Obligatory warning for some sexy time in this chapter. Enjoy!
Leviathan – The Hunt Continues
Our hair-raising experience on Namakli had the whole crew talking about how Leviathan had seemed to just snatch Ann's mind away from her, although no one talked about it to the woman herself. My people could not have been more accommodating to Ann and showed their support for her in any small way they could without it being too much. Tali and Ann hit it off and after Ann had had a rest, she and my wife were chatting away at the mess table. I stood off to the side a little and observed for a while until Ashley came to join me.
"I'm so sorry, Scott," she started off, "having to break the news of her father's death to her, must have been hard."
"Yeah," I agreed, "It's hard to imagine how many families are being torn apart by all this. Reminds me of when I was locked away in Vancouver. Kaidan was from there, and I wanted to be able to find his family and… I don't know. Explain everything maybe? I thought at the time that telling them everything that happened and why would be the right thing to do. But telling Ann was so difficult, I can't imagine what it would have been like to meet Kaidan's family."
"I wonder if they're still out there. Still alive?" Ashley said.
"Kaidan's dad was ex-Alliance," I remembered, "if he was on Earth, he's maybe with the resistance."
"An Alenko still fighting," Ashley said with a smile. The thought was somehow comforting, and I promised myself that if we survived this war and Kaidan's family was still alive, I was going to meet them.
"But right now, we need to focus on Leviathan," I said, "Ann will need answers and we're the only ones able to provide them. And vice versa."
"We're getting close, I think," Ashley said.
"Yes we are," I nodded, "and that means that it's only going to get more dangerous."
After Ann had been talking with Tali, she retired to one of the lounges to have some alone time, giving me an appreciative nod as she passed.
"Is she ok?" I asked Tali.
"She will be, I think. EDI says that she's good at dealing with things under pressure and stress but is not used to death," the Quarian replied, watching Ann carefully. "She has a drive to continue with her work though, and that will get her through."
"I hope so," I said, "I feel terrible for her, but we still need her to be able to help us."
"She wants to find Leviathan," Tali confirmed, "she wants to know what killed her father."
I shook my head in disapproval,
"I hate this. I wish we could give her the time she needs to mourn her father. She's similar to you that way," I said, "You get put on trial, find out the truth about your father, and then I have to keep us all on the mission to destroy the Collectors. It's not fair."
"I know," Tali said, wrapping her arms around one of mine and cuddling in, "but in some way that helped to heal the pain. I could have just been sitting around in grief and misery, but the mission gave me a focus… not to mention all the running around, shooting and explosions."
I grinned,
"Well, we'll find more of that to be certain."
Tali moved in a bit closer to me,
"Does the Commander have some free time?"
I gave her a sideways look and chuckled,
"Does his favourite engineer?"
She nodded to the elevator, and while no one was around to see, she led me by the hand.
"EDI, sterilise the Commander's cabin," Tali said once in the elevator and the doors were closed.
"Feeling impatient Mrs Vas Normandy?" I laughed.
"Maybe I still have some adrenaline pumping through me from Namakli, need to get it out somehow."
"I might know a way we can do that!"
The doors opened and we rushed into my cabin, but got no further than the fish tank where I pressed Tali back against the glass with my body right up against hers. The Quarian ripped off my shirt and fumbled with the button of my trousers, but I had to get her out of her suit first or it would have killed me. My heart was thudding like mad in my chest as I stripped down my beautiful wife to nothing and had her back up against the glass again, holding her hands in place above her head.
Her lilac eyes moved up my muscled chest to my own eyes and for such a brief moment we just looked at each other, memorising every detail of each other's faces and implanting them in our memories forever. Then I kissed her. Such a deep and lustful kiss I had rarely had before and Tali kept making these little noises like she had never experienced such a bracing moment in all the times we had spent together. While one hand continued to hold Tali's wrists above her, my other hand gradually, teasingly, made its way down her spectacular body. Brushing over her breasts, I felt my wife shudder and press herself closer into me as I ran a single finger down her stomach and continued down even further.
