Interstitium 2 Chapter 5, Antecedent, Urdnot Grunt, a mass effect fanfic

Antecedent – Urdnot Grunt

–

There were no doors that could stop pure krogan. Urdnot Grunt had pulled down security gates of honeycombed turian steel, had blown breaches in the stones of the Three Teeth during Warlord Wrex's brief war with Clan Ravanor, had gone through the Omega-4 relay to face the Collectors where they had thought they had been safe. Brick or battlement, ravelin or repulsor, bar or barrier might give a lesser krogan pause, but Grunt was distilled from five warlords and krantt to another.

Nonetheless he slowed when he caught sight of the walls of the Shotau Redoubt where the Urdnot hens made their camp. His stomachs bubbled with uncharacteristic anxiety.

He snorted, furious with himself, and hastened his pace. He was pure krogan!

His hump was heaped high with goods of all sorts, not least of which the massive hindlimb of a ramus he and Aralakh Company had killed on their way back from their last journey. The leg alone weighed nearly as much as Grunt himself did, but he had insisted on giving it pride of place so the hens – and one hen in particular – could properly appreciate his strength. Globs of dark, congealing blood smeared his gauntlets and the back of his neck and soaked into his underarmor, but Grunt judged that this only enhanced the effect. Atop the leg were other things – packages of food, weapons and armor, bolts of fabric, metal ingots, rope and nails and bolts, leather waterskins, hides and weavings, salvaged electronics, a piece of an ancient statue, wire and tools and polished varren teeth, and messages scrawled onto paper or scraps of scraped hide or carved into rocks or brittle wood. More of the same filled the repulsor sled Grunt dragged behind him, which gave a ragged whine under the load as he climbed the causeway to the Redoubt.

"Sota, Grunt," came a voice, when he arrived at last at the gate. "Stop there."

Grunt peered up through a murder hole in the battlements, wide enough to admit the barrel of a flechette launcher or a stream of molten copper scrap, but too narrow for him to see who was on the opposite end.

He could smell her well enough. "Sota, Ganowa," he grumbled. "Open the gate."

He heard the creak of Ganowa's footsteps on rusted steel panels. "Why are you here? Are you responding to a breeding request?"

He growled impatiently. If only. "No," he said.

"Do you wish to make a breeding request? You should know this is not the way."

"I'm here with gifts from your clanmates," he said, gesturing to the great stack of goods on his back and the repulsor sled. "I was tasked to bring them to you." In truth, Urdnot Natorth had been tasked to do it, but then Grunt had broken his jaw and three of the spikes off of his headplate and both of his shoulders, and Natorth had seen the wisdom in delegating. "Open the gate."

"What gifts?" Ganowa's voice carried a hint of mean amusement. She was toying with him.

"Many!" he grunted, his irritation mounting. The weight of the ramus leg was beginning to make his shoulder ache. "Open the gate!"

Ganowa laughed, opening a heavy iron hatch above the gate and peering down at him.

Grunt stared balefully up at her.

"There are rules," she reminded him. "Your shaman has taught you the words, hasn't he?"

Grunt swallowed his anger. "Open, Mothers of Tuchanka," he muttered, "know that… know that…" He trailed off, rifling through his memories for the words. Okeer had pontificated at length about the importance of old rituals, but these had anteceded him, and he had been bitterly opposed to the segregation of the krogan sexes from the outset. There was no help there.

"…that you have…" Ganowa prompted.

"Know that you have nothing to fear from me," Grunt blurted over her, "for I came from you, as all krogan do." He hadn't, of course, but the words were what they were, and had sufficed for a millennium without there needing to be an exemption for tankborns. "If I harm you or let you be harmed, I am no krogan at all."

Ganowa blinked leisurely. "Hmmm. Normally there is bowing involved."

Grunt set his head against the gate, the back of his skull exposed.

"It will suffice," Ganowa finally allowed, relenting. "Enter, son of Tuchanka." There was a rattle and the ponderous shift of some hidden counterweight and the gate swung upwards to admit him. Ganowa watched him pass underneath her rampart, a spike thrower in her hands. Inside there were other hen guards, armed and armored and suspicious. Grunt was known to them – one of them had been among those who had sent him a breeding request after he and Shepard had killed the thresher maw – but the traditional deep seated caution krogan females had to cultivate made them wary even of the males in their own clan. They escorted Grunt by bayonet into the fortress' inner bailey.

While krogan male camps sprawled over the landscape with no concession to planning, hen camps often managed some semblance of a purpose-built structure. This was not out of any greater delicacy or need for space – for krogan hens were just as territorial as their male counterparts – but out of a grim focus upon the idea that they might be the target of raids at any time. Accordingly, all but the most temporary of hen camps were more fortress than staging camp and bristled with defenses; battlements and turrets and ditches and explosive traps and shimmering kinetic barriers.

The Urdnot hens maintained six such fortresses, all erected in the most defensible positions in the clan's territory, walled islands in a sea of roving male krantts. Of these, clan leader Uta's Shotau Redoubt was the most permanent. Triple sets of walls of rock and steel encircled the entrance to a shallow canyon, overlooked by a huge circular keep that had stood since before the great nuclear wars and still bore signs of where atomic firestorms had melted its stones smooth. Shotau Redoubt was the lynchpin of Urdnot's holdings, and while the clan's borders contracted and expanded in every direction from year to year, the fortress had been theirs for more than a thousand years.

In the fortress' courtyard, the two dozen splitplates that were the camp's precious charges were sparring under the instruction of a trio of armored old battle hens. The splitplates – some barely up to Grunt's knee, others on the cusp of adulthood – rolled around in the dust battering one another with blades and clubs and armored fists. The trainers called for a stop to the games when they caught sight of Grunt, and chased their students off to a safe distance with kicks and angry snarls and threats of extra work details for those so engrossed in their bouts that they had to be picked up off the ground. They drove the splitplates into a nearby bunker and stood at its entrance to glare warningly at Grunt. Behind them, the splitplates gawked at him from under split lips and broken teeth and bruised snouts.

