Jack...
A shiver of delight, yearning, and simultaneous dread wracked her body at the throaty whisper near her ear. She had just enough awareness to recognize she was dreaming an old familiar dream, but also enough sense not to press the matter or she'd wake.
She relaxed, instead, and was transported back to the memory through the woman's sultry call; back to a room lit with old fashioned candles and a hearth-fire that heated the room to uncomfortable levels. Yes, there were the bindings around her limbs now. She could hear them stretch, sweat-slick as she tried to move.
Shhh….
The soft sigh of the sound caressed her ear now and she felt the warmth of the woman's lips suckle her earlobe. The effect was dizzying, every nerve on that side of her head and down past her shoulder lighting with pleasure while the rest of her exhausted body ached. The woman's suggestion made her eyes fall immediately closed and she lowered her forehead to the table where she was bound.
There she lay, drifting through memories of every moment that brought her to this state; the pain and pleasure visited on her in ever increasing amounts until her nervous system sang with it; expertly alternated until they twined together...enhancing each other...a growing, addicting tower of sensation that Jack knew could only extend so high. But where did it end?
More?
Came the expected question, repeated enough that Jack'd lost count. Her limbs trembled involuntarily and her breath was still ragged from the last round; every inch of her throbbing in enough pain that it'd settled into a sort of white noise. She opened an eye to look at her tormentor and found a soft smile of approval on her face, dark lidded gaze promising to hold her tightly through whatever lay ahead.
She found her spirit lift, determined to prove herself again. She could do it. She could go higher, longer than anyone. She would do it for them .
"Harder," she said between gritted teeth.
Those dark eyes flicked behind her, to the man looming with the tools, the yin to her yang. The two lovers considered one another for a moment, then she heard his deep, gentle voice say, "You've done well. I think that's enough."
Sweet relief flooded her, and the woman began untying her hands while he released her feet. They assisted her off the table and to a low, soft bed where they joined her beneath the covers. There, soft fingers, skin and lips caressed every hurt until finally he flipped her, lifting her to her knees. The woman slid between her trembling thighs, those mesmerizing eyes catching hers and holding them while she felt the man move into proper position behind her.
"Through suffering, we reveal our strength," he breathed before taking great handfuls of the lacerated skin on her back, twisting it into his fists.
Jack's breath caught from the brutality of it, unable to make a sound; and at the same time, the warmth of the woman's mouth enveloped her sex with an unspeakable sweetness, again twisting the sensations together into something greater then either of them apart.
One of his hands let loose long enough for him to put himself inside, and she finally was able to whine the words, "Fuck me…" It was both a curse and a plea, as she'd never ever been so ready in her entire life.
Of course, that's just when Grunt woke her up. Did wonderful things to her mood.
"The FUCK!" she shouted, flailing an arm toward the hulk between her and one of the bay lights.
"Easy!" Grunt growled, batting away her fist before lowering his voice. "You were having a bad dream. Just tryin'ta help."
"Like hell!" she spat, before lifting herself into a sitting position by the wall and rubbing her face with her hands. God, she didn't want to imagine what kind of sounds she must have been making to draw attention. She looked around and began getting her bearings, blood still thick with need.
Grunt spoke, but she couldn't hear it over the soft, beckoning whispers still clinging to her.
Jack. More?
"What?" she asked irritably before grabbing the bench to her right and pulling herself to her feet.
"I said, it's time," Grunt raised his voice, beady eyes wide. "You wanna talk about this or what?"
"Yeah," she said foggily, reaching for a canister of water in her pack. She took a few long drinks, then tried again to focus, clearing her throat and finally meeting his gaze. "You wanna tell me why you're showing your throat to this asshole? Cuz I'm not sure I can buy in."
"It's called a Crush, Jack," the Krogan explained patiently. "Sometimes you gotta talk before you start killing people."
Her eyes squinched shut and she rubbed the sand out of them with a thumb and forefinger as she said, "Why the fuck you need me then?"
He jerked back like he'd been bit, then raised his hands to either side like the answer was obvious. "Because sometimes assholes don't honor the terms."
"And what?" she fired back, "I'm the difference in you coming out with your head? I'm good, Grunt, but really? What is it, 1000 to 1 down there?"