Tali let off a little squeal as my hand began to gently rub between her legs, and as her muscles quivered, she could barely keep them straight to support herself, but I did not stop. Soon the volume of her moans of ecstasy echoed around the cabin, and when she climaxed, she almost fell to her knees. I caught her before she hit the floor, and when Tali regained control of her legs, she shoved a rough hand into my chest and guided me backwards toward the bed where I fell on my back, and Tali gleefully leapt on top of me. Sliding herself on to me, very easy given her high state of arousal, I put my arms around her back and neck and drew her tightly into me so that she could not move and began to pump into her.
Continuing to hold Tali's head to my chest as I thrusted faster, she was screaming out for me to go harder, faster, deeper. I gave it my all, and soon Tali did not even have the strength to lift her head. Once I had stopped, Tali just lay there on top of me, sucking in slow and satisfied lungfuls of air. I rolled her to my side and she nuzzled into me, her eyes still closed and her breathing still heavy. With the nature of the war we were fighting, and the intensity of our missions, it was easy to find myself bottling up feelings and emotions while serving on active duty. But then there were these moments that came along where I could take all those pent-up feelings and turn them into something amazing. I guessed that it was the same for Tali, and as her eyes flickered open once again and she saw me looking at her, the largest smile I had ever seen appeared on her face.
"I love you, Scott," she whispered. I brought the bed cover up over us and hugged Tali,
"I love you, Tali! So, so much."
"What do you think our house will look like when this war is over and we're back on Rannoch?" Tali suddenly asked. We had been lying together in bliss and comfort, staring out of the window above the bed at the innumerable glittering stars above us.
"I want it to be overlooking a body of water," I said after a moment, "I like looking at water, the way it reflects the sun, or the way that it can look like a glass mirror when it's calm. Massive bay windows…" I said with a nod. "A garden where we can relax outside but still have some privacy, got to have a barbeque for that!"
Tali giggled,
"I don't know when the last time was that a Quarian had a barbeque. Over three hundred years ago, at least."
"Then you'll be the first," I told her. "And there'll be other firsts as well. The first time we'll decorate a room together. The first time we'll have a meal somewhere that is actually ours. The first time we'll argue about what colour the bedroom is going to be. The first time I've ever even held a paintbrush."
Tali burst out laughing at my lack of previous DIY experience, but then I said something else that made us both wonder,
"Then… our first child."
Even as I said it, I knew that both of us were thinking of the single, massive obstacle that would prevent us from having a child that belonged, biologically, to both of us. Yet neither of us brought it up and continued enjoying the fantasy for the sake of fun.
"We would have the kid's room on the upper floor," Tali said dreamily, "with an upstairs balcony where they could play in the fresh air if they didn't want to go anywhere."
"Our child, or children, are going to be spoiled, aren't they," I chuckled.
"Oh no," Tali laughed, "after all the work we put in to give them a galaxy to enjoy in peace, they're earning their keep."
I sniggered at her,
"Easy there, mum…" I joked. She gave me a playful hit on the shoulder, but I saw the grin on her face as she did so.
"I wonder what we will do if we… when we win and find peace," Tali said, "would you still work? Or early retirement?"
"I really don't know about that Tali," I said, "the younger me from before the Alliance would love to live the rest of my life just chilling and playing video games forever…"
"I wouldn't mind that either, to be honest," Tali said happily. I entertained the idea of the two of us as an old couple still playing games together with energy juice and packets of munchies lying around us. I told Tali this, and for a little while I had her in stitches as I acted out the scenario like an idiot.
After Tali had stopped crying with laughter at my stupid antics, I thought more seriously about what I might do after the war was over.
"There will be a lot of work to do," I said, "every world will need to be rebuilt, the alliances that I've created between all the species will need to be reaffirmed, maintained. The Quarians alone have the opportunity to completely start with a blank canvas and begin the next stage of your civilisation here on Rannoch. The ruins on Earth would have to be cleared first before Humanity can do anything."
"Would you go back to Earth?" Tali asked. I felt a lurch inside of me as I went to say yes, but realised that that was perhaps not the truth.
"If you're on Rannoch then that's where I am, Tali," I smiled at her. My wife appreciated the sentiment but asked again,
"I didn't mean to stay, but every race will have a lot of work to do, as you said. Would you help with reconstruction and helping people find their lives again?"
