Linron's ship and escorts waited a short distance from the Widow Relay, one flash after another of departing and arriving ships lighting the canopy. She stared from her seat on the bridge at the majesty of the Citadel, floating dimly inside its protective nebula, and considered the fact that she'd never walk its halls again. The prospect of her own death had been on her mind for far longer than her recent meeting with Shepard, to be sure, but knowing the day for certain was an altogether different thing.
"Dalatress?" called her helmsman, "Councilor Esheel has connected securely."
She jerked her chin toward the adjoining meeting room and nudged her chair in that direction with a finger on its haptic panel. A holographic version of her long-time ally waited inside.
"It's done," the Councilor said with finality when their eyes met. "The committee will strip both of them of their positions effective immediately."
Linron's eyes glittered. "The report was presented with my updates, yes?"
"It was. If she is in fact a surviving Reaper agent the danger is clear."
The Dalatress clenched her jaw and narrowed her eyes. "Be careful. She won't come quietly, and until we know the full scope of this indoctrination we must assume every one of Shepard's allies is as firmly under her sway as Tevos and Sparatus are."
"Yes," she smugly agreed, "I will take the necessary precautions." A moment later her expression settled into one of concern. "What of you?" she asked. "Are you still determined to surrender yourself to the Krogan?"
Merely thinking about leaving this place and returning home caused a searing pain behind her eyes, and her thoughts quickly returned to what lay before her and what she must do.
Esheel noticed.
"Are you even well enough for the journey?" she added with a rare note of gentleness.
"I only need to sit in this chair until the end," Linron growled, blinking the last remnants of pain away. "That much I can do."
The Councilor pursed her lips. "Rest in the knowledge that you will be remembered forever," she said solemnly. "Your tireless work and willing sacrifice will not only redeem our people's reputation but in the same stroke you'll have tilted Council influence back in our favor with this report. Not even Schaklass herself claimed as large a boon for our people."
The Daltatress hmphed. "My only regret will be missing the look on Narra's face when she hears of it," she spat with a crooked smile, and the older women chuckled together at the thought.
"She really thought she had your eggs in her hand, blowing your cover to STG like that," Esheel crooned, "But now their clan will return to the same level of obscurity fate has ever spun for them." She met Linron's eyes with pride. "I hope I can employ your sense of timing half as well. You will be missed."
"You'll be fine," Linron sighed, shifting where she sat. "I've always been pleased to have you on my side. The alternative would have been...unpleasant for both of us."
The light surrounding Esheel darkened a bit, and the glow of red emergency lights strobed her face. The Councilor looked over her shoulder and held up a finger to Linron in pause, then spoke in low tones to someone just outside holo-range before returning, perturbed.
"It appears we are being asked to evacuate the Tower," she said. At her questioning look she added, "Something about a gas leak. Ridiculous."
A crook appeared between Linron's wide eyes. "Has news of the investigation been released already?"
The answer was a firm shake of the woman's head.
Linron stared at her seriously. "You know how many people on the Citadel might be compromised. It's possible that report is already in their hands. They might not be able to stop the consequences of their actions but I wouldn't put it past them to target you. Be on your guard ."
"Yes," Esheel intoned in careful consideration. "Yes, you're probably right." Her eyes lifted once again to hers before saying, "I must go, then. Goodbye...Linron."
It was a breach of protocol to omit her title, but the woman's sincerity gave her pause enough to let it pass. "Goodbye," she replied with finality, and the connection went dark. The Dalatress turned her chair to the exit with limbs laden with dread.
On the bridge, the Commander waited expectantly. "Everything is as you've commanded, Revered One," he said, standing formally behind his chair with one hand on the headrest as she appeared.
"Good," she said wearily. "Connect and deliver the package to the Exodus Cluster comm buoy, then deliver me to Tuchanka. It's time to finish this."
Bakara was seated in a stout chair next to Wrex's old throne, it's emptiness at least half the cause of the disquiet in the room. She had her allies, of course, mostly the same that Wrex had; and with their help decisions were still being made in an acceptable fashion. The problem was when those allies began to recognize they were the ones holding things together, their own demands began taking center stage. Should she agree with them to keep their support even if their desires were stupid and selfish? Or should she do the right thing and risk alienating them; risk that the next squabble about something that mattered be decided by her enemies simply because her allies were sulking ?
Bakara was currently rendering judgement on a territorial dispute between two tribes, one from each of the opposing camps, that was particularly vexing. Her patience had already been sorely tested over the last few days so an abrupt interruption from Qrrash, flanked by two battlemasters, was ironically welcome.
"Bakara," he called in a voice that silenced any who were speaking, "Three Salarian ships have entered Aralakh space."
The room erupted with raised voices, not letting him finish and only settling with the rise of her hand and too many seconds.
"They say Dalatress Linron is with them and they wish to land!" he shouted with a furious chuckle, and the uproar rose again with calls for her death, their cries becoming deafening along with a steady drum of Krogan feet stamping the ground beneath them.
She watched their reactions carefully, remembering the cryptic message Shepard had sent to her only a few days before. Her suggestion that Linron would come to Tuchanka at all had seemed unthinkable.
She raised a hand again and the room went quiet, all eyes fixed upon her. "What does she want?" She asked when she could utter the words without raising her voice.
Qrrash looked at her ferally, a lip curled in derision. "She wants to speak to you," he said.
"Some kind of trick!" She heard from someone in the crowd followed by, "Blow them to pieces!" from another.
"I do not trust this," Qrrash added in a low growl, his eyes not leaving hers.
"With good reason," Bakara agreed. After a moment of consideration, she said, "Muster our ground forces and ready our fleet!"
A cheer filled the room and she stood, looking at them all in turn. "But let them land!" she stated clearly and watched the shock play out among them. Shepard had written that Linron would say things that Bakara should hear. Things she needed to hear. The Krogan female turned to Qrrash once more and added with fury, "I don't want her harmed, am I clear? If anyone gets the pleasure of killing her, it will be me ." She turned to the rest with fierce eyes, shaking with the truth of her hate and the need for them to obey her in this. "It will be ME!" she bellowed with bared teeth to the grudging approval of all.
Her escort had been killed at the spaceport and their ships destroyed in rage. Linron said nothing during the chaotic moments of her companions' death; they'd volunteered to accompany her and were fully aware of the violence that may await them. Her own clock ticked lower and lower but she waited calmly as she was taken, as she was thrown from her chair, shackled and dragged, her lower limbs long useless into a large chamber with a large chair raised upon a dias, where she was dropped at its feet.
She waited there for hours without food or drink or facilities, embarrassing herself when she excreted without wanting to. Such were the indignities of age. She told herself again that wisdom outweighed the flesh and pondered all the things that brought her to this point. Her thoughts circled over each decision, always turning away at the fire-bright pain behind her eyes at the consideration of giving herself up to these beasts. The worst of it was that she remembered it….the same block that plagued her after meeting with the leader of Cerberus before the war and her failed invasion of Tuchanka.
The difference was in the recognition of it, that could just barely grasp it at the edges, a part of her decrying what it did to her before her thoughts returned to a sequence not of her own making; but she now remembered the barest scent of it every time. Every time she would bend her anger at it like a hammer at an iron door, marking it deeply so she could behold it the next time she returned and in that repetition found she was able to glimpse what lay beyond like peering through a keyhole. For a few seconds only could she consider the future...and shape it closer to her will. Death for her might be unavoidable but that didn't mean it must be useless.
Eventually, inevitably, her foe entered and took a seat in the chair above her. Linron was pleased that her spirit didn't quail at the sight of the Krogan woman's towering height.
"This is how you treat those that come in peace," she spat with a throaty chuckle.
The Krogan's reptilian eyes narrowed at her and her hands gripped the arms of the chair in which she sat as if they wished they were her throat. "Hypocrisy doesn't suit you," she said, "But those shackles certainly do. I thought you were dead. Hoped you were."
She regarded those shackles silently for a moment, then lifted her eyes to the Krogan with a sniff.
"Well," Bakara began with a crook of her scaly brow, "This must be a new experience for you, seeing your enemy face to face. Why have you come?"
The most powerful Dalatress in the Salarian union had no power against the answer bubbling forth from her depths. "To do the right thing ," she said woodenly, immediately hating herself. She struggled to pull herself upright despite the dead weight of her lower half. Focus , she swore inwardly, focus . She changed her tone at once to something more... believable.
"We've been at odds for a long time and it's damaged us both," she added. "It's time this war ended." Bakara looked immediately suspicious and Linron couldn't blame her. This wasn't how she'd intended to begin.
"If you think the death of Wrex has given you a softer opponent you are mistaken," the woman said with the leaden voice of imminent violence. "Sweet words from you will only earn a worse fate."
"I have wronged you and your people. I admit it freely," she said with a bravery her innards didn't share. Her spine straightened further to spite the tremor in her hands.
Bakara sighed and sat back in puzzlement. "You have," she replied with certainty. "But why admit this now?" She lifted a clawed hand to the air. "Why come here to do it? Did you honestly think we would receive you as dignitaries?!" Her great head shook back and forth. "What do you gain from this?"
"It's not about me," Linron fired back quickly. "This is about our species' relations moving forward. The future is too important to squander."
The Krogan began to laugh. "Your future or ours?" she asked archly before crooking a finger to a guard by the door. He nodded and walked into the hallway before Bakara turned back to peer at her prostrate figure. "We've taken every attack you've thrown and we're still here."
As she said the words, diminutive figures began to walk into the throne room. They toddled and gaped and whispered, but nine of them eventually surrounded Bakara on her throne while that reptilian face continued to stare at her.
"You smell unwell," she continued with a dramaticized sniff of the air. "Old. How old are you, Linron? 45? 50?" she queried while the Krogan children turned curious eyes to her. She reached out to cradle the back of the nearest's head, pulling it gently closer.
"I'd introduce you," Bakara said with a feral twist of her mouth, "But you have so little time left that their names aren't important. What is important is that these are my children. These are Wrex's children. With a little luck they will live to be a thousand years old. This is our future, and they will know all about your people before they are even blooded."
Linron fought down the revulsion she felt at the thought of their return to successful breeding. "Any blame you have for our actions should be laid at my feet and only mine!" she cried. "I am the one who kidnapped you and the other fertile females and imprisoned you on Sur'Kesh. I'm the one who tried to subvert the cure, I'm the one who led the attack on.."
"So you came here to give yourself up for the rest?" Bakara interrupted. "Do you think that if we forgive them the Council will lift the few, pitiful sanctions they managed to apply for your attempt at genocide?"
"I don't care about the Council!" she spat. "I know you. I know the Krogan. You'll never set aside your need for revenge until you're given justice and I think we both know the Council can never give that to you. I can. I'm thinking about my children, too! If I have to die so that they can live without threat then I'll do that. Don't make them pay for my mistakes."
She saw the argument hit home, mother to mother, and the female released the child and sat back on her throne with thought-shaded eyes.
"You forget I know you too," Bakara said after some time. "I know you say one thing and do another and I know that you are not the only Salarian that would see us gone."
"And I'm aware that even if you agree to this proposal the others may not," Linron returned, shifting her body on the painfully stone floor. "But my people know why I'm here and they approve. Give your people a big enough display of my execution and we may, finally, have a foundation to build upon."
The Krogan's eyes narrowed and she leaned forward once more. "Are you counciling me to put you to death in front of all?"
"I submit to whatever satisfies your needs ," Linron said carefully. "My only wish is that your voice becomes one that speaks for an end to our mutual hostilities."
Centuries of mistrust played itself out on the Krogan's face in seconds before she turned to shout at the one who'd brought in the children. "Qrrash! Take her to a cell."
When Qrrash returned from his task, Bakara rose from where she'd been furiously thinking and ushered the children back towards their rooms. When the door slid shut she rested her weight against the wall with an outstretched hand and dropped her chin, conflicted. She stayed that way even as the weight of Qrrash's regard deepened.
"Speak your piece," she growled finally.
She heard his steps approaching until he stood beside her, his grizzled and scarred face just visible in her periphery. "Why does she still live?" he asked.
The Krogan turned her head to him. "Because she wants to die," she explained.
Her most trusted advisor made a disgusted noise. "She's dying anyway."
"Exactly," she retorted with a push from the wall, meeting him face to face. "She wants her death to mean something, which would be worthy of respect if Valern had ever been acquainted with honor."
Qrrash's head shook from side to side. "What does it matter? You want her death above all things and she has given it to you." He made a fist as he said the words, "Take it."
Bakara sighed, wanting with all her heart to agree. "The Salarians never 'give' anything, my friend, least of all her."
He paused, eyes narrowing in thought, and she added, "How do you think they will respond when they hear that she's been executed?"
He barked a laugh, "They can't hate us any more than they do."
She nodded readily enough, but said, "No but they can use this moment, when we are most divided, to turn our allies against us."
Qrrash was incredulous. "How?"
"Their justice is not ours, my friend. They trap it in long-winded speeches and ceremony and would expect her to be tried for her crimes."
"Pfah!" he exclaimed. "She came to us. She confessed. Are you Krogan or are you Varren to be frightened by such?"
Bakara's hand tightened into a fist at the words and her eyes darkened. He seemed to notice and tempered his words. "With respect," he said slowly, "If you do not kill her, your own people will see you as weak. Which is more dangerous?"
Her teeth ground, but he was correct. "If I step into her trap here at the end," she reasoned, "I'm not the only one who will suffer. We all will. It's important that she doesn't 'win' just because I want blood. Do you see that?"
Qrrash's armor creaked as he brought a hand to his jaw, scratching there before nodding grudgingly.
She turned and walked over and behind the throne, putting her hands upon the back of the stone seat as she had while Wrex was still seated there. "I must not act rashly," were her final words on the subject.
"But you must act," her friend said solemnly. "And soon, before she dies on her own."
Bakara took a deep breath and released it before asking, "Nothing from Grunt?"
Qrrash shook his head.
"How much time does Kravorog have left?"
"The first asteroid will land in about two days," he answered flatly. "The rest will land before the end of the next."
She looked at him directly and he seemed to know what she would ask next. "We can still divert them if we act tomorrow."
The answer put her in a pace, her route taking her around the throne and up and down the rough steps in turn. Her longtime ally watched silently while she wrestled with her thoughts. After some time she paused, midstep.
"Prepare a tomkah," she said before meeting his gaze. "And let it slip to the other tribe leaders that we are leaving."
There were a total of three tomkahs leaving the Kelphic Valley all told. Once Urdnot's allied leaders decided to attend, their enemies jealously refused to be left behind. She and Qrrash drove the lead car with Valern bundled and carefully attended in the back of their vehicle.
They drove for some time through stony crevasses, heaped ruins and open sand. North and Northwest they went as the heat of the day rose until they arrived at a yawning series of depressions where the hungry earth had swallowed a series of ancient buildings; their craggy corners and dark haunted openings still visible.
Bakara exited and directed her escort to unload the Salarian and bundles of gear, then pulled a measure of Urdnot colored cloth across her face before striding toward the place known for centuries as The Hollows. A skirmish had taken place here centuries ago among the scattered skulls and sarcophagi of their ancestors, a blood betrayal between father and son that forever desecrated its hallowed halls. To one of those decrepit buildings she walked, directing everyone inside its slowly crumbling structure.
Aralakh still shone through the wallbreaks, illuminating the sand-pillowed stone walls and floor, and they all paused in the middle of the room to behold a strange and wondrous sight. Billowing from side chambers and covering the corners were bursts of green vines and foliage spilling from every possible cranny, creeping across to reclaim even the ceiling with the vibrant flower of life. The air pushed and pulled around the chamber and through pillars of sunlight was filled with pollen and the buzz of insects, and the very air felt moist on their skin. Even the most blood-soaked and battle-hungry among them stopped in awe at the sight.
"You stand in the crypts of Urdnot," Bakara said in her deepest and most shamanic voice before turning to them. She spared a glance at a sour-faced Valern, carried in the arms of her personal guard, but nodded to another tribesman, who set a bundle down at her feet. She reached down and uncovered a rusting hulk of metal armor and set her hands upon a helmet encrusted in red and yellow, holding it aloft.
"I come here to return Wrex's ancestral armor to the home of his fathers," she intoned before carefully arranging the pieces along an empty back wall, leaving the helmet staring at the entrance like a sentry before rising to look at each of them in turn. She then walked along each wall and doorway, her hand extending to brush against the flora with some of that plant life reacting to her presence with movement. Sensate pods and vinelets opened or curled toward her aggressively, seeking to entrap her fingers as they passed but she paid them little mind; keeping her eyes fixed on those who would harm and help her instead.
"This life," she said as one of those tendrils wrapped around her wrist, "Is who we are. We curl and snarl in the darkness, craving the light. But the heat of that light is also our death." She uncurled it delicately with her finger before walking closer to the gathered warriors. "We are not ready for it, but just like the life coiled within Tuchanka herself we will be. With time."
Bakara paced a line before them all before turning back on her path once again. "Wrex came here in his younger days for a crush with other tribal leaders to discuss how we should move forward. Our numbers were few and our leaders wanted nothing more than to die a good death, but Wrex refused. His own father was so intent on the Void that he tried to kill his own son," she emphasized with anguish. She stepped toward a harsh slant of light and caught it with an outstretched hand. "Urdnot Jarrod was so blinded by death he could not comprehend the life shining before him."
She saw and felt Wrex's allies straightening where they stood, chins rising in grief and determination and that's who she addressed. "Do not be blinded by death, brothers. We must look to the light, we must reach for it, even as it burns us. Just as Wrex counseled his father, we must grow and heal before we conquer the ruins of our world."
Suddenly, before their attention could wane, she took quick steps to point a finger at Valern's black liquid eyes looking back at her from an uncomfortably twisted perch. "This one," she hissed, "Is the source of our suffering. She is the hot wasting wind that desicates us."
There were few who disagreed with her in that chamber and they cried aloud at the proclamation. Valern only blinked slowly in response, audience to her own demise.
"What should her fate be?" Bakara cried over their voices and they rose in volume, full of hate. Her gaze never left the Dalatress as they called for her death.
"So we agree!" she shouted until they quieted before her. "We cannot move forward until that which poisons us is neutralized!"
The lone female among them nodded gravely at their agreement and motioned to the guard carrying the diminutive Salarian with a wave of her hand. "Bring her," she intoned, and they followed.
They left the Hollows and their Tomkahs and walked into the wind driven dunes, Bakara talking with the other leaders while keeping a watchful eye on their prisoner. Valern did her best to keep a brave face but whatever was killing her wasn't being kind about it; the lumbering pace jostled her and she could not fully suppress noises of pain with each heavy step of her captor.
Soon after, Bakara began regaling them all with ancient tales as she had done for many years as the Shaman of her clan. Heroes and villains for certain, but these stories had a particular bent to them; rich and varied descriptions of Tuchanka and how brutal the planet had been to her inhabitants over the centuries. She spoke of all the various denizens of the planet and was certain to point out any signs of them as they travelled, making sure Valern was as educated as the others were entertained. Tuchanka had been a harsh mistress and only the most hardy survived her moods.
For the better part of an hour they walked, until they came to a stop where no ruins or rock could be seen in any direction. Bakara ordered Valern to be set down upon the fine yellow sand and watched as the heat of it burned her hands, forcing her to shift herself onto what fabric clothed her as a shield from it. The Salarian looked up at her with eyes that might already be seeing the afterlife and despite that fact glimmered with hope.
Bakara turned from where she stood over her foe to her people and lifted her chin. "As the temporary leader of Urdnot and as a mother, this woman's death belongs to me," she said by way of explanation for their journey. "Time and again we have been wronged by her and her people, and she has offered her life to us as apology for her crimes. If we have learned anything from our dealings with their people, though, it is that nothing is given free and the cost is often hidden until a later time."
Her eyes turned back to Valern before she continued, "I have thought long about what the price of my vengeance would be, especially when our own people are at such a crossroad." Once again she looked at the leaders of so many of their tribes and lifted her hands questioningly. "Do I care more about myself or my brothers and sisters?"
She could see the doubt and anger of such consideration on their faces when what they would do was plainly written. "Valern has trespassed here," she said in a voice of stone. "I believe she comes to trick us once again and I will not allow it. I give over my vengeance to Tuchanka, herself. If Valern can leave this place on her own then she shall be free to do so. If she cannot, then let no man or woman say that her blood is on Krogan hands."
As her final judgement was released into the air she saw the horror grow in Valern's eyes. Such a death would be long and painful...and alone, and Valern began to plead with a tremulous voice; but Bakara motioned to the group who were looking decidedly more pleased with her decision and bade that they all depart, leaving her there.
Valern's pleas grew softer and unexpectedly turned into a sort of manic laughter. "Kill me, Bakara and be done with it!" she cried, though the Krogan put one foot before another, ignoring her.
"I have admitted my crimes to you," came her continued words like darts at their backs, "But you didn't let me finish."
Bakara paused for the barest of moments, but squeezed her eyes shut and kept following the path they had made in the sand coming there.
"I killed Wrex!" Valern said, almost screaming now. "I had the Krakador destroyed!"
The utterance brought them to a swift halt and she turned around, heart suddenly hammering as the murmurs of outrage began.
"Yes," Valern laughed, "That's right. I had them all killed and set you against one another. You won't trouble my people for a long time, Bakara, long enough for us to be ready for you. That is my gift to you, my enemy, and it is free."
But the later words in her sentence were unintelligible to the Krogan, a blinding rage filling her heart and her head. She heard a guttural scream and it took a long time to realize it was coming from her. Two hands were stopping her from rushing to the pit of evil taunting her from the sands, then four and then six until she could no longer move.
She dimly heard Qrrash speaking to her but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered but the taste of this Salarian's blood on her lips. She could only watch as Qrrash shouted an order and walked back to Valern with a ritual hammer in his hand. He plunged the spear-like weapon deep into the earth near her and with a flick of a switch upon it came the first of many deep, drumlike vibrations it was designed to utter. Once it began the party began to retreat at pace, any arguments stilled against what was to soon come from it.
As Bakara was carried away, deep in her battle-lust, the sounds of Valern's laughter rang long and loud in her ears until the roar of a Thresher Maw finally overwhelmed them. After some time, after she came back to herself, she called for her friend.
"Tyr," she growled while Qrrash put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"I've already sent word to lift the blockade and turn aside the asteroids," he said.
She nodded gratefully. "I missed the end," she lamented soon after.
Qrrash grunted, "She screamed."
"Good," she said with a chuckle before looking at him seriously. "You could have killed her. I know you all wanted to." Now it was her turn to put a hand on his shoulder, and she squeezed it. "You fulfilled my wish anyway."
A peculiar look flashed across his aspect, not quite tender but resolute. "You have never led us astray," he said, lifting her to her feet. "What we lost in Wrex lives in you."
Bakara could suddenly no longer find her words, wrapped up as they were in emotion, so they all walked silently back to the Tomkahs.
It was dawn before they debarked back home, and they were intercepted by a member of House Urdnot at the compound.
"There is a problem," Rus said plainly. "We've sent your message to the fleet in the Exodus Cluster but have gotten no reply."
"As long as they follow orders…" Bakara began but Rus interrupted respectfully.
"We haven't received any acknowledgement that they've even received the message," he said. "We've sent it repeatedly with no change."
"What about other messages," Qrrash asked. "Our ambassadors on the Citadel?"
Rus was already nodding. "We sent messages about what happened with Linron and they responded. We then asked them to relay the orders to Terra Nova as well but they also get nothing in return."
Bakara's blood cooled and she and Qrrash shared a knowing look. "How much time do we have left?" she asked.
"It may already be too late," he replied, deflated.
It occurred to Bakara that this may be the very price she feared to pay, though there was little she could have done differently. "Have we heard nothing about what's going on there?" She asked. "Anything from the Human Alliance?"
"No," Rus said, shaking his head. "It's as if all communication has been severed."
Bakara's mind spun furiously. "We have to assume those ships have been destroyed," she decided. "Send Aralakh. Tell them to be ready to physically deliver reports on the situation, and tell them that their first priority is to prevent those asteroids from making landfall. If this is as bad as it sounds we will need those warriors."
Rus responded by sprinting toward the communications room as if chased by Kalros herself.