"More like 200," he said with a grimace.
"200?" Jack said before shrugging. "I mean, we've had worse odds."
"200,000," he corrected her.
Jack choked on the water she'd been sipping to clear the taste of sleep from her mouth. "How, by a Reaper's balls, does Dulak have 400,000 warriors?"
"Heh, heh, heh," Grunt chortled. "You forgot Charl."
Jack's expression took on a decidedly violent tone, but Grunt relented with a hand raised in calm.
"You're here as a message," he said, unlatching the armor over one arm. He dropped it in a heap, pulling back some padding to reveal a skull surrounded by an omega symbol; the tattoo she personally put on every member of the Intrepid Few after the war.
"He fucks with us, he's doing more than messing with Urdnot," Grunt said firmly.
So that was it. This wasn't about her. It was, predictably, about Shepard as a threat by proxy .
At Jack's hurt look, he added, "What, you think I like going in there with my dick in my hands? This doesn't work out, at least we can kill him ."
Like a switch, though, Jack no longer cared, the hit to her pride buried deep and his offer of joyful violence discarded. She hadn't planned on revealing her ask so soon, but if she was gonna be an errand-girl she might as well make it official. "Whatever," she said in a low voice. "I'll do it, but on one condition...non-negotiable."
Grunt seemed to recognize the shift in energy, and a look of concern blossomed on his Mesozoic face. "Alright," he said tentatively, "Whattaya want?"
"Wrex made an offer to Aria T'Loak before he died," she said. "The Krogan were going to occupy Omega and pay her rent while keeping the riff raff quiet. Make sure Urdnot honors the agreement, and I'm yours."
Grunt picked up his armor and began putting it back in place, a look of hurt now on his face. "If Urdnot isn't around we can't honor anything. We gotta win, first." At her uncaring expression his face contorted into anger and he pointed a finger at her. "So even if you're only here for her, you gotta sell it. Right?"
"Right," she growled, her icey eyes challenging.
"Fine," he snarled, brushing past her to start settling on a bench for sleep.
" Fine," she countered, heading up front, steps heavy.
She sat down in the co-pilot's seat as the Shaman had taken over flying, looked over at him at the same time he looked at her, rolled her eyes and put her boots up on the side dash.
Charl took a deep sniff of the air and even though she wasn't looking at him she could feel his beady eyes fixed on her. "Must've been some dream," he gurgled despite her attempt to pretend he didn't exist.
"Shut up."
She heard a rhythmic hitch in the Krogan's breath that had to be a laugh, then he spoke again. "I hope you killed whoever you were fighting. It sounded fierce."
"Nope," she enunciated clearly, eyes fixed on far away stars; but before she'd let him keep going down that road she'd open the airlock on 'em all. "Where did Dulak get all those warriors?" she asked instead.
He grunted at the change of topic. "The numbers are probably wrong," he began after a moment of thought. "An estimate. While Wrex wanted a census, he had more important tasks."
"You think maybe Dulak's leader is trying to make himself look bigger than he is?" she asked hopefully. 600,000 troops wasn't a huge number, after all, in a galactic sense; but there were maybe 250,000 at Wrex's funeral and many of them weren't loyal to Urdnot. Even given the fact that not every member of Urdnot would attend the thing it seemed, at least from the outside, that they were heavily outnumbered. She just didn't know enough to say for sure.
"Of course he is," the Shaman laughed. "But Kravarog's father had a convincing cause for recruitment."
"What, bigger than curing the genophage?"
"For some," he growled, showing some of his own teeth aggressively. "Our race was relegated to killing for money after the genophage decimated our ranks; a punishment for our unity in the Rebellions. After we ate that whole, after we suffered a thousand years of misery for daring to be more than slaves, the Salarians didn't think it was enough. While we put aside our grievances and joined the rest of the galactic community against the Reapers, they attacked what was left of our homeworld."
He paused to get control of emotions that were getting the better of him before continuing. "Everyone was an Urdnot the morning the Battle for Earth started," he said carefully, "But our hearts were torn by dusk."
