not even twenty yards out from the walkway and I just screamed to everyone,
"Unload on it!"
Every gun blasted away at the huge flying beast and I readied my Widow and fired the three massive rounds right into its face. The Harvester faltered and moved to fly away, but just then I reloaded and fired the next three heavy-hitters into its neck and the Reaper died. Its huge bulk crashed into the side of the walkway and almost took it down. I dived forward as James disappeared over the edge and I just managed to grab the Marine's hand in time.
"Help me up with him," I called out and Garrus lent me much needed aid. "You have to shed a few pounds," I quickly joked with James.
"It's all muscle, Loco," he dusted himself off, "thanks!"
Eventually, for all the running around, ascending and descending that we did, we finally made it to the right level and all we needed to do was make it at most another fifty metres to where Ann was hopefully hiding.
"Doctor," I called on the radio, "come in, Doctor."
"I'm here," a very scared woman replied.
"Are you still at the landing platform? Have the Reapers reached you?"
"Not yet, but Phelps and Donahue tried to make a run for it… they're dead."
"We're almost there, Doctor," I reassured her, "I promise."
"Scott," Garrus said, "I see something, on the wall of the canyon over here."
"I think it's important," Liara added. I followed where the Turian was pointing and saw a section of the face of the canyon that had been excavated.
There was a painting, in a primitive style that made me think of ancient cave drawings left by the cave-men. It showed people grouped together, like a community or family, and above them was a painting of what could only be a Reaper. Except, it was slightly different. The Reapers as we knew them were deadly machines of perfect design, all the lines of their bodies very seamless and neat, but the image depicted here made it look almost organic in nature. I knew what everyone was wondering as we all inspected the pictures,
"If we want answers, then we need Ann," I told them, "let's go."
Checking around the corner of a wrecked hut, I came face to face with a Cannibal. Shoving the muzzle of my sniper rifle in the beast's face, I pulled the trigger and watched the plume of blood and chunks of flesh splatter all over the place, showering me in a reddish, purple mist. The massive power of my rifle took down several more Reaper soldiers and Tali blasted one through the gut with her shotgun before we finally found the opening in the enemy that we had been looking for. We made a break for it. Sprinting hard as our feet pounded across the metal roofs of cabins and steel walkways, we made it to Ann's location.
There were two bodies, presumably Phelps and Donahue, lying nearby. Both of them riddled with bullets and splayed out like they had been mauled. For a second, I imagined that Ann had been caught as well, our last lead on Leviathan lying there as a bloody mush. As I entered the cabin where Ann was last spotted, I gutted a Husk with my Omni blade and called out for the doctor. There was a clank as a locker on the far wall opened and Ann peered out from her little hiding spot, eyes wide and her face white with terror.
"Ann, come with us," I said as softly as I could manage in our current situation, "we need to get you out of here."
"Oh God… yes of course," she barely managed to squeak.
Getting Ann to move was difficult at first, her body seemed to have locked itself in place as the terror of the fighting gripped her every muscle. But once we were able to coax her out, she told us that there was a little gully on the top level of the research site that we could go to in order to find some shelter from the Reaper troops.
"I was at another dig site when the attack started," Ann explained shakily, "why are they here?"
"I have a theory," I replied as I kept her close beside me as my team scouted ahead and Javik covered our rear. On one of the high walls above us I saw yet more paintings showing the Reaper-like being towering over its subjects.
"I think it has something to do with these paintings," I told Ann, "is that Leviathan?"
The woman was initially shocked that I even knew of Leviathan and I had to remember that there was no way that she could know of everything that had transpired with her father and on Mahavid.
"Yes… yes," she said, "we think that is Leviathan. Clearly a Reaper yet… different. And look," she pointed at the images of the people below the great form of Leviathan, "there, as if the natives are under its power. These paintings are old, much older than my father thought."
"I understand you found something recently, doctor?" I said as the team bunkered down to take some cover.
"Yes, the artefact," Ann said truthfully, "it's incredible. It's right at the end of this gully, just a short distance and we're there."
"Ok, let's go," I told everyone.
"The Reapers will be looking for it too, so we should be quick," Tali said.
"If they haven't found it already," Liara mused as we headed off at an increased pace.
"I haven't been able to find out much about the artefact, we still don't know anything about their origins. But I did learn something about the energy that seems to power it," Ann told me as we moved clandestinely along a narrow ravine leading further out of the canyon. "It might seem strange," she said, "but I think it affects peoples' behaviour."
I remembered the way that Derek Hadley had changed so suddenly from eager assistant to murdering Garret Bryson in cold blood, and how the miners on Mahavid had been behaving before the Garneau imposter blew himself up along with the artefact there.
"Not strange at all," I said back to Ann. The scientist picked up her speed and pointed ahead,
"The artefact is just around the bend there, we should be able to…"
"Get to cover," James suddenly said from the front and we all got down. I left Ann and moved next to the burly marine. From his position, I could just see around the bend that Ann had been talking about, and I could see and hear the Reaper troops that were already there. I saw the artefact at the back of a small cut-out in the rock face, and saw that the Reaper Marauders had managed to activate it.
"That's incredible," Ann said next to me as she needed to sate her curiosity, "I've never managed anything…"
Ann stopped and her eyes seemed to roll back in her head, but the next second, she stood right up out of cover and walked directly towards the artefact.