I did not know what to say as my mind turned in somersaults. The last time that I had seen Earth, I had watched the Reapers smash Vancouver to pieces and slaughter thousands of people in mere minutes. I knew that my hometown had been completely wiped off of the face of the planet, and all that remained was a smoking pile of ash. Earth may have been the home-world of Humanity, but in a moment of dreadful clarity, I realised that I felt very little connection to Earth now.
When I had left Vancouver, I had been sent by Admiral Anderson to bring whatever reinforcements I could for Earth, but as my missions took me across the galaxy and I had seen the fires on Palaven, the chaos on Tuchanka and the suffering of every species that inhabited the Milky Way, it had broadened my perspective on our struggle against the Reapers. I certainly wanted to defeat the Reapers and set Earth free again, but all Earth represented to me now was death, loss and great sacrifice. Thinking of setting foot on that planet again suddenly made me feel uneasy, very uncertain.
Tali picked up on my disquieted aura and placed a kind hand on my cheek, stroking it slowly.
"I'm going to fight with everything I've got to destroy the Reapers and see my people safe, Tali," I affirmed, "but even if we win… Earth will never be the same to me. If the Alliance needs me, I'll be there to help but…"
"It's ok, Scott," Tali said, "I understand. I suppose it's different for us. My entire species has been dying to get back to Rannoch all of my life and much longer, whereas maybe your home-world is old news to you."
"Yeah," I shrugged. "Don't get me wrong, Earth has an incredible amount of beautiful places to see and visit, different climates and more history than a person could read about in their lifetime. If you wanted to go there, I would love to show you someday. I really just spent most of my time in my quiet little corner of Scotland."
"I'd like to see your planet," Tali said with a little fascination, "but I'd rather go for a holiday instead of having to go and fight giant machines."
"Don't get far without having to do that these days," I chuckled. "But I think Rannoch will be my new world when it's all said and done."
Tali cuddled me,
"I'm glad," she said happily.
Joker docked the Normandy on the Citadel and those that were going ashore made their way onto the giant station and Ann Bryson hired a taxi to take her straight to her father's laboratory. I sensed that she still needed some time to herself, and having all of my team there with her the whole time would perhaps be more upsetting than let her process her emotions alone.
"We need to give her some time, guys," I told everyone when we were at the taxi rank.
"It's been a hell of a trip for her," Garrus agreed, "what do you all say to lunch on the Presidium… Scott's treat."
We all laughed and I thought about it, but decided that I should take an hour or so to quickly visit my family at the apartment. Garrus had a call to make to the Primarch and said that Wrex might be butting his way into the conversation as well to discuss the distribution of Krogan and Turian ground forces. Remembering how my old Krogan friend and the Primarch had almost come to blows a couple of times, I reminded Garrus to make sure the shouting was kept to a minimal. Some of the others had some things to do as well so I told them to meet at Bryson's office in approximately two hours.
I went with Ashley to the Council Spectre office to check for any new Intel and order a priority resupply for the Normandy before calling dad and telling them that I was on my way for a quick visit. Of course, I was glad to see my parents and was relieved that they were well and being looked after by the Alliance. My family realised that they were extremely fortunate to have been put up in Anderson's apartment, a lot of refugees coming to the Citadel were still living in destitution on the docking areas. And so, true to their nature, mum and dad were volunteering in various jobs to help those less lucky and were helping with distributing food and clothing or helping the heavily taxed Doctors and nurses at the hospitals.
Mum told me that Sophie was still working with Admiral Hackett's Special Forces and had recently been sent with an N7 Operative and her mixed-race, combat engineer unit to retake and defend a fuel processing plant on a planet called Cyone in Asari space. Without the station, Asari, Turian and Quarian fleets would not be able to operate in that theatre and the entire system would be at the complete mercy of the Reapers. But Sophie and the N7 Operative, Captain Riley, had succeeded in kicking the Reaper troops out and then reactivating the plant for the use of friendly ships.