Even though Jack knew the facts about what happened that day, she'd never really processed it from their point of view. From the looks of it Charl would crush the skull of any Salarian that magically appeared here in the cockpit, and she couldn't really blame him for feeling that way. "So Dulak wanted to go to war," she said thoughtfully.
The Krogan nodded sagely, "And Wrex and all his warriors were locked away behind broken relays long enough for them to come to real power."
Jack hummed in thought. "It's not real power when it's a bunch of pogues, is it?" Charl looked like he didn't quite follow, so she explained, "If Wrex had all the warriors, how much power do the folks back at the homestead really have?"
"That's a good question, human," the Shaman said, even sounding a bit impressed. "During the last thousand years, if a female could not breed, she had little purpose. Now that many can, their influence has grown."
Jack's brow furrowed. "Wait, are you saying the females wanted to go to war, too?"
He nodded again, appearing to enjoy the lesson. "Remember that many of these females were pregnant with their first brood, some of them hundreds of years old. They'd been dreaming about having even one child their entire lives, and attacking them at their most vulnerable produced a backlash that erased centuries of moderate thinking. Their anger quickly spread among those left behind. It's ironic that Wrex and his supporters were the voice of reason when they returned."
Jack snorted. "I'm having trouble with the part where Wrex doesn't want to kill Salarians."
The Shaman's eyes narrowed in thought before saying, "Wrex understood that the timing of an action is almost as important as the action itself, which is difficult for the angry to grasp."
"Yeah," she drawled, musing. She'd beat her head against that, plenty. "And I bet 'the angry' got pretty pissed at him, too."
"Yeah," Charl mimicked back. "Bakara, chief among them."
Now that's some quality drama , she thought, eyes widening. "No shit?"
The Krogan laughed, "No shit."
"What happened?" she asked, pulling her feet off the dash and turning her chair toward him.
Charl corrected his course toward the next relay and set the freighter on autopilot before answering. Jack was still generally repulsed by the old man but he clearly knew how to hang on to an audience.
"Well," he began while shifting his bulk around in his seat, "Remember that the females had their own clan, to defend the gender against all the clans that wanted to own their own fertile females. This let them negotiate breeding rights in exchange for what they needed to get by and gave the infertile a purpose other than offing themselves."
"Yeah, I remember," she murmured. Gender inequality was only one of many reasons the Krogan were looked down on by the other races.
"When most of them became fertile again, they had a line to their door; Krogan who would do anything to avail themselves of their...services. Their leader, Uta found herself with more power than most other clan leaders overnight. It didn't take long for the real clan leaders to notice, but we still had the Reapers to deal with, so it was set aside temporarily."
"Okay, and?" Jack said impatiently.
"And...by the time Wrex arrived home with his warriors, the female clan pulled all the strings and even Bakara was chanting for war. Dulak was frothing at the mouth to go after the Salarians and not by coincidence had secured a lucrative breeding contract that they'd been acting on for over a year while the others were away. Wrex had to do something to regain control."
"You mean to tell me that the women basically controlled the Krogan?" she asked incredulously.
Grunt's voice unexpectedly carried from the cargo bay. "For fuck's sake be quiet !"
Jack guessed that last part had been a bit loud and she clenched her jaw. Charl was doing something odd with his mangled lips that she took as some kind of grin, though, and she chuckled, warming up to the guy. "Go ahead," she said with a wave of her hand.
"Yeah," he grunted, "Well I wouldn't expect you'ta hear this version from most, but it was the first time the reigning clan and female clan actually had a sit down, so you be the judge. At the end of their talks, Wrex agreed to take action against the Salarians and the female clan agreed to disperse. Urdnot territory was already neutral ground for females, no kidnapping allowed. The agreement expanded that to all territories with harsh punishments for any lawbreakers."
"Oh," Jack said, eyes widening in understanding. "That's why Bakara's finally wearing Urdnot colors." Her dark eyes glanced up to the ceiling in thought before returning to his. "But if Wrex agreed to go to war with the Salarians, what the hell has he been doing all this time?"
The Shaman just looked at her for a moment, his eyes slowly widening when he realized the question was genuine. "You….asked where Dulak's warriors came from."