Grunt shrugged his cargo off his shoulders and tossed it in a heap at the foot of the keep. "Gifts!" he bellowed, setting one foot atop the ramus haunch and gesturing across the bounty. "I am Urdnot Grunt, line distilled from warlords! I bring gifts from the hands of Urdnot!" There were gifts for hens from hopeful mates, or payment of debts, or the proceeds of some ritual offering or another. Some were trinkets, others food or resources or ammo or luxuries. Many others were for the splitplates – a gun for the splitplate Kaga, from Urdnot Radota, who looked forward to the day they would fight under the same krantt, a blade looted from the body of a Gottt clan poacher for the splitplate Goa, from Urdnot Korrath who might be her father, a recorded memoir of Urdnot Dolonat's time fighting for the Striped Crest merc band on Cenderes, to be shared by all splitplates born to hens he had ever mated, just in case they were his.

A tall hen emerged from the keep, and for a flickering second Grunt's hearts beat faster in his chest.

But no, it was not her.

He frowned as Urdnot Akano approached, shotgun in hand, and planted herself in front of him. For a moment she let one eye sweep over the heap of gifts he had brought, then across Grunt himself. If she was much impressed by either, she was hiding it well. "Sota, Urdnot Grunt," she said finally, tone begrudging.

"Sota, Urdnot Akano," Grunt said, grinding out her name with no greater enthusiasm.

Grunt liked hens – he liked hens a lot – but he liked some hens a lot more than others, and Urdnot Akano he liked very least of all. In this opinion he was in a small minority, for Akano was well respected and popular among Urdnot's males, the subject of much gossip and the intended recipient of no small fraction of the gifts Grunt carried. She was strong and had survived many battles, and had a striking black crest and the red eyes of a descendant of the same Clan Chatha from which Warlord Wrex traced his bloodline. More importantly, Akano was a proven mother. Seven of her offspring had survived to adolescence – two even from the same brood – more than many hens twice her age. Akano received an unceasing stream of breeding requests from the Urdnot males and even some optimistic males of other clans.

She would not receive any from Grunt any time soon. "I have brought gifts," he said, pointing. "The ramus leg is from Aralakh Company. The guns are-"

"I assume they are marked?" Akano interrupted. "I will see that they reach their recipients. You may leave, son of Tuchanka."

Grunt frowned at her, anger pulsing. He had not come to see her, and he had no intention of leaving until he had seen who he had come to see. "I will not be shooed away," he snarled. "I am pure krogan." He puffed himself up. "You should be in awe."

She wasn't. No doubt she had been, once, when she had first seen him, for as Grunt was only too fond of bragging to his subordinates in Aralakh Company, hens always looked upon him with great interest. He was Urdnot Grunt. Maw-killer. Pure krogan. Line distilled from warlords. Killer of Gatatog Uvenk. Heir apparent to Clan Urdnot. Even highly esteemed hens like Akano had never seen a male half so impressive as him. He was huge and strong and well-shaped and destined for great victories beyond count.

After his rite, Akano had been one of the hens who had sent him a breeding request, and he had been the envy of every male in the clan. But when the time came she had turned him away.

Apparently he was too young.

The rejection filled Grunt with furious disbelief that – if anyone had been old enough to remember him – would have been proof enough that he was Okeer's son. Pah. Pah! She rejected pure krogan! What did it matter that he was only a year old, when he had done more than many krogan did in their first century? When else would she have the chance to join her blood with the blood of five warlords!?

Akano frowned at him – as always – like he was an unruly child. "You have delivered your gifts, and we thank you," she said. "Now go." Already hens were sifting through the pile of goods, sorting them into piles to be taken to the clan leader, to the splitplates, to the camp larder, to each individual hen. Grunt's frown deepened as he scanned the hens, looking for the one he had come for, hoping she would appear before he was forced to go having never laid eyes on her.

Grunt's favorite did not appear, but his second favorite did, and a wave of relief went through him.

"Is that my dewling? Is that my Grunt I hear?!" A hoary, ancient voice rattled from the keep's balcony. Clan leader Uta, seniormost of the Urdnot hens and mate to Warlord Wrex, peered down with a happy gleam in her rheumy eyes.

"It's me, old one," Grunt said, turning away from a none-too-pleased Akano.

"My dewling!" Uta said. "How I've missed you! You are bigger and more handsome every time I see you."

Grunt knew Uta did not see particularly well at all anymore, but he drank up the praise. "I am pure krogan," he said, beaming.

Uta laughed raspily. "I know you are. Did you bring me the tachux wine I like? You know the Urdnots can't make it like the southbulls do."

Grunt picked a small metal keg out of the pile of goods he'd brought – this gift was from him, spoils of one of his recent treks – and held it over his head. The wine sloshed noisily inside. "I brought it, old one. Just for you. All the way from the southern wall."

Uta cackled again. "You are too good to me, dewling. Come up here and bring it to me!"

Akano started to protest, but the first words had hardly left her lips when Uta cut her off with an impatient wave. "Pfah!" she spat. "Let him pass, Akano! You'd think he was half Ravanor, the way you bitches stiffen!"

Grunt grinned smugly at Akano as the door guards stepped aside to admit him.

–

The upper story of the keep had no roof, and the sun baked the stones hot anywhere that awnings had not been erected overtop for shade. A labyrinth of tiny storerooms opened onto a central chamber dominated by a huge flat slab of dark stone on which Uta and her krantt assembled their plans in chalk. Grunt saw maps and tallies, arrows showing the movement of warriors, little drawings of landmarks that he recognized from his travels. The southern wall – behind which the Qossa clan produced the wine that Uta so coveted – was represented by a thick white line that meandered across the miniature Tuchanka desert.

"Old one?" Grunt called.

Uta's answer came from a dark room at the rear of the keep. Another pair of guards stood by its door and glared suspiciously at Grunt as he passed between them. A huge faded tapestry hung heavily across the inner doorway – Grunt pulled it aside and entered.

The room inside was sweltering, hotter even than outside courtesy of a huge alchite brazier that burned fiercely at the far end, but also humid from the great stone cauldron of water boiling atop it. Uta and two other hens were inside. One hen tended the fire and the cauldron, topping off the latter as it boiled away and keeping the former well supplied with scrap wood and the particular recipe of alchite oil that made up Urdnot clan's heraldic scent. Another hen sat on a stone perch next to a pair of chimneys built into the fortress wall, which she could open and close to ventilate the room as needed.