However, there was still no news about my cousin Lee who had last been reported to be fighting with the resistance in Edinburgh. As for the rest of my cousins, some of whom were married with their own children, there was still no word. My last remaining grandparent, dad's mother, as well as my uncles and aunties were all unaccounted for. I had always had a great relationship with every member of both sides of my family. To have no way of knowing if the majority of them were still alive was enough to crush my heart. It was yet another on the list of many questions that could not be answered until after the Reapers were dead. Then, and only then, could I afford to make any efforts to find out what happened to them.
The visit was all too quick for my liking, but I had to tell myself that I was still on a mission to find Leviathan and soon found myself stepping out of a taxi in front of Bryson's office. None of my team had yet arrived, but that was perhaps due to me arriving quite early. From outside, I could see no activity in the lab and when I went in, the entire place was deathly silent.
"Ann?" I said aloud, hoping to hear a response immediately. But none came. Someone had definitely been looking around as I saw that the door to the galaxy search map was open when I had left it closed, but there was nobody on this level. That left Doctor Bryson's private quarters and when I went up the stairs, I saw a figure sitting on the floor at the bottom of the bed in a hunched position, her arms around her knees and her head down.
Through the glass, I saw a faint shudder of her shoulders and I knew that Ann was crying. My morals told me that she needed more time, but these days I could not afford to waste time and I slowly entered the room.
"Ann?" I said softly. Ann lifted her head and her watery eyes met mine, but she did not seem ashamed or annoyed that I had seen her like this, she knew that I understood.
"Commander," she said weakly, "I'm sorry. It's just seeing everything, all this again, is hard. My… my father and I didn't leave things on the best terms."
Her head dipped again.
"An argument?" I asked. Letting Ann vent a little would be good for her.
"It was so… petty," Ann said, "a disagreement about how to file some of the specimens. I was mad about something else, and I took it out on him. So stupid!"
"Ann," I said quietly, "if you need more time I can come back later."
"No," she started getting to her feet and wiping her eyes, "No, I'm ok. It's just being here again, it's difficult. My father was a great man, a pioneer! But… he could be distant."
"I never got a chance to know him," I said as the image of Hadley shooting Garret played in my mind once more. Ann's head bowed a little,
"Sometimes I felt the same way. He was so obsessed, crazy sometimes. I felt like an inconvenience growing up," she said with a slight hostility creeping in.
"You sound angry," I said.
"I was angry," she said as she walked over to the picture displaying Garret with his arm around his daughter, "still am I suppose."
Now a smile came to her face and she stared at her father's face in miniature with a dream-like look,
"But sometimes, he was just so full of stories that he nearly burst! He was so passionate and so willing to believe all of them, he wanted to unravel all the greatest mysteries in the universe. I loved that about him, it's why I signed up for this work."
As quickly as her smile had appeared it now vanished as Ann kept looking into her father's eyes in the holo,
"I can't believe he's gone."
I put a supportive hand on her shoulder and told her that we would figure it all out together.
"We have to!" Ann replied, "I need to know what's on the other end of that artefact, what my father died for."
"We need your help," I said, "you're our last chance."
"Let me dig into his work and see what I can find," Ann said and walked off to go down the stairs. I saw, however, that she was still in a terrible state inside and I said,
"Ann, are you sure you're up for this?"
The woman stopped and closed her eyes, breathing slowly and calming herself before turning to me.
"Yes. When Leviathan took control of me, I remember being somewhere cold and dark. But my father taught me to never be afraid of the dark."
I admired her at that moment. Surviving an all-out Reaper assault on her base, only to learn that her dad was dead, and yet she there she was standing strong and ready, eager to continue our hunt for Garret's killer.
Ann and I went downstairs and found that the rest of the team had arrived but, as Liara said, had wished to wait until Ann was ready instead of crowding her too much.
"Ann is going to take us through Garret's work and find out how we can track Leviathan," I told everyone.
"We're getting close, Scott," Garrus said with confidence, "I can feel it."
Ann progressed through the lab, working methodically to think through how we were going to track down our mysterious and elusive creature. When I asked her about how her father had acquired a piece of Sovereign's wreckage, she told me how excited the revelation had made Garret, that it had validated years of work for him.
Ann discussed with us how her studies on the Rachni and how the Queen communicated with her drones across great distances via a sort of natural quantum entanglement. This information could give us a clue about how Leviathan worked through the artefacts and could give us a signal to trace. Her brain was sifting through all the possibilities and what options lay open to us, but when we moved through to the room with the galaxy map she became more solemn again.