"Oh," she said again. Her brow furrowed, knowing she'd missed something, and chewed on her lower lip. The warriors were for a war with the Salarians. They were under another clan's banner and on Tyr, not Tuchanka. Nobody would think to look there, and they were one jump away from the Salarian homeworld . "Oh! " she exclaimed before lowering her voice to a harsh whisper. "You're ready to attack Sur'Kesh!"
"If we can come to terms with Kravorog," the Shaman replied in a deep voice. "Those warriors are ready to spill blood. The longer they sit idle, the less they care who that blood belongs to."
"Shit," she groaned, shifting in her seat to look forward again through the glass. She folded her arms, guilt nagging at her. Her gaze was fixed on the stars, not wanting to look at the Shaman before she breathed, "I was...a raging bitch to Grunt just now."
"You were roughly woken," he gurgled, the last syllable turning into a chuckle. When she turned to look at him sharply he fully laughed. "You think humans are the only ones with mating dreams?"
For one of the few times in her life Jack found no words, unsure whether to lie or brashly admit the truth. It's not like she was ashamed of it...far from it. It was just…. private in a way few other memories were. Even her more vile curses were strangled with that uncertainty until she lamely told him to fuck himself, proving him right.
"If words to Grunt were your crime, Jack," he said, pulling his ponderous weight upright and onto his feet with a look devoid of humor, "Then words are the cure. Wake me when we reach the relay."
She did, after several hours of travel through the Horse Head Nebula, and the pair once again took the wheel. Jack tried to meet Grunt's eyes as they passed one another in the short hall connecting the cockpit with the hold, but he purposefully avoided her and launched into a conversation with Charl instead. Well , she thought, at least I know what the fuck is going on .
She stayed quiet as they arrived, listening to their plans, which was essentially to keep calm and offer Kravorog a chance to lead the whole shebang if he could just prove his innocence. Seemed a sweet enough carrot unless the asshole's plan was in fact to take over from the start; but if so, what advantage had he gotten by waiting this long?
Tyr looked pretty desolate, with no hint of the Krogan colony visible until very close to the ground. Once they got clearance to land she saw that the landing facilities were under what had to be artificial 'surfaces' that looked just like normal ground from above. The surfaces were raised high enough for spacecraft to enter from the sides, with energy barriers keeping out the poisonous atmosphere. There were a LOT of ships in there. For such a high-tech installation, though, the landing area was still littered with equipment and trash. Hard for her to be judgmental though, when the sheets on her own bed hadn't been changed in months.
They were met by a group of large and intimidating battlemasters wearing yellow and green, which she figured to be Dulak's colors. Unlike the others milling around the landing bay, though, their uniforms had a peculiar slash of black on the left shoulder, which probably meant they were bodyguards. They seemed polite enough, greeting Grunt with respect and leading them to a large tunnel with a pair of converted tomkahs waiting. The group didn't even check their belongings for weapons, just bundled them all in the back and drove. God dammit , she thought, I knew they should've come packing. The M-358 Talon in her duffle might not mean much in a fight alone with these boys, but the shotgun-like pistol sure made a satisfying sound when it ruined someone's day.
The drive was so long she nearly nodded off before the Shaman elbowed her back to consciousness. Her mind had been wandering, what with the pair being so dominantly silent and the bodyguards watching like statues. They must've driven 100 km by now and while part of her wondered how they'd carved out such an area underground, the rest of her just wanted some music, damn the consequences. Fortunately the driver perked up just a few moments later.
They pulled into a wider area with rows of other vehicles parked, then exited and moved into an even larger excavated area reinforced with metal and sectioned into big rooms and quarters. This was the nerve center; the head of this particular snake. It was well fortified, she could see, with automated as well as manned defenses; a tough nut to crack. Walking down a sprawling main hallway, Jack passed several rooms of Krogan wearing different colors. There was a line of them also seated against a wall before a set of tall doors, swung open.
All eyes followed Grunt as he entered. Only a few of them had weapons she could actually see, and she noted each in turn. Up some steps to an empty dias, an elaborately dressed Krogan (for them, anyway) waited. When they reached him, he leaned forward to speak in a low voice to Grunt.
"You gotta be kidding me," Grunt growled.
The Krogan shrugged. "Whatever you need to say, you can say to me."