"They have come too far," she said, though it was not her voice. In horror, I realised that the voice was the same deep and terrible one that I had heard coming from Garneau's imposter, Leviathan had taken control.
"The darkness must not be breached!" Leviathan continued and kept advancing on the Reapers. I jumped up to grab her and pulled her back down to the ground,
"Take out the artefact!" I yelled to the team. Ashley lined up a shot with her assault rifle and a few well-placed rounds shattered the artefact to pieces, and attracted the attention of the Reaper ground troops at the same time. They growled and screeched as they attacked our position, bullets cracking off the rocks around us and whipping up the sand and dust. Fortunately, however, Ann shook herself off and looked like it was actually her again,
"We're calling in the shuttle to get us," I told her, "when it arrives, you run to it, don't look back!"
Ann nodded but still seemed groggy and unsettled. My team moved into action and together we started pushing back against the Reaper troops to secure the landing pad just in front of us.
I squeezed off a few rounds into a Cannibal before shifting my fire onto another one of the beasts, my bullets ripping into its fell hide. To the right, at the back of the cut-out, there was a raised walkway which would have been how to reach the artefact, but now the Marauders were using it as a vantage point and were preventing us from moving freely. A Marauder ducked down to reload its rifle and I pulled out my Black Widow, aimed where I guessed the enemy would be and pulled the trigger. The bullet punched through the side barrier of the walkway and all I saw was a Marauder's arm flying free from its body and blue blood splattering the wall behind.
Tali was nearest to me and I tapped her shoulder so she would follow me. I had to get up onto the walkway and secure our position before more Reaper troops arrived behind us from the main dig site. James pounded away with his machine gun and tore apart two Husks and a Cannibal that tried to rush us while Javik threw a grenade that blew both legs off of another enemy. EDI launched an incineration attack on a Cannibal and set the bastard alight immediately. While it burned, Liara launched a warp attack on the same enemy and the resulting explosion of the combined attacks seemed to shake the whole area around us.
I sprinted for the nearest end of the walkway, my shields taking a hit as I did so, and used my Mattock to put down the nearest Marauder. The last one was also too close for comfort and attempted to smash my face in with the butt of the rifle, but my Omni blade found its forearm and I was able to lever the enemy to the side and throw him from the walkway. The fall did not kill the Reaper, but Tali's submachine gun did a fine job of finishing it off.
With Tali covering my flank, I set to work with my Widow from the heightened walkway and the whole ravine echoed with the thunder of the magnificent weapon. I would pop up, scope down my targets, and once I had fired the three shots in the clip I would reload in seconds and be killing again. Garrus radioed Cortez and the shuttle came screaming in for an emergency evac on the landing pad.
"Ashley and Javik grab Ann and make sure she gets on the shuttle safely," I called over the radio, and when the three figures made their run for Cortez, the rest of the team and I let off a hail of bullets at the Reaper forces on the other side of the dig area.
"Tali," I shouted to her, "get down to Garrus' location and you two go next!"
"On it," the Quarian confirmed and after she cut down a Husk, she bolted over to the Turian sniper's position.
"Go!" I shouted and both of my friends darted to the Kodiak. EDI and James were next and Liara was waiting for me when I made my run. Using her biotic singularity to render a few enemies useless as they floated helplessly around the miniaturised black hole, we made it to the shuttle and Cortez immediately took off. With the door still open, I aimed down one last shot and fired my Widow right through the gut of a Cannibal as we sailed through the air.
"Badass!" Garrus laughed as the shuttle door closed.
"Ann, are you ok?" I asked her once I had her seated and handed her a canteen of water.
"I… I think so," she replied in an uncertain manner, "I blacked out there for a few seconds."
"You didn't black out. Leviathan took control of you."
Her eyes went wide and she stared at me as if questioning my sanity, but decided that, with everything that was happening in the galaxy with the war, stranger things could happen.
"Leviathan itself?" she sounded awed, "that's incredible."
"We were hoping that you'd be able to find it," I said before I felt like there was another duty I had to perform first, "but first there's something I need to tell you doctor…"
"Ann, please," Ann said politely before launching into speculation, "suppose that Leviathan is itself a Reaper, except it broke away from the main fleet, like a defector. I need to call my father."
"Ann," I said a little more loudly and brought myself down to her eye level, "you need to listen to me ok. Your father… is dead. I'm sorry."
A few seconds went by before the meaning of my words really sank in and Ann suddenly appeared much less like an upstanding scientist and more like a bereaved daughter.
"He's… what? Dead? That can't be!"
"You're not the first to lose control," I told her, "I went to meet with your father, and his assistant…"
"Hadley?" Ann said. I nodded slowly and remembered how I would never have suspected the happy young man either,
"One minute he was fine. The next, he drew a gun on your father and fired. I couldn't stop him, I'm sorry, Ann."
"I can't believe this," Ann exclaimed and sat in silence. I happened to look at Ashley, my friend to whom her family was of the ultimate importance and was what had shaped her as a person. The tough soldier had the start of tears in her eyes as she empathised with Ann on the inside.
"I want to see his office," Ann said to us, "I need to see…"
"We'll get you there," I told her, "get settled in back on the Normandy and we'll head straight back to the Citadel. Is there anything you need?"
"No," she replied without looking at anyone, "just somewhere quiet."