I had told her what had happened to her father and she knew that he had been killed right here, in the room that we stood in now and it weighed heavily upon her.
"He would have hated dying here," Ann finally said after a short silence, "he wanted to be on the same dig I was on, but he was getting too old for long digs. I remember that he almost missed my graduation because he was out in the field, showed up still wearing his dusty gear."
"I know this is hard," I said, "but if there's anything more that you can tell us…"
At the mention of being able to trace any communication with Leviathan through the artefacts, we had something that we could work with. I was eager to solve this puzzle once and for all and go on the hunt again, but trying to communicate with such a dangerous being was sure to lead to more problems which we did not have time to fix. Ann perked up and looked at me with inspiration in her eyes,
"There's no more that I can tell you, but maybe I can show you."
"What d'you mean?"
"The artefact only sends out a signal when Leviathan's controlling someone. So let it control me!"
I looked over my shoulder at the artefact that we had in the lab. Its containment shield was still online and the orb was dull and lifeless, useless to Leviathan as it was to us at this moment in time.
"You could trace the signal," Ann added as she sensed my doubts.
"That's too dangerous," I warned her.
"It's my call, not yours," she argued, "you said I'm your last chance to find this thing."
"We have no idea what we're looking for yet. No idea what will happen," I admitted. I wanted to find Leviathan so much, but my concerns for Ann's health if we tried such a treacherous tactic were sharply raised.
"If we wait then the Reapers will get to Leviathan first. I'm the only one here that's spent enough time around the artefacts to do this. You're looking for something to fight the Reapers, Commander. I'm looking for the monster that murdered my father."
As Ann stood in front of the artefact, glaring into the empty space within, I could no longer deny her what she wanted. Everything that she had said was true and I could only admire her spirit. Plus, with my entire team there, I felt more comfortable that if anything went wrong, we could handle it.
"Commander," James said, "this thing we're doing with Ann… sounds dangerous as hell!" The big marine glanced over at the scientist and back to me and I knew that he had the exact same worries as I did, word for word. But Ann had made her choice and we had to keep going with our investigation, no more hold-ups and no more letting the Reapers get ahead of us.
"Noted," I sighed. EDI was at the galaxy map and was preparing herself and the search programming to trace Leviathan's signal once a link had been established, if a link was established.
"You sure about this?" I asked Ann one more time. Ann pulled up a chair and sat herself in front of the artefact facing me,
"Yes," she said, though her voice was wobbly, "I'm sure."
"I'll be right here," James reassured her and stood beside her in case anything happened.
"Ok," I said reluctantly, "Tali drop the shield."
"On it," the Quarian said, "we'll make sure you're ok, Ann."
The anticipation in the lab was astounding as the containment shield around the artefact was removed and we all waited, hardly breathing, for something to happen.
"Artefact online," EDI said as we all witnessed the orb slowly start to glow and an aquatic sort of light showed in the centre of the object. I was almost certain that I could hear a faint hum coming from the strange orb as well and all eyes were now on Ann. What kind of reaction were we going to see? Hadley had had his mind destroyed by Leviathan when I tried to ask him about what they were searching for. The Garneau imposter had been able to shatter the glass of his room with nothing more than the booming of his voice when Leviathan had failed to shake us off of its trail. Both men were now dead and yet I was still letting Ann do this. If anything happened to her then that was directly on me and I did not want to have any innocent lives hanging over me, how far could I let this go?
"Do you feel anything?" Liara asked Ann.
"Not yet," Ann shook her head and I felt a jolt of disappointment. Perhaps Leviathan knew what we were doing and was not about to reveal itself so easily. But then I saw Ann's hand spasm for a second and she looked up at me,
"Wait… I feel a chill."
"Establishing a connection," EDI confirmed.
"Work fast, EDI," Ashley told her, "Ann's going pale."
Even as Ashley spoke, Ann suddenly started thrashing around viciously and even the immensely strong James struggled to hold on to her and stop her from falling, or attacking if it came to it.
"Holy hell!" James yelled in surprise and we all tensed up, ready for anything.