"I came," Grunt snapped, "To see Kravorog. You tell him to get his ass out here, now, before I start stringing up his next appointments."
Whoever-the-fuck looked annoyed but eventually turned around and stomped through a side passage. Grunt looked at her in exasperation and shook his giant head, then returned his glare to the dias. There were a lot of whispers around them, though every time she looked toward a voice, it got quiet. After a few minutes of pacing the guy reappeared and gestured for them to follow.
They were brought into yet another large room separated into two parts by some kind of sliding wall. It didn't reach all the way to the ceiling, and Jack could hear something moving behind it, but their 'tour guide' motioned to seats on this side of it. It was Jack's turn to look at Grunt this time, but his eyes were also narrowed in confusion, or suspicion, or both.
"Where is he?" Grunt asked with an edge of malice, none of them moving to the benches; but before the Krogan could answer they heard a voice from behind the wall.
"I'm here, Grunt," it said, in a tone so low it was more of a rumble. "What do you want?"
"We need to talk. What's with the smoke and mirrors?"
A deep sigh echoed in the dark space behind the partition, but the sound was amplified through a speaker on this side of the room. "A lot's changed since the last time I saw you... Raego, pull the damn thing back."
Raego twisted his head toward the back of the room, startled; then looked back at Grunt, lips curling back to reveal his sharp teeth before stomping to the left-hand side of the room and punching a panel with a meaty club of a fist.
The tall barrier began moving slowly but surely to the right, the only noise being the occasional squeal of metal on metal. Charl took a step forward to stand by her, all their eyes focused on what was being revealed.
The space behind was bigger than the room they were standing in. Much bigger. The section of room was sealed off by a clear, thick barrier. Equipment filled the wallspace and there was a giant bed-like thing in the middle that folded so that it could be used as a chair for the leader of Dulak. He filled every inch of the thing and more, enormous forearms spilling over armrests that were oversized for even the largest Krogan. His head stood taller than Grunt, seated, and was wider than two of him side by side.
His back was bowed forward, with all-white eyes looking at them from beneath a craggy brow. While he sprawled confidently on his makeshift throne Jack couldn't help but sense he was terribly uncomfortable in this space...as if it was closing in around him.
"By Shiagur's tits, Krav," Grunt exclaimed after a moment, "Did your mother fuck a Maw?"
The irritable glint in the ruler's eyes softened for a moment at the comment, followed by a curl in his lips and finally a chuckle that grew into a laugh that filled the room. It was a gallows laugh, the kind you heard from those who had nothing to lose; but it was so genuine they were both pounding their knees at the end of it...revealing a fondness for one another Jack never expected.
"Aha," Kravorog finished, raising a leg sized arm to brush at his eyes. "Would be easier to explain, I think." he admitted. He considered Grunt for a moment, then added, "I'm glad they sent you. It's good to see your face."
Grunt grunted, nodding. "This is some hip-deep shit, my friend. We need to settle this yesterday."
"On that we agree," Kravorog replied, nodding with certainty, eyes slipping to her and the shaman in turn. "Who's your escort?"
"This is our Shaman," he began with a gesture to Charl who nodded gruffly. "He'll be monitoring the proceedings. And this is Jack."
Those weird eyes widened and took her in, so he clearly wasn't blind. She acknowledged him with a lift of her chin, but he stared long enough to make her feel like she was something crawling in a petri dish. "What?" she asked challengingly when she'd had enough.
"I find…" He began, "That I struggle, even now, with the fact that it was your species the Reapers feared the most. You look like naked, wiggling worms."
Jack reared her head back at the insult and her brow furrowed in disbelief. "Well hey, I reckon if you all'd just pulled your heads out of your asses 1000 years ago you might've been something worth fearing, but here we are."
Kravorog looked pointedly at Grunt and Jack readied herself for some kind of violent response, but they both just ended up laughing again. She sure as fuck didn't join in, though. Were they here to kill this guy or what? The Krogan looked back at her after a moment and sighed, leaning back in his chair with a bit less tension in his shoulders. "Grunt spoke well of you, Jack. It's good to meet another one of the 'Few'."
"Yeah well, can we hurry this along? I got shit to do," she spat, crossing her arms.
Kravarog nodded, returning his gaze to Grunt, who'd been waiting patiently. "I'm listening. What word do you bring from Urdnot?"
"The Rite of the Void is done," Grunt said solemnly. "And the Rite of Authority is begun. Your name is on a lot of lips, Krav, but.."
"But you still think we killed Wrex," he interrupted with narrowed eyes.
"What I think doesn't matter. The elders need proof or you're out."
"Proof?" Krav said, his brow arching angrily, "What proof do you have that we did ? My father had all he ever wanted from Urdnot and was about to lead the vanguard to Sur'Kesh. It doesn't make any sense to kill him!"
"It was Martak's ship that fired on him!" Grunt countered, eyes fierce. "Most of our forces are here under your command! If there was ever a time to betray him it's now! What are they supposed to think?"
"I think they'd believe whatever you told them to think," the clan leader said with a baleful eye, "Which means you think I'm in on it, too." He pointed a giant hooked claw at her friend. "How much sense does it make to attack a ship in the middle of a larger fleet and get yourself killed, when your only heir is a mutated disgrace, hmm? Not much of a plot, is it? I thought you knew me better than that."
Grunt sighed as if he dreaded the response he had to give. It was the look of earnestness that gave it away, but his words were rote, like they'd been memorized. "And what better way to legitimize such a son than by gifting him 600,000 warriors."
Kravorog paused for a moment in surprise, then barked a laugh, which turned into a loud and generous guffaw that lasted too long. "You think," he started before laughing some more, twisting in his seat with the force of his humor. "You think my father would kill himself just to make sure I came to power?"
"No," Grunt said wearily. "We think you arranged it with his men to take over, yourself."
Damn , Jack thought, immediately looking at a glowering Raego to see if he was wanting to get involved. Wish I had popcorn .
"What, you think Martak's friends wanted to kill him and themselves for me?" Dulak countered calmly. "Come on, Grunt. We Krogan aren't much for self-sacrifice."
Grunt shook his head but Jack saw the guy's point. Still, there was a question just laying on the table; a question her friends weren't touching for some reason.
"Why are you a disgrace?" She asked boldly. "Why wouldn't your clan want to follow you? Why are you behind this wall?"
In answer he stood, plate-sized hands gripping the arms of his throne until they creaked. His back straightened and straightened, his head rising higher and higher until he stopped, stooped just under the ceiling. He wasn't wearing armor...she idly wondered if he had a set made for something of this size or how much such a thing would weigh...but he filled all of a set of robes that could completely cover a skycar. Jack stole a look at Grunt and found his jaw slack as he stared up at the monster. Krogan flexibility wasn't really a thing and he had to lean a bit backwards just to take it all in.
"What in the actual f-" she started before returning her eyes to Krav.
"Because his mate's been experimenting on him for years," Grunt interrupted. He spoke to Dulak once again, "When is enough, enough old man?"
"His mate ?" Jack barked with a wry smile. "You mean you've got scientists? Female scientists?"
"Yes," Kravorog rumbled, "Her intellect is unparalleled. A pity the rest of our kind is threatened by it."
"Sounds like she should've been working on the Genophage," Jack remarked.
"She was," Grunt responded before looking at her meaningfully. "And so was her father, Warlord Okeer."
A grin wormed its way across her face. "Okeer, huh? So wait, that kinda makes her your...sister, right?"
The clan leader chuckled, "And through her, he's my brother." The giant Krogan looked sideways at Grunt's glowering face. "Not that he acts like it."
Grunt growled in frustration before saying, "I'm Urdnot. It's simple. A Dulak ship fired upon and destroyed the flagship of the Krogan people with my clan leader on it. Whadaya you want me to do, hug it out?" He pointed a finger at Kravorog, continuing, "If you really want to end this thing you'll disband the army and come take your place at the Rite of Authority, where you belong."
Kravarog snarled and took a threatening step forward, arms reaching forward out of his robe to reveal strength and sinew and long terrible claws. For the first time Jack felt the realization that he could actually tear them both apart. She stepped back, barrier springing into being around her instinctively, but he stopped, and the hissing words coming from him combined with their ultra low pitch sounded like something out of hell.
"That will not happen. It took years to assemble this host, to hide and equip them for this fight. They are poised and ready. To disband them is not only to destroy all of our plans, but let every other race know where they were and what we were planning to do."
"That decision's not yours ," Grunt snarled back, unphased by Dulak's height towering over him. "If we're not united, there can be no attack on anyone!"
"Heheheheheh," Kravorog laughed, the sound echoing in the stone chamber. "I've seen what waiting means, brother. It means war amongst ourselves, like the one you came here to threaten me with. If we wait, the Salarians will never pay for what they've done !" His chest and head shook with rage at the last words, and Jack's ears stung with it. "If that means we go and die, destroying everything they hold dear, then that is a war….won."
There was silence for a moment, both of them breathing deeply and glaring, but Grunt did answer after a time. "You're late to the game, Krav," he said in a voice so low that everyone was forced to turn an ear. "There's reasons we waited this long...reasons that mean our attack could be forgiven by everyone else. Attacking now will kill our future ."
"Forgiven?" he snarled in response. "It sounds to me like everyone forgave their attack on our homeworld, too! I'm not worried about forgiveness, Grunt. I'm worried about the next time they try to wipe us out! If we don't END them we're killing our future."
Grunt shook his head and sighed. "And I agree with you, brother. But we are not...we cannot be the same Krogan we were before." Before Kravorog could argue he pressed his point. "The Salarians are organized. They have friends throughout the galaxy and the Council. They play the game of war on a different level and they are winning ." He emphasized the point with a sealed fist, "In war the one who adapts emerges victorious and we have the time to do that now . We need strong and smart leaders who can lead us to victory now that Wrex is gone . Dulak's face began screwing into stubbornness and again Grunt stopped him. "Krav. You have grown from a disfigured son that your father hid from his allies into a power to be reckoned with. I know you."
Grunt took a step forward and paused, looking up at him seriously. "Come back with me," he hissed, holding out a hand in front of the clear glass.
He looked...sincere, Invested, hell, even concerned. Wow , Jack said in the depths of her own mind, though she kept her face neutral. Where did this Grunt come from? She found herself sympathizing with the giant mutant and watched him, hoping he'd say yes.
Kravorog's lips peeled back from his teeth in a smile and Jack began to wonder if she didn't just come out to watch the pair tie the knot when the wrecking-ball sized head shook back and forth.
"Well," Dulak said pleasantly, "You've succeeded in your quest." Then his lips curled into a sneer and he continued, "You lie better than a Salarian ever did." He waved a hand and the doors behind them opened, his personal guard flooding in with weapons raised.
Jack made a reach for her bag but Grunt stopped her with a hand on her shoulder and a shake of his head. He dismissed her look of concern and stood quietly as they were encircled. She noticed the Shaman looked completely calm too, but that was probably because the bastard was untouchable. She swore and stood and did her damnedest to stay calm, but kept the ember of rage inside her chest alive and ready.
"Killing me won't help you," Grunt said gravely as the crowd grew. "You'll just be admitting your guilt."
"So they can do what, protest on the sidelines?" Kravorog laughed. "When they see the fury of our attack they'll be forced to join us or spend eternity branded a coward. I'd offer a place for you, Grunt, but..." He shrugged helplessly and lifted a hand again to order the attack.
"But you're afraid I'd just kill you and take over," Grunt said again, calm as still water...and Dulak's hand froze. "After all, these warriors are here for the fight, not you, right?"
The clan leader looked around the room full of his most fanatical men and they all started laughing. "Is this the part where you challenge me for leadership? Grunnnntt…." He breathed, shaking his head. "I'm gonna save you a lot of pain by declining."
"Oh no," Grunt interjected again before he could order the attack, and it seemed to irritate the clan leader. "I was gonna say I'll just kill everyone here and make it a moot point."
Kravorog laughed again and pounded his knee, the rest joining him in mockery. "You're gonna kill everyone in this room?"
"Hah!" Grunt joined in the laughter, looking around amiably at them all. "Nono, I'll kill everyone on this planet!" He laughed even louder then….and the rest of them got quiet. Reeal quiet.