Uta stooped over the long stone bay that filled one side of the room. Hundreds of shallow hollows had been scraped into the stone in neat lines, each one a cradle for another egg. Grunt's breath hitched in his throat and he froze at the room's threshold.

The eggs were white and yellow and gray, most smaller than the length of his hand, with soft, leathery shells that seemed to sweat faintly. Grunt did not dare come any closer, as if he might crack them just by standing near them. He had, in fact, never seen a single krogan egg – he himself had not even come from an egg at all – and yet here were hundreds of them, the entire future of clan Urdnot.

"Come in, Dewling," Uta said, gesturing. "You won't harm them." Unlike her attendants, Uta was huge in full armor, but she tended to the eggs with a preternatural delicacy. She carefully lifted an egg and turned it over in her hands, massaging the soft shell. She held it up to the light of the firepit, inspected it, frowned, and set it into a line of other eggs, marking its shell with a fingertip dipped in ash.

Grunt took a hesitant step forward. The alchite fire suffused the room with the Urdnot scent, but a soft sulfurous smell of rot lingered underneath that made the anxiety well up in Grunt's chest. His mind whirled this way and that, torn on how he should be feeling – should he feel honored to see something that males rarely saw? Despondent that the whole future of clan Urdnot was so fragile? Indifferent, as Okeer would have been?

Uta smiled at him. "Come in, Dewling," she said again, pulling his crest down to bump against hers. "No fear, now."

The warm comfort of the old hen's affection nearly made Grunt forget to feel a surge of defiance at the suggestion he could ever be afraid of a few little eggs. "I fear nothing," he mumbled. "I am pure krogan." He was annoyed to find himself whispering. He held out the keg of wine before him. "Here," he said in a loud voice.

Uta took it with a greedy glint in her eyes. She unscrewed the cap, splashed a mouthful onto her tongue, and let out a long, satisfied sigh. "Ahhh, dewling, you make an old hen happy." The wine – which the Qossa clan fermented from the smashed bodies of millions of the tachux wasps that made their nests between the stones of their famous wall – had a sharp flavor that lingered on the palate but did not burn for so long as ryncol, and Uta's fondness for it was well known. Though Uta did not entertain breeding requests herself – out of practical necessity all of her clutches were sired by Warlord Wrex – it was well understood by the Urdnot males that including tachux wine among the offerings they sent with their breeding requests to the other hens was among the surest ways to see that they were considered with timeliness and good favor. Unfortunately the collection of enough wasps to make even a single barrel was a time consuming process for which the Qossa vintners had to be well compensated, and few males could afford it.

But Grunt was no ordinary male. He had spent the past months with Aralakh Company playing envoy to clans in every corner of Tuchanka. Aralakh Company – yet another of Wrex's inventions – was composed of great warriors from across all of Urdnot's allies. Every clan wanted the honor of having one of their own enforcing the warlord's will, and those few chosen to join were heaped with so many special privileges that none of them would risk jeopardizing their membership by indulging in petty rivalries, and so Statka fought alongside Raik, Gatatog with Kuddru, Forsan with Gottt. Wrex had explained it to Grunt as an attempt to imitate the success of Shepard's unconventional Normandy crews, to provide a demonstration that krogan of different clans could work together despite long histories of internecine war. Of course, compared to Shepard, krogan envoys employed rather fewer inspirational speeches and rather more headbutts, but the concept was essentially the same and Grunt had been delighted to participate in anything emulating his battlemaster.

"The southbulls are not warriors to match us," Uta said, capping the wine keg, "but they have some uses. How was the wall? Were the Untaugs ready to listen to reason, or did you have to kill them?"

"Only one," Grunt said, grinning at the memory. "Untaug's shaman did not wish to see the alliance go forward. Now he is dead, and their clan is the Warlord's." Most krogan clans – even those disposed to agree with Wrex's reforms, or at least so desperate for aid that they could not refuse him – still insisted on being persuaded with at least a little violence before they fell into line. It was a matter of pride, and Grunt and the other members of Aralakh Company were only too happy to oblige them with however many deaths they needed to feel they had not failed to argue their points. Grunt had killed the Untaug shaman himself, cracking the smaller krogan's skull open on the foundation of the southern wall.

"Mmmm," Uta said, frowning. "Another shaman. It seems no clan can keep them now." She turned her gaze to the alchite fire. Firelight flickered against her craggy features, and deep shadows collected in the downturned corners of her mouth.

"Your clan's shaman is still missing," Grunt realized, and immediately felt foolish for having forgotten. The hen clan's shaman had disappeared only days before Grunt had passed his rite and joined Urdnot, amongst the chaos caused by Shusha Alshik's invasion and the deaths of Gatatog Uvenk and Weyrloc Guld. The Tukta clan, who had been camped nearest to the Redoubt at the time of the shaman's disappearance, were widely held responsible for her fate and ever since those Wrex and Uta had not singled out for special punishment had been scouring the continent for signs of her in a desperate attempt to regain the favor they had lost.

"She is."

In truth, Grunt could not summon a strong opinion on the matter. Shamans gave up their names to show their humility, but seemed to take that as an excuse not to show humility any other way. If the Urdnot hens' shaman was half so obnoxious as her male counterpart he figured they were well rid of her, but Uta wore a look of genuine grief and he did not say so.

"I could use her here," Uta said after a moment. "The rites have suffered without her. Life can be slow, but it will not wait forever." She turned to regard Grunt again. "Let me show you something, dewling." She turned back towards the eggs sorted into their stony cups. "Very few will ever quicken and hatch," she said, carefully adjusting one egg in its spot. "We keep them here for a time, until we are certain there is no hope."

"Do you eat them?"

"Eat them? No, no, boy. We are not heathens. We pierce the shells so the next hatchling may have an easier escape, and we send them back to the fire with songs and grief. Of these…" she gestured across the eggs, "I think only one will not need it." She indicated one of the eggs, which had been placed away from the others and marked with a different glyph, and held it up to the light of the fire. "Look," she said, smiling. "Look, dewling, and see."

Backlit by the flames, the egg glowed like an ember, revealing a network of branching vessels spidering through amber yolk. In its center a tiny black shadow could be seen, with two dark patches that would one day be its eyes.

The entire thing fit neatly in Uta's palm. A little krogan life.

Okeer pontificated in Grunt's thoughts. The only quality the genophage filters is the ability to survive the genophage.

"It is… very small," he said, not knowing what else to say.

"Small, yes," Uta agreed, "and precious." She returned it to its spot with reverent care. "And so fragile. Someday, may it be as big and strong as you." She sighed wistfully at the dead eggs. "Enough of this," she said finally. "You are a young bull, and this is for old krogan to worry about." She stared at him and her lips curled into a devious smile. "You are here to see Urdnot Tornai, no doubt?"

Grunt tried to deny it, but his eyes went wide and Uta saw through him in an instant.

"Hah!" she barked. "Don't lie to me, dewling. I see it."

Grunt looked at his feet, face burning with unaccountable embarrassment at the mention of Tornai's name. Her face flitted in his mind's eye, as it had since the day he'd first beheld her. "Yes," he admitted, voice quiet. "Is she here?"

Uta made no attempt to conceal her delight at his discomfort. "She is here. Tell me, have you sent her a breeding request yet?"

"No. I didn't…" he trailed off. "I… Aralakh Company needed to…" In Grunt's defense, the long process of permissions and rites and careful posturing involved in breeding requests was – though of course the krogan would not stand for it to be described as such in their presence – almost alien in its bureaucracy. There were hierarchies within hierarchies. There were requirements – some practical, others shibboleths meant to dissuade the insufficiently motivated. Add to that the fact that in these rituals, unlike all others, he had no imprints to fall back onto, and Grunt was out of his depth. Still, that was not the reason for his hesitance, and he knew it.

Uta knew it too. She laughed again. "Pah. Grunt, how will you court her like this? No fear in this, dewling."

For the second time, she had accused him of being afraid. If one of Aralakh Company had implied as much, he would have beaten them into a coma. But he stood like a whipped varrenpup and took the jibe, his head down, unable to speak. He did not know why he felt so weak. The stirring in his hearts that thinking of Tornai's beautiful gray eyes brought about intruded on his mind louder than any of Okeer's imprinted memories ever had. He had once insisted that Okeer's hatreds were too weak to compel him, and indeed they had only faded with time as his own experiences had replaced them, but one chance meeting with Tornai and all of the control he'd earned was gone.

He was confused and miserable and – though he would never admit it – even afraid.

Uta rubbed his crest and rumbled at him. "You are pure krogan," she said, voice soothing. "Tornai will be in awe, if you will only talk to her."

–

She would hear no further argument, and five minutes later Grunt found himself chased to the section of perimeter wall where Urdnot Tornai stood guard. He stood, mute and paralyzed, as her gray eyes swept over him, curious for some explanation.

"Sota," she said. "You are Urdnot Grunt, yes?"

"Yes. I am. Urdnot Grunt. Sota. Yes. And you are Urdnot Tornai. Sota." Saying her name made his tongue feel numb.

She frowned. "Are you lost?"

At length, some tiny presence of mind returned to Grunt, and he realized he had frozen. No fear in this, he told himself. I am pure krogan! "No," he said, and strode up to stand next to her and look out over the battlement, as if he was a guard sent to relieve her of her watch. Aralakh baked the desert into a mercury shimmer. "I am not lost. I go where I wish."

"I see."

Grunt watched Tornai out of the side of his eye. She was young – not young like Grunt, perhaps, but young for a krogan, thirty or forty years old with plates still not fully fused. More or less the age Grunt passed for, now that he had learned the lesson not to call strangers' attention to the fact that he had been born only the previous year. She was not the biggest or the fiercest hen in Urdnot, nor scarred by great battles, nor were the members of her small krantt particularly noteworthy. She did not trace her lineage back to any great krogan – not even Shiagur, from whom one in ten krogan on Tuchanka might plausibly have descended and from whom six in ten claimed they descended anyway. Nor had she yet successfully hatched a splitplate.

And yet Grunt didn't care about any of that. That was all temporary. In time she would have a great krantt – because she would have Urdnot Grunt the Mawkiller in it. She would have splitplates and great battles because Urdnot Grunt would bring them to her.

Someday.

"I fought the collectors," he blurted.

She looked at him.

"Past the Omega-4 relay," he continued, gaining momentum. "I fought them and killed them without mercy. I smashed one's head. Like this." He gestured at his knee in a pantomime of how he had smashed the collector's head. "And then one tried to fly away. I caught its feet and crushed it on the ground."

"What is a collector?"

Grunt deflated. "A foe," he said after a moment. "A terrible foe. But no match for me." He felt himself panicking. What to say next? Perhaps he should tell her about how his line was distilled from five warlords? But what if she did not know who the warlords were? Maybe just 'I am pure krogan' was better? Uta had said she would be in awe – should he inform her?

He wished his battlemaster were here. Shepard was no Warlord Wrex – he could not hit like a krogan, or eat like a krogan, or heal like a krogan, or smell out enemies like a krogan. In the galactic core his whole team together had not killed as many collectors as Grunt had by himself. But no one could doubt speaking was one of his battlemaster's conspicuous skills.

What would Shepard say?

"I wrote an episode of Captain Cosmic," he tried.

"What's Captain Cosmic?"

–

Nothing had worked, and so that evening Grunt sat and brooded on his failure. Though Akano had tried to oust him again after he had returned to the courtyard, Uta had insisted that he stay long enough to share the evening meal they were making of the ramus haunch he had brought them. A huge fire was set and the meat roasted on an iron girder spit, and the female clan gathered to eat and share stories.

Not all of the hens were as unwelcoming as Urdnot Akano. Some of them cooed at Grunt and admired his arms or his eyes or the size of his shoulders. The splitplates, too – once their guardians had finally been convinced that Grunt was no threat to them – formed ranks in a circle to goggle at him, fascinated by his huge size, his time offworld, or his close association with Warlord Wrex.

But Grunt did not want their attention, and so he refused to gratify the praise he would normally have reveled in. He ate more than his share of the ramus meat and pouted the entire evening, alternately glowering at Akano, Tornai, and even Uta.

The ramus meat was gone and the cooks were setting to the task of smashing open the bones with sledges so they could collect the marrow inside when a call of alarm came from the main gatehouse. There was a great rumble as the gate was opened (far more promptly than it had been opened for Grunt, he noticed) to admit a scout, who came running, shouting for clan leader Uta.

Uta looked up from where she had been holding court near the center of the gathering, and the hens parted to let the scout through. The scout was the hen Urdnot Kaa, proven infertile and so freer to leave the safety of the fortresses than the females who Uta judged might still produce offspring. She was panting hard, her teeth stained with blood and the smell of her exertion roiling off of her shoulders as she staggered before Uta. Everyone was quiet – Grunt, the other hens, the splitplates, even the clan's captive varren seemed to sense that something important was happening.

"Cl-clan leader," the scout managed, wheezing. "We've found her. We've found her."

"Found who?"

"The shaman. We've found the shaman."

An electric excitement pulsed through the crowd. Uta was on her feet. "She's alive? You've seen her?"

"Al-alive," the scout swallowed heavily, "Alive, yes. She's a prisoner of Stryloc clan. In a pit in their camp. N-near Olaluc."

"Stryloc!" Uta roared, furious. "Stryloc!? Those kulsa fools touch a shaman of Urdnot!? My shaman!?" Even in the twilight, her eyes were alight with fire. "They will die for it!" The crowd bellowed out in angry agreement.

"Sh-she is not well guarded, c-clan leader," the scout said. "But she is in a terrible state. I do not know what they have done to her but she is not well."

"The warlord must be told!" someone was shouting. "Warlord Wrex will not let them survive this."

Grunt was on his feet now too. "Warlord Wrex is not here," he said. "He went to meet the Statkas at Tosaqq-asot." His hearts were thundering with the excitement that had taken hold of the crowd. The smell of the anticipation of violence rose from every pore. The splitplates' guardians were gathering them back up into their bunker. Someone fired a shotgun into the air.

"She cannot wait for his return!" Uta called. "We must go to her aid!" She waved an arm over her warriors. "Urdnot Goniat, you will take word to Urdnot Turu and his krantt! Sojune, you will warn Kog Pitfighter!" Goniat and Sojune rushed off to obey without delay. Uta's voice continued to crescendo. "Kaa, sister, do you have the strength yet to show us the way?"

The scout was still near to falling over, but she nodded emphatically. "Yes, Warlady, I will rest later!"

Uta turned to point at Grunt. "Urdnot Grunt! Maw-killer! Join us!"

Grunt gave a roar, his petulance forgotten, his shotgun in hand. What kind of Urdnot, what kind of krogan would he be to do anything less?

"We will free the shaman!" Uta bellowed, drawing a battered rifle from her belt. "Tonight! Now!"

"TONIGHT!" Grunt and the hens roared back. "NOW!"

–

10 hours later…

The Stryloc guard stood by the edge of a shattered overpass talking to a bottle of ryncol as Uta's party crept closer and closer.

"Shh, now," Uta whispered. In the field her voice took on a slithering quality that rose and fell and seemed to disappear behind the background noise of wind-blown sand and the whicker of varren and the soft midnight mating calls of callus-back pugnatodes that lived among the crevasses.

Grunt was not well used to stealth, but he followed Uta's lead, bent almost to crawling.

In the east the sky – perhaps the only part of Tuchanka that retained any of its original beauty – was beginning to pinken, and the silhouettes of broken buildings rose black and ominous. The Stryloc territory nucleated around a long strip of relatively intact ruins of the city of Olaluc, long ago destroyed in the wars between krogan warlords. Little remained of the grand city, for many of even the strongest structures had been bombed and battered or merely left to collapse under wind and sun and neglect, but one could still see hints of what they had been. Even passing swiftly in the dark Grunt had recognized a granary-turned-fortress, a residential complex-turned-fortress, and a fighting arena-turned-fortress (that his nose told him still moonlighted as a fighting arena when necessary). It was a territory rich in salvage and defensible chokepoints, but poor in everything else – little water, little game, no fuel or mining prospects – and the clans that held it were small and angry.

The Strylocs and their close cousins the Weyrlocs hated their more successful Urdnot neighbors not out of any reservations over Wrex's reforms but only out of good old fashioned prejudice and envy. When Shepard and Mordin had killed Weyrloc Guld, his clan had been struck a terrible blow, and its rivals had pounced on it to tear it apart in its moment of weakness. Those few Weyrlocs to survive who had not already joined the Blood Pack fled offworld, and their ruined city had been a brutal warzone ever since as nearby clans fought to absorb what the Weyrlocs had lost. Guld's hospital base had been captured first by the Stryloc, then taken again by clan Modorr, and then yet again by a gang of clanless scavengers calling themselves the Red Nose Horns. What had happened to the loot and the hens the Weyrlocs had kept there was not clear beyond that they had all been removed by the time Wrex had finally had enough of the whole affair and ordered his tomkah crews to demolish the structure.

The Stryloc guarding the overpass took a deep drink from his bottle, belched languidly, and lurched along his patrol route. He was well-liquored, but also well built, well fed, and well armed.

Grunt's fingers twitched on the stock of his shotgun, waiting for permission to charge.

They had not killed near so many Strylocs as he had been hoping. Grunt had no doubt that before the next night fell half the clan would be dead or in flight, but for tonight Uta and her hens favored a subtler approach that – if faster – bordered on cowardice in Grunt's mind. In small teams they had slipped past Stryloc patrols, muffling their footsteps and holding their breaths and killing only those that could not be circumnavigated or distracted, and them only with blades. Grunt had strangled one guard who had stumbled too near their hiding place by unlucky chance, but he had yet to get to fire his gun once. Now they were well behind enemy lines, and still, to gauge by the lax state of the camp guards, had yet to be detected. They had killed four of them, and two guard varren, and timed their movements to avoid the patrols of four more.

But this guard could not be avoided. The building the scout Kaa had indicated was just beyond, built into the side of the crumbling highway, and they had been watching the guard pass back and forth in front of it for nearly ten minutes waiting for an opportunity to slip past him. To attack him openly was risky, for the overpass was the tallest point in the camp, and most of the sleeping Strylocs would only have to awaken and glance over it to see that their enemies were upon them. Still, Grunt's knees ached from crouching for so long.

Finally, Uta gave him signal. They would wait no longer. They would take the risk.

Grunt stood and strode out into the road. "Hey!" he bellowed. "You!"

The guard turned to regard him.

Grunt brought his shotgun to bear.

It was too late. The guard's momentary distraction had already stretched too long, and he gave a surprised shout as Urdnot Akano shoulder checked him bodily over the highway railing. He tumbled over the side. There was a dull thump somewhere down below, and the way was clear.

Grunt blinked down his barrel towards the spot where the guard had been, deeply annoyed.

"Hurry!" Uta called, emerging from her hiding place. In the Stryloc camp there were shouts of confusion and the howling barks of disturbed varren. They would not stay hidden for long.

The building was not locked (for the door was too old to have kept out a determined krogan even if it were) and they burst inside, Grunt in the lead. The door swung open onto a precipitous drop into a pit, covered over by a cage lid welded from scraps of corrugated iron, and Grunt would have stepped into it if he had not noticed the thin wisps of smoke curling between the bars.

Uta, Akano, and Kaa stooped to peer down into the spaces between the bars. "She is there," Uta said. She looked at Grunt again and tapped the bars with one hand.

Grunt stooped, grabbed hold, and pulled. Stones cracked and metal squealed for a few seconds until the entire metal cover tore free. As Uta and Akano climbed down the narrow ramp descending from the pit's lip, Grunt folded the metal bars in half – just because he could – and tossed the remains aside.

"Come down here, Urdnot Grunt. Carefully."

He did.

The shaman lay on her belly in the dust next to a dying fire. Even over the smoke it took only the barest taste of air to tell that she was dying. Her scent was utterly wrong, a musk of fear and anger but also unnatural smells that meant nothing Grunt could decipher. The shaman's limbs were stiff, her hump withered. Her eyes were sunken, the tissue around them black and shining with sickly moisture.

Uta crouched next to her, rubbing at the center of her crest and speaking softly into her earhole. The shaman groaned incoherently. Grunt was caught off guard by the pang of sympathy he found himself feeling for her, the genuine flicker of anger at what had been done to her that had nothing to do with his general enthusiasm for violence.

From above the pit's edge, Kaa the scout hissed a warning. The Strylocs would be on them soon.

Grunt's fists tightened. Oh, they would pay.

"We will grind their skulls to make concrete, dewling," Uta promised, seeming to intuit Grunt's thoughts. "But not yet." She stood. "The shaman cannot walk. We will have to carry her. You will have to carry her."

Grunt nodded. He holstered his gun and stooped to gather the shaman in his arms with a tenderness of which his kranttmates on the Normandy would not have believed he was capable. The shaman was grossly underweight, frail and limp in his grip, but she was still a krogan, and she did not lift easily. He certainly could not climb out of the pit with her. "You climb first," he told Akano. "I will hold her up to you."

Akano agreed and started to climb.

Grunt had the shaman hiked up above one shoulder when suddenly the life seemed to return to her and she began to struggle. "No. No!"

Grunt squeezed tighter to stop himself dropping her. "Hold still!" he hissed. "I'm trying to help you!"

The shaman did not still. She pounded Grunt's hump with her fists and kicked out with her legs. "No!" she shouted again, drooling and furious. She kneed him in the quad hard enough to stagger him, and he lost his grip. She tumbled back into the dust in a boneless heap.

"No! No!" she continued to shout.

"Muffle her!"

Uta clamped a hand down on the shaman's face. "Be calm, Sister," she said, stroking the dying hen. "Be calm. We are here for you. We are taking you home."

The shaman continued to thrash weakly. It took Grunt a moment to realize she was trying to crawl to the far side of the room, towards a leather-covered crate that he had dismissed as a makeshift stool provided by her captors. The shaman set her fingers on its side, still babbling incoherently.

Uta pulled the leather covering off.

"Eggs," she said, surprised.

The setup was not nearly so elaborate as Uta's egg room at the Redoubt, but the eggs were intact in two neat rows, nestled in soil and torn vegetation that smelled wet with fresh moss and chlorophyll.

"The shaman's?" Akano called from above. As a rule, shaman were not supposed to breed (though of course it was not a rule that demanded much enforcement).

Uta frowned fiercely. "She's too thin. Laying a clutch in her state could kill her." She growled, freshly enraged. "Who knows how many times they've mated her?"

The shaman had managed another desperate flop, enough to settle one arm around the egg box. Her arm trembled.

"She's delirious," Akano said from above. "Leave them behind, or we will have to fight our way out with her on our backs." She reached a hand down. "Lift her up to me, Grunt, and don't drop her again."

The shaman was nearly weeping. Her eyes whirled in their sockets, chasing ghosts no one else could see.

"We'll bring the eggs," Uta decided. "To calm her fears. Someone bring me a sling to carry them. A hide, a cloth. Anything. Hurry."

Akano disappeared for a moment and returned with a length of tent canvas tied into a sling. She tossed it down to Grunt.

"Help me gather them," Uta said, stooping to collect the shaman's eggs. "Hurry now. Make sure she sees we're bringing them alo-".

She froze mid-sentence.

Grunt held open the sling and reached for one of the eggs, but Uta swatted his hand away so hard it stung even through his armor. Uta's eyes were wide as moons as she held the egg against the light of the cell's smoldering firepit. She set it back in its box, took another, held it up to the light. Then another.

"What is it?" Grunt asked.

Uta ignored him. She checked every egg once, and then again, and the tension threatened to overfill the pit. Outside, Grunt could hear the baying of varren and the shouts of angry Strylocs closing on them.

"Seventeen eggs," Uta said. She stared at the shaman with hope and horror and bewilderment all jostling for dominance in her expression. "Seventeen living eggs."

–

Codex entry: Message and attachment from Urdnot Grunt to Nalavosi Brothers Entertainment and Biotic-Ware Studios, Divisions of the Elkoss Combine.

From: Urdnot Grunt (purekrogan_ _krotonmail_net)
Sent: 11.14.2186 09:04:04 GST
To: Nalavosi Brothers Entertainment (nbebws_ _elkoss_net)
Subject: BRNIG BACK CAPTAIN COSmIC111

–

dere nalavosi brothers entertanment

why did you cansel captain cosmic after only three sesons. it was my favorite show. There are lots of unansered questions. i think you should bring it back.

also i was not happy that garr the battlemaster joined captain cosmics team in the last episode. that is not relistic. garr is a krogan and would not join captain cosmics team ever. He would make his own team of krogan. krogan are stroger and make better warriors. garr joining captain cosmics team ruined my emersion.

i rote you an episode that you can use. it is about my original character bloodmaw the krogan. you can use him if you credit me.

gabby helped me write it. she is a human but she is in my krantt. dont worry i rote most of it.

if you do not bring back captain cosmic i will kill you.

i am pure krogan.

urdnot grunt

[1 attachment:
captaincosmicscript1_final_finalrevision4]

–

THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN COSMIC
EPISODE 4X01 – BLOODMAW THE KROGAN KILLS EVERYONE
WRITTEN BY URDNOT GRUNT
EDITING, FORMATTING, AND NOTES BY GABRIELLA DANIELS

–

ACT 1, SCENE 1 – INT. THE COSMO-DOME – DAY

CAPTAIN COSMIC is in his base at the head of a long table. Next to him, the Cosmo-log is blinking. He looks worried. Seated at the table are his teammates JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE, SERGEANT STEELBEAK, and PORKCHOP THE VORCHA.

JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE: What's wrong Captain Cosmic? Why did you call us here?

CAPTAIN COSMIC: Listen up, Cosmic Crew. I have bad news. Eezofinger the leader of V.A.R.R.E.N. is still alive.

The screen of the Cosmo-log changes to show a picture of EEZOFINGER, an evil salarian with one cybernetic eye.

CAPTAIN COSMIC (CONT) (VO): The one we killed was a hologram and now the real one is mad. He has a new friend named Phantom who is a very strong warrior and has a gunship.

JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE: Oh no!

SERGEANT STEELBEAK: That's scary.

PORKCHOP THE VORCHA: I am Porkchop.

CAPTAIN COSMIC: His new friend is a ninja which is a kind of human warrior with two swords.

JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE: We should get Garr the Battlemaster to fight him. Garr is a krogan and krogan are better warriors than humans.

CAPTAIN COSMIC: We can't. Garr is not on our team.

SERGEANT STEELBEAK: I thought he joined us.

CAPTAIN COSMIC: No. That was a lie only so he could steal the Cosmo-Tank.

SERGEANT STEELBEAK: That makes sense. A krogan would never join our team because they are better warriors than us except for maybe Justicar Windstrike.

CAPTAIN COSMIC: We have no choice. We have to ask Garr for help. Maybe he has a new friend who can fight Phantom.

JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE: I hope so.

–

ACT 1, SCENE 2 – INT. GARR THE BATTLEMASTER'S BASE – DAY

GARR THE BATTLEMASTER is sitting on his throne. CAPTAIN COSMIC, SERGEANT STEELBEAK, JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE, and PORKCHOP THE VORCHA enter.

GARR THE BATTLEMASTER: Why are you here Captain Cosmic? Did you come to steal your Cosmo-Tank back? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

(Editor's Note: The author asked me to make the previous line bigger, but this is as big as the font on this console goes. He wanted to stress that this line should be said extremely loudly.)

CAPTAIN COSMIC: No.

GARR THE BATTLEMASTER: Good because I already gave it to my new friend. Plus it has new rockets like a tomkah so it is stronger now.

Camera pans to show the Cosmo-Tank, painted red instead of white and with 'one hundred times bigger guns'.

CAPTAIN COSMIC: You have a new friend?

GARR THE BATTLEMASTER: Yes his name is Bloodmaw the Krogan. I found him in a tank mother. He has two shotguns that can turn into swords.

CAPTAIN COSMIC: That's perfect. We need him to kill a ninja with two swords.

GARR THE BATTLEMASTER: He can kill anyone. Here he is.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN enters. He is very big, with blue eyes and a bright red crest. He has cybernetics and two shotguns. He looks like a warlord. CAPTAIN COSMIC, SERGEANT STEELBEAK, and PORKCHOP THE VORCHA look scared.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: Hello.

CAPTAIN COSMIC: Hello Bloodmaw the Krogan. We need your help. We heard you can kill anyone because you are the first krogan Spectre.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: Yes I can.

SERGEANT STEELBEAK: I don't believe you. You can't kill turians like me.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: Want to bet? How about we fight and I will show you?

SERGEANT STEELBEAK steps up and assumes a fighting stance.

SERGEANT STEELBEAK: This will be easy.

SERGEANT STEELBEAK and BLOODMAW THE KROGAN fight. SERGEANT STEELBEAK uses his bombs and tries to blow up BLOODMAW THE KROGAN, but he is too slow. BLOODMAW THE KROGAN shoots him with one of his shotguns, then transforms it into a sword and stabs him.

SERGEANT STEELBEAK (CONT): Wow I was wrong. I am only good for calibrating the ship's guns. I am a coward like all turians, especially Garrus Vakarian.

He dies.

JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE: Wow Bloodmaw is very strong. He can kill the ninja but only if he wants to.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: Lucky for you I want to.

–

ACT 2, SCENE 1 – INT. THE COSMO-DOME – NIGHT

A ninja is standing in the Cosmo-dome. The base is a mess. The Cosmo-log and the table the Cosmic Crew sat on earlier are broken. The ninja PHANTOM watches, holding his two swords, while mercenaries from the Blue Suns continue wrecking the base.

CAPTAIN COSMIC, JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE, PORKCHOP THE VORCHA, and BLOODMAW THE KROGAN enter.

PHANTOM: I am a ninja. I can cut anyone. Even a krogan.

CAPTAIN COSMIC: No. We have a new krogan. His name is Bloodmaw. He can kill anyone.

PHANTOM: You have a krogan on your team?

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: I'm not on their team. I'm just here to kill you.

PHANTOM: I don't think so. First let Captain Cosmic fight me and I'll show you.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: A human fight. That is a good idea. Let's see if you can kill him Captain Cosmic.

CAPTAIN COSMIC looks concerned but he steps forward.

CAPTAIN COSMIC: I'll try.

CAPTAIN COSMIC and PHANTOM fight. The fight appears to be going CAPTAIN COSMIC's way, but then suddenly PHANTOM's gunship shows up and blows up the floor of the room. Before CAPTAIN COSMIC can recover, PHANTOM stabs him with both swords.

CAPTAIN COSMIC: Ow he stabbed me. Now I'm dead unless Cerberus can bring me back.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN runs to CAPTAIN COSMIC's side.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: No you can't die.

CAPTAIN COSMIC (weakly): It's too late for me Bloodmaw. Remember to use teamwork. Join the team. We need you to lead it now that I am going to be dead.

He dies.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: No now Sergeant Steelbeak and Captain Cosmic are both dead. Now only Justicar Windstrike and Porkchop the Vorcha are alive.

JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE: We need you on the team now.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: Okay I will join the team.

–

ACT 2, SCENE 2 – INT. THE COSMO-DOME – NIGHT

CAPTAIN COSMIC is dead on the floor of his ruined base. PHANTOM holds up his bloody sword and laughs. BLOODMAW THE KROGAN stands next to his body. Nearby, JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE and PORKCHOP THE VORCHA look sad.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: Now it is time to die ninja.

PHANTOM: No. I hired the Blue Suns to fight you while I escape. You will never catch me.

Fifty Blue Sun mercenaries attack BLOODMAW THE KROGAN, JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE, and PORKCHOP THE VORCHA. In the chaos, PHANTOM jumps onto his gunship and escapes. The battle is very violent and lasts several minutes. BLOODMAW THE KROGAN kills most of the mercenaries, but JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE helps and even PORKCHOP THE VORCHA distracts some of them. When only ten mercenaries are left, BLOODMAW THE KROGAN waves his arms and crushes them all with biotics.

JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE: Wow I didn't know you had biotics.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: Yes I was also trained by the justicars.

JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE: Wow. You are a great warrior.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: You are too Justicar Windstrike. But I'm angry the ninja got away.

JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE: Me too. I will still send you a breeding request.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: I will say yes.

–

ACT 3, SCENE 1 – INT. SECRET V.A.R.R.E.N. BASE – NIGHT

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN, JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE, and PORKCHOP THE VORCHA are crouched in the corridor outside of EEZOFINGER's secret headquarters.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: I'll go in first because I can regenerate. If the ninja stabs me I'll be okay.

JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE: Still be careful. He killed Captain Cosmic.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: Don't worry. We have teamwork now so you can shield me too.

They nod at each other and charge into the room. EEZOFINGER is sitting at the control panel of his consoles. He has been expecting them. His screens show views of the devastated Cosmo-Dome, closeups of CAPTAIN COSMIC's dead face, and diagrams of his secret plans. PHANTOM is standing next to him.

EEZOFINGER: I see you met my ninja friend. But we have not met. Who are you?

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: I am Bloodmaw the Krogan. Now that Captain Cosmic is dead I'm the leader of the Cosmic Crew.

JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE: And I am Justicar Windstrike.

PORKCHOP THE VORCHA: I am Porkchop.

EEZOFINGER: The Cosmic Crew cannot defeat V.A.R.R.E.N., not even with a krogan for a leader. Phantom is too strong.

PHANTOM draws his blade and prepares to fight. Behind him is his gunship.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: You forgot one thing Eezofinger. Phantom is only a human and krogan are stronger than humans.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN presses a button on his gauntlet. There is a rumble, and the Cosmo-Tank crashes through the wall. It points its guns at PHANTOM's gunship and fires one thousand rockets. The gunship explodes.

EEZOFINGER: Oh no I forgot!

PHANTOM: I will still fight you!

PHANTOM fights BLOODMAW THE KROGAN, JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE, and PORKCHOP THE VORCHA. BLOODMAW THE KROGAN uses his shotgun swords. After several ferocious minutes of fighting, BLOODMAW THE KROGAN throws his shotgun swords aside and pulls out two rocket launcher swords. He jumps in between PHANTOM and EEZOFINGER.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: We have teamwork now and you are not the only one with two swords.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN stabs PHANTOM and EEZOFINGER simultaneously. He then transforms his swords into rocket launchers and shoots a rocket into each of them.

PHANTOM: Wow. We're both defeated now.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: One on each sword. That is what I call teamwork.

PHANTOM dies.

EEZOFINGER (weakly): I'm still not dead.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: Yes you are.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN presses another button on his gauntlet. The Cosmo-Tank drives forward and runs over EEZOFINGER's body several times.

JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE: Good that he is dead for real this time Bloodmaw. I guess the new team is going to have some new adventures. That is if you will still join the team.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: Yes. We can be a krantt now. Let's go. You can call me Grunt if you want. It's my nickname.

PORKCHOP THE VORCHA picks up a piece of EEZOFINGER's corpse and eats it.

JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE: I guess Porkchop is hungry.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN takes a piece of EEZOFINGER's corpse and eats it too.

BLOODMAW THE KROGAN: Me too.

JUSTICAR WINDSTRIKE, BLOODMAW THE KROGAN, and PORKCHOP THE VORCHA laugh

–

THE END

(Editor's Note: I told the author that we're still about ten minutes short. He suggested filling in any remaining time with more scenes of Bloodmaw and Porkchop eating Eezofinger's corpse.)

–

A/N: The krogan are by a medium-sized margin my favorite species in Mass Effect, and by a huge margin my favorite to write. I think the krogan parts of Interstitium 1 hold up well.

More to the point, the krogan parts of ME3 are pretty solid. I think the general consensus is (and should be) that the Tuchanka arc was the part of the Mass Effect trilogy that most successfully pulled off a story spread across multiple games that responded to your choices. There are several different major permutations and all of them have emotionally resonant moments. Hats off to Bioware.

That said, I have to change some things. Before ME3 released I was crossing my fingers and praying that the genophage wouldn't be cured, because I think that's too obvious and It'd be more powerful for the krogan to find some path forward despite the genophage (and also because I think it's such a cool piece of worldbuilding that feels so foundational to the setting that curing it dilutes the ME universe).

I will leave you in some slight suspense as to how and if the cure goes in my version of events.

However you won't have to wait to notice major canon change #2: Bakara is not in salarian custody but rather still on Tuchanka.