"Turn back!" Ann suddenly screamed at us, "the darkness cannot be breached."
"EDI?" I asked.
"Signal is tracking, maintain connection," was all I got back from my AI friend.
"You have come too far," Ann said to me, her voice still hers but growing deeper, darker.
"I found you," I growled back. I needed whatever I was talking with to realise that I was not messing around, "and the Reapers are right behind me!"
"Reapers!" Ann repeated with hatred and anger laced into the word, "you have brought them."
Then Ann's voice was no more and the deep, menacing voice of thunder that belonged to Leviathan boomed throughout the lab,
"You are a threat."
Ann's eyes were fixated on mine as Leviathan made her stare right at me, the rage of the mysterious beast evident even through its thrall's eyes.
"You're a threat too. I've seen what you can do," I said back, "the war needs you."
"There is no war, there is only the harvest," Leviathan said back, a hint of resignation in its voice.
"EDI? Do we have enough?" I asked quickly.
"Partial lock. Maintain connection to narrow the search."
I could see on the galaxy map that Leviathan's signal had been tracked to the space of a few systems. It was enough to start with, but we did not have the time to go around checking every planet within reach of the system's Mass Relay. We had to find a more exact location.
"You heard her," James said, "we've got enough. Tali, hit the shield!"
"Not yet!" I called out. James' expression was one of confusion and disbelief, but after only brief hesitation he lunged back in to keep Ann in place.
"Signal is fading," EDI warned, "maintain connection!"
I was losing time.
"We can fight them, we can win this," I found myself hollering at Ann. I had to keep Leviathan's attention before we lost all trace of it.
"The cycle cannot be broken," Leviathan's voice rumbled.
"You're wrong," I yelled.
"Focusing the point of origin," EDI said, "maintain connection to narrow the search!"
I was about to keep going when I suddenly saw blood starting to pour from Ann's nose, dripping off of her chin onto her clothes. It started as a trickle, but before long there was an alarming torrent of it flowing freely and then James screamed,
"I'm stopping this!"
James wanted to stop, but Tali was way ahead of him and punched the button that reactivated the shield. As soon as the barrier was up around the artefact, the blue hue disappeared and the object was once again inert. It was still and lifeless, as was Ann.
My heart stopped in my chest as Ann's body went limp and fell towards the ground. James caught her and lay her down gently, but still the woman made no movements or made any sounds, her clothes smeared crimson red down to the bottom of her lab coat.
"Is she…" Liara started to say as I went to Ann's side.
"Ann! Ann!" I called, moving my ear to her mouth to listen or feel for breathing. At first there was nothing, but then I felt the faintest little breeze of air coming from her mouth and I instantly felt elated.
"She's alive!" I told all the nervous onlookers.
"Thank goodness," Tali exhaled.
"Ann. Ann are you alright?" I tried again. Ann sat up a little, shaking her head and looking around her as she tried to figure out where she was.
"Y… yes, I think. My head… it hurts, but I'm ok."
I breathed a sigh of relief before checking with EDI,
"Did we get anything?"
I looked at the galaxy map and saw what I recognised to be Sigurd's Cradle with several highlighted locations dotted around the cluster.
"Yes, but it will take some time to search," the AI said.
"Better that than letting Ann die, EDI," Ashley said. EDI nodded in agreement and uploaded the highlighted locations to the Normandy's own galaxy map. We were ready to begin looking for this treacherous Leviathan.
James and I helped Ann back up to her feet and I went to sit her back down on the chair, but she suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me towards her very close,
"Wait, Commander," she said ominously. "I sensed something else. Anger."
"Leviathan knows we're getting close," I said.
"It wants to kill you," Ann told me. The statement hit me harder than I had expected. By now I was used to things wanting to kill me. Sovereign, Saren and their Geth, the Collectors, mercenary gangs, Cerberus and the entire Reaper species. But Leviathan was a different kind of enemy. All this time that we had been searching for it and it had set us back, yet we had not even seen it yet. The power it commanded was truly on the mystical side, and secretly it terrified me. However, there was only one way forward and that was through finding Leviathan and I had to show the team that I was not afraid.
"Come on," I helped Ann along, "we'll get you some help."