MASS EFFECT CHASM: CHAPTER 15

A soft chime on Kelly's terminal indicated that a new message was received in Shepard's' private inbox. Before the red-head had an opportunity to flag it as a reminder to alert the commander, an incoming call from her employer deviated her attention. "Remove that message." A scrambled male voice ordered on the other end. It was standard that incoming transmissions never identified their agents. All that Chambers needed to know that this was coming from the higher-ups. A firm reminder that this was still a Cerberus vessel.

"Of course. Will delete now," Kelly bumbled over her words as she swiftly moved to remove the incoming unread message from the inbox. It baffled her how quickly Cerberus intercepted the transmission and reached out to her. What were the contents of that message? Who was it from? More importantly, why block it? Curiosity tempted her to hold onto it. Defying the order was a death mark. They were watching her every move. Suspicion of treason was everywhere. No matter who confessed their loyalty to the cause, the Illusive Man was cautious and guarded. That same principle trickled down to the high-ranking operatives. Even Miranda Lawson. The brunette was not offended by this philosophy. She embraced it. Zalena had no desire to be one hundred percent gun-ho on the Cerberus' platform. Why not keep an eye out on her? The woman was there to assist in defeating the Collectors and protecting the colonists. Right now, she and her team were on the derelict Reaper to retrieve the IFF. The one software they needed to enter the Omega 4 Relay.

Hours later, Zalena moved through the CIC. Her muscles ached. Ahead of her, Grunt was dragging the inactive Geth towards the elevator to place their finding in a hold until she discussed with her team what to do next. The adrenaline in her veins seemed to be still pumping and she ignored the looks of fear and concern on the ship's crew as they watched Grunt move along. Whispers of doubt and disproval moved along like a wave as she walked by. Some of the crew were placed by Cerberus and had strong ties with the organization. Their trust in Shepard wasn't on the scale of Garrus or Tali. They were there to get her to where she needed to go to reach her destination. That was it. The battle aboard the derelict was tough. Husks swarmed her and her squad along with scions: The bulbous grotesque creation of the merging of husks. Their strained loud groans created chills down her spine. It was hard to imagine what other vile creatures that the Collectors could concoct. All she knew was that she was damned to let the entire human race become like that. They weren't tools for the Reapers like the Protheans. "No messages for you, Commander," Yeoman Chambers announced as she passed towards the conference room.

"Thank you, Kelly," Zalena didn't have time to flash a friendly smile or strike up a conversation about what transpired. They retrieved the Reaper IFF and that was passed along quickly to EDI. She and Joker were tasked to implement it into the Normandy's systems so they could proceed. Things were very disturbing right now. Cerberus had field scientists onboard the Reaper to study the shell. Video documentation showed that they started to digress cognitively. Memories were overlapping with others to confuse; they began to hear voices other than their colleagues and complained of headaches. Multiple signs of indoctrination. Surely, the Illusive Man instructed his teams to be careful, or did he simply not care? She was hoping that they let their guard down and not the latter. On top of that horrendous finding, they also picked up a geth. Not just any synthetic that was created by the Quarians. This one had a piece of her old armor on its chest plate. It spoke out to her by name and sniped a few husks on its town. What did it want with her? Why was it there? Everything was getting very complicated. Her head was spinning.

Twisted and mangled bodies littered the ground from under her. Zalena had no idea where she was, but there was a hint of familiarity to it. Her surroundings patterned those of the Collectors. Was she on the Collector vessel? If so, why was she back? How did she get there? Unanswerable questions fired at her. Distant blood-curling shrills of those in pain mixed with unpleasant groaning echoed through the darkened passages to her left and right. The sound of liquid dripping as if she was in a cavern came in front of her. Tortured beings pleaded for their lives. Their voices hit her eardrums as if they were right on top of her. A coldness overpowered her. Or so she believed. "Save us!" They begged. She looked down and saw the lifeless heads turning at unnatural positions to look upon her. Their hollow eyes stared up at her. "Shepard…."

"Shepard, save me…." A familiar voice beckoned to her. She didn't have to turn to the voice to identify Kaidan Alenko. The major was about ten feet away, his head only visible from the corpses that were piled on top of him. His face a ghostly white. "Commander…"

"Kaidan!" She ran towards him, but the further she tried to get him, the further he became. What was going on? Finally, after what took nearly triple the time, she found him and his eyes were shut. She struggled to remove the dead from around him. Their weight was unrealistically heavier. Just as she got to where she could free him, his eyelids popped to reveal his glassed-over eyes to stare right at her. She lurched back and suddenly, her body awoken from the hellish nightmare. Zalena stumbled out of her bed in her cabin with her heart rapidly thumping inside her chest. Her body quivered; drenched in a cold sweat. A throbbing migraine located in the central part of her skull made her shun her eyes from the room's artificial light. "What the hell…." She rasped as her mind mulled over the gruesome images that displayed within her dreams. Images that no one should be subjected to. Cupping her face, she ran her fingers over her skin and groaned to escape the grogginess of restlessness. There was too much on her mind to sleep, despite her body longing for it. As a soldier, she knew her limits and knew that one could be subjected to prolonged lack of sleep, but there was a point that was essential for combat reaction times. A slowed mind made an individual fodder for bullets.

"Shepard, your day will come," Harbinger's recognizable voice boomed in her mind.

Rubbing her eye ridges, she shook her head. "Too many missions against the Collectors. Harbinger is getting to me." Already surmising to the most logical conclusion out there. Sitting up from the floor, she moved towards her private bathroom to wash her face. "Horizon, the Collector vessel, reaper tech…. there's so much riding on this. Dealing with Saren was much easier," She muttered. Staring at her reflection in the oval mirror above her sink, she reached down to activate the motion sensor on the faucet to gather water in her cupped eyes. Using them as a basin, she lowered her head and splashed water upon her skin twice. The coolness of the water stimulated her senses. Patting her face dry with a towel, she looked back up and nearly leaped out the room's doorway. Her image in the mirror was replaced with Ashley's face. The fallen soldier's accusatory brown eyes glared right at her. "Commander." Then the image switched back to Shepard's face.

"What the hell…" Zalena took a few breaths to calm down her breathing. Was she so exhausted that she was hallucinating? The missions were getting to her. The chime at her cabin door interrupted her thought process. Opening the door, she saw Thane on the other side. The drell's face switched to looks of concern at her distressed appearance.

"Siha, are you alright?" He sincerely asked as he reached out to hold her.

"I'm okay. Just haven't been sleeping well," She felt herself melting in his embrace. The warmth of his touch was like medigel on a wound. Seeing him up at her floor level was out of place. She knew that with his syndrome, he needed a place somewhere dry on the Normandy and that was Life Support. "Can you be up here?" She felt silly to even ask.

"As long as I don't linger for more than a couple of hours, then I will be fine," He assured her. "I wanted to thank you for helping me with Kolyat. He was so disconnected, more than I assumed."

Zalena smiled at him. It warmed her heart to see how touching and emotionful he was. "It's okay, Thane. Everyone needs closure. You are all important to me."

"Captain Bailey made good on his word. He has allowed my son to be part of a special C-Sec task force. Kolyat is adjusting nicely and this is redemption for what he has done."

"I'm just glad that things didn't escalate as he intended. If he killed Talid, there would be no going back. I wouldn't have been able to invoke my status as a Spectre to redeem him."

"And I would not ask you of such," Krios agreed. "We all have our lines of honor."

Shepard giggled. "Now, you sound like Samara."

"Siha, there's more to my visit than gratitude." His voice became more serious.

"Go ahead." Shepard offered the chair at her desk, but he shook his head in decline.

"Bailey reached out to me while you were away. C-Sec had a recent encounter with Mouse on the Zakera Ward…he was proclaimed to be hysterical."

"Hysterical?" Zalena thought back to the duct rat's disposition the first time she met Thane's contact on the Citadel. "We're talking about the same guy, right?"

The drell silently nodded his head. "He was very adamant that people were after him due to talking to you. They are trying to kill him."

"People? Elias' flunkies?" Shepard chewed her lip, trying to figure out who all would be the prime suspect in getting rid of Mouse. The politician was the one who put a contract in with Kolyat with the presumption he was Thane to be rid of his competition: Jalid. Despite Elias' final cooperation, he despised the predicament he was placed in: A interrogation room at C-Sec with Thane and Zalena as the inquisitors.

"Hard to say. Mouse is a friend of mine," Drell persisted. Anger rose in his voice, "The officers only threatened to lock him up for making a disturbance. Mouse left the ward and hasn't been seen since. Bailey flagged me after what happened with Kelham." He paused as he paced from where he stood. "Shepard, you have done so much for me…I- "

Moving close to gently stop him with her hand, she took his hand in hers and gave it a light squeeze. "Thane, we promised him protection. We can't abandon Mouse. I have time for one final stop at the Citadel. I'll tell Joker now."

Thane bowed his head thankfully. "Thank you, Siha. I'm in your debt."

Zalena tossed a playful grin at him then leaned over and gently kissed his cheek. "I